Thus between threats and promises, and patience and obstinacy, it came gradually to pass that Lord Lindores had to yield. He made that winter a very unhappy one to his family—and it was not more agreeable to himself; for it was not long before he arrived at the conviction that he could make nothing by his opposition. In Rintoul's case, this had been evident to him from the very first, but he had tried for some time to delude himself with the idea that Edith would and must yield to his will. The successive stages of wrath, bewildered surprise, impatient certainty, and then of a still more disagreeable conviction that whatever he might say or do he would not overcome this girl, went over him one after another, irritating and humiliating his arbitrary spirit. A father may consent to the fact that beyond a certain point he cannot coerce his full-grown son; but to be opposed and vanquished by a chit of a girl, is hard upon him. To see a soft, small creature, whom he could almost blow away, whom he could crush in his hand like a butterfly, standing up in all the force of a distinct and independent being before him, and asserting her own will and judgment against his,—this was almost more than he could bear. He came, however, gradually to a perception of what can and what cannot be done in the way of moral compulsion. It had succeeded with Carry, and he had not been able at first to imagine that it would not succeed equally with Edith; but gradually his mind was undeceived. He had in reality given up the contest long before he would confess to himself, and still longer before he would allow to the world that it was so. If he could do nothing else, he would at least keep his household in suspense, and make the cup as bitter as possible to them before they should be allowed to touch the sweet.
Lord Lindores, with all these vexations upon his head, experienced for a moment an absolute pause in his individual career and prospects. He was assailed with that disgust which is one of the curses of age and experience. Cui bono? it is the oldest of reflections and the most persistent. To what good is all the work and labour under the sun? What did it matter to him to gain an empty distinction, if his children were to melt away on all sides of him, and merge into the lower classes—which was how, in a moment of natural exasperation, he represented the matter to himself. But afterwards there was a reaction, as was equally natural. He reflected that he was only fifty-five, and that what a man enjoys himself is more to him than anything his grandchildren are likely to enjoy. If he was sure of never having any grandchildren, it would still be worth his while to be Lord Dunearn in the peerage of Great Britain, and take his seat and wear his robes in Westminster. Till these glories were attained, what was he?—a mere Scots lord, good for nothing. A man's children are not the only interests he has in life; especially when they are married he can shake them off—he can re-enter the world without encumbrance. And Lord Lindores remembered that life and the pleasures of his rank could be enjoyed soberly with his wife at a moderate expense if the young people were all off his hand. He had been but an uncomfortable husband of late years, and yet he loved his wife as she loved him, in frequent disagreements, in occasional angers and impatiences, and much disappointment. What would become of the world if love did not manage to hold its footing through all these? The boys and girls of the high-flown kind are of opinion that love is too feeble to bear the destruction of the ideal. But that is all these young persons know. Love has the most robust vitality in the world—it outlives everything. Lord Lindores was often irritated beyond description by his wife, who would not understand his ways, and was continually diverging into ridiculous by-paths of her own. And she was more disappointed in him—more hurt and mortified by his shortcomings than words can say. But yet they loved each other. So much, that it gradually began to dawn upon him with a sense of solace, that when the House of Lords called him, as he hoped, he and she together, without any young people to trouble them, would yet take their pleasure together, and enjoy it and their elevated position, and be able to afford it, which was the best of all. She, at fifty, was still a handsome woman; and he had a presence which many younger men might have envied. It is doubtful whether the imagination of Lady Lindores would have been equally delighted with this dream: but it would have pleased her to know that he looked forward to it, which is next best. Animated by this thought, Lord Lindores gathered himself together and returned to public business with all his heart and soul. He took possession unhesitatingly, as has been said, of the Tinto power and influence. Torrance had opposed him in politics, and thus neutralised the advantage of a family union against which nothing in the county could stand. But now, with a sigh of satisfaction, Lord Lindores drew into his hand the influence of Tinto too.
