One thing that at last appeared to her in the chaos which seemed like something solid that she could grasp at was that Phil had never changed in his aspect. The other man had been very serious, staring at her as if to intimidate her, like a man who had something to find out; but Phil had been as careless, as indifferent, as he appeared always to be. He had not changed his expression. It is true there was that look in which there was at once an entreaty and a command – but only she had seen that, and perhaps it was merely the emotion, the excitement, the strange feeling of having to face the world for him, and say – what, what? Was it simply, the truth, nothing but the truth, or was it – Again Elinor's mind began to whirl. It was the truth: she could see now that big 6 on the calendar distinct as the sunshine. And yet it was only yesterday – and there was 8 this morning. Had she gone through an intervening dream for a whole day without knowing it; or had she, Elinor – she who would not have done it to save her life – told – a lie for Phil? And why should he want her to tell a lie?
Elinor got up from her seat, and stood uncertain, with a cold dew on her forehead, and her hands clasping and holding each other. Should she go back to them and say there must be some mistake – that though she had said the truth it was not true, that there was some mistake, some dreadful mistake! There was no longer any sound of voices where she was. The whole incident seemed to have died out. The sudden commotion of Phil's visit and everything connected with it had passed away. She was alone in the afternoon, in the hush of nature, looking over the combe, listening to the rustle of the trees, hearing the bees drone homeward. Had Phil ever been here at all? Had he watched the distant road winding over the slopes for some one whom he had expected to come after him all the time? Had he ever told her to stand by him? to say what he said, to back him up? Had there ever been another man standing with that big 6 wavering between her and him like a ghost? Had all that been at all, or was it merely a foolish dream? And ought she to go back now, and find the man before he disappeared, and tell him it was all true, yet somehow a dreadful, dreadful mistake?
Elinor sat down again abruptly on her seat, and put her handkerchief to her forehead and pushed back the damp clusters of her hair, turning her face to the wind to get a little refreshment and calm, if that were possible. She heard in the sunny distance behind her, where the garden and the peaceful house lay in the light, the clang of the gate, a sound which could not be mistaken. The man then had gone – if there was anything to rectify in what she said it certainly could not be rectified now – he was gone. The certainty came to her with a feeling of relief. It had been horrible to think of standing before the two men again and saying – what could she have said? She remembered now that it was not her assertion alone, but that it all hung together, a whole structure of incidents, which would be put wrong if she had said it was a mistake – a whole account of Phil's time, how it had been passed – which was quite true, which he had told them on his arrival; how he had been going to Ireland, and had stopped, longing for a glimpse of her, his bride, feeling that he must have her by him, see her once again before he came for her to fetch her away. He had told the ladies at the cottage the very same, and of course it was true. Had he not come straight from Scotland with his big bundle of game, the grouse and partridges which had already been shared with all the friends about? Was he not going off to Ireland to-morrow to fulfil his first intention? It was all quite right, quite true, hanging perfectly together – except that curious falling out of a day. And then again Elinor's brain swam round and round. Had he been two days at the cottage instead of one, as he said? Was it there that the mistake lay? Had she been in such a fool's paradise having him there, that she had not marked the passage of time – had it all been one hour of happiness flying like the wind? A blush, partly of sweet shame to think that this was possible, that she might have been such a happy fool as to ignore the divisions of night and day, and partly of stimulating hope that such might be the case, a wild snatch at justification of herself and him flushed over her from head to foot, wrapping her in warmth and delight; and then this all faded away again and left her as in ashes – black and cold. No! everything, she saw, now depended upon what she had been impelled to say; the whole construction, Phil's account of his time, his story of his doings – all would have fallen to pieces had she said otherwise. Body and soul, Elinor felt herself become like a machine full of clanging wheels and beating pistons, her heart, her pulses, her breath, all panting, beating, bursting. What did it mean? What did it mean? And then everything stood still in a horrible suspense and pause.
She began to hear voices again in the distance and raised her head, which she had buried in her hands – voices that sounded so calmly in the westering sunshine, one answering another, everything softened in the golden outdoor light. At first as she raised herself up she thought with horror that it was the man, the visitor whom she had supposed to be gone, returning with Phil to give her the opportunity of contradicting herself, of bringing back that whirlwind of doubt and possibility. But presently her excited senses perceived that it was her mother who was walking calmly through the garden talking with Phil. There was not a tone of excitement in the quiet voices that came gradually nearer and nearer, till she could hear what they were saying. It was Phil who was speaking, while her mother now and then put in a word. Elinor did not wish on ordinary occasions for too many private talks between her mother and Phil. They rubbed each other the wrong way, they did not understand each other, words seemed to mean different things in their comprehension of them. She knew that her lover would laugh at "the old girl," which was a phrase which offended Elinor deeply, and Mrs. Dennistoun would become stiffer and stiffer, declaring that the very language of the younger generation had become unintelligible to her. But to hear them now together was a kind of anodyne to Elinor, it stayed and calmed her. The cold moisture dried from her forehead. She smoothed her hair instinctively with her hand, and put herself straight in mind as she did with that involuntary action in outward appearance, feeling that no sign of agitation, no trouble of demeanour must meet her mother's eye. And then the voices came so near that she could hear what they were saying. They were coming amicably together to her favourite retreat.
