Lord Rintoul made his appearance in the house which his parents had
hired in Eaton Place on the day before their arrival, with a mixture of
satisfaction and anxiety. He was pleased, for he was a good young fellow
on the whole, and fond of his mother and sister; but he was anxious, for
he was a Guardsman--a young man about town, "up," as he modestly hoped,
to most things--and they were people from the country, who in all
probability were not quite dressed as they ought to be, or prepared for
the duties of their position. These mingled sentiments were apparent in
the young man's face as he walked into the room in which Lady Lindores
and Edith were sitting together, working out on their side a programme
of the things they were going to do. Notwithstanding Carry, they were
both tolerably cheerful, looking forward to the excitement of this
unaccustomed life with a little stir of anticipation; for neither
mother nor daughter was _blasée_, and the thrill of quickened existence,
in a place where human pulses beat more rapidly and the tide runs fuller
than elsewhere, moved them in spite of themselves. Lady Lindores would
have said, and did say, that her heart was not in it--and this in
perfect good faith; yet when she was actually in London, though her
daughter's pale face and lonely life were often present with her, the
impression was less strong than when that white face, as poor Carry
said, was constantly before her eyes. She was a handsome woman of
forty-five, with a liking for all that was beautiful, a love of
conversation and movement, much repressed by the circumstances of her
life, but always existing; and when thus free for a moment from habitual
cares, her heart rose almost in spite of herself, and she was able to
believe that things would set themselves right somehow, even though she
did not see from whence the alleviation was to come. She was discussing
with Edith many things that they had planned and thought of, when
Rintoul arrived. Their plans embraced various matters which were not
within the range of that golden youth's ideas. When they had been in
London before, they had vexed his soul by the list of things they had
wanted to see. The sights of London! such as country people of the lower
orders went staring about: Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament,
even St Paul's and the Tower!--things which he had never seen nor
thought of seeing himself, though he often passed the former, not taking
any notice, thinking it was "bad form" to show any rustic curiosity. His
mother and the girls had scoffed at all he said about "bad form;" but
now they were accustomed to their change of circumstances, and
everything was different. Would they be reasonable, and acknowledge that
there were certain matters in which he was an authority now?
Rintoul himself had made, he was conscious, immense progress since he
first stepped upon that platform of rank to which he was now accustomed.
At first the elevation had made him a little giddy. Young Robin
Lindores, of the 120th, had been on the whole a very simple young
fellow, pleased to feel that he had the benefit of "good connections,"
and an uncle who was an Earl, though they had never been of any use to
him. Even in that innocent stage he was, as is natural to a young man,
vaguely critical of the proceedings of his "people." He thought it was a
pity they should live abroad. Were they at home, it appeared certain to
him that he would now and then have been invited to Lindores for the
shooting, and been taken some notice of. But on the other hand, he
acknowledged that to live abroad was cheap, and that it was better for
him on the whole to say "My people are abroad," than to be obliged to
acknowledge that they were living in a little country cottage somewhere,
or in Brighton or Cheltenham, or some shabby-genteel place. And he did
his duty very cheerfully, and kept tolerably well within his allowance,
and took such pleasures as came in his way, without any very clear
outlook towards the future, but always with some hope of active service
and promotion. So long as he had "something to do"--a little cricket or
boating, a tolerable amount of parties--he neither looked too closely
into the pedigree of his entertainers, nor gave himself any airs on the
subject of his own birth and connections. For what was he, after
all?--not even an Honourable himself, but the son of an
Honourable--plain Mr Lindores, no more than Mr Smith or Mr Jones. It
never occurred to him that his position demanded anything of him in
those days; for what position had he but that of a lieutenant in the
120th? In society, though he would pretend now and then, like the rest,
to talk of this and that girl as having money--or "tin," as it was more
usually called--such a prudential consideration never went beyond the
mere light flutter of talk; and he liked to dance, not with the
heiresses, but with the prettiest girls and the best dancers, as was
natural and befitting--to marry anybody being entirely out of his
_rôle_. He knew himself to be wiser than his mother, and to know more
of life than even the governor himself, who (no fault of his) was
