Margaret Oliphant - The Marriage of Elinor

"He is here, but I don't care for him. I care only for you. There are such advantages: and I do know a great deal about business; and," she said, with her mouth close to the old lawyer's ear, "it will please Phil so much if I show my confidence in him, and in the things with which he has to do."

"It will not please him so much if the thing bursts, and you are left without a penny, my dear."

Elinor laughed. "I don't suppose he will mind a bit: he cares nothing for money. But I do," she said. "You know you always say women love acquisition. I want good interest, and of course with Phil on it, it must be safe for me."

"Oh, that makes it like the Bank of England, you think! but I don't share your confidence, my pretty Elinor. I'm an old fellow. No Phil in the world has any charm for me. You must trust me to do what I feel is best for you. And Mr. Tatham here is quite of my opinion."

"Oh, John! he is sure to be against me," said Elinor, with an angry glimmer in her eyes. She had not as yet taken any notice of him while she welcomed with such warmth his old companion. And John had stood by offering no greeting, with his bag in his hand. But when she said this the quick feeling girl was seized with compunction. She turned from Mr. Lynch and held out both her hands to her cousin. "John, I didn't mean that; it is only that I am excited and cross. And don't, oh, don't go against me," she cried.

"I never did, and never will, Elinor," he said gravely. Then he asked, after a moment, "Is Mr. Compton here?"

"No; how could he be here? Three gentlemen in the cottage is enough to overwhelm us already. Mr. Sharp, fortunately, can't stay," she added, lowering her voice; "he has to be driven back to the station to catch the last express. And it is August," she said with a laugh; "you forget the 15th. Now, could Phil be anywhere but where there is grouse? You shall have some to dinner to-night that fell by his gun. That should mollify you, for I am sure you never got grouse at the cottage before in August. Mamma would as soon think of buying manna for you to eat."

"I think it would have been more respectful, Elinor, if he had been here. What is grouse to you?"

"Then I don't think anything of the kind," cried Elinor. "He is much better away. And I assure you, John, I never mean to put myself in competition with the grouse."

The old lawyer had gone into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Dennistoun was holding parley with Mr. Sharp. Elinor and John were standing alone in the half light of the summer evening, the sun down, the depths of the combe below falling into faint mist, but the sunset-tinted clouds still floating like a vapour made of roses upon the clearness of the blue above. "Come and take a turn through the copse," said John. "They don't want either of us indoors."

She went with a momentary reluctance and a glance back at the bow-window of the drawing-room, from which the sound of voices issued. "Don't you think I should be there to keep them up to the mark?" she said, half laughing. And then, "Well, yes – as you are going to Switzerland too. I think you might have stayed and seen me married after all, and made acquaintance with Phil."

"I thought I should have met him here to-day, Elinor."

"Now, how could you? You know the accommodation of the cottage just as well as I do. We have two spare rooms, and no more."

"You could have sent me out somewhere to sleep. That has been done before now."

"Oh, John, how persistent you are, and worrying! When I tell you that Phil is shooting, as everybody of his kind is – do you think I want him to give up all the habits of his life? He is not like us: we adapt ourselves: but these people parcel out their time as if they were in a trade, don't you know? So long in London, so long abroad, and in the Highlands for the grouse, and somewhere else for the partridges, or they would die."

"I think he might have departed from that routine once in a way, Elinor, for you."

"I tell you again, John, I shall never put myself in competition" – Elinor stopped abruptly, with perhaps, he thought, a little glimmer of indignation in her eyes. "I hate women who do that sort of thing," she cried. "'Give up your cigar – or me,' as I've heard girls say. Such an unworthy thing! When one accepts a man one accepts him as he stands, with all his habits. What should I think of him if he said, 'Give up your tea – or me!' I should laugh in his face and throw him overboard without a pause."

"You would never look at tea again as long as you lived if he did not like it; I suppose that is what you mean, Elinor?"

"Perhaps if I found that out, afterwards; but to be given the choice beforehand, never! After all, you don't half know me, John."

"Perhaps not," he said, gravely. They had left the garden behind in its blaze of flowers, and strayed off into the subdued twilight of the copse, where everything was in a half tone of greenness and shadow and waning light. "There are always new lights arising on a many-sided creature like you – and that makes one think. Do you know you are not at all the person to take a great disappointment quietly, if that should happen to come to you in your life?"

"A great disappointment?" she said, looking up at him with a wondering glance. Then he thought the colour paled a little in her face. "No," she said, "I don't suppose I should take it quietly. Who does?"

"Oh, many people – people with less determination and more patience than you. You are not very patient by nature, Elinor."

"I never said I was."

"And though no one would give up more generously, as a voluntary matter, you could not bear being made a nonentity of, or put in a secondary place."

"I should not like it, I suppose."

"You would give everything, flinging it away; but to have all your sacrifices taken for granted, your tastes made of no account – "

There was no doubt now that she had grown pale. "May I ask what all these investigations into my character mean? I never was so anatomized before."

"It was only to say that you are not a good subject for this kind of experiment, Elinor. I don't see you putting up with things, making the best of everything, submitting to have your sense of right and wrong outraged perhaps. Some women would not be much disturbed by that. They would put off the responsibility and feel it their duty to accept whatever was put before them. But you – it would be a different matter with you."

"I should hope so, if I was ever exposed to such dangers. But now may I know what you are driving at, John, for you have some meaning in what you say!"

He took her hand and drew it through his arm. He was in more moved than he wished to show. "Only this, Elinor," – he said.

"Oh, John, will you never call me Nelly any more?"

"Only this, Nelly, my little Nelly, never mine again – and that never was mine, except in my silly thought. Only this: that if you have the least doubt, the smallest flutter of an uncertainty, just enough to make you hold your breath for a moment, oh, my dear girl, stop! Don't go on with it; pause until you can make sure."

"John!" she forced her arm from his with an indignant movement. "Oh, how do you dare to say it?" she said. "Doubt of Mr. Compton! Uncertainty about Phil!" She laughed out, and the echo seemed to ring into all the recesses of the trees. "I would be much more ready to doubt myself," she said.

"Doubt yourself; that is what I mean. Think if you are not deceiving yourself. I don't think you are so very sure as you believe you are, Nelly. You don't feel so certain – "

"Do you know that you are insulting me, John? You say as much as that I am a fool carried away by a momentary enthusiasm, with no real love, no true feeling in me, tempted, perhaps, as Mrs. Hudson thinks, by the Honourable!" Her lip quivered, and the fading colour came back in a rush to her face. "It is hard enough to have a woman like that think it, who ought to know better, who has always known me – but you, John!"