Mrs. Oliphant

“ Mr Torrance has had a mistaken idea. But it is not that altogether. I am frightened without any reason. I suppose it is as my mother says, because of all the old associations he brings back. Marriage is so strange a thing. It cuts your life in two. What was before seems to belong to some one else—to another world."
"Is it always so, I wonder?" said Nora, wistfully.
"So far as I know," Carry said.
"Then I think St Paul is right," cried the girl, decisively, "and that it is not good in that case to marry; but never mind, if you want me. There is nothing to be frightened about in John Erskine. ”

“ He is only a rough, ill-tempered, tyrannical man. He does not really mean to hurt or be cruel: and poor Lady Car, dear Lady Car, is always so wretched; perhaps she aggravates him a little. She will not take pleasure in anything. It is all miserable, but it is all so little, Miss Barbara; not tragedy—not like Lear or Hamlet—rather a sort of scolding, peevish comedy. You might make fun of it all, though it is so dreadful; and that is how life seems to me—very different from poetry," said Nora, shaking her head. ”

“ These mingled sentiments were apparent in the young man's face as he walked into the room in which Lady Lindores and Edith were sitting together, working out on their side a programme of the things they were going to do. Notwithstanding Carry, they were both tolerably cheerful, looking forward to the excitement of this unaccustomed life with a little stir of anticipation; for neither mother nor daughter was blasée, and the thrill of quickened existence, in a place where human pulses beat more rapidly and the tide runs fuller than elsewhere, moved them in spite of themselves. ”

“ As if it were not enough to be compelled to take Pat Torrance for her husband, it had been her melancholy fate to bring other Torrances, all his in temper and feature, into the world. This is an aggravation of which nobody would have thought. In imagination we are all glad to find a refuge for an unhappy wife in her children, whom instinctively we allot to her as the natural compensation—creatures like herself and belonging to her, although the part in them of the obnoxious father cannot be ignored. ”

“ And then it was Lady Lindores's turn to be amazed. "My darling, you must compose yourself," she said; "this is greater nonsense than the other. Papa! What can it matter to your father? He will never force your inclinations; and how can this coarse bumpkin interest such a man as he is?" She became almost angry at the sight of Carry's tears. "Allow me to know your father a little better than you do," she cried. "Mr Torrance! who is Mr Torrance? I can't believe that he would favour such a suitor for a moment. ”

“ This time Nora's laugh passed without any notice from Carry, whose thoughts were absorbed in her sister's concerns. "Was not I right," she said, clasping her hands, "when I said I was frightened for John Erskine? I said so to my mother to-day. What I was thinking of was very different: that he might quarrel with Mr Torrance—that harm might come in that way. But oh, this is worse, far worse! Edith! I thought she at least would be safe. How short-sighted we are even in our instincts! Oh, my little sister! What can I do, Nora, what can I do to save her?" ”

“ The view from the Walk was of no very striking beauty, but it had the charm of breadth and distance—a soft sweep of undulating country, with an occasional glimpse of a lively trout-stream gleaming here and there out of its covert of crags and trees, and a great, varied, and ever-changing world of sky,—not a prospect which captivated a stranger, but one which, growing familiar day by day and year by year, was henceforth missed like something out of their lives by the people who, being used to it, had learned to love that silent companionship of nature. ”

“ Nothing is ever so cruelly conventional, so shamelessly egoistical, as the young disciple of social philosophy, who is possibly hiding a quivering and terrified youthful heart beneath that show of abominable wisdom. But it is hard for a mother whose whole heart is bent on finding excellence and nobleness in her child, to be tolerant of what appears to be such apparent and unmistakable unworthiness. Lady Lindores felt, while her son was speaking, as if some barbarous giant had got her heart in his hand and crushed it, clinching his cruel grasp. ”

“ Instead of strolling about as they had done for years, with one maid for the mother and daughters, and a shabby cheap French servant, who was valet and factotum; going to all kinds of places; living as they liked; and though, with many a complaint, getting a great deal of pleasure out of their lives: there was an immediate shaking of themselves together—a calling in of stray habits and fancies,—a jump into their new place, as of an inexperienced and half-alarmed rider, not at all sure how he was to get on with his unaccustomed steed. This at least was the mood of Lady Lindores. ”

