There was no more said for a day or two about the journey. But that it
was to take place, that Markham was waiting till his step-sister was
ready, and that Frances was making her preparations to go, nobody any
longer attempted to ignore. Waring himself had gone so far in his
recognition of the inevitable as to give Frances money to provide for
the necessities of the journey. “You will want things,” he said. “I
don’t wish it to be thought that I kept you like a little beggar.”
“I am not like a little beggar, papa,” cried Frances, with an
indignation which scarcely any of the more serious grievances of her
life had called forth. She had always supposed him to be pleased with
the British neatness, the modest, girlish costumes which she had
procured for herself by instinct, and which made this girl, who knew
nothing of England, so characteristically an English girl. This proof of
the man’s ignorance--which Frances ignorantly supposed to mean entire
indifference to her appearance--went to her heart. “And it is impossible
to get things here,” she added, with her usual anxious penitence for her
impatience.
“You can do it in Paris, then,” he said. “I suppose you have enough of
the instincts of your sex to buy clothes in Paris.”
Girls are not fond of hearing of the instincts of their sex. She turned
away with a speechless vexation and distress which it pleased him to
think rudeness.
“But she keeps the money all the same,” he said to himself.
Thus it became very apparent that the departure of Frances was
desirable, and that she could not go too soon. But there were still
inevitable delays. Strange! that when love embittered made her stay
intolerable, the washerwoman should have compelled it. But to Frances,
for the moment, everything in life was strange.
And not the least strange was the way in which Markham, whom she liked,
but did not understand--the odd, little, shabby, unlovely personage, who
looked like anything in the world but an individual of importance--was
received by the little world of Bordighera. At the little church on
Sunday, there was a faint stir when he came in, and one lady pointed him
out to another as the small audience filed out. The English landlady at
the hotel spoke of him continually. Lord Markham was now the authority
whom she quoted on all subjects. Even Domenico said “meelord” with a
relish. And as for the Durants, their enthusiasm was boundless. Tasie,
not yet quite recovered from the excitement of Constance’s arrival, lost
her self-control altogether when Markham appeared. It was so good of him
to come to church, she said; such an example for the people at the
hotels! And so nice to lose so little time in coming to call upon papa.
Of course, papa, as the clergyman, would have called upon him as soon as
it was known where he was staying. But it was so pretty of Lord Markham
to conform to foreign ways and make the first visit. “We knew it must
be your doing, Frances,” she said, with grateful delight.
“But, indeed, it was not my doing. It is Constance who makes him come,”
Frances cried.
Constance, indeed, insisted upon his company everywhere. She took him
not only to the Durants, but to the bungalow up among the olive woods,
which they found in great excitement, and where the appearance of Lord
Markham partially failed of its effect, a greater hero and stranger
being there. George Gaunt, the General’s youngest son, the chief subject
of his mother’s talk, the one of her children about whom she always had
something to say, had arrived the day before, and in his presence even a
living lord sank into a secondary place. Mrs Gaunt had been the first to
see the little party coming along by the terraces of the olive woods.
She had, long, long ago, formed plans in her imagination of what might
ensue when George came home. She ran out to meet them with her hands
extended. “Oh Frances, I am so glad to see you! Only fancy what has
happened. George has come!”
“I am so glad,” said Frances, who was the first. She was more used to
the winding of those terraces, and then she had not so much to talk of
as Constance and Markham. Her face lighted up with pleasure. “How happy
you must be!” she said, kissing the old lady affectionately. “Is he
well?”
“Oh, wonderfully well; so much better than I could have hoped. George,
George, where are you? Oh, my dear, I am so anxious that you should
meet! I want you to like him,” Mrs Gaunt said.
Almost for the first time there came a sting of pain to Frances’ heart.
She had heard a great deal of George Gaunt. She had thought of him more
than of any other stranger. She had wondered what he would be like, and
smiled to herself at his mother’s too evident anxiety to bring them
together, with a slight, not disagreeable flutter of interest in her own
consciousness. And now here he was, and she was going away! It seemed a
sort of spite of fortune, a tantalising of circumstances; though, to be
sure, she did not know whether she should like him, or if Mrs Gaunt’s
hopes might bear any fruit. Still, it was the only outlet her
imagination had ever had, and it had amused and given her a pleasant
fantastic glimpse now and then into something that might be more
exciting than the calm round of every day.
She stood on the little grassy terrace which surrounded the house,
looking towards the open door, but not taking any step towards it,
waiting for the hero to appear. The house was low and broad, with a
veranda round it, planted in the midst of the olive groves, where there
was a little clearing, and looking down upon the sea. Frances paused
there, with her face towards the house, and saw coming out from under
the shadow of the veranda, with a certain awkward celerity, the straight
slim figure of the young Indian officer, his mother’s hero, and, in a
visionary sense, her own. She did not advance--she could not tell
why--but waited till he should come up, while his mother turned round,
beckoning to him. This was how it was that Constance and Markham arrived
upon the scene before the introduction was fully accomplished. Frances
held out her hand, and he took it, coming forward; but already his eyes
had travelled over her head to the other pair arriving, with a look of
inquiry and surprise. He let Frances’ hand drop as soon as he had
touched it, and turned towards the other, who was much more attractive
than Frances. Constance, who missed nothing, gave him a glance, and then
turned to his mother. “We brought our brother to see you,” she said (as
Frances had not had presence of mind to do). “Lord Markham, Mrs Gaunt.
But we have come at an inappropriate moment, when you are occupied.”
