CHAPTER XXXVIII.
KEEPING UP APPEARANCES.
THE Russell Pentons stayed a long time—at least, these anxious people thought so, who believed their visitors to be noting the signs of their unhappiness, and forming still stronger and stronger conclusions against their son. The effort Lady Penton made to carry on the conversation was one of those efforts, gigantic, unappreciated, in which women have sometimes to make an expenditure of strength which is equal to years of ordinary exertion. Who can tell the burden it was to talk, to smile, to exhaust all the trivial subjects that occurred to her, to keep at a distance all those graver topics which might bring in Walter—which might lead to discussion of where he was or how employed? She saw, so to speak, half a mile off those tendencies of conversation which might lead to him, and, with a sudden leap, would get away from these to another and another theme, which each in its turn would have to be dismissed and avoided. “All roads lead to Rome,” says the proverb; and when there is a certain subject which it is desirable to avoid, all the streamlets of conversation, by some curious tendency, go to that with infallible force. Lady Penton had to go through a series of mental gymnastics to avoid it—to keep her visitors from any thought of Walter—to hide him, or rather to hide the terrible blank in the house where he ought to have been. Had he been in his usual place the conversation would never have touched him; and, as a matter of fact, the Russell Penton’s did not think of him any more than they did of Horry in the nursery, a stray shout from whom could sometimes be heard, leaving no one in any doubt as to his whereabouts. But the mother, flying from subject to subject, talking as she had never been known to talk in her life before, and her taciturn husband, who said not a word that he could help saying—both felt that their misery was open and evident, that the Russell Pentons were saying in their hearts, “Poor people!” or making reflections that the boy’s upbringing must have been bad indeed when he had “gone wrong” at such an early age. Lady Penton felt instinctively that this was what must be going through Alicia’s mind. The childless woman always says so—it is one of the commonplaces of morals. If he had been brought up as he ought he would not have gone wrong. This and a hundred other things went buzzing through the poor mother’s head, confusing her as she talked and talked. “Oh,” she said to herself, “it is better that they should think that!—better blame us—blame me, who have been overindulgent, perhaps, or oversevere—overanything, so long as they do not blame him!” But the father was not so disinterested; he was angry as well as miserable. He would have had Walter bear his own guilt; he would not allow those critics who had never had a son to say that it was the parents’ fault. So he stood with that resentment in his face, saying so little, only making an annoyed remark when appealed to, short, with suppressed temper in it, while his wife smiled and ran on. How like Edward Penton that was! his cousin thought. He had made a proposal to her which she in her pride would not accept, and his pride could not forgive her. Alicia felt that she understood it all—as well as the silly attempt of the wife to smooth it all over and make peace between them—as if the two Pentons did not understand each other better than any outsider! as if this question between them could be smoothed away by her!
“You will let me come back again?” said Mab, rubbing her little cheek like a kitten against Lady Penton’s ear. “I will never go away unless you say that I may come back.”
“What a threat!” said Russell Penton. “In order to get rid of you, Mab, the promise will have to be made.”
“Not to get rid of her: we don’t want to get rid of her. Yes, my dear, certainly as soon—as soon as we are settled, when the house is not so dull—”
“It isn’t dull, no one can be dull with you. I will tell you what I want in a whisper. I want to come and stay altogether; I want you to have me altogether,” said Mab, in the confidence of her wealth.
“My dear!” cried Lady Penton, faltering. In spite of her preoccupations she was a little alarmed. She put it off with a kiss of farewell. “You must come as often as you like,” she said. “It is sweet of you to wish to come. We shall always be glad to see you, either here or—wherever we may be.”
“At Penton,” said Mab, once more rubbing her little head against the woman to whom she clung. “Uncle Russell, oh, ask her to have me! There is no place where I could be so happy.”
“You must come as soon as we are settled,” said Lady Penton, in real panic, putting the supplicant away.
Alicia had turned during this too tender and prolonged leave-taking, with a little indignation, to the master of the house. She had never herself either attracted or been attracted to Mab, and she felt resentful, annoyed, even jealous—though she cared nothing for the little thing and her whims—of this sudden devotion. She stood by her cousin, who was resentful and indignant too. “Edward,” she said to him, “we needn’t quarrel, at least. I know you meant well in offering me Penton. Don’t be displeased because I couldn’t accept it—I couldn’t, from any one, unless it had been my right.”
“Penton! do you think of nothing but Penton?” he cried, suddenly, with an incomprehensible impatience of the subject—that subject which had once seemed so important, which appeared to him so small now.
“I speak for the sake of peace,” she said, coldly; “that need not stand between us now. We go away in a week. The things I mean to remove will be gone within a month. What I wish you to know is, that you may make arrangements for your removal as soon as you please.”
“Oh, for our removal! yes, yes,” he said, impatiently; “there is no hurry about that: if that was all one had to think of—”
“I am sorry that you should have other things to think of. To me it seems very important,” Mrs. Russell Penton said.
“Ah! you have nobody but yourself to be concerned about,” he said. But then he met his wife’s look of warning, and added no more.
Russell Penton lingered a little behind the rest. “Let me speak a word to you,” he said, detaining Lady Penton; and her heart, which had begun to beat feebly as an end approached to this excitement, leaped up again with an energy which made her sick and faint. Could he know something about Walter? might he have some news to tell her? Her face flushed, and then became the color of ashes, a change of which he was wonderingly aware, though without a notion as to why it was, “You are alarmed,” he said, “about—”
“No, no!” she interrupted, faintly; “not alarmed. Oh, no, you must not think so—not frightened at all,” but with fear pale and terrible, and suspense which was desperate, in every line of her countenance.