"It's a very queer thing," said Phil, "if it is as they think, that somebody went there the night before last and cleared off the books. Well, not all the books, some that are supposed to contain the secret transactions. Deucedly cleverly done it must have been, if it was done at all, for nobody saw the fellow, or fellows, if there were more than one – "
"Why do you doubt?" said Mrs. Dennistoun. "Is there any way of accounting for it otherwise?"
"Oh, a very good way – that Brown, the manager, simply took them with him, as he would naturally do, if he wasn't a fool. Why should he go off and leave papers that would convict him, for the pleasure of involving other fellows, and ruining them too?"
"Are there others, then, involved with him?" Oh, how calm, how inconceivably calm, was Mrs. Dennistoun's voice! Had she been asking the gardener about the slugs that eat the young plants it would have been more disturbed.
"Well, Stanfield seemed to think so. He's a sort of head clerk, a fellow enormously trusted. I shouldn't wonder if he was at the bottom of it himself, they're so sure of him," said Phil, with a laugh. "He says there's a kind of suspicion of two or three. Clumsy wretches they must be if they let themselves be found out like that. But I don't believe it. I believe Brown's alone in it, and that it's him that's taken everything away. I believe it's far the safest way in those kind of dodges to be alone. You get all the swag, and you're in no danger of being rounded on, don't you know – till you find things are getting too hot, and you cut away."
"I don't understand the words you use, but I think I know what you mean," said Mrs. Dennistoun. "How dreadful it is to think that in business, where honesty is the very first principle, there should be such terrible plots and plans as those!"
"'Tis awful, isn't it?" said Phil, with a laugh that seemed to ring all down the combe, and came back in echoes from the opposite slope, where in the distance the cab from the station was seen hastening back towards the railway in a cloud of dust. The laugh was like a trumpet of triumph flung across the distance at the discomfited enemy thus going off drooping in the hurry of defeat. He added, "But you may imagine, even if I had known anything, he wouldn't have got much out of me. I didn't know anything, however, I'm very glad to say."
"That is always the best," said Mrs. Dennistoun, with a certain grave didactic tone. "And here is Elinor, as I thought. When one cannot find her anywhere else she's sure to be found here."
CHAPTER XII
"Well," said Compton, placing himself beside her, "here you are, Nell; kind of the old lady to bring me, wasn't it? I should never have found you out by myself."
"Has he gone, Phil?" Elinor raised her scared face from her hands, and gave him a piteous look.
"Why, Nell! you are trembling like a leaf. Was it frightened, my pretty pet, for Stanny? Stanny's gone off with his tail between his legs. Not a bit of starch left in him. As limp a lawyer as ever you saw."
"Was he a lawyer?" she said, not knowing why she said it, for it mattered nothing at all to Elinor what the man was.
"Not exactly; and yet, I suppose, something of the kind. He is the one that knows about law points, and such things. But now he's as quiet as a lamb, thanks to you."
"Phil," she cried, "what did you make me say? I don't know what I have done. I have done something dreadful – deceived the man, as good as told him a lie."
"You told him the truth," said Phil, with a laugh, "in the most judgmatical way. You stuck to it like a – woman. There's nothing like a woman for sticking to a text. You didn't say a word too much. And I say, Nell, that little defiant bit of yours – 'Was there any reason why it shouldn't be the sixth?' was grand. That was quite magnificent, my pet. I never thought you had such spirit in you."
"Oh, Phil," she cried, "why did you make me say it? What was it I said? I don't know; I don't understand a bit. Whatever it was, I know that it was wrong. I deceived the man."
"That's not so great a sin," he said. "I've known worse things done. Put an old reynard off the scent to save his prey. I don't see what's wrong in that, especially as the innocent chicken to be saved was your own poor old Phil."
"Phil, Phil," she cried, "what could that man have done to you? What had put you in his power? You have made me lose all my innocence. I have got horrible things in my head. What could he have done to you that you made me tell a lie?"
