Lady Car: The Sequel of a Life by Mrs. Oliphant - HTML preview

CHAPTER XVI

THERE could be no doubt that Beaufort behaved throughout this business in the most admirable way. He made the very best of it to Lady Car, who lay and listened to his voice as to the playing of a pleasant tune, sometimes closing her eyes to hear the better. She had got her death wound. Tom had never been the son she had dreamed. He was his father’s son, not hers, and to see him succumb to the grosser temptations had been misery and torture to her. But the story of that fraud, so fully intended, made with such clear purpose, was one of those overwhelming revelations which go to the very heart. If a woman is unhappy in her married life, if she is tricked and cheated by fate in every other way, there is still always the natural justice to fall back upon, that the children will be left to her—her children in whom to live a new life; to see heaven unfolding again; to have some faint reflection of herself; some flower of her planting, some trace that she has been. And when she has to confess to herself that the child of her affections, the thing that has come from her, the climax of her own being, is in fact all unworthy, a creature of the dunghill, not only base, but incapable of comprehending what is good and true, that final disenchantment is too great for flesh and blood. Nature, merciful, sometimes blinds the woman’s eyes, makes her incapable of judging, fills her with fond folly that sees no imperfection in her own—and that folly is blessed. But there are some who are not blinded by love, but made more keen and quick of sight. She lay silent and listened while Beaufort performed that melody in her ears, feeling a poignant sweetness in it, since at least it was the most beautiful thing for him to do, yet with every word feeling more and more the anguish of the failure and the depth of the death wound which was in her heart.

‘There are boys who torture cats and dogs and tear flies asunder, and yet are not evil creatures,’ Beaufort said; ‘they have not the power of realising the pain they cause. They want imagination. They know nothing of the animals they hurt, except that they are there in their power to be done what they please with. My love, Tom is like that: it is part of the dreadful cynicism that young men seem to originate somehow among themselves. They think they are the subjects of every kind of interested wile, and that such a thing as—this’—Beaufort was not philosopher enough to name Tom’s act more distinctly—‘is nothing more than a sort of balance on their side.’

Lady Car opened her eyes, which were clear with fever and weakness, lucid like an evening sky, and looked at her husband with a piteous smile.

‘My dearest,’ he said hastily, ‘I am saying only how they represent such things to themselves. They don’t take time to think—they rush on to the wildest conclusions. The thing is done before they see or realise what it is. And then, as I tell you, they think themselves the prey, and those, those others the hunters—and take their revenge—when they can.’

But it was hard to go on with that argument with her eyes upon him. When she closed them he could speak. When they opened again in the midst of his plea, those eyes so clear with fever, so liquid, as if every film had been swept from them, and only an all-seeing, unquenchable vision, yet tender as the heavens, left behind—he stopped and faltered in his tale: and then he took refuge in that last resort of human feeling—the thing that had to be done, the expedients by which a wrong can be made to appear as if it were right, and trouble and misery smoothed away, so that the world should believe that all was well.

The conclusion, which was not arrived at for some time, was that which old Lord Lindores took credit to himself for having suggested before, ‘and which might have put a stop to all this,’ he said with a wave of his hand. It was Africa and big game for two or three years, during which ‘the young woman’—the family spoke of her as if she had no name—should be put under careful training. It had been ascertained, still by Beaufort, who conducted himself to everybody’s admiration, that ‘the young woman’ had no bad antecedents, and that so much hope as there could be in such a miserable business might be theirs. Tom was so thoroughly broken down by the discovery which humbled his clownish pride to the dust, and made him feel almost as poor a creature as he was, that he gave in with little resistance to the dictates of the family council. No unhappy university man, however, was beguiled into accompanying this unlikely pupil. He was given into the hands of a mighty sportsman, who treated him like a powder boy, and brought Tom, the Lord of the Towers, the wealthiest commoner in the North, the experienced man of Oxford, into complete and abject subjection—which was the best thing that could have happened to him.

