A SUNDAY AT HOME.
Innocent, it may well be supposed, had been thrown into the shade by
these great events in Nelly’s history, and yet she was, notwithstanding,
a most important element in the discomfort which began to creep into the
house. The very first day after her arrival she had begun her strange
career. Brought down-stairs for meals, she would sit very quietly,
eating or pretending to eat what was offered to her--and much of what
was offered to her was so strange to her that she fared but badly, poor
child, until a new habit had begun to form, and the wholesome appetite
of youth had driven away her prejudices. It is a whimsical thought, and
one which we are aware the British intellect in general declines to
contemplate, that frog-eating foreigners, or those still more miserable
specimens of humanity who are brought up upon maccaroni and polenta,
should not when they come among us take any more enthusiastically to our
richer fare than we do to theirs; but yet, strange to say, this is
unquestionably the case--and poor Innocent had very little to eat for
the first few days, not knowing the looks of things, and hesitating, as
the inexperienced always do, to venture upon the unknown. When the meal
was over, unless absolute moral force was exerted to restrain her, she
escaped at once to her own room, her constant occupancy of which became
at once a standing grievance of the housemaid, who immediately settled
in her mind that this unusual course of procedure was suggested by an
ardent desire to spy upon her movements, and to report her imperfections
to her mistress. There were countless complaints from this quarter about
the impossibility of “cleaning out” Miss Innocent’s room, or even of
“cleaning out” Miss Ellinor’s room, which adjoined, or, in short, of
doing anything whatever under the constant inspection of the stranger’s
eyes. What with this offence against the housemaid of being constantly
in her bedroom, and the offence against the cook of never being
satisfied with anything at table, and the offence against Brownlow of
paying no attention to his intimations that dinner was ready, Innocent
was in bad odour with all the servants except Alice, who stood by her
quietly, without any warmer applause, however, than that there was no
“hairm in the girl.” In the higher regions Innocent made a still more
puzzling and painful impression. When she could be retained among them
she sat dumb in a corner, generally near one of the windows, saying
nothing, answering “Yes” and “No” to the questions addressed to her,
doing nothing, presenting a blank, impenetrable surface of silence to
all the attempts at friendly intercourse made by the lively and genial
group which she intruded herself amongst like a figure of stone. She
would obey when absolutely commanded, and for the immediate moment of
the command--but then only as by machinery, without the least appearance
of entering into the spirit of the directions given her, or wishing to
please, or desiring to bring herself into accord with her surroundings.
No idea, indeed, of putting herself in accord with her surroundings
seemed ever to enter into her mind. She was an alien in her own
consciousness, altogether untouched by the distress, the vexation, the
bewilderment caused by her self-isolation. Perhaps if, as Mrs. Eastwood
said, they had been able to love the girl heartily, and by nature,
without any action of hers to call it forth, they might have thawed the
snow-image. But beyond the natural bounds of the family, love ceases to
be given in this instinctive, causeless way, and nobody can long resist
the repellant effect of a perpetual non-response. The girl was a worry
and vexation to Mrs. Eastwood and Nelly, and she was the cause of much
suppressed merriment to Dick, who held that she was sulky, and giving
herself airs, and ought to be laughed at. Jenny, as the reader has been
informed, looked at the matter in a more philosophical way; but neither
nature nor philosophy threw any light upon the darkness, or suggested
any way of mending the matter. The strange girl in their midst occupied
the ladies (before the moment of Nelly’s engagement) perpetually. They
took her out, they tried to amuse her, they tried to sympathize with
her, they asked countless questions, and elicited many details of her
former life; but they never moved her with all their pettings and
coaxings to say one word to them, or to stay one moment with them longer
than she was compelled.
This was the outside aspect of affairs, as seen by those surrounding
her, who were much discouraged in every way by the strange passiveness
of the new comer; but to Innocent herself the world bore a different
appearance, as may be supposed. She had been brought up in utter
solitude; her father, who cared little for her, and took little notice
of her, and Niccolo, who had done everything, were the two sole figures
with which she was familiar. Other human forms she had seen going about
the streets, gliding round her in a strange, dull phantasmagoria,
without touching her. Her intellect was feeble, or so partially awakened
that she had never yet begun to think of her own position either present
or future, or connexion with the rest of humanity. All that life had yet
been to her was a window through which she had seen other people,
bearing no connexion with herself, moving about with mysterious comings,
and going through a world not realized. She had watched them with a
certain dull wonder. Their occupations and their activity surprised
without interesting her. Why should they take so much trouble, why keep
so constantly in motion? And then the whirlwind had seemed to seize
herself, to whirl her through air and space, through a still stranger
phantasmagoria--moving pictures of sea and land, and to set her down in
the very heart of one of those strange groups of people who were so
unlike anything she had ever known, people who clustered together and
talked and laughed and had a great deal to do with each other, but among
whom she felt as strange as a stray olive leaf dropped among the
cast-off garments of English beech and elm. She could not mix with them.
