Reine did 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 was only 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 for him. 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 a brave 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.