"DEAR MR ERSKINE,--I do not know what words to use to tell you how
pained and distressed we are--I speak for my mother as well as
myself--to find that nothing has been done to relieve you from the
consequence of such a ridiculous as well as unhappy mistake. We found my
brother Robin as anxious as we were, or more so, if that were possible,
to set matters right at once; but unfortunately on the day after, the
funeral took up all thoughts: and what other obstacles intervened next
day I cannot rightly tell, but something or other--I am too impatient
and pained to inquire what--came in the way; and they tell me now that
to-morrow is the day of the examination, and that it is of no use now to
forestall justice, which will certainly set you free to-morrow. Oh, dear
Mr Erskine, I cannot tell you how sick and sore my heart is to think
that you have been in confinement (it seems too dreadful, too ludicrous,
to be true), in confinement all these long days. I feel too angry, too
miserable, to think of it. I have been crying, as if that would do you
any good, and rushing up and down abusing everybody. I think that in his
heart Robin feels it more than any of us: he feels the injustice, the
foolishness; but still he has been to blame, and I don't know how to
excuse him. We have not dared to tell poor Carry--though, indeed, I need
not attempt to conceal from you, who have seen so much, that poor Carry,
though she is dreadfully excited and upset, is not miserable, as you
would expect a woman to be in her circumstances. Could it be expected?
But I don't know what she might do if she heard what has happened to
you. She might take some step of her own accord, and that would be not
prudent, I suppose; so we don't tell her. Oh, Mr Erskine, did you ever
think how miserable women are? I never realised it till now. Here am I,
and, still more, here is my mother. She is not a child, or an incapable
person, I hope! yet she can do nothing--nothing to free you. She is as
helpless as if she were a baby. It seems to me ridiculous that Robin's
opinion should be worth taking, and mine not; but that is quite a
different matter. My mother can do nothing but persuade and plead with a
boy like Robin, to do that which she herself, at her age, wise as she
is, good as she is, cannot do. As you are a man, you may think this of
no importance; and mamma says it is nature, and cannot be resisted, and
smiles. But if you suppose she does not feel it!--if she could have been
your bail, or whatever it is, you may be sure you would not have been a
single night in _that_ place! but all that we can do is to go down on
our knees to the men who have it in their power, and I, unfortunately,
have not been brought up to go down on my knees. Forgive me for this
outburst. I am so miserable to think where you are, and why, and that
I--I mean _we_--can do nothing. What can I say to you? Dear Mr Erskine,
our thoughts are with you constantly. My mother sends you her love.
"EDITH."
* * * * *
Edith felt perhaps that this was not a very prudent letter. She was not
thinking of prudence, but of relieving her own mind and comforting John
Erskine, oppressed and suffering. And besides, she was herself in a
condition of great excitement and agitation. She had been brought back
from Tinto, she and her mother, with a purpose. Perhaps it was not said
to her in so many words; but it was certainly conveyed to the minds of
the female members of the family generally that Millefleurs was at the
end of his patience, and his suit must have an answer once for all.
