The Ladies Lindores · Chapter 44 (1/2)

XLIV

John Erskine returned to Dalrulzian alone after this wonderful morning’s work. He could scarcely believe that he was free to walk where he pleased⁠—to do what he liked. Four days is not a long period of time. But prison has an extraordinary effect, and his very limbs had seemed to tingle when he got the uncontrolled use of them again. Lord Lindores had driven him back as far as the gates of Lindores, and from thence he walked on, glad of the air, the sense of freedom and movement⁠—the silence in which to realise all that had passed. Enough had passed, indeed, to give full occasion for thought; and it was only now that the extraordinary character of the event struck him. Rolls! to associate Rolls with a tragedy. In his excitement John burst into a wild fit of laughter, which echoed along the quiet road; then, horrified by the sound, drew himself quickly together, and went on with the gravest countenance in the world. But it must be added that this thought of Rolls was only momentary⁠—it came and went, and was dropped into the surrounding darkness, in which all accidents of common life were heaped together as insignificant and secondary, in comparison with one central consciousness with which his whole firmament was ablaze. He had demanded “More! more!” but had not received another word. No explanation had ensued. The mother had come in with soft authority, with a steadfast blank of all understanding. Lady Lindores would not see that they wanted to talk to each other. She had not ceased to hold her daughter by the arm, affectionately leaning upon her, until they went away: and Edith had not spoken another word⁠—had not even met his anxious looks with more than the most momentary fugitive glance. Thus John had withdrawn in that state of half certainty which, perhaps, is more absorbing to the faculties and more transporting to the heart than any definite and indisputable fact ever can be. His whole being was in movement, agitated by a delicious doubt, by an eager breathless longing to know, which was sweeter than knowledge. All the romance and witchcraft of passion was in it, its most ethereal part

“Hopes, and fears that kindle hopes⁠—

An indistinguishable throng;

And gentle wishes long subdued,

Subdued and cherished long.”

Such was the potency of this charm, that, after he had thrown one thought at Rolls, and perceived the absurdity of the event, and given vent to the excited commentary of that laugh, John abandoned himself altogether to the sea of fancies, the questions, the answers, the profound trains of reasoning which belonged to that other unresolved and all-entrancing problem. He discussed with himself every word of Edith’s letter, turning it over and over. Did it mean this? or peradventure, after all, did it only mean that? But if it meant that and not this, would she have so replied to his looks? would not she have said something more definitely discouraging when he appealed to her for More! more? She had not given him a word more; but she had replied with no stony look, no air of angry surprise or disdain, such as surely⁠—Yet, on the other hand, might it not be possible that compassion and sympathy for his extraordinary circumstances, and the wrong he had undergone, might keep her, so sweet and good as she was, from any discouraging word? Only, in that case, would she have cast down her eyes like that? would they have melted into that unspeakable sweetness? So he ran on, as so many have done before him. He thought no more of the matter which had affected him so deeply for the last week, or of Torrance, who was dead, or of Rolls, who was in jail, than he did of last year’s snow. Every interest in heaven and earth concentrated to him in these endless delightful questions. When a man, or, for that matter, a woman, is in this beatific agitation of mind, the landscape generally becomes a sort of blurr of light around them, and, save to the inward eye, which more than ever at such a moment is “the bliss of solitude,” there is nothing that is very clearly visible. John saw this much, but no more, in Miss Barbara’s old-fashioned dining-room⁠—the genial gentlemen still at table, and Miss Barbara herself, in her white shawl, forming only a background to the real interest; and he perceived no more of the country round him as he walked, or the glow of the autumn foliage, the distance rolling away in soft blueness of autumnal mists to Tinto. He managed to walk along the road without seeing it, though it was so familiar, and arrived at his own gate with great surprise, unable to comprehend how he could have come so far. When he opened the gate, Peggy Fleming came out with her apron folded over her hands; but when she saw who it was, Peggy, forgetting the soapsuds, which showed it was washing day, flung up her red moist arms to the sky, and gave utterance to a wild “skreigh” of welcome and joy. For a moment John thought nothing less than that he was to be seized in those wildly waving and soapy arms.

“Eh, it’s the master!” Peggy cried. “Eh, it’s himsel’! Eh, it’s lies, every word; and I never believed it, no’ a moment!” And with that she threw her apron over her head and began to sob⁠—a sound which brought out all her children, one after another, to hang upon her skirts and eagerly investigate the reason why.

