Chapter L: Jenny’s Meditation

“Nelly, where is Molyneux?” asked her brother abruptly. Jenny had just come back from the railway-station, where he had been seeing Innocent off. He was not in a very light-hearted humour, I can scarcely tell why. The boy was a far-seeing boy,--he might have private reasons of his own which increased his predisposition to see things in an uncomfortable light; but, at all events, Jenny was of opinion that Innocent’s chances of happiness were somewhat diminished; and, being uncomfortable himself, he had no particular objection to make other people uncomfortable. Besides, he had perceived, with his quick eyes, that his sister had “something on her mind,”--and he was disposed to help her to deliver herself. Mrs. Eastwood and Nelly were going on a visit to Miss Vane at the High Lodge, and then they were to proceed to Longueville. They were all rather glad to escape from home and their anxious friends, until the great event of Innocent’s trial had lost something of its freshness and novelty. Mrs. Eastwood, too, was much shaken in health by all her anxieties and vigils; and to see Nelly’s pale face, with dark lines under the eyes, and the shadowy resemblance to Innocent, which grew more apparent as she grew sadder, was more than enough to warrant Jenny in his conclusion that she had something on her mind. She started nervously when he addressed this question to her. She had not so much as named Ernest to any one since they came to Sterrington, and in the excitement of other anxieties, and absorption of all things in Innocent, she had not been questioned on the subject even by her mother. This was one reason why Nelly was so pale:--she had to reveal to them all the change of affairs. She had to acknowledge to herself formally, in so many words, that it was all over. She had to wind up this chapter of her early life, and agree that it was ended, and communicate the fact to everybody. And Nelly, not feeling herself able to take the initiative, had been burdened and weighed down by the secret, which no one shared, more than I can say.

“Ernest?” she said, with a sudden flush, and then added, more quietly, “at home, I suppose,--for anything I know----”

“Why was he not here with you?” said Jenny, pursuing his inquiries steadily. “There was nothing to detain him, I know; for he did come to see how things were going on----”

“Ah! I was right, then!” said Nelly, “it was his face I saw.--Tell me what was the meaning of it, Jenny dear.--Tell me all you know.--How did you find out he had been here?--and why, why did he come here, without coming to me----?”

“Are you still fond of Molyneux, Nelly?”

“Oh, don’t ask me any questions,” she cried, with the impatience of suffering, “tell me all you know!”

“Look here,” said Jenny; “a great deal that is not nice is said about women. For my part I am inclined to stand up for women. I’m a woman’s son, which tells for something,--and a fellow that has been brought up to be your brother, Nelly, likes girls in a way.--But look here, it will go a long way to convince me that you are all people say--silly, pig-headed, unreasonable, and more fond of your own way than of anything else in the world,--if you, Nelly Eastwood, a girl of some sort of character, go and break your heart for that prig Molyneux, when you can have a brick like John Vane for the picking up----”

“Jenny! how dare you speak to me so?”

“Oh, as for daring, I’m not afraid of you,” said Jenny calmly, “nor I don’t mind what I say.--What, a fellow that leaves you in that court by yourself,--a fellow that knows all about law and that sort of thing, and never offers help or advice,--that’s ready to come in and take the good of you when we’re all well at home--but can’t stand by you for a day when you’re in trouble!--By Jove!” cried Jenny, who was not addicted to expletives,--“a whipper-snapper of a fellow at the best, who is no more fit to be put by the side of John Vane than--I am! If you show yourself such a fool, Nelly, there’s nothing that was ever said about women so bad but I’ll believe it,--I’ll give you up for ever, you, and all the rest!----”

Jenny took a turn round the little room at the end of this speech, to work off the vehemence of his feelings. But as for Nelly, all her spirit, all her self-will, all her sense of fun had died out of her. She tried to be angry and could not,--she tried to laugh and could not. Her heart ached with confused and complicated pangs of suffering. If I was to try to lay bare that mystery of diverse pain, the only readers who would follow me through it would probably be women who understand it without description. Nelly had not lived all this time between these two men without having been forced into the same way of thinking as her brother expressed so forcibly. She too had been compelled to admit to herself, by imperceptible degrees, first with a secret rage against Vane, with indignation at herself, with grief, with sore perception of a hundred minute points of difference which went to her heart, that the man whom she had supposed she loved was not the equal of the other man who loved her. How she had resisted and fought against this conviction! how she had struggled, bringing up before herself Ernest’s good qualities, his superior talents (and everybody knows that a man of genius cannot be bound by the same rules as other men), his greater youth, (for of course men become considerate as they grow older), and the influence of his family, which was not of an elevating kind; how by-and-by she had sunk into silence (with herself) on the subject, tacitly allowing Vane’s excellence, and falling back upon the main fact that he was not Ernest; until this last chapter of all, when her appeal to Ernest had been made in vain, when he had accepted her farewell, abandoned her side, left her without even a word of consolation during the trial,--when he had wounded her heart and outraged her pride and delicacy, and left no plea possible to be made for him, even by the most subtle advocate. The mere fact that he had been her accepted lover, that the dreams of the future had all woven themselves about him, that he had kissed her virgin lips, and held her virgin hand, was the only link which now bound Nelly, by one of the fantastic, unformulated laws of a girl’s code of honour, to Ernest Molyneux. This had been so; and to such a girl as Nelly Eastwood the bond so made was one which it was shame and torture to break, or to think of as having existed when once broken. All girls do not feel in this way; but then all girls are not alike, any more than all men are--which is a doctrine curious and strange, I am aware, to many critics. All these different pangs and griefs were surging through her mind as Jenny cut the knot of her hidden thoughts, and boldly broached the subject which she had not dared so much as to whisper a word of. And yet it had to be spoken about. Ernest had not even written to her; he had accepted the dismissal she had given him in her haste; and the fact must be made known and recognized. She made no answer for some time to Jenny’s tirade, but at last she burst forth piteously, in tones which he could not resist,--

