It was a blustering afternoon when John, with his bag in his hand, set
out from the station at Hurrymere for Mrs. Dennistoun’s cottage. Why
that station should have had “mere” in its name I have never been able
to divine, for there is no water to be seen for miles, scarcely so much
as a duckpond: but, perhaps, there are two meanings to the words. It was
a steep walk up a succession of slopes, and the name of the one upon
which the cottage stood was Windyhill, not an encouraging title on such
a day, but true enough to the character of the place. The cottage lay,
however, at the head of a combe or shelving irregular valley, just
sheltered from the winds on a little platform of its own, and commanding
a view which was delightful in its long sweeping distance, and varied
enough to be called picturesque, especially by those who were familiar
with nothing higher than the swelling slopes of the Surrey hills. It was
wild, little cultivated, save in the emerald green of the bottom, a few
fields which lay where a stream ought to have been. Nowadays there are
red-roofed houses peeping out at every corner, but at that period
fashion had not even heard of Hurrymere, and, save for a farmhouse or
two, a village alehouse and posting-house at a corner of the high-road,
and one or two great houses within the circuit of six or seven miles,
retired within their trees and parks, there were few habitations. Mrs.
Dennistoun’s cottage was red-roofed like the rest, but much subdued by
lichens, and its walls were covered by climbing plants, so that it
struck no bold note upon the wild landscape, yet was visible afar off in
glimpses, from the much-winding road, for a mile or two before it could
be come at. There was, indeed, a nearer way, necessitating a sharp
scramble, but when John came just in sight of the house his heart failed
him a little, and, notwithstanding that his bag had come to feel very
heavy by this time, he deliberately chose the longer round to gain a
little time--as we all do sometimes, when we are most anxious to be at
our journey’s end, and hear what has to be told us. It looked very
peaceful seated in that fold of the hill, no tossing of trees about it,
though a little higher up the slim oaks and beeches of the copse were
flinging themselves about against the grey sky in a kind of agonised
appeal. John liked the sound of the wind sweeping over the hills,
rending the trees, and filling the horizon as with a crowd of shadows in
pain, twisting and bending with every fresh sweep of the breeze.
Sometimes such sounds and sights give a relief to the mind. He liked it
better than if all had been undisturbed, lying in afternoon quiet as
might have been expected at the crown of the year--but the winds had
always to be taken into account at Windyhill.
When he came in sight of the gate, John was aware of some one waiting
for him, walking up and down the sandy road into which it opened. Her
face was turned the other way, and she evidently looked for him by way
of the combe, the scrambling steep road which he had avoided in despite:
for why should he scramble and make himself hot in order to hear ten
minutes sooner what he did not wish to hear at all? She turned round
suddenly as he knocked his foot against a stone upon the rough, but
otherwise noiseless road, presenting a countenance flushed with sudden
relief and pleasure to John’s remorseful eye. “Oh, there you are!” she
said; “I am so glad. I thought you could not be coming. You might have
been here a quarter of an hour ago by the short road.”
“I did not think there was any hurry,” said John, ungraciously. “The
wind is enough to carry one off one’s feet; though, to be sure, it’s
quiet enough here.”
“It’s always quiet here,” she said, reading his face with her eyes after
the manner of women, and wondering what the harassed look meant that was
so unusual in John’s cheerful face. She jumped at the idea that he was
tired, that his bag was heavy, that he had been beaten about by the wind
till he had lost his temper, always a possible thing to happen to a man.
Elinor flung herself upon the bag and tried to take possession of it.
“Why didn’t you get a boy at the station to carry it? Let me carry it,”
she said.
“That is so likely,” said John, with a hard laugh, shifting it to his
other hand.
Elinor caught his arm with both her hands, and looked up with wistful
eyes into his face. “Oh, John, you are angry,” she said.
“Nonsense. I am tired, buffeting about with this wind.” Here the
gardener and man-of-all-work about the cottage came up and took the bag,
which John parted with with angry reluctance, as if it had been a sort
of weapon of offence. After it was gone there was nothing for it but to
walk quietly to the house through the flowers with that girl hanging on
his arm, begging a hundred pardons with her eyes. The folly of it! as if
she had not a right to do as she pleased, or he would try to prevent
her; but finally, the soft, silent apology of that clinging, and the
look full of petitions touched his surly heart. “Well--Nelly,” he said,
with involuntary softening.
