She had broken down a little when she said this, in natural reaction, and gave him a pitiful look, with a little quiver of her lip. After such a laugh it is so likely that a girl will cry, as after a sudden self-assertion it is to be expected that she will be subdued and humbled. She looked at him with a childlike appeal for pity. And he thought that now he had her securely in his hands.
"My love," he said, "you will regret it all your life if I yield to you now. It is your happiness I am thinking of. I cannot let a girl's folly spoil your career. Besides, it is of the highest importance to everybody,—to Rintoul, even to myself,—that you should marry Millefleurs——"
"I am very sorry, papa; but I shall never—marry Lord Millefleurs——"
"Folly! I shall not allow you to trifle with him, Edith—or with me. You have given him the most evident encouragement—led him on in every way, invited him here——"
Edith grew pale to her very lips. "Papa, have pity on me! I never did so; it was all nothing—the way one talks without meaning it—without thinking——"
"That is all very well on our side, but on the other——I tell you, I will permit no trifling, Edith. He has a right to a favourable answer, and he must have it——"
"Never, never! if I have been wrong, I will ask his pardon——"
"You will accept him in the first place," said Lord Lindores, sternly.
"I will never accept him," Edith said.
Her father, wound up to that pitch of excitement at which a man is no longer master of what he says, took a few steps about the room. "Your sister said the same," he cried, with a short laugh, "and you know what came of that."
It was an admission he had never intended to make,—for he did not always feel proud of his handiwork,—but it was done now, and could not be recalled. Edith withdrew even from the mantelpiece on which she had leant. She clasped her hands together, supporting herself. "I am not Carry," she said, in a low tone, facing him resolutely as he turned back in some alarm at what he had been betrayed into saying. He had become excited, and she calm. He almost threatened her with his hand in the heat of the moment.
"You will obey your parents," he cried.
"No, papa," she said.
He remembered so well, too well, what Carry had done in the same circumstances—she had wept and pleaded. When he demanded obedience from her she had not dared to stand against him. He recollected (too well for his own comfort sometimes) every one of those scenes which brought her to submission. But Edith did not weep, and was not shaken by that final appeal. She was very pale, and looked unusually slight and young and childlike standing there with her hands clasped, her steadfast eyes raised, her little mouth close—so slight a thing, not stately like Carry. He was confounded by a resistance which he had not foreseen, which he could not have believed in, and stood staring at her, not knowing what next to say and do. Matters were at this point when all at once there arose a something outside the room, which not even the solid closed doors and heavy curtains could keep out,—not positive noise or tumult, but something indescribable—a sensation as of some unknown dread event. Ordinarily all was still in the well-ordered house, and my lord's tranquillity as completely assured as if he had been Prime Minister. But this was something that was beyond decorum. Then the door was hastily opened, and Rintoul ghastly, his face grey rather than pale, his hair hanging wildly on his forehead, came into the room.
This extraordinary interruption put a stop at once to the struggle between the father and daughter. They both came to a sudden pause, not only in their conversation, but in their thoughts, which were suspended instantly by the breaking in of something more urgent. "What is it? What has happened?" they both cried in a breath; and Edith, after a moment, added, "Carry—there is something wrong with Carry," scarcely aware what she said.
Rintoul came to the table on which stood a crystal jug of water. He filled himself out a large glass and drank it. He was in a tremor which he attempted to conceal from them, though with no success. Then he said, "There is nothing the matter with Carry; but a dreadful accident has happened,"—and stopped, his mouth being parched, his very articulation difficult.
"What is it? what is it? The children?——"
Rintoul turned his face away from Edith and directed himself towards his father. He made a great effort over himself, as if what he had to say was almost beyond his powers. Then he said with a strange hoarseness of voice, "Torrance—has been killed."
"Torrance!—killed! Good God! Rintoul."
"It is so. Instantaneous, they say. He cannot have suffered much, thank God."
Rintoul was not emotional or used to show very much feeling, but the lines of his face were drawn and his lips quivered as he spoke.
"Killed! But how did it happen? where? Was it accident, or——For heaven's sake tell us all!" cried his father. Edith stood by struck dumb, yet with a host of sudden rising thoughts, or rather images, in her breast. It was to her sister that her mind suddenly reverted, with a perception of everything involved so clear and vivid that her very spirit was confused by the distinctness of her sight.
"Accident," said Rintoul almost with a stammer, stumbling on the word. "He must have been riding home by the Greenlaws road, which was his favourite way. He and his horse were found at the foot of the Scaur. The brute must have reared and lost its footing. The ground was soft with the rain. That's all that any one knows."
"And he is dead? Good God!"
A shiver came over Rintoul. Who would have thought he had so much feeling? and concerning Torrance, whom he had never been able to endure. "It's dreadful," he said in a low tone; "but it's true. One moment never to be recalled, and that big fellow with all his strength——O Lord, it's terrible to think of it. It has taken all the strength out of me."
Edith hurried to him, trembling herself, to clasp his arm in hers and soothe her brother. She was almost too much excited and agitated to be aware that he repulsed her, though unconsciously, but this increased the general impression of pain and horror on her mind. There was so strong a thrill of agitation in him that he could not bear to be touched or even looked at. He put her away, and threw himself down into the nearest chair. A hundred questions were on the lips of both; but he looked as if he had said all that was possible—as if he had no power to add anything. Lord Lindores, after the first pause of horror, of course pursued his inquiries, and they gathered certain details as to the way of finding "the body," and the manner in which horse and man seemed to have fallen. But Rintoul evidently had been too much impressed by the sight to be able to dwell on the subject. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and took again large draughts of water as he brought forth sentence after sentence. "Get me some wine, or brandy, or something—I am done," he cried; but when his father rang the bell, Rintoul recoiled. "Let Edith fetch it; don't let us have any prying servants about here." "There is no reason why we should be afraid of prying servants," said Lord Lindores, with surprise and disapproval. "It is not a matter to be concealed. I suppose there is nothing to conceal?" "Oh no, no," said Rintoul, with a groan—"nothing to be concealed; you can't conceal a dead man," and he shuddered, but added directly, raising himself to meet his father's eye, "it was accident—nothing but accident,—everybody has warned him. I said myself something was sure to happen sooner or later at the Scaur." Edith, who had flown to bring him the wine he asked for, here came back with it, having sent away the officious butler, anxious to hear all about it, who hovered near the door. Her brother took the decanter from her hand without a word of thanks, and poured out the wine lavishly, but with a shaking hand, into the glass from which he had been drinking water. It brought a little colour back into his cheeks. To Edith the emotion he showed was a new revelation. She had never expected from Rintoul so much tenderness of feeling. But Lord Lindores went on with his questions.
"Something sure to happen? Yes—to children or people incapable of taking care of themselves; but Torrance, who knew it all like his own hand! had he—been drinking, poor fellow?"
"Not that I know of; but how can I tell? Nobody knows."
"Some one must have seen him before the accident happened. There must be some one who can tell. Of course everything must be investigated. Where had he been? Why was he not with you, when you went by appointment to see the place? It was surely very extraordinary——"
"He was with us at first," said Rintoul, "but he took offence at some of Millefleurs's criticisms; and then John Erskine——"
"What had John Erskine to do with it?"
"They had some words. I can't remember; something passed. Erskine left early too. Now that I think of it," said Rintoul, suddenly, "Erskine must have gone that way, and perhaps——But no, no; I mistake—they did not meet."
