The Ladies Lindores, Vol. 3 (of 3) by Mrs. Oliphant - HTML preview

CHAPTER XLIX.

When a pair of lovers are finally delivered from all those terrible obstacles that fret the current of true love, and are at last married and settled, what more is there to be said about them? One phase of life is happily terminated,—the chapter which human instinct has chosen as the subject of romance, the one in which all classes are interested,—those to whom it is still in the future, with all the happy interest of happiness to come,—those to whom it is in the past, with perhaps a sigh, perhaps a smile of compassion, a softening recollection, even when their hopes have not been fulfilled, of what was and what might have been. The happinesses and the miseries of that early struggle, how they dwindle in importance as we get older,—how little we think now of the crisis which seemed final then—things for which heaven and earth stood still; yet there will never come a time in which human interest will fall away from the perennial story, continually going on, ever changing, yet ever the same.

Before proceeding to the knotting up of other threads, we must first recount here what happened to Lord Millefleurs. He did not take any immediate steps in respect to Miss Sallie Field. They corresponded largely and fully at all times, and he told her of the little incident respecting Edith Lindores in full confidence of her sympathy and approval. Perhaps he gave the episode a turn of a slightly modified kind, representing that his proposal was rather a matter of politeness than of passion, and that it was a relief to both parties when it was discovered that Edith, as well as himself, considered fraternal much better than matrimonial relations. Miss Sallie's reply to this was very uncompromising. She said: "I think you have behaved like a couple of fools. You ought to have married. You can tell her from me that she would have found you very nice, though your height may leave something to be desired. I don't myself care for girls—they are generally stupid; but it would have been exceedingly suitable, and pleased your parents—a duty which I wish I saw you more concerned about." Lord Millefleurs, in his reply, acknowledged the weight and sense "as always" of his correspondent's opinion. "I told dear Edith at once what you said; but it did not perhaps make so much impression on her as it would otherwise have done, since she has got engaged to John Erskine, a country gentleman in the neighbourhood, which does not please her parents half so well as a certain other union would have done. Pleasing one's parents after all, though it is a duty, is not paramount to all other considerations. Besides, I have never thought it was a commandment to which great attention was paid chez nous." Miss Field's reply was still more succinct and decided: "I don't know what you mean by chez nous. I hate French phrases when simple American will do as well. If you think we don't love our fathers and mothers, it just shows how far popular fallacy can go, and how easily you bigoted Englishmen are taken in. Who was it that first opened your eyes to the necessity of considering your mother's feelings?" Peace was established after this, but on the whole Lord Millefleurs decided to await the progress of circumstances, and not startle and horrify those parents whom Miss Sallie was so urgent he should please. Some time after she informed him that she was coming to Europe in charge of a beautiful young niece, who would have a large fortune. "Money makes a great deal of difference in the way in which dukes and duchesses consider matters," she wrote, enigmatically, "and so far as I can make out from your papers and novels (if there is any faith to be put in them), American girls are the fashion." Lord Millefleurs informed his mother of this approaching arrival, and with some difficulty procured from her an invitation to Ess Castle for his Transatlantic friends. "I wish there was not that girl though," her Grace said; but Lady Reseda, for her part, was delighted. "She will go to Paris first and bring the very newest fashions," that young lady cried. The ducal mansion was a little excited by the anticipation. They looked for a lovely creature dressed to just a little more than perfection, who would come to breakfast in a diamond necklace, and amuse them more than anybody had amused them in the memory of man. And they were not disappointed in this hope. Miss Nellie F. Field was a charming little creature, and her "things" were divine. Lady Reseda thought her very like Daisy Miller; and the Duchess allowed, with a sigh, that American girls were the fashion, and that if Millefleurs would have something out of the way——.

