Chapter XII: Taken Away

"When I remember something which I had,
But which is gone, and I must do without,
I sometimes wonder how I can be glad,
Even in cowslip time when hedges sprout;
It makes me sigh to think on it--but yet
My days will not be better days, should I forget."
--JEAN INGELOW.

Lily stood still at first, bewildered. Then the same attraction that she had felt at the church door drew her a step nearer to the stranger. He held out his hand, saying softly, "Will you come to me?" And she went forward at once and put hers into it, looking up into his face with a grave but sweet little smile.

"Would you like some strawberries?" she said.

Colonel Maxwell could hardly find voice to answer her. Mrs. Randal turned suddenly away to the house, with her apron to her eyes, and the old Vicar's too were dim. Sir Henry Smith, who stood behind, expressed his feelings by a smile and a long low whistle.

"Not now, thank you, my dear child," said Colonel Maxwell.

Lily liked his voice, for it was musical and pleasant, though it shook in a funny way. He held her hand and looked at her with a sort of shyness.

"Will you show me that pretty locket of yours?" he said. "I see the front of it--the letter _L_--but I want to see the back too--may I?"

Lily's quick fingers untied the ribbon, and she put the locket in his hand.

"The letter _L_ belongs to you, Lily," he said, "but whose is this lock of hair, do you know? It is dark hair, you see--not like yours."

Lily shook her curly head.

"It's my locket; I've had it always."

"Yes, you have had it since you were three months old. It is your mother's hair."

Lily gazed, not at all understanding.

He tied the locket round her neck again, and then said, "Do you know who I am, Lily?"

"I ain't sure."

An odd quiver passed across Colonel Maxwell's face, but he recovered himself directly.

"You will remember by-and-by, perhaps. Now tell me--have you forgotten all about Toby? Who is Toby?"

"He's a dog!" exclaimed Lily, her eyes opening wide, as some faint vision of a bygone time seemed to flash upon her suddenly.

"I thought you could not have forgotten poor old Toby. Is he a big dog or a little one? And what colour?"

"Oh, a big black dog, and so curly!" cried the child, with a little jump. "He carried me on his back when I was a baby."

"Many a time have I held you there," said Colonel Maxwell. He lifted the little girl in his arms, kissed her, and set her down again. Then he turned to the Vicar. "Mr. Sands, this settles the question."

"It certainly seems so," said Mr. Sands. "You are able to remind the child of things she might naturally remember. Mrs. Randal and her son have done their best to find out what were her recollections of her home, but without much success, I think."

"I am not surprised at that," said Colonel Maxwell. "She was backward as a little child, and very delicate. When she was three years old she could not talk much, and had very little memory. But she seems quick enough now. Mrs. Randal, you have taken good care of her."

"I've loved her like my own," said Mrs. Randal. "Of course, sir, John and me, we couldn't bring her up according to her station, which was plain to us from the first. But we've done our best to keep her from all common ways. I think, sir, there was things she remembered about her home, in a faint sort of way. One day she told John about being carried upstairs, and a blue lady on the wall as looked at her--a picture, I suppose."

"Her great-grandmother's picture. And she is like her," said Colonel Maxwell. He turned to Lily again, who was still holding his hand, looking from one to another, and listening with a puzzled face to all this talk which seemed to concern her.

"There were two little boys," he said. "One had dark brown hair, like the hair in your locket, and the other was fair like you. You used to play all together in the nursery. The eldest had a rocking-horse, and you wanted to ride like him. You wanted to ride his horse, and what did you say to him?"

"Charlie, let Lily ride your horse!" was the instant answer. "Oh, and there was Tom! He was little, almost like me, and one day he kicked me."

"I dare say he did. Tom was always a Turk, and little brothers don't always know how to behave to their sisters," said Colonel Maxwell, and for the first time he laughed.

Lily laughed too. "Little brothers!" she said to herself.

"And now won't you tell me what your own name is?"

"Lily."

"Nothing more than that?"

"Lily Randal," murmured the child, with less readiness than before.

"No, no; I shall have to tell you, if you can't tell me."

