INNOCENT:
A TALE OF MODERN LIFE.
BY MRS. OLIPHANT,
AUTHOR OF “THE CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD,” ETC., ETC.
_FOURTH EDITION, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS._
London:
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, LOW, & SEARLE
CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.
1874.
[_All rights reserved._]
LONDON:
GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS,
ST. JOHN’S SQUARE.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--THE OLD HOUSE 1
II.--THE NEWS, AND HOW IT WAS RECEIVED 8
III.--THE FAMILY 16
IV.--THE FRIENDS OF THE FAMILY 23
V.--FREDERICK’S WAY 32
VI.--PISA 40
VII.--THE PALAZZO SCARAMUCCI 48
VIII.--THE COUSINS 55
IX.--AT HOME 63
X.--THE ARRIVAL 70
XI.--AT HOME AND NOT AT HOME 79
XII.--A LOVE TALE 87
XIII.--CONSULTATIONS 94
XIV.--A MOMENTOUS INTERVIEW 101
XV.--A SUNDAY AT HOME 109
XVI.--INNOCENT’S FIRST ADVENTURE 117
XVII.--FREDERICK TO THE RESCUE 124
XVIII.--PHILOSOPHY FOR GIRLS 132
XIX.--THE FLOWER OF STERBORNE 140
XX.--WHAT IT IS TO BE “IN LOVE” 148
XXI.--A FAMILY DINNER 156
XXII.--ABOUT ANOTHER MARRIAGE 164
XXIII.--AMANDA 172
XXIV.--WHAT THE FAMILY THOUGHT 180
XXV.--AFTER A YEAR 188
XXVI.--A PROPOSAL 195
XXVII.--MRS. FREDERICK 202
XXVIII.--A NEW COMPLICATION 211
XXIX.--INNOCENT’S OUTSET IN THE WORLD 217
XXX.--THE HIGH LODGE 224
XXXI.--THE MINSTER AND THE VILLA 231
XXXII.--THE MOMENT OF FATE 238
XXXIII.--FLIGHT 247
XXXIV.--A BEREAVED HUSBAND 254
XXXV.--MRS. EASTWOOD’S INVESTIGATION 261
XXXVI.--AT HOME 268
XXXVII.--INNOCENT’S CONFESSION 275
XXXVIII.--INTO FURTHER DEEPS 283
XXXIX.--AN APPEAL 290
XL.--FAMILY OPINIONS 298
XLI.--AN UNPOPULAR WEDDING 304
XLII.--AFTER THE WEDDING 311
XLIII.--THE GATHERING OF THE STORM 318
XLIV.--THE THUNDERBOLT 325
XLV.--THE FIRST DESERTER 333
XLVI.--THE EVIDENCE 340
XLVII.--THE TRIAL 347
XLVIII.--THE SECOND DAY 363
XLIX.--DELIVERED 368
L.--JENNY’S MEDITATION 375
LI.--THE NUNNERY 380
LII.--WHAT BECAME OF LADY LONGUEVILLE 382
LIII.--CONCLUSION 391
[Illustration]
INNOCENT:
A TALE OF MODERN LIFE.
CHAPTER I.
THE OLD HOUSE.
