The Ladies Lindores

unconscious of criticism, while the brother and sister listened. John had begun to tell Lady Lindores of the entertainments he meant to give. He avowed that they had been planned by Rolls, though his first intention had been to keep this fact to himself; but the humour of it overcame him. He could not refrain from communicating so amusing a circumstance to the kind woman, who never misunderstood, and who received all his confidences with maternal pleasure. He was pleased to hear her laugh, and not displeased to lay open the condition of his household to her, and the humours of the old servants, in whose hands he was still a boy. “It is, don’t you think, a judicious despotism on the whole?” he said. The sound of her laugh was delightful in his ears, even though a more sensitive narrator might have thought the laugh to be directed against himself.

“It is a delightful despotism,” said Lady Lindores; “and as we shall benefit by it in the present case, I entirely approve of Rolls. But I think, perhaps, if I were you, I would not unfold the whole matter to Miss Barbara. Your aunt is born a great lady, Mr. Erskine. She might take it as quite right and within the duty of an old retainer; but again, she might take a different view. For my part, I entirely approve. It is exactly the right thing to do.”

“You are always so kind,” said John, gratefully; “and perhaps you will advise me in matters that are beyond my prime minister’s sphere.”

“Rolls and I!” she said, laughing; “it is not often a young man has such a pair of counsellors.” Her laugh was so fresh and genuine that it sounded like the laugh of youth. Her children behind her had their curiosity greatly excited: Edith with a little wonder, to think what John could be saying to amuse her mother so much; Rintoul with high indignation, to see in what favour this country neighbour was held.

“What does my mother mean?” he said, grumbling in Edith’s ear. “She will turn that fellow’s head. I never knew anything so out of place. One would think, to see you with him, that he was⁠—why, your dearest friend, your⁠—I don’t know what to say.”

“Perhaps you had better not say anything, in case it should be something disagreeable,” said Edith, with a sudden flush of colour. “Mr. Erskine is our nearest neighbour⁠—and I hope my mother, at least, does not want any guidance from you.”

“Oh, doesn’t she, though!” murmured Rintoul in his moustache. To his own consciousness his mother was the member of his family who stood the most in need of his guidance. He thought her the most imprudent woman he had ever come across, paying no attention to her children’s prospects. They went on thus till they came to the gate, where the Countess of Lindores was actually to be seen by the woman at the lodge, or by any passing wayfarer, in her dinner-dress, with nothing but a lace cap on her head⁠—and Edith, in her white robes and shining hair⁠—saying goodbye to this rustic neighbour, this insidious squire! Rintoul could not for some time relieve his soul as he wished. He was compelled to shake hands too, in a surly way; and it was not till Edith had left them that he permitted himself to make, as he said, a few remarks to his mother. She was lingering outside, for it was still daylight though it was night.

“Mother,” said Rintoul, solemnly, “I see it’s all exactly as I feared. You have let that fellow Erskine get to be a sort of tame cat about the house.”

“After?” said his mother, with a smile.

“After! well, that’s as you choose. But of this you may be sure, mother, my father won’t stand it. It will only make trouble in the house. He won’t let Edith throw herself away. You had better put a stop to it while you are able. I suspected it from the first moment I knew that Erskine was here.”

“You are very wise, Rintoul,” said his mother, with grieved displeasure, all the pain and disenchantment which she had managed to put aside and forget coming back into her troubled eyes.

“I don’t know if I’m very wise; but I know something of the world,” said the son, who was so much better instructed than she was; “and I know, when one has charge of a girl, one oughtn’t to allow her to throw herself away.”

“Carry is supposed not to have thrown herself away,” said the indignant mother, with a glance towards that centre of her saddest thoughts, the arrogant front and false battlements of Tinto, faintly gleaming like royal Windsor itself in the mists of distance. This was all in contradiction to the changed state of her mind towards Millefleurs and the gradual leaning towards a great marriage for Edith which had come over her. But we are never more hot in defence of our own side than when we have begun to veer towards the other; and Rintoul’s lectures had been for a long time more than his mother could endure.

“No, Carry cannot be said to have thrown herself away,” he said thoughtfully, stroking that moustache which looked so young, while its owner was so wise and politic. “Carry should remember,” he said, after a pause, “that she’s an individual, but the family comprises many people⁠—heaps of her descendants will be grateful to her, you know. And if the fellow is unbearable, why, a woman has always got it in her own hands to make his life a burden to him. Why is she so absurdly domestic? They have quantities of money, and there are plenty of brutes in society to keep him in countenance. She ought to come to town and see people, and enjoy herself. What is the good of living like a cabbage here?”

“If you will persuade Carry to emancipate herself a little⁠—to think of herself a little⁠—I will forgive