"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 foroursake. 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 seeyon lordat 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 ofdistinction, 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.
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[The end ofThe Ladies Lindores, Volume 3by Margaret Oliphant]