Margaret Oliphant - The Ladies Lindores. Volume 2 of 3

"And a well-looking, well-spoken young man. He minds me of your uncle Walter, the one that went abroad," said old Mrs Methven of the Broomlees. She was older than Miss Barbara, older than the imagination could conceive. Her memory slipped all the recent generation, and went back to heights of antiquity unknown. Miss Barbara Erskine was still a young person to this old lady, and Sir James a frisky young soldier. "Walter Erskine was the first person I ever saw that wore his own hair without so much as a ribbon. It had a terrible naked look, but you soon got used to it. This one is like him. But you'll scarcely mind him. He was young when he left the county. I cannot remember if you were born."

"He's like his father, which is not so far back," Miss Barbara said.

"Bless me, bless me! where is the general?" cried Lady Montgomery. She was standing in front of the great bow-window which looked upon the lawn, with her beautiful Indian shawl on her shoulders. Grouped upon the grass were several parties of the younger people, not quite knowing what to do with themselves. Some of the ladies, wrapped in warm cloaks and shawls, were seated round, waiting for some novelty of amusement with which they were unacquainted, and wondering when it was going to begin. It seemed to Lady Montgomery the most dreadful neglect of duty that there was no one to set the young people agoing. "Will anything have happened to Sir James?" she said, in anxious Scotch, and cast a glance back at the pleasant fire, and wrapped her shawl more closely round, with a sense that Providence might require of her the heroic effort of stepping outside. But just then she perceived in the distance that her general had been captured, and was being led back in triumph to the lawn by Nora and Agnes Sempill, two of his chief favourites. John followed after them, looking by no means triumphant. When Lady Montgomery saw this, she gave a nod of satisfaction, and returned to the fire. "Whatever they're going to do, it'll begin now," she said. "If it's worth looking at, we can see it from the window; but for my part, I'm very anxious about putting folk to sit on the grass at this time of the year. I would not wonder to hear of bronchitis or inflammation after it – but it's none of my doing. Sir James is just daft about all the new-fashioned ways of amusing young people. For my part, I say there's nothing like the old way. Just to clear out the rooms, and get the fiddlers, and let them dance. But that would be a daftish thing too, in daylight," the old lady said; for she was not at all up to the current of events.

It was, I believe, the venerable game of croquet which was the "new-fashioned thing" in question, and which all the people outside crowded round to see, while a few highly-instructed young persons, who had brought the knowledge from "the South," proceeded, with much modest importance, to exhibit for the benefit of their neighbours. "It's quite easy," they said, each feeling a sort of benevolent missionary. John Erskine was one of these illuminati , and he was the partner of Agnes Sempill, the girl who had trembled for a moment lest Mr Torrance of Tinto might be going to select her from the many that smiled upon him. She would have married him had this been; but it must be said for her that she was unfeignedly glad to have escaped. This having been the case, it will be apparent that poor Agnes was no longer in her first youth. She was five or six and twenty – young enough, yet not altogether a girl; and she knew, poor young woman, that she must marry the next man who offered himself, – they were so poor! and her mother did not fail to impress upon her that she was losing all her chances. She looked upon John Erskine, accordingly, with more critical interest than is ordinarily felt. He was about her own age, but she decided that he was too young; and she hoped, whatever he was going to do in the matrimonial way, that he would show his intentions at once, and not force her mother into unnecessary efforts. "Too young – but he might do very well for Mary," she said to herself; and then she turned to him to talk about croquet, as if there was no such important subject.

"It is such a thing to have something that can be played out of doors!" she said. "Well, not so much in Scotland, that is true, but still we want a little variety. Do you play golf, Mr Erskine? The ladies' golf is very nice; it is only Putting – but you won't understand what that means. At St Andrews there is the Ladies' Links – "

"Which sound romantic and picturesque, at least."

"Oh, it is not at all romantic – picturesque after a sort. Seaside slopes – what you call downs in England; but I can't describe it. Is it my turn? You should be able to get me nicely through that hoop next stroke you make. Sir James is always the first to get us any novelty that is going. He is always on the outlook for something. This is the very first in the county. They have not got croquet yet even at Lindores."

"Does Lindores generally set the fashion?" said John indiscreetly, not knowing what to say.

"The fashion! oh no, certainly not," cried Miss Sempill. "Of course they are the highest rank, and walk in and out before us all; but for anything else – You used to know them, I hear, Mr Erskine. Tell me something about them. Oh, we are neighbours, but not great friends. We do not move about very much; we are humble people, without carriages and horses. I suppose they lived very quietly before – "

"I only knew them," said John, learning to employ the universal formula, "abroad; and as the way of living is so different – "

"Ah! is it really so?" said Agnes, with quick interest; "do people really live so much cheaper abroad? I suppose you are not expected to keep up appearances in the same way; and then you get all your amusements so cheaply, and you can do a great deal, and go about a great deal, on very little. I have always heard that. But when you've a large family, the mere travelling must be a large item. I should think it would swallow up all the savings for the first year."

The question was one which interested her so much that she scarcely left time for a reply.

"I have often thought of it," she said. "The girls, poor things, get so little to amuse them here. Abroad, so far as one hears, there is nothing but amusement. Concerts and operas for next to nothing, and always a band playing somewhere – isn't it so? And you get houses quite cheap, and servants that will turn their hand to anything. I suppose the Lindores lived in quite a humble way out there?"

"They moved about a great deal, I believe," said John. "In summer, in the mountains, whether you are rich or poor, it does not make much difference."

This was all the young man knew. Miss Sempill interrupted him with an eager light in her eyes, "Doesn't it, really? Then that is the ideal place I have been looking for all my life – a place where, to be rich or poor, makes no difference – Oh, is it my turn again? what a nuisance! Mr Erskine is telling me of a place I have dreamt of all my life."

"But you must bestir yourself – you must bestir yourself," cried the old general. "Reflect, my dear; you're one of many – you must not mind your own enjoyment for the moment. Ay, my young friend, so you've been telling a lady of a place she's dreamed of all her life? – that's better than bothering your head about hospitals or my lord's schemes. Come, come, John Erskine, put your heart into it: here are some of the bonniest faces in the North waiting to see you play."

John was not dull to this inducement. It was a pretty group which gathered round as spectators, watching every stroke. All the Sempill girls, an eager group of pretty portionless creatures, eager for every kind of pleasure, and getting very little, envious in a sisterly way of Agnes, who knew the new game, and who had secured the new gallant. They were envious yet proud of her. "Our Agnes knows all about it," they said; "she has tried to teach us; but one person can never teach a game: when you see it played, you learn in a moment." They looked over each other's shoulders to see John play, which he did very badly, as was natural; and then they dropped him and followed the next player, Willie Montgomery, Sir James's grand-nephew, who, they all agreed, did a great deal better. Our young man, in spite of himself, felt a little discomfited. He came back to his partner to be consoled, – though, as he had failed to do her the service with her ball which she expected, she was a little dissatisfied too. She was disposed to be cross because her play in the new game had failed of its triumphant effect through her partner's fault. "You have not played much, Mr Erskine, I suppose? Oh, it does not matter – when nobody knows, one style of play is just as good as another; but I thought no one could have missed that ball. Never mind, it is not of the least importance. Tell me more about – abroad."