FRANK’S PERPLEXITIES.
It will be perceived, from all that has been said, that Nelly Rich used
more freedom in the expression of her sentiments than is generally
expected from girls of her age. A well brought-up young woman is not
supposed to go off affronted when her admirer, real or supposed, shows a
sudden interest in music, or anything else, independent of herself. The
modern code of manners exacts that she should, if not grin, at least
smile and bear it, with as much courage and as little of the air either
of offence or resignation, as possible. Nelly betrayed her less exalted
origin in this, that she allowed her real sentiments to escape her.
There can be no doubt that she had given Frank intimations of her
readiness to look favourably upon him which a more reticent girl would
have blushed to give, and on which was built much that would else have
seemed coxcombical in his behaviour. When a young woman asks if there is
no possible chance that would induce a young man to change his mind
about going to India or elsewhere, she is either beguiling and deluding
that young man, or she is exhibiting, as far as she can, ‘intentions’
which are generally supposed to originate on the other side. And then
her abrupt exit was a startling thing. When he was left alone in the
music-room with the open piano, and Nelly’s book lying on the table,
Frank did not feel comfortable. He was left, as it were, master of the
field. But it cannot be said that it is a pleasant thing to rout your
friends so completely in their own house, and find yourself in solitary
possession of their usual haunts. The evening passed, however, less
unpleasantly than this scene would have led a looker-on to suppose.
Alice, learning wisdom from experience, excused herself on the plea of
being tired from playing; and Frank made his peace with Nelly, saying no
more about his brother, and talking of the Beauchamps, and Mary
Westbury, and his own home. The Renton woods were an unfailing
subject,--as were also his own boyish adventures, into the history of
which he was drawn by Mrs. Rich, whose inquiries were manifold. A man,
especially if he is still a boy, has always a certain pleasure in
uttering such reminiscences to sympathetic ears. The ladies laughed at
his Eton scrapes, and were edified by his adventures on the river, and
listened with ready interest, and smiles, and wanderings, to all his
schoolboy tales. He felt himself of importance as he turned from one to
another, and it pleased him to see Nelly seriously inclined to listen.
She was interested,--it was no make-believe,--interested in Frank in
the first place, and after that, like a true woman, interested in every
detail about him. She liked to know how he had distinguished, and how he
had committed, himself. It seemed to give her something to do with him;
and Frank, too, felt the charm of confidence. She had put aside her
waywardness, and listened with bright eyes of interest, with an eager
ear, with smiles and exclamations. She made him describe Renton to her
over and over again, and those points of view which people went to see.
‘I could row you over,’ he said, ‘any day. From Cookesley to Renton is
an easy pull. Let us make up a party and do it. The river is lovely, and
if you have not seen it before----’
‘I have never been higher up than Cookesley,’ said Nelly; and thus it
was arranged, though Mrs. Rich shook her head.
‘We shall see when the time comes,’ that wise mother said; and Frank
perceived that it was only in case his mother should make up her mind to
be civil that this little expedition would be permitted.
He made himself very agreeable to Nelly that evening, undismayed by the
events of the afternoon. Alice was out of the way. She was at the other
end of the room, looking over engravings, and resisting Alf’s entreaties
that she should play something. ‘Nelly would not like it,’ she said to
herself; ‘she is talking, and she likes that better.’ And Alice felt
herself somewhat silent and wistful, and wished herself back in Fitzroy
Square. That evening it appeared to her that she was not enjoying her
visit as she had expected to do. She missed her mother, and she missed
the children, and Miss Hadley, and her usual duties, and perhaps
something else too, though she did not know what was in her own
thoughts. Sometimes she cast a wistful glance across the room at Nelly
smiling and softened, with that look of absorbed attention in her
brilliant eyes. Alice had been shocked by her friend’s freedom of
speech, but, as was so natural, impressed by it also. Unconsciously she
herself began to speculate about Nelly. Could there be--as girls
say--anything between her and Frank Renton? Was that why she was cross,
and was it not the music? Alice felt herself to be pushed aside, and it
was not a cheerful feeling; but fortunately the only form it took was a
longing for home. She had home to fall back upon whatever might befall
her here. If any vague discontent came down upon her heart, happiness
and peace, as of old, dwelt and waited for her in the Square. This was
her feeling, as she sat in the distant corner looking over the
photographs. Alf had settled down sulkily when she refused to play to
him, on a sofa near, and Mr. Rich slept the sleep of the just, the
Sunday evening crown of the week’s exertion, in an easy chair midway
between her and the table, with a lamp burning brilliantly upon it,
round which were grouped Mrs. Rich and Nelly and the young visitor.
