Chapter XXIII: Amanda

Frederick’s fever had come to a crisis. The next day was Saturday, and, without waiting his mother’s answer, he went down to Sterborne in the afternoon. He could wait no longer. Sterborne is a little town with a large old church. It would be almost a village but for the minster, which gives it dignity; and all the people of the place are accustomed to consider their minster as their private property, and to exhibit it to strangers as something in which they themselves have had a hand, and for which thanks are due to them--and not only thanks, but shillings and sixpences. Frederick’s arrival at the little inn was accordingly set down without doubt to the attractions of the minster; and while he ate his luncheon the guides who particularly attached themselves to that establishment collected outside, to be ready for his service as soon as he should appear.

“The minster, sir? here you are, sir!” said one sharp small creature, half man, half boy, with elf looks and unnaturally bright eyes. “I’m the reg’lar guide,” said another. “Them fellows there don’t know nothing--not a single haltar, or the names of the tombs as are all about the place.” “I can do you a rubbing of the brasses, sir.” “Here’s photographs, sir, of all the favourite aspects.”

Thus he was surrounded and beset. He could have knocked them all down, with pleasure, as they struggled in his way; but as that was not practicable, he threw their ranks into utter rout by saying plainly, “I don’t want to go to the minster”--a speech which filled the crowd of Sterborne with absolute consternation, and almost produced an insurrection in the place. That any man should profess himself indifferent to the centre of their town and the world startled them beyond measure. “What did he come to Sterborne for, if not to see the minster?” While they dispersed from his path, with an assured conviction in their minds that he must be an infidel and revolutionary, Frederick called the imp who had first offered his services.

“I want to go to Mr. Batty’s,” he said.

“To old Batty’s!” cried the lad, turning a somersault on the spot: “here you are, sir.”

“He’s going to old Batty’s!” cried one of the assistants: and there was a roar of laughter, which Frederick did not understand, but which made him angry by instinct.

“Why did they laugh?” he asked, when he had left that mob behind him, and was following his guide through the High Street.

“We all laughs at old Batty,” was the reply.

“For what reason?” said Frederick sternly: but his conductor only laughed once more. To tell the truth, there was no reason. The ragamuffins of the place had made a custom of it; they “always laughed,” but they could give no reason why. Nevertheless, this very circumstance chilled Frederick. It was not powerful enough to stop him in his enterprise, but it chilled him. His old self--his serious self--sprang up at once, and looked his infatuated and impassioned self in the face, and asked him how he would like to be the son-in-law of a man at whom the very ragamuffins laughed. His foolish self replied that the die was cast, that he had committed himself, and had no way of escape--which, indeed, was a mere pretence, since he had as yet neither seen the lady of his love nor any one belonging to her; but it answered his purpose, and stopped the mouth of the gainsayer.

Batty’s house was in the outskirts of the little town. It was an old-fashioned house, low and straggling, opening direct from the road, with a little brass-knockered door, raised by one white step from the pavement. The door opened into a long passage, at the end of which was another door, which stood wide open, showing a large garden, green and bright with the afternoon sunshine. Mr. Batty was not at home, the maid informed him who opened the door; but if the gentleman would walk into the drawing-room or the garden she would see whether Miss Batty was visible. Frederick, in his restlessness and the agitation of his mind, preferred the latter, and went into the garden in a strange, tremulous state of excitement, scarcely knowing what he was about.

The house had looked pretty and small from the front, with rows of small twinkling windows and a low roof; but at the back the impression was very different. Various rooms built on to the original _corps du logis_ stood out into the lawn, with great bow windows, with green turf at their feet and creeping plants mantling about them. One of these, evidently the drawing-room, displayed handsome and luxurious furniture, of a tasteless but costly kind, through the softly fluttering lace curtains. The garden itself was large and beautifully cared for, showing both wealth and understanding. This gave a little comfort to Frederick’s mind, for gardening is an aristocratic taste. He pleased himself with thinking that perhaps this was Amanda’s doing; for no one could suspect Batty himself of caring so much for mere beauty. He walked about the beds and bosquets with a surprised sense of pleasure, finding the surroundings so much more graceful than he had hoped--and began to feel that his passion was thus justified. Presently she would appear, and fill those paths with light. It would be very different from the aspect under which she appeared in the London hotel. Here she was at home, surrounded by circumstances which she herself had moulded, which were sweetly adapted to her: and here for the first time he could see her as she was. A hope of something better than he had yet known, better than he deserved, stole over Frederick’s mind, he had fallen in love with mere beauty--that beauty which is but skin deep, and which all moralists preach against. Could it be that in so doing he was to find goodness, good taste, and refinement too?

