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CHAPTER XIV

The days of the last week hurried along like the grains of sand out of an hour-glass when they are nearly gone. It is true that almost everything was done – a few little bits of stitching, a few things still to be "got up" alone remaining, a handkerchief to mark with Elinor's name, a bit of lace to arrange, just enough to keep up a possibility of something to do for Mrs. Dennistoun in the blank of all other possibilities – for to interest herself or to occupy herself about anything that should be wanted beyond that awful limit of the wedding-day was of course out of the question. Life seemed to stop there for the mother, as it was virtually to begin for the child; though indeed to Elinor also, notwithstanding her love, it was visible more in the light of a point at which all the known and certain ended, and where the unknown and almost inconceivable began. The curious thing was that this barrier which was placed across life for them both, got somehow between them in those last days which should have been the most tender climax of their intercourse. They had a thousand things to say to each other, but they said very little. In the evening after dinner, whether they went out into the garden together to watch the setting of the young moon, or whether they sat together in that room which had witnessed all Elinor's commencements of life, free to talk as no one else in the world could ever talk to either of them, they said very little to each other, and what they said was of the most commonplace kind. "It is a lovely night; how clear one can see the road on the other side of the combe!" "And what a bright star that is close to the moon! I wish I knew a little more about the stars." "They are just as beautiful," Mrs. Dennistoun would say, "as if you knew everything about them, Elinor." "Are you cold, mamma? I am sure I can see you shiver. Shall I run and get you a shawl?" "It is a little chilly: but perhaps it will be as well to go in now," the mother said. And then indoors: "Do you think you will like this lace made up as a jabot, Elinor?" "You are giving me all your pretty things, though you know you understand lace much better than I do." "Oh, that doesn't matter," Mrs. Dennistoun said hurriedly; "that is a taste which comes with time. You will like it as well as I do when you are as old as I am." "You are not so dreadfully old, mamma." "No, that's the worst of it," Mrs. Dennistoun would say, and then break out into a laugh. "Look at the shadow that handkerchief makes – how fantastic it is!" she cried. She neither cared for the moon, nor for the quaintness of the shadows, nor for the lace which she was pulling into dainty folds to show its delicate pattern – for none of all these things, but for her only child, who was going from her, and to whom she had a hundred, and yet a hundred, things to say: but none of them ever came from her lips.

"Mary Dale has not seen your things, Elinor: she asked if she might come to-morrow."

"I think we might have had to-morrow to ourselves, mamma – the last day all by ourselves before those people begin to arrive."

"Yes, I think so too; but it is difficult to say no, and as she was not here when the others came – She is the greatest critic in the parish. She will have so much to say."

"I daresay it may be fun," said Elinor, brightening up a little, "and of course anyhow Alice must have come to talk about her dress. I am tired of those bride's-maids' dresses; they are really of so little consequence." Elinor was not vain, to speak of, but she thought it improbable that when she was there any one would look much at the bride's-maids' dresses. For one thing, to be sure, the bride is always the central figure, and there were but two bride's-maids, which diminished the interest; and then – well, it had to be allowed at the end of all, that, though her closest friends, neither Alice Hudson nor Mary Tatham were, to look at, very interesting girls.

"They are of great consequence to them," said Mrs. Dennistoun, with the faintest smile.

"I didn't mean that, of course," said Elinor, with a blush; "only I never should have worried about my own dress, which after all is the most important, as Alice does about hers."

"Which nobody will look at," Mrs. Dennistoun said.

"I did not say that: but to tell the truth, it is a pity for the girls that the men will not quite be, just of their world, you know. Oh, mamma, you know it is not that I think anything of that, but I am sorry for Alice and Mary. Mr. Bolsover and the other gentlemen will not take that trouble which country neighbours, or – or John's friends from the Temple might have done."

"Why do you speak of John's friends from the Temple, Elinor?"

"Mamma! for no reason at all. Why should I? They were the only other men I could think of."

"Elinor, did John ever give you any reason to think – "

"Mamma," cried Elinor again, with double vehemence, her countenance all ablaze, "of course he never did! how could you think such foolish things?"