growing an old fogy in the course of nature; but on the whole, he was
respectful enough to these old persons when he was with them, and in his
way fond of them all, and even proud of little Edith's prettiness, and
the distinguished looks of Carry, who was always like a princess though
she was not pretty. When, however, that sudden and unlooked-for
advancement came, and Robin Lindores at one bound became Lord Rintoul,
the change that passed over him was something wonderful. It was as great
a revolution as that which had converted the gentle and fastidious
_dilettante_ of former years into the energetic, ambitious Scotch Earl,
who kept his family in awe and wonder. Robin changed as much, or almost
as much, as his father had changed. He left his simple regiment, and all
its little garrison gaieties, and became a Guardsman, and was introduced
into society. He learned the chatter of the drawing-rooms and clubs, and
to talk familiarly about everybody, and to think he understood all the
motives (almost always supposed to be bad ones) which swayed their
conduct. Perhaps it was his familiarity with these tales which drove the
young man into such an alarmed state of susceptibility as to the risk of
encountering in his own person, or in his family, a similar freedom of
comment. He said to himself that he knew "how fellows talked," and he
could not bear that his sister should be pulled to pieces among them,
and known as a rustic or an _exaltée_--one of the strong-minded
sisterhood on the one hand, or a foolish bread-and-butter girl on the
other. And Rintoul had become fully possessed by the idea that to get
Edith "off" was the first duty of the family. He felt that his pride
would be touched if she did not secure a good marriage before the end of
the season. "Fellows would talk:" they would say that she had been a
failure; that it was no good Lady Lindores hawking her daughter about;
that she had tried very hard for this man, or flung herself at the
other's head, but it was no use. He knew that he had heard such things
said a hundred times--perhaps been moved to echo them himself on the
very slightest warrant; but the blood rushed to his face when it
occurred to him that his sister in her turn might be subjected to such
comments. And the only way for her to escape them was to succeed.
Therefore it was with a conviction of the importance of the crisis,
which affected every nerve in his body, as well as all the powers of his
mind, that Rintoul appeared in the little morning-room at Eaton Place.
Every girl was said to throw herself at somebody's head--to make a dead
set at one man or another. Without that purpose no one was supposed to
go into society. When she succeeded, and the man was secured, her
triumph, it is true, was always discussed in the same way; but that was
once for all, and the matter was done with. Therefore it was evident to
Rintoul that Edith must succeed. She must secure somebody before the
season was out. He could not bear to have it said of her that she was
hawked about. At the same time, this anxious young man saw the
difficulties. His "people" had not a very large acquaintance. His mother
was not half up to her duties as a mother. Edith herself, though a very
pretty girl, was not a beauty of the undeniable and all-conquering sort.
So much the more grave were all the difficulties of the situation, and
so much the more important all the expedients that could be adopted, all
the precautions that Rintoul--perhaps, he felt, the only one of the
family who fully perceived them--must take. Their appearance, their
gowns and bonnets, the places they intended to appear in,--all these
were of the utmost consequence--a consequence, he was afraid, which the
real head of the party, she who ought to be the chief mover in the
matter, could scarcely be got to understand, much less to take into
earnest consideration as she ought.
This was why his pleasure in seeing his people was shadowed by so much
anxiety. His smile was only on the lower part of his face--all the rest
was clouded with an almost fretful disquietude. He did not even know
whether he could make them understand the importance of the crisis. They
would receive him, he felt sure, with levity, with minds directed to
things of no consequence whatever; and it was natural that this sense,
that he was the only person who understood the gravity of the situation,
should make Rintoul's countenance serious. As he kissed his mother and
sister, he looked them all over, taking in every detail of their
appearance, and uttered a mental thanksgiving, and felt an enormous
relief to find that there was little to remark upon. "They would not
look amiss anywhere," he said to himself. But this gleam of contentment
was soon dimmed by the reflection that you never can know how a woman
will look till you have seen her in her outdoor costume. The bonnet is
such a test! Most likely they wore impossible bonnets. So the
contraction returned to his forehead once more.
"So here you are," he said. "I am mighty glad to see you. I thought
everything worth while would be over before you came."
