The Ladies Lindores · Chapter 12 (1/2)

XII

It was a rainy morning when the Lindores went away. They were not rich enough to command all the delights of the London season, and had no house in town, nor any position to keep up which demanded their presence. The Earls of Lindores were merely Scotch lords. They had no place in Parliament, no importance in the realm. Hitherto a succession of unobtrusive but proud country gentlemen, not fond of appearing where their claims were not fully recognised, had borne the name, and contented themselves with their dignity at home, which no one questioned, if perhaps it was never very reverentially regarded. It was enough to them to make a visit to London now and then, to comment upon the noise and bigness of town, to attend a levee and a drawing-room, and to come home well pleased that they had no need to bind themselves to the chariot-wheels of fashion. The late Earl had been entirely of this mind; and the consequence was, that nobody in these busy circles which call themselves Society knew anything about the Lindores. But the present bearer of these honours was of a very different intention. It galled him to be so little though he was so much⁠—the representative of a great race (in his own thinking), and yet nobody, made of no account among his own class. Perhaps Lord Lindores thought all the more of his position that it had not come to him in easy natural succession, but by right of a great family catastrophe, and after his life had been long settled on a different and much humbler basis. It is certain that he had no mind to accept it as his predecessors had done. He meant to vindicate a position for himself, to assert his claim among the best. What he intended in his heart was to turn his old Scotch earldom into a British peerage by hook or crook, and in the meantime to get himself elected a representative peer of Scotland, and attain the paradise of hereditary legislatorship by one means or another. This was his determination, and had been so from the moment when the family honours came to him. In the very afternoon of the solemn day when he heard of the death of his brother, and his own entirely unlooked-for elevation, this is what he resolved upon. He had withdrawn to his own room to be alone⁠—to consider the wonderful revolution which had taken place, and, if he could, to expend a tear upon the three ended lives which had opened up that position to him⁠—when this intention first rose in his mind. As a matter of fact, he had been sad enough. The extinction of these lives, the transference to himself of the honours which, for aught he knew, might be taken from him tomorrow, was too startling to be otherwise than sad. He had retired within himself, he had compelled himself to think of the poor boy Rintoul dead in his bloom, of the heartbroken father who had followed him to the grave, and to represent to himself, with all the details most likely to move the heart, that terrible scene. And he had been satisfied to feel that he was sad⁠—that the natural woefulness of this spectacle had moved him enough even to counterbalance the tremor and elation of this extraordinary turn of fortune. But his very sadness and overwhelming sense of a visible fate working in the history of his family, gave him an impulse which was not ungenerous. On the instant, even while he solicited the moisture in his eyes to come the length of a tear, the thought leapt into his mind that if he was spared, if he had time to do anything, it should not be merely a Scotch earldom that he would transmit to his son. At last Lindores had come into the possession of one who knew what he wanted, and meant to obtain it. His family, which had suffered so much, should no longer be pushed aside among the titled nobodies. It should have its weight in the councils of the sovereign and in the history of the kingdom. “The house shall not suffer because I have come to the head of it,” he cried. He felt that he could compensate it for the series of misfortunes it had endured, by adding importance and dignity to the name. He made up his mind, then, that when his son succeeded him it should be as a peer of the realm. And it was to this end and with this inspiration that so great a change had come upon him. For this he had set his heart upon making his county a model for every shire in England. To this end he had determined to wrest the seat from the Tory representative, and put in his son in the Liberal interest. A seat so important gained, an influence so great established, what Ministry could refuse to the representative of one of the oldest families in the North the distinction which ought to have been his long before?

Nobody suspected the Earl’s meaning in its fullest extent. Old Miss Barbara Erskine was the only one who had partly divined him; but of all the people who did not understand his intention, the wife of his bosom was the first. To her high mind, finely unsuspicious because so contemptuous of mean motives, this little ambition would perhaps have seemed pettier than it really was; for if nobility is worth having at all, surely it is best to possess all its privileges. And perhaps, had Lady Lindores been less lofty in her ideal, her husband would have been more disposed to open his inmost thoughts to her, and thus correct any smaller tendency. It was this that had made him insist upon Carry’s marriage. He wanted to ally himself with the richest and most powerful people within his reach, to strengthen himself in every way, extending the family connection so that he should have every security for success when the moment came for his great coup. And he was anxiously alive to every happy chance that might occur for the two of his children who were still to marry⁠—anxious yet critical. He would not have had Rintoul marry a grocer’s daughter for her hogsheads, as Miss Barbara said. He would have him, if possible, to marry the daughter of a Minister of State, or some other personage of importance. He intended Rintoul to be a popular Member of Parliament, a rising man altogether, thinking he could infuse enough of his own energy as well as ambition into the young man to secure these ends. And this great aim of his was the reason why he underwent the expense of a season, though a short one, in town. He was of opinion that it was important to keep himself and his family in the knowledge of the world, to make it impossible for any fastidious fashionable to say, “Who is Lord Lindores?” The Earl, by dint of nursing this plan in his mind, and revealing it to nobody, had come to think it was a great aim.