"Well, my dear," said her mother, "I am very glad he did not; it will prevent any embarrassment between him and you – for I must always believe – "

"Don't, please, oh, don't! it would make me miserable; it would take all my happiness away."

Mrs. Dennistoun said nothing, but she sighed – a very small, infinitesimal sigh – and there was a moment's silence, during which perhaps that sigh pervaded the atmosphere with a sort of breath of what might have been. After a moment she spoke again:

"I hope you have not packed up your ornaments yet, Elinor. You must leave them to the very last, for Mary would like to see that beautiful necklace. What do you think you shall wear on the day?"

"Nothing," said Elinor, promptly. She was about to add, "I have nothing good enough," but paused in time.

"Not my little star? It would look very well, my darling, to fix your veil on. The diamonds are very good, though perhaps a little old-fashioned; you might get them reset. But – your father gave it me like that."

"I would not change it a bit, mamma, for anything in the world."

"Thanks, my dearest. I thought that was how you would feel about it. It is not very big, of course, but it really is very good."

"Then I will wear it, mamma, if it will please you, but nothing else."

"It would please me: it would be like having something from your father. I think we had less idea of ornaments in my day. I cannot tell you how proud I was of my diamond star. I should like to put it in for you myself, Elinor."

"Oh, mamma!" This was the nearest point they had come to that outburst of two full hearts which both of them would have called breaking down. Mrs. Dennistoun saw it and was frightened. She thought it would be betraying to Elinor what she wished her never to know, the unspeakable desolation to which she was looking forward when her child was taken from her. Elinor's exclamation, too, was a protest against the imminent breaking down. They both came back with a hurry, with a panting breath, to safer ground.

"Yes, that's what I regret," she said. "Mr. Bolsover and Harry Compton will laugh a little at the Rectory. They will not be so – nice as young men of their own kind."

"The Rectory people are just as well born as any of us, Elinor."

"Oh, precisely, mamma: I know that; but we too – It is what they call a different monde. I don't think it is half so nice a monde," said the girl, feeling that she had gone further than she intended to do; "but you know, mamma – "

"I know, Elinor: but I scarcely expected from you – "

"Oh," cried Elinor again, in exasperation, "if you think that I share that feeling! I think it odious, I think their monde is vulgar, nasty, miserable! I think – "

"Don't go too far the other way, Elinor. Your husband will be of it, and you must learn to like it. You think, perhaps, all that is new to me?"

"No," said Elinor, her bright eyes, all the brighter for tears, falling before her mother's look. "I know, of course, that you have seen – all kinds – "

But she faltered a little, for she did not believe that her mother was acquainted with Phil's circle and their wonderful ways.

"They will be civil enough," she went on, hurriedly, "and as everybody chaffs so much nowadays they will, perhaps, never be found out. But I don't like it for my friends."

"They will chaff me also, no doubt," Mrs. Dennistoun said.

"Oh, you, mamma! they are not such fools as that," cried poor Elinor; but in her own mind she did not feel confident that there was any such limitation to their folly. Mrs. Dennistoun laughed a little to herself, which was, perhaps, more alarming than that other moment when she was almost ready to cry.

"You had better wear Lord St. Serf's ring," she said, after a moment, with a tone of faint derision which Elinor knew.

"You might as well tell me," cried the bride, "to wear Lady Mariamne's revolving dishes. No, I will wear nothing, nothing but your star."

"You have got nothing half so nice," said the mother. Oh yes, it was a little revenge upon those people who were taking her daughter from her, and who thought themselves at liberty to jeer at all her friends: but as was perhaps inevitable it touched Elinor a little too. She restrained herself from some retort with a sense of extreme and almost indignant self-control: though what retort Elinor could have made I cannot tell. It was much "nicer" than anything else she had. None of Phil Compton's great friends, who were not of the same monde as the people at Windyhill, had offered his bride anything to compare with the diamonds which her father had given to her mother before she was born. And Elinor was quite aware of the truth of what her mother said. But she would have liked to make a retort – to say something smart and piquant and witty in return.

And thus the evening was lost, the evening in which there was so much to say, one of the three only, no more, that were left.

