Chapter XXIV: What the Family Thought

Amanda was not so eager as her lover. She held back. To do her justice, though she was glad of the prospect of marrying a gentleman, and doubly glad, for reasons of her own, to have an Eastwood at her feet, she was in no hurry to secure him; nor did she show any unbecoming exultation in her conquest. Her father did, who had set his heart on the match. But Amanda had too much confidence in her own charms and superiority to be unduly elated, or to give her consent without all the hesitation which she thought necessary to her dignity. I need not say that Frederick stayed till Monday--till the last practicable moment; that he loathed her father and everything surrounding him more and more deeply every hour; and that his devotion to herself increased in heat and strength, through all her coquettings, her doubtfulness as to whether she liked him or not, and incapacity for making up her mind.

“I have known you such a little while,” she said.

“And I have known you such a little while,” cried Frederick.

“But that is quite different,” she said demurely, casting down her eyes; “a woman’s happiness depends on it so much more than a man’s.”

This was a pretty speech entirely in her _rôle_; but as coming from a woman who the other day had thrown an inkstand at somebody’s head, the reader may perhaps be doubtful how far it is true. But it made Frederick more mad with passion than ever. The more she held back, the more eagerly he pressed and urged his suit. For this there were other reasons besides his love. He was a proud man, notwithstanding all the many voluntary humiliations to which he stooped, and Batty was insupportable to him. He despised and hated and loathed the man who knew his weakness, and had thrust himself into his confidence. He would have loathed any man who had done so; but every point in Batty’s character exaggerated the intensity of his feeling. His warm cordiality, his friendliness, his satisfaction and good wishes, made Frederick recoil as from something poisonous and unclean. He could hardly restrain himself even while Amanda held his “fate” in her hands. Once the decision was made, he determined to lose no time--to press for an immediate marriage--to carry her away out of this man’s reach--anywhere; he did not care where, to get rid of him at any cost. And with the usual folly of men under such circumstances, he actually believed that he should be able to do this; that he could impose his will upon Batty, and mould Amanda to his way of thinking; and that from the moment when he succeeded in marrying her, all would be right. He could crush all the bonds of nature; he could subdue temper and disposition, and triumph over circumstances. All these Frederick was quite ready to tackle, and did not doubt his power to overcome. The first step was the only thing that depended upon another; but when Amanda had consented--when she was his--then everything would become easy and plain. In the meantime, however, he was received as lover on probation, and had to make a number of pilgrimages Saturday after Saturday before the decision was at last formally made in his favour. During this time his family were in the dark, knowing little about Frederick. I need not say that their curiosity and ingenuity were warmly roused to find out his secret. This anxiety took a more practical form in the mind of Dick and in that of Molyneux, to whom, of course, Nelly had communicated the family perplexity, than in those of the ladies themselves, who did not know how to find out anything except in the legitimate way. Molyneux, however, managed by accident to stumble against Frederick at the railway station, and thus discovered where he went; while Dick by means of one of his fellow victims, who was reading with him under the same “coach,” procured a natural history of Sterborne of an exhaustive character. When the name of Batty was mentioned, Mrs. Eastwood and Nelly looked at each other, and the whole became clear to them. They had not forgotten the name which they had but once heard. A great beauty--the daughter of a country doctor. Now, indeed, everything became clear.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, mamma,” said Dick; “Trevor has often asked me to go home with him on a Saturday. I’ll go--and I’ll manage to see her, and bring you back the news.”

There was an eager assent on all sides to this proposition; and the mind of the family was kept in much suspense until Dick’s return. For, as Mrs. Eastwood justly remarked, a country doctor might be anything; it might mean a gentleman, highly considered and well to do; or it might mean a bustling little country practitioner, with no position of any sort. Without further information it was quite impossible to divine which of these two were meant; and everything depended upon the clearing up of the question. As for Molyneux, he was disposed to take the very gloomiest view of the matter. He thought that Frederick should be “spoken to,” and remonstrated with. The son of a Q.C., hoping shortly to be the son of a judge, does not look forward with any pride or satisfaction to the thought of becoming connected with “a country doctor.” Ernest argued that a man of high standing would never have been so described; a country doctor, he declared, could mean nothing but the most homely specimen of the profession--the workhouse doctor, the village apothecary. He was uneasy on the subject. He thought Mrs. Eastwood ought to be “very firm,” and that Frederick, for his own good, should have all the disadvantages of such a mésalliance pointed out to him.

“It is not only a man’s own comfort that is destroyed, but that of all his connexions,” said Molyneux; “everybody belonging to him suffers,” and he insisted once more very sharply on the duty of the mother to be “firm,” so strongly, indeed, that Mrs. Eastwood took offence, though she did not say anything direct on the subject.

“Ernest seems to be afraid that his connexion with us may do him harm in the world,” she permitted herself once to say to Nelly.

