The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Marriage of Elinor, by Margaret Oliphant

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net


Title: The Marriage of Elinor

Author: Margaret Oliphant

Release Date: April 29, 2009 [EBook #28637]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MARRIAGE OF ELINOR ***




Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Canada Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)









THE MARRIAGE OF ELINOR


BY

MRS. OLIPHANT


CHICAGO
W. B. CONKEY COMPANY




COPYRIGHT, 1891,
BY
UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY

[_All rights reserved._]




THE MARRIAGE OF ELINOR.




CHAPTER I.


John Tatham, barrister-at-law, received one summer morning as he sat at
breakfast the following letter. It was written in what was once known
distinctively as a lady's hand, in pointed characters, very fine and
delicate, and was to this effect:--


"DEAR JOHN, Have you heard from Elinor of her new prospects and
intentions? I suppose she must have written to you on the subject. Do
you know anything of the man?... You know how hard it is to convince her
against her will of anything, and also how poorly gifted I am with the
power of convincing any one. And I don't know him, therefore can speak
with no authority. If you can do anything to clear things up, come and
do so. I am very anxious and more than doubtful; but her heart seems set
upon it.

"Your affect.
"M. S. D."


Mr. Tatham was a well-built and vigorous man of five-and-thirty, with
health, good behaviour, and well-being in every line of his cheerful
countenance and every close curl of his brown hair. His hair was very
curly, and helped to give him the cheerful look which was one of his
chief characteristics. Nevertheless, when these innocent seeming words,
"Do you know the man?" which was more certainly demonstrative of
certain facts than had those facts been stated in the fullest detail,
met his eye, Mr. Tatham paused and laid down the letter with a start.
His ruddy colour paled for the moment, and he felt something which was
like the push or poke of a blunt but heavy weapon somewhere in the
regions of the heart. For the moment he felt that he could not read any
more. "Do you know the man?" He did not even ask what man in the
momentary sickness of his heart. Then he said to himself, almost
angrily, "Well!" and took up the letter again and read to the end.

Well! of course it was a thing that he knew might happen any day, and
which he had expected to happen for the last four or five years. It was
nothing to him one way or another. Nothing could be more absurd than
that a hearty and strong young man in the full tide of his life and with
a good breakfast before him should receive a shock from that innocent
little letter as if he had been a sentimental woman. But the fact is
that he pushed his plate away with an exclamation of disgust and a
feeling that everything was bad and uneatable. He drank his tea, though
that also became suddenly bad too, full of tannin, like tea that has
stood too long, a thing about which John was very particular. He had
been half an hour later than usual this morning consequent on having
been an hour or two later than usual last night. These things have their
reward, and that very speedily; but as for the letter, what could that
have to do with the bad toasting of the bacon and the tannin in the tea?
"Do you know the man?" There was a sort of covert insult, too, in the
phraseology, as if no explanation was needed, as if he must know by
instinct what she meant--he who knew nothing about it, who did not know
there was a man at all!

After a while he began to smile rather cynically to himself. He had got
up from the breakfast table, where everything was so bad, and had gone
to look out of one of the windows of his pleasant sitting-room. It was
in one of the wider ways of the Temple, and looked out upon various
houses with a pleasant misty light upon the redness of their old
brickwork, and a stretch of green grass and trees, which were scanty in
foliage, yet suited very well with the bright morning sun, which was not
particularly warm, but looked as if it were a good deal for effect and
not so very much for use. That thought floated across his mind with
others, and was of the same cynical complexion. It was very well for the
sun to shine, making the glistening poplars and plane-trees glow, and
warming all the mellow redness of the old houses, but what did he mean
by it? No warmth to speak of, only a fictitious gleam--a thing got up
for effect. And so was the affectionateness of woman--meaning nothing,
only an effect of warmth and geniality, nothing beyond that. As a matter
of fact, he reminded himself after a while that he had never wanted
anything beyond, neither asked for it, nor wished it. He had no desire
to change the conditions of his life: women never rested till they had
done so, manufacturing a new event, whatever it might be, pleased even
when they were not pleased, to have a novelty to announce. That, no
doubt, was the state of mind in which the lady who called herself his
aunt was: pleased to have something to tell him, to fire off her big
guns in his face, even though she was not at all pleased with the event
itself. But John Tatham, on the other hand, had desired nothing to
happen; things were very well as they were. He liked to have a place
where he could run down from Saturday to Monday whenever he pleased, and
where his visit was always a cheerful event for the womankind. He had
liked to take them all the news, to carry the picture-papers, quite a
load; to take down a new book for Elinor; to taste doubtfully his aunt's
wine, and tell her she had better let him choose it for her. It was a
very pleasant state of affairs: he wanted no change; not, certainly,
above everything, the intrusion of a stranger whose very existence had
been unknown to him until he was thus asked cynically, almost brutally,
"Do you know the man?"

The hour came when John had to assume the costume of that order of
workers whom a persistent popular joke nicknames the "Devil's Own:"--that
is, he had to put on gown and wig and go off to the courts, where he was
envied of all the briefless as a man who for his age had a great deal to
do. He "devilled" for Mr. Asstewt, the great Chancery man, which was the
most excellent beginning: and he was getting into a little practice of
his own which was not to be sneezed at. But he did not find himself in a
satisfactory frame of mind to-day. He found himself asking the judge,
"Do you know anything of the man?" when it was his special business so
to bewilder that potentate with elaborate arguments that he should not
have time to consider whether he had ever heard of the particular man
before him. Thus it was evident that Mr. Tatham was completely _hors de
son assiette_, as the French say; upset and "out of it," according to
the equally vivid imagination of the English manufacturer of slang. John
Tatham was a very capable young lawyer on ordinary occasions, and it was
all the more remarkable that he should have been so confused in his mind
to-day.

When he went back to his chambers in the evening, which was not until it
was time to dress for dinner, he saw a bulky letter lying on his table,
but avoided it as if it had been an overdue bill. He was engaged to
dine out, and had not much time: yet all the way, as he drove along the
streets, just as sunset was over and a subduing shade came over the
light, and that half-holiday look that comes with evening--he kept
thinking of the fat letter upon his table. Do you know anything of
the man? That would no longer be the refrain of his correspondent,
but some absurd strain of devotion and admiration of the man whom John
knew nothing of, not even his name. He wondered as he went along in his
hansom, and even between the courses at dinner, while he listened with
a smile, but without hearing a word, to what the lady next him was
saying--what she would tell him about this man? That he was everything
that was delightful, no doubt; handsome, of course; probably clever; and
that she was fond of him, confound the fellow! Elinor! to think that she
should come to that--a girl like her--to tell him, as if she was saying
that she had caught a cold or received a present, that she was in love
with a man! Good heavens! when one had thought her so much above
anything of that kind--a woman, above all women that ever were.

"Not so much as that," John said to himself as he walked home. He always
preferred to walk home in the evening, and he was not going to change
his habit now out of any curiosity about Elinor's letter. Oh, not so
much as that! not above all women, or better than the rest, perhaps--but
different. He could not quite explain to himself how, except that he
had always known her to be Elinor and not another, which was a quite
sufficient explanation. And now it appeared that she was not different,
although she would still profess to be Elinor--a curious puzzle, which
his brain in its excited state was scarcely able to tackle. His thoughts
got somewhat confused and broken as he approached his chambers. He was
so near the letter now--a few minutes and he would no longer need to
wonder or speculate about it, but would know exactly what she said. He
turned and stood for a minute or so at the Temple gates, looking out
upon the busy Strand. It was still as lovely as a summer night could be
overhead, but down here it was--well, it was London, which is another
thing. The usual crowd was streaming by, coming into bright light as it
streamed past a brilliant shop window, then in the shade for another
moment, and emerging again. The faces that were suddenly lit up as they
passed--some handsome faces, pale in the light; some with heads hung
down, either in bad health or bad humour; some full of cares and troubles,
others airy and gay--caught his attention. Did any of them all know
anything of this man, he wondered--knowing how absurd a question it was.
Had any of them written to-day a letter full of explanations, of a
matter that could not be explained? There were faces with far more
tragic meaning in them than could be so easily explained as that--the
faces of men, alas! and women too, who were going to destruction as fast
as their hurrying feet could carry them; or else were languidly drifting
no one knew where--out of life altogether, out of all that was good in
life. John Tatham knew this very well too, and had it in him to do
anything a man could to stop the wanderers in their downward career. But
to-night he was thinking of none of these things. He was only wondering
how she would explain it, how she could explain it, what she would say;
and lingering to prolong his suspense, not to know too soon what it was.

At last, however, as there is no delay but must come to an end one time
or another, he found himself at last in his room, in his smoking-coat
and slippers, divested of his stiff collar--at his ease, the windows
open upon the quiet of the Temple Gardens, a little fresh air breathing
in. He had taken all this trouble to secure ease for himself, to put
off a little the reading of the letter. Now the moment had come when
it would be absurd to delay any longer. It was so natural to see her
familiar handwriting--not a lady's hand, angular and pointed, like her
mother's, but the handwriting of her generation, which looks as if it
were full of character, until one perceives that it _is_ the writing of
the generation, and all the girls and boys write much the same. He took
time for this reflection still as he tore open the envelope. There were
two sheets very well filled, and written in at the corners, so that no
available spot was lost. "My dear old John," were the first words he
saw. He put down the letter and thought over the address. Well, she had
always called him so. He was old John when he was fourteen, to little
Elinor. They had always known each other like that--like brother and
sister. But not particularly like brother and sister--like cousins twice
removed, which is a more interesting tie in some particulars. And now
for the letter.


"MY DEAR OLD JOHN: I want to tell you myself of a great thing that has
happened to me--the very greatest thing that could happen in one's
life. Oh, John, dear old John, I feel as if I had nobody else I could
open my heart to; for mamma--well, mamma is mamma, a dear mother and a
good one; but you know she has her own ways of thinking----"


He put down the letter again with a rueful little laugh. "And have not I
my own ways of thinking, too?" he said to himself.


"Jack dear," continued the letter, "you must give me your sympathy, all
your sympathy. You never were in love, I suppose (oh, what an odious
way that is of putting it! but it spares one's feelings a little, for
even in writing it is too tremendous a thing to say quite gravely and
seriously, as one feels it). Dear John, I know you never were in love,
or you would have told me; but still----"


"Oh," he said to himself, with the merest suspicion of a little quiver
in his lip, which might, of course, have been a laugh, but, on the other
hand, might have been something else, "I never was--or I would have told
her--That's the way she looks at it." Then he took up the letter again.


"Because--I see nothing but persecution before me. It was only a week
ago that it happened, and we wanted to keep it quiet for a time; but
things get out in spite of all one can do--things of that sort, at
least. And, oh, dear Jack, fancy! I have got three letters already, all
warning me against him; raking up trifling things that have occurred
long ago, long before he met me, and holding them up before me like
scarecrows--telling me he is not worthy of me, and that I will be
wretched if I marry him, and other dreadful lies like that, which
show me quite plainly that they neither know him nor me, and that they
haven't eyes to see what he really is, nor minds to understand. But
though I see the folly of it and the wickedness of it, mamma does not.
She is ready to take other people's words; indeed, there is this to be
said for her, that she does not know him yet, and therefore cannot be
expected to be ready to take his own word before all. Dear Jack, my
heart is so full, and I have so much to tell you, and such perfect
confidence in your sympathy, and also in your insight and capacity to
see through all the lies and wicked stories which I foresee are going to
be poured upon us like a flood that--I don't know how to begin, I have
so many things to say. I know it is the heart of the season, and that
you are asked out every night in the week, and are so popular everywhere;
but if you could but come down from Saturday to Monday, and let me tell
you everything and show you his picture, and read you parts of his
letters, I know you would see how false and wrong it all is, and help me
to face it out with all those horrid people, and to bring round mamma.
You know her dreadful way of never giving an opinion, but just saying a
great deal worse, and leaving you to your own responsibility, which
nearly drives me mad even in little things--so you may suppose what it
does in this. Of course, she must see him, which is all I want, for I
know after she has had a half-hour's conversation with him that she will
be like me and will not believe a word--not one word. Therefore, Jack
dear, come, oh, come! I have always turned to you in my difficulties,
since ever I have known what it was to have a difficulty, and you have
done everything for me. I never remember any trouble I ever had but you
found some means of clearing it away. Therefore my whole hope is in you.
I know it is hard to give up all your parties and things; but it would
only be two nights, after all--Saturday and Sunday. Oh, do come, do
come, if you ever cared the least little bit for your poor cousin! Come,
oh, come, dear old John!

"Your affect.
"E------."


"Is that all?" he said to himself; but it was not all, for there
followed a postscript all about the gifts and graces of the unknown
lover, and how he was the victim of circumstances, and how, while other
men might steal the horse, he dared not look over the wall, and other
convincing pleadings such as these, till John's head began to go round.
When he had got through this postscript John Tatham folded the letter
and put it away. He had a smile on his face, but he had the air of a man
who had been beaten about the head and was confused with the hurry and
storm of the blows. She had always turned to him in all her difficulties,
that was true: and he had always stood by her, and often, in the
freemasonry of youth, had thought her right and vindicated her capacity
to judge for herself. He had been called often on this errand, and he
had never refused to obey. For Elinor was very wilful, she had always
been wilful--"a rosebud set about with wilful thorns, But sweet as
English air could make her, she." He had come to her aid many a time.
But he had never thought to be called upon by her in such a way as this.
He folded the letter up carefully and put it in a drawer. Usually
when he had a letter from Elinor he put it into his pocket, for the
satisfaction of reading it over again: for she had a fantastic way of
writing, adding little postscripts which escaped the eye at first, and
which it was pleasant to find out afterwards. But with this letter he
did not do so. He put it in a drawer of his writing-table, so that he
might find it again when necessary, but he did not put it in his breast
pocket. And then he sat for some time doing nothing, looking before him,
with his legs stretched out and his hand beating a little tattoo upon
the table. "Well: well? well!" That was about what he said to himself,
but it meant a great deal: it meant a vague but great disappointment, a
sort of blank and vacuum expressed by the first of these words--and then
it meant a question of great importance and many divisions. How could it
ever have come to anything? Am I a man to marry? What could I have done,
just getting into practice, just getting a few pounds to spend for
myself? And then came the conclusion. Since I can't do anything else
for her; since she's done it for herself--shall I be a beast and not
help her, because it puts my own nose out of joint? Not a bit of it!
The reader must remember that in venturing to reflect a young man's
sentiments a dignified style is scarcely possible; they express
themselves sometimes with much force in their private moments, but not
as Dr. Johnson would have approved, or with any sense of elegance; and
one must try to be truthful to nature. He knew very well that Elinor was
not responsible for his disappointment, and even he was aware that if
she had been so foolish as to fix her hopes upon him, it would probably
have been she who would have been disappointed, and left in the lurch.
But still----

John had gone through an interminable amount of thinking, and a good
deal of soda-water (with or without, how should I know, some other
moderate ingredient), and a cigar or two--not to speak of certain hours
when he ought to have been in bed to keep his head clear for the cases
of to-morrow: when it suddenly flashed upon him all at once that he was
not a step further on than when he had received Mrs. Dennistoun's letter
in the morning, for Elinor, though she had said so much about him, had
given no indication who her lover was. Who was the man?




CHAPTER II.


It was a blustering afternoon when John, with his bag in his hand, set
out from the station at Hurrymere for Mrs. Dennistoun's cottage. Why
that station should have had "mere" in its name I have never been able
to divine, for there is no water to be seen for miles, scarcely so much
as a duckpond: but, perhaps, there are two meanings to the words. It was
a steep walk up a succession of slopes, and the name of the one upon
which the cottage stood was Windyhill not an encouraging title on such
a day, but true enough to the character of the place. The cottage lay,
however, at the head of a combe or shelving irregular valley, just
sheltered from the winds on a little platform of its own, and commanding
a view which was delightful in its long sweeping distance, and varied
enough to be called picturesque, especially by those who were familiar
with nothing higher than the swelling slopes of the Surrey hills. It was
wild, little cultivated, save in the emerald green of the bottom, a
few fields which lay where a stream ought to have been. Nowadays there
are red-roofed houses peeping out at every corner, but at that period
fashion had not even heard of Hurrymere, and, save for a farm-house or
two, a village alehouse and posting-house at a corner of the high-road,
and one or two great houses within the circuit of six or seven miles,
retired within their trees and parks, there were few habitations. Mrs.
Dennistoun's cottage was red-roofed like the rest, but much subdued by
lichens, and its walls were covered by climbing plants, so that it
struck no bold note upon the wild landscape, yet was visible afar off in
glimpses, from the much-winding road, for a mile or two before it could
be come at. There was, indeed, a nearer way, necessitating a sharp
scramble, but when John came just in sight of the house his heart failed
him a little, and, notwithstanding that his bag had come to feel very
heavy by this time, he deliberately chose the longer round to gain a
little time--as we all do sometimes, when we are most anxious to be
at our journey's end, and hear what has to be told us. It looked very
peaceful seated in that fold of the hill, no tossing of trees about it,
though a little higher up the slim oaks and beeches of the copse were
flinging themselves about against the grey sky in a kind of agonised
appeal. John liked the sound of the wind sweeping over the hills, rending
the trees, and filling the horizon as with a crowd of shadows in pain,
twisting and bending with every fresh sweep of the breeze. Sometimes
such sounds and sights give a relief to the mind. He liked it better
than if all had been undisturbed, lying in afternoon quiet as might have
been expected at the crown of the year--but the winds had always to be
taken into account at Windyhill.

When he came in sight of the gate, John was aware of some one waiting
for him, walking up and down the sandy road into which it opened. Her
face was turned the other way, and she evidently looked for him by way
of the combe, the scrambling steep road which he had avoided in despite:
for why should he scramble and make himself hot in order to hear ten
minutes sooner what he did not wish to hear at all? She turned round
suddenly as he knocked his foot against a stone upon the rough, but
otherwise noiseless road, presenting a countenance flushed with sudden
relief and pleasure to John's remorseful eye. "Oh, there you are!" she
said; "I am so glad. I thought you could not be coming. You might have
been here a quarter of an hour ago by the short road."

"I did not think there was any hurry," said John, ungraciously. "The
wind is enough to carry one off one's feet; though, to be sure, it's
quiet enough here."

"It's always quiet here," she said, reading his face with her eyes after
the manner of women, and wondering what the harassed look meant that was
so unusual in John's cheerful face. She jumped at the idea that he was
tired, that his bag was heavy, that he had been beaten about by the wind
till he had lost his temper, always a possible thing to happen to a man.
Elinor flung herself upon the bag and tried to take possession of it.
"Why didn't you get a boy at the station to carry it? Let me carry it,"
she said.

"That is so likely," said John, with a hard laugh, shifting it to his
other hand.

Elinor caught his arm with both her hands, and looked up with wistful
eyes into his face. "Oh, John, you are angry," she said.

"Nonsense. I am tired, buffeting about with this wind." Here the
gardener and man-of-all-work about the cottage came up and took the bag,
which John parted with with angry reluctance, as if it had been a sort
of weapon of offence. After it was gone there was nothing for it but to
walk quietly to the house through the flowers with that girl hanging on
his arm, begging a hundred pardons with her eyes. The folly of it! as
if she had not a right to do as she pleased, or he would try to prevent
her; but finally, the soft, silent apology of that clinging, and the
look full of petitions touched his surly heart. "Well--Nelly," he said,
with involuntary softening.

"Oh, if you call me that I am not afraid!" she cried, with an instant
upleaping of pleasure and confidence in her changeable face, which (John
tried to say to himself) was not really pretty at all, only so full of
expression, changing with every breath of feeling. The eyes, which had
only been brown a moment before, leaped up into globes of light, yet
not too dazzling, with some liquid medium to soften their shining. Even
though you know that a girl is in love with another man, that she thinks
of you no more than of the old gardener who has just hobbled round the
corner, it is pleasant to be able to change the whole aspect of affairs
to her and make her light up like that, solely by a little unwilling
softening of your gruff and surly tone.

"You know, John," she said, holding his arm tight with her two hands,
"that nobody ever calls me Nelly--except you."

"Possibly I shall call you Nelly no longer. Why? Why, because that
fellow will object."

"That fellow! Oh, _he_!" Elinor's face grew very red all over, from the
chin, which almost touched John's arm, to the forehead, bent back a
little over those eyes suffused with light which were intent upon all
the changes of John's face. This one was, like the landscape, swept by
all the vicissitudes of sun and shade. It was radiant now with the
unexpected splendour of the sudden gleam.

"Oh, John, John, I have so much to say to you! He will object to
nothing. He knows very well you are like my brother--almost more than my
brother--for you could help it, John. You almost chose me for your
friend, which a brother would not. He says, 'Get him to be our friend
and all will be well!'"

_He_ had not said this, but Elinor had said it to him, and he had
assented, which was almost the same--in the way of reckoning of a girl,
at least.

"He is very kind, I am sure," said John, gulping down something which
had almost made him throw off Elinor's arm, and fling away from her in
indignation. Her brother----!! But there was no use making any row, he
said to himself. If anything were to be done for her he must put up with
all that. There had suddenly come upon John, he knew not how, as he
scanned her anxious face, a conviction that the man was a scamp, from
whom at all hazards she should be free.

Said Elinor, unsuspecting, "That is just what he is, John! I knew you
would divine his character at once. You can't think how kind he is--kind
to everybody. He never judges anyone, or throws a stone, or makes an
insinuation." ("Probably because he knows he cannot bear investigation
himself," John said, in his heart.) "That was the thing that took my
heart first. Everybody is so censorious--always something to say against
their neighbours; he, never a word."

"That's a very good quality," said John, reluctantly, "if it doesn't
mean confounding good with bad, and thinking nothing matters."

Elinor gave him a grieved, reproachful look, and loosened the clasping
of her hands. "It is not like you to imagine that, John!"

"Well, what is a man to say? Don't you see, if you do nothing but blow
his trumpet, the only thing left for me to do is to insinuate something
against him? I don't know the man from Adam. He may be an angel, for
anything I can say."

"No; I do not pretend he is that," said Elinor, with impartiality. "He
has his faults, like others, but they are _nice_ faults. He doesn't know
how to take care of his money (but he hasn't got very much, which makes
it the less matter), and he is sometimes taken in about his friends.
Anybody almost that appeals to his kindness is treated like a friend,
which makes precise people think----but, of course, I don't share that
opinion in the very least."

("A very wasteful beggar, with a disreputable set," was John's practical
comment within himself upon this speech.)

"And he doesn't know how to curry favour with people who can help him
on; so that though he has been for years promised something, it never
turns up. Oh, I know his faults very well indeed," said Elinor; "but a
woman can do so much to make up for faults like that. We're naturally
saving, you know, and we always keep those unnecessary friends that were
made before our time at a distance; and it's part of our nature to coax
a patron--that is what Mariamne says."

"Mariamne?" said John.

"His sister, who first introduced him to me; and I am very fond of
her, so you need not say anything against her, John. I know she
is--fashionable, but that's no harm."

"Mariamne," he repeated; "it is a very uncommon name. You don't mean
Lady Mariamne Prestwich, do you? and not--not----Elinor! not Phil
Compton, for goodness' sake? Don't tell me he's the man?"

Elinor's hands dropped from his arm. She drew herself up until she
seemed to tower over him. "And why should I say it is not Mr. Compton,"
she asked, with a scarlet flush of anger, so different from that rosy
red of love and happiness, covering her face.

"Phil Compton! the _dis_-Honourable Phil! Why, Elinor! you cannot mean
it! you must not mean it!" he cried.

Elinor said not a word. She turned from him with a look of pathetic
reproach but with the air of a queen, and walked into the house, he
following in a ferment of wrath and trouble, yet humbled and miserable
more than words could say. Oh, the flowery, peaceful house! jasmine and
rose overleaping each other upon the porch, honeysuckle scenting the
air, all manner of feminine contrivances to continue the greenness and
the sweetness into the little bright hall, into the open drawing-room,
where flowers stood on every table amid the hundred pretty trifles of a
woman's house. There was no one in this room where she led him, and then
turned round confronting him, taller than he had ever seen her before,
pale, with her nostrils dilating and her lips trembling. "I never
thought it possible that you of all people in the world, you, John--my
stand-by since ever I was a baby--my---- Oh! what a horrid thing it is
to be a woman," cried Elinor, stamping her foot, "to be ready to cry for
everything!--you, John! that I always put my trust in--that you should
turn against me--and at the very first word!"

"Elinor," he said, "my dear girl! not against you, not against you, for
all the world!"

"And what is _me_?" she said, with that sudden turning of the tables and
high scorn of her previous argument which is common with women; "do I
care what you do to _me_? Oh, nothing, nothing! I am of no account, you
can trample me down under your feet if you like. But what I will not
bear," she said, clenching her hands, "is injustice to him: that I will
not bear, neither from you, Cousin John, who are only my distant cousin,
after all, and have no right to thrust your advice upon me--or from any
one in the world."

"What you say is quite true, Elinor, I am only a distant cousin--after
all: but----"

"Oh, no, no," she cried, flying to him, seizing once more his arm with
her clinging hands, "I did not mean that--you know I did not mean that,
my more than brother, my good, good John, whom I have trusted all my
life!"

And then the poor girl broke out into passionate weeping with her head
upon his shoulder, as she might have leant upon the handy trunk of a
tree, or on the nearest door or window, as John Tatham said in his
heart. He soothed her as best he could, and put her in a chair and stood
with his hand upon the back of it, looking down upon her as the fit of
crying wore itself out. Poor little girl! he had seen her cry often
enough before. A girl cries for anything, for a thorn in her finger,
for a twist of her foot. He had seen her cry and laugh, and dash the
tears out of her eyes on such occasions, oh! often and often: there was
that time when he rushed out of the bushes unexpectedly and frightened
her pony, and she fell among the grass and vowed, sobbing and laughing,
it was her fault! and once when she was a little tot, not old enough for
boy's play, when she fell upon her little nose and cut it and disfigured
herself, and held up that wounded little knob of a feature to have it
kissed and made well. Oh, why did he think of that now! the little thing
all trust and simple confidence! There was that time too when she jumped
up to get a gun and shoot the tramps who had hurt somebody, if John
would but give her his hand! These things came rushing into his mind as
he stood watching Elinor cry, with his hand upon the back of her chair.

She wanted John's hand now when she was going forth to far greater
dangers. Oh, poor little Nelly! poor little thing! but he could not put
her on his shoulder and carry her out to face the foe now.

She jumped up suddenly while he was thinking, with the tears still wet
upon her cheeks, but the paroxysm mastered, and the light of her eyes
coming out doubly bright like the sun from the clouds. "We poor women,"
she said with a laugh, "are so badly off, we are so handicapped, as you
call it! We can't help crying like fools! We can't help caring for what
other people think, trying to conciliate and bring them round to approve
us--when we ought to stand by our own conscience and judgment, and sense
of what is right, like independent beings."

"If that means taking your own way, Elinor, whatever any one may say to
you, I think women do it at least as much as men."

"No, it does not mean taking our own way," she cried, "and if you do not
understand any better than that, why should I---- But you do understand
better, John," she said, her countenance again softening: "you know I
want, above everything in the world, that you should approve of me and
see that I am right. That is what I want! I will do what I think right;
but, oh, if I could only have you with me in doing it, and know that you
saw with me that it was the best, the only thing to do! Happiness lies
in that, not in having one's own way."

"My dear Elinor," he said, "isn't that asking a great deal? To prevent
you from doing what you think right is in nobody's power. You are of
age, and I am sure my aunt will force nothing; but how can we change our
opinions, our convictions, our entire points of view? There is nobody in
the world I would do so much for as you, Elinor: but I cannot do that,
even for you."

The hot tears were dried from her cheeks, the passion was over. She
looked at him, her efforts to gain him at an end, on the equal footing
of an independent individual agreeing to differ, and as strong in her
own view as he could be.

"There is one thing you can do for me," she said. "Mamma knows nothing
about--fashionable gossip. She is not acquainted with the wicked things
that are said. If she disapproves it is only because---- Oh, I suppose
because one's mother always disapproves a thing that is done without
her, that she has no hand in, what she calls pledging one's self to a
stranger, and not knowing his antecedents, his circumstances, and so
forth! But she hasn't any definite ground for it as you--think you have,
judging in the uncharitable way of the world--not remembering that if we
love one another the more there is against him the more need he has of
me! But all I have to ask of you, John, is not to prejudice my mother. I
know you can do it if you please--a hint would be enough, an uncertain
word, even hesitating when you answer a question--that would be quite
enough! John, if you put things into her head----"

"You ask most extraordinary things of me," said John, turning to bay.
"To tell her lies about a man whom everybody knows--to pretend I think
one thing when I think quite another. Not to say that my duty is to
inform her exactly what things are said, so that she may judge for
herself, not let her go forth in ignorance--that is my plain duty,
Elinor."

"But you won't do it; oh, you won't do it!" she said. "Oh, John, for
the sake of all the time that you have been so good to Nelly--your own
little Nelly, nobody else's! Remember that I and everybody who loves
him know these stories to be lies--and don't, don't put things into my
mother's head! Let her judge for herself--don't, don't prejudice her,
John. It can be no one's duty to repeat malicious stories when there is
no possibility of proving or disproving them. Don't make her think----
Oh, mamma! we couldn't think where you had gone to. Yes, here is John."

"So I perceive," said Mrs. Dennistoun. It was getting towards evening,
and the room was not very light. She could not distinguish their looks
or the agitation that scarcely could have been hidden but for the dusk.
"You seem to have been having a very animated conversation. I heard your
voices all along the garden walk. Let me have the benefit of it, if
there is anything to tell."

"You know well enough, mamma, what we must have been talking about,"
said Elinor, turning half angrily away.

"To be sure," said the mother, "I ought to have known. There is nothing
so interesting as that sort of thing. I thought, however, you would
probably have put it off a little, Elinor."

"Put it off a little--when it is the thing that concerns us more than
anything else in the world!"

"That is true," said Mrs. Dennistoun, with a sigh. "Did you walk all the
way, John? I meant to have sent the pony-cart for you, but the man was
too late. It is a nice evening though, and coming out of town it is a
good thing for you to have a good walk."

"Yes, I like it more than anything," said John, "but the evening is not
so very fine. The wind is high, and I shouldn't wonder if we had rain."

"The wind is always high here," said Mrs. Dennistoun. "We don't have our
view for nothing; but the sky is quite clear in the west, and all the
clouds blowing away. I don't think we shall have more than a shower."

Elinor stood listening to this talk with restrained impatience, as if
waiting for the moment when they should come to something worth talking
about. Then she gave herself a sort of shake--half weary, half
indignant--and left the room. There was a moment's silence, until her
quick step was heard going to the other end of the house and up-stairs,
and the shutting of a door.

"Oh, John, I am very uneasy, very uneasy," said Mrs. Dennistoun. "I
scarcely thought she would have begun to you about it at once; but then
I am doing the very same. We can't think of anything else. I am not
going to worry you before dinner, for you must be tired with your walk,
and want to refresh yourself before we enter upon that weary, weary
business. But my heart misgives me dreadfully about it all. If I only
had gone with her! It was not for want of an invitation, but just my
laziness. I could not be troubled to leave my own house."

"I don't see what difference it would have made had you been with her,
aunt."

"Oh, I should have seen the man: and been able to judge what he was and
his motive, John."

"Elinor is not rich. He could scarcely have had an interested motive."

"There is some comfort in that. I have said that to myself again and
again. He could not have an interested motive. But, oh! I am uneasy!
There is the dressing-bell. I will not keep you any longer, John; but
in the evening, or to-morrow, when we can get a quiet moment----"

The dusk, was now pervading all the house--that summer dusk which
there is a natural prejudice everywhere against cutting short by
lights. He could not see her face, nor she his, as they went out of the
drawing-room together and along the long passage, which led by several
arched doorways to the stairs. John had a room on the ground floor which
was kept for gentlemen visitors, and in which the candles were twinkling
on the dressing-table. He was more than ever thankful as he caught a
glimpse of himself in the vague reflected world of the mirror, with its
lights standing up reflected too, like inquisitors spying upon him, that
there had not been light enough to show how he was looking: for though
he was both a lawyer and a man of the world, John Tatham had not been
able to keep the trouble which his interview with Elinor had caused him
out of his face.




CHAPTER III.


The drawing-room of the cottage was large and low, and had that _faux
air_ of being old-fashioned which is dear to the hearts of superior
people generally. Mrs. Dennistoun and her daughter scarcely belonged to
that class, yet they were, as ladies of leisure with a little taste for
the arts are bound to be, touched by all the fancies of their time,
which was just beginning to adore Queen Anne. There was still, however,
a mixture of luxury with the square settees and spindle-legged cabinets
which were "the fashion:" and partly because that was also "the fashion,"
and partly because on Windyhill even a July evening was sometimes a
little chill, or looked so by reason of the great darkness of the
silent, little-inhabited country outside--there was a log burning on the
fire-dogs (the newest thing in furnishing in those days though now so
common) on the hearth. The log burned as little as possible, being,
perhaps, not quite so thoroughly dry and serviceable as it would have
been in its proper period, and made a faint hissing sound in the silence
as it burned, and diffused its pungent odour through the house. The bow
window was open behind its white curtains, and it was there that the
little party gathered out of reach of the unnecessary heat and the
smoke. There was a low sofa on either side of this recess, and in the
centre the French window opened into the garden, where all the scents
were balmy in the stillness which had fallen upon the night.

Mrs. Dennistoun was tall and slim, a woman with a presence, and sat with
a sort of dignity on her side of the window, with a little table beside
her covered with her little requirements, the properties, so to speak,
without which she was never known to be--a book for moments when there
was nothing else to interest her, a case for work should there arise
any necessity for putting in a stitch in time, a bottle of salts should
she or any one else become suddenly faint, a paper cutter in cases of
emergency, and finally, for mere ornament, two roses, a red and a white,
in one of those tall old-fashioned glasses which are so pretty for
flowers. I do wrong to dismiss the roses with such vulgar qualifications
as white and red--the one was a _Souvenir de Malmaison_, the other a
_General_ ---- something or other. If you spoke to Mrs. Dennistoun
about her flowers she said, "Oh, the Malmaison," or "Oh, the General
So-and-so." Rose was only the family name, but happily, as we all know,
under the other appellation they smelt just as sweet. Mrs. Dennistoun
kept up all this little state because she had been used to do so;
because it was part of a lady's accoutrements, so to speak. She had also
a cushion, which was necessary, if not for comfort, yet for her sense of
being fully equipped, placed behind her back when she sat down. But with
all this she was not a formal or prim person. She was a woman who had
not produced a great deal of effect in life; one of those who are not
accustomed to have their advice taken, or to find that their opinion has
much weight upon others. Perhaps it was because Elinor resembled her
father that this peculiarity which had affected all Mrs. Dennistoun's
married life should have continued into a sphere where she ought to have
been paramount. But she was with her daughter as she had been with her
husband, a person of an ineffective character, taking refuge from the
sensation of being unable to influence those about her whose wills were
stronger than her own, by relinquishing authority, and in her most
decided moments offering an opinion only, no more. This was not because
she was really undecided, for on the contrary she knew her own mind well
enough; but it had become a matter of habit with her to insist upon no
opinion, knowing, as she did, how little chance she had of imposing her
opinion upon the stronger wills about her. She had two other children
older than Elinor: one, the eldest of all, married in India, a woman
with many children of her own, practically altogether severed from
the maternal nest; the other an adventurous son, who was generally
understood to be at the ends of the earth, but seldom or never had any
more definite address. This lady had naturally gone through many pangs
and anxieties on behalf of these children, who had dropped away from her
side into the unknown; but it belonged to her character to have said
very little about this, so that she was generally supposed to take
things very easily, and other mothers were apt to admire the composure
of Mrs. Dennistoun, whose son might be being murdered by savages at any
moment, for anything she knew--or minded, apparently. "Now it would have
driven _me_ out of my senses!" the other ladies said. Mrs. Dennistoun
perhaps did not feel the back so well fitted to the burden as
appeared--but she kept her own sentiments on this subject entirely to
herself.

(I may say too--but this, the young reader may skip without
disadvantage--by way of explanation of a peculiarity which has lately
been much remarked as characteristic of those records of human history
contemptuously called fiction, _i.e._, the unimportance, or ill-report,
or unjust disapproval of the mother in records of this description--that
it is almost impossible to maintain her due rank and character in a
piece of history, which has to be kept within certain limits--and where
her daughter the heroine must have the first place. To lessen _her_
pre-eminence by dwelling at length upon the mother, unless that mother
is a fool, or a termagant, or something thoroughly contrasting with the
beauty and virtues of the daughter--would in most cases be a mistake in
art. For one thing the necessary incidents are wanting, for I strongly
object, and so I think do most people, to mothers who fall in love, or
think of marriage, or any such vanity in their own person, and unless
she is to interfere mischievously with the young lady's prospects, or
take more or less the part of the villain, how is she to be permitted
any importance at all? For there cannot be two suns in one sphere, or
two centres to one world. Thus the mother has to be sacrificed to the
daughter: which is a parable; or else it is the other way, which is
against all the principles and prepossessions of life.)

Elinor did not sit up like her mother. She had flung herself upon the
opposite sofa, with her arms flung behind her head, supporting it with
her fingers half buried in the twists of her hair. She was not tall
like Mrs. Dennistoun, and there was far more vivid colour than had ever
been the mother's in her brown eyes and bright complexion, which was
milk-white and rose-red after an old-fashioned rule of colour, too crude
perhaps for modern artistic taste. Sometimes these delightful tints go
with a placid soul which never varies, but in Elinor's case there was a
demon in the hazel of the eyes, not dark enough for placidity, all fire
at the best of times, and ready in a moment to burst into flame. She
it was who had to be in the forefront of the interest, and not her
mother, though for metaphysical, or what I suppose should now be
called psychological interests, the elder lady was probably the most
interesting of the two. Elinor beat her foot upon the carpet, out of
sheer impatience, while John lingered alone in the dining-room. What did
he stay there for? When there are several men together, and they drink
wine, the thing is comprehensible; but one man alone who takes his
claret with his dinner, and cares for nothing more, why should he stay
behind when there was so much to say to him, and not one minute too
much time till Monday morning, should the house be given up to talk not
only by day but by night? But it was no use beating one's foot, for John
did not come.

"You spoke to your cousin, Elinor, before dinner?" her mother said.

"Oh, yes, I spoke to him before dinner. What did he come here for but
that? I sent for him on purpose, you know, mamma, to hear what he would
say."

"And what did he say?"

This most natural question produced a small convulsion once more on
Elinor's side. She loosed the hands that had been supporting her head
and flung them out in front of her. "Oh, mamma, how can you be so
exasperating! What did he say? What was he likely to say? If the beggar
maid that married King Cophetua had a family it would have been exactly
the same thing--though in that case surely the advantage was all on the
gentleman's side."

"We know none of the particulars in that case," said Mrs. Dennistoun,
calmly. "I have always thought it quite possible that the beggar maid
was a princess of an old dynasty and King Cophetua a _parvenu_. But in
your case, Elinor----"

"You know just as little," said the girl, impetuously.

"That is what I say. I don't know the man who has possessed himself of
my child's fancy and heart. I want to know more about him. I want----"

"For goodness' sake, whatever you want, don't be sentimental, mamma!"

"Was I sentimental? I didn't mean it. He has got your heart, my dear,
whatever words may be used."

"Yes--and for ever!" said the girl, turning round upon herself. "I know
you think I don't know my own mind; but there will never be any change
in me. Oh, what does John mean, sitting all by himself in that stuffy
room? He has had time to smoke a hundred cigarettes!"

"Elinor, you must not forget it is rather hard upon John to be brought
down to settle your difficulties for you. What do you want with him?
Only that he should advise you to do what you have settled upon doing.
If he took the other side, how much attention would you give him? You
must be reasonable, my dear."

"I would give him every attention," said Elinor, "if he said what was
reasonable. You don't think mere blind opposition is reasonable, I hope,
mamma. To say Don't, merely, without saying why, what reason is there in
that?"

"My dear, when you argue I am lost. I am not clever at making out my
ground. Mine is not mere blind opposition, or indeed opposition at all.
You have been always trained to use your own faculties, and I have never
made any stand against you."

"Why not? why not?" said the girl, springing to her feet. "That is just
the dreadful, dreadful part of it! Why don't you say straight out what
I am to do and keep to it, and not tell me I must make use of my own
faculties? When I do, you put on a face and object. Either don't object,
or tell me point-blank what I am to do."

"Do you think for one moment if I did, you would obey me, Elinor?"

"Oh, I don't know what I might do in that case, for it will never
happen. You will never take that responsibility. For my part, if you
locked me up in my room and kept me on bread and water I should think
_that_ reasonable; but not this kind of letting I dare not wait upon I
would, saying I am to exercise my own faculties, and then hesitating and
finding fault."

"I daresay, my dear," said Mrs. Dennistoun, with great tolerance, "that
this may be provoking to your impatient mind: but you must put yourself
in my place a little, as I try to put myself in yours. I have never seen
Mr. Compton. It is probable, or at least quite possible, that if I knew
him I might look upon him with your eyes----"

"Probable! Possible! What words to use! when all my happiness, all my
life, everything I care for is in it: and my own mother thinks it just
possible that she might be able to tolerate the man that--the man
who----"

She flung herself down on her seat again, panting and excited. "Did you
wear out Adelaide like that," she cried, "before she married, papa and
you----"

"Adelaide was very different, Elinor. She married _salon les règles_ a
man whom we all knew. There was no trouble about it. Your father was
the one who was impatient then. He thought it too well arranged, too
commonplace and satisfactory. You may believe he did not object to that
in words, but he laughed at them and it worried him. It has done very
well on the whole," said Mrs. Dennistoun, with a faint sigh.

"You say that--and then you sigh. There is always a little reserve. You
are never wholly satisfied."

"One seldom is in this world," said Mrs. Dennistoun, this time with a
soft laugh. "This world is not very satisfactory. One makes the best one
can of it."

"And that is just what I hate to hear," said Elinor, "what I have always
heard. Oh, yes, when you don't say it you mean it, mamma. One can read
it in the turn of your head. You put up with things. You think perhaps
they might have been worse. In every way that's your philosophy. And
it's killing, killing to all life! I would rather far you said out,
'Adelaide's husband is a prig and I hate him.'"

"There is only one drawback, that it would not be true. I don't in the
least hate him. I am glad I was not called upon to marry him myself, I
don't think I should have liked it. But he makes Adelaide a very good
husband, and she is quite happy with him--as far as I know."

"The same thing again--never more. I wonder, I wonder after I have been
married a dozen years what you will say of me?"

"I wonder, too: if we could but know that it would solve the question,"
the mother said. Elinor looked at her with a provoked and impatient air,
which softened off after a moment--partly because she heard the door of
the dining-room open--into a smile.

"I try you in every way," she said, half laughing. "I do everything to
beguile you into a pleasanter speech. I thought you must at least have
said then that you hoped you would have nothing to say but happiness.
No! you are not to be caught, however one tries, mamma."

John came in at this moment, not without a whiff about him of the
cigarette over which he had lingered so. It relieved him to see the
two ladies seated opposite each other in the bow window, and to hear
something like a laugh in the air. Perhaps they were discussing other
things, and not this momentous marriage question, in which certainly no
laughter was.

"You have your usual fire," he said, "but the wind has quite gone down,
and I am sure it is not wanted to-night."

"It looks cheerful always, John."

"Which is the reason, I suppose, why you carefully place yourself out of
sight of it--one of the prejudices of English life."

And then he came forward into the recess of the window, which was partly
separated from the room by a table with flowers on it, and a great bush
in a pot, of delicate maiden-hair fern. It was perhaps significant,
though he did not mean it for any demonstration of partisanship, that
he sat down on Elinor's side. Both the ladies felt it so instinctively,
although, on the contrary, had the truth been known, all John's real
agreement was with the mother; but in such a conjuncture it is not truth
but personal sympathy that carries the day. "You are almost in the dark
here," he said.

"Neither of us is doing anything. One is lazy on a summer night."

"There is a great deal more in it than that," said Elinor, in a voice
which faltered a little. "You talk about summer nights, and the weather,
and all manner of indifferent things, but you know all the time there
is but one real subject to talk of, and that we are all thinking of
that."

"That is my line, aunt," said John. "Elinor is right. We might sit
and make conversation, but of course this is the only subject we are
thinking of. It's very kind of you to take me into the consultation. Of
course I am in a kind of way the nearest in relation, and the only man
in the family--except my father--and I know a little about law, and all
that. Now let me hear formally, as if I knew nothing about it (and, in
fact, I know very little), what the question is. Elinor has met someone
who--who has proposed to her--not to put too fine a point upon it," said
John, with a smile that was somewhat ghastly--"and she has accepted him.
Congratulations are understood, but here there arises a hitch."

"There arises no hitch. Mamma is dissatisfied (which mamma generally is)
chiefly because she does not know Mr. Compton; and some wretched old
woman, who doesn't know him either, has written to her--to her and also
to me--telling us a pack of lies," said Elinor, indignantly, "to which I
do not give the least credence for a moment--not for a moment!"

"That's all very well for you," said John, "it's quite simple; but for
us, Elinor--that is, for your mother and me, as you are good enough to
allow me to have a say in the matter--it's not so simple. We feel, you
know, that, like Cæsar's wife, our Elinor's--husband"--he could not help
making a grimace as he said that word, but no one saw or suspected
it--"should be above suspicion."

"That is exactly what I feel, John."

"Well, we must do something about it, don't you see? Probably it will be
as easy as possible for him to clear himself." (The dis-Honourable Phil!
Good heavens! to think it was a man branded with such a name that was to
marry Elinor! For a moment he was silenced by the thought, as if some
one had given him a blow.)

"To clear himself!" said Elinor. "And do you think I will permit him to
be asked to clear himself? Do you think I will allow him to believe for
a moment that _I_ believed anything against him? Do you think I will
take the word of a spiteful old woman?"

"Old women are not always spiteful, and they are sometimes right."
John put out his hand to prevent Mrs. Dennistoun from speaking, which,
indeed, she had no intention of doing. "I don't mean so, of course, in
Mr. Compton's case--and I don't know what has been said."

"Things that are very uncomfortable--very inconsistent with a happy life
and a comfortable establishment," said Mrs. Dennistoun.

"Oh, if you could only hear yourself, mamma! You are not generally a
Philistine, I must say that for you; but if you only heard the tone
in which you said 'comfortable establishment!' the most conventional
match-making in existence could not have done it better; and as for
what has been said, there has nothing been said but what is said about
everybody--what, probably, would be said of you yourself, John, for you
play whist sometimes, I hear, and often billiards, at the club."

A half-audible "God forbid!" had come from John's lips when she said,
"What would probably be said of yourself"--audible that is to Elinor,
not to the mother. She sprang up as this murmur came to her ear: "Oh, if
you are going to prejudge the case, there is nothing for me to say!"

"I should be very sorry to prejudge the case, or to judge it all," said
John. "I am too closely interested to be judicial. Let somebody who
knows nothing about it be your judge. Let the accusations be submitted--to
your Rector, say; he's a sensible man enough, and knows the world. He
won't be scared by a rubber at the club, or that sort of thing. Let him
inquire, and then your mind will be at rest."

"There is only one difficulty, John," said Mrs. Dennistoun. "Mr. Hudson
would be the best man in the world, only for one thing--that it is from
his sister and his wife that the warning came."

"Oh!" said John. This fact seemed to take him aback in the most
ludicrous way. He sat and gazed at them, and had not another word to
say. Perhaps the fact that he himself who suggested the inquiry was
still better informed of the true state of the case, and of the truth of
the accusation, than were those to whom he might have submitted it, gave
him a sense of the hopelessness and also absurdity of the attempt more
than anything else could have done.

"And that proves, if there was nothing else," said Elinor, "how false
it is: for how could Mrs. Hudson and Mary Dale know? They are not
fashionable people, they are not in society. How could they or any one
like them know anything of Phil"--she stopped quickly, drew herself up,
and added--"of Mr. Compton, I mean?"

"They might not know, but they might state their authority," Mrs.
Dennistoun said; "and if the Rector cannot be used to help us, surely,
John, you are a man of the world, you are not like a woman, unacquainted
with evidence. Why should not you do it, though you are, as you kindly
say, an interested party?"

"He shall not do it. I forbid him to do it. If he takes in hand anything
of the kind he must say good-by to me."

"You hear?" said John; "but I could not do it in any case, my dear
Elinor. I am too near. I never could see this thing all round. Why not
your lawyer, old Lynch, a decent old fellow----"

"I will tell him the same," cried Elinor; "I will never speak to him
again."

"My dear," said her mother, "you will give everybody the idea that you
don't want to know the truth."

"I know the truth already," said Elinor, rising with great dignity. "Do
you think that any slander would for a moment shake my faith in you--or
you? You don't deserve it, John, for you turn against me--you that I
thought were going to take my part; but do you think if all the people
in London set up one story that I would believe it against you? And how
should I against _him_?" she added, with an emphasis upon the word, as
expressing something immeasurably more to be loved and trusted than
either mother or cousin, by which, after having raised John up to a sort
of heaven of gratified affection, she let him down again to the ground
like a stone. Oh, yes! trusted in with perfect faith, nothing believed
against him, whom she had known all her life--but yet not to be mentioned
in the same breath with the ineffable trust she reposed in the man she
loved--whom she did not know at all. The first made John's countenance
beam with emotion and pleasure, the second brought a cold shade over his
face. For a moment he could scarcely speak.

"She bribes us," he said at last, forcing a smile. "She flatters us, but
only to let us drop again, Mrs. Dennistoun; it is as good as saying,
'What are we to _him_?'"

"They all do so," said the elder lady, calmly; "I am used to it."

"But, perhaps, I am not quite--used to it," said John, with something in
his voice which made them both look at him--Elinor only for a moment,
carelessly, before she swept away--Mrs. Dennistoun with a more warmly
awakened sensation, as if she had made some discovery. "Ah!" she said,
with a tone of pain. But Elinor did not wait for any further disclosures.
She waved her hand, and went off with her head high, carrying, as she
felt, the honours of war. They might plot, indeed, behind her back, and
try to invent some tribunal before which her future husband might be
arraigned; but John, at least, would say nothing to make things worse.
John would be true to her--he would not injure Phil Compton. Elinor,
perhaps, guessed a little of what John was thinking, and felt, though
she could scarcely have told how, that it would be a point of honour
with him not to betray her love.

He sat with Mrs. Dennistoun in partial silence for some time after
this. He felt as if he had been partially discovered--partially, and yet
more would be discovered than there was to discover; for if either of
them believed that he was in love with Elinor, they were mistaken, he
said to himself. He had been annoyed by her engagement, but he had never
come to the point of asking her that question in his own person. No, nor
would not, he said to himself--certainly would not--not even to save her
from the clutches of this gambler and adventurer. No; they might think
what they liked, but this was the case. He never should have done
it--never would have exposed himself to refusal--never besought this
high-tempered girl to have the control of his life. Poor Nelly all the
same! poor little thing! To think she had so little judgment as to
ignore what might have been a great deal better, and to pin her faith to
the dis-Honourable Phil.




CHAPTER IV.


In the morning John accompanied Elinor to church. Mrs. Dennistoun had
found an excuse for not going, which I am sorry to say was a way she
had. She expressed (and felt) much sorrow for it herself, saying, which
was quite true, that not to go was a great distress to her, and put the
household out, and was a custom she did not approve of. But somehow
it had grown upon her. She regretted this, but did it, saying that
everybody was illogical, and that when Elinor had some one to go with
she thought herself justified at her age in this little indulgence.
Neither Elinor nor John objected to the arrangement. There are things
that can be said in a walk while both parties are in motion, and when it
is not necessary to face each other and to be subjected each to the
other's examination of feature and expression. It is easier in this way
to say many things, to ask questions which might be embarrassing, to
receive the fire of an examination which it might be otherwise difficult
to meet. Thus the two had not walked above half the way to church,
which was on the other edge of the combe, and stood, a lovely old
place--but not the trim and restored and well-decorated edifice it is
nowadays--tinkling its little bells into the sweet moorland air, amid
such a hum of innumerable bees as seemed to make the very sunshine a
vehicle for sound--before John began to perceive that he was being
ingeniously driven to revelations which he had never intended, by a
process for which he was not at all prepared. She who had been so
indignant last night and determined not to allow a word to be said
against the immaculate honour of the man she loved, was now--was it
possible?--straining all her faculties to obtain from him, whom she
would not permit to be Phil Compton's judge, such unguarded admissions
as would enlighten her as to what Phil Compton was accused of. It was
some time before John perceived her aim; he did not even grasp the idea
at first that this girl whose whole heart was set upon marrying Phil
Compton, and defying for his sake every prophecy of evil and all the
teachings of prudence, did not indeed at all know what it was which Phil
had been supposed to have done. Had she been a girl in society she could
scarcely have avoided some glimmerings of knowledge. She would have
heard an unguarded word here and there, a broken phrase, an expression
of scorn or dislike, she might even have heard that most unforgettable
of nicknames, the dis-Honourable Phil. But Elinor, who was not in
society, heard none of these things. She had been warned in the first
fervour of her betrothal that he was not a man she ought to marry, but
why? nobody had told her; how was she to know?