Miss Dale came next day to see "the things," and was very amiable: but the only thing in this visit which affected Elinor's mind was a curious little unexpected assault this lady made upon her when she was going away. Elinor had gone out with her to the porch, according to the courteous usage of the house. But when they had reached that shady place, from which the green combe and the blue distance were visible, stretching far into the soft autumnal mists of the evening, Mary Dale turned upon her and asked her suddenly, "What night was it that Mr. Compton came here?"

Elinor was much startled, but she did not lose her self-possession. All the trouble about that date had disappeared out of her mind in the stress and urgency of other things. She cast back her mind with an effort and asked herself what the conflict and uncertainty of which she was dimly conscious, had been? It came back to her dimly without any of the pain that had been in it. "It was on the sixth," she said quietly, without excitement. She could scarcely recall to her mind what it was that had moved her so much in respect to this date only a little time ago.

"Oh, you must be mistaken, Elinor, I saw him coming up from the station. It was later than that. It was, if I were to give my life for it, Thursday night."

This was four or five nights before and a haze of uncertainty had fallen on all things so remote. But Elinor cast her eyes upon the calendar in the hall and calm possessed her breast. "It was the sixth," she said with composed tones, as certain as of anything she had ever known in the course of her life.

"Well, I suppose you must know," said Mary Dale.

CHAPTER XV

"Look at that, Elinor," said Mrs. Dennistoun, next day, when she had read, twice over, a letter, large and emblazoned with a very big monogram, which Elinor, well perceiving from whom it came, had furtively watched the effect of from behind an exceeding small letter of her own. Phil was not remarkable as a correspondent: his style was that of the primitive mind which hopes its correspondent is well, "as this leaves me." He had never much more to say.

"From Mariamne, mamma?"

"She takes great pains to make us certain of that fact at least," Mrs. Dennistoun said; which indeed was very true, for the name of the writer was sprawled in gilt letters half over the sheet. And this was how it ran: —

"Dear Mrs. Dennistoun, —

"I have been thinking what a great pity it would be to bore you with me, and my maid, and all my belongings. I am so silly that I can never be happy without dragging a lot of things about with me – dogs, and people, and so forth. Going to town in September is dreadful, but it is rather chic to do a thing that is quite out of the way, and one may perhaps pick up a little fun in the evening. So if you don't mind, instead of inflicting Fifine and Bijou and Leocadie, not to mention some people that might be with me, upon you, and putting your house all out of order, as these odious little dogs do when people are not used to them – I will come down by the train, which I hope arrives quite punctually, in time to see poor Phil turned off. I am sure you will be so kind as to send a carriage for me to the railway. We shall be probably a party of four, and I hear from Phil you are so hospitable and kind that I need not hesitate to bring my friends to breakfast after it's all over. I hope Phil will go through it like a man, and I wouldn't for worlds deprive him of the support of his family. Love to Nell. I am,

"Yours truly,

"Mariamne Prestwich."

"The first name very big and the second very small," said Mrs. Dennistoun, as she received the letter back.

"I am sure we are much obliged to her for not coming, mamma!"

"Perhaps – but not for this announcement of her not coming. I don't wish to say anything against your new relations, Elinor – "

"You need not put any restraint upon yourself in consideration of my feelings," said Elinor, with a flush of annoyance.

And this made Mrs. Dennistoun pause. They ate their breakfast, which was a very light meal, in silence. It was the day before the wedding. The rooms down-stairs had been carefully prepared for Phil's sister. Though Mrs. Dennistoun was too proud to say anything about it, she had taken great pains to make these pretty rooms as much like a fine lady's chamber as had been possible. She had put up new curtains, and a Persian carpet, and looked out of her stores all the pretty things she could find to decorate the two rooms of the little apartment. She had gone in on the way down-stairs to take a final survey, and it seemed to her that they were very pretty. No picture could have been more beautiful than the view from the long low lattice window, in which, as in a frame, was set the foreground of the copse with its glimpses of ruddy heather and the long sweep of the heights beyond, which stretched away into the infinite. That at least could not be surpassed anywhere; and the Persian carpet was like moss under foot, and the chairs luxurious – and there was a collection of old china in some open shelves which would have made the mouth of an amateur water. Well! it was Lady Mariamne's own loss if she preferred the chance of picking up a little fun in the evening, to spending the night decorously in that pretty apartment, and making further acquaintance with her new sister. It was entirely, Mrs. Dennistoun said to herself, a matter for her own choice. But she was much affronted all the same.

