“You know, I suppose, that my girls will have no money, Rochford?”
“Sir!” cried the lover, with a burst of pent-up breath which seemed to carry away with it the burden of a whole lifetime of care from his soul.
“They will have no money. I am a poor man, and have always been so all my life. If you have not known that before you will have to know it now in your capacity (as you say) of the Penton man of business. To keep up Penton will tax every resource. We shall be rather poorer, my wife thinks, than we have been at the Hook; and as for the girls—”
“Do you mean that that’s all?” cried the young man. “You don’t make any—other objection? What do you think I’m made of? I don’t want any money, Sir Edward. Money! when there is Miss Penton—Ally, if I may call her so. How shall I ever thank you enough? I have plenty of money; it’s not money I want, it’s—it’s—”
Words failed him: he stood and swung Sir Edward’s hand, who looked not without a glow of pleasurable feeling at this young fellow who beamed with gratitude and delight. It is never unpleasant to confer so great a favor. This had not been generally the position in which fate had placed Edward Penton. It had been usually the other way. He had received few blessings, even from the beggars, having so little to give; but an emperor could not have conferred a greater gift than his daughter, a spotless little princess of romance, a creature altogether good and fair and sweet. He felt the water come into his eyes out of that simple sense of munificence and liberal generosity. “I think,” he said, “you’re a good fellow, Rochford, and that you’ll be good to little Ally. She’s too young for anything of the kind, but her mother sees no objection. And she ought to know best.”
Thefamily of Penton Hook took possession of the great house of Penton in the spring. It need scarcely be said that there were endless consultations, discussions, committees of ways and means of every imaginable kind before this great removal was accomplished. Lady Penton’s first visit to her new home was one which was full of solemnity. It was paid in much state, a visit of ceremony, greatly against the wish of both of the visitors and the visited, before the Russell Pentons withdrew from the great house.
“We must go to bid them good-bye,” Sir Edward said. “We must not fail in any civility.”
“Do you call that civility? She will hate the sight of us. I should myself in her place,” Lady Penton cried.
But he had his way, as was to be expected. They drove to Penton in the new carriage, which Lady Penton could not enjoy for thinking how much it cost, behind that worthy and excellent pair of brown horses, more noted for their profound respectability and virtue than for appearance or speed, which Sir Edward had consented to buy with some mortification, but which his wife approved as a pair, without much knowledge of the points in which they were defective. He knew that Russell Penton set them down as a pair of screws at the first glance; but Lady Penton, who had never possessed a pair of horses before, was quite impervious to this, and appreciated the grandeur, though never without a pang at the cost. But the sight of the great drawing-room overwhelmed the visitor. The firstcoup d’œilof the beautiful, vast room, with its row of pillars, its vast stretches of carpets, its costly furniture, so stupefied her that the sight of Mrs. Russell Penton herself in her deep mourning, and that look of injured majesty of which she could not, with all her efforts, divest herself, failed to produce the effect which otherwise it must have had. Lady Penton had fully intended to take no notice, to banish if possible from her face all appearance of curiosity or of the natural investigation which a first visit to the house which was to be her own would naturally give rise to; but shecould not quite conceal the startled dismay of her first glance—a sentiment which was more agreeable to the previous mistress of the house than any other would have been. It was not very amiable, perhaps, on the part of Mrs. Russell Penton, to be pleased that her successor should thus be overwhelmed by the weight of the inheritance—but perhaps it was natural enough.
It was not possible that the conversation should be otherwise than restrained and difficult. Russell Penton, as usual, threw himself into the breach. He entered into a lively description of their plans of travel.
“We both of us love the sunshine,” he said; “England is the noblest of countries, but she is far away from the center of warmth and light. There is no saying how far we may go southward before we come back.”
“But you were always fond of home, Alicia,” said (this being, of course, as all his companions remarked, the very last thing that ought to have occurred to him to say) the new proprietor of Penton.
“Home, I suspect,” she said, in her formal way, “is more where one chooses to make it than I have hitherto thought.” And then there was a pause.
“The weather will be quite delightful by this time in Italy, I suppose,” said Lady Penton, timidly. “I have never traveled at all; we have never had it in our power; but it seems as if it should always be fine there.”
“It is not, though. There is no invariable good weather,” said Russell Penton. “It generally turns out to be exceptional, and just as bad as what you have left, wherever you go.”
He had forgotten his little flourish of trumpets about the sunshine; and again they all sat silent, gazing at each other for a few terrible moments, asking each other on each side, Why did they come? and, Why did we come?
“The river has kept in tolerable bounds this year,” said Russell Penton, catching at a new subject; “no doubt because we have had less rain than usual. Come to the window, and let me show you the view.” He led Lady Penton to the further end of the room, where a side window commanded the whole range of the river, with the red roofs of Penton Hook making a spot of warm color low down by the side of the stream. “I am glad you see itbefore anything is disturbed,” he said; “an empty house is always a sight of dismay.”
“Oh, I wish it were never to be disturbed at all!” cried the poor lady; “I feel a dreadful impostor—an usurper—as if we were taking it from its rightful owner. It is all so suitable to her, and she to it,” she continued, casting an alarmed, admiring look to where the mistress of the house sat, an imposing figure, all crape and jet, like a queen about to abdicate, but not with her will.
“Yes, for she has made it all,” said the Prince Consort of the place; “but so will it be suitable to you when you have re-made it, Lady Penton; and if it is any consolation to you to know, I shall be a much happier man out of this house. After awhile I believe everything will be brighter for us both. But don’t let us talk of that. We have all had enough of the subject. Tell me what you are going to do about Mab, who has fallen so deeply in love with you all.”
