Theeffect of this conversation, however, did not end as the talk itself did. Reine thought of little else all the rest of the day. When they got to the beach, Madame de Mirfleur, as was natural, met with some of her friends, and Reine, dropping behind, had leisure enough for her own thoughts. It was one of those lovely, soft, bright days which follow each other for weeks together, even though grim December, on that charmed and peaceful coast. The sea, as blue as a forget-me-not or a child’s eyes—less deep in tone than the Austin eyes through which Reine gazed at it, but not less limpid and liquid-bright—played with its pebbles on the beach like a child, rolling them over playfully, and sending the softest hus-sh of delicious sound through air which was full of light and sunshine. It was not too still, but had the refreshment of a tiny breeze, just enough to ruffle the sea-surface where it was shallow, and make edges of undulating shadow upon the shining sand and stones underneath, which the sun changed to gold. The blue sky to westward was turning into a great blaze of rose, through which its native hue shone in bars and breaks, here turning to purple and crimson, here cooling down to the wistfullest shadowy green. As close to the sea as it could keep its footing, a noble stone pile stood on a little height, rising like a great stately brown pillar, to spread its shade between the young spectator and the setting sun. Behind, not a stone’s throw from where she stood, rose the line of villas among their trees, and all the soft lively movement of the little town. How different from the scenes which Everard’s name conjured up before Reine—the soft English landscape of Whiteladies, the snowy peaks and the wild, sweet pastures of the Alpine valleys where they had been last together!
Madame de Mirfleur felt that it would not harm her daughter to leave her time for thought. She was too far-seeing to worry her with interference, or to stop the germination of the seeds she had herself sown; and having soothed Reine by the influences of the open air and the sea, had no objection to leave her alone, and permit the something which was evidently in her mind, whatever it was, to work. Madame de Mirfleur was not only concerned about her daughter’s happiness from a French point of view, feeling that the time was come when it would be right to marry her; but she was also solicitous about her condition in other ways. It might not be for Reine’s happiness to continue much longer with Herbert, who was emancipating himself very quickly from his old bonds, and probably would soon find the sister who, a year ago, had been indispensable to him, to be a burden and drag upon his freedom, in the career of manhood he was entering upon so eagerly. And where was Reine to go? Madame de Mirfleur could not risk taking her to Normandy, where, delightful as that home was, her English child would not be happy; and she had a mother’s natural reluctance to abandon her altogether to the old aunts at Whiteladies, who, as rival guardians to her children in their youth, had naturally taken the aspect of rivals and enemies to their mother. No; it would have been impossible in France that anaffaire du cœurshould have dragged on so long as that between Everard and Reine must have done, if indeed there was anything in it. But there was never any understanding those English, and if Reine’s looks meant anything, surely this was what they meant. At all events, it was well that Reine should have an opportunity of thinking it well over; and if there was nothing in it, at least it would be good for Herbert to have the support and help of his cousin. Therefore, in whatever light you chose to view the subject, it was important that Everard should be here. So she left her daughter undisturbed to think, in peace, what it was best to do.
And indeed it was a sufficiently difficult question to come to any decision upon. There was no quarrel between Reine and Everard, nor any reason why they should regard each other in any but a kind and cousinly way. Such a rapprochement, and such a curious break as had occurred between them, are not at all uncommon. They had been very much thrown together, and broughtinsensibly to the very verge of an alliance more close and tender; but before a word had been said, before any decisive step had been taken, Fate came in suddenly and severed them, “at a moment’s notice,” as Reine said, leaving no time, no possibility for any explanation or any pledge. I do not know what was in Everard’s heart at the moment of parting, whether he had ever fully made up his mind to make the sacrifices which would be necessary should he marry, or whether his feelings had gone beyond all such prudential considerations; but anyhow, the summons which surprised him so suddenly was of a nature which made it impossible for him in honor to do anything or say anything which should compromise Reine. For it was loss of fortune, perhaps total—the first news being exaggerated, as so often happens—with which he was threatened; and in the face of such news, honor sealed his lips, and he dared not trust himself to say a word beyond the tenderness of good-bye which his relationship permitted. He went away from her with suppressed anguish in his heart, feeling like a man who had suddenly fallen out of Paradise down, down to the commonest earth, but silenced himself, and subdued himself by hard pressure of necessity till time and the natural influences of distance and close occupation dulled the poignant feeling with which he had said that good-bye. The woman has the worst of it in such circumstances. She is left, which always seems the inferior part, and always is the hardest to bear, in the same scene, with everything to recall to her what has been, and nothing to justify her in dwelling upon the tender recollection. I do not know why it should appear to women, universally, something to be ashamed of when they give love unasked—or even when they give it in return for every kind of asking except the straightforward and final words. It is no shame to a man to do so; but these differences of sentiment are inexplicable, and will not bear accounting for. Reine felt that she had “almost” given her heart and deepest affections, without being asked for them. She had not, it is true, committed herself in words, any more than he had done; but she believed with sore shame thatheknew—just as he felt sure (but without shame) thatsheknew; though in truth neither of them knew even their own feelings, which on both sides had changed somewhat, without undergoing any fundamental alteration.
Such meetings and partings are not uncommon. Sometimesthe two thus rent asunder at the critical moment, never meet again at all, and the incipient romance dies in the bud, leaving (very often) a touch of bitterness in the woman’s heart, a sense of incompleteness in the man’s. Sometimes the two meet when age has developed or altered them, and when they ask themselves with horror what they could possibly have seen in that man or that woman? And sometimes they meet again voluntarily or involuntarily, and—that happens which pleases heaven; for it is impossible to predict the termination of such an interrupted tale.
Reine had not found it very easy to piece that broken bit of her life into the web again. She had never said a word to any one, never allowed herself to speak to herself of what she felt; but it had not been easy to bear. Honor, too, like everything else, takes a different aspect as it is regarded by man or woman. Everard had thought that honor absolutely sealed his lips from the moment that he knew, or rather believed, that his fortune was gone; but Reine would have been infinitely more ready to give him her fullest trust, and would have felt an absolute gratitude to him had he spoken out of his poverty, and given her the pleasure of sympathizing, of consoling, of adding her courage and constancy to his. She was too proud to have allowed herself to think that there was any want of honor in the way he left her, for Reine would have died rather than have had the pitiful tribute of a declaration made for honor’s sake; but yet, had it not been her case, but a hypothetical one, she would have pronounced it to be most honorable to speak, while the man would have felt a single word inconsistent with his honor! So we must apparently go on misunderstanding each other till the end of time. It was a case in which there was a great deal to be said on both sides, the reader will perceive. But all this was over; and the two whom a word might have made one were quite free, quite independent, and might each have married some one else had they so chosen, without the other having a word to say; and yet they could not meet without a certain embarrassment, without a sense of what might have been. They were not lovers, and they were not indifferent to each other, and on both sides there was just a little wholesome bitterness. Reine, though far too proud to own it, had felt herself forsaken. Everard, since his return from the active work which had left him little time to think, had felt himself slighted. She had said that, now Herbert was better, it wasnot worth while writing so often! and when he had got over that unkind speech, and had written, as good as offering himself to join them, she had not replied. He had written in October, and now it was nearly Christmas, and she had never replied. So there was, the reader will perceive, a most hopeful and promising grievance on both sides. Reine turned over her part of it deeply and much in her mind that night, after the conversation with her mother which I have recorded. She asked herself, had she any right to deprive Herbert of a friend who would be of use to him for any foolish pride of hers? She could keep herself apart very easily, Reine thought, in her pride. She was no longer very necessary to Herbert. He did not want her as he used to do. She could keep apart, and trouble no one; and why should she, for any ridiculous self-consciousness, ghost of sentiment dead and gone, deprive her brother of such a friend? She said “No!” to herself vehemently, as she lay and pondered the question in the dark, when she ought to have been asleep. Everard was nothing, and could be nothing to her, but her cousin; it would be necessary to see him as such, but not to see much of him; and whatever he might be else, he was a gentleman, and would never have the bad taste to intrude upon her if he saw she did not want him. Besides, there was no likelihood that he would wish it; therefore Reine made up her mind that no exaggerated sentimentality on her part, no weak personal feeling, should interfere with Herbert’s good. She would keep herself out of the way.
