CHAPTER XXIV.
IT was not till nearly three weeks after this that John received another brief dispatch. “At home: come and see us.” He had indeed got a short letter or two in the interval, saying almost nothing—a brief report of Elinor’s health, and of the baby, against whom he had taken an unreasoning disgust and repugnance. “Little beast!” he said to himself, passing over that part of the bulletin: for the letters were scarcely more than bulletins, without a word about the circumstances which surrounded her. A shooting lodge in Ross-shire in the middle of the winter! What a place for a delicate woman! John was well enough aware that many elements of comfort were possible even in such a place; but he shut his eyes, as was natural, to anything that went against his own point of view.
And now this telegram from Windyhill—“At home: come and see us”—us. Was it a mistake of the telegraph people?—of course they must make mistakes. They had no doubt taken the me in Mrs. Dennistoun’s angular writing for us—or was it possible—— John had no peace in his mind until he had so managed matters that he could go and see. There was no very pressing business in the middle of January, when people had hardly yet recovered the idleness of Christmas. He started one windy afternoon, when everything was grey, and arrived at Hurrymere station in the dim twilight, still ruddy with tints of sunset. He was in a very contradictory frame of mind, so that though his heart jumped to see Mrs. Dennistoun awaiting him on the platform, there mingled in his satisfaction in seeing her and hearing what she had to tell so much sooner, a perverse conviction of cold and discomfort in the long drive up in the pony carriage which he felt sure was before him. He was mistaken, however, on this point, for the first thing she said was, “I have secured the fly, John. Old Pearson will take your luggage. I have so much to tell you.” There was an air of excitement in her face, but not that air of subdued and silent depression which comes with solitude. She was evidently full of the report she had to make; but yet the first thing she did when she was ensconced in the fly with John beside her was to cover her face with her hands, and subside into her corner in a silent passion of tears.
“For mercy’s sake tell me what is the matter. What has happened? Is Elinor ill?”
He had almost asked is Elinor dead?
She uncovered her face, which had suddenly lighted up with a strange gleam of joy underneath the tears. “John, Elinor is here,” she said.
“Here?”
“At home—safe. I have brought her back—and the child.”
“Confound the child!” John said in his excitement. “Brought her back! What do you mean?”
“Oh, John, it is a long story. I have a hundred things to tell you, and to ask your advice upon; but the main thing is that she is here. I have brought her away from him. She will go back no more.”
“She has left her husband?” he said, with a momentary flicker of exultation in his dismay. But the dismay, to do him justice, was the strongest. He looked at his companion almost sternly. “Things,” he said, “must have been very serious to justify that.”
“They were more than serious—they had become impossible,” Mrs. Dennistoun said.
And she told him her story, which was a long one. She had arrived to find Elinor alone in the little solitary lodge in the midst of the wilds, not without attention indeed or comfort, but alone, her husband absent. She had been very ill, and he had been at the neighbouring castle, where a great party was assembled, and where, the mother discovered at last, there was—the woman who had made Elinor’s life a burden to her. “I don’t know with what truth. I don’t know whether there is what people call any harm in it. It is possible he is only amusing himself. I can’t tell. But it has made Elinor miserable this whole autumn through, that and a multitude of other things. She would not let me send for him when I got there. It had gone so far as that. She said that the whole business disgusted him, that he had lost all interest in her, that to hear it was over might be a relief to him, but nothing more. Her heart has turned altogether against him, John, in every way. There have been a hundred things. You think I am almost wickedly glad to have her home. And so I am. I cannot deny it. To have her here even in her trouble makes all the difference to me. But I am not so careless as you think. I can look beyond to other things. I shrink as much as you do from such a collapse of her life. I don’t want her to give up her duty, and now that there is the additional bond of the child——”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said John, “leave the child out of it! I want to hear nothing of the child!”
“That is one chief point, however, that we want your advice about, John. A man, I suppose, does not understand it; but her baby is everything to Elinor: and I suppose—unless he can really be proved as guilty as she thinks—he could take the child away.”
John smiled to himself a little bitterly; this was why he was sent for in such a hurry, not for the sake of his society, or from any affection for him, but that he might tell them what steps to take to secure them in possession of the child. He said nothing for some time, nor did Mrs. Dennistoun, whose disappointment in the coldness of his response was considerable, and who waited in vain for him to speak. At length she said, almost tremblingly, “I am afraid you disapprove very much of the whole business, John.”
“I hope it has not been done rashly,” he said. “The husband’s mere absence, though heartless as—as I should have expected of the fellow—would yet not be reason enough to satisfy any—court.”
