“Nelly! Well, to do her justice, she is very different from Nelly,” said Frederick, with that natural depreciation of his sister which is also usual enough, and which was largely increased by Sunday-afternoonishness.
“No, indeed, she is not like Nelly, more’s the pity,” said Mrs. Eastwood, fortunately not detecting the injurious tone. “She is so shut up in herself that you can never tell what may be going on within her. I am sure you don’t mean it, Frederick, but sometimes I think, for Innocent’s own sake, it would be better if you were not quite so kind. I don’t like her waiting for you in the hall, and that sort of thing. There is no harm in it, I know—but I don’t like it. It is always an unpleasant thing to have ideas—which she would be better without—put into a girl’s head.”
“You are too mysterious for me to follow,” said Frederick. “What ideas? If you will be a little more plain in your definition——”
She was his mother, and thought she knew a great deal more than he did about life; but she blushed as red as a girl at this half-contemptuous question.
“Frederick, you know very well what I mean,” she said quickly, “and I hope you will not try to make me sorry that I have appealed to you at all. You may make Innocent more fond of you than will be good for her, poor child, and that can produce nothing but unhappiness. I am not finding fault, I am only warning you. Her I cannot warn, because she so shuts herself up. She is a mystery,” said poor Mrs. Eastwood, shaking her head.
“Whip her,” said Frederick, with a little scornful laugh; and he walked off to the library, where Dick was pretending to read, and really teaching Winks, who had been having a mauvais quart d’heure, and whose patience was so utterly exhausted that nothing but his regard for the family could have kept him from snapping. Winks made his escape when the door was opened, and rushed to the drawing-room, where nobody was allowed to insult his intellect by tricks. He came and sat up before his mistress on his hind legs, waving his feathery forepaws in expostulation. She understood him, which is consolatory alike to dogs and men. The tears had come into her eyes at the unkind scorn of Frederick’s tone, but this other complaint brought a little laughter and carried off the sharpness. “Yes, Winks, they are wicked boys,” she said, half laughing, half crying. Dick declared after that Winks had been “sneaking,” and I think the dog himself was a little ashamed of having told; but it did the mother good, and set her thinking of her Dick, who was not too bright, nor yet very industrious, but the honestest fellow!—and that thought made her laugh, and healed the little prick in her heart.
CHAPTER XVI.
INNOCENT’S FIRST ADVENTURE.
Innocent had remained quite unconscious that she was the subject of this conversation. She was still a little in doubt even of the words of a dialogue carried on by others. The quickness of utterance which strikes every one when hearing an unaccustomed language, the half completed phrases, the words half said, confused her mind, which was not equal to such a strain, and her want of interest in the matter limited her comprehension tenfold more. She sat with her profile marked out against the light, the line of the curtains falling just beyond her, the garden furnishing a vague background, until some time after Frederick had left the room. She had scarcely moved while she sat there; there was nothing to look at, nothing to occupy her, but that did not matter to Innocent. When Frederick was gone she, too, moved a little, and after a few minutes stole out and up-stairs like a ghost. She went to her room, stealing through Nelly’s, where her cousin was occupied about some of the little legitimate Sunday employments which a good English girl may permit herself on a rainy Sunday. Nelly made some little friendly observation, but Innocent glided past and closed the door upon her. Innocent, however, had nothing to do; she sat down by the fireplace, where, Mrs. Eastwood being extravagant in this particular, there burned a cheery little fire. But the fire was no comfort to her. So far as she had any feeling at all, she disliked the warm little room, with all its cushions and curtains, and its position so close to her cousin’s. Now and then she thought of the cold and bare rooms at the Palazzo Scaramucci, so large and empty, and lonely, with something like a sigh. Her life there, which was so void of any interest, so blank and companionless, came back upon her as if it had been something better, more natural than this. There no one bade her talk, bade her do anything; no one cared what she was about. She might stand for hours at the window, looking out, and no one would chide her or ask why she did so. Books and music, and such perplexing additions to life, had no existence there: and in Pisa there was room enough to move about, and air enough to breathe. With the help of a scaldino, and the old velvet cloak, which she kept in her box now, she had been able to keep the cold at bay; but here she grew drowsy over the fire, and had no need for her cloak. There too she might do what she pleased, and no one ever said Why?—no one except Niccolo, who did not matter. Whereas now she could not go in or out of her room without being observed, without having somebody to peep at her and to say, “Ah, it is you.” What did it matter who it was? If people would but let her alone! I do not know how long she had been alone, shut up in the little room, when Nelly knocked at the door. During the short time since Innocent’s arrival Nelly had gone through a great many different states of mind respecting her. She had been eager, she had been sympathetic, she had been sorry, she had been angry, and then she had recommenced and been sympathetic, sorry, and indignant again. The only thing Nelly could not do, though she advised her mother with great fervour to do it, was to let the stranger alone.
“Leave her to herself, mamma,” Nelly said with precocious wisdom, “let us have patience, and by and by she will see that we mean her nothing but good, and she will come to herself.”
This was admirable advice if Nelly herself could only have taken it. But she could not; a dangerous softness would come over her at the very height of her resolution. She would say to herself, “Poor Innocent, how lonely she must be!” and would go again and commit herself, and endeavour in another and yet another way to melt the unmeltable. On this Sunday she had begun the day very strongly in the mind that it was best to leave Innocent alone; but the sight of the pale girl gliding past, escaping to her solitude, shutting herself up alone, was too much for Nelly. The soft-hearted creature resisted her impulse as long as possible, and then she gave in. Surely this time there must be an opening somehow to the shut-up heart. She knocked softly at the closed door, which, indeed, Innocent had almost closed upon her. “May I come in?” she said softly. It was not easy to make out the answer which came reluctantly from within; but Nelly interpreted it to mean consent. She went in and sat down by the fire, and began to talk. It was before her engagement, and she had not that one unfailing subject to excite Innocent’s interest upon, if that were possible; but she chattered as only a well-conditioned good-hearted girl can do, trying to draw the other from her own thoughts. Then she proposed suddenly an examination of the house. “You have never been over the house, Innocent; come, there is no harm in doing that on Sunday. There is a whole floor of attics over this, and the funniest hiding-holes; and there are some curiosities which, if we only could find room for them, are well worth seeing. Are you fond of china, or pictures? Tell me what you like most.”