PATIENCE REWARDED.
Eleanor, like Patty, withstood the seductions of English life and
miscellaneous English admirers, and lived to be Miss Yelverton in her
turn, unappropriated and independent. And, like both her sisters,
though more by accident than of deliberate intention, she remained
true to her first love, and, after seeing the world and supping
full of pleasure and luxury, returned to Melbourne and married Mr.
Westmoreland. That is to say, Mr. Westmoreland followed her to England,
and followed her all over Europe--dogging her from place to place with
a steadfast persistence that certainly deserved reward--until the
major and Mrs. Duff-Scott, returning home almost immediately after
Patty's marriage and departure, brought their one ewe lamb, which the
Yelvertons had not the conscience to immediately deprive them of, back
to Australia with them; when her persevering suitor promptly took his
passage in the same ship. All this time Mr. Westmoreland had been
as much in love as his capacity for the tender passion--much larger
than was generally supposed--permitted. Whether it was that she was
the only woman who dared to bully him and trample on him, and thereby
won his admiration and respect--or whether his passion required that
the object of it should be difficult of attainment--or whether her
grace and beauty were literally irresistible to him--or whether he
was merely the sport of that unaccountable fate which seems to govern
or misgovern these affairs, it is not necessary to conjecture. No one
asks for reasons when a man or woman falls a victim to this sort of
infatuation. Some said it was because she had become rich and grand,
but that was not the case--except in so far as the change in her
social circumstances had made her tyrannical and impudent, in which
sense wealth and consequence had certainly enhanced her attractions in
his eyes. Thirty thousand pounds, though a very respectable marriage
portion in England, is not sufficient to make a fortune-hunter of an
Australian suitor in his position; and let me do the Australian suitor
of all ranks justice and here state that fortune hunting, through the
medium of matrimony, is a weakness that his worst enemy cannot accuse
him of--whatever his other faults may be. Mr. Westmoreland, being fond
of money, as a constitutional and hereditary peculiarity--if you
can call that a peculiarity--was tempted to marry it once, when that
stout and swarthy person in the satin gown and diamonds exercised her
fascinations on him at the club ball, and he could have married it at
any time of his bachelor life, the above possessor of it being, like
Barkis, "willin'", and even more than "willin'". Her fortune was such
that Eleanor's thirty thousand was but a drop in the bucket compared
with it, and yet even he did not value it in comparison with the favour
of that capricious young lady. So he followed her about from day to
day and from place to place, as if he had no other aim in life than
to keep her within sight, making himself an insufferable nuisance to
her friends very often, but apparently not offending her by his open
and inveterate pursuit. She was not kind, but she was not cruel, and
yet she was both in turn to a distracting degree. She made his life
an ecstasy of miserable longing for her, keeping him by her side like
a big dog on a chain, and feeding him with stones (in the prettiest
manner) when he asked for bread. But she grew very partial to her
big dog in the process of tormenting him and witnessing his touching
patience under it. She was "used to him," she said; and when, from
some untoward circumstance over which he had no control, he was for a
little while absent from her, she felt the gap he left. She sensibly
missed him. Moreover, though she trampled on him herself, it hurt her
to see others do it; and when Mrs. Duff-Scott and Kingscote Yelverton
respectively aired their opinions of his character and conduct, she
instantly went over to his side, and protested in her heart, if not in
words, against the injustice and opprobrium that he incurred for her
sake. So, when Elizabeth became the much-occupied mother of a family,
and when Patty was married and gone off into the world with her Paul,
Eleanor, left alone in her independence, began to reckon up what it was
worth. The spectacle of her sisters' wedded lives gave her pleasant
notions of matrimony, and the state of single blessedness, as such,
never had any particular charms for her. Was it worth while, she asked
herself, to be cruel any more?--and might she not just as well have a
house and home of her own as Elizabeth and Patty? Her lover was only
a big dog upon a chain, but then why shouldn't he be? Husbands were
not required to be all of the same pattern. She didn't want to be
domineered over. And she didn't see anybody she liked better. She might
go farther and fare worse. And--she was getting older every day.
Mrs. Duff-Scott broke in upon these meditations with the demand that
she (Eleanor) should return with her to Melbourne, if only for a year
or two, so that she should not be entirely bereft and desolate.
"I must start at once," said the energetic woman, suddenly seized with
a paroxysm of home sickness and a sense of the necessity to be doing
something now that at Yelverton there seemed nothing more to do, and in
order to shake off the depressing effect of the first break in their
little circle. "I have been away too long--it is time to be looking
after my own business. Besides, I can't allow Patty to remain in that
young man's lodgings--full of dusty papers and tobacco smoke, and
where, I daresay, she hasn't so much as a peg to hang her dresses on.
She must get a house at once, and I must be there to see about it, and
to help her to choose the furniture. Elizabeth, my darling, you have
your husband and child--I am leaving you happy and comfortable--and
I will come and see you again in a year or two, or perhaps you and
Kingscote will take a trip over yourselves and spend a winter with us.