“Any court! You don’t think she means to bring him before any court? She wants only to be left alone. We ask nothing from him, not a penny, not any money—surely, surely no revenge—only not to be molested. There shall not be a word said on our side, if he will but let her alone.”
John shook his head. “It all depends upon the view the man takes of it,” he said.
Now this was very cold comfort to Mrs. Dennistoun, who had by this time become very secure in her position, feeling herself entirely justified in all that she had done. “The man,” she said, “the man is not the sufferer: and surely the woman has some claim to be heard.”
“Every claim,” said John. “That is not what I was thinking of. It is this: if the man has a leg to stand upon, he will show fight. If he hasn’t—why that will make the whole difference, and probably Elinor’s position will be quite safe. But you yourself say——”
“John, don’t throw back upon me what I myself said. I said that perhaps things were not so bad as she believed. In my experience I have found that folly, and playing with everything that is right is more common than absolute wrong—and men like Philip Compton are made up of levity and disregard of everything that is serious.”
“In that case,” said John, “if you are right, he will not let her go.”
“Oh, John! oh, John! don’t make me wish that he may be a worse man than I think. He could not force her to go back to him, feeling as she does.”
“Nobody can force a woman to do that; but he could perhaps make her position untenable; he would, perhaps, take away the child.”
“John,” said Mrs. Dennistoun, in alarm, “if you tell her that, she will fly off with him to the end of the world. She will die before she will part with the child.”
“I suppose that’s how women are made,” said John, not yet cured of his personal offence.
“Yes,” she said, “that’s how women are made.”
“I beg your pardon,” he said, coming to himself; “but you know, aunt, a man may be pardoned for not understanding that supreme fascination of the baby who cares no more for one than another, poor little animal, so long as it gets its food and is warm enough. We must await and see what the man will do.”
“Is that the best?—is there nothing we can do to defend ourselves in the meantime—to make any sort of barricade against him?”
“We must wait and see what he is going to do,” said John; and they went over and over the question, again and again, as they climbed the hills. It grew quite dark as they drove along, and when they came out upon the open part of the road, from which the Cottage was visible, they both looked out across the combe to the lights in the windows with an involuntary movement. The Cottage was transformed; instead of the one lonely lighted window which had indicated to John in former visits where Mrs. Dennistoun sat alone, there was now a twinkle from various points, a glow of firelight, a sensation of warmth, and company. Mrs. Dennistoun looked out upon it and her face shone. It was not a happy thing that Elinor should have made shipwreck of her life, should have left her husband and sought refuge in her mother’s house. But how could it be otherwise than happy that Elinor was there—Elinor and the other little creature who was something more than Elinor, herself and yet another? As for John, he looked at it too, with an interest which stopped all arguments on the cause of it. She was there—wrong, perhaps, impatient; too quick to fly as she had been too quick to go—but still Elinor all the same, whether she was right or wrong.
The cab arrived soberly at the door, where Pearson with the pony carriage, coming by the shorter way with the luggage, had just arrived also. Mrs. Dennistoun said, hurriedly, “You will find Elinor in the drawing-room, John,” and herself went hastily through the house and up the stairs. She was going to the baby! John guessed this with a smile of astonishment and half contempt. How strange it was! There could not be a more sad position than that in which, in their rashness, these two women had placed themselves; and yet the mother, a woman of experience, who ought to have known better, got out of the carriage like a girl, without waiting to be helped or attended to, and went up-stairs like the wind, forgetting everything else for that child—that child, the inheritor of Phil Compton’s name and very likely of his qualities—fated from his birth (most likely) to bring trouble to everybody connected with him! And yet Elinor was of less interest to her mother. What strange caprices of nature! what extraordinary freaks of womankind!
The Cottage down-stairs was warm and bright with firelight and lamplight, and in the great chair by the fire was reclining, lying back with her book laid on her lap and her face full of eager attention to the sounds outside, a pale young woman, surrounded by cushions and warm wraps and everything an invalid could require, who raised to him eyes more large and shining than he had ever seen before, suffused with a dew of pain and pleasure and eager welcome. Elinor, was it Elinor? He had never seen her in any way like an invalid before—never knew her to be ill, or weak, or unable to walk out to the door and meet him or anyone she cared for. The sight of her ailing, weak, with those large glistening eyes, enlarged by feebleness, went to his very heart. Fortunately he did not in any way connect this enfeebled state with the phenomenon up-stairs, which was best for all parties. He hurried up to her, taking her thin hands into his own.
“Elinor! my poor little Nelly—can this be you!”
