“No.”
“Nor learned anything? But you must have had some resources; you must be able to do something? Needlework at least, or tapestry, or something to amuse yourself with? You must have been very lonely in your papa’s time, as I hear he never saw any one. And you could not sit all the day with your hands before you; you must have been able to do something?” Mrs. Drainham cried, impressed almost against her will by the silence of her companion.
“I can read,” said Innocent.
“And no more? I hope your aunt, Mrs. Eastwood, is well off. It would be dreadful indeed if your relations were not well off. Girls in your position frequently have to go out as governesses. I don’t want to be unkind; but, my dear, it is for your advantage that you should look your circumstances in the face. Most girls of your age (you are past sixteen?) would have thought of that already. Suppose, for instance, that you were compelled to try and work for your own living. Now, what would you do?”
The suggestion was so strange that Innocent lifted her eyelids, and turned a wondering look upon her questioner; but apparently perceiving that nothing was to be made of it, cast them down again, with a slight shrug of her shoulders, and made no reply. “Why should I take the trouble to talk?” she seemed to say, which was not very civil to Mrs. Drainham, nor encouraging to that lady’s benevolence, it must be allowed.
“You never thought of that view of the matter?” said the persevering woman. “But you ought to think of it. Few people, unless they are very rich, are disposed to take all the responsibility of a girl like you. They might help you, and be kind to you; but they would most likely think it was right and best that you should contribute at least to your own support.”
“I do not know what you mean,” said Innocent looking at her with mingled wonder and resentment. She pushed away her little tray from her, and in sheer bewilderment took up the scaldino, putting it in her lap, and holding her hands over it. This was another thing upon which the doctor’s wife, as she herself avowed, could not look with any toleration. She made a little gesture of distress, as if she would have put it away.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, my dear, don’t let me see you with that odious thing on your knee! An English girl keeps her hands warm with doing something or other. You will find nothing of that sort in England. There your time will be all filled up in a rational way. There is always something going on, and you will find no time to nurse your hands in your lap. Of course, there is a great deal that will be very novel. Put down that scaldino, dear. I can’t bear to see you with it. It is such an odd thing for an English girl to do.”
“Am I an English girl?” said Innocent dreamily. She did not respond to what was said to her. “She never gives you a reasonable answer,” Mrs. Drainham said afterwards, with an impatience for which it was not difficult to account.
It was just then that the tinkling bell at the door pealed, and Niccolo after some parley admitted a stranger. Niccolo recognized the name at once, though no English visitor could have recognized it had he heard it from Niccolo’s lips. “Signor Estvode,” he said, looking in at the door, and pausing, with the true instinct of an Italian servant, to watch the effect of the announcement. Innocent started to her feet, in her haste, dropping instinctively from her shoulders her old velvet mantle, and Mrs. Drainham sat and stared with genuine British composure, without any thought of politeness. Frederick came in, looking (as he was) something of an invalid still. He was pale; he had that look of convalescence we have already referred to on his interesting countenance. He came forward, holding out both his hands to the girl, who stood devouring him with her eyes, which for once were fully opened. She could not say anything; she could scarcely breathe. Many speculations had crossed her mind as to the kind of messenger who might arrive. This young man, looking not unlike one of the heroes of her dreams, pale, melancholy, yet smiling, holding out his hands to her, made such a sudden lodgment in the girl’s inexperienced heart as I can neither define nor account for. The chances are that his mother, who was much kinder than Frederick, would have made no impression at all upon Innocent. She looked at him with her eyes all aglow and shining, with a sudden glad contraction and then expansion of her heart. She put down the scaldino, and went a step forward. “You are my little cousin,” said Frederick, in a voice which the natural impulse of kindness and the pleasant sense of beneficence made melodious. He looked at her with no criticism in his eyes, rather with admiration and pleasure. The girl paused all aglow, on tiptoe, her sudden impulse betraying itself in every line of her slim figure. Then she obeyed that impulse, poor, forlorn child. She threw herself forward, took the outstretched hands, and bent down and kissed them in her pretty Italian way. “Yes, I am Innocent,” she said; “oh, take me away! take me away!”