Carry had been told of the proposal by her mother, and had pledged
herself to say nothing against it. And she had kept her promise, though
with difficulty, reserving to herself the power to act afterwards if
Edith should be driven to consent against her will. "Another of us shall
not do it," Carry said; "oh, not if I can help it!" "I do not believe
that Edith will do it," said Lady Lindores; "but let us not
interfere--let us not interfere!" Carry, therefore, closed her mouth
resolutely; but as she kissed her sister, she could not help whispering
in her ear, "Remember that I will always stand by you--always, whatever
happens!" This was at Lindores, where Carry, pining to see once more the
face of the outer world since it had so changed to her, drove her mother
and sister in the afternoon, returning home alone with results which
were not without importance in her life. But in the meantime it is Edith
with whom we have to do. She reached home with the sense of having a
certain ordeal before her--something which she had to pass through, not
without pain--which would bring her into direct antagonism with her
father, and convulse the household altogether. Even the idea that she
must more or less vex Millefleurs distressed and excited her; for indeed
she was quite willing to admit that she was "very fond of" Millefleurs,
though it was ridiculous to think of him in any other capacity than that
of a brotherly friend. And it was at this moment she made the discovery
that, notwithstanding the promises of Rintoul and Millefleurs, nothing
had been done for John. The consequence was, that the letter which we
have just quoted was at once an expression of sympathy, very warm, and
indeed impassioned--more than sympathy, indignation, wrath, sentiments
which were nothing less than violent--and a way of easing her own
excited mind which nothing else could have furnished. "I am going to
write to John Erskine," she said, with the boldness produced by so great
a crisis; and Lady Lindores had not interfered. She said, "Give him my
love," and that was all. No claim of superior prudence, or even wisdom,
has been made for Lady Lindores. She had to do the best she could among
all these imperfections. Perhaps she thought that, having expressed all
her angry glowing heart to John, in the outflowing of impassioned
sympathy, the girl would be more likely, in the reaction and fear lest
she had gone too far, to be kind to Millefleurs; for who can gauge the
ebbings and flowings of these young fantastic souls? And as for Lady
Lindores's private sentiments, she would not have forced her daughter a
hairbreadth; and she had a good deal of pain to reconcile herself to
Millefleurs's somewhat absurd figure as the husband of Edith. But yet,
when all is said, to give your child the chance of being a duchess, who
would not sacrifice a little? If only Edith could make up her mind to
it! Lady Lindores went no further. Nevertheless, when the important
moment approached, she could not help, like Carry, breathing a word in
her child's ear, "Remember, there is no better heart in existence," she
said. "A woman could not have a better man." Edith, in her excitement,
grasped her mother's arms with her two hands; but all the answer she
gave was a little nervous laugh. She had no voice to reply.
"You will remember, Millefleurs, that my daughter is very
young--and--and shy," said Lord Lindores, on the other side. He was
devoured by a desire to say, "If she refuses you, never mind--I will
make her give in;" which indeed was what he had said in a kind of
paraphrase to Torrance. But Millefleurs was not the sort of person to
whom this could be said. He drew himself up a little, and puffed out his
fine chest, when his future father-in-law (as they hoped) made this
remark. If Edith was not as willing to have him as he was to have her,
she was not for Millefleurs. He almost resented the interference. "I
have no doubt that Lady Edith and I will quite understand each
other--whichever way it may be," Millefleurs added with a sigh, which
suited the situation. As a matter of fact, he thought there could not be
very much doubt as to the reply. It was not possible that they could
have made him stay only to get a refusal at the end--and Millefleurs
was well aware that the girls were very few who could find it in their
hearts to refuse a future dukedom: besides, had it not been a friendship
at first sight--an immediate liking, if not love? To refuse him now
would be strange indeed. It was not until after dinner that the fated
moment came. Neither Lord Lindores nor Rintoul came into the
drawing-room; and Lady Lindores, having her previous orders, left the
field clear almost immediately after the entrance of the little hero.
There was nothing accidental about it, as there generally is, or appears
to be, about the scene of such events. The great drawing-room, all
softly lighted and warm, was never abandoned in this way in the evening.
Edith stood before the fire, clasping her hands together nervously, the
light falling warm upon her black dress and the gleams of reflection
from its jet trimmings. They had begun to talk before Lady Lindores
retreated to the background to look for something, as she said; and
Millefleurs allowed the subject they were discussing to come to an end
before he entered upon anything more important. He concluded his little
argument with the greatest propriety, and then he paused and cleared his
throat.
"Lady Edith," he said, "you may not have noticed that we are alone." He
folded his little hands together, and put out his chest, and made all
his curves more remarkable, involuntarily, as he said this. It was his
way of opening a new subject, and he was not carried out of his way by
excitement as Edith was.
She looked round breathlessly, and said, "Has mamma gone?" with a little
gasp--a mixture of agitation and shame. The sense even that she was
false in her pretence at surprise--for did she not know what was
coming?--agitated her still more.
"Yeth," said Millefleurs, drawing out his lisp into a sort of sigh. "I
have asked that I might see you by yourself. You will have thought,
perhaps, that for me to stay here when the family was in--affliction,
was, to say the least, bad taste, don't you know?"
