WHEN Elinor received the official document which had so extraordinary an effect upon her life, and overturned in a moment all the fabric of domestic quiet and security which she had been building up for years, it was outside the tranquil walls of the house at Lakeside, in the garden which lay between it and the high-road, opening upon that not very much-frequented road by a pair of somewhat imposing gates, which gave the little establishment an air of more pretension than it really possessed. Some fine trees shrouded the little avenue, and Elinor was standing under one of them, stooping over a little nest of primroses at its roots, from which the yellow buds were peeping forth, when she heard behind her the sound of a vehicle at the gates, and the quick leap to the ground of someone who opened them. Then there was a pause; the carriage, whatever it was, did not come farther, and presently she herself, a little curious, turned round to see a man approaching her, whom she did not know. A dog-cart driven by another, whose face she recognized, waited in the road while the stranger came forward. “You are Mrs. Compton, ma’am?” he said. A swift thrill of alarm, she could scarcely tell why, ran over Elinor from head to foot. She had been settled for nearly eighteen years at Lakeside. What could happen to frighten her now? but it tingled to her very fingers’ ends. And then he said something to her which she scarcely understood, but which sent that tingle to her very heart and brain, and gave her the suspicious-looking blue paper which he held in his hand. It all passed in a moment of time to her dazed yet excited consciousness. The early primrose which she had gathered had not had time to droop in her grasp, though she crushed the stalk unconsciously in her fingers, before the gates were closed again, the sound of the departing wheels growing faint on the road, and she herself standing like one paralyzed with that thing in her hand. A subpœna!—what was a subpœna? She knew as little, perhaps less, than the children in the parish school, who began to troop along the road in their resounding clogs at their dinner hour. The sound of this awoke her a little to a frightened sense that she had better put this document out of sight, at least until she could manage to understand it. And then she sped swiftly away past the pretty white house lying in the sunshine, with all its doors and windows open, to the little wood behind, where it would be possible to think and find out at her leisure what this was. It was a small wood and a public path ran through it; but where the public was so limited as at Lakeside this scarcely impaired the privacy of the inhabitants, at least in the morning, when everybody in the parish was at work. Elinor hurried past the house that her mother might not see her, and climbed the woody hillock to a spot which was peculiarly her own, and where a seat had been placed for her special use. It was a little mount of vision from which she could look out, up and down, at the long winding line of the lake cleaving the green slopes, and away to the rugged and solemn peaks among which lay, in his mountain fastnesses, Helvellyn, with his hoary brethren crowding round him. Elinor had watched the changes of many a north-country day, full of endless vicissitudes, of flying clouds and gleams of sunshine, from that seat, and had hoped and tried to believe that nothing, save these vicissitudes of nature, would ever again disturb her. Had she really believed that? Her heart thumping against her breast, and the pulses of her brain beating loud in her ears, answered “No.” She had never believed it—she had known, notwithstanding all her obstinacy, and indignant opposition to all who warned her, that some day or other her home must be broken up, and the storm burst upon her. But even such a conviction, desperately fought against and resisted, is a very different matter from the awful sense of certainty that it has come, now——
The trees were thick enough to conceal her from any passer-by on the path, the young half-unfolded foliage of the birches fluttered over her head, while a solid fir or two stood, grim guardians, yet catching pathetic airs from every passing wind to soothe her. But Elinor neither heard nor saw lake, mountain, nor sunshine, nor spring breezes, but only the bit of paper in her hand, and the uncomprehended words she had heard when it was given to her. It was not long, however, before she perceived and knew exactly what it meant. It was a subpœna in the case of “The Queen versus Brown,” to attend and give evidence on a certain day in May, in London. It was for a few minutes a mystery to her as great as it was alarming, notwithstanding the swift and certain mental conviction she had that it concerned infallibly the one secret and mystery of her life. But as she sat there pondering, those strange strays of recollection that come to the mind, of things unnoted, yet unconsciously stored by memory, drew gradually about her, piecing out the threads of conviction. She remembered to have heard her mother read, among the many scraps which Mrs. Dennistoun loved to read out when the newspaper arrived, something about a man who had absconded, whose name was Brown, who had brought ruin on many, and had at length, after a number of years, ventured back to England and had been caught. It was one of the weaknesses of Mrs. Dennistoun’s advancing years to like these bits of news, though there might be little interest in them to so quiet a household; and her daughter was wont to listen with a very vague attention, noting but a word now and then, answering vaguely the lively remarks her mother would make on the subjects. In this case even she had paid no attention; and yet, the moment that strong keynote had been struck, which vibrated through her whole being, this echo suddenly woke up and resounded as if it had been thundered in her ears—“Brown!” She began to remember bit by bit—and yet what had she to do with Brown? He had not defrauded her; she had never seen him; she knew nothing about his delinquencies. Then there came another note faintly out of the distance of the years: her husband’s image, I need not say, had come suddenly into her sight with the first burst of this new event. His voice seemed to be in the air saying half-forgotten things. What had he to do with this man? Oh, she knew very well there was something—something! which she would have given her life not to recollect; which she knew in another moment would flash completely upon her as she tried not to remember it. And then suddenly her working mind caught another string which was not that; which was a relief to that for the moment. Brown!—who was it that had talked of Brown?—and the books that were destroyed—and the—— and the—— day that Phil Compton arrived at Windyhill?
