"Thank you, mother dear; your voice is so sweet," she said, with a sudden softening, "why should you cry? It is all a black sea round about me on every side. I have only one thing to cling to, only one thing, and how can I tell? perhaps that may fail me too. But you have nothing to cry for. Your way is all clear and straight before you till it ends in heaven. Let them talk as they like, there must be heaven for you. You will sit there and wait and watch to see all the broken boats come home,—some bottom upwards, and every one drowned; some lashed to one miserable bit of a mast—like me."
"Carry," said Lady Lindores, "if that is the case,—if you do not feel sure—why, in spite of everything, father and mother, and modesty and reverence, and all that is most necessary to life, your own good name, and perhaps the future welfare of your children—why will you cling to Edward Beaufort? You wronged him perhaps, but he did nothing to stop it. There were things he might have done—he ought to have been ready to claim you before—to oppose your——"
Carry threw herself at her mother's feet, and laid her trembling hand upon her lips. "Not a word, not a word," she cried. "Do you think he would wrong my children? Oh no, no! that is impossible. His fault, it is to be too good. And if he did nothing, what could he do? He has never had the ground to stand on, nor opportunity, nor time. Thank God! they will be his now; he will prove what is in him now."
Which was it that in her heart she believed? But Lady Lindores could not tell. Carry, when she calmed down, sat at her mother's feet in the firelight, and clasped her close, and poured out her heart, no longer in fiery opposition and passion, but with a sudden change and softening, in all the pathos of trouble past and hope returned. They cried together, and talked and kissed each other, once more mother and child, admitting no other thought. This sudden change went to the heart of Lady Lindores. Her daughter's head upon her bosom, her arm holding her close, what could she do but kiss her and console her, and forget everything in sympathy. But as she drove home in the dark other fears came in. Only one thing to cling to—and perhaps that might fail her—"one miserable bit of a mast." What did she mean? What did Carry believe? that her old love would renew for her all the happiness of life, as she had been saying, whispering with her cheek close to her mother's—that the one dream of humanity, the romance which is never worn out and never departs, was now to be fulfilled for her?—or that, even into this dream, the canker had entered, the sense that happiness was not and never could be?
CHAPTER XLIX.
When a pair of lovers are finally delivered from all those terrible obstacles that fret the current of true love, and are at last married and settled, what more is there to be said about them? One phase of life is happily terminated,—the chapter which human instinct has chosen as the subject of romance, the one in which all classes are interested,—those to whom it is still in the future, with all the happy interest of happiness to come,—those to whom it is in the past, with perhaps a sigh, perhaps a smile of compassion, a softening recollection, even when their hopes have not been fulfilled, of what was and what might have been. The happinesses and the miseries of that early struggle, how they dwindle in importance as we get older,—how little we think now of the crisis which seemed final then—things for which heaven and earth stood still; yet there will never come a time in which human interest will fall away from the perennial story, continually going on, ever changing, yet ever the same.
Before proceeding to the knotting up of other threads, we must first recount here what happened to Lord Millefleurs. He did not take any immediate steps in respect to Miss Sallie Field. They corresponded largely and fully at all times, and he told her of the little incident respecting Edith Lindores in full confidence of her sympathy and approval. Perhaps he gave the episode a turn of a slightly modified kind, representing that his proposal was rather a matter of politeness than of passion, and that it was a relief to both parties when it was discovered that Edith, as well as himself, considered fraternal much better than matrimonial relations. Miss Sallie's reply to this was very uncompromising. She said: "I think you have behaved like a couple of fools. You ought to have married. You can tell her from me that she would have found you very nice, though your height may leave something to be desired. I don't myself care for girls—they are generally stupid; but it would have been exceedingly suitable, and pleased your parents—a duty which I wish I saw you more concerned about." Lord Millefleurs, in his reply, acknowledged the weight and sense "as always" of his correspondent's opinion. "I told dear Edith at once what you said; but it did not perhaps make so much impression on her as it would otherwise have done, since she has got engaged to John Erskine, a country gentleman in the neighbourhood, which does not please her parents half so well as a certain other union would have done. Pleasing one's parents after all, though it is a duty, is not paramount to all other considerations. Besides, I have never thought it was a commandment to which great attention was paid chez nous." Miss Field's reply was still more succinct and decided: "I don't know what you mean by chez nous. I hate French phrases when simple American will do as well. If you think we don't love our fathers and mothers, it just shows how far popular fallacy can go, and how easily you bigoted Englishmen are taken in. Who was it that first opened your eyes to the necessity of considering your mother's feelings?" Peace was established after this, but on the whole Lord Millefleurs decided to await the progress of circumstances, and not startle and horrify those parents whom Miss Sallie was so urgent he should please. Some time after she informed him that she was coming to Europe in charge of a beautiful young niece, who would have a large fortune. "Money makes a great deal of difference in the way in which dukes and duchesses consider matters," she wrote, enigmatically, "and so far as I can make out from your papers and novels (if there is any faith to be put in them), American girls are the fashion." Lord Millefleurs informed his mother of this approaching arrival, and with some difficulty procured from her an invitation to Ess Castle for his Transatlantic friends. "I wish there was not that girl though," her Grace said; but Lady Reseda, for her part, was delighted. "She will go to Paris first and bring the very newest fashions," that young lady cried. The ducal mansion was a little excited by the anticipation. They looked for a lovely creature dressed to just a little more than perfection, who would come to breakfast in a diamond necklace, and amuse them more than anybody had amused them in the memory of man. And they were not disappointed in this hope. Miss Nellie F. Field was a charming little creature, and her "things" were divine. Lady Reseda thought her very like Daisy Miller; and the Duchess allowed, with a sigh, that American girls were the fashion, and that if Millefleurs would have something out of the way——.
