“It is really unnecessary to recall so manyexamples,” said Constance. “No doubt they are all quite true; but as a matter of fact, in this case the date was the 29th.”
“Oh, I hope,” said Tasie, “that somebody will send us another ‘Queen’; for I should be so sorry to miss seeing about Frances. Have you heard, Miss Waring, how she is to be dressed?”
“It will be the usual white business,” said Constance, calmly.
“You mean—all white? Yes, I suppose so; and the material, silk or satin, with tulle? Oh yes, I have no doubt; but to see it all written down, with the drapings andbouillonnésand all that, makes it so much more real. Don’t you think so? Dear Frances, she always looked so nice in white—which is trying to many people. I really cannot wear white, for my part.”
Constance looked at her with a scarcely concealed smile. She was not tolerant of the old-young lady, as Frances was. Her eyes meant mischief as they made out the sandy complexion, the uncertain hair, which were so unlike Frances’ clear little face and glossybrown satin locks. But, fortunately, the eloquence of looks did not tell for much in that closely shuttered dark room. And Constance’s nerves, already so jarred and strained, responded with another keen vibration when Mrs Durant’s voice suddenly came out of the gloom with a bland question: “And when are you moving? Of course, like all the rest, you must be on the wing.”
“Where should we be going? I don’t think we are going anywhere,” she said.
“My dear Miss Waring, that shows, if you will let me say so, how little you know of our climate here. You must go: in the summer it is intolerable. We have stayed a little longer than usual this year. My husband takes the duty at Homburg every summer, as perhaps you are aware.”
“Oh, it is so much nicer there for the Sunday work,” said Tasie; “though I love dear little Bordighera too. But the Sunday-school is a trial. To give up one’s afternoons and take a great deal of trouble for perhaps three children! Of course, papa, I know it is my duty.”
“And quite as much your duty, if there were but one; for, think, if you saved but one soul,—is that not worth living for, Tasie?” Mr Durant said.
“Oh yes, yes, papa. I only say it is a little hard. Of course that is the test of duty. Tell Frances, please, when you write, Miss Waring, there is to be a bazaar for the new church; and I daresay she could send or do me something—two or three of her nice little sketches. People like that sort of thing. Generally things at bazaars are so useless. Knitted things, everybody has got such shoals of them; but a water-colour—you know that always sells.”
“I will tell Fan,” said Constance, “when I write—but that is not often. We are neither of us very good correspondents.”
“You should tell your papa,” went on Mrs Durant, “of that little place which I always say I discovered, Miss Waring. Such a nice little place, and quite cool and cheap. Nobody goes; there is not a tourist passing by once in a fortnight. Mr Waring would like it, I know. Don’t you think Mr Waring would like it, papa?”
“That depends, my dear, upon so many circumstances over which he has no control—such as, which way the wind is blowing, and if he has the books he wants, and——”
“Papa, you must not laugh at Mr Waring. He is a dear. I will not hear a word that is not nice of Mr Waring,” cried Tasie.
This championship of her father was more than Constance could bear. She rose from her seat quickly, and declared that she must go.
“So soon?” said Mrs Durant, holding the hand which Constance had held out to her, and looking up with keen eyes and spectacles. “And we have not said a word yet of the event, and all about it, and why it was. But I think we can give a guess at why it was.”
“What event?” Constance said, with chill surprise: as if she cared what was going on in their little world!
“Ah, how can you ask me, my dear? The last event, that took us all so much by surprise. I am afraid, I am sadly afraid, you are not without blame.”
“Oh mamma! Miss Waring will think wedo nothing but gossip. But you must remember there is so little going on, that we can’t help remarking—— And perhaps it was quite true what they said, that poor Captain Gaunt——”
“Oh, if it is anything about Captain Gaunt,” said Constance, hastily withdrawing her hand; “I know so little about the people here——”
Tasie followed her to the door. “You must not mind,” she said, “what mamma says. She does not mean anything—it is only her way. She always thinks there must be reasons for things. Now I,” said Tasie, “know that very often there are no reasons for anything.” Having uttered this oracle, she allowed the visitor to go down-stairs. “And you will not forget to tell Frances,” she said, looking over the balustrade. In a little house like that of the Durants the stairs in England would have been wood, and shabby ones; but here they were marble, and of imposing appearance. “Any little thing I should be thankful for,” said Tasie; “or she might pick up a few trifles from one of the Japanese shops; but water-colours are what I should prefer. Good-bye,dear Miss Waring. Oh, it is not good-bye for good; I shall certainly come to see you before we go away!”
Constance had not gone half-way along the Marina when she met General Gaunt, who looked grave, but yet greeted her kindly. “We are going to-morrow,” he said. “My wife is so very busy, I do not know if she will be able to find time to call to say good-bye.”
“I hope you don’t think so badly of me as she does, General Gaunt?”
“Badly, my dear young lady! You must know that is impossible,” said the old soldier, shuffling a little from one foot to the other. And then he added, “Ladies are a little unreasonable. And if they think you have interfered with the little finger of a child of theirs—— But I hope you will let me have the pleasure of paying my farewell visit in the morning.”
“Good-bye, General,” Constance said. She held her head high, and walked proudly away past all the empty hotels and shops, not heeding the sun, which still played down upon her,though from a lower level. She cared nothing for these people, she said to herself vehemently: and yet the mere feeling of the farewells in the air added a forlorn aspect to the stagnation of the place. Everybody was going away except her father and herself. She felt as if the preparations and partings, and all the pleasure of Tasie in the “work” elsewhere, and her little fussiness about the bazaar, were all offences to herself, Constance, who was not thought good enough even to ask a contribution from. No one thought Constance good for anything, except to blame her for ridiculous impossibilities, such as not marrying Captain Gaunt. It seemed that this was the only thing which she was supposed capable of doing. And while all the other people went away, she was to stay here to be burned brown, and perhaps to get fever, unused as she was to a blazing summer like this. She had to stay here—she, who was so young and could enjoy everything—while all the old people, to whom it could not matter very much, went away. She felt angry, offended, miserable, as she went in and got herself ready mechanically for dinner.She knew her father would take no notice,—would probably receive the news of the departure of the others without remark. He cared nothing, not nearly so much as about a new book. And she, throbbing with pain, discomfiture, loneliness, and anger, was alone to bear the burden of this stillness, and of the uninhabited world.
