THUS Elinor Dennistoun disappeared from Windyhill and was no more seen. There are many ways in which a marriage is almost like a death, especially when the marriage is that of an only child. The young go away, the old remain. There is all the dreary routine of the solitary life unbrightened by that companionship which is all the world to the one who is left behind. So little—only the happy going away into brighter scenes of one whose happiness was the whole thought of that dreary survivor at the chimney corner—and yet so much. And if that survivor is a woman she has to smile and tell her neighbours of the bride’s happiness, and how great the comfort to herself that her Elinor’s life is assured, and her own ending is now of no particular importance to her daughter; if it is a man, he is allowed to lament, which is a curious paradox, but one of the many current in this world. Mrs. Dennistoun had to put a very brave face upon it all the more because of the known unsatisfactoriness of Elinor’s husband: and she had to go on with her life, and sit down at her solitary meals, and invent lonely occupations for herself, and read and read, till her brains were often dazed by the multiplicity of the words, which lost their meaning as she turned over page by page. To sit alone in the house, without a sound audible, except perhaps the movement of the servants going up-stairs or down to minister to the wants, about which she felt she cared nothing whether they were ministered to or not, of their solitary mistress, where a little while ago there used to be the rhythm of the one quick step, the sound of the one gay voice which made the world a warm inhabited place to Mrs. Dennistoun—this was more dismal than words could say. To be sure, there were some extraordinary and delightful differences; there were the almost daily letters, which afforded the lonely mother all the pleasure that life could give; and there was always the prospect, or at least possibility and hope, of seeing her child again. Those two particulars, it need scarcely be said, make a difference which is practically infinite: but yet for Mrs. Dennistoun, sitting alone all the day and night, walking alone, reading alone, with little to do that was of the slightest consequence, not even the reading—for what did it matter to her dreary, lonely consciousness whether she kept afloat of general literature or improved her mind or not? this separation by marriage was dreadfully like the dreary separation by death, and in one respect it was almost worse; for death, if it reaches our very hearts, takes away at least the gnawing pangs of anxiety. He or she who is gone that way is well; never more can trouble touch them, their feet cannot err nor their hearts ache; while who can tell what troubles and miseries may be befalling, out there in the unknown, the child who has embarked upon the troubled sea of mortal life?
And it may be imagined with what anxious eyes those letters, which made all the difference, were read; how the gradually changing tone in them was noted as it came in, slowly but also surely. Sometimes they got to be very hurried, and then Mrs. Dennistoun saw as in a glass the impatient husband waiting, wondering what she could constantly find to say to her mother; sometimes they were long and detailed, and that meant, as would appear perhaps by a phrase slurred over in the postscript, that Phil had gone away somewhere. There was never a complaint in them, never a word that could be twisted into a complaint: but the anxious mother read between the lines innumerable things, not half of them true. There is perhaps never a half true of what anxiety may imagine: but then the half that is true!
John Tatham was very faithful to her during that winter. As soon as he came back from Switzerland, at the end of the long vacation, he went down to see her, feeling the difference in the house beyond anything he had imagined, feeling as if he were stepping into some darkened outer chamber of the grave: but with a cheerful face and eager but confident interest in “the news from Elinor.” “Of course she is enjoying herself immensely,” he said, and Mrs. Dennistoun was able to reply with a smile that was a little wistful, that yes, Elinor was enjoying herself immensely. “She seems very happy, and everything is new to her and bright,” she said. They were both very glad that Elinor was happy, and they were very cheerful themselves. Mrs. Dennistoun truly cheered by his visit and by the necessity for looking after everything that John might be comfortable, and the pleasure of seeing his face opposite to her at table. “You can’t think what it is to see you there; sitting down to dinner is the most horrible farce when one is alone.” “Poor aunt!” John Tatham said: and nobody would believe how many Saturdays and Sundays he gave up to her during the long winter. Somehow he himself did not care to go anywhere else. In Elinor’s time he had gone about freely enough, liking a little variety in his Saturday to Mondays, though always happiest when he went to Windyhill: but now somehow the other houses seemed to pall upon him. He liked best to go down to that melancholy house which his presence made more or less bright, where there was an endless talk of Elinor, where she was, what she was doing, and what was to be her next move, and, at last, when she was coming to town. Mrs. Dennistoun did not say, as she did at first, “when she is coming home.” That possibility seemed to slip away somehow, and no one suggested it. When she was coming to town, that was what they said between themselves. She had spent the spring on the Riviera, a great part of it at Monte Carlo, and her letters were full of the beauty of the place; but she said less and less about people, and more and more about the sea and the mountains, and the glorious road which gave at every turn a new and beautiful vision of the hills and the sea. It was a little like a guide-book, they sometimes felt, but neither said it; but at last it became certain that in the month of May she was coming to town.
