Chapter II: Dr. Elliott

HONORA was shown into the doctor's library, and he rose from his writing-table and came to meet her.

"What does this mean?" he said. "Why has Marian—" Here he had come near enough to see his visitor; he was short-sighted. "Who are you? But I need not ask. You must be one of Marian's sisters. Which?"

"Honora."

"You ought to be Annie."

"Why, sir?"

"Because you are my cousin Anne over again. Eh, child, I never saw such a likeness! But about Marian?"

He put her gently into a chair, and she told him exactly what had happened, and how Marian wanted to see him.

He was silent for a little while. At last he took Honora's little hand in his, opened her glove, and laid his finger on her pulse.

"Little girl," he said, "your plan won't do."

"Why not, please?"

"Because Marian would never reach Dinar alive. The railway would be bad enough; the diligence won't do."

"She 'did' seem in great pain in the fly yesterday," Honora answered.

She had tried once or twice to release her hand, but now she forgot all about it. And in a few moments, he let it go, and said—

"All right here. Can you keep counsel, Annie—Honora, I mean?"

"Keep counsel?" she said.

"Keep silence, you know. If I tell you something, will you tell Marian the moment you go back?"

"Not if you say be silent."

"Well, then, you must know that Miss Drury spoke to me about Marian, and I saw that it would be better to remove her. Miss Drury is not really unkind—the children there find her very good to them, and are not at all afraid of her—but for a timid, sensitive girl like Marian a worse companion could not be found. I told Miss Drury that I would see about getting a home for her. But it is not a thing that can be done in a moment, and so she took her own way when I was away—of which she shall know my opinion presently."

"She knows mine," said Honora, quietly.

"Well, coming home, I chose a steamer which left me in Falmouth. I have been interested in a middle-class school that Mr. Heyward of Plymouth is opening in Cornwall, and I thought I would see about an idea of mine—that if Marian could go to S. Canice, or anywhere on the coast there, it would be her best chance of prolonged life. I do not think she would have lived a year longer in the home."

"Not with Miss Drury."

"I visited the College, as they mean to call it—the lady principal is an old acquaintance of mine. I went on to S. Canice—for a light railway goes on from the junction to the coast—but there is no one there who could take charge of Marian. The rector has a delicate wife, and the doctor is unmarried. There are no other gentlefolks there. But I found a lady at Truro—I wish it were on the sea, but it is not very far inland—and she will take Marian, and, I think, will be kind and careful, for sixty pounds a year."

"Did you see our old home, Dr. Elliott?" asked Honora.

"Yes; and a strange old place it is. But this is what you must not tell Marian. You have no idea how strong her feelings are about it. Always, if in pain or unable to sleep, she speaks of the sound of the sea with an actual longing. I did not finally arrange with this lady, for I hoped I might find some one as suitable on the sea-shore somewhere."

"But you think S. Canice would make her well?" asked Honora.

"I did not say that. No, my dear; your sister will never be well, but I think she would suffer less. And she would be better if she were happy, poor child!"

"Tell me about the College, Dr. Elliott?"

"I haven't time now; I will tell you when I see you this evening. Stay! I have a lot of pamphlets about it. You will know all about it if you look through these. But I must send you away now, as I have an appointment."

"One word. How did you mean to get the money for Marian? She has but thirty pounds a year."

The doctor laughed. "Get away, little girl; that is my secret. We are cousins, remember."

Honora gathered up the pamphlets, and said "Au revoir" thoughtfully and absently. She walked home in very pensive mood, and spent all the rest of the day in reading the various papers about Heyward's College.

And at six o'clock, Dr. Elliott walked in.

"Well, Marian, I'm glad to see you were able to get up. I have been to the home, and seen Miss Drury. I'm told you're a bit of a spitfire—" nodding to Honora.

"Oh no!" cried Marian.

But Honora remarked equably, "To me she said vixen."

"I was told you ordered her to go out for a fly. Nay, I was told that she obeyed, but I didn't believe it."

"She was so obliging as to go. I was not going to leave Marian alone with her."

"Oh, I see! What is it, Marian?"

Marian, with her lips quivering and her hands trembling, contrived to tell of Honora's plan for her. "Could" she go?

"No, my dear girl; you could not stand the journey," the doctor said gently.

Marian burst into tears. "I knew it! I was afraid you'd say so. But it is hard to bear; for I cannot live long, and to die among strangers, when I have known what a sister is!"