Waringwas not so indifferent to the looks or feelings of his daughter as appeared. After all, he was not entirely buried in his books. To Frances, who had grown up by his side without particularly attracting his attention, he had been kindly indifferent, not feeling any occasion to concern himself about the child, who always had managed to amuse herself, and never had made any call upon him. But Constance had come upon him as a stranger, as an individual with a character and faculties of her own, and it had not been without curiosity that he had watched her to see how she would reconcile herself with the new circumstances. Her absorption in the amusement provided for her by young Gaunt had somewhat revolted her father, who set it down as one of the usualexhibitions of love in idleness, which every one sees by times as he makes his way through the world. He had not interfered, being thoroughly convinced that interference is useless, in addition to that reluctance to do anything which had grown upon him in his recluse life. But since Gaunt had disappeared without a sign—save that of a little irritability, a little unusual gravity on the part of Constance—her father had been roused somewhat to ask what it meant. Had the young fellow “behaved badly,” as people say? Had he danced attendance upon her all this time only to leave her at the end? It did not seem possible, when he looked at Constance with her easy air of mastery, and thought of the shy, eager devotion of the young soldier and his impassioned looks. But yet he was aware that in such cases all prognostics failed, that the conqueror was sometimes conquered, and the intended victim remained master of the field. Waring observed his daughter more closely than ever on this evening. She wasdistraite, self-absorbed, a little impatient, sometimes not noting what he said to her, sometimes answering in an irritable tone. Thereplies she made to him when she did reply showed that her mind was running on other matters. She said abruptly, in the middle of a little account he was giving her, with the idea of amusing her, of one of the neighbouring mountain castles, “Do you know, papa, that everybody is going away?”
Waring felt, with a certain discomfiture, which was comic, yet annoying, like one who has been suddenly pulled up with a good deal of “way” on him, and stops himself with difficulty—“a branch of the old Dorias,” he went on, having these words in his very mouth; and then, after a precipitate pause, “Eh? Oh, everybody is——? Yes, I know. They always do at this time of the year.”
“It will be rather miserable, don’t you think, when every one is gone?”
“My dear Constance, ‘every one’ means the Gaunts and Durants. I could not have supposed you cared.”
“For the Gaunts and Durants—oh no,” said Constance. “But to think there is not a soul—no one to speak to—not even the clergyman, not even Tasie.” She laughed, but there wasa certain look of alarm in her face, as if the emergency was one which was unprecedented. “That frightens one, in spite of one’s self. And what are we going to do?”
It was Waring now who hesitated, and did not know how to reply. “We!” he said. “To tell the truth, I had not thought of it. Frances was always quite willing to stay at home.”
“But I am not Frances, papa.”
“I beg your pardon, my dear; that is quite true. Of course I never supposed so. You understand that for myself I prefer always not to be disturbed—to go on as I am. But you, a young lady fresh from society—— Had I supposed that you cared for the Durants, for instance, I should have thought of some way of making up for their absence; but I thought, on the whole, you would prefer their absence.”
“That has nothing to do with it,” said Constance. “I don’t care for the individuals—they are all rather bores. Captain Gaunt,” she added, resolutely, introducing the name with determination, “became very much of a bore before he went away. But the thing is to havenobody—nobody! One has to put up with bores very often; but to have nobody, actually not a soul! The circumstances are quite unprecedented.”
There was something in her air as she said this which amused her father. It was the air of a social philosopher brought to a pause in the face of an unimagined dilemma, rather than of a young lady stranded upon a desert shore where no society was to be found.
“No doubt,” he said, “you never knew anything of the kind before.”
“Never,” said Constance, with warmth. “People who are a nuisance, often enough; butnobody, never before.”
“I prefer nobody,” said her father.
She raised her eyes to him, as if he were one of the problems to which, for the first time, her attention was seriously called. “Perhaps,” she said; “but then you are not in a natural condition, papa—no more than a hermit in the desert, who has forsworn society altogether.”
“Allowing that I am abnormal, Constance, for the argument’s sake——”
“And so was Frances, more or less—that is, she could content herself with the peasants and fishermen, who, of course, are just as good as anybody else, if you make up your mind to it, and understand their ways. But I am not abnormal,” Constance said, her colour rising a little. “I want the society of my own kind. It seems unnatural to you, probably, just as your way of thinking seems unnatural to me.”
“I have seen both ways,” said Waring, in his turn becoming animated; “and so far as my opinion goes, the peasants and fishermen are a thousand times better than what you call Society; and solitude, with one’s own thoughts and pursuits, the best of all.”
There was a momentary pause, and then Constance said, “That may be, papa. What is best in the abstract is not the question. In that way, mere nothing would be the best of all, for there could be no harm in it.”
“Nor any good.”
“That is what I mean on my side—nor any good. It might be better to be alone—then (I suppose) you would never be bored, never feel the need of anything, the mere sound of avoice, some one going by. That may be your way of thinking, but it is not mine. If one has no society, one had better die at once and save trouble. That is what I should like to do.”
A certain feminine confusion in her argument, produced by haste and the stealing in of personal feeling, stopped Constance, who was too clear-headed not to see when she had got involved. Her confusion had the usual effect of touching her temper and causing a little crise of sentiment. The tears came to her eyes. She could be heroic, and veil her personal grievances like a social martyr so long as this was necessary in presence of the world; but in the present case it was not necessary: it was better, in fact, to let nature have its way.
“That will not be necessary, I hope,” said Waring, somewhat coldly. He thought of Frances with a sigh, who never bothered him, who was contented with everything! and carried on her own little thoughts, whatever they might be, her little drawings, her little life, so tranquilly, knowing nothing better. What was he to do, with the responsibility upon his handsof this other creature? whom all the same he could not shake off, nor even—as a gentleman, if not as a father—allow to perceive what an embarrassment she was. “Without going so far,” he said, “we must consult what is best to be done, since you feel it so keenly. My ordinary habits even ofvilleggiaturawould not please you any better than staying at home, I fear. We used to go up to Dolceacqua, Frances and I; or to Eza; or to Porto Fino, on the opposite coast,—at no one of which places was there a soul—as you reckon souls—to be seen.”
“That is a great pity,” said Constance; “for even Frances, though she may have been a Stoic born, must have wanted to see a human creature who spoke English now and then.”
“A Stoic! It never occurred to me that she was a Stoic,” said Waring, with astonishment, and a sudden sense of offence. The idea that his little Frances was not perfectly happy, that she had anything to put up with, anything to forgive, was intolerable to him; and it was a new idea. He reflected that she had consented to go away with an ease which surprised himat the time. Was it possible? This suggestion disturbed him much in his certainty that his was absolutely the right way.
“If all these expedients are unsatisfactory,” he said, sharply, “perhaps you will come to my assistance, and tell me where you would be satisfied to go.”
“Papa,” said Constance, “I am going to make a suggestion which is a very bold one; perhaps you will be angry—but I don’t do it to make you angry; and, please, don’t answer me till you have thought a moment. It is just this—Why shouldn’t we go home?”
“Go home!” The words flew from him in the shock and wonder. He grew pale as he stared at her, too much thunderstruck to be angry, as she said.
