The Ladies Lindores (Romance Classic). Mrs. Oliphant
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it very seriously. I meant your kindness for your own people. But for a kind prejudice, which I admire and respect, for your old neighbours, you never would put up with a being like this Tinto, as they call him—a rich fox-hunter, with the mind of a ploughman."
"You will oblige me, Mary," said her husband, coldly, "by restraining your opinion—at all events until you have a better right to express it. What do you know of Pat Torrance? I should very much prefer that you did not commit yourself on the subject. You might regret it after."
"Commit myself!—regret it!" Lady Lindores gazed at her husband with consternation. She had absolutely no guide to what he could mean; but as he stood to his point and would not yield, and as one must certainly yield when such a question arises, she found herself unwillingly obliged to give in. She was behind her children in comprehension, strange as it seems to say so. Lady Lindores had not been unfavourable to Beaufort's claims when first he made his suit to Carry; but she had been perhaps a little disappointed in him as the years passed on. He had not shown the energy, the determination, which a man in such circumstances ought to show. He had made no passionate effort to obtain his bride, such as Carry's mother felt her child was worth. And it was a long time now since Lady Lindores had taken any notice of the lingering engagement which her husband had never positively sanctioned, but which had lingered on for a year or two, coming to nothing. She had thought it best not to interfere. Perhaps Mr. Beaufort might think it his duty to release Carry, now that her position was so much changed. The mother did not feel that she could ask him to do so; but if anything had happened to the tardy lover—had he been ill, or died, or proved fickle, she would have felt that Providence was interfering on their behalf. In the meantime, she thought it the best policy to say nothing about it. And it was this reticence which she intended for wisdom, which prevented any explanation between them, and kept her ignorant of what even Edith knew. It did not occur to her to connect her child, so delicate and refined, with the rough and coarse squire, whom she could not tolerate. How her husband could put up with him Lady Lindores could not conceive. He certainly meant something by it, she thought; but what did he mean? Was it some scheme of tactics in respect to the next election? which already, she knew, gave Lord Lindores great concern. Perhaps the Earl, who had a devouring ambition, now that he found an opening for it, thought it well to have the richest man in the county under his influence. This was all that she had yet divined. "Your father insists upon having that Mr. Torrance," she said to the girls. "What he can see in him, I cannot imagine. But that does not look at us. We are not called upon to make martyrs of ourselves for papa's political friends."
Carry looked up eagerly as her mother spoke. "Political!" she said, with a quiver of hopeful eagerness in her voice. "Is that the reason?" This eager tone and broken question would have made Lady Lindores wonder had she not been full of the subject from her own point of view.
"What else?" she said. "You cannot suppose a man like your father can find anything else in Mr. Torrance to attract him. Politics are very entrancing, but, like necessity, they bring you acquainted with strange bedfellows. Papa thinks, no doubt, that he ought to turn his influence to account."
"Oh, if that is the reason!" said Carry, clasping her hands together, with something like an ecstasy of prayer and thankfulness in her face. Lady Lindores, though she thought the emotion excessive—but then Carry was always visionary—understood that her daughter's delicate soul had been wounded by her father's regard for so unattractive a person. She patted her child upon the cheek tenderly.
"You must not consider yourself responsible for all the things we do in the prosecution of our several parts," she said. "I feel, for my own part, that I take a great deal too much notice of old Gardener. I am getting much too fond of him. This is more innocent, I allow, than your father's fancy for Mr. Torrance; for I don't insist on asking old Gardener to dinner."
"That I never should object to!" cried Carry, kissing her mother with sudden enthusiasm. She was cheered beyond measure by the comparison, and by Lady Lindores's absolute ignorance of any other pretension on the part of Torrance. Perhaps she had been deceiving herself, and attributing to her father intentions that had never entered his mind. Carry was too thankful to think that this might be how it was. But Edith, the clear-sighted, avoided her sister's eye. She made no comment on what her mother said. Edith felt that, however others might be deceived, she knew.
CHAPTER VI.
Alas! it was not very long before everybody knew. The demeanour of Pat Torrance at the dinner, to which Lady Lindores had been so reluctant to ask him, gave much occasion for thought to the other guests who knew the man and his ways. These said to each other that Pat had put his foot in it at last—that he had made his choice, and thrown his handkerchief at almost the only woman in the county, who was not sure to respond to it. Nothing could have been colder or more repellent than Lady Caroline was to this great matrimonial prize—the idol whom they all bowed down to, though some with minds which rebelled against the rude and ungodlike divinity. Among these interested lookers-on were some who rejoiced to see that he was likely to be made "to see his place" and submit to the humiliation of refusal; and some who, conscious that in their own families there were worshippers who would not have refused to bow down, were angry with poor Carry for "setting up" to be so much better than her neighbours. The most sagacious of these, however, reserved their judgment. There was something in the demonstration with which the Earl brought Pat forward and patted him on the back—something, too, of pain in poor Lady Carry's mild eyes, which made these more profound observers pause. The Lindores were poor. There were two daughters to provide for; and it was not a matter to be settled so easily, or which the parents would allow to turn entirely on a young girl's fancy. And then she was not even pretty, and she had got into the twenties—not a mere girl, with all the world before her. The wise would not give any opinion on the subject. They shook their heads and refused to commit themselves. But this was exactly what Pat Torrance did. He was so satisfied that here at last he had got everything he wanted, that he displayed his decision in Carry's favour from the first day. He made a spectacle of himself to the whole county, looking on with the keenest attention; and oh, how pleased society would have been in the district had he been once for all made an example of, made a fool of, as they said—held up to public scorn and ridicule as a rejected suitor! As the wooing went on, the desire for such a consummation—the anticipation of it—grew daily in intensity; and it was not very long doubtful. One of the usual great balls was given at Tinto, which was specially in honour of the new-comers, and took place as soon as they were out of their mourning. It was evidently a crisis in the life of the master of the house, and to the greater part of the guests all the interest of a highly exciting drama was mingled with the milder impulses of amusement. Lady Caroline, everybody said, had never looked less well. She was very pale;—it was even said that freckles, caused by her sinful exposure of her face to all the elements during the summer, diminished the sheen of her ordinarily white forehead—her nose was longer than ever. But all this only increased, to her admirer, the charm of her presence. She was independent of beauty. Though she was very simply dressed—too simply for a lady of rank—yet the air with which she moved about these fine rooms was (Pat thought) such as no one else who had ever been there had possessed. She was superior to them, as she was superior to the lilies and the roses, the wreathed smiles and shining eyes of the other girls. He followed her about with demonstrations of devotion which no one could mistake. He would have danced with nobody but her, in the most marked abandonment of all his duties as host, would she have permitted him. Even when he danced with others his eyes followed her, and the only talk he vouchsafed to his partners was about Lady Car, as he called her, with offensive familiarity and a sort of intoxication. As for poor Lady Caroline herself, it was apparent to every one that she retreated continually into out-of-the-way corners—hiding herself behind the old maids and dowagers, who were never left out of such gatherings, and liked to come and look on and criticise the girls, and tell how things had been done in their day. Several of these old ladies, distressed to see a girl not dancing, had betrayed poor Carry's hiding-place by their kind efforts to get her a partner; and the result had been two or three times that she was thus delivered over into the very clutches of the wolf.
"Mr.