The Marriage of Elinor Part 25

Was this all he meant to say? There was, however, an uncertainty about his step, and by the time he had opened the door he came to a pause, half closed it again, and said, "Oh, by the bye!"

"What is it?" said Mrs. Dennistoun.

He closed the door again and came back half a step. "I almost forgot, I meant to tell you: if you have any money to invest, I could help you to---- The best thing I've heard of for many a day!"

"You are very kind, Philip; but you know everything I have is in the hands of trustees."

"Oh, bother trustees. The only thing they do is to keep your dividends down to the lowest amount possible and cut short your income. Come, you're quite old enough to judge for yourself. You might give them a jog. At your time of life they ought to take a hint from you."

"I have never done it, Philip, and they would pay no attention to me."

"Oh, nonsense, mamma. Why, except you, who has a right to be consulted except Nell? and if I, her husband, am your adviser----"

"I know they would do nothing but mock at me."

"Rubbish! I'd like to see who would mock at you. Just you send them to me, that is all."

"Philip, will you not believe me when I say that it is impossible? I have never interfered. They would ask what made me think of such a thing now."

"And you could tell them a jolly good opportunity, as safe as the bank, and paying six or seven per cent.--none of your fabulous risky ten or twelve businesses, but a solid steady---- How could it be to my interest to mislead you? It would be Nell who would be the loser. I should be simply cutting off my own head."

"That is true, no doubt----"

"And," he said, scarcely waiting for her reply, "Nell is really the person who should be consulted: for if there was loss eventually it would come upon her--and so upon me. I mean taking into consideration all the chances of the future: for it is perfectly safe for your time, you may be quite sure of that."

No one, though he might be ninety, likes to have his time limited, and his heir's prospects dwelt upon as the only things of any importance, and Mrs. Dennistoun was a very long way from ninety. She would have sacrificed everything she had to make her child happy, but she did not like, all the same, to be set down as unimportant so far as her own property was concerned.

"I am afraid," she said, with a slight quaver in her voice, "that my trustees would not take Elinor's wishes into consideration in the first place, nor yours either, Philip. They think of me, and I suppose that is really their duty. If I had anything of my own----"

"Do you mean to say," he said, bluntly, "that with a good income and living in the country in a hole, in the most obscure way, you have saved nothing all these years?"

"If I had," said Mrs. Dennistoun, roused by his persistent attack, "I should be very sorry to fling it away."

"Oh, that is what you think?" he said. "Now we're at the bottom of it.

You think that to put it in my hands would be to throw it away! I thought there must be something at the bottom of all this pretty ignorance of business and so forth. Good gracious! that may be well enough for a girl; but when a grandmother pretends not to know, not to interfere, etc., that's too much. So this is what you meant all the time! To put it into my hands would be throwing it away!"

"I did not mean to say so, Philip--I spoke hastily, but I must remind you that I am not accustomed to this tone----"

"Oh, no, not at all accustomed to it, you all say that--that's Nell's dodge--never was used to anything of the kind, never had a rough word said to her, and so forth and so forth."

"Philip--I hope you don't say rough words to my Elinor."

"Oh!" he said, "I have got you there, have I. _Your_ Elinor--no more yours than she is--Johnson's. She is my Nell, and what's more, she'll cling to me, whatever rough words I may say, or however you may coax or wheedle. Do you ever think when you refuse to make a sacrifice of one sc.r.a.p of your h.o.a.rds for her, that if I were not a husband in a hundred I might take it out of her and make her pay?"

"For what?" said Mrs. Dennistoun, standing up and confronting him, her face pale, her head very erect--"for what would you make her pay?"

He stood staring at her for a moment and then he broke out into a laugh.

"We needn't face each other as if we were going to have a stand-up fight," he said. "And it wouldn't be fair, mamma, we're not equally matched, the knowing ones would all lay their money on you. So you won't take my advice about investing your spare cash? Well, if you won't you won't, and there's an end of it: only stand up fair and don't bother me with nonsense about trustees."

"It is no nonsense," she said.

His eyes flashed, but he controlled himself and turned away, waving his hand. "I'll not beat Nell for it when I come home to-night," he said.

Once more Phil dined at his club that evening and Elinor with her mother. She was in an eager and excited state, looking anxiously in Mrs.

Dennistoun's eyes, but it was not till late in the evening that she made any remark. At last, just before they parted for the night, she threw herself upon her mother with a little cry--"Oh, mamma, I know you are right, I know you are quite right. But if you could have done it, it would have given you an influence! I don't blame you--not for a moment--but it might have given you an opening to speak. It might have--given you a little hold on him."

"My darling, my darling!" said Mrs. Dennistoun.

"No," said Elinor, "there's nothing to pity me about, nothing at all--Phil is always kind and good to me--but you would have had a standing ground. It might have given you a right to speak--about those dreadful, dreadful city complications, mamma."

