“Poor child!” said Ernest, “I like that. She has just made one of the best matches going, and got herself established as very few girls do, I can tell you. She has carried her innocence to an excellent market, Nelly. I don’t see why her fortunes should call forth so much sympathetic discussion, especially between you and John Vane. I detest the fellow, putting himself forward on all occasions. Who wants his interference, I should like to know?”
“I do!” cried Nelly, bravely, “and so does mamma. He is the only one of her relations who has taken any interest in Innocent. We should both be distressed beyond measure if he did not interfere.”
“Confound Innocent!” said Molyneux, under his breath. “Why there should be all this fuss about a half-witted girl is more than I can say; especially now, when she is off your mother’s hands, Nelly. Our own affairs are more interesting to me.”
“Yes, clearly,” Nelly said to herself, “a lover is very different. What he wants is to have you to himself, not necessarily to please you;” but she suppressed the retort which rose to her lips. She had no desire, however, to prolong her dance, or to go out to the conservatory, or even the staircase, where Dick was in Elysium, and which she herself on other occasions had found very pleasant. “I would rather go to mamma,” she said. “We are both tired, and I think we must go early. A wedding is a very fatiguing business.”
“A wedding is a very tiresome business, especially if one never hears the end of it,” said Ernest, and he left Nelly by her mother’s side with considerable dudgeon. Though poor Nelly had explained it all to herself so philosophically, and had even felt herself flattered by her own definition of the peculiarities of a lover, she could have cried as she sat down by her mother. She was prettily dressed, and her eyes were bright, and altogether her aspect was such as to justify Mrs. Barclay’s plaudits, who declared her, if not the prettiest, at least one of the very prettiest girls present; but if she could have cried with vexation and mortification and chill disappointment, it would have done her all the good in the world. Instead of crying, however, she had to smile, and to look pleased when Mrs. Barclay brought some new piece of emptiness up to her with a simper on its countenance and a flower in its coat. “You must not really go yet. I cannot have Nelly carried off in the midst of the fun,” said Mrs. Barclay, “how can you be so hard-hearted?” and Nelly’s mother had to smile too, and yield. Such things, I suppose, will happen at balls everywhere, now and then, till the end of the world.
After this great event there followed another lull—a lull of strange calm and quiet, almost incomprehensible to the family after the curious interval of suppressed excitement through which they had passed, and which seemed to have made an atmosphere of secrecy and mystery congenial to them. Jenny returned to Oxford; Dick, who was approaching his final examination, was once more kept to his work by every one in the house with a zeal which his mother, who began now to feel the separation approaching, felt almost cruel, though, moved by stern force of duty, she herself was foremost in the effort. The only comfort in the matter Dick himself felt was, that after this there would be no more Exams.—a fond hope in which, as the better-instructed reader knows, a Competition Wallah, with all the horrors of Tamil and Telugu before him, would soon discover himself to be disappointed. In the meantime an additional torment was added to him, in being recommended by everybody who “took an interest” in his success, to read books about India in the few leisure hours which hitherto had been dissipated by the aid of Mr. Mudie. Dick did not object to “Tara: a Mahratta Tale;” but he kicked at the history and travels in India which Mrs. Everard disinterred from her shelves for his benefit. “I shall make out all about it when I get there,” he said, piteously. “Why should a fellow be compelled to remember every hour of the day that he is going to India? I shan’t have home so very much longer. You may let me have a little peace as long as I am here.” At this speech the tears would mount to Mrs. Eastwood’s eyes, and Winks would come down from his favourite chair, and place himself before Dick, and wag his tail sympathetically. When Dick continued—“Confound India! I wish it was at the bottom of the sea,” Winks sat up solemnly and waved his feathery forepaws at his young master. What he meant by this last proceeding—whether to entreat him not to be too pathetic, or to mock satirically at his self-pity—no one knew; there are moments of mystery in all characters of any depth; some men are angry when they are in trouble—some fictitiously gay when they are angry. All that can be said is, that Winks expressed his feelings thus when his sympathy got beyond the reach of ordinary expression, and the effect upon Dick, at least, was always soothing and consolatory. “I won’t, old fellow, since you make such a point of it,” he would say; and then Mrs. Eastwood would laugh to hide her crying. In this way Winks found his way to the very depths of their hearts, becoming a creature of domestic emotion, half humorous, yet all-penetrating in its pathos.
Other matters, too, besides Dick’s training began to ripen towards a crisis. Mr. Justice Molyneux had, as has been said, gained that elevation which all his friends had foreseen for him, and the family had proportionally risen in importance, and it had become a matter of general remark among the friends of both parties that the engagement between Nelly and Ernest had lasted quite long enough. “What are they waiting for?” everybody said. Most people had a high opinion of the young man’s powers, if he could only be prevailed upon to set to work. His articles in the Piccadilly were a proof that he could express himself as forcibly and much more elegantly than his father, who in his day had been a perfect master of the British jury, and whose summings-up were now cited as models of clear-headedness—not elegant—the judge had never gone in for elegance—but forcible and clear in the highest degree. The son of such a father, with the powers which Ernest was known to possess, and with all the advantages derived from his position, could not fail to have a fine career before him. “What are they waiting for?” Mr. Parchemin, who was Mrs. Eastwood’s financial adviser, one day took upon him to say, “These long engagements are always doubtful things, but sometimes there may be occasion for them—a clergyman, for instance. But in this case there seems no reason. You must pardon me for my plain speaking, as I have always taken an interest in Nelly. But what are they waiting for?”
“I suppose,” said Mrs. Eastwood, who was sore on this subject, “till Mr. Molyneux has fairly entered upon his career.”
“His career! My dear madam, a career does not come to such a man. He must go and look after it,” said Mr. Parchemin. “I should have offered my services—any little interest I have with the solicitors—long ago, if I had not thought it quite unnecessary in the cause of his father’s son.”
“I am afraid I cannot interfere,” said Mrs. Eastwood. “I don’t wish to get rid of my daughter.”