waring was not so indifferent to the looks or feelings of his daughter as appeared. after all, he was not entirely buried in his books. to frances, who had grown up by his side without particularly attracting his attention, he had been kindly indifferent, not feeling any occasion to concern himself about the child, who always had managed to amuse herself, and never had made any call upon him. but constance had come upon him as a stranger, as an individual with a character and faculties of her own, and it had not been without curiosity that he had watched her to see how she would reconcile herself with the new circumstances. her absorption in the amusement provided for her by young gaunt had somewhat revolted her father, who set it down as one of the usual{v3-129} exhibitions of love in idleness, which every one sees by times as he makes his way through the world. he had not interfered, being thoroughly convinced that interference is useless, in addition to that reluctance to do anything which had grown upon him in his recluse life. but since gaunt had disappeared without a sign—save that of a little irritability, a little unusual gravity on the part of constance—her father had been roused somewhat to ask what it meant. had the young fellow “behaved badly,” as people say? had he danced attendance upon her all this time only to leave her at the end? it did not seem possible, when he looked at constance with her easy air of mastery, and thought of the shy, eager devotion of the young soldier and his impassioned looks. but yet he was aware that in such cases all prognostics failed, that the conqueror was sometimes conquered, and the intended victim remained master of the field. waring observed his daughter more closely than ever on this evening. she was distraite, self-absorbed, a little impatient, sometimes not noting what he said to her, sometimes answering in an irritable tone. the{v3-130} replies she made to him when she did reply showed that her mind was running on other matters. she said abruptly, in the middle of a little account he was giving her, with the idea of amusing her, of one of the neighbouring mountain castles, “do you know, papa, that everybody is going away?”
waring felt, with a certain discomfiture, which was comic, yet annoying, like one who has been suddenly pulled up with a good deal of “way” on him, and stops himself with difficulty—“a branch of the old dorias,” he went on, having these words in his very mouth; and then, after a precipitate pause, “eh? oh, everybody is——? yes, i know. they always do at this time of the year.”
“it will be rather miserable, don’t you think, when every one is gone?”
“my dear constance, ‘every one’ means the gaunts and durants. i could not have supposed you cared.”
“for the gaunts and durants—oh no,” said constance. “but to think there is not a soul—no one to speak to—not even the clergyman, not even tasie.” she laughed, but there was{v3-131} a certain look of alarm in her face, as if the emergency was one which was unprecedented. “that frightens one, in spite of one’s self. and what are we going to do?”
it was waring now who hesitated, and did not know how to reply. “we!” he said. “to tell the truth, i had not thought of it. frances was always quite willing to stay at home.”
“but i am not frances, papa.”
“i beg your pardon, my dear; that is quite true. of course i never supposed so. you understand that for myself i prefer always not to be disturbed—to go on as i am. but you, a young lady fresh from society—— had i supposed that you cared for the durants, for instance, i should have thought of some way of making up for their absence; but i thought, on the whole, you would prefer their absence.”
“that has nothing to do with it,” said constance. “i don’t care for the individuals—they are all rather bores. captain gaunt,” she added, resolutely, introducing the name with determination, “became very much of a bore before he went away. but the thing is to have{v3-132} nobody—nobody! one has to put up with bores very often; but to have nobody, actually not a soul! the circumstances are quite unprecedented.”
there was something in her air as she said this which amused her father. it was the air of a social philosopher brought to a pause in the face of an unimagined dilemma, rather than of a young lady stranded upon a desert shore where no society was to be found.
“no doubt,” he said, “you never knew anything of the kind before.”
“never,” said constance, with warmth. “people who are a nuisance, often enough; but nobody, never before.”
“i prefer nobody,” said her father.
she raised her eyes to him, as if he were one of the problems to which, for the first time, her attention was seriously called. “perhaps,” she said; “but then you are not in a natural condition, papa—no more than a hermit in the desert, who has forsworn society altogether.”
“allowing that i am abnormal, constance, for the argument’s sake{v3-133}——”
“and so was frances, more or less—that is, she could content herself with the peasants and fishermen, who, of course, are just as good as anybody else, if you make up your mind to it, and understand their ways. but i am not abnormal,” constance said, her colour rising a little. “i want the society of my own kind. it seems unnatural to you, probably, just as your way of thinking seems unnatural to me.”
