AN APPEAL.
“Innocent! you here, and alone--where are the others?” cried Sir Alexis,
taking both her hands.
“I have come--because I promised,” said Innocent--“no one knows. You
were to help me if I wanted help; I have come--for that. If I ever
wanted to go away--to have some one to help me--that was what you
said.--Surely you recollect?”
“Recollect! yes, I recollect,” he said, in agitation and dismay, and led
her to a seat. He looked at her with a wonder which words could not
express, and with a troubled sense of his accountability for having made
such a promise which had never occurred to him at the moment it was
made. To have her here in his house, all alone, was an indecorum which
struck the old man of the world as it never would have struck Innocent.
“My dear child, tell me what it is--I will walk home with you,” he said
in his confusion, not knowing what other suggestion to make.
“But I do not want to go home,” said Innocent. “I came to you to help
me. I have a great deal to tell you; but if they see me they will take
me back, they will not understand. Oh, keep me here!--help me as you
said----”
“Innocent! you bewilder me. What has happened--what can I do? But,
whatever I can do, my dear child, it will be better for you to be at
home.”
“I do not think so,” she said; “and I have been thinking a great deal--I
have been very unhappy--there is a great deal, a very great deal to tell
you. But for thinking of you, I do not know what I should have done. It
was because you said so yourself that I have come----”
“Yes, I did say so,” he murmured in his confusion. He was confused, but
she was perfectly calm; her eyes met his with their childish look of
appeal; no consciousness, no embarrassment, nothing in them that was not
simple as her soul. The man’s heart was touched beyond expression. “Yes,
my dear,” he said, “I did say so--and this house is yours, and
everything in it. You shall stay if you will--you shall do with it as
you please. I am grieved--grieved to the heart that you should be
unhappy. Have confidence in me--I will do everything for you that I
could do for--my own child.”
“Thanks,” she said gently, “you were always kind;” and then seemed to
fall into a half-reverie--a dreamy, self-absorbed pause. “I have so much
to tell you,” she resumed, “I don’t know where to begin----”
“Tell me first why you have left home?” he asked.
A faint colour came upon her cheek--“That comes last of all,” she said,
“and till you hear the first you will not understand. Frederick has come
home. He lives with us again as he used to do; and last night--we
talked--and he said he loved me. He must not love me, it is terrible so
much as to think of it, after what has happened. And how could I live
there and see him every day when that is what he is thinking? So I
remembered you, and came to you to help me. Now, please, I want to go
away--to stay there no longer--Take me, as you said you would--Take me
away.”
“Innocent, do you understand what you are saying?” he asked, once more
taking both her hands in his. Her words roused him out of all secondary
feelings. There was no passion left in his steady, middle-aged soul for
any woman; but this strange creature had charmed him by her strangeness,
her rarity, the pathos of her beauty. She had refused him as few men are
refused, and now had she come to offer herself to him? Middle-aged as he
was, he could not refuse to be moved by a quickening thrill of
excitement; nothing could have made him an impassioned lover, but he was
glad to have her, and his heart grew fond and tender as he held her
hands. “Innocent!” he repeated, “do you mean this? Think! Do not
encourage me and then disappoint me. There is but one way that I can
take you anywhere. You must marry me first; do you know?”
She shrank a little instinctively, looking at him all the time with
serious eyes, which shrank not, and then said slowly, “Yes--I know.”
He was so startled by this assent, so taken by surprise, and, at the
same time, so put upon his guard by all the decorums and punctilios of
which she knew nothing, that he made no such response as a lover might
have made. He uttered some broken exclamations in his bewilderment. The
surprise was a joyful one; but yet it was a surprise, and brought as
much wonder with it as pleasure. Then Sir Alexis remembered suddenly, in
the midst of his confusion, what was owing to the self-respect of a
woman who had thus rashly risked herself and her womanly credit. He
kissed the small, slender, girlish hands one after another with
reverential fervour. “Thanks, a thousand times, for your generous
confidence,” he said. “I hope I am worthy of the trust. It is settled
between us, then, of your free will, Innocent--of your free will? you
will be my wife?”
“Yes,” she said once more, grave as if she were uttering the sentence of
her own fate. He bent over her, and kissed her forehead; then rising
hastily rang the bell.
“Go to my sister,” he said, giving his orders at the door of the room,
orders which Innocent neither heard nor comprehended; “and ask her to
come to me at once. She will do me a great service if she will be here
in half an hour.” Then he came back, and sat down by his future bride.
