THE FRIENDS OF THE FAMILY.
This mysterious hint did not dwell upon Ellinor’s mind as it might have
done in the mind of a young person less occupied. I am afraid she was of
a superficial way of thinking at this period of her existence, and
rather apt to believe that people who made themselves unpleasant, or
suggested uncomfortable mysteries were “in a bad humour,” or “put out
about something;” which, indeed, is a very excellent and safe
explanation of many of the unpleasant speeches we make to each other,
but yet not always to be depended upon. Mrs. Eastwood was “put out” for
the rest of the day, and would give no heed to any of Nelly’s
preparations; but, like the light-hearted soul she was, had thrown off
the yoke by next morning. “Why should I take up Alice’s opinions?” she
said half to herself.
“Why, indeed?” cried Nelly, eager to assist in the emancipation.
“Alice is a good servant,” Mrs. Eastwood continued; “most trustworthy,
and as fond of you all as if you were her own” (“Sometimes she takes an
odd way of showing it,” interpolated Nelly), “and a great comfort to
have about one; but she has a very narrow, old-fashioned way of looking
at things; and why should I take up her superstitions, and act upon
them?”
This speech was received with so much applause by her daughter, that
Mrs. Eastwood immediately plunged into all the preparations which she
had checked the day before; and the ladies had a shopping expedition
that very morning, and bought a great many things they had not thought
of to make the room pretty. When people have “taste” and set their
hearts upon making a room pretty, the operation is apt to become rather
an expensive one; but this I must say, that mother and daughter most
thoroughly enjoyed the work, and got at least value for their money in
the pleasure it gave them. You will say that this was done more with the
view of pleasing themselves than of showing regard to the poor little
orphan who was to profit by all the luxuries provided; but human nature,
so far as I know it, is a very complicated business, and has few
impulses which are perfectly single and unmixed in their motives. They
cudgelled their brains to think what she would like. They summoned up
before them a picture of an art-loving, beauty-mad, Italian-born girl,
unable to live without pictures and brightness. They went and roamed
through all the Arundel Society collections to look for something from
Pisa that would remind her of her home. They sacrificed a Raphael-print
which had been hung in Mrs. Eastwood’s own room, to her supposed
necessities. Nelly made a careful selection of several _morceaux_ of
china, such as went to her own heart, to decorate the mantelshelf. I
don’t deny they were like two overgrown schoolgirls over a bigger kind
of doll’s house; but if you can be hard upon them for this admixture, I
confess I cannot. When the room was finished, they went and looked at it
three or four times in a day admiring it. They did not know anything
about the future inmate, what sort of soul it might be who was coming to
share their nest, to be received into their most intimate companionship.
They decked the room according to a preconceived impression of her
character; and then they drew another more definite sketch of her
character, in accordance with the room. Thus they created their
Innocent, these two women; and how far she resembled the real Innocent
the reader will shortly see.
Their life, however, in the meantime was not all engrossed in this
occupation. The Eastwoods were a popular family. They “went out” a good
deal, even in the dead season of the year, when fashion is not, and
nobody, so to speak, is in town. There are a very tolerable amount of
people in town even in November and December. There are all the law
people of every degree; there are all the people in public offices,
especially those who are married. Among these two classes there are, the
reader will perhaps not be surprised to hear, many, very many,
excellent, highly-bred, well-connected persons who actually _live in
London_. I am aware that in fashionable literature this fact is scarcely
admitted, and everybody who is anybody is believed to visit town only
during the season. But the great majority of the English nation consists
of people who work more or less for their living, and of these a large
number are always in London. The society of the Eastwoods consisted of
this class. To be sure, Nelly had appeared at Lady Altamont’s ball, in
the very best of society, the year she came out; and invitations did
still arrive now and then during the season from that supernal sphere.
