Mrs. Oliphant

“ Not to betray that you have been discussing some one who appears, while the words of criticism are still on your lips, is difficult at all times; and Rintoul, feeling confused and guilty, was anxious to give the interrupted conversation an air of insignificance. "My mother and I have no secrets. She is not so easy as the mothers in society," he said, with a laugh.
"No!" said Millefleurs, folding his hands with an air of devotion. "I would not discuss the chronique scandaleuse, if that is what you mean, in Lady Lindores's hearing. The air is pure here; it is like living out of doors. ”

“ I might have gone on suspecting and doubting, and—well, you know a man never can be sure: but when another fellow stands up to him honest and straightforward—" he said, getting up to his feet with a slight lurch towards John, as if he would have thrown himself upon his shoulder; and then he laughed with a gurgle in his breath, and thrust his arm through that of his reluctant guest. "We're friends for life," said Torrance; "you're an honest fellow! I always had a fancy for you, John Erskine. ”

“ With a little laugh of nervous pleasure, Lady Lindores permitted herself to think how amusing it would be to see her little girl take precedence of her. Alas! things were far from being so advanced as that; but yet she could not help more or less being on the side of ambition this time. The ambition that fixed upon Torrance of Tinto was poor enough, and shamed her to think of it; but the Marquis Millefleurs, the Duke of Lavender, that was an ambition which had some justification. Not love him! Why should not she love him? Lady Lindores even went so far as to ask herself with some heat. ”

“ She waited, the air all rustling round her, with expectation and suspense. What would the girl find to say? Caroline had wept and struggled, but she had yielded. Edith would not weep, she would stand fast like a little rock; but, after all, what was there to object to? Millefleurs was very different from Torrance of Tinto. Why should he not please the girl's fancy as well as another? He had so much in him to please any girl's fancy; he was clever and amusing, and romantic even in his way. If Edith would but content herself with him! ”

“ 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. ”

“ He turned up the narrow road down which John Erskine had once driven his dogcart, and which Torrance continually rode up and down. When he came to the opening of the Scaur, and saw the daylight breaking clear from the shadow of the over-reaching boughs, Rolls stood still for a moment with consternation. Broken branches, leaves strewn about, the print of the horse's hoofs all round the open space as if he had been rearing wildly, showed marks of a recent struggle,—he thought of his master, and his heart sank. ”

“ I was not made to be a son of civilisation. Do not laugh, Lady Edith, please; you hurt my feelings. If you take luncheon to the sportsmen anywhere, I will go with you: unless you, as I suppose you will, despise me too."
"I don't think it is such a noble thing to shoot birds, Lord Millefleurs."
"But yet you don't dislike grouse—and it must be killed somehow," said John, somewhat irritated, as was natural.
"My dear fellow, I don't find fault with you. I see your position perfectly. It is a thing you have always done. ”

“ John was satisfied, and yet he was wounded to think that he had been the means of wounding his friend. This, however, and all connected with it—all the painful part of his life and of theirs, so far as he was acquainted with it—passed out of his mind in the excitement and elation of the consciousness that this day he should see "them" again. John spent the morning in a kind of suppressed ecstasy, altogether out of reason. He did not even ask himself what their return was to him. What it was to him! a change of heaven and earth, a filling up of the veins of life and quickening of every faculty. ”

“ John Erskine woke with the singing of the birds on the morning of Midsummer-day. It was early—far before any civilised hour of waking. When he suddenly opened his eyes in the sweet strangeness of that unearthly moment, the sensation came back to his mind of childish wakings in summer mornings long departed; of getting up in the unutterable stillness with the sense of being the first adventurer into an unknown world; of stealing down-stairs through the silent visionary house all full of unseen sleepers, like ghosts behind the closed doors ”

“ Let me tell you, Mr Erskine, that that's the greatest insult of all. Why shouldn't he come? he, or any fellow? Do you think I'm afraid of Lady Car?" and here his laugh rang into all the echoes. "Not a bit; I think more of her than that. You're putting a slight on her when you ask any man not to come. Do you hear?"
"I hear perfectly, and would hear if you spoke lower. There's enough of this, Torrance. I suppose it's your way, and you don't intend to be specially objectionable—but I am not going to be questioned so, nor will I take the lie from any man," cried John, with rising passion. ”

“ John did not at all like the idea of Rintoul. If there is a natural sense of opposition (as people say) between women who may be considered rival beauties, the sentiment is so natural a one that it is shared by that sex which is so much the nobler; and as a woman sees through a woman's wiles, so does a man see through the instincts of another man. John felt that Rintoul would see through him—that he would set up an instant opposition and hostility—that he would let him perceive that where Edith was, a small country squire, a little Scotch laird, had no business to push himself in. ”

“ Lady Lindores saw the whole, and shared the shock of the discovery, which to her was double, for she perceived in the same moment that she had betrayed herself, and saw what John's sentiments were. Some women divine such feelings from their earliest rise—foresee them, indeed, before they come into existence, and are prepared for the emergencies that must follow; but there are some who are always taken by surprise. She, too, became pale with horror and dismay. ”