"They had no words," said Edith, eagerly; "there was no quarrel, if that is what you mean. Mr Torrance was annoyed because Lord Millefleurs——But Mr Erskine had nothing to do with it," she added, her colour rising. Lord Lindores paced up and down the room, stopping at every turn to ask another question. Rintoul sat leaning his head upon his hand, his face concealed by it; while Edith, to whom this reference had given animation, stood between them, her senses quickened, her mind alert. But they were both too deeply occupied to notice the change in her which was made by the mention of this name.
"Of course there must be a thorough investigation into all the circumstances," Lord Lindores said.
"Who can do that? I thought there were no coroners in Scotland?" said Rintoul, rousing himself. "I was thinking, indeed, what a good thing for poor Carry to be spared this. Besides, what can investigation do? He went off from among us excited. Very likely, poor fellow, he had been drinking. He rode off in haste, thundering down that dangerous road, as was his custom. Everybody knows it was his custom. It was his way of blowing off steam. Coming back, the road was soft with the rain, and he still excited and in a nervous state. He pushed Black Jess a step too close. She reared, and——I don't know what you can find out more by any investigation." Rintoul wiped his forehead again and poured himself out more wine.
"That may be, but there must be an investigation all the same," said Lord Lindores. "A man of importance like poor Torrance does not disappear like this in a moment without any notice being taken of it. If he had been a ploughman, perhaps——"
Here the door was opened hastily, and Lady Lindores hurried in. "What is this?" she cried; "what is this I hear?—the servants are full of it. Something about Torrance and a bad accident. What does it mean?"
Edith ran to her mother, taking her by the arm, with the instinct of supporting her against the shock; and Lord Lindores gave her the information, not without that almost pleasure in recounting even the most terrible news, which is the instinctive sentiment of those whose hearts are not deeply concerned. Lady Lindores heard it with horror,—with the instant and keen self-question as to whether she had done justice to this man, of whom no one now could ask pardon,—whose wrongs, if he had any, could never be remedied—which, in a generous mind, is the first result of such a tragedy. Out of keen excitement and horror she shed a few tears, the first that in this house at least had been expended on the dead man. A pang of wondering pity was in her heart. The sight of this softer feeling stilled the others. She arrested every other sentiment in a natural pause of terrified compassion. She who had never called him by it in his life, suddenly found his Christian name come to her lips: "Oh, poor Pat! poor Pat! like that—in a moment—with his home close by that he was so proud of, and all his good things—summoned in a moment. O God, have mercy upon him!" she cried.
"It is too late for that," said Lord Lindores, gravely, for the moment ashamed of all other questions. "Short as the time is, and dreadful as it is to think of it, his account must be made by this time. It is a terrible lesson to us all——"
"O God, have mercy upon him! I cannot think it is ever too late for that," cried Lady Lindores through her tears. And there was a pause. She did not, so far as we know, entertain any heterodox ideas about the after state; but nature spoke in her, which is stronger than creeds. And they were all silent, ashamed to have thought of anything else than this. Rintoul still sat with his head hid in his hands. He had not looked at his mother. He did not say anything to help out the narrative which his father, of course, had given minutely. He had made a great effort to get over his personal agitation and the tremor of his nerves, but he was not used to such violent emotions, and it was hard to get them under control.
Then Lady Lindores rose from the chair upon which she had sunk in the first shock. "I must go to Carry at once," she said. "Poor Carry! how must she be feeling? In a moment—without time for a word——"
Now at this there was a slight movement on the part of the two men—even in Rintoul, though he was so much overcome. They thought it was the usual feminine hypocrisy. Carry had never pretended to be a fond or loving wife. The shock was great, but it brought her deliverance. A touch of indignation and of wonder at what they considered that incomprehensible female nature, which one moment brought them back by sheer natural tenderness to a loftier state of feeling, and the next disgusted them with mere conventionalism and make-believe, stirred in their minds. They durst not say anything, for of course it was needful to the world to keep up this fiction, and take it for granted that Carry was heart-broken; but in their hearts they despised the false sentiment, as they thought it. Nobody understood that divine compunction in Lady Lindores's heart—that terrible and aching pity for the unworthy on her own part—that sense of awful severance from a human creature with whom there had been nothing in common, with whom there could be no hope of reunion, which, she felt, must be in her daughter's mind. God help poor Carry! What could she be but glad to be free? Her mother's heart bled for her in this awful satisfaction and misery. Meanwhile her husband rang the bell and ordered the carriage for her, with a sensation not quite unlike contempt, though he was pleased, too, that she should be able to keep up the natural superstitions, and go through all traditional formalities so well. He made a pause, however, when he found Edith hastily preparing to go too.
"There is Lord Millefleurs to be thought of? What am I to do," he said, "with Millefleurs?"
"At such a moment surely everything of the kind must be suspended," said Lady Lindores. "You cannot think that Edith could—go on with this—while her sister——"
Millefleurs himself made his appearance on the stairs while she was speaking. It was a curious scene. The great hall-door was open, the night wind blowing in, making the light waver, and penetrating all the excited group with cold. Lady Lindores, wrapped in a great cloak which covered her from head to foot, stood below looking up, while Edith paused on the lower steps in the act of tying a white shawl about her head. The servants, still more excited, stood about, all anxious to help, by way of seeing everything that was going on. Rintoul stood in the doorway of the library, entirely in shadow,—a dark figure contrasting with the others in the light. To these actors in the drama came forth Millefleurs in his exact evening costume, like a hero of genteel comedy coming in at the height of theimbroglio. "I need not say how shocked and distressed I am," he said, from his platform on the landing. "I would go away at once, but that would not help you. Never think of me; but I feel sure you would not do me the injustice to think of me in presence of such a catastrophe."
Lady Lindores waved her hand to him as she hurried out, but he overtook Edith on the stairs. It was impossible that he should not feel that she knew all about it by this time; and after all, though he was so humble-minded, Millefleurs was aware that the heir of a great Duke is not usually kept in suspense. "Lady Edith," he said in an undertone, "should I go away? I will do what you think best."
He had faded entirely out of her mind in the excitement of this new event. "Lord Millefleurs——Oh, I cannot tell," she said; "it will be painful for you in the midst of this horror and mourning——"
"You cannot think that is what I mean," he said anxiously. "If I could be of any use; a cooler person is sometimes of use, don't you know—one that can sympathise and—without being overwhelmed with—feeling."
"We shall not be overwhelmed. Oh, you have seen, you know, that it is not so much grief as——It is Carry we all must think of—not——poor Mr Torrance. I am sorry—I am sorry with all my heart—but he did not belong to us, except by——"
"Marriage—that is not much of a tie, is it?" said little Millefleurs, looking at her with a mixture of half-comic ruefulness and serious anxiety. "But this is not a moment to trouble you. Lady Edith, do you think I may stay?"
At this moment her mother called her from the door, and Edith ran hastily down the steps. She scarcely knew whether she had said anything, or what she had said. It was only "Oh," the English ejaculation which fits into every crisis; but it was not "No," Lord Millefleurs said to himself, and he hastened after her to close the carriage-door, and bid Lady Lindores good-night. As the carriage drove off he turned and found himself in face of Lord Lindores, who had a somewhat anxious look. "I have been asking if I should go or stay," he said; "I know your hospitality, even when you are in trouble——"
"There is no trouble in having you in the house, even in the midst of this calamity; but what did they say to you?" asked Lord Lindores.
