That night dispersed illusions from the mind of John Erskine which it
had taken all his life to set up. He discovered in some degree what his
real position was, and that it was not a great one. He got rid of many
of his high notions as he walked about the pleasant, comfortable, but
somewhat dingy old house, which no effort of the imagination could make
into a great house. He made acquaintance with the household. Mrs Rolls
the cook, who curtseyed and cried for pleasure at the sight of him, and
two smiling, fair-haired young women, and old Andrew the gardener--a
quite sufficient household for the place, he felt, but very different
from the army of servants, all so noiseless, punctilious, carefully
drilled, whom he had seen at country-houses, with which he had fondly
hoped his own might bear comparison. What a fool he had been! These good
honest folk have little air of being servants at all. Their respect was
far less than their interest in him; and their questions were more like
those of poor relatives than hired attendants. "I hope your mammaw is
well, Mr John," Bauby the cook had said. "Let the master alone with your
Mr Johns," Rolls had interrupted; "he's come to man's estate, and you
must learn to be more respectful. The women, sir, are all alike; you can
never look for much sense from them." "Maybe you're right, Tammas," said
Bauby; "but for all that I cannot help saying that its an awfu' pleasure
to see Mr John, that was but that height when I saw him last, come home
a braw gentleman like what I mind his father." John could do nothing but
stand smiling between them, hearing himself thus discussed. They made it
very clear that he had come home where he would be taken ample care
of--but how different it was from his thoughts! He thought of the
manor-house at Milton Magna, and laughed and blushed at the ridiculous
comparisons he had once made. It was a keen sort of self-ridicule, sharp
and painful. He did not like to think what a fool he had been. Now he
came to think of it, he had quite well remembered Dalrulzian. It was not
his youthful imagination that was to blame, but a hundred little
self-deceits, and all the things that he had been in the habit of
hearing about his own importance and his Scotch property. His mother had
done more than any one else to deceive him, he thought; and then he
said to himself, "Poor mother!" wondering if, perhaps, her little
romance was all involved in Dalrulzian, and if it was a sacred place to
her. To think that the Kingsford household was prose, but the early life
in which she had been Harry Erskine's wife and little John's mother, the
poetry of her existence, was pleasant to her son, who was fond of his
mother, though she was not clever, nor even very sensible. John thought,
with a blush, of the people whom he had invited to Dalrulzian under that
extraordinary mistake--some of his friends at college, young fellows who
were accustomed to houses full of company and stables full of horses.
There was nothing in the stables at Dalrulzian but the hired horse which
had been provided by Rolls in a hired dogcart to bring him up from the
station; and as he looked round upon the room in which he sat after
dinner, and which was quite comfortable and highly respectable, though
neither dignified nor handsome, poor John burst into a laugh, in which
there was more pain than amusement. He seemed to himself to be stranded
on a desert shore. What should he do with himself, especially during the
long summer, when there could be no hunting, no shooting,--the summer
which he had determined to occupy, with a fine sense of duty, in making
acquaintance with his house and his surroundings, and in learning all
his duties as a country gentleman and person of importance? This thought
was so poignant, that it actually touched his eyelids with a sense of
moisture. He laughed--but he could have cried. There would turn out, he
supposed, to be about three farms on this estate of his; and Scotch
farmers were very different people from the small farmers of the South.
To talk about his tenants would be absurd. Three pragmatical Scotchmen,
much better informed in all practical matters at least than himself, and
looking down upon him as an inexperienced young man. What a fool he had
been! If he had come down in August for the shooting,--if there was any
shooting,--and let his friends understand that it was a mere
shooting-box--a "little place in Scotland," such as they hired when they
came to the moors,--all would have been well. But he had used no
disparaging adjectives in speaking of Dalrulzian. He had called it "my
place" boldly, and had believed it to be a kind of old castle--something
that probably had been capable of defence in its day. Good heavens! what
a fool he had been!
He had thought he would be glad to get to bed, and felt pleased that he
was somewhat tired with his journey; but he found that, on the contrary,
the night flew by amidst these thoughts,--fathomless night, slow and
dark and noiseless. Rolls had made repeated attempts to draw him into
conversation in what that worthy called the fore-night; but by ten
o'clock or so, the house was as still as death, not a sound anywhere,
and the hours passed over him while he sat and thought. A little fire
crackled and burned in the grate, with little _pétillements_ and bursts
of flame. There were a good many books on the shelves; that was always
something: and Mrs Rolls had given him an excellent dinner, which he
ought to have considered also as a very great alleviation of the
situation. John scarcely knew what hour it was when, starting suddenly
up in the multitude of his thoughts, he threw open the window which
looked upon the Walk, and gazed out moodily upon the night. The night
was soft and clear, and the great stretch of the landscape lay dimly
defined under a half-veiled poetic sky, over which light floating
vapours were moving with a kind of gentle solemnity. There was not light
enough to distinguish the individual features of the scene, save here
and there a pale gleam of water, a darkness of wood, and the horizon
marked by that faint silvery edge which even by night denotes the limit
of human vision. The width, the freshness, the stillness, the dewy
purity of the air, soothed the young man as he stood and looked out.
