Elise

“ To their way of thinking the only people who have any excuse to be alive, or have any hope to enter heaven, are English folk who have been born and bred in Cornwall.'
Marion smiled faintly. 'True enough, Aunt Constance. But you don't know Elise.'
'I don't know Elise, my dear. There you are right. But I do know that Elise, the daughter of Monsieur de Delauret and the granddaughter of the old Vicomte d'Artois, is bred and born a gentlewoman. You cannot turn your back on your own class and take the peasant view against them. And has not Elise been your companion and playfellow all these years? ”

“ We all distributed ourselves in a circle about the sitting-room, exactly like a Bible-class at church, and talked in the stiffest, most formal way imaginable. I don't know why we couldn't be natural; but Elise, sitting there so perfectly at ease, smiling and talking so gracefully made us feel like country bumpkins before a princess. I was furious at her for making us appear in such a light. Why couldn't Tom have married somebody like ourselves, some jolly good sport who wouldn't be afraid to hurt her clothes? I knew Elise Hildegarde Parmenter's style. ”

“ Well?'
'Is not that a reason for Elise's hating Roger? A woman can forgive a man almost everything except disliking her, and showing it.'
'Elise is only a girl.'
'A rose-bud is all the same a rose.'
Marion twined a stray wisp of hair round and round her fingers. 'Granted all that, Aunt Constance, why should Elise be continually going down to Haunted Cove, and to see such a horrible man?'
'Who says she is going continually?'
'Well—Charity says everybody says so.'
'Which means,' said Lady Fairfax tartly, 'that some one may have seen her twice. ”

“ Her companion, busy among the garments hanging in the press in the inner room, failed to note, for all her caution, the dull sound of wheels, and if Elise heard, she made no comment.
'Listen to that!' said Victoire presently, emerging from her closet with a length of priceless lace on her arm. 'There is the kitchen still uproarious. They will be singing and dancing all night because of this escape. But—ah, good! while they are amusing themselves, I will get into the buttery for food for our journey. If I go through the hall, the wenches will not see me.'
'Marion may,' faltered Elise. ”

“ Her physical resistance seemed a match for his strength.
"It is useless, Elise," he said to her as with tense muscles he strove to subdue her will and her wilful pride. "I have always loved you, and now that I know you love me nothing shall divide us. Why should you hold out against love?"
But Elise's resistance was fixed and set. Rutledge pleaded and begged and made love to her with all the tenderness of his heart and the energy of his passion for her, and exerted his physical strength to break down her defence. ”

“ One must complete one's work, else it is good for nothing! And I know that here I am—but I am talking only of myself. Tell me, Elise, what you wish—what you would like."
"Let us remain here!" said Elise, giving her hand to her husband, and seating herself beside him. "I know that you would have no pleasure in a higher rank, in a larger income, if you on that account must leave a sphere where you feel yourself in your place, and where you can work according to the desire of your own heart, and where you are surrounded by persons who esteem and love you! ”

“ Let this be said—in later years when Elise had lost her second child, he invited her to his house and made her acquainted with his wife, at whose instance the invitation came. “You have not borne children!” she cried when he hesitated, and in those words she revealed the sympathy which made her so great an actress. Between these two women there grew up a warm friendship—a thing impossible if somewhere in all this there was not a noble element. ”

“ Each man who visited Elise must have represented a chance for the greatest loss in the world to the dear old lady. I mentally promised that if I came to the beginning of the long straight road with Elise, I should take pains to have her mother know she would be gaining a son instead of losing a daughter. ”

“ Bloodgood, pressing her handkerchief to her eyes.
"Because the world is different from the world of this morning—because everything is different, Elise. There are no longer the reasons that existed. You are alone against the world. You know your husband—one public word or action, and he will cast you off like an old shoe." ”

