The Ladies Lindores · Chapter 48 (2/2)

“Probably,” Beaufort cried, faltering a little, “I shall stay all night in Dunearn. Lady Caroline⁠—had some commissions for me.”

“You had much better come to Lindores. Commissions, Carry! I suppose Mr. Beaufort is acting as a sort of agent for you in your new arrangements. Is it bric-a-brac? You young men are all learned in that.”

Nobody made any reply, but the very air seemed to tingle with the extraordinary tumult of feeling. To accept Beaufort as an ordinary caller, and to invite him to Lindores, was a masterstroke. But the two people between whom he stood were so surcharged with passionate feeling, that any touch must produce an explosion of one sort or another. This touch was given inadvertently by Lady Lindores, who⁠—terribly bewildered by the course that things were taking, but feeling that if Beaufort could be induced to go to Lindores, it would cut the thread better than any other expedient⁠—rose softly out of the twilight, and coming forward to him, laid her hand upon his arm: “Yes, yes, that is much the best. Come to Lindores,” she said.

At which Carry lost the control of herself which people in their ordinary senses have. Between panic and passion she was beside herself. Fear has a wild temerity which goes far beyond courage;⁠—her tall straight figure seemed to fling suddenly out of the shade, and launch itself upon this milder group. She put Lady Lindores away with a vehement gesture.

“Mother,” she cried, “do not you meddle. Edward! do not go, do not go; it is a trap, it is a snare. If you go it will all be over, all over!” Her voice rose almost to a scream. She had reached the point at which reason has no longer any hold, and all the reticence and modesty of nature yields to the wild excitement of terror. She was trembling all over, yet capable of any supreme effort of desperation⁠—ready to defend to the last, against the same powers that had crushed her before, her last hope.

“Carry,” said Lord Lindores⁠—he kept up, at incalculable cost to himself, his tone of conciliation⁠—“I do not understand what you fear. Is it I that am to lay traps or snares? I forgive you, my poor child; but this is a strange way to talk to Mr. Beaufort⁠—he cannot stay here⁠—”

“I have no intention of staying here, Lord Lindores,” said Beaufort hastily. “You may be sure I will not expose her to any comment.”

“I am very sure, nevertheless, that you are doing so,” said Lord Lindores.

The contrast of this brief dialogue with Carry’s impassioned tones was extraordinary. She felt it through the haze of excitement that surrounded her, though her intelligence of all outside matters was blurred by the wild strain of her own feelings, which would have utterance. “Father,” she said hoarsely, putting her hand on his arm, “go away from us⁠—do not interfere. You know what you made of me when I was in your hands. Oh, let us alone now! I am not a girl⁠—I am a woman. I am the same as you, knowing good and evil. Oh,” she said suddenly, “if you want to keep any respect for me, go away, go away, for I don’t know what I am saying. My head is turning round. Mother⁠—Edward; don’t you see that I am losing my reason? Oh, don’t let him interfere⁠—let him go away.” Lady Lindores caught her daughter in her arms, in a trembling effort to control and calm her. “Carry, my dearest! you will be sorry afterwards⁠—”

“Oh yes, I shall be sorry,” cried poor Lady Car, drawing herself out of her mother’s hold⁠—“sorry to have been unkind, sorry to have betrayed myself; but I must, I must. I cannot hold my peace. Oh, father, let me alone! What good will that do you to make me wretched? What good has it done you? Nothing, nothing! I might have been poor and happy, instead of all I have come through; and what difference would it have made to you? You have killed me once; but oh, think how cruel, how tyrannous, if you tried to kill me again! And you see nobody speaks for me; I am alone to defend myself. Father, you shall not interfere again.”

She had resumed her hold on his arm, grasping it half to support herself, half to enforce what she was saying. He now put his hand upon hers and detached it gently, still keeping down his anger, retaining his tone of calm. “My poor child, you are overdone; let your mother take care of you,” he said compassionately. “Mr. Beaufort, we are both out of place here at this moment. Lady Caroline has had a great deal to try her; we had better leave her with her mother.” Nobody could be more reasonable, more temperate. His compassionate voice and gentle action, and the way in which he seemed about to sweep away with him the somewhat irresolute figure of the man who had no right to be there, filled Carry with a wild pang. It seemed to her that, notwithstanding all her protest and passion, he was about to be victorious once more, and to rob her of all life and hope again. She stretched out her arms wildly, with a cry of anguish: “Edward, are you going to forsake me too?”