"You don't like Lady Mariamne, John?"

"It matters very little whether I like her or not: we don't meet once in
a year."

"It will matter if you are to be in a kind of way connected. What has
she ever done that you shouldn't like her? She is very nice at home;
she has three nice little children. It's quite pretty to see her with
them."

"Ah, I daresay; it's pretty to see a tiger with her cubs, I don't
doubt."

"What do you mean, John? What has she ever done?"

"I cannot tell you, Elinor; nothing perhaps. She does not take my fancy:
that's all."

"That's not all; you could never be so unjust and so absurd. How
dreadful you good people are! Pretending to mean kindness," she cried,
"you put the mark of your dislike upon people, and then you won't say
why. What have _they_ done?"

It was this "they" that put John upon his guard. Hitherto she had only
been asking about the sister, who did not matter so very much. If a man
was to be judged by his sister! but "they" gave him a new light.

"Can't you understand, Elinor," he said, "that without doing anything
that can be built upon, a woman may set herself in a position of enmity
to the world, her hand against every one, and every one's hand against
her?"

"I know that well enough--generally because she does not comply with
every conventional rule, but does and thinks what commends itself to
her; I do that myself--so far as I can with mamma behind me."

"You! the question has nothing to do with you."

"Why not with me as much as with another of my family?" said Elinor,
throwing back her head.

He turned round upon her with something like a snort of indignation: she
to be compared--but Elinor met his eyes with scornful composure and
defiance, and John was obliged to calm himself. "There's no analogy,"
he said; "Lady Mariamne is an old campaigner. She's up to everything.
Besides, a sister-in-law--if it comes to that--is not a very near
relation. No one will judge you by her." He would not be led into any
discussion of the other, whose name, alas! Elinor intended to bear.

"If it comes to that. Perhaps you think," said Elinor, with a smile of
fine scorn, "that you will prevent it ever coming to that?"

"Oh, no," he said, "I'm very humble; I don't think much of my own powers
in that way: nothing that I can do will affect it, if Providence doesn't
take it in hand."

"You really think it's a big enough thing to invoke Providence about?"

"If Providence looks after the sparrows as we are told," said John, "it
certainly may be expected to step in to save a nice girl like you,
Nelly, from--from connections you'll soon get to hate--and--and a shady
man!"

She turned upon him with sparkling eyes in a sudden blaze of indignation.
"How dare you! how dare you!"

"I dare a great deal more than that to save you. You must hear me,
Nelly: they're all badly spoken of, not one, but all. They are a shady
lot--excuse a man's way of talking. I don't know what other words to
use--partly from misfortune, but more from---- Nelly, Nelly, how could
you, a high-minded, well-brought-up girl like you, tolerate that?"

She turned upon him again, breathing hard with restrained rage and
desperation; evidently she was at a loss for words to convey her
indignant wrath: and at last in sheer inability to express the vehemence
of her feelings she fastened on one word and repeated "well-brought-up!"
in accents of scorn.

"Yes," said John, "my aunt and you may not always understand each other,
but she's proved her case to every fair mind by yourself, Elinor. A girl
could not be better brought up than you've been: and you could not put
up with it, not unless you changed your nature as well as your name."

"With what?" she said, "with what?" They had gone up and down the
sloping sides of the combe, through the rustling copse, sometimes where
there was a path, sometimes where there was none, treading over the
big bushes of ling and the bell-heather, all bursting into bloom, past
groups of primeval firs and seedling beeches, self-sown, over little
hillocks and hollows formed of rocks or big old roots of trees covered
with the close glittering green foliage and dark blue clusters of the
dewberry, with the hum of bees filling the air, the twittering of the
birds, the sound of the church bells--nothing more like the heart of
summer, more peaceful, genial, happy than that brooding calm of nature
amid all the harmonious sounds, could be.

But as Elinor put this impatient question, her countenance all ablaze
with anger and vehemence and resolution, yet with a gleam of anxiety in
the puckers of her forehead and the eyes which shone from beneath them,
they stepped out upon the road by which other groups were passing, all
bound towards the centre of the church and its tinkling bells. Elinor
stopped, and drew a longer panting breath, and gave him a look of
fierce reproach, as if this too were his fault: and then she smoothed
her ruffled plumes, after the manner of women, and replied to the
Sunday-morning salutations, with the smiles and nods of use and wont.
She knew everybody, both the rich and the poor, or rather I should say
the well-off and the less-well-off, for there were neither rich nor
poor, formally speaking, on Windyhill. John did not find it so easy to
put his emotions in his pocket. He cast an admiring glance upon her as
with heightened colour and a little panting of the breath, but no other
sign of disturbance, she made her inquiries after this one's mother and
that one's child. It was wonderful to him to see how the storm was got
under in a moment. An occasional glance aside at himself from the corner
of her eye, a sort of dart of defiance as if to bid him remember that
she was not done with him, was shot at John from time to time over the
heads of the innocent country people in whom she pretended to be so much
interested. Pretended!--was it pretence, or was the one as real as the
other? He heard her promising to come to-morrow to see an invalid, to
send certain articles as soon as she got home, to look up certain books.
Would she do so? or was all this a mere veil to cover the other which
engaged all her soul?

And then there came the service--that soothing routine of familiar
prayers, which the lips of men and women absorbed in the violence and
urgency of life murmur over almost without knowing, with now and then an
awakening to something that touches their own aspirations, to something
that offers or that asks for help. "Because there is none other that
fighteth for us but only Thou, O God." That seems to the careless soul
such a _non sequitur_, as if peace was asked for, only because there
was none other to fight; but to the man heavily laden, what a cry out
of the depths! Because there is none other--all resources gone, all
possibilities: but one that fighteth for us, standing fast, always the
champion of the perplexed, the overborne, the weak. John was a little
careless in this respect, as so many young men are. He thought most of
the music when he joined the fashionable throng in the Temple Church.
But there was no music to speak of at Windyhill. There was more sound of
the bees outside, and the birds and the sighing bass of the fir-trees
than of anything more carefully concerted. The organ was played with a
curious drone in it, almost like that of the primitive bagpipe. But
there was that one phrase, a strong strain of human appeal, enough to
lift the world, nay, to let itself go straight to the blue heavens:
"Because there is none other that fighteth for us but only Thou, O God."

Mr. Hudson preached his little sermon like a discord in the midst. What
should he have preached it for, that little sermon, which was only
composed because he could not help himself, which was about nothing in
heaven or earth? John gave it a sort of partial attention because he
could not help it, partly in wonder to think how a sensible man like Mr.
Hudson could account to himself for such strange little interruption of
the natural sequence of high human emotion. What theory had he in his
mind? This was a question John was fond of putting to himself, with
perhaps an idea peculiar to a lawyer, that every man must be thinking
what he is about, and be able to produce a clear reason, and, as it
were, some theory of the meaning of his own actions--which everybody
must know is nonsense. For the Rector of course preached just because it
was in his day's work, and the people would have been much surprised,
though possibly much relieved, had he not done so--feeling that to
listen was in the day's work too, and to be gone through doggedly as a
duty. John thought how much better it would be to have some man who
could preach now and then when he had something to say, instead of
troubling the Rector, who, good man, had nothing. But it is not to be
supposed that he was thinking this consecutively while the morning
went on. It flitted through his mind from time to time among his many
thinkings about the Compton family and Elinor; poor Nelly, standing upon
the edge of that precipice and the helplessness of every one to save
her, and the great refrain like the peal of an organ going through
everything, "None other that fighteth for us but only Thou, O God."
Surely, surely to prevent this sacrifice He would interfere.

She turned to him the moment they were out of the church doors with
that same look of eager defiance yet demand, and as soon as they left
the road, the first step into the copse, putting out her hand to
call his attention: "You said I could not put up with it, a girl so
well-brought-up as I am. What is it a well-brought-up girl can't put
up with? A disorderly house, late hours, and so forth, hateful to the
well-brought-up? What is it, what is it, John?"

"Have you been thinking of that all through the morning prayers?" he
said.

"Yes, I have been thinking about it. What did you expect me to think
about? Is there anything else so important? Mr. Hudson's sermon,
perhaps, which I have heard before, which I suppose _you_ listened to,"
she said, with a troubled laugh.

"I did a little, wondering how a good man like that could go on doing
it; and there were other things----" John did not like to say what it
was which was still throbbing through the air to him, and through his
own being.

"Nothing that is of so much moment to me: come back, John, to the
well-brought-up girl."

"You think that's a poor sort of description, Elinor; so it is. You are
of course a great deal more than that. Still it's what one can turn to
most easily. You don't know what life is in a sort of fast house, where
there is nothing thought of but amusement or where it's a constant round
of race meetings, yachting, steeplechases--I don't know if men still
ride steeplechases--I mean that sort of thing: Monte Carlo in the winter:
betting all the year round--if not on one thing then on another;
expedients to raise money, for money's always wanted. You don't
know--how can you know?--what goes on in a fast life."

"Don't you see, John," she cried, eagerly, "that all that, if put in a
different way not to their prejudice, if put in the right way would
sound delightful? There is no harm in these things at all. Betting's not
a sin in the Bible any more than races are. Don't you see it's only the
abuse of them that's wrong? One might ruin one's health, I believe, with
tea, which is the most righteous thing! I should like above all things a
yacht, say in the Mediterranean, and to go to Monte Carlo, which is a
beautiful place, and where there is the best music in the world, besides
the gambling. I should like even to see the gambling once in a way,
for the fun of the thing. You don't frighten me at all. I have been a
fortnight at Lady Mariamne's, and the continual 'go' was delightful;
there was never a dull moment. As for expedients to raise money,
_there_----"

"To be sure--old Prestwich is as rich as Croesus--or was," said John,
with significance, "but you are not going to live with Lady Mariamne, I
suppose."

"Oh, John!" she cried, "oh, John!" suddenly seizing him by the arm,
clasping her hands on it in the pretty way of earnestness she had,
though one hand held her parasol, which was inconvenient. The soft face
was suffused with rosy colour, so different from the angry red, the
flush of love and tenderness--her eyes swam in liquid light, looking up
with mingled happiness and entreaty to John's face. "Fancy what he says,
that he will not object to come here for half the year to let me be with
my mother! Remember what he is, a man of fashion, and fond of the world,
and of going out and all that. He has consented to come, nay, he almost
offered to come for six months in the year to be with mamma."

"Good heavens," cried John to himself, "he must indeed be down on his
luck!" but what he said was, "Does your mother know of this, Elinor?"

"I have not told her yet. I have reserved it to hear first what you had
to say: and so far as I can make out you have nothing at all to say,
only general things, disapproval in the general. What should you say if
I told you that he disapproves too? He said himself that there had been
too much of all that--that he had backed something--isn't that what you
say?--backed it at odds, and stood to win what he calls a pot of money.
But after that was decided--for he said he could not be off bets that
were made--never any more. Now that I know you have nothing more to say
my heart is free, and I can tell you. He has never really liked that
sort of life, but was led into it when he was very young. And now as
soon as--we are together, you know"--she looked so bright, so sweet in
the happiness of her love, that John could have flung her from his arms,
and felt that she insulted him by that clinging hold--"he means to turn
entirely to serious things, and to go into politics, John."

"Oh, he is going into politics!"

"Of course, on the people's side--to do everything for them--Home Rule,
and all that is best: to see that they are heard in Parliament, and have
their wants attended to, instead of jobs and corruption everywhere. So
you will see, John, that if he has been fast, and gone a little too
far, and been very much mixed up in the Turf, and all that, it was only
in the exuberance of youth, liking the fun of it, as I feel I should
myself. But that now, now all that is to be changed when he steps into
settled, responsible life. I should not have told you if you had
repeated the lies that people say. But as you did not, but only found
fault with him for being fast----"

"Then you have heard--what people say?" He shifted his arm a little,
so that she instinctively perceived that the affectionate clasp of her
hands was no longer agreeable to him, and his face seemed suddenly to
have become a blank page, absolutely devoid of all expression. He kicked
vigorously at one of the hillocks he had stumbled against, as if he
thought he could dislodge it and get it out of his way.

"Mariamne told me there was a lot of lies--that people said--I am so
glad, John, oh! so thankful, that you have not repeated any of them;
for now I can feel you are my own good John, as you always were, not a
slanderer of any one, and we can go on being fond of each other like
brother and sister. I have told him you have been the best of brothers
to me."

"Oh," said John, without a sign of wonder or admiration in him, with a
dead blank in his face.

"And what do you think he said? 'Then I know he must be a capital
fellow, Ne----'"

"Not Nelly," said poor John, with a foolish pang that seemed to rend his
heart. Oh, if that scamp, that cheat, that low betting, card-playing
rascal were but here! he would capital-fellow him. To take not herself
only, but the dear pet name that she had said was only John's----

"He says Nell sometimes, John. Oh, not Nelly--Nelly is for you only. I
would never let him call me that. But they are all for short names,
one syllable--he is Phil, and Mariamne, well at home they call her
Jew--horrible, isn't it?--because she was called after some Jewess; but
somehow it seems queer when you see her, so fair and frizzy, like
anything but a Jew."

"So I have got one letter to myself," said John. "I don't know that I
think that worth very much, however. And so far as I can see, you seem
to think everything very fine--the bets, perhaps, and the rows and all."

"Well they are, you know," said Elinor, with a laugh, "to a little
country mouse like me that has never seen anything. There is always
something going on, and their slang way of speaking is certainly very
amusing if it is not at all dignified, and they have such droll ways of
looking at things. All so entirely different! Don't you know, John,
sometimes in one's life one longs for something to be quite different. A
complete change, anything new."

"If that is what you long for, no doubt you will get it, Elinor."

"Well!" she cried, "I have had the other for three-and-twenty years,
long enough to have exhausted it, don't you think? but I don't mean
to throw it over, oh, no! Coming back to mamma makes the arrangement
perfect. Probably in the end it is the old life, the life I was brought
up in that I shall like best in the long run. That is one thing of being
well brought up. Phil will laugh till he cries when I tell him of your
description of me as a well-brought-up girl."

John set his teeth as he walked or rather stumbled along by her side,
catching in the roots of the trees as he had never done before, and
swearing under his breath. Her flutter of talk running on, delighted,
full of laughter and softness, as if he had fully declared his
satisfaction and was interested in every detail, kept John in a state
of suppressed fury which made his countenance dark, and almost took the
sight from his eyes. He did not know how to escape from that false
position, nor did she give him time, she had so much to say. Mrs.
Dennistoun looked anxiously at the pair as they came up through the
copse to the level of the cottage. There were no enclosures in that
primitive place. From the copse you came straight into the garden with
its banks of flowers. She was seated near the cottage door in a corner
sheltered from the sun, with a number of books about her. But I don't
think she had read anything except some portions of the lessons in the
morning service. She had been sitting with her eyes vaguely fixed upon
the horizon and her hands clasped in her lap, and a heavy shadow like an
overhanging cloud upon her mind. But when she heard Elinor's voice
approaching so gay and tuneful her heart rose a little. John evidently
could have had nothing very bad to say. Elinor had been satisfied
with the morning. Mrs. Dennistoun had expected to see them come back
estranged and silent. The conclusion she drew was entirely satisfactory.
After all John must have been moved solely by general disapproval, which
is so very different from the dreadful hints and warnings that might
mean any criminality. Elinor was talking to him as freely as she had
done before this spectre rose. It must, Mrs. Dennistoun concluded, be
all right.

It was not till he was going away that she had an opportunity of talking
with him alone. Her satisfaction, it must be allowed, had been a little
subdued by John's demeanour during the afternoon and evening. But Mrs.
Dennistoun had said to herself that there might be other ways of
accounting for this. She had long had a fancy that John was more
interested in Elinor than he had confessed himself to be. It had been
her conviction that as soon as he felt it warrantable, as soon as he
was sufficiently well-established, and his practice secured, he would
probably declare himself, with, she feared, no particular issue so far
as Elinor was concerned. And perhaps he was disappointed, poor fellow,
which was a very natural explanation of his glum looks. But at breakfast
on Monday Elinor announced her intention of driving her cousin to the
station, and went out to see that the pony was harnessed, an operation
which took some time, for the pony was out in the field and had to be
caught, and the man of all work, who had a hundred affairs to look
after, had to be caught too to perform this duty; which sometimes,
however, Elinor performed herself, but always with some expenditure of
time. Mrs. Dennistoun seized the opportunity, plunging at once into the
all-important subject.

"You seemed to get on all right together yesterday, John, so I suppose
you found that after all there was not very much to say."

"I was not allowed to say----anything. You mean----"

"Oh, John, John, do you mean to tell me after all----"

"Aunt Ellen," he said, "stop it if you can; if there is any means in the
world by which you can stop it, do so. I can't bring accusations against
the man, for I couldn't prove them. I only know what everybody knows. He
is not a man fit for Elinor to marry. He is not fit to touch the tie of
her shoe."

"Oh, don't trouble me with your superlatives, John. Elinor is a good
girl and a clever girl, but not a lady of romance. Is there anything
really against him? Tell me, for goodness' sake! Even with these few
words you have made me very unhappy," Mrs. Dennistoun said, in a half
resentful tone.

"I can't help it," said the unfortunate man, "I can't bring accusations,
as I tell you. He is simply a scamp--that is all I know."

"A scamp!" said Mrs. Dennistoun, with a look of alarm. "But then that is
a word that has so many meanings. A scamp may be only a careless fellow,
nice in his way. That is not enough to break off a marriage for. And,
John, as you have said so much, you must say more."

"I have no more to say, that's all I know. Inquire what the Hudsons have
heard. Stop it if you can."

"Oh, dear, dear, here is Elinor back already," Mrs. Dennistoun said.




CHAPTER V.


The next time that John's presence was required at the cottage was for
the signing of the very simple settlements; which, as there was nothing
or next to nothing in the power of the man to settle upon his wife,
were easy enough. He met Mr. Lynch, who was Mrs. Dennistoun's "man of
business," and a sharp London solicitor, who was for the husband.
Elinor's fortune was five thousand pounds, no more, not counting her
expectations from him, which were left out of the question. It was a
very small matter altogether, and one which the smart solicitor who was
in Mr. Compton's interest spoke of with a certain contempt, as who
should say he was not in the habit of being disturbed and brought to the
country for any such trifle. It was now August--not a time when any man
was supposed to be available for matters like these. Mr. Lynch was just
about starting for his annual holiday, but came, at no small personal
inconvenience, to do his duty by the poor girl whom he had known all his
life. John and he travelled to the cottage together, and their aspect
was not cheerful. "Did you ever hear," said Mr. Lynch, "such a piece of
folly as this--a man with no character at all? This is what it is to
leave a girl in the sole care of her mother. What does a woman know
about such things?"

"I don't think it was her mother's fault," said John, anxious to do
justice all round. "Elinor is very head-strong, and when she has made up
her mind to a thing----"

"A bit of a girl!" said Mr. Lynch, contemptuously. He was an old bachelor
and knew nothing about the subject, as the reader will perceive. "Her
mother ought never to have permitted it for a moment. She should have
put down her foot: and then Miss Elinor would soon have come to reason.
What I wonder is the ruffian's own motives? for it can't be a little bit
of money like that. Five thousand's a mere mouthful to such a man as he
is. He'll get rid of it all in a week."

"It must be tied up as tight as possible," said John.

Here Mr. Lynch faltered a little. "She has got an idea into her head,
with the intention, I don't doubt, of defrauding herself if she can. He
has got some investment for it, it appears. He is on the board of some
company--a pretty board to take in such a fellow? But the Honourable is
always something, I suppose."

John did not say the _dis_-Honourable, though it trembled on the edge of
his tongue. "But you will not permit that?" he said.

"No, no; we will not permit it," said Mr. Lynch, with an emphasis on the
negative which sounded like failing resolution.

"That would be giving the lamb to the wolf with a vengeance."

"Exactly what I said; exactly what I said. I am very glad, Mr. Tatham,
that you take the same view."

"There is but one view to be taken," said John. "He must not have the
slightest power over her money. It must be tied up as tight as the law
can do it; not that I think it of the least consequence," he added. "Of
course, he will get it all from her one way or another. Law's but a poor
barrier against a determined man."

"I'm glad you see that too," said Mr. Lynch, "and you might say a
determined woman: for she has set her mind on this, and we'll have a
nice business with her, I can see."

"A bit of a girl!" said John, with a laugh, echoing the previous
sentiment.

"That's very true," said the old lawyer; "and still I think her
mother--but I don't put any great confidence in my own power to resist
Elinor. Poor little thing, I've known her since she was _that_ high;
indeed, I may say I knew her before she was born. And you are a
relation, Mr. Tatham?"

"Third or fourth cousin."

"But still, more intimate than a person unconnected with them, and able
to speak your mind more freely. I wonder now that you never said
anything. But in family matters sometimes one is very reluctant to
interfere."

"I said everything I could say, not to offend them mortally; but I could
only tell them the common talk of society. I told my aunt he was a
scamp: but after the first shock I am not sure that she thought that was
any such bad thing. It depended upon the sense you put upon the word,
she said."

"Oh, women, women!" said Mr. Lynch. "That's their way--a reformed rake
makes the best husband. It's an old-fashioned sentiment, but it's in the
background of their minds, a sort of tradition that they can't shake
off--or else the poor fellow has had so many disadvantages, and they
think they can make it all right. It's partly ignorance and partly
vanity. But they are all the same, and their ways in the matter of
marriage are not to be made out."

"You have a great deal of experience."

"Experience--oh, don't speak of it!" said the old gentleman. "A man has
a certain idea of the value of money, however great a fool he may be,
but the women----"

"And yet they are said to stick to money, and to be respectful of it
beyond anything but a miser. I have myself remarked----"

"In small matters," said Mr. Lynch, "in detail--sixpences to railway
porters and that sort of thing--so people say at least. But a sum of
money on paper has no effect on a woman, she will sign it away with a
wave of her hand. It doesn't touch their imagination. Five pounds in her
pocket is far more than five thousand on paper, to Elinor, for instance.
I wish," cried the old gentleman, with a little spitefulness, "that this
Married Women's Property Bill would push on and get itself made law. It
would save us a great deal of trouble, and perhaps convince the world at
the last how little able they are to be trusted with property. A nice
mess they will make of it, and plenty of employment for young
solicitors," he said, rubbing his hands.

For this was before that important bill was passed, which has not had
(like so many other bills) the disastrous consequences which Mr. Lynch
foresaw.

They were met at the station by the pony carriage, and at the door by
Elinor herself, who came flying out to meet them. She seized Mr. Lynch
by both arms, for he was a little old man, and she was bigger than he
was.

"Now you will remember what I said," she cried in his ear, yet not so
low but that John heard it too.

"You are a little witch; you mustn't insist upon anything so foolish.
Leave all that to me, my dear," said Mr. Lynch. "What do you know about
business? You must leave it to me and the other gentleman, who I suppose
is here, or coming."

"He is here, but I don't care for him. I care only for you. There are
such advantages: and I do know a great deal about business; and," she
said, with her mouth close to the old lawyer's ear, "it will please Phil
so much if I show my confidence in him, and in the things with which he
has to do."

"It will not please him so much if the thing bursts, and you are left
without a penny, my dear."

Elinor laughed. "I don't suppose he will mind a bit: he cares nothing
for money. But I do," she said. "You know you always say women love
acquisition. I want good interest, and of course with Phil on it, it
must be safe for me."

"Oh, that makes it like the Bank of England, you think! but I don't
share your confidence, my pretty Elinor. I'm an old fellow. No Phil in
the world has any charm for me. You must trust me to do what I feel is
best for you. And Mr. Tatham here is quite of my opinion."

"Oh, John! he is sure to be against me," said Elinor, with an angry
glimmer in her eyes. She had not as yet taken any notice of him while
she welcomed with such warmth his old companion. And John had stood by
offering no greeting, with his bag in his hand. But when she said this
the quick feeling girl was seized with compunction. She turned from Mr.
Lynch and held out both her hands to her cousin. "John, I didn't mean
that; it is only that I am excited and cross. And don't, oh, don't go
against me," she cried.

"I never did, and never will, Elinor," he said gravely. Then he asked,
after a moment, "Is Mr. Compton here?"

"No; how could he be here? Three gentlemen in the cottage is enough to
overwhelm us already. Mr. Sharp, fortunately, can't stay," she added,
lowering her voice; "he has to be driven back to the station to catch
the last express. And it is August," she said with a laugh; "you forget
the 15th. Now, could Phil be anywhere but where there is grouse? You
shall have some to dinner to-night that fell by his gun. That should
mollify you, for I am sure you never got grouse at the cottage before
in August. Mamma would as soon think of buying manna for you to eat."

"I think it would have been more respectful, Elinor, if he had been
here. What is grouse to you?"

"Then I don't think anything of the kind," cried Elinor. "He is much
better away. And I assure you, John, I never mean to put myself in
competition with the grouse."

The old lawyer had gone into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Dennistoun was
holding parley with Mr. Sharp. Elinor and John were standing alone in
the half light of the summer evening, the sun down, the depths of the
combe below falling into faint mist, but the sunset-tinted clouds still
floating like a vapour made of roses upon the clearness of the blue
above. "Come and take a turn through the copse," said John. "They don't
want either of us indoors."

She went with a momentary reluctance and a glance back at the bow-window
of the drawing-room, from which the sound of voices issued. "Don't you
think I should be there to keep them up to the mark?" she said, half
laughing. And then, "Well, yes--as you are going to Switzerland too. I
think you might have stayed and seen me married after all, and made
acquaintance with Phil."

"I thought I should have met him here to-day, Elinor."

"Now, how could you? You know the accommodation of the cottage just as
well as I do. We have two spare rooms, and no more."

"You could have sent me out somewhere to sleep. That has been done
before now."

"Oh, John, how persistent you are, and worrying! When I tell you that
Phil is shooting, as everybody of his kind is--do you think I want him
to give up all the habits of his life? He is not like us: we adapt
ourselves: but these people parcel out their time as if they were in a
trade, don't you know? So long in London, so long abroad, and in the
Highlands for the grouse, and somewhere else for the partridges, or they
would die."

"I think he might have departed from that routine once in a way, Elinor,
for you."

"I tell you again, John, I shall never put myself in competition"--Elinor
stopped abruptly, with perhaps, he thought, a little glimmer of
indignation in her eyes. "I hate women who do that sort of thing," she
cried. "'Give up your cigar--or me,' as I've heard girls say. Such an
unworthy thing! When one accepts a man one accepts him as he stands,
with all his habits. What should I think of him if he said, 'Give up
your tea--or me!' I should laugh in his face and throw him overboard
without a pause."

"You would never look at tea again as long as you lived if he did not
like it; I suppose that is what you mean, Elinor?"

"Perhaps if I found that out, afterwards; but to be given the choice
beforehand, never! After all, you don't half know me, John."

"Perhaps not," he said, gravely. They had left the garden behind in
its blaze of flowers, and strayed off into the subdued twilight of the
copse, where everything was in a half tone of greenness and shadow and
waning light. "There are always new lights arising on a many-sided
creature like you--and that makes one think. Do you know you are not at
all the person to take a great disappointment quietly, if that should
happen to come to you in your life?"

"A great disappointment?" she said, looking up at him with a wondering
glance. Then he thought the colour paled a little in her face. "No," she
said, "I don't suppose I should take it quietly. Who does?"

"Oh, many people--people with less determination and more patience than
you. You are not very patient by nature, Elinor."

"I never said I was."

"And though no one would give up more generously, as a voluntary matter,
you could not bear being made a nonentity of, or put in a secondary
place."

"I should not like it, I suppose."

"You would give everything, flinging it away; but to have all your
sacrifices taken for granted, your tastes made of no account----"

There was no doubt now that she had grown pale. "May I ask what all
these investigations into my character mean? I never was so anatomized
before."

"It was only to say that you are not a good subject for this kind of
experiment, Elinor. I don't see you putting up with things, making the
best of everything, submitting to have your sense of right and wrong
outraged perhaps. Some women would not be much disturbed by that. They
would put off the responsibility and feel it their duty to accept
whatever was put before them. But you--it would be a different matter
with you."

"I should hope so, if I was ever exposed to such dangers. But now may
I know what you are driving at, John, for you have some meaning in what
you say!"

He took her hand and drew it through his arm. He was in more moved than
he wished to show. "Only this, Elinor,"--he said.

"Oh, John, will you never call me Nelly any more?"

"Only this, Nelly, my little Nelly, never mine again--and that never was
mine, except in my silly thought. Only this: that if you have the least
doubt, the smallest flutter of an uncertainty, just enough to make you
hold your breath for a moment, oh, my dear girl, stop! Don't go on with
it; pause until you can make sure."

"John!" she forced her arm from his with an indignant movement. "Oh, how
do you dare to say it?" she said. "Doubt of Mr. Compton! Uncertainty
about Phil!" She laughed out, and the echo seemed to ring into all the
recesses of the trees. "I would be much more ready to doubt myself," she
said.

"Doubt yourself; that is what I mean. Think if you are not deceiving
yourself. I don't think you are so very sure as you believe you are,
Nelly. You don't feel so certain----"

"Do you know that you are insulting me, John? You say as much as that I
am a fool carried away by a momentary enthusiasm, with no real love, no
true feeling in me, tempted, perhaps, as Mrs. Hudson thinks, by the
Honourable!" Her lip quivered, and the fading colour came back in a rush
to her face. "It is hard enough to have a woman like that think it, who
ought to know better, who has always known me--but you, John!"

"You may be sure, Elinor, that I did not put it on that ground."

"No, perhaps: but on ground not much more respectful to me--perhaps that
I have been fascinated by a handsome man, which is not considered
derogatory. Oh, John, a girl does not give herself away on an argument
like that. I may be hasty and self-willed and impatient, as you say; but
when you--love!" Her face flushed like a rose, so that even in the grey
of the evening it shone out like one of the clouds full of sunset that
still lingered on the sky. A few quick tears followed, the natural
consequence of her emotion. And then she turned to him with the ineffable
condescension of one farther advanced in life stooping sweetly to his
ignorance. "You have not yet come to the moment in your experience when
you can understand that, dear John."

Oh, the insight and the ignorance, the knowledge and the absence of all
perception! He, too, laughed out, as she had done, with a sense of the
intolerable ridicule and folly and mistake. "Perhaps that's how it is,"
he said.

Elinor looked at him gravely, in an elder-sisterly, profoundly-investigating
way, and then she took his arm quietly and turned towards home. "I shall
forget what you have said, and you will forget that you ever said it;
and now we will go home, John, and be just the same dear friends as
before."

"Will you promise me," he said, "that whatever happens, without pride,
or recollection of what I've been so foolish as to say, in any need
or emergency, or whenever you want anything, or if you should be in
trouble--trouble comes to everybody in this life--you will remember what
you have said just now, and send for your cousin John?"

Her whole face beamed out in one smile, she clasped her other hand
round his arm; "I should have done it without being asked, without ever
doubting for a moment, because it was the most natural thing in the
world. Whom should I turn to else if not to my dear old---- But call me
Nelly, John."

"Dear little Nelly!" he said with faltering voice, "then that is a
bargain."

She held up her cheek to him, and he kissed it solemnly in the shadow of
the little young oak that fluttered its leaves wistfully in the breeze
that was getting up--and then very soberly, saying little, they walked
back to the cottage. He was going abroad for his vacation, not saying to
himself even that he preferred not to be present at the wedding, but
resigning himself to the necessity, for it was not to be till the middle
of September, and it would be breaking up his holiday had he to come
back at that time. So this little interview was a leave-taking as well
as a solemn engagement for all the risks and dangers of life. The pain
in it, after that very sharp moment in the copse, was softened down into
a sadness not unsweet, as they came silently together from out of the
shadow into the quiet hemisphere of sky and space, which was over the
little centre of the cottage with its human glimmer of fire and lights.
The sky was unusually clear, and among those soft, rose-tinted clouds of
the sunset, which were no clouds at all, had risen a young crescent of a
moon, just about to disappear, too, in the short course of one of her
earliest nights. They lingered for a moment before they went indoors.
The depth of the combe was filled with the growing darkness, but the
ridges above were still light and softly edged with the silver of the
moon, and the distant road, like a long, white line, came conspicuously
into sight, winding for a little way along the hill-top unsheltered,
before it plunged into the shadow of the trees--the road that led into
the world, by which they should both depart presently to stray into such
different ways.




CHAPTER VI.


The drawing-room after dinner always looked cheerful. Perhaps the fact
that it was a sort of little oasis in the desert, and that the light
from those windows shone into three counties, made the interior more
cosy and bright. (There are houses now upon every knoll, and the wind
cannot blow on Windyhill for the quantity of obstructions it meets
with.) There was the usual log burning on the hearth, and the party in
general kept away from it, for the night was warm. Only Mr. Sharp, the
London lawyer, was equal to bearing the heat. He stood with his back to
it, and his long legs showing against the glow behind, a sharp-nosed,
long man in black, who had immediately suggested Mephistopheles to
Elinor, even though he was on the Compton side. He had taken his coffee
after dinner, and now he stood over the fire slowly sipping a cup of
tea. There was a look of acquisitiveness about him which suggested an
inclination to appropriate anything from the unnecessary heat of the
fire to the equally unnecessary tea. But Mr. Sharp had been on the
winning side. He had demonstrated the superior sense of making the
money--which was not large enough sum to settle--of real use to the
young pair by an investment which would increase Mr. Compton's
importance in his company, besides producing very good dividends--much
better dividends than would be possible if it were treated in the
old-fashioned way by trustees. This was how the bride wished it, which
was the most telling of arguments: and surely, to insure good interest
and an increase of capital to her, through her husband's hands, was
better than to secure some beggarly hundred and fifty pounds a year for
her portion, though without any risks at all.

Mr. Sharp had also taken great pains to point out that there were only
three brothers--one an invalid and the other two soldiers--between Mr.
Phil and the title, and that even to be the Honourable Mrs. Compton was
something for a young lady, who was, if he might venture to say so,
nobody--not to say a word against her charms. Lord St. Serf was hourly
getting an old man, and the chances that his client might step over a
hecatomb of dead relations to the height of fortune was a thing quite
worth taking into account. It was a much better argument, however, to
return to the analogy of other poor young people, where the bride's
little fortune would be put into the husband's business, and thus
their joint advantage considered. Mr. Sharp, at the same time, did not
hesitate to express politely his opinion that to call him down to the
country for a discussion which could have been carried on much better
in one or other of their respective offices was a most uncalled for
proceeding, especially as even now the other side was wavering, and
would not consent to conclude matters, and make the signatures that were
necessary at once. Mr. Lynch, it must be allowed, was of the same
opinion too.

"Your country is a little bleak at night," said Mr. Sharp, partially
mollified by a good dinner, but beginning to remember unpleasantly the
cold drive in a rattletrap of a little rustic pony carriage over the
hills and hollows. "Do you really remain here all the year? How wonderful!
Not even a glimpse of the world in summer, or a little escape from the
chills in winter? How brave of you! What patience and powers of
endurance must be cultivated in that way!"

"One would think Windyhill was Siberia at least," said Mrs. Dennistoun,
laughing; "we do not give ourselves credit for all these fine
qualities."

"Some people are heroes--or heroines--without knowing it," said Mr.
Sharp, with a bow.

"And yet," said the mother, with a little indignation, "there was some
talk of Mr. Compton doing me the honour to share my hermitage for a part
of the year."

"Mr. Compton! my dear lady! Mr. Compton would die of it in a week," said
Mr. Sharp.

"I am quite well aware of it," said Mrs. Dennistoun; and she added,
after a pause, "so should I."

"What a change it will be for your daughter," said Mr. Sharp. "She will
see everything that is worth seeing. More in a month than she would see
here in a dozen years. Trust Mr. Compton for knowing all that's worth
going after. They have all an instinct for life that is quite remarkable.
There's Lady Mariamne, who has society at her feet, and the old lord is
a most remarkable old gentleman. Your daughter, Mrs. Dennistoun, is a
very fortunate young lady. She has my best congratulations, I am sure."

"Sharp," said Mr. Lynch from the background, "you had better be thinking
of starting, if you want to catch that train."

"I'll see if the pony is there," said John.

Mr. Sharp put down his teacup with precipitation. "Is it as late as
that?" he cried.

"It is the last train," said Mrs. Dennistoun, with great satisfaction.
"And I am afraid, if you missed it, as the house is full, there would be
nothing but a bed at the public-house to offer----"

"Oh, not another word," the lawyer said: and fortunately he never knew
how near that rising young man at the bar, John Tatham, who had every
object in conciliating a solicitor, was to a charge of manslaughter, if
killing an attorney can thus be called. But the feelings of the party
were expressed only in actions of the greatest kindness. They helped him
on with his coat, and covered him with rugs as he got in, shivering, to
the little pony carriage. It was a beautiful night, but the wind is
always a thing to be considered on Windyhill.

"Well, that's a good thing over," said Mr. Lynch, going to the fire as
he came in from the night air at the door and rubbing his hands.

"It would have been a relief to one's feeling to have kicked that fellow
all the way down and up the other side of the combe, and kept him warm,"
said John, with a laugh of wrath.

"It is a pity a man should have so little taste," said Mrs. Dennistoun.

Elinor still stood where she had been standing, with every feeling in
her breast in commotion. She had not taken any part in the insidious
kindnesses of speeding the parting guest; and now she remembered that he
was her Phil's representative: whatever she might herself think of the
man, how could she join in abuse of one who represented Phil?

"He is no worse, I suppose, than others," she said. "He was bound to
stand up for those in whose interest he was. Mr. Lynch would have made
himself quite as disagreeable for me."

"Not I," said the old gentleman; "for what is the good of standing up
for you? You would throw me over on the first opportunity. You have
taken all the force out of my sword-arm, my dear, as it is. How can I
make myself disagreeable for those who won't stand up for themselves? I
suppose you must have it your own way."

"Yes, I suppose it will be the best," said Mrs. Dennistoun, in subdued
tones.

"It would come to about the same thing, however you settled it," said
John.

Elinor looked from one to another with eyes that began to glow. "You are
a cheerful company," she said. "You speak as if you were arranging my
funeral. On the whole I think I like Mr. Sharp best; for if he was
contemptuous of me and my little bit of money, he was at all events
cheerful about the future, and that is always something; whereas you
all----"

There was a little pause, no one responding. There was no pleasant jest,
no bright augury for Elinor. The girl's heart rose against this gloom
that surrounded her. "I think," she said, with an angry laugh, "that I
had better run after Mr. Sharp and bring him back, for he had at least a
little sympathy with me!"

"Don't be too sure of that," said Mr. Lynch, "for if we think you are
throwing yourself away, Elinor, so does he on his side. He thinks the
Honourable Mr. Compton is going dreadfully cheap for five thousand
pounds."

"Elinor need not take any of us _au pied de la lettre_--of course we are
all firm for our own side," said John.

Elinor turned her head from one to another, growing pale and red by
turns. There was a certain surprise in her look, as she found herself
thus at bay. The triumph of having got the better of their opposition
was lost in the sense of isolation with which the girl, so long the
first object of everybody about her, felt herself thus placed alone. And
the tears were very ready to start, but were kept back by jealous pride
which rose to her help. Well! if they put her outside the circle she
would remain so; if they talked to her as one no longer of them, but
belonging to another life, so be it! Elinor determined that she would
make no further appeal. She would not even show how much it hurt her.
After that pale look round upon them all, she went into the corner of
the room where the piano stood, and where there was little light. She
was too proud to go out of the room, lest they should think she was
going to cry. She went with a sudden, quick movement to the piano
instead, where perhaps she might cry too, but where nobody should see.
Poor Elinor! they had made her feel alone by their words, and she made
herself more alone by this little instinctive withdrawal. She began to
play softly one thing after another. She was not a great performer. Her
little "tunes" were of the simplest--no better indeed than tunes, things
that every musician despises: they made a little atmosphere round her, a
voluntary hermitage which separated her as if she had been a hundred
miles away.

"I wish you could have stayed for the marriage," Mrs. Dennistoun said.

"My dear lady, it would spoil my holiday--the middle of September.
You'll have nobody except, of course, the people you have always. To
tell the truth," John added. "I don't care tuppence for my holiday. I'd
have come--like a shot: but I don't think I could stand it. She has
always been such a pet of mine. I don't think I could bear it, to tell
the truth."

"I shall have to bear it, though she is more than a pet of mine," said
Mrs. Dennistoun.

"I know, I know! the relatives cannot be let off--especially the mother,
who must put up with everything. I trust," said Mr. Lynch, with a sigh,
"that it may all turn out a great deal better than we hope. Where are
they going after the marriage?"

"Some one has lent them a place--a very pretty place--on the Thames,
where they can have boating and all that--Lord Sudbury, I think. And
later they are going on a round of visits, to his father, Lord St. Serf,
and to Lady Mariamne, and to his aunt, who is Countess of--something or
other." Mrs. Dennistoun's voice was not untouched by a certain vague
pleasure in these fine names.

"Ah," said the old lawyer, nodding his head at each, "all among the
aristocracy, I see. Well, my dear lady, I hope you will be able to find
some satisfaction in that; it is better than to fall among--nobodies at
least."

"I hope so," said Mrs. Dennistoun, with a sigh.

They were speaking low, and fondly hoped that they were not heard; but
Elinor's ears and every faculty were quickened and almost every word
reached her. But she was too proud to take any notice. And perhaps these
dreary anticipations, on the whole, did her good, for her heart rose
against them, and any little possible doubts in her own mind were put
to sudden flight by the opposition and determination which flooded her
heart. This made her playing a little more unsteady than usual, and she
broke down several times in the middle of a "tune;" but nobody remarked
this: they were all fully occupied with their own thoughts.

All, at least, except John, who wandered uneasily about the room, now
studying the names of the books on the bookshelves--which he knew by
heart, now pulling the curtain aside to look out at the moonlight, now
pulling at the fronds of the great maidenhair in his distraction till
the table round was scattered with little broken leaves. He wanted to
keep out of that atmosphere of emotion which surrounded Elinor at the
piano. But it attracted him, all the same, as the light attracts a moth.
To get away from that, to make the severance which so soon must be a
perfect severance, was the only true policy he knew; for what was he to
her, and what could she be to him? He had already said everything which
a man in his position ought to say. He took out a book at last, and sat
down doggedly by the table to read, thus making another circle of
atmosphere, so to speak, another globe of isolated being in the little
room, while the two elder people talked low in the centre, conventionally
inaudible to the girl who was playing and the young man who was reading.
But John might as well have tried to solve some tremendous problem as to
read that book. He too heard every word the elders were saying. He heard
them with his own ears, and also he heard them through the ears of
Elinor, gauging the effect which every word would have upon her. At last
he could bear it no longer. He was driven to her side to bear a part of
her burden, even to prevent her from hearing, which would be something.
He resisted the impulse to throw down his book, and only placed it very
quietly on the table, and even in a deliberate way, that there might be
no appearance of feeling about him--and made his way by degrees, pausing
now and then to look at a picture, though he knew them all by heart.
Thus he arrived at last at the piano, in what he flattered himself was
an accidental way.

"Elinor, the stars are so bright over the combe, do come out. It is not
often they are so clear."

"No," she said, more with the movement of her lips than with any sound.

"Why not? You can't want to play those old pieces just at this moment.
You will have plenty of time to play them to-morrow."

She said "No" again, with a little impatient movement of her hands on
the keys and a look towards the others.

"You are listening to what they are saying? Why should you? They don't
want you to hear. Come along, Elinor. It's far better for you not to
listen to what is not intended----"

"Oh, go away, John."

"I must say no in my turn. Leave the tunes till to-morrow, and come out
with me."

"I thought," she said, roused a little, "that you were fond of music,
John."

This brought John up suddenly in an unexpected way. "Oh, as for
that,"--he said, in a dubious tone. Poor Elinor's tunes were not music
in his sense, as she very well knew.

She laughed in a forlorn way. "I know what you mean; but this is quite
good enough for what I shall want. I am going down, you know, to a
different level altogether. Oh, you can hear for yourself what mamma and
Mr. Lynch are saying."

"Going up you mean, Elinor. I thought them both very complaisant over
all those titles."

"Ah," she said, "they say that mocking. They think I am going down; so
do you, too, to the land of mere fast people, people with no sense.
Well; there is nothing but the trial will teach any of us. We shall
see."

"It is rather a dreadful risk to run, if it's only a trial, Elinor."

"A trial--for you, not for me--I am not the one that thinks so, except
so far as the tunes are concerned," she said with a laugh. "I confess so
far as that Lady Mariamne is fond of a comic song. I don't think she
goes any further. I shall be good enough for them in the way of music."

"I should be content never to hear another note of music all my life,
Elinor, if----"

"Ah, there you begin again. Not you, John, not you! I can't bear any
more. Neither stars, nor walks, nor listening; no more! This rather,"
and she brought down her hands with a great crash upon the piano, making
every one start. Then Elinor rose, having produced her effect. "I think
it must be time to go to bed, mamma. John is talking of the stars, which
means that he wants his cigar, and Mr. Lynch must want just to look at
the tray in the dining-room. And you are tired by all this fuss, all
this unnatural fuss about me, that am not worth---- Come, mother, to
bed."




CHAPTER VII.


The days in the cottage were full of excitement and of occupation during
the blazing August weather, not so much indeed as is common in many
houses in which the expectant bridegroom is always coming and going;
though perhaps the place of that exhilarating commotion was more or
less filled by the ever-present diversity of opinion, the excitement
of a subdued but never-ended conflict in which one was always on the
defensive, and the other covertly or openly attacking, or at least
believed to be so doing, the distant and unseen object to which all
their thoughts turned. Mrs. Dennistoun, indeed, was not always aggressive,
her opposition was but in fits and starts. Often her feelings of pain
and alarm were quiescent in that unfeigned and salutary interest in
clothes and necessities of preparation which is almost always a resource
to a woman's mind. It is wrong to undervalue this possibility which
compensates a woman in a small degree for some of her special troubles.
When the mother's heart was very heavy, it was often diverted a little
by the discussion of a dinner dress, or made to forget itself for the
moment in a question about the cut of a sleeve, or which would be most
becoming to Elinor of two colours for a ball gown. But though Mrs.
Dennistoun forgot often, Elinor never forgot. The dresses and "things"
generally occupied her a great deal, but not in the form of the anodyne
which they supplied to her mother. Her mind was always on the alert,
looking out for those flying arrows of warfare which your true fighter
lets fly in the most innocent conversation at the most unexpected
moments. Elinor thus flung her shield in her mother's face a hundred
times when that poor lady was thinking no evil, when she was altogether
occupied by the question of frills and laces, or whether tucks or
flounces were best, and she was startled many times by that unnecessary
rattle of Elinor's arms. "I was not thinking of Mr. Compton," she would
sometimes be driven to say; "he was not in my head at all. I was
thinking of nothing more important than that walking dress, and what you
had best wear in the afternoon when you are on those grand visits."

There was one thing which occasioned a little discussion between them,
and that was the necessary civility of asking the neighbours to inspect
these "things" when they were finally ready. It was only the argument
that these neighbours would be Mrs. Dennistoun's sole resource when she
was left alone that made Elinor assent at last. Perhaps, however,
as she walked quickly along towards the moorland Rectory, a certain
satisfaction in showing them how little their hints had been taken,
mingled with the reluctance to admit those people who had breathed a
doubt upon the sacred name of Phil, to such a sign of intimacy.

"I have been watching you along the side of the combe, and wondering if
it was you such a threatening day," said Alice Hudson, coming to the
door to meet her. "How nice of you to come, Elinor, when you must be so
busy, and you have not been here since--I don't know how long ago!"

"No, I have not been here," said Elinor with a gravity worthy the bride
of a maligned man. "But the time is so near when I shall not be able to
come at all that I thought it was best. Mamma wishes you to come over
to-morrow, if you will, to see my things."

"Oh!" the three ladies said together; and Mrs. Hudson came forward and
gave Elinor a kiss. "My dear," she said, "I take it very kind you coming
yourself to ask us. Many would not have done it after what we felt it
our duty---- But you always had a beautiful spirit, Elinor, bearing no
malice, and I hope with all my heart that it will have its reward."

"Well, mother," said Alice, "I don't see how Elinor could do anything
less, seeing we have been such friends all our lives as girls, she and
I, and I am sure I have always been ready to give her patterns, or to
show her how a thing was done. I should have been very much disappointed
if she had not asked me to see her things."

Mary Dale, who was Mrs. Hudson's sister, said nothing at all, but
accepted the visit as in the course of nature. Mary was the one who
really knew something about Phil Compton: but she had been against the
remonstrance which Mrs. Hudson thought it her duty to make. What was the
good? Miss Dale had said; and she had refrained from telling two or
three stories about the Comptons which would have made the hair stand
upright on the heads of the Rector and the Rectoress. She did not even
now say that it was kind, but met Elinor in silence, as, in her position
as the not important member of the family, it was quite becoming for her
to do.

Then the Rector came in and took her by both hands, and gave her the
most friendly greeting. "I heard Elinor's voice, and I stopped in the
middle of my sermon," he said. "You will remark in church on Sunday a
jerky piece, which shows how I stopped to reflect whether it could be
you--and then went on for another sentence, and then decided that it
must be you. There is a big Elinor written across my sermon paper." He
laughed, but he was a little moved, to see, after the "coolness," the
little girl whom he had christened come back to her old friends again.

"She has come to ask us to go and see her things, papa," said Mrs.
Hudson, twinkling an eye to get rid of a suspicion of a tear.

"Am I to come, too?" said the Rector; and thus the little incident of
the reconciliation was got over, to the great content of all.

Elinor reflected to herself that they were really kind people, as she
went out again into the grey afternoon where everything was getting up
for rain. She made up her mind she would just have time to run into the
Hills', at the Hurst, and leave her message, and so get home before the
storm began. The clouds lay low like a dark grey hood over the fir-trees
and moorland shaggy tops of the downs all round. There was not a break
anywhere in the consistent grey, and the air, always so brisk, had
fallen still with that ominous lull that comes over everything before
a convulsion of nature. Some birds were still hurrying home into the
depths of the copses with a frightened straightness of flight, as if
they were afraid they would not get back in time, and all the insects
that are so gay with their humming and booming had disappeared under
leaves and stones and grasses. Elinor saw a bee burrowing deep in
the waxen trumpet of a foxglove, as if taking shelter, as she walked
quickly past. The Hills--there were two middle-aged sisters of them,
with an old mother, too old for such diversion as the inspection of
wedding-clothes, in the background--would scarcely let Elinor go out
again after they had accepted her invitation with rapture. "I was just
wondering where I should see the new fashions," said Miss Hill, "for
though we are not going to be married we must begin to think about our
winter things----" "And this will be such an opportunity," said Miss
Susan, "and so good of you to come yourself to ask us."

"What has she come to ask you to," said old Mrs. Hill; "the wedding? I
told you girls, I was sure you would not be left out. Why, I knew her
mother before she was married. I have known them all, man and boy, for
nearer sixty than fifty years--before her mother was born! To have left
you out would have been ridiculous. Yes, yes, Elinor, my dear; tell your
mother they will come--delighted! They have been thinking for the last
fortnight what bonnets they would wear----"

"Oh, mother!" and "Oh, Elinor!" said the "girls," "you must not mind
what mother says. We know very well that you must have worlds of people
to ask. Don't think, among all your new connections, of such little
country mice as us. We shall always just take the same interest in you,
dear child, whether you find you can ask us or not."