“She is a dear little girl,” said Lady Penton. “I have asked her to come and pay us a long visit.”
“That is very kind; but pray remember that it would be still kinder to her to let her be with you as she wishes. She has more money than a little girl ought to have. It will be good and kind in every way.”
Lady Penton shook her head as he went on talking. Some people are proud in one way and some in another. She did not think much of Mab’s money. She was ready to open her heart to the orphan girl, but not to profit by her. They stood in the window with the great landscape before them, and the great room behind, which was too splendid even for that chiffonier; and involuntarily Lady Penton’s mind went back to that overwhelming question of the furniture, which was so much more important than little Mab and her fortune. To think of bringing anything from the Hook here! The chairs and tables would be lost even if they were not so shabby. Nothing would bear transplanting but the children, “And you can’t furnish a house with children,” she said, ruefully, to herself.
“Your wife no doubt will alter everything,” said Mrs. Russell Penton, following the other pair with her eyes.
“How could you think so, Alicia? It shall be altered as little as possible. Everything that belongs to the past is as dear to me as to you.”
“I said your wife,” said Alicia. And then she added, “No doubt she would like to go over the house.”
“She wishes nothing, I am sure, that would vex you,” Sir Edward said.
“Vex! I hope I have not so little self-command. The place has become indifferent indeed to me. It was dear by association, but now that’s all ended. One ends where another begins. I can only hope, Edward, that your branch of the family will be more fortunate—more—than ours have been.”
“Thank you, Alicia. I hope that you may be very happy, Russell and you. He’s as good a fellow as lives; and I’m sure, a delightful companion to be alone with.”
“Are you recommending my husband to me?” she said, with one of those smiles which made her cousin, whose utterances certainly were very inappropriate, shrink into himself. “Don’t you think I ought to know better than any one what a delightful companion he is? And I hear you are to have a marriage in your family. Harry Rochford will, I hope, prove a delightful companion too.”
“He is a good fellow,” said poor Sir Edward, able to think of no more original phrase. “He is not quite in the position a Penton might have looked for—”
“Oh,” she cried, hastily, “what does that matter?—there are Pentons and Pentons. And your daughter, Edward—your daughter—”
“I am sorry you don’t think well of my daughter, Alicia.”
“I never said so. She is very pretty and what people call sweet. I know no more of her; how could I? I was going to say she looked unambitious. And against Harry Rochford there is not a word to be said. Don’t you think your wife would like to see over the house?”
This is how they parted, without any warmrapprochement, though Alicia, with her usual consciousness of her own faults and her husband’s opinion, involuntarily condemned every word she herself said, and everything she did, while she almost forced Lady Penton from one room to another, each of which filled that poor lady with deeper and deeper dismay. But, notwithstanding this secret current of self-disapproval, and notwithstanding the certainty she had of what her husband felt on the subject, there was a certain stern pleasure in bidding her supplanters good-byeon the threshold of the house that was still her own; dismissing them, so to speak, for the last time from Penton with a keen sense of the despondency and discouragement with which they went away. She took notice of everything as she did them that unusual honor, which was an aggravation under the circumstances, of accompanying them to the door; of the pair of screws—of the absence of any footman—and, still more, of the depressed looks of the simple pair. All these things gave her a thrill of satisfaction. Who were they, to be the possessors of Penton? They did not even appreciate it—did not admire it—thought of the expense! But she went upstairs again with her husband following her, feeling more like a culprit, a school-boy who is expecting a lecture, than it was consistent with Alicia’s dignity to feel. Russell did not say anything, but he showed inclinations to whistle, as it were, under his breath.
“I am very glad this is over,” she said.
“So am I,” he replied.
“I know what you think, Gerald—that I ought to be more sympathetic. In what way could I be sympathetic? She is buried in calculations as to how they are to live here; and he—”
“I respect her calculations,” said Russell Penton. “It is a dreadful white elephant to come into the poor lady’s hands.”
“And yet you scarcely concealed your pleasure when it passed away from me—to whom it has always been a home so dear.”
“I never stand on my consistency, Alicia. I am glad and sorry about the same thing, you see. I am sorry that you are sorry to go away, yet I can’t help being glad that you are freed from the bondage of this place, which has been a kind of idol to you all; and I am glad they have it, yet sorry for poor Lady Penton and her troubled looks. When we go away from Penton I shall feel as if we were starting for our honey-moon.”
“Don’t say so, Gerald—when you think how it is that this has come about.”
“It has come about by a great grief, my darling, yet a natural one—one that could not have been long averted. And I hope you don’t object Alicia, now that you have fulfilled your duty to the last detail, that your husbandshould be glad to have you more his own than Penton would ever have permitted you to be.”
She accepted the kiss he gave her, not without a sense of the sweetness of being loved, but yet with a consciousness that when he spoke of her fulfilling her duty to the last detail he implied a certain satisfaction having got rid of that duty at last. She knew as well as he did, with a faint pleasure mingling with many a thought of pain and some of irritation, that this setting out together was indeed at last their real honey-moon, in so far as that consists of a life together and alone.
Lady Penton returned very grave and overwhelmed with thought to the shelter of those red roofs at the Hook which made so picturesque a point in the landscape from Penton. She did not make any response to the children who rushed out in a body to see the parents come home, to admire the pair of screws, and the new carriage. She went into the drawing-room and gazed long upon the chiffonier, measuring and gauging it with her eye from every side. It had, as has been said, a plate-glass back, and it was inlaid, and had various brass ornaments entitling it to the name of ormolu. She touched its corners with her hand lovingly, then shook her head. “Not even the chiffonier will do for Penton,” she said; “not even the chiffonier!” Nothing else could have given the family such an idea of the grandeur of the great house, and their own grandeur to whom it belonged, as well as of the saddening yet exhilarating fact that everything would have to be got new.