“Oh no! It is so kind of you to come. This is my son George, Miss
Waring. He arrived last night. I have so wanted him to meet----” She did
not say Frances; but she looked at the little girl, who was quite
eclipsed and in the background, and then hurriedly added, “your--family:
whose name he knows, as such friends! And how kind of Lord Markham to
come all this way!”
She was not accustomed to lords, and the mother’s mind jumped at once to
the vain, but so usual idea, that this lord, who had himself sought the
acquaintance, might be of use to her son. She brought forward George,
who was a little dazzled too; and it was not till the party had been
swept into the veranda, where the family sat in the evening, that Mrs
Gaunt became aware that Frances had followed, the last of the train, and
had seated herself on the outskirts of the group, no one paying any heed
to her. Even then, she was too much under the influence of the less
known visitors to do anything to put this right.
“I am delighted that you think me kind,” said Markham, in answer to the
assurances which Mrs Gaunt kept repeating, not knowing what to say. “My
step-father is not of that opinion at all. Neither will you be, I fear,
when you know my mission. I have come for Frances.”
“For Frances!” she cried, with a little suppressed scream of dismay.
“Ah, I said you would not be of that opinion long,” Markham said.
“Is Frances going away?” said the old General. “I don’t think we can
stand that. Eh, George? that is not what your mother promised you.
Frances is all we have got to remind us that we were young once. Waring
must hear reason. He must not let her go away.”
“Frances is going; but Constance stays,” interposed that young lady.
“General, I hope you will adopt me in her stead.”
“That I will,” said the old soldier; “that is, I will adopt you in
addition, for we cannot give up Frances. Though, if it is only for a
short visit, if you pledge yourself to bring her back again, I suppose
we will have to give our consent.”
“Not I,” said Mrs Gaunt under her breath. She whispered to her son, “Go
and talk to her. This is not Frances; _that_ is Frances,” leaning over
his shoulder.
George did not mean to shake off her hand; but he made a little
impatient movement, and turned the other way to Constance, to whom he
made some confused remark.
All the conversation was about Frances; but she took no part in it, nor
did any one turn to her to ask her own opinion. She sat on the edge of
the veranda, half hidden by the luxuriant growth of a rose which
covered one of the pillars, and looked out rather wistfully, it must be
allowed, over the grey clouds of olives in the foreground, to the blue
of the sea beyond. It was twilight under the shade of the veranda; but
outside, a subdued daylight, on the turn towards night. The little talk
about her was very flattering, but somehow it did not have the effect it
might have had; for though they all spoke of her as of so much
importance, they left her out with one consent. Not exactly with one
consent. Mrs Gaunt, standing up, looking from one to another,
hurt--though causelessly--beyond expression by the careless movement of
her newly returned boy, would have gone to Frances, had she not been
held by some magnetic attraction which emanated from the others--the
lord who might be of use--the young lady, whose careless ease and
self-confidence were dazzling to simple people.
Neither the General nor his wife could realise that she was merely
Frances’ sister, Waring’s daughter. She was the sister of Lord Markham.
She was on another level altogether from the little girl who had been so
pleasant to them all, and so sweet. They were very sorry that Frances
was going away; but the other one required attention, had to be thought
of, and put in the chief place. As for Frances, who knew them all so
well, she would not mind. And thus even Mrs Gaunt directed her attention
to the new-comer.
Frances thought it was all very natural, and exactly what she wished.
She was glad, very glad that they should take to Constance; that she
should make friends with all the old friends who to herself had been so
tender and kind. But there was one thing in which she could not help but
feel a little disappointed, disconcerted, cast down. She had looked
forward to George. She had thought of this new element in the quiet
village life with a pleasant flutter of her heart. It had been natural
to think of him as falling more or less to her own share, partly because
it would be so in the fitness of things, she being the youngest of all
the society--the girl, as he would be the boy; and partly because of his
mother’s fond talk, which was full of innocent hints of her hopes. That
George should come when she was just going away, was bad enough; but
that they should have met like this, that he should have touched her
hand almost without looking at her, that he should not have had the most
momentary desire to make acquaintance with Frances, whose name he must
have heard so often, that gave her a real pang. To be sure, it was only
a pang of the imagination. She had not fallen in love with his
photograph, which did not represent an Adonis; and it was something,
half a brother, half a comrade, not (consciously) a lover, for which
Frances had looked in him. But yet it gave her a very strange, painful,
deserted sensation when she saw him look over her head at Constance, and
felt her hand dropped as soon as taken. She smiled a little at herself,
when she came to think of it, saying to herself that she knew very well
Constance was far more charming, far more pretty than she, and that it
was only natural she should take the first place. Frances was ever
anxious to yield to her the first place. But she could not help that
quiver of involuntary feeling. She was hurt, though it was all so
natural. It was natural, too, that she should be hurt, and that nobody
should take any notice--all the most everyday things in the world.
George Gaunt came to the Palazzo next day. He came in the afternoon with
his father, to be introduced to Waring; and he came again after
dinner--for these neighbours did not entertain each other at the
working-day meals, so to speak, but only in light ornamental ways, with
cups of tea or black coffee--with both his parents to spend the evening.
He was thin and of a slightly greenish tinge in his brownness, by reason
of India and the illnesses he had gone through; but his slim figure had
a look of power; and he had kind eyes, like his mother’s, under the
hollows of his brows: not a handsome young man, yet not at all common or
ordinary, with a soldier’s neatness and upright bearing. To see Markham
beside him with his insignificant figure, his little round head tufted
with sandy hair, his one-sided look with his glass in his eye, