Nothinghappened of any importance before their return to Eaton Square. Markham, hopping about with a queer sidelong motion he had, his little eyes screwed up with humorous meaning, seemed to Frances to recover his spirits after the Winterbourn episode was over, which was the subject—though that, of course, she did not know—of half the voluminous correspondence of all the ladies and gentlemen in the house, whose letters were so important a part of their existence. Before a week was over, all Society was aware of the fact that Ralph Winterbourn had been nearly dying at Markham Priory; that Lady Markham was in “a state” which baffled description, and Markham himself so changed as to be scarcely recognisable; but that, fortunately, the crisis had beentided over, and everything was still problematical. But the problem was so interesting, that one perfumed epistle after another carried it to curious wits all over the country, and a new light upon the subject was warmly welcomed in a hundred Easter meetings. What would Markham do? What would Nelly do? Would their friendship end in the vulgar way, in a marriage? Would they venture, in face of all prognostications, to keep it up as a friendship, when there was no longer any reason why it should not ripen into love? Or would they, frightened by all the inevitable comments which they would have to encounter, stop short altogether, and fly from each other?
Such a “case” is a delightful thing to speculate upon. At the Priory, it could only be discussed in secret conclave; and though no doubt the experienced persons chiefly concerned were quite conscious of the subject which occupied their friends’ thoughts, there was no further reference made to it between them, and everything went on as it had always done. The night before their return to town, Markham, in the solitude of the house, from whichall the guests had just departed, called Frances outside to bear him company while he smoked his cigarette. He was walking up and down on the lawn in the grey stillness of a cloudy warm evening, when there was no light to speak of anywhere, and yet a good deal to be seen through the wavering greyness of sky and sea. A few stars, very mild and indistinct, looked out at the edges of the clouds here and there; the great water-line widened and cleared towards the horizon; and in the far distance, where a deeper greyness showed the mainland, the gleam of a lighthouse surprised the dark by slow continual revolutions. There was no moon: something softer, more seductive than even the moon, was in this absence of light.
“Well—now they’re gone, what do you think of them, Fan? They’re very good specimens of the English country-house party—all kinds: the respectable family, the sturdy old fogy, the rich young man without health, and the muscular young man without money.” There had been, it is needless to say, various other members of the party, who, being quite unimportant to this history, need not be mentioned here. “What do you think of them, little un? You have your own way of seeing things.”
“I—like them all well enough, Markham,” without enthusiasm Frances replied.
“That is comprehensive at least. So do I, my dear. It would not have occurred to me to say it; but it is just the right thing to say. They pull you to pieces almost before your face; but they are not ill-natured. They tell all sorts of stories about each other——”
“No, Markham; I don’t think that is just.”
“——Without meaning any harm,” he went on. “Fan, in countries where conversation is cultivated, perhaps people don’t talk scandal—I only say perhaps—but here we are forced to take to it for want of anything else to say. What did your Giovannis and Giacomos talk of in your village out yonder?” Markham pointed towards the clear blue-grey line of the horizon, beyond which lay America, if anything; but he meant distance, and that was enough.
“They talked—about the olives, how they were looking, and if it was going to be a bad or an indifferent year.”
“And then?”
“About theforestieri, if many were coming, and whether it would be a good season for the hotels; and about tying up the palms, to make them ready for Easter,” said Frances, resuming, with a smile about her lips. “And about how old Pietro’s son had got such a good appointment in the post-office, and had bought little Nina a pair of earrings as long as your finger; for he was to marry Nina, you know.”
“Oh, was he? Go on. I am very much interested. Didn’t they say Mr Whatever-his-name-is wanted to get out of it, and that there never would have been any engagement, had not Miss Nina’s mother——?”
“Oh Markham,” cried Frances in surprise, “how could you possibly know?”
“I was reasoning from analogy, Fan. Yes, I suppose they do it all the world over. And it is odd—isn’t it?—that, knowing what they are sure to say, we ask them to our houses, and put the keys of all our skeleton cupboards into their hands.”
“Do you think that is true, that dreadful idea about the skeleton? I am sure——”
“What are you sure of, my little dear?”
“I was going to say, oh Markham, that I was sure,at home, we had no skeleton; and then I remembered——”
“I understand,” he said kindly. “It was not a skeleton to speak of, Fan. There is nothing particularly bad about it. If you had met it out walking, you would not have known it for a skeleton. Let us say a mystery, which is not such a mouth-filling word.”
“Sir Thomas told me,” said Frances, with some timidity; “but I am not sure that I understood. Markham! what was it really about?”
Her voice was low and diffident, and at first he only shook his head. “About nothing,” he said; “about—me. Yes, more than anything else, about me. That is how—— No, it isn’t,” he added, correcting himself. “I always must have cared for my mother more than for any woman. She has always been my greatest friend, ever since I can remember anything. We seem to have been children together, and to have grown up together. I was everything to her for a dozen years, and then—your fathercame between us. He hated me—and I tormented him.”
“He could not hate you, Markham. Oh no, no!”
“My little Fan, how can a child like you understand? Neither did I understand, when I was doing all the mischief. Between twelve and eighteen I was an imp of mischief, a little demon. It was fun to me to bait that thin-skinned man, that jumped at everything. The explosion was fun to me too. I was a little beast. And then I got the mother to myself again. Don’t kill me, my dear. I am scarcely sorry now. We have had very good times since, I with my parent, you with yours—till that day,” he added, flinging away the end of his cigarette, “when mischief again prompted me to let Con know where he was, which started us all again.”
“Did you always know where we were?” she asked. Strangely enough, this story did not give her any angry feeling towards Markham. It was so far off, and the previous relations of her long-separated father and mother were as a fairy tale to her, confusing and almost incredible, which she did not take into account as matter of fact at all. Markham had delivered these confessions slowly, as they turned and re-turned up and down the lawn. There was not light enough for either to see the expression in the other’s face, and the veil of the darkness added to the softening effect. The words came out in short sentences, interrupted by that little business of puffing at the cigarette, letting it go out, stopping to strike a fusee and relight it, which so often forms the byplay of an important conversation, and sometimes breaks the force of painful revelations. Frances followed everything with an absorbed but yet half-dreamy attention, as if the red glow of the light, the exclamation of impatience when the cigarette was found to have gone out, the very perfume of the fusee in the air, were part and parcel of it. And the question she asked was almost mechanical, a part of the business too, striking naturally from the last thing he had said as sparks flew from the perfumed light.
