The Marriage of Elinor

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

"I never said I was."

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

"I should not like it, I suppose."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER VI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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