More than that, oh, more than that! One evening in May, when it was fine but a little chilly, when Mrs. Dennistoun was walking wistfully in her garden, looking at the moon shining in the west, and wondering if her child had arrived in England, and whether she was coming to a house of her own, or a lodging, or to be a visitor in some one else’s house, details which Elinor had not given—her ear was suddenly caught by the distant rumbling of wheels, heavy wheels, the fly from the station certainly. Mrs. Dennistoun had no expectation of what it could be, no sort of hope: and yet a woman has always a sort of hope when her child lives and everything is possible. The fly seemed to stop, not coming up the little cottage drive; but by and by, when she had almost given up hoping, there came a rush of flying feet, and a cry of joy, and Elinor was in her mother’s arms. Elinor! yes, it was herself, no vision, no shadow such as had many a time come into Mrs. Dennistoun’s dreams, but herself in flesh and blood, the dear familiar figure, the face which, between the twilight and those ridiculous tears which come when one is too happy, could scarcely be seen at all. “Elinor, Elinor! it is you, my darling!” “Yes, mother, it is me, really me. I could not write, because I did not know till the last minute whether I could get away.”
It may be imagined what a coming home that was. Mrs. Dennistoun, when she saw her daughter even by the light of the lamp, was greatly comforted. Elinor was looking well; she was changed in that indescribable way in which marriage changes (though not always) the happiest woman. And her appearance was changed; she was no longer the country young lady very well dressed and looking as well as any one could in her carefully made clothes. She was now a fashionable young woman, about whose dresses there was no question, who wore everything as those do who are at the fountain-head, no matter what it was she wore. Mrs. Dennistoun’s eyes caught this difference at once, which is also indescribable to the uninitiated, and a sensation of pride came into her mind. Elinor was improved, too, in so many ways. Her mother had never thought of calling her anything more, even in her in-most thoughts, than very pretty, very sweet; but it seemed to Mrs. Dennistoun now as if people might use a stronger word, and call Elinor beautiful. Her face had gained a great deal of expression, though it was always an expressive face; her eyes looked deeper; her manner had a wonderful youthful dignity. Altogether, it was another Elinor, yet, God be praised, the same.
It was but for one night, but that was a great deal, a night subtracted from the blank, a night that seemed to come out of the old times—those old times that had not been known to be so very happy till they were over and gone. Elinor had naturally a great deal to tell her mother, but in the glory of seeing her, of hearing her voice, of knowing that it was actually she who was speaking, Mrs. Dennistoun did not observe, what she remembered afterwards that again it was much more, of places than of people that Elinor talked, and that though she named Phil when there was any occasion for doing so, she did not babble about him as brides do, as if he were altogether the sun, and everything revolved round him. It is not a good sign, perhaps, when the husband comes down to his “proper place” as the representative of the other half of the world too soon. Elinor looked round upon her old home with a mingled smile and sigh. Undoubtedly it had grown smaller, perhaps even shabbier, since she went away: but she did not say so to her mother. She cried out how pretty it was, how delightful to come back to it! and that was true too. How often it happens in this life that there are two things quite opposed to each other, and yet both of them true.
“John will be delighted to hear that you have come, Elinor,” her mother said.
“John, dear old John! I hope he is well and happy, and all that; and he comes often to see you, mother? How sweet of him! You must give him ever so much love from his poor Nelly. I always keep that name sacred to him.”