But in the meanwhile Millefleurs left this lovely little impersonation of Freedom to his mother and sister, and walked about with her aunt. Miss Sallie was about eight or nine and thirty, an age at which women have not ceased to be pleasant—when they choose—to the eye as well as to the heart. But the uncompromising character of her advice was nothing to that of her toilette and appearance. She wore short skirts in which she could move about freely when everybody else had them long. She wore a bonnet when everybody else had a hat. Her hair was thin, but she was scrupulous never to add a tress, or even a cushion. She was not exactly plain, for her features were good, and her eyes full of intelligence; but as for complexion, she had none, and no figure to speak of. She assumed the entire spiritual charge of Millefleurs from the moment they met, and he was never absent from her side a moment longer than he could help. It amused the family beyond measure, at first almost more than Nellie. But by and by the smile began to be forced, and confusion to take the part of hilarity. It was Miss Sallie Field herself at last who took the bull by the horns, if that is not too profane a simile. She took the Duke apart one fine evening, when the whole party had strolled out upon the lawn after dinner—"Your son," she said, "is tormenting me to marry him," and she fixed upon the Duke her intelligent eyes. His Grace was confounded, as may be supposed. He stood aghast at this middle-aged woman with her Transatlantic accent and air. He did not want to be uncivil. "You!" he said, in consternation, then blushed for his bad manners, and added, suavely, "I beg you a thousand pardons—you mean—your niece." That of itself would be bad enough. "No," said Miss Sallie, with an air of regret, "it does not concern Nellie. I have told him that would be more reasonable. Nellie is very pretty, and has a quantity of money; but he doesn't seem to see it. Perhaps you don't know that this was what he wanted when I sent him home to his mother? I thought he would have got over it when he came home. I consider him quite unsuitable for me, but I am a little uneasy about the moral consequences. I am thirty-eight, and I have a moderate competency, not a fortune, like Nellie. I thought it better to talk it over with you before it went any further," Miss Sallie said.
And when he took this middle-aged and plain-spoken bride to Dalrulzian to visit the young people there, Millefleurs did not attempt to conceal his consciousness of the objections which his friends would no doubt make. "I told you it was quite unsuitable," he said, turning up his little eyes and clasping his plump hands. "We were both perfectly aware of that; but it is chic, don't you know, if you will allow me to use a vulgar word." Edith clasped the arm of John when the Marquis and Marchioness of Millefleurs had retired, and these two young people indulged in subdued bursts of laughter. They stepped out upon the terrace walk to laugh, that they might not be heard, feeling the delightful contrast of their own well-assorted youth and illimitable happiness. The most delightful vanity mingled with their mirth—that vanity in each other which feels like a virtue. It was summer, and the air was soft, the moon shining full over the far sweep of the undulating country, blending with a silvery remnant of daylight which lingered far into the night. The hills in the far distance shone against the lightness of the horizon, and the crest of fir-trees on Dalrulzian hill stood out against the sky, every twig distinct. It was such a night as the lovers babbled of on that bank on which the moonbeams lay at Belmont, but more spiritual than any Italian night because of that soft heavenly lingering of the day which belongs to the north. This young pair had not been married very long, and had not ceased to think their happiness the chief and most reasonable subject of interest to all around them. They were still comparing themselves with everything in earth, and almost in heaven, to the advantage of their own blessedness. They were amused beyond description by the noble couple who had come to visit them. "Confess, now, that you feel a pang of regret," John said—and they stood closer and closer together, and laughed under their breath as at the most delightful joke in the world. Up-stairs the Marchioness shut the window, remarking that the air was very cold. "What a fool that little thing was not to have you," she said; "you would have done very well together." "Dear Edith!" said Millefleurs, folding his hands, "it is very pretty, don't you know, to see her so happy."