“Comeout for a walk, papa,” said Constance.
“What! in the heat of the day? You think you are in England.”
“No, indeed. I wish I did—at least, that is not what I mean. But I wish you did not think it necessary to stay in a place like this. Why should you shut yourself out from the world? You are very clever, papa.”
“Who told you so? You cannot have found that out by your own unassisted judgment.”
“A great many people have told me. I have always known. You seem to have made a mystery about us, but we never made any mystery about you: for one thing, of course we couldn’t, for everybody knew. But if you chose to go back to England——”
“I shall never go back to England.”
“Oh,” said Constance, with a laugh, “never is a long day.”
“So long a day, that it is a pity you should link your fortunes to mine, my dear. Frances has been brought up to it; but your case is quite different: and you see even she catches at the first opportunity of getting away.”
“You are scarcely just to Frances,” said Constance, with her usual calm. “You might have said the same thing of me. I took the first opportunity also. To know that one has a father, whom one never remembers to have seen, is very exciting to the imagination; and just in so much as one has been disappointed in the parent one knows, one expects to find perfection in the parent one has never seen. Anything that you don’t know is better than everything you do know,” she added, with the air of a philosopher.
“I am afraid, in that case, acquaintance has been fatal to your ideal.”
“Not exactly,” she said. “Of course you are quite different from what I supposed. But I think we might get on well enough, if you please. Do come out. If we keep in the shade,it is not really very hot. It is often hotter in London, where nobody thinks of staying indoors. If we are to live together, don’t you think you must begin by giving in to me a little, papa?”
“Not to the extent of getting a sunstroke.”
“In March!” she cried, with a tone of mild derision. “Let me come into the bookroom, then. You think if Frances goes that you will never be able to get on with me.”
“My thoughts have not gone so far as that. I may have believed that a young lady fresh from all the gaieties of London——”
“But so tired of them, and very glad of a little novelty, however it presents itself.”
“Yes, so long as it continues novel. But the novelty of making thespesein a village, and looking sharply after every centesimo that is asked for an artichoke——”
“Thespesemeans the daily expenses? I should not mind that. And Mariuccia is far more entertaining than an ordinary English cook. And the neighbours—well, the neighbours afford some opportunities for fun. Mrs Gaunt—is it?—expects her youngest boy. And then there is Tasie.”
The name of Tasie brought a certain relaxation to the muscles of Waring’s face. He gave a glance round him, to see that all the doors were closed. “I must confide in you, Constance; though, mind, Frances must not share it. I sitting here, simple as you see me, have been supposed dangerous to Tasie’s peace of mind. Is not that an excellent joke?”
“I don’t see that it is a joke at all,” said Constance, without even a smile. “Why, Tasie is antediluvian. She must be nearly as old as you are. Any old gentleman might be dangerous to Tasie. Tell me something more wonderful than that.”
“Oh, that is how it appears to you!” said Waring. His laugh came to a sudden end, broken off, so to speak, in half, and an air of portentous gravity came over his face. He turned over the papers on the table before him, as with a sudden thought. “By the way, I forgot I had something to do this afternoon,” he said. “Before dinner, perhaps, we may take a stroll, if the sun is not so hot. But this is my working-time,” he added, with a stiff smile.
Constance could not disregard so plain a hint.She rose up quickly. She had taken Frances’ chair, which he had forgiven her at first; but it made another note against her now.
“What have I done?” she said to herself, raising her eyebrows, angry and yet half amused by her dismissal. Frances had gone to her room too, and was not to be disturbed, as her sister had seen by the look of her face. She felt herself, as she would have said, very much “out of it,” as she wandered round the desertedsalone, looking at everything in it with a care suggested by her solitude rather than any real interest. She looked at the big high-coloured water-pots, turned into decorations, one could imagine against their will, which stood in the corners of the room, and which were Mrs Durant’s present to Frances; and at the blue Savona vases, with the names of medicines, real or imaginary, betraying their original intention; and all the other decorative scraps—the little old pictures, the pieces of needlework and brocade. They were pretty when she looked at them, though she had not perceived their beauty at the first glance. There were more decorations of the same description in the ante-room, which gave her a little additional occupation; and then she strolled into the loggia and threw herself into the long chair. She had a book, one of the novels she had bought on the journey. But Constance was not accustomed to much reading. She got through a chapter or two; and then she looked round upon the view and mused a little, and then returned to her novel. The second time she threw it down and went back to the drawing-room, and had another look at the Savona pots. She had thought how well they would look on a certain shelf at “home.” And then she stopped and took herself to task. What did she mean by home? This was home. She was going to live here; it was to be her place in the world. What she had to do was to think of the decorations here, and whether she could add to them, not of vacant corners in another place. Finally, she returned again to the loggia, and sat down once more rather drearily.
There had never occurred a day in her experience in which she had been so long without “something to do.” Something to do meantsomething that was amusing, something to pass the time, somebody to entertain, or perhaps, if nothing else was possible, to quarrel with. To sit alone and look round her at “the view,” to have not a creature to say a word to, and nothing to engage herself with but a book—and nothing to look forward to but this same thing repeated three hundred and sixty-five days in the year! The prospect, the thought, made Constance shiver. It could not be. She must do something to break the spell. But what was there to do? Thespesewere all made for to-day, the dinner was ordered; and she knew very little either about thespeseor the dinner. She would have to learn, to think of new dishes, and write them down in a little book, as Frances did. Her dinners, she said to herself, must be better than those of Frances. But when was she to begin, and how was she to do it? In the meantime she went and fetched a shawl, and while the sun blazed straight on the loggia from the south, to which it was open in front, and left only one scrap of shade in a corner scarcely enough to shelter the long chair, fell asleep there, finding that she had nothing else to do.