When Alice saw them laughing and talking, she felt that she would have
liked to be there too, and have a part in the fun. But they did not call
her, and she was too shy to go unasked, and she found the evening a
little long.
When Frank Renton left Richmont the next morning it was with a mind by
no means settled or at rest. He had received the warmest invitations to
return from the parent pair, and Nelly was not slow to intimate that she
looked for him soon. ‘Come over here when Lord Edgbaston’s refined
society palls upon you,’ Nelly said. ‘Indeed, Edgbaston is a very good
fellow,’ Frank answered, apologetically. ‘I know he is a lord,’ was
Nelly’s reply. She did not care for a lord, nor had she given so much of
her society or conversation to any one of her followers, though many of
them were much more eligible in every way than Frank. This compliment
went to the bottom of his heart. No doubt she was full of intelligence
and discrimination, and could see the difference between one man and
another; and she was, when she liked, the brightest little sympathetic
creature, and awfully clever,--clever enough to make up a man’s
deficiencies in that way; but yet----! These were the young man’s
thoughts as he walked down to Cookesley to get his boat. He was going to
the Manor, after all, to see his mother; and on the way he turned
everything over again in his mind. Nelly was very nice, when she
pleased; and though her connexions were nothing to brag of, still that
was not a thing which people took into severe consideration when a man
married money, especially when the money was young and pretty. And
yet----! Frank could not but ask himself how it was that the girl who
took a fellow’s fancy--the one he would really have gone after had he
been able to choose for himself--should never be the one who had the
fifty thousand pounds. It was a curious spite of fortune. When he
directed his mind to the serious consideration of this grand
question--the first great social problem he had ever tackled on his own
account--a singular dissipating influence always arrested him. Stray
notes of music would float across his mind,--a bit of a melody which
compelled him to hum it,--a perplexing bar which would separate from
everything else, and echo in his ear. And when he returned to the
consideration of Nelly Rich, another little agile figure stepped in
before her, the one shadow jostling the other out of the way with a
curious reality. It was not he who did it, nor had his will any share in
the matter. They did it themselves, independent of any influence of his.
So that the more he thought it over the more perplexed he became; and
yet it was not a matter which could be suffered to run on and be decided
any time. It must be settled, and that at once.
With his head full of these thoughts, he walked down across the
cheerful, blooming country to Cookesley. The day was quite bright enough
for the expedition he had proposed to Nelly; and when the recollection
of this proposed expedition came back to his mind, Frank fell into
pondering whether his mother would call. Why should she not call? It was
quite true that she was an invalid; and also true that she was in the
deepest of mourning; but still, the carriage, with Mary in it, and a
card, would do. Mere civility! he said to himself. And if it should be
for Laurie’s interest,--or even for his own! Instead of going to India.
Frank knew that his mother would have visited anybody in the country on
that inducement. And it might come to that. He stepped into his boat
with so serious a countenance that the men at the wharf took note of it.
‘Them Rentons, they ain’t up to no good,’ one said to another. ‘The
eldest gentleman, as was here the other day, was awful changed, and this
one, as is the swellest of all, looks as black as if he was a-carrying
of the world on his shoulders.’ This chance observation Frank overheard
as he glided his boat through the maze of skiffs into clear water. It
made him smile when he was fairly afloat and out of reach of
observation. He had more than the world on his shoulders. What would the
mere world have been, or any superficial weight, compared to the task of
deciding what his whole life was to be? According as he made up his mind
now would be the direction and colour of his existence. No wonder he
looked black. But how was it that the eldest gentleman had so changed?
And Laurie was gone without giving any reason. It was hard to think that
it was their father’s fault,--the father who had been so good to them.