Edward Beaufort was very pertinacious in his love, very faithful, poetically tender and true, but he was not strong in an emergency, and the calmness and friendliness of Lord Lindores’ address deceived him. He cried “Never!” with the warmest devotion: but then he changed his tone a little: “Lord Lindores is perhaps right⁠—for the moment. I must not⁠—bring ill-natured remark⁠—”

Lady Car burst into a little wild laugh. “You have no courage⁠—you either,” she said, “even you. It is only I, a poor coward, that am not afraid. It is not natural to me, everybody knows; but when a soul is in despair⁠—Then just see how bold I am,” she cried suddenly, “father and mother! If there is any holding back, it is his, not mine. I have been ready⁠—ready from the first, as I am now. I care nothing about remark, or what anybody says. I will hear no reason; I will have no interference. Do you hear me, all? Do you hear what I say?”

“I hear⁠—what I am very sorry to hear, Carry⁠—what you cannot mean. Mr. Beaufort is too much a gentleman to take advantage of this wild talk, which is mere excitement and overstrained feeling.”

She laughed again, that laugh, which is no laugh, but an expression of all that is inarticulate in the highest excitement. “I am ready⁠—to fulfil our old engagement, our old, old, broken engagement, that we made before God and heaven. I have been like Dante,” she said; “I have lost my way, and made that dreadful round before I could find it, through hell and purgatory; yes, that is it⁠—through hell⁠—And now, whenever Edward pleases. It is not I that am holding back. Yes, go, go!” she said; “oh, though I love you, you are not like me, you have not suffered like me! go⁠—but don’t go with my father. He will find some way of putting everything wrong again.”

The two gentlemen walked solemnly, one behind the other, to the door: on the threshold Lord Lindores paused. “I don’t suppose you will suspect me of any designs upon your life,” he said, with a bitter smile, “if I repeat that you will be welcome at Lindores.”

“I had made all my arrangements,” said Beaufort, with some confusion, “to stay at Dunearn.”

Lord Lindores paused for a moment before mounting his horse. “All that she has been saying is folly,” he said; “you may be certain that it will not be permitted⁠—”

“Who is to stop it? I don’t think, if we are agreed, anyone has the power.”

“It will not be permitted. It would be disgraceful to you. It would be a step that no gentleman could take. A foolish young woman, hysterical with excitement and exhaustion and grief⁠—”

“Lord Lindores, you forget what that young woman has been to me⁠—ever since I have known her. I have never wavered⁠—”

“Then you have committed a sin,” the Earl said. He stood there discomfited, in the darkness of the night, scarcely remembering the servants, who were within hearing⁠—not knowing what further step to take. He raised his foot to put it in the stirrup, then turned back again. “If you will not come with me⁠—where we could talk this out at our leisure⁠—at least you will go away from here,” he said. Beaufort did not reply in words, but hastened away, disappearing in the gloom of the avenue. Lord Lindores mounted his horse, and followed slowly, in a tumult of thought. He had not been prepared for it⁠—he was unable now to realise the power of wild and impassioned resistance which was in Carry. He was giddy with astonishment, as if his horse or his dog had turned round upon him and defied him. But he tried to shake off the impression as he got further from Tinto. It was impossible; it was a mere bravado. She would no more hold to it than⁠—And since there was delicacy, decorum, propriety⁠—every reason that could be thought of, on the other side⁠—no, no! He would forgive poor Carry’s passion, for she could no more hold to it⁠—Even her mother, who had been so difficult to manage before, her mother would fully support him now. He tried to console himself with these thoughts; but yet Lord Lindores rode home a broken man.