The ‘young woman’ was less easily subdued. She wrote to her relations that it had been all a mistake, but that family reasons had made it impossible for her husband and herself to disclose the true state of affairs before. That instead of being Mrs. Francis Lindores, she was Mrs. Thomas Francis Lindores Torrance, of the Towers, her dear husband being the son of Thomas Torrance, Esq., of the Towers, and of Lady Caroline Lindores, the daughter of the Earl of Lindores, from whom dear Tom took his second name, as they might see in any peerage; that her mother-in-law and all her new family were very nice to her, and that she was going off upon a visit with Lady Edith Erskine, who was her aunt, and dear grandmamma the Countess. And she ordered for herself at once new cards with Mrs. F. T. Lindores Torrance upon them, which she thought looked far more distinguished-looking than the original name. But when Mrs. Tom became aware that dear grandmamma and her dear aunt meant to conduct her to an educational establishment, where she was to pass at least the two next years of her life, the young woman rebelled at once. She had never heard, she declared, of a married woman going to school; that her place was with her husband; that she had passed all the standards, and learnt to play the piano, and had taken lessons in French; that no woman, unless she were going to be a governess, wanted more; and, finally, that she flatly refused to go. It was more difficult, much more difficult, than with Tom to convince his wife: for she was still more ignorant than Tom, and thought his giving in ridiculous, and did not see why, with him or without him, she should not go and take up her abode at the Towers, ‘and look after things,’ which she felt must be in great want of someone to look after them. She was made to yield at last, but not without difficulty, declaring to the last moment that she could not be refused alimony, and that she would take her alimony and go and live independent at home till her husband came to claim her, rather than go to school at her age. But Beaufort managed this too, to the admiration of everybody. He brought to bear upon the young woman pressure from her ’ome, where her mother, under his skilful manipulation, was brought to see the necessity of going to school, and declined to receive her rebellious daughter. This was at the cost of another allowance from Tom’s estate, for it was not fit that Tom’s mother-in-law should continue to earn her bread poorly without her daughter’s assistance, in a poor little confectioner’s shop. Beaufort managed all this without even betraying the name of this poor old woman, or where she lived, to the researches of the Lindores, for Lady Car was very tender of her boy’s name even now.

And she was taken home—to Easton, which she loved: and said she was much better, and was able to be out on her husband’s arm, and sit on the lawn and watch the sun setting and the stars coming out over the trees. But she had got her death wound. She lay on the sofa for months, for one lingering winter after another, smiling upon all that was done for her, very anxious that Janet should go everywhere and enjoy everything, and that Beaufort should be pleased and happy. She asked nothing for herself, but gave them her whole heart of love and interest to everything that was done by them. She had her sofa placed where she could see them when they went out, and smiled when Beaufort said, always with a slight hesitation, for he thought it was not right to leave her, that he was going to ride over to the club, or to spend a day in town. ‘Do; and bring us back all the news,’ she said. And when Janet went away with compunctions to go to balls with her grandmother, Lady Car was the one who explained away all objections. ‘Quite pleased to have you go—to have Beau to myself for a little,’ Lady Car said sometimes, a little vexing her child; but, when Janet was gone, urging Beaufort to the pleasure he longed for but did not like to take. ‘It is just what I wanted that you should go to town: and you can bring me back news of my little Den.’ Sometimes they were even a little piqued that she wanted them so little—poor Lady Car!

And thus quite gently she faded away, loved—as other people love, not as she loved: cherished and revered, but not as she would have revered and cherished; with a husband who read the papers and went to his club, and got very gracefully through life, in which he was of no importance to anyone, and her only son banished in Africa shooting big game. Janet was a good child, very good: but her mother never knew how near the girl was to her in the shadowy land where people may wander side by side, but without the intervention of words or some self-betrayal never find each other out. Perhaps had Janet found the courage to fling herself down at her mother’s side, and say all that was in her heart, the grasp of that warm hand might still have brought Lady Car back to life. But Janet had not the courage and everything went on in its daily calm, and the woman whose every hope had faded into blank disappointment, and all her efforts ended in failure, faded away. During the first summer Lady Car still went out to dine, and walked a little about the garden with her husband’s arm; the next she was carried out to her sofa on the lawn. All went so very gradually, so very softly, that no one noted. She was very delicate. When that gets to be fully recognised, there seems no reason why it should not go on for ever; not so happy a state as perfect health, to be sure, but with no reason in it why there should be any further change.

