The Billow and the Rock Part 2

He heard, or fancied he heard his wife laughing behind him.

"Come, now, my friends," said the President, with a good-humoured seriousness, "let me tell you that the position of either of you is no joke. It is too serious for any lightness and for any pa.s.sion. I do not want to hear a word about your grievances. I see quite enough. I see a lady driven from home, deprived of her children, and tormenting herself with thoughts of revenge because she has no other object. I see a gentleman who has been cruelly put to shame in his own house and in the public street, worn with anxiety about his innocent daughters, and with natural fears--inevitable fears, of the mischief that may be done to his character and fortunes by an ill use of the confidence he once gave to the wife of his bosom."

There was a suppressed groan from Lord Ca.r.s.e, and something like a t.i.tter from the lady. The President went on even more gravely.

"I know how easy it is for people to make each other wretched, and especially for you two to ruin each other. If I could but persuade you to sit down with me to a quiet discussion of a plan for living together or apart, abstaining from mutual injury--"

Lord Ca.r.s.e dissented audibly from their living together, and the lady from living apart.

"Why," remonstrated the President, "things cannot be worse than they are now. You make life a h.e.l.l--"

"I am sure it is to me!" sighed Lord Ca.r.s.e.

"It is not yet so to me," said the lady. "I--"

"It is not!" thundered her husband, turning suddenly round upon her.

"Then I will take care it shall be."

"For G.o.d's sake, hush!" exclaimed the President, shocked to the soul.

"Do your worst," said the lady, rising. "We will try which has the most power. You know what ruin is."

"Stop a moment," said the President. "I don't exactly like to have this quiet house of mine made a h.e.l.l of. I cannot have you part on these terms."

But the lady had curtseyed, and was gone. For a minute or two nothing was said. Then a sort of scream was heard from upstairs.

"My Janet!" cried Lord Ca.r.s.e.

"I will go and see," said the President. "Janet is my especial pet, you know."

He immediately returned, smiling, and said, "There is nothing amiss with Janet. Come and see."

Janet was on her mother's lap, her arms thrown round her neck, while the mother's tears streamed over them both. "Can you resist this?" the President asked of Lord Ca.r.s.e. "Can you keep them apart after this?"

"I can," he replied. "I will not permit her the devilish pleasure she wants--of making my own children my enemies."

He was going to take Janet by force: but the President interfered, and said authoritatively to Lady Ca.r.s.e that she had better go: her time was not yet come. She must wait; and his advice was to wait patiently and harmlessly.

It could not have been believed how instantaneously a woman in such emotion could recover herself.

She put Janet off her knee. In an instant there were no more traces of tears, and her face was composed, and her manner hard.

"Good-bye, my dear," she said to the weeping Janet. "Don't cry so, my dear. Keep your tears; for you will have something more to cry for soon. I am going home to pack my trunk for London. Have my friends any commands for London?"

And she looked round steadily upon the three faces.

The President was extremely grave when their eyes met; but even his eye sank under hers. He offered his arm to conduct her downstairs, and took leave of her at the gate with a silent bow.

He met Lord Ca.r.s.e and Janet coming downstairs, and begged them to stay awhile, dreading, perhaps, a street encounter. But Lord Ca.r.s.e was bent on being gone immediately--and had not another moment to spare.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE WRONG JOURNEY.

Lady Ca.r.s.e and her maid Bessie--an elderly woman who had served her from her youth up, bearing with her temper for the sake of that family attachment which exists so strongly in Scotland,--were busy packing trunks this afternoon, when they were told that a gentleman must speak with Lady Ca.r.s.e below stairs.

"There will be no peace till we are off," observed the lady to her maid.

In answer to which Bessie only sighed deeply.

"I want you to attend me downstairs," observed the lady. "But this provoking nonsense of yours, this crying about going a journey, has made you not fit to be seen. If any friend of my lord's saw your red eyes, he would go and say that my own maid was on my lord's side. I must go down alone."

"Pray, madam, let me attend you. The gentleman will not think of looking at me: and I will stand with my back to the light, and the room is dark."

"No; your very voice is full of tears. Stay where you are."

Lady Ca.r.s.e sailed into the room very grandly, not knowing whom she was to see. Nor was she any wiser when she did see him. He was m.u.f.fled up, and wore a shawl tied over his mouth, and kept his hat on; so that little s.p.a.ce was left between hat, periwig, and comforter. He apologised for wearing his hat, and for keeping the lady standing--his business was short:--in the first place to show her Lord Ca.r.s.e's ring, which she would immediately recognise.

She glanced at the ring, and knew it at once.

"On the warrant of this ring," continued the gentleman, "I come from your husband to require from you what you cannot refuse,--either as a wife, or consistent with your safety. You hold a doc.u.ment,--a letter from your husband, written to you in conjugal confidence five years ago, from London,--a letter--"

"You need not describe it further," said the lady. "It is my chief treasure, and not likely to escape my recollection. It is a letter from Lord Ca.r.s.e, containing treasonable expressions relating to the royal family."

"About the treason we might differ, madam; but my business is, not to argue that, but to require of you to deliver up that paper to me, on this warrant," again producing the ring.

The lady laughed, and asked whether the gentleman was a fool or took her to be one, that he asked her to give up what she had just told him was the greatest treasure she had in the world,--her sure means of revenge upon her enemies.

"You will not?" asked the gentleman.

"I will not."

"Then hear what you have to expect, madam. Hear it, and then take time to consider once more."

"I have no time to spare," she replied. "I start for London early in the morning; and my preparations are not complete."

"You must hear me, however," said the gentleman. "If you do not yield your husband will immediately and irrevocably put you to open shame."

"He cannot," she replied. "I have no shame. I have the advantage of him there."

"You have, however, personal liberty at present. You have that to lose,--and life, madam. You have that to lose."

Lady Ca.r.s.e caught at the table, and leaned on it to support herself. It was not from fear about her liberty or life; but because there was a cruel tone in the utterance of the last words, which told her that it was Lord Lovat who was threatening her; and she _was_ afraid of him.

"I have shaken you now," said he. "Come: give me the letter."

"It is not fear that shakes me," she replied. "It is disgust. The disgust that some feel at reptiles I feel at you, my Lord Lovat."