It is a common impression that happiness and unhappiness are permanent
states of mind, and that for long tracts of our lives we are under the
continuous sway of one or other of these conditions. But this is almost
always a mistake, save in the case of grief, which is perhaps the only
emotion which is beyond the reach of the momentary lightenings and
alleviations and perpetual vicissitudes of life. Death, and the pangs of
separation from those we love, are permanent, at least for their time;
but in everything else there is an ebb and flow which keeps the heart
alive. When Frances Waring told the story of this period of her life,
she represented herself unconsciously as having been oppressed by the
mystery that over-shadowed her, and as having lost all the ease of her
young life prematurely in a sudden encounter with shadows unsuspected
before. But as a matter of fact, this was not the case. She had a bad
night--that is, she cried herself asleep; but once over the boundary
which divides our waking thoughts from the visions of the night, she
knew no more till the sun came in and woke her to a very cheerful
morning. It is true that care made several partially successful assaults
upon her that day and for several days after. But as everything went on
quite calmly and peacefully, the impression wore off. The English family
found out, as was inevitable, where Mr Waring lived, without any
difficulty; and first the father came, then the mother, and finally the
pair together, to call. Frances, to whom a breach of decorum or civility
was pain unspeakable, sat trembling and ashamed in the deepest corner of
the loggia, while these kind strangers encountered Mariuccia at the
door. The scene, as a matter of fact, was rather comic than tragic, for
neither the visitors nor the guardian of the house possessed any
language but their own; and Mr and Mrs Mannering had as little
understanding of the statement that Mr Waring did not “receive” as
Frances had expected.
“But he is in--_è in casa_--_è_ IN?” said the worthy Englishman. “Then,
my dear, of course it is only a mistake. When he knows who we are--when
he has our names----”
“_Non riceve oggi_,” said Mariuccia, setting her sturdy breadth in the
doorway; “_oggi non riceve il signore_” (The master does not receive
to-day).
“But he is in?” repeated the bewildered good people. They could have
understood “Not at home,” which to Mariuccia would have been simply a
lie--with which indeed, had need been, or could it have done the padrone
any good, she would have burdened her conscience as lightly as any one.
But why, when it was not in the least necessary?
Thus they played their little game at cross-purposes, while Frances sat,
hot and red with shame, in her corner, sensible to the bottom of her
heart of the discourtesy, the unkindness, of turning them from the door.
They were her father’s friends; they claimed to have “stuck by him
through thick and thin;” they were people who knew about him, and all
that he belonged to, and the conditions of his former life; and yet they
were turned from his door!
She did not venture to go out again for some days, except in the
evening, when she knew that all the strangers were at the inevitable
_table d’hôte_; and it was with a sigh of relief, yet disappointment,
that she heard they had gone away. Yes, at last they did go away, angry,
no doubt, thinking her father a churl, and she herself an ignorant
rustic, who knew nothing about good manners. Of course this was what
they must think. Frances heard those words, “_Non riceve oggi_,” even in
her dreams. She saw in imagination the astonished faces of the visitors.
“But he will receive us, if you will only take in our names;” and then
Mariuccia’s steady voice repeating the well-known phrase. What must they
have thought? That it was an insult--that their old friend scorned and
defied them. What else could they suppose?
They departed, however, and Frances got over it: and everything went on
as before; her father was just as usual--a sphinx indeed, more and more
hopelessly wrapped up in silence and mystery, but so natural and easy
and kind in his uncommunicativeness, with so little appearance of
repression or concealment about him, that it was almost impossible to
retain any feeling of injury or displeasure. Love is cheated every day
in this way by offenders much more serious, who can make their
dependants happy even while they are ruining them, and beguile the
bitterest anxiety into forgetfulness and smiles. It was easy to make
Frances forget the sudden access of wonderment and wounded feeling which
had seized her, even without any special exertion; time alone and the
calm succession of the days were enough for that. She resumed her little
picture of the palms, and was very successful--more than usually so. Mr
Waring, who had hitherto praised her little works as he might have
praised the sampler of a child, was silenced by this, and took it away
with him into his room, and when he brought it back, looked at her with
more attention than he had been used to show. “I think,” he said,
“little Fan, that you must be growing up,” laying his hand upon her
head with a smile.
