WHAT does it matter what a mother says? especially when she is a powdered and pomaded woman like Mrs. Sam Crockford, altogether unable to comprehend, much less interpret, the fair and brilliant creature who is her daughter. How strange that anything so sweet and delightful as Emmy should come from such a woman—one from whom the heart recoiled, who was offensive to every sense, with those white, unwholesome, greasy hands, the powder, the scent, the masses of false hair, the still falser and more dreadful smile. Walter said to himself as he left her with that nausea which always overwhelmed him at the sight of her, that he would not take what she said as having anything to do with Emmy. No; her existence was a sort of an offense to Emmy; it might, if that were possible, throw a cloud over her perfection, it might make a superficial admirer pause to think, could she ever in her young beauty come to be like that? A superficial admirer, Walter said to himself—not, of course, a true lover such as he was, to whom the suggestion was odious and abominable. Like that! oh, never, never! for Emmy had soul, she had heart in her loveliness; never could the actress have resembled her, never could she resemble the actress. He wondered if that woman could be her mother. Such people stole children, they got hold of them in strange ways. Emmy might have been taken in her childhood from some poor mother of a very different kind. She might have strayed away from her home and been found by vagrants: anything rather than believe that she was that woman’s daughter, who, to crown all her artificialities, was mercenary too. Or even if it might really be so, what did it matter? is there not often no resemblance between the mother and the child, the mother elderly, faded, meretricious, trying hard to keep up an antiquated display of dreadful charms, seductions that filled the mind with loathing; the daughter, oh, so different, so young and fresh, so full of youth and sweetness and everything that is delightful, everything that is most fascinating. When he thought of Emmy the young man’s heart, which had been so outraged, grew soft again. If it came to a decision, how very different would Emmy’s deliverance be. Yet Emmy had discouraged him too, she had thought of secondary things. She had been sorry that he should lose anything for her sake, he who was so ready to lose all. She had even scoffed a little sweetly at his fortune, the ten thousand pounds, which would not, she declared, be more than four hundred a year. Four hundred a year would be plenty, Walter thought; they could live somewhere quietly in the depths of the country enjoying each other’s society, desiring nothing else to make them happy. Would Emmy care for that? she who so loved London. A number of people loved London so, did not know what to do out of it, people who were the very best, the most highly endowed of all, poets, philosophers—it was no reproach to her that she should be among that number. He was not one of them himself, but then he was, he knew, a dull fellow, a rustic. Poor Walter went about the streets all day thinking these thoughts. He knew he was not so clever as she was; but yet they had always understood each other: not like that dreadful woman whom nothing could make him understand. He would not accept her decision whatever she said—he would not believe her even—probably what she had said about his father was untrue; how should his father have got there? No, no, it was not true, any more than it was true that Emmy had permitted her mother to interfere. There was some one else whom the old woman preferred, he said, miserably, to himself, and that was the entire cause of it, not that Emmy meant to cast him off—oh no, no!
But it was two or three days after this before he succeeded in seeing her. Either there was a conspiracy on her mother’s part, into which she, guileless, fell, or else the mother had acquired an ascendency over her, and was able to curb the natural instincts, to restrain the sweeter impulses of her daughter. That it could be Emmy’s fault he would not allow. He haunted the place morning and evening, and on Saturday afternoon, which had been his moment of bliss. It was on that day that he met her at last. He met her hurrying out, dressed as she usually was when he was allowed to take her to the country or to make some expedition with her. She had just stopped to call out something before closing the door, about the hour of her return—he thought he heard her say nine o’clock, and it was little past noon. She was going somewhere, then, but not with him. He turned after her as she went lightly along, with the easy skimming step which he had so often compared to every poetic movement under heaven. It filled him with despair to see it now, and to feel that she was going along like this, upon some other expedition, not in his company, though she must know to what darkness of despondence and solitude she was leaving him. “Emmy,” he cried, hurrying after her. He thought she started a little, but only quickened her pace. She was not, however, to escape him so—that was a vain expectation on her part. He quickened his pace too, and came up to her, close to her, and caught at her elbow in his eagerness and impatience. She turned round upon him with a face very unlike that which had so often smiled upon the foolish boy. She plucked her arm away from his touch. “Oh,” she said, with a tone of annoyance, “you here!”
“Where should I be, Emmy, but where you are? You were going to send for me, to meet me—”
She looked at him with impatience. “No,” she said, “I wasn’t going to do anything of the kind; I have got something very different to do.”