“Not where,” he said. “But I might have known, had I made any attempt to know. The mother sent her letters through the lawyer, andof course we could have found out. It was thrust upon me at last by one of those meddling fools that go everywhere. And then my old demon got possession of me, and I told Con.” Here he gave a low chuckle, which seemed to escape him in spite of himself. “I am laughing,” he said—“pay attention, Fan—at myself. Of course I have learned to be sorry for—some things—the imp has put me up to; but I can’t get the better of that little demon—or of this little beggar, if you like it better. It’s queer phraseology, I suppose; but I prefer the other form.”
“And what,” said Frances in the same dreamy way, drawn on, she was not conscious how, by something in the air, by some current of thought which she was not aware of—“what do you mean to do now?”
He started from her side as if she had given him a blow. “Do now?” he cried, with something in his voice that shook off the spell of the situation, and aroused the girl at once to the reality of things. She had no guidance of his looks, for, as has been said, she could not see them; but there was a curious thrill in hisvoice of present alarm and consciousness, as if her innocent question struck sharply against some fact of very different solidity and force from those far-off shadowy facts which he had been telling her. “Do now? What makes you think I am going to do anything at all?”
His voice fell away in a sort of quaver at the end of these words.
“I do not think it; I—I—don’t think anything, Markham; I—don’t—know anything.”
“You ask very pat questions all the same, my little Fan. And you have got a pair of very good eyes of your own in that little head. And if you have got any light to throw upon the subject, my dear, produce it; for I’ll be bothered if I know.”
Just then, a window opened in the gloom. “Children,” said Lady Markham’s voice, “are you there? I think I see something like you, though it is so dark. Bring your little sister in, Markham. She must not catch cold on the eve of going back to town.”
“Here is the little thing, mammy. Shall I hand her in to you by the window? It makes me feel very frisky to hear myself addressed as children,” he cried, with his chuckle of easy laughter. “Here, Fan; run in, my little dear, and be put to bed.”
But he did not go in with her. He kept outside in the quiet cool and freshness of the night, illuminating the dim atmosphere now and then with the momentary glow of another fusee. Frances from her room, to which she had shortly retired, heard the sound, and saw from her windows the sudden ruddy light a great many times before she went to sleep. Markham let his cigar go out oftener than she could reckon. He was too full of thought to remember his cigar.
They arrived in town when everybody was arriving, when even to Frances, in her inexperience, the rising tide was visible in the streets, and the air of a new world beginning, which always marks the commencement of the season. No doubt it is a new world to many virgin souls, though so stale and weary to most of those who tread its endless round. To Frances everything was new; and a sense of the many wonderful things that awaited her got into the girl’s head like ethereal wine,in spite of all the grave matters of which she was conscious, which lay under the surface, and were, if not skeletons in the closet, at least very serious drawbacks to anything bright that life could bring. Her knowledge of these drawbacks had been acquired so suddenly, and was so little dulled by habit, that it dwelt upon her mind much more than family mysteries usually dwell upon a mind of eighteen. But yet in the rush and exhilaration of new thoughts and anticipations, always so much more delicately bright than any reality, she forgot that all was not as natural, as pleasant, as happy as it seemed. If Lady Markham had any consuming cares, she kept them shut away under that smiling countenance, which was as bright and peaceful as the morning. If Markham, on his side, was perplexed and doubtful, he came out and in with the same little chuckle of fun, the same humorous twinkle in his eyes. When these signs of tranquillity are so apparent, the young and ignorant can easily make up their minds that all is well. And Frances was to be “presented”—a thought which made her heart beat. She was to be put into acourt-train and feathers,—she who as yet had never worn anything but the simple frock which she had so pleased herself to think was purely English in its unobtrusiveness and modesty. She was not quite sure that she liked the prospect; but it excited her all the same.
It was early in May, and the train and the court plumes were ready, when, going out one morning upon some small errand of her own, Frances met some one whom she recognised, walking slowly along the long line of Eaton Square. She started at the sight of him, though he did not see her. He was going along with a strange air of reluctance, yet anxiety, glancing up at the houses, no doubt looking for Lady Markham’s house, so absorbed that he neither saw Frances nor was disturbed by the startled movement she made, which must have caught a less preoccupied eye. She smiled to herself, after the first start, to see how entirely bent he was upon finding the house, and how little attention he had to spare for anything else. He was even more worn and pale, or rather grey, than he had beenwhen he returned from India, she thought; and there was in him a slackness, a letting-go of himself, a weary look in his step and carriage, which proved, Frances thought, that the Riviera had done George Gaunt little good.
For it was certainly George Gaunt, still in his loose grey Indian clothes, looking like a man dropped from another hemisphere, investigating the numbers on the doors as if he but vaguely comprehended the meaning of them. But that there was in him that unmistakable air of soldier which no mufti can quite disguise, he might have been the Ancient Mariner in person, looking for the man whose fate it is to leave all the wedding-feasts of the world in order to hear that tale. What tale could young Gaunt have to tell? For a moment it flashed across the mind of Frances that he might be bringing bad news, that “something might have happened,”—that rapid conclusion to which the imagination is so ready to jump. An accident to her father or Constance? so bad, so terrible, that it could not be trusted to a letter, that he had been sent to break the news to them?
She had passed him by this time, being shy, in her surprise, of addressing the stranger all at once; but now she paused, and turned with a momentary intention of running after him and entreating him to tell her the worst. But then Frances recollected that this was impossible; that with the telegraph in active operation, no one would employ such a lingering way of conveying news; and went on again, with her heart beating quicker, with a heightened colour, and a restrained impatience and eagerness of which she was half ashamed. No, she would not turn back before she had done her little business. She did not want either the stranger himself or any one else to divine the flutter of pleasant emotion, the desire she had to see and speak with the son of her old friends. Yes, she said to herself, the son of her old friends—he who was the youngest, whom Mrs Gaunt used to talk of for hours, whose praises she was never weary of singing.
Frances smiled and blushed to herself as she hurried—perceptibly hurried—about her little affairs. Kind Mrs Gaunt had always had a secret longing to bring these two together.Frances would not turn back; but she quickened her pace, almost running—as near running as was decorous in London—to the lace-shop, to give the instructions which she had been charged with. No doubt, she said to herself, she would find him there when she got back. She had forgotten, perhaps, the fact that George Gaunt had given very little of his regard to her when he met her, though she was his mother’s favourite, and had no eyes but for Constance. This was not a thing to dwell in the mind of a girl who had no jealousy in her, and who never supposed herself to be half as worthy of anybody’s attention as Constance was. But, anyhow, she forgot it altogether, forgot to ask herself what in this respect might have happened in the meantime; and with her heart beating full of innocent eagerness, pleasure, and excitement, full of the hope of hearing about everybody, of seeing again through his eyes the dear little well-known world, which seemed to lie so far behind her, hastened through her errands, and turned quickly home.