"It will be very inconvenient indeed sending a carriage for her, Elinor. Except the carriage that is to take you to church there is none good enough for this fine lady. I had concluded she would go in your uncle Tatham's carriage. It may be very fine to have a Lady Mariamne in one's party, but it is a great nuisance to have to change all one's arrangements at the last moment."

"If you were to send the wagonette from the Bull's Head, as rough as possible, with two of the farm horses, she would think it genre, if not chic– "

"I cannot put up with all this nonsense!" cried Mrs. Dennistoun, with a flush on her cheek. "You are just as bad as they are, Elinor, to suggest such a thing! I have held my own place in society wherever I have been, and I don't choose to be condescended to or laughed at, in fact, by any visitor in the world!"

"Mamma! do you think any one would ever compare you with Mariamne – the Jew?"

"Don't exasperate me with those abominable nicknames. They will give you one next. She is an exceedingly ill-bred and ill-mannered woman. Picking up a little fun in the evening! What does she mean by picking up a little fun – "

"They will perhaps go to the theatre – a number of them; and as nobody is in town they will laugh very much at the kind of people, and perhaps the kind of play – and it will be a great joke ever after among themselves – for of course there will be a number of them together," said Elinor, disclosing her acquaintance with the habits of her new family with downcast eyes.

"How can well-born people be so vulgar and ill-bred?" cried Mrs. Dennistoun. "I must say for Philip that though he is careless and not nearly so particular as I should like, still he is not like that. He has something of the politeness of the heart."

Elinor did not raise her downcast eyes. Phil had been on his very good behaviour on the occasion of his last hurried visit, but she did not feel that she could answer even for Phil. "I am very glad anyhow, that she is not coming, mamma: at least we shall have the last night and the last morning to ourselves."

Mrs. Dennistoun shook her head. "The Tathams will be here," she said; "and everybody, to dinner – all the party. We must go now and see how we can enlarge the table. To-night's party will be the largest we have ever had in the cottage." She sighed a little and paused, restraining herself. "We shall have no quiet evening – nor morning either – again; it will be a bustle and a rush. You and I will never have any more quiet evenings, Elinor: for when you come back it will be another thing."

"Oh, mother!" cried Elinor, throwing herself into her mother's arms: and for a moment they stood closely clasped, feeling as if their hearts would burst, yet very well aware, too, underneath, that any number of quiet evenings would be as the last, when, with hearts full of a thousand things to say to each other, they said almost nothing – which in some respects was worse than having no quiet evenings evermore.

