“My mistress,” said Beenie, with a gasp, “is just a young lady—in from the country.”
“Just you get her back as fast as you can,” said the experienced woman, “or you’ll have her worse than ever on your hands again.”
But this was what Beenie could not do. She had to follow Lily’s impetuous lead on many a wild-goose-chase and hopeless expedition here and there from one place to another during the rest of the day; and when they returned to their lodgings, worn out and cast down, in the evening, it was still the mistress who had the most strength and spirit left. “There is only one thing to do now,” she said, while Beenie placed her on the hard sofa beside the fire, and endeavored to induce her to rest. Her face was very pale and her eyes very bright, with a faint redness round the eyelids accentuating the absence of color. “There is one thing to do. Mr. Lumsden”—she paused a little after the name, as if it made her other words more difficult or exhausted her breath—“will have come back now to his lodging. You know where that is as well as I do. You will go and tell him that he is to come to me here.”
“Mem!” cried Beenie in great perturbation.
“Did you think,” said Lily, very clear, in a high, scornful tone, “that I would come to Edinburgh and not see my husband? Is it not my duty to see my husband? You will go to him at once!”
“It is no that,” cried Beenie; “I thought you would see him first of all. He’s your man, oh! my dear, dear lassie—you’re married upon him never to be parted till death comes atween you. I would have had you see him first of a’, and weel ye ken that; but now when you’re wearied out body and mind, and nae satisfaction in your heart, and every thing that is atween ye worse and worse by reason of muckle pondering and dwelling on it—oh, mem, my dear, no to-night, no to-night! You have a sharp tongue, though you never mean it, and he is a gentleman that is not used to be crossed and has aye had his ain way. Oh, mem, he’s a masterful man, though he’s never been but sweet as sugar to you. Try to take a sleep and rest, and wait for the morn. The morn is aye a new day.”
“I am glad,” said Lily, with shining eyes, “that you think I have a sharp tongue, Beenie; and you may be sure, if ever I meant it in my life, I will mean it now. But I will not discuss Mr. Lumsden with you or any one. You will just go to him——”
“Mem, let me speak once, if I’m never to say a word again!” cried Beenie. “That your heart should be sore to see the dear bairn, to take him back into your airms, oh, that I can weel understand. So is mine, though I’m far, far from being what you are to him, and no to be named in the same breath. But, mem, oh, my dear leddy, my bonnie Miss Lily! if I may just say that once again, what will ye do with him when you have him? Oh, let me speak—just this once. You canna, canna take him to that auld gentleman at hame; you canna do it. He has maybe not been much to you in the years that are past, but he’s awfu’ fond of you now. He looks to you to make him a home, to be the comfort of his old age. Oh! I’m no saying he deserves it at your hands. But what do the best of us deserve? We just get what we dinna deserve from God the first, and sometimes from a tender he’rt here below. And he is an auld man and frail; he has maybe no long to live. Will you tell him a’ that long story, how we’ve deceived him and the whole world, and about your marriage, and about the birth, and a’ in his house, that he meant for such different things?”
“Beenie,” said Lily, “stop, or you will kill me. If I have deceived him so long, it was with no will of mine. Oh, God knows, if none of you know, with no will of mine, nor yet intention! Is that not the more reason that I should deceive him no longer? He may turn me away. What will that matter? We will be poor creatures the two of us, you and me, if we cannot help ourselves and the darling bairn.”
“But it will maitter to him,” said Beenie steadily, “the poor auld gentleman in that lonely house. He’s been a kind of a father to you, if no so tender a father as might have been. I’m no saying you should have deceived him, but that’s done, and it canna be undone. If you tell him now, it will maybe kill him at the hinder end, and whether that will be better you must just think for yoursel’, for I have said all that I’m caring to say.”