“Yes, I wish you had not said anything, Frances: not that it matters very much. I don’t suppose he was in earnest, or, at all events, he would have changed his mind before evening. But, my dear, this poor young fellow is not able to follow the same course as Markham’s friends do. They are at it all the year round, now in town, now somewhere else. They bet and play, and throw their money about, and at the end of the year they are not very much the worse—or at least that is what he always tells me. One time they lose, but another time they gain. And then they are men who have time, and money more or less. But when a young man with a little money comes among them, he may ruin himself before he knows.”
“I am very sorry,” said Frances. “It is difficult to believe that Markham could hurt any one.”
Her mother gave her a grateful look. “Dear Markham!” she said. “To think that he should be so good—and yet—— It gives me great pleasure, Frances, that you should appreciate your brother. Your father never did so—and all of them, all the Warings—— But it is understood between us, is it not, that we are not to touch upon that subject?”
“Perhaps it would be painful, mamma. But how am I to understand unless I am told?”
“You have never been told, then—your father——? But I might have known he would say very little; he always hated explanations. My dear,” said Lady Markham, with evident agitation, “if I were to enter into that story, it would inevitably take the character of a self-defence, and I can’t do that to my own child. It is the worst of such unfortunate circumstances as ours that you must judge your parents, and find one or other in the wrong. Oh yes; I do not deceive myself on thatsubject. And you are a partisan in your nature. Con was more or less of a cynic, as people become who are bred up in Society, as she was. She could believe we were both wrong, calmly, without any particular feeling. But you,—of your nature, Frances, you would be a partisan.”
“I hope not, mamma. I should be the partisan of both sides,” said Frances, almost under her breath.
Lady Markham rose and gave her a kiss. “Remain so,” she said, “my dear child. I will say no harm of him to you, as I am sure he has said no harm of me. Now let us think no more of Markham’s faults, nor of poor young Gaunt’s danger, nor of——”
“Danger?” said Frances, with an anxious look.
“If it were less than danger, would I have said so much, do you think?”
“But, mamma, pardon me,—if it is real danger, ought you not to say more?”
“What! for the sake of another woman’s son, betray and forsake my own? How can I say to him in so many words, ‘Take care of Markham; avoid Markham and his friends.’ I havesaid it in hints as much as I dare. Yes, Frances, I would do a great deal for another woman’s son. It would be the strongest plea. But in this case how can I do more? Never mind; fate will work itself out quite independent of you and me. And here are people coming—Claude, probably, to see if you have changed your mind about him, or whether I have heard from Constance. Poor boy! he must have one of you two.”
“I hope not,” said Frances, seriously.
“But I am sure of it,” cried her mother, with a smile. “We shall see which of us is the better prophet. But this is not Claude. I hear the sweep of a woman’s train. Hush!” she said, holding up a finger. She rose as the door opened, and then hastened forward with an astonished exclamation, “Nelly!” and held out both her hands.
“You did not look for me?” said Mrs Winterbourn, with a defiant air.
“No, indeed; I did not look for you. And so fine, and looking so well. He must have taken an unexpected turn for the better, and you have come to tell me.”
“Yes, am I not smart?” said Nelly, looking down upon her beautiful dress with a curious air, half pleasure, half scorn. “It is almost new; I have never worn it before.”
“Sit down here beside me, my dear, and tell me all about it. When did this happy change occur?”
“Happy? For whom?” she asked, with a harsh little laugh. “No, Lady Markham, there is no change for the better: the other way—they say there is no hope. It will not be very long, they say, before——”
“And Nelly, Nelly! you here, in your fine new dress.”
“Yes; it seems ridiculous, does it not?” she said, laughing again. “I away—going out to pay visits in my best gown, and my husband—dying. Well! I know that if I had stayed any longer in that dreary house without any air, and with Sarah Winterbourn, I should have died. Oh, you don’t know what it is. To be shut up there, and never hear a step except the doctor’s, or Robert’s carrying up the beef-tea. So I burst out of prison, to save my life. Youmay blame me if you like, but it was to save my life, neither less nor more.”
“Nelly, my dear,” said Lady Markham, taking her hand, “there is nothing wonderful in your coming to see so old a friend as I am. It is quite natural. To whom should you go in your trouble, if not to your old friends?”
Upon which Nelly laughed again in an excited hysterical way. “I have been on quite a round,” she said. “You always did scold me, Lady Markham; and I know you will do so again. I was determined to show myself once more before—the waters went over my head. I can come out now in my pretty gown. Butafterwards, if I did such a thing everybody would think me mad. Now you know why I have come, and you can scold me as much as you please. But I have done it, and it can’t be undone. It is a kind of farewell visit, you know,” she added, in her excited tone. “After this I shall disappear into—crape and affliction. A widow! What a horrible word. Think of me, Nelly St John; me, a widow! Isn’t it horrible, horrible? That is what they will callme, Markham and the other men—the widow. I know how they will speak, as well as if I heard them. Lady Markham, they will call methat, and you know what they will mean.”
“Nelly, Nelly, my poor child!” Lady Markham held her hand and patted it softly with her own. “Oh Nelly, you are very imprudent, very silly. You will shock everybody, and make them talk. You ought not to have come out now. If you had sent for me, I would have gone to you in a moment.”
“It was notthatI wanted. I wanted just to be like others for once—before—- I don’t seem to care what will happen to me—afterwards. What do they do to a woman, Lady Markham, when her husband dies? They would not let her bury herself with him, or burn herself, or any of those sensible things. What do they do, Lady Markham? Brand her somewhere in her flesh with a red-hot iron—with ‘Widow’ written upon her flesh?”
“My dear, you must care for poor Mr Winterbourn a great deal more than you were aware, or you would not feel this so bitterly. Nelly——”
“Hush!” she said, with a sort of solemnity.“Don’t say that, Lady Markham. Don’t talk about what I feel. It is all so miserable, I don’t know what I am doing. To think that he should be my husband, and I just boiling with life, and longing to get free, to get free: I that was born to be a good woman, if I could, if you would all have let me, if I had not been made to—— Look here! I am going to speak to that little girl. You can say the other thing afterwards. I know you will. You can make it look so right—so right. Frances, if you are persuaded to marry Claude Ramsay, or any other man that you don’t care for, remember you’ll just be like me. Look at me, dressed out, paying visits, and my husband dying. Perhaps he may be dead when I get home.” She paused a moment with a nervous shivering, and drew her summer cloak closely around her. “He is going to die, and I am running about the streets. It is horrible, isn’t it? He doesn’t want me, and I don’t want him; and next week I shall be all in crape, and branded on my shoulder or somewhere—where, Lady Markham?—all for a man who—all for a man that——”
“Nelly, Nelly! for heaven’s sake, at least respect the child.”
