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Title: The Ladies Lindores, Vol. 2(of 3)
Author: Margaret Oliphant
Release Date: December 8, 2014 [EBook #47592]
Language: English
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THE LADIES LINDORES
BY MRS OLIPHANT
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCLXXXIII
_ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 'BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE'_
"TWO OF THE SWEET'ST COMPANIONS IN THE WORLD."
--_Cymbeline_.
THE LADIES LINDORES.
CHAPTER XV.
Lord Millefleurs had given his family a great deal of trouble--not in
the old-fashioned way of youthful folly or dissipation, which is too
well known in every age, the beaten road upon which young men tread down
the hearts of their progenitors, and their own best hopes, in all the
wantonness of short-sighted self-indulgence. The heir of the house of
Lavender had gone wrong in an entirely new-fashioned and
nineteenth-century way. He was devoured by curiosity, not of the modes
of pleasure, but about those other ways of living which the sons of
dukes in general have no knowledge of. He got tired of being a duke's
son, and it seemed to him that life lay outside the range of those happy
valleys in which he was born. He had gone to America, that home of all
kinds of freedom, and there had disappeared from the ken of ducal
circles. He had not even written home, which was the inexcusable part of
it, but had sunk out of sight, coming to the surface, as it were, only
once or twice in a couple of years, when a sudden draft upon his banker
revealed him to his anxious family, whose efforts to trace him during
this time were manifold, but always unsuccessful. It was Beaufort who
had been the means at last of restoring the virtuous prodigal, who in
the meantime had been occupied, not by any vicious tastes or dangerous
_liaisons_, but by the most entirely innocent, if eccentric, experiments
in living. Beaufort found him, but not before the young man was willing
to be found--a fact which, however, the anxious relations did not take
into account, as detracting from the merit of the man whom they
described as Millefleurs's deliverer, his better genius, and by many
other flattering descriptions. In reality, Millefleurs had set out on
his way home, moved thereto by the energetic representations of a
strong-minded, middle-aged maiden in Connecticut or California (how can
a historian without data particularise?), who told him that a man was no
gentleman who kept the women of his family in ignorance of his
movements, and exposed them to all the tortures of anxiety. This puzzled
the scientific adventurer. He had found out that daily work (which
amused him very much) was not at all incompatible with the character of
a gentleman; but he felt himself pulled up in his career when this new
view of the subject was presented to him. After a little thought, he
decided that Miss Sallie F---- was right. And he took off his working
clothes, and put on the livery of civilisation, and found Beaufort, who
had attacked the continent bravely but vaguely in search of him, on his
way. Millefleurs was not proud. He let himself be brought home as if it
was all Beaufort's doing, and made his peace with everybody. The
consequence was, that the illustrious house of Lavender was ready to do
anything in the world for that excellent Mr Beaufort, who had fished
their heir out of troubles unknown; and, in respect to that heir
himself, were bending all their faculties to the task of getting him
married, and so put out of harm's way. It was a new sphere for the
mental vivacity and curiosity of Millefleurs. He devoted himself to a
study of the young ladies of the highest civilisation, just as he had
devoted himself to the life of the dockyards and the backwoods.
(Probably I should say to the mines and the cattle-ranches; but the
reader who knows the fashion will here supply the appropriate phrase.)
He found the study curious, and not at all unpleasant, and so went
about scattering wild hopes about him wherever he moved. Was anything
else possible? If the young ladies in our northern county had been
(inevitably) fluttered and excited when Pat Torrance fixed his big light
eyes upon them, knowing the value of him as, so to speak, an
appointment, a post for life which would remove all anxiety about their
future comfort from their own minds and those of their parents, how much
more when the Marquis of Millefleurs went hopping about the
drawing-rooms, carrying on his researches in a far more genial and
agreeable manner than Pat Torrance was capable of doing? And it was
quite certain that nobody would ever be unhappy with Millefleurs. He was
always cheerful, always considerate, ready to do anything for anybody.
He was more like a daughter than a son, the Duchess declared, with tears
in her eyes--foreseeing what she wanted, watching over her as nobody had
ever done before: although it was no doubt very wrong--oh, very
wrong!--to almost break her heart, leaving her two years without a
letter; but he would not do so to his wife. Thus the--we will not say
candidates, rather nominees--possible occupants of the delightful and
every way desirable post of Marchioness of Millefleurs had every sort of
inducement to "go in" for it, and scarcely any drawback at all.
The drawback was not worth speaking of--it was the most superficial of
objections. This enterprising, amusing, good-tempered, quick-witted,
accomplished, and lovable hero, was, as the girls said, the funniest
little man that had ever been seen. He was shorter than most of the
young ladies to whom he made himself so agreeable. He was plump and
round, a succession of curves and gently billowing outlines; his eyes
were like little black beads, though they were sparkling with life and
animation; he had a round face like a boy of ten, with nice little puffy
rosy cheeks, and a lisp which completed the infantile effect of his
appearance generally. A little air of the most agreeable
self-satisfaction hung about him--what the vulgar and detractors
generally call vanity and self-conceit, but which indeed was nothing of
the kind, being only that confidence of pleasing which his natural
temper gave him in the first place, and his position confirmed. For how
could he be ignorant that to be Marquis of Millefleurs was enough to
make any man charming? It was to escape this that he had fled from
society and been called Tommy by the American labourers, with whom he
was just as popular as in Mayfair. It had been intended to keep this
little gentleman in the background of this narrative as really a very
secondary person in it; but, with his usual determination to be in the
front of everything, he has pushed himself forward against the
historian's will.
Having thus yielded to his natural tendency to show himself, we may
proceed to say what we had intended without this preamble, that the
peculiarity of Millefleurs's appearance took all seriousness from the
fact of his rapidly increasing intimacy with them, in the foolish and
inexperienced eyes not only of Edith but of her mother. Lady Lindores,
though she had been alarmed and startled by the importance attached to
his first visit, and the penalty paid for it, could not bring herself to
regard him seriously. He seemed to her a boy, notwithstanding that the
peerage was produced to her and dates set before her eyes,--and she shut
her eyes altogether to any danger that might be involved in the
frequency of his visits. She was very glad to see him whenever he came.
Never was there a more delightful household retainer; his friendliness
and affectionateness and half-feminine interest in all their concerns
great and small, made him delightful to the women, who wanted no more of
him. He was like a boy at home from school in this friendly house, where
no incense was burned before him, and ran on their commissions, and took
an interest in their work, and gave his opinion about their dress, with
all the freedom of long acquaintance; and it naturally added in no small
degree to the brilliancy of their appearance out of doors, and to the
effect they produced, that such an attendant should be constantly in
their train. Lady Lindores was not insensible to this gratification;
and had Millefleurs looked more grown up and less like a friend's son
confided to her for the holidays, it is very likely that the chance of
seeing her child elevated to the highest level of the social ladder
would have been too much for her also, and turned her head a little. But
whenever the idea glanced across her mind, as it was bound to do
sometimes, if from nothing more than the discourses of Rintoul, she had
but to look at the rounded outlines of her little hero, and all these
visions dispersed in a laugh. To imagine him a bridegroom, not to say
Edith's bridegroom, affected her with a sense of the ludicrous which it
was beyond her power to restrain.
But this was extremely foolish, as everybody will perceive; and it was
with a very different eye that Lord Lindores contemplated the frequent
presence of this above-all-competitors-desirable young man. It was not
only that he was a duke's son, though that in itself was much, but he
was the son of a duke who was a Cabinet Minister, and eminently
qualified to help on the scheme of ambition which inspired the Scotch
Earl. His Grace knew the gain it would be to replace the Tory who had
sat for Dee-and-Donshire for years with an out-and-out partisan of the
existing Government; and there could be little doubt that he would
appreciate the expediency of increasing the importance of any family to
which his own should become allied. And then the prospects which would
open before Edith were such as to dazzle any beholder. If her father had
ever felt that he was to blame in respect to his elder daughter, here
was something which surely would make amends for all. Millefleurs was no
rustic bully, no compound of a navvy and a squire, but the quintessence
of English gentlemanhood, good-hearted, clever in his way, universally
popular, the sort of man whom, irrespective of all worldly advantages, a
father would be glad to trust his child's happiness to. The idea that
any reasonable objection could be grounded upon his appearance would
have irritated Lord Lindores beyond all self-control. His appearance! he
was not a hunchback, nor deaf, nor dumb, nor blind. Short of that, what
on earth did it matter how a man looked? And no doubt Lord Lindores was
in the right. But in reality, that which put all idea of him as a lover
out of the mind of Lady Lindores and Edith was not any objection to his
appearance, but the mere fact of his appearance, his boyish looks, his
contour, his aspect of almost childhood. As has been said, when the
suggestion was presented to her mind that Millefleurs might have
"intentions" in respect to Edith, Lady Lindores the next time she saw
him laughed. "What is the joke?" he had said to her half-a-dozen times;
and she had answered, "There is no joke, only a ludicrous suggestion."
"About me, perhaps," he said once, reducing her to great embarrassment.
But she managed to elude his observation; and to Edith, fortunately, the
idea never occurred at all. She declared herself to be very fond of him;
she said there was no one so nice; she brightened when he came in, and
listened to his chatter with unfailing pleasure. She said there was
nobody she would miss so much when she went home. When he complained
that he had never been in Scotland, she said, "You must come to
Lindores." It was she, indeed, who gave the invitation. The Earl, who
had not quite ventured upon this strong step, was present and heard her
say it, and opened his eyes wide in admiration. What did it mean? Was it
that these two had engaged themselves secretly without saying anything
to father or mother? or did it mean nothing at all--the mere foolishness
of a girl who did not care for, nay, did not even think for a moment,
what people would say?
For the brief little weeks of the season flitted quickly away, and the
date fixed for their departure drew near rapidly. By this time
Millefleurs had got to be exceedingly intimate with the family. He went
and came almost as he pleased, sometimes offering himself, sometimes
coming in to luncheon without that ceremony,--always with something to
do for them, or something to say to them, which linked one day to
another. This was much, but it was not all that was wanted. Rintoul,
looking on with eyes enlightened by that knowledge he had acquired of
what "the fellows would say," did not feel half satisfied. He was the
anxious member of the party. Even Lord Lindores, whose friends at the
clubs discussed such matters less perhaps than the young men, and whose
interests were more political, was not so alive to all the risks and all
the changes of opinion as was Rintoul. He was nervous above measure
about this business of Edith's. He even took his mother to task about it
during the last week of their stay in town. "Isn't that fellow coming to
the point?" he said.
"What fellow, and what point?" said Lady Lindores. It must be
acknowledged that if ever a young man anxious for the true interests of
his family was tried by the ignorance and stupidity--not to say
callousness--of his relations, Rintoul was that man.
"Look here, mother," he said, exasperated; "just think for a moment what
people will say, and ask yourself how you will like it. They will say
Millefleurs has been amusing himself all this time, and never meant
anything. I make no doubt that they say it already. He has been amusing
himself--exposing her to all sorts of remarks; and then the end will
come, and he will leave her _planté là_."
"Rintoul," said his mother, reddening with anger, "this one idea of
yours makes you absurd. Who is it that has it in his power to leave
Edith _planté là_? To think that I should be forced to use such words!
If you mean to make me uncomfortable about that boy----"
"He is no more a boy than I am, mother. I warned you of that. He knows
very well what he is about. He has had the pleasure of your society, and
he has enjoyed it all and amused himself very much. But he doesn't mean
to commit himself. Do you think I don't know what people say? I don't
mean that it is Edith's fault, or even your fault, mother; only, some
women know how to manage. It is a thing that never could happen with
some people. You will see, unless you exert yourself, that the last day
will come, and you will be just where you were. I don't know whether
staying a week or two longer would do any good," he added, ruefully. "If
there is the chance that it might bring him to the point, there is also
the chance that people would divine your motive, and say that was why
you were staying on. Don't you think you could put a little steam on,
when the result is so important, and bring him to the point?"
"Steam on! Do you mean to insult me, Rintoul?" his mother cried.
But this was too much for the young man, who felt himself to be the only
one of the family to whom the true position of affairs was apparent. "If
you cannot understand me, mother, I can't say anything more," he said,
feeling as if he could almost have cried over her callousness. Why was
it that nobody but he would see how serious the situation was?
All this time, however, while Millefleurs was frequenting the house
almost daily, Lady Lindores's perception had been partly confused by the
effort it cost her to avoid being drawn into what she felt must be an
unnecessary confidential disclosure to Beaufort of the history of the
family since they last met. Beaufort did not insist upon accompanying
his charge--for such, more or less, Millefleurs was, his family being
too much alarmed lest he should disappear again, to leave him without
this species of surveillance, which the good-natured young fellow
allowed to be perfectly natural, and neither resisted nor resented; but
he came sometimes, and he never relinquished his appeal to Lady
Lindores. He was not posing in any attitude of a heart-broken lover.
Even to her he expressed no despair. He took his life gravely, but not
without cheerfulness, and had, she felt almost with a little pique, got
over it, and been able to put Carry out of his life. But he wanted to
know: that seemed all that was left of the old romance. He wanted to be
told how it had happened--how his love had been lost to him. It did not
seem to be resentment or indignation that moved him, but a serious kind
of interest. And strangely enough, it seemed to Lady Lindores that he
did not want to avoid her, or keep out of hearing of the name of the
girl who had forsaken him. He seemed to like herself, Carry's mother, as
well as ever, and to regard Edith with the same elder-brotherly air
which had pleased her so much in the old days. Between the inquiring
countenance which seemed without ceasing to ask an explanation from her,
and the prattle of Millefleurs, which ran on in a pleasant stream, and
to which it seemed so ridiculous to attach any serious meaning, Lady
Lindores was kept in a perplexity and harassment of mind which took away
altogether her pleasure in society at the end of their stay in London.
After her impatient rejection of Rintoul's counsels, she began to
consider them, as was natural; and much as all the particulars of the
_chasse-aux-maris_ disgusted her, she came at length, against her will,
to recognise that there was something in what he said. "I have been
imprudent, as usual," she said to herself. Alas that all the natural
proceedings of life should be hampered by these rules of
prudence!--these perpetual previsions of what might happen, to which she
felt it was impossible she could ever bow her spirit. But the idea that
it would be said that a boy like Millefleurs had "amused himself" with
her daughter--that he had loved and ridden away--that Edith, her
high-spirited, pure-minded girl, had been left _planté là_--broke over
Lady Lindores like a wave of passionate feeling: the suggestion was
intolerable and odious. This happened when Millefleurs was in the room
with her, in full tide of talk, and entirely at his ease. The sudden
sensation disclosed itself in a flush of colour mounting in a moment to
her very hair. Intolerable! The thought was so odious that she started
to her feet and walked to the open window, as if the change of position
would throw it off--and also, suffocated as she felt by that sudden
fiery breath, to get fresh air, lest she should, as she said, make an
exhibition of herself.
"You are ill, Lady Lindores," cried Millefleurs. Those little beady eyes
of his saw everything. He ran forward to support her (he was just up to
her shoulder), putting forward a reclining-chair with one hand, picking
up a bottle of eau-de-Cologne with the other. He had all his wits about
him. "I am used to it. Sometimes my mother _se trouve mal_ in the same
way. It will pass over," he said encouragingly to Edith, who, unused to
anything of the kind, started up in alarm. "Dear Lady Lindores, put
yourself here."
"I am not ill," she said, almost angrily. "Pray do not make any--fuss.
How rude I am! but there is nothing the matter with me, I assure you.
The room is warm, that is all."
Millefleurs looked at her curiously. He put down the eau-de-Cologne, and
took his hand from the chair. For a moment he seemed about to speak, but
then stood aside more serious than his wont. In terror lest he should
have divined her thoughts, Lady Lindores returned to her seat, calming
herself down with an effort, and made the best attempt she could to
resume their easy conversation of the moment before. She was vexed
beyond measure when Edith, a short time after, left the room to go and
look for something which Millefleurs was anxious to see. He took instant
advantage of the opportunity thus afforded him. "Lady Lindores," he
said, with that serious air as of a candid child, going up to her, "you
are not ill, but you are vexed and angry, and it is something about me."
"About you, Lord Millefleurs! how could that be?--you have never given
me the least occasion to be angry."
"That is why," he said, gravely. "I see it all. You have nothing to
find fault with. I am quite innocent and harmless, yet I am in the way,
and you do not know how to tell me so. For my part, I have been so happy
here that I have forgotten all sorts of precautions. One does not think
of precautions when one is happy. Dear Lady Lindores, you shall tell me
exactly what I ought to do, and I will do it. I have all my life been
guided by women. I have such faith in a lady's instinct. I might be
confused, perhaps, in my own case, but you will hit upon the right
thing. Speak to me freely, I shall understand you at a word," the droll
little hero said. Now Lady Lindores was in a strait as serious as she
had ever experienced in her life; but when she glanced up at him, and
saw the gravity upon his baby face, his attitude of chubby attention,
such a desire to laugh seized her, that it was all she could do by main
force to keep her gravity. This insensibly relaxed the tension, and
restored her to her usual self-command. Still there was no denying that
the situation was a very peculiar one, and his request for guidance the
strangest possible. She answered hurriedly, in the confusion of her
mingled feelings--
"I don't know what there is to do, Lord Millefleurs, or how I can advise
you. A sudden want of breath--a consciousness all at once that it is a
very warm morning,--what can that have to do with you?"
"You will not tell me, then?" he said, with an air half disappointed,
half imploring.
"There is nothing to tell. Here is Edith. For heaven's sake, not another
word!" said Lady Lindores, in alarm. She did not perceive that she
betrayed herself in this very anxiety that her daughter should suspect
nothing. He looked at her very curiously once more, studying her face,
her expression, even the nervousness of the hand with which she swept
her dress out of her way. He was a young man full of experiences,
knowing all the ways of women. How far she was sincere--how far this
might be a little scheme, a device for his instruction, so that he might
see what was expected of him without any self-betrayal on the lady's
part--was what he wanted to know. Had it been so, he would at once have
understood his _rôle_. It is usual to say that simplicity and sincerity
are to the worldly-bred much more difficult to understand than art; but
there is something still more difficult than these. "Pure no-meaning
puzzles more than wit." Though Lady Lindores had far more meaning in her
than nine-tenths of her contemporaries, she was in this one case
absolutely incomprehensible from want of meaning. She had no more notion
than a child what to do, or even what she wished to be done. If this
little chubby fellow asked Edith to marry him, her mother believed that
the girl would laugh in his face. There could be no question of Edith
marrying him. But what then? Was Edith to be held up before the whole
world (according to Rintoul's version) as the plaything of this little
Marquis, as having failed to catch him, as being _planté là_. She was in
the most painful dilemma, not knowing any more than a child how to get
out of it. She gave him a look which was almost pathetic in its
incompetency. Lady Lindores was full of intellect--she was what is
called a very superior woman; but nobody would have been more stupid,
more absolutely without any power of invention in this crisis, which had
never come within the range of her calculations, which she had not been
able to foresee.
And that same afternoon Beaufort came by himself and was admitted, no
one else being in the drawing-room--no one to shield the poor lady, who
could not help remembering that this stranger was the man to whom she
had once given a mother's kiss, receiving him as a son. He did not
forget it either. He held her hand when she gave it him, and sat down by
her with an expression of satisfaction which she was very far from
sharing. "At last I find you alone," he said, with a sigh of content.
Poor Lady Lindores had already been so greatly tried this morning, that
she felt unable to keep up the strain. Why should she be forced to put
on so many semblances?
"Mr Beaufort," she cried, "I cannot pretend to be glad to see you alone.
Cannot you understand? You have been wronged,--we have treated you
badly,--they say it is the injured person who is always most ready to
forgive; but do not ask me to go into a matter which I have tried all
these years to forget."
"And yet," he said, gently, "I do not mean to reproach you, Lady
Lindores."
"That may be; I do not know that _you_ have much occasion to reproach
me. You were not yourself, perhaps, so much in earnest. No--I mean no
reproach either; but you are a man of your century too, according to the
usual slang. You don't force events, or do what is impossible. Men used
to do so in the old days."
He listened to her in silence, bowing his head two or three times. "I
accept your reproof," he said, a faint colour coming over his face. "I
am glad you have made it,--it helps me to understand. Lady Lindores,
there is something else I want to speak to you about. Lord Lindores has
invited me, with Millefleurs, in August----"
"With Millefleurs, in August? Has he asked Lord Millefleurs in August?"
Lady Lindores cried.
This was a great blow to Beaufort's self-opinion. He had thought,
naturally, that the embarrassment of his appearance as a visitor would
have overweighed everything else. He grew more red this time, with the
irritated shame which follows a slight.
"Certainly he has asked him. It is ridiculous that a young man so
entirely able to take care of himself should have any one in charge of
him; but as the Duke has implored me to keep his son company----Here is
my situation, Lady Lindores. God knows I would not thrust myself where I
might--where I should be--I mean, to cause the faintest embarrassment
to--any one."
"Mr Beaufort," cried Lady Lindores, "do not come, either of you!--oh,
never mind what I mean. What is the use of going over that old ground?
It would cause embarrassment--to me if to no one else. And Lord
Millefleurs--what does he want at Lindores? Let him stay away; persuade
him to stay away."
"But that is settled without any power of interference on my part. Of
course he thought you were aware. For myself, I am ready to give up my
own prospects, to sacrifice anything--rather than give you a moment's
anxiety."
Lady Lindores gazed at him for a moment with wide-open eyes, like a
creature at bay. Then she let her hands fall on her lap. "It is I that
need to be guided what to do," she said, with a sigh; "they are too many
for me. Oh, Edward! had we but remained poor and obscure, as we were
when you knew us----" She put out her hand instinctively, with a kind
of involuntary appeal. He took it, going upon his knees with that
movement, equally involuntary, which deep emotion suggests, and put it
to his lips. They were both overcome by a sudden flood of old sympathy,
old communion. "Has Carry forgotten me altogether--altogether? Is she
happy? God bless her!" he said.
It was in this attitude that Edith, coming in suddenly, surprised these
two imprudent people. She gave a cry of amazement, and, Lady Lindores
thought, reproach. "Mother! Edward!" The old name came to her lips, too,
in the shock.
"Edith," Lady Lindores cried, "your father has invited him with Lord
Millefleurs to Lindores."
"But I will do nothing save as you advise," said Beaufort, rising to his
feet.
Then the mother and the daughter consulted each other with their eyes.
"Of course he will--not----" Edith stopped and faltered. She had begun
almost with passion; but she was made to break off by the warning in her
mother's eyes. Lady Lindores, too, had gone through a shock and panic;
but now all the secondary elements came in--all those complications
which take truth out of life.
CHAPTER XVI.
The party at Tinto was increased by Dr Stirling and his wife, which made
six, instead of four as the master of the house had intended. His
meaning, so far as it was a meaning at all and not a mere impulse, was
to get John Erskine by himself, and with skilful art to worm himself
into the confidence of that open-hearted young man. Torrance had a great
opinion of his own skill in this way. He thought he could find out from
any man the inmost thoughts of his mind; and John seemed an easy victim,
a young fellow without suspicion, who might without difficulty be led
into betraying himself. Torrance had been overawed by the presence of
Edith, and forced into conviction when his wife appealed to her sister
on the subject of John; but he was without any confidence in the truth
of others, and after a time he began to persuade himself that Lady Car's
denial was not final, and that probably he should find out from John
himself something that would modify her tale. When he heard that his
wife had added to the party, he was furious. "I never said I wanted more
people asked," he said. "If I had wanted people asked, I should have let
you know. What do I want with a country parson, or minister, or whatever
you call him? When I'm ill you can send for the minister. I've got
nothing to say to him at present. It is for yourself, of course, you
want him. When there's nobody better, he does to try your arts on, Lady
Car."
"Yes," said Lady Car, with a faint smile, "I allow that I like to talk
to him--for lack of a better, as you say." Sometimes she had spirit
enough to be what he called aggravating, and Torrance grew red with a
sense of scorn implied. He was not stupid enough, seeing that he was so
little clever. He knew so much as to be constantly conscious that he was
below the mark.
"Confound it!" he said, "if you were to talk to your husband, it would
show more sense; but of course that would not answer your purpose." Why
it would not answer her purpose he had not any idea; but it is not
always necessary, especially in controversy, to know what you yourself
mean, and Carry did not inquire. Sometimes she was aggravating, but
sometimes she showed the better part of valour, and held her peace. That
was always the wise way. And accordingly there were six people who sat
down to the banquet at Tinto. It was truly a banquet though the party
was so small. The table was covered with plate, huge silver epergnes,
and loads of old-fashioned metal,--not old-fashioned, it must be
recollected, in the right way, but in the wrong way--monstrosities of
the age of William IV. or of the last George. Lady Caroline's taste had
been quite inoperative so far as these ornaments were concerned. Her
husband knew that she made light of them, and this usually influenced
him in the long-run. But he knew also what they had cost, and would not
yield a hair's-breadth. The table groaned under them as on the greatest
feast-days; and Mrs Stirling, if nobody else, was always deeply
impressed. "I tell the Doctor it's as good as reading a book upon the
East to see that grand camel and the silver palm-trees," this excellent
lady said. She thought it became a minster's wife to show a special
interest in the East.
"Well, it's not often they're seen in the east--of Scotland, Mrs
Stirling," said Tinto, with his large laugh. He had made the joke
before.
"Oh fie, Mr Torrance! ye must not be profane," Mrs Stirling said: and
they both laughed with a certain zest. Very few of Lady Car's guests
admired the palm-trees; but Mrs Stirling, by a blessed dispensation of
Providence, was always capable of this effort. "I hear they are not much
in the way of art," Torrance said--"people are ill to please nowadays;
but they're pure metal, and if they were only valued at so much an
ounce----"
"You may well say they're ill to please. Bless me, Mr Torrance! one of
them would be a fortune--just a fortune at that rate. When my little
Jeanie is of an age to be married you must lock up these fine things, or
there's no saying what I might be tempted to; but you never would miss
one when there's so many," Mrs Stirling said. It was a dispensation of
Providence. The Doctor himself devoutly wished he had his wife's faculty
of admiration, when, after keeping her host in good humour all the
evening, she withdrew with Lady Car, giving him a warning glance. All
three of the ladies addressed warning glances to the gentlemen left
behind. Even Nora, who had not spoken three words to John, and had, as
she said almost spitefully to herself, nothing whatever to do with him,
could not help warning him with her eyes to keep the peace.
Now this was the time which Torrance had looked forward to, when he
should cross-examine the new-comer, and get to the rights of the story
respecting John's previous acquaintance with his wife. He was balked and
he was angry, and all at once it became apparent to him that this was
Lady Car's design, and that she had done it to screen herself. "Doctor,
you like a good glass of wine," he said; "all parsons do, whatever be
the cut of the cloth. Here's some stuff that will soon lay you under the
table--unless you're seasoned like Erskine here, and me."
"I must take care, then, to give that stuff a wide berth," the Doctor
said gravely, yet with a smile.
"Ay, ay, but you must drink fair. We'll be having you take shelter with
the ladies. I don't mean to let Erskine off so easy. This is his first
dinner in my house. It ought to have been a state dinner, you know--all
the big-wigs in the county; but Erskine and Lady Car are old friends. I
think you knew the family intimately at--where was the place?"
"I met Miss Lindores, as she was then, in Switzerland," said John,
curtly. "It was to you that I was to apply, Dr Stirling, for particulars
about the asylum Lord Lindores is so much interested in."
"And a most important work," said Dr Stirling. "It is a strange thing to
think of in a country so well gifted as this by Providence, and with so
much intelligence, what a balance we have on the other side! You'll have
noticed almost every village has a 'natural' as the people call them,--a
half-witted innocent creature like Davie Gellatley in 'Waverley.'"
"What did you say was the name of the place?" said Torrance. "I'm bent
on making notes of all the places Lady Car's been in. She's a poet, you
know. Some time or other they will be wanted for her biography, don't
you see?"
"I have observed," said John, answering Torrance only with a little
bow--"I have noticed already one or two. Could nothing be done for
them?"
"But you don't answer me," said Torrance, "and when I tell you my
motive! That's my father-in-law's last fad. What is he so anxious about
the daft folk for, Dr Stirling? Is it a fellow-feeling?" He stopped to
laugh, making the table ring. "He was at me for my support, and to write
to the convener. Not I! I told him they had done well enough up to my
time, and they would do well enough after my time. What are we to put
ourselves about for? can you tell me that?"
"It is a disgrace to the county," said Dr Stirling. "No wonder the Earl
was horrified, that has seen things managed so differently. Mr Erskine,
if you will come and see me, I will tell you all about it. Sir John
stands out, just because the idea is new to him, not from any real
objection--for he's a good man and a charitable man at heart."
"You don't wonder at me, Doctor," said Torrance. "Do you think I'm not a
good man or a charitable? I'm standing out too. I'm saying, what should
we put ourselves about for? It's not us that makes them daft. And what's
done for the county up to our time may do now. Little Tam, he can see
to that: let him have the paying of it; it is not an amusement I'm fond
of----"
"And yet, Mr Torrance," said the Doctor,--"and yet--you'll excuse
me--here's what would almost build the place----"
This was an exaggeration. It was founded upon his wife's _naïve_
admiration of the Tinto plate; but it did not displease the proud owner
of all those pounds of silver. He laughed.
"You may take your word, it will never build the place, nor any such
place," he said. "No, Doctor, that's not my line--nor the Earl's either,
trust me. If you think he would strip his table or empty his purse for
all the idiots in Scotland, you're mistaken. You think it's all
benevolence and public spirit. Not a bit! He means to run Rintoul for
the county, and it's popularity he's wanting. There's always wheels
within wheels. My father-in-law thinks he's a very clever man,--and so
he is, I suppose. They're a clever family; but I can see through them,
though they don't think much of me."
Torrance had already consumed a good deal of wine. He had been crossed
in his purpose, and his temper roused. His dark face was flushed, and
his light eyes staring. Both his companions were men entirely out of
sympathy with him, who were there because they could not help it, and
who listened rather with angry shame that they should be parties to such
discourse, than with any amiable desire to cover his shortcomings. They
did not look at each other, but a slight uneasy movement on the part of
both was as good as a mutual confidence, and both began to speak at
once, with an anxious attempt to put an end to these unseemly
revelations.
"What fine weather we've been having for the crops!" said Dr Stirling.
And, "I wish you'd tell me what flies you use about here. I have had no
luck at all on the river," cried John.
But their host was on his mettle, and felt himself a match for them
both. "As for the weather, I've no land in my own hands--not such a
fool! and I don't care a----that for the crops! Flies! you may have the
finest in the world, but without sense you'll make nothing of them. Come
with me, and I'll let you see how to make them bite. But as I was
saying," Torrance went on, elevating his voice, "if you think his
lordship is bent on the good of the county, you're mistaken, I can tell
you. He means to get the seat for Rintoul. And who's Rintoul, to
represent a county like this? A boy, in the first place--not fledged
yet; what I call fledgling. And knows nothing about what we want. How
should he? He never was in the county in his life till four or five
years ago. You would have thought a man like old Lindores, that has
been about the world, would have had more sense. That's just it; a man
knocks about these little foreign places, and he thinks he knows the
world. Now there's me. I would not take the trouble of Parliament, not
for any inducement. It's no object to me. I prefer quiet and my own way.
There's nothing that any Ministry could give me, neither office nor rise
in life. I'm content to be Torrance of Tinto, as my father was before
me: but at all events, I am one that knows the county and its ways. I
could tell them what's wanted for Scotland. But no! a boy like Rintoul
that knows nothing--without sense or experience,--he's the man. My
father-in-law, for so clever as he is, has awful little sense."
"There is no seat vacant as yet," said Dr Stirling; "we might leave that
question, Tinto, till the time comes."
"That's your old-fashioned way," said Torrance; "but his lordship is a
man of his century, as they call it. He'll not wait till the last
moment. He'll get himself known as the friend of Liberal measures, and
all that. All his tools are in the fire now; and when the time comes to
use them, they'll be hot and handy." Then he laughed, turning his eyes
from one to another. "You're his tools," he said.
It was not possible for either of the listeners to conceal the
irritation with which they received this sudden shot. They looked at
each other this time with a sudden angry consultation. Dr Stirling
touched his empty glass significantly with the forefinger of one hand,
and held up the other as a warning. "It seems to me," he said, "that it
would be an excellent thing about this time of the night to join the
ladies. It will very soon be time for my wife and me to go."
"He is afraid of his wife, you see, Erskine," said Torrance, with his
laugh. "We're all that. Keep out of the noose as long as you can, my
lad. You may be very thankful for what you've missed, as well as what
you've got."
"I suppose you mean something by what you are saying, Mr Torrance," said
John, "but I do not understand what it is."
Upon this Torrance laughed louder than before. "He's confounded
sly--confounded sly. He'll not let on he knows--that's because you're
here, Doctor. Join the ladies, as you say--that is far the best thing
you can do--and Erskine and I will have a glass more."
"A great deal better not, Tinto," said the Doctor; "you know it's not
the fashion now: and Lady Caroline will wonder what's become of us. It's
a little dark down the avenue, and my wife is nervous. You must come
and shake hands with her before she goes."
Both the guests rose, but the master of the house kept his seat. "Come,
Erskine, stay a bit, and tell me about--about--what was the name of the
place? Let the Doctor go. He has his sermon to write, no doubt, and his
wife to please. Go away, Doctor, we'll join you presently," Torrance
said, giving him a jocular push towards the door. "Come, Erskine, here's
a new bottle I want your opinion of. If you ever drank a glass of claret
like it, it will be a wonder to me."
John stood hesitating for a moment. Then he took his seat again. If he
was to quarrel with this fellow, better, he thought, to have it out.
"You want to question me," he said; "then do so simply, and you shall
have my answer. I am unaware what the point is; but whatever it is,
speak out--I do not understand hints. I am quite at your service if I
can furnish you with any information.
"Go away, Doctor," said Torrance, with another push. "Tell them we're
coming. I'll be in time to shake hands with Mrs Stirling: join the
ladies--that's the right thing to do."
The minister was in a great strait. He stood looking from one to
another. Then he went out slowly, closing the door softly behind him,
but lingering in the anteroom, that if any conflict of voices arose, he
might be at hand to interfere. Torrance himself was sobered by the
gravity of the proceeding. He did not speak immediately, but sat and
stared at the companion with whom he was thus left _tête-à-tête_. He had
not expected that John would have courage to meet this interrogation;
and notwithstanding his pertinacity, he was disconcerted. Erskine met
his gaze calmly, and said, "You wanted to ask me some questions. I am
quite at your disposal now."
"Question?--no, not so much a question," faltered the other, coming to
himself. "I'm sure--I beg your pardon--no offence was meant. I
asked--for information."
"And I shall be glad to give you any I possess."
Torrance made a pause again; then he burst out suddenly--"Hang it, man,
I didn't mean to give you any offence! I asked you--there couldn't be a
simpler question--what was the name of the place where--you met my--you
met the Lindores----"
"The place was a mountain inn on the way to Zermatt--a very secluded
place. We were there only about six weeks. Mr Lindores (then) and his
family were very friendly to us because of my name, which he knew. I
suppose you have some ulterior meaning in these questions. What is it? I
will answer you in all respects, but I ought to know what it means
first."
Torrance was entirely cowed. "It means nothing at all," he said. "I
daresay I am an idiot. I wanted to know----"
"We were there six weeks," repeated John--"an idle set of young men, far
better pleased with mountain expeditions than with our books. We did
little or nothing; but we were always delighted to meet a family-party
so pleasant and friendly. There we parted, not knowing if we should meet
again. I did not even know that Mr Lindores had come to the title. When
I found them here it was the greatest surprise to me. I had never even
heard----"
"Erskine," cried Torrance--by this time he had drank several more
glasses of wine, and was inclined to emotion--"Erskine, you're an honest
fellow! Whoever likes may take my word for it. You're an honest fellow!
Now my mind's at rest. I might have gone on suspecting and doubting,
and--well, you know a man never can be sure: but when another fellow
stands up to him honest and straightforward--" he said, getting up to
his feet with a slight lurch towards John, as if he would have thrown
himself upon his shoulder; and then he laughed with a gurgle in his
breath, and thrust his arm through that of his reluctant guest. "We're
friends for life," said Torrance; "you're an honest fellow! I always had
a fancy for you, John Erskine. Letsh join the ladies, as that old fogy
of a Doctor said."
The old fogy of a Doctor, who had been hanging about in alarm lest he
might be called upon to stop a quarrel, had no more than time to hurry
on before them and get inside the drawing-room door, before the master
of the house pushed in, still holding John by the arm. "Here," Torrance
cried, depositing his unwilling companion suddenly with some force in a
chair by Lady Caroline's side--"here, talk to her! You can talk to her
as much as you please. An honest fellow--an honest fellow, Lady Car!"
Then he made a somewhat doubtful step to Mrs Stirling, and stood over
her diffusing an atmosphere of wine around him. Poor ladies! in the
drawing-room, even in this temperate age, how often will a man approach
them, and sicken the air in their clean presence with fumes of wine! The
minister's wife was tolerant of the sins of the squires; but she
coughed, poor soul, as she was enveloped in these powerful odours.
"Well, Mrs Stirling," Torrance said, with cumbrous liveliness, "your
husband here, we could not get him away from his wine. We've been doing
nothing but talk of coming up-stairs this quarter of an hour; but get
the Doctor to budge from his wine--no! that was more than we could do,"
and he ended with a loud guffaw. The Doctor's wife coughed, and smiled a
sickly smile upon the great man, and shook her head with a "Fie,
William!" at her husband. "Dear me, dear me!" Mrs Stirling said after,
as she walked down the avenue with her Shetland shawl over her head,
holding close by her husband's arm, "when I think of poor Lady Caroline,
my heart's sore. That muckle man! and oh, the smell of him, William!
You're not so particular as you should be in that respect, the best of
ye--but I thought I would have fainted with him hanging over me. And
that fragile, delicate bit woman!" "She should not have married him,"
the Doctor said, curtly. But his wife was a merciful woman; and she did
not feel sure how far a girl would have been justified in refusing such
a marriage. She shook her head, and said, "Poor thing!" from the bottom
of her heart.
"I am glad I have met with Mr Torrance's approval," John said; but Carry
gave him so wistful a deprecating look, that he was silent. And he had
not yet escaped from his uncomfortable host. When Mrs Stirling went away
with her husband, Torrance, whose sole idea of making himself agreeable
to a woman was by rough banter, transferred himself with another lurch
to Nora. "And how's the old soldier?" he said. "I suppose he's going
over all the men within fifty miles to see who will make the best
husband, eh? It was all I could do to keep out of their hands when I was
a bachelor. If they had had their will, Lady Car would never have had
the chance of me: no great harm in that perhaps, you will say. But you
must not be saucy, Miss Nora. Men are not so easy to get when all's
said."