"But of course you are asked," said Elinor, in _gaieté de coeur_, not
reflecting that her mother had begun to be in despair about the number
of people who could be entertained in the cottage dining-room, "and you
must not talk about my new grand connections, for nobody will ever be
like my old friends."

"Dear child!" they said, and "I always knew that dear Elinor's heart was
in the right place." But it was all that Elinor could do to get free of
their eager affection and alarm lest she should be caught in the rain.
Both of the ladies produced waterproofs, and one a large pair of
goloshes to fortify her, when it was found that she would go; and they
stood in the porch watching her as she went along into the darkening
afternoon, without any of their covers and shelters. The Miss Hills were
apt to cling together, after the manner of those pairs of sweet sisters
in the "Books of Beauty" which had been the delight of their youth; they
stood, with arms intertwined, in their porch, watching Elinor as she
hurried home, with her light half-flying step, like the belated birds.
"Did you hear what she said about old friends, poor little thing?" "I
wonder if she is finding out already that her new grand connections are
but vanity!" they said, shaking their heads. The middle-aged sisters
looked out of the sheltered home, which perhaps they had not chosen for
themselves, with a sort of wistful feeling, half pity, perhaps half
envy, upon the "poor little thing" who was running out so light-hearted
into the storm. They had long ago retired into waterproofs and goloshes,
and had much unwillingness to wet their feet--which things are a
parable. They went back and closed the door, only when the first flash
of lightning dazzled them, and they remembered that an open door is
dangerous during a thunderstorm.

Elinor quickened her pace as the storm began and got home breathless
with running, shaking off the first big drops of thunder-rain from her
dress. But she did not think of any danger, and sat out in the porch
watching how the darkness came down on the combe; how it was met with
the jagged gleam of the great white flash, and how the thunderous
explosion shook the earth. The combe, with its hill-tops on either side,
became like the scene of a battle, great armies, invisible in the sharp
torrents of rain, meeting each other with a fierce shock and recoil,
with now and then a trumpet-blast, and now the gleam that lit up tree
and copse, and anon the tremendous artillery. When the lightning came
she caught a glimpse of the winding line of the white road leading away
out of all this--leading into the world where she was going--and for a
moment escaped by it, even amid the roar of all the elements: then came
back, alighting again with a start in the familiar porch, amid all the
surroundings of the familiar life, to feel her mother's hand upon her
shoulder, and her mother's voice saying, "Have you got wet, my darling?
Did you get much of it? Come in, come in from the storm!"

"It is so glorious, mamma!" Mrs. Dennistoun stood for a few minutes
looking at it, then, with a shudder, withdrew into the drawing-room. "I
think I have seen too many storms to like it," she said. But Elinor had
not seen too many storms. She sat and watched it, now rolling away
towards the south, and bursting again as though one army or the other
had got reinforcements; while the flash of the explosions and the roar
of the guns, and the white blast of the rain, falling like a sheet from
the leaden skies, wrapped everything in mystery. The only thing that was
to be identified from time to time was that bit of road leading out of
it--leading her thoughts away, as it should one day lead her eager feet,
from all the storm and turmoil out into the bright and shining world.
Elinor never asked herself, as she sat there, a spectator of this great
conflict of nature, whether that one human thing, by which her swift
thoughts traversed the storm, carried any other suggestion as of coming
back.

Perhaps it is betraying feminine counsels too much to the modest public
to narrate how Elinor's things were all laid out for the inspection of
the ladies of the parish, the dresses in one room, the "under things" in
another, and in the dining-room the presents, which everybody was doubly
curious to see, to compare their own offerings with those of other
people, or else to note with anxious eye what was wanting, in order, if
their present had not yet been procured, to supply the gap. How to get
something that would look well among the others, and yet not be too
expensive, was a problem which the country neighbours had much and
painfully considered. The Hudsons had given Elinor a little tea-kettle
upon a stand, which they were painfully conscious was only plated, and
sadly afraid would not look well among all the gorgeous articles with
which no doubt her grand new connections had loaded her. The Rector came
himself, with his ladies to see how the kettle looked, with a great line
of anxiety between his brows; but when they saw that the revolving
dishes beside it, which were the gift of the wealthy Lady Mariamne, were
plated too, and not nearly such a pretty design, their hearts went up in
instant exhilaration, followed a moment after by such indignation as
they could scarcely restrain. "That rich sister, the woman who married
the Jew" (which was their very natural explanation of the lady's
nickname), "a woman who is rolling in wealth, and who actually made up
the match!" This was crescendo, a height of scorn impossible to describe
upon a mere printed page. "One would have thought she would have given
a diamond necklace or something of consequence," said Mrs. Hudson in
her husband's ear. "Or, at least silver," said the Rector. "These
fashionable people, though they give themselves every luxury, have
sometimes not very much money to spend; but silver, at least, she might
have been expected to give silver." "It is simply disgraceful," said the
Rector's wife. "I am glad, at all events, my dear," said he, "that our
little thing looks just as well as any." "It is one of the prettiest
things she has got," said Mrs. Hudson, with a proud heart. Lord St. Serf
sent an old-fashioned little ring in a much worn velvet case, and the
elder brother, Lord Lomond, an album for photographs. The Rector's
wife indicated these gifts to her husband with little shrugs of her
shoulders. "If that's all the family can do!" she said: "why Alice's
cushion, which was worked with floss silks upon satin, was a more
creditable present than that." The Miss Hills, who as yet had not had
an opportunity, as they said, of giving their present, roamed about,
curious, inspecting everything. "What is the child to do with a kettle,
a thing so difficult to pack, and requiring spirit for the lamp, and all
that--and only plated!" the Hills said to each other. "Now, that little
teapot of ours," said Jane to Susan, "if mother would only consent to
it, is no use to us, and would look very handsome here." "Real silver,
and old silver, which is so much the rage, and a thing she could use
every day when she has her visitors for afternoon tea," said Susan to
Jane. "It is rather small," said Miss Hill, doubtfully. "But quite
enough for two people," said the other, forgetting that she had just
declared that the teapot would be serviceable when Elinor had visitors.
But that was a small matter. Elinor, however, had other things better
than these--a necklace, worth half a year's income, from John Tatham,
which he had pinched himself to get for her that she might hold up her
head among those great friends; and almost all that her mother possessed
in the way of jewellery, which was enough to make a show among these
simple people. "Her own family at least have done Elinor justice," said
the Rector, going again to have a look at the kettle, which was the
chief of the display to him. Thus the visitors made their remarks. The
Hills did nothing but stand apart and discuss their teapot and the means
by which "mother" could be got to assent.

The Rector took his cup of tea, always with a side glance at the kettle,
and cut his cake, and made his gentle jest. "If Alick and I come over in
the night and carry them all off you must not be surprised," he said;
"such valuable things as these in a little poor parish are a dreadful
temptation, and I don't suppose you have much in the way of bolts and
bars. Alick is as nimble as a cat, he can get in at any crevice, and
I'll bring over the box for the collections to carry off the little
things." This harmless wit pleased the good clergyman much, and he
repeated it to all the ladies. "I am coming over with Alick one of these
dark nights to make a sweep of everything," he said. Mr. Hudson retired
in the gentle laughter that followed this, feeling that he had acquitted
himself as a man ought who is the only gentleman present, as well as the
Rector of the parish. "I am afraid I would not be a good judge of the
'things,'" he said, "and for anything I know there may be mysteries not
intended for men's eyes. I like to see your pretty dresses when you are
wearing them, but I can't judge of their effect in the gross." He was a
man who had a pleasant wit. The ladies all agreed that the Rector was
sure to make you laugh whatever was the occasion, and he walked home
very briskly, pleased with the effect of the kettle, and saying to
himself that from the moment he saw it in Mappin's window he had felt
sure it was the very thing.

The other ladies were sufficiently impressed with the number and
splendour of Elinor's gowns. Mrs. Dennistoun explained, with a humility
which was not, I fear, untinctured by pride, that both number and
variety were rendered necessary by the fact that Elinor was going upon a
series of visits among her future husband's great relations, and would
have to be much in society and among fine people who dressed very much,
and would expect a great deal from a bride. "Of course, in ordinary
circumstances the half of them would have been enough: for I don't
approve of too many dresses."

"They get old-fashioned," said Mrs. Hudson, gravely, "before they are
half worn out."

"And to do them up again is quite as expensive as getting new ones, and
not so satisfactory," said the Miss Hills.

The proud mother allowed both of these drawbacks, "But what could I do?"
she said. "I cannot have my child go away into such a different sphere
unprovided. It is a sacrifice, but we had to make it. I wish," she said,
looking round to see that Elinor was out of hearing, "it was the only
sacrifice that had to be made."

"Let us hope," said the Rector's wife, solemnly, "that it will all turn
out for the best."

"It will do that however it turns out," said Miss Dale, who was even
more serious than it was incumbent on a member of a clerical household
to be, "for we all know that troubles are sent for our advantage as well
as blessings, and poor dear Elinor may require much discipline----"

"Oh, goodness, don't talk as if the poor child was going to be
executed," said Susan Hill.

"I am not at all alarmed," said Mrs. Dennistoun. It was unwise of her
to have left an opening for any such remark. "My Elinor has always been
surrounded by love wherever she has been. Her future husband's family
are already very fond of her. I am not at all alarmed on Elinor's
account."

She laid the covering wrapper over the dresses with an air of pride and
confidence which was remembered long afterwards--as the pride that goeth
before a fall by some, but by others with more sympathy, who guessed the
secret workings of the mother's heart.




CHAPTER VIII.


Time went on quickly enough amid all these preparations and the little
attendant excitements of letters, congratulations, and presents which
came in on every side. Elinor complained mildly of the fuss, but it was
a new and far from unpleasant experience. She liked to have the packets
brought in by the post, or the bigger boxes that arrived from the
station, and to open them and produce out of the wadding or the saw-dust
one pretty thing after another. At first it was altogether fresh and
amusing, this new kind of existence, though after a while she grew
_blasée_, as may be supposed. Lady Mariamne's present she was a little
ashamed of: not that she cared much, but because of the look on her
mother's face when those inferior articles were unpacked; and at the
ring which old Lord St. Serf sent her she laughed freely.

"I will put it with my own little old baby rings in this little silver
tray, and they will all look as if they were antiques, or something
worth looking at," said Elinor. Happily there were other people who
endowed her more richly with rings fit for a bride to wear. The
relations at a distance were more or less pleased with Elinor's
prospects. A few, indeed, from different parts of the world wrote in
the vein of Elinor's home-advisers, hoping that it was not the Mr.
Compton who was so well known as a betting man whom she was going to
marry; but the fact that she was marrying into a noble family, and
would henceforward be known as the Honourable Mrs. Compton, mollified
even these critics. Only three brothers--one a great invalid, and two
soldiers--between him and the title. Elinor's relations promptly
inaugurated in their imaginations a great war, in which two noble
regiments were cut to pieces, to dispose of the two Captains Compton;
and as for the invalid, that he would obligingly die off was a
contingency which nobody doubted--and behold Elinor Dennistoun Lady
St. Serf! This greatly calmed criticism among her relations, who
were all at a distance, and whose approval or disapproval did not
much affect her spirits anyhow. John Tatham's father, Mrs. Dennistoun's
cousin, was of more consequence, chiefly as being John's father, but
also a little for himself, and it was remarked that he said not a
word against the marriage, but sent a very handsome present, and many
congratulations--chiefly inspired (but this Elinor did not divine) by an
unfeigned satisfaction that it was not his son who was the bridegroom.
Mr. Tatham, senr., did not approve of early marriages for young men
pushing their way at the bar, unless the bride was, so to speak, in the
profession and could be of use to her husband. Even in such cases, the
young man was better off without a wife, he was of opinion. How could he
get up his cases properly if he had to drag about in society at the tail
of a gay young woman? Therefore he sent Elinor a very nice present in
gratitude to her and providence. She was a danger removed out of his
boy's way.

All this kept a cheerful little commotion about the house, and often
kept the mother and daughter from thinking more than was good for them.
These extraneous matters did not indeed preserve Elinor altogether from
the consciousness that her _fiancé's_ letters were very short and a
little uncertain in their arrival, sometimes missing several days
together, and generally written in a hurry to catch the post. But they
kept Mrs. Dennistoun from remarking that fact, as otherwise she would
have been sure to do. If any chill of disappointment was in Elinor's
mind, she said to herself that men were generally bad correspondents,
not like girls, who had nothing else to do, and other consolations of
this kind, which to begin with beg the question, and show the beginning
of that disenchantment which ought to be reserved at least for a later
period. Elinor had already given up a good deal of her own ideal. She
would not, as she said, put herself in competition with the grouse, she
would not give him the choice between her and a cigar; but already the
consciousness that he preferred the grouse, and even a cigar, to her
society, had come an unwilling intruder into Elinor's mind. She would
not allow to herself that she felt it in either case. She said to
herself that she was proud of it, that it showed the freedom and
strength of a man, and that love was only one of many things which
occupied his life. She rebelled against the other deduction that "'tis
woman's sole existence," protesting loudly (to herself) that she too had
a hundred things to do, and did not want him always at her apron-strings
like a tame curate. But as a matter of fact, no doubt the girl would
have been flattered and happy had he been more with her. The time was
coming very quickly in which they should be together always, even when
there was grouse in hand, when his wife would be invited with him, and
all things would be in common between them; so what did it matter for a
few days? The marriage was fixed for the 16th of September, and that
great date was now scarcely a fortnight off. The excitement quickened as
everything grew towards this central point. Arrangements had to be made
about the wedding breakfast and where the guests were to be placed. The
Hudsons had put their spare rooms at the disposition of the Cottage,
and so had the Hills. The bridegroom was to stay at the Rectory.
Lady Mariamne must of course, Mrs. Dennistoun felt, be put up at the
Cottage, where the two rooms on the ground floor--what were called the
gentlemen's rooms--had to be prepared to receive her. It was with a
little awe indeed that the ladies of the Cottage endeavoured, by the aid
of Elinor's recollections, to come to an understanding of what a fine
lady would want even for a single night. Mrs. Dennistoun's experiences
were all old-fashioned, and of a period when even great ladies were less
luxurious than now; and it made her a little angry to think how much
more was required for her daughter's future sister-in-law than had been
necessary to herself. But after all, what had herself to do with it?
The thing was to do Elinor credit, and make the future sister-in-law
perceive that the Cottage was no rustic establishment, but one in which
it was known what was what, and all the requirements of the most refined
life. Elinor's bridesmaid, Mary Tatham, was to have the spare room
up-stairs, and some other cousins, who were what Mrs. Dennistoun called
"quiet people," were to receive the hospitalities of the Hills, whose
house was roomy and old-fashioned. Thus the arrangements of the crisis
were more or less settled and everything made smooth.

Elinor and her mother were seated together in the drawing-room on one of
those evenings of which Mrs. Dennistoun desired to make the most, as
they would be the last, but which, as they actually passed, were--if not
occupied with discussions of how everything was to be arranged, which
they went over again and again by instinct as a safe subject--heavy,
almost dull, and dragged sadly over the poor ladies whose hearts were so
full, but to whom to be separated, though it would be bitter, would also
at the same time almost be a relief. They had been silent for some time,
not because they had not plenty to say, but because it was so difficult
to say it without awaking too much feeling. How could they talk of the
future in which one of them would be away in strange places, exposed to
the risks and vicissitudes of a new life, and one of them be left alone
in the unbroken silence, sitting over the fire, with nothing but that
blaze to give her any comfort? It was too much to think of, much more
to talk about, though it need not be said that it was in the minds of
both--with a difference, for Elinor's imagination was most employed upon
the brilliant canvas where she herself held necessarily the first place,
with a sketch of her mother's lonely life, giving her heart a pang, in
the distance; while Mrs. Dennistoun could not help but see the lonely
figure in her own foreground, against the brightness of all the
entertainments in which Elinor should appear as a queen. They were
sitting thus, the mother employed at some fine needlework for the
daughter, the daughter doing little, as is usual nowadays. They had been
talking over Lady Mariamne and her requirements again, and had come to
an end of that subject. What a pity that it was so hard to open the door
of their two hearts, which were so close together, so that each might
see all the tenderness and compunction in the other; the shame and
sorrow of the mother to grudge her child's happiness, the remorse
and trouble of the child to be leaving that mother out in all her
calculations for the future! How were they to do it on either side? They
could not talk, these poor loving women, so they were mostly silent,
saying a word or two at intervals about Mrs. Dennistoun's work (which of
course, was for Elinor), or of Elinor's village class for sewing, which
was to be transferred to her mother, skirting the edges of the great
separation which could neither be dismissed nor ignored.

Suddenly Elinor looked up, holding up her finger. "What was that?" she
said. "A step upon the gravel?"

"Nonsense, child. If we were to listen to all these noises of the night
there would always be a step upon---- Oh! I think I did hear something."

"It is someone coming to the door," said Elinor, rising up with that
sudden prevision of trouble which is so seldom deceived.

"Don't go, Elinor; don't go. It might be a tramp; wait at least till
they knock at the door."

"I don't think it can be a tramp, mamma. It may be a telegram. It is
coming straight up to the door."

"It will be the parcel porter from the station. He is always coming and
going, though I never knew him so late. Pearson is in the house, you
know. There is not any cause to be alarmed."

"Alarmed!" said Elinor, with a laugh of excitement; "but I put more
confidence in myself than in Pearson, whoever it may be."

She stood listening with a face full of expectation, and Mrs. Dennistoun
put down her work and listened too. The step advanced lightly, scattering
the gravel, and then there was a pause as if the stranger had stopped to
reconnoitre. Then came a knock at the window, which could only have been
done by a tall man, and the hearts of the ladies jumped up, and then
seemed to stop beating. To be sure, there were bolts and bars, but
Pearson was not much good, and the house was full of valuables and very
lonely. Mrs. Dennistoun rose up, trembling a little, and went forward to
the window, bidding Elinor go back and keep quite quiet. But here they
were interrupted by a voice which called from without, with another
knock on the window, "Nell! Nell!"

"It is Phil," said Elinor, flying to the door.

Mrs. Dennistoun sat down again and said nothing. Her heart sank in her
breast. She did not know what she feared; perhaps that he had come to
break off the marriage, perhaps to hurry it and carry her child away.
There was a pause as was natural at the door, a murmur of voices, a fond
confusion of words, which made it clear that no breach was likely, and
presently after that interval, Elinor came back beaming, leading her
lover. "Here is Phil," she said, in such liquid tones of happiness as
filled her mother with mingled pleasure, gratitude, and despite. "He has
found he had a day or two to spare, and he has rushed down here, fancy,
with an apology for not letting us know!"

"She thinks everyone is like herself, Mrs. Dennistoun, but I am aware
that I am not such a popular personage as she thinks me, and you have
least reason of all to approve of the man who is coming to carry her
away."

"I am glad to see you, Mr. Compton," she said, gravely, giving him her
hand.

The Hon. Philip Compton was a very tall man, with very black hair. He
had fine but rather hawk-like features, a large nose, a complexion too
white to be agreeable, though it added to his romantic appearance. There
was a furtive look in his big dark eyes, which had a way of surveying
the country, so to speak, before making a reply to any question,
like a man whose response depended upon what he saw. He surveyed Mrs.
Dennistoun in this way while she spoke; but then he took her hand,
stooped his head over it, and kissed it, not without grace. "Thank you
very much for that," he said, as if there had been some doubt on his
mind about his reception. "I was glad enough to get the opportunity, I
can tell you. I've brought you some birds, Mrs. Dennistoun, and I hope
you'll give me some supper, for I'm as hungry as a hawk. And now, Nell,
let's have a look at you," the lover said. He was troubled by no false
modesty. As soon as he had paid the required toll of courtesy to the
mother, who naturally ought to have at once proceeded to give orders
about his supper, he held Elinor at arm's length before the lamp, then,
having fully inspected her appearance, and expressed by a "Charming, by
Jove!" his opinion of it, proceeded to demonstrations which the presence
of the mother standing by did not moderate. There are few mothers to
whom it would be agreeable to see their child engulfed in the arms of a
large and strong man, and covered with his bold kisses. Mrs. Dennistoun
was more fastidious even than most mothers, and to her this embrace was
a sort of profanation. The Elinor who had been guarded like a flower
from every contact--to see her gripped in his arms by this stranger,
made her mother glow with an indignation which she knew was out of the
question, yet felt to the bottom of her soul. Elinor was abashed before
her mother, but she was not angry. She forced herself from his embrace,
but her blushing countenance was full of happiness. What a revolution
had thus taken place in a few minutes! They had been so dull sitting
there alone; alone, though each with the other who had filled her life
for more than twenty years; and now all was lightened, palpitating with
life. "Be good, sir," said Elinor, pushing him into a chair as if he had
been a great dog, "and quiet and well-behaved; and then you shall have
some supper. But tell us first where you have come from, and what put it
into your head to come here."

"I came up direct from my brother Lomond's shooting-box. Reply No. 1.
What put it into my head to come? Love, I suppose, and the bright eyes
of a certain little witch called Nell. I ought to have been in Ireland
for a sort of a farewell visit there; but when I found I could steal two
days, you may imagine I knew very well what to do with them. Eh? Oh,
it's mamma that frightens you, I see."

"It is kind of you to give Elinor two days when you have so many other
engagements," said Mrs. Dennistoun, turning away.

But he was not in the least abashed. "Yes isn't it?" he said; "my last
few days of freedom. I consider I deserve the prize for virtue--to cut
short my very last rampage; and she will not as much as give me a kiss!
I think she is ashamed before you, Mrs. Dennistoun."

"It would not be surprising if she were," said Mrs. Dennistoun, gravely.
"I am old-fashioned, as you may perceive."

"Oh, you don't need to tell me that," said he; "one can see it with half
an eye. Come here, Nell, you little coquette: or I shall tell the Jew
you were afraid of mamma, and you will never hear an end of it as long
as you live."

"Elinor, I think you had better see, perhaps, what there is to make up
as good a meal as possible for Mr. Compton," said her mother, sitting
down opposite to the stranger, whose long limbs were stretched over
half the floor, with the intention of tripping up Elinor, it seemed;
but she glided past him and went on her way--not offended, oh, not at
all--waving her hand to him as she avoided the very choice joke of his
stretched-out foot.

"Mr. Compton," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "you will be Elinor's husband in
less than a fortnight."

"I hope so," he said, displaying the large cavern of a yawn under his
black moustache as he looked her in the face.

"And after that I will have no right to interfere; but, in the meantime,
this is my house, and I hope you will remember that these ways are not
mine, and that I am too old-fashioned to like them. I prefer a little
more respect to your betrothed."

"Oh, respect," he said. "I have never found that girls like too much
respect. But as you please. Well, look here, Nell," he said, catching
her by the arm as she came back and swinging her towards him, "your
mother thinks I'm too rough with you, my little dear."

"Do you, mamma?" said Elinor, faltering a little; but she had the
sweetest rose-flush on her cheeks and the moisture of joy in her eyes.
In all her twenty-three years she had never looked as she looked now.
Her life had been a happy one, but not like this. She had been always
beloved, and never had known for a day what it was to be neglected; yet
love had never appeared to her as it did now, so sweet, nor life so
beautiful. What strange delusion! what a wonderful incomprehensible
mistake! or so at least the mother thought, looking at her beautiful
girl with a pang at her heart.

"It is only his bad manners," said Elinor, in a voice which sounded like
a caress. "He knows very well how to behave. He can be as nice as any
one, and as pretty spoken, and careful not to offend. It is only
arriving so suddenly, and not being expected--or that he has forgotten
his nice manners to-night. Phil, do you hear what I say?"

Phil made himself into the semblance of a dog, and sat up and begged
for pardon. It was a trick which made people "shriek with laughing;"
but Mrs. Dennistoun's gravity remained unbroken. Perhaps her extreme
seriousness had something in it that was rather ridiculous too. It was a
relief when he went off to his supper, attended by Elinor, and Mrs.
Dennistoun was left alone over her fire. She had a slight sense that she
had been absurd, as well as that Philip Compton had lacked breeding,
which did not make her more comfortable. Was it possible that she would
be glad when it was all over, and her child gone--her child gone, and
with that man! Her child, her little delicately bred, finely nurtured
girl, who had been wrapped in all the refinements of life from her
cradle, and had never heard a rough word, never been allowed to know
anything that would disturb her virginal calm!--yet now in a moment
passed away beyond her mother to the unceremonious wooer who had no
reverence for her, none of the worship her mother expected. How strange
it was! Yet a thing that happened every day. Mrs. Dennistoun sat over
the fire, though it was not cold, and listened to the voices and
laughter in the next room. How happy they were to be together! She did
not, however, dwell upon the fact that she was alone and deserted, as
many women would have done. She knew that she would have plenty of time
to dwell on this in the lonely days to come. What occupied her was the
want of more than manners, of any delicate feeling in the lover who had
seized with rude caresses upon Elinor in her mother's presence, and the
fact that Elinor did not object, nor dislike that it should be so. That
she should feel forlorn was no wonderful thing; that did not disturb her
mind. It was the other matter about Elinor that pained and horrified
her, she could not tell why; which, perhaps, was fantastic, which,
indeed, she felt sure must be so.

They were so long in the dining-room, where Compton had his supper, that
when that was over it was time to go to bed. Still talking and laughing
as if they could never exhaust either the fountain of talk or the mirth,
which was probably much more sheer pleasure in their meeting than
genuine laughter produced by any wit or _bon mot_, they came out into
the passage, and stood by Mrs. Dennistoun and the housemaid, who had
brought her the keys and was now fastening the hall door. A little
calendar hung on the wall beneath the lamp, and Phil Compton walked up
to it and with a laugh read out the date. "Sixth September," he said,
and turned round to Elinor. "Only ten days more, Nell." The housemaid
stooping down over the bolt blushed and laughed too under her breath in
sympathy; but Mrs. Dennistoun turning suddenly round caught Compton's
eye. Why had he given that keen glance about him? There was nothing to
call for his usual survey of the company in that sentiment. He might
have known well enough what were the feelings he was likely to call
forth. A keen suspicion shot through her mind. Suspicion of what? She
could not tell. There was nothing that was not most natural in his
sudden arrival, the delightful surprise of his coming, his certainty of
a good reception. The wonder was that he had come so little, not that he
should come now.

The next morning the visitor made himself very agreeable: his raptures
were a little calmed. He talked over all the arrangements, and entered
into everything with the interest of a man to whom that great day
approaching was indeed the greatest day in his life. And it turned out
that he had something to tell which was of practical importance. "I may
relieve your mind about Nell's money," he said, "for I believe my
company is going to be wound up. We'll look out for another investment
which will pay as well and be less risky. It has been found not to be
doing quite so well as was thought, so we're going to wind up."

"I hope you have not lost anything," said Mrs. Dennistoun.

"Oh, nothing to speak of," he said, carelessly.

"I am not fond of speculative companies. I am glad you are done with
it," Mrs. Dennistoun said.

"And I'm glad to be done with it. I shall look out for something
permanent and decline joint-stock companies. I thought you would like
to know. But that is the last word I shall say about business. Come,
Nell, I have only one day; let's spend it in the woods."

Elinor, who felt that the day in the woods was far more important than
any business, hurried to get her hat and follow him to the door. It
chanced to her to glance at the calendar as she passed hastily out to
where he stood awaiting her in the porch. Why that should have happened
to anyone in the Cottage twice in the twenty-four hours is a coincidence
which I cannot explain, but so it was. Her eye caught the little white
plaque in passing, and perceived with surprise that it had moved up two
numbers, and that it was the figure 8 which was marked upon it now.

"We cannot have slept through a day and night," she said, laughing as
she joined him. "The calendar says the eighth September now."

"But I arrived on the sixth," he said. "Mind that, Nell, whatever
happens. You saw it with your own eyes. It may be of consequence to
remember."

"Of what consequence could it be?" said Elinor, wondering.

"One can never tell. The only thing is I arrived on the sixth--that you
know. And, Nell, my darling, supposing any fellow should inquire too
closely into my movements, you'll back me up, won't you, and agree in
everything I say?"

"Who should inquire into your movements? There is no one here who would
be so impertinent, Phil."

"Oh," he said, "there is never any telling how impertinent people may
be."

"And what is there in your movements that any one dare inquire about? I
hope you are not ashamed of coming to see me."

"That is just what is the saving of me, Nell. I can't explain what I
mean now, but I will later on. Only mind you don't contradict me if we
should meet any inquisitive person. I arrived on the sixth, and you'll
back me like my true love in everything I say."

"As far as--as I know, Phil."

"Oh, we must have no conditions. You must stand by me in everything I
say."




CHAPTER IX.


This day in the copse was one that Elinor never forgot. At the moment it
seemed to her the most blissful period of all her life. There had been
times in which she had longed that Phil knew more and cared more for the
objects which had always been most familiar, and told for most in her
own existence--although it is true that at first his very ignorance,
real or assumed, his careless way of treating all intellectual subjects,
his indifference to books and pictures, and even nature, had amused and
pleased her, giving a piquancy to the physical strength and enjoying
manhood, the perpetual activity and state of doing something in which he
was. It was not a kind of life which she had ever known before, and it
dazzled her with its apparent freedom and fulness, the variety in it,
the constant movement, the crowd of occupations and people. To her who
had been used to finding a great deal of her amusement in reading, in
sketching (not very well), in playing (tunes), and generally practising
with very moderate success arts for which she had no individual
enthusiasm, it had seemed like a new life to be plunged into the society
of horses and dogs, into the active world which was made up of a round
of amusements, race meetings, days on the river, follies of every
conceivable kind, exercise, and air, and movement. The ignorance of all
these people dazzled her as if it had been a new science. It had seemed
something wonderful and piquant to Elinor to find people who knew so
much of subjects she had never heard of, and nothing at all of those she
had been trained to know. And then there had come a moment when she had
begun to sigh under her breath, as it were, and wish that Phil would
sometimes open a book, that when he took up the newspaper he would look
at something more than the sporting news and the bits of gossip, that he
would talk now and then of something different from the racings and the
startings, and the odds, and the scrapes other men got into, and the
astonishing "frocks" of the Jew--those things, so wonderful at first,
like a new language, absurd, yet amusing, came to be a little tiresome,
especially when scraps of them made up the bulk of the very brief
letters which Phil scribbled to his betrothed. But during this day,
after his unexpected arrival, the joy of seeing him suddenly, the
pleasure of feeling that he had broken through all his engagements to
come to her, and the fervour of his satisfaction in being with her again
(that very fervour which shocked her mother), Elinor's first glow of
delight in her love came fully back. And as they wandered through the
pleasant paths of the copse, his very talk seemed somehow changed, and
to have gained just that little mingling of perception of her tastes and
wishes which she had desired. There was a little autumnal mist about the
softening haze which was not decay, but only the "mellow fruitfulness"
of the poet; and the day, notwithstanding this, was as warm as June, the
sky blue, with only a little white puff of cloud here and there. Phil
paused to look down the combe, with all the folds of the downs that
wrapped it about, going off in blue outlines into the distance, and said
it was "a jolly view"--which amused Elinor more than if he had used the
finest language, and showed that he was beginning (she thought) to care
a little for the things which pleased her. "And I suppose you could see
a man coming by that bit of road."

"Yes," said Elinor, "you could see a man coming--or going: but, unless
you were to make believe very strong, like the Marchioness, you could
not make out who the man was."

"What Marchioness?" said Phil. "I didn't know you had anybody with a
title about here. I say, Nell, it's a very jolly view, but hideously
dull for you, my pet, to have lived so long here."

"I never found it in the least dull," she said.

"Why, there is nothing to do! I suppose you read books, eh? That's what
you call amusing yourself. You ought to have made the old lady take you
about a deal, abroad, and all over the place: but I expect you have
never stood up for yourself a bit, Nell."

"Don't call mamma the old lady, Phil. She is not old, and far prettier
than most people I know."

"Well, she should have done it for herself. Might have picked up a good
match, eh? a father-in-law that would have left you a pot of money. You
don't mean to say you wouldn't have liked that?"

"Oh, Phil, Phil! I wish you could understand."

"Well, well, I'll let the old girl alone." And then came the point at
which Phil improved so much. "Tell me what you've been reading last," he
said. "I should like to know what you are thinking about, even if I
don't understand it myself. I say, Nell, who do you think that can be
dashing so fast along the road?"

"It is the people at Reddown," she said. "I know their white horses.
They always dash along as if they were in the greatest hurry. Do you
really want to know what I have been reading, Phil? though it is very
little, I fear, because of the dressmakers and--all the other things."

"You see," he said, "when you have lots to do you can't keep up with
your books: which is the reason why I never pretend to read--I have no
time."

"You might find a little time. I have seen you look very much bored, and
complain that there was nothing to do."

"Never when you were there, Nell, that I'll answer for--but of course
there are times when a fellow isn't doing anything much. What would you
have me read? There's always the _Sporting and Dramatic_, you know, the
_Pink 'un_, and a few more."

"Oh, Phil! you don't call them literature, I hope."

"I don't know much about what you call literature. There's Ruff, and
Hoyle, and--I say, Nell, there's a dog-cart going a pace! Who can that
be, do you suppose?"

"I don't know all the dog-carts about. I should think it was some one
coming from the station."

"Oh!" he said, and made a long pause. "Driving like that, if they don't
break their necks, they should be here in ten minutes or so."

"Oh, not for twice that time--the road makes such a round--but there is
no reason to suppose that any dog-cart from the station should be coming
here."

"Well, to return to the literature, as you call it. I suppose I shall
have to get a lot of books for you to keep you amused--eh, Nell? even in
the honeymoon."

"We shall not have time to read very much if we are moving about all the
time."

"Not me, but you. I know what you'll do. You'll go and leave me planted,
and run up-stairs to read your book. I've seen the Jew do it with some
of her confounded novels that she's always wanting to turn over to me."

"But there are some novels that you would like to read, Phil."

"Not a bit. Why, Nell, I know far better stories of fellows in our own
set than any novel these writing men ever can put on paper: fellows, and
women, too--stories that would make your hair stand on end, and that
would make you die with laughing. You can't think what lots I know. That
cart would have been here by this time if it had been coming here, eh?"

"Oh, no, not yet--the road makes such a long round. Do you expect any
one, Phil?"

"I don't quite know; there's something on at that confounded office of
ours; everything, you know, has gone to smash. I didn't think it well to
say too much to the old lady last night. There's been a regular row, and
the manager's absconded, and all turns on whether they can find some
books. I shouldn't wonder if one of the fellows came down here, if they
find out where I am. I say, Nell, mind you back me up whatever I say."

"But I can't possibly know anything about it," said Elinor, astonished.

"Never mind--about dates and that--if you don't stand by me, there may
be a fuss, and the wedding delayed. Remember that, my pet, the wedding
delayed--that's what I want to avoid. Now, come, Nell, let's have
another go about the books. All English, mind you. I won't buy you any
of the French rot. They're too spicy for a little girl like you."

"I don't know what you mean, Phil. I hope you don't think that I read
nothing but novels," Elinor said.

"Nothing but novels! Oh, if you go in for mathematics and that sort of
thing, Nell! the novels are too deep for me. Don't say poetry, if you
love me. I could stand most things from you, Nell, you little
darling--but, Nell, if you come spouting verses all the time----"

His look of horror made Elinor laugh. "You need not be afraid. I never
spout verses," she said.

"Come along this way a little, where we can see the road. All women seem
to like poetry. There's a few fellows I don't mind myself. Ingoldsby,
now that's something fine. We had him at school, and perhaps it was the
contrast from one's lessons. Do you know Ingoldsby, Nell?"

"A--little--I have read some----"

"Ah, you like the sentimental best. There's Whyte Melville, then,
there's always something melancholy about him--'When the old horse
died,' and that sort of thing--makes you cry, don't you know. You all
like that. Certainly, if that dog-cart had been coming here it must have
come by this time."

"Yes, it must have come," Elinor admitted, with a little wonder at the
importance which he gave to this possible incident. "But there is
another train at two if you are very anxious to see this man."

"Oh, I'm not anxious to see him," said Mr. Compton, with a laugh, "but
probably he will want to see me. No, Nell, you will not expect me to
read poetry to you while we're away. There's quite a library at Lomond's
place. You can amuse yourself there when I'm shooting; not that I shall
shoot much, or anything that takes me away from my Nell. But you must
come out with us. There is no such fun as stumping over the moors--the
Jew has got all the turn-out for that sort of thing--short frocks and
knickerbockers, and a duck of a little breech-loader. She thinks she's a
great shot, poor thing, and men are civil and let her imagine that she's
knocked over a pheasant or a hare, now and then. As for the partridges,
she lets fly, of course, but to say she hits anything----"

"I should not want to hit anything," said Elinor. "Oh, please Phil! I
will try anything else you like, but don't make me shoot."

"You little humbug! See what you'll say when you get quite clear of the
old lady. But I don't want you to shoot, Nell. If you don't get tired
sitting at home, with all of us out on the hill, I like to come in for
my part and find a little duck all tidy, not blowzy and blown about by
the wind, like the Jew with her ridiculous bag, that all the fellows
snigger at behind her back."

"You should not let any fellow laugh at your sister, Phil----"

"Oh, as for that! they are all as thick with her as I am, and why should
I interfere? But I promise you nobody shall cut a joke upon my Nell."

"I should hope not, indeed," said Elinor, indignant; "but as for your
'fellows,' Phil, as you call them, you mustn't be angry with me, but I
don't much like those gentlemen; they are a little rude and rough. They
shall not call me by my Christian name, or anything but my own
formal----"

"Mrs. Compton," he said, seizing her in his arms, "you little duck!
they'll be as frightened of you as if you were fifty. But you mustn't
spoil good company, Nell. I shall like you to keep them at a distance,
but you mustn't go too far; and, above all, my pet, you mustn't put out
the Jew. I calculate on being a lot there; they have a nice house and a
good table, and all that, and Prestwich is glad of somebody to help
about his horses. You mustn't set up any of your airs with the Jew."

"I don't know what you mean by my airs, Phil."

"Oh, but I do, and they're delicious, Nell: half like a little girl and
half like a queen: but it will never do to make the Jew feel small in
her own set. Hallo! there's some one tumbling alone over the stones on
that precious road of yours. I believe it's that cart from the station
after all."

"No," said Elinor, "it is only one of the tradespeople. You certainly
are anxious about those carts from the station, Phil."

"Not a bit!" he said, and then, after a moment, he added, "Yes, on the
whole, I'd much rather the man came, if he's coming while I'm here, and
while you are with me, Nell; for I want you to stick to me, and back me
up. They might think I ought to go after that manager fellow and spoil
the wedding. Therefore mind you back me up."

"I can't think, dear Phil, what there is for me to do. I know nothing
about the business nor what has happened. You never told me anything,
and how can I back you up about things I don't know?"

"Oh, yes, you can," he said, "you'll soon see if the fellow comes; just
you stand by me, whatever I say. You mayn't know--or even I may seem to
make a mistake; but you know me if you don't know the circumstances, and
I hope you can trust me, Nell, that it will be all right."

"But----" said Elinor, confused.

"Don't go on with your buts; there's a darling, don't contradict me.
There is nothing looks so silly to strangers as a woman contradicting
every word a fellow says. I only want you to stand by me, don't you
know, that's all; and I'll tell you everything about it after, when
there's time."

"Tell me about it now," said Elinor; "you may be sure I shall be
interested; there's plenty of time now."

"Talk about business to you! when I've only a single day, and not half
time enough, you little duck, to tell you what a darling you are, and
how I count every hour till I can have you all to myself. Ah, Nell,
Nell, if that day were only here----"

And then Phil turned to those subjects and those methods which cast so
much confusion into the mind of Mrs. Dennistoun, when practised under
her sedate and middle-aged eyes. But Elinor, as has been said, did not
take exactly the same view.

Presently they went to luncheon, and Phil secured himself a place at
table commanding the road. "I never knew before how jolly it was," he
said, "though everything is jolly here. And that peep of the road must
give you warning when any invasion is coming."

"It is too far off for that," said Mrs. Dennistoun.

"Oh, no, not for sharp eyes. Nell there told me who several people
were--those white horses--the people at--where did you say, Nell?"

"Reddown, mamma--the Philistines, as you call them, that are always
dashing about the country--_nouveaux riches_, with the finest horses in
the county."

"I like the _nouveaux riches_ for that," said Phil (he did not go wrong
in his French, which was a great consolation to Elinor), "they like to
have the best of everything. Your poor swell has to take what he can
get, but the _parvenu's_ the man in these days; and then there was a
dog-cart, which she pronounced to be from the station, but which turned
out to be the butcher, or the baker, or the candle-stick maker----"

"It is really too far off to make sure of anything, except white
horses."

"Ah, there's no mistaking them. I see something sweeping along, but
that's a country wagon, I suppose. It gives me a great deal of diversion
to see the people on the road--which perhaps you will think a vulgar
amusement."

"Not at all," said Mrs. Dennistoun, politely, but she thought within
herself how empty the brain must be which sought diversion from the
distant carriages passing two miles off: to be sure across the combe,
as the crow flies, it was not a quarter part so far as that.

"Phil thinks some one may possibly come to him on business--to explain
things," said Elinor, anxious on her part to make it clear that it was
not out of mere vacancy that her lover had watched so closely the
carriages on the road.

"Unfortunately, there is something like a smash," he said; "they'll keep
it out of the papers if they can, but you may see it in the papers; the
manager has run away, and there's a question about some books. I don't
suppose you would understand--they may come to me here about it, or they
may wait till I go back to town."

"I thought you were going to Ireland, Phil."

"So I shall, probably, just for three days--to fill up the time. One
wants to be doing something to keep one's self down. You can't keep
quiet and behave yourself when you are going to be married in a week:
unless you're a little chit of a girl without any feelings," he said
with a laugh. And Elinor laughed too; while Mrs. Dennistoun sat as grave
as a judge at the head of the table. But Phil was not daunted by her
serious face: so long as the road was quite clear he had all the
appearance of a perfectly easy mind.

"We have been talking about literature," he said. "I am a stupid fellow,
as perhaps you know, for that sort of thing. But Nell is to indoctrinate
me. We mean to take a big box of books, and I'm to be made to read
poetry and all sorts of fine things in my honeymoon."

"That is a new idea," said Mrs. Dennistoun. "I thought Elinor meant to
give up reading, on the other hand, to make things square."

There was a little breath of a protest from Elinor. "Oh, mamma!" but she
left the talk (he could do it so much better) in Compton's hand.

"I expect to figure as a sort of prodigy in my family," he said; "we're
not bookish. The Jew goes in for French novels, but I don't intend to
let Nell touch them, so you may be easy in your mind."

"I have no doubt Lady Mariamne makes a good selection," said Mrs.
Dennistoun.

"Not she! she reads whatever comes, and the more salt the better. The
Jew is quite an emancipated person. Don't you think she'll bore you
rather in this little house? She carries bales of rubbish with her
wherever she goes, and her maid, and her dog, and I don't know what. If
I were you I'd write, or better wire, and tell her there's a capital
train from Victoria will bring her here in time for the wedding, and
that it's a thousand pities she should disturb herself to come for the
night."

"If your sister can put up with my small accommodation, I shall of
course be happy to have her, whatever she brings with her," Mrs.
Dennistoun said.

"Oh! it's not a question of putting up--she'd be delighted, I'm sure:
but I think you'll find her a great bore. She is exceedingly fussy when
she has not all her things about her. However, you must judge for
yourself. But if you think better of it, wire a few words, and it'll be
all right. I'm to go to the old Rectory, Nell says."

"It is not a particularly old Rectory; it is a very nice, pleasant
house. I think you will find yourself quite comfortable--you and the
gentleman----"

"Dick Bolsover, who is going to see me through it: and I daresay I
should not sleep much, if I were in the most luxurious bed in the world.
They say a man who is going to be hanged sleeps like a top, but I don't
think I shall; what do you say, Nell?"

"Elinor, I should think, could have no opinion on the subject," said
Mrs. Dennistoun, pale with anger. "You will all dine here, of course.
Some other friends are coming, and a cousin, Mr. Tatham, of Tatham's
Cross."

"Is that," said Phil, "the Cousin John?"

"John, I am sorry to say, is abroad; the long vacation is the worst
time. It is his father who is coming, and his sister, Mary Tatham, who
is Elinor's bridesmaid--she and Miss Hudson at the Rectory."

"Only two; and very sensible, instead of the train one sees, all
thinking how best to show themselves off. Dick Bolsover is man enough to
tackle them both. He expects some fun, I can tell you. What is there to
be after we are gone, Nell?" He stopped and looked round with a laugh.
"Rather close quarters for a ball," he said.

"There will be no ball. You forget that when you take Elinor away I
shall be alone. A solitary woman living in a cottage, as you remark,
does not give balls. I am much afraid that there will be very little fun
for your friend."

"Oh, he'll amuse himself well enough; he's the sort of fellow who always
makes himself at home. A Rectory will be great fun for him; I don't
suppose he was ever in one before, unless perhaps when he was a boy at
school. Yes, as you say--what a lot of trouble it will be for you to
be sure: not as if Nell had a sister to enjoy the fun after. It's a
thousand pities you did not decide to bring her up to town, and get
us shuffled off there. You might have got a little house for next
to nothing at this time of the year, and saved all the row, turning
everything upside down in this nice little place, and troubling yourself
with visitors and so forth. But one always thinks of that sort of thing
too late."

"I should not have adopted such an expedient in any case. Elinor must be
married among her own people, wherever her lot may be cast afterwards.
Everybody here has known her ever since she was born."

"Ah, that's a thing ladies think of, I suppose," said Compton. He had
stuck his glass into his eye and was gazing out of the window. "Very
jolly view," he continued. "And what's that, Nell, raising clouds of
dust? I haven't such quick eyes as you."

"I should think it must be a circus or a menagerie, or something,
mamma."

"Very likely," said Mrs. Dennistoun. "They sometimes come this way on
the road to Portsmouth, and give little representations in all the
villages, to the great excitement of the country folk."

"We are the country folk, and I feel quite excited," said Phil, dropping
his glass. "Nell, if there's a representation, you and I will go
to-night."

"Oh, Phil, what----" Elinor was about to say folly: but she paused,
seeing a look in his eye which she had already learned to know, and
added "fun," in a voice which sounded almost like an echo of his own.

"There is nothing like being out in the wilderness like this to make one
relish a little fun, eh? I daresay you always go. The Jew is the one for
every village fair within ten miles when she is in the country. She says
they're better than any play. Hallo! what is that?"

"It is some one coming round the gravel path."

A more simple statement could not be, but it made Compton strangely
uneasy. He rose up hastily from the table. "It is, perhaps, the man I am
looking for. If you'll permit me, I'll go and see."

He went out of the room, calling Elinor by a look and slight movement of
his head, but when he came out into the hall was met by a trim clerical
figure and genial countenance, the benign yet self-assured looks of the
Rector of the Parish: none other could this smiling yet important
personage be.




CHAPTER X.


The Rector came in with his smiling and rosy face. He was, as many of
his parishioners thought, a picture of a country clergyman. Such a
healthy colour, as clear as a girl's, limpid blue eyes, with very light
eyelashes and eyebrows; a nice round face, "beautifully modelled,"
according to Miss Sarah Hill, who did a little in that way herself, and
knew how to approve of a Higher Sculptor's work. And then the neatest
and blackest of coats, and the whitest and stiffest of collars. Mr.
Hudson, I need scarcely say, was not so left to himself as to permit his
clerical character to be divined by means of a white tie. He came in, as
was natural among country neighbours, without thinking of any bell or
knocker on the easily opened door, and was about to peep into the
drawing-room with "Anybody in?" upon his smiling lips, when he saw a
gentleman approaching, picking up his hat as he advanced. Mr. Hudson
paused a moment in uncertainty. "Mr. Compton, I am sure," he said,
holding out both of his plump pink hands. "Ah, Elinor too! I was
sure I could not be mistaken. And I am exceedingly glad to make your
acquaintance." He shook Phil's hand up and down in a sort of see-saw.
"Very glad to make your acquaintance! though you are the worst enemy
Windyhill has had for many a day--carrying off the finest lamb in all
the fold."

"Yes, I'm a wolf, I suppose," said Phil. He went to the door and took a
long look out while Elinor led the Rector into the drawing-room. Then
Mr. Compton lounged in after them, with his hands in his pockets, and
placed himself in the bow-window, where he could still see the white
line across the combe of the distant road.

"They'll think I have stolen a march upon them all, Elinor," said the
Rector, "chancing upon Mr. Compton like this, a quite unexpected
pleasure. I shall keep them on the tenterhooks, asking them whom they
suppose I have met? and they will give everybody but the right person.
What a thing for me to have been the first person to see your intended,
my dear! and I congratulate you, Elinor," said the Rector, dropping his
voice; "a fine handsome fellow, and such an air! You are a lucky girl--"
he paused a little and said, with a slight hesitation, in a whisper, "so
far as meets the eye."

"Oh, Mr. Hudson, don't spoil everything," said Elinor, in the same tone.

"Well, I cannot tell, can I, my dear?--the first peep I have had." He
cleaved his throat and raised his voice. "I believe we are to have the
pleasure of entertaining you, Mr. Compton, on a certain joyful occasion
(joyful to you, not to us). I need not say how pleased my wife and I
and the other members of the family will be. There are not very many of
us--we are only five in number--my son, and my daughter, and Miss Dale,
my wife's sister, but much younger than Mrs. Hudson--who has done us the
pleasure of staying with us for part of the year. I think she has met
you somewhere, or knows some of your family, or--something. She is a
great authority on noble families. I don't know whether it is because
she has been a good deal in society, or whether it is out of
Debrett----"

"Nell, come and tell me what this is," Compton said.

"Oh, Phil! it is nothing, it is a carriage. I don't know what it is. Be
civil to the Rector, please."

"So I am, perfectly civil."

"You have not answered a single word, and he has been talking to you for
ten minutes."

"Well, but he hasn't said anything that I can answer. He says Miss
Something or other knows my family. Perhaps she does. Well, much good
may it do her! but what can I say to that? I am sure I don't know hers.
I didn't come here to be talked to by the Rector. Could we slip out and
leave him with your mother? That would suit his book a great deal
better. Come, let's go."

"Oh! he is speaking to you, Phil."

Compton turned round and eyed the Rector. "Yes?" he said in so marked an
interrogative that Mr. Hudson stopped short and flushed. He had been
talking for some time.

"Oh! I was not precisely asking a question," he said, in his quiet
tones. "I was saying that we believe and hope that another gentleman is
coming with you--for the occasion."

"Dick Bolsover," said Compton, "a son of Lord Freshfield's; perhaps Miss
----, the lady you were talking of, may know his family too. His brother
got a little talked of in that affair about Fille d'Or, don't you know,
at Newmarket. But Dick is a rattling good fellow, doesn't race, and has
no vices. He is coming to stand by me and see that all's right."

"We shall be happy to see Mr. Bolsover, I am sure." The Rector rubbed
his hands and said to himself with pleasure that two Honourables in his
quiet house was something to think of, and that he hoped it would not
turn the heads of the ladies, and make Alice expect--one couldn't tell
what. And then he said, by way of changing yet continuing the subject,
"I suppose you've been looking at the presents. Elinor must have shown
you her presents."

"By Jove, I never thought of the presents. Have you got a lot, Nell?"

"She has got, if I may be allowed to answer for her, having known her
all her life, a great many pretty things, Mr. Compton. We are not rich,
to be sure, her old friends here. We have to content ourselves with but
a small token of a great deal of affection; but still there are a number
of pretty things. Elinor, what were you thinking of, my dear, not to
show Mr. Compton the little set out which you showed us? Come, I should
myself like to look them over again."

Phil gave another long look at the distant road, and then he thrust his
arm into Elinor's and said, "To be sure, come along, Nell. It will be
something to do." He did not wait for the Rector to pass first, which
Elinor thought would have been better manners, but thrust her before him
quite regardless of the older people. "Let's see the trumpery," he said.

"Don't use such a word, Phil: the Rector will be so hurt."

"Oh, will he? did he work you an--antimacassar or something?"

