When he brought her back, however, to her mother’s side, nobody could have helped seeing that something had happened. Poor Carry was as white as her dress: she seemed scarcely able to hold herself upright, and sank down by her mother’s side as if she neither saw nor heard anything that was going on round her. On the other hand, Pat Torrance was crimson, his eyes were rolling in his head. He said almost roughly—“You were right, Lady Lindores. Lady Car is tired; but I make no doubt she will be herself again tomorrow.” It was a curious speech to make, and there was a tone of threatening and anger in his somewhat elevated voice which roused the liveliest displeasure in the mind of Lady Lindores; but he was gone before she could say anything. “What is the matter?” she said, taking her daughter’s hand. “Rouse yourself, Carry; everybody is staring. What has happened?” “Oh, nothing, nothing! Oh, mamma, let us go home,” the poor girl cried. Her lips, her very eyelids, trembled. She looked as if she were about to faint. Lady Lindores was glad to see her husband approaching; but he too had a threatening and stern look. She called him to her, and begged him to ask for the carriage. “Carry is quite ill,” she said. “If you will stay with Edith, I can send it back for you;—but poor Car has looked like a ghost all night.” “She has looked much more like a fool—as she is,” said her father, between his set teeth; but at last he consented that she should be taken home, seeing the state of collapse in which she was. He took her downstairs, supporting her on his arm, which was necessary, as she could scarcely walk; but when they skirted the dance, in which the master of the house was performing, talking loudly and laughing with forced merriment all the time the Earl, though he was a well-bred man, could not help giving his daughter’s arm a sharp pressure, which hurt her. “I might have known you would behave like a fool,” he said in a low undertone, which nobody but Carry could hear. She wavered for a moment, like a young tree in the wind, but clung to him and hurried past replying nothing. 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.”
Then Carry managed to stammer forth the real source of her terror. She was not thinking of Mr. Torrance, but of papa. What would he say to her? would he ever forgive her? 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. But supposing that he did so—supposing he thought, as people are apt to do, that money covers a multitude of sins—your father is not a worldly-minded man, Carry; he is ambitious, but not for money—supposing just for the sake of argument—Anyhow, my dear, that could only be if the man happened to please you in his own person. We might like the match better because the pretender was rich, nothing more. Can you really think that papa would be a tyrant to you—that he would compel you to marry anyone? Carry, my love, you have got an attack of the nerves; it is your good sense that has given way.”
Carry wept abundantly while her mother thus talked to her, and the agitation which she had so long shut up in her heart calmed down. Every word Lady Lindores said was perfectly reasonable, and to have represented her kind father to herself as a domestic tyrant was monstrous, she felt; but yet—she could not tell her mother all the trifling circumstances, the tones, the looks which had forced that conviction upon her. But she was willing, very willing, to allow herself to be persuaded that it was all a mistake, and to accept the gentle reproof and banter with which Lady Lindores soothed her excitement. “To refuse a man is always disagreeable,” she said, philosophically, “especially as one must always feel one