One evening she was out of doors longer than usual—a soft lingering summer night—so warm that even an invalid could get no harm out of doors. She loved so to see the daylight gradually fade away, and the stars come out above, and over all the wide champaign below a twinkle of little human lights here and there. She took almost a childish pleasure in those lights, thinking as much of the villages and scattered houses—identifying their humanity low down among the billows of the wood or the sweep of the upland slopes—as of the stars above. ‘The greater and the lesser lights,’ she said, and then murmured low to herself, ‘Compensations,’ under her breath.

‘What do you mean by compensations, Carry?’

‘I do not much believe in them,’ she said. ‘Nothing can compensate for what one loses. It is better not. Looking to the east, Edward, see, there are no lights, but only that silvery misty greyness where any glory might lie hidden only we see it not. Now I have come so far as this I think I like that best.’

‘So far as what, Carry’ Something cold and chill seemed to come over them like a cloud. ‘It is growing chilly, you ought to come indoors, my love.’

‘Yes, presently. I have always been fond of the lights—like a baby; but look the other way. You would say at first there was nothing to be seen at all; but there are all the shades of greyness from one tint to another, and everything lying still, putting out no self-assertion, content to be in God’s hand. And so am I, Edward.’

‘Yes, my love.’

‘Quite content. I have had everything, and—and nothing. The heart of it has always been stolen from me, all the lights put out; but the dark is sweet too; it is only dim, dim, not discernible—don’t call it dark.’

‘Carry! whatever you please, dear.’

‘Edward, do you know what this means—the peace that passeth understanding?’

‘Carry, my darling, you break my heart. No—how should I know?’

I think I do,’ she said softly. ‘It lies upon your heart like the dew, yet nothing to bring it, no cause, a thing that is without reason, what you would call irrational altogether—that passeth understanding. Edward, if ever you think afterwards, remember that I told you. I think that I have got it—I wanted other things, but they were not given me. I begin to think that this—is the best.’

‘My dearest, let me carry you in; it is getting quite dark and chilly.’

‘You are tired of my little sermon, Edward,’ she said, with the faint tender smile which he divined rather than saw.

‘I—tired? of anything you may say or do! But you must not be longer out in the night air. Come, Carry, let me lift you.’

Whether her mind had begun to wander, or if it was a prevision, or what moved her, no one could ever tell. She resisted a little, putting her hands on his arm. ‘You must not forget,’ she said, ‘to give my love to Tom.’

Beaufort called loudly to her maid, who was waiting. ‘It is too late, too late for her to be out! Come and take the cushions,’ he said in the sudden panic that had moved him.

‘And my little Den,’ she said, ‘my little Den—they will perhaps as they get older—Edward, I am afraid I feel a little faint.’

He took her in his arms, his heart sinking with a sudden panic and blind terror as if the blackness of darkness was sweeping over him. But they succeeded in getting her to her room and her bed, where she said good-night and kissed him, and dropped sweetly asleep, as they thought—but never woke again. They found her in the morning lying in the same attitude, with the same smile.

Thus Lady Car ended the tragedy which had been going on unseen, unknown to anyone—the profound, unrivalled tragedy of her life. But so sweetly that no one ever knew the tragedy it had been. Her husband understood more or less the failure of her heart over her children—her son—but he never even imagined that it was he himself that had given the first and perhaps the deepest blow; though not the coup de grâce, which had been left for Tom.

Poor little Janet was summoned home from the merry house to which she had gone, where there were many entertainments going on. She was roused out of the fatigue of pleasure, out of her morning sleep after the ball, to be told that her mother was dead. They thought the girl’s heart would have burst. The cry of ‘Mozer, Mozer!’ her old child’s cry, sounded to those who heard it like something that no consolation could touch. But, to be sure, her tears were dried, like all other tears, after awhile.

END