"Nothing, I think; but I will stay if you will let me, Lord Lindores, till we can see. And may I hear the details of the accident—if it was an accident."
"You think there is something more in it?" cried Lord Lindores, quickly.
"No; how can I tell? I should like to hear everything. Sometimes a looker-on, who is not so much interested, sees more of the game, don't you know."
"It is a tragic game," said Lord Lindores, shaking his head; "but there is no agrarian crime here, no landlord-killing, no revenge. Poor Torrance had not an enemy, so far as I know."
All this time Rintoul stood motionless in the doorway, concealed by the shadow; but here he seemed piqued to speak. "He had plenty of enemies," he said hastily. "A man of such a temper and manners, how could he help having enemies?"
"De mortuis nil nisi bonum," said his father,—"say no harm of the dead——"
"That is all very well; but it is of more importance to do no injustice to the living," said Rintoul, with a sort of sullen solemnity; and he suddenly gave place to the others and went off in the direction of his own den, a little room in which he smoked and kept his treasures. Lord Lindores took his guest into the library, gravely apologetic. "I have never seen Rintoul so upset; his nerves seem to have received a shock. I don't think he cares to go over the melancholy story again."
"It is very natural," said little Millefleurs. "A man who has been always at home, who has never roughed it in the world, naturally loses his head when he first comes in contact with tragedy, don't you know. I did myself in California the first time I touched actual blood. But that was murder, which is a different sort of thing."
"Very different," said Lord Lindores; and he proceeded to satisfy his guest with an account of all the particulars, to which Millefleurs listened very seriously. He had the Scaur described to him with much minuteness, and how it might be possible that such an accident could happen. Instinctively Lord Lindores made it appear that the wonder was it had not happened before. "I warned poor Torrance repeatedly," he said; although he had in equal good faith expressed his amazement that such a thing could happen to a man who knew the place so well, only a short time before. Millefleurs listened to everything very gravely, giving the profoundest attention to every detail.
The house was full of agitation and excitement, and Lord Lindores sent repeatedly for his son to consult with him over what ought to be done; but Rintoul was not to be found. He had gone out, the servants said; and the general impression was that he had returned to Tinto, though he could only have done that by a long walk through the gloomy night. Millefleurs went out into the grounds while this question was proceeding. He had a great many things to think about. He lit his cigar and wandered about, thoughtfully discussing with himself various questions. Did Edith mean that he should stay? Had he any right to stay in the circumstances of the family? He had a strong desire to do so that was not entirely connected with Edith. To be sure, the suspense in which he was kept, the impossibility of addressing her at such a moment, would have made a passionate lover very restless; but Millefleurs was not the sort of stuff out of which passionate lovers are made. He thought Edith would make him a delightful wife, and that with such a wife he would be a very happy man; but he did not feel that heaven and earth would be changed to him without Edith, and therefore other motives were free to come in. He had something in his mind which for the moment almost obliterated all thoughts of her. He walked up and down in the darkness, turning it over and over in his mind. Vaguely, one way or another, this thought was associated with Edith too. After some time he perceived another red spark in the darkness, and became aware of some one else smoking like himself a thoughtful cigar. He called out to Rintoul and came upon him at the end of an alley. Millefleurs had an internal conviction that Rintoul wished to avoid him, so he went up to him quickly and caught him by the arm.
"It was thought that you had gone back to Tinto," he said, putting his arm familiarly through his. He had to reach up on tiptoe to do it, but this was what pleased Millefleurs.
"What! walking at this time of night? I am not so eager about it," said Rintoul. "Besides, what should I do there? Everything is settled so far as it can be for to-night, and my mother and Edith have gone to Carry: there is no need for me."
"I wish you would tell me all about it, my dear Rintoul."
"Didn't my father tell you?"
"Yes, in his way; but that is different. You want the details from an eyewitness, don't you know. You want to see it through the eyes that have seen it. I have a great curiosity about that kind of thing ever since I have been in California, where it is an incident of everyday life."
"It is not an incident of everyday life here, and I'm sick of it," cried Rintoul. "Don't question me any more—it's too terrible. It must have been instantaneous they say; that is the only comfort about the business—everything else is hideous from beginning to end."
"Ah, from the beginning—that is just what I want to talk to you about," said Millefleurs.
He felt a thrill in the arm he held, and an inclination as if to throw him off, but he was not to be thrown off; he was small but very tenacious, and clung to his hold.
"That is what I want to know. The beginning. Did he meet any one? had he any dispute or altercation in the wood?"
"None that I know of," said Rintoul. He spoke sulkily, almost in an undertone, so that Millefleurs had to concentrate his attention upon the voice, which was interrupted by all the sounds in the air, the rustling of the trees, the sough of the river far away.
"Did you see any one about?" said Millefleurs.
The two men were in the dark,—they could not see each other's faces, yet they stopped and looked at each other, anxiously, suspiciously, each at the red end of the other's cigar, which disclosed a moustache, a shadow above.
"Any one about? I don't think there was any one about," said Rintoul, still more sullenly. "What should put that into your mind? You were not there?"
This was a curious question, but Millefleurs made no note of it, his mind being possessed by an entirely different idea. He said, "No, I was not there. I drove home with your mother, don't you know. To think we should have passed without the least knowing it, the place which so soon was to be the scene of such a tragedy."
"Don't romance about it. It's bad enough as it is. You did not pass the scene. It was on the other road, a long way from yours."
"At which side?"
"The left side," said Rintoul, carelessly. "I wish, if you don't mind, that you would change the subject. My nerves are all wrong. I didn't know I was such a feeble beggar. I'd rather not dwell upon it, if you don't mind."
"The left side?" said Millefleurs, with a sigh—and then there was a pause. "You are quite sure," he added anxiously, "that you did not see any one in the wood?"
Rintoul almost thrust this question away. "I tell you I won't be questioned," he said. Then, composing himself with an effort, "I beg your pardon, Millefleurs—I never liked the man, though he was my brother-in-law; and to see all at once a fellow whom perhaps you had been thinking badly of two minutes before, wishing no good to—to see him lying there stiff and stark——"
"I beg you a thousand pardons, Rintoul," Millefleurs said gravely. And they went in together, saying no more.
Lady Lindores and Edith were carried along through the darkness of the night with that curious sense of rapid unseen movement which has in it a kind of soothing influence upon suspense and mental distress. They spoke to each other in the darkness of Carry—poor Carry! how would she take it? but yet never ventured, even to each other, to express the innermost feeling in their minds on this subject. As they drove along, the gleam of other lamps went rapidly past them close to the gate of Dalrulzian, leading back their thoughts for a moment to other interests. "It is John Erskine's dogcart. Is he going away? is it some one arriving? has he been dining somewhere?" Lady Lindores said, with the unconscious curiosity of the country. Then she said with a little shudder, "I wonder if he can have heard?"—that first question which always suggests itself in the face of a great event. "How strange to think that some one has been peacefully dining out whilethathas been happening—so near!" Edith answered only by pressing her mother's arm in which her own was entwined, as they sat close together for mutual consolation. She had other troubled wandering thoughts aching in her own heart; but of these she said nothing, but watched the lamps turning up the Dalrulzian avenue with a thrill of mingled feeling, half angry that he should not have divined she was in trouble, half glad that he thus proved his ignorance of all that had occurred. Thus unknowing, Carry's mother and sister crossed in the dark another new actor in Carry's history, of whom no one as yet had thought.
