When Mr. Conway had been told of Nora’s intentions to her relations he
had expressed some disapprobation. He disliked and mistrusted the
Devereux family, and he thought a thousand a year a large sum to give
away without further inquiry. The only part of the plan of which he
approved was that part of which Mr. Fanshawe had been almost afraid to
tell him--the doing the thing in secret.
“Simon Devereux is a bad man,” he said, “a dangerous man. If he gets the
girl into his power it may cause her trouble. Keep her from him as far
as you can for the next two years at least. I suppose, however,” he
added, with a dry laugh, “a young lady who comes of age at sixteen will
not easily take the advice of guardians.”
Mr. Fanshawe, wishing to influence Nora, repeated Mr. Conway’s advice,
smilingly adding the last sentence, saying he might as well give the
whole.
To his surprise she then told him not only that she would take their
advice regarding the Devereux family, but that she had made up her mind
to ask them to resume their guardianship for two years, letting all
things go on quietly till these were over.
“If I am to have all this I must make myself fit,” she said; “I am more
ignorant than a child of four. I must learn.”
“And how?” he asked, amazed.
“It is all settled with Miss Willis,” she said, smiling.
Miss Willis was the name of the lady lately mentioned.
And so it was. She had consulted her, and by her advice had decided on
taking a house at Cheltenham, where she understood masters of all kinds
could be had; and thither she meant to go for two years, provided her
guardians acceded to her request.
Whether or not Nora made her plans in the best way for supplying the
deficiencies of her education, might be doubtful; but the intention did
her credit. This was one of the fruits of her newly-acquired humility.
Yet she did not entirely put dreams of the future aside.
On the evening before her final departure, she suddenly asked her
guardian whether she might make a slight change in her name; drop the y
and the emphasis, and become simply Smith.
“Most people make a change the other way,” he observed.
“I think,” she said, with vexation, “that it is a misfortune to have
been born with such a name as Annora Smythe. Nora Smith will pass much
more quietly through the world.”
“And do you wish to pass quietly through the world?”
“Yes. Once, perhaps, I did not. Now I do. I am beginning a new life, and
I would rather begin it as Miss Smith, who has offended no one.”
“I suppose, my dear child, you can do as you please; certainly, as far
as common life is concerned. I suppose I might spell my name Phanshawe,
if I chose; but I should be an ass to do it; and this one piece of
advice I give you; keep as far as you can from plots and alias’s.” He
looked keenly at her.
“I don’t mean to have alias’s,” she said, colouring. “You know I never
liked my name--my first name, and I have often wondered that my father
did not change the other. At the same time,” she added, truth compelling
her to speak, “I will own that I should be glad, if I did chance to meet
with my cousins, to begin without prejudice. They might like, before
they thought of hate.”
“I thought so, I thought so,” said Mr. Fanshawe, elated at having seen
through her. “Well, I don’t know what Mr. Conway would say, but I
suppose in this small matter you may please yourself. At your time of
life I might have felt as you do. Keep out of harm’s way, that’s all;
and God bless you!”
* * * * *
Nora and Miss Willis established themselves at Cheltenham. At the end of
a year they made a journey to Geneva. It was a painful visit. Monsieur
d’Alberg was not improved by his marriage, or by the prosperity of his
affairs. He found his wife a fool, and there was no domestic affection,
therefore, to soften him. In the second place, she had already presented
him with twin daughters, and he saw himself, in prospect, the father of
one of those “long English families,” as he called them. In the third
place, he did not wish for Nora to pass her remarks upon him, and he
received her coldly.
Nor did her mother, except in the first moment of excited delight, repay
her for his coldness. Tutored by her husband, she maintained a painful
reserve, and expressed but little of the affection she felt. Nora saw
that she loved her, but their meetings were dull and spiritless, and
after a few days she thought it best to depart.
She was pleased with her little sisters, and perhaps thought the more of
them because of the contempt with which Monsieur d’Alberg treated them.