“Well, my dear,” said Sir Edward, “we must make up our minds to that, for to tell the truth, though you were always so pleased with that piece of furniture, I never liked it much.”
He never liked it much! Lady Penton turned a reproachful glance upon her husband; it was as if he had abandoned a friend in trouble.
“Edward,” she said, with a tone of despair, “if this will not do, nothing will do—nothing we have. I had given up the carpets and curtains, but I still had a fond hope—I thought that one side of the room, at any rate, would be furnished withthat; but it would be nothing in the Penton drawing-room—nothing! And if that won’t do, nothing will do.”
“My dear,” Sir Edward said—he planted himself veryfirmly on his feet, with the air of Fitzjames, in the poem, setting his back against the rock—“my dear,” he repeated, looking round as who should say,
“Come one, come all, this rock shall flyFrom its firm base as soon as I:”
“Come one, come all, this rock shall flyFrom its firm base as soon as I:”
“Come one, come all, this rock shall flyFrom its firm base as soon as I:”
“I have thought of all that; and I have something to propose. You must not take me up in a hurry, but hear me out. We are all very fond of Penton Hook; but we can’t live in two houses at once.”
“Especially when they are so close to each other,” cried Anne, instinctively standing up by him. “I know what father means.”
She was the only one whose mind was disengaged and free to follow every new initiative. Ally was altogether occupied by her new prospects, and Walter, though he did his best to resume his old aspect, was still too much absorbed in those that were past. Anne alone was the cheerful present, the to-day of the family, ready to take up every suggestion. She stood up by her father womanfully and put her arm through his. “I am with you, father—though I’m not of much account,” she said.
Lady Penton withdrew her regretful gaze from her chiffonier. She did not, to tell the truth, expect any practical light about the furniture from her husband, who was only a theorist in such matters, or the enthusiast by his side; but she was a woman of impartial mind, and she would not refuse to listen. She turned her mild eyes upon the pair.
“Well, then,” said Sir Edward, “this is what I am going to propose: that I should let the Hook as it stands—poor old house, it is shabby enough, but in summer it will always bring a fair rent. Take away nothing; the chiffonier shall stand in all its glory, and you can come back and look at it, my dear, from time to time. And look here, it is no use straining at a gnat; we must make up our minds to it. As soon as my cousin goes we must write to Gillow or somebody—who is the best man?—to go in at once to Penton and furnish it from top to bottom. It is no use straining at a gnat, as I say. We must just make a great gulp and get it down.”
“Straining at a—do you call that a gnat, Edward? It is a camel you mean.”
“Camel or not, my dear,” said Sir Edward, with a look of determination; “that is how it must be.”
They all held their breath at this tremendous resolution. “But as for Gillow, that is nonsense. It must be Maple at the very utmost,” Lady Penton said.
Itwas spring before these changes were accomplished and the family got into Penton, all newly furnished from top to bottom as Sir Edward in his magnificence had said. Perhaps this was not exactly true, for Lady Penton kept an unwearying eye upon all the movements of the workmen, and decided that it was unnecessary to touch many of the rooms where there was still enough of furniture to make them habitable, or which only the exigencies of a very large party of visitors would make necessary—and that was not a contingency likely to occur. They took up their residence in Penton when the woods were all carpeted with primroses, and everything was opening to the new life and hope of the growing season. No doubt it was evident at once that the grandeur of the old Pentons, their cold but splendid dignity of living, and all the self-restrained yet self-conscious wealth of their manners and ways, the costliness, the luxury, the state, were not to be reproduced; but then the house had become a cheerful house, which it never was under Mrs. Russell Penton’s sway. It was no longer silent with one stately figure moving here and there, and Russell Penton, fretted and impatient, protesting in his morning coat with his hands in his pockets against the splendor. There was no splendor now, but a perpetual movement, a flitting of many groups about the lawns, a sound of cheerful voices.
The children enjoyed it with their whole hearts, and Mab Russell, who had come upon that promised long visit, and had managed to establish herself with the maid and the man who were attached to her little person, and other accessories, which looked like a very long visit, indeed—plunged into the midst of all their diversions, and became the ringleader in all nursery mischief. “I never had any growing up,” she said. “I have always been out and seeing everything. I don’t like grown-up people, except you, Lady Penton. Let me go back to the nursery; and then I can be promoted to the school-room, and then burst upon the world. After Ally and Anne are both married I shall be of such use. You can’t do without a grown-up daughter. But I am only in the nursery now.” “Anne is not thinking of marrying, my dear. She is too young,” Lady Penton would say, which was all the gentle protest she made against Mab’s claim. For she was very pitiful of the poor little orphan—and then Walter—Perhaps it is not possible to be a mother without admitting certain schemes into one’s head. And Sir Edward, for his part, did not oppose, which was more curious. He was not fond of strangers, and as he; like his wife, was too proud to hear of Mab’s allowance, and her horses and she were a great expense to the restrained and economical household, it may perhaps be supposed that the father, though no schemer, had fancies in his mind, too.