Carry was seated in her own room alone. It was her natural refuge at such a moment. A fire had been lighted by the anxious servants—who saw her shiver in the nervous excitement of this great and terrible event—and blazed brightly, throwing ruddy gleams of light through the room, and wavering ghostly shadows upon the wall. The great bed, with its tall canopies and heavy ornaments, shrouded round with satin curtains, looped and festooned with tarnished gold lace and every kind of clumsy grandeur, stood like a sort of catafalque, the object of a thousand airy assaults and attacks from the fantastic light, but always dark,—a funereal object in the midst; while the tall polished wardrobes all round the room gave back reflections like dim mirrors, showing nothing but the light. Two groups of candles on the high mantelpiece, twinkling against the dark wall, were the only other illuminations. Carry sat sunk in a big chair close to the fire. If she could have cried,—if she could have talked and lamented,—if she could have gone to bed—or, failing this, if she had read her Bible,—the maids in the house, who hung about the doors in anxiety and curiosity, would have felt consoled for her. But she did none of these. She only sat there, her slight figure lost in the depths of the chair, still in the white dress which she had worn to receive her guests in the morning. She had not stirred—the women said, gathering round Lady Lindores in whispering eagerness—for hours, and had not even touched the cup of tea they had carried to her. "Oh, my lady, do something to make her cry," the women said. "If she doesn't get it out it'll break her heart." They had forgotten, with the facile emotion which death, and especially a death so sudden, calls forth, that the master had been anything but the most devoted of husbands, or his wife other than the lovingest of wives. This pious superstition is always ready to smooth away the horror of deaths which are a grief to no one. "Your man's your man when a's done, even if he's but an ill ane," was the sentiment of the awe-stricken household. "Ye never ken what he's been to ye till ye lose him." It gave them all a sense of elevation that Lady Caroline should, as they thought, be wrapped in hopeless grief,—it made them think better of her and of themselves. The two ladies went into the ghostly room with something of the same feeling. Lady Lindores felt that she understood it—that she had expected it. Had not her own mind been filled by sudden compunction—the thought that perhaps she had been less tolerant of the dead man than she ought; and how much more must Carry, poor Carry, have felt the awe and pang of an almost remorse to think that he was gone without a word against whom her heart had risen in such rebellion, yet who was of all men the most closely involved in her very being? Lady Lindores comprehended it all; and yet it was a relief to her mind that Carry felt it so, and could thus wear the garb of mourning with reality and truth. She went in with her heart full, with tears in her eyes, the profoundest tender pity for the dead, the deepest sympathy with her child in sorrow. The room was very large, very still, very dark, save for that ruddy twilight, the two little groups of pale lights glimmering high up upon the wall, and no sign of any human presence. "Carry, my darling!" her mother said, wondering and dismayed. Then there was a faint sound, and Carry rose, tall, slim, and white, like a ghost out of the gloom. She had been sitting there for hours, lost in thoughts, in dreams, and visions. She seemed to herself to have so exhausted this event by thinking of it, that it was now years away. She stepped forward and met her mother, tenderly indeed, but with no effusion. "Have you come all the way so late to be with me, mother? How kind, how kind you are! And Edith too——"
"Kind!" cried Lady Lindores, with an almost angry bewilderment. "Did you not know I would come, Carry, my poor child. But you are stunned with this blow——"
"I suppose I was at first. Yes, I knew you would come—at first; but it seems so long since. Sit down, mother; you are cold. You have had such a miserable drive. Come near to the fire——"
"Carry, Carry dear, never mind us; it is you we are all thinking of. You must not sit there and drive yourself distracted thinking."
"Let me take off this shawl from your cap, mamma. Now you look more comfortable. Have you brought your things to stay? I am ringing to have fires lit in your rooms. Oh yes, I want you to stay. I have never been able to endure this house, you know, and those large rooms, and the desert feeling in it. And you will have some tea or something. I must give orders——"
"Carry," cried her mother, arresting her hand on the bell, "Edith and I will see to all that. Don't pay any attention to us. I have come to take care of you, my dearest. Carry, dear, your nerves are all shattered. How could it be otherwise? You must let me get you something,—they say you have taken nothing,—and you must go to bed."
"I don't think my nerves are shattered. I am quite well. There is nothing the matter with me. You forget," she said, with something like a faint laugh, "how often we have said, mamma, how absurd to send and ask after a woman's health when there is nothing the matter with her, when only she has lost——" Here she paused a little, and then said gravely, "Even grief does not affect the health."
"Very often it does not, dear; but, Carry, you must not forget that you have had a terrible shock. Even I, who am not so nearly involved—even I——" Here Lady Lindores, in her excitement and agitation, lost her voice altogether, and sobbed, unable to command herself. "Oh, poor fellow! poor fellow!" she said, with broken tones. "In a moment, Carry, without warning!"
Carry went to her mother's side, and drew her head upon her breast. She was perfectly composed, without a tear. "I have thought of all that," she said; "I cannot think it matters. If God is the Father of us all, we are the same to Him, dead or living. What can it matter to Him that we should make preparations to appear before Him? Oh, all that must be folly, mother. However bad I had been, should I have to prepare to go to you?"
"Carry, Carry, my darling! It is I that should be saying this to you. You are putting too much force upon yourself—it is unnatural; it will be all the more terrible for you after."
Carry stood stooping over her mother, holding Lady Lindores's head against her bosom. She smiled faintly, and shook her head. "Has it not been unnatural altogether?" she said.
To Edith standing behind, this strange scene appeared like a picture—part of the phantasmagoria of which her sister had for years been the centre: her mind leapt back to the discussions which preceded Carry's marriage, the hopeless yielding of the victim, the perplexity and misery of the mother. Now they had changed positions, but the same strange haze of terror and pity, yet almost indignation, was in her own breast. She had been the judge then—in a smaller degree she was the judge now. But this plea stopped her confused and painful thoughts. Has it not been unnatural altogether? Edith's impulse was to escape from a problem which she could not deal with. "I will go and see the children," she said.
"The children—poor children! have you seen them, Carry? do they know?" said Lady Lindores, drying the tears—the only tears that had been shed for Torrance—from her cheeks.
Carry did not make any reply. She went away to the other end of the room and took up a white shawl in which she wrapped herself. "The only thing I feel is cold," she said.
"Ah, my love, that is the commonest feeling. I have felt sometimes as if I could just drag myself to the fire like a wounded animal and care for nothing more."
"But, mother, you were never in any such terrible trouble."
"Not like this—but I have lost children," said Lady Lindores. She had to pause again, her lip quivering. "To be only sorrow, there is no sorrow like that."
She had risen, and they stood together, the fantastic firelight throwing long shadows of them all over the dim and ghastly room. Suddenly Carry flung herself into her mother's arms. "Oh my innocent mother!" she cried. "Oh, mother! you only know such troubles as angels may have. Look at me! look at me! I am like a mad woman. I am keeping myself in, as you say, that I may not go mad—with joy!"
Lady Lindores gave a low terrible cry, and held her daughter in her arm, pressing her desperately to her heart as if to silence her. "No, Carry—no, no," she cried.
