The ball was in full career; everybody had come to it from all the houses within reach, and the radius was wide—extending over the whole county. It was universally acknowledged that nobody could have imagined the drawing-room at Dalrulzian to be so large—and though the mothers and the old ladies were in a great state of alarm as to the facilities for stepping forth through the long windows after a dance, yet the young people, indifferent to the northern chill which they had been used to all their lives, considered the Walk, which seemed almost a portion of the room, to be the most delightful of all. Rintoul, though with many protestations and much scorn of the little rustic assembly, had been persuaded to wait for it, and was an object of attraction as great as—nay, in some respects greater than—John himself. There were no great young ladies in the company for whom it was worth his while to exert himself, and consequently the young man yielded to the soft flattery of all the pleased and grateful faces around him, and made himself agreeable in general, ending, however, almost invariably at the side of Nora, to whom it was a pleasing compensation for the indifference of the young master of Dalrulzian, who had been so distinctly destined for her by the country. John was very civil to Nora. He went out of his way, indeed, to be civil. He took her about the house, into the library, and the hall, to show her the alterations he was making, and appealed to her about their propriety in a way which Nora felt might have taken in some girls. But she was not taken in. She knew it was merely politeness, and that John would go away as soon as he had done his duty with a certain sense of relief. But Rintoul's attentions were paid in a very different spirit. He asked her to dance as many times as he could without attracting too much notice. Nora felt that he discriminated this line finely, and was half provoked and half flattered by it, feeling acutely that whereas John Erskine did his best to show her all the civility which his position required, Rintoul went against all the duties of his position to get near her, to talk to her in a corner, to devote to her every moment which he could devote to her without remark. He was very careful, very desirous not to commit himself with society; but to Nora, every tone of his voice, every look committed him. She felt—she was a great deal cleverer than Rintoul, and saw through and through him—that to her he was a totally different person from the young man of fashion, who, with a touch of condescension, did his duty to the other young ladies. She saw him in a different light. He toned his words for her. He changed his very sentiments. She was pleased and amused, and at the same time touched, when (for she was too clever) she noted this change coming over him in the middle of a sentence, in the figure of a dance, when he suddenly found himself near her. There could not have been a more complete proof of these sentiments which he was as yet afraid to indulge in, which vanquished him against his will. A girl's pride may be roused by the idea that a man struggles against her power over him, and is unwilling to love her; but at the same time there is a wonderful flattery in the consciousness that his unwillingness avails him nothing, and that reason is powerless in comparison with love. Nora with her keen eyes marked how, when the young man left her to dance or to talk with some one else, he kept, as it were, one eye upon her, watching her partners and her behaviour—and how, the moment he was free, he would gyrate round her, with something which (within herself, always laughing, yet not displeased) she compared to the flutterings of a bird beating its wings against the air, resisting yet compelled to approach some centre of fascination. He would have kept away if he could, but he was not able. She was so much occupied in watching these proceedings of his—seeing the humour of them so completely that she was fain to put her head out at the window, or retire into a corner of the hall, to laugh privately to herself—that she lost the thread of much that was said to her, and sadly wounded the feelings of several of the young officers from Dundee. What they said was as a murmur in her ears, while her mind was engaged in the more amusing study—watching the movements of Rintoul.
The Lindores family had come out in force to grace John's entertainment. Even the Earl himself had come, which was so unusual. He had made up his mind so strenuously as to the support which John was to give to Rintoul's candidateship and his own plans, that he thought it necessary to "countenance," as he said, our young man's proceedings in everything personal to himself. And Lord Lindores, like so many people, did not perceive, in his inspection of the horizon, and desire that this thing and that should be done in the distance, the danger which lay under his very eye. No doubt it was natural that his little daughter Edith should be, as it were, the queen of the entertainment. Not only was she one of the prettiest girls in the county, but she was the first in rank, and therefore the most to be thought of; the first to be honoured, if any honours were going. That was simple enough, and cost him no consideration at all. He made another effort to overcome old Sir James Montgomery's prejudiced opposition, and talked on political matters in the doorways with a great deal of liberality and good-humour, taking with perfect serenity the clumsy gibes which his neighbours would launch at innovators, at people with foreign tastes, at would-be philanthropists. He smiled and "never let on," though sometimes the gibes were galling enough. Lady Lindores sat at the head of the room with Lady Car by her, very gracious too, though sometimes yawning a little privately behind her fan. They spoke to the people who came to speak to them, and acknowledged the new-comers who were introduced to them with benignant smiles. But both mother and daughter were somewhat out of their element. Now and then a lively passage of conversation would break out around them, and anon die off, and they would be left again smiling but silent, giving each other sympathetic glances, and swallowing delicate yawns. "No, I do not dance. You must excuse me," Lady Car said quietly, with that pretty smile which lighted up her pale face like sunshine. She was not pretty—but there could not be a face more full of meaning. Her eyes had some anxiety always in them, but her smile gave to her face something of the character of one whose life was over, to whom it mattered very little what was going to happen, to whom, in short, nothing could happen—to whom Fate had done its worst.
