frances ate a mournful little dinner alone, after the agitations to which she had been subject. her mother did not return; and markham, who had been expected up to the last moment, did not appear. it was unusual to her now to spend so many hours alone, and her mind was oppressed not only by the strange scene with nelly winterbourn, but more deeply still by claude’s news. george gaunt had always been a figure of great interest to frances; and his appearance here in the world which was as yet so strange, with his grave, indeed melancholy face, had awakened her to a sense of sympathy and friendliness which no one had called forth in her before. he was as strange as she was to that dazzling puzzle of society, sat silent as she did, roused himself into interest like her about matters which did not much{v3-149} interest anybody else. she had felt amid so many strangers that here was one whom she could always understand, whose thoughts she could follow, who said what she had been about to say. it made no difference to frances that he had not signalled her out for special notice. she took that quietly, as a matter of course. her mother, markham, the other people who appeared and disappeared in the house, were all more interesting, she felt, than she; but sometimes her eyes had met those of captain gaunt in sympathy, and she had perceived that he could understand her, whether he wished to do so or not. and then he was mrs gaunt’s youngest, of whom she had heard so much. it seemed to frances that his childhood and her own had got all entangled, so that she could not be quite sure whether this and that incident of the nursery had been told of him or of herself. she was more familiar with him than he could be with her. and to hear that he was unhappy, that he was in danger, a stranger among people who preyed upon him, and yet not to be able to help him, was almost more than she could bear.{v3-150}
she went up to the empty drawing-room, with the soft illumination of many lights, which was habitual there, which lay all decorated and bright, sweet with spring flowers, full of pictures and ornaments, like a deserted palace, and she felt the silence and beauty of it to be dreary and terrible. it was like a desert to her, or rather like a prison, in which she must stay and wait and listen, and, whatever might come, do nothing to hinder it. what could she do? a girl could not go out into those haunts, where claude ramsay, though he was so delicate, could go; she could not put herself forward, and warn a man, who would think he knew much better than she could do. she sat down and tried to read, and then got up, and glided about from one table to another, from one picture to another, looking vaguely at a score of things without seeing them. then she stole within the shadow of the curtain, and looked out at the carriages which went and came, now and then drawing up at adjacent doors. it made her heart beat to see them approaching, to think that perhaps they were coming here—her mother perhaps; perhaps sir{v3-151} thomas; perhaps markham. was it possible that this night, of all others—this night, when her heart seemed to appeal to earth and heaven for some one to help her—nobody would come? it was frances’ first experience of these vigils, which to some women fill up so much of life. there had never been any anxiety at bordighera, any disturbing influence. she had always known where to find her father, who could solve every problem and chase away every difficulty. would he, she wondered, be able to do so now? would he, if he were here, go out for her, and find george gaunt, and deliver him from his pursuers? but frances could not say to herself that he would have done so. he was not fond of disturbing himself. he would have said, “it is not my business;” he would have refused to interfere, as claude did. and what could she do, a girl, by herself? lady markham had been very anxious to keep him out of harm’s way; but she had said plainly that she would not forsake her own son in order to save the son of another woman. frances was wandering painfully through labyrinths of such thoughts, racking her brain with vain{v3-152} questions as to what it was possible to do, when markham’s hansom, stopping with a sudden clang at the door, drove her thoughts away, or at least made a break in them, and replaced, by a nervous tremor of excitement and alarm, the pangs of anxious expectation and suspense. she would rather not have seen markham at that moment. she was fond of her brother. it grieved her to hear even lady markham speak of him in questionable terms: all the natural prejudices of affectionate youth were enlisted on his side; but, for the first time, she felt that she had no confidence in markham, and wished that it had been any one but he.
he came in with a light overcoat over his evening clothes,—he had been dining out; but he did not meet frances with the unembarrassed countenance which she had thought would have made it so difficult to speak to him about what she had heard. he came in hurriedly, looking round the drawing-room with a rapid investigating glance before he took any notice of her. “where is the mother?” he asked, hurriedly.{v3-153}
“she has not come back,” said frances, divining from his look that it was unnecessary to say more.
