The Marriage of Elinor Part 42

He paused a moment, and then he said, "Right is right, and justice is justice at the end of all."

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

When Elinor received the official doc.u.ment 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 pa.s.sed 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 subpoena!--what was a subpoena? 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 doc.u.ment 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 suns.h.i.+ne, 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 h.o.a.ry 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 suns.h.i.+ne, 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 pa.s.ser-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 pa.s.sing wind to soothe her. But Elinor neither heard nor saw lake, mountain, nor suns.h.i.+ne, 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 subpoena 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 s.h.i.+pwrecked 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, G.o.d bless him! who might quiver like the little fir if she flung herself upon him, but who, she knew, would stand as true. Oh, G.o.d forbid, G.o.d forbid that he should ever know! Oh, G.o.d help her, G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 G.o.d'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."

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

I will not confuse the reader with a description of all Elinor's thoughts during the slow progress of that afternoon and evening, which were as the slow pa.s.sing of a year to her impatient spirit. She took the usual afternoon walk with her mother soberly, as became Mrs.

Dennistoun's increasing years, and then she made a pretext of some errands in the village to occupy her until dark, or rather to leave her free to twist the thread of her own thoughts as she went along the silent country road. Her thoughts varied in the afternoon from those which had seized upon her with such vulture's claws in the morning; but they were not less overwhelming in that respect. Her mother's suggestion that _she_ and not Elinor should be the witness of that date, and then her ponderings as to that date, her slow certainty that she could make it out, or puzzle it out, as Elinor in her impatience said, which was the last of all things to be desired--had stung the daughter into a new and miserable realization of what it was that was demanded of her, which n.o.body could do but she. What was it that would be demanded of her? To stand up in the face of G.o.d and man and swear to tell the truth, and tell--a lie: or else let the man who had been her husband, the love of her youth, the father of her boy, sink into an abyss of shame. She thought rapidly, knowing nothing, that surely there could be no punishment for him, even if it were proved, at the long interval of twenty years. But, shame--there would be shame. Nothing could save him from that. Shame which would descend more or less to his son. And then Elinor reflected, with hot moisture coming out upon her forehead against the cold breeze of the spring night, on what would be asked of her.

Oh, no doubt, it would be cleverly done! She would be asked if she remembered his visit, and why she remembered it. She would be led on carefully to tell the story of the calendar in the hall, and of how it was but ten days before her marriage--the last hurried, unexpected visit of the lover before he came as a bridegroom to take her away. It would be all true, every word, and yet it would be a lie. And standing up there in that public place, she would be made to repeat it, as she had done in the flowery garden, in the suns.h.i.+ne, twenty years ago--then dazed and bewildered, not knowing what she did, and with something of the blind confidence of youth and love in saying what she was told to say; but now with clearer insight, with a horrible certainty of the falsehood of that true story, and the object with which it was required of her. Happily for herself, Elinor did not think of the ordeal of cross-examination through which witnesses have to pa.s.s. She would not, I think, have feared that if the instinct of combativeness had been roused in her: her quick wit and ready spirit would not have failed in defending herself, and in maintaining the accuracy of the fact to which she had to bear witness. It was herself, and not an opposing counsel, that was alarming to Elinor. But I have promised that the reader should not be compelled to go through all the trouble and torment of her thoughts.

Dinner, with the respect which is necessary for the servant who waits, whether that may be a solemn butler with his myrmidons, or a little maid--always makes a pause in household communications; but when the ladies were established afterwards by the pleasant fireside which had been their centre of life for so many years, and with the cheerful lamp on the table between them which had lighted so many cheerful talks, readings, discussions, and consultations, the new subject of anxiety and interest immediately came forth again. It was Mrs. Dennistoun who spoke first. She had grown older, as we all do; she wore spectacles as she worked, and often a white shawl on her shoulders, and was--as sometimes her daughter felt, with shame of herself to remark it--a little slower in speech, a little more pertinacious and insistent, not perhaps perceiving with such quick sympathy the changes and fluctuations of other minds, and whether it was advisable or not to follow a subject to the bitter end. She said, looking up from her knitting, with a little rhetorical movement of her hand which Elinor feared, and which showed that she felt herself on a.s.sured and certain ground:

"My dear, I have been thinking. I have made it out day by day. G.o.d knows there were plenty of landmarks in it to keep any one from forgetting. I can now make out certainly the day--of which we were speaking; and if you will give me your attention for a minute or two, Elinor, you will see that whatever the calendar said--which I never noticed, for it was as often wrong as right--you are making a mis----"

"Oh, for Heaven's sake, mother," cried Elinor, "don't let us talk of that any more!"

"I have no desire to talk of it, my dear child; but for what you said I should never---- But of course we must take some action about this thing--this paper you have got. And it seems to me that the best thing would be to write to John, and see whether he could not manage to get it transferred from you to me. I can't see what difficulty there could be about that."

"I would not have it for the world, mother! And what good would it do?

The great thing in it, the dreadful thing, would be unchanged. Whether you appear or me, Pippo would be made to know, all the same, what it has been our joint object to conceal from him all his life."

Mrs. Dennistoun did not say anything, but she would not have been mortal if she had not, very slightly, but yet very visibly to keen eyes, shaken her head.

"I know what you mean," said Elinor, vehemently, "that it has been I, and not we, whose object has been to conceal it from him. Oh, yes, I know you are right; but at least you consented to it, you have helped in it, it is your doing as well as mine."

"Elinor, Elinor!" cried her mother, who, having always protested, was not prepared for this accusation.

"Is there any advantage to be got," said Elinor, like an injured and indignant champion of the right, "in opening up the whole question over again now?"

What could poor Mrs. Dennistoun do? She was confounded, as she often had been before, by those swift and sudden tactics. She gave a glance up at her daughter over her spectacles, but she said nothing. Argument, she knew by long experience, was difficult to keep up with such an opponent.

"But John is an idea," said Elinor. "I don't know why I should not have thought of him. He may suggest something that could be done."

"I thought of him, of course, at once," said Mrs. Dennistoun, not able to refrain from that small piece of self-a.s.sertion. "It is not a time that it would be easy for him to leave town; but at least you could write and lay your difficulties before him, and suggest----"

"Oh, you may be sure, mother," cried Elinor, "I know what I have to say."

"I never doubted it, my dear," said Mrs. Dennistoun, gently.