This went on for some time with little warning of the insecurity of tenure by which he held his power. Beaufort had at last withdrawn from Dalrulzian, though it was not absolutely certain that he had left the neighbourhood. The minds of the family were, however, eased by his abandonment of the ground so far. And Lady Car lived very quietly, seldom making her appearance out of her own grounds, and never once appearing at Lindores. She would not, indeed, on any argument, return to her old home. Though she was urged by her mother and sister with many soft entreaties, Carry would never yield on this point. Her countenance seemed to blanch when it was suggested, though, she would give no reason but a tremulous oft-repeated "No, no; oh, no, no." When she drove out, she would sometimes call at the door to fetch them, sometimes to convey them home, but they could not induce her to cross the familiar threshold. She was uneasy even in the very neighbourhood of the house, and breathed more freely when it was out of sight. This extraordinary objection to her father's house kept her almost a prisoner in her own; for where could a widow of but a few months go, except to her parents? No other visiting was possible. She was not even, they thought, very desirous of Edith's society, but liked to be alone, interesting herself in the alterations of furniture and new arrangements she was making; a great many of the faded grandeurs upon which Pat Torrance prided himself had already been put away. For the moment this was the only sign of feeling herself her own mistress which Lady Car displayed.
Other revolutions, however, were at hand. There came a moment when it happened that one of the orders Lord Lindores had given was disobeyed, and when an explanation was asked, the answer given was that Lady Car herself had given other orders. This irritated her father greatly, and he made up his mind that the uncertainty in which things were could exist no longer—that he must have an explanation with his daughter. He set out for this purpose with a little impatient determination to bring Carry to her senses. He had been tolerating much which it was ridiculous to go on tolerating. All the family had humoured her, he felt, as if she had been an inconsolable widow, broken-hearted and incapable of any exertion. At this, he could not but smile within himself as he thought of it. It was a pity, perhaps, for Torrance, poor fellow, but it could not be doubted that it was a most fortunate accident for Car. To be his wife, perhaps, had its disagreeables, but there could be no more desirable position than that of his widow; and to indulge Carry's whims as they had all been doing, and keep every annoyance out of her way as if she had been heart-broken, was too absurd. He decided that it would be well to have a clear understanding once for all. She was left by the will in uncontrolled authority, and it was full time to show her that this did not, of course, interfere with the authority of her father, who was her natural guide and protector. "Your husband, of course, took this into consideration," he intended to say. But it cannot be denied that he had to brace himself up for the interview with a clear sense that it might be a painful one; and that as he went along Lord Lindores did, what was a great tribute to the altered position of Carry—arranged the subjects of their interview in his mind, and settled with himself what he was to say.
A great deal can happen in a neighbourhood even when it is full of gossiping society, without reaching the ears of the persons most intimately concerned, and Lord Lindores had been kept in ignorance of much which had alarmed and disquieted his wife. She was aware, but he was not, that Beaufort still lingered in the vicinity, not living indeed in one place, but making frequent expeditions from Edinburgh, or from the further north, sometimes to the little hotel at Dunearn, sometimes to other little towns in the neighbourhood, from which he could come for the day, or even for a few hours, to see Carry in her solitude. Lady Lindores had discovered this with all the pain of anxiety and wounded disapproval,—wounded that Carry could think it right to do what seemed to herself so little suited to the dignity and delicacy of her position: and though scarcely a word had been said between them on the subject, it had brought pain and embarrassment into their intercourse; for Carry was irritated and wounded beyond measure by the consciousness of her mother's disapproval. She, of whom Torrance had declared in his brutal way that she was too proud to go wrong, was incapable indeed even of conceiving the possibility that "going wrong" should be in any one's thought of her. In her own mind, the fervour with which she had turned back to the love of her life, the eagerness with which, at the very earliest moment, she had sought his pardon, were the only compensations she could give him for the falsehood into which she had been forced and the sufferings that had been inflicted upon him. How could she pretend to build a wall of false delicacy around herself and keep him at a distance, while her heart was solely bent upon making up to him for what he had suffered, and conscious of no sentiment but an overwhelming desire for his presence and society? That she should be obliged to enjoy this society almost by stealth, and that her mother, even her mother, should object and remonstrate, gave Carry the keen and sharp offence with which a delicate mind always resents a false interpretation of its honest meaning. It seemed to her that her first duty now was to be true—always true. She had been false with horrible consequences: to conceal now the eager bound of her heart towards her true lover would be a lie—especially to him who had suffered, as she also had suffered, from the lies of her life. But Lord Lindores, when he made up his mind that Carry must be brought to her senses, was in no way aware how difficult the position was, and how far those senses had gone astray.