The one in the house whose heart beat low, whose life seemed to have sunk into the shadow, was the one of all others who should have been the brightest, and whose beginning of existence included most capabilities of enjoyment. Walter was now the heir of Penton in reality. He had attained everything he had once looked forward to. More than this, he had that little fortune of his own which in a few months would be in his actual and unfettered possession. But his life, before ever it opened out, had been chilled. It seemed to him at first that life and all its joys were over for him. It was not only that he had been disappointed in his love, but it had been associated to him with all the disgusts that affect youth so profoundly; he had touched the mercenary, the meretricious, the degraded, and his pride had been humbled by the contact. Yet he had been ready to endure that contact, to submit to be linked with these horrors for the sake of his love. He had known even in the midst of his rapture of youthful fantastic passion, that to be linked with all these debasing circumstances would take the fragrance and the beauty out of life. To have Mrs. Sam Crockford for his mother-in-law, to recognize that uncleanly, untidy, sordid little house as Emmy’s home would have been misery even in the midst of bliss; he had been aware of this even in the hottest of his pursuit, while he was possessed by the image of Emmy,and could think of no possibility of happiness save that of marrying her. Had it been Crockford’s cottage in all its old-fashioned humility; had it been the kind, deaf, dear old woman who had been familiar to him all his life, how different! But the dreadful woman in that dreadful parlor, with her smile, and her portraits all smiling just the same upon the dingy walls, with her white, horrible, unwholesome hands, even in Emmy’s presence how he had shuddered at her! These images oppressed the poor boy’s imagination like a nightmare—he could not forget them; and he could not forget her who had made him accept and tolerate all that, who still could, if she would but hold up a finger, make everything possible. How was it that this magic existed? What was the meaning of it? He knew now with more or less certainty what Emmy was. She was not, notwithstanding the cleverness of speech which had so filled him with wonder at first, either educated or refined; and she was not beautiful. He was able to perceive even that. He saw, too, and hated himself for seeing, indications of her mother’s face in Emmy’s, the beginning of that horrible smile. And he knew also that she had no response to make to the enthusiastic love in his own youthful breast, the passion of devotion and self-abandonment which had swept in his mind all precaution and common sense away. No such operations had taken place in her. She had weighed him in the balance of the most common, the most prosaic form of sense, that of worldly advantage—of money. His heart was sore with all these wounds, he felt them in every fiber. It had been taken into consideration whether he was rich enough, whether he had enough to offer. She whom he loved with extravagant youthful devotion, ready to sacrifice everything for her, even his tastes, the manners and ways of thinking in which he had been brought up, had tried him by the vulgarest of tests. How could a young heart bear all this? Seldom, very seldom, does so complete a disenchantment come to one so young; for Walter did not take it as young Pendennis did, or learn to laugh at his own delusion. He had no temptation to laugh; he could not put out of his pained young being the thought that it could not be true, that after all there must be some mistake in it, that his love must have judged rightly, that his disenchantment was but some horrible work of the devil. And wounded, undeceived, quiveringwith pain as he was, his heart still yearned after her; he formed to himself pictures of what he might find if he stole back unawares, without any warning. He imagined her sitting in dreariness and solitude, perhaps shut up by the mother lest she should call him back, a patient martyr, knowing how she had been vilified in his eyes—but not vilified, oh, no, only mistaken. He fed his heart with dreams of this kind even while he knew—knew by experience, by certainty, by her own words, and looks, and sentiments, noways disguised, that the fact was not so. Women more often go on loving after the beloved has lost all illusion than men do, but perhaps in extreme youth the boy has this experience oftener than the girl. Poor Walter had been stabbed in every sensitive part, and felt his wounds all keen; but still he could not put her out of his heart.
And the consequence of this morbid and divided soul was that his being altogether was weakened and the life made languid in it. He had no heart, as people say, for anything. He left the Hook without regret, and entered on the larger life of Penton without pleasure; everything was obscured to him as if a veil were over it. “No joy the blowing season gives,” his vitality had sunk altogether. It was arranged that he was to go to Oxford in April, but he felt neither pleasure nor unwillingness. It was all unreal to him; nothing was real but that little episode. Emmy in her brightness and lightness by his side in the streets, making those little expeditions with him in all the confidence and closeness of belonging to him, two betrothed that were like one; and the mother in the background with her hands, which he still seemed to feel and shudder at. He had almost daily impulses to go and see all these scenes again, to see the actors in them, to make out if they were false or true. But he did not do so, perhaps because of the languor of his being, perhaps because he was afraid of any one divining what he wanted, perhaps because he clung to some ray of illusion still.
There began, however, to be frequent visits to town, Lady Penton being absorbed in that important matter of Ally’strousseau, which could no longer be deferred. What changes seemed to have happened in their life since the time when they all went up to London, a simple party, to provide what was necessary for the visit to Penton! Penton, it had seemed at that time, would never be theirs; theywere giving it up and contemplating a comfortable obscurity with a larger income and no responsibilities. Now they had indeed the larger income, but so many responsibilities with it, and so much to be done, that the poverty of Penton Hook seemed almost wealth in comparison; yet—for the mind accustoms itself very quickly to what is, however much it may have struggled for a different way—there was perhaps no one of the family who could now have returned to the Hook without the most humiliating sense of downfall, a feeling which Lady Penton herself shared, in spite of herself. Thetrousseauoccupied a great many of the thoughts of the ladies at this period. They had a great many shops to go to, and when by times one of the male members of the family accompanied them, it was tedious work inspecting their proceedings and waiting, looking on, while so many stuffs were turned over and patterns compared.
