He looked at her wholly aggravated, but half laughing. “Is this all I am ever to be good for?” he said; “not a word for me, no interest in me. Am I to be Bertie’s dry-nurse all my life? And is this all—?”
She put her hand softly on his arm, and drew him to her to whisper to him. In that moment all Reine’s coldness, all her doubts of him had floated away, with a suddenness which I don’t pretend to account for, but which belonged to her impulsive character (and in her heart I do not believe she had ever had the least real doubt of him, though it was a kind of dismal amusement to think she had). She put up her face to him, with her hand on his arm. “Speak low,” she said. “Is there any one I could ask but you? Everard, he has done too much already to-day; don’t let him row.”
Everard laughed. He jumped out of his boat and spoke to the other men about, confidentially, in undertones. “Don’t let him see you mean it,” he said; and when he had settled this piece of diplomacy, he came back and pushed off his own boat into mid-stream. “The others had all got settled,” he said. “I don’t see why I should run upon your messages, and do everything you tell me, and never get anything by it. Mrs. Sellinger has gone with Kate and Sophy, who have much more need of a chaperone than you have: and for the first time I have you to myself, Reine.”
Reine had the strings of the rudder in her hands, and could have driven him back, I think, had she liked, but she did not. She let herself and the boat float down the pleasanter way. “I don’t mind,” she said softly; “for a long time I have had no talk with you—since we came home.”
“And whose fault is that, I should like to know?” cried Everard, with a few long swift strokes, carrying the boat almost out ofsight of the larger one, which had not yet started. “How cruel you are, Reine! You say that as if I was to blame; when you know all the time if you had but held up a little finger—”
“Why should I hold up a little finger?” said Reine, softly, leaning back in her seat. But there was a smile on her face. It was true, she acknowledged to herself. She had known it all the time. A little finger, a look, a word would have done it, though she had made believe to be lonely and dreary and half-forsaken and angry even. At which, as the boat glided down the river in the soft shadows after sunset, in the cool grayness of the twilight, she smiled again.
But before they reached the Water Beeches, these cool soft shades had given way to a sudden cold mist, what country people call a “blight.” It was only then, I think, that these two recollected themselves. They had sped down the shining stream, with a little triumph in outstripping the other and larger boat, though it had four rowers, and Everard was but one. They had gone through the locks by themselves, leaving saucy messages for their companions, and it was only when they got safely within sight of Everard’s house, and felt the coldness of the “blight” stealing through them, that they recollected to wonder what had kept the others so long. Then Reine grew frightened, unreasonably, as she felt; fantastically, for was not Herbert quite well? but yet beyond her own power of control.
“Turn back, and let us meet them,” she begged; and Everard, though unwilling, could not refuse to do it. They went back through the growing darkness, looking out eagerly for the party.
“That cannot be them,” said Everard, as the long sweep of oars became audible. “It must be a racing boat, for I hear no voices.”
They lay close by the bank and watched, Reine in an agony of anxiety, for which she could give no reason. But sure enough it was the rest of the party, rowing quickly down, very still and frightened. Herbert had insisted upon rowing, in spite of all remonstrances, and just a few minutes before had been found half fainting over his oar, shivering and breathless.
“It is nothing—it is nothing,” he gasped, when he saw Reine, “and we are close at home.” But his heart panted so, that this was all he could say.
Whata dismal conclusion it was of so merry a day! Herbert walked into the house, leaning upon Everard’s arm, and when some wine had been administered to him, declared himself better, and endeavored to prove that he was quite able to join them at supper, and that it was nothing. But his pale face and panting breast belied his words, and after awhile he acknowledged that perhaps it would be best to remain on the sofa in the drawing-room, while the others had their meal. Reine took her place by him at once, though indeed Sophy, who was kind enough, was ready and even anxious to do it. But in such a case the bond of kin is always paramount. The doctor was sent for at once, and Everard went and came from his guests at the dinner-table, to his much-more-thought-of guests in the cool, silent drawing-room, where Reine sat on a low chair by the sofa, holding her brother’s hand, and fanning him to give him air.
“All right, old fellow,” poor Bertie said, whenever Everard’s anxious face appeared; but when Reine and he were left alone, he panted forth abuse of himself and complaints of Providence. “Just as I thought I was all right—whenever I felt a little freedom, took a little liberty—”
“Oh, Bertie,” said Reine, “you know you should not have done it. Dear, don’t talk now, to make it worse. Lie still, and you’ll be better. Oh, Bertie! have patience, have patience, dear!”
“To look like a fool!” he gasped; “never good for anything. No—more—strength than a baby! and all those follows looking on.”
“Bertie, they are all very kind, they are all very sorry. Oh, how can you talk of looking like a fool?”
“I do,” he said; “and the girls, too!—weaker, weaker than any of them. Sorry! I don’t want them to be sorry; and old Farrel gloating over it. Oh, God! I can’t bear it—I can’t bear it, Reine.”
“Bertie, be still—do you hear me? This is weak, if you please; this is unlike a man. You have done too much, and overtired yourself. Is this a reason to give up heart, to abuse everybody, to blaspheme—”
“It is more—than being overtired,” he moaned; “feel my heart, how it goes!”
“Yes, it is a spasm,” said Reine, taking upon her a composure and confidence she did not feel. “You have had the same before. If you want to be better, don’t talk, oh, don’t talk, Bertie! Be still, be quite still!”
And thus she sat, with his hand in hers, softly fanning him; and half in exhaustion, half soothed by her words, he kept silent. Reine had harder work when the dinner was over, and Sophy and Kate fluttered into the room, to stand by the sofa, and worry him with questions.
“How are you now? Is your breathing easier? Are you better, Bertie? oh, say you are a little better! We can never, never forgive ourselves for keeping you out so late, and for letting you tire yourself so.”
“Please don’t make him talk,” cried Reine. “He is a little better. Oh, Bertie, Bertie, dear, be still. If he is quite quiet, it will pass off all the sooner. I am not the least frightened,” she said, though her heart beat loud in her throat, belying her words; but Reine had seen Farrel-Austin’s face, hungry and eager, over his daughters’ shoulders. “He is not really so bad; he has had it before. Only he must,he mustbe still. Oh, Sophy, for the love of heaven, do not make him speak!”
“Nonsense—I am all right,” he said.
“Of course he can speak,” cried Sophy, triumphantly; “you are making a great deal too much fuss, Reine. Make him eat something, that will do him good. There’s some grouse. Everard, fetch him some grouse—one can eat that when one can eat nothing else—and I’ll run and get him a glass of champagne.”
“Oh, go away—oh, keep her away!” cried Reine, joining her hands in eager supplication.
Everard, to whom she looked, shrugged his shoulders, for it was not so easy a thing to do. But by dint of patience the room was cleared at last; and though Sophy would fain have returned by the open window, “just to say good-bye,” as she said, “and to cheer Bertie up, for they were all making too great a fuss about him,” the whole party were finally got into their carriages, and sent away. Sophy’s last words, however, though they disgusted the watchers, were balm to Herbert.
“She is a jolly girl,” he said; “youaremaking—too—much fuss. It’s—going off. I’ll be—all right—directly.”