But the reader will scarcely require to be told that the letter written under this inspiration was not exactly the kind of letter which it flatters a young man to receive from a girl to whom he has once been so closely drawn as Everard had been to Reine, and to whom he still feels a visionary link, holding him fast in spite of himself. He received the cold epistle, in which Reine informed him simply where they were, adding a message from her brother: “If you are coming to the Continent, Herbert wishes me to say he would be glad to see you here,” in a scene and on a day which was as unlike as it is possible to imagine to the soft Italian weather, and genial Southern beach, on which Reine had concocted it. As it happened, the moment was one of the most lively and successful in Everard’s somewhat calm country life. He, who often felt himself insignificant, and sometimes slighted, was for thatmorning at least in the ascendant. Very cold weather had set in suddenly, and in cold weather Everard became a person of great importance in his neighborhood. I will tell you why. His little house, which was on the river, as I have already said, and in Summer a very fine starting-point for water-parties, possessed unusually picturesque and well-planted grounds; and in the heart of a pretty bit of plantation which belonged to him was an ornamental piece of water, very prettily surrounded by trees and sloping lawns, which froze quickly, as the water was shallow, and was the pleasantest skating ground for miles round. Need I say more to show how a frost made Everard instantly a man of consequence? On the day on which Reine’s epistle arrived at Water Beeches, which was the name of his place, it was a beautiful English frost, such as we see but rarely nowadays. I do not know whether there is really any change in the climate, or whether it is only the change of one’s own season from Spring to Autumn which gives an air of change even to the weather; but I do not think there are so many bright, crisp, clear frosts as there used to be. Nor, perhaps, is it much to be regretted that the intense cold—which may be as champagne to the healthy and comfortable, but is death to the sick, and misery to the poor—should be less common than formerly. It was, however, a brilliant frosty day at the Water Beeches, and a large party had come over to enjoy the pond. The sun was shining red through the leafless trees, and such of them as had not encountered his direct influence were still encased in fairy garments of rime, feathery and white to the furthest twig. The wet grass was brilliantly green, and lighted up in the sun’s way sparkling water-diamonds, though in the shade it was too crisp and white with frost, and crackled under your feet. On the broad path at one end of the pond two or three older people, who did not skate, were walking briskly up and down, stamping their feet to keep them warm, and hurrying now and then in pairs to the house, which was just visible through the trees, to get warmed by the fire. But on the ice no one was cold. The girls, with their red petticoats and red feathers, and pretty faces flushed with the exercise, were, some of them, gliding about independently with their hands in their muffs, some of them being conducted about by their attendants, some dashing along in chairs wheeled by a chivalrous skater. They had just come out again, after a merryluncheon, stimulated by the best fare Everard’s housekeeper could furnish, and by Everard’s best champagne; and as the afternoon was now so short, and the sun sinking low, the gay little crowd was doing all it could to get an hour’s pleasure out of half-an-hour’s time, and the scene was one of perpetual movement, constant varying and intermingling of the bright-colored groups, and a pleasant sound of talk and laughter which rang through the clear air and the leafless trees.
The few chaperons who waited upon the pleasure of these young ladies were getting tired and chilled, and perhaps cross, as was (I think) extremely natural, and thinking of their carriages; but the girls were happy and not cross, and all of them very agreeable to Everard, who was the cause of so much pleasure. Sophy and Kate naturally took upon them to do the honors of their cousin’s place. Everybody knows what a movable relationship cousinry is, and how it recedes and advances according to the inclination of the moment. To-day the Farrel-Austins felt themselves first cousins to Everard, his next-of-kin, so to speak, and comparative owners. They showed their friends the house and the grounds, and all the pretty openings and peeps of the river. “It is small, but it is a perfect little place,” they said with all the pride of proprietorship. “What fun we have had here! It is delightful for boating. We have the jolliest parties!”
“In short, I don’t know such a place for fun all the year round,” cried Sophy.
“And of course, being so closely related, it is just like our own,” said Kate. “We can bring whom we like here.”
It was with the sound of all these pretty things in his ears, and all the pleasant duties of hospitality absorbing his attention, with pleasant looks, and smiles, and compliments about his house and his table coming to him on all sides, and a sense of importance thrust upon him in the most delightful way, that Everard had Reine’s letter put into his hand. It was impossible that he could read about it then; he put it into his pocket with a momentary flutter and tremor of his heart, and went on with the entertainment of his guests. All the afternoon he was in motion, flying about upon the ice, where, for he was a very good skater, he was in great demand, and where his performances were received with great applause; then superintending the muster of the carriages, puttinghis pretty guests into them, and receiving thanks and plaudits, and gay good-byes “for the present.” There was to be a dance at the Hatch that night, where most of the party were to reassemble, and Everard felt himself sure of the prettiest partners, and the fullest consideration of all his claims to notice and kindness. He had never been more pleased with himself, nor in a more agreeable state of mind toward the world in general, than when he shut the door of his cousins’ carriage, which was the last to leave.
“Mind you come early. I want to settle with you about next time,” said Kate.
“And Ev,” cried Sophy, leaning out of the carriage, “bring me those barberries you promised me for my hair.”
Everard stood smiling, waving his hand to them as they drove away. “Madcaps!” he said to himself, “always with something on hand!” as he went slowly home, watching the last red gleam of the sun disappear behind the trees. It was getting colder and colder every moment, the chilliest of December nights; but the young man, in his glow of exercise and pleasure, did not take any notice of this. He went into his cosey little library, where a bright fire was burning, and where, even there in his own particular sanctum, the disturbing presence of those gay visitors was apparent. They had taken down some of his books from his shelves, and they had scattered the cushions of his sofa round the fire, where a circle of them had evidently been seated. There is a certain amused curiosity in a young man’s thoughts as to the doings and the sayings, when by themselves, of those mysterious creatures called girls. What were they talking about while they chatted round that fire,hisfire, where, somehow, some subtle difference in the atmosphere betokened their recent presence? He sat down with a smile on his face, and that flattered sense of general importance and acceptability in his mind, and took Reine’s letter out of his pocket. It was perhaps not the most suitable state of mind in which to read the chilly communication of Reine.
