Lady Ellington

“ Dundas that Lady Ellington has come with her,” said she.
The fight was in grim earnest now. Both Madge and her mother were disposed to fight every yard of ground. But the former had some remnant of duty, of compassion left. Horrible to her as had been the scene on the doorstep, convincing as it had been to her of some breach of faith, of honour, on her mother’s part, she did not want to expose that.
“Ah! is it wise of you?” she said. “Had you not better go home? You can do no good, mother.”
“We will go upstairs,” said Lady Ellington. ”

“ The accident, indeed, seemed to have stained backwards in Lady Ellington’s mind, and to have re-endowed the marriage itself with disaster.
But Lady Dover’s touch was very different to her mother’s; indeed it was because it did not seem to be a “touch” at all that Madge unconsciously answered to it.
“Ah, there you are, dear,” she said; “I was expecting you. Will you not get on your hat, and come out for a little? It will do you good to get the air, and it is a lovely afternoon. I have never seen the lights and shadows more exquisite.” ”

“ Lady Ellington’s own most acute feelings of rage, indignation, disappointment, were for the moment altogether subordinated by her pity for this strong man, who had suddenly been dealt this shattering, paralysing blow. If he had raged and stormed, if he had cursed Madge and threatened to shoot Evelyn, she would have felt less sorry for him. But the quietness with which he received it was more pathetic, all strength had gone from him. ”

“ Then the true Lady Ellington, the one who had been a little obscured for the last ten minutes by her pity for Philip, came to the light again.
“Ah, take her on any terms,” she cried. “It will be all right. She will love you. I am a woman, and I know what women are. No woman has ever yet made the absolute ideal marriage unless she was a fool. Women marry more or less happily; if Madge marries you, she will marry extremely happily. ”

“ Since the world had made up its mind to welcome them, and to draw a wet sponge over the past, it was clear that unless she wished to make an exception of herself, and not do in Rome what Rome did, she must extend to them not merely the welcome of the world, but the welcome of a mother also. And it was decidedly the best plan to make this thorough; astonished as Madge might be, it was better to astonish her than the world, and neither in public nor in private should she hear one word of reproach nor an uncordial accent. Lady Ellington had no desire to see private talks with her daughter ”

“ Now, Lady Ellington had seldom in all her busy and fully-occupied life felt helpless, but she felt helpless now, and two young folk, without a plan in their heads while she was bursting with excellent plans, had brought this paralysis on her. She also had very seldom felt angry, but now it would not be too much to say that she felt furious, and her sense of impotence added to her fury. She got out of her chair and took Madge by the shoulder. ”

“ Elation indeed she could not possibly have felt, since, had she been pressed to say how highly she valued Lady Ellington’s opinion, she would have been forced to confess that, without wishing to be unkind, she did not value it at all. Secretly, indeed, her estimate was that poor Margaret wanted very much to be a woman of the world, and only succeeded in being a worldly woman; she schemed (she had no doubt schemed in the matter of Madge’s marriage) and span threads in all directions, with the unfortunate result that she only succeeded in getting entangled in them herself. ”

“ She had always been rather given to put her head in the air, and appear not to notice people; but her engagement had brought to her an added geniality. Hitherto she had been something of “a maid on yonder mountain height,” but the shepherd, Philip Home, had, it appeared, convinced her that “love was of the valley,” and she had quite distinctly come down. This, at any rate, was the conclusion at which Gladys Ellington, the present Lady Ellington, arrived within two minutes of the time when she met Madge next. ”

“ But the fact of a reply coming was equivalent to Evelyn’s saying that he could not be there at three to-morrow, which rightly she put down as being a negligible contingency. And in this case again, if Lady Ellington could not keep watch over Madge’s movements during the next ten days she felt she would be really ashamed of herself. And as she had never been that yet, she saw no reason why she should begin now. She was probably right—the chances were immensely at this moment in favour of her not beginning to be ashamed of herself. For the beginnings of shame are searchings of the heart ”