“ The fine decorations had not all stood the neglect of twenty years, but still there was enough of magnificence to overawe the district; and Patrick Torrance had enough of his mother's blood in him to enjoy the consciousness of so much luxury and costliness. He lived in the old library, which was low and dingy, and looked out upon the dark bit of shrubbery behind the house and the road that led to the stables; but periodically he threw the grand empty rooms open, and had a great dinner-party or a ball, which excited all the gentry for miles round. ”

“ We cannot take her away from him, any more than we can make of him a reasonable man. Carry herself would be the first to say no—for the children's sake, for the sake of her own credit. All we can do is to make the best of what exists. Mr Torrance must be shown quietly how mistaken he is—how much he is in the wrong."
"Mr Torrance! I would show him nothing, except how much I scorn him," Edith cried. "A man who dares to torture my sister—a man—who is not worthy to take her name into his lips, with his insolent doubts and his 'Lady Car,' which I cannot endure to hear!" ”

“ After all, a Scotch lord was no such grand affair; and John could not be ignorant that, five years ago, neither father nor mother would have repulsed him. Now! but the doubt, the risk, did not induce the young man to be wise—to put Lady Edith out of his imagination, and turn his thoughts to the other, just as pretty, if that were all, who was manifestly within his reach. What a pity that young people are so slow to see reason in such matters, that they will never take the wiser way! ”

“ And love is so fatally robust, and can bear so many attacks! Lady Lindores, who divined her husband's motives, and the unscrupulous adherence to them through thick and thin which would recoil from nothing, suffered from that and every other discovery that he was not what she had thought him, with bitter pangs, from which she would have been free had he ceased to be the first object of her affections. ”

“ He always dressed carefully; now and then he helped a wealthier friend to a bargain in the way of art. He saw a great deal of society. On the whole, perhaps, for a man without ambition, and upon whom neither the fate of his children nor the use of his own life pressed very heavily, he got as much satisfaction out of his existence as most men; and so might have lived and died, no man knowing what was really in him, had not poor young Rintoul broken his neck over that fence, and drawn his father with him into the grave. ”

“ Lady Lindores drew the curtains closer to shut it out, and lay down with her head aching, turning her face to the wall. There are circumstances in which the light of heaven is terrible; and darkness, darkness, oblivion of itself, the only things the soul cares for. But though you can shut out the light, you cannot shut out thought. There was not much rest that night in Lindores. The Earl himself had a consciousness of the strange discovery of him which his wife had made ”

“ John Erskine felt, as he rose to meet the new-comer, a sense of the shabbiness and smallness of his own house, such as, even in the first evening of disenchantment, had scarcely affected him so strongly before. When his visitor cast round him that bold glance of his big, projecting, light-blue eyes, John saw through them the insignificance of the place altogether, and the humility of his own position, with a mortification which he could scarcely subdue. ”

“ Old Miss Barbara Erskine was the only one who had partly divined him; but of all the people who did not understand his intention, the wife of his bosom was the first. To her high mind, finely unsuspicious because so contemptuous of mean motives, this little ambition would perhaps have seemed pettier than it really was; for if nobility is worth having at all, surely it is best to possess all its privileges. And perhaps, had Lady Lindores been less lofty in her ideal, her husband would have been more disposed to open his inmost thoughts to her, and thus correct any smaller tendency. ”

“ Mr Torrance married this man's daughter, and all the money which the original navvy had quarried out of the bowels of the earth, or gathered from its surface, went to increase the lands and the power of Tinto, where this daughter, his only child, a woman with the magnificent ideas of expenditure which enormous wealth so naturally brings along with it, disposed herself to reign like a princess, making her husband's old house the centre of a new palace, fit for a duke at least. The old man, her father, always thrifty and sparing in his own person, would have her stinted in nothing ”