"And what is there that is worth while that is not over?" said his
mother. "We defer to your superior knowledge. We in our ignorance were
thinking of the concerts, and the pictures, and the new play."
"Ah, that's all very well. _They're_ not over, of course, nor will be
so long as the season lasts," said Rintoul, carelessly. "I was thinking
of more important things. I think I've got you cards for the next
Chiswick _fête_. It wanted diplomacy. I got Lady Reston, who is _au
mieux_ with Archy Chaunter, to get them for you; but you must have very
nice toilets for that. The new Irish beauty went to the last a perfect
fright in poplin and Limerick lace, all native product, and was the talk
of the town. Thank heaven there's nothing but tartan indigenous to
Scotland!"
"Let us go in tartan, mamma," said Edith. "It would be a graceful way of
showing our nationality, and please the people who are going to elect
Robin for the county."
"If you think it would please the county," said the Countess, with much
gravity, which almost paralysed Rintoul; but she added, shaking her
head, "Alas! the county is not Highland at all, and scoffs at the
tartan. We must try some other way."
"I wish you wouldn't speak nonsense to aggravate me," cried the young
man. "How am I to know when you're in earnest, and when you are
laughing? But one thing I can tell you: unless you are well dressed, you
need never think of going at all. Old-fashioned gowns that do well
enough for the country--though even in the country I don't think you
ought ever to be careless of your dress----"
"You seem to be an authority," said Edith, laughing. "You will have to
tell us if our gowns are old-fashioned."
"Well, I don't suppose I am an authority: I don't understand details;
but I can tell on the whole, as well as another, whether a woman looks
as she ought when she's got up."
"_Comme il faut._ I thought the phrase was untranslatable, but Robin has
mastered it," said Lady Lindores.
"You need not laugh at me, mother; and I wish you wouldn't, all of you,
call me by that absurd name. I feel like a shepherd boy in a
pastoral--the hero, you know,--like Fidelio or Cherubino. Oh, I don't
say you are to call me Rintoul--that if you like; but I don't mind
Bob----"
"Bob!" the mother and sister cried in one breath. They had all been
secretly proud of that pet name of Robin, which he had borne from a
child.
"It's not worth talking of," he said carelessly, feeling something of
ridicule involved; for though he was not clever, he was sufficiently
sympathetic to be conscious of the sentiment in the minds of the others.
"The real question is, what you are going to do while you are in town. I
have told everybody you were coming; but, mamma, I hope you won't balk
everything by going on about theatres and pictures, and so forth.
Society is a hundred times more important. It is not only amusing
ourselves we have got to think of. It is all very well to laugh," he
said, with the most solemn air of offended dignity, "but anybody who
knew the world would tell you the same thing."
"My dear boy, I thought I knew a little about the world; but I daresay I
am mistaken. I hope, however, you will permit us to amuse ourselves a
little now and then. Edith wants to see something and hear something
while she is in London. She has not had your advantages----"
"My advantages don't count for very much," said Rintoul, half irritated,
half flattered, "and it's just Edith I'm thinking of. There is more to
be taken into consideration for her than either amusement or what you
call improving her mind. Edith is the entire question. It is to do her
justice that is my whole thought."
Edith, on hearing this, laughed out, yet flamed crimson, with mingled
ridicule and suspicion. "In what respect am I to have justice?" she
said.
"You needn't fire up. All that I want is your good. You ought to be
seen: you ought to have your chance like the rest. How are you ever to
have that if my mother and you fly about skylarking in all sorts of
unlikely places, and keep out of the way of--every opportunity?"
Rintoul, though carried away by his feelings to the point of making this
plain statement, was rather alarmed when he had said it, and stopped
somewhat breathless. It was alarming to be confronted by his sister's
indignant countenance and the angry sparkle in her eyes.
"Do you know what he means, mother?" she cried. "Did you bring me to
London to market? That's what he means. Did you come to set up a booth
in Vanity Fair? If you did, you must find other wares. Rintoul would
make such a good salesman, it is a pity to balk him. But I am not going
to be put up to auction," cried the girl, springing to her feet. Then
she laughed, though she was so angry. "I am going to get ready for a
walk," she said. "I think that delightful bonnet that Miss Macalister in
Dunearn made for me will be the very thing for the Park----"
"Heaven above! do you let her have bonnets from Miss Macalister in
Dunearn?" cried Rintoul, dismayed, as his sister disappeared. "Even in
the country I would never consent to that."
