AN AGITATING ENCOUNTER.
It was 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, quivering with 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’s _trousseau_, 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; they were 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. The _trousseau_ occupied 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 his
_disillusionment_ might 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 certain _camaraderie_ between 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 about _distrait_, 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 of _eblouissement_,
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 and animation, 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 own appearance 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.