LADY CAR had done too much, the doctor said. The last dinner had been given; the last guest had departed, and life at the Towers was about to begin under its new aspect—a changed aspect, and one which those of the spectators who were free from any personal feeling on the subject regarded with some curiosity. How was Tom to assume his new position as head of the house in presence of his mother and stepfather? Were they to remain there as his guests? Were they to leave along with the other visitors? Tom himself had fully made up his mind on this subject. He was indeed a little nervous about what Beau would say, and kept his eyes steadily away from that gentleman when he made his little announcement, which was done at breakfast on the first morning after the family party was left alone. It must be premised that Tom’s birthday was in the end of July, and that by this time August had begun.
‘I say, mother,’ Tom said. He gave a glance round to make quite sure that the newspaper widely unfolded made a screen between himself and Beau. ‘I mean to go in for the grouse this year on the Patullo moor.’
‘I have always heard it was too small for such sport,’ said Lady Car.
‘Oh, I don’t know that. You never would let me try. The keepers have had it all to themselves, and I daresay they’ve made a good thing out of it. But this year I’m going to make a change. I’ve asked a lot of fellows for the 12th.’
‘You are losing no time, Tom. I am glad to find you are so hospitable,’ said his mother.
‘Oh, hospitable be hanged! I want to have some fun,’ said the young master. ‘And I say, mother’—he gave another glance at the newspaper which was still opened out in front of his stepfather. And Beau had made no remark. ‘Mother, I say, I don’t want, you know, to hurry you; but a lot of fellows together are sometimes a bit rowdy. I mean, you know, you mightn’t perhaps like—— You’re so awfully quiet at Easton. I mean, you know——’
‘That you want us to leave the Towers, Tom.’
‘Oh, I don’t go so far as that. I only meant—— Why, mother, don’t you know? It’s all different. It’s—not the same kind of thing—it’s——’
‘I understand,’ she said, in her quiet tones, and with her usual smile. ‘We had taken thought for that. Edward, we had spoken of going—when was it?’
‘To-morrow,’ said Beaufort, behind his paper. ‘That’s all settled. I had meant to tell you this morning, Tom. No need to have been in such a hurry; you know your mother is not fond of the Towers.’
‘I didn’t mean that there was any hurry,’ cried Tom, very red.
‘Perhaps not, my boy, but it looks like it. However, we’re both of one mind, which is convenient. The only thing that is wanted is a Bradshaw, for we had not settled yet about the trains.’
‘To-morrow’s awfully soon. I hope you won’t go to-morrow, mother. I never thought you’d move before a week at the soonest. I say! I’ll be left all alone here if you go to-morrow,’ Tom cried. But Beaufort took no notice of his remonstrance, and got his Bradshaw, and made out his plans as if it had been the most natural thing in the world. A few hours after, however, Lady Car, who had allowed that she was tired after the racket of the past week, was found to have fainted without giving any sign of such intentions. It was Janet who found her lying insensible on her sofa, and as the girl thought dead. Janet flew downstairs for help, and meeting her brother, cried, ‘You have killed mother!’ as she darted past. And the alarm and horror of the household was great. Tom himself galloped off for the doctor at the most breakneck pace, and in great compunction and remorse. But the doctor was, on the whole, reassuring when he came. He pronounced the patient, who had by that time come to herself and was just as usual, though a trifle paler, to be overdone, which was very well explained by all that she had been going through, and the unusual strain upon her—and pronounced her unfit for so long a journey so soon. When, however, Beaufort informed him that the Towers had never agreed with his wife—an intimation at which the doctor, who knew much better than Beaufort did what the Towers had been to poor Lady Car, nodded his head understandingly—he suggested breaking the journey. And this was how it happened that the family went to St. Andrews, where many things were to happen which no one had foreseen. Tom, still compunctious, and as tender as it was possible for him to be, and unable to persuade himself that he was not to blame for his mother’s illness, as well as much overwhelmed by the prospect of being left entirely to his own company for nearly a fortnight, accompanied the party to that place. He thought he would take a look at the golf, and at least would find it easier to get rid of a few days there than alone in his own house. To do him justice he was a little anxious about his mother, too. To think that you have killed your mother, or even have been instrumental in killing her, is not a pleasant thought.