“But why should I give him messages as if you were not sure to meet? of course you will meet—often.”
“Do you think so?” said Elinor. She opened her eyes a little in surprise, and then shook her head. “I am afraid not, mamma. We are in two different worlds.”
“I assure you,” said Mrs. Dennistoun, “John is a very rising man. He is invited everywhere.”
“That I don’t doubt at all.”
“And why then shouldn’t you meet?”
“I don’t know. I don’t fancy we shall go to the same places. John has a profession; he has something to do. Now you know we have nothing to do.”
She laughed and laid a little emphasis on the we, by way of taking off the weight of the words.
“I always thought it was a great pity, Elinor.”
“It may be a pity or not,” said Elinor, “but it is, and it cannot be helped. We have got to make up our minds to it. I would rather Phil did nothing than mixed himself up with companies. Thank heaven, at present he is free of anything of that kind.”
“I hope he is free of that one at least, that he was going to invest all your money in, Elinor. I hope you found another investment that was quite steady and safe.”
“Oh, I suppose so,” said Elinor, with some of her old petulance: “don’t let us spoil the little time I have by talking about money, mamma!”
And then it was that Mrs. Dennistoun noticed that what Elinor did talk of, hurrying away from this subject, were things of not the least importance—the olive woods on the Riviera, the wealth of flowers, the strange little old towns upon the hills. Surely even the money, which was her own and for her comfort, would be a more interesting subject to discuss. Perhaps Elinor herself perceived this, for she began immediately to ask questions about the Hudsons and Hills, and all the people of the parish, with much eagerness of questioning, but a flagging interest in the replies, as her mother soon saw. “And Mary Dale, is she still there?” she asked. Mrs. Dennistoun entered into a little history of how Mary Dale had gone away to nurse a distant cousin who had been ill, and finally had died and left a very comfortable little fortune to her kind attendant. Elinor listened with little nods and appropriate exclamations, but before the evening was out asked again, “And Mary Dale?” then hastily corrected herself with an “Oh, I remember! you told me.” But it was perhaps safer not to question her how much she remembered of what she had been told.
Thus there were notes of disquiet in even that delightful evening, such a contrast as it was to all the evenings since she had left home. Even when John came, what a poor substitute for Elinor! The ingratitude of those whose heart is set on one object made Mrs. Dennistoun thus make light of what had been her great consolation. He was very kind, very good, and oh, how glad she had been to see him through that heavy winter—but he was not Elinor! It was enough for Elinor to step across her mother’s threshold to make Mrs. Dennistoun feel that there was no substitute for her—none: and that John was of no more consequence than the Rector or any habitual caller. But, at the same time, in all the melody of the home-coming, in the sweetness of Elinor’s voice, and look, and kiss, in the perfection of seeing her there again in her own place, and listening to her dear step running up and down the no longer silent house, there were notes of disquiet which could not be mistaken. She was not unhappy, the mother thought; her eyes could not be so bright, nor her colour so fair unless she was happy. Trouble does not embellish, and Elinor was embellished. But yet—there were notes of disquiet in the air.
Next day Mrs. Dennistoun drove her child to the railway in order not to lose a moment of so short a visit, and naturally, though she had received that unexpected visit with rapture, feeling that a whole night of Elinor was worth a month, a year of anybody else, yet now that Elinor was going she found it very short. “You’ll come again soon, my darling?” she said, as she stood at the window of the carriage ready to say good-bye.
“Whenever I can, mother dear, of that you may be sure; whenever I can get away.”
“I don’t wish to draw you from your husband. Don’t get away—come with Philip from Saturday to Monday. Give him my love, and tell him so. He shall not be bored; but Sunday is a day without engagements.”
“Oh, not now, mamma. There are just as many things to do on Sundays as on any other day.”
There were a great many words on Mrs. Dennistoun’s lips, but she did not say them; all she did say was, “Well, then, Elinor—when you can get away.”
