“D—— Miss Vane,” said poor Batty, “d—— every one that comes in the way of what’s owed to my poor girl, my pretty darling. Oh, my ’Manda, my ’Manda! How shall I live when she’s gone? Look you here, Frederick Eastwood, I know most of your goings on. I know about that cousin. You shan’t step out of here, not to go after another woman, and the breath scarce out of my poor girl.”
“I must know where Innocent has gone,” cried Frederick, chafing at this restriction, yet moved by so much natural emotion as to hesitate before wounding the feelings of Amanda’s father. “I have little wish to go out, Heaven knows; but the poor child——”
“I will find out about the child,” said Batty; and Frederick did not escape till the night had come again, and he could steal out in the darkness to supplement the information which Batty’s groom managed to collect. Innocent had been seen by various people in her flight. She had been watched to the shadow of the Minster, and then to the railway, where nobody had seen her go into the train, but which was certainly the last spot where she had been. Frederick was discomposed by this incident, more perhaps than became a man whose wife had died the day before. He could not leave the house in which Amanda lay dead to follow Innocent; but in his mind he thought a great deal more of her than of his wife on the second night of his bereavement. Where was she—poor, innocent, simple-hearted child? He sent a messenger to the High Lodge, hoping she might be there. He felt himself responsible for her to his mother, to Miss Vane, to all who knew him. As it was Sunday, however, he had no means—either by post or telegraph—to communicate with his mother. He had to wait till morning, with burning impatience in his mind. Poor Innocent! how his heart warmed to the little harmless, tender thing, who had nestled to him like a child, who had always trusted him, clung to him, believed in him. Nothing had ever shaken her faith. Even his marriage, which had detached many of his friends from him, had not detached her. She had believed in him whatever happened. I have said that Frederick had always been kind to Innocent. It had not indeed always been from the most elevated of motives; her supposed love for him had pleased his vanity, and he had indulged himself by accepting her devotion without any thought of those consequences to her which his mother feared; he had, indeed, believed as firmly as his mother and her maids did, that Innocent was “in love” with him—and instead of honourably endeavouring to make an end of that supposititious and most foolish passion he had “encouraged” Innocent, and solaced himself by her childish love. But through all this vanity and self-complacency there had been a thread of natural affection, which was perhaps the very best thing in Frederick, during that feverish period of his life which had now suddenly come to an end. He had always been “fond of” his little cousin. Now this tender natural affection came uppermost in his mind. Real anxiety possessed him—painful questionings and suspicions. Where had she fled to in her terror? She was not like other people, understanding how to manage for herself, to tell her story, and make her own arrangements. And then there was the strange alarming fact, that though she had been seen to enter the railway station she had not gone away, so the officials swore, by any train, and yet had disappeared utterly, leaving no trace. It seemed natural enough to Frederick that she should have fled in terror at thus finding herself face to face with death. Neither aunty nor the maids had as yet sufficiently shaped their recollections to give a very clear idea as to the moment at which poor Amanda died, and no one knew how deeply Innocent was involved in that terrible moment. But yet no one wondered that she had “run away,” partly because the excitement of the great event itself still possessed the house, and partly because the girl’s abstracted visionary look impressed upon all vulgar spectators a belief that “she was not all there,” as the maids said. She was supposed to be a little “weak,” even at the High Lodge, where her piety had procured for her a kind of worship. That she should be driven wild by fright and should fly out of the house seemed no wonder to any one. Frederick lay awake all night thinking of her; he could not turn his thoughts to any other subject. How soon the mind gets accustomed to either gain or loss when it is final! Twenty-four hours before, his brain had been giddy with the awful thought that Amanda was dead, that the bonds of his life were broken, and that she who had been his closest companion, the woman he had loved and loathed, had suddenly and mysteriously departed from him, without notice or warning, into the unseen. The shock of this sudden interruption to his life had for the moment disturbed the balance of earth and heaven; in that terrible region of mystery between the seen and the unseen, between life and death, he had stood tottering, wondering, bewildered—for a moment. Now, after twenty-four hours, Amanda’s death was an old, well-known tale, a thing that had been for ages; it was herself who began to look like a shadow, a dream. Had she really been his wife, his fate, the centre of his life, colouring it wholly, and turning it to channels other than those of nature? Already this began to seem half incredible to Frederick—already he felt that his presence in Batty’s house was unnatural; that he was a stranger altogether detached from it and its disagreeable associations, waiting only for a point of duty, free from it henceforward for ever. He was there “on business” only, as any other stranger might be. And his whole mind was now occupied by the newer, more hopeful mystery, the fate of his cousin. Poor little Innocent! how sweet she had always been to him, how soothing in her truth and faith. Perhaps in the halcyon time to come, free of all the bonds which his folly had woven round him, might he not reward Innocent for her love? If he could only be sure she was safe—if he but knew where she was!
Early on the Monday morning he rushed to the telegraph-office to communicate with his mother, and ascertain if she had gone home. How he chafed at his bondage here, and that he could not go to satisfy himself, to secure the poor child’s safety! No one, however, who saw Frederick with his melancholy aspect passing along the street, had any suspicion that Amanda’s memory was treated with less “respect” than that of the most exemplary of wives. The village was full of the sad story, and people looked at him curiously as he passed. Poor fellow, how he seemed to feel it! and no doubt she was very pretty, and men thought so much of beauty. Frederick’s solemn aspect gained him the sympathy of all the villagers. They spoke more tenderly of Batty’s daughter when they saw the bereaved husband. No doubt it had been a love match on his side at least, and whatever her faults might have been it was dreadful to be taken so young and so sudden! Thus Sterborne murmured sympathetically as Frederick went to send off his telegram, with very little thought of his wife, and a burning impatience to escape from all her belongings, in his heart.
He went to the railway before he went back, to ask if any further information about Innocent had been obtained. The early train from town had just arrived, and to his astonishment he was met by his mother, looking very pale, anxious, and almost frightened, if that could be. “Mother, this is kind,” he cried, rushing up to her, touched for the moment by a sudden sense of the faithful affection that never failed him; and then he added hurriedly, “Innocent! is she with you? do you know where she is?”
“She is safe at home,” said Mrs. Eastwood, with a heavy sigh.
“Thank God!” he cried; and it did not occur to him that his mother did not share his thankfulness, and that the cloud on her face was more heavy than any he had before seen there through all her troubles.
CHAPTER XXXV.
MRS. EASTWOOD’S INVESTIGATION.
“I feel for you very deeply,” said Mrs. Eastwood. “It is a terrible calamity. Your child, whom you hoped would close your eyes, whom you never thought to see taken before you——”
“She was the apple of my eye,” said poor Batty, sobbing. Except when he stupefied himself with drink, or rushed into his business, and swore and raged at every one round him, which were the only ways he had of seeking a momentary forgetfulness, the man, coarse and sensual as he was, was tragic in his grief. “There was never one like her, at least to me. I do not say but she might have been faulty to others; but to her old father she was everything. I thank you from my heart for this respect. You mightn’t be fond of my girl, while she lived. I ask no questions. It was because you didn’t know her—how could you?—like I knew her, that have nursed her, and have doted on her from a baby; but thank you all the same for the respect. It would have gone to her heart—my poor ’Manda! Oh, ma’am, the beauty that girl was! I never saw anything to come nigh to her. Her temper was quick, always hasty, ready with a word or a blow—but always the first to come round and forgive those that had crossed her. My life’s over, my heart’s broken. I don’t care for nothing, horses nor houses, nor my garden, nor my bit of money—nothing, now she’s gone.”