JENNY’S MEDITATION.
“Nelly, where is Molyneux?” asked her brother abruptly. Jenny had just
come back from the railway-station, where he had been seeing Innocent
off. He was not in a very light-hearted humour, I can scarcely tell why.
The boy was a far-seeing boy,--he might have private reasons of his own
which increased his predisposition to see things in an uncomfortable
light; but, at all events, Jenny was of opinion that Innocent’s chances
of happiness were somewhat diminished; and, being uncomfortable himself,
he had no particular objection to make other people uncomfortable.
Besides, he had perceived, with his quick eyes, that his sister had
“something on her mind,”--and he was disposed to help her to deliver
herself. Mrs. Eastwood and Nelly were going on a visit to Miss Vane at
the High Lodge, and then they were to proceed to Longueville. They were
all rather glad to escape from home and their anxious friends, until the
great event of Innocent’s trial had lost something of its freshness and
novelty. Mrs. Eastwood, too, was much shaken in health by all her
anxieties and vigils; and to see Nelly’s pale face, with dark lines
under the eyes, and the shadowy resemblance to Innocent, which grew more
apparent as she grew sadder, was more than enough to warrant Jenny in
his conclusion that she had something on her mind. She started nervously
when he addressed this question to her. She had not so much as named
Ernest to any one since they came to Sterrington, and in the excitement
of other anxieties, and absorption of all things in Innocent, she had
not been questioned on the subject even by her mother. This was one
reason why Nelly was so pale:--she had to reveal to them all the change
of affairs. She had to acknowledge to herself formally, in so many
words, that it was all over. She had to wind up this chapter of her
early life, and agree that it was ended, and communicate the fact to
everybody. And Nelly, not feeling herself able to take the initiative,
had been burdened and weighed down by the secret, which no one shared,
more than I can say.
“Ernest?” she said, with a sudden flush, and then added, more quietly,
“at home, I suppose,--for anything I know----”
“Why was he not here with you?” said Jenny, pursuing his inquiries
steadily. “There was nothing to detain him, I know; for he did come to
see how things were going on----”
“Ah! I was right, then!” said Nelly, “it was his face I saw.--Tell me
what was the meaning of it, Jenny dear.--Tell me all you know.--How did
you find out he had been here?--and why, why did he come here, without
coming to me----?”
“Are you still fond of Molyneux, Nelly?”
“Oh, don’t ask me any questions,” she cried, with the impatience of
suffering, “tell me all you know!”
“Look here,” said Jenny; “a great deal that is not nice is said about
women. For my part I am inclined to stand up for women. I’m a woman’s
son, which tells for something,--and a fellow that has been brought up
to be your brother, Nelly, likes girls in a way.--But look here, it will
go a long way to convince me that you are all people say--silly,
pig-headed, unreasonable, and more fond of your own way than of anything
else in the world,--if you, Nelly Eastwood, a girl of some sort of
character, go and break your heart for that prig Molyneux, when you can
have a brick like John Vane for the picking up----”
“Jenny! how dare you speak to me so?”
“Oh, as for daring, I’m not afraid of you,” said Jenny calmly, “nor I
don’t mind what I say.--What, a fellow that leaves you in that court by
yourself,--a fellow that knows all about law and that sort of thing, and
never offers help or advice,--that’s ready to come in and take the good
of you when we’re all well at home--but can’t stand by you for a day
when you’re in trouble!--By Jove!” cried Jenny, who was not addicted to
expletives,--“a whipper-snapper of a fellow at the best, who is no more
fit to be put by the side of John Vane than--I am! If you show yourself
such a fool, Nelly, there’s nothing that was ever said about women so
bad but I’ll believe it,--I’ll give you up for ever, you, and all the
rest!----”
Jenny took a turn round the little room at the end of this speech, to
work off the vehemence of his feelings. But as for Nelly, all her
spirit, all her self-will, all her sense of fun had died out of her. She
tried to be angry and could not,--she tried to laugh and could not. Her
heart ached with confused and complicated pangs of suffering. If I was
to try to lay bare that mystery of diverse pain, the only readers who
would follow me through it would probably be women who understand it
without description. Nelly had not lived all this time between these two
men without having been forced into the same way of thinking as her
brother expressed so forcibly. She too had been compelled to admit to
herself, by imperceptible degrees, first with a secret rage against
Vane, with indignation at herself, with grief, with sore perception of a
hundred minute points of difference which went to her heart, that the
man whom she had supposed she loved was not the equal of the other man
who loved her. How she had resisted and fought against this conviction!
