AMANDA.
Frederick’s fever had come to a crisis. The next day was Saturday, and,
without waiting his mother’s answer, he went down to Sterborne in the
afternoon. He could wait no longer. Sterborne is a little town with a
large old church. It would be almost a village but for the minster,
which gives it dignity; and all the people of the place are accustomed
to consider their minster as their private property, and to exhibit it
to strangers as something in which they themselves have had a hand, and
for which thanks are due to them--and not only thanks, but shillings and
sixpences. Frederick’s arrival at the little inn was accordingly set
down without doubt to the attractions of the minster; and while he ate
his luncheon the guides who particularly attached themselves to that
establishment collected outside, to be ready for his service as soon as
he should appear.
“The minster, sir? here you are, sir!” said one sharp small creature,
half man, half boy, with elf looks and unnaturally bright eyes. “I’m the
reg’lar guide,” said another. “Them fellows there don’t know
nothing--not a single haltar, or the names of the tombs as are all about
the place.” “I can do you a rubbing of the brasses, sir.” “Here’s
photographs, sir, of all the favourite aspects.”
Thus he was surrounded and beset. He could have knocked them all down,
with pleasure, as they struggled in his way; but as that was not
practicable, he threw their ranks into utter rout by saying plainly, “I
don’t want to go to the minster”--a speech which filled the crowd of
Sterborne with absolute consternation, and almost produced an
insurrection in the place. That any man should profess himself
indifferent to the centre of their town and the world startled them
beyond measure. “What did he come to Sterborne for, if not to see the
minster?” While they dispersed from his path, with an assured conviction
in their minds that he must be an infidel and revolutionary, Frederick
called the imp who had first offered his services.
“I want to go to Mr. Batty’s,” he said.
“To old Batty’s!” cried the lad, turning a somersault on the spot: “here
you are, sir.”
“He’s going to old Batty’s!” cried one of the assistants: and there was
a roar of laughter, which Frederick did not understand, but which made
him angry by instinct.
“Why did they laugh?” he asked, when he had left that mob behind him,
and was following his guide through the High Street.
“We all laughs at old Batty,” was the reply.
“For what reason?” said Frederick sternly: but his conductor only
laughed once more. To tell the truth, there was no reason. The
ragamuffins of the place had made a custom of it; they “always laughed,”
but they could give no reason why. Nevertheless, this very circumstance
chilled Frederick. It was not powerful enough to stop him in his
enterprise, but it chilled him. His old self--his serious self--sprang
up at once, and looked his infatuated and impassioned self in the face,
and asked him how he would like to be the son-in-law of a man at whom
the very ragamuffins laughed. His foolish self replied that the die was
cast, that he had committed himself, and had no way of escape--which,
indeed, was a mere pretence, since he had as yet neither seen the lady
of his love nor any one belonging to her; but it answered his purpose,
and stopped the mouth of the gainsayer.
Batty’s house was in the outskirts of the little town. It was an
old-fashioned house, low and straggling, opening direct from the road,
with a little brass-knockered door, raised by one white step from the
pavement. The door opened into a long passage, at the end of which was
another door, which stood wide open, showing a large garden, green and
bright with the afternoon sunshine. Mr. Batty was not at home, the maid
informed him who opened the door; but if the gentleman would walk into
the drawing-room or the garden she would see whether Miss Batty was
visible. Frederick, in his restlessness and the agitation of his mind,
preferred the latter, and went into the garden in a strange, tremulous
state of excitement, scarcely knowing what he was about.
The house had looked pretty and small from the front, with rows of small
twinkling windows and a low roof; but at the back the impression was
very different. Various rooms built on to the original _corps du logis_
stood out into the lawn, with great bow windows, with green turf at
their feet and creeping plants mantling about them. One of these,
evidently the drawing-room, displayed handsome and luxurious furniture,
of a tasteless but costly kind, through the softly fluttering lace
curtains. The garden itself was large and beautifully cared for, showing
both wealth and understanding. This gave a little comfort to Frederick’s
mind, for gardening is an aristocratic taste. He pleased himself with
thinking that perhaps this was Amanda’s doing; for no one could suspect
Batty himself of caring so much for mere beauty. He walked about the
beds and bosquets with a surprised sense of pleasure, finding the
surroundings so much more graceful than he had hoped--and began to feel
that his passion was thus justified. Presently she would appear, and
fill those paths with light. It would be very different from the aspect
under which she appeared in the London hotel. Here she was at home,
surrounded by circumstances which she herself had moulded, which were
sweetly adapted to her: and here for the first time he could see her as
she was. A hope of something better than he had yet known, better than
he deserved, stole over Frederick’s mind, he had fallen in love with
mere beauty--that beauty which is but skin deep, and which all moralists
preach against. Could it be that in so doing he was to find goodness,
good taste, and refinement too?
