The Ladies Lindores · Chapter 14 (1/2)

XIV

The present writer has already confessed to a certain disinclination to venture upon any exposition of the manners and customs of the great; and should an attempt be made to thread the mazes of the season, and to represent in sober black and white the brilliant assemblies, the crowded receptions, the drawing-rooms and ballrooms and banqueting-rooms, all full of that sheen of satin and shimmer of pearls which only the most delicate manipulation, the lightest exquisite touch, can secure? Could the writer’s pen be dipped in tints as ethereal as those which fill the brush (if that is not too crude a word) of the accomplished President, then perhaps the task might be attempted; but common ink is not equal to it. Though Lady Lindores was negligent of her duties, and did not give herself up as she ought to have done to the task of getting invitations and doing her daughter justice, yet her shortcomings were made up by the superior energy and knowledge of her husband and son. And as a matter of fact, they went everywhere, and saw a great deal of society. So far were they from being under the standard at that Chiswick fête, as Rintoul nervously anticipated, that the graceful mother and pretty daughter were noticed by eyes whose notice is the highest distinction, and inquired into with that delightful royal curiosity which is so complimentary to mankind, and which must be one of the things which make the painful trade of sovereignty tolerable. Both the ladies, indeed, had so much succès, that the anxious young Guardsman, who stalked about after them, too much disturbed to get any satisfaction in his own person, and watching their demeanour as with a hundred eyes, gradually allowed the puckers in his forehead to relax, and went off guard with a sigh of relief. Rintoul was more than relieved⁠—he was delighted with the impression produced by Edith’s fresh beauty. “Oh, come! she’s a pretty little thing, if you please; but not all that,” he said, confused by the excess of approbation accorded to her by some complimentary friend. There was one drawback, however, to this satisfaction, and that was, that neither did Edith “mind a bit” who was introduced to her, who danced with her, or took her down to dinner⁠—whether a magnificent young peer or a penniless younger son; nor, still more culpable, did her mother pay the attention she ought to this, or take care as she ought that her daughter’s smiles were not thrown away. She was known once, indeed, to have⁠—inconceivable folly!⁠—actually gone the length of introducing to Edith, in a ballroom bristling with eligible partners, a brilliant young artist, a “painter-fellow,” the very last person who ought to have been put in the girl’s way. “If a girl goes wrong of herself, and is an idiot, why, you say, it’s because she knows no better,” Rintoul said; “but when it’s her mother!” The young painter danced very well, and was bright and interesting beyond, it is to be supposed, the general level; and he hung about the ladies the whole evening, never long away from one or the other. Rintoul felt that if it happened only one other evening, all the world would say that there was something going on, and possibly some society paper would inform its anxious readers that “a marriage is arranged.” On the other hand, that evening was marked with a white stone on which the young Marquis of Millefleurs, son of the Duke of Lavender, made himself conspicuous as one of Edith’s admirers, pursuing her wherever she went, till the foolish girl was disposed to be angry; though Lady Lindores this time had the sense to excuse him as being so young, and to add that he seemed “a nice sort of boy,”⁠—not a way, certainly, to recommend so desirable an adorer to a fanciful girl, but still perhaps, in the circumstances, as much as could be expected. Lady Lindores received with great composure a few days after, an announcement from her husband that he had asked the youth to dinner. She repeated her praise with a perfectly calm countenance⁠—

“I shall be glad to see him, Robert. I thought him a mere boy, very young, but frank and pleasant as a boy should be.”

“I don’t know what you call a boy. I believe he is four-and-twenty,” said Lord Lindores, with some indignation; and then he added in a subdued tone, as knowing that he had something less easy to suggest, “I have asked someone else whom you will probably not look on in the same light. I should much rather have left him out, but there was no getting Millefleurs without him. He has been travelling with him as a sort of tutor-companion, I suppose.” Here he seemed to pause to get up his courage, which was so remarkable that his wife’s suspicions were instantly aroused. She turned towards him with a look of roused attention.

“I don’t hesitate to say that I am sorry to bring him again in contact with the family. Of course the whole affair was folly from beginning to end. But the young fellow himself behaved well enough. There is nothing against him personally, and I am rather willing to let him see that it has entirely passed from our minds.”

“Of whom are you speaking?” cried Lady Lindores.

The Earl actually hesitated, stammered, almost blushed, so far as a man of fifty is capable of blushing. “You remember young Beaufort, whom we saw so much of in⁠—”

“Beaufort!” cried Lady Lindores⁠—“Edward!” her voice rose into a sort of shriek.