“Oh, if you call me that I am not afraid!” she cried, with an instant
upleaping of pleasure and confidence in her changeable face, which (John
tried to say to himself) was not really pretty at all, only so full of
expression, changing with every breath of feeling. The eyes, which had
only been brown a moment before, leaped up into globes of light, yet not
too dazzling, with some liquid medium to soften their shining. Even
though you know that a girl is in love with another man, that she
thinks of you no more than of the old gardener who has just hobbled
round the corner, it is pleasant to be able to change the whole aspect
of affairs to her and make her light up like that, solely by a little
unwilling softening of your gruff and surly tone.
“You know, John,” she said, holding his arm tight with her two hands,
“that nobody ever calls me Nelly--except you.”
“Possibly I shall call you Nelly no longer. Why? Why, because that
fellow will object.”
“That fellow! Oh, _he_!” Elinor’s face grew very red all over, from the
chin, which almost touched John’s arm, to the forehead, bent back a
little over those eyes suffused with light which were intent upon all
the changes of John’s face. This one was, like the landscape, swept by
all the vicissitudes of sun and shade. It was radiant now with the
unexpected splendour of the sudden gleam.
“Oh, John, John, I have so much to say to you! He will object to
nothing. He knows very well you are like my brother--almost more than my
brother--for you could help it, John. You almost chose me for your
friend, which a brother would not. He says, ‘Get him to be our friend
and all will be well!’”
_He_ had not said this, but Elinor had said it to him, and he had
assented, which was almost the same--in the way of reckoning of a girl,
at least.
“He is very kind, I am sure,” said John, gulping down something which
had almost made him throw off Elinor’s arm, and fling away from her in
indignation. Her brother----!! But there was no use making any row, he
said to himself. If anything were to be done for her he must put up with
all that. There had suddenly come upon John, he knew not how, as he
scanned her anxious face, a conviction that the man was a scamp, from
whom at all hazards she should be free.
Said Elinor, unsuspecting, “That is just what he is, John! I knew you
would divine his character at once. You can’t think how kind he is--kind
to everybody. He never judges anyone, or throws a stone, or makes an
insinuation.” (“Probably because he knows he cannot bear investigation
himself,” John said, in his heart.) “That was the thing that took my
heart first. Everybody is so censorious--always something to say against
their neighbours; he, never a word.”
“That’s a very good quality,” said John, reluctantly, “if it doesn’t
mean confounding good with bad, and thinking nothing matters.”
Elinor gave him a grieved, reproachful look, and loosened the clasping
of her hands. “It is not like you to imagine that, John!”
“Well, what is a man to say? Don’t you see, if you do nothing but blow
his trumpet, the only thing left for me to do is to insinuate something
against him? I don’t know the man from Adam. He may be an angel, for
anything I can say.”
“No; I do not pretend he is that,” said Elinor, with impartiality. “He
has his faults, like others, but they are _nice_ faults. He doesn’t
know how to take care of his money (but he hasn’t got very much, which
makes it the less matter), and he is sometimes taken in about his
friends. Anybody almost that appeals to his kindness is treated like a
friend, which makes precise people think---- but, of course, I don’t
share that opinion in the very least.”
(“A very wasteful beggar, with a disreputable set,” was John’s practical
comment within himself upon this speech.)
“And he doesn’t know how to curry favour with people who can help him
on; so that though he has been for years promised something, it never
turns up. Oh, I know his faults very well indeed,” said Elinor; “but a
woman can do so much to make up for faults like that. We’re naturally
saving, you know, and we always keep those unnecessary friends that were
made before our time at a distance; and it’s part of our nature to coax
a patron--that is what Mariamne says.”
“Mariamne?” said John.
“His sister, who first introduced him to me; and I am very fond of her,
so you need not say anything against her, John. I know she
is--fashionable, but that’s no harm.”
“Mariamne,” he repeated; “it is a very uncommon name. You don’t mean
Lady Mariamne Prestwich, do you? and not--not---- Elinor! not Phil
Compton, for goodness’ sake? Don’t tell me he’s the man?”
Elinor’s hands dropped from his arm. She drew herself up until she
seemed to tower over him. “And why should I say it is not Mr. Compton,”
she asked, with a scarlet flush of anger, so different from that rosy
red of love and happiness, covering her face.
“Phil Compton! the _dis_-Honourable Phil! Why, Elinor! you cannot mean
it! you must not mean it!” he cried.
