When he began to go out again, it might have been perceived - had anyone cared to notice - how much the different characters of his father and wife had influenced him and kept him steady. Not that he broke out into any immoral conduct, but he gave up time to pleasure, which both old Mr Wilkins and Lettice would have quietly induced him to spend in the office, superintending his business. His indulgence in hunting, and all field-sports, had hitherto been only occasional; they now became habitual, as far as the seasons permitted. He shared a moor in Scotland with one of the Holsters one year, persuading himself that the bracing air was good for Ellinor’s health. But the year afterwards he took another, this time joining with a comparative stranger; and on this moor there was no house to which it was fit to bring a child and her attendants. He persuaded himself that by frequent journeys he could make up for his absences from Hamley. But journeys cost money; and he was often away from his office when important business required attending to. There was some talk of a new attorney setting up in Hamley, to be supported by one or two of the more influential county families, who had found Wilkins not so attentive as his father, Sir Frank Holster sent for his relation, and told him of this project, speaking to him, at the same time, in pretty round terms on the folly of the life he was leading. Foolish it certainly was, and as such Mr Wilkins was secretly acknowledging it; but when Sir Frank, lashing himself, began to talk of his hearer’s presumption in joining the hunt, in aping the mode of life and amusements of the landed gentry, Edward fired up. He knew how much Sir Frank was dipped, and comparing it with the round sum his own father had left him, he said some plain truths to Sir Frank which the latter never forgave, and henceforth there was no intercourse between Holster Court and Ford Bank, as Mr Edward Wilkins had christened his father’s house on his first return from the Continent.
The conversation had two consequences besides the immediate one of the quarrel. Mr Wilkins advertised for a responsible and confidential clerk to conduct the business under his own superintendence; and he also wrote to the Heralds’ College to ask if he did not belong to the family bearing the same name in South Wales - those who have since reassumed their ancient name of De Winton.
Both applications were favourably answered. A skilful, experienced, middle-aged clerk was recommended to him by one of the principal legal firms in London, and immediately engaged to come to Hamley at his own terms; which were pretty high. But, as Mr Wilkins said it was worth any money to pay for the relief from constant responsibility which such a business as his involved, some people remarked that he had never appeared to feel the responsibility very much hitherto, as witness his absences in Scotland, and his various social engagements when at home; it had been very different (they said) in his father’s day. The Heralds’ College held out hopes of affiliating him to the South Wales family, but it would require time and money to make the requisite inquiries and substantiate the claim. Now, in many a place there would be none to contest the right a man might have to assert that he belonged to such and such a family, or even to assume their arms. But it was otherwise in --shire. Everyone was up in genealogy and heraldry, and considered filching a name and a pedigree a far worse sin than any of those mentioned in the Commandments. There were those among them who would doubt and dispute even the decision of the Heralds’ College; but with it, if in his favour, Mr Wilkins intended to be satisfied, and accordingly he wrote in reply to their letter to say, that of course he was aware such inquiries would take a considerable sum of money, but still he wished them to be made, and that speedily.
Before the end of the year he went up to London to order a brougham to be built (for Ellinor to drive out in wet weather, he said; but as going in a closed carriage always made her ill, he used it principally himself in driving to dinner-parties), with the De Winton Wilkinses’ arms neatly emblazoned on panel and harness. Hitherto he had always gone about in a dog-cart - the immediate descendant of his father’s old-fashioned gig.
For all this, the squires, his employers, only laughed at him, and did not treat him with one whit more respect.