What was he, a human unit in the great round of space, to be so
disconcerted by the little standing-ground he had? He felt abased as he
gazed, and a strange sense of looking out upon his life came over him.
His future was like that--all vague, breathing towards him a still world
full of anticipations, full of things hidden and mysterious--his, and
yet not his, as was the soil and the fields. He could mortgage it as he
could his estate, but he could not sell it away from him, or get rid of
what was in it, whether it carried out his foolish expectations or not.
Certainly the sight of this wide scenery, in which he was to perform his
part, did him good, though he could not see it. He closed the window,
which was heavy, almost with violence, as he came back to the
ascertained,--to the limited walls with their books, the old-fashioned
original lamp, and crackling fire.
But this sound was very unusual in the house in the middle of the night.
Bauby, whose room was next her brother's, knocked upon the wall to rouse
him. "D'ye hear that, Tammas? There's somebody trying to get into the
house." Her voice came to Rolls faintly muffled by the partition
between. He had heard the noise as well as she, but he did not think fit
to answer save by a grunt. Then Bauby knocked again more loudly.
"Tammas! Man, will ye no put on your breeks and go down and see what it
is?" Rolls, for his part, was already in the midst of a calculation. So
much plate as there was in the house he had brought up with him to his
room. "They cannot steal tables and chairs," he said to himself; "and as
for the young laird, if he's not able to take care of himself, he'll be
none the better of me for a defender." Audibly he answered, "Hold your
tongue, woman. If the master likes to take the air in the sma' hours,
what's that to you or me?" There was a pause of dismay on Bauby's part,
and then a faint ejaculation of "Lord bless us! take the air!" But she
was less easily satisfied than her brother. When John went up-stairs
with his candle, he saw a light glimmering in the gallery above, and a
figure in white, far too substantial to be a ghost, leaning over the
banisters. "Eh, sir! is it you, Mr John?" Bauby said. "I was feared it
was robbers;" and then she added in her round, soft, caressing voice,
"but you mustna take the air in the middle of the night: you'll get your
death of cold, and then, what will your mammaw say to me, Mr John?" John
shut himself up in his room, half laughing, half affronted. It was many
years since he had been under the sway of his "mamma" in respect to his
hours and habits; and nothing could be more droll than to go back to the
kind annoyance of domestic surveillance just at the moment when his
manhood and independence were most evident. He laughed, but the
encounter brought him back, after he had been partly freed from it, to
a consciousness of all his limitations once more.
But things were better in the morning. Unless you have something bitter
to reproach yourself with, or some calamity impending over you, things
are generally better in the morning. John looked about him with more
hopeful eyes. He had an excellent, a truly Scotch, breakfast, which, at
five-and-twenty, puts a man in good-humour with himself; and there were
one or two features about Dalrulzian which, in the morning sunshine,
looked more encouraging. The stables were tolerably good, made
habitable, and furnished with some of the latest improvements by Colonel
Barrington; and "the policy" was in admirable order,--the turf
faultless, the shrubberies flourishing, the trees--well, not like the
trees at Milton Magna, but creditable performances for the North. John's
countenance cleared as he inspected everything. Rolls led or followed
him about with great importance, introducing and explaining. Had he been
an English butler, John would have dismissed him very summarily to his
pantry; but it was part of the natural _mise en scène_ to have a Caleb
Balderstone attached to an old Scotch house. He was half proud of this
retainer of the family, though he threatened to be something of a bore;
even Bauby, and her care for his health, and her sense of
responsibility to his "mammaw," was tolerable in this light. When one is
born a Scotch laird, one must accept the natural accompaniments of the
position; and if they were sometimes annoying, they were at least
picturesque. So John put up with Rolls, and "saw the fun" of him with a
kind of feeling that Dalrulzian was a Waverley novel, and he himself the
hero. He had been seeing things so much through the eyes of his
problematical visitors, that he was glad to see this also through their
eyes. To them, these servants of his would be altogether
"characteristic," and full of "local colour." And then the subtle
influence of property began to affect the young man and modify his
disappointment. "A poor thing, sir, but mine own," he said to himself.
