The Warings had been settled at Bordighera almost as long as Frances
could remember. She had known no other way of living than that which
could be carried on under the painted roofs in the Palazzo, nor any
other domestic management than that of Domenico and Mariuccia. She
herself had been brought up by the latter, who had taught her to knit
stockings and to make lace of a coarse kind, and also how to spare and
save, and watch every detail of the spese--the weekly or daily
accounts--with an anxious eye. Beyond this, Frances had received very
little education: her father had taught her fitfully to read and write
after a sort; and he had taught her to draw, for which she had a little
faculty--that is to say, she had made little sketches of all the points
of view round about, which, if they were not very great in art, amused
her, and made her feel that there was something she could do. Indeed, so
far as doing went, she had a good deal of knowledge. She could mend very
neatly--so neatly, that her darn or her patch was almost an ornament.
She was indeed neat in everything, by instinct, without being taught.
The consequence was, that her life was very full of occupation, and her
time never hung heavy on her hands. At eighteen, indeed, it may be
doubted whether time ever does hang heavy on a girl’s hands. It is when
ten years or so of additional life have passed over her head, bringing
her no more important occupations than those which are pleasant and
appropriate to early youth, that she begins to feel her disabilities;
but fortunately, that is a period of existence with which at the present
moment we have nothing to do.
Her father, who was not fifty yet, had been a young man when he came to
this strange seclusion. Why he should have chosen Bordighera, no one had
taken the trouble to inquire. He came when it was a little town on the
spur of the hill, without either hotels or tourists, or at least very
few of these articles--like many other little towns which are perched on
little platforms among the olive woods all over that lovely country. The
place had commended itself to him because it was so completely out of
the way. And then it was very cheap, simple, and primitive. He was not,
however, by any means a primitive-minded man; and when he took Domenico
and Mariuccia into his service, it was for a year or two an interest in
his life to train them to everything that was the reverse of their own
natural primitive ways. Mariuccia had a little native instinct for
cookery such as is not unusual among the Latin races, and which her
master trained into all the sophistications of a cordon bleu. And
Domenico had that lively desire to serve his padrone “hand and foot,” as
English servants say, and do everything for him, which comes natural to
an amiable Italian eager to please. Both of them had been encouraged and
trained to carry out these inclinations. Mr Waring was difficult to
please. He wanted attendance continually. He would not tolerate a speck
of dust anywhere, or any carelessness of service; but otherwise he was
not a bad master. He left them many independences, which suited them,
and never objected to that appropriation to themselves of his house as
theirs, and assertion of themselves as an important part of the family,
which is the natural result of a long service. Frances grew up
accordingly in franker intimacy with the honest couple than is usual in
English households. There was nothing they would not have done for the
Signorina--starve for her, scrape and pinch for her, die for her if need
had been; and in the meantime, while there was no need for service more
heroic, correct her, and improve her mind, and set her faults before her
with simplicity. Her faults were small, it is true, but zealous Love did
not omit to find many out.
Mr Waring painted a little, and was disposed to call himself an artist;
and he read a great deal, or was supposed to do so, in the library,
which formed one of the set of rooms, among the old books in vellum,
which took a great deal of reading. A little old public library existing
in another little town farther up among the hills, gave him an excuse,
if it was not anything more, for a great deal of what he called work.
There were some manuscripts and a number of old editions laid up in this
curious little hermitage of learning, from which the few people who knew
him believed he was going some day to compile or collect something of
importance. The people who knew him were very few. An old clergyman, who
had been a colonial chaplain all his life, and now “took the service” in
the bare little room which served as an English church, was the chief of
his acquaintances. This gentleman had an old wife and a middle-aged
daughter, who furnished something like society for Frances. Another
associate was an old Indian officer, much battered by wounds, liver, and
disappointment, who, systematically neglected by the authorities (as he
thought), and finding himself a nobody in the home to which he had
looked forward for so many years, had retired in disgust, and built
himself a little house, surrounded with palms, which reminded him of
India, and full in the rays of the sun, which kept off his neuralgia.
He, too, had a wife, whose constant correspondence with her numerous
children occupied her mind and thoughts, and who liked Frances because
she never tired of hearing stories of those absent sons and daughters.
They saw a good deal of each other, these three resident families, and
reminded each other from time to time that there was such a thing as
society.