Elinor said not a word. She turned from him with a look of pathetic
reproach but with the air of a queen, and walked into the house, he
following in a ferment of wrath and trouble, yet humbled and miserable
more than words could say. Oh, the flowery, peaceful house! jasmine and
rose overleaping each other upon the porch, honeysuckle scenting the
air, all manner of feminine contrivances to continue the greenness and
the sweetness into the little bright hall, into the open drawing-room,
where flowers stood on every table amid the hundred pretty trifles of a
woman’s house. There was no one in this room where she led him, and then
turned round confronting him, taller than he had ever seen her before,
pale, with her nostrils dilating and her lips trembling. “I never
thought it possible that you of all people in the world, you, John--my
stand-by since ever I was a baby--my---- Oh! what a horrid thing it is
to be a woman,” cried Elinor, stamping her foot, “to be ready to cry for
everything!--you, John! that I always put my trust in--that you should
turn against me--and at the very first word!”
“Elinor,” he said, “my dear girl! not against you, not against you, for
all the world!”
“And what is _me_?” she said, with that sudden turning of the tables and
high scorn of her previous argument which is common with women; “do I
care what you do to _me_? Oh, nothing, nothing! I am of no account, you
can trample me down under your feet if you like. But what I will not
bear,” she said, clenching her hands, “is injustice to him: that I will
not bear, neither from you, Cousin John, who are only my distant cousin,
after all, and have no right to thrust your advice upon me--or from any
one in the world.”
“What you say is quite true, Elinor, I am only a distant cousin--after
all: but----”
“Oh, no, no,” she cried, flying to him, seizing once more his arm with
her clinging hands, “I did not mean that--you know I did not mean that,
my more than brother, my good, good John, whom I have trusted all my
life!”
And then the poor girl broke out into passionate weeping with her head
upon his shoulder, as she might have leant upon the handy trunk of a
tree, or on the nearest door or window, as John Tatham said in his
heart. He soothed her as best he could, and put her in a chair and stood
with his hand upon the back of it, looking down upon her as the fit of
crying wore itself out. Poor little girl! he had seen her cry often
enough before. A girl cries for anything, for a thorn in her finger, for
a twist of her foot. He had seen her cry and laugh, and dash the tears
out of her eyes on such occasions, oh! often and often: there was that
time when he rushed out of the bushes unexpectedly and frightened her
pony, and she fell among the grass and vowed, sobbing and laughing, it
was her fault! and once when she was a little tot, not old enough for
boy’s play, when she fell upon her little nose and cut it and disfigured
herself, and held up that wounded little knob of a feature to have it
kissed and made well. Oh, why did he think of that now! the little thing
all trust and simple confidence! There was that time too when she jumped
up to get a gun and shoot the tramps who had hurt somebody, if John
would but give her his hand! These things came rushing into his mind as
he stood watching Elinor cry, with his hand upon the back of her chair.
She wanted John’s hand now when she was going forth to far greater
dangers. Oh, poor little Nelly! poor little thing! but he could not put
her on his shoulder and carry her out to face the foe now.
She jumped up suddenly while he was thinking, with the tears still wet
upon her cheeks, but the paroxysm mastered, and the light of her eyes
coming out doubly bright like the sun from the clouds. “We poor women,”
she said with a laugh, “are so badly off, we are so handicapped, as you
call it! We can’t help crying like fools! We can’t help caring for what
other people think, trying to conciliate and bring them round to approve
us--when we ought to stand by our own conscience and judgment, and
sense of what is right, like independent beings.”
“If that means taking your own way, Elinor, whatever any one may say to
you, I think women do it at least as much as men.”
“No, it does not mean taking our own way,” she cried, “and if you do not
understand any better than that, why should I---- But you do understand
better, John,” she said, her countenance again softening: “you know I
want, above everything in the world, that you should approve of me and
see that I am right. That is what I want! I will do what I think right;
but, oh, if I could only have you with me in doing it, and know that you
saw with me that it was the best, the only thing to do! Happiness lies
in that, not in having one’s own way.”
“My dear Elinor,” he said, “isn’t that asking a great deal? To prevent
you from doing what you think right is in nobody’s power. You are of
age, and I am sure my aunt will force nothing; but how can we change our
opinions, our convictions, our entire points of view? There is nobody in
the world I would do so much for as you, Elinor: but I cannot do that,
even for you.”
The hot tears were dried from her cheeks, the passion was over. She
looked at him, her efforts to gain him at an end, on the equal footing
of an independent individual agreeing to differ, and as strong in her
own view as he could be.
