"Oh, mother, mother darling, it is not that," Elinor said. And she went away without any decision. But in a few days there came to Mrs. Dennistoun a letter from Philip himself, most nobly expressed, saying that Elinor had told him of her mother's kind offer, and that he hastened to accept it with the utmost gratitude and devotion. He had just been wondering, he wrote, how he was to muster all things necessary for Elinor, with the business engagements which were growing upon himself. Nobody could understand better than Nell's good mother how necessary it was that he should neglect no means of securing their position, and he had found that often he would have to leave his darling by herself: but this magnificent, this magnanimous offer on her part would make everything right. Need he say how gratefully he accepted it? Nell and he being on the spot would immediately begin looking out for the house, and when they had a list of three or four to look at he hoped she would come up to their rooms and select what she liked best. This response took away Mrs. Dennistoun's breath, for, to tell the truth, she had her own notions as to the house she wanted and as to the time to be spent in town, and would certainly have preferred to manage everything herself. But in this she had to yield, with thankfulness that in the main point she was to have her way.
Did she have her way? It is very much to be doubted whether in such a situation of affairs it would have been possible. The house that was decided upon was not one which she would have chosen for herself, neither would she have taken it from Easter to July. She had meant a less expensive place and a shorter season; but after all, what did that matter for once if it pleased Elinor? The worst of it was that she could not at all satisfy herself that it pleased Elinor. It pleased Philip, there was no doubt, but then it had not been intended except in a very secondary way to please him. And when the racket of the season began Mrs. Dennistoun had a good deal to bear. Philip, though he was supposed to be a man of business and employed in the city, got up about noon, which was dreadful to all her orderly country habits; the whole afternoon through there was a perpetual tumult of visitors, who, when by chance she encountered them in the hall or on the stairs, looked at her superciliously as if she were the landlady. The man who opened the door, and brushed Philip Compton's clothes, and was in his service, looked superciliously at her too, and declined to have anything to say to "the visitors for down-stairs." A noise of laughter and loud talk was (distinctly) in her ears from noon till late at night. When Philip came home, always much later than his wife, he was in the habit of bringing men with him, whose voices rang through the house after everybody was in bed. To be sure, there were compensations. She had Elinor often for an hour or two in the morning before her husband was up. She had her in the evenings when they were not going out, but these were few. As for Philip, he never dined at home. When he had no engagements he dined at his club, leaving Elinor with her mother. He gave Mrs. Dennistoun very little of his company, and when they did meet there was in his manner too a sort of reflection of the superciliousness of the "smart" visitors and the "smart" servant. She was to him, too, in some degree the landlady, the old lady down-stairs. Elinor, as was natural, redoubled her demonstrations of affection, her excuses and sweet words to make up for this neglect: but all the time there was in her mother's mind that dreadful doubt which assails us when we have committed ourselves to one act or another, "Was it wise? Would it not have been better to have denied herself and stayed away?" So far as self-denial went, it was more exercised in Curzon Street than it would have been at the Cottage. For she had to see many things that displeased her and to say no word; to guess at the tears, carefully washed away from Elinor's eyes, and to ask no questions, and to see what she could not but feel was the violent career downward, the rush that must lead to a catastrophe, but make no sign. There was one evening when Elinor, not looking well or feeling well, had stayed at home, Philip having a whole long list of engagements in hand; men's engagements, his wife explained, a stockbroking dinner, an adjournment to somebody's chambers, a prolonged sitting, which meant play, and a great deal of wine, and other attendant circumstances into which she did not enter. Elinor had no engagement for that night, and was free to be petted and fêted by her mother. She was put at her ease in a soft and rich dressing-gown, and the prettiest little dinner served, and the room filled with flowers, and everything done that used to be done when she was recovering from some little mock illness, some child's malady, just enough to show how dear above everything was the child to the mother, and with what tender ingenuity the mother could invent new delights for the child. These delights, alas! did not transport Elinor now as they once had done, and yet the repose was sweet, and the comfort of this nearest and dearest friend to lean upon something more than words could say.
On this evening, however, in the quiet of those still hours, poor Elinor's heart was opened, or rather her mouth, which on most occasions was closed so firmly. She said suddenly, in the midst of something quite different, "Oh, I wish Phil was not so much engaged with those dreadful city men."
"My dear!" said Mrs. Dennistoun, who was thinking of far other things; and then she said, "there surely cannot be much to fear in that respect. He is never in the city—he is never up, my dear, when the city men are doing their work."
"Ah," said Elinor, "I don't think that matters; he is in with them all the same."
"Well, Elinor, there is no reason that there should be any harm in it. I would much rather he had some real business in hand than be merely a butterfly of fashion. You must not entertain that horror of city men."
"The kind he knows are different from the kind you know, mamma."
"I suppose everything is different from what it was in my time: but it need not be any worse for that——"
"Oh, mother! you are obstinate in thinking well of everything; but sometimes I am so frightened, I feel as if I must do something dreadful myself—to precipitate the ruin which nothing I can do will stop——"
"Elinor, Elinor, this is far too strong language——"