Its effect upon him, however, was not at all chilly. It made him hot with anger. He threw it down on the table when he had read it, feeling such a letter to be an insult. Go to Cannes to be of use, forsooth, to Herbert! a kind of sick-nurse, he supposed, or perhaps keeper, now that he could go out, to the inexperienced young fellow. Everard bounced up from his comfortable chair,and began to walk up and down the room in his indignation. Other people nearer home had better taste than Reine. If she thought that he was to be whistled to, like a dog when he was wanted, she was mistaken. Not even when he was wanted;—it was clear enough that she did not want him, cold, uncourteous, unfriendly as she was! Everard’s mind rose like an angry sea, and swelled into such a ferment that he could not subdue himself. A mere acquaintance would have written more civilly, more kindly, would have thought it necessary at least to appear to join in the abrupt, cold, semi-invitation, which Reine transmitted as if she had nothing to do with it. Even her mother (a wise woman, with some real knowledge of the world, and who knew when a man was worth being civil to!) had perceived the coldness of the letter, and added a conciliatory postscript. Everard was wounded and humiliated in his moment of success and flattered vanity, when he was most accessible to such a wound. And he was quite incapable of divining—as probably he would have done in any one else’s case, but as no man seems capable of doing in his own—that Reine’s coldness was the best of all proof that she was not indifferent, and that something must lie below the studied chill of such a composition. He dressed for the party at the Hatch in a state of mind which I will not attempt to describe, but of which his servant gave a graphic account to the housekeeper.
“Summat’s gone agin master,” that functionary said. “He have torn those gardenias all to bits as was got for his button-hole; and the lots of ties as he’ve spiled is enough to bring tears to your eyes. Some o’ them there young ladies has been a misconducting theirselves; or else it’s the money market. But I don’t think it’s money,” said John; “when it’s money gentlemen is low, not furious, like to knock you down.”
“Get along with you, do,” said the housekeeper. “We don’t want no ladies here!”
“That may be, or it mayn’t be,” said John; “but something’s gone agin master. Listen! there he be, a rampaging because the dog-cart ain’t come round, which I hear the wheels, and William—it’s his turn, and I’ll just keep out o’ the way.”
William was of John’s opinion when they compared notes afterward. Master drove to the Hatch like mad, the groom said. He had never been seen to look so black in all his life before, for Everardwas a peaceable soul in general, and rather under the dominion of his servants. He was, however, extremely gay at the Hatch, and danced more than any one, far outstripping the languid Guardsmen in his exertions, and taking all the pains in the world to convince himself that, though some people might show a want of perception of his excellences, there were others who had a great deal more discrimination. Indeed, his energy was so vehement, that two or three young ladies, including Sophy, found it necessary to pause and question themselves on the subject, wondering what sudden charm on their part had warmed him into such sudden exhibitions of feeling.
“It will not answer at all,” Sophy said to her sister; “for I don’t mean to marry Everard, for all the skating and all the boating in the world—not now, at least. Ten years hence, perhaps, one might feel different—but now!—and I don’t want to quarrel with him either, in case—” said this far-seeing young woman.
This will show how Reine’s communication excited and stimulated her cousin, though perhaps in a curious way.
EVERARD’Sexcited mood, however, did not last; perhaps he danced out some of his bitterness; violent exercise is good for all violent feeling, and calms it down. He came to himself with a strange shock, when—one of the latest to leave, as he had been one of the earliest to go—he came suddenly out from the lighted rooms, and noisy music, and chattering voices, to the clear cold wintry moonlight, deep in the frosty night, or rather early on the frosty morning of the next day. There are some people who take to themselves, in our minds at least, a special phase of nature, and plant their own image in the midst of it with a certain arrogance, so that we cannot dissociate the sunset from one of those usurpers, or the twilight from another. In this way Reine had taken possession of the moonlight for Everard. It was no doing of hers, nor was she aware of it; but still it was the case. He never saw the moon shining without remembering the little balcony at Kandersteg, and the whiteness with which her head rose out of the dark shadow of the rustic wooden framework. How could he help but think of her now, when worn out by a gayety which had not been quite real, he suddenly fell, as it were, into the silence, the clear white light, the frost-bound, chill, cold blue skies above him, full of frosty, yet burning stars, and the broad level shining of that ice-cold moon? Everard, like other people at his time of life, and in his somewhat unsettled condition of mind, had a way of feeling somewhat “low” after being very gay. It is generally the imaginative who do this, and is a sign, I think, of a higher nature; but Everard had the disadvantage of it without the good, for he was not of a poetical mind—though I suppose there must have been enough poetry in him to produce this reaction. When it came on,as it always did after the noisy gayety of the Hatch, he had, in general, one certain refuge to which he always betook himself. He thought of Reine—Reine, who was gay enough, had nature permitted her to have her way, but whom love had separated from everything of the kind, and transplanted into solitude and quiet, and the moonlight, which, in his mind, was dedicated to her image; this was his resource when he was “low;” and he turned to it as naturally as the flowers turn to the sun. Reine was his imagination, his land of fancy, his unseen world, to Everard; but lo! on the very threshold of this secret region of dreams, the young man felt himself pulled up and stopped short. Reine’s letter rolled up before him like a black curtain shutting out his visionary refuge. Had he lost her? he asked himself, with a sudden thrill of visionary panic. Her image had embodied all poetry, all romance, to him, and had it fled from his firmament? The girls whom he had left had no images at all, so to speak; they were flesh and blood realities, pleasant enough, so long as you were with them, and often very amusing to Everard, who, after he had lingered in their society till the last moment, had that other to fall back upon—the other, whose superiority he felt as soon as he got outside the noisy circle, and whose soft influence, oddly enough, seemed to confer a superiority upon him, who had her in that private sphere to turn to, when he was tired of the rest.
Nothing could be sweeter than the sense of repose and moral elevation with which, for instance, after a gay and amusing and successful day like this, he went back into the other world, which he had the privilege of possessing, and felt once more the mountain air breathe over him, fresh with the odor of the pines, and saw the moon rising behind the snowy peaks, which were as white as her own light, and that soft, upturned face lifted to the sky, full of tender thoughts and mysteries! If Reine forsook him, what mystery would be left in the world for Everard? what shadowy world, unrealized, and sweeter for being unrealized than any fact could ever be? The poor young fellow was seized with a chill of fright, which penetrated to the marrow of his bones, and froze him doubly this cold night. What it would be to lose one’s imagination! to have no dreams left, no place which they could inhabit! Poor Everard felt himself turned out of his refuge, turned out into the cold, the heavenly doors closed upon him all in a moment; and he couldnot bear it. William, who thought his master had gone out of his mind, or fallen asleep—for what but unconsciousness or insanity could justify the snail’s pace into which they had dropped?—felt frozen on his seat behind; but he was not half so frozen as poor Everard, in his Ulster, whose heart was colder than his hands, and through whose very soul the shiverings ran.
