CHAPTER XIIELEANOR
Otho’s week of freedom was over. His sister had come, and on the day following her arrival, in the afternoon, she rode with him through Bradstane town towards Balder Hall.
Any one who could have seen her, even in the gray and mournful November light, would have seen a very beautiful young woman. She was tall, and had an admirable figure, full of grace and strength. No feeble development here, nor niggard traits, nor look of feeble spine or over-sensitive nerves. Whatever the intellect within that beautiful head, its outward case was not one to find fault with. Her features were not very regular; harmonious, though, in their very irregularity. A soft, ivory-white complexion, as healthy as many a ruddy one; and with this complexion, the red-brown hair and lambent, tawny eyes which sometimes accompany it. Her eyebrows were much darker than either her hair or her eyes; and she had a large mouth, but a beautiful one—beautiful because of its smile in mirth and of its expression in repose.
There was a vague, indefinite family likeness between her and the fierce-looking Otho. Where it lay, in what exactly it consisted, it would have been impossible tosay, but it was there, though it was slight, and perhaps more easily to be detected when they were apart than when they were together; that is, seeing one of them alone, an observer might have thought, ‘How like her brother’ or ‘his sister!’ And yet, had the other one appeared, and the faces been compared, none could have discerned any resemblance.
During the first part of their ride they were both somewhat silent. She was looking about her with quick, keen glances, speaking an observant eye. Otho was wondering what Magdalen would say to him, what he could say to her, at a later time, when he, after his offhand description of the other day, had to introduce to her this beautiful creature now riding with him.
Eleanor, while making her observations on the town and the surroundings, was also occupied in thinking things over. It was a fact, she told herself with some mortification, that Otho and she were strangers to each other. It seemed that absence, and long separation, and the influence of utterly diverse lives and habits did produce that strangeness, even between brother and sister. Her Aunt Emily, in some of their talks, had told her that this would be the case, and she had said laughingly that she would defy her brother to be a stranger to her, or to make a stranger of her. She had felt very strong; she felt very strong now. That was her chief feeling, when she thought about herself at all—strength of soul and body, and a happy confidence that truth is great and will prevail.
Yet this had not been such a joyful home-coming as it ought to have been. In all confidence she had set out to find the home which she had only twice visited, each time for a day or two, on some tour with her guardians,since, at six years of age, she had been brought away by her Aunt Emily, a motherless and fatherless child. Those visits had both been paid while she was still under fourteen, before Otho had left college and taken possession. Otho was six years her senior, and had pursued his public school course and got through his college career while she was yet in the schoolroom and in short frocks. Occasionally, when he had been in town, or anywhere near them, he had paid her a flying visit; had once, when they had been in the Highlands, spent a few days with them, to shoot grouse with his uncle and cousin Paul. On these occasions he had told her that she grew a fine girl (fancying it was a nice kind of thing to say to a sister, though when he said “fine” he meant “tall,” and had taken so little real notice of her, that he had spoken in all good faith when describing her to Magdalen the week before). And he had uniformly discouraged the idea of her coming to live at Thorsgarth (it had never been seriously broached before), saying, whenever allusion had been made to such a thing, ‘Oh, you will never want a home there. You will be married before that.’
But Eleanor had not married, and she had come to Thorsgarth to make her home there.
‘Is this all the town there is, Otho?’ she asked, suddenly, as they emerged from the street into the open road. ‘I’ve almost forgotten it. What an odd, little, gray, weather-beaten place it is! Not a bit like the south.’
‘Of course not.’
‘I feel as if I’d never been here, and I hardly ever meet any one who has. It looks bleak here; that’s what I mean.’
‘Well, it is,’ said Otho, vexed with such a persistent talk about the looks of a place. As if it mattered what Bradstane looked like! ‘And it’s November, too. You can’t expect roses in November.’
‘But I’ve always had them. There were Dijon roses growing over the south walls at Brinswell when I left. You remember Brinswell, Otho?’
‘Yes, I do; and a dull hole it was.’
‘Not any duller than Thorsgarth, I should fancy. It was as lovely a place as ever I saw. We were more there and less in London the last few years. Of course I like London, but I never felt dull at Brinswell. What fruit and flowers! Of course, things can’t grow here as they did there. The trees look so small and stunted.’
