The Marriage of Elinor

During this time he did not correspond much with his relations in the country. He had, indeed, some letters to answer from his father, in which the interrogatories were very difficult: "Where has Mary Dennistoun gone? What's become of Elinor and her baby? Has that fashionable fellow of a husband deserted her? What's the meaning of the move altogether?" And, "Mind you keep yourself out of it," his father wrote. John had great trouble in wording his replies so as to convey as little information as possible. "I believe Aunt Mary has got a house somewhere in the North, probably to suit Elinor, who would be able to be more with her if she were in that neighbourhood." (It must be confessed that he thought this really clever as a way of getting over the question.) "As for Compton, I know very little about him. He was never a man much in my way." Mr. Tatham's household saw nothing remarkable in these replies; upon which, however, they built an explanation, such as it was, of the other circumstances. They concluded that it must be in order to be near Elinor that Mrs. Dennistoun had gone to the North, and that it was a very good thing that Elinor's husband was not a man who was in John's way. "A scamp, if I ever saw one!" Mr. Tatham said. "But what's that Jack says about Gaythorne? Mary, I remember Gaythorne years ago; a capital friend for a young man. I'm glad your brother's making such nice friends for himself; far better than mooning about that wretched little cottage with Mary Dennistoun and her girl."

CHAPTER XXX

It happened thus that it was not till the second autumn after the settlement of the ladies in Waterdale, when all the questions had died out, and there was no more talk of them, except on occasions when a sudden recollection cropped up among their friends at Windyhill, that John Tatham paid them his first visit. He had been very conscientious in his proposed bestowal of himself. Perhaps it is scarcely quite complimentary to a woman when she is made choice of by a man who is consciously to himself "on the outlook," thinking that he ought to marry, and investigating all the suitable persons about with an eye to finding one who will answer his requirements. This sensible way of approaching the subject of matrimony does not somehow commend itself to our insular notions. It is the right way in every country except our own, but it has a cold-blooded look to the Anglo-Saxon; and a girl is not flattered (though perhaps she ought to be) by being the subject of this sensible choice. "As if I were a housekeeper or a cook!" she is apt to say, and is far better pleased to be fallen in love with in the most rash and irresponsible way than to be thus selected from the crowd: though that, everybody must allow, after due comparison and inspection, is by far the greater compliment. John having arrived at the conclusion that it would be better for him in many ways to marry, and specially in the way of Elinor, fortifying him for ever from all possible complications, and making it possible for him to regard her evermore with the placid feelings of a brother, which was, he expected, to be the consequence – worked at the matter really with great pertinacity and consistency. He kept his eyes open upon the whole generation of girls whom he met with in society. When he went abroad during the long vacation (instead of going to Lakeside, as he was invited to do), he directed his steps rather to the fashionable resorts, where families disport themselves at the foot of the mountains, than to the Alpine heights where he had generally found a more robust amusement. And wherever he went he bent his attention on the fairer portion of the creation, the girls who fill all the hotels with the flutter of their fresh toilettes and the babble of their pleasant voices. It was very mean and poor of him, seeing he was a mountaineer himself – but still it must be recorded that the only young ladies he systematically neglected were those in very short petticoats, with very sunburnt faces and nails in their boots, who ought to have been most congenial to him as sharing his own tastes. It is said, I don't know with what truth, that at Ouch, or Interlachen, or some other of the most mundane and banal resorts of the tourists, he came upon one girl who he thought might make him a suitable wife: and that, though with much moderation and prudence, he more or less followed her party for some time, meeting them over and over again, with expressions of astonishment, round the most well-known corners, and persisting for a considerable time in this quest. But whether he ever came the length of proposing at all, or whether the young lady was engaged beforehand, or if she thought the prospect of making a suitable wife not good enough, I cannot say, and I doubt whether any one knows – except, of course, the parties immediately concerned. It is very clear, at all events, that it came to nothing. John did not altogether give it up, I fancy, for he went a great deal into society still, especially in that avant saison, which people who live in London declare to be the most enjoyable, and when it is supposed you can enjoy the best of company at your ease without the hurry and rush of the summer crowd. He would have been very glad, thankful, indeed, if he could have fallen in love. How absurd to think that any silly boy can do it, to whom it is probably nothing but a disadvantage and the silliest of pastimes, and that he, a reasonable man with a good income, and arrived at a time of life when it is becoming and rational to marry, could not do it, let him try as he would! There was something ludicrous in it, when you came to think, as well as something very depressing. Mothers who wanted a good position for their daughters divined him, and many of them were exceedingly civil to John, this man in search of a wife; and many of the young ladies themselves divined him, and with the half indignation, half mockery, appropriate to the situation, were some of them not unaverse to profit by it, and accordingly turned to him their worst side in the self-consciousness produced by that knowledge. And thus the second year turned round towards the wane, and John was farther from success than ever.