“He certainly was never Edward to me. I thought it best, when Millefleurs presented him to me, to receive him at once as an old acquaintance. And I hope you will do so also, without any fuss. It is very important that it should be made quite clear we have no fear of him, or feeling in the matter.”

“Edward!” Lady Lindores said again. “How can I receive him as if I had no feeling in the matter? He has called me mother. I have kissed him as Carry’s future husband. Good heavens! and Carry poor Carry!”

“I did not know you had been such a fool,” he cried, reddening; then after a pause, “I see no reason why Carry should be called poor. Her position at home is in some points better than our own. And it is not necessary to tell Carry of everyone who enters this house, which is so much out of her way.”

“My poor child, my poor child!” the mother said, wringing her hands. “She divined this. She had a fear of something. She thought John Erskine might invite him. Oh, you need not suppose this was ever a subject of conversation between us!⁠—but it seems that Mr. Torrance suspected John Erskine himself to be the man. Edith surprised them in the midst of a painful scene on this subject, and then Carry told me of her terror lest John should invite⁠—she did not say whom. It was not necessary between us to name any names.”

“What did Torrance know about ‘the man’? as you say; what had he to do with it? You women are past bearing. This was some of your confidences, I suppose.”

“It was Carry’s own communication to the man who is her husband. She thought it her duty, poor, poor child!⁠—and now, is it I that am to be made the instrument of further torture?” Lady Lindores cried.

“The instrument of⁠—fiddlesticks! This is really not a subject for heroics,” said her husband, fretfully. “I ask you to receive as an acquaintance merely⁠—no intimacy required of you⁠—a man against whom I know nothing. These absurd passages you refer to, I had no knowledge of. It was idiotic; but fortunately it is all over, and no harm done. For Carry’s sake even, that nobody may be able to say that there was any embarrassment on her account, it seems to me your duty to receive him⁠—especially as his coming involves Millefleurs.”

“What do I care for that boy? What do you want with that boy?” Lady Lindores cried. She did not show her usual desire to please and soothe him, but spoke sharply, with an impatience which she could not control.

“Whatever my reason may be, I hope I have a right to invite Millefleurs if I please,” said the Earl, with a cloudy smile, “and his companion with him, whoever he may be.”

Lady Lindores made no reply, nor was there anything further said between them on the subject. The intimation, however, almost overwhelmed the woman, who in these last years had learned to contemplate her husband in so different a light. Enough has been said about the tragical unworthiness which tears asunder those who are most closely bound together, and kills love, as people say, by killing respect. To kill love is terrible, but yet it is an emancipation in its way; and no man or woman can suffer for the unworthiness of one whom he or she has ceased to love, with anything approaching the pain which we feel when those who never can cease to be dear to us fall into evil. And love is so fatally robust, and can bear so many attacks! Lady Lindores, who divined her husband’s motives, and the unscrupulous adherence to them through thick and thin which would recoil from nothing, suffered from that and every other discovery that he was not what she had thought him, with bitter pangs, from which she would have been free had he ceased to be the first object of her affections. But that he could never cease to be; and his faults tore her as with red-hot pincers. She could not bear to think of it, and yet was obliged to think of it, unable to forget it. That he should not shrink from the embarrassment and pain of renewing an acquaintance so broken up, when it happened to appear to him useful for his own ends, was more to her than even the pain she would feel in herself receiving the man who might have been Carry’s husband⁠—whom Carry had, as people say, jilted in order to marry a richer rival. How could she look him in the face, knowing this? How could she talk to him without allusion to the past? But even bad as this was, it was more heartrending still to think why it was that he was invited. She had to explain it to Edith too, who was thunderstruck. “Edward! you don’t mean Edward, mamma?” “Yes, my darling, I mean Edward, no one else. He must not be Edward now, but Mr. Beaufort, to you and me. Your father was obliged to ask him, for he was with Lord Millefleurs.” “But what does he want with Lord Millefleurs? I would rather have had nobody in the house till we go home than ask Edward. And what, oh what will you say to Carry, mamma?” “We must say nothing,” the mother cried, with a quivering lip. “It must not be breathed to her. Thank heaven, we have no old servants! At all costs Carry must not know.” “I thought you said, mamma, that there never was such a thing as a secret⁠—that everything was known?” “And so I did,” cried Lady Lindores, distracted. “Why do you remind me of what I have said? It is not as if I could help it. We must stand firm, and get through it as well as we can, and think as little as we can of what may follow. There is no other way.” This was how Lady Lindores bore the brunt of her child’s inquiries. As for Lord Rintoul, he declared that he understood his father perfectly. “If Beaufort were left out, he’d fill Millefleurs’s mind with all sorts of prejudices. I’d rather not meet the fellow myself; but as it can’t be helped, it must be done, I suppose,” he said. “He will never say anything, that is certain. And what can that boy’s opinion be to us?” said Lady Lindores. Her son stared at her for a moment open-eyed. “Mamma, you are the most wonderful woman I ever knew,” he said. “If you don’t mean it, it’s awfully clever; and if you do mean it, you are such an innocent as never was seen. Why, don’t you know that everybody is after Millefleurs? He is the great match of the season. I wish I thought Edith had a chance.” Lady Lindores covered her face with her hands, hating the very light. Her boy, too! They pursued their ignoble way side by side with her, scarcely believing that it was possible she did not see and share their meaning, and in her heart approve of all their efforts.