Seven months before they had all looked up to him with the undoubting,
affectionate confidence of sons who had never known anything but
kindness; and now they were all scattered to the different corners of
the world, separated from each other, broken up, and set adrift. Frank
was more a man of the world than either of his brothers, though he was
so young. He could not but ask himself,--Was not old Rich right? Mr.
Renton’s mind must have been touched. He could not have been guilty of
such an injury to them all had he been in full possession of his reason.
Thus, if he did not look black, he looked at least very grave, as he
pulled up the river, unlike the light-hearted young Guardsman who had so
often made the banks ring with his laughter and boyish nonsense. He was
approaching his twenty-first birthday, and he was having the grand
problem submitted to his decision. It was not pleasure and virtue,
certainly, which stood before him offering; him the irrevocable choice.
There was no particular sin in adopting either course, and no
unspeakable delight; nothing infinitely seductive to move his senses, or
loftily excellent to restrain them. If he were to marry Nelly and stay
at home, he would be to all intents and purposes as good and as honest
as if he went to India. And if he went to India he would be sufficiently
well off, and quite as happy,--perhaps happier than if he stayed at
home. The question was a fine modern one between two neutral shades of
well-doing, and not a primitive alternative between black and white,
salvation and ruin. You will say that to marry a girl he did not love
would have been a sin; but Frank did not see it in that light. If he did
marry her, no doubt they would get on very well together. Nelly was not,
as we have already said, a temptation to be resisted, but, most
probably, a sober duty which he ought not to neglect. He was not
passionate, like Ben, nor was he meditative, like his brother Laurie. He
was the practical man of the family. If it had been decided to be right,
no doubt he would have done it like a man, and been quite comfortable
ever after. The difficulty was that there was too much neutral tint
about the whole question. It was possible that he might do quite as well
for himself in India as by marrying money. The chances were too equal,
the gain too uncertain, to make the decision easy.
Mrs. Renton received him as usual in her dim room with the blinds down,
a bottle of medicine on the table, and her arrowroot in the background.
It was a different atmosphere, certainly, from that of Richmont. His
mother wept a few tears as Frank kissed her. She was apt to do so
now-a-days when one of her sons appeared. And Ben’s farewell visit had
been but a few days before, and had shaken her more than anything that
had happened since her husband’s death. She could do nothing but talk of
him. ‘He was looking quite well, Frank, quite well,’ she said, over and
over again, ‘though I am sure living shut up in London all winter would
have killed any one else. And he is to sail on Friday,’ Mrs. Renton
added with a sigh. As for Mary Westbury, she, too, bore traces of having
been moved by Ben’s visit. ‘Oh, he is quite in good spirits about
going,’ she interposed. ‘I think he likes the idea.’ Frank, with his
new-born experience, felt at once that something must have happened, and
that all was not merely simple, straightforward, cousinly friendship
between Mary and Ben.
‘I suppose that was why you did not send for me,’ he said; ‘but, mamma,
you must take the consequences. Instead of only dining at Richmont, I
have passed the Sunday there, and I hope you will be so polite as to
call. They are very good sort of people, and they have been very kind to
me.’
‘Those new people!’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘What a house for you to spend
Sunday in! Your note never came till yesterday, when the servants came
back from church; and I thought of course you must have gone back to
Royalborough. Mary will tell you all about it, and how we consulted what
to do.’
‘But, mother, I want you to call on Mrs. Rich,’ repeated Frank.
‘My dear!’ said Mrs. Renton, sitting up on her sofa.
But Frank was aware that she must not be allowed to stand up for
herself, and confirm her own resolution by talk. ‘They are friends of
Laurie’s,’ he said, making a little gulp at the fib; ‘they are fond of
him, and they may have it in their power to be kind to him, too. They
are going to Italy next year.’
‘My poor Laurie!’ cried Mrs. Renton. ‘He has written me such a nice
letter. He says he could not come to say good-bye; that it would have
been too much for him. So he says; but I am sure he was afraid to come
to let me see how pale he was looking. You don’t think it is anything
about his lungs which has taken him to Italy? He might confide in you.’
‘Why it is for his pictures, not his lungs,’ said Frank, with the
cheerful confidence of ignorance. ‘Those Riches are friends of his. I am
sure it would be good for him if you could make up your mind to call.
Don’t you think he is the sort of man who ought to marry money?’ Frank
added, with a little embarrassment, after a pause.
