“Because I do not like her,” said the girl steadily, not rejecting the blame.
“But, Innocent, though we may dislike people, we cannot destroy them—nor even their portraits,” said Nelly.
“No,” said Innocent, “but it would be better if she could be destroyed,” she added, speaking low.
“Hush,—hush,—why do you say so? She has not done anything wrong——”
Innocent made no immediate answer. Her face had changed from its wistful blank to an almost haggard look of sadness and pain. She turned away from Nelly, who was half angry and half sympathetic. The strange thing which they could not understand was, that she had no apparent anger against Frederick, or painful feeling towards him. She was not angry. A sinking sense of loneliness came over her when she thought of his departure, but no offence against him.—She was as ready as ever to go to him in the garden, to walk with him, to cling to his arm.—Once, even, she ventured to do what no one else did,—she remonstrated. This was within a few days of his marriage, when all opposition was stopped, and nobody made any attempt to change the inevitable. They had been walking up and down together for some time, he saying nothing, she to all appearances passive as usual,—when, quite suddenly, without any warning, she spoke.
“Frederick! I wish you would not marry.—Why should you marry and go away? I do not like her face. If I had known that you would go away, I should have stayed in Pisa. Cannot you give it up?—I do not like you to marry. Oh, stay with us, stay!”
Frederick had stared at her when she began,—now he burst into fits of unconquerable laughter. There was something insulting in its tone which touched some chord in Innocent’s nature. She went away from him without a word, and for days spoke to him no more.
CHAPTER XXV.
AFTER A YEAR.
It is impossible for any story, unless comprised within a very short space, to be written in full detail, and therefore I must beg the gentle reader to pardon me if I pass over a little more than a year, jumping over the marriage of Frederick Eastwood and all its attendant circumstances, which, indeed, was not pleasant to dwell upon. To make this event possible Mrs. Eastwood had to sacrifice a portion of her income, which she did with a pained and miserable sense of unwillingness. It would be impossible for anything to have been more repulsive or disagreeable to her than the marriage itself, and yet she had to subtract largely from her own living to render it possible. I cannot rightly tell why she did not resist this claim. It was partly, I think, out of horror at herself for being reluctant to sacrifice anything or everything to secure “the happiness” of one of her children—a fictitious motive, but one which had great force with her. The consequence was that old Brownlow, who had seen all the children grow up, and to whose services and lectures they had been used all their lives, had to be “put down” like the carriage. Mrs. Eastwood could no longer afford a costly and solemn butler; she laughed tremulously at the idea that this was a grievance, and declared aloud that she had always preferred having maids to wait at table. But it was a grievance, for Brownlow was an old and faithful servant, upon whom Mrs. Eastwood had relied much, and he married the cook, also a most important functionary in the house, and disordered the establishment from top to bottom. Nobody but the Molyneuxes thought the less of Mrs. Eastwood because the door at The Elms was now opened by a nice-looking maid; but they did note her descent in the social scale, and this was very irksome to her. Brownlow became the greengrocer of the district, and was always at hand round the corner among the beetroots and cabbages, ready to respond to any call, and to wait at all the dinner-parties; but still it was not the same thing as having a man in the house. No carriage and no butler! These things she had given up for Frederick, and what was she to give up for Nelly when the time came? The fact was, however, that Nelly would not allow the time to come. Things remained almost exactly in the same position as they had done at the beginning of this story, so far as Nelly was concerned. Ernest Molyneux still went and came, occasionally taking upon himself the aspect of son of the house, but quite as often making himself generally disagreeable, making speeches which were sharply sarcastic or ill-tempered, under the guise of civility, to Mrs. Eastwood, and torturing Nelly with heats and chills of feeling. He had taken no step to make the marriage possible in his own person. He was as idle as ever, lounging about his clubs and The Elms, interfering with all their arrangements, a man with nothing to do. Now and then he wrote an article in the Piccadilly or in the Daily Treasury, and thus kept up the character of being a literary man, and making a great deal of money by his writings. But his profession was just as much and as little to him as on the day when he had told Mrs. Eastwood that he would not press for an immediate marriage. He did not press for it now. He felt with all the clear-sightedness of personal extravagance how many disadvantages there would be in having to set up an establishment of his own, and felt that the changes involved would bring more discomfort than additional happiness. A little more of Nelly would be purchased somewhat dearly by the change in position, in money to spend, and in responsibility of every kind; and at present he could have a very sufficient amount of Nelly’s society without these attendant troubles. His father, for his part, held himself good-humouredly ready to “do as much as the other side,” whenever, as he said, Ernest and his young lady made up their minds, but in the meantime regarded the whole matter with a certain cynical amusement, watching the process by which, as he thought, “the old mother” staved off the moment when, along with her daughter, she would have to part with some of her money. “Knows the value of money, that future mother-in-law of yours,” he would say to Ernest, chuckling; “you don’t get it out of her so easily as you do out of me.” And this was Ernest’s own opinion. To get as much as he could out of her was clearly the principle on which he must go if he married. She was “the other side.”
This is, I suppose, a very common state of affairs, and one which is found existing everywhere; but it is difficult to describe the effect it produced in the house where a little while ago each believed himself and herself ready to give up anything or everything for the other, and in which there was but one heart and one aim. Mrs. Eastwood was driven from her old standing-ground altogether. She had no longer any faith in herself or her motives. She felt all the gentle security of well-doing, which had been in her life, to glide away from her. She was not willing, as she thought she had been, to denude herself for her children. Their desire to get as much as they could out of her, revolted her mind and chilled her heart. Frederick had left her in no doubt that this was his sentiment. And Nelly? Could Nelly be of the same mind? Oh, no, not Nelly! but, at least, Ernest, who was to be Nelly’s husband, who would take her from her mother, and no doubt persuade her to think with him—at least, when she was his wife. Mrs. Eastwood felt that the virtue upon which she had made her stand, the great principle of her life, no longer animated her, and she no longer believed in herself. She felt that her children were no longer wholly hers, but had become separate, and even antagonist powers thinking chiefly of themselves; and she ceased to believe in them. Thus her entire moral atmosphere was changed, the foundations of the very earth unsettled, the time put out of joint. She groped vainly for something to guide her out of the maze, and found nothing. Her comely face became full of anxious lines, and care crept over her like a cold shadow. This was how the changes, present and to come, in the family existence, affected its head.