“Whereis George? I scarcely ever see him,” said the General, in querulous tones. “He is always after that girl of Waring’s. Why don’t you try to keep him at home?”
Mrs Gaunt did not say that she had done her best to keep him at home, but found her efforts unsuccessful. She said apologetically, “He has so very little to amuse him here; and the music, you know, is a great bond.”
“He plays like a beginner; and she, like a—like a—as well as a professional, I don’t understand what kind of bond that can be.”
“So much the greater a compliment is it to George that she likes his playing,” responded the mother promptly.
“She likes to make a fool of him, I think,” the General said; “and you help her on. Idon’t understand your tactics. Women generally like to keep their sons free from such entanglements; and after getting him safely out of India, where every man is bound to fall into mischief——”
“Oh, my dear,” said Mrs Gaunt, “if it ever should come to that—think, what an excellent connection. I wish it had been Frances; I do wish it had been Frances. I had always set my heart on that. But the connection would be the same.”
“You knew nothing about the connection when you set your heart on Frances. And I can’t help thinking there is something odd about the connection. Why should that girl have come here, and why should the other one be spirited away like a transformation scene?”
“Well, my dear, it is in the peerage,” said Mrs Gaunt. “Great families, we all know, are often very queer in their arrangements. But there can be no doubt it is all right, for it is in the peerage. If it had been Frances, I should have been too happy. With such a connection, he could not fail to get on.”
“He had much better get on by his own merits,” retorted the General with a grumble. “Frances! Frances was not to be compared with this girl. But I don’t believe she means anything more than amusing herself,” he added. “This is not the sort of girl to marry a poor soldier without a penny—not she. She will take her fun out of him, and then——”
The General kissed the end of his fingers and tossed them into the air. He was, perhaps, a little annoyed that his son had stepped in and monopolised the most amusing member of the society. And perhaps he did not think so badly of George’s chances as he said.
“You may be sure,” said Mrs Gaunt, indignantly, “she will do nothing of the kind. It is not every day that a girl gets a fine fellow like our George at her feet. He is just a little too much at her feet, which is always a mistake, I think. But still, General, you cannot but allow that Lord Markham’s sister——”
“I have never seen much good come of great connections,” said the General; but though his tone was that of a sceptic, his mind was softer than his speech. He, too, felt a certain elationin the thought that the youngest, who was not the clever one of the family, and who had not been quite so steady as might have been desired, was thus in the way of putting himself above the reach of fate. For of course, to be brother-in-law to a viscount was a good thing. It might not be of the same use as in the days when patronage ruled supreme; but still it would be folly to suppose that it was not an advantage. It would admit George to circles with which otherwise he could have formed no acquaintance, and make him known to people who could push him in his profession. George was the one about whom they had been most anxious. All the others were doing well in their way, though it was not a way which threw them into contact with viscounts or fine society. George would be over all their heads in that respect, and he was the one that wanted it most,—he was the one who was most dependent on outside aid.
“I don’t quite understand,” said Mrs Gaunt, “what Constance’ position is. She ought to be the Honourable, don’t you think? The Honourable Constance sounds very pretty. Itwould come in very nicely with Gaunt, which is an aristocratic-sounding name. People may say what they like about titles, but they are very nice, there is such individuality in them. Mrs George might be anybody; it might be me, as your name is George too. But the Honourable would distinguish it at once. When she called here, there was only Miss Constance Waring written on her father’s card; but then you don’t put Honourable on your card; and as Lady Markham’s daughter——”
“Women don’t count,” said the General, “as I’ve often told you. She’s Waring’s daughter.”
“Mr Waring may be a very clever man,” said Mrs Gaunt, indignantly; “but I should like to know how Constance can be the daughter of a viscountess in her own right without——”
“Is she a viscountess in her own right?”
This question brought Mrs Gaunt to a sudden pause. She looked at him with a startled air. “It is not through Mr Waring, that is clear,” she said.
“But it is not in her own right—at least I don’t think so; it is through her first husband,the father of that funny little creature” (meaning Lord Markham).
“General!” said Mrs Gaunt, shocked. Then she added, “I must make some excuse to look at the Peerage this afternoon. The Durants have always got their Peerage on the table. We shall have to send for one too, if——”
“If what? If your boy gets a wife who has titled connections, for that is all. A wife! and what is he to keep her on, in the name of heaven?”
“Mothers and brothers are tolerably close connections,” said Mrs Gaunt with dignity. “He has got his pay, General; and you always intended, if he married to your satisfaction—— Of course,” she added, speaking very quickly, to forestall an outburst, “Lady Markham will not leave her daughter dependent upon a captain’s pay. And even Mr Waring—Mr Waring must have a fortune of his own, or—or a person like that would never have married him; and he would not be able to live as he does, very comfortably, even luxuriously——”
“Oh, I suppose he has enough to live on.But as for pinching himself in order to enable his girl to marry your boy, I don’t believe a word of it,” exclaimed the General. Fortunately, being carried away by this wave of criticism, he had forgotten his wife’s allusion to his own intentions in George’s favour; and this was a subject on which she had no desire to be premature.
“Well, General,” she said, “perhaps we are going a little too fast. We don’t know yet whether anything will come of it. George is rather a lady’s man. It may be only a flirtation; it may end in nothing. We need not begin to count our chickens——”
“Why, it was you!” cried the astonished General. “I never should have remarked anything about it, or wasted a moment’s thought on the subject!”
