THE days in the cottage were full of excitement and of occupation during the blazing August weather, not so much indeed as is common in many houses in which the expectant bridegroom is always coming and going; though perhaps the place of that exhilarating commotion was more or less filled by the ever-present diversity of opinion, the excitement of a subdued but never-ended conflict in which one was always on the defensive, and the other covertly or openly attacking, or at least believed to be so doing, the distant and unseen object to which all their thoughts turned. Mrs. Dennistoun, indeed, was not always aggressive, her opposition was but in fits and starts. Often her feelings of pain and alarm were quiescent in that unfeigned and salutary interest in clothes and necessities of preparation which is almost always a resource to a woman’s mind. It is wrong to undervalue this possibility which compensates a woman in a small degree for some of her special troubles. When the mother’s heart was very heavy, it was often diverted a little by the discussion of a dinner dress, or made to forget itself for the moment in a question about the cut of a sleeve, or which would be most becoming to Elinor of two colours for a ball gown. But though Mrs. Dennistoun forgot often, Elinor never forgot. The dresses and “things” generally occupied her a great deal, but not in the form of the anodyne which they supplied to her mother. Her mind was always on the alert, looking out for those flying arrows of warfare which your true fighter lets fly in the most innocent conversation at the most unexpected moments. Elinor thus flung her shield in her mother’s face a hundred times when that poor lady was thinking no evil, when she was altogether occupied by the question of frills and laces, or whether tucks or flounces were best, and she was startled many times by that unnecessary rattle of Elinor’s arms. “I was not thinking of Mr. Compton,” she would sometimes be driven to say; “he was not in my head at all. I was thinking of nothing more important than that walking dress, and what you had best wear in the afternoon when you are on those grand visits.”
There was one thing which occasioned a little discussion between them, and that was the necessary civility of asking the neighbours to inspect these “things” when they were finally ready. It was only the argument that these neighbours would be Mrs. Dennistoun’s sole resource when she was left alone that made Elinor assent at last. Perhaps, however, as she walked quickly along towards the moorland Rectory, a certain satisfaction in showing them how little their hints had been taken, mingled with the reluctance to admit those people who had breathed a doubt upon the sacred name of Phil, to such a sign of intimacy.
“I have been watching you along the side of the combe, and wondering if it was you such a threatening day,” said Alice Hudson, coming to the door to meet her. “How nice of you to come, Elinor, when you must be so busy, and you have not been here since—I don’t know how long ago!”
“No, I have not been here,” said Elinor with a gravity worthy the bride of a maligned man. “But the time is so near when I shall not be able to come at all that I thought it was best. Mamma wishes you to come over to-morrow, if you will, to see my things.”
“Oh!” the three ladies said together; and Mrs. Hudson came forward and gave Elinor a kiss. “My dear,” she said, “I take it very kind you coming yourself to ask us. Many would not have done it after what we felt it our duty—— But you always had a beautiful spirit, Elinor, bearing no malice, and I hope with all my heart that it will have its reward.”
“Well, mother,” said Alice, “I don’t see how Elinor could do anything less, seeing we have been such friends all our lives as girls, she and I, and I am sure I have always been ready to give her patterns, or to show her how a thing was done. I should have been very much disappointed if she had not asked me to see her things.”
Mary Dale, who was Mrs. Hudson’s sister, said nothing at all, but accepted the visit as in the course of nature. Mary was the one who really knew something about Phil Compton: but she had been against the remonstrance which Mrs. Hudson thought it her duty to make. What was the good? Miss Dale had said; and she had refrained from telling two or three stories about the Comptons which would have made the hair stand upright on the heads of the Rector and the Rectoress. She did not even now say that it was kind, but met Elinor in silence, as, in her position as the not important member of the family, it was quite becoming for her to do.
