They were very glad to see him,--very kind to him--impossible to be
kinder; ready to enter into all their experiences of town, and to find
out who were the people he knew among their friends, and to discuss all
their amusements and occupations. Perhaps the fact that there were few
people with whom they could discuss these proceedings had something to
do with it; for the county in general went little to town, and was
jealous and easily offended by the superior privileges of others. But
this was a cynical view to take of the friendly effusion of the ladies
when John paid them the visit which he thought he had timed religiously,
so as neither to be too early, as presuming on the intimacy they had
accorded him, nor too late, as showing any indifference to it. No such
calculation was in the cordial greeting he received from Lady Lindores.
"You are a great deal too timid, Mr Erskine," she said. "No, it is not a
fault for a young man,--but you know what I mean. You would not come to
meet us though you were there, and you have let two days pass without
coming to see us. Fie! As your aunt Barbara says, you should have more
confidence in your friends."
Was it possible to be more encouraging, more delightful than this? and
then they plunged into the inevitable personalities which are so
offensive to outsiders, but which people with any mutual knowledge of a
certain restricted society are scarcely able to refrain from. "You know
the Setons. There have been great changes among them. Two of the girls
are married. To whom? Well, I scarcely remember. Yes, to be sure. Sir
Percy Faraway married the eldest, and they went off to California on
their wedding-trip. And Charley is with his regiment at Cabul. Old Lady
Seton, the grandmother--you know that delightful old lady--is----" and
so on, and so on. The county people thought, with strong disapproval,
that for intelligent people like the Lindores, who gave themselves airs
on this score, it was both frivolous and derogatory to talk so much
about individuals; but John, who knew the individuals, was not so
critical.
"Rintoul has come with us," said Lady Lindores. "He has paused on the
way to pay a little visit; but we expect him this evening. He will stay
only a very short time; but he is coming back again in August, when the
house will be full."
John made a little bow, and no reply. He did not care for the
intelligence. Rintoul, he felt instinctively, would be no friend to him.
And in the little contrariety produced by this, he, too, brought forth
his piece of news. "I heard of one of your visitors--Lord Millefleurs.
He was my fag at Eton, and the drollest little fellow. How has he grown
up? I have not seen him since the Eton days."
"He is droll still--like a little fat robin-redbreast," said Edith, with
a laugh.
Lady Lindores checked her daughter with a look. "He is--odd," she said,
"but very original and--entertaining." She had begun in her heart to
feel that something was worth sacrificing to the chance of seeing Edith
a duchess. "They say he has been a kind of prodigal--but a very virtuous
one,--wandering over the world to see life, as he calls it--a very
different thing from what many of you young men call life, Mr Erskine."
John felt nettled, he did not quite know why. "I am glad to know
Millefleurs has become so interesting," he said. "The only thing that
now gives him interest to me is that I hear Beaufort--you will perhaps
recollect Beaufort, Lady Lindores----"
The two ladies started a little, then gave each other a mutually
warning look. "Indeed I remember Mr Beaufort very well," said Lady
Lindores, shaking her head,--"very well. We have seen him--seen a good
deal of him lately. He is perhaps coming here."
"But we hope not," said Edith, under her breath.
"Edith, you must not say anything so unkind."
"Oh, mamma, what is the use of pretending to Mr Erskine? either he knows
already, or he will be sure to find it out."
"There is nothing to find out," said Lady Lindores, hastily; and then
her countenance melted, and she turned to John, holding out her hand.
"You are an old friend--and I am sure you are a true friend, Mr
Erskine."
"I am sure I am true," he said.
"Yes, I know it--I know it! Mr Erskine, there was--something between
Carry and Mr Beaufort. You guessed it even if you did not know? But
afterwards it became impossible. Her father objected--as he had a good
right to object. And now you know everything is changed. We women, who
take all these things so much to heart--we don't want Mr Beaufort to
come here. We think it might be painful. Lord Lindores, who probably has
never given the subject another thought, has invited him to come with
Lord Millefleurs. You know he is acting as a sort of--best friend to
Lord Millefleurs."