The child suddenly turned her head. It was time, she evidently thought, for all this fun with a stranger to come to an end. He was a very nice gentleman, and looked very kind, and said a great many things she could not understand, and made her say things too. But reality was best, after all; a heart's love is not transferred in a moment, no matter who may have the best right to it; and there stood John, looking pale and grave, in the shadow of the apple-trees, listening in silence to all that was going on.

"I'm John's Lily!" she said, and slipping her hand out of Colonel Maxwell's, she sprang back to her old friend and began in an eager whisper, "John, John, pick me up and give me a ride round the garden. Quick, John dear! When we come back they'll all be gone and we'll have dinner."

John bent towards the little girl, colouring scarlet, while Mrs. Randal hastened to explain and apologise.

"The village people got into the way of calling her John's Lily, sir, because those two always thought such a lot of each other. They are such playfellows--and the dear child don't quite understand yet, so I hope you'll please to excuse----"

But there was no need of any excusing. Instead of carrying Lily off round the garden as she wished, John led her back among the lilies, and put the little hand he held into Colonel Maxwell's once more.

"Look here, Lily," he said, "this is your father, your own father, as lost you that time I picked you up, when you was a little girl of three. Now you're going away with him to your own home, and you've got to be a good girl and show him as mother and me hasn't spoilt you. Look up now and call him father. Say 'Dear father.'"

Lily stared at John in silent astonishment. But she had learnt by this time to know his face on the very rare occasions when he meant to be obeyed. So she lifted her wondering blue eyes to that other face, strange but so kind, and said in a low, half-unwilling voice, "Dear father!"

"My dear little girl," Colonel Maxwell said under his breath, as he stooped to kiss her.

Then he grasped John's hand and shook it heartily.

But Lily, over-wrought by these surprises, rushed away from them both, flung herself into Mrs. Randal's arms, and burst into a violent fit of sobbing and crying. John's mother, comforting and scolding by turns, took her away into the cottage and closed the door.

So John's Lily passed from his care into that of her rightful guardian. There was of course a great deal to tell Colonel Maxwell that he had not heard yet; the adventure of the fair, when those who had originally carried off the child made such a bold attempt to possess themselves of her again; the reappearance of Dick, as he was called, only last February, and his trying to entice her away from the village till John frightened him successfully away. There was a great deal to talk over, a great deal of surprise to be expressed at the failure of the police to trace the child, which could scarcely have been possible except in this very lonely country village so far from railways and the outer world. Sir Henry Smith was inclined to think John a stupid fellow for not having exerted himself to give notice to the police; but Colonel Maxwell understood John's unwillingness better than his friend, remembering that the child herself could tell nothing about her home, and that John could not possibly have known into what hands he might be surrendering her.

Colonel Maxwell had a great deal of talk with John and his mother that Sunday evening, when he walked over to Markwood again, this time alone, and took his little girl to church with him. He had something to give thanks for now, something to make him glad. Most of the village knew by this time that Sir Henry's friend was Lily's father, and he was stared at by many curious eyes. After the service he took Lily back to Mrs. Randal and asked her to keep her for one more night; the next day he would drive over and fetch her to Carsham, where Lady Smith was ready with a kind welcome for the little stray bird so happily caught again.

John walked nearly to Carsham House with Colonel Maxwell that evening, and came back alone in the sweet summer dusk. When he got home his mother was not in the kitchen; he listened at the foot of the stairs, then called very gently, "Mother, are you there?" for fear of waking Lily. His mother did not seem to hear him, but he could hear her moving about upstairs. Presently, however, she came down, and he could see that she had been crying. For a few minutes they sat in their two chairs, silent; then John said suddenly, "Don't take on so, mother. Is the child asleep?"

"Fast asleep now, dear lamb," said Mrs. Randal. "But it was a long time before she went off, she was that excited, and no wonder. I had to sit by her and sing hymns with my old cracked voice. Dear, dear, she'll have no one to sing her to sleep to-morrow night, I guess."

Mrs. Randal ended with a sob, and dried her eyes again.

"Her father thinks no end of her," said John after a pause.