Frances had gone to her room with her packet of letters. She had not thought what they were, nor what had been the meaning of what her father said when he gave them to her. She took them—no, not to her own room, but to the blue room, in which there was so little comfort. Her little easy-chair, her writing-table, all the things with which she was at home, belonged to Constance now. She sat down, or rather up, in a stiff upright chair, and opened her little packet upon her bed. To her astonishment, she found that it contained letters addressed to herself, unopened. The first of them was printed in large letters, as for the eyes of a child. They were very simple, not very long, concluding invariably with one phrase: “Dear, write to me”—“Write to me, my darling.” Frances read them with her eyes full of tears, with a rising wave of passion and resentment which seemed to suffocate her. He had kept them all back. What harm could they have done? Why should she have been kept in ignorance, and made to appear like a heartless child, like a creaturewithout sense or feeling? Half for her mother, half for herself, the girl’s heart swelled with a kind of fury. She had not been ready to judge her father even after she had been aware of his sin against her. She had still accepted what he did as part of him, bidding her own mind be silent, hushing all criticism. But when she read these little letters, her passion overflowed. How dared he to ignore all her rights, to allow herself to be misrepresented, to give a false idea of her? This was the most poignant pang of all. Without being selfish, it is still impossible to feel a wrong of this kind to another so acutely as to yourself. He had deprived her of the comfort of knowing that she had a mother, of communicating with her, of retaining some hold upon that closest of natural friends. That injury she had condoned and forgiven; but when Frances saw how her father’s action must have shaped the idea of herself in the mind of her mother, there was a moment in which she felt that she could not forgive him. If she had received year by year these tender letters, yet never had been moved to answer one of them, what a creature must she have been, devoid of heart or common feeling, or even good taste,that superficial grace by which the want of better things is concealed! She was more horrified by this thought than by any other discovery she could have made. She seemed to see the Frances whom her mother knew—a little ill-conditioned child; a small, petty, ungracious, unloving girl. Was this what had been thought of her? And it was all his fault—all her father’s fault!
At first she could see no excuse for him. She would not allow to herself that any love for her, or desire to retain her affection, was at the bottom of the concealment. She got a sheet of paper, and began to write with passionate vehemence, pouring forth all her heart. “Imagine that I have never seen your dear letters till to-day—never till to-day! and what must you think of me?” she wrote. But when she had put her whole heart into it, working a miracle, and making the dull paper to glow and weep, there came a change over her thoughts. She had kept his secret till now. She had not betrayed even to Constance the ignorance in which she had been kept; and should she change her course, and betray him now?
As she came to think it over, she felt that she herself blamed her father bitterly, that he had fallen from the pedestal on which to her he had stood all her life. Yet the thought that others should be conscious of this degradation was terrible to her. When Constance spoke lightly of him, it was intolerable to Frances; and the mother of whom she knew nothing, of whom she knew only that she was her mother, a woman who had grievances of her own against him, who would be perhaps pleased, almost pleased, to have proof that he had done this wrong! Frances paused, with the fervour of indignation still in her heart, to consider how she should bear it if this were so. It was all selfish, she said to herself, growing more miserable as she fought with the conviction that whether in condemning him or covering what he had done, herself was her first thought. She had to choose now between vindicating herself at his cost, or suffering continued misconception to screen him. Which should she do? Slowly she folded up the letter she had written and put it away, not destroying but saving it, as leaving it still possible to carryout her first intention. Then she wrote another shorter, half-fictitious letter, in which the bitterness in her heart seemed to take the form of reproach, and her consent to obey her mother’s call was forced and sullen. But this letter was no sooner written than it was torn to pieces. What was she to do? She ended, after much thought, by destroying also her first letter, and writing as follows:—
“Dear Mother,—To see my sister and to hear that you want me, is very bewildering and astonishing to me. I am very ready to come, if, indeed, you will forgive me all that you must think so bad in me, and let me try as well as I can to please you. Indeed I desire to do so with all my heart. I have understood very little, and I have been thoughtless, and, you will think, without any natural affection; but this is because I was so ignorant, and had nobody to tell me. Forgive me, dear mamma. I do not feel as if I dare write to you now and call you by that name. As soon as we can consider and see how it is best for me to travel, I will come. I am not cleverand beautiful, like Constance; but indeed I do wish to please you with all my heart.“Frances.”
“Dear Mother,—To see my sister and to hear that you want me, is very bewildering and astonishing to me. I am very ready to come, if, indeed, you will forgive me all that you must think so bad in me, and let me try as well as I can to please you. Indeed I desire to do so with all my heart. I have understood very little, and I have been thoughtless, and, you will think, without any natural affection; but this is because I was so ignorant, and had nobody to tell me. Forgive me, dear mamma. I do not feel as if I dare write to you now and call you by that name. As soon as we can consider and see how it is best for me to travel, I will come. I am not cleverand beautiful, like Constance; but indeed I do wish to please you with all my heart.
“Frances.”
This was all she could say. She put it up in an envelope, feeling confused with her long thinking, and with all the elements of change that were about her, and took it back to the bookroom to ask for the address. She had felt that she could not approach her father with composure or speak to him of ordinary matters; but it made a little formal bridge, as it were, from one kind of intercourse to another, to ask him for that address.
“Will you please tell me where mamma lives?” she said.
Waring turned round quickly to look at her. “So you have written already?”
“O papa, can you say ‘already’? What kind of creature must she think I am, never to have sent a word all these years?”
He paused a moment and then said, “You have told her, I suppose?”
“I have told her nothing except that I am ready to come whenever we can arrange howI am to travel. Papa,” she said, with one of those sudden relentings which come in the way of our sternest displeasure with those we love—“O papa,” laying her hand on his arm, “why did you do it? I am obliged to let her think that I have been without a heart all my life—for I cannot bear it when any one blames you.”
“Frances,” he said, with a response equally sudden, putting his arm round her, “what will my life be without you? I have always trusted in you, depended on you without knowing it. Let Constance go back to her, and stay you with me.”