It happened one of these days that Walter was of the party. How he had been got to join it nobody knew, for he shrunk from London and could scarcely be induced to enter it at all, his inclinations, and yet not his inclinations so much as his dreams, and that uneasy sense that hisdisillusionmentmight of itself be an illusion, drew him in one direction, while all the impulses of the moment were toward the other way. But this day he had come he could not tell why. Mab was one of the party, and though it can not be said that Mab’s presence was an attraction, yet there was a certaincamaraderiebetween the two, and she had taken it upon herself to talk to him, to attempt to amuse and interest him, when nobody knew how to approach him in his forlorn languor so unlike himself. Even Ally and Anne, his sisters, were so moved by sympathy for Wat, and by dismayed wondering what he was thinking of and what they could say, what depths of his recently acquired experience he was straying in, and what they could do to call him back from those depths—that they were silenced even by their feeling for him. But Mab had no such restraint upon her, though she knew more than they did, having seen him at the very crisis of his fate; and though she thought she knew a great deal more than she really knew, Mab had no such awed and trembling respect for Walter’s experiences as the others had, and would break in upon him frankly and talk until he threw off his dreams,or persuade him into a walk in the woods, or to join them in something which made him for the moment forget himself. His idea was that she knew nothing of that one unrevealed chapter in his history which the others, he thought, could not forget; so that Mab and Walter were very good friends. Even now, when Ally and her mother were busy over their silks and muslins, Mab left that interesting discussion by times to talk to Walter, who lounged aboutdistrait, as creatures of his kind will, in a shop adapted for the wants of the other half of humanity. Walter stood about waiting, taking little notice of anything except when he turned at her call to respond to what Mab said to him, and that was only by intervals. It was in one of these pauses that his eye was caught by a group at a little distance, which at first had no more interest for him than any other of the groups about. It was in one of the subdivisions of the great shop, framed in on two sides by stands upon which hung all kinds of cloaks and mantles. In the vacant space in the middle were two or three ladies, attended upon by one of the young women of the shop, who was trying on for their gratification one mantle after another, while the customers looked on to judge of the effect. These figures moved before Walter’s dreamy eyes vaguely without attracting his attention, until suddenly something in the attitude of one of them struck upon his awakening sense. She was standing before a tall glass, which reflected her figure, with the silken garment which she was trying on drawn about her with a little shrug and twist of her shoulders to get it into its place. Wat’s heart began to beat, the mist fled from his eyes. The group grew distinct in a moment, separated as it was from all the others by the little fence half round, the light coming down from above upon the slim, elastic figure with all its graceful curves, standing so lightly as if but newly poised on earth, turning round with the air he knew so well. He had a moment ofeblouissement, of bewilderment, and then it all became clear and plain. He made but the very slightest movement, uttered not a word; the shock of the discovery, the thrill of her presence so near him, were too penetrating to be betrayed by outward signs. He stood like one stupefied, though all his faculties on the moment had become so keen and clear. There was no possibility of any doubt; her light hair, all curled on her forehead, her face so full of brightness andanimation, gleamed out upon him as she turned round. Emmy here, before his eyes!
It was like watching a little drama to see her amid the more severely clothed, cloaked, and bonneted figures of the ladies round. Her head was uncovered. She was in what seemed her natural place. Her patience seemed boundless. She took down cloak after cloak and slid them about her graceful shoulders, and made a few paces up and down to show them. It was a pretty occupation enough. She was dressed well; her natural grace made what she was doing appear no vulgar service, but an action full of courtesy and patience. The unfortunate boy watched her with eyes which enlarged and expanded with gazing. This, then, was what she had been doing while he had waited for her, while he had been her faithful attendant. She had never betrayed it to him. Sometimes he had believed that she was a teacher, sometimes that she went to work somewhere, he did not know how. This was what her occupation had been all the time. To make a trade out of her pretty gracefulness, her slim, youthful, easy figure, her perception of what was comely, while he was there who would have taken her out of all that, who would so fain have given her all he had. Why had she not come to him? He watched the pretty head turn, and that twist of the shoulders settling the new wrap. They were all beautiful on her. Did the women who were round her believe—could they believe that they could resemble Emmy—that anything could ever make them like her?
Walter’s whole aspect changed, he stood as if on tiptoe watching that little scene. At last the bargain was decided, the purchase made; the figures changed places, went and came from one side to another, as in the theater, then dissolved away, leaving her there before the big glass, in a little pose of her own, contemplating herself. It was in this glass that by and by Emmy, looking at herself, with her head now on one side, now on the other, suddenly perceived a stranger approaching, a gentleman, not with the air of a customer, coming along hurriedly with his face turned toward her. Emmy was sufficiently used to be admired. She knew as well as any one that her pretty figure, as she put on the cloaks that hung about, was a pretty sight to see, that the graceful little tricks with which she arranged them on her shoulders gave piquancy to her ownappearance and a grace which perhaps did not belong to it to the article of apparel which she put on. She knew this, and so did her employers, who engaged her for this grace, and profited by her prettiness and her skill. But Emmy was very well aware that with strange gentlemen in this sanctuary of the feminine she had nothing to do. She made her preparations for retiring discreetly before the approaching man. But before she did so she gave him a glance over her shoulder, a glance of invincible inherent coquetry, just to let him see that she perceived she was admired, and had no objection theoretically, though as a practical matter the thing was impossible. As she gave him this look through the medium of the big mirror, Emmy recognized Walter as he had recognized her. She gave a sudden low cry of alarm, and put up her hands to her face to hide herself, and then darted like a startled hare through the intricacies of all those subdivisions. Walter called out her name, and hurried after her, breathless, forgetting everything, but in a moment found himself hopelessly astray amid screens which balked his passage and groups of ladies who stared at him as if he had been a madman. Those screens, with their hanging finery, those astonished groups disturbed in their occupation, seemed to swallow up all trace of the little light figure which had disappeared in a moment. He stumbled on as far as he could till he was met by a severe and stately personage who blocked the way.
“Is there anything I can show you, sir?” this stately lady said, who was as imperious as if she had been a duchess.