Lady Lindores sat and cried by the fire, while Carry swept about the room in her passion, crossing and recrossing the firelight. The servants at Tinto were more judicious than those at Lindores. They were accustomed to scenes in the drawing-room, and to know that it was indiscreet to carry lights thither until they were called for. In the late Tinto’s time the lamps, when they were carried in abruptly, had lit up many an episode of trouble⁠—the fierce redness of the master’s countenance, the redness so different of his wife’s eyes. So that no one interrupted the lingering hour of twilight. Lady Lindores sat like any of the poor women in the cottages, unable to stand against the passion of her child. How familiar is the scene⁠—the mother crying by the fireside, descended from her dignity and power to sway (if she ever possessed any), to sheer helplessness and pathetic spectatorship, unable, with all the experience and gathered wisdom of her years, to suggest anything or do anything for the headstrong life and passion of the other woman, who could learn only by experience as her mother did before her. Carry paced up and down the room from end to end; even the shadowy lines of her figure, even her step, revealed the commotion of her soul: when she came full into the firelight she stood still for a moment, her hands clasped, her head thrown back, confronting the dim image of herself in the great mirror against a ruddy background of gloom. And Carry in her passion was not without enlightenment too.

“No,” she said passionately, “no, no. Do you know why I am so determined? It is because I am frightened to death. Oh, don’t take an advantage of what I am saying to you. How do I know what my father might do this time? No, no. I must keep out of his hands. I will rather die.”

“Carry, I will not interfere. What can I do between you? But these are not all conventionalities, as you think⁠—there is more in them.”

“There is this in them,” she said, with a strange pathetic smile, “that Edward thinks so too. He is not ready like me to throw away everything. He might be persuaded, perhaps, if my father put forth all his powers, to abandon me, to think it was for my interest⁠—”

“Carry, I do not wish to support you in your wild projects: but I think you are doing Edward injustice.”

“Thank you, mother dear; your voice is so sweet,” she said, with a sudden softening, “why should you cry? It is all a black sea round about me on every side. I have only one thing to cling to, only one thing, and how can I tell? perhaps that may fail me too. But you have nothing to cry for. Your way is all clear and straight before you till it ends in heaven. Let them talk as they like, there must be heaven for you. You will sit there and wait and watch to see all the broken boats come home⁠—some bottom upwards, and every one drowned; some lashed to one miserable bit of a mast⁠—like me.”

“Carry,” said Lady Lindores, “if that is the case⁠—if you do not feel sure⁠—why, in spite of everything, father and mother, and modesty and reverence, and all that is most necessary to life, your own good name, and perhaps the future welfare of your children⁠—why will you cling to Edward Beaufort? You wronged him perhaps, but he did nothing to stop it. There were things he might have done⁠—he ought to have been ready to claim you before⁠—to oppose your⁠—”

Carry threw herself at her mother’s feet, and laid her trembling hand upon her lips. “Not a word, not a word,” she cried. “Do you think he would wrong my children? Oh no, no! that is impossible. His fault, it is to be too good. And if he did nothing, what could he do? He has never had the ground to stand on, nor opportunity, nor time. Thank God! they will be his now; he will prove what is in him now.”

Which was it that in her heart she believed? But Lady Lindores could not tell. Carry, when she calmed down, sat at her mother’s feet in the firelight, and clasped her close, and poured out her heart, no longer in fiery opposition and passion, but with a sudden change and softening, in all the pathos of trouble past and hope returned. They cried together, and talked and kissed each other, once more mother and child, admitting no other thought. This sudden change went to the heart of Lady Lindores. Her daughter’s head upon her bosom, her arm holding her close, what could she do but kiss her and console her, and forget everything in sympathy. But as she drove home in the dark other fears came in. Only one thing to cling to⁠—and perhaps that might fail her⁠—“one miserable bit of a mast.” What did she mean? What did Carry believe? that her old love would renew for her all the happiness of life, as she had been saying, whispering with her cheek close to her mother’s⁠—that the one dream of humanity, the romance which is never worn out and never departs, was now to be fulfilled for her?⁠—or that, even into this dream, the canker had entered, the sense that happiness was not and never could be?