The Ladies Lindores · Chapter 19 (2/2)

John’s pace slackened at the thought. From the moment when Lady Caroline’s carriage passed him he went slower and slower⁠—still, indeed, turning his face towards the station, but almost hoping that the train would arrive before he did. However, country trains are not of that expeditious character. They do not anticipate the hour, nor the appearance of those who are coming to meet them. When he reached the entrance of the station it was not yet in sight, and he had no further excuse for dallying. But he did not go in. He walked up behind to a spot where he could see without being seen, and there waited, with a sense of humiliation, yet eagerness. It was a very undignified position. If he meant to meet them, he should have done it openly: if he did not intend to do so, he ought to have gone away. But John did neither: he watched them coming with his heart in his mouth; but he did not go forward to greet them when they came. He saw them get out of the carriage one by one. He saw the hurried embrace and greeting of Lady Car to her mother and sister. Then there could not be any doubt about it. Edith gave a searching glance all about, sweeping the highway with her glance both up and down. She was looking for someone. Who was it? Something of the elation of the morning came back into his mind. For whom was she looking? She even stood for a moment shading her eyes with her hand before she followed her mother to the carriage, to cast another glance round her. Could it be that she was looking for⁠—oh, never mind who she was looking for, John cried to himself, springing over a wall or two, and speeding along by all the turns he could think of, till he reached a point of the road where he turned and came quickly back. He had resolution enough to forego the greeting at that first moment of arrival; but the chance of still seeing them, and thus saving both his pride and his pleasure, seduced him from all higher thoughts of self-abnegation. He walked on slowly, but with his heart beating, and at length heard the roll of the wheels coming towards him, the sound of voices in the air. The family were all together in one carriage, all joyful and beaming in the reunion. Even Lady Car’s pale face was lighted with smiles; and Lord Lindores, if he did not take much part in the family talk, did not frown upon it. The coachman drew up of himself as John appeared, and Lady Lindores called to him almost before the carriage stopped. “Late, Mr. Erskine, late!” she cried. “Carry told us you were coming to meet us.” John was half wounded, half consoled by the accusation; he could not hear himself blamed without an impulse of self-defence. “Indeed I was not late; I saw you arrive; but I thought⁠—you might think⁠—it seemed presumptuous to thrust myself in.” “Why, here is chivalry!” said Lady Lindores with a smile, giving him her hand. And then the flutter of conversation was resumed, one voice interrupting another, putting questions to which there was no answer, and making statements to which nobody paid any attention. John stood and nodded and smiled by the side of the carriage for a minute or two. And then that moving little world of expressive faces, of hasty words, understood à demi-mot, of hearts so closely united, yet so different, swept past him again with ringing of the horses’ hoofs and jingle of the harness, and lively murmur of the voices. It swept past, and John was left⁠—why, just as he had been before⁠—just as he knew he would be left⁠—out of it⁠—altogether out of it! as he knew very well he should be. He walked along the way he had been going, away from his own house, away from anywhere that he could possibly want to go, plodding very silently and solemnly along, as if he had some serious purpose, but meaning nothing⁠—thinking of nothing. What a fool he was! Had he even for a moment expected to be taken away with them, to follow them up to Lindores, to be admitted into all their first talk and confidence? Not he: he had known well enough that his place was outside⁠—that a roadside greeting, a genial smile, a kindly hand held out, was all the share he could have in the pleasure of the homecoming. Nothing more⁠—what could there be more? He knew all that as well as he knew anything. Why then was he such an idiot as to walk on mile after mile he did not know where, with his head down, and the most deadly seriousness depicted on his countenance? At length he burst into a sudden short laugh, and turning back went home slowly. Never had his house looked so dreary, so secluded, so shut in before. He went in and ate his dinner humbly, without a word (so people say) to throw at a dog. He had been quite aware that he was to dine alone; he knew exactly the dimensions of the room, the shabby air of the old furniture, the lowness of the roof⁠—why then should he have been so depressed by all these familiar objects? There was nothing at all to account for it, except that event which had filled him with such delightful anticipations, and brightened earth and heaven to him this morning. They were coming home. They had come home. This, which was enough to change the very temperature, and turn earth into heaven, was now the cause of a depth of moral depression which seemed to cloud the very skies; and this without any unkindness, any offence, anything that he had not fully expected, and been certain would happen. But human nature is very fantastic, and so it was.

“You would hear, sir,” said old Rolls, “that my lord and her ladyship, they’ve come home.”

“Oh yes; I have just met them; all very well and very bright,” said John, trying to assume an air of satisfaction. What he did succeed in putting on was a look of jaunty and defiant discontent.

“They would naturally be bright coming out of that weary London to their own place,” said Rolls, with grave approbation. And then he added, after a pause, “You’ll be thinking now, sir, of making some return of a’ the ceevilities that’s been shown you.”

