The days ran on for about a week with a suppressed and agitating
expectation in them, which seemed to Frances to blur and muddle all the
outlines, so that she could not recollect which was Wednesday or which
was Friday, but felt it all one uncomfortable long feverish sort of day.
She could not take the advantage of any pleasure there might be in
them--and it was a pleasure to watch Constance, to hear her talk, to
catch the many glimpses of so different a life, which came from the
careless, easy monologue which was her style of conversation--for the
exciting sense that she did not know what might happen at any moment, or
what was going to become of her. Even the change from her familiar place
at table, which Constance took without any thought, just as she took
her father’s favourite chair on the loggia, and the difference in her
room, helped to confuse her mind, and add to the feverish sensation of a
life altogether out of joint.
Constance had not observed any of those signs of individual habitation
about the room which Frances had fancied would lead to a discovery of
the transfer she had made. She took it quite calmly, not perceiving
anything beyond the ordinary in the chamber which Frances had adorned
with her sketches, with the little curiosities she had picked up, with
all the little collections of her short life. It was wanting still in
many things which to Constance seemed simple necessities. How was she to
know how many were in it which were luxuries to that primitive locality?
She remained altogether unconscious, accordingly, of the sacrifice her
sister had made for her, and spoke lightly of poor Frances’ pet
decorations, and of the sketches, the authorship of which she did not
take the trouble to suspect. “What funny little pictures!” she had said.
“Where did you get so many odd little things? They look as if the
frames were homemade, as well as the drawings.”
Fortunately she was not in the habit of waiting for an answer to such a
question, and she did not remark the colour that rose to her sister’s
cheeks. But all this added to the disturbing influence, and made these
long days look unlike any other days in Frances’ life. She took the
other side of the table meekly with a half-smile at her father, warning
him not to say anything; and she lived in the blue room without thinking
of adding to its comforts--for what was the use, so long as this
possible banishment hung over her head? Life seemed to be arrested
during these half-dozen days. They had the mingled colours and huddled
outlines of a spoiled drawing; they were not like anything else in her
life, neither the established calm and certainty that went before, nor
the strange novelty that followed after.
There were no confidences between her father and herself during this
period. Since their conversation on the night of Constance’s arrival,
not a word had been said between them on the subject. They mutually
avoided all occasion for further talk. At least Mr Waring avoided it,
not knowing how to meet his child, or to explain to her the hazard to
which her life was exposed. He did not take into consideration the
attraction of the novelty, the charm of the unknown mother and the
unknown life, at which Frances permitted herself to take tremulous and
stealthy glimpses as the days went on. He contemplated her fate from his
own point of view as something like that of the princess who was doomed
to the dragon’s maw but for the never-to-be-forgotten interposition of
St George, that emblem of chivalry. There was no St George visible on
the horizon, and Waring thought the dragon no bad emblem of his wife.
And he was ashamed to think that he was helpless to deliver her; and
that, by his fault, this poor little Una, this hapless Andromeda, was to
be delivered over to the waiting monster.
He avoided Frances, because he did not know how to break to her this
possibility, or how, since Constance probably had made her aware of it,
to console her in the terrible crisis at which she had arrived. It was
a painful crisis for himself as well as for her. The first evening on
which, coming into the loggia to smoke his cigarette after dinner, he
had found Constance extended in his favourite chair, had brought this
fully home to him. He strolled out upon the open-air room with all the
ease of custom, and for the first moment he did not quite understand
what it was that was changed in it, that put him out, and made him feel
as if he had come, not into his own familiar domestic centre, but
somebody else’s place. He hung about for a minute or two, confused,
before he saw what it was; and then, with a half-laugh in his throat,
and a mingled sense that he was annoyed, and that it was ridiculous to
be annoyed, strolled across the loggia, and half seated himself on the
outer wall, leaning against a pillar. He was astonished to think how
much disconcerted he was, and with what a comical sense of injury he saw
his daughter lying back so entirely at her ease in his chair. She was
his daughter, but she was a stranger, and it was impossible to tell her
that her place was not there. Next evening he was almost angry, for he
thought that Frances might have told her though he could not. And indeed
Frances had done what she could to warn her sister of the usurpation.
But Constance had no idea of vested rights of this description, and had
paid no attention. She took very little notice, indeed, of what was said
to her, unless it arrested her attention in some special way; and she
had never been trained to understand that the master of a house has
sacred privileges. She had not so much as known what it is to have a
master to a house.
