The revelation which thus burst upon Mr Durant was known throughout the
length and breadth of Bordighera, as that good man said, before the day
was out. The expression was not so inappropriate as might be at first
supposed, considering the limited society to which the fact that Mr
Waring had a second daughter was of any particular interest; for the
good chaplain’s own residence was almost at the extremity of the Marina,
and General Gaunt’s on the highest point of elevation among the olive
gardens; while the only other English inhabitants were in the hotels
near the beach, and consisted of a landlady, a housekeeper, and the
highly respectable person who had charge of the stables at the Bellevue.
This little inferior world was respectfully interested but not excited
by the new arrival.
But to Mrs Durant and Tasie it was an event of the first importance; and
Mrs Gaunt was at first disposed to believe that it was a revelation of
further wickedness, and that there was no telling where these
discoveries might end. “We shall be hearing that he has a son next,” she
said. They had a meeting in the afternoon to talk it over; and it really
did appear at first that the new disclosure enhanced the enormity of the
first--for, naturally, the difference between a widower and a married
man is aggravated by the discovery that the deceiver pretending to have
only one child has really “a family.” At the first glance the ladies
were all impressed by this; though afterwards, when they began to think
of it, they were obliged to admit that the conclusion perhaps was not
very well founded. And when it turned out that Frances and the new-comer
were twins, that altogether altered the question, and left them, though
they were by no means satisfied, without anything further to say.
While all this went on outside the Palazzo, there was much going on
within it that was calculated to produce difficulty and embarrassment.
Mr Waring, with a consciousness that he was acting a somewhat cowardly
part, ran away from it altogether, and shut himself up in his library,
and left his daughters to make acquaintance with each other as they best
could. He was, as has been said, by no means sufficiently at his ease to
return to what he called his studies, the ordinary occupations of his
life. He had run away, and he knew it. He went so far as to turn the key
in one door, so that, whatever happened, he could only be invaded from
one side, and sat down uneasily in the full conviction that from moment
to moment he might be called upon to act as interpreter or peacemaker,
or to explain away difficulties. He did not understand women, but only
his wife, from whom he had taken various prejudices on the subject;
neither did he understand girls, but only Frances, whom, indeed, he
ought to have known better than to suppose, either that she was likely
to squabble with her sister, or call him in to mediate or explain.
Frances was not at all likely to do either of these things; and he knew
that, yet lived in a vague dread, and did not even sit comfortably on
his chair, and tried to distract his mind with a novel--which was the
condition in which he was found by Mr Durant. The clergyman’s visit did
him a little good, giving him at once a grievance and an object of
ridicule. During the rest of the day he was so far distracted from his
real difficulties as to fall from time to time into fits of secret
laughter over the idea of having been in all unconsciousness a source of
danger for Tasie. He had never been a gay Lothario, as he said; but to
have run the risk of destroying Tasie’s peace of mind was beyond his
wildest imagination. He longed to confide it to somebody, but there was
no one with whom he could share the fun. Constance perhaps might have
understood; but Frances! He relapsed into gravity when he thought of
Frances. It was not the kind of ludicrous suggestion which would amuse
her.
Meanwhile the girls, who were such strangers to each other, yet so
closely bound by nature, were endeavouring to come to a knowledge of
each other by means which were much more subtle than any explanation
their father could have supplied; so that he might, if he had understood
them better, have been entirely at his ease on this point. As a matter
of fact, though Constance was the cleverer of the two, it was Frances
who advanced most quickly in her investigations, for the excellent
reason that it was Constance who talked, while Frances, for the most
part having nothing at all interesting to say of herself, held her
peace. Frances had been awakened at an unusually late hour in the
morning--for the agitation of the night had abridged her sleep at the
other end--by the sounds of mirth which accompanied the first dialogue
between her new sister and Mariuccia. The Italian which Constance knew
was limited, but it was of a finer quality than any with which Mariuccia
was acquainted; yet still they came to some sort of understanding, and
both repudiated the efforts of Frances to explain. And from that moment
Constance had kept the conversation in her hands. She did not chatter,
nor was there any appearance of loquacity in her; but Frances had lived
much alone, and had been taught not to disturb her father when she was
with him, so that it was more her habit to be talked to than to talk.
She did not even ask many questions--they were scarcely necessary; for
Constance, as was natural, was full of herself and of her motives for
the step she had taken. These revelations gave Frances new lights almost
at every word.
“You always knew, then, about--us?” Frances said. She had intended to
say “about me,” but refrained, with mingled modesty and pride.
