The Ladies Lindores

On the day on which the reader is asked first to visit this house of Dalrulzian, great things were happening in it. It was the end of one regime and the beginning of another. The master of the house, a young man who had been brought up at a distance, was coming home, and the family which had lived in it for years was taking its leave of the place.

The last spot which they visited and on which they lingered was the Walk. When the packing was over, the final remnants gathered up, the rooms left in that melancholy bareness into which rooms relapse when the prettinesses and familiarities of habitation have been swept away, the remaining members of the family came out with pensive faces, and stood together gazing somewhat wistfully upon the familiar scene. They had looked on many that were more fair. They were going to a landscape of greater beauty further south⁠—brighter, richer, warmer in foliage and natural wealth; but all this did not keep a certain melancholy out of their eyes. The younger of the party, Nora Barrington, cried a little, her lip quivering, a big tear or two running over. “It is foolish to feel it so much,” her mother said. “How is it one feels it so much? I did not admire Dalrulzian at all when we came.”

“Out of perversity,” said her husband; but he did not smile even at the cleverness of his own remark.

Nora regarded her father with a sort of tender rage. “It is all very well for you,” she said; “one place is the same as another to you.

“Dalrulzian! you’ll find nobody there the day,” said a countryman whom he overtook and accosted on the road. “The family’s away this morning, and a great loss they will be to the countryside.”

“The family!” said John, and he felt that his tone was querulous in spite of himself. “I did not understand that there was a family.”

“Ay was there, and one that will be missed sore; both gentle and simple will miss them. Not the real family, but as good, or maybe better,” the man said, with a little emphasis, as if he meant offence, and knew who his questioner was.

The young man reddened in spite of himself. This was not the kind of popular report which in his incognito he had hoped to hear.

“The laird is what they call in Ireland an absentee,” said his companion. “We’re no minding muckle in Scotland if they’re absentees or no; they can please themsels. But there’s nae family of the Erskines⁠—nothing but a young lad; and the Cornel that’s had the house was a fine, hearty, weel-spoken man, with a good word for everybody; and the ladies very kind, and pleasant, and neighbour-like. Young Erskine must be a young laird past the ordinar if he can fill their place.”

“But, so far as I understand, the estate belongs to him, does it not?” Erskine asked, with an involuntary sharpness in his voice.

“Oh ay, it belongs to him; that makes but sma’ difference. Ye’re no bound to be a fine fellow,” said the roadside philosopher, with great calmness, “because ye’re the laird of a bit sma’ country place⁠—”

“Ah, if it was a question of one’s life! but no one wants your life,” said Carry, shaking her head. “No one will touch us, or lock us up, or any of these old-fashioned things. If they only would! The poets say ‘I could die for you,’ as if that was difficult! Oh no, it is far harder, far harder to live.”

“Carry! you have been thinking a great deal about it, then?”

“What else could I think about? Since the first moment papa looked at me that day⁠—you remember that day?⁠—I knew in a moment what he meant. He gave me just one glance. You know he never said that he would consent.”

Edith’s youthful countenance gathered a sympathetic cloud. “Papa has been so changed ever since,” she said.

“He never would allow that he had consented even before⁠—and while we were all poor, what did it matter? So long as he does not ask me to⁠—”

“To what?” Edith asked, with a wondering perception of the shudder which ran over her sister’s slight figure. “Are you cold, Car?”

“To⁠—marry someone else,” cried poor Caroline, with a heavy sigh⁠—so heavy that it was almost a groan.

Edith sprang to her feet with indignant vehemence. “That is not possible; nobody could be so cowardly, so cruel, as that,” she said, clasping her hands together. “Carry, you speak as if papa was a bad man; you slander him; it is not true, it is not true!”

She looked up when she had got so far, and stopped in sheer amazement at the sight of her husband’s face. She had never seen any indication before of what she now found in it. Rage with difficulty smothered; a determined intention to follow his own way; an uneasy shame turning to bitterness and passion. His voice was quite hoarse with the effort to contain himself. “I thought,” he said, “that at least you were not one of the silly women who speak of things they don’t understand. But I was mistaken. You will rather encourage a foolish girl in a piece of unworthy romance, than show her her duty⁠—her duty! But neither you nor she, by ⸻ shall hold me up to ridicule! She shall take this husband I choose for her, or by ⸻” Here he became aware how much he was committing himself. He stopped, gazed at her defiantly for a moment, then began to pace up and down the room in great confusion. “The short and the long of it is,” he said, “that I can’t suffer Carry, for a girlish prejudice, to throw away such a position. He might be the first man in the county,” Lord Lindores said. “He has twice as much as we have, and no title to keep up; no encumbrance of any kind. She might be a sort of princess. I cannot allow all this to be thrown away for a mere fancy. If she does not like him, she must learn to like him. What would she have? He is not a petit-maître, certainly; but he is a man, every inch of him⁠—his family good, his health good, a magnificent house; what could any woman want more?

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 all that any 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—someone 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.