Frances had not been accustomed to many demonstrations of affection, and this moved her almost beyond her power of self-control. She put down her head upon her father’s shoulder and cried, “Oh, if we could only go back a week! but we can’t; no, nor even half a day. Things that might have been this morning, can’t be now, papa! I was very, very angry—oh, in a rage—when I read these letters. Why did you keep them from me? Why did you keep my mother from me? I wrote and told her everything, and then I tore upmy letter and told her nothing. But I can never be the same again,” said the girl, shaking her head with that conviction of the unchangeableness of a first trouble which is so strong in youth. “Now I know what it is to be one thing and appear another, and to bear blame and suffer for what you have not deserved.”
Waring repented his appeal to his child. He repented even the sudden impulse which had induced him to make it. He withdrew his arm from her with a sudden revulsion of feeling, and a recollection that Constance was not emotional, but a young woman of the world, who would understand many things which Frances did not understand. He withdrew his arm, and said somewhat coldly, “Show me what address you have put upon your mother’s letter. You must not make any mistake in that.”
Frances dried her eyes hastily, and felt the check. She put her letter before him without a word. It was addressed to Mrs Waring, no more.
“I thought so,” he said, with a laugh whichsounded harsh to the excited girl; “and, to be sure, you had no means of knowing. I told you your mother was a much more important person than I. You will see the difference between wealth and poverty, as well as between a father’s sway and a mother’s, when you go to Eaton Square. This is your mother’s address.” He wrote it hastily on a piece of paper and pushed it towards her. Frances had received many shocks and surprises in the course of these days, but scarcely one which was more startling to her simple mind than this. The paper which her father gave her did not bear his name. It was addressed to Lady Markham, Eaton Square, London. Frances turned to him an astonished gaze. “That is where—mamma is living?” she said.
“That is—your mother’s name and address,” he answered, coldly. “I told you she was a greater personage than I.”
“But, papa——”
“You are not aware,” he said, “that, according to the beautiful arrangements of society, a woman who makes a second marriage belowher is allowed to keep her first husband’s name. It is so, however. Lady Markham chose to avail herself of that privilege. That is all, I suppose? You can send your letter without any further reference to me.”
Frances went away without a word, treading softly, with a sort of suspense of life and thought. She could not tell how she felt or what it meant. She knew nothing about the arrangements of society. Did it mean something wrong, something that was impossible? Frances could not tell how that could be—that your father and mother should not only live apart, but have different names. A vague horror took possession of her mind. She went back to her room again, and stared at that strange piece of paper without knowing what to make of it. Lady Markham! It was not to that personage she had written her poor little simple letter. How could she say mother to a great lady, one who was not even of the same name? She was far too ignorant to know how little importance was to be attached to this. To Frances, a name was so much. Shehad never been taught anything but the primitive symbols, the innocently conventional alphabet of life. This new discovery filled her with a chill horror. She took her letter out of its envelope with the intention of destroying that too, and letting silence—that silence which had reigned over her life so long—fall again and for ever between her and the mother whose very name was not hers. But as this impulse swept over her, her eye caught one of the first of the little letters which had revealed this unknown woman to her. It was written in very large letters, such as a child might read, and in little words. “My darling, write to me; I long so for you.—Your loving Mother.” Her simple mind was swept by contending impulses, like strong winds carrying her now one way, now another. And unless it should be that unknown mother herself, there was nobody in the world to whom she could turn for counsel. Her heart revolted against Constance, and her father had been vexed, she could not tell how. She was incapable of betraying the secrets of the familyto any one beyond its range. What was she to do?
And all this because the mother, the source of so much disturbance in her little life, was Lady Markham and not Mrs Waring! But this, to the ignorance and simplicity of Frances, was the most incomprehensible mystery of all.
Waringwent out with Constance when the sun got low in the skies. He took a much longer walk than was at all usual to him, and pointed out to her many points of view. The paths that ran among the olive woods, the little terraces which cut up the sides of the hills, the cool grey foliage and gnarled trunks, the clumps of flowers—garden flowers in England, but here as wild, and rather more common than blades of grass—delighted her; and her talk delighted him. He had not gone so far for months; nor had he, he thought, for years found the time go so fast. It was very different from Frances’ mild attempts at conversation. “Do you think, papa?” “Do you remember, papa?”—so many references to events so trifling, and her little talk about Tasie’s plans and Mrs Gaunt’s news. Constance took him boldly into her life and told him what was going on inthe world. Ah, the world! That was the only world. He had said in his bitterness, again and again, that Society was as limited as any village, and duchesses curiously like washerwomen; but when he found himself once more on the edge of that great tumult of existence, he was like the old war-horse that neighs at the sound of the battle. He began to ask her questions about the people he had known. He had always been a shy, proud man, and had never thrown himself into the stream; but still there had been people who had known him and liked him, or whom he had liked: and gradually he awakened into animation and pleasure.
When they met the old General taking his stroll too, before dinner, that leathern old Indian was dazzled by the bright creature, who walked along between them, almost as tall as the two men, with her graceful careless step and independent ways, not deferring to them as the other ladies did, but leading the conversation. Even General Gaunt beganto think whether there was any one whom he could speak of, any one he had known, whom perhaps this young exponent of Society might know. She knew everybody. Even princes and princesses had no mystery for her. She told them what everybody said, with an air of knowing better, which in her meant no conceit or presumption, as in other young persons. Constance was quite unconscious of the possibility of being thus judged. She was not self-conscious at all. She was pleased to bring out her news for the advantage of the seniors. Frances was none the wiser when her sister told her the change that had come over the Grandmaisons, or how Lord Sunbury’s marriage had been brought about, and why people now had altered their hours for the Row. Frances listened; but she had never heard about Lord Sunbury’s marriage, nor why it should shock the elegant public. But the gentleman remembered his father, or they knew how young men commit themselves without intending it. It is not to be supposed that there was anything at allrisquéin Constance’s talk. She touched, indeed, upon the edge of scandals which had been in the newspapers, and therefore were known even to people in the Riviera; but she did it with the most absolute innocence, either not knowing or not understanding the evil. “I believe there was something wrong, but I don’t know what—mamma would never tell me,” she said. Her conversation was like a very light graceful edition of a Society paper—not then begun to be—with all the nastiness and almost all the malice left out. But not quite all; there was enough to be piquant. “I am afraid I am a little ill-natured; but I don’t like that man,” she would say now and then. When she said, “I don’t like that woman,” the gentlemen laughed. She was conscious of having a little success, and she was pleased too. Frances perhaps might be a better housekeeper, but Constance could not but think that in the equally important work of amusing papa she would be more successful than Frances. It was not much of a triumph, perhaps, for a girl who had known so many; but yet it was the only one asyet possible in the position in which she now was.