Russell Penton himself grew frightened too. “There is nothing to alarm you,” he said, “about little Mab.”
“Oh!” the breath which had almost failed her came back. A sudden change came over her face; she smiled, though her smile was ghastly. “About—Mab?” she said.
“It is alarming, the way in which she flings herself upon you; but you must let me explain. I see that you think her just a little girl like any other, and her proposal to come and stay with you altogether is enough to make even the most generous pause. But that is not what she means, Lady Penton. She is very rich; she is a little heiress.”
The words did not seem to convey much significance to Lady Penton’s bewildered soul. “A little heiress,” she repeated, vaguely, as if that information threw no light upon the matter. Was she stupid? he asked himself, or ridiculously disinterested, altogether unlike the other women who have sons? “Very rich—really with a great fortune—but no home. She is too young to live by herself. She has never developed the domestic affections before. I should like very well to keep her, but it would be a burden on Alicia. Will you think it over? She has evidently set her heart on you, and if would do her so much good to be with people she cared for. There would of course be a very good allowance, if you will let me say so. Do think it over.”
They had reached the door by this time, where Sir Edward was solemnly putting his cousin into her carriage. Mr. Russell Penton pressed Lady Penton’s hand with a little meaning as he said good-bye. “Walter might have a try too,” he said, with a laugh, as he turned away.
Walter might have—a try. A try at what? His mother’s head swam. She put her arm through that of Anne, who stood near her, and kept smiling, waving her hand to Mab in the carriage: but Lady Penton scarcely saw what she was looking at. There was something moving, dazzling before her eyes—the horses, the glitter of the panels, the faces, flickered before her; and then came a rush of sound, the horses’ hoofs, the carriage wheels grinding the gravel, and they were gone. Oh, how thankful she felt when they were gone! The girls led her in, frightened by her failing strength, and then Sir Edward came, as gloomy as ever, and leaned over her.
“I don’t think they knew,” he said; “I don’t think they had heard anything.”
Lady Penton repeated to herself several times over “Walter might have a try,” and then she too burst forth, “No, Edward, thank God! I am sure they did not know.”
He shook his head, though he was so much relieved, and said, half reluctant to confess that he was relieved, “But if it lasts much longer they must know. How can it be kept from them, and from everybody, if it lasts much longer?”
The girls looked at each other, but did not speak; for they were aware, though no one else was, that Mab knew; and could it be supposed that that little thing, who did not belong to them, who had no reason for sharing their troubles, would keep it to herself and never tell?
They had all thought it would be a relief to be rid of the little spectator and critic, the stranger in the house, and for a time it was so. The rest of the afternoon after she was gone the girls and their mother spent together talking it all over. They had never been able uninterruptedly to talk it over before, and there was a certain painful enjoyment in going over every detail, in putting all the facts they knew together, and comparing their views. Sir Edward had gone out to take one of his long solemn walks, from which he always came in more gloomy, more resentful than ever. He was going up to town once more to-morrow. Once more! He had gone up almost every day, but never had discovered anything, never had found the lost. And in his absence, and freed from Mab, whom they had not been able to get rid of at any moment, what a long, long consultation they had, talking over everything, except what Mab had suggested. She had said it with the intention of consoling, but the girls could not repeat it to each other, or breathe to their mother the suggestion she had made. They were not educated to that point. That their brother should have married foolishly, made an idol of some girl who was not his equal, and followed her out into the unknown world, was dreadful, but comprehensible; but that he should come back by and by when he wanted money—oh, no, no! What they imagined was that scene so well known to romance—the foolish young pair coming back, stealing in, he leading her, ashamed yet proud of her, to ask his parents’ forgiveness. The girls went over the details of this scene again and again as soon as they had heard all that their mother had to tell them.
“She must be beautiful,” they said; “she may be nice—oh, she must be nice or Wat would not love her!”
“Oh, my dears,” cried Lady Penton, “how can we tell? It is not good girls and nice girls who lead young men away from their duty.”
“But, mother, if they love each other!” said Ally, blushing over all her ingenuous, innocent countenance, with the awe and wonder of that great thing.
Lady Penton did not say anything more, but she shook her head, and then it was for the first time that there came over her the poignant suggestion of that “might have been” which she had not taken into her mind till now. Walter might have a try; little Mab with her heiress-ship had been thrown at his head, as people say: and what it might have been had these two taken to each other—had a great fortune been poured into Penton! Lady Penton had never known what a great piece of good fortune was; she was not one who expected such things. The very advantages of it, the desirableness, made it to her temperate soul the less likely. It never could have come to pass, all the contrarieties of nature were against it; but still, when she thought that they had spent so many days under the same roof, and might have spent so many more, and how suitable it would have been, and what a good thing for Walter, it was not wonderful that she should sigh. But that was the course of nature, it was the way of human affairs. It was too good ever to come true.
After the first night, the relief of Mab’s departure was not so evident to them. She had been a restraint, not only upon their conversations and consultations, but on the entire abandonment of their life and thoughts to this anxiety and distress. They had been compelled on her account to bear the strain, to make a struggle against it. Now there was no longer that motive. Night and day their ears were intent on every sound; there was always a watcher at the window in the staircase, which commanded the ascending path to the village, a sort of lookout woman ready to dash down-stairs and give notice if by chance—ah! no, by the blessing of God—the wanderer might be seen coming home. The watch here was furtive, lest the servants should note, but it was continual; one or another was always lingering about, looking out with eyes keen and sharp with anxiety—“busy in the distance shaping things, that made the heart beat thick.” And so the days passed on, languishing, with dark nights so endless-long in which the anxious watchers could hear only and could not see.