"Phil, speak low at least. No, but his daughter did; and they gave
me----"

"I know: a cardcase or a button-hook, or something. And how many
biscuit-boxes have you got, and clocks, and that sort of thing? I advise
you to have an auction as soon as we get away. Hallo! that's a nice
little thing; look pretty on your pretty white neck I should say, Nell.
Who gave you that?" He took John's necklace out of its box where it had
lain undisturbed until now, and pulled it through his fingers. "Cost a
pretty bit of money that, I should say. You can raise the wind on it
when we're down on our luck, Nell."

"My cousin John, whom you have heard me speak of, gave me that, Phil,"
said Elinor, with great gravity. She thought it necessary, she could
scarcely tell why, to make a stand for her cousin John.

"Ah, I thought it was one of the disappointed ones," said Phil, flinging
it back carelessly onto the bed of white velvet where it had been fitted
so exactly. "That's how they show their spite; for of course I can't
give you anything half as good as that."

"There was no disappointment in the matter," said Elinor, almost angry
with the misconceptions of her lover.

"You are a nice one," said Compton, taking her by the chin, "to tell me!
as if I didn't know the world a long sight better than you do, my little
Nell."

The Rector, who was following slowly, for he did not like to go up-stairs
in a hurry, saw this attitude and drew back, a little scandalized.
"Perhaps we were indiscreet to--to follow them too closely," he said,
disconcerted. "Please to go in first, Mrs. Dennistoun--the young couple
will not mind you."

Mr. Hudson was prim; but he was rather pleased to see that "the young
couple" were, as he said, so fond of each other. He went into the room
under the protection of the mother--blushing a little. It reminded him,
as he said afterwards, of his own young days; but it was only natural
that he should walk up direct to the place where his kettle stood
conspicuous, waiting only the spark of a match to begin to boil the
water for the first conjugal tea. It appeared to him a beautiful
idea as he put his head on one side and looked at it. It was like the
inauguration of the true British fireside, the cosy privacy in which,
after the man had done his work, the lady awaited him at home, with the
tea-kettle steaming. A generation before Mr. Hudson there would have
been a pair of slippers airing beside the fire. But neither of these
preparations supply the ideal of perfect happiness now.

"I say, where did you get these hideous things?" said Compton,
approaching the table on which "the silver" was laid out. By a special
dispensation it was Lady Mariamne's dishes which caught Phil's
attention. "Some old grandmother, I suppose, that had 'em in the house.
Hallo! if it isn't the Jew! Nell, you don't mean to tell me you got
these horrors from the Jew?"

"They are supposed to be--quite handsome," said Elinor, with a
suppressed laugh. "We must not criticise. It is very kind of people to
send presents at all. We all know it is a very severe tax--to those who
have a great many friends----"

"The stingy old miser," said Compton. "Rolling in money, and to send you
these! By Jove! there's a neat little thing now that looks what it is;
probably one of your nice country friends, Nell----" (It was the kettle,
as a kind Providence decreed; and both the ladies breathed an internal
thanksgiving.) "Shows like a little gem beside that old, thundering,
mean-spirited Jew!"

"That," said the Rector, bridling a little and pink with pleasure, "is
our little offering: and I'm delighted to think that it should please so
good a judge. It was chosen with great care. I saw it first myself,
and the idea flashed upon me--quite an inspiration--that it was the
very thing for Elinor; and when I went home I told my wife--the very
thing--for her boudoir, should she not be seeing company--or just for
your little teas when you are by yourselves. I could at once imagine the
dear girl looking so pretty in one of those wonderful white garments
that are in the next room."

"Hallo!" said Compton, with a laugh, "do you show off your things in
this abandoned way, Nell, to the killingest old cov----"

She put her hand up to his mouth with a cry of dismay and laughter, but
the Rector, with a smile and another little blush, discreetly turned his
back. He was truly glad to see that they were so fond of each other, and
thought it was pretty and innocent that they should not mind showing
it--but it was a little embarrassing for an old and prim clergyman to
look on.

"What a pleasure it must be to you, my dear lady," he said when the
young couple had gone: which took place very soon, for Phil soon grew
tired of the presents, and he was ill at ease when there was no window
from which he could watch the road--"what a pleasure to see them so much
attached! Of course, family advantage and position is always of
importance--but when you get devoted affection, too----"

"I hope there is devoted affection," said Mrs. Dennistoun; "at all
events, there is what we are all united in calling 'love,' for the
present. He is in love with Elinor--I don't think there can be much
doubt of that."

"I did not of course know that he was here," said the Rector, with some
hesitation. "I came with the intention of speaking--I am very sorry to
see in the papers to-day something about that Joint-Stock Company of
which Mr. Compton was a director. It's rather a mysterious paragraph:
but it's something about the manager having absconded, and that some of
the directors are said to be involved."

"Do you mean my future son-in-law?" she said, turning quickly upon him.

"Good heavens, no! I wouldn't for the world insinuate---- It was only
that one felt a desire to know. Just upon the eve of a marriage
it's--it's alarming to hear of a business the bridegroom is involved in
being--what you may call broken up."

"That was one of the things Mr. Compton came to tell us about," said
Mrs. Dennistoun. "He said he hoped it might be kept out of the papers,
but that some of the books have got lost or destroyed. I am afraid I
know very little about business. But he has lost very little--nothing to
speak of--which was all that concerned me."

"To be sure," said the Rector, but in a tone not so assured as his
words. "It is not perhaps quite a nice thing to be director of a company
that--that collapses in this way. I fear some poor people will lose
their money. I fear there will be things in the papers."

"On what ground?" she said. "Oh, I don't deny there may be some one to
blame; but Mr. Compton was, I suspect, only on the board for the sake of
his name. He is not a business man. He did it, as so many do, for the
sake of a pretence of being in something. And then, I believe, the
directors got a little by it; they had a few hundreds a year."

"To be sure," said Mr. Hudson, but still doubtfully; and then he
brightened up. "For my part, I don't believe there is a word of truth in
it. Since I have seen him, indeed, I have quite changed my opinion--a
fine figure of a man, looking an aristocrat every inch of him. Such a
contrast and complement to our dear Elinor--and so fond of her. A man
like that would never have a hand in any sham concern. If it was really
a bogus company, as people say, he must be one of the sufferers. That is
quite my decided opinion; only the ladies, you know--the ladies who have
not seen him, and who are so much more suspicious by nature (I don't
know that you are, my dear Mrs. Dennistoun), would give me no rest. They
thought it was my duty to interfere. But I am sure they are quite
wrong."

To think that it was the ladies of the Rector's family who were
interfering made Mrs. Dennistoun very wroth. "Next time they have
anything to say, you should make them come themselves," she said.

"Oh, they would not do that. They say it is the clergyman's business,
not theirs. Besides, you know, I have not time to read all the papers.
We get the _Times_, and Mary Dale has the _Morning Post_, and another
thing that is all about stocks and shares. She has such a head for
business--far more than I can pretend to. She thought----"

"Mr. Hudson, I fear I do not wish to know what was thought by Miss
Dale."

"Well, you are, perhaps, right, Mrs. Dennistoun. She is only a woman,
of course, and she may make mistakes. It is astonishing, though, how
often she is right. She has a head for business that might do for a
Chancellor of the Exchequer. She made me sell out my shares in that Red
Gulch--those American investments have most horrible names--just a week
before the smash came, all from what she had read in the papers. She
knows how to put things together, you see. So I have reason to be
grateful to her, for my part."

"And what persuaded you, here at Windyhill, a quiet clergyman, to put
money in any Red Gulch? It is a horrible name!"

"Oh, it was Mary, I suppose," said Mr. Hudson. "She is always looking
out for new investments. She said we should all make our fortunes. We
did not, unfortunately. But she is so clever, she got us out of it with
only a very small loss indeed."

"No doubt she is very clever. I wish, though, that she would let us know
definitely on what ground----"

"Oh, there is no ground," cried the Rector. "Now that I have seen Mr.
Compton I am certain of it. I said to her before I left the Rectory,
'Now, my dear Mary, I am going like a lamb to the slaughter. I have no
reason to give if Mrs. Dennistoun should ask me, and you have no reason
to give. And she will probably put me to the door.' If I said that
before I started, you may fancy how much more I feel it now, when I have
made Mr. Compton's acquaintance. A fine aristocratic face, and all the
ease of high breeding. There are only three lives--and those not very
good ones--between him and the title, I believe?"

"Two robust brothers, and an invalid who will probably outlive them all;
that is, I believe, the state of the case."

"Dear me, what a pity!" said the Rector, "for our little Elinor would
have made a sweet little Countess. She would grow a noble lady, like the
one in Mr. Tennyson's poem. Well, now I must be going, and I am
extremely glad to have been so lucky as to come in just in time. It has
been the greatest pleasure to me to see them together--such a loving
couple. Dear me, like what one reads about, or remembers in old days,
not like the commonplace pairs one has to do with now."

Mrs. Dennistoun accompanied the Rector to the garden gate. She was half
inclined to laugh and half to be angry, and in neither mood did Mr.
Hudson's insinuations which he made so innocently have much effect
upon her mind. But when she took leave of him at the gate and came
slowly back among her brilliant flower-beds, pausing here and there
mechanically to pick off a withered leaf or prop up the too heavy head
of a late rose; her mind began to take another turn. She had always been
conscious of an instinctive suspicion in respect to her daughter's
lover. Probably only, she said to herself, because he was her daughter's
lover, and she was jealous of the new devotion that withdrew from her so
completely the young creature who had been so fully her own. That is a
hard trial for a woman to undergo. It is only to be borne when she, too,
is fascinated by her future son-in-law, as happens in some fortunate
cases. Otherwise, a woman with an only child is an alarming critic to
encounter. She was not fascinated at all by Phil. She was disappointed
in Elinor, and almost thought her child not so perfect as she had
believed, when it proved that she could be fascinated by this man. She
disliked almost everything about him--his looks, the very air which the
Rector thought so aristocratic, his fondness for Elinor, which was not
reverential enough to please the mother, and his indifference, nay,
contempt, for herself, which was not calculated to please any woman. She
had been roused into defence of him in anger at the interference, and at
the insinuation which had no proof; but as that anger died away, other
thoughts came into her mind. She began to put the broken facts together
which already had roused her to suspicion: his sudden arrival, so
unexpected; walking from the station--a long, very long walk--carrying
his own bag, which was a thing John Tatham did, but not like Phil
Compton. And then she remembered, suddenly, his anxiety about the
carriage on the distant road, his care to place himself where he could
see it. She had thought with a little scorn that this was a proof of his
frivolity, of the necessity of seeing people, whoever these people might
be. But now there began to be in it something that could have a deeper
meaning. For whom was he looking? Who might be coming? Stories she had
heard of fugitives from justice, of swindlers taking refuge in the
innocence of their families, came up into her mind. Could it be possible
that Elinor's pure name could be entangled in such a guilty web as this?




CHAPTER XI.


"Funny old poop!" said Compton. "And that is your Rector, Nell. I shall
tell Dick there's rare fun to be had in that house: but not for me. I
know what I shall be thinking of all the time I'm there. Odious little
Nell! to interfere like this with a fellow's fun. But I say, who's that
woman who knows me or my family?--much good may it do her, as I said
before. Tell me, Nell, did she speak ill of me?"

"Oh, Phil, how could you ask? or what would it matter if she spoke ever
so ill?"

"She did then," he said with a graver face. "Somebody was bound to do
it. And what did she say?"

"Oh, what does it matter, Phil? I don't remember; nothing of any
consequence. We paid no attention, of course, neither mamma nor I."

"That was plucky of the old girl," said Compton. "I didn't suppose you
would give ear, my Nell. Ain't so sure about her. If I'd been your
father, my pet, I should never have given you to Phil Compton. And
that's the fact: I wonder if the old lady would like to reconsider the
situation now."

"Phil!" said Elinor, clinging to his arm.

"Perhaps it would be best for you if you were to do so, Nell, or if she
were to insist upon it. Eh! You don't know me, my darling, that's the
fact. You're too good to understand us. We're all the same, from the old
governor downwards--a bad lot. I feel a kind of remorseful over you,
child, to-day. That rosy old bloke, though he's a snob, makes a man
think of innocence somehow. I do believe you oughtn't to marry me,
Nell."

"Oh, Phil! what do you mean? You cannot mean what you say."

"I suppose I don't, or I shouldn't say it, Nell. I shouldn't certainly,
if I thought you were likely to take my advice. It's a kind of luxury to
tell you we're a bad lot, and bid you throw me over, when I know all
along you won't."

"I should think not indeed," she said, clinging to him and looking up in
his face. "Do you know what my cous--I mean a friend, said to me on that
subject?"

"You mean your cousin John, whom you are always quoting. Let's hear what
the fellow said."

"He said--that I wasn't a girl to put up with much, Phil. That I wasn't
one of the patient kind, that I would not bear---- I don't know what it
was I would not bear; but you see you must consider my defects, which
you can understand well enough, whether I can understand yours or not."

"That you could not put up with--that you could not bear? that meant me,
Nell. He had been talking to you on the same subject, me and my faults.
Why didn't you listen to him? I suppose he wanted you to have him
instead of me."

"Phil! how dare you even think of such a thing? It is not true."

"Wasn't it? Then he is a greater fool than I took him for, and his
opinion's no good. So you're a spitfire, are you? Can't put up with
anything that doesn't suit you? I don't know that I should have found
that out."

"I am afraid though that it is true," she said, half-laughingly looking
up at him. "Perhaps you will want to reconsider too."

"If you don't want it any more than I want it, Nell---- What's that?" he
cried hastily, changing his expression and attitude in a moment. "Is
that one of your neighbours at the gate?"

Elinor looked round, starting away a little from his side, and saw some
one--a man she had never seen before--approaching along the path. She
was just about to say she did not know who it was when Phil, to her
astonishment, stepped past her, advancing to meet the newcomer. But as
he did so he put out his hand and caught her as he passed, leading her
along with him.

"Mind what I said, and stick to me," he said, in a whisper; then--

"Stanfield!" he cried with an air of perfect ease and cordiality, yet
astonishment. "I thought it looked like you, but I could not believe my
eyes."

"Mr. Compton!" said the other. "So you are here. I have been hunting
after you all over the place. I heard only this morning this was a
likely spot."

"A very likely spot!" said Phil. "I suppose you know the good reason I
have for being in these parts. Elinor, this is Mr. Stanfield, who has to
do with our company, don't you know. But I say, Stanfield, what's all
this row in the papers? Is it true that Brown's bolted? I should have
taken the first train to see if I could help; but my private affairs are
most urgent just at this moment, as I suppose you know."

"I wish you had come," said the other; "it would have looked well, and
pleased the rest of the directors. There has been some queer
business--some of the books abstracted or destroyed, we can't tell
which, and no means of knowing how we stand."

"Good Heavens!" said Phil, "to cover that fellow's retreat."

"It you mean Brown, it was not he. They were all there safe enough after
he was gone; somebody must have got in by night and made off with them,
some one that knew all about the place; the watchman saw a light, but
that's all. It's supposed there must have been something compromising
others besides Brown. He could not have cheated the company to such an
extent by himself."

"Good Heavens!" cried Phil again in natural horror; "I wish I had
followed my impulse and gone up to town straight: but it was very vague
what was in the papers; I hoped it might not have been our place at all.
And I say, Stanfield--who's the fellow they suspect?" Elinor had
disengaged herself from Compton's arm; she perceived vaguely that the
stranger paused before he replied, and that Phil, facing him with a
certain square attitude of opposition which affected her imagination
vaguely, though she did not understand why--was waiting with keen
attention for his reply. She said, a little oppressed by the situation,
"Phil, perhaps I had better go."

"Don't go," he said; "there's nothing secret to say. If there's anyone
suspected it must very soon be known."

"It's difficult to say who is suspected," said the stranger, confused.
"I don't know that there's much evidence. You've been in Scotland?"

"Yes, till the other day, when I came down here to see----" He paused
and turned upon Elinor a look which gave the girl the most curious
incomprehensible pang. It was a look of love; but, oh! heaven, was it a
look called up that the other man might see? He took her hand in his,
and said lightly yet tenderly, "Let's see, what day was it? the sixth,
wasn't it the sixth, Nell?"

A flood of conflicting thoughts poured through Elinor's mind. What did
it mean? It was yesterday, she was about to say, but something stopped
her, something in Phil's eye--in the touch of his hand. There was
something warning, almost threatening, in his eye. Stand by me; mind you
don't contradict me; say what I say. All these things which he had
repeated again and again were said once more in the look he gave her.
"Yes," she said timidly, with a hesitation very unlike Elinor, "it was
the sixth." She seemed to see suddenly as she said the words that
calendar with the date hanging in the hall: the big 6 seemed to hang
suspended in the air. It was true, though she could not tell how it
could be so.

"Oh," said Stanfield, in a tone which betrayed a little surprise, and
something like disappointment, "the sixth? I knew you had left Scotland,
but we did not know where you had gone."

"That's not to be wondered at," said Phil, with a laugh, "for I should
have gone to Ireland, to tell the truth; I ought to have been there now.
I'm going to-morrow, ain't I, Nell? I had not a bit of business to be
here. Winding up affairs in the bachelor line, don't you know; but I had
to come on my way west to see this young lady first. It plays the deuce
and all with one's plans when there's such a temptation in the way."

"You could have gone from Scotland to Ireland," said Stanfield, gravely,
"without coming to town at all."

"Very true, old man. You speak like a book. But, as you perceive, I have
not gone to Ireland at all; I am here. Depends upon your motive, I
suppose, which way you go."

"It is a good way roundabout," said the other, without relaxing the
intent look on his face.

"Well," said Phil, "that's as one feels. I go by Holyhead wherever I may
be--even if I had nowhere else to go to on the way."

"And Mr. Compton got here on the sixth?--this is the eighth," said the
stranger, pointedly. He turned to Elinor, and it seemed to the girl that
his eyes, though they were not remarkable eyes, went through and through
her. He spoke very slowly, with a curious meaning. "But it was on the
sixth, you say, that he got here?"

That big 6 on the calendar stood out before her eyes; it seemed to cover
all the man's figure that stood before her. Elinor's heart and mind went
through the strangest convulsion. Was it false--was it true? What was
she saying? What did it all mean? She repeated mechanically, "It was on
the sixth," and then she recovered a kind of desperate courage, and
throwing off the strange spell that seemed to be upon her, "Is there any
reason," she asked, suddenly, with a little burst of impatience, looking
from one to another, "why it should not be the sixth, that you repeat it
so?"

"I beg your pardon," said the stranger, visibly startled. "I did not
mean to imply--only thought----Pray, Mr. Compton, tell the lady I had no
intention of offending. I never supposed----"

Phil's laugh, loud and clear, rang through the stillness of the afternoon.
"He's so used to fibs, he thinks everybody's in a tale," said Phil, "but
I can assure you he is a very good fellow, and a great friend of mine,
and he means no harm, Nell."

Elinor made Mr. Stanfield an extremely dignified bow. "I ought to have
gone away at once, and left you to talk over your business," she said,
turning away, and Phil did not attempt to detain her. Then the natural
rural sense of hospitality came over Elinor. She turned back to find the
two men looking after her, standing where she had left them. "I am
sure," she said, "that mamma would wish me to ask the gentleman if he
would stay to dinner--or at least come in with you, Phil, to tea."

Mr. Stanfield took off his hat with anxious politeness, and exclaimed
hastily that he must go back to town by the next train, and that the cab
from the station was waiting to take him. And then she left them, and
walked quietly away. She was almost out of hearing before they resumed
their conversation; that is, she was beyond the sound, not of their
voices, but of what they said. The murmur of the voices was still
audible when she got to her favourite seat on the side of the copse
looking down the combe. It was a very retired and silent place, not
visible from either the cottage or the garden. And there Elinor took
refuge in the quiet and hush of the declining day. She was in a great
tremor of agitation and excitement as she sat down upon the rustic
seat--so great a tremor that she had scarcely been able to walk steadily
down the roughly-made steps--a tremor which had grown with every step
she took. She did not in the least understand the transaction in which
she had been engaged. It was something altogether strange to her
experiences, without any precedent in her life. What was it she had been
called upon to do? What had she said, and why had she been made to say
it? Her heart beat so that she put her two hands upon it crossed over
her breast to keep it down, lest it should burst away. She had the
sensation of having been brought before some tribunal, put suddenly
to the last shift, made to say--what, what? She was so bewildered
that she could not tell. Was it the truth, said with the intention to
deceive--was it----? She could not tell. There was that great numeral
wavering in the air, stalking along with her like a ghost. 6--. She had
read it in all innocence, they had all read it, and nobody had said it
was wrong. No one was very careful about the date in the cottage. If it
was right, if it was wrong, Elinor could not tell. But yet somehow she
was conscious that the man to whom she had spoken had been deceived.
And Phil! and Phil! what had he meant, adjuring her to stick to him, to
stand by him, not to contradict him? Elinor's mind was in such a wild
commotion that she could not answer these inquiries. She could not feel
that she had one solid step of ground to place herself upon in the
whirlwind which swept her about and about. Had she--lied? And why had he
asked her to lie? And what, oh, what did it all mean?

One thing that at last appeared to her in the chaos which seemed like
something solid that she could grasp at was that Phil had never changed
in his aspect. The other man had been very serious, staring at her as if
to intimidate her, like a man who had something to find out; but Phil
had been as careless, as indifferent, as he appeared always to be. He
had not changed his expression. It is true there was that look in which
there was at once an entreaty and a command--but only she had seen
that, and perhaps it was merely the emotion, the excitement, the strange
feeling of having to face the world for him, and say----what, what?
Was it simply, the truth, nothing but the truth, or was it---- Again
Elinor's mind began to whirl. It was the truth: she could see now that
big 6 on the calendar distinct as the sunshine. And yet it was only
yesterday--and there was 8 this morning. Had she gone through an
intervening dream for a whole day without knowing it; or had she,
Elinor--she who would not have done it to save her life--told--a lie for
Phil? And why should he want her to tell a lie?

Elinor got up from her seat, and stood uncertain, with a cold dew on her
forehead, and her hands clasping and holding each other. Should she go
back to them and say there must be some mistake--that though she had
said the truth it was not true, that there was some mistake, some
dreadful mistake! There was no longer any sound of voices where she was.
The whole incident seemed to have died out. The sudden commotion of
Phil's visit and everything connected with it had passed away. She was
alone in the afternoon, in the hush of nature, looking over the combe,
listening to the rustle of the trees, hearing the bees drone homeward.
Had Phil ever been here at all? Had he watched the distant road winding
over the slopes for some one whom he had expected to come after him all
the time? Had he ever told her to stand by him? to say what he said, to
back him up? Had there ever been another man standing with that big 6
wavering between her and him like a ghost? Had all that been at all, or
was it merely a foolish dream? And ought she to go back now, and find
the man before he disappeared, and tell him it was all true, yet somehow
a dreadful, dreadful mistake?

Elinor sat down again abruptly on her seat, and put her handkerchief to
her forehead and pushed back the damp clusters of her hair, turning her
face to the wind to get a little refreshment and calm, if that were
possible. She heard in the sunny distance behind her, where the garden
and the peaceful house lay in the light, the clang of the gate, a sound
which could not be mistaken. The man then had gone--if there was
anything to rectify in what she said it certainly could not be rectified
now--he was gone. The certainty came to her with a feeling of relief. It
had been horrible to think of standing before the two men again and
saying--what could she have said? She remembered now that it was not her
assertion alone, but that it all hung together, a whole structure of
incidents, which would be put wrong if she had said it was a mistake--a
whole account of Phil's time, how it had been passed--which was quite
true, which he had told them on his arrival; how he had been going to
Ireland, and had stopped, longing for a glimpse of her, his bride,
feeling that he must have her by him, see her once again before he came
for her to fetch her away. He had told the ladies at the cottage the
very same, and of course it was true. Had he not come straight from
Scotland with his big bundle of game, the grouse and partridges which
had already been shared with all the friends about? Was he not going off
to Ireland to-morrow to fulfil his first intention? It was all quite
right, quite true, hanging perfectly together--except that curious
falling out of a day. And then again Elinor's brain swam round and
round. Had he been two days at the cottage instead of one, as he said?
Was it there that the mistake lay? Had she been in such a fool's
paradise having him there, that she had not marked the passage of
time--had it all been one hour of happiness flying like the wind? A
blush, partly of sweet shame to think that this was possible, that she
might have been such a happy fool as to ignore the divisions of night
and day, and partly of stimulating hope that such might be the case, a
wild snatch at justification of herself and him flushed over her from
head to foot, wrapping her in warmth and delight; and then this all
faded away again and left her as in ashes--black and cold. No!
everything, she saw, now depended upon what she had been impelled to
say; the whole construction, Phil's account of his time, his story of
his doings--all would have fallen to pieces had she said otherwise.
Body and soul, Elinor felt herself become like a machine full of
clanging wheels and beating pistons, her heart, her pulses, her breath,
all panting, beating, bursting. What did it mean? What did it mean? And
then everything stood still in a horrible suspense and pause.

She began to hear voices again in the distance and raised her head,
which she had buried in her hands--voices that sounded so calmly in the
westering sunshine, one answering another, everything softened in the
golden outdoor light. At first as she raised herself up she thought with
horror that it was the man, the visitor whom she had supposed to be
gone, returning with Phil to give her the opportunity of contradicting
herself, of bringing back that whirlwind of doubt and possibility. But
presently her excited senses perceived that it was her mother who was
walking calmly through the garden talking with Phil. There was not a
tone of excitement in the quiet voices that came gradually nearer and
nearer, till she could hear what they were saying. It was Phil who was
speaking, while her mother now and then put in a word. Elinor did not
wish on ordinary occasions for too many private talks between her mother
and Phil. They rubbed each other the wrong way, they did not understand
each other, words seemed to mean different things in their comprehension
of them. She knew that her lover would laugh at "the old girl," which
was a phrase which offended Elinor deeply, and Mrs. Dennistoun would
become stiffer and stiffer, declaring that the very language of the
younger generation had become unintelligible to her. But to hear them
now together was a kind of anodyne to Elinor, it stayed and calmed
her. The cold moisture dried from her forehead. She smoothed her hair
instinctively with her hand, and put herself straight in mind as she did
with that involuntary action in outward appearance, feeling that no sign
of agitation, no trouble of demeanour must meet her mother's eye. And
then the voices came so near that she could hear what they were saying.
They were coming amicably together to her favourite retreat.

"It's a very queer thing," said Phil, "if it is as they think, that
somebody went there the night before last and cleared off the books.
Well, not all the books, some that are supposed to contain the secret
transactions. Deucedly cleverly done it must have been, if it was done
at all, for nobody saw the fellow, or fellows, if there were more than
one----"

"Why do you doubt?" said Mrs. Dennistoun. "Is there any way of
accounting for it otherwise?"

"Oh, a very good way--that Brown, the manager, simply took them with
him, as he would naturally do, if he wasn't a fool. Why should he go off
and leave papers that would convict him, for the pleasure of involving
other fellows, and ruining them too?"

"Are there others, then, involved with him?" Oh, how calm, how
inconceivably calm, was Mrs. Dennistoun's voice! Had she been asking the
gardener about the slugs that eat the young plants it would have been
more disturbed.

"Well, Stanfield seemed to think so. He's a sort of head clerk, a fellow
enormously trusted. I shouldn't wonder if he was at the bottom of it
himself, they're so sure of him," said Phil, with a laugh. "He says
there's a kind of suspicion of two or three. Clumsy wretches they must
be if they let themselves be found out like that. But I don't believe
it. I believe Brown's alone in it, and that it's him that's taken
everything away. I believe it's far the safest way in those kind of
dodges to be alone. You get all the swag, and you're in no danger of
being rounded on, don't you know--till you find things are getting too
hot, and you cut away."

"I don't understand the words you use, but I think I know what you
mean," said Mrs. Dennistoun. "How dreadful it is to think that in
business, where honesty is the very first principle, there should be
such terrible plots and plans as those!"

"'Tis awful, isn't it?" said Phil, with a laugh that seemed to ring all
down the combe, and came back in echoes from the opposite slope, where
in the distance the cab from the station was seen hastening back towards
the railway in a cloud of dust. The laugh was like a trumpet of triumph
flung across the distance at the discomfited enemy thus going off
drooping in the hurry of defeat. He added, "But you may imagine, even if
I had known anything, he wouldn't have got much out of me. I didn't know
anything, however, I'm very glad to say."

"That is always the best," said Mrs. Dennistoun, with a certain grave
didactic tone. "And here is Elinor, as I thought. When one cannot find
her anywhere else she's sure to be found here."




CHAPTER XII.


"Well," said Compton, placing himself beside her, "here you are, Nell;
kind of the old lady to bring me, wasn't it? I should never have found
you out by myself."

"Has he gone, Phil?" Elinor raised her scared face from her hands, and
gave him a piteous look.

"Why, Nell! you are trembling like a leaf. Was it frightened, my pretty
pet, for Stanny? Stanny's gone off with his tail between his legs. Not a
bit of starch left in him. As limp a lawyer as ever you saw."

"Was he a lawyer?" she said, not knowing why she said it, for it
mattered nothing at all to Elinor what the man was.

"Not exactly; and yet, I suppose, something of the kind. He is the one
that knows about law points, and such things. But now he's as quiet as a
lamb, thanks to you."

"Phil," she cried, "what did you make me say? I don't know what I have
done. I have done something dreadful--deceived the man, as good as told
him a lie."

"You told him the truth," said Phil, with a laugh, "in the most
judgmatical way. You stuck to it like a--woman. There's nothing like a
woman for sticking to a text. You didn't say a word too much. And I say,
Nell, that little defiant bit of yours--'Was there any reason why it
shouldn't be the sixth?' was grand. That was quite magnificent, my pet.
I never thought you had such spirit in you."

"Oh, Phil," she cried, "why did you make me say it? What was it I said?
I don't know; I don't understand a bit. Whatever it was, I know that it
was wrong. I deceived the man."

"That's not so great a sin," he said. "I've known worse things done. Put
an old reynard off the scent to save his prey. I don't see what's wrong
in that, especially as the innocent chicken to be saved was your own
poor old Phil."

"Phil, Phil," she cried, "what could that man have done to you? What had
put you in his power? You have made me lose all my innocence. I have got
horrible things in my head. What could he have done to you that you made
me tell a lie?"

"What lie did I make you tell? be reasonable; I did arrive on the sixth,
you know that just as well as I do. Don't you really remember the
calendar in the hall? You saw it, Nell, as well as I."

"I know, I know," she cried, putting her hands up to her eyes, "I see it
everywhere staring at me, that big, dreadful 6. But how is it the 8th
now? There is something in it--something I don't understand."

He laughed loudly and long: one of those boisterous laughs which always
jarred upon Elinor. "I don't in the least mind how it was," he said. "It
was, and that's quite enough for me; and let it be for you too, Nell. I
hope you're not going to search into the origin of things like this;
we've quite enough to do in this world to take things as they come."

"Oh, Phil! if at least I could understand--I don't understand: or if I
had not been made to say what is so mysterious--what must be false."

"Hush, Nell; how could it be false when you saw with your own eyes it
was true? Now let us be done with this, my darling. The incident is
terminated, as the French say. I came here as fast as I could come to
have a good laugh with you over it, and lo! you're nearer crying. Why
should you have Stanny on your conscience, Nell? a fellow that would
like no better than to hang me if he could get the chance."

"But Phil, Phil--oh, tell me, what could this man have done to you? Why
are you afraid of him? Why, why have you made me tell him----"

"Now, Nell, no exaggerated expression. It was a fact you told him,
according to the best of evidence; and what he could have done to me is
just this--he might have given me a deal of trouble, and put off our
marriage. I should have had to go back to town, and my time would have
been taken up with finding out about those books, and our marriage would
have been put off; that's what he could have done."

"Is that all?" cried Elinor, "was that all?"

"All!" he said, with that loud laugh again; "you don't mind a bit how
you hurt a fellow's pride, and his affections, and all that. Do you mean
to say, you hard-hearted little coquette, that you wouldn't mind? I
don't believe you would mind! Here am I counting the hours, and you, you
little cold puss, you aggravating little----"

"Oh, Phil, don't talk such nonsense. If we were to be separated, for a
week or a month, what could that matter, in comparison with saying what
wasn't----"

"Hush," he said, putting his hand to her mouth. "It's not nice of you
to take it so easily, Nell. I'd tell as many what-d'ye-call-'ems as
you like, rather than put it off an hour. Why, feeling apart (and I
don't think you've any feeling, you little piece of ice), think how
inconvenient it would have been; the people all arriving; the breakfast
all ready; the Rector with his surplice on; and no wedding! Fancy the
Jew with all her fallals, on the old lady's hands, and your cousin
John----"

"I have told you already, Phil, my cousin John will not be there."

"So much the better," he said, with a laugh, "I don't want him to be
there--shows his sense, when his nose is put out of joint, to keep out
of the way."

"I wish you would understand," she said, with a little vexation, "that
John is not put out of joint, as you say in that odious way. He has
never been anything more to me, nor I to him, than we are now--like
brother and sister."

"The more fool he," said Compton, "to have the chance of a nice girl
like you, Nell, and not to go in for it. But I don't believe a bit in
the brother and sister dodge."

"We will be just the same all our lives," cried Elinor.

"Not if I know it," said Phil. "I'm an easy-going fellow in most ways,
but you'll find I'm an old Turk about you, my little duck of a Nell. No
amateur brother for me. If you can't get along with your old Phil,
without other adorers----"

"Phil! as if I should ever think or care whether there was another man
in the world!"

"Oh, that's going too far," he said, laughing. "I shan't mind a little
flirtation. You may have a man or two in your train to fetch and carry,
get your shawl for you, and call your carriage, and so forth; but no
serious old hand, Nell--nothing to remind you that there was a time when
you didn't know Phil Compton." His laugh died away at this point, and
for a moment his face assumed that grave look which changed its
character so much. "If you don't come to repent before then that you
ever saw that fellow's ugly face, Nell----"

"Phil, how could I ever repent? Nobody but you should dare to say such a
thing to me!"

"I believe that," he said. "If that old John of yours tried it on----
Well, my pet, he is your old John. You can't change facts, even if you
do throw the poor fellow over. Now, here's a new chance for all of them,
Nell. I shouldn't wonder a bit if you had another crop of letters
bidding you look before you leap. That Rectory woman, what's her name?
that knows my family. You'll see she'll have some new story before we're
clear of her. They'll never stop blackguarding me, I know, until you're
Phil Compton yourself, my beauty. I wish that day was come. I'm afraid
to go off again and leave you, Nell. They'll be putting something into
your head, or the old lady's. Let's get it over to-morrow morning, and
come to Ireland with me; you've never been there."

"Phil, what nonsense! mamma would go out of her senses."

"My pet, what does it matter? She'd come back to them again as soon as
we were gone, and think what a botheration spared her! All the row of
receiving people, turning the house upside down. And here I am on the
spot. And what do you want with bridesmaids and so forth? You've got all
your things. Suppose we walk out to church to-morrow before breakfast,
Nell----"

"Phil, you are mad, I think; and why should we do such a thing,
scandalizing everybody? But of course you don't mean it. You are excited
after seeing that man."

"Excited about Stanny!--not such a fool; Stanny is all square, thanks
to---- But what I want is just to take you up in my arms, like this, and
run off with you, Nell. Why we should call the whole world to watch us
while we take that swing off--into space."

"Phil!"

"So it is, for you, Nell. You don't know a bit what's going to happen.
You don't know where I'm going to take you, and what I'm going to do
with you, you little innocent lamb in the wolf's grip. I want to eat you
up, straight off. I shall be afraid up to the last moment that you'll
escape me, Nell."

"I did not know that you were so fond of innocence," said Elinor, half
afraid of her lover's vehemence, and trying to dispel his gravity with a
laugh. "You used to say you did not believe in the _ingénue_."

"I believe in you," he said, with an almost fierce pressure of her arm;
then, after a pause, "No, I don't believe in women at all, Nell, only
you. They're rather worse than men, which is saying a good deal. What
would the Jew care if we were all drawn and quartered; so long as she
had all her paraphernalia about her and got everything she wanted? For
right-down selfishness commend me to a woman. A fellow may have gleams
of something better about him, like me, warning you against myself."

"It is a droll way of warning me against yourself to want to carry me
off to-morrow."

"It's all the same thing," he said. "I've warned you that those old hags
are right, and I'm not good enough for you, not fit to come near you,
Nell. But if the sacrifice is to be, let's get it over at once, don't
let us stand and think of it. I'm capable of jilting you," he said,
"leaving you _planté là_, all out of remorse of conscience; or else just
catching you up in my arms, like this, and carrying you off, never to be
seen more."

"You are very alarming," said Elinor. "I don't know what you mean. You
can be off with your bargain if you please, Phil; but you had better
make up your mind at once, so that mamma may countermand her invitations,
and stop Gunter from sending the cake."

(It was Gunter who was the man in those days. I believe people go to
Buszard now.)

He gave her again a vehement hug, and burst into a laugh. "I might jilt
you, Nell; such a thing is on the cards. I might leave you in the lurch
at the church door; but when you talk of countermanding the cake, I
can't face that situation. Society would naturally be up in arms about
that. So you must take your chance like the other innocents. I'll eat
you up as gently as I can, and hide my tusks as long as it's possible.
Come on, Nell, don't let us sit here and get the mopes, and think of our
consciences. Come and see if that show is in the village. Life's better
than thinking, old girl."

"Do you call the show in the village, life?" she said, half pleased to
rouse him, half sorry to be thus carried away.

"Every show is life," said Phil, "and everywhere that people meet is
better than anywhere where you're alone. Mind you take in that axiom,
Nell. It's our rule of life, you know, among the set you're marrying
into. That's how the Jew gets on. That's how we all get on. By this time
next year you'll be well inured into it like all the rest. That's what
your Rector never taught you, I'll be bound; but you'll see the old
fellow practises it whenever he has a chance. Why, there they begin,
tootle-te-too. Come on, Nell, and don't let us lose the fun."

He drew her along hastily, hurrying while the flute and the drum began
to perform their parts. Sound spreads far in that tranquil country,
where no railway was visible, and where the winds for the moment were
still. It was Pan's pipes that were being played, attracting a few
stragglers from the scattered houses. Within a hundred yards from the
church, at the corner of four roads, stood the Bull's Head, with a
cottage or two linked on to its long straggling front. And this was all
that did duty for a village at Windyhill. The Rectory stood back in its
own copse, surrounded by a growth of young birches and oak near the
church. The Hills dwelt intermediate between the Bull's Head and the
ecclesiastical establishment. The school and schoolmaster's house were
behind the Bull. The show was surrounded by the children of the place,
who looked on silent with ecstasy, while a burly showman piped his pipes
and beat his drum. A couple of ostlers, with their shirt-sleeves rolled
up to their shoulders, and one of them with a pail in his hand, stood
arrested in their work. And in the front of the spectators was Alick
Hudson, a sleepy-looking youth of twenty, who started and took his hands
out of his pockets at sight of Elinor. Mr. Hudson himself came walking
briskly round the corner, swinging his cane with the air of a man who
was afraid of being too late.

"Didn't I tell you?" said Compton, pressing Elinor's arm.

As the tootle-te-too went on, other spectators appeared--the two Miss
Hills, one putting on her hat, the other hastily buttoning her jacket as
they hurried up. "Oh, you here, Elinor! What fun! We all run as if we
were six years old. I'm going to engage the man to come round and do it
opposite Rosebank to amuse mother. She likes it as much as any of us,
though she doesn't see very well, poor dear, nor hear either. But we
must always consider that the old have not many amusements," said the
elder Miss Hill.

"Though mother amuses herself wonderfully with her knitting," said Miss
Sarah. "There's a sofa-cover on the stocks for you, Elinor."

It appeared to be only at this moment that the sisters became aware of
the presence of "the gentleman" by whom Elinor stood. They had been too
busy with their uncompleted toilettes to observe him at first. But now
that Miss Hill's hat was settled to her satisfaction, and the blue veil
tied over her face as she liked it to be, and Miss Sarah had at last
succeeded, after two false starts, in buttoning her jacket straight,
their attention was released for other details. They both gave a glance
over Elinor at the tall figure on the other side, and then looked at
each other with a mutual little "Oh!" and nod of recognition. Then Miss
Hill took the initiative as became her dignity. "I hope you are going to
introduce us to your companion, Elinor," she said. "Oh, Mr. Compton, how
do you do? We are delighted to make your acquaintance, I am sure. It is
charming to have an opportunity of seeing a person of so much importance
to us all, our dear Elinor's intended. I hope you know what a prize you
are getting. You might have sought the whole country over and you
wouldn't have found a girl like her. I don't know how we shall endure
your name when you carry her away."

"Except, indeed," said Miss Sarah, "that it will be Elinor's name too."

"So here we all are again," said the Rector, gazing down tranquilly upon
his flock, "not able to resist a little histrionic exhibition--and Mr.
Compton too, fresh from the great world. I daresay our good friend Mrs.
Basset would hand us out some chairs. No Englishman can resist Punch.
Alick, my boy, you ought to be at your work. It will not do to neglect
your lessons when you are so near your exam."

"No Englishman, father, can resist Punch," said the lad: at which the
two ostlers and the landlord of the Bull's Head, who was standing with
his hands in his pockets in his own doorway, laughed loud.

"Had the old fellow there," said Compton, which was the first observation
he had made. The ladies looked at him with some horror, and Alick a
little flustered, half pleased, half horrified, by this support, while
the Rector laughed, but stiffly _au bout des lèvres_. He was not
accustomed to be called an old fellow in his own parish.

"The old fellows, as you elegantly say, Mr. Compton, have always the
worst of it in a popular assembly. Elinor, here is a chair for you, my
love. Another one please, Mrs. Basset, for I see Miss Dale coming up
this way."

"By Jove," said Compton, under his breath. "Elinor, here's the one that
knows society. I hope she isn't such an old guy as the rest."

"Oh, Phil, be good!" said Elinor, "or let us go away, which would be the
best."

"Not a bit," he said. "Let's see the show. I say, old man, where are you
from last?"

"Down from Guildford ways, guv'nor--awful bad trade; not taken a bob,
s' help me, not for three days, and bed and board to get off o' that,
me and my mate."

"Well, here is a nice little party for you, my man," said the Rector,
"it is not often you have such an audience--nor would I encourage it,
indeed, if it were not so purely English an exhibition."

"Master," said the showman, "worst of it is, nobody pays till we've done
the show, and then they goes away, and they've got it, don't you see,
and we can't have it back once it's in their insides, and there ain't
nothink then, neither for my mate nor me."

"Here's for you, old fellow," said Phil. He took a sovereign from his
waistcoat pocket and chucked it with his thumbnail into the man's hand,
who looked at it with astonished delight, tossed it into the air with a
grin, a "thank'ee, gentleman!" and a call to his "mate" who immediately
began the ever-exciting, ever-amusing drama. The thrill of sensation
which ran through the little assembly at this incident was wonderful.
The children all turned from Punch to regard with large open eyes and
mouths the gentleman who had given a gold sovereign to the showman.
Alick Hudson looked at him with a grin of pleasure, a blush of envy on
his face; the Rector, with an expression of horror, slightly shaking his
head; the Miss Hills with admiration yet dismay. "Goodness, Sarah,
they'll never come now and do it for a shilling to amuse mother!" the
elder of the sisters said.

Miss Dale came hurrying up while still the sensation lasted. "Here is a
chair for you, Mary," said her brother-in-law, "and the play is just
going to begin. I can't help shaking my head when I think of it, but
still you must hear what has just happened. Mr. Compton, let me present
you to my sister-in-law, Miss Dale. Mr. Compton has made the widow's
heart, nay, not the widow's, but the showman's heart to sing. He has
presented our friend with a----"

"Mind you," said Phil, from behind Elinor's shoulders, "I've paid the
fellow only for two."

At which the showman turned and winked at the Rector. To think that such
a piece of audacity could be! A dingy fellow in a velveteen coat, with a
spotted handkerchief round his neck, and a battered hat on his unkempt
locks, with Pan's pipes at his mouth and a drum tied round his
waist--winked at the Rector! Mr. Hudson fell back a step, and his very
lips were livid with the indignity. He had to support himself on the
back of the chair he had just given to Miss Dale.

"I think we are all forgetting our different positions in this world,"
he said.

"I ain't," said the showman, "not taking no advantage through the
gentleman's noble ways. He's a lord, he is, I don't make no doubt. And
we're paid. Take the good of it, Guv'nor, and welcome; all them as is
here is welcome. My mate and I are too well paid. A gentleman like that
good gentleman, as is sweet upon a pretty young lady, and an open 'eart
a-cause of her, I just wish we could find one at every station; don't
you, Joe?"

Joe assented, in the person of Mr. Punch, with a horrible squeak from
within the tent.

The sensations of Elinor during this episode were peculiar and full of
mingled emotion. It is impossible to deny that she was proud of the
effect produced by her lover. The sovereign chucked into the showman's
hand was a cheap way of purchasing a little success, and yet it dazzled
Elinor, and made her eyelids droop and her cheek light up with the
glow of pleasure. Amid all the people who would search for pennies,
or perhaps painfully and not without reluctance produce a sixpence
to reward the humble artists, there was something in the careless
familiarity and indifference which tossed a gold coin at them which was
calculated to charm the youthful observer. Elinor felt the same mixture
of pleasure and envy which had moved Alick Hudson; yet it was not envy,
for was not he her own who did this thing which she would have liked to
have done herself, overwhelming the poor tramps with delight? Elinor
knew, as Alick also did, that it would never have occurred to her to do
it. She would have been glad to be kind to the poor men, to give them a
good meal, to speak to Basset at the Bull's Head in their favour that
they might be taken in for the night and made comfortable, but to open
her purse and take a real sovereign from it, a whole potential pound,
would not have come into her head. Had such a thing been done, for
instance, by the united subscriptions of the party, in case of some
peculiarly touching situation, the illness of a wife, the loss of a
child, it would have been done solemnly, the Rector calling the men up,
making a little speech to them, telling them how all the ladies and
gentlemen had united to make up this, and how they must be careful not
to spend it unworthily. Elinor thought she could see the little scene,
and the Rector improving the occasion. Whereas Phil spun the money
through the air into the man's ready hand as if it had been a joke, a
trick of agility. Elinor saw that everybody was much impressed with the
incident, and her heart went forth upon a flood of satisfaction and
content. And it was no premeditated triumph. It was so noble, so
accidental, so entirely out of his good heart!

When he hurried her home at the end of the performance, that Mrs.
Dennistoun might not be kept waiting, the previous events of the
afternoon, and all that happened in the copse and garden, had faded out
of Elinor's mind. She forgot Stanfield and the 6th and everything about
it. Her embarrassment and trouble were gone. She went in gayly and told
her mother all about this wonderful incident. "The Rector was trying for
a sixpence. But, mamma, Phil must not be so ready with his sovereigns,
must he? We shall have nothing to live upon if he goes chucking
sovereigns at every Punch and Judy he may meet."




CHAPTER XIII.


Phil Compton went off next morning by an early train, having in the
meanwhile improved the impression of him left upon the family in
general, and specially upon Mrs. Dennistoun, to whom he had talked with
enthusiasm about Elinor, expressed indeed in terms unusual to her ears,
but perhaps only more piquant on that account, which greatly conciliated
the mother. "Don't you think," said the Honourable Phil, "because I
speak a little free and am not one for tall talk, that I don't know
what she is. I've got no poetry in me, but for the freest goer and the
highest spirit, without a bit of vice in her, there never was one like
Nell. The girls of my set, they're not worthy to tie her shoes--thing I
most regret is taking her among a lot that are not half good enough for
her. But you can't help your relations, can you? and you have to stick
to them for dozens of reasons. There's the Jew, when you know her she's
not such a bad sort--not generous, as you may see from what she's given
Nell, the old screw: but yet in her own way she stands by a fellow, and
we'll need it, not having just the Bank of England behind us. Her
husband, old Prestwich, isn't bad for a man that has made his own money,
and they've got a jolly house, always something going on."

"But I hope," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "that as soon as these autumn visits
are over you will have a house of your own."

"Oh, that!" said Compton, with a wave of his hand, which left it in some
doubt whether he was simply throwing off the suggestion, or treating it
as a foregone conclusion of which there could be no doubt. "Nell," he
went on, "gets on with the Jew like a house on fire--you see they don't
clash. Nell ain't one of the mannish sort, and she doesn't flirt--at
least not as far as I've seen----"

"I should hope not, indeed," said Mrs. Dennistoun.

"Oh, I'm not one of your curmudgeons. Where's the harm? But she don't,
and there's an end of it. She keeps herself to herself, and lets the Jew
go ahead, and think she's the attraction. And she'll please the old lord
down to the ground. For he's an old-fashioned old coon, and likes what
he calls _tenue_, don't you know: but the end is, there ain't one of
them that can hold a candle to Nell. And I should not wonder a bit if
she made a change in the lot of us. Conversion of a family by the
influence of a pious wife, don't you know. Sort of thing that they make
tracts out of. Capital thing, it would be," said Phil, philosophically,
"for some of us have been going a pace----"

"Mr. Compton," said Mrs. Dennistoun, solemnly, "I don't understand very
well what you mean by these phrases. They may be much more innocent
than they seem to a country lady's ears. But I implore you to keep my
Elinor clear of anything that you call going the pace. It must mean
something very unlike her, whatever it means. She has been used to a
very quiet, orderly life. Don't hurry her off into a whirl of society,
or among noisy gay people. Indeed I can assure you that the more you
have her to herself the more you will be happy in her. She is the
brightest companion, the most entertaining---- Oh, Mr. Compton!"

"I think it's about time, now, mater, to call me Phil."

She smiled, with the tears in her eyes, and held out her hand. "Philip,
then," she said, "to make a little difference. Now remember what I say.
It is only in the sacredness of her home that you will know what is in
Elinor. One is never dull with her. She has her own opinions--her bright
way of looking at things--as you know. It is, perhaps, a strange thing
for a mother to say, but she will amuse you, Philip; she is such
company. You will never be dull with Elinor: she has so much in her,
which will come out in society, it is true, but never so brightly as
between you two alone."

This did not seem to have quite the effect upon the almost-bridegroom
which the mother intended. "Perhaps" (she said to herself), "he was a
little affected by the thought" (which she kept so completely out of the
conversation) "of the loss she herself was about to undergo." At all
events, his face was not so bright as in the vision of that sweet
prospect held before him it ought to have been.

"The fact is," he said, "she knows a great deal more than I do, or ever
will. It's she that will be the one to look blue when she finds herself
alone with a fool of a follow that doesn't know a book from a brick.
That's the thing I'm most afraid---- As for society, she can have her
pick of that," he added, brightening up, "I'll not bind her down."

"You may be sure she'll prefer you to all the world."

He shrugged his shoulders a little.

"They say it's always a leap in the dark," he said, "for how's she to
know the sort of fellow I am with what she sees of me here? But I
promise you I'll do my best to take her in, and keep her in that
delusion, for her good--making believe to be all that's virtuous: and
perhaps not a bad way--some of it may stick. Come, mater, don't look so
horrified. I'm not of the Cousin John sort, but there may be something
decent in me after all."

"I am sure," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "that you will try to make her happy,
Philip." She was crying by this time, which was a thing very odious to
Phil. He took her by both hands and gave her a hearty kiss, which was a
thing for which she was not at all prepared.

"I'll do by her----" he said, with a murmur which sounded like an oath,
"as well as I know how."

Perhaps this was not the very greatest comfort to her mother, but it was
the best she was at all likely to get from a man so entirely different
in all ways from her own species. She had her cry out quietly while he
went off to get his bag. The pony carriage was at the door in which
Elinor was to drive him to the station, and a minute after Mrs.
Dennistoun heard his voice in the hall calling to his Nell, his old
girl, in terms which went against all the mother's prejudices of soft
and reverent speech. To have her carefully-trained child, her Elinor,
whom every one had praised and honoured, her maiden-princess so high
apart from all such familiarity, addressed so, gave the old-fashioned
lady a pang. It meant nothing but love and kindness, she said to
herself. He reverenced Elinor as much as it was in such a man to do. He
meant with all his heart to do by her as well as he knew how. It was as
fantastic to object to his natural language as it would be to object to
a Frenchman speaking French. That was his tongue, the only utterance he
knew---- She dried her eyes and went out to the door to see them start.
The sun was blazing over all the brilliant autumnal colours Of the
garden, though it was still full and brilliant summer in the September
morning, and only the asters and dahlias replacing the roses betrayed
the turn of the season. And nothing could be more bright than the face
of Elinor as she sat in the homely little carriage, with the reins
gathered up in her hand. He was going away, indeed, but in a week he was
coming back. Philip, as Mrs. Dennistoun now called him with dignity, yet
a little beginning of affection, packed up his long limbs as well as he
could in the small space. "I believe she'll spill us on the road," he
said, "or bring back the shandrydan with a hole in it."