Mr Dunster, the new clerk, was a quiet, respectable-looking man; you could not call him a gentleman in manner, and yet no one could say he was vulgar. He had not much varying expression on his face, but a permanent one of thoughtful consideration of the subject in hand, whatever it might be, that would have fitted as well with the profession of medicine as with that of law, and was quite the right look for either. Occasionally a bright flash of sudden intelligence lightened up his deep-sunk eyes, but even this was quickly extinguished as by some inward repression, and the habitually reflective, subdued expression returned to the face. As soon as he came into his situation, he first began quietly to arrange the papers, and next the business of which they were the outward sign, into more methodical order than they had been in since old Mr Wilkins’s death. Punctual to a moment himself, he looked his displeased surprise when the inferior clerks carne tumbling in half an hour after the time in the morning; and his look was more effective than many men’s words; henceforward the subordinates were within five minutes of the appointed hour for opening the office; but still he was always there before them. Mr Wilkins himself winced under his new clerk’s order and punctuality; Mr Dunster’s raised eyebrow and contraction of the lips at some woeful confusion in the business of the office chafed Mr Wilkins more, far more, than any open expression of opinion would have done; for that he could have met, and explained away, as he fancied. A secret respectful dislike grew up in his bosom against Mr Dunster. He esteemed him, he valued him, and he could not bear him. Year after year, Mr Wilkins had become more under the influence of his feelings, and less under the command of his reason. He rather cherished than repressed his nervous repugnance to the harsh measured tones of Mr Duster¹s voice; the latter spoke with a provincial twang which grated on his employer’s sensitive car. He was annoyed at a certain green coat which his new clerk brought with him, and he watched its increasing shabbiness with a sort of childish pleasure. But by-and-by Mr Wilkins found out that, from some perversity of taste, Mr Dunster always had his coats, Sunday and working-day, made of this obnoxious colour; and this knowledge did not diminish his secret irritation. The worst of all, perhaps, was, that Mr Dunster was really invaluable in many ways; ‘a perfect treasure,’ as Mr Wilkins used to term him in speaking of him after dinner; but, for all that, he came to hate his ‘perfect treasure,’ as he gradually felt that Dunster had become so indispensable to the business that his chief could not do without him.
The clients re-echoed Mr Wilkins’s words, and spoke of Mr Dunster as invaluable to his master; a thorough treasure, the very saving of the business. They had not been better attended to, not even in old Mr Wilkins’s days; such a clear head, such a knowledge of law, such a steady, upright fellow, always at his post. The grating voice, the drawling accent, the bottle-green coat, were nothing to them; far less noticed, in fact, than Wilkins’s expensive habits, the money he paid for his wine and horses, and the nonsense of claiming kin with the Welsh Wilkinses, and setting up his brougham to drive about --shire lanes, and be knocked to pieces over the rough round paying-stones thereof.
All these remarks did not come near Ellinor to trouble her life. To her, her dear father was the first of human beings; so sweet, so good, so kind, so charming in conversation, so full of accomplishment and information! To her healthy, happy mind everyone turned their bright side. She loved Miss Monro - all the servants - especially Dixon, the coachman. He had been her father’s playfellow as a boy, and, with all his respect and admiration for his master, the freedom of intercourse that had been established between them then had never been quite lost. Dixon was a fine, stalwart old fellow, and was as harmonious in his ways with his master as Mr Dunster was discordant; accordingly, he was a great favourite, and could say many a thing which might have been taken as impertinent from another servant.
He was Ellinor’s great confidant about many of her little plans and projects; things that she dared not speak of t
o Mr Corbet, who, after her father and Dixon, was her next best friend. This intimacy with Dixon displeased Mr Corbet. He once or twice insinuated that he did not think it was well to talk so familiarly as Ellinor did with a servant - one out of a completely different class - such as Dixon. Ellinor did not easily take hints; everyone had spoken plain out to her hitherto; so Mr Corbet had to say his, meaning plain out at last. Then, for the first time, he saw her angry; but she was too young, too childish, to have words at will to express her feelings; she only could say broken beginnings of sentences, such as ‘What a shame! Good, dear Dixon, who is as loyal and true and kind as any nobleman. I like him far better than you, Mr Corbet, and I shall talk to him.’ And then she burst into tears and ran away, and would not come to wish Mr Corbet goodbye, though she knew she should not see him again for a long time, as he was returning the next day to his father’s house, from whence he would go to Cambridge.
He was annoyed at this result of the good advice he had thought himself bound to give to a motherless girl, who had no one to instruct her in the proprieties in which his own sisters were brought up; he left Hamley both sorry and displeased. As for Ellinor, when she found out the next day that he really was gone - gone without even coming to Ford Bank again to see if she were not penitent for her angry words - gone without saying or hearing a word of goodbye - she shut herself up in her room, and cried more bitterly than ever, because anger against herself was mixed with her regret for his loss. Luckily, her father was dining out, or he would have inquired what was the matter with his darling; and she would have had to try to explain what could not be explained. As it was, she sat with her back to the light during the schoolroom tea, and afterwards, when Miss Monro had settled down to her study of the Spanish language, Ellinor stole out into the garden, meaning to have a fresh cry over her own naughtiness and Mr Corbet’s departure; but the August evening was still and calm, and put her passionate grief to shame, hushing her up, as it were, with the other young creatures, who were being soothed to rest by the serene time of day, and the subdued light of the twilight sky.