The Eastwoods lived in an old house in one of the southwestern suburbs
of London. It was one of those houses which, dating only from the
prosaic age of Queen Anne, have come to be picturesque in their
way--which they were never intended to be--and are comfortable, which
they were intended to be, to a degree rarely attained by all our modern
efforts. What advances we have made since then in every way! And yet all
Belgravia did not hold a house so thoroughly good for living in, so
pleasant, so modest, so dignified, and so refined, as the big brick
house, partly whitewashed, partly retaining its native red, lichened all
over with brown and yellow mosses, in which, at the outset of this
history, Mrs. Eastwood lived with her children. It had been built by the
Eastwoods of the time, more than a century and a half ago. It had given
shelter to various generations since then--their mortal inn and lodging,
the everlasting dwelling-place of their memory. They had left layers, so
to speak, of old furniture, from the japanned screens and cabinets of
the founder, to the hideous haircloth and mahogany of George IV.; and
pictures and knick-knacks, and precious old china for which collectors
would have given its weight in gold. All these riches were not shown off
to advantage, as they might have been. You stumbled on them in corners;
you found them in out-of-the-way cupboards, in rooms that were rarely
used. In short, you could not take a walk on a wet day about this
delightful house without finding something out that you had not seen
before. For my own part I prefer this to the modern device of making a
museum or china-shop of one’s drawing-room. The drawing-room was a place
to live in at The Elms. It had a hundred prettinesses about, none of
which had been bought within the memory of any of the young people,
except, indeed, a few foolish knick-knacks belonging to Ellinor--for
what girl worth calling such was ever without knick-knacks? But its
supreme use was to be lived in, and for this it was infinitely well
adapted. Its only drawback that I know--and that many people thought a
great advantage--was that, being close to London, you saw nothing from
the windows that you might not have seen a hundred miles deep in the
country. The drawing-room windows looked out upon a great green lawn,
set in old trees. In winter, when the trees had lost their leaves, bits
of other old houses, red and mossy, looked in through the bare branches;
but in spring the farther end of the lawn was carpeted with primroses,
and canopied with foliage, and the long avenue of elms at one side, and
the narrower path on the other under the lime-trees, which was called
the Lady’s Walk, might have graced a squire’s house anywhere. Both of
these ended in a high paling; but I defy you to have found that out when
elms and limes alike were in their glory of summer array.
After having said so much about the house, I may introduce you to its
inhabitants. Mrs. Eastwood was a widow, and had four children, all as
yet at home under the maternal roof. The eldest son was in a public
office; the second, Richard, commonly called Dick, was at home “reading”
for one of those examinations which occupy all our youth now-a-days. The
third boy, who bore the magnificent name of Plantagenet, usually, I am
grieved to say, shortened into Jenny, was still at Eton. One only
remains to be accounted for, and that was Ellinor. She was but one,
counted according to ordinary arithmetic; but she was as good as three
additional at least, reckoning by her importance in the household. “If
you count girls, there are seven of us; but some people don’t count
girls. I’m one,” said one of _Mr. Punch’s_ delightful little boys in the
old days of Leech. Ellinor Eastwood might have adapted this saying with
perfect propriety to her own circumstances. The boys might or might not
be counted; but to enter once into the house without hearing, seeing,
divining the girl in it was impossible. Not that she was a remarkable
young woman in any way. I don’t know if she could justly be called
clever; and she certainly was not more perfectly educated than
usual--and does not everybody say that all women are badly educated? Her
brothers knew twenty times as much as she did. They had all been at
Eton; and Frederick, the eldest, was a University man, and had taken a
very good class, though not the highest; and Dick was costing his mother
a fortune in “coaches,” and was required by the conditions of his
examination to be a perfect mine of knowledge; they ought by all rules
to have been as superior to their sister intellectually and mentally as
daylight is to darkness. But they were not. I don’t venture to explain
how it was; perhaps the reader may in his or her experience have met
with similar cases, though I allow that they go against a good many
theories. The household was a young household altogether. Mrs. Eastwood
herself was under fifty, which, for a woman who has had neither bad
health nor trouble in her life, is quite a youthful age. Her eldest son
was six-and-twenty. There had never appeared a very great difference
between them; for Frederick had always been the most serious member of
the family. His name of itself was a proof of this. While all the others
were addressed by a perpetually varying host of diminutives and pet
names, Frederick had always remained Frederick. I need not point out how
different this is from “Fred.” He was the only member of the household
who had as yet brought any trouble or anxiety to it, but he was by far
the most proper and dignified person in the house. The rest were very
youthful indeed, varying, as we have said, from the light-hearted though
sober-visaged youthfulness of seven-and-forty to the tricksey boyhood of
sixteen. It was a house, accordingly, in which there was always
something going on. The family were well off, and they were popular;
they were rich enough to give frequent and pleasant little
entertainments, and they had never acquired that painful habit of
asking, “Can we afford it?” which is so dreadful a drawback to social
pleasures. I do not intend to imply by this that there was any
recklessness or extravagance in this well-ordered house. On the
contrary, Mrs. Eastwood’s bills were paid as by clockwork, with a
regularity which was vexatious to all the tradesmen she employed; but
neither she nor her children--blessed privilege!--knew what it was to be
poor, and they had none of the habits of that struggling condition. That
ghost which haunts the doors of the less comfortably endowed, which
hovers by them in the very streets, and is always waiting round some
corner--that black spectre of indebtedness or scarcity had never been
seen at The Elms. There was a cheerful security of enough, about the
house, which is more delightful than wealth. To be sure, there are great
moral qualities involved in the material comfort of having enough, into
which we need not enter. The comfort of the Eastwoods was a matter of
habit. They lived as they had always lived. It never occurred to them to
start on a different _pied_, or struggle to a higher level. What higher
level could they want? They were gentlefolks, and well connected; no
sort of _parvenu_ glitter could have done anything for them, even had
they thought of it; therefore it was no particular credit to them to be
content and satisfied. The morality of the matter was passive in their
case--it was habitual, it was natural, not a matter of resolution or
thought.