"You must not pour too much wisdom upon us all at once," said his
mother, "especially upon Edith, who is not used to it." Lady Lindores
could not take it all seriously. She was vexed at the bottom of her
heart, yet could not but smile at the oracle who had so short a time
before been simple Robin--her nice, kind, silly, lovable boy. He had not
ceased to be lovable even in his new development as Mentor and man of
the world.
"That is all very well, mother; but if you make a joke of it, what is
the good of coming to town at all?" cried Rintoul, with his serious
face--too serious to be angry. "Edith may flare up if she pleases--she
doesn't know any better; but surely you must understand she has never
had her chance. Who is to see her down in the country? There was
Torrance of course, but Carry snapped him up."
"Robin," said his mother, her countenance changing, "I desire you will
not speak in that heartless, vulgar way. Yes, my boy, it is vulgar,
though you think it so wise. Poor Carry, to her sorrow, has snapped up,
as you say, a most unsuitable husband and a miserable life. I wish I was
free of blame in that matter. We must make the best of it now, since
there's no remedy; but to speak as if Carry's marriage was something to
be envied----"
"Well, Torrance is rather a brute," Rintoul acknowledged, somewhat
subdued; "but what a place and what a position! Carry's boy, with our
connection and all that money, may be--anything she chooses to make
him----"
"Carry's boy is not half so much to me as Carry herself," said Lady
Lindores, gravely; "but that is done, and we must make the best of it,"
she added, with a sigh.
"A girl may pick up a bad husband anywhere," said Rintoul, regaining his
confidence. "It just as often happens in a hot love-match as in anything
else. There's Lily Trevor, old Lord Warhawk's daughter, would never rest
till they had let her marry Smithers of the Blues--and they say he beats
her. Charley Floyd says there never was such a wretched _ménage_; and
she might have married half-a-dozen fellows, every one a better match
than Smithers. There's no accounting for these sort of things. But,
mamma, unless we're all mad together, we must give Edith her chance. By
Jove, when you think of it, she's past her first bloom!" ("and that's
mostly the thing that fetches," he added parenthetically, under his
breath)--"she's twenty-one, mother! The moment she's seen anywhere,
people will begin to calculate when she came out: and it's three seasons
back! That does a girl more harm than anything. There's always a little
added on to every one's age, and I shouldn't wonder in the least if they
made her out to be thirty! She doesn't look it, fortunately; but what
are looks, when half the women one sees are made up like pictures? But
mind my words, mother--you will repent it all your life if you don't
make up your mind now to give Edith one real good chance."
Lady Lindores made no reply. She began to lose her sense of amusement,
and to feel vexed and humiliated, sore and wroth, as parents do when
their children parade before them sentiments which are unworthy. Perhaps
a woman cannot be quite just in such a predicament. It may be all an
unconscious fiction, this atrocious precocious cynicism and worldliness
of youth. Nothing is ever so cruelly conventional, so shamelessly
egoistical, as the young disciple of social philosophy, who is possibly
hiding a quivering and terrified youthful heart beneath that show of
abominable wisdom. But it is hard for a mother whose whole heart is bent
on finding excellence and nobleness in her child, to be tolerant of what
appears to be such apparent and unmistakable unworthiness. Lady Lindores
felt, while her son was speaking, as if some barbarous giant had got her
heart in his hand and crushed it, clinching his cruel grasp. She did not
look at him while he pleaded that Edith might have her chance, nor
answer him when he had spoken. What could she say to the boy who could
thus discourse to her like an old man learned in all wickedness? There
was a poignant sting of injured pride, too, in the sensation with which
she listened to him. This from the boy she had trained, to whom she
must have given his first conception of life, of women and their ways!