Lady Car got quickly well amid the sea breezes. They got her a house on the cliff, where from her sofa she could look out upon the sea, and all the lights and shades on the Forfar coast, and the shadows of the far distant ships like specks on the horizon, like hopes (she thought), always appearing afar, passing away, never near enough to be possible. She floated away from all acute pain as she lay recovering, and recovered, too, her beloved gift of verse, and made a very charming, but sad, little poem called ‘Sails on the Horizon,’ expressing this idea. Lady Car thought to herself, as she lay there, that her hopes had all been like that, far away, just within sight, passing without an approach, without a possibility of coming near. None of these ships ever changed their course or drew near St. Andrews Bay: yet the white distant sail would hang upon the horizon line as if it might turn its helm at any moment and come. And hope had come only so to Carry—never to stay, only in the distance. In the quiet of convalescence and of that profound immeasurable despair which took the form of perfect peace, that renunciation of all that she had wished for on earth, it was a pleasure for her to put that conceit into words. It was only a conceit, she was aware.
Presently she became able to go out, to be drawn in a chair along the sands, or away in the other direction to the line of the eastern coast, with all its curious rocks and coves. About ten days after her arrival in St. Andrews Lady Car made one of those expeditions accompanied by Beaufort and Janet. They took her in her little vehicle as far as it would go, and then she walked a little down to the shore, to a spot which she recollected in her youth, where a grassy bank of the close short seaside grass bordered a ridge of broken rocks higher than the level of the beach. Over this line of rock there was a wonderful view of the little town isolated upon its headland, with the fine cluster of the ruined cathedral, the high square tower of St. Rule, the grey heap of the destroyed castle, and the little port below, set in the shining sea; and great breadths of the blue firmament banded with lines of pearly cloud. Here Carry sat down to rest while her companions went further along the coast to the curious little bay with its bristling rocks, where stands the famous Spindle, left among the seapools by some gigantic Norma of the North. The wide air, the great sky, the sense of space and freshness, and separation from all intrusive things; and, on the other hand, the picture made by that cluster of human habitations and ancient work of man defaced and worn, standing in the rays of the afternoon sun, which streamed over it from the west, made a perfect combination. The ridge of red rocks and piled stones which cut off all vulgarities of the foreground and relieved it in warm colour against the grey headland and the wonderful blue sea, shut in Lady Car’s retreat, though the coast road wound on behind her, communicating by a rocky passage, almost like a stair, with the sands below. Lady Car seated herself upon the grass. She did not care even to sketch; all her old pursuits had dropped from her. She was content to sit still, with her eyes more often upon the wide line of the horizon than on any intermediate point, however attractive. There was a sort of luxury of the soul in that width of stainless silent air, which required nothing, not even thought, but filled her with a faint yet exquisite sense of calm. The peace of God—did she dare to call it so? Certainly it passed understanding. That she should sit in this beatitude in a calm so complete, with so many—oh, so many—things to make her anxious and to make her sad. Still so it was.
She did not know how long she had sat there in that wide universe of sea and sky, when her attention was first called to voices underneath the ridge of rock. The sands beyond were on a lower level, and it might well be that people underneath might discuss the most private affairs without any thought of possible listeners above. Carry had heard the murmur of the voices for some time before she took any heed of them, or distinguished one from another. These tones she presently observed were very unlike the peace all around: there was a sound of conflict in them, and now and then a broken note as if the woman sobbed. For it was apparent at once that the two were a man and woman, and soon that there was some controversy between them. When Lady Car began to awaken out of her dream of calm to become aware of these two people below and the discussion or quarrel which was every moment increasing in intensity, she did not perhaps know how to make her presence known, or rather, perhaps, it was something in the sound of one of the voices which bewildered and confused her. At first she thought with a vague trouble it was a voice she knew. Then she started from her grassy seat with a horrible sensation, as if she were hearing over again, though not addressed to herself, one of those mocking, threatening, insulting floods of words which had once been the terror of her life. Torrance! Had she lived to hear him speak again? She had escaped from all imagination of him in this beautiful and distant scene. What was it that like a terrible wind of recollection, like an hour come back from the miserable past, made her hear his voice again?
She had risen up in her dismay and alarm, almost with an impulse of flight, to get out of his way, lest he should find her again, when an impression almost more terrible still made her pause and hold her throbbing breast with both her hands. She turned her face towards the rock with a faint cry, and sank down again upon the grass. There could be no doubt that it was a man speaking to a woman over whom he had almost absolute power, a husband to a wife—or perhaps—but Carry knew no other relationship than that which permitted such tones, and when her first irrational panic was over, she became aware that it was the voice of Tom.
To whom was he speaking? She did not ask what he was saying. She could not hear the words, but she knew them. A woman who has once borne such a storm recognises it again. To whom could Tom speak in that voice of the supreme?—mocking, threatening, pouring forth abuse and wrath. To whom did the boy dare to speak so? He had no wife.