While he was thus musing, the sound of voices reached him from one of the open windows. It was a warm afternoon, almost like summer. A glimmer of firelight made itself visible in at least two of the rooms, and in both of these the windows were open. Frederick had no intention of eavesdropping, but when he heard the voice which he remembered so well he pricked up his ears. I am afraid there are few lovers who would not have done so. At first the talking was vague--not clear enough to reach him; but after a while it became louder in tone. The first to make itself heard was a voice which whimpered and complained, “After twenty years’ work for him and his: twenty years!” it said; and it wavered about as if the speaker was walking up and down the room with agitation. Sometimes she would stand still, and address the person to whom she was speaking, varying from complaint to anger. Frederick did not know this voice. It was only when another speaker burst in, in a still louder tone, that the situation became at all clear to him. The second voice rang at once into his heart. It was melodious enough in its ordinary sound--a round, full voice, not without sweetness; but something altogether new and unexpected came into it with these sharper and louder tones,--

“You are free to go away whenever you choose,” Amanda cried. “I will not be troubled like this. You know what all the doctors have said, and how wicked it is to worry me. No one can know better than you do. You are a wretch; you have no kindness, no feeling. Because you have quarrelled with papa you want to kill me. What is the use of bullying me? You know you can go as soon as ever you please. Go and be done with it. You are always threatening, always saying what you will do----”

“Go!” said the other. “Oh, ’Manda, you to speak of feeling! when I have been here twenty years, and taken care of you from your childhood. But you are as cold and as hard as a millstone, though you are so pretty. Oh, if people only knew how you can talk, and how heartless you are, and the things you say to your mother’s own sister--her that has brought you up and taken care of you for twenty years!”

“Taken care of me, indeed,” cried Amanda; “any servant could have taken care of me. You have been a nuisance since ever I can recollect: always reminding one that mamma was not a lady, and pulling us down as far as you could. What were you? Nothing but a lady’s maid. Here you’ve been tried to be made a lady of, and had handsome dresses given you, and all sorts of things. Of course it was for our own sakes. What was there in you to make us take any trouble? You are old, you are plain, and vulgar, and disagreeable. What right have you to be kept like a lady in pa’s house? You are only good enough to scrub the floor. Why have you always stayed on when nobody wanted you? I suppose you thought you might marry pa when ma was dead and gone, though it’s against the law. Of course that was what you wanted--to be mistress of the house, and get him under your thumb, and rule over me. Try it, aunty! You won’t find me so easy to rule over! Just try! An old, ugly, vulgar, spiteful creature, with no recommendation and no character----”

“‘Manda, ’Manda,” cried the other, “Oh, don’t be so cruel!----”

“I will be cruel, if you call that cruel. There’s more than that coming. What is the good of you, but to make a slave and a drudge of? Why should pa keep you but for that? Aunty, indeed! He was a fool ever to let me call you so. And so he is a soft-hearted fool, or he never would have kept you on for years and years. If he had but asked me, you should have been packed off ages ago. You to put on airs, indeed, and say you won’t do anything you’re told to do! Go, this minute, you wicked woman, and don’t worry me. Fancy, me! to sit here and listen to you as if you were worthy to be listened to--you who are no better than the dirt under my feet.”

“‘Manda, you dare to speak like that to your own flesh and blood!”

“I dare do a great deal more,” cried Amanda. “I dare to turn you out of doors, bag and baggage; and I will, if you don’t mind. You old Jezebel--you old hag, as pa says--you horrid painted witch--you wicked woman! Get out of my sight, or I’ll throw something at you--I will! Go away! If you are not gone in one moment--you witch--you old hag----”

Here a smash of something breaking told that the gentle Amanda had kept her word. There was a suppressed cry, a scuffle, a scream, and then the bell was rung violently.

“Oh, I suppose it’s my fault,” cried the other voice, with a whimpering cry. “Bring the bottle out of her room--the one at her bedside. Give me the eau-de-cologne. Here’s she been and fainted. Quick! Quick! ’Manda! I didn’t mean it, dear! I don’t mind! Manda! Lord, you were red enough just now--don’t look so dead white!”

