INTO FURTHER DEEPS.
When Mrs. Eastwood came back she found that Innocent had gone to bed
with a headache, and Frederick, with an agitated face, sat silent,
brooding over the fire by himself. He had no book nor paper to occupy
him, and his face was clouded, as it had been in the days of excitement
before his marriage, or those of unhappiness which followed after. He
said little while Nelly was in the room, but suggested crossly that she
should go and look after Innocent. “If you will take the trouble,” he
said. His tone was full of irritation, as it had been in the old times,
but seldom in the new. Mrs. Eastwood made Nelly a sign to obey. She saw
at once what had happened. She went and stood by her son’s side as Nelly
went up-stairs.
“What does this mean, mother?” he said, turning moody eyes, which looked
red and feverish, upon her. “What does it mean? Innocent has been raving
about something I don’t understand. Surely anything which concerns me so
much might have been told me. For God’s sake! what does it mean?”
“A delusion,” said Mrs. Eastwood quietly, laying her hand upon his
shoulder.
“A delusion! It is too serious, too terrible, to be a delusion. She must
be mad. The shock must have turned her brain.”
“It is mere delusion,” said Mrs. Eastwood, with tears. “I went down to
Sterborne, as you know, and inquired into everything. You remember that
terrible morning, Frederick? You thought I went out of regard for your
wife and her father. I went for Innocent’s sake;--now I can tell you. I
inquired into everything. It is a mere delusion; there is no foundation
for it, nothing to rest upon. But I cannot chase it from the poor
child’s mind, and I knew she would tell you some day. I would not have
had you know for much; but now that you do know, you must help me with
Innocent. She must be convinced.”
“Tell me the whole,” said Frederick; and she sat down by him by the
fireside, and told him everything, omitting only by instinct to mention
the presence of the housemaid when poor Innocent made her first
confession. He drew from her by degrees every particular of the poor
girl’s arrival at home, her consistent story, from which she had never
departed, and the little phial which had been clasped in her hand. This
she showed him, taking it out of a desk in which she had locked it up.
It had still a few drops of the opiate in it, and was labelled with the
name of Mrs. Frederick Eastwood, and the date. The sight of this strange
piece of evidence made Frederick shiver. It made him feel strangely for
a moment, as if Amanda still lived, and could have still such drugs
administered to her. “It would be better to destroy this,” he said,
taking it out of his mother’s hand. She took it back from him anxiously,
and put it in the desk again.
“Why should we destroy it?” she said.
“It is the sort of evidence that would tell,” he said, with once more a
nervous shiver.
“Oh, Frederick!” cried his mother, “you don’t mean to tell me that you
think--it may be true?”
“I don’t know what to think,” he said gloomily. “Mother, I am very
unhappy. I care more for Innocent than I ever thought I did. God help
us--it sounds very real. Why should she have taken such a thought into
her simple mind?”
“God knows!” said his mother, and, moved in her turn, she began to cry,
all her doubts and fears returning at the mere thought that some one
else thought it possible, thought it true. They sat together over the
dying fire, and talked it over in detail, entering into every
particular, every recollection. They drew close together in mutual
confidence; but they gave each other no comfort. Broken words that had
seemed to have no connexion with anything actual came floating back to
their memories. Frederick even remembered, with the feeling as of an
arrow which had suddenly struck and stung him, the words he himself had
heard as he entered his wife’s room on that eventful night, “Can judges
get people off?” and both of them were well aware how freely, how simply
Innocent had announced her dislike to Frederick’s wife. I do not believe
that Frederick had ever been so deeply affected in his life; but even at
that moment there came into his mind a certain sombre consciousness of
satisfied vanity which made things look still more black for Innocent.
“Her known affection for me will supply the motive at once,” he said;
his very vanity made him believe the whole strange tale. His mother
wavered between wondering doubts how if it were quite untrue such an
idea could have come into Innocent’s mind, taking possession of it so
strongly--and a sense that it was impossible, that nothing so hideous
and terrible could be. But Frederick, by mere stress of conviction that
Innocent loved and had always loved him, found possibility, reality in
the story at once. He did not even believe her own dreary assertion
that she had not meant it. With the certainty of intuition he felt that,
being alone with her rival, some irresistible impulse which she perhaps
scarcely understood had come over her, some impulse which, being but
momentary, had faded perhaps from her recollection. He was very
miserable. If ever self-complacency brought its own punishment, this
did. His unhappiness was intense in proportion to his conviction, which
allowed of no doubt. “What shall we do with her?” he said.