Mrs Gaunt was not a clever woman, skilled in the art of leaving conversational responsibilities on the shoulders of her interlocutor; but if a woman is not inspired on behalf of her youngest boy, when is she to be inspired? She gave her shoulders the slightest possible shrug and left him to his newspaper. They had anewspaper from England every morning—the ‘Standard,’ whose reasonable Conservatism suited the old General. Except in military matters, such questions as the advance of Russia towards Afghanistan, or the defences of our own coasts, the General was not a bigot, and preferred his politics mild, with as little froth and foam as possible. His newspaper afforded him occupation for the entire morning, and he enjoyed it in very pleasant wise, seated under his veranda with a faint suspicion of lemon-blossom in the air which ruffled the young olive-trees all around, and the blue breadths of the sea stretching far away at his feet. The garden behind was fenced in with lemon and orange trees, the fruit in several stages, and just a little point of blossom here and there, not enough to load the air. Mrs Gaunt had preserved the wild flowers that were natural to the place, and accordingly had a scarlet field of anemones which wanted no cultivation, and innumerable clusters of the sweet white narcissus filling her little enclosure. These cost no trouble, and left Toni, the man-of-all-work, at leisure for the more profitable culture of the olives. From where the Generalsat, there was nothing visible, however, but the terraces descending in steps towards the distant glimpse of the road, and the light-blue margin, edged with spray, of the sea—under a soft and cheering sun, that warmed to the heart, but did not scorch or blaze, and with a soft air playing about his old temples, breathing freshness and that lemon-bloom. Sometimes there would come a faint sound of voices from some group of workers among the olives. The little clump of palm-trees at the end of the garden—for nothing here is perfect without a palm or two—cast a fantastic shadow, that waved over the newspaper now and then. When a man is old and has done his work, what can he want more than this sweet retirement and stillness? But naturally, it was not all that was necessary to young Captain George.
Mrs Gaunt went over to the Durants in the afternoon, as she so often did, and found that family, as usual, on their loggia. It cost her a little trouble and diplomacy to get a private inspection of the Peerage, and even when she did so, it threw but little light upon her question. Geoffrey Viscount Markham, tenthlord, was a name which she read with a little flutter of her heart, feeling that he was already almost a relation; and she read over the names of Markham Priory and Dunmorra, his lodge in the Highlands, and the town address in Eaton Square, all with a sense that by-and-by she might herself be directing letters from one or other of these places. But the Peerage said nothing about the Dowager Lady Markham subsequent to the conclusion of the first marriage, except that she had married again, E. Waring, Esq.; and thus Mrs Gaunt’s studies came to no satisfactory end. She introduced the subject, however, in the course of tea. She had asked whether any one had heard from Frances, and had received a satisfactory reply.
“Oh yes; I have had two letters; but she does not say very much. They had gone down to the Priory for Easter; and she was to be presented at the first drawing-room. Fancy Frances in a Court train and feathers, at a drawing-room! It does seem so very strange,” Tasie said. She said it with a slight sigh, for it was she, in old times, who had expounded Society to little Frances, and taught her whatin an emergency it would be right to do and say; and now little Frances had taken a stride in advance. “I asked her to write and tell us all about it, and what she wore.”
“It would be white, of course.”
“Oh yes, it would be white—adébutante. WhenIwent to drawing-rooms,” said Mrs Durant, who had once, in the character of chaplainess to an Embassy, made her courtesy to her Majesty, “young ladies’ toilets were simpler than now. Frances will probably be in white satin, which, except for a wedding dress, is quite unsuitable, I think, for a girl.”
“I wonder if we shall see it in the papers? Sometimes my sister-in-law sends me a ‘Queen,’”said Mrs Gaunt, “when she thinks there is something in it which will interest me; but she does not know anything about Frances. Dear little thing, I can’t think of her in white satin. Her sister, now——”
“Constance would wear velvet, if she could—or cloth-of-gold,” cried Tasie, with a little irritation. Her mother gave her a reproving glance.
“There is a tone in your voice, Tasie, which is not kind.”
“Oh yes; I know, mamma. But Constance is rather a trial. I know one ought not to show it. She looks as if one was not good enough to tie her shoes. And after all, she is no better than Frances; she is not half so nice as Frances; but I mean there can be no difference of position between sisters—one is just as good as the other; and Frances was so fond of coming here.”
“Do you think Constance gives herself airs? Oh no, dear Tasie,” said Mrs Gaunt, “she is really not at all—when you come to know her. I am most fond of Frances myself. Frances has grown up among us, and we know all about her; that is what makes the difference. And Constance—is a little shy.”
At this there was a cry from the family. “I don’t think she is shy,” said the old clergyman, whom Constance had insulted by walking out of church before the sermon.
“Shy!” exclaimed Mrs Durant, “about as shy as——” But no simile occurred to her which was bold enough to meet the case.
“It is better she should not be shy,” said Tasie. “You remember how she drove thosepeople from the hotel to church. They have come ever since. They are quite afraid of her. Oh, there are some good things in her, someverygood things.”
“We are the more hard to please, after knowing Frances,” repeated Mrs Gaunt. “But when a girl has been like that, used to the best society—— By the way, Mr Durant, you who know everything, are sure to know—Is she the Honourable? For my part I can’t quite make it out.”
Mr Durant put on his spectacles to look at her, as if such a question passed the bounds of the permissible. He was very imposing when he looked at any one through those spectacles with an air of mingled astonishment and superiority. “Why should she be an Honourable?” he said.
Mrs Gaunt felt as if she would like to sink into the abysses of the earth—that is, through the floor of the loggia, whatever might be the dreadful depths underneath. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said meekly. “I—I only thought—her mother being a—a titled person, a—a viscountess in her own right——”
“But mydearlady,” said Mr Durant, with a satisfaction in his superior knowledge which was almost unspeakable, “Lady Markham isnota viscountess in her own right. Dear, no! She is not a viscountess at all. She is plain Mrs Waring, and nothing else, if right was right. Society only winks good-naturedly at her retaining the title, which she certainly, if there is any meaning in the peerage at all, forfeits by marrying a commoner.”
Mrs Durant and Tasie both looked with great admiration at their head and instructor as he thus spoke. “You may be sure Mr Durant says nothing that he is not quite sure of,” said the wife, crushing any possible scepticism on the part of the inquirer; and “Papa knows such a lot,” added Tasie, awed, yet smiling, on her side.
“Oh, is that all?” said Mrs Gaunt, greatly subdued. “But then, Lord Markham—calls her his sister, you know.”
“The nobility,” said Mr Durant, “are always very scrupulous about relationships; and sheishis step-sister. He couldn’t qualify the relationship by calling her so. A common personmight do so, but not a man of high breeding, like Lord Markham—that is all.”
“I suppose you must be right,” said Mrs Gaunt. “The General said so too. But it does seem very strange to me that of the same woman’s children, and she a lady of title, one should be a lord, and the other have no sort of distinction at all.” They all smiled upon her blandly, every one ready with a new piece of information, and much sympathy for her ignorance, which Mrs Gaunt, seeing that it was she that was likely to be related to Lord Markham, and not any of the Durants, felt that she could not bear; so she jumped up hastily and declared that she must be going, that the General would be waiting for her. “I hope you will come over some evening, and I will ask the Warings, and Tasie must bring her music. I am sure you would like to hear George’s violin. He is getting on so well, with Constance to play his accompaniments;” and before any one could reply to her, Mrs Gaunt had hurried away.