Was it Frederick’s guardian angel that had made him an auditor of this scene? The loud voice declaiming, the string of abusive words, the clash of the missile thrown, were horrible and strange to him as the language of demons. He was thunderstruck. Her language had not always been pleasant to him, but he was not prepared for anything like this. He walked up and down in a state of mind which it would be impossible to describe. His first impulse was flight. There was still time for him to get away altogether, to escape from this horrible infatuation, to escape from her and her dreadful father, and everything belonging to her. Should he go? Then he reflected he had given his card, and so far compromised himself. Was this sufficient to detain a man who had just been subjected to the hardest trial in the world, a sudden disgust for the woman whom he thought he loved? Frederick stood still, he paused, his heart was rent in two. He was within reach of her, almost within sight of her, and must he go without seeing her, unworthy as she might be? It was not necessary, he said to himself, that anything should follow, that he should carry out the intention with which he came. That was impossible--however lovely and sweet and fair she might be, he would not take a low-bred termagant into his bosom. No, no! that was over for ever. But how could he go without seeing her, after he had given his card and announced himself? This would be to expose himself to her wrath and her father’s, in whose power to some extent he was. He could hear the voices through the open window as he wandered about the garden, arguing with himself. Should he go? Should he stay? Strangely enough, though he had been told that agitation might be fatal to her, he was not anxious about her, though he surmised that she had fainted. His disgust took this form. If she were ill after her outbreak, she deserved it. On the whole he was almost pleased that she should be ill. She had humiliated him as well as herself, and he had a vindictive satisfaction in feeling that she was punished for it; but further than this he did not go. No; of course all was over; he could never be her suitor, never ask her to give him the hand with which she had thrown something which crashed and broke at her companion’s head. Never! that was over; but why should not he see her, behold her beauty once more--give himself that last pleasure? He would never seek her again; she had disgusted, revolted, turned his mind away from her. But since he was already so near, since he had given his card, since it would be known at once why he went away, this once, not for love, but for scornful gratification of his contemptuous admiration, just as he would look at a statue or picture, he would see her again.

This was the foolish reasoning with which he subdued the wiser instinct that prompted him to fly. Why should he fly? A woman capable of speaking, acting, thinking as this woman had done, could no longer have any power over a man who, whatever might be his moral character, had still the tastes and impulses of a gentleman. She had made an end of her sway over him, he thought; that dream could never come back again. Nobody but a madman would ask such a creature to marry him. To marry him? to be taken to his mother’s house, and promoted into the society of gentlefolk? Never! He laughed bitterly at the notion. But, thank Heaven! he had not betrayed himself. Thank Heaven! that merely to see her would commit him to nothing. No, he ended by convincing himself the most manly course was to pay his visit as if nothing had happened, to see the syren who was no longer a syren to him, but only a beautiful piece of flesh and blood, whom he might look at and admire like a statue. This was, he repeated to himself, the most manly course. The phrase was pleasant to him. To run away would look as if he had no confidence in his own moral force and power of resisting temptation. But the fact was that there could be no longer any temptation in the matter. To see her, and prove to himself that disgust had altogether destroyed the fierce violent wild love which had swallowed up all his better resolution, was the only manly course to take.

He was standing by one of the flower-beds, stamping down unconsciously with his boot the border of long-leaved crocuses which had gone out of flower, but quite unaware of the damage he was doing, when the maid who admitted him came back. She apologized for keeping him so long waiting. Miss ’Manda had been taken bad sudden--one of her bad turns--nothing out of the common--but now was better, and would he go up-stairs, please?

“Was she well enough to see him?” Frederick asked, with a momentary thrill of alarm, feeling his heart begin to beat.

“Oh, quite well enough. They don’t last long, these bad turns. You will find her a bit shaken, sir, and she didn’t ought to be excited or put out, but she’s better,” said the maid. Better! the scold, the termagant, the beautiful fury; but still Frederick’s heart beat at the thought of seeing her again.

She was lying on a sofa close to the open window, looking very pale and languid, just as she had been on that delicious evening which he had last spent in her company, looking as if nothing but gentle words could ever come out of those lovely lips. The woman whom she had called Aunty, and whom she had been abusing, sat by her holding a white hand, which looked as if it had been modelled in ivory. Was that the hand? One of poor aunty’s cheeks was red as fire, as if she had been struck on it, and she had evidently been crying. But she was full of solicitude for her charge, placing the cushions behind her comfortably, and whispering and soothing her. Frederick asked himself if he had been in a dream. Amanda held out her other hand to him with gentle languor, and smiled at him an angelic smile.