“I—I saw some one I knew,” said Walter; “if I might but speak to her for a moment.”
“Do you mean one of our young ladies, sir?” said that princess dowager. “The young ladies in the mantle department are under my care: we shall be happy to show you anything in the way of business, but private friends are not for business hours; and this is a place for ladies, not for young gentlemen,” the distinguished duenna said.
Whatwas he to do? He was stopped short, bewildered, excited, quivering with a hundred sensations, by this impassable guardian of virtue and proprieties. A young gentleman is in every personal particular stronger, more effective and potent than a middle-aged woman in a shop; yet a bolder man than Walter would have been subdued by a representative of law and order so uncompromising. He looked at her appealingly, with his young eyes full of anxiety and trouble.
“I wanted only—a moment—to say a word—” he faltered, as if his fate hung upon her grace. But nothing could move her. She stood before him with her black silk skirts filling up the passage, in all the correctness of costume and demeanor which her position required.
“Young gentleman,” she said, “remember that you may be doing a great deal of harm by insisting. You can’t speak to any one here. If you’ll take my advice you’ll join the ladies that seem to be looking for you. That’s your party, I believe, sir,” she said, with a majestic wave of her hand. And then poor Walter heard Ally’s voice behind him.
“Oh, Wat, what are you doing? We thought we had lost you, and mother is waiting. Oh, Wat, what were you doingthere? Who were you talking to? What could you want among all the mantles?” Another voice came to the rescue while he turned round bewildered. “I know what he was doing, Ally; he was looking for that wrap you were talking of. You should have asked me to come and help you to choose it, Mr. Penton.” They swept him away bewildered, their voices and soft rustle of movement coming round him like the soft compulsion of a running stream. The girls flowed forth in pleasant words as they got him between them, as irresistible as the duenna, though in a different way, Ally thanking him for the intention that Mab had attributed to him. “Oh, Wat, how good of you to think of that!”
“But, Mr. Penton, you should have askedmeto come with you to choose it; I would have protected you,” said the laughing Mab. He was swept away by them, confused, with something singing in his ears, with—not the earth, but at least the solid flooring, covered with noiseless carpets, laden with costly wares, giving way, as he felt, under his stumbling feet.
He accompanied them home as in a dream: fortunately their minds were engrossed with subjects of their own, sothat they did not remark his silence, his preoccupation. He sat sunk in his corner of the railway carriage, his face half covered with his hand, thinking it all over, contemplating that scene, seeing those figures float before him, and her look in the mirror over her shoulder. Ah! that look in the mirror was a stab to him, keener than any blow. For it was not to him that Emmy threw that glance—it was to any man, to the first pair of admiring eyes that might find out her prettiness, her grace—oh, not to him! When she saw who it was she had covered her face and fled. She had been ashamed to be discovered. Why should she be ashamed to be discovered? There was nothing shameful in what she was doing. In the quiet of the great shop, among women, no disturbing influences near—among the pretty things that suited her, the atmosphere warm and soft, the carpets noiseless under her feet. Perhaps he said all this to himself to console him for some internal shock it gave him to see her there at everybody’s will, turning herself into a lay figure that all the vulgar women, the dumpy matrons, the heavy girls, might be deceived and think that by assuming the same garment they might become as beautiful as she. Walter was not aware of this if it were so, but all his thoughts, which he had been trying to sever from her, went back with a bound. He thought and thought, as the lines of the country, all touched with reviving green, flew past the carriage windows, and the jar and croak of the railway made conversation difficult, and justified his retirement into himself—seeing her now in a new light, seeing her in perspective, the light all round her, her daily work, her home, the diversions she had loved. He said to himself that it was a life of duty, though not one that the vulgar mind recognized as drawn on elevated lines. How patient she had been, smiling upon those whom she had served, putting on one thing after another, exhibiting everything at its best to please them! It was all curiously mixed up with pain and sharpness, this rapture of admiration, and confusion, and longing, and regret, which the sight of her had worked in his mind. The smile on her lips was a little like the smile with which her mother had been represented as charming the public. Emmy had her public to charm, too. Oh, if he could but snatch her away from it all!—carry her off, hide her from all contact with the common world! It occurred to him quite irrelevantly in the midst of his thoughts, how it might be if Emmy at Penton, or in any other such place, should suddenly encounter some one whom she had served at Snell and Margrove’s? This thought came into his mind like an arrow fired by an enemy across the tender and eager course of his anticipations and resolution. How could she bear it? and how shouldhebear it, to see the stare, the whisper, the wonder, the scorn in the looks of some pair of odious, envious, spiteful women (women always call forth these adjectives under such circumstances). This arrow went to his very heart, and wounded him in the midst of his longing and purpose, and hot, impatient aspiration. And then he seemed to see her with that pretty trick of movement settling the cloak upon her shoulders, to show it off to the intending purchaser! Oh, Emmy! his Emmy! that she should be exposed to that! And yet he said to himself it was nothing derogatory—oh, nothing derogatory!—a safe, sheltered, noiseless place, among women, among beautiful stuffs and things, with no jar of the outside world about! If he could but snatch her away from it, carry her away!