"It is true. To think I shall never be subject to allthatany more—that he can never come in here again—that I am free—that I can be alone. Oh, mother, how can you tell what it is? Never to be alone: never to have a corner in the world where—some one else has not a right to come, a better right than yourself. I don't know how I have borne it. I don't know how I can have lived, disgusted, loathing myself. No, no; sometime else I shall be sorry when I have time to think, when I can forget what it is that has happened to me—but in the meantime I am too happy—too——"
Lady Lindores put her hand upon her daughter's mouth. "No, no, Carry—no, no; I cannot bear it—you must not say it," she cried.
Carry took her mother's hands and kissed them, and then began to sob—the tears pouring from her eyes like rain. "I will not say anything," she cried; "no, no—nothing, mother. I had to tell you to relieve my heart. I have been able to think of nothing else all these hours. I have never had so many hours to myself for years. It is so sweet to sit still and know that no one will burst the door open and come in. Here I can be sacred to myself, and sit and think: and all quiet—all quiet about me." Carry looked up, clasping her hands, with the tears dropping now and then, but a smile quivering upon her mouth and in her eyes. She seemed to have reached that height of passionate emotion—the edge where expression at its highest almost loses itself, and a blank of all meaning seems the next possibility. In her white dress, with her upturned face and the wild gleam of rapture in her eyes, she was like an unearthly creature. But to describe Lady Lindores's anguish and terror and pain would be impossible. She thought her daughter was distraught. Never in her life had she come in contact with feeling so absolute, subdued by no sense of natural fitness, or even by right and wrong. Her only comfort was that Edith had not been present to hear and see this revelation. And the truth was that her own heart, though so panic-stricken and penetrated with so much pity for the dead, understood, too, with a guilty throb, the overwhelming sense of emancipation which drove everything else from Carry's mind. She had feared it would be so. She would not allow herself to think so; but all through the darkness of the night as she drove along, she had been trembling lest she should find Carry not heart-broken but happy, yet had trusted that pity somehow would keep her in the atmosphere of gloom which ought to surround a new-made widow. It hurt Lady Lindores's tender heart that a woman should be glad when her husband died, however unworthy that husband might have been. She did her best now to soothe the excited creature, who took her excitement for happiness.
"We will talk of this no more to-night, Carry; by-and-by you will see how pitiful it all is. You will feel—as I feel. But in the meantime you are worn out. This terrible shock, even though you may think you do not feel it, has thrown you into a fever. You must let me put you to bed."
"Not here," she said with a shudder, looking round the room; "not here—I could not rest here."
"That is natural," Lady Lindores said with a sigh. "You must come with me, Carry."
"Home, mother—home! Oh, if I could!—not even to Lindores,—to one of the old poor places where we were so happy——"
"When we had no home," the mother said, shaking her head. But she, too, got a wistful look in her eyes at the recollection. Those days when they were poor, wandering, of no account; when it mattered little to any one but themselves where they went, what the children might do, what alliances they made,—what halcyon days these were to look back on! In those days this miserable union, which had ended so miserably, could never have been made. Was it worth while to have had so many additional possessions added to them—rank and apparent elevation—for such a result? But she could not permit herself to think, with Carry sitting by, too ready to relapse into those feverish musings which were so terrible. She put her arm round her child and drew her tenderly away. They left the room with the lights against the wall, and the firelight giving it afaux airof warmth and inhabitation. Its emptiness was scarcely less tragic, scarcely less significant, than the chill of the other great room—the state chamber—in the other wing, where, with lights burning solemnly about him all night, the master of the house lay dead, unwatched by either love or sorrow. There were gloom and panic, and the shock of a great catastrophe, in the house. There were even honest regrets; for he had not been a bad master, though often a rough one: but nothing more tender. And Carry lay down with her mother's arms round her and slept, and woke in the night, and asked herself what it was; then lay still in a solemn happiness—exhausted, peaceful—feeling as if she desired nothing more. She was delivered: as she lay silent, hidden in the darkness and peace of the night, she went over and over this one certainty, so terrible yet so sweet. "God forgive me! God forgive me!" she said softly to herself, her very breathing hushed with the sense of relief. She had come out of death into life. Was it wrong to be glad? That it was a shame and outrage upon nature was no fault of poor Carry. Sweet tears rolled into her eyes, her jarred and thwarted being came back into harmony. She lay and counted the dark silent hours striking one by one, feeling herself all wrapped in peace and ease, as if she lay in some sacred shrine. To-morrow would bring back the veils and shrouds of outside life—the need of concealment, of self-restraint, almost of hypocrisy—the strain and pain of a new existence to be begun; but to-night—this one blessed night of deliverance—was her own.
It was late when John Erskine got home on the afternoon of this eventful day. John Tamson's wife mended his coat for him, and he got himself brushed and put in order; then his excitement calming down, he walked slowly home. He argued with himself as he walked, that to take any further notice of Torrance's violence would be unworthy of himself. The fellow had been drinking, no doubt. He had been stung in his tenderest point—his pride in his fine house and tawdry grandeur,—he had felt himself altogether out of place in the little company, which included his nearest connections. Not much wonder, poor wretch, if he were twisted the wrong way. John forgave him as he grew calmer, and arriving at home, tired out, and somewhat depressed in mind, began at last to feel sorry for Pat Torrance, who never had been framed for the position he held. The first thing he found when he arrived, to his alarm and dismay, was a telegram from Beaufort announcing his arrival that very night. "Obliged to come; cannot help myself," his friend said, apologetic even by telegraph. Nothing could well have been more unfortunate. John felt as if this arrival must put a gulf between him and Carry's family altogether—but it was too late now for any alteration, even if he could have, in the circumstances, deserted his friend. Perhaps, too, in the crisis at which he had arrived, it would be well for him to have some one upon whom he could fall back, some one who had been more unfortunate than himself, to whom he could talk, who would understand without explanation, the extraordinary crisis to which his history had come. It was not his doing, nor Edith's doing,—they had not sought each other: no intention had been in her mind of making a victim of her rural neighbour; no ambitious project in his, of wooing the Earl's daughter. Everything had been innocent, unwitting. A few meetings, the most innocent, simple intercourse—and lo! the woe or weal of two lives was concerned. It seemed hard that so simply, with so little foresight, a man might mar his happiness. John was not a sentimentalist, determining that his whole existence was to be shattered by such a disappointment. He repeated to himself, with a little scorn,—
"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart."
"Man's love is of man's life a thing apart."
But the scorn was of the sentiment, and not any protest against the application of it to his own case. The broken tie between Beaufort and Carry was not an example of that superficial poetic deliverance. He himself was not like Beaufort, nor Edith like her sister. She would never marry a man whom she could not love; nor would he allow himself to dally with all the objects of life, and let everything slip past him. But he knew what would happen, he said to himself in the quietness of the silent hours. Life would lose its crown altogether. He would "get on" as if nothing remarkable had befallen him—but the glory and the joy would be over without ever having been his. And if she shared his feelings, there would be the same result on her side,—her life would be lonely like his, the flower of existence would be stolen from her. Only—if it were possible that Edith did share his feelings, then there was still something to be done,—there was a fight for it still before them. He would not give in like Beaufort, nor she take any irremediable step of desperation like Carry. This stirred him a little and restored him to himself; but on the whole, despondency was his prevailing feeling—a sense of impossibility, the sensation as of a blank wall before him, which it was impossible to surmount.