On one occasion, when he was complaining of their birth in her presence,
Nora, with more warmth than judgment, said he need not fear that her
sisters should ever trouble him.
“Ah!” he replied, with a Frenchman’s shrug, “in a few years you will
have a long family of your own, and then where will the sisters be!”
Altogether the visit was a failure, and joyless and disappointed, Nora
returned to Cheltenham. She had not what Colonel Mannering called the
knack of running up intimacies; and even while longing for something to
love, remained solitary. For nearly a year longer she and Miss Willis
plodded on their way alone.
With a sigh of weariness and a smile of hope, she saw her eighteenth
birthday arrive, and then gave permission to her thoughts to settle in
the future. On the eve of her birthday she went to London, and was again
the guest of her guardian. The object of her journey was to consult with
him about her future residence. She wished to buy a property, and to
enter on the joys and cares of the management of an estate, “the more
unformed and the wilder the better.” These had been her words of
instruction by letter.
She found Mr. Fanshawe prepared for the consultation. He had heard of a
property likely to be for sale in the course of a few weeks or months.
The circumstances agreed with Nora’s wishes, and the purchase appeared
too advantageous a one to neglect. There were, however, disadvantages.
There was no house; the climate was cold, and though a part of the land
was of great value, a part was bleak and bare. He advised that she
should herself go down and pass a short time in the neighbourhood, see
with her eyes whether she liked the spot, and feel with her lungs
whether the air was salubrious.
Nora consented with delight. It was autumn, and in the neighbourhood of
this property was a kind of Spa, a place not of world-wide reputation,
but of resort to the northern county in which it stood. Thither, still
retaining her house at Cheltenham, she bent her steps for a few weeks.
She arrived there, she and Miss Willis, and the attendant of each, and
engaged a small lodging-house, detached, though it stood in a row. The
Spa was not generally visited by the great or gay of the world. It was a
quiet place, resorted to by the large families of business men, by
elderly ladies and small children. The scenery around was pretty, the
air was bracing, and the inhabitants of the large towns in the county
sometimes escaped for a week or two together to refresh themselves with
the pure cold air. There were a large number of visitors at the time of
Nora’s arrival, but they were quiet people, and she quietly mingled with
the throng. She caused no sensation. Some young girls said, “There is a
new face. She is lodging at No. 6. I wonder if the other is her
governess?” Some ladies'-maids also remarked the new ladies'-maids; but
when they heard that they served a Miss Smith and Miss Willis, they
felt little interest. The names were too common to cause excitement.
About half a mile from the Spa lived a Squire and his wife. The Squire
was past sixty, but his wife was not yet forty. He was a quaint,
old-fashioned individual. He hated the present generation, and would
probably have hated equally the last, and the one before that, and, in
fact, all generations, unless they had been formed of persons whose
tastes agreed with his own. His taste was to keep at home, and occupy
himself with his own concerns, his own farm, his own tenants, his own
books, and his own wife. Mrs. Elliott, his wife, was different. She was
gay in spirit, and younger than her age. Her sympathies were much with
the young generation, and she would have been glad to diversify her
life at home with occasional life abroad. She was, however, a sensible
woman, and much attached to her old man, as she called him; and after
one or two vain efforts to alter his taste, she conformed herself to it
with a good grace.
While so conforming herself, however, she endeavoured to mix with the
world by other ways, and besides alluring friends and relations to her
house, she tried to make new friends when and where she could. The
visitors to the Spa were scrutinized by her with a keen eye, and so soon
as she saw a face with promise in it, she set about an acquaintance. Her
position, which gave her the power of kindness and civility, made this
generally an easy task; and though the promise was often ill-fulfilled,
she had made a few acquaintances, who were added to the stock of real
friends. This success emboldened her to continue her scrutiny.
She saw Nora and Miss Willis at church, and, like the young girls,
observed, “There is a new face.” With more discernment she added, “There
is promise in it.” She made a few inquiries, and two days afterwards
presented herself at No. 6, Montpellier Row.