"No, indeed," said Nora--"men like you, Mr Torrance. I could not hope,
you know, to be so lucky as Lady Car."
Upon this, though his head was not very clear, the uneasy Laird grew
red, fearing satire. It was perfectly true, to his own thinking; but he
was enlightened enough to know that Nora had another meaning. He would
have liked to punish the little saucy chit, who held up (he thought) her
little face to his so disdainfully in his own house. As lucky as Lady
Car, indeed! She should have no luck at all, with that impudence of
hers. It would serve her right if she never got the offer of any man.
But he dared not say exactly what he thought. Conventional restraints,
in such a case, were too much for the free-born wit even of Pat Torrance
of Tinto.
"That's a great compliment to me, no doubt," he said; "but never be
down-hearted. There is as good fish in the sea as ever came out of the
net. There's our neighbour here, for instance," he said, stooping to
speak confidentially, and jerking his thumb over his shoulder at John,
with one of his usual bursts of laughter. "Now, what do you think of
him, Miss Nora? A real honest fellow, I can testify, and a nice little
property. What do you think of him?"
The tone was meant to be confidential, but it was loud enough to have
reached any ear in the room; and it was Nora's turn to redden with anger
intolerable. She jumped up, while he stood and laughed, shaking his
sides. "I've given her a poser there," he said. "I've given her her
answer there." He could not help returning to it, as, much against
Nora's will, he accompanied her to the door and put her into the little
pony-carriage which had come for her. "You must think of what I say,
Miss Nora. You would be very comfortable. You'll see that's what the old
soldier is driving at. And I don't think you could do better, if you'll
take my advice."
John, who had followed down-stairs, not wishing to have any more than he
could avoid of his host's society, saw the indignant countenance of Nora
looking out wrathfully upon himself as the carriage turned from the
door. What had he done to deserve the angry look? But the other,
standing somewhat unsteadily on the steps, greeted the departure with a
laugh that was loud and long.
"One good turn deserves another," he said. "I've put her against you,
Erskine, and that's the best thing I could do. Mind what you're about,
my fine fellow, or you'll fall into some snare or other. I would not
marry, if I were you. You have enough for one, but it wouldn't be enough
for two. If you manage Dalrulzian well, you may be very comfortable as
an unmarried man. Take my advice. Of course they will all be setting
their caps at you. There's Aggie Sempill--she thought she had got me:
but no, I knew better. Truly in vain is the snare set in the sight of
any bird. There! you've Scripture for it. And now here's Nora
Barrington----"
John grasped his arm violently. "Be silent!" he cried in his ear. The
butler stood on the steps behind laughing decorously under his breath,
as in duty bound, at his master's joke. John's new groom at his horse's
head grinned respondent. What he would have given to take the big clown
by the collar and fling him into the midst of the bushes! But this was
not to be thought of. Such violent impulses have to be repressed
nowadays.
"Well, well, we'll name no names," said Tinto. "They'll all be after
you; no need to name names. And I'll tell them all you're an honest
fellow. Don't you be led away by his lordship, no more than the women.
Keep your vote to yourself, and your heart to yourself, that's my
advice. Good night to you, John--you're a very decent fellow," cried the
big voice in the darkness. Torrance had found out that this epithet
annoyed young Erskine, and he liked it all the better in consequence. He
shouted it after him into the night, as with another great laugh he went
back into his house to Lady Car. Alas, poor Carry! The others went away,
shook off the disagreeable presence, got out of the atmosphere of his
wine and the roar of his laugh; but Carry, than whom there was no more
fastidious, delicately nurtured woman--Carry sat helpless, scared,
awaiting him. Whatever happened, she could not run away.
As for John, he flew down the avenue in the dark, taking that turn on
the top of the scaur, which was allowed by everybody to be so dangerous,
without knowing anything about it, guided by instinct and rage; for he
had never been there before. When they had passed the danger, Peter, the
groom, drew a long breath. "That's past, the Lord be thankit!" he said.
It was natural that Peter should suspect his master of sitting long
after dinner, and sharing the excitement of his host.
"What's past?" said John, angrily: he had nearly taken an inner gate,
dogcart and all, as if it had been a fence. His horse was fresh, and his
mind ablaze with irritation and impatience. "What's past?" he repeated,
angrily, when the man clambered up again to his side.
"That corner, sir, they call the Scaur. There used to be a paling, but
it fell to pieces, and this Laird--I beg your pardon, sir--young Tinto,
that is a perfect deevil when he's on a horse, would never let it be
mended. It's a' cleared away, and there's a grand view when there's
daylicht to see it, and doun-bye the sound o' the river roaring. If it
werena for the horse's feet and the rate we're going, you would hear it
now."
"You think we're going too fast----"
"Na--no me," said the groom, cautiously, "now that I see, sir, you ken
what's what. But it's a fickle corner in the dark. Not to know is maybe
the best way. When you ken, you're apt to be ower cautious or ower
bold--one's as bad as the ither. A wrang step, a bit swing out on the
open, and there would be no help for ye. Neither you nor me, sir, would
have seen a freend belonging to us again."
"It is unpardonable," said John, "if this is so, to leave it without
protection or notice."
"Well, sir, you see it's no just the richt road. It's a short cut. You
take the left hand at thae lily-oaks. I thought you bid to ken, as you
took it so bold, without a moment's thought. I wouldna advise you to do
it again. Tinto, he's a perfect deevil on horseback, as I was saying.
He's aye riding that way. They say he'll break his neck sometime or
other, he's so wild and reckless--ower that scaur----"
"And no such great loss either," cried John, in his indignation. He
hoped the words were not audible, in the rush of his horse's hoofs and
jingle of the harness, the moment they had left his lips; and he was
annoyed by the confidential tone of Peter's reply.
"Maybe no, sir. There's plenty is of that opinion. There was mair tint
at Shirramuir."
John felt as if he had condescended to gossip with his servant about his
neighbour, and was ashamed of himself. But as he reviewed the events of
the evening his pulses beat higher and higher. That he should have
pleased this big bully, and received the offer of his friendship, was
something half humiliating, half ridiculous. But what could he do? The
bonds of neighbourhood are stringent: that you must not, if possible,
quarrel with, or markedly avoid, or put any slight upon, the man whose
lands march with your own, is a self-evident proposition. And the
husband of Carry Lindores! When John thought of this part of it, there
escaped from him an almost groan of horror and pity. The rest of the
party had dispersed, and were free of the big laugh, the rude jests, the
fierce staring eyes; but Carry remained behind.
Peter the groom did not feel so sure that his new master had partaken
too freely of the wine at Tinto, which everybody knew to be better and
stronger than wine anywhere else, by the time they got to Dalrulzian.
But he announced that he was "just one of Tinto's kind, a deevil when
he's behind a horse," as he took his supper. This, however, was a
suggestion which brought down upon his head the indignant displeasure of
Bauby, who regretted audibly that she had kept the potatoes hot for such
an ill-speaking loon--and of Rolls, who, accepting the praise implied,
put down the superficial judgment of this new-comer as it deserved.
"There will no man beat an Erskine for clear head and steady hands," he
said, "if that's what you ca' being of Tinto's kind; but you'll observe,
my lad, that we're a' of a reasonable age, and I'll have nane o' your
rash opinions here."
CHAPTER XVII.
"Oh yes, that's true--I'm an old Tory. I'm proud of the name," said Sir
James, with his genial countenance. "If you'll believe me, my young
friend, most changes are for the worse. When I remember, before I went
to India, what a cheery world it was--none of those new-fangled notions
were so much as thought of--we were all kindly one with another, as
country neighbours should be. The parish school--that was good enough
for me. I got the most of my schooling there. We had a grand
dominie--there was not a more learned man out of St Andrews or Aberdeen.
Old Robert Beatoun the blacksmith was at the school with me. We've been
great friends ever since, but I cannot say that he ever took anything
upon him in consequence. That's one of your new-fangled notions too--to
part all the world into classes, and then, when their habits are formed
and their ways of living settled, to proclaim they're all equal. No,
no--they're not all equal; you may take my word for it, though I'm no
Solomon."
"I don't think so, either, Sir James; but pardon me, if you found no
evil in going to the same school as the old blacksmith----"
"Not a pin, sir--not a pin!" cried the old general. "We respected each
other. We were great friends, but not associates. I had my own cronies,
and he had his: but we always respected each other. And do you think to
sit on the same bench with a wholesome country lad in corduroy breeks
was worse for me than being packed up with a set of little dandies,
taking care of their books and keeping their hands clean, and sent out
of their own country till they're made strangers to it, as comes to pass
with your Eton, and the rest of them----I ask your pardon, Erskine. I
forgot you were there yourself----"
"There is no offence," said John. "I think I agree with you so far; but,
Sir James, your theory is far more democratic, far more levelling----"
"Me democratic and levelling!" said Sir James. "That will be news. No,
no; that was all in the course of nature. When a lad was to be pushed in
the world, his friends pushed him. You cannot do that now. When you saw
your friend with a houseful of children, you would say to him, 'What are
you going to do with those fine lads of yours?' and if you knew a
director, or had influence to hear of a writer-ship, or a set of
colours.--Now, ye cannot help on your friend's boys, and ye cease to
think of them. What little ye might do, ye forget to do it. Robert
Beatoun's grandson, you'll tell me, got in high on the list for those
competition-wallahs, as they call them. Well, I say nothing against it.
The lad is a good lad, though he was never brought up in the way of
having men under him, and he'll feel the want of that when he gets to
India. The like of me--we were poor enough, but we had always been used
to be of the officer kind. That makes a great difference; and if you
think we did our work worse for having no bother about examinations----"
"That has proved itself, Sir James. Nobody pretends to say it did not
work well."
"Then why change it?" said the old man. "And about your hospitals and
things. When there was a poor natural, as they call it, in a village,
everybody was good to the creature; and do you think the honest folk
that had known it all its life would not put up with it, and feel for
it, more than servants in an hospital? When we had a burden to bear, we
bore it in those days, and did the best we could for our own. We didn't
shuffle them off on the first person's shoulders that would take them
up."
All this John had brought upon himself by his reference to Lord
Lindores's scheme. Whatever might be well with respect to the election,
he had felt that there could be but one voice in respect to a hospital;
but John had soon been convinced that in that respect also there
certainly was more than one voice.
"But I suppose," he said, feeling somewhat confused by this style of
reasoning, for it was not a subject upon which the young man had thought
for himself,--"I suppose, for the suffering and miserable--for those out
of the common line of humanity, more badly off, less capable than their
neighbours--hospitals are necessary."
"Let those that belong to them care for them, sir," cried Sir James.
"I'm saying it in no hard-hearted way. Do you not think that when a
trouble is sent upon a family, it's far better for the family to make a
sacrifice--to draw close together, to bear it, and take care of their
own? That's always been my opinion--that was the practice long syne. If
ye had a thorn in the flesh, ye supported it. When one was ill, the rest
took care of him. There were no hired sick-nurses in those days. When ye
had a fever, your mother nursed you. If you were blind or lame, every
one would give you a little, and nobody grudged your meat or your drink.
And that was how Scotland was kept so independent, and the poor folk
hated debt and beggary. Once you give your own duty over to other
folks, you sacrifice that," the old soldier said, with conviction. Sir
James was of the class of men who are never more entirely at home than
when they are exercising the duties of beneficence--the sort of men who
manage hospitals and establish charities by nature. Had the county
hospital been existing, he it was, and not Lord Lindores, who would have
given time and trouble to it; but Sir James was as full of prejudices as
a hearty, healthy old gentleman has a right to be. He would not give in
to the new thing; and his arguments were shrewd, although he himself
would have been the last to be bound by them. He would have taken the
burden off a poor man's shoulders and carried it himself without a
compunction. Saying is one thing and doing another, all the world over;
only it is usual that people profess not less, but more, benevolent
sentiments than are natural to them. Sir James took the other way.
"You must excuse me saying," the old general went on, "that you must not
trust too much to Lord Lindores. Part of it is political, there is no
doubt about that. He's wanting to get a character for being
public-spirited and a useful member of his party. They tell me he's
thinking of bringing in his son in the case of an election, but that
would never do--that is to say, from my point of view," said Sir James,
laughing; "you're on the other side?--ah, to be sure, I had forgotten
that. Well, I suppose we're all meaning the same thing,--the good of the
country; but depend upon it, that's not to be procured in this way. The
Lindores family are very excellent people--very worthy people; but
they're new-fangled--they have lived abroad, and they have got foreign
notions into their heads."
"Benevolent institutions are, above all others, English notions--or so,
at least, I have always heard," John said.
This brought a slight flush on the old man's cheek. "Well, I believe you
are right--I think you are right. I will not go against that. Still it
is a great pity to bring foreign notions into a quiet country place."
They were walking up and down the lawn at Chiefswood, where a party of
country neighbours were about to assemble. It was a kind of gathering
which had scarcely been acclimatised in the North; and the pleasure of
sitting out, though the seats were comfortably arranged in the most
sheltered spot, was at the best an equivocal one; but fortunately the
drawing-room, with its large bright windows overlooking the scene of the
gentle gaieties provided for, was behind, and there already some groups
had collected. John Erskine, without being aware of it, was the hero of
the feast. He was the new-comer, and everybody was willing to do him
honour. It was expected that he was to be the chief performer in those
outdoor games which were not yet very well known to the young people.
And it was somewhat disconcerting that he should have chosen this moment
to discourse with old Sir James upon the county hospital, and the poor
lunatics and imbeciles of the district, for whose benefit Lord Lindores
was so anxious to legislate. Had it been any other subject, the old
general would have dismissed the young man to his peers, for Sir James
had a great notion that the young people should be left to entertain
each other. But as it happened, the theme was one which had disturbed
his genial mind. He was vexed at once in his prejudices, and in his
honest conviction that the county, to which he was so glad to get back
after his long exile, was the best managed and most happy of districts.
He had found nothing amiss in it when he came home. It had been welcome
to him in every detail of the old life which he remembered so well.
There were too many changes, he thought, already. He would have liked to
preserve everything. And to have it suggested by a new gingerbread,
half-English, half-foreign intruder, with all the light-minded ways that
belonged to the unknown races on the Continent, that the beloved county
wanted reorganisation, almost betrayed the old man into ill-humour. The
guests kept arriving while he talked, but he talked on, giving forth
his views loosely upon general questions. "We're going the wrong road,"
he said, "aye seeking after something that's new. The old way was the
best. Communistic plans are bad things, whatever ye may say for them;
and shuffling off your sick and your poor on other folk's hands, and
leaving them to the public to provide for, what's that but communism?
You'll never get me to consent to it," Sir James said.
"Where is the general?" Lady Montgomery was saying in the drawing-room.
"Bless me! has nobody seen Sir James? He cannot expect me to go out
without my bonnet, and get my death of cold setting all the young people
agoing. No, no, I told him that. I said to him, you may put out the
chairs, but if you think Barbara Erskine and me, and other sensible
women, are going to sit there in a May day and get back all our winter
rheumatism, you are mistaken, Sir James. But now, where is the general?
Nora, you must just go and look for him, and say I'm surprised that he
should neglect his duty. When I yielded to this kind of party, which is
not my notion of pleasure, I told him plainly he must take the lawn part
of it upon his own hands."
"And where's my nephew John?" said Miss Barbara Erskine, who sat in one
of the seats of honour, within pleasant reach of a bright fire. "Nora,
when you look for Sir James, you'll look for him too. I'm affronted,
tell him, that he was not the first to find me out."
"I hear Mr Erskine is a great friend of the Lindores," said Mrs Sempill.
"Having no son at home, I have not had it in my power, Miss Barbara, to
show him any attention, but I hoped to make his acquaintance to-day.
They tell me he knew the Lindores well in their former circumstances.
That is, no doubt, a fine introduction for him to the county."
"If an Erskine of Dalrulzian wanted any introduction," said Miss
Barbara, "it would be a very ill one, in my opinion. For there are as
many that think ill of them as there are that think well of them, and
they're not our kind of people. But John Erskine wants nobody to
introduce him, I hope. His father's son, and my father's great-grandson,
should have well-wishers enough."
"And a well-looking, well-spoken young man. He minds me of your uncle
Walter, the one that went abroad," said old Mrs Methven of the
Broomlees. She was older than Miss Barbara, older than the imagination
could conceive. Her memory slipped all the recent generation, and went
back to heights of antiquity unknown. Miss Barbara Erskine was still a
young person to this old lady, and Sir James a frisky young soldier.
"Walter Erskine was the first person I ever saw that wore his own hair
without so much as a ribbon. It had a terrible naked look, but you soon
got used to it. This one is like him. But you'll scarcely mind him. He
was young when he left the county. I cannot remember if you were born."
"He's like his father, which is not so far back," Miss Barbara said.
"Bless me, bless me! where is the general?" cried Lady Montgomery. She
was standing in front of the great bow-window which looked upon the
lawn, with her beautiful Indian shawl on her shoulders. Grouped upon the
grass were several parties of the younger people, not quite knowing what
to do with themselves. Some of the ladies, wrapped in warm cloaks and
shawls, were seated round, waiting for some novelty of amusement with
which they were unacquainted, and wondering when it was going to begin.
It seemed to Lady Montgomery the most dreadful neglect of duty that
there was no one to set the young people agoing. "Will anything have
happened to Sir James?" she said, in anxious Scotch, and cast a glance
back at the pleasant fire, and wrapped her shawl more closely round,
with a sense that Providence might require of her the heroic effort of
stepping outside. But just then she perceived in the distance that her
general had been captured, and was being led back in triumph to the lawn
by Nora and Agnes Sempill, two of his chief favourites. John followed
after them, looking by no means triumphant. When Lady Montgomery saw
this, she gave a nod of satisfaction, and returned to the fire.
"Whatever they're going to do, it'll begin now," she said. "If it's
worth looking at, we can see it from the window; but for my part, I'm
very anxious about putting folk to sit on the grass at this time of the
year. I would not wonder to hear of bronchitis or inflammation after
it--but it's none of my doing. Sir James is just daft about all the
new-fashioned ways of amusing young people. For my part, I say there's
nothing like the old way. Just to clear out the rooms, and get the
fiddlers, and let them dance. But that would be a daftish thing too, in
daylight," the old lady said; for she was not at all up to the current
of events.
It was, I believe, the venerable game of croquet which was the
"new-fashioned thing" in question, and which all the people outside
crowded round to see, while a few highly-instructed young persons, who
had brought the knowledge from "the South," proceeded, with much modest
importance, to exhibit for the benefit of their neighbours. "It's quite
easy," they said, each feeling a sort of benevolent missionary. John
Erskine was one of these _illuminati_, and he was the partner of Agnes
Sempill, the girl who had trembled for a moment lest Mr Torrance of
Tinto might be going to select her from the many that smiled upon him.
She would have married him had this been; but it must be said for her
that she was unfeignedly glad to have escaped. This having been the
case, it will be apparent that poor Agnes was no longer in her first
youth. She was five or six and twenty--young enough, yet not altogether
a girl; and she knew, poor young woman, that she must marry the next man
who offered himself,--they were so poor! and her mother did not fail to
impress upon her that she was losing all her chances. She looked upon
John Erskine, accordingly, with more critical interest than is
ordinarily felt. He was about her own age, but she decided that he was
too young; and she hoped, whatever he was going to do in the matrimonial
way, that he would show his intentions at once, and not force her mother
into unnecessary efforts. "Too young--but he might do very well for
Mary," she said to herself; and then she turned to him to talk about
croquet, as if there was no such important subject.
"It is such a thing to have something that can be played out of doors!"
she said. "Well, not so much in Scotland, that is true, but still we
want a little variety. Do you play golf, Mr Erskine? The ladies' golf is
very nice; it is only _Putting_--but you won't understand what that
means. At St Andrews there is the Ladies' Links----"
"Which sound romantic and picturesque, at least."
"Oh, it is not at all romantic--picturesque after a sort. Seaside
slopes--what you call downs in England; but I can't describe it. Is it
my turn? You should be able to get me nicely through that hoop next
stroke you make. Sir James is always the first to get us any novelty
that is going. He is always on the outlook for something. This is the
very first in the county. They have not got croquet yet even at
Lindores."
"Does Lindores generally set the fashion?" said John indiscreetly, not
knowing what to say.
"The fashion! oh no, certainly not," cried Miss Sempill. "Of course they
are the highest rank, and walk in and out before us all; but for
anything else----You used to know them, I hear, Mr Erskine. Tell me
something about them. Oh, we are neighbours, but not great friends. We
do not move about very much; we are humble people, without carriages and
horses. I suppose _they_ lived very quietly before----"
"I only knew them," said John, learning to employ the universal formula,
"abroad; and as the way of living is so different----"
"Ah! is it really so?" said Agnes, with quick interest; "do people
really live so much cheaper abroad? I suppose you are not expected to
keep up appearances in the same way; and then you get all your
amusements so cheaply, and you can do a great deal, and go about a great
deal, on very little. I have always heard that. But when you've a large
family, the mere travelling must be a large item. I should think it
would swallow up all the savings for the first year."
The question was one which interested her so much that she scarcely left
time for a reply.
"I have often thought of it," she said. "The girls, poor things, get so
little to amuse them here. Abroad, so far as one hears, there is nothing
but amusement. Concerts and operas for next to nothing, and always a
band playing somewhere--isn't it so? And you get houses quite cheap, and
servants that will turn their hand to anything. I suppose the Lindores
lived in quite a humble way out there?"
"They moved about a great deal, I believe," said John. "In summer, in
the mountains, whether you are rich or poor, it does not make much
difference."
This was all the young man knew. Miss Sempill interrupted him with an
eager light in her eyes, "Doesn't it, really? Then that is the ideal
place I have been looking for all my life--a place where, to be rich or
poor, makes no difference----Oh, is it my turn again? what a nuisance!
Mr Erskine is telling me of a place I have dreamt of all my life."
"But you must bestir yourself--you must bestir yourself," cried the old
general. "Reflect, my dear; you're one of many--you must not mind your
own enjoyment for the moment. Ay, my young friend, so you've been
telling a lady of a place she's dreamed of all her life?--that's better
than bothering your head about hospitals or my lord's schemes. Come,
come, John Erskine, put your heart into it: here are some of the
bonniest faces in the North waiting to see you play."
John was not dull to this inducement. It was a pretty group which
gathered round as spectators, watching every stroke. All the Sempill
girls, an eager group of pretty portionless creatures, eager for every
kind of pleasure, and getting very little, envious in a sisterly way of
Agnes, who knew the new game, and who had secured the new gallant. They
were envious yet proud of her. "Our Agnes knows all about it," they
said; "she has tried to teach us; but one person can never teach a game:
when you see it played, you learn in a moment." They looked over each
other's shoulders to see John play, which he did very badly, as was
natural; and then they dropped him and followed the next player, Willie
Montgomery, Sir James's grand-nephew, who, they all agreed, did a great
deal better. Our young man, in spite of himself, felt a little
discomfited. He came back to his partner to be consoled,--though, as he
had failed to do her the service with her ball which she expected, she
was a little dissatisfied too. She was disposed to be cross because her
play in the new game had failed of its triumphant effect through her
partner's fault. "You have not played much, Mr Erskine, I suppose? Oh,
it does not matter--when nobody knows, one style of play is just as good
as another; but I thought no one could have missed that ball. Never
mind, it is not of the least importance. Tell me more about--abroad."
"If you will tell me," said John, much mortified by these remarks, "what
you understand by abroad."
"Oh, it is all a little the same thing, isn't it? The first place you
can think of--where the Lindores lived. I daresay it was just as
important to them then as it is to us now to be economical, and spend as
little as they could."
"The interest that people take in the place where I met the Lindores is
astonishing," said John. "I had to go through a catechism at Tinto the
other night."
"Ah! then you have been at Tinto. Do you think, Mr Erskine, they are so
very unhappy as people say?"
"I do not know what people say," was all the answer John could make.
"There is nothing they don't say," cried Miss Sempill; "that he beats
her--I have heard as much as that. I wonder if it can be at all her
fault? I never cared for Pat Torrance myself, but nobody thought _that_
of him before he was married. Do you think, perhaps, if she had taken a
little more interest at first----One can never tell; he was always
rough, but not such a savage as that."
"I have no opinion on the subject. I am only a stranger, you know," John
said.
"Ah! but I can see your opinion in your face. You think it is he that is
to blame. Well, so he is, no doubt; but there are generally faults,
don't you think, on both sides? And then, you see, she was brought up
abroad--one always feels that is a little risky for a girl. To be sure,
you may turn upon me and say, why ask so many questions about it if you
hold such an opinion of it? But there is a difference: we are all grown
up but Lucy; and if mamma and five of us cannot take care of
Lucy----Both of the Lindores have that disadvantage. Don't you think
Lady Edith is a little high and mighty? She thinks none of us are good
enough for her. They are not very friendly, neither the one nor the
other. They don't feel at home among us, I suppose. No doubt it is our
fault as much as theirs," this candid critic said.
Thus John heard nothing but the same sentiment over and over again
repeated. His friends were not popular, and he himself stood in some
danger of being reckoned as of their faction. There was no one so bold
as to undertake the defence of Torrance; and yet there was a certain
toleration accorded to him, as if his case had extenuating
circumstances. John did not distinguish himself that afternoon as his
friends expected him to do. His play was feeble, and did no credit to
his training in "the South;" and as he continued to be interrogated by
every new-comer about his own antecedents and his former acquaintance
with the Lindores, it was difficult for him to repress all signs of
impatience. There was not very much variety in the talk of the county,
to judge by these specimens. They all asked how he liked the North, what
he thought of the society, and something or other about the absent
family. The monotony was broken when he was taken into the drawing-room
to be surveyed by the old ladies. Old Mrs Methven, in her old yellow
lace and shabby feathers, who looked to him like a superannuated
cockatoo, pronounced once more that he was the image of Walter Erskine,
who was killed in the French war, and who was the first man she ever saw
in his own hair, without even a ribbon. "It looked very naked like," the
old lady repeated; "no just decent, but you soon got used to it." When
these greetings and introductions were over, Miss Barbara took his arm,
and declared her intention of taking a turn on the green and inspecting
the new game. But it was not the game which interested the old lady. She
had a word of warning to say.
"John, my man! at your age you think little of good advice--above all,
from an old woman; but just one word. You must not bind yourself hand
and foot to the Lindores. You have your own place to uphold, and the
credit of your family. We've all formed our opinion of _them_; and if
you're to be considered as one of them, a kind of retainer of
theirs----"
"Retainer!" cried John, deeply piqued. Then he made an effort to recover
his temper. "You must see how unreasonable this is," he said, with a
forced smile. "They are the only people I know. I have the greatest
respect for them all, but I have done nothing to--identify myself with
the family."
He spoke with some heat, and reddened, much to his annoyance. What way
but one was there of identifying himself with them? and what hope was
there that he would ever be permitted to do that? The mere suggestion in
his own bosom made him red, and then pale.
"You take up their opinions--you support their plans; you're a partisan,
or so they tell me. All that is bad for you, John, my man! You'll excuse
me speaking; but who should take an interest in you if it's not me?"
"All this is absurd," he cried. "Take up their opinions! I think the
Earl is right about a county hospital. I will support him in that with
all my heart. Your favourite minister, Aunt Barbara----"
"I have no favourite minister," said Miss Barbara, somewhat sharply. "I
never let myself be influenced by one of them. You mean the Doctor, I
suppose?--he's far too advanced for me. Ay, that's just the man I'm
meaning. He tells me you're taking up all the Lindores's plans--a great
satisfaction to him, for he's a partisan too. Mind, I say nothing
against the hospital. What other places have, we ought to have too. We
have the same needs as our neighbours. If Perth has one, I would have
one--that's my principle. But I would not take it up because it's a plan
of Lord Lindores's. And I hear you and that muckle lout Pat Torrance
were nearly coming to blows----"
"Is that the minister too?" John cried, angrily.
"No, it's not the minister; the minister had nothing to say to it. Don't
you take up a prejudice against the minister. That's just as silly as
the other way. It was another person. Pat Torrance is just a brute; but
you'll make little by taking up the defence of the weaker side there. A
woman should hold her tongue, whatever happens. You must not set up, at
your age, as the champion of ill-used wives."
"So far from that," said John, with fierce scorn, "the tipsy brute swore
eternal friendship. It was all I could do to shake him off."
But Miss Barbara still shook her head. "Let them redd their quarrels
their own way," she said. "Stand you on your own feet, John. You should
lay hands suddenly on no man, the Apostle says. Mr Monypenny, is that
you? I am reading our young man a lecture. I am telling him the old
vulgar proverb, that every herring should hang by its ain head."
"And there's no' a truer proverb out of the Scriptures, Miss Barbara,"
said Mr Monypenny, a man of middle age, and grizzled, reddish aspect. It
irritated John beyond description to perceive that the new-comer
understood perfectly what was meant. It had evidently been a subject of
discussion among all, from Sir James to the agent, who stood before him
now, swaying from one leg to another, and meditating his own
contribution to the arguments already set forth.
"Miss Erskine is very right, as she always is. Whatever her advice may
be, it will carry the sympathy of all your well-wishers, Mr John, and
they are just the whole county, man and woman. I cannot say more than
that, and less would be an untruth."
"I am much obliged to my well-wishers, I am sure. I could dispense with
so much solicitude on their part," cried John, with subdued fury. Old
aunts and old friends may have privileges; but to be schooled by your
man of business--that was more than flesh and blood could bear.
CHAPTER XVIII.
It happened after this that John Erskine, by no will of his own, was
drawn repeatedly into the society of the somewhat lonely pair at Tinto.
Torrance had never been popular, though the county extended to him that
toleration which a rich man, especially when young, is apt to receive.
There were always benevolent hopes that he might mend as long as he
remained unmarried; and after his marriage, his wife bore the blame of
more than half his misdeeds. To tell the truth, poor Carry, being so
unhappy, did not take pains to conciliate her neighbours. Some she took
up with almost feverish eagerness, and she had two or three impassioned
friends; but she had none of that sustaining force of personal happiness
which makes it possible to bear the weariness of dull country company,
and she had not taken any particular pains to please the county: so
that, except on the periodical occasions when the great rooms were
thrown open to a large party, she and her husband, so little adapted as
they were to indemnify each other for the loss of society, lived much
alone in their great house, with none of that coming and going which
enlivens life. And since what he called the satisfaction which John had
given him, Torrance had experienced a sort of rough enthusiasm for his
new neighbour. He was never weary of proclaiming him to be an honest
fellow. "That's the way to meet a man," he would say--"straightforward;
if there's any mistake, say it out." And Erskine was overwhelmed with
invitations to "look in as often as he pleased," to "take pot-luck,"--to
come over to Tinto as often as he wearied. Sometimes he yielded to those
solicitations out of pity for poor Carry, who seemed, he thought,
pleased to see him; and sometimes because, in face of this oppressive
cordiality, it was difficult to say no. He did not enjoy these evenings;
but the soft look of pleasure in poor Carry's eyes, the evident relief
with which she saw him come in, went to John's heart. Not a word had
passed between them on the subject which all their neighbours discussed
so fully. No hint of domestic unhappiness crossed Carry's lips: and yet
it seemed to John that she had a kind of sisterly confidence in him. Her
face brightened when he appeared. She did not engage him in long
intellectual conversations as she did Dr Stirling. She said, indeed,
little at all to him, but she was grateful to him for coming, and
relieved from that which she would not complain of or object to--the
sole society of her husband. This consciousness touched John more than
if he had been entirely in her confidence. A kind of unspoken alliance
seemed to exist between them.
One evening when June was nearly over in the long never-ending Northern
daylight, this tacit understanding was at once disturbed and
intensified. John had been captured by his too cordial neighbour in the
languid afternoon when he had nothing to do, and had been feeling
somewhat drearily the absence of occupation and society. Torrance could
not supply him with either, but his vacant condition left him without
excuse or power to avoid the urgent hospitality. He had walked to Tinto
in all the familiarity of county neighbourhood, without evening dress or
ceremony of any kind. They had dined without the epergnes and mountains
of silver which Torrance loved, in the low dining-room of the old house
of Tinto, which still existed at one end of the great modern mansion.
This room opened on the terrace which surrounded the house, with an ease
not possible in the lofty Grecian erection, well elevated from the
ground, which formed the newer part. Lady Caroline, who had left the
gentlemen some time before, became visible to them as they sat at their
wine, walking up and down the terrace with her baby in her arms. The
child had been suffering from some baby ailment, and had been dozing a
great part of the day, which made it unwilling to yield to sleep when
evening came. The mother had brought it out wrapped in a shawl, and was
singing softly to lull it to rest. The scene was very tranquil and
sweet. Sunset reflections were hanging still about the sky, and a pearly
brightness was diffused over the horizon--light that looked as if it
never meant to fade. The trees of the park lay in clustered masses at
their feet, the landscape spread out like a map beyond, the hills rose
blue against the ethereal paleness of the distance. Close at hand, Lady
Caroline's tall, pliant figure, so light and full of languid grace, yet
with a suggestion of weakness which was always pathetic, went and
came--the child's head upon her shoulder, her own bent over it--moving
softly, singing under her breath. The two men, sitting together with
little conversation or mutual interest between them, were roused by the
sight of this passing figure. Even Tinto's rude gaze was softened by it.
He looked out at his wife and child with something more like human
tenderness than was usual to him. Himself for a moment gave place in the
foreground to this embodiment of the nearest and closest ties of life.
He stopped in the talk which he was giving forth at large in his usual
loud monologue, unaffected by any reply, and something softened the big
balls of his light projecting eyes. "Let's step outside and finish our
cigars," he said, abruptly. Lady Caroline herself looked different from
her wont. The child against her heart soothed the pain in it: there is
no such healing application. It was not a delightful child, but it was
her own. One of its arms was thrown round her neck; its head, heavy with
sleep, to which it would not yield, now nestled into her shoulder, now
rose from it with a sleepy half-peevish cry. She was wholly occupied
with the little perverse creature, patting it with one thin soft hand,
murmuring to it. The little song she was crooning was contemptible so
far as music went, but it was soft as a dove's cooing. She had forgotten
herself, and her woes, and her shipwrecked life. Even when that harsher
step came out on the gravel, she did not recognise it with her usual
nervous start. All was soothed and softened in the magical evening calm,
in the warm softness of the baby, lying against the ache in its mother's
heart.
And Torrance, for a wonder, did not disturb this calm. He stopped to
touch the child's cheek with his finger as his wife passed him, but as
this broke once more the partial slumber, he subsided into quiet with a
sense of guiltiness, puffing his cigar at intervals, but stepping as
lightly as he could with his heavy feet, and saying nothing. A touch of
milder emotion had come to his rude bosom. Not only was that great park,
those woods, and a large share of the surrounding country, his own, but
this woman with her baby was his, his property, though so much more
delicate, and finer than he. This moved him with a kind of wondering
sense of the want of something which amid so much it might yet be
possible to attain--happiness, perhaps, in addition to possession. His
breast swelled with pride in the thought that even while thus engrossed
in the humblest feminine occupation, like any cottager, nobody could
mistake Lady Car Torrance for anything less than she was. They might
think her a princess, perhaps. He did not know any princess that had
that carriage, he said to himself; but less or meaner, nobody could
suppose her to be. And he was touched to see her with his child, her
whole soul--that soul which had always eluded him, and retained its
chill superiority to him--wrapped up in the baby, who was his as much as
hers. There was in the air a kind of flutter of far-off wings, as if
peace might be coming, as if happiness might be possible even between
this ill-matched pair.
John Erskine was the spectator in this curious domestic scene. He looked
on with wondering, half-pleased, half-indignant observation. He was
almost angry that Carry should be lowered to the level of this husband
of hers, even if it gave her for a time a semblance of happiness; and
yet his heart was touched by this possibility of better things. When the
child went to sleep, she looked up at the two men with a smile. She was
grateful to her husband for his silence, for bringing no disturbance of
the quiet with him; and grateful to John for having, as she thought,
subdued Torrance by his influence. She made to them both that little
offering of a grateful smile as she sat down on the garden-seat, letting
the child rest upon her knee. The baby's head had slid down to her arm,
and it lay there in the complete and perfect repose which a mother's
arms, protecting, sustaining, warm, seem to give more than any bed. The
air was so sweet, the quiet so profound, that Carry was pleased to
linger out of doors. Not often had she shown any desire to linger in her
husband's society when not bound by duty to do so. This evening she did
it willingly. For the moment, a _faux air_ of well-being, of happiness
and domestic peace, seemed to pervade the earth and the air. "It is so
sweet, it cannot do her any harm to stay out a little," she said,
smiling at them over the baby's sleeping face, which was half hidden in
the soft, fleecy white shawl that enveloped it. John Erskine sat down at
a little distance, and Torrance stood with a half humility about him,
half ashamed, willing to do or say something which would be tender and
conciliatory, but not knowing how. They began to talk in low tones,
Erskine and Carry bearing the _frais_ of the conversation. Sometimes
Torrance put in a word, but generally the large puffs of his cigar were
his chief contribution. He was willing to let them talk. Nay, he was not
without a certain pleasure, in this softened mood of his, in hearing
them talk. He would have allowed freely that conversation was not in his
way.
"They are coming now in about ten days," Carry said. "Of course they
have stayed longer than they meant to stay. People never leave town on
the appointed day."
"There are so many people to see."
"And so many things are put off till the last. I remember how hurried we
were,--how rapidly the days flew at the end."
"You do not go to town now?"
"No," she said, hurriedly; "it is no deprivation. We--neither of
us--care for London."
Torrance felt a certain gratitude to his wife for thus identifying her
inclinations with his. "If truth were told, maybe that might be
modified," he said. "I daresay you would like it, Car. You would get
people to talk to. That's what amuses her," he added, with an
explanatory glance at John. It was a novel sort of pleasure to him to
give this amiable explanation of Lady Caroline's peculiarities, without
any of the rough satire in it with which he was accustomed to treat the
things he did not understand; and his constant pride in her found a new
outlet. "It's not gaieties she wants, it's conversation," he said, with
a softened laugh. "Next year we must see if we can't manage it, Car."
She turned to him with a startled glance, not knowing whether to
deprecate all change so far as herself was concerned, or to thank him
for this unusual thoughtfulness. Fortunately, her instinct chose the
latter course. "It is kind of you to think of me," she said, in her soft
voice. In all their wretched married life, they had never been so near
before. He replied by his usual laugh, in which there was always a
consciousness of that power of wealth which he could never forget he
possessed. Oh yes, he would do it--he could do it whenever he
pleased--buy pleasures for her, just as he might buy dresses or jewels
for her, if she would take a little pains to make herself agreeable. But
even the laugh was much softer than usual. She gave him a little nod
over the sleeping child, in which there was kindness as well as an
astonished gratitude. Perhaps she had never been so much at her ease
with him before.