“It is because I respect her that I say anything. Oh, it is all horrible! And already the men and everybody are discussing, What will Nelly do? The widow, what will she do?”
Then the excited creature suddenly, without warning, broke out into sobbing and tears. “Oh, don’t think it is for grief,” she said, as Frances instinctively came towards her; “it’s only the excitement, the horror of it, the feeling that it is coming so near. I never was in the house with Death, never, that I can remember. And I shall be the chief mourner, don’t you know? They will want me to do all sorts of things. What do you do when you are a widow, Lady Markham? Have you to give orders for the funeral, and say what sort of a—coffin there is to be, and—all that?”
“Nelly, Nelly! Oh, for God’s sake, don’t say those dreadful things. You know you will not be troubled about anything, least of all—— And, my dear, my dear, recollect your husband is still alive. It is dreadful to talk of details such as those for a living man.”
“Most likely,” she said, looking up with a shiver, “he will be dead when I get home. Oh, I wish it might all be over, everything, before I go home. Couldn’t you hide me somewhere, Lady Markham? Save me from seeing him and all those—details, as you call them. I cannot bear it; and I have no mother nor any one to come to me—nobody, nobody but Sarah Winterbourn.”
“I will go home with you, Nelly; I will take you back, my dear. Frances, take care of her till I get my bonnet. My poor child, compose yourself. Try and be calm. You must be calm, and bear it,” Lady Markham said.
Frances, with alarm, found herself left alone with this strange being—not much older than herself, and yet thrown amid such tragic elements. She stood by her, not knowing how to approach the subject of her thoughts, or indeed any subject—for to talk to her of common things was impossible. Mrs Winterbourn, however, did not turn towards Frances. Her sobbing ended suddenly, as it had begun. She sat with her head upon her hands, gazing at the light. After a while she said, thoughwithout looking round, “You once offered to sit up with me, thinking, or pretending, I don’t know which, that I was sitting up with him all night: would you have done so if you had been in my place?”
“I think—I don’t know,” said Frances, checking herself.
“You would—you are not straightforward enough to say it—I know you would; and in your heart you think I am a bad creature, a woman without a heart.”
“I don’t think so,” said Frances. “You must have a heart, or you would not be so unhappy.”
“Do you know what I am unhappy about? About myself. I am not thinking of him; he married me to please himself, not me,—and I am thinking of myself, not him. It is all fair. You would do the same if you married like me.”
Frances made no reply. She looked with awe and pity at this miserable excitement and wretchedness, which was so unlike anything her innocent soul knew.
“You don’t answer,” said Nelly. “You thinkyou never would have married like me. But how can you tell? If you had an offer as good as Mr Winterbourn, your mother would make you marry him. I made a great match, don’t you know? And if you ever have that in your power, Lady Markham will make short work of your objections. You will just do as other people have done. Claude Ramsay is not so rich as Mr Winterbourn; but I suppose he will be your fate, unless Con comes back and takes him, which, very likely, is what she will do. Oh, are you ready, Lady Markham? It is a pity you should give yourself so much trouble; for, you see, I am quite composed now, and ready to go home.”
“Come, then, my dear Nelly. It is better you should lose no time.” Lady Markham paused to say, “I shall probably be back quite soon; but if I don’t come, don’t be alarmed,” in Frances’ ear.
The girl went to the window and watched Nelly sweep out to her carriage as if nothing could ever happen to her. The sight of the servants and of the few passers-by had restored her in a moment to herself. Frances stood andpondered for some time at the window. Nelly’s was an agitating figure to burst into her quiet life. She did not need the lesson it taught; but yet it filled her with trouble and awe. This brilliant surface of Society, what tragedies lay underneath! She scarcely dared to follow the young wife in imagination to her home; but she felt with her the horror of the approaching death, the dread interval when the event was coming, the still more dread moment after, when, all shrinking and trembling in her youth and loneliness, she would have to live side by side with the dead, whom she had never loved, to whom no faithful bond had united her—— It was not till another carriage drew up and some one got out of it that Frances retreated, with a very different sort of alarm, from the window. It was some one coming to call, she did not see whom, one of those wonderful people who came to talk over with her mother other people whom Frances did not know. How was she to find any subject on which to talk to them? Her anxiety was partially relieved by seeing that it was Claude who came in. He explained that Lady Someone had dropped himat the door, having picked him up at some other place where they had both been calling. “There is a little east in the wind,” he said, pulling up the collar of his coat:
“Was that Nelly Winterbourn I saw driving away from the door? I thought it was Nelly. And when he is dying, with not many hours to live——!”
“And why should not she come to mamma?” said Frances. “She has no mother of her own.”
“Ah,” said Ramsay, looking at her keenly, “I see what you mean. She has no mother of her own; and therefore she comes to Markham’s, which is next best.”
“I said, to my mother,” said Frances, indignantly. “I don’t see what Markham has to do with it.”
“All the same, I shouldn’t like my wife to be about the streets, going to—any one’s mother, when I was dying.”
“It would be right enough,” cried Frances, hot and indignant, “if you had married a woman who did not care for you.” She forgot, in the heat of her partisanship, that shewas admitting too much. But Claude did not remember, any more than she.
“Oh, come,” he said, “Miss Waring, Frances. (May I call you Frances? It seems unnatural to call you Miss Waring, for, though I only saw you for the first time a little while ago, I have known you all your life.) Do you think it’s quite fair to compare me to Winterbourn? He was fifty when he married Nelly, a fellow quite used up. At all events, I am young, and never was fast; and I don’t see,” he added, pathetically, “why a woman shouldn’t be able to care for me.”
“Oh, I did not mean that,” cried Frances, with penitence; “I only meant——”
“And you shouldn’t,” said Claude, shaking his head, “pay so much attention to what Nelly says. She makes herself out a martyr now; but she was quite willing to marry Winterbourn. She was quite pleased. It was a great match; and now she is going to get the good of it.”
“If being very unhappy is getting the good of it——!”
“Oh, unhappy!” said Claude. It was evident he held Mrs Winterbourn’s unhappiness lightly enough. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, “talking of unhappiness, I saw another friend of yours the other day who was unhappy, if you like—that young soldier-fellow, the Indian man. What do you call him?—Grant? No; that’s a Nile man. Gaunt. Now, if Lady Markham had taken him in hand——”
“Captain Gaunt!” said Frances, in alarm; “what has happened to him, Mr Ramsay? Is he ill? Is he——” Her face flushed with anxiety, and then grew pale.
