Lady Caroline Torrance was in her morning-room with her children when
her husband came to tell her of his visit to Dalrulzian. He had kept it
for twenty-four hours, in order to have an opportunity of telling it at
his leisure, and making it as disagreeable to her as possible; for
indeed he was fully convinced in his own mind that John had been the man
about whom his broken-hearted bride had made a confession to him. The
confession had not disarmed or moved him to generosity: not that his
delicacy was wounded by the thought of his wife's engagement to some one
else before she saw him--no such fantastical reason moved him; but that
he was furious at the thought that this unseen personage still remained
agreeable to her, and that in secret she could retire upon the
recollection of some one whom she had once preferred, or perhaps did now
prefer, to himself. This was insupportable to him. He did not care very
much for filling her heart himself; but he meant that she should belong
to him utterly, and not at all, even in imagination or by a passing
thought, to anybody else. Lady Car's morning-room was the last of a
gorgeous but faded suite of rooms opening off the drawing-room, from
which it was separated by heavy velvet curtains. Everything was heavy
and grand even in this sanctuary, where it was supposed the lady of the
house was to find her refuge when no longer on duty, so to speak--no
longer bound to sit in state and receive her visitors. It was furnished
like the rest, with gilded chairs, a table of Florentine mosaic, and
curtains of ruby velvet, looped and puckered into what the upholsterer
of the late Mrs Torrance's time thought the most elegant and sumptuous
fashion. The gilding was a little tarnished, the velvet faded; but still
it was too fine for anything less than a royal habitation. It is
supposed that princesses, being used to it, like to knock their elbows
against ormolu ornaments, and to put down their thimbles and scissors
(if they ever use such vulgar implements) upon marble; but poor Lady Car
did not. She was chilly by nature, and she never had got over her horror
of these additional chillinesses. The Florentine marble made her shiver.
It was far too fine to have a cover over it, which she had ventured once
to suggest, to her husband's horror. "What! cover it up, as if it were
plain mahogany--a thing that was worth no one could tell how much!" So
she gave it up, and shivered all the more. It was a chilly day of May,
which the fresh foliage outside, and a deceitful sun not strong enough
to neutralise the east wind, made only a little less genial, and Lady
Car sat very close to the fire, in a chair as little gilt as could be
found, and with a little table beside her covered with a warm and heavy
cover, as if to make up for the naked coldness of the rest. The room had
three large windows, looking, from the platform upon which the house
stood, over the wide country--a great landscape full of greening fields
and foliage, and an infinite blue and white sky, the blue somewhat pale
but very clear, the clouds mounting in Alpine peaks into the far
distance and lying along the horizon in long lines. The windows, it need
not be said, were plate-glass, so that an impression of being out of
doors and exposed to the full keenness of the breeze was conveyed to the
mind. How often had poor Lady Car sat and shivered, looking over that
wistful sweep of distance in her loneliness, and knowing that no one
could ever come out of it who would bring joy to her or content! She had
never been beautiful, the reader is aware. She was plain now, in the
absence of all that sunshine and happiness which beautifies and
brightens homely faces. And yet her face was not a homely face. The
master of Tinto had got what he wanted--a woman whose appearance could
never be overlooked, or whom, any one could undervalue. Her air was full
of natural distinction though she had no beauty. Her slight, pliant
figure, like a long sapling bending before every breeze, had a grace of
gentle yielding which did not look like weakness; and her smile, if
perhaps a little timid, was winning and gracious. But her nose and her
upper lip were both too long, and the pretty wavering colour she had
possessed in her youth was gone altogether. Ill-natured people called
her sallow; and indeed, though it is not a pretty word, it was not, at
this stage of her existence, far from the truth.
Her two children were playing beside her on the carpet. Poor lady! here
was perhaps the worst circumstance in her hard lot. As if it were not
enough to be compelled to take Pat Torrance for her husband, it had been
her melancholy fate to bring other Torrances, all his in temper and
feature, into the world. This is an aggravation of which nobody would
have thought. In imagination we are all glad to find a refuge for an
unhappy wife in her children, whom instinctively we allot to her as the
natural compensation--creatures like herself and belonging to her,
although the part in them of the obnoxious father cannot be ignored.
But here the obnoxious father was all in all; even the baby of two years
old on the rug at her feet, the little girl who by all laws ought to
have been like her mother, showed in her little dark countenance as
small relationship to Lady Caroline as to any stranger. They were their
father's children: they had his black hair, a peculiarity which
sometimes is extremely piquant and attractive in childhood, giving an
idea of unusual development; but, on the other hand, sometimes is--not.