"They are going to fill the house in the autumn," she said, returning
to the previous subject. "I hear of several people coming. A certain
Lord Millefleurs----"
"That reminds me," said John, "that I had a letter the other day--from
one of our old Swiss party. You will remember him, Lady Caroline----"
Here he paused, with a sudden recollection and putting together of
various things which, in the curious inadvertence of an indifferent
mind, he had not thought of before. This made him break off somewhat
suddenly, and raise his eyes to Carry, at whom he had not been looking,
with an alarmed glance.
He saw her take a large grasp, in the hand which had been laid softly
upon it, at ease, with extended fingers, of the baby's shawl. Her face,
which had been so smiling and soft, grew haggard and wild in a moment.
Her eyes seemed to look out from caverns. There was a momentary pause,
which seemed to arouse heaven and earth to listen. Then her voice came
into this suddenly altered, vigilant, suspicious atmosphere. "Who was
it, Mr Erskine?" Poor Carry tried to smile, and to keep her voice in its
usual tone. But the arrow flying so suddenly at a venture had gone
straight into her heart. She had no need to ask--had she not divined it
all along?
"Probably you have forgotten--his very name. It was--one of those
fellows," stammered John. "I forget how little a party like ours was
likely to interest you. Beaufort--you may remember the name."
He felt that every word he uttered--his artificial levity, his forced
attempt to make that unimportant which only his consciousness that it
was deeply important could have suggested such a treatment of, was a new
folly. He was doing it for the best--most futile of all excuses. When he
looked at her again at the end of this speech, not daring to meet her
eyes while he gave it forth, he saw, to his astonishment, a rising
colour, a flutter of indignation, in Carry's pale face.
"Surely," she said, with a strange thrill in her voice, "you do your
friend injustice, Mr Erskine. So far as I remember, he was very
distinguished--far the most remarkable of the party. I do not think I
can be mistaken."
"No, no, you are quite right," John cried; "I only meant that--these
things were much to us; but I did not know whether you would
recollect--whether to a lady----"
"You are all so contemptuous of women," Lady Caroline said, with a faint
smile, "even the kindest of you. You think a lady would only notice
frivolous excellences, and would not care for real distinction. That is
a great mistake. It is all the other way. It is we who think of these
things most."
"I beg a thousand pardons--I had no such meaning," John said; and she
made him a little tremulous bow. She was so deadly pale, that he
expected every moment to see her faint. But she did not. She continued,
naturally calling him back to what he had been about to tell her.
"You had a letter from Mr Beaufort? about----you were going to tell
me----"
"About coming here," said John, feeling that to say it out bluntly was
now the best. "It appears he has a sort of charge of this Lord
Millefleurs."
"Charge of Lord?----That is not a dignified position--for--your friend,
Mr Erskine."
"No. I don't know what it means; he has not made the progress he ought
to have made; but there is something special about this," said John,
hesitating, not knowing how far to go.
Again Lady Caroline made him a little bow. She rose, with some stiffness
and slowness, as if in pain. "It grows late, though it is so light. Baby
will be better indoors," she said. She went quickly away, but wavering a
little in her gait, as if she were unconscious of obstacles in the way,
and disappeared through the window of the old library, which was on the
same level as the dining-room. John stood looking after her, with a
bewildering sense of guilt, and alarm for he knew not what. All this
time Torrance had not said a word; but he had taken in every word that
was said, and his jealous eyes had noted the changes in his wife's face.
He watched her go away, as John did. When she had disappeared, both of
them listened for a moment in silence. Neither would have been surprised
to hear a fall and cry; but there was nothing. Torrance threw himself
down heavily in the seat from which she had risen.
"That was a pity, Erskine," he said; "you saw that well enough. You can
tell me the rest about this Beaumont--Beaufort--what do you call
him?--that you thought it best not to tell Lady Car."
"There is nothing to tell about Beaufort," said John, "which Lady
Caroline, or any lady, might not hear."
"Now just look you here, John Erskine," said Tinto, projecting his big
eyes, "I thought you were he--that is the truth. She told me there was
somebody. I thought it was you, and I was determined to be at the bottom
of it. Now here's the man, beyond a doubt, and you know it as well as I
do."
"I don't know it at all," cried John, "which probably is as much as you
do. Can you suppose I should have spoken to Lady Caroline as I did if I
had supposed--believed--known anything at all?"
"I will say," said Torrance, "that you're an honest fellow. That stands
to reason: you wouldn't have opened your mouth if you had thought--but
then you never thought till after you had spoken. Then you saw it as
well as me."
"Torrance!" cried John, "for heaven's sake, don't imagine things that
were never thought of! I know nothing about it--absolutely nothing. Even
had there been anything in it, it is six years ago--it is all over; it
never can have had anything to say to you----"
"Oh, as for that," said Torrance, "if you think I've any fear of Lady
Car going wrong, set your mind at rest on that point. No fear of Lady
Car. If you suppose I'm jealous, or that sort of thing"--and here he
laughed, insolent and dauntless. "I thought it was you," he said--"I
don't see why I should conceal that--I thought it was you. And if you
think I would have shut her ladyship up, or challenged you!--not a bit
of it, my fine fellow! I meant to have asked you here--to have seen you
meet--to have taken my fun out of it. I'm no more afraid of Lady Car
than I am of myself. Afraid!--not one bit. She shall see just as much of
him as possible, if he comes here. I mean to ask him to the house. I
mean to have him to dinner daily. You can tell him so, with my
compliments. You needn't say any more to Lady Car; but as for me,
there's nothing I'd enjoy more. Tutoring, is he?" Torrance said, with a
sort of chuckle of wrathful enjoyment: and he cast an eye over his
demesne, with a glow of proud satisfaction upon his face.
The sentiment of the evening calm had altogether disappeared. The peace
of nature was broken up; a sense of human torture, human cruelty, was in
the air. It was as if a curtain had been lifted in some
presence-chamber, and the rack disclosed beneath. Torrance lounged
back--with his hands in his pockets, his cheeks inflamed, his great eyes
rolling--in the seat from which poor Carry with her baby had risen. His
mind, which had been softened, touched to better things, and which had
even begun to think of means and ways of making her happier, turned in a
moment to more familiar preoccupations. To have _him_ here--he who was
merely "tutoring," a genteel attendant upon a foolish young lord,--to
exhibit him, probably penniless, probably snubbed by everybody around, a
dependant, a man without position or wealth,--was an idea altogether
delightful to him. It was indeed a fierce delight, a cruel pleasure; but
it was more congenial to his mind than the unnatural softness of the
hour before.
And was it all John Erskine's doing?--his foolishness, his want of
thought? When he left Torrance in disgust, and hurried away along the
now familiar avenue, where he no longer took any wrong turns, his
foolishness and thoughtlessness overwhelmed him. To be sure!--a thousand
recollections rushed upon his mind. He had known it all along, and how
was it that he had not known it? The moment he had committed himself and
begun to speak of Beaufort's letter, that moment he had foreseen
everything that followed--just as poor Carry had read what was coming in
his first sentence. It was he who had disturbed the evening calm--the
_rapprochement_ of the two who, doomed as they were to live their lives
together, ought by all about them to be helped to draw near each other.
Full of these disquieting thoughts, he was skirting a clump of thick
shrubbery at some distance from the house, when something glided out
from among the bushes and laid a sudden light touch upon his arm. He was
already in so much excitement that he could not suppress a cry of alarm,
almost terror. There was no light to distinguish anything, and the dark
figure was confused with the dark foliage. Almost before the cry had
left his lips, John entreated pardon. "You are--breathing the evening
air," he said, confused, "now that the little one is asleep."
But she had no leisure for any vain pretences. "Mr Erskine," she said,
breathless, "do not let him come--ask him not to come! I have come out
to tell you. I could not say it--there."
"I will do whatever you tell me, Lady Caroline."
"I know you will be kind. This makes me very miserable. Oh, it is not
that I could not meet him! It is because I know my husband has an
idea,--not that he is jealous--and he does not mean to be cruel,--but he
has an idea----He would like to look on, to watch. That is what I could
not bear. Tell him, Mr Erskine--beg him--of all places in the world, not
to come here."
"He will not come, I am sure, to give you a moment's uneasiness."
"Mr Erskine, I must say more to you," she said, drawing closer, putting
once more her hand on his arm. "It must not be on that ground--nothing
must be said of me. Cannot you understand? He must not come; but not
because of me--nothing must be said of me. If it was your sister, oh
would you not understand?"
He took her hand into his in the profound feeling of the moment. "I will
try to do--what I should do if it were my own sister," he said, resting
it in his. "It was my fault; I ought to have known."
"There was no fault," she said, faintly; "an accident. I knew it must
happen some time. I was--prepared. But, Mr Erskine, it is not because I
could not meet--any one. Do not think that for me only----It is
because--because----But if you understand, that is all."
"Let me walk back with you to the house," John said.
"No, no; it is almost wrong to speak to you in this clandestine way. But
what can I do? And you who know--all parties----If I said anything to my
brother, it might make a breach. There is no one I could speak to but
you. I should have had to suffer helplessly, to hold my peace."
"Believe me--believe me," cried John, "all that a brother can do, I will
do."
In the midst of this misery, which he felt to the bottom of his heart,
there ran through him a secret stir of pleasure. Her brother!--the
suggestion went through all his veins. Strange encounter of the dream
with the fact! The cold trembling hand he held in his gave him a thrill
of warmth and happiness, and yet his sympathy was as strong, his pity as
profound, as one human creature ever felt for another. He stood still
and watched her as she flitted back to the house, like a shadow in the
gathering darkness. His heart ached, yet beat high. If it should ever be
so, how different would be the fate of the other daughter of
Lindores's!--how he would guard her from every vexation, smooth every
step of her way, strew it with flowers and sweetnesses! He resumed his
way more quickly than ever, hastening along in the soft darkness which
yet was not dark, by the Scaur--the short cut which had alarmed his
groom. To the pedestrian the way by the Scaur was the best way. He
paused a moment when he reached it, to look out through the opening in
the trees over the broad country, lying like a dream in that mystical
paleness which was neither night nor day. Underneath, the river rushed
joyously, noisily, through the night--not still, like a Southern stream,
but dashing over the stones, and whirling its white eddies in foam
against the bank. The sound of the water accompanied the quick current
of his thoughts. He had a long walk before him, having come without
preparation and left in haste and displeasure. But seven or eight miles
of country road in a night of June is no such punishment. And the
thoughts that had been roused in him, made the way short. How
different--how different would be the fate of that other daughter of
Lindores's! It was only when he reached his own gate that he woke up
with a start to remember indeed how different it would be. The bare
little white house, with its little plantation, its clump of firs on the
hill-top, its scanty avenue--the little estate, which could almost be
said, with scornful exaggeration, to lie within the park of Tinto--the
position of a small squire's wife,--was it likely that Lord Lindores
would smile upon that for his daughter? John's heart, which had been so
buoyant, sank down into the depths. He began to see that his dream was
ridiculous, his elation absurd. He to be the brother, in that sweetest
way, of Carry Lindores! But nevertheless he vowed, as he went home
somewhat crestfallen, that he would be a brother to her. She had given
him her confidence, and he had given her his promise, and with this bond
no worldly prudence nor rule of probabilities should be allowed to
interfere.
CHAPTER XIX.
John Erskine woke with the singing of the birds on the morning of
Midsummer-day. It was early--far before any civilised hour of waking.
When he suddenly opened his eyes in the sweet strangeness of that
unearthly moment, the sensation came back to his mind of childish
wakings in summer mornings long departed; of getting up in the
unutterable stillness with the sense of being the first adventurer into
an unknown world; of stealing down-stairs through the silent visionary
house all full of unseen sleepers, like ghosts behind the closed doors;
of finding, with heart beating and little hands trembling, half with
alarm, half with delight, the bolt low down on some easily opened door;
and of stepping out into the sweet dews, into the ineffable glory of
sunshine in which there was no shadow but that little one which was his
own. Nobody alive, nobody awake, except that riot of the birds in every
tree which wounded the ideal sense of unearthly calm, yet gave a
consolatory consciousness of life and motion in the strange quiet,
though a life incomprehensible, a language unknown. Strange that this
was the first recollection brought to him in his waking--for the next
was very different. The next was a confused sweet tumult in the air, a
sound in his ears, an echo in his heart: "They are coming, they are
coming!" He could not feel sure that somewhere or other in the words
there were not joy-bells ringing--a tinkle of chimes, now rising, now
falling, "as if a door were shut between us and the sound." "They are
coming," everything seemed to say. The air of the morning blowing in by
the open window puffed it at him with playful sweetness. The birds sang
it, the trees shaped their rustlings to the words, "They are coming."
Well, it was perfectly true. The Earl and Countess of Lindores, and
their daughter, Lady Edith Lindores, and perhaps their son Lord Rintoul,
and it might be other noble persons in their train, were certainly
expected to arrive that day; but what was that to John Erskine of
Dalrulzian, a country gentleman of the most moderate pretensions, with
nothing about him above mediocrity, and no claim to any part or share in
the life led by these great people? For the moment John did not ask
himself that question. He only felt after this long interval of solitude
and abandonment that they were coming back. He had been as it were
shipwrecked in this country with which he was so little acquainted,
though it was his own country: and the time of their absence had
appeared very long to him. He said to himself their absence--but it will
be understood that the absence of Lord Lindores, for example, had very
little importance to the young man. He would not have been deeply
concerned if that nobleman had been induced to serve his country and his
party in any other sphere. But it was safer, easier to say _their_, and
to make to himself a little picture of the reopening of the house, the
feeling of population and warmth that would breathe about it, the chance
even of meeting any day or hour smiles and pleasant looks on the very
road, and a sense of society in the atmosphere. He tried to persuade
himself that this was what he was thinking of, or rather he refused to
enter into any analysis of his feelings at all, and allowed his mind to
float upon a vague and delightful current of anticipations, which he
preferred not to examine too closely, or put into any certain and
definite form.
John had not seen either Lady Caroline or her husband since that unlucky
evening. When he returned home and took out once more Beaufort's letter,
it seemed to him that he could now read between the lines enough to have
enlightened him as to the real state of affairs. Why should Beaufort
hesitate to accept Lord Lindores's invitation, and ask to be received
into a much humbler house, if there had been no stringent reason for
such a preference? Beaufort had been very cautious in the wording of his
letter. He said that it was entirely uncertain whether he could make up
his mind to come at all; whether, indeed, in the circumstances he ought
to come. He explained the position in which he stood to Lord
Millefleurs,--not his tutor, which would have been ridiculous, but his
friend, to whom, to please his father, the young man paid a certain
deference. The control which he thus exercised was merely nominal,
Beaufort added, and quite unnecessary, since nobody could be more
capable of taking care of himself than Millefleurs; but it was a
satisfaction to the Duke--and as his future prospects depended upon the
Duke's favour, Beaufort did not need to point out to his friend the
expediency on his part of doing what that potentate required. He was
unwilling to relinquish all these prospects, and the permanent
appointment which he could confidently expect from the Duke's favour:
but still, at the same time, there were reasons which might make him do
so, and he was not at all sure that it would not be better to make this
sacrifice than to intrude himself where he was not wanted in the
capacity of attendant on Lord Millefleurs. Thus, he explained
elaborately twice over, his coming at all was quite uncertain; but if he
did decide to come, it would be an advantage and ease to him in every
way, to be sure of a _pied-à-terre_ in his friend's house, instead of
being forced to thrust himself into a party where his presence was only
invited as an appendage to his charge. It had occurred to John to wonder
why there was so much hesitation in Beaufort's mind as to an ordinary
visit; but he had accepted it, as a susceptibility natural enough to
such a mind--with perhaps a little inconvenient recollection of those
far-past days in which he had been admitted so entirely into the
intimacy of the family, which it was possible enough he might dislike to
visit on another standing. But now he saw what was the true meaning of
the anxious, cautious letter. Beaufort's object had been to ascertain
from him how the circumstances stood; whether he ought or ought not to
show himself among people who once held to him such very different
relations. The light of poor Carry's haggard face threw illumination
upon the whole matter. And what was he to reply?
It might give the reader but a poor idea of John's intellect if I were
to tell how long it took him to concoct his reply. Never had a task so
difficult fallen into his hands. It was not his part to betray Carry's
alarm and distress, or her husband's fierce and vindictive
gratification in this new way of humbling her. He assured Beaufort
diplomatically that Dalrulzian was at his entire command then and
always, but owned that he saw all the difficulties of the position, and
felt that his friend had a delicate part to play. To appear as
bear-leader to Millefleurs among people who had known him in different
circumstances would of itself be disagreeable, and all the more that the
position was nominal, and he had in reality nothing to do. John had
known Millefleurs at Eton, where he was always the drollest little
beggar, but quite able to take care of himself. It was too funny to find
him cropping up again. "But to waste such talents as yours," he cried,
with the greatest sincerity, "looking after Millefleurs!" The Duke ought
indeed to show his gratitude for such self-abnegation. Thus John went on
for a page or two, allowing it to be seen that he thought the position
undesirable, and that he did not encourage Beaufort's appearance in it.
"Of course you know beforehand that my house is yours in all
circumstances," he repeated--"that goes without saying;" but even this
was so put that it seemed to say, not "come," but "stay away." It was
not a pleasant office to John. To be inhospitable, to shut his doors
upon a friend, was unspeakably painful to him. It was something of which
he had thought that he never could be guilty. He longed to modify this
coldness by some explanation of what he meant, but he dared not. He had
promised to be a brother to Carry, and was it possible that he should
betray her? It seemed to him that he was betraying Beaufort instead, who
was more to him than Carry had ever been--pretending to open his doors
to him with one hand while he closed them with another. In such
circumstances a letter is very hard to write. Two or three copies of it
were written before one was produced good enough to be sent. At last he
put together the best version of his plea which he could accomplish, and
sent it off, very doubtfully. He might be losing his friend. Beaufort
could not fail to see the want of welcome in it, and he could not be
sure that it would save Carry after all.
All this had passed some time before the day of the return, and John was
convinced at heart that the purpose of his letter had been accomplished;
that Beaufort had understood him, and intended rather to sacrifice his
prospects than to make his appearance in a false position. John was
satisfied, and yet he was wounded to think that he had been the means of
wounding his friend. This, however, and all connected with it--all the
painful part of his life and of theirs, so far as he was acquainted with
it--passed out of his mind in the excitement and elation of the
consciousness that this day he should see "them" again. John spent the
morning in a kind of suppressed ecstasy, altogether out of reason. He
did not even ask himself what their return was to him. What it was to
him! a change of heaven and earth, a filling up of the veins of life and
quickening of every faculty. He did all he had to do in the morning,
with the consciousness of this coming event running through everything,
filling up every moment with that altogether foolish elation and
rapture. For this it was: a kind of subtle penetration of every thought
by something which was nothing--by an air, a breath, as from the
celestial fields. They were to arrive about three o'clock, and John's
foolish ecstasy lasted till about the moment when, if he were going to
meet them, it was time to set off for the station. He had taken his hat
in his hand, with a vague smile about the corners of his mouth, a light
in his eyes, and was just about to step forth for this happy purpose,
when there suddenly struck him, like a blow, this question,--"What right
have you to go to meet them?" He was so entirely taken aback by it, that
he retreated a step as if some one in actual bodily presence had put the
question to him, and opposed his exit. He gazed round him once,
appalled, to see where it came from; but, alas! it came from
nowhere,--from a monitor more intimate than any intruder could be--from
his own judgment, which seemed to have been lying dormant while his
imagination and heart were at work. What right had he to go to meet
them? Was he a relative, a retainer, a member of the family in any way?
What was he to the Lindores, or they to him? Everything, but nothing: a
neighbour in the county, a friend that they were so good as to be very
kind to; but this gave him nothing as a right,--only the position of
gratitude--no more.
He stood in a confusion of doubt and pain for ten minutes in his own
hall. There seemed an invisible barrier before his feet, something which
prevented him from moving. His smile turned to a sort of deprecating,
appealing gaze--to whom? to nobody--to himself; for was it not indeed
he, and only he, that stopped his own steps? At last he stepped out
boldly, flinging scruples to the winds. Why should he say to any one,
even himself, that he was going to meet them? Nobody could prevent him
walking along the highroad where everybody walked; and if they came that
way, and he by chance encountered them?--The smile returned to John's
mouth, lurking behind his soft, young, silky moustache. In that case it
would be ludicrous to think that there could be anything wrong. Saying
which to himself he hurried down the avenue, feeling that the ten
minutes' delay was enough to have made him late. He walked on quickly,
like a man with a serious object, his heart beating, his pulse going at
full speed. For a long way off he watched a white plume of steam
floating across the landscape. He could see it creeping along for miles,
stopping now and then, taking little runs as if to amuse itself. No,
that was not the train, but only one of those stray locomotives which
torment expectant spectators by wandering wildly up and down like
spirits of mischief. Before he reached the station, Lady Caroline's
carriage drove past, and she bent forward to smile and wave her hand to
John. But this encouraging gesture brought back all his personal doubts:
she was going by right of nature. And even Torrance had a right to come,
though he had no affection for any of them, nor they for him. Once more
John lingered and delayed. He knew very well they would be pleased to
see him, and if an extreme desire to see them and welcome them justified
his going, then surely he had that right. But the Earl would look
politely surprised; and Rintoul, if Rintoul was there, would look
broadly at him with that stony British stare which petrifies an
intruder. John did not at all like the idea of Rintoul. If there is a
natural sense of opposition (as people say) between women who may be
considered rival beauties, the sentiment is so natural a one that it is
shared by that sex which is so much the nobler; and as a woman sees
through a woman's wiles, so does a man see through the instincts of
another man. John felt that Rintoul would see through him--that he would
set up an instant opposition and hostility--that he would let him
perceive that where Edith was, a small country squire, a little Scotch
laird, had no business to push himself in. Rintoul, when John knew him,
had been an innocent little lieutenant--as innocent as a lieutenant
could be expected to be; yet he knew very well by instinct that this was
what was to be expected from him. And what if he were there to change
the character of the group?
John's pace slackened at the thought. From the moment when Lady
Caroline's carriage passed him he went slower and slower--still, indeed,
turning his face towards the station, but almost hoping that the train
would arrive before he did. However, country trains are not of that
expeditious character. They do not anticipate the hour, nor the
appearance of those who are coming to meet them. When he reached the
entrance of the station it was not yet in sight, and he had no further
excuse for dallying. But he did not go in. He walked up behind to a spot
where he could see without being seen, and there waited, with a sense of
humiliation, yet eagerness. It was a very undignified position. If he
meant to meet them, he should have done it openly: if he did not intend
to do so, he ought to have gone away. But John did neither: he watched
them coming with his heart in his mouth; but he did not go forward to
greet them when they came. He saw them get out of the carriage one by
one. He saw the hurried embrace and greeting of Lady Car to her mother
and sister. Then there could not be any doubt about it. Edith gave a
searching glance all about, sweeping the highway with her glance both up
and down. She was looking for some one. Who was it? Something of the
elation of the morning came back into his mind. For whom was she
looking? She even stood for a moment shading her eyes with her hand
before she followed her mother to the carriage, to cast another glance
round her. Could it be that she was looking for--oh, never mind who she
was looking for, John cried to himself, springing over a wall or two,
and speeding along by all the turns he could think of, till he reached a
point of the road where he turned and came quickly back. He had
resolution enough to forego the greeting at that first moment of
arrival; but the chance of still seeing them, and thus saving both his
pride and his pleasure, seduced him from all higher thoughts of
self-abnegation. He walked on slowly, but with his heart beating, and at
length heard the roll of the wheels coming towards him, the sound of
voices in the air. The family were all together in one carriage, all
joyful and beaming in the reunion. Even Lady Car's pale face was
lighted with smiles; and Lord Lindores, if he did not take much part in
the family talk, did not frown upon it. The coachman drew up of himself
as John appeared, and Lady Lindores called to him almost before the
carriage stopped. "Late, Mr Erskine, late!" she cried. "Carry told us
you were coming to meet us." John was half wounded, half consoled by the
accusation; he could not hear himself blamed without an impulse of
self-defence. "Indeed I was not late; I saw you arrive; but I
thought--you might think--it seemed presumptuous to thrust myself in."
"Why, here is chivalry!" said Lady Lindores with a smile, giving him her
hand. And then the flutter of conversation was resumed, one voice
interrupting another, putting questions to which there was no answer,
and making statements to which nobody paid any attention. John stood and
nodded and smiled by the side of the carriage for a minute or two. And
then that moving little world of expressive faces, of hasty words,
understood _à demi-mot_, of hearts so closely united, yet so different,
swept past him again with ringing of the horses' hoofs and jingle of the
harness, and lively murmur of the voices. It swept past, and John was
left,--why, just as he had been before--just as he knew he would be
left,--out of it--altogether out of it! as he knew very well he should
be. He walked along the way he had been going, away from his own house,
away from anywhere that he could possibly want to go, plodding very
silently and solemnly along, as if he had some serious purpose, but
meaning nothing--thinking of nothing. What a fool he was! Had he even
for a moment expected to be taken away with them, to follow them up to
Lindores, to be admitted into all their first talk and confidence? Not
he: he had known well enough that his place was outside,--that a
roadside greeting, a genial smile, a kindly hand held out, was all the
share he could have in the pleasure of the homecoming. Nothing
more--what could there be more? He knew all that as well as he knew
anything. Why then was he such an idiot as to walk on mile after mile he
did not know where, with his head down, and the most deadly seriousness
depicted on his countenance? At length he burst into a sudden short
laugh, and turning back went home slowly. Never had his house looked so
dreary, so secluded, so shut in before. He went in and ate his dinner
humbly, without a word (so people say) to throw at a dog. He had been
quite aware that he was to dine alone; he knew exactly the dimensions of
the room, the shabby air of the old furniture, the lowness of the
roof,--why then should he have been so depressed by all these familiar
objects? There was nothing at all to account for it, except that event
which had filled him with such delightful anticipations, and brightened
earth and heaven to him this morning. They were coming home. They had
come home. This, which was enough to change the very temperature, and
turn earth into heaven, was now the cause of a depth of moral depression
which seemed to cloud the very skies; and this without any unkindness,
any offence, anything that he had not fully expected, and been certain
would happen. But human nature is very fantastic, and so it was.
"You would hear, sir," said old Rolls, "that my lord and her ladyship,
they've come home."
"Oh yes; I have just met them; all very well and very bright," said
John, trying to assume an air of satisfaction. What he did succeed in
putting on was a look of jaunty and defiant discontent.
"They would naturally be bright coming out of that weary London to their
own place," said Rolls, with grave approbation. And then he added, after
a pause, "You'll be thinking now, sir, of making some return of a' the
ceevilities that's been shown you."
"Making a return!" this was a new idea to John. He looked up at the
Mentor who condescended to wait upon him, with alarm and almost awe. "To
be sure--you are quite right, Rolls," he said, with humility; "I wonder
I did not think of it before. But can we?" John looked round ruefully at
his old walls.
"Can we?" cried Rolls in high disdain. "You neither ken me, nor Bauby,
nor yet yourself, to ask such a question. If we can! That can we! If
you'll take my advice, ye'll include a' classes, sir. Ye'll have the
elders to their denner; and the youngsters, ye'll give a ball to them."
"A ball!" cried John, opening his eyes. The boldness of the suggestion,
the determined air with which Rolls faced his master, setting down his
foot as one who was ready to face all dangers for the carrying out of a
great design, touched the humorous sense in the young man's mind. He
laughed, forgetting the previous burden of his desolation. "But how to
give a ball, Rolls," he said, "in this small house?"
"I ask your pardon, sir," said Rolls, gravely. "In the light o' Tinto,
maybe it's a small house; but Tinto never was a popular place. Oh ay,
there were balls there, when he was a Seeker himsel'--I'm meaning when
he was looking out for a wife, before he married her ladyship, poor
thing! But this is not a small house if ye consider the other houses,
where everything that's lightsome goes on. And it's you that's the
Seeker now. You're wanting a leddy yoursel',--that stands to reason."
Here John felt that he ought to be angry, and shut the mouth of so
inappropriate a counsellor. But Rolls had no sense of his own
inappropriateness. He went on calmly, notwithstanding the laugh and
exclamation with which his master interrupted him.
"That's aye an attraction," said the old servant. "I'm not saying, sir,
though I think far more of you in a moral point of view--that ye're the
equal of Tinto as a worldly question. Na, we must keep a hold of reason.
Ye're no' a grand catch like the like o' him. But ye're far better;
ye're a son-in-law any gentleman in the country-side might be proud o';
and any lady, which is far mair important----"
"Come, Rolls, no more of this," cried John. "A joke is a joke; but you
know you are going too far."
"Me joking! I'm most serious in earnest, sir, if you'll believe me. I
served the house before you were born. I was here when your father
brought his wife home. Na, I'm not joking. I'm thinking what's best for
my maister and the credit of the house. The haill county will come; and
if ye think we're not enough to wait upon them, there's Andrew will put
on his blacks; and that sma' groom of yours--I would have likit him
bigger--is a smart lad, though he's little. The three of us will do
fine. I would recommend a denner, say the Wednesday. I'm fond of the
middle of the week, no' too near the Sabbath-day, neither one side nor
the other. The denner on Wednesday; and syne on Thursday night the ball.
There would be cauld things left that would eke out the supper, and it
would all be like one expense. The fiddlers you could have from Dundee,
or even Edinburgh. And the eatables--there would be no difficulty about
that. We mostly have them within ourselves. Chickens is aye the staple
at a supper. And I make bold to say, sir, though she is my sister, that
there's no person can tell what Bauby Rolls is capable of till they've
seen her try."
"Rolls," cried John, "you're ideas are too magnificent; you take away my
breath."
"No' a bit, sir; no' a bit," said Rolls, encouragingly; "if ye'll leave
it to me, I'll take all the trouble. We have always said--Bauby and
me--that if we were just left to ourselves--You will make out the list,
sir, and settle the day, and send the invitations; and if I might
advise, I would say to consult with Miss Barbara, who naturally would
come over for the occasion, as being your next friend, and take the
place of the mistress; and to send for some of your friends (I would
recommend officers for choice) would not be a bad thing; for young men
are aye scarce in the country, mair especially at this time of the year.
We could put up half-a-dozen," Rolls proceeded, "and trouble nobody; and
that would be a great help if they were good dancers, and fine
lads--which I make no doubt, sir," he added, with a little inclination
of his head, "friends o' yours would be."
This unexpected new idea was of great service to John in the dreariness
of the long summer evening. He laughed loud and long, and was infinitely
tickled by the gravity of the project in which Rolls saw no laughing
matter; but when he strolled listlessly along the Walk in the long,
long, endless light, with no better companion than a cigar, with wistful
eyes which sought the clear wistful horizon far away, and thoughts that
seemed to fill the whole wide atmosphere with an unreal yet
unconquerable sadness, the idea of making this silence gay, and seeing
_her_ here who had come home, who had changed the world, but not for
him; but who yet for him--who could tell?--might still turn earth into
heaven,--seized upon him with a curious charm. A ball at Dalrulzian
would not be a very magnificent entertainment, nor was there anything
very elevated or poetical in the idea. But there are certain conditions
of mind and moments of life in which that vague terrestrial paradise
which belongs to youth is always very close at hand, and ready to
descend by the humblest means, by almost any machinery, out of the
skies, making of the commonest territory enchanted ground.
CHAPTER XX.
They were very glad to see him,--very kind to him--impossible to be
kinder; ready to enter into all their experiences of town, and to find
out who were the people he knew among their friends, and to discuss all
their amusements and occupations. Perhaps the fact that there were few
people with whom they could discuss these proceedings had something to
do with it; for the county in general went little to town, and was
jealous and easily offended by the superior privileges of others. But
this was a cynical view to take of the friendly effusion of the ladies
when John paid them the visit which he thought he had timed religiously,
so as neither to be too early, as presuming on the intimacy they had
accorded him, nor too late, as showing any indifference to it. No such
calculation was in the cordial greeting he received from Lady Lindores.
"You are a great deal too timid, Mr Erskine," she said. "No, it is not a
fault for a young man,--but you know what I mean. You would not come to
meet us though you were there, and you have let two days pass without
coming to see us. Fie! As your aunt Barbara says, you should have more
confidence in your friends."
Was it possible to be more encouraging, more delightful than this? and
then they plunged into the inevitable personalities which are so
offensive to outsiders, but which people with any mutual knowledge of a
certain restricted society are scarcely able to refrain from. "You know
the Setons. There have been great changes among them. Two of the girls
are married. To whom? Well, I scarcely remember. Yes, to be sure. Sir
Percy Faraway married the eldest, and they went off to California on
their wedding-trip. And Charley is with his regiment at Cabul. Old Lady
Seton, the grandmother--you know that delightful old lady--is----" and
so on, and so on. The county people thought, with strong disapproval,
that for intelligent people like the Lindores, who gave themselves airs
on this score, it was both frivolous and derogatory to talk so much
about individuals; but John, who knew the individuals, was not so
critical.
"Rintoul has come with us," said Lady Lindores. "He has paused on the
way to pay a little visit; but we expect him this evening. He will stay
only a very short time; but he is coming back again in August, when the
house will be full."
John made a little bow, and no reply. He did not care for the
intelligence. Rintoul, he felt instinctively, would be no friend to him.
And in the little contrariety produced by this, he, too, brought forth
his piece of news. "I heard of one of your visitors--Lord Millefleurs.
He was my fag at Eton, and the drollest little fellow. How has he grown
up? I have not seen him since the Eton days."
"He is droll still--like a little fat robin-redbreast," said Edith, with
a laugh.
Lady Lindores checked her daughter with a look. "He is--odd," she said,
"but very original and--entertaining." She had begun in her heart to
feel that something was worth sacrificing to the chance of seeing Edith
a duchess. "They say he has been a kind of prodigal--but a very virtuous
one,--wandering over the world to see life, as he calls it--a very
different thing from what many of you young men call life, Mr Erskine."
John felt nettled, he did not quite know why. "I am glad to know
Millefleurs has become so interesting," he said. "The only thing that
now gives him interest to me is that I hear Beaufort--you will perhaps
recollect Beaufort, Lady Lindores----"
The two ladies started a little, then gave each other a mutually
warning look. "Indeed I remember Mr Beaufort very well," said Lady
Lindores, shaking her head,--"very well. We have seen him--seen a good
deal of him lately. He is perhaps coming here."
"But we hope not," said Edith, under her breath.
"Edith, you must not say anything so unkind."
"Oh, mamma, what is the use of pretending to Mr Erskine? either he knows
already, or he will be sure to find it out."
"There is nothing to find out," said Lady Lindores, hastily; and then
her countenance melted, and she turned to John, holding out her hand.
"You are an old friend--and I am sure you are a true friend, Mr
Erskine."
"I am sure I am true," he said.
"Yes, I know it--I know it! Mr Erskine, there was--something between
Carry and Mr Beaufort. You guessed it even if you did not know? But
afterwards it became impossible. Her father objected--as he had a good
right to object. And now you know everything is changed. We women, who
take all these things so much to heart--we don't want Mr Beaufort to
come here. We think it might be painful. Lord Lindores, who probably has
never given the subject another thought, has invited him to come with
Lord Millefleurs. You know he is acting as a sort of--best friend to
Lord Millefleurs."
"I must tell you now on my side that I have heard from Beaufort," said
John. "He wrote to me asking to come to Dalrulzian, if it was decided
that he should come North at all. I answered him that I did not think he
had better come. Pardon me, there was no betrayal. He did not
explain--nor did I explain. I could not; it was a mere--intuition with
me. I can scarcely tell even what induced me to do it. I thought he
would find everything so different, and get no pleasure out of it. I
told him he might come to Dalrulzian whenever he liked; but I think I
showed him that it would be better not to do so. So that is all I know
of it, Lady Lindores."
She looked somewhat anxiously in his face. Was that all he knew? Edith,
who had been a keen spectator of the latter part of this conversation,
shook her head slightly, with a faint incredulous smile; but Lady
Lindores saw no reason to doubt him. She answered with a little
excitement and agitation. "You were quite right, Mr Erskine--no
pleasure, especially to him. He could not but feel the difference,
indeed. Thanks for your kind and sensible advice to him. I hope he will
take it. Naturally we had a delicacy----" And here she looked again at
her daughter, who made no reply. Edith had in some points more insight
than her mother, and she had been reading John's meaning in his looks,
while his other listener considered his words only. Edith thought enough
had been made of Beaufort. She changed the immediate subject with a
laugh, which provoked Lady Lindores.
"Will Lord Millefleurs," she said, "be permitted, do you think, mother,
to come by himself? Is it safe to allow him to run about by himself? He
is a dangerous little person, and one never knows what is the next wild
thing he may do."
"You are speaking very disrespectfully of Lord Millefleurs," said Lady
Lindores, provoked.
"I never intended to be respectful." Edith said. But her mother was
really annoyed, and put a summary conclusion to the talk. She was angry
because her daughter's opinions had not changed, as her own, all
imperceptibly and within herself, had done. Lady Lindores had gone
through a great deal on account of the little Marquis, whom she had
persisted so long in thinking a nice boy. Rintoul's sermons had become
almost beyond endurance before they left London, and even her husband
had intimated to her that she was treating a very important suitor far
too lightly. It is hard for a sympathetic woman to remain uninfluenced,
even when she disapproves of them, by the sentiments expressed around
her. Millefleurs had become of additional importance in her eyes
unconsciously, unwillingly almost, with every word that was said. And
when she had no longer his plump little figure before her eyes--when he
was left behind, and his amusing personal peculiarities were veiled
over by distance--she ceased to have the relief of that laugh which had
always hitherto delivered her from too grave a consideration of this
subject. The idea of paying court to any man (much less a fat boy!), in
order to secure him as a husband for Edith, was revolting to her mind;
but worried and troubled as she was on the subject, Lady Lindores fell,
first, into the snare of feeling, with relief, that to escape from
further persecution of the same kind was an advantage worth a sacrifice;
and second, that Millefleurs, if he was fat, was good and true, and that
to be a duchess was something when all that could be said was said
against it. For, to be sure, the season in town had its influences, and
she was more susceptible to the attractions of greatness, wealth, and
high title before it than after. Indeed he was not the husband she would
have desired for her child; and she wanted--imprudent woman!--no husband
at all for her child, who was the chief consolation left to her in the
world. Still, if Edith must marry, as Rintoul said--if she must marry to
increase the family importance and influence, which was what Lord
Lindores had insisted upon in respect to that pitiful sacrifice at
Tinto--why then, influence, wealth, greatness, everything, were united
in the little person of Millefleurs, who was, besides, a very nice boy,
and amused Edith, and would never harm any woman. This was the
conclusion to which a thousand harassing lectures and remonstrances had
brought her. She had not said a word of the change, which had worked
imperceptibly, and chiefly in the long sleepless night of the railway
journey, to Edith; and yet, with natural inconsistency, she was vexed
and annoyed that Edith should still laugh, as they had so often laughed
together, at little Millefleurs. And both Edith and John, though his
suspicions were not yet aroused on this subject, felt the keenness of
irritation and vexed dissatisfaction in her tone. He withdrew soon
after--for even the merest insinuation of a family jar is painful to an
outsider--but not before Lord Lindores had come in, with much
friendliness, to beg him to come back to dinner, and engage his
immediate aid in the scheme which had already brought our young man some
trouble. "I want you to meet Rintoul," said the Earl. "I want you both
to make your appearance at Dunearn next week at the county meeting. I am
going to produce those plans I spoke to you about, and I hope to move
them to some definite step. We shall have a strong opposition, and the
more support I can calculate on the better. Rintoul has no gift of
speech; he'll say his say in his solid, straightforward, positive sort
of manner. But the Scotch are proud of good speaking. I don't know what
your gifts may be in that way."
