The Ladies Lindores · Chapter 33 (1/2)

XXXIII

Rolls went upstairs and dressed himself in his best⁠—his “blacks,” which he kept for going to funerals and other solemnities⁠—not the dress in which he waited at table and did his ordinary business. The coat, with its broad, square tails, gave him an appearance something between that of a respectable farmer and a parish minister⁠—a little too solemn for the one, too secular for the other; and to show that he was “his own man,” and for today at least no man’s servant, he enveloped his throat in a large black silk neckerchief, square in shape, and folded like a substantial bandage with a little bow in the front. His forehead was lined with thought. When he had finished his toilet, he opened the large wooden “kist” which stood in a corner of his room, and was the final receptacle of all his worldly goods. Out of that he took a blue-spotted handkerchief, in which a pocketbook was carefully wrapped up, and took from it a few somewhat dirty pound-notes. Then restoring the pocketbook, he locked the kist carefully, and went downstairs with the key⁠—a very large one⁠—in his hand. This he gave to Bauby, who still hung about the door with her apron to her eyes. “You should go ben to your work, my woman,” said Rolls, “and no make the worst of what’s happened: in a’ likelihood the master will be back afore the dinner’s ready.” “Do you think that, Tammas? do you really think that?” cried Bauby, brightening up and showing symptoms of an inclination to cry for joy as she had done for sorrow. “I’m no’ saying what I think. I’m thinking mony things beyond the power o’ a woman person to faddom,” said Rolls, solemnly. “And if the maister should be back, it’s real possible I mayna be back. You’ll just behave conformably, and put forrit Marget. If she wasna so frightened, she’s no’ a bad notion at a’ of waiting at table. And if there’s ony question where I am, or what’s become of me⁠—”

“Oh, Tammas, what will I say? It will be the second time in a week. He’ll no’ like it,” cried Bauby, diverted from one trouble to another. The absence of her brother when the dinner was ready was almost as extraordinary as her master’s conveyance away to unknown dangers by the functionaries of the law.

“If he’s here to be angry, a’ will be well,” said Rolls, grimly; and then he handed her the key. “If there should be any question about me, when I’m no’ here to answer for myself, you’ll inform whoever it concerns that the kist is yours and everything in it, in proof of which you’ll produce the key. That’s no’ to say but what you’ll respect the bits of things in it, and hand me back possession when I come, soon or late,” said Rolls. “You’ll mind what I say to you, Bauby. It’s yours in the one case, but no’ in the other. You’ll take possession if there is ony other claimant; but me being back, you’ll respect my rights.”

“I wuss I would ken what you meant first,” said Bauby, gazing at him wistfully. Rolls had an air of satisfaction on his face for the first time: he was pleased to have puzzled her. His face relaxed almost into a smile as he said, “According to a’ probabilities, you’ll soon understand that.”

With these words he set out from the hall-door, walking very deliberately, and crushing the pebbles under his feet at every step. He had taken his best silk umbrella, which, loosened from its habitual folds, and used as a stick, made a sort of flapping accompaniment to his progress, like a large bird walking by him. As he turned from the door the solemnity of his aspect returned. He walked slowly, thinking as he went⁠—thinking so profoundly that he scarcely saw Peggy at the lodge, and passed her, taking no notice of her in the gravity of his preoccupation. She said afterwards that it was awfu’ evident he had something on his mind. She told Jean Tamson, who was in the lodge at the moment⁠—come for a crack, and talking of nothing else but this very subject⁠—“I wouldna wonder,” she said, “but Mr. Rolls kens more about it than any of us.” This at least was what she informed the world she had said to her gossip when all was known.

It was four miles to Dunearn; but old Rolls was a steady, good walker, with no irregularity about him. Every step he took was just of the same length as the step before. Yard for yard he did his four miles in the regulated time, neither shorter nor longer. When he arrived at the Town-house, there was a little flutter about the door as of people dispersing; but there had not been any number of people, and though the rumour of what had transpired had begun to blow about the place, there were not as yet many gazers. By-and-by, as he stood outside, his master came out, with one of the emissaries of the morning close by him, and Beaufort behind. John Erskine was pale; but there was a sort of smile on his face⁠—a smile which had no pleasure in it, but some contempt, and that sort of outward looking to heaven and earth, with the head held high, and the nostrils somewhat dilated, which is so often the aspect of a man unjustly accused. He was making light of it to himself⁠—persuading himself that it was nothing and meant nothing. He saw Rolls standing by, and waved his hand to him. “What! have you walked all this way,” he said, “old Truepenny,”⁠—with something of the same levity of despair which dictated the same words to Hamlet⁠—“to see the last of me?”