And then in the grateful quiet that followed, which no one disturbed, with his two familiar nurses, who had watched him so often, by his side, the excitement really began to lessen, the palpitation to subside. Reine and Everard sat side by side, in the silence, saying nothing to each other, almost forgetting, if that were possible, what they had been saying to each other as they glided, in absolute seclusion from all other creatures, down the soft twilight river. All the recent past seemed to melt into the clouds for them, and they were again at Appenzell, at Kandersteg, returned to their familiar occupation nursing their sick together, as they had so often nursed him before.
Everard had despatched a messenger to Whiteladies, when he sent for the doctor; and Miss Susan, careful of Reine as well as of Herbert, obeyed the summons along with the anxious François, who understood the case in a moment. The doctor, on his arrival, gave also a certain consolation to the watchers. With quiet all might be well again; there was nothing immediately alarming in the attack; but he must not exert himself, and must be content for the moment at least to retire to the seclusion of an invalid. They all remained in Water Beeches for the night, but next morning were able to remove the patient to Whiteladies. In the morning, before they left, poor Everard, once more thrown into a secondary place, took possession of Reine, and led her all over his small premises. It was a misty morning, touched with the first sensation of Autumn, though Summer was all ablaze in the gardens and fields. A perfect tranquillity of repose was everywhere, and as the sun got power, and the soft white mists broke up, a soft clearness of subdued light, as dazzling almost as full sunshine, suffused the warm still atmosphere. The river glided languidunder the heat, gleaming white and dark, without the magical colors of the previous day. The lazy shadows drooped over it from the leafy banks, so still that it was hard to say which was substance and which shadow.
“We are going to finish our last-night’s talk,” said Everard.
“Finish!” said Reine half-smiling, half-weeping, for how much had happened since that enchanted twilight! “what more is there to say?” And I don’t think there was much more to say—though he kept her under the trees on the river side, and in the shady little wood by the pond where the skating had been when he received her letter—saying it; so long, that Miss Susan herself came out to look for them, wondering. As she called “Reine! Reine!” through the still air, wondering more and more, she suddenly came in sight of them turning the corner of a great clump of roses, gay in their second season of bloom. They came toward her arm-in-arm with a light on their faces which it needed no sorcerer to interpret. Miss Susan had never gone through these experiences herself, but she understood at once what this meant, and her heart gave one leap of great and deep delight. It was so long since she had felt what it was to be happy, that the sensation overpowered her. It was what she had hoped for and prayed for, so long as her hopes were worth much, or her prayers. She had lost sight of this secret longing in the dull chaos of preoccupation which had swallowed her up for so long; and now this thing for which she had never dared to scheme, and which lately she had not had the courage even to wish for, was accomplished before her eyes.
“Oh,” said Miss Susan, out of the depths of an experience unknown to them, “how much better God is to us than we are to ourselves! A just desire comes to pass without any scheming.” And she kissed them both with lips that trembled, and joy incredible, incomprehensible in her heart. She had ceased to hope for anything that was personally desirable to her; and, lo! here was her chief wish accomplished.
This was all Hebrew and Sanskrit to the young people, who smiled to each other in their ignorance, but were touched by her emotion, and surrounded her with their happiness and their love, a very atmosphere of tenderness and jubilation. And the sun burst forth just then, and woke up all the dormant glow of color, as if to celebrate the news now first breathed to other ears thantheir own; and the birds, they thought, fell a-singing all at once, in full chorus. Herbert, who lay on the sofa, languid and pale, waiting for them to start on his drive home, did not observe these phenomena, poor boy, though the windows were open. He thought they were long of coming (as indeed they were), and was fretful, feeling himself neglected, and eager to get home.
Whiteladies immediately turned itself into an enchanted palace, a castle of silence and quiet. The young master of the house was as if he had been transported suddenly into the Arabian nights. Everything was arranged for his comfort, for his amusement, to make him forget the noisier pleasures into which he had plunged with so much delight. When he had got over his sombre and painful disappointment, I don’t think poor Herbert, accustomed to an invalid existence, disliked the Sybarite seclusion in which he found himself. He had the most careful and tender nurse, watching every look; and he had (which I suspect was the best of it) a Slave—an Odalisque, a creature devoted to his pleasure—his flatterer, the chief source of his amusement, his dancing-girl, his singing-woman, a whole band of entertainers in one. This I need not say was Giovanna. At last her turn had come, and she was ready to take advantage of it. She did not interfere with the nursing, having perhaps few faculties that way, or perhaps (which is more likely) feeling it wiser not to invade the province of the old servants and the anxious relatives. But she took upon her to amuse Herbert, with a success which none of the others could rival. She was never anxious; she did not look at him with those longing, eager eyes, which, even in the depths of their love, convey alarm to the mind of the sick. She was gay and bright, and took the best view of everything, feeling quite confident that all would be well; for, indeed, though she liked him well enough, there was no love in her to make her afraid. She was perfectly patient, sitting by him for hours, always ready to take any one’s place, ready to sing to him, to read to him in her indifferent English, making him gay with her mistakes, and joining in the laugh against herself with unbroken good-humor. She taught little Jean tricks to amuse the invalid, and made up a whole series of gymnastic evolutions with the boy, tossing him about in her beautiful arms, a picture of elastic strength and grace. She was, in short—there was no other word for it—not Herbert’s nurse or companion, but hisslave; and there could be little doubt that it was the presence and ministrations of this beautiful creature which made him so patient of his confinement. And he was quite patient, as contented as in the days when he had no thought beyond his sick-room, notwithstanding that now he spoke continually of what he meant to do when he was well. Giovanna cured him of anxiety, made everything look bright to him. It was some time before Miss Susan or Reine suspected the cause of this contented state, which was so good for him, and promoted his recovery so much. A man’s nearest friends are slow to recognize or believe that a stranger has more power over him than themselves; but after awhile they did perceive it with varying and not agreeable sentiments. I cannot venture to describe the thrill of horror and pain with which Miss Susan found it out.
It was while she was walking alone from the village, at the corner of Priory Lane, that the thought struck her suddenly; and she never forgot the aspect of the place, the little heaps of fallen leaves at her feet, as she stood still in her dismay, and, like a revelation, saw what was coming. Miss Susan uttered a groan so bitter, that it seemed to echo through the air, and shake the leaves from the trees, which came down about her in a shower, for it was now September. “He will marry her!” she said to herself; and the consequences of her own sin, instead of coming to an end, would be prolonged forever, and affect unborn generations. Reine naturally had no such horror in her mind; but the idea of Giovanna’s ascendancy over Herbert was far from agreeable to her, as may be supposed. She struggled hard to dismiss the idea, and she tried what she could to keep her place by her brother, and so resist the growing influence. But it was too late for such an effort; and indeed, I am afraid, involved a sacrifice not only of herself, but of her pride, and of Herbert’s affection, that was too much for Reine. To see his looks cloud over, to see him turn his back on her, to hear his querulous questions, “Why did not she go out? Was not Everard waiting? Could not she leave him a little freedom, a little time to himself?”—all this overcame his sister.
“He will marry Giovanna,” she said, pouring her woes into the ear of her betrothed. “She must want to marry him, or she would not be there always, she would not behave as she is doing.”