"Oh, _nil_," said John.
"If you were a Frenchman, I should take you at your word; but in England
there's no telling. A young man has but one formula. If he is a natural
orator, he gives just the same answer as if he can't put two words
together. That is what we call our national modesty. I wish for the
moment you were as vain as a Frenchman, Erskine--then I should know the
facts of the case. I daresay you speak very well--you have the looks of
it; and it will be a great thing for me if you will second and stand by
Rintoul. If he muddles his statement--which is quite likely, for the boy
is as ignorant as a pig--you must set him right, and laugh a little at
the defects of English education: that pleases a Scotch audience."
"I think," said Lady Lindores, "that you are putting a great deal upon
Mr Erskine."
"Am I?" said her husband; "but it is in a good cause."
Perhaps this was too lightly said. John took his leave with a
half-mortified, half-humorous consciousness that he was to have about
the person of this young nobleman something like the same post enjoyed
by Beaufort in respect to Millefleurs, but with neither present
emolument nor prospect of promotion. And he felt sure that he should not
like the fellow, John said to himself. Nevertheless seven o'clock (they
kept early hours in the country) saw him walking lightly, as no man
ever walked to a disagreeable appointment, towards the Castle.
Impossible to thread those shrubberies, to cross those lawns, without a
rising of the heart. "Doors where my heart was wont to beat." Nowhere
else in the world did he hasten with the same step, did he feel the very
neighbourhood of the place affect his pulses in the same way. It was the
home to which his thoughts went before him, imagining many happinesses
which perhaps did not come, but which always might come--which lived
there, to be tasted one time or another. This occupation with the
affairs of Lindores, with the new-comer, and the Earl's schemes, and so
many secondary subjects, prevented him from entering into the questions
which had so deeply discouraged him on the night of their return. He did
not ask himself what he had to expect, what he had to do with them. He
had a great deal to do with them in the meantime, and that by their own
desire.
But John's instinct had not been at fault in respect to Rintoul. They
met as a gamekeeper and poacher might meet, if persons of these classes
had an indifferent meeting-ground in polite society, like their masters.
A mutual scrutiny and suspicion were in their eyes. John, the more
generous of the two, made up his mind to nothing save an instinctive
hostility to the heir of the house, and a conviction that Rintoul would
stand in his way, though he scarcely knew how. But Rintoul, on his side,
being what his mother called positive and practical in the highest
degree, had no hesitation whatever in deciding upon John's meaning and
motives. They were each so much preoccupied in this hostile sense with
each other, that Lord Lindores's exhortations after dinner, as to the
part he expected both to play, were received with small appreciation.
Rintoul yawned visibly, and asked his father whether it was in reason to
expect a fellow to plunge into business the moment he got home. John's
natural desire to say something conciliatory to the father thus
contradicted by his son, which is the instinct of every spectator, was
strengthened by his opposition to the special son in question; but even
he could not cast off his personality enough to embrace an abstract
subject at such a moment: and the two young men escaped, by the only
mutual impulse they seemed likely to feel, to the ladies, leaving Lord
Lindores to take his share of the vexation and disappointment which
visit most mortals impartially in their time. The ladies were out upon
the lawn, which lay under the windows of the drawing-room, and from
which, as from most places in the neighbourhood, a wide expanse of
landscape, culminating in the house of Tinto with its red flag, was
visible. The house of Tinto was to the Lindores family that
culminating-point of human care, the one evil that heightens all others,
which is almost invariable in family experiences. Here their one
prevailing pain, the one trouble that would not allow itself to be
forgotten; and sometimes they felt the very sight of the scene to be
intolerable. But quiet was in the air of the lingering endless night, so
sweet, so unearthly, so long continued, making the hours like days.
"Ah, to be sure, that's Tinto," said Rintoul; "what a fine place it is,
to be sure! Carry ought to be proud of such a place. And how do all the
squires and squireens--or the lairds, I suppose I should say, for local
colour,--how do they like his red flag? There ought to be plenty of
hatred and malice on that score."
"Nobody hates or bears malice to our Carry, that I can hear of," said
his mother, with a reproving glance. Her eye caught that of John, and
she blushed almost violently--for was not he the representative of the
squires and squireens?
"But Torrance and Carry are one flesh," said Rintoul.
"I ought to speak on the subject, as I am the only representative of the
accused," said John, with an attempt at a lighter tone; but it was not
very successful, and there was a sense of possible commotion in the
air, like the approach of a thunderstorm, which the women were far too
sensitive not to feel--and they threw themselves into the breach, as was
natural. When John took his leave, as the lingering daylight still
lasted, they strolled with him through the shrubberies, accompanying him
towards the gate. It was Lady Lindores herself who took the initiative
in this, as her son thought, extraordinary condescension. Rintoul
followed, keeping his sister walking by his side, with indignant
surprise painted all over him. "Do you mean to say you do this every
time that fellow is here?" he asked, wrathfully. "We have never been out
of doors before when Mr Erskine has gone away," cried Edith, equally
angry, in self-defence. Meanwhile the voices of the others, who were in
advance, went on peacefully: they talked, unconscious of criticism,
while the brother and sister listened. John had begun to tell Lady
Lindores of the entertainments he meant to give. He avowed that they had
been planned by Rolls, though his first intention had been to keep this
fact to himself; but the humour of it overcame him. He could not refrain
from communicating so amusing a circumstance to the kind woman, who
never misunderstood, and who received all his confidences with maternal
pleasure. He was pleased to hear her laugh, and not displeased to lay
open the condition of his household to her, and the humours of the old
servants, in whose hands he was still a boy. "It is, don't you think, a
judicious despotism on the whole?" he said. The sound of her laugh was
delightful in his ears, even though a more sensitive narrator might have
thought the laugh to be directed against himself.
"It is a delightful despotism," said Lady Lindores; "and as we shall
benefit by it in the present case, I entirely approve of Rolls. But I
think, perhaps, if I were you, I would not unfold the whole matter to
Miss Barbara. Your aunt is born a great lady, Mr Erskine. She might take
it as quite right and within the duty of an old retainer; but again, she
might take a different view. For my part, I entirely approve. It is
exactly the right thing to do."
"You are always so kind," said John, gratefully; "and perhaps you will
advise me in matters that are beyond my prime minister's sphere."
"Rolls and I!" she said, laughing; "it is not often a young man has such
a pair of counsellors." Her laugh was so fresh and genuine that it
sounded like the laugh of youth. Her children behind her had their
curiosity greatly excited: Edith with a little wonder, to think what
John could be saying to amuse her mother so much; Rintoul with high
indignation, to see in what favour this country neighbour was held.
"What does my mother mean?" he said, grumbling in Edith's ear. "She will
turn that fellow's head. I never knew anything so out of place. One
would think, to see you with him, that he was--why, your dearest friend,
your,--I don't know what to say."
"Perhaps you had better not say anything, in case it should be something
disagreeable," said Edith, with a sudden flush of colour. "Mr Erskine is
our nearest neighbour--and I hope my mother, at least, does not want any
guidance from you."
"Oh, doesn't she, though!" murmured Rintoul in his moustache. To his own
consciousness his mother was the member of his family who stood the most
in need of his guidance. He thought her the most imprudent woman he had
ever come across, paying no attention to her children's prospects. They
went on thus till they came to the gate, where the Countess of Lindores
was actually to be seen by the woman at the lodge, or by any passing
wayfarer, in her dinner-dress, with nothing but a lace cap on her
head--and Edith, in her white robes and shining hair--saying good-bye to
this rustic neighbour, this insidious squire! Rintoul could not for some
time relieve his soul as he wished. He was compelled to shake hands too,
in a surly way; and it was not till Edith had left them that he
permitted himself to make, as he said, a few remarks to his mother. She
was lingering outside, for it was still daylight though it was night.
"Mother," said Rintoul, solemnly, "I see it's all exactly as I feared.
You have let that fellow Erskine get to be a sort of tame cat about the
house."
"After?" said his mother, with a smile.
"After! well, that's as you choose. But of this you may be sure, mother,
my father won't stand it. It will only make trouble in the house. He
won't let Edith throw herself away. You had better put a stop to it
while you are able. I suspected it from the first moment I knew that
Erskine was here."
"You are very wise, Rintoul," said his mother, with grieved displeasure,
all the pain and disenchantment which she had managed to put aside and
forget coming back into her troubled eyes.
"I don't know if I'm very wise; but I know something of the world," said
the son, who was so much better instructed than she was; "and I know,
when one has charge of a girl, one oughtn't to allow her to throw
herself away."
"Carry is supposed not to have thrown herself away," said the indignant
mother, with a glance towards that centre of her saddest thoughts, the
arrogant front and false battlements of Tinto, faintly gleaming like
royal Windsor itself in the mists of distance. This was all in
contradiction to the changed state of her mind towards Millefleurs and
the gradual leaning towards a great marriage for Edith which had come
over her. But we are never more hot in defence of our own side than when
we have begun to veer towards the other; and Rintoul's lectures had been
for a long time more than his mother could endure.
"No, Carry cannot be said to have thrown herself away," he said
thoughtfully, stroking that moustache which looked so young, while its
owner was so wise and politic. "Carry should remember," he said, after a
pause, "that she's an individual, but the family comprises many
people--heaps of her descendants will be grateful to her, you know. And
if the fellow is unbearable, why, a woman has always got it in her own
hands to make his life a burden to him. Why is she so absurdly domestic?
They have quantities of money, and there are plenty of brutes in society
to keep him in countenance. She ought to come to town and see people,
and enjoy herself. What is the good of living like a cabbage here?"
"If you will persuade Carry to emancipate herself a little--to think of
herself a little--I will forgive you all your worldly-mindedness," said
his mother, with a smile.
"I will try," he said; "and as for my worldly-mindedness, as you call
it, how is a fellow to get on in the world, I should like to know? It
isn't by money _I'll_ ever push my way. I must look out for other ways
and means."
"Does that mean an heiress, Rintoul?"
His mother was half laughing, half serious. But there was no laughter in
Rintoul's countenance. The corners of his mouth were drawn down. His
eyes were as solemn as if the matter in question had been life or death.
"You may be sure I'll do my duty to the family, whether I like it or
not," he said, with heroic gravity. "I don't mean to recommend other
people to do what I'll not do myself."
But Rintoul sighed. He was heroic, indeed, but he was human. A breath of
soft recollections came over him. He, too, had entertained other
thoughts--he had allowed himself to be beguiled to gentler visions. But
when the voice of duty bade, he felt that he had it in him to be
superior to all weaknesses. Come an heiress of sufficient pretensions to
be worthy of the son of Lindores, and he would buckle his manhood to
him, and marry her without wincing. His duty he was at all times ready
to do; but yet to the softer part of life, to the dreams of a youth
unawakened to such stern purposes of heroism, he might yet be permitted
to give a sigh.
John Erskine was the very opposite of this predestined martyr. He felt
no weight of family responsibility upon him. All that he wished was--a
good wish enough, if it had not been altogether beyond possibility of
fulfilment--that the last lord of Lindores had lived to be a patriarch,
and had been succeeded by his son in the course of nature. What a
difference that would have made to everybody concerned! But our young
man did all he could to keep definite plans and hopes out of his mind.
He preferred to get the good of each day as it came. If he thought too
much of them, he felt a dismal certainty that disappointments would
follow. He preferred that his present existence should flow _au jour le
jour_.
CHAPTER XXI.
When the news of the approaching festivities at Dalrulzian were known in
Dunearn, Miss Barbara Erskine and her household were flung into a
whirlpool of excitement such as had not disturbed their calm for more
years than could be reckoned. There was, of course, no question as to
the immediate acceptance by the old lady of her nephew's invitation to
her to do the honours of his house. She was very much touched and
pleased--with that satisfaction, above all, which is so sweet to a
woman--of feeling that John was doing absolutely "the right thing" in
placing her, his old aunt, at the head of affairs. It was a compliment
to the family, to the old neighbours, as well as to herself. But it is
not too much to say that from the scullery to the drawing-room her house
was turned upside-down by this great event. Miss Barbara's first thought
was, as was natural, that a great many things would be wanted. She went
instantly to her "napery" closet,--Agnes, her old maid, attending her
with the key,--and brought out stores of shining damask, milk-white and
fragrant, every tablecloth with its pile of napkins, like a hen with
chickens. "I never inquired into the napery at Dalrulzian," the old lady
said; "but it would be a great temptation to a woman with a sma' family
to take the use of it; and for anything I know, he may be in want of
table-linen. Ye'll pack a boxful, Agnes, whether or no. There's the
great table-cloths with the crown pattern, they are the biggest I have.
Ye'll take them, and table-napkins. You may take ten or twelve dozen.
They are always useful."
"And you'll take the best silver, mem," said Janet, for this was in her
department. If it had been suggested to them that their best Paisley
shawls, on which both Janet and Agnes set great store, would have been
useful to cover the faded places on the carpet, these devoted women
would have sacrificed their most cherished possessions. Miss Barbara's
old epergnes and table ornaments, which, happily, were older and less
solid than the camel and palm-trees at Tinto, were packed into a huge
box, with all her available forks and spoons, and sent off in a cart
before her to the scene of the entertainment. Then a still more
important question arose as to the help that would be required to
produce a dinner and a ball-supper worthy of the Erskine name. Miss
Barbara put her trust in Janet, who had managed all her own household
affairs for a great number of years. "I'll take ye both with me," she
said to the two women, who made her comfort and credit the occupation of
their lives, "and when ye consider what's at stake, you'll just put your
hand to anything; and ye like a ploy, both of ye, and plenty of young
faces about the house."
"Eh, but I do that," said Agnes; "and I would not wonder but Mr John's
meaning to take a survey of all the misses, and him a wanter and a
bonnie lad into the bargain. We'll maybe hear who it is to be."
But Janet demurred. "It's not to be denied but I would like to go," she
said; "and blithe, blithe would I be to put to my hand, if it was only
to boil a pitawtie, and proud to think the auld family, so lang away,
was holding up its head again. But then there's Bauby Rolls, that's been
housekeeper so long, and a good cook and a good woman. She would think
we meant to interfere."
"It would ill become either Bauby or any other person to think me
interfering in my nephew's house," said Miss Barbara. "Ye'll just come,
Janet. I am saying nothing against Bauby; but she'll be out of the way
of managing for a pairty."
"There are plenty of pairties in the winter-time," said Janet. "I
wouldna stand in other folk's gait. Na, naebody would say _you_ were
interfering, Miss Barbara. Wha has a better right in your ain nephew's
house?--but me, it's another question. I couldna gang ben to her
kitchen, or look at a single article, but it would be thought I was
meddling. What would I think if Bauby Rolls came here on a veesit to
help me? I would say I maun be getting doited, though I cannot see it: I
maun be losing the use o' my faculties. I judge of her by mysel'. She
would think the same of me. But Agnes, you can take her," said the
housekeeper, with a fine and delicate contempt. "She has aye her head
full of whigmaleeries; but she'll stand in nobody's way."
"I'll not ask your leave, Janet, to take my own woman with me," said
Miss Barbara, with some annoyance.
"Na, mem, I never thought that," retorted her factotum. "I'm seldom
consulted, though maybe it would be none the worse for the family if I
were letten say my say. For a ball-supper there's naething better than a
fine boned turkey well stuffed and larded," she added, reflectively;
"and I'm no' against soup. It's new-fashioned; but there's new-fashioned
things that's just as good as the old. One thing I set my face against
is thae new drinks--Cup as they call them. They take an awfu' quantity
of wine; and in the heat o' the dancing thae young things will just
spoil their stomachs, never thinking what they're swallowing. That's my
opinion. I'm no' saying I'm ony authority, and Mr Rolls will have a'
that in his hands, and will not lippen to a woman; but that's my
opinion. It's an awfu' waste of wine. I would rather give them good
honest champagne out of the bottle, that they might see what they are
taking, far sooner than that wasteful Cup."
"That's very true, Janet," said Miss Barbara; "I'm of that opinion
myself. But in most houses it's the gentleman himself (when there is a
gentleman) that manages the cellar; and it would never do for a lady to
say anything. But I will mind to tell him (for it's my own opinion), if
he consults me."
"And for sweet things, there's nothing like ice-creams, if she can make
them," said Janet. "If she were to say, mem, of her own accord, that she
has little experience, you might send me a line by the postman, and I
would do my best; but no' unless it's of her own accord. Na, na; I ken
by mysel'. If a strange woman were to come into my kitchen and meddle
with my denner! But tak' you Agnes, Miss Barbara. She might make up a
match yet, for a' that's come and gane, with Tammas Rolls."
Miss Barbara appeared accordingly at Dalrulzian the day before the great
dinner, in her old coach, with her two best gowns in the imperial, and
all her old ornaments, and with Agnes her maid seated primly by her,
inside. The chariot was almost as old as Miss Barbara herself, and was
kept for great occasions. It was drawn by two somewhat funereal black
horses from the Red Lion at Dunearn--altogether a solemn turn-out, and
quite unlike the handy little phaeton in which usually the old lady
drove about. The postboy took away those noble steeds when he had housed
the chariot in the Dalrulzian stables, to which he was to return in four
days to take it back with its mistress. And Miss Barbara bore a grave
though cheerful countenance as she walked into the drawing-room, and
took her place there on the great tapestry sofa. The box of plate and
linen had arrived before her, and she felt that it was necessary at once
to look into the details of the proposed entertainment. "Will you send
the housekeeper to me," she said to Rolls, with dignity, thinking it
beneath the solemnity of the occasion to call Bauby by any less weighty
title. Bauby came in with good-natured alacrity; but she was somewhat
abashed by the air of gravity on Miss Barbara's face, whom she was not
accustomed to see in such state. "Come in, my woman," said the old lady.
"It's a great responsibility for you to have the charge of all this. You
will like a little assistance with your dinner. I'm well aware that both
that and the supper for the ball are in very good hands so far as the
provisions go. But your master being young, and without experience, and
as there's no lady in the house, I think it my duty to be of service,"
Miss Barbara said. Bauby stood before her greatly flushed, and laid a
number of hems, one over the other, on her apron. "Hoot, mem, we'll just
manage fine," she said, growing red. But this did not satisfy the august
old lady.
"If you're in want of any help," she said, "there's a woman of mine----"
Rolls, who had been waiting outside the door, came to the rescue. He
appeared behind the flushed Bauby. "She's a confused creature," he said,
"but she knows her business. We've put it all down, Miss Barbara, in the
new-fashioned way. I'm aware that at the Castle and other grand places
it's written in French, but good Scots is good enough for us."
It was no small effort to find and produce from Bauby's pocket the bill
of fare of the approaching dinner. But this document took away Miss
Barbara's breath. It was some time before she got over it. Instead of
the chaos which she half feared, yet half hoped for, as a means of
exercising her own gifts on her nephew's behalf, it was an elaborate
_menu_, drawn out in full form, that was placed before her eyes. The old
lady was struck dumb for a moment, and when she spoke there was a
certain awe in her tone. "If you can set a dinner like that on the
table," she said, "I have not a word to say."
"Oh, mem, we'll manage fine," said Bauby, in her soft, round,
good-humoured voice.
"Miss Barbara," said Rolls, "I'm no braggart; but I've seen a thing or
two in my life. And Bauby, she has far more in her than appears. She's
just a confused creature in speech; but pit her to her goblets and her
sauces, and she kens well what she's about. She has the real spirit of
it in her; and when her blood's up for the credit of the family----"
"Eh, mem!" cried Bauby herself, putting her apron to her eyes, for her
tears came readily; "do you think I would let them say that Mr John
couldna give a denner as good as the best? and he such a fine lad, and
wanting a wife, and his mammaw so far away!"
"Never you mind his mammaw," cried Miss Barbara, with natural family
feeling; "she was never a great manager. But if you set that dinner on
the table, Bauby Rolls, you're a woman worthy of all respect, and I hope
my nephew will know when he's well off."
She withdrew to the room prepared for her after this, a little
crestfallen, yet doing due honour to the native powers. "We'll say
nothing to Janet," she said to her faithful old maid, as she sat at her
toilet. "Janet is an excellent woman, and just the right person for a
house like mine. But she has not that invention. Four made dishes,
besides all the solids! We'll not say a word to Janet. It would be more
than she could bear."
"You see, Miss Barbara, there's two of them to settle it," said Agnes,
as she brushed out the old lady's abundant white hair; "and a man is
awfu' discriminating about eating and drinking. He may not have sense
like a woman, but he has more taste of his mouth."
"There is something in that," said her mistress; "if it's Rolls, John
has got a treasure in that man. The Cornel's dinners were always very
English, to my way of thinking--but that would be their own fault; or if
it's my nephew himself----" she added, doubtfully. What was a great
quality in Rolls catering for other people, would have been almost a
vice, in the eyes of this prejudiced old lady, in the young master of
the house.
"Mr John!" said Agnes, still more moved,--"a bonnie lad like him! Na,
na; it would never be that. It'll be the young misses, and not the
dishes, he will be thinking about. And who knows but we may see the one
that's his choice? And I wish she may be a lovely young lady for his
sake."
"She would need to be something more than that," said Miss Barbara,
shaking her head. "A little money would be a great advantage to the
estate."
"Eh, but mem, he maun marry for love," said Agnes; "what's siller in
comparison? And I think I know Somebody for my pairt----"
"Whisht, Agnes," said her mistress peremptorily; "whatever thought may
be in your head, to name it spoils all."
For these two simple women were still of opinion that Providence had
created John Erskine's wife for him, and that he could not mistake the
guidance of that unerring hand.
CHAPTER XXII.
The ball was in full career; everybody had come to it from all the
houses within reach, and the radius was wide--extending over the whole
county. It was universally acknowledged that nobody could have imagined
the drawing-room at Dalrulzian to be so large--and though the mothers
and the old ladies were in a great state of alarm as to the facilities
for stepping forth through the long windows after a dance, yet the young
people, indifferent to the northern chill which they had been used to
all their lives, considered the Walk, which seemed almost a portion of
the room, to be the most delightful of all. Rintoul, though with many
protestations and much scorn of the little rustic assembly, had been
persuaded to wait for it, and was an object of attraction as great
as--nay, in some respects greater than--John himself. There were no
great young ladies in the company for whom it was worth his while to
exert himself, and consequently the young man yielded to the soft
flattery of all the pleased and grateful faces around him, and made
himself agreeable in general, ending, however, almost invariably at the
side of Nora, to whom it was a pleasing compensation for the
indifference of the young master of Dalrulzian, who had been so
distinctly destined for her by the country. John was very civil to Nora.
He went out of his way, indeed, to be civil. He took her about the
house, into the library, and the hall, to show her the alterations he
was making, and appealed to her about their propriety in a way which
Nora felt might have taken in some girls. But she was not taken in. She
knew it was merely politeness, and that John would go away as soon as he
had done his duty with a certain sense of relief. But Rintoul's
attentions were paid in a very different spirit. He asked her to dance
as many times as he could without attracting too much notice. Nora felt
that he discriminated this line finely, and was half provoked and half
flattered by it, feeling acutely that whereas John Erskine did his best
to show her all the civility which his position required, Rintoul went
against all the duties of his position to get near her, to talk to her
in a corner, to devote to her every moment which he could devote to her
without remark. He was very careful, very desirous not to commit himself
with society; but to Nora, every tone of his voice, every look
committed him. She felt--she was a great deal cleverer than Rintoul, and
saw through and through him--that to her he was a totally different
person from the young man of fashion, who, with a touch of
condescension, did his duty to the other young ladies. She saw him in a
different light. He toned his words for her. He changed his very
sentiments. She was pleased and amused, and at the same time touched,
when (for she was too clever) she noted this change coming over him in
the middle of a sentence, in the figure of a dance, when he suddenly
found himself near her. There could not have been a more complete proof
of these sentiments which he was as yet afraid to indulge in, which
vanquished him against his will. A girl's pride may be roused by the
idea that a man struggles against her power over him, and is unwilling
to love her; but at the same time there is a wonderful flattery in the
consciousness that his unwillingness avails him nothing, and that reason
is powerless in comparison with love. Nora with her keen eyes marked
how, when the young man left her to dance or to talk with some one else,
he kept, as it were, one eye upon her, watching her partners and her
behaviour--and how, the moment he was free, he would gyrate round her,
with something which (within herself, always laughing, yet not
displeased) she compared to the flutterings of a bird beating its wings
against the air, resisting yet compelled to approach some centre of
fascination. He would have kept away if he could, but he was not able.
She was so much occupied in watching these proceedings of his--seeing
the humour of them so completely that she was fain to put her head out
at the window, or retire into a corner of the hall, to laugh privately
to herself--that she lost the thread of much that was said to her, and
sadly wounded the feelings of several of the young officers from Dundee.
What they said was as a murmur in her ears, while her mind was engaged
in the more amusing study--watching the movements of Rintoul.
The Lindores family had come out in force to grace John's entertainment.
Even the Earl himself had come, which was so unusual. He had made up his
mind so strenuously as to the support which John was to give to
Rintoul's candidateship and his own plans, that he thought it necessary
to "countenance," as he said, our young man's proceedings in everything
personal to himself. And Lord Lindores, like so many people, did not
perceive, in his inspection of the horizon, and desire that this thing
and that should be done in the distance, the danger which lay under his
very eye. No doubt it was natural that his little daughter Edith should
be, as it were, the queen of the entertainment. Not only was she one of
the prettiest girls in the county, but she was the first in rank, and
therefore the most to be thought of; the first to be honoured, if any
honours were going. That was simple enough, and cost him no
consideration at all. He made another effort to overcome old Sir James
Montgomery's prejudiced opposition, and talked on political matters in
the doorways with a great deal of liberality and good-humour, taking
with perfect serenity the clumsy gibes which his neighbours would launch
at innovators, at people with foreign tastes, at would-be
philanthropists. He smiled and "never let on," though sometimes the
gibes were galling enough. Lady Lindores sat at the head of the room
with Lady Car by her, very gracious too, though sometimes yawning a
little privately behind her fan. They spoke to the people who came to
speak to them, and acknowledged the new-comers who were introduced to
them with benignant smiles. But both mother and daughter were somewhat
out of their element. Now and then a lively passage of conversation
would break out around them, and anon die off, and they would be left
again smiling but silent, giving each other sympathetic glances, and
swallowing delicate yawns. "No, I do not dance. You must excuse me,"
Lady Car said quietly, with that pretty smile which lighted up her pale
face like sunshine. She was not pretty--but there could not be a face
more full of meaning. Her eyes had some anxiety always in them, but her
smile gave to her face something of the character of one whose life was
over, to whom it mattered very little what was going to happen, to whom,
in short, nothing could happen--to whom Fate had done its worst.
There was a brief pause in the gaiety, and of a sudden, as will
sometimes happen, the murmur of talk in all the different groups, the
hum of the multitude at its pleasantest and lightest, was suspended.
When such a pause occurs it will frequently be filled and taken
possession of for the moment by some louder or more persistent scrap of
conversation from an individual group, which suddenly seems to become
the chief thing in the crowd, listened to by all. Ordinarily it is the
most trivial chit-chat, but now and then the ranks will open, as it
were, to let something of vital importance, some revelation, some germ
of quarrel, some fatal hint or suggestion, be heard. This time it was
Torrance, always loud-voiced, whose words suddenly came out in the
hearing of the entire company. He happened at the moment to be standing
with John Erskine contemplating the assembly in general. Rintoul was
close by, lingering for a moment to address a passing civility to the
matron whose daughter he had just brought back to her side. Torrance had
been in the supper-room, and was charged with champagne. He was not a
drunkard, but he habitually took a great deal of wine, the result of
which was only to make him a little more himself than usual, touching
all his qualities into exaggeration--a little louder, a little more
rude, cynical, and domineering. He was surveying the company with his
big staring eyes.
"This makes me think," he said, "of the time when I was a wanter, as
they say. Take the good of your opportunities, John Erskine. Take your
chance, man, while ye have it. When a man's married, he's done for;
nobody cares a fig for him more. But before he's fixed his choice, the
whole world is at his call. Then's the time to be petted and made
of--everybody smiling upon you,--instead of sitting with one peevish
face on the other side of the fire at home."
He ended this speech with one of his huge rude laughs; and there are a
great many such speeches permitted in society, laughed at even by those
who are themselves the point of the moral. But Rintoul was in an excited
condition of mind; contradictory to all his own tenets; going in his
heart against his own code; kicking against the pricks. He turned round
sharply with a certain pleasure in finding somebody upon whom to let
forth an ill-humour which had been growing in him. "You forget,
Torrance, who I am, when you speak of this peevish face before me."
"You!--troth I forgot your existence altogether," said Torrance, after a
pause of astonishment, and a prolonged stare ending in another laugh.
Rintoul flushed a furious red. He was excited by the rising of a love
which he meant to get the better of, but which for the moment had got
the better of him; and by all the restraints he had put upon himself,
and which public opinion required should be put upon him. He flashed
upon his brother-in-law an angry glance, which in its way was like the
drawing of a sword.
"You had better," he said, "recall my existence as quickly as you can,
Torrance--for it may be necessary to remind you of it very sharply one
of these days, from all I hear."
Torrance replied by another loud insulting laugh. "I mind you well
enough when I hear you crow, my little cock-o'-the-walk," he said.
The conversation had got thus far during the pause which has been
described. But now the whole assembly rushed into talk with a general
tremor, the band struck up, the dancers flew off with an energy which
was heightened by a little panic. Everybody dislikes a family quarrel:
the first beginnings of it may excite curiosity, but at a certain point
it alarms the most dauntless gossip. To get out of the way of it, the
world in general will take any trouble. Accordingly the ranks closed
with the eagerness of fear, to continue the metaphor, and the two
belligerents were hidden at once from sight and hearing. Men began to
talk in their deepest basses, women in their shrillest trebles, and how
it ended nobody knew. There were a great many whispered questions and
remarks made afterwards when the crisis was over. "Young Erskine had all
the trouble in the world to smooth it over." "One doesn't know what
would have happened if old Sir James had not got hold of Lord Rintoul."
"Half-a-dozen men got round Pat Torrance. They made believe to question
him about some racing--and that quieted him," cried one and another,
each into the nearest ear; and the whole assembly with a thrill watched
the family of Lindores in all its movements, and saw significance in
every one of these. This was the only _contretemps_ that occurred in the
whole programme of the festivities at Dalrulzian. It passed out of
hearing of Lady Car, who sat the evening out with that soft patience as
of one whose day was over--the little smile, the little concealed yawn,
the catch of conversation when any one who could talk drifted by her. Dr
Stirling and she discussed Wordsworth for a whole half-hour, which was
the only part of the entertainment that withdrew her at all from
herself. "And his noble philosophy of sorrow," she said, "which is the
finest of all. The part which he gives it in the world----" "I am not
clear in my own mind," said the Doctor, "that sorrow by itself does good
to anybody." "Stretch a hand through time to catch the far-off interest
of tears," cried Lady Car with an unfathomable distance in her mild
eyes, shaking her head at him and smiling. This was her point of
enjoyment. When she thought the hour at which she might withdraw was
coming, she sent to her husband to know if he was ready, still quite
unaware of his utterance about the peevish face. Poor Lady Car! her face
was not peevish. It was somewhat paler than usual, so much as that was
possible, as she watched him coming towards her. The more wine he took
the less supportable he was. Alarm came into her gentle eyes. "Oh yes,
I'm ready," he said; "I've been here long enough," in a tone which she
understood well. She thought it was possibly John who had given him
offence, and took leave of her host quickly, holding out her hand to him
in passing with a word. "I must not stop to congratulate you now. I will
tell how well it has gone off next time I see you," she said hastily.
But her brother would not be shaken off so easily. He insisted on
keeping by her side, and took a tender leave of her only at the
carriage-door, walking along with her as though determined to make a
demonstration of his brotherly regard. "I shall see you again, Rintoul,
before you go?" "No," he cried; "good-bye, Car. I am not coming to Tinto
again." What did it mean? But as they drove home through the dark, shut
up together in that strict enclosure, her husband did not fail to make
her acquainted with what had happened. "What's his business, I should
like to know?" Torrance cried. "Of course it's your complaints, Lady
Car. You set yourselves up as martyrs, you white-faced women. You think
it gives you a charm the more; but I'll charm them that venture to find
fault with me," he cried, with his hot breath, like a strong gale of
wine and fury, on her cheek. What disgust was in her breast along with
the pain! "There's no duels now, more's the pity," said Torrance: "maybe
you think it's as well for me, and that your brother might have set you
free, my lady." "I have never given you any cause to say so," she cried
from her corner, shrinking from him as far as possible. What a
home-going that was! and the atmosphere of wine, and heat, and rude
fury, and ruder affection, from which she could not escape, was never to
escape all her wretched life. Poor Lady Car! with nothing but a little
discussion about Wordsworth or Shelley to stand in place of happiness to
her heart.
"I have been quarrelling with that brother-in-law of mine," Rintoul said
to Nora in the next dance, which he ought not to have had, he knew, and
she knew, though she had been persuaded to throw off, for him, a lagging
partner. He had not said a word about the quarrel to his mother or
sister, but to Nora he could not help telling it. He broke even the
strained decorum which he had been painfully keeping up for this cause.
Already he had danced more than was usual with one partner, but this was
too strong for him. He could not resist the temptation.
"Oh, Lord Rintoul!"
"Yes, I have quarrelled with him. To hear how he spoke of Carry was more
than I could bear. Now _you_ will never betray me; tell me, I daren't
ask any one else. Is he supposed to be--Jove! I can't say the
word--unkind to poor Car?"
"He is very proud of her--he thinks there is no one like her. I don't
think he means it, Lord Rintoul."
"Means it!--but he is so, because he is a brute, and doesn't know what
he is doing."
"They are not--very like each other," said Nora, hesitating; "but
everybody must have seen that before."
"Yes, I own it," said Rintoul. "I take shame to myself. Oh that money,
that money!" he cried with real passion, giving her hand a cruel
unnecessary grip, as he led her back to the dance; "the things that one
is obliged to look over, and to wink at, on account of that."
"But no one is forced to consider it at all--to that extent," Nora said.
"To what extent?" Rintoul asked, and then he gave her hand another
squeeze, always under cover of the dance. "You are above it--but who is
like you?" he said, as he whirled her away into the crowd. This was far
indeed for so prudent a young man to go.
CHAPTER XXIII.
The summer went over without any special incident. August and the grouse
approached, or rather the Twelfth approached, August having already
come. Every bit of country not arable or clothed with pasture, was
purple and brilliant with heather; and to stand under the columns of the
fir-trees on a hillside, was to be within such a world of "murmurous
sound" as you could scarcely attain even under the southern limes, or by
the edge of the sea. The hum of the bees among the heather--the warm
luxurious sunshine streaming over that earth-glow of heather-bells--what
is there more musical, more complete? These hot days are rare, and the
sportsman does not esteem them much; but when they come, the sun that
floods the warm soil, the heather that glows back again in endless
warmth and bloom, the bees that never intermit their hum "numerous" as
the lips of any poet, the wilder mystic note that answers from the
boughs of the scattered firs, make up a harmony of sight and sound to
which there are few parallels. So Lord Millefleurs thought when he
climbed up the hill above Dalrulzian, and looking down on the other
side, saw the sea of brilliant moorland, red and purple and golden, with
gleams here and there of the liveliest green,--fine knolls of moss upon
the grey-green of the moorland grass. He declared it was "a new
experience," with a little lisp, but a great deal of feeling. Lady
Lindores and Edith were of the party with John Erskine. They had lunched
at Dalrulzian, and John was showing his poor little place with a
somewhat rueful civility to the Duke of Lavender's son. Millefleurs was
all praise and admiration, as a visitor ought to be; but what could he
think of the handful of a place, the small house, the little wood, the
limited establishment? They had been recalling the Eton days, when John
was, the little Marquis declared, far too kind a fag-master. "For I must
have been a little wretch," said the little fat man, folding his hands
with angelical seriousness and simplicity. Lady Lindores, who had once
smiled at his absurdities with such genial liking, could not bear them
now, since she had taken up the idea that Edith might be a duchess. She
glanced at her daughter to see how she was taking it, and was equally
indignant with Millefleurs for making himself ridiculous, and with
Edith for laughing. "I have no doubt you were the best fag that ever
was," she said.
"Dear Lady Lindores! always so good and so kind," said Millefleurs,
clasping his little fat hands. "No, dearest lady, I was a little brute;
I know it. To be kicked every day would have been the right thing for
me--and Erskine, if I recollect right, had an energetic toe upon
occasions, but not often enough. Boys are brutes in general:--with the
exception of Rintoul, who, I have no doubt, was a little angel. How
could he be anything else, born in such a house?"
"If you think Lindores has so good an effect, Rintoul was not born
there," she said, laughing, but half vexed: for she had not indeed any
idea of being laughed at in her turn, and she was aware that she had
never thought Rintoul an angel. But Lord Millefleurs went on seriously--
"Rintoul will despise me very much, and so, probably, will Erskine; but
I do not mean to go out to-morrow. I take the opportunity here of
breaking the news. If it is as fine as this, I shall come out here (if
you will let me) and lie on this delicious heather, watch you strolling
forth, and listen to the crack of the guns. No; I don't object to it on
principle. I like grouse, and I suppose that's the best way to kill
them, if you will take so much trouble; but for me, it is not my way of
enjoyment. I was not made to be a son of civilisation. Do not laugh,
Lady Edith, please; you hurt my feelings. If you take luncheon to the
sportsmen anywhere, I will go with you: unless you, as I suppose you
will, despise me too."
"I don't think it is such a noble thing to shoot birds, Lord
Millefleurs."
"But yet you don't dislike grouse--and it must be killed somehow," said
John, somewhat irritated, as was natural.