“There is one thing you can do for me,” she said. “Mamma knows nothing
about--fashionable gossip. She is not acquainted with the wicked things
that are said. If she disapproves it is only because---- Oh, I suppose
because one’s mother always disapproves a thing that is done without
her, that she has no hand in, what she calls pledging one’s self to a
stranger, and not knowing his antecedents, his circumstances, and so
forth! But she hasn’t any definite ground for it as you--think you have,
judging in the uncharitable way of the world--not remembering that if we
love one another the more there is against him the more need he has of
me! But all I have to ask of you, John, is not to prejudice my mother. I
know you can do it if you please--a hint would be enough, an uncertain
word, even hesitating when you answer a question--that would be quite
enough! John, if you put things into her head----”
“You ask most extraordinary things of me,” said John, turning to bay.
“To tell her lies about a man whom everybody knows--to pretend I think
one thing when I think quite another. Not to say that my duty is to
inform her exactly what things are said, so that she may judge for
herself, not let her go forth in ignorance--that is my plain duty,
Elinor.”
“But you won’t do it; oh, you won’t do it!” she said. “Oh, John, for the
sake of all the time that you have been so good to Nelly--your own
little Nelly, nobody else’s! Remember that I and everybody who loves him
know these stories to be lies--and don’t, don’t put things into my
mother’s head! Let her judge for herself--don’t, don’t prejudice her,
John. It can be no one’s duty to repeat malicious stories when there is
no possibility of proving or disproving them. Don’t make her think----
Oh, mamma! we couldn’t think where you had gone to. Yes, here is John.”
“So I perceive,” said Mrs. Dennistoun. It was getting towards evening,
and the room was not very light. She could not distinguish their looks
or the agitation that scarcely could have been hidden but for the dusk.
“You seem to have been having a very animated conversation. I heard your
voices all along the garden walk. Let me have the benefit of it, if
there is anything to tell.”
“You know well enough, mamma, what we must have been talking about,”
said Elinor, turning half angrily away.
“To be sure,” said the mother, “I ought to have known. There is nothing
so interesting as that sort of thing. I thought, however, you would
probably have put it off a little, Elinor.”
“Put it off a little--when it is the thing that concerns us more than
anything else in the world!”
“That is true,” said Mrs. Dennistoun, with a sigh. “Did you walk all the
way, John? I meant to have sent the pony-cart for you, but the man was
too late. It is a nice evening though, and coming out of town it is a
good thing for you to have a good walk.”
“Yes, I like it more than anything,” said John, “but the evening is not
so very fine. The wind is high, and I shouldn’t wonder if we had rain.”
“The wind is always high here,” said Mrs. Dennistoun. “We don’t have our
view for nothing; but the sky is quite clear in the west, and all the
clouds blowing away. I don’t think we shall have more than a shower.”
Elinor stood listening to this talk with restrained impatience, as if
waiting for the moment when they should come to something worth talking
about. Then she gave herself a sort of shake--half weary, half
indignant--and left the room. There was a moment’s silence, until her
quick step was heard going to the other end of the house and upstairs,
and the shutting of a door.
“Oh, John, I am very uneasy, very uneasy,” said Mrs. Dennistoun. “I
scarcely thought she would have begun to you about it at once; but then
I am doing the very same. We can’t think of anything else. I am not
going to worry you before dinner, for you must be tired with your walk,
and want to refresh yourself before we enter upon that weary, weary
business. But my heart misgives me dreadfully about it all. If I only
had gone with her! It was not for want of an invitation, but just my
laziness. I could not be troubled to leave my own house.”
“I don’t see what difference it would have made had you been with her,
aunt.”
“Oh, I should have seen the man: and been able to judge what he was and
his motive, John.”
“Elinor is not rich. He could scarcely have had an interested motive.”
“There is some comfort in that. I have said that to myself again and
again. He could not have an interested motive. But, oh! I am uneasy!
There is the dressing-bell. I will not keep you any longer, John; but in
the evening, or to-morrow, when we can get a quiet moment----”
The dusk was now pervading all the house--that summer dusk which there
is a natural prejudice everywhere against cutting short by lights. He
could not see her face, nor she his, as they went out of the
drawing-room together and along the long passage, which led by several
arched doorways to the stairs. John had a room on the ground floor which
was kept for gentlemen visitors, and in which the candles were twinkling
on the dressing-table. He was more than ever thankful as he caught a
glimpse of himself in the vague reflected world of the mirror, with its
lights standing up reflected too, like inquisitors spying upon him, that
there had not been light enough to show how he was looking: for though
he was both a lawyer and a man of the world, John Tatham had not been
able to keep the trouble which his interview with Elinor had caused him
out of his face.