“He will marry whom he likes, darling, and we can’t stop him,” said Everard, which was poor consolation. And thus the crisis slowly drew near.
In the meantime another event utterly unexpected had followed that unlucky day on the river, and had contributed to leave the little romance of Herbert and Giovanna undisturbed. Mr. Farrel-Austin caught cold in the “blight” that fell upon the river, or in the drive home afterward; nobody could exactly tell how it was. He caught cold, which brought on congestion of the lungs, and in ten days, taking the county and all his friends utterly by surprise, and himself no less, to whom such a thing seemed incredible, was dead. Dead; not ill, nor in danger, but actually dead—a thing which the whole district gasped to hear, not finding it possible to connect the idea of Farrel-Austin with anything so solemn. The girls drove over twice to ask for Herbert, and had been admitted to the morning room, the cheerfullest room in the house, where he lay on his sofa, to see him, and had told him lightly (which was a consolation to Herbert, as showing him that he was not alone in misfortune) that papa was ill too, in bed and very bad. But Sophy and Kate were, like all the rest of the world, totally unprepared for the catastrophe which followed; and they did not come back, being suddenly plunged into all the solemn horror of an event so deeply affecting their own fortunes, as well as such affections as they possessed. Thus, there was not even the diversion of a rival to interrupt Giovanna’s opportunity. Farrel-Austin’s death affected Miss Susan in the most extraordinary way, so that all her friends were thunderstruck. She was overwhelmed; was it by grief for her enemy? When she received the news, she gave utterance to a wild and terrible cry, and rushed up to her own room, whence she scarcely appeared all the rest of the day. Next morning she presented to her astonished family a countenance haggard and pale, as if by years of suffering. What was the cause? Was it Susan that had loved him, and not Augustine (who took the information very calmly), or what was the secret of this impassioned emotion? No one could say. Miss Susan was like a woman distraught for some days. She would break out into moanings and weeping when she was alone, in which indulgence she was more than once surprised by the bewildered Reine. This was too extraordinary to be accounted for. Was it possible, the others askedthemselves, that her enmity to Farrel-Austin had been but a perverse cloak for another sentiment?
I give these wild guesses, because they were at their wits’ end, and had not the least clue to the mystery. So bewildered were they, that they could show her little sympathy, and do nothing to comfort her; for it was monstrous to see her thus afflicted. Giovanna was the only one who seemed to have any insight at this moment into the mind of Miss Susan. I think even she had but a dim realization of how it was. But she was kind, and did her best to show her kindness; a sympathy which Miss Susan revolted the rest by utter rejection of, a rejection almost fierce in its rudeness.
“Keep me free from that woman—keep her away from me!” she cried wildly.
“Aunt Susan,” said Reine, not without reproach in her tone, “Giovanna wants to be kind.”
“Oh, kind! What has come to us that I must put up withherkindness?” she cried, with her blue eyes aflame.
Neither Reine nor any of the others knew what to say to this strange new phase in Miss Susan’s mysterious conduct. For it was apparent to all of them that some mystery had come into her life, into her character, since the innocent old days when her eyes were as clear and her brow, though so old, as unruffled as their own. Day by day Miss Susan’s burden was getting heavier to bear. Farrel’s death, which removed all barriers except the one she had herself put there, between Everard and the inheritance of Whiteladies; and this growing fascination of Herbert for Giovanna, which she seemed incapable of doing anything to stop, and which, she cried out to herself in the silence of the night, she never, never would permit herself to consent to, and could not bear—these two things together filled up the measure of her miseries. Day by day the skies grew blacker over her, her footsteps were hemmed in more terribly; until at last she seemed scarcely to know what she was doing. The bailiff addressed himself to Everard in a kind of despair.
“I can’t get no orders,” he said. “I can’t get nothing reasonable out of Miss Austin; whether it’s anxiousness, or what, none of us can tell.” And he gave Everard an inquisitive look, as if testing him how far he might go. It was the opinion of thecommon people that Augustine had been mad for years; and now they thought Miss Susan was showing signs of the same malady.
“That’s how things goes when it’s in a family,” the village said.
Thus the utmost miserable endurance, and the most foolish imbecile happiness lived together under the same roof, vaguely conscious of each other, yet neither fathoming the other’s depths. Herbert, like Reine and Everard, perceived that something was wrong with Miss Susan; but being deeply occupied with his own affairs, and feeling the absolute unimportance of anything that could happen to his old aunt in comparison—was not much tempted to dwell upon the idea, or to make any great effort to penetrate the mystery; while she, still more deeply preoccupied with her wretchedness, fearing the future, yet fearing still more to betray herself, did not realize how quickly affairs were progressing, nor how far they had gone. It was not till late in September that she at last awoke to the fact. Herbert was better, almost well again, the doctor pronounced, but sadly shaken and weak. It was a damp, rainy day, with chills in it of the waning season, dreary showers of yellow leaves falling with every gust, and all the signs that an early ungenial Autumn, without those gorgeous gildings of decay which beguile us of our natural regrets, was closing in, yellow and humid, with wet mists and dreary rain. Everything dismal that can happen is more dismal on such a day, and any diversion which can be had indoors to cheat the lingering hours is a double blessing. Herbert was as usual in the morning-room, which had been given up to him as the most cheerful. Reine had been called away to see Everard, who, now that the invalid was better, insisted upon a share of her attention; and she had left the room all the more reluctantly that there was a gleam of pleasure in her brother’s eye as she was summoned. “Giovanna will stay with me,” he said, the color rising in his pale cheeks; and Reine fled to Everard, red with mortification and sorrow and anger, to ask him for the hundredth time, “Could nothing be done to stop it—could nothing be done?”
Miss Susan was going about the house from room to room, feverishly active in some things by way of making up, perhaps from the half-conscious failing of her powers in others. She was restless, and could not keep still to look out upon the flying leaves,the dreary blasts, the gray dismal sky; and the rain prevented her from keeping her miserable soul still by exercise out of doors, as she often did now, contrary to all use and wont. She had no intention in her mind when her restless feet turned the way of Herbert’s room. She did not know that Giovanna was there, and Reine absent. She was not suspicious more than usual, neither had she the hope or fear of finding out anything. She went mechanically that way, as she might have gone mechanically through the long turnings of the passage to the porch, where Reine and Everard were looking out upon the dismal Autumn day.
When she opened the door, however, listlessly, she saw a sight which woke her up like a trumpet. Giovanna was sitting upon a stool close by Herbert’s sofa. One of her hands he was holding tenderly in his; with the other she was smoothing back his hair from his forehead, caressing him with soft touches and soft words, while he gazed at her with that melting glow of sentimentality—vanity or love, or both together, in his eyes—which no spectator can ever mistake. As Miss Susan went into the room, Giovanna, who sat with her back to the door, bent over him and kissed him on the forehead, murmuring as she did so into his bewitched and delighted ear.
The looker-on was petrified for the first moment; then she threw up her hands, and startled the lovers with a wild shrill cry. I think it was heard all over the house. Giovanna jumped up from her stool, and Herbert started upright on his sofa; and Reine and Everard, alarmed, came rushing from the porch. They all gazed at Miss Susan, who stood there as pale as marble, gasping with an attempt to speak. Herbert for the moment was cowed and frightened by the sight of her; but Giovanna had perfect possession of her faculties. She faced the new-comers with a blush, which only improved her beauty, and laughed.