Little Tom and Edie were of those to whom it is not attractive, for they
had heavy fat cheeks, and the same light, large, projecting eyes which
were so marked a feature in their father's face. Poor Lady Car thought
they fixed their eyes upon her with a cynical gaze when she tried to
sing to them--to tell them baby-stories. She tried her best, but that
was perhaps too fine for these children of a coarser race. They
scrambled down from her lap, and liked better to roll upon the floor or
break with noisy delight the toys which were showered upon them, leaving
the poor young mother to gaze and wonder, and feel as much rebuffed as
if these two infants of two and three had been twenty years older. They
screamed with delight when their father tossed them up in his arms, but
they escaped from their mother's knee when she would have coaxed them
to quiet. Poor Lady Car! they were a wonder and perplexity to her. She
was half afraid of them though they were her own.
Torrance had come in from the woods, which he had been inspecting with
his forester, and perhaps something had crossed him in this inspection,
for he was a tyrant by nature, and could not tolerate a contrary
opinion; whereas the officials, so to speak, of a great estate in
Scotland, are much given to opinions, and by no means to be persuaded to
relinquish them. The forester had objected to something the master
suggested, and the agent had taken the forester's part. The master of
Tinto came in fuming. To give in was a thing intolerable to him, and to
give in to his own servant! But here was another servant whom he need
not fear bullying, who could not throw up her situation and put him to
inconvenience, who was forced to put up with as much indignity as he
chose to put upon her. This thought gave his mind a welcome relief; he
strode along through all the gilded rooms with a footstep which meant
mischief. Lady Caroline heard it afar off, and recognised the sound.
What could it be now? Her mind ran hurriedly over the recent occurrences
of the day, to think what possible offence she could have given him.
Nothing--or at least she could think of nothing. It did not require a
very solid reason for the transference to her shoulders of the rage
which he did not think it expedient to bestow upon some one else. He
came in kicking out of the way the toys with which the children were
playing.
"These monkeys," he said, "would ruin a Jew if they grow up the way you
are breeding them, my lady. That cost a pound or two yesterday, and now
it's all in bits. If your family could stand such extravagance, mine
can't. Tom, my lad, if you break your fine toys like this, I'll break
your head. But it's not the children's fault," he added, "it's the way
they're bred."
"It is very wrong of Tommy," said poor Lady Car, "but you laughed and
clapped your hands yesterday when I found fault."
"I won't have the boy's spirit broken--that's another thing. Breeding's
an affair of day by day; but it can't be expected that you should take
such trouble, with your head full of other things."
"What other things?" cried Lady Car. "Oh, Pat, have a little pity! What
else have I to think of? I may not understand the children, but they are
my only thought."
Here he gave a mocking, triumphant laugh. "No, I daresay you don't
understand them. They're of my side of the house," he said. It was a
pleasure to him, but not an unalloyed pleasure, for he would have liked
to secure in his daughter at least some reflection of her mother's
high-bred air, which had always been her attraction in his eyes. "As for
other things," he added, "there's plenty: for instance, I have just been
visiting your old friend."
"My old friend?" Lady Caroline looked at him with wondering eyes.
"Oh, that is the way, is it? pretend you don't understand! I went
expressly for your sake. You see what a husband I am: not half
appreciated--ready to please his wife in every sort of way. I don't
think much of your taste though: under size," said Torrance, with a
laugh,--"decidedly under size."
Lady Car looked at him with a momentary elevation of her slender,
drooping throat. The action was one that had a certain pride in it, and
this was what her husband specially admired in her. But she did not
understand him, nor was there any secret in her gentle soul to be found
out by innuendoes. She shook her head gently, and drooped it again with
her habitual bend.
"I do not know what you mean. It must be some mistake," she said.
"It is no mistake, Lady Car. That's not my way to make mistakes. It
suits you not to know. That makes me all the more certain. Oh, I'm not
afraid of you. We're not in Italy or any of these places. And you're a
great deal too proud to go wrong: you're too cold, you have not got it
in you."
Lady Caroline raised her head again, but this time in sheer surprise.
"Pat," she said, faltering, "all I know is, that you mean to insult me.
I know nothing but that. What is it? Do not insult me before the
children."