Constance put up her hand to stop him. “I said, please don’t answer till you have thought.”
And then they sat for a minute or more looking at each other from opposite sides of the table—in that pause which comes when a new and strange thought has been thrown into the midst of a turmoil which it has power to exciteor to allay. Waring went through a great many phases of feeling while he looked at his young daughter sitting undaunted opposite to him, not afraid of him, treating him as no one else had done for years—as an equal, as a reasonable being, whose wishes were not to be deferred to superstitiously, but whose reasons for what he did and said were to be put to the test, as in the case of other men. And he knew that he could not beat down this cool and self-possessed girl, as fathers can usually crush the young creatures whom they have had it in their power to reprove and correct from their cradles. Constance was an independent intelligence. She was a gentlewoman, to whom he could not be rude any more than to the Queen. This hushed at once the indignant outcry on his lips. He said at last, calmly enough, with only a little sneer piercing through his forced smile, “We must take care, like other debaters, to define what we mean exactly by the phrases we use. Home, for example. What do you mean by home? My home, in the ordinary sense of the word, is here.”
“My dear father,” said Constance, with the air, somewhat exasperated by his folly, of a philosopher with a neophyte, “I wish you would put the right names to things. Yes, it is quite necessary to define, as you say. How can an Englishman, with all his duties in his own country, deriving his income from it, with houses belonging to him, and relations, and everything that makes up life—how can he, I ask you, say that home, in the ordinary sense of the word, is here? What is the ordinary sense of the word?” she said, after a pause—looking at him with the indignant frown of good sense, and that little air of repressed exasperation, as of the wiser towards the foolisher, which made Waring, in the midst of his own just anger and equally just discomfiture, feel a certain amusement too. He kept his temper with the greatest pains and care. Domenico had left the room when the discussion began, and the lamp which hung over the table lighted impartially the girl’s animated countenance, pressing forward in the strength of a position which she felt to be invulnerable, and the father’s clouded and withdrawing face,—for hehad taken his eyes from her, with unconscious cowardice, when she fixed him with that unwavering gaze.
“I will allow that you put the position very strongly—as well as a little undutifully,” he said.
“Undutifully? Is it one’s duty to one’s father to be silly—to give up one’s power of judging what is wrong and what is right? I am sure, papa, you are much too candid a thinker to suggest that.”
What could he say? He was very angry; but this candid thinker took him quite at unawares. It tickled while it defied him. And he was a very candid thinker, as she said. Perhaps he had been treated illogically in the great crisis of his life; for, as a matter of fact, when an argument was set before him, when it was a good argument, even if it told against him, he would never refuse to acknowledge it. And conscience, perhaps, had said to him on various occasions what his daughter now said. He could bring forward nothing against it. He could only say, I choose it to be so; and this would bear no weight with Constance. “Youare not a bad dialectician,” he said. “Where did you learn your logic? Women are not usually strong in that point.”
“Women are said to be just what it pleases men to represent them,” said Constance. “Listen, papa. Frances would not have said that to you that I have just said. But don’t you know that she would have thought it all the same? Because it is quite evident and certain, you know. What did you say the other day of that Italian, that Count something or other, who has the castle there on the hill, and never comes near it from one year’s end to another?”
“That is quite a different matter. There is no reason why he should not spend a part of every year there.”
“And what reason is there with you? Only what ought to be an additional reason for going—that you have——” Here Constance paused a little, and grew pale. And her father looked up at her, growing pale too, anticipating a crisis. Another word, and he would be able to crush this young rebel, this meddler with things which concerned her not. But Constance was better advised; she said, hurriedly—“relationsand dependants, and ever so many things to look to—things that cannot be settled without you.”
“And what may these be?” He had been so fully prepared for the introduction at this point of the mother, from whom Constance, too, had fled—the wife, who was, as he said to himself, the cause of all that was inharmonious in his own life—that the withdrawal of her name left him breathless, with the force of an impulse which was not needed. “What are the things that cannot be settled without me?”
“Well—for one thing, papa, your daughter’s marriage,” said Constance, still looking at him steadily, but with a sudden glow of colour covering her face.
“My daughter’s marriage?” he repeated, vaguely, once more taken by surprise. “What! has Frances already, in the course of a few weeks——?”
“It is very probable,” said Constance, calmly. “But I was not thinking of Frances. Perhaps you forget that I am your daughter too, and that your sanction is needed for me as well as for her.”
Here Waring leant towards her over the table. “Is this how it has ended?” he said. “Have you really so little perception of what is possible for a girl of your breeding, as to think that a life in India with young Gaunt——?”
Constance grew crimson from her hair to the edge of her white dress. “Captain Gaunt?” she said, for the first time avoiding her father’s eye. Then she burst into a laugh, which she felt was weak and half hysterical in its self-consciousness. “Oh no,” she said; “that was only amusement—that was nothing. I hope, indeed, I have a little more—perception, as you say. What I meant was——” Her eyes took a softened look, almost of entreaty, as if she wanted him to help her out.
“I did not know you had any second string to your bow,” he said. Now was his time to avenge himself, and he took advantage of it.
“Papa,” said Constance, drawing herself up majestically, “I have no second string to my bow. I have made a mistake. It is a thing which may happen to any one. But when one does so, and sees it, the thing to do is to acknowledge and remedy it, I think. Somepeople, I am aware, are not of the same opinion. But I, for one, am not going to keep it up.”
“You refer to—a mistake which has not been acknowledged?”
“Papa, don’t let us quarrel, you and me. I am very lonely—oh, dreadfully lonely! I want you to stand by me. What I refer to is my affair, not any one’s else. I find out now that Claude—of course I told you his name—Claude—would suit me very well—better than any one else. There are drawbacks, perhaps; but I understand him, and he understands me. That is the great thing, isn’t it?”
“It is a great thing—if it lasts.”
“Oh, it would last. I know him as well as I know myself.”
“I see,” said Waring, slowly. “You have made up your mind to return to England, and accomplish the destiny laid out for you. A very wise resolution, no doubt. It is only a pity that you did not think better of it at first, instead of turning my life upside down and causing everybody so much trouble. Never mind. It is to be hoped that your resolution will hold now; and there need be no moretrouble in that case about finding a place in which to pass the summer.Youare going, I presume—home?”
This time the tears came very visibly to Constance’s eyes. There was impatience and vexation in them, as well as feeling. “Where is home?” she said. “I will have to ask you. The home I have been used to is my sister’s now. Oh, it is hard, I see, very hard, when you have made a mistake once, to mend it! The only home that I know of is an old house where the master has not been for a long time—which is all overgrown with trees, and tumbling into ruins for anything I know. But I suppose, unless you forbid me, that I have a right to go there—and perhaps aunt Caroline——”
“Of what are you speaking?” he said, making an effort to keep his voice steady.