"I must tell you now on my side that I have heard from Beaufort," said
John. "He wrote to me asking to come to Dalrulzian, if it was decided
that he should come North at all. I answered him that I did not think he
had better come. Pardon me, there was no betrayal. He did not
explain--nor did I explain. I could not; it was a mere--intuition with
me. I can scarcely tell even what induced me to do it. I thought he
would find everything so different, and get no pleasure out of it. I
told him he might come to Dalrulzian whenever he liked; but I think I
showed him that it would be better not to do so. So that is all I know
of it, Lady Lindores."
She looked somewhat anxiously in his face. Was that all he knew? Edith,
who had been a keen spectator of the latter part of this conversation,
shook her head slightly, with a faint incredulous smile; but Lady
Lindores saw no reason to doubt him. She answered with a little
excitement and agitation. "You were quite right, Mr Erskine--no
pleasure, especially to him. He could not but feel the difference,
indeed. Thanks for your kind and sensible advice to him. I hope he will
take it. Naturally we had a delicacy----" And here she looked again at
her daughter, who made no reply. Edith had in some points more insight
than her mother, and she had been reading John's meaning in his looks,
while his other listener considered his words only. Edith thought enough
had been made of Beaufort. She changed the immediate subject with a
laugh, which provoked Lady Lindores.
"Will Lord Millefleurs," she said, "be permitted, do you think, mother,
to come by himself? Is it safe to allow him to run about by himself? He
is a dangerous little person, and one never knows what is the next wild
thing he may do."
"You are speaking very disrespectfully of Lord Millefleurs," said Lady
Lindores, provoked.
"I never intended to be respectful." Edith said. But her mother was
really annoyed, and put a summary conclusion to the talk. She was angry
because her daughter's opinions had not changed, as her own, all
imperceptibly and within herself, had done. Lady Lindores had gone
through a great deal on account of the little Marquis, whom she had
persisted so long in thinking a nice boy. Rintoul's sermons had become
almost beyond endurance before they left London, and even her husband
had intimated to her that she was treating a very important suitor far
too lightly. It is hard for a sympathetic woman to remain uninfluenced,
even when she disapproves of them, by the sentiments expressed around
her. Millefleurs had become of additional importance in her eyes
unconsciously, unwillingly almost, with every word that was said. And
when she had no longer his plump little figure before her eyes--when he
was left behind, and his amusing personal peculiarities were veiled
over by distance--she ceased to have the relief of that laugh which had
always hitherto delivered her from too grave a consideration of this
subject. The idea of paying court to any man (much less a fat boy!), in
order to secure him as a husband for Edith, was revolting to her mind;
but worried and troubled as she was on the subject, Lady Lindores fell,
first, into the snare of feeling, with relief, that to escape from
further persecution of the same kind was an advantage worth a sacrifice;
and second, that Millefleurs, if he was fat, was good and true, and that
to be a duchess was something when all that could be said was said
against it. For, to be sure, the season in town had its influences, and
she was more susceptible to the attractions of greatness, wealth, and
high title before it than after. Indeed he was not the husband she would
have desired for her child; and she wanted--imprudent woman!--no husband
at all for her child, who was the chief consolation left to her in the
world. Still, if Edith must marry, as Rintoul said--if she must marry to
increase the family importance and influence, which was what Lord
Lindores had insisted upon in respect to that pitiful sacrifice at
Tinto--why then, influence, wealth, greatness, everything, were united
in the little person of Millefleurs, who was, besides, a very nice boy,
and amused Edith, and would never harm any woman. This was the
conclusion to which a thousand harassing lectures and remonstrances had
brought her. She had not said a word of the change, which had worked
imperceptibly, and chiefly in the long sleepless night of the railway
journey, to Edith; and yet, with natural inconsistency, she was vexed
and annoyed that Edith should still laugh, as they had so often laughed
together, at little Millefleurs. And both Edith and John, though his
suspicions were not yet aroused on this subject, felt the keenness of
irritation and vexed dissatisfaction in her tone. He withdrew soon
after--for even the merest insinuation of a family jar is painful to an
outsider--but not before Lord Lindores had come in, with much
friendliness, to beg him to come back to dinner, and engage his
immediate aid in the scheme which had already brought our young man some
trouble. "I want you to meet Rintoul," said the Earl. "I want you both
to make your appearance at Dunearn next week at the county meeting. I am
going to produce those plans I spoke to you about, and I hope to move
them to some definite step. We shall have a strong opposition, and the
more support I can calculate on the better. Rintoul has no gift of
speech; he'll say his say in his solid, straightforward, positive sort
of manner. But the Scotch are proud of good speaking. I don't know what
your gifts may be in that way."
