The Marriage of Elinor Part 11

"Is that," said Phil, "the Cousin John?"

"John, I am sorry to say, is abroad; the long vacation is the worst time. It is his father who is coming, and his sister, Mary Tatham, who is Elinor's bridesmaid--she and Miss Hudson at the Rectory."

"Only two; and very sensible, instead of the train one sees, all thinking how best to show themselves off. d.i.c.k Bolsover is man enough to tackle them both. He expects some fun, I can tell you. What is there to be after we are gone, Nell?" He stopped and looked round with a laugh.

"Rather close quarters for a ball," he said.

"There will be no ball. You forget that when you take Elinor away I shall be alone. A solitary woman living in a cottage, as you remark, does not give b.a.l.l.s. I am much afraid that there will be very little fun for your friend."

"Oh, he'll amuse himself well enough; he's the sort of fellow who always makes himself at home. A Rectory will be great fun for him; I don't suppose he was ever in one before, unless perhaps when he was a boy at school. Yes, as you say--what a lot of trouble it will be for you to be sure: not as if Nell had a sister to enjoy the fun after. It's a thousand pities you did not decide to bring her up to town, and get us shuffled off there. You might have got a little house for next to nothing at this time of the year, and saved all the row, turning everything upside down in this nice little place, and troubling yourself with visitors and so forth. But one always thinks of that sort of thing too late."

"I should not have adopted such an expedient in any case. Elinor must be married among her own people, wherever her lot may be cast afterwards.

Everybody here has known her ever since she was born."

"Ah, that's a thing ladies think of, I suppose," said Compton. He had stuck his gla.s.s into his eye and was gazing out of the window. "Very jolly view," he continued. "And what's that, Nell, raising clouds of dust? I haven't such quick eyes as you."

"I should think it must be a circus or a menagerie, or something, mamma."

"Very likely," said Mrs. Dennistoun. "They sometimes come this way on the road to Portsmouth, and give little representations in all the villages, to the great excitement of the country folk."

"We are the country folk, and I feel quite excited," said Phil, dropping his gla.s.s. "Nell, if there's a representation, you and I will go to-night."

"Oh, Phil, what----" Elinor was about to say folly: but she paused, seeing a look in his eye which she had already learned to know, and added "fun," in a voice which sounded almost like an echo of his own.

"There is nothing like being out in the wilderness like this to make one relish a little fun, eh? I daresay you always go. The Jew is the one for every village fair within ten miles when she is in the country. She says they're better than any play. Hallo! what is that?"

"It is some one coming round the gravel path."

A more simple statement could not be, but it made Compton strangely uneasy. He rose up hastily from the table. "It is, perhaps, the man I am looking for. If you'll permit me, I'll go and see."

He went out of the room, calling Elinor by a look and slight movement of his head, but when he came out into the hall was met by a trim clerical figure and genial countenance, the benign yet self-a.s.sured looks of the Rector of the Parish: none other could this smiling yet important personage be.

CHAPTER X.

The Rector came in with his smiling and rosy face. He was, as many of his parishioners thought, a picture of a country clergyman. Such a healthy colour, as clear as a girl's, limpid blue eyes, with very light eyelashes and eyebrows; a nice round face, "beautifully modelled,"

according to Miss Sarah Hill, who did a little in that way herself, and knew how to approve of a Higher Sculptor's work. And then the neatest and blackest of coats, and the whitest and stiffest of collars. Mr.

Hudson, I need scarcely say, was not so left to himself as to permit his clerical character to be divined by means of a white tie. He came in, as was natural among country neighbours, without thinking of any bell or knocker on the easily opened door, and was about to peep into the drawing-room with "Anybody in?" upon his smiling lips, when he saw a gentleman approaching, picking up his hat as he advanced. Mr. Hudson paused a moment in uncertainty. "Mr. Compton, I am sure," he said, holding out both of his plump pink hands. "Ah, Elinor too! I was sure I could not be mistaken. And I am exceedingly glad to make your acquaintance." He shook Phil's hand up and down in a sort of see-saw.

"Very glad to make your acquaintance! though you are the worst enemy Windyhill has had for many a day--carrying off the finest lamb in all the fold."

"Yes, I'm a wolf, I suppose," said Phil. He went to the door and took a long look out while Elinor led the Rector into the drawing-room. Then Mr. Compton lounged in after them, with his hands in his pockets, and placed himself in the bow-window, where he could still see the white line across the combe of the distant road.

"They'll think I have stolen a march upon them all, Elinor," said the Rector, "chancing upon Mr. Compton like this, a quite unexpected pleasure. I shall keep them on the tenterhooks, asking them whom they suppose I have met? and they will give everybody but the right person.