"Pshaw! how should the children understand?"
"Not what you mean; but neither do I understand that. The children know
as well as I do that you mean to hurt me. What is it?--what have I
done?"
"By Jove!" he said, looking at her, "to see you there with your white
face, one would think you never had done anything but good all your
life. You look as if butter would not melt in your mouth. Not the sort
of woman to look down upon her husband and count him a savage, and keep
thinking of a nice, smooth, soft-spoken----You would never tell me his
name, and I was a fool, and didn't insist upon it; but now he has come
back to be your ladyship's neighbour, and see you every day."
She did not answer immediately. She looked at him with a curious light
stealing into her soft grey eyes, raising her head again. Then she said
slowly, "I think you must mean Mr Erskine of Dalrulzian. If so, you have
made a great mistake. I think he is younger than I am. He was not much
more than a boy when I knew him. He never was anything--but an
acquaintance."
"It's likely you'll get me to believe that," cried Torrance, scornfully.
He jumped up from his seat, and came and stood in front of the fire,
with his back to it, brushing against her dress, so close to her that
she had to draw back out of his way. "An acquaintance! There are
different meanings to that word. I've been to see him on your account,
my lady. I've asked him to come here. Oh, I'm not afraid of you, as I
tell you. You're too cold and too proud to go wrong. You shall see him
as much as you like--I have every confidence in you--see him, and talk
to him, and tell him what you think of your husband. It will be a nice
sentimental amusement for you; and as for me, I'll always be by to look
on."
He laughed as he spoke, angrily, fiercely, and glared down upon her from
under his eyelids with a mixture of fury and satisfaction. She pushed
her chair back a little with a shiver, drawing away her dress, upon
which he had placed his foot.
"If it was as you suppose," she said, trembling, "what misery you would
be planning for me! It makes me cold indeed to think of such cruelty.
What! you would put me in such a strait! You would force me into the
society of one----Oh, Pat, surely you are doing yourself wrong! You
could not be so cruel as that!"
He laughed again, striding across the fireplace, ever encroaching more
upon her corner. His face had grown red with wrath. He was not without
feeling, such as it was, and this which he supposed his wife's
acknowledgment that his cruel device could indeed wound her, gave
himself a start of self-reproach and alarm, though there was pleasure in
the power he felt he had acquired of causing pain.
"Ah, I've caught you, have I? I've caught you at last!" he cried, with a
tone of triumph.
"You could not do it!" cried Lady Caroline, her pale face flushed. "No!
do not say you made such a cruel plan--no, no!--to entrap the poor woman
who is your wife--alas! who never did you harm--to rend her heart in
two, and make her life more miserable. No, no! do not tell me you have
this cunning as well as--all the rest; do not tell me! You would not do
it, you could not do it. There is no such cruelty in man."
"It's a satisfaction," he cried, his face burning and glowing, "to think
I have you in my grip, Lady Car."
She breathed quick and hard, pushed back in her corner, gazing up at him
with a look from which a stronger tremor had taken all the timidity. It
was some time before she could speak. "Do not think," she said, "that I
am afraid of you. I am only horrified to think--but I might have known.
Mr Erskine, by whom you think you can make me more unhappy, is nothing
to me--nothing, nothing at all, nothing at all! He is not the gentleman
I thought it right to tell you about--no, no! a very different person. I
do not want to see him, because I should not like--old friends to know;
but Mr Erskine is nothing to me--nothing!"
Whether he would have been convinced by the vehemence with which she
said this alone, cannot be known--for at that moment the carefully
festooned velvet curtains were disturbed in the regulated folds which
nobody at Tinto had ever ventured to alter, and Edith suddenly appeared
with an anxious and pale countenance. She had heard the raised voices as
she approached, and her sister's "nothing to me, nothing!" had been
quite distinct to her as she came in. She could not imagine what it was
that could have excited poor Carry so much, and Edith had a nervous
dislike of any scene. She could not draw back, having with difficulty
sent away the servant who was conducting her punctiliously to her
sister's presence, and she felt herself compelled to face the quarrel,
which was evidently a serious one. Edith was fastidious and sensitive,
with all the horror of a girl who had never seen anything like domestic
contention or the jars of family life. Lord Lindores and his wife had
not always agreed since his recent elevation--indeed they had disagreed
bitterly and painfully on the most serious questions; but such a thing
as a quarrel had been unknown in their household. To Edith it seemed
such an offence against good taste and all the courtesies of life, as
nothing could excuse--petty and miserable, as well as unhappy and wrong.