“ Have you courage to go with us? My arm is strong enough to carry you over the forest, so surely our united strength ought to be sufficient to bear you across the ocean.”
“Oh yes; take me with you,” said Elise.
They spent the whole night in weaving a kind of net of the elastic bark of the willow bound together with tough rushes; they made it both large and strong. Elise lay down upon it, and [Pg 235] when the sun rose and the brothers became swans again they took up the net in their bills and flew high up among the clouds with their precious sister, who was fast asleep. ”

“ In moments of violent struggle, bad and good spirits are at hand; they surrounded Elise and spoke to her thus:
Bad Spirits.—"Think on that which thou hast given up! think on thy own merits! Recollect the many little acts of injustice which thou hast had to bear, the bitter moments which the severity of thy husband has occasioned thee! Why shouldst thou humbly crawl in the dust? Raise thyself, depressed one! raise thyself, offended wife! think of thy own worth, of thy own rights! Do not allow thyself to be subjected; show some character. Requite that which thou hast endured. ”

“ I am so sick of everything the way it is.”
“Of course you are!” said Elise. “One is always seek of wrong. It makes a blackness over everything.”
“What will I do? How will I begin?”
“I cannot tell you,” said Elise. “You will know what to do. Something will tell you. Something always tells. I think it is le bon Dieu. Just trust and you will know what to do and to say. Come, let us go. I hear the meeting talking itself down the stairs. Is your car waiting?”
“Yes,” said Lucy dully as she allowed Elise to lead her through the store. “Oh, Elise, I don’t love her, and I don’t know what to do!” ”

“ From such an emptiness of the soul proceed unrest, discontentedness, nay, innumerable faults!"
"I believe you are right, Elise," said her husband; "and no condition in life is more melancholy, particularly in advanced years. But this shall not be the lot of my Petrea—that we will prevent. What do you think now would be good for her?"
"I fancy," said Elise, "that a course of serious and well- [Pg 139] directed study would assist in regulating her mind. She is too much left to herself, with her disarranged bent—with her enthusiasm and her attempts. ”

“ Elise smiled and shook her head. 'None, my dear Marian,' she said. 'There is no possible harm in it. There's no harm in anything now. The old idea that a woman's purity and modesty—— But what's the use of saying that to you? Of course you're right. Who wants to stay at home with a lot of little brats, if you can have a dozen men a week standing you dinners, and mauling you like a bargee, and'——
'Elise!'
'There's the water getting near the boil.' Elise rose with a strange little laugh and looked at a yellow silk stocking which dangled over the side of a wicker table. ”

“ You'll try? Even if you stay here she will be better protected. Elise is a good girl, and she is beautiful. You never could find a better wife.”
“I had almost decided as much,” I answered dryly, “but I don't believe my qualification as an impromptu husband are as apparent.”
“They are! Elise would accept you. Maybe you'd have to argue to get her to marry you to-morrow, but——”
“Yes, I guess so! No, Latisse; I can't consider the idea at all! In the course of time when Elise gets to know me better, I may ask her that question, but not now.” ”

“ The candles in sconces furnished the only other illumination. Elise, moving about the shadowy room, seemed to draw light to herself. She wore a flame-colored velvet frock and her curly hair was tucked into a golden net. I think that she had planned the medieval effect deliberately, and it was a great success. As she flitted about like a brilliant bird, our eyes followed her. My eyes, indeed, drank of her, like new wine. I have always loved color, and my life has been drab.
I spoke of her frock when she showed me my room.
"Oh, do you like it?" she asked. "Jimmie hates to see me in dark things. ”

“ But as usual I am only an old fool, and you, sir, and Miss Elise know best I am very sorry I roused you so early with my racket."
"Did you say the library window wide open? Impossible; I distinctly recollect closing the blinds, and putting down the sash before I went to bed. Elise, were you not with me at the time?"
"Yes, I am sure you secured it, just before bidding me goodnight."
"Well—no matter, facts are ugly, stubborn things. Now you two just see for yourselves, what I found this morning." ”