"There is too much of you, Phil," said Elinor, giving the staid pony a
quiet touch.

"I should like some of those fellows to see me," he said, "joggled off
to market like a basket of eggs; but don't smash me, Nell, on the way."

Mrs. Dennistoun stood on the steps looking after them, or rather,
listening after them, for they had soon turned the corner of the house
and were gone. She heard them jogging over the stony road, and the sound
of their voices in the air for a long time after they were out of
sight--the air was so still and so close, nothing in it to break the
sound. The atmosphere was all sunshine, not a cloud upon the sky,
scarcely a breath stirring over those hill-tops, which had almost the
effect of a mountainous landscape, being the highest ground in all the
visible space. Along the other side of the combe, where the road became
visible, there were gleams of heather brilliant under the dark foliage
of the firs. She sat down in the porch and waited to see them pass;
there was a sorrowful background to her thoughts, but for the moment she
was not actually sad, if perhaps a little forlorn. They had gone away
leaving her alone, but yet in an hour or two Elinor was coming back.
Time enough to think of the final parting. Next week Elinor would go and
would not return. Mrs. Dennistoun held on by both hands to to-day and
would not think of that future, near as it was. She waited in a hush of
feeling, so near to great commotions of the heart and mind, but holding
them at a distance in a suspense of all thought, till the shandrydan
appeared in the opening of the road. They were thinking of her, for she
saw a gleam of white, the waving of a handkerchief, as the little
carriage trundled along the road, and for a moment the tears again
blinded her eyes. But Mrs. Dennistoun was very reasonable. She got
up from the cottage porch after the pony carriage had passed in the
distance, with that determination to make the best of it, which is the
inspiration of so many women's lives.

And what a drive the others had through the sunshine--or at least
Elinor! You can never tell by what shadows a man's thoughts may be
haunted, who is a man of the world, and has had many other things to
occupy him besides this vision of love. But the girl had no shadows. The
parting which was before her was not near enough to harm as yet, and
she was still able to think, in her ignorance of the world, that even
parting was much more in appearance than in reality, and that she would
always be running home, always going upon long visits brightening
everything, instead of saddening. But even had she been going to the end
of the world with her husband next week, Elinor would still have been
happy to-day. The sunshine itself was enough to go to any one's head,
and the pony stepped out so that Phil had the grace to be ashamed of his
reflections upon "the old girl." They got to the station too early for
the train, and had half an hour's stroll together, with all the railway
porters looking on admiring. They all knew Miss Dennistoun from her
childhood, and they were interested in her "young man."

"And to think you will be in Ireland to-morrow," said Elinor, "over the
sea, with the Channel between us--in another island!"

"I don't see much that's wonderful in that," said Phil, "the boat goes
every day."

"Oh, there's nothing wonderful about the boat. Hundreds might go, and I
shouldn't mind, but you---- It's strange to think of your going off into
a world I don't know at all--and then coming back."

"To take you off to that world you don't know, Nell; and then the time
will come when you will know it as well as I do, and more, too; and be
able to set me down in my proper place."

"What is your proper place? Your place will always be the same. Phil,
you've been so good to me this time; you've made everybody like you so.
Mamma--that's the best of all. She was a little--I can't say jealous,
that is not the right word, but uncertain and frightened--which just
means that she did not know you, Phil; now you've condescended to let
yourself be known."

"Have I, Nell? I've had more luck than meaning if that's so."

"'Tis that you've condescended to let yourself be known. A man has such
odious pride. He likes to show himself all on the wrong side, to brave
people's opinions--as if it was better to be liked for the badness in
you than for the goodness in you!"

"What's the goodness in me, Nell? I'd like to know, and then I can have
it ready in other emergencies and serve it out as it is wanted."

"Oh, Phil! the goodness in you is--yourself. You can't help being nice
when you throw off those society airs. When you are talking with
Mariamne and all that set of people----"

"Why can't you call her Jew? life is too short to say all those
syllables."

"I don't like you to call her Jew. It's unkind. I don't think she
deserves it. It's a sort of an insult."

"Shut up, Nell. It's her name and that's enough. Mar-ry-am-ne! It's a
beast of a name to begin with. And do you think any of us has got time
to say as much as that for one woman? Oh, I suppose I'm fond of her--as
men are of their sisters. She is not a bad sort--mean as her name, and
never fond of parting with her money--but stands by a fellow in a kind
of a way all the same."

"I'll never call her Jew," said Elinor; "and, Phil, all this wonderful
amount of things you have to do is simply--nothing. What do you ever
do? It is the people who do things that have time to spare. I know
one----"

"Don't come down on me, Nell, again with that eternal Cousin John."

"Phil! I never think of him till you put him into my head. I was
thinking of a gentleman who writes----"

"Rubbish, Nell! What have I to do with men that write, or you either? We
are none of us of that sort. I do what my set do, and more--for there
was this director business; and I should never mind a bit of work that
was well paid, like attending Board meetings and so forth, or signing my
name to papers."

"What, without reading them, Phil?"

"Don't come over a fellow with your cleverness, Nell! I am not a reader;
but I should take good care I knew what was in the papers before I
signed them, I can tell you. Eh! you'd like me to slave, to get you
luxuries, you little exacting Nell."

"Yes, Phil," she said, "I'd like to think you were working for our
living. I should indeed. It seems somehow so much finer--so real a life.
And I should work at home."

"A great deal you would work," he said, laughing, "with those scraps
of fingers! Let's hear what you would do--bits of little pictures, or
impossible things in pincushions, or so forth--and walk out in your most
becoming bonnet to force them down some poor shop-keeper's throat?"

"Phil!" she said, "how contemptuous you are of my efforts. But I never
thought of either sketches or pincushions. I should work at home to keep
the house nice--to look after the servants, and guide the cook, and see
that you had nice dinners."

"And warm my slippers by the parlour fire," said Phil. "That's too
domestic, Nell, for you and me."

"But we are going to be very domestic, Phil."

"Are we? Not if I knows it; yawn our heads off, and get to hate one
another. Not for me, Nell. You'll find yourself up to the eyes in
engagements before you know where you are. No, no, old girl, you may do
a deal with me, but you don't make a domestic man of Phil Compton. Time
enough for that when we've had our fling."

"I don't want any fling, Phil," she said, clinging a little closer to
his arm.

"But I do, my pet, in the person of Benedick the married man. Don't you
think I want to show all the fellows what a stunning little wife I've
got? and all the women I used to flirt with----"

"Did you use to flirt much with them, Phil?"

"You didn't think I flirted with the men, did you? like you did," said
Phil, who was not particular about his grammar. "I want to show you off
a bit. Nell. When we go down to the governor's, there you can be as
domestic as you like. That's the line to take with him, and pays too if
you do it well."

"Oh, don't talk as if you were always calculating for your advantage,"
she said, "for you are not, Phil. You are not a prudent person, but a
horrid, extravagant spendthrift; if you go on chucking sovereigns about
as you did yesterday."

"Well," he said, laughing, "wasn't it well spent? Didn't I make your
Rector open his old eyes, and stop the mouths of the old maids? I don't
throw away sovereigns in a general way, Nell, only when there's a
purpose in it. But I think I did them all finely that time--had them on
toast, eh?"

"You made an impression, if that is what you mean; but I confess I
thought you did it out of kindness, Phil."

"To the Punch and Judy? catch me! Sovereigns ain't plentiful enough for
that. You little exacting thing, ain't you pleased, when I did it to
please you, and get you credit among your friends?"

"It was very kind of you, I'm sure, Phil," she said, very soberly, "but
I should so much rather you had not thought of that. A shilling would
have done just as well and they would have got a bed at the Bull's
Head, and been quite kindly treated. Is this your train coming? It's a
little too soon, I think."

"Thanks for the compliment, Nell. It is really late," he said, looking
at his watch, "but the time flies, don't it, pet, when you and I are
together? Here, you fellow, put my bag in a smoking carriage. And now,
you darling, we've got to part; only for a little time, Nell."

"Only for a week," she said, with a smile and a tear.

"Not so long--a rush along the rail, a blow on the sea, and then back
again; I shall only be a day over there, and then--bless you, Nell.
Good-bye--take care of yourself, my little duck: take care of yourself
for me."

"Good-bye," said Elinor, with a little quiver of her lip. A parting at a
roadside station is a very abrupt affair. The train stops, the passenger
is shoved in, there is a clanging of the doors, and in a moment it is
gone. She had scarcely realized that the hour had come before he was
whirled off from her, and the swinging line of carriages disappeared
round the next curve. She stood looking vaguely after it till the old
porter came up, who had known her ever since she was a child.

"Beg your pardon, miss, but the pony is a-waiting," he said. And then he
uttered his sympathy in the form of a question:--"Coming back very soon,
miss, ain't the gentleman?" he said.

"Oh, yes; very soon," she said, rousing herself up.

"And if I may make bold to say it, miss," said the porter, "an
open-hearted gentleman as ever I see. There's many as gives us a
threepenny for more than I've done for 'im. And look at what he's give
me," he said, showing the half-crown in his hand.

Did he do that from calculation to please her, ungracious girl as she
was, who was so hard to please? But he never could have known that
she would see it. She walked through the little station to the pony
carriage, feeling that all the eyes of the people about were upon her.
They were all sympathetic, all equally aware that she had just parted
with her lover: all ready to cheer her, if she had given them an
opportunity, by reminding her of his early return. The old porter
followed her out, and assisted at her ascent into the pony carriage. He
said, solemnly, "And an 'andsome gentleman, miss, as ever I see," as he
fastened the apron over her feet. She gave him a friendly nod as she
drove away.

How dreadful it is to be so sensitive, to receive a wound so easily!
Elinor was vexed more than she could say by her lover's denial of the
reckless generosity with which she had credited him. To think that he
had done it in order to produce the effect which had given her so
distinct a sensation of pleasure changed that effect into absolute
pain. And yet in the fantastic susceptibility of her nature, there was
something in old Judkin's half-crown which soothed her again. A shilling
would have been generous, Elinor said to herself, with a feminine
appreciation of the difference of small things as well as great, whereas
half-a-crown was lavish--ergo, he gave the sovereign also out of natural
prodigality, as she had hoped, not out of calculation as he said. She
drove soberly home, thinking over all these things in a mood very
different from that triumphant happiness with which she started from
the cottage with Phil by her side. The sunshine was still as bright,
but it had taken an air of routine and commonplace to Elinor. It had
come to be only the common day, not the glory and freshness of the
morning. She felt herself, as she had never done before, on the edge of
a world unknown, where everything would be new to her, where--it was
possible--that which awaited her might not be unmixed happiness, might
even be the reverse. It is seldom that a girl on the eve of marriage
either thinks this or acknowledges to herself that she thinks it. Elinor
did so involuntarily, without thinking upon her thought. Perhaps it
would not be unmixed happiness. Strange clouds seemed to hang upon the
horizon, ready to roll up in tragic darkness and gloom. Oh, no, not
tragic, only commonplace, she said to herself; opaqueness, not
blackness. But yet it was ominous and lowering, that distant sky.




CHAPTER XIV.


The days of the last week hurried along like the grains of sand out of
an hour-glass when they are nearly gone. It is true that almost
everything was done--a few little bits of stitching, a few things still
to be "got up" alone remaining, a handkerchief to mark with Elinor's
name, a bit of lace to arrange, just enough to keep up a possibility
of something to do for Mrs. Dennistoun in the blank of all other
possibilities--for to interest herself or to occupy herself about
anything that should be wanted beyond that awful limit of the
wedding-day was of course out of the question. Life seemed to stop there
for the mother, as it was virtually to begin for the child; though
indeed to Elinor also, notwithstanding her love, it was visible more in
the light of a point at which all the known and certain ended, and where
the unknown and almost inconceivable began. The curious thing was that
this barrier which was placed across life for them both, got somehow
between them in those last days which should have been the most tender
climax of their intercourse. They had a thousand things to say to each
other, but they said very little. In the evening after dinner, whether
they went out into the garden together to watch the setting of the young
moon, or whether they sat together in that room which had witnessed all
Elinor's commencements of life, free to talk as no one else in the world
could ever talk to either of them, they said very little to each other,
and what they said was of the most commonplace kind. "It is a lovely
night; how clear one can see the road on the other side of the combe!"
"And what a bright star that is close to the moon! I wish I knew a
little more about the stars." "They are just as beautiful," Mrs.
Dennistoun would say, "as if you knew everything about them, Elinor."
"Are you cold, mamma? I am sure I can see you shiver. Shall I run and
get you a shawl?" "It is a little chilly: but perhaps it will be as well
to go in now," the mother said. And then indoors: "Do you think you will
like this lace made up as a jabot, Elinor?" "You are giving me all your
pretty things, though you know you understand lace much better than I
do." "Oh, that doesn't matter," Mrs. Dennistoun said hurriedly; "that is
a taste which comes with time. You will like it as well as I do when you
are as old as I am." "You are not so dreadfully old, mamma." "No, that's
the worst of it," Mrs. Dennistoun would say, and then break out into a
laugh. "Look at the shadow that handkerchief makes--how fantastic it
is!" she cried. She neither cared for the moon, nor for the quaintness
of the shadows, nor for the lace which she was pulling into dainty folds
to show its delicate pattern--for none of all these things, but for her
only child, who was going from her, and to whom she had a hundred, and
yet a hundred, things to say: but none of them ever came from her lips.

"Mary Dale has not seen your things, Elinor: she asked if she might come
to-morrow."

"I think we might have had to-morrow to ourselves, mamma--the last day
all by ourselves before those people begin to arrive."

"Yes, I think so too; but it is difficult to say no, and as she was not
here when the others came---- She is the greatest critic in the parish.
She will have so much to say."

"I daresay it may be fun," said Elinor, brightening up a little, "and
of course anyhow Alice must have come to talk about her dress. I am
tired of those bride's-maids' dresses; they are really of so little
consequence." Elinor was not vain, to speak of, but she thought it
improbable that when she was there any one would look much at the
bride's-maids' dresses. For one thing, to be sure, the bride is always
the central figure, and there were but two bride's-maids, which
diminished the interest; and then--well, it had to be allowed at the end
of all, that, though her closest friends, neither Alice Hudson nor Mary
Tatham were, to look at, very interesting girls.

"They are of great consequence to them," said Mrs. Dennistoun, with the
faintest smile.

"I didn't mean that, of course," said Elinor, with a blush; "only I
never should have worried about my own dress, which after all is the
most important, as Alice does about hers."

"Which nobody will look at," Mrs. Dennistoun said.

"I did not say that: but to tell the truth, it is a pity for the girls
that the men will not quite be, just of their world, you know. Oh,
mamma, you know it is not that I think anything of that, but I am sorry
for Alice and Mary. Mr. Bolsover and the other gentlemen will not take
that trouble which country neighbours, or--or John's friends from the
Temple might have done."

"Why do you speak of John's friends from the Temple, Elinor?"

"Mamma! for no reason at all. Why should I? They were the only other men
I could think of."

"Elinor, did John ever give you any reason to think----"

"Mamma," cried Elinor again, with double vehemence, her countenance all
ablaze, "of course he never did! how could you think such foolish
things?"

"Well, my dear," said her mother, "I am very glad he did not; it will
prevent any embarrassment between him and you--for I must always
believe----"

"Don't, please, oh, don't! it would make me miserable; it would take all
my happiness away."

Mrs. Dennistoun said nothing, but she sighed--a very small, infinitesimal
sigh--and there was a moment's silence, during which perhaps that sigh
pervaded the atmosphere with a sort of breath of what might have been.
After a moment she spoke again:

"I hope you have not packed up your ornaments yet, Elinor. You must
leave them to the very last, for Mary would like to see that beautiful
necklace. What do you think you shall wear on the day?"

"Nothing," said Elinor, promptly. She was about to add, "I have nothing
good enough," but paused in time.

"Not my little star? It would look very well, my darling, to fix your
veil on. The diamonds are very good, though perhaps a little
old-fashioned; you might get them reset. But--your father gave it me
like that."

"I would not change it a bit, mamma, for anything in the world."

"Thanks, my dearest. I thought that was how you would feel about it. It
is not very big, of course, but it really is very good."

"Then I will wear it, mamma, if it will please you, but nothing else."

"It would please me: it would be like having something from your father.
I think we had less idea of ornaments in my day. I cannot tell you how
proud I was of my diamond star. I should like to put it in for you
myself, Elinor."

"Oh, mamma!" This was the nearest point they had come to that outburst
of two full hearts which both of them would have called breaking down.
Mrs. Dennistoun saw it and was frightened. She thought it would be
betraying to Elinor what she wished her never to know, the unspeakable
desolation to which she was looking forward when her child was taken
from her. Elinor's exclamation, too, was a protest against the imminent
breaking down. They both came back with a hurry, with a panting breath,
to safer ground.

"Yes, that's what I regret," she said. "Mr. Bolsover and Harry Compton
will laugh a little at the Rectory. They will not be so--nice as young
men of their own kind."

"The Rectory people are just as well born as any of us, Elinor."

"Oh, precisely, mamma: I know that; but we too---- It is what they call
a different _monde_. I don't think it is half so nice a _monde_," said
the girl, feeling that she had gone further than she intended to do;
"but you know, mamma----"

"I know, Elinor: but I scarcely expected from you----"

"Oh," cried Elinor again, in exasperation, "if you think that I share
that feeling! I think it odious, I think their _monde_ is vulgar, nasty,
miserable! I think----"

"Don't go too far the other way, Elinor. Your husband will be of it, and
you must learn to like it. You think, perhaps, all that is new to me?"

"No," said Elinor, her bright eyes, all the brighter for tears, falling
before her mother's look. "I know, of course, that you have seen--all
kinds----"

But she faltered a little, for she did not believe that her mother was
acquainted with Phil's circle and their wonderful ways.

"They will be civil enough," she went on, hurriedly, "and as everybody
chaffs so much nowadays they will, perhaps, never be found out. But I
don't like it for my friends."

"They will chaff me also, no doubt," Mrs. Dennistoun said.

"Oh, _you_, mamma! they are not such fools as that," cried poor Elinor;
but in her own mind she did not feel confident that there was any such
limitation to their folly. Mrs. Dennistoun laughed a little to herself,
which was, perhaps, more alarming than that other moment when she was
almost ready to cry.

"You had better wear Lord St. Serf's ring," she said, after a moment,
with a tone of faint derision which Elinor knew.

"You might as well tell me," cried the bride, "to wear Lady Mariamne's
revolving dishes. No, I will wear nothing, nothing but your star."

"You have got nothing half so nice," said the mother. Oh yes, it was a
little revenge upon those people who were taking her daughter from her,
and who thought themselves at liberty to jeer at all her friends: but as
was perhaps inevitable it touched Elinor a little too. She restrained
herself from some retort with a sense of extreme and almost indignant
self-control: though what retort Elinor could have made I cannot tell.
It was much "nicer" than anything else she had. None of Phil Compton's
great friends, who were not of the same _monde_ as the people at
Windyhill, had offered his bride anything to compare with the diamonds
which her father had given to her mother before she was born. And Elinor
was quite aware of the truth of what her mother said. But she would have
liked to make a retort--to say something smart and piquant and witty in
return.

And thus the evening was lost, the evening in which there was so much to
say, one of the three only, no more, that were left.

Miss Dale came next day to see "the things," and was very amiable: but
the only thing in this visit which affected Elinor's mind was a curious
little unexpected assault this lady made upon her when she was going
away. Elinor had gone out with her to the porch, according to the
courteous usage of the house. But when they had reached that shady
place, from which the green combe and the blue distance were visible,
stretching far into the soft autumnal mists of the evening, Mary Dale
turned upon her and asked her suddenly, "What night was it that Mr.
Compton came here?"

Elinor was much startled, but she did not lose her self-possession. All
the trouble about that date had disappeared out of her mind in the
stress and urgency of other things. She cast back her mind with an
effort and asked herself what the conflict and uncertainty of which she
was dimly conscious, had been? It came back to her dimly without any of
the pain that had been in it. "It was on the sixth," she said quietly,
without excitement. She could scarcely recall to her mind what it was
that had moved her so much in respect to this date only a little time
ago.

"Oh, you must be mistaken, Elinor, I saw him coming up from the station.
It was later than that. It was, if I were to give my life for it,
Thursday night."

This was four or five nights before and a haze of uncertainty had
fallen on all things so remote. But Elinor cast her eyes upon the
calendar in the hall and calm possessed her breast. "It was the sixth,"
she said with composed tones, as certain as of anything she had ever
known in the course of her life.

"Well, I suppose you must know," said Mary Dale.




CHAPTER XV.


"Look at that, Elinor," said Mrs. Dennistoun, next day, when she had
read, twice over, a letter, large and emblazoned with a very big
monogram, which Elinor, well perceiving from whom it came, had furtively
watched the effect of from behind an exceeding small letter of her own.
Phil was not remarkable as a correspondent: his style was that of the
primitive mind which hopes its correspondent is well, "as this leaves
me." He had never much more to say.

"From Mariamne, mamma?"

"She takes great pains to make us certain of that fact at least," Mrs.
Dennistoun said; which indeed was very true, for the name of the writer
was sprawled in gilt letters half over the sheet. And this was how it
ran:--


"DEAR MRS. DENNISTOUN,--

"I have been thinking what a great pity it would be to bore you with me,
and my maid, and all my belongings. I am so silly that I can never be
happy without dragging a lot of things about with me--dogs, and people,
and so forth. Going to town in September is dreadful, but it is rather
_chic_ to do a thing that is quite out of the way, and one may perhaps
pick up a little fun in the evening. So if you don't mind, instead of
inflicting Fifine and Bijou and Leocadie, not to mention some people
that might be with me, upon you, and putting your house all out
of order, as these odious little dogs do when people are not used
to them--I will come down by the train, which I hope arrives quite
punctually, in time to see poor Phil turned off. I am sure you will
be so kind as to send a carriage for me to the railway. We shall be
probably a party of four, and I hear from Phil you are so hospitable and
kind that I need not hesitate to bring my friends to breakfast after
it's all over. I hope Phil will go through it like a man, and I wouldn't
for worlds deprive him of the support of his family. Love to Nell. I am,

"Yours truly,
"MARIAMNE PRESTWICH."


"The first name very big and the second very small," said Mrs.
Dennistoun, as she received the letter back.

"I am sure we are much obliged to her for not coming, mamma!"

"Perhaps--but not for this announcement of her not coming. I don't wish
to say anything against your new relations, Elinor----"

"You need not put any restraint upon yourself in consideration of my
feelings," said Elinor, with a flush of annoyance.

And this made Mrs. Dennistoun pause. They ate their breakfast, which was
a very light meal, in silence. It was the day before the wedding. The
rooms down-stairs had been carefully prepared for Phil's sister. Though
Mrs. Dennistoun was too proud to say anything about it, she had taken
great pains to make these pretty rooms as much like a fine lady's
chamber as had been possible. She had put up new curtains, and a Persian
carpet, and looked out of her stores all the pretty things she could
find to decorate the two rooms of the little apartment. She had gone in
on the way down-stairs to take a final survey, and it seemed to her that
they were very pretty. No picture could have been more beautiful than
the view from the long low lattice window, in which, as in a frame, was
set the foreground of the copse with its glimpses of ruddy heather and
the long sweep of the heights beyond, which stretched away into the
infinite. That at least could not be surpassed anywhere; and the Persian
carpet was like moss under foot, and the chairs luxurious--and there was
a collection of old china in some open shelves which would have made the
mouth of an amateur water. Well! it was Lady Mariamne's own loss if she
preferred the chance of picking up a little fun in the evening, to
spending the night decorously in that pretty apartment, and making
further acquaintance with her new sister. It was entirely, Mrs.
Dennistoun said to herself, a matter for her own choice. But she was
much affronted all the same.

"It will be very inconvenient indeed sending a carriage for her, Elinor.
Except the carriage that is to take you to church there is none good
enough for this fine lady. I had concluded she would go in your uncle
Tatham's carriage. It may be very fine to have a Lady Mariamne in one's
party, but it is a great nuisance to have to change all one's
arrangements at the last moment."

"If you were to send the wagonette from the Bull's Head, as rough as
possible, with two of the farm horses, she would think it _genre_, if
not _chic_----"

"I cannot put up with all this nonsense!" cried Mrs. Dennistoun, with a
flush on her cheek. "You are just as bad as they are, Elinor, to suggest
such a thing! I have held my own place in society wherever I have been,
and I don't choose to be condescended to or laughed at, in fact, by any
visitor in the world!"

"Mamma! do you think any one would ever compare you with Mariamne--the
Jew?"

"Don't exasperate me with those abominable nicknames. They will give you
one next. She is an exceedingly ill-bred and ill-mannered woman. Picking
up a little fun in the evening! What does she mean by picking up a
little fun----"

"They will perhaps go to the theatre--a number of them; and as nobody is
in town they will laugh very much at the kind of people, and perhaps the
kind of play--and it will be a great joke ever after among themselves--for
of course there will be a number of them together," said Elinor,
disclosing her acquaintance with the habits of her new family with
downcast eyes.

"How can well-born people be so vulgar and ill-bred?" cried Mrs.
Dennistoun. "I must say for Philip that though he is careless and not
nearly so particular as I should like, still he is not like that. He has
something of the politeness of the heart."

Elinor did not raise her downcast eyes. Phil had been on his very good
behaviour on the occasion of his last hurried visit, but she did not
feel that she could answer even for Phil. "I am very glad anyhow, that
she is not coming, mamma: at least we shall have the last night and the
last morning to ourselves."

Mrs. Dennistoun shook her head. "The Tathams will be here," she said;
"and everybody, to dinner--all the party. We must go now and see how we
can enlarge the table. To-night's party will be the largest we have
ever had in the cottage." She sighed a little and paused, restraining
herself. "We shall have no quiet evening--nor morning either--again; it
will be a bustle and a rush. You and I will never have any more quiet
evenings, Elinor: for when you come back it will be another thing."

"Oh, mother!" cried Elinor, throwing herself into her mother's arms: and
for a moment they stood closely clasped, feeling as if their hearts
would burst, yet very well aware, too, underneath, that any number of
quiet evenings would be as the last, when, with hearts full of a
thousand things to say to each other, they said almost nothing--which
in some respects was worse than having no quiet evenings evermore.

In the afternoon Phil arrived, having returned from Ireland that
morning, and paused only to refresh himself in the chambers which he
still retained in town. He had met all his hunting friends during
the three days he had been away; and though he retained a gallant
appearance, and looked, as Alice Hudson thought, "very aristocratic,"
Mrs. Dennistoun caught with anxiety a worn-out look--the look of
excitement, of nights without sleep, much smoke, and, perhaps, much
wine, in his eyes. What a woman feels who has to hand over her spotless
child, the most dear and pure thing upon earth, to a man fresh from
those indulgences and dissipations which never seem harmless, and always
are repellent to a woman, is not to be described. Fortunately the bride
herself, in invincible ignorance and unconsciousness, seldom feels in
that way. To Elinor her lover looked tired about the eyes, which was
very well explained by his night journey, and by the agitation of the
moment. And, indeed, she did not see very much of Phil, who had his
friends with him--his aide-de-camp, Bolsover, and his brother Harry.
These three gentlemen carried an atmosphere of smoke and other scents
with them into the lavender of the Rectory, which was too amazing in
that hemisphere for words, and talked their own talk in the midst
of the fringe of rustics who were their hosts, with a calm which was
extraordinary, breaking into the midst of the Rector's long-winded,
amiable sentences, and talking to each other over Mrs. Hudson's head.
"I say, Dick, don't you remember?" "By Jove, Phil, you are too bad!"
sounded, with many other such expressions and reminders, over the
Rectory party, strictly silent round their own table, trying to make a
courteous remark now and then, but confounded, in their simple country
good manners, by the fine gentlemen. And then there was the dinner-party
at the cottage in the evening, to which Mr. and Mrs. Hudson were invited.
Such a dinner-party! Old Mr. Tatham, who was a country gentleman from
Dorsetshire, with his nice daughter, Mary Tatham, a quiet country young
lady, accustomed, when she went into the world at all, to the serious
young men of the Temple, and John's much-occupied friends, who had their
own asides about cases, and what So-and-So had said in court, but were
much too well-bred before ladies to fall into "shop;" and Mr. and Mrs.
Hudson, who were such as we know them; and the bride's mother, a little
anxious, but always debonair; and Elinor herself, in all the haze and
sweet confusion of the great era which approached so closely. The three
men made the strangest addition that can be conceived to the quiet
guests; but things went better under the discipline of the dinner,
especially as Sir John Huntingtower, who was a Master of the hounds
and an old friend of the Dennistouns, was of the party, and Lady
Huntingtower, who was an impressive person, and knew the world. This
lady was very warm in her congratulations to Mrs. Dennistoun after
dinner on the absence of Lady Mariamne. "I think you are the luckiest
woman that ever was to have got clear of that dreadful creature," she
said. "Oh, there is nothing wrong about her that I know. She goes
everywhere with her dogs and her _cavaliers servantes_. There's safety
in numbers, my dear. She has always two of them at least hanging about
her to fetch and carry, and she thinks a great deal more of her dogs;
but I can't think what you could have done with her here."

"And what will my Elinor do in such a sphere?" the troubled mother
permitted herself to say.

"Oh, if that were all," said Lady Huntingtower, lifting up her fat
hands--she was one of those who had protested against the marriage, but
now that it had come to this point, and could not be broken off, the
judicious woman thought it right to make the best of it--"Elinor need
not be any the worse," she said. "Thank heaven, you are not obliged to
be mixed up with your husband's sister. Elinor must take a line of her
own. You should come to town yourself her first season, and help her on.
You used to know plenty of people."

"But they say," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "that it is so much better to
leave a young couple to themselves, and that a mother is always in the
way."

"If I were you I would not pay the least attention to what they say. If
you hold back too much they will say, 'There was her own mother, knowing
numbers of nice people, that never took the trouble to lend her a
hand.'"

"I hope," said Mrs. Dennistoun, turning round immediately to this other
aspect of affairs, "that it never will be necessary for the world to
interest itself at all in my child's affairs."

"Well, of course, that is the best," Lady Huntingtower allowed, "if she
just goes softly for a year or two till she feels her way."

"But then she is so young, and so little accustomed to act for herself,"
said the mother, with another change of flank.

"Oh, Elinor has a great deal of spirit. She must just make a stand
against the Compton set and take her own line."

Mrs. Hudson and Alice and Miss Tatham were at the other end of the room
exchanging a few criticisms under their breath, and disposed to think
that they were neglected by their hostess for the greater personage with
whom she was in such close conversation. And Lady Mariamne's defection
was a great disappointment to them all. "I should like to have seen a
fine lady quite close," said Mary (it was not, I think, usual to speak
of "smart" people in those days), "one there could be no doubt about, a
little fast and all that. I have seen them in town at a distance, but
all the people we know are sure country people."

"My dear," said Mrs. Hudson, primly, "I don't like to hear you talk of
any other kind. An English lady, I hope, whatever is her rank, can only
be of one kind."

"Oh, mamma, you know very well Lady Mariamne is as different from Lady
Huntingtower as----"

"Don't mention names, my dear; it is not well-bred. The one is young,
and naturally fond of gayety; the other--well, is not quite so young,
and stout, and all that."

"Oh, that is all very well," said Alice; "but Aunt Mary says----"

Miss Dale was coming in the evening, and the Miss Hills, and the curate,
and the doctor, and various other people, who could not be asked to
dinner, to whom it had been carefully explained (which, indeed, was a
fact they knew) that to dine twelve people in the little dining-room
of the cottage was a feat which was accomplished with difficulty,
and that more was impossible. Society at Windyhill was very tolerant
and understanding on this point, for all the dining-rooms were small,
except, indeed, when you come to talk of such places as Huntingtower--and
they were very glad to be permitted to have a peep at the bridegroom on
these terms, or rather, if truth were told, of the bride, and how she
was bearing herself so near the crisis of her fate. The bridegroom is
seldom very interesting on such occasions. On the present occasion he
was more interesting than usual, because he was the Honourable Philip,
and because he had a reputation of which most people had heard something.
There was a mixture of alarm and suspicion in respect to him which
increased the excitement; and many remarks of varied kinds were made. "I
think the fellow's face quite bears out his character," said the doctor
to the Rector. "What a man to trust a nice girl to!" Mr. Hudson felt
that as the bridegroom was living under his roof he was partially
responsible, and discouraged this pessimistic view. "Mr. Compton has
not, perhaps, had all the advantages one tries to secure for one's own
son," he said, "but I have reason to believe that the things that have
been said of him are much exaggerated." "Oh, advantages!" said the
doctor, thinking of Alick, of whom it was his strongly expressed opinion
that the fellow should be turned out to rough it, and not coddled up and
spoiled at home. But while these remarks were going on, Miss Hill had
been expressing to the curate an entirely different view. "I think he
has a _beautiful_ face," she said with the emphasis some ladies use; "a
little worn, perhaps, with being too much in the world, and I wish he
had a better colour. To me he looks delicate: but what delightful
features, Mr. Whitebands, and what an aristocratic air!"

"He looks tremendously up to everything," the curate said, with a faint
tone of envy in his voice.

"Don't he just?" cried Alick Hudson. "I should think there wasn't a
thing he couldn't do--of things that men _do_ do, don't you know," cried
that carefully trained boy, whose style was confused, though his meaning
was good. But probably there were almost as many opinions about Phil
as there were people in the room. His two backers-up stood in a
corner--half intimidated, half contemptuous of the country people.
"Queer lot for Phil to fall among," said Dick Bolsover. "Que diable
allait-il faire dans cette galère?" said Harry Compton, who had been
about the world. "Oh, bosh with your French, that nobody understands,"
said the best man.

But in the meantime Phil was not there at all to be seen of men. He had
stolen out into the garden, where there was a white vision awaiting him
in the milky moonlight. The autumn haze had come early this season, and
the moon was misty, veiled with white amid a jumble of soft floating
vapours in the sky. Elinor stood among the flowers, which showed some
strange subdued tints of colours in the flooding of the white light,
like a bit of consolidated moonlight in her white dress. She had a white
shawl covering her from head to foot, with a corner thrown over her
hair. What had they to say to each other that last night? Not much;
nothing at all that had any information in it--whispers inaudible almost
to each other. There was something in being together for this stolen
moment, just on the eve of their being together for always, which had a
charm of its own. After to-night, no stealing away, no escape to the
garden, no little conspiracy to attain a meeting--the last of all those
delightful schemings and devices. They started when they heard a sound
from the house, and sped along the paths into the shadow like the
conspirators they were--but never to conspire more after this last
enthralling time.

"You're not frightened, Nell?"

"No--except a little. There is one thing----"

"What is it, my pet? If it's to the half of my kingdom, it shall be
done."

"Phil, we are going to be very good when we are together? don't
laugh--to help each other?"

He did laugh low, not to be heard, but long. "I shall have no
temptation," he said, "to be anything but good, you little goose of a
Nell," taking it for a warning of possible jealousy to come.

"Oh, but I mean both of us--to help each other."

"Why, Nell, I know you'll never go wrong----"

She gave him a little impatient shake. "You will not understand me,
Phil. We will try to be better than we've ever been. To be good--don't
you know what that means?--in every way, before God."

Her voice dropped very low, and he was for a moment overawed. "You mean
going to church, Nell?"

"I mean--yes, that for one thing; and many other things."

"That's dropping rather strong upon a fellow," he said, "just at this
moment, don't you think, when I must say yes to everything you say."

"Oh, I don't mean it in that way; and I was not thinking of church
particularly; but to be good, very good, true and kind, in our hearts."

"You are all that already, Nell."

"Oh, no, not what I mean. When there are two of us instead of one we can
do so much more."

"Well, my pet, it's for you to make out the much more. I'm quite content
with you as you are; it's me that you want to improve, and heaven knows
there's plenty of room for that."

"No, Phil, not you more than me," she said.

"We'll choose a place where the sermon's short, and we'll see about it.
You mean little minx, to bind a man down to go to church, the night
before his wedding day!"

And then there was a sound of movement indoors, and after a little while
the bride appeared among the guests with a little more colour than
usual, and an anxiously explanatory description of something she had
been obliged to do; and the confused hour flew on with much sound of
talking and very little understanding of what was said. And then all
the visitors streamed away group after group into the moonlight,
disappearing like ghosts under the shadow of the trees. Finally, the
Rectory party went too, the three mild ladies surrounded by an exciting
circle of cigars; for Alick, of course, had broken all bonds, and even
the Rector accepted that rare indulgence. Alice Hudson half deplored,
half exulted for years after in the scent that would cling round one
particular evening dress. Five gentlemen, all with cigars, and papa as
bad as any of them! There had never been such an extraordinary
experience in her life.

And then the Tathams, too, withdrew, and the mother and daughter stood
alone on their own hearth. Oh, so much, so much as there was to say! but
how were they to say it?--the last moment, which was so precious and so
intolerable--the moment that would never come again.

"You were a long time with Philip, Elinor, in the garden. I think all
your old friends ---- the last night."

"I wanted to say something to him, mamma, that I had never had the
courage to say."

Mrs. Dennistoun had been looking dully into the dim mirror over the
mantelpiece. She turned half round to her daughter with an inquiring
look.

"Oh, mamma, I wanted to say to him that we must be good! We're so happy.
God is so kind to us; and you--if you suppose I don't think of you! It
was to say to him--building our house upon all this, God's mercy and
your loss, and all--that we are doubly, doubly bound to serve--and to
love--and to be good people before God; and like you, mother, like you!"

"My darling!" Mrs. Dennistoun said. And that was all. She asked no
questions as to how it was to be done, or what he replied. Elinor had
broken down hysterically, and sobbed out the words one at a time, as
they would come through the choking in her throat. Needless to say that
she ended in her mother's arms, her head upon the bosom which had nursed
her, her slight weight dependent upon the supporter and protector of
all her life.

That was the last evening. There remained the last morning to come; and
after that--what? The great sea of an unknown life, a new pilot, and a
ship untried.




CHAPTER XVI.


And now the last morning had come.

The morning of a wedding-day is a flying and precarious moment which
seems at once as if it never would end, and as if it were a hurried
preliminary interval in which the necessary preparations never could be
done. Elinor was not allowed to come down-stairs to help, as she felt it
would be natural to do. It was Mary Tatham who arranged the flowers on
the table, and helped Dennistoun to superintend everything. All the
women in the house, though they were so busy, were devoted at every
spare moment to the service of Elinor. They brought her simple breakfast
up-stairs, one maid carrying the tray and another the teapot, that each
might have their share. The cook, though she was overwhelmed with work,
had made some cakes for breakfast, such us Elinor liked. "Most like as
we'll never have her no more--to mind," she said. The gardener sent up
an untidy bundle of white flowers. And Mrs. Dennistoun came herself to
pour out the tea. "As if I had been ill, or had turned into a baby
again," Elinor said. But there was not much said. Mary Tatham was there
for one thing, and for another and the most important they had said all
they had to say; the rest which remained could not be said. The wedding
was to be at a quarter to twelve, in order to give Lady Mariamne time to
come from town. It was not the fashion then to delay marriages to the
afternoon, which no doubt would have been much more convenient for
her ladyship; but the best that could be done was done. Mr. Tatham's
carriage, which he had brought with him to grace the ceremony, was
despatched to the station to meet Lady Mariamne, while he, good man,
had to get to church as he could in one of the flys. And then came the
important moment, when the dressing of the bride had to be begun. The
wedding-breakfast was not yet all set out in perfect order, and there
were many things to do. Yet every woman in the house had a little share
in the dressing of the bride. They all came to see how it fitted when
the wedding-dress was put on. It fitted like a glove! The long glossy
folds of the satin were a wonder to see. Cook stood just within the door
in a white apron, and wept, and could not say a word to Miss Elinor; but
the younger maids sent forth a murmur of admiration. And the Missis they
thought was almost as beautiful as the bride, though her satin was grey.
Mrs. Dennistoun herself threw the veil over her child's head, and put in
the diamond star, the old-fashioned ornament, which had been her
husband's present to herself. And then again she had meant to say
something to Elinor--a last word--but the word would not come. They were
both of them glad that somebody should be there all the time, that they
should not be left alone. And after that the strange, hurried,
everlasting morning was over, and the carriage was at the door.

Then again it was a relief that old Mr. Tatham had missed his proper
place in the fly, and had to go on the front seat with the bride and her
mother. It was far better so. If they had been left even for ten minutes
alone, who could have answered that one or the other would not have
cried, and discomposed the bouquet and the veil? It seemed a great
danger and responsibility over when they arrived at last safely at the
church door. Lady Mariamne was just then arriving from the station. She
drew up before them in poor Mr. Tatham's carriage, keeping them back.
Harry Compton and Mr. Bolsover sprang to the carriage window to talk to
her, and there was a loud explosion of mirth and laughter in the midst
of the village people, and the children with their baskets of flowers
who were already gathered. Lady Mariamne's voice burst out so shrill
that it overmastered the church bells. "Here I am," she cried, "out in
the wilderness. And Algy has come with me to take care of me. And how
are you, dear boys; and how is poor Phil?" "Phil is all ready to be
turned off, with the halter round his neck," said Dick Bolsover; and
Harry Compton said, "Hurry up, hurry up, Jew, the bride is behind you,
waiting to get out." "She must wait, then," said Lady Mariamne, and
there came leisurely out of the carriage, first, her ladyship's
companion, by name, Algy, a tall person with an eye-glass, then a little
pug, which was carefully handed into his arms, and then lightly jumping
down to the ground, a little figure in black--in black of all things in
the world! a sight that curdled the blood of the village people, and
of Mrs. Hudson, who had walked across from the Rectory in a gown of
pigeon's-breast silk which scattered prismatic reflections as she
walked. In black! Mrs. Hudson bethought herself that she had a white
China crape shawl in her cupboard, and wondered if she could offer it to
conceal this ill omened gown. But if Lady Mariamne's dress was dark, she
herself was fair enough, with an endless fluff of light hair under her
little black lace bonnet. Her gloves were off, and her hands were white
and glistening with rings. "Give me my puggy darling," she said in her
loud, shrill tone. "I can go nowhere, can I, pet, without my little
pug!"

"A Jew and a pug, both in church. It is enough," said her brother, "to
get the poor parson into trouble with his bishop."

"Oh, the bishop's a great friend of mine," said the lady; "he will say
nothing to me, not if I put Pug in a surplice and make him lead the
choir." At this speech there was a great laugh of the assembled party,
which stood in the centre of the path, while Mr. Tatham's carriage edged
away, and the others made efforts to get forward. The noise of their
talk disturbed the curious abstraction in which Elinor had been going
through the morning hours. Mariamne's jarring voice seemed louder than
the bells. Was this the first voice sent out to greet her by the new
life which was about to begin? She glanced at her mother, and then
at old Uncle Tatham, who sat immovable, prevented by decorum from
apostrophising the coachman who was not his own, but fuming inwardly at
the interruption. Mrs. Dennistoun did not move at all, but her daughter
knew very well what was meant by that look straight before her, in which
her mother seemed to ignore all obstacles in the way.

"I got here very well," Lady Mariamne went on; "we started in the middle
of the night, of course, before the lamps were out. Wasn't it good of
Algy to get himself out of bed at such an unearthly hour! But he snapped
at Puggy as we came down, which was a sign he felt it. Why aren't you
with the poor victim at the altar, you boys?"

"Phil will be in blue funk," said Harry; "go in and stand by your man,
Dick: the Jew has enough with two fellows to see her into her place."

The bride's carriage by this time pushed forward, making Lady Mariamne
start in confusion. "Oh! look here; they have splashed my pretty
toilette, and upset my nerves," she cried, springing back into her
supporter's arms.

That gentleman regarded the stain of the damp gravel on the lady's skirt
through his eye-glass with deep but helpless anxiety. "It's a pity for
the pretty frock!" he said with much seriousness. And the group gathered
round and gazed in dismay, as if they expected it to disappear of
itself--until Mrs. Hudson bustled up. "It will rub off; it will not make
any mark. If one of you gentlemen will lend me a handkerchief," she
said. And Algy and Harry and Dick Bolsover, not to speak of Lady
Mariamne herself, watched with great gravity while the gravel was swept
off. "I make no doubt," said the Rector's wife, "that I have the
pleasure of speaking to Lady Mariamne: and I don't doubt that black is
the fashion and your dress is beautiful: but if you would just throw on
a white shawl for the sake of the wedding--it's so unlucky to come in
black----"

"A white shawl!" said Lady Mariamne in dismay.

"The Jew in a white shawl!" echoed the others with a burst of laughter
which rang into the church itself and made Phil before the altar, alone
and very anxious, ask himself what was up.

"It's China crape, I assure you, and very nice," Mrs. Hudson said.

Lady Mariamne gave the good Samaritan a stony stare, and took Algy's arm
and sailed into the church before the Rector's wife, without a word
said; while all the women from the village looked at each other and
said, "Well, I never!" under their breath.

"Let me give you my arm, Mrs. Hudson," said Harry Compton, "and please
pardon me that I did not introduce my sister to you. She is dreadfully
shy, don't you know, and never does speak to anyone when she has not
been introduced."

"My observation was a very simple one," said Mrs. Hudson, very angry,
yet pleased to lean upon an Honourable arm.

"My dear lady!" cried the good-natured Harry, "the Jew never wore a
shawl in her life----"

And all this time the organ had been pealing, the white vision passing
up the aisle, the simple villagers chanting forth their song about the
breath that breathed o'er Eden. Alas! Eden had not much to do with it,
except perhaps in the trembling heart of the white maiden roused out of
her virginal dream by the jarring voices of the new life. The laughter
outside was a dreadful offence to all the people, great and small, who
had collected to see Elinor married.

"What could you expect? It's that woman whom they call the Jew,"
whispered Lady Huntingtower to her next neighbour.

"She should be put into the stocks," said Sir John, scarcely under his
breath, which, to be sure, was also an interruption to the decorum of
the place.

And then there ensued a pause broken by the voice, a little lugubrious
in tone, of the Rector within the altar rails, and the tremulous answers
of the pair outside. The audience held its breath to hear Elinor make
her responses, and faltered off into suppressed weeping as the low tones
ceased. Sir John Huntingtower, who was very tall and big, and stood out
like a pillar among the ladies round, kept nodding his head all the time
she spoke, nodding as you might do in forced assent to any dreadful vow.
Poor little thing, poor little thing, he was saying in his heart. His
face was more like the face of a man at a funeral than a man at a
wedding. "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord"--he might have been
nodding assent to that instead of to Elinor's low-spoken vow. Phil
Compton's voice, to tell the truth, was even more tremulous than
Elinor's. To investigate the thoughts of a bridegroom would be too much
curiosity at such a moment. But I think if the secrets of the hearts
could be revealed, Phil for a moment was sorry for poor little Elinor
too.

And then the solemnity was all over in a moment, and the flutter of
voices and congratulations began.

I do not mean to follow the proceedings through all the routine of the
wedding-day. Attempts were made on the part of the bridegroom's party
to get Lady Mariamne dismissed by the next train, an endeavour into
which Harry Compton threw himself--for he was always a good-hearted
fellow--with his whole soul. But the Jew declared that she was dying of
hunger, and whatever sort of place it was, must have something to eat; a
remark which naturally endeared her still more to Mrs. Dennistoun, who
was waiting by the door of Mr. Tatham's carriage, which that anxious old
gentleman had managed to recover control of, till her ladyship had taken
her place. Her ladyship stared with undisguised amazement when she was
followed into the carriage by the bride's mother, and when the neat
little old gentleman took his seat opposite. "But where is Algy? I want
Algy," she cried, in dismay. "Absolutely I can't go without Algy, who
came to take care of me."

"You will be perfectly safe, my dear lady, with Mrs. Dennistoun and me.
The gentlemen will walk," said Mr. Tatham, waving his hand to the
coachman.

And thus it was that the forlorn lady found herself without her cavalier
and without her pug, absolutely stranded among savages, notwithstanding
her strong protest almost carried the length of tears. She was thus
carried off in a state of consternation to the cottage over the rough
road, where the wheels went with a din and lurch over the stones, and
dug deep into the sand, eliciting a succession of little shrieks from
her oppressed bosom. "I shall be shaken all to bits," she said, grasping
the arm of the old gentleman to steady herself. Mr. Tatham was not
displeased to be the champion of a lady of title. He assured her in
dulcet tones that his springs were very good and his horses very
sure--"though it is not a very nice road."

"Oh, it is a dreadful road!" said Lady Mariamne.

But in due time they did arrive at the cottage, where her ladyship could
not wait for the gathering of the company, but demanded at once
something to eat. "I can't really go another moment without food. I must
have something or I shall die. Phil, come here this instant and get me
something. They have brought me off at the risk of my life, and there's
nobody to attend to me. Don't stand spooning there," cried Lady Mariamne,
"but do what I tell you. Do you think I should ever have put myself into
this position but for you?"

"You would never have been asked here if they had consulted me. I knew
what a nuisance you'd be. Here, get this lady something to eat, old
man," said the bridegroom, tapping Mr. Tatham on the back, who did,
indeed, look rather like a waiter from that point of view.

"I shall have to help myself," said the lady in despair. And she sat
down at the elaborate table in the bride's place and began to hack at
the chicken. The gentlemen coming in at the moment roared again with
laughter over the Jew's impatience; but it was not regarded with the
same admiration by the rest of the guests.

These little incidents, perhaps, helped to wile away the weary hours
until it was time for the bridal pair to depart. Mrs. Dennistoun was so
angry that it kept up a little fire, so to speak, in her heart when the
light of her house was extinguished. Lady Mariamne, standing in the
porch with a bag full of rice to throw, kept up the spirit of the
mistress of the house, which otherwise might, perhaps, have failed her
altogether at that inconceivable moment; for though she had been looking
forward to it for months it was inconceivable when it came, as death is
inconceivable. Elinor going away!--not on a visit, or to be back in a
week, or a month, or a year--going away for ever! ending, as might be
said, when she put her foot on the step of the carriage. Her mother
stood by and looked on with that cruel conviction that overtakes all
at the last. Up to this moment had it not seemed as if the course of
affairs was unreal, as if something must happen to prevent it? Perhaps
the world will end to-night, as the lover says in the "Last Ride." But
now here was the end: nothing had happened, the world was swinging on in
space in its old careless way, and Elinor was going--going away for ever
and ever. Oh, to come back, perhaps--there was nothing against that--but
never the same Elinor. The mother stood looking, with her hand over her
eyes to shield them from the sun. Those eyes were quite dry, and she
stood firm and upright by the carriage door. She was not "breaking down"
or "giving way," as everybody feared. She was "bearing up," as everybody
was relieved to see. And in a moment it was all over, and there was
nothing before her eyes--no carriage, no Elinor. She was so dazed that
she stood still, looking with that strange kind of smile for a full
minute after there was nothing to smile at, only the vacant air and the
prospect of the combe, coming in in a sickly haze which existed only in
her eyes.

But, by good luck, there was Lady Mariamne behind, and the fire of
indignation giving a red flicker upon the desolate hearth.

"I caught Phil on the nose," said that lady, in great triumph; "spoilt
his beauty for him for to-day. But let's hope she won't mind. She thinks
him beautiful, the little goose. Oh, my Puggy-wuggy, did that cruel Algy
pull your little, dear tail, you darling? Come to oos own mammy, now
those silly wedding people are away."

"Your little dog, I presume, is of a very rare sort," said Mr. Tatham,
to be civil. He had proposed the bride and bridegroom's health in a most
appropriate speech, and he felt that he had deserved well of his kind,
which made him more amiable even than usual. "Your ladyship's little
dog," he added, after a moment, as she did not take any notice, "I
presume, is of a rare kind?"

Lady Mariamne gave him a look, or rather a stare. "Is Puggy of a rare
sort?" she said over her shoulder, to one of the attendant tribe.

