Chapter XXXI: The Minster and the Villa

“I must take you to see the Minster, Innocent,” said Miss Vane. “You cannot be in this part of the world without seeing the Minster. You will be quite happy in it, you who are so fond of church. Put on your hat and your cloak, and be ready when the carriage comes round. I have got a number of visits to make and things to do; but as I know you can make yourself happy in the Minster while I am busy, I will take you with me. Have you ever seen any of our great Gothic cathedrals? Then you will be perfectly happy, child; you will feel this day an era in your life.”

Little thought Lætitia Vane what she was saying. The unconscious prophecy came lightly from her lips, and was received by Innocent with a smile. She was not excited by the prospect of seeing the Minster, but she was pleased to go, to do what she was told, to be with the kind but arbitrary mistress, who had brought harmony into her life. She put on her hat, smiling, looking at herself in the glass, which was not very usual with her. She had gained some colour on her pale cheeks, her eyes were brighter, her whole aspect more life-like. It was a fresh October morning, warm in the sunshine, though a sharp little chill of autumn wind met them occasionally at a corner, promising a cold evening.

“We must take care not to be late coming back,” said Miss Vane, throwing an additional shawl upon Innocent’s lap before she got into the little carriage, and took the reins. Miss Vane herself wore no conventional costume; she had not abandoned the pleasant things of this life. She wore rich silks, moaning over her own imperfection, which never could attain to the virtue of serge, and was fond of her pretty ponies and her pleasant little carriage. They had a cheerful drive into Sterborne, Miss Vane pointing out everything on the way, and naming every house they passed, Innocent paying little attention, yet listening to all that was said to her, and enjoying in her passive way the air, the sunshine, the rapid movement. Things no longer seemed to rush past her, moved by some dreadful whirl of their own, but it was she who was in motion, lightly, cheerfully--the centre, not a passive object in the scene. This, which she could not have explained for her life, but which she felt vaguely yet strongly, made the greatest difference to Innocent. She was more alive than she had ever been before in her life.

Miss Vane took her over the Minster, rapidly pointing out all the chief wonders; and then left her, seated within sight of the high altar, to enjoy what everybody at the High Lodge supposed to be meditation of the devoutest kind.

“You will be quite happy here,” Miss Vane said, kissing her softly, and feeling, with warm compunctions for her own worldliness, how superior was her young relation. She stopped at the door, ere she went about her many businesses, to point out Innocent to the chief verger, and commend her to his care. “I will come back in about an hour and a half,” she said. Thus Innocent was left alone.

I do not think she had ever been left entirely alone before, save on the one occasion of her visit to the Methodist chapel, since she had been under her aunt’s care, and the sensation was sweet to her,--quite alone, silent, no one interfering with her, free to do as she would, to be still, without speaking, without feeling, without thinking. The solemn nave of the Minster, the lovely, lessening arches of the apse, the silvery glow of the painted glass in the windows, made no special impression upon her for themselves. As she sat silent they mingled in a confused but grateful calm with the little church of the Spina--the lingering memories of her past life. Subdued steps came and went about her as in the other little sanctuary by the Arno; the light was subdued as by the influence of the place; no sound above a whisper was audible; gliding figures appeared in the distance, into which she gazed, not, indeed, coming there to pray, as in Santa Maria, but yet moving softly, with a certain reverence. No gleaming tapers on the altar, no chanting priest interposed to furnish a background for her dreams; but Innocent scarcely felt the want. She said her prayers, kneeling down, all unconscious of observation, on the stone pavement. She sat down again in a hush of soft and peaceful feeling--to dream? No, nor even to think. The mind of this poor little Innocent had no need for any exercise; she rested, before the fiery coming of her fate.

It was not till the verger, much bewildered by a stillness of attitude to which he was quite unused, came to ask whether the young lady would like to see the chapter-house, or the crypt, or any of the special sights of the Minster, that the girl was roused. She rose then, always acquiescent, smiling upon the old man. But as she turned round, Innocent’s eye caught a figure much more interesting to her than the verger’s. It was Frederick, who turned round at the same moment, and came forward to her, holding out both his hands. “Ah, Innocent, at last!” he cried. There was real pleasure in his face.

“Miss Vane has left me here to wait for her,” said Innocent, “but, oh, I am so glad to see you!” It seemed to her that she had found him again--that all the intermediate time had glided away, that she was in the church of the Spina, and he, her new-discovered only guardian and protector again.

“I am glad that you are glad,” said Frederick. “I thought you might have forgotten all about us among the Vanes. How is it that they neglect you like this? I suppose you are the poor relation there, Innocent, eh? You never were so at The Elms.”

“I do not know what you mean,” said Innocent; but she put her hand within his arm, with her old use and wont, looking up at him brightly with her soft smile. The verger looking on, felt that, perhaps, it was his duty to interfere, but had not the heart to do it.

“You’ll find me in the porch, Miss, if you want me,” he said. If the young lady had met with some one as she liked better than them Papistical nunnery-folks at the High Lodge, was it his business? He went away heavily, dragging his feet upon the pavement, as ecclesiastical attendants for ages and ages have dragged them, with stooped shoulders and shuffling gait; and the two, whom he thought lovers, were left alone.