It was, as we have said, a rainy morning when the family left Lindores. They made the journey from Edinburgh to London by night, as most people do. But before they reached Edinburgh, there was a considerable journey, and those two ferries, of which Rolls had reminded Colonel Barrington. Two great firths to cross, with no small amount of sea when the wind is in the east, was no such small matter. Lady Caroline had driven over in the morning to bid her mother goodbye, and it was she who was to deposit Nora Barrington at Chiefswood, where her next visit was to be paid. There had been but little conversation between the mother and daughter on the subject of that scene which Edith had witnessed, but Lady Lindores could not forbear a word of sympathy in the last half-hour they were to spend together. They were seated in her dressing-room, which was safe from interruption. “I do not like to leave you, my darling,” Lady Lindores said, looking wistfully into her daughter’s pale face.

“It does not matter, mother. Oh, you must not think of me, and spoil your pleasure. I think perhaps things go better sometimes when I have no one to fall back upon,” said poor Lady Caroline.

“Oh, Carry, my love, what a thing that is to say!”

Carry did not make any reply at first. She was calm, not excited at all. “Yes; I think perhaps I am more patient, more resigned, when I have no one to fall back upon. There is no such help in keeping silence as when you have no one to talk to,” she added, with a faint smile.

Her mother was much more disturbed in appearance than she. She was full of remorse as well as sympathy. “I did not think⁠—I never knew it was so bad as this,” she said, faltering, holding in her own her child’s thin hands.

“What could it be but as bad as this?” said Carry. “We both must have known it from the beginning, mother. It is of no use saying anything. I spoke to Edith the other day because she came in the midst of it, and I could not help myself. It never does any good to talk. When there is no one to speak to, I shall get on better, you will see.”

“In that case, it is best for us to be away from you⁠—Carry, my darling!” Lady Lindores was frightened by the wild energy with which her daughter suddenly clutched her arm.

“Oh no, no! don’t think that. If I could not look across to Lindores and think there was someone there who loved me, I should go out of my senses. Don’t let us talk of it. How curious to think you are going away where I used always to wish to go⁠—to London! No, don’t look so. I don’t think I have the least wish to go now. There must be ghosts there⁠—ghosts everywhere,” she said, with a sigh, “except at home. There are no ghosts at Tinto; that is one thing I may be thankful for.”

“I don’t think,” said her mother, with an attempt to take a lighter tone, “that London is a likely place for ghosts.”

“Ah, don’t you think so? Mother,” said Carry suddenly, “I am afraid of John Erskine. He never knew of what happened⁠—after. What so likely as that he might have people to stay with him⁠—people from town?”

“Nobody⁠—whose coming would make any difference to us⁠—would accept such an invitation, Carry. Of that you may be sure.”

“Do you think so, mother?” she said; then added, with some wistfulness, “But perhaps it might be thought that no one would mind. That must be the idea among people who know. And there might be, you know, a little curiosity to see for one’s self how it was. I think I could understand that without any blame.”

“No, I do not think so⁠—not where there was any delicacy of mind. It would not happen. A chance meeting might take place anywhere else; but here, in our own country, oh no, no!”

“You think so?” said Lady Caroline: perhaps there was a faint disappointment as well as relief in her tone. “I do not know how or why, but I am afraid of John Erskine,” she said again, after a pause.

“My dearest! he brings back old associations.”

“It is not that. I feel as if there was something new, some other trouble, coming in his train.”

“You were always fanciful,” her mother said; “and you are feverish, Carry, and nervous. I don’t like to leave you. I wish there could be someone with you while we are away. You would not ask Nora?”

