CHAPTER XLI

‘LET ME ALONE’

As soon as she had been able to brace herself up to it, about three weeks after Ada’s return, Eleanor had driven to Balder Hall to see Magdalen, who was, of course, acquainted with what had happened. While Miss Askam could not restrain her sobs and tears when she came to speak of these things, Miss Wynter maintained her usual impassive calm. What she felt about it, none could have told. She asked many questions which Eleanor, keenly feeling her right to be informed in the matter, answered freely; but she was very quiet and calm, and made scarce any comments upon it all, and let Eleanor go away, scarcely replying to the offers of friendship and sympathy on the part of the latter. Eleanor had mentioned Miss Strangforth, to which Magdalen replied very quietly—

‘Miss Strangforth is dying. I fear there is no doubt about that, though Michael would scarcely be likely to mention it to you in your other troubles. It is a question of time only, he tells me—and not a very long time.’

‘And then—you?’

‘I—oh, I shall get on somehow. I am not afraid.’

‘But promise me that if you are not decided, you will come to me till you know something.’

‘I will see. I appreciate your kindness, but I can promise nothing,’ said Magdalen; but to the great surprise of Eleanor, she stooped her proud head, and lightly kissed her visitor’s cheek.

With this unaccustomed salute still tingling there—now hot, now cold—Eleanor drove home, with what cheer she might.

A short time after this, just about Christmas, Miss Strangforth died. Her place was empty at last, and there was to be one made for the heir to step into. Eleanor wondered what would happen to Magdalen, and at last received news through Michael. She was going to remain at Balder Hall. Mr. Strangforth, the new owner, was a middle-aged man, with an invalid wife. He was, of course, distantly related to Magdalen herself. He had a family of boys and girls, who wanted much looking after, and he had asked Miss Wynter to remain, and manage the household as she had always done. It seemed a strange post for the haughty young woman, who had been almost too proud to set foot outside her aunt’s park. She had accepted Mr. Strangforth’s offer, and said she would call to see Eleanor as soon as she had time. At present she was so busy preparing for the new-comers that she could not leave the house.

‘Oh,’ exclaimed Eleanor, ‘is he a nice man, Michael? Will he be kind to her?’

‘He is a very sedate, grave kind of man—almost austere. But he is a gentleman, and he will behave becomingly towards her, I am certain. He quite appreciates her devotion to his aunt, and told me he should always provide for her in a way suitable to her condition and his family, whatever that may mean.’

Eleanor was very thoughtful about this. She seemed to see Magdalen—and yet she could not believe that it would ever be so—growing into one of those women whose lives are all behind them; gradually becoming old and more stately, more monumental, as the years went by; so that at last no one would imagine, to look at her, that she had been the centre of such passions as she had caused, or moved in; so that no one but herself and a few others, grown old with her, would know how hotly her heart had beaten, at the same time that other old hearts had throbbed, which with time had grown chill.

And at this time, at the end of March, a change took place in the circumstances of all, and the marriage which Eleanor had grown so anxious for, took place—but not until a little later, in April.

Gilbert wrote to Michael, and said that he and Otho were coming to Thorsgarth; that Otho’s affairs were now in such a state that something must be done about them. He had, it would seem, run his course, and it was necessary to see what could be retrieved in his estate. They were, of course, coming very quietly, and would stay as short a time as possible, bringing the solicitor of the Askam family with them, as there were certain papers at Thorsgarth which it was necessary to overhaul. He wished Eleanor to know this, as Otho was still in his cowed and subdued state, and ready to go through the marriage with Ada, if she could be persuaded to it.

Eleanor waited till she had heard that they had actually arrived at Thorsgarth, and then shut herself up with Ada, and combated her objections in such wise, and placed the matter in such a light, that Ada at last exclaimed—

‘Very well! Give me peace! Since you say it will do so much good, let us try it.’

The words haunted her hearer for some time, but she felt that her purpose was genuine. Some of the reproach would be wiped away, and the future of the child would at any rate be rendered somewhat more hopeful. She at once communicated with Gilbert and Mr. Johnson, and a special license having been procured, Otho Askam and Ada Dixon were made man and wife, in the drawing-room of the Dower House, one showery April morning. Eleanor noticed how, during the service there was a violent shower of rain, which beat against the pane, while the sunlight fell on the trees in the square outside, and how, at the sound of the falling water, Ada lifted her face to the window, and looked with a strange look towards the sky.

Eleanor found her eyes dragged towards Otho, by a power stronger than her own will. She was struck with the change in him. He had grown old-looking: his shoulders were bowed; his head drooped. He glanced from one to the other of them, with a shifty, cowed expression; and his eyes every now and then wandered towards Ada, who was perhaps the only person in the room who neither saw nor looked at him. When it was over, and Gilbert, who had been at his side through it all, took his arm to lead him away, he wiped the sweat from his brow, and looked all about him, and at Gilbert, and at Ada, with a white, scared face, and moved uncertainly, as if he could not see.

When every one had gone, except Mr. Dixon, Eleanor went to Ada, stooped over her chair, and said—

‘Now, Ada, the worst is over. You may have something to live for yet.’

Ada looked at her with one of those prolonged, vacant gazes, which seemed to Eleanor to come from somewhere far on the other side of the tomb, and shaking her head, merely replied—

‘Let me alone now. I’ve done what you wanted. I am satisfied. Next time, I will do what _I_ want.’