It is painful not to have time to get out your retort; and these excellent people turned instinctively upon each other to discharge theunflown arrows. “It is so very easy, with a little trouble, to understand the titles, complimentary and otherwise, of our own nobility,” said Mr Durant, shaking his head.
“And such a sign of want of breeding not to understand them,” said his wife.
“The Honourable Constance would sound very pretty,” cried Tasie; “it is such a pity.”
“Especially, our friend thinks, if it was the Honourable Constance Gaunt.”
“That she could never be, my dear,” said the old clergyman mildly. “She might be the Honourable Mrs Gaunt; but Constance, no—not in any case.”
“I should like to know why,” Mrs Durant said.
Perhaps here the excellent chaplain’s knowledge failed him; or he had become weary of the subject; for he rose and said, “I have really no more time for a matter which does not concern us,” and trotted away.
The mother and daughter left alone together, naturally turned to a point more interesting than the claims of Constance to rank. “Do you really think, mamma,” said Tasie—“do youreally, really think,—it is silly to be always discussing these sort of questions—but do you believe that Constance Waring actually—means anything?”
“You should say does George Gaunt mean anything? The girl never comes first in such a question,” said Mrs Durant, with that ingrained contempt for girls which often appears in elderly women. Tasie was so (traditionally) young, besides having a heart of sixteen in her bosom, that her sympathies were all with the girl.
“I don’t think in this case, mamma,” she said. “Constance is so much more a person of the world than any of us. I don’t mean to say she is worldly. Oh no! but having been in society, and so muchout.”
“I should like to know in what kind of society she has been,” said Mrs Durant, who took gloomy views. “I don’t want to say a word against Lady Markham; but society, Tasie, the kind of society to which your father and I have been accustomed, looks rather coldly upon a wife living apart from her husband. Oh, I don’t mean to say Lady Markham wasto blame. Probably she is a most excellent person; but the presumption is that at least, you know, there were—faults on both sides.”
“I am sure I can’t give an opinion,” cried Tasie, “for, of course, I don’t know anything about it. But George Gaunt has nothing but his pay; and Constance couldn’t be in love with him, could she? Oh no! I don’t know anything about it; but I can’t think a girl like Constance——”
“A girl in a false position,” said the chaplain’s wife, “is often glad to marry any one, just for a settled place in the world.”
“Oh, but not Constance, mamma! I am sure she is just amusing herself.”
“Tasie! you speak as if she were the man,” exclaimed Mrs Durant, in a tone of reproof.
Thesubjects of these consultations were at the moment in the full course of a sonata, and oblivious of everything else in the world but themselves, their music, and their concerns generally. A fortnight had passed of continual intercourse, of much music, of that propinquity which is said to originate more matches than any higher influence. Nothing can be more curious than the pleasure which young persons, and even persons who are no longer young, find perennially in this condition of suppressed love-making, this preoccupation of all thoughts and plans in the series of continually recurring meetings, the confidences, the divinations, the endless talk which is never exhausted, and in which the most artificial beings in the world probably reveal more of themselves than theythemselves know—when the edge of emotion is always being touched, and very often, by one of the pair at least overpassed, in either a comic or a tragic way. It is not necessary that there should be any real charm in either party, and what is still more extraordinary, it is possible enough that one may be a person of genius, and the other not far removed from a fool; that one may be simple as a rustic, and the other a man or woman of the world. No rule, in short, holds in those extraordinary yet most common and everyday conjunctions. There is an amount of amusement, excitement, variety, to be found in them which is in no other kind of diversion. This is the great reason, no doubt, why flirtation never fails. It is dangerous, which helps the effect. For those sinners who go into it voluntarily for the sake of amusement, it has all the attractions of romance and the drama combined. If they are intellectual, it is a study of human character; in all cases, it is an interest which quickens the colour and the current of life: who can tell why or how? It is not the disastrous love-makings that end in misery and sin, of which we speak. It is those which arepractised in society every day, which sometimes end in a heart-break indeed, but often in nothing at all.
Constance was not unacquainted with the amusement, though she was so young; and it is to be feared that she resorted to it deliberately for the amusement of her otherwise dull life at the Palazzo, in the first shock of her loneliness, when she felt herself abandoned. It was, of course, the victim himself who had first put the suggestion and the means of carrying it out into her hands. And she did not take it up in pure wantonness, but actually gave a thought to him, and the effect it might produce upon him, even in the very act of entering upon her diversion. She said to herself that Captain Gaunt, too, was very dull; that he would want something more than the society of his father and mother; that it would be a kindness to the old people to make his life amusing to him, since in that case he would stay, and in the other, not. And as for himself, if the worst came to the worst, and he fell seriously in love—as, indeed, seemed rather likely, judging from the fervour of the beginning—even that, Constance calculated, would do him no permanent harm. “Men have died,” she said to herself, “but not for love.” And then there is that famous phrase about a liberal education. What was it? To love her was a liberal education? Something of that sort. Then it could only be an advantage to him; for Constance was aware that she herself was cleverer, more cultivated, and generally far more “up to” everything than young Gaunt. If he had to pay for it by a disappointment, really everybody had to pay for their education in one way or another; and if he were disappointed, it would be his own fault; for he must know very well, everybody must know, that it was quite out of the question she should marry him in any circumstances—entirely out of the question; unless he was an absolute simpleton, or the most presumptuous young coxcomb in the world, hemustsee that; and if he were one or the other, the discovery would do him all the good in the world. Thus Constance made it out fully, and to her own satisfaction, that in any case the experience could do him nothing but good.