“Making a return!” this was a new idea to John. He looked up at the Mentor who condescended to wait upon him, with alarm and almost awe. “To be sure⁠—you are quite right, Rolls,” he said, with humility; “I wonder I did not think of it before. But can we?” John looked round ruefully at his old walls.

“Can we?” cried Rolls in high disdain. “You neither ken me, nor Bauby, nor yet yourself, to ask such a question. If we can! That can we! If you’ll take my advice, ye’ll include a’ classes, sir. Ye’ll have the elders to their denner; and the youngsters, ye’ll give a ball to them.”

“A ball!” cried John, opening his eyes. The boldness of the suggestion, the determined air with which Rolls faced his master, setting down his foot as one who was ready to face all dangers for the carrying out of a great design, touched the humorous sense in the young man’s mind. He laughed, forgetting the previous burden of his desolation. “But how to give a ball, Rolls,” he said, “in this small house?”

“I ask your pardon, sir,” said Rolls, gravely. “In the light o’ Tinto, maybe it’s a small house; but Tinto never was a popular place. Oh ay, there were balls there, when he was a Seeker himsel’⁠—I’m meaning when he was looking out for a wife, before he married her ladyship, poor thing! But this is not a small house if ye consider the other houses, where everything that’s lightsome goes on. And it’s you that’s the Seeker now. You’re wanting a leddy yoursel’⁠—that stands to reason.”

Here John felt that he ought to be angry, and shut the mouth of so inappropriate a counsellor. But Rolls had no sense of his own inappropriateness. He went on calmly, notwithstanding the laugh and exclamation with which his master interrupted him.

“That’s aye an attraction,” said the old servant. “I’m not saying, sir, though I think far more of you in a moral point of view⁠—that ye’re the equal of Tinto as a worldly question. Na, we must keep a hold of reason. Ye’re no’ a grand catch like the like o’ him. But ye’re far better; ye’re a son-in-law any gentleman in the countryside might be proud o’; and any lady, which is far mair important⁠—”

“Come, Rolls, no more of this,” cried John. “A joke is a joke; but you know you are going too far.”

“Me joking! I’m most serious in earnest, sir, if you’ll believe me. I served the house before you were born. I was here when your father brought his wife home. Na, I’m not joking. I’m thinking what’s best for my maister and the credit of the house. The haill county will come; and if ye think we’re not enough to wait upon them, there’s Andrew will put on his blacks; and that sma’ groom of yours⁠—I would have likit him bigger⁠—is a smart lad, though he’s little. The three of us will do fine. I would recommend a denner, say the Wednesday. I’m fond of the middle of the week, no’ too near the Sabbath-day, neither one side nor the other. The denner on Wednesday; and syne on Thursday night the ball. There would be cauld things left that would eke out the supper, and it would all be like one expense. The fiddlers you could have from Dundee, or even Edinburgh. And the eatables⁠—there would be no difficulty about that. We mostly have them within ourselves. Chickens is aye the staple at a supper. And I make bold to say, sir, though she is my sister, that there’s no person can tell what Bauby Rolls is capable of till they’ve seen her try.”

“Rolls,” cried John, “you’re ideas are too magnificent; you take away my breath.”

“No’ a bit, sir; no’ a bit,” said Rolls, encouragingly; “if ye’ll leave it to me, I’ll take all the trouble. We have always said⁠—Bauby and me⁠—that if we were just left to ourselves⁠—You will make out the list, sir, and settle the day, and send the invitations; and if I might advise, I would say to consult with Miss Barbara, who naturally would come over for the occasion, as being your next friend, and take the place of the mistress; and to send for some of your friends (I would recommend officers for choice) would not be a bad thing; for young men are aye scarce in the country, mair especially at this time of the year. We could put up half-a-dozen,” Rolls proceeded, “and trouble nobody; and that would be a great help if they were good dancers, and fine lads⁠—which I make no doubt, sir,” he added, with a little inclination of his head, “friends o’ yours would be.”

This unexpected new idea was of great service to John in the dreariness of the long summer evening. He laughed loud and long, and was infinitely tickled by the gravity of the project in which Rolls saw no laughing matter; but when he strolled listlessly along the Walk in the long, long, endless light, with no better companion than a cigar, with wistful eyes which sought the clear wistful horizon far away, and thoughts that seemed to fill the whole wide atmosphere with an unreal yet unconquerable sadness, the idea of making this silence gay, and seeing her here who had come home, who had changed the world, but not for him; but who yet for him⁠—who could tell?⁠—might still turn earth into heaven⁠—seized upon him with a curious charm. A ball at Dalrulzian would not be a very magnificent entertainment, nor was there anything very elevated or poetical in the idea. But there are certain conditions of mind and moments of life in which that vague terrestrial paradise which belongs to youth is always very close at hand, and ready to descend by the humblest means, by almost any machinery, out of the skies, making of the commonest territory enchanted ground.