markham sat down abruptly on a sofa near. he did not make any reply to her, but put up the handle of his cane to his mouth with a curious mixture of the comic and the tragic, which struck her in spite of herself. he did not require to put any question; he knew very well where his mother was, and all that was happening. the sense of the great crisis which had arrived took from him all power of speech, paralysing him with mingled awe and dismay. but yet the odd little figure on the sofa sucking his cane, his hat in his other hand, his features all fallen into bewilderment and helplessness, was absurd. out of the depths of frances’ trouble came a hysterical titter against her will. this roused him also. he looked at her with a faint evanescent smile.
“laughing at me, fan? well, i don’t wonder. i am a nice fellow to have to do with a tragedy. screaming farce is more like my style.”
“i did not laugh, markham; i have not any heart for laughing,” she said.{v3-154}
“oh, didn’t you? but it sounded like it. fan, tell me, has the mother been long away, and did any one see that unfortunate girl when she was here?”
“no, markham—unless it were mr ramsay; he saw her drive away with mamma.”
“the worst of old gossips,” he said, desperately sucking his cane, with a gloomy brow. “i don’t know an old woman so bad. no quarter there—that is the word. fan, the mother is a trump. nothing is so bad when she is mixed up in it. was nelly much cut up, or was she in one of her wild fits? poor girl! you must not think badly of nelly. she has had hard lines. she never had a chance: an old brute, used up, that no woman could take to. but she has done her duty by him, fan.”
“she does not think so, markham.”
“oh, by jove, she was giving you that, was she? fan, i sometimes think poor nelly’s off her head a little. poor nelly, poor girl! i don’t want to set her up for an example; but she has done her duty by him. remember this, whatever you may hear. i—am rather a good one to know.{v3-155}”
he gave a curious little chuckle as he said this—a sort of strangled laugh, of which he was ashamed, and stifled it in its birth.
“markham, i want to speak to you—about something very serious.”
he gave a keen look at her sideways from the corner of one eye. then he said, in a sort of whisper to himself, “preaching;” but added in his own voice, “fire away, fan,” with a look of resignation.
“markham—it is about captain gaunt.”
“oh!” he cried. he gave a little laugh. “you frightened me, my dear. i thought at this time of the day you were going to give me a sermon from the depths of your moral experience, fan. so long as it isn’t about poor nelly, say what you please about gaunt. what about gaunt?”
“oh, markham, mr ramsay told me—and mamma has been frightened ever since he came. what have you done with him, markham? don’t you remember the old general at bordighera—and his mother? and he had just come from india, for his holiday, after years and years. and they are poor—that is to say, they{v3-156} are well enough off for them; but they are not like mamma and you. they have not got horses and carriages; they don’t live—as you do.”
“as i do! i am the poorest little beggar living, and that is the truth, fan.”
“the poorest! markham, you may think you can laugh at me. i am not clever; i am quite ignorant—that i know. but how can you say you are poor? you don’t know what it is to be poor. when they go away in the summer, they choose little quiet places; they spare everything they can. that is one thing i know better than you do. to say you are poor!”
he rose up and came towards her, and taking her hands in his, gave them a squeeze which was painful, though he was unconscious of it. “fan,” he said, “all that is very pretty, and true for you; but if i hadn’t been poor, do you think all this would have happened as it has done? do you think i’d have stood by and let nelly marry that fellow? do you think——? hush! there’s the mother, with news; no doubt she’s got news. fan, what d’ye think it’ll be?{v3-157}”
he held her hands tight, and pressed them till she had almost cried out, looking in her face with a sort of nervous smile which twitched at the corners of his mouth, looking in her eyes as if into a mirror where he could see the reflection of something, and so be spared the pain of looking directly at it. she saw that the subject which was of so much interest to her had passed clean out of his head. his own affairs were uppermost in markham’s mind, as is generally the case whenever a man can be supposed to have any affairs at all of his own.