“I am speaking of Hilborough, papa.”
At this he sprang up from his chair, as if touched by some intolerable recollection; then composing himself, sat down again, putting force upon himself, restraining the sudden impulse of excitement. After a time, he said, “Hilborough. I had almost forgotten the name.”
“Yes,—so I thought. You forget that you have a home, which is cooler and quieter, as quiet as any of your villages here—where you could be as solitary as you liked, or see people if you liked—where you are the natural master. Oh, I thought you must have forgotten it! In summer it is delightful. You are in the middle of a wood, and yet you are in a nice English house. Oh, anEnglishhouse is very different from those Palazzos. Papa, there is yourvilleggiatura, as you call it, just what you want, far, far better than Mrs Durant’s cheap little place, that she asked me to tell you of, or Mrs Gaunt’spensionin Switzerland, or Homburg. They think you are poor; but you know quite well you are not poor. Take me to Hilborough, papa; oh, take me home! It is there I want to go.”
“Hilborough,” he repeated to himself—“Hilborough. I never thought of that. I suppose shehasa right to it. Poor old place! Yes, I suppose, if the girl chooses to call it home——”
He rose up quite slowly this time, and went, as was his usual custom, towards the door whichled through the other rooms to the loggia, but without paying any attention to the movements of Constance, which he generally followed instead of directing. She rose too, and went to him, and stole her hand through his arm. The awning had been put aside, and the soft night-air blew in their faces as they stepped out upon that terrace in which so much of their lives was spent. The sea shone beyond the roofs of the houses on the Marina, and swept outwards in a pale clearness towards the sky, which was soft in summer blue, with the stars sprinkled faintly over the vast vault, too much light still remaining in heaven and earth to show them at their best. Constance walked with her father, close to his side, holding his arm, almost as tall as he was, and keeping step and pace with him. She said nothing more, but stood by him as he walked to the ledge of the loggia and looked out towards the west, where there was still a lingering touch of gold. He was not at all in the habit of expressing admiration of the landscape, but to-night, as if he were making a remark called forth by the previous argument, “It is all very lovely,” he said.
“Yes; but not more lovely than home,” said the girl. “I have been at Hilborough in a summer night, and everything was so sweet—the stars all looking through the trees as if they were watching the house—and the scent of the flowers. Don’t you remember the white rose at Hilborough—what they call Mother’s tree?”
He started a little, and a thrill ran through him. She could feel it in his arm—a thrill of recollection, of things beyond the warfare and turmoil of his life, on the other, the boyish side—recollections of quiet and of peace.
“I think I will go to my own room a little, Constance, and smoke my cigarette there. You have brought a great many things to my mind.”
She gave his arm a close pressure before she let it go. “Oh, take me to Hilborough! Let us go to our own home, papa.”
“I will think of it,” he replied.
Francesate a mournful little dinner alone, after the agitations to which she had been subject. Her mother did not return; and Markham, who had been expected up to the last moment, did not appear. It was unusual to her now to spend so many hours alone, and her mind was oppressed not only by the strange scene with Nelly Winterbourn, but more deeply still by Claude’s news. George Gaunt had always been a figure of great interest to Frances; and his appearance here in the world which was as yet so strange, with his grave, indeed melancholy face, had awakened her to a sense of sympathy and friendliness which no one had called forth in her before. He was as strange as she was to that dazzling puzzle of society, sat silent as she did, roused himself into interest like her about matters which did not muchinterest anybody else. She had felt amid so many strangers that here was one whom she could always understand, whose thoughts she could follow, who said what she had been about to say. It made no difference to Frances that he had not signalled her out for special notice. She took that quietly, as a matter of course. Her mother, Markham, the other people who appeared and disappeared in the house, were all more interesting, she felt, than she; but sometimes her eyes had met those of Captain Gaunt in sympathy, and she had perceived that he could understand her, whether he wished to do so or not. And then he was Mrs Gaunt’s youngest, of whom she had heard so much. It seemed to Frances that his childhood and her own had got all entangled, so that she could not be quite sure whether this and that incident of the nursery had been told of him or of herself. She was more familiar with him than he could be with her. And to hear that he was unhappy, that he was in danger, a stranger among people who preyed upon him, and yet not to be able to help him, was almost more than she could bear.
She went up to the empty drawing-room, with the soft illumination of many lights, which was habitual there, which lay all decorated and bright, sweet with spring flowers, full of pictures and ornaments, like a deserted palace, and she felt the silence and beauty of it to be dreary and terrible. It was like a desert to her, or rather like a prison, in which she must stay and wait and listen, and, whatever might come, do nothing to hinder it. What could she do? A girl could not go out into those haunts, where Claude Ramsay, though he was so delicate, could go; she could not put herself forward, and warn a man, who would think he knew much better than she could do. She sat down and tried to read, and then got up, and glided about from one table to another, from one picture to another, looking vaguely at a score of things without seeing them. Then she stole within the shadow of the curtain, and looked out at the carriages which went and came, now and then drawing up at adjacent doors. It made her heart beat to see them approaching, to think that perhaps they were coming here—her mother perhaps; perhaps SirThomas; perhaps Markham. Was it possible that this night, of all others—this night, when her heart seemed to appeal to earth and heaven for some one to help her—nobody would come? It was Frances’ first experience of these vigils, which to some women fill up so much of life. There had never been any anxiety at Bordighera, any disturbing influence. She had always known where to find her father, who could solve every problem and chase away every difficulty. Would he, she wondered, be able to do so now? Would he, if he were here, go out for her, and find George Gaunt, and deliver him from his pursuers? But Frances could not say to herself that he would have done so. He was not fond of disturbing himself. He would have said, “It is not my business;” he would have refused to interfere, as Claude did. And what could she do, a girl, by herself? Lady Markham had been very anxious to keep him out of harm’s way; but she had said plainly that she would not forsake her own son in order to save the son of another woman. Frances was wandering painfully through labyrinths of such thoughts, racking her brain with vainquestions as to what it was possible to do, when Markham’s hansom, stopping with a sudden clang at the door, drove her thoughts away, or at least made a break in them, and replaced, by a nervous tremor of excitement and alarm, the pangs of anxious expectation and suspense. She would rather not have seen Markham at that moment. She was fond of her brother. It grieved her to hear even Lady Markham speak of him in questionable terms: all the natural prejudices of affectionate youth were enlisted on his side; but, for the first time, she felt that she had no confidence in Markham, and wished that it had been any one but he.
