The Ladies Lindores (Romance Classic). Mrs. Oliphant
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to dinner! Do you mean to turn it all into ridicule?—oh, not me, that would not matter—but all purity, all fitness? To ask them to—meet him——"
"My dear, my dear!" cried Lady Lindores, half weeping, half angry, appealing and impatient at once. She did not know what to say to this impracticable young judge. "We cannot resort to heroic measures," she cried. "It is impossible. We cannot take her away from him, any more than we can make of him a reasonable man. Carry herself would be the first to say no—for the children's sake, for the sake of her own credit. All we can do is to make the best of what exists. Mr. Torrance must be shown quietly how mistaken he is—how much he is in the wrong."
"Mr. Torrance! I would show him nothing, except how much I scorn him," Edith cried. "A man who dares to torture my sister—a man—who is not worthy to take her name into his lips, with his insolent doubts and his 'Lady Car,' which I cannot endure to hear!"
"But who is her husband, alas! I cannot bear to hear it either; but what can we do? We can take no notice of his insolent doubts; but we must prove, all the same, to all the world——"
"Mother! But if it did so happen—who can tell?—that it had been—poor Edward?"
"Hush!" cried her mother, almost fiercely; and then she added, "God forbid, Edith—God forbid!"
But who could have divined that such preliminaries were necessary to procure the assembling of the little party which met a few evenings later at Lindores, just on the eve of the departure of the family to London for their short enjoyment of the season? John Erskine had been told that it would be merely a family party—his old friends, as Lady Lindores, with kind familiarity and a smile so genial and so charming that the young man must have been a wizard had he seen anything beneath it, assured him. It never occurred to him to think of anything beneath. The Earl had been as cordial, as friendly, as could be desired; and though it gave him a disagreeable sensation to meet, when he entered the room, the stare of Torrance, whose big light eyes seemed to project out of his face to watch the entrance of the stranger, yet he speedily forgot this in the pleasure with which he found himself greeted by the others. Carry walked across the room with a gentle dignity, which yet was very unlike the shy brightness of her old girlish aspect, and held out to him a thin hand. "I think you scarcely remember me," she said, with a soft pathetic smile. She was not, as many women would have been, confused by the recollection that her husband was there jealously watching her looks and her tones: this consciousness, instead of agitating her, gave her a kind of inspiration. In other circumstances, the very sight of one who had been a witness of her brief romance might have disturbed her, but she was steeled against all tremors now.
John could scarcely make her any reply. The change in her was so great that he was struck dumb. Her girlish freshness was gone, her animation subdued, the intellectual eagerness quenched in her eyes. A veil of suffering and patience seemed to fall about her, through which she appeared as at a distance, in another sphere. "Indeed," he said, hesitating, "I should scarcely have known you," and murmured something about his pleasure in seeing her—at which she smiled again sadly, saying nothing more. This was all their greeting. Edith stood by with an unusually high colour, and a tremor of agitation in her frame, which he perceived vaguely with surprise, not knowing what it could mean; and then the little incident was over, half of the company seeing nothing whatever in it but a mere casual encounter of old acquaintances. Besides the family, there were present the girl whom John Erskine began within himself to call "that everlasting Miss Barrington," and the minister of the parish, a man carefully dressed in the costume adopted during the last generation by the Anglican priesthood, who was one of the "new school," and had the distinction of having made himself very alarming to his presbytery as, if not a heretic, yet at least "a thinker," given to preaching about honest doubt, and trifling with German philosophy. These two strangers scarcely afforded enough of variety to change the character of the family party. Torrance devoted himself to his dinner, and for some time spoke but little. Lady Caroline occupied herself with Dr. Meldrum with something of her old eagerness. It was evident that he was her resource, and that vague views upon the most serious subjects, which everybody else thought high-flown, found some sympathy in this professional thinker, who was nothing if not heretical. As for John, he was wholly occupied by Lady Lindores, who talked to him with a fluency which was almost feverish.
"We shall find you here when we come back," she said, "with all your arrangements made? And I hope Rintoul will return with us. Certainly he will be here in August, and very thankful to find a neighbour like you, Mr. Erskine, with whom he will have so much in common."
"That's a compliment to the rest of us," said Torrance, who sat on the other side. "Rintoul, I suppose, doesn't find much in common with us ignorant clowns in the county,"—this he said without looking at any one, with his head bent over his plate.
"I did not say so. Rintoul is not so much with us as I could wish—he has his duty to attend to. To be sure, they get a great deal of leave; but you young men have so many places to go to nowadays. You spend so very little time at home. I wonder if it is a good thing or the reverse," said Lady Lindores, with a little sigh. "A mother may be pardoned for not admiring the new way, when our sons come home, not for us, but for the shooting."
"I think I am scarcely able to judge," said John: "home—perhaps was a little different to me: my mother has so many claiming a share in her. And now my home is here in Dalrulzian, which is merely a house, not a home at all," he said with something between a laugh and a sigh.
"You must marry," Lady Lindores said; "that is what the county expects of you. You will disappoint all your neighbours if you do not accomplish this duty within a year. The question is, whether the lady is already found, or whether we are to have the gratification of seeing you go through all the preliminaries, which is a great amusement, Mr. Erskine; so I hope you have your choice still to make."
It was accident, of course, which directed her eyes to Nora, who sat by Torrance—accident only; for a kind woman, who was herself a mother, would not have willingly done anything to light up the sudden colour which flamed over the girl's face. Nora felt as if she could have sunk into the earth. As for John, it seemed almost an insult to her that he should look at her coldly across the table with studious unconsciousness.
"I am afraid I cannot undertake to furnish amusement for the county," he said, "in that way—and Dalrulzian is not big enough for two people. I had no idea it was so small. It is a bachelor's box, a lodge, a sort of chambers in the country, where one can put up a friend, but nothing more."
Here Nora found a way out of her embarrassment. "Indeed," she cried, "you wrong Dalrulzian, Mr. Erskine. We found it sufficient for our whole family, and the most delightful place to live in. You are not worthy of Dalrulzian if you talk of it so."
"I think Erskine is quite right," said Torrance, between two mouthfuls; "it's a small little bit of a place."
"So is Lindores," the Countess said, eagerly; "there are quantities of small rooms, but no sort of grandeur of space. We must go to Tinto for that. You have not yet seen Tinto, Mr. Erskine? We must not be jealous, for our old nests are more natural. If we were all rich enough to build sets of new rooms like a little Louvre, there would be none of the old architecture left."
"You are speaking about architecture, Lady Lindores," said Dr. Meldrum. He had just returned from his first expedition "abroad," and he was very willing to enlighten the company with his new experiences: besides, just then Lady Caroline was pressing him very hard upon a point which he did not wish as yet to commit himself upon. "Stone and lime are safer questions than evolution and development," he said, turning to her, in an undertone.
"Safer perhaps, but not so interesting. They are ended and settled—arrange them in what form you please, and they stand there for ever," said Lady Caroline, with brightening eyes; "but not so the mind: not so a single thought, however slight it may be. There is all the difference between life and death."
"My dear Lady Caroline! you will not call the Stones of Venice dead—or St. Peter's, soaring away into the skies? Though they are but collections of stones, they are as living as we are."
"I begin to recognise her again," said John, innocent of all reason why he should not fix his attention upon poor Carry, as her pale face