Space forbids the historian to attempt any description of the difficulties which Mary had to encounter in her benevolent undertaking. By Frank’s urgent desire,—for his courage had altogether failed him,—nothing was said on the subject till he was gone; and the consequence was a very uncomfortable day, in which even Mrs. Renton perceived that there was something more going on than was revealed to her. ‘What are you always talking to Frank about?’ she said, pettishly. ‘I never turn my head but I find you whispering, or telegraphing, or something. If there is anything I ought to know, let me know it.’
‘Wait a little,—only wait a little, dear godmamma,’ Mary answered, pleading; and then, when the hero was gone, the tale was told.
‘Going to India,—going to be married!’ said Mrs. Renton, in her bewilderment; ‘but why should he go to India if he marries? Of course he will be provided for if he makes up his mind{57} to that. Or why should he marry if he goes to India?—one thing is bad enough. Is he out of his senses? Fifty thousand pounds will give them, at least, two thousand a-year.’
‘But, godmamma, you are making a mistake,’ said Mary. ‘It is not Miss Rich Frank is going to marry. It is a young lady,—whom he met at Richmont.’
‘Not Miss Rich!’ said Mrs. Renton. ‘Another girl! The boy must be mad to go on making acquaintance with such people. And how much has she?’ the mother added, with plaintive submission to a hard fate, folding her patient hands.
Mary, thus driven to the last admission of all, grew quite pale, but made a brave stand for her client. ‘Oh, godmamma,’ she cried, ‘you must not be hard upon him. He is so young; and isn’t it better he should marry her because he loves her than because she is rich? She has not a penny, he says.’
When this awful revelation was made, Mrs. Renton was excited to the length of positive passion. Words failed her at first. Her eyes, though they were worn-out eyes, retaining little lustre, flashed fire. Her faded cheeks grew red. She was inarticulate in her rage and indignation. It was Mary who received the first brunt of the onslaught, for encouraging a foolish boy in such nonsense, and for taking it upon her to defend him against all who{58} wished him well. You would have thought it was Mary who had inspired him with this mad fancy, put it in his head, encouraged him in it, urged him to commit it, and compromise himself in the face of the strenuous, steady, invariable opposition of ‘all who wished him well.’ The poor lady made herself quite ill with indignation, and had to be taken to bed, and comforted with more tonics and arrowroot than ever. She lay there moaning all the evening, refusing to allow poor Mary to read to her, or to perform any of her usual ministrations. If it had not been that Frank had left his boat, having himself returned to Royalborough by the railroad, and thus afforded Mary the opportunity of getting easily across the river, and running all the way to the Cottage to be comforted by her mother for half-an-hour before returning to her charge, I don’t know what would have become of her. Mrs. Westbury did not look the sort of woman to seek comfort from, but she was Mary’s mother, which makes all the difference, and she had never got over her compunction about her nephews. This trial they were all going through was her doing, and though she sympathised much more with her sister-in-law than with Frank in the present case, she was not without a certain pity for the boy. ‘He must be mad,’ she said; ‘but if it can’t be put a stop to, it must be put up with; and your aunt will have got a little used to it by to-morrow.’ Thus comforted{59} Mary went back, not without a little wondering comparison in her own mind between the people who could do rash things and have their will, and those who had ‘to put up with’ everything that might chance to come in their way, and never had it in their power to please themselves. She was a very good girl, full of womanly kindness and charity; but it is not to be supposed that close attendance upon a weariful invalid like her aunt, not ill enough to move any depth of sympathy, but requiring perpetual pettis soins, and endless consideration in every detail of life, was a kind of existence to be chosen by a lively girl of twenty. Poor Mary was the scapegoat and ransom for the sins of her family. The three ‘Renton boys’ were all going away on their own courses, comforting themselves about their mother,—when they thought of her at all,—by the reflection that Mary was with her. They could go away, but Mary could not budge. It was rather hard, when you came to think of it. And that Frank, not three months older than herself, should marry and set out in life, and go blithely off to all the novelty and all the brightness, and no one have any power to stop him; while she stayed at home, making excuses for him, and doing duty for all three! Mary was a comfortable kind of young woman, and went into no hysterics over her fate; neither did she rave to herself about the awful blank of routine and the{60} want of excitement in her life. But she did feel a little envy of Frank, and pity for herself, as she glided across the silvery river in the summer twilight. Doing must be a pleasanter thing than ‘putting up with,’ even to a philosophical mind.
The next day Mrs. Renton had got a little used to it. She exerted herself to the unusual extent of writing Frank a letter, conjuring him by all his gods to repent ere it was too late, and to return to the paths of common sense and discretion; and when she had done this, she called Mary to her, and asked a hundred questions about ‘the girl.’ ‘Her mother was one of Laurie’s great friends,’ Mary said, trying to make the best of it.