The voices grow louder; the two seem to be parting; the man hurrying away, discharging a volley at his companion as he left her, the woman weeping, following, calling him back. Lady Car sat breathless, her terrified eyes fixed on the path behind, up which she heard him coming. ‘Go back, I tell you; I have nothing more to say to you,’ he cried.
His countenance, flushed with rage, appearing above the edge of the rocks, while he half-turned back, waving the other away—brought confirmation certain of Lady Car’s fears. She rose again and made a step towards him, tottering in every limb, as in other days, when his father had beaten her to the ground with such another torrent. But to whom, to whom was the boy speaking? She cried out in a voice of anguish, ‘Tom!’
He started in his turn so violently that he stumbled on the rocks and almost fell. ‘Mother!’ he cried instinctively. Then turned round with a hoarse roar of ‘Back! back!’ cursing himself for that betrayal.
‘Tom, what is it? to whom were you speaking?—answer me! To whom did you dare to speak like that?’
‘What are you doing here?’ he said. ‘Listening! I never knew you do that before, mother—come along! this isn’t a place for you.’
‘To whom were you speaking, Tom?’
‘Me! I was speaking to nobody; there’s some sweethearts or something carrying on down there. I don’t meddle with what is none of my concerns. Come along! I am not going to leave you here.’
He seized her arm to draw her away, and Lady Car saw that his rage had turned to tremor. He looked at her from under his lowering eyebrows with that fierce panic which is sometimes in the eyes of a terrified dog ready to fly at and rend anyone in wild truculence of fear.
‘I am not going from here till my husband comes for me—nor till I know what this means,’ said Lady Car. She was trembling all over, and her heart so beating that every wild throb shook her frame. But she was not afraid of her son’s violence. And other steps were drawing near. As Lady Car leaned upon a corner of the rock supporting herself, there gradually appeared up the ascent a young woman in very fine, but flimsy attire, her face flushed with crying and quarrelling, dabbing her cheeks with a handkerchief like a ball all gathered up in her hand. The impression of bright colour and holiday dress so inconsistent with the violent scene through which she had been passing, and the probable tragical circumstances in which the unhappy girl stood, threw a sort of grotesque misery into the midst of the horror.
‘Oh!’ cried the new comer, ‘he called you his mother, he did! If you are his mother, it’s you most as I ought to see.’
‘Hold your cursed tongue,’ cried Tom beside himself, ‘and get off with you! I’ve told you so before. You’re not fit to speak to my——to a lady. Go! go.’
‘You think it grand to say that,’ cried the girl, evidently emboldened by the presence of a third party, ‘but you may just give it up. I’m not ashamed to speak to any lady. I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of. I’ve got my marriage lines to show, and my wedding ring on my finger. Look at that, ma’am,’ she cried, dragging a glove off a red and swollen hand. It was with tears, and trouble, and excitement that she was so swollen and red. She thrust her hand with indeed a wedding ring upon it in Lady Car’s face. ‘Look at that, ma’am; there can’t be no mistake about that.’
‘I must sit down; I cannot stand,’ said Carry. ‘Come here, if you please, and tell me who you are.’
‘She’s not fit to come where you are. I told you to go,’ said Tom. ‘Go, and I’ll send somebody to settle—you’ve no business here.’
‘If she’s your mother, Frank, I won’t deceive nobody. I’m Mrs. Francis Lindores, and I’ve got my marriage lines to show for it. I’m not ashamed to look anybody in the face. I’ve got my marriage li——’
‘Mrs.—— what?’ said Lady Car.
‘Mrs. Francis Lindores. I never thought but what he meant honourable, and my own mother was at the wedding and everything right. He wants to say now that it’s no marriage; but it is—it is. It’s in the register all right where we signed in the vestry. Oh Frank, I know you’re only talking to frighten me, but your mother will make it all right.’
Lady Car and her son exchanged but one glance—on her part, a look of anguished inquiry searching his face for confirmation of this tremendous statement—on his, the look of a fierce but whipped hound, ready to tear anyone asunder that came near him, yet abject in conscious guilt. The mother put her hand to her breast as if to hide where the bullet had gone in. She said in a voice interrupted by her quickened breathing,
‘Excuse me a little, I am not very well: but tell me everything—tell me the truth. Did you say that you were——married to this young gentleman?’
‘She’ll say anything,’ cried Tom hoarsely. ‘She’ll swear anything. She’s not fit to come near you. Go away, I tell you, curse you—you shall have everything you want if you go away.’