There was a piece of ground surrounding the flower-garden, which was not shrubbery, nor wood, nor kitchen-garden - only a grassy bit, out of which a group of old forest-trees sprang. Their roots were heaved above ground; their leaves fell in autumn so profusely that the turf was ragged and bare in spring; but, to make up for this, there never was such a place for snowdrops.
The roots of these old trees were Ellinor’s favourite play-place; this space between these two was her doll’s kitchen, that its drawing-room, and so on. Mr Corbet rather despised her contrivances for doll’s furniture, so she had not often brought him here; but Dixon delighted in them, and contrived and planned with the eagerness of six years old rather than forty. Tonight Ellinor went to this place, and there were all a new collection of ornaments for Miss Dolly’s sitting-room made out of fir-bobs, in the prettiest and most ingenious way. She knew it was Dixon’s doing, and rushed off in search of him to thank him.
‘What’s the matter with my pretty?’ asked Dixon, as soon as the pleasant excitement of thanking and being thanked was over, and he had leisure to look at her tear-stained face.
‘Oh, I don’t know! Never mind,’ said she, reddening.
Dixon was silent for a minute or two, while she tried to turn off his attention by her hurried prattle.
‘There’s no trouble afoot that I can mend?’ asked he, in a minute or two.
‘Oh no! It’s really nothing - nothing at all,’ said she. ‘It’s only that Mr Corbet went away without saying goodbye to me, that’s all.’ And she looked as if she should have liked to cry again.
‘That was not manners,’ said Dixon, decisively.
‘But it was my fault,’ replied Ellinor, pleading against the condemnation.
Dixon looked at her pretty sharply from under his ragged bushy eyebrows.
‘He had been giving me a lecture, and saying I didn’t do what his sisters did - just as if I were to be always trying to be like somebody else - and I was cross, and ran away.’
‘Then it was Missy who wouldn’t say goodbye. That was not manners in Missy.’
‘But, Dixon, I don’t like being lectured!’
‘I reckon you don’t get much of it. But, indeed, my pretty, I daresay Mr Corbet was in the right; for, you see, master is busy, and Miss Monro is so dreadful learned, and your poor mother is dead and gone, and you have no one to teach you how young ladies go on; and by all accounts Mr Corbet comes of a good family. I’ve heard say his father had the best stud-farm in all Shropshire, and spared no money upon it; and the young ladies his sisters will have been taught the best of manners; it might be well for my pretty to hear how. they go on.’
‘You dear old Dixon, you don’t know anything about my lecture, and I’m not going to tell you. Only I daresay Mr Corbet might be a little bit right, though I’m sure he was a great deal wrong.
‘But you’ll not go on a-fretting - you won’t now, there’s a good young lady - for master won’t like it, and it’ll make him uneasy, and he’s enough of trouble without your red eyes, bless them.’
‘Trouble - papa, trouble! Oh, Dixon! what do you mean?’ exclaimed Ellinor, her face taking all a woman’s intensity of expression in a minute.
‘Nay, I know nought,’ said Dixon, evasively. ‘Only that Dunster fellow is not to my mind, and I think he potters the master sadly with his fid-fad ways.’
‘I hate Mr Dunster!’ said Ellinor, vehemently. ‘I won’t speak a word to him the next time he comes to dine with papa.’
‘Missy will do what papa likes best,’ said Dixon, admonishingly; and with this the pair of ‘friends’ parted.
CHAPTER IV
The summer afterwards Mr Corbet came again to read with Mr Ness. He did not perceive any alteration in himself, and indeed his early-matured character had hardly made progress during the last twelve months, whatever intellectual acquirements he might have made. Therefore it was astonishing to him to see the alteration in Ellinor Wilkins. She had shot up from a rather puny girl to a tall slight young lady, with promise of great beauty in the face, which a year ago had only been remarkable for the fineness of the eyes. Her complexion was clear now, although colourless - twelve months ago he would have called it sallow - her delicate cheek was smooth as marble, her teeth were even and white, and her rare smiles called out a lovely dimple.