“I have always been ready to do whatever you wanted,” he said, “to go where you pleased, and you know this has been my reward—this Saturday afternoon, after waiting, waiting, day by day—”
“Who wanted you to wait? Mr. Penton, that was your doing. You must understand that I’m not going to be made a slave to you.”
“A slave,” cried the poor boy, “to me!”
“Well, what is it better? I can’t move a step but you are at my heels. What I’ve always held by is doing what I like and going where I like. I never could put up with bondage and propriety like some people; but you dog my steps, you watch everything I do—”
“Emmy!”
“Well, is that all you have to say? Emmy! yes, that’s my name; but you can’t crush me by saying ‘Emmy!’ to me,” she said, with a little breathless gasp, as of one who had seized the opportunity to work herself up into a fit of calculated impatience. She stopped here, perhaps moved by his pale face, and ended by a little laugh of ridicule. “Well, that’s natural enough, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know what is natural,” he said. “I have thrown off all that. Emmy, are you going to abandon me after all?”
“After all!—after what? I suppose you mean after all the great things you’ve done for me? What has it been, Mr. Penton? You’ve followed me here, you’ve watched me that I couldn’t take a step, or speak a word. No, I am not going with you any more. You must just make up your mind to it, Mr. Walter Penton. I’ve got other things in hand. I’ve other—I’ve—well, let us be vulgar,” she cried, with a wild little laugh, “I’ve got other fish to fry.”
The poor young fellow kept his eyes fixed upon her—eyes large with dismay and trouble.
“You are not going with me anymore! You can’t mean it!—you don’t mean it, Emmy!”
“But I do. It’s been all nonsense and romance and folly. I didn’t mind just for amusement. But do you think I am going to let you, with next to nothing, and expectations—expectations! what could your expectations be?—your father may live for a century! Do you think I’m going to let you stand in my way, and keep me from what’s better? No—and no again and again. I mean nothing of the sort. I mean what’s best for myself. I am not going with you any more.”
“Not going with me!” he said, in a voice of misery: “then what is to become of me?—what am I to do?”
“Oh, you’ll do a hundred things,” she said, tapping him on the arm; “go home, for one thing, and make your peace. It’s far better for you. It’s been folly for you as well as me. Go and take care of your ten thousand pounds. Ten thousand pounds! What do you think of as much as that a year? Take care of it, and you’ll get a nice little income out of it, just enough for a young man about town. And don’t be tyrannized over by your people, and don’t let any one say a word about marrying. You’re too young to be married. I’m your only real friend, Walter. Yes, I am. I tell you, don’t think of marrying—why should you marry?—but just have your fling and get a little fun while you can. That’s my last advice to you.”
He walked on with her mechanically, not able to speak, until she got impatient of the silent figure stalking by her side, struck dumb with youthful passion and misery.
She stopped suddenly and confronted him with hasty determination. “You’re not,” she said, “coming another step with me!”
“Where am I to go? what am I to do: I have lived,” he cried, “only for you!”
“Then it’s time to stop that!” she said. “Go away—go clean away; it will—it will damage me if you’re seen with me! Now there, that’s the truth! I was so silly as to allow it for your sake before, now I’ve learned better. Mr. Penton, it will be harming me if you come another step. Now, do you understand?”
Did he understand? He stopped, and gazed at her with his blank face. “It will be harming you! But you belong to me, you are going to be my wife!”
“No, no, no!” she cried; “that is all folly: I never meant it. Good-bye, and for Heaven’s sake go away, go away!”
She gave an alarmed glance round toward the end of the street. It seemed to Walter that he too saw something vaguely—a tali spidery outline, a high phaeton, or something of the sort. She broke into a little run suddenly, waving her hand to him. “Good-bye!” she cried; “good-bye; go away!” and left him standing stupefied with wonder, with incredulous conviction, if such words can be put together. He felt in the depths of his heart that she had abandoned him, but he could not believe it. No, he could not believe it, though he knew it was true. A sort of instinct of chivalry lingered in the poor lad’s heart, wrung and bleeding as it was. He could not harm her, he could not spy on her, he could not interfere with her will, whatever she might do to him. He turned his back upon the spidery tall phaeton. If that was the thing that was to carry her away from him he would not spy, he would not put himself in her way. So long as she did what she liked best! He turned with his heart bleeding, yet half stupefied with trouble, and walked away.
Poor Walter walked and walked all the rest of the afternoon; he did not know where he went or how, his mind was stupid with suffering. And then came Sunday, when without her the blank was more complete than on any other day. He had not the heart even to seek another interview. On Sunday afternoon he went past the house, and the high phaeton stood at the door. What more could be said? And yet another day or two passed, he did not know how many, before Mab stopped the little brougham in which she was driving and called to him in the street as he went mooning along with his head down in dull and helpless despondency.