“What is wrong now?” said Rintoul. “I declare I never know what to say. Sometimes you take things quite easily. Sometimes you will flare up at nothing at all.”

“Do you think it is nothing at all that your sister and I should be brought into what you yourselves call a husband-hunt?” cried Lady Lindores. “Have you not told me of a dozen women who are trying to catch this man and that? Don’t you think it is ignominious to expose us to the same reproach? Perhaps they are just as innocent of it as I.”

“Oh, trust them for that,” said Rintoul, with a laugh. “Of course it is said of everybody. It will be said of you just the same; we can’t help that. But surely you can see yourself⁠—even you can see⁠—that when a fellow like Millefleurs actually puts himself out of the way to come after a girl like Edith⁠—”

“Robin!” cried his mother (a little accès of passion seized her). “Do you think Edith⁠—Edith, your sister⁠—is not worth a hundred boys like this Millefleurs? What do you mean by coming out of his way? Is it the fashion now that girls like Edith should put themselves at the disposal of a little jackanapes⁠—a bit of a boy⁠—a⁠—”

“Don’t lose your temper, mamma,” said the young man, with a laugh. “But now you’ve had it out,” said this wise son, “only just be reasonable, and think a moment. Millefleurs is a great catch. There’s not such a big fish to be landed anywhere; and Edith is no better than a hundred others. Do hear a fellow out. She’s very pretty and nice, and all that; but there’s heaps of pretty, nice girls⁠—and the prettier they are, and the nicer they are, the less they have a penny to bless themselves with,” he added, in a regretful parenthesis. “There’s a hundred of them, and there’s only one of him. Of course he knows that well enough. Of course he knows it’s a great thing when he lets a girl see that he admires her; and if her people are such fools as to let him slip through their fingers for want of a little trouble⁠—why, then, they deserve to lose their chance⁠—and that’s all I can say,” Rintoul said.

Once more Lady Lindores was silenced. What was the use of saying anything? Indignation was out of place, or anything that she could say of love profaned and marriage desecrated. To speak of the only foundation of a true union to this world-instructed boy⁠—what would be the use of it? She swallowed down as best she could the bitterness, the pain, the disappointment and contempt, which it is anguish to feel in such a case. After a while she said with a smile, commanding herself, “And you, Robin, who are so clever as to know all this, are you too a catch, my poor boy? are you pursued by mothers, and competed for by girls?⁠—not, of course, to the same extent as Lord Millefleurs⁠—I recognise the difference; but something, I suppose, in the same way?”

“Well,” said Rintoul, caressing his moustache, “not to the same extent, as you say, and not in the same way perhaps. I’m nobody, of course, when Millefleurs is there; but still, you know, when there’s no Millefleurs on the horizon⁠—why, one has one’s value, mother. It’s an old title, for one thing, and Scotch estates, which people think better than they are, perhaps. They don’t throw heiresses at my head; but still, you know, in a general way⁠—”

As he sat stroking that moustache which was not very mature yet, but rather young and scanty for its age, with a little smile of subdued vanity about his mouth, and a careless air of making light of his advantages, what woman could have helped laughing? But when a mother laughs at her boy, the ridicule hurts more than it amuses her. “I see,” she said. “Then don’t you think, Robin, you who are so clear-sighted, that this young man will see through our attentions, if we pay him attention, and laugh at our efforts to⁠—catch him (that’s the word, is it?), as much as you do yourself?”