‘To marry money! Is he thinking of marrying?--and he has nothing!’ cried
Mrs. Renton, with consternation.
‘But if she had a good deal?’ said Frank. ‘He will never make any way
for himself. Don’t you see, he is too good-natured and kind for that. So
I think a nice little fortune that would keep him comfortable would be
the very finest thing for Laurie. And I wish you would call at
Richmont.’
‘Is it Miss Rich that is to supply the little fortune?’ asked Mary, with
a smile.
‘Miss Rich is very nice,’ said Frank, with some indignation. Though he
spoke thus of Laurie, it was not with any particular hope in respect to
him. But if he himself should marry Nelly,--which seemed much more
likely,--he would not drop any word which could be brought up against
her. ‘She is very accomplished, and draws beautifully; but unless you
can get my mother to attend to ordinary civility, they can’t be expected
to like it. And it may be the worse for both Laurie and me.’
‘Neither Laurie nor you should have anything to do with such people,’
said Mrs. Renton; and then she stopped short, and a new current of
thinking rose up in her mind. ‘I do not like such things to be spoken
of, Frank,’ she said. ‘It is disgusting to hear some people talk of
marrying money. Has the young lady a great fortune? Did you say she was
nice? Sometimes the children of those vulgar people are wonderfully well
brought up. They get all that money can buy, of course. And did you say
they were fond of Laurie? He has never mentioned them in any of his
letters. Poor Laurie! Will his pictures ever bring him in any money, I
wonder? And he never can go travelling about on his allowance,--that is
impossible. Did you say Miss Rich had a very large fortune, Frank?’
‘Enough to be comfortable upon,’ said the Guardsman. ‘They would be
immensely pleased if you would call.’
‘Oh, my dear, I am not strong enough, nor in spirits to call anywhere,’
said Mrs. Renton, sinking back on her pillows. But the seed had been
dropped in the soil. Mary Westbury’s opinion, when she and Frank were
alone, was that she would go. Frank, for his part, found himself a great
deal more anxious about it than he had the least idea he was. Perhaps
because of Nelly; perhaps only because of the difficulty,--he could
scarcely say.
‘I shall feel very small if she does not go,’ he confided to Mary; ‘and
really, you know, I had not the least claim upon them, and they were
very kind to me.’
‘I thought you said they were friends of Laurie’s,’ said Mary. ‘He never
mentioned them in any way; but people have begun to gossip about you,
Frank. I nearly laughed when you were talking so wisely of Laurie. It
never occurred to you that other people might be behind the scenes and
know better. Everybody says it is you.’
‘What is me?’ said Frank, with some heat. ‘I did not think you were the
sort of girl to repeat such folly. Because Nelly Rich is a nice bright
little thing, and would be the very thing for Laurie----’
‘Laurie again!’ cried Mary, laughing. ‘You are the strangest figure for
a match-maker! They say, Frank, that these good people have quite made
up their mind to have a gentleman of Berks for their daughter: and that
is why they have always been so interested about us. And then they came
to know you,--the very thing they want. I don’t know if it is true, but
that is what they say.’
‘They say a great deal of nonsense,’ said Frank. ‘But, Mary, I have
never had an opportunity to ask you anything. How about Ben?’
And now it was Mary’s turn to change countenance. ‘I don’t think there
is much to tell about Ben,’ she said, with unusual curtness of
expression. ‘He is going to America, you know.’
‘But there is something more than that,’ said Frank. ‘I can read it in
your face.’
‘Then you know more than I do,’ said Mary Westbury, cooling down into
that dogmatic obduracy and calmness which is a gift of woman. ‘I am sure
Ben did not confide in me.’
No--and wild horses would not have drawn anything further from her, that
was evident. Mary, who was always so open, and candid, and
straightforward, closed up in a moment, put shutters to all her windows,
sealed her lips as if hermetically. If there had been nothing this
would not have been necessary; but Frank had not time to go fully into
the question. He gave her a keen, scrutinising glance, and then was
silent. No doubt Ben had got into some scrape or other; but that his
brother was not to know anything about it was equally clear.
‘It is dreadful that you should all be going off at once,’ said Mary.
