Free A Dark Night's Work by Elizabeth Gaskell

cheerful ways and careless genial speeches were missed,
even on the days when he was not irritable, and evidently uneasy with
himself and all about him. The spring was late in coming, and cold rain
and sleet made any kind of out-door exercise a trouble and discomfort
rather than a bright natural event in the course of the day. All sound
of winter gaieties, of assemblies and meets, and jovial dinners, had died
away, and the summer pleasures were as yet unthought of. Still Ellinor
had a secret perennial source of sunshine in her heart; whenever she
thought of Ralph she could not feel much oppression from the present
unspoken and indistinct gloom. He loved her; and oh, how she loved him!
and perhaps this very next autumn—but that depended on his own success
in his profession. After all, if it was not this autumn it would be the
next; and with the letters that she received weekly, and the occasional
visits that her lover ran down to Hamley to pay Mr. Ness, Ellinor felt as
if she would almost prefer the delay of the time when she must leave her
father's for a husband's roof.

Chapter VI
*
    At Easter—just when the heavens and earth were looking their dreariest,
for Easter fell very early this year—Mr. Corbet came down. Mr. Wilkins
was too busy to see much of him; they were together even less than usual,
although not less friendly when they did meet. But to Ellinor the visit
was one of unmixed happiness. Hitherto she had always had a little fear
mingled up with her love of Mr. Corbet; but his manners were softened,
his opinions less decided and abrupt, and his whole treatment of her
showed such tenderness, that the young girl basked and revelled in it.
One or two of their conversations had reference to their future married
life in London; and she then perceived, although it did not jar against
her, that her lover had not forgotten his ambition in his love. He tried
to inoculate her with something of his own craving for success in life;
but it was all in vain: she nestled to him, and told him she did not care
to be the Lord Chancellor's wife—wigs and wool-sacks were not in her
line; only if he wished it, she would wish it.
    The last two days of his stay the weather changed. Sudden heat burst
forth, as it does occasionally for a few hours even in our chilly English
spring. The grey-brown bushes and trees started almost with visible
progress into the tender green shade which is the forerunner of the
bursting leaves. The sky was of full cloudless blue. Mr. Wilkins was to
come home pretty early from the office to ride out with his daughter and
her lover; but, after waiting some time for him, it grew too late, and
they were obliged to give up the project. Nothing would serve Ellinor,
then, but that she must carry out a table and have tea in the garden, on
the sunny side of the tree, among the roots of which she used to play
when a child. Miss Monro objected a little to this caprice of Ellinor's,
saying that it was too early for out-of-door meals; but Mr. Corbet
overruled all objections, and helped her in her gay preparations. She
always kept to the early hours of her childhood, although she, as then,
regularly sat with her father at his late dinner; and this meal
al
fresco
was to be a reality to her and Miss Monro. There was a place
arranged for her father, and she seized upon him as he was coming from
the stable-yard, by the shrubbery path, to his study, and with merry
playfulness made him a prisoner, accusing him of disappointing them of
their ride, and drawing him more than half unwilling, to his chair by the
table. But he was silent, and almost sad: his presence damped them all;
they could hardly tell why, for he did not object to anything, though he
seemed to enjoy nothing, and only to force a smile at Ellinor's
occasional sallies. These became more and more rare as she perceived her
father's depression. She watched him anxiously. He perceived it, and
said—shivering in that strange unaccountable manner which is