"Oh, _nil_," said John.
"If you were a Frenchman, I should take you at your word; but in England
there's no telling. A young man has but one formula. If he is a natural
orator, he gives just the same answer as if he can't put two words
together. That is what we call our national modesty. I wish for the
moment you were as vain as a Frenchman, Erskine--then I should know the
facts of the case. I daresay you speak very well--you have the looks of
it; and it will be a great thing for me if you will second and stand by
Rintoul. If he muddles his statement--which is quite likely, for the boy
is as ignorant as a pig--you must set him right, and laugh a little at
the defects of English education: that pleases a Scotch audience."
"I think," said Lady Lindores, "that you are putting a great deal upon
Mr Erskine."
"Am I?" said her husband; "but it is in a good cause."
Perhaps this was too lightly said. John took his leave with a
half-mortified, half-humorous consciousness that he was to have about
the person of this young nobleman something like the same post enjoyed
by Beaufort in respect to Millefleurs, but with neither present
emolument nor prospect of promotion. And he felt sure that he should not
like the fellow, John said to himself. Nevertheless seven o'clock (they
kept early hours in the country) saw him walking lightly, as no man
ever walked to a disagreeable appointment, towards the Castle.
Impossible to thread those shrubberies, to cross those lawns, without a
rising of the heart. "Doors where my heart was wont to beat." Nowhere
else in the world did he hasten with the same step, did he feel the very
neighbourhood of the place affect his pulses in the same way. It was the
home to which his thoughts went before him, imagining many happinesses
which perhaps did not come, but which always might come--which lived
there, to be tasted one time or another. This occupation with the
affairs of Lindores, with the new-comer, and the Earl's schemes, and so
many secondary subjects, prevented him from entering into the questions
which had so deeply discouraged him on the night of their return. He did
not ask himself what he had to expect, what he had to do with them. He
had a great deal to do with them in the meantime, and that by their own
desire.
But John's instinct had not been at fault in respect to Rintoul. They
met as a gamekeeper and poacher might meet, if persons of these classes
had an indifferent meeting-ground in polite society, like their masters.
A mutual scrutiny and suspicion were in their eyes. John, the more
generous of the two, made up his mind to nothing save an instinctive
hostility to the heir of the house, and a conviction that Rintoul would
stand in his way, though he scarcely knew how. But Rintoul, on his side,
being what his mother called positive and practical in the highest
degree, had no hesitation whatever in deciding upon John's meaning and
motives. They were each so much preoccupied in this hostile sense with
each other, that Lord Lindores's exhortations after dinner, as to the
part he expected both to play, were received with small appreciation.
Rintoul yawned visibly, and asked his father whether it was in reason to
expect a fellow to plunge into business the moment he got home. John's
natural desire to say something conciliatory to the father thus
contradicted by his son, which is the instinct of every spectator, was
strengthened by his opposition to the special son in question; but even
he could not cast off his personality enough to embrace an abstract
subject at such a moment: and the two young men escaped, by the only
mutual impulse they seemed likely to feel, to the ladies, leaving Lord
Lindores to take his share of the vexation and disappointment which
visit most mortals impartially in their time. The ladies were out upon
the lawn, which lay under the windows of the drawing-room, and from
which, as from most places in the neighbourhood, a wide expanse of
landscape, culminating in the house of Tinto with its red flag, was
visible. The house of Tinto was to the Lindores family that
culminating-point of human care, the one evil that heightens all others,
which is almost invariable in family experiences. Here their one
prevailing pain, the one trouble that would not allow itself to be
forgotten; and sometimes they felt the very sight of the scene to be
intolerable. But quiet was in the air of the lingering endless night, so
sweet, so unearthly, so long continued, making the hours like days.