“Eh bien!” she cried, “you have then found out, Madame Suzanne? I am content, me. I am not fond of to deceive. Speak to her, mon ’Erbert, the word is to thee.”
“Yes, Aunt Susan,” he said, trying to laugh too, but blushing, a hot uneasy blush, not like Giovanna’s. “I beg your pardon. Of course I ought to have spoken to you before; and equally of course now you see what has happened without requiring any explanation.Giovanna, whom you have been so kind to, is going to be my wife.”
Miss Susan once more cried out wildly in her misery, “It cannot be—it shall not be! I will not have it!” she said.
Once more Giovanna laughed, not offensively, but with a good-natured sense of fun. “Mon Dieu!” she said, “what can you do? Why should not we be bons amis? You cannot do anything, Madame Suzanne. It is all fixed and settled, and if you will think, it is for the best, it will arrange all.” Giovanna had a real desire to make peace, to secure de l’amitié, as she said. She went across the room toward Miss Susan, holding out her hand.
And then for a moment a mortal struggle went on in Susan Austin’s soul. She repulsed wildly, but mechanically, the offered hand, and stood there motionless, her breast panting, all the powers of nature startled into intensity, and such a conflict and passion going on within her as made her blind and deaf to the world outside. Then suddenly she put her hand upon the nearest chair, and drawing it to her, sat down, opposite to Herbert, with a nervous shiver running over her frame. She put up her hand to her throat, as if to tear away something which restrained or suffocated her; and then she said, in a terrible, stifled voice, “Herbert! first you must hear what I have got to say.”
Giovannalooked at Miss Susan with surprise, then with a little apprehension. It was her turn to be uneasy. “Que voulez-vous? que voulez-vous dire?” she said under her breath, endeavoring to catch Miss Susan’s eye. Miss Susan was a great deal too impassioned and absorbed even to notice the disturbed condition of her adversary. She knew herself to be surrounded by an eager audience, but yet in her soul she was alone, insensible to everything, moved only by a passionate impulse to relieve herself, to throw off the burden which was driving her mad. She did not even see Giovanna, who after walking round behind Herbert, trying to communicate by the eyes with the woman whom all this time she had herself subdued by covert threats, sat down at last at the head of the sofa, putting her hand, which Herbert took into his, upon it. Probably this sign of kindness stimulated Miss Susan, though I doubt whether she was conscious of it, something having laid hold upon her which was beyond her power to resist.
“I have a story to tell you, children,” she said, pulling instinctively with her hand at the throat of her dress, which seemed to choke her, “and a confession to make. I have been good, good enough in my way, trying to do my duty most of my life; but now at the end of it I have done wrong, great wrong, and sinned against you all. God forgive me! and I hope you’ll forgive me. I’ve been trying to save myself from the—exposure—from the shame, God help me! I have thought of myself, when I ought to have thought of you all. Oh, I’ve been punished! I’ve been punished! But perhaps it is not yet too late. Oh, Herbert, Herbert! my dear boy, listen to me!”
“If you are going to say anything against Giovanna, you will lose your time, Aunt Susan,” said Herbert; and Giovanna leanedon the arm of the sofa, and kissed his forehead again in thanks and triumph.
“What I am going to say first is against myself,” said Miss Susan. “It is three years ago—a little more than three years; Farrel-Austin, who is dead, came and told me that he had found the missing people, the Austins whom you have heard of, whom I had sought for so long, and that he had made some bargain with them, that they should withdraw in his favor. You were very ill then, Herbert, thought to be dying; and Farrel-Austin—poor man, he is dead!—was our enemy. It was dreadful, dreadful to think of him coming here, being the master of the place. That was my sin to begin with. I thought I could bear anything sooner than that.”
Augustine came into the room at this moment. She came and went so noiselessly that no one even heard her; and Miss Susan was too much absorbed to note anything. The new-comer stood still near the door behind her sister, at first because it was her habit, and then, I suppose, in sympathy with the motionless attention of the others, and the continuance without a pause of Miss Susan’s voice.
“I meant no harm; I don’t know what I meant. I went to break their bargain, to show them the picture of the house, to make them keep their rights against that man. It was wicked enough. Farrel-Austin’s gone, and God knows what was between him and us; but to think of him here made me mad, and I went to try and break the bargain. I own that was what I meant. It was not, perhaps, Christian-like; not what your Aunt Augustine, who is as good as an angel, would have approved of; but it was not wicked, not wicked, if I had done no more than that!
“When I got there,” said Miss Susan, drawing a long breath, “I found them willing enough; but the man was old, and his son was dead, and there was nothing but daughters left. In the room with them was a daughter, a young married woman, a young widow—”
“Yes, there was me,” said Giovanna. “To what good is all this narrative, Madame Suzanne? Me, I know it before, and Monsieur ’Erbert is not amused; look, he yawns. We have assez, assez, for to-day.”
“There wasshe; sitting in the room, a poor, melancholy,neglected creature; and there was the other young woman, Gertrude, pretty and fair, like an English girl. She was—going to have a baby,” said Miss Susan, even at that moment hesitating in her old maidenliness before she said it, her old face coloring softly. “The devil put it into my head all at once. It was not premeditated; I did not make it up in my mind. All at once, all at once the devil put it into my head! I said suddenly to the old woman, to old Madame Austin, ‘Your daughter-in-law is in the same condition?’ She was sitting down crouched in a corner. She was said to be sick. What was more natural,” cried poor Miss Susan looking round, “than to think that was the cause?”
Perhaps it was the first time she had thought of this excuse. She caught at the idea with heat and eagerness, appealing to them all. “What more natural than that I should think so? She never rose up; I could not see her. Oh, children,” cried Miss Susan, wringing her hands, “I cannot tell how much or how little wickedness there was in my first thought; but answer me, wasn’t it natural? The old woman took me up in a moment, took up more—yes, I am sure—more than I meant. She drew me away to her room, and there we talked of it. She did not say to me distinctly that the widow was not in that way. We settled,” she said after a pause, with a shiver and gasp before the words, “that anyhow—if a boy came—it was to be Giovanna’s boy and the heir.”
Herbert made an effort at this moment to relinquish Giovanna’s hand, which he had been holding all the time; not, I believe, because of this information, which he scarcely understood as yet, but because his arm was cramped remaining so long in the same position; but she, as was natural, understood the movement otherwise. She held him for a second, then tossed his hand away and sprang up from her chair. “Après?” she cried, with an insolent laugh. “Madame Suzanne, you radotez, you are too old. This goes without saying that the boy is Giovanna’s boy.”
“Yes, we know all this,” said Herbert, pettishly. “Aunt Susan, I cannot imagine what you are making all this fuss and looking so excited about. What do you mean? What is all this about old women and babies? I wish you would speak out if you have anything to say. Giovanna, come here.”
“Yes,” she said, throwing herself on the sofa beside him;“yes, mon Herbert, mon bien-aimé. You will not abandon me, whatever any one may say?”
