The Rector, who was following slowly, for he did not like to go up-stairs in a hurry, saw this att.i.tude and drew back, a little scandalized.
"Perhaps we were indiscreet to--to follow them too closely," he said, disconcerted. "Please to go in first, Mrs. Dennistoun--the young couple will not mind you."
Mr. Hudson was prim; but he was rather pleased to see that "the young couple" were, as he said, so fond of each other. He went into the room under the protection of the mother--blushing a little. It reminded him, as he said afterwards, of his own young days; but it was only natural that he should walk up direct to the place where his kettle stood conspicuous, waiting only the spark of a match to begin to boil the water for the first conjugal tea. It appeared to him a beautiful idea as he put his head on one side and looked at it. It was like the inauguration of the true British fireside, the cosy privacy in which, after the man had done his work, the lady awaited him at home, with the tea-kettle steaming. A generation before Mr. Hudson there would have been a pair of slippers airing beside the fire. But neither of these preparations supply the ideal of perfect happiness now.
"I say, where did you get these hideous things?" said Compton, approaching the table on which "the silver" was laid out. By a special dispensation it was Lady Mariamne"s dishes which caught Phil"s attention. "Some old grandmother, I suppose, that had "em in the house.
Hallo! if it isn"t the Jew! Nell, you don"t mean to tell me you got these horrors from the Jew?"
"They are supposed to be--quite handsome," said Elinor, with a suppressed laugh. "We must not criticise. It is very kind of people to send presents at all. We all know it is a very severe tax--to those who have a great many friends----"
"The stingy old miser," said Compton. "Rolling in money, and to send you these! By Jove! there"s a neat little thing now that looks what it is; probably one of your nice country friends, Nell----" (It was the kettle, as a kind Providence decreed; and both the ladies breathed an internal thanksgiving.) "Shows like a little gem beside that old, thundering, mean-spirited Jew!"
"That," said the Rector, bridling a little and pink with pleasure, "is our little offering: and I"m delighted to think that it should please so good a judge. It was chosen with great care. I saw it first myself, and the idea flashed upon me--quite an inspiration--that it was the very thing for Elinor; and when I went home I told my wife--the very thing--for her boudoir, should she not be seeing company--or just for your little teas when you are by yourselves. I could at once imagine the dear girl looking so pretty in one of those wonderful white garments that are in the next room."
"Hallo!" said Compton, with a laugh, "do you show off your things in this abandoned way, Nell, to the killingest old cov----"
She put her hand up to his mouth with a cry of dismay and laughter, but the Rector, with a smile and another little blush, discreetly turned his back. He was truly glad to see that they were so fond of each other, and thought it was pretty and innocent that they should not mind showing it--but it was a little embarra.s.sing for an old and prim clergyman to look on.
"What a pleasure it must be to you, my dear lady," he said when the young couple had gone: which took place very soon, for Phil soon grew tired of the presents, and he was ill at ease when there was no window from which he could watch the road--"what a pleasure to see them so much attached! Of course, family advantage and position is always of importance--but when you get devoted affection, too----"
"I hope there is devoted affection," said Mrs. Dennistoun; "at all events, there is what we are all united in calling "love," for the present. He is in love with Elinor--I don"t think there can be much doubt of that."
"I did not of course know that he was here," said the Rector, with some hesitation. "I came with the intention of speaking--I am very sorry to see in the papers to-day something about that Joint-Stock Company of which Mr. Compton was a director. It"s rather a mysterious paragraph: but it"s something about the manager having absconded, and that some of the directors are said to be involved."
"Do you mean my future son-in-law?" she said, turning quickly upon him.
"Good heavens, no! I wouldn"t for the world insinuate---- It was only that one felt a desire to know. Just upon the eve of a marriage it"s--it"s alarming to hear of a business the bridegroom is involved in being--what you may call broken up."
"That was one of the things Mr. Compton came to tell us about," said Mrs. Dennistoun. "He said he hoped it might be kept out of the papers, but that some of the books have got lost or destroyed. I am afraid I know very little about business. But he has lost very little--nothing to speak of--which was all that concerned me."
