The Ladies Lindores · Chapter 42 (2/2)

Why should she be anxious? what had she to do with John? Her flutter of changing colour touched Miss Barbara’s heart in spite of herself. No, she would not be a suitable wife for John Erskine; an earl’s daughter was too grand for the house of Dalrulzian. But yet⁠—Miss Barbara could not help being mollified. She pushed an easy-chair towards the mother of this bonnie creature. “It will be a pleasure to him to hear that there are kind hearts caring for what happens to him. If your ladyship will do me the honour to sit down,” she said, with punctilious yet suspicious respect.

“Papa is there now,” said Edith, whispering to Nora; “and Lord Millefleurs came with us, and will bring us word how things are going. Rintoul started before any of us⁠—”

“Rintoul!” said Nora⁠—at least she thought she said it. Her lips moved, a warm suffusion of colour came over her, and she looked wistfully in Edith’s face.

“He thought he would get to Dunearn before us⁠—but, after all, horses go faster than men. What is the matter? Are you ill, Nora?”

Nora was past making any reply. The cessation of pain, that is more, a great deal more, than a negative good. For the first moment, at least, it is bliss, active bliss⁠—more than anything else known to men. Of course Nora, when she came to herself, explained that it was a sudden little spasm, a feeling of faintness⁠—something she was used to. She was quite well, she declared; and so it proved by the colour that came back to her face. “She has not been herself all the morning,” said Miss Barbara; “she will be the better of young company⁠—of somebody like herself.”

After this the ladies tried to talk on indifferent subjects. There were inquiries to be made for Lady Caroline, “poor thing!” and she was described as being “better than we should have dared to hope,” with as near an approach to the truth as possible; and then a scattered fire of remarks, now one, now another, coming to the front with sudden energy; while the others relapsed into the listening and strain of curiosity. Miss Barbara held her head high. It was she who was the most steady in the conversation. She would not suffer it to be seen that she had any tremor as to what was going on. But the girls were unequal to this fortitude. They fluctuated from red to white, and from white to red. They would stop in the middle of a sentence, their voices ending in a quaver, as if the wind had blown them out. Why should they be so moved? Miss Barbara noted it keenly, and felt with a thrill of pleasure that John was getting justice. Two of them!⁠—the bonniest creatures in the county! How their rival claims were to be settled afterwards she did not inquire; but in the meantime, at the moment when he was under so dark a cloud, it warmed her heart to see him so much thought of: the Erskines always were so; they were a race that women loved and men liked, and the last representative was worthy of his sires.

Hours seemed to pass while the ladies thus held each other in a wonderful tension and restraint, waiting for the news: until a little commotion in the stair, a hurried step, brought them all to their feet with one impulse. It was little Millefleurs who rushed in with his hat pressed to his breast. “Forgive the intrusion,” he cried, with pants of utterance; “I’m out of breath; I have run all the way. Erskine is coming after me with Lord Lindores.” He shook hands with everybody vehemently in his satisfaction. “They let me in because I was the Duke’s son, don’t you know; it’s convenient now and then; and I bolted with the news. But nobody presents me to Miss Erskine,” he said, aggrieved. “Madam, I am Millefleurs. I was Erskine’s fag at Eton. I have run miles for him to buy his buns and jam; but I was slimmer in those days.”

Miss Barbara had sunk upon a chair. She said, with a panting of her ample bosom as if she had been running too, “You are too kind, my Lord Millefleurs. I told John Erskine to be here at half-past one to his luncheon. You will all wait and meet him. You will wait and meet him⁠—” She repeated the words with a little sob of age, half laughter half tears. “The Lord be praised!⁠—though I never had any doubt of it,” the proud old lady said.

“It has all come perfectly clear,” said Millefleurs, pleased with his position as the centre of this eager group. “The right man, the person to whom it really happened, has come forward most honourably and given himself up. I don’t clearly understand all the rights of the story. But there it is; the man couldn’t stand it, don’t you know. I suppose he thought nothing would ever be found out; and when he heard that Erskine was suspected and taken, he was stunned at first. Of course he should have produced himself at once; but all’s well that ends well. He has done it now.”

“The man⁠—that did it?” It was Nora that said this, gazing at him with perfectly colourless cheeks, standing out in the middle of the room, apart from the others, who were for the moment too completely satisfied with the news to ask more.

“Don’t think it is crime,” said Millefleurs, soothingly. “There is every reason to conclude that accident will be the verdict. In the meantime, I suppose he will be committed for trial; but all these are details, don’t you know,” he said, in his smooth voice. “The chief thing is, that our friend is clear and at liberty; and in a few minutes he’ll be here.”

They scarcely noticed that Nora disappeared out of the room in the joyful commotion that followed. She went away, almost suffocating with the effort to keep her emotion down. Did he know of whom it was that he was speaking? Was it possible that he knew? the son of one, the brother of another⁠—to Nora more than either. What did it mean? Nora could not get breath. She could not stay in the room, and see all their relieved, delighted faces, the undisturbed satisfaction with which they listened and asked their questions. Was the man a fool? Was he a creature devoid of heart or perception? An hour ago Nora had thought that Rintoul’s absence from his post would kill her, that to see him do his duty was all she wanted on earth. But now the indifference of everybody around to what he had done, the ease with which the story was told, the unconsciousness of the listeners, was more intolerable to her than even that despair. She could not bear it. She hurried away, not capable of a word, panting for breath, choked by her heart, which beat in her throat, in her very ears⁠—and by the anguish of helplessness and suspense, which was more than she could bear.