“ Boy as he was, he thought sometimes, not only of special corners in the woods, and turns of the stream, where he nibbled as a boy at the big sports, which are the life of men in the country—but above all, of the house, the landscape, the great sweep of land and sky, of which, when he shut his eyes, he could always conjure up a vague vision. ”

“ I go out to three parties every night, and stand about at everybody's receptions. I even pay calls in the morning. I shall go to a levee soon—I know I shall," he said, in an accent of deep conviction. "Can you think of anything more virtuous than that?"
"And what has your Bohemianism consisted in, Lord Millefleurs?"
"Good heavens!" said the self-accused, "do you venture to ask me, Lady Edith?—everything that is dreadful. For months I never wrote a letter, for months I never had a penny. It was the best fun in the world. The sting of being poor is when you can't help it. ”

“ Nora looked at her with anxious, somewhat astonished eyes. She, too, was aware that before Carry's marriage—before the family came to Lindores—there had been some one else. But if that had been John, how then did it happen that Edith——Nora stopped short, confounded. To her young imagination the idea, not so very dreadful a one, that a man who had loved one sister might afterwards console himself with another, was a sort of sacrilege. But friendship went above all.
"I do not think I can explain it to you, Nora," said Lady Caroline. "There are so many things one cannot explain. ”

“ You spend so very little time at home. I wonder if it is a good thing or the reverse," said Lady Lindores, with a little sigh. "A mother may be pardoned for not admiring the new way, when our sons come home, not for us, but for the shooting."
"I think I am scarcely able to judge," said John: "home—perhaps was a little different to me: my mother has so many claiming a share in her. And now my home is here in Dalrulzian, which is merely a house, not a home at all," he said with something between a laugh and a sigh.
"You must marry," Lady Lindores said; "that is what the county expects of you. ”

“ They were to be found everywhere, in the cottages as well as in the castles. He was not impressed by them. The smiles and animation were common things; but Lady Caroline with her gentle paleness, her slim form pliant and bending,—even her nose, which was a little too long, was the impersonation of refinement and rank, and fine superiority. His imagination, if he had an imagination, took fire. He thought he could see her moving about with languid grace through his fine salons, far more fine than they, lending them an air of delicacy and importance which they had never possessed before. ”

“ Lady Lindores following, formed her own conclusions, though she did not hear what her husband said. She took her child into her arms when they were safe in the carriage, rolling along the dark roads in the dimness of the summer night, and Carry cried and sobbed on her mother's breast. "I understand that you have refused him," Lady Lindores said. "But what then? Why should you be so wretched about it, Carry? It is a kind of vanity to be so sorry for the man. You may be sure Mr Torrance will get over it, my love." ”

“ It was in a far richer country than that which surrounded Dalrulzian,—a land flowing with milk and cheese, if not honey,—full of foliage and flowers. Mrs Kingsford, having been accustomed only to Scotland, was very much elated with the luxuriant beauty of the place. She spoke of "England" as the travelled speak of Italy,—as if this climate of ours, which we abuse so much, was paradise. She thought "the English" so frank, so open, so demonstrative. To live in "the South" seemed the height of happiness to her. Innocent primitive Scotch gentlewomen are prone to talk in this way. ”

“ Lady Lindores shook her head. "It is one of the most terrible things in the world; but now that it is done, she must stand to it. We can do nothing, Edith——"
"I cannot believe that," cried the girl. "What! live with a man like that,—live with him like that—always together, sharing everything—and hate him? Mother! it is worse wickedness than—than the wicked. It is a shame to one's very nature. And to think it should be Carry who has to do it! ”

“ She could not get over that foolish idea that Dalrulzian was far more to her than to this stranger, who could not care for it as she did. She felt that his thanks were an offence. "Papa has gone, Mr Erskine," she said, with unusual stateliness. "I am left behind to pay some visits. Everybody here has been so good to us."
"That means we are all fond of her bit bright face," said Miss Barbara; "but we'll say no more on that subject, Nora. Human nature's selfish in grain. The like of me will take no trouble for lad or lass that is not sweet to see, and a comfort to the heart." ”