Penton contained his body but not his mind for some time after. What could he do? She had rejected him—for motives of prudence, poor Emmy! and returned to her shop. Why? why? Was he so distasteful to her as that?—that she should prefer her shop to him and his ten thousand pounds? And yet he had not felt himself to be distasteful. Even on this unexpected, undreamed-of meeting, she had hidden her face and fled, that he might not identify her, might not speak to her. Was she, then, so set against him? And yet she had not always been set against him. Walter did not know how long the time was which passed like a dream, while he pondered these things, asking himself every morning what he should do? whether he should return and try his fortune again; whether when she knew all she would yield to his entreaties and allow him to deliver her from that servitude? It was on a Saturday at last that the impulse became suddenly uncontrollable. He had been thinking over her little holiday, the Saturdays, which she had to herself, the little time when she was free, when she had gone out with him enjoying the air, even though it was winter, and the freedom, though he had not known in what bondage her days were spent. He could not contain himself when he remembered this. He went hurriedly away,not, as he had done on a previous occasion, in hot enthusiasm and rapture, but sadly, perceiving now all he was doing, and the break he must make, if he were successful, between himself and his home—perceiving too the difficulties that might come after, the habits that were not as his, the modes of life which are so hard to efface. Even his anticipation of happiness was all mixed with pain. It had become to him rather a vision of the happiness of delivering her, of placing her in circumstances more fit, surrounding her with everything delightful, than of the bliss to himself which would come from her companionship. Was he a little uncertain of that after all that had come and gone? But Walter would never have owned this to himself—only it was of her happiness, not of his, that he thought; and something wrung his heart as he left Penton behind, and took his way toward the house of Mrs. Sam Crockford with a shuddering recollection which he could not subdue.
He had planned to get there about noon, when Emmy would be coming home. She might be tired, she might be sad, she might be cheered by the sudden appearance of a faithful lover, bringing the means of amusement and variety in his hand. They might go to Richmond, and he would take her on the river, as she had said she liked it, though in winter that had not been practicable. And he had made up his mind to insist, to be masterful, as it was said women liked a man to be. He would not accept a denial, he thought. He would tell her that he could not endure it, that this work of hers must come to an end. He made up his mind that neither her sauciness nor her sweetness should distract him from his resolution, that this thing must come to an end. He walked most of the long way from the railway station to the little street in which was the mean little house where she lived with her mother. How often he had trodden that way with his heart beating—how often distracted with pain! There was more pain than pleasure in his bosom now. He did not know how she would receive him, but he had made up his mind not to be discouraged by any reception she might give him. This time he would have his way. His motive was no longer selfish, he said to himself. It was no longer for him, but for her.
There was a little commotion in the street, of which he took no particular notice as he came up. A carriage with a pair of gray horses was coming along with the familiarjog of a hack carriage which is paid for at so much an hour. Walter did not suppose this could have anything to say to him, and took no notice, as how should he? But when he approached the house it became more and more evident that something had happened or was happening. A group of idlers were standing about a door, from which came the sound of voices and laughter, altogether festive sounds. Somebody was rejoicing, it was apparent, with that not too refined kind of joy—a happiness unrestrained by any particular regard for the proprieties that belong to such regions. Even this did not rouse Walter. What did it matter to him if some one had been married, or christened, or was going through any of the joyful incidents of life—next door? His mind was full of what she would say, of what she would do, of the steps to be taken in order to complete her deliverance. It would not be his deliverance. It would be his severance from much that had acquired a new value in his eyes. But it would be freedom to her; it would be, whatever she might say, comparative wealth. Why had she so resisted? why, in her position, had she scorned his little fortune? It could only be, he thought, that he might be hindered from sacrificing so much on his side.
He was deep, deep in thought as he approached. Surely it was next door, this marriage, or whatever it was. It must be next door. The carriage came leisurely up and stopped, the coachman displaying a great wedding favor. Itwasa marriage, then: strange that he should come with his mind full of that proposal of his, to which he would take no denial, and find a marriage going on next door! He smiled to himself at the odd circumstance, but there was not very much pleasure in his smile. There would soon be another there—but quiet—that at least he would secure—not attended by this noisy revelry, the voices and cheers ringing out into the street. Ah, no! but quiet, the marriage of two people who would have a great deal to think of, to whom happiness would come seriously, not without sacrifices, not without—
But, oh, that sudden shock and pause! what did this mean? It was not at the next house, but at Mrs. Sam Crockford’s door that the carriage with the two gray horses drew up. It was there the idlers were standing grouped round to see somebody pass out: the voices came fromwithin that well-known narrow entrance. Walter stopped, struck dumb, his very breath going, and stood with the rest, to see—what he might see. He heard the stir of chairs pushed from the table, the chorus of good-byes, and then—
The open doorway was suddenly filled by the bridal pair, the bridegroom coming out first, she a step behind. Walter knew the man well enough; he had seen him but once, but that seeing had been sufficient. He came out flushed, in his wedding clothes, his hat upon one side of his head, his white gloves in his hand. “Thank you all; we’ll be jolly enough, you needn’t fear,” he was calling to the well-wishers behind. After him Emmy came forward, perhaps more gayly apparelled than a bride of higher position would have been for her wedding journey, her hat covered with flowers and feathers, her dress elaborately trimmed. She too was a little flushed, and full of smiles and satisfaction. Walter did not stir, he stood and looked on grimly, like a man who had nothing to do with it. It did not seem to affect him at all; his heart, which had been beating loudly, had calmed in a moment. He stood and looked at them as if they were people whom he had never seen before—standing silent in the midst of the loungers of the little street, a few children and women, a passing errand boy, and a man out of work, who stood too with his hands in his pockets and gazed in a sullen way, with a sort of envy of the people who were well-off and well-to-do. The bridegroom had not the same outward deference to his bride which might be seen in other circles. He held her arm loosely in his and dragged her behind him, turning back and shouting farewells to his friends. “Oh, we’ll be joyful enough!” he cried, taking no heed to her timid steps. And perhaps Emmy’s steps could not be described as timid. She gave his arm a shake to rouse him from the fervor of these good-byes.
