"I must tell you now on my side that I have heard from Beaufort," said John. "He wrote to me asking to come to Dalrulzian, if it was decided that he should come North at all. I answered him that I did not think he had better come. Pardon me, there was no betrayal. He did not explain—nor did I explain. I could not; it was a mere—intuition with me. I can scarcely tell even what induced me to do it. I thought he would find everything so different, and get no pleasure out of it. I told him he might come to Dalrulzian whenever he liked; but I think I showed him that it would be better not to do so. So that is all I know of it, Lady Lindores."
She looked somewhat anxiously in his face. Was that all he knew? Edith, who had been a keen spectator of the latter part of this conversation, shook her head slightly, with a faint incredulous smile; but Lady Lindores saw no reason to doubt him. She answered with a little excitement and agitation. "You were quite right, Mr Erskine—no pleasure, especially to him. He could not but feel the difference, indeed. Thanks for your kind and sensible advice to him. I hope he will take it. Naturally we had a delicacy——" And here she looked again at her daughter, who made no reply. Edith had in some points more insight than her mother, and she had been reading John's meaning in his looks, while his other listener considered his words only. Edith thought enough had been made of Beaufort. She changed the immediate subject with a laugh, which provoked Lady Lindores.
"Will Lord Millefleurs," she said, "be permitted, do you think, mother, to come by himself? Is it safe to allow him to run about by himself? He is a dangerous little person, and one never knows what is the next wild thing he may do."
"You are speaking very disrespectfully of Lord Millefleurs," said Lady Lindores, provoked.
"I never intended to be respectful." Edith said. But her mother was really annoyed, and put a summary conclusion to the talk. She was angry because her daughter's opinions had not changed, as her own, all imperceptibly and within herself, had done. Lady Lindores had gone through a great deal on account of the little Marquis, whom she had persisted so long in thinking a nice boy. Rintoul's sermons had become almost beyond endurance before they left London, and even her husband had intimated to her that she was treating a very important suitor far too lightly. It is hard for a sympathetic woman to remain uninfluenced, even when she disapproves of them, by the sentiments expressed around her. Millefleurs had become of additional importance in her eyes unconsciously, unwillingly almost, with every word that was said. And when she had no longer his plump little figure before her eyes—when he was left behind, and his amusing personal peculiarities were veiled over by distance—she ceased to have the relief of that laugh which had always hitherto delivered her from too grave a consideration of this subject. The idea of paying court to any man (much less a fat boy!), in order to secure him as a husband for Edith, was revolting to her mind; but worried and troubled as she was on the subject, Lady Lindores fell, first, into the snare of feeling, with relief, that to escape from further persecution of the same kind was an advantage worth a sacrifice; and second, that Millefleurs, if he was fat, was good and true, and that to be a duchess was something when all that could be said was said against it. For, to be sure, the season in town had its influences, and she was more susceptible to the attractions of greatness, wealth, and high title before it than after. Indeed he was not the husband she would have desired for her child; and she wanted—imprudent woman!—no husband at all for her child, who was the chief consolation left to her in the world. Still, if Edith must marry, as Rintoul said—if she must marry to increase the family importance and influence, which was what Lord Lindores had insisted upon in respect to that pitiful sacrifice at Tinto—why then, influence, wealth, greatness, everything, were united in the little person of Millefleurs, who was, besides, a very nice boy, and amused Edith, and would never harm any woman. This was the conclusion to which a thousand harassing lectures and remonstrances had brought her. She had not said a word of the change, which had worked imperceptibly, and chiefly in the long sleepless night of the railway journey, to Edith; and yet, with natural inconsistency, she was vexed and annoyed that Edith should still laugh, as they had so often laughed together, at little Millefleurs. And both Edith and John, though his suspicions were not yet aroused on this subject, felt the keenness of irritation and vexed dissatisfaction in her tone. He withdrew soon after—for even the merest insinuation of a family jar is painful to an outsider—but not before Lord Lindores had come in, with much friendliness, to beg him to come back to dinner, and engage his immediate aid in the scheme which had already brought our young man some trouble. "I want you to meet Rintoul," said the Earl. "I want you both to make your appearance at Dunearn next week at the county meeting. I am going to produce those plans I spoke to you about, and I hope to move them to some definite step. We shall have a strong opposition, and the more support I can calculate on the better. Rintoul has no gift of speech; he'll say his say in his solid, straightforward, positive sort of manner. But the Scotch are proud of good speaking. I don't know what your gifts may be in that way."
"Oh, nil," said John.
"If you were a Frenchman, I should take you at your word; but in England there's no telling. A young man has but one formula. If he is a natural orator, he gives just the same answer as if he can't put two words together. That is what we call our national modesty. I wish for the moment you were as vain as a Frenchman, Erskine—then I should know the facts of the case. I daresay you speak very well—you have the looks of it; and it will be a great thing for me if you will second and stand by Rintoul. If he muddles his statement—which is quite likely, for the boy is as ignorant as a pig—you must set him right, and laugh a little at the defects of English education: that pleases a Scotch audience."
"I think," said Lady Lindores, "that you are putting a great deal upon Mr Erskine."
"Am I?" said her husband; "but it is in a good cause."
Perhaps this was too lightly said. 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. "Doors where my heart was wont to beat." Nowhere else in the world did he hasten with the same step, did he feel the very neighbourhood of the place affect his pulses in the same way. It was the home to which his thoughts went before him, imagining many happinesses which perhaps did not come, but which always might come—which lived there, to be tasted one time or another. This occupation with the affairs of Lindores, with the new-comer, and the Earl's schemes, and so many secondary subjects, prevented him from entering into the questions which had so deeply discouraged him on the night of their return. He did not ask himself what he had to expect, what he had to do with them. He had a great deal to do with them in the meantime, and that by their own desire.