“I am better without company,” she said, shaking her head. “In some houses guests are always inconvenient. One never knows⁠—and indeed, things go better when we are alone. Don’t vex yourself about me. There is the carriage. And one thing more⁠—take care of Edith, mother dear.”

“Of Edith? But surely! she will be my constant companion. Why do you say take care of Edith, Carry?”

“I think I have a kind of second-sight⁠—or else it is my nerves, as you say. I feel as if there were schemes about Edith. My father will want her⁠—to marry⁠—that is quite right, I suppose; and in town she will see so many people. I am like an old raven, boding harm. But you will stand by her, mother, whatever happens?”

“Oh, Carry, my darling, don’t reproach me!” cried her mother; “it breaks my heart!”

“Reproach you! Oh, not for the world! How could I reproach my dearest friend⁠—always my best support and comfort? No, no, mamma⁠—no, no. It is only that I am silly with sorrow to see you all go away. And yet I want you to go away, to get all the pleasure possible. But only, if anything should happen⁠—if Edith should⁠—meet anyone⁠—you will be sure to stand by her, mamma?”

“Are you ready? Are you coming? The carriage is waiting,” said Lord Lindores at the door.

Carry gave a little start at the sound of his voice, and her mother rose hastily, catching up a shawl from the sofa on which she had been sitting⁠—a sort of excuse for a moment’s delay. “Let me see that we have got everything,” she said, hurriedly; and coming back, took her daughter once more into her arms. “Take care of yourself⁠—oh, take care of yourself, my darling! and if you should want me⁠—if it should prove too much⁠—if you find it more than you can bear⁠—”

“I can bear anything for a month,” said Lady Caroline, with a smile; “and I tell you, things go better⁠—and you will be all the better of forgetting me for a while, mother dear.”

“As if that were possible, Carry!”

“No, no; thank God, it is not possible! But I shall do very well, and you will not have my white face forever before your eyes. There is my father calling again. Goodbye, mother dear⁠—goodbye!” and as they kissed, Carry breathed once more that prayer, “Take care of Edith!”⁠—in which Lady Lindores read the most tender and heartrending of all reproaches⁠—in her mother’s ear.

They drove to the little station, a large party. Lady Caroline, who was the element of care and sadness in it, made an effort to cast her troubles behind her for the sake of the travellers. As they all walked about on the little platform waiting the arrival of the slow-paced local train, it was she who looked the most cheerful⁠—so cheerful, that her mother and sister, not unwilling to be deceived, could scarcely believe that this was the same being who had been “silly with sorrow” to part from them. Between Lord Lindores and his daughter there had always been a certain shadow and coldness since her marriage; but today, even he seemed to miss the tacit reproach in her look, and to feel at his ease with Carry. Before the train arrived, John Erskine, too, appeared on the platform to say goodbye to his friends. John was by far the most downcast of the party. “I shall vegetate till you come back,” he said to Lady Lindores, not venturing to look at Edith, who listened to him with a smile all the same, mocking his sentiment. She was not afraid of anything he could say at that moment.

“Come and meet us this day month,” she said, “and let us see if you are in leaf or blossom, Mr. Erskine.”

John gave her a reproachful glance. He did not feel in the humour even to answer with a compliment⁠—with a hint that the sunshine which encourages blossom would be veiled over till she came back, though some loverlike conceit of the kind had floated vaguely through his thoughts. When the travellers disappeared at last, the three who remained were left standing forlorn on the platform, flanked by the entire strength of the station (one man and a boy, besides the stationmaster), which had turned out to see his lordship and her ladyship off. They looked blankly at each other, as those who are left behind can scarcely fail to do. Nora was the only one who kept up a cheerful aspect. “It is only for a month, after all,” she said, consoling her companions. But Carry dropped back in a moment out of her false courage, and John looked black as a thundercloud at the well-meant utterance. He was so rude as to turn his back upon the comforter, giving Lady Caroline his arm to take her to her carriage. With her he was in perfect sympathy⁠—he even gave her hand a little pressure in brotherly kindness and fellow-feeling: there was nothing to be said in words. Neither did she say anything to him; but she gave him a grateful glance, acknowledging that mute demonstration. At this moment the stillness which had fallen round the little place, after the painful puffing off of the train, was interrupted by the sound of horse’s hoofs, and Torrance came thundering along on his black horse. Lady Caroline made a hurried spring into the carriage, recognising the sound, and hid herself in its depths before her husband came up.