“It’s not come to that, sir, I hope,” said Rolls, with a seriousness which was as solemn as if what John had said was real. The young man laughed.

“You will pack my portmanteau and send it after me: I suppose I may be allowed that?” he said. The officer who was in attendance bowed his head. The people about gathered round, staring at John with too much surprise to express any other emotion; and by-and-by the party drove off again, nobody apparently divining exactly what it all meant. There were a number of petty cases to be tried by the sheriff, who was in the Town-house, as it was called, and as many different interests as there were loungers about. Rolls went in with hesitating steps after his master had disappeared. The old man had come, in full expectation of the event which had happened; but fact is always different from anticipation. When he saw what he had only looked for, the effect upon him was something overwhelming. He stood staring and gaping in the little crowd which gradually drew together, realising only after it was over what had taken place before their eyes. “What’s wrang with the young maister, Mr. Rolls?” said one of the bystanders. “Let me be!” cried the old man, shaking himself free; and he went into the Town-house with tottering steps. He had intended taking certain bold and immediate steps, carrying out the project he had been framing in his mind; but his nerves were shaken when the moment came. The law terrified him. If his master, in all the strength and confidence of his youth, was thus peremptorily dealt with, what aggravations might not he, an old and humble individual⁠—nothing but a servant⁠—look for? He was cowed. He stole up to an attendant and made faltering inquiries. “What will they have settled about yon case?” he said. “About what case?⁠—the sheep-lifting, or the unlawfu’ wounding, or the robbery at Willyam Tamson’s⁠—” “Nane o’ thae things⁠—nane o’ thae things,” said old Rolls. “It’s about young Mr. Erskine of Dalrulzian.” “Oh, ay, ay,” said the attendant, shaking his head; “that’s very serious. The circumstances a’ point to some agent mair than accident⁠—that’s what the sherra says, and he canna see his way to discharging the panel.” “The panel⁠—he’s nae panel!⁠—mind what you’re saying,” cried Rolls. “Well, maybe that’s going owre fast. I would say the gentleman under suspicion. He maun just bide the result of a mair formal examination⁠—that’s a’ I can tell ye; I have nae time to enter into particulars,” the official said.

Rolls, who had meant such heroic things, turned away tremulously. He went out again, scarcely knowing where he was going, into the streets of Dunearn. There everybody looked at him with curious eyes. The town had at last become conscious of what had happened: from a public-house in the environs a stone had been thrown at John Erskine as he went past, and hootings had risen on his path. This roused the population fully, and now the streets were full of groups discussing the matter. Torrance, as has been said, was popular in his way, especially now in that warmth of pity and charity which follows a sudden and unexpected death; and John Erskine was comparatively unknown. The tide was strongly against him, as a semi-foreigner⁠—a man who had come from “abroad.” “He’ll find here that gentle and simple must keep the laws alike,” said one. “A man daurna ride roughshod over his fellows here.”

Old Rolls heard the growl of popular excitement, and it alarmed him still more. “If it was me they would tear me in bits,” he said to himself. His alarm on this point, as much as his original intention, drove him in at Mr. Monypenny’s door, which was in his way. He was afraid of being recognised as the butler at Dalrulzian (“for everybody kens me,” he said to himself, with mingled pride and panic), and he was anxious to consult the “man of business” who had Dalrulzian estate in his hands.

Mr. Monypenny was out; and Rolls requested permission to sit down and wait. He had a long time of quiet to think over his plan again, and he did think it over, and recovered his courage. After a time Mrs. Monypenny, hearing who it was, sent to request him to have some cold beef in the kitchen, an offer of which Rolls availed himself at once. “For what is the use of punishing yourself?” he said. “A man’s more qualified for everything when he has eaten his dinner.” He was very serious, and unlike his usual cheerfully communicative mood, in Mr. Monypenny’s kitchen. The maids did not know what had come over him. To have such a grand subject of discourse as his master’s arrest, and yet to be so silent, struck them with astonishment; but they, too, remarked his perturbed countenance afterwards, and said to one another, “I told you there was mair in him than met the eye.”