“Herbert,” cried Miss Susan, “let her alone, let her alone, for God’s sake! She is guilty, guiltier than I am. She made a pretence as her mother-in-law told her, pretended to be ill, pretended to have a child, kept up the deceit—how can I tell how long?—till now. Gertrude is innocent, whose baby was taken; she thought it died, poor thing, poor thing! but Giovanna is not innocent. All she has done, all she has said, has been lies, lies! The child is not her child; it is not the heir. She has thrust herself into this house, and done all this mischief, by a lie. She knows it; look at her. She has kept her place by threatening me, by holding my disgrace before my eyes; and now, Herbert, my poor boy, my poor boy, she will ruin you. Oh, put her away, put her away!”
Herbert rose up, trembling in his weakness. “Is this true, Giovanna?” he said, turning to her piteously. “Have you anything to say against it? Is it true?”
Reine, who had been standing behind, listening with an amazement beyond the reach of words, came to her brother’s side, to support him at this terrible moment; but he put her away. Even Miss Susan, who was the chief sufferer, fell into the background. Giovanna kept her place on the sofa, defiant, while he stood before her, turning his back upon the elder offender, who felt this mark of her own unimportance, even in the fever of her excitement and passion.
“Have you nothing to say against it?” cried Herbert, with anguish in his voice. “Giovanna! Giovanna! is it true?”
Giovanna shrugged her shoulders impatiently. “Mon Dieu,” she said, “I did what I was told. They said to me, ‘Do this,’ and I did it; was it my fault? It was the old woman who did all, as Madame Suzanne says—”
“We are all involved together, God forgive us!” cried Miss Susan, bowing her head into her hands.
Then there was a terrible pause. They were all silent, all waiting to hear what Herbert had to say, who, by reason of being most deeply involved, seemed suddenly elevated into the judge. He went away from the sofa where Giovanna was, and in front of which Miss Susan was sitting, as far away as he could get, andbegan to walk up and down the room in his excitement. He took no further notice of Giovanna, but after a moment, pausing in his angry march, said suddenly, “It was all on Farrel-Austin’s account you plunged into crime like this? Silence, Reine! it is crime, and it is she who is to blame. What in the name of heaven had Farrel-Austin done to you that you should avenge yourself upon us all like this?”
“Forgive me, Herbert!” said Miss Susan, faintly; “he was to have married Augustine, and he forsook her, jilted her, shamed her, my only sister. How could I see him in this house?”
And then again there was a pause. Even Reine made no advance to the culprit, though her heart began to beat loudly, and her indignation was mingled with pity. Giovanna sat gloomy; drumming with her foot upon the carpet. Herbert had resumed his rapid pacing up and down. Miss Susan sat in the midst of them, hopeless, motionless, her bowed head hidden in her hands, every help and friendly prop dropped away from her, enduring to the depths the bitterness of her punishment, yet, perhaps, with a natural reaction, asking herself, was there none, none of all she had been kind to, capable of a word, a look, a touch of pity in this moment of her downfall and uttermost need? Both Everard and Reine felt upon them that strange spell which often seems to freeze all outward action in a great emergency, though their hearts were swelling. They had both made a forward step; when suddenly, the matter was taken out of their hands. Augustine, perhaps, was more slow than any of them, out of her abstraction and musing, to be roused to what was being said. But the last words had supplied a sharp sting of reality which woke her fully, and helped her to understand. As soon as she had mastered it, she went up swiftly and silently to her sister, put her arms round her, and drew away the hands in which she had buried her face.
“Susan,” she said, in a voice more real and more living than had been heard from her lips for years, “I have heard everything. You have confessed your sin, and God will forgive you. Come with me.”
“Austine! Austine!” cried poor Miss Susan, shrinking, dropping to the floor at the feet of the immaculate creature who was to her as a saint.
“Yes, it is I,” said Augustine. “Poor Susan! and I never knew! God will forgive you. Come with me.”
“Yes,” said the other, the elder and stronger, with the humility of a child; and she got up from where she had thrown herself, and casting a pitiful look upon them all, turned round and gave her hand to her sister. She was weak with her excitement, and exhausted as if she had risen from a long illness. Augustine drew her sister’s hand through her arm, and without another word, led her away. Reine rushed after them, weeping and anxious, the bonds loosed that seemed to have congealed her. Augustine put her back, not unkindly, but with decision. “Another time, Reine. She is going with me.”
They were all so overawed by this sudden action that even Herbert stopped short in his angry march, and Everard, who opened the door for their exit, could only look at them, and could not say a word. Miss Susan hung on Augustine’s arm, broken, shattered, feeble; an old woman, worn out and fainting. The recluse supporting her, with a certain air of strength and pride, strangely unlike her nature, walked on steadily and firmly, looking, as was her wont, neither to the right hand nor the left. All her life Susan had been her protector, her supporter, her stay. Now their positions had changed all in a moment. Erect and almost proud she walked out of the room, holding up the bowed-down, feeble figure upon her arm. And the young people, all so strangely, all so differently affected by this extraordinary revelation, stood blankly together and looked at each other, not knowing what to say, when the door closed. None of the three Austins spoke to or looked at Giovanna, who sat on the sofa, still drumming with her foot upon the carpet. When the first blank pause was over, Reine went up to Herbert and put her arm through his.
“Oh, forgive her, forgive her!” she cried.
“I will never forgive her,” he said wildly; “she has been the cause of it all. Why did she let this go on, my God! and why did she tell me now?”
Giovanna sat still, beating her foot on the carpet, and neither moved nor spoke.
As for Susan and Augustine, no one attempted to follow them. No one thought of anything further than a withdrawal to their rooms of the two sisters, united in a tenderness of far older datethan the memories of the young people could reach; and I don’t even know whether the impulse that made them both turn through the long passage toward the porch was the same. I don’t suppose it was. Augustine thought of leading her penitent sister to the Almshouse chapel, as she would have wished should be done to herself in any great and sudden trouble; whereas an idea of another kind entered at once into the mind of Susan, which, beaten down and shaken as it was, began already to recover a little after having thrown off the burden. She paused a moment in the hall, and took down a gray hood which was hanging there, like Augustine’s, a covering which she had adopted to please her sister on her walks about the roads near home. It was the nearest thing at hand, and she caught at it, and put it on, as both together with one simultaneous impulse they bent their steps to the door. I have said that the day was damp and dismal and hopeless, one of those days which make a despairing waste of a leafy country. Now and then there would come a miserable gust of wind, carrying floods of sickly yellow leaves from all the trees, and in the intervals a small mizzling rain, not enough to wet anything, coming like spray in the wayfarers’ faces, filled up the dreary moments. No one was out of doors who could be in; it was worse than a storm, bringing chill to the marrow of your bones, weighing heavy upon your soul. The two old sisters, without a word to each other, went out through the long passage, through the porch in which Miss Susan had sat and done her knitting so many Summers through. She took no farewell look at the familiar place, made no moan as she left it. They went out clinging to each other, Augustine erect and almost proud, Susan bowed and feeble, across the sodden wet lawn, and out at the little gate in Priory Lane. They had done it a hundred and a thousand times before; they meant, or at least Miss Susan meant, to do it never again; but her mind was capable of no regret for Whiteladies. She went out mechanically, leaning on her sister, yet almost mechanically directing that sister the way Susan intended to go, not Augustine. And thus they set forth into the Autumn weather, into the mists, into the solitary world. Had the departure been made publicly with solemn farewells and leave-takings, they would have felt it far more deeply. As it was, they scarcely felt it at all, having their minds full of other things. They went along Priory Lane,wading through the yellow leaves, and along the road to the village, where Augustine would have turned to the left, the way to the Almshouses. They had not spoken a word to each other, and Miss Susan leaned almost helplessly in her exhaustion upon her sister; but nevertheless she swayed Augustine in the opposite direction across the village street. One or two women came out to the cottage doors to look after them. It was a curious sight, instead of Miss Augustine, gray and tall and noiseless, whom they were all used to watch in the other direction, to see the two gray figures going on silently, one so bowed and aged as to be unrecognizable, exactly the opposite way. “She have got another with her, an old ’un,” the women said to each other, and rubbed their eyes, and were not half sure that the sight was real. They watched the two figures slowly disappearing round the corner. It came on to rain, but the wayfarers did not quicken their pace. They proceeded slowly on, neither saying a word to the other, indifferent to the rain and to the yellow leaves that tumbled on their path. So, I suppose, with their heads bowed, and no glance behind, the first pair may have gone desolate out of Paradise. But they were young, and life was before them; whereas Susan and Augustine, setting out forlorn upon their new existence, were old, and had no heart for another home and another life.
