  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. “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 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 “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 “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 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 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 “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 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 END OF VOL. I. The English Library The Marriage |
|