“Oh, certainly. Mamma always writes, you know, at Christmas, if not
oftener. We did not know you were here. It was Markham who found out
that. Markham is the most active-minded fellow in the world. Papa does
not much like him. I daresay you have never heard anything very
favourable of him; but that is a mistake. We knew pretty well about you.
Mamma used to ask that you should write, since there was no reason why,
at your age, you should not speak for yourself; but you never did. I
suppose he thought it better not.”
“I suppose so.”
“I should not myself have been restrained by that,” said Constance. “I
think very well on the whole of papa; but obedience of that sort at our
age is too much. I should not have obeyed him. I should have told him
that in such a matter I must judge for myself. However, if one learns
anything as one grows up,” said this young philosopher, “it is that no
two people are alike. I suppose that was not how the subject presented
itself to you?”
Frances made no reply. She wondered what she would have said had she
been told to write to an unknown mother. Ought she to do so now? The
idea was a very strange one to her mind, and yet what could be more
natural? It was with a sense of precipitate avoidance of a subject which
must be contemplated fully at an after-period, that she said hurriedly,
“I have never written letters. It did not come into my head.”
“Ah!” said Constance, looking at her with a sort of impartial scrutiny.
Then she added, with a sequence of thoughts which it was not difficult
to follow, “Don’t you think it is very odd that you and I should be the
same age?”
Frances felt herself grow red, and the water came to her eyes. She
looked wistfully at the other, who was so much more advanced than she
felt herself to be. “I suppose--we ought to have been like each other,”
she said.
“We are not, however, a bit. You are like mamma. I don’t know whether
you are like her in mind--but on the outside. And I am like _him_. It is
very funny. It shows that one has these peculiarities from one’s birth;
it couldn’t be habit or association, as people say, for I have never
been with him--neither have you with mamma. I suppose he is very
independent-minded, and does what he likes without thinking? So do I.
And you consider what other people will say, and how it will look, and a
thousand things.”
It did not seem to Frances that this was the case; but she was not at
all in the habit of studying herself, and made no protest. Did she
consider very much what other people would say? Perhaps it was true. She
had been obliged, she reflected, to consider what Mariuccia would say;
so that probably Constance was right.
“It was Markham that discovered you, after all, as I told you. He is
invaluable; he never forgets; and if you want to find anything out, he
will take any amount of trouble. I may as well tell you why I left home.
If we are going to live together as sisters, we ought to make confidants
of each other; and if you have to go, you can take my part. Well, then!
You must know there is a man in it. They say you should always ask, ‘Who
is She?’ when there is a row between men; and I am sure it is just as
natural to ask, ‘Who is He?’ when a girl gets into a scrape.”
The language, the tone, the meaning, were all new to Frances. She did
not know anything about it. When there is a row between men; when a girl
gets into a scrape: the one and the other were equally far from her
experience. She felt herself blush, though she scarcely knew why. She
shook her head when Constance added, though rather as a remark than as
a question, “Don’t you know? Oh, well; I did not mean, have you any
personal experience, but as a general principle? The man in this case
was well enough. Papa said, when I told him, that it was quite right;
that I had better have made up my mind without making a fuss; that he
would have advised me so, if he had known. But I will never allow that
this is a point upon which any one can judge for you. Mamma pressed me
more than a mother has any right to do--to a person of my age.”
“But, Constance, eighteen is not so very old.”
“Eighteen is the age of reason,” said the girl, somewhat imperiously;
then she paused and added--“in most cases, when one has been much in the
world, like me. Besides, it is like the middle ages when your mother
thinks she can make you do what she pleases and marry as she likes. That
must be one’s own affair. I must say that I thought papa would take my
part more strongly, for they have always been so much opposed. But after
all, though he is not in harmony with her, still the parents’ side is
his side.”
“Did you not like--the gentleman?” said Frances. Nothing could be more
modest than this question, and yet it brought the blood to her face. She
had never heard the ordinary _badinage_ on this subject, or thought of
love with anything but awe and reverence, as a mystery altogether beyond
her and out of discussion. She did not look at her sister as she put the
question. Constance lay back in the long wicker-work chair, well lined
with cushions, which was her father’s favourite seat, with her hands
clasped behind her head, in one of those attitudes of complete _abandon_
which Frances had been trained to think impossible to a girl.
“Did I like--the gentleman? I did not think that question could ever
again be put to me in an original way. I see now what is the good of a
sister. Mamma and Markham and all my people had such a different way of
looking at it. You must know that _that_ is not the first question,
whether you like the man. As for that, I liked him--well enough. There
was nothing to--dislike in him.”
Frances turned her eyes to her sister’s face with something like
reproach. “I may not have used the right word. I have never spoken on
such subjects before.”