“I can’t say exactly,” said Claude, “for I am not in his confidence; but I should say he had lost his money, or something of that sort. I don’t frequent those sort of places in a general way; but sometimes, if I’ve been out in the evening, if there’s no east in the wind, and no rain or fog, I just look in for a moment. I rather think some of those fellows had been punishing that poor innocent Indian man. When a stranger comes among them, that’s a way they have. One feels dreadfully sorry for the man; but what can you do?”
“What can you do? Oh, anything, ratherthan stand by,” cried Frances, excited by sudden fears, “and see—and see—— I don’t know what you mean, Mr Ramsay! Is itgambling? Is that what you mean?”
“You should speak to Markham,” he replied. “Markham’s deep in all that sort of thing. If anybody could interfere, it would be Markham. But I don’t see how even he could interfere. He is not the fellow’s keeper; and what could he say? The other fellows are gentlemen; they don’t cheat, or that sort of thing. Only, when a man has not much money, or has not the heart to lose it like a man——”
“Mr Ramsay, you don’t know anything about Captain Gaunt,” cried Frances, with hot indignation and excitement. “I don’t understand what you mean. He has the heart for—whatever he may have to do. He is not like you people, who talk about everybody, who know everybody. But he has been in action; he has distinguished himself; he is not a nobody like——”
“You mean me,” said Claude. “So far as being in action goes, I am a nobody of course. But I hope, if I went in for play and that sort of thing, I would bear my losses without looking as ghastly as a skeleton. That is where a man of the world, however little you may think of us, has the better of people out of Society. But I have nothing to do with his losses. I only tell you, so that, if you can do anything to get hold of him, to keep him from going to the bad——”
“To the—bad!” she cried. Her face grew pale; and something appalling, an indistinct vision of horrors, dimly appeared before Frances’ eyes. She seemed to see not only George Gaunt, but his mother weeping, his father looking on with a startled miserable face. “Oh,” she cried, trying to throw off the impression, “you don’t know what you are saying. George Gaunt would never do anything that is bad. You are making some dreadful mistake, or—— Oh, Mr Ramsay, couldn’t you tell him, if you know it is so bad, before——?”
“What!” cried Claude, horror-struck. “I tell—a fellow I scarcely know! He would have a right to—kick me, or something—or at least to tell me to mind my own business. No; but you might speak to Markham. Markham is the only man who perhaps might interfere.”
“Oh, Markham! always Markham! Oh, I wish any one would tell me what Markham has to do with it,” cried Frances, with a moan.
“That’s just one of his occupations,” said Ramsay, calmly. “They say it doesn’t tell much on him one way or other, but Markham can’t live without play. Don’t you think, as Lady Markham does not come in, that you might give me a cup of tea?”
Constance Waringhad not been enjoying herself in Bordighera. Her amusement indeed came to an end with the highly exciting yet disagreeable scene which took place between herself and young Gaunt the day before he went away. It is late to recur to this, so much having passed in the meantime; but it really was the only thing of note that happened to her. The blank negative with which she had met his suit, the air of surprise, almost indignation, with which his impassioned appeal was received, confounded poor young Gaunt. He asked her, with a simplicity that sprang out of despair, “Did you not know then? Were you not aware? Is it possible that you were not—prepared?”
“For what, Captain Gaunt?” Constance asked, fixing him with a haughty look.
He returned that look with one that would have cowed a weaker woman. “Did you not know that I—loved you?” he said.
Even she quailed a little. “Oh, as for that, Captain Gaunt!—a man must be responsible for his own follies of that kind. I did not ask you to—care for me, as you say. I thought, indeed, that you would have the discretion to see that anything of the kind between us was out of the question.”
“Why?” he asked, almost sternly; and Constance hesitated a little, finding it perhaps not so easy to reply.
“Because,” she said after a pause, with a faint flush, which showed that the effort cost her something—“because—we belong to two different worlds—because all our habits and modes of living are different.” By this time she began to grow a little indignant that he should give her so much trouble. “Because you are Captain Gaunt, of the Indian service, and I am Constance Waring,” she said, with angry levity.
He grew deadly red with fierce pride and shame.
“Because you are of the higher class, andI of the lower,” he said. “Is that what you mean? Yet I am a gentleman, and one cannot well be more.”
To this she made no reply, but moved away from where she had been standing to listen to him, and returned to her chair. They were on the loggia, and this sudden movement left him at one end, while she returned to the other. He stood for a time following her with his eyes; then, having watched the angryabandonwith which she threw herself into her seat, turning her head away, he came a little closer with a certain sternness in his aspect.
“Miss Waring,” he said, “notwithstanding the distance between us, you have allowed me to be your—companion for some time past.”
“Yes,” she said. “What then? There was no one else, either for me or for you.”
“That, then, was the sole reason?”
“Captain Gaunt,” she cried, “what is the use of all this? We were thrown in each other’s way. I meant nothing more; if you did, it was your own fault. You could not surely expect that I should marry you and go to India withyou? It is absurd—it is ridiculous,” she cried, with a hot blush, throwing back her head. He saw with suddenly quickened perceptions that the suggestion filled her with contempt and shame. And the young man’s veins tingled as if fire was in them; the rage of love despised shook his very soul.
“And why?” he cried—“and why?” his voice tremulous with passion. “What is ridiculous in that? It may be ridiculous that I should have believed in a girl like you. I may have been a vain weak fool to do it, not to know that I was only a plaything for your amusement; but it never could be ridiculous to think that a woman might love and marry an honourable man.”
He paused several times to command his voice, and she listened impatient, not looking at him, clasping and unclasping her hands.
“It would be ridiculous in me,” she cried. “You don’t know me, or you never would have dreamt—— Captain Gaunt, this had better end. It is of no use lashing yourself to fury, or me either. Think the worst of me you can; it will be all the better for you—it will makeyou hate me. Yes, I have been amusing myself; and so, I supposed, were you too.”
“No,” he said, “you could not think that.”
She turned round and gave him one look, then averted her eyes again, and said no more.
“You did not think that,” he cried, vehemently. “You knew it was death to me, and you did not mind. You listened and smiled, and led me on. You never checked me by a word, or gave me to understand—— Oh,” he cried, with a sudden change of tone, “Constance, if it is India, if it is only India, you have but to hold up a finger, and I will give up India without a word.”
He had suddenly come close to her again. A wild hope had blazed up in him. He made as though he would throw himself at her feet. She lifted her hand hurriedly to forbid this action.
“Don’t!” she cried, sharply. “Men are not theatrical nowadays. It is nothing to me whether you go to India or stay at home. I have told you already I never thought of anything beyond friendship. Why should not we have amused each other, and no harm? If Ihave done you any harm, I am sorry; but it will only be for a very short time.”
He had turned away, stung once more into bitterness, and had tried to say something in reply; but his strength had not been equal to his intention, and in the strong revulsion of feeling, the young man leant against the wall of the loggia, hiding his face in his hands.