“I suppose it is settled that Frances is to go?” she said, as General Gaunt took the way to his bungalow, and she and her father turned towards home.
“She seems to have settled it for herself,” he said.
“I am always repeating she is so like mamma—that is exactly what mamma would have done. They are very positive. You and I, papa, are not positive at all.”
“I think, my dear, that coming off as you did by yourself, was very positive indeed—and the first step in the universal turning upside-down which has ensued.”
“I hope you are not sorry I came?”
“No, Constance; I am very glad to have you;” and this was quite true, although he had said to Frances something that sounded very different. Both things were true—both that he wished she had never left her mother; that he wished she might return to her mother, and leave Frances with him as of old; and that he was very glad to have her here.
“If I were to go back, would not everything settle down just as it was before?”
Then he thought of what Frances, taught by the keenness of a personal experience, had said to him a few hours ago. “No,” he said; “nothing can ever be as it was before. We never can go back to what has been, whether the event that has changed it has been happy or sad.”
“Oh, surely sometimes,” said Constance. “That is a dreadful way to talk of anything so trifling as my visit. It could not make any real difference, because all the facts are just the same as they were before.”
To this he made no reply. She had no way, thanks to Frances, of finding out how different the position was. And she went on, after a pause—“Have you settled how she is to go?”
“I have not even thought of that.”
“But, papa, you must think of it. She cannot go unless you manage it for her. Markham heard of those people coming, and that made it quite easy for me. If Markham were here——”
“Heaven forbid!”
“I have always heard you were prejudiced about Markham. I don’t think he is very safe myself. I have warned Frances, whatever she does, not to let herself get into his hands.”
“Frances in Markham’s hands! That is a thing I could not permit for a moment. Your mother may have a right to Frances’ society, but none to throw her into the companionship of——”
“Her brother, papa.”
“Her brother! Her step-brother, if you please—which I think scarcely a relationship at all.”
Waring’s prejudices, when they were roused, were strong. His daughter looked up in amazement at his sudden passion, the frown on his face, and the fire in his eye.
“You forget that I have been brought up with Markham,” she said. “He ismybrother; and he is a very good brother. There is nothing he will not do for me. I only warned Frances because—because she is different; because——”
“Because—she is a girl who ought not tobreathe the same air with a young reprobate—a young——”
“Papa! you are mistaken. I don’t know what Markham may have been; but he is not a reprobate. It was because Frances does not understand chaff, you know. She would think he was in earnest, and he is never in earnest. She would take him seriously, and nobody takes him seriously. But if you think he is bad, there is nobody who thinks that. He is not bad; he only has ways of thinking——”
“Which I hope my daughters will never share,” said Waring, with a little formality.
Constance raised her head as if to speak, but then stopped, giving him a look which said more than words, and added no more.
In the meantime, Frances had been left alone. She had directed her letter, and left it to be posted. That step was taken, and could no more be thought over. She was glad to have a little of her time to herself, which once had been all to herself. She did not like as yet to broach the subject of her departure to Mariuccia; but she thought it all over very anxiously, trying to find some way whichwould take the burden of the household off the shoulders of Constance, who was not used to it. She thought the best thing to do would be to write out a series ofmenus, which Mariuccia might suggest to Constance, or carry out upon her own responsibility, whichever was most practicable; and she resolved that various little offices, which she had herself fulfilled, might be transferred to Domenico without interfering with her father’s comfort. All these arrangements, though she turned them over very soberly in her mind, had a bewildering, dizzying effect upon her. She thought that it was as if she were going to die. When she went away out of the narrow enclosure of this world, which she knew, it would be to something so entirely strange to her that it would feel like another life. It would be as if she had died. She would not know anything; the surroundings, the companions, the habits, all would be strange. She would have to leave utterly behind her everything she had ever known. The thought was not melancholy, as is in almost all cases the thought of leaving “the warm precincts of the cheerful day”; it made her heartswell and rise with an anticipation which was full of excitement and pleasure, but which at the same time had the effect of making her brain swim.
She could not make to herself any picture of the world to which she was going. It would be softer, finer, more luxurious than anything she knew; but that was all. Of her mother, she did try to form some idea. She was acquainted only with mothers who were old. Mrs Durant, who wore a cap, encircling her face, and tied under her chin; and Mrs Gaunt, who had grandchildren who were as old as Frances. Her own mother could not be like either of these; but still she would be old, more or less—would wrap herself up when she went out, would have grey, or even perhaps white hair (which Frances liked in an old lady: Mrs Durant wore a front, and Mrs Gaunt was suspected of dyeing her hair), and would not care to move about more than she could help. She would go out “into Society” beautifully dressed with lace and jewels; and Frances grew more dizzy than ever, trying to imagine herself standing behind this magnificent old figure, like a maid of honour behind a queen. But it was difficult to imagine the details of a picture so completely vague. There was a general sense of splendour and novelty, a vague expectation of something delightful, which it was beyond her power to realise, but no more.