“Oh, you need not doubt me, mamma.” And the train, which sometimes lingers so long, which some people that very day were swearing at as so slow, “Like all country trains,” they said—that inevitable heartless thing got into motion, and Mrs. Dennistoun watched it till it disappeared; and—what was that that came over Elinor’s face as she sank back into the corner of her carriage, not knowing her mother’s anxious look followed her still—what was it? Oh, dreadful, dreadful life! oh, fruitless love and longing!—was it relief? The mother tried to get that look out of her mind as she drove silently and slowly home, creeping up hill after hill. There was no need to hurry. All that she was going to was an empty and silent house, where nobody awaited her. What was that look on Elinor’s face? Relief! to have it over, to get away again, away from her old home and her fond mother, away to her new life. Mrs. Dennistoun was not a jealous mother nor unreasonable. She said to herself—Well! it was no doubt a trial to the child to come back—to come alone. All the time, perhaps, she was afraid of being too closely questioned, of having to confess that he did not want to come, perhaps grudged her coming. She might be afraid that her mother would divine something—some hidden opposition, some dislike, perhaps, on his part. Poor Elinor! and when everything had passed over so well, when it was ended, and nothing had been between them but love and mutual understanding, what wonder if there came over her dear face a look of relief! This was how this good woman, who had seen a great many things in her passage through life, explained her child’s look: and though she was sad was not angry, as many less tolerant and less far-seeing might have been in her place.
John, that good John, to whom she had been so ungrateful, came down next Saturday, and to him she confided her great news, but not all of it. “She came down—alone?” he said.
“Well,” said Mrs. Dennistoun, bravely; “she knew very well it was her I wanted to see, and not Philip. They say a great deal about mothers-in-law, but why shouldn’t we in our turn have our fling at sons-in-law, John? It was not him I wanted to see: it was my own child: and Elinor understood that, and ran off by herself. Bless her for the thought.”
“I understand that,” said John. He had given the mother more than one look as she spoke, and divined her better than she supposed. “Oh, yes, I can understand that. The thing I don’t understand is why he let her; why he wasn’t too proud to bring her back to you, that you might see she had taken no harm. If it had been I——”
“Ah, but it was not you,” said Mrs. Dennistoun; “you forget that. It never could have been you.”
He looked quickly at her again, and it was on his lips to ask, “Why could it never have been I?” but he did not; for he knew that if it had ever been him, it could not have been for years. He was too prudent, and Elinor, even if she had escaped Phil Compton, would have met some one else. He had no right to say, or even think, what, in the circumstances, he would have done. He did not make any answer, but she understood him as he understood her.
And later in the evening she asked his advice as to what she should do. “I am not fond of asking advice,” she said, “and I don’t think there is another in the world I would ask it from but you. What should I do? It would cost me nothing to run up to town for a part of the season at least. I might get a little house, and be near her, where she could come to me when she pleased. Should I do it, or would it be wise not to do it? I don’t want to spy upon her or to force her to tell me more than she wishes. John, my dear, I will tell you what I would tell no one else. I caught a glimpse of her dear face when the train was just going out of sight, and she was sinking back in her corner with a look of relief——”
“Of relief!” he cried.
“John, don’t form any false impression! it was no want of love: but I think she was thankful to have seen me, and to have satisfied me, and that I had asked no questions that she could not answer—in a way.”
John clenched his fist, but he dared not make any gesture of disgust, or suggest again, “If it had been I.”
“Well, now,” she said, “remember I am not angry—fancy being angry with Elinor!—and all I mean is for her benefit. Should I go? it might be a relief to her to run into me whenever she pleased; or should I not go? lest she might think I was bent on finding out more than she chose to tell?”
“Wouldn’t it be right that you should find out?”
“That is just the point upon which I am doubtful. She is not unhappy, for she is—she is prettier than ever she was, John. A girl does not get like that—her eyes brighter, her colour clearer, looking—well, beautiful!” cried the mother, her eyes filling with bright tears, “if she is unhappy. But there may be things that are not quite smooth, that she might think it would make me unhappy to know, yet that if let alone might come all right. Tell me, John, what should I do?”
And they sat debating thus till far on in the night.