"What lie did I make you tell? be reasonable; I did arrive on the sixth, you know that just as well as I do. Don't you really remember the calendar in the hall? You saw it, Nell, as well as I."
"I know, I know," she cried, putting her hands up to her eyes, "I see it everywhere staring at me, that big, dreadful 6. But how is it the 8th now? There is something in it – something I don't understand."
He laughed loudly and long: one of those boisterous laughs which always jarred upon Elinor. "I don't in the least mind how it was," he said. "It was, and that's quite enough for me; and let it be for you too, Nell. I hope you're not going to search into the origin of things like this; we've quite enough to do in this world to take things as they come."
"Oh, Phil! if at least I could understand – I don't understand: or if I had not been made to say what is so mysterious – what must be false."
"Hush, Nell; how could it be false when you saw with your own eyes it was true? Now let us be done with this, my darling. The incident is terminated, as the French say. I came here as fast as I could come to have a good laugh with you over it, and lo! you're nearer crying. Why should you have Stanny on your conscience, Nell? a fellow that would like no better than to hang me if he could get the chance."
"But Phil, Phil – oh, tell me, what could this man have done to you? Why are you afraid of him? Why, why have you made me tell him – "
"Now, Nell, no exaggerated expression. It was a fact you told him, according to the best of evidence; and what he could have done to me is just this – he might have given me a deal of trouble, and put off our marriage. I should have had to go back to town, and my time would have been taken up with finding out about those books, and our marriage would have been put off; that's what he could have done."
"Is that all?" cried Elinor, "was that all?"
"All!" he said, with that loud laugh again; "you don't mind a bit how you hurt a fellow's pride, and his affections, and all that. Do you mean to say, you hard-hearted little coquette, that you wouldn't mind? I don't believe you would mind! Here am I counting the hours, and you, you little cold puss, you aggravating little – "
"Oh, Phil, don't talk such nonsense. If we were to be separated, for a week or a month, what could that matter, in comparison with saying what wasn't – "
"Hush," he said, putting his hand to her mouth. "It's not nice of you to take it so easily, Nell. I'd tell as many what-d'ye-call-'ems as you like, rather than put it off an hour. Why, feeling apart (and I don't think you've any feeling, you little piece of ice), think how inconvenient it would have been; the people all arriving; the breakfast all ready; the Rector with his surplice on; and no wedding! Fancy the Jew with all her fallals, on the old lady's hands, and your cousin John – "
"I have told you already, Phil, my cousin John will not be there."
"So much the better," he said, with a laugh, "I don't want him to be there – shows his sense, when his nose is put out of joint, to keep out of the way."
"I wish you would understand," she said, with a little vexation, "that John is not put out of joint, as you say in that odious way. He has never been anything more to me, nor I to him, than we are now – like brother and sister."
"The more fool he," said Compton, "to have the chance of a nice girl like you, Nell, and not to go in for it. But I don't believe a bit in the brother and sister dodge."
"We will be just the same all our lives," cried Elinor.
"Not if I know it," said Phil. "I'm an easy-going fellow in most ways, but you'll find I'm an old Turk about you, my little duck of a Nell. No amateur brother for me. If you can't get along with your old Phil, without other adorers – "
"Phil! as if I should ever think or care whether there was another man in the world!"
"Oh, that's going too far," he said, laughing. "I shan't mind a little flirtation. You may have a man or two in your train to fetch and carry, get your shawl for you, and call your carriage, and so forth; but no serious old hand, Nell – nothing to remind you that there was a time when you didn't know Phil Compton." His laugh died away at this point, and for a moment his face assumed that grave look which changed its character so much. "If you don't come to repent before then that you ever saw that fellow's ugly face, Nell – "
"Phil, how could I ever repent? Nobody but you should dare to say such a thing to me!"
"I believe that," he said. "If that old John of yours tried it on – Well, my pet, he is your old John. You can't change facts, even if you do throw the poor fellow over. Now, here's a new chance for all of them, Nell. I shouldn't wonder a bit if you had another crop of letters bidding you look before you leap. That Rectory woman, what's her name? that knows my family. You'll see she'll have some new story before we're clear of her. They'll never stop blackguarding me, I know, until you're Phil Compton yourself, my beauty. I wish that day was come. I'm afraid to go off again and leave you, Nell. They'll be putting something into your head, or the old lady's. Let's get it over to-morrow morning, and come to Ireland with me; you've never been there."
"Phil, what nonsense! mamma would go out of her senses."