But these occasional flights into the higher heavens did not interfere
with the natural society which surrounded the Eastwoods for at least
nine months of the year, from November, say, to July. Here were Nelly’s
young friends, and Mrs. Eastwood’s old ones; the advisers of the elder
lady and the lovers of the younger. As for advisers, Mrs. Eastwood was
very well off. She had a great many of them, and each fitted with his or
her office. Mrs. Everard was, as it were, adviser-in-chief, privy
councillor, keeper of the conscience, to her friend, who told her
almost, if not quite, every thing in which she was concerned. Under this
great domestic officer there was Mr. Parchemin, once a great Chamber
counsel, noted for his penetration into delicate cases of all kinds, who
had retired into profound study of the art of investment, which he
practised only for the benefit of his friends. He was for the Finance
department. The Rector of the parish, who had once been a highly
successful master in a public school, was her general adviser in respect
to “the boys,” selecting “coaches” for Dick, and “keeping an eye” upon
him, and “taking an interest” in Jenny during the holidays. Mrs.
Eastwood’s third counsellor had, I am sorry to say, interested motives.
He was a certain Major Railton, in one of the Scientific Corps, and was
handy man to the household--for a consideration, which was Nelly. He had
the hardest work of all the three--advice was less wanted from him than
assistance. He never went so far as his club, poor man, or entered Bond
Street, without a commission. He recommended tradespeople, and
superintended, or at least inspected, all the repairs done on the old
house, besides suggesting improvements, which had to be carried out
under his eye. Lastly, there was Mrs. Eastwood’s religious adviser, or
rather advisers; there were two of them, and they were both
ladies,--one, a sister belonging to one of the many sisterhoods now
existing in the English Church; and the other an old lady from the north
of Ireland, with all the Protestantism peculiar to that privileged
region. With this body of defenders Mrs. Eastwood moved through life,
not so heavily burdened after all as might be supposed. She had a ready
way of relieving herself when she felt the yoke. Though she religiously
asked their advice on all their special topics, and would even go so far
as to acquiesce in their views, and thank them with tears in her eyes
for being so good to her, she generally after all took her own way,
which simplified matters amazingly. Since this was the case even with
her privy councillor, the friend of her bosom, it is not to be wondered
at if the others were used in the same way. Mr. Parchemin was the one
whose advice she took most steadily, for she was deeply conscious that
she knew nothing of business; and Mr. Brotherton, the clergyman, who was
the patron saint of the boys, was probably the one she minded least,
for an exactly opposite reason. But the curious thing was, that even in
neglecting their advice, she never alienated her counsellors--I suspect
because our vanity is more entirely flattered by being consulted than
our pride is hurt by having our counsel tacitly rejected. So much for
the elder lady’s share. Nelly, on her side, had a host of friends of her
own age, with whom she was very popular, but no one who was exactly
Pythias to her Damon, for the reason that she was old-fashioned enough
to make her mother her chief companion. Let us clear the stage, however,
for something more important than a female Pythias. Nelly had--who can
doubt it?--or her right to admission into these pages would have been
very slight, a lover, for whom the trumpets are now preparing to sound.
Let us pause, however, for one moment to note a fact which is certainly
curious. We all know the statistics that prove beyond possibility of
doubt that there are more women than men in the world--or, at least, in
the English world--and that, in the natural course of events, only
three-fourths, or four-fifths, or some other mysterious proportion, of
Englishwomen can ever attain the supreme glory and felicity of being
married. Now, I do not dare to contradict figures. I have too much
respect--not to say awe--of them. I only wish to ask, in all humility,
how does it then happen that a great many women are offered the choice
of two or three husbands, and that almost every nice young girl one
knows has to shape her ways warily in certain complications of
circumstances, so as to keep every thing smooth between some two, at
least, who devote to her the homage of their attentions? I do not expect
that any statistician will take the trouble to answer this question, but
it is one deeply calculated to increase the mingled faith, incredulity,
terror, and contempt with which I, like most people, regard that
inexorable science. Nelly Eastwood was one of these anomalies and
practical contradictions to all received law. She had no idea that she
was flying in the face of statistics, or doing her best to stultify the
most beautiful lines of figures. Major Railton, of whom we have already
spoken, was over thirty, which Nelly, not quite twenty, thought rather
old; but the other pretendant for Nelly’s favour was not old. He was one
of the class which has taken the place now-a-days of the knights and