They were not lovers, far from that; but Innocent clung to the arm of the first man whom she had ever identified and felt any warm personal regard for, and Frederick looked down upon her with a complacency which half arose from a vain belief that she loved him, and partly from a real kindness for his little cousin, and partly from a sensation of thankfulness to have some one belonging to him to look at and speak to--some one not of the terrible Batty tribe, to which he was bound until Monday morning. This was Saturday, and he had been imperatively summoned to visit his wife, who was still ill. He could not get back until Monday morning, and the thought that this terrible moment of duty might be softened by the presence of Innocent, who adored him, was sweet. He told her that Amanda was ill in bed, not able to come out with him, or to be his companion. “I cannot spend my whole time with her,” said Frederick, “and her father is more odious than I can tell you. You must come to see her; you must stay with me, Innocent, till I go back.”

“If Miss Vane will let me,” said Innocent, brightly.

“You would like it? You were always a dear girl. When I take you home with me, Innocent,” said Frederick solemnly, “you will learn a lesson which I have learnt too late, that it is a fatal thing to connect one’s self with people of a different class from one’s own, who cannot understand one, whose life is a contradiction to all one feels and wishes. I don’t speak, of course, of my wife; that is my own affair; whatever I may have to put up with I say nothing on that score to any one. But, Innocent, a man of honour has many things to bear which women never know.”

These fine sentiments were wasted upon Innocent, who looked up at him wondering, and received what he said docilely, but made no attempt to understand. I don’t know why Frederick, knowing her well enough to be aware of this, should have thought it necessary to make so solemn a statement. He did it, perhaps, from the habit he had acquired of posing as a victim to honour. He led her about the Minster, and showed her many things which Innocent looked at with her usual docility, pleased to be with him, if not much excited by anything else. She had been happy at the High Lodge, but after all Frederick was her first friend, her discovery, and to be thus alone with him, cared for by him, no one else interfering, carried her back to the first startled awakening of her torpid youth. He was always kind to her when she was thus thrown upon his care, and Innocent was happy, with her hand clinging to his arm. When Miss Vane came to recall her to the present, she looked with perhaps a warmer personal wish than had ever been seen in her eyes before at her temporary guardian, pleading for the granting of the request which Frederick made, with his very finest Charles I. look, and melancholy gentlemanlike grace. Miss Vane, a busy woman, had partially forgotten her brother’s warning about Mrs. Frederick. She knew the young man before her had made a very foolish marriage, but still he was an Eastwood, of prepossessing appearance, and a compunction crossed her mind as to her want of civility in not “calling on” the daughter-in-law of Innocent’s good aunt. A woman takes rank from her husband, not from her father, Miss Vane reflected, and if this poor fellow had found out, as might be guessed from his resigned manner, that he had made a terrible mistake, it was only right that a connexion should stand by him as far as was practicable. After a few difficulties, therefore, as to Innocent’s dress, &c., she consented, promising to send the gardener with her bag, and to drive in for her on Monday morning, “when I will take the opportunity of leaving a card for Mrs. Eastwood. I am sorry to hear she is so poorly,” said Miss Vane in her most gracious manner. Innocent could scarcely believe it when she saw her energetic relation drive away, and found herself left in Frederick’s charge. “I am to stay, then?” she said, with a smile which lighted up her whole face; then added, with a faint shadow stealing over it, “but with you, Frederick? I do not like--your wife----”

“You shall be with me,” said Frederick; “but, Innocent, you must not say such things. It is imprudent--you might be misunderstood. I know very well what you mean, and that, of course, it is impossible you should feel towards poor Amanda as you do to me; but you must not forget what I have told you so often, that a woman’s best policy is always to make friends with her own sex. You are coming now, you understand, to visit my wife, who is far from well; but I shall take care to have you a great deal with me.”

Innocent’s enjoyment was a little damped by this long speech; but as she was still walking with Frederick, and had, as, yet, no drawback to the pleasant sensation of being with him, the shadow flitted rapidly from her face. He took her all over the village, showing her everything that was to be seen, before he turned his step towards the Villa, where Amanda, fretful and peevish, awaited him, longing for news, for change, for something to amuse her. Frederick cared very little for the fact that his once-worshipped beauty was now waiting for him. His little cousin, with her dreamy delight in his society, her refined and gradually developing beauty, and the strange attraction of her visionary abstractedness from the common world, was very amusing and pleasant to him. The mere fact of not seeing her every day, as he had been in the habit of doing, had made him perceive Innocent’s beauty, and a mingled feeling, half wholly good, half dubious in character, inclined him towards the girl who clung to him. She was very pretty and “very fond of him,” which pleased his vanity highly, and made him feel vaguely self-complacent and on good terms with himself in her company; and by the side of this doubtful and not very improving sensation, the man, who was not wholly bad, had actually a little wholesome, brotherly, protecting affection for the child who had clung to him from the first moment of seeing him. Thus they wandered through the village, round and round the Minster, looking at everything and at nothing till the October afternoon began to cloud over. “Now you must come and see Amanda,” said Frederick with a sigh. Innocent sighed too. It seemed to her very hard that there was this inevitable “Frederick’s wife” to be always the shadow to the picture, to take him away from his family, to separate him from herself, to worry and vex him whatever he was doing. Innocent hesitated at the corner of the street.