“Mr. Penton! Mr. Penton!” The little soft voice calling him roused Walter from the stupor of his despair. He knew nobody in town. It was a wonder to him that any one should know him—should take the trouble to call him. And then Mab’s little fresh face stabbed him with innocent cheerful looks. He was not learned enough to know that these innocent looks knew a great deal, and suspected much more harm than existed, in their precocious society knowledge.
Mab was bent upon doing what she could to bring him back, and she fully realized all the difficulty; but she looked like a child delighted to see her country acquaintance.
“And oh, how is Lady Penton?” she cried.
“My mother?” gasped Walter, taken altogether by surprise.
Then Mab told him that little story about Lady Penton’s health. “She will of course make light of it when she writes,” said the artful little girl. “But oh, she looks so ill and so pale!” (So she does, the little romancer said to herself in her heart; it is quite, quite true!) “Oh, Mr. Penton, do make her see the doctor! do make her take care of herself! You could do it better than any one—because you know the others don’t notice the great, great change; they see her every day.”
“I will!” cried poor Wat. “Thank you—thank you a thousand times for telling me!”
It gave him a reason for going home, and he did so want a reason, poor boy! His own wretchedness did not seem cause enough; and how was he ever to be forgiven for what he had done? But his mother! He would not wait to think, he would not let himself consider the matter. His mother! And what if she should die! Death had never entered that happy house. It seemed to him the most horrible of all possibilities. He did not even pause to go back to his hotel. Oh, how glad he was of the compulsion, to be thus sent home, to have a reason for going! He went flying, without taking time for thought.
And when Lady Penton threw herself upon him, calling “Wat, WAT,” with that great outcry, he forgot all about his wrong-doing and his need of pardon. He caught her in his arms and cried, “Mother, are you ill?—Mother, are you better?” as if there were no other trouble or anxiety but this in the world.
“Oh, Wat! oh, Wat!” she cried, unable on her side to think of anything but that he had come back and she had him in her arms again: and for a minute or two no more was said. Then he led her tenderly back to a chair and placed her in it, and knelt down beside her.
“Mother, you have been ill—”
“No; oh, no, my dear.” And then she remembered Mab’s little alarm (dear little Mab! if it should be her doing). “At least,” she said, “my dearest boy, there is nothing the matter with me that the sight of you will not cure.”
“Oh, mother,” he cried, “that you should have to say that, that I should have been the cause—”
“Hush, hush,” she said, pressing him to her; “it is all over, Wat, my own boy. You have come home.”
She asked him no questions, she did not even say that he was forgiven: and the youth’s heart swelled high. “I think I have been mad,” he said.
But she only replied, kissing him, “My own boy, you have come home.” And what more was there to be said.
This transport all passed in the dark, with no light in the room except the paleness of twilight in the windows, the dull glow from the fire, which was an ease and softening to the meeting. And then with the lighting of the cheerful lamps the knowledge spread through the house—Wat has come home.
“Already!” cried Ally, with a flush of radiant joy that was more than for her brother.
“Already,” Sir Edward said, with a frown that belied the sudden ease of his heart. To say what that relief was is beyond the power of words. The dark book-room, where he sat with his head in his hands and all the world dark round him, suddenly became light. A load was lifted from his shoulders and from his soul; his mind was freed as from chains. But after that first blessed release and relief a sensation of humiliation, almost of resentment, came into his mind. “Already,” he said. He had tramped about London for days and days and found nothing. Rochford had gone and seen and overcome the same day.
“Edward,” said Lady Penton, who, though so still, so tremulous after the prodigal’s return, had yet felt the other anxiety spring up as soon as the first was laid, “I am sorry for Mr. Rochford. I fear he was making this the foundation for a great many hopes. He expected to find Walter and bring him home, and thus gain our favor for—something else.”
“Well,” said Sir Edward with his frown, “it is astonishing to me how he’s done it. It looks like collusion. I suppose it’s only a piece of luck, a great piece of luck.”
“He has not done it at all,” said Lady Penton, “Wat has not so much as seen him. He has had nothing to do with it at all.”
The cloud rolled off Sir Edward’s brow: he gave expression to the delightful relief of his mind in a low laugh.
“I thought,” he said, “nothing would come of it, he was so cock-sure. I thought from the first nothing would come of it: but of course you were all a great deal wiser than I. So he came home of himself when he was tired? Let me see the boy.”