“Oh, Jenny, tell me all you know; it is not from any weak wish--what I want is to know--Why did he come? and why did he not come here? What did he say? I will tell you everything there is to tell, if you will first tell me what you know!----”

“Nelly, I hope you are not such a fool as you look,” said the boy severely. “I met him at the junction half way, where the train stops. He was going up, I was coming down. He said he had been to see how the trial was going on, that things looked rather bad, that I had better make haste with my doctor, that doctors were no good, for they would swear against each other through thick and thin, and that if we’d had our wits about us, we’d have packed Innocent off to Australia or somewhere, as soon as we knew, and that she’d never get over it nor any of us as long as she lived, if they acquitted her twenty times over. Then he gave me a nod and the train went off. It was a pleasant meeting,” said Jenny; “if it hadn’t been that I had the doctor to look after, and my head full of poor Innocent, and some thoughts of you, Nelly, if you can care for such a fellow--by Jove, I’d have dragged him out of the carriage window, and pitched him across the rails--it would have served him right.”

“Jenny, my dear boy,” said Mrs. Eastwood, coming in, “does not poor Innocent’s great misfortune show you the folly of such threats? I don’t know of whom you were speaking--but I am sure you didn’t mean what you say, whoever it was. Don’t say such things, dear. You wouldn’t hurt any one----”

“Wouldn’t I though!” cried Jenny, indignant. “You may trust me, mother, if I had the chance. If ever man deserved a good licking, it’s him.”

“Oh, Jenny, don’t!” said Nelly, in a sharp tone of pain.

The mother looked from one to the other. She did not ask any questions. I suspect the mystery was not so profound to her as poor Nelly had thought it.

“We have had enough of such talk,” she said. “Nelly, Miss Vane is to come for us at three o’clock, and Jenny’s train is still earlier. I wish we were all out of this place which has brought us nothing but misfortune----”

“I don’t call the Vanes misfortunes,” said Jenny.

“Ah, the Vanes!” his mother replied, with a relaxation of all the lines in her face; and then she smiled, and said, “Come, Nelly. I hope the humours of the nunnery will blow some of our cobwebs away.”

Jenny thought the metaphor very confused as he went out, leaving them to their packing, and, no doubt, to confidences more distinct than Nelly had given to himself. But he was a lad of understanding, and he perceived all that had happened. Yes, the metaphor was very confused--how could humours blow cobwebs away? There was this to be said about women certainly, that the language they used was very often inexact, though it might be forcible enough. For instance, Jenny acknowledged to himself his mother could polish off a fellow very neatly when occasion served--and he had no doubt she would polish off Molyneux in a way that would leave nothing to be desired. But still the metaphor was confused; he was thinking how to put it when he encountered Vane, who had a restless way of taking walks abroad when there was nothing else to be done. Jenny joined himself to the elder man whom he admired, and went over the town with him, looking at the public buildings with vague curiosity. The Assizes were still going on, and groups standing about the Town Hall, as they had been when poor Innocent stood at the bar; but to Innocent’s cousins it seemed that it was years since the trial had ended, though they paused, and looked with a long-drawn breath at the place where other people might be suffering the same anxieties which now had ended for them.

“I wonder,” said Jenny, bringing this perennial train of thought suddenly in, to break the lighter tone of their conversation--“I wonder if Molyneux is right--if she’ll never get over it as long as she lives.”

“If----who----will never get over it?” asked Vane.

“Innocent; that’s what he said--I suppose he knows Society, and that sort of thing; though she was acquitted twenty times--that she would never get over it as long as she lived.”

“All that comes very well from Molyneux,” said Vane, growing red, “who has never done anything, so far as I know, to help either Innocent--or your family, Jenny--to whom he was beholden----”

“Well,” said Jenny, with an indifferent air, “it’s an ill wind that blows nobody good. I believe poor Innocent’s trial has done what nothing else could have done--convinced Nelly at last that this fellow Molyneux----”

“You don’t mean it!” cried Vane.

Jenny, who had taken his arm, felt Vane “jump,” as he said after, and knew that his chance shot had taken full effect.

“But I do,” said Jenny composedly. “I had not time to get it all out of her; but I am quite sure of this much, at least, that all is over between them--and time too. Why, the fellow actually came down here--to see how things were going--and never went near them. Nelly saw him in the court. A girl would be a fool indeed--which Nelly ain’t, for I know the sort of girl she is--if she put up with that----”

How John Vane “jumped,” to be sure!--what a nervous fellow he was, though big enough for anything, and with that beard! So Jenny thought as he felt his companion’s arm thrill, and enjoyed it. I don’t think Vane made any immediate response, good or bad. He managed to make Jenny talk, which was more to the purpose, but I don’t think he committed himself in words; nor was it until they had gone a long way through the streets, and Jenny had recollected that the time approached for his train, that John Vane’s feelings burst forth in speech.

“Jenny, old fellow,” he said, “is there anything you want--books, or that? or a little spare tin that you don’t care to speak to your mother about? Make me your banker, old boy.”

Jenny withdrew his arm from that of his friend. He was quite as tall, and, barring the beard, not much less imposing in muscular magnitude. The boy stood almost on equal terms, as Englishmen love to have them, with his elder companion. He looked Vane seriously, even anxiously, in the face, and addressed him slowly.

“Do you think she’ll have you?” he said.