Then as she began to wait, to feel herself waiting, every nerve tingling and excitement rising in her veins every hour, in the enforced silence of the shadowed house, until the funeral should set her free, Lily came to life altogether, she could not tell how, in a moment, waking as if from the past, the ice, the paralysis that had bound her. She had lived with her uncle these two years, and she had not lived at all. She had not known even what was the passage of time. Her existence had been mechanical, and all her days alike, the winter in one fashion, the summer in another. The child, the thought of the child, had been a thread which kept her to life; otherwise there had been nothing. But now, when that thought of the child became active and an inspiration, her whole soul suddenly came to life again. It was as when the world has been hid by the darkness of night, and we seem to stand detached, the only point of consciousness with nothing round us, till between two openings of the eyelids there comes into being again a universe that had been hidden, the sky, the soil, the household walls, all in a moment visible in that dawn which is scarcely light, which is vision, which recreates and restores all that we knew of. To Lily there came a change like that. She closed her eyes in the wintry blackness of the night, and when she opened them, every thing had come back to her. It was not that she had forgotten: it was all there all the time; but her heart had been benumbed, and darkness had covered the face of the earth. It was not the light or warmth of the sunrise that came upon her; it was that revelation of the earliest dawn that makes the hidden things visible, and fills in once more the mountains and the moors, the earth and the sky.
It was with a shock that she saw it all again. She had been wrapped in a false show, every thing vanity and delusion about her—Miss Ramsay, a name that was hers no longer; but in reality she was Ronald Lumsden’s wife, the mother of a child, a woman with other duties, other rights. And he was there, facing her, filling up the world. In her benumbed state he had been almost invisible; so much of life as she had clung to the idea of the baby. When he appeared to her, it was as a ghost from which she shrank, from which every instinct turned her away. But now he stood there, as he had stood all the time, looking her in the face. Had he been doing so all these years? or had she been invisible to him as he to her? She was seized with a great trembling as she asked herself that question. Had he been watching her through the dark as through the light, keeping his eye upon her, waiting? She shuddered, but all her faculties became vivid, living, at this touch. And then there were other questions to ask: What would he do? Failing that, more intimate still, what would she do, Lily, herself? What, now that she was free, alone, with no bond upon her, what should she do? This question shook her very being. She could go on no longer with her life of lies: what should she do?
Sir Robert’s man of business came from Edinburgh as soon as the news reached him. He told her that she was, as she had a right to be, her uncle’s sole heir, there being no other relation near enough to be taken into consideration at all. Should she tell him at once what her real position was? It was a painful thing for Lily to do, and until she was able to set out upon that search for her child, which was still her first object, she had a superstitious feeling that something might happen, something that would detain or delay her, if she told her secret at once. She had arranged to go away on the morning after the funeral. That day, before Mr. Wallace left Dalrugas, she resolved that she would tell him, and, through him, all who were there. Her heart beat very loud at the thought. To keep it so long, and then in a moment give it up to the discussion of all the world! To reveal—was it her shame? Oh, shame, indeed, to have deceived every one, her uncle, every creature who knew her. But yet not shame, not shame, in any other way. Much surprised was Mr. John Wallace, W. S., Sir Robert’s man of business, to find how indifferent Miss Ramsay was as to the value and extent of the property her uncle had left her. She said “Yes,” to all his statements, sometimes interrogatively, sometimes in simple assent; but he saw that she did not take them in, that the figures had no meaning for her. Her mind was otherwise absorbed. She was thinking of something. When he asked her, not without a recollection of things he had heard, as he said to himself, “long ago,” when Sir Robert’s niece had been sent off to the wilds out of some young birky’s way, whether there was any one whom she would like specially summoned for the funeral, Lily looked up at him with a quick, almost terrified glance, and said: “No, no!” She had, he felt, certainly something on her mind. I don’t know whether, in those days, the existence of a private and hidden story was more common than now: there were always facilities for such things in Scotland in the nature of the marriage laws, and many anxious incidents happened in families. A man acknowledging a secret wife, of whose existence nobody had known, was common enough. But a young lady was different. At all events there could be no doubt that this young lady had something on her mind.
The arrangements were all made in a style befitting Sir Robert’s dignity. The persons employed came from Edinburgh with a solemn hearse and black horses, and all the gloomiest paraphernalia of death. A great company gathered from the country all about. They had begun to arrive, and a number of carriages were already waiting round to show the respect of his neighbors for the old gentleman, of whom they had actually known so little. The few farmers who were his tenants on the estate, which included so little land of a profitable kind among the moors (not yet profitable) and the mountains, waited outside in their rough gigs, but several of the gentlemen had gathered in the drawing-room, where cake and wine were laid out upon a table, and Mr. Douglas, now the minister of Kinloch-Rugas, stood separate, a little from the rest, prepared to “give the prayer.” The Church of Scotland knew no burial service in those days other than the prayer which preceded the carrying forth of the coffin. Two ladies had driven over, with their husbands, to stay with Lily when the procession left the house. They did not know very much of her, but they were sorry for her in her loneliness. The appearance of a woman at a funeral was an unknown thing in those days in Scotland, and never thought of. This little cluster of black dresses was in a corner of the room, in the faint light of the shadowed windows, Lily’s pale face, tremulous with an agitation which was not grief, forming the point of highest light in the sombre room, among the high-colored rural countenances. She meant to tell them on their return.