To her great surprise, as she came back,turning round the corner into the long line of pavement, she saw young Gaunt once more approaching her. He looked even more listless and languid now, like a man who had tried to do some duty and failed, and was escaping, glad to be out of the way of it. This was a great deal to read in a man’s face; but Frances was highly sympathetic, and divined it, knowing in herself many of those devices of shy people, which shy persons divine. Fortunately she saw him some way off, and had time to overcome her own shyness and take the initiative. She went up to him fresh as the May morning, blushing and smiling, and put out her hand. “Captain Gaunt?” she said. “I knew I could not be mistaken. Oh, have you just come from Bordighera? I am so glad to see any one from home!”
“Do you call it home, Miss Waring? Yes, I have just come. I—I—have a number of messages, and some parcels, and—— But I thought you might perhaps be out of town, or busy, and that it would be best to send them.”
“Is that why you are turning your back on my mother’s house? or did you not know the number? I saw you before, looking—but I did not like to speak.”
“I—thought you might be out of town,” he repeated, taking no notice of her question; “and that perhaps the post——”
“Oh no,” cried Frances, whose shyness was of the cordial kind. “Now you must come back and see mamma. She will want to hear all about Constance. Are they all well, Captain Gaunt? Of course you must have seen them constantly—and Constance. Mamma will want to hear everything.”
“Miss Waring is very well,” he said with a blank countenance, from which he had done his best to dismiss all expression.
“And papa? and dear Mrs Gaunt, and the colonel, and everybody? Oh, there is so much that letters can’t tell. Come back now with me. My mother will be so glad to see you, and Markham; you know Markham already.”
Young Gaunt made a feeble momentary resistance. He murmured something about anengagement, about his time being very short; but as he did so, turned round languidly and went with her, obeying, as it seemed, the eager impulse of Frances rather than any will of his own.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
BY MRS OLIPHANTIN THREE VOLUMESVOL. III.WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONSEDINBURGH AND LONDONMDCCCLXXXVI
Lady Markhamreceived young Gaunt with the most gracious kindness: had his mother seen him seated in the drawing-room at Eaton Square, with Frances hovering about him full of pleasure and questions, and her mother insisting that he should stay to luncheon, and Markham’s hansom just drawing up at the door, she would have thought her boy on the highway to fortune. The sweetness of the two ladies—the happy eagerness of Frances, and Lady Markham’s grace and graciousness—had a soothing effect upon the young man. He had been unwilling to come, as he wasunwilling to go anywhere at this crisis of his life; but it soothed him, and filled him with a sort of painful and bitter pleasure to be thus surrounded by all that was most familiar to Constance,—by her mother and sister, and all their questions about her. These questions, indeed, it was hard upon him to be obliged to answer; but yet that pain was the best thing that now remained to him, he said to himself. To hear her name, and all those allusions to her, to be in the rooms where she had spent her life—all this gave food to his longing fancy, and wrung, yet soothed, his heart.
“My dear, you will worry Captain Gaunt with your questions; and I don’t know those good people, Tasie and the rest: you must let me have my turn now. Tell me about my daughter, Captain Gaunt. She is not a very good correspondent. She gives few details of her life; and it must be so very different from life here. Does she seem to enjoy herself? Is she happy and bright? I have longed so much to see some one, impartial, whom I could ask.”
Impartial! If they only knew! “She is always bright,” he said with a suppressed passion, the meaning of which Frances divined suddenly, almost with a cry, with a start and thrill of sudden certainty, which took away her breath. “But for happy, I cannot tell. It is not good enough for her, out there.”
“No? Thank you, Captain Gaunt, for appreciating my child. I was afraid it was not much of a sphere for her. What company has she? Is there anything going on——?”
“Mamma,” said Frances, “I told you—there is never anything going on.”
The young soldier shook his head. “There is no society—except the Durants—and ourselves—who are not interesting,” he said, with a somewhat ghastly smile.
“The Durants are the clergyman’s family?—and yourselves. I think she might have been worse off. I am sure Mrs Gaunt has been kind to my wayward girl,” she said, looking him in the face with that charming smile.
“Kind!” he cried, as if the word were a profanation. “My mother is too happy to do—anything. But Miss Waring,” he added with a feeble smile, “has little need of—any one. She has so many resources—she is so far above——”
He got inarticulate here, and stumbled in his speech, growing very red. Frances watched him under her eyelids with a curious sensation of pain. He was very much in earnest, very sad, yet transported out of his langour and misery by Constance’s name. Now Frances had heard of George Gaunt for years, and had unconsciously allowed her thoughts to dwell upon him, as has been mentioned in another part of this history. His arrival, had it not happened in the midst of other excitements which preoccupied her, would have been one of the greatest excitements she had ever known. She remembered now that when it did happen, there had been a faint, almost imperceptible, touch of disappointment in it, in the fact that his whole attention was given to Constance, and that for herself, Frances, he had no eyes. But in the moment of seeing him again she had forgotten all that, and had gone back to her previous prepossession in hisfavour, and his mother’s certainty that Frances and her George would be “great friends.” Now she understood with instant divination the whole course of affairs. He had given his heart to Constance, and she had not prized the gift. The discovery gave her an acute, yet vague (if that could be), impression of pain. It was she, not Constance, that had been prepossessed in his favour. Had Constance not been there, no doubt she would have been thrown much into the society of George Gaunt—and—who could tell what might have happened? All this came before her like the sudden opening of a landscape hid by fog and mists. Her eyes swept over it, and then it was gone. And this was what never had been, and never would be.
“Poor Con,” said Lady Markham. “She never was thrown on her own resources before. Has she so many of them? It must be a curiously altered life for her, when she has to fall back upon what you call her resources. But you think she is happy?” she asked with a sigh.
How could he answer? The mere fact thatshe was Constance, seemed to Gaunt a sort of paradise. If she could make him happy by a look or a word, by permitting him to be near her, how was it possible that, being herself, she could be otherwise than blessed? He was well enough aware that there was a flaw in his logic somewhere, but his mind was not strong enough to perceive where that flaw was.
Markham came in in time to save him from the difficulty of an answer. Markham did not recollect the young man, whom he had only seen once; but he hailed him with great friendliness, and began to inquire into his occupations and engagements. “If you have nothing better to do, you must come and dine with me at my club,” he said in the kindest way, for which Frances was very grateful to her brother. And young Gaunt, for his part, began to gather himself together a little. The presence of a man roused him. There is something, no doubt, seductive and relaxing in the fact of being surrounded by sympathetic women, ready to divine and to console. He had not braced himself to bear the pain of their questions; but somehow had felt a certain luxury in lettinghis despondency, his languor, and displeasure with life appear. “I have to be here,” he had said to them, “to see people, I believe. My father thinks it necessary: and I could not stay; that is, my people are leaving Bordighera. It becomes too hot to hold one—they say.”