"My pet, what does it matter? She'd come back to them again as soon as we were gone, and think what a botheration spared her! All the row of receiving people, turning the house upside down. And here I am on the spot. And what do you want with bridesmaids and so forth? You've got all your things. Suppose we walk out to church to-morrow before breakfast, Nell – "
"Phil, you are mad, I think; and why should we do such a thing, scandalizing everybody? But of course you don't mean it. You are excited after seeing that man."
"Excited about Stanny! – not such a fool; Stanny is all square, thanks to – But what I want is just to take you up in my arms, like this, and run off with you, Nell. Why we should call the whole world to watch us while we take that swing off – into space."
"Phil!"
"So it is, for you, Nell. You don't know a bit what's going to happen. You don't know where I'm going to take you, and what I'm going to do with you, you little innocent lamb in the wolf's grip. I want to eat you up, straight off. I shall be afraid up to the last moment that you'll escape me, Nell."
"I did not know that you were so fond of innocence," said Elinor, half afraid of her lover's vehemence, and trying to dispel his gravity with a laugh. "You used to say you did not believe in the
ingénue
."
"I believe in you," he said, with an almost fierce pressure of her arm; then, after a pause, "No, I don't believe in women at all, Nell, only you. They're rather worse than men, which is saying a good deal. What would the Jew care if we were all drawn and quartered; so long as she had all her paraphernalia about her and got everything she wanted? For right-down selfishness commend me to a woman. A fellow may have gleams of something better about him, like me, warning you against myself."
"It is a droll way of warning me against yourself to want to carry me off to-morrow."
"It's all the same thing," he said. "I've warned you that those old hags are right, and I'm not good enough for you, not fit to come near you, Nell. But if the sacrifice is to be, let's get it over at once, don't let us stand and think of it. I'm capable of jilting you," he said, "leaving you
planté là
, all out of remorse of conscience; or else just catching you up in my arms, like this, and carrying you off, never to be seen more."
"You are very alarming," said Elinor. "I don't know what you mean. You can be off with your bargain if you please, Phil; but you had better make up your mind at once, so that mamma may countermand her invitations, and stop Gunter from sending the cake."
(It was Gunter who was the man in those days. I believe people go to Buszard now.)
He gave her again a vehement hug, and burst into a laugh. "I might jilt you, Nell; such a thing is on the cards. I might leave you in the lurch at the church door; but when you talk of countermanding the cake, I can't face that situation. Society would naturally be up in arms about that. So you must take your chance like the other innocents. I'll eat you up as gently as I can, and hide my tusks as long as it's possible. Come on, Nell, don't let us sit here and get the mopes, and think of our consciences. Come and see if that show is in the village. Life's better than thinking, old girl."
"Do you call the show in the village, life?" she said, half pleased to rouse him, half sorry to be thus carried away.
"Every show is life," said Phil, "and everywhere that people meet is better than anywhere where you're alone. Mind you take in that axiom, Nell. It's our rule of life, you know, among the set you're marrying into. That's how the Jew gets on. That's how we all get on. By this time next year you'll be well inured into it like all the rest. That's what your Rector never taught you, I'll be bound; but you'll see the old fellow practises it whenever he has a chance. Why, there they begin, tootle-te-too. Come on, Nell, and don't let us lose the fun."
He drew her along hastily, hurrying while the flute and the drum began to perform their parts. Sound spreads far in that tranquil country, where no railway was visible, and where the winds for the moment were still. It was Pan's pipes that were being played, attracting a few stragglers from the scattered houses. Within a hundred yards from the church, at the corner of four roads, stood the Bull's Head, with a cottage or two linked on to its long straggling front. And this was all that did duty for a village at Windyhill. The Rectory stood back in its own copse, surrounded by a growth of young birches and oak near the church. The Hills dwelt intermediate between the Bull's Head and the ecclesiastical establishment. The school and schoolmaster's house were behind the Bull. The show was surrounded by the children of the place, who looked on silent with ecstasy, while a burly showman piped his pipes and beat his drum. A couple of ostlers, with their shirt-sleeves rolled up to their shoulders, and one of them with a pail in his hand, stood arrested in their work. And in the front of the spectators was Alick Hudson, a sleepy-looking youth of twenty, who started and took his hands out of his pockets at sight of Elinor. Mr. Hudson himself came walking briskly round the corner, swinging his cane with the air of a man who was afraid of being too late.
"Didn't I tell you?" said Compton, pressing Elinor's arm.