He had a lonely dreary evening. His dinner was served to him by one of the maids, who was frightened and lost her head, Rolls still being absent, to the great alarm of the household. Bauby, who did not remember the time when her brother had thus forsaken his duties, had been so disturbed in her preparations by anxiety, that it had almost happened to John as to King Louis, that he had to wait for his meal. "I canna gie my mind to my denner. Whaur's Tammas?—and who's to take ben the dishes?" Bauby cried. When the housemaid, arrayed in her best cap and apron, and with what she herself called "a red face," blushing like a peony in the unusual responsibility and honour, had managed to fulfil the service of the table, Bauby went out to the kitchen-door and then to the avenue to watch. "Something'll have happened to him," she said, drying her eyes. "Na, na, he's no' the man to forget himself. It's been something he couldna avide. The Lord grant it's no deadly—that's a' I say. We've never had an accident in oor family, no' since my grandfather that tummeled down the Broken Brig and broke himself a' to bits, and walkit wi' a crutch ever aifter." Bauby had got the length of despair by the time the dogcart came up the avenue bringing "the gentleman" from the station, whom Marget the housemaid, once more tying on her best apron, and looking in the glass to see if she had not yet got rid of that "awfu' red face," prepared to attend upon. It was at this moment, when Bauby found it required her whole attention to keep her tears from dropping upon the bird, which was cooked to a turn for Beaufort's supper, that a sudden welcome voice made her jump and almost drop the savoury morsel. "Eh, Tammas! what I've gaen through this nicht!" she cried. "I thought you were drowned in the water, or a' your banes broken." "Hold your peace," said Rolls, with a gloomy countenance; "nothing has happened to me." And he took the tray out of Marget's hands without a word. The women stood aghast to see him so scowling, dark, and uncommunicative, proceeding thus into the presence of his master, without any attention to his dress. "Without your claes!" Bauby said. "Hold your peace," repeated her brother. And he paused as he went out of the kitchen and turned round solemnly, "We have all a hantle mair to think of this night than my claes." The solemnity of this address, it is needless to say, made an enormous impression upon the maids, who were wont to consider Rolls, next to the minister, as one of the greatest lights of the parish. Andrew the gardener came in soon after on some domestic errand, and from him they heard something of what had happened at Tinto. "I'm no' sure what but the maister here is in it," Andrew said. "You gomeril! how can Mr John be in it, and him biding quiet at hame, and no' looking the gait Pat Torrance was on?" "Aweel, I'm saying, I ken naething about it, but that something's happened to Tinto and his muckle mear—and the maister's into it," Andrew replied.
Meanwhile Rolls had carried in the supper. The library where John always sat was cheerful with light and fire. The farther north the traveller goes, the more sure he is, with or without occasion, to find a fire. It scarcely enters into the Italian's idea of comfort at all, though he shivers with cold—but it is indispensable to a Scotsman's, though it may be warm. The night was soft and mild, the windows wide open, but the ruddy glow made everything cheerful, and John Erskine had brightened to meet his visitor: he was sitting cheerfully in the light, asking Beaufort the hundred questions with which a man a little withdrawn from society assails one who has kept within it. Beaufort himself was older and graver: a man with a fine picturesque head, somewhat long; a forehead exceptionally white, from which the hair had begun to wear off a little round the temples; a slightly feeble querulous drop of the lip under his moustache. He was very tall, very slim, with long white hands, which clasped each other in a nervous habitual motion. Neither the one nor the other took any notice of Rolls. They were in full flood of talk about old associations, for they had not met for years. Rolls made his preparations very deliberately, almost rubbing against his master on repeated occasions as he went and came. Three or four times over John drew his chair out of the way, a little surprised, but paying no particular attention. When this happened, however, for the fifth or sixth time, he looked up impatiently. "What are you after?" he cried. Rolls looked at him with a steady meaning gaze, his eyes staring, his mouth rigid—he shook his head slightly, very slowly. "What's the matter?" cried John. Beaufort had seated himself at the table, and had begun his meal. The others were in the shade behind him, between the fireplace and the door.
"There's much the maitter, sir,—much the maitter," said Rolls; "more than will be made up for this many a day."
"What do you mean? What is it? You look as if something had happened with which I had to do," John said, half alarmed, half amused. The only answer Rolls gave was to shake his head once more very gravely as he turned away. His look spoke all that he did not say. Tragedy was in it, and horror, and pity, and reproach. John grew excited in spite of himself. "Hey, here Rolls!Rolls, I say! What is the meaning of this?" he cried. Rolls opened the door slowly, solemnly, and disappeared. "Confound the fellow!" cried John, and rose hastily and followed, with a hurried word to Beaufort. "I suppose the mare has fallen lame, or there is a tile off the roof," he said, half laughing. Rolls was standing in the partial gloom outside the door. The hall door was open, and the whole darkness of the night showing beyond. Over their heads hung the lamp, flickering in the night air, throwing its light upon the impenetrable blackness opposite to it in the open doorway, but leaving the two figures in shadow below. Rolls stood as if he expected his master. He left him no time to ask any question, but said at once, "Yon was death, sir," in a low and solemn tone.
"Yon! What was death? I don't understand you," John cried, in wonder and alarm. "Quick, quick! tell me what you mean."
"It's but ower easy to tell;—yon was death. He's never stirred. Horse and man one heap, and no' a breath or a tremble in it. It's easy—easy to tell."
"Good God! Rolls, what do you mean? Not—not the Scaur,—not——"
"That's what I mean," Rolls replied almost sternly. "A bonnie morning's work. Just Tinto, poor fellow, with all his faults, and, maybe, the drink in him that made it easy. Dead—dead."
There was a sort of guttural sob in the old man's voice. His heart was wrung, not for Tinto, but with a deeper and closer horror. But John neither thought nor understood this. He fell back a step and leaned against the wall in horror and bewilderment. "Good God!" he repeated with pale lips, with that instinctive appeal which we make without knowing it in the face of every mystery. Under any circumstances, the suddenness and terribleness of the event would have appalled him; but now, at this moment, with Beaufort under his roof!—he could only gasp for breath—he could not speak. And he was not aware how eagerly Rolls was noticing every look and gesture, and how his agitation struck the old servant to the heart. He asked a few further questions in profound horror and dismay, then went back to his friend with a ghastly countenance, shaken to the bottom of his heart. The very consciousness that behind this sudden and terrible death stood life, added to the effect. He went back to tell Beaufort of it. That was indeed his first intention, but second thoughts presented to him the embarrassing nature of such a communication at the very moment of his friend's arrival. Beaufort did not notice—being occupied with his supper—the pallor and agitation which had produced so great an effect upon old Rolls. But after a while, as John said nothing, he turned half round and said, "I hope nothing serious has happened to the mare——"
"The mare——Oh yes, it was something very serious—not to be made a jest of. A fatal accident has happened—to one of my neighbours. It is appalling in any case to hear of anything so sudden; but what makes it worse is, that I spent some part of to-day in his company. It is not above four or five hours since I parted with him. We had even a little altercation," said John, with a slight shudder. "There's a bitter lesson for you! To quarrel with a man without a thought of any harm, and a little while after to hear that he is dead, with an unkind thought of you in his heart, and you with hard thoughts of him!"
Beaufort answered gravely and sympathetically as became such an announcement. "Was he a man you liked? Was he a friend?"
"No: neither a friend nor a man I liked, but young and strong; such a frame of a man!—worth you and me put together; and to think that in a moment——"
"How did it happen?" Beaufort asked.