"But for her sake, Marian, you must be wise."

"If it was only me, I would go. But I must not be selfish."

"No, child. And if I can find a suitable home for you, where you can have sea air and be much out-of-doors, you will get a little better, and this enterprising little traveller will come to see you when she can. How long are your holidays, you terrible vixen?"

"Only ten days, beginning to-morrow."

"Well, I will inquire. If I do not find a suitable place in time, you might go to the home, on a different footing, for a few days."

"No, monsieur; that is all past and gone by. Marian will go there no more. Miss Drury is too affrighted—I mean frightful."

"Eh, here's the bit of a spitfire again! But be a charitable spitfire, Honora. Miss Drury is—"

"She is impossible!" was all Honora would say.

That night, Marian having at last fallen asleep, Honora wrote a long letter to Madame André. With it, she sent a few sheets from one of the Heyward papers. And when she had sealed and addressed it, she sat and looked at it with great bright drops gathering in her eyes. "Good-bye, good-bye," she murmured; and a great tear fell on the letter.

"I am ashamed of you, Honora," she said. "Go to bed. Do your duty—you see it; now do it—and have no dreams any more, ever."

She posted her letter next morning, and having no work with her, she bought enough of a pretty grey stuff to make a dress for Marian, whose dresses she pronounced "only fit for Noah's ark." At this dress she stitched away, keeping up a cheery conversation all the time.

Marian was so happy; the only misfortune was that she remembered how soon this pleasant time must be over.

Madame André lost not a day in answering the letter.

"Who is your letter from, Honora?"

"Madame André. I wrote to her to ask if she thinks me able to teach French, and she sends me quite a fine paper, praising me much, and counting up all the things I know and can do. And really, if it is all true, I ought to be a very valuable teacher! And she will get another English and German teacher for the junior classes; and I, if I can, will get a—an employment here. And we will keep together, Marian."

Poor Honora! Never again did she blurt out news, good or bad, to Marian, who tried to speak, but very nearly fainted. Honora sprang up, dropped the almost finished dress, and in her hurry walked upon it. And it was not for some little time that Marian was able to say—

"Oh, Honora, is that true? Shall we be together, you and I? Can we manage it? I will not have you injure yourself for me."

"What is to injure me, my dear sister? Oh, your dress! Just look what I have done to it! It is none the worse, however, though I have walked all over it. Marian, even if I do not get employment as a teacher, you and I will get needlework to do. But together we will stay; for remember, I have sixty pounds a year, and you have thirty, and in Dinar we could live like two princesses. England, I do not know, but we will try. I will never leave you, Marian, lest you find another Miss Drury."

Marian was crying helplessly.

"I am sorry you think me worse than Miss Drury, Marian," Honora said meekly.

"It is too much—too much," said Marian.

"Here is a person who has five sisters, and one of them wants to live with her, and she cries, 'Too much,' and yet I am not an immense sister. All the same, I am not little; I am five feet and six inches in height. Therefore, why do so many people call me little Honora? Answer me that, Marian."

By chattering away about everything or nothing, she succeeded in calming Marian, and certainly she had no reason to complain that Marian was not happy.

"I am going now to see Dr. Elliott, Marian. If he would write a letter to his friend Mr. Heyward, and to the lady principal of this school, perhaps I may get the place there of French teacher. And there must surely be a house in the neighbourhood where we could get rooms. The air there would be something like your native air, and you would be better than in a town."

"What school are you talking of, dear?"

"Heyward's College—somewhere in Cornwall. I shall go now and talk to the doctor."

She did not find the doctor at home, but she waited patiently till he came in. At first, he was inclined to be amused at her offering herself for the post. But having read Madame André's letter of recommendation, he changed his mind. For Madame André spoke not only of Honora's knowledge of French and German, but of her natural ability as a teacher.

"Her classes are always attentive, and she is one of the best teachers
I ever had," madame concluded.

The interview ended in his promising to write at once to Mr. Heyward, and to Miss Webb, the lady at the College.

"And, Dr. Elliott, if Mr. Heyward will allow me to try for the place, I will go to the College and see Miss Webb. And you must make this seem quite necessary to Marian; for I will go to S. Canice and see if I think that Marian and I could live in our old home. It belongs to her. We should not have to pay rent, and so would be quite rich."

"But, my child, you cannot manage all this alone, and I cannot leave home again so soon."