Next morning, as was natural, Everard endeavored to make a stand against the dismay which had taken possession of him, and succeeded for a short time, as long as he was fully occupied and amused, during which time he felt himself angry, and determined that he was a very badly-used man. This struggle he kept up for about a week, and did not answer Reine’s letter. But at last the conflict was too much for him. One day he rode over suddenly to Whiteladies, and informed them that he was going abroad for the rest of the Winter. He had nothing to do at Water Beeches, and country life was dull; he thought it possible that he might pass through Cannes on his way to Italy, as that was, on the whole, in Winter, the pleasantest way, and, of course, would see Herbert. But he did not mention Reine at all, nor her letter, and gave no reason for his going, except caprice, and the dulness of the country. “I have not an estate to manage like you,” he said to Miss Susan; and to Augustine, expressed his grief that he could not be present at the consecration of the Austin Chantry, which he had seen on his way white and bristling with Gothic pinnacles, like a patch upon the grayness of the old church. Augustine, whom he met on the road, with her gray hood over her head, and her hands folded in her sleeves, was roused out of her abstracted calm to a half displeasure. “Mr. Farrel-Austin will be the only representative of the family except ourselves,” she said; “not that I dislike them, as Susan does. I hope I do not dislike any one,” said the Gray Sister. “You can tell Herbert, if you see him, that I would have put off the consecration till his return—but why should I rob the family of four months’ prayers? That would be sinful waste, Everard; the time is too short—too short—to lose a day.”
This was the only message he had to carry. As for Miss Susan, her chief anxiety was that he should say nothing about Giovanna. “A hundred things may happen before May,” the elder sister said, with such an anxious, worried look as went to Everard’s heart. “I don’t conceal from you that I don’t want her to stay.”
“Then send her away,” he said lightly. Miss Susan shook her head; she went out to the gate with him, crossing the lawn, though it was damp, to whisper once again, “Nothing about her—say nothing about her—a hundred things may happen before May.”
Everard left home about ten days after the arrival of Reine’s letter, which he did not answer. He could make it evident that he was offended, at least in that way; and he lingered on the road to show, if possible, that he had no eagerness in obeying the summons. His silence puzzled the household at Cannes. Madame de Mirfleur, with a twist of the circumstances, which is extremely natural, and constantly occurring among ladies, set it down as her daughter’s fault. She forgave Everard, but she blamed Reine. And with much skilful questioning, which was almost entirely ineffectual, she endeavored to elicit from Herbert what the state of affairs between these two had been. Herbert, for his part, had not an idea on the subject. He could not understand how it was possible that Everard could quarrel with Reine. “She is aggravating sometimes,” he allowed, “when she looks at you like this—I don’t know how to describe it—as if she meant to find you out. Why should she try to find a fellow out? a man (as she ought to know) is not like a pack of girls.”
“Precisely,” said Madame de Mirfleur, “but perhaps that is difficult for our poor Reine—till lately thou wert a boy, and sick, mon ’Erbert; you forget. Women are dull, my son; and this is perhaps one of the things that it is most hard for them to learn.”
“You may say so, indeed,” said Herbert, “unintelligible beings!—till they come to your age, mamma, when you seem to begin to understand. It is all very well for girls to give an account of themselves. What I am surprised at is, that they do not perceive at once the fundamental difference. Reine is a clever girl, and it just shows the strange limitation, even of the cleverest; now I don’t call myself a clever man—I have had a great many disadvantages—but I can perceive at a glance—”
Madame de Mirfleur was infinitely disposed to laugh, or to box her son’s ears; but she was one of those women—of whom there are many in the world—who think it better not to attempt the use of reason, but to ménager the male creatures whom they study so curiously. Both the sexes, indeed, I think, have about the same opinion of each other, though the male portion of the community havefound the means of uttering theirs sooner than the other, and got it stereotyped, so to speak. We both think each other “inaccessible to reason,” and ring the changes upon humoring and coaxing the natural adversary. Madame de Mirfleur thought she knew men au fond, and it was not her practice to argue with them. She did not tell Herbert that his mental superiority was not so great as he thought it. She only smiled, and said gently, “It is much more facile to perceive the state of affairs when it is to our own advantage, mon fils. It is that which gives your eyes so much that is clear. Reine, who is a girl, who has not the same position, it is natural she should not like so much to acknowledge herself to see it. But she could not demand from Everard that he should account for himself. And she will not of you when she has better learned to know—”
“From Everard? Everard is of little importance. I was thinking of myself,” cried Herbert.
“How fortunate it is for me that you have come here! I should not have believed that Reine could be sulky. I am fond of her, of course; but I cannot drag a girl everywhere about with me. Is it reasonable? Women should understand their place. I am sure you do, mamma. It is home that is a woman’s sphere. She cannot move about the world, or see all kinds of life, or penetrate everywhere, like a man; and it would not suit her if she could,” said Herbert, twisting the soft down of his moustache. He was of opinion that it was best for a man to take his place, and show at once that he did not intend to submit to any inquisition; and this, indeed, was what his friends advised, who warned him against petticoat government. “If you don’t mind they’ll make a slave of you,” the young men said. And Herbert was determined to give all who had plans of this description fair notice. He would not allow himself to be made a slave.
“You express yourself with your usual good sense, my son,” said Madame de Mirfleur. “Yes, the home is the woman’s sphere; always I have tried to make this known to my Reine. Is it that she loves the world? I make her enter there with difficulty. No, it is you she loves, and understands not to be separated. She has given up the pleasures that are natural to young girls to be with you when you were ill; and she understands not to be separated now.”
“Bah!” said Herbert, “that is the usual thing which I understand all women say to faire valoir their little services. What has she given up? They would not have been pleasures to her while I was ill; and she ought to understand. It comes back to what I said, mamma. Reine is a clever girl, as girls go—and I am not clever, that I know; but the thing which she cannot grasp is quite clear to me. It is best to say no more about it—youcan understand reason, and explain to her what I mean.”
“Yes, chéri,” said Madame de Mirfleur, submissively; then she added, “Monsieur Everard left you at Appenzell? Was he weary of the quiet? or had he cause to go?”
“Why, he had lost his money, and had to look after it—or he thought he had lost his money. Probably, too, he found it slow. There was nobody there, and I was not good for much in those days. He had to be content with Reine. Perhaps he thought she was not much company for him,” said the young man, with a sentiment not unusual in young men toward their sisters. His mother watched him with a curious expression. Madame de Mirfleur was in her way a student of human nature, and though it was her son who made these revelations, she was amused by them all the same, and rather encouraged him than otherwise to speak his mind. But if she said nothing about Reine, this did not mean that she was deceived in respect to her daughter, or with Herbert’s view of the matter. But she wanted to hear all he had to say, and for the moment she looked upon him more as a typical representative of man, than as himself a creature in whose credit she, his mother, was concerned.
“It has appeared to you that this might be the reason why he went away?”
“I never thought much about it,” said Herbert. “I had enough to do thinking of myself. So I have now. I don’t care to go into Everard’s affairs. If he likes to come, he’ll come, I suppose; and if he don’t like, he won’t—that’s all about it—that’s how I would act if it were me. Hallo! why, while we’re talking, here he is! Look here—in that carriage at the door!”
“Ah, make my excuses, Herbert. I go to speak to François about a room for him,” said Madame de Mirfleur. What she did, in fact, was to dart into her own room, where Reine was sitting at work on some article of dress. Julie had much to do, looking afterand catering for the little party, so that Reine had to make herself useful, and do things occasionally for herself.
“Chérie,” said her mother, stooping over her, “thy cousin is come—he is at the door. I thought it best to tell you before you met him. For my part, I never like to be taken at the unforeseen—I prefer to be prepared.”
Reine had stopped her sewing for the moment; now she resumed it—so quietly that her mother could scarcely make out whether this news was pleasant to her or not. “I have no preparation to make,” she said, coldly; but her blood was not so much under mastery as her tongue, and rushed in a flood to her face; her fingers, too, stumbled, her needle pricked her, and Madame de Mirfleur, watching, learned something at last—which was that Reine was not so indifferent as she said.
