The Ladies Lindores. Volume 3 of 3. Oliphant Margaret
perhaps, for anything they knew, had caused the event which had put them in mourning. With a whimsical mortification and envy, Beaufort exaggerated in his own mind the distress caused by this event. For the moment he looked upon it as a matter of real loss and pain to this unthinking family who showed such interest in the person who perhaps – But the sentiment did not go so far as to be put into words; it resolved itself into a half-indignant wonder at the interest taken in John, and sense of injured superiority on his own account – he, of whom no man could say that he had been instrumental in causing the death even of a dog.
Lady Lindores led the way hastily into the library, where three figures were visible against the dim light in the window as the others came in. Lord Lindores, seated in his chair; little Millefleurs, leaning against the window, half turned towards the landscape; and in front of the light, with his back to it, Rintoul, who was speaking. "With you as bail," he was saying, "he may be set free to-night. Don't let him be a night in that place."
"Are you speaking of John Erskine, Robin, my dear boy? Oh, not a night, not an hour! Don't lose any time. It is too dreadful, too preposterous. Your father will go directly. Take the carriage, which is at the door. If we are a little late, what does it matter?" said Lady Lindores, coming forward, another shadow in the dim light. Millefleurs turned half round, but did not come away from the window on which he was leaning. He was somewhat surprised too, very curious, perhaps a trifle indignant, to see all this fuss made about Erskine. He drew up his plump little person, altogether indifferent to the pronounced manifestation of all its curves against the light, and looked beyond Lady Lindores to Edith, – Edith, who hurried after her mother, swift and silent, as if they were one being, moved by the same unnecessary excitement. Millefleurs had not been in a comfortable state of mind during these last days. The delay irritated him; though Lord Lindores assured him that all was well, he could not feel that all was well. Why should not Edith see him, and give him his answer? She was not so overwhelmed with grief for that brute. What did it mean? And now, though she could not see him on such urgent cause, she was able to interest herself in this eager way on behalf of John Erskine! Millefleurs was very tolerant, and when the circumstances demanded it, could be magnanimous, but he thought he had reason of offence here.
There was a momentary pause – enough to show that Lord Lindores did not share the feeling so warmly expressed. "I am surprised that you should all be so inconsiderate," he said; "you, at least, Rintoul, who generally show more understanding. I have understood that Erskine had laid himself under suspicion. Can you imagine that I, so near a connection of poor Torrance, am the right person to interfere on behalf perhaps of his – murd – that is to say, of the cause – of the instrument – "
"It is impossible," cried Edith, with such decision that her soft voice seemed hard – "impossible! Can any one suppose for a moment – "
"Be silent, Edith," cried her father.
"Why should she be silent?" said Lady Lindores. "Robert, think what you are saying. We have all known John Erskine for years. He is as incapable as I am – as unlikely as any one of us here. Because you are so near a connection, is not that the very reason why you should interfere? For God's sake, think of that poor boy in prison – in prison! and lose no time."
"I will do it, mother," said Rintoul.
"Oh, God bless you, my boy! I knew you were always right at heart."
"Rintoul," said his father, "enthusiasm of this sort is new in you. Let us take a little common-sense into the question. In the first place, nothing can be done to-night – that is evident. Then consider a moment: what does 'in prison' mean? In the governor's comfortable rooms, where he will be as well off as at home; and probably – for he is not without sense – will be taking the most reasonable view of the matter. He will know perfectly well that if he deserves it he will find friends; in short, that we are all his friends, and that everybody will be too glad to assist him – as soon as he has cleared himself – "
"As soon as he wants it no longer," cried Lady Lindores.
"My dear, you are always violent; you are always a partisan," said her husband, drawing back his chair a little, with the air of having ended the discussion; and there was a pause – one of those breathless pauses of helplessness, yet rebellion, which make sick the hearts of women. Lady Lindores clasped her hands together with a despairing movement. "This is the curse of our life," she cried. "I can do nothing; I cannot go against your father, Edith, and yet I am neither a fool nor a child. God help us women! we have to stand by, whatever wrong is done, and submit – submit. That is all that is left for us to do – "
"Submit!" Edith said. She was young and strong, and had not learned her lesson. It galled her beyond endurance. She stood and looked round her, seeing the whiteness of the faces, but little else in the evening gloom. Was it true that there was nothing – nothing in her power? In poetry, a girl can throw herself on her knees, can weep and plead – but only weep and plead; and she, who had not been trained to that, who was conscious of her individuality, her independent mind and judgment in every nerve – heaven above! was she as helpless still? She stood breathless for a moment, with wondering eyes fixed on the darkness, with a gasp of proud resistance to fate. Submit to injustice, to cruel heartlessness of those who could aid, to still more cruel helplessness – impotence, on her own part? She stood for a moment gazing at the blank wall that seemed to rise before her, as the poor, the helpless have to do, – as women have to do in all circumstances. It was her first experience in this kind. She had been proud to know that she was not as Carry, that no tyranny could crush her spirit: but this was different. She had not anticipated such a trial as this. There came from her bosom one sob of supreme pain which she could not keep in. Not for John only, whom she could not help in his moment of need, but for herself also – to feel herself impotent, helpless, powerless as a child.
Millefleurs came forward from the window hurriedly. Perhaps being so much a man of his time it was he who understood that gasp of suffering best. He said, "Lady Edith, if I can help – " quickly, on the impulse of the moment; then, thorough little gentleman as he was, checked himself. "Lady Lindores, though I am a stranger, yet my name is good enough. Tell me what to do and I will do it. Perhaps it is better that Lord Lindores should not commit himself. But I am free, don't you know," he said, with something of the easy little chirrup of more ordinary times. Why was it that, at such a moment, Edith, of all others, in her personal despair, should burst out into that strange little laugh? She grasped her mother's arm with both hands in her excitement. Here was a tragic irony and ridicule penetrating the misery of the crisis like a sharp arrow which pricked the girl to the very heart.
This sympathiser immediately changed the face of affairs. Lord Lindores, indeed, continued to hold himself apart, pushing back his chair once more; but even to Lord Lindores, Millefleurs made a difference. He said no more about enthusiasm or common-sense, but listened, not without an occasional word of direction. They clustered together like a band of shadows against the great window, which was full of the paleness of the night. Beaufort, who was the person most acquainted with all the circumstances, recovered his sense of personal importance as he told his story. But after all, it was not as the narrator of John Erskine's story that he cared to gain importance in the eyes of Carry's family, any more than it was as bail for John Erskine that Lord Millefleurs desired to make himself agreeable to the ladies at Lindores. Both of the strangers, thus caught in the net of difficulties and dangers which surrounded their old comrade, resented it more or less; but what could they do? Edith took no further part in the consultation. She retired behind her mother, whose arm she continued to hold firm and fast in both her hands. When she was moved by the talk going on at her side she grasped that arm tightly, which was her only sign of emotion, but for the rest retired into the darkness where no one could see, and into herself, a still more effectual retirement. Lady Lindores felt that her daughter's two hands clasping her were like a sort of anchor which Edith had thrown out in her shipwreck to grasp at some certainty. She bore the pressure with a half smile and sigh. She too had felt the shipwreck with keen passion, still more serious than that of Edith: but she had no one to anchor to. She felt this, half with a grateful sense of what she herself was still good for; but still more, perhaps, with that other personal sense which comes to most – that with all the relationships of life still round her, mother and wife, she, for all solace and support, was like most of us virtually alone.
CHAPTER