The Ladies Lindores · Chapter 23 (1/2)

XXIII

The summer went over without any special incident. August and the grouse approached, or rather the Twelfth approached, August having already come. Every bit of country not arable or clothed with pasture, was purple and brilliant with heather; and to stand under the columns of the fir-trees on a hillside, was to be within such a world of “murmurous sound” as you could scarcely attain even under the southern limes, or by the edge of the sea. The hum of the bees among the heather⁠—the warm luxurious sunshine streaming over that earth-glow of heather-bells⁠—what is there more musical, more complete? These hot days are rare, and the sportsman does not esteem them much; but when they come, the sun that floods the warm soil, the heather that glows back again in endless warmth and bloom, the bees that never intermit their hum “numerous” as the lips of any poet, the wilder mystic note that answers from the boughs of the scattered firs, make up a harmony of sight and sound to which there are few parallels. So Lord Millefleurs thought when he climbed up the hill above Dalrulzian, and looking down on the other side, saw the sea of brilliant moorland, red and purple and golden, with gleams here and there of the liveliest green⁠—fine knolls of moss upon the grey-green of the moorland grass. He declared it was “a new experience,” with a little lisp, but a great deal of feeling. Lady Lindores and Edith were of the party with John Erskine. They had lunched at Dalrulzian, and John was showing his poor little place with a somewhat rueful civility to the Duke of Lavender’s son. Millefleurs was all praise and admiration, as a visitor ought to be; but what could he think of the handful of a place, the small house, the little wood, the limited establishment? They had been recalling the Eton days, when John was, the little Marquis declared, far too kind a fag-master. “For I must have been a little wretch,” said the little fat man, folding his hands with angelical seriousness and simplicity. Lady Lindores, who had once smiled at his absurdities with such genial liking, could not bear them now, since she had taken up the idea that Edith might be a duchess. She glanced at her daughter to see how she was taking it, and was equally indignant with Millefleurs for making himself ridiculous, and with Edith for laughing. “I have no doubt you were the best fag that ever was,” she said.

“Dear Lady Lindores! always so good and so kind,” said Millefleurs, clasping his little fat hands. “No, dearest lady, I was a little brute; I know it. To be kicked every day would have been the right thing for me⁠—and Erskine, if I recollect right, had an energetic toe upon occasions, but not often enough. Boys are brutes in general:⁠—with the exception of Rintoul, who, I have no doubt, was a little angel. How could he be anything else, born in such a house?”

“If you think Lindores has so good an effect, Rintoul was not born there,” she said, laughing, but half vexed: for she had not indeed any idea of being laughed at in her turn, and she was aware that she had never thought Rintoul an angel. But Lord Millefleurs went on seriously⁠—

“Rintoul will despise me very much, and so, probably, will Erskine; but I do not mean to go out tomorrow. I take the opportunity here of breaking the news. If it is as fine as this, I shall come out here (if you will let me) and lie on this delicious heather, watch you strolling forth, and listen to the crack of the guns. No; I don’t object to it on principle. I like grouse, and I suppose that’s the best way to kill them, if you will take so much trouble; but for me, it is not my way of enjoyment. I was not made to be a son of civilisation. Do not laugh, Lady Edith, please; you hurt my feelings. If you take luncheon to the sportsmen anywhere, I will go with you: unless you, as I suppose you will, despise me too.”

“I don’t think it is such a noble thing to shoot birds, Lord Millefleurs.”

“But yet you don’t dislike grouse⁠—and it must be killed somehow,” said John, somewhat irritated, as was natural.

“My dear fellow, I don’t find fault with you. I see your position perfectly. It is a thing you have always done. It is an occupation, and at the same time an excitement, a pleasure. I have felt the same thing in California with the cattle. But it doesn’t amuse me, and I am not a great shot. I will help to carry your luncheon, if Lady Lindores will let me, and enjoy the spectacle of so many healthy happy persons who feel that they have earned their dinner. All that I sympathise in perfectly. You will excuse me saying dinner,” said Millefleurs, with pathos. “When we got our food after a morning’s work we always called it dinner. In many things I have quite returned to civilisation; but there are some particulars still in which I slip⁠—forgive me. May we sit down here upon the heather and tell stories? I had a reputation once in that way. You would not care for my stories, Lady Edith; you know them all by heart. Now this is what I call delightful,” said little Millefleurs, arranging himself carefully upon the heather, and taking off his hat. “You would say it is lovely, if you were an American.”

