Chapter VIII: A Truce

Robert Wodrow, full of thought, pursuing his way through a green hedge-bordered lane that led to Birkwoodbrae from the manse, suddenly heard the shrill yelp of a dog, followed by an execration, and at a little distance perceived Sir Robert Sleath, issuing from the garden gate at the mansion, in the act of picking up a large stone to hurl at Jack--Mary Wellwood's pet. Jack, by dashing through the hedge, shirked the stone, as all wise dogs do, but if the baronet had bestowed upon him a kick, as Robert never doubted, the terrier had enough of the bull in his blood to remember it well, as Sleath found to his cost when the time came.

Closing the garden gate, he found himself face to face with young Wodrow. He had his hat partly on the back of his head, his hands thrust into the back pockets of his morning coat, a cigar in his mouth, and with an _insouciant_ stare, and a species of dry nod that was supremely insolent and infinitely worse than no recognition at all, he passed on his way without speaking. Robert Wodrow, whose heart was already sore enough in more ways than one, felt it swell with passion as he entered the garden, which was still in all the beauty of summer.

He had lately felt in many ways that a change had come over Ellinor, but he had been, as yet, too proud to notice it to herself.

The baronet was shooting now every day, and Wodrow thought that, even if Ellinor was under that person's influence, she might give him a little more of her society, as of old--even twenty minutes; but no, he could seldom or never see her alone; and while love and sorrow made him humble at one time, jealousy and disappointment made him proud and rancorous at others.

The sweetness of his disposition had departed; his studies were becoming confused or neglected; and none saw the change that was coming over him with more pain and anger than his mother.

Of all the men that had seen and admired Ellinor, his instinct told him that this man Sleath would prove the most dangerous; yet to his own sex the manners of the latter seemed far from winning.

And already Elspat Gordon and other old servants, with the keen observance and love of gossip peculiar to their class, had begun to prognosticate a more brilliant future for Ellinor Wellwood than the obscure career of a country doctor's wife, and saw her the lady of 'a real live baronet,' and riding in a chariot to which that of Cinderella was as nothing in comparison; and, as if to make the mischief worse, rumours of _their_ surmises and of their hopes reached somehow--but readily enough in a sequestered district--the ears of Robert Wodrow, and were as gall and wormwood to his soul.

All this might be mere wretched gossip; and though Ellinor might not actually have any regard for Sir Redmond, yet Robert Wodrow feared that somehow she was already in a dumb way yielding to or feeling his influence and power.

The subtle homage, the studied phraseology, and flattering air of gallantry and devotion which Sir Redmond infused into his conversation when alone--but only when alone--with Ellinor, had somewhat turned the girl's little head, and led her to draw comparisons between all that kind of thing and poor Robert Wodrow's 'use and wont' style of attention and 'matter of course' position, as the lover of her maidenhood expanded from the playmate of her childhood.

Mary was away on some of her errands of mercy or work; Ellinor was alone when Robert approached, and found her idling in the garden, with a sunshade over her head; and his heart, of course, foreboded that there she must have been with the obnoxious visitor who had just departed.

Elspat bad been brushing out her long and flowing dark brown hair, that was so rich and heavy as to seem almost a burden to her shapely head and slender neck; and Robert reflected savagely that thus she must have appeared before 'that fellow.'

She was adjusting with slender and deft little fingers, while a sweet, soft, self-satisfied smile rippled over her face, in her lace collarette, a tuft of stephenotis with two buds of a particular kind of rose that Robert knew grew in the conservatory of Craigmhor alone; and his eyes fastened angrily on them at once, though she made no reference to them, or how they came to be there. The presence of the personage he had just passed fully accounted for that; he had doubtless transferred them from his own buttonhole to her hand, and Robert knew quite enough of 'the language of the flowers' to know what two rosebuds, so given, implied. And now her face wore--so Robert thought--just such a smile as that of Faust's Marguerite, when plucking the mystical rose-leaves in her garden.

Robert felt that the gap between them was widening; he did not present his hand, nor did she offer hers, but continued to adjust her little bouquet, while he stood before her with his hands thrust into the pockets of his grey morning-coat, and kicked away a pebble or two that lay in the gravelled walk.

'Ellinor!'

'Well, Robert,' she replied, a little nervously; 'you have come to tell me that you have passed, I suppose?'

'No.'

'Why--what then?'

'Because I have not passed.'

'Not passed!' said Ellinor, looking at him with genuine regret.

'No--on the first of this month the medical degrees were conferred as usual, but not on me--not perhaps that you care much now,' he added, in a thickening voice. 'I shall have to try again--if, indeed, I ever try more.'

'Why, Robert, what has come to you that you talk to me thus? I am most sorry for you indeed.' She looked him earnestly, but Robert thought not honestly, in the face.

'You are more intent on your own flirtations than my failure--a failure perhaps caused by yourself.'

'Who can I flirt with here?'

'You know best,' replied Robert, sulkily.

'Really, Robert, you are very unpleasant!' exclaimed the girl, tears almost starting to her eyes, though there was a provoking twinkle in their hazel depths, nevertheless.

'Now perhaps I am; but how long do you think I am going to stand this sort of thing?'

'What sort of thing?'

'The dangling after you of that English fool who has just left.'

'This is going from bad to worse, Robert,' replied Ellinor, with a pout on her beautiful lip. 'It is being downright rude, and national reflections are in the worst possible taste.'

'You have not been treating me well for some time past, Ellinor; you seem to grudge every moment you give me, and the little time you do spend with me, you seem no longer your old pleasant and hopeful self, but abstracted and _distraite_.'