He said to himself then that it was clear he was not a marrying man. He liked the society of ladies well enough, but not in that way. He was not made for falling in love. He might very well, he was aware, have dispensed with the tradition, and found an excellent wife, who would not at all have insisted upon it from her side. But he had his prejudices, and could not do this. Love he insisted upon, and love would not come. Accordingly, when the second season was over he gave up both the quest and the idea, and resolved to think of marrying no more, which was a sensible relief to him. For indeed he was exceedingly comfortable as he was; his chambers were excellent, and he did not think that any street or square in Belgravia would have reconciled him to giving up the Temple. He had excellent servants, a man and his wife, who took the greatest care of him. He had settled into a life which was arranged as he liked, with much freedom, and yet an agreeable routine which John was too wise to despise. He relinquished the idea of marrying then and there. To be sure there is never any prophesying what may happen. A little laughing gipsy of a girl may banish such a resolution out of a man's mind in the twinkling of an eye, at any moment. But short of such accidents as that, and he smiled at the idea of anything of the kind, he quite made up his mind on this point with a great sensation of relief.

It is curious how determined the mind of the English public at least is on this subject – that the man or woman who does not marry (especially the woman, by-the-bye) has an unhappy life, and that a story which does not end in a wedding is no story at all, or at least ends badly, as people say. It happened to myself on one occasion to put together in a book the story of some friends of mine, in which this was the case. They were young, they were hopeful, they had all life before them, but they did not marry. And when the last chapter came to the consciousness of the publisher he struck, with the courage of a true Briton, not ashamed of his principles, and refused to pay. He said it was no story at all – so beautiful is marriage in the eyes of our countrymen. I hope, however, that nobody will think any harm of John Tatham because he concluded, after considerable and patient trial, that he was not a marrying man. There is no harm in that. A great number of those Catholic priests whom it was the habit in my youth to commiserate deeply, as if they were vowed to the worst martyrdom, live very happy lives in their celibacy and prefer it, as John Tatham did. It will be apparent to the reader that he really preferred it to Elinor, while Elinor was in his power. And though afterwards it gave a comfort and grace to his life to think that it was his faithful but subdued love for Elinor which made him a bachelor all his days, I am by no means certain that this was true. Perhaps he never would have made up his mind had she remained always within his reach. Certain it is that he was relieved when he found that to give up the idea of marriage was the best thing for him. He adopted the conclusion with pleasure. His next brother had already married, though he was younger than John; but then he was a clergyman, which is a profession naturally tending to that sort of thing. There was, however, no kind of necessity laid upon him to provide for the continuance of the race. And he was a happy man.