She met her former friend and lecturer with a grave shyness, for she remembered well how they had parted, and thought he could hardly have forgiven, much less forgotten, her passionate flinging away from him. But the truth was, after the first few hours of offended displeasure, he had ceased to think of it at all. She, pour child, by way of proving her repentance, had tried hard to reform her boisterous tom-boy manners, in order to show him that although she would not give up her dear old friend Dixon at his or anyone’s bidding, she would strive to profit by his lectures in all things reasonable. The consequence was, that she suddenly appeared to him as an elegant dignified young lady, instead of the rough little girl he remembered. Still, below her somewhat formal manners there lurked the old wild spirit, as he could plainly see, after a little more watching; and he began to wish to call this out, and to strive, by reminding her of old days, and all her childish frolics, to flavour her subdued manners and speech with a little of the former originality.
In this he succeeded. No one, neither Mr Wilkins, nor Miss Monro, nor Mr Ness, saw what this young couple were about - they did not know it themselves; but before the summer was over they were desperately in love with each other, or perhaps I should rather say, Ellinor was desperately in love with him - he, as passionately as he could be with anyone; but in him the intellect was superior in strength to either affections or passions.
The causes of the blindness of those around them were these. Mr Wilkins still considered Ellinor as a little girl, as his own pet, his darling, but nothing more. Miss Monro was anxious about her own improvement. Mr Ness was deep in a new editio
n of Horace, which he was going to bring out with notes, I believe Dixon would have been keener-sighted, but Ellinor kept Mr Corbet and Dixon apart for obvious reasons - they were each her dear friends, but she knew that Mr Corbet did not like Dixon, and suspected that the feeling was mutual.
The only change of circumstances between this year and the previous one consisted in this development of attachment between the young people. Otherwise, everything went on apparently as usual. With Ellinor the course of the day was something like this. Up early and into the garden until breakfast time, when she made tea for her father and Miss Monro in the dining-room, always taking care to lay a little nosegay of freshly-gathered flowers by her father’s plate. After breakfast, when the conversation had been on general and indifferent subjects, Mr Wilkins withdrew into the little study, so often mentioned. It opened out of a passage that ran between the dining-room and the kitchen, on the left-hand of the hall. Corresponding to the dining-room on the other side of the hall was the drawing-room, with its side-window serving as a door into a conservatory, and this again opened into the library. Old Mr Wilkins had added a semicircular projection to the library, which was lighted by a dome above, and showed off his son’s Italian purchases of sculpture. The library was by far the most striking and agreeable room in the house; and the consequence was that the drawing-room was seldom used, and had the aspect of cold discomfort common to apartments rarely occupied. Mr Wilkins’s study, on the other side of the house, was also an afterthought, built only a few years ago, and projecting from the regularity of the outside wall: a little stone passage led to it from the hall, small, narrow, and dark, and out of which no other door opened.
The study itself was a hexagon, one side-window, one Fireplace, and the remaining four sides occupied with doors, two of which have been already mentioned, another at the foot of the narrow winding stairs which led straight into Mr Wilkins’s bedroom over the dining-room, and the fourth opening into a path through the shrubbery to the right of the flower-garden as you looked from the house. This path led through the stable-yard, and then by a short cut right into Hamley, and brought you out close to Mr Wilkins’s office; it was by this way he always went and returned to his business. He used the study for a smoking and lounging-room principally, although he always spoke of it as a convenient place for holding confidential communications with such of his clients as did not like discussing their business within the possible hearing of all the clerks in his office. By the outer door he could also pass to the stables, and see that proper care was taken at all times of his favourite and valuable horses. Into this study Ellinor would follow him of a morning, helping him on with his great-coat, mending his gloves, talking an infinite deal of merry fond nothing, and then, clinging to his arm, she would accompany him in his visits to the stables, going up to the shyest horses, and petting them, and patting them, and feeding them with bread all the time that her father held converse with Dixon. When he was finally gone - and sometimes it was a long time first - she returned to the schoolroom to Miss Monro, and tried to set herself hard at work on her lessons. But she had not much time for steady application; if her father had cared for her progress in anything, she would and could have worked hard at that study or accomplishment; but Mr Wilkins, the ease and pleasure loving man, did not wish to make himself into the pedagogue, as he would have considered it, if he had ever questioned Ellinor with a real steady purpose of ascertaining her intellectual progress. It was quite enough for him that her general intelligence and variety of desultory and miscellaneous reading made her a pleasant and agreeable companion for his hours of relaxation.
Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell Page 362