He came in with a light overcoat over his evening clothes,—he had been dining out; but he did not meet Frances with the unembarrassed countenance which she had thought would have made it so difficult to speak to him about what she had heard. He came in hurriedly, looking round the drawing-room with a rapid investigating glance before he took any notice of her. “Where is the mother?” he asked, hurriedly.
“She has not come back,” said Frances, divining from his look that it was unnecessary to say more.
Markham sat down abruptly on a sofa near. He did not make any reply to her, but put up the handle of his cane to his mouth with a curious mixture of the comic and the tragic, which struck her in spite of herself. He did not require to put any question; he knew very well where his mother was, and all that was happening. The sense of the great crisis which had arrived took from him all power of speech, paralysing him with mingled awe and dismay. But yet the odd little figure on the sofa sucking his cane, his hat in his other hand, his features all fallen into bewilderment and helplessness, was absurd. Out of the depths of Frances’ trouble came a hysterical titter against her will. This roused him also. He looked at her with a faint evanescent smile.
“Laughing at me, Fan? Well, I don’t wonder. I am a nice fellow to have to do with a tragedy. Screaming farce is more like my style.”
“I did not laugh, Markham; I have not any heart for laughing,” she said.
“Oh, didn’t you? But it sounded like it. Fan, tell me, has the mother been long away, and did any one see that unfortunate girl when she was here?”
“No, Markham—unless it were Mr Ramsay; he saw her drive away with mamma.”
“The worst of old gossips,” he said, desperately sucking his cane, with a gloomy brow. “I don’t know an old woman so bad. No quarter there—that is the word. Fan, the mother is a trump. Nothing is so bad when she is mixed up in it. Was Nelly much cut up, or was she in one of her wild fits? Poor girl! You must not think badly of Nelly. She has had hard lines. She never had a chance: an old brute, used up, that no woman could take to. But she has done her duty by him, Fan.”
“She does not think so, Markham.”
“Oh, by Jove, she was giving you that, was she? Fan, I sometimes think poor Nelly’s off her head a little. Poor Nelly, poor girl! I don’t want to set her up for an example; but she has done her duty by him. Remember this, whatever you may hear. I—am rather a good one to know.”
He gave a curious little chuckle as he said this—a sort of strangled laugh, of which he was ashamed, and stifled it in its birth.
“Markham, I want to speak to you—about something very serious.”
He gave a keen look at her sideways from the corner of one eye. Then he said, in a sort of whisper to himself, “Preaching;” but added in his own voice, “Fire away, Fan,” with a look of resignation.
“Markham—it is about Captain Gaunt.”
“Oh!” he cried. He gave a little laugh. “You frightened me, my dear. I thought at this time of the day you were going to give me a sermon from the depths of your moral experience, Fan. So long as it isn’t about poor Nelly, say what you please about Gaunt. What about Gaunt?”
“Oh, Markham, Mr Ramsay told me—and mamma has been frightened ever since he came. What have you done with him, Markham? Don’t you remember the old General at Bordighera—and his mother? And he had just come from India, for his holiday, after years and years. And they are poor—that is to say, theyare well enough off for them; but they are not like mamma and you. They have not got horses and carriages; they don’t live—as you do.”
“As I do! I am the poorest little beggar living, and that is the truth, Fan.”
“The poorest! Markham, you may think you can laugh at me. I am not clever; I am quite ignorant—that I know. But how can you say you are poor? You don’t know what it is to be poor. When they go away in the summer, they choose little quiet places; they spare everything they can. That is one thing I know better than you do. To say you are poor!”
He rose up and came towards her, and taking her hands in his, gave them a squeeze which was painful, though he was unconscious of it. “Fan,” he said, “all that is very pretty, and true for you; but if I hadn’t been poor, do you think all this would have happened as it has done? Do you think I’d have stood by and let Nelly marry that fellow? Do you think——? Hush! there’s the mother, with news; no doubt she’s got news. Fan, what d’ye think it’ll be?”
He held her hands tight, and pressed them till she had almost cried out, looking in her face with a sort of nervous smile which twitched at the corners of his mouth, looking in her eyes as if into a mirror where he could see the reflection of something, and so be spared the pain of looking directly at it. She saw that the subject which was of so much interest to her had passed clean out of his head. His own affairs were uppermost in Markham’s mind, as is generally the case whenever a man can be supposed to have any affairs at all of his own.
And Frances, kept in this position, as a sort of mirror in which he could see the reflection of his mother’s face, saw Lady Markham come in, looking very pale and fatigued, with that air of having worn her outdoor dress for hours which gives a sort of haggard aspect to weariness. She gave a glance round, evidently without perceiving very clearly who was there, then sank wearily upon the sofa, loosening her cloak. “It is all over,” she said in a low tone, as if speaking to herself—“it is all over. Of course I could not come away before——”
Markham let go Frances’ hands without aword. He walked away to the further window, and drew the curtain aside and looked out. Why, he could not have told, nor with what purpose—with a vague intention of making sure that the hansom which stood there so constantly was at the door.
“What is Markham doing?” said his mother, in a faint querulous tone. “Tell him not to fidget with these curtains. It worries me. I am tired, and my nerves are all wrong. Yes, you can take my cloak, Frances. Don’t call anybody. No one will come here to-night. Markham, did you hear what I said? It is all over. I waited till——”
He came towards her from the end of the room with a sort of smile upon his grey sandy-coloured face, his mouth and eyebrows twitching, his eyes screwed up so that nothing but two keen little glimmers of reflection were visible. “You are not the sort,” he said, with a little tremor in his voice, “to forsake a man when he is down.” He had his hands in his pockets, his shoulders pushed up; nowhere could there have been seen a less tragic figure. Yet every line of his odd face was touched and moving withfeeling, totally beyond any power of expression in words.
“It was not a happy scene,” she said. “He sent for her at the last. Sarah Winterbourn was there at the bedside. She was fond of him, I believe. A woman cannot help being fond of her brother, however little he may deserve it. Nelly——”
Here Markham broke in with a sound that was like, yet not like, his usual laugh. “How’s Nelly?” he said abruptly, without sequence or reason. Lady Markham paused to look at him, and then went on—
“Nelly trembled so, I could scarcely keep her up. She wanted not to go; she said, What was the good? But I got her persuaded at last. A man dying like that is a—is a—— It is not a pleasant sight. He signed to her to go and kiss him.” Lady Markham shuddered slightly. “He was past speaking—I mean, he was past understanding—— I—I wish I had not seen it. One can’t get such a scene out of one’s mind.”