And yet there had been one break in this simple and uncomplicated state
of affairs. Four years before the date at which this history begins, an
event had occurred to which the family still looked back with a sort of
superstition,--a mingled feeling of awe, regret, and pride, such as
might move the descendants of some hero who had abdicated a throne at
the call of duty. The year in which Frederick took his degree, and left
Oxford, Mrs. Eastwood had _put down her carriage_. I dare not print such
words in ordinary type. She said very little about the reasons for this
very serious proceeding; but it cannot be denied that there was a
grandeur and pathos in the incident, which gave it a place in what may
be called the mythology of the family. Nobody attempted to explain how
it was, or why it was. It gave a touch of elevating tragedy and mystery
to the comfortable home-life, which was so pleasant and free from care.
When now and then a sympathizing friend would say, “You must miss your
carriage,” Mrs. Eastwood was always prompt to disclaim any need for
pity. “I have always been an excellent walker,” she said cheerily. She
would not receive any condolences, and yet even she got a certain subtle
pleasure, without knowing it, out of the renunciation. It was the
hardest thing she had ever been called upon to do in her life, and how
could she help being a little, a very little, proud of it? But, to be
sure, this sentiment was quite unconscious. It was the only unexplained
event in her innocent life. Ellinor, of course, half by instinct, half
by reason of that ineffable communion between a mother and an only
daughter, which makes the one conscious of all that passes within and
without the other almost without words, knew exactly how this great
family event had come about; but no one else knew, not even the most
intimate friends of the house.
The cause, however, was nothing much out of the course of nature.
Frederick, the eldest son and hope, he of whom everybody declared that
he was his mother’s stay and support, as good as the head of the family,
had suddenly burst into her room one morning before she was up, like a
sudden avalanche. He came to tell her, in the first place, that he had
made up his mind not to go into the Church, for which he had been
educated, and in which he had the best of prospects; and in the second
place, that he was deeply in debt, and was going out to Australia by the
next ship to repent and make up his deficiencies. Fancy having all this
poured into your ears of a cold spring morning in your peaceful bed,
when you woke up with the consciousness that to-day would be as
yesterday, and, perhaps, still more tranquil and pleasant. Mrs. Eastwood
was stricken dumb with consternation. It was the first time that trouble
in this shape had ever visited her. Grief she had known--but that
curtain of gentle goodness and well-seeming which covers the surface of
life had never before been rudely rent before her eyes, revealing the
abyss below. And the shock was all the greater that it was Frederick who
gave it; he who had been her innocent child just the other day, and who
was still her serious boy, never the one to get into mischief. The
surprise was so overwhelming that it almost deadened her sense of pain;
and then, before she could fully realize what had happened, the real
importance of the event was still further confused by the fact, that
instead of judging the culprit on his real demerits, she had to pray and
plead with him to give up his mad resolution, to beg him not to throw
his life away after his money. So urgent did this become that she
gradually forgot all about the blame attaching to him, and could think
of nothing but those terrible threats about Australia, which gradually
became the central fact of the catastrophe. To do him justice, Frederick
was perfectly sincere, and had no thought of the admirable effect to be
produced by his obstinate determination. Where is the family that does
not know such scenes? The result was that the carriage was “put down,”
the debts paid, Australia averted; and after a short time Mr. Frederick
Eastwood gained, after a severe examination, his present appointment,
and all again went merry as marriage-bells. I don’t know whether the
