“I don’t belong to any club,” said Dick. “It’s very hard. What does it matter, if I am going to India? I shall come back from India, I hope. I suppose you all wish to see me again? Well, then, why shouldn’t I be proposed for Trevor’s club? It doesn’t bind a fellow to anything, and it’s a handy place to have people call upon you, and to send your letters. Trevor offered to put me up a year ago. His father is on the committee, and I know two or three other fellows there.”
“My dear boy, Frederick thought it a waste of money—as you are going away,” said Mrs. Eastwood, with an incipient tear in her eye. This glimmer of moisture was always produced by any reference to the fact that Dick was going away.
“Then thanks to him,” said Dick, in high dudgeon, “I can’t tell any one what is said in the clubs.”
“What is the question?” said Jenny, always practical; “is John Vane on his trial for something?” And here the boy, without knowing it, glanced at Nelly; and Nelly turned abruptly away, and went out through the conservatory into the garden, with a very great tumult and many painful thoughts in her breast.
“Innocent is going to pay his sister a visit,” said Mrs. Eastwood, “at a house near Sterborne. He thinks it is time she knew her father’s relations, and I have consented, for I thought so too. But Frederick says——”
“Is she going now, or at Christmas?” said Jenny. “If now, I give my consent, for I’m going off to-morrow. I like Innocent to be at home when I am at home. You may laugh, if you please, but I like it; why shouldn’t I?” said the boy hotly. “And I like Nelly to be at home. What is the good of girls if they don’t make the old place look nice? But she may go now, if you please, what has that to do with John Vane?”
Upon this Dick laughed long and low, “John ain’t in love with Innocent,” he said chuckling. “I say, mother, what a set of jolly spoons!—if you know what that means. I’ll take her down to the country, if you like, and see John Vane’s sister. Perhaps she might take a fancy to me.”
“Silly boy, she is as old as I am,” said his mother, with a smile. And thus the discussions of the morning fell into cheerful home banter, and the jests of the boys. This consoled the mother, the light of whose firmament was at present supplied by these two boys; but it did not comfort Nelly, who was wading up to her neck in personal dismay and trouble; and it would have called forth nothing but angry contempt from Frederick, who felt his own griefs big enough to eclipse both earth and heaven.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE HIGH LODGE.
Thus every one discussed and gave their opinion as to Innocent’s outset in life—except Innocent herself. She acquiesced—it was all she ever did. A slight paling of her very faint colour, a certain look of fright in her eyes were the only indications that it affected her at all. Somehow this change in her life associated itself in her ideas with Amanda’s proposal to render her of use—a proposal which she had received with more favour than any one else in the house; it had offended them all on her account, but it had not offended Innocent. She listened to all the descriptions which were given her of Miss Vane, her unknown relation, and of the pretty country which she was about to visit, and of the novelty and change which her aunt thought would do her so much good, with passive incomprehension. Novelty alarmed, it did not excite her; she wanted no change—but yet she was quite contented to be sent where they pleased; to do whatever they thought proper. She looked upon her visit as a very devout and enthusiastic believer looks—or is supposed to look—upon death; as an unknown and terrible event of which she could form no idea, but which would be soon over, and which it was absolutely the will of those who were as gods to Innocent that she should undergo “for her good.” Thus she allowed herself to be prepared for it with a mixture of fright and docility; everybody talked of it except herself, the heroine. Innocent’s visit was in every mouth except Innocent’s. She did not even form to herself any picture of what it would be like, as Nelly kept doing perpetually. She had no faculty for making pictures. Indeed, the peculiarity of Innocent’s organization began to centre chiefly in this point—that she had no imagination. It did not seem a moral want in her as it does in some people, so much as a wistful vacancy, a blank caused by some accident. No sort of cynic scorn of the imagination of others, such, as the unimaginative often show, was in her passive soul; but she followed the gaze of the eyes which could thus see into the unseen with a wistful look which was full of pathos.