She felt no interest in what they did or said, and no desire to feel any
interest. She was even secretly vexed, as much as her dulled nature
would allow, by all the care taken of her, the demands which she was
daily conscious they made, the disappointment with her irresponsiveness,
which more or less they all showed. Why could not they let her alone?
She had not, as Nelly sometimes supposed, any conventional prepossession
in her mind, or feeling that she, the penniless niece and dependent,
must be of necessity slighted and kept down, an idea which does take
possession of some natures, and cause much unreasonable mischief. Such a
notion, however, was much too complicated, much too profound for the
mind of Innocent. It was not so much that she had a false impression
about her relationship with them as that she had no real conception of
any relationship at all. She accepted her external surroundings
mechanically, without even asking herself what right she had to be an
inmate of her aunt’s house, or to be cared for as she was. Gratitude was
more than impossible to her; she did not know what the word meant. She
had never asked to be brought to Mrs. Eastwood’s house; it occurred to
her in her ignorance that she would rather have stayed in Pisa, but it
never occurred to her to ask why she could not stay in Pisa, why Niccolo
had been sent away, and she brought here. She had never possessed more
than a franc or two in her life, and had no idea of the value of money
or its necessity. In short, the development of her mind was rather that
of six than sixteen. Nothing was formed in her except the striking
personality and individuality that shut her up within herself as within
a husk, and kept her from mingling with others. This absence of all
capability of thought or feeling, this perfect blank and stupefaction of
intellect and heart, took away from her all that lively sense of
novelty, all that interest in the unknown which is so strong and so
beneficent in youth. She did not ask to understand either the things or
persons round her. She accepted them dully, as she would have accepted
any other order of things; they did not affect her at all; they moved
her neither to love nor to hatred, scarcely even to wonder; through them
all she pursued her own dull way, crossed by these other threads of
existence perforce, but never entangling with them, or allowing herself
to be woven into the common web. Their outcries and laughter, their
manifestations of feeling, their fondness for each other, the perpetual
movement of life among them, affected her only with a vague surprise too
faint for that lively title, and a still more languid contempt. She had
nothing in common with them; they were, it seemed to her, restless,
afflicted with a fever of activity, bound by some treadmill necessity to
talk, and walk, and move about, and be always doing, of which her frame
and mind were totally unconscious. A vague resentment against them--the
girl scarcely knew why--for disturbing her with their companionship, and
subjecting her to such strange demands for a sympathy which she had not
to give, and an affection for which she felt no need, gave a certain
reality to the mistiness of her sensations. But that was all; she came
among them like a thing dropped out of another sphere, having no
business, no pleasure, nothing whatever to do or to learn upon this
alien earth.
But there was an exception to this rule. Innocent clung to Frederick as
a savage might cling to the one white man who had brought her out of her
woods and from among her people into the strange and beautiful world of
civilized life. She knew him, though she knew no one else. Frederick was
her revelation, her one discovery out of the darkness which surrounded
every other nature. She formed no very close or distinct estimate of
him, but at least she was conscious of another existence which affected
her own, and upon which she was to some degree dependent. When Mrs.
Eastwood found her lurking in the hall in the cold and darkness, waiting
for Frederick, an immediate and full-grown love tale glimmered before
the unfortunate mother’s eyes, filling her with dismay. But Innocent’s
thoughts had taken no such form. She was as unconscious of love as of
any other passion, and had as little idea of anything to follow as a
baby. It was, however, her only point of human interest, the sole thing
which drew her out of herself. When Frederick was present she had eyes
only for him; when he spoke she listened, not much understanding what he
said, but vaguely stimulated by the very sound of his voice. When he
told her to do anything she made an effort to bring her mind to bear
upon it, and somehow took in what he said. The moment when he came home
was the moment to which she looked forward the whole day through. A
vague sense that he understood her, that he did not ask too much from
her like the others, made no bewildering demand on her comprehension,
but accepted what she gave with a matter-of-fact simplicity equal to her
own, gave her confidence in him. Could she have been with Frederick
alone she would have been happy; or would he even have permitted her to
sit close to him, or hold his hand, while the bewildering conversation
of the others--conversation which they expected her to join in and
understand--was going on around, Innocent would have been more able to
bear it. This, however, he had privately explained to her could not be.
