gaunt did not appear again at eaton square for two or three days,—not, indeed, till after the great event of frances’ history had taken place—the going to court, which had filled her with so many alarms. after all, when she got there, she was not frightened at all, the sense of humour which was latent in her nature getting the mastery at the last moment, and the spectacle, such as it was, taking all her attention from herself. lady markham’s good taste had selected for frances as simple a dress as was possible, and her ornaments were the pearls which her aunt had given her, which she had never been able to look at, save uneasily, as spoil. mrs clarendon, however, condescended, which was a wonderful stretch of good-nature, to come to eaton square to{v3-39} see her dressed, which, as everybody knows, is one of the most agreeable parts of the ceremony. frances had not a number of young friends to fill the house with a chorus of admiration and criticism; but the miss montagues thought it “almost a duty” to come, and a number of her mother’s friends. these ladies filled the drawing-room, and were much more formidable than even the eyes of majesty, preoccupied with the sight of many toilets, and probably very tired of them, which would have no more than a passing glance for frances. the spectators at eaton square took her to pieces conscientiously, though they agreed, after each had made her little observation, that the ensemble was perfect, and that the power of millinery could no further go. the intelligent reader needs not to be informed that frances was all white, from her feathers to her shoes. her pretty glow of youthfulness and expectation made the toilet supportable, nay, pretty, even in the glare of day. markham, who was not afraid to confront all these fair and critical faces, in his uniform, which misbecame, and did not even fit him,{v3-40} and which made his insignificance still more apparent, walked round and round his little sister with the most perfect satisfaction. “are you sure you know how to manage that train, little fan? do you feel quite up to your curtsey?” he said in a whisper with his chuckle of mirth; but there was a very tender look in the little man’s eyes. he might wrong others; but to frances, nobody could be more kind or considerate. mrs clarendon, when she saw him, turned upon her heel and walked off into the back drawing-room, where she stood for some minutes sternly contemplating a picture, and ignoring everybody. markham did not resent this insult. “she can’t abide me, fan,” he went on. “poor lady, i don’t wonder. i was a little brat when she knew me first. as soon as i go away, she will come back; and i am going presently, my dear. i am going to snatch a morsel in the dining-room, to sustain nature. i hope you had your sandwiches, fan? it will take a great deal of nourishment to keep you up to that curtsey.” he patted her softly on her white shoulder, with kindness beaming out of his ugly face.{v3-41} “i call you a most satisfactory production, my dear. not a beauty, but better—a real nice innocent girl. i should like any fellow to show me a nicer,” he went on, with his short laugh. though it took the form of a chuckle, there was something in it that showed markham’s heart was touched. and this was the man whom even his own mother was afraid to trust a young man with! it seemed to frances that it was impossible such a thing could be true.
mrs clarendon, as markham had predicted, came back as he retired. her contemplation of the dress of the débutante was very critical. “satin is too heavy for you,” she said. “i wonder your mother did not see that silk would have been far more in keeping; but she always liked to overdo. as for my lord markham, i am glad he will have to look after your mother, and not you, frances; for the very look of a man like that contaminates a young girl. don’t say to me that he is your brother, for he is not your brother. considering my age and yours, i surely ought to know best. turn round a little. there is a perceptible crease across the middle of your shoulder,{v3-42} and i don’t quite like the hang of this skirt. but one thing looks very well, and that is your pearls. they have been in the family i can’t tell you how long. my grandmother gave them to me.”
“mamma insisted i should wear them, and nothing else, aunt caroline.”
“yes, i daresay. you have nothing else good enough to go with them, most likely. and lady markham knows a good thing very well, when she sees it. have you been put through all that you have to do, frances? remember to keep your right hand quite free; and take care your train doesn’t get in your way. oh, why is it that your poor father is not here to see you, to go with you! it would be a very different thing then.”
“nothing would make papa go, aunt caroline. do you think he would dress himself up like markham, to be laughed at?”
“i promise you nobody would laugh at my brother,” said mrs clarendon. “as for lord markham——” but she bit her lip, and forbore. she spoke to none of the other ladies, who swarmed like numerous bees in the room,{v3-43} keeping up a hum in the air; but she made very formal acknowledgments to lady markham as she went away. “i am much obliged to you for letting me come to see frances dressed. she looks very well on the whole, though, perhaps, i should have adopted a different style had it been in my hands.”
“my dear caroline,” cried lady markham, ignoring this ungracious conclusion, “how can you speak of letting you come? you know we are only too glad to see you whenever you will come. and i hope you liked the effect of your beautiful pearls. what a charming present to give the child; i thought it so kind of you.”
