A Poor Gentleman

by Mrs. Oliphant

CHAPTER XLIV.
THE FINAL BLOW.

What does it matter what a mother says? especially when she is a powdered and pomaded woman like Mrs. Sam Crockford, altogether unable to comprehend, much less interpret, the fair and brilliant creature who is her daughter. How strange that anything so sweet and delightful as Emmy should come from such a woman—one from whom the heart recoiled, who was offensive to every sense, with those white, unwholesome, greasy hands, the powder, the scent, the masses of false hair, the still falser and more dreadful smile. Walter said to himself as he left her with that nausea which always overwhelmed him at the sight of her, that he would not take what she said as having anything to do with Emmy. No; her existence was a sort of an offense to Emmy; it might, if that were possible, throw a cloud over her perfection, it might make a superficial admirer pause to think, could she ever in her young beauty come to be like that? A superficial admirer, Walter said to himself—not, of course, a true lover such as he was, to whom the suggestion was odious and abominable. Like that! oh, never, never! for Emmy had soul, she had heart in her loveliness; never could the actress have resembled her, never could she resemble the actress. He wondered if that woman could be her mother. Such people stole children, they got hold of them in strange ways. Emmy might have been taken in her childhood from some poor mother of a very different kind. She might have strayed away from her home and been found by vagrants: anything rather than believe that she was that woman’s daughter, who, to crown all her artificialities, was mercenary too. Or even if it might really be so, what did it matter? is there not often no resemblance between the mother and the child, the mother elderly, faded, meretricious, trying hard to keep up an antiquated display of dreadful charms, seductions that filled the mind with loathing; the daughter, oh, so different, so young and fresh, so full of youth and sweetness and everything that is delightful, everything that is most fascinating. When he thought of Emmy the young man’s heart, which had been so outraged, grew soft again. If it came to a decision, how very different would Emmy’s deliverance be. Yet Emmy had discouraged him too, she had thought of secondary things. She had been sorry that he should lose anything for her sake, he who was so ready to lose all. She had even scoffed a little sweetly at his fortune, the ten thousand pounds, which would not, she declared, be more than four hundred a year. Four hundred a year would be plenty, Walter thought; they could live somewhere quietly in the depths of the country enjoying each other’s society, desiring nothing else to make them happy. Would Emmy care for that? she who so loved London. A number of people loved London so, did not know what to do out of it, people who were the very best, the most highly endowed of all, poets, philosophers—it was no reproach to her that she should be among that number. He was not one of them himself, but then he was, he knew, a dull fellow, a rustic. Poor Walter went about the streets all day thinking these thoughts. He knew he was not so clever as she was; but yet they had always understood each other: not like that dreadful woman whom nothing could make him understand. He would not accept her decision whatever she said—he would not believe her even—probably what she had said about his father was untrue; how should his father have got there? No, no, it was not true, any more than it was true that Emmy had permitted her mother to interfere. There was some one else whom the old woman preferred, he said, miserably, to himself, and that was the entire cause of it, not that Emmy meant to cast him off—oh no, no!

But it was two or three days after this before he succeeded in seeing her. Either there was a conspiracy on her mother’s part, into which she, guileless, fell, or else the mother had acquired an ascendency over her, and was able to curb the natural instincts, to restrain the sweeter impulses of her daughter. That it could be Emmy’s fault he would not allow. He haunted the place morning and evening, and on Saturday afternoon, which had been his moment of bliss. It was on that day that he met her at last. He met her hurrying out, dressed as she usually was when he was allowed to take her to the country or to make some expedition with her. She had just stopped to call out something before closing the door, about the hour of her return—he thought he heard her say nine o’clock, and it was little past noon. She was going somewhere, then, but not with him. He turned after her as she went lightly along, with the easy skimming step which he had so often compared to every poetic movement under heaven. It filled him with despair to see it now, and to feel that she was going along like this, upon some other expedition, not in his company, though she must know to what darkness of despondence and solitude she was leaving him. “Emmy,” he cried, hurrying after her. He thought she started a little, but only quickened her pace. She was not, however, to escape him so—that was a vain expectation on her part. He quickened his pace too, and came up to her, close to her, and caught at her elbow in his eagerness and impatience. She turned round upon him with a face very unlike that which had so often smiled upon the foolish boy. She plucked her arm away from his touch. “Oh,” she said, with a tone of annoyance, “you here!”

“Where should I be, Emmy, but where you are? You were going to send for me, to meet me—”

She looked at him with impatience. “No,” she said, “I wasn’t going to do anything of the kind; I have got something very different to do.”

“I have always been ready to do whatever you wanted,” he said, “to go where you pleased, and you know this has been my reward—this Saturday afternoon, after waiting, waiting, day by day—”

“Who wanted you to wait? Mr. Penton, that was your doing. You must understand that I’m not going to be made a slave to you.”

“A slave,” cried the poor boy, “to me!”

“Well, what is it better? I can’t move a step but you are at my heels. What I’ve always held by is doing what I like and going where I like. I never could put up with bondage and propriety like some people; but you dog my steps, you watch everything I do—”

“Emmy!”