"No," said Edith, faltering, "I did not think so; I thought----"
"That is exactly so," said Millefleurs, seriously. "It is a great bore,
to be sure; but you and I are not like two nobodies. The truth is, I had
to speak to your father first: it seemed to be the best thing to
do,--and now I have been waiting to have this chance. Lady Edith, I hope
you are very well aware that I am--very fond of you, don't you know? I
always thought we were fond of one another----"
"You were quite right, Lord Millefleurs," cried Edith, nervously; "you
have been so nice--you have been like another brother----"
"Thanks; but it was not quite in that way." Here Millefleurs put out his
plump hand and took hers in a soft, loose clasp--a clasp which was
affectionate but totally unimpassioned. He patted the hand with his
fingers as he held it in an encouraging, friendly way. "That's very
pleasant; but it doesn't do, don't you know? People would have said we
were, one of us, trifling with the other. I told Lord Lindores that
there was not one other girl in the world--that is, in this
country--whom I ever could wish to marry but you. He was not displeased,
and I have been waiting ever since to ask; don't you think we might
marry, Lady Edith? I should like it if you would. I hope I have not been
abrupt, or anything of that sort."
"Oh no!--you are always considerate, always kind," cried Edith; "but,
dear Lord Millefleurs, listen to me,--I don't think it would do----"
"No?" he said, with rather a blank air, suddenly pausing in the soft pat
of encouragement he was giving her upon the hand; but he did not drop
the hand, nor did Edith take it from him. She had recovered her breath
and her composure; her heart fluttered no more. The usual half laugh
with which she was in the habit of talking to him came into her voice.
"No?" said Millefleurs. "But, indeed, I think it would do very nicely.
We understand each other very well; we belong to the same _milieu_"
(how pleased Lord Lindores would have been to hear this, and how amazed
the Duke!), "and we are fond of each other. We are both young, and you
are extremely pretty. Dear Edith--mayn't I call you so?--I think it
would do admirably, delightfully!"
"Certainly you may call me so," she said, with a smile; "but on the old
footing, not any new one. There is a difference between being fond of
any one, and being--in love." Edith said this with a hot, sudden blush;
then shaking her head as if to shake that other sentiment off, added, by
way of reassuring herself, "don't you know?" with a tremulous laugh.
Little Millefleurs's countenance grew more grave. He was not in love
with any passion; still he did not like to be refused.
"Excuse me, but I can't laugh," he said, putting down her hand; "it is
too serious. I do not see the difference, for my part. I have always
thought that falling in love was a rather vulgar way of describing the
matter. I think we have all that is wanted for a happy marriage. If you
do not love me so much as I love you, there is no great harm in that; it
will come in time. I feel sure that I should be a very good husband, and
you----"
"Would not be a good wife--oh no, no!" cried Edith, with a little
shudder, shrinking from him; then she turned towards him again with
sudden compunction. "You must not suppose it is unkindness; but
think,--two people who have been like brother--and sister."
"The only time," said Millefleurs, still more seriously, "that I ever
stood in this position before, it was the relationship of mother and son
that was suggested to me--with equal futility, if you will permit me to
say so;--brother and sister means little. So many people think they feel
so, till some moment undeceives them. I think I may safely say that my
feelings have never--except, perhaps, at the very first--been those of a
brother,--any more," he added in a parenthesis, "than they were ever
those of a son."
What Edith said in reply was the most curious request ever made perhaps
by a girl to the man who had just asked her to marry him. She laid her
hand upon his arm, and said softly, "Tell me about her!" in a voice of
mild coaxing, just tempered with laughter. Millefleurs shook his head,
and relieved his plump bosom with a little sigh.
"Not at this moment, dear Edith. This affair must first be arranged
between us. You do not mean to refuse me? Reflect a moment. I spoke to
your father more than a week ago. It was the day before the death of
poor Mr Torrance. Since then I have waited, hung up, don't you know,
like Mahomet's coffin. When such a delay does occur, it is generally
understood in one way. When a lady means to say No, it is only just to
say it at once--not to permit a man to commit himself, and leave him,
don't you know, hanging on."
"Dear Lord Millefleurs----"
"My name is Wilfrid," he said, with a little pathos; "no one ever calls
me by it: in this country not even my mother--calls me by my name."