captains, the heroes of the period. Not a conquering soldier or bold
adventurer--a young barrister lately called to exercise that noble
faculty, and prove black to be white and white black to the satisfaction
of a British jury; _tant soit peu_ journalist, ready with his pen, ready
with his tongue; up, as the slang goes, to anything. His name was
Molyneux, and his position as a briefless barrister was much modified by
the fact that he was the son of the well-known Mr. Molyneux, whose fame
and success at the bar had already indicated him as one of the next new
judges as soon as any piece of judicial ermine fell vacant. This changed
in the most wonderful way the position of Ernest Molyneux, upon whose
prospects no mother could frown, though indeed he had nothing, and
earned just enough to pay his tailor’s bills. Major Railton, too, was
somewhat literary, as indeed most men are now-a-days. When anything was
going on in the military world, he was good enough to communicate it to
the public through the medium of the _Daily Treasury_. He had even been
sent out by that paper on one or two occasions as its special
correspondent. Naturally, he took a view of professional matters
entirely opposed to the view taken by the correspondent of the
_Jupiter_. The Major’s productions were chiefly descriptive, and
interspersed with anecdote. The barrister’s were metaphysical, and of a
very superior mental quality. He was fond of theology, when he could get
at it, and of settling everything over again on a new basis. These were
the two gentlemen who happened to meet in the drawing-room at The Elms,
on one of these chilly afternoons, at the fire-light hour. This fashion
of sitting without lights was one which both of them rather objected to,
though they dared not express their sentiments freely, as on a former
occasion Frederick Eastwood had not hesitated to do. On a little table
which stood before the fire was the tea-tray, with its sparkling china
and little quaint old silver tea-pot, which glittered, too, in the ruddy
light. This was the highest light in the darkling scene. Major Railton
was seated quite in the shadow, near Mrs. Eastwood, to whom he had been
discoursing, in his capacity as out-door adviser, about the state of the
coachhouse. Young Molyneux was moving about the centre of the room, in
the way some men have, talking to Nelly, and looking at any chance book
or curious thing that might fall in his way. They had been hearing the
story of the new cousin with polite interest, varying according to the
nature of the men, and the intimacy and interest in the house which
their respective positions enabled them to show.
“The stables are the worst,” said the Major. “In one corner the rain is
positively coming in; not to speak of the uninhabitable nature of the
place, if you should want to use it, the property is positively
deteriorated. It really must not be allowed to fall out of repair.”
“There is no chance of my wanting to use it, Major; but, of course, if,
as you say, the property is injured----. I am sure,” said Mrs. Eastwood,
“it is a great nuisance to be your own landlord; other people, I find,
have all these things done for them.”
“But other people pay rent, and may be turned out at a year’s notice,”
said the Major.
“Oh, indeed, nobody is so foolish as to turn out a good tenant. Indeed,
it is a very equivocal advantage to live in your own house. Constant
taxes, constant repairs, and though everybody knows I have put down my
carriage, obliged to spend money on my stables! That,” said Mrs.
Eastwood emphatically, “is what I call an irony of fate.”
“It is bad, it must be allowed,” said Molyneux bursting in; his ear had
been caught by the last words, which she pronounced more loudly than
usual, with a true sense of the injury done her. “It is like a story I
heard the other day of an unfortunate Austrian whose chateau was
destroyed in the war. Just about the time the last fire smouldered out,
he got his bill from the great furniture man at Vienna for the
redecoration. It had just been finished before the Prussian guns went at
it. There’s irony for you! I don’t suppose your friend Bismarck,
Railton, will be so civil as to pay the bill.”
“Nobody will pay my bill, I am sure,” said Mrs. Eastwood, not quite
relishing the introduction of a misfortune which overshadowed her own.
“What a comfort it is, to be sure, that there is no more fighting in
Italy. Frederick, I think, ought to be in Pisa by this time, and next
week I hope we may have him back. What a difference in travelling since
my day! Then we went in our own carriages from Marseilles, going round
the coast, and taking weeks to it. Nelly, don’t you think we might have
lights?”
“Presently, mamma; don’t you want to know about my new cousin, a new
young lady coming out of the unknown?” said Nelly. “If I visited in a
house where any one so very new was about to appear, I should be dying
of curiosity. Mr. Molyneux, you are full of imagination, or at least so
the newspapers say; help me to make out what she will be like. Born in
Italy; sixteen; named Innocent. Here are the facts. Now tell me what you
think, and then you shall have my idea.”
“I hope she will be like her relations, whom we know,” said Major
Railton gallantly: “and then the firmament will have another star.”