There was a little pause. Then Constance turned round half stealthily to see why there was no reply. Her heart perhaps smote her a little when she saw that attitude of despair. She rose, and, after a moment’s hesitation, laid her hand lightly on his shoulder. “Captain Gaunt, don’t vex yourself like that. I am not worth it. I never thought that any one could be so much in earnest about me.”
“Constance,” he cried, turning round quickly upon her, “I am all in earnest. I care for nothing in the world but you. Oh, say that you were hasty—say that you will give me a little hope!”
She shook her head. “I think,” she said, “that all the time you must have mistaken me for Frances. If I had not come, you wouldhave fallen in love with her, and she with you.”
“Don’t insult me, at least!” he cried.
“Insult you—by saying thatmysister——! You forget yourself, Captain Gaunt. If my sister is not good enough for you, I wonder who you think good enough. She is better than I am; far better—in that way.”
“There is only one woman in the world for me; I don’t care if there was no other,” he said.
“That is benevolent towards the rest of the world,” said Constance, recovering her composure. “Do you know,” she said, gravely, “I think it will be much better for you to go away. I hope we may eventually be good friends; but not just at present. Please go. I should like to part friends; and I should like you to take a parcel for Frances, as you are going to London; and to see my mother. But, for heaven’s sake, go away now. A walk will do you good, and the fresh air. You will see things in their proper aspect. Don’t look at me as if you could kill me. What I am saying is quite true.”
“A walk,” he repeated with unutterable scorn, “will do me good!”
“Yes,” she said, calmly. “It will do you a great deal of good. And change of air and scene will soon set you all right. Oh, I know very well what I am saying. But pray, go now. Papa will make his appearance in about ten minutes; and you don’t want to make a confidant of papa.”
“It matters nothing to me who knows,” he said; but all the same he gathered himself up and made an effort to recover his calm.
“It does to me, then,” said Constance. “I am not at all inclined for papa’s remarks. Captain Gaunt, good-bye. I wish you a pleasant journey; and I hope that some time or other we may meet again, and be very good friends.”
She had the audacity to hold out her hand to him calmly, looking into his eyes as she spoke. But this was more than young Gaunt could bear. He gave her a fierce look of passion and despair, waved his hand without touching hers, and hurried headlong away.
Constance stood listening till she heard thedoor close behind him; and then she seated herself tranquilly again in her chair. It was evening, and she was waiting for her father for dinner. She had taken her last ramble with the Gaunts that afternoon; and it was after their return from this walk that the young soldier had rushed back to inform her of the letters which called him at once to London, and had burst forth into the love-tale which had been trembling on his lips for days past. She had known very well that she could not escape—that the reckoning for these innocent pleasures would have to come. But she had not expected it at that moment, and had been temporarily taken by surprise. She seated herself now with a sigh of relief, yet regret. “Thank goodness, that’s over,” she said to herself; but she was not quite comfortable on the subject. In the first place, itwasover, and there was an end of all her simple fun. No more walks, no more talks skirting the edge of the sentimental and dangerous, no more diplomatic exertions to keep the victim within due limits—fine exercises of power, such as always carry with them a real pleasure. And then, being no more than human,she had a little compunction as to the sufferer. “He will get over it,” she said to herself; change of air and scene would no doubt do everything for him. Men have died, and worms have eaten them, &c. Still, she could not but be sorry. He had looked very wretched, poor fellow, which was complimentary; but she had felt something of the self-contempt of a man who has got a cheap victory over an antagonist much less powerful than himself. A practised swordsman (or woman) of Society should not measure arms with a merely natural person, knowing nothing of the noble art of self-defence. It was perhaps a little—mean, she said to herself. Had it been one of her own species, the duel would have been as amusing throughout, and no harm done. This vexed her a little, and made her uneasy. She remembered, though she did not in general care much about books or the opinion of the class of nobodies who write them, of some very sharp things that had been said upon this subject. Lady Clara Vere de Vere had not escaped handling; and she thought that after it Lady Clara must have felt small, as Constance Waring did now.
But then, on the other hand, what could be more absurd than for a man to suppose, because a girl was glad enough to amuse herself with him for a week or two, in absolute default of all other society, that she was ready to marry him, and go to India with him! To India! What an idea! And it had been quite as much for his amusement as for hers. Neither of them had any one else: it was in self-defence—it was the only resource against absolute dulness. It had made the time pass for him as well as for her. He ought to have known all along that she meant nothing more. Indeed Constance wondered how he could be so silly as to want to have a wife and double his expenses, and bind himself for life. A man, she reflected, must be so much better off when he has only himself to think of. Fancy him takingherbills on his shoulders as well as his own! She wondered, with a contemptuous laugh, how he would like that, or if he had the least idea what these bills would be. On the whole, it was evident, in every point of view, that he was much better out of it. Perhaps even by this time he would have been tearing his hair, hadshe taken him at his word. But no. Constance could not persuade herself that this was likely. Yet he would have torn his hair, she was certain, before the end of the first year. Thus she worked herself round to something like self-forgiveness; but all the same there rankled at her heart a sense of meanness, the consciousness of having gone out in battle-array and vanquished with beat of drum and sound of trumpet an unprepared and undefended adversary, an antagonist with whom the struggle was not fair. Her sense of honour was touched, and all her arguments could not content her with herself.
“I suppose you have been out with the Gaunts again?” Waring said, as they sat at table, in a dissatisfied tone.
“Yes; but you need never put the question to me again in that uncomfortable way, for George Gaunt is going off to-morrow, papa.”
“Oh, he is going off to-morrow? Then I suppose you have been honest, and given him hiscongéat last?”
“I honest? I did not know I had ever been accused of picking and stealing. If he had asked me for hiscongé, he should havehad it long ago. He has been sent for, it seems.”
“Then has thecongénot yet been asked for? In that case we shall have him back again, I suppose?” said her father, in a tone of resignation, and with a shrug of his shoulders.
“No; for his people will be away. They are going to Switzerland, and the Durants are going to Homburg. Where do you mean to go, when it is too hot to stay here?”
He looked at her half angrily for a moment. “It is never too hot to stay here,” he said; then, after a pause, “We can move higher up among the hills.”
“Where one will never see a soul—worse even than here!”
“Oh, you will see plenty of country-folk,” he said—“a fine race of people, mountaineers, yet husbandmen, which is a rare combination.”
Constance looked up at him with a littlemoueof mingled despair and disdain.
“With perhaps some romantic young Italian count for you to practise upon,” he said.
Though the humour on his part was grimand derisive rather than sympathetic, her countenance cleared a little. “You know, papa,” she said, with a faintly complaining note, “that my Italian is very limited, and your counts and countesses speak no language but their own.”