"To be sure," said the Rector, but in a tone not so a.s.sured as his words. "It is not perhaps quite a nice thing to be director of a company that--that collapses in this way. I fear some poor people will lose their money. I fear there will be things in the papers."
"On what ground?" she said. "Oh, I don"t deny there may be some one to blame; but Mr. Compton was, I suspect, only on the board for the sake of his name. He is not a business man. He did it, as so many do, for the sake of a pretence of being in something. And then, I believe, the directors got a little by it; they had a few hundreds a year."
"To be sure," said Mr. Hudson, but still doubtfully; and then he brightened up. "For my part, I don"t believe there is a word of truth in it. Since I have seen him, indeed, I have quite changed my opinion--a fine figure of a man, looking an aristocrat every inch of him. Such a contrast and complement to our dear Elinor--and so fond of her. A man like that would never have a hand in any sham concern. If it was really a bogus company, as people say, he must be one of the sufferers. That is quite my decided opinion; only the ladies, you know--the ladies who have not seen him, and who are so much more suspicious by nature (I don"t know that you are, my dear Mrs. Dennistoun), would give me no rest. They thought it was my duty to interfere. But I am sure they are quite wrong."
To think that it was the ladies of the Rector"s family who were interfering made Mrs. Dennistoun very wroth. "Next time they have anything to say, you should make them come themselves," she said.
"Oh, they would not do that. They say it is the clergyman"s business, not theirs. Besides, you know, I have not time to read all the papers.
We get the _Times_, and Mary Dale has the _Morning Post_, and another thing that is all about stocks and shares. She has such a head for business--far more than I can pretend to. She thought----"
"Mr. Hudson, I fear I do not wish to know what was thought by Miss Dale."
"Well, you are, perhaps, right, Mrs. Dennistoun. She is only a woman, of course, and she may make mistakes. It is astonishing, though, how often she is right. She has a head for business that might do for a Chancellor of the Exchequer. She made me sell out my shares in that Red Gulch--those American investments have most horrible names--just a week before the smash came, all from what she had read in the papers. She knows how to put things together, you see. So I have reason to be grateful to her, for my part."
"And what persuaded you, here at Windyhill, a quiet clergyman, to put money in any Red Gulch? It is a horrible name!"
"Oh, it was Mary, I suppose," said Mr. Hudson. "She is always looking out for new investments. She said we should all make our fortunes. We did not, unfortunately. But she is so clever, she got us out of it with only a very small loss indeed."
"No doubt she is very clever. I wish, though, that she would let us know definitely on what ground----"
"Oh, there is no ground," cried the Rector. "Now that I have seen Mr.
Compton I am certain of it. I said to her before I left the Rectory, "Now, my dear Mary, I am going like a lamb to the slaughter. I have no reason to give if Mrs. Dennistoun should ask me, and you have no reason to give. And she will probably put me to the door." If I said that before I started, you may fancy how much more I feel it now, when I have made Mr. Compton"s acquaintance. A fine aristocratic face, and all the ease of high breeding. There are only three lives--and those not very good ones--between him and the t.i.tle, I believe?"
"Two robust brothers, and an invalid who will probably outlive them all; that is, I believe, the state of the case."
"Dear me, what a pity!" said the Rector, "for our little Elinor would have made a sweet little Countess. She would grow a n.o.ble lady, like the one in Mr. Tennyson"s poem. Well, now I must be going, and I am extremely glad to have been so lucky as to come in just in time. It has been the greatest pleasure to me to see them together--such a loving couple. Dear me, like what one reads about, or remembers in old days, not like the commonplace pairs one has to do with now."
Mrs. Dennistoun accompanied the Rector to the garden gate. She was half inclined to laugh and half to be angry, and in neither mood did Mr.