Things had gone very far during this fortnight—so far, that she sometimes had a doubt whether they had not gone far enough. For one thing, it had cost her a great deal in the way of music. She was a very accomplished musician for her age, and poor George Gaunt was one of the greatest bunglers that ever began to study the violin. It may be supposed what an amusement this intercourse was to Constance, when it is said that she bore with his violin like an angel, laughed and scolded and encouraged and pulled him along till he believed that he could play the waltzes of Chopin and many other things which were as far above him as the empyrean is above earth. When he paused, bewildered, imploring her to go on, assuring her that he could catch her up, Constance betrayed no horror, but only laughed till the tears came. She would turn round upon her music-stool sometimes and rally him with a free use of a superior kind of slang, which was unutterably solemn, and quite unknown to the young soldier, who laboured conscientiously with his fiddle in the evenings and mornings, till General Gaunt’s life became aburden to him—in a vain effort to elevate himself to a standard with which she might be satisfied. He went to practise in the morning; he went in the afternoon to ask if she thought of making any expedition? to suggest that his mother wished very much to take him to see this or that, and had sent him to ask would Miss Waring come? Constance was generally quite willing to come, and not at all afraid to walk to the bungalow with him, where, perhaps, old Luca’s carriage would be standing to drive them along the dusty road to the opening of some valley, where Mrs Gaunt, not a good climber, she allowed, would sit and wait for them till they had explored the dell, or inspected the little town seated at its head. Captain Gaunt was more punctilious about his mother’s presence aschaperonthan Constance was, who felt quite at her ease roaming with him among the terraces of the olive woods. It was altogether so idyllic, so innocent, that there was no occasion for any conventional safeguards: and there was nobody to see them or remark upon the prolongedtête-à-tête. Constance came to know the young fellow far better than hismother did, better than he himself did, in these walks and talks.
“Miss Waring, don’t laugh at a fellow. I know I deserve it.—Oh yes, do, if you like. I had rather you laughed than closed the piano. I had a good long grind at it this morning; but somehow these triplets are more than I can fathom. Let us have that movement again, will you? Oh, not if you are tired. As long as you’ll let me sit and talk. I love music with all my heart, but I love——”
“Chatter,” said Constance. “I know you do. It is not a dignified word to apply to a gentleman; but you know, Captain Gaunt, you do love to chatter.”
“Anything to please you,” said the young man. “That wasn’t how I intended to end my sentence. I love to—chatter, if you like, as long as you will listen—or play, or do anything; as long as——”
“You must allow,” said Constance, “that I listen admirably. I am thoroughly well up in all your subjects. I know the station as well as if I lived there.”
“Don’t say that,” he cried; “it makes a manbeside himself. Oh, if there was any chance that you might ever——! I think—I’m almost sure—you would like the society in India—it’s so easy; everybody’s so kind. A—a young couple, you know, as long as the lady is—delightful.”
“But I am not a young couple,” said Constance, with a smile. “You sometimes confuse your plurals in the funniest way. Is that Indian too? Now come, Captain Gaunt, let us get on. Begin at the andante. One, two—three! Now, let’s get on.”
And then a few bars would be played, and then she would turn sharp round upon the music-stool and take the violin out of his astonished hands.
“Oh, what a shriek! It goes through and through one’s head. Don’t you think an instrument has feelings? That was a cry of the poor ill-used fiddle, that could bear no more. Give it to me.” She took the bow in her hands, and leaned the instrument tenderly against her shoulder. “It should be played like this,” she said.
“Miss Waring, you can play the violin too?”
“A little,” she said, leaning down her soft cheek against it, as if she loved it, and drawing a charmingly sympathetic harmony from the ill-used strings.
“I will never play again,” cried the young man. “Yes, I will—to touch it where you have touched it. Oh, I think you can do everything, and make everything perfect you look at.”
“No,” said Constance, shaking her head as she ran the bow softly, so softly over the strings; “for you are not perfect at all, though I have looked at you a great deal. Look! this is the way to do it. I am not going to accompany you any more. I am going to give you lessons. Take it now, and let me see you play that passage. Louder, softer—louder. Come, that was better. I think I shall make something of you after all.”
“You can make anything of me,” said the poor young soldier, with his lips on the place her cheek had touched—“whatever you please.”
“A first-rate violin-player, then,” said Constance. “But I don’t think my power goes so high as that. Poor General, what does hesay when you grind, as you call it, all the morning?”
“Oh, mother smooths him down—that is the use of a mother.”
“Is it?” said Constance, with an air of impartial inquiry. “I didn’t know. Come, Captain Gaunt, we are losing our time.”
And thentant bien que mal, the sonata was got through.
“I am glad Beethoven is dead,” said Constance, as she closed the piano. “He is safe from that at least: he can never hear us play. When you go home, Captain Gaunt, I advise you to take lodgings in some quite out-of-the-way place, about Russell Square, or Islington, or somewhere, and grind, as you call it, till you are had up as a nuisance; or else——”
“Or else—what, Miss Waring? Anything to please you.”
“Or else—give it up altogether,” Constance said.
His face grew very long; he was very fond of his violin. “If you think it is so hopeless as that—if you wish me to give it up altogether——”
“Oh, not I. It amuses me. I like to hearyou break down. It would be quite a pity if you were to give up, you take my scolding so delightfully. Don’t give it up as long as you are here, Captain Gaunt. After that, it doesn’t matter what happens—to me.”
“No,” he said, almost with a groan, “it doesn’t matter what happens after that—to me. It’s the Deluge, you know,” said the poor young fellow. “I wish the world would come to an end first”—thus unconsciously echoing the poet. “But, Miss Waring,” he added anxiously, coming a little closer, “I may come back? Though I must go to London, it is not necessary I should stay there. I may come back?”
“Oh, I hope so, Captain Gaunt. What would your mother do, if you did not come back? But I suppose she will be going away for the summer. Everybody leaves Bordighera in the summer, I hear.”
“I had not thought of that,” cried the young soldier. “And you will be going too?’
“I suppose so,” said Constance. “Papa, I hope, is not so lost to every sense of duty as to let me spoil my complexion for ever by staying here.”
“That would be impossible,” he said, with eyes full of admiration.
“You intend that for a compliment, Captain Gaunt; but it is no compliment. It means either that I have no complexion to lose, or that I am one of those thick-skinned people who take no harm—neither of which is complimentary, nor true. I shall have to teach you how to pay compliments as well as how to play the violin.”
“Ah, if you only would!” he cried. “Teach me how to make myself what you like—how to speak, how to look, how——”
“Oh, that is a great deal too much,” she said. “I cannot undertake all your education. Do you know it is close upon noon? Unless you are going to stay to breakfast——”
“Oh, thanks, Miss Waring. They will expect me at home. But you will give me a message to take back to my mother. I may come to fetch you to drive with her to-day?”