“Me, I am not like you, my child,” she said. “My little preparations are always necessary—for example, I cannot see the cousin in my robe de chambre. Julie! quick!—but you, as you are ready, can go and salute him. It is to-day, is it not, that we go to see milady Northcote, who will be kind to you when I am gone away? I will put on my black silk; but you, my child, you who are English, who have always your toilette made from the morning, go, if you will, and see the cousin. There is only Herbert there.”
“Mamma,” said Reine, “I heard Herbert say something when I passed the door a little while ago. It was something about me. What has happened to him that he speaks so?—that he thinks so? Has he changed altogether from our Herbert who loved us? Is that common? Oh, must it be? must it be?”
“Mon Dieu!” cried the mother, “can I answer for all that a foolish boy will say? Men are fools, ma Reine. They pretend to be wise, and they are fools. But we must not say this—no one says it, though we all know it in our hearts. Tranquillize thyself; when he is older he will know better. It is not worth thy while to remember what he says. Go to the cousin, ma Reine.”
“I do not care for the cousin. I wish he were not here. I wish there was no one—no one but ourselves; ourselves! that does not mean anything, now,” cried Reine, indignant and broken-hearted. The tears welled up into her eyes. She did not take what she had heard so calmly as her mother had done. She was sore and mortified, and wounded and cut to the heart.
“Juste ciel!” cried Madame de Mirfleur, “thy eyes! you will have red eyes if you cry. Julie, fly toward my child—think not more of me. Here is the eau de rose to bathe them; and, quick, some drops of the eau de fleur de orange. I never travel without it, as you know.”
“I do not want any fleur de orange, nor eau de rose. I want to be as once we were, when we were fond of each other, when we were happy, when, if I watched him, Bertie knew it was for love, and nobody came between us,” cried the girl. Impossible to tell how sore her heart was, when it thus burst forth—sore because of what she had heard, sore with neglect, and excitement, and expectation, and mortification, which, all together, were more than Reine could bear.
“You mean when your brother was sick?” said Madame de Mirfleur. “You would not like him to be ill again, chérie. They are like that, ma Reine—unkind, cruel, except when they wantus, and then we must not be absent for a moment. But, Reine, I hope thou art not so foolish as to expect sense from a boy; they are not like us; they have no understanding; and if thou wouldst be a woman, not always a child, thou must learn to support it, and say nothing. Come, my most dear, my toilette is made, and thy eyes are not so red, after all—eyes of blue do not show like the others. Come, and we will say bon jour to the cousin, who will think it strange to see neither you nor me.”
“Stop—stop but one moment, mamma,” cried Reine. She caught her mother’s dress, and her hand, and held her fast. The girl was profoundly excited, her eyes were not red, but blazing, and her tears dried. She had been tried beyond her powers of bearing. “Mamma,” she cried, “I want to go home with you—take me with you! If I have been impatient, forgive me. I will try to do better, indeed I will. You love me a little—oh, I know only a little, not as I want you to love me! But I should be good; I should try to please you and—every one, ma mère! Take me home with you!”
“Reine, chérie! Yes, my most dear, if you wish it. We will talk of it after. You excite yourself; you make yourself unhappy, my child.”
“No, no, no,” she cried; “it is not I. I never should have dreamed of it, that Herbert could think me a burden, think meintrusive, interfering, disagreeable! I cannot bear it! Ah, perhaps it is my fault that people are so unkind! Perhaps I am what he says. But, mamma, I will be different with you. Take me with you. I will be your maid, your bonne, anything! only don’t leave me here!”
“My Reine,” said Madame de Mirfleur, touched, but somewhat embarrassed, “you shall go with me, do not doubt it—if it pleases you to go. You are my child as much as Babette, and I love you just the same. A mother has not one measure of love for one and another for another. Do not think it, chérie. You shall go with me if you wish it, but you must not be so angry with Herbert. What are men? I have told you often they are not like us; they seek what they like, and their own way, and their own pleasures; in short, they are fools, as the selfish always are. Herbert is ungrateful to thee for giving up thy youth to him, and thy brightest years; but he is not so unkind as he seems—that which he said is not what he thinks. You must forgive him, ma Reine; he is ungrateful—”
“Do I wish him to be grateful?” said the girl. “If one gives me a flower, I am grateful, or a glass of water; but gratitude—from Herbert—to me! Do not let us talk of it, for I cannot bear it. But since he does not want me, and finds me a trouble—mother, mother, take me home with you!”
“Yes, chérie, yes; it shall be as you will,” said Madame de Mirfleur, drawing Reine’s throbbing head on to her bosom, and soothing her as if she had been still a child. She consoled her with soft words, with caresses, and tender tones. Probably she thought it was a mere passing fancy, which would come to nothing; but she had never crossed any of her children, and she soothed and petted Reine instinctively, assenting to all she asked, though without attaching to what she asked any very serious meaning. She took her favorite essence of orange flowers from her dressing-case, and made the agitated girl swallow some of it, and bathed her eyes with rose-water, and kissed and comforted her. “You shall do what pleases to you, ma bien aimée,” she said. “Dry thy dear eyes, my child, and let us go to salute the cousin. He will think something is wrong. He will suppose he is not welcome; and we are not like men, who are a law to themselves; we are women, and must do what is expected—what is reasonable. Come, chérie, or he willthink we avoid him, and that something must have gone wrong.”
Thus adjured, Reine followed her mother to the sitting-room, where Everard had exhausted everything he had to say to Herbert, and everything that Herbert had to say to him; and where the two young men were waiting very impatiently, and with a growing sense of injury, for the appearance of the ladies. Herbert exclaimed fretfully that they had kept him waiting half the morning, as they came in. “And here is Everard, who is still more badly used,” he cried; “after a long journey too. You need not have made toilettes, surely, before you came to see Everard; but ladies are all the same everywhere, I suppose!”
Reine’s eyes gave forth a gleam of fire. “Everywhere!” she cried, “always troublesome, and in the way. It is better to be rid of them. I think so as well as you.”
Everard, who was receiving the salutations and apologies of Madame de Mirfleur, did not hear this little speech; but he saw the fire in Reine’s eyes, which lighted up her proud sensitive face. This was not his Reine of the moonlight, whom he had comforted. And he took her look as addressed to himself, though it was not meant for him. She gave him her hand with proud reluctance. He had lost her then? it was as he thought.
Reinedid not go back from her resolution; she did not change her mind, as her mother expected, and forgive Herbert’s étourderie. Reine could not look upon it as étourderie, and she was too deeply wounded to recover the shock easily; but I think she had the satisfaction of giving an almost equal shock to her brother, who, though he talked so about the limitation of a girl’s understanding, and the superiority of his own, was as much wounded as Reine was, when he found that his sister really meant to desert him. He did not say a word to her, but he denounced to his mother the insensibility of women, who only cared for a fellow so long as he did exactly what they wished, and could not endure him to have the least little bit of his own way. “I should never have heard anything of this if I had taken her about with me everywhere, and gone to bed at ten o’clock, as she wished,” he cried, with bitterness.
“You have reason, mon ’Erbert,” said Madame de Mirfleur; “had you cared for her society, she would never have left you; but it is not amusing to sit at home while les autres are amusing themselves. One would require to be an angel for this.”