Hudson"s insinuations which he made so innocently have much effect upon her mind. But when she took leave of him at the gate and came slowly back among her brilliant flower-beds, pausing here and there mechanically to pick off a withered leaf or prop up the too heavy head of a late rose; her mind began to take another turn. She had always been conscious of an instinctive suspicion in respect to her daughter"s lover. Probably only, she said to herself, because he was her daughter"s lover, and she was jealous of the new devotion that withdrew from her so completely the young creature who had been so fully her own. That is a hard trial for a woman to undergo. It is only to be borne when she, too, is fascinated by her future son-in-law, as happens in some fortunate cases. Otherwise, a woman with an only child is an alarming critic to encounter. She was not fascinated at all by Phil. She was disappointed in Elinor, and almost thought her child not so perfect as she had believed, when it proved that she could be fascinated by this man. She disliked almost everything about him--his looks, the very air which the Rector thought so aristocratic, his fondness for Elinor, which was not reverential enough to please the mother, and his indifference, nay, contempt, for herself, which was not calculated to please any woman. She had been roused into defence of him in anger at the interference, and at the insinuation which had no proof; but as that anger died away, other thoughts came into her mind. She began to put the broken facts together which already had roused her to suspicion: his sudden arrival, so unexpected; walking from the station--a long, very long walk--carrying his own bag, which was a thing John Tatham did, but not like Phil Compton. And then she remembered, suddenly, his anxiety about the carriage on the distant road, his care to place himself where he could see it. She had thought with a little scorn that this was a proof of his frivolity, of the necessity of seeing people, whoever these people might be. But now there began to be in it something that could have a deeper meaning. For whom was he looking? Who might be coming? Stories she had heard of fugitives from justice, of swindlers taking refuge in the innocence of their families, came up into her mind. Could it be possible that Elinor"s pure name could be entangled in such a guilty web as this?
CHAPTER XI.
"Funny old p.o.o.p!" said Compton. "And that is your Rector, Nell. I shall tell d.i.c.k there"s rare fun to be had in that house: but not for me. I know what I shall be thinking of all the time I"m there. Odious little Nell! to interfere like this with a fellow"s fun. But I say, who"s that woman who knows me or my family?--much good may it do her, as I said before. Tell me, Nell, did she speak ill of me?"
"Oh, Phil, how could you ask? or what would it matter if she spoke ever so ill?"
"She did then," he said with a graver face. "Somebody was bound to do it. And what did she say?"
"Oh, what does it matter, Phil? I don"t remember; nothing of any consequence. We paid no attention, of course, neither mamma nor I."
"That was plucky of the old girl," said Compton. "I didn"t suppose you would give ear, my Nell. Ain"t so sure about her. If I"d been your father, my pet, I should never have given you to Phil Compton. And that"s the fact: I wonder if the old lady would like to reconsider the situation now."
"Phil!" said Elinor, clinging to his arm.
"Perhaps it would be best for you if you were to do so, Nell, or if she were to insist upon it. Eh! You don"t know me, my darling, that"s the fact. You"re too good to understand us. We"re all the same, from the old governor downwards--a bad lot. I feel a kind of remorseful over you, child, to-day. That rosy old bloke, though he"s a sn.o.b, makes a man think of innocence somehow. I do believe you oughtn"t to marry me, Nell."
"Oh, Phil! what do you mean? You cannot mean what you say."
"I suppose I don"t, or I shouldn"t say it, Nell. I shouldn"t certainly, if I thought you were likely to take my advice. It"s a kind of luxury to tell you we"re a bad lot, and bid you throw me over, when I know all along you won"t."
"I should think not indeed," she said, clinging to him and looking up in his face. "Do you know what my cous--I mean a friend, said to me on that subject?"
"You mean your cousin John, whom you are always quoting. Let"s hear what the fellow said."
"He said--that I wasn"t a girl to put up with much, Phil. That I wasn"t one of the patient kind, that I would not bear---- I don"t know what it was I would not bear; but you see you must consider my defects, which you can understand well enough, whether I can understand yours or not."
"That you could not put up with--that you could not bear? that meant me, Nell. He had been talking to you on the same subject, me and my faults.
Why didn"t you listen to him? I suppose he wanted you to have him instead of me."
"Phil! how dare you even think of such a thing? It is not true."
"Wasn"t it? Then he is a greater fool than I took him for, and his opinion"s no good. So you"re a spitfire, are you? Can"t put up with anything that doesn"t suit you? I don"t know that I should have found that out."
"I am afraid though that it is true," she said, half-laughingly looking up at him. "Perhaps you will want to reconsider too."