"You will come and see me, John?"
"Yes," he said, "and in the meantime I will take you down-stairs, let your companions think as they please."
It proved when he did so that John had to escort both ladies to the carriage, which it was not very easy to find, no other cavalier being at hand for the moment; and that Lady Mariamne invited him to accompany them to their next stage. "You know the Durfords, of course. You are going there? What luck for us, Nell! Jump in, Mr. Tatham, we will take you on."
"Unfortunately Lady Durford has not taken the trouble to invite me,"
said John.
"What does that matter? Jump in, all the same, she"ll be delighted to see you, and as for not asking you, when you are with me and Nell----"
But John turned a deaf ear to this siren"s song.
He went to Curzon Street a little while after to call, as he had been invited to do, and went late to avoid the bustle of the tea-table, and the usual rabble of that no longer intimate but wildly gregarious house.
And he was not without his reward. Perhaps a habit he had lately formed of pa.s.sing by Curzon Street in the late afternoon, when he was on his way to his club, after work was over, had something to do with his choice of this hour. He found Elinor, as he had hoped, alone. She was sitting so close to the window that her white dress mingled with the white curtains, so that he did not at first perceive her, and so much abstracted in her own thoughts that she did not pay any attention to the servant"s hurried murmur of his name at the door. When she felt rather than saw that there was some one in the room, Elinor jumped up with a shock of alarm that seemed unnecessary in her own drawing-room; then seeing who it was, was so much and so suddenly moved that she shed a few tears in some sudden revulsion of feeling as she said, "Oh, it is you, John!"
"Yes," he said, "but I am very sorry to see you so nervous."
"Oh, it"s nothing. I was always nervous"--which indeed was the purest invention, for Elinor Dennistoun had not known what nerves meant. "I mean I was always startled by any sudden entrance--in this way," she cried, and very gravely asked him to be seated, with a curious a.s.sumption of dignity. Her demeanour altogether was incomprehensible to John.
"I hope," he said, "you were not displeased with me, Elinor, for going off the other night. I should have been too happy, you know, to go with you anywhere; but Lady Mariamne is more than I can stand."
"I was very glad you did not come," she said with a sigh; then smiling faintly, "But you were ungrateful, for Mariamne formed a most favourable opinion of you. She said, "Why didn"t you tell me, Nell, you had a cousin so presentable as that?""
"I am deeply obliged, Elinor; but it seems that what was a compliment to me personally involved something the reverse for your other relations."
"It is one of their jokes," said Elinor, with a voice that faltered a little, "to represent my relations as--not in a complimentary way. I am supposed not to mind, and it"s all a joke, or so they tell me; but it is not a joke I like," she said, with a flash from her eyes.
"All families have jokes of that description," said John; "but tell me, Nelly, are you really going down to the cottage, to your mother?"
Her eyes thanked him with a gleam of pleasure for the old familiar name, and then the light went out of them. "I don"t know," she said, abruptly.
"Phil was to come; if he will not, I think I will not either. But I will say nothing till I make sure."
"Of course your first duty is to him," said John; "but a day now or a day then interferes with nothing, and the country would be good for you, Elinor. Doesn"t your husband see it? You are not looking like yourself."
"Not like myself? I might easily look better than myself. I wish I could. I am not so bigoted about myself."
"Your friends are, however," he said: "no one who cares for you wants to change you, even for another Elinor. Come, you are nervous altogether to-night, not like yourself, as I told you. You always so courageous and bright! This depressed state is not one of your moods. London is too much for you, my little Nelly."
"Your little Nellie has gone away somewhere John. I doubt if she"ll ever come back. Yes, London is rather too much for me, I think. It"s such a racket, as Phil says. But then he"s used to it, you know. He was brought up to it, whereas I--I think I hate a racket, John--and they all like it so. They prefer never having a moment to themselves. I daresay one would end by being just the same. It keeps you from thinking, that is one very good thing."
"You used not to think so, Elinor."
"No," she said, "not at the Cottage among the flowers, where nothing ever happened from one year"s end to another. I should die of it now in a week--at least if not I, those who belong to me. So on the whole perhaps London is the safest--unless Phil will go."
"I can only hope you will be able to persuade him," said John, rising to go away, "for whatever you may think, you are a country bird, and you want the fresh air."