These were "my plantations" that crested the hill; the fishing on the
river was said to be excellent, and belonged to Dalrulzian; the moorland
on the eastern side of the hill was "my moor." Things began to mend.
When he went back again after his examination to the room from which he
had started, John found a luncheon spread for him, which was not
inferior to the breakfast, and Rolls, in his black coat, having resumed
the butler, and thrown off the factotum, but not less disposed to be
instructive than before.
"You may as well," young Erskine said, eating an admirable cutlet,
"tell me something about my neighbours, Rolls."
"I'll do that, sir," said Rolls, with cordiality; and then he made a
pause. "The first to be named is no to call a neighbour; but I hope,
sir, you'll think far mair of her than of any neighbour. She's your ain
best blood, and a leddy with a great regard for Dalrulzian, and not
another friend so near to her as you. It came from Dalrulzian, and it'll
come back to Dalrulzian with careful guiding," said Rolls, oracularly;
"not to say that blood's thicker than water, as the auld Scots byword
goes."
This address gave John some sense of perplexity; but after an interval
he discovered what it meant. "It is my old Aunt Barbara of whom you are
speaking," he said. "Certainly, I shall see her first of all."
"She is an excellent lady, sir; careful of her money. It will be real
good for the estate when----But, bless me! I wadna have you to be
looking forward to what may never come,--that is to say, that auld Miss
Barbara, being real comfortable, sir, in this life, will not go out of
it a moment sooner than she can help: and for a' that we ken o' heaven,
I wouldna blame her; for, grand as it may be, it will aye be a strange
place. There's nobody more thought upon in the county than Miss Barbara
Erskine at Dunearn. Weel, sir, and the neighbours. There's the Earl of
Lindores first of a'. We maun give him the paw, as the French say.
Maybe you've met with some of the family in London? You'll see plenty
and hear plenty of them here. The Earl he is a very pushing man. He
would like to take the lead in a' the county business; but there's many
of the gentry that are not exactly of that opinion. And my lady
Countess, she's of the booky kind, with authors, and painters, and that
kind of cattle aye about the place. I'm not that fond of thae instructed
leddies. Weemen are best no to be ower clever, in my poor opinion. Young
Rintoul, that's the son, is away with his regiment; I ken nothing of
him: and there's two young leddies----"
"Now I remember," said John. "You are the most concise of chroniclers,
Rolls. I like your style. I once knew some of the Lindores
family--cousins, I suppose. There were young ladies in that family too.
I knew them very well." Here he paused, a smile stealing about the
corners of his mouth.
"I ken nothing about their relations," said Rolls. "It was an awfu'
melancholy story; but it's an ill wind that blaws nobody good. The late
Earl was liked by everybody. But I'm saying nothing against this family.
One of the young daughters is married, poor thing! The other one at
hame, my Lady Edith, is a bonnie bit creature. She was great friends
with _oor_ young lady. But if you were to ask my opinion, sir--which is
neither here nor there," said Rolls, in insinuating tones--"I would say
there was not one that was fit to hold the candle to Miss Nora. We had
our bits of tiffs, the Cornel and me. There were some things he would
never see in a proper light; but they were much thought o', and saw a'
the best company. When you let a place, it's a grand thing to have
tenants that never let down the character of the house."
"You mean the Barringtons," said John. He was not much interested in
this subject. They had been unexceptionable tenants; but he could
scarcely help regarding them with a little jealousy, almost dislike, as
if they had been invaders of his rights.
"And they were awfu' fond of it," said Rolls, watching his young
master's countenance. "Miss Nora above a'. You see she's grown up at
Dalrulzian. It was all they could do to get her away from the Walk this
last morning. I thought she would have grown till't. If you and Miss
Nora was ever to meet," the old servant added, in his most engaging
tones, "I cannot but believe you would be real good--freends----"
"I see you have provided for every contingency," said the young laird,
with a laugh. His Caleb Balderstone, he said to himself, was almost
better, if that was possible, than Scott's. But John's mind had been
set afloat on a still more pleasant channel, and he let the old man
maunder on.