There was a brief pause in the gaiety, and of a sudden, as will sometimes happen, the murmur of talk in all the different groups, the hum of the multitude at its pleasantest and lightest, was suspended. When such a pause occurs it will frequently be filled and taken possession of for the moment by some louder or more persistent scrap of conversation from an individual group, which suddenly seems to become the chief thing in the crowd, listened to by all. Ordinarily it is the most trivial chit-chat, but now and then the ranks will open, as it were, to let something of vital importance, some revelation, some germ of quarrel, some fatal hint or suggestion, be heard. This time it was Torrance, always loud-voiced, whose words suddenly came out in the hearing of the entire company. He happened at the moment to be standing with John Erskine contemplating the assembly in general. Rintoul was close by, lingering for a moment to address a passing civility to the matron whose daughter he had just brought back to her side. Torrance had been in the supper-room, and was charged with champagne. He was not a drunkard, but he habitually took a great deal of wine, the result of which was only to make him a little more himself than usual, touching all his qualities into exaggeration—a little louder, a little more rude, cynical, and domineering. He was surveying the company with his big staring eyes.
"This makes me think," he said, "of the time when I was a wanter, as they say. Take the good of your opportunities, John Erskine. Take your chance, man, while ye have it. When a man's married, he's done for; nobody cares a fig for him more. But before he's fixed his choice, the whole world is at his call. Then's the time to be petted and made of—everybody smiling upon you,—instead of sitting with one peevish face on the other side of the fire at home."
He ended this speech with one of his huge rude laughs; and there are a great many such speeches permitted in society, laughed at even by those who are themselves the point of the moral. But Rintoul was in an excited condition of mind; contradictory to all his own tenets; going in his heart against his own code; kicking against the pricks. He turned round sharply with a certain pleasure in finding somebody upon whom to let forth an ill-humour which had been growing in him. "You forget, Torrance, who I am, when you speak of this peevish face before me."
"You!—troth I forgot your existence altogether," said Torrance, after a pause of astonishment, and a prolonged stare ending in another laugh.
Rintoul flushed a furious red. He was excited by the rising of a love which he meant to get the better of, but which for the moment had got the better of him; and by all the restraints he had put upon himself, and which public opinion required should be put upon him. He flashed upon his brother-in-law an angry glance, which in its way was like the drawing of a sword.
"You had better," he said, "recall my existence as quickly as you can, Torrance—for it may be necessary to remind you of it very sharply one of these days, from all I hear."
Torrance replied by another loud insulting laugh. "I mind you well enough when I hear you crow, my little cock-o'-the-walk," he said.
