“Have I ever shrunk from what has to be done?” she said, with again a half-smile of pained surprise.
Mr. Pen had no answer to make; he knew very well she had not failed hitherto; and in his heart he was aware that Randolph’s motives were very different from Mary’s. Still, he held with a gentle obstinacy to the lesson he had learned. It was going against her, but it was for her sake. They took one or two turns together in silence, neither saying any more. As they turned again, however, towards the house for the third time, Eastwood met them, hurrying from the door. Nurse had sent downstairs for Miss Musgrave, begging her to come without delay. The urgent message, and the man’s haste and anxious, eager looks, frightened Mary. The household generally had come to that state of expectation which welcomes any event, howsoever melancholy, as a relief to the strain of nerve and strength which long suspense produces. Eastwood was eager that there might be some change—if for the better, so much the better—but that was scarcely to be looked for—anyhow a change, a new event. The same thrill of anticipation ran through Mary’s veins. Was it come now—the moment of fate, the crisis which would affect so many? She bade Mr. Pen to follow her, with a movement of her hand. “Wait in the library,” she said, as she went upstairs.
While Mary took the air in this anxious little promenade up and down, Lilias sat at the hall door, looking out upon the road, looking far away for the something that was coming. She did not know that the rider on the pale horse was the most likely passenger to come that way. Happier visitors were in Lilias’ thoughts—her father himself to clear up everything, who would go and fetch Nello back, and put all right that was wrong; or Mr. Geoff, who was not so good, but yet very comforting, and between whom and Lilias there existed a link of secret alliance, unknown to anybody, which was sweet to the child. Lilias was looking out far upon the road, vaguely thinking of Geoff, for he was the most likely person to come—he who rode along the road so often to ask for the Squire: far more likely than her father, who was a hope rather than an expectation. She was looking far away, as is the wont of the dreamer, pursuing her hope to the very horizon whence it might come—when suddenly, all at once, Lilias woke to the consciousness that there was some one standing near her, close to her, saying nothing, but looking at her with that intent look which wakes even a sleeper when fixed upon him, much more a dreamer, linked to common earth by the daylight, and all the sounds and touches of ordinary life. She rose to her feet with a start—frightened yet satisfied—for here was something which had happened, if not the something for which she looked. But Lilias’ eyes enlarged to twice their size, and her heart gave a great jump, when she saw that the figure standing beside her was that of the old woman whom she had met in the Chase.
’Lizabeth had come up unobserved from the water-side. She was dressed exactly as she had been when Lilias saw her before, with the hood of her grey cloak over her white cap—a stately figure, notwithstanding the homely dress.
Lilias gave a cry at the sight, and ran to her. “Oh, old woman!” she cried—“oh, I want to ask you—I want to ask you so many things.”
“Honeysweet!” said ’Lizabeth, with a glow in her dark eyes. She did not for the moment think either of what she had come to say, or of the risk that attended her communications with her daughter’s child. She thought only of the face she saw reflected in that other face, and of the secret property she had in the child who was so beautiful and so sweet. This was ’Lizabeth’s heiress, the inheritor of the beauty which the old woman had been conscious of in her own person, and still more conscious of in the person of her daughter. Lilias was the third in that fair line. Pride filled the old woman’s heart, along with the warm gush of tenderness. No one had ever looked at Lilias with such passionate love and admiration. She did not venture to take the child into her arms as she had done in the solitude of the woods, but she looked at her with all her heart in her eyes.
Lilias seized her by the hand and drew her to the seat from which she had herself risen. “Come!” she said eagerly. “They say you know everything about papa—and I have a right to know; no one has so good a right to hear as I. Oh, tell me! tell me! Sit down here and rest. I once went up the hill, far away up the hill, to go to you, but there I met Mr. Geoff. Do you know Mr. Geoff? Come, come, sit down here and tell me about papa—— ”
“My darling,” said. ’Lizabeth, “blessings on your bonnie face! but I dare not stay. Some time—soon, if it’s God’s will, you’ll hear all the like of you could understand, and you’ll get him back to enjoy his own. God bless my bairn that would give me her own seat, and think no shame of old ’Lizabeth! That’s like my Lily,” the old woman said, with ready tears. “But listen, honey, for this is what I came to say. You must tell the lady to send and bring back the little boy. The bairn is in trouble. I cannot tell you what kind of trouble, but she must send and bring him back. My honey, do you hear what I say?”
“The little boy, and the lady?” said Lilias, wondering; then she exclaimed suddenly with a cry of pain, “Nello! my little brother!” and in her eagerness caught ’Lizabeth’s hands and drew her down upon the seat.
“Ay, just your little brother, my honeysweet. My lad is away that would go and look after him, so you must tell the lady. No, no, I must not stay. The time will maybe come. But tell the lady, my darling. The little boy has need of her, or of you. He is too little a bairn to be away among strangers. I cannot think upon his name—nor I cannot think,” said ’Lizabeth, with a gleam of grandmotherly disapproval, “what my Lily could be thinking of to give a little lad such an outlandish name. But tell the lady to send and bring him home.”