Had it been her example, against her will, unconscious of any such
possibility, that had taught him to despise them? She looked at the
young face so dear to her, and which was now full of all the gravity of
conviction, endeavouring to enforce its doctrines upon her mind, with a
mixture of hot impatience and hopeless toleration. Poor boy! this was
what he really thought, honestly believed, though he was _her_ son! His
eyes were quite impressive in their sincerity. "She ought to see
people," Rintoul said; "she ought to be seen. She has never been hawked
about like other girls, so it does not matter so much that this isn't
her first season. People may forget it if we take no notice. But in
another year, mother, if she does not have her chance now--in another
year," cried the anxious brother, with threatening solemnity, "it will
be quite another matter. She has kept her bloom pretty well, but it will
be gone by that time; and when it's gone, she'll not have half the
chance. A girl _must_ make hay while the sun shines," he added, more and
more dogmatically: "we all of us ought to remember that, but for a girl
it's imperative--there is nothing that tells like the first bloom."
Still Lady Lindores did not make any reply.
"I wonder at you, mother," he cried, exasperated. "I should have
thought it would be your first object to see Edith happily settled. And
when you think how difficult it is--how many there are always ready,
waiting to snap up any fellow with money! I believe," he said, with a
sort of prophetic wrath, a visionary anger at what might have been,--"I
believe if my father had not interfered, Carry was as likely as not to
have married that Professor fellow. By the way, isn't Erskine at
Dalrulzian? and I daresay you have had him up at Lindores?"
"Certainly, we have had him up at Lindores. What is your objection to
that?" said Lady Lindores, quietly.
And now it was Rintoul's turn to sigh and shake his head with hopeless
impatience. Was it impossible to get her to understand? "I don't know
what you people are thinking of," he said, with a kind of quiet despair.
"Though you know what mischief happened before, you will have that
fellow to the house, you will let him be with Edith as much as he
pleases."
"Edith!" cried Lady Lindores: and then she stopped short, and added with
a laugh, "I assure you, Robin, there's no danger in that quarter. The
entire county has made up its mind that John Erskine is to marry Nora
Barrington, and nobody else, whatever other people may say."
Now it was Rintoul's turn to be red and indignant. He was so much
startled, that he sprang to his feet with an excitement altogether
without justification. "Nora Barrington!" he cried; "I would like to
know what right any one has to mix up the name of an innocent girl--who
never, I am certain, had either part or lot in such wretched
schemings----"
"The same kind of schemings--but far more innocent--as those you would
involve your sister in," cried Lady Lindores, rising too, with a deep
flush upon her face.
"Nothing of the kind, mother--besides, the circumstances are entirely
different," he cried, hotly. "Edith _must_ marry well. She must marry to
advantage, for the sake of the family. But Nora--a girl that would never
lead herself to--to--that never had a thought of interest in her
head--that doesn't know what money means----"
"I am glad there is somebody you believe in, Robin," his mother said.
The young man saw his inconsistency, but that mattered little. It is
only in other people that we find consistency to be necessary. The
consciousness made him hotter and less coherent perhaps, but no more.
"The cases are entirely different. I see no resemblance between them,"
he said, with resentment and indignation in every tone. Lady Lindores
would have been more than human if she had not followed up her
advantage.
"Yes," she said, "in Nora's case even I myself, though I am no
match-maker, feel disposed to aid in the scheme. For nothing could be
more entirely suitable. The same position, the same class, the same
tastes; and the Barringtons are poor, so that it would be a great
comfort to them to see their girl in a nice house of her own; and she is
very fond of Dalrulzian, and much liked in the neighbourhood. I can see
everything in favour of the plan--nothing against it."
"Except that it will never come to anything," cried young Rintoul. "Good
heavens! Nora--a girl that one never could think of in any such
way,--that never in her life--I'll answer for it--made any plans about
whom she was to marry. Mother, I think you might have so much respect
for one of your own sex as to acknowledge that."
"It is time to appeal to my respect for my own sex," cried Lady
Lindores, with an angry laugh. If this was how the tables were to be
turned upon her! When she left the room, angry, yet indignantly amused
at the same time, Rintoul reflected with hot indignation upon the want
of sympathy and fellow-feeling among women. "When they do see a girl
that's above all that sort of thing, that it's desecration to think of
in that way, they either don't understand her, or they're jealous of
her," he said to himself, with profound conviction. "Women don't know
what justice means."