While this scene was proceeding so near her, Carry, upon the other side of the great house, had retired to her room in the weariness that followed her effort to look cheerful and do the honours of her table. She had made that effort very bravely, and though it did not even conceal from Millefleurs the position of affairs, still less deceive her own family, yet at least it kept up the appearance of decorum necessary, and made it easier for the guests to go through their part. The meal, indeed, was cheerful enough; it was far too magnificent, Torrance having insisted, in spite of his wife's better taste, on heaping "all the luxuries of the season" upon the table at which a duke's son was to sit. The absence of the host was a relief to all parties; but still it required an effort on the side of Carry to overcome the effect of the empty chair in front of her, which gave a sense of incongruity to all the grandeur. And this effort cost her a great deal. She had gone into her room to rest, and lay on a sofa very quiet in the stillness of exhaustion, not doing anything, not saying anything, looking wistfully at the blue sky that was visible through the window, with the soft foliage of some birch-trees waving lightly over it—and trying not to think. Indeed, she was so weary that it was scarcely necessary to try. And what was there to think about? Nothing could be done to deliver her—nothing that she was aware of even to mend her position. She was grateful to God that she was to be spared the still greater misery of seeing Beaufort, but that was all. Even heaven itself seemed to have no help for Carry. If she could have been made by some force of unknown agency to love her husband, she would still have been an unhappy wife; but it is to be feared, poor soul, that things had come to this pass with her, that she did not even wish to love her husband, and felt it less degrading to live with him under compulsion, than to be brought down to the level of his coarser nature, and take pleasure in the chains she wore. Her heart revolted at him more and more. In such a terrible case, what help was there for her in earth or heaven? Even had he been reformed—had he been made a better man—Carry would not have loved him: she shrank from the very suggestion that she might some time do so. There was no help for her; her position could not be bettered anyhow. She knew this so well, that all struggle, except the involuntary struggle in her mind, which never could intermit, against many of the odious details of the life she had to lead, had died out of her. She had given in to the utter hopelessness of her situation. Despair is sometimes an opiate, as it is sometimes a frantic and maddening poison. There was nothing to be done for her,—no use in wearying Heaven with prayers, as some of us do. Nothing could make her better. She had given in utterly, body and soul, and this was all that was to be said. She lay there in this stillness of despair, feeling more crushed and helpless than usual after the emotions of the morning, but not otherwise disturbed,—lying like a man who has been shattered by an accident, but lulled by some anodyne draught—still, and almost motionless, letting every sensation be hushed so long as nature would permit, her hands folded, her very soul hushed and still. She took no note of time in the exhaustion of her being. She knew that when her husband returned she would be sent for, and would have to re-enter the other world of eternal strife and pain; but here she was retired, as in her chapel, in herself—the sole effectual refuge which she had left.
The house was very well organised, very silent and orderly in general, so that it surprised Lady Caroline a little, in the depth of her quiet, to hear a distant noise as of many voices, distinct, though not loud—a confusion and far-away Babel of outcries and exclamations. Nothing could be more unusual; but she felt no immediate alarm, thinking that the absence of her husband and her own withdrawal had probably permitted a little outbreak of gaiety or gossip down-stairs, with which she did not wish to interfere. She lay still accordingly, listening vaguely, without taking much interest in the matter. Certainly something out of the way must have happened. The sounds had sprung up all at once—a hum of many excited voices, with sharp cries as of dismay and wailing breaking in. At last her attention was attracted. "There has been some accident," she said to herself, sitting upright upon her sofa. As she did this she heard steps approaching her door. They came with a rush, hurrying along, the feet of at least two women, with a heavier step behind them: then paused suddenly, and there ensued a whispering and consultation close to her door. Carry was a mother, and her first thought was of her children. "They are afraid to tell me," was the thought that passed through her mind. She rose and rushed to the door, throwing it open. "What is it? Something has happened," she said,—"something you are afraid to tell me. Oh, speak, speak!—the children——"
"My leddy, it's none of the children. The children are as well as could be wished, poor dears," said her own maid, who had been suddenly revealed, standing very close to the door. The woman, her cheeks blazing with some sudden shock, eager to speak, yet terrified, stopped short there with a gasp. The housekeeper, who was behind her, pushed her a little forward, supporting her with a hand on her waist, whispering confused but audible exhortations. "Oh, take heart—oh, take heart. She must be told. The Lord will give you strength," this woman said. The butler stood solemnly behind, with a very anxious, serious countenance. To Carry all this scene became confused by wild anxiety and terror. "What is it?" she said; "my mother? some one at home?" She stretched out her hands vaguely towards the messengers of evil, feeling like a victim at the block, upon whose neck the executioner's knife is about to fall.
"Oh, my leddy! far worse! far worse!" the woman cried.
