Chapter XIII

When Mr. Conway had been told of Nora’s intentions to her relations he had expressed some disapprobation. He disliked and mistrusted the Devereux family, and he thought a thousand a year a large sum to give away without further inquiry. The only part of the plan of which he approved was that part of which Mr. Fanshawe had been almost afraid to tell him--the doing the thing in secret.

“Simon Devereux is a bad man,” he said, “a dangerous man. If he gets the girl into his power it may cause her trouble. Keep her from him as far as you can for the next two years at least. I suppose, however,” he added, with a dry laugh, “a young lady who comes of age at sixteen will not easily take the advice of guardians.”

Mr. Fanshawe, wishing to influence Nora, repeated Mr. Conway’s advice, smilingly adding the last sentence, saying he might as well give the whole.

To his surprise she then told him not only that she would take their advice regarding the Devereux family, but that she had made up her mind to ask them to resume their guardianship for two years, letting all things go on quietly till these were over.

“If I am to have all this I must make myself fit,” she said; “I am more ignorant than a child of four. I must learn.”

“And how?” he asked, amazed.

“It is all settled with Miss Willis,” she said, smiling.

Miss Willis was the name of the lady lately mentioned.

And so it was. She had consulted her, and by her advice had decided on taking a house at Cheltenham, where she understood masters of all kinds could be had; and thither she meant to go for two years, provided her guardians acceded to her request.

Whether or not Nora made her plans in the best way for supplying the deficiencies of her education, might be doubtful; but the intention did her credit. This was one of the fruits of her newly-acquired humility. Yet she did not entirely put dreams of the future aside.

On the evening before her final departure, she suddenly asked her guardian whether she might make a slight change in her name; drop the y and the emphasis, and become simply Smith.

“Most people make a change the other way,” he observed.

“I think,” she said, with vexation, “that it is a misfortune to have been born with such a name as Annora Smythe. Nora Smith will pass much more quietly through the world.”

“And do you wish to pass quietly through the world?”

“Yes. Once, perhaps, I did not. Now I do. I am beginning a new life, and I would rather begin it as Miss Smith, who has offended no one.”

“I suppose, my dear child, you can do as you please; certainly, as far as common life is concerned. I suppose I might spell my name Phanshawe, if I chose; but I should be an ass to do it; and this one piece of advice I give you; keep as far as you can from plots and alias’s.” He looked keenly at her.

“I don’t mean to have alias’s,” she said, colouring. “You know I never liked my name--my first name, and I have often wondered that my father did not change the other. At the same time,” she added, truth compelling her to speak, “I will own that I should be glad, if I did chance to meet with my cousins, to begin without prejudice. They might like, before they thought of hate.”

“I thought so, I thought so,” said Mr. Fanshawe, elated at having seen through her. “Well, I don’t know what Mr. Conway would say, but I suppose in this small matter you may please yourself. At your time of life I might have felt as you do. Keep out of harm’s way, that’s all; and God bless you!”

* * * * *

Nora and Miss Willis established themselves at Cheltenham. At the end of a year they made a journey to Geneva. It was a painful visit. Monsieur d’Alberg was not improved by his marriage, or by the prosperity of his affairs. He found his wife a fool, and there was no domestic affection, therefore, to soften him. In the second place, she had already presented him with twin daughters, and he saw himself, in prospect, the father of one of those “long English families,” as he called them. In the third place, he did not wish for Nora to pass her remarks upon him, and he received her coldly.

Nor did her mother, except in the first moment of excited delight, repay her for his coldness. Tutored by her husband, she maintained a painful reserve, and expressed but little of the affection she felt. Nora saw that she loved her, but their meetings were dull and spiritless, and after a few days she thought it best to depart.

She was pleased with her little sisters, and perhaps thought the more of them because of the contempt with which Monsieur d’Alberg treated them. On one occasion, when he was complaining of their birth in her presence, Nora, with more warmth than judgment, said he need not fear that her sisters should ever trouble him.

“Ah!” he replied, with a Frenchman’s shrug, “in a few years you will have a long family of your own, and then where will the sisters be!”

Altogether the visit was a failure, and joyless and disappointed, Nora returned to Cheltenham. She had not what Colonel Mannering called the knack of running up intimacies; and even while longing for something to love, remained solitary. For nearly a year longer she and Miss Willis plodded on their way alone.

With a sigh of weariness and a smile of hope, she saw her eighteenth birthday arrive, and then gave permission to her thoughts to settle in the future. On the eve of her birthday she went to London, and was again the guest of her guardian. The object of her journey was to consult with him about her future residence. She wished to buy a property, and to enter on the joys and cares of the management of an estate, “the more unformed and the wilder the better.” These had been her words of instruction by letter.

She found Mr. Fanshawe prepared for the consultation. He had heard of a property likely to be for sale in the course of a few weeks or months. The circumstances agreed with Nora’s wishes, and the purchase appeared too advantageous a one to neglect. There were, however, disadvantages. There was no house; the climate was cold, and though a part of the land was of great value, a part was bleak and bare. He advised that she should herself go down and pass a short time in the neighbourhood, see with her eyes whether she liked the spot, and feel with her lungs whether the air was salubrious.

Nora consented with delight. It was autumn, and in the neighbourhood of this property was a kind of Spa, a place not of world-wide reputation, but of resort to the northern county in which it stood. Thither, still retaining her house at Cheltenham, she bent her steps for a few weeks. She arrived there, she and Miss Willis, and the attendant of each, and engaged a small lodging-house, detached, though it stood in a row. The Spa was not generally visited by the great or gay of the world. It was a quiet place, resorted to by the large families of business men, by elderly ladies and small children. The scenery around was pretty, the air was bracing, and the inhabitants of the large towns in the county sometimes escaped for a week or two together to refresh themselves with the pure cold air. There were a large number of visitors at the time of Nora’s arrival, but they were quiet people, and she quietly mingled with the throng. She caused no sensation. Some young girls said, “There is a new face. She is lodging at No. 6. I wonder if the other is her governess?” Some ladies'-maids also remarked the new ladies'-maids; but when they heard that they served a Miss Smith and Miss Willis, they felt little interest. The names were too common to cause excitement.

