Eleanor

Eleanor, by Mrs. Humphry
Ward

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Title: Eleanor
Author: Mrs. Humphry Ward

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ELEANOR
BY
MRS. HUMPHRY WARD
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALBERT STERNER
1900

TO ITALY THE BELOVED AND BEAUTIFUL, INSTRUCTRESS
OF OUR PAST, DELIGHT OF OUR PRESENT, COMRADE OF
OUR FUTURE:-- THE HEART OF AN ENGLISHWOMAN OFFERS
THIS BOOK.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ELEANOR
THE VILLA
LUCY FOSTER
THE BEAUTIFYING OF LUCY
THE LOGGIA
FATHER BENECKE


PART I.
'I would that you were all to me, You that are just so much, no more.
Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free! Where does the fault lie? What
the core O' the wound, since wound must be?'
CHAPTER I
'Let us be quite clear, Aunt Pattie--when does this young woman
arrive?'
'In about half an hour. But really, Edward, you need take no trouble!
she is coming to visit me, and I will see that she doesn't get in your way.
Neither you nor Eleanor need trouble your heads about her.'
Miss Manisty--a small elderly lady in a cap--looked at her nephew with
a mild and deprecating air. The slight tremor of the hands, which were
crossed over the knitting on her lap, betrayed a certain nervousness; but
for all that she had the air of managing a familiar difficulty in familiar
ways.
The gentleman addressed shook his head impatiently.

'One never prepares for these catastrophes till they actually arrive,' he
muttered, taking up a magazine that lay on the table near him, and
restlessly playing with the leaves.
'I warned you yesterday.'
'And I forgot--and was happy. Eleanor--what are we going to do with
Miss Foster?'
A lady, who had been sitting at some little distance, rose and came
forward.
'Well, I should have thought the answer was simple. Here we are fifteen
miles from Rome. The trains might be better--still there are trains. Miss
Foster has never been to Europe before. Either Aunt Pattie's maid or
mine can take her to all the proper things--or there are plenty of people
in Rome--the Westertons--the Borrows?--who at a word from Aunt
Pattie would fly to look after her and take her about. I really don't see
that you need be so miserable!'
Mrs. Burgoyne stood looking down in some amusement at the aunt and
nephew. Edward Manisty, however, was not apparently consoled by
her remarks. He began to pace up and down the salon in a disturbance
out of all proportion to its cause. And as he walked he threw out
phrases of ill-humour, so that at last Miss Manisty, driven to defend
herself, put the irresistible question--
'Then why--why--my dear Edward, did you make me invite her? For it
was really his doing--wasn't it, Eleanor?'
'Yes--I am witness!'
'One of those abominable flashes of conscience that have so much to
answer for!' said Manisty, throwing up his hand in annoyance.--'If she
had come to us in Rome, one could have provided for her. But here in
this solitude--just at the most critical moment of one's work--and it's all
very well--but one can't treat a young lady, when she is actually in one's
house, as if she were the tongs!'

He stood beside the window, with his hands on his sides, moodily
looking out. Thus strongly defined against the sunset light, he would
have impressed himself on a stranger as a man no longer in his first
youth, extraordinarily handsome so far as the head was concerned, but
of a somewhat irregular and stunted figure; stunted, however, only in
comparison with what it had to carry; for