“i have seen both ways,” said waring, in his turn becoming animated; “and so far as my opinion goes, the peasants and fishermen are a thousand times better than what you call society; and solitude, with one’s own thoughts and pursuits, the best of all.”
there was a momentary pause, and then constance said, “that may be, papa. what is best in the abstract is not the question. in that way, mere nothing would be the best of all, for there could be no harm in it.”
“nor any good.”
“that is what i mean on my side—nor any good. it might be better to be alone—then (i suppose) you would never be bored, never feel the need of anything, the mere sound of a{v3-134} voice, some one going by. that may be your way of thinking, but it is not mine. if one has no society, one had better die at once and save trouble. that is what i should like to do.”
a certain feminine confusion in her argument, produced by haste and the stealing in of personal feeling, stopped constance, who was too clear-headed not to see when she had got involved. her confusion had the usual effect of touching her temper and causing a little crise of sentiment. the tears came to her eyes. she could be heroic, and veil her personal grievances like a social martyr so long as this was necessary in presence of the world; but in the present case it was not necessary: it was better, in fact, to let nature have its way.
“that will not be necessary, i hope,” said waring, somewhat coldly. he thought of frances with a sigh, who never bothered him, who was contented with everything! and carried on her own little thoughts, whatever they might be, her little drawings, her little life, so tranquilly, knowing nothing better. what was he to do, with the responsibility upon his hands{v3-135} of this other creature? whom all the same he could not shake off, nor even—as a gentleman, if not as a father—allow to perceive what an embarrassment she was. “without going so far,” he said, “we must consult what is best to be done, since you feel it so keenly. my ordinary habits even of villeggiatura would not please you any better than staying at home, i fear. we used to go up to dolceacqua, frances and i; or to eza; or to porto fino, on the opposite coast,—at no one of which places was there a soul—as you reckon souls—to be seen.”
“that is a great pity,” said constance; “for even frances, though she may have been a stoic born, must have wanted to see a human creature who spoke english now and then.”
“a stoic! it never occurred to me that she was a stoic,” said waring, with astonishment, and a sudden sense of offence. the idea that his little frances was not perfectly happy, that she had anything to put up with, anything to forgive, was intolerable to him; and it was a new idea. he reflected that she had consented to go away with an ease which surprised him{v3-136} at the time. was it possible? this suggestion disturbed him much in his certainty that his was absolutely the right way.
“if all these expedients are unsatisfactory,” he said, sharply, “perhaps you will come to my assistance, and tell me where you would be satisfied to go.”
“papa,” said constance, “i am going to make a suggestion which is a very bold one; perhaps you will be angry—but i don’t do it to make you angry; and, please, don’t answer me till you have thought a moment. it is just this—why shouldn’t we go home?”
“go home!” the words flew from him in the shock and wonder. he grew pale as he stared at her, too much thunderstruck to be angry, as she said.
constance put up her hand to stop him. “i said, please don’t answer till you have thought.”
and then they sat for a minute or more looking at each other from opposite sides of the table—in that pause which comes when a new and strange thought has been thrown into the midst of a turmoil which it has power to excite{v3-137} or to allay. waring went through a great many phases of feeling while he looked at his young daughter sitting undaunted opposite to him, not afraid of him, treating him as no one else had done for years—as an equal, as a reasonable being, whose wishes were not to be deferred to superstitiously, but whose reasons for what he did and said were to be put to the test, as in the case of other men. and he knew that he could not beat down this cool and self-possessed girl, as fathers can usually crush the young creatures whom they have had it in their power to reprove and correct from their cradles. constance was an independent intelligence. she was a gentlewoman, to whom he could not be rude any more than to the queen. this hushed at once the indignant outcry on his lips. he said at last, calmly enough, with only a little sneer piercing through his forced smile, “we must take care, like other debaters, to define what we mean exactly by the phrases we use. home, for example. what do you mean by home? my home, in the ordinary sense of the word, is here.{v3-138}”
“my dear father,” said constance, with the air, somewhat exasperated by his folly, of a philosopher with a neophyte, “i wish you would put the right names to things. yes, it is quite necessary to define, as you say. how can an englishman, with all his duties in his own country, deriving his income from it, with houses belonging to him, and relations, and everything that makes up life—how can he, i ask you, say that home, in the ordinary sense of the word, is here? what is the ordinary sense of the word?” she said, after a pause—looking at him with the indignant frown of good sense, and that little air of repressed exasperation, as of the wiser towards the foolisher, which made waring, in the midst of his own just anger and equally just discomfiture, feel a certain amusement too. he kept his temper with the greatest pains and care. domenico had left the room when the discussion began, and the lamp which hung over the table lighted impartially the girl’s animated countenance, pressing forward in the strength of a position which she felt to be invulnerable, and the father’s clouded and withdrawing face,—for he{v3-139} had taken his eyes from her, with unconscious cowardice, when she fixed him with that unwavering gaze.