Whena number of people have suddenly been brought together accidentally by such an extraordinary incident as that I have attempted to describe, it is almost as difficult for them to separate, as it is to know what to do, or what to say to each other. Herbert kept walking up and down the room, dispelling, or thinking he was dispelling, his wrath and excitement in this way. Giovanna sat on the sofa motionless, except her foot, with which she kept on beating the carpet. Reine, after trying to join herself to her brother, as I have said, and console him, went back to Everard, who had gone to the window, the safest refuge for the embarrassed and disturbed. Reine went to her betrothed, finding in him that refuge which is so great a safeguard to the mind in all circumstances. She was very anxious and unhappy, but it was about others, not about herself; and though there was a cloud of disquietude and pain upon her, as she stood by Everard’s side, her face turned toward the others, watching for any new event, yet Reine’s mind had in itself such a consciousness of safe anchorage, and of a refuge beyond any one’s power to interfere with, that the very trouble which had overtaken them, seemed to add a fresh security to her internal well-being. Nothing that any one could say, nothing that any one could do, could interfere between her and Everard; and Everard for his part, with that unconscious selfishnessà deux, which is like no other kind of selfishness, was not thinking of Herbert, or Miss Susan, but only of his poor Reine, exposed to this agitation and trouble.
“Oh, if I could only carry you away from it all, my poor darling!” he said in her ear.
Reine said, “Oh, hush, Everard, do not think of me,” feeling,indeed, that she was not the chief sufferer, nor deserving, in the present case, of the first place in any one’s sympathy; yet she was comforted. “Why does not she go away?—oh, if she would but go away!” cried Reine, and stood thus watching, consoled by her lover, anxious and vigilant, but yet not the person most deserving of pity, as she herself felt.
While they thus remained as Miss Susan had left them, not knowing how to get themselves dispersed, there came a sudden sound of carriage wheels, and loud knocking at the great door on the other side of the house, the door by which all strangers approached.
“Oh, as if we were not bad enough already, here are visitors!” cried Reine. And even Herbert seemed to listen, irritated by the unexpected commotion. Then followed the sound of loud voices, and a confused colloquy. “I must go and receive them, whoever it is,” said Reine, with a moan over her fate. After awhile steps were heard approaching, and the door was thrown open suddenly. “Not here, not here,” cried Reine, running forward. “The drawing-room, Stevens.”
“Beg pardon, ma’am,” said Stevens, flushed and angry. “It ain’t my fault. I can’t help it. They won’t be kep’ back, Miss Reine,” he cried, bending his head down over her. “Don’t be frightened. It’s the hold foreign gent—”
“Not here,” cried Reine again. “Oh, whom did you say? Stevens, I tell you not here.”
“But he is here; the hold foreign gent,” said Stevens, who seemed to be suddenly pulled back from behind by somebody following him. If there had been any laughter in her, I think Reine would have laughed; but though the impulse gleamed across her distracted mind, the power was wanting. And there suddenly appeared, facing her, in the place of Stevens, two people, who took from poor Reine all inclination to laugh. One of them was an old man, spruce and dapper, in the elaborate travelling wraps of a foreigner, of the bourgeois class, with a comforter tied round his neck, and a large great coat with a hood to it. The other was a young woman, fair and full, with cheeks momentarily paled by weariness and agitation, but now and then dyed deep with rosy color. These two came to a momentary stop in their eager career, to gaze at Reine, but finally pushing past her, to hergreat amazement, got before her into the room which she had been defending from them.
“I seek Madame Suzanne! I seek the lady!” said the old man.
At the sound of his voice Giovanna sprang to her feet; and as soon as they got sight of her, the two strangers made a startled pause. Then the young woman rushed forward and laid hold of her by the arm.
“Mon bébé! mon enfant! donne-moi mon bébé!” she said.
“Eh bien, Gertrude! c’est toi!” cried Giovanna. She was roused in a moment from the quiescent state, sullen or stupefied, in which she had been. She seemed to rise full of sudden energy and new life. “And the bon papa, too! Tiens, this is something of extraordinary; but, unhappily, Madame Suzanne has just left us, she is not here. Suffer me to present to you my beau-père, M. Herbert; my belle-sœur Gertrude, of whom you have just heard. Give yourself the trouble to sit down, my parents. This is a pleasure very unattended. Had Madame Suzanne known—she talked of you toute à l’heure—no doubt she would have stayed—”
“Giovanna,” cried the old man, trembling, “you know, you must know, why we are here. Content this poor child, and restore to her her baby. Ah, traître! her baby, not thine. How could I be so blind—how could I be so foolish, and you so criminal, Giovanna? Your poor belle-mère has been ill, has been at the point of death, and she has told us all.”
“Mon enfant!” cried the young woman, clasping her hands. “My bébé, Giovanna; give me my bébé, and I pardon thee all.”
“Ah! the belle-mère has made her confession, then!” said Giovanna. “C’est ça? Poor belle-mère! and poor Madame Suzanne! who has come to do the same here. But none say ‘Poor Giovanna.’ Me, I am criminal, va! I am the one whom all denounce; but the others, they are then my victims, not I theirs!”
“Giovanna, Giovanna, I debate not with thee,” cried the old man. “We say nothing to thee, nothing; we blame not, nor punish. We say, give back the child,—ah, give back the child! Look at her, how her color changes, how she weeps! Give her her bébé. We will not blame, nor say a word to thee, never!”
“No! you will but leave me to die of hunger,” said Giovanna, “to die by the roads, in the fields, qu’importe? I am outof the law, me. Yet I have done less ill than the others. They were old, they had all they desired; and I was young, and miserable, and made mad—ah, ma Gertrude! by thee, too, gentle as thou look’st, even by thee!”