"My dear fellow, I don't find fault with you. I see your position
perfectly. It is a thing you have always done. It is an occupation, and
at the same time an excitement, a pleasure. I have felt the same thing
in California with the cattle. But it doesn't amuse me, and I am not a
great shot. I will help to carry your luncheon, if Lady Lindores will
let me, and enjoy the spectacle of so many healthy happy persons who
feel that they have earned their dinner. All that I sympathise in
perfectly. You will excuse me saying dinner," said Millefleurs, with
pathos. "When we got our food after a morning's work we always called it
dinner. In many things I have quite returned to civilisation; but there
are some particulars still in which I slip--forgive me. May we sit down
here upon the heather and tell stories? I had a reputation once in that
way. You would not care for my stories, Lady Edith; you know them all
by heart. Now this is what I call delightful," said little Millefleurs,
arranging himself carefully upon the heather, and taking off his hat.
"You would say it is lovely, if you were an American."
"Do you mean the moor? I think it is very lovely, with all the heather
and the gorse, and the burns and the bees. Out of Scotland, is there
anything like it?" Edith said.
"Oh yes, in several places; but it is not the moor, it is the moment. It
is lovely to sit here. It is lovely to enjoy one's self, and have a good
time. Society is becoming very American," said Millefleurs. "There are
so many about. They are more piquant than any other foreigners. French
has become absurd, and Italian pedantic; but it is amusing to talk a
foreign language which is in English words, don't you know."
"You are to come back with them to dinner, Mr Erskine," Lady Lindores
said. She thought it better, notwithstanding her prevailing fear that
Millefleurs would be absurd, to leave him at liberty to discourse to
Edith, as he loved to discourse. "I hope you are going to have a fine
day. The worst is, you will all be so tired at night you will not have a
word to bestow upon any one."
"I have not too many at any time," said John, with a glance, which he
could not make quite friendly, at the visitor--who was flowing blandly
on with his lisp, with much gentle demonstration, like a chemical
operator or a _prestidigitateur_, with his plump hands. Our young man
was not jealous as yet, but a little moved with envy--being not much of
a talker, as he confessed--of Millefleurs's fluency. But he had thrown
himself at Edith's feet, and in this position felt no bitterness, nor
would have changed places with any one, especially as now and then she
would give him a glance in which there was a secret communication and
mirthful comment upon the other who occupied the foreground. Lady
Lindores preferred, however, that he should talk to her and withdraw his
observation from her daughter. Reluctantly, against the grain, she was
beginning in her turn to plot and to scheme. She was ashamed of herself,
yet, having once taken up the plan, it touched her pride that it should
be carried out.
"I have always found you had words enough whenever you wished to say
them," she said. "Perhaps you will tell me everybody has that. And Lord
Lindores tells me you don't do yourself justice, Mr Erskine. He says you
speak very well, and have such a clear head. I think," she added with a
sigh, "it is you who ought to be in Parliament, and not Rintoul."
"That is past thinking of," John said, with a little heightened colour.
He thought so himself; but neither could the party bear a divided
interest, nor had he himself any influence to match that of Lord
Lindores.
"You are going to Tinto on Tuesday," said Lady Lindores, "with the rest?
Do you know, Mr Erskine, my boy has never met his brother-in-law since
that evening here, when some words passed. I never could make out what
they were. Not enough to make a quarrel of? not enough to disturb
Carry----"
"I do not think so. It was only a--momentary impatience," John said.
"Mr Erskine, I am going to ask you a great favour. It is if you would
keep in Rintoul's company, keep by him; think, in a family how dreadful
it would be if any quarrel sprang up. The visit will not last long. If
you will keep your eye upon him, keep between him and temptation----"
John could not help smiling. The position into which he was being urged,
as a sort of governor to Rintoul, was entirely absurd to his own
consciousness. "You smile," cried Lady Lindores, eagerly; "you think
what right has this woman to ask so much? I am not even a very old
friend."
"I am laughing at the idea that Rintoul should be under my control; he
is more a man of the world than I am."
"Yes," said his mother, doubtfully, "that is true. He is dreadfully
worldly in some ways; but, Mr Erskine, I wonder if you will disapprove
of me when I say it has been a comfort to me to find him quite boyish
and impulsive in others? He is prudent--about Edith for example."
"About--Lady Edith?" John said, faltering, with a look of intense
surprise and anxiety on his face.
There is no doubt that Lady Lindores was herself a most imprudent woman.
She gave him a quick sudden glance, reddened, and then looked as
suddenly at the other group: Millefleurs, flowing forth in placid talk,
with much eloquent movement of his plump hands, and Edith listening,
with a smile on her face which now and then seemed ready to overflow
into laughter. She betrayed herself and all the family scheme by this
glance,--so sudden, so unintentional,--the action of one entirely
unskilled in the difficult art of deception. John's glance followed hers
with a sudden shock and pang of dismay. He had not thought of it before;
now in a moment he seemed to see it all. It was an unfortunate moment
too; for Edith was slightly leaning forward, looking at her companion
with a most amiable and friendly aspect, almost concealing, with the
forward stoop of her pretty figure, the rotund absurdity of his. She
smiled, yet she was listening to him with all the absorbed attention of
a Desdemona; and the little brute had so much to say for himself! The
blood all ran away from John's healthful countenance to replenish his
heart, which had need of it in this sudden and most unlooked-for shock.
Lady Lindores saw the whole, and shared the shock of the discovery,
which to her was double, for she perceived in the same moment that she
had betrayed herself, and saw what John's sentiments were. Some women
divine such feelings from their earliest rise--foresee them, indeed,
before they come into existence, and are prepared for the emergencies
that must follow; but there are some who are always taken by surprise.
She, too, became pale with horror and dismay. She ought to have foreseen
it--she ought to have guarded against it; but before she had so much as
anticipated such a danger, here it was!
"I mean," she faltered, "that she should--meet only the best people, go
to the best houses--and that sort of thing; even that she should be
perfectly dressed; he goes so far as that," she said, with an uneasy
laugh.
John did not make any reply. He bowed his head slightly, that was all.
He found himself, indeed, caught in such a whirlpool of strange emotion,
that he could not trust his voice, nor even his thoughts, which were
rushing head-long on each other's heels like horses broken loose, and
were altogether beyond his control.
"But he is himself as impulsive as a boy," cried the unlucky mother,
rushing into the original subject with no longer any very clear
perception what it was; "and Mr Torrance's manner, you know, is
sometimes--offensive to a sensitive person. He does not mean it," she
added hurriedly; "people have such different degrees of perception."
"Yes--people have very different degrees of perception," said John,
dreamily; he did not mean it as a reproach. It was the only observation
that occurred to him; his mind was in too great a turmoil to be able to
form any idea. To think he had never budged from his place at her feet,
and that all in a moment this should have happened! He felt as if, like
a man in a fairy tale, he had been suddenly carried off from the place
in which he was, and was hearing voices and seeing visions from some
dull distance, scarcely knowing what they meant.
Meanwhile Millefleurs purled on like the softest little stream, smooth
English brooklet, without breaks or boulders. He was never tired of
talking, and himself was his genial theme. "I am aware that I am
considered egoistical," he said. "I talk of things I am acquainted with.
Now, you know most things better than I do--oh yeth! women are much
better educated nowadays than men; but my limited experiences are, in
their way, original. I love to talk of what I know. Then my life over
yonder was such fun. If I were to tell you what my mates called me, you
would adopt the name ever after by way of laughing at me: but there was
no ridicule in their minds."
"I hope you don't think I would take any such liberty, Lord
Millefleurs."
"It would be no liberty; it would be an honour. I wish you would do it.
They called me Tommy over there. Now, my respectable name is Julian.
Imagine what a downfall. I knew you would laugh: but they meant no harm.
I acknowledge myself that it was very appropriate. When a man has the
misfortune to be plump and not very tall--I am aware that is a pretty
way of putting it; but then, you don't expect me to describe my personal
appearance in the coarsest terms--it is so natural to call him Tommy. I
was the nurse when any of them were ill. You have no notion how grateful
they were, these rough fellows. They used to curse me, you know--that
was their way of being civil--and ask where I had got such soft hands."
Here Millefleurs produced those articles, and looked at them with a
certain tenderness. "I was always rather vain of my hands," he said,
with the most childlike _naïveté_, "but never so much as when Jack and
Tim d----d them, in terms which I couldn't repeat in a lady's presence,
and asked me where the something I had learned to touch a fellow like
that? It occurred to me after that I might have studied surgery, and
been of some use that way; but I was too old," he said, a soft little
sigh agitating his plump bosom--"and then I have other duties. Fortune
has been hard upon me," he added, raising pathetically the eyes, which
were like beads, yet which languished and became sentimental as they
turned upwards. It was when he spoke of Jack and Tim that Edith had
looked at him so prettily, bending forward, touched by his tale; but now
she laughed without concealment, with a frank outburst of mirth in which
the little hero joined with great good-humour, notwithstanding the
pathos in his eyes.
This pair were on the happiest terms, fully understanding each other;
but it was very different with the others, between whom conversation had
wholly ceased. Lady Lindores now drew her shawl round her, and
complained that it was getting chilly. "That is the worst of Scotland,"
she said--"you can never trust the finest day. A sharp wind will come
round a corner all in a moment and spoil your pleasure." This was most
unprovoked slander of the northern skies, which were beaming down upon
her at the moment with the utmost brightness, and promising hours of
sunshine; but after such a speech there was nothing to be done but to go
down hill again to the house, where the carriage was waiting. John, who
lingered behind to pull himself together after his downfall, found, to
his great surprise, that Edith lingered too. But it seemed to him that
he was incapable of saying anything to her. To point the contrast
between himself and Millefleurs by a distracted silence, that, of
course, was the very thing to do to take away any shadow of a chance he
might still have! But he had no chance. What possibility was there that
an obscure country gentleman, who had never done anything to distinguish
himself, should be able to stand for a moment against the son of a rich
duke, a marquis, a millionaire, and a kind of little hero to boot, who
had been very independent and original, and made himself a certain
reputation, though it was one of which some people might be afraid?
There was only one thing in which he was Millefleurs's superior, but
that was the meanest and poorest of all. John felt inclined to burst out
into savage and brutal laughter at those soft curves and flowing
outlines, as the little man, talking continuously, as he had talked to
Edith, walked on in front with her mother. The impulse made him more and
more ashamed of himself, and yet he was so mean as to indulge it,
feeling himself a cad, and nothing else. Edith laughed too, softly,
under her breath. But she said quickly--"We should not laugh at him, Mr
Erskine. He is a very good little man. He has done more than all of us
put together. They called him Tommy in America," said the traitress,
with another suppressed laugh. John was for a moment softened by the
"we" with which she began, and the gibe with which she ended. But his
ill-humour and jealous rage were too much for him.
"He is Marquis of Millefleurs, and he will be Duke of Lavender," he
said, with an energy which was savage, trampling down the tough heather
under his feet.
Edith turned and looked at him with astonished eyes. It was a revelation
to her also, though for the first moment she scarcely knew of what. "Do
you think it is for that reason we like him, Mr Erskine? How strange!"
she said, and turned her eyes away with a proud movement of her head,
full of indignation and scorn. John felt himself the pettiness and
petulance of which he had been guilty; but he was very unhappy, and it
seemed to him impossible to say or do anything by which he might get
himself pardoned. So he walked along moodily by her side, saying
nothing, while Lord Millefleurs held forth just a few steps in advance.
Edith bent forward to hear what he was saying, in the continued silence
of her companion, and this was a renewed draught of wormwood and gall to
John, though it was his own fault. It was with relief that he put the
ladies into their carriage, and saw them drive away, though this relief
was changed into angry impatience when he found that Millefleurs
lingered with the intention of walking, and evidently calculated upon
his company. The little Marquis, indeed, took his arm with friendly
ease, and turned him with gentle compulsion towards the avenue. "You are
going to walk with me," he said. "An excellent thing in Scotland is that
it is never too warm to walk, even for me. Come and talk a little. I
have been telling tales about myself. I have not heard anything of you.
The first is such an easy subject. One has one's little experiences,
which are different from any one else's; and wherever there are kind
women you find your audience, don't you know?"
"No, I don't know," said John, abruptly. "It never occurs to me to talk
about myself. I can't see what interest anybody can have in things that
happen to me. Besides, few things do happen for that matter," he added,
in an undertone.
"My dear fellow," said Millefleurs, "I don't want to appear to teach
you, who are a man of much more intelligence than I. But that ith a
mithtake, I must say it. You can always talk best on the subject you
know best. Don't you find it a great difference coming here after
knocking about the world? Yes, I feel it; but society is quite fresh to
me, as fresh as California while it lasts. Then I have had my eyes
opened as to my duties. My father and mother are as kind as possible. A
friend of mine tells me, and I am partly convinced, that to keep them
comfortable is my chief business. You are of that opinion too? there is
much to be said for it. It belongs to civilisation; but so long as
civilisation lasts, perhaps----And so I am going to marry and range
myself," Millefleurs said, with his air of ineffable self-satisfaction,
turning up the palms of his fat pink-tinged hands.
"Really!" John cried, with faint derision, feeling as if this innocent
exclamation were an oath. "And the lady?" he added, with a still more
fierce laugh.
Millefleurs gave his arm a little squeeze. "Not settled yet," he
said--"not settled yet. I have seen a great many. There are so many
pretty persons in society. If any one of them would ask me, I have no
doubt I should be perfectly happy; but choice is always disagreeable. In
America also," he added, with some pathos, "there are many very pretty
persons: and they like a title. The field is very wide. Let us take an
easier subject. Is Beaufort coming to you?"
"His answer is very enigmatical," said John. "I do not know whether he
means to come or not."
"He is enigmatical," said Millefleurs. "He is the queerest fellow. What
is the connection between him and the family here?"
This question took John entirely by surprise. It was so sudden, both in
form and meaning. He had expected his companion, before he paused, to go
on for at least five minutes more. He hesitated in spite of himself.
"There is no connection that I know of between him and the family here."
"Oh yes, yes, there is," said Millefleurs, with gentle pertinacity;
"think a minute. Erskine, my dear fellow, forgive me, but you must have
Beaufort here. If he is not near me, he will lose the confidence of my
papa--who will think Beaufort is neglecting his precious son. I speak to
you with perfect freedom. Beaufort and I understand each other. I am in
no need of a governor, but he is in want of a _protégé_. Don't you see?
By this arrangement everything is made comfortable. Beaufort understands
me. He knows that control is a mistake in my case. He found me and
brought me home, because I was already on my way: he keeps me from
harm--for what you call harm has no attraction for me, don't you know.
It is only my curiosity that has to be kept in check, and at present I
have plenty to occupy that; but my father does not understand all this.
Minds of that generation are a little limited, don't you know. They
don't see so clearly as one would wish them to see. If Beaufort is long
away from me, he will think I am in danger,--that I may bolt again.
Also, it will interfere with Beaufort's prospects, which the Duke is to
take charge of----"
"But this seems to me rather--not quite straightforward on Beaufort's
part," said John.
At this little Millefleurs shrugged his plump shoulders. "It is
permitted to humour our elders," he said. "It pleases them and it does
no one any harm. Beaufort, don't you know, is not a fellow to walk
alone. He is clever and all that; but he will never do anything by
himself. Between him and me it suits very well. So, to save the Duke's
feelings and to help Beaufort on, you must stretch a point and have him
here. It will be thought he is watching over me at a little distance
like the sweet little cherub, don't you know, in the song. What
objection have they got to seeing him here?"
"None that I know of," said John steadily, turning his face to the other
side to escape the scrutiny of those small black bead-like eyes.
"Oh come, come, come!" said little Millefleurs, remonstrating yet
coaxing, patting him lightly on the arm, "one sees it must have been
one of the daughters. It will do no harm to tell me. Am I such an
ignorant? These things are happening every day. Is it this one
here?----"
"What are you thinking of?" cried John, angrily. "Lady Edith was only a
child."
"Ah! then it was the other one," Millefleurs said, seriously; "that
suits me better. It would have been a trifle ridiculous--Beaufort might
keep in the background if there is any reason for it: but we must really
think of the Duke. He will be in a state of mind, don't you know, and so
will my mother. They will think I have bolted again."
"And when is it," said John satirically, for he was sick at heart and
irritable in the discovery which he had made, "that Beaufort's mission
is to be accomplished, and the Duke to fulfil his hopes?"
Millefleurs laughed a soft rich laugh, not loud. "My dear fellow," he
said, "that is when I marry, don't you know. That is my occupation now
in the world. When I have a wife, the other will be off duty. I am much
interested in my occupation at present. It brings so many specimens of
humanity under one's eyes. So different--for women are just as different
as men, though you don't think so perhaps. It might make a man vain," he
said, turning out his pink-tinged palm, "to see how many fair creatures
will take notice of him; but then one remembers that it was not always
so, and that takes one down again. In California I was liked, I am proud
to say, but not admired. It was, perhaps, more amusing. But I must not
be ungrateful: for life everywhere is very entertaining. And here are
fresh fields and pastures new," said the little man. "When you have a
pursuit, every new place is doubly interesting. It does not matter
whether you are hunting or botanising or----, a pursuit gives interest
to all things. Now is the time for the country and rural character. I
sometimes think it is that which will suit me best."
"Then I suppose you are on a tour of inspection, and one of our country
young ladies may have the honour of pleasing you," said John, somewhat
fiercely. His companion, looking up in his face with deprecating looks,
patted his arm as a kind of protest.
"Don't be brutal, Erskine," he said with his little lisp; "such things
are never said." John would have liked to take him in his teeth and
shake him as a dog does, so angry was he, and furious. But little
Millefleurs meant no harm. He drew his old schoolfellow along with him,
as long as John's civility held out. Then, to see him strolling along
with his little hat pushed on the top of his little round head, and all
the curves of his person repeating the lines of that circle! John
stopped to look after him with a laugh which he could scarcely restrain
so long as Millefleurs was within hearing. It was an angry laugh, though
there was nothing in the young man to give occasion for it. There was
nothing really in him that was contemptible, for to be plump is not an
offence by any code. But John watched him with the fiercest derision
going along the country road with his cane held in two fingers, his hat
curling in the brim, his locks curling the other way. And this was the
man whom even Lady Lindores--even she, a woman so superior to worldly
motives--condescended to scheme about. And Edith? was it possible that
she, too--even she? Everything seemed to have turned to bitterness in
John's soul. Tinto before him in the distance, with its flaunting flag,
gave emphasis to the discovery he had made. For mere money, nothing
else, one had been sacrificed. The other, was she to be sacrificed, too?
Was there nothing but wealth to be thought of all the world over, even
by the best people, by women with every tender grace and gift? When he
thought of the part in the drama allotted to himself--to entertain
Beaufort, who was the keeper of Millefleurs, in order that Millefleurs
might be at liberty to follow his present pursuit, John burst into a
laugh not much more melodious than that of Torrance. Beaufort and he
could condole with each other. They could communicate, each to each,
their several disappointments. But to bring to the neighbourhood this
man whom Carry dared not see, whom with such tragic misery in her face
she had implored John to keep at a distance--and that it should be her
parents who were bringing him in cold blood in order to advance their
schemes for her sister--was it possible that anything so base or cruel
could be?
CHAPTER XXIV.
"The thing is, that he must be brought to the point. I said so in town.
He dangled after her all the season, and he's dangled after her down
here. The little beggar knows better than that. He knows that sharp
people would never stand it. He is trusting to your country simplicity.
When a man does not come to the point of his own accord, he must be led
to it--or driven to it, for that matter," said Rintoul. He was out of
humour, poor fellow. He had gone astray in his own person. His
disapproval of his mother and of everybody belonging to him was nothing
in comparison with his disapproval of himself. This put him out in every
way: instead of making him tolerant of the others who were no worse than
himself, it made him rampant in his wisdom. If it was so that he could
not persuade or force himself into the right way, then was it more and
more necessary to persuade or force other people. He took a high tone
with Lady Lindores, all the more because he had discovered with
astonishment, and a comical sort of indignation, that his mother had
come over to his way of thinking. He could not believe it to be possible
at first, and afterwards this inconsistent young man had felt disgusted
with the new accomplice whom he had in his heart believed incapable of
any such conversion. But such being the case, there was no need to
_ménager_ her susceptibilities. "Or driven to it," he repeated with
emphasis. "I shall not stand by, I promise you, and see my sister
_planté là_----"
"You have used these words before, Rintoul. They disgust me, and they
offend me," said his mother. "I will not be a party to anything of the
kind. Those who do such things dishonour the girl--oh, far more than
anything else can do. She does not care at all for him. Most likely she
would refuse him summarily."
"And you would let her--refuse a dukedom?" cried Rintoul.
"Refuse a--man whom she does not care for. What could I do? I should
even like now, after all that has happened, that it should come to
something; but if she found that she could not marry him, how could I
interfere?"
"Jove! but I should interfere," cried Rintoul, pacing up and down the
room. "How could you help interfering? Would you suffer me to throw
away all my prospects?" Here he paused, with a curious,
half-threatening, half-deprecating look. Perhaps his mother would be one
who would suffer him to sacrifice his prospects. Perhaps she would
sympathise with him even in that wrong-doing. She was capable of it. He
looked at her with mingled disdain and admiration. She was a woman who
was capable of applauding him for throwing himself away. What folly! and
yet perhaps it was good to have a mother like that. But not for Edith,
whose case was of an altogether different complexion from his own. He
made a pause, and then he added in a slightly louder tone, being
excited: "But he must not be allowed to dangle on for ever. When a
fellow follows a girl into the country he must mean something. You may
take my word for that."
At this moment the handle of the door gave a slight clink; a soft step
was audible. "Pardon me for disturbing you, dearest lady," said the
mellifluous voice of Millefleurs. The little Marquis had a foot which
made no sound on the carpet. He was daintily attired, and all his
movements were noiseless. He came upon the sestartled conspirators like
a ghost. "Send me away if I am _de trop_," he said, clasping his plump
hands. "It is my hour of audience, but Rintoul has the first claim."
"Oh, I don't want any audience," said Rintoul. He had exchanged an
anxious glance with his mother, and both had reddened in spite of
themselves. Not to betray that you have been discussing some one who
appears, while the words of criticism are still on your lips, is
difficult at all times; and Rintoul, feeling confused and guilty, was
anxious to give the interrupted conversation an air of insignificance.
"My mother and I have no secrets. She is not so easy as the mothers in
society," he said, with a laugh.
"No!" said Millefleurs, folding his hands with an air of devotion. "I
would not discuss the _chronique scandaleuse_, if that is what you mean,
in Lady Lindores's hearing. The air is pure here; it is like living out
of doors. There is no _dessous des cartes_--no behind the scenes."
"What does the little beggar mean?" Rintoul said to himself, feeling red
and uncomfortable. Lady Lindores took up her work, which was her flag of
distress. She felt herself humiliated beyond description. To think that
she should be afraid of any one overhearing what she said or what her
son had said to her! She felt her cheeks burn and tingle; her needle
trembled in her fingers; and then there ensued a most uncomfortable
pause. Had he heard what they were saying? Rintoul did not go away,
which would have been the best policy, but stood about, taking up books
and throwing them down again, and wearing, which was the last thing he
wished to do, the air of a man disturbed in an important consultation.
As a matter of fact, his mind was occupied with two troublesome
questions: the first, whether Millefleurs had overheard anything; the
second, how he could himself get away. Millefleurs very soon perceived
and shared in this embarrassment. The phrase which had been uttered as
he opened the door had reached his ear without affecting his mind for
the first moment. Perhaps if he had not perceived the embarrassment of
the speaker he would not have given any weight to the words--"When a
fellow follows----" Funny alliteration! he said to himself. And then he
saw that the mother and son were greatly disturbed by his entrance. He
was as much occupied by wondering what they could mean, as they were by
wondering if he had heard. But he was the first to cut the difficulty.
He said, "Pardon me, dear lady, I have forgotten something. I'll come
back directly if you'll let me"--and went out. Certainly there had been
some discussion going on between mother and son. Perhaps Rintoul had got
into debt, perhaps into love; both were things which occurred daily, and
it was always best when such a subject had been started between parent
and child that they should have it out. So he withdrew, but with that
phrase still buzzing in his ears, "When a fellow follows----" It was a
comical combination of words; he could not get rid of it, and presently
it began to disturb his mind. Instead of going to the library or any of
the other rooms in the house, he went outside with the sensation of
having something to reflect upon, though he could not be sure what it
was. By-and-by the entire sentence came to his recollection. "When a
fellow follows a girl into the country--but then, who is it that has
followed the girl into the country?--Rintoul?----" This cost him about
five minutes' thought. Then little Millefleurs stopped short in the
midst of the path, and clasped his hands against his plump bosom, and
turned up his eyes to heaven. "Why! it is I!----" he said to himself,
being more grammatical than most men in a state of agitation. He stood
for a whole minute in this attitude, among the big blue-green araucarias
which stood around. What a subject for a painter if there had been one
at hand! It was honour confronting fate. He had not intended anything so
serious. He liked, he would have said loved, the ladies of the house. He
would not have hesitated anywhere to give full utterance to this
sentiment: and to please his father, and to amuse himself, he was
consciously on the search for some one who might be suitable for the
vacant post of Marchioness of Millefleurs. And he had thought of Edith
in that capacity--certainly he had thought of her. So had he thought of
various other young ladies in society, turning over their various
claims. But it had not occurred to him to come to any sudden decision,
or to think that necessary. As he stood there, however, with his eyes
upraised, invoking aid from that paternal Providence which watches over
marquises, a flood of light spread over the subject and all its
accessories. Though he had not thought of them, he knew the prejudices
of society; and all that Rintoul had said about leaving a girl _planté
là_ was familiar to him. "When a fellow follows" (absurd alliteration!
said Millefleurs, with his lisp, to himself) "a girl into the country,
he muth mean thomething----" and once more he clasped his hands and
pressed them to his breast. His eyes, raised to heaven, took a
languishing look; a smile of consciousness played about his mouth; but
this was only for a moment, and was replaced at once by a look of firm
resolution. No maiden owed her scath to Millefleurs: though he was so
plump, he was the soul of honour. Not for a moment could he permit it to
be supposed that he was trifling with Edith Lindores, amusing
himself--any of those pretty phrases in use in society. He thought with
horror of the possibility of having compromised her, even though, so far
as he was himself concerned, the idea was not disagreeable. In five
minutes--for he had a quick little brain and the finest faculty of
observation, a quality cultivated in his race by several centuries of
social eminence--Millefleurs had mastered the situation. All the
instructions that Rintoul had so zealously endeavoured to convey to his
mother's mind became apparent to Millefleurs in the twinkling of an eye.
It would be said that he had left her _planté là_; he allowed himself no
illusion on the subject. So it might be said,--but so it never must be
said of Edith Lindores. He was perfectly chivalrous in his instant
decision. He was not to say in love--though did Providence bestow any
one of five or six young ladies, among whom Edith stood high, upon him,
Millefleurs felt positively convinced that he would be the happiest man
in the world. And he was not sure that he might not be running the risk
of a refusal, a thing which is very appalling to a young man's
imagination. But notwithstanding this danger, Millefleurs, without
hesitation, braced himself up to do his duty. He buttoned his coat, took
off his hat and put it on again, and then pulling himself together, went
off without a moment's hesitation in search of Lord Lindores.
An hour later the Earl entered his lady's chamber with a countenance in
which gratification, and proud content in an achieved success, were only
kept in check by the other kind of pride which would not permit it to be
perceived that this success was anything out of the ordinary. He told
her his news in a few brief words, which Lady Lindores received with so
much agitation, turning from red to white, and with such an appearance
of vexation and pain, that the Earl put on his sternest aspect. "What is
the meaning of all this flurry and disturbance?" he said. "I hope we are
not going to have it all over again, as we had before Carry's wedding."
"Oh, don't speak of poor Carry's wedding in comparison with this. This,
God grant it, if it comes to pass, will be no degradation--no
misery----"
"Not much degradation, certainly--only somewhere about the best position
in England," with angry scorn Lord Lindores said.
But the lines were not smoothed away from his wife's forehead, nor did
the flush of shame and pain leave her face. She looked at him for a
moment, to see whether she should tell him. But why poison his pleasure?
"It is not his fault," she said to herself; and all that she gave
utterance to was an anxious exclamation: "Provided that Edith sees as we
do!"
"She must see as we do," Lord Lindores said.
But when Rintoul came in, his mother went to him and seized his arm with
both her hands. "He heard what you said!" she cried, with anguish in her
voice. "Now I shall never be able to hold up my head in his presence--he
heard what you said!"
Rintoul too, notwithstanding his more enlightened views, was somewhat
red. Though it was in accordance with his principles, yet the fact of
having helped to force, in any way, a proposal for his sister, caused
him an unpleasant sensation. He tried to carry it off with a laugh.
"Anyhow, since it _has_ brought him to the point," he said.
This was the day on which Millefleurs was to be taken to Tinto to see
the house and all its curiosities and wealth. In view of this he had
begged that nothing might be said to Edith, with a chivalrous desire to
save her pain should her answer be unfavourable. But how could Lady
Lindores keep such a secret from her daughter? While she was still full
of the excitement, the painful triumph, the terror and shame with which
she had received the news, Edith came in to the morning room, which
to-day had been the scene of so many important discussions. They had
been perhaps half an hour together, going gaily on with the flood of
light-hearted conversation about anything and nothing which is natural
between a girl and her mother, when she suddenly caught a glimpse in a
mirror of Lady Lindores's troubled face. The girl rushed to her
instantly, took this disturbed countenance between her hands, and turned
it with gentle force towards her. Her own face grew grave at once.
"Something is the matter," she said; "something has happened. Oh,
mother, darling, what is it? Something about Carry?"
"No, no; nothing, nothing! Certainly nothing that is unhappy----Don't
question me now, Edith. Afterwards, you shall know it all."
"Let me know it now," the girl said; and she insisted with that filial
tyranny against which mothers are helpless. At last Lady Lindores, being
pressed into a corner, murmured something about Lord Millefleurs. "If he
speaks to you to-night, oh, my darling--if he asks you--do not be hasty;
say nothing, say nothing, without thought."
"Speaks to me--asks me!"--Edith stood wonder-stricken, her eyes wide
open, her lips apart. "What should he ask me?" She grew a little pale in
spite of herself.
"My dearest! what should he ask you? What is it that a young man
asks--in such circumstances? He will ask you--perhaps--to marry him."
Edith gave a kind of shriek--and then burst into a peal of agitated
laughter. "Mother, dear, what a fright you have given me! I thought--I
didn't know what to think. Poor little man! Don't let him do it--don't
let him do it, mamma! It would make us both ridiculous, and if it made
him at all--unhappy; but that is nonsense--you are only making fun of
me," said the girl, kissing her, with a hurried eagerness as if to
silence her. Lady Lindores drew herself away from her daughter's
embrace.
"Edith, it is you who are making yourself ridiculous--consider how he
has sought you all this time--and he came after you to the country. I
have felt what--was coming all along. My dearest, did not you suspect it
too?"
Edith stood within her mother's arm, but she was angry and held herself
apart, not leaning upon the bosom where she had rested so often. "_I_
suspect it! how could I suspect it?" she cried. It went to Lady
Lindores's heart to feel her child straighten herself up, and keep apart
from her and all her caresses.
"Edith, for God's sake, do not set yourself against it! Think, only
think----"
"What has God got to do with it, mother?" the young creature cried
sternly. "I will set myself against it--nay, more than that, I am not
like Carry; nothing in the world will make me do it--not any reason, not
any argument." She was still encircled by her mother's arm, but she
stood straight, upright, erect as a willow-wand, unyielding, drawing her
garments, as it were, about her, insensible to the quivering lines of
her mother's upturned face, and the softer strain of her embrace. No,
not indifferent--but resisting--shutting her eyes to them, holding
herself apart.
"For heaven's sake, Edith! Oh, my darling, think how different this is
from the other! Your father has set his heart on it, and I wish it too.
And Millefleurs is----Millefleurs will be----"
"Is this how you persuaded Carry?" cried Edith, with sad indignation;
"but mother, mother, listen! not me. It is better that never another
word should be said between us on this subject, for I will never do it,
whatever may be said. If my father chooses to speak to me, I will give
him my answer. Let us say no more--not another word;" and with this the
girl unbent and threw herself upon her mother, and stopped her mouth
with kisses, indignant, impassioned--her cheeks hot and flushed, her
eyes full of angry tears.
It may be thought that the drive to Tinto of this strange party, all
palpitating with the secret which each thought unknown to the other, was
a curious episode enough. Millefleurs, satisfied with himself, and
feeling the importance of his position with so much to bestow, found, he
thought, a sympathetic response in the look of Lady Lindores, to whom,
no doubt, as was quite right, her husband had disclosed the great news;
but he thought that Edith was entirely ignorant of it. And Edith and her
mother had their secret on their side, the possession of which was more
momentous still. But they all talked and smiled with the little
pleasantries and criticisms that are inevitable in the conversation of
persons of the highest and most cultivated classes, and did not betray
what was in their hearts.
CHAPTER XXV.
John Erskine was on the steps leading to the great central entrance when
the carriage from Lindores drove up at the door. It was not by chance
that he found himself there, for he was aware of the intended visit; and
with the sombre attraction which the sight of a rival and an adversary
has for a man, felt himself drawn towards the scene in which an act of
this drama in which his happiness was involved, was going on. He hurried
down before the footman to get to the carriage-door, and hand the ladies
out. He had seen them several times since that day when Lady Lindores,
unused to deception, had allowed the secret to slip from her. And he had
accustomed himself to the fact that Millefleurs, who was in person and
aspect so little alarming, but in other ways the most irresistible of
rivals, was in full possession of the field before him. But John, with
quickened insight, had also perceived that no decisive step had as yet
been taken, and with infinite relief was able to persuade himself that
Edith as yet was no party to the plot, and was unaware what was coming.
He saw in a moment now that some important change had come over the
state of affairs. Lady Lindores avoided his eye, but Edith looked at
him, he thought, with a sort of appeal in her face,--a question,--a
wondering demand, full of mingled defiance and deprecation. So much in
one look!--and yet there seemed to him even more than all this. What had
happened? Millefleurs was conscious too. There was a self-satisfaction
about him more evident, more marked than usual. He put out his chest a
little more. He held his head higher, though he refrained from any
special demonstration in respect to Edith. There was an air about him as
of a man who had taken some remarkable initiative. His very step touched
the ground with more weight: his round eyes contemplated all things with
a more bland and genial certainty of being able to solve every
difficulty. And Rintoul had a watchful look as of a man on his guard--a
keen spectator vigilantly attentive to everything; uncertain whether
even yet he might not be called upon to interfere. All this John Erskine
saw at one glance,--not clearly as it is set down here, but vaguely,
with confused perceptions which he could not disentangle, which conveyed
no distinct information to his mind, but only a warning, an intimation
which set every vein of him tingling. Lady Lindores would not meet his
eye; but Edith looked at him with that strange look of question--How
much do you know? it seemed to say. What do you suspect? and with a
flash of indignation--Do you suspect me? Do you doubt me? He thought
there was all this, or something like it, in her eyes; and yet he could
not tell what they meant, nor, so far as she was concerned, what length
her knowledge went. He met her look with one in which another question
bore the chief part. But it was much less clear to Edith what that
question meant. They were all as conscious as it was possible for human
creatures each shut up within the curious envelope of his own identity,
imperfectly comprehending any other, to be. The air tingled with meaning
round them. They were all aware, strangely, yet naturally, of standing
on the edge of fate.
Lady Caroline and her husband received this party in the great
drawing-room which was used on state occasions: everything had been
thrown open professedly that Lord Millefleurs should see, but really
that Lord Millefleurs should be dazzled by, the splendour which Torrance
devoutly believed to be unrivalled. It was in order that he might see
the effect of all the velvet and brocade, all the gilding and carving,
upon the stranger, that he had waited to receive the party from Lindores
with his wife, a thing quite unusual to him; and he was in high
expectation and good-humour, fully expecting to be flattered and
gratified. There was a short pause of mutual civilities to begin with,
during which Torrance was somewhat chilled and affronted to see that the
little Marquis remained composed, and displayed no awe, though he looked
about him with his quick little round eyes.
"You will have heard, Lady Caroline, how I have lost any little scrap of
reputation I ever had," Millefleurs said, clasping his plump hands. "I
am no shot: it is true, though I ought to be ashamed to acknowledge it.
And I don't care to follow flying things on foot. If there was a balloon
indeed! I am an impostor at this season. I am occupying the place of
some happy person who might make a large bag every day."
"But there is room for all those happy persons without disturbing
you--who have other qualities," said Carry, with her soft pathetic
smile. There was a little tremor about her, and catching of her breath,
for she did not know at what moment might occur that name which always
agitated her, however she might fortify herself against it.
"If not at Lindores, there's always plenty of room at Tinto," said
Torrance, with ostentatious openness. "There's room for a regiment here.
I have a few fellows coming for the partridges, but not half enough to
fill the house. Whenever you like, you and your belongings, as many as
you please, whether it's servants--or guardians," Torrance said, with
his usual rude laugh.
Something like an electric shock ran round the company. Millefleurs was
the only one who received it without the smallest evidence of
understanding what it was. He looked up in Torrance's face with an
unmoved aspect. "I don't travel with a suite," he said, "though I am
much obliged to you all the same. It is my father who carries all sorts
of people about with him. And I love my present quarters," said the
little Marquis, directing a look towards Lady Lindores of absolute
devotion. "I will not go away unless I am sent away. A man who has
knocked about the world knows when he is well off. I will go to Erskine,
and be out of the way during the hours when I am _de trop_."
"Erskine is filling his house too, I suppose," Torrance said. And then
having got all that was practicable in the shape of offence out of this
subject, he proposed that they should make the tour of what had been
always called the state apartments at Tinto. "There's a few things to
show," he said, affecting humility; "not much to you who have been about
the world as you say, but still a few things that we think something of
in this out-of-the-way place." Then he added, "Lady Car had better be
the showman, for she knows more about them than I do--though I was born
among them." This was the highest possible pleasure to Pat Torrance. To
show off his possessions, to which he professed to be indifferent, with
an intended superiority in his rude manliness to anything so finicking,
by means of his wife--his proudest and finest possession of all--was
delightful to him. He lounged after them, keeping close to the party,
ready with all his being to enjoy Lady Car's description of the things
that merited admiration. He was in high good-humour, elated with the
sense of his position as her husband and the owner of all this grandeur.