“But you would not feel that, coming from India?”
“I came to get braced up,” he said with a smile, as of self-ridicule, and made a little pause. “I have not succeeded very well in that,” he added presently. “They think England will do me more good. I go back to India in a year; so that, if I can be braced up, I should not lose any time.”
“You should go to Scotland, Captain Gaunt. I don’t mean at once, but as soon as you are tired of the season—that is the place to brace you up—or to Switzerland, if you like that better.”
“I do not much care,” he had said with another melancholy smile, “where I go.”
The ladies tried every way they could think of to console him, to give him a warmer interest in his life. They told him that when he wasfeeling stronger, his spirits would come back. “I know how one runs down when one feels out of sorts,” Lady Markham said. “You must let us try to amuse you a little, Captain Gaunt.”
But when Markham appeared, this softness came to an end. George Gaunt picked himself up, and tried to look like a man of the world. He had to see some one at the Horse Guards, and he had some relations to call upon; but he would be very glad, he said, to dine with Lord Markham. It surprised Frances that her mother did not appear to look with any pleasure on this engagement. She even interposed in a way which was marked. “Don’t you think, Markham, it would be better if Captain Gaunt and you dined withme? Frances is not half satisfied. She has not asked half her questions. She has the first right to an old friend.”
“Gaunt is not going away to-morrow,” said Markham. “Besides, if he’s out of sorts, he wants amusing, don’t you see?”
“And we are not capable of doing that! Frances, do you hear?”
“Very capable, in your way. But for a man,when he’s low, ladies are dangerous—that’s my opinion, and I’ve a good deal of experience.”
“Of low spirits, Markham!”
“No, but of ladies,” he said with a chuckle. “I shall take him somewhere afterwards; to the play perhaps, or—somewhere amusing: whereas you would talk to him all night, and Fan would ask him questions, and keep him on the same level.”
Lady Markham made a reply which to Frances sounded very strange. She said, “To the play—perhaps?” in a doubtful tone, looking at her son. Gaunt had been sitting looking on in the embarrassed and helpless way in which a man naturally regards a discussion over his own body as it were, particularly if it is a conflict of kindness, and, glad to be delivered from this friendly duel, turned to Frances with some observation, taking no heed of Lady Markham’s remark. But Frances heard it with a confused premonition which she could not understand. She could not understand, and yet—— She saw Markham shrug his shoulders in reply; there was a slight colour upon his face, which ordinarily knew none. What did they both mean?
But how elated would Mrs Gaunt have been, how pleased the General, had they seen their son at Lady Markham’s luncheon-table, in the midst, so to speak, of the first society! Sir Thomas came in to lunch, as he had a way of doing; and so did a gay young Guardsman, who was indeed naturally a little contemptuous of a man in the line, yet civil to Markham’s friend. These simple old people would have thought their George on the way to every advancement, and believed even the heart-break which had procured him that honour well compensated. These were far from his own sentiments; yet, to feel himself thus warmly received by “herpeople,” the object of so much kindness, which his deluded heart whispered must surely, surely, whatever she might intend, have been suggested at least by something she had said of him, was balm and healing to his wounds. He looked at her mother—and indeed Lady Markham was noted for her graciousness, and for looking as if she meant to be the motherly friend of all who approached her—with a sort of adoration. To be the mother of Constance, and yet to speak to ordinary mortalswith that smile, as if she had no more to be proud of than they! And what could it be that made her so kind? not anything in him—a poor soldier, a poor soldier’s son, knowing nothing but the exotic society of India and its curious ways—surely something which, out of some relenting of the heart, some pity or regret, Constance had said. Frances sat next to him at table, and there was a more subtle satisfaction still in speaking low, aside to Frances, when he got a little confused with the general conversation, that bewildering talk which was all made up of allusions. He told her that he had brought a parcel from the Palazzo, and a box of flowers from the bungalow,—that his mother was very anxious to hear from her, that they were going to Switzerland—no, not coming home this year. “They have found a cheap place in which my mother delights,” he said, with a faint smile. He did not tell her that his coming home a little circumscribed their resources, and that the month in town which they were so anxious he should have, which in other circumstances he would have enjoyed so much, but which now he cared nothing for, norfor anything, was the reason why they had stopped half-way on their usual summer journey to England. Dear old people, they had done it for him—this was what he thought to himself, though he did not say it—for him, for whom nobody could now do anything! He did not say much, but as he looked in Frances’ sympathetic eyes, he felt that, without saying a word to her, she must understand it all.
Lady Markham made no remark about their visitor until after they had done their usual afternoon’s “work,” as it was her habit to call it—their round of calls, to which she went in an exact succession, saying lightly, as she cut short each visit, that she could stay no longer, as she had so much to do. There was always a shop or two to go to, in addition to the calls, and almost always some benevolent errand—some Home to visit, some hospital to call at, something about the work of poor ladies, or the salvation of poor girls,—all these were included along with the calls in the afternoon’s work. And it was not till they had returned home and were seated together at tea, refreshing themselves after their labours, that she mentionedyoung Gaunt. She then said, after a minute’s silence, suddenly, as if the subject had been long in her mind, “I wish Markham had let that young man alone; I wish he had left him to you and me.”
Frances started a little, and felt, with great self-indignation and distress, that she blushed—though why, she could not tell. She looked up, wondering, and said, “Markham! I thought it was so very kind.”
“Yes, my dear; I believe he means to be kind.”
“Oh, I am sure he does; for he could have no interest in George Gaunt—not for himself. I thought it was perhaps for my sake, because he was—because he was the son of—such a friend.”
“Were they so good to you, Frances? And no doubt to Con too.”
“I am sure of it, mamma.”
“Poor people,” said Lady Markham; “and this is the reward they get. Con has been experimenting on that poor boy. What do I mean by experimenting? You know well enough what I mean, Frances. I suppose he was theonly man at hand, and she has been amusing herself. He has been dangling about her constantly, I have no doubt, and she has made him believe that she liked it as well as he did. And then he has made a declaration, and there has been a scene. I am sorry to say I need no evidence in this case: I know all about it. And now, Markham! Poor people, I say: it would have been well for them if they had never seen one of our race.”
“Mamma!” cried Frances, with a little indignation, “I feel sure you are misjudging Constance. Why should she do anything so cruel? Papa used to say that one must have a motive.”