“When we are alone I do not mind,” he said, with a condescension which
suited his natural temper, “but when we are with the others it makes you
ridiculous, Innocent; and what is more, it makes me ridiculous. They
laugh at both you and me.”
“Why should they laugh?” asked the girl.
“Because it is absurd,” he said, frowning. “I cannot allow you to make
me a laughing-stock. Of course, as I tell you, I don’t mind so much when
we are alone.”
And he stroked her hair with a caressing kindness which was at that time
about the best sentiment in the young man’s mind. He was often
embarrassed by her, and sometimes had asked himself the question, What
on earth was it to come to? for he too, like his mother, believed that
Innocent was in love with him; and the love of such a girl, so
manifested, was more absurd than gratifying. But yet he was always kind
to her. Evil impulses enough of one kind and another were in his mind,
and he could have made of this girl anything he pleased, his slave, the
servant of his will in any way. But he never treated her otherwise than
as his little sister, and was kind, and put up with her demonstrative
affection, and did his best to advise her “for her good.”
“You must not shrink so from my mother and Nelly,” he said. “They want
to be kind to you. If you could only take to them, it would be much
better for you than taking to a fellow like me----”
“I don’t like women,” said Innocent. “My father always said so. I cannot
help being one myself, but I hate them. And nobody is like you.”
“That is very pleasant for me,” said Frederick, “but you must not keep
up that notion about women. Your father was a capital judge, I have no
doubt, but he might have taught you something more useful. Depend upon
it, you will never be happy till you make friends with your own sex.
They may be dangerous to men, though men are not generally of your
opinion,” continued the moralist, “but for you, Innocent, mark my words,
it is far your best policy to make the women your friends.”
“What is policy?” she asked, stealing her hand into his, much as a dog
puts his nose into his master’s hand.
“Pshaw!” said Frederick. His mother had come into the room and had seen
this pantomime. “You ought to be put to school and learn English,” he
added, somewhat roughly. “I don’t believe she understands half of what
we say.”
“Indeed, I should not be sorry to think so,” said Mrs. Eastwood, not
without severity in her tone. But the severity was lost upon Innocent.
She understood, as she did always by some strange magic understand
Frederick, that she was now to withdraw from him and do her best to
appear indifferent. It was a Sunday afternoon, rainy and miserable--and
a rainy Sunday afternoon, when English domestic virtue shuts up all its
ordinary occupations, is, it must be allowed, a dreary moment. I do not
at all agree in the ordinary conventional notion of the dreariness of
English Sundays generally, but I allow that a Sunday afternoon, when all
the good people are at home, when the children are forbidden to play,
and the women’s work is carefully put away, as if innocent embroidery
were sin, and the men do not know what to do with themselves, is trying.
If you are musical to the extent of Handel you may be happy, but the
only thing to be done otherwise in a good orthodox respectable family,
bound by all the excellent English traditions, is to pick a quarrel with
some one. About five o’clock or so, with the rain pouring steadily down
into the garden, the flower-beds becoming puddles before your eyes, the
trees looking in upon you like pitiful ghosts--if you have not dared the
elements and gone to afternoon church, you must quarrel or you must die.
Mrs. Eastwood felt the necessity. She called Frederick close to her, and
she addressed him in an undertone. Innocent had gone away, and placed
herself in a chair close by the window. She had not even “taken a
book”--the impossibility of making her ever “take a book” was one of the
miseries of the house. She was gazing blankly out upon the rain, upon
the trees that shivered and seemed to ask for shelter, and the beds,
where a draggled line of closed-up crocuses were leaning their bosoms
upon the mud. Her beautiful profile was outlined distinctly against the
pale gray dreary light. It _was_ a beautiful profile always, more
beautiful than the full face, which wanted life. Blank as the day itself
was her countenance, with that motiveless gaze which was, indeed, almost
mystic in its absolute want of animation. Her hands were crossed upon
her lap, her whole limp girlish figure seemed to sympathize with the
dreariness outside. Mrs. Eastwood looked with a mixture of pity,
sympathy, and disapproval at this apathetic, immovable being, so
self-absorbed, and yet so childish and pitiful in her self-absorption.
She drew Frederick to her and laid her hand upon his arm.
