When Lord Carse issued from his own house the next morning to visit the
President, he had his daughter Janet by his side, and John behind him.
He took Janet in the hope that her presence, while it would be no
impediment to any properly legal business, would secure him from any
political conversation being introduced; and there was no need of any
apology for her visit, as the President usually asked why he had not the
pleasure of seeing her, if her father went alone. Duncan Forbes's good
nature to all young people was known to everybody; but he declared
himself an admirer of Janet above all others; and Janet never felt
herself of so much consequence as in the President's house.
John went as an escort to his young lady on her return.
Janet felt her father's arm twitch as they issued from their gates; and,
looking up to see why, she saw that his face was twitching too. She did
not know how near her mother was, nor that her father and John had their
ears on the stretch for a hail from the voice they dreaded above all
others in the world. But nothing was seen or heard of Lady Carse; and
when they turned out of the Wynd Lord Carse resumed his usual air and
step of formal importance; and Janet held up her head, and tried to take
steps as long as his.
All was right about her going to the President's. He kissed her
forehead, and praised her father for bringing her, and picked out for
her the prettiest flowers from a bouquet before he sat down to business;
and then he rose again, and provided her with a portfolio of prints to
amuse herself with; and even then he did not forget her, but glanced
aside several times, to explain the subject of some print, or to draw
her attention to some beauty in the one she was looking at.
"My dear lord," said he, "I have taken a liberty with your time; but I
want your opinion on a scheme I have drawn out at length for Government,
for preventing and punishing the use of tea among the common people."
"Very good, very good!" observed Lord Carse, greatly relieved about the
reasons for his being sent for. "It is high time, if our agriculture is
to be preserved, that the use of malt should be promoted to the utmost
by those in power."
"I am sure of it," said the President. "Things have got to such a pass,
that in towns the meanest people have tea at the morning's meal, to the
discontinuance of the ale which ought to be their diet; and poor women
dank this drug also in the afternoons, to the exclusion of the
twopenny."
"It is very bad; _very_ unpatriotic; very immoral," declared Lord Carse.
"Such people must be dealt with outright."
The President put on his spectacles, and opened his papers to explain
his plan--that plan, which it now appears almost incredible should have
come from a man so wise, so liberal, so kind-hearted as Duncan Forbes.
He showed how he would draw the line between those who ought and those
who ought not to be permitted to drink tea; how each was to be
described, and how, when anyone was suspected of taking tea, when he
ought to be drinking beer, he was to tell on oath what his income was,
that it might be judged whether he could pay the extremely high duty on
tea which the plan would impose. Houses might be visited, and cupboards
and cellars searched, at all hours, in cases of suspicion.
"These provisions are pretty severe," the President himself observed.
"But--"
"But not more than is necessary," declared Lord Carse. "I should say
they are too mild. If our agriculture is not supported, if the malt tax
falls off, what is to become of us?"
And he sighed deeply.
"If we find this scheme work well, as far as it goes," observed the
President, cheerfully, "we can easily render it as much more stringent
as occasion may require. And now, what can Miss Janet tell us on this
subject? Can she give information of any tea being drunk in the nursery
at home?"
"Oh! to be sure," said Janet. "Nurse often lets me have some with her;
and Katie fills Flora's doll's teapot out of her own, almost every
afternoon."
"Bless my soul!" cried Lord Carse, starting from his seat in
consternation. "My servants drink tea in my house! Off they shall go--
every one of them who does it."
"Oh! papa. No; pray papa!" implored Janet. "They will say I sent them
away. Oh! I wish nobody had asked me anything about it."
"It was my doing," said the President. "My dear lord, I make it my
request that your servants may be forgiven."
Lord Carse bowed his acquiescence; but he shook his head, and looked
very gloomy about such a thing happening in his house. The President
agreed with him that it must not happen again, on pain of instant
dismissal.
The President next invited Janet to the drawing-room to see a grey
parrot, brought hither since her last visit--a very entertaining
companion in the evenings, the President declared. He told Lord Carse
he would be back in three minutes, and so he was--with a lady on his
arm, and that lady was--Lady Carse.
She was not flushed now, nor angry, nor forward. She was quiet and
ladylike, while in the house of one of the most gentlemanly men of his
time. If her husband had looked at her, he would have seen her so much
like the woman he wooed and once dearly loved, that he might have
somewhat changed his feelings towards her. But he went abruptly to the
window when he discovered who she was, and nothing could make him turn
his head. Perhaps he was aware how pale he was, and desired that she
should not see it.
The President placed the lady in a chair, and then approached Lord
Carse, and laid his hand on his shoulder, saying, "You will forgive me
when you know my reasons. I want you to join me in prevailing on this
good lady to give up a design which I think imprudent--I will say,
wrong."