“I am grown up, papa; I am eighteen,” she said.
At which he laughed softly. “I don’t think much of your eighteen; but
this shows. I should not wonder, with time and work, if--you mightn’t be
good enough to exhibit at Mentone--after a while.”
Frances had been looking at him with an expression of almost rapturous
expectation. The poor little countenance fell at this, and a quick sting
of mortification brought tears to her eyes. The exhibition at Mentone
was an exhibition of amateurs. Tasie was in it, and even Mrs Gaunt, and
all the people about who ever spoilt a piece of harmless paper. “O
papa!” she said. Since the failure of her late appeal to him, this was
the only formula of reproach which she used.
“Well,” he said, “are you more ambitious than that, you little thing?
Perhaps, by-and-by, you may be fit even for better things.”
“It is beautiful,” said Mariuccia. “You see where the light goes, and
where it is in the shade. But, _carina_, if you were to copy the face
of Domenico, or even mine, that would be more interesting. The palms we
can see if we look out of the window; but imagine to yourself that
’Menico might go away, or even might die; and we should not miss him so
much if we had his face hung up upon the wall.”
“It is easier to do the trees than to do Domenico,” said Frances; “they
stand still.”
“And so would ’Menico stand still, if it was to please the signorina--he
is not very well educated, but he knows enough for that; or I myself,
though you will think, perhaps, I am too old to make a pretty picture.
But if I had my veil on, and my best earrings, and the coral my mother
left me----”
“You look very nice, Mariuccia--I like you as you are; but I am not
clever enough to make a portrait.”
Mariuccia cried out with scorn. “You are clever enough to do whatever
you wish to do,” she said. “The padrone thinks so too, though he will
not say it. Not clever enough! _Magari!_ too clever is what you mean.”
Frances set up her palms on a little stand of carved wood, and was very
well pleased with herself; but that sentiment palls perhaps sooner than
any other. It was very agreeable to be praised, and also it was pleasant
to feel that she had finished her work successfully. But after a short
time it began to be a great subject of regret that the work was done.
She did not know what to do next. To make a portrait of Domenico was
above her powers. She idled about for the day, and found it
uncomfortable. That is the moment in which it is most desirable to have
a friend on whom to bestow one’s tediousness. She bethought herself that
she had not seen Tasie for a week. It was now more than a fortnight
since the events detailed in the beginning of this history. Her father,
when asked if he would not like a walk, declined. It was too warm, or
too cold, or perhaps too dusty, which was very true; and accordingly she
set out alone.
Walking down through the Marina, the little tourist town which was
rising upon the shore, she saw some parties of travellers arriving,
which always had been a little pleasure to her. It was mingled now with
a certain excitement. Perhaps some of them, like those who had just
gone away, might know all about her, more than she knew herself--what a
strange thought it was!--some of those unknown people in their
travelling cloaks, which looked so much too warm--people whom she had
never seen before, who had not a notion that she was Frances Waring! One
of the parties was composed of ladies, surrounded and enveloped, so to
speak, by a venerable courier, who swept them and their possessions
before him into the hotel. Another was led by a father and mother, not
at all unlike the pair who had “stuck by” Mr Waring. How strange to
imagine that they might not be strangers at all, but people who knew all
about her!