As the tootle-te-too went on, other spectators appeared – the two Miss Hills, one putting on her hat, the other hastily buttoning her jacket as they hurried up. "Oh, you here, Elinor! What fun! We all run as if we were six years old. I'm going to engage the man to come round and do it opposite Rosebank to amuse mother. She likes it as much as any of us, though she doesn't see very well, poor dear, nor hear either. But we must always consider that the old have not many amusements," said the elder Miss Hill.
"Though mother amuses herself wonderfully with her knitting," said Miss Sarah. "There's a sofa-cover on the stocks for you, Elinor."
It appeared to be only at this moment that the sisters became aware of the presence of "the gentleman" by whom Elinor stood. They had been too busy with their uncompleted toilettes to observe him at first. But now that Miss Hill's hat was settled to her satisfaction, and the blue veil tied over her face as she liked it to be, and Miss Sarah had at last succeeded, after two false starts, in buttoning her jacket straight, their attention was released for other details. They both gave a glance over Elinor at the tall figure on the other side, and then looked at each other with a mutual little "Oh!" and nod of recognition. Then Miss Hill took the initiative as became her dignity. "I hope you are going to introduce us to your companion, Elinor," she said. "Oh, Mr. Compton, how do you do? We are delighted to make your acquaintance, I am sure. It is charming to have an opportunity of seeing a person of so much importance to us all, our dear Elinor's intended. I hope you know what a prize you are getting. You might have sought the whole country over and you wouldn't have found a girl like her. I don't know how we shall endure your name when you carry her away."
"Except, indeed," said Miss Sarah, "that it will be Elinor's name too."
"So here we all are again," said the Rector, gazing down tranquilly upon his flock, "not able to resist a little histrionic exhibition – and Mr. Compton too, fresh from the great world. I daresay our good friend Mrs. Basset would hand us out some chairs. No Englishman can resist Punch. Alick, my boy, you ought to be at your work. It will not do to neglect your lessons when you are so near your exam."
"No Englishman, father, can resist Punch," said the lad: at which the two ostlers and the landlord of the Bull's Head, who was standing with his hands in his pockets in his own doorway, laughed loud.
"Had the old fellow there," said Compton, which was the first observation he had made. The ladies looked at him with some horror, and Alick a little flustered, half pleased, half horrified, by this support, while the Rector laughed, but stiffly
au bout des lèvres
. He was not accustomed to be called an old fellow in his own parish.
"The old fellows, as you elegantly say, Mr. Compton, have always the worst of it in a popular assembly. Elinor, here is a chair for you, my love. Another one please, Mrs. Basset, for I see Miss Dale coming up this way."
"By Jove," said Compton, under his breath. "Elinor, here's the one that knows society. I hope she isn't such an old guy as the rest."
"Oh, Phil, be good!" said Elinor, "or let us go away, which would be the best."
"Not a bit," he said. "Let's see the show. I say, old man, where are you from last?"
"Down from Guildford ways, guv'nor – awful bad trade; not taken a bob, s' help me, not for three days, and bed and board to get off o' that, me and my mate."
"Well, here is a nice little party for you, my man," said the Rector, "it is not often you have such an audience – nor would I encourage it, indeed, if it were not so purely English an exhibition."
"Master," said the showman, "worst of it is, nobody pays till we've done the show, and then they goes away, and they've got it, don't you see, and we can't have it back once it's in their insides, and there ain't nothink then, neither for my mate nor me."
"Here's for you, old fellow," said Phil. He took a sovereign from his waistcoat pocket and chucked it with his thumbnail into the man's hand, who looked at it with astonished delight, tossed it into the air with a grin, a "thank'ee, gentleman!" and a call to his "mate" who immediately began the ever-exciting, ever-amusing drama. The thrill of sensation which ran through the little assembly at this incident was wonderful. The children all turned from Punch to regard with large open eyes and mouths the gentleman who had given a gold sovereign to the showman. Alick Hudson looked at him with a grin of pleasure, a blush of envy on his face; the Rector, with an expression of horror, slightly shaking his head; the Miss Hills with admiration yet dismay. "Goodness, Sarah, they'll never come now and do it for a shilling to amuse mother!" the elder of the sisters said.
Miss Dale came hurrying up while still the sensation lasted. "Here is a chair for you, Mary," said her brother-in-law, "and the play is just going to begin. I can't help shaking my head when I think of it, but still you must hear what has just happened. Mr. Compton, let me present you to my sister-in-law, Miss Dale. Mr. Compton has made the widow's heart, nay, not the widow's, but the showman's heart to sing. He has presented our friend with a – "
"Mind you," said Phil, from behind Elinor's shoulders, "I've paid the fellow only for two."
At which the showman turned and winked at the Rector. To think that such a piece of audacity could be! A dingy fellow in a velvet