Torrance had come in from the woods, which he had been inspecting with his forester, and perhaps something had crossed him in this inspection, for he was a tyrant by nature, and could not tolerate a contrary opinion; whereas the officials, so to speak, of a great estate in Scotland, are much given to opinions, and by no means to be persuaded to relinquish them. The forester had objected to something the master suggested, and the agent had taken the forester’s part. The master of Tinto came in fuming. To give in was a thing intolerable to him, and to give in to his own servant! But here was another servant whom he need not fear bullying, who could not throw up her situation and put him to inconvenience, who was forced to put up with as much indignity as he chose to put upon her. This thought gave his mind a welcome relief; he strode along through all the gilded rooms with a footstep which meant mischief. Lady Caroline heard it afar off, and recognised the sound. What could it be now? Her mind ran hurriedly over the recent occurrences of the day, to think what possible offence she could have given him. Nothing—or at least she could think of nothing. It did not require a very solid reason for the transference to her shoulders of the rage which he did not think it expedient to bestow upon someone else. He came in kicking out of the way the toys with which the children were playing.
“These monkeys,” he said, “would ruin a Jew if they grow up the way you are breeding them, my lady. That cost a pound or two yesterday, and now it’s all in bits. If your family could stand such extravagance, mine can’t. Tom, my lad, if you break your fine toys like this, I’ll break your head. But it’s not the children’s fault,” he added, “it’s the way they’re bred.”
“It is very wrong of Tommy,” said poor Lady Car, “but you laughed and clapped your hands yesterday when I found fault.”
“I won’t have the boy’s spirit broken—that’s another thing. Breeding’s an affair of day by day; but it can’t be expected that you should take such trouble, with your head full of other things.”
“What other things?” cried Lady Car. “Oh, Pat, have a little pity! What else have I to think of? I may not understand the children, but they are my only thought.”
Here he gave a mocking, triumphant laugh. “No, I daresay you don’t understand them. They’re of my side of the house,” he said. It was a pleasure to him, but not an unalloyed pleasure, for he would have liked to secure in his daughter at least some reflection of her mother’s high-bred air, which had always been her attraction in his eyes. “As for other things,” he added, “there’s plenty: for instance, I have just been visiting your old friend.”
“My old friend?” Lady Caroline looked at him with wondering eyes.
“Oh, that is the way, is it? pretend you don’t understand! I went expressly for your sake. You see what a husband I am: not half appreciated—ready to please his wife in every sort of way. I don’t think much of your taste though: under size,” said Torrance, with a laugh—“decidedly under size.”
Lady Car looked at him with a momentary elevation of her slender, drooping throat. The action was one that had a certain pride in it, and this was what her husband specially admired in her. But she did not understand him, nor was there any secret in her gentle soul to be found out by innuendoes. She shook her head gently, and drooped it again with her habitual bend.
“I do not know what you mean. It must be some mistake,” she said.
“It is no mistake, Lady Car. That’s not my way to make mistakes. It suits you not to know. That makes me all the more certain. Oh, I’m not afraid of you. We’re not in Italy or any of these places. And you’re a great deal too proud to go wrong: you’re too cold, you have not got it in you.”
Lady Caroline raised her head again, but this time in sheer surprise. “Pat,” she said, faltering, “all I know is, that you mean to insult me. I know nothing but that. What is it? Do not insult me before the children.”
“Pshaw! how should the children understand?”
“Not what you mean; but neither do I understand that. The children know as well as I do that you mean to hurt me. What is it?—what have I done?”
“By Jove!” he said, looking at her, “to see you there with your white face, one would think you never had done anything but good all your life. You look as if butter would not melt in your mouth. Not the sort of woman to look down upon her husband and count him a savage, and keep thinking of a nice, smooth, soft-spoken—You would never tell me his name, and I was a fool, and didn’t insist upon it; but now he has come back to be your ladyship’s neighbour, and see you every day.”
She did not answer immediately. She looked at him with a curious light stealing into her soft grey eyes, raising her head again. Then she said slowly, “I think you must mean Mr. Erskine of Dalrulzian. If so, you have made a great mistake. I think he is younger than I am. He was not much more than a boy when I knew him. He never was anything—but an acquaintance.”
“It’s likely you’ll get me to believe that,” cried Torrance, scornfully. He jumped up from his seat, and came and stood in front of the fire, with his back to it, brushing against her