"I scarcely asked. He must have fallen, he and his horse, down a precipice—the Scaur,—a place he had often been cautioned against, I believe. Good heavens! to think of it! I thought he must have gone over as we spoke."
And John got up and walked about the room in his excitement. This interrupted altogether the lively flow of conversation with which they had begun the evening. There were one or two attempts made to resume it. But Erskine relapsed in a few moments either into exclamations of dismay, or into restless and uncomfortable silence of thought. The fact was, not only that Torrance's sudden death had startled his imagination and awoke some compunctions in his mind, as in that of Lady Lindores, but that it opened to him a whole confusing sea of speculations and possibilities. It was extraordinary that on the very day which should see this happen, Beaufort had arrived. And what would Lady Caroline now say—she who, with such self-betraying emotion, had entreated John to keep his friend away? What might happen now were they to meet? John shrank from the suggestion as from an impiety, and yet it would come back. It was evident to Beaufort that his friend was out of sorts and profoundly agitated. He withdrew early to his room, pleading that he was tired, to leave John to himself. It did not concern him (Beaufort) to be sure, but it must, he felt, touch Erskine more than he was willing to show. And it was a relief to John to be alone. His mind, left to itself, pursued the question, not so much of the dead as of the living. He did not call back Rolls to question him on the accident as he had intended to do; for it was Carry he thought of, not poor Torrance, after the first moment. What would Carry do? What would she think when she found, in the first moment of her freedom, Beaufort so near? The idea overwhelmed him. There seemed a certain indelicacy and precipitancy in the thought. He had risen in his restlessness and opened the window, as he had been in the habit of doing, to breathe the freshness of the night air, when Rolls came in, pale, and with a harassed stealthy look. He came up to his master, and seeing that he was not observed, touched him on the arm. "If you are going out, sir, to take a walk—or that," he said, with quivering lips, "I've brought you a coat and some haps——"
John looked at him with surprise. The old man was grey and ghastly; his lip quivered. He had a dark coat carefully folded over his arm, several comforters and a plaid. There was a tremor in his whole figure, and his eyes had a wild look of inquiry and fear.
"Take a walk! Why should I take a walk at this time of night?"
"Oh, I'm no' saying: gentlemen has strange fancies. I'm not one to pry. I'll put the haps here, in case you should want them. You'll find a drop brandy in your flask, and a few sandwiches in the pocket," he added in an undertone.
"Sandwiches! You must be taking leave of your senses. Where do you suppose I should want to go?"
"I would rather not know, sir," said Rolls, solemnly turning away. "What good would it do me to know? I'll not listen nor look. I have nothing ado with it; but oh, if you'll take my advice, go—go out of harm's way."
"I believe you are mad, Rolls."
"I have plenty to make me sae, at the least of it," Rolls said, and putting down the coat ostentatiously on a chair, he hobbled out of the room, closing the door carefully behind him. John could hear his steps going stealthily up-stairs to the window in the gallery above, where they seemed to pause, and the window was carefully opened. A wild bewilderment seized upon his mind. Of what was it that the old servant was afraid?
Next day the country-side far and near thought and talked of nothing but the fatal accident at Tinto, which was such a public event as moved everybody. There was no figure in the district more widely known than that of Pat Torrance on his black mare, a powerful horse and powerful man, looking as if they could defy every power of nature; and it thrilled every village far and near, every lone farm-steading and cluster of cottages for miles round, to be told that Black Jess and her master had both been ended by one false step, and that Pat Torrance, strong and rich and potent as he was, had died the death of a dog, unaided, unseen. The news ran from village to village like the fiery cross—everywhere expanding into new details and a deeper and deeper horror of description. First the bare fact, then all these additional circumstances, making it more and more visibly evident to every excited listener, filled the air. Each new passer-by was like a new edition of a newspaper, and had heard something more. How the two bodies had been found, horse and man; how Tinto had been warned over and over again of the danger of the Scaur, and would listen to no advice on the subject, but insisted on leaving it as it was, either for the sake of the view (though it was little he was heeding about views), or for the brag, which was more likely; and how he was got up with much trouble, and carried in dead to his own house, which he had left in all his pride an hour or two before. What ground for reflection upon the vicissitudes of life was here! There was not a group of two or three people anywhere but one at least would shake the head and lift up the voice of wisdom, bidding the others note how in the midst of life we were in death. And when this first horror was exhausted, there ensued the brief summing up of character and life, the rapid history in which our neighbours epitomise us as soon as we are ended. There were no illusions on the subject of wild Pat Torrance; but on the whole he fared well in the hands of the rude country-folk, whose taste was not fine enough to be offended by his roughnesses. In spite of all his vices and extravagances, he had a certain good-fellowship with his inferiors in position, a rough familiarity of address which passed for kindness, and conciliated the common mind. On every side the wild incidents of his youth were recalled, not unkindly. "Eh, poor Tinto, poor fallow! I mind when he was a young lad——" the commentators began on every side. And the women concluded that perhaps if he had gotten a wife more like himself, things might have been different. The rural imagination accepted him as he was, with many a sage reflection, but little censure on the whole—winding up the story of his feats and frolics, his stormy, wild career, with a big rustic sigh for the ploughboy-gentleman, the rude Laird who was so near to them. The tragedy was as complete and typical as the primitive historian could desire. And the man who would take no warning, but kept the dangerous spot unguarded that he might get his death on it, was as broad an example of human rashness and blindness as could have been selected. Wild Pat Torrance, poor fallow! It was just the end which everybody might have expected, it was allowed on all hands.
But presently there arose a chill whisper, like the first creeping upward of an east wind, bringing greyness and blight over earth and sky. Who can say how this atmospheric influence rises, which one moment is not, and the next has covered the country with an ungenial chill? It was the same with this moral cloud, which came, nobody knew from whence, nor how, rising in a moment. The origin of it could not be brought home to any individual, but there it was. After all, how could it be that Black Jess, used to every step of the way, went over the Scaur? In a moment the tide of popular comment changed, and those who had pointed out the awful justice of fate by which Pat Torrance had been made to bring about his own fate by his obstinacy, began to say that so bold a rider never could have lost his life on so well-known a road—without foul play. Accident! how could it be accident, without some human hand to help? It was not till the second morning that this development of the tragedy came; and it took the whole of that day to establish the connection—which flashed upon the general mind like lightning at last—between John Erskine's torn sleeve and dishevelled appearance and the fate of Torrance. John Tamson swore with angry oaths afterwards that it was not from him the tale came; but others had seen young Dalrulzian, flushed and muddy, coming from the gate of Tinto on that eventful afternoon; and when the community began to think it over and compare notes, nothing could be more natural than the conclusion to which they came. If the original news had flown over the country like the war-signal of the old clans, this was like the spreading of a sheet of flame—it burst out at point after point after the merest touch of contact. Young Dalrulzian was little known. The country knew no stories of his youth to endear him. He had been brought up far away. He was an Englishman, almost an alien. And Tinto, it was well known, was rough of speech, and "couldna bide" the dainty and delicate. What if they met in the wood; what if there had been a struggle—if the weaker man who had no chance against the stronger had seized Black Jess by the bridle, and driven the high-spirited animal frantic? The groups who had been recalling all the old stories of Tinto, now changed like magic into little committees of accusation, with their heads close together, framing their indictment. The question was given against John Erskine all over the country before the ending of the second day.