In the afternoon Phil arrived, having returned from Ireland that morning, and paused only to refresh himself in the chambers which he still retained in town. He had met all his hunting friends during the three days he had been away; and though he retained a gallant appearance, and looked, as Alice Hudson thought, "very aristocratic," Mrs. Dennistoun caught with anxiety a worn-out look – the look of excitement, of nights without sleep, much smoke, and, perhaps, much wine, in his eyes. What a woman feels who has to hand over her spotless child, the most dear and pure thing upon earth, to a man fresh from those indulgences and dissipations which never seem harmless, and always are repellent to a woman, is not to be described. Fortunately the bride herself, in invincible ignorance and unconsciousness, seldom feels in that way. To Elinor her lover looked tired about the eyes, which was very well explained by his night journey, and by the agitation of the moment. And, indeed, she did not see very much of Phil, who had his friends with him – his aide-de-camp, Bolsover, and his brother Harry. These three gentlemen carried an atmosphere of smoke and other scents with them into the lavender of the Rectory, which was too amazing in that hemisphere for words, and talked their own talk in the midst of the fringe of rustics who were their hosts, with a calm which was extraordinary, breaking into the midst of the Rector's long-winded, amiable sentences, and talking to each other over Mrs. Hudson's head. "I say, Dick, don't you remember?" "By Jove, Phil, you are too bad!" sounded, with many other such expressions and reminders, over the Rectory party, strictly silent round their own table, trying to make a courteous remark now and then, but confounded, in their simple country good manners, by the fine gentlemen. And then there was the dinner-party at the cottage in the evening, to which Mr. and Mrs. Hudson were invited. Such a dinner-party! Old Mr. Tatham, who was a country gentleman from Dorsetshire, with his nice daughter, Mary Tatham, a quiet country young lady, accustomed, when she went into the world at all, to the serious young men of the Temple, and John's much-occupied friends, who had their own asides about cases, and what So-and-So had said in court, but were much too well-bred before ladies to fall into "shop;" and Mr. and Mrs. Hudson, who were such as we know them; and the bride's mother, a little anxious, but always debonair; and Elinor herself, in all the haze and sweet confusion of the great era which approached so closely. The three men made the strangest addition that can be conceived to the quiet guests; but things went better under the discipline of the dinner, especially as Sir John Huntingtower, who was a Master of the hounds and an old friend of the Dennistouns, was of the party, and Lady Huntingtower, who was an impressive person, and knew the world. This lady was very warm in her congratulations to Mrs. Dennistoun after dinner on the absence of Lady Mariamne. "I think you are the luckiest woman that ever was to have got clear of that dreadful creature," she said. "Oh, there is nothing wrong about her that I know. She goes everywhere with her dogs and her cavaliers servantes. There's safety in numbers, my dear. She has always two of them at least hanging about her to fetch and carry, and she thinks a great deal more of her dogs; but I can't think what you could have done with her here."

"And what will my Elinor do in such a sphere?" the troubled mother permitted herself to say.

"Oh, if that were all," said Lady Huntingtower, lifting up her fat hands – she was one of those who had protested against the marriage, but now that it had come to this point, and could not be broken off, the judicious woman thought it right to make the best of it – "Elinor need not be any the worse," she said. "Thank heaven, you are not obliged to be mixed up with your husband's sister. Elinor must take a line of her own. You should come to town yourself her first season, and help her on. You used to know plenty of people."

"But they say," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "that it is so much better to leave a young couple to themselves, and that a mother is always in the way."

"If I were you I would not pay the least attention to what they say. If you hold back too much they will say, 'There was her own mother, knowing numbers of nice people, that never took the trouble to lend her a hand.'"

"I hope," said Mrs. Dennistoun, turning round immediately to this other aspect of affairs, "that it never will be necessary for the world to interest itself at all in my child's affairs."

"Well, of course, that is the best," Lady Huntingtower allowed, "if she just goes softly for a year or two till she feels her way."

"But then she is so young, and so little accustomed to act for herself," said the mother, with another change of flank.

"Oh, Elinor has a great deal of spirit. She must just make a stand against the Compton set and take her own line."

Mrs. Hudson and Alice and Miss Tatham were at the other end of the room exchanging a few criticisms under their breath, and disposed to think that they were neglected by their hostess for the greater personage with whom she was in such close conversation. And Lady Mariamne's defection was a great disappointment to them all. "I should like to have seen a fine lady quite close," said Mary (it was not, I think, usual to speak of "smart" people in those days), "one there could be no doubt about, a little fast and all that. I have seen them in town at a distance, but all the people we know are sure country people."

"My dear," said Mrs. Hudson, primly, "I don't like to hear you talk of any other kind. An English lady, I hope, whatever is her rank, can only be of one kind."

"Oh, mamma, you know very well Lady Mariamne is as different from Lady Huntingtower as – "

"Don't mention names, my dear; it is not well-bred. The one is young, and naturally fond of gayety; the other – well, is not quite so young, and stout, and all that."