“Hesaid so! I wonder if he could tell what motives were his when—— Forgive me, my dear. We will not discuss your father. As for Con, her motives are clear enough—amusement. Now, my dear, don’t! I know you were going to ask me, with your innocent face, what amusement it could possibly be to break that young man’s heart. The greatest in the world, my love! We need not mince matters between ourselves. There is nothing that diverts Con somuch, and many another woman. You think it is terrible; but it is true.”
“I think—you must be mistaken,” said Frances, pale and troubled, with a little gasp as for breath. “But,” she went on, “supposing even that you were right about Con, what could Markham do?”
Lady Markham looked at her very gravely. “He has asked this poor young fellow—to dinner,” she said.
Frances could scarcely restrain a laugh, which was half hysterical. “That does not seem very tragic,” she said.
“Oh no, it does not seem very tragic—poor people, poor people!” said Lady Markham, shaking her head.
And there was no more; for a visitor appeared—one of a little circle of ladies who came in and out every day, intimates, who rushed up-stairs and into the room without being announced, always with something to say about the Home, or the Hospital, or the Reformatory, or the Poor Ladies, or the endangered girls. There was always a great deal to talk over about these institutions, which formed an importantpart of the “work” which all these ladies had to do. Frances withdrew to a little distance, so as not to embarrass her mother and her friend, who were discussing “cases” for one of those refuges of suffering humanity, and were more comfortable when she was out of hearing. Frances knitted and thought of home—not this bewildering version of it, but the quiet of the idle village life where there was no “work,” but where all were neighbours, lending a kindly hand to each other in trouble, and where the tranquil days flew by she knew not how. She thought of this with a momentary, oft-recurring secret protest against this other life, of which, as was natural, she saw the evil more clearly than the good; and then, with a bound, her thoughts returned to the extraordinary question to which her mother had made so extraordinary a reply. What could Markham do? “He has asked the poor young fellow to dinner.” Even now, in the midst of the painful confusion of her mind, she almost laughed. Asked him to dinner! How would that harm him? At Markham’s club there would be no poisoned dishes—nothing that would slay. What harmcould it do to George Gaunt to dine with Markham? She asked herself the question again and again, but could find no reply. When she turned to the other side and thought of Constance, the blood rushed to her head with a feverish angry pang. Was that also true? But in this case, Frances, like her mother, felt that no doubt was possible. In this respect she had been able to understand what her mother said to her. Her heart bled for the poor people, whom Lady Markham compassionated without knowing them, and wondered how Mrs Gaunt would bear the sight of the girl who had been cruel to her son. All that, with agitation and trouble she could believe: but Markham! What could Markham do?
She was going to the play with her mother that evening, which was to Frances, fresh to every real enjoyment, one of the greatest of pleasures. But she did not enjoy it that night. Lady Markham paid little attention to the play: she studied the people as they went and came, which was a usual weakness of hers, much wondered at and deplored by Frances, to whom the stage was the centre ofattraction. But on this occasion Lady Markham was moredistraitethan ever, levelling her glass at every new group that appeared in the recesses between the acts,—the restless crowd, which is always in motion. Her face, when she removed the glass from it, was anxious, and almost unhappy. “Frances,” she said, in one of these pauses, “your eyes must be sharper than mine; try if you can see Markham anywhere.”
“Here is Markham,” said her son, opening the door of the box. “What does the mother want with me, Fan?”
“Oh, you are here!” Lady Markham cried, leaning back in her chair with a sigh of relief. “And Captain Gaunt too.”
“Quite safe, and out of the way of mischief,” said Markham with a chuckle, which brought the colour to his mother’s cheek.
Afterthis, for about a fortnight, Captain Gaunt was very often visible in Eaton Square. He dined next evening with Lady Markham and Frances—Sir Thomas, who scarcely counted, he was so often there, being the only other guest. Sir Thomas was a man who had a great devotion for Lady Markham, and a very distant link of cousinship, which, or something in themselves which made that impossible, had silenced any remark of gossip, much less scandal, upon their friendship. He came in to luncheon whenever it pleased him; he dined there—when he was not dining anywhere else. But as both he and Lady Markham had many engagements, this was not too often the case, though there was rarely an evening, if the ladies were at home, when Sir Thomas didnot “look in.” His intimacy was like that of a brother in the cheerful easy house. This cheerful company, the friendliness, the soothing atmosphere of feminine sympathy around him, and underneath all the foolish hope, more sweet than anything else, that a certain relenting on the part of Constance must be underneath, took away the gloom and dejection, in great part at least, from the young soldier’s looks. He exerted himself to please the people who were so kind to him, and his melancholy smile had begun to brighten into something more natural. Frances, for her part, thought him a very delightful addition to the party. She looked at him across the table almost with the pride which a sister might have felt when he made a good appearance and did himself credit. He seemed to belong to her more or less,—to reflect upon her the credit which he gained. It showed that her friends after all were worth thinking of, that they were not unworthy of the admiration she had for them, that they were able to hold their own in what the people here called Society and the world. She raised her little animated face to youngGaunt, was the first to see what he meant, unconsciously interpreted or explained for him when he was hazy—and beamed with delight when Lady Markham was interested and amused. Poor Frances was not always quite clever enough to see when it happened that the two elders were amused by the man himself, rather than by what he said—and her gratification was great in his success. She herself had never aspired to success in her own person; but it was a great pleasure to her that the little community at Bordighera should be vindicated and put in the best light. “They will never be able to say to menowthat we had no Society, that we saw nobody,” Frances said to herself—attributing, however, a far greater brilliancy to poor George than he ever possessed. He fell back into melancholy, however, when the ladies left, and Sir Thomas found him dull. He had very little to say about Waring, on whose behalf the benevolent baronet was so much interested.
“Do you think he shows any inclination towards home?” Sir Thomas asked.
“I am sure,” young Gaunt answered, with asolemn face, “that there is nothing there that can satisfy such a creature as that.”
“He has no society, then?” asked Sir Thomas.
“Oh, society! it is like the poem,” said the young man, with a sigh. “I should think it would be so everywhere. ‘Ye common people of the sky, what are ye when your queen is nigh?’”
Sir Thomas had been much puzzled by the application to Waring, as he supposed, of the phrase, “such a creature as that;” but now he perceived, with a compassionate shake of his head, what the poor young fellow meant. Con had been at her tricks again! He said, with the pitying look which such a question warranted, “I suppose you are very fond of poetry?”
“No,” said the young soldier, astonished, looking at him suddenly. “Oh no. I am afraid I am very ignorant; but sometimes it expresses what nothing else can express. Don’t you think so?”
“I think perhaps it is time to join the ladies,” Sir Thomas said. He was sorry for the boy,though a little contemptuous too; but then he himself had known Con and her tricks from her cradle, and those of many another, and he was hardened. He thought their mothers had been far more attractive women.