The conversation had got thus far during the pause which has been described. But now the whole assembly rushed into talk with a general tremor, the band struck up, the dancers flew off with an energy which was heightened by a little panic. Everybody dislikes a family quarrel: the first beginnings of it may excite curiosity, but at a certain point it alarms the most dauntless gossip. To get out of the way of it, the world in general will take any trouble. Accordingly the ranks closed with the eagerness of fear, to continue the metaphor, and the two belligerents were hidden at once from sight and hearing. Men began to talk in their deepest basses, women in their shrillest trebles, and how it ended nobody knew. There were a great many whispered questions and remarks made afterwards when the crisis was over. "Young Erskine had all the trouble in the world to smooth it over." "One doesn't know what would have happened if old Sir James had not got hold of Lord Rintoul." "Half-a-dozen men got round Pat Torrance. They made believe to question him about some racing—and that quieted him," cried one and another, each into the nearest ear; and the whole assembly with a thrill watched the family of Lindores in all its movements, and saw significance in every one of these. This was the only contretemps that occurred in the whole programme of the festivities at Dalrulzian. It passed out of hearing of Lady Car, who sat the evening out with that soft patience as of one whose day was over—the little smile, the little concealed yawn, the catch of conversation when any one who could talk drifted by her. Dr Stirling and she discussed Wordsworth for a whole half-hour, which was the only part of the entertainment that withdrew her at all from herself. "And his noble philosophy of sorrow," she said, "which is the finest of all. The part which he gives it in the world——" "I am not clear in my own mind," said the Doctor, "that sorrow by itself does good to anybody." "Stretch a hand through time to catch the far-off interest of tears," cried Lady Car with an unfathomable distance in her mild eyes, shaking her head at him and smiling. This was her point of enjoyment. When she thought the hour at which she might withdraw was coming, she sent to her husband to know if he was ready, still quite unaware of his utterance about the peevish face. Poor Lady Car! her face was not peevish. It was somewhat paler than usual, so much as that was possible, as she watched him coming towards her. The more wine he took the less supportable he was. Alarm came into her gentle eyes. "Oh yes, I'm ready," he said; "I've been here long enough," in a tone which she understood well. She thought it was possibly John who had given him offence, and took leave of her host quickly, holding out her hand to him in passing with a word. "I must not stop to congratulate you now. I will tell how well it has gone off next time I see you," she said hastily. But her brother would not be shaken off so easily. He insisted on keeping by her side, and took a tender leave of her only at the carriage-door, walking along with her as though determined to make a demonstration of his brotherly regard. "I shall see you again, Rintoul, before you go?" "No," he cried; "good-bye, Car. I am not coming to Tinto again." What did it mean? But as they drove home through the dark, shut up together in that strict enclosure, her husband did not fail to make her acquainted with what had happened. "What's his business, I should like to know?" Torrance cried. "Of course it's your complaints, Lady Car. You set yourselves up as martyrs, you white-faced women. You think it gives you a charm the more; but I'll charm them that venture to find fault with me," he cried, with his hot breath, like a strong gale of wine and fury, on her cheek. What disgust was in her breast along with the pain! "There's no duels now, more's the pity," said Torrance: "maybe you think it's as well for me, and that your brother might have set you free, my lady." "I have never given you any cause to say so," she cried from her corner, shrinking from him as far as possible. What a home-going that was! and the atmosphere of wine, and heat, and rude fury, and ruder affection, from which she could not escape, was never to escape all her wretched life. Poor Lady Car! with nothing but a little discussion about Wordsworth or Shelley to stand in place of happiness to her heart.
"I have been quarrelling with that brother-in-law of mine," Rintoul said to Nora in the next dance, which he ought not to have had, he knew, and she knew, though she had been persuaded to throw off, for him, a lagging partner. He had not said a word about the quarrel to his mother or sister, but to Nora he could not help telling it. He broke even the strained decorum which he had been painfully keeping up for this cause. Already he had danced more than was usual with one partner, but this was too strong for him. He could not resist the temptation.
"Oh, Lord Rintoul!"
"Yes, I have quarrelled with him. To hear how he spoke of Carry was more than I could bear. Now you will never betray me; tell me, I daren't ask any one else. Is he supposed to be—Jove! I can't say the word—unkind to poor Car?"
"He is very proud of her—he thinks there is no one like her. I don't think he means it, Lord Rintoul."
"Means it!—but he is so, because he is a brute, and doesn't know what he is doing."
"They are not—very like each other," said Nora, hesitating; "but everybody must have seen that before."
"Yes, I own it," said Rintoul. "I take shame to myself. Oh that money, that money!" he cried with real passion, giving her hand a cruel unnecessary grip, as he led her back to the dance; "the things that one is obliged to look over, and to wink at, on account of that."
"But no one is forced to consider it at all—to that extent," Nora said.
"To what extent?" Rintoul asked, and then he gave her hand another squeeze, always under cover of the dance. "You are above it—but who is like you?" he said, as he whirled her away into the crowd. This was far indeed for so prudent a young man to go.