“I never thought Reine cared for amusement,” said Herbert; “she never said so; she was always pleased to be at home; it must all have come on, her love for gayety, to spite me.”
Madame de Mirfleur did not reply; she thought it wisest to say nothing in such a controversy, having, I fear, a deep-rooted contempt for the masculine understanding in such matters at least. En revanche, she professed the most unbounded reverence for it in other matters, and liked, as Miss Susan did, to consult “a man” in all difficult questions, though I fear, like Miss Susan, it wasonly the advice of one who agreed with her that she took. But with Herbert she was silent. What was the use? she said to herself. If he could not see that Reine’s indifference to amusement arose from her affection for himself, what could she say to persuade him of it? and it was against her principles to denounce him for selfishness, as probably an English mother would have done. “Que voulez-vous? it is their nature,” Madame de Mirfleur would have said, shrugging her shoulders. I am not sure, however, that this silence was much more satisfactory to Herbert than an explanation would have been. He was not really selfish, perhaps, only deceived by the perpetual homage that had been paid to him during his illness, and by the intoxicating sense of sudden emancipation now.
As for Everard, he was totally dismayed by the announcement; all the attempts at self-assertion which he had intended to make failed him. As was natural, he took this, not in the least as affecting Herbert, but only as a pointed slight addressed to himself. He had left home to please her at Christmas, of all times in the year, when everybody who has a home goes back to it, when no one is absent who can help it. And though her invitation was no invitation, and was not accompanied by one conciliating word, he had obeyed the summons, almost, he said to himself, at a moment’s notice; and she for whom he came, though she had not asked him, she had withdrawn herself from the party! Everard said to himself that he would not stay, that he would push on at once to Italy, and prove to her that it was not her or her society that had tempted him. He made up his mind to this at once, but he did not do it. He lingered next day, and next day again. He thought it would be best not to commit himself to anything till he had talked to Reine; if he had but half an hour’s conversation with her he would be able to see whether it was her mother’s doing. A young man in such circumstances has an instinctive distrust of a mother. Probably it was one of Madame de Mirfleur’s absurd French notions. Probably she thought it not entirely comme il faut that Reine, now under her brother’s guardianship, should be attended by Everard. Ridiculous! but on the whole it was consolatory to think that this might be the mother’s doing, and that Reine was being made a victim of like himself. But (whether this also was her mother’s doing he could not tell)to get an interview with Reine was beyond his power. He had no chance of saying a word to her till he had been at least ten days in Cannes, and the time of her departure with Madame de Mirfleur was drawing near. One evening, however, he happened to come into the room when Reine had stepped out upon the balcony, and followed her there hastily, determined to seize the occasion. It was a mild evening, not moonlight, as (he felt) it ought to have been, but full of the soft lightness of stars, and the luminous reflection of the sea. Beyond her, as she stood outside the window, he saw the sweep of dim blue, with edges of white, the great Mediterranean, which forms the usual background on this coast. There was too little light for much color, only a vague blueness or grayness, against which the slim, straight figure rose. He stepped out softly not to frighten her; but even then she started, and looked about for some means of escape, when she found herself captured and in his power. Everard did not take any sudden or violent advantage of his luck. He began quite gently, with an Englishman’s precaution, to talk of the weather and the beautiful night.
“It only wants a moon to be perfect,” he said. “Do you remember, Reine, the balcony at Kandersteg? I always associate you with balconies and moons. And do you remember, at Appenzell—”
It was on her lips to say, “Don’t talk of Appenzell!” almost angrily, but she restrained herself. “I remember most things that have happened lately,” she said; “I have done nothing to make me forget.”
“Have I?” said Everard, glad of the chance; for to get an opening for reproach or self-defence was exactly what he desired.
“I did not say so. I suppose we both remember all that there is to remember,” said Reine, and she added hastily, “I don’t mean anything more than I say.”
“It almost sounds as if you did—and to see your letter,” said Everard, “no one would have thought you remembered anything, or that we had ever known each other. Reine, Reine, why are you going away?”
“Why am I going away? I am not going what you call, away. I am going rather, as we should say, home—with mamma. Is it not the most natural thing to do?”
“Did you ever call Madame do Mirfleur’s house home before?” said Everard; “do you mean it? Are not you coming to Whiteladies, to your own country, to the place you belong to? Reine, you frighten me. I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Do I belong to Whiteladies? Is England my country?” said Reine. “I am not so sure as you are. I am a Frenchwoman’s daughter, and perhaps, most likely, it will turn out that mamma’s house is the only one I have any right to.”
Here she paused, faltering, to keep the tears out of her voice. Everard did not see that her lip was quivering, but he discovered it in the tremulous sound.
“What injustice you are doing to everybody!” he cried indignantly. “How can you treat us so?”
“Treat you? I was not thinking of you,” said Reine. “Herbert will go to Whiteladies in May. It is home to him; but what is there that belongs to a girl? Supposing Herbert marries, would Whiteladies be my home? I have no right, no place anywhere. The only thing, I suppose, a girl has a right to is, perhaps, her mother. I have not even that—but mamma would give me a home. I should be sure of a home at least—”
“I do not understand you, Reine.”
“It is tout simple, as mamma says; everything is tout simple,” she said; “that Herbert should stand by himself, not wanting me; and that I should have nothing and nobody in the world. Tout simple. I am not complaining; I am only saying the truth. It is best that I should go to Normandy and try to please mamma. She does not belong to me, but I belong to her, in a way—and she would never be unkind to me. Well, there is nothing so very wonderful in what I say. Girls are like that; they have nothing belonging to them; they are not meant to have, mamma would say. It is tout simple; they are meant to ménager, and to cajole, and to submit; and I can do the last. That is why I say that, most likely, Normandy will be my home after all.”
“You cannot mean this,” said Everard, troubled. “You never could be happy there; why should you change now? Herbert and you have been together all your lives; and if he marries—” Here Everard drew a long breath and made a pause. “You could not be happy with Monsieur, your stepfather, and all the little Mirfleurs,” he said.
“One can live, one can get on, without being happy,” cried Reine. Then she laughed. “What is the use of talking? One has to do what one must. Let me go in, please. Balconies and moonlights are not good. To think too much, to talk folly, may be very well for you who can do what you please, but they are not good for girls. I am going in now.”
“Wait one moment, Reine. Cannot you do what you please?—not only for yourself, but for others. Everything will be changed if you go; as for me, you don’t care about me, what I feel—but Herbert. He has always been your charge; you have thought of him before everything—”
“And so I do now,” cried the girl. Two big tears dropped out of her eyes. “So I do now! Bertie shall not think me a burden, shall not complain of me if I should die. Let me pass, please. Everard, may I not even have so much of my own will as to go out or in if I like? I do not ask much more.”
Everard stood aside, but he caught the edge of her loose sleeve as she passed him, and detained her still a moment. “What are you thinking of? what have you in your mind?” he said humbly. “Have you changed, or have I changed, or what has gone wrong? I don’t understand you, Reine.”
She stood for a moment hesitating, as if she might have changed her tone; but what was there to say? “I am not changed that I know of; I cannot tell whether you are changed or not,” she said. “Nothing is wrong; it is tout simple, as mamma says.”