Was it the same art which made Frances look up with that bright look of welcome, and almost affectionate interest, when they returned to the drawing-room? Sir Thomas liked her so much, that he hoped it was not merely one of their tricks; then paused, and said to himself that it would be better if it were so, and not that the girl had really taken a fancy to this young fellow, whose heart and head were both full of another, and who, even without that, would evidently be a very poor thing for Lady Markham’s daughter. Sir Thomas was so far unjust to Frances, that he concluded it must be one of her tricks, when he recollected how complacent she had been to Claude Ramsay, finding places for him where he could sit out of the draught. They were all like that, he said to himself; but concluded that, as one nail drives out another, a second “affair,” if he could be drawn into it, might cure the victim. This rapidrésuméofall the circumstances, present and future, is a thing which may well take place in an experienced mind in the moment of entering a room in which there are materials for the development of a new chapter in the social drama. The conclusion he came to led him to the side of Lady Markham, who was writing the address upon one of her many notes. “It is to Nelly Winterbourn,” she explained, “to inquire—— You know they have dragged that poor sufferer up to town, to be near the best advice; and he is lying more dead than alive.”
“Perhaps it is not very benevolent, so far as he is concerned; but I hope he’ll linger a long time,” said Sir Thomas.
“Oh, so do I! These imbroglios may go on for a long time and do nobody any harm. But when a horrible crisis comes, and one feels that they must be cleared up!” It was evident that in this Lady Markham was not specially considering the sufferings of poor Mr Winterbourn.
“What does Markham say?” Sir Thomas asked.
“Say! He does not say anything. He shuffles—you know the way he has. He never could stand still upon both of his feet.”
“And you can’t guess what he means to do?”
“I think—— But who can tell? even with one whom I know so intimately as Markham. I don’t say even in my son, for that does not tell for very much.”
“Nothing at all,” said the social philosopher.
“Oh, a little, sometimes. I believe to a certain extent in a kind of magnetic sympathy. You don’t, I know. I think, then, so far as I can make out, that Markham would rather do nothing at all. He likes thestatus quowell enough. But then he is only one; and the other—one cannot tell how she might feel.”
“Nelly is the unknown quantity,” said Sir Thomas; and then Lady Markham sent away, by the hands of the footman, her anxious affectionate little billet “to inquire.”
Meanwhile young Gaunt sat down by Frances. On the table near them there was a glorious show of crimson—the great dazzlingred anemones, the last of the season, which Mrs Gaunt had sent. It had been very difficult to find them so late on, he told her; they had hunted into the coolest corners where the spring flowers lingered the longest, his mother quite anxious about it, climbing into the little valleys among the hills. “For you know what you are to my mother,” he said, with a smile, and then a sigh. Mrs Gaunt had often made disparaging comparisons—comparisons how utterly out of the question! He allowed to himself that this candid countenance, so open and simple, and so full of sympathy, had a charm—more than he could have believed; but yet to make a comparison between this sister and the other! Nevertheless it was very consolatory, after the effort he had made at dinner, to lay himself back in the soft low chair, with his long limbs stretched out, and talk or be talked to, no longer with any effort, with a softening tenderness towards the mother who loved Frances, but with whom he had had many scenes before he left her, in frantic defence of the woman who had broken his heart.
“Mrs Gaunt was always so kind to me,” Frances said, gratefully, a little moisture starting into her eyes. “At the Durants’ there seemed always a little comparison with Tasie; but with your mother there was no comparison.”
“A comparison with Tasie!” He laughed in spite of himself. “Nothing can be so foolish as these comparisons,” he added, not thinking of Tasie.
“Yes, she was older,” said Frances. “She had a right to be more clever. But it was always delightful at the bungalow. Does my father go there often now?”
“Did he ever go often?”
“N-no,” said Frances, hesitating; “but sometimes in the evening. I hope Constance makes him go out. I used to have to worry him, and often get scolded. No, not scolded—that was not his way; but sent off with a sharp word. And then he would relent, and come out.”
“I have not seen very much of Mr Waring,” Gaunt said.
“Then what does Constance do? Oh, itmust be such a change for her! I could not have imagined such a change. I can’t help thinking sometimes it is a great pity that I, who was not used to it, nor adapted for it, should have all this—and Constance, who likes it, who suits it, should be—banished; for it must be a sort of banishment for her, don’t you think?”
“I—suppose so. Yes, there could be no surroundings too bright for her,” he said, dreamily. He seemed to see her, notwithstanding, walking with him up into the glades of the olive-gardens, with her face so bright. Surely she had not felt her banishment then! Or was it only that the amusement of breaking his heart made up for it, for the moment, as his mother said?
“Fancy,” said Frances; “I am going to court on Monday—I—in a train and feathers. What would they all say? But all the time I am feeling like the daw in the peacock’s plumes. They seem to belong to Constance. She would wear them as if she were a queen herself. She would not perhaps object to be stared at; and she would be admired.”
“Oh yes!”
“She was, they say, when she was presented, so much admired. She might have been a maid of honour; but mamma would not. And I, a poor little brown sparrow, in all the fine feathers—I feel inclined to call out, ‘I am only Frances.’ But that is not needed, is it, when any one looks at me?” she said, with a laugh. She had met with nobody with whom she could be confidential among all her new acquaintances. And George Gaunt was a new acquaintance too, if she had but remembered; but there was in him something which she had been used to, something with which she was familiar, a breath of her former life—and that acquaintance with his name and all about him which makes one feel like an old friend. She had expected for so many years to see him, that it appeared to her imagination as if she had known him all these years—as if there was scarcely any one with whom she was so familiar in the world.
He looked at her attentively as she spoke, a little touched, a little charmed by this instinctive delicate familiarity, in which he atlast, having so lately come out of the hands of a true operator, saw, whatever Sir Thomas might think, that it was not one of their tricks. She did not want any compliment from him, even had he been capable of giving it. She was as sincere as the day, as little troubled about her inferiority as she was convinced of it; the laugh with which she spoke had in it a genuine tone of innocent youthful mirth, such as had not been heard in that house for long. The exhilarating ring of it, so spontaneous, so gay, reached Lady Markham and Sir Thomas in their colloquy, and roused them. Frances herself had never laughed like that before. Her mother gave a glance towards her, smiling. “The little thing has found her own character in the sight of her old friend,” she said; and then rounded her little epigram with a sigh.
“The young fellow ought to think much of himself to have two of them taking that trouble.”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Lady Markham. “Do you think she is taking trouble? She does not understand what it means.”