She put up her hand and pressed her fingers upon her eyes, as if the picture was there, and she was trying to get rid of it. Markham hadturned away again, and was examining, or seeming to examine, the flowers in a jardinière. Now and then he made a movement, as if he would have stopped the narrative. Frances, trembling and crying with natural horror and distress, had loosened her mother’s cloak and taken off her bonnet while she went on speaking. Lady Markham’s hair, though always covered with a cap, was as brown and smooth as her daughter’s. Frances put her hand upon it timidly, and smoothed the satin braid. It was all she could do to show the emotion, the sympathy in her heart; and she was as much startled in mind as physically, when Lady Markham suddenly threw one arm round her and rested her head upon her shoulder. “Thank God,” the mother cried, “that here is one, whatever may happen, that will never, never——! Frances, my love, don’t mind what I say. I am worn out, and good for nothing. Go and get me a little wine, for I have no strength left in me.”
Markham turned to her with his chuckle more marked than ever, as Frances left the room. “I am glad to see that you have strength to remember what you’re about, mammy, in spite ofthat little break-down. It wouldn’t do, would it?—to let Frances believe that a match like Winterbourn was a thing she would never—never——! though it wasn’t amiss for poor Nelly, inherday.”
“Markham, you are very hard upon me. The child did not understand either one thing or the other. And I was not to blame about Nelly; you cannot say I was to blame. If I had been, I think to-night might make up: that ghastly face, and Nelly’s close to it, with her eyes staring in horror, the poor little mouth——”
Markham’s exclamation was short and sharp like a pistol-shot. It was a monosyllable, but not one to be put into print. “Stop that!” he said. “It can do no good going over it. Who’s with her now?”
“I could not stay, Markham; besides, it would have been out of place. She has her maid, who is very kind to her; and I made them give her a sleeping-draught—to make her forget her trouble. Sarah Winterbourn laughed out when I asked for it. The doctor was shocked. It was so natural that poor little Nelly, who never saw anything so ghastly, neverwas in the house with death; never saw, much less touched——”
“I can understand Sarah,” he said, with a grim smile.
Frances came back with the wine, and her mother paused to kiss her as she took it from her hand. “I am sure you have had a wearing, miserable evening. You look quite pale, my dear. I ought not to speak of such horrid things before you at your age. But you see, Markham, she saw Nelly, and heard her wild talk. It was all excitement and misery and overstrain; for in reality she had nothing to reproach herself with—nothing, Frances. He proved that by sending for her, as I tell you. He knew, and everybody knows, that poor Nelly had done her duty by him.”
Frances paid little attention to this strange defence. She was, as her mother knew, yet could scarcely believe, totally incapable of comprehending the grounds on which Nelly was so strongly asserted to have done her duty, or of understanding that not to have wronged her husband in one unpardonable way, gave her a claim upon the applause ofher fellows. Fortunately, indeed, Frances was defended against all questions on this subject by the possession of that unsuspected trouble of her own, of which she felt that for the night at least it was futile to say anything. Nelly was the only subject upon which her mother could speak, or for which Markham had any ears. They did not say anything, either after Frances left them or in her presence, of the future, of which, no doubt, their minds were full—of which Nelly’s mind had been so full when she burst into Lady Markham’s room in her finery, on that very day; of what was to happen after, what “the widow”—that name against which she so rebelled, but which was already fixed upon her in all the clubs and drawing-rooms—was to do? that was a question which was not openly put to each other by the two persons chiefly concerned.
When Markham appeared in his usual haunts that night, he was aware of being regarded with many significant looks; but these he was of course prepared for, and met with a countenance in which it would have puzzled the wisest to find any special expression.
Lady Markham went to bed as soon as her son left her. She had said she could receive no one, being much fatigued. “My lady have been with Mrs Winterbourn,” was the answer made to Sir Thomas when he came to the door late, after a tedious debate in the House of Commons. Sir Thomas, like everybody, was full of speculations on this point, though he regarded it from a point of view different from the popular one. The world was occupied with the question whether Nelly would marry Markham, now that she was rich and free. But what occupied Sir Thomas, who had no doubt on this subject, was the—afterwards? What would Lady Markham do? Was it not now at last the moment for Waring to come home?
In Lady Markham’s mind, some similar thoughts were afloat. She had said that she was fatigued; but fatigue does not mean sleep, at least not at Lady Markham’s age. It means retirement, silence, and leisure for the far more fatiguing exertion of thought. When her maid had been dismissed, and the faint night-lamp was all that was left in hercurtained, cushioned, luxurious room, the questions that arose in her mind were manifold. Markham’s marriage would make a wonderful difference in his mother’s life. Her house in Eaton Square she would no doubt retain; but the lovely little house in the Isle of Wight, which had been always hers—and the solemn establishment in the country, would be hers no more. These two things of themselves would make a great difference. But what was of still more consequence was, that Markham himself would be hers no more. He would belong to his wife. It was impossible to believe of him that he could ever be otherwise than affectionate and kind; but what a difference when Markham was no longer one of the household! And then the husband, so long cut off, so far separated, much by distance, more by the severance of all the habits and mutual claims which bind people together—with him what would follow? What would be the effect of the change? Questions like these, diversified by perpetual efforts of imagination to bring before her again the tragical scene of which she had been a witness,—the dying man, with his hoarse attemptsto be intelligible; the young, haggard, horrified countenance of Nelly, compelled to approach the awful figure, for which she had a child’s dread,—kept her awake long into the night. It is seldom that a woman of her age sees herself on the eve of such changes without any will of hers. It seemed to have overwhelmed her in a moment, although, indeed, she had foreseen the catastrophe. What would Nelly do? was the question all the world was asking. But Lady Markham had another which occupied her as much on her own side. Waring, what would he do?
Thequestion which disturbed Frances, which nobody knew or cared for, was just as little likely to gain attention next day as it had been on the evening of Mr Winterbourn’s death. Lady Markham returned to Nelly before breakfast; she was with her most of the day; and Markham, though he lent an apparent attention to what Frances said to him, was still far too much absorbed in his own subject to be easily moved by hers. “Gaunt? Oh, he is all right,” he said.
“Will you speak to him, Markham? Will you warn him? Mr Ramsay says he is losing all his money; and I know, oh Markham, Iknowthat he has not much to lose.”
“Claude is a little meddler. I assure you, Fan, Gaunt knows his own affairs best.”
“No,” cried Frances: “when I tell you, Markham, when I tell you! that they are quite poor,reallypoor—not like you.”
“I have told you, my little dear, that I am the poorest beggar in London.”
“Oh Markham! and you drive about in hansoms, and smoke cigars, all day.”
“Well, my dear, what would you have me do? Keep on trudging through the mud, which would waste all my time; or get on the knife-board of an omnibus? Well, these are the only alternatives. The omnibuses have their recommendation—they are fun; but after a while, society in that development palls upon the intelligent observer. What do you want me to do, Fan? Come, I have a deal on my mind; but to please you, and to make you hold your tongue, if there is anything I can do, I will try.”