About half a mile from the Spa lived a Squire and his wife. The Squire was past sixty, but his wife was not yet forty. He was a quaint, old-fashioned individual. He hated the present generation, and would probably have hated equally the last, and the one before that, and, in fact, all generations, unless they had been formed of persons whose tastes agreed with his own. His taste was to keep at home, and occupy himself with his own concerns, his own farm, his own tenants, his own books, and his own wife. Mrs. Elliott, his wife, was different. She was gay in spirit, and younger than her age. Her sympathies were much with the young generation, and she would have been glad to diversify her life at home with occasional life abroad. She was, however, a sensible woman, and much attached to her old man, as she called him; and after one or two vain efforts to alter his taste, she conformed herself to it with a good grace.

While so conforming herself, however, she endeavoured to mix with the world by other ways, and besides alluring friends and relations to her house, she tried to make new friends when and where she could. The visitors to the Spa were scrutinized by her with a keen eye, and so soon as she saw a face with promise in it, she set about an acquaintance. Her position, which gave her the power of kindness and civility, made this generally an easy task; and though the promise was often ill-fulfilled, she had made a few acquaintances, who were added to the stock of real friends. This success emboldened her to continue her scrutiny.

She saw Nora and Miss Willis at church, and, like the young girls, observed, “There is a new face.” With more discernment she added, “There is promise in it.” She made a few inquiries, and two days afterwards presented herself at No. 6, Montpellier Row.

Nora was in her bonnet, awaiting a pony-phaeton, in which she was about to proceed on a voyage of inspection and discovery. It was autumn, and the afternoons were short, and her heart was in her drive. Her habits were unused to, and indifferent to, society, and her visitor was received with coldness and ill-disguised surprise.

Mrs. Elliott was too quick not to see, and though her visits were usually received in a different spirit, she was too sensible not to suppose it possible a person might find a visitor a nuisance. She still saw promise in Nora’s face, and though she sensibly shortened her visit, she proffered more than usual civilities. She not only begged her to walk through her pleasure-grounds whenever she pleased, but expressed a wish to show her her garden, if an autumn garden could interest her.

Little heeded Nora the polite speeches--she was only wishing her guest away; and when the door closed, she said with an impatient sigh--

“She is gone at last. Now, Miss Willis, let us be off.”

“I am quite ready--but, dear Miss Smith,” with a little breathless gasp, “excuse me if I say a word.”

Miss Willis was a very conscientious person. If such a thing is possible, she was too conscientious. She was not satisfied to walk by the broad foundations of right and wrong, but was always in nervous dread of overlooking some duty at her feet.

With some weakness, however, in her disposition, it so happened that this torturing scrupulosity was not unsuited to Nora. She had picked up broad notions of right and wrong, but had had little help in applying them to the trifles of daily life. She came to respect, even while she smiled at Miss Willis; and never caught the sound of the little, timid, breathless “Excuse me,” without bending her ears to hear. She knew she had done something which Miss Willis’s acuter conscience condemned, and which, though it was agony to her to speak, her inward monitor impelled her to utter.

“What is it?” Nora said, pausing and smiling. “What have I done now?”

“Perhaps we had better go. I will speak as we drive along.” And having seated herself by Nora’s side, she made a little breathless oration on the duties of society, saying, Mrs. Elliott had meant to be kind, and it was not right to repel kindly attention, &c.

“You mean to tell me that I was abominably rude,” was Nora’s observation.

“No, you could not be rude. But you looked--you looked, in short, as if you wished her away.”

“And so I did.”

“Excuse me, but if you went to a person, meaning to offer them a civility, it would annoy you to be repelled.”

Nora made no answer. They had turned from the cultivated parts around the Spa into a wide, bleak expanse, and her eyes wandered over it with curiosity. But that last observation sank deep. It recurred to her again and again. She was now planning out her future life, and the old dream of being the bounteous lady of a realm was returning. Another dream of certain cousins, of one cousin, was also flitting about her, and she asked herself how she should feel if her bounties should all be repelled.

“We will return Mrs. Elliott’s visit,” she said, smiling, the next morning; “ought it to be to-day or to-morrow?”

The next day the visit to Thorneybank was paid.

Mrs. Elliott received them with more than graciousness. She showed them her autumn roses, with all the other beauties of a carefully-cultivated garden, and then walked part of the way homewards. When they parted she invited them to dine with her on the next evening but one, which was a Saturday. Nora was again taken by surprise, and, being wrapt in her own plans and designs, was not desirous of society. She hesitated, and cast about in her mind for a good excuse.

“I have not much to offer you,” Mrs. Elliott said, “a few friends and acquaintances dine with us; but, as you may guess, my choice is not great.”

“However small it may be it will be great to me,” Nora said simply. “I have no acquaintance at all.”

“You have not had time to form acquaintance,” said her companion, with civility, though, indeed, she did not guess that her quiet guest was only eighteen. “But the time is now surely come, unless you mean to be a hermit, and deprive the world of what would--excuse me--grace it.”

“Oh! no, I am no hermit. We will dine with you with great pleasure.” And they parted.

“That is a piece of luck,” said Mrs. Elliott to herself as she walked back to her house. “I shall now have a young lady for Henry.”

For Henry Devereux was to arrive at Thorneybank on the Saturday.