“ SIXTEENTH HE elder Lady Ellington had never yet in the whole course of her combative life been knocked out of time by the blows of adverse circumstances, and she did not intend to begin being knocked out now. That Madge’s marriage was a frightful disaster she did not deny or seek to conceal, but her admirable habits of self-control and her invariable custom of never letting anything dwell on her mind or make her worry, served her in good stead now. ”

“ Again Madge walked up and down without replying at once.
“Ah, it is cold-blooded,” she said, “and I am doing it because I am cold-blooded.”
Then she stopped opposite her mother.
“Mother, when other girls fall in love, do they only feel like this?” she asked. “Is this all? Just to feel that for the rest of one’s life one will always have a very pleasant companion in the house, who, I am sure, will always deserve one’s liking and esteem?”
Lady Ellington laughed. ”

“ There is a terrible little proverb about being cruel only to be kind, and this benignant sort of torture exactly describes the procedure of Lady Ellington. Should there be—and she was quite sure there was—something going on in Madge’s mind with regard to Evelyn she was quite convinced that it would be better in every way that she should know about it. That was the ulterior kindness; the immediate cruelty was apparent—for Madge was on the edge of a crisis of nerves; a very little push might send her sprawling. If that then was the case, Lady Ellington distinctly wished that she should sprawl ”

“ But while they wanted, Lady Ellington went. If the simplification of life were to come in, it was always best to be the first to simplify; in addition, it would save her so much money in her autumn parties. And she could always have a chop upstairs.
Her expedition to the New Forest took place a couple of days after Philip had given his first sitting to Evelyn Dundas. Madge at this time was looking rather pale and tired, so her mother thought, and, in consequence, she proposed to Madge that she should come with her. ”

“ Home smoothed her grey gown a little nervously.
“I am frightened of Lady Ellington,” she said. “She has so very much—so very much self-possession. She is so practical, too: she always tells me all sorts of ways of managing the house, and suggests all kinds of improvements. It is very kind of her, and she is always quite right. And I think I am a little afraid of Madge.”
“Ah, I can’t permit that,” said Philip, smiling again. ”

“ Above all, as far as I know, it is not possible to make short cuts; one has to tune oneself slowly to it.”
This was better than nothing, for Lady Ellington had an excellent memory, and could recount all the things which Merivale told her as if she had suggested them to him and he had agreed. Also, if there was to be no simplification class, it would at least be in her power to say that he saw absolutely no one, but had been too charming in allowing Madge and her to come down and spend the day with him. ”

“ Almost too vivid, perhaps; they seem to jump out on you. But that is my view about the whole question. Supposing she had married Mr. Home, and had fallen in love afterwards! That sort of tragedy is so dreadful; such extraordinary cleverness is required to avoid all the horror of publicity. I could never survive publicity.”
“But there is publicity as it is,” said Lady Ellington. “Poor Madge! What will people think of her? And of me?”
Lady Dover throughout this conversation had given justification after justification for the importance that Lady Ellington attached to her verdict. ”

“ Lady Ellington, as has been remarked, never let her emotions, however justifiable, run away with her; she never, above all, got hot or angry. Causes which in others would produce anger, produced in her only an additional coldness and dryness, which Madge was, somehow, afraid of with unreasoning nightmare kind of fear. ”

“ Madge had declared she would take no step without the initiative on the part of Evelyn, and after the really very carefully worded note which he would receive this morning, it was not easy to see what he could do. Luck, of course, that blind goddess who upsets all our plans as a mischievous child upsets a chess-board on which the most delicate problem is in course of solution, might bring in the unforeseen to wreck everything, but Lady Ellington’s experience was that Luck chiefly interfered with careless people who did not lay their plans well. ”