Elinor rose up from her seat with a gasp. She put her arm round the rough stem of the fir-tree to support herself, but it shook with her though there was no wind, only the softest of morning airs. She saw before her a scene very different from this—the flowery garden at the cottage with the copse and the sandy road beyond, and the man whom Phil had expected, whom he had been so anxious to see—and his fingers catching hers, keeping her by him, and the questions to which she had replied. Twenty years! What a long time it is! time enough for a boy to grow into almost a man who had not been born or thought of—and yet what a moment, what a nothing! Her mind flashed from that scene in the garden to the little hall in the cottage, the maid stooping down fastening the bolt of the door, the calendar hanging on the wall with the big 6 showing so visible, so obtrusive, forcing itself as it were on the notice of all. “Only ten days, Nell!” And the maid’s glance upwards of shy sympathy, and the blank of Mrs. Dennistoun’s face, and his look. Oh, that look of his! which was true and yet so false; which meant so much besides, and yet surely, surely meant love too!
The young fir-tree creaked and swayed in Elinor’s grip. She unloosed it as if the slim thing had cried under the pressure, and sat down again. She had nothing to grasp at, nothing. Oh, her life had not been without support! Her mother—how extraordinary had been her good fortune to have her mother to fall back upon when she was shipwrecked in her life—to have a home, a shelter, a perpetual protector and champion, who, whether she approved or disapproved, would forsake her never. And then the boy, God bless him! who might quiver like the little fir if she flung herself upon him, but who, she knew, would stand as true. Oh, God forbid, God forbid that he should ever know! Oh, God help her, God help her! how was she to keep it from his knowledge? Elinor flung herself down upon the mossy knoll in her despair as this came pouring into her mind a flood of horrible light, of unimaginable bitterness. He must not know, he must not know; and yet how was it to be kept from his knowledge? It was a public thing; it could not be hid. It would be in all the papers, his father’s name: and the boy did not know he had a father living. And his mother’s evidence on behalf of her husband; and the boy thought she had no husband.
This was what had been said to her again and again and again. Sometime the boy must know—and she had pushed it from her angrily, indignantly asking why should he know? though in the bottom of her own heart she too was aware that it was the delusion of a fool, and that the time must come—— But how could she ever have thought that it would come like this, that the boy would discover his father through the summons of his mother to a public court to defend her husband from a criminal accusation? Oh, life that pardons nothing! Oh, severe, unchanging heaven!—that this should be the way!
And then there came into Elinor’s mind wild thoughts of flight. She was not a woman whose nature it was to endure. When things became intolerable to her she fled from them, as the reader knows; escaped, shutting her ears to all advice and her heart to all thoughts except that life had become intolerable, and that she could bear it no longer. It is not easy to hold the balance even in such matters. Had Elinor fulfilled what would appear to many her first duty, and stood by Phil through neglect, ill-treatment, and misery, as she had vowed, for better, for worse, she would by this time have been not only a wretched but a deteriorated woman, and her son most probably would have been injured both in his moral and intellectual being. What she had done was not the abstract duty of her marriage vow, but it had been better—had it not been better for them both? In such a question who is to be the judge? And now again there came surging up into Elinor’s veins the impulse of flight. To take the boy and fly. She could take him where he wished most to go, to the scenes of that literature and history of which his schoolboy head was full, to the happiest ideal wandering, his mother and he, two companions almost better than lovers. How his eyes would brighten at the thought! among the summer seas, the golden islands, the ideal countries—away from all the trouble and cares, all the burdens of the past, all the fears of the future! Why should she be held by that villainous paper and obey that dreadful summons? Why allow all her precautions, all the fabric of her life to fall in a moment? Why pour upon the boy the horror of that revelation, when everything she had done and planned all his life had been to keep it from him? In the sudden energy of that new possibility of escape Elinor rose up again from the prostration of despair. She saw once more the line of shining water at her feet full of heavenly splendour, the mountain tops sunning themselves in the morning light, the peace and the beauty that was over all. And there was nothing needed but a long journey, which would be delightful, full of pleasure and refreshment, to secure her peace to her, and to save her boy.