‘Be silent, Tom; at present she has me, not you, to answer. Tell me—— ’
‘You call him Tom,’ said the young woman with surprise; ‘it’s perhaps a pet name—for his real name is Frank Lindores: and that’s on my cards that I got printed—and that’s who I am: and I can bring witnesses. My marriage lines, I’ve got ’em in the hotel where I’m staying. If you’re his mother, I’m his wife, and he can’t deny it. Oh, Frank! the lady looks kind. Don’t deny it, don’t deny it! She’ll forgive you. Don’t deny the truth.’
‘The truth,’ cried Tom, forgetting himself in his heat. ‘You can see how much truth is in it by the name she tells you—and I wasn’t of age till last week,’ cried the precocious ruffian, with a laugh which again was like the fierce bark of the whipped hound.
All Lady Car’s senses had come back to her in the shock of this horror. ‘You married her—in the name of Francis Lindores—thinking that, and that you were under age would make it void. If you’ve anything to say that I should not believe this, say it quick, Tom—lest I should die first and think my boy a——’
She leant back her pale head against the rocks, and one of those spasms passed over her which had already scared the household at the Towers: but the superior poignancy of the mental anguish kept Lady Car from complete unconsciousness. She heard their voices vaguely contending through the half-trance: then slowly the light came back to her eyes. The young woman was kneeling beside her with a vinaigrette in her hot hand. ‘Oh, smell at this, do! it’s the best thing in the world for a faint. Oh, poor lady! I wish I had never said a word rather than make her so bad!’
Lady Car opened her eyes to see the stranger kneeling with an anxious face by her side, while Tom stood, lowering, looking on. It crossed her mind that perhaps the boy would have been glad had she died, and this disclosure been buried with her. The stab of this thought was so keen that she came completely to herself, restored by that sharp remedy of superior pain.
‘I do not think she is bad,’ she said faintly. ‘I think she has an honest face. Tom, is that true?’
‘It’s all a piece of nonsense, mother, as I told you. It was just to please her. She was not too particular—to have the show of a wedding, that was all. She knew very well——’
The girl struggled to her feet. She seized him by the arm and shook him in her passion.
‘I’ll tear your eyes out,’ she cried, ‘if you speak like that of me! Oh, lady! we’re married as safe as any clergyman could marry two people.’
‘You fool!’ cried Tom, ‘there’s no such person as Frank Lindores. And I wasn’t of age.’
The young woman looked at him for a moment confounded. The colour left her excited face, she stood staring as if unable to comprehend, then, as her senses came back to her, burst into a loud fit of sobbing and crying, throwing herself down on the grass. ‘Oh, oh, oh!’ she cried, sobbing and rocking herself. ‘Oh, whatever shall I do? Oh, what will become of mother?’ Then rising suddenly to her knees she caught Lady Car’s dress. ‘Oh, lady, lady! you’ve got a kind face; do something for me; make him do me justice; make him, make him——oh, my God, listen to him!’ cried the girl, for Tom, in the horrible triumph he thought he had gained, was pealing forth a harsh laugh—a sort of tempest tone of exultation over the two helpless women at his feet.
Beaufort, with Janet at a little distance behind him, came suddenly upon this strange scene. He thought at first that his wife was ill, and hurried forward anxiously, asking, ‘What is the matter?’ He saw Carry pale as death, her mouth drawn, her eyes dilated, leaning back against the rocks, holding the hand of a girl unknown who knelt beside her, while Tom, who had laughed, stood over the pair with still that mirthless grimace distending his lips.
‘Edward,’ Lady Car said, ‘I have something to ask you; something at once, before you ask me a question. A marriage under a false name—is that no marriage? Tell me—tell me quick, quick!’
‘What a strange question!’ he said. ‘But I know nothing about marriages in Scotland. You know people say——’
‘It was not in Scotland. Quick, quick!’
‘A marriage—when a false name is given?—meaning to deceive?’
She said ‘Yes’ with her lips without any sound, a faint flame as of shame passing over the whiteness of her face. Tom thrust his hands into his pockets and screwed his mouth as if he would have whistled, but no sound came. The girl faced round, always upon her knees, a strange intruder into that strange group, and stared at Beaufort as if he had been a god.
‘I don’t understand why you should ask me such a question. The marriage is good enough. The law doesn’t permit——’
‘Not if the man is under age?’
‘He can be imprisoned for perjury if he has sworn he is of age—as some fools do; but what in the world can you want with such information as that?’
‘Edward,’ said Lady Car with some difficulty, her throat and lips being so dry, ‘this is Tom’s wife.’