It was surprising, but Lady Carse for once bore quietly with somebody
thinking her wrong. Whatever she might feel, she said nothing. The
President went on.
"Lady Carse--"
He felt, as his hand lay on his friend's shoulder, that he winced, as if
the very name stung him.
"Lady Carse," continued the President, "cannot be deterred by any
account that can be given her of the perils and hardships of a journey
to London. She declares her intention of going."
"I am no baby; I am no coward," declared the lady. "The coach would not
have been set up, and it would not continue to go once a fortnight if
the journey were not practicable; and where others go I can go."
"Of the dangers of the road, I tell this good lady," resumed the
President, "she can judge as well as you or I, my lord. But of the
perils of the rest of her errand she must, I think, admit that we may be
better judges."
"How can you let your Hanoverian prejudices seduce you into
countenancing such a devil as that woman, and believing a word that she
says?" muttered Lord Carse, in a hoarse voice.
"Why, my good friend," replied the President, "it does so vex my very
heart every day to see how the ladies, whom I would fain honour for
their discretion as much as I admire them for their other virtues, are
wild on behalf of the Pretender, or eager for a desperate and
treasonable war, that you must not wonder if I take pleasure in meeting
with one who is loyal to her rightful sovereign. Loyal, I must suppose,
at home, and in a quiet way; for she knows that I do not approve of her
journey to London to see the minister."
"The minister!" faltered out Lord Carse.
He heard, or fancied he heard his wife laughing behind him.
"Come, now, my friends," said the President, with a good-humoured
seriousness, "let me tell you that the position of either of you is no
joke. It is too serious for any lightness and for any passion. I do
not want to hear a word about your grievances. I see quite enough. I
see a lady driven from home, deprived of her children, and tormenting
herself with thoughts of revenge because she has no other object. I see
a gentleman who has been cruelly put to shame in his own house and in
the public street, worn with anxiety about his innocent daughters, and
with natural fears--inevitable fears, of the mischief that may be done
to his character and fortunes by an ill use of the confidence he once
gave to the wife of his bosom."
There was a suppressed groan from Lord Carse, and something like a
titter from the lady. The President went on even more gravely.
"I know how easy it is for people to make each other wretched, and
especially for you two to ruin each other. If I could but persuade you
to sit down with me to a quiet discussion of a plan for living together
or apart, abstaining from mutual injury--"
Lord Carse dissented audibly from their living together, and the lady
from living apart.
"Why," remonstrated the President, "things cannot be worse than they are
now. You make life a hell--"
"I am sure it is to me!" sighed Lord Carse.
"It is not yet so to me," said the lady. "I--"
"It is not!" thundered her husband, turning suddenly round upon her.
"Then I will take care it shall be."
"For God's sake, hush!" exclaimed the President, shocked to the soul.
"Do your worst," said the lady, rising. "We will try which has the most
power. You know what ruin is."
"Stop a moment," said the President. "I don't exactly like to have this
quiet house of mine made a hell of. I cannot have you part on these
terms."
But the lady had curtseyed, and was gone. For a minute or two nothing
was said. Then a sort of scream was heard from upstairs.
"My Janet!" cried Lord Carse.
"I will go and see," said the President. "Janet is my especial pet, you
know."
He immediately returned, smiling, and said, "There is nothing amiss with
Janet. Come and see."
Janet was on her mother's lap, her arms thrown round her neck, while the
mother's tears streamed over them both. "Can you resist this?" the
President asked of Lord Carse. "Can you keep them apart after this?"
"I can," he replied. "I will not permit her the devilish pleasure she
wants--of making my own children my enemies."
He was going to take Janet by force: but the President interfered, and
said authoritatively to Lady Carse that she had better go: her time was
not yet come. She must wait; and his advice was to wait patiently and
harmlessly.
It could not have been believed how instantaneously a woman in such
emotion could recover herself.
She put Janet off her knee. In an instant there were no more traces of
tears, and her face was composed, and her manner hard.
"Good-bye, my dear," she said to the weeping Janet. "Don't cry so, my
dear. Keep your tears; for you will have something more to cry for
soon. I am going home to pack my trunk for London. Have my friends any
commands for London?"
And she looked round steadily upon the three faces.
The President was extremely grave when their eyes met; but even his eye
sank under hers. He offered his arm to conduct her downstairs, and took
leave of her at the gate with a silent bow.
He met Lord Carse and Janet coming downstairs, and begged them to stay
awhile, dreading, perhaps, a street encounter. But Lord Carse was bent
on being gone immediately--and had not another moment to spare.