"I can do perfectly by myself, Dr. Elliott. Will you, when I am going, give me a note to the doctor there? You said you knew him. He will be able to say where I may find our old servant, who has the keys of the house. Or the 'curé'—clergyman, I mean—he would do."

"I don't know him; Musgrave I do know."

"And not a word of S. Canice to Marian, please; I go just to see Miss Webb, and find a lodging. It does not do for Marian to be made nervous."

"It would not be easy to make you nervous, little girl?"

"I do not know what nerves mean," said Honora.

The letter to Mr. Heyward did its work better than any one expected. It had been found very difficult to find a Frenchwoman with sufficient knowledge of English and other things, such as writing business letters, dictated in English, into intelligible French. But one or two had been offered the place and had refused it. The salary was small, and the success of the College uncertain; and Miss Honora Vandeleur had better see Miss Webb as soon as possible, and come to some understanding with her on certain minor matters, as Madame André's recommendation had decided Mr. Heyward to engage her.

So there was great excitement on Marian's part in getting a few things packed for the journey, for Honora could hardly hope, she said, to return until the third or fourth day. After she had departed, Marian, thinking matters over, felt that there had been a slight shadow over Honora for some few days. Perhaps she was a little nervous about her interview with Miss Webb. Yet she did not seem nervous.

"If I find that she is unhappy at leaving Dinar, what shall I do?" And Marian tormented herself with this question until something happened which gave a turn to her thoughts.

Two whole days and nights Honora was away, and Marian had just concluded that "something had happened" to her, and that she must send for Dr. Elliott, and get him to find out what the something was.

It was a wet day; it had been raining all night, and that such rain as surely seldom falls except in Devonshire. Marian had just finished dressing, and got out into the front room for breakfast, when what did she see but Honora's slender figure running past the window. And in a moment she was in the room; and her sweet face was surely without a shadow now!

"Oh, Honora dear, here you are at last; and half-drowned, dear child! But oh, you do look so bright; it is good to see you!"

"Kiss me then, instead of feeling my dress. Yes, I am wet, but there was not a drop all the time I was—all the time it mattered. I will just get on a dry dress; it is lucky I brought a second one with me. Give me my key, dear. What did I bring? Oh, this old white thing! But it was a nice dress once. Marian, I have so much to tell you that I am afraid I shall be quite hoarse before I have come to an end."

"You must have some breakfast first. I hope they know that you are come."

"Yes, Mrs. Smith let me in. And here comes breakfast. I am so hungry. You extravagant girl—a mutton chop for me! Quite like you English, so very unfrugal."

"You are as English as I am. Eat it up; and tell me truly, when did you take your last meal?"

"I dined at Heyward's College yesterday, and at Plymouth I had tea and a bun, it was called. But I am very hungry. Ah, Miss Vandeleur, if you knew where I last had tea, before that Plymouth cup, and who made it, you would open your eyes wide!"

"If you knew what is locked up in your trunk, Miss Honora Vandeleur, you would look brighter than you do, if that's possible. Honora, do you remember that father used to call you Honourbright? And so will I, for the name suits you."

"What is locked up in my trunk, Marian? I saw nothing new when I took out my old piqué dress."

"Eat your breakfast, and then I will tell you."

"I have eaten all I possibly can, and you have pecked a crumb or two. I suppose that is all you mean to take? Then I will ring the bell."

When the tray was removed, Honora brought a footstool and sat down by her sister's knee, against which she leaned her sunny head.

"Now, then, which of us is to begin? It had better be me, because all this news makes me uncomfortable."

"Begin then. What is Miss Webb like?"

"Like a very handsome woman, say forty years of age, and very nice, and oh, so kind!"

"Well, go on. What is the College like?"

"A great grey building, very long one arm and the other not so long. It is the only house in sight when you leave the train, and you go up a hill, and there it is. There are grand schoolrooms—classrooms they call them. The teachers who mean to live there have rooms upstairs, and the dormitories are upstairs. Miss Webb had much to say to me about the scholars, who will not be ladies, all of them, and who must learn to speak French for business purposes. Then she said that if I chose to teach writing to those who did not write well, I could increase my salary, so I increased it at the moment. For the two, I shall have fifty pounds a year. Think of that, Marian."

"That is grand! We shall do very well. And lodgings, Honora—what will they cost?"