Mrs. Dennistoun went to bed that night a troubled woman, and lay awake watching and expecting when the usual midnight tumult should arise. But that evening there was none. No sound but the key in the latch, the shutting of a door or two, and all quiet. Compunctions filled the mother's heart. What was the wrong if, perhaps, she could satisfy Elinor, perhaps get at the heart of Phil, who had a heart, though it was getting strangled in all those intricacies of gambling and wretched business. She turned over and over in her mind all that she had, and all that she had any power over. And she remembered a small sum she had in a mortgage, which was after all in her own power. No doubt it would be to throw the money away, which would be so much gone from the future provision of Elinor--but if by that means she could acquire an influence as Elinor said--be allowed to speak--to protest or perhaps even insist upon a change of course? Thinking over such a question for a whole sleepless night, and feeling beneath all that at least, at worst, this sacrifice would give pleasure to Elinor, which was really the one and sole motive, the only thing that could give her any warrant for such a proceeding--is not a process which is likely to strengthen the mind. In the morning, as soon as she knew he was up, which was not till late enough, she sent to ask if Phil would give her five minutes before he went out. He appeared after a while, extremely correct and _point device_, grave but polite. "I must ask you to excuse me," he said, "if I am hurried, for to-day is one of my Board days."

"It was only to say, Philip--you spoke to me yesterday of money--to be invested."

"Yes?" he said politely, without moving a muscle.

"I have been thinking it all over, and I remember that there is a thousand pounds or two which John Tatham placed for me in a mortgage, and which is in my own power."

"Ah!" he said, "a thousand pounds or two," with a shrug of his shoulders; "it is scarcely worth while, is it, changing an investment for so small a matter as a thousand pounds?"

"If you think so, Philip--it is all I can think of that is in my own power."

"It is really not worth the trouble," he said, "and I am in a hurry." He made a step towards the door and then turned round again. "Well," he said, "just to show there is no ill-feeling, I'll find you something, perhaps, to put your tuppenceha'penny in to-day."

And then there was John Tatham to face after that!

CHAPTER XXI.

It cost Mrs. Dennistoun a struggle to yield to her daughter and her daughter's husband, and with her eyes open and no delusion on the subject to throw away her two thousand pounds. Two thousand pounds is a big thing to throw away. There are many people much richer than Mrs.

Dennistoun who would have thought it a wicked thing to do, and some who would have quarrelled with both daughter and son-in-law rather than do so foolish a thing. For it was not merely making a present, so to speak, of the money, it was throwing it away. To have given it to Elinor would have been nothing, it would have been a pleasure; but in Phil's investment Mrs. Dennistoun had no confidence. It was throwing her money after Elinor's money into that hungry sea which swallows up everything and gives nothing again.

But if that had been difficult for her, it may be imagined with what feelings she contemplated her necessary meeting with John Tatham. She knew everything he would say--more, she knew what he would look: his astonishment, his indignation, the amazement with which he would regard it. John was far from being incapable of a sacrifice. Mrs. Dennistoun, indeed, did him more than justice in that respect, for she believed that he had himself been on the eve of asking Elinor to marry him when she was s.n.a.t.c.hed up by, oh, so much less satisfactory a man! which the reader knows is not quite the case, though perhaps it required quite as much self-denial on John's part to stand by Elinor and maintain her cause under her altered circ.u.mstances as if it had been the case. But notwithstanding this, she knew that John would be angry with what she had done or promised to do, and would put every possible impediment in her way: and when she sent for him, in order that she might carry out her promise, it was with a heart as sick with fright and as much disturbed by the idea of a scolding as ever child's was.

John had been very little to the house at Curzon Street. He had dined two or three times with Mrs. Dennistoun alone, and once or twice Elinor had been of the party; but the Comptons had never any guests at that house, and the fact already mentioned that Philip Compton never dined at home made it a difficult matter for Mrs. Dennistoun to ask any but her oldest friends to the curious little divided house, which was neither hers nor theirs. Thus Cousin John had met, but no more, Elinor's husband, and neither of the gentlemen had shown the least desire to cultivate the acquaintance. John had not expressed his sentiments on the subject to any one, but Phil, as was natural, had been more demonstrative. "I don't think much of your relations, Nell," he said, "if that's a specimen: a prig if ever there was one--and that old sheep that was at the wedding, the father of him, I suppose----"

"As they are my relations, Phil, you might speak of them a little more respectfully."

"Oh, respectfully! Bless us all! I have no respect for my own, and why I should have for yours, my little dear, I confess I can't see. Oh, by the way, this is Cousin John, who I used to think by your blushing and all that----"

"Phil, I think you are trying to make me angry. Cousin John is the best man in the world; but I never blushed--how ridiculous! I might as well have blushed to speak of my brother."

"I put no confidence in brothers, unless they're real ones," said Phil; "but I'm glad I've seen him, Nell. I doubt after all that you're such a fool, when you see us together--eh?" He laughed that laugh of conscious superiority which, when it is not perfectly well-founded, sounds so fatuous to the hearer. Elinor did not look at him. She turned her head away and made no reply.

John, on his part, as has been said, made no remark. If he had possessed a wife at home to whom he could have confided his sentiments, as Phil Compton had, it is possible that he might have said something not unsimilar. But then had he had a wife at home he would have been more indifferent to Phil, and might not have cared to criticise him at all.