But in the meanwhile Millefleurs left this lovely little impersonation of Freedom to his mother and sister, and walked about with her aunt. Miss Sallie was about eight or nine and thirty, an age at which women have not ceased to be pleasant—when they choose—to the eye as well as to the heart. But the uncompromising character of her advice was nothing to that of her toilette and appearance. She wore short skirts in which she could move about freely when everybody else had them long. She wore a bonnet when everybody else had a hat. Her hair was thin, but she was scrupulous never to add a tress, or even a cushion. She was not exactly plain, for her features were good, and her eyes full of intelligence; but as for complexion, she had none, and no figure to speak of. She assumed the entire spiritual charge of Millefleurs from the moment they met, and he was never absent from her side a moment longer than he could help. It amused the family beyond measure, at first almost more than Nellie. But by and by the smile began to be forced, and confusion to take the part of hilarity. It was Miss Sallie Field herself at last who took the bull by the horns, if that is not too profane a simile. She took the Duke apart one fine evening, when the whole party had strolled out upon the lawn after dinner—"Your son," she said, "is tormenting me to marry him," and she fixed upon the Duke her intelligent eyes. His Grace was confounded, as may be supposed. He stood aghast at this middle-aged woman with her Transatlantic accent and air. He did not want to be uncivil. "You!" he said, in consternation, then blushed for his bad manners, and added, suavely, "I beg you a thousand pardons—you mean—your niece." That of itself would be bad enough. "No," said Miss Sallie, with an air of regret, "it does not concern Nellie. I have told him that would be more reasonable. Nellie is very pretty, and has a quantity of money; but he doesn't seem to see it. Perhaps you don't know that this was what he wanted when I sent him home to his mother? I thought he would have got over it when he came home. I consider him quite unsuitable for me, but I am a little uneasy about the moral consequences. I am thirty-eight, and I have a moderate competency, not a fortune, like Nellie. I thought it better to talk it over with you before it went any further," Miss Sallie said.

And when he took this middle-aged and plain-spoken bride to Dalrulzian to visit the young people there, Millefleurs did not attempt to conceal his consciousness of the objections which his friends would no doubt make. "I told you it was quite unsuitable," he said, turning up his little eyes and clasping his plump hands. "We were both perfectly aware of that; but it is chic, don't you know, if you will allow me to use a vulgar word." Edith clasped the arm of John when the Marquis and Marchioness of Millefleurs had retired, and these two young people indulged in subdued bursts of laughter. They stepped out upon the terrace walk to laugh, that they might not be heard, feeling the delightful contrast of their own well-assorted youth and illimitable happiness. The most delightful vanity mingled with their mirth—that vanity in each other which feels like a virtue. It was summer, and the air was soft, the moon shining full over the far sweep of the undulating country, blending with a silvery remnant of daylight which lingered far into the night. The hills in the far distance shone against the lightness of the horizon, and the crest of fir-trees on Dalrulzian hill stood out against the sky, every twig distinct. It was such a night as the lovers babbled of on that bank on which the moonbeams lay at Belmont, but more spiritual than any Italian night because of that soft heavenly lingering of the day which belongs to the north. This young pair had not been married very long, and had not ceased to think their happiness the chief and most reasonable subject of interest to all around them. They were still comparing themselves with everything in earth, and almost in heaven, to the advantage of their own blessedness. They were amused beyond description by the noble couple who had come to visit them. "Confess, now, that you feel a pang of regret," John said—and they stood closer and closer together, and laughed under their breath as at the most delightful joke in the world. Up-stairs the Marchioness shut the window, remarking that the air was very cold. "What a fool that little thing was not to have you," she said; "you would have done very well together." "Dear Edith!" said Millefleurs, folding his hands, "it is very pretty, don't you know, to see her so happy."