What was tout simple? Everard had not a notion what was in her mind, or how it was that the delicate poise had been disturbed, and Reine taught to feel the disadvantage of her womanhood. She had not been in the habit of thinking or feeling anything of the kind. She had not been aware even for years and years, as her mother had said, whether she was girl or boy. The discovery had come all at once. Everard pondered dimly and with perplexity how much he had to do with it, or what it was. But indeed he had nothing to do with it; the question between Reine and himself was a totally different question from the other which was for the moment supreme in her mind. Had she been free to think of it, I do not suppose Reine would have felt in much doubt as to her power over Everard. But it was the other phase of her life which was uppermost for the moment.
He followed her into the lighted room, where Madame de Mirfleur sat at her tapisserie in the light of the lamp. But when Reine went to the piano and began to sing “Ma Normandie,” with her sweet young fresh voice, he retreated again to the balcony, irritated by the song more than by anything she had said. Madame de Mirfleur, who was a musician too, added a mellow second to the refrain of her child’s song. The voices suited each other, and a prettier harmony could not have been, nor a more pleasant suggestion to any one whose mind was in tune. Indeed, it made the mother feel happy for the moment, though she was herself doubtful how far Reine’s visit to the Norman château would be a success. “Je vais revoir ma Normandie,” the girl sang, very sweetly; the mother joined in; mother and daughter were going together to that simple rural home, while the young men went out into the world and enjoyed themselves. What more suitable, more pleasant for all parties? But Everard felt himself grow hot and angry. His temper flamed up with unreasonable, ferocious impatience. What a farce it was, he cried bitterly to himself. What did that woman want with Reine? she had another family whom she cared for much more. She would make the poor child wretched when she got her to that detestable Normandie they were singing about with so much false sentiment. Of course it was all some ridiculous nonsense of hers about propriety, something that never could have come into Reine’s poor dear little innocent head if it had not been put there. When a young man is angry with the girl he is fond of, what a blessing it is when she has a mother upon whom he can pour out his wrath! The reader knows how very little poor Madame de Mirfleur had to do with it. But though she was somewhat afraid of her daughter’s visit, and anxious about its success, Reine’s song was very pleasant to her, and she liked to put in that pretty second, and to feel that her child’s sweet voice was in some sense an echo of her own.
“Thanks, chérie,” she said when Reine closed the piano. “I love thy song, and I love thee for singing it. Tiens, my voice goes with your fresh voice well enough still.”
She was pleased, poor soul; but Everard, glaring at her from the balcony, would have liked to do something to Madame de Mirfleur had the rules of society permitted. He “felt like hurling things at her,” like Maria in the play.
Yet—I do not know how it came to pass, but so it was—even then Everard did not carry out his intention of making a start on his own account, and going off and leaving the little party which was just about to break up, each going his or her own way. He lingered and lingered still till the moment came when the ladies had arranged to leave. Herbert by this time had made up his mind to go on to Italy too, and Everard, in spite of himself, found that he was tacitly pledged to be his young cousin’s companion, though Bertie without Reine was not particularly to his mind. Though he had been partially weaned from his noisy young friends by Everard’s presence, Herbert had still made his boyish desire to emancipate himself sufficiently apparent to annoy and bore the elder man, who having long known the delights of freedom, was not so eager to claim them, nor so jealous of their infringement. Everard had no admiration for the billiard-rooms or smoking-rooms, or noisy, boyish parties which Herbert preferred so much to the society of his mother and sister. “Please yourself,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, as he left the lad at the door of these brilliant centres of society; and this shrug had more effect upon Herbert’s mind than dozens of moral lectures. His first doubt, indeed, as to whether the “life” which he was seeing, was not really of the most advanced and brilliant kind, was suggested to him by that contemptuous movement of his cousin’s shoulders. “He is a rustic, he is a Puritan,” Herbert said to himself, but quite unconsciously Everard’s shrug was as a cloud over his gayety. Everard, however, shrugged his shoulders much more emphatically when he found that he was expected to act the part of guide, philosopher, and friend to the young fellow, who was no longer an invalid, and who was so anxious to see the world. Once upon a time he had been very ready to undertake the office, to give the sick lad his arm, to wheel him about in his chair, to carry him up or down stairs when that was needful.
“But you don’t expect me to be Herbert’s nurse all by myself,” he said ruefully, just after Madame de Mirfleur had made a pretty little speech to him about the benefit which his example and his society would be to her boy. Reine was in the room too, working demurely at her mother’s tapisserie, and making no sign.
“He wants no nurse,” said Madame de Mirfleur, “thank God; but your society, cher Monsieur Everard, will be everything forhim. It will set our minds at ease. Reine, speak for thyself, then. Do not let Monsieur Everard go away without thy word too.”
Reine raised her eyes from her work, and gave a quick, sudden glance at him. Then Everard saw that her eyes were full of tears. Were they for him? were they for Herbert? were they, for herself? He could not tell. Her voice was husky and strained very different from the clear carol with which this night even, over again, she had given forth the quavering notes of “Ma Normandie.” How he hated the song which she had taken to singing over and over again when nobody wanted it! But her voice just then had lost all its music, and he was glad.
“Everard knows—what I would say,” said Reine. “He always was—very good to Bertie;” and here her tears fell. They were so big that they made a storm of themselves, and echoed as they fell, these two tears.
“But speak, then,” said her mother, “we go to-morrow; there is no more time to say anything after to-night.”
Reine’s eyes had filled again. She was exercising great control over herself, and would not weep nor break down, but she could not keep the tears out of her eyes. “He is not very strong,” she said, faltering, “he never was—without some one to take care of him—before. Oh! how can I speak? Perhaps I am forsaking him for my own poor pride, after all. If he got ill what should I do?”
“Chérie, if he gets ill, it will be the will of God; thou canst do no more. Tell what you wish to your cousin. Monsieur Everard is very good and kind; he will watch over him; he will take care of him—”
“I know, I know!” said Reine, under her breath, making a desperate effort to swallow down the rising sob in her throat.
Through all this Everard sat very still, with a rueful sort of smile on his face. He did not like it, but what could he say? He had no desire to watch over Herbert, to take care of him, as Madame de Mirfleur said; but he was soft-hearted, and his very soul was melted by Reine’s tears, though at the same time they wounded him; for, alas! there was very little appearance of any thought for him, Everard, in all she looked and said.
And then there followed a silence in which, if he had been abrave man, he would have struck a stroke for liberty, and endeavored to get out of this thankless office; and he fully meant to do it; but sat still looking at the lamp, and said nothing, though the opportunity was afforded him. A man who has so little courage or presence of mind surely deserves all his sufferings.
Everardand Herbert made their tour through Italy without very much heart for the performance; but partly out of pride, partly because, when once started on agiroof any kind, it is easier to go on than to turn back, they accomplished it. On Herbert’s part, indeed, there was occasion for a very strong backbone of pride to keep him up, for the poor young fellow, whose health was not so strong as he thought, had one or two warnings of this fact, and when shut up for a week or two in Rome or in Naples, longed unspeakably for the sister who had always been his nurse and companion. Everard was very kind, and gave up a great deal of his time to the invalid; but it was not to be expected that he should absolutely devote himself, as Reine did, thinking of nothing in the world but Herbert. He had, indeed, many other things to think of, and when the state of convalescence was reached, he left the patient to get better as he could, though he was very good to him when he was absolutely ill. What more could any one ask? But poor Herbert wanted more. He wanted Reine, and thus learned how foolish it was to throw his prop away. Reine in the meanwhile wanted him, and spent many wretched hours in the heart of that still Normandy, longing to be with the travellers, to know what they were about, and how her brother arranged his life without her. The young men arrived at the Château Mirfleur at the earliest moment permissible, getting there in the end of April, to pick up Reine; and as they had all been longing for this meeting, any clouds that had risen on the firmament dispersed at once before the sunshine.