examination was in reality severe; but at least Mrs. Eastwood thought
so, which pleased her, and did nobody any harm; and as time went on she
found to her entire satisfaction that every thing had been for the best,
and that Providence had brought good out of evil. In the first place, it
was “noble” of Frederick, when he found he could not conscientiously
enter the Church, to scorn all mercenary motives, and not to be tempted
by the excellent living which he knew awaited him. And then what a
comfort and blessing it was to have him at home, instead of away down in
Somersetshire, and only paying his family a visit two or three times in
a year! Thus the fault faded out of sight altogether by the crowding of
the circumstances round it; and Frederick himself, in contemplating (for
he was always serious) the providential way in which his life had been
arranged for him in a new groove, forgot that the first step in this
arrangement had been a very reprehensible one on his own part, and came
to regard the “putting down” of the carriage as the rest did--as a
tremendous and mysterious family event, calling forth an intense pride
and melancholy, but no individual sense of guilt or responsibility so
far as he was personally concerned. “I don’t like to take you out in a
fly, Nelly,” Mrs. Eastwood would sometimes say, as she gave a last touch
to Ellinor’s ribbons, and breathed a soft little sigh. “As if I cared!”
cried the girl: “and besides, you can say, like Lady Dobson, that you
never take your horses out at night.” Now Lady Dobson was very rich, and
in trade, and a standing joke in the Eastwood circle; and the party went
off very merry in the fly, with never another thought of the carriage
which had been “put down.”
Light-hearted folk! That sudden tempest of trouble and terror which had
driven Frederick into the Sealing-Wax Office, and the ladies into Mr.
Sutton’s neat flys, gave, I think, on the whole, a zest to their
happiness.
The drawing-room at The Elms was a large room, with a rounded end
occupied by a great bow window, which opened like a door into a pretty
conservatory, always gay with flowers. Opposite the fireplace were three
other long and large windows, cut to the floor, from which you looked
out over the long stretch of greensward embosomed in great trees which
has been already described. In summer, the flower beds which were cut in
the grass close under the windows were ablaze with brilliant colour; but
in the meantime, on the afternoon when this story opens, nothing was
visible but an interrupted golden line of crocus, defining each bed, and
depending upon the sun to make the definition successful. When the day
was bright the border bristled all round in close array with spikes of
gold; but on this particular day it was gloomy, and the line was
straggling and broken. On a damp February afternoon the strongest
attraction is generally indoors; and the room was bright enough to
satisfy the most difficult critic. Mrs. Eastwood had, as every mother of
a family ought to have, her particular chair, with her particular little
table and footstool, a detached and commanding position, a genial
domestic throne, with the supremacy of which no one ever interfered.
There was room for any one who wanted counsel to draw a chair by its
side, and plenty of room for a big boy to stretch out his lazy length on
the rug at its feet, resting a curly head, it might be, on the mother’s
footstool. Mrs. Eastwood was seated here in her black gown with violet
ribbons, which was her compromise between the world and her widowhood.
Sometimes she went the length of grey and red. I don’t know what
innocent prejudice she had to the effect that grey and red betokened
still some recondite style of mourning; but such was her prejudice. She
would have felt a blue ribbon to be profane. Need I say that she was
plump, and had perhaps a little more colour than when she was twenty?
But there were few wrinkles upon her pleasant face, and no clouds upon
her forehead. She had known grief, innocent and holy, but no trouble of
that wearing kind which saps the strength and steals the courage out of
life, except that one of which the reader has been told; and that, as he
has also been informed, had turned out for the best.