There is no coroner's inquest in Scotland. When a death is attended by doubtful circumstances, the procedure is slower and more elaborate, and private individuals are reluctant to move in a matter so painful. But yet the atmosphere of suspicion and popular condemnation stole into Dalrulzian as it had crept over the whole country. It conveyed itself to the supposed criminal himself in a subtle sense of something wrong. He had not a notion what it was—neither did he know at first that it was he who was the object disapproved of; but it was impossible not to feel that something was wrong. The aspect of Rolls himself, conjoined with his extraordinary behaviour on the night of Torrance's death, was remarkable enough to excite alarm. The old servant seemed to have grown ten years older in a single night. His face was furrowed with deep lines, his shoulders bowed, his step tottering. The pathos and earnestness of the looks which he bent upon his young master were indescribable. The air, half critical, half paternal, with which he had been wont to regard him, was gone. He no longer interfered in every arrangement with that sense of superior wisdom which had amused John from the moment of his arrival. All the humour of the situation was over. Intense gravity, almost solemnity, was in the countenance of Rolls; he was constantly on the watch, as if he expected unwelcome visitors. Beaufort, who was not given to mirth, was roused out of his gravity by the melancholy aspect of Methusaleh, as he called him. "One would think your servants expected you to be carried off to prison for high treason," he said, laughing—for Rolls was not the only one in the house who regarded John with these alarmed and solemn eyes. Bauby, who on ordinary occasions had nothing but a broad smile and look of maternal admiration for her young master, was continually visible, gazing at him from unexpected corners with her apron at her eyes. When he asked her if she wanted anything with him, she would murmur, "Oh, Mr John!" and cry. The other maids supporting her behind, fled from his presence. The gardener regarded him with a sort of stern inquiry when he passed carrying his basket of vegetables to the house. John was disturbed, as a man of sympathetic nature cannot help being disturbed, by this curious atmosphere of discomfort. He could not tell what it was.
Beaufort was not an inspiriting companion for a man thus perplexed and confounded. To find himself in the district where Carry lived, to be in her neighbourhood, yet separated from her as by walls of iron, impressed his languid mind with a deeper shade of that sentimental consciousness which was habitual to him. Her name had not yet been mentioned between the friends; but Beaufort walked about the country roads in a constant state of expectation, feeling that every carriage he heard approaching might reveal to him the face which he longed yet feared to see. And for the first three or four days this was all the entertainment which John provided for his friend. He was full of embarrassment as to the situation altogether. Lady Lindores and Edith were, he had heard, at Tinto, where he could not disturb them; and he felt no inclination to make his appearance at Lindores in their absence. Torrance's death and Beaufort's presence seemed, indeed, to place impossible barriers between him and them. It would have been sufficiently uncomfortable, he had felt, to produce his friend there in the lifetime of Carry's husband; but to present him now, when so unexpectedly, so tragically, Carry was once more free, became an impossibility. In every way John felt himself paralysed. The air affected him, he could not tell how. He took his companion out walking all over the country, and drove him to long distances in his dogcart, but introduced him to no one, nor ever went to any other house. And nobody called during this curious interval. The two men lived like hermits, and talked of their old comrades and associations, but never of the new. John even answered Beaufort's question about Tinto, which was one of the first points in the landscape which attracted his curiosity, without telling him of the tragedy which had happened there. "It belongs to the Torrances," he had said abruptly, and no more. It did not seem possible to tell Beaufort that her husband was dead. Troublesome as his coming was at any time, it seemed almost an immodest intrusion now; and John was disturbed and harassed by it. His mind was sufficiently troubled and uneasy on his own account; and this seemed like an odious repetition, intensification of his own circumstances. Two unfortunate lovers together, with the two ladies of their choice so separated from them, though so near; and now this utterly bewildering and distracting new element brought into the dilemma, throwing a wild and feverish gleam of impious possibility on what had been so impossible before. He could not speak of it: he could not breathe Edith's name or Carry's into the too sympathetic, anxious ear of his friend. He held him at arm's-length, and talked of Dick and Tom and Harry, the comrades of the past, but never of what was so much more deeply interesting and important to both of them now.
"Look here, Erskine," said Beaufort; "I thought you were seeing a great deal of—your neighbours: and that Millefleurs would have come to me before now. I shall have to send him word I am here."
"To be sure. I had forgotten Millefleurs," said John. "You forget I only knew of your coming a few hours before you arrived."
"But I thought—people in the country see so much of each other generally."
"They have been—engaged—with family matters," said John.
"Do you mean to say it is all settled?—and that Millefleurs is to marry——"
"I know nothing about marrying," cried John, harshly; and then, recollecting himself, he added, in a subdued tone, "There can be nothing of that sort going on at present. It is death, not marriage, that occupies them now."
Beaufort opened his languid eyes and looked with curiosity in his friend's face. "Is it so? Yet Millefleurs stays on. That looks as if very intimate relations had been established, Erskine."
"Does it? I don't know what relations have been established," John said, with visible impatience. And he got up and went out of the room abruptly, breaking off all further discussion. Beaufort sent a note to his pupil that evening. It was the fourth or fifth day after his arrival. "I made sure I should have seen you, or I would have let you know my whereabouts sooner," he wrote. He was himself oppressed by the atmosphere round him, without knowing why. He had expected a genial Scotch house, full of company and life, with something of that exaggeration of fancy which had made Dalrulzian so wonderfully disappointing to John himself—a house where, amid the movement of lively society, his own embarrassing position would have been softened, and he might even have met his former love in the crowd without special notice or more pain than was inevitable. But he seemed to have dropped instead into a hermitage, almost into a tomb.
Millefleurs made his appearance next morning, very grave too, as everybody seemed in this serious country, and with none of his usual chirruping confidence. "I never guessed you were here," he said; "everything of course, at Lindores, is wrapped in gloom."
"There has been a death——" said Beaufort.
"A death!—yes. Has not Erskine told you? A tragedy: nothing so terrible has happened here for ages. You've heard, Erskine," he said, turning round suddenly upon John, who was in the background, "that there are suspicions of foul play."
John came forward into the light; there was embarrassment and annoyance in his face. "I have said nothing to Beaufort about it—he did not know the man—why should I? What did you say there were suspicions of?"
Millefleurs looked him full in the face, with a curious direct look, and answered, with a certain sternness, oddly inappropriate to his cast of countenance, "Foul play."
John was startled. He looked up with a movement of surprise, then returned Millefleurs's gaze with a mingled expression of astonishment and displeasure. "Foul play!" he said; "impossible!"—then added, "Why do you look at me so?"
Millefleurs did not make any reply. He turned to Beaufort, who stood by puzzled, looking on. "I ought not to stay," he said; "but Lord Lindores seems to wish it, and there are some things to be settled; and I am very much interested besides. There is no coroner in Scotland, I hear. How will the investigation be managed?" he said, turning to John again.
"Lord Millefleurs," said John, who was not unwilling, in his general sense of antagonism and annoyance, to pick a quarrel, "your look at me requires some explanation. What does it mean?"
There was a moment's silence, and they stood opposite to each other, little Millefleurs's plump person, with all its curves, drawn up into an attitude of dignity, his chubby countenance set, while John looked down upon him with an angry contempt, merging towards ridicule. The group was like that of an indignant master and schoolboy; but it was evident that the schoolboy meant defiance.