“Oh, mamma, why do you judge Ernest so harshly?” cried the poor girl. But Nelly, too, felt that if Frederick should marry the daughter of a country doctor, her own lover would be deeply annoyed; and she, too, was wounded and offended by this, though perhaps unreasonably. So many of the feelings which make our weal or woe are unreasonable, and not to be excused.

The household awaited Dick’s return with much anxiety. He came up by a very early train, with a cold in his head, and misanthropical tendencies generally. And Dick’s report was not such as made the family more happy.

“I met Frederick yesterday,” he said. “The fellow accused me of coming to spy upon him. I asked him how I was to know where he went to amuse himself in secret? I was at the Trevors’, where I had often been asked. He blessed me, and that was all; he dared not say any more. But wasn’t he in a rage! I did not feel very nice myself; for after all I was a kind of spy.”

“Indeed, I never thought of it in that light,” said his mother. “You went to find out something about Miss Batty--not to spy upon Frederick.”

“Oh, Miss Batty! Miss Batty!” cried Dick; the recollection took away his power of speech. “She is a big, fat, fleshy sort of a creature, with red cheeks, and fuzzy hair in her eyes,” said Dick, “a fringe of it hanging over her forehead, as you see some queer people in the streets; said forehead about an inch high, dimples in her fat cheeks, and that sort of thing. A figure like a feather-bed, with something tied round the middle to make a waist. Beautiful! if that is what you call beauty!”

Dick’s taste was towards the slim and slight. This was his way of representing all Juno or Rubens-like beauty. Amanda’s magnificent sweep of shoulder and limb, her splendid fulness, represented to him weight and fat, nothing more. I need not attempt to describe the cries of dismay with which his mother and sister received this description. Mrs. Eastwood gave a scream, when he came to talk of Amanda’s figure, and put her handkerchief to her eyes. As for Nelly, she took her brother by the shoulders and shook him, as much as it was in her power to do.

“You are not giving us a true account,” she said. “Mamma, don’t mind him; it is plain he likes tiny people best. Tell us the truth, you wicked boy, I am sure she is handsome; she must be handsome, even from what you say.”

“As you like,” said Dick; “it is all the same to me.”

“She is like a lady at least?”

“Well, if you think that is like a lady. She must weigh twelve stone; not an ounce less.”

“If that is all you have to say against her,” said Mrs. Eastwood, who was herself a good weight; “but, Dick, dear, don’t talk any more nonsense. People have different ideas about beauty. And her father, the doctor? Is he a proper sort of person? Is he a gentleman? So much will depend upon that.”

“Her father, the doctor!” said Dick, with increasing contempt. He made a pause before he said any more to increase the effect. “He is a vet, and a horse-dealer, and a man without a bit of character, the jest of the place.”

Mrs. Eastwood gave a painful cry. Nelly echoed it feebly, standing in the middle of the room, with her face suddenly like ashes. Nelly’s mind was not primarily concerned with Frederick. The idea which flashed through it was, must Ernest know this? must he be told? She felt the humiliation keenly, with a pang such as she had never known before. It would humiliate her before him. He would feel humiliated by his connexion with her. For the moment it seemed to Nelly too bitter to be borne.

“Are you quite sure, Dick?” she said faltering. “Is there no mistake?”

“I will write to old Miss Eastwood,” said the mother. It was something to be able to get up, to hurry to her desk, to feel that she could do something, could inquire, at least, and was not compelled to sit down idle after receiving such news.

“What good can old Miss Eastwood do?” said Dick, who felt the authenticity of his own report to be called in question; and, indeed, old Miss Eastwood could do no good; to write to her to get further information seemed a kind of ease to the excitement of the moment. Before the letter was finished Mr. Vane came in, to make an innocent call, and hearing where Dick had been and how he had caught such a dreadful cold, proceeded to discourse upon Sterborne, lightly and easily, as strangers often do upon points of deadly interest to their hearers.

“I have been all over that country,” he said; “I used to know the Eastwoods, your relations, very well; indeed, I have a little box of a place close to Sterborne, which my sister is rather fond of. The Minster is the great attraction. Out of St. Peter’s at Rome, I don’t know a service so high--and she goes in for that sort of thing.”

“Do you know anybody called Batty?” cried Nelly in her haste. She had come to have a great confidence in the man who looked at her so kindly, with eyes that had a certain regret in them--regret which flattered and consoled her somehow, she could not tell why.

“Ellinor!” cried Mrs. Eastwood in dismay; but it was too late.

“Batty, oh yes, I know Batty. He is very well known to the ingenuous youth of that part of England,” said Mr. Vane, “though I admire and wonder to think you should ask for him. Stop a moment, however, I know; he has a beautiful daughter.”

“Then she is beautiful!” cried Nelly.