By what sequence of ideas it was that he considered himself justified, having come to this conclusion, in immediately paying his long-promised visit to Lakeside, is a question which I need not enter into, and indeed do not feel entirely able to cope with. It suited him, perhaps, as he had been so long a time in Switzerland last year: and he had an invitation to the far north for the grouse, which he thought it would be pleasant to accept. Going to Scotland or coming from it, Waterdale of course lies full in the way. He took it last on his way home, which was more convenient, and arrived there in the latter part of September, when the hills were golden with the yellow bracken. The Cumberland hills are a little cold, in my opinion, without the heather, which clothes with such a flush of life and brightness our hills in the north. The greenness is chilly in the frequent rain; one feels how sodden and slippery it is – a moisture which does not belong to the heather: but when the brackens have all turned, and the slopes reflect themselves in the tranquil water like hills of gold, then the landscape reaches its perfect point. Lakeside was a white house standing out on a small projection at the head of the lake, commanding the group of hills above and part of the winding body of water below, in which all these golden reflections lay. A little steamer passed across the reflected glory, and came to a stop not a hundred yards from the gate of the house. It was a scene as unlike as could be conceived to the Cottage at Windyhill: the trees were all glorious in colour; yellow birches like trees made of light, oaks all red and fiery, chestnuts and elms and beeches in a hundred hues. The house was white, with a sort of broad verandah round, supported on pillars, furnishing a sheltered walk below and a broad balcony above, which gave it a character of more importance than perhaps its real size warranted. When John approached there ran out to meet him into the wide gravel drive before the door a little figure upon two sturdy legs, calling out, in inarticulate shoutings, something that sounded a little like his own name. It was, "'tle John! 'tle John!" made into a sort of song by the baby, nearly two years old, and "very forward," as everybody assured the stranger, for his age. Uncle John! his place was thus determined at once by that little potentate and master of the house. Behind the child came Elinor, no longer pale and languid as he had seen her last, but matured into vigorous beauty, bright-eyed, a little sober, as might have become maturer years than hers. Perhaps there was something in the style of her dress that favoured the idea, not of age indeed, but of matronly years, and beyond those which Elinor counted. She was dressed in black, of the simplest description, not of distinctive character like a widow's, yet something like what an ideal widow beyond fashion or conventionalities of woe might wear. It seemed to give John the key-note of the character she had assumed in this new sphere.

Mrs. Dennistoun, who had not changed in the least, stood in the open door. They gave him a welcome such as John had not had, he said to himself, since he had seen them before. They were unfeignedly glad to see him, not wounded (which, to think of afterwards, wounded him a little) that he had not come sooner, but delighted that he was here now. Even when he went home it was not usual to John to be met at the door in this way by all his belongings. His sister might come running down the stairs when she heard the dog-cart draw up, but that was all. And Mary's eagerness to see him was generally tempered by the advice she had to give, to say that or not to say this, because of papa. But in the present case it was the sight of himself which was delightful to all, and, above all, though the child could have no reason for it, to the little shouting excited boy. "'Tle John! 'tle John!" What was Uncle John to him? yet his little voice filled the room with shouts of joy.

"What does he know about me, the little beggar, that he makes such a noise in my honour?" said John, touched in spite of himself. "But I suppose anything is good enough for a cry at that age."

"Come," said Elinor, "you are not to be contemptuous of my boy any longer. You called him it when he was a baby."

"And what is he now?" said John, whose heart was affected by strange emotions, he, the man who had just decided (with relief) that he was not a marrying man. There came over him a curious wave of sensation which he had no right to. If he had had a right to it, if he had been coming home to those who belonged to him, not distantly in the way of cousinship, but by a dearer right, what sensations his would have been! But sitting at the corner of the fire (which is very necessary in Waterdale in the end of September) a little in the shadow, his face was not very clearly perceptible: though indeed had it been so the ladies would have thought nothing but that John's kind heart was touched, as was so natural, by this sight.

"What is he now? Your nephew! Tell Uncle John what you are now," said Elinor, lifting her child on her lap; at which the child between the kisses which were his encouragement and reward produced, in a large infant voice, very treble, yet simulating hers, the statement, "Mamma's bhoy."

"Now, Elinor," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "he has played his part beautifully; he has done everything you taught him. He has told you who he is and who Uncle John is. Let him go to his nursery now."

"Come up-stairs, Pippo. Mother will carry her boy," said Elinor. "They don't want us any more, these old people. Say good-night to Uncle John, and come to bed."

"Dood-night, 'tle John," said the child; which, however, was not enough, for he tilted himself out of his mother's arms and put his rosy face and open mouth, sweet but damp, upon John's face. This kiss was one of the child's accomplishments. He himself was aware that he had been good, and behaved himself in every way as a child should do, as he was carried off crowing and jabbering in his mother's arms. He had formed a sort of little human bridge between them when he made that dive from Elinor's arms upon John's face. Ah, heaven! if it had been the other way, if the child and the mother had both been his!