In summer they disappeared--sometimes to places higher up among the
hills, sometimes to Switzerland or the Tyrol, sometimes “home.” They all
said home, though neither the Durants nor the Gaunts knew much of
England, and though they could never say enough in disparagement of its
grey skies and cold winds. But the Warings never went “home.” Frances,
who was entirely without knowledge or associations with her native
country, used the word from time to time because she heard Tasie Durant
or Mrs Gaunt do so; but her father never spoke of England, nor of any
possible return, nor of any district in England as that to which he
belonged. It escaped him at times that he had seen something of society
a dozen or fifteen years before this date; but otherwise, nothing was
known about his past life. It was not a thing that was much discussed,
for the intercourse in which he lived with his neighbours was not
intimate, nor was there any particular reason why he should enter upon
his own history; but now and then it would be remarked by one or another
that nobody knew anything of his antecedents. “What’s your county,
Waring?” General Gaunt had once asked; and the other had answered with a
languid smile, “I have no county,” without the least attempt to explain.
The old general, in spite of himself, had apologised, he did not know
why; but still no information was given. And Waring did not look like a
man who had no county. His thin long figure had an aristocratic air. He
knew about horses, and dogs, and country-gentleman sort of subjects. It
was impossible that he should turn out to be a shopkeeper’s son, or a
_bourgeois_ of any kind. However, as has been said, the English
residents did not give themselves much trouble about the matter. There
was not enough of them to get up a little parochial society, like that
which flourishes in so many English colonies, gossiping with the best,
and forging anew for themselves those chains of a small community which
everybody pretends to hate.
In the afternoon of the day on which the encounter recorded in the
previous chapter had taken place, Frances sat in the loggia alone at her
work. She was busy with her drawing--a very elaborate study of
palm-trees, which she was making from a cluster of those trees which
were visible from where she sat. A loggia is something more than a
balcony; it is like a room with the outer wall or walls taken away. This
one was as large as the big _salone_ out of which it opened, and had
therefore room for changes of position as the sun changed. Though it
faced the west, there was always a shady corner at one end or the other.
It was the favourite place in which Frances carried on all her
occupations--where her father came to watch the sunset--where she had
tea, with that instinct of English habit and tradition which she
possessed without knowing how. Mr Waring did not much care for her tea,
except now and then in a fitful way; and Mariuccia thought it medicine.
But it pleased Frances to have the little table set out with two or
three old china cups which did not match, and a small silver teapot,
which was one of the very few articles of value in the house. Very
rarely, not once in a month, had she any occasion for these cups; but
yet, such a chance did occur at long intervals; and in the meantime,
with a pleasure not much less infantine, but much more wistful than that
with which she had played at having a tea-party seven or eight years
before, she set out her little table now.
She was seated with her drawing materials on one table and the tea on
another, in the stillness of the afternoon, looking out upon the
mountains and the sea. No; she was doing nothing of the sort. She was
looking with all her might at the clump of palm-trees within the garden
of the villa, which lay low down at her feet between her and the sunset.
She was not indifferent to the sunset. She had an admiration, which even
the humblest art-training quickens, for the long range of coast, with
its innumerable ridges running down from the sky to the sea, in every
variety of gnarled edge, and gentle slope, and precipice; and for the
amazing blue of the water, with its ribbon-edge of paler colours, and
the deep royal purple of the broad surface, and the white sails thrown
up against it, and the white foam that turned up the edges of every
little wave. But in the meantime she was not thinking of them, nor of
the infinitely varied lines of the mountains, or the specks of towns,
each with its campanile shining in the sun, which gave character to the
scene; but of the palms on which her attention was fixed, and which,
however beautiful they sound, or even look, are apt to get very spiky in
a drawing, and so often will not “come” at all. She was full of fervour
in her work, which had got to such a pitch of impossibility that her
lips were dry and wide apart from the strain of excitement with which
she struggled with her subject, when the bell tinkled where it hung
outside upon the stairs, sending a little jar through all the Palazzo,
where bells were very uncommon; and presently Tasie Durant, pushing open
the door of the _salone_, with a breathless little “Permesso?” came out
upon the loggia in her usual state of haste, and with half-a-dozen small
books tumbling out of her hand.
“Never mind, dear; they are only books for the Sunday-school. Don’t you
know we had twelve last Sunday? Twelve!--think!--when I have thought it
quite large and extensive to have five. I never was more pleased. I am
getting up a little library for them like they have at home. It is so
nice to have everything like they have at home.”
“Like what?” said Frances, though she had no education.
“Like they have--well, if you are so particular, the same as they have
at home. There were three of one family--think! Not little nobodies, but
ladies and gentlemen. It is so nice of people not just poor people,
people of education, to send their children to the Sunday-school.”
“New people?” said Frances.