"There is a cottage—a farmhouse near the College, where I shall lodge, if you get proud and turn me out-of-doors. Do you know, the light railway by which I reached Heyward's College was made for the use of some mines newly begun by Mr. Heyward, and it goes on to S. Canice for—fish!"

"Does it? Then some day I may see the dear old home, and hear the sea roar and sob, as it used to do when we were children. Oh, Honora, if I had been you, I must have gone on to S. Canice!"

"I did go."

"Oh, go on! Do tell me everything."

"But you are so easily overcome, Marian, that I am afraid to tell you all."

"No, no; I will be quiet. You do not take me by surprise this time. To think that you have seen the dear old place! Begin at the beginning, and tell me everything."

"I stayed with Miss Webb all that day, and was able to help her a good deal. I slept there that night, and went on in the morning by a train which reaches S. Canice at about half-past eight. I had a letter from Dr. Elliott to the doctor there, for I thought he would know where our old servant, Stasy Ridd, lived, and you had told me that she had your keys."

"My keys?"

"The keys of your house, or castle, as they call it there. I wanted to see the house before I looked for lodgings," she added cautiously, looking up into Marian's face.

For a few minutes both were silent.

Then Marian whispered—

"It must be too far from the College."

"A quarter of an hour or twenty minutes by train. And I could come and go by train, or I could walk over the moor if I wished to be back before five."

"Oh, could we do it?"

"Well, I will tell you all, and you must decide. Dr. Elliott's letter only had 'S. Canice' on it, so I had to ask where the doctor lived. It is at the end of the village furthest from the castle, a pretty cottage and a garden so full of flowers—daffodils and snowdrops and every spring flower. And Dr. Musgrave was kind enough—a queer man, I should think, and very fat, but loves flowers. I asked about Stasy Ridd, and it seems she is his servant. But he is going away, having got a better 'opening,' he called it, and so Stasy can do as she likes. He called her, and she came to the room he had taken me to.

"She screamed when she saw me, and she hugged me, and said, 'My own darling Miss Marian!'

"I told her I am only Honora."

"Think of her caring about me after all this time."

"I told her that I wanted to see the house, and I told her why.

"She said, 'I'm thankful I have lived to see this day. Miss Vandeleur of S. Canice Castle is coming back. Has she come into a fortune, Miss Honora?'

"So I explained our present condition, and Stasy and I talked it over, and quite forgot poor Dr. Musgrave, who had to listen to everything, poor fat man! And Stasy knew all about the furniture that is packed away in one of the big rooms. She has gone very often and opened the shutters for a day, and seen that no one has got in. So we set off, all three—for the doctor came too—and we walked through the village, and just as I was wondering where the castle could be, we got round a high, ragged rock, and there it was."

"Did you go in?"

"Yes. And was it not curious? When I saw the window over the hall door, I remembered that we all stood there and watched our mother's funeral go away, and we all cried. Well, we went in. You know the house, Marian, so I will lose no time describing it. It is not a bit damp, which surprises me, but the sea air has blackened all the mirrors in the rooms—the big ones in the walls, I mean. And the furniture, thanks to Stasy Ridd, is in good order, though old and, to my eyes, ugly—so heavy and big.

"Dr. Musgrave was very kind. He lifted things and pulled things about that we could not have managed. There is furniture enough and to spare. But I think the great big rooms would be very desolate for two people. I thought the turret by which you enter would be quite a house to itself for us. There are, you know, four rooms on the ground floor, and Dr. Musgrave measured them for me. They are not too small. You and I could sleep in one, and have the one to the front for a parlour, and on the other side of the passage we must make one into a kitchen and one into a bedroom. For the kitchen is at the far end of the middle part of the house, and the fireplace is very old, and oh! so big, one would need much coal for it."

"But the fireplace in the turret-room will not do for cooking, I fear," said Marian.

"No, but Stasy says we must get a small stove or range put in. Dr. Musgrave said he would be in Plymouth in a day or so, and would give our order for one, and have it put in for us. And Stasy will get all the windows mended: the panes, you know, are little diamond-shaped things, and will cost very little.

"And a few planks in the floors want to have new ones put in, and she said, 'John Carpenter shall do that cheap for me.' And the chimneys she said must be swept. And all only await the orders of Miss Vandeleur of S. Canice Castle, who must also send a little money.

"I said, 'Do you think, Stasy, that you know a girl who would like to be our servant?'

"And she looked really angry. 'No one on earth shall be servant here but Anastasia Ridd, and that's me.' And about wages you must speak to her, for she would not talk of that to me."