The warmth of this emotional welcome amused him, and he paused to say a word or two of kindness before he passed on. But he had not anticipated the excitement with which he was to be received. When he came in sight of his own house, the first sound of his step was responded to by the watchers within with an anxious alacrity. A head popped out at a window; a white-aproned figure appeared from the back of the house, and ran back at the sight of him. And then there arose a “skreigh” of rapture that threw Peggy’s altogether into the shade, and Bauby rushed out upon him, with open arms, and all her subordinates behind her, moist and flowing with tears of joy. “Eh, Mr. John! Eh, my bonny man! Eh, laddie, laddie⁠—that I should call you sae! my heart’s just broken. And have you come hame? and have you come hame?”

“As you see,” said John. He began to be rather tired of this primitive rejoicing, which presupposed that his detention had been a very serious matter, although by this time, in the crowd of other thoughts, it had come to look of no importance at all. But he remembered that he had a communication to make which, no doubt, would much lessen this delight; and he did not now feel at all disposed to laugh when he thought of Rolls. He took Bauby by the arm, and led her with him, astonished, into the library. The other maids remained collected in the hall. To them, as to Peggy at the lodge, it seemed the most natural thing to imagine that he had escaped, and might be pursued. The excitement rose very high among them: they thought instantly of all the hiding-places that were practicable, each one of them being ready to defend him to the death.

And it was very difficult to convey to the mind of Bauby the information which John had to communicate. “Oh ay, sir,” she said, with a curtsey; “just that. I was sure Tammas was at Dunnotter to be near his maister. He has a terrible opinion of his maister; but now you’re back yoursel’, there will be nothing to keep him.”

“You must understand,” said John, gently, “that Rolls⁠—it was, I have no doubt, the merest accident; I wonder it did not happen to myself: Rolls⁠—caught his bridle, you know⁠—”

“Oh ay⁠—just that, sir,” said Bauby; “but there will be nothing to keep him, now you’re back yoursel’.”

“I’m afraid I don’t make myself plain,” said John. “Try to understand what I am saying. Rolls⁠—your brother, you know⁠—”

“Oh ay,” said Bauby, smiling broadly over all her beaming face, “he’s just my brother⁠—a’body kens that⁠—and a real good brother Tammas has aye been to me.”

John was at his wits’ end. He began the story a dozen times over, and softened and broke it up into easy words, as if he had been speaking to a child. At last it gradually dawned upon Bauby, not as a fact, but as something he wanted to persuade her of. It was a shock, but she bore it nobly. “You are meaning to tell me, sir, that it was Tammas⁠—our Tammas⁠—that killed Pat Torrance, yon muckle man? Na⁠—it’s just your joke, sir. Gentlemen will have their jokes.”

“My joke!” cried John in horror; “do you think it is anything to joke about? I cannot understand it any more than you can. But it is fact;⁠—it is himself that says so. He got hold of the bridle⁠—”

“Na, Mr. John; na, na, sir. What is the good of frightening a poor lone woman? The like of that could never happen. Na, na.”

“But it is he himself who has said it; no one else could have imagined it for a moment. It is his own story⁠—”

“And if it is,” said Bauby⁠—“mind ye, Mr. John, I ken nothing about it; but I ken our Tammas⁠—if it is, he’s just said it to save⁠—ithers: that’s the way of it. I ken him and his ways⁠—”

“To save⁠—others?” The suggestion bewildered John.

“Oh ay⁠—it’s just that,” said Bauby again. She dried her eyes carefully with her apron, pressing a tear into each corner. “Him pit forth his hand upon a gentleman, and a muckle man like Pat Torrance, and a muckle beast! Na, na, Mr. John! But he might think, maybe, that a person like him, no’ of consequence⁠—though he’s of awfu’ consequence to me,” said Bauby, almost falling back into tears. She made an effort, however, and recovered her smile. “It’s just a thing I can very weel understand.”

“I think you must be out of your mind,” cried her master. “Such things are not done in our day. What! play with the law, and take upon him another man’s burden? Besides,” said John, impatiently, “for whom? In whom could he be so much interested as to play such a daring game?”

“Oh ay, sir, that’s just the question,” Bauby said composedly. From time to time she put up her apron. The shock she had received was comprehensible, but not the consolation. To follow her in this was beyond her master’s power.

“That is the question indeed,” John said gravely. “I think you must be mistaken. It is very much simpler to suppose what was the case⁠—that he gripped at the brute’s bridle to save himself from being ridden down. It is the most wonderful thing in the world that I did not do it myself.”