The water that was in her eyes rolled over in two great tears; a brief convulsion went over her face. “Yes, John,” she said, almost in a whisper. “Strange as it may seem, this is all that is left of me.”
He sat down beside her and for a moment neither of them spoke. Pity, tenderness, wrath, surged up together in John’s breast; pity, tender compassion, most strong of all. Poor little thing; this was how she had come back to her home; her heart broken, her wings broken, as it were; all her soaring and swiftness and energy gone. He could scarcely look upon her for the pity that overflowed his heart. But underneath lay wrath, not only against the man who had brought her to such a pass, but against herself too.
“John,” she said, after a while, “do you remember saying to me that I was not one to bear, to put up with things, to take the consequences if I tried a dangerous experiment and failed?”
“Did I ever say anything so silly and so cruel?”
“Oh, no, no; it was neither silly nor unkind, but quite, quite true. I have thought of it so often. I used to think of it to stir up my pride, to remind myself that I ought to try to be better than my nature, not to allow you to be a true prophet. But it was so, and I couldn’t change it. You can see you were right, John, for I have not been like a strong woman, able to endure; I have only been able to run away.”
“My poor little Nelly!”
“Don’t pity me,” she said, the tears running over again. “I am too well off; I am too well taken care of. A prodigal should not be made so much of as I am.”
“Don’t call yourself a prodigal, Nelly! Perhaps things may not be as bad as they appear. At least, it is but the first fall—the greatest athlete gets many before he can stand against the world.”
“I’ll never be an athlete, John. Besides, I’m a woman, you know, and a fall of any kind is fatal to a woman, especially anything of this kind. No, I know very well it’s all over; I shall never hold up my head again. But that’s not the question—the question is, to be safe and as free as can be. Mamma takes me in, you know, just as if nothing had happened. She is quite willing to take the burden of me on her shoulders—and of baby. She has told you that there are two of me, now, John—my baby, as well as myself.”
John could only nod an assent; he could not speak.
“It’s a wonderful thing to come out of a wreck with a treasure in one’s arms; everything going to pieces behind one; the rafters coming down, the walls falling in and yet one’s treasure in one’s arms. Oh, I had not the heart or the strength to come out of the tumbling house. My mother did it all, dragged me out, wrapped me up in love and kindness; carried me away. I don’t want you to think I was good for anything. I should just have lain there and died. One thing, I did not mind dying at all—I had quite made up my mind. That would not have been so disgraceful as running away.”
“There is nothing that is disgraceful,” said John, “for heaven’s sake don’t say so, Nelly. It is unfortunate—beyond words—but that is all. Nobody can think that you are in any way disgraced. And if you are allowed just to stay quietly here in your natural home, I suppose you desire nothing more.”
“What should I desire more, John? You don’t suppose I should like to go and live in the world again, and go into society and all that? I have had about enough of society. Oh, I want nothing but to be quiet and unmolested, and bring up my baby. They could not take my baby from me, John?”
“I do not think so,” he said, with a grave face.
“You do not—think so? Then you are not sure? My mother says dreadful things, but I cannot believe them. They would never take an infant from its mother to give it to—to give it to—a man—who could do nothing, nothing for it. What could a man do with a young child? a man always on the move, who has no settled home, who has no idea what an infant wants? John, I know law is inhuman, but surely, surely not so inhuman as that.”
“My dear Nelly,” he said, “the law, you know, which, as you say, is often inhuman, recognizes the child as belonging to the father. He is responsible for it. For instance, they never could come upon you for its maintenance or education, or anything of that kind, until it had been proved that the father——”
“May I ask,” said Elinor, with uplifted head, “of what or of whom you are talking when you say it?”
It was all John could do not to burst into a peal of aggrieved and indignant laughter. He who had been brought from town, from his own comforts such as they were, to be consulted about this brat, this child which belonged to the dis-Honourable Phil; and Elinor, Elinor, of all people in the world, threw up her head and confronted him with disdain because he called the brat it, and not him or her, whichever it was. John recollected well enough that sentence at which he had been so indignant in the telegram—“child, a boy”—but he affected to himself not to know what it was for the indulgence of a little contumely: and the reward he had got was contumely upon his own head. But when he looked at Elinor’s pale face, the eyes so much larger than they ought to be, with tears welling out unawares, dried up for a moment by indignation or quick hasty temper, the temper which made her sweeter words all the more sweet he had always thought—then rising again unawares under the heavy lids, the lips so ready to quiver, the pathetic lines about the mouth: when he looked at all these John’s heart smote him. He would have called the child anything, if there had been a sex superior to him the baby should have it. And what was there that man could do that he would not do for the deliverance of the mother and the child?