“It must be dreadfully dull work for her sitting waiting while we explore.”
“Oh, not at all. She is never dull whenshe knows I am enjoying myself—that’s the mother’s way.”
“Is it?” said Constance, with once more that air of acquiring information. “I am not acquainted with that kind of mother. But do you think, Captain Gaunt, it is right to enjoy yourself, as you call it, at your mother’s cost?”
He gave her a look of great doubt and trouble. “Oh, Miss Waring, I don’t think you should put it so. My mother finds her pleasure in that—indeed she does. Ask herself. Of course I would not impose upon her, not for the world; but she likes it, I assure you she likes it.”
“It is very extraordinary that any one should like sitting in that carriage for hours with nothing to do. I will come with pleasure, Captain Gaunt. I will sit with your mother while you go and take your walk. That will be more cheerful for all parties,” Constance said.
Young Gaunt’s face grew half a mile long. He began to expostulate and explain; but Waring’s step was heard stirring in the next room, approaching the door, and the young manhad no desire to see the master of the house with his watch in his hand, demanding to know why Domenico was so late. Captain Gaunt knew very well why Domenico was so late. He knew a way of conciliating the servants, though he had not yet succeeded with the young mistress. He said hurriedly, “I will come for you at three,” and rushed away. Waring came in at one door as Gaunt disappeared at the other. The delay of the breakfast was a practical matter, of which, without any reproach of medievalism, he had a right to complain.
“If you must have this young fellow every morning, he may at least go away in proper time,” he said, with his watch in his hand, as young Gaunt had divined.
“Oh, papa, twelve is striking loud enough. You need not produce your watch at the same time.”
“Then why have I to wait?” he said. There was something awful in his tone. But Domenico was equal to the occasion, worthy at once of the lover’s and of the father’s trust. At that moment, Captain Gaunt having been got awaywhile the great bell of Bordighera was still sounding, the faithful Domenico threw open, perhaps with a little more sound than was necessary, an ostentation of readiness, the dining-room door.
The meal was a somewhat silent one. Perhaps Constance was pondering the looks which she had not been able to ignore, the words which she had managed to quench like so many fiery arrows before they could set fire to anything, of her eager lover, and was pale and a little preoccupied in spite of herself, feeling that things were going further than she intended; and perhaps her father, feeling the situation too serious, and remonstrance inevitable, was silenced by the thought of what he had to say. It is so difficult in such circumstances for two people, with no relief from any third party, without even that wholesome regard for the servant in attendance, which keeps the peace during many a family crisis—for with Domenico, who knew no English, they were as safe as when they were alone—it is very difficult to find subjects for conversation, that will not lead direct to the very heart of the matterwhich is being postponed. Constance could not talk of her music, for Gaunt was associated with it. She could not speak of her walk, for he was her invariable companion. She could ask no questions about the neighbourhood, for was it not to make her acquainted with the neighbourhood that all those expeditions were being made? The great bouquet of anemones which blazed in the centre of the table came from Mrs Gaunt’s garden. She began to think that she was buying her amusement too dearly. As for Waring, his mind was not so full of these references, but he was occupied by the thought of what he had to say to this headstrong girl, and by a strong sense that he was an ill-used man, in having such responsibilities thrust upon him against his will. Frances would not have led him into such difficulties. To Frances, young Gaunt would have been no more interesting than his father; or so at least this man, whose experience had taught him so little, was ready to believe.
“I want to say something to you, Constance,” he began at length, after Domenico had left the room. “You must not stop my mouth by remarks about middle-age parents. I am a middle-age parent, so there is an end of it. Are you going to marry George Gaunt?”
“I—going to marry George Gaunt! Papa!”
“You had better, I think,” said her father. “It will save us all a great deal of embarrassment. I should not have recommended it, had I been consulted at the beginning. But you like to be independent and have your own way; and the best thing you can do is to marry. I don’t know how your mother will take it; but so far as I am concerned, I think it would save everybody a great deal of trouble. You will be able to turn him round your finger; that will suit you, though the want of money may be in your way.”
“I think you must mean to insult me, papa,” said Constance, who had grown crimson.
“That is all nonsense, my dear. I am suggesting what seems the best thing in the circumstances, to set us all at our ease.”
“To get rid of me, you mean,” she cried.
“I have not taken any steps to get rid of you. I did not invite you, in the first place, you will remember; you came of your own will.But I was very willing to make the best of it. I let Frances go, who suited me—whom I had brought up—for your sake. All the rest has been your doing. Young Gaunt was never invited by me. I have had no hand in those rambles of yours. But since you find so much pleasure in his society——”
“Papa, you know I don’t find pleasure in his society; you know——”
“Then why do you seek it?” said Waring, with that logic which is so cruel.
Constance, on the other side of the table, was as red as the anemones, and far more brilliant in the glow of passion. “I have not sought it,” she cried. “I have let him come—that is all. I have gone when Mrs Gaunt asked me. Must a girl marry every man that chooses to be silly? Can I help it, if he is so vain? It is only vanity,” she said, springing up from her chair, “that makes men think a girl is always ready to marry. What should I marry for? If I had wanted to marry—— Papa, I don’t wish to be disagreeable, but it isvulgar, if you force me to say it—it is common to talk to me so.”
“I might retort,” said Waring.
“Oh yes, I know you might retort. It is common to amuse one’s self. So is it common to breathe and move about, and like a little fun when you are young. I have no fun here. There is nobody to talk to, not a thing to do. How do you suppose I am to get on? How can I live without something to fill up my time?”
“Then you must take the consequences,” he said.