"Honora, I can't believe in all this. Why, all my life I have been longing for home, dreaming of it, seeing it so plain, and hearing the sea. Oh, the lovely blue sea! And to live there and to have you, and old Stasy, too, and no noisy streets. I can't manage to feel that it is true."

"In some ways, you might be more comfortable in that farmhouse, and less lonely."

Marian's countenance fell. "My dear," she said, "it's for you to say. If you feel that you would be happier at Heyward's, I will not say a discontented word."

"Then the question is settled," said Honora, gaily, "for I am just longing to be at S. Canice. The only fear I have is that we have not money enough to make ourselves quite comfortable at first, and can you bear that?"

"I am not used to much luxury, you know. Oh, Honourbright, when can we go there? How good God is to me! My fear was that I should die among strangers that cared nothing for me."

"What you are to do is to live and get well with me and good Stasy. And you will have Dr. Elliott's advice always. He told me we must write to him."

"But the doctor there?"

"He is going away, you know." Here Honora sprang up and went to the window. "The rain is over at last. Dr. Musgrave told me that his successor is to be a Dr. Egerton, the son of my old friend, Mrs. Egerton, at Dinar. And I met him there sometimes, so he will not be a stranger. But, Marian, a very sad thing is that the bedsteads at S. Canice were all made for the big rooms—all that are left. The little ones were sold, and all the bedding. And between that and the cooking-stove and the journey, we shall have but little money left; it is but for a time, but I am sure we cannot afford carpets or lamps. And Stasy said we must have lamps. But beds, that is indeed 'must.' Perhaps we may get them more cheaply than I think."

She came back now and sat again at Marian's feet.

"At what do you laugh, Marian?" she asked, getting a little pink.

"Turn your face to me. Now, attend to me, Honora. We will stop in Plymouth, and there we will—that is, you will—buy carpets, and lamps, and stoves, and a fur cloak for you to wear in cold weather going to the College, and beds, and all things that we shall want. What do you say to that, please?"

"That all my news has got into your brains, my sister."

"I have not told you my news yet. I had a visit from Miss Drury yesterday."

"What an escape for me!" said Honora, wickedly.

"Now I'll make you ashamed of yourself. She told me that she had been obliged to search dear Mrs. Elliott's desk for some bills which she believed had been paid, and which had been sent in again. And she found a parcel, a big, strong envelope, with my name on it. She brought it to me at once. It had a book in it, a bank book, Miss Drury said, and some papers which I thought were cheques, but they are not. And what do you think, Honora? Mrs. Elliott had put ten pounds of my thirty that Mr. Wilkinson sent her, five every half year, all the years I was with her, into Boake's Bank, in my name, on what are called deposit receipts. One year she missed, because I was very ill, and she had to spend more for me. But fourteen years, ten pounds each year, and there it is, and is really mine; Dr. Elliott says so."

Honora stared at her for a few moments, then springing to her feet, she began to dance round the room, doing the most surprising steps and waving her arms to imaginary music. Marian thought she had never seen anything prettier, yet she was a little shocked all the same. At last, with a splendid curtsey, the girl dropped on the floor before her sister.

"And you can make our little home both comfortable and bright. You shall buy curtains as well as carpets. I did not speak of them, for it seemed useless, but they told me the wind is very high sometimes, and heavy curtains are wanted. And—yes, I know what you want to say, 'Am I ashamed?' No, I am not ashamed. I never thought that Miss Drury was a thief. She is honest—there, I have said it! But Mrs. Elliott—she was good. That was so kind and loving of her. I made a list, with Stasy, of things that we ought to get, and I quaked to think of what they would cost. I must do just one more little dance. Do you know this step? I do think I am a little silly. Oh, Marian, do you know this step?"

"No; and no steps. I don't think I ever saw any one dance before, except a girl in the street. How came you to know all those dances?"

"My dear, we had a professor of dancing every winter, and I was said to be his best pupil. Oh, how very, very happy we are going to be!"

"Yet when you left me, I almost thought you did not feel happy about it."

"I am now. I know all about it now, you see."

"Come here, darling. Stop dancing. I did not think you were so excitable. Kneel here beside me, Honora, and let us thank God with all our hearts. That is the best way to accept happiness, which all comes from Him."

And when that simple thanksgiving was over, Honora gazed at her sister with absolute reverence.

"You 'are' good, Marian!" she whispered softly.