“Do you mean the moor? I think it is very lovely, with all the heather and the gorse, and the burns and the bees. Out of Scotland, is there anything like it?” Edith said.

“Oh yes, in several places; but it is not the moor, it is the moment. It is lovely to sit here. It is lovely to enjoy one’s self, and have a good time. Society is becoming very American,” said Millefleurs. “There are so many about. They are more piquant than any other foreigners. French has become absurd, and Italian pedantic; but it is amusing to talk a foreign language which is in English words, don’t you know.”

“You are to come back with them to dinner, Mr. Erskine,” Lady Lindores said. She thought it better, notwithstanding her prevailing fear that Millefleurs would be absurd, to leave him at liberty to discourse to Edith, as he loved to discourse. “I hope you are going to have a fine day. The worst is, you will all be so tired at night you will not have a word to bestow upon anyone.”

“I have not too many at any time,” said John, with a glance, which he could not make quite friendly, at the visitor⁠—who was flowing blandly on with his lisp, with much gentle demonstration, like a chemical operator or a prestidigitateur, with his plump hands. Our young man was not jealous as yet, but a little moved with envy⁠—being not much of a talker, as he confessed⁠—of Millefleurs’s fluency. But he had thrown himself at Edith’s feet, and in this position felt no bitterness, nor would have changed places with anyone, especially as now and then she would give him a glance in which there was a secret communication and mirthful comment upon the other who occupied the foreground. Lady Lindores preferred, however, that he should talk to her and withdraw his observation from her daughter. Reluctantly, against the grain, she was beginning in her turn to plot and to scheme. She was ashamed of herself, yet, having once taken up the plan, it touched her pride that it should be carried out.

“I have always found you had words enough whenever you wished to say them,” she said. “Perhaps you will tell me everybody has that. And Lord Lindores tells me you don’t do yourself justice, Mr. Erskine. He says you speak very well, and have such a clear head. I think,” she added with a sigh, “it is you who ought to be in Parliament, and not Rintoul.”

“That is past thinking of,” John said, with a little heightened colour. He thought so himself; but neither could the party bear a divided interest, nor had he himself any influence to match that of Lord Lindores.

“You are going to Tinto on Tuesday,” said Lady Lindores, “with the rest? Do you know, Mr. Erskine, my boy has never met his brother-in-law since that evening here, when some words passed. I never could make out what they were. Not enough to make a quarrel of? not enough to disturb Carry⁠—”

“I do not think so. It was only a⁠—momentary impatience,” John said.

“Mr. Erskine, I am going to ask you a great favour. It is if you would keep in Rintoul’s company, keep by him; think, in a family how dreadful it would be if any quarrel sprang up. The visit will not last long. If you will keep your eye upon him, keep between him and temptation⁠—”

John could not help smiling. The position into which he was being urged, as a sort of governor to Rintoul, was entirely absurd to his own consciousness. “You smile,” cried Lady Lindores, eagerly; “you think what right has this woman to ask so much? I am not even a very old friend.”

“I am laughing at the idea that Rintoul should be under my control; he is more a man of the world than I am.”

“Yes,” said his mother, doubtfully, “that is true. He is dreadfully worldly in some ways; but, Mr. Erskine, I wonder if you will disapprove of me when I say it has been a comfort to me to find him quite boyish and impulsive in others? He is prudent⁠—about Edith for example.”

“About⁠—Lady Edith?” John said, faltering, with a look of intense surprise and anxiety on his face.