“Is it really you, Mr. Frederick Eastwood?” she said. “We have been wondering over your card. I could not think what could keep you here. Are you staying at the Court? But Sir Geoffrey is not at home----”

“No! I had business in this part of the country, and thought I would avail myself of your father’s invitation--that is for an hour or two. I must return to town to-night,” he answered, proud of his own fortitude, but feeling, oh, such a melting and dissolving of all his resolutions.

“That is a very short visit; but I hope papa may be able to persuade you to stay longer,” said Amanda. “You do not mind my receiving you on the sofa? I have been ill. Oh, you must not be too sorry for me,” she added, laughing, “it was my own fault,--entirely my own fault. I allowed myself to get into a passion. I am sure you never did such a thing. Mr. Eastwood, is it not shocking? I got angry at poor Aunty, here. Yes, I deserve to be whipped, I know I do,--and I always am punished, though not more than I deserve. They told me you were in the garden. I am so much ashamed of myself,--did you know, Mr. Eastwood, what a naughty, naughty girl I was?”

“I heard--something,” said Frederick, feeling all his armour of proof, all his moral courage drop from him. This fair creature, pale with agitation and exhaustion, smiling softly from her pillow,--caressing the hand of her homely attendant,--confessing her fault, this a termagant, a scold, a fury! The thing was ridiculous. Let him disbelieve his ears, his eyes, all his senses, rather than give up his faith in her.

“I don’t know how to look you in the face,” said Amanda, putting up her disengaged hand to hide herself. “Oh, I know I have been so very naughty. Please forgive me. It makes me so ill always. I am not let off. I get my punishment, but not more than I deserve----”

“Don’t speak of punishment!” said Frederick. He was ready to pledge his honour that no word which was not good and gentle could have come from those lips. Miss ’Manda sighed softly and shook her head.

“I have not a good temper. I never had. Unless it is born with you, you can never get it by trying,--and then when I am agitated it makes me ill. Nobody must ever cross me, you know, Mr. Eastwood, or some day or other I shall die----. It is dreadful to think you may die any day without having a moment’s time to prepare.” She rounded off this doleful anticipation with a gentle sigh. She lay back upon her pillows with her colour beginning to come back, but with a delightful gravity on her face. She throw an inkstand at any one? it was totally impossible,--though, indeed, there was a black mark on the carpet which a maid was mopping up, and a stain of ink on the front of Aunty’s dress; but this must have been accidental. Frederick looked at her and forgot his knowledge of the world, and threw away his independent judgment and the evidence of his senses. It must have been a mistake. He had all but seen it with his own eyes, but he felt it could not be true. If it had been true, would the assailed woman, she with the stain on her dress, be sitting by Amanda’s side, still holding her hand, and soothing her? It must have been an accident. Nothing more easy than to push over an inkstand from a table. It was the simplest accident. He suggested it to himself first, and then he believed it strenuously. He drew his chair close by the sofa, and asked what he could do to amuse her. Could he read to her?--what could he do?

“Oh, no,--if you can only stay for an hour or two, talk to me,” said Amanda, “tell me about town. I hate this horrid little place, where nothing ever happens. When any one dies it keeps us quite lively. That is the only kind of amusement we can get. Yes, Mr. Eastwood, sit there,--you have town written all over you. It is so nice to see any one from London; tell me how the parks are looking, and what ladies are most talked of, and what sort of dress is being worn. Tell me if there is any gossip going, or stories about anybody in high life.--Oh, I am so glad you have come to-day when I want rousing up. Do tell me all the London news.”

Frederick, to do him justice, was not much learned in London news. Having been brought up by a good mother, he hesitated to repeat to this young woman the stories he had heard at his club; for there are always stories floating on the surface of society, and they are always to be had at the club. After a while, moved by her persuasion, he did tell her some of them, to her intense interest and gratification,--a gratification which aroused Frederick’s pleasure in telling, and made him forget his scruples. And while he amused her, and received the flattering reward of her interest and attention, he was again inflamed and taken possession of by her beauty. Everything in the shape of reason melted out of his mind as he sat by Amanda’s side. All that he thought of was how to secure her,--how soon he could marry, and bind to himself that beautifulest form, that fairest face. If these had been the days when rash proceedings were possible, Frederick felt that it was in him to have carried her away to his den, as a wild beast carries his prey. The first moment that it was possible, as soon as they were left alone together, he poured out the story of his passion. He could not live without her, he said,--to go away again,--to tear himself from her side was an insupportable idea. Would not she have pity upon him? Thus this foolish young man, notwithstanding all warnings, notwithstanding the immediate interposition of providence and his guardian angel to save him from it, rushed upon his fate.