“ Evelyn, from ignorance, no doubt, rode rough-shod, and no one resented his trespasses. Even Lord Dover had been stirred into speech, a thing he did not usually indulge in except on the subject of the grouse that had been shot and the fish that had been killed that day.
“My dear boy,” he said, “you shall do exactly what you like to-morrow. There is a rod for you on the river, or we should like another gun on the moor. Tell us at breakfast.”
All this Lady Ellington took up to Madge’s room with her hot water ”

“ And Lady Ellington accepted it as such, not ringing it or testing it in any way. That it was given her was quite enough.
“I am sure Madge would love to come,” she said, “if she can only tear”—she could not help hesitating a moment—“tear dear Evelyn away from his work. He is so busy; everybody wants to be painted by him. And I’m sure I don’t wonder. His portrait of Madge! It is too extraordinary! You expect her to get down from the easel and say something characteristic. The hands, too, surely, Mr. Dennison, you don’t think the hands are like bunches of bananas in Mr. ”

“ It was impossible not to admire the rare gifts and great qualities of Lady Ellinor, and not to feel pity for the cares, anxieties, and sorrows which tormented one who, with all the sensitiveness of woman, went forth into the rough world of man. ”

“ Am I vain if I say, now after the lapse of so many years, that in my mind her intellect felt companionship? When a woman loves and marries and settles, why then she becomes a one whole, a completed being. But a girl like Ellinor has in her many women. Various herself, all varieties please her. I do believe that if either of us had spoken the word boldly, Lady Ellinor would have shrunk back to her own heart, examined it, tasked it, and given a frank and generous answer ”

“ Mary's was the very nature to put forth all its strength and beauty under the fostering influence of affection—she was a delicate flower that needed sunshine to unfold its brightest colours, and bring forth its sweetest breath. She had been living in a fairy world, which her own heart supplied with poetry. The least selfish of human beings, the advantages of a union with Lord Allerton had never crossed her mind, unless it were to think of how delightful it would be to have her sisters staying with her. ”

“ At that moment the gold cups were moved, and Lord Allerton looked towards them. Small things are the hinges on which great events turn! When we trace to their source the most important circumstances of our life, in what trifles have they originated!—a look, a word, are the ministers of fate.
Poor Mary found the dinner very long, but the evening was yet longer; the duke resumed his place at her side, and Lord Allerton took his by Miss Aubrey. Henrietta was looking her best, and was in brilliant spirits, and her companion was surprised to find how much he was entertained. ”

“ Whatever Fanny might have discovered as to the state of my heart, it seemed an abyss not worth prying into by either Trevanion or Lady Ellinor. The first, indeed, as may be supposed, was too busy to think of such trifles. And Lady Ellinor treated me as a mere boy,—almost like a boy of her own, she was so kind to me. But she did not notice much the things that lay immediately around her. In brilliant conversation with poets, wits, and statesmen, in sympathy with the toils of her husband or proud schemes for his aggrandizement, Lady Ellinor lived a life of excitement. ”

“ I did not see how naturally he realized Lady Ellinor’s ideal. I have said that she was like many women in one. Trevanion was a thousand men in one. He had learning to please her mind, eloquence to dazzle her fancy, beauty to please her eye, reputation precisely of the kind to allure her vanity, honor and conscientious purpose to satisfy her judgment; and, above all, he was ambitious,—ambitious not as I, not as Roland was, but ambitious as Ellinor was; ambitious, not to realize some grand ideal in the silent heart, but to grasp the practical, positive substances that lay without. ”

“ By the way, Lord Allerton looks nearly as ill as she does, and his wife is at once a flirt and a vixen, yet by no means happy; she wore rouge last night, I am confident; it is taking to art very early in life, and proves something is wrong. ”

“ But Lady Ellinor looked to me sublime as she spoke, her eyes kindled, her breast heaved. The wife taking the husband's part against the child, and comprehending so well what the child felt not, despite its [177] experience of every day, and what the world would never know, despite all the vigilance of its praise and its blame, was a picture, to my taste, finer than any in the collection. ”