There is no doubt that Lady Lindores was herself a most imprudent woman. She gave him a quick sudden glance, reddened, and then looked as suddenly at the other group: Millefleurs, flowing forth in placid talk, with much eloquent movement of his plump hands, and Edith listening, with a smile on her face which now and then seemed ready to overflow into laughter. She betrayed herself and all the family scheme by this glance⁠—so sudden, so unintentional⁠—the action of one entirely unskilled in the difficult art of deception. John’s glance followed hers with a sudden shock and pang of dismay. He had not thought of it before; now in a moment he seemed to see it all. It was an unfortunate moment too; for Edith was slightly leaning forward, looking at her companion with a most amiable and friendly aspect, almost concealing, with the forward stoop of her pretty figure, the rotund absurdity of his. She smiled, yet she was listening to him with all the absorbed attention of a Desdemona; and the little brute had so much to say for himself! The blood all ran away from John’s healthful countenance to replenish his heart, which had need of it in this sudden and most unlooked-for shock. Lady Lindores saw the whole, and shared the shock of the discovery, which to her was double, for she perceived in the same moment that she had betrayed herself, and saw what John’s sentiments were. Some women divine such feelings from their earliest rise⁠—foresee them, indeed, before they come into existence, and are prepared for the emergencies that must follow; but there are some who are always taken by surprise. She, too, became pale with horror and dismay. She ought to have foreseen it⁠—she ought to have guarded against it; but before she had so much as anticipated such a danger, here it was!

“I mean,” she faltered, “that she should⁠—meet only the best people, go to the best houses⁠—and that sort of thing; even that she should be perfectly dressed; he goes so far as that,” she said, with an uneasy laugh.

John did not make any reply. He bowed his head slightly, that was all. He found himself, indeed, caught in such a whirlpool of strange emotion, that he could not trust his voice, nor even his thoughts, which were rushing headlong on each other’s heels like horses broken loose, and were altogether beyond his control.

“But he is himself as impulsive as a boy,” cried the unlucky mother, rushing into the original subject with no longer any very clear perception what it was; “and Mr. Torrance’s manner, you know, is sometimes⁠—offensive to a sensitive person. He does not mean it,” she added hurriedly; “people have such different degrees of perception.”

“Yes⁠—people have very different degrees of perception,” said John, dreamily; he did not mean it as a reproach. It was the only observation that occurred to him; his mind was in too great a turmoil to be able to form any idea. To think he had never budged from his place at her feet, and that all in a moment this should have happened! He felt as if, like a man in a fairy tale, he had been suddenly carried off from the place in which he was, and was hearing voices and seeing visions from some dull distance, scarcely knowing what they meant.

Meanwhile Millefleurs purled on like the softest little stream, smooth English brooklet, without breaks or boulders. He was never tired of talking, and himself was his genial theme. “I am aware that I am considered egoistical,” he said. “I talk of things I am acquainted with. Now, you know most things better than I do⁠—oh yeth! women are much better educated nowadays than men; but my limited experiences are, in their way, original. I love to talk of what I know. Then my life over yonder was such fun. If I were to tell you what my mates called me, you would adopt the name ever after by way of laughing at me: but there was no ridicule in their minds.”

“I hope you don’t think I would take any such liberty, Lord Millefleurs.”

“It would be no liberty; it would be an honour. I wish you would do it. They called me Tommy over there. Now, my respectable name is Julian. Imagine what a downfall. I knew you would laugh: but they meant no harm. I acknowledge myself that it was very appropriate. When a man has the misfortune to be plump and not very tall⁠—I am aware that is a pretty way of putting it; but then, you don’t expect me to describe my personal appearance in the coarsest terms⁠—it is so natural to call him Tommy. I was the nurse when any of them were ill. You have no notion how grateful they were, these rough fellows. They used to curse me, you know⁠—that was their way of being civil⁠—and ask where I had got such soft hands.” Here Millefleurs produced those articles, and looked at them with a certain tenderness. “I was always rather vain of my hands,” he said, with the most childlike naivete, “but never so much as when Jack and Tim d⁠⸺⁠d them, in terms which I couldn’t repeat in a lady’s presence, and asked me where the something I had learned to touch a fellow like that? It occurred to me after that I might have studied surgery, and been of some use that way; but I was too old,” he said, a soft little sigh agitating his plump bosom⁠—“and then I have other duties. Fortune has been hard upon me,” he added, raising pathetically the eyes, which were like beads, yet which languished and became sentimental as they turned upwards. It was when he spoke of Jack and Tim that Edith had looked at him so prettily, bending forward, touched by his tale; but now she laughed without concealment, with a frank outburst of mirth in which the little hero joined with great good-humour, notwithstanding the pathos in his eyes.