“Oh, Frederick!” said Mrs. Eastwood, “you take everything for proved;
and nothing is proved, not even the very first step. Neither you nor any
one at Sterborne had the slightest suspicion. Nobody thought of Innocent
as implicated. The death arose from natural causes, which had been
foreseen, understood. The doctor himself----”
“Ah, the doctor,” said Frederick, “perhaps I ought to see the doctor.
But it might excite suspicion. The doctor was going away--he had got an
appointment somewhere abroad.”
“But I saw him,” said Mrs. Eastwood, “he was most distinct in what he
said to me--more medical than I could understand--but very clear. He
said he had expected it for years, that Mr. Batty knew--that you even
had been told----”
“Yes, yes, I know,” said Frederick, “that was all very well. Her heart
was affected; and very fortunate it is for us that such an idea existed.
But, mother, Amanda, poor girl, has been in a much greater passion with
me than she ever could have been with Innocent, and did not die. Why did
she die just then, with no one else present, and with this business
about the opiate? I wish you would throw that little bottle into the
fire. It is the sort of thing which would affect a stupid juryman more
than evidence.”
“Oh, Frederick!” said Mrs. Eastwood, trembling and crying; “for God’s
sake, don’t talk as if it could ever come to that.”
“Why shouldn’t it come to that? If Batty once gets hold of the story, he
will not let it rest, I promise you. He knows I hate him, and have
always done so, and he would believe it. Unfortunately, poor Amanda was
aware of Innocent’s feeling for me.”
“Frederick,” said Mrs. Eastwood, “Innocent, I am sure, had no feeling
for you that an innocent girl might not have for her first friend, her
protector, her relation----”
Mrs. Eastwood was not so sure of this as she professed to be, and the
want of certainty showed itself in her voice. And Frederick was
convinced to the contrary, and felt that he was right, whatever any one
might say.
“You did not always think so, mother,” he said. “I wish with all my
heart it had not been so--but you must see that this feeling on
Innocent’s part changes at once the whole character of the story. It
gives it a motive, it makes it possible. A girl would not do such a
thing for nothing; but the moment you supply the motive----”
“Frederick, for heaven’s sake! you speak not only as if she had done it,
but as if she had meant to do it----”
“I speak as Batty would think, and as his lawyer would put it,” said
Frederick, with sombre certainty. “The best thing we could do, mother,
would be to send her away. If she were taken to some out-of-the-way
place--in Italy, perhaps, as she knows Italy----”
“I cannot give up my poor child’s cause like this,” cried his mother.
“Send her away as if she were guilty--banish her from her home----”
“It will be easier, you may take my word for it, to prevent an inquiry
than to defend her if once accused,” said Frederick. “To have her
accused would be ruin and misery to us all. I might be brought in. Don’t
you see that mere acquittal would do little for us? The scandal is the
terrible thing; and everybody would believe it, whether it was proved or
not.”
Such was the consultation going on down-stairs while Innocent, strangely
moved and agitated, lay in her little white bed looking at Nelly. The
girl was not as she had been before; new thoughts were in her mind, new
troubles in her heart. But she could not confide these to her cousin.
She said simply, “I have told Frederick,” as Nelly kissed her and asked
after her headache. No such pretences as headaches were possible to her
simple soul.
“You have told Frederick?--Oh, Innocent!--of this delusion, this
fancy----”
“Of what happened,” said Innocent, “and he was very kind to me; he was
not angry. Nelly, tell me--will he always live here----”
“I suppose so,” said Nelly, “but never mind Frederick. Innocent, you
promised not to think of this--not to talk of it. It is a dream, a
delusion. Mamma told you so. You promised to think of it no more----”
Innocent shook her head with a faint smile. “I cannot help it,” she
said. “But you are sure Frederick will stay here always, Nelly?”
“Oh, what has Frederick to do with it?” said Nelly impatiently; and she
kissed her little cousin again and bade her go to sleep. When she had
got to the door, however, her heart smote her that she had been unkind.
She came back with tears in her eyes.