"Yes, and he does seem like a nice man. But it's a mother's care as she'll miss, that poor little one. He'll have a good nurse for her, I dare say, but that won't be the same thing. I've been just a bit more than an old nurse to Lily. And she'll miss you, John. Her father and her little brothers may be ever so fond, there's not one among 'em all as will be the slave you've been. I almost told Colonel Maxwell as much."

"It couldn't have gone on always, and it's just as well it's happened now," said John, rather doggedly. "If you ask me, I expect we shall miss her more than she'll miss us. At that age they soon forget. But you and me--we shall have a precious dull life of it now, mother."

Mrs. Randal rocked herself gently backwards and forwards.

"Yes, my lad, yes," she said. "It would ha' been better for you, after all, if you'd never seen Lily in your life."

"No, that it wouldn't."

"Yes, yes," his mother persisted. "If it hadn't been for her, poor child, you might have been married to Polly Alfrick long before now, and had a home and a family of your own like other young men of your age. Why, John, my dear, you're nigh on eight-and-twenty."

"I told Lily to-day as I was getting old," said John, with a grim smile. "But don't you worry about me. I wouldn't have had it different."

There was another long silence. Mrs. Randal sighed once or twice. At last she said, "And what did you and the Colonel talk about?"

"Oh, a lot of things," said John. "He has some notions about me; there's scarce anything he wouldn't do for me. To begin with, there's a thousand pounds reward for finding the child, which belongs to me, he says, though I don't see how. It appears to me as he found her himself. Well, and over and above that, he'll start me in a farm or a blacksmith's business in Canada, and pay our passages out, yours and mine. Or he'll put me in the way of a superior sort of trade in London, where I can go in for all sorts of ornamental iron-work and make a lot of money. In short, he'll do all as lies in his power to help John Randal on in life and make him rich and happy. Do you understand, mother? A thousand pound cheque to begin with--that means a balance at the bank--and anything you please to follow after. But even with a thousand pound, this here old place won't be big enough to hold you and me--will it, mother?"

Mrs. Randal took off her spectacles, as people sometimes do when they want to see more clearly. She rubbed her eyes and looked at John. But she could make out so little that she put her spectacles on again. The brilliant prospects which he had been spreading before her seemed to have no effect on John's countenance; his eyes were no brighter than usual; his dark face looked tired and pale; his long legs were stretched out wearily. Presently, as his mother said nothing, he glanced at her with a faint smile.

"Well, what do you say, mother? How will you like being rich? Do you vote for Canada or London?"

"My lad, it's selfish of me--I am behaving queerly, to be sure! Here's your fortune made all of a stroke, and me no more thankful than this. Well, John, there's no doubt you'll do well wherever you go, whether it be London or beyond the seas, and I'm sure Colonel Maxwell's very kind. Only there's one thing to be said. I'm too old to move, my dear, that's certain. You must let the forge--Jim Nash is sure to take it--and your old mother must stay in the old cottage to welcome you back again. I wouldn't stand in your way, and it's real thoughtful of Colonel Maxwell to say he'll pay my passage too, but I'd be frightened out of my life to go in a boat even, much more a big ship on the sea--and as for London, the smuts and the noise would shorten my life by ten year. So you just do the best for yourself, John, without thought of me."

John listened very quietly.

"And you'd stay here all alone by yourself, would you?" he said.

"Yes, my dear. I couldn't leave the old home, so don't worry about your mother. I should be lost among strangers. With a young man like you it's a different thing. I expect Colonel Maxwell thinks you're thrown away at Markwood, and he's not far wrong."

"But supposing I chose to stop at Markwood--there'd still be the thousand pound. What should we do with that, mother--build a new house?"

"I don't know," hesitated Mrs. Randal. "The old one's good enough for me. But of course you'd get married, John."

"There's nobody I want to marry--you know that."

"Well, you might in time--and she'd be sorry, maybe--she might come round----"

"Do you think I'm likely to ask her again?" he said, his face hardening.

"She don't deserve it, to be sure," murmured Mrs. Randal. "Well, thinking over what's best for you, I do believe Canada's best. You've had a lot of trouble, and losing this dear child ain't the least of it, and in a fresh country you'd make new friends and start over again."

"Forget it all and start fresh. That's what you're thinking, is it?" said John.

"Well, my boy--seems as if it might be the best for you."