What a thing for me to have been the first person to see your intended, my dear! and I congratulate you, Elinor," said the Rector, dropping his voice; "a fine handsome fellow, and such an air! You are a lucky girl--"

he paused a little and said, with a slight hesitation, in a whisper, "so far as meets the eye."

"Oh, Mr. Hudson, don't spoil everything," said Elinor, in the same tone.

"Well, I cannot tell, can I, my dear?--the first peep I have had." He cleaved his throat and raised his voice. "I believe we are to have the pleasure of entertaining you, Mr. Compton, on a certain joyful occasion (joyful to you, not to us). I need not say how pleased my wife and I and the other members of the family will be. There are not very many of us--we are only five in number--my son, and my daughter, and Miss Dale, my wife's sister, but much younger than Mrs. Hudson--who has done us the pleasure of staying with us for part of the year. I think she has met you somewhere, or knows some of your family, or--something. She is a great authority on n.o.ble families. I don't know whether it is because she has been a good deal in society, or whether it is out of Debrett----"

"Nell, come and tell me what this is," Compton said.

"Oh, Phil! it is nothing, it is a carriage. I don't know what it is. Be civil to the Rector, please."

"So I am, perfectly civil."

"You have not answered a single word, and he has been talking to you for ten minutes."

"Well, but he hasn't said anything that I can answer. He says Miss Something or other knows my family. Perhaps she does. Well, much good may it do her! but what can I say to that? I am sure I don't know hers.

I didn't come here to be talked to by the Rector. Could we slip out and leave him with your mother? That would suit his book a great deal better. Come, let's go."

"Oh! he is speaking to you, Phil."

Compton turned round and eyed the Rector. "Yes?" he said in so marked an interrogative that Mr. Hudson stopped short and flushed. He had been talking for some time.

"Oh! I was not precisely asking a question," he said, in his quiet tones. "I was saying that we believe and hope that another gentleman is coming with you--for the occasion."

"d.i.c.k Bolsover," said Compton, "a son of Lord Freshfield's; perhaps Miss ----, the lady you were talking of, may know his family too. His brother got a little talked of in that affair about Fille d'Or, don't you know, at Newmarket. But d.i.c.k is a rattling good fellow, doesn't race, and has no vices. He is coming to stand by me and see that all's right."

"We shall be happy to see Mr. Bolsover, I am sure." The Rector rubbed his hands and said to himself with pleasure that two Honourables in his quiet house was something to think of, and that he hoped it would not turn the heads of the ladies, and make Alice expect--one couldn't tell what. And then he said, by way of changing yet continuing the subject, "I suppose you've been looking at the presents. Elinor must have shown you her presents."

"By Jove, I never thought of the presents. Have you got a lot, Nell?"

"She has got, if I may be allowed to answer for her, having known her all her life, a great many pretty things, Mr. Compton. We are not rich, to be sure, her old friends here. We have to content ourselves with but a small token of a great deal of affection; but still there are a number of pretty things. Elinor, what were you thinking of, my dear, not to show Mr. Compton the little set out which you showed us? Come, I should myself like to look them over again."

Phil gave another long look at the distant road, and then he thrust his arm into Elinor's and said, "To be sure, come along, Nell. It will be something to do." He did not wait for the Rector to pa.s.s first, which Elinor thought would have been better manners, but thrust her before him quite regardless of the older people. "Let's see the trumpery," he said.

"Don't use such a word, Phil: the Rector will be so hurt."

"Oh, will he? did he work you an--antimaca.s.sar or something?"

"Phil, speak low at least. No, but his daughter did; and they gave me----"

"I know: a cardcase or a b.u.t.ton-hook, or something. And how many biscuit-boxes have you got, and clocks, and that sort of thing? I advise you to have an auction as soon as we get away. Hallo! that's a nice little thing; look pretty on your pretty white neck I should say, Nell.

Who gave you that?" He took John's necklace out of its box where it had lain undisturbed until now, and pulled it through his fingers. "Cost a pretty bit of money that, I should say. You can raise the wind on it when we're down on our luck, Nell."

"My cousin John, whom you have heard me speak of, gave me that, Phil,"

said Elinor, with great gravity. She thought it necessary, she could scarcely tell why, to make a stand for her cousin John.

"Ah, I thought it was one of the disappointed ones," said Phil, flinging it back carelessly onto the bed of white velvet where it had been fitted so exactly. "That's how they show their spite; for of course I can't give you anything half as good as that."

"There was no disappointment in the matter," said Elinor, almost angry with the misconceptions of her lover.

"You are a nice one," said Compton, taking her by the chin, "to tell me!

as if I didn't know the world a long sight better than you do, my little Nell."