“It is not only a man’s own comfort that is destroyed, but that of all his connexions,” said Molyneux; “everybody belonging to him suffers,” and he insisted once more very sharply on the duty of the mother to be “firm,” so strongly, indeed, that Mrs. Eastwood took offence, though she did not say anything direct on the subject.
“Ernest seems to be afraid that his connexion with us may do him harm in the world,” she permitted herself once to say to Nelly.
“Oh, mamma, why do you judge Ernest so harshly?” cried the poor girl. But Nelly, too, felt that if Frederick should marry the daughter of a country doctor, her own lover would be deeply annoyed; and she, too, was wounded and offended by this, though perhaps unreasonably. So many of the feelings which make our weal or woe are unreasonable, and not to be excused.
The household awaited Dick’s return with much anxiety. He came up by a very early train, with a cold in his head, and misanthropical tendencies generally. And Dick’s report was not such as made the family more happy.
“I met Frederick yesterday,” he said. “The fellow accused me of coming to spy upon him. I asked him how I was to know where he went to amuse himself in secret? I was at the Trevors’, where I had often been asked. He blessed me, and that was all; he dared not say any more. But wasn’t he in a rage! I did not feel very nice myself; for after all I was a kind of spy.”
“Indeed, I never thought of it in that light,” said his mother. “You went to find out something about Miss Batty—not to spy upon Frederick.”
“Oh, Miss Batty! Miss Batty!” cried Dick; the recollection took away his power of speech. “She is a big, fat, fleshy sort of a creature, with red cheeks, and fuzzy hair in her eyes,” said Dick, “a fringe of it hanging over her forehead, as you see some queer people in the streets; said forehead about an inch high, dimples in her fat cheeks, and that sort of thing. A figure like a feather-bed, with something tied round the middle to make a waist. Beautiful! if that is what you call beauty!”
Dick’s taste was towards the slim and slight. This was his way of representing all Juno or Rubens-like beauty. Amanda’s magnificent sweep of shoulder and limb, her splendid fulness, represented to him weight and fat, nothing more. I need not attempt to describe the cries of dismay with which his mother and sister received this description. Mrs. Eastwood gave a scream, when he came to talk of Amanda’s figure, and put her handkerchief to her eyes. As for Nelly, she took her brother by the shoulders and shook him, as much as it was in her power to do.
“You are not giving us a true account,” she said. “Mamma, don’t mind him; it is plain he likes tiny people best. Tell us the truth, you wicked boy, I am sure she is handsome; she must be handsome, even from what you say.”
“As you like,” said Dick; “it is all the same to me.”