While he was thus musing, the sound of voices reached him from one of
the open windows. It was a warm afternoon, almost like summer. A glimmer
of firelight made itself visible in at least two of the rooms, and in
both of these the windows were open. Frederick had no intention of
eavesdropping, but when he heard the voice which he remembered so well
he pricked up his ears. I am afraid there are few lovers who would not
have done so. At first the talking was vague--not clear enough to reach
him; but after a while it became louder in tone. The first to make
itself heard was a voice which whimpered and complained, “After twenty
years’ work for him and his: twenty years!” it said; and it wavered
about as if the speaker was walking up and down the room with agitation.
Sometimes she would stand still, and address the person to whom she was
speaking, varying from complaint to anger. Frederick did not know this
voice. It was only when another speaker burst in, in a still louder
tone, that the situation became at all clear to him. The second voice
rang at once into his heart. It was melodious enough in its ordinary
sound--a round, full voice, not without sweetness; but something
altogether new and unexpected came into it with these sharper and louder
tones,--
“You are free to go away whenever you choose,” Amanda cried. “I will not
be troubled like this. You know what all the doctors have said, and how
wicked it is to worry me. No one can know better than you do. You are a
wretch; you have no kindness, no feeling. Because you have quarrelled
with papa you want to kill me. What is the use of bullying me? You know
you can go as soon as ever you please. Go and be done with it. You are
always threatening, always saying what you will do----”
“Go!” said the other. “Oh, ’Manda, you to speak of feeling! when I have
been here twenty years, and taken care of you from your childhood. But
you are as cold and as hard as a millstone, though you are so pretty.
Oh, if people only knew how you can talk, and how heartless you are, and
the things you say to your mother’s own sister--her that has brought you
up and taken care of you for twenty years!”
“Taken care of me, indeed,” cried Amanda; “any servant could have taken
care of me. You have been a nuisance since ever I can recollect: always
reminding one that mamma was not a lady, and pulling us down as far as
you could. What were you? Nothing but a lady’s maid. Here you’ve been
tried to be made a lady of, and had handsome dresses given you, and all
sorts of things. Of course it was for our own sakes. What was there in
you to make us take any trouble? You are old, you are plain, and vulgar,
and disagreeable. What right have you to be kept like a lady in pa’s
house? You are only good enough to scrub the floor. Why have you always
stayed on when nobody wanted you? I suppose you thought you might marry
pa when ma was dead and gone, though it’s against the law. Of course
that was what you wanted--to be mistress of the house, and get him under
your thumb, and rule over me. Try it, aunty! You won’t find me so easy
to rule over! Just try! An old, ugly, vulgar, spiteful creature, with no
recommendation and no character----”
“‘Manda, ’Manda,” cried the other, “Oh, don’t be so cruel!----”
“I will be cruel, if you call that cruel. There’s more than that coming.
What is the good of you, but to make a slave and a drudge of? Why should
pa keep you but for that? Aunty, indeed! He was a fool ever to let me
call you so. And so he is a soft-hearted fool, or he never would have
kept you on for years and years. If he had but asked me, you should have
been packed off ages ago. You to put on airs, indeed, and say you won’t
do anything you’re told to do! Go, this minute, you wicked woman, and
don’t worry me. Fancy, me! to sit here and listen to you as if you were
worthy to be listened to--you who are no better than the dirt under my
feet.”
“‘Manda, you dare to speak like that to your own flesh and blood!”
“I dare do a great deal more,” cried Amanda. “I dare to turn you out of
doors, bag and baggage; and I will, if you don’t mind. You old
Jezebel--you old hag, as pa says--you horrid painted witch--you wicked
woman! Get out of my sight, or I’ll throw something at you--I will! Go
away! If you are not gone in one moment--you witch--you old hag----”
Here a smash of something breaking told that the gentle Amanda had kept
her word. There was a suppressed cry, a scuffle, a scream, and then the
bell was rung violently.
“Oh, I suppose it’s my fault,” cried the other voice, with a whimpering
cry. “Bring the bottle out of her room--the one at her bedside. Give me
the eau-de-cologne. Here’s she been and fainted. Quick! Quick! ’Manda! I
didn’t mean it, dear! I don’t mind! Manda! Lord, you were red enough
just now--don’t look so dead white!”
Was it Frederick’s guardian angel that had made him an auditor of this
scene? The loud voice declaiming, the string of abusive words, the clash
of the missile thrown, were horrible and strange to him as the language
of demons. He was thunderstruck. Her language had not always been
pleasant to him, but he was not prepared for anything like this. He
walked up and down in a state of mind which it would be impossible to
describe. His first impulse was flight. There was still time for him to
get away altogether, to escape from this horrible infatuation, to escape
from her and her dreadful father, and everything belonging to her.