“I’m thinking sae, sir,” said Bauby, drily; and then she relapsed for a moment to the darker view of the situation, and rubbed her eyes with her apron. “What will they do with him?⁠—is there much they can do with him?” she said.

She listened to John’s explanations with composure, broken by sudden relapses into emotion; but, on the whole, she was a great deal more calm than John had expected. Her aspect confounded her master: and when at last she made him another curtsey, and folding her plump arms, with her apron over them, announced that “I maun go and see after my denner,” his bewilderment reached its climax. She came back, however, after she had reached the door, and stood before him for a moment with, if that was possible to Bauby, a certain defiance. “You’ll no’ be taking on another man,” she said, with a half-threatening smile but a slight quiver of her lip, “the time that yon poor lad’s away?”

This encounter was scarcely over when he had another claim made upon him by Beaufort, who suddenly rushed in, breathless and effusive, catching him by both hands and pouring forth congratulations. It was only then that it occurred to John as strange that Beaufort had not appeared at Dunearn, or taken any apparent interest in his fate; but the profuse explanations and excuses of his friend had the usual effect in directing his mind towards this dereliction from evident duty. Beaufort overflowed in confused apologies. “I did go to Dunearn, but I was too late; and I did not like to follow you to your aunt’s, whom I don’t know; and then⁠—and then⁠—The fact is, I had an engagement,” was the end of the whole; and as he said this, a curious change and movement came over Beaufort’s face.

“An engagement! I did not think you knew anybody.”

“No⁠—nor do I, except those I have known for years.”

“The Lindores?” John said hastily⁠—“they were all at Dunearn.”

“The fact is⁠—” Here Beaufort paused and walked to the fire, which was low, and poked it vigorously. He had nearly succeeded in making an end of it altogether before he resumed. “The fact is,”⁠—with his back to John⁠—“I thought it only proper⁠—to call⁠—and make inquiries.” He cleared his throat, then said hurriedly, “In short, Erskine, I have been to Tinto.” There was a tremulous sound in his voice which went to John’s heart. Who was he that he should blame his brother? A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind.

“Déjà!” was all that John said.

“Déjà⁠—yes; perhaps I ought to have waited. But when you reflect how long⁠—how long it is: and all that has happened, and what we both have suffered⁠—”

“Do you mean that you have gone over all that already?” John asked, amazed. But Beaufort made him no reply. The fumes of that meeting were still in his head, and all that he had said and all that had been said to him. The master of the house was scarcely out of it, so to speak; his shadow was still upon the great room, the staircases, and passages; but Carry had lived, it seemed to her years, since the decree of freedom was pronounced for her. If there was indecorum in his visit, she was unaware of it. To feel themselves together, to be able each to pour out to the other the changes in their minds, the difference of age and experience, the unchangeableness of the heart, was to them both a mystery⁠—a wonder inscrutable. Beaufort did not care a brass farthing for John’s escape; he had heard all about it, but he had not even taken it into his mind. He tried to put on a little interest now, and asked some confused questions without paying any attention to the answers he received. When they met at dinner they talked upon indifferent subjects, ignoring on both sides the things that were of the deepest interest. “Has not Rolls come back with you? Oh, I beg your pardon⁠—I forgot,” said Beaufort. And John did not think very much more of Rolls, to tell the truth.

Lord Millefleurs went away a few days after; but Beaufort considered that, on the whole, it would suit him better to remain in Scotland a little longer. “What can I do for you?” he said; “the Duke is deceiving himself. You are quite as well able to look after yourself as I am. Why should I pretend to exercise functions which we all know are quite unnecessary? I have only just come, and Erskine is willing to keep me. I think I shall stay.”

“My dear fellow,” said little Millefleurs, “your sentiments are mine to a T; but we agreed, don’t you know, that the Duke has a great many things in his power, and that it might be as well to humour him. You have eased his mind, don’t you know⁠—and why shouldn’t you get the good of it? You are too viewy and disinterested, and that sort of thing. But I am a practical man. Come along!” said Millefleurs. When Beaufort continued to shake his head, as he puffed out solemn mouthfuls of smoke, planting himself ever more deeply, as if to take root there, in his easy-chair, Millefleurs turned to John and appealed to him. “Make that fellow come along, Erskine; it will be for his good,” the little Marquis said. There was a slight pucker in his smooth forehead. “Life is not plain sailing,” he went on; “les convenances are not such humbug as men suppose. Look here, Beaufort, come along; it will be better for you, don’t you know⁠—”