“Oh, who can tell? There may be some poor soldier on furlough who has French enough to—— By the way,” he added, sharply, “you must remember that they don’t understand flirtation with girls. If you were a married woman, or a young widow——”
“You might pass me off as a young widow, papa. It would be amusing—or at least itmightbe amusing. That is not a quality of the life here in general. What an odd thing it is that in England we always believe life to be so much more amusing abroad than at home.”
“It is amusing—at Monte Carlo, perhaps.”
Constance made anothermoueat the name of Monte Carlo, from the sight of which she had not derived much pleasure. “I suppose,” she said, impartially, “what really amuses one is the kind of diversion one has been accustomed to, and to know everybody: chiefly to know everybody,” she added, after a pause.
“With these views, to know nobody must be bad luck indeed!”
“It is,” she said, with great candour; “that is why I have been so much with the Gaunts. One can’t live absolutely alone, you know, papa.”
“I can—with considerable success,” he replied.
“Ah, you! There are various things to account for it with you,” she said.
He waited for a moment, as if to know what these various things were; then smiled to himself a little angrily at his daughter’s calm way of taking his disabilities for granted. It was not till some time after, when the dinner had advanced a stage, that he spoke again. Then he said, without any introduction, “I often wonder, Constance, when you find this life so dull as you do——”
“Yes, very dull,” she said frankly,—“especially now, when all the people are going away.”
“I wonder often,” he repeated, “my dear, why you stay; for there is nothing to recompense you for such a sacrifice. If it is for my sake, it is a pity, for I could really get on very well alone. We don’t see very much of each other; and till now, if you will pardon me for saying so, your mind has been taken up with a pursuit which—you could have carried on much better at home.”
“You mean what you are pleased to call flirtation, papa? No, I could not have carried on that sort of thing at home. The conditions are altogether different. Itisdifficult to account for my staying, when, clearly, you don’t consider me of any use, and don’t want me.”
“I have never said that. Of course I am very glad to have you. It is in the bond, and therefore my right. I was regarding the question solely from your point of view.”
Constance did not answer immediately. She paused to think. When she had turned the subject over in her mind, she replied, “I need not tell you how complicated one’s motives get. It takes a long time to make sure which is really the fundamental one, and how it works.”
“You are a philosopher, my dear.”
“Not more than one must be with Society pressing upon one as it does, papa. Nothing is straightforward nowadays. You have to dig quite deep down before you come at the real meaning of anything you do; and very often, when you get hold of it, you don’t quite like to acknowledge it, even to yourself.”
“That is rather an alarming preface, but very just too. If you don’t like to acknowledge it to yourself, you will like still less to acknowledge it to me?”
“I don’t quite see that: perhaps I am harder upon myself than you would be. No; but I prefer to think of it a little more before I tell you. I have a kind of feeling now that it is because—but you will think that a shabby sort of pride—it is because I am too proud to own myself beaten, which I should do if I were to go back.”
“It is a very natural sort of pride,” he said.
“But it is not all that. I must go a little deeper still. Not to-night. I have done as much thinking as I am quite able for to-night.”
And thus the question was left for another day.
Nextmorning, Constance, seated as usual in the loggia, which was now, as the weather grew hot, veiled with an awning, heard—her ears being very quick, and on the alert for every sound—a tinkle of the bell, a sound of admittance, the step of Domenico leading some visitor to the place in which she sat. Was ithe, coming yet again to implore her pardon, an extension of privileges, a hope for the future? She made out instantaneously, however, that the footstep which followed Domenico was not that of young Gaunt. It was softer, less decided—an indefinite female step. She sat up in her chair and listened, letting her book fall, and next moment saw Mrs Gaunt, old-fashioned, unassured, with a troubled look upon her face, in her shawl and big hat, come out almosttimidly upon the loggia. Constance sprang to her feet—then in a moment collapsed and shrank away into herself. Before the young lover she was a queen, and to her father she preserved her dignity very well; but whenhismother appeared, the girl had no longer any power to hold up her head. Mrs Gaunt was old, very badly dressed, not very clever or wise; but Constance felt those mild, somewhat dull eyes penetrating to the depths of her own guilty heart.
“How do you do, Miss Waring?” said Mrs Gaunt, stiffly. (She had called her “my dear” yesterday, and had been so anxious to please her, doing everything she could to ingratiate herself.) “I hope I do not disturb you so early; but my son, Captain Gaunt, is going away——”
“Oh yes—I heard. I am very sorry,” the guilty Constance murmured, hanging her head.
“I do not know that there is any cause to be sorry; we were going anyhow in a few days. And in London my son will find many friends.”
“I mean,” said Constance, drawing a long breath, beginning to recover a little courage,feeling, even in her discomfiture, a faint amusement still—“I mean, for his friends here, who will miss him so much.”
Mrs Gaunt darted a glance at her, half wrathful, half wavering; it had seemed so unnatural to her that any girl could play with or resist her son. Perhaps, after all, he had misunderstood Constance. She said, proudly, “His friends always miss George; he is so friendly. Nobody ever asks anything from him, to take any trouble or make any sacrifice, in vain.”
“I am sure he is very good,” said Constance, tremulous, yet waking to the sense of humour underneath.
“That is why I am here to-day,” said Mrs Gaunt. “My son—remembers—though perhaps you will allow he has not much call to do so, Miss Waring—that you said something about a parcel for Frances. Dear Frances; he will see her—that will always be something.”
“Then he is not coming to say good-bye?” she said, opening her eyes with a semblance of innocent and regretful surprise.
“Oh, Miss Waring! oh, Constance!” criedthe poor mother. “But perhaps my boy has made a mistake. He is very wretched. I am sure he never closed his eyes all last night. If you saw him this morning, it would go to your heart. Ah, my dear, he thinks you will have nothing to say to him, and his heart is broken. If you will only let me tell him that he has made a mistake!”
“Is it about me, Mrs Gaunt?”
“Oh, Constance! who should it be about but you? He has never looked at any one else since he saw you first. All that has been in his mind has been how to see you, how to talk to you, to make himself agreeable if he could—to try and get your favour. I will not conceal anything from you. I never was satisfied from the first. I thought you were too grand, too much used to fine people and their ways, ever to look at one of us. But then, when I saw my George, the flower of my flock, with nothing in his mind but how to please you, his eyes following you wherever you went, as if there was not another in the world——”
“There was not another in Bordighera, at least,” said Constance, under her breath.