‘Small! Why, the Bradstane ash-trees are noted all through the country-side.’
‘Well, yes, the ash-trees. They are fine. But, of course, they ought to be.’ And she hummed to herself—
‘Oh, the oak, and the ash, and the bonny ivy-tree,They grow the best at home in the north countrie.’
‘Oh, the oak, and the ash, and the bonny ivy-tree,They grow the best at home in the north countrie.’
‘Oh, the oak, and the ash, and the bonny ivy-tree,They grow the best at home in the north countrie.’
‘Oh, the oak, and the ash, and the bonny ivy-tree,
They grow the best at home in the north countrie.’
‘At home,’ she added, half to herself. ‘This is the north countrie, and this is my home, after all. It’s a shame I don’t know it better. Wherever you look,’ she added, addressing him directly again, ‘you seem to see a blue wall in the distance. Otho, does any one ever get as far as those blue walls?’ And she pointed towards the north-west, where Mickle Fell and his brethren loomed high.
‘Blue walls!’ repeated Otho, embarrassed by the application of such terms to the moors, which to him represented so many acres of good shooting, and those in another direction stabling for another hobby of his, ofwhich Eleanor was as yet unaware. ‘How you talk! Those that you are pointing to are the fells on the Westmoreland border, and those other ones, to the south, are the Swaledale moors.’
‘Swaledale moors? But one can get over them, I suppose. What is there on the other side?’
‘More moors and more dales. It’s bleak enough there, if you like. There’s some good shooting, though.’
‘I should like to see what there is at the other side,’ said Eleanor, her eyes fixed dreamily on the moors. Then, as they turned a bend in the road, ‘Is it far to this place you are taking me to?’
‘Only about another three-quarters of a mile.’
‘This Miss Wynter—is she a very old friend of yours?’ asked Eleanor unconsciously. ‘I don’t ever remember to have heard you speak of her.’
‘Oh yes, you have,’ said Otho, with effrontery; ‘but you’ve very likely forgotten. She is my only friend—amongst the women, that is.’
‘Ah! an elderly woman?’
‘About my own—well, she’s a year or so older than I am.’
‘Oh! An invalid, I suppose?’
‘Why the—— What on earth makes you think she should be an invalid?’
‘If she is neither old nor ill, I can’t understand why I am being taken to see her. What should prevent her from coming to call upon me, in the usual order of things?’
Otho was embarrassed, and annoyed too. This extremely simple question of Eleanor’s showed him, in a sudden flash, that Magdalen’s behaviour was not exactly courteous. Stealing a side glance at his sister, he realisedthat when she came to meet Magdalen, she might consider the latter had been insolent in her pretensions. Eleanor, to use his own phrase, knew what was what, every bit as well as Magdalen did. Free and natural though her manner was, he had known enough of his Aunt Emily to be aware that no one brought up by her could remain in ignorance as to any social usages. In his haste to bring Magdalen’s influence into the field, he had made a mistake, and she probably did not care whether Eleanor were offended or no. All he could say to get himself out of his difficulty was—
‘We’re a neighbourly lot here, when we do happen to be friends. You’ll be disappointed if you expect to find London etiquette at Bradstane.’
‘I daresay,’ said she, with a light laugh. ‘I’ve generally found country etiquette far more burdensome than etiquette in London. That was partly what made me wonder. However, people do get a little rusty in their manners, I daresay, when they live in one small set,’ Eleanor concluded serenely; but there was a sparkle in her eye as she spoke. Her curiosity as to this Miss Wynter was aroused.
Otho burst into a short laugh, as he heard this speech, thinking within himself, ‘I’ll keep that for Magdalen, and treat her to it when she’s pulling me up, some day. Upon my word, this girl is enough to make most others look rusty.’
‘Miss Wynter is your only friend among the women, you say,’ pursued Eleanor in flute-like tones. ‘How is that? Don’t you like the ladies about here?’