“Yes; tourists, I suppose. You all scoff at the tourists; but I think it
is very good for the place, and so pleasant for us to see a new face
from time to time. Why should they all go to Mentone? Mentone is so
towny, quite a big place. And papa says that in his time Nice was
everything, and that nobody had ever heard of Mentone.”
“Who are the new people, Tasie?” Frances asked.
“They are a large family--that is all I know; not likely to settle,
more’s the pity. Oh no. Quite _well_ people, not even a delicate child,”
said Miss Durant, regretfully; “and such a nice domestic family, always
walking about together. Father and mother, and governess and six
children. They must be very well off, too, or they could not travel like
that, such a lot of them, and nurses--and I think I heard, a courier
too.” This, Miss Durant said in a tone of some emotion; for the place,
as has been said, was just beginning to be known, and the people who
came as yet were but pioneers.
“I have seen them. I wonder who they are. My father----” said Frances;
and then stopped, and held her head on one side, to contemplate the
effect of the last touches on her drawing; but this was in reality
because it suddenly occurred to her that to publish her father’s
acquaintance with the stranger might be unwise.
“Your father?” said Tasie. “Did he take any notice of them? I thought he
never took any notice of tourists. Haven’t you done those palms yet?
What a long time you are taking over them! Do you think you have got
the colour quite right on those stems? Nothing is so difficult to do as
palms, though they look so easy--except olives: olives are impossible.
But what were you going to say about your father? Papa says he has not
seen Mr Waring for ages. When will you come up to see us?”
“It was only last Saturday, Tasie.”
“----Week,” said Tasie. “Oh yes, I assure you; for I put it down in my
diary: Saturday week. You can’t quite tell how time goes, when you don’t
come to church. Without Sunday, all the days are alike. I wondered that
you were not at church last Sunday, Frances, and so did mamma.”
“Why was it? I forget. I had a headache, I think. I never like to stay
away. But I went to church here in the village instead.”
“O Frances, I wonder your papa lets you do that! It is much better when
you have a headache to stay at home. I am sure I don’t want to be
intolerant, but what good can it do you going there? You can’t
understand a word.”
“Yes, indeed I do--many words. Mariuccia has shown me all the places;
and it is good to see the people all saying their prayers. They are a
great deal more in earnest than the people down at the Marina, where it
would be just as natural to dance as to pray.”
“Ah, dance!” said Tasie, with a little sigh. “You know there is never
anything of that kind here. I suppose you never was at a dance in your
life--unless it is in summer, when you go away?”
“I have never been at a dance in my life. I have seen a ballet, that is
all.”
“O Frances, please don’t talk of anything so wicked! A ballet! that is
very different from nice people dancing--from dancing one’s own self
with a nice partner. However, as we never do dance here, I can’t see why
you should say that about our church. It is a pity, to be sure, that we
have no right church; but it is a lovely room, and quite suitable. If
you would only practise the harmonium a little, so as to take the music
when I am away. I never can afford to have a headache on Sunday,” Miss
Durant added, in an injured tone.
“But, Tasie, how could I take the harmonium, when I don’t even know how
to play?”
“I have offered to teach you, till I am tired, Frances. I wonder what
your papa thinks, if he calls it reasonable to leave you without any
accomplishments? You can draw a little, it is true; but you can’t bring
out your sketches in the drawing-room of an evening, to amuse people;
and you can always play----”
“When you _can_ play.”
“Yes, of course that is what I mean--when you can play. It has quite
vexed me often to think how little trouble is taken about you; for you
can’t always be young, so young as you are now. And suppose some time
you should have to go home--to your friends, you know?”
Frances raised her head from her drawing and looked her companion in the
face. “I don’t think we have any--friends,” she said.
“Oh, my dear, that must be nonsense!” cried Tasie. “I confess I have
never heard your papa talk of any. He never says ‘my brother,’ or ‘my
sister,’ or ‘my brother-in-law,’ as other people do--but then he is such
a very quiet man; and you must have somebody--cousins at least--you must
have cousins; nobody is without somebody,” Miss Durant said.
“Well, I suppose we must have cousins,” said Frances. “I had not thought
of it. But I don’t see that it matters much; for if my cousins are
surprised that I can’t play, it will not hurt them--they can’t be
considered responsible for me, you know.”