“Red and white, flesh and blood--big Dutch doll of a thing,” cried Dick, thrusting himself into the conversation, in eager self-defence, without thinking of the contradiction in his words.

“I suppose we are all flesh and blood,” said Mr. Vane, “but I rather incline to Dick’s view of the matter, on the whole. At the same time she is a beautiful creature. I don’t believe she has any more soul than Mahomet would allow; but she is the perfection of flesh and blood. By the way, she was once said to be engaged to one of the Eastwoods, I forget which, not Sir Geoffrey, but one of his brothers. I don’t know how it was broken off.”

“I heard of that too,” said Dick, putting on an air of injured virtue; “you listen to all he says, but you don’t put any faith in me.”

“No, I can’t tell you exactly how it was broken off,” Mr. Vane went on, trying to recollect the details which might, he thought, interest in an easy way the relations of Charlie Eastwood. “But these stories are always disagreeable,” he added, “there is sure to be something discreditable on one side or the other. It is a blessing, however, to know that he did get out of it, which was the chief thing to be desired.”

In the dead pause that followed, in the look of despair which was exchanged between Mrs. Eastwood and Nelly, and the absence of all response to what he said, Vane, who was quick-witted, felt instinctively that something more was involved. He turned the conversation at once to other channels, and after a while Mrs. Eastwood withdrew with Dick, whose cold was becoming more and more demonstrative. When they had left the room there was another pause, which Mr. Vane made no haste to break, for if Nelly chose to be confidential with the man who was a “connexion,” as he thought she had once or twice shown an inclination to be, John Vane was very far from having any objection. On the contrary, he was disposed to cherish the inclination. He was “interested” in Nelly. He thought there was a dissatisfaction and confused want in her, which it was sad to see. He thought Ernest Molyneux not half worthy of such a girl, and wondered what she could see in him; and if he himself could be of any comfort or help to Nelly, why, what was the good of him but to be of use? He waited, leaving her to speak, to ask his advice, or confide in him, if she chose.

“About this Mr. Batty?” she said hastily. “Oh, Mr. Vane, pardon me for troubling you. You say it was a blessing that Charlie Eastwood got out of his engagement. I hate that way of talking, as if a girl’s happiness went for nothing. But I don’t think you meant that; is this Mr. Batty such a man that to be connected with him would be a disgrace?”

“Disgrace is a strong word,” said Vane. “I do not think I would use such a violent expression; but as a matter of feeling, I would rather not be connected with him; and pardon me if I say what perhaps may shock you--I would like still less to be connected with her.”

“The girl?”

“Yes, the girl. It sounds brutal, I know; but she is just the kind of girl whom one would tremble to have anything to do with. Beautiful, passionate, uneducated, undisciplined, taught to think of nothing but the gratification of the moment. I am afraid of such a creature. The Lorelei is a joke to her. When you got into the hands of the syrens you were doomed, and there was an end of you; but a woman like that with the command of a man’s life----”

“Oh, Mr. Vane!” cried Nelly, with her hands clasped, following every movement of his lips with her eyes, breathless in her interest; and then she burst suddenly into hot, momentary tears, and cried, “Poor Frederick! Poor Frederick!” wringing her hands.

Mr. Vane got up hurriedly from his chair. “Miss Eastwood, don’t think I heard you, or will ever recollect, or attempt to connect with what we have been saying”--he began. Then looking at Nelly, who was crying, the man’s heart melted within him. “If it will do you any good or give you any ease, tell me,” he said, going up to her, and standing behind her; “you may trust me never to say anything.”

“Oh, yes, I can trust you,” said Nelly; and then clasped her hands, and looked up at him. “You are a man; you are a connexion; you are supposed to know better than we women do. Could _you_ speak to him, Mr. Vane?”

He looked at her again, and shook his head. What could he say? “I am not a friend, and no one but a friend could interfere. Even a friend would not be listened to in such a case,” he said; and then he added, “If he loves her, he may have an influence upon her; he may be able to make something better of her. And your influence and your mother’s----”

Poor Nelly shivered. “It is not entirely of Frederick I am thinking,” she said with a low, suppressed moan; “I am selfish too.”

Mr. Vane seized his hat suddenly, and shook hands with her, and rushed away! Nelly could not imagine why. She thought he was unfeeling, and she was very, very vexed and angry with herself for having confided in him. The last words had escaped her in spite of herself; but, then, he could attach no meaning to them, she was sure.