Should he go? Then he reflected he had given his card, and so far
compromised himself. Was this sufficient to detain a man who had just
been subjected to the hardest trial in the world, a sudden disgust for
the woman whom he thought he loved? Frederick stood still, he paused,
his heart was rent in two. He was within reach of her, almost within
sight of her, and must he go without seeing her, unworthy as she might
be? It was not necessary, he said to himself, that anything should
follow, that he should carry out the intention with which he came. That
was impossible--however lovely and sweet and fair she might be, he would
not take a low-bred termagant into his bosom. No, no! that was over for
ever. But how could he go without seeing her, after he had given his
card and announced himself? This would be to expose himself to her wrath
and her father’s, in whose power to some extent he was. He could hear
the voices through the open window as he wandered about the garden,
arguing with himself. Should he go? Should he stay? Strangely enough,
though he had been told that agitation might be fatal to her, he was not
anxious about her, though he surmised that she had fainted. His disgust
took this form. If she were ill after her outbreak, she deserved it. On
the whole he was almost pleased that she should be ill. She had
humiliated him as well as herself, and he had a vindictive satisfaction
in feeling that she was punished for it; but further than this he did
not go. No; of course all was over; he could never be her suitor, never
ask her to give him the hand with which she had thrown something which
crashed and broke at her companion’s head. Never! that was over; but why
should not he see her, behold her beauty once more--give himself that
last pleasure? He would never seek her again; she had disgusted,
revolted, turned his mind away from her. But since he was already so
near, since he had given his card, since it would be known at once why
he went away, this once, not for love, but for scornful gratification of
his contemptuous admiration, just as he would look at a statue or
picture, he would see her again.
This was the foolish reasoning with which he subdued the wiser instinct
that prompted him to fly. Why should he fly? A woman capable of
speaking, acting, thinking as this woman had done, could no longer have
any power over a man who, whatever might be his moral character, had
still the tastes and impulses of a gentleman. She had made an end of her
sway over him, he thought; that dream could never come back again.
Nobody but a madman would ask such a creature to marry him. To marry
him? to be taken to his mother’s house, and promoted into the society of
gentlefolk? Never! He laughed bitterly at the notion. But, thank
Heaven! he had not betrayed himself. Thank Heaven! that merely to see
her would commit him to nothing. No, he ended by convincing himself the
most manly course was to pay his visit as if nothing had happened, to
see the syren who was no longer a syren to him, but only a beautiful
piece of flesh and blood, whom he might look at and admire like a
statue. This was, he repeated to himself, the most manly course. The
phrase was pleasant to him. To run away would look as if he had no
confidence in his own moral force and power of resisting temptation. But
the fact was that there could be no longer any temptation in the matter.
To see her, and prove to himself that disgust had altogether destroyed
the fierce violent wild love which had swallowed up all his better
resolution, was the only manly course to take.
He was standing by one of the flower-beds, stamping down unconsciously
with his boot the border of long-leaved crocuses which had gone out of
flower, but quite unaware of the damage he was doing, when the maid who
admitted him came back. She apologized for keeping him so long waiting.
Miss ’Manda had been taken bad sudden--one of her bad turns--nothing out
of the common--but now was better, and would he go up-stairs, please?
“Was she well enough to see him?” Frederick asked, with a momentary
thrill of alarm, feeling his heart begin to beat.
“Oh, quite well enough. They don’t last long, these bad turns. You will
find her a bit shaken, sir, and she didn’t ought to be excited or put
out, but she’s better,” said the maid. Better! the scold, the termagant,
the beautiful fury; but still Frederick’s heart beat at the thought of
seeing her again.
She was lying on a sofa close to the open window, looking very pale and
languid, just as she had been on that delicious evening which he had
last spent in her company, looking as if nothing but gentle words could
ever come out of those lovely lips. The woman whom she had called Aunty,
and whom she had been abusing, sat by her holding a white hand, which
looked as if it had been modelled in ivory. Was that the hand? One of
poor aunty’s cheeks was red as fire, as if she had been struck on it,
and she had evidently been crying. But she was full of solicitude for
her charge, placing the cushions behind her comfortably, and whispering
and soothing her. Frederick asked himself if he had been in a dream.
Amanda held out her other hand to him with gentle languor, and smiled at
him an angelic smile.
“Is it really you, Mr. Frederick Eastwood?” she said. “We have been
wondering over your card. I could not think what could keep you here.