“Innocent, my darling, now that this is settled between us you can speak
to me with confidence. What is it? Frederick would not, could not, have
been rude to you? He is a gentleman at least. It is well for me,
however, that this happened; but tell me, dear, what it was,” he said,
drawing her close to him. It seemed incredible to see her there in his
house, bestowing herself upon him, she who only the other day had been
so startled by his advances. He was flattered, touched, startled, full
of wonder, not knowing what to do or to say.
“Yes,” said Innocent, with a sigh, “but there is a great deal to say
first. Perhaps when I have told you, you will cease to care, you will be
angry, you will not want me. You say No; but you don’t know what I have
to say.”
“Nothing you can say will affect me, my dear,” he said, with almost
fatherly fondness, and an incredulous, admiring smile.
“Ah, but you do not know!” cried Innocent; and then her voice fell into
a low strain of narrative--gentle yet penetrating and clear as a bell.
“I was sent down to the High Lodge----”
“Has it something to do with that?” said the new bridegroom, gradually
glowing into elevation of feeling more fitted to the occasion. “Then let
us put off talking of it. You have been ill, my poor child. Your pretty
cheek is pale. You are looking worn and thin. You shall go to Italy, to
Pisa, Innocent----”
“Ah!” she said, with a deep sigh, long drawn out, and tremulous; “but
first you must hear.”
“Not first, my darling--after, when we have spoken of things more
important. We will go to Longueville first, and then to Italy. You shall
take me to your old house, and we will find your old Niccolo----”
“Ah!” she said again, this time with a slight nervous shiver; “but you
must hear--first you must hear. When I tell you, perhaps it will change
everything. I was sent to the High Lodge; but it is not about
that--Frederick saw me in the church, and took me to see his wife.”
“Is it about Frederick and his wife? I am tired of Frederick. You are
trembling, Innocent. Leave this story for another time. It cannot make
any difference to me.”
“To see his wife,” said Innocent, going on in a low, steady tone, as if,
once started, she had no longer power to stop. “She was ill. She used to
have fits of being angry. She would raise her voice and scold every one,
it did not matter whom, even Frederick. He was very kind to me--he
always was very kind.”
“Enough about Frederick,” said Sir Alexis, with some impatience.
“Innocent, you cannot think that your cousin is particularly interesting
to me.”
“Do not be angry,” she said, with an appealing look. “He took me to his
wife. I stayed with her a long time. She made me read. Sometimes she was
angry, sometimes she was kind. I read and read; and then I fell
asleep----”
“Selfish cur!” cried Sir Alexis, “to put the nursing of that terrible
wife of his upon you.”
“I woke up to hear her scolding. Oh, how red she was! how her eyes
blazed! She shook me and called to me, and cried that she would strike
me. I was not half awake; I was trembling----”
“Poor Innocent, you are trembling now. My darling, what does all this
matter? Another time will do----”
“I had to drop the drops,” said Innocent, sinking her voice lower; “I
had never done it before. My hand shook and she scolded, and I could
not. At last--oh, do not be angry--she seized it out of my hand, and
drank it. Listen! she drank it--and then she died. Do you know what that
means? I killed Frederick’s wife!”
“Good God! Innocent!”
“I was afraid--I was afraid!--I knew you would be angry!” she cried.
Sir Alexis withdrew the arm he had put round her. He was speechless with
wonder and horror. “Good God!” he repeated, when he had found his voice;
“what did you do?”
“What did I do?” she asked vaguely, looking at him with wonder and
incomprehension.
“Yes; you alarmed the people, of course? You told them what had
happened?--you had everything done that could be done? How strange that
I should have heard nothing of all this!” he said, rising to his feet.
Innocent’s heart sank within her. She looked up at him with anxious
eyes, into which the tears were coming. No one had been angry before.
They had all wept over her, comforted her. But now, at last, he was
angry in whom she had placed her last hope. Sobs began to rise in her
throat; she deserved that he should be angry, she knew--yet she looked
up at him with a pitiful appeal against his wrath. She was guilty of
killing Frederick’s wife; but of all this that came after--this which
she ought to have done, and did not--no one had ever told her. She made
him no reply save by her look, by the big tears that rose into her eyes.
He had risen from her side rather in excitement and dismay than with any
intention of deserting the poor child who had thus thrown herself upon
him. When his eyes returned to her, and he met her piteous look, his
heart melted. He came back and sat down by her again. “Poor Innocent,”
he said, “poor little bewildered child! What did you do?”
“I came home,” she said, shivering. “When they told me she was dead, I
could not stay any longer. It was dark night--very late. I never was out
so late before. I came home----”
“And you never told them? you did not say what you had done?”
“Do not be angry!” said poor Innocent, bursting into sobs that were
piteous to hear.