“You can do everything, Markham. Warn him that he is wasting his money—that he is spending what belongs to the old people—that he is making himself wretched. Oh, don’t laugh, Markham! Oh, if I were in your place! I know what I should do—I wouldget him to go home, instead of going to—those places.”
“Which places, Fan?”
“Oh,” cried the girl, exasperated to tears, “how can I tell?—the places you know—the places you have taken him to, Markham—places where, if the poor General knew it, or Mrs Gaunt——”
“There you are making a mistake, little Fan. The good people would think their son was in very fine company. If he tells them the names of the persons he meets, they will think——”
“Then you know they will think wrong, Markham!” she cried, almost with violence, keeping herself with a most strenuous effort from an outburst of indignant weeping. He did not reply at once; and she thought he was about to consider the question on its merits, and endeavour to find out what he could do. But she was undeceived when he spoke.
“What day did you say, Fan, the funeral was to be?” he asked, with the air of a man who has escaped from an unwelcome intrusion to the real subject of his thoughts.
Sir Thomas found her alone, flushed andmiserable, drying her tears with a feverish little angry hand. She was very much alone during these days, when Lady Markham was so often with Nelly Winterbourn. Sir Thomas was pleased to find her, having also an object of his own. He soothed her, when he saw that she had been crying. “Never mind me,” he said; “but you must not let other people see that you are feeling it so much: for you cannot be supposed to take any particular interest in Winterbourn: and people will immediately suppose that you and your mother are troubled about the changes that must take place in the house.”
“I was not thinking at all of Mrs Winterbourn,” cried Frances, with indignation.
“No, my dear; I knew you could not be. Don’t let any one but me see you crying. Lady Markham will feel the marriage dreadfully, I know. But now is our time for our grandcoup.”
“What grandcoup?” the girl said, with an astonished look.
“Have you forgotten what I said to you at the Priory? One of the chief objects of mylife is to bring Waring back. It is intolerable to think that a man of his abilities should be banished for ever, and lost not only to his country but his kind. Even if he were working for the good of the race out there—— But he is doing nothing but antiquities, so far as I can hear, and there are plenty of antiquarians good for nothing else. Frances, we must have him home.”
“Home!” she said. Her heart went back with a bound to the rooms in the Palazzo with all the greenpersianishut, and everything dark and cool: it was getting warm in London, but there were no such precautions taken. And the loggia at night, with the palm-trees waving majestically their long drooping fans, and the soft sound of the sea coming over the houses of the Marina—ah, and the happy want of thought, the pleasant vacancy, in which nothing ever happened! She drew a long breath. “I ought not to say so, perhaps; but when you say home——”
“You think of the place where you were brought up? That is quite natural. But it would not be the same to him. He was notbrought up there; he can have nothing to interest him there. Depend upon it, he must very often wish that he could pocket his pride and come back. We must try to get him back, Frances. Don’t you think, my dear, that we could manage it, you and I?”
Frances shook her head, and said she did not know. “But I should be very glad—oh, very glad: if I am to stay here,” she said.
“Of course you would be glad; and of course you are to stay here. You could not leave your poor mother by herself. And now that Markham—now that probably everything will be changed for Markham—— If Markham were out of the way, it would be so much easier; for, you know, he always was the stumbling-block. She would not let Waring manage him, and she could not manage him herself.”
Frances was so far instructed in what was going on around her, that she knew how important in Markham’s history the death of Mr Winterbourn had been; but it was not a subject on which she could speak. She said: “I am very sorry papa did not like Markham. Itdoes not seem possible not to like Markham. But I suppose gentlemen—— Oh, Sir Thomas, if he were here, I would ask papa to do something for me; but now I don’t know who to ask to help me—if anything can be done.”
“Is it something I can do?”
“I think,” she said, “any one that was kind could do it; but only not a girl. Girls are good for so little. Do you remember Captain Gaunt, who came to town a few weeks ago? Sir Thomas, I have heard that something has happened to Captain Gaunt. I don’t know how to tell you. Perhaps you will think that it is not my business; but don’t you think it is your friend’s business, when you get into trouble? Don’t you think that—that people who know you—who care a little for you—should always be ready to help?”
“That is a hard question to put to me. In the abstract, yes; but in particular cases—— Is it Captain Gaunt for whom you care a little?”
Frances hesitated a moment, and then she answered boldly: “Yes—at least I care for his people a great deal. And he has come homefrom India, not very strong; and he knew nothing about—about what you call Society; no more than I did. And now I hear that he is—I don’t know how to tell you, Sir Thomas—losing all his money (and he has not any money) in the places where Markham goes—in the places that Markham took him to. Oh, wait till I have told you everything, Sir Thomas! they are not rich people,—not like any of you here. Markham says he is poor——”
“So he is, Frances.”
“Ah,” she cried, with hasty contempt, “but you don’t understand! He may not have much money; but they—they live in a little house with two maids and Toni. They have no luxuries or grandeur. When they take a drive in old Luca’s carriage, it is something to think about. All that is quite, quite different from you people here. Don’t you see, Sir Thomas, don’t you see? And Captain Gaunt has been—oh, I don’t know how it is—losing his money; and he has not got any—and he is miserable—and I cannot get any one to take an interest, to tell him—to warn him, to get him to give up——”
“Did he tell you all this himself?” said Sir Thomas, gravely.
“Oh no, not a word. It was Mr Ramsay who told me; and when I begged him to say something, to warn him——”
“He could not do that. There he was quite right; and you were quite wrong, if you will let me say so. It is too common a case, alas! I don’t know what any one can do.”
“Oh, Sir Thomas! if you will think of the old General and his mother, who love him more than all the rest—for he is the youngest. Oh, won’t you do something, try something, to save him?” Frances clasped her hands, as if in prayer. She raised her eyes to his face with such an eloquence of entreaty, that his heart was touched. Not only was her whole soul in the petition for the sake of him who was in peril, but it was full of boundless confidence and trust in the man to whom she appealed. The other plea might have failed; but this last can scarcely fail to affect the mind of any individual to whom it is addressed.
Sir Thomas put his hand on her shoulder with fatherly tenderness. “My dear little girl,” he said, “what do you think I can do? I don’t know what I can do. I am afraid I should only make things worse, were I to interfere.”
“No, no. He is not like that. He would know you were a friend. He would be thankful. And oh, how thankful, how thankful I should be!”
“Frances, do you take, then, so great an interest in this young man? Do you want me to look after him for your sake?”
She looked at him hastily with an eager “Yes”—then paused a little, and looked again with a dawning understanding which brought the colour to her cheek. “You mean something more than I mean,” she said, a little troubled. “But yet, if you will be kind to George Gaunt, and try to help him, for my sake—— Yes, oh, yes! Why should I refuse? I would not have asked you if I had not thought that perhaps you would do it—for me.”