“There was not——? What did you say—what did you say? Oh, there was nobody that he ever wasted a thought on but you. I had my doubts all the time. I used to say, ‘George, dear, don’t go too far; don’t throw everything at her feet till you know how she feels.’ But I might as well have talked to the sea. If he had been the king of all the world, he would have poured everything into your lap. Oh, my dear, a man’s true love is a great thing; it is more than crowns or queen’s jewels. You might have all the world contains, and beside that it would be as nothing—and this is what he has given you. Surely you did not understand him when he spoke, or he did not understand you. Perhaps you were taken by surprise—fluttered, as girls will be, and said the wrong words. Or you were shy. Or you did not know your own mind. Oh, Constance, say it was a mistake, and give me a word of comfort to take to my boy!”
The tears were running down the poor mother’s cheeks as she pleaded thus for her son. When she had left home that morning, after surprising, divining the secret, which hehad done his best to hide from her overnight, there had been a double purpose in Mrs Gaunt’s mind. She had intended to pour out such vials of wrath upon the girl who had scorned her son, such floods of righteous indignation, that never, never should she raise her head again; and she had intended to watch her opportunity, to plead on her knees, if need were, if there was any hope of getting him what he wanted. It did not disturb her that these two intentions were totally opposed to each other. And she had easily been beguiled into thinking that there was good hope still.
While she spoke, Constance on her side had been going through a series of observations, running comments upon this address, which did not move her very much. “If he had been king of all the world—ah, that would have made a difference,” she said to herself; and it was all she could do to refrain from bursting forth in derisive laughter at the suggestion that she herself had perhaps been shy, or had not known her own mind. To think that any woman could be such a simpleton, so easily deceived! The question was, whether tobe gentle with the delusion, and spare Mrs Gaunt’s feelings; or whether to strike her down at once with indignation and sharp scorn. There passed through the mind of Constance a rapid calculation that in so small a community it was better not to make an enemy, and also perhaps some softening reflections from the remorse which really had touched her last night. So that when Mrs Gaunt ended by that fervent prayer, her knees trembling with the half intention of falling upon them, her voice faltering, her tears flowing, Constance allowed herself to be touched with responsive emotion. She put out both her hands and cried, “Oh, don’t speak like that to me; oh, don’t look at me so! Dear, dear Mrs Gaunt, teach me what to do to make up for it! for I never thought it would come to this. I never imagined that he, who deserves so much better, would trouble himself about me. Oh, what a wretched creature I am to bring trouble everywhere! for I am not free. Don’t you know I am—engaged to some one else? Oh, I thought everybody knew of it! I am not free.”
“Not free!” said Mrs Gaunt, with a cry of dismay.
“Oh, didn’t you know of it?” said Constance. “I thought everybody knew. It has been settled for a long time—since I was quite a child.”
“My dear,” said Mrs Gaunt, solemnly, “if your heart is not in it, you ought not to go on with it. I did hear something of—a gentleman, whom your mamma wished you to marry; who was very rich, and all that.”
Constance nodded her head slowly, in a somewhat melancholy assent.
“But I was told that you did not wish it yourself—that you had broken it off—that you had come here to avoid—— Oh, my dear girl, don’t take up a false sense of duty, or—or honour—or self-sacrifice! Constance, you may have a right to sacrifice yourself, but not another—not another, dear. And all his happiness is wrapped up in you. And if it is a thing your heart does not go with!” cried the poor lady, losing herself in the complication of phrases. Constance only shook her head.
“Dear Mrs Gaunt! Imustthink of honour and duty. What would become of us all if we put an engagement aside, because—because——? And it would be cruel to the other; he is not strong. I could not, oh, I could not break off—oh no, not for worlds—it would kill him. But will you try and persuade Captain Gaunt not to think hardly of me? I thought I might enjoy his friendship without any harm. If I have done wrong, oh forgive me!” Constance cried.
Mrs Gaunt dried her eyes. She was a simple-minded woman, who knew what she wanted, and whose instinct taught her to refuse a stone when it was offered to her instead of bread. She said, “He will forgive you, Miss Waring; he will not think hardly of you, you may be sure. They are too infatuated to do that, when a girl like you takes the trouble to—— But I think you might have thought twice before you did it, knowing what you tell me now. A young man fresh from India, where he has been working hard for years—coming home to get up his strength, to enjoy himself alittle, to make up for all his long time away—— And because you are a little lonely, and want to enjoy his—friendship, as you say, you go and spoil his holiday for him, make it all wretched, and make even his poor mother wish that he had never come home at all. And you think it will all be made up if you say you are sorry at the end! To him, perhaps, poor foolish boy; but oh, not to me.”
Constance made no reply to this. She had done her best, and for a moment she thought she had succeeded; but she had always been aware, by instinct, that the mother was less easy to beguile than the son; and she was silent, attempting no further self-defence.
“Young men are a mystery to me,” said Mrs Gaunt, standing with agitated firmness in the middle of the loggia, taking no notice of the chair which had been offered her. She did not even look at Constance, but directed her remarks to the swaying palms in the foreground and the hills behind—“they are a mystery! There may be one under their very eyes that is as good as gold and as true as steel, and they will never so much as look ather. And there will be another that thinks of nothing but amusing herself, and that is the one they will adore. Oh, it is not for the first time now that I have found it out! I had my misgivings from the very first; but he was like all the rest—he would not hear a word from his mother; and now I am sure I wish his furlough was at an end; I wish he had never come home. His father and I would rather have waited on and pined for him, or even made up our minds to die without seeing him, rather than he should have come here to break his heart.”
She paused a moment and then resumed again, turning from the palms and distant peaks to concentrate a look of fire upon Constance, who sat sunk in her wicker chair, turning her head away.
“And if a man were to go astray after being used like that, whose fault would it be? If he were to go wrong—if he were to lose heart, to say What’s the good? whose fault would it be? Oh, don’t tell me that you didn’t know what you were doing—that you didn’t mean to break his heart! Did you think he had no heart atall? But then, why should you have taken the trouble? It wouldn’t have amused you, it would have been no fun, had he had no heart.”
“You seem,” said Constance, without turning her head, launching a stray arrow in self-defence, “to know all about it, Mrs Gaunt.”
“Perhaps I do know all about it,—I am a woman myself. I wasn’t always old and faded. I know there are some things a girl may do in innocence, and some—that no one but a wicked woman of the world—— Oh, you are young to be called such a name. I oughtn’t, at your age, however I may suffer by you, to call you such a name.”
“You may call me what name you like. Fortunately I have not to look to you as my judge. Look here,” cried Constance, springing to her feet. “You say you are a woman yourself. I am not like Frances, a girl that knew nothing. If your son is at my feet, I have had better men at my feet, richer men, far better matches than Captain Gaunt. Would any one in their senses expect me to marry a poor soldier, to go out to India, to follow the regiment? You forget I’m Lady Markham’s daughter as well as Mr Waring’s. Put yourself in her place for a moment, and think what you would say if your daughter told you that was what she was going to do. To marry a poor man, not even at home—an officer in India! What would you say? You would lock me up in my room, and keep me on bread and water. You would say, the girl is mad. At least that is what my mother, if she could, would do.”