Then the Rector came in and took her by both hands, and gave her the most friendly greeting. “I heard Elinor’s voice, and I stopped in the middle of my sermon,” he said. “You will remark in church on Sunday a jerky piece, which shows how I stopped to reflect whether it could be you—and then went on for another sentence, and then decided that it must be you. There is a big Elinor written across my sermon paper.” He laughed, but he was a little moved, to see, after the “coolness,” the little girl whom he had christened come back to her old friends again.
“She has come to ask us to go and see her things, papa,” said Mrs. Hudson, twinkling an eye to get rid of a suspicion of a tear.
“Am I to come, too?” said the Rector; and thus the little incident of the reconciliation was got over, to the great content of all.
Elinor reflected to herself that they were really kind people, as she went out again into the grey afternoon where everything was getting up for rain. She made up her mind she would just have time to run into the Hills’, at the Hurst, and leave her message, and so get home before the storm began. The clouds lay low like a dark grey hood over the fir-trees and moorland shaggy tops of the downs all round. There was not a break anywhere in the consistent grey, and the air, always so brisk, had fallen still with that ominous lull that comes over everything before a convulsion of nature. Some birds were still hurrying home into the depths of the copses with a frightened straightness of flight, as if they were afraid they would not get back in time, and all the insects that are so gay with their humming and booming had disappeared under leaves and stones and grasses. Elinor saw a bee burrowing deep in the waxen trumpet of a foxglove, as if taking shelter, as she walked quickly past. The Hills—there were two middle-aged sisters of them, with an old mother, too old for such diversion as the inspection of wedding-clothes, in the background—would scarcely let Elinor go out again after they had accepted her invitation with rapture. “I was just wondering where I should see the new fashions,” said Miss Hill, “for though we are not going to be married we must begin to think about our winter things——” “And this will be such an opportunity,” said Miss Susan, “and so good of you to come yourself to ask us.”
“What has she come to ask you to,” said old Mrs. Hill; “the wedding? I told you girls, I was sure you would not be left out. Why, I knew her mother before she was married. I have known them all, man and boy, for nearer sixty than fifty years—before her mother was born! To have left you out would have been ridiculous. Yes, yes, Elinor, my dear; tell your mother they will come—delighted! They have been thinking for the last fortnight what bonnets they would wear——”
“Oh, mother!” and “Oh, Elinor!” said the “girls,” “you must not mind what mother says. We know very well that you must have worlds of people to ask. Don’t think, among all your new connections, of such little country mice as us. We shall always just take the same interest in you, dear child, whether you find you can ask us or not.”
“But of course you are asked,” said Elinor, in gaieté de cœur, not reflecting that her mother had begun to be in despair about the number of people who could be entertained in the cottage dining-room, “and you must not talk about my new grand connections, for nobody will ever be like my old friends.”
“Dear child!” they said, and “I always knew that dear Elinor’s heart was in the right place.” But it was all that Elinor could do to get free of their eager affection and alarm lest she should be caught in the rain. Both of the ladies produced waterproofs, and one a large pair of goloshes to fortify her, when it was found that she would go; and they stood in the porch watching her as she went along into the darkening afternoon, without any of their covers and shelters. The Miss Hills were apt to cling together, after the manner of those pairs of sweet sisters in the “Books of Beauty” which had been the delight of their youth; they stood, with arms intertwined, in their porch, watching Elinor as she hurried home, with her light half-flying step, like the belated birds. “Did you hear what she said about old friends, poor little thing?” “I wonder if she is finding out already that her new grand connections are but vanity!” they said, shaking their heads. The middle-aged sisters looked out of the sheltered home, which perhaps they had not chosen for themselves, with a sort of wistful feeling, half pity, perhaps half envy, upon the “poor little thing” who was running out so light-hearted into the storm. They had long ago retired into waterproofs and goloshes, and had much unwillingness to wet their feet—which things are a parable. They went back and closed the door, only when the first flash of lightning dazzled them, and they remembered that an open door is dangerous during a thunderstorm.