“Frederick, look there,” she said in a low tone, “if you were not in the
room Innocent would rush off up-stairs. She stays only for you. I saw
you just now with her as I came in. For God’s sake, take care what you
are about. You are turning that child’s head.”
“Bah! nonsense,” said Frederick, freeing himself with a complacent
smile.
“It is not nonsense. I have watched her since ever she came. She has
neither eyes nor ears but for you.”
“Is that my fault?” said Frederick, making a motion as if to break away.
“I do not say it is your fault. Stop and hear what I have to say. It was
very good of you, no doubt, to be so kind to her on the journey, to gain
her confidence----”
“Your words are very nice, mother,” said Frederick, “but your tone
implies that it was anything but good of me, as if I had gained her
confidence with an evil intention----”
“Frederick! how dare you put such a suggestion into my lips? If I were
to answer you as you deserve, I should say that only a guilty mind could
have thought of such a thing, or thought that I could think of it,”
cried Mrs. Eastwood, becoming involved in expression as she lost her
temper. This heat on both sides was entirely to be attributed to the
Sunday afternoon. On arriving so near the brink of the quarrel as this,
Mrs. Eastwood paused.
“Sunday is not a day for quarrelling,” she said, “and heaven knows I
have no wish to quarrel with any one, much less my own boy; but
Frederick, dear, you must let me warn you. You do not know the world as
I do (heaven help the innocent soul!) nor how people are led on further
than they have any intention; nor how the simplest kindness on your part
may affect the imagination of a girl. She is not much more than a
child----”
“She is an utter child--and a fool besides,” said Frederick, throwing
the female creature about whom he was being lectured overboard at once,
as a sacrifice to the waves, according to the wont of man.
“I would not say that,” said Mrs. Eastwood doubtfully. “She is a very
strange girl, but I do not like to think she is a fool; and as for being
a child--a child of sixteen is very near a woman--and, my dear, without
meaning it, without thinking of it, you might do a great deal of harm.
With a brooding sort of girl like this, you can never tell what may be
going on. If she was one to speak out and say what she is thinking, like
my Nelly----”
“Nelly! Well, to do her justice, she is very different from Nelly,”
said Frederick, with that natural depreciation of his sister which
is also usual enough, and which was largely increased by
Sunday-afternoonishness.
“No, indeed, she is not like Nelly, more’s the pity,” said Mrs.
Eastwood, fortunately not detecting the injurious tone. “She is so shut
up in herself that you can never tell what may be going on within her. I
am sure you don’t mean it, Frederick, but sometimes I think, for
Innocent’s own sake, it would be better if you were not quite so kind. I
don’t like her waiting for you in the hall, and that sort of thing.
There is no harm in it, I know--but I don’t like it. It is always an
unpleasant thing to have ideas--which she would be better without--put
into a girl’s head.”
“You are too mysterious for me to follow,” said Frederick. “What ideas?
If you will be a little more plain in your definition----”
She was his mother, and thought she knew a great deal more than he did
about life; but she blushed as red as a girl at this half-contemptuous
question.
“Frederick, you know very well what I mean,” she said quickly, “and I
hope you will not try to make me sorry that I have appealed to you at
all. You may make Innocent more fond of you than will be good for her,
poor child, and that can produce nothing but unhappiness. I am not
finding fault, I am only warning you. Her I cannot warn, because she so
shuts herself up. She is a mystery,” said poor Mrs. Eastwood, shaking
her head.
“Whip her,” said Frederick, with a little scornful laugh; and he walked
off to the library, where Dick was pretending to read, and really
teaching Winks, who had been having a _mauvais quart d’heure_, and whose
patience was so utterly exhausted that nothing but his regard for the
family could have kept him from snapping. Winks made his escape when the
door was opened, and rushed to the drawing-room, where nobody was
allowed to insult his intellect by tricks. He came and sat up before his
mistress on his hind legs, waving his feathery forepaws in
expostulation. She understood him, which is consolatory alike to dogs
and men. The tears had come into her eyes at the unkind scorn of
Frederick’s tone, but this other complaint brought a little laughter and
carried off the sharpness. “Yes, Winks, they are wicked boys,” she said,
half laughing, half crying. Dick declared after that Winks had been
“sneaking,” and I think the dog himself was a little ashamed of having
told; but it did the mother good, and set her thinking of her Dick, who
was not too bright, nor yet very industrious, but the honestest
fellow!--and that thought made her laugh, and healed the little prick in
her heart.