"In America," said Edith, boldly, "you were called so by--the other
lady----"
He waved his hand. "By many people," he said; "but never mind. Never by
any one here. Call me Wilfrid, and I shall feel happier----"
"I was going to say that if you had spoken to me, I should have told you
at once," Edith said. "When you understand me quite, then we shall call
each other anything you please. But _that_ cannot be, Lord Millefleurs.
Indeed you must understand me. I like you very much. I should be
dreadfully sorry if I thought what I am saying would really hurt
you--but it will not after the first minute. I think you ought to marry
_her_----"
"Oh, there would be no hindrance there," said Millefleurs; "that was
quite unsuitable. I don't suppose it could ever have been. But with
you," he said, turning to take her hand again, "dear Edith! everything
is as it should be--it pleases your people, and it will delight mine.
They will all love you; and for my part, I am almost as fond of dear
Lady Lindores as I am of you. Nothing could be more jolly (to use a
vulgar word--for I hate slang) than the life we should lead. I should
take you _over there_, don't you know, and show you everything, as far
as San Francisco if you like. I know it all. And you would form my
opinions, and make me good for something when we came back. Come! let it
be settled so," said Millefleurs, laying his other hand on Edith's, and
patting it softly. It was the gentlest fraternal affectionate clasp. The
hands lay within each other without a thrill in them--the young man kind
as any brother, the girl in nowise afraid.
"Do you think," said Edith, with a little solemnity, from which it cost
her some trouble to keep out a laugh, "that if I could consent (which I
cannot: it is impossible), do you think it would not be a surprise, and
perhaps a painful one, to--the other lady--if she heard you were coming
to America _so_?"
Lord Millefleurs raised his eyes for a moment to the ceiling, and he
sighed. It was a tribute due to other days and other hopes. "I think
not," he said. "She was very disinterested. Indeed she would not hear of
it. She said she regarded me as a mother, don't you know? There is
something very strange in these things," he added, quickly forgetting
(as appeared) his position as lover, and putting Edith's hand
unconsciously out of his. "There was not, you would have supposed, any
chance of such feelings arising. And in point of fact it was not
suitable at all. Still, had she not seen so very clearly what was my
duty----"
"I know now," said Edith; "it was the lady who--advised you to come
home."
He did not reply directly. "There never was anybody with such a keen eye
for duty," he said; "when she found out I hadn't written to my mother,
don't you know, that was when she pulled me up. 'Don't speak to me,' she
said. She would not hear a word. I was just obliged to pack up. But it
was perfectly unsuitable. I never could help acknowledging that."
"Wilfrid," said Edith, half in real, half in fictitious enthusiasm,--for
it served her purpose so admirably that it was difficult not to assume a
little more than she felt--"how can you stand there and tell me that
there was anything unsuitable in a girl who could behave so finely as
that. Is it because she had no stupid little title in her family, for
example? You have titles enough for half-a-dozen, I hope. Are you not
ashamed to speak to one girl of another like that----"
"Thank you," said Millefleurs, softly,--"thank you; you are a darling.
All you say is quite true. But she is not--exactly a girl. The fact
is--she is older than--my people would have liked. Of course that was a
matter of complete indifference to me."
"O--oh! of course," said Edith, faintly: this is a point on which girls
are not sympathetic. She was very much taken aback by the intimation.
But she recovered her courage, and said with a great deal of interest,
"Tell me all about her now."
"Are you quite decided?" he said solemnly. "Edith,--let us pause a
little; don't condemn me, don't you know, to disappointment and
heartbreak, and all that, without sufficient cause. I feel sure we
should be happy together. I for one would be the happiest man----"
"I could not, I could not," she cried, with a sudden little effusion of
feeling, quite unintentional. A flush of hot colour ran over her, her
eyes filled with tears. She looked at him involuntarily, almost
unconscious, with a certain appeal, which she herself only half
understood, in her eyes. But Millefleurs understood, not at the half
word, as the French say, but at the half thought which he discovered in
the delicate transparent soul looking at him through those two
involuntary tears. He gazed at her for a moment with a sudden startled
enlargement of his own keen little eyes. "To be sure!" he cried. "How
was it I never thought of that before?"