“so long as frances understands that they are family ornaments,” said mrs clarendon, stiffly, rejecting all acknowledgments.
there was a little murmur and titter when she went away. “is it medusa in person?” “it is mrs clarendon, the wife of the great q.c.” “it is frances’ aunt, and she does not like any remark.” “it is my dear sister-in-law,” said lady markham. “she does not love me; but she is kind to frances, which covers{v3-44} a multitude of sins.” “and very rich,” said another lady, “which covers a multitude more.” this put a little bitterness into the conversation to frances, standing there in her fine clothes, and not knowing how to interfere; and it was a relief to her when markham, though she could not blame the whispering girls who called him a guy, came in shuffling and smiling, with a glance and nod of encouragement to his little sister to take the mother down-stairs to her carriage. after that, all was a moving phantasmagoria of colour and novel life, and nothing clear.
and it was not until after this great day that captain gaunt appeared again. the ladies received him with reproaches for his absence. “i expected to see you yesterday at least,” said lady markham. “you don’t care for fine clothes, as we women do; but five o’clock tea, after a drawing-room, is a fine sight. you have no idea how grand we were, and how much you have lost.”
captain gaunt responded with a very grave, indeed melancholy smile. he was even more dejected than when he made his first appear{v3-45}ance. then his melancholy had been unalloyed, and not without something of that tragic satisfaction in his own sufferings which the victims of the heart so often enjoy. but now there were complications of some kind, not so easily to be understood. he smiled a very serious evanescent smile. “i shall have to lose still more,” he said, “for i think i must leave london—sooner than i thought.”
“oh,” cried frances, whom this concerned the most; “leave london! you were to stay a month.”
“yes; but my month seems to have run away before it has begun,” he said, confusedly. then, finding lady markham’s eye upon him, he added, “i mean, things are very different from what i expected. my father thought i might do myself good by seeing people who—might push me, he supposed. i am not good at pushing myself,” he said, with an abrupt and harsh laugh.
“i understand that. you are too modest. it is a defect, as well as the reverse one of being too bold. and you have not met—the people you hoped?{v3-46}”
“it is not exactly that either. my father’s old friends have been kind enough; but london perhaps is not the place for a poor soldier.” he stopped, with again a little quiver of a smile.
“that is quite true,” said lady markham, gravely. “i enter into your feelings. you don’t think that the game is worth the candle? i have heard so many people say so—even among those who were very well able to push themselves, captain gaunt. i have heard them say that any little thing they might have gained was not worth the expenditure and trouble of a season in london—besides all the risks.”
captain gaunt listened to this with his discouraged look. he made no reply to lady markham, but turned to frances with a sort of smile. “do you remember,” he said, “i told you my mother had found a cheap place in switzerland, such as she delights in? i think i shall go and join them there.”
“oh, i am very sorry,” said frances, with a countenance of unfeigned regret. “no doubt mrs gaunt will be glad to have you; but she will be sorry too. don’t you think she would{v3-47} rather you stayed your full time in london, and enjoyed yourself a little? i feel sure she would like that best.”
“but i don’t think i am enjoying myself,” he said, with the air of a man who would like to be persuaded. he had perhaps been a little piqued by lady markham’s way of taking him at his word.
“there must be a great deal to enjoy,” said frances; “every one says so. they think there is no place like london. you cannot have exhausted everything in a week, captain gaunt. you have not given it a fair trial. your mother and the general, they would not like you to run away.”
“run away! no,” he said, with a little start; “that is what i should not do.”
“but it would be running away,” said frances, with all the zeal of a partisan. “you think you are not doing any good, and you forget that they wished you to have a little pleasure too. they think a great deal of london. the general used to talk to me, when i thought i should never see it. he used to tell me to wait till i had seen london;{v3-48} everything was there. and it is not often you have the chance, captain gaunt. it may be a long time before you come from india again; and think if you told any one out there you had only been a week in town!”
he listened to her very devoutly, with an air of giving great weight to those simple arguments. they were more soothing to his pride, at least, than the way in which her mother took him at his word.
“frances speaks,” said lady markham—and while she spoke, the sound of markham’s hansom was heard dashing up to the door—“frances speaks as if she were in the interest of all the people who prey upon visitors in london. i think, on the whole, captain gaunt, though i regret your going, that my reason is with you rather than with her. and, my dear, if captain gaunt thinks this is right, it is not for his friends to persuade him against his better judgment.”
“what is gaunt’s better judgment going to do?” said markham. “it’s always alarming to hear of a man’s better judgment. what is it all about?{v3-49}”
lady markham looked up in her son’s face with great seriousness and meaning. “captain gaunt,” she said, “is talking of leaving london, which—if he finds his stay unprofitable and of little advantage to him—though i should regret it very much, i should think him wise to do.”
“gaunt leaving london? oh no! he is taking you in. a man who is a ladies’ man likes to say that to ladies in order to be coaxed to stay. that is at the bottom of it, i’ll be bound. and where was our hero going, if he had his way?”
frances thought that there were signs in gaunt of failing temper, so she hastened to explain. “he was going to switzerland, markham, to a place mrs gaunt knows of, where she is to be.”