"Are you going, John? Well, perhaps it is better. Good-by. Don"t trouble your mind about me whether I go or stay."
"Do you mean I am not to come again, Elinor?"
"Oh, why should I mean that?" she said. "You are so hard upon me in your thoughts;" but she did not say that he was wrong, and John went out from the door saying to himself that he would not go again. He saw through the open door of the dining-room that the table was prepared sumptuously for a dinner-party. It was shining with silver and crystal, the silver Mrs. Dennistoun"s old service, which she had brought up with her from Windyhill, and which as a matter of convenience she had left behind with her daughter. Would it ever, he wondered, see Windyhill again?
He went on to his club, and there some one began to amuse him with an account of Lady Durford"s ball, to which Lady Mariamne had wished to take him. "Are not those Comptons relations of yours, Tatham?" he said.
"Connections," said John, "by marriage."
"I"m very glad that"s all. They are a queer lot. Phil Compton you know--the dis-Honourable Phil, as he used to be called--but I hear he"s turned over a new leaf----"
"What of him?" said John.
"Oh, nothing much: only that he was flirting desperately all the evening with a Mrs. Harris, an American widow. I believe he came with her--and his own wife there--much younger, much prettier, a beautiful young creature--looking on with astonishment. You could see her eyes growing bigger and bigger. If it had not been kind of amusing to a looker-on, it would be the most pitiful sight in the world."
"I advise you not to let yourself be amused by such trifles," said John Tatham, with a look of fire and flame.
CHAPTER XXIII.
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. "I cannot leave Phil:" and then with a laugh that was full of a nervous thrill, "You are always thinking of my health, mamma, when my health is perfect: better, far better, than almost anybody"s. The most of them have headaches and that sort of thing, and they stay in bed for a day or two constantly, but I never need anything of the kind."
"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 what should you want with new under-things, with such a trousseau as you had?" she added, regretfully. Elinor in fact was quite taken from her mother for that hour. Was it not, perhaps, better so? Her mother herself was half inclined to think that it was, though with an ache in her heart, and there could be no doubt that Elinor herself was thankful that it so happened. When there are many questions on one side that must be asked, and very little answer possible on the other, is it a good thing when the foolish outside world breaks in with its _ba.n.a.l_ interest and prevents this dangerous interchange?
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, pa.s.sed 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 ap.r.o.ns 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 amus.e.m.e.nt, 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 even John Tatham--who was not in an ordinary way addicted to the _Morning Post_, being after his fashion a Liberal in politics and far from aristocratical in his sentiments generally--study that paper, and also other papers less worthy: and with, of course, many letters from Elinor, which gave more trustworthy accounts of her proceedings. These letters, however, were far less long, far less detailed, than they had once been; often written in a hurry, and short, containing notes of where she was going, and of a continual change of address, rather than of anything that could be called information about herself. John, I think, went only once to the Cottage during the interval which followed. He went abroad as usual in the Long Vacation, and then he had this on his mind--that he had half-surrept.i.tiously obtained a new light upon the position of Elinor, which he had every desire to keep from her mother; for Mrs. Dennistoun, though she felt that her child was not happy, attributed that to any reason rather than a failure in her husband"s love. Elinor"s hot rejection of the very idea of leaving Phil, her dislike of any suggestion to that effect, even for a week, even for a day, seemed to her mother a proof that her husband, at all events, remained as dear to her as ever; and John would rather have cut his tongue out than betray any chance rumour he heard--and he heard many--to this effect. He was of opinion, indeed, that in London, and especially at a London club, not only is everything known that is to be known, but much is known that has never existed, and never will exist if not blown into being by those whose office it is to invent the grief to come; therefore he thought it wisest to keep away, lest by any chance something might drop from him which would awaken a new crowd of disquietudes in Mrs. Dennistoun"s heart. Another incident, even more disquieting than gossip, had indeed occurred to John. It had happened to him to meet Lady Mariamne at a great _omnium gatherum_ of a country house, where all sorts of people were invited, and where that lady claimed his acquaintance as one of the least alarming of the grave "set." She not only claimed his acquaintance, but set up a sort of friendship on the ground of his relationship to Elinor, and in an unoccupied moment after dinner one day poured a great many confidences into his ear.
"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 Tatham"s way before, but he was too horribly, desperately interested to see the fun.