“Do any of them not understand what itmeans?” asked Sir Thomas. He had a large experience in Society, and thought he knew; but he had little experience out of Society, and so, perhaps, did not. There are some points in which a woman’s understanding is the best.
The evening had not been unpleasant to any one, not even, perhaps, to the lovelorn, when Markham appeared, coming back from his dinner-party, a signal to the other gentlemen that it was time for them to disappear from theirs. He gave his mother the last news of Winterbourn; and he told Sir Thomas that a division was expected, and that he ought to be in the House. “The poor sufferer” was sinking slowly, Markham said. It was quite impossible now to think of the operation which might perhaps have saved him three months since. His sister was with Nelly, who had neither mother nor sister of her own; and the long-expected event was thus to come off decorously, with all the proper accessories. It was a very important matter for two at least of the speakers; but this was how they talked of it, hiding, perhaps, the anxiety within. Then Markham turned to the other group.
“Have you got all the feathers and the furbelows ready?” he said. “Do you think there will be any of you visible through them, little Fan?”
“Don’t frighten the child, Markham. She will do very well. She can be as steady as a little rock: and in that case it doesn’t matter that she is not tall.”
“Oh, tall—as if that were necessary! You are not tall yourself, our mother; but you are a very majestic person when you are in your war-paint.”
“There’s the Queen herself, for that matter,” said Sir Thomas. “See her in a procession, and she might be six feet. I feel a mouse before her.” He had held once some post about the court, and had a right to speak.
“Let us hope Fan will look majestic too. You should, to carry off the effect I shall produce. In ordinary life,” said Markham, “I don’t flatter myself that I am an Adonis; but you should see me screwed up into a uniform. No, I’m not in the army, Fan. What is my uniform, mother, to please her? A Deputy Lieutenant, or something of thatsort. I hope you are a great deal the wiser, Fan.”
“People always look well in uniform,” said Frances, looking at him somewhat doubtfully, on which Markham broke forth into his chuckle. “Wait till you see me, my little dear. Wait till the little boys see me on the line of route. They are the true tests of personal attraction. Are you coming, Gaunt? Do you feel inclined to give those fellows their revenge?”
Markham had spoken rather low, and at some distance from his mother; but the word caught her quick ear.
“Revenge? What do you mean by revenge? Who is going to be revenged?” she cried.
“Nobody is going to fight a duel, if that is what you mean,” said Markham, quietly turning round. “Gaunt has, for as simple as he stands there, beaten me at billiards, and I can’t stand under the affront. Didn’t you lick me, Gaunt?”
“It was an accident,” said Gaunt. “If that is all, you are very welcome to your revenge.”
“Listen to his modesty, which, by-the-by,shows a little want of tact; for am I the man to be beaten by an accident?” said Markham, with his chuckle of self-ridicule. “Come along, Gaunt.”
Lady Markham detained Sir Thomas with a look as he rose to accompany them. She gave Captain Gaunt her hand, and a gracious, almost anxious smile. “Markham is noted for bad hours,” she said. “You are not very strong, and you must not let him beguile you into his evil ways.” She rose too, and took Sir Thomas by the arm as the young man went away. “Did you hear what he said? Do you think it was only billiards he meant? My heart quakes for that poor boy and the poor people he belongs to. Don’t you think you could go after them and see what they are about?”
“I will do anything you please. But what good could I do?” said Sir Thomas. “Markham would not put up with any interference from me—nor the other young fellow either, for that matter.”
“But if you were there, if they saw you about, it would restrain them: oh, you havealways been such a true friend. If you were but there.”
“There: where?” There came before the practical mind of Sir Thomas a vision of himself, at his sober age, dragged into he knew not what nocturnal haunts, like an elderly spectre, jeered at by the pleasure-makers. “I will do anything to please you,” he said, helplessly. “But what can I do? It would be of no use. You know yourself that interference never does any good.”
Frances stood by aghast, listening to this conversation. What did it mean? Of what was her mother afraid? Presently Lady Markham took her seat again, with a return to her usual smiling calm. “You are right, and I am wrong,” she said. “Of course we can do nothing. Perhaps, as you say, there is no real reason for anxiety.” (Frances observed, however, that Sir Thomas had not said this.) “It is because the boy is not well off, and his people are not well off—old soldiers, with their pensions and their savings. That is what makes me fear.”
“Oh, if that is the case, you need have theless alarm. Where there’s not much to lose, the risks are lessened,” Sir Thomas said, calmly.
When he too was gone, Frances crept close to her mother. She knelt down beside the chair on which Lady Markham sat, grave and pale, with agitation in her face. “Mother,” she whispered, taking her hand and pressing her cheek against it, “Markham is so kind—he never would do poor George any harm.”
“Oh, my dear,” cried Lady Markham, “how can you tell? Markham is not a man to be read off like a book. He is very kind—which does not hinder him from being cruel too. He means no harm, perhaps; but when the harm is done, what does it matter whether he meant it or not? And as for the risks being lessened because your friend is poor, that only means that he is despatched all the sooner. Markham is like a man with a fever: he has his fits of play, and one of them is on him now.”
“Do you mean—gambling?” said Frances, growing pale too. She did not know very well what gambling was, but it was ruin, she had always heard.
“Don’t let us talk of it,” said Lady Markham. “We can do no good; and to distress ourselves for what we cannot prevent is the worst policy in the world, everybody says. You had better go to bed, dear child; I have some letters to write.”