Otho’s expression of countenance, on hearing this question, was worthy of study. Eleanor saw it, and averted her face. She had already accurately gaugedone phase of Otho’s character. He was inwardly perturbed just now. His troubles were beginning already. Here was this girl evidently under the impression that he was hand-in-glove with all the ordinary society of the place. How was he to explain to her exactly how things stood between him and Magdalen Wynter? He knew he could not, in any way that should seem plausible to one brought up like her. He was bored at having to explain at all, and in his vexation took refuge in some sweeping general statements.
‘Like the ladies about here? No, I don’t. And that is one reason why I knew you would be awfully dull if you came here. You see, it has suited my tastes not to go much into the society here—in fact, hardly at all; and they have just begun to understand it at last, and to let me alone—give over inviting me, and all that. So you won’t find it very lively. But Magdalen is different. I’ve known her ever since I came here. We were thick at the very first, and have stuck together ever since, because she’s so reasonable and sensible. As for the others’—he spoke with solemnity—‘they are one half sharks and the other half fools. There’s no such thing as meeting a girl, and trying to have a friendship with her, before you go any farther. Your sex, my dear, are incapable of friendship with a man. Either they try to make him in love with them, and make his existence miserable, or they fall in love with him themselves—or think they do; it’s much of a muchness—and if he don’t respond they say he has deceived them, or trifled with them, or something equally absurd. Suppose you see a nice girl, or a girl that you think looks nice. Well, you have a head on your shoulders, and you know she may be a shrew, for all her pleasantness, just as ahorse may be a screw, though he looks all right. You think it worth while to try and know her a bit better, before you risk anything. You can’t do it. You may not do it. It is their one object to get you to marry them without giving you any opportunity to know anything about them. You never get to know their real thoughts about any one thing on earth. You must run the gauntlet of their mothers and sisters to get even a word with them. It isn’t fair; it’s deuced hard. Why are you to show up everything, and be slanged if you don’t do it all on the square, while they are not to have any questions asked at all? The sisters are bad enough, especially if you are sweet on a younger one, but the mothers—oh, Lord! Those mothers! If you do but look at one of their precious girls, they are down upon you to know your “intentions.” I say, a man has a right to ask questions in his turn—if their tempers are all right, if they’re sound in wind and limb, and so on. I bolt if I see one of those mothers within——’
He was interrupted by a peal of laughter. Eleanor had contained herself as long as she could, but at each higher flight of Otho’s sombre eloquence it had been more and more difficult to keep her gravity. Now it was impossible. She gave free vent to her mirth, and bent to her saddle-bow in her merriment.
‘Oh, Otho!’ she ejaculated at last, turning a face quivering with laughter to him, and eyes dancing behind tears of amusement. He looked at her in speechless astonishment, and then by degrees managed to take in the fact that she was laughing at him—at his solemn and withering denunciation of the man-traps set for the unwary in social life. He did not remember such athing to have happened to him before, and he was stunned by the shock.
‘Poor dear Otho!’ she said, between new bursts of merriment. ‘What a life you must have led, with all these women trying to entrap you! No wonder you are reserved and sad! No wonder you have retired into private life to avoid the dangers that beset you on all sides! I wonder almost that you dare ride out alone. And yet, Otho, what a great thing to be so sought after!’
Otho’s face was almost purple, partly with breathless amazement, partly with anger. Eleanor, it seemed, did not realise, or did not care, to what inconvenience he was put by her presence here at all. She chaffed and laughed at him. She now put the crowning point to this offensive conduct by leaning over towards him, and asking, with a pretence of looking round to see that no one was near to look or listen—
‘Otho, did Miss Wynter warn you of the danger of these harpies by whom you are surrounded? Women are always quick to see through the designs of other women. How good of her to take care of you and keep you out of danger!’
Otho’s deep colour grew deeper still. Shrewdly had Eleanor hit the mark. The language, the turns of expression, were his own, native to his genius and redolent of his mind; but the substance of his speech was the substance of scores of conversations with Magdalen, in which she had amused him by tearing to pieces the supposed designs of their neighbours of the whole country-side.