“Giovanna, Giovanna!” cried Gertrude, throwing herself at her feet. Her pretty upturned face looked round and innocent, like a child’s, and the big tears ran down her cheeks. “Give me my bébé, and I will ask your pardon on my knees.”
Giovanna made a pause, standing upright, with this stranger clinging to her dress, and looked round upon them all with a strange mixture of scorn and defiance and emotion. “Messieurs,” she said, “and mademoiselle! you see what proof the bon Dieu has sent of all Madame Suzanne said. Was it my doing? No! I was obedient, I did what I was told: but, voyons! it will be I who shall suffer. Madame Suzanne is safe. You can do nothing to her; in a little while you will lofe her again, as before. The belle-mère, who is wicked, wickedest of all, gets better, and one calls her poor bonne-maman, pauvre petite mère! But me! I am the one who shall be cast away, I am the one to be punished; here, there, everywhere, I shall be kicked like a dog—yes, like a dog! All the pardon, the miséricorde will be for them—for me the punishment. Because I am the most weak! because I am the slave of all—because I am the one who has excuse the most!”
She was so noble in her attitude, so grand in her voice and expression, that Herbert stood and gazed at her like one spellbound. But I do not think she remarked this, being for the moment transported out of herself by a passionate outburst of feeling—sense of being wronged—pity for herself, defiance of her enemies; and a courage and resolution mingling with all which, if not very elevated in their origin, were intense enough to give elevation to her looks. What an actress she would have made! Everard thought regretfully. He was already very pitiful of the forsaken creature at whom every one threw a stone.
“Giovanna, Giovanna!” cried the weeping Gertrude, clinging to her dress, “hear me! I will forgive you, I will love you. But give me my bébé, Giovanna, give me my child!”
Giovanna paused again, looking down upon the baby face, all blurred with crying. Her own face changed from its almost tragic form to a softer aspect. A kind of pity stole over it, thenanother and stronger sentiment. A gleam of humor came into her eyes. “Tenez,” she said, “I go to have my revenge!” and drawing her dress suddenly from Gertrude’s clasp, she went up to the bell, rang it sharply, and waiting, facing them all with a smile, “Monsieur Stevens,” she said, with the most enchanting courtesy, when the butler appeared, “will you have the goodness to bring to me, or to send to me, my boy, the little mas-ter Jean?”
After she had given this order, she stood still waiting, all the profounder feeling of her face disappearing into an illumination of gayety and fun, which none of the spectators understood. A few minutes elapsed while this pause lasted. Martha, who thought Master Jean was being sent for to see company, hastily invested him in his best frock and ribbons. “And be sure you make your bow pretty, and say how do do,” said innocent Martha, knowing nothing of the character of the visit, nor of the tragical change which had suddenly come upon the family life. The child came in with all the boldness of the household pet into the room in which so many excited people were waiting for him. His pretty fair hair was dressed according to the tradition of the British nursery, in a great flat curl on the top of his little head. He had his velvet frock on, with scarlet ribbons, and looked, as Martha proudly thought, “a little gentleman,” every inch of him. He looked round him with childish complaisance as he came in, and made his little salute, as Giovanna had taught him. But when Gertrude rushed toward him, as she did at once, and throwing herself on her knees beside him, caught him in her arms and covered him with kisses, little Jean was taken violently by surprise. A year’s interval is eternity to such a baby. He knew nothing about Gertrude. He cried, struggled, fought to be free, and finally struck at her with his sturdy little fists.
“Mamma, mamma!” cried little Jean, holding out appealing arms to Giovanna, who stood at a little distance, her fine nostrils expanded, a smile upon her lip, a gleam of mischief in her eyes.
“He will knowme,” said the old man, going to his daughter’s aid. “A moment, give him a moment, Gertrude. A moi, Jeannot, à moi! Let him go, ma fille. Give him a moment to recollect himself; he has forgotten, perhaps, his language, Jeannot, my child, come to me!”
Jean paid no attention to these blandishments. When Gertrude,weeping, released, by her father’s orders, her tight hold of the child, he rushed at once to Giovanna’s side, and clung to her dress, and hid his face in its folds. “Mamma, mamma, take Johnny!” he said.
Giovanna stooped, lifted him like a feather, and tossed him up to her shoulder with a look of triumph. “There, thou art safe, no one can touch thee,” she said; and turning upon her discomfited relations, looked down upon them both with a smile. It was her revenge, and she enjoyed it with all her heart. The child clung to her, clasping both of his arms round hers, which she had raised to hold him fast. She laughed aloud—a laugh which startled every one, and woke the echoes all about.
“Tiens!” she said, in her gay voice, “whose child is he now? Take him if you will, Gertrude, you who were always the first, who knew yourself in babies, who were more beloved than the stupid Giovanna. Take him, then, since he is to thee!”
What a picture she would have made, standing there with the child, her great eyes flashing, her bosom expanded, looking down upon the plebeian pair before her with a triumphant smile! So Everard thought, who had entirely ranged himself on Giovanna’s side; and so thought poor Herbert, looking at her with his heart beating, his whole being in a ferment, his temper and his nerves worn to their utmost. He went away trembling from the sight, and beckoned Reine to him, and threw himself into a chair at the other end of the room.
“What is all this rabble to us?” he cried querulously, when his sister answered his summons. “For heaven’s sake clear the house of strangers—get them away.”
“All, Herbert?” said Reine, frightened.
He made no further reply, but dismissed her with an impatient wave of his hand, and taking up a book, which she saw he held upside down, and which trembled in his hand, turned his back upon the new-comers who had so strangely invaded the house.
As for these good people, they had nothing to say to this triumph of Giovanna. I suppose they had expected, as many innocent persons do, that by mere force of nature the child would turn to those who alone had a right to him. Gertrude, encumbered by her heavy travelling wraps, wearied, discouraged, and disappointed,sat down and cried, her round face getting every moment more blurred and unrecognizable. M. Guillaume, however, though tired too, and feeling this reception very different from the distinguished one which he had received on his former visit, felt it necessary to maintain the family dignity.
“I would speak with Madame Suzanne,” he said, turning to Reine, who approached. “Mademoiselle does not perhaps know that I am a relation, a next-of-kin. It is I, not the poor bébé, who am the next to succeed. I am Guillaume Austin, of Bruges. I would speak with Madame Suzanne. She will know how to deal with this insensée, this woman who keeps from my daughter her child.”
“My aunt is—ill,” said Reine. “I don’t think she is able to see you. Will you come into another room and rest? and I will speak to Giovanna. You must want to rest—a little—and—something to eat—”
So far Reine’s hospitable instincts carried her; but when Stevens entered with a request from the driver of the cab which had brought the strangers hither, to know what he was to do, she could not make any reply to the look that M. Guillaume gave her. That look plainly implied a right to remain in the house, which made Reine tremble, and she pretended not to see that she was referred to. Then the old shopkeeper took it upon himself to send away the man. “Madame Suzanne would be uncontent, certainly uncontent, if I went away without to see her,” he said; “dismiss him then, mon ami. I will give you to pay—” and he pulled out a purse from his pocket. What could Reine do or say? She stood trembling, wondering how it was all to be arranged, what she could do; for though she was quite unaware of the withdrawal of Miss Susan, she felt that in this case it was her duty to act for her brother and herself. She went up to Giovanna softly, and touched her on the arm.