The observations made down-stairs, upon the actors in this little drama, were very free, as was natural. Rolls himself, who had held a more important rôle than any one knew, was perhaps apt to exaggerate the greatness of his own part, but with an amiable and benevolent effect. His master, indeed, he looked upon with benevolent indulgence, as knowing no more than a child of the chief incident. If Rolls had not been already bound to the house of Dalrulzian by lifelong fidelity and by that identification of himself and all his interests, his pride and self-regard, with his "family," which is something even more tenacious and real than faithfulness, he would have been made so by the fact that John, without in the slightest degree realising that Rolls was suffering for him, had given orders to Mr Monypenny to secure the most expensive assistance for his trial. The pride, contempt, satire, and keen suppressed emotion with which this act filled the old servant's bosom, were beyond description. "It was just downright extravagance," he said to Bauby; "they're a' fuils, thae Erskines, frae father to son. Laying out all that siller upon me; and no' a glimmer o' insight a' the time. An' he had had the sense to see, it would have been natural; but how could he divine my meaning when there was no conscience in himsel'? and giving out his money all the same as if notes were things ye could gather on the roadside?" "He mightna understand ye, Tammas, but he ken't your meaning was good," said Bauby. Their position was changed by all the changes that had happened, to the increase of their grandeur if not of their happiness. Rolls had now a tall and respectful youth under his orders, and Bauby was relieved, in so far as she would allow herself to be relieved, of the duties of the kitchen. It was gratifying to their pride, but there is little doubt that they sighed occasionally for the freedom of the time when Rolls was alone in his glory, dictator of the feminine household, and Bauby's highest effort of toilette was to tie a clean apron round her ample waist. She had to wear a silk gown now, and endeavour to be happy in it. Rolls's importance, however, was now publicly acknowledged both out of doors and in. He was looked upon with a kind of admiring awe by the population generally, as a man who had been, as it were, like Dante, in hell, and came out unsinged—or in prison, which was nearly as bad, issuing forth in a sort of halo of innocence and suffering. It might have been possible that John Erskine or any of the gentlemen of the country-side had quarrelled with Tinto and meant mischief; but Rolls could not have meant anything. The very moment that the eyes of the rural world were directed to him, it was established that accident only could be the cause of death, and everybody felt it necessary to testify their sympathy to the unwilling instrument of such an event. The greatest people in the county would stop to speak to him when occasion offered, to show him that they thought no worse of him. Even Lord Lindores would do this; but there was one exception. Rintoul was the one man who had never offered any sympathy. He turned his head the other way when Rolls approached him,—would not look at him when they were, perforce, brought into contact. While Rolls, for his part, regarded Lord Rintoul with a cool and cynical air of observation that was infinitely galling to the object of it. "Yon lord!" he said, when he spoke of him, contemptuous, with a scoff always in his tone. And Rolls had grown to be a great authority in legal matters, the only person in the neighbourhood, as was supposed, that knew the mysteries of judicial procedure. But his elevation, as we have said, was modified by domestic drawbacks. Instead of giving forth his sentiments in native freedom as he went and came with the dishes, direct from one table to another, it was necessary to wait until the other servants of the household were disposed of before the butler and the housekeeper could express confidentially their feelings to each other. And Bauby, seated in her silk gown, doing the honours to the Marquis's man, of whom she stood in great awe, and the Marchioness's woman, whom she thought a "cutty," was not half so happy as Bauby, glowing and proud in the praises of a successful dinner, with her clean white apron folded over her arms.

"This is the lord that my leddy would have been married upon, had all gone as was intended," Rolls said. "He's my Lord Marquis at present, and will be my Lord Duke in time."

"Such a bit creature for a' thae grand titles," said Bauby, yawning freely over the stocking which she was supposed to be knitting. "Eh, Tammas, my man, do ye hear that clatter? We'll no' have an ashet left in the house."

"It's a peety she didna take him—it would have pleased a' pairties," said Rolls. "I had other views mysel', as is well known, for our maister here, poor lad. Woman, cannot ye bide still when a person is speaking to ye? The ashets are no' your concern."

"Eh, and wha's concern should they be?" cried Bauby; "would I let the family suffer and me sit still? My lady's just a sweet young thing, and I'm more fond of her every day. She may not just be very clever about ordering the dinner, but what does that maitter as lang as I'm to the fore? And she's an awfu' comfort to my mind in respect to Mr John. It takes off the responsibility. Me that was always thinking what would I say to his mammaw!"