‘What bosh!’ he said at last, with sovereign contempt. ‘You’ll be saying next that she had designs herself.’ A peculiar smile hovered about his sister’s lips, but shesaid nothing. ‘No, no. It is quite different with her, as you will see when you meet her. You can go and have an hour’s chat with her—or two hours, if you like. She’s always pleasant, always amusing; no father or mother to be down on you. And she does not imagine, even if you were to go and see her regularly twice a week, that you’ve got “intentions;” and, what is more, she has none herself. She can be pleasant, and free, and agreeable, without all the time being bent upon hooking you. Yes’—the taciturn Otho waxed enthusiastic—‘she is my friend. I don’t care who knows it. She’s the only woman in the neighbourhood that I call upon.’
Had Eleanor been better acquainted with ‘the neighbourhood’ and its annals, she might better have appreciated the honourable distinction conveyed in this speech.
‘Dear me! She ought to be flattered, I am sure. Is this place of hers a large one?’
‘Balder Hall, Magdalen’s? God bless you, no! I wish it was. She’s a poor penniless niece of an old bedridden woman, Miss Martha Strangforth, whom they call about here “the Immortal,” for they say she will never die. I daresay Magdalen wishes it were true, for so long as the old woman lives the girl has a home and a position. And old Martha’s income dies with her, and I don’t fancy she has saved much.’
‘Girl—she must be a precocious girl,’ said Eleanor, sweetly.
‘Oh, the malice of you women!’ said Otho, gnashing his teeth with virtuous and masculine indignation. ‘When I say “girl,” I’m rather stretching a point. She is a year or so older than I am—about eight and twenty.And it seems to me that precious few women under that age are worth speaking to.’
‘Well, they certainly should be worth speaking to by the time they are that age, if ever they intend to be. But if she is poor and dependent, it seems to me men ought to be rather careful about going to see her very often.’
‘For fear she should set traps for them, of course,’ sneered Otho.
‘Oh, not at all. But because other people are sometimes ill-natured, and a woman who has her way to make, or who may have her living to earn some time, cannot be too careful.’
‘Oh, come, Eleanor! When you see her you will understand that one can’t speak of Magdalen Wynter in that way. No one could imagine her in any inferior position. It isn’t in her to take one.’
‘Isn’t it? Well, it is lucky for her if she has some power that can defy need and want of money. I used to help Aunt Emily with some charitable works that she was interested in—governesses’ homes, and ladies’ work societies, and so on; and you would have been astonished at the terrible cases one used to see, and the deplorable condition of ladies—ladies of birth and beauty, with the most terrible tales of the straits to which poverty and distress had driven them. I used to lie awake for hours sometimes, wishing I had the courage to divide my money into a common fund, for some of the poorest, and go and live with them on equal terms.’
‘You’ll come to no good if you let that sort of nonsense get into your head,’ said Otho, gruffly. ‘But it’s useless to talk. You will understand what I mean whenyou see her,’ he added, feeling that his sister was not altogether devoid of the obstinacy which was so salient a feature in his own character. ‘She does not care for the people about here, you know. In fact, she dislikes them, and makes great fun of them. And they don’t care about her; she’s too handsome for them.’
Eleanor made no answer to this, and they rode on in silence for a little time. Miss Askam did not feel ‘drawn’ to Magdalen by Otho’s description of his friend. Indeed, it had the very natural effect of putting her mind into a defensive attitude with regard to the other woman. Without being any stickler for forms, she could not understand why Miss Wynter had not called upon her, perhaps on her aunt’s behalf, or why she was being thus hurried to see this wonderful penniless orphan who had no designs upon men, but who disliked and was disliked by all the other women of the neighbourhood. ‘It looks very much as if I were being taken to her on approval, for inspection,’ said Eleanor within herself. Her white teeth showed a little in a not altogether amiable smile. ‘Well, let it be so. I am committed to nothing with her. We will see what she is. I think I can sustain her inspection.’
She also reflected that Otho’s gift of character-drawing seemed to be in a very undeveloped condition, and she had more than once noticed, during her short career, that when men describe women, they very often paint them, not as they are, but as the women have chosen that they should find them; and this was very likely the case with Otho and Miss Wynter.
‘Here we are,’ observed Otho, as they turned in at the Balder Hall Lodge, rode up to the door, and found that Miss Wynter was at home.