But I must go now. And do, do--oh, _do_ let me keep Nelly for a little
while longer! You know I will take care of her, and I couldn't bear the
sight of my house with none of you in it!"
So she went, and of course she took Eleanor, who secretly longed for
the land of sunshine after her full dose of "that horrid English
climate," and who, with a sister at either end of the world, perhaps
missed Patty, who had been her companion by night as well as by day,
more than she would miss Elizabeth. The girl was very ready to go. She
wept bitterly when the actual parting came, but she got over it in a
way that gave great satisfaction to Mrs. Duff-Scott and the major, and
relieved them of all fear that they had been selfish about bringing
her away. They joined the mail steamer at Venice, and there found Mr.
Westmoreland on board. He had been summoned by his agent at home he
explained; one of his partners wanted to retire, and he had to be there
to sign papers. And since it had so happened that he was obliged to
go back by this particular boat, he hoped the ladies would make him
useful, and let him look after their luggage and things. Eleanor was
properly and conventionally astonished by the curious coincidence,
but had known that it would happen just as well as he. The chaperon,
for her part, was indignant and annoyed by it--for a little while;
afterwards she, too, reflected that Eleanor had spent two unproductive
years in England and was growing older every day. Also that she might
certainly go farther and fare worse. So Mr. Westmoreland was accepted
as a member of the travelling party. All the heavy duties of escort
were relegated to him by the major, and Mrs. Duff-Scott sent him hither
and thither in a way that he had never been accustomed to. But he was
meek and biddable in these days, and did not mind what uses he put
his noble self to for his lady's sake. And she was very gracious. The
conditions of ship life, at once so favourable and so very unfavourable
for the growth of tender relations, suited his requirements in every
way. She could not snub him under the ever-watchful eyes of their
fellow-passengers. She could not send him away from her. She was even a
little tempted, by that ingrained vanity of the female heart, to make a
display before the other and less favoured ladies of the subject-like
homage which she, queen-like, received. Altogether, things went on
in a very promising manner. So that when, no farther than the Red
Sea--while life seemed, as it does in that charming locality, reduced
to its simple elements, and the pleasure of having a man to fan her was
a comparatively strong sensation--when at this propitious juncture,
Mr. Westmoreland bewailed his hard fate for the thousandth time, and
wondered whether he should ever have the good fortune to find a little
favour in her sight, it seemed to her that this sort of thing had gone
on long enough, and that she might as well pacify him and have done
with it. So she said, looking at him languidly with her sentimental
blue eyes--"Well, if you'll promise not to bother me any more, I'll
think about it."
He promised faithfully not to bother her any more, and he did not. But
he asked her presently, after fanning her in silence for some minutes,
what colour she would like her carriage painted, and she answered
promptly, "Dark green."
While they were yet upon the sea, a letter--three letters, in
fact--were despatched to Yelverton, to ask the consent of the head of
the family to the newly-formed engagement, and not long after the party
arrived in Melbourne the desired permission was received, Mr. and Mrs.
Yelverton having learned the futility of opposition in these matters,
and having no serious objection to Nelly's choice. And then again Mrs.
Duff-Scott plunged into the delight of preparation for trousseau and
wedding festivities--quite willing that the "poor dear fellow," as
she now called him (having taken him to her capacious heart), should
receive the reward of his devotion without unnecessary delay. The house
was already there, a spick and span family mansion in Toorak, built
by Mr. Westmoreland's father, and inherited by himself ere the first
gloss was off the furniture; there was nothing to do to that but to
arrange the chairs and sofas, and scatter Eleanor's wedding presents
over the tables. There was nothing more _possible_. It was "hopeless,"
Mrs. Duff-Scott said, surveying the bright and shining rooms through
her double eye-glass. Unless it were entirely cleared out, and you
started afresh from the beginning, she would defy you to make anything
of it. So, as the bridegroom was particularly proud of his furniture,
which was both new and costly, and would have scouted with indignation
any suggestion of replacing it, Mrs. Duff-Scott abandoned Eleanor
æsthetically to her fate. There was nothing to wait for, so the pair
were made one with great pomp and ceremony not long after their return
to Australia. Eleanor had the grandest wedding of them all, and really
did wear "woven dew" on the occasion--with any quantity of lace about
it of extravagant delicacy and preciousness. And now she has settled
herself in her great, gay-coloured, handsome house, and is already
a very fashionable and much-admired and much-sought-after lady--so
overwhelmed with her social engagements and responsibilities sometimes
that she says she doesn't know what she should do if she hadn't Patty's
quiet little house to slip into now and then. But she enjoys it. And
she enjoys leading her infatuated husband about with her, like a tame
bear on a string, to show people how very, very infatuated he is. It is
her idea of married happiness--at present.