"I have nothing to say against my lady," said Rolls, "but just that I had ither views. It's a credit to the house that she should have refused a grand match for our sake. But it will be a fine ploy for an observer like me that kens human nature to see them a' about my table at their dinner the morn. There will be the Earl himsel', just girning with spite and politeness—and her that would have been my ain choice, maybe beginning to see, poor thing, the mistake she's made. Poor thing! Marriages, in my opinion, is what most shakes your faith in Providence. It's just the devil that's at the bottom o' them, so far as I can see."

"Hoot, Tammas—it's true love that's at the bottom o' them," Bauby said.

"Love!" Rolls cried with contempt: and then he added with a grin of malice—"I'm awfu' entertained to see yon lord at our table-end. He will not look the side I'm on. It's like poison to him to hear my voice. And I take great pains to serve him mysel'," he said with a chuckle. "I'm just extraordinar attentive to him. There's no person that I take half as much charge of. I'm thinking his dinner will choke him some day, for he canna bide the sight o' me."

"Him that should go upon his knees to ye every day of his life!" cried Bauby indignant.

"We'll say nothing about that; but I get my diversion out o' him," said Rolls grimly, "though he's a lord, and I'm but a common man!"

The marriage of Lady Car took place a little more than a year after Torrance's death. It was accomplished in London, whither she had gone some time before, with scarcely any one to witness the ceremony but her mother. She preferred it so. She was happy and she was miserable, with the strangest mingling of emotions. Lady Lindores made vain efforts to penetrate into the mind which was no longer open to her as her own. Carry had gone far away from her mother, who knew none of the passions which had swept her soul, yet could divine that the love in which she was so absorbed, the postponed and interrupted happiness which seemed at last to be within her grasp, was not like the love and happiness that might have been. When Beaufort was not with her, her pale countenance, that thoughtful face with its air of distinction, and sensitive delicacy, which had never been beautiful, would fall into a wan shadow and fixedness which were wonderful to see. When he was with her, it lighted up with gleams of ineffable feeling, yet would waver and change like a stormy sky, sometimes with a lightning-flash of impatience, sometimes with a wistful questioning glance, which gave it to Lady Lindores all the interest of a poem united to the far deeper, trembling interest of observation with which a mother watches her child on the brink of new possibilities. Were they for good or evil?—was it a life of hope fulfilled, or of ever increasing and deepening disappointment, which lay before Carry's tremulous feet? They were not the assured feet of a believing and confident bride. What is love without faith and confidence and trust? It is the strangest, the saddest, the most terrible, the most divine of human passions. It is seldom that a woman begins with such enlightenment in her eyes. Usually it is the growth of slow and much-resisted experience, the growing revelation of years. How sweet, how heavenly, how delightful, when love is blind! How wise the ancients were to make him a child—a thing of caprice and sweet confusion, taking everything for granted! But this to Carry was impossible. When her mother took her into her arms on her wedding morning, dressed in the soft grey gown which was the substitute for bridal white, they kissed each other with a certain solemnity. At such a moment so much is divined between kindred hearts which words can never say. "I want you to remember," said Carry, "mother dear—that whatever comes of it, this is what is best." "I hope all that is most happy will come of it, my darling," said Lady Lindores. "And I too—and I too——" She paused, raising a little her slender throat, her face, that was like a wistful pale sky, clear-shining after the rain—"But let it be what it may, it is the only good—the only way for me." These were the sole words explanatory that passed between them. Lady Lindores parted with the bridal pair afterwards with an anxious heart. She went home that night, travelling far in the dark through the unseen country, feeling the unknown all about her. Life had not been perfect to her any more than to others. She had known many disappointments, and seen through many illusions: but she had preserved through all the sweetness of a heart that can be deceived, that can forget to-day's griefs and hope again in to-morrow as if to-day had never been. As she drew near her home, her heart lightened without any reason at all. Her husband was not a perfect mate for her—her son had failed to her hopes. But she did not dwell on these disenchantments. After all, how dear they were! after all, there was to-morrow to come, which perhaps, most likely, would yet be the perfect day.

THE END.