‘All the doubtful people one knows of seem to be Laurie’s friends,’ said his mother, pathetically. And thus the crisis was over at Renton, for the moment at least.
At Richmont, however, affairs took a much more serious turn when the whole truth was known. Nelly’s intimation that Frank was going to India had not very much affected that sanguine household. ‘It will bring things to a point,’ Mrs. Rich had said to her husband. ‘He has done it in some little spirit of independence, not to be obliged to his wife, you know; but if he comes to an understanding with Nelly, we’ll make him exchange again.’
‘Ah! if he comes to an understanding with Nelly. But she shall never go to India with him,{61}’ said the father. ‘No young fellow shall blow hot and cold with my daughter. I’d have done with him at once.’
‘Nonsense! It has been some little tiff between them,’ said the more genial woman. And even Nelly got by degrees to believe that it was not yet finally over. But when the whole truth was whispered at Richmont,—as it soon was by one of the officers who had learned the fact, no one knew how,—the family in general became frantic. Nelly kept her temper outwardly at least, and held her tongue, having some regard for her own dignity; but the father and mother were wild with rage. People whom they had patronised so liberally!—a woman to whom they had just given such a commission! When this thought occurred to them, they exchanged glances. Next day, without saying a word to any one, Mr. and Mrs. Rich went up to town. They bore no external signs of passion to the ordinary eye, but in their hearts they were breathing fire and flame against every Renton, every Severn, every creature even distantly connected with either. There was very little conversation between the two indignant parents as they made their way solemnly to Fitzroy Square. A certain judicial silence, and stern restraint of all the lighter manifestations of feeling, alone marked the importance of their mission. They were shown up to Mrs. Severn’s studio by their own request,—having peremptorily{62} refused any such half-way ground as the drawing-room, as if they had come to treat with their equals. The workshop of the woman who was, as it were, in their employment, working to their order, was the more appropriate place.
They found the padrona standing at her work with looks very different from her usual aspect. Something spiritless and worn was in the very attitude of her arm, in the fall of her gown, and dressing of her hair. It was not that she was less neat, less carefully dressed, less busy. But the woman was in such unity with herself, that her unusual despondency communicated itself to every detail about her. She had no heart for Cinderella,—the little loving figure triumphing in its new life,—the sour, elder women standing by who were grudging,—what were they grudging? The child’s happiness, or her triumph, or the loss of her? She had not even heart enough to rouse her to the heights of artist-passion, and to work in her own heart into the picture, as doubtless she would yet do, some time when all was over. She stood with her sketches hung round the walls, and the whole room full of this commission of her rich patron,—the commission which made her living quite secure and above the reach of chance, and her mind easy for the year,—but listless, spiritless, mechanical, her heart gone out of her life.
Mrs. Severn was so much pre-occupied that she{63} did not even notice, what at another time she would have been so ready to notice,—the changed tone of the Riches as they came in. Luckily for her own comfort, she had never heard that there was ‘anything between’ Nelly Rich and Frank Renton. Such a reason for having nothing to say to him would have been very welcome to the padrona. But she could not refuse to have anything to say to him without breaking her child’s heart; and, accordingly what did it matter? It was to Alice, not to him, that she had yielded. Therefore, she received very much as a matter of course Mrs. Rich’s pretended congratulations. ‘We hear that great things have been happening with you,’ she said. ‘I am sure I had no idea, when Alice was at Richmont, that she was such an advanced young lady. I suppose it was going on then, though we knew nothing about it.’
‘I don’t know,’ said the padrona. ‘I cannot give you any information. It is not a pleasant subject to me; but I don’t suppose it was going on then.’
‘Not a pleasant subject!’ cried Mrs. Rich, with not unjustifiable virulence. ‘Oh, my dear Mrs. Severn, you must not tell me that. We all know what a mother feels when she has succeeded in securing a charming parti like Mr. Frank Renton for her favourite child.’
‘Is he so?’ said the padrona. ‘Indeed, I should not have thought it. But I am not in charity with{64} Mr. Frank Renton. I wish we had never seen him. I am like Cinderella’s sisters,’ she said, with an attempt at a smile;—‘I am spiteful;’ and there was a something in the droop and languor of her aspect which began to melt the hearts of the avengers. She looked so unlike herself.
‘Nay, nay,’ said Mrs. Severn’s patron. ‘Of course it is a fine thing for you to have your daughter settled so soon. And a fine thing for her too,—a girl without any fortune. Not many men, I can tell you, would have been so rash.’
‘Then I wish Mr. Frank Renton had not been so rash,’ cried the padrona, with rising spirit. ‘I would have thanked him on my knees had he kept away from this house. I cannot see any good in it. Forgive me! I have no right to trouble you with my vexations. I will show you my sketches, which are more to the purpose.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Rich, with hesitation. ‘It was principally about them,—we came to speak.’
