The Ladies Lindores by Margaret Oliphant

It happened after this that John Erskine, by no will of his own, was drawn repeatedly into the society of the somewhat lonely pair at Tinto. Torrance had never been popular, though the county extended to him that toleration which a rich man, especially when young, is apt to receive. There were always benevolent hopes that he might mend as long as he remained unmarried; and after his marriage, his wife bore the blame of more than half his misdeeds. To tell the truth, poor Carry, being so unhappy, did not take pains to conciliate her neighbours. Some she took up with almost feverish eagerness, and she had two or three impassioned friends; but she had none of that sustaining force of personal happiness which makes it possible to bear the weariness of dull country company, and she had not taken any particular pains to please the county: so that, except on the periodical occasions when the great rooms were thrown open to a large party, she and her husband, so little adapted as they were to indemnify each other for the loss of society, lived much alone in their great house, with none of that coming and going which enlivens life. And since what he called the satisfaction which John had given him, Torrance had experienced a sort of rough enthusiasm for his new neighbour. He was never weary of proclaiming him to be an honest fellow. "That's the way to meet a man," he would say -- "straightforward; if there's any mistake, say it out. " And Erskine was overwhelmed with invitations to "look in as often as he pleased," to "take potluck," -- to come over to Tinto as often as he wearied. Sometimes he yielded to those solicitations out of pity for poor Carry, who seemed, he thought, pleased to see him; and sometimes because, in face of this oppressive cordiality, it was difficult to say no. He did not enjoy these evenings; but the soft look of pleasure in poor Carry's eyes, the evident relief with which she saw him come in, went to John's heart. Not a word had passed between them on the subject which all their neighbours discussed so fully. No hint of domestic unhappiness crossed Carry's lips: and yet it seemed to John that she had a kind of sisterly confidence in him. Her face brightened when he appeared. She did not engage him in long intellectual conversations as she did Dr. Stirling. She said, indeed, little at all to him, but she was grateful to him for coming, and relieved from that which she would not complain of or object to -- the sole society of her husband. This consciousness touched John more than if he had been entirely in her confidence. A kind of unspoken alliance seemed to exist between them.