“ John, who had followed down-stairs, not wishing to have any more than he could avoid of his host's society, saw the indignant countenance of Nora looking out wrathfully upon himself as the carriage turned from the door. What had he done to deserve the angry look? But the other, standing somewhat unsteadily on the steps, greeted the departure with a laugh that was loud and long.
"One good turn deserves another," he said. "I've put her against you, Erskine, and that's the best thing I could do. Mind what you're about, my fine fellow, or you'll fall into some snare or other. ”

“ You have a chance poor Carry never had—high rank, wealth,—everything that is desirable: and a man whom the most fantastic could not object in any way to."
There is scarcely any situation in the world into which a gleam of ridicule will not fall. It takes us with the tear in our eye—it took Edith in the nervous excitement of this struggle, the most trying moment which personally she had ever gone through. Millefleurs, with his little plump person, his round eyes, his soft lisp of a voice, seemed to come suddenly before her, and at the height of this half-tragical contention she laughed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is lovely to enjoy one's self, and have a good time. Society is becoming very American," said Millefleurs. "There are so many about. They are more piquant than any other foreigners. French has become absurd, and Italian pedantic; but it is amusing to talk a foreign language which is in English words, don't you know."
"You are to come back with them to dinner, Mr Erskine," Lady Lindores said. She thought it better, notwithstanding her prevailing fear that Millefleurs would be absurd, to leave him at liberty to discourse to Edith, as he loved to discourse. ”

“ Lady Lindores now drew her shawl round her, and complained that it was getting chilly. "That is the worst of Scotland," she said—"you can never trust the finest day. A sharp wind will come round a corner all in a moment and spoil your pleasure." This was most unprovoked slander of the northern skies, which were beaming down upon her at the moment with the utmost brightness, and promising hours of sunshine; but after such a speech there was nothing to be done but to go down hill again to the house, where the carriage was waiting. ”

“ I have all my life been guided by women. I have such faith in a lady's instinct. I might be confused, perhaps, in my own case, but you will hit upon the right thing. Speak to me freely, I shall understand you at a word," the droll little hero said. Now Lady Lindores was in a strait as serious as she had ever experienced in her life; but when she glanced up at him, and saw the gravity upon his baby face, his attitude of chubby attention, such a desire to laugh seized her, that it was all she could do by main force to keep her gravity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ John took his leave with a half-mortified, half-humorous consciousness that he was to have about the person of this young nobleman something like the same post enjoyed by Beaufort in respect to Millefleurs, but with neither present emolument nor prospect of promotion. And he felt sure that he should not like the fellow, John said to himself. Nevertheless seven o'clock (they kept early hours in the country) saw him walking lightly, as no man ever walked to a disagreeable appointment, towards the Castle. Impossible to thread those shrubberies, to cross those lawns, without a rising of the heart. ”

“ John Erskine was on the steps leading to the great central entrance when the carriage from Lindores drove up at the door. It was not by chance that he found himself there, for he was aware of the intended visit; and with the sombre attraction which the sight of a rival and an adversary has for a man, felt himself drawn towards the scene in which an act of this drama in which his happiness was involved, was going on. He hurried down before the footman to get to the carriage-door, and hand the ladies out. ”

“ I am an impostor at this season. I am occupying the place of some happy person who might make a large bag every day."
"But there is room for all those happy persons without disturbing you—who have other qualities," said Carry, with her soft pathetic smile. There was a little tremor about her, and catching of her breath, for she did not know at what moment might occur that name which always agitated her, however she might fortify herself against it.
"If not at Lindores, there's always plenty of room at Tinto," said Torrance, with ostentatious openness. "There's room for a regiment here. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There were a great many whispered questions and remarks made afterwards when the crisis was over. "Young Erskine had all the trouble in the world to smooth it over." "One doesn't know what would have happened if old Sir James had not got hold of Lord Rintoul." "Half-a-dozen men got round Pat Torrance. They made believe to question him about some racing—and that quieted him," cried one and another, each into the nearest ear; and the whole assembly with a thrill watched the family of Lindores in all its movements, and saw significance in every one of these. ”

“ He went on calmly, notwithstanding the laugh and exclamation with which his master interrupted him.
"That's aye an attraction," said the old servant. "I'm not saying, sir, though I think far more of you in a moral point of view—that ye're the equal of Tinto as a worldly question. Na, we must keep a hold of reason. Ye're no' a grand catch like the like o' him. But ye're far better; ye're a son-in-law any gentleman in the country-side might be proud o'; and any lady, which is far mair important——"
"Come, Rolls, no more of this," cried John. "A joke is a joke; but you know you are going too far." ”

“ I prefer quiet and my own way. There's nothing that any Ministry could give me, neither office nor rise in life. I'm content to be Torrance of Tinto, as my father was before me: but at all events, I am one that knows the county and its ways. I could tell them what's wanted for Scotland. But no! a boy like Rintoul that knows nothing—without sense or experience,—he's the man. My father-in-law, for so clever as he is, has awful little sense."
"There is no seat vacant as yet," said Dr Stirling; "we might leave that question, Tinto, till the time comes." ”

“ Was there nothing but wealth to be thought of all the world over, even by the best people, by women with every tender grace and gift? When he thought of the part in the drama allotted to himself—to entertain Beaufort, who was the keeper of Millefleurs, in order that Millefleurs might be at liberty to follow his present pursuit, John burst into a laugh not much more melodious than that of Torrance. ”