In the first group was a girl, who hung back a little from the rest, and
looked curiously up at all the houses, as if looking for some one--a
tall, fair-haired girl, with a blue veil tied over her hat. She looked
tired, but eager, with more interest in her face than any of the others
showed. Frances smiled to herself with the half-superiority which a
resident is apt to feel: a girl must be very simple indeed, if she
thought the houses on the Marina worth looking at, Frances thought. But
she did not pause in her quick walk. The Durants lived at the other end
of the Marina, in a little villa built upon a terrace over an olive
garden--a low house with no particular beauty, but possessing also a
loggia turned to the west, the luxury of building on the Riviera. Here
the whole family were seated, the old clergyman with a large English
newspaper, which he was reading deliberately from end to end; his wife
with a work-basket full of articles to mend; and Tasie at the little
tea-table, pouring out the tea. Frances was received with a little
clamour of satisfaction, for she was a favourite.
“Sit here, my dear.” “Come this way, close to me, for you know I am
getting a little hard of hearing.”
They had always been kind to her, but never, she thought, had she been
received with so much cordiality as now.
“Have you come by yourself, Frances? and along the Marina? I think you
should make Domenico or his wife walk with you, when you go through the
Marina, my dear.”
“Why, Mrs Durant? I have always done it. Even Mariuccia says it does
not matter, as I am an English girl.”
“Ah, that may be true; but English girls are not like American girls. I
assure you they are taken a great deal more care of. If you ever go
home----”
“And how is your poor father to-day, Frances?” said Mrs Durant.
“Oh, papa is very well. He is not such a poor father. There is nothing
the matter with him. At least, there is nothing _new_ the matter with
him,” said Frances, with a little impatience.
“No,” said the clergyman, looking up over the top of his spectacles and
shaking his head. “Nothing _new_ the matter with him. I believe that.”
“----If you ever go home,” resumed Mrs Durant; “and of course some time
you will go home----”
“I think very likely I never shall,” said the girl. “Papa never talks of
going home. He says home is here.”
“That is all very well for the present moment, my dear; but I feel sure,
for my part, that one time or other it will happen as I say; and then
you must not let them suppose you have been a little savage, going about
as you liked here.”
“I don’t think any one would care much, Mrs Durant; and I am not going;
so you need not be afraid.”
“Your poor father,” Mr Durant went on in his turn, “has a great deal of
self-command, Frances; he has a great deal of self-control. In some
ways, that is an excellent quality, but it may be carried too far. I
wish very much he would allow me to come and have a talk with him--not
as a clergyman, but just in a friendly way.”
“I am quite sure you may come and talk with him as much as you like,”
said Frances, astonished; “or if you want very much to see him, he will
come to you.”
“Oh, I should not take it upon me to ask that--in the meantime,” Mr
Durant said.
The girl stared a little, but asked no further questions. There was
something among them which she did not understand--a look of curiosity,
an air of meaning more than their words said. The Durants were always a
little apt to be didactic, as became a clergyman’s family; but Tasie
was generally a safe refuge. Frances turned to her with a little sigh of
perplexity, hoping to escape further question. “Was the Sunday-school as
large last Sunday, Tasie?” she said.
“Oh, Frances, no! Such a disappointment! There were only four! Isn’t it
a pity? But you see the little Mannerings have all gone away. Such sweet
children! and the little one of all has such a voice. They are perhaps
coming back for Easter, if they don’t stay at Rome; and if so, I think
we must put little Herbert in a white surplice--he will look like an
angel--and have a real anthem with a soprano solo, for once.”
“I doubt if they will all come back,” said Mr Durant. “Mr Mannering
himself indeed, I don’t doubt, _on business_; but as for the family, you
must not flatter yourself, Tasie.”
“_She_ liked the place,” said his wife; “and very likely she would think
it her duty, if anything is to come of it, you know.”
“Be careful,” said the clergyman, with a glance aside, which Frances
would have been dull indeed not to have perceived was directed at
herself. “Don’t say anything that may be premature.”
Frances was brave in her way. She felt, with a little rising excitement,
that her friends were bursting with some piece of knowledge which they
were longing to communicate. It roused in her an impatience and
reluctance mingled with keen curiosity. She would not hear it, and yet
was breathless with impatience to know what it was.