Carry, in the dreadful whirl of her feelings, still paused bewildered, to ask herself what could be worse? And then there came upon her a moment of blindness, when she saw nothing, and the walls and the roof seemed to burst asunder, and whirl and whirl. She dropped upon her knees in this awful blank and blackness unawares, and then the haze dispelled, and she saw, coming out of the mist, a circle of horror-stricken pale faces, forming a sort of ring round her. She could do nothing but gasp out her husband's name—"Mr Torrance?" with quivering lips.
"Oh, my lady! my lady! To see her on her knees, and us bringin' her such awfu' news! But the Lord will comfort ye," cried the housekeeper, forgetting the veneration due to her mistress, and raising her in her arms. The two women supported her into her room, and she sat down again upon the sofa where she had been sitting—sitting, was it a year ago?—in the quiet, thinking that no change would ever come to her,—that nothing, nothing could alter her condition—that all was over and finished for her life.
And it is to be supposed that they told poor Carry exactly the truth. She never knew. When she begged them to leave her alone till her mother came, whom they had sent for, she had no distinct knowledge of how it was, or what had happened; but she knew that had happened. She fell upon her knees before her bed, and buried her head in her hands, shutting out the light. Then she seized hold of herself with both her hands to keep herself (as she felt) from floating away upon that flood of new life which came swelling up all in a moment, swelling into every vein—filling high the fountain of existence which had been so feeble and so low. Oh, shut out—shut out the light, that nobody might see! close the doors and the shutters in the house of death, and every cranny, that no human eye might descry it! After a while she dropped lower, from the bed which supported her to the floor, prostrating herself with more than oriental humbleness. Her heart beat wildly, and in her brain there seemed to wake a hundred questions clanging like bells in her ears, filling the silence with sound. Her whole being, that had been crushed, sprang up like a flower from under a passing foot. Was it possible?—was it possible? She pulled herself down, tried by throwing herself upon her face on the carpet, prostrating herself, body and soul, to struggle against that secret voiceless mad exultation that came upon her against her will. Was he dead?—was he dead? struck down in the middle of his days, that man of iron? Oh, the pity of it!—oh, the horror of it! She tried to force herself to feel this—to keep down, down, that climbing joy in her. God in heaven, was it possible? she who thought nothing could happen to her more.
CHAPTER XXVII.
The drive home would have been very embarrassing to the ladies had not Millefleurs been the perfect little gentleman he was. Rintoul, though he ought to have been aware that his presence was specially desirable, had abandoned his mother and sister; and the consciousness of the secret, which was no secret, weighed upon Lady Lindores so much, that it was scarcely possible for her to keep up any appearance of the easy indifference which was her proper rôle in the circumstances: while it silenced Edith altogether. They could scarcely look him in the face, knowing both the state of suspense in which he must be, and the false impression of Edith's feelings which he was probably entertaining. Lady Lindores felt certain that he was aware she had been informed by her husband of what had passed, and feared to look at him lest he might, by some glance of intelligence, some look of appeal, call upon her sympathy; while on the other hand, it was all-essential to keep him, if possible, from noticing the pale consciousness of Edith, her silence and shrinking discomfort, so unlike her usual frank and friendly aspect. Millefleurs was far too quick-sighted not to observe this unusual embarrassment; but there was no more amiable young man in England, and it was his part for the moment to set them at their ease, and soothe the agitation which he could not but perceive. He talked of everything but the matter most near his heart with that self-sacrifice of true politeness which is perhaps the truest as it is one of the most difficult manifestations of social heroism. He took pains to be amusing, to show himself unconcerned and unexcited; and, as was natural, he got his reward. Lady Lindores was almost piqued (though it was so great a relief) that Edith's suitor should be capable of such perfect calm; and Edith herself, though with a dim perception of the heroism in it, could not but console herself with the thought that one so completely self-controlled would "get over" his disappointment easily. Their conversation at last came to be almost a monologue on his part. He discoursed on Tinto and its treasures as an easy subject. "It has one great quality—it is homogeneous," he said, "which is too big a word for a small fellow like me. It is all of a piece, don't you know. To think what lots of money those good people must have spent on those great vases, and candelabra, and things! We don't do that sort of thing nowadays. We roam over all the world, and pick up our bric-a-brac cheap. But, don't you know, there's something fine in the other principle—there's a grand sort of spare-no-expense sentiment. I'd like to do it all over again for them—to clear away all that finery, which is mere Empire, and get something really good, don't you know. But at the same time, I respect this sort of thing. There is a thoroughness in it. It is going the 'whole animal,' as we say in America. Mr Torrance, who is a fine big man, just like his house, should, if you'll allow me to say so, have carried out the principle a little further; he should not have gone so entirely into a different genre in his wife."