“Oh, as for daring, I’m not afraid of you,” said Jenny calmly, “nor I don’t mind what I say.—What, a fellow that leaves you in that court by yourself,—a fellow that knows all about law and that sort of thing, and never offers help or advice,—that’s ready to come in and take the good of you when we’re all well at home—but can’t stand by you for a day when you’re in trouble!—By Jove!” cried Jenny, who was not addicted to expletives,—“a whipper-snapper of a fellow at the best, who is no more fit to be put by the side of John Vane than—I am! If you show yourself such a fool, Nelly, there’s nothing that was ever said about women so bad but I’ll believe it,—I’ll give you up for ever, you, and all the rest!—--”
Jenny took a turn round the little room at the end of this speech, to work off the vehemence of his feelings. But as for Nelly, all her spirit, all her self-will, all her sense of fun had died out of her. She tried to be angry and could not,—she tried to laugh and could not. Her heart ached with confused and complicated pangs of suffering. If I was to try to lay bare that mystery of diverse pain, the only readers who would follow me through it would probably be women who understand it without description. Nelly had not lived all this time between these two men without having been forced into the same way of thinking as her brother expressed so forcibly. She too had been compelled to admit to herself, by imperceptible degrees, first with a secret rage against Vane, with indignation at herself, with grief, with sore perception of a hundred minute points of difference which went to her heart, that the man whom she had supposed she loved was not the equal of the other man who loved her. How she had resisted and fought against this conviction! how she had struggled, bringing up before herself Ernest’s good qualities, his superior talents (and everybody knows that a man of genius cannot be bound by the same rules as other men), his greater youth, (for of course men become considerate as they grow older), and the influence of his family, which was not of an elevating kind; how by-and-by she had sunk into silence (with herself) on the subject, tacitly allowing Vane’s excellence, and falling back upon the main fact that he was not Ernest; until this last chapter of all, when her appeal to Ernest had been made in vain, when he had accepted her farewell, abandoned her side, left her without even a word of consolation during the trial,—when he had wounded her heart and outraged her pride and delicacy, and left no plea possible to be made for him, even by the most subtle advocate. The mere fact that he had been her accepted lover, that the dreams of the future had all woven themselves about him, that he had kissed her virgin lips, and held her virgin hand, was the only link which now bound Nelly, by one of the fantastic, unformulated laws of a girl’s code of honour, to Ernest Molyneux. This had been so; and to such a girl as Nelly Eastwood the bond so made was one which it was shame and torture to break, or to think of as having existed when once broken. All girls do not feel in this way; but then all girls are not alike, any more than all men are—which is a doctrine curious and strange, I am aware, to many critics. All these different pangs and griefs were surging through her mind as Jenny cut the knot of her hidden thoughts, and boldly broached the subject which she had not dared so much as to whisper a word of. And yet it had to be spoken about. Ernest had not even written to her; he had accepted the dismissal she had given him in her haste; and the fact must be made known and recognized. She made no answer for some time to Jenny’s tirade, but at last she burst forth piteously, in tones which he could not resist,—
“Oh, Jenny, tell me all you know; it is not from any weak wish—what I want is to know—Why did he come? and why did he not come here? What did he say? I will tell you everything there is to tell, if you will first tell me what you know!—--”
“Nelly, I hope you are not such a fool as you look,” said the boy severely. “I met him at the junction half way, where the train stops. He was going up, I was coming down. He said he had been to see how the trial was going on, that things looked rather bad, that I had better make haste with my doctor, that doctors were no good, for they would swear against each other through thick and thin, and that if we’d had our wits about us, we’d have packed Innocent off to Australia or somewhere, as soon as we knew, and that she’d never get over it nor any of us as long as she lived, if they acquitted her twenty times over. Then he gave me a nod and the train went off. It was a pleasant meeting,” said Jenny; “if it hadn’t been that I had the doctor to look after, and my head full of poor Innocent, and some thoughts of you, Nelly, if you can care for such a fellow—by Jove, I’d have dragged him out of the carriage window, and pitched him across the rails—it would have served him right.”
“Jenny, my dear boy,” said Mrs. Eastwood, coming in, “does not poor Innocent’s great misfortune show you the folly of such threats? I don’t know of whom you were speaking—but I am sure you didn’t mean what you say, whoever it was. Don’t say such things, dear. You wouldn’t hurt any one——”
“Wouldn’t I though!” cried Jenny, indignant. “You may trust me, mother, if I had the chance. If ever man deserved a good licking, it’s him.”
“Oh, Jenny, don’t!” said Nelly, in a sharp tone of pain.
The mother looked from one to the other. She did not ask any questions. I suspect the mystery was not so profound to her as poor Nelly had thought it.
“We have had enough of such talk,” she said. “Nelly, Miss Vane is to come for us at three o’clock, and Jenny’s train is still earlier. I wish we were all out of this place which has brought us nothing but misfortune——”
“I don’t call the Vanes misfortunes,” said Jenny.