“That is pretty, but it is vague,” said Nelly, “and I have heard
something like it before. Mr. Molyneux----”
“Who said I was full of imagination?” said Molyneux, feeling entitled to
draw a chair near her. “Now if there is one thing I pride myself on, it
is that subordination of fancy to reason which is characteristic, Miss
Eastwood, of a well-regulated mind. Girls of sixteen are of two classes,
so far as I have observed: honest bread-and-butter, which I rather like
on the whole--or the shy and sentimental, which, when it is not too
thin, has its attractions also. Miss Innocent, being Italian, &c., will
probably belong to the last class. Now for your idea. I have said my
say.”
“My idea,” said Nelly solemnly, turning her face towards him in the glow
of the fire-light, which lighted up the soft round of her cheek, and
fluttered about her pretty figure as if caressing her, “is this: I have
been reading up ‘Aurora Leigh.’ Have you read ‘Aurora Leigh’? Perhaps
you do not condescend to anything merely English, and written by a
woman----”
“Pardon, this is criticism and accusation, not your idea.”
“I will send Birkson to-morrow,” said the Major in his corner, “he is
the man I always employ. He can give an estimate at least, and I will
cast an eye over it the next time I see you. I fear you must do it,
though I hate all expense that can be spared.”
“And such unnecessary expense,” sighed Mrs. Eastwood.
“Well, then,” resumed Nelly, flushing with excitement, “this is how it
will be--it is constantly so in books, and I suppose you writers ought
to know. She will be beautiful, she will be clever, far cleverer than
anybody here. She will flash upon us in our dull little house like a
princess. Mamma and I will be quenched altogether. She will be the
centre of everything. When you come to call, you will all make a circle
round her to hear her talk, or to hear her sing, or just to look at her,
she will be so lovely. Probably she will sing like an angel,--everybody
does who comes from Italy. Her father will have taught her all sorts of
out-of-the-way things,--Greek and Latin, and astrology, and I don’t know
what. Poor mamma and I will try to keep her down, you know, and be
something still in our own house.”
“Why, Nelly, what wild nonsense are you talking? Do stop your romancing,
and ring for the lights.”
“Presently, mamma! We will be unkind to her, we will leave her at home
when we go out, we will make her sit up in the old schoolroom. I hope we
will have strength of mind to give her enough to eat. But whatever we do
she will shine like a star, as Major Railton beautifully says. She will
outshine us in goodness as well as in everything else. She will cast us
into the shade; we shall feel ourselves the meanest, and the
wretchedest, and the stupidest, and the ugliest----”
“Nelly, Nelly, are you going crazy? What can you mean?”
“There’s imagination for you!” cried Molyneux; “invention, the most
daring fancy. I did not know you were a poet. ‘Aurora Leigh’ is nothing
to it, nor even ‘Cinderella.’ Now, I confess my curiosity is awakened.
When is this course of cruelty to begin?”
“Yes, mamma, it is getting quite night,” cried Nelly, springing up. “We
have been left long enough in the dark, haven’t we? Have you settled
about the stables? Oh, Major Railton, if you would be so very good! It
is only a book I want. A book is a simple sort of commission. Now please
tell me if it is troublesome, for of course I could order it at
Clarke’s; but then it would not come for a week. We are supposed to be
in London here, but it is a week’s post to Regent Street.”
“What is the good of me but to run errands?” said the gallant Major,
changing his seat in the corner for another chair more near to Nelly.
“I like it. Good heavens, I beg your pardon, Winks, how was I to see you
were there?”
Winks jumped down out of the chair on which he had been lying, in the
highest dudgeon; he took no notice of the criminal. Too much a gentleman
to say anything uncivil beyond the momentary snap and snarl which
betrayed his disinclination to be sat upon, a thing abhorrent both to
dogs and men, he hobbled to the rug, holding up one paw with a
demonstration of patient suffering, which might have melted the hardest
heart. It was Winks’s favourite paw which he never ran upon under any
circumstances; but this was a little fact which he did not mention. He
took it to the matting, and licked it, and made much of it, with a
heroic abstinence from any complaint. The Major went down on his knees,
and felt the injured limb carefully, with every expression of penitence.