"Oh, that is all very well," said Alice; "but Aunt Mary says – "

Miss Dale was coming in the evening, and the Miss Hills, and the curate, and the doctor, and various other people, who could not be asked to dinner, to whom it had been carefully explained (which, indeed, was a fact they knew) that to dine twelve people in the little dining-room of the cottage was a feat which was accomplished with difficulty, and that more was impossible. Society at Windyhill was very tolerant and understanding on this point, for all the dining-rooms were small, except, indeed, when you come to talk of such places as Huntingtower – and they were very glad to be permitted to have a peep at the bridegroom on these terms, or rather, if truth were told, of the bride, and how she was bearing herself so near the crisis of her fate. The bridegroom is seldom very interesting on such occasions. On the present occasion he was more interesting than usual, because he was the Honourable Philip, and because he had a reputation of which most people had heard something. There was a mixture of alarm and suspicion in respect to him which increased the excitement; and many remarks of varied kinds were made. "I think the fellow's face quite bears out his character," said the doctor to the Rector. "What a man to trust a nice girl to!" Mr. Hudson felt that as the bridegroom was living under his roof he was partially responsible, and discouraged this pessimistic view. "Mr. Compton has not, perhaps, had all the advantages one tries to secure for one's own son," he said, "but I have reason to believe that the things that have been said of him are much exaggerated." "Oh, advantages!" said the doctor, thinking of Alick, of whom it was his strongly expressed opinion that the fellow should be turned out to rough it, and not coddled up and spoiled at home. But while these remarks were going on, Miss Hill had been expressing to the curate an entirely different view. "I think he has a beautiful face," she said with the emphasis some ladies use; "a little worn, perhaps, with being too much in the world, and I wish he had a better colour. To me he looks delicate: but what delightful features, Mr. Whitebands, and what an aristocratic air!"

"He looks tremendously up to everything," the curate said, with a faint tone of envy in his voice.

"Don't he just?" cried Alick Hudson. "I should think there wasn't a thing he couldn't do – of things that men do do, don't you know," cried that carefully trained boy, whose style was confused, though his meaning was good. But probably there were almost as many opinions about Phil as there were people in the room. His two backers-up stood in a corner – half intimidated, half contemptuous of the country people. "Queer lot for Phil to fall among," said Dick Bolsover. "Que diable allait-il faire dans cette galère?" said Harry Compton, who had been about the world. "Oh, bosh with your French, that nobody understands," said the best man.

But in the meantime Phil was not there at all to be seen of men. He had stolen out into the garden, where there was a white vision awaiting him in the milky moonlight. The autumn haze had come early this season, and the moon was misty, veiled with white amid a jumble of soft floating vapours in the sky. Elinor stood among the flowers, which showed some strange subdued tints of colours in the flooding of the white light, like a bit of consolidated moonlight in her white dress. She had a white shawl covering her from head to foot, with a corner thrown over her hair. What had they to say to each other that last night? Not much; nothing at all that had any information in it – whispers inaudible almost to each other. There was something in being together for this stolen moment, just on the eve of their being together for always, which had a charm of its own. After to-night, no stealing away, no escape to the garden, no little conspiracy to attain a meeting – the last of all those delightful schemings and devices. They started when they heard a sound from the house, and sped along the paths into the shadow like the conspirators they were – but never to conspire more after this last enthralling time.

"You're not frightened, Nell?"

"No – except a little. There is one thing – "

"What is it, my pet? If it's to the half of my kingdom, it shall be done."

"Phil, we are going to be very good when we are together? don't laugh – to help each other?"

He did laugh low, not to be heard, but long. "I shall have no temptation," he said, "to be anything but good, you little goose of a Nell," taking it for a warning of possible jealousy to come.

"Oh, but I mean both of us – to help each other."

"Why, Nell, I know you'll never go wrong – "

She gave him a little impatient shake. "You will not understand me, Phil. We will try to be better than we've ever been. To be good – don't you know what that means? – in every way, before God."

Her voice dropped very low, and he was for a moment overawed. "You mean going to church, Nell?"

"I mean – yes, that for one thing; and many other things."

"That's dropping rather strong upon a fellow," he said, "just at this moment, don't you think, when I must say yes to everything you say."

"Oh, I don't mean it in that way; and I was not thinking of church particularly; but to be good, very good, true and kind, in our hearts."

"You are all that already, Nell."

"Oh, no, not what I mean. When there are two of us instead of one we can do so much more."

"Well, my pet, it's for you to make out the much more. I'm quite content with you as you are; it's me that you want to improve, and heaven knows there's plenty of room for that."