In spite of herself, Constance felt a shiver of alarm. She began to speak, then stopped suddenly, looked at him with a look of mingled defiance and terror, and—what was so unlike her, so common, so weak, as she felt—began to cry, notwithstanding all she could do to restrain herself. To hide this unaccountable weakness, she hastened off and hid herself in her room, making as if she had gone off in resentment. Better that, than that he should see her crying like any silly girl. All this had got on her nerves, she explained to herself afterwards. The consequences! Constance held her breath as they became dimly apparent to her in an atmosphere of horror. George Gaunt no longer aneager lover, whom it was amusing, even exciting to draw on, to see just on the eve of a self-committal, which it was the greatest fun in the world to stop, before it went too far—but the master of her destinies, her constant and inseparable companion, from whom she could never get free, by whom she must not even say that she was bored to death—gracious powers! and with so many other attendant horrors. To go to India with him, to fall into the life of the station, to march with the regiment. Constance’s lively imagination pictured a baggage-waggon, with herself on the top, which made her laugh. But the reality was not laughable; it was horrible. The consequences! No; she would not take the consequences. She would sit with Mrs Gaunt in the carriage, and let him take his walk by himself. She would begin to show him the extent of his mistake from that very day. To take any stronger step, to refuse to go out with him at all, she thought, on consideration, not necessary. The gentler measures first, which perhaps he might be wise enough to accept.
But if he did not accept them, what was Constance to do? She had run away from an impending catastrophe, to take refuge with her father. But with whom could she take refuge, if he continued to hold his present strain of argument? And unless he would go away of himself, how was she to shake off this young soldier? She did not want to shake him off; he was all the amusement she had. What was she to do?
There glanced across her mind for a moment a sort of desperate gleam of reflection from her father’s words: “You like to be independent; the best thing you can do is to marry.” There was a kind of truth in it, a sort of distorted truth, such as was likely enough to come through the medium of a mind so wholly at variance with all established forms. Independent—there was something in that; and India was full of novelty, amusing, a sort of world she had no experience of. A tremor of excitement got into her nerves as she heard the bell ring, and knew that he had come for her. He! the only individual who was at all interesting for the moment, whom she held in her hands, to do what she pleased with. She could turn him round her little finger, as her father said: and independence! Was it a Mephistopheles that was tempting her, or a good angel leading her the right way?
Francesremembered little of the journey after it was over, though she was keenly conscious of everything at the time, if there can be any keen consciousness of a thing which is all vague, which conveys no clear idea. Through the darkness of the night, which came on before she had left the coast she knew, with all those familiar towns gleaming out as she passed—Mentone, Monaco on its headland, the sheltering bays which keep so warm and bright those cities of sickness, of idleness, and pleasure—the palms, the olives, the oranges, the aloe hedges, the roses and heliotropes—there was a confused and breathless sweep of distance, half in the dark, half in the light, the monotonous plains, the lines of poplars, the straight highroads of France. Paris, where they stayed for a night, was only like a bigger,noisier, vast railway station, to Frances. She had no time, in the hurry of her journey, in the still greater hurry of her thoughts, to realise that here was the scene of that dread Revolution of which she had read with shuddering excitement—that she was driven past the spot where the guillotine was first set up, and through the streets where the tumbrels had rolled, carrying to that dread death the many tender victims, who were all she knew of that great convulsion of history. Markham, who was so good to her, put his head out of the carriage and pointed to a series of great windows flashing with light. “What a pity there’s no time!” he said. She asked “For what?” with the most complete want of comprehension. “For shopping, of course,” he said, with a laugh. For shopping! She seemed to be unacquainted with the meaning of the words. In the midst of this strange wave of the unknown which was carrying her away, carrying her to a world more unknown still, to suppose that she could pause and think of shopping! The inappropriateness of the suggestion bewildered Frances. Markham, indeed, altogether bewildered her. He was very good to her, attending to her comfort, watchful over her needs in a way which she could not have imagined possible. Her father had never been unkind; but it did not occur to him to take care of her. It was she who took care of him. If there was anything forgotten, it was she who got the blame; and when he wanted a book, or his writing-desk, or a rug to put over his knees, he called to his little girl to hand it to him, without the faintest conception that there was anything incongruous in it. And there was nothing incongruous in it. If there is any one in the world whom it is natural to send on your errands, to get you what you want, surely your child is that person. Waring did not think on the subject, but simply did so by instinct, by nature; and equally by instinct Frances obeyed, without a doubt that it was her simplest duty. If Markham had said, “Get me my book, Frances; dear child, just open that bag—hand me so-and-so,” she would have considered it the most natural thing in the world. What he did do surprised her much more. He tripped in and out of his seat at her smallest suggestion.He pulled up and down the window at her pleasure, never appearing to think that it mattered whetherheliked it or not. He took her out carefully on his arm, and made her dine, not asking what she would have, as her father might perhaps have done, but bringing her the best that was to be had, choosing what she should eat, serving her as if she had been the Queen! It contributed to the dizzying effect of the rapid journey that she should thus have been placed in a position so different from any that she had ever known.
And then there came the last stage, the strange leaden-grey stormy sea, which was so unlike those blue ripples that came up just so far—no farther, on the beach at Bordighera. She began to understand what is said in the Bible about the waves that mount up like mountains, when she saw the roll of the Channel. She had always a little wondered what that meant. To be sure, there were storms now and then along the Riviera, when the blue edge to the sea-mantle disappeared, and all became a deep purple, solemn enough for a king’s pall, as it has been the pall of somany a brave man; but even that was never like the dangerous threatening lash of the waves along those rocks, and the way in which they raised their awful heads. And was that England, white with a faint line of green, so sodden and damp as it looked, rising out of the sea? The heart of Frances sank: it was not like her anticipations. She had thought there would be something triumphant, grand, about the aspect of England—something proud, like a monarch of the sea; and it was only a damp, greyish-white line, rising not very far out of those sullen waves. An east wind was blowing with that blighting greyness which here, in the uttermost parts of the earth, we are so well used to: and it was cold. A gleam of pale sun indeed shot out of the clouds from time to time; but there was no real warmth in it, and the effect of everything was depressing. The green fields and hedgerows cheered her a little; but it was all damp, and the sky was grey. And then came London, with a roar and noise as if they had fallen into a den of wild beasts, and throngs, multitudes of people at every little stationwhich the quick train flashed past, and on the platform, where at last she arrived dizzy and faint with fatigue and wonderment. But Markham always was more kind than words could say. He sympathised with her, seeing her forlorn looks at everything. He did not ask her how she liked it, what she thought of her native country. When they arrived at last, he found out miraculously, among the crowd of carriages, a quiet, little, dark-coloured brougham, and put her into it. “We’ll trundle off home,” he said, “you and I, Fan, and let John look after the things; you are so tired you can scarcely speak.”
“Not so much tired,” said Frances, and tried to smile, but could not say any more.