Elinor quickened her pace as the storm began and got home breathless with running, shaking off the first big drops of thunder-rain from her dress. But she did not think of any danger, and sat out in the porch watching how the darkness came down on the combe; how it was met with the jagged gleam of the great white flash, and how the thunderous explosion shook the earth. The combe, with its hill-tops on either side, became like the scene of a battle, great armies, invisible in the sharp torrents of rain, meeting each other with a fierce shock and recoil, with now and then a trumpet-blast, and now the gleam that lit up tree and copse, and anon the tremendous artillery. When the lightning came she caught a glimpse of the winding line of the white road leading away out of all this—leading into the world where she was going—and for a moment escaped by it, even amid the roar of all the elements: then came back, alighting again with a start in the familiar porch, amid all the surroundings of the familiar life, to feel her mother’s hand upon her shoulder, and her mother’s voice saying, “Have you got wet, my darling? Did you get much of it? Come in, come in from the storm!”
“It is so glorious, mamma!” Mrs. Dennistoun stood for a few minutes looking at it, then, with a shudder, withdrew into the drawing-room. “I think I have seen too many storms to like it,” she said. But Elinor had not seen too many storms. She sat and watched it, now rolling away towards the south, and bursting again as though one army or the other had got reinforcements; while the flash of the explosions and the roar of the guns, and the white blast of the rain, falling like a sheet from the leaden skies, wrapped everything in mystery. The only thing that was to be identified from time to time was that bit of road leading out of it—leading her thoughts away, as it should one day lead her eager feet, from all the storm and turmoil out into the bright and shining world. Elinor never asked herself, as she sat there, a spectator of this great conflict of nature, whether that one human thing, by which her swift thoughts traversed the storm, carried any other suggestion as of coming back.
Perhaps it is betraying feminine counsels too much to the modest public to narrate how Elinor’s things were all laid out for the inspection of the ladies of the parish, the dresses in one room, the “under things” in another, and in the dining-room the presents, which everybody was doubly curious to see, to compare their own offerings with those of other people, or else to note with anxious eye what was wanting, in order, if their present had not yet been procured, to supply the gap. How to get something that would look well among the others, and yet not be too expensive, was a problem which the country neighbours had much and painfully considered. The Hudsons had given Elinor a little tea-kettle upon a stand, which they were painfully conscious was only plated, and sadly afraid would not look well among all the gorgeous articles with which no doubt her grand new connections had loaded her. The Rector came himself, with his ladies to see how the kettle looked, with a great line of anxiety between his brows; but when they saw that the revolving dishes beside it, which were the gift of the wealthy Lady Mariamne, were plated too, and not nearly such a pretty design, their hearts went up in instant exhilaration, followed a moment after by such indignation as they could scarcely restrain. “That rich sister, the woman who married the Jew” (which was their very natural explanation of the lady’s nickname), “a woman who is rolling in wealth, and who actually made up the match!” This was crescendo, a height of scorn impossible to describe upon a mere printed page. “One would have thought she would have given a diamond necklace or something of consequence,” said Mrs. Hudson in her husband’s ear. “Or, at least silver,” said the Rector. “These fashionable people, though they give themselves every luxury, have sometimes not very much money to spend; but silver, at least, she might have been expected to give silver.” “It is simply disgraceful,” said the Rector’s wife. “I am glad, at all events, my dear,” said he, “that our little thing looks just as well as any.” “It is one of the prettiest things she has got,” said Mrs. Hudson, with a proud heart. Lord St. Serf sent an old-fashioned little ring in a much worn velvet case, and the elder brother, Lord Lomond, an album for photographs. The Rector’s wife indicated these gifts to her husband with little shrugs of her shoulders. “If that’s all the family can do!” she said: “why Alice’s cushion, which was worked with floss silks upon satin, was a more creditable present than that.” The Miss Hills, who as yet had not had an opportunity, as they said, of giving their present, roamed about, curious, inspecting everything. “What is the child to do with a kettle, a thing so difficult to pack, and requiring spirit for the lamp, and all that—and only plated!” the Hills said to each other. “Now, that little teapot of ours,” said Jane to Susan, “if mother would only consent to it, is no use to us, and would look very handsome here.” “Real silver, and old silver, which is so much the rage, and a thing she could use every day when she has her visitors for afternoon tea,” said Susan to Jane. “It is rather small,” said Miss Hill, doubtfully. “But quite enough for two people,” said the other, forgetting that she had just declared that the teapot would be serviceable when Elinor had visitors. But that was a small matter. Elinor, however, had other things better than these—a necklace, worth half a year’s income, from John Tatham, which he had pinched himself to get for her that she might hold up her head among those great friends; and almost all that her mother possessed in the way of jewellery, which was enough to make a show among these simple people. “Her own family at least have done Elinor justice,” said the Rector, going again to have a look at the kettle, which was the chief of the display to him. Thus the visitors made their remarks. The Hills did nothing but stand apart and discuss their teapot and the means by which “mother” could be got to assent.