When Frederick came home that evening there was a grand _éclaircissement_, not of a perfectly peaceable nature. He accused his mother of having sent Dick as a spy after him to find out his movements, an accusation which had a certain truth in it. Dick fortunately was shut up in his room with his cold, so that no quarrel between the brothers was possible. When Frederick intimated that he was an accepted lover, and that his marriage was to take place in six weeks, his mother and sister made an appeal to him, into which I need not enter. After a little fine indignation and heroic defence of his Amanda, Frederick became _attendri_, and gave her up to them as a burnt offering, and presented himself in the aspect of a martyr of honour, as men are in the habit of doing; and they ended by taking his part, and weeping over him, and consoling him. They agreed to endeavour to “make the best of it,” to “stand by the poor boy.” Where is the family that has not in one way or other had a similar task to perform?

There was but one other member of the house by whom the intelligence had yet to be received. Innocent heard it without any appearance of emotion. She had been wistfully curious about Frederick’s absence, and had wandered about the garden disconsolately in the evenings, baffling by her strange deadness and silence all the attempts which the others made to replace him. Jenny, who had by this time come home for the holidays, did more for her than any of the others. He announced in the family that he meant to experiment upon her; he took her out into the avenue, and declaimed Homer to her, to try what effect would be produced,--and he said she liked it; I am of opinion also that she did. She had begun to feel a certain solace in company so long as no response was demanded from her, and no attempt made to interest her and make her take part in feelings and opinions totally unknown. Jenny and his Greek were a consolation to her; she did not understand, therefore she would not be asked to feel, and he required no answer. She went through two or three days of this after Frederick’s marriage was announced, and I suppose in the silence her faltering thoughts took shape; for Jenny was nothing to her, nor Ellinor, nor their mother, no one but Frederick--and slowly she began to feel that this strange new event would separate her from him. It was from Dick that at last she asked help for the solution of her thoughts.

“Frederick is to be married,” she said, addressing him one day when they happened to be alone. It was in the garden, which in summer was the home of the family, and the slow, lingering spring had changed into summer that year almost in a day.

Dick was almost as much surprised as if the lime-tree under which he sat had suddenly disclosed a questioning Dryad. “Frederick? yes, he is going to be married, more fool he,” cried Dick, shutting up, on the chance of conversation, the book which he did not love.

“What does it mean?” said Innocent again. She had come to his side, and was standing by, questioning him with her great, steady eyes. The good young fellow thought to himself that she must be an absolute fool to ask such a question, and did not know what to reply.

“Mean?--” he said confused, casting about for words.

“Does it mean that he will go away from here?” said Innocent, “I do not know English ways. Will he go away,--will he have her with him instead? Will he never come back, never to live, to be here always? That is what I want to know.”

“Of course not,” said Dick. “Why any child knows that when a man marries he goes away with his wife to a house of his own.”

“Will Frederick have a house of his own?”

“Of course,--I suppose so,--if he can afford it,” said Dick.

“And she will be with him always?” she asked in a musing tone.

Upon which Dick burst into a great laugh, which silenced Innocent; but she had not the least idea why he laughed. Her mind was too much intent upon one subject to mind anything else. Frederick had brought a photograph of his betrothed to exhibit to his mother, and Innocent was seen bending over it and examining it long and closely. Next morning it was found on the table torn up into little fragments. The house was disturbed by this, for Frederick gave his mother and sister credit for the destruction of the image of his love, and accused them of want of consideration for himself, and many another sin against his mightiness. Both the accused ladies, however, suspected how it was; Innocent had torn it up quickly and quietly after she had looked at it. She had done it with no vindictiveness, but with a quiet solemnity, like an administration of justice. “Why did you tear it up?” Nelly said to her, a day or two later.

“Because I do not like her,” said the girl steadily, not rejecting the blame.

“But, Innocent, though we may dislike people, we cannot destroy them--nor even their portraits,” said Nelly.

“No,” said Innocent, “but it would be better if she could be destroyed,” she added, speaking low.

“Hush,--hush,--why do you say so? She has not done anything wrong----”

Innocent made no immediate answer. Her face had changed from its wistful blank to an almost haggard look of sadness and pain. She turned away from Nelly, who was half angry and half sympathetic. The strange thing which they could not understand was, that she had no apparent anger against Frederick, or painful feeling towards him. She was not angry. A sinking sense of loneliness came over her when she thought of his departure, but no offence against him.--She was as ready as ever to go to him in the garden, to walk with him, to cling to his arm.--Once, even, she ventured to do what no one else did,--she remonstrated. This was within a few days of his marriage, when all opposition was stopped, and nobody made any attempt to change the inevitable. They had been walking up and down together for some time, he saying nothing, she to all appearances passive as usual,--when, quite suddenly, without any warning, she spoke.

“Frederick! I wish you would not marry.--Why should you marry and go away? I do not like her face. If I had known that you would go away, I should have stayed in Pisa. Cannot you give it up?--I do not like you to marry. Oh, stay with us, stay!”

Frederick had stared at her when she began,--now he burst into fits of unconquerable laughter. There was something insulting in its tone which touched some chord in Innocent’s nature. She went away from him without a word, and for days spoke to him no more.