how she had struggled, bringing up before herself Ernest’s good
qualities, his superior talents (and everybody knows that a man of
genius cannot be bound by the same rules as other men), his greater
youth, (for of course men become considerate as they grow older), and
the influence of his family, which was not of an elevating kind; how
by-and-by she had sunk into silence (with herself) on the subject,
tacitly allowing Vane’s excellence, and falling back upon the main fact
that he was not Ernest; until this last chapter of all, when her appeal
to Ernest had been made in vain, when he had accepted her farewell,
abandoned her side, left her without even a word of consolation during
the trial,--when he had wounded her heart and outraged her pride and
delicacy, and left no plea possible to be made for him, even by the most
subtle advocate. The mere fact that he had been her accepted lover, that
the dreams of the future had all woven themselves about him, that he had
kissed her virgin lips, and held her virgin hand, was the only link
which now bound Nelly, by one of the fantastic, unformulated laws of a
girl’s code of honour, to Ernest Molyneux. This had been so; and to such
a girl as Nelly Eastwood the bond so made was one which it was shame and
torture to break, or to think of as having existed when once broken. All
girls do not feel in this way; but then all girls are not alike, any
more than all men are--which is a doctrine curious and strange, I am
aware, to many critics. All these different pangs and griefs were
surging through her mind as Jenny cut the knot of her hidden thoughts,
and boldly broached the subject which she had not dared so much as to
whisper a word of. And yet it had to be spoken about. Ernest had not
even written to her; he had accepted the dismissal she had given him in
her haste; and the fact must be made known and recognized. She made no
answer for some time to Jenny’s tirade, but at last she burst forth
piteously, in tones which he could not resist,--
“Oh, Jenny, tell me all you know; it is not from any weak wish--what I
want is to know--Why did he come? and why did he not come here? What did
he say? I will tell you everything there is to tell, if you will first
tell me what you know!----”
“Nelly, I hope you are not such a fool as you look,” said the boy
severely. “I met him at the junction half way, where the train stops. He
was going up, I was coming down. He said he had been to see how the
trial was going on, that things looked rather bad, that I had better
make haste with my doctor, that doctors were no good, for they would
swear against each other through thick and thin, and that if we’d had
our wits about us, we’d have packed Innocent off to Australia or
somewhere, as soon as we knew, and that she’d never get over it nor any
of us as long as she lived, if they acquitted her twenty times over.
Then he gave me a nod and the train went off. It was a pleasant
meeting,” said Jenny; “if it hadn’t been that I had the doctor to look
after, and my head full of poor Innocent, and some thoughts of you,
Nelly, if you can care for such a fellow--by Jove, I’d have dragged him
out of the carriage window, and pitched him across the rails--it would
have served him right.”
“Jenny, my dear boy,” said Mrs. Eastwood, coming in, “does not poor
Innocent’s great misfortune show you the folly of such threats? I don’t
know of whom you were speaking--but I am sure you didn’t mean what you
say, whoever it was. Don’t say such things, dear. You wouldn’t hurt any
one----”
“Wouldn’t I though!” cried Jenny, indignant. “You may trust me, mother,
if I had the chance. If ever man deserved a good licking, it’s him.”
“Oh, Jenny, don’t!” said Nelly, in a sharp tone of pain.
The mother looked from one to the other. She did not ask any questions.