“I understand.” He took her hand into his with the kindest caressing touch. “You mustn’t be frightened, my dear. There’s nothing to be frightened about. You’ll like my mother. Perhaps it was silly of me to say that, and make you cry. Don’t cry, Fan, or I shall cry too. I am the foolishest little beggar, you know, and always do what my companions do. Don’t make a fool of your old brother, my dear.There, look out and see what a beastly place old London is, Fan.”
“Don’t call me Fan,” she cried, this slight irritation affording her an excuse for disburdening herself of some of the nervous excitement in her. “Call me Frances, Markham.”
“Life’s too short for a name in two syllables. I’ve got two syllables myself, that’s true; but many fellows call me Mark, and you are welcome to, if you like. No; I shall call you Fan; you must make up your mind to it. Did you ever see such murky heavy air? It isn’t air at all—it’s smoke, and animalculæ, and everything that’s dreadful. It’s not like that blue stuff on the Riviera, is it?”
“Oh no!” cried Frances, with fervour. “But I suppose London is better for some things,” she added with a doubtful voice.
“Better! It’s better than any other place on the face of the earth; it’s the only place to live in,” said Markham. “Why, child, it is paradise,”—he paused a moment, and then added, “with pandemonium next door.”
“Markham!” the girl cried.
“I was wrong to mention such a place inyour hearing. I know I was. Never mind, Fan; you shall see the one, and you shall know nothing about the other. Why, here we are in Eaton Square.”
The door flashed open as soon as the carriage stopped, letting out a flood of light and warmth. Markham almost lifted the trembling girl out. She had got her veil entangled about her head, her arms in the cloak which she had half thrown off. She was not prepared for this abrupt arrival. She seemed to see nothing but the light, to know nothing until she found herself suddenly in some one’s arms; then the light seemed to go out of her eyes. Sight had nothing to do with the sensation, the warmth, the softness, the faint rustle, the faint perfume, with which she was suddenly encircled; and for a few moments she knew nothing more.
“Dear, dear, Markham, I hope she is not delicate—I hope she is not given to fainting,” she heard in a disturbed but pleasant voice, before she felt able to open her eyes.
“Not a bit,” said Markham’s familiar tones. “She’s overdone, and awfully anxious about meeting you.”
“My poor dear! Why should she be anxious about meeting me?” said the other voice, a voice round and soft, with a plaintive tone in it; and then there came the touch of a pair of lips, soft and caressing like the voice, upon the girl’s cheek. She did not yet open her eyes, half because she could not, half because she would not, but whispered in a faint little tentative utterance, “Mother!” wondering vaguely whether the atmosphere round her, the kiss, the voice, was all the mother she was to know.
“My poor little baby, my little girl! open your eyes. Markham, I want to see the colour of her eyes.”
“As if I could open her eyes for you!” cried Markham with a strange outburst of sound, which, if he had been a woman, might have meant crying, but must have been some sort of a laugh, since he was a man. He seemed to walk away, and then came back again. “Come, Fan, that’s enough. Open your eyes, and look at us. I told you there was nothing to be frightened for.”
And then Frances raised herself; for, to herastonishment, she was lying down upon a sofa, and looked round her, bewildered. Beside her stood a little lady, about her own height, with smooth brown hair like hers, with her hands clasped, just as Frances was aware she had herself a custom of clasping her hands. It began to dawn upon her that Constance had said she was very like mamma. This new-comer was beautifully dressed in soft black satin, that did not rustle—that was far, far too harsh a word—but swept softly about her with the faintest pleasant sound; and round her breathed that atmosphere which Frances felt would mean mother to her for ever and ever,—an air that was infinitely soft, with a touch in it of some sweetness. Oh, not scent! She rejected the word with disdain—something, nothing, the atmosphere of a mother. In the curious ecstasy in which she was, made up of fatigue, wonder, and the excitement of this astounding plunge into the unknown, that was how she felt.
“Let me look at you, my child. I can’t think of her as a grown girl, Markham. Don’t you know she is my baby. She has nevergrown up, like the rest of you, to me. Oh, did you never wish for me, little Frances? Did you never want your mother, my darling? Often, often, I have lain awake in the night and cried for you.”
“Oh mamma!” cried Frances, forgetting her shyness, throwing herself into her mother’s arms. The temptation to tell her that she had never known anything about her mother, to excuse herself at her father’s expense, was strong. But she kept back the words that were at her lips. “I have always wanted this all my life,” she cried, with a sudden impulse, and laid her head upon her mother’s breast, feeling in all the commotion and melting of her heart a consciousness of the accessories, the rich softness of the satin, the delicate perfume, all the details of the new personality by which her own was surrounded on every side.
“Now I see,” cried the new-found mother, “it was no use parting this child and me, Markham. It is all the same between us—isn’t it, my darling?—as if we had always been together—all the same in a moment. Come up-stairs now, if you feel able, dear one.Do you think, Markham, she is able to walk up-stairs?”
“Oh, quite able; oh, quite, quite well. It was only for a moment. I was—frightened, I think.”
“But you will never be frightened any more,” said Lady Markham, drawing the girl’s arm through her own, leading her away. Frances was giddy still, and stumbled as she went, though she had pledged herself never to be frightened again. She went in a dream up the softly carpeted stairs. She knew what handsome rooms were, the lofty bare grandeur of an Italian palazzo; but all this carpeting and cushioning, the softness, the warmth, the clothed and comfortable look, bewildered her. She could scarcely find her way through the drawing-room, crowded with costly furniture, to the blazing fire, by the side of which stood the tea-table, like, and yet how unlike, that anxious copy of English ways which Frances had set up in the loggia. She was conscious, with a momentary gleam of complacency, that her cups and saucers were better, though! not belonging to an ordinary modern set, likethese; but, alas, in everything else how far short! Then she was taken up-stairs, through—as she thought—the sumptuous arrangements of her mother’s room, to another smaller, which opened from it, and in which there was the same wealth of carpets, curtains, easy-chairs, and writing-tables, in addition to the necessary details of a sleeping-room. Frances looked round it admiringly. She knew nothing about the modern-artistic, though something, a very little, about old art. The painted ceilings and old gilding of the Palazzo—which she began secretly and obstinately to callhomefrom this moment forth—were intelligible to her; but she was quite unacquainted with Mr Morris’s papers and the art fabrics from Liberty’s. She looked at them with admiration, but doubt. She thought the walls “killed” the pictures that were hung round, which were not like her own little gallery at home, which she had left with a little pang to her sister. “Is this Constance’s room?” she asked timidly, called back to a recollection of Constance, and wondering whether the transfer was to be complete.
