The Ladies Lindores (Romance Classic). Mrs. Oliphant
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see what you'll do when it comes to your turn," he said, and he went off along the passage whistling. It did not matter to him that his sister was breaking her heart. But why, why, oh why does she do it? Edith dozed and woke again half-a-dozen times in the night, crying this out into the silence. To refuse, surely one could do that. Papa might scold, there might be scenes and unhappiness, but nothing could be so unhappy as this. She was incapable of understanding how there could be any difficulty in the case.
The marriage took place, however, in spite of these convulsions, and several years had elapsed since that event. It was an old affair when John Erskine, newly arrived, and full of curiosity and interest, had that encounter with Lady Lindores and her daughter at his own gate, where something of the outline of this story was communicated to him—the facts of it at least. The ladies did not linger upon Carry's marriage in their narrative. He was told of it briefly as an event long over, and to which everybody had got accustomed. And so it was. The most miserable of events settle down into the routine of life when a few years have elapsed. Carry herself long ago had accepted her fate, trying to persuade herself that an unhappy marriage was nothing out of the common, and taking such comfort as was possible in poetry and intellectual musings. Her husband, who neither knew nor cared for anything above his own rude external world, yet felt her poetry to enhance the delicacy of her being, and to raise Lady Car more and more to that height of superiority which was what he had sought in her—was all the better satisfied with his bargain, though all the more separated from any possible point of junction with her. The neighbourhood was very well aware of all the circumstances; and though Lady Lindores entered into no explanations, yet there was a sigh, and a tone in her voice, as she spoke of her daughter, which suggested sorrow. But to tell the truth, young John Erskine, suddenly finding such friends at his very door, suddenly readmitted into the old intimacy, and finding the dull country life to which he had been looking forward flash into sunshine and pleasure, made few inquiries into this darker chapter of the family history; and in reality cared for nothing much but to convince himself that the Lindores family were really his next neighbours; that they were quite willing to receive him on the old footing; and that, demurely walking along the same road on the other side of her mother, saying little but touching the entire atmosphere with a sense of her presence, was Edith Lindores. Perhaps, had he actually been by her side, the sensation being more definite would have been less entrancing. But her mother was between them, animated and pleased by the meeting, ready to tell him all that had happened, and to hear his account of himself, with friendly interest; while beyond her ample figure and draperies, the line of a grey dress, the occasional flutter of a ribbon, the putting forth of a small foot, made the young man aware of the other creature wrapped in soft silence and maidenly reserve, whom he could image to himself all the more completely that he saw no more of her. He scarcely heard her voice as they walked along thus near yet separated; but a great many things that Lady Lindores said were confused by the sound upon the road of her daughter's step—by the appearance of that bit of ribbon, with which the sunny wind did not hesitate to play, floating out in advance of her, catching the young man's eye. Thus all at once, on the very first day after his return, another new existence began for John Erskine on the road between Dalrulzian and Lindores.
CHAPTER VII.
There are few things in human affairs more curious than the structure of what is called society, wherever it is met with, whether in the most primitive of its developments or on the higher levels. The perpetual recurrence of a circle within which the sayings and doings of certain individuals are more important than anything else in earth or heaven, and where the conversation persistently rolls back, whatever may be its starting-point, to what this or that little knot of people are doing, to the eccentricities of one and the banalities of another, to some favourite individual scene of tragedy or comedy which forms the centre of the moral landscape—is always apparent to the observer, whether his observations are made in Kamtchatka or in London, among washerwomen or princesses. But under no circumstances is this so evident as to a new-comer in a region where all the people know each other. The novelty and freshness of his impressions perhaps make him congratulate himself for a moment that now at last he has got into a society fresh and original, with features of its own; but half-a-dozen meetings are enough to prove to him that he has only got into another round, a circle as little extended, as much shut up in its own ring, as all the rest. This was what John Erskine found, with a little amusement and a little disgust, almost as soon as he got settled in his unknown home. Any addition to their society was interesting to the country folks, especially in May, when there is not much doing—when those who can indulge themselves in the pleasures of the season have gone to London, and those who cannot are bound to bring forth their philosophy and prove that they enjoy the country in the early summer, even though there is nothing to do. But a young man unencumbered and alone, with all his life before him, and all his connections to form, is perhaps of all others the most interesting human creature who can come into a new sphere. All the world is curious about him—both those whose lives he may influence, and those to whom he can contribute nothing but the interest, perhaps of a new drama, perhaps only of a new face. He who will enact his own story publicly before the eyes of his neighbours, falling in love, wooing, marrying, or, still better, carrying on these processes with interruptions of non-success and threatenings of postponement, what a godsend he is! and perhaps scarcely less he who brings in darker elements into the placid tenor of the general history, and ruins himself for our instruction, while we all look on with bated breath. To the country-side in general, John Erskine, while as yet unknown, was a new hero. He was the beginning of a romance with all the more fascination in it that the most interested spectator for a long time could form but little idea how it was to turn. As soon as he was known to be at home, his neighbours came down upon him from all quarters with friendly greetings, invitations, offers of kindness on all sides. The first to appear was Sir James Montgomery, a sunburnt and cheerful old soldier, whose small estate of Chiefswood "marched" on one side with Dalrulzian, and who was disposed to be very friendly. He came in beaming with smiles over all his brown jovial countenance, and holding out a large cordial hand.
"Well, young man, so this is you at last. You're heartily welcome home. I've been long away myself, and you've never been here, but we're old neighbours for all that, and I take it upon me to call myself an old friend."
"You are very kind," John said, suffering his hand to be engulfed in that kind, warm, capacious grasp. The old soldier held him at arm's length for a moment, looking at him with friendly eyes.
"I remember your grandfather well," he said; "not so much of your father, for he came to man's estate, and died, poor lad, when I was away; but I see some features of the old man in you, my young friend, and I'm glad to see them. You'll seldom meet with a better man than your grandfather. He was very kind to me as a young lad at the time I got my commission. They were ill able to afford my outfit at home, and I'm much mistaken if old Dalrulzian did not lend a helping hand; so mind you, my lad, if young Dalrulzian should ever want one—a day in harvest, as the proverb goes——"
"You are very kind, sir," said John Erskine again: he was touched, but half amused as well. It seemed so unlikely that he should require the old general's helping hand. And then they talked of the country, and of their previous lives and diverse experiences. Sir James was one of those primitive men, much more usual a generation ago than now, whose knowledge of life, which to his own thinking was profound and extensive, left out the greater part of what in our days is known as life at all. He knew Scotland and India, and nothing more. He was great in expedients for dealing with the natives on one hand, and full of a hundred stories of village humour, fun, and pawkiness on the other. To hear him laugh over one of these anecdotes till the tears stood in his clear, warm blue eyes, which were untouched by any dimness of time, was worth all the witticisms ever printed; and to see him bend his fine old brows over the characteristics of his old subjects in India, and the ameliorations of character produced by British rule, firmness, and justice, was better than philosophy. But with that which young John Erskine knew as life he had no acquaintance. Save his own country and the distant East, the globe was wrapped in dimness to him. He had passed through London often, and had even transacted business at the Horse Guards, though an Indian officer in those