"It's true she's English," said Rolls; "but that matters nothing in my
opinion, on what they call the side of the distaff. I'll no say but it's
offensive in a man: putting up so long with the Cornel and his ways of
thinking, I'm no a bad authority on that. But weemen are a different
kind of creatures. A bit discrepancy, if ye may so call it--a kind of a
different awkcent, so to speak, baith in the soul and the tongue, is
just a pleasant variety. It gives new life to a family sometimes, and
mends the breed, if you'll no think me coarse. A little of everything is
good in a race. And besides being so good and so bonnie, Miss Nora will
have a little siller of her ain, which spoils nothing. Not one of your
great fortunes, but just a little siller--enough for their preens and
rubbitch--of her ain."
Here, however, the pleasant delusion with which Nora's humble champion
was delighting himself was suddenly dispersed by a question which proved
his young master to be thinking nothing about Nora. "I used to know some
of the Lindores family," John repeated, "a brother of the Earl. I wonder
if they ever come here?"
"I ken nothing about their relations, sir," said Rolls, promptly. "It's
thought the Earl's awfu' ambitious. They're no that rich, and he has an
eye to everything that will push the family on. There's one of them
marriet, poor thing!"
"I am afraid you are a fierce old bachelor," said John, rising from the
table; "this is the second time you have said 'poor thing.'"
"That's my Lady Caroline, sir," said Rolls, with a grave face, "that's
married upon Torrance of Tinto, far the richest of all our neighbour
gentlemen. You'll no remember him? He was a big mischievous callant when
you were but a little thing, begging your pardon, sir, for the freedom,"
said the old servant, with a little bow of apology; but the gravity of
his countenance did not relax. "It's not thought in the country-side
that the leddy was very fain of the marriage--poor thing!"
"You are severe critics in the country-side. One must take care what one
does, Rolls."
"Maybe, sir, that's true; they say public opinion's a grand thing:
whiles it will keep a person from going wrong. But big folk think
themselves above that," Rolls said. And then, having filled out a glass
of wine, which his master did not want; he withdrew. Rolls was not quite
satisfied with the young laird. He betook himself to the kitchen with
his tray and a sigh, unburdening himself to Bauby as he set down the
remains of the meal on the table. "I wouldna wonder," he said, shaking
his head, "if he turned out mair English than the Cornel himsel'."
"Hoot, Tammas!" said Bauby, always willing to take the best view,
"that's no possible. When ye refleck that he was born at Dalrulzian, and
brought up till his thirteenth year----"
"Sic bringing up!" cried old Rolls; "and a step-faither that never could
learn so much as to say the name right o' the house that took him in!"
Meanwhile John, left alone with his own thoughts, found a curious vein
of new anticipations opened to him by the old man's talk. The smile that
had lighted on the corners of his mouth came back and settled there,
betraying something of the maze of pleased recollections, the amused yet
tender sentiment, which these familiar yet half-forgotten names had
roused again. Caroline and Edith Lindores! No doubt they were family
names, and the great young ladies who were his neighbours were the
cousins of those happy girls whom he remembered so well. The Lindores
had been at a Swiss mountain inn where he and some of his friends had
lived for six weeks under pretence of reading. They had made friends on
the score of old family acquaintance "at home;" and he never remembered
so pleasant a holiday. What had become of the girls by this time? Carry,
the eldest, was sentimental and poetical, and all the young men were of
opinion that Beaufort the young University Don, who was at the head of
the party, had talked more poetry than was good for him with that gentle
enthusiast. Beaufort had gone to the Bar since then, and was said to be
getting on. Had they kept up their intercourse, or had it dropped, John
wondered, as his own acquaintance with the family had dropped? They were
poor people, living abroad for economy and education, notwithstanding
that Mr Lindores was brother to an earl. Surely sometimes the Earl must
invite his relations, or at least he would be sure to hear of them, to
come within the circle of their existence again. Young Erskine had
almost forgotten, to tell the truth, the existence of the Lindores; yet
when they were thus recalled to him, and the possibility of a second
meeting dawned on his mind, his heart gave a jump of pleasure in his
bosom. On the instant there appeared before him the prettiest figure in
short frocks, with an aureola of hair about the young head--a child, yet
something more than a child. Edith had been only sixteen, he remembered;
indeed he found that he remembered everything about her as soon as her
image was thus lightly called back. What might she be now, in her
grown-up condition? Perhaps not so sweet, perhaps married--a contingency
which did not please him to think of. And what if he should be on the
eve of seeing her again!