It was at this moment, in the preliminary pause, when Mr. Douglas, standing out in the centre of the room, was about to lift his hand as the signal for the prayer—about to begin—that a rapid step became audible, coming up the stairs, stumbling a little on the uppermost steps as most people did. It was nothing wonderful that some one should be a little late, yet there was something in the step which made even the most careless member of the company look round. Lily, absorbed in her thoughts, was startled by the sound, she could not tell why. She moved her head a little, and it so happened that the gentlemen standing about by an instinctive movement stepped aside from between her and the door, so as to leave room for the entrance of the new-comer. He was heard to quicken his pace, as if fearing to be too late, and the minister stood with his hand raised, waiting till the interruption should be over and the tardy guest had appeared.
Then the door opened quickly, and Ronald Lumsden came in. He was in full panoply of mourning, according to the Scotch habit, his hat, which was in his hand, covered with crape, his sleeves with white “weepers,” his appearance that of chief mourner. “I am not too late?” he said, as he came in. Who was he? Some of those present did not know. Was he some unacknowledged son, turning up at the last moment to turn away the inheritance? Mr. Wallace stepped out a little to meet him, in consternation. Suddenly it flashed through his memory that this was the young fellow out of whose way Lily Ramsay had been sent by her uncle. He knew Lumsden well enough. He made a sign to him to be silent, pointing to the minister, who stood interrupted, ready to begin.
“I see,” said Ronald in the proper whisper, with a nod of his head; and then he stepped straight up, through the little lane made for him, to where Lily sat, like an image of stone, her lips parted with a quick, fluttering breath. He took her hand and held it in his, standing by her side. “Pardon me that I come so late,” he said, “I was out of town; but I am still in time. Mr. Wallace, I will take my place after the coffin as the representative of my wife.” This was said rapidly, but calmly, in the complete self-possession of a man who knows he is master of the situation. There was scarcely a pause, the astonished company had scarcely time to look into each other’s face, when the proceedings went on. The minister’s voice arose, with that peculiar cadence which is in the sound of prayer. The men stood still, arrested in their excitement, shuffling with their feet, covering their faces with one hand so long as they could keep up that difficult position. But this was all unlike a funeral prayer. The atmosphere had suddenly become full of excitement, the pulsations quickened in every wrist.
Lily remained in her chair; she did not rise. It was one of the points of decorum that a woman should not be able to stand on such an occasion. The two ladies, all one quiver of curiosity, stood behind her, and Ronald by her side, holding her hand. He did not give it up, though she had tried to withdraw it, but stood close by her, holding his hat, with its long streamers of crape, in his other hand, his head drooped a little, and his eyes cast down in reverential sympathy. To describe what was in her mind would be impossible. Her heart had given one wild leap, as if it would have choked her, and then a sort of calm of death had succeeded. He held her hand, pressing it softly from time to time. He gave no sign but this of any other feeling but the proper respectful attention, while she sat paralyzed. And then came the stir—the movement. He let her hand drop, and, bending over her, touched her forehead with his lips; and then he made a sign to the astonished men about, even to Mr. Wallace, who had been, up to this moment, the chief authority, to precede him. There was a sort of a gasp in the astonished assembly, but every one obeyed Ronald’s courteous gesture. There was nothing presumptuous, nothing of the upstart, in it: it was the calm and dignified confidence of the master of the house. He was the last to leave the room, which he did with another pressure of Lily’s hand, and a glance to the ladies behind, which said as distinctly as words: “Take care of my wife.” And he was the first in the procession, placing himself at once behind the coffin. The burying-ground was not far away; it was one of those lonely places among the hills, with a little chapel in ruins, a relic of an older form of faith, within its gray walls, which are so pathetic and so solemn. The long line of men walking two and two made a great show in their black procession, their feet ringing upon the hard frost-bound road. But Ronald walked alone, in front, as if he had been Sir Robert’s son. And his heart was full of a steady and sober elation. It had been a hard fight, but he had conquered. Though he was not a son, but an enemy, he was, as he had always intended, Sir Robert’s heir.
CHAPTER XLV
“But this is all very strange and requires explanation. I do not doubt in the least what you say, but it requires explanation,” Mr. Wallace said.