Are you staying at the Court? But Sir Geoffrey is not at home----”
“No! I had business in this part of the country, and thought I would
avail myself of your father’s invitation--that is for an hour or two. I
must return to town to-night,” he answered, proud of his own fortitude,
but feeling, oh, such a melting and dissolving of all his resolutions.
“That is a very short visit; but I hope papa may be able to persuade you
to stay longer,” said Amanda. “You do not mind my receiving you on the
sofa? I have been ill. Oh, you must not be too sorry for me,” she added,
laughing, “it was my own fault,--entirely my own fault. I allowed myself
to get into a passion. I am sure you never did such a thing. Mr.
Eastwood, is it not shocking? I got angry at poor Aunty, here. Yes, I
deserve to be whipped, I know I do,--and I always am punished, though
not more than I deserve. They told me you were in the garden. I am so
much ashamed of myself,--did you know, Mr. Eastwood, what a naughty,
naughty girl I was?”
“I heard--something,” said Frederick, feeling all his armour of proof,
all his moral courage drop from him. This fair creature, pale with
agitation and exhaustion, smiling softly from her pillow,--caressing the
hand of her homely attendant,--confessing her fault, this a termagant, a
scold, a fury! The thing was ridiculous. Let him disbelieve his ears,
his eyes, all his senses, rather than give up his faith in her.
“I don’t know how to look you in the face,” said Amanda, putting up her
disengaged hand to hide herself. “Oh, I know I have been so very
naughty. Please forgive me. It makes me so ill always. I am not let off.
I get my punishment, but not more than I deserve----”
“Don’t speak of punishment!” said Frederick. He was ready to pledge his
honour that no word which was not good and gentle could have come from
those lips. Miss ’Manda sighed softly and shook her head.
“I have not a good temper. I never had. Unless it is born with you, you
can never get it by trying,--and then when I am agitated it makes me
ill. Nobody must ever cross me, you know, Mr. Eastwood, or some day or
other I shall die----. It is dreadful to think you may die any day
without having a moment’s time to prepare.” She rounded off this doleful
anticipation with a gentle sigh. She lay back upon her pillows
with her colour beginning to come back, but with a delightful gravity
on her face. She throw an inkstand at any one? it was totally
impossible,--though, indeed, there was a black mark on the carpet which
a maid was mopping up, and a stain of ink on the front of Aunty’s dress;
but this must have been accidental. Frederick looked at her and forgot
his knowledge of the world, and threw away his independent judgment and
the evidence of his senses. It must have been a mistake. He had all but
seen it with his own eyes, but he felt it could not be true. If it had
been true, would the assailed woman, she with the stain on her dress,
be sitting by Amanda’s side, still holding her hand, and soothing her?
It must have been an accident. Nothing more easy than to push over an
inkstand from a table. It was the simplest accident. He suggested it to
himself first, and then he believed it strenuously. He drew his chair
close by the sofa, and asked what he could do to amuse her. Could he
read to her?--what could he do?
“Oh, no,--if you can only stay for an hour or two, talk to me,” said
Amanda, “tell me about town. I hate this horrid little place, where
nothing ever happens. When any one dies it keeps us quite lively. That
is the only kind of amusement we can get. Yes, Mr. Eastwood, sit
there,--you have town written all over you. It is so nice to see any one
from London; tell me how the parks are looking, and what ladies are most
talked of, and what sort of dress is being worn. Tell me if there is any
gossip going, or stories about anybody in high life.--Oh, I am so glad
you have come to-day when I want rousing up. Do tell me all the London
news.”
Frederick, to do him justice, was not much learned in London news.
Having been brought up by a good mother, he hesitated to repeat to this
young woman the stories he had heard at his club; for there are always
stories floating on the surface of society, and they are always to be
had at the club. After a while, moved by her persuasion, he did tell her
some of them, to her intense interest and gratification,--a
gratification which aroused Frederick’s pleasure in telling, and made
him forget his scruples. And while he amused her, and received the
flattering reward of her interest and attention, he was again inflamed
and taken possession of by her beauty. Everything in the shape of reason
melted out of his mind as he sat by Amanda’s side. All that he thought
of was how to secure her,--how soon he could marry, and bind to himself
that beautifulest form, that fairest face. If these had been the days
when rash proceedings were possible, Frederick felt that it was in him
to have carried her away to his den, as a wild beast carries his prey.
The first moment that it was possible, as soon as they were left alone
together, he poured out the story of his passion. He could not live
without her, he said,--to go away again,--to tear himself from her side
was an insupportable idea. Would not she have pity upon him? Thus this
foolish young man, notwithstanding all warnings, notwithstanding the
immediate interposition of providence and his guardian angel to save him
from it, rushed upon his fate.