“What have you done, you poor child,” she said, “that you should be
tormented like this? Oh, Innocent, say your prayers and ask God to put
it away out of your mind.”
“I will try,” said Innocent.
Nelly went to her own room and wept--out of grief, out of pity, out of
impatience and impotence. Everything was out of joint, and nothing poor
Nelly could do would set it right. When her mother came up some time
after and told her the scope of her conversation with Frederick, and
his suggestion to send Innocent away, Nelly blazed into generous
momentary passion. “Give her up altogether!” she cried. “Send the poor
child away whom God has trusted to us----”
“That is what I feel, dear,” said Mrs. Eastwood, “but Frederick
says----”
“Oh, I don’t want to know what Frederick says! I am sick of
Frederick--and all men,” said poor Nelly. “Mamma, let us all go away
somewhere and hide ourselves from this horrible world----”
“Nelly, Nelly,” said her mother with a smile, “which of us would tire
soonest of that? You have other bonds which you forget in your
haste--and I have the boys.”
When Nelly was told of these other bonds she held her peace, with a
flush upon her face. Yes, she had other bonds, and of all the four
unhappy people who lay down under the kindly old roof of The Elms on
that agitating night, she perhaps was the most unhappy. A heart running
over with love, pity, generous impulses, but obstructed wherever her
feet turned, unable to leaven her little world with her own generous
thoughts, unable to convince it of what seemed so clear to her, bound
down by meannesses, by selfishness at which her soul revolted. The
others were free more or less to follow their own instincts, but for her
she was in bonds--a spirit imprisoned, writhing under the cords that
tied her, struggling with her fate.
“Oh, Nelly,” said Mrs. Eastwood before she went to bed, “what can have
become of John Vane? He is the one man in the world I could talk to
about it all, and who could tell us what was best.”
Nelly made no reply. Her thoughts, too, had travelled perhaps the same
way, but even while they did so it made her heart sore and bitter to
think that it was John Vane, and not another, who was “the one man in
the world” to help them in their terrible strait.
Innocent slept little that night. Something new was working in the
girl’s mind. All the household almost without exception believed that
she had been “in love” with Frederick from the time he brought her home;
and Frederick himself believed it most completely of all, as has been
shown. But Innocent herself had never thought of love, had known nothing
of it, nor what it was. She had learned it for the first time that
night. The discovery she made was not of anything in herself. She, in
her simplicity, in her preoccupation, was as quietly still and
affectionate in her emotions as she had ever and always been. But
Frederick’s looks, his words, his touch, had startled her in her
unbroken virginal calm. He had told her he loved her. Perhaps under
other circumstances Innocent would have received this with childlike
gratitude, and have said to herself simply that he was “kind”--how kind
he was! But there was something in this interview which made so gentle
an interpretation of the words impossible. Innocent felt without
knowing that there was a difference, and the difference alarmed her, she
could not tell why. It did not occur to her to think that the outburst
was momentary, nor could she have believed that Frederick himself at
that very moment was plotting her banishment. The impression made on her
mind was not complex but single. He loved her not as the others loved,
with a love which Innocent vaguely knew led to other ties and other
consequences. This thought did not move her, as does the first
suggestion of love which is destined to be happy; it filled her with
fright and pain. She felt by instinct that between her and Frederick
there was a gulf which could never be passed--a ghost, which kept them
apart from each other; yet they were here, under the same roof,
compelled to meet daily--and he loved her! The more she thought of it
the more alarmed and sick at heart Innocent grew. How could she avoid
him, resist him, put away from her all the old habits which had grown
into her life? She who had been used to put her hand in his, to take his
arm, to talk to him more freely than to any one else--all this would be
impossible if he loved her. She would shrink from the warmer
incomprehensible sentiment, but how could she shrink from Frederick?