She was annoyed as well as indignant to be drawn into it thus against
her will. Carry had hitherto concealed with all her might from her young
sister the state of conflict in which she lived. Her unhappiness she did
not hide; but she had managed to keep silent in Edith's presence, so
that the girl had never been an actual witness of the wranglings of the
ill-matched pair. But poor Lady Car for once was moved out of her usual
precautions. She was too much excited even to remember them. She
appealed to her sister at once, hailing her appearance with eagerness,
and without pausing to think.
"Edith," she cried, "you have come in time. Tell Mr Torrance that Mr
Erskine, who has just come home, was not a--special friend of mine. You
can speak, for you know. Mr Torrance says--he thinks----" here Lady Car
came to herself, perceiving the disturbed looks of her sister, and
remembering her own past reserve. She paused, and forced herself into a
miserable smile. "It is not worth while entering into the story," she
said; "it does not--matter much. It is only a mistake, a--a difference
of opinion. You can tell Mr Torrance----"
"I don't want any information," said Torrance, sulkily. He, too, felt
embarrassed by the sudden introduction of Edith into the discussion. He
moved away from the fire with a rude attempt at civility. Edith, in her
youthful absolutism, and want of toleration or even understanding of
himself, overawed him a little. She was not, he thought, nearly so
aristocratic in appearance as his wife; but he was slightly afraid of
her, and had never been at his ease in her presence. What was the
opinion of this little chit to him? He asked himself the question often,
but it did not divest him of that vague perception of his own appearance
in her eyes, which is the most mortifying of all reflections. No
caricature made of us can be so disconcerting. Just so Haman must have
seen himself, a wretched pretender, through the eyes of that poor Jew in
the gate. Torrance saw himself an exaggerated boor, a loud-speaking,
underbred clown, in the clear regard, a little contemptuous, never for a
moment overawed by him, of Edith Lindores. He had perhaps believed his
wife's denial in respect to John Erskine while they were alone, but he
believed her entirely when she called Edith to witness. He was subdued
at once--he drew away from before the fire with sulky politeness, and
pushed forward a chair. "It's a cold day," he said. The quarrel died in
a moment a natural death. He hung about the room for a few minutes,
while Edith, to lessen the embarrassment of the situation, occupied
herself with the children. As for Lady Car, she had been too much
disturbed to return at once to the pensive calm which was her usual
aspect. She leant back in her chair, pushed up into the corner as she
had been by her husband's approach, and with her thin hands clasped
together. Her breath still came fast, her poor breast heaved with the
storm--she said nothing to aid in the gradual restoration of quiet. The
spell being once broken, perhaps she was not sorry of the opportunity of
securing Edith's sympathy. There is a consolation in disclosing such
pangs, especially when the creator of them is unbeloved. To tell the
cruelties to which she was subject, to pour out her wrongs, seemed the
only relief which poor Carry could look forward to. It had not been her
will to betray it to her sister; but now that the betrayal had taken
place, it was almost a pleasure to her to anticipate the unburdening of
her heart. All that she desired for the moment was that he would go
away, that she might be free to speak. The words seemed bursting from
her lips even while he was still there. Perhaps Torrance himself had a
perception of this; but then he did not believe that his wife had not a
hundred times made her complaint to Edith before. And thus there ensued
a pause which was not a pleasant one. Neither the husband nor the wife
spoke, and Edith's agitated discourses with the children were the only
sounds audible. They were not prattling, happy children, capable of
making a diversion in such circumstances; and Edith was not so fond of
the nephew and niece, who so distinctly belonged to their father, as she
ought to have been. The situation was relieved by a summons to Torrance
to see some one below. He went away reluctantly, jealously, darting a
threatening look at his wife as he looked back. Edith was as much
alarmed for what was coming as Torrance was. She redoubled her
attentions to the children, hoping to avert the disclosure which she,
too, saw was so near.
"It is their time to--go back to the nursery," said Carry, with a voice
full of passion, ringing the bell; and the children were scarcely out of
hearing when the storm burst forth: "I have borne a great deal, oh, a
great deal--more, far more, than you can ever know; but think, think!
what he intended for me. To invite John Erskine here, thinking he
was--some one else; to bring us into each other's company day after day;
to tempt me to the old conversations, the old walks. Don't contradict
me--he said so: that I might feel my misery, and drink my cup to the
last dregs."