She had roused herself from the vague excitement of these dreams, which were very absorbing, though there was so little solidity in them, with a sudden fear that she was losing all the afternoon, and that it was time to prepare for dinner. She went to the corner of the loggia which commanded the road, to look out for Constance and her father. The road swept along below the Punto, leading to the town; and a smaller path traversing the little height, climbed upward to the platform on which the Palazzo stood. Frances did not at first remark, as in general every villager does, an unfamiliar figure making its way up this path. Her father and sister were not visible, and it was for them she was looking. Presently, however, her eye was caught by the stranger, no doubt an English tourist, with a glass in his eye—a little man, with a soft grey felt hat, which, when helifted his head to inspect the irregular structure of the old town, gave him something the air of a moving mushroom. His movements were somewhat irregular, as his eyes were fixed upon the walls, and did not serve to guide his feet, which stumbled continually on the inequalities of the path. His progress began to amuse her, as he came nearer, his head raised, his eyes fixed upon the buildings before him, his person executing a series of undulations like a ship in a storm. He climbed up at last to the height, and coming up to some women who were seated on the stone bench opposite to Frances on the loggia, began to ask them for instructions as to how he was to go.
The little scene amused Frances. The women were knitting, with a little cluster of children about them, scrambling upon the bench or on the dusty pathway at their feet. The stranger took off his big hat and addressed them with few words and many gestures. She heardcasaandInglese, but nothing else that was comprehensible. The women did their best to understand, and replied volubly. But here the little tourist evidently could not follow. He waslike so many tourist visitors, capable of asking his question, but incapable of understanding the answer given him. Then there arose a shrill little tempest of laughter, in which he joined, and of which Frances herself could not resist the contagion. Perhaps a faint echo from the loggia caught the ear of one of the women, who knew her well, and who immediately pointed her out to the stranger. The little man turned round and made a few steps towards the Palazzo. He took off the mushroom-top of grey felt, and presented to her an ugly, little, vivacious countenance. “I beg you ten thousand pardons,” he said; “but if you speak English, as I understand them to say, will you be so very kind as to direct me to the house of Mr Waring? Ah, I am sure you are both English and kind! They tell me he lives near here.”
Frances looked down from her height demurely, suppressing the too ready laugh, to listen to this queer little man; but his question took her very much by surprise. Another stranger asking for Mr Waring! But oh, so very different a one from Constance—an odd,little, ugly man, looking up at her in a curious one-sided attitude, with his glass in his eye. “He lives here,” she said.
“What? Where?” He had replaced his mushroom on his head, and he cocked up towards her one ear, the ear upon the opposite side to the eye which wore the glass.
“Here!” cried Frances, pointing to the house, with a laugh which she could not restrain.
The stranger raised his eyebrows so much and so suddenly that his glass fell. “Oh!” he cried—but the biggest O, round as the O of Giotto, as the Italians say. He paused there some time, looking at her, his mouth retaining the shape of that exclamation; and then he cast an investigating glance along the wall, and asked, “How am I to get in?”
“Nunziata, show the gentleman the door,” cried Frances to one of the women on the bench. She lingered a moment, to look again down the road for her father. It was true that nothing could be so wonderful as what had already happened; but it seemed that surprises were not yet over. Would this be someone else who had known him, who was arriving full of the tale that had been told, and was a mystery no longer—some “old friend” like Mr Mannering, who would not be satisfied without betraying the harmless hermit, whom some chance had led him to discover? There was some bitterness in Frances’ thoughts. She had not remembered the Mannerings before, in the rush of other things to think of. The fat ruddy couple, so commonplace and so comfortable! Was it all their doing? Were they to blame for everything? for the conclusion of one existence, and the beginning of another? She went in to the drawing-room and sat down there, to be ready to receive the visitor. He could not be so important—that was impossible; there could be no new mystery to record.
When the door opened and Domenico solemnly ushered in the stranger, Frances, although her thoughts were not gay, could scarcely help laughing again. He carried his big grey mushroom-top now in his hand; and the little round head which had been covered with it seemed incomplete without that thatch. Frances felt herself looking from the head tothe hat with a ludicrous sense of this incompleteness. He had a small head, thinly covered with light hair, which seemed to grow in tufts like grass. His eyes twinkled keen, two very bright grey eyes, from the puckers of eyelids which looked old, as if he had got them second-hand. There was a worn and wrinkled look about him altogether, carried out in his dress, and even in his boots, which suggested the same idea. An old man who looked young, or a young man who looked old. She could not make out which he was. He did not bow and hesitate, and announce himself as a friend of her father’s, as she expected him to do, but came up to her briskly with a quick step, but a shuffle in his gait.
“I suppose I must introduce myself,” he said; “though it is odd that we should need an introduction to each other, you and I. After the first moment, I should have known you anywhere. You are quite like my mother. Frances, isn’t it? And I’m Markham, of course, you know.”
“Markham!” cried Frances. She had thought she could never be surprised again, after allthat had happened. But she felt herself more astonished than ever now.
“Yes, Markham. You think I am not much to look at, I can see. I am not generally admired at the first glance. Shake hands, Frances. You don’t quite feel like giving me a kiss, I suppose, at the first offset? Never mind. We shall be very good friends, after a while.”
He sat down, drawing a chair close to her. “I am very glad to find you by yourself. I like the looks of you. Where is Con? Taken possession of the governor, and left you alone to keep house, I should suppose?”
“Constance has gone out to walk with papa. I had several things to do.”
“I have not the least doubt of it. That would be the usual distribution of labour, if you remained together. Fan, my mother has sent me to fetch you home.”
Frances drew a little farther away. She gave him a look of vague alarm. The familiarity of the address troubled her. But when she looked at him again, her gravity gave way. He was such a queer, such a very queer little man.