and frances, kept in this position, as a sort of mirror in which he could see the reflection of his mother’s face, saw lady markham come in, looking very pale and fatigued, with that air of having worn her outdoor dress for hours which gives a sort of haggard aspect to weariness. she gave a glance round, evidently without perceiving very clearly who was there, then sank wearily upon the sofa, loosening her cloak. “it is all over,” she said in a low tone, as if speaking to herself—“it is all over. of course i could not come away before——”
markham let go frances’ hands without a{v3-158} word. he walked away to the further window, and drew the curtain aside and looked out. why, he could not have told, nor with what purpose—with a vague intention of making sure that the hansom which stood there so constantly was at the door.
“what is markham doing?” said his mother, in a faint querulous tone. “tell him not to fidget with these curtains. it worries me. i am tired, and my nerves are all wrong. yes, you can take my cloak, frances. don’t call anybody. no one will come here to-night. markham, did you hear what i said? it is all over. i waited till——”
he came towards her from the end of the room with a sort of smile upon his grey sandy-coloured face, his mouth and eyebrows twitching, his eyes screwed up so that nothing but two keen little glimmers of reflection were visible. “you are not the sort,” he said, with a little tremor in his voice, “to forsake a man when he is down.” he had his hands in his pockets, his shoulders pushed up; nowhere could there have been seen a less tragic figure. yet every line of his odd face was touched and moving with{v3-159} feeling, totally beyond any power of expression in words.
“it was not a happy scene,” she said. “he sent for her at the last. sarah winterbourn was there at the bedside. she was fond of him, i believe. a woman cannot help being fond of her brother, however little he may deserve it. nelly——”
here markham broke in with a sound that was like, yet not like, his usual laugh. “how’s nelly?” he said abruptly, without sequence or reason. lady markham paused to look at him, and then went on—
“nelly trembled so, i could scarcely keep her up. she wanted not to go; she said, what was the good? but i got her persuaded at last. a man dying like that is a—is a—— it is not a pleasant sight. he signed to her to go and kiss him.” lady markham shuddered slightly. “he was past speaking—i mean, he was past understanding—— i—i wish i had not seen it. one can’t get such a scene out of one’s mind.”
she put up her hand and pressed her fingers upon her eyes, as if the picture was there, and she was trying to get rid of it. markham had{v3-160} turned away again, and was examining, or seeming to examine, the flowers in a jardinière. now and then he made a movement, as if he would have stopped the narrative. frances, trembling and crying with natural horror and distress, had loosened her mother’s cloak and taken off her bonnet while she went on speaking. lady markham’s hair, though always covered with a cap, was as brown and smooth as her daughter’s. frances put her hand upon it timidly, and smoothed the satin braid. it was all she could do to show the emotion, the sympathy in her heart; and she was as much startled in mind as physically, when lady markham suddenly threw one arm round her and rested her head upon her shoulder. “thank god,” the mother cried, “that here is one, whatever may happen, that will never, never——! frances, my love, don’t mind what i say. i am worn out, and good for nothing. go and get me a little wine, for i have no strength left in me.”
markham turned to her with his chuckle more marked than ever, as frances left the room. “i am glad to see that you have strength to remember what you’re about, mammy, in spite of{v3-161} that little break-down. it wouldn’t do, would it?—to let frances believe that a match like winterbourn was a thing she would never—never——! though it wasn’t amiss for poor nelly, in her day.”
“markham, you are very hard upon me. the child did not understand either one thing or the other. and i was not to blame about nelly; you cannot say i was to blame. if i had been, i think to-night might make up: that ghastly face, and nelly’s close to it, with her eyes staring in horror, the poor little mouth——”
markham’s exclamation was short and sharp like a pistol-shot. it was a monosyllable, but not one to be put into print. “stop that!” he said. “it can do no good going over it. who’s with her now?”
