A swift calculation passed through Mrs. Eastwood’s mind—was it better to keep this dangerous knowledge within her own reach, where she could prevent its evil use, or try to prevent it? or, on the other hand, would Jane be safer within the steady grasp of Sir Alexis, who would stand between Innocent and harm? It was a difficult question to settle in a moment. Mrs. Eastwood leaped at the more generous decision; she took the burden on herself.
“I have no wish to part with you,” she said, diplomatically; “but if you want to better yourself, to try another kind of place, I shall be glad to let you try how you can get on with Miss Ellinor at home. For Lady Longueville, I should like a person of more experience to begin with. You can speak to my daughter about it, if you please.”
“But, ma’am,” Jane was beginning, pertinaciously.
“No more just now—I am busy. After the wedding I shall have more time,” said Mrs. Eastwood. But this interview gave her another ache in her heart.
All these things concurred to make the wedding day a painful one. As the family were in mourning, and as the wedding had been so quiet, they had excused themselves from any further festivities in the evening: and who does not know how dismal is the languid close of the day, when all is over, after the excitement of the morning, and of the busy days preceding, when there was so much to do? Dick sauntered about the garden with his wedding favour still on his coat, shedding bits of wedding-cake all over his path, which Winks, following at his heels, condescended to pick up, though Winks had not approved of the wedding any more than the rest of the family. Winks had never had any opinion of Sir Alexis. A connoisseur, fond of art, of dainty furniture, and fine gardens, has seldom much sympathy with the four-footed visitor, whose appreciation of the finest collection is generally somewhat contemptuous, to say the least. Winks retired to a corner when Sir Alexis visited The Elms. He declined to take any notice of him. “He is not in my style,” the little cynic said very plainly; and he retired from his usual leading part in the family life while this objectionable visitor remained. Other events that day had combined to derange Winks’s temper, and wound him in his tenderest feelings. Mr. Justice Molyneux (for the Q.C. was now a Judge) had attempted to give him a kick in the hall, where Winks was contemplating the arrival of the guests with much dignity; Mrs. Everard had trodden on the flowing fringes of his tail; he had been hustled out of his favourite chair, and interfered with in all his usual habits. Winks was very tolerant when this sort of thing happened in the evening. He accepted the fact of a ball with a certain benevolent interest, and wagged his tail condescendingly at the young people, bidding them enjoy themselves, before he went off on three feet, like the philosopher he was, to enjoy tranquillity in the one comfortable chair in the library, congratulating himself that dogs do not dance. But a ball, or something like a ball, in the morning was a mystery to Winks. He thought he had got rid of all that crowd of unnecessary people when they went off to the church; but to see them come back in full daylight, not twelve o’clock, and fill the room once more, was beyond the endurance even of a philosopher. He was so far disturbed out of his ordinary calm as to bark indignantly when the bride and bridegroom went away, and a few of the livelier spirits in the party, headed by Dick, threw old shoes after them. Winks read Dick a lecture on the subject afterwards. He looked at him with a mixture of reproach and contempt, as he stood in the hall, with his hands full of old slippers. He was too much disgusted even to follow his young master back into the house when the carriage drove away, but shook his head and marched off round the side walk into the garden, feeling that such absurdity was not to be borne. I cannot quite explain how it was that he condescended to pick up the bits of wedding-cake; perhaps with a thrifty idea that it was best they should not be lost; or perhaps he was satisfied that Dick was ashamed of himself, and saw the familiar book in his pocket which was Dick’s signal-flag and intimation to all concerned that he had returned to the duties of ordinary life.
“It was fun, though, by Jove, to see that old slipper with the high heel hit Longueville on his old nose,” Dick said with a laugh, as he held up a larger bit of cake than usual; and Winks, mollified, grinned in acknowledgment of the joke. He made one round of the garden after the cake was finished, to show that he was not mercenary, and then trotted indoors, where, providentially, all was now quiet. The family were assembled in the drawing-room, where, though the chairs and tables had been put in their usual places, there was still an air of excitement, and a sentiment of disorder. Winks came in and set himself down in front of the fire, and looked at them all. “What do you think of your handiwork now it is finished?” he seemed to say, severely, looking at his mistress, curling up one black lip over his white teeth; he would not condescend to wag his tail.
“Oh, Winks, don’t look so diabolical,” said Nelly, trying to laugh; perhaps it was as good a way of relieving her feelings as crying would have been.
“Don’t sneer, you brute!” cried Jenny, indignant. Winks fixed upon them all a look of contemptuous disapproval, and then trotted off to a chair at the window. They were not even amusing in their exhaustion—he preferred his own company to theirs.
After a while Jenny followed Winks’s example.
“What a bore a wedding is,” he said, stretching himself, “in the morning, leaving one’s afternoon on one’s hands. I shall go out for a walk till dinner.”