Mrs Gaunt caught upon the point which was most salient and attackable. “An Indian officer!” she cried. “That shows how little you know. He is not an Indian officer—he is a Queen’s officer: not that it matters. There were men in the Company’s service that—— The Company’s service was—— How dare you speak so to me? General Gaunt was in the Company’s service!” she cried, with an outburst of injured feeling and excited pride.
To this Constance made reply with a mocking laugh, which nearly drove her adversary frantic, and resumed her seat, having said what she had to say.
Poor Mrs Gaunt sat down, too, in sheer inability to support herself. Her limbs trembledunder her. She wanted to cry, but would not, had she died in that act of self-restraint. And as she could not have said another word without crying, force was upon her to keep silence, though her heart burned. After an interval, she said, tremulously, “If this is one of our punishments for Eve’s fault, it’s far, far harder to bear than the other; and every woman has to bear it more or less. To see a man that ought to make one woman’s happiness turned into a jest by another woman, and made a laughing-stock of, and all his innocent pleasure turned into bitterness. Why did you do it? Were there not plenty of men in the world that you should take my boy for your plaything? Wasn’t there room for you in London, that you should come here? Oh, what possessed you to come here, where no one wanted you, and spoil all?”
Constance turned round and stared at her accuser with troubled eyes. It was a question to which it was difficult to give any answer; and she could not deny that it was a very pertinent question. No one had wanted her. There had been room for her in London, anda recognised place, and everything a girl could desire. Oh, how she desired now those things which belonged to her, which she had left so lightly, which there was nothing here to replace! Why had she left them? If a wish could have taken her back, out of this foreign, alien, unloved scene, away from Mrs Gaunt, scolding her in the big hat and shawl, which would be only fit for a charade at home, to Lady Markham’s soft and lovely presence—to Claude, even poor Claude, with his beautiful eyes and his fear of draughts—how swiftly would she have travelled through the air! But a wish would not do it; and she could only stare at her assailant blankly, and in her heart echo the question, Why, oh why?
Notwithstanding this stormy interview, Constance had so far recovered by the afternoon, and was so utterly destitute of anything else by way of amusement, that she walked down to the railway station at the hour when the train started for Marseilles and England, with a perfectly composed and smiling countenance, and the little parcel for Frances under her arm. Mrs Gaunt was like a woman turned to stonewhen she suddenly saw this apparition, standing upon the platform, talking to her old general, amusing and occupying him so that he almost forgot that he was here on no joyful but a melancholy occasion. And to see George hurry forward, his dark face lit up with a sudden glow, his hat in his hand, as if he were about to address the Queen! These are things which are very hard upon women, to whom it is generally given to preserve their senses even when the most seductive siren smiles.
“You would not come to say good-bye to me, so I had to take it into my own hands,” Constance said, in her clear young voice, which was to be heard quite distinctly through all the jabber of the Riviera functionaries. “And here is the little parcel for Frances, if you will be so very good.Dogo and see them, Captain Gaunt.”
“Of course he will go and see them,” said the General—“too glad. He has not so many people to see in town that he should forget our old friend Waring’s near connections, and Frances, whom we were all so fond of. And you may be sure he will be honoured by any commissions you will give him.”
“Oh, I have no commissions. Markham does my commissions when I have any. He is the best of brothers in that respect. Give my love to mamma, Captain Gaunt. She will like to see some one who has seen me. Tell her I get on—pretty well. Tell them all to come out here.”
“He must not do that, Miss Waring; for it will soon be too hot, and we are all going away.”
“Oh, I was not in earnest,” said Constance; “it was only a little jest. I must look too sincere for anything, for people are always taking my little jokes as if I meant them, every word.” She raised her eyes to Captain Gaunt as she spoke, and with one steady look made an end in a moment of all the hasty hopes that had sprung up again in less time than Jonah’s gourd. She put the parcel in his charge, and shook hands with him, taking no notice of his sudden change of countenance,—and not only this, but waited a little way off till the poor young fellow had got into the train, and had been taken farewell of by his parents. Then she waved her hand and a little film ofa pocket-handkerchief, and waited till the old pair came out, Mrs Gaunt with very red eyes, and even the General blowing his nose unnecessarily.
“It seems only the other day that we came down to meet him—after not seeing him for so many years.”
“Oh, my poor boy! But I should not mind if I thought he had got any good out of his holiday,” said Mrs Gaunt, launching a burning look among her tears at the siren.
“Oh, I think he has enjoyed himself, Mrs Gaunt. I am sure you need not have any burden on your mind on that account,” the young deceiver said smoothly.
Yes, he had enjoyed himself, and now had to pay the price of it in disappointment and ineffectual misery. This was all it had brought him, this brief intoxicating dream, this fool’s paradise. Constance walked with them as far as their way lay together, and “talked very nicely,” as he said afterwards, to the General; but Mrs Gaunt, if she could have done it with a wish, would have willingly pitched this siren, where other sirens belong to—into the sea.
AndConstance, too, had found it amusing—she did not hesitate to acknowledge that to herself. She had got a great deal of diversion out of these six weeks. There had been nothing, really, when you came to think of it, to amuse anybody: a few dull walks; a drive along the dusty roads, which were more dusty than anything she had ever experienced in her life; and then a ramble among the hills, a climb from terrace to terrace of the olive-gardens, or through the stony streets of a little mountain town. It was the contrast, the harmony, the antagonism, the duel and the companionship continually going on, which had given everything its zest. The scientific man with an exciting object under the microscope, the astronomer with his new star pulsingout of the depths of the sky, could scarcely have been more absorbed than Constance. Not so much; for not the most cherished of star-fishes, not the most glorious of stars, is so exciting as it is to watch the risings and flowings of emotion under your own hand, to feel that you can cause ecstasy or despair, and raise up another human creature to the heights of delight, or drop him to depths beneath purgatory, at your will. When the young and cruel possess this power—and the very young are often cruel by ignorance, by inability to understand suffering—they are seldom clever enough to use it to the full extent. But Constance was clever, and had tasted blood before. It had made the time pass as nothing else could have done. It had carried on a thread of keen interest through all these commonplace pursuits. It had been as amusing, nay, much more so than if she had loved him; for she got the advantage of his follies without sharing them, and felt herself to stand high in cool ethereal light, while the unfortunate young man turned himself outside in for her enlightenment. She had enjoyed herself—she did not deny it; but now there was the penalty to pay.