"Ah, to be sure, that's Tinto," said Rintoul; "what a fine place it is,
to be sure! Carry ought to be proud of such a place. And how do all the
squires and squireens--or the lairds, I suppose I should say, for local
colour,--how do they like his red flag? There ought to be plenty of
hatred and malice on that score."
"Nobody hates or bears malice to our Carry, that I can hear of," said
his mother, with a reproving glance. Her eye caught that of John, and
she blushed almost violently--for was not he the representative of the
squires and squireens?
"But Torrance and Carry are one flesh," said Rintoul.
"I ought to speak on the subject, as I am the only representative of the
accused," said John, with an attempt at a lighter tone; but it was not
very successful, and there was a sense of possible commotion in the
air, like the approach of a thunderstorm, which the women were far too
sensitive not to feel--and they threw themselves into the breach, as was
natural. When John took his leave, as the lingering daylight still
lasted, they strolled with him through the shrubberies, accompanying him
towards the gate. It was Lady Lindores herself who took the initiative
in this, as her son thought, extraordinary condescension. Rintoul
followed, keeping his sister walking by his side, with indignant
surprise painted all over him. "Do you mean to say you do this every
time that fellow is here?" he asked, wrathfully. "We have never been out
of doors before when Mr Erskine has gone away," cried Edith, equally
angry, in self-defence. Meanwhile the voices of the others, who were in
advance, went on peacefully: they talked, unconscious of criticism,
while the brother and sister listened. John had begun to tell Lady
Lindores of the entertainments he meant to give. He avowed that they had
been planned by Rolls, though his first intention had been to keep this
fact to himself; but the humour of it overcame him. He could not refrain
from communicating so amusing a circumstance to the kind woman, who
never misunderstood, and who received all his confidences with maternal
pleasure. He was pleased to hear her laugh, and not displeased to lay
open the condition of his household to her, and the humours of the old
servants, in whose hands he was still a boy. "It is, don't you think, a
judicious despotism on the whole?" he said. The sound of her laugh was
delightful in his ears, even though a more sensitive narrator might have
thought the laugh to be directed against himself.
"It is a delightful despotism," said Lady Lindores; "and as we shall
benefit by it in the present case, I entirely approve of Rolls. But I
think, perhaps, if I were you, I would not unfold the whole matter to
Miss Barbara. Your aunt is born a great lady, Mr Erskine. She might take
it as quite right and within the duty of an old retainer; but again, she
might take a different view. For my part, I entirely approve. It is
exactly the right thing to do."
"You are always so kind," said John, gratefully; "and perhaps you will
advise me in matters that are beyond my prime minister's sphere."
"Rolls and I!" she said, laughing; "it is not often a young man has such
a pair of counsellors." Her laugh was so fresh and genuine that it
sounded like the laugh of youth. Her children behind her had their
curiosity greatly excited: Edith with a little wonder, to think what
John could be saying to amuse her mother so much; Rintoul with high
indignation, to see in what favour this country neighbour was held.
"What does my mother mean?" he said, grumbling in Edith's ear. "She will
turn that fellow's head. I never knew anything so out of place. One
would think, to see you with him, that he was--why, your dearest friend,
your,--I don't know what to say."
"Perhaps you had better not say anything, in case it should be something
disagreeable," said Edith, with a sudden flush of colour. "Mr Erskine is
our nearest neighbour--and I hope my mother, at least, does not want any
guidance from you."
"Oh, doesn't she, though!" murmured Rintoul in his moustache. To his own
consciousness his mother was the member of his family who stood the most
in need of his guidance. He thought her the most imprudent woman he had
ever come across, paying no attention to her children's prospects. They
went on thus till they came to the gate, where the Countess of Lindores
was actually to be seen by the woman at the lodge, or by any passing
wayfarer, in her dinner-dress, with nothing but a lace cap on her
head--and Edith, in her white robes and shining hair--saying good-bye to
this rustic neighbour, this insidious squire! Rintoul could not for some
time relieve his soul as he wished. He was compelled to shake hands too,
in a surly way; and it was not till Edith had left them that he
permitted himself to make, as he said, a few remarks to his mother. She
was lingering outside, for it was still daylight though it was night.