He felt that the little English lord would now see what a Scotch country
gentleman could be, what a noble distinguished wife he could get for
himself, and what a house he could bring her to. Unfortunately, Lord
Millefleurs, whose delight was to talk about Californian miners and
their habitudes, was familiar with greater houses than Tinto, and had
been born in the purple, and slept on rose-leaves all his life. He
admired politely what he was evidently expected to admire, but he gave
vent to no enthusiasm. When they came to the great dining-room, with its
huge vases and marble pillars, he looked round upon it with a
countenance of complete seriousness, not lightened by any
gratification. "Yes--I see: everything is admirably in keeping," he
said; "an excellent example of the period. It is so seldom one sees this
sort of thing nowadays. Everybody has begun to try to improve, don't you
know; and the _mieux_ is always the _ennemi du bien_. This is all of a
piece, don't you know. It is quite perfect of its kind."
"What does the little beggar mean?" it was now Torrance's turn to say to
himself. It sounded, no doubt, like praise, but his watchful suspicion
and jealousy were roused. He tried his usual expedient of announcing how
much it had cost; but Millefleurs--confound the little beggar!--received
the intimation with perfect equanimity. He was not impressed. He made
Torrance a little bow, and said with his lisp, "Yeth, very cothtly
alwayth--the materials are all so expensive, don't you know." But he
could not be brought to say anything more. Even Lady Caroline felt
depressed by his gravity; for insensibly, though she ought to have known
better, she had got to feel that all the wealth of Tinto--its marbles,
its gilding, its masses of ornate plate, and heavy decorations--must
merit consideration. They had been reckoned among the things for which
she had been sacrificed--they were part of her price, so to speak: and
if they were not splendid and awe-inspiring, then her sacrifice had
indeed been made in vain. Poor Lady Caroline was not in a condition to
meet with any further discouragement; and to feel that her husband was
beginning to lose his air of elated good-humour, gave an additional
tremor to the nervousness which possessed her. She knew what he would
say about "your fine friends," and how he would swear that no such
visitors should ever be asked to his house again. She went on
mechanically saying her little lesson by heart, pointing out all the
great pieces of modern Sèvres and Dresden. Her mind was full of
miserable thoughts. She wanted to catch John Erskine's eye, to put an
imploring question to him with eyes or mouth. "Is he coming?" This was
what she wanted to say. But she could not catch John Erskine's eye, who
was gloomily walking behind her by the side of Edith saying nothing.
Lady Caroline could not help remarking that neither of these two said a
word. Lady Lindores and Rintoul kept up a kind of skirmishing action
around them, trying now to draw one, now the other, into conversation,
and get them apart. But the two kept by each other like a pair in a
procession--yet never spoke.
"The period, dear lady?" said Millefleurs,--"I am not up to the last
novelties of classification, nor scientific, don't you know; but I
should say Georgian, late Georgian, or verging upon the times of the
Royal William"--he gave a slight shiver as he spoke, perhaps from cold,
for the windows were all open, and there was a draught. "But perfect of
its kind," he added with a little bow, and a seriousness which was more
disparaging than abuse. Even Lady Carry smiled constrainedly, and
Torrance, with a start, awoke to his sense of wrong, and felt that he
could bear no more.
"George or Jack," he cried, "I don't know anything about periods; this I
do know, that it ran away with a great deal of money--money none of us
would mind having in our pockets now." He stared at Rintoul as he spoke,
but even Rintoul looked as if he were indifferent, which galled the rich
man more and more. "My Lady Countess and my Lord Marquis," he said, with
an elaborate mocking bow, "I'll have to ask you to excuse me. I've
got--something to do that I thought I could get off--but I can't, don't
you know;" and here he laughed again, imitating as well as he was able
the seraphic appeal to the candour of his hearers, which Millefleurs was
so fond of making. The tone, the words, the aspect of the man, taught
Millefleurs sufficiently (who was the only stranger) that he had given
offence; and the others drew closer, eager to make peace for Carry's
sake, who was smiling with the ordinary effort of an unhappy wife to
make the best of it and represent to the others that it was only her
husband's "way."
But Torrance's ill-humour was not as usual directed towards his wife.
When he looked at her, his face, to her great astonishment, softened. It
was a small matter that did it; the chief reason was that he saw a look
of displeasure--of almost offence--upon his wife's countenance too. She
was annoyed with the contemptible little English lord as much as he was.
This did not take away his rage, but it immediately gave him that sense
that his wife was on his side, for which the rough fellow had always
longed--and altered his aspect at once. As he stood looking at them,
with his large light eyes projecting from their sockets, a flush of
offence on his cheeks, a forced laugh on his mouth, his face softened
all in a moment. This time she was no longer the chief antagonist to be
subdued, but his natural supporter and champion. He laid his heavy hand
upon her shoulder, with a pride of proprietorship which for once she did
not seem to contest. "Lady Car," he said, "she's my deputy: she'll take
care of you better than I."
Lady Caroline, with an involuntary, almost affectionate response, put
her hand on his arm. "Don't go," she said, lifting her face to him with
an eloquence of suppressed and tremulous emotion all about her, which
indeed had little reference to this ill-humour of his, but helped to
dignify it, and take away the air of trivial rage and mortification
which had been too evident at first. Lady Lindores, too, made a step
forward with the same intention. He stood and looked at them with a
curious medley of feeling, touched at once by the pleasure of a closer
approach to his wife, and by a momentary tragic sense of being entirely
outside of this group of people to whom he was so closely related. They
were his nearest connections, and yet he did not belong to them, never
could belong to them! They were of a different species--another world
altogether. Lady Car could take care of them. She could understand them,
and know their ways; but not he. They were all too fine for him, out of
his range, thinking different thoughts, pretending even (for it must
surely have been mere pretence) to despise his house, which everybody
knew was the great house of the district, infinitely grander than the
castle or any other place in the county. He was deeply wounded by this
unlooked-for cutting away of the ground from under his feet: but Lady
Car was on his side. She could manage them though he could not. Not one
of them was equal to her, and it was to him that she belonged. He
laughed again, but the sound of his laugh was not harsh as it had been
before. "No, no; Lady Car will take care of you," he said.
"I hope," said Millefleurs in his mellifluous tones, "that it is not
this intrusion of ours that is sending Mr Torrance away. I know what a
nuisance people are coming to luncheon in the middle of an occupied
day. Send us away, Lady Caroline, or rather send me away, who am the
stranger. Erskine will take me with him to Dalrulzian, and another day I
shall return and see the rest of your splendours."
"Mr Torrance has really business," said Carry; "mamma will show you the
other rooms, while I speak to my husband." She went swiftly, softly,
after him, as his big figure disappeared in the long vista of the great
dining-room. After a moment's pause of embarrassment, the rest went on.
Carry hurried trembling after her tyrant. When they were out of hearing
she called him anxiously. "Oh, don't go, Pat. How do you think I can
entertain such a party when they know that you are offended, and will
not stay?"
"You will get on better without me," he said. "I can't stand these
fellows and their airs. It isn't any fault of yours, Lady Car. Come, I'm
pleased with _you_. You've stood by your own this time, I will say that
for you. But they're your kind, they're not mine. Dash the little
beggar, what a cheek he has! I'm not used to hear the house run down.
But never mind, I don't care a pin,--and it's not your fault this time,
Car," he said, with a laugh, touching her cheek with his finger with a
touch which was half a blow and half a caress. This was about as much
tenderness as he was capable of showing. Carry followed him to the
door, and saw him plunge down the great steps, and turn in the direction
of the stables. Perhaps she was not sorry to avoid all further occasion
of offence. She returned slowly through the long, vulgar, costly
rooms--a sigh of relief came from her overladen heart; but relief in one
point made her but more painfully conscious of another. In the distance
Millefleurs was examining closely all the ormolu and finery. As she came
in sight of the party, walking slowly like the worn creature she was,
feeling as if all the chances of life were over for her, and she herself
incomparably older, more weary and exhausted than any of them, and her
existence a worn-out thing apart from the brighter current of every day,
there remained in her but one flicker of personal anxiety, one terror
which yet could make everything more bitter. The group was much the same
as when she left them,--Lady Lindores with Millefleurs, Edith and John
silent behind them, Rintoul in a sort of general spectatorship, keeping
watch upon the party. Carry touched John Erskine's arm furtively and
gave him an entreating look. He turned round to her alarmed.
"Lady Caroline! can I do anything? What is it?" he said.
She drew him back into a corner of the great room with its marble
pillars. She was so breathless that she could hardly speak. "It is
nothing--it is only--a question. Are you expecting--people--at
Dalrulzian?"
Carry's soft eyes had expanded to twice their size, and looked at him
out of two caves of anxiety and hollow paleness. She gave him her hand
unawares, as if asking him by that touch more than words could say. John
was moved to the heart.
"I think not--I hope not--I have no answer. No, no, there will be no
one," he said.
She sank down into a chair with a faint smile. "You will think me
foolish--so very foolish--it is nothing to me. But--I am always so
frightened," said poor Carry, with the first pretence that occurred to
her, "when there is any dispeace."
"There will be no dispeace," said John, "in any case. But I am sure--I
can be certain--there will be no one there."
She smiled upon him again, and waved her hand to him to leave her. "I
will follow you directly," she said.
What emotions there were in this little group! Carry sat with her hand
upon her heart, which fluttered still, getting back her breath. Every
remission of active pain seems a positive good. She sat still, feeling
the relief and ease flow over her like a stream of healing to her very
feet. She would be saved the one encounter which she could not bear; and
then for the moment _he_ was absent, and there would be no struggle to
keep him in good-humour, or to conceal from others his readiness to
offend and take offence. Was this all the semblance of happiness that
remained for Carry? For the moment she was satisfied with it, and took
breath, and recovered a little courage, and was thankful in that
deprivation of all things--thankful that no positive pain was to be
added to make everything worse; and that a brief breathing-time was hers
for the moment, an hour of rest.
Edith looked at John as he came back. She had lingered, half waiting for
him, just as if he had been her partner in a procession. In that moment
of separation Rintoul allowed himself to go off guard. She looked at
John, and almost for the first time spoke. "Carry has been talking to
you," she said hastily, in an undertone.
"Yes,--about visitors--people who might be coming to stay with me."
"Is any one coming to stay with you?" she asked, quickly.
"Nobody," John replied with fervour; "nor shall at any risk."
This all passed in a moment while Rintoul was off guard. She looked at
him again, wistfully, gratefully, and he being excited by his own
feelings, and by sympathy with all this excitement which breathed
around him in so many currents, was carried beyond all prudence, beyond
all intention. "I will do anything," he said, "to please you, and serve
her, you know. It is nothing to offer. I am nobody in comparison with
others; but what I have is all yours, and at your service,--the little
that it is----"
"Oh," said Edith, in a mere breath of rapid, almost inaudible, response,
"it is too much; it is too much." She did not know what she said.
"Nothing is too much. I am not asking any return. I am not presumptuous;
but I am free to give. Nobody can stop me from doing that," said John,
not much more clearly. It was all over in a moment. The people within a
few yards of them scarcely knew they had exchanged a word; even Rintoul
did not suspect any communication that was worth preventing. And next
moment they separated. John, panting and breathless, as if he had been
running a race, went up to where Millefleurs was discoursing upon some
bit of upholstery, and stood by in the shelter of this discussion to let
himself cool down. Edith kept behind in the shelter of her mother. And
just then Carry came softly out of the door of the great dining-room
from behind the marble pillars, having recovered herself, and called
back the smile to her face. In the midst of all these emotions,
Millefleurs talked smoothly on.
"My people," he said, "have a place down in Flintshire that is a little
like this, but not so perfect. My grandfather, or whoever it was, lost
confidence before it was done, and mixed it up. But here, don't you
know, the confidence has been sublime; no doubt has been allowed to
intrude. They say that in Scotland you are so absolute--all or nothing,
don't you know. Whether in furniture or anything else, how fine that
is!" said the little Marquis, turning up his palms. He looked quite
absorbed in his subject, and as calm as a man in gingerbread.
Nevertheless, he was the only person to notice that slight passage of
conversation _sotto voce_, and the breathless condition in which John
reached him. What had he been doing to put him out of breath?
When the house had been inspected, the party went to luncheon--a very
sumptuous meal, which was prepared in the great dining-room, and was far
too splendid for an ordinary family party such as this was. John, whose
excitement had rather increased than diminished, and who felt that he
had altogether committed himself, without chance or hope of any improved
relations, was not able to subdue himself to the point of sitting down
at table. He took his leave in spite of the protests of the party. His
heart was beating loudly, his pulses all clanging in his ears like a
steam-engine. He did not get the chance even of a glance from Edith,
who said good-bye to him in a tremulous voice, and did not look up. He
saw her placed by the side of Millefleurs at table, as he turned away.
He had all the modesty of genuine feeling,--a modesty which is sometimes
another name for despair. Why should she take any notice of him? He had
no right to aspire so high. Nothing to give, as he said, except as a
mere offering--a flower laid at her feet,--not a gift which was capable
of a return. He said to himself that, so far as this went, there should
be no deception in his mind. He would give his gift--it was his pleasure
to give it--lavishly, with prodigal abundance; as a prince should give,
expecting no return. In this he would have the better of all of them, he
said to himself, as he went through the great house, where, except in
the centre of present entertainment, all was silent like a deserted
place. He would give more liberally, more magnificently, than any duke
or duke's son, for he would give all, and look for nothing in return.
The feeling which accompanied this _élan_ of entire self-devotion and
abandonment of selfish hope gave him something of the same calm of
exhaustion which was in Carry's soul. He seemed to have come to
something final, something from which there was no recovery. He could
not sit down at table with them; but he could not go away any more than
he could stay. He went out through the vacant hall, where nobody took
any notice of his going or coming, and emerged upon the wide opening of
the plateau, sheltered by fir-trees, upon which the house stood
dominating the landscape. His was the only shadow that crossed the
sunshine in front of the huge mass of building which was so noiseless
outside, so full of life and emotion within. He could not go away any
more than he could stay. He wandered to the fringe of trees which
clothed the edge of the steep cliff above the river, and sat there on
the bank gazing down on the depths below, till the sound of voices
warned him that the party was moving from the dining-room. Then he
hastened away to avoid them, taking the less frequented road which led
by the Scaur. He had passed that dangerous spot, but the way was still
narrow between the bushes, when he heard the hoofs of Torrance's great
black horse resounding upon the path. Pat was returning home after what
had evidently been a wild gallop, for the powerful animal had his black
coat flecked with foam, and was chewing the bit in his mouth. Torrance
had almost passed without perceiving John, but catching a glimpse of him
as he pushed along, suddenly drew up, making his horse rear and start.
He had an air of heat and suppressed passion which corresponded with
the foam and dishevelled looks of the horse. "Hollo!" he cried, "you,
Erskine, have they broken up?" and sat swaying his great bulk with the
impatient movements of the fagged yet fiery beast. John answered
briefly, and was about to pass on, when Torrance gave him what was
intended to be a playful poke with the end of his whip. "When's your
visitor coming?" he said, with his harsh laugh.
"My visitor! I expect no visitor," said John, stepping back with anger
which he could scarcely restrain. It was all he could do not to seize
the whip, and snatch it out of the other's hand. But neither the narrow
path, nor the excited state in which both men were, was safe for any
scuffle. John restrained himself with an effort.
"Oh yes, you are!" cried Torrance; "you let it out once, you know--you
can't take in me. But I'm the last man in the world to find fault. Let
him come! We'll have him up to Tinto, and make much of him. I told you
so before."
"You seem to know my arrangements better than I know them myself," John
said, white with suppressed fury. "I have no visitor coming. Permit me
to know my own affairs."
"Ah! so you've forbidden him to come! Let me tell you, Mr Erskine, that
that's the greatest insult of all. Why shouldn't he come? he, or any
fellow? Do you think I'm afraid of Lady Car?" and here his laugh rang
into all the echoes. "Not a bit; I think more of her than that. You're
putting a slight on her when you ask any man not to come. Do you hear?"
"I hear perfectly, and would hear if you spoke lower. There's enough of
this, Torrance. I suppose it's your way, and you don't intend to be
specially objectionable--but I am not going to be questioned so, nor
will I take the lie from any man," cried John, with rising passion.
There was scarcely room for him to stand in safety from the horse's
hoofs, and he was compelled to draw back among the bushes as the great
brute pranced and capered.
"What! will you fight?" cried Torrance, with another laugh; "that's all
exploded nowadays--that's a business for 'Punch.' Not that I mind: any
way you please. Look here! here's a fist that would soon master you. But
it's a joke, you know, nowadays; a joke, for 'Punch.'"
"So much the worse," cried John, hotly. "It was the only way of keeping
in order a big bully like you."
"Oh, that's what you call me! If there was any one to see fair play--to
you (for I'm twice your size)--I'd let Blackie go, and give you your
fill of that."
John grasped instinctively at the bridle of the big black horse, which
seemed charging down upon him; and for a moment the two men gazed at
each other, over the tossing foam-flecked head, big eyeballs, and
churning mouth. Then John let go the bridle at which he had caught, with
an exclamation of scorn.
"Another time for that, if that is what you want," he said.
"No," cried the other, looking back, as the horse darted past,--"no,
that's not what I want; you're an honest fellow--you shall say what you
please. We'll shake hands----" The horse carrying him off lost the rest
of the words in the clang of jingling reins and half-maddened hoofs.
John went on very rapidly, excited beyond measure by the encounter. His
face was flushed and hot; his hat, which had been knocked off his head,
was stained with the damp red soil. He had torn his sleeve in the clutch
he had made at the bridle. He dashed along the narrow road at a wild
pace to calm himself down by rapid movement. A little way down he
encountered a keeper crossing the road, who disappeared into the woods
after a curious glance at his excited looks and torn coat. Further on,
as he came out of the gate, he met, to his great astonishment, old
Rolls, plodding along towards Tinto in company with another man, who met
him at the gate. "Bless me, sir! what's the maitter? Ye cannot walk the
highroad like that!" was the first exclamation of old Rolls.
"Like what? Oh, my sleeve! I tore it just now on a--on a--catching a
runaway horse. The brute was wild, I thought he would have had me down."
There was nothing in this that was absolutely untrue, at least nothing
that it was not permissible to say in the circumstances, but the
explanation was elaborate, as John felt. "And what are you doing here?"
he said, peremptorily. "What do you want at Tinto?" It seemed almost a
personal offence to him to find Rolls there.
"I have something to say to Tinto, sir, with all respect. My father was
a tenant of his father--a small tenant, not to call a farmer, something
between that and a cotter--and I'm wanting to speak a good word for my
brother-in-law, John Tamson, that you will maybe mind."
Upon this the man by Rolls's side, who had been inspecting John
curiously, at last persuaded himself to touch, not to take off, his hat,
and to say: "Ay, sir, I'm John Tamson. I was the first to see ye the day
ye cam' first to Dalrulzian. I hae my wife ower by that's good at her
needle. Maybe ye'll step in and she'll shue your coat-sleeve for you.
You canna gang like that all the gate to Dalrulzian. There's no saying
who ye may meet."
John Erskine had not been awakened before to the strangeness of his
appearance. He looked down upon his torn coat with a vague alarm. It was
a start of the black horse while he held its bridle which had torn the
sleeve out of its socket. While he was looking at this, with a disturbed
air, the lodge-gates were thrown open and the Lindores's carriage came
through. Lady Lindores waved her hand to him, then bent forward to look
at him with sudden surprise and alarm; but the horses were fresh, and
swept along, carrying the party out of sight. Millefleurs was alone with
the ladies in the carriage--that John noticed without knowing why.
A minute after, accepting John Tamson's offer of service, he went over
with him to his cottage, where the wife immediately got her needle and
thread, with much lamentation over the gentleman's "gude black coat."
"Bless me, sir! it must have been an ill-willy beast that made ye give
your arm a skreed like that," she said: and John felt that his hand was
unsteady and his nerves quivering. After all, it was no such great
matter. He could not understand how it was that he had been agitated to
such an extent by an encounter so slight.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Old Rolls went up the road which led by the Scaur. It was shorter than
the formal avenue, and less in the way of more important visitors. He
was much distressed and "exercised in his mind" about the agitated
appearance of his master--his torn sleeve, and clothes stained with the
soil. He pondered much on the sight as he walked up the road. John was
not a man given to quarrelling, but he would seem to have been engaged
in some conflict or other. "A runaway horse! where would he get a
runaway horse at Tinto?" Rolls said to himself; "and Tinto was a man
very likely to provoke a quarrel." He hurried on, feeling that he was
sure to hear all about it, and much concerned at the thought that any
one belonging to himself should bring discredit on the house in this
way. But whether it was an excited fancy, or if there was some echo in
the air of what had passed before, it seemed to Rolls that he heard, as
he proceeded onwards, the sound of voices and conflict. "Will he have
been but one among many?" he said within himself. "Will they be
quarrelling on?--and me an unprotected man?" he added, with a prudent
thought of his own welfare. Then Rolls heard a wonderful concussion in
the air--he could not tell what, and then a solemn stillness. What was
the meaning of this? It could have nothing to do with John. He turned up
the narrow road down which John Erskine had once driven his dogcart, and
which Torrance continually rode up and down. When he came to the opening
of the Scaur, and saw the daylight breaking clear from the shadow of the
over-reaching boughs, Rolls stood still for a moment with consternation.
Broken branches, leaves strewn about, the print of the horse's hoofs all
round the open space as if he had been rearing wildly, showed marks of a
recent struggle,--he thought of his master, and his heart sank. But it
was some time before his fears went any further. Where had the other
party to the struggle gone? Just then he thought he heard a sound,
something like a moan in the depths below. A terrible fear seized the
old man. He rushed to the edge of the cliff, and gazed over with
distracted looks. And then he gave utterance to a cry that rang through
the woods: "Wha's that lying doun there?" he cried. Something lay in a
mass at the bottom of the high bank, red and rough, which descended to
the water's edge--something, he could scarcely tell what, all heaped
together and motionless. Rolls had opened his mouth to shout for help
with the natural impulse of his horror and alarm, but another thought
struck him at the moment, and kept him silent. Was it his master's
doing? With a gasp of misery, he felt that it must be so; and kneeling
down distracted on the edge of the Scaur, catching at the roots of the
trees to support himself, he craned over to see what it was, who it was,
and whether he could do anything for the sufferer, short of calling all
the world to witness this terrible sight. But the one explanation Rolls
gave seemed to thrill the woods. He felt a hand touch him as he bent
over the edge, and nearly lost his precarious footing in his terror.
"Is't you, sir, come to look at your handiwork?" he said, solemnly
turning upon the person whom he supposed to be his master. But it was
not his master. It was Lord Rintoul, as pale as death, and trembling.
"What--what is it?" he asked, scarcely able to articulate, pointing
vaguely below, but averting his eyes as from a sight he dared not look
at. Divided between the desire of getting help and of sparing his
master, Rolls drew back from the Scaur and returned to his habitual
caution. "I canna tell you what it is, my lord," he said; "it's somebody
that has fallen over the Scaur, for all that I can see. But how that
came about is mair than I can tell. We maun rouse the place," said the
old man, "and get help--if help will do any good."
"Help will do no good now," cried Rintoul in his excitement. "Nobody
could fall from that height and live. Does he move?--look--or the
horse?" His tongue, too, was parched, and clung to the roof of his
mouth.
"The horse! then your lordship kens wha it is? Lord in heaven preserve
us! no' Tinto himsel'?"
Rintoul's dry lips formed words two or three times before they were
audible. "No one--no one but he--ever rides here."
And then the two stood for a horrible moment and looked at each other.
Rintoul was entirely unmanned. He seemed to quiver from head to foot;
his hat was off, his countenance without a tinge of colour. "I have
never," he said, "seen--such an accident before----"
"Did ye see it?" Rolls cried anxiously; and then the young man faltered
and hesitated.
"Heard it. I--meant to say--I heard the horse rearing--and then the
fall----"
He looked intently at the old man with his haggard eyes as if to
ask--what? Poor old Rolls was trembling too. He thought only of his
young master--so kind, so blameless,--was his life to be thus
associated with crime?
"We must go and get help, my lord," said Rolls, with a heavy sigh.
"However it happened, that must be our duty. No doubt ye'll have to give
a true account of all ye've seen and all ye've heard. But in the
meantime we must cry for help, let them suffer that may."
* * * * *
While this scene was proceeding so near her, Carry, upon the other side
of the great house, had retired to her room in the weariness that
followed her effort to look cheerful and do the honours of her table.
She had made that effort very bravely, and though it did not even
conceal from Millefleurs the position of affairs, still less deceive her
own family, yet at least it kept up the appearance of decorum necessary,
and made it easier for the guests to go through their part. The meal,
indeed, was cheerful enough; it was far too magnificent, Torrance having
insisted, in spite of his wife's better taste, on heaping "all the
luxuries of the season" upon the table at which a duke's son was to sit.
The absence of the host was a relief to all parties; but still it
required an effort on the side of Carry to overcome the effect of the
empty chair in front of her, which gave a sense of incongruity to all
the grandeur. And this effort cost her a great deal. She had gone into
her room to rest, and lay on a sofa very quiet in the stillness of
exhaustion, not doing anything, not saying anything, looking wistfully
at the blue sky that was visible through the window, with the soft
foliage of some birch-trees waving lightly over it--and trying not to
think. Indeed, she was so weary that it was scarcely necessary to try.
And what was there to think about? Nothing could be done to deliver
her--nothing that she was aware of even to mend her position. She was
grateful to God that she was to be spared the still greater misery of
seeing Beaufort, but that was all. Even heaven itself seemed to have no
help for Carry. If she could have been made by some force of unknown
agency to love her husband, she would still have been an unhappy wife;
but it is to be feared, poor soul, that things had come to this pass
with her, that she did not even wish to love her husband, and felt it
less degrading to live with him under compulsion, than to be brought
down to the level of his coarser nature, and take pleasure in the chains
she wore. Her heart revolted at him more and more. In such a terrible
case, what help was there for her in earth or heaven? Even had he been
reformed--had he been made a better man--Carry would not have loved him:
she shrank from the very suggestion that she might some time do so.
There was no help for her; her position could not be bettered anyhow.
She knew this so well, that all struggle, except the involuntary
struggle in her mind, which never could intermit, against many of the
odious details of the life she had to lead, had died out of her. She had
given in to the utter hopelessness of her situation. Despair is
sometimes an opiate, as it is sometimes a frantic and maddening poison.
There was nothing to be done for her,--no use in wearying Heaven with
prayers, as some of us do. Nothing could make her better. She had given
in utterly, body and soul, and this was all that was to be said. She lay
there in this stillness of despair, feeling more crushed and helpless
than usual after the emotions of the morning, but not otherwise
disturbed,--lying like a man who has been shattered by an accident, but
lulled by some anodyne draught--still, and almost motionless, letting
every sensation be hushed so long as nature would permit, her hands
folded, her very soul hushed and still. She took no note of time in the
exhaustion of her being. She knew that when her husband returned she
would be sent for, and would have to re-enter the other world of eternal
strife and pain; but here she was retired, as in her chapel, in
herself--the sole effectual refuge which she had left.
The house was very well organised, very silent and orderly in general,
so that it surprised Lady Caroline a little, in the depth of her quiet,
to hear a distant noise as of many voices, distinct, though not loud--a
confusion and far-away Babel of outcries and exclamations. Nothing could
be more unusual; but she felt no immediate alarm, thinking that the
absence of her husband and her own withdrawal had probably permitted a
little outbreak of gaiety or gossip down-stairs, with which she did not
wish to interfere. She lay still accordingly, listening vaguely, without
taking much interest in the matter. Certainly something out of the way
must have happened. The sounds had sprung up all at once--a hum of many
excited voices, with sharp cries as of dismay and wailing breaking in.
At last her attention was attracted. "There has been some accident," she
said to herself, sitting upright upon her sofa. As she did this she
heard steps approaching her door. They came with a rush, hurrying along,
the feet of at least two women, with a heavier step behind them: then
paused suddenly, and there ensued a whispering and consultation close to
her door. Carry was a mother, and her first thought was of her children.
"They are afraid to tell me," was the thought that passed through her
mind. She rose and rushed to the door, throwing it open. "What is it?
Something has happened," she said,--"something you are afraid to tell
me. Oh, speak, speak!--the children----"
"My leddy, it's none of the children. The children are as well as could
be wished, poor dears," said her own maid, who had been suddenly
revealed, standing very close to the door. The woman, her cheeks blazing
with some sudden shock, eager to speak, yet terrified, stopped short
there with a gasp. The housekeeper, who was behind her, pushed her a
little forward, supporting her with a hand on her waist, whispering
confused but audible exhortations. "Oh, take heart--oh, take heart. She
must be told. The Lord will give you strength," this woman said. The
butler stood solemnly behind, with a very anxious, serious countenance.
To Carry all this scene became confused by wild anxiety and terror.
"What is it?" she said; "my mother? some one at home?" She stretched out
her hands vaguely towards the messengers of evil, feeling like a victim
at the block, upon whose neck the executioner's knife is about to fall.
"Oh, my leddy! far worse! far worse!" the woman cried.
Carry, in the dreadful whirl of her feelings, still paused bewildered,
to ask herself what could be worse? And then there came upon her a
moment of blindness, when she saw nothing, and the walls and the roof
seemed to burst asunder, and whirl and whirl. She dropped upon her knees
in this awful blank and blackness unawares, and then the haze dispelled,
and she saw, coming out of the mist, a circle of horror-stricken pale
faces, forming a sort of ring round her. She could do nothing but gasp
out her husband's name--"Mr Torrance?" with quivering lips.
"Oh, my lady! my lady! To see her on her knees, and us bringin' her such
awfu' news! But the Lord will comfort ye," cried the housekeeper,
forgetting the veneration due to her mistress, and raising her in her
arms. The two women supported her into her room, and she sat down again
upon the sofa where she had been sitting--sitting, was it a year
ago?--in the quiet, thinking that no change would ever come to
her,--that nothing, nothing could alter her condition--that all was over
and finished for her life.
And it is to be supposed that they told poor Carry exactly the truth.
She never knew. When she begged them to leave her alone till her mother
came, whom they had sent for, she had no distinct knowledge of how it
was, or what had happened; but she knew _that_ had happened. She fell
upon her knees before her bed, and buried her head in her hands,
shutting out the light. Then she seized hold of herself with both her
hands to keep herself (as she felt) from floating away upon that flood
of new life which came swelling up all in a moment, swelling into every
vein--filling high the fountain of existence which had been so feeble
and so low. Oh, shut out--shut out the light, that nobody might see!
close the doors and the shutters in the house of death, and every
cranny, that no human eye might descry it! After a while she dropped
lower, from the bed which supported her to the floor, prostrating
herself with more than oriental humbleness. Her heart beat wildly, and
in her brain there seemed to wake a hundred questions clanging like
bells in her ears, filling the silence with sound. Her whole being, that
had been crushed, sprang up like a flower from under a passing foot. Was
it possible?--was it possible? She pulled herself down, tried by
throwing herself upon her face on the carpet, prostrating herself, body
and soul, to struggle against that secret voiceless mad exultation that
came upon her against her will. Was he dead?--was he dead? struck down
in the middle of his days, that man of iron? Oh, the pity of it!--oh,
the horror of it! She tried to force herself to feel this--to keep down,
down, that climbing joy in her. God in heaven, was it possible? she who
thought nothing could happen to her more.
CHAPTER XXVII.
The drive home would have been very embarrassing to the ladies had not
Millefleurs been the perfect little gentleman he was. Rintoul, though he
ought to have been aware that his presence was specially desirable, had
abandoned his mother and sister; and the consciousness of the secret,
which was no secret, weighed upon Lady Lindores so much, that it was
scarcely possible for her to keep up any appearance of the easy
indifference which was her proper _rôle_ in the circumstances: while it
silenced Edith altogether. They could scarcely look him in the face,
knowing both the state of suspense in which he must be, and the false
impression of Edith's feelings which he was probably entertaining. Lady
Lindores felt certain that he was aware she had been informed by her
husband of what had passed, and feared to look at him lest he might, by
some glance of intelligence, some look of appeal, call upon her
sympathy; while on the other hand, it was all-essential to keep him, if
possible, from noticing the pale consciousness of Edith, her silence and
shrinking discomfort, so unlike her usual frank and friendly aspect.
Millefleurs was far too quick-sighted not to observe this unusual
embarrassment; but there was no more amiable young man in England, and
it was his part for the moment to set them at their ease, and soothe the
agitation which he could not but perceive. He talked of everything but
the matter most near his heart with that self-sacrifice of true
politeness which is perhaps the truest as it is one of the most
difficult manifestations of social heroism. He took pains to be amusing,
to show himself unconcerned and unexcited; and, as was natural, he got
his reward. Lady Lindores was almost piqued (though it was so great a
relief) that Edith's suitor should be capable of such perfect calm; and
Edith herself, though with a dim perception of the heroism in it, could
not but console herself with the thought that one so completely
self-controlled would "get over" his disappointment easily. Their
conversation at last came to be almost a monologue on his part. He
discoursed on Tinto and its treasures as an easy subject. "It has one
great quality--it is homogeneous," he said, "which is too big a word for
a small fellow like me. It is all of a piece, don't you know. To think
what lots of money those good people must have spent on those great
vases, and candelabra, and things! We don't do that sort of thing
nowadays. We roam over all the world, and pick up our _bric-a-brac_
cheap. But, don't you know, there's something fine in the other
principle--there's a grand sort of spare-no-expense sentiment. I'd like
to do it all over again for them--to clear away all that finery, which
is mere _Empire_, and get something really good, don't you know. But at
the same time, I respect this sort of thing. There is a thoroughness in
it. It is going the 'whole animal,' as we say in America. Mr Torrance,
who is a fine big man, just like his house, should, if you'll allow me
to say so, have carried out the principle a little further; he should
not have gone so entirely into a different _genre_ in his wife."
"You mean that Carry is--that Carry looks----She is not very strong,"
said Lady Lindores, with involuntary quickening of attention, taking up
instantly an attitude of defence.
"Dear Lady Lindores," cried little Millefleurs, "entirely out of
keeping! A different _genre_ altogether; a different date--the finest
ethical nineteenth century against a background _Empire_! preposterous
altogether. We have no style to speak of in china, or that sort of
thing--which is odd, considering how much we think of it. We can't do
anything better than go back to Queen Anne for our furniture. But in
respect to women, it's quite different. We've got a Victorian type in
that, don't you know. I am aware that it is the height of impertinence
to make remarks. But considering the family friendship to which you have
been so good as to admit me, and my high appreciation--Lady Caroline, if
you will allow me to say so, is a different _genre_. She is out of
keeping with the decoration of her house."
"Poor Carry!" Lady Lindores said with a sigh; and they were thankful to
Millefleurs when he ran on about the china and the gilding. It was he,
with those keen little beady eyes of his, who saw John Erskine
disappearing among the trees. He had possession of the stage, as it
were, during all that long way home, which to the ladies seemed about
twice as long as it had ever been before.
Lord Lindores had not accompanied the party. He did not come in contact
with his son-in-law, indeed, any more than he could help. Though he had
taken up Tinto so warmly at first, it was not to be supposed that a man
of his refinement could have any pleasure in such society; and though he
made a point of keeping on scrupulously good terms with Torrance, even
when the latter set himself in opposition to the Earl's plans, yet he
kept away from the spectacle afforded by his daughter and her husband in
their own house. If Lord Lindores's private sentiments could have been
divined, it would probably have been apparent that in his soul he
thought it hard upon poor Caroline to have married such a man. There
were reasons which made it very desirable, even necessary; but it was a
pity, he felt. In the present case, however, there was nothing but
congratulations to be thought of. Edith was, there could be no doubt, a
thoroughly fortunate young woman. Nobody could say a word against
Millefleurs. He had shown himself eccentric, but only in a way quite
approved by his generation; and there was no doubt that a wife, at once
pretty and charming, and sufficiently clever, was all that he wanted to
settle him. Not Carry--Carry was too intellectual, too superior
altogether, for the democratic little Marquis; but Edith had just the
combination of simplicity and mental competence that would suit his
position. It was the most admirable arrangement that could have been
devised. Lord Lindores sat in his library with much satisfaction of
mind, and thought over all the new combinations. He had no doubt of the
Duke's content with the alliance--and through the Duke, the whole
Ministry would be affected. It would be felt that to keep a man of Lord
Lindores's abilities in the hopeless position of a mere Scotch lord,
would be a waste prejudicial to the country. With Millefleurs for his
son-in-law, a mere representative seat in the House of Lords no longer
seemed worth his while--an English peerage would be his as a matter of
course. He had said a few words to Rintoul on the subject before the
party left the house. There could be no harm in drawing the bonds
tighter which were to produce so admirable an effect. "There is Lady
Reseda, a very charming girl," he said. "It is time you were thinking of
marrying, Rintoul. I don't know any girl that has been more admired."
"One doesn't care for one's wife having been admired," said Rintoul,
somewhat sulkily. "One would rather admire her one's self."
His father looked at him with some severity, and Rintoul coloured in
spite of himself. Perhaps this was one reason why his temper was so
unpleasant at Tinto, and moved him to fling off from the party in the
midst of their inspection of the place, and declare that he would walk
home. In his present temper, perhaps he would not have been much help to
them, whereas Millefleurs managed it all capitally, being left to
himself.
They got home only in time to dress for dinner, at which meal Rintoul
did not appear. It was unlike him to stay behind and dine at Tinto; but
still there was nothing impossible in it, and the minds of the four
people who sat down together at table were all too much absorbed by the
immediate question before them to have much time to consider Rintoul.
Lady Lindores's entire attention was given to Edith, who, very pale and
with a thrill of nervous trembling in her, which her mother noted
without quite understanding, neither ate nor talked, but pretended, at
least, to do the first, veiling herself from the eyes of her lover
behind the flowers which ornamented the centre of the table. These
flowers, it must be allowed, are often a nuisance and serious hindering
of conversation. On this occasion they performed a charitable office.
There was one plume of ferns in particular which did Edith the most
excellent service. She had been commanded to repair to the library when
she left the table, to await her father there. And if she trembled, it
was with the tension of high-strung nerves, not the hesitation of
weakness, as her mother thought. Lord Lindores, for his part, watched
her too, with an uneasy instinct. He would not allow himself to imagine
that she could have the folly to hesitate even; and yet there was a
sensation in him, an unwilling conviction that, if Edith resisted, she
would be, though she was not so clever, a different kind of antagonist
from poor Carry. There arose in him, as he glanced at her now and then,
an impulse of war. He had no idea that she would really attempt to
resist him: but if she did! He, too, had little to say during dinner. He
uttered a formal sentence now and then in discharge of his duty as
host, but that was all; and by intervals, when he had leisure to think
of it, he was angry with his son. Rintoul ought to have been there to
take the weight of the conversation upon him: Rintoul ought to have had
more discrimination than to choose this day of all others for absenting
himself. His mother was of the same opinion. She, too, was almost wroth
with Rintoul--to leave her unsupported without any aid at such a crisis
was unpardonable. But Millefleurs was quite equal to the emergency. He
took everything upon himself. The servants, closest of all critics, did
not even guess that anything was going on in which "the wee English
lord" was involved. They made their own remarks upon Lady Edith's pallor
and silence, and the preoccupation of Lady Lindores. But Millefleurs was
the life of the company; and not even the butler, who had seen a great
deal in his day, and divined most things, associated him with the
present evident crisis. It was amazing how much he found to say, and how
naturally he said it, as if nothing particular was going on, and no
issues of any importance to him, at least, were involved.