Meanwhile Miss Barbara and her young companion had been driving up and down in the pony-carriage in a state of great excitement. They had passed the Town-house half-a-dozen times, always looking for the reappearance of John; but he, as was to be expected, had come out and gone away in the interval between. Miss Barbara had maintained during the whole time a lively monologue, scarcely interrupted by her young companion. “I’ve heard what they daured to say,” Miss Barbara cried; “as if one of my family would stoop to soil his fingers with any Tinto of them all! What were the Torrances but bonnet-lairds till old Torrance married the railway man’s daughter? But I never thought they would have dared to do anything against an Erskine. Times are changed. (Go round by the Stone Bridge, Nora; it’s an easier road for the pony.) What would my father have said if he had heard a descendant of his evened with one of that race? That’s what your Radicalism comes to.”

“But death is the same, whether it comes to a saint or⁠—a bully; and life has to be protected,” said Nora, fired with political ardour.

“Life⁠—and death. They’re grand words to use: a drunk man falling over a steep bank that it was the wonder of the whole countryside he had not gone over years and years before.”

Nora did not say any more. She was not so warm a partisan as Miss Barbara’s companion ought to have been. She drove along quietly, taking no further part in the talk, which the old lady maintained alone. “How can I go in to my peaceful house and eat my comfortable dinner, not knowing but my own flesh and blood may be shut up in a jail?” she said. Then she added quickly, “There’s that lad, young Rintoul. I’m not fond of any of his family; but I suppose he’s a gentleman. He’ll go in and ask what has happened. Fast⁠—to your right hand, Nora. Now draw up. He sees what I mean. Lord Rintoul,” added Miss Barbara, “I have a favour to ask of you. You may have heard my nephew John Erskine’s name bandied about these late days. He’s been in the Town-house before the sheriff and the procurator-fiscal this hour and a half or more. It’s not for me to ask the town-bodies about what has happened. Will you go and bring me word?”

Rintoul stood silent for a moment before he made any reply. Her voice seemed to have called him from painful reflections of his own, the chain of which he could not in a moment break. He gave her a half-bewildered look, then turned to Nora, who looked at him more gently, with sympathetic eyes. How haggard he looked, and worn!⁠—he who had been so ruddy and manly, only too much flesh and blood, almost too little inclination to be moved by emotion or sentiment⁠—was all this because of the sudden death of his brother-in-law, a man for whom he cared nothing? Nora was extraordinarily impressed by Rintoul’s changed appearance. Miss Barbara, preoccupied by her own anxieties, scarcely noticed him at all.

“In the Town-house with the sheriff? What does that mean?”

“I forgot you were English,” said Miss Barbara with a touch of contempt. “It means some examination of witnesses anent the death of Pat Torrance, your brother-in-law. What my nephew should have to do with it, I cannot tell you. It’s just that I would have you inquire.”

“He can have nothing to do with it,” said Rintoul; and then he stopped short, and the momentary animation died out of his face. He shivered as he stood in the sunshine, which was as warm as September ever is in Scotland. “It must be a mistake; we have heard nothing of this,” he said. “I am sure Carry⁠—would be averse to any fuss. It was such a thing for her that there was no coroner’s inquest. I made sure we were all safe. You must be mistaken,” he said.

“Lord Rintoul,” said Nora, who was given to opposition, “though there is no coroner’s inquest, there must be justice; and if they think Mr. Erskine has anything to do with it⁠—”

“He has nothing to do with it,” said Rintoul, with petulant impatience. Miss Barbara stretched her hand over Nora to grasp his, but this gesture seemed to drive him back into himself. He withdrew a little from the side of the pony-carriage, and made a pretence of not seeing the old lady’s outstretched hand. Miss Barbara was shocked, and gave him a curious look; but she was not prepared for disrespect, and did not expect it. She went on more eagerly than before⁠—

“And here I am helpless,” she said. “I cannot go in myself. I will not send Nora. Will you do my errand, Lord Rintoul? Bring me word, not here, but to my house. I am going home.”