“ To think that her father, whom she had hitherto loved and trusted, not with any excess of devotion, but yet with an honest confidence that he would ask nothing wrong, nothing unreasonable from his children, should thus threaten to become a domestic tyrant, an enemy of truth, was terrible; but still more terrible was the conviction which overwhelmed the girl that Carry, with all her imagination and feeling—Carry, the poet of the family, the first one to have a romance and a lover—would not have strength to resist any attempted coercion. ”

“ The perpetual recurrence of a circle within which the sayings and doings of certain individuals are more important than anything else in earth or heaven, and where the conversation persistently rolls back, whatever may be its starting-point, to what this or that little knot of people are doing, to the eccentricities of one and the banalities of another, to some favourite individual scene of tragedy or comedy which forms the centre of the moral landscape—is always apparent to the observer, whether his observations are made in Kamtchatka or in London, among washerwomen or princesses. ”

“ The Barringtons during their residence at Dalrulzian had been received into the very heart of the rural society, in which at first there had sprung up a half-grudge against the almost unknown master of the place, whose coming was to deprive them of a family group so pleasant and so bright. The tenants themselves, though their turn was over, felt instinctively as if they were expelled for the benefit of our intruder, and entertained this grudge warmly. "Mr Erskine might just as well have stayed away," Nora said. "He can't care about it as we do." ”

“ We must make the best of it now, since there's no remedy; but to speak as if Carry's marriage was something to be envied——"
"Well, Torrance is rather a brute," Rintoul acknowledged, somewhat subdued; "but what a place and what a position! Carry's boy, with our connection and all that money, may be—anything she chooses to make him——"
"Carry's boy is not half so much to me as Carry herself," said Lady Lindores, gravely; "but that is done, and we must make the best of it," she added, with a sigh.
"A girl may pick up a bad husband anywhere," said Rintoul, regaining his confidence. ”

“ Thus it was with a good deal of pleasant excitement that he set out from Milton Magna, his stepfather's rectory, where he had gone to see his mother and the children for a week or two on his return from the Continent. The season was just beginning; but John, full of virtue and hope, decided that he would not attempt to indulge in the pleasures of the season. Far better to begin his real life, to make acquaintance with his home and his "people," than to snatch a few balls and edge his way through a few crowded receptions, and feel himself nobody. ”

“ Much poorer, less important persons than himself, had been suggested, had even sat for the county. But Torrance of Tinto, conscious that he was the only man among them who could afford to throw away a few thousands without wincing—of him nobody had thought. He had declaimed loudly on many occasions that nothing would induce him to take the trouble; but this slight had rankled at his heart.
"Mr Torrance would not like London life," Lady Lindores said, coming to his aid; "turning night into day is hard upon those who are accustomed to a more natural existence." ”

“ How lucky for him to be able to renew such an acquaintance! I need not tell you what a fine fellow he is—he has made me quite a reformed character. Do not laugh, Lady Edith; you hurt my feelings. You would not laugh if I were a coal-heaver addressing a meeting and telling how wicked I had been."
"And have you really been so wicked? You do not look so," said Edith, who, amused in spite of herself, began to get used to the grave countenance of Beaufort, seated on the other side of the table. Both the ladies were grateful to Millefleurs, who chattered on, and gave them time to recover themselves. ”

“ This eager tone and broken question would have made Lady Lindores wonder had she not been full of the subject from her own point of view.
"What else?" she said. "You cannot suppose a man like your father can find anything else in Mr Torrance to attract him. Politics are very entrancing, but, like necessity, they bring you acquainted with strange bedfellows. Papa thinks, no doubt, that he ought to turn his influence to account."
"Oh, if that is the reason!" said Carry, clasping her hands together, with something like an ecstasy of prayer and thankfulness in her face. ”

“ He came back more horsey, more doggy than he had been before, if possible,—a man without an intellectual taste or higher instinct, bored to death, as he himself avowed, with the grand house, full of pictures, and statues, and marble, and porcelain, which the taste of his mother had accumulated. Never was such a magnificent place in the quietude of such a homely country. The daughter of the railway man was as extreme in her taste for art as the daughter of one of her father's navvies might have been in dress. ”