“I would do a great deal for you; for your mother’s daughter, much; and for poor Waring’s child; and again, for yourself. But, Frances, a young man who is so weak, who falls into temptation in this way—my dear, you mustlet me say it—he is not a mate for such as you.”
“For me? Oh no. No one thought—no one ever thought——” cried Frances hastily. “Sir Thomas, I hear mamma coming, and I do not want to trouble her, for she has so much to think of? Will you? Oh, promise me. Look for him to-night; oh, look for him to-night!”
“You are so sure that I can be of use?” The trust in her eyes was so genuine, so enthusiastic, that he could not resist that flattery. “Yes, I will try. I will see what it is possible to do. And you, Frances, remember you are pledged, too; you are to do everything you can for me.”
He was patting her on the shoulder, looking down upon her with very friendly tender eyes, when Lady Markham came in. She was a little startled by the group; but though she was tired and discomposed and out of heart, she was not so preoccupied but what her quick mind caught a new suggestion from it. Sir Thomas was very rich. He had been devoted to herself, in all honour and kindness, for many years. What if Frances——? A whole train of new ideas burst into her mind on the moment, although she had thought, as she came in, that in the present chaos and hurry of her spirits she had room for nothing more.
“You look,” she said with a smile, “as if you were settling something. What is it? An alliance, a league?”
“Offensive and defensive,” said Sir Thomas. “We have given each other mutual commissions, and we are great friends, as you see. But these are our little secrets, which we don’t mean to tell. How is Nelly, Lady Markham? And is it all right about the will?”
“The will is the least of my cares. I could not inquire into that, as you may suppose; nor is there any need, so far as I know. Nelly is quite enough to have on one’s hands, without thinking of the will. She is very nervous and very headstrong. She would have rushed away out of the house, if I had not used—almost force. She cannot bear to be under the same roof with death.”
“It was the old way. I scarcely wonder, for my part: for it was never pretended, I suppose, that there was any love in the matter.”
“Oh no” (Lady Markham looked at her ownelderly knight and at her young daughter, and said to herself, What if Frances——?); “there was no love. But she has always been very good, and done her duty by him—that, everybody will say.”
“Poor Nelly!—that is quite true. But still I should not like, if I were such a fool as to marry a young wife, to have her do her duty to me in that way.”
“You would be very different,” said Lady Markham with a smile. “I should not think you a fool at all; and I should think her a lucky woman.” She said this with Nelly Winterbourn’s voice still ringing in her ears.
“Happily, I am not going to put it to the test. Now, I must go—to look after your affairs, Miss Frances; and remember that you are pledged to look after mine in return.”
Lady Markham looked after him very curiously as he went away. She thought, as women so often think, that men were very strange, inscrutable—“mostly fools,” at least in one way. To think that perhaps little Frances—— It would be a great match, greater than Claude Ramsay—as good in one point of view, and inother respects far better than Nelly St John’s great marriage with the rich Mr Winterbourn. “I am glad you like him so much, Frances,” she said. “He is not young—but he has every other quality; as good as ever man was, and so considerate and kind. You may take him into your confidence fully.” She waited a moment to see if the child had anything to say; then, too wise to force or precipitate matters, went on: “Poor Nelly gives me great anxiety, Frances. I wish the funeral were over, and all well. Her nerves are in such an excited state, one can’t feel sure what she may do or say. The servants and people happily think it grief; but to see Sarah Winterbourn looking at her fills me with fright, I can’t tell why.Shedoesn’t think it is grief. And how should it be? A dreadful, cold, always ill, repulsive man. But I hope she may be kept quiet, not to make a scandal until after the funeral at least. I don’t know what she said to you, my love, that day; but you must not pay any attention to what a woman says in such an excited state. Her marriage has been unfortunate (which is a thing that may happen in any circumstances), not becauseMr Winterbourn was such a good match, but because he was such a disagreeable man.”
Frances, who had no clue to her mother’s thoughts, or to any appropriateness in this short speech, had little interest in it. She said, somewhat stiffly, that she was sorry for poor Mrs Winterbourn—but much more sorry for her own mother, who was having so much trouble and anxiety. Lady Markham smiled upon her, and kissed her tenderly. It was a relief to her mind, in the midst of all those anxious questions, to have a new channel for her thoughts; and upon this new path she threw herself forth in the fulness of a lively imagination, leaving fact far behind, and even probability. She was indeed quite conscious of this, and voluntarily permitted herself the pleasant exercise of building a new castle in the air. Little Frances! And she said to herself there would be no drawback in such a case. It would be the finest match of the season; and no mother need fear to trust her daughter in Sir Thomas’s hands.
Sir Thomas came back next morning when Lady Markham was again absent. He informedFrances that he had gone to several places where he was told Captain Gaunt was likely to be found, and had seen Markham as usual “frittering himself away;” but Gaunt had nowhere been visible. “Some one said he had fallen ill. If that is so, it is the best thing that could happen. One has some hope of getting hold of him so.” But where did he live? That was the question. Markham did not know, nor any one about. That was the first thing to be discovered, Sir Thomas said. For the first time, Frances appreciated her mother’s business-like arrangements for her great correspondence, which made an address-book so necessary. She found Gaunt’s address there; and passed the rest of the day in anxiety, which she could confide to no one, learning for the first time those tortures of suspense which to so many women form a great part of existence. Frances thought the day would never end. It was so much the more dreadful to her that she had to shut it all up in her own bosom, and endeavour to enter into other anxieties, and sympathise with her mother’s continual panic as to what Nelly Winterbourn might do. Thehouse altogether was in a state of suppressed excitement; even the servants—or perhaps the servants most keenly of any, with their quick curiosity and curious divination of any change in the atmosphere of a family—feeling the thrill of approaching revolution. Frances with her private preoccupation was blunted to this; but when Sir Thomas arrived in the evening, it was all she could do to curb herself and keep within the limits of ordinary rule. She sprang up, indeed, when she heard his step on the stair, and went off to the further corner of the room, where she could read his face out of the dimness before he spoke; and where, perhaps, he might seek her, and tell her, under some pretence. These movements were keenly noted by her mother, as was also the alert air of Sir Thomas, and his interest and activity, though he looked very grave. But Frances did not require to wait for the news she looked for so anxiously.
“Yes, I am very serious,” Sir Thomas said, in answer to Lady Markham’s question. “I have news to tell you which will shock you. Your poor young friend Gaunt—CaptainGaunt—wasn’t he a friend of yours?—is lying dangerously ill of fever in a poor little set of lodgings he has got. He is far too ill to know me or say anything to me; but so far as I can make out, it has something to do with losses at play.”