"Mother," said Rintoul, solemnly, "I see it's all exactly as I feared.
You have let that fellow Erskine get to be a sort of tame cat about the
house."
"After?" said his mother, with a smile.
"After! well, that's as you choose. But of this you may be sure, mother,
my father won't stand it. It will only make trouble in the house. He
won't let Edith throw herself away. You had better put a stop to it
while you are able. I suspected it from the first moment I knew that
Erskine was here."
"You are very wise, Rintoul," said his mother, with grieved displeasure,
all the pain and disenchantment which she had managed to put aside and
forget coming back into her troubled eyes.
"I don't know if I'm very wise; but I know something of the world," said
the son, who was so much better instructed than she was; "and I know,
when one has charge of a girl, one oughtn't to allow her to throw
herself away."
"Carry is supposed not to have thrown herself away," said the indignant
mother, with a glance towards that centre of her saddest thoughts, the
arrogant front and false battlements of Tinto, faintly gleaming like
royal Windsor itself in the mists of distance. This was all in
contradiction to the changed state of her mind towards Millefleurs and
the gradual leaning towards a great marriage for Edith which had come
over her. But we are never more hot in defence of our own side than when
we have begun to veer towards the other; and Rintoul's lectures had been
for a long time more than his mother could endure.
"No, Carry cannot be said to have thrown herself away," he said
thoughtfully, stroking that moustache which looked so young, while its
owner was so wise and politic. "Carry should remember," he said, after a
pause, "that she's an individual, but the family comprises many
people--heaps of her descendants will be grateful to her, you know. And
if the fellow is unbearable, why, a woman has always got it in her own
hands to make his life a burden to him. Why is she so absurdly domestic?
They have quantities of money, and there are plenty of brutes in society
to keep him in countenance. She ought to come to town and see people,
and enjoy herself. What is the good of living like a cabbage here?"
"If you will persuade Carry to emancipate herself a little--to think of
herself a little--I will forgive you all your worldly-mindedness," said
his mother, with a smile.
"I will try," he said; "and as for my worldly-mindedness, as you call
it, how is a fellow to get on in the world, I should like to know? It
isn't by money _I'll_ ever push my way. I must look out for other ways
and means."
"Does that mean an heiress, Rintoul?"
His mother was half laughing, half serious. But there was no laughter in
Rintoul's countenance. The corners of his mouth were drawn down. His
eyes were as solemn as if the matter in question had been life or death.
"You may be sure I'll do my duty to the family, whether I like it or
not," he said, with heroic gravity. "I don't mean to recommend other
people to do what I'll not do myself."
But Rintoul sighed. He was heroic, indeed, but he was human. A breath of
soft recollections came over him. He, too, had entertained other
thoughts--he had allowed himself to be beguiled to gentler visions. But
when the voice of duty bade, he felt that he had it in him to be
superior to all weaknesses. Come an heiress of sufficient pretensions to
be worthy of the son of Lindores, and he would buckle his manhood to
him, and marry her without wincing. His duty he was at all times ready
to do; but yet to the softer part of life, to the dreams of a youth
unawakened to such stern purposes of heroism, he might yet be permitted
to give a sigh.
John Erskine was the very opposite of this predestined martyr. He felt
no weight of family responsibility upon him. All that he wished was--a
good wish enough, if it had not been altogether beyond possibility of
fulfilment--that the last lord of Lindores had lived to be a patriarch,
and had been succeeded by his son in the course of nature. What a
difference that would have made to everybody concerned! But our young
man did all he could to keep definite plans and hopes out of his mind.
He preferred to get the good of each day as it came. If he thought too
much of them, he felt a dismal certainty that disappointments would
follow. He preferred that his present existence should flow _au jour le
jour_.