‘Ben did come to bid us good-bye, but Laurie has disappeared without
even so much as that. I wish you would tell me something about Laurie,
Frank. He must have known somebody better than the Riches surely;--some
of those artist people. When you went to see him in town did you never
see any of his friends?’
‘Laurie’s friends?’ said the Guardsman, and it is undeniable that
certain confusion stole over him. It was a kind of duel that was taking
place between his cousin and himself. They were both of clearer sight
than usual, enlightened by experience,--both anxious to find out
something they did not know, and conceal something they did. ‘Oh, yes,’
Frank went on carelessly, ‘I have seen several of his friends;--Suffolk,
the painter,--though I don’t suppose you ever heard of him; and there is
a Mrs. Severn, in Fitzroy Square,--I think he was most intimate there.’
‘Tell me about her,’ cried Mary. ‘It is so odd of Laurie to go away
without coming home; something must have happened to him. It might not
be anything of that kind, of course; but tell me,--were there
daughters? or any one?’
Frank cleared his throat, nor could he keep a certain glow of colour
from mounting to his temples,--most foolish and uncalled for, it was no
doubt,--for Mrs. Severn’s household was not, and never could be,
anything to him. Either it was Mary’s eyes looking at him so keenly, or
simply a little excitement hanging about himself. Or he must have taken
cold somehow on the river.
‘Daughters?’ he said. ‘Oh,--well,--children, that’s all; there is one
little girl that plays charmingly,’ Frank added, with easy candour; ‘but
Laurie never cared for music. I don’t think there’s anything in that.’
‘And it could not be Miss Rich?’ said Mary, fixing her eyes more keenly
than ever on the young fellow’s face.
Then his countenance cleared. He was himself unaware of the change of
expression, but Mary saw it, and perceived at once that Nelly, though he
talked of her so much, was not dangerous ground to Frank. ‘No; frankly,
I don’t think it could be Miss Rich,’ he said, with a laugh. ‘I think it
would be a capital thing for both; but I cannot say that I believe
either of them have thought of it for themselves.’
‘But this Mrs. Severn----?’ insisted Mary, and she was aware of an
immediate gleam of intelligence and embarrassment in his eyes.
‘She is a painter’ said Frank, ‘and a widow, and a very nice woman,--at
least I suppose so. To hear Laurie chattering to her you would think he
found her so. I cannot say I remarked it particularly myself.’
‘And young?’ said Mary, breathless with her discovery.
‘Oh dear, no,’ said Frank, ‘not at all young;--not old either, I
suppose. A certain age, you know; that sort of thing. But really, if you
are interested about her, you must apply to Miss Rich. I did not observe
her much. Her little girl,’ Frank continued, with again that soft drop
of the eyelids, and gleam of sudden light from beneath them,--‘she I
told you of, who plays so charmingly,--is at Richmont now.’
‘Oh!’ said Mary. And Frank turned away to the window as if the
conversation had come to a natural end. And as for his cousin, she
seemed suddenly to have made a discovery; and yet, when she thought it
over, could not make out what the discovery was. The little girl who
played could not surely have anything to do with Laurie; or was it Frank
himself who was moved by her music,--or,--. Mary was left as much in the
dark as at the beginning. ‘The boys’ had all gone off on their separate
courses; they had escaped out of the hands of their old confidante and
unfailing sympathiser; and the idea grieved her. She would have given a
great deal to have been able to read the meaning of that look in her
young cousin’s eyes. She would have liked in all sisterly tenderness and
faithfulness to fathom Laurie’s secret,--for a secret Mary felt there
must be. As for Ben, that was different. She felt that the secret in his
case was somehow her own.
‘Old Sargent ought to be looked after, really,’ said Frank. ‘It is all
very well to have a gardener who is a character; but those flower-beds
are disgraceful, Mary. You should see the garden at Richmont. I suppose
my mother does not mind; but, at least, you might look after it. I shall
give the old beggar a piece of my mind if he comes across me to-day.’
‘Are the gardens really so wonderful at Richmont?’ said Mary;
‘altogether it must be an extraordinary place. I have met Miss Rich
once, and I thought her pretty; of course, I should like to know her,
if---- But, Frank, you might tell me---- If that is really what you are
thinking of----’
‘If what is really what I am thinking of?’ said Frank, with a laugh.