“ In such an environment, where she had hoped to lose the burden of persistent self, Elise found emancipation farther away than ever. The abandon of the others first created a reversion to prudery in her breast, and then developed a cynical indifference. The others treated her with friendly insouciance. Had she been ill, or had she met with an accident, there was probably not one who wouldn't have proved herself a 'ministering angel.' As it was, they largely ignored her, indulging the instinct of inhumanity which so often is woman's attitude towards woman. ”

“ Elise followed the example of her husband. She felt now that Louise and Jacobi's firm devotion to each other; their willingness to work; and their characters, so excellent, and beyond this, so well suited to each other, were more secure pledges of happiness than the greatest worldly treasure. With respect to the time of the marriage, however, she made serious objections. All that the parents could give to their daughter was a tolerably handsome outfit ”

“ She is rich and lonely, and has a warm heart. Those were Elgin's conditions, and he found her.
Elise. Elgin?
Ethel. That's the dream again. Come, Elise, let us see if our dear mother is awake. I am nearly bursting with this good news. And I must tell you my dream. For, you see, the letter and the basket just agree with the dream. And after I have told my dream, and we have read the letter, and seen our Thanksgiving dinner, why, if you and mamma don't believe in fairies, you're funny people, that is all. (Kisses her hand to the air.) I believe in you two dear fairies, at all events. ”

“ I would like to do something different this afternoon. I feel tired of all the things I ever did.”
“Poor little old lady!” said Miss Turner, laughing, “there will have to be a new world made for you, Elise.” Then, as she turned, she caught the flash of the diamond at Elise’s throat, and said: “How lovely your pin is! It seems too lovely and too costly for a young girl.”
“It was mamma’s,” said Elise gravely, “and papa promised mamma he would give it to me on my fourteenth birthday. ”

“ I don't know. Man may be a fellow creature, I suppose—though they didn't teach me that at the Convent. But tell me this: even if you have no curiosity, because you hope you can manage to endure me, do you think I look like an 'Elise'?"
"Somehow, you don't. Names have different colours for me. Elise is bright pink. You ought to be silver, or pale blue."
"Elise is my professional name; Lady Turnour is my sponsor. My real name's Lys—Lys d'Angely."
"Good! Lys is silver."
"I wish I could coin it. Let me see if I can guess what you ought to be? You look like—like—well, Jack would suit you. ”

“ ELISE was spending the afternoon with Miss Dora Turner. Miss Turner was several years older than Elise, but she had come to the country to live among strangers, and Elise had known her in her city home, and was lonely like herself, so they became intimate friends. Elise told all her sorrows and perplexities, as well as her joys, to this young lady. She was in Miss Turner’s room now, waiting for her to rearrange her hair and make some additions to her toilet, then they were going for a walk.
“I don’t know where we can go, I am sure,” said Elise; “we have used up all the pretty walks near by. ”

“ Oh, never, never!” she moaned.
“Come, come,” her guardian said, not unkindly. “Conradt is no beauty, I 121grant. God hath dealt hardly with him in a way that might well win him a maiden’s pity,” he added, with a sham piousness that made Elise shiver. “Thou must have a husband’s protection,” the baron went on. “Naught else will avail in these times. And ’twas thy father’s will.”
“Nay; I believe not that,” Elise cried, looking straight at him with flashing eyes. “Ne’er knew I my father, but ’twere not in any father’s heart, my lord, to will so dreadful a thing for his daughter. ”

“ The night abounds in dreams. I have had one. I must tell it, if I can.
Elise. But hear mine first, dear. I think it was about two o'clock when I heard feet in the passageway and a noise at the door. I was frightened, but did not alarm mother; for why should burglars visit our poor home? After a while the noise ceased, and I ventured to get out of bed and softly open the door. There stood—what do you think, Ethel?
Ethel. I know.
Elise. No, you don't, you goose.
Ethel. I do know.
Elise. Silly child. Listen, a large basket—
Ethel. With our Thanksgiving dinner in it—a turkey and cranberry jelly. ”