“Oh! my bonnie young gentleman,” she cried, “tell me! Something’s happened to my silly auld man?”
At this hint Isaac began to moan, and grasped at Lionel’s other arm, leaning heavily upon it.
“It’s nothing, Missis, nothing; that is, not much, nothing to frighten you. T’ young Master’s been that kind, he’s given me his arm to lean upon all along t’ water-side,” Isaac said, with a limp which would have been much too demonstrative had it been addressed to the eye; but in the dark it answered well enough. For once the Missis fell into the trap, and Lionel, dragged round by his pretended patient to the back door, with blessings called down upon his head by the deceived woman, went through the little fiction with the gravest countenance, and without the least inclination even to smile. It was not till he had left Isaac with his foot elevated on a chair, elaborating the story of a supposed sprain, and had groped his way round to the other entrance, and climbed the dilapidated stairs to the musty old sitting-room, in which his solitary lamp was flaring, that he burst into a short laugh, as he threw himself into a chair. If it was Isaac’s little comedy that called forth this sudden outburst, it was only as the climax of a hundred other comedies which were not mirthful. His disappointment, and the confusion of all his thoughts, which his mother’s revelation had brought about, made him, as was natural, misanthropical and bitter. He laughed at the tragical folly and falsehood of everything, himself included; from the Joscelyns making all sorts of efforts to appear better, more refined and comfortable, than they were, by way of pleasing, _i.e._, deceiving, Lady Brotherton--and Lady Brotherton accepting everything, adding her own fanciful interpretation, not only deceived, but deceiving herself--down to old Isaac, who had so often tried in vain to dupe his wife, and his wife, who was now duped so easily, not by Isaac, but, save the mark! by himself, Lionel, without intention or purpose. “And I, who am the biggest fool of all!” the poor youth said to himself. What had he been doing all these weeks? making a fool’s paradise out of this squalid ruin, and princes and princesses out of the Joscelyns, half farmers, half horse-coupers as they were--all because he had believed in the sweet looks of a girl who the whole time had been aiming these sweet looks over his head at a better match, and a greater personage than himself. What an idiot he had been! the scales seemed to fall from his eyes. He saw everything round him, he thought, in its true colour. What would his mother think if she came and saw the wretched place in which he had been living? She would ask, like the village folk, what could his motive be? His motive, what was it? Even now, mortified and discouraged as he was, he sat upright in his chair with a thrill of alarm, when he imagined a research into his motives. Lady Brotherton might stop the expedition altogether if she found them out. Lydia’s perfidy was terrible, but it would be more terrible still to leave her behind, perhaps to lose sight of her, to miss the opportunity to which he had been looking forward with so much delight. When he came to think of it, his mother had not said Lydia was in love with Lord Eldred, but only that Lord Eldred was in love with Lydia--which was so different. At this Lionel roused himself, and the sight of his portmanteaux packed and ready to be shut up, roused him still more. After all it was to-morrow they were to start, and he, and not Lord Eldred, was to be for the present Lydia’s daily companion. There would be time to do many things before that hero could arrive, even if, as Lady Brotherton suggested, he should join them afterwards. To-morrow, nay, to-day, for it was already past midnight, was all his own, with nobody to interfere.