“Mr Mannering?” she said, deliberately--“that was the gentleman that
knew papa.”
“You saw him, then?” cried Mrs Durant. There was something like a faint
disappointment in her tone.
“He was one of papa’s early friends,” said Frances, with a little
emphasis. “I saw him twice. He and his wife both; they seemed kind
people.”
Mr Durant and his wife looked at each other, and even Tasie stared over
her teacups. “Oh, very kind people, my dear; I don’t think you could do
better than have full confidence in them,” Mrs Durant said.
“And your poor father could not have a truer friend,” said the old
clergyman. “You must tell him I am coming to have a talk with him about
it. It was a great revelation, but I hope that everything will turn out
for the best.”
Frances grew redder and redder as she sat a mark for all their arrows.
What was it that was a “revelation”? But she would not ask. She began to
be angry, and to say to herself that she would put her hands to her
ears, that she would listen to nothing.
“Henry!” said Mrs Durant, “who is it that is premature now?”
“I am afraid I can’t stay,” said Frances, rising quickly from her chair.
“I have something to do for Mariuccia. I only came in because--because I
was passing. Never mind, Tasie; I know my way so well; and Mr Durant
wants some more tea.”
“Oh but, Frances, my dear, you really must let me send some one with
you. You must not move about in that independent way.”
“And we had a great many things to say to you,” said the old clergyman,
keeping her hand in his. “Are you really in such a hurry? It will be
better for yourself to wait a little, and hear something that will be
for your good.”
“It cannot be any worse for me to run about to-day than any other day,”
said Frances, almost sternly; “and whatever there is to hear, won’t
to-morrow do just as well? I think it is a little funny of you all to
speak to me so; but now I must go.”
She was so rapid in her movements that she was gone before Tasie could
extricate herself from the somewhat crazy little table. And then they
all three looked at each other and shook their heads. “Do you think she
can know?” “Can she have known it all the time?” “Has Waring told her,
or was it Mannering?” they said to each other.
Frances could not hear their mutual questions, but something very like
the purport of them got into her agitated brain. She felt sure they were
wondering whether she knew--what? this revelation, this something which
they had found out. Nothing would make her submit to hear it from them,
she said to herself. But the moment was come when she could not be put
off any longer. She would go to her father, and she would not rest
until she was informed what it was.
She hastened along, avoiding the Marina, which had amused her on her
way, hurrying from terrace to terrace of the olive groves. Her heart was
beating fast, and her rapid pace made it faster. But as she thought of
her father’s unperturbed looks, the calm with which he had received her
eager questions, and the very small likelihood that anything she could
say about the hints of the Durants would move him, her pace and her
excitement both decreased. She went more slowly, less hopefully, back to
the Palazzo. It was all very well to say that she must know. But what if
he would not tell her? What if he received her questions as he had
received them before? The circumstances were not changed, nor was he
changed because the Durants knew something, she did not know what. Oh,
what a poor piece of friendship was that, that betrayed a friend’s
secret to his neighbours! She did not know, she could not so much as
form a guess, what the secret was. But little or great, his friend
should have kept it. She said this to herself bitterly, when the chill
probabilities of the case began to make themselves felt. It was harder
to think that the Durants knew, than to be kept in darkness herself.
She went in at last very soberly, with the intention of telling her
father all that had passed, if perhaps that of itself might be an
inducement to him to have confidence in her. It was not a pleasant
mission. Her steps had become very sober as she went up the long marble
stair. Mariuccia met her with a little cry. Had she not met the padrone?
He had gone out down through the olive woods to meet her and fetch her
home. It was a brief reprieve. In the evening after dinner was the time
when he was most accessible. Frances, with a thrill of mingled relief
and disappointment, retired to her room to make her little toilet. She
had an hour or two at least before her ere it would be necessary to
speak.