The padrona, in her unsuspiciousness, became half apologetic. ‘I should have written to ask you to come and see them,’ she said; ‘but this business has put everything else out of my mind;’ and she began to collect her drawings in their different stages, and to rouse herself up, and show her work, as became her. The avengers, meanwhile, looked at each other, recruiting their failing courage from each other’s eyes.{65}
‘Pray don’t give yourself any trouble,’ said Mr. Rich. ‘The fact is, Mrs. Severn,—I am very sorry,—my wife and I have been talking things over, and she,—I,—I mean we,—are not quite sure——. What I would say is, that if you could make a better bargain with any one,—a dealer, perhaps, or any of your private friends,—for these pictures,—why, you know I would not stand in your way.’
‘A better bargain!’ said the padrona in amaze, not perceiving in the least what he meant; ‘but I never should dream of a better bargain. I am painting the pictures for you.’
‘Yes; I know there was some understanding of that kind,’ said the uneasy millionnaire. ‘Some sort of arrangement was proposed,—but, you know, circumstances alter cases. I,—I don’t see,—and neither does my wife,—that we can go on with that arrangement now.’
The padrona had been standing by her great portfolio, taking some drawings out of it. She stood there still, motionless, as if she were paralysed. Every tinge of colour left her face; her eyes gazed out at them for one moment blankly, with a sudden pang which made itself somehow dimly apparent, though she did not say a word. It was a cruel blow to her. For a moment she could not speak, or even move, in the extremity of her astonishment. Before the echo of these extraordinary words had died in her ear, Mrs. Severn’s rapid mind had run over in a{66} moment all there would be to do in the dreadful year which was coming,—Alice’s outfit, and the marriage which was such pain to think of, but which, nevertheless, must be planned and provided for, so that her child should have all due honour. As she stood and gazed at the two faces which were looking at her, it was all she could do to keep down two bitter tears that came to her eyes.
‘I thought it was more than an arrangement,’ she said; ‘perhaps because it was of more importance to me than it was to you. I thought it was a bargain. The price was settled, you know, and everything.’
‘Yes, oh yes,’ said both together. ‘I know there was a great deal said.’ ‘Mr. Rich was in a buying humour that day,’ said the wife. ‘But circumstances alter cases,’ said the husband. They had done their work more completely than they meant to do it; but yet they were not going to give in.
Mrs. Severn bowed her head. She could not speak. It was the cruellest aggravation of all her other troubles! ‘If that is the case,’ she said, after a long pause, ‘of course I must arrange otherwise;’ and then she came to a dead stop, turning over the drawings unconsciously with her agitated hands.
‘Oh, you will find no difficulty about it,’ said Mr. Rich, rubbing his hands; ‘you are so well known. There is Lambert will take as many of{67} your pictures as you can give him, and there is that man in Manchester——’
‘Thanks,’ said the padrona. ‘I shall find a purchaser, I hope.’ And then there was a dead silence; and the two avengers felt inclined to drop through the floor and hide themselves. They were not cruel. They had taken no thought of what they were doing, and when they perceived the reality of it, could have bitten out their tongues for saying such words. And yet what were they to do? They could not unsay what they had that moment said.
As for Mrs. Severn, she was too much occupied with her own thoughts to exert herself to set at their ease the dealers of so cruel a blow. But yet, after a while, the instinct of courtesy, which is so strong in some natures, came to the surface. Those two tears which had wanted to come had been reabsorbed somehow, and she gave herself a little shake; and, with a curious smile about her mouth, went forward to the two embarrassed, uncomfortable people. ‘Perhaps you will look at the picture all the same, and tell me if you like it,’ she said. And then the startled pair, feeling very small and very angry with her for her magnanimity, made a few steps forward, huddled together for mutual support, and gazed in grave silence at Cinderella. She set it in the best light for them, and showed them how much was complete, and how much was{68} still to do. The arrow they had sent at her was still sticking, quivering, in her heart. And she had not time to pluck it out, but she had time to be very civil, and smile upon the discomfited pair. Perhaps she overdid it just a little; but to such a brave spirit, confronting all the world, as it were, and standing alone in the fight, it is difficult to keep a certain glimmer of contempt out of the lofty forgiveness which it awards to its enemies. There was a touch of scorn in the padrona’s smile. But when Mr. and Mrs. Rich had crept down-stairs to their carriage, it is impossible to describe the state of downfall in which they found themselves. ‘She did not feel it a bit,’ said Mrs. Rich, trying to console herself. ‘And she has many friends among the dealers,’ said the millionnaire, a little ruefully. ‘I shouldn’t wonder if some fool gave a hundred or two more for the series,—and my idea!’ he added, with a certain indignation. And they went home very uncomfortable. He might be free to withdraw from his bargain, according to the letter of the law, but he could not charge his fee-rent for the idea, having rejected the pictures in which it was to be carried out.