“Here, mind what you are doing, Ned, and let’s get on, or we shall miss the train,” she said.
Walter stood and gazed stupidly, and took all the little drama in.
And then there ensued the farce at the end, the shower of rice, the old shoes thrown after the departing pair. The jovial bridegroom threw back several that fell into the carriage, and Emmy laughed and cheered him on. They went off in a burst of laughter and gayety. Her quick eye hadglanced at the spectators on either side of the door. Could she have seen him there? She had turned round to her mother, who followed them to the door, and whispered something as they went away: but that was all. Walter stood and watched them drive off; it was all like a scene in a theater to him. He did not seem able to make up his mind to go away.
And then suddenly he felt a touch upon his arm. “Oh, Mr. Penton, is it you? Step in—step in, sir, please, and let me speak to you; I must say a word to you.”
“I can see no need for any words,” he said, dully; but partly to get free of her, for her touch was intolerable to him, partly because of the want of any impulse in his own mind, he followed her into the house, into the parlor, all full of wedding favors and finery. The bridal party had retired riotously, as was very apparent, to the table in the back room.
“Oh, Mr. Penton, you have been shamefully treated!” Mrs. Sam Crockford cried. She was herself splendid in a new dress, with articles of jewelry hung all over her. She touched her eyes lightly with her handkerchief as she spoke. “Young gentleman,” she said, “though I have had to give in to it, don’t think I approved of it. My chyild, of course, was my first object, but I had some heart for you too. And you behaved so beautiful! How she could ever do it, and prefer him to you, is more than I can tell!”
“Then it was going on all the time?” said Walter, dully. He did not seem to have any feeling on the subject, or to care: yet he listened with a sort of interest as to the argument of the play.
“Sir,” said the woman, “everything is said to be fair in love. If it will be any consolation to you, you have helped my chyild to an alliance which—is not greater than her deserts—no, it is not greater than her deserts, Mr. Penton, as you and I know: but so far as money goes was little to be looked for. Edward is not perhaps a young man of manners as refined as we could wish, but he can give her every advantage. He is in business, Mr. Penton. Business has its requirements, which are different to those of art. His mother has just died, who was not Emmy’s friend. And he is rich. The business,” said Mrs. SamCrockford, sinking her voice, “brings in—I can’t tell you how many thousands a year.”
Then Walter remembered what Emmy had said about some one who had as much a year as his whole little fortune consisted of, and added that dully to the story of the drama which he was hearing, paying a sort of courteous attention without any interest to speak of. “Why did not she—do this at once? that is what surprises me,” he said.
“Mr. Penton, I said all things are fair in love. I am afraid she played you against him to draw him on. She is my only child, it is hard for me to blame her. I don’t know that strictly speaking she is to be blamed. A girl has so few opportunities. He proposed a secret marriage, but my Emmy has too much pride for that. You were always with her, Mr. Penton, after she returned, and he was distracted. He thought she was going to marry you. I thought so myself at first: but she played her cards very well. She played you against him to draw him on.”
“Oh, she played me against him to draw him on,” said Walter. These words kept going through his head while Emmy’s mother went on talking at great length, explaining, defending, blaming her chyild. She might as well have said nothing more, for he could not take it in. The words seemed to circle round and round him in the air. They did not wound him, but gave a sort of wonder—a dull surprise.
“She played me against him to draw him on.” He went back through the endless streets to the railway-station, walking the whole way, feeling as if that long, long course might go on forever, for nights and days, for dreary centuries; and then the railway, with its whirl of noise and motion, completed and confirmed the sense of an endless going on. He could not have told how long he had been away when he walked up the avenue again in the soft darkness of the spring night. His dulled mind mixed this absence up somehow with the previous one, and, with this confusion, brought a curious sense of guilt, and impulse to ask pardon. He would arise and go to his father, and say, “Father, I have sinned.” He would kneel down by his mother’s side. He could not understand that he had done no harm—that he had only left Penton that day. “She played me against him to draw him on.” It all seemed so simple—nobody’s fault—not even perhaps Emmy’s—forgirls have so few opportunities, as her mother said. Perhaps it was natural, as it was the explanation of all the play—themot de l’enigme. It seemed a sort of satisfaction to have such an ample explanation of it, at the last.
Just inside the gate he saw something white fluttering among the trees, and Mab cried, breathless, “Mr. Walter, is it you?” It was all he could do not to answer her with that explanation which somehow seemed so universally applicable. “She played me off”—but he restrained himself, and only said, “Yes, it is I.” She put out her hand to him in an impulsive, eager way. He had not in fact seen her that day before, and Walter took the hand thrust into his in the dark with a curious sensation of help and succor; it was a cool little soft fresh hand, not like that large and clammy member which, thank Heaven, he had nothing to do with any more. And there was an end of it all—there it all ended, in Mab’s little frank hand meeting his in the twilight as if she were admitting him to a new world.
Ally was married shortly after, and the marriage was very good for the material interests of the house of Penton. It was a very fine marriage for young Mr. Rochford of Reading, but it was also a fine thing for the family in whose history he had in future more interest than merely that of their man of business. Mab still promises every day that Anne will soon follow her sister’s example, and that she herself will be the only one left to fulfill the duties of the grown-up daughter. Her visit has been prolonged again and again, till it has run out into the longest visit that ever was known. Will it ever come to an end? Will she ever go away again, and set up with a chaperon in the house in Mayfair with which she is sometimes threatened by her guardians? Who can tell? There will be many people to be consulted before it can be decided one way or other. But if nobody else’s mind is made up, Mab’s is very distinct upon this point, as well as upon most others within her range. And she is one of those people who usually have their way.
THE END.