Mary had laid her hand on his shoulder, and was looking at him
anxiously. His face had changed once more,--the gleam under the eyelash,
the softened droop of the lid, had disappeared: but the colour rose
again to his face, though with a difference. ‘Don’t inquire too much,’
he said, turning away from her. ‘I can’t tell you myself. No one can
say what may happen. Don’t ask me any more questions, there’s a dear.’
‘But Frank, only one thing;--is she really so very nice?’ said Mary,
with another effort to catch his eye.
‘Oh, yes; she’s very nice?’ answered Frank, with a little impatience in
his tone.
‘And if,--that were to happen--you would not require to go to India?’
said Mary, dropping her voice.
‘No.’
‘And,--only one word;--are you really, really fond of her, Frank?’
The young soldier shook her hand off his shoulder, and turned away with
an impatient exclamation. ‘Good heavens! what an inquisitor you are!
Can’t you let a fellow alone? As if a man can go and make a talk about
everything like a set of girls!’ he cried, and stepped out of the open
window on to the lawn, where old Sargent was visible in the distance.
Frank went straight to the old gardener, and began to give him that
piece of his mind he had promised, using considerable action, and
pointing indignantly to the flower-beds, while Mary stood and watched,
feeling that old Sargent was suffering the penalty of her own curiosity.
Her cousins had always been as brothers to Mary,--at least the two
younger ones had been brothers; and it vexed her beyond description to
find how they had both glided out of her knowledge upon their different
paths. She was a good girl, and very sensible, everybody allowed; but
still she was young, not in reality any older than Frank, and the first
idea of love was sacred to her mind. The almost admission he had made
struck her dumb. To think of a girl,--in that way,--and yet not be fond
of her! Mary shrank from the idea as if she had received a blow. Of
course, she had heard of marrying money, as everybody else has, and,
like everybody else, had seen people who were said to have married
money, and got on together as well as the rest of the world. It was a
thing acknowledged in the society she was acquainted with to be a duty
incumbent upon some people, and creditable to all. But yet,--one of the
boys! Instinct carried the day over principle as inculcated everywhere
around her. “With other people it might be well enough,--but one of us!
Mary stood in great consternation, looking on while Frank delivered his
lecture to the gardener. She wanted to say something more to him, and
did not know how. Had not he better, far better, go to India, after all?
It would be sad to have none of the boys at home, but not so sad as
this. And then Mary cast a half-angry, half-pitying thought at Nelly
Rich, poor wealthy girl, the ‘money’ whom Frank was trying to bring
himself to marry. She was angry, like a woman, at this creature for so
much as existing, and yet,--‘Oh!’ said Mary to herself, ‘what a fate for
a girl,--to be married as money! And how frightful, for Frank! and how
base of him! and yet, oh, what a fate! poor, poor fellow!’ This is how
her thoughts went on as she stood gazing after him, with consternation,
and sympathy, and horror, and indignation. Everybody would say it was
quite right; even Mrs. Renton would go and call, for this reason, though
for no other, and smile upon them for their wealth. Mary grew sick as
she thought of it. Ben was infatuated, and blind, and foolish. He was
going to be miserable in a different way, for the creature he loved was
not good enough for him. But it was not so bad as this.
In the meantime Frank was very bitter upon old Sargent about those
flower-beds. He upbraided the gardener with taking advantage of his
mother’s illness and her indifference to external things. He was so
solemn about such a breach of trust that the old man was struck dumb,
and had not a word to say for himself. It was a satisfaction to the mind
of the young master, who had been stung by Mary’s injudicious question,
more than he could have avowed. Frank had to take a long walk, and do an
immense deal of thinking, before he could bring himself back to his
former easy sense of duty. Fond of her! Of course, if he married her he
should grow fond of Nelly. He liked her very well now, or he never would
think of it. Girls were such foolish creatures, and could not understand
all the breadth of a man’s motives. A pretty thing the world would be
if it were built only upon what they called love. Love! It was very well
in its way, but society wanted a firmer, more practical basis; but yet,
notwithstanding all these reasonings, Frank was more shaken than he had
yet been by the surprise and the pain that had come into Mary Westbury’s
face.