When she had seen them safely out, the padrona dropped softly into her big chair, and hid her face in her hands. Alice’s outfit, and the wedding, and all the year’s expenses, which she had thought safely provided for, and her little triumph in being{69} free of the dealers for once,—they were all gone! It was not such a moving spectacle, perhaps, as if she had been a young girl weeping for her lover. But those two tears that forced themselves out, womanish, against her clasped hands, what concentrated pain was in them! They were more bitter than many a summer torrent out of younger eyes. And then she sprang to her feet, and snatched at her palette, and went to work with flaming cheeks and a headache, and all her old fire in her eyes. She had been listless enough before, but she was not listless now.
When Nelly Rich, however, heard of this wonderful proceeding, their grand house became too hot to hold the unhappy pair. ‘Withdraw your commission! for what reason, in heaven’s name?’ cried Nelly, blazing at them in thunder and lightning. The girl was half crazy with shame and disgust. She brought her father almost to his knees before the day was over, and flew to London, post haste, by herself, in spite of everybody’s remonstrances, to make up the matter. ‘Papa had gone out of his senses, I suppose,’ she said, dissembling her fury, to Mrs. Severn. ‘Padrona mia, for the sake of old times, you will not mind? He is so sorry. They were both mad, I suppose.’ If Mrs. Severn had followed her first impulse, she would have held by the dealers, who were not liable to such madness; but she was her children’s mother,{70} and had the bread and butter to think of, and was not able to afford such luxuries as revenge or pride. So that nobody was the worse for the patron’s ill-temper except himself; and two people were the better,—to wit, Nelly and Cinderella, the latter of whom had been undoubtedly languishing under the weight of Mrs. Severn’s heavy heart, until this violent pinch of apparent evil fortune came to sting her into life.
As for Nelly, setting her foot into the studio did her good. The smell of the pigments, and the sight of the rubbish about,—all the sketches, and unused bits of canvas, and bursting portfolios, were balm to the impetuous but not ungenerous girl. ‘I don’t want to see Alice,’ she said; ‘it was sly of her not to tell me. No, I don’t want to see her; but she is very happy, I suppose;’ and it was not possible that this could be said without a certain bitterness, considering all that had come and gone.
‘Nelly dear, don’t speak of it,’ said the padrona, who was ignorant of all the complications; and she went and gave the little messenger of consolation a kiss, and suffered herself to shed a tear or two out of her full heart. ‘I thought it would have killed me at first,’ she said, going back to her work with trembling hands. And the hand that shook so made a dreadful business of Cinderella’s white dress, and then the mother put away her tools, and sat down and cried. Nelly had been poor Sever{71}n’s pupil in the old, old days, and the sight of her brought nothing but softening thoughts to the padrona’s mind; and the fountain was opened that she kept so bravely shut. As for Nelly herself, every moment in that room was good for her. She cried too, and washed all her bitterness away in those tears, and turned Frank Renton and all his misdoings courageously out of her imagination. I doubt whether he had ever got so far as her heart.
‘I only want you to tell me one thing,’ she said, somewhat fiercely, to Alice, who came in, all unconscious, after the tears were dried, glad and wondering. ‘Was it going on when you were at Richmont?’
‘It?—what?’ said simple Alice, and then the child’s ready blush covered her face. ‘Oh, no, no! It never came on at all; it came into our minds in a moment, when we knew he was going away.’
And Nelly Rich was so magnanimous as to kiss Alice too.
‘Tell him I did it,—and that I bear no malice,’ she said, with a laugh; and then went away with Miss Hadley, who saw her safely to the railway station, and made the story still more plain to her. The governess thought it strange of Mrs. Rich to permit her daughter to run about alone in this way, but reflected that it might be one of the strange customs of ‘those sort of people,’ and did her duty by the young lady, putting her under the care of the{72} guard, and keeping an eye on the carriage till the train started. The journey might be slightly indecorous, but it did more good than any tonic in the world.
And so it came about that in September Frank Renton sailed from Southampton to join his regiment, with his young wife,—the only one of the brothers who made anything like a practical conclusion to the little romance of their beginning. Though he had hesitated for some time as to whether he should follow interest or inclination, Frank was not the sort of man, when his choice was made, to care very much what he might tread upon in his way. He would have given no one pain willingly, but to have his way was the most important matter, and he had it accordingly. They were a couple of babies to set forth thus together, to face the world,—one-and-twenty and sixteen! but their very youth kept them from any consciousness of the gravity of the undertaking. They went forth with the daring ignorance of two children, hand in hand. There were several hearts that ached over the parting, and one had almost broke in the effort. And the bride shed a few soft tears, and the bridegroom kissed his hand to the people who stayed behind; and thus the last of the three Rentons carried out his father’s will, and launched himself upon the world.