"He has grown up very sweet. You may think we are foolish, John; but you can't imagine what a delight that child is. Hasn't he grown up sweet?"

"If you call that grown up!"

"Oh, yes, I know he is only a baby still; but so forward for his age, such a little man, taking care of his mother before he is two years old!"

"What did I hear her call him?" John asked, and it seemed to Mrs. Dennistoun that there was something severe in the sound of his voice.

"He had to be Philip. It is a pretty name, though we may have reason to mourn the day – and belongs to his family. We must not forget that he belongs to a known family, however he may have suffered by it."

"Then you intend the child to know about his family? I am glad to hear it," said John, though his voice perhaps was not so sweet as his words.

"Oh, John, that is quite another thing! to know about his family – at two! He has his mother – and me to take care of them both, and what does he want more?"

"But he will not always be two," said John, the first moment almost of his arrival, before he had seen the house, or said a word about the lake, or anything. She was so disappointed and cast down that she made him no reply.

"I am a wretched croaker," he said, after a moment, "I know. I ought after all this time to try to make myself more agreeable; but you must pardon me if this was the first thing that came into my mind. Elinor is looking a great deal better than when I saw her last."

"Isn't she! another creature. I don't say that I am satisfied, John. Who would be satisfied in such a position of affairs? but while the child is so very young nothing matters very much. And she is quite happy. I do think she is quite happy. And so well – this country suits them both perfectly. Though there is a good deal of rain, they are both out every day. And little Pippo thrives, as you see, like a flower."

"That is a very fantastic name to give the child."

"How critical you are, John! perhaps it is, but what does it matter at his age? any name does for a baby. Why, you yourself, as grave as you are now – "

"Don't, aunt," said John. "It is a grave matter enough as it appears to me."

"Not for the present; not for the present, John."

"Perhaps not for the present: if you prefer to put off all the difficulties till they grow up and crush you. Have there been any overtures, all this time, from – the other side?"

"Dear John, don't overwhelm me all in a moment, in the first pleasure of seeing you, both with the troubles that are behind and the troubles that are in front of us," the poor lady said.

CHAPTER XXXI

The weather was fine, which was by no means always a certainty at Waterdale, and Elinor had become a great pedestrian, and was ready to accompany John in his walks, which were long and varied. It was rather a curious test to which to subject himself after the long time he had been away, and the other tests through which he had gone. Never had he been so entirely the companion of Elinor, never before had they spent so many hours together without other society. At Windyhill, indeed, their interviews had been quite unrestrained, but then Elinor had many friends and interests in the parish and outside of it, visits to pay and duties to perform. Now she had her child, which occupied her mornings and evenings, but left her free for hours of rambling among the hills, for long walks, from which she came back blooming with the fresh air and breezes which had blown her about, ruffling her hair, and stirring up her spirits and thoughts. Sometimes when there has been heavy and premature suffering there occurs thus in the young another spring-time, an almost childhood of natural, it may be said superficial pleasure – the power of being amused, and of enjoying every simple satisfaction without any arrière pensée like a child. She had recovered her strength and vigour in the mountain air – and in that freedom of being unknown, with no look ever directed to her which reminded her of the past, no question which brought back her troubles, had blossomed out into that fine youthful maturity of twenty-six, which has already an advantage over the earlier girlhood, the perfection of the woman grown. Elinor had thought of many things and understood many things, which she had still regarded with the high assumptions of ignorance three or four years ago. And poor John, who had tried so hard to find himself a mate that suited him, who had studied so many girls more beautiful, more accomplished than Elinor, in the hope of goading himself, so to speak, into love, and had not succeeded – and who had felt so strongly that another man's wife must not occupy so much of his thoughts, nor another man's child give him an unwilling pleasure which was almost fatherly – poor John felt himself placed in a position more trying than any he had known before, more difficult to steer his way through. He had never had so much of her company, and she did not conceal the pleasure it was to her to have some one to walk with, to talk with, who understood what she said and what she did not say, and was in that unpurchasable sympathy with herself which is not to be got by beauty, or by will, or even by love itself, but comes by nature. Elinor felt this with simple pleasure. Without any complicating suspicion, she said, "What a brother John is! I always felt him so, but now more than ever." "You have been, so to speak, brought up together," said Mrs. Dennistoun, whose mind was by no means so easy on the subject. "That is the reason, I suppose," said Elinor, with happy looks.