“No, my love; it is Frances’ room,” saidLady Markham. “It has always been ready for you. I expected you to come some time. I have always hoped that; but I never thought that Con would desert me.” Her voice faltered a little, which instantly touched Frances’ heart.
“I asked,” she said, “not just out of curiosity, but because, when she came to us, I gave her my room. Our rooms are not like these; they have very few things in them. There are no carpets; it is warmer there, you know; but I thought she would find the blue room so bare, I gave her mine.”
Lady Markham smiled upon her, and said, but with a faint, the very faintest indication of being less interested than Frances was, “You have not many visitors, I suppose?”
“Oh, none!” cried Frances. “I suppose we are—rather poor. We are not—like this.”
“My darling, you don’t know how to speak to me, your own mother! What do you mean, dear, bywe? You must learn to mean something else bywe. Your father, if he had chosen, might have had—all that you see,and more. And Constance—— But we will say nothing more to-night on that subject. This is Con’s room, see, on the other side of mine. It was always my fancy, my hope, some time to have my two girls, one on each side.”
Frances followed her mother to the room on the other side with great interest. It was still more luxurious than the one appropriated to herself—more comfortable, as a room which has been occupied, which shows traces of its tenant’s tastes and likings, must naturally be; and it was brighter, occupying the front of the house, while that of Frances’ looked to the side. She glanced round at all the fittings and decorations, which, to her unaccustomed eyes, were so splendid. “Poor Constance!” she said under her breath.
“Why do you say poor Constance?” said Lady Markham, with something sharp and sudden in her tone. And then she, too, said regretfully, “Poor Con! You think it will be disappointing to her, this other life which she has chosen. Was it—dreary for you, my poor child?”
Then there rose up in the tranquil mind ofFrances a kind of tempest-blast of opposition and resentment. “It is the only life I know—it was—everything I liked best,” she cried. The first part of the sentence was very firmly, almost aggressively said. In the second, she wavered, hesitated, changed the tense—it was. She did not quite know herself what the change meant.
Lady Markham looked at her with a penetrating gaze. “It was—everything you knew, my little Frances. I understand you, my dear. You will not be disloyal to the past. But to Constance, who does not know it, who knows something else—— Poor Con! I understand. But she will have to pay for her experience, like all the rest.”
Frances had been profoundly agitated, but in the way of happiness. She did not feel happy now. She felt disposed to cry, not because of the relief of tears, but because she did not know how else to express the sense of contrariety, of disturbance that had got into her mind. Was it that already a wrong note had sounded between herself and this unknown mother, whom it had been a rapture to seeand touch? Or was it only that she was tired? Lady Markham saw the condition into which her nerves and temper were strained. She took her back tenderly into her room. “My dear,” she said, “if you would rather not, don’t change your dress. Do just as you please to-night. I would stay and help you, or I would send Josephine, my maid, to help you; but I think you will prefer to be left alone and quiet.”
“Oh yes,” cried Frances with fervour; then she added hastily, “If you do not think me disagreeable to say so.”
“I am not prepared to think anything in you disagreeable, my dear,” said her mother, kissing her—but with a sigh. This sigh Frances echoed in a burst of tears when the door closed and she found herself alone—alone, quite alone, more so than she had ever been in her life, she whispered to herself, in the shock of the unreasonable and altogether fantastic disappointment which had followed her ecstasy of pleasure. Most likely it meant nothing at all but the reaction from that too highly raised level of feeling.
“No; I am not disappointed,” Lady Markham was saying down-stairs. She was standing before the genial blaze of the fire, looking into it with her head bent and a serious expression on her face. “Perhaps I was too much delighted for a moment; but she, poor child, now that she has looked at me a second time, she is a little, just a little disappointed in me. That’s rather hard for a mother, you know; or I suppose you don’t know.”
“I never was a mother,” said Markham. “I should think it’s very natural. The little thing has been forming the most romantic ideas. If you had been an angel from heaven——”
“Which I am not,” she said with a smile, still looking into the fire.
“Heaven be praised,” said Markham. “In that case, you would not have suited me—which you do, mammy, you know, down to the ground.”
She gave a half glance at him, a half smile, but did not disturb the chain of her reflections. “That’s something, Markham,” she said.
“Yes; it’s something. On my side, it is a great deal. Don’t go too fast with little Fan. She has a deal in her. Have a little patience, and let her settle down her own way.”
“I don’t feel sure that she has not got her father’s temper; I saw something like it in her eyes.”
“That is nonsense, begging your pardon. She has got nothing of her father in her eyes. Her eyes are like yours, and so is everything about her. My dear mother, Con’s like Waring, if you like. This one is of our side of the house.”
“Do you really think so?” Lady Markham looked up now and laid her hand affectionately upon his shoulder, and laughed. “But, my dear boy, you are as like the Markhams as you can look. On my side of the house, there is nobody at all, unless, as you say——”
“Frances,” said the little man. “I told you—the best of the lot. I took to her in a moment by that very token. Therefore, don’t go too fast with her, mother. She has her ownnotions. She is as stanch as a little—Turk,” said Markham, using the first word that offered. When he met his mother’s eye, he retired a little, with the air of a man who does not mean to be questioned; which naturally stimulated curiosity in her mind.
“How have you found out that she is stanch, Markham?”
“Oh, in half-a-dozen ways,” he answered, carelessly. “And she will stick to her father through thick and thin, so mind what you say.”
Then Lady Markham began to bemoan herself a little gently, before the fire, in the most luxurious of easy-chairs.
“Was ever woman in such a position,” she said, “to be making acquaintance, for the first time, at eighteen, with my own daughter—and to have to pick my words and to be careful what I say?”
“Well, mammy,” said Markham, “it might have been worse. Let us make the best of it. He has always kept his word, which is something, and has never annoyed you. And it is quite a nice thing for Con to have him to goto, to find out how dull it is, and know her own mind. And now we’ve got the other one too.”
Lady Markham still rocked herself a little in her chair, and put her handkerchief to her eyes. “For all that, it is very hard, both on her and me,” she said.