"I'll tell you then," he said. "You've heard Colonel Maxwell's offers, but you haven't heard my answers to them."

"Why, you've got to think them over."

"No. He said so, but I said there was no need for that. What's the good of considering and beating about the bush when one's mind's made up already?"

"What was the good of taking me in so, then?"

"I had a mind to see what you'd say."

"Well, but what did you say? That's what I want to know!"

"Look here, mother, you may think I'm wrong. Colonel Maxwell went on for half-an-hour or more, offering me all these fine things. I refused every one of 'em."

"You did, John? The money and all?"

"The money first and foremost. I've no right to the money, and if I had, would you and me like to be paid for sheltering that child, who's been the brightness and the blessing of our lives for four years? 'No, thank you, sir,' I says to him. 'My mother's looked on your little girl as her own, and she loves her as her own, and she'd never speak to me again if I pocketed a shilling of your money. Besides, your getting back the child was no doings of mine or hers. It belongs more to Sir Henry Smith, your friend, as brought you here to-day.' He laughed at that. Then I thanked him all the same, and I told him I wanted no change in no shape or way, and I'd no taste for emigrating, nor had you, and I wouldn't live in London on no account, nor ask you to do so, and my cottage and my old trade, which was my father's and grandfather's before me, was all I wanted in this world. Whether he thought me a mean-spirited chap, I don't know--all I know is, I want help from no man, and from him less than anybody. So, mother, there's the end, and Lily leaves you and me pretty much as she found us."

Mrs. Randal was half thankful, half disappointed. Good and gentle and refined as she was, she had not quite John's grand contempt for money and for getting on in the world. One need hardly say that she had not a covetous or an ambitious thought for herself, or that she spoke the exact truth in saying that she wished to end her days in the old cottage where all her married life had been spent. But it is possible to care not at all about worldly advantages for one's self, and yet to value them highly for those one loves; and Mrs. Randal, while John was talking of Colonel Maxwell's offers, had felt both glad and proud that her son was no longer to live a hidden life in this quiet village of Markwood. With a large sum of money to start him, with his own good capacity and steadiness and industry to carry him on, John would indeed have had a chance of raising himself and his family to a very superior position. And the world outside Markwood--so his mother thought--must be so much the better for knowing John. However, it was not to be; and Mrs. Randal, who never fretted over useless fancies, told herself that John knew best and that he had decided rightly. She understood him; she was all the prouder of him in her heart, really, because he chose to live his life independent of another man's money or help, and to work on in his own quiet way. Remembering, as she often did, the pure love and kindness in his face when he first brought in the lost baby, on that stormy summer evening four years ago, she could not help understanding that those four years of Lily's bright presence would lose half their sweetness as a happy memory, if all his unselfish tenderness was to be paid for.

Of course there was a great deal of talk in the village, among both young and old, about the departure of John's Lily, about her new-found father, and about the fine London house which was supposed to be her home. Markwood had not often such a subject for gossip. The worst of it was, that much of this gossip had to be made up on the spot, for very little information was to be dragged out of the only people who really knew anything--John, Mrs. Randal, and the Vicar. Mrs. Alfrick was particularly vexed at having missed seeing Colonel Maxwell; now that Mary was gone, she seldom got through her work on Sunday in time to go to church. She wrote off the news to Mary, however, and observed that John looked more glum and disagreeable than ever, and that his mother would tell one nothing. She also expressed deep offence that Lily had not been sent up to say good-bye to her and the children, when she was sure she had always treated that foundling child kinder than anybody, long before a living creature could have guessed that her father was a grand gentleman.

Lily was gone; her flower namesakes faded in the hot summer sun; the creamy rose-leaves dropped on the narrow paved walk under the cottage wall, where she used to gather them up so carefully. John went about his work as usual, but he neglected the garden a little--it was too silent, too sad--and he never looked out of his forge when the children were coming from school. His mother, always quiet, grew a little quieter, and watched him sometimes with eyes to which the tears sprang too readily. They seemed to think only of each other, and did not talk much of the past; one might almost have fancied that those homely walls had no history, that dead loves had never lived at all, that both Mary and Lily were forgotten.