"Don't be such a duffer, Jew! You know as well as any one what breed
he's of," Harry Compton said.

"Oh, I forgot," said the fine lady. She was standing full in front of
the entrance, keeping Mrs. Dennistoun in the full sun outside. "I hope
there's a train very soon," she said. "Did you look, Algy, as I told
you? If it hadn't been that Phil would have killed me I should have gone
now. It would have been such fun to have spied upon the turtle doves!"

The men thought it would have been rare fun with obedient delight, but
that Phil would have cut up rough, and made a scene. At this Lady
Mariamne held up her finger, and made a portentous face.

"Oh, you naughty, naughty boy," she cried, "telling tales out of
school."

"Perhaps, my dear lady," said Mr. Tatham, quietly, "you would let Mrs.
Dennistoun pass."

"Oh!" said Lady Mariamne, and stared at him again for half a minute;
then she turned and stared at the tall lady in grey satin. "Anybody can
pass," she said: "I'm not so very big."

"That is quite true--quite true. There is plenty of room," said the
little gentleman, holding out his hand to his cousin.

"My dear John," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "I am sure you will be kind enough
to lend your carriage again to Lady Mariamne, who is in a hurry to get
away. There is another train, which stops at Downforth station, in half
an hour, and there will just be time to get there, if you will order it
at once. I told your man to be in readiness: and it would be a thousand
pities to lose this train, for there is not another for an hour."

"By Jove, Jew! there's a slap in the face for you," said, in an audible
whisper, one of the train, who had been standing in front of all the
friends, blocking out the view. As for Lady Mariamne, she stared more
straight than ever into Mrs. Dennistoun's eyes, but for the moment did
not seem to find anything to say. She was left in the hall with her band
while the mistress of the house went into the drawing-room, followed by
all the country ladies, who had not lost a word, and who were already
whispering to each other over that terrible betrayal about the temper of
Phil.

"Cut up rough! Oh! poor little Elinor, poor little Elinor!" the ladies
said to each other under their breath.

"I am not at all surprised. It is not any news to me. You could see it
in his eyes," said Miss Mary Dale. And then they all were silent to
listen to the renewed laughter that came bursting from the hall. Mrs.
Hudson questioned her husband afterwards as to what it was that made
everybody laugh, but the Rector had not much to say. "I really could
not tell you, my dear," he said. "I don't remember anything that was
said--but it seemed funny somehow, and as they all laughed one had to
laugh too."

The great lady came in, however, dragged by her brother to say good-by.
"It has all gone off very well, I am sure, and Nell looked very nice,
and did you great credit," she said, putting out her hand. "And it's
very kind of you to take so much trouble to get us off by the first
train."

"Oh, it is no trouble," Mrs. Dennistoun said.

"Shouldn't you like to say good-by to Puggy-muggy?" said Lady Mariamne,
touching the little black nose upon her arm. "He enjoyed that _pâté_ so
much. He really never has _foie gras_ at home: but he doesn't at all
mind if you would like to give him a little kiss just here."

"Good-by, Lady Mariamne," said Mrs. Dennistoun, with one of the curtseys
of the old school. But there was another gust of laughter as Lady
Mariamne was placed in the carriage, and a shrill little trumpet gave
forth the satisfaction of the departing guest at having "got a rise out
of the old girl." The gentlemen heaped themselves into Mr. Tatham's
carriage, and swept off along with her, all but civil Harry, who
waited to make their apologies, and to put up along with his own Dick
Bolsover's "things." And thus the bridegroom's party, the new associates
of Elinor, the great family into which the Honourable Mrs. Phil Compton
had been so lucky as to marry, to the great excitement of all the country
round, departed and was seen no more. Harry, who was civil, walked home
with the Hudsons when all was over, and said the best he could for the
Jew and her friends. "You see, she has been regularly spoiled: and
then when a girl's so dreadful shy, as often as not it sounds like
impudence." "Dear me, I should never have thought Lady Mariamne was
shy," the gentle Rector said. "That's just how it is," said Harry. He
went over again in the darkening to take his leave of Mrs. Dennistoun.
He found her sitting out in the garden before the open door, looking
down the misty walk. The light had gone out of the skies, but the usual
cheerful lights had not yet appeared in the house, where the hum of a
great occasion still reigned. The Tathams were at the Rectory, and Mrs.
Dennistoun was alone. Harry Compton had a good heart, and though he
could not conceive the possibility of a woman not being glad to have
married her daughter, the loneliness and darkness touched him a little
in contrast with the gayety of the previous night. "You must think us a
dreadful noisy lot," he said, "and as if my sister had no sense. But
it's only the Jew's way. She's made like that--and at bottom she's not
at all a bad sort."

"Are you going away?" was all the answer that Mrs. Dennistoun made.

"Oh, yes, and we shall be a good riddance," said Harry; "but please
don't think any worse of us than you can help---- Phil--well, he's got a
great deal of good in him--he has indeed, and she'll bring it all out."

It was very good of Harry Compton. He had a little choking in his throat
as he walked back. "Blest if I ever thought of it in that light before,"
he said to himself.

But I doubt if what he said, however well meant, brought much comfort to
Mrs. Dennistoun's heart.




CHAPTER XVII.


Thus Elinor Dennistoun disappeared from Windyhill and was no more seen.
There are many ways in which a marriage is almost like a death,
especially when the marriage is that of an only child. The young go
away, the old remain. There is all the dreary routine of the solitary
life unbrightened by that companionship which is all the world to the
one who is left behind. So little--only the happy going away into
brighter scenes of one whose happiness was the whole thought of that
dreary survivor at the chimney corner--and yet so much. And if that
survivor is a woman she has to smile and tell her neighbours of the
bride's happiness, and how great the comfort to herself that her
Elinor's life is assured, and her own ending is now of no particular
importance to her daughter; if it is a man, he is allowed to lament,
which is a curious paradox, but one of the many current in this world.
Mrs. Dennistoun had to put a very brave face upon it all the more
because of the known unsatisfactoriness of Elinor's husband: and she had
to go on with her life, and sit down at her solitary meals, and invent
lonely occupations for herself, and read and read, till her brains were
often dazed by the multiplicity of the words, which lost their meaning
as she turned over page by page. To sit alone in the house, without
a sound audible, except perhaps the movement of the servants going
up-stairs or down to minister to the wants, about which she felt she
cared nothing whether they were ministered to or not, of their solitary
mistress, where a little while ago there used to be the rhythm of the
one quick step, the sound of the one gay voice which made the world a
warm inhabited place to Mrs. Dennistoun--this was more dismal than words
could say. To be sure, there were some extraordinary and delightful
differences; there were the almost daily letters, which afforded the
lonely mother all the pleasure that life could give; and there was
always the prospect, or at least possibility and hope, of seeing her
child again. Those two particulars, it need scarcely be said, make a
difference which is practically infinite: but yet for Mrs. Dennistoun,
sitting alone all the day and night, walking alone, reading alone,
with little to do that was of the slightest consequence, not even the
reading--for what did it matter to her dreary, lonely consciousness
whether she kept afloat of general literature or improved her mind
or not? this separation by marriage was dreadfully like the dreary
separation by death, and in one respect it was almost worse; for death,
if it reaches our very hearts, takes away at least the gnawing pangs of
anxiety. He or she who is gone that way is well; never more can trouble
touch them, their feet cannot err nor their hearts ache; while who can
tell what troubles and miseries may be befalling, out there in the
unknown, the child who has embarked upon the troubled sea of mortal
life?

And it may be imagined with what anxious eyes those letters, which made
all the difference, were read; how the gradually changing tone in them
was noted as it came in, slowly but also surely. Sometimes they got
to be very hurried, and then Mrs. Dennistoun saw as in a glass the
impatient husband waiting, wondering what she could constantly find
to say to her mother; sometimes they were long and detailed, and
that meant, as would appear perhaps by a phrase slurred over in the
postscript, that Phil had gone away somewhere. There was never a
complaint in them, never a word that could be twisted into a complaint:
but the anxious mother read between the lines innumerable things, not
half of them true. There is perhaps never a half true of what anxiety
may imagine: but then the half that is true!

John Tatham was very faithful to her during that winter. As soon as he
came back from Switzerland, at the end of the long vacation, he went
down to see her, feeling the difference in the house beyond anything he
had imagined, feeling as if he were stepping into some darkened outer
chamber of the grave: but with a cheerful face and eager but confident
interest in "the news from Elinor." "Of course she is enjoying herself
immensely," he said, and Mrs. Dennistoun was able to reply with a smile
that was a little wistful, that yes, Elinor was enjoying herself
immensely. "She seems very happy, and everything is new to her and
bright," she said. They were both very glad that Elinor was happy, and
they were very cheerful themselves. Mrs. Dennistoun truly cheered by his
visit and by the necessity for looking after everything that John might
be comfortable, and the pleasure of seeing his face opposite to her at
table. "You can't think what it is to see you there; sitting down to
dinner is the most horrible farce when one is alone." "Poor aunt!" John
Tatham said: and nobody would believe how many Saturdays and Sundays he
gave up to her during the long winter. Somehow he himself did not care
to go anywhere else. In Elinor's time he had gone about freely enough,
liking a little variety in his Saturday to Mondays, though always
happiest when he went to Windyhill: but now somehow the other houses
seemed to pall upon him. He liked best to go down to that melancholy
house which his presence made more or less bright, where there was an
endless talk of Elinor, where she was, what she was doing, and what was
to be her next move, and, at last, when she was coming to town. Mrs.
Dennistoun did not say, as she did at first, "when she is coming home."
That possibility seemed to slip away somehow, and no one suggested it.
When she was coming to town, that was what they said between themselves.
She had spent the spring on the Riviera, a great part of it at Monte
Carlo, and her letters were full of the beauty of the place; but she
said less and less about people, and more and more about the sea and the
mountains, and the glorious road which gave at every turn a new and
beautiful vision of the hills and the sea. It was a little like a
guide-book, they sometimes felt, but neither said it; but at last it
became certain that in the month of May she was coming to town.

More than that, oh, more than that! One evening in May, when it was fine
but a little chilly, when Mrs. Dennistoun was walking wistfully in her
garden, looking at the moon shining in the west, and wondering if her
child had arrived in England, and whether she was coming to a house of
her own, or a lodging, or to be a visitor in some one else's house,
details which Elinor had not given--her ear was suddenly caught by the
distant rumbling of wheels, heavy wheels, the fly from the station
certainly. Mrs. Dennistoun had no expectation of what it could be, no
sort of hope: and yet a woman has always a sort of hope when her child
lives and everything is possible. The fly seemed to stop, not coming up
the little cottage drive; but by and by, when she had almost given up
hoping, there came a rush of flying feet, and a cry of joy, and Elinor
was in her mother's arms. Elinor! yes, it was herself, no vision, no
shadow such as had many a time come into Mrs. Dennistoun's dreams, but
herself in flesh and blood, the dear familiar figure, the face which,
between the twilight and those ridiculous tears which come when one is
too happy, could scarcely be seen at all. "Elinor, Elinor! it is you, my
darling!" "Yes, mother, it is me, really me. I could not write, because
I did not know till the last minute whether I could get away."

It may be imagined what a coming home that was. Mrs. Dennistoun, when
she saw her daughter even by the light of the lamp, was greatly
comforted. Elinor was looking well; she was changed in that
indescribable way in which marriage changes (though not always) the
happiest woman. And her appearance was changed; she was no longer the
country young lady very well dressed and looking as well as any one
could in her carefully made clothes. She was now a fashionable young
woman, about whose dresses there was no question, who wore everything as
those do who are at the fountain-head, no matter what it was she wore.
Mrs. Dennistoun's eyes caught this difference at once, which is also
indescribable to the uninitiated, and a sensation of pride came into her
mind. Elinor was improved, too, in so many ways. Her mother had never
thought of calling her anything more, even in her inmost thoughts, than
very pretty, very sweet; but it seemed to Mrs. Dennistoun now as if
people might use a stronger word, and call Elinor beautiful. Her face
had gained a great deal of expression, though it was always an
expressive face; her eyes looked deeper; her manner had a wonderful
youthful dignity. Altogether, it was another Elinor, yet, God be
praised, the same.

It was but for one night, but that was a great deal, a night subtracted
from the blank, a night that seemed to come out of the old times--those
old times that had not been known to be so very happy till they were
over and gone. Elinor had naturally a great deal to tell her mother, but
in the glory of seeing her, of hearing her voice, of knowing that it was
actually she who was speaking, Mrs. Dennistoun did not observe, what she
remembered afterwards, that again it was much more of places than of
people that Elinor talked, and that though she named Phil when there was
any occasion for doing so, she did not babble about him as brides do, as
if he were altogether the sun, and everything revolved round him. It is
not a good sign, perhaps, when the husband comes down to his "proper
place" as the representative of the other half of the world too soon.
Elinor looked round upon her old home with a mingled smile and sigh.
Undoubtedly it had grown smaller, perhaps even shabbier, since she went
away: but she did not say so to her mother. She cried out how pretty it
was, how delightful to come back to it! and that was true too. How often
it happens in this life that there are two things quite opposed to each
other, and yet both of them true.

"John will be delighted to hear that you have come, Elinor," her mother
said.

"John, dear old John! I hope he is well and happy, and all that; and he
comes often to see you, mother? How sweet of him! You must give him ever
so much love from his poor Nelly. I always keep that name sacred to
him."

"But why should I give him messages as if you were not sure to meet? of
course you will meet--often."

"Do you think so?" said Elinor. She opened her eyes a little in
surprise, and then shook her head. "I am afraid not, mamma. We are in
two different worlds."

"I assure you," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "John is a very rising man. He is
invited everywhere."

"That I don't doubt at all."

"And why then shouldn't you meet?"

"I don't know. I don't fancy we shall go to the same places. John has a
profession; he has something to do. Now you know we have nothing to do."

She laughed and laid a little emphasis on the _we_, by way of taking off
the weight of the words.

"I always thought it was a great pity, Elinor."

"It may be a pity or not," said Elinor, "but it is, and it cannot be
helped. We have got to make up our minds to it. I would rather Phil did
nothing than mixed himself up with companies. Thank heaven, at present
he is free of anything of that kind."

"I hope he is free of that one at least, that he was going to invest all
your money in, Elinor. I hope you found another investment that was
quite steady and safe."

"Oh, I suppose so," said Elinor, with some of her old petulance: "don't
let us spoil the little time I have by talking about money, mamma!"

And then it was that Mrs. Dennistoun noticed that what Elinor did talk
of, hurrying away from this subject, were things of not the least
importance--the olive woods on the Riviera, the wealth of flowers, the
strange little old towns upon the hills. Surely even the money, which
was her own and for her comfort, would be a more interesting subject
to discuss. Perhaps Elinor herself perceived this, for she began
immediately to ask questions about the Hudsons and Hills, and all the
people of the parish, with much eagerness of questioning, but a flagging
interest in the replies, as her mother soon saw. "And Mary Dale, is she
still there?" she asked. Mrs. Dennistoun entered into a little history
of how Mary Dale had gone away to nurse a distant cousin who had been
ill, and finally had died and left a very comfortable little fortune to
her kind attendant. Elinor listened with little nods and appropriate
exclamations, but before the evening was out asked again, "And Mary
Dale?" then hastily corrected herself with an "Oh, I remember! you told
me." But it was perhaps safer not to question her how much she
remembered of what she had been told.

Thus there were notes of disquiet in even that delightful evening, such
a contrast as it was to all the evenings since she had left home. Even
when John came, what a poor substitute for Elinor! The ingratitude of
those whose heart is set on one object made Mrs. Dennistoun thus make
light of what had been her great consolation. He was very kind, very
good, and oh, how glad she had been to see him through that heavy
winter--but he was not Elinor! It was enough for Elinor to step across
her mother's threshold to make Mrs. Dennistoun feel that there was no
substitute for her--none: and that John was of no more consequence than
the Rector or any habitual caller. But, at the same time, in all the
melody of the home-coming, in the sweetness of Elinor's voice, and look,
and kiss, in the perfection of seeing her there again in her own place,
and listening to her dear step running up and down the no longer silent
house, there were notes of disquiet which could not be mistaken. She was
not unhappy, the mother thought; her eyes could not be so bright, nor
her colour so fair unless she was happy. Trouble does not embellish, and
Elinor was embellished. But yet--there were notes of disquiet in the
air.

Next day Mrs. Dennistoun drove her child to the railway in order not
to lose a moment of so short a visit, and naturally, though she had
received that unexpected visit with rapture, feeling that a whole night
of Elinor was worth a month, a year of anybody else, yet now that Elinor
was going she found it very short. "You'll come again soon, my darling?"
she said, as she stood at the window of the carriage ready to say
good-bye.

"Whenever I can, mother dear, of that you may be sure; whenever I can
get away."

"I don't wish to draw you from your husband. Don't get away--come with
Philip from Saturday to Monday. Give him my love, and tell him so. He
shall not be bored; but Sunday is a day without engagements."

"Oh, not now, mamma. There are just as many things to do on Sundays as
on any other day."

There were a great many words on Mrs. Dennistoun's lips, but she did not
say them; all she did say was, "Well, then, Elinor--when you can get
away."

"Oh, you need not doubt me, mamma." And the train, which sometimes
lingers so long, which some people that very day were swearing at as so
slow, "Like all country trains," they said--that inevitable heartless
thing got into motion, and Mrs. Dennistoun watched it till it
disappeared; and--what was that that came over Elinor's face as she sank
back into the corner of her carriage, not knowing her mother's anxious
look followed her still--what was it? Oh, dreadful, dreadful life! oh,
fruitless love and longing!--was it relief? The mother tried to get that
look out of her mind as she drove silently and slowly home, creeping up
hill after hill. There was no need to hurry. All that she was going to
was an empty and silent house, where nobody awaited her. What was that
look on Elinor's face? Relief! to have it over, to get away again,
away from her old home and her fond mother, away to her new life. Mrs.
Dennistoun was not a jealous mother nor unreasonable. She said to
herself--Well! it was no doubt a trial to the child to come back--to
come alone. All the time, perhaps, she was afraid of being too closely
questioned, of having to confess that _he_ did not want to come, perhaps
grudged her coming. She might be afraid that her mother would divine
something--some hidden opposition, some dislike, perhaps, on his part.
Poor Elinor! and when everything had passed over so well, when it was
ended, and nothing had been between them but love and mutual
understanding, what wonder if there came over her dear face a look of
relief! This was how this good woman, who had seen a great many things
in her passage through life, explained her child's look: and though she
was sad was not angry, as many less tolerant and less far-seeing might
have been in her place.

John, that good John, to whom she had been so ungrateful, came down next
Saturday, and to him she confided her great news, but not all of it.
"She came down--alone?" he said.

"Well," said Mrs. Dennistoun, bravely; "she knew very well it was her I
wanted to see, and not Philip. They say a great deal about mothers-in-law,
but why shouldn't we in our turn have our fling at sons-in-law, John? It
was not him I wanted to see: it was my own child: and Elinor understood
that, and ran off by herself. Bless her for the thought."

"I understand that," said John. He had given the mother more than one
look as she spoke, and divined her better than she supposed. "Oh, yes, I
can understand that. The thing I don't understand is why he let her; why
he wasn't too proud to bring her back to you, that you might see she had
taken no harm. If it had been I----"

"Ah, but it was not you," said Mrs. Dennistoun; "you forget that. It
never could have been you."

He looked quickly at her again, and it was on his lips to ask, "Why
could it never have been I?" but he did not; for he knew that if it had
ever been him, it could not have been for years. He was too prudent, and
Elinor, even if she had escaped Phil Compton, would have met some one
else. He had no right to say, or even think, what, in the circumstances,
he would have done. He did not make any answer, but she understood him
as he understood her.

And later in the evening she asked his advice as to what she should do.
"I am not fond of asking advice," she said, "and I don't think there is
another in the world I would ask it from but you. What should I do? It
would cost me nothing to run up to town for a part of the season at
least. I might get a little house, and be near her, where she could come
to me when she pleased. Should I do it, or would it be wise not to do
it? I don't want to spy upon her or to force her to tell me more than
she wishes. John, my dear, I will tell you what I would tell no one
else. I caught a glimpse of her dear face when the train was just going
out of sight, and she was sinking back in her corner with a look of
relief----"

"Of relief!" he cried.

"John, don't form any false impression! it was no want of love: but I
think she was thankful to have seen me, and to have satisfied me, and
that I had asked no questions that she could not answer--in a way."

John clenched his fist, but he dared not make any gesture of disgust,
or suggest again, "If it had been I."

"Well, now," she said, "remember I am not angry--fancy being angry with
Elinor!--and all I mean is for her benefit. Should I go? it might be a
relief to her to run into me whenever she pleased; or should I not go?
lest she might think I was bent on finding out more than she chose to
tell?"

"Wouldn't it be right that you should find out?"

"That is just the point upon which I am doubtful. She is not unhappy,
for she is--she is prettier than ever she was, John. A girl does not
get like that--her eyes brighter, her colour clearer, looking--well,
beautiful!" cried the mother, her eyes filling with bright tears, "if
she is unhappy. But there may be things that are not quite smooth, that
she might think it would make me unhappy to know, yet that if let alone
might come all right. Tell me, John, what should I do?"

And they sat debating thus till far on in the night.




CHAPTER XVIII.


Mrs. Dennistoun did not go up to town. There are some women who would
have done so, seeing the other side of the subject--at all hazards; and
perhaps they would have been right--who can tell? She did not--denying
herself, keeping herself by main force in her solitude, not to interfere
with the life of her child, which was drawn on lines so different from
any of hers--and perhaps she was wrong. Who knows, except by the event,
which is the best or the worst way in any of our human movements, which
are so short-sighted? And twice during the season Elinor found means to
come to the cottage for a night as she had done at first. These were
occasions of great happiness, it need not be said--but of many thoughts
and wonderings too. She had always an excuse for Phil. He had meant
until the last moment to come with her--some one had turned up, quite
unexpectedly, who had prevented him. It was a fatality; especially when
she came down in July did she insist upon this. He had been invited
quite suddenly to a political dinner to meet one of the Ministers from
whom he had hopes of an appointment. "For we find that we can't go on
enjoying ourselves for ever," she said gayly, "and Phil has made up his
mind he must get something to do."

"It is always the best way," said Mrs. Dennistoun.

"I am not so very sure, mamma, when you have never been used to it. Of
course, some people would be wretched without work. Fancy John with
nothing to do! How he would torment his wife--if he had one. But Phil
never does that. He is very easy to live with. He is always after
something, and leaves me as free as if he had a day's work in an
office."

This slipped out, with a smile: but evidently after it was said Elinor
regretted she had said it, and thought that more might be drawn from the
admission than she intended. She added quietly, "Of course a settled
occupation would interfere with many things. We could not go out
together continually as we do now."

Was there any way of reconciling these two statements? Mrs. Dennistoun
tried and tried in vain to make them fit into each other: and yet no
doubt there was some way.

"And perhaps another season, mother, if Phil was in a public office--it
seems so strange to think of Phil having an office--you might come up,
don't you think, to town for a time? Would it be a dreadful bore to you
to leave the country just when it is at its best? I'm afraid it would be
a dreadful bore: but we could run about together in the mornings when he
was busy, and go to see the pictures and things. How pleasant it would
be!"

"It would be delightful for me, Elinor. I shouldn't mind giving up the
country, if it wouldn't interfere with your engagements, my dear."

"Oh, my engagements! Much I should care for them if Phil was occupied. I
like, of course, to be with him."

"Of course," said Mrs. Dennistoun.

"And it is good for him, too, I think." This was another of the little
admissions that Elinor regretted the moment they were made. "I mean it's
a pity, isn't it, when a man likes to have his wife with him that she
shouldn't always be there, ready to go?"

"A great pity," said Mrs. Dennistoun, and then she changed the subject.
"I thought it required all sorts of examinations and things for a man to
get into a public office now."

"So it does for the ordinary grades, which would be far, far too much
routine for Phil. But they say a minister always has things in his
power. There are still posts----"

"Sinecures, Elinor?"

"I did not mean exactly sinecures," she said, with an embarrassed laugh,
"though I think those must have been fine things; but posts where it is
not merely routine, where a man may have a chance of acting for himself
and distinguishing himself, perhaps. And to be in the service of the
country is always better, safer, than that dreadful city. Don't you
think so?"

"I have never thought the city dreadful, Elinor. I have had many friends
connected with the city."

"Ah, but not in those horrid companies, mamma. Do you know that company
which we just escaped, which Phil saved my money out of, when it was all
but invested--I believe that has ruined people right and left. He got
out of it, fortunately, just before the smash; that is, of course, he
never had very much to do with it, he was only on the Board."

"And where is your money now?"

"Oh, I can answer that question this time," said Elinor, gayly. "He had
just time to get it into another company which pays--beautifully! The
Jew is in it, too, and the whole lot of them. Oh! I beg your pardon,
mamma. I tried hard to call her by her proper name, but when one never
hears any other, one can't help getting into it!"

"I hope," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "that Philip was not much mixed up with
this company if other people have been ruined, and he has escaped?"

"How could that be?" said Elinor, with a sort of tremulous dignity. "You
don't suppose for a moment that he----. But of course you don't," she
added with a heightened colour and a momentary cloud over her eyes, "of
course you don't. There was a dreadful manager who destroyed the books
and then fled, so that there never could be a right winding up of the
affairs."

"I hope Philip will take great care never to have to do with anything of
the kind again."

"Oh, no, he has promised me he will not. I will not have it. He has a
kind of ornamental directorship on this new company, just for the sake
of his name: but he has promised me he will have nothing more to do with
it for my peace of mind."

"I wonder that they should care in the city for so small a matter as a
peer's younger son."

"Oh, do you think it a small matter, mamma? I don't mean that I care,
but people give a good deal of weight to it, you know."

"I meant only in the city, Elinor."

"Oh!" Elinor said. She was half offended with her mother's indifference.
She had found that to be the Hon. Mrs. Compton was something, or so at
least she supposed: and she began timidly to give her mother a list of
her engagements, which were indeed many in number, and there were some
dazzling names among a great many with which Mrs. Dennistoun was
unacquainted. But how could she know who were the fashionable people
nowadays, a woman living so completely out of the world?

John Tatham, for his part, went through his engagements that year with a
constant expectation of seeing Elinor, which preoccupied him more than a
rising young barrister going everywhere ought to have been preoccupied.
He thought he went everywhere, and so did his family at home, especially
his sister, Mary Tatham, who was his father's nurse and attendant, and
never had any chance of sharing these delights. She made all the more,
as was natural, of John's privileges and social success from the fact of
her own seclusion, and was in the habit of saying that she believed
there was scarcely a party in London to which John was not invited--three
or four in a night. But it would seem with all this that there were many
parties to which he was not invited, for the Phil Comptons (how strange
and on the whole disgusting to think that this now meant Elinor!) also
went everywhere, and yet they very seldom met. It was true that John
could not expect to meet them at dinner at a Judge's or in the legal
society in high places which was his especial sphere, and nothing could
be more foolish than the tremor of expectation with which this very
steady-going man would set out to every house in which the fashionable
world met with the professional, always thinking that perhaps----But it
was rarely, very rarely, that this perhaps came to pass. When it did it
was amid the crowd of some prodigious reception to which people "looked
in" for half an hour, and where on one occasion he found Elinor alone,
with that curious dignity about her, a little tragical, which comes of
neglect. He agreed with her mother, that he had never imagined Elinor's
youthful prettiness could have come to anything so near beauty. There
was a strained, wide open look in her eyes, which was half done by
looking out for some one, and half by defying any one to think that she
felt herself alone, or was pursuing that search with any anxiety. She
stood exceedingly erect, silent, observing everything, yet endeavouring
to appear as if she did not observe, altogether a singular and very
striking figure among the fashionable crowd, in which it seemed
everybody was chattering, smiling, gay or making believe to be gay,
except herself. When she saw John a sudden gleam of pleasure, followed
by a cloud of embarrassment, came over her face: but poor Elinor could
not help being glad to see some one she knew, some one who more or less
belonged to her; although it appeared she had the best of reasons for
being alone. "I was to meet Phil here," she said, "but somehow I must
have missed him." "Let us walk about a little, and we'll be sure to find
him," said John. She was so glad to take his arm, almost to cling to
him, to find herself with a friend. "I don't know many people here,"
she confided to John, leaning on his arm, with the familiar sisterly
dependence of old, "and I am so stupid about coming out by myself. It is
because I have never been used to it. There has always been mamma, and
then Phil; but I suppose he has been detained somewhere to-night. I
think I never felt so lost before, among all these strange people. He
knows everybody, of course."

"But you have a lot of friends, Elinor."

"Oh, yes," she said, brightly enough; "in our own set: but this is what
Phil calls more serious than our set. I should not wonder in the least
if he had shirked it at the last, knowing I would be sure to come."

"That is just the reason why I should have thought he would not shirk
it," said John.

"Ah, that's because you're not married," said Elinor, but with a laugh
in which there was no bitterness. "Don't you know one good of a wife is
to do the man's social duties for him, to appear at the dull places and
save his credit? Oh, I don't object at all; it is quite a legitimate
division of labour. I shall get into it in time: but I am so stupid
about coming into a room alone, and instead of looking about to see what
people I really do know, I just stiffen into a sort of shell. I should
never have known you if you had not come up to me, John."

"You see I was looking out for you, and you were not looking out for me,
that makes all the difference."

"You were looking out for us!"

"Ever since the season began I have been looking out for you,
everywhere," said John, with a rather fierce emphasis on the pronoun,
which, however, as everybody knows, is plural, and means two as much as
one, though it was the reverse of this that John Tatham meant to show.

"Ah!" said Elinor. "But then I am afraid our set is different, John.
There will always be some places--like this, for instance--where I hope
we shall meet; but our set perhaps is a little frivolous, and your set a
little--serious, don't you see? You are professional and political, and
all that; and Phil is--well, I don't know exactly what Phil is--more
fashionable and frivolous, as I said. A race-going, ball-going, always
in motion set."

"Most people," said John, "go more or less to races and balls."

"More or less, that makes the whole difference. We go to them all. Now
you see the distinction, John. You go to Ascot perhaps on the cup day;
we go all the days and all the other days, at the other places."

"How knowing you have become!"

"Haven't I?" she said, with a smile that was half a sigh.

"But I shouldn't have thought that would have suited you, Elinor."

"Oh, yes, it does," she said, and then she eyed him with something of
the defiance that had been in her look when she was standing alone. She
did not avoid his look as a less brave woman might have done. "I like
the fun of it," she said.

And then there was a pause, for he did not know what to reply.

"We have been through all the rooms," she said at last, "and we have not
seen a ghost of Phil. He cannot be coming now. What o'clock is it? Oh,
just the time he will be due at---- I'm sure he can't come now. Do you
think you could get my carriage for me? It's only a brougham that we
hire," she said, with a smile, "but the man is such a nice, kind man. If
he had been an old family coachman he couldn't take more care of me."

"That looks as if he had to take care of you often, Elinor."

"Well," she said, looking him full in the face again, "you don't suppose
my husband goes out with me in the morning shopping? I hope he has
something better to do."

"Shouldn't you like to have your mother with you for the shopping,
etc.?"

"Ah, dearly!" then with a little quick change of manner, "another
time--not this season, but next, if I can persuade her to come; for next
year I hope we shall be more settled, perhaps in a house of our own, if
Phil gets the appointment he is after."

"Oh, he is after an appointment?"

"Yes, John; Phil is not so lucky as to have a profession like you."

This was a new way of looking at the matter, and John Tatham found
nothing to say. It seemed to him, who had worked very hard for it, a
little droll to describe his possession of a profession as luck. But he
made no remark. He took Elinor down-stairs and found her brougham for
her, and the kind old coachman on the box, who was well used to taking
care of her, though only hired from the livery stables for the
season--John thought the old man looked suspiciously at him, and would
have stopped him from accompanying her, had he designed any such
proceeding. Poor little Nelly, to be watched over by the paternal
fly-man on the box! she who might have had---- but he stopped himself
there, though his heart felt as heavy as a stone to see her go away
thus, alone from the smart party where she had been doing duty for her
husband. John could not take upon himself to finish his sentence--she
who might have had love and care of a very different kind. No, he had
never offered her that love and care. Had Phil Compton never come in her
way it is possible that John Tatham might never have offered it to
her--not, at least, for a long time. He could never have had any right
to be a dog in the manger, neither would he venture to pretend now that
it was her own fault if she had chosen the wrong man; was it his fault
then, who had never put a better man within her choice? but John, who
was no coxcomb, blushed in the dark to himself as this question flitted
through his mind. He had no reason to suppose that Elinor would have
been willing to change the brotherly tie between them into any other.
Thank heaven for that brotherly tie! He would always be able to befriend
her, to stand by her, to help her as much as any one could help a woman
who was married, and thus outside of all ordinary succour. And as for
that blackguard, that _dis_-Honourable Phil---- But here John, who was a
man of just mind, paused again. For a man to let his wife go to a party
by herself was not after all so dreadful a thing. Many men did so, and
the women did not complain; to be sure they were generally older, more
accustomed to manage for themselves than Elinor: but still, a man need
not be a blackguard because he did that. So John stopped his own ready
judgment, but still I am afraid in his heart pronounced Phil Compton's
sentence all the same. He did not say a word about this encounter to
Mrs. Dennistoun; at least, he did tell her that he had met Elinor at the
So-and-So's, which, as it was one of the best houses in London, was
pleasing to a mother to hear.

"And how was she looking?" Mrs. Dennistoun cried.

"She was looking--beautiful----" said John. "I don't flatter, and I
never thought her so in the old times--but it is the only word I can
use----"

"Didn't I tell you so?" said the mother, pleased. "She is quite
embellished and improved--therefore she must be happy."

"It is certainly the very best evidence----"

"Isn't it? But it so often happens otherwise, even in happy marriages. A
girl feels strange, awkward, out of it, in her new life. Elinor must
have entirely accustomed herself, adapted herself to it, and to them, or
she would not look so well. That is the greatest comfort I can have."

And John kept his own counsel about Elinor's majestic solitude and the
watchful old coachman in the hired brougham. Her husband might still be
full of love and tenderness all the same. It was a great effort of the
natural integrity of his character to pronounce like this; but he did it
in the interests of justice, and for Elinor's sake and her mother's said
nothing of the circumstances at all.

It may be supposed that when Elinor paid the last of her sudden visits
at the cottage it was a heavy moment both for mother and daughter. It
was the time when fashionable people finish the season by going to
Goodwood--and to Goodwood Elinor was going with a party, Lady Mariamne
and a number of the "set." She told her mother, to amuse her, of the new
dresses she had got for this important occasion. "Phil says one may go
in sackcloth and ashes the remainder of the year, but we must be fine
for Goodwood," she said. "I wanted him to believe that I had too many
clothes already, but he was inexorable. It is not often, is it, that
one's husband is more anxious than one's self about one's dress?"

"He wants you to do him credit, Elinor."

"Well, mamma, there is no harm in that. But more than that--he wants me
to look nice, for myself. He thinks me still a little shy--though I
never was shy, was I?--and he thinks nothing gives you courage like
feeling yourself well dressed--but he takes the greatest interest in
everything I wear."

"And where do you go after Goodwood, Elinor?"

"Oh, mamma, on such a round of visits!--here and there and everywhere. I
don't know," and the tears sprang into Elinor's eyes, "when I may see
you again."

"You are not coming back to London," said the mother, with the heart
sinking in her breast.

"Not now--they all say London is insupportable--it is one of the things
that everybody says, and I believe that Phil will not set foot in it
again for many months. Perhaps I might get a moment, when he is
shooting, or something, to run back to you; but it is a long way from
Scotland--and he must be there, you know, for the 12th. He would think
the world was coming to an end if he did not get a shot at the grouse
on that day."

"But I thought he was looking for an appointment, Elinor?"

A cloud passed over Elinor's face. "The season is over," she said, "and
all the opportunities are exhausted--and we don't speak of that any
more."

She gave her mother a very close hug at the railway, and sat with her
head partly out of the window watching her as she stood on the platform,
until the train turned round the corner. No relief on her dear face now,
but an anxious strain in her eyes to see her mother as long as possible.
Mrs. Dennistoun, as she walked again slowly up the hills that the pony
might not suffer, said to herself, with a chill at her heart, that she
would rather have seen her child sinking back in the corner, pleased
that it was over, as on the first day.




CHAPTER XIX.


The next winter was more dreary still and solitary than the first at
Windyhill. The first had been, though it looked so long and dreary as it
passed, full of hope of the coming summer, which must, it seemed, bring
Elinor back. But now Mrs. Dennistoun knew exactly what Elinor's coming
back meant, and the prospect was less cheering. Three days in the whole
long season--three little escapades, giving so very little hope of more
sustained intercourse to come. Mrs. Dennistoun, going over all the
circumstances--she had so little else to do but to go over them in her
long solitary evenings--came to the conclusion that whatever might
happen, she herself would go to town when summer came again. She amused
herself with thinking how she would find a little house--quite a small
house, as there are so many--in a good situation, where even the most
fashionable need not be ashamed to come, and where there would be room
enough for Elinor and her husband if they chose to establish themselves
there. Mrs. Dennistoun was of opinion, already expressed, that if
mothers-in-law are obnoxious to men, sons-in-law are very frequently so
to women, which is a point of view not popularly perceived. And Philip
Compton was not sympathetic to her in any point of view. But still she
made up her mind to endure him, and even his family, for the sake of
Elinor. She planned it all out--it gave a little occupation to the
vacant time--how they should have their separate rooms and even meals if
that turned out most convenient; how she would interfere with none of
their ways: only to have her Elinor under her roof, to have her when the
husband was occupied--in the evenings, if there were any evenings that
she spent alone; in the mornings, when perhaps Phil got up late, or had
engagements of his own; for the moment's freedom when her child should
be free. She made up her mind that she would ask no questions, would
never interfere with any of their habits, or oppose or put herself
between them--only just to have a little of Elinor every day.

"For it will not be the same thing this year," she said to John,
apologetically. "They have quite settled down into each other's ways.
Philip must see I have no intention of interfering. For the most
obdurate opponent of mothers-in-law could not think--could he,
John?--that I had any desire to put myself between them, or make myself
troublesome now."

"There is no telling," said John, "what such asses might think."

"But Philip is not an ass; and don't you think I have behaved very well,
and may give myself this indulgence the second year?"

"I certainly think you will be quite right to come to town: but I should
not have them to live with you, if I were you."

"Shouldn't you? It might be a risk: but then I shouldn't do it unless
there was room enough to leave them quite free. The thing I am afraid of
is that they wouldn't accept."

"Oh, Phil Compton will accept," said John, hurriedly.

"Why are you so sure? I think often you know more about him than you
ever say."

"I don't know much about him, but I know that a man of uncertain income
and not very delicate feelings is generally glad enough to have the
expenses of the season taken off him: and even get all the more pleasure
out of it when he has his living free."

"That's not a very elevated view to take of the transaction, John."

"My dear aunt, I did not think you expected anything very elevated from
the Comptons. They are not the sort of family from which one
expects----"

"And yet it is the family that my Elinor belongs to: she is a Compton."

"I did not think of that," said John, a little disconcerted. Then he
added, "There is no very elevated standard in such matters. Want of
money has no law: and of course there are better things involved, for he
might be very glad that Elinor should have her mother to go out with
her, to stand by when--a man might have other engagements."

Mrs. Dennistoun looked at him closely and shook her head. She was not
very much reassured by this view of the case. "At all events I shall try
it," she said.

Quite early in the year, when she was expecting no such pleasure, she
was rewarded for her patience by another flying visit from her child,
who this time telegraphed to say she was coming, so that her mother
could go and meet her at the station, and thus lose no moment of her
visit. Elinor, however, was not in good spirits on this occasion, nor
was she in good looks. She told her mother hurriedly that Phil had come
up upon business; that he was very much engaged with the new company,
getting far more into it than satisfied her. "I am terrified that
another catastrophe may come, and that he might share the blame if
things were to go wrong"--which was by no means a good preface for the
mission with which it afterwards appeared Elinor herself was charged.

"Phil told me to say to you, mamma, that if you were not satisfied with
any of your investments, he could help you to a good six or seven per
cent.----"

She said this with her head turned away, gazing out of the window,
contemplating the wintry aspect of the combe with a countenance as
cloudy and as little cheerful as itself.

There was an outcry on Mrs. Dennistoun's lips, but fortunately her
sympathy with her child was so strong that she felt Elinor's sentiments
almost more forcibly than her own, and she managed to answer in a quiet,
untroubled voice.

"Philip is very kind, my dear: but you know my investments are all
settled for me and I have no will of my own. I get less interest, but
then I have less responsibility. Don't you know I belong to the time in
which women were not supposed to be good for anything, and consequently
I am in the hands of my trustees."

"I think he foresaw that, mother," said Elinor, still with her head
averted and her eyes far away; "but he thought you might represent to
the trustees that not only would it give you more money, but it would be
better in the end for me. Oh, how I hate to have to say this to you,
mamma!"

How steadily Mrs. Dennistoun kept her countenance, though her daughter
now flung herself upon her shoulder with uncontrollable tears!

"My darling, it is quite natural you should say it. You must tell Philip
that I fear I am powerless. I will try, but I don't think anything will
come of it. I have been glad to be free of responsibility, and I have
never attempted to interfere."

"Mother, I am so thankful. I oughtn't to go against him, ought I? But I
would not have you take his advice. It is so dreadful not to appear----"

"My dear, you must try to think that he understands better than you do:
men generally do: you are only a girl, and they are trained more or less
to business."

"Not Phil! not Phil!"

"Well, he must have some capacity for it, some understanding, or they
would not want him on those boards; and you cannot have, Elinor, for you
know nothing about it. To hear you speak of per cents. makes me laugh."
It was a somewhat forlorn kind of laugh, yet the mother executed it
finely: and by and by the subject dropped, and Elinor was turned to talk
of other things--other things of which there was a great deal to say,
and over which they cried and laughed together as nature bade.

In the same evening, the precious evening of which she did not like to
waste a moment, Mrs. Dennistoun unfolded her plan for the season. "I
feel that I know exactly the kind of house I want; it will probably be
in some quiet insignificant place, a Chapel Street, or a Queen Street,
or a Park Street somewhere, but in a good situation. You shall have the
first floor all to yourself to receive your visitors, and if you think
that Philip would prefer a separate table----"

"Oh, mamma, mamma!" cried Elinor, clinging to her, kissing passionately
her mother's cheek, which was still as soft as a child's.

"It is not anything you have told me now that has put this into my head,
my darling. I had made it all up in my own mind. Then, you know, when
your husband is engaged with those business affairs--in the city--or
with his own friends--you would have your mother to fall back upon,
Elinor. I should have just the _moments perdus_, don't you see, when you
were doing nothing else, when you were wanted for nothing else. I
promise you, my darling, I should never be _de trop_, and would never
interfere."

"Oh, mamma, mamma!" Elinor cried again as if words failed her; and so
they did, for she said scarcely anything more, and evaded any answer. It
went to her mother's heart, yet she made her usual excuses for it. Poor
child, once so ready to decide, accepting or rejecting with the
certainty that no opposition would be made to her will, but now afraid
to commit herself, to say anything that her husband would not approve!
Well! Mrs. Dennistoun said to herself, many a young wife is like that,
and yet is happy enough. It depends so much on the man. Many a man
adores his wife and is very good to her, and yet cannot bear that she
should seem to settle anything without consulting his whim. And Philip
Compton had never been what might be called an easy-going man. It was
right of Elinor to give no answer till she knew what he would like. The
dreadful thing was that she expressed no pleasure in her mother's
proposal, scarcely looked as if she herself would like it, which was a
thing which did give an unquestionable wound.

"Mamma," she said, as they were driving to the station, not in the pony
carriage this time, but in the fly, for the weather was bad, "don't be
vexed that I don't say more about your wonderful, your more than kind
offer."

"Kind is scarcely a word to use, Elinor, between you and me."

"I know, I know, mamma--and I as good as refuse it, saying nothing. Oh,
if I could tell you without telling you! I am so frightened--how can I
say it?--that you should see things you would not approve!"

"My dear, I am of one generation and you are of another. I am an old
woman, and your husband is a young man. But what does that matter? We
can agree to differ. I will never thrust myself into his private
affairs, and he----"

"Oh, mother, mother darling, it is not that," Elinor said. And she
went away without any decision. But in a few days there came to Mrs.
Dennistoun a letter from Philip himself, most nobly expressed, saying
that Elinor had told him of her mother's kind offer, and that he
hastened to accept it with the utmost gratitude and devotion. He had
just been wondering, he wrote, how he was to muster all things necessary
for Elinor, with the business engagements which were growing upon
himself. Nobody could understand better than Nell's good mother how
necessary it was that he should neglect no means of securing their
position, and he had found that often he would have to leave his darling
by herself: but this magnificent, this magnanimous offer on her part
would make everything right. Need he say how gratefully he accepted it?
Nell and he being on the spot would immediately begin looking out for
the house, and when they had a list of three or four to look at he hoped
she would come up to their rooms and select what she liked best. This
response took away Mrs. Dennistoun's breath, for, to tell the truth, she
had her own notions as to the house she wanted and as to the time to be
spent in town, and would certainly have preferred to manage everything
herself. But in this she had to yield, with thankfulness that in the
main point she was to have her way.

Did she have her way? It is very much to be doubted whether in such a
situation of affairs it would have been possible. The house that was
decided upon was not one which she would have chosen for herself,
neither would she have taken it from Easter to July. She had meant a
less expensive place and a shorter season; but after all, what did that
matter for once if it pleased Elinor? The worst of it was that she could
not at all satisfy herself that it pleased Elinor. It pleased Philip,
there was no doubt, but then it had not been intended except in a very
secondary way to please him. And when the racket of the season began
Mrs. Dennistoun had a good deal to bear. Philip, though he was supposed
to be a man of business and employed in the city, got up about noon,
which was dreadful to all her orderly country habits; the whole afternoon
through there was a perpetual tumult of visitors, who, when by chance
she encountered them in the hall or on the stairs, looked at her
superciliously as if she were the landlady. The man who opened the door,
and brushed Philip Compton's clothes, and was in his service, looked
superciliously at her too, and declined to have anything to say to "the
visitors for down-stairs." A noise of laughter and loud talk was
(distinctly) in her ears from noon till late at night. When Philip came
home, always much later than his wife, he was in the habit of bringing
men with him, whose voices rang through the house after everybody was
in bed. To be sure, there were compensations. She had Elinor often for
an hour or two in the morning before her husband was up. She had her in
the evenings when they were not going out, but these were few. As for
Philip, he never dined at home. When he had no engagements he dined at
his club, leaving Elinor with her mother. He gave Mrs. Dennistoun very
little of his company, and when they did meet there was in his manner
too a sort of reflection of the superciliousness of the "smart" visitors
and the "smart" servant. She was to him, too, in some degree the
landlady, the old lady down-stairs. Elinor, as was natural, redoubled
her demonstrations of affection, her excuses and sweet words to make up
for this neglect: but all the time there was in her mother's mind that
dreadful doubt which assails us when we have committed ourselves to one
act or another, "Was it wise? Would it not have been better to have
denied herself and stayed away?" So far as self-denial went, it was more
exercised in Curzon Street than it would have been at the Cottage. For
she had to see many things that displeased her and to say no word; to
guess at the tears, carefully washed away from Elinor's eyes, and to ask
no questions, and to see what she could not but feel was the violent
career downward, the rush that must lead to a catastrophe, but make no
sign. There was one evening when Elinor, not looking well or feeling
well, had stayed at home, Philip having a whole long list of engagements
in hand; men's engagements, his wife explained, a stockbroking dinner,
an adjournment to somebody's chambers, a prolonged sitting, which meant
play, and a great deal of wine, and other attendant circumstances into
which she did not enter. Elinor had no engagement for that night, and
was free to be petted and fêted by her mother. She was put at her ease
in a soft and rich dressing-gown, and the prettiest little dinner
served, and the room filled with flowers, and everything done that used
to be done when she was recovering from some little mock illness, some
child's malady, just enough to show how dear above everything was the
child to the mother, and with what tender ingenuity the mother could
invent new delights for the child. These delights, alas! did not
transport Elinor now as they once had done, and yet the repose was
sweet, and the comfort of this nearest and dearest friend to lean upon
something more than words could say.

On this evening, however, in the quiet of those still hours, poor
Elinor's heart was opened, or rather her mouth, which on most occasions
was closed so firmly. She said suddenly, in the midst of something quite
different, "Oh, I wish Phil was not so much engaged with those dreadful
city men."

"My dear!" said Mrs. Dennistoun, who was thinking of far other things;
and then she said, "there surely cannot be much to fear in that respect.
He is never in the city--he is never up, my dear, when the city men are
doing their work."

"Ah," said Elinor, "I don't think that matters; he is in with them all
the same."

"Well, Elinor, there is no reason that there should be any harm in it. I
would much rather he had some real business in hand than be merely a
butterfly of fashion. You must not entertain that horror of city men."

"The kind he knows are different from the kind you know, mamma."

"I suppose everything is different from what it was in my time: but it
need not be any worse for that----"

"Oh, mother! you are obstinate in thinking well of everything; but
sometimes I am so frightened, I feel as if I must do something dreadful
myself--to precipitate the ruin which nothing I can do will stop----"

"Elinor, Elinor, this is far too strong language----"

"Mamma, he wants me to speak to you again. He wants you to give your
money----"

"But I have told you already I cannot give it, Elinor."

"Heaven be praised for that! But he will speak to you himself, he will
perhaps try to--bully you, mamma."

"Elinor!"

"It is horrible, what I say; yes, it is horrible, but I want to warn
you. He says things----"

"Nothing that he can say will make me forget that he is your husband,
Elinor."

"Ah, but don't think too much of that, mamma. Think that he doesn't know
what he is doing--poor Phil, oh, poor Phil! He is hurried on by these
people; and then it will break up, and the poor people will be ruined,
and they will upbraid him, and yet he will not be a whit the better. He
does not get any of the profit. I can see it all as clear---- And there
are so many other things."

Mrs. Dennistoun's heart sank in her breast, for she too knew what were
the other things. "We must have patience," she said; "he is in his
hey-day, full of--high spirits, and thinking everything he touches must
go right. He will steady down in time."

"Oh, I am not complaining," cried Elinor, hurriedly dashing her tears
away; "if you were not a dreadfully good mamma, if you would grumble
sometimes and find fault, that I might defend him! It is the sight of
you there, seeing everything and not saying a word that is too much for
me."

"Then I will grumble, Elinor. I will even say something to him for our
own credit. He should not come in so late--at least when he comes in he
should come in to rest and not bring men with him to make a noise. You
see I can find fault as much as heart could desire. I am dreadfully
selfish. I don't mind when he goes out now and then without you, for
then I have you; but he should not bring noisy men with him to disturb
the house in the middle of the night. I think I will speak to him----"

"No," said Elinor, with a clutch upon her mother's arm; "no, don't do
that. He does not like to be found fault with. Unless in the case--if
you were giving him that money, mother."

"Which I cannot do: and Elinor, my darling, which I would not do if I
could. It is all you will have to rely upon, you and----"

"It would have been the only chance," said Elinor. "I don't say it would
have been much of a chance. But he might have listened, if---- Oh, no,
dear mother, no. I would not in my sober senses wish that you should
give him a penny. It would do no good, but only harm. And yet if you had
done it, you might have said---- and he might have listened to you for
once----"




CHAPTER XX.


