Molyneux walked up and down the room in great impatience. He felt it was time to read a moral lesson to his future wife.
“I wish you would remember, dear,” he said, “that neither your life nor mine is to be limited by the walls of this house. You ought to think of something else beyond what’s going on here. And really I cannot see that the death of Frederick’s wife is much of an occasion for tears——”
“But Innocent was mixed up with it,” said Nelly timidly, with a feeling that he must know some time, that it would be better if he knew at once. “Innocent is—very ill—almost out of her mind——”
“Pshaw, Innocent!” he said; “if you open upon that chapter I shall go. I must warn you, Nelly, that I think you all make a great deal of unnecessary fuss over that girl.”
This was the result of poor Nelly’s faltering attempt to take her lover into her confidence. He went away shortly after, chafing at the folly of women; and she, poor girl, had a cry by herself in the dreary drawing-room before she went to share her mother’s vigil up-stairs.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
INNOCENT’S CONFESSION.
After this crisis there came a great lull. Innocent was ill. She lay for some weeks under the power of a mysterious disorder which was sometimes called low fever, and sometimes by other names. “She had no doubt received a shock,” the doctor said, when informed by Mrs. Eastwood to that effect, and this was about all that any one could say. But she was young, and she got better by degrees. They were all very good to her. By the time she was able to come down-stairs Frederick had returned home. He had let his little house in Mayfair, prudently making the best of his domestic calamity, and had gone back to live with his mother after his wife’s death, with a gentle melancholy about him which most people, or at least most ladies, found impressive. He had been unfortunate, poor fellow; his marriage had been a terrible mistake, but yet it was very sad and shocking to lose a beautiful young wife so suddenly—and his conduct was most becoming, all that could be desired in the circumstances. Frederick had a luck for coming well out of a bad business. He had taken his own way, and derived from that all the enjoyment procurable, and then Providence had taken the trouble to step in and deliver him from his wife, who could not but have been a hindrance to him in life. Frederick himself accepted very piously this explanation of affairs. I don’t know whether he went so far as to believe himself a favourite of heaven, but at heart he felt that he was lucky, very lucky; yet nevertheless he would talk about “my poor wife” now and then with touching pathos, and was very much sympathized with in some circles. On the whole, however, there can be no doubt that he was deeply thankful to find himself back again in The Elms with his career still before him, and no harm done, or at least no harm to speak of. Sometimes, it is true, softening thoughts of tenderness towards the beautiful creature whom he had supposed himself to love would cross his mind. But Amanda’s charm had lasted but a very short time, an incredibly short time considering the insane force of the passion which had swept him along to his marriage, and the momentary pangs of loss, which, I suppose, being human, he must sometimes have felt, were as nothing in comparison with the sense of relief and deliverance which came over him when he recalled with an effort the strange feverish episode of life which he had gone through since he left the familiar family home to which he had now returned. Sometimes he wondered if it had been real, or if it was only some strange dream more vivid than usual, so entirely did every trace of that episode pass away, and the old existence come back.
But I think, on the whole, Frederick was a more agreeable inmate since he had gone through this experience. He was not fundamentally improved by his troubles, but he was more civil and tolerant to others. His wife had treated him and his feelings with no consideration at all, and he had not found that treatment agreeable. Thus experience made up for him the want of that moral imagination, if we may use the word, which enables some of us to put ourselves in the places of others, and consider their feelings by nature. Frederick was as far as ever from any disposition to sacrifice what he cared for to anybody’s convenience—but in matters which he did not care for, he had, it must be allowed, gained a certain power of toleration, and had learned to think that the others might have wishes, and to respect them. He was pleasanter to have in the house, even Nelly acknowledged. Things went more smoothly in the re-united household. Brownlow came back again well pleased, restoring to the house a certain amount of dignity which it had lost; and to all of them Amanda and her brief reign began to appear like a feverish dream.
When Innocent came down-stairs, an invalid, thin and pale, with eyes that seemed to have grown to double their size, and with all that touching weakness which appeals to every good feeling of humanity, Frederick was very good to her. There was nothing he would not do for her gratification. He would stay at home in the evening, and give up other engagements in order to read to her. He would draw her chair from one place to another, and watch over her comfort. Would she soon get quite well? Would she ever be the same creature as before—the passive abstracted little soul, who lived in the midst of them without being of them? In many ways Innocent was changed. She no longer hung upon Frederick as she had once done. Her eyes did not go forth to meet him, her hand to grasp his. Indeed, at first she had been startled by his presence, which was unexpected by her, and had shrunk from him—a fact which piqued him deeply, when at last he found it possible to believe that Innocent was less desirous than usual of his society. She had not the skill to conceal this strange and incomprehensible state of feeling, and when his mother had endeavoured to explain to him that he too was inextricably associated in Innocent’s mind with the record of that night which had been the principal turning-point in her existence, Frederick did not like it. “Nonsense!” he had cried, with something of his old warmth; “What is it to her in comparison with what it must be to me? If I can bear it, surely she may be able to bear it. I did not think Innocent had been such a little fool.”
“She has strange ideas,” said Mrs. Eastwood, trembling as she spoke. “Sometimes I think her mind has been thrown a little off its balance. If she says anything strange to you about her own share in all that was done on that melancholy night, don’t treat her with ridicule, Frederick. Sometimes I do not know what to make of her. Sometimes she is very strange.”