They were so glad to be together again, that they did not ask why or how they had separated. And instead of singing “Ma Normandie,” as she had done at Cannes, Reine sang “Home,sweet home,” bringing tears into the eyes of the wanderers with that tender ditty. Herbert and she were indeed much excited about their home-going, as was natural. They had not been at Whiteladies for six years, a large slice out of their young lives. They had been boy and girl when they left it, and now they were man and woman. And all the responsibilities of life awaited Herbert, now three-and-twenty, in full possession of his rights. In the first tenderness of the reunion Reine and he had again many talks over this life which was now beginning—a different kind of life from that which he thought, poor boy, he was making acquaintance with in billiard-rooms, etc. I think he had ceased to confide in the billiard-room version of existence, but probably not so much from good sense or any virtue of his, as from the convincing effect of those two “attacks” which he had been assailed by at Rome and Naples, and which proved to him that he was not yet strong enough to dare vulgar excitements, and turn night into day.
As for Everard, it seemed to him that it was his fate to be left in the lurch. He had been told off to attend upon Herbert and take care of him when he had no such intention, and now, instead of rewarding him for his complaisance, Reine was intent upon cementing her own reconciliation with her brother, and making up for what she now represented to herself as her desertion of him. Poor Everard could not get a word or a look from her, but was left in a whimsical solitude to make acquaintance with Jeanot and Babette, and to be amiable to M. de Mirfleur, whom his wife’s children were not fond of. Everard found him very agreeable, being driven to take refuge with the honest, homely Frenchman, who had more charity for Herbert and Reine than they had for him. M. de Mirfleur, like his wife, found many things to be tout simple which distressed and worried the others. He was not even angry with the young people for their natural reluctance to acknowledge himself, which indeed showed very advanced perceptions in a step-father, and much forbearance. He set down all their farouche characteristics to their nationality. Indeed, there was in the good man’s mind, an evident feeling that the fact of being English explained everything. Everard was left to the society of M. de Mirfleur and the children, who grew very fond of him, and indeed it was he who derived the most advantage from his week in Normandy, if he had only been able to see it in that light. But I am not sure that hedid not think the renewed devotion of friendship between the brother and sister excessive; for it was not until they were ploughing the stormy seas on the voyage from Havre, which was their nearest seaport, to England, that he had so much as a chance of a conversation with Reine. Herbert, bound to be well on his triumphal return home, had been persuaded to go below and escape the night air. But Reine, who was in a restless condition, full of suppressed excitement, and a tolerable sailor besides, could not keep still. She came up to the deck when the night was gathering, the dark waves running swiftly by the ship’s side, the night-air blowing strong (for there was no wind, the sailors said) through the bare cordage, and carrying before it the huge black pennon of smoke from the funnel.
The sea was not rough. There was something congenial to the commotion and excitement of Reine’s spirit in the throb and bound of the steamer, and in the dark waves, with their ceaseless movement, through which, stormy and black and full of mysterious life as they looked, the blacker solid hull pushed its resistless way. She liked the strong current of the air, and the sense of progress, and even the half-terror of that dark world in which this little floating world held its own between sky and sea. Everard tossed his cigar over the ship’s side when he saw her, and came eagerly forward and drew her hand through his arm. It was the first time he had been able to say a word to her since they met. But even then Reine’s first question was not encouraging.
“How do you think Bertie is looking?” she said.
Every man, however, be his temper ever so touchy, can be patient when the inducement is strong enough. Everard, though deeply tempted to make a churlish answer, controlled himself in a second, and replied—
“Very well, I think; not robust, perhaps, Reine; you must not expect him all at once to look robust.”
“I suppose not,” she said, with a sigh.
“But quitewell, which is much more important. It is not the degree, but the kind, that is to be looked at,” said Everard, with a great show of wisdom. “Strength is one thing, health is another; and it is not the most robustious men,” he went on with a smile, “who live longest, Reine.”
“I suppose not,” she repeated. Then after a pause, “Do you think, from what you have seen of him, that he will be active and take up a country life? There is not much going on at Whiteladies; you say you found your life dull?”
“To excuse myself for coming when you called upon me, Reine.”
“Ah! but I did not call you. I never should have ventured. Everard, you are doing me injustice. How could I have taken so much upon myself?”
“I wish you would take a great deal more upon yourself. You did, Reine. You said, ‘Stand in my place.’ ”
“Yes, I know; my heart was breaking. Forgive me, Everard. Whom could I ask but you?”
“I will forgive you anything you like, if you say that. And I did take your place, Reine. I did not want to, mind you—I wanted to be withyou, not Bertie—but I did.”
“Everard, you are kind, and so cruel. Thanks! thanks a thousand times!”
“I do not want to be thanked,” he said, standing over her; for she had drawn her hand from his arm, and was standing by the steep stairs which led below, ready for escape. “I don’t care for thanks. I want to be rewarded. I am not one of the generous kind. I did not do it for nothing. Pay me, Reine!”
Reine looked him in the face very sedately. I do not think that his rudeness alarmed, or even annoyed her, to speak of. A gleam of malice came into her eyes; then a gleam of something else, which was, though it was hard to see it, a tear. Then she suddenly took his hand, kissed it before Everard had time to stop her, and fled below. And when she reached the safe refuge of the ladies’ cabin, where no profane foot could follow her, Reine took off her hat, and shook down her hair, which was all blown about by the wind, and laughed to herself. When she turned her eyes to the dismal little swinging lamp overhead, that dolorous light reflected itself in such glimmers of sunshine as it had never seen before.
How gay the girl felt! and mischievous, like a kitten. Pay him! Reine sat down on the darksome hair-cloth sofa in the corner, with wicked smiles curling the corners of her mouth; and then she put her hands over her face, and cried. The other ladies, poor souls! were asleep or poorly, and paid no attention to all this pantomime. It was the happiest moment she had had for years, andthis is how she ran away from it; but I don’t think that the running away made her enjoy it the less.
As for Everard, he was left on deck feeling somewhat discomfited. It was the second time this had happened to him. She had kissed his hand before, and he had been angry and ashamed, as it was natural a man should be, of such an inappropriate homage. He had thought, to tell the truth, that his demand for payment was rather an original way of making a proposal; and he felt himself laughed at, which is, of all things in the world, the thing most trying to a lover’s feelings. But after awhile, when he had lighted and smoked a cigar, and fiercely perambulated the deck for ten minutes, he calmed down, and began to enter into the spirit of the situation. Such a response, if it was intensely provoking, was not, after all, very discouraging. He went downstairs after awhile (having, as the reader will perceive, his attack of the love-sickness rather badly), and looked at Herbert, who was extended on another dismal sofa, similar to the one on which Reine indulged her malice, and spread a warm rug over him, and told him the hour, and that “we’re getting on famously, old fellow!” with the utmost sweetness. But he could not himself rest in the dreary cabin, under the swinging lamp, and went back on deck, where there was something more congenial in the fresh air, the waves running high, the clouds breaking into dawn.