He had taken a considerable round to think over the subject, so that it was getting towards evening when he rode up the long avenue to Tinto,—so late that the workmen whom Carry employed in the changes she was making were leaving their work, when Lord Lindores went into the house and made his way towards Carry's sitting-room. He sent away the butler, who, with an air of alarm and surprise, started out of the partial twilight to conduct him to his daughter. It was, he felt, something of a reproach to him that the man looked so much startled, as if his mistress's father could be an unwelcome visitor. The room was not lighted, save by the glow of a large fire, when Lord Lindores opened the door, after a knock to which no answer was returned. There was a sound of several voices, and he was surprised to see the tall figure of a man standing against the firelight. Who was the man who was visiting Carry? It was not Rintoul, nor any one else he knew in the neighbourhood. Nobody about was so tall, so slight, though there was something in the outline of the figure that was familiar to him. But there was an agitated conversation going on, which made the speakers scarcely distinguishable in the twilight, unconscious of the knock of the new-comer or his entrance. To his surprise it was his wife's voice which he heard first, saying tremulously: "Mr Beaufort, I can do nothing but return to what I said before. Qui s'excuse s'accuse. You may have the very best of reasons, but it is an injury to Carry that you should stay here."
"An injury to me! How can it be an injury to me? It is my only consolation, it is the only help I have. I have told you from the first, mamma. Edward has been wronged, only not so cruelly wronged as I was myself; oh, nobody could be that! And now that we can make it up to each other—and learn to forget it,—you would chase him away a second time—for what?—because of what people—the world—those who know nothing about us—may say!"
Carry was standing by the mantelpiece, her tall figure in its black clinging dress scarcely distinguishable at first, but the animation with which she spoke, and the natural eloquence of her gestures, brought it out against the white marble. Then there came Beaufort's deeper voice: "You know, Lady Lindores, I am ready to do whatever is best for her. If I can comfort her after all that has happened to her, how can I go away? I wish to do only what is best for her."
"I beg to remark," said Lord Lindores, coming forward, "that I knocked before coming in. This, I suppose, is why your servant looked alarmed when he admitted me. Is this gentleman, may I ask, living here?"
Carry drew back at the sound of his voice as if she had received a blow. She clung to the edge of the tall white mantelpiece, shrinking, her figure drawn together, an impersonation of terror and trouble. Beaufort started too, but slightly, and stood instinctively out of the way to make room for the new-comer. Lord Lindores went straight forward to the fire and took up his position with his back to it, with a certain straightforward ease and authority, like a man in his own house, who has no doubt of his right to do his pleasure there. But as a matter of fact, he was by no means so certain as he looked.
"We did not hear you," said Carry, with a breathless gasp in her voice. "We were talking—over points on which my mother does not agree with me."
"I can easily imagine that," he replied.
And then there was a dreadful pause. Lady Lindores, on the other side of the fire, did not move or speak. It was the crisis of Carry's fate, and except in defence or help of her child, the mother vowed to herself that she would take no part. It was hard, but it was best for Carry. Whatever was going to happen to her, she must decide for herself now.
"I asked," said Lord Lindores in that calm, clear, collected voice, which was so strange a contrast to the agitation of the others, "whether this gentleman is living here? If so, it is very inappropriate and unsuitable. Your mother would prefer, I am sure, if Mr Beaufort is here about any business, to offer him a bed at Lindores."
There was a universal holding of the breath at this extraordinary proposition. Had he burst into all the violence of passion, they would have been prepared, but not for this politeness and calm.
"I am not living here, Lord Lindores," said Beaufort, with some confusion. "I am on my way from the North. I could not resist the temptation of staying for an hour or two on my way to inquire——"
"That was very kind," he said; "and kindness which interferes with personal comfort is very rare. If you are going to Edinburgh, you must remember you have two ferries to cross."
"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 master-stroke. 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, any one 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?