Nora was in her bonnet, awaiting a pony-phaeton, in which she was about
to proceed on a voyage of inspection and discovery. It was autumn, and
the afternoons were short, and her heart was in her drive. Her habits
were unused to, and indifferent to, society, and her visitor was
received with coldness and ill-disguised surprise.
Mrs. Elliott was too quick not to see, and though her visits were
usually received in a different spirit, she was too sensible not to
suppose it possible a person might find a visitor a nuisance. She still
saw promise in Nora’s face, and though she sensibly shortened her visit,
she proffered more than usual civilities. She not only begged her to
walk through her pleasure-grounds whenever she pleased, but expressed a
wish to show her her garden, if an autumn garden could interest her.
Little heeded Nora the polite speeches--she was only wishing her guest
away; and when the door closed, she said with an impatient sigh--
“She is gone at last. Now, Miss Willis, let us be off.”
“I am quite ready--but, dear Miss Smith,” with a little breathless gasp,
“excuse me if I say a word.”
Miss Willis was a very conscientious person. If such a thing is
possible, she was too conscientious. She was not satisfied to walk by
the broad foundations of right and wrong, but was always in nervous
dread of overlooking some duty at her feet.
With some weakness, however, in her disposition, it so happened that
this torturing scrupulosity was not unsuited to Nora. She had picked up
broad notions of right and wrong, but had had little help in applying
them to the trifles of daily life. She came to respect, even while she
smiled at Miss Willis; and never caught the sound of the little, timid,
breathless “Excuse me,” without bending her ears to hear. She knew she
had done something which Miss Willis’s acuter conscience condemned, and
which, though it was agony to her to speak, her inward monitor impelled
her to utter.
“What is it?” Nora said, pausing and smiling. “What have I done now?”
“Perhaps we had better go. I will speak as we drive along.” And having
seated herself by Nora’s side, she made a little breathless oration on
the duties of society, saying, Mrs. Elliott had meant to be kind, and it
was not right to repel kindly attention, &c.
“You mean to tell me that I was abominably rude,” was Nora’s
observation.
“No, you could not be rude. But you looked--you looked, in short, as if
you wished her away.”
“And so I did.”
“Excuse me, but if you went to a person, meaning to offer them a
civility, it would annoy you to be repelled.”
Nora made no answer. They had turned from the cultivated parts around
the Spa into a wide, bleak expanse, and her eyes wandered over it with
curiosity. But that last observation sank deep. It recurred to her
again and again. She was now planning out her future life, and the old
dream of being the bounteous lady of a realm was returning. Another
dream of certain cousins, of one cousin, was also flitting about her,
and she asked herself how she should feel if her bounties should all be
repelled.
“We will return Mrs. Elliott’s visit,” she said, smiling, the next
morning; “ought it to be to-day or to-morrow?”
The next day the visit to Thorneybank was paid.
Mrs. Elliott received them with more than graciousness. She showed them
her autumn roses, with all the other beauties of a carefully-cultivated
garden, and then walked part of the way homewards. When they parted she
invited them to dine with her on the next evening but one, which was a
Saturday. Nora was again taken by surprise, and, being wrapt in her own
plans and designs, was not desirous of society. She hesitated, and cast
about in her mind for a good excuse.
“I have not much to offer you,” Mrs. Elliott said, “a few friends and
acquaintances dine with us; but, as you may guess, my choice is not
great.”
“However small it may be it will be great to me,” Nora said simply. “I
have no acquaintance at all.”
“You have not had time to form acquaintance,” said her companion, with
civility, though, indeed, she did not guess that her quiet guest was
only eighteen. “But the time is now surely come, unless you mean to be a
hermit, and deprive the world of what would--excuse me--grace it.”
“Oh! no, I am no hermit. We will dine with you with great pleasure.”
And they parted.
“That is a piece of luck,” said Mrs. Elliott to herself as she walked
back to her house. “I shall now have a young lady for Henry.”
For Henry Devereux was to arrive at Thorneybank on the Saturday.