When the ladies left the table, Lady Lindores would have detained her
daughter with her. "Come into the drawing-room with me first, Edith.
Your father cannot be ready for you for some minutes at least."
"No, mamma. I must keep all my wits about me," Edith said, with a faint
smile. They were in the corridor, where it was always cold, and she
shivered a little in spite of herself.
"You are chilly, Edith--you are not well, dear. I will go myself and
tell your father you are not able to talk to him to-night."
Edith shook her head without saying anything. She waved her hand to her
mother as she turned away in the direction of the library. Lady Lindores
stood looking after her with that strange struggle in her mind which
only parents know,--the impulse to take their children in their arms as
of old, and bear their burdens for them, contradicted by the
consciousness that this cannot be done--that the time has come when
these beloved children can no longer be carried over their difficulties,
but must stand for themselves, with not another to interfere between
them and fate. Oh the surprise of this penetrating the heart! Lady
Lindores went back to the drawing-room with the wonder and pain of it
piercing her like an arrow, to sit down and wait while Edith--little
Edith--bore her trial alone. It was intolerable, yet it had to be
endured. She stood aside and let her child do what had to be done; any
trial in the world would have been easier. The pang was complicated in
every way. There seemed even an ingratitude in it, as if her child
preferred to stand alone; and yet it was all inevitable--a thing that
must be. She waited, the air all rustling round her, with expectation
and suspense. What would the girl find to say? Caroline had wept and
struggled, but she had yielded. Edith would not weep, she would stand
fast like a little rock; but, after all, what was there to object to?
Millefleurs was very different from Torrance of Tinto. Why should he not
please the girl's fancy as well as another? He had so much in him to
please any girl's fancy; he was clever and amusing, and romantic even in
his way. If Edith would but content herself with him! True, he was
little; but what did that matter after all? He would no doubt make the
best of husbands--unquestionably he would make the best of sons-in-law.
And then, your mind must be impartial indeed if you are impervious to
the attractions of an English dukedom. Who could be indifferent to that?
With a little laugh of nervous pleasure, Lady Lindores permitted herself
to think how amusing it would be to see her little girl take precedence
of her. Alas! things were far from being so advanced as that; but yet
she could not help more or less being on the side of ambition this time.
The ambition that fixed upon Torrance of Tinto was poor enough, and
shamed her to think of it; but the Marquis Millefleurs, the Duke of
Lavender, that was an ambition which had some justification. Not love
him! Why should not she love him? Lady Lindores even went so far as to
ask herself with some heat. He was delightful; everything but his
stature was in his favour. He was excellent; his very failings leant to
virtue's side.
While, however, her mother was thus discussing the question with so
strong a bias in favour of Millefleurs, Edith was standing in her
father's library waiting for him, not entering into any argument with
herself at all. She would not sit down, which would have seemed somehow
like yielding, but stood with her hand upon the mantelpiece, her heart
beating loudly. She had not summoned herself to the bar of her own
judgment, or asked with any authority how it was that she neither could
nor would for a moment take the qualities of Millefleurs into
consideration. The question had been given against him before even it
was put; but Edith would not allow herself to consider why. No doubt she
knew why; but there are occasions in which we do not wish to see what is
going on in our spirits, just as there are occasions when we turn out
all the corners and summon everything to the light. She heard the door
of the dining-room open, then the voices of the gentlemen as they came
out, with a sudden tightening of her breath. What if little Millefleurs
himself were coming instead of her father? This idea brought a gleam of
a smile over her face; but that was driven away as she heard the heavy
familiar step approaching. Lord Lindores, as he came along the corridor,
had time enough to say to himself that perhaps he had been foolish. Why
had he determined upon speaking to Edith before he allowed her lover to
speak to her? Perhaps it was a mistake. He had his reasons, but it might
be that they were not so powerful as he had supposed, and that he would
have done better not to have interfered. However, it was now too late to
think of this. He went into the library, shutting the door deliberately,
asking himself why he should have any trouble about the matter, and what
Edith could feel but happiness in having such a proposal made to her;
but when he turned round and met Edith's eye his delusions fled. Surely
there was nobody so unfortunate as he was in his children. Instead of
their perceiving what was for their own interest, he was met by a
perpetual struggle and attempt to put him in the wrong. It was
inconceivable. Was it not their interest solely which moved him? and yet
they would resist as if he were plotting nothing but wrong. But though
these thoughts passed through his mind with a sweep of bitterness, he
would not indulge them. He went up to Edith with great urbanity, putting
down all feelings less pleasant. "I am glad to find you here," he said.
"Yes, papa; you wanted me, my mother told me."
"I wanted you. As I came along the corridor, I began to ask myself
whether I was doing right in wanting you. Perhaps I ought to have let
you hear what I am going to say from--some one who might have made it
more agreeable, Edith."
"Oh, let me hear what you want, please, from yourself, papa."
He took her hand, which trembled in his hold, and looked down on her
with fatherly eyes--eyes which were tender, and admiring, and kind.
Could any one doubt that he wished her well? He wished her everything
that was best in the world--wealth and title, and rank and
importance,--everything we desire for our children. He was not a bad
man, desiring the sacrifice of his child's happiness. If he had,
perhaps, made something of a mistake about Carry, there was no mistake
here.
"Edith, I want to speak to you about Lord Millefleurs. He came here, I
believe, on your own invitation----"
At this Edith started with sudden alarm, and her hand trembled still
more in her father's easy clasp. She had an indefinite pang of fear, she
could not tell why.
"He has been here now for some time. I was glad to ratify your
invitation by mine--nothing could have pleased me better. I like his
family. His father and I have always thought alike, and the Duchess is a
most excellent woman. That your mother and you should have taken him up
so much, was very good for him, and quite a pleasure to me."
"I don't know why you should say we took him up very much," said Edith,
with some confusion. "He took us up--he came to us wherever we were. And
then he was Robin's friend. It was quite natural--there was nothing----"
She paused, with a painful eagerness to excuse herself: and yet there
was nothing to excuse. This changed the position for the moment, and
made everything much more easy for the indulgent father, who was so
ready to approve what his child herself had done.
"It is perfectly natural, my dear--everything about it is natural. Lord
Millefleurs has been quite consistent since he first saw you. He has
explained himself to me in the most honourable way. He wishes--to marry
you, Edith. I don't suppose this is any surprise to you?"
Edith was crimson; her temples throbbed with the rush of the blood,
which seemed to rise like an angry sea. "If it is so, he has had
opportunity enough to tell me so. Why has he taken so unfair an
advantage? Why--why has he gone to you?"
"He has behaved like an honourable man. I see no unfair advantage. He
has done what was right--what was respectful at once to you and to me."
"Oh, papa,--honourable! respectful!" cried the girl. "What does that
mean in our position? Could he have been anything but honourable--to me?
You forget what kind of expressions you are using. If he had _that_ to
say, it is to me he ought to have come. He has taken an unkind--a cruel
advantage!" Edith cried.
"This is ridiculous," said her father. "He has done what it is seemly
and right to do--in his position and yours. If he had gone to you, as
you say, like a village lad to his lass, what advantage could there have
been in that? As it is, you have your father's full sanction, which, I
hope, you reckon for something, Edith."
"Father," she said, somewhat breathless, collecting herself with a
little effort. The wave of hot colour died off from her face. She grew
paler and paler as she stood firmly opposite to him, holding fast with
her hand the cool marble of the mantelpiece, which felt like a support.
"Father, if he had come to me, as he ought to have done, this is what
would have happened,--I should have told him at once that it was a
mistake, and he would have left us quietly without giving you any
trouble. How much better that would have been in every way!"
"I don't understand you, Edith. A mistake? I don't see that there is any
mistake."
"That is very likely, papa," she said, with returning spirit, "since it
is not you that are concerned. But I see it. I should have told him
quietly, and there would have been an end of the matter, if he had not
been so formal, so absurd--so old-fashioned--as to appeal to you."
This counterblast took away Lord Lindores's breath. He made a pause for
a moment, and stared at her; he had never been so treated before.
"Old-fashioned," he repeated, almost with bewilderment. "There is enough
of this, Edith. If you wish to take up the _rôle_ of the advanced young
lady, I must tell you it is not either suitable or becoming. Millefleurs
will, no doubt, find an early opportunity of making his own explanations
to you, and of course, if you choose to keep him in hot water, it is, I
suppose, your right. But don't carry it too far. The connection is one
that is perfectly desirable--excellent in every point of view."
"It is a pity, since you think so, that it is impossible," she said in a
low tone.
Lord Lindores looked at her, fixing her with his eye. He felt now that
he had known it all along--that he had felt sure there was a struggle
before him, and that his only policy was to convince her that he was
determined from the very first. "There is nothing impossible," he said,
"except disobedience and folly. I don't expect these from you. Indeed I
can't imagine what motive you can have, except a momentary perverseness,
to answer me so. No more of it, Edith. By to-morrow, at least,
everything will be settled between you and your lover----"
"Oh, papa, listen! don't mistake me," she cried. "He is not my lover.
How can you--how can you use such a word? He can never be anything to
me. If he had spoken to me, I could have settled it all in a moment. As
it is you he has spoken to, why give him a double mortification? It will
be so easy for you to tell him: to tell him--he can never be anything to
me."
"Edith, take care what you are saying! He is to be your husband. I am
not a man easily balked in my own family."
"We all know that," she cried, with bitterness; "but I am not Carry,
papa."
He made a step nearer to her, with a threatening aspect. "What do you
mean by that? Carry! What has Carry to do with it? You have a chance
poor Carry never had--high rank, wealth,--everything that is desirable:
and a man whom the most fantastic could not object in any way to."
There is scarcely any situation in the world into which a gleam of
ridicule will not fall. It takes us with the tear in our eye--it took
Edith in the nervous excitement of this struggle, the most trying moment
which personally she had ever gone through. Millefleurs, with his little
plump person, his round eyes, his soft lisp of a voice, seemed to come
suddenly before her, and at the height of this half-tragical contention
she laughed. It was excitement and high pressure as well as that sudden
flash of perverse imagination. She could have cried next moment--but
laugh she did, in spite of herself. The sound drove Lord Lindores to
fury. "This is beyond bearing," he cried. "It seems that I have been
deceived in you altogether. If you cannot feel the honour that has been
done you--the compliment that has been paid you--you are unworthy of it,
and of the trouble I have taken."
"I suppose," said Edith, irritated too, "these are the right words for a
girl to use to any man who is so good as to think she would suit him. I
was wrong to laugh, but are not you going too far, papa? I am likely to
get more annoyance by it than honour. Please, please let me take my own
way."
She had broken down a little when she said this, in natural reaction,
and gave him a pitiful look, with a little quiver of her lip. After
such a laugh it is so likely that a girl will cry, as after a sudden
self-assertion it is to be expected that she will be subdued and
humbled. She looked at him with a childlike appeal for pity. And he
thought that now he had her securely in his hands.
"My love," he said, "you will regret it all your life if I yield to you
now. It is your happiness I am thinking of. I cannot let a girl's folly
spoil your career. Besides, it is of the highest importance to
everybody,--to Rintoul, even to myself,--that you should marry
Millefleurs----"
"I am very sorry, papa; but I shall never--marry Lord Millefleurs----"
"Folly! I shall not allow you to trifle with him, Edith--or with me. You
have given him the most evident encouragement--led him on in every way,
invited him here----"
Edith grew pale to her very lips. "Papa, have pity on me! I never did
so; it was all nothing--the way one talks without meaning it--without
thinking----"
"That is all very well on our side, but on the other----I tell you, I
will permit no trifling, Edith. He has a right to a favourable answer,
and he must have it----"
"Never, never! if I have been wrong, I will ask his pardon----"
"You will accept him in the first place," said Lord Lindores, sternly.
"I will never accept him," Edith said.
Her father, wound up to that pitch of excitement at which a man is no
longer master of what he says, took a few steps about the room. "Your
sister said the same," he cried, with a short laugh, "and you know what
came of that."
It was an admission he had never intended to make,--for he did not
always feel proud of his handiwork,--but it was done now, and could not
be recalled. Edith withdrew even from the mantelpiece on which she had
leant. She clasped her hands together, supporting herself. "I am not
Carry," she said, in a low tone, facing him resolutely as he turned back
in some alarm at what he had been betrayed into saying. He had become
excited, and she calm. He almost threatened her with his hand in the
heat of the moment.
"You will obey your parents," he cried.
"No, papa," she said.
He remembered so well, too well, what Carry had done in the same
circumstances--she had wept and pleaded. When he demanded obedience from
her she had not dared to stand against him. He recollected (too well for
his own comfort sometimes) every one of those scenes which brought her
to submission. But Edith did not weep, and was not shaken by that final
appeal. She was very pale, and looked unusually slight and young and
childlike standing there with her hands clasped, her steadfast eyes
raised, her little mouth close--so slight a thing, not stately like
Carry. He was confounded by a resistance which he had not foreseen,
which he could not have believed in, and stood staring at her, not
knowing what next to say and do. Matters were at this point when all at
once there arose a something outside the room, which not even the solid
closed doors and heavy curtains could keep out,--not positive noise or
tumult, but something indescribable--a sensation as of some unknown
dread event. Ordinarily all was still in the well-ordered house, and my
lord's tranquillity as completely assured as if he had been Prime
Minister. But this was something that was beyond decorum. Then the door
was hastily opened, and Rintoul ghastly, his face grey rather than pale,
his hair hanging wildly on his forehead, came into the room.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
This extraordinary interruption put a stop at once to the struggle
between the father and daughter. They both came to a sudden pause, not
only in their conversation, but in their thoughts, which were suspended
instantly by the breaking in of something more urgent. "What is it? What
has happened?" they both cried in a breath; and Edith, after a moment,
added, "Carry--there is something wrong with Carry," scarcely aware what
she said.
Rintoul came to the table on which stood a crystal jug of water. He
filled himself out a large glass and drank it. He was in a tremor which
he attempted to conceal from them, though with no success. Then he said,
"There is nothing the matter with Carry; but a dreadful accident has
happened,"--and stopped, his mouth being parched, his very articulation
difficult.
"What is it? what is it? The children?----"
Rintoul turned his face away from Edith and directed himself towards
his father. He made a great effort over himself, as if what he had to
say was almost beyond his powers. Then he said with a strange hoarseness
of voice, "Torrance--has been killed."
"Torrance!--killed! Good God! Rintoul."
"It is so. Instantaneous, they say. He cannot have suffered much, thank
God."
Rintoul was not emotional or used to show very much feeling, but the
lines of his face were drawn and his lips quivered as he spoke.
"Killed! But how did it happen? where? Was it accident, or----For
heaven's sake tell us all!" cried his father. Edith stood by struck
dumb, yet with a host of sudden rising thoughts, or rather images, in
her breast. It was to her sister that her mind suddenly reverted, with a
perception of everything involved so clear and vivid that her very
spirit was confused by the distinctness of her sight.
"Accident," said Rintoul almost with a stammer, stumbling on the word.
"He must have been riding home by the Greenlaws road, which was his
favourite way. He and his horse were found at the foot of the Scaur. The
brute must have reared and lost its footing. The ground was soft with
the rain. That's all that any one knows."
"And he is dead? Good God!"
A shiver came over Rintoul. Who would have thought he had so much
feeling? and concerning Torrance, whom he had never been able to endure.
"It's dreadful," he said in a low tone; "but it's true. One moment never
to be recalled, and that big fellow with all his strength----O Lord,
it's terrible to think of it. It has taken all the strength out of me."
Edith hurried to him, trembling herself, to clasp his arm in hers and
soothe her brother. She was almost too much excited and agitated to be
aware that he repulsed her, though unconsciously, but this increased the
general impression of pain and horror on her mind. There was so strong a
thrill of agitation in him that he could not bear to be touched or even
looked at. He put her away, and threw himself down into the nearest
chair. A hundred questions were on the lips of both; but he looked as if
he had said all that was possible--as if he had no power to add
anything. Lord Lindores, after the first pause of horror, of course
pursued his inquiries, and they gathered certain details as to the way
of finding "the body," and the manner in which horse and man seemed to
have fallen. But Rintoul evidently had been too much impressed by the
sight to be able to dwell on the subject. He wiped the perspiration from
his forehead, and took again large draughts of water as he brought forth
sentence after sentence. "Get me some wine, or brandy, or something--I
am done," he cried; but when his father rang the bell, Rintoul recoiled.
"Let Edith fetch it; don't let us have any prying servants about here."
"There is no reason why we should be afraid of prying servants," said
Lord Lindores, with surprise and disapproval. "It is not a matter to be
concealed. I suppose there is nothing to conceal?" "Oh no, no," said
Rintoul, with a groan--"nothing to be concealed; you can't conceal a
dead man," and he shuddered, but added directly, raising himself to meet
his father's eye, "it was accident--nothing but accident,--everybody has
warned him. I said myself something was sure to happen sooner or later
at the Scaur." Edith, who had flown to bring him the wine he asked for,
here came back with it, having sent away the officious butler, anxious
to hear all about it, who hovered near the door. Her brother took the
decanter from her hand without a word of thanks, and poured out the wine
lavishly, but with a shaking hand, into the glass from which he had been
drinking water. It brought a little colour back into his cheeks. To
Edith the emotion he showed was a new revelation. She had never expected
from Rintoul so much tenderness of feeling. But Lord Lindores went on
with his questions.
"Something sure to happen? Yes--to children or people incapable of
taking care of themselves; but Torrance, who knew it all like his own
hand! had he--been drinking, poor fellow?"
"Not that I know of; but how can I tell? Nobody knows."
"Some one must have seen him before the accident happened. There must be
some one who can tell. Of course everything must be investigated. Where
had he been? Why was he not with you, when you went by appointment to
see the place? It was surely very extraordinary----"
"He was with us at first," said Rintoul, "but he took offence at some of
Millefleurs's criticisms; and then John Erskine----"
"What had John Erskine to do with it?"
"They had some words. I can't remember; something passed. Erskine left
early too. Now that I think of it," said Rintoul, suddenly, "Erskine
must have gone that way, and perhaps----But no, no; I mistake--they did
not meet."
"They had no words," said Edith, eagerly; "there was no quarrel, if
that is what you mean. Mr Torrance was annoyed because Lord
Millefleurs----But Mr Erskine had nothing to do with it," she added, her
colour rising. Lord Lindores paced up and down the room, stopping at
every turn to ask another question. Rintoul sat leaning his head upon
his hand, his face concealed by it; while Edith, to whom this reference
had given animation, stood between them, her senses quickened, her mind
alert. But they were both too deeply occupied to notice the change in
her which was made by the mention of this name.
"Of course there must be a thorough investigation into all the
circumstances," Lord Lindores said.
"Who can do that? I thought there were no coroners in Scotland?" said
Rintoul, rousing himself. "I was thinking, indeed, what a good thing for
poor Carry to be spared this. Besides, what can investigation do? He
went off from among us excited. Very likely, poor fellow, he had been
drinking. He rode off in haste, thundering down that dangerous road, as
was his custom. Everybody knows it was his custom. It was his way of
blowing off steam. Coming back, the road was soft with the rain, and he
still excited and in a nervous state. He pushed Black Jess a step too
close. She reared, and----I don't know what you can find out more by any
investigation." Rintoul wiped his forehead again and poured himself out
more wine.
"That may be, but there must be an investigation all the same," said
Lord Lindores. "A man of importance like poor Torrance does not
disappear like this in a moment without any notice being taken of it. If
he had been a ploughman, perhaps----"
Here the door was opened hastily, and Lady Lindores hurried in. "What is
this?" she cried; "what is this I hear?--the servants are full of it.
Something about Torrance and a bad accident. What does it mean?"
Edith ran to her mother, taking her by the arm, with the instinct of
supporting her against the shock; and Lord Lindores gave her the
information, not without that almost pleasure in recounting even the
most terrible news, which is the instinctive sentiment of those whose
hearts are not deeply concerned. Lady Lindores heard it with
horror,--with the instant and keen self-question as to whether she had
done justice to this man, of whom no one now could ask pardon,--whose
wrongs, if he had any, could never be remedied--which, in a generous
mind, is the first result of such a tragedy. Out of keen excitement and
horror she shed a few tears, the first that in this house at least had
been expended on the dead man. A pang of wondering pity was in her
heart. The sight of this softer feeling stilled the others. She arrested
every other sentiment in a natural pause of terrified compassion. She
who had never called him by it in his life, suddenly found his Christian
name come to her lips: "Oh, poor Pat! poor Pat! like that--in a
moment--with his home close by that he was so proud of, and all his good
things--summoned in a moment. O God, have mercy upon him!" she cried.
"It is too late for that," said Lord Lindores, gravely, for the moment
ashamed of all other questions. "Short as the time is, and dreadful as
it is to think of it, his account must be made by this time. It is a
terrible lesson to us all----"
"O God, have mercy upon him! I cannot think it is ever too late for
that," cried Lady Lindores through her tears. And there was a pause. She
did not, so far as we know, entertain any heterodox ideas about the
after state; but nature spoke in her, which is stronger than creeds. And
they were all silent, ashamed to have thought of anything else than
this. Rintoul still sat with his head hid in his hands. He had not
looked at his mother. He did not say anything to help out the narrative
which his father, of course, had given minutely. He had made a great
effort to get over his personal agitation and the tremor of his nerves,
but he was not used to such violent emotions, and it was hard to get
them under control.
Then Lady Lindores rose from the chair upon which she had sunk in the
first shock. "I must go to Carry at once," she said. "Poor Carry! how
must she be feeling? In a moment--without time for a word----"
Now at this there was a slight movement on the part of the two men--even
in Rintoul, though he was so much overcome. They thought it was the
usual feminine hypocrisy. Carry had never pretended to be a fond or
loving wife. The shock was great, but it brought her deliverance. A
touch of indignation and of wonder at what they considered that
incomprehensible female nature, which one moment brought them back by
sheer natural tenderness to a loftier state of feeling, and the next
disgusted them with mere conventionalism and make-believe, stirred in
their minds. They durst not say anything, for of course it was needful
to the world to keep up this fiction, and take it for granted that Carry
was heart-broken; but in their hearts they despised the false sentiment,
as they thought it. Nobody understood that divine compunction in Lady
Lindores's heart--that terrible and aching pity for the unworthy on her
own part--that sense of awful severance from a human creature with whom
there had been nothing in common, with whom there could be no hope of
reunion, which, she felt, must be in her daughter's mind. God help poor
Carry! What could she be but glad to be free? Her mother's heart bled
for her in this awful satisfaction and misery. Meanwhile her husband
rang the bell and ordered the carriage for her, with a sensation not
quite unlike contempt, though he was pleased, too, that she should be
able to keep up the natural superstitions, and go through all
traditional formalities so well. He made a pause, however, when he found
Edith hastily preparing to go too.
"There is Lord Millefleurs to be thought of? What am I to do," he said,
"with Millefleurs?"
"At such a moment surely everything of the kind must be suspended," said
Lady Lindores. "You cannot think that Edith could--go on with
this--while her sister----"
Millefleurs himself made his appearance on the stairs while she was
speaking. It was a curious scene. The great hall-door was open, the
night wind blowing in, making the light waver, and penetrating all the
excited group with cold. Lady Lindores, wrapped in a great cloak which
covered her from head to foot, stood below looking up, while Edith
paused on the lower steps in the act of tying a white shawl about her
head. The servants, still more excited, stood about, all anxious to
help, by way of seeing everything that was going on. Rintoul stood in
the doorway of the library, entirely in shadow,--a dark figure
contrasting with the others in the light. To these actors in the drama
came forth Millefleurs in his exact evening costume, like a hero of
genteel comedy coming in at the height of the _imbroglio_. "I need not
say how shocked and distressed I am," he said, from his platform on the
landing. "I would go away at once, but that would not help you. Never
think of me; but I feel sure you would not do me the injustice to think
of me in presence of such a catastrophe."
Lady Lindores waved her hand to him as she hurried out, but he overtook
Edith on the stairs. It was impossible that he should not feel that she
knew all about it by this time; and after all, though he was so
humble-minded, Millefleurs was aware that the heir of a great Duke is
not usually kept in suspense. "Lady Edith," he said in an undertone,
"should I go away? I will do what you think best."
He had faded entirely out of her mind in the excitement of this new
event. "Lord Millefleurs----Oh, I cannot tell," she said; "it will be
painful for you in the midst of this horror and mourning----"
"You cannot think that is what I mean," he said anxiously. "If I could
be of any use; a cooler person is sometimes of use, don't you know--one
that can sympathise and--without being overwhelmed with--feeling."
"We shall not be overwhelmed. Oh, you have seen, you know, that it is
not so much grief as----It is Carry we all must think of--not----poor Mr
Torrance. I am sorry--I am sorry with all my heart--but he did not
belong to us, except by----"
"Marriage--that is not much of a tie, is it?" said little Millefleurs,
looking at her with a mixture of half-comic ruefulness and serious
anxiety. "But this is not a moment to trouble you. Lady Edith, do you
think I may stay?"
At this moment her mother called her from the door, and Edith ran
hastily down the steps. She scarcely knew whether she had said anything,
or what she had said. It was only "Oh," the English ejaculation which
fits into every crisis; but it was not "No," Lord Millefleurs said to
himself, and he hastened after her to close the carriage-door, and bid
Lady Lindores good-night. As the carriage drove off he turned and found
himself in face of Lord Lindores, who had a somewhat anxious look. "I
have been asking if I should go or stay," he said; "I know your
hospitality, even when you are in trouble----"
"There is no trouble in having you in the house, even in the midst of
this calamity; but what did they say to you?" asked Lord Lindores.
"Nothing, I think; but I will stay if you will let me, Lord Lindores,
till we can see. And may I hear the details of the accident--if it was
an accident."
"You think there is something more in it?" cried Lord Lindores, quickly.
"No; how can I tell? I should like to hear everything. Sometimes a
looker-on, who is not so much interested, sees more of the game, don't
you know."
"It is a tragic game," said Lord Lindores, shaking his head; "but there
is no agrarian crime here, no landlord-killing, no revenge. Poor
Torrance had not an enemy, so far as I know."
All this time Rintoul stood motionless in the doorway, concealed by the
shadow; but here he seemed piqued to speak. "He had plenty of enemies,"
he said hastily. "A man of such a temper and manners, how could he help
having enemies?"
"De mortuis nil nisi bonum," said his father,--"say no harm of the
dead----"
"That is all very well; but it is of more importance to do no injustice
to the living," said Rintoul, with a sort of sullen solemnity; and he
suddenly gave place to the others and went off in the direction of his
own den, a little room in which he smoked and kept his treasures. Lord
Lindores took his guest into the library, gravely apologetic. "I have
never seen Rintoul so upset; his nerves seem to have received a shock. I
don't think he cares to go over the melancholy story again."
"It is very natural," said little Millefleurs. "A man who has been
always at home, who has never roughed it in the world, naturally loses
his head when he first comes in contact with tragedy, don't you know. I
did myself in California the first time I touched actual blood. But that
was murder, which is a different sort of thing."
"Very different," said Lord Lindores; and he proceeded to satisfy his
guest with an account of all the particulars, to which Millefleurs
listened very seriously. He had the Scaur described to him with much
minuteness, and how it might be possible that such an accident could
happen. Instinctively Lord Lindores made it appear that the wonder was
it had not happened before. "I warned poor Torrance repeatedly," he
said; although he had in equal good faith expressed his amazement that
such a thing could happen to a man who knew the place so well, only a
short time before. Millefleurs listened to everything very gravely,
giving the profoundest attention to every detail.
The house was full of agitation and excitement, and Lord Lindores sent
repeatedly for his son to consult with him over what ought to be done;
but Rintoul was not to be found. He had gone out, the servants said; and
the general impression was that he had returned to Tinto, though he
could only have done that by a long walk through the gloomy night.
Millefleurs went out into the grounds while this question was
proceeding. He had a great many things to think about. He lit his cigar
and wandered about, thoughtfully discussing with himself various
questions. Did Edith mean that he should stay? Had he any right to stay
in the circumstances of the family? He had a strong desire to do so
that was not entirely connected with Edith. To be sure, the suspense in
which he was kept, the impossibility of addressing her at such a moment,
would have made a passionate lover very restless; but Millefleurs was
not the sort of stuff out of which passionate lovers are made. He
thought Edith would make him a delightful wife, and that with such a
wife he would be a very happy man; but he did not feel that heaven and
earth would be changed to him without Edith, and therefore other motives
were free to come in. He had something in his mind which for the moment
almost obliterated all thoughts of her. He walked up and down in the
darkness, turning it over and over in his mind. Vaguely, one way or
another, this thought was associated with Edith too. After some time he
perceived another red spark in the darkness, and became aware of some
one else smoking like himself a thoughtful cigar. He called out to
Rintoul and came upon him at the end of an alley. Millefleurs had an
internal conviction that Rintoul wished to avoid him, so he went up to
him quickly and caught him by the arm.
"It was thought that you had gone back to Tinto," he said, putting his
arm familiarly through his. He had to reach up on tiptoe to do it, but
this was what pleased Millefleurs.
"What! walking at this time of night? I am not so eager about it," said
Rintoul. "Besides, what should I do there? Everything is settled so far
as it can be for to-night, and my mother and Edith have gone to Carry:
there is no need for me."
"I wish you would tell me all about it, my dear Rintoul."
"Didn't my father tell you?"
"Yes, in his way; but that is different. You want the details from an
eyewitness, don't you know. You want to see it through the eyes that
have seen it. I have a great curiosity about that kind of thing ever
since I have been in California, where it is an incident of everyday
life."
"It is not an incident of everyday life here, and I'm sick of it," cried
Rintoul. "Don't question me any more--it's too terrible. It must have
been instantaneous they say; that is the only comfort about the
business--everything else is hideous from beginning to end."
"Ah, from the beginning--that is just what I want to talk to you about,"
said Millefleurs.
He felt a thrill in the arm he held, and an inclination as if to throw
him off, but he was not to be thrown off; he was small but very
tenacious, and clung to his hold.
"That is what I want to know. The beginning. Did he meet any one? had
he any dispute or altercation in the wood?"
"None that I know of," said Rintoul. He spoke sulkily, almost in an
undertone, so that Millefleurs had to concentrate his attention upon the
voice, which was interrupted by all the sounds in the air, the rustling
of the trees, the sough of the river far away.
"Did you see any one about?" said Millefleurs.
The two men were in the dark,--they could not see each other's faces,
yet they stopped and looked at each other, anxiously, suspiciously, each
at the red end of the other's cigar, which disclosed a moustache, a
shadow above.
"Any one about? I don't think there was any one about," said Rintoul,
still more sullenly. "What should put that into your mind? You were not
there?"
This was a curious question, but Millefleurs made no note of it, his
mind being possessed by an entirely different idea. He said, "No, I was
not there. I drove home with your mother, don't you know. To think we
should have passed without the least knowing it, the place which so soon
was to be the scene of such a tragedy."
"Don't romance about it. It's bad enough as it is. You did not pass the
scene. It was on the other road, a long way from yours."
"At which side?"
"The left side," said Rintoul, carelessly. "I wish, if you don't mind,
that you would change the subject. My nerves are all wrong. I didn't
know I was such a feeble beggar. I'd rather not dwell upon it, if you
don't mind."
"The left side?" said Millefleurs, with a sigh--and then there was a
pause. "You are quite sure," he added anxiously, "that you did not see
any one in the wood?"
Rintoul almost thrust this question away. "I tell you I won't be
questioned," he said. Then, composing himself with an effort, "I beg
your pardon, Millefleurs--I never liked the man, though he was my
brother-in-law; and to see all at once a fellow whom perhaps you had
been thinking badly of two minutes before, wishing no good to--to see
him lying there stiff and stark----"
"I beg you a thousand pardons, Rintoul," Millefleurs said gravely. And
they went in together, saying no more.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Lady Lindores and Edith were carried along through the darkness of the
night with that curious sense of rapid unseen movement which has in it a
kind of soothing influence upon suspense and mental distress. They spoke
to each other in the darkness of Carry--poor Carry! how would she take
it? but yet never ventured, even to each other, to express the innermost
feeling in their minds on this subject. As they drove along, the gleam
of other lamps went rapidly past them close to the gate of Dalrulzian,
leading back their thoughts for a moment to other interests. "It is John
Erskine's dogcart. Is he going away? is it some one arriving? has he
been dining somewhere?" Lady Lindores said, with the unconscious
curiosity of the country. Then she said with a little shudder, "I wonder
if he can have heard?"--that first question which always suggests itself
in the face of a great event. "How strange to think that some one has
been peacefully dining out while _that_ has been happening--so near!"
Edith answered only by pressing her mother's arm in which her own was
entwined, as they sat close together for mutual consolation. She had
other troubled wandering thoughts aching in her own heart; but of these
she said nothing, but watched the lamps turning up the Dalrulzian avenue
with a thrill of mingled feeling, half angry that he should not have
divined she was in trouble, half glad that he thus proved his ignorance
of all that had occurred. Thus unknowing, Carry's mother and sister
crossed in the dark another new actor in Carry's history, of whom no one
as yet had thought.
Carry was seated in her own room alone. It was her natural refuge at
such a moment. A fire had been lighted by the anxious servants--who saw
her shiver in the nervous excitement of this great and terrible
event--and blazed brightly, throwing ruddy gleams of light through the
room, and wavering ghostly shadows upon the wall. The great bed, with
its tall canopies and heavy ornaments, shrouded round with satin
curtains, looped and festooned with tarnished gold lace and every kind
of clumsy grandeur, stood like a sort of catafalque, the object of a
thousand airy assaults and attacks from the fantastic light, but always
dark,--a funereal object in the midst; while the tall polished wardrobes
all round the room gave back reflections like dim mirrors, showing
nothing but the light. Two groups of candles on the high mantelpiece,
twinkling against the dark wall, were the only other illuminations.
Carry sat sunk in a big chair close to the fire. If she could have
cried,--if she could have talked and lamented,--if she could have gone
to bed--or, failing this, if she had read her Bible,--the maids in the
house, who hung about the doors in anxiety and curiosity, would have
felt consoled for her. But she did none of these. She only sat there,
her slight figure lost in the depths of the chair, still in the white
dress which she had worn to receive her guests in the morning. She had
not stirred--the women said, gathering round Lady Lindores in whispering
eagerness--for hours, and had not even touched the cup of tea they had
carried to her. "Oh, my lady, do something to make her cry," the women
said. "If she doesn't get it out it'll break her heart." They had
forgotten, with the facile emotion which death, and especially a death
so sudden, calls forth, that the master had been anything but the most
devoted of husbands, or his wife other than the lovingest of wives. This
pious superstition is always ready to smooth away the horror of deaths
which are a grief to no one. "Your man's your man when a's done, even if
he's but an ill ane," was the sentiment of the awe-stricken household.
"Ye never ken what he's been to ye till ye lose him." It gave them all
a sense of elevation that Lady Caroline should, as they thought, be
wrapped in hopeless grief,--it made them think better of her and of
themselves. The two ladies went into the ghostly room with something of
the same feeling. Lady Lindores felt that she understood it--that she
had expected it. Had not her own mind been filled by sudden
compunction--the thought that perhaps she had been less tolerant of the
dead man than she ought; and how much more must Carry, poor Carry, have
felt the awe and pang of an almost remorse to think that he was gone
without a word against whom her heart had risen in such rebellion, yet
who was of all men the most closely involved in her very being? Lady
Lindores comprehended it all; and yet it was a relief to her mind that
Carry felt it so, and could thus wear the garb of mourning with reality
and truth. She went in with her heart full, with tears in her eyes, the
profoundest tender pity for the dead, the deepest sympathy with her
child in sorrow. The room was very large, very still, very dark, save
for that ruddy twilight, the two little groups of pale lights glimmering
high up upon the wall, and no sign of any human presence. "Carry, my
darling!" her mother said, wondering and dismayed. Then there was a
faint sound, and Carry rose, tall, slim, and white, like a ghost out of
the gloom. She had been sitting there for hours, lost in thoughts, in
dreams, and visions. She seemed to herself to have so exhausted this
event by thinking of it, that it was now years away. She stepped forward
and met her mother, tenderly indeed, but with no effusion. "Have you
come all the way so late to be with me, mother? How kind, how kind you
are! And Edith too----"
"Kind!" cried Lady Lindores, with an almost angry bewilderment. "Did you
not know I would come, Carry, my poor child. But you are stunned with
this blow----"
"I suppose I was at first. Yes, I knew you would come--at first; but it
seems so long since. Sit down, mother; you are cold. You have had such a
miserable drive. Come near to the fire----"
"Carry, Carry dear, never mind us; it is you we are all thinking of. You
must not sit there and drive yourself distracted thinking."
"Let me take off this shawl from your cap, mamma. Now you look more
comfortable. Have you brought your things to stay? I am ringing to have
fires lit in your rooms. Oh yes, I want you to stay. I have never been
able to endure this house, you know, and those large rooms, and the
desert feeling in it. And you will have some tea or something. I must
give orders----"
"Carry," cried her mother, arresting her hand on the bell, "Edith and I
will see to all that. Don't pay any attention to us. I have come to take
care of you, my dearest. Carry, dear, your nerves are all shattered. How
could it be otherwise? You must let me get you something,--they say you
have taken nothing,--and you must go to bed."
"I don't think my nerves are shattered. I am quite well. There is
nothing the matter with me. You forget," she said, with something like a
faint laugh, "how often we have said, mamma, how absurd to send and ask
after a woman's health when there is nothing the matter with her, when
only she has lost----" Here she paused a little, and then said gravely,
"Even grief does not affect the health."
"Very often it does not, dear; but, Carry, you must not forget that you
have had a terrible shock. Even I, who am not so nearly involved--even
I----" Here Lady Lindores, in her excitement and agitation, lost her
voice altogether, and sobbed, unable to command herself. "Oh, poor
fellow! poor fellow!" she said, with broken tones. "In a moment, Carry,
without warning!"
Carry went to her mother's side, and drew her head upon her breast. She
was perfectly composed, without a tear. "I have thought of all that,"
she said; "I cannot think it matters. If God is the Father of us all, we
are the same to Him, dead or living. What can it matter to Him that we
should make preparations to appear before Him? Oh, all that must be
folly, mother. However bad I had been, should I have to prepare to go to
you?"
"Carry, Carry, my darling! It is I that should be saying this to you.
You are putting too much force upon yourself--it is unnatural; it will
be all the more terrible for you after."