“The bone is not hurt, I assure you,” he said tenderly, half to Winks
and half to his mistress. The sufferer turned his head aside during this
examination, to conceal, I believe, the smile upon his countenance.
“He is a little humbug,” said Mrs. Eastwood, but she was relieved to
know there was not much the matter. As for young Molyneux, he took a
base advantage of the incident.
“Railton is getting rather stout,” he whispered aside to Nelly, “I don’t
wonder Winks did not like it. He is broadening, one can’t deny it. Look
what a shadow he throws, blotting out you and me together.” And, indeed,
the excellent Major, foreshortened by the firelight, did throw a
portentous shade up to the very ceiling. And Nelly laughed out like a
foolish girl, unable to restrain herself, and could give no account of
her laughter; but declared it was because of Winks, who was an
accomplished actor, and had taken the Major in. “Winks, come, I am going
up-stairs,” she cried; upon which the invalid bounded from the rug,
nearly upsetting the Major. And then Brownlow came in with the two
lamps, and the hour of reception was over. Major Railton, however,
lingered still for a last word about the stables, while young Molyneux
was forced to go away. To have a settled appointment, so to speak, about
the house in which dwells the young lady of your affections is an
unquestionable advantage. It secures the last word.
“Nelly, how could you talk in that wild way?” cried Mrs. Eastwood when
both were gone. “There is nothing men like so much as to think that
women are jealous of each other. It flatters their vanity. They will
think you meant every word of all that nonsense, and a pretty account
they will give of us to all our friends.”
“I did mean it,” said Nelly, “I was quite in earnest. If you will read
‘Aurora Leigh’ as I have been doing----”
“Aurora Fiddlestick,” cried Mrs. Eastwood, which, after all, was no
argument; “don’t let me hear any more such nonsense. As if any girl that
was ever born could alter one’s position in one’s own house! I am
surprised at you, Ellinor. Make haste now and dress; we are much later
than usual in consequence of your foolish talk. I suppose I must go to
this fresh expense about the stables after what the Major says,” she
added, with care on her brow; “though I am sure Frederick will no more
be able to keep horses when I die than I am now. And I don’t see why I
should keep them up for remote posterity--my great grandson, perhaps,
who, if he is able to afford it at all, should be able to build stables
for himself. I don’t think I will do it, Nelly. I will send for old
Sclater to-morrow, and have the roof looked to. These men talk as if we
were made of money, especially men who have the public money to fall
back upon. It is very pleasant, I don’t doubt, to see work done and
places kept up when you never have any bills to pay.”
This little speech was delivered partly on the stairs as Mrs. Eastwood
went up to dress, followed by her daughter. Nelly, I am afraid, was not
much interested about the stables, and made no reply; but she put her
head into the little room before she began to dress, and contemplated
it, admiring yet doubtful. She had been reading “Aurora Leigh” all the
morning, and the poetry had gone to Nelly’s head, as poetry is apt to do
when one is twenty. She wondered if English nature, as represented by
the elms and the lime trees, with no hills at all, not even a green
slope for a background, would seem as tame to her cousin as English
scenery in general had done to Aurora. Nelly herself had never yet been
farther than Paris, and had seen no scenery to speak of. The blue spring
sky and the primrose-covered grass,--the play of sunshine and shadow
further on in the year through the silken green of the limes--the
moonlight pouring down the avenue--filled her own heart with a flood of
soft delight. That was because she knew no better, she argued humbly
with herself; but the other, who had seen Alps and Apennines, and snowy
peaks and Italian skies! “I wonder if she will think us tame too,” Nelly
said to herself with a little shiver, as she went back to her own room
and applied herself to the work of dressing. She reflected that in books
the stranger, the orphan, the dependent, generally has it all her own
way; but that, at the same time, there was something to be said on the
other side for the tame, stay-at-home people, who did their best to
satisfy the poetic nature, even if they did not succeed. Perhaps Miss
Leigh herself, Aurora’s aunt, who had not bargained for a poet, might
have had her story too. On the whole Nelly, having completed the little
room, was somewhat depressed about its inmate. It was pretty, but she
had not been able to give quite the ideal effect she had intended. In
furnishing and decoration, as well as other matters, the highest ideal
is not always the one that succeeds best.