When she had calmed herself with this new project, which, the moment it took form in her mind seemed of itself, without reference to the cause, the most delightful project in the world and full of pleasure—Elinor smoothed back her hair, put her garden hat, which had got a little out of order, straight, and took her way again towards the house. Her heart had already escaped from the shock and horror and was beating softly, exhausted yet refreshed, in her bosom. She felt almost like a child who had sobbed all its troubles out, or like a convalescent recovering from a brief but violent illness, and pathetically happy in the cessation of pain. She went along quietly, slowly, by the woodland path among the trees full of the sweetness of the morning which seemed to have come back to her. Should she say anything about it to her mother, or only by degrees announce to her the plan she had begun to form for Pippo’s pleasure, the long delightful ramble which would come between his school-time and the university? She had almost decided that she would do this when she went into the house; but she had not been half an hour with her mother when her intention became untenable, for the good reason that she had already told Mrs. Dennistoun of the new incident. They were not in the habit of keeping secrets from each other, and in that case there is nothing in the world so difficult. It requires training to keep one’s affairs to one’s self in the constant presence of those who are our nearest and dearest. Some people may be capable of this effort of self-control, but Elinor was not. She had showed that alarming paper to her mother with a partial return of her own terror at the sight of it before she knew. And I need not say that for a short time Mrs. Dennistoun was overwhelmed by that natural horror too.
“But,” she said, “what do you know, what can you tell about this Mr. Brown, Elinor? You never saw him in your life.”
“I think I know what it means,” said Elinor, with a sudden dark glow of colour, which faded instantly, leaving her quite pale. She added hurriedly, “There were some books destroyed. I cannot tell you the rights of the story. It is too dreadful altogether, but—another was exculpated by the date of the day he arrived at Windyhill. This must be the reason I am called.”
“The date he arrived—before your marriage, Elinor? But then they might call me, and you need not appear.”
“Not for the world, mother!” cried Elinor. The colour rose again and faded. “Besides, you do not remember.”
“Oh, I could make it out,” said Mrs. Dennistoun. “It was when he came from Scotland, and went off in the evening next day. I don’t at this moment remember what the day was, but I could make it out. It was about a fortnight before, it was——”
“Do you remember, mother, the little calendar in the hall, and what it marked, and what he said?”
“I remember, of course, perfectly well the little calendar in the hall. You gave it me at Christmas, and it was always out of order, and never kept right. But I could make it out without that.”
“You must not think of it for a moment,” cried Elinor, with a shudder. There had been so many things to think of that it had scarcely occurred to her what it was to which she had to bear witness. She told her mother hurriedly the story of that incident, and then she added, without stopping to take breath. “But I will not appear. I cannot appear. We must keep it out of the papers, at every cost. Mother, do not think it dreadful of me. I will run away with Pippo; far away, if you will not be anxious. This is just his chance between school and college. I will take him to Greece.”
“To Greece, Elinor?” Mrs. Dennistoun cried, with almost a shriek.
“Mother, dear, it is not so very far away.”
“I am not thinking how far away it is, Elinor. And leave his father’s reputation to suffer? Leave him perhaps to be ruined—by a false charge?”
“Oh, mother,” cried Elinor, starting to her feet. She was quite unprepared for such remonstrance.
“My dear, I have not opposed you; though there have been many things I have scarcely approved of. But, Elinor, this must not be. Run away from the law? Allow another to suffer when you can clear him? Elinor, Elinor, this must not be—unless I can go and be his witness in your place. I might do that,” said Mrs. Dennistoun, seriously. She paused a moment, and then she said, “But I think you are wrong about the sixth. He stayed only one night, and the night he went away was the night that Alick Hudson—who was going up for his examination. I can make it out exactly, if you will give me a little time to think it over. My poor child! that you should have this to disturb your peace. But I will go, Elinor. I can clear him as well as you.”
Elinor stood up before her, pallid as a ghost. “For God’s sake, mother, not another word,” she said, with a dreadful solemnity. “The burden is mine, and I must bear it. Let us not say a word more.”