This and other trifles of the same kind gave to Waring something of the
same confused and feverish feeling which was in the mind of Frances. And
there hung over him a cloud as of something further to come, which was
not so clear as her anticipations, yet was full of discomfort and
apprehension. He thought of many things, not of one thing, as she did.
It seemed to him not impossible that his wife herself might arrive some
day as suddenly as Constance had done, to reclaim her child, or to take
away his, for that was how they were distinguished in his mind. The
idea of seeing again the woman from whom he had been separated so long,
filled him with dread; and that she should come here and see the limited
and recluse life he led, and his bare rooms, and his homely servants,
filled him with a kind of horror. Rather anything than that. He did not
like to contemplate even the idea that it might be necessary to give up
the girl, who had flattered him by taking refuge with him and seeking
his protection; but neither was the thought of being left with her and
having Frances taken from him endurable. In short, his mind was in a
state of mortal confusion and tumult. He was like the commander of a
besieged city, not knowing on what day he might be summoned to
surrender; not able to come to any conclusion whether it would be most
wise to yield, or if the state of his resources afforded any feasible
hopes of holding out.
Constance had been a week at the Palazzo before the trumpets sounded:
The letters were delivered just before the twelve-o’clock breakfast; and
Frances had received so much warning as this, that Mariuccia informed
her there had been a large delivery that morning. The signor padrone had
a great packet; and there were also some letters for the other young
lady, Signorina Constanza. “But never any for thee, _carina_,” Mariuccia
had said. The poor girl thus addressed had a momentary sense that she
was indeed to be pitied on this account, before the excitement of the
certainty that now something definite must be known as to what was to
become of her, swelled her veins to bursting; and she felt herself grow
giddy with the thought that what had been so vague and visionary, might
now be coming near, and that in an hour or less she would know! Waring
was as usual shut up in his bookroom; but she could see Constance on the
loggia with her lap full of letters, lying back in the long chair as
usual, reading them as if they were the most ordinary things in the
world. Frances, for her part, had to wait in silence until she should
learn from others what her fate was to be. It seemed very strange that
one girl should be free to do so much, while another of the same age
could do nothing at all.
Waring came into breakfast with the letters in his hand. “I have heard
from your mother,” he said, looking straight before him, without turning
to the right or the left. Frances tried to appropriate this to herself,
to make some reply, but her voice died in her throat; and Constance,
with the easiest certainty that it was she who was addressed, answered
before she could recover herself.
“Yes--so have I. Mamma is rather fond of writing letters. She says she
has told you what she wishes, and then she tells me to tell you. I don’t
suppose that is of much use?”
“Of no use at all,” said he. “She is pretty explicit. She says----”
Constance leant over the table a little, holding up her finger. “Don’t
you think, papa,” she said, “as it is business, that it would be better
not to enter upon it just now? Wait till we have had our breakfast.”
He looked at her with an air of surprise. “I don’t see----” he said;
then, after a moment’s reflection, “Perhaps you are right, after all. It
may be better not to say anything just now.”
Frances had recovered her voice. She looked from one to another as they
spoke, with a cruel consciousness that it was she, not they, who was
most concerned. At this point she burst forth with feelings not to be
controlled. “If it is on my account, I would rather know at once what it
is,” she cried.
And then she had to bear the looks of both--her father’s astonished
half-remorseful gaze, and the eyes of Constance, which conveyed a
warning. Why should Constance, who had told her of the danger, warn her
now not to betray her knowledge of it? Frances had got beyond her own
control. She was vexed by the looks which were fixed upon her, and by
the supposed consideration for her comfort which lay in their delay. “I
know,” she said quickly, “that it is something about me. If you think I
care for breakfast, you are mistaken; but I think I have a right to know
what it is, if it is about me. O papa, I don’t mean to
be--disagreeable,” she cried suddenly, sinking into her own natural tone
as she caught his eye.
“That is not very much like you, certainly,” he said, in a confused
voice.
“Evil communications,” said Constance, with a laugh. “I have done her
harm already.”
Frances felt that her sister’s voice threw a new irritation into her
mood. “I am not like myself,” she said, “because I know something is
going to happen to me, and I don’t know what it is. Papa, I don’t want
to be selfish, but let me know, please, only let me know what it is.”
“It is only that mamma has sent for you,” said Constance, lightly; “that
is all. It is nothing so very dreadful. Now do let us have our breakfast
in peace.”