A few days after this Philip Compton came in, in the afternoon, to the
little room down-stairs which Mrs. Dennistoun had made into a
sitting-room for herself. Elinor had gone out with her sister-in-law,
and her mother was alone. It was a very rare thing indeed for Mrs.
Dennistoun's guest--who, indeed, was to all intents and purposes the
master of the house, and had probably quite forgotten by this time that
he was not in reality so--to pay a visit "down-stairs." "Down-stairs"
had a distinct meaning in the Compton vocabulary. It was spoken of with
significance, and with a laugh, as something half hostile, half
ridiculous. It meant a sort of absurd criticism and inspection,
as of some old crone sitting vigilant, spying upon everything--a
mother-in-law. Phil's cronies thought it was the most absurd weakness on
his part to let such an intruder get footing in his house. "You will
never get rid of her," they said. And Phil, though he was generally
quite civil to his wife's mother (being actually and at his heart more a
gentleman than he had the least idea he was), did not certainly in any
way seek her society. He scarcely ever dined at home, as has been said;
when he had not an engagement--and he had a great many engagements--he
found that he was obliged to dine at his club on the evenings when he
might have been free; and as this was the only meal which was supposed
to be common, it may be perceived that Phil had little means of meeting
his mother-in-law; and that he should come to see her of his own free
will was unprecedented. Phil Compton had not improved since his
marriage. His nocturnal enjoyments, the noisy parties up-stairs in the
middle of the night, had not helped to dissipate the effect of the
anxieties of the city, which his wife so deplored. Mrs. Dennistoun that
very day, when she came down-stairs in the fresh summer morning to her
early breakfast, had seen through an open door the room up-stairs which
was appropriated to Phil, with a lamp still burning in the daylight,
cards lying strewn about the floor, and all in that direful disorder
which a room so occupied overnight shows in the clear eye of the day.
The aspect of the room had given her a shock almost more startling than
any moral certainty, as was natural to a woman used to all the decorums
and delicacies of a well-ordered life. There is no sin in going late to
bed, or even letting a lamp burn into the day; but the impression that
such a sight makes even upon the careless is always greater than any
mere apprehension by the mind of the midnight sitting, the eager game,
the chances of loss and ruin. She had not been able to get that sight
out of her eyes. Though on ordinary occasions she never entered Phil's
rooms, on this she had stolen in to put out the lamp, with the sensation
in her mind of destroying some evidence against him, which someone less
interested than she might have used to his disadvantage. And she had
sent up the housemaid to "do" the room, with an admonition. "I cannot
have Mr. Compton's rooms neglected," she said. "The gentlemen is always
so late," the housemaid said in self-defence. "I hears them let
themselves out sometimes after we're all up down-stairs." "I don't want
to hear anything about the gentlemen. Do your work at the proper time;
that is all that is asked of you." Phil's servant appeared at the moment
pulling on his coat, with the air of a man who has been up half the
night--which, indeed, was the case, for "the gentlemen" when they came
in had various wants that had to be supplied. "What's up now?" he said
to the housemaid, within hearing of her mistress, casting an insolent
look at the old lady, who belonged to "down-stairs." "She've been prying
and spying about like they all do----" Mrs. Dennistoun had retreated
within the shelter of her room to escape the end of this sentence, which
still she heard, with the usual quickness of our faculties in such
cases. She swallowed her simple breakfast with what appetite she might,
and her stout spirit for the moment broke down before this insult which
was ridiculous, she said to herself, from a saucy servant-man. What did
it matter to her what Johnson did or said? But it was like the lamp
burning in the sunshine: it gave a moral shock more sharp than many a
thing of much more importance would have been capable of doing, and she
had not been able to get over it all day.

It may be supposed, therefore, that it was an unfortunate moment for
Phil Compton's visit. Mrs. Dennistoun had scarcely seen them that day,
and she was sitting by herself, somewhat sick at heart, wondering if
anything would break the routine into which their life was falling; or
if this was what Elinor must address herself to as its usual tenor. It
would be better in the country, she said to herself. It was only in the
bustle of the season, when everybody of his kind was congregated in
town, that it would be like this. In their rounds of visits, or when the
whole day was occupied with sport, such nocturnal sittings would be
impossible--and she comforted herself by thinking that they would not be
consistent with any serious business in the city such as Elinor feared.
The one danger must push away the other. He could not gamble at night in
that way, and gamble in the other among the stockbrokers. They were both
ruinous, no doubt, but they could not both be carried on at the same
time--or so, at least, this innocent woman thought. There was enough to
be anxious and alarmed about without taking two impossible dangers into
her mind together.

And just then Phil knocked at her door. He came in smiling and gracious,
and with that look of high breeding and _savoir faire_ which had
conciliated her before and which she felt the influence of now, although
she was aware how many drawbacks there were, and knew that the respect
which her son-in-law showed was far from genuine. "I never see you to
have a chat," he said; "I thought I would take the opportunity to-day,
when Elinor was out. I want you to tell me how you think she is."

"I think she is wonderfully well," said Mrs. Dennistoun.

"_Wonderfully_ well--you mean considering--that there is too much racket
in her life?"

"Partly, I mean that--but, indeed, I meant it without condition; she is
wonderfully well. I am surprised, often----"

"It is rather a racket of a life," said Phil.

"Too much, indeed--it is too much--for a woman who is beginning her
serious life--but if you think that, it is a great thing gained, for you
can put a stop to it, or moderate--'the pace' don't you call it?" she
said, with a smile.

"Well, yes. I suppose we could moderate the pace--but that would mean a
great deal for me. You see, when a man's launched it isn't always so
easy to stop. Nell, of course, if you thought she wanted it--might go to
the country with you."

Mrs. Dennistoun's heart gave a leap. "Might go to the country with you!"
It seemed a glimpse of Paradise that burst upon her. But then she shook
her head. "You know Elinor would not leave you, Philip."

"Well! she has a ridiculous partiality," he said, with a laugh, "though,
of course, I'd make her--if it was really for her advantage," he added,
after a moment; "you don't think I'd let that stand in her way."

"In the meantime," said Mrs. Dennistoun, with hesitation, "without
proceeding to any such stringent measures--if you could manage to be a
little less late at night."

"Oh, you listen for my coming in at night?"

His face took a sombre look, as if a cloud had come over it.

"I do not listen--for happily for me I have been asleep for hours. I
generally jump up thinking the house is on fire at the sound of voices,
which make listening quite unnecessary, Philip."

"Ah, yes, the fellows are rather noisy," he said, carelessly, "but Nell
sleeps like a top, and pays no attention--which is the best thing she
can do."

"I would not be too sure she slept like a top."

"It's true; women are all hypocrites alike. You never know when you have
them," Phil said.

And then there was a pause; for she feared to say anything more lest she
should go too far; and he for once in his life was embarrassed, and did
not know how to begin what he had to say.

"Well," he said, quickly, getting up, "I must be going. I have business
in the city. And now that I find you're satisfied about Nell's
health---- By the way, you never show in our rooms; though Nell spends
every minute she has to spare here."

"I am a little old perhaps for your friends, Philip, and the room is not
too large."

"Well, no," he said, "they are wretched little rooms. Good-by, then; I'm
glad you think Nell is all right."

Was this all he meant to say? There was, however, an uncertainty about
his step, and by the time he had opened the door he came to a pause,
half closed it again, and said, "Oh, by the bye!"

"What is it?" said Mrs. Dennistoun.

He closed the door again and came back half a step. "I almost forgot, I
meant to tell you: if you have any money to invest, I could help you
to---- The best thing I've heard of for many a day!"

"You are very kind, Philip; but you know everything I have is in the
hands of trustees."

"Oh, bother trustees. The only thing they do is to keep your dividends
down to the lowest amount possible and cut short your income. Come,
you're quite old enough to judge for yourself. You might give them a
jog. At your time of life they ought to take a hint from you."

"I have never done it, Philip, and they would pay no attention to me."

"Oh, nonsense, mamma. Why, except you, who has a right to be consulted
except Nell? and if I, her husband, am your adviser----"

"I know they would do nothing but mock at me."

"Rubbish! I'd like to see who would mock at you. Just you send them to
me, that is all."

"Philip, will you not believe me when I say that it is impossible? I
have never interfered. They would ask what made me think of such a thing
now."

"And you could tell them a jolly good opportunity, as safe as the bank,
and paying six or seven per cent.--none of your fabulous risky ten or
twelve businesses, but a solid steady---- How could it be to my interest
to mislead you? It would be Nell who would be the loser. I should be
simply cutting off my own head."

"That is true, no doubt----"

"And," he said, scarcely waiting for her reply, "Nell is really the
person who should be consulted: for if there was loss eventually it
would come upon her--and so upon me. I mean taking into consideration
all the chances of the future: for it is perfectly safe for your time,
you may be quite sure of that."

No one, though he might be ninety, likes to have his time limited, and
his heir's prospects dwelt upon as the only things of any importance,
and Mrs. Dennistoun was a very long way from ninety. She would have
sacrificed everything she had to make her child happy, but she did not
like, all the same, to be set down as unimportant so far as her own
property was concerned.

"I am afraid," she said, with a slight quaver in her voice, "that my
trustees would not take Elinor's wishes into consideration in the first
place, nor yours either, Philip. They think of me, and I suppose that is
really their duty. If I had anything of my own----"

"Do you mean to say," he said, bluntly, "that with a good income and
living in the country in a hole, in the most obscure way, you have
saved nothing all these years?"

"If I had," said Mrs. Dennistoun, roused by his persistent attack, "I
should be very sorry to fling it away."

"Oh, that is what you think?" he said. "Now we're at the bottom of it.
You think that to put it in my hands would be to throw it away! I
thought there must be something at the bottom of all this pretty
ignorance of business and so forth. Good gracious! that may be well
enough for a girl; but when a grandmother pretends not to know, not to
interfere, etc., that's too much. So this is what you meant all the
time! To put it into my hands would be throwing it away!"

"I did not mean to say so, Philip--I spoke hastily, but I must remind
you that I am not accustomed to this tone----"

"Oh, no, not at all accustomed to it, you all say that--that's Nell's
dodge--never was used to anything of the kind, never had a rough word
said to her, and so forth and so forth."

"Philip--I hope you don't say rough words to my Elinor."

"Oh!" he said, "I have got you there, have I. _Your_ Elinor--no more
yours than she is--Johnson's. She is my Nell, and what's more, she'll
cling to me, whatever rough words I may say, or however you may coax or
wheedle. Do you ever think when you refuse to make a sacrifice of one
scrap of your hoards for her, that if I were not a husband in a hundred
I might take it out of her and make her pay?"

"For what?" said Mrs. Dennistoun, standing up and confronting him, her
face pale, her head very erect--"for what would you make her pay?"

He stood staring at her for a moment and then he broke out into a laugh.
"We needn't face each other as if we were going to have a stand-up
fight," he said. "And it wouldn't be fair, mamma, we're not equally
matched, the knowing ones would all lay their money on you. So you won't
take my advice about investing your spare cash? Well, if you won't you
won't, and there's an end of it: only stand up fair and don't bother me
with nonsense about trustees."

"It is no nonsense," she said.

His eyes flashed, but he controlled himself and turned away, waving his
hand. "I'll not beat Nell for it when I come home to-night," he said.

Once more Phil dined at his club that evening and Elinor with her
mother. She was in an eager and excited state, looking anxiously in Mrs.
Dennistoun's eyes, but it was not till late in the evening that she made
any remark. At last, just before they parted for the night, she threw
herself upon her mother with a little cry--"Oh, mamma, I know you are
right, I know you are quite right. But if you could have done it, it
would have given you an influence! I don't blame you--not for a
moment--but it might have given you an opening to speak. It might
have--given you a little hold on him."

"My darling, my darling!" said Mrs. Dennistoun.

"No," said Elinor, "there's nothing to pity me about, nothing at
all--Phil is always kind and good to me--but you would have had a
standing ground. It might have given you a right to speak--about those
dreadful, dreadful city complications, mamma."

Mrs. Dennistoun went to bed that night a troubled woman, and lay awake
watching and expecting when the usual midnight tumult should arise. But
that evening there was none. No sound but the key in the latch, the
shutting of a door or two, and all quiet. Compunctions filled the
mother's heart. What was the wrong if, perhaps, she could satisfy
Elinor, perhaps get at the heart of Phil, who had a heart, though it
was getting strangled in all those intricacies of gambling and wretched
business. She turned over and over in her mind all that she had, and all
that she had any power over. And she remembered a small sum she had in a
mortgage, which was after all in her own power. No doubt it would be to
throw the money away, which would be so much gone from the future
provision of Elinor--but if by that means she could acquire an influence
as Elinor said--be allowed to speak--to protest or perhaps even insist
upon a change of course? Thinking over such a question for a whole
sleepless night, and feeling beneath all that at least, at worst, this
sacrifice would give pleasure to Elinor, which was really the one and
sole motive, the only thing that could give her any warrant for such a
proceeding--is not a process which is likely to strengthen the mind. In
the morning, as soon as she knew he was up, which was not till late
enough, she sent to ask if Phil would give her five minutes before he
went out. He appeared after a while, extremely correct and _point
device_, grave but polite. "I must ask you to excuse me," he said, "if I
am hurried, for to-day is one of my Board days."

"It was only to say, Philip--you spoke to me yesterday of money--to be
invested."

"Yes?" he said politely, without moving a muscle.

"I have been thinking it all over, and I remember that there is a
thousand pounds or two which John Tatham placed for me in a mortgage,
and which is in my own power."

"Ah!" he said, "a thousand pounds or two," with a shrug of his
shoulders; "it is scarcely worth while, is it, changing an investment
for so small a matter as a thousand pounds?"

"If you think so, Philip--it is all I can think of that is in my own
power."

"It is really not worth the trouble," he said, "and I am in a hurry." He
made a step towards the door and then turned round again. "Well," he
said, "just to show there is no ill-feeling, I'll find you something,
perhaps, to put your tuppenceha'penny in to-day."

And then there was John Tatham to face after that!




CHAPTER XXI.


It cost Mrs. Dennistoun a struggle to yield to her daughter and her
daughter's husband, and with her eyes open and no delusion on the
subject to throw away her two thousand pounds. Two thousand pounds is a
big thing to throw away. There are many people much richer than Mrs.
Dennistoun who would have thought it a wicked thing to do, and some who
would have quarrelled with both daughter and son-in-law rather than do
so foolish a thing. For it was not merely making a present, so to speak,
of the money, it was throwing it away. To have given it to Elinor would
have been nothing, it would have been a pleasure; but in Phil's
investment Mrs. Dennistoun had no confidence. It was throwing her money
after Elinor's money into that hungry sea which swallows up everything
and gives nothing again.

But if that had been difficult for her, it may be imagined with what
feelings she contemplated her necessary meeting with John Tatham. She
knew everything he would say--more, she knew what he would look: his
astonishment, his indignation, the amazement with which he would regard
it. John was far from being incapable of a sacrifice. Mrs. Dennistoun,
indeed, did him more than justice in that respect, for she believed that
he had himself been on the eve of asking Elinor to marry him when she
was snatched up by, oh, so much less satisfactory a man! which the
reader knows is not quite the case, though perhaps it required quite as
much self-denial on John's part to stand by Elinor and maintain her
cause under her altered circumstances as if it had been the case. But
notwithstanding this, she knew that John would be angry with what she
had done or promised to do, and would put every possible impediment in
her way: and when she sent for him, in order that she might carry out
her promise, it was with a heart as sick with fright and as much
disturbed by the idea of a scolding as ever child's was.

John had been very little to the house at Curzon Street. He had dined
two or three times with Mrs. Dennistoun alone, and once or twice Elinor
had been of the party; but the Comptons had never any guests at that
house, and the fact already mentioned that Philip Compton never dined at
home made it a difficult matter for Mrs. Dennistoun to ask any but her
oldest friends to the curious little divided house, which was neither
hers nor theirs. Thus Cousin John had met, but no more, Elinor's
husband, and neither of the gentlemen had shown the least desire to
cultivate the acquaintance. John had not expressed his sentiments
on the subject to any one, but Phil, as was natural, had been more
demonstrative. "I don't think much of your relations, Nell," he said,
"if that's a specimen: a prig if ever there was one--and that old sheep
that was at the wedding, the father of him, I suppose----"

"As they are my relations, Phil, you might speak of them a little more
respectfully."

"Oh, respectfully! Bless us all! I have no respect for my own, and why I
should have for yours, my little dear, I confess I can't see. Oh, by the
way, this is Cousin John, who I used to think by your blushing and all
that----"

"Phil, I think you are trying to make me angry. Cousin John is the best
man in the world; but I never blushed--how ridiculous! I might as well
have blushed to speak of my brother."

"I put no confidence in brothers, unless they're real ones," said Phil;
"but I'm glad I've seen him, Nell. I doubt after all that you're such a
fool, when you see us together--eh?" He laughed that laugh of conscious
superiority which, when it is not perfectly well-founded, sounds so
fatuous to the hearer. Elinor did not look at him. She turned her head
away and made no reply.

John, on his part, as has been said, made no remark. If he had possessed
a wife at home to whom he could have confided his sentiments, as Phil
Compton had, it is possible that he might have said something not
unsimilar. But then had he had a wife at home he would have been more
indifferent to Phil, and might not have cared to criticise him at all.

Mrs. Dennistoun received him when he came in obedience to her call, as a
child might do who had the power of receiving its future corrector. She
abased herself before him, servilely choosing his favourite subjects,
talking of what she thought would please him, of former times at the
Cottage, of Elinor, and her great affection for Cousin John, and so
forth. I imagine that he had a suspicion of the cause of all this
sweetness. He looked at her suspiciously, though he allowed himself to
be drawn into reminiscences, and to feel a half pleasure, half pain in
the affectionate things that Elinor had said. At length, after some time
had passed, he asked, in a pause of the conversation, "Was this all you
wanted with me, aunt, to talk of old times?"

"Wasn't it a good enough pretext for the pleasure of seeing you, John?"

He laughed a little and shook his head.

"An excellent pretext where none was wanted. It is very kind of you to
think it a pleasure: but you had something also to say?"

"It seems there is no deceiving you, John," she said, and with many
hesitations and much difficulty, told him her story. She saw him begin
to flame. She saw his eyes light up, and Mrs. Dennistoun shook in her
chair. She was not a woman apt to be afraid, but she was frightened now.

Nevertheless, when she had finished her story, John at first spoke no
word: and when he did find a tongue it was only to say,

"You want to get back the money you have on that mortgage. My dear aunt,
why did not you tell me so at once?"

"But I have just told you, John."

"Well, so be it. You know it will take a little time; there are some
formalities that must be gone through. You cannot make a demand on
people in that way to pay you cash at once."

"Oh, I thought it was so easy to get money--on such very good security
and paying such a good adequate rate of interest."

"It is easy," he said, "perfectly easy; but it wants a little time: and
people will naturally wonder, if it is really good security and good
interest, why you should be in such a hurry to get out of it."

"But surely, to say private reasons--family reasons, that will be
enough."

"Oh, there is no occasion for giving any reason at all. You wish to do
it; that is reason enough."

"Yes," said Mrs. Dennistoun, with diffidence, yet also a little
self-assertion, "I think it is enough."

"Of course, of course." But his eyes were flaming, and Mrs. Dennistoun
would not allow herself to believe that she had got off. "And may I
ask--not that I have any right to ask, for of course you have better
advisers--what do you mean to put the money in, when you have got it
back?"

"Oh, John," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "you are implacable, though you
pretend different. You know what I want with the money, and you
disapprove of it, and so do I. I am going to throw it away. I know that
just as well as you do, and I am ashamed of myself: but I am going to do
it all the same."

"You are going to give it to Elinor? I don't think there is anything to
disapprove of in that. It is the most natural thing in the world."

"If I could be sure that Elinor would get any good by it," she said.

And then his face suddenly blazed up, so that the former flame in his
eyes was nothing. He sat for a moment staring at her, and then he said,
"Yes, if--but I suppose you take the risk." There were a great many
things on his lips to say, but he said none of them, except hurriedly,
"You have a motive, I suppose----"

"I have a motive--as futile probably as my act--if I could by that
means, or any other, acquire an influence----"

John was very seldom, if ever, rude--it was not in his way--but at this
moment he was so bitterly exasperated that he forgot his manners
altogether. He burst out into a loud laugh, and then he jumped up to his
feet and said, "Forgive me. I really have a dozen engagements. I can't
stay. I'll see to having this business done for you as soon as possible.
You would rather old Lynch had no hand in it? I'll get it done for you
at once."

She followed him out to the door as if they had been in the country, and
that the flowery cottage door, with the great world of down and sky
outside, instead of Curzon Street: longing to say something that
would still, at the last moment, gain her John's approval, or his
understanding at least. But she could think of nothing to say. He had
promised to manage it all for her: he had not reproached her; and yet
not content with that she wanted to extort a favourable word from him
before he should go. But she could not find a word to say. He it was
only who spoke. He asked when she was going to return home, with his
hand upon the street door.

"I don't know. I have not made any plans. The house is taken till July."

"And you have enjoyed it?" he said. "It has answered?"

What a cruel, cruel question to put to her! She going so unsuspectingly
with him to the very door! Philip Compton's servant, always about when
he was not wanted, spying about to see whom it was that "down-stairs"
was letting out, came strolling into sight. Anyhow, whether that was the
reason or not, she made him no reply. He caught her look--a look that
said more than words--and turned round quickly and held out his hand. "I
did not mean to be cruel," he said.

"Oh, no, no, no--you did not mean it--you were not cruel. The
reverse--you are always so kind. Yes, it has answered--I am more glad
than I can tell you--that I came."

He it was now that looked at her anxiously, while she smiled that
well-worn smile which is kept for people in trouble. She went in
afterwards and sat silent for some time, covering her face with her
hands; in which attitude Elinor found her after her afternoon visitors
had gone away.

"What is it, mother? What is it, dear mother? Something has happened to
vex you."

"Nothing, nothing, Elinor. John Tatham has been here. He is going to do
that little piece of business for me."

"And he--has been bullying you too? poor mamma!"

"On the contrary, he did not say a word. He considered it--quite
natural."

Elinor gave her mother a kiss. She had nothing to say. Neither of them
had a word to say to the other. The thought that passed through both
their minds was: "After all it is only two thousand pounds"--and then,
_après_? was Elinor's thought. And then, never more, never more! was
what passed through Mrs. Dennistoun's mind.

Phil Compton smiled upon her that day she handed him over the money. "It
is a great pity you took the trouble," he said. "It is a pity to change
an investment for such a bagatelle as two thousand pounds. Still, if
you insist upon it, mamma. I suppose Nell's been bragging of the big
interest, but you never will feel it on a scrap like this. If you would
let me double your income for you now."

"You know, Philip, I cannot. The trustees would never consent."

"Bother trustees. They are the ruin of women," he said, and as he left
the room he turned back to ask her how long she was going to stay in
town.

"How long do you stay?"

"Oh, till Goodwood always," said Phil. "Nell's looking forward to it,
and there's generally some good things just at the end when the heavy
people have gone away; but I thought you might not care to stay so
long."

"I came not for town, but for Elinor, Philip."

"Exactly so. But don't you think Elinor has shown herself quite able to
take care of herself--not to say that she has me? It's a thousand pities
to keep you from the country which you prefer, especially as, after all,
Nell can be so little with you."

"It would be much better for her at present, Philip, to come with me,
and rest at home, while you go to Goodwood. For the sake of the future
you ought to persuade her to do it."

"I daresay. Try yourself to persuade her to leave me. She won't, you
know. But why should you bore yourself to death staying on here? You
don't like it, and nobody----"

"Wants me, you mean, Philip."

"I never said anything so dashed straightforward. I am not a chap of
that kind. But what I say is, it's a shame to keep you hanging on,
disturbed in your rest and all that sort of thing. That noisy beggar,
Dismar, that came in with us last night must have woke you up with his
idiotic bellowing."

"It doesn't matter for me; but Elinor, Philip. It does matter for your
wife. If her rest is broken it will react upon her in every way. I wish
you would consent to forego those visitors in the middle of the night."

He looked at her with a sort of satirical indifference. "Sorry I can't
oblige you," he said. "When a girl's friends fork out handsomely a man
has some reason for paying a little attention. But when there's nothing,
or next to nothing, on her side, why of course he must pick up a little
where he can, as much for her sake as his own."

"Pick up a little!" said Mrs. Dennistoun.

"I wish you wouldn't repeat what I say like that. It makes a fellow
nervous. Yes, of course, a man that knows what he's about does pick up a
little. About your movements, however. I advise you to take my advice
and go back to your snug little house. It would kill me in a week, but I
know it suits you. Why hang on for Nell? She's as well as can be, and
there's a few things that it would be good for us to do."

"Which you cannot do while I am here? Is that what you mean, Philip?"

"I never saw any good in being what the French call brutal," he said, "I
hate making a woman cry, or that sort of thing. But you're a woman of
sense, and I'm sure you must see that a young couple like Nell and me,
who have our way to make in the world----"

"You know it was for her sake entirely that I came here."

"Yes, oh, yes. To do coddling and that sort of thing--which she doesn't
require a bit; but if I must be brutal you know there's things of much
consequence we could do if----"

"If what, Philip?"

"Well," he said, turning on his heel, "if we had the house to
ourselves."

This was the influence Mrs. Dennistoun hoped to acquire by the sacrifice
of her two thousand pounds! When he was gone, instead of covering her
face as she had done when John left her, Mrs. Dennistoun stared into the
vacant air for a minute and then she burst into a laugh. It was not a
mirthful laugh, it may be supposed, or harmonious, and it startled her
as she heard it pealing into the silence. Whether it was loud enough to
wake Elinor up-stairs, or whether she was already close by and heard it,
I cannot tell, but she came in with a little tap at the door and a
smile, a somewhat anxious and forced smile, it is true, upon her face.

"What is the joke?" she said. "I heard you laugh, and I thought I might
come in and share the fun. Somehow, we don't have so much fun as we used
to have. What is it, mamma?"

"It is only a witticism of Philip's, who has been in to see me," said
Mrs. Dennistoun. "I won't repeat it, for probably I should lose the
point of it--you know I always did spoil a joke in repeating it. I have
been speaking to him," she said, after a little pause, during which both
her laugh and Elinor's smile evaporated in the most curious way, leaving
both of them very grave--"of going away, Elinor."

"Of going away!" Elinor suddenly assumed a startled look; but there is
a difference between doing that and being really startled, which her
mother, alas! was quite enlightened enough to see; and surely once more
there was that mingled relief and relaxation in the lines of her face
which Mrs. Dennistoun had seen before.

"Yes, my darling," she said, "it is June, and everything at the Cottage
will be in full beauty. And, perhaps, it would do you more good to come
down there for a day or two when there is nothing doing than to have me
here, which, after all, has not been of very much use to you."

"Oh, don't say that, mamma. Use!--it has been of comfort unspeakable.
But," Elinor added, hurriedly, "I see the force of all you say. To
remain in London at this time of the year must be a far greater
sacrifice than I have any right to ask of you, mamma."

Oh, the furtive, hurried, unreal words! which were such pain and horror
to say with the consciousness of the true sentiment lying underneath;
which made Elinor's heart sink, yet were brought forth with a sort of
hateful fervour, to imitate truth.

Mrs. Dennistoun saw it all. There are times when the understanding of
such a woman is almost equal to those "larger other eyes" with which it
is our fond hope those who have left us for a better country see, if
they are permitted to see, our petty doings, knowing, better than we
know ourselves, what excuses, what explanations, they are capable of.
"As for the sacrifice," she said, "we will say nothing of that, Elinor.
It is a vain thing to say that if my life would do you any pleasure--for
you don't want to take my life, and probably the best thing I can do
for you is to go on as long as I can. But in the meantime there's no
question at all of sacrifice--and if you can come down now and then for
a day, and sleep in the fresh air----"

"I will, I will, mamma," said Elinor, hiding her face on her mother's
shoulder; and they would have been something more than women if they had
not cried together as they held each other in that embrace--in which
there was so much more than met either eye or ear.




CHAPTER XXII.


It was about the 10th of June when Mrs. Dennistoun left London. She had
been in town for about five weeks, which looked like as many months, and
it was with a mingled sense of relief, and of that feeling which is like
death in the heart, the sense of nothing further to be done, of the end
of opportunity, the conclusion of all power to help, which sometimes
comes over an anxious mind, without in any respect diminishing the
anxiety, giving it indeed a depth and pang beyond any other feeling that
is known to the heart of man. What could she do more for her child?
Nothing. It was her only policy to remain away, not to see, certainly
not to remark anything that was happening, to wait if perhaps the moment
might come when she would be of use, and to hope that perhaps that
moment might never need to come, that by some wonderful turn of affairs
all might yet go well. She went back to Windyhill with the promise of a
visit "soon," Philip himself had said--in the pleasure of getting the
house, which was her house, which she had paid for and provisioned, to
himself for his own uses. Mrs. Dennistoun could not help hearing through
her maid something of the festivities which were in prospect after she
was gone, the dinners and gay receptions at which she would have been
_de trop_. She did not wish to hear of them, but these are things that
will make themselves known, and Mrs. Dennistoun had to face the fact
that Elinor was more or less consenting to the certainty of her mother
being _de trop_, which gave her a momentary pang. But after all, what
did it matter? It was not her fault, poor child. I have known a loving
daughter in whose mind there was a sentiment almost of relief amid her
deep grief when her tender mother died. Could such a thing be possible?
It was; because after then, however miserable she might be, there was no
conflict over her, no rending of the strained heart both ways. A woman
who has known life learns to understand and forgive a great many things;
and Mrs. Dennistoun forgave her Elinor, her only child, for whose
happiness she had lived, in that she was almost glad when her mother
went away.

Such things, however, do not make a lonely little house in the country
more cheerful, or tend to make it easier to content one's self with the
Rector's family, and the good old, simple-minded, retired people, with
their little complaints, yet general peacefulness, and incompetence to
understand what tragedy was. They thought on the whole their neighbour
at the Cottage ought to be very thankful that she had got her daughter
well, or, if not very well, at least fashionably, married, with good
connections and all that, which are always of use in the long run. It
was better than marrying a poor curate, which was almost the only chance
a girl had on Windyhill.

It was a little hard upon Mrs. Dennistoun, however, that she lost not
only Elinor, but John, who had been so good about coming down when she
was all alone at first. Of course, during the season, a young rising
man, with engagements growing upon him every day, was very unlikely to
have his Saturdays to Mondays free. So many people live out of town
nowadays, or, at least, have a little house somewhere to which they go
from Saturday to Monday, taking their friends with them. This was no
doubt the reason why John never came; and yet the poor lady suspected
another reason, and though she no longer laughed as she had done on
that occasion when the Honourable Phil gave her her dismissal, a smile
would come over her face sometimes when she reflected that with her two
thousand pounds she had purchased the hostility of both Philip and John.

John Tatham was indeed exceedingly angry with her for the weakness with
which she had yielded to Phil Compton's arguments, though indeed he knew
nothing of Phil Compton's arguments, nor whether they had been exercised
at all on the woman who was first of all Elinor's mother and ready to
sacrifice everything to her comfort. When he found that this foolish
step on her part had been followed by her retirement from London, he was
greatly mystified and quite unable to understand. He met Elinor some
time after at one of those assemblies to which "everybody" goes. It was,
I think, the soirée at the Royal Academy--where amid the persistent
crowd in the great room there was a whirling crowd, twisting in and out
among the others, bound for heaven knows how many other places, and
pausing here and there on tiptoe to greet an acquaintance, at the tail
of which, carried along by its impetus, was Elinor. She was not looking
either well or happy, but she was responding more or less to the impulse
of her set, exchanging greetings and banal words with dozens of people,
and sometimes turning a wistful and weary gaze towards the pictures on
the walls, as if she would gladly escape from the mob of her companions
to them, or anywhere. It was no impulse of taste or artistic feeling,
however, it is to be feared, but solely the weariness of her mind. John
watched her for some time before he approached her. Phil was not of the
party, which was nothing extraordinary, for little serious as that
assembly is, it was still of much too serious a kind for Phil; but Lady
Mariamne was there, and other ladies with whom Elinor was in the habit
of pursuing that gregarious hunt after pleasure which carries the train
of votaries along at so breakneck a pace, and with so little time to
enjoy the pleasure they are pursuing. When he saw indications that the
stream was setting backwards to the entrance, again to separate and
take its various ways to other entertainments, he broke into the throng
and called Elinor's attention to himself. For a moment she smiled with
genuine pleasure at the sight of him, but then changed her aspect almost
imperceptibly. "Oh, John!" she said with that smile: but immediately
looked towards Lady Mariamne, as if undecided what to do.

"You need not look--as if I would try to detain you, Elinor."

"Do you think I am afraid of your detaining me? I thought I should be
sure to meet you to-night, and was on the outlook. How is it that we
never see you now?"

He refused the natural retort that she had never asked to see him, and
only said, with a smile, "I hear my aunt is gone."

"Do you mean to say that you only came for her? That is an unkind
speech. Yes, she has gone. It was cruel to keep her in town for the best
part of the year."

"But she intended to stay till July, Elinor."

"Did she? I think you are mistaken, John. She intended to watch over
me--dear mamma, she thinks too much of me--but when she saw that I was
quite well----"

"You don't look to me so extraordinarily well."

"Don't I? I must be a fraud then. Nobody could be stronger. I'm going to
a multitude of places to-night. Wherever my Hebrew leader goes I go,"
said Elinor, with a laugh. "I have given myself up for to-night, and she
is never satisfied with less than a dozen."

"Ten minutes to each."

"Oh, half an hour at least: and with having our carriage found for us at
every place, and the risk of getting into a _queue_, and all the delays
of coming and going, it cannot be much less than three-quarters of an
hour. This is the third. I think three more will weary even the Jew."

"You are with Lady Mariamne then, Elinor?"

"Yes--oh, you need not make that face. She is as good as the rest, and
pretends to nothing, at least. I have no carriage, you know, and Phil
took fright at my dear old fly. He thought a hired brougham was not good
when I was alone."

"That was quite true. Nevertheless, I should like above all things to
keep you here a little longer to look at some of the pictures, and take
you home in a hansom after."

She laughed. "Oh, so should I--fancy, I have not seen the pictures, not
at all. We came in a mob to the private view; and then one day I was
coming with mamma, but was stopped by something, and now---- Always
people, people--nothing else. 'Did you see So-and-so? There's some one
bowing to you, Nell. Be sure you speak a word to the Thises or the
Thats'--while I don't care for one of them. But I fear the hansom would
not do, John."

"It would have done very well in the old days. Your mother would not
have been displeased."

"The old days are gone and will never return," she said, half sad, half
smiling, shaking her head. "So far as I can see, nothing ever returns.
You have your day, and if you do not make the best of that----"

She stopped, shaking her head again with a laugh, and there were various
ways in which that speech might be interpreted. John for one knew a
sense of it which he believed had never entered Elinor's head. He too
might have had his day and let it slip. "So you are making the most of
yours," he said. "I hear that you are very gay."

Elinor coloured high under his look. "I don't know who can have told you
that. We have had a few little dinners since mamma left us, chiefly
Phil's business friends. I would not have them while she was with
us--that is to say, to be honest," cried Elinor, "while we were with
her: which of course was the real state of the case. I myself don't like
those people, John, but they would have been insupportable to mamma. It
was for her sake----"

"I understand," he said.

"Oh, but you must not say 'I understand' with that air of knowing a
great deal more than there is to understand," she said, with heat.
"Mamma said it would do me much more good to go--home for a night now
and then and sleep in the fresh air than for her to stay; and though I
think she is a little insane on the subject of my health, still it was
certainly better than that she should stay here, making herself
wretched, her rest broken, and all that. You know we keep such late
hours."

"I should not have thought she would have minded that."

"But what would you have thought of me if I did not mind it for her?
There, John, do you see they are all going? Ah, the pictures! I wish I
could have stayed with you and gone round the rooms. But it must not be
to-night. Come and see me!" she said, turning round to him with a smile,
and holding out her hand.

"I would gladly, Elinor--but should not I find myself in the way of your
fine friends like----"

He had not the heart to finish the sentence when he met her eyes
brimming full of tears.

"Not my fine friends, but my coarse friends," she said; "not friends at
all, our worst enemies, I am sure."

"Nell!" cried Lady Mariamne, in her shrill voice.

"You will come and see me, John?"

"Yes," he said, "and in the meantime I will take you down-stairs, let
your companions think as they please."

It proved when he did so that John had to escort both ladies to the
carriage, which it was not very easy to find, no other cavalier being at
hand for the moment; and that Lady Mariamne invited him to accompany
them to their next stage. "You know the Durfords, of course. You are
going there? What luck for us, Nell! Jump in, Mr. Tatham, we will take
you on."

"Unfortunately Lady Durford has not taken the trouble to invite me,"
said John.

"What does that matter? Jump in, all the same, she'll be delighted to
see you, and as for not asking you, when you are with me and Nell----"

But John turned a deaf ear to this siren's song.

He went to Curzon Street a little while after to call, as he had been
invited to do, and went late to avoid the bustle of the tea-table, and
the usual rabble of that no longer intimate but wildly gregarious house.
And he was not without his reward. Perhaps a habit he had lately formed
of passing by Curzon Street in the late afternoon, when he was on his
way to his club, after work was over, had something to do with his
choice of this hour. He found Elinor, as he had hoped, alone. She was
sitting so close to the window that her white dress mingled with the
white curtains, so that he did not at first perceive her, and so much
abstracted in her own thoughts that she did not pay any attention to the
servant's hurried murmur of his name at the door. When she felt rather
than saw that there was some one in the room, Elinor jumped up with a
shock of alarm that seemed unnecessary in her own drawing-room; then
seeing who it was, was so much and so suddenly moved that she shed a few
tears in some sudden revulsion of feeling as she said, "Oh, it is you,
John!"

"Yes," he said, "but I am very sorry to see you so nervous."

"Oh, it's nothing. I was always nervous"--which indeed was the purest
invention, for Elinor Dennistoun had not known what nerves meant. "I
mean I was always startled by any sudden entrance--in this way," she
cried, and very gravely asked him to be seated, with a curious
assumption of dignity. Her demeanour altogether was incomprehensible to
John.

"I hope," he said, "you were not displeased with me, Elinor, for going
off the other night. I should have been too happy, you know, to go with
you anywhere; but Lady Mariamne is more than I can stand."

"I was very glad you did not come," she said with a sigh; then smiling
faintly, "But you were ungrateful, for Mariamne formed a most favourable
opinion of you. She said, 'Why didn't you tell me, Nell, you had a
cousin so presentable as that?'"

"I am deeply obliged, Elinor; but it seems that what was a compliment to
me personally involved something the reverse for your other relations."

"It is one of their jokes," said Elinor, with a voice that faltered a
little, "to represent my relations as--not in a complimentary way. I am
supposed not to mind, and it's all a joke, or so they tell me; but it is
not a joke I like," she said, with a flash from her eyes.

"All families have jokes of that description," said John; "but tell me,
Nelly, are you really going down to the cottage, to your mother?"

Her eyes thanked him with a gleam of pleasure for the old familiar name,
and then the light went out of them. "I don't know," she said, abruptly.
"Phil was to come; if he will not, I think I will not either. But I will
say nothing till I make sure."

"Of course your first duty is to him," said John; "but a day now or a
day then interferes with nothing, and the country would be good for you,
Elinor. Doesn't your husband see it? You are not looking like yourself."

"Not like myself? I might easily look better than myself. I wish I
could. I am not so bigoted about myself."

"Your friends are, however," he said: "no one who cares for you wants to
change you, even for another Elinor. Come, you are nervous altogether
to-night, not like yourself, as I told you. You always so courageous and
bright! This depressed state is not one of your moods. London is too
much for you, my little Nelly."

"Your little Nellie has gone away somewhere John. I doubt if she'll ever
come back. Yes, London is rather too much for me, I think. It's such a
racket, as Phil says. But then he's used to it, you know. He was brought
up to it, whereas I--I think I hate a racket, John--and they all like it
so. They prefer never having a moment to themselves. I daresay one
would end by being just the same. It keeps you from thinking, that is
one very good thing."

"You used not to think so, Elinor."

"No," she said, "not at the Cottage among the flowers, where nothing
ever happened from one year's end to another. I should die of it now in
a week--at least if not I, those who belong to me. So on the whole
perhaps London is the safest--unless Phil will go."

"I can only hope you will be able to persuade him," said John, rising to
go away, "for whatever you may think, you are a country bird, and you
want the fresh air."

"Are you going, John? Well, perhaps it is better. Good-by. Don't trouble
your mind about me whether I go or stay."

"Do you mean I am not to come again, Elinor?"

"Oh, why should I mean that?" she said. "You are so hard upon me in your
thoughts;" but she did not say that he was wrong, and John went out from
the door saying to himself that he would not go again. He saw through
the open door of the dining-room that the table was prepared sumptuously
for a dinner-party. It was shining with silver and crystal, the silver
Mrs. Dennistoun's old service, which she had brought up with her from
Windyhill, and which as a matter of convenience she had left behind with
her daughter. Would it ever, he wondered, see Windyhill again?

He went on to his club, and there some one began to amuse him with an
account of Lady Durford's ball, to which Lady Mariamne had wished to
take him. "Are not those Comptons relations of yours, Tatham?" he said.

"Connections," said John, "by marriage."

"I'm very glad that's all. They are a queer lot. Phil Compton you
know--the dis-Honourable Phil, as he used to be called--but I hear he's
turned over a new leaf----"

"What of him?" said John.

"Oh, nothing much: only that he was flirting desperately all the evening
with a Mrs. Harris, an American widow. I believe he came with her--and
his own wife there--much younger, much prettier, a beautiful young
creature--looking on with astonishment. You could see her eyes growing
bigger and bigger. If it had not been kind of amusing to a looker-on, it
would be the most pitiful sight in the world."

"I advise you not to let yourself be amused by such trifles," said John
Tatham, with a look of fire and flame.




CHAPTER XXIII.


As a matter of fact, Elinor did not go to the Cottage for the fresh air
or anything else. She made one hurried run in the afternoon to bid her
mother good-by, alone, which was not a visit, but the mere pretence of a
visit, hurried and breathless, in which there was no time to talk of
anything. She gave Mrs. Dennistoun an account of the usual lists of
visits that her husband and she were to make in the autumn, which the
mother, with the usual instinct of mothers, thought too much. "You will
wear yourself to death, Elinor."

"Oh, no," she said, "it is not that sort of thing that wears one to
death. I shall--enjoy it, I suppose, as other people do----"

"I don't know about enjoyment, Elinor, but I am sure it would be much
better for you to come and stay here quietly with me."

"Oh, don't talk to me of any paradises, mamma. We are in the working-day
world, and we must make out our life as we can."

"But you might let Philip go by himself and come and stay quietly here
for a little, for the sake of your health, Elinor."

"Not for the world, not for the world," she cried. "I cannot leave
Phil:" and then with a laugh that was full of a nervous thrill, "You
are always thinking of my health, mamma, when my health is perfect:
better, far better, than almost anybody's. The most of them have
headaches and that sort of thing, and they stay in bed for a day or two
constantly, but I never need anything of the kind."

"My darling, it would not be leaving Philip to take, say, a single
week's rest."

"While he went off without me I should not know where," she said,
sullenly; then gave her mother a guilty look and laughed again. "No,
no, mamma; he would not like it. A man does not like his wife to be an
incapable, to have to leave him and be nursed up by her mother. Besides,
it is to the country we are going, you know, to Scotland, the finest
air; better even, if that were possible, than Windyhill."

This was all that was said, and there was indeed time for little more;
for as the visit was unexpected the Hudsons, by bad luck, appeared to
take tea with Mrs. Dennistoun by way of cheering her in her loneliness,
and were of course enchanted to see Elinor, and to hear, as Mrs. Hudson
said, of all her doings in the great world. "We always look out for your
name at all the parties. It gives one quite an interest in fashionable
life," said the Rector's wife, nodding her head, "and Alice was eager to
hear what the last month's novelties were in the fashions, and if Elinor
had any nice new patterns, especially for under-things. But what should
you want with new under-things, with such a trousseau as you had?" she
added, regretfully. Elinor in fact was quite taken from her mother for
that hour. Was it not, perhaps, better so? Her mother herself was half
inclined to think that it was, though with an ache in her heart, and
there could be no doubt that Elinor herself was thankful that it so
happened. When there are many questions on one side that must be asked,
and very little answer possible on the other, is it a good thing when
the foolish outside world breaks in with its _banal_ interest and
prevents this dangerous interchange?

So short time did Elinor stay that she had kept the fly waiting which
brought her from the station: and she took leave of her mother with a
sort of determination, not allowing it even to be suggested that she
should accompany her. "I like to bid you good-by here," she said, "at
our own door, where you have always come all my life to see me off, even
when I was only going to tea at the Rectory. Good-by, good-by, mother
dear." She drove off waving her hand, and Mrs. Dennistoun sat out in the
garden a long time till she saw the fly go round the turn of the road,
the white line which came suddenly in sight from among the trees and as
suddenly disappeared again round the side of the hill. Elinor waved her
handkerchief from the window and her mother answered--and then she was
gone like a dream, and the loneliness closed down more overwhelming than
ever before.

Elinor was at Goodwood, her name in all the society papers, and even a
description of one of her dresses, which delighted and made proud the
whole population of Windyhill. The paper which contained it, and which,
I believe, belonged originally to Miss Dale, passed from hand to hand
through almost the entire community; the servants getting it at last,
and handing it round among the humbler friends, who read it, half a
dozen women together round a cottage door, wiping their hands upon their
aprons before they would touch the paper, with many an exclamation and
admiring outcry. And then her name appeared among the lists of smart
people who were going to the North--now here, now there--in company with
many other fine names. It gave the Windyhill people a great deal of
amusement, and if Mrs. Dennistoun did not quite share this feeling it
was a thing for which her friends blamed her gently. "For only think
what a fine thing for Elinor to go everywhere among the best people, and
see life like that!" "My dear friend," said the Rector, "you know we
cannot hope to keep our children always with us. They must go out into
the world while we old birds stay at home; and we must not--we really
must not--grudge them their good times, as the Americans say." It was
more wonderful than words could tell to Mrs. Dennistoun that it should
be imagined she was grudging Elinor her "good time!"

The autumn went on, with those occasional public means of following her
footsteps which, indeed, made even John Tatham--who was not in an
ordinary way addicted to the _Morning Post_, being after his fashion a
Liberal in politics and far from aristocratical in his sentiments
generally--study that paper, and also other papers less worthy: and
with, of course, many letters from Elinor, which gave more trustworthy
accounts of her proceedings. These letters, however, were far less long,
far less detailed, than they had once been; often written in a hurry,
and short, containing notes of where she was going, and of a continual
change of address, rather than of anything that could be called
information about herself. John, I think, went only once to the Cottage
during the interval which followed. He went abroad as usual in
the Long Vacation, and then he had this on his mind--that he had
half-surreptitiously obtained a new light upon the position of Elinor,
which he had every desire to keep from her mother; for Mrs. Dennistoun,
though she felt that her child was not happy, attributed that to
any reason rather than a failure in her husband's love. Elinor's
hot rejection of the very idea of leaving Phil, her dislike of any
suggestion to that effect, even for a week, even for a day, seemed to
her mother a proof that her husband, at all events, remained as dear to
her as ever; and John would rather have cut his tongue out than betray
any chance rumour he heard--and he heard many--to this effect. He was of
opinion, indeed, that in London, and especially at a London club, not
only is everything known that is to be known, but much is known that has
never existed, and never will exist if not blown into being by those
whose office it is to invent the grief to come; therefore he thought it
wisest to keep away, lest by any chance something might drop from him
which would awaken a new crowd of disquietudes in Mrs. Dennistoun's
heart. Another incident, even more disquieting than gossip, had indeed
occurred to John. It had happened to him to meet Lady Mariamne at a
great _omnium gatherum_ of a country house, where all sorts of people
were invited, and where that lady claimed his acquaintance as one
of the least alarming of the grave "set." She not only claimed his
acquaintance, but set up a sort of friendship on the ground of his
relationship to Elinor, and in an unoccupied moment after dinner one day
poured a great many confidences into his ear.

"Isn't it such a pity," she said, "that Phil and she do not get on? Oh,
they did at first, like a house on fire! And if she had only minded her
ways they might still have been as thick---- But these little country
girls, however they may disguise it at first, they all turn like that.
The horridest little puritan! Phil does no more than a hundred men--than
almost all men do: amuse himself with anything that throws itself in his
way, don't you know. And sometimes, perhaps, he does go rather far. I
think myself he sometimes goes a little too far--for good taste you
know, and that sort of thing."

It was more amazing to hear Lady Mariamne talk of good taste than
anything that had ever come in John Tatham's way before, but he was too
horribly, desperately interested to see the fun.

"She will go following him about wherever he goes. She oughtn't to do
that, don't you know. She should let him take his swing, and the chances
are it will bring him back all right. I've told her so a dozen times,
but she pays no attention to me. You're a great pal of hers. Why don't
you give her a hint? Phil's not the sort of man to be kept in order like
that. She ought to give him his head."

"I'm afraid," said John, "it's not a matter in which I can interfere."

"Well, some of her friends should, anyhow, and teach her a little sense.
You're a cautious man, I see," said Lady Mariamne. "You think it's too
delicate to advise a woman who thinks herself an injured wife. I didn't
say to console her, mind you," she said with a shriek of a laugh.

It may be supposed that after this John was still more unwilling to go
to the Cottage, to run the risk of betraying himself. He did write to
Elinor, telling her that he had heard of her from her sister-in-law; but
when he tried to take Lady Mariamne's advice and "give her a hint,"
John felt his lips sealed. How could he breathe a word even of such a
suspicion to Elinor? How could he let her know that he thought such a
thing possible?--or presume to advise her, to take her condition for
granted? It was impossible. He ended by some aimless wish that he might
meet her at the Cottage for Christmas; "you and Mr. Compton," he
said--whom he did not wish to meet, the last person in the world: and of
whom there was no question that he should go to the Cottage at Christmas
or any other time. But what could John do or say? To suggest to her that
he thought her an injured wife was beyond his power.

It was somewhere about Christmas--just before--in that dread moment for
the lonely and those who are in sorrow and distress, when all the rest
of the world is preparing for that family festival, or pretending to
prepare, that John Tatham was told one morning in his chambers that a
lady wanted to see him. He was occupied, as it happened, with a client
for whom he had stayed in town longer than he had intended to stay, and
he paid little more attention than to direct his clerk to ask the lady
what her business was, or if she could wait. The client was long-winded,
and lingered, but John's mind was not free enough nor his imagination
lively enough to rouse much curiosity in him in respect to the lady who
was waiting. It was only when she was ushered in by his clerk, as the
other went away, and putting up her veil showed the pale and anxious
countenance of Mrs. Dennistoun, that the shock as of sudden calamity
reached him. "Aunt!" he cried, springing from his chair.

"Yes, John--I couldn't come anywhere but here--you will feel for me more
than any one."

"Elinor?" he said.

Her lips were dry, she spoke with a little difficulty, but she nodded
her head and held out to him a telegram which was in her hand. It was
dated from a remote part of Scotland, far in the north. "Ill--come
instantly," was all it said.

"And I cannot get away till night," cried Mrs. Dennistoun, with a burst
of subdued sobbing. "I can't start till night."

"Is this all? What was your last news?"

"Nothing, but that they had gone there--to somebody's shooting-box,
which was lent them, I believe--at the end of the world. I wrote to beg
her to come to me. She is--near a moment--of great anxiety. Oh, John,
support me: let me not break down."

"You will not," he said; "you are wanted; you must keep all your wits
about you. What were they doing there at this time of the year?"

"They have been visiting about--they were invited to Dunorban for
Christmas, but she persuaded Philip, so she said, to take this little
house. I think he was to join the party while she--I cannot tell you
what was the arrangement. She has written very vaguely for some time.
She ought to have been with me--I told her so--but she has always said
she could not leave Philip."

Could not leave Philip! The mother, fortunately, had no idea why this
determination was. "I went so far as to write to Philip," she said, "to
ask him if she might not come to me, or, at least begging him to bring
her to town, or somewhere where she could have proper attention. He
answered me very briefly that he wished her to go, but she would not: as
he had told me before I left town--that was all. It seemed to fret
him--he must have known that it was not a fit place for her, in a
stranger's house, and so far away. And to think I cannot even get away
till late to-night!"

John had to comfort her as well as he could, to make her eat something,
to see that she had all the comforts possible for her night journey.
"You were always like her brother," the poor lady said, finding at last
relief in tears. And then he went with her to the train, and found her a
comfortable carriage, and placed her in it with all the solaces his mind
could think of. A sleeping-carriage on the Scotch lines is not such a
ghastly pretence of comfort as those on the Continent. The solaces John
brought her--the quantities of newspapers, the picture papers and
others, rugs and shawls innumerable--all that he possessed in the shape
of wraps, besides those which she had with her. What more could a man
do? If she had been young he would have bought her sugar-plums. All that
they meant were the dumb anxieties of his own breast, and the vague
longing to do something, anything that would be a help to her on her
desolate way.

