Margaret Oliphant - The Marriage of Elinor

"Elinor, the stars are so bright over the combe, do come out. It is not often they are so clear."

"No," she said, more with the movement of her lips than with any sound.

"Why not? You can't want to play those old pieces just at this moment. You will have plenty of time to play them to-morrow."

She said "No" again, with a little impatient movement of her hands on the keys and a look towards the others.

"You are listening to what they are saying? Why should you? They don't want you to hear. Come along, Elinor. It's far better for you not to listen to what is not intended – "

"Oh, go away, John."

"I must say no in my turn. Leave the tunes till to-morrow, and come out with me."

"I thought," she said, roused a little, "that you were fond of music, John."

This brought John up suddenly in an unexpected way. "Oh, as for that," – he said, in a dubious tone. Poor Elinor's tunes were not music in his sense, as she very well knew.

She laughed in a forlorn way. "I know what you mean; but this is quite good enough for what I shall want. I am going down, you know, to a different level altogether. Oh, you can hear for yourself what mamma and Mr. Lynch are saying."

"Going up you mean, Elinor. I thought them both very complaisant over all those titles."

"Ah," she said, "they say that mocking. They think I am going down; so do you, too, to the land of mere fast people, people with no sense. Well; there is nothing but the trial will teach any of us. We shall see."

"It is rather a dreadful risk to run, if it's only a trial, Elinor."

"A trial – for you, not for me – I am not the one that thinks so, except so far as the tunes are concerned," she said with a laugh. "I confess so far as that Lady Mariamne is fond of a comic song. I don't think she goes any further. I shall be good enough for them in the way of music."

"I should be content never to hear another note of music all my life, Elinor, if – "

"Ah, there you begin again. Not you, John, not you! I can't bear any more. Neither stars, nor walks, nor listening; no more! This rather," and she brought down her hands with a great crash upon the piano, making every one start. Then Elinor rose, having produced her effect. "I think it must be time to go to bed, mamma. John is talking of the stars, which means that he wants his cigar, and Mr. Lynch must want just to look at the tray in the dining-room. And you are tired by all this fuss, all this unnatural fuss about me, that am not worth – Come, mother, to bed."

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.