Free A Dark Night's Work by Elizabeth Gaskell Page B

winding up with the
information that on the succeeding morning he would call to know whether
he might speak to Mr. Wilkins on the subject of this letter. It was
given to Ellinor in the evening, as she was sitting with Miss Monro in
the library. Mr. Wilkins was dining out, she hardly knew where, as it
was a sudden engagement, of which he had sent word from the office—a
gentleman's dinner-party, she supposed, as he had dressed in Hamley
without coming home. Ellinor turned over the letter when it was brought
to her, as some people do when they cannot recognise the handwriting, as
if to discover from paper or seal what two moments would assure them of,
if they opened the letter and looked at the signature. Ellinor could not
guess who had written it by any outward sign; but the moment she saw the
name "Herbert Livingstone," the meaning of the letter flashed upon her
and she coloured all over. She put the letter away, unread, for a few
minutes, and then made some excuse for leaving the room and going
upstairs. When safe in her bed-chamber, she read the young man's eager
words with a sense of self-reproach. How must she, engaged to one man,
have been behaving to another, if this was the result of a single
evening's interview? The self-reproach was unjustly bestowed; but with
that we have nothing to do. She made herself very miserable; and at last
went down with a heavy heart to go on with Dante, and rummage up words in
the dictionary. All the time she seemed to Miss Monro to be plodding on
with her Italian more diligently and sedately than usual, she was
planning in her own mind to speak to her father as soon as he returned
(and he had said that he should not be late), and beg him to undo the
mischief she had done by seeing Mr. Livingstone the next morning, and
frankly explaining the real state of affairs to him. But she wanted to
read her letter again, and think it all over in peace; and so, at an
early hour, she wished Miss Monro good-night, and went up into her own
room above the drawing-room, and overlooking the flower-garden and
shrubbery-path to the stable-yard, by which her father was sure to
return. She went upstairs and studied her letter well, and tried to
recall all her speeches and conduct on that miserable evening—as she
thought it then—not knowing what true misery was. Her head ached, and
she put out the candle, and went and sat on the window-seat, looking out
into the moonlit garden, watching for her father. She opened the window;
partly to cool her forehead, partly to enable her to call down softly
when she should see him coming along. By-and-by the door from the stable-
yard into the shrubbery clicked and opened, and in a moment she saw Mr.
Wilkins moving through the bushes; but not alone, Mr. Dunster was with
him, and the two were talking together in rather excited tones,
immediately lost to hearing, however, as they entered Mr. Wilkins's study
by the outer door.
    "They have been dining together somewhere. Probably at Mr. Hanbury's"
(the Hamley brewer), thought Ellinor. "But how provoking that he should
have come home with papa this night of all nights!"
    Two or three times before Mr. Dunster had called on Mr. Wilkins in the
evening, as Ellinor knew; but she was not quite aware of the reason for
such late visits, and had never put together the two facts—(as cause and
consequence)—that on such occasions her father had been absent from the
office all day, and that there might be necessary business for him to
transact, the urgency of which was the motive for Mr. Dunster's visits.
Mr. Wilkins always seemed to be annoyed by his coming at so late an hour,
and spoke of it, resenting the intrusion upon his leisure; and Ellinor,
without consideration, adopted her father's mode of speaking and thinking
on the subject, and was rather more angry than he was whenever the
obnoxious partner came on business in the evening. This night was, of
all nights, the most ill-purposed time (so Ellinor thought) for