“You may laugh if you like, my dear,” he said. “I am used to it. Providence—always the best judge, no doubt—has not given me an awe-inspiring countenance. It is hard upon my mother, who is a pretty woman. But I accept the position, for my part. This is a charming place. You have got a number of nice things. And those little sketches are very tolerable. Who did them? You? Waring, so far as I remember, used to draw very well himself. I am glad you draw; it will give you a little occupation. I like the looks of you, though I don’t think you admire me.”
“Indeed,” said Frances, troubled, “it is because I am so much surprised. Are you really—are you sure you are——”
He gave a little chuckle, which made her start—an odd, comical, single note of laughter, very cordial and very droll, like the little man himself.
“I’ve got a servant with me,” he said, “down at the hotel, who knows that I go by the name of Markham when I’m at home. I don’t know if that will satisfy you. But Con, to be sure, knows me, which will be better.You don’t hear any voice of nature saying within your breast, ‘This is my long-lost brother?’ That’s a pity. But by-and-by, you’ll see, we’ll be very good friends.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that I had any doubt. It is so great a surprise—one thing after another.”
“Now, answer me one question: Did you know anything about your family before Con came? Ah,” he said, catching her alarmed and wondering glance, “I thought not. I have always said so:—he never told you. And it has all burst upon you in a moment, you poor little thing. But you needn’t be afraid of us. My mother has her faults; but she is a nice woman. You will like her. And I am very queer to look at, and many people think I have a screw loose. But I’m not bad to live with. Have you settled it with the governor? Has he made many objections? He and I never drew well together. Perhaps you know?”
“He does not speak as if—he liked you. But I don’t know anything. I have not been told—much. Please don’t ask me things,” Frances cried.
“No, I will not. On the contrary, I’ll tellyou everything. Con probably would put a spoke in my wheel too. My dear little Fan, don’t mind any of them. Give me your little hand. I am neither bad nor good. I am very much what people make me. I am nasty with the nasty sometimes—more shame to me: and disagreeable with the disagreeable. But I am innocent with the innocent,” he said with some earnestness; “and that is what you are, unless my eyes deceive me. You need not be afraid of me.”
“I am not afraid,” said Frances, looking at him. Then she added, after a pause, “Not of you, nor of any one. I have never met any bad people. I don’t believe any one would do me harm.”
“Nor I,” he said with a little fervour, patting her hand with his own. “All the same,” he added, after a moment, “it is perhaps wise not to give them the chance. So I’ve come to fetch you home.”
Frances, as she became accustomed to this remarkable new member of her family, began immediately, after her fashion, to think of the material necessities of the case. She could notstart with him at once on the journey; and in the meantime where should she put him? The most natural thing seemed to be to withdraw again from the blue room, and take the little one behind, which looked out on the court. That would do, and no one need be any the wiser. She said, with a little hesitation, “I must go now and see about your room.”
“Room!” he cried. “Oh no; there’s no occasion for a room. I wouldn’t trouble you for the world. I have got rooms at the hotel. I’ll not stay even, since daddy’s out, to meet him. You can tell him I’m here, and what I came for. If he wants to see me, he can look me up. I am very glad I have seenyou. I’ll write to the mother to-night to say you’re quite satisfactory, and a credit to all your belongings; and I’ll come to-morrow to see Con; and in the meantime, Fan, you must settle when you are to come; for it is an awkward time for a man to be loafing about here.”
He got up as he spoke, and stooping, gave her a serious brotherly kiss upon her forehead. “I hope you and I will be very great friends,” he said.
And then he was gone! Was he a dream only, an imagination? But he was not the sort of figure that imagination produces. No dream-man could ever be so comical to behold, could ever wear a coat so curiously wrinkled, or those boots, in the curves of which the dust lay as in the inequalities of the dry and much-frequented road.
Thewalk with Constance, though he had set out upon it reluctantly, had done Waring great good. He was comparatively rehabilitated in his own eyes. Between her and him there was no embarrassment, no uneasy consciousness. She had paid him the highest compliment by taking refuge with him, flying to his protection from the tyranny of her mother, and giving him thus a victory as sweet as unexpected over that nearest yet furthest of all connections, that inalienable antagonist in life. He had been painfully put out ofson assiette, as the French say. Instead of the easy superiority which he had held not only in his own house, but in the limited society about, he had been made to stand at the bar, first by his own child, afterwards by the old clergyman, for whom he entertained a kindly contempt. Both of these simple wits had called upon him to account for his conduct. It was the most extraordinary turning of the tables that ever had occurred to a man like himself. And though he had spoken the truth when in that moment of melting he had taken his little girl into his arms and bidden her stay with him, he was yet glad now to get away from Frances, to feel himself occupying his proper place with her sister, and to return thus to a more natural state of affairs. The intercourse between him and his child-companion had been closer than ever could, he believed, exist between him and any other human being whatsoever; but it had been rent in twain by all the concealments which he was conscious of, by all the discoveries which circumstances had forced upon her. He could no longer be at his ease with her, or she regard him as of old. The attachment was too deep, the interruption too hard, to be reconcilable with that calm which is necessary to ordinary existence. Constance had restored him to herself by herpleasant indifference, her easy talk, her unconsciousness of everything that was not usual and natural. He began to think that if Frances were but away—since she wished to go—a new life might begin—a life in which there would be nothing below the surface, no mystery, which is a mistake in ordinary life. It would be difficult, no doubt, for a brilliant creature like Constance to content herself with the humdrum life which suited Frances; and whether she would condescend to look after his comforts, he did not know. But so long as Mariuccia was there, he could not suffer much materially; and she was a very amusing companion, far more so than her sister. As he came back to the Palazzo, he was reconciled to himself.
This comfortable state of mind, however, did not last long. Frances met them at the door with her face full of excitement. “Did you meet him?” she said. “You must have met him. He has not been gone ten minutes.”
“Meet whom? We met no one but the General.”
“I think I know,” cried Constance. “I have been expecting him every day—Markham.”
“He says he has come to fetch me, papa.”