“Are you sure I should go?” she said. “She will scold me. She will not be kind like Cousin Lætitia or you. She does not like me, and I do not like her. Shall I go back now? I have had all I wanted, Frederick; I have seen you.”

“That would never do,” said Frederick. “If it were known that you had met me in the Minster and walked about so long with me, and then returned without seeing my wife, people would talk--unpleasant things would be said.”

“What could be said?” asked Innocent.

“Upon my life, one doesn’t know whether to laugh at you or be angry,” cried Frederick, impatient. “Will you never understand? But, come along, it is no use wasting words. Don’t you see you must come now?”

“I do not want to come. She will scold me,” said Innocent, standing firmly, with a cloud upon her face. It was the first time she had openly resisted him or any one. Poor child, was it some angel who stayed her feet? She felt ready to cry, which was an unusual thing with her, and with a frightened instinctive recoil, stood still, refusing to go on.

Poor Innocent! Safety and shelter, and the life of order and peace which suited her half-developed faculties, lay calm and sunshiny on one side. On the other was conflict, confused darkness and misery, pain and shame, gathering in heavy clouds to swallow her up. For one moment it hung on the balance which her fate was to be; terrible moment, which we, none of us, divine, during which we have to exercise that great and awful choice which is the privilege of humanity, in blindness and unconsciousness, ignorant of the issues, stupid to the importance of the decision. This was decided, however, not by Innocent. Impatient Frederick seized her hand and drew it through his arm.

“This is folly,” he cried. “What you, Innocent! you be such a little traitor and resist me and get me into trouble? No, no, come along. This is out of the question now.”

Next moment he had knocked at his father-in-law’s door.

The Villa looked very much as it had done the day that Frederick first made his appearance there. The sun was still shining by intervals, but glimmers of firelight came from the window, and the garden behind was spare of flowers. Mr. Batty met them as they came in, and stared hard at the girl whom Frederick led by the hand into the narrow light passage which traversed the house from the street to the garden door. “This is my cousin, sir, Miss Innocent Vane,” said Frederick. “I have brought her to see Amanda. She is on a visit at the High Lodge, as you may have heard.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve heard,” said Batty, “and I think it’s time she should turn up, the only one of your family as has ever come near my girl. You’re welcome, my dear, better late than never; though I think, considering how kind the Eastwoods have been to you, that you might have come a little sooner to show Mrs. Frederick some respect.”

Innocent listened, wondering, to this address, gazing at the man whom she had a confused recollection of having seen before. All that she comprehended now was, more or less, that he was scolding her, though about what she could not tell. He was a kind of man totally unknown to Innocent--his thick figure, his coarse air, his loud voice and red hands, surprised, without so much revolting her as they might have done, had her organization been more perfect. She was frightened, but made an effort of politeness to conceal it.

“Is she better?” she asked, not knowing what to say.

“You’ll see what she’ll say to you when she sees you,” said Batty to Frederick with a chuckle, “and I don’t blame her, poor girl. If this is what you call visiting your wife when she’s poorly, things have changed since my day. It’s close on five, and nearly time for dinner, and you’ve been out since the moment you swallowed your lunch.”

“I have been with my little cousin here, and Miss Vane of the High Lodge, who is coming to call on Amanda on Monday,” said Frederick. “In the meantime I took the liberty of inviting my cousin to stay with my wife for a couple of nights. I hope it is practicable----”

“Oh, practicable enough,” said Batty, with a laugh. “I’m not one of those as leaves themselves without a room to give to a friend. Plenty of accommodation here for as many as you like to bring--and the more the merrier, if they’re the right sort. Glad to see you, Miss Innocent. Training up for your trade, eh?--at that old nunnery out there. Lord, to see that old Lady Abbess in my house will be a sight! ’Manda will tackle her, I’ll be bound. Walk up, walk up-stairs, Eastwood will show you the way; and he’s sure of a warm welcome, he is. Ha, ha, ha, ha!”

Batty stood in the passage holding his sides, while Frederick, with disgust on every line of his fine features, strode up-stairs. Innocent followed her cousin wondering. What the man meant, whether he was merry, or angry, or simply the most disagreeable strange man she had ever seen, she could not make out. She remembered vaguely what Frederick had told her so lately--what she had heard repeated on all sides at The Elms--that Frederick’s wife was of “another class.” And the stairs were narrow, the passage contracted, the maid who had opened the door not like the maids at The Elms; and Batty’s dress, and appearance, and manner of speech very different from anything Innocent had ever known before. This was what it meant, then, to be of “another class.” Thus she followed with some new speculations rising in her passive brain, into the presence of Frederick’s wife.