Roland found himself somewhat ceremoniously ushered into a drawing-room with which he was familiar, and which was known as the Red Room, where he was left at leisure for a few minutes, to look about him and reflect.
The second Mrs. Lindsay had been too wise, he could perceive, to remove much of the ancient furniture of the manor house, but she had interspersed it with much that was modern; large easy seats and rich hangings, gipsy tables, Chippendale chairs, and great rugs, Parian statuary, and one or two antique classic busts, had caught Roland's eye as he passed along; but all old portraits were banished to the staircases and corridors, for it had seemed to the intruder on their domains that the grim old Lindsays in ruff and breastplate, with hand on hip and sword in belt, with their dames in hoops and old-fashioned Scottish fardingales, had rather scowled upon her.
The Red Room of Earlshaugh had been one of the 'show places' in the East Neuk, for nearly all its furniture was of red lacquer work, brought from Japan by a Lindsay in the close of the last century. The walls were hung with stamped leather, the golden tints of which had faded now, though the gilding gleamed out here and there, and against this sobered background the richly tinted furniture, with its painted suns, moons, and stars, grotesque monsters, and queerly designed houses and gardens, stood out redly and boldly, with bronzes, marbles, and ivory carvings now yellow with age.
It was noon now, and through the open and deeply embayed windows the perfume of many flowers stole in from the gardens below, mingling with that from roses and others that were in the jardinières, and to Roland it all seemed as if he had stood there only yesterday.
There was a sound; he turned and found himself face to face with his stepmother, whom he had last seen and known as his own mother's useful, bland, suave, apparently patient and always obsequious companion.
'Welcome, Roland, at last,' said she; but there was no welcome either in her voice or eye, though she accorded him her hand, and a kiss that was as cold as the expression of her face, though it was apparent that she was trying to get up a pathetic look for the occasion; in fact, she felt the necessity for a little acting—of assuming a virtue, if she had it not—and Roland saw and understood the whole situation at once, for after a few commonplaces, and he had flung himself into a chair that had once been a favourite one of his father, she asked:
'How long does your leave of absence from the regiment last?'
'So shortly,' replied Roland with an undisguised sneer, 'that I won't mar your pleasure or spoil your appetite by telling its duration.'
At this reply she coloured for a moment, and thought, 'We have here an independent and conceited young man, who must be kept at his proper distance.' But she only caressed Fifine, an odious little pug dog, which she carried under her arm.
And avoiding all family matters, which, sooth to say, Roland disdained to discuss with her, even his father's death, more than all the alleged terms of the odious will and similar subjects, they talked the merest commonplaces—of the weather, the crops, the country, and of the war in Egypt—but all in a jerky and unconnected fashion, as each felt that a moment might land them on that dangerous ground which was inevitably to be traversed yet.
'And Maude?' said Roland during a pause; 'she must be quite a grown-up young lady now.'
'Yes, she is close on twenty; but I do not see much of Maude.'
'Why?'
'She stays away from Earlshaugh as much as she can, with friends in Edinburgh, London, and elsewhere.'
While closely observing his stepmother, Roland was compelled to admit to himself that she was ladylike. In her fortieth year, her hair was fair and thick; her stature good; her hands well-shaped and white, but somewhat large.
Her face was perfectly colourless; her eyes small, glittering, of the palest gray, planted near a thin and aquiline nose; her lips were also thin, not ill-tempered, but like her whole expression—hard. Her teeth were small and sharp-looking; her face lineless—she looked ten years younger than she was, and was beautifully, even tastefully, dressed.
She wore now, as she always did, a handsome-trimmed black costume of the richest material, with a white cap of fine lace, slightly trimmed with black, as a sign of widowhood, and jet ornaments, with a few pearls among them.
'I do so long to see my dear little Maude!' exclaimed Roland.
'You have been in no hurry to do so,' said Mrs. Lindsay, with a cold smile.