"Carry, Carry! you must be mistaking him; he could not wish that; it
would be an insult--it would be impossible."
"That is why it pleases him," cried the poor wife; "he likes to watch
and make sure that I suffer. If I did not suffer, it would do him no
good. He says I am too proud and too cold to--go wrong, Edith! That is
how he speaks to your sister; and he wishes to show me--to show me, as
if I did not know--what I have and what I have lost!"
"Carry, you must not. Oh, don't let us even think of what is past now!"
"It is easy for you to say so. I have tried--oh, how I have
tried!--never to think of the past--even now, even to-day. Think, only
think! Because he supposed _that_, he went expressly to see John
Erskine, to ask him to come here, planning to torture me,--no matter to
him, because he was sure I was too proud to go wrong. He wanted to watch
the meeting--to see how we would look at each other, what we would say,
how we would behave ourselves at such a moment. Can you believe it,
Edith? Was there ever anything in a book, in the theatre, so cruel, so
terrible? Do you suppose one can help, after that, thinking of the past,
thinking of the future too?--for suppose it had been--Edward----Oh no,
no! I don't want to name his name; but suppose it had been--he. Another
time it may be he. He may come to visit John Erskine. We may meet in the
world; and then I know--I know what is before me. This man--oh, I cannot
call him by any name!--this man, whom I belong to, who can do what he
pleases with my life--I know now what his pleasure will be,--to torture
me, Edie!--for no purpose but just to see me suffer--in a new way. He
has seen me suffer already--oh, how much!--and he is _blasé_! he wants
something more piquant, a newer torture, a finer invention to get more
satisfaction out of me. And you tell me I must not think of the past!"
"Carry, Carry!" cried Edith, trembling; "what can I say? You ought not
to bear it. Come home; come back to us. Don't stay with him, if this is
how you feel about him, another day."
Carry shook her head. "There is no going back," she said; "alas! I know
that now, if never before. To go back is impossible: my father would not
allow it; my mother would not approve it. I dare not myself. No, no,
that cannot be. However dreadful the path may be, all rocks or thorns,
and however your feet may be torn and bleeding--forward, forward one
must go. There is no escape. I have learned that."
There was a difference of about six years between them--not a very great
period; and yet what a difference it made! Edith had in her youthful
mind the certainty that there was a remedy for every evil, and that what
was wrong should not be permitted to exist. Carry knew no remedy at all
for her own condition, or indeed, in the reflection of her own despair,
for any other. Nothing was to be done that she knew of; nothing could do
any good. To go back was impossible. She sat leaning back in her chair,
clasping her white thin hands, looking into the vacant air,--knowing of
no aid, but only a little comfort in the mere act of telling her
miseries--nothing more; while Edith sat by her, trembling, glowing,
impatient, eager for something to be done.
"Does mamma know?" the girl asked, after a pause.
Carry did not move from her position of quiet despair. "Do you think,"
she said, "it is possible that mamma, who has seen so much, should not
know?"
To this Edith could make no reply, knowing how often the subject had
been discussed between her mother and herself, with the certainty that
Carry was unhappy, though without any special explanation to each other
of the manner of her unhappiness.
"But if my father were to speak to him, Carry? My father ought to do it;
it was he who made you--it was he who----"
"No one can say anything; no one can do anything. I am sorry I told you,
Edie; but how could I help it? And it does me a little good to speak. I
must complain, or I should die."
"Oh, my poor Car, my poor Car!" Edith cried, throwing herself upon her
knees beside her sister. Die! she said, within herself; would it not be
better--far better--to die? It was living that seemed to her impossible.
But this was another of the sad pieces of knowledge which Carry had
acquired: that you cannot die when you please, as the young and untried
are apt to suppose--that mortal anguish does not always kill. It was
Edith who was agitated and excited, seeking eagerly for a remedy--any
remedy--even that heroic and tragical one; but Carry did not feel that
even in that there was any refuge for her now.
This was by no means John Erskine's fault. He was as innocent of it, as
unconscious of it, as any man could be; but Edith, an impatient girl,
felt a sort of visionary rage against him, in which there was a certain
attraction too. It seemed to her as if she must go and tell him of this
sad family secret, though he had so little to do with it. For was not he
involved, and his coming the occasion of it? If she could but have
accused him, confided in him, it would have given her mind a certain
relief, though she could not well tell why.