“Indeed, I feel for you very deeply,” said Mrs. Eastwood, “and at her age, so young, it is doubly hard—and so unexpected.”
She recurred to this with a reiteration which was unlike her usual sympathetic understanding of others. There was an eager anxiety in her eyes when she suggested that Amanda’s death was unlooked for. Frederick sat by with a countenance composed to the woe of the occasion, and strangely impressed by the profound feeling in his mother’s face, watched her anxiously, but could not understand. What did she mean? Was she really so grieved for Amanda? Had the shock and pain of so sudden an ending really produced this profound effect upon her? or was she so conscious of the advantage which Amanda’s death would bring with it, that natural compunction made her exaggerate her expressions of sympathy? Frederick could not tell, but he watched his mother, wondering. There were circles of weariness and care round her eyes, and signs of suppressed and painful anxiety, and an eager watchfulness, which was incomprehensible to him, were visible in her whole aspect. She even breathed quickly, as with a feverish excitement, all the more painful that it was suppressed.
“I thought you were aware, mother,” he said, “that poor Amanda had been threatened for years with this which has happened now in so terrible a way. The doctors have always said——”
“The doctors, confound ’em!” cried Batty. “I beg your pardon, ma’am, but it’s hard for a man to keep his patience. They’re ready enough to talk, but what can they do, these fellows? Keep her quiet, they told me. My God! didn’t I do everything a man could do to keep her quiet, gave her all she wanted, never crossed her, let her have her way in everything! There is nothing I wouldn’t have done for my girl. She’d have had gold to eat and drink if that would have done it. I’d have took her anywhere, got her anything. But no. Ask ’em, and they tell you all that is unpleasant, but give you a way to mend it—no. They do it, I sometimes think, to make their own words come true. ‘She’ll go off one day, all in a moment,’ they said to me, years and years ago. Says I, ‘I’ll give you half I’ve got, all I’ve got, if you will make it so as this shan’t be.’ Trust them for that. They gave her physic and stuff, and shook their wise heads, and said she was to be kept quiet. What had keeping quiet to do with it? We’ve all quick tempers. I never could master mine myself, and how was she to be expected to master hers? From father to son and from mother to daughter, the Battys were always a word and a blow. I’d rather that a deal than your slow, quiet, sullen ones, that hides their feelings. No, you may say it was unexpected, for how was I to believe them? A bit of a flare-up never did me no harm. I never believed them. But now here’s their d——d artfulness—it’s come true.”
“And she knew it herself?” said Mrs. Eastwood, with searching, anxious gaze. “Oh, Mr. Batty, try and take a little comfort! It must have made her think more seriously than you suppose, if she knew it herself.”
Batty gave her a dull look of wonder from his tearful blood-shot eyes; and then he launched forth again into panegyrics upon his lost child. “She was none of your quiet, sullen ones—still water as runs deep. She said what she thought, did my ’Manda. She might be too frank and too open to please them as hide their thoughts, but she always pleased her father. There’s aunty, now, that was constantly with my girl, will tell you ’Manda was always the one to make it up; whatever was done or said, she was the one to make it up. She spoke her mind free, but it was over directly. You should have seen her when she was a bit of a girl; she’d ride anything you put her upon—till the doctors said it was bad for her. When she was a baby I used to grumble and wish for a boy; but I’d never have been as proud of a boy as I was of my beauty, when I saw what she was coming to. From fifteen there never was a man as saw her that wasn’t mad about her. Your son, here, ma’am, Fred, as she always called him, poor girl, was the one that had the luck to please her; I don’t know why, for many is the handsome fellow, titles and all that, I’ve had to send away. I’ve nothing to say against Fred, but she might have done a deal better. And now she’s gone, where there’s neither marrying nor giving in marriage. You are sorry for Fred, of course it’s but natural; but it isn’t half to Fred that it is to me. Give us your hand, my boy; I always look upon you as my son, for her sake—but it isn’t half the blow to you as it is to me.”
Frederick had started to his feet when he had heard himself first spoken of in this familiar fashion. The familiarity chafed him almost beyond endurance. He stood at the window, with his back towards his father-in-law, as Batty wept and maundered. Fiery rage was in Frederick’s mind. What had this man, this fellow, to do with him? a man with whom he had no relationship, no bond of connexion? He took no notice of the outstretched hand. When would those slow hours pass, and the time be over during which decency compelled him to endure his odious presence? What would he not give when it was all ended, when this horrible chapter in his life should be closed, and he himself restored to his natural sphere among his equals, restoring to his mother all the comforts which Amanda’s existence had diminished, and taking once more his natural place. How he longed suddenly, all at once, for his old home! He would never go back to the house which had been Amanda’s; he would sell everything, disperse everything that could remind him of this episode which, God be thanked, was over. Batty, though he stretched out his hand in maudlin affectionateness, was satisfied that Frederick had not observed the gesture, and did not resent the absence of response. But Frederick had seen and loathed the offered touch. The days that must pass perforce before he could finally cut the last lingering ties which decency required him to respect seemed to him an age.
“I should like to see the—the—excellent person who attended upon poor Amanda,” said Mrs. Eastwood, whose looks were still watchful and anxious, though a certain relief had stolen over her face. “Might I speak to her and thank her for her devotion—to my daughter-in-law?” she added, almost rousing Frederick from his own preoccupied condition by the astounding interest and sympathy she showed. What could she mean by it? When Batty, pleased by the request, went himself to call aunty, Frederick turned to his mother with something of his old peremptory and authoritative ways.
“You did not always seem so fond of your daughter-in-law,” he said.
“Oh, Frederick!” cried Mrs. Eastwood, with a depth of feeling which surprised him more and more. “I never wished her any harm. God forbid that I should have wished her any harm!”