"I wish you could have stayed for the marriage," Mrs. Dennistoun said.
"My dear lady, it would spoil my holiday—the middle of September. You'll have nobody except, of course, the people you have always. To tell the truth," John added. "I don't care tuppence for my holiday. I'd have come—like a shot: but I don't think I could stand it. She has always been such a pet of mine. I don't think I could bear it, to tell the truth."
"I shall have to bear it, though she is more than a pet of mine," said Mrs. Dennistoun.
"I know, I know! the relatives cannot be let off—especially the mother, who must put up with everything. I trust," said Mr. Lynch, with a sigh, "that it may all turn out a great deal better than we hope. Where are they going after the marriage?"
"Some one has lent them a place—a very pretty place—on the Thames, where they can have boating and all that—Lord Sudbury, I think. And later they are going on a round of visits, to his father, Lord St. Serf, and to Lady Mariamne, and to his aunt, who is Countess of—something or other." Mrs. Dennistoun's voice was not untouched by a certain vague pleasure in these fine names.
"Ah," said the old lawyer, nodding his head at each, "all among the aristocracy, I see. Well, my dear lady, I hope you will be able to find some satisfaction in that; it is better than to fall among—nobodies at least."
"I hope so," said Mrs. Dennistoun, with a sigh.
They were speaking low, and fondly hoped that they were not heard; but Elinor's ears and every faculty were quickened and almost every word reached her. But she was too proud to take any notice. And perhaps these dreary anticipations, on the whole, did her good, for her heart rose against them, and any little possible doubts in her own mind were put to sudden flight by the opposition and determination which flooded her heart. This made her playing a little more unsteady than usual, and she broke down several times in the middle of a "tune;" but nobody remarked this: they were all fully occupied with their own thoughts.
All, at least, except John, who wandered uneasily about the room, now studying the names of the books on the bookshelves—which he knew by heart, now pulling the curtain aside to look out at the moonlight, now pulling at the fronds of the great maidenhair in his distraction till the table round was scattered with little broken leaves. He wanted to keep out of that atmosphere of emotion which surrounded Elinor at the piano. But it attracted him, all the same, as the light attracts a moth. To get away from that, to make the severance which so soon must be a perfect severance, was the only true policy he knew; for what was he to her, and what could she be to him? He had already said everything which a man in his position ought to say. He took out a book at last, and sat down doggedly by the table to read, thus making another circle of atmosphere, so to speak, another globe of isolated being in the little room, while the two elder people talked low in the centre, conventionally inaudible to the girl who was playing and the young man who was reading. But John might as well have tried to solve some tremendous problem as to read that book. He too heard every word the elders were saying. He heard them with his own ears, and also he heard them through the ears of Elinor, gauging the effect which every word would have upon her. At last he could bear it no longer. He was driven to her side to bear a part of her burden, even to prevent her from hearing, which would be something. He resisted the impulse to throw down his book, and only placed it very quietly on the table, and even in a deliberate way, that there might be no appearance of feeling about him—and made his way by degrees, pausing now and then to look at a picture, though he knew them all by heart. Thus he arrived at last at the piano, in what he flattered himself was an accidental way.
"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."
CHAPTER VII.
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,