Edith felt as if she had made some great confession, some cruel
admission, she did not know what. She turned away from him trembling.
This half comic interview suddenly turned in a moment to one of intense
and overwhelming, almost guilty emotion. What had she owned to? What was
it he made so sure of? She could not tell. But now it was that
Millefleurs showed the perfect little gentleman he was. The discovery
was not entirely agreeable to his _amour propre_, and wounded his pride
a little; but in the meantime the necessary thing was to set Edith at
her ease so far as was possible, and make her forget that she had in any
way committed herself. What he did was to set a chair for her, with her
back to the lamp, so that her countenance need not be revealed for the
moment, and to sit down by her side with confidential calmness. "Since
you wish it," he said, "and are so kind as to take an interest in her,
there is nothing I should like so much as to tell you about my dear Miss
Nelly Field. I should like you to be friends."
Would it were possible to describe the silent hush of the house while
these two talked in this preposterous manner in the solitude so
carefully prepared for them! Lord Lindores sat breathless in his
library, listening for every sound, fixing his eyes upon his door,
feeling it inconceivable that such a simple matter should take so long
a time to accomplish. Lady Lindores in her chamber, still more anxious,
foreseeing endless struggles with her husband if Millefleurs persevered,
and almost worse, his tragical wrath and displeasure if Millefleurs (as
was almost certain) accepted at once Edith's refusal, sat by her fire in
the dark, and cried a little, and prayed, almost without knowing what it
was that she asked of God. Not, surely, that Edith should sacrifice
herself? Oh no; but that all might go well--that there might be peace
and content. She did not dictate how that was to be. After a while both
father and mother began to raise their heads, to say to themselves that
unless he had been well received, Millefleurs would not have remained so
long oblivious of the passage of time. This brought a smile upon Lord
Lindores's face. It dried his wife's eyes, and made her cease praying.
Was it possible? Could Edith, after all, have yielded to the seductions
of the dukedom? Her mother felt herself struck to the heart by the
thought, as if an arrow had gone into her. Was not she pleased? It would
delight her husband, it would secure family peace, it would give Edith
such a position, such prospects, as far exceeded the utmost hopes that
could have been formed for her. Somehow, however, the first sensation of
which Lady Lindores was conscious was a humiliation deep and bitter.
Edith too! she said to herself, with a quivering smile upon her lips, a
sense of heart-sickness and downfall within her. She had wished it
surely--she had felt that to see her child a duchess would be a fine
thing, a thing worth making a certain sacrifice for; and Millefleurs had
nothing in him to make a woman fear for her daughter's happiness. But
women, everybody knows, are inaccessible to reason. It is to be doubted
whether Lady Lindores had ever in her life received a blow more keen
than when she made up her mind that Edith was going to do the right
thing, the prudent wise thing, which would secure family peace to her
mother, and the most dazzling future to herself.
When a still longer interval had elapsed, and no one came to tell her of
the great decision, which evidently must have been made, Lady Lindores
thought it best to go back to the drawing-room, in which she had left
Edith and her lover. To think that Edith should have found the love-talk
of Millefleurs so delightful after all, as to have forgotten how time
passed, and everything but him and his conversation, made her mother
smile once more, but not very happily. When she entered the drawing-room
she saw the pair at the other end of it, by the fire, seated close
together, he bending forward talking eagerly, she leaning towards him,
her face full of smiles and interest. They did not draw back, or change
their position, as lovers do, till Lady Lindores, much marvelling, came
close up to them, when Millefleurs, still talking, jumped up to find a
chair for her. "And that was the last time we met," Millefleurs was
saying, too much absorbed in his narrative to give it up. "An idea of
duty like that, don't you know, leaves nothing to be said."
Lady Lindores sat down, and Millefleurs stood in front of the two
ladies, with his back to the fire, as Englishmen love to stand. There
was a pause--of extreme bewilderment on the part of the new-comer. Then
Millefleurs said, in his round little mellifluous voice, folding his
hands,--"I have been telling dear Edith of a very great crisis in my
life. She understands me perfectly, dear Lady Lindores. I am very sorry
to tell you that she will not marry me; but we are friends for life."