It was a Lover and His Lass

by Mrs. Oliphant

"My dear Margaret," said Mrs. Stormont, "I would always respect a decision that had been come to after reflection, as you say. But, dear me, after all it's not so serious a matter. If a girl had to be kept out of the world till she's presented, as Lilias says, I suppose that would be a reason. But you know better than that. And I may never live to give another dance, though you will have plenty of them, my dear, long before you are sixty. And it will never be just the same thing again for Philip. Think what friends they've been all their lives. When I think they might have been brother and sister," she added, with a laugh, "if I had been left to my own guiding!—and Philip has always had that feeling for her. Bless me, Lilias, if that had taken place, you would have been no heiress at all. So perhaps it is as well for you I am not your mother," Mrs. Stormont said.

At this Lilias paused in the midst of her excitement to consider so curious a question. It opened up speculations, indeed, for them all. To have had a male heir had always been supposed to be the thing upon earth which would have been most blessed for the Murrays, and the elder sisters in past years had often sighed to think how much better it would have been had Lilias been a boy. But the idea that Philip Stormont might have been that heir-male was confusing and not agreeable. They felt a sort of half resentment at the suggestion. A young man like that, who was just nobody, a mere "long-leggit lad." Had the long-leggit lad been their own, no doubt the sisters would have represented him to themselves as the most delightful of young heroes: for even our own detrimentals are better than the best possessions of other people. But as a supposition it did not please them. To have had no Lilias, but Philip Stormont instead! Certainly Mrs. Stormont had been unfortunate in her modes of recommending her son. The presumption of supposing it possible that Philip could ever have been a Murray was scarcely less than that of believing that carefully constructed system could be broken through in order that Lilias might go to Philip's ball. What was Philip, that they should thus meet him upon every side? Mrs. Stormont did not quite fathom the cause of the sudden cloud which fell upon her friends. It could not, she said to herself, be her joke about Philip—that was just nonsense, she had no meaning in it. It was just one of the things that people say to keep up the conversation. But she had to retire without receiving any final answer to her proposition. She had indeed to congratulate herself that there was no final answer, for this left ground for a little hope; but, whether or not Lilias was eventually permitted to accept the invitation, Mrs. Stormont left Murkley with an uncomfortable feeling that her present visit had been a failure. She had gone wrong somehow, she could not exactly tell how. Something about Philip had jarred upon them, and she had been so anxious to present Philip under the best possible light! It was not often that she failed in making herself welcome, and the sensation was disagreeable. It was this failure, perhaps, which prompted her to tell Sandy to drive to the manse, perhaps with a slight inclination to indemnify herself, to make the people there suffer a little for the mistake she had made. She was so sure that Mrs. Seton had been injudicious about Katie, that she felt confident in her own power of being disagreeable at a moment's notice. It was not, however, with any intention of this kind that she stopped Sandy at the garden door, and went round by that way, instead of driving formally round the little "sweep," and reaching in state the grand entrance. Most of the visitors of the manse entered by the garden. Had she been walking, neither she nor any one else would have thought of any other way.

But it was an unfortunate moment. Somebody was playing the piano in the drawing-room. "And, if that is Katie, she must have been having lessons, for I never heard her play like that before: and, no doubt, dear lessons," Mrs. Stormont added to herself, "though there are six of a family, and boys that should be at college." She was a little jaundiced where the Setons were concerned. She came up to the glass door, and tapped lightly; whereupon there was a stir in the room, not like the placid composure with which people turn their faces towards a new visitor when they have been doing nothing improper. There was a confused sound of voices: one of the younger girls came in sight from behind the piano, and advanced with a somewhat scared face to the door which Mrs. Stormont had opened. Having thus had her suspicions fully aroused, she was scarcely surprised to see stumbling up from a chair, in a corner which retained a position of guilty proximity—noticed too late to be remedied—to another chair, her very son Philip who had already spoiled one visit to her, and of whom she believed that he was engaged in some necessary duty about the estate several miles off. Philip's face was flushed and sullen. Of all things in the world there is nothing so disagreeable as being "caught," and perhaps the sensation of being caught is all the more odious when you have the consciousness of doing no wrong. Katie, more rapid than her lover, was standing at the window with innocent eyes regarding the flowers. To jump up from Philip's side had been the affair of an instant with her. She came forward now, but not without a certain faltering.

"Mamma has just gone to the nursery for a moment; but I will tell her you are here," Katie cried. As for Philip, he stood like a culprit, like a man at the bar, and frowned upon his mother.

"Oh! Philip!" she said, "so you are here."

"Why shouldn't I be here?" the young man replied. He thought for the moment, with the instinct of guilt, that his mother had come on purpose to find him out.

All this time there was, as Mrs. Stormont afterwards remembered with gratitude, "one well-bred person" in the room, which was the stranger of whom Sandy had doubted whether he were English. English or not, he was a gentleman, she afterwards concluded, for he went on playing, not noisily, as if to screen anything, but as he had been doing when she came through the garden, and asked herself could that be Katie who played so well. Lewis had perception enough to know that this unexpected arrival would not be pleasant to his friends. He, who had stumbled into their secret before without any will of his, was aware of the whispering of the lovers in the corner, which he saw out of the corner of his eye with a wistful sort of sympathy. He had put his music between himself and them to afford at once a cover to their whisperings and a shelter to himself from the sight of a happiness which he thought never would be his. When the mother came in, startled, irate, yet self-subdued, his quick sympathy perceived that this was no moment to stop to emphasize the situation more. He had a vague perception of the half-quarrel, the sullen, too ready self-defence, the surprise which was an accusation. His heart took the part of the lover as a matter of course. The old lady was jealous, ill-tempered, full of suspicions. What wonder, he thought, that Philip, out of the offensive atmosphere at home, should take refuge here?

Mrs. Seton came bustling in a moment after, full of apologies. "I had not been out of the room a moment—not a moment. But this is always what happens. The moment you turn your back somebody appears that you would wish to have the warmest welcome. But I hope it's not too late. And I am so glad to see you, Mrs. Stormont. I hope you are not walking this warm afternoon. No, no, you must not sit down there; let me give you this comfortable chair, and I've told Katie not to wait, but to send for the tea at once. You will be all the better, after your drive, of a cup of tea."

"I am afraid," said Mrs. Stormont, "that I've disturbed you all. It is a stupid thing coming in at a side door. I am sure I don't know what tempted me to do it. Another time I will know better. I have just disturbed everybody."

She tried not to look at Philip, but his eyes were bent upon her under cloudy brows.