But poor John said nothing of this kind. What he felt was that he might have spared himself the trouble of all those researches of his; that to roam about looking for a young lady whom he might – not devour, but learn to love, was pains as unnecessary as ever man took. He still hugged himself, however, over the thought that in no circumstances would he have been a marrying man; that if Elinor had been free he would have found plenty of reasons why they should remain on their present terms and go no farther. As it was clear that they must remain on their present terms, and could go no farther, it was certainly better that he should cherish that thought.

And curiously enough, though they heard so little from the outside world, they had heard just so much as this, that John's assiduities to the Miss Gaythornes (which the reader may remember was the first of all his attempts, and quite antiquated in his recollection) had occasioned remarks, and he had not been many evenings at Lakeside before he was questioned on the subject. Had it been true, or had he changed his mind or had the lady – ? It vexed him that there was not the least little opposition or despite in their tones, such as a man's female friends often show towards the objects of his admiration, not from any feeling on their own part, except that most natural one, which is surprised and almost hurt to find that, "having known me, he could decline" – a feeling which, in its original expression, was not a woman's sentiment, but a man's, and therefore is, I suppose, common to both sides. But the ladies at Lakeside did not even betray this feeling. They desired to know if there had been anything in it – with smiles, it is true; but Mrs. Dennistoun at the same time expressed her regret warmly.

"We were in great hopes something would come of it, John. Elinor has met the Gaythornes, and thought them very nice; and if there is a thing in the world that would give me pleasure, it would be to see you with a nice wife, John."

"I am sure I am much obliged to you, aunt; but there really was nothing in it. That is, I was seized with various impulses on the subject, and rather agreed with you: but I never mentioned the matter to any of the Miss Gaythornes. They are charming girls, and I don't suppose would have looked at me. At the same time, I did not feel it possible to imagine myself in love with any of them. That's quite a long time since," he added with a laugh.

"Then there have been others since then? Let us put him in the confessional, mother," cried Elinor with a laugh. "He ought not to have any secrets of that description from you and me."

"Oh, yes, there have been others since," said John. "To tell the truth, I have walked round a great many nice girls asking myself whether I shouldn't find it very delightful to have one of them belonging to me. I wasn't worthy the least attractive of them all, I quite knew; but still I am about the same as other men. However, as I've said, I never mentioned the matter to any of them."

"Never?" cried Mrs. Dennistoun, feeling a hesitation in his tone.

He laughed a little, shamefaced: "Well, if you like, I will say hardly ever," he said. "There was one that might, perhaps, have taken pity upon me – but fortunately an old lover of hers, who was much more enterprising, turned up before anything decisive had been said."

"Fortunately, John?"

"Well, yes, I thought so. You see I am not a marrying man. I tried to screw myself up to the point, but it was altogether, I am afraid, as a matter of principle. I thought it would be a good thing, perhaps, to have a wife."

"That was a very cold-blooded idea. No wonder you – it never came to anything. That is not the way to go about it," said Elinor with the ringing laugh of a child.

And yet her way of going about it had been far from a success. How curious that she did not remember that!

"Yes," he said, "I am quite aware that I did not go about it in the right way, but then that was the only way in which it presented itself to me; and when I had made up my mind at last that it was a failure, I confess it was with a certain sense of relief. I suppose I was born to live and die an old bachelor."

"Do not be so sure of that," said Elinor. "Some day or other, in the most unlooked-for moment, the fairy princess will bound upon the scene, and the old bachelor will be lost."

"We'll wait quite contentedly for that day – which I don't believe in," he said.

Mrs. Dennistoun did not take any part in the later portion of this discussion; her smile was feeble at the places where Elinor laughed. She said seriously after this fireside conference, when he got up to prepare for dinner, putting her hand tenderly on his shoulder, "I wish you had found some one you could have loved, John."

"So did I – for a time," he said, lightly. "But you see, it was not to be."

She shook her head, standing against the firelight in the dark room, so that he could not see her face. "I wish," she said, "I wish – that I saw you with a nice wife, John."