The Rector took his cup of tea, always with a side glance at the kettle, and cut his cake, and made his gentle jest. “If Alick and I come over in the night and carry them all off you must not be surprised,” he said; “such valuable things as these in a little poor parish are a dreadful temptation, and I don’t suppose you have much in the way of bolts and bars. Alick is as nimble as a cat, he can get in at any crevice, and I’ll bring over the box for the collections to carry off the little things.” This harmless wit pleased the good clergyman much, and he repeated it to all the ladies. “I am coming over with Alick one of these dark nights to make a sweep of everything,” he said. Mr. Hudson retired in the gentle laughter that followed this, feeling that he had acquitted himself as a man ought who is the only gentleman present, as well as the Rector of the parish. “I am afraid I would not be a good judge of the ‘things,’” he said, “and for anything I know there may be mysteries not intended for men’s eyes. I like to see your pretty dresses when you are wearing them, but I can’t judge of their effect in the gross.” He was a man who had a pleasant wit. The ladies all agreed that the Rector was sure to make you laugh whatever was the occasion, and he walked home very briskly, pleased with the effect of the kettle, and saying to himself that from the moment he saw it in Mappin’s window he had felt sure it was the very thing.
The other ladies were sufficiently impressed with the number and splendour of Elinor’s gowns. Mrs. Dennistoun explained, with a humility which was not, I fear, untinctured by pride, that both number and variety were rendered necessary by the fact that Elinor was going upon a series of visits among her future husband’s great relations, and would have to be much in society and among fine people who dressed very much, and would expect a great deal from a bride. “Of course, in ordinary circumstances the half of them would have been enough: for I don’t approve of too many dresses.”
“They get old-fashioned,” said Mrs. Hudson, gravely, “before they are half worn out.”
“And to do them up again is quite as expensive as getting new ones, and not so satisfactory,” said the Miss Hills.
The proud mother allowed both of these drawbacks. “But what could I do?” she said. “I cannot have my child go away into such a different sphere unprovided. It is a sacrifice, but we had to make it. I wish,” she said, looking round to see that Elinor was out of hearing, “it was the only sacrifice that had to be made.”
“Let us hope,” said the Rector’s wife, solemnly, “that it will all turn out for the best.”
“It will do that however it turns out,” said Miss Dale, who was even more serious than it was incumbent on a member of a clerical household to be, “for we all know that troubles are sent for our advantage as well as blessings, and poor dear Elinor may require much discipline——”
“Oh, goodness, don’t talk as if the poor child was going to be executed,” said Susan Hill.
“I am not at all alarmed,” said Mrs. Dennistoun. It was unwise of her to have left an opening for any such remark. “My Elinor has always been surrounded by love wherever she has been. Her future husband’s family are already very fond of her. I am not at all alarmed on Elinor’s account.”
She laid the covering wrapper over the dresses with an air of pride and confidence which was remembered long afterwards—as the pride that goeth before a fall by some, but by others with more sympathy, who guessed the secret workings of the mother’s heart.