“Markham!” cried Waring. His face clouded over in a moment. It is not easy to get rid of the past. He had accomplished it for a dozen years; and after a very bad moment, he thought he was about to shuffle it off again; but it was evident that in this he was premature. “I will not allow you to go with Markham,” he said. “Don’t say anything more. Your mother ought to have known better. He is not an escort I choose for my daughter.”
“Poor old Markham! he is a very nice escort,” said Constance, in her easy way. “There is no harm in him, papa. But never mind till after dinner, and then we can talk it over. You are ready, Fan? Oh, then I must fly. We have had a delightful walk. I never knew anything about fathers before; they are the most charming companions,” she said, kissing her hand to him as she went away. But this did not mollify the angry man. There rose up before him the recollection of a hundred contests in which Markham’s voice had come in to make everythingworse, or of which Markham’s escapades had been the cause.
“I will not see him,” he said; “I will not sanction his presence here. You must give up the idea of going altogether, till he is out of the way.”
“I think, papa, you must see him.”
“Must—there is nomust. I have not been in the habit of acknowledging compulsion, and be assured that I shall not begin now. You seem to expect that your small affairs are to upset my whole life!”
“I suppose,” said Frances, “my affairs are small; but then they are my life too.”
She ought to have been subdued into silence by his first objection; but, on the contrary, she met his angry eyes with a look which was deprecating, but not abject, holding her little own. It was a long time since Waring had encountered anything which he could not subdue and put aside out of his path. But, he said to himself—all that long restrained and silent temper which had once reigned and raged within him, springing up again unsubdued—he might haveknown! The moment long deferred, yet inevitable, which brought him in contact once more with his wife, could bring nothing with it but pain. Strife breathed from her wherever she appeared. He had never been a match for her and her boy, even at his best; and now that he had forgotten the ways of battle—now that his strength was broken with long quiet, and the sword had fallen from his hand—she had a pull over him now which she had not possessed before. He could have done without both the children a dozen years ago. He was conscious that it was more from self-assertion than from love that he had carried off the little one, who was rather an embarrassment than a pleasure in those days—because he would not let her have everything her own way. But now, Frances was no longer a creature without identity, not a thing to be handed from one to another. He could not free himself of interest in her, of responsibility for her, of feeling his honour and credit implicated in all that concerned her. Ah! that woman knew. She had a hold upon him that she never had before; and the first use she made of it was to insulthim—to send her son, whom he hated, for his daughter, to force him into unwilling intercourse with her family once more.
Frances took the opportunity to steal away while her father gloomily pursued these thoughts. What a change from the tranquillity which nothing disturbed! now one day after another, there was some new thing that stirred up once more the original pain. There was no end to it. The mother’s letters at one moment, the brother’s arrival at another, and no more quiet whatever could be done, no more peace.
Nevertheless, dinner and the compulsory decorum which surrounds that great daily event, had its usual tranquillising effect. Waring could not shut out from his mind the consciousness that to refuse to see his wife’s son, the brother of his own children, was against all the decencies of life. It is easy to say that you will not acknowledge social compulsion, but it is not so easy to carry out that determination. By the time that dinner was over, he had begun to perceive that it was impossible. He took no part, indeed, in theconversation, lightly maintained, by Constance, about her brother, made short replies even when he was directly addressed, and kept up more or less the lowering aspect with which he had meant to crush Frances. But Frances was not crushed, and Constance was excited and gay. “Let us send for him after dinner,” she said. “He is always amusing. There is nothing Markham does not know. I have seen nobody for a fortnight, and no doubt a hundred things have happened. Do send for Markham, Frances. Oh, you must not look at papa. I know papa is not fond of him. Dear! if you think one can be fond of everybody one meets—especially one’s connections. Everybody knows that you hate half of them. That makes it piquant. There is nobody you can say such spiteful things to as people whom you belong to, whom you call by their Christian names.”
“That is a charming Christian sentiment—entirely suited to the surroundings you have been used to, Con; but not to your sister’s.”
“Oh, my sister! She has heard plenty of hard things said of that good little Tasie, whois her chief friend. Frances would not say them herself. She doesn’t know how. But her surroundings are not so ignorant. You are not called upon to assume so much virtue, papa.”
“I think you forget a little to whom you are speaking,” said Waring, with quick anger.
“Papa!” cried Constance, with an astonished look, “I think it is you who forget. We are not in the middle ages. Mamma failed to remember that. I hope you have not forgotten too, or I shall be sorry I came here.”
He looked at her with a sudden gleam of rage in his eyes. That temper which had fallen into disuse was no more overcome than when all this trouble began; but he remained silent, putting force upon himself, though he could not quite conceal the struggle. At last he burst into an angry laugh: “You will train me, perhaps, in time to the subjection which is required from the nineteenth-century parent,” he said.
“You are charming,” said his daughter, with a bow and smile across the table. “There is only this lingering trace of medievalism in respect to Markham. But you know, papa, really a feudcan’t exist in these days. Now, answer me yourself; can it? It would subject us all to ridicule. My experience is that people as a rule arenotfond of each other; but to show it is quite a different thing. Oh no, papa; no one can do that.”
She was so certain of what she said, so calm in the enunciation of her dogmas, that he only looked at her and made no other reply. And when Constance appealed to Frances whether Domenico should not be sent to the hotel to call Markham, he avoided the inquiring look which Frances cast at him. “If papa has no objection,” she said with hesitation and alarm. “Oh, papa can have no objection,” Constance cried; and the message was sent; and Markham came. Frances, frightened, made many attempts to excuse herself; but her father would neither see nor hear the efforts she made. He retired to the bookroom, while the girls entertained their visitor on the loggia; or rather, while he entertained them. Waring heard the voices mingled with laughter, as we all hear the happier intercourse of others when we are ourselves in gloomy opposition, nursing our wrath.He thought they were all the more lively, all the more gay, because he was displeased. Even Frances. He forgot that he had made up his mind that Frances had better go (as she wished to go), and felt that she was a little monster to take so cordially to the stranger whom she knew he disliked and disapproved. Nevertheless, in spite of this irritation and misery, the little lecture of Constance on what was conventionally necessary had so much effect upon him, that he appeared on the loggia before Markham went away, and conquered himself sufficiently to receive, if not to make much response to the salutations which his wife’s son offered. Markham jumped up from his seat with the greatest cordiality, when this tall shadow appeared in the soft darkness. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you, sir, after all these years. I hope I am not such a nuisance as I was when you knew me before—at the age when all males should be kept out of sight of their seniors, as the sage says.”