“Is that true, papa?” Frances said.
“My dear little girl--I had meant to explain it all--to tell you--and I
have been so silly as to put off. Your sister does not understand how we
have lived together, Frances, you and I.”
“Am I to go, papa?”
He made a gesture of despair. “I don’t know what to do. I have given my
promise. It is as bad for me as for you, Frances. But what am I to do?”
“I suppose,” said Constance, who had helped herself very tranquilly from
the dish which Domenico had been holding unobserved at his master’s
elbow, “that there is no law that could make you part with her, if you
don’t wish to. Promises are all very well with strangers; but they are
never kept--are they?--between husband and wife. The father has all the
right on his side, and you are not obliged to give either of us up. What
a blessing,” she cried suddenly, “to have servants who don’t understand!
That was why I said, don’t talk of it till after breakfast. But it does
not at all matter. It is as good as if he were deaf and dumb. Papa, you
need not give her up unless you like.”
Waring looked at his daughter with mingled attention and anger. The
suggestion was detestable, but yet----
“And then,” she went on, “there is another thing. It might have been all
very well when we were children; but now we are of an age to judge for
ourselves. At eighteen, you can choose which you will stay with. Oh,
younger than that. There have been several trials in the papers--no one
can force Frances to go anywhere she does not like, at her age.”
“I wish,” he said, with a little irritation, restrained by politeness,
for Constance was still a young-lady visitor to her father, “that you
would leave this question to be discussed afterwards. Your sister was
right, Frances--after breakfast--after I have had a little time to think
of it. I cannot come to any decision all at once.”
“That is a great deal better,” said Constance, approvingly. “One can’t
tell all in a moment. Frances is like mamma in that too. She requires
you to know your own mind--to say Yes or No at once. You and I are very
like each other, papa. I shall never hurry your decision, or ask you to
settle a thing in a moment. But these cutlets are getting quite cold. Do
have some before they are spoiled.”
Waring had no mind for the cutlets, to which he helped himself
mechanically. He did not like to look at Frances, who sat silent, with
her hands clasped on the table, pale but with a light in her eyes. The
voice of Constance running on, forming a kind of veil for the trouble
and confusion in his own mind, and doubtless in that of her sister, was
half a relief and half an aggravation; he was grateful for it, yet
irritated by it. He felt himself to play a very poor figure in the
transaction altogether, as he had felt ever since she arrived. Frances,
whom he had regarded as a child, had sprung up into a judge, into all
the dignity of an injured person, whose right to complain of the usage
to which she had been subjected no one could deny. And when he stole a
furtive glance at her pale face, her head held high, the new light that
burned in her eyes, he felt that she was fully aware of the wrong he had
done her, and that it would not be so easy to dictate what she was to
do, as everybody up to this moment had supposed. He saw, or thought he
saw, resistance, indignation, in the gleam that had been awakened in
Frances’ dove’s eyes. And his heart fell--yet rose also; for how could
he constrain her, if she refused to go? He had no right to constrain
her. Her mother might complain, but it would not be his doing. On the
other side, it would be shameful, pitiful on his part to go back from
his word--to acknowledge to his wife that he could not do what he had
pledged himself to do.
In every way it was an uncomfortable breakfast, all the forms of which
he followed, partly for the sake of Constance, partly for that of
Domenico. But Frances ate nothing, he could see. He prolonged the meal,
through a sort of fear of the interview afterwards, of what he must say
to her, and of what she should reply. He felt ashamed of his reluctance
to encounter this young creature, whom a few days ago he had smiled at
as a child; and ashamed to look her in the face, to explain and argue
with, and entreat, where he had been always used to tell her to do this
and that, without the faintest fear that she would disobey him. If even
he had been left to tell her himself of all the circumstances, to make
her aware gradually of all that he had kept from her (for her good), to
show her now how his word was pledged! But even this had been taken out
of his hands.
All this time no one talked but Constance, who went on with an
occasional remark and with her meal, for which she had a good appetite.
“I wish you would eat something, Frances,” she said. “You need not begin
to punish yourself at once. I feel it dreadfully, for it is all my
fault. It is I who ought to lose my breakfast, not you. If you will
take a few hints from me, I don’t think you will find it so bad. Or
perhaps, if we all lay our heads together, we may see some way out of
it. Papa knows the law, and I know the English side, and you know what
you think yourself. Let us talk it all over, and perhaps we may see our
way.”
