“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 nearest chicken. The gentlemen coming in at the moment roared againwith 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 quitedry, 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. Thereis 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 thatpâtéso much. He really never hasfoie grasat 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 andher 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 Iever 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.
ThusElinor 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 hersolitary 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 theRiviera, 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 thetwilight 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 in-most 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 muchlove 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, andoh, 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 toMonday. 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, shewas afraid of being too closely questioned, of having to confess thathedid 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 helet 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.
Mrs. Dennistoundid 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: buthe 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 therewas 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 waschattering, 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 inthe 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, thatdis-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, hedid 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 along 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.
Thenext 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 exactlywhat 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 childshould 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 theseason 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 insome 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 themoments 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 bede 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 andis 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 thatElinor 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 foronce 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 ofreflection 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 bedone 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—highspirits, and thinking everything he touches must go right. He will steady down in time.”