“i will allow that you put the position very strongly—as well as a little undutifully,” he said.
“undutifully? is it one’s duty to one’s father to be silly—to give up one’s power of judging what is wrong and what is right? i am sure, papa, you are much too candid a thinker to suggest that.”
what could he say? he was very angry; but this candid thinker took him quite at unawares. it tickled while it defied him. and he was a very candid thinker, as she said. perhaps he had been treated illogically in the great crisis of his life; for, as a matter of fact, when an argument was set before him, when it was a good argument, even if it told against him, he would never refuse to acknowledge it. and conscience, perhaps, had said to him on various occasions what his daughter now said. he could bring forward nothing against it. he could only say, i choose it to be so; and this would bear no weight with constance. “you{v3-140} are not a bad dialectician,” he said. “where did you learn your logic? women are not usually strong in that point.”
“women are said to be just what it pleases men to represent them,” said constance. “listen, papa. frances would not have said that to you that i have just said. but don’t you know that she would have thought it all the same? because it is quite evident and certain, you know. what did you say the other day of that italian, that count something or other, who has the castle there on the hill, and never comes near it from one year’s end to another?”
“that is quite a different matter. there is no reason why he should not spend a part of every year there.”
“and what reason is there with you? only what ought to be an additional reason for going—that you have——” here constance paused a little, and grew pale. and her father looked up at her, growing pale too, anticipating a crisis. another word, and he would be able to crush this young rebel, this meddler with things which concerned her not. but constance was better advised; she said, hurriedly—“relations{v3-141} and dependants, and ever so many things to look to—things that cannot be settled without you.”
“and what may these be?” he had been so fully prepared for the introduction at this point of the mother, from whom constance, too, had fled—the wife, who was, as he said to himself, the cause of all that was inharmonious in his own life—that the withdrawal of her name left him breathless, with the force of an impulse which was not needed. “what are the things that cannot be settled without me?”
“well—for one thing, papa, your daughter’s marriage,” said constance, still looking at him steadily, but with a sudden glow of colour covering her face.
“my daughter’s marriage?” he repeated, vaguely, once more taken by surprise. “what! has frances already, in the course of a few weeks——?”
“it is very probable,” said constance, calmly. “but i was not thinking of frances. perhaps you forget that i am your daughter too, and that your sanction is needed for me as well as for her.{v3-142}”
here waring leant towards her over the table. “is this how it has ended?” he said. “have you really so little perception of what is possible for a girl of your breeding, as to think that a life in india with young gaunt——?”
constance grew crimson from her hair to the edge of her white dress. “captain gaunt?” she said, for the first time avoiding her father’s eye. then she burst into a laugh, which she felt was weak and half hysterical in its self-consciousness. “oh no,” she said; “that was only amusement—that was nothing. i hope, indeed, i have a little more—perception, as you say. what i meant was——” her eyes took a softened look, almost of entreaty, as if she wanted him to help her out.
“i did not know you had any second string to your bow,” he said. now was his time to avenge himself, and he took advantage of it.
“papa,” said constance, drawing herself up majestically, “i have no second string to my bow. i have made a mistake. it is a thing which may happen to any one. but when one does so, and sees it, the thing to do is to acknowledge and remedy it, i think. some{v3-143} people, i am aware, are not of the same opinion. but i, for one, am not going to keep it up.”