Carry stood stooping over her mother, holding Lady Lindores's head
against her bosom. She smiled faintly, and shook her head. "Has it not
been unnatural altogether?" she said.
To Edith standing behind, this strange scene appeared like a
picture--part of the phantasmagoria of which her sister had for years
been the centre: her mind leapt back to the discussions which preceded
Carry's marriage, the hopeless yielding of the victim, the perplexity
and misery of the mother. Now they had changed positions, but the same
strange haze of terror and pity, yet almost indignation, was in her own
breast. She had been the judge then--in a smaller degree she was the
judge now. But this plea stopped her confused and painful thoughts. Has
it not been unnatural altogether? Edith's impulse was to escape from a
problem which she could not deal with. "I will go and see the children,"
she said.
"The children--poor children! have you seen them, Carry? do they know?"
said Lady Lindores, drying the tears--the only tears that had been shed
for Torrance--from her cheeks.
Carry did not make any reply. She went away to the other end of the room
and took up a white shawl in which she wrapped herself. "The only thing
I feel is cold," she said.
"Ah, my love, that is the commonest feeling. I have felt sometimes as if
I could just drag myself to the fire like a wounded animal and care for
nothing more."
"But, mother, you were never in any such terrible trouble."
"Not like this--but I have lost children," said Lady Lindores. She had
to pause again, her lip quivering. "To be only sorrow, there is no
sorrow like that."
She had risen, and they stood together, the fantastic firelight throwing
long shadows of them all over the dim and ghastly room. Suddenly Carry
flung herself into her mother's arms. "Oh my innocent mother!" she
cried. "Oh, mother! you only know such troubles as angels may have. Look
at me! look at me! I am like a mad woman. I am keeping myself in, as you
say, that I may not go mad--with joy!"
Lady Lindores gave a low terrible cry, and held her daughter in her arm,
pressing her desperately to her heart as if to silence her. "No,
Carry--no, no," she cried.
"It is true. To think I shall never be subject to all _that_ any
more--that he can never come in here again--that I am free--that I can
be alone. Oh, mother, how can you tell what it is? Never to be alone:
never to have a corner in the world where--some one else has not a right
to come, a better right than yourself. I don't know how I have borne it.
I don't know how I can have lived, disgusted, loathing myself. No, no;
sometime else I shall be sorry when I have time to think, when I can
forget what it is that has happened to me--but in the meantime I am too
happy--too----"
Lady Lindores put her hand upon her daughter's mouth. "No, no,
Carry--no, no; I cannot bear it--you must not say it," she cried.
Carry took her mother's hands and kissed them, and then began to
sob--the tears pouring from her eyes like rain. "I will not say
anything," she cried; "no, no--nothing, mother. I had to tell you to
relieve my heart. I have been able to think of nothing else all these
hours. I have never had so many hours to myself for years. It is so
sweet to sit still and know that no one will burst the door open and
come in. Here I can be sacred to myself, and sit and think: and all
quiet--all quiet about me." Carry looked up, clasping her hands, with
the tears dropping now and then, but a smile quivering upon her mouth
and in her eyes. She seemed to have reached that height of passionate
emotion--the edge where expression at its highest almost loses itself,
and a blank of all meaning seems the next possibility. In her white
dress, with her upturned face and the wild gleam of rapture in her eyes,
she was like an unearthly creature. But to describe Lady Lindores's
anguish and terror and pain would be impossible. She thought her
daughter was distraught. Never in her life had she come in contact with
feeling so absolute, subdued by no sense of natural fitness, or even by
right and wrong. Her only comfort was that Edith had not been present to
hear and see this revelation. And the truth was that her own heart,
though so panic-stricken and penetrated with so much pity for the dead,
understood, too, with a guilty throb, the overwhelming sense of
emancipation which drove everything else from Carry's mind. She had
feared it would be so. She would not allow herself to think so; but all
through the darkness of the night as she drove along, she had been
trembling lest she should find Carry not heart-broken but happy, yet had
trusted that pity somehow would keep her in the atmosphere of gloom
which ought to surround a new-made widow. It hurt Lady Lindores's tender
heart that a woman should be glad when her husband died, however
unworthy that husband might have been. She did her best now to soothe
the excited creature, who took her excitement for happiness.
"We will talk of this no more to-night, Carry; by-and-by you will see
how pitiful it all is. You will feel--as I feel. But in the meantime you
are worn out. This terrible shock, even though you may think you do not
feel it, has thrown you into a fever. You must let me put you to bed."
"Not here," she said with a shudder, looking round the room; "not
here--I could not rest here."
"That is natural," Lady Lindores said with a sigh. "You must come with
me, Carry."
"Home, mother--home! Oh, if I could!--not even to Lindores,--to one of
the old poor places where we were so happy----"
"When we had no home," the mother said, shaking her head. But she, too,
got a wistful look in her eyes at the recollection. Those days when they
were poor, wandering, of no account; when it mattered little to any one
but themselves where they went, what the children might do, what
alliances they made,--what halcyon days these were to look back on! In
those days this miserable union, which had ended so miserably, could
never have been made. Was it worth while to have had so many additional
possessions added to them--rank and apparent elevation--for such a
result? But she could not permit herself to think, with Carry sitting
by, too ready to relapse into those feverish musings which were so
terrible. She put her arm round her child and drew her tenderly away.
They left the room with the lights against the wall, and the firelight
giving it a _faux air_ of warmth and inhabitation. Its emptiness was
scarcely less tragic, scarcely less significant, than the chill of the
other great room--the state chamber--in the other wing, where, with
lights burning solemnly about him all night, the master of the house lay
dead, unwatched by either love or sorrow. There were gloom and panic,
and the shock of a great catastrophe, in the house. There were even
honest regrets; for he had not been a bad master, though often a rough
one: but nothing more tender. And Carry lay down with her mother's arms
round her and slept, and woke in the night, and asked herself what it
was; then lay still in a solemn happiness--exhausted, peaceful--feeling
as if she desired nothing more. She was delivered: as she lay silent,
hidden in the darkness and peace of the night, she went over and over
this one certainty, so terrible yet so sweet. "God forgive me! God
forgive me!" she said softly to herself, her very breathing hushed with
the sense of relief. She had come out of death into life. Was it wrong
to be glad? That it was a shame and outrage upon nature was no fault of
poor Carry. Sweet tears rolled into her eyes, her jarred and thwarted
being came back into harmony. She lay and counted the dark silent hours
striking one by one, feeling herself all wrapped in peace and ease, as
if she lay in some sacred shrine. To-morrow would bring back the veils
and shrouds of outside life--the need of concealment, of self-restraint,
almost of hypocrisy--the strain and pain of a new existence to be begun;
but to-night--this one blessed night of deliverance--was her own.
CHAPTER XXX.
It was late when John Erskine got home on the afternoon of this eventful
day. John Tamson's wife mended his coat for him, and he got himself
brushed and put in order; then his excitement calming down, he walked
slowly home. He argued with himself as he walked, that to take any
further notice of Torrance's violence would be unworthy of himself. The
fellow had been drinking, no doubt. He had been stung in his tenderest
point--his pride in his fine house and tawdry grandeur,--he had felt
himself altogether out of place in the little company, which included
his nearest connections. Not much wonder, poor wretch, if he were
twisted the wrong way. John forgave him as he grew calmer, and arriving
at home, tired out, and somewhat depressed in mind, began at last to
feel sorry for Pat Torrance, who never had been framed for the position
he held. The first thing he found when he arrived, to his alarm and
dismay, was a telegram from Beaufort announcing his arrival that very
night. "Obliged to come; cannot help myself," his friend said,
apologetic even by telegraph. Nothing could well have been more
unfortunate. John felt as if this arrival must put a gulf between him
and Carry's family altogether--but it was too late now for any
alteration, even if he could have, in the circumstances, deserted his
friend. Perhaps, too, in the crisis at which he had arrived, it would be
well for him to have some one upon whom he could fall back, some one who
had been more unfortunate than himself, to whom he could talk, who would
understand without explanation, the extraordinary crisis to which his
history had come. It was not his doing, nor Edith's doing,--they had not
sought each other: no intention had been in her mind of making a victim
of her rural neighbour; no ambitious project in his, of wooing the
Earl's daughter. Everything had been innocent, unwitting. A few
meetings, the most innocent, simple intercourse--and lo! the woe or weal
of two lives was concerned. It seemed hard that so simply, with so
little foresight, a man might mar his happiness. John was not a
sentimentalist, determining that his whole existence was to be shattered
by such a disappointment. He repeated to himself, with a little scorn,--
"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart."
But the scorn was of the sentiment, and not any protest against the
application of it to his own case. The broken tie between Beaufort and
Carry was not an example of that superficial poetic deliverance. He
himself was not like Beaufort, nor Edith like her sister. She would
never marry a man whom she could not love; nor would he allow himself to
dally with all the objects of life, and let everything slip past him.
But he knew what would happen, he said to himself in the quietness of
the silent hours. Life would lose its crown altogether. He would "get
on" as if nothing remarkable had befallen him--but the glory and the joy
would be over without ever having been his. And if she shared his
feelings, there would be the same result on her side,--her life would be
lonely like his, the flower of existence would be stolen from her.
Only--if it were possible that Edith did share his feelings, then there
was still something to be done,--there was a fight for it still before
them. He would not give in like Beaufort, nor she take any irremediable
step of desperation like Carry. This stirred him a little and restored
him to himself; but on the whole, despondency was his prevailing
feeling--a sense of impossibility, the sensation as of a blank wall
before him, which it was impossible to surmount.
He had a lonely dreary evening. His dinner was served to him by one of
the maids, who was frightened and lost her head, Rolls still being
absent, to the great alarm of the household. Bauby, who did not
remember the time when her brother had thus forsaken his duties, had
been so disturbed in her preparations by anxiety, that it had almost
happened to John as to King Louis, that he had to wait for his meal. "I
canna gie my mind to my denner. Whaur's Tammas?--and who's to take ben
the dishes?" Bauby cried. When the housemaid, arrayed in her best cap
and apron, and with what she herself called "a red face," blushing like
a peony in the unusual responsibility and honour, had managed to fulfil
the service of the table, Bauby went out to the kitchen-door and then to
the avenue to watch. "Something'll have happened to him," she said,
drying her eyes. "Na, na, he's no' the man to forget himself. It's been
something he couldna avide. The Lord grant it's no deadly--that's a' I
say. We've never had an accident in oor family, no' since my grandfather
that tummeled down the Broken Brig and broke himself a' to bits, and
walkit wi' a crutch ever aifter." Bauby had got the length of despair by
the time the dogcart came up the avenue bringing "the gentleman" from
the station, whom Marget the housemaid, once more tying on her best
apron, and looking in the glass to see if she had not yet got rid of
that "awfu' red face," prepared to attend upon. It was at this moment,
when Bauby found it required her whole attention to keep her tears from
dropping upon the bird, which was cooked to a turn for Beaufort's
supper, that a sudden welcome voice made her jump and almost drop the
savoury morsel. "Eh, Tammas! what I've gaen through this nicht!" she
cried. "I thought you were drowned in the water, or a' your banes
broken." "Hold your peace," said Rolls, with a gloomy countenance;
"nothing has happened to me." And he took the tray out of Marget's hands
without a word. The women stood aghast to see him so scowling, dark, and
uncommunicative, proceeding thus into the presence of his master,
without any attention to his dress. "Without your claes!" Bauby said.
"Hold your peace," repeated her brother. And he paused as he went out of
the kitchen and turned round solemnly, "We have all a hantle mair to
think of this night than my claes." The solemnity of this address, it is
needless to say, made an enormous impression upon the maids, who were
wont to consider Rolls, next to the minister, as one of the greatest
lights of the parish. Andrew the gardener came in soon after on some
domestic errand, and from him they heard something of what had happened
at Tinto. "I'm no' sure what but the maister here is in it," Andrew
said. "You gomeril! how can Mr John be in it, and him biding quiet at
hame, and no' looking the gait Pat Torrance was on?" "Aweel, I'm saying,
I ken naething about it, but that something's happened to Tinto and his
muckle mear--and the maister's into it," Andrew replied.
Meanwhile Rolls had carried in the supper. The library where John always
sat was cheerful with light and fire. The farther north the traveller
goes, the more sure he is, with or without occasion, to find a fire. It
scarcely enters into the Italian's idea of comfort at all, though he
shivers with cold--but it is indispensable to a Scotsman's, though it
may be warm. The night was soft and mild, the windows wide open, but the
ruddy glow made everything cheerful, and John Erskine had brightened to
meet his visitor: he was sitting cheerfully in the light, asking
Beaufort the hundred questions with which a man a little withdrawn from
society assails one who has kept within it. Beaufort himself was older
and graver: a man with a fine picturesque head, somewhat long; a
forehead exceptionally white, from which the hair had begun to wear off
a little round the temples; a slightly feeble querulous drop of the lip
under his moustache. He was very tall, very slim, with long white hands,
which clasped each other in a nervous habitual motion. Neither the one
nor the other took any notice of Rolls. They were in full flood of talk
about old associations, for they had not met for years. Rolls made his
preparations very deliberately, almost rubbing against his master on
repeated occasions as he went and came. Three or four times over John
drew his chair out of the way, a little surprised, but paying no
particular attention. When this happened, however, for the fifth or
sixth time, he looked up impatiently. "What are you after?" he cried.
Rolls looked at him with a steady meaning gaze, his eyes staring, his
mouth rigid--he shook his head slightly, very slowly. "What's the
matter?" cried John. Beaufort had seated himself at the table, and had
begun his meal. The others were in the shade behind him, between the
fireplace and the door.
"There's much the maitter, sir,--much the maitter," said Rolls; "more
than will be made up for this many a day."
"What do you mean? What is it? You look as if something had happened
with which I had to do," John said, half alarmed, half amused. The only
answer Rolls gave was to shake his head once more very gravely as he
turned away. His look spoke all that he did not say. Tragedy was in it,
and horror, and pity, and reproach. John grew excited in spite of
himself. "Hey, here Rolls! _Rolls_, I say! What is the meaning of this?"
he cried. Rolls opened the door slowly, solemnly, and disappeared.
"Confound the fellow!" cried John, and rose hastily and followed, with a
hurried word to Beaufort. "I suppose the mare has fallen lame, or there
is a tile off the roof," he said, half laughing. Rolls was standing in
the partial gloom outside the door. The hall door was open, and the
whole darkness of the night showing beyond. Over their heads hung the
lamp, flickering in the night air, throwing its light upon the
impenetrable blackness opposite to it in the open doorway, but leaving
the two figures in shadow below. Rolls stood as if he expected his
master. He left him no time to ask any question, but said at once, "Yon
was death, sir," in a low and solemn tone.
"Yon! What was death? I don't understand you," John cried, in wonder and
alarm. "Quick, quick! tell me what you mean."
"It's but ower easy to tell;--yon was death. He's never stirred. Horse
and man one heap, and no' a breath or a tremble in it. It's easy--easy
to tell."
"Good God! Rolls, what do you mean? Not--not the Scaur,--not----"
"That's what I mean," Rolls replied almost sternly. "A bonnie morning's
work. Just Tinto, poor fellow, with all his faults, and, maybe, the
drink in him that made it easy. Dead--dead."
There was a sort of guttural sob in the old man's voice. His heart was
wrung, not for Tinto, but with a deeper and closer horror. But John
neither thought nor understood this. He fell back a step and leaned
against the wall in horror and bewilderment. "Good God!" he repeated
with pale lips, with that instinctive appeal which we make without
knowing it in the face of every mystery. Under any circumstances, the
suddenness and terribleness of the event would have appalled him; but
now, at this moment, with Beaufort under his roof!--he could only gasp
for breath--he could not speak. And he was not aware how eagerly Rolls
was noticing every look and gesture, and how his agitation struck the
old servant to the heart. He asked a few further questions in profound
horror and dismay, then went back to his friend with a ghastly
countenance, shaken to the bottom of his heart. The very consciousness
that behind this sudden and terrible death stood life, added to the
effect. He went back to tell Beaufort of it. That was indeed his first
intention, but second thoughts presented to him the embarrassing nature
of such a communication at the very moment of his friend's arrival.
Beaufort did not notice--being occupied with his supper--the pallor and
agitation which had produced so great an effect upon old Rolls. But
after a while, as John said nothing, he turned half round and said, "I
hope nothing serious has happened to the mare----"
"The mare----Oh yes, it was something very serious--not to be made a
jest of. A fatal accident has happened--to one of my neighbours. It is
appalling in any case to hear of anything so sudden; but what makes it
worse is, that I spent some part of to-day in his company. It is not
above four or five hours since I parted with him. We had even a little
altercation," said John, with a slight shudder. "There's a bitter lesson
for you! To quarrel with a man without a thought of any harm, and a
little while after to hear that he is dead, with an unkind thought of
you in his heart, and you with hard thoughts of him!"
Beaufort answered gravely and sympathetically as became such an
announcement. "Was he a man you liked? Was he a friend?"
"No: neither a friend nor a man I liked, but young and strong; such a
frame of a man!--worth you and me put together; and to think that in a
moment----"
"How did it happen?" Beaufort asked.
"I scarcely asked. He must have fallen, he and his horse, down a
precipice--the Scaur,--a place he had often been cautioned against, I
believe. Good heavens! to think of it! I thought he must have gone over
as we spoke."
And John got up and walked about the room in his excitement. This
interrupted altogether the lively flow of conversation with which they
had begun the evening. There were one or two attempts made to resume it.
But Erskine relapsed in a few moments either into exclamations of
dismay, or into restless and uncomfortable silence of thought. The fact
was, not only that Torrance's sudden death had startled his imagination
and awoke some compunctions in his mind, as in that of Lady Lindores,
but that it opened to him a whole confusing sea of speculations and
possibilities. It was extraordinary that on the very day which should
see this happen, Beaufort had arrived. And what would Lady Caroline now
say--she who, with such self-betraying emotion, had entreated John to
keep his friend away? What might happen now were they to meet? John
shrank from the suggestion as from an impiety, and yet it would come
back. It was evident to Beaufort that his friend was out of sorts and
profoundly agitated. He withdrew early to his room, pleading that he was
tired, to leave John to himself. It did not concern him (Beaufort) to be
sure, but it must, he felt, touch Erskine more than he was willing to
show. And it was a relief to John to be alone. His mind, left to itself,
pursued the question, not so much of the dead as of the living. He did
not call back Rolls to question him on the accident as he had intended
to do; for it was Carry he thought of, not poor Torrance, after the
first moment. What would Carry do? What would she think when she found,
in the first moment of her freedom, Beaufort so near? The idea
overwhelmed him. There seemed a certain indelicacy and precipitancy in
the thought. He had risen in his restlessness and opened the window, as
he had been in the habit of doing, to breathe the freshness of the
night air, when Rolls came in, pale, and with a harassed stealthy look.
He came up to his master, and seeing that he was not observed, touched
him on the arm. "If you are going out, sir, to take a walk--or that," he
said, with quivering lips, "I've brought you a coat and some haps----"
John looked at him with surprise. The old man was grey and ghastly; his
lip quivered. He had a dark coat carefully folded over his arm, several
comforters and a plaid. There was a tremor in his whole figure, and his
eyes had a wild look of inquiry and fear.
"Take a walk! Why should I take a walk at this time of night?"
"Oh, I'm no' saying: gentlemen has strange fancies. I'm not one to pry.
I'll put the haps here, in case you should want them. You'll find a drop
brandy in your flask, and a few sandwiches in the pocket," he added in
an undertone.
"Sandwiches! You must be taking leave of your senses. Where do you
suppose I should want to go?"
"I would rather not know, sir," said Rolls, solemnly turning away. "What
good would it do me to know? I'll not listen nor look. I have nothing
ado with it; but oh, if you'll take my advice, go--go out of harm's
way."
"I believe you are mad, Rolls."
"I have plenty to make me sae, at the least of it," Rolls said, and
putting down the coat ostentatiously on a chair, he hobbled out of the
room, closing the door carefully behind him. John could hear his steps
going stealthily up-stairs to the window in the gallery above, where
they seemed to pause, and the window was carefully opened. A wild
bewilderment seized upon his mind. Of what was it that the old servant
was afraid?
CHAPTER XXXI.
Next day the country-side far and near thought and talked of nothing but
the fatal accident at Tinto, which was such a public event as moved
everybody. There was no figure in the district more widely known than
that of Pat Torrance on his black mare, a powerful horse and powerful
man, looking as if they could defy every power of nature; and it
thrilled every village far and near, every lone farm-steading and
cluster of cottages for miles round, to be told that Black Jess and her
master had both been ended by one false step, and that Pat Torrance,
strong and rich and potent as he was, had died the death of a dog,
unaided, unseen. The news ran from village to village like the fiery
cross--everywhere expanding into new details and a deeper and deeper
horror of description. First the bare fact, then all these additional
circumstances, making it more and more visibly evident to every excited
listener, filled the air. Each new passer-by was like a new edition of
a newspaper, and had heard something more. How the two bodies had been
found, horse and man; how Tinto had been warned over and over again of
the danger of the Scaur, and would listen to no advice on the subject,
but insisted on leaving it as it was, either for the sake of the view
(though it was little he was heeding about views), or for the brag,
which was more likely; and how he was got up with much trouble, and
carried in dead to his own house, which he had left in all his pride an
hour or two before. What ground for reflection upon the vicissitudes of
life was here! There was not a group of two or three people anywhere but
one at least would shake the head and lift up the voice of wisdom,
bidding the others note how in the midst of life we were in death. And
when this first horror was exhausted, there ensued the brief summing up
of character and life, the rapid history in which our neighbours
epitomise us as soon as we are ended. There were no illusions on the
subject of wild Pat Torrance; but on the whole he fared well in the
hands of the rude country-folk, whose taste was not fine enough to be
offended by his roughnesses. In spite of all his vices and
extravagances, he had a certain good-fellowship with his inferiors in
position, a rough familiarity of address which passed for kindness, and
conciliated the common mind. On every side the wild incidents of his
youth were recalled, not unkindly. "Eh, poor Tinto, poor fallow! I mind
when he was a young lad----" the commentators began on every side. And
the women concluded that perhaps if he had gotten a wife more like
himself, things might have been different. The rural imagination
accepted him as he was, with many a sage reflection, but little censure
on the whole--winding up the story of his feats and frolics, his stormy,
wild career, with a big rustic sigh for the ploughboy-gentleman, the
rude Laird who was so near to them. The tragedy was as complete and
typical as the primitive historian could desire. And the man who would
take no warning, but kept the dangerous spot unguarded that he might get
his death on it, was as broad an example of human rashness and blindness
as could have been selected. Wild Pat Torrance, poor fallow! It was just
the end which everybody might have expected, it was allowed on all
hands.
But presently there arose a chill whisper, like the first creeping
upward of an east wind, bringing greyness and blight over earth and sky.
Who can say how this atmospheric influence rises, which one moment is
not, and the next has covered the country with an ungenial chill? It was
the same with this moral cloud, which came, nobody knew from whence,
nor how, rising in a moment. The origin of it could not be brought home
to any individual, but there it was. After all, how could it be that
Black Jess, used to every step of the way, went over the Scaur? In a
moment the tide of popular comment changed, and those who had pointed
out the awful justice of fate by which Pat Torrance had been made to
bring about his own fate by his obstinacy, began to say that so bold a
rider never could have lost his life on so well-known a road--without
foul play. Accident! how could it be accident, without some human hand
to help? It was not till the second morning that this development of the
tragedy came; and it took the whole of that day to establish the
connection--which flashed upon the general mind like lightning at
last--between John Erskine's torn sleeve and dishevelled appearance and
the fate of Torrance. John Tamson swore with angry oaths afterwards that
it was not from him the tale came; but others had seen young Dalrulzian,
flushed and muddy, coming from the gate of Tinto on that eventful
afternoon; and when the community began to think it over and compare
notes, nothing could be more natural than the conclusion to which they
came. If the original news had flown over the country like the
war-signal of the old clans, this was like the spreading of a sheet of
flame--it burst out at point after point after the merest touch of
contact. Young Dalrulzian was little known. The country knew no stories
of his youth to endear him. He had been brought up far away. He was an
Englishman, almost an alien. And Tinto, it was well known, was rough of
speech, and "couldna bide" the dainty and delicate. What if they met in
the wood; what if there had been a struggle--if the weaker man who had
no chance against the stronger had seized Black Jess by the bridle, and
driven the high-spirited animal frantic? The groups who had been
recalling all the old stories of Tinto, now changed like magic into
little committees of accusation, with their heads close together,
framing their indictment. The question was given against John Erskine
all over the country before the ending of the second day.
There is no coroner's inquest in Scotland. When a death is attended by
doubtful circumstances, the procedure is slower and more elaborate, and
private individuals are reluctant to move in a matter so painful. But
yet the atmosphere of suspicion and popular condemnation stole into
Dalrulzian as it had crept over the whole country. It conveyed itself to
the supposed criminal himself in a subtle sense of something wrong. He
had not a notion what it was--neither did he know at first that it was
he who was the object disapproved of; but it was impossible not to feel
that something was wrong. The aspect of Rolls himself, conjoined with
his extraordinary behaviour on the night of Torrance's death, was
remarkable enough to excite alarm. The old servant seemed to have grown
ten years older in a single night. His face was furrowed with deep
lines, his shoulders bowed, his step tottering. The pathos and
earnestness of the looks which he bent upon his young master were
indescribable. The air, half critical, half paternal, with which he had
been wont to regard him, was gone. He no longer interfered in every
arrangement with that sense of superior wisdom which had amused John
from the moment of his arrival. All the humour of the situation was
over. Intense gravity, almost solemnity, was in the countenance of
Rolls; he was constantly on the watch, as if he expected unwelcome
visitors. Beaufort, who was not given to mirth, was roused out of his
gravity by the melancholy aspect of Methusaleh, as he called him. "One
would think your servants expected you to be carried off to prison for
high treason," he said, laughing--for Rolls was not the only one in the
house who regarded John with these alarmed and solemn eyes. Bauby, who
on ordinary occasions had nothing but a broad smile and look of maternal
admiration for her young master, was continually visible, gazing at him
from unexpected corners with her apron at her eyes. When he asked her
if she wanted anything with him, she would murmur, "Oh, Mr John!" and
cry. The other maids supporting her behind, fled from his presence. The
gardener regarded him with a sort of stern inquiry when he passed
carrying his basket of vegetables to the house. John was disturbed, as a
man of sympathetic nature cannot help being disturbed, by this curious
atmosphere of discomfort. He could not tell what it was.
Beaufort was not an inspiriting companion for a man thus perplexed and
confounded. To find himself in the district where Carry lived, to be in
her neighbourhood, yet separated from her as by walls of iron, impressed
his languid mind with a deeper shade of that sentimental consciousness
which was habitual to him. Her name had not yet been mentioned between
the friends; but Beaufort walked about the country roads in a constant
state of expectation, feeling that every carriage he heard approaching
might reveal to him the face which he longed yet feared to see. And for
the first three or four days this was all the entertainment which John
provided for his friend. He was full of embarrassment as to the
situation altogether. Lady Lindores and Edith were, he had heard, at
Tinto, where he could not disturb them; and he felt no inclination to
make his appearance at Lindores in their absence. Torrance's death and
Beaufort's presence seemed, indeed, to place impossible barriers
between him and them. It would have been sufficiently uncomfortable, he
had felt, to produce his friend there in the lifetime of Carry's
husband; but to present him now, when so unexpectedly, so tragically,
Carry was once more free, became an impossibility. In every way John
felt himself paralysed. The air affected him, he could not tell how. He
took his companion out walking all over the country, and drove him to
long distances in his dogcart, but introduced him to no one, nor ever
went to any other house. And nobody called during this curious interval.
The two men lived like hermits, and talked of their old comrades and
associations, but never of the new. John even answered Beaufort's
question about Tinto, which was one of the first points in the landscape
which attracted his curiosity, without telling him of the tragedy which
had happened there. "It belongs to the Torrances," he had said abruptly,
and no more. It did not seem possible to tell Beaufort that her husband
was dead. Troublesome as his coming was at any time, it seemed almost an
immodest intrusion now; and John was disturbed and harassed by it. His
mind was sufficiently troubled and uneasy on his own account; and this
seemed like an odious repetition, intensification of his own
circumstances. Two unfortunate lovers together, with the two ladies of
their choice so separated from them, though so near; and now this
utterly bewildering and distracting new element brought into the
dilemma, throwing a wild and feverish gleam of impious possibility on
what had been so impossible before. He could not speak of it: he could
not breathe Edith's name or Carry's into the too sympathetic, anxious
ear of his friend. He held him at arm's-length, and talked of Dick and
Tom and Harry, the comrades of the past, but never of what was so much
more deeply interesting and important to both of them now.
"Look here, Erskine," said Beaufort; "I thought you were seeing a great
deal of--your neighbours: and that Millefleurs would have come to me
before now. I shall have to send him word I am here."
"To be sure. I had forgotten Millefleurs," said John. "You forget I only
knew of your coming a few hours before you arrived."
"But I thought--people in the country see so much of each other
generally."
"They have been--engaged--with family matters," said John.
"Do you mean to say it is all settled?--and that Millefleurs is to
marry----"
"I know nothing about marrying," cried John, harshly; and then,
recollecting himself, he added, in a subdued tone, "There can be nothing
of that sort going on at present. It is death, not marriage, that
occupies them now."
Beaufort opened his languid eyes and looked with curiosity in his
friend's face. "Is it so? Yet Millefleurs stays on. That looks as if
very intimate relations had been established, Erskine."
"Does it? I don't know what relations have been established," John said,
with visible impatience. And he got up and went out of the room
abruptly, breaking off all further discussion. Beaufort sent a note to
his pupil that evening. It was the fourth or fifth day after his
arrival. "I made sure I should have seen you, or I would have let you
know my whereabouts sooner," he wrote. He was himself oppressed by the
atmosphere round him, without knowing why. He had expected a genial
Scotch house, full of company and life, with something of that
exaggeration of fancy which had made Dalrulzian so wonderfully
disappointing to John himself--a house where, amid the movement of
lively society, his own embarrassing position would have been softened,
and he might even have met his former love in the crowd without special
notice or more pain than was inevitable. But he seemed to have dropped
instead into a hermitage, almost into a tomb.
Millefleurs made his appearance next morning, very grave too, as
everybody seemed in this serious country, and with none of his usual
chirruping confidence. "I never guessed you were here," he said;
"everything of course, at Lindores, is wrapped in gloom."
"There has been a death----" said Beaufort.
"A death!--yes. Has not Erskine told you? A tragedy: nothing so terrible
has happened here for ages. You've heard, Erskine," he said, turning
round suddenly upon John, who was in the background, "that there are
suspicions of foul play."
John came forward into the light; there was embarrassment and annoyance
in his face. "I have said nothing to Beaufort about it--he did not know
the man--why should I? What did you say there were suspicions of?"
Millefleurs looked him full in the face, with a curious direct look, and
answered, with a certain sternness, oddly inappropriate to his cast of
countenance, "Foul play."
John was startled. He looked up with a movement of surprise, then
returned Millefleurs's gaze with a mingled expression of astonishment
and displeasure. "Foul play!" he said; "impossible!"--then added, "Why
do you look at me so?"
Millefleurs did not make any reply. He turned to Beaufort, who stood by
puzzled, looking on. "I ought not to stay," he said; "but Lord Lindores
seems to wish it, and there are some things to be settled; and I am very
much interested besides. There is no coroner in Scotland, I hear. How
will the investigation be managed?" he said, turning to John again.
"Lord Millefleurs," said John, who was not unwilling, in his general
sense of antagonism and annoyance, to pick a quarrel, "your look at me
requires some explanation. What does it mean?"
There was a moment's silence, and they stood opposite to each other,
little Millefleurs's plump person, with all its curves, drawn up into an
attitude of dignity, his chubby countenance set, while John looked down
upon him with an angry contempt, merging towards ridicule. The group was
like that of an indignant master and schoolboy; but it was evident that
the schoolboy meant defiance.
"It means--just such an interpretation as you choose to give it," said
Millefleurs.
"For heaven's sake," said Beaufort, "no more of this! Millefleurs, are
you out of your senses? Erskine, you must see this is folly. Don't make
up a quarrel out of nothing."
John made a distinct effort to control himself. "To me it appears
nothing," he said; "I cannot even guess at any meaning that may be in
it; but Millefleurs means something, Beaufort, as you can very easily
see."
At this moment Rolls put his head in at the door. "It's Sir James
Montgomery come to see you. I have showed him into the drawing-room, for
it's on business," the old man said. He was standing behind the door
when John came out, and his master could not help remarking that he was
trembling in every limb. "The Lord help us a'! you'll be cautious, sir,"
Rolls said.
John, in his perplexity and gathering wonder, seized him by the arm. "In
God's name, Rolls, what do you mean?"
"Swear none, sir," said the old servant--"swear none; but oh, be
cautious, for the love of God!"
John Erskine walked into the room in which Sir James awaited him, with a
sense of wonder and dismay which almost reached the length of
stupefaction. What did they all mean? He had not a clue, not the
faintest thread of guidance. Nothing had in his own thoughts connected
him even with the tragedy at Tinto. He had been doubly touched and
impressed by it in consequence of the fact that he had seen the
unfortunate Torrance so short a time before; but that he could, by the
wildest imagination, be associated with the circumstances of his death,
did not occur to him for a moment. The idea did not penetrate his mind
even now, but he felt that there was some shadow which he could not
penetrate lying upon him. A blinding veil seemed thrown over his
faculties. There was a meaning in it, but what the meaning was he could
not tell. He went in to his new visitor with a confusion which he could
not shake off, hoping, perhaps, that some sort of enlightenment might be
got through him. Sir James was standing against one of the windows,
against the light, with his hat in his hands. His whole attitude told of
embarrassment and distress. He made no movement as if intending to sit
down--did not step forward heartily, as his custom was, to enfold John's
hand in his own with cheerful cordiality, but stood there against the
light, smoothing his hat round and round in his hand. It petrified John
to see his old friend so. He went up as usual with outstretched hand,
but Sir James only touched the tip of his fingers with an embarrassed
bow. Instead of his usual genial aspect, he half-averted his face, and
kept his eyes on his hat, even when he spoke.
"Mr Erskine," he said, with hesitation, "I came to see you. I mean, I
wanted to have some little conversation with you, if you have no
objections--about--about this sad affair."
"What sad affair?" John was bewildered, but still more angry than
bewildered. What was the meaning of it all? Was the entire world in a
conspiracy against him?
"Sir," said the old general, giving him one look of reproof, "such
events are not so common in our quiet country-side that there should be
any doubt as to what I mean."
"Unless what you mean is to drive me distracted"--cried John. "What is
it? First Millefleurs, then you! In heaven's name, what do you mean?
What have I done, that your aspect is changed--that you speak to me like
a stranger, like a culprit, like----Speak out, by all means! What is
this sad affair? In what way have I wronged any man? Why should my
friends turn upon me, and call me Sir, and Mr Erskine? What have I
done?"
"I wish to judge no man," said Sir James; "I wish to act in the spirit
of charity. It was the opinion, not only of myself--for I have not that
much confidence in my own judgment--but the opinion of two or three
gentlemen, well-judging men, that if I were to make an appeal to you in
the matter, to implore you in confidence--that is, if there is any
explanation that can be given. We are all inclined to that view. I may
seem harsh, because my heart is just sick to think of it; but we are all
inclined to believe that an explanation would be possible. Of course, it
is needless to say that if there is no explanation, neither the law
permits, nor would we wish to lead, any one to criminate himself."
"Sir James," said John, "you have made me a strange speech. There is a
great deal of offence in it; but I do not wish to notice the offence.
Speak out! I know no dreadful event that has happened in the country but
poor Torrance's death. Do you mean to tell me that you suspect _me_ of
having any hand in that?"
Sir James looked up at him from the hat which he was pressing
unconsciously in his hands. His countenance was full of distress, every
line moving, his eyes moist and agitated. "My poor lad!" he said, "God
knows, we're all ready to make allowances for a moment's passion! A man
that has been hurried by impulse into a sudden step--that has
consequences he never dreamt of,--he will sometimes try to hide it, and
make it look far worse--far worse! Openness is the only salvation in
such a case. It was thought that you might confide in me, an old man
that has ever been friendly to you. For God's sake, John Erskine, speak
out!"
"What do you suppose I can have to say?" said John, impressed, in spite
of himself and all his instinctive resistance, by the anxious
countenance and pleading tones of the kind old man who had been charged
with such an office. He was so much startled and awed by the apparent
consent of so many to attribute something to him--something which he
began dimly to divine without even guessing how far public opinion had
gone--that the colour went out of his cheeks, and his breath came quick
with agitation. Such signs of excitement may be read in many ways. To
Sir James they looked like remorseful consciousness and alarm.
"We are all very willing to believe," he said, slowly, "that you took
the beast by the bridle, perhaps in self-defence. He was an incarnate
devil when he was roused--poor fellow! He would have ridden a man down
in his temper. You did that, meaning nothing but to hold him off--and
the brute reared. If you had raised an alarm then and there, and told
the circumstances, little blame, if any, could have been laid on you.
Silence was your worst plan--your worst plan! That's the reason why I
have come to you. You took fright instead, and hurried away without a
word, but not without tokens on you of your scuffle. If you would open
your heart now, and disclose all the circumstances, it might not be too
late."
John stood gazing speechless, receiving into his mind this extraordinary
revelation with an almost stupefying sense of how far the imagination
had gone. What was it his countrymen thought him guilty of? Was it
murder--_murder_? The light seemed to fail from his eyes for a moment;
his very heart grew sick. He had time to run through all the situation
while the old man laboured slowly through this speech, hesitating often,
pausing for the most lenient words, anxiously endeavouring to work upon
the feelings of the supposed culprit. With horror and a sudden panic,
he perceived how all the circumstances fitted into this delusion, and
that it was no mere piece of folly, but a supposition which might well
seem justified. He remembered everything in the overpowering light thus
poured upon the scene: his torn coat, his excitement--nay, more, the
strong possibility that everything might have happened just as his
neighbours had imagined it to have happened. And yet it had not been so;
but how was he to prove his innocence? For a moment darkness seemed to
close around him. Sir James's voice became confused with a ringing in
his ears; his very senses seemed to grow confused, and failed him. He
heard the gasp in his own throat to get breath when silence ensued--a
silence which fell blank around him, and which he maintained
unconsciously, with a blind stare at his accuser's most gentle, most
pitying countenance. How like it was to the scare and terror of
blood-guiltiness suddenly brought to discovery!
But gradually this sickness and blankness cleared off around him like a
cloud, and he began to realise his position. "Sit down," he said,
hoarsely, "and I will tell you every particular I know."
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
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