“What sage was that? Ah! his experience was all at second-hand.”
“Not like yours, sir,” said Markham. Andthen there was a slight pause, and Constance struck in.
“Markham is a great institution to people who don’t get the ‘Morning Post.’ He has told me a heap of things. In a fortnight, when one is not on the spot, it is astonishing what quantities of things happen. In town one gets used to having one’s gossip hot and hot every day.”
“The advantage of abstinence is that you get up such an appetite for your next meal. I had only a few items of news. My mother gave me many messages for you, sir. She hopes you will not object to trust little Frances to my care.”
“I object—to trust my child to any one’s care,” said Waring, quickly.
“I beg your pardon. You intend, then, to take my sister to England yourself,” the stranger said.
It was dark, and their faces were invisible to each other; but the girls looking on saw a momentary swaying of the tall figure towards the smaller one, which suggested something like a blow. Frances had nearly sprung from her seat; but Constance put out her hand andrestrained her. She judged rightly. Passion was strong in Waring’s mind. He could, had inclination prevailed, have seized the little man by the coat, and pitched him out into the road below. But bonds were upon him more potent than if they had been made of iron.
“I have no such intention,” he said. “I should not have sent her at all. But it seems she wishes to go. I will not interfere with her arrangements. But she must have some time to prepare.”
“As long as she likes, sir,” said Markham, cheerfully. “A few days more out of the east wind will be delightful to me.”
And no more passed between them. Waring strolled about the loggia with his cigarette. Though Frances had made haste to provide a new chair as easy as the other, he had felt himself dislodged, and had not yet settled into a new place; and when he joined them in the evening, he walked about or sat upon the wall, instead of lounging in indolent comfort, as in the old quiet days. On this evening he stood at the corner, looking down upon the lights of the Marina in the distance, and the greytwinkle of the olives in the clear air of the night. The poor neighbours of the little town were still on the Punto, enjoying the coolness of the evening hours; and the murmur of their talk rose on one side, a little softened by distance; while the group on the loggia renewed its conversation close at hand. Waring stood and listened with a contempt which he partially knew to be unjust. But he was sore and bitter, and the ease and gaiety seemed a kind of insult to him, one of many insults which he was of opinion he had received from his wife’s son. “Confounded little fool,” he said to himself.
But Constance was right in her worldly wisdom. It would make them all ridiculous if he made objections to Markham, if he showed openly his distaste to him. The world was but a small world at Bordighera; but yet it was not without its power. The interrupted conversation went on with great vigour. He remarked with a certain satisfaction that Frances talked very little; but Constance and her brother—as he called himself, the puppy!—never paused. There is no such position for seeing the worst ofordinary conversation. Waring stood looking out blankly upon the bewildering lines of the hills towards the west, with the fresh breeze in his face, and his cigarette only kept alight by a violent puff now and then, listening to the lively chatter. How vacant it was—about this one and that one; about So-and-so’s peculiarities; about things not even made clear, which each understood at half a word, which made them laugh. Good heavens! at what? Not at the wit of it, for there was no wit—at some ludicrous image involved, which to the listener was dull, dull as the village chatter on the other side; but more dull, more vapid in its artificial ring. How they echoed each other, chiming in; how they remembered anecdotes to the discredit of their friends; how they ran on in the same circle endlessly, with jests that were without point even to Frances, who sat listening in an eager tension of interest, but could not keep up to the height of the talk, which was all about people she did not know—and still more without point to Waring, who had known, but knew no longer, and who was angry and mortified andbitter, feeling his supremacy taken from him in his own house, and all his habits shattered: yet knew very well that he could not resist, that to show his dislike would only make him ridiculous; that he was once more subject to Society, and dare not show his contempt for its bonds.
After a while, he flung his half-finished cigarette over the wall, and stalked away, with a brief, “Excuse me, but I must say good-night.” Markham sprang up from his chair; but his step-father only waved his hand to the little party sitting in the evening darkness, and went away, his footsteps sounding upon the marble floor through thesaloneand the ante-room, closing the doors behind him. There was a little silence as he disappeared.
“Well,” said Markham, with a long-drawn breath, “that’s over, Con; and better than might have been expected.”
“Better! Do you call that better? I should say almost as bad as could be. Why didn’t you stand up to him and have it out?”
“My dear, he always cows me a little,” said Markham. “I remember times when I stoodup to him, as you say, with that idiotcy of youth in which you are so strong, Con; but I think I generally came off second-best. Our respected papa has a great gift of language when he likes.”
“He does not like now, he is too old; he has given up that sort of thing. Ask Frances. She thinks him the mildest of pious fathers.”
“If you please,” said the little voice of Frances out of the gloom, with a little quiver in it, “I wish you would not speak about papa so, before me. It is perhaps quite right of you, who have no feeling for him, or don’t know him very well; but with me it is quite different. Whether you are right or wrong, I cannot have it, please.”
“The little thing is quite right, Con,” said Markham. “I beg your pardon, little Fan. I have a great respect for papa, though he has none for me. Too old! He is not so old as I am, and a much more estimable member of society. He is not old enough—that is the worst of it—for you and me.”
“I am not going to encourage her in her nonsense,” said Constance, “as if one’s father or mother was something sacred, as if they were not just human beings like ourselves. But apart from that, as I have told Frances, I think very well of papa.”