Tasie looked at her with the look of one who would say much if she
could--wistfully and kindly, yet with something of the air of mingled
importance and reluctance with which the bearer of ill news hesitates
before opening his budget. She had indeed no actual ill news to tell,
only the burden of that fact of which everybody felt Frances should be
warned--that her father was looking more delicate than ever, and that
his “friends” ought to know. She would have liked to speak, and yet she
had not courage to do so. The girl’s calm consent that probably she must
have cousins was too much for any one’s patience. She never seemed to
think that one day she might have to be dependent on these cousins; she
never seemed to think---- But after all, it was Mr Waring’s fault. It
was not poor Frances that was to blame.
“You know how often I have said to you that you ought to play, you
ought to be able to play. Supposing you have not any gift for it, still
you might be able to do a little. You could so easily get an old piano,
and I should like to teach you. It would not be a task at all. I should
like it. I do so wish you would begin. Drawing and languages depend a
great deal upon your own taste and upon your opportunities; but every
lady ought to play.”
Tasie (or Anastasia, but that name was too long for anybody’s patience)
was a great deal older than Frances--so much older as to justify the
hyperbole that she might be her mother; but of this fact she herself was
not aware. It may seem absurd to say so, but yet it was true. She knew,
of course, how old she was, and how young Frances was; but her faculties
were of the kind which do not perceive differences. Tasie herself was
just as she had been at Frances’ age--the girl at home, the young lady
of the house. She had the same sort of occupations: to arrange the
flowers; to play the harmonium in the little colonial chapel; to look
after the little exotic Sunday-school; to take care of papa’s surplice;
to play a little in the evenings when they “had people with them”; to
do fancy-work, and look out for such amusements as were going. It would
be cruel to say how long this condition of young-ladyhood had lasted,
especially as Tasie was a very good girl, kind, and friendly, and
simple-hearted, and thinking no evil.
Some women chafe at the condition which keeps them still girls when they
are no longer girls; but Miss Durant had never taken it into her
consideration. She had a little more of the housekeeping to do, since
mamma had become so delicate; and she had a great deal to fill up her
time, and no leisure to think or inquire into her own position. It was
her position, and therefore the best position which any girl could have.
She had the satisfaction of being of the greatest use to her parents,
which is the thing of all others which a good child would naturally
desire. She talked to Frances without any notion of an immeasurable
distance between them, from the same level, though with a feeling that
the girl, by reason of having had no mother, poor thing, was lamentably
backward in many ways, and sadly blind, though that was natural, to the
hazard of her own position. What would become of her if Mr Waring died?
Tasie would sometimes grow quite anxious about this, declaring that she
could not sleep for thinking of it. If there were relations--as of
course there must be--she felt that they would think Frances sadly
deficient. To teach her to play was the only practical way in which she
could show her desire to benefit the girl, who, she thought, might
accept the suggestion from a girl like herself, when she might not have
done so from a more authoritative voice.
Frances on her part accepted the suggestion with placidity, and replied
that she would think of it, and ask her father; and perhaps if she had
time---- But she did not really at all intend to learn music of Tasie.
She had no desire to know just as much as Tasie did, whose
accomplishments, as well as her age and her condition altogether, were
quite evident and clear to the young creature, whose eyes possessed the
unbiassed and distinct vision of youth. She appraised Miss Durant
exactly at her real value, as the young so constantly do, even when
they are quite submissive to the little conventional fables of life, and
never think of asserting their superior knowledge; but the conversation
was suggestive, and beguiled her mind into many new channels of thought.
The cousins unknown--should she ever be brought into intercourse with
them, and enter perhaps a kind of other world through their means--would
they think it strange that she knew so little, and could not play the
piano? Who were they? These thoughts circled vaguely in her mind through
all Tasie’s talk, and kept flitting out and in of her brain, even when
she removed to the tea-table and poured out some tea. Tasie always
admired the cups. She cried, “This is a new one, Frances. Oh, how lucky
you are! What pretty bits you have picked up!” with all the ardour of a
collector. And then she began to talk of the old Savona pots, which were
to be had so cheap, quite cheap, but which, she heard at home, were so
much thought of.
Frances did not pay much attention to the discourse about the Savona
pots; she went on with her thoughts about the cousins, and when Miss
Durant went away, gave herself up entirely to those speculations. What
sort of people would they be? Where would they live? And then there
recurred to her mind the meeting of the morning, and what the stranger
said who knew her father. It was almost the first time she had ever seen
him meet any one whom he knew, except the acquaintances of recent times,
with whom she had made acquaintance, as he did. But the stranger of the
morning evidently knew about him in a period unknown to Frances. She had
made a slight and cautious attempt to find out something about him at
breakfast, but it had not been successful. She wondered whether she
would have courage to ask her father now in so many words who he was and
what he meant.