The smile of pleasure, of amusement, even of innocent vanity with which
in this airy stage a young man contemplates such a possibility, threw a
pleasant light over his face. He went out with that smile half hidden
under his fair moustache, which gave it a kind of confidential character
between him and himself so to speak. As he had nothing else to do, it
occurred to him to take a walk on the road to Dunearn, where he had seen
the French-Scotch _tourelles_ of Lindores Castle through the trees the
day before, and "take a look at" the place--why, he did not know--for no
particular reason, merely to amuse himself. And as he went down the
avenue, that old episode came back to him more and more fully. He
remembered all the little expeditions, the little misadventures, the
jokes, though perhaps they were not brilliant. Carry lingering behind
with Beaufort, talking Shelley, with a flush of enthusiasm about her:
Edith always foremost, chidden and petted, and made much of by
everybody, with her long hair waving, and those fine little shoes which
he had tied once--thick mountain shoes--but such wonderful Cinderella
articles! All these recollections amused him like a story as he went
down the avenue, taking away his attention from external things; and it
was not till he was close upon the gate that he was aware of the
presence of two ladies, who seemed to have paused on their walk to speak
to Peggy Burnet, the gardener's wife, who inhabited the lodge. His ear
was caught by his own name, always an infallible means of rousing the
most careless attention. He could not help hearing what Peggy was
saying, for her voice was somewhat high-pitched, and full of rural
freedom. "Oh ay, my leddy; the young maister, that's Mr John, that's the
laird, came hame yestreen," Peggy was saying, "before he was expectit.
The carriage--that's the bit dogcart, if you can ca' it a carriage, for
there's nothing better left, nor so much as a beast to draw it that we
can ca' oor ain--was sent to the station to meet him. When, lo! he comes
linking along the road on his ain twa legs, and no so much as a bag or a
portmanty behind him, and asks at the gate, Is this Dalrulzian? kenning
nothing of his ain house! And me, I hadna the sense to think, This is
him; but just let him in as if he had been a stranger. And no a creature
to take the least notice! Mr Rolls was just out o' himsel, with
vexation, to let the young maister come hame as if he had been ony
gangrel body; but it couldna be called my fault."
"Surely it could not be your fault; if he wanted a reception, he should
have come when he was expected," said a softer voice, with a little
sound of laughter. Surely, John thought, he had heard that voice before.
He hurried forward wondering, taking off his hat instinctively. Who were
they? Two ladies, one elder, one younger, mother and daughter. They
looked up at him as he approached. The faces were familiar, and yet not
familiar. Was it possible? He felt himself redden with excitement as he
stood breathless, his hat off, the blood flushing to the very roots of
his hair, not able to get out a word in his surprise and pleasure. They
on their side looked at him smilingly, not at all surprised, and the
elder lady held out her hand. "After so long a time you will scarcely
know us, Mr Erskine," she said; "but we knew you were expected, and all
about you, you see."
"Know you?" cried John, almost speechless with the wonder and delight.
"Mrs Lindores! The thing is, can I venture to believe my eyes? There
never was such luck in the world! I think I must be dreaming. Who would
have expected to meet you here, and the very first day?"
Peggy Burnet was much disturbed by this greeting. She pushed forward,
making an anxious face at him. "Sir! sir! you maun say my leddy," she
breathed, in a shrill whisper, which he was too much excited to take any
notice of, but which amused the ladies. They cast a laughing look at
each other. "Didn't you know we were here?" the mother said. "Then we
had the advantage of you. We have been speculating about you for weeks
past--whether you would be much changed, whether you would come at once
to Lindores to renew old acquaintance----"
"That you may be sure I should have done," said John, "as soon as I knew
you were there. And are you really at Lindores? living there? for good?
It seems too delightful to be true."
They were both changed. And he did not know why they should look at each
other with such a laughing interchange of glances. It made him somewhat
uncomfortable, though his mind was too full of the pleasure of seeing
them to be fully conscious of it. It was Edith, as was natural, who was
most altered in appearance. She had been a tall girl, looking more than
her age; and now she was a small, very young woman. At that period of
life such changes happen sometimes; but the difference was delightful,
though embarrassing. Yes, smaller, she was actually smaller, he said to
himself,--"as high as my heart," as Orlando says: yet no longer little
Edith, but an imposing stately personage at whom he scarcely ventured to
look boldly, but only snatched shy glances at, abashed by her soft
regard. He went on stammering out his pleasure, his delight, his
surprise, hardly knowing what he said. "I had just begun to hope that
you might come sometimes, that I might have a chance of seeing you," he
was saying; whereupon Edith smiled gravely, and her mother gave a
little laugh aloud.
"I don't believe he knows anything about it, Edith," she said.
"I was sure of it, mamma," Edith replied; while between them John stood
dumb, not knowing what to think.