I suspect the mystery was not so profound to her as poor Nelly had
thought it.
“We have had enough of such talk,” she said. “Nelly, Miss Vane is to
come for us at three o’clock, and Jenny’s train is still earlier. I wish
we were all out of this place which has brought us nothing but
misfortune----”
“I don’t call the Vanes misfortunes,” said Jenny.
“Ah, the Vanes!” his mother replied, with a relaxation of all the lines
in her face; and then she smiled, and said, “Come, Nelly. I hope the
humours of the nunnery will blow some of our cobwebs away.”
Jenny thought the metaphor very confused as he went out, leaving them to
their packing, and, no doubt, to confidences more distinct than Nelly
had given to himself. But he was a lad of understanding, and he
perceived all that had happened. Yes, the metaphor was very
confused--how could humours blow cobwebs away? There was this to be said
about women certainly, that the language they used was very often
inexact, though it might be forcible enough. For instance, Jenny
acknowledged to himself his mother could polish off a fellow very neatly
when occasion served--and he had no doubt she would polish off Molyneux
in a way that would leave nothing to be desired. But still the metaphor
was confused; he was thinking how to put it when he encountered Vane,
who had a restless way of taking walks abroad when there was nothing
else to be done. Jenny joined himself to the elder man whom he admired,
and went over the town with him, looking at the public buildings with
vague curiosity. The Assizes were still going on, and groups standing
about the Town Hall, as they had been when poor Innocent stood at the
bar; but to Innocent’s cousins it seemed that it was years since the
trial had ended, though they paused, and looked with a long-drawn breath
at the place where other people might be suffering the same anxieties
which now had ended for them.
“I wonder,” said Jenny, bringing this perennial train of thought
suddenly in, to break the lighter tone of their conversation--“I wonder
if Molyneux is right--if she’ll never get over it as long as she lives.”
“If----who----will never get over it?” asked Vane.
“Innocent; that’s what he said--I suppose he knows Society, and that
sort of thing; though she was acquitted twenty times--that she would
never get over it as long as she lived.”
“All that comes very well from Molyneux,” said Vane, growing red, “who
has never done anything, so far as I know, to help either Innocent--or
your family, Jenny--to whom he was beholden----”
“Well,” said Jenny, with an indifferent air, “it’s an ill wind that
blows nobody good. I believe poor Innocent’s trial has done what nothing
else could have done--convinced Nelly at last that this fellow
Molyneux----”
“You don’t mean it!” cried Vane.
Jenny, who had taken his arm, felt Vane “jump,” as he said after, and
knew that his chance shot had taken full effect.
“But I do,” said Jenny composedly. “I had not time to get it all out of
her; but I am quite sure of this much, at least, that all is over
between them--and time too. Why, the fellow actually came down here--to
see how things were going--and never went near them. Nelly saw him in
the court. A girl would be a fool indeed--which Nelly ain’t, for I know
the sort of girl she is--if she put up with that----”
How John Vane “jumped,” to be sure!--what a nervous fellow he was,
though big enough for anything, and with that beard! So Jenny thought as
he felt his companion’s arm thrill, and enjoyed it. I don’t think Vane
made any immediate response, good or bad. He managed to make Jenny talk,
which was more to the purpose, but I don’t think he committed himself in
words; nor was it until they had gone a long way through the streets,
and Jenny had recollected that the time approached for his train, that
John Vane’s feelings burst forth in speech.
“Jenny, old fellow,” he said, “is there anything you want--books, or
that? or a little spare tin that you don’t care to speak to your mother
about? Make me your banker, old boy.”
Jenny withdrew his arm from that of his friend. He was quite as tall,
and, barring the beard, not much less imposing in muscular magnitude.
The boy stood almost on equal terms, as Englishmen love to have them,
with his elder companion. He looked Vane seriously, even anxiously, in
the face, and addressed him slowly.
“Do you think she’ll have you?” he said.