'My uncle at Merlwood was so hospitable,' replied Roland, reddening a little. Could he say to Mrs. Lindsay that her presence had kept him away from Earlshaugh to the last moment, or refer to the new influence of Annot Drummond on himself? 'By-the-bye,' said he abruptly, 'I met a fellow at the door—Mr. Hawkey Sharpe by name, it seems—who I understand has been installed here as a kind of steward or general factotum.'
'What of him?'
'Only that I have made up my mind that he shall march from this, and pretty quick too!'
'There may be some difficulties about that,' replied Mrs. Lindsay, with a hectic flush crossing her pale cheek, and a sharp glitter in her cold gray eyes.
'Difficulties—how? With old MacWadsett?'
'With more than him.'
'What do you mean? By Jove, we shall soon see.'
'What we shall see,' muttered Mrs. Lindsay under her sharp teeth; but Roland, who could not be perfectly suave with her, now asked sharply:
'Why was there not a vehicle—trap—phaeton, or anything else, sent to meet me at the station?'
'Was there none?' she asked languidly.
'None—and I had to leave my luggage there.'
'Dear me—how negligent—eh, Fifine, was it not?' said she, toying with the ears of her cur.
'Negligent, indeed,' added Roland, his brow darkening. 'Yet I read your letter—or telegram was it?—to Mr. Sharpe.'
'You read my letter to—Mr. Sharpe?'
'At least that portion of it referring to your return.'
'Mr.—what's his name?—Sharpe had better act up to his cognomen while I have to do with him. I am accustomed to be obeyed.'
'Like the Centurion in the Scriptures—dear me!'
'Exactly,' said Roland, feeling that there was mockery in her tone or thoughts.
'If not?'
'We are accustomed to obedience in barracks, and enforce it. We have the guard-house to begin with.'
'An institution unknown in Earlshaugh,' said she, with a curl on her lips.
'I have a number of friends coming here to knock over the birds after the 1st—you will please to order arrangements to be made for them.'
'A houseful—I have heard from Maude.'
'Not at all—only Elliot of ours, Skene of Dunnimarle, and one or two more. My cousin Hester and Miss Drummond come too.'
'Must you do this—must I entertain them all?' said she with something like dismay.
'You? Not at all! Let them alone—they will amuse themselves as people in a country house always do. Young fellows and pleasant girls generally contrive to cut out their own amusements.'
'I see so few people now that I shall be quite scared.'
'Let Maude act hostess then,' said Roland sharply, with a tone that seemed to indicate he thought it more her place.
'Maude is but a little child in my eyes—and none can take my position in Earlshaugh!' said Mrs. Lindsay firmly and pointedly; and Roland, tired of an interview, the whole tenor of which provoked him, and in which an undefined and ill-disguised hostility to himself was manifested, looked at his watch and asked:
'Any chance of lunch, do you think?'
'Lunch?'
'Yes. When a fellow has travelled nearly forty miles in a morning, and crossed the Firth, he wants something to pick him up.'
'Lunch is past already,' said Mrs. Lindsay stiffly; 'but ring the bell, please.'
She made no attempt with effusive hospitality to rise from her seat. That would have implied kindness, attention, and, more than all, it would have involved exertion; and she was contriving now to be one of those imperturbable creatures who never allow themselves to be influenced or bored; and when Roland withdrew to the familiar dining-room to partake of the meal, and where he was welcomed by jolly old Simon Funnell, his father's rubicund butler, with shining face and outstretched hands, she did not accompany him; nor did he observe, when he left her, how her pale face expressed by turns dread, defiance, hatred, and more!
One would have supposed that the mere difference of sex might have affected her, and made her disposed to view favourably, and to greet pleasantly at least, the only son of the man to whose folly she owed so much—a handsome young fellow, whose face made even those of old women brighten. But it was not so; and thus bitterly did Roland Lindsay feel that his home-coming, with all its sense of irritation and humiliation, was such that, but for Maude and those at Merlwood, he would have regretted that he did not perish after Kashgate, when he lay helpless in the desert, with the foul Egyptian vultures hovering over him.