He took her into his arms, and did what he could to comfort her. Poor
child! poor man, who had bound himself unawares to her foolish fate! He
never doubted her story for a moment, nor supposed that she had told him
anything less or more than the simple facts; and while he soothed her,
and tried to subdue her sobs, his mind set to work seriously, thinking
how a way was to be made for her out of this coil which she had woven
about her own feet. He was not less sorry for her than the others had
been, but his mind was cooler and more ready to act in this emergency.
To suppose that she had killed Frederick’s wife, as she thought, was
absolute folly, of course, he said to himself; but her flight, her
silence as to what she had done, her hurried return home, howsoever
effected, would be terribly against her. He set his whole faculties to
work to find a way out of it. “I am not angry,” he said to her, “my poor
child! how could I be angry? Innocent, Innocent, you must compose
yourself. You must stop crying, and let me think what it is best to do.”
Just then the door opened hastily, and Mrs. Barclay bustled in smiling
and rustling, and gay, with her ample silken skirts and cheerful
countenance.
“What is all this, Alexis?” she said; “what do you want me for in such
a hurry? What do you mean by having young ladies here? Ah, Innocent, my
sweet! I had it borne in upon me that it must be you.”
Sir Alexis stumbled up to his feet, and Innocent checked her sobs as by
magic, and turned wondering to the new comer. “My dear sister, you have
judged rightly,” he said. “Innocent has come to me about a difficulty
she is in. I will go now to your aunt and see about it, my darling, and
my sister will take care of you. Lucilla, this is Lady Longueville that
is to be. You are the first to know it; you will take care of my poor
little darling? She is ill and nervous! give her some wine, or tea, or
something, and make her lie down and rest.”
“That I will,” said kind Mrs. Barclay, “I’ll take care of her--the
little puss! I knew this was coming. I said it all along from the very
first day you saw her, Alexis; and I hope she’ll be a sweet little wife
to you, as good as she’s pretty. I could not say more than that. My dear
brother, how I wish you joy!”
And she kissed him heartily, and kissed Innocent, and laughed and cried
in honest pleasure, the strangest contrast to the grave emotion, the
piteous self-abandonment upon which she came like the very angel of
commonplace life, good-humour, and kindly feeling. She went with her
brother to the door, shaking hands with him in her satisfaction. “Do you
mean to say there has been some quarrel with the Eastwoods?” she said in
an undertone.
“No quarrel, but something, I don’t quite know what. Make her rest,
Lucilla, and don’t allow her to talk. Let me find her well when I
return--for then we must decide what to do.”
“Trust me, I’ll take care of her,” said the cheerful woman, and in
another moment Innocent found herself all alone with this stranger, in a
new world, deserted by everybody, everything strange around her, except
the kind words which she was used to hear, though not from this voice.
Her head swam, and there was a ringing as of bells in her ears. But amid
the desolation and pain she felt, there was also a sense of calm
pervading her whole soul. This time she had put off the burden bodily,
and some one else had taken it up. She had a trust in Sir Alexis, which
was produced perhaps by the different way in which he had treated her
confession. He had gone away to do something, to deliver her somehow. To
bring back Amanda to life, perhaps, and make the dream come to an end;
the dream of death or the dream of life, it did not seem to matter much
to Innocent which was brought to an end. For what was she herself from
her first chapter till now but a dream--a very dream?
Sir Alexis, too, felt very much like a man in a dream as he took his hat
and buttoned his coat with habitual composure, though his whole being
was shaken by the extraordinary position in which he found himself, and
the extraordinary revelation just made to him. He walked along the
suburban road towards The Elms with his mind full of strange and
painful deliberations. His pretty Innocent, the rare and strange
creature whom he had coveted as the very crown and flower of all his
rarities and costly possessions, was it possible that the first sign of
his acquisition of her was this plunge into terrible realities affecting
life and death? He took a different view of the matter from that which
had occurred to the Eastwoods. He never doubted that things were as she
had said, and that Amanda’s death had really been caused by the
excessive opiate. Such things had happened ere now, a painful and
haunting recollection, no doubt, to those unhappily involved in them,
but not coming within any possible range of crime, or calling for the
penalties of justice. To any creature in her senses the situation,
though most painful, would have been simple enough. Had Innocent alarmed
the house at once, had she called for instant help, and informed the
attendants what had happened, she might indeed have regretted and
grieved all her life, but she would have been delivered from all blame.
But--God help the poor child!--she had done everything, on the contrary,
to draw suspicion upon her, to give an air of real guilt to her wild
proceedings. Sir Alexis could not even make out how it was that up to
this time no notice had been taken of such an extraordinary incident.