“to switzerland!” markham cried—“the dullest place on the face of the earth. what would you do there, my gallant captain? climb?—or listen all day long to those who recount their climbings, or those who plan them—all full of insane self-complacency, as if there was the highest morality in climbing{v3-50} mountains. were you going in for the mountains, fan?”
“frances was pleading for london—a very unusual fancy for her,” said lady markham. “the very young are not afraid of responsibility; but i am, at my age. i could not venture to recommend captain gaunt to stay.”
“i only meant—i only thought——” frances stammered and hung her head a little. had she been indiscreet? her abashed look caught young gaunt’s eye. why should she be abashed?—and on his account? it made his heart stir a little, that heart which had been so crushed and broken, and, he thought, pitched away into a corner; but at that moment he found it again stirring quite warm and vigorous in his breast.
“i always said she was full of sense,” said markham. “a little sister is an admirable institution; and her wisdom is all the more delightful that she doesn’t know what sense it is.” he patted frances on the shoulder as he spoke. “it wouldn’t do, would it, fan, to have him run away?{v3-51}”
“if there was any question of that,” gaunt said, with something of a defiant air.
“and to switzerland,” said markham, with a chuckle. “shall i tell you my experiences, gaunt? i was there for my sins once, with the mother here. among all her admirable qualities, my mamma has that of demanding few sacrifices in this way—so that a man is bound in honour to make one now and then.”
“markham, when you are going to say what you know i will disapprove, you always put in a little flattery—which silences me.”
he kissed his hand to her with a short laugh. “the place,” he said, “was in possession of an athletic band, in roaring spirits and tremendous training, men and women all the same. you could scarcely tell the creatures one from another—all burned red in the faces of them, worn out of all shape and colour in the clothes of them. they clamped along the passages in their big boots from two o’clock till five every morning. they came back, perspiring, in the afternoon—a procession of old clothes, all complacent, as if they had done the finest action in the world. and the rest of us surrounded{v3-52} them with a circle of worshippers, till they clamped up-stairs again, fortunately very early, to bed. then a faint sort of life began for nous autres. we came out and admired the stars and drank our coffee in peace—short-lived peace, for, as everybody had been up at two in the morning, the poor beggars naturally wanted to get to bed. you are an athletic chap, so you might like it, and perhaps attain canonisation by going up mont blanc.”
“my mother—is not in one of those mountain centres,” said gaunt, with a faint smile.
“worse and worse,” said markham. “we went through that experience too. in the non-climbing places the old ladies have it all their own way. you will dine at two, my poor martyr; you will have tea at six, with cold meat. the table-cloths and napkins will last a week. there will be honey with flies in it on every table. all about the neighbourhood, mild constitutionals will meet you at every hour in the day. there will be gentle raptures over a new view. ‘have you seen it, captain gaunt? do come with us to-morrow and let us show it you; quite the finest view’—of{v3-53} pilatus, or monte rosa, or the jungfrau, or whatever it may happen to be. and meanwhile we shall all be playing our little game comfortably at home. we will give you a thought now and then. frances will run to the window and say, ‘i thought that was captain gaunt’s step;’ and the mother will explain to sir thomas, ‘such a pity our poor young friend found that london did not suit him.’”
“well, markham,” said his mother, with firmness, “if captain gaunt found that london did not suit him, i should think all the more highly of him that he withdrew in time.”
perhaps the note was too forcibly struck. gaunt drew himself slightly up. “there is nothing so very serious in the matter, after all. london may not suit me; but still i do not suppose it will do me any harm.”
frances looked on at this triangular duel with eyes that acquired gradually consciousness and knowledge. she saw ere long that there was much more in it than met the eye. at first, her appeal to young gaunt to remain had been made on the impulse of the moment, and{v3-54} without thought. now she remained silent, only with a faint gesture of protest when markham brought in her name.
“let us go to luncheon,” said her mother. “i am glad to hear you are not really in earnest, captain gaunt; for of course we should all be very sorry if you went away. london is a siren to whose wiles we all give in. i am as bad myself as any one can be. i never make any secret of my affection for town; but there are some with whose constitutions it never agrees, who either take it too seriously or with too much passion. we old stagers get very moderate and methodical in our dissipations, and make a little go a long way.”
but there was a chill at table; and lady markham was “not in her usual force.” sir thomas, who came in as usual as they were going down-stairs, said, “anything the matter? oh, captain gaunt going away. dear me, so soon! i am surprised. it takes a great deal of self-control to make a young fellow leave town at this time of the year.”
“it was only a project,” said poor young{v3-55} gaunt. he was pleased to be persuaded that it was more than could be expected of him. lady markham gave sir thomas a look which made that devoted friend uncomfortable; but he did not know what he had done to deserve it. and so captain gaunt made up his mind to stay.
