Sir Robert's Fortune: A NovelOliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
General
Sir Robert's Fortune: A Novel
Oliphant, Mrs. (Margaret)
Fiction
“He shall drive me when I come back,” said Lily, waving her hand as the
brougham flashed away, the coats of the horses shining in the frosty
sunshine, and the carriage panels sending back reflections. It was
certainly more comfortable than the geeg. But the light went out of
Lily’s face as they left Dalrugas behind. The little color in her cheeks
disappeared. She leaned back in her corner and once more pressed her
arms against her breast. “Oh, shall I find him? shall I find him?” she
cried.
“You’ll do that--wherefore should you no do that?” said Beenie
encouragingly.
“He’ll be grown so big we will not know him, Beenie, and he will not
know his mother; that woman Margaret that took him away will have all
his smiles--she will be the first face that he sees, now that he’s old
enough to notice. Oh, my little bairn! my little bairn!”
“A bairn that is two months auld takes but little notice, mem,” said
Beenie, strong in her practical knowledge. “You need not fash your head
about that. They may smile, but if ye were to ask me the very truth, I
wouldna hide from you that what they ca’ smiling is just in my opinion
the----”
“If you say that word, I will kill you!” cried Lily. She laughed and
then she cried in her excitement. “How will I contain myself? how will I
keep quiet and face the world, and the folk in the world, and every-body
about, till the moment comes--oh, the moment, Beenie!--when I will get
my baby into my arms?”
“Eh, mem! but you must not make yoursel’ sae awfu’ sure about that,”
said Beenie. “We might not find them just at first--or he might have a
little touch of the cauld, or maybe the thrush in his wee mouth, or
measles, or something. You must not make yourself so awfu’ sure.”
“He is ill!” cried Lily, seizing her in a fierce grip. “He is ill, oh,
you false, false woman, and you have never said a word to me!”
“There is naething ill about him; he is just thriving like the flowers.
But I canna bide when folk are so terrible sure. It seems as if you were
tempting God.”
“It’s you that are tempting me--to believe in nothing, neither Him nor
women’s word. But what would make a woman deceive a baby’s mother about
her own child? A man might do it, that knows nothing about what that
means; but a woman never would do it, Beenie--a woman that has been
about little babies and their mothers all her days?”
“No, mem, I never thought it,” said Beenie in dutiful response.
At the coach, where they were received with all the greater honor on
account of Sir Robert’s brougham, and the beautiful prancing horses,
Helen Blythe met them. “They would not let me come to see you,” she
said. “It’s long, long, since I’ve seen you, Lily, and worn and white
you’ve grown--but just as bonnie as ever: there comes up the color just
as it used to do--but you must look stronger when you come back.”
“I am going away for that,” Lily said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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