“i could not stay, markham; besides, it would have been out of place. she has her maid, who is very kind to her; and i made them give her a sleeping-draught—to make her forget her trouble. sarah winterbourn laughed out when i asked for it. the doctor was shocked. it was so natural that poor little nelly, who never saw anything so ghastly, never{v3-162} was in the house with death; never saw, much less touched——”
“i can understand sarah,” he said, with a grim smile.
frances came back with the wine, and her mother paused to kiss her as she took it from her hand. “i am sure you have had a wearing, miserable evening. you look quite pale, my dear. i ought not to speak of such horrid things before you at your age. but you see, markham, she saw nelly, and heard her wild talk. it was all excitement and misery and overstrain; for in reality she had nothing to reproach herself with—nothing, frances. he proved that by sending for her, as i tell you. he knew, and everybody knows, that poor nelly had done her duty by him.”
frances paid little attention to this strange defence. she was, as her mother knew, yet could scarcely believe, totally incapable of comprehending the grounds on which nelly was so strongly asserted to have done her duty, or of understanding that not to have wronged her husband in one unpardonable way, gave her a claim upon the applause of{v3-163} her fellows. fortunately, indeed, frances was defended against all questions on this subject by the possession of that unsuspected trouble of her own, of which she felt that for the night at least it was futile to say anything. nelly was the only subject upon which her mother could speak, or for which markham had any ears. they did not say anything, either after frances left them or in her presence, of the future, of which, no doubt, their minds were full—of which nelly’s mind had been so full when she burst into lady markham’s room in her finery, on that very day; of what was to happen after, what “the widow”—that name against which she so rebelled, but which was already fixed upon her in all the clubs and drawing-rooms—was to do? that was a question which was not openly put to each other by the two persons chiefly concerned.
when markham appeared in his usual haunts that night, he was aware of being regarded with many significant looks; but these he was of course prepared for, and met with a countenance in which it would have puzzled the wisest to find any special expression.{v3-164}
lady markham went to bed as soon as her son left her. she had said she could receive no one, being much fatigued. “my lady have been with mrs winterbourn,” was the answer made to sir thomas when he came to the door late, after a tedious debate in the house of commons. sir thomas, like everybody, was full of speculations on this point, though he regarded it from a point of view different from the popular one. the world was occupied with the question whether nelly would marry markham, now that she was rich and free. but what occupied sir thomas, who had no doubt on this subject, was the—afterwards? what would lady markham do? was it not now at last the moment for waring to come home?
in lady markham’s mind, some similar thoughts were afloat. she had said that she was fatigued; but fatigue does not mean sleep, at least not at lady markham’s age. it means retirement, silence, and leisure for the far more fatiguing exertion of thought. when her maid had been dismissed, and the faint night-lamp was all that was left in her{v3-165} curtained, cushioned, luxurious room, the questions that arose in her mind were manifold. markham’s marriage would make a wonderful difference in his mother’s life. her house in eaton square she would no doubt retain; but the lovely little house in the isle of wight, which had been always hers—and the solemn establishment in the country, would be hers no more. these two things of themselves would make a great difference. but what was of still more consequence was, that markham himself would be hers no more. he would belong to his wife. it was impossible to believe of him that he could ever be otherwise than affectionate and kind; but what a difference when markham was no longer one of the household! and then the husband, so long cut off, so far separated, much by distance, more by the severance of all the habits and mutual claims which bind people together—with him what would follow? what would be the effect of the change? questions like these, diversified by perpetual efforts of imagination to bring before her again the tragical scene of which she had been a witness,—the dying man, with his hoarse attempts{v3-166} to be intelligible; the young, haggard, horrified countenance of nelly, compelled to approach the awful figure, for which she had a child’s dread,—kept her awake long into the night. it is seldom that a woman of her age sees herself on the eve of such changes without any will of hers. it seemed to have overwhelmed her in a moment, although, indeed, she had foreseen the catastrophe. what would nelly do? was the question all the world was asking. but lady markham had another which occupied her as much on her own side. waring, what would he do?