He was gone, clean gone, escaped from her power; and nothing was left but the beggarly elements of this small bare life, in which there was nothing to amuse or interest. The roads were more intolerable than ever, lying white in heat and dust, which rose in clouds round every carriage—carriage! that was an euphemism—cab which passed. The sun blazed everywhere, so that one thought regretfully of the dull skies of England, and charitably of the fogs and rains. There was nothing to do but to go up among the olives and sit down upon some ledge and look at the sea. Constance did not draw, neither did she read. She did nothing that could be of any use to her here. She regretted now that she had allowed herself at the very beginning to fall into the snare of that amusement, too ready to her hand, which consisted of Captain Gaunt. It had been a mistake—if for no other reason, at least because it left the dulness more dull than ever, now it was over. He it was who had been her resource, his looks and ways her study, the gradual growth of hislove the romance which had kept her going. She asked herself sometimes whether she could possibly have done as much harm to him as to herself by this indulgence, and answered earnestly, No. How could it do him any harm? He was vexed, of course, for the moment, because he could not have her; but very soon he would come to. He would be a fool, more of a fool than she thought him, if he did not soon see that it was much better for him that she had thought only of a little amusement. Why should he marry, a young man with very little money? There could be no doubt it would have been a great mistake. Constance did not know what society in India is like, but she supposed it must be something like society at home, and in that case there was no doubt he would have found it altogether more difficult had he gone back a married man.
She could not think, looking at the subject dispassionately, how he could ever have wished it. An unmarried young man (she reflected) gets asked to a great many places, where the people could not be troubled with a pair.And whereas some girls may be promoted by marriage, it isalmost alwaysto the disadvantage of a young man. So, why should he make a fuss about it, this young woman of the world asked herself. He ought to have been very glad that he had got his amusement and no penalty to pay. But for herself, she was sorry. Now he was gone, there was nobody to talk to, nobody to walk with, no means of amusement at all. She did not know what to do with herself, while he was speeding to dear London. What was she to do with herself? Filial piety and the enjoyment of her own thoughts—without anything to do even for her father, or any subject to employ her thoughts upon—these were all that seemed to be left to her in her life. The tourists and invalids were all gone, so that there was not even the chance of somebody turning up at the hotels; and even the Gaunts—between whom and herself there was now a gulf fixed—and the Durants, who were bores unspeakable, were going away. What was she to do?
Alas, that exhilarating game which had ended so sadly for George Gaunt was not ending verycheerfully for Constance. It had made life too tolerable—it had kept her in a pleasant self-deception as to the reality of the lot she had chosen. Now that reality flashed upon her,—nay, the word is far too animated—it did not flash, nothing any longer flashed, except that invariable, intolerable sun,—it opened upon her dully, with its long, long, endless vistas. The still rooms in the Palazzo with the greenpersianiclosed, all blazing sunshine without, all dead stillness and darkness within—and nothing to do, nobody to see, nothing to give a fresh turn to her thoughts. Not a novel even! Papa’s old books upon out-of-the-way subjects, dreary as the dusty road, endless as the uneventful days—and papa himself, the centre of all. When she turned this over and over in her mind, it seemed to her that if, when she first came, instead of being seduced into flowery paths of flirtation, she had paid a little attention to her father, it might have been better for her now. But that chance was over, and George Gaunt was gone, and only dulness remained behind.
And oh, how different it must be in town,where the season was just beginning, and Frances, that little country thing, who would care nothing about it, was going to be presented! Constance, it is scarcely necessary to say, had been told what her sister was to wear; indeed, having gone through the ceremony herself, and knowing exactly what was right, could have guessed without being told. How would Frances look with her little demure face and her neat little figure? Constance had no unkindly feeling towards her sister. She fully recognised the advantages of the girl, who was like mamma; and whose youthful freshness would be enhanced by the good looks of the little stately figure beside her, showing the worst that Frances was likely to come to, even when she got old. Constance knew very well that this was a great advantage to a girl, having heard the frank remarks of Society upon those beldams who lead their young daughters into the world, presenting in their own persons a horrible caricature of what those girls may grow to be. But Frances would look very well, the poor exile decided, sitting on the low wall of one of the terraces, gazing through the greyolives over the blue sea. She would look very well. She would be frightened, yet amused, by the show. She would be admired—by people who liked that quiet kind. Markham would be with them; and Claude, perhaps Claude, if it was a fine day, and there was no east in the wind! She stopped to laugh to herself at this suggestion, but her colour rose at the same time, and an angry question woke in her mind. Claude! She had told Mrs Gaunt she was engaged to him still. Was she engaged to him? Or had he thrown her off, as she threw him off, and perhaps found consolation in Frances? At this thought the olive-gardens in their coolness grew intolerable, and the sea the dreariest of prospects. She jumped up, and notwithstanding the sun and the dust, went down the broad road, the old Roman way, where there was no shade nor shelter. It was not safe, she said to herself, to be left there with her thoughts. She must break the spell or die.
She went, of all places in the world, poor Constance! to the Durants’ in search of a little variety. Their loggia also was covered with anawning; but they did not venture into it till the sun was going down. They had their tea-table in the drawing-room, which, till the eyes grew accustomed to it, was quite dark, with one ray of subdued light stealing in from the open door of the loggia, but the blinds all closed and the windows. Here Constance was directed, by the glimmer of reflection in the teapot and china, to the spot where the family were sitting, Mrs Durant and Tasie languidly waving their fans. Thedolce far nientewas not appreciated in that clerical house. Tasie thought it her duty to be always doing something—knitting at least for a bazaar, if it was not light enough for other work. But the heat had overcome even Tasie; though it could not, if it had been tropical, do away with the little furnace of the hot tea. They all received Constance with the languid delight of people in an atmosphere of ninety degrees, to whom no visitor has appeared, nor any incident happened, all day.
“Oh, Miss Waring,” said Tasie, “we have just had a great disappointment. Some one sent us the ‘Queen’ from home, and we lookeddirectly for the drawing-room, to see Frances’ name and how she was dressed; but it is not there.”
“No,” said Constance; “the 29th is her day.”
“Oh, that is what I said, mamma. I said we must have mistaken the date. It couldn’t be that there was any mistake about going, when she wrote and told us. I knew the date must be wrong.”
“Many things may occur at the last moment to stop one, Tasie. I have known a lady with her dress all ready laid out on the bed; and circumstances happened so that she could not go.”
“That is by no means a singular experience, my dear,” said Mr Durant, who in his black coat was almost invisible. “I have known many such cases; and in matters more important than drawing-rooms.”
“There was the Sangazures,” said the clergyman’s wife—“don’t you recollect? Lady Alice was just putting on her bonnet to go to her daughter’s marriage, when——”