'You are always worrying me,' retorted the girl, 'and hinting of broken promises when I have never made any.'

'Between us, they were scarcely necessary, Ellinor, and yet you have made me scores.'

'I--when?'

'Since we were children.'

'Oh--of course, when we played at being sweethearts, and all that sort of thing.'

'Played! It has been no child's play with me at least.'

'Such child's play is ended now--and I won't be scolded thus.'

She had never adopted this tone to him before, and young Wodrow was shocked, startled, and enraged; but still he dissembled, for love will tame and subdue the proudest heart, and his was full of great love for the girl who now stood before him, biting her nether lip, and shuffling the gravel with a little impatient foot.

'Ellinor,' said Robert, yet without attempting to take her hand, 'if you did not quite encourage my love, you permitted and adopted it--you accepted it since we were happy little children that toddled and played about together--and that love has gone on, growing with my growth and strengthening with my strength; and I never dreamed of, never thought of picturing the time when you might cast me off. And now I never doubted that when I graduated----'

'Oh, Robert,' interrupted the girl, nervously, 'you are too romantic; too much of a boy----'

'I am not a boy now, and I won't be called one! and as for a romance--certainly you have become very matter-of-fact, when I have heard you laugh at even a competence as not being sufficient.'

'Shall I tell you what I think it should be?' said Ellinor, a little defiantly.

'Do,' he responded, gloomily.

'I think it means a handsome house--not a cottage (love in that is all very well, but may be apt to fly out of the windows); fine furniture--beautiful pictures and dresses--lots of servants--a carriage----'

'Oh, stop, please! Since when have you found all these things necessary for existence? Dear Ellinor, people can be very happy together with less.'

'Quiet as our lives have been here, Robert, poor Mary and I have often had wrung hearts and harassed spirits to keep up an outward and an empty show.'

'What is enough for one, as mother often says, is enough for two.'

'Perhaps, and perhaps not,' said Ellinor, with a waggish expression.

Robert Wodrow did not reflect just then that erelong there might be more mouths than two to feed.

'And all these new views of our prospects and of life generally, have occurred to you because----'

'Because what?'

'This man Sleath has come to Invermay.'

Ellinor grew pale. There were a few moments' silence, and when Robert Wodrow spoke again his voice sounded strange even to himself.

'I was never half good enough for you, Ellinor--I know that,' said he, humbly, 'yet I will never give you up until--until I hear you are fully engaged to him.'

'Engaged! How your tongue does run on, Robert,' replied Ellinor, with a curious laugh. 'He has never even spoken to me in any very pointed manner; but rather than be worried thus,' she added, with a swelling in her slender throat, 'I must ask you to forget me--do.'

'Men such as I am do not forget so easily, Ellinor.' The angry colour died out of Wodrow's dark face, and, clenching his hands, he muttered under his thick moustache--'Curse him!'

'He would not speak thus, Robert, if it is Sir Redmond you mean. He has seen a great deal of the best of society.'

'And a great deal more of the worst, I suspect,' said her lover, more exasperated by the slightest defence of his supposed rival; but, nerving himself to be calm, he asked--'Am I, then, to suppose that you have not promised your future--the future that I have a right to say was not yours to assign--to this stranger--to this sudden interloper?'

'I have not. But why be so mysterious, tragic, and absurd, Robert?' she exclaimed, with a little gasping laugh that nearly became a sob; for, sooth to say, Ellinor's secret heart upbraided her, and she felt that she was treating the lover of her girlhood and the friend of all her years with duplicity.

'Then,' said he, 'why do you permit attentions that are purposeless to you, and most distasteful to me?'

'Robert, what do you mean?' she asked, plaintively.

'I mean, why do you permit that tawny-haired fellow to flirt with you, and excite the comment of lookers-on?'

'He does not flirt with me, Robert.'

'Do you mean to say that his attentions are more serious than what is called flirtation?'

'I say nothing about them,' said Ellinor, annoyed and alarmed by his vehemence and categorical questioning.

'Ah--indeed!' he hissed through his clenched teeth.

'I cannot prevent him saying things sometimes--without--without making a scene. Do not be hard upon me, Robert--I do love you--I always loved you; not perhaps as you wish--but--but----'

She paused, sobbed, and laid her sweet face upon his arm, which went caressingly round her bent and beautiful head, with all its wealth of dark brown flowing hair.

'You love me!' he whispered, softly.

'As an old friend--oh, yes.'

He withdrew, and again eyed her gloomily and silently.

'Advise me, Robert,' said she, imploringly.

'In what can I advise you, if your own heart does not?'

'We are both so miserably poor.'

'And your new admirer is so rich?'

They were drifting among shoals again, so Ellinor made no reply.

'I suppose he loves you? To judge by my own heart, Ellinor, I don't wonder at it--but if so, why does he not at once come to the point and end his dangling? Why delay, and why conceal?'

'Do not let us quarrel, Robert,' said the girl, gently and sweetly, with her soft hazel eyes full of unshed tears; 'we have always been such chums--such friends. Some one is coming--kiss me once more--and kiss me quickly!'

A light step was heard on the ground near the garden gate, and the welcoming bark of Jack announced it was that of Mary returning.

The mutual kiss was swiftly given and taken; but to neither did it seem like the kisses of old.

Robert Wodrow felt that it sealed only a truce between him and Ellinor Wellwood; that neither were happy now, and that her heart was drifting away from him. Their farewell seemed to be like the summary of Lord Lytton's advice,

'In short, my deary, kiss me and be quiet.'