“He’ll never daur,” said Beenie, “after leaving her so long to herself, and after a’ that’s come and gone, as you say.”
“It’s none of his fault leaving her to hersel’. He has written to her and written to her, for I’ve seen the letters mysel’; and if she has taken no notice, it is her wyte, and not his. She will have a grand fortune, a’ auld Sir Robert’s money, and this place, that is the home o’ them all.”
“I never thought so much of this place. She’ll not bide here. Her and me will be away as soon as ever it’s decent, I will assure you o’ that, to seek the bairn over a’ the world.”
“You’ll never find him,” said Katrin.
“Ay, will we! Naebody to say her nay, and siller in her pouch, and the world before her. We’ll find him if he were at its other end!”
“Ye’ll never find him without the father of him!” cried Katrin, becoming excited in her opposition.
“That swore he was dead!” cried Beenie, flushing, too, with fight and indignation, “that stood up to my face, me that kent better, and threepit that the bairn was dead! And her that was his mother sitting by, her bonnie face covered in her hands!”
“Woman!” cried Katrin, “would you keep up dispeace in a house for any thing a man may have said or threepit? I’m for peace, whatever it costs. What is a house that’s divided against itsel’? Scripture will tell ye that. Even if a man is an ill man, if he belongs to ye, it’s better to have him than to want him. It’s mair decent. Once you’ve plighted him your word, ye must just pit up with him for good report or evil report. If the father’s in one place and the mother’s in another, how are ye to bring up a bairn? And a’ just for a lie the man has told when he was in desperation, and for taking away the bairn when we couldna have keepit him, when it was as clear as daylight something had to be done. Losh! Dougal might tear the hair out o’ my head, or the claes frae my back, he would be my man still.”
“Seeing he is little like to do either the one thing or the other, it’s easy speaking,” Beenie said.
Lily did not come so far as this in her thoughts till a day or two had passed, and then there came upon her, as Beenie had divined, the sudden impulse, which nevertheless had been lying dormant in her mind all this time, to get up and go at once in pursuit of her baby. All the people she had employed, all the schemes she had tried, had come to nothing. At first her ignorant efforts had been balked by that very ignorance itself, by not knowing what to do or whom to trust, and then by distance and time and agents who were not very much in earnest. To look for a great criminal—that was a thing which might waken all the natural detective qualities even before detectives were. But to look for a baby, with no glory, no notoriety, whatever might be one’s success! Lily saw all this now with the wisdom that even a very little practical experience gives. But his mother—that would be a very different matter. His mother would find him wheresoever he was hidden. And after the first day of consternation, of confusion and fatigue, this resolution flashed upon her, as it had done at times through all the miserable months that were past. She had been obliged to crush it then, but now there was no occasion to crush it any longer. She was free; no one had any right to stop her; she was necessary to nobody, bound to nobody. So she thought, rejecting vehemently in her mind the idea of her husband, who had robbed her, who had lied to her, but who should not restrain her now, let the law say what it would. Lily did not even know how much the property of her husband she was. Even in the old bad times it was only when evil days came that the women learned this. The majority of them, let us hope, went to their graves without ever knowing it, except in a jibe, which was to the address of all women. She did not think of it. Ronald had robbed her, had lied to her, and was separated from her forever; but that he would even now attempt to control her did not enter into Lily’s mind. He was a gentleman, though these were not the acts of a gentleman. She did not fear him nor suspect him of any common offence against her. He had been guilty of these crimes—that was the only word to use for them—but to herself, Lily, he could do nothing. She had so much confidence in him still. Nor, indeed (she thought at first), would he have any thing to do with it. He would know nothing; she would go after her child at once, as was natural, his mother’s right. And he surely would not be the man to interfere.