Gauntdid not appear again at Eaton Square for two or three days,—not, indeed, till after the great event of Frances’ history had taken place—the going to court, which had filled her with so many alarms. After all, when she got there, she was not frightened at all, the sense of humour which was latent in her nature getting the mastery at the last moment, and the spectacle, such as it was, taking all her attention from herself. Lady Markham’s good taste had selected for Frances as simple a dress as was possible, and her ornaments were the pearls which her aunt had given her, which she had never been able to look at, save uneasily, as spoil. Mrs Clarendon, however, condescended, which was a wonderful stretch of good-nature, to come to Eaton Square tosee her dressed, which, as everybody knows, is one of the most agreeable parts of the ceremony. Frances had not a number of young friends to fill the house with a chorus of admiration and criticism; but the Miss Montagues thought it “almost a duty” to come, and a number of her mother’s friends. These ladies filled the drawing-room, and were much more formidable than even the eyes of Majesty, preoccupied with the sight of many toilets, and probably very tired of them, which would have no more than a passing glance for Frances. The spectators at Eaton Square took her to pieces conscientiously, though they agreed, after each had made her little observation, that theensemblewas perfect, and that the power of millinery could no further go. The intelligent reader needs not to be informed that Frances was all white, from her feathers to her shoes. Her pretty glow of youthfulness and expectation made the toilet supportable, nay, pretty, even in the glare of day. Markham, who was not afraid to confront all these fair and critical faces, in his uniform, which misbecame, and did not even fit him,and which made his insignificance still more apparent, walked round and round his little sister with the most perfect satisfaction. “Are you sure you know how to manage that train, little Fan? Do you feel quite up to your curtsey?” he said in a whisper with his chuckle of mirth; but there was a very tender look in the little man’s eyes. He might wrong others; but to Frances, nobody could be more kind or considerate. Mrs Clarendon, when she saw him, turned upon her heel and walked off into the back drawing-room, where she stood for some minutes sternly contemplating a picture, and ignoring everybody. Markham did not resent this insult. “She can’t abide me, Fan,” he went on. “Poor lady, I don’t wonder. I was a little brat when she knew me first. As soon as I go away, she will come back; and I am going presently, my dear. I am going to snatch a morsel in the dining-room, to sustain nature. I hope you had your sandwiches, Fan? It will take a great deal of nourishment to keep you up to that curtsey.” He patted her softly on her white shoulder, with kindness beaming out of his ugly face.“I call you a most satisfactory production, my dear. Not a beauty, but better—a real nice innocent girl. I should like any fellow to show me a nicer,” he went on, with his short laugh. Though it took the form of a chuckle, there was something in it that showed Markham’s heart was touched. And this was the man whom even his own mother was afraid to trust a young man with! It seemed to Frances that it was impossible such a thing could be true.
Mrs Clarendon, as Markham had predicted, came back as he retired. Her contemplation of the dress of thedébutantewas very critical. “Satin is too heavy for you,” she said. “I wonder your mother did not see that silk would have been far more in keeping; but she always liked to overdo. As for my Lord Markham, I am glad he will have to look after your mother, and not you, Frances; for the very look of a man like that contaminates a young girl. Don’t say to me that he is your brother, for he is not your brother. Considering my age and yours, I surely ought to know best. Turn round a little. There is a perceptible crease across the middle of your shoulder,and I don’t quite like the hang of this skirt. But one thing looks very well, and that is your pearls. They have been in the family I can’t tell you how long. My grandmother gave them to me.”
“Mamma insisted I should wear them, and nothing else, aunt Caroline.”
“Yes, I daresay. You have nothing else good enough to go with them, most likely. And Lady Markham knows a good thing very well, when she sees it. Have you been put through all that you have to do, Frances? Remember to keep your right hand quite free; and take care your train doesn’t get in your way. Oh, why is it that your poor father is not here to see you, to go with you! It would be a very different thing then.”
“Nothing would make papa go, aunt Caroline. Do you think he would dress himself up like Markham, to be laughed at?”
“I promise you nobody would laugh at my brother,” said Mrs Clarendon. “As for Lord Markham——” But she bit her lip, and forbore. She spoke to none of the other ladies, who swarmed like numerous bees in the room,keeping up a hum in the air; but she made very formal acknowledgments to Lady Markham as she went away. “I am much obliged to you for letting me come to see Frances dressed. She looks very well on the whole, though, perhaps, I should have adopted a different style had it been in my hands.”
“My dear Caroline,” cried Lady Markham, ignoring this ungracious conclusion, “how can you speak of letting you come? You know we are only too glad to see you whenever you will come. And I hope you liked the effect of your beautiful pearls. What a charming present to give the child; I thought it so kind of you.”
“So long as Frances understands that they are family ornaments,” said Mrs Clarendon, stiffly, rejecting all acknowledgments.
There was a little murmur and titter when she went away. “Is it Medusa in person?” “It is Mrs Clarendon, the wife of the great Q.C.” “It is Frances’ aunt, and she does not like any remark.” “It is my dear sister-in-law,” said Lady Markham. “She does not love me; but she is kind to Frances, which coversa multitude of sins.” “And very rich,” said another lady, “which covers a multitude more.” This put a little bitterness into the conversation to Frances, standing there in her fine clothes, and not knowing how to interfere; and it was a relief to her when Markham, though she could not blame the whispering girls who called him a guy, came in shuffling and smiling, with a glance and nod of encouragement to his little sister to take the mother down-stairs to her carriage. After that, all was a moving phantasmagoria of colour and novel life, and nothing clear.
And it was not until after this great day that Captain Gaunt appeared again. The ladies received him with reproaches for his absence. “I expected to see you yesterday at least,” said Lady Markham. “You don’t care for fine clothes, as we women do; but five o’clock tea, after a Drawing-room, is a fine sight. You have no idea how grand we were, and how much you have lost.”
Captain Gaunt responded with a very grave, indeed melancholy smile. He was even more dejected than when he made his first appearance. Then his melancholy had been unalloyed, and not without something of that tragic satisfaction in his own sufferings which the victims of the heart so often enjoy. But now there were complications of some kind, not so easily to be understood. He smiled a very serious evanescent smile. “I shall have to lose still more,” he said, “for I think I must leave London—sooner than I thought.”
“Oh,” cried Frances, whom this concerned the most; “leave London! You were to stay a month.”
“Yes; but my month seems to have run away before it has begun,” he said, confusedly. Then, finding Lady Markham’s eye upon him, he added, “I mean, things are very different from what I expected. My father thought I might do myself good by seeing people who—might push me, he supposed. I am not good at pushing myself,” he said, with an abrupt and harsh laugh.
“I understand that. You are too modest. It is a defect, as well as the reverse one of being too bold. And you have not met—the people you hoped?”
“It is not exactly that either. My father’s old friends have been kind enough; but London perhaps is not the place for a poor soldier.” He stopped, with again a little quiver of a smile.
“That is quite true,” said Lady Markham, gravely. “I enter into your feelings. You don’t think that the game is worth the candle? I have heard so many people say so—even among those who were very well able to push themselves, Captain Gaunt. I have heard them say that any little thing they might have gained was not worth the expenditure and trouble of a season in London—besides all the risks.”
Captain Gaunt listened to this with his discouraged look. He made no reply to Lady Markham, but turned to Frances with a sort of smile. “Do you remember,” he said, “I told you my mother had found a cheap place in Switzerland, such as she delights in? I think I shall go and join them there.”
“Oh, I am very sorry,” said Frances, with a countenance of unfeigned regret. “No doubt Mrs Gaunt will be glad to have you; but she will be sorry too. Don’t you think she wouldrather you stayed your full time in London, and enjoyed yourself a little? I feel sure she would like that best.”
“But I don’t think I am enjoying myself,” he said, with the air of a man who would like to be persuaded. He had perhaps been a little piqued by Lady Markham’s way of taking him at his word.