CHAPTER XLVII
Helen was in all her crape, and yet her upper garment was not “deep,” like that of a woman in her first woe. It was a cloak which suggested travelling rather than any formality. And it appeared that the bright countenance with which she came in was one of sympathy for Lily, rather than of any cheerfulness of her own. She came forward holding out both her hands, having first deposited her umbrella against the wall. “I am glad, glad,” she said, “of all this that I hear of you, Lily: that you have got your husband to take care of you, and, it appears, a delightful bairn. I knew there was something more than ordinary between you two,” she said, stopping to shake hands with Ronald in his turn. “And vexed, vexed was I to see that Mr. Lumsden disappeared when old Sir Robert came. It must have been a dreadful trial to you, my poor Lily. But I never knew it had gone so far. Married in my own parlor, by my dear father, and not a word to me—Lily, it was not kind!”
Lily had no reply to make to this. It carried her away into a region so far distant, so dim, like a fairy-tale.
“But my dear father,” said Helen, “had little confidence in my discretion, and he might think it better I should know nothing, in case I should betray myself—and you. Oh, how hard it must have been many a time to keep your secret; and when your child came, poor Lily, poor Lily! But I do not yet understand about the bonnie bairn. They tell me he is a darlin’. But did he come to you in a present, as we used to think the babies did when we were children, or by what witchcraft did you manage all that, Lily, my dear?”
“And where did you hear this story that you have on your fingers’ ends?” said Ronald, interrupting these troublesome questions.
“Well,” said Helen, half offended, “if I have it on my fingers’ ends, it is that I take so much interest in Lily and all that concerns her—and you, too,” she added, fearing that what she had said might sound severe. “You forget that there were two years when we saw you often, and then two years that we saw you not at all; and often and often my father would ask about you. ‘Where is that young Mr. Lumsden?’ ‘Have you no word of that young Mr. Lumsden?’ He was very much taken up about you, and why you did not come back, nor any word of you. To be sure, he had his reasons for that, knowing more than the like of me.”
“Those very reasons should have shown him how I could not come back!” said Ronald sharply. “But you have not told me where it was you got this story, which few know.”
“Well—not to do her any harm if you think she should have been more discreet—it was Katrin that told me. She is a kind, good, honest woman. She was just out of herself with joy at the coming of the dear bairn. You will let me see him, Lily?”
“You look as if you were going on a journey. Oh, Helen, where are you going?” cried Lily, glad to interrupt the questions, and to give herself also a moment’s time to breathe.
“Yes, I am going on a journey,” Helen said, steadfastly looking her friend in the face. Her eyes were clear; her color, as usual, softly bright, not paled by the crape, or by her genuine, but not excessive, grief. She had mourned for her father as truly as she had nursed him, but not without an acknowledgment that he had lived out his life and departed in the course of nature. By this time, though but ten days of common life had succeeded the excitement and commotion of Mr. Blythe’s funeral, at which the whole countryside had attended, Helen had returned to the ordinary of existence, and to the necessity of arranging her own life, upon which there was now no bond. The plea of the assistant and successor (now minister) of Kinloch-Rugas that there should be no breach in it at all, that she should accept his love and remain in the house where she was born as his wife, had not moved her mind for a moment. She had shaken her head quietly, but very decisively, sorry to hurt him or any creature, yet fully knowing her own mind; and, in so far as she could do so in the village, Helen had made her preparations. She had a little land and a little money, the one in the hands of a trustworthy tenant, the other very carefully, very safely, invested by her father with the infinite precautions of a man to whom his little fortune was a very great matter, affecting the very course of the spheres. Helen had boldly, with indeed an unspeakable hardihood, notwithstanding the horror and remonstrances of the man of business, taken immediate steps to withdraw her money and get it into her possession. All this was done very quietly, very quickly, and, by good luck, favorably enough. And then she made arrangements for her venture, the great voyage into the unknown.