“I have always been told that men are dreadful prudes,” said Constance.
“I suppose papa has brought you up to think that such things must never
be spoken of. I’ll tell you what is original about it. I have been asked
if he was not rich enough, if he was not handsome enough, if it was
because he had no title: and I have been asked if I loved him, which was
nonsense. I could answer all that; but you I can’t answer. Don’t I like
him? I was not going to be persecuted about him. It was Markham who put
this into my head. ‘Why don’t you go to your father,’ he said, ‘if you
won’t hear reason? He is just the sort of person to understand you, if
we don’t.’ So, then, I took them at their word. I came off--to papa.”
“Does Markham dislike papa? I mean, doesn’t he think----”
“I know what you mean. They don’t think that papa has good sense. They
think him romantic, and all that. I have always been accustomed to
think so too. But the curious thing is that he isn’t,” said Constance,
with an injured air. “I suppose, however foolish one’s father may be for
himself, he still feels that he must stand on the parents’ side.”
“You speak,” said Frances, with a little indignation, “as if papa was
likely to be against--his children; as if he were an enemy.”
“Taking sides is not exactly being enemies,” said Constance. “We are
each of our own faction, you know. It is like Whigs and Tories. The
fathers and mothers side with each other, even though they may be quite
different and not get on together. There is a kind of reason in it.
Only, I have always heard so much of papa as unreasonable and unlike
other people, that I never thought of him in that light. He would be
just the same, though, except that for the present I am a stranger, and
he feels bound to be civil to me. If it were not for his politeness, he
is capable of being medieval too.”
“I don’t know what medieval means,” said Frances, with much heat,
indignant to hear her father thus spoken of as a subject for criticism.
Perhaps she had criticised him in her time, as children use--but
silently, not putting it into words, which makes a great difference. And
besides, what one does one’s self in this way is quite another matter.
As she looked at this girl, who was a stranger, though in some
extraordinary way not a stranger, a momentary pang and impotent sudden
rage against the web of strange circumstances in which she felt herself
caught and bewildered, flamed up in her mild eyes and mind, unaccustomed
to complications. Constance took no notice of this sudden passion.
“It means bread and water,” she said, with a laugh, “and shutting up in
one’s own room, and cutting off of all communication from without.
Mamma, if she were driven to it, is quite capable of that. They all
are--rather than give in; but as we are not living in the middle ages,
they have to give in at last. Perhaps, if I had thought that what you
may call his official character would be too strong for papa, I should
have fought it out at home. But I thought he at least would be himself,
and not a conventional parent. I am sure he has been a very queer sort
of parent hitherto; but the moment a fight comes, he puts himself on his
own side.”
She gave forth these opinions very calmly, lying back in the long chair,
with her hands clasped behind her head, and her eyes following
abstractedly the lines of the French coast. The voice which uttered
sentiments so strange to Frances was of the most refined and harmonious
tones, low, soft, and clear. And the lines of her slim elastic figure,
and of her perfectly appropriate dress, which combined simplicity and
costliness, carelessness and consummate care, as only high art can,
added to the effect of a beauty which was not beauty in any
demonstrative sense, but rather harmony, ease, grace, fine health, fine
training, and what, for want of a better word, we call blood. Not that
the bluest blood in the world inevitably carries with it this perfection
of tone; but Constance had the effect which a thoroughbred horse has
upon the connoisseur. It would have detracted from the impression she
made had there been any special point upon which the attention
lingered--had her eyes, or her complexion, her hands, or her hair, or
any individual trait, called for particular notice. But hers was not
beauty of that description.
Her sister, who was, so to speak, only a little rustic, sat and gazed at
her in a kind of rapture. Her heart did not, as yet at least, go out
towards this intruder into her life; her affections were as yet
untouched; and her temper was a little excited, disturbed by the
critical tone which her sister assumed, and the calm frankness with
which she spoke. But though all these dissatisfied, almost hostile
sentiments were in Frances’ mind, her eyes and attention were
fascinated. She could not resist the influence which this external
perfection of being produced upon her. It was only perhaps now in the
full morning light, in the _abandon_ of this confidence and candour,
which had none of the usual tenderness of confidential revelations, but
rather a certain half-disdainful self-discovery which necessity
demanded, that Frances fully perceived her sister’s gifts. Her own
impatience, her little impulses of irritation and contradiction, died
away in the wondering admiration with which she gazed. Constance showed
no sign even of remarking the effect she produced. She said
meditatively, dropping the words into the calm air without any apparent
conception of novelty or wonder in them, “I wonder how you will like it
when you have to go.”