“What are you going to do?” she said in a whisper. “Oh, Giovanna, have some pity upon us! Get them to go away. My Aunt Susan has been kind to you, and how could she see these people? Oh, get them to go away!”
Giovanna looked down upon Reine, too, with the same triumphant smile. “You come also,” she said, “Mademoiselle Reine, you, too! to poor Giovanna, who was not good for anything.Bien! It cannot be for to-night, but perhaps for to-morrow, for they are fatigued—that sees itself. Gertrude, to cry will do nothing; it will frighten the child more, who is, as you perceive, to me, not to thee. Smile, then—that will be more well—and come with me, petite sotte. Though thou wert not good to Giovanna, Giovanna will be more noble, and take care of thee.”
She took hold of her sister-in-law as she spoke, half dragged her off her chair, and leading her with her disengaged hand, walked out of the room with the child on her shoulder. Reine heard the sound of an impatient sigh, and hurried to her brother’s side. But Herbert had his eyes firmly fixed upon the book, and when she came up to him waved her off.
“Let me alone,” he said in his querulous tones, “cannot you let me alone!” Even the touch of tenderness was more than he could bear.
Then it was Everard’s turn to exert himself, who had met M. Guillaume before, and with a little trouble got him to follow the others as far as the small dining-room, in which Reine had given orders for a hasty meal. M. Guillaume was not unwilling to enter into explanations. His poor wife, he said, had been ill for weeks past.
“It was some mysterious attack of the nerves; no one could tell what it was,” the old man said. “I called doctor after doctor, if you will believe me, monsieur. I spared no expense. At last it was said to me, ‘It is a priest that is wanted, not a doctor.’ I am Protestant, monsieur,” said the old shopkeeper seriously. “I replied with disdain, ‘According to my faith, it is the husband, it is the father who is priest.’ I go to Madame Austin’s chamber. I say to her, ‘My wife, speak!’ Brief, monsieur, she spoke, that suffering angel, that martyr! She told us of the wickedness which Madame Suzanne and cette méchante planned, and how she was drawn to be one with them, pauvre chérie. Ah, monsieur, how women are weak! or when not weak, wicked. She told us all, monsieur, how she has been unhappy! and as soon as we could leave her, we came, Gertrude and I—for my part, I was not pressé—I said, ‘Thou hast many children, my Gertrude; leave then this one to be at the expense of those who have acted so vilely.’ And my poor angel said also from her sick-bed; but the young they are obstinate, they have no reason, and—behold us! We hada bad, very bad traversée; and it appears that la jeune-là, whom I know not, would willingly send us back without the repose of an hour.”
“You must pardon her,” said Everard. “We have been in great trouble, and she did not know even who you were.”
“It seems to me,” said the old man, opening his coat with a flourish of offended dignity, “that in this house, which may soon be mine, all should know me. When I say I am Guillaume Austin of Bruges, what more rests to say?”
“But, Monsieur Guillaume,” said Everard, upon whom these words, “this house, which may soon be mine,” made, in spite of himself, a highly disagreeable impression, “I have always heard that for yourself you cared nothing for it—would not have it indeed.”
“I would not give that for it,” said the old man with a snap of his fingers; “a miserable grange, a maison du campagne, a thing of wood and stone! But one has one’s dignity and one’s rights.”
And he elevated his old head, with a snort from the Austin nose, which he possessed in its most pronounced form. Everard did not know whether to take him by the shoulders and to turn him out of the house, or to laugh; but the latter was the easiest. The old shopkeeper was like an old cock strutting about the house which he despised. “I hate your England,” he said, “your rain, your Autumn, your old baraques which you call châteaux. For châteaux come to my country, come to the Pays Bas, monsieur. No, I would not change, I care not for your dirty England. But,” he added, “one has one’s dignity and one’s rights, all the same.”
He was mollified, however, when Stevens came to help him off with his coats, and when Cook sent up the best she could supply on such short notice.
“I thought perhaps, M. Austin, you would like to rest before—dinner,” said Reine, trembling as she said the last word. She hoped still that he would interrupt her, and add, “before we go.”
But no such thought entered into M. Guillaume’s mind. He calculated on staying a few days now that he was here, as he had done before, and being made much of, as then. He inclined his head politely in answer to Reine’s remark, and said, Yes, he would be pleased to rest before dinner; the journey was long and veryfatiguing. He thought even that after dinner he would retire at once, that he might be remis for to-morrow. “And I hope, mademoiselle, that your villanous weather will se remettre,” he added. “Bon Dieu, what it must be to live in this country! When the house comes to me, I will sell it, monsieur. The money will be more sweet elsewhere than in this vieux maison delabré, though it is so much to you.”
“But you cannot sell it,” said Reine, flushing crimson, “if it ever should come to you.”
“Who will prevent me?” said M. Guillaume. “Ah, your maudit law of heritage! Tiens! then I will pull it down, mademoiselle,” he said calmly, sipping the old claret, and making her a little bow.
The reader may judge how agreeable M. Guillaume made himself with this kind of conversation. He was a great deal more at his ease than he had ever been with Miss Susan, of whom he stood in awe.
“After this misfortune, this surprise,” he went on, “which has made so much to suffer my poor wife, it goes of my honor to take myself the place of heir. I cannot more make any arrangement, any bargain, monsieur perceives, that one should be able to say Guillaume Austin of Bruges deceived the world to put in his little son, against the law, to be the heir! Oh, these women, these women, how they are weak and wicked! When I heard of it I wept. I, a man, an old! my poor angel has so much suffered; I forgave her when I heard her tale; but that méchante, that Giovanna, who was the cause of all, how could I forgive—and Madame Suzanne? Apropos, where is Madame Suzanne? She comes not, I see her not. She is afraid, then, to present herself before me.”
This was more than Reine’s self-denial could bear. “I do not know who you are,” she cried indignantly. “I never heard there were any Austins who were not gentlemen. Do not stop me, Everard. This house is my brother’s house, and I am his representative. We have nothing to do with you, heir or not heir, and know nothing about your children, or your wife, or any one belonging to you. For poor Giovanna’s sake, though no doubt you have driven her to do wrong through your cruelty, you shall have what you want for to-night. Miss Susan Austin afraid ofyou!Everard, I cannot stay any longer to hear my family and my home insulted. See that they have what they want!” said the girl, ablaze with rage and indignation.
M. Guillaume, perhaps, had been taking too much of the old claret in his fatigue, and he did not understand English very well when delivered with such force and rapidity. He looked after her with more surprise than anger when Reine, a little too audibly in her wrath, shut behind her the heavy oak door.
“Eh bien?” he said. “Mademoiselle is irritable, n’est ce pas? And what did she mean, then, for Giovanna’s sake?”
Everard held it to be needless to explain Reine’s innocent flourish of trumpets in favor of the culprit. He said, “Ah, that is the question. What do you mean to do about Giovanna, M. Guillaume?”
“Do!” cried the old man, and he made a coarse but forcible gesture, as of putting something disagreeable out of his mouth, “she may die of hunger, as she said—by the road, by the fields—for anything she will get from me.”