Had the family concluded to hush it up? had they managed to bribe or
intimidate the doctor to hush all reports? That seemed almost incredible
too. As he went quickly along he planned out and resolved upon a totally
different style of proceeding. To have the matter investigated at once,
and have Innocent’s real share in it fully ascertained, seemed the only
expedient possible. Without that what horrors might hang over her; what
accusations ready to be brought up in after days if she made any
enemies, or if he made any enemies, which was more likely! Thus he went
on with a very anxious face to The Elms, where Innocent’s absence had
just been discovered with consternation. Nelly had been searching for
her through the garden, and came in breathless through the conservatory,
as Sir Alexis entered by the drawing-room door.
“She is not in the garden,” he heard Nelly say, in a tone of fright and
anxiety. The ladies were both pale, and looked at each other with
miserable embarrassment when he came in. Here was one of those domestic
agonies which women have to suffer so often--a terrible emergency
demanding all their thoughts, and an indifferent visitor suddenly thrust
into it, to whom they must say nothing, betray nothing. Sir Alexis
relieved them however at once of their pain.
“You are anxious about Innocent?” he said. “I have come at once to
relieve you. She is with me--that is, with my sister--she is quite
safe----”
“With you, Sir Alexis? Where did you find her? She must have gone
out--for a walk--” said Mrs. Eastwood, struggling to show neither her
great surprise nor her still greater relief.
“We are old friends,” cried Sir Alexis, taking Mrs. Eastwood’s hand. “We
have known a great deal about each other for years. Do not let it vex
you that I know this. Innocent has told me everything; she has put
herself in my hands.”
“Innocent--has put herself in your hands?--Are we dreaming, Nelly?”
cried Mrs. Eastwood, struck by the apparent slight, the apparent
abandonment, and looking at her visitor with mingled offence,
mortification, and wonder. “Do you mean that she has gone to you--from
us---- Sir Alexis, this cannot be the child’s doing. It is an
unpardonable interference--an--intrusion----”
“Hear me first,” he said. “I am guiltless in the matter. It _is_ the
child’s own doing. Something frightened her--about Frederick--I cannot
tell you what. I had told her that I was at her service if ever she
wanted me. You know how one says such words. She came to me this
morning. She has consented to be my wife--” he went on gravely, after a
pause--“of her own will--and she has told me all her story. Naturally I
have come to you at once----”
There was a pause--they looked at each other, each uncertain what was
the next step to be taken--the next word to be said.
“She has--consented----” Mrs. Eastwood repeated in dismay. “Sir Alexis,
I am her nearest relation, her only guardian;--I cannot let you suffer
for the sake of honour. When you spoke to her first there was no such
cloud upon her, poor child. I cannot let you take our burden upon
yourself.”
“I do not object to the burden,” he said gravely--“with her I accept it,
such as it is. I do not ask for your sanction, because you gave it
formally--you authorized my addresses to her. The question is now what
can we best do to set this painful business at rest--to prove that it
was mere accident--a chance that might happen to any one----”
“It is a delusion!” cried Mrs. Eastwood. “A mere delusion! there is
nothing in it. Oh, Sir Alexis, believe me, though my children doubt. I
hastened down to Sterborne as soon as Innocent came back; I got there on
Monday morning--I saw all Mrs. Frederick’s family, every one concerned;
the doctor assured me positively that she died of heart disease, as he
had expected for years she would. Nobody had the slightest thought of
Innocent as any way involved. There is not a suspicion--not an idea--in
any mind but her own.”
Sir Alexis had risen as she began this statement, and gradually went
forward to her, holding out his hands. Mrs. Eastwood rose, too, half
sobbing, as she concluded, and gave him hers.
“Is this true?” he cried, with the water in his eyes, the unspeakable
sense of relief proving to him, for the first time, what a horrible
weight had been lying on his heart.
“Absolutely true!” she said, through her tears--feeling as she said it
convinced by his faith, and by the intensity of her own words. What
could be more sure? Every word she said to him was fact, as distinct and
clear as it could be expressed--and yet----
Sir Alexis’ relief was so great that he rose into instant exhilaration
and happiness. He dismissed the subject for the moment, and unfolded to
Innocent’s guardian all he meant and wished to do. No end could be
served, he said, by delay. He wished to marry her as soon as possible,
to take her to Longueville, to Italy, to restore the freshness of her
mind by new scenes. And the others, glad of the relief, entered into
this lighter talk, and became almost merry over Innocent’s prospects.
Yet Sir Alexis left The Elms almost with as grave a countenance as he
had entered it. When the conversation returned to the subject of poor
Innocent’s “delusion,” the further information they gave him brought
back painful uncertainty to his mind. Was it simple delusion after
all--or was there something true at the bottom--something which might
still produce grief and sorrow to her, unhappy, and to all concerned?