What would they all say? What would they think if she, who had so clung
to him, were to turn from him? she could not do it. With an imagination
newly awakened, which had sprung up suddenly in self-defence, she saw
herself constrained to do as Frederick pleased: led with him where he
chose to lead her, drawn into new circumstances which she did not
understand, yet shrank from. To put these vague sentiments of fright,
repulsion, and alarm into words is to do them wrong, and to give to them
a distinctness which they did not possess, but words are the only medium
I have for conveying to the reader any idea of the state of confusion,
shame, pain, and terror which vaguely filled the mind of Innocent. This
terror of Frederick’s love was, perhaps, quite undue and unnecessary,
since Frederick had already realized the necessity for quenching
anything like love for Innocent, and thought himself quite strong enough
to do so. But perhaps it was some subtle consequence of the mistaken
notion he had so long entertained of her love for him, which produced
this mistaken notion on her part of his love for her, and became the
motive of the most decided act of her life. She did not sleep. The long,
long winter night, which felt as if it would never end, spun out its
lingering hours of darkness, while all these things passed darkly
through her mind--but as she waked and dreamed there suddenly occurred
to her a way of escape--a prospect of help. She had made a promise of
which no one knew--a promise which had never before recurred to her mind
from the moment she made it; this promise suddenly returned to her
memory in her moment of deepest darkness. She had promised if she needed
help, if she wanted change--a thing impossible at that moment,
impossible a few hours ago, but now so real and so necessary--to seek it
from one man; not the friend for whom Mrs. Eastwood sighed, whom Nelly
bitterly and against her will involved in her thoughts; a saviour, whose
name occurred to poor Innocent now as a sudden and only refuge in her
trouble. When she thought of him, and remembered her promise to him,
Innocent fell asleep. She had some one in whose hands she could place
her difficulty, and at once her own labouring mind, unused to any such
burdens, was eased.
She said nothing to any one of her purpose. She felt instinctively that
had she spoken of it she would have been prevented from carrying out her
intention. She did nothing, and said nothing, even to Alice, until next
afternoon, when Mrs. Eastwood and Nelly went out on some necessary
business. They thought it too cold for Innocent, and placed her in an
easy chair by the fire, with the storybook which Frederick had been
reading to her on the previous night. If anything had been wanting to
confirm her resolution, this book would have done it. As soon as they
were gone she went to her room and dressed herself carefully. She took
care to make no appeal to Alice, who would have stopped her, she knew,
and dressed herself without aid, taking out her best dress, the new
mourning which became her pale and dreamy beauty. No one observed her as
she went out, and very swift and straight, looking neither to the right
hand nor the left, she pursued her way. She had gone with Mrs. Eastwood
and Nelly more than once to the house where Sir Alexis Longueville had
so often something to show his friends--now a new picture, now a rare
flower, now some costly and elaborate piece of furniture. He was fond of
everything that was rare and costly, and his bachelor house was one of
the sights which connoisseurs delighted to be admitted to. It was not
very far from The Elms, a detached house surrounded by a garden, which,
in its way, was a sight too, notwithstanding the near neighbourhood of
London smoke. Sir Alexis lived by himself in this dainty dwelling-place.
It was like a child to him; he was constantly making alterations,
projecting this and that, improving upon the unimprovable; and the house
was a show-house. Nevertheless, when Innocent, young and alone, made her
way to the door, and asked for Sir Alexis, the man who opened it to her
was startled. Sir Alexis had not always been the irreproachable
middle-aged gentleman he was now, and his old servant, as well as his
old friends, recollected passages in his life which were not such as to
make the visit of a young girl alone a natural occurrence. The servant
stared at Innocent, and told her that his master was engaged, and made
various excuses. But Innocent was imperious to all such hesitations. She
would not tell what her business was, she would not be put off. “Tell
him I want him,” she said, walking in, in her simplicity. Such a girl,
absolutely pre-occupied, unconscious of any evil, pursuing her object
without _arrière pensée_, without fear or thought of harm, is, I
believe, safe to go over the world without let or hindrance. She
hesitated only when the man asked her her name. “Say it is Innocent,”
she answered at last, with a look of perfect gravity which checked the
smile which began to form about his lips.
“A young lady?” said Sir Alexis, when the message was delivered to him.
“Alone? it must be some mistake.”
“No mistake, Sir Alexis,” said the man, suffering the incipient grin to
show itself, but with a cautious watchfulness lest it should be out of
place. “When I asked if there was any name, she gave me a queer name. I
don’t know if she’s all right _here_. She bid me to tell you, Sir
Alexis, as how it was Innocent----”
“Innocent!” said Longueville, starting up. “You idiot, why did not you
tell me? Where have you put her?” and with a haste and anxiety which put
all thought of a grin out of his attendant’s head, Sir Alexis rushed
out, thrusting away the man, whose mind changed on the subject in the
twinkling of an eye.