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The Ladies Lindores, Vol. 2 (of 3)

by Mrs. Oliphant · English · Gutenberg #47592 · 401,359 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Ladies Lindores, Vol. 2 (of 3)

Author: Mrs. Oliphant


        
Release date: December 8, 2014 [eBook #47592]
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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LADIES LINDORES, VOL. 2 (OF 3) ***

                      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, a

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