"You will send me a word, aunt, as soon as you get there?"

"Oh, at once, John."

"You will tell me how she is--say as much as you can--no three words,
like that. I shall not leave town till I hear."

"Oh, John, why should this keep you from your family? I could telegraph
there as easily as here."

He made a gesture almost of anger. "Do you think I am likely to put
myself out of the way--not to be ready if you should want me?"

How should she want him?--a mother summoned to her daughter at such a
moment--but she did not say so to trouble him more: for John had got to
that maddening point of anxiety when nothing but doing something, or at
least keeping ready to do something, flattering yourself that there must
be something to do, affords any balm to the soul.

He saw her away by that night train, crowded with people going
home--people noisy with gayety, escaping from their daily cares to the
family meeting, the father's house, all the associations of pleasure
and warmth and consolation--cold, but happy, in their third-class
compartments--not wrapped up in every conceivable solace as she was, yet
no one, perhaps, so heavy-hearted. He watched for the last glimpse of
her face just as the train plunged into the darkness, and saw her smile
and wave her hand to him; then he, too, plunged into the darkness like
the train. He walked and walked through the solitary streets not knowing
where he was going, unable to rest. Had he ever been, as people say, in
love with Elinor? He could not tell--he had never betrayed it by word or
look if he had. He had never taken any step to draw her near him, to
persuade her to be his and not another's; on the contrary, he had
avoided everything that could lead to that. Neither could he say, "She
was as my sister," which his relationship might have warranted him in
doing. It was neither the one nor the other--she was not his love nor
his sister--she was simply Elinor; and perhaps she was dying; perhaps
the news he would receive next day would be the worst that the heart
can hear. He walked and walked through those dreary, semi-respectable
streets of London, the quiet, the sordid, the dismal, mile after mile,
and street after street, till half the night was over and he was tired
out, and might have a hope of rest.

But for three whole days--days which he could not reckon, which seemed
of the length of years--during which he remained closeted in his
chambers, the whole world having, as it seemed, melted away around him,
leaving him alone, he did not have a word. He did not go home, feeling
that he must be on the spot, whatever happened. Finally, when he was
almost mad, on the morning of the third day, he received the following
telegram: "Saved--as by a miracle; doing well. Child--a boy."

"Child--a boy!" Good heavens! what did he want with that? it seemed an
insult to him to tell him. What did he care for the child, if it was
a boy or not?--the wretched, undesirable brat of such parentage, born
to perpetuate a name which was dishonoured. Altogether the telegram,
as so many telegrams, but lighted fresh fires of anxiety in his mind.
"Saved--as by a miracle!" Then he had been right in the dreadful fancies
that had gone through his mind. He had passed by Death in the dark; and
was it now sure that the miracle would last, that the danger would have
passed away?




CHAPTER XXIV.


It was not till nearly three weeks after this that John received another
brief dispatch. "At home: come and see us." He had indeed got a short
letter or two in the interval, saying almost nothing--a brief report
of Elinor's health, and of the baby, against whom he had taken an
unreasoning disgust and repugnance. "Little beast!" he said to himself,
passing over that part of the bulletin: for the letters were scarcely
more than bulletins, without a word about the circumstances which
surrounded her. A shooting lodge in Ross-shire in the middle of the
winter! What a place for a delicate woman! John was well enough aware
that many elements of comfort were possible even in such a place; but he
shut his eyes, as was natural, to anything that went against his own
point of view.

And now this telegram from Windyhill--"At home: come and see us"--_us_.
Was it a mistake of the telegraph people?--of course they must make
mistakes. They had no doubt taken the _me_ in Mrs. Dennistoun's angular
writing for _us_--or was it possible---- John had no peace in his mind
until he had so managed matters that he could go and see. There was no
very pressing business in the middle of January, when people had hardly
yet recovered the idleness of Christmas. He started one windy afternoon,
when everything was grey, and arrived at Hurrymere station in the dim
twilight, still ruddy with tints of sunset. He was in a very contradictory
frame of mind, so that though his heart jumped to see Mrs. Dennistoun
awaiting him on the platform, there mingled in his satisfaction in
seeing her and hearing what she had to tell so much sooner, a perverse
conviction of cold and discomfort in the long drive up in the pony
carriage which he felt sure was before him. He was mistaken, however, on
this point, for the first thing she said was, "I have secured the fly,
John. Old Pearson will take your luggage. I have so much to tell you."
There was an air of excitement in her face, but not that air of subdued
and silent depression which comes with solitude. She was evidently full
of the report she had to make; but yet the first thing she did when she
was ensconced in the fly with John beside her was to cover her face with
her hands, and subside into her corner in a silent passion of tears.

"For mercy's sake tell me what is the matter. What has happened? Is
Elinor ill?"

He had almost asked is Elinor dead?

She uncovered her face, which had suddenly lighted up with a strange
gleam of joy underneath the tears. "John, Elinor is here," she said.

"Here?"

"At home--safe. I have brought her back--and the child."

"Confound the child!" John said in his excitement. "Brought her back!
What do you mean?"

"Oh, John, it is a long story. I have a hundred things to tell you, and
to ask your advice upon; but the main thing is that she is here. I have
brought her away from him. She will go back no more."

"She has left her husband?" he said, with a momentary flicker of
exultation in his dismay. But the dismay, to do him justice, was the
strongest. He looked at his companion almost sternly. "Things," he said,
"must have been very serious to justify that."

"They were more than serious--they had become impossible," Mrs.
Dennistoun said.

And she told him her story, which was a long one. She had arrived to
find Elinor alone in the little solitary lodge in the midst of the
wilds, not without attention indeed or comfort, but alone, her husband
absent. She had been very ill, and he had been at the neighbouring
castle, where a great party was assembled, and where, the mother
discovered at last, there was--the woman who had made Elinor's life a
burden to her. "I don't know with what truth. I don't know whether there
is what people call any harm in it. It is possible he is only amusing
himself. I can't tell. But it has made Elinor miserable this whole
autumn through, that and a multitude of other things. She would not let
me send for him when I got there. It had gone so far as that. She said
that the whole business disgusted him, that he had lost all interest in
her, that to hear it was over might be a relief to him, but nothing
more. Her heart has turned altogether against him, John, in every way.
There have been a hundred things. You think I am almost wickedly glad to
have her home. And so I am. I cannot deny it. To have her here even in
her trouble makes all the difference to me. But I am not so careless as
you think. I can look beyond to other things. I shrink as much as you do
from such a collapse of her life. I don't want her to give up her duty,
and now that there is the additional bond of the child----"

"Oh, for heaven's sake," said John, "leave the child out of it! I want
to hear nothing of the child!"

"That is one chief point, however, that we want your advice about, John.
A man, I suppose, does not understand it; but her baby is everything to
Elinor: and I suppose--unless he can really be proved as guilty as she
thinks--he could take the child away."

John smiled to himself a little bitterly: this was why he was sent for
in such a hurry, not for the sake of his society, or from any affection
for him, but that he might tell them what steps to take to secure them
in possession of the child. He said nothing for some time, nor did Mrs.
Dennistoun, whose disappointment in the coldness of his response was
considerable, and who waited in vain for him to speak. At length she
said, almost tremblingly, "I am afraid you disapprove very much of the
whole business, John."

"I hope it has not been done rashly," he said. "The husband's mere
absence, though heartless as--as I should have expected of the
fellow--would yet not be reason enough to satisfy any--court."

"Any court! You don't think she means to bring him before any court? She
wants only to be left alone. We ask nothing from him, not a penny, not
any money--surely, surely no revenge--only not to be molested. There
shall not be a word said on our side, if he will but let her alone."

John shook his head. "It all depends upon the view the man takes of it,"
he said.

Now this was very cold comfort to Mrs. Dennistoun, who had by this time
become very secure in her position, feeling herself entirely justified
in all that she had done. "The man," she said, "the man is not the
sufferer: and surely the woman has some claim to be heard."

"Every claim," said John. "That is not what I was thinking of. It is
this: if the man has a leg to stand upon, he will show fight. If he
hasn't--why that will make the whole difference, and probably Elinor's
position will be quite safe. But you yourself say----"

"John, don't throw back upon me what I myself said. I said that perhaps
things were not so bad as she believed. In my experience I have found
that folly, and playing with everything that is right is more common
than absolute wrong--and men like Philip Compton are made up of levity
and disregard of everything that is serious."

"In that case," said John, "if you are right, he will not let her go."

"Oh, John! oh, John! don't make me wish that he may be a worse man than
I think. He could not force her to go back to him, feeling as she does."

"Nobody can force a woman to do that; but he could perhaps make her
position untenable; he would, perhaps, take away the child."

"John," said Mrs. Dennistoun, in alarm, "if you tell her that, she will
fly off with him to the end of the world. She will die before she will
part with the child."

"I suppose that's how women are made," said John, not yet cured of his
personal offence.

"Yes," she said, "that's how women are made."

"I beg your pardon," he said, coming to himself; "but you know, aunt, a
man may be pardoned for not understanding that supreme fascination of
the baby who cares no more for one than another, poor little animal, so
long as it gets its food and is warm enough. We must await and see what
the man will do."

"Is that the best?--is there nothing we can do to defend ourselves in
the meantime--to make any sort of barricade against him?"

"We must wait and see what he is going to do," said John; and they went
over and over the question, again and again, as they climbed the hills.
It grew quite dark as they drove along, and when they came out upon the
open part of the road, from which the Cottage was visible, they both
looked out across the combe to the lights in the windows with an
involuntary movement. The Cottage was transformed; instead of the one
lonely lighted window which had indicated to John in former visits where
Mrs. Dennistoun sat alone, there was now a twinkle from various points,
a glow of firelight, a sensation of warmth, and company. Mrs. Dennistoun
looked out upon it and her face shone. It was not a happy thing that
Elinor should have made shipwreck of her life, should have left her
husband and sought refuge in her mother's house. But how could it be
otherwise than happy that Elinor was there--Elinor and the other little
creature who was something more than Elinor, herself and yet another?
As for John, he looked at it too, with an interest which stopped all
arguments on the cause of it. She was there--wrong, perhaps, impatient;
too quick to fly as she had been too quick to go--but still Elinor all
the same, whether she was right or wrong.

The cab arrived soberly at the door, where Pearson with the pony
carriage, coming by the shorter way with the luggage, had just arrived
also. Mrs. Dennistoun said, hurriedly, "You will find Elinor in the
drawing-room, John," and herself went hastily through the house and up
the stairs. She was going to the baby! John guessed this with a smile of
astonishment and half contempt. How strange it was! There could not be
a more sad position than that in which, in their rashness, these two
women had placed themselves; and yet the mother, a woman of experience,
who ought to have known better, got out of the carriage like a girl,
without waiting to be helped or attended to, and went up-stairs like
the wind, forgetting everything else for that child--that child, the
inheritor of Phil Compton's name and very likely of his qualities--fated
from his birth (most likely) to bring trouble to everybody connected
with him! And yet Elinor was of less interest to her mother. What
strange caprices of nature! what extraordinary freaks of womankind!

The Cottage down-stairs was warm and bright with firelight and
lamplight, and in the great chair by the fire was reclining, lying back
with her book laid on her lap and her face full of eager attention to
the sounds outside, a pale young woman, surrounded by cushions and warm
wraps and everything an invalid could require, who raised to him eyes
more large and shining than he had ever seen before, suffused with a dew
of pain and pleasure and eager welcome. Elinor, was it Elinor? He had
never seen her in any way like an invalid before--never knew her to
be ill, or weak, or unable to walk out to the door and meet him or
anyone she cared for. The sight of her ailing, weak, with those large
glistening eyes, enlarged by feebleness, went to his very heart.
Fortunately he did not in any way connect this enfeebled state with the
phenomenon up-stairs, which was best for all parties. He hurried up to
her, taking her thin hands into his own.

"Elinor! my poor little Nelly--can this be you!"

The water that was in her eyes rolled over in two great tears; a brief
convulsion went over her face. "Yes, John," she said, almost in a
whisper. "Strange as it may seem, this is all that is left of me."

He sat down beside her and for a moment neither of them spoke. Pity,
tenderness, wrath, surged up together in John's breast; pity, tender
compassion, most strong of all. Poor little thing; this was how she had
come back to her home; her heart broken, her wings broken, as it were;
all her soaring and swiftness and energy gone. He could scarcely look
upon her for the pity that overflowed his heart. But underneath lay
wrath, not only against the man who had brought her to such a pass, but
against herself too.

"John," she said, after a while, "do you remember saying to me that I
was not one to bear, to put up with things, to take the consequences if
I tried a dangerous experiment and failed?"

"Did I ever say anything so silly and so cruel?"

"Oh, no, no; it was neither silly nor unkind, but quite, quite true. I
have thought of it so often. I used to think of it to stir up my pride,
to remind myself that I ought to try to be better than my nature, not to
allow you to be a true prophet. But it was so, and I couldn't change it.
You can see you were right, John, for I have not been like a strong
woman, able to endure; I have only been able to run away."

"My poor little Nelly!"

"Don't pity me," she said, the tears running over again. "I am too well
off; I am too well taken care of. A prodigal should not be made so much
of as I am."

"Don't call yourself a prodigal, Nelly! Perhaps things may not be as bad
as they appear. At least, it is but the first fall--the greatest athlete
gets many before he can stand against the world."

"I'll never be an athlete, John. Besides, I'm a woman, you know, and a
fall of any kind is fatal to a woman, especially anything of this kind.
No, I know very well it's all over; I shall never hold up my head again.
But that's not the question--the question is, to be safe and as free as
can be. Mamma takes me in, you know, just as if nothing had happened.
She is quite willing to take the burden of me on her shoulders--and of
baby. She has told you that there are two of me, now, John--my baby, as
well as myself."

John could only nod an assent; he could not speak.

"It's a wonderful thing to come out of a wreck with a treasure in one's
arms; everything going to pieces behind one; the rafters coming down,
the walls falling in and yet one's treasure in one's arms. Oh, I had not
the heart or the strength to come out of the tumbling house. My mother
did it all, dragged me out, wrapped me up in love and kindness, carried
me away. I don't want you to think I was good for anything. I should
just have lain there and died. One thing, I did not mind dying at all--I
had quite made up my mind. That would not have been so disgraceful as
running away."

"There is nothing that is disgraceful," said John, "for heaven's sake
don't say so, Nelly. It is unfortunate--beyond words--but that is all.
Nobody can think that you are in any way disgraced. And if you are
allowed just to stay quietly here in your natural home, I suppose you
desire nothing more."

"What should I desire more, John? You don't suppose I should like to go
and live in the world again, and go into society and all that? I have
had about enough of society. Oh, I want nothing but to be quiet and
unmolested, and bring up my baby. They could not take my baby from me,
John?"

"I do not think so," he said, with a grave face.

"You do not--think so? Then you are not _sure_? My mother says dreadful
things, but I cannot believe them. They would never take an infant from
its mother to give it to--to give it to--a man--who could do nothing,
nothing for it. What could a man do with a young child? a man always on
the move, who has no settled home, who has no idea what an infant wants?
John, I know law is inhuman, but surely, surely not so inhuman as that."

"My dear Nelly," he said, "the law, you know, which, as you say, is
often inhuman, recognizes the child as belonging to the father. He is
responsible for it. For instance, they never could come upon you for its
maintenance or education, or anything of that kind, until it had been
proved that the father----"

"May I ask," said Elinor, with uplifted head, "of what or of whom you
are talking when you say _it_?"

It was all John could do not to burst into a peal of aggrieved and
indignant laughter. He who had been brought from town, from his own
comforts such as they were, to be consulted about this brat, this child
which belonged to the dis-Honourable Phil; and Elinor, _Elinor_, of all
people in the world, threw up her head and confronted him with disdain
because he called the brat it, and not him or her, whichever it was.
John recollected well enough that sentence at which he had been so
indignant in the telegram--"child, a boy "--but he affected to himself
not to know what it was for the indulgence of a little contumely: and
the reward he had got was contumely upon his own head. But when he
looked at Elinor's pale face, the eyes so much larger than they ought
to be, with tears welling out unawares, dried up for a moment by
indignation or quick hasty temper, the temper which made her sweeter
words all the more sweet he had always thought--then rising again
unawares under the heavy lids, the lips so ready to quiver, the pathetic
lines about the mouth: when he looked at all these John's heart smote
him. He would have called the child anything, if there had been a sex
superior to him the baby should have it. And what was there that man
could do that he would not do for the deliverance of the mother and the
child?




CHAPTER XXV.


It cannot be said that this evening at the Cottage was an agreeable one.
To think that Elinor should be there, and yet that there should be so
little pleasure in the fact that the old party, which had once been so
happy together, should be together again, was bewildering. And yet there
was one member of it who was happy with a shamefaced unacknowledged joy.
To think that that which made her child miserable should make her happy
was a dreadful thought to Mrs. Dennistoun, and yet how could she help
it? Elinor was there, and the baby was there, the new unthought-of
creature which had brought with it a new anxiety, a rush of new thoughts
and wishes. Already everything else in the mind of Elinor's mother began
to yield to the desire to retain these two--the new mother and the
child. But she did not avow this desire. She was mostly silent,
taking little part in the discussion, which was indeed a very curious
discussion, since Elinor, debating the question how she was to abandon
her husband and defend herself against him, never mentioned his name.

She did not come in to dinner, which Mrs. Dennistoun and John Tatham ate
solemnly alone, saying but little, trying to talk upon indifferent
topics, with that very wretched result which is usual when people at one
of the great crises of life have to make conversation for each other
while servants are about and the restraints of common life are around
them. Whether it is the terrible flood of grief which has to be barred
and kept within bounds so that the functions of life may not altogether
be swept away, or the sharper but warmer pang of anxiety, that which
cuts like a serpent's tooth, yet is not altogether beyond the reach of
hope, what poor pretences these are at interest in ordinary subjects;
what miserable gropings after something that can furnish a thread of
conversation just enough to keep the intercourse of life going! These
two were not more successful than others in this dismal pursuit. Mrs.
Dennistoun found a moment when the meal was over before she left John,
poor pretence! to his wine. "Remember that she will not mention his
name; nothing must be said about him," she said. "How can we discuss him
and what he is likely to do without speaking of him?" said John, with a
little scorn. "I don't know," replied the poor lady. "But you will find
that she will not have his name mentioned. You must try and humour her.
Poor Elinor! For I know that you are sorry for her, John."

Sorry for her! He sat over his glass of mild claret in the little
dining-room that had once been so bright; even now it was the cosiest
little room, the curtains all drawn, shutting out the cold wind, which
in January searches out every crevice, the firelight blazing fitfully,
bringing out all the pretty warm decorations, the gleam of silver on the
side-board, the pictures on the wall, the mirror over the mantelpiece.
There was nothing wanted under that roof to make it the very home of
domestic warmth and comfort. And yet--sorry for Elinor! That was not
the word. His heart was sore for her, torn away from all her moorings,
drifting back a wreck to the little youthful home, where all had been so
tranquil and so sweet. John had nothing in him of that petty sentiment
which derives satisfaction from a calamity it has foreseen, nor had he
even an old lover's thrill of almost pleasure in the downfall of the
clay idol that has been preferred to his gold. His pain for Elinor, the
constriction in his heart at thought of her position, were unmixed with
any baser feeling. Sorry for her! He would have given all he possessed
to restore her happiness--not in his way, but in the way she had chosen,
even, last abnegation of all, to make the man worthy of her who had
never been worthy. Even his own indignation and wrath against that
man were subservient in John's honest breast to the desire of somehow
finding that it might be possible to whitewash him, nay to reform him,
to make him as near as possible something which she could tolerate for
life. I doubt if a woman, notwithstanding the much more ready power of
sacrifice which women possess, could have so fully desired this renewal
and amendment as John did. It was scarcely too much to say that he hated
Phil Compton: yet he would have given the half of his substance at this
moment to make Phil Compton a good man; nay, even to make him a passable
man--to rehabilitate him in his wife's eyes.

John stayed a long time over "his wine," the mild glass of claret (or
perhaps it was Burgundy) which was all that was offered him--partly to
think the matter over, but also partly perhaps because he heard certain
faint gurglings, and the passage of certain steps, active and full of
energy, past the door of the room within which he sat, going now to the
drawing-room, now up-stairs, from which he divined that the new inmate
of the house was at present in possession of the drawing-room, and of
all attention there. He smiled at himself for his hostility to the
child, which, of course, was entirely innocent of all blame. Here the
man was inferior to the woman in comprehension and sympathy; for he not
only could not understand how they could possibly obtain solace in their
trouble from this unconscious little creature, but he was angry and
scornful of them for doing so. Phil Compton's brat, no doubt the germ of
a thousand troubles to come, but besides that a nothing, a being without
love or thought, or even consciousness, a mere little animal feeding
and sleeping--and yet the idol and object of all the thoughts of two
intelligent women, capable of so much better things! This irritated John
and disgusted him in the midst of all his anxious thoughts, and his
profound compassion and deliberations how best to help: and it was
not till the passage of certain feeble sounds outside his door, which
proceeded audibly up-stairs, little bleatings in which, if they had come
from a lamb, or even a puppy, John would have been interested, assured
him that the small enemy had disappeared--that he finally rose and
proceeded to "join the ladies," as if he had been holding a little
private debauch all by himself.

There was a little fragrance and air of the visitor still in the room, a
little disturbance of the usual arrangements, a surreptitious, quite
unjustifiable look as of pleasure in Elinor's eyes, which were less
expanded, and if as liquid as ever, more softly bright than before.
Something white actually lay on the sofa, a small garment which Mrs.
Dennistoun whisked away. They were conscious of John's critical eye
upon them, and received him with a warmth of conciliatory welcome which
betrayed that consciousness. Mrs. Dennistoun drew a chair for him to
the other side of the fire. She took her own place in the middle at the
table with a large piece of white knitting, to which she gave her whole
attention, and thus the deliberation began.

"Elinor wants to know, John, what you think we ought to do--to make
quite sure--that there will be no risk, about the baby."

"I must know more of the details of the question before I can give any
advice," said John.

"John," said Elinor, raising herself in her chair, "here are all the
details that are necessary. I have come away. I have come home, finding
that life was impossible there. That is the whole matter. It may be,
probably it is, my own fault. It is simply that life became impossible.
You know you said that I was not one to endure, to put up with things. I
scoffed at you then, for I did not expect to have anything to put up
with; but you were quite right, and life had become impossible--that is
all there is any need to say."

"To me, yes," said John, "but not enough, Elinor, if it ever has to come
within the reach of the law."

"But why should it come within the reach of the law? You, John, you are
a lawyer; you know the rights of everything. I thought you might have
arranged it all. Couldn't you try to make a kind of a bargain? What
bargain? Oh, am I a lawyer, do I know? But you, John, who have it all at
your fingers' ends, who know what can be done and what can't be done,
and the rights that one has and that another has! Dear John! if you were
to try, don't you think that you could settle it all, simply as between
people who don't want any exposure, any struggle, but only to be quiet
and to be let alone?"

"Elinor, I don't know what I could do with so little information as I
have. To know that you found your life impossible is enough for me. But
you know most people are right in their own eyes. If we have some one
opposed to us who thinks, for instance, that the fault was yours?"

"Well," she cried, eagerly, "I am willing to accept that: say that the
fault was mine! You could confirm it, that it was likely to be mine. You
could tell them what an impatient person I was, and that you said I
was not one to try an experiment, for I never, never could put up with
anything. John, you could be a witness as well as an advocate. You could
prove that you always expected--and that I am quite, quite willing to
allow that it was I----"

"Elinor, if I could only make you understand what I mean! I am told that
I am not to mention any names?"

"No, no names, no names! What is the good? We both know very well what
we mean."

"But I don't know very well what you mean. Don't you see that if it is
your fault--if the other party is innocent--there can be no reason in
the world why he should consent to renounce his rights. It is not a mere
matter of feeling. There is right in it one way or another--either on
your side or else on the other side; and if it is on the other side, why
should a man give up what belongs to him, why should he renounce what
is--most dear to him?"

"Oh, John, John, John!" she made this appeal and outcry, clasping her
hands together with a mixture of supplication and impatience. Then
turning to her mother--"Oh, tell him," she cried, "tell him!"--always
clasping those impatient yet beseeching hands.

"You see, John," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "Elinor knows that the right
is on her side: but she will consent to say nothing about it to any
one--to give herself out as the offender rather--that is to say, as an
ill-disciplined person that cannot put up with anything, as you seem to
have said."

John laughed with vexation, yet a kind of amusement. "I never said it
nor thought it: still if it pleases her to think so---- The wiser thing
if this separation is final----"

"If it is final!" Elinor cried. She raised herself up again in her
chair, and contemplated the unfortunate John with a sort of tragic
superiority. "Do you think that of me," she said, "that I would take
such a step as this and that it should not be final? Is dying final?
Could one do such a thing as this and change?"

"Such things have been done," said John. "Elinor, forgive me. I must say
it--it is all your life that is in the balance, and another life. There
is this infant to be struggled over, perhaps rent in two by those who
should have united to take care of him--and it's a boy, I hear. There's
his name and his after-life to think of--a child without a father,
perhaps the heir of a family to which he will not belong. Elinor--tell
her, aunt, you understand: is it my wish to hand her back to--to---- No,
I'll speak no names. But you know I disliked it always, opposed it always.
It is not out of any favour to--to the other side. But she ought to take
all these things into account. Her own position, and the position in the
future of the child----"

Elinor had crushed her fan with her hands, and Mrs. Dennistoun let the
knitting with which she had gone on in spite of all fall at last in her
lap. There was a little pause. John Tatham's voice itself had began to
falter, or rather swelled in sound as when a stream swells in flood.

"I do not go into the question about women and what they ought to put up
with," said John, resuming. "There's many things that law can do nothing
for--and nature in many ways makes it harder for women, I acknowledge.
We cannot change that. Think what her position will be--neither a wife
nor with the freedom of a widow; and the boy, bearing the name of one he
must almost be taught to think badly of--for one of them must be in the
wrong----"

"He shall never, never hear that name; he shall know nothing, he shall
be free of every bond; his mind shall never be cramped or twisted or
troubled by any--man--if I live."

This Elinor said, lifting her pale face from her hands with eyes that
flashed and shone with a blaze of excitement and weakness.

"There already," said John, "is a tremendous condition--if you live! Who
can make sure that they will live? We must all die--some sooner, some
later--and you wearing yourself out with excitement, that never were
strong; you exposing your heart, the weakest organ----"

"John," said Mrs. Dennistoun, grasping him by the arm, "you are talking
nonsense, you don't know what you are saying. My darling! she was never
weak nor had a feeble heart, nor--anything! She will live to bring up
_his_ children, her baby's children, upon her knees."

"And what would it matter?" said Elinor--looking at him with clear eyes,
from which the tears had disappeared in the shock of this unlooked-for
suggestion--"suppose I have no more strength than that, suppose I were
to die? you shall be his guardian, John, bring him up a good man; and
his Heavenly Father will take care of him. I am not afraid."

A man had better not deal with such subjects between two women. What
with Mrs. Dennistoun's indignant protest and Elinor's lofty submission,
John was at his wits' end. "I did not mean to carry things to such a
bitter end as that," he said. "You want to force me into a corner and
make me say things I never meant. The question is serious enough without
that."

There was again a little pause, and then Elinor, with one of those
changes which are so perplexing to sober-minded people, suddenly turned
to him, holding out both her hands.

"John--we'll leave that in God's hands whatever is to happen to me. But
in the meantime, while I am living--and perhaps my life depends upon
being quiet and having a little peace and rest. It is not that I care
very much for my life," said Elinor, with that clear, open-eyed look,
like the sky after rain--"I am shipwrecked, John, as you say--but my
mother does, and it's of--some--consequence--to baby; and if it depends
upon whether I am left alone, you are too good a friend to leave me in
the lurch. And you said--one night--whatever happened I was to send for
you."

John sprang up from his seat, dropping the hands which he had taken into
his own. She was like Queen Katherine, "about to weep," and her breast
strained with the sobbing effort to keep it down.

"For God's sake," he cried, "don't play upon our hearts like this! I
will do anything--everything--whatever you choose to tell me. Aunt,
don't let her cry, don't let her go on like that. Why, good heavens!" he
cried, bursting himself into a kind of big sob, "won't it be bad for
that little brat of a baby or something if she keeps going on in this
way?"

Thus John Tatham surrendered at discretion. What could he do more? A
man cannot be played upon like an instrument without giving out sounds
of which he will, perhaps, be ashamed. And this woman appealing to
him--this girl--looking like the little Elinor he remembered, younger
and softer in her weakness and trouble than she had been in her beauty
and pride--was the creature after all, though she would never know it,
whom he loved best in the world. He had wanted to save her, in the
one worldly way of saving her, from open shipwreck, for her own sake,
against every prejudice and prepossession of his mind. But if she would
not have that, why it was his business to save her as she wished, to do
for her whatever she wanted; to act as her agent, her champion, whatever
she pleased.

He was sent away presently, and accepted his dismissal with thankfulness,
to smoke his cigar. This is one amusing thing in a feminine household. A
man is supposed to want all manner of little indulgences and not to be
able to do without them. He is carefully left alone over "his wine"--the
aforesaid glass of claret; and ways and means are provided for him to
smoke his cigar, whether he wishes it or not. He had often laughed at
these regulations of his careful relatives, but he was rather glad of
them to-night. "I am going to get Elinor to bed," said Mrs. Dennistoun.
"It has, perhaps, been a little too much for her: but when you have
finished your cigar, John, if you will come back to the drawing-room for
a few minutes you will find me here."

John did not smoke any cigar. It is all very well to be soothed and
consoled by tobacco in your own room, at your own ease: but when you are
put into a lady's dining-room, where everything is nice, and where the
curtains will probably smell of smoke next morning: and when your mind
is exercised beyond even the power of the body to keep still, that is
not a time to enjoy such calm and composing delights. But he walked
about the room in which he was shut up like a wild beast in his cage,
sometimes with long strides from wall to wall, sometimes going round,
with that abstract trick of his, staring at the pictures, as if he did
not know every picture in the place by heart. He forgot that he was to
go back to the drawing-room again after Elinor had been taken to bed,
and it was only after having waited for him a long time that Mrs.
Dennistoun came, almost timidly, knocking at her own dining-room door,
afraid to disturb her visitor in the evening rites which she believed in
so devoutly. She did go in, however, and they stood together over the
fire for a few minutes, he staring down upon the glow at his feet, she
contemplating fitfully, unconsciously, her own pale face and his in the
dim mirror on the mantelpiece. They talked in low tones about Elinor and
her health, and her determination which nothing would change.

"Of course I will do it," said John; "anything--whatever she may require
of me--there are no two words about that. There is only one thing: I
will not compromise her by taking any initiative. Let us wait and see
what they are going to do----"

"But, John, might it not be better to disarm him by making overtures?
anything, I would do anything if he would but let her remain
unmolested--and the baby."

"Do you mean money?" he said.

Mrs. Dennistoun gave him an abashed look, deprecatory and wistful, but
did not make any reply.

"Phil Compton is a cad, and a brute, and a scamp of the first water,"
said John, glad of some way to get rid of his excitement; "but I do not
think that even he would sell his wife and his child for money. I
wouldn't do him so much discredit as that."

"Oh, I beg your pardon, John," Mrs. Dennistoun said.




CHAPTER XXVI.


John left the Cottage next morning with the full conduct of the affairs
of the family placed in his hands. The ladies were both a little
doubtful if his plan was the best--they were still frightened for what
might happen, and kept up a watch, as John perceived, fearing every
step that approached, trembling at every shadow. They remembered many
stories, such as rush to the minds of persons in trouble, of similar
cases, of the machinations of the bad father whose only object was to
overcome and break down his wife, and who stole his child away to let it
languish and die. There are some circumstances in which people forget
all the shades of character, and take it for granted that a man who can
go wrong in one matter will act like a very demon in all. This was
doubly strong in Mrs. Dennistoun, a woman full of toleration and
experience; but the issues were so momentous to her, and the possible
results so terrible, that she lost her accustomed good sense. It was
more natural, perhaps, that Elinor, who was weak in health and still
full of the arbitrariness of youth, should entertain this fear--without
considering that Phil was the very last man in the world to burden
himself with an infant of the most helpless age--which seemed to John
an almost quite unreasonable one. Almost--for, of course, he too was
compelled to allow, when driven into a corner, that there was nothing
that an exasperated man might not do. Elinor had come down early to see
her cousin before he left the house, bringing with her in her arms the
little bundle of muslin and flannel upon the safety of which her very
life seemed to depend. John looked at it, and at the small pink face and
unconscious flickering hands that formed the small centre to all those
wrappings, with a curious mixture of pity and repugnance. It was like
any other blind new-born kitten or puppy, he thought, but not so
amusing--no, it was not blind, to be sure. At one moment, without any
warning, it suddenly opened a pair of eyes, which by a lively exercise
of fancy might be supposed like Elinor's, and seemed to look him in the
face, which startled him very much, with a curious notification of the
fact that the thing was not a kitten or a puppy. But then a little
quiver came over the small countenance, and the attendant said it was
"the wind." Perhaps the opening of the eyes was the wind too, or some
other automatic effect. He would not hold out his finger to be clasped
tight by the little flickering fist, as Elinor would have had him. He
would none of those follies; he turned away from it not to allow himself
to be moved by the effect, quite a meretricious one, of the baby in the
young mother's arms. That was all poetry, sentiment, the trick of the
painter, who had found the combination beautiful. Such ideas belonged,
indeed, to the conventional-sacred, and he had never felt any profane
resistance of mind against the San Sisto picture or any of its kind.
But Phil Compton's brat was a very different thing. What did it matter
what became of it? If it were not for Elinor's perverse feeling on
the subject, and that perfectly imbecile prostration of her mother,
a sensible woman who ought to have known better, before the little
creature, he would himself have been rather grateful to Phil Compton for
taking it away. But when he saw the look of terror upon Elinor's face
when an unexpected step came to the door, when he saw her turn and fly,
wrapping the child in her arms, on her very heart as it seemed, bending
over it, covering it so that it disappeared altogether in her embrace,
John's heart was a little touched. It was only a hawking tramp with pins
and needles, who came by mistake to the hall door, but her panic and
anguish of alarm were a spectacle which he could not get out of his
eyes.

"You see, she never feels safe for a moment. It will be hard to persuade
her that that man, though I've seen him about the roads for years, is
not an emissary--or a spy--to find out if she is here."

"I am sure it is quite an unnecessary panic," said John. "In the first
place, Phil Compton's the last man to burden himself with a child; in
the second, he's not a brute nor a monster."

"You called him a brute last night, John."

"I did not mean in that way. I don't mean to stand by any rash word that
may be forced from me in a moment of irritation. Aunt, get her to give
over that. She'll torture herself to death for nothing. He'll not try to
take the child away--not just now, at all events, not while it is a
mere---- Bring her to her senses on that point. You surely can do that?"

"If I was quite sure of being in my own," Mrs. Dennistoun said, with a
forlorn smile. "I am as much frightened as she is, John. And, remember,
if there is anything to be done--anything----"

"There is nothing but a little common sense wanted," said John. But as
he drove away from the door, and saw the hawker with the needles still
about, the ladies had so infected him that it was all he could do to
restrain an inclination to take the vagrant by the collar and throw him
down the combe.

"Who's that fellow hanging about?" he said to Pearson, who was driving
him; "and what does he want here?"

"Bless you, sir! that's Joe," Pearson said. "He's after no harm. He's
honest enough as long as there ain't nothing much in his way; and he's
waiting for the pieces as cook gives him once a week when he comes his
rounds. There's no harm in poor Joe."

"I suppose not, since you say so," said John; "but you know the ladies
are rather nervous, Pearson. You must keep a look-out that no
suspicious-looking person hangs about the house."

"Bless us! Mr. John," said Pearson, "what are they nervous about?--the
baby? But nobody wants to steal a baby, bless your soul!"

"I quite agree with you," said John, much relieved (though he considered
Pearson an old fool, in a general way) to have his own opinion confirmed.
"But, all the same, I wish you would be doubly particular not to admit
anybody you don't know; and if any man should appear to bother them send
for me on the moment. Do you hear?"

"What do you call any man, sir?" said Pearson, smartly. He had ideas of
his own, though he might be a fool.

"I mean what I say," said John, more sharply still. "Any one that
molests or alarms them. Send me off a telegram at once--'You're wanted!'
That will be quite enough. But don't go with it to the office yourself;
send somebody--there's always your boy about the place--and keep about
like a dragon yourself."

"I'll do my best, sir," said Pearson, "though I don't know what a dragon
is, except it's the one in the Bible; and that's not a thing anybody
would want about the place."

It was a comfort to John, after all his troubles, to be able to laugh,
which he did with a heartiness which surprised Pearson, who was quite
unaware that he had made any joke.

These fears, however, which were imposed upon him by the contagion
of the terrors of the others, soon passed from John's mind. He was
convinced that Phil Compton would take no such step; and that, however
much he might wish his wife to return, the possession of the baby was
not a thing which he would struggle over. It cannot be denied, however,
that he was anxious, and eagerly inspected his letters in the morning,
and looked out for telegrams during the day. Fortunately, however, no
evil tidings came. Mrs. Dennistoun reported unbroken peace in the
Cottage and increasing strength on the part of Elinor; and, in a
parenthesis with a sort of apology, of the baby. Nobody had come near
them to trouble them. Elinor had received no letters. The tie between
her and her husband seemed to be cut as with a knife. "We cannot of
course," she said, "expect this tranquillity to last."

And it came to be a very curious thought with John, as week after week
passed, whether it was to last--whether Phil Compton, who had never been
supposed wanting in courage, intended to let his wife and child drop
off from him as if they had never been. This seemed a thing impossible
to conceive: but John said to himself with much internal contempt that
he knew nothing of the workings of the mind of such a man, and that it
might for aught he knew be a common incident in life with the Phil
Comptons thus to shake off their belongings when they got tired of them.
The fool! the booby! to get tired of Elinor! That rumour which flies
about the world so strangely and communicates information about
everybody to the vacant ear, to be retailed to those whom it may
concern, provided him, as the days went by, with many particulars which
he had not been able to obtain from Elinor. Phil, it appeared, had gone
to Glenorban--the great house to which he had been invited--alone, with
an excuse for his wife, whose state of health was not appropriate to a
large party, and had stayed there spending Christmas with a brilliant
houseful of guests, among whom was the American lady who had captivated
him. Phil had paid one visit to the lodge to see Elinor, by her mother's
summons, at the crisis of her illness, but had not hesitated to go away
again when informed that the crisis was over. Mrs. Dennistoun never told
what had passed between them on that occasion, but the gossips of the
club were credibly informed that she had bullied and stormed at Phil,
after the fashion of mothers-in-law, till she had driven him away. Upon
which he had returned to his party and flirted with Mrs. Harris more
than ever. John discovered also that the party having dispersed some
time ago, Phil had gone abroad. Whether in ignorance of his wife's
flight or not he could not discover; but it was almost impossible to
believe that he would have gone to Monte Carlo without finding out
something about Elinor--how and where she was. But whether this was the
cause of his utter silence, or whether it was the habit of men of his
class to treat such tremendous incidents in domestic life with levity,
John Tatham could not make out. He was congratulating himself, however,
upon keeping perfectly quiet, and leaving the conduct of the matter to
the other party, when the silence was disturbed in what seemed to him
the most curious way.

One afternoon when he returned from the court he was aware, when he
entered the outer office in which his clerk abode, of what he described
afterwards as a smell fit to knock you down. It would have been
described more appropriately in a French novel as the special perfume,
subtle and exquisite, by which a beautiful woman may be recognised
wherever she goes. It was, indeed, neither more nor less than the
particular scent used by Lady Mariamne, who came forward with a sweep
and rustle of her draperies, and the most ingratiating of her smiles.

"It appears to be fated that I am to wait for you," she said. "How do
you do, Mr. Tatham? Take me out of this horrible dirty place. I am quite
sure you have some nice rooms in there." She pointed as she spoke to
the inner door, and moved towards it with the air of a person who knew
where she was going, and was fully purposed to be admitted. John said
afterwards, that to think of this woman's abominable scent being left in
his room in which he lived (though he also received his clients in it)
was almost more than he could bear. But, in the meantime, he could do
nothing but open the door to her, and offer her his most comfortable
chair.

She seated herself with all those little tricks of movement which are
also part of the stock-in-trade of the pretty woman. Lady Mariamne's
prettiness was not of a kind which had the slightest effect upon John,
but still it was a kind which received credit in society, being the
product of a great deal of pains and care and exquisite arrangement and
combination. She threw her fur cloak back a little, arranged the strings
of her bonnet under her chin, which threw up the daintiness and rosiness
of a complexion about which there were many questions among her closest
friends. She shook up, with what had often been commented upon as the
prettiest gesture, the bracelets from her wrists. She arranged the veil,
which just came over the tip of her delicate nose, she put out her foot
as if searching for a footstool--which John made haste to supply, though
he remained unaffected otherwise by all these pretty preliminaries.

"Sit down, Mr. Tatham," then said Lady Mariamne. "It makes me wretchedly
uncomfortable, as if you were some dreadful man waiting to be paid or
something, to see you standing there."

Though John's first impulse was that of wrath to be thus requested to
sit down in his own chambers, the position was amusing as well as
disagreeable, and he laughed and drew a chair towards his writing-table,
which was as crowded and untidy as the writing-table of a busy man
usually is, and placed himself in an attitude of attention, though
without asking any question.

"Well," said Lady Mariamne, slowly drawing off her glove; "you know, of
course, why I have come, Mr. Tatham--to talk over with you, as a man who
knows the world, this deplorable business. You see it has come about
exactly as I said. I knew what would happen: and though I am not one of
those people who always insist upon being proved right, you remember
what I said----"

"I remember that you said something--to which, perhaps, had I thought I
should have been called upon to give evidence as to its correctness--I
should have paid more attention, Lady Mariamne."

"How rude you are!" she said, with her whole interest concentrated upon
the slow removal of her glove. Then she smoothed a little, softly, the
pretty hand which was thus uncovered, and said, "How red one's hands
get in this weather," and then laughed. "You don't mean to tell me, Mr.
Tatham," she said, suddenly raising her eyes to his, "that, considering
what a very particular person we were discussing, you can't remember
what I said?"

John was obliged to confess that he remembered more or less the gist of
her discourse, and Lady Mariamne nodded her head many times in
acceptance of his confession.

"Well," she said, "you see what it has come to. An open scandal, a
separation, and everything broken up. For one thing, I knew if she did
not give him his head a little that's what would happen. I don't believe
he cares a brass farthing for that other woman. She makes fun of
everybody, and that amused him. And it amused him to put Nell in a
state--that as much as anything. Why couldn't she see that and learn to
_prendre son parti_ like other people? She was free to say, 'You go your
way and I'll go mine:' the most of us do that sooner or later: but to
make a vulgar open rupture, and go off--like this."

"I fail to see the vulgarity in it," said John.

"Oh, of course; everything she does is perfect to you. But just think,
if it had been your own case--followed about and bullied by a jealous
woman, in a state of health that of itself disgusts a man----"

"Lady Mariamne, you must pardon me if I refuse to listen to anything
more of this kind," said John, starting to his feet.

"Oh, I warn you, you'll be compelled to listen to a great deal more if
you're her agent as I hear! Phil will find means of compelling you to
hear if you don't like to take your information from me."

"I should like to know how Mr. Phil Compton will succeed in compelling
me--to anything I don't choose to do."

"You think, perhaps, because there's no duelling in this country he
can't do anything. But there is, all the same. He would shame you into
it--he could say you were--sheltering yourself----"

"I am not a man to fight duels," said John, very angry, but smiling, "in
any circumstances, even were such a thing not utterly ridiculous; but
even a fighting man might feel that to put himself on a level with the
dis-Hon----"

He stopped himself as he said it. How mean it was--to a
woman!--descending to their own methods. But Lady Mariamne was too quick
for him.

"Oh," she said; "so you've heard of that, a nickname that no
gentleman----" then she too paused and looked at him, with a momentary
flush. He was going to apologize abjectly, when with a slight laugh she
turned the subject aside.

"Pretty fools we are, both of us, to talk such nonsense. I didn't come
here carrying Phil on my shoulders, to spring at your throat if you
expressed your opinion. Look here--tell me, don't let us go beating
about the bush, Mr. Tatham--I suppose you have seen Nell?"

"I know my cousin's mind, at least," he said.

"Well, then, just tell me as between friends--there's no need we should
quarrel because they have done so. Tell me this, is she going to get up
a divorce case----"

"A divorce----!"

"Because," said Lady Mariamne, "she'll find it precious difficult to
prove anything. I know she will. She may prove the flirting and so
forth--but what's that? You can tell her from me, it wants somebody far
better up to things than she is to prove anything. I warn her as a
friend she'll not get much good by that move."

"I am not aware," said John, "whether Mrs. Compton has made up her mind
about the further steps----"

"Then just you advise her not," cried Lady Mariamne. "It doesn't matter
to me: I shall be none the worse whatever she does: but if you are her
true friend you will advise her not. She might tell what she thinks, but
that's no proof. Mr. Tatham, I know you have great influence with Nell."

"Not in a matter like this," said John, with great gravity. "Of course
she alone can be the judge."

"What nonsense you talk, you men! Of course she is not the least the
judge, and of course she will be guided by you."

"You may be sure she shall have the best advice that I can give," John
said with a bow.

"You want me to go, I see," said Lady Mariamne; "you are dreadfully
rude, standing up all the time to show me I had better go." Hereupon she
recommenced her little _manège_, drawing on her glove, letting her
bracelets drop again, fastening the fur round her throat. "Well, Mr.
Tatham," she said, "I hope you mean to have the civility to see after my
carriage. I can't go roaming about hailing it as if it were a hansom
cab--in this queer place."




CHAPTER XXVII.


John went down to Windyhill that evening. His appearance alarmed the
little household more than words could say. As he was admitted at once
by the servants, delighted to see him, he walked in suddenly into the
midst of a truly domestic scene. The baby lay on Elinor's knee in the
midst of a mass of white wrappings, kicking out a pair of pink little
legs in the front of the fire. Elinor herself was seated on a very low
chair, and illuminated by the cheerful blaze, which threw a glare upon
her countenance, and called out unthought-of lights in her hair, there
was no appearance in her looks of anxiety or trouble. She was altogether
given up to the baby and the joy of its new life. The little kicking
limbs, the pleasure of the little creature in the warmth, the curling
of its rosy little toes in the agreeable sensation of the heat, were
more to Elinor and to her mother, who was kneeling beside her on the
hearth-rug, than the most refined and lofty pleasures in the world. The
most lofty of us have to come down to those primitive sources of bliss,
if we are happy enough to have them placed in our way. The greatest poet
by her side, the music of the spheres sounding in her ear, would not
have made Elinor forget her troubles like the stretching out towards the
fire of those little pink toes.

When the door opened, and the voice and step of a man--dreaded
sounds--were audible, a thrill of terror ran over this little group.
Mrs. Dennistoun sprang to her feet and placed herself between the
intruder and the young mother, while Elinor gathered up, covering him
all over, so that he disappeared altogether, her child in her arms.

"It is John," said Mrs. Dennistoun. "God be thanked, it is only John."

But Elinor, quite overcome by the shock, burst suddenly into tears, to
which the baby responded by a vigorous cry, not at all relishing the
sudden huddling up among its shawls to which it had been subjected. It
may be supposed what an effect this cloudy side of the happiness, which
he had not been able to deny to himself made a very pretty scene, had
upon John. He said, not without a little offence, "I am sure I beg your
pardon humbly. I'll go away."

Elinor turned round her head, smiling through her tears. "It was only
that you gave me a fright," she said. "I am quite right again; don't,
oh, don't go away! unless you object to the sight of baby, and to hear
him cry; but he'll not cry now, any more than his silly mother. Mamma,
make John sit down and tell us--Oh, I am sure he has something to tell
us--Perhaps I took comfort too soon; but the very sight of John is a
protection and a strength," she said, holding out her hand to him. This
sudden change of front reduced John, who had been perhaps disposed for a
moment to stand on his dignity, to utter subjection. He neither said nor
even thought a word against the baby, who was presently unfolded again,
and turned once more the toes of comfort towards the fire. He did not
approach too near, feeling that he had no particular share in the scene,
and indeed cut an almost absurd figure in the midst of that group, but
sat behind, contemplating it from a little distance against the fire.
The evening had grown dark by this time, but the two women, absorbed
by their worship, had wanted no light. It had happened to John by an
extreme piece of luck to catch the express train almost as soon as Lady
Mariamne had left him, and to reach the station at Hurrymere before the
February day was done.

"You have something to tell us, John--good news or bad?" Mrs. Dennistoun
said.

"Good; or I should not have come like this unannounced," he said. "The
post is quick enough for bad. I think you may be quite at your ease
about the child--no claim will be made on the child. Elinor, I think,
will not be disturbed if--she means to take no steps on her side."

"What steps?" said Mrs. Dennistoun. Elinor turned her head to look at
him anxiously over the back of her chair.

"I have had a visit this afternoon," he said.

"From--" Elinor drew a long hurried breath. She said no name, but it was
evident that one was on her lips--a name she never meant to pronounce
more, but to which her whole being thrilled still even when it was
unspoken. She looked at him full of eagerness to hear yet with a hand
uplifted, as if to forbid any utterance.

"From Lady Mariamne."

How her countenance fell! She turned round again, and bent over her
baby. It was a pang of acute disappointment, he could not but see, that
went through her, though she would not have allowed him to say that
name. Strange inconsistency! it ran over John too with a sense of keen
indignation, as if he had taken from her an electric touch.

"----Whose object in coming to me was to ascertain whether you intended
to bring a suit for--divorce."

A cry rang through the room. Elinor turned upon him for a moment a face
blazing with hot and painful colour. The lamp had been brought in, and
he saw the fierce blush and look of horror. Then she turned round and
buried it in her hands.

"Divorce!" said Mrs. Dennistoun. "Elinor----! To drag her private
affairs before the world. Oh, John, John, that could not be. You would
not wish that to be."

"I!" he cried with a laugh of tuneless mirth. "Is it likely that I would
wish to drag Elinor before the world?"

Elinor did not say anything, but withdrew one hand from her burning
cheek and put it into his. These women treated John as if he were a man
of wood. What he might be feeling, or if he were feeling anything, did
not enter their minds.

"It was like her," said Elinor after a time in a low hurried voice, "to
think of that. She is the only one who would think of it. As if I had
ever thought or dreamed----"

"It is possible, however," he said, "that it might be reasonable enough.
I don't speak to Elinor," who had let go his hand hastily, "but to you,
aunt. If it is altogether final, as she says, to be released would
perhaps be better, from a bond that was no bond."

"John, John, would you have her add shame to pain?"

"The shame would not be to her, aunt."

"The shame is to every one concerned--to every one! My Elinor's name,
her dear name, dragged through all that mud! She a party, perhaps, to
revelations--Oh, never, never! We would bear anything rather."

"This of course," said John, "is perhaps a still more bitter punishment
for the other side."

She looked round at him again. Looking up with a look of pale horror,
her eyelids in agonised curves over her eyes, her mouth quivering. "What
did you say, John?"

"I said it might be a more bitter punishment still for--the other side."

Elinor lifted up her baby to her breast, raising herself with a new
dignity, with her head high. "I meant no punishment," she said, "I want
none. I have left--what killed me--behind me; many things, not one only.
I have brought my boy away that he may never--never-- But if it would be
better that--another should be free--"

"I will never give my consent to it, Elinor."

"Nor I with my own mind; but if it is vindictive--if it is revenge,
mother! I am not alone to think of myself. If it were better for ----
that he should be free; speak to John about it and tell me. I cannot,
cannot discuss it. I will leave it all to John and you. It will kill me!
but what does that matter?--it is not revenge that I seek."

She turned with the baby pressed to her breast and walked away, her
every movement showing the strain and excitement of her soul.

"Why did you do this, John, without at least consulting me? You have
thrown a new trouble into her mind. She will never, never do this
thing--nor would I permit it. There are some things in which I must take
a part. I could not forbid her marriage; God grant