“you refer to—a mistake which has not been acknowledged?”
“papa, don’t let us quarrel, you and me. i am very lonely—oh, dreadfully lonely! i want you to stand by me. what i refer to is my affair, not any one’s else. i find out now that claude—of course i told you his name—claude—would suit me very well—better than any one else. there are drawbacks, perhaps; but i understand him, and he understands me. that is the great thing, isn’t it?”
“it is a great thing—if it lasts.”
“oh, it would last. i know him as well as i know myself.”
“i see,” said waring, slowly. “you have made up your mind to return to england, and accomplish the destiny laid out for you. a very wise resolution, no doubt. it is only a pity that you did not think better of it at first, instead of turning my life upside down and causing everybody so much trouble. never mind. it is to be hoped that your resolution will hold now; and there need be no more{v3-144} trouble in that case about finding a place in which to pass the summer. you are going, i presume—home?”
this time the tears came very visibly to constance’s eyes. there was impatience and vexation in them, as well as feeling. “where is home?” she said. “i will have to ask you. the home i have been used to is my sister’s now. oh, it is hard, i see, very hard, when you have made a mistake once, to mend it! the only home that i know of is an old house where the master has not been for a long time—which is all overgrown with trees, and tumbling into ruins for anything i know. but i suppose, unless you forbid me, that i have a right to go there—and perhaps aunt caroline——”
“of what are you speaking?” he said, making an effort to keep his voice steady.
“i am speaking of hilborough, papa.”
at this he sprang up from his chair, as if touched by some intolerable recollection; then composing himself, sat down again, putting force upon himself, restraining the sudden impulse of excitement. after a time, he said, “hilborough. i had almost forgotten the name.{v3-145}”
“yes,—so i thought. you forget that you have a home, which is cooler and quieter, as quiet as any of your villages here—where you could be as solitary as you liked, or see people if you liked—where you are the natural master. oh, i thought you must have forgotten it! in summer it is delightful. you are in the middle of a wood, and yet you are in a nice english house. oh, an english house is very different from those palazzos. papa, there is your villeggiatura, as you call it, just what you want, far, far better than mrs durant’s cheap little place, that she asked me to tell you of, or mrs gaunt’s pension in switzerland, or homburg. they think you are poor; but you know quite well you are not poor. take me to hilborough, papa; oh, take me home! it is there i want to go.”
“hilborough,” he repeated to himself—“hilborough. i never thought of that. i suppose she has a right to it. poor old place! yes, i suppose, if the girl chooses to call it home——”
he rose up quite slowly this time, and went, as was his usual custom, towards the door which{v3-146} led through the other rooms to the loggia, but without paying any attention to the movements of constance, which he generally followed instead of directing. she rose too, and went to him, and stole her hand through his arm. the awning had been put aside, and the soft night-air blew in their faces as they stepped out upon that terrace in which so much of their lives was spent. the sea shone beyond the roofs of the houses on the marina, and swept outwards in a pale clearness towards the sky, which was soft in summer blue, with the stars sprinkled faintly over the vast vault, too much light still remaining in heaven and earth to show them at their best. constance walked with her father, close to his side, holding his arm, almost as tall as he was, and keeping step and pace with him. she said nothing more, but stood by him as he walked to the ledge of the loggia and looked out towards the west, where there was still a lingering touch of gold. he was not at all in the habit of expressing admiration of the landscape, but to-night, as if he were making a remark called forth by the previous argument, “it is all very lovely,” he said.{v3-147}
“yes; but not more lovely than home,” said the girl. “i have been at hilborough in a summer night, and everything was so sweet—the stars all looking through the trees as if they were watching the house—and the scent of the flowers. don’t you remember the white rose at hilborough—what they call mother’s tree?”
he started a little, and a thrill ran through him. she could feel it in his arm—a thrill of recollection, of things beyond the warfare and turmoil of his life, on the other, the boyish side—recollections of quiet and of peace.
“i think i will go to my own room a little, constance, and smoke my cigarette there. you have brought a great many things to my mind.”
she gave his arm a close pressure before she let it go. “oh, take me to hilborough! let us go to our own home, papa.”
“i will think of it,” he replied.