To this Frances made no reply save a little inclination of her head, and
sat with her eyes shining, with a certain proud air of self-control and
self-support, which was something quite new to her. When the
uncomfortable repast could be prolonged no longer, she was the first to
get up. “If you do not mind,” she said, “I want to speak to papa by
himself.”
Constance had risen too. She looked with an air of surprise at her
little sister. “Oh, if you like,” she said; “but I think you will find
that I can be of use.”
“If you are going to the bookroom, I will come with you, papa,” said
Frances, but she did not wait for any reply; she opened the door and
walked before him into that place of refuge, where he had been
sheltering himself all these days. Constance gave him an inquiring
look, with a slight shrug of her shoulders.
“She is on her high horse, and she is more like mamma than ever; but I
suppose I may come all the same.”
He wavered a moment: he would have been glad of her interposition, even
though it irritated him; but he had a whimsical sense of alarm in his
mind, which he could not get over. He was afraid of Frances--which was
one of the most comical things in the world. He shook his head, and
followed humbly into the bookroom, and himself closed the door upon the
intruder. Frances had seated herself already at his table, in the seat
which she always occupied when she came to consult him about the dinner,
or about something out of the usual round which Mariuccia had asked for.
To see her seated there, and to feel that the door was closed against
all intrusion, made Waring feel as if all this disturbance was a dream.
How good the quiet had been; the calm days, which nothing interfered
with; the little housekeeper, whose childlike prudence and wisdom were
so quaint, whose simple obedience was so ready, who never, save in
respect to the _spese_, set up her own will or way! His heart grew very
soft as he sat down and looked at her. No, he said to himself, he would
not break that old bond; he would not compel his little girl to leave
him, send her out as a sacrifice. He would rather stand against all the
wives in the world.
“Papa,” said Frances, “a great deal of harm has been done by keeping me
ignorant. I want you to show me mamma’s letter. Unless I see it, how can
I know?”
This pulled him up abruptly and checked the softening mood. “Your
mother’s letter,” he said, “goes over a great deal of old ground. I
don’t see that it could do you any good. It appears I promised--what
Constance told you, with her usual coolness--that one of you should be
always left with her. Perhaps that was foolish.”
“Surely, papa, it was just.”
“Well, I thought so at the time. I wanted to do what was right. But
there was no right in the matter. I had a perfect right to take you both
away, to bring you up as I pleased. It would have been better, perhaps,
had I done what the law authorised me to do. However, that need not be
gone into now. What your sister said was quite true. You are at an age
when you are supposed to be able to judge for yourself, and nobody in
the world can force you to go where you don’t want to go.”
“But if you promised, and if--my mother trusted to your promise?” There
was something more solemn in that title than to say “mamma.” It seemed
easier to apply it to the unknown.
“I won’t have you made a sacrifice of on my account,” he said, hastily.
He was surprised by her composure, by that unwonted light in her eyes.
She answered him with great gravity, slowly, as if conscious of the
importance of her conclusion. “It would be no sacrifice,” she said.
Waring, there could be no doubt, was very much startled. He could not
believe his ears. “No sacrifice? Do you mean to say that you want to
leave me?” he cried.
“No, papa: that is, I did not. I knew nothing. But now that I know, if
my mother wants me, I will go to her. It is my duty. And I should like
it,” she added, after a pause.
Waring was dumb with surprise and dismay. He stared at her, scarcely
able to believe that she could understand what she was saying--he, who
had been afraid to suggest anything of the kind, who had thought of
Andromeda and the virgins who were sacrificed to the dragon. He gazed
aghast at this new aspect of the face with which he was so familiar, the
uplifted head and shining eyes. He could not believe that this was
Frances, his always docile, submissive, unemancipated girl.
“Papa,” she said, “everything seems changed, and I too. I want to know
my mother; I want to see--how other people live.”
“Other people!” He was glad of an outlet for his irritation. “What have
we to do with other people? If it had not been for this unlucky arrival,
you would never have known.”
“I must have known some time,” she said. “And do you think it right that
a girl should not know her mother--when she has a mother? I want to go
to her, papa.”
He flung out of his chair with an angry movement, and took up the keys
which lay on his table and opened a small cabinet which stood in the
corner of the room, Frances watching him all the time with the greatest
attention. Out of this he brought a small packet of letters, and threw
them to her with a movement which, for so gentle a man, was almost
violent. “I kept these back for your good, not to disturb your mind. You
may as well have them, since they belong to you--now,” he said.