Ellinor was the only other member of the family present, except, indeed,
a certain small Skye terrier, known by the name of Winks, who was a very
important member of the family. As Winks, however, for the present is
asleep coiled up in an easy chair, and happily unobservant of what is
going on, we may leave him for an after occasion, and pass on to the
young lady of the house. What can we say about her? Dear and gentle
reader, you know half-a-hundred just like Nelly. She had brown hair,
bright, dancing, brown eyes, and a nose which, thanks to Mr. Tennyson,
we do not require to describe as _retroussé_. It was “tip-tilted, like
the petal of a flower.” As there was not a straight line about her
anywhere, this delicate little turn was appropriate. Although, however,
it is true that there was no one straight line about the girl, the
combination of a hundred soft curves produced a perfect pose of figure,
light, firm, and elastic, like--well, like most girls of twenty. What
can one say more? Nelly had no settled place like her mother. She was
not restless, nor fidgetty, but she was everywhere at once. I don’t know
why it was necessary that she should be always in motion--for she never
crossed the room or went from one table to another without a reason for
it--but somehow there was a perpetual play of movement and variety in
every room where she was. Even when she was absorbed in the tranquillity
of needlework, the motion of her hand kept things going. She was like a
brook: a soft atmosphere of sound and movement--always soft, always
pleasant--belonged to her by nature; but, like the brook, she
tranquillized the surrounding scenery; or, like a bird, making the
quietness seem more complete by its flitting from one branch to another,
and delicious trying over of its favourite notes. Nelly was not
alarmingly good, nor perfect in any way I know of; but she fulfilled
this mission of the girl, which I fear, among greater aims, is falling a
little into disrepute--she filled the whole house with her youth, her
brightness, her gaiety, her overflowing life. No great demands of any
kind had yet been made upon her. Whether she would be capable of
responding to them when they came, no one could tell; but in the
meantime she fulfilled her primitive use with the most thorough
completeness. She was the life of the house.
Mrs. Eastwood had brought in some letters with her to the drawing-room.
They had been delivered at luncheon, and as none looked very pressing,
they had been suffered to wait. This happy household was in no anxiety
about its letters. That continual fear of bad news which afflicts most
of us had no place in the bosom of the easy soul who had but one of her
children absent from her, and he within half-an-hour by railway. She
went over them at leisure, reading here and there a few words aloud.
“Fancy, Nelly, Claude Somerville is going to be married at last,” she
said. “I wonder if his people will think her good enough; but indeed
they will never think any one good enough; and poor little Mary Martin
is going out as a governess. Now, how much better if Claude had married
her, and saved such a sad experiment?”
“But did they ever care for each other?” asked Nelly, with open eyes.
“No, I don’t think they did. But what a nice arrangement it would have
been! Whereas the girl he is going to marry is an heiress,” said Mrs.
Eastwood, “and has no need of him, so to speak. Dear me! I do not mean
to speak against Providence; but I should like sometimes to
interfere.--Listen! ‘Poor little Mary bears up very bravely. She
pretends to make light of it; but what a change it will be from her
home, and her father who spoilt her?’”
“Mamma, let us have her here on a long visit,” cried Nelly. “I am sure
if she chose she might spend her life among her friends.”
“She is a very independent little thing,” said Mrs. Eastwood doubtfully.
“Frederick and she were once rather good friends; but you may write to
her if you like, Nelly. It will always be kind. The Claude Somervilles
are going to Italy for their wedding trip. Dear me! why can’t people
stay at home? one hears of nothing but Italy. And, speaking of that,
here is an Italian postmark. I wonder who it comes from.”
A few minutes passed, and Mrs. Eastwood made no further communication.
“Where is it from?” Ellinor asked twice, not caring to be kept in
suspense, for the correspondence of the house, like other things, was in
common. Her mother, however, made no reply. She uttered various half
articulate exclamations--“Dear me! dear me! Poor man; has it really come
to that!” she murmured as she read. “What is it, mamma!” said Ellinor.
Mrs. Eastwood read it all over, cried out, “Good gracious, Nelly!” and
then turning back to the first page, read it over again. When Nelly
found it impossible to bear this suspense any longer, she rose and went
behind her mother’s chair, and looked over her shoulder: “Is it bad
news?” she cried, looking at the cramped lines which she could not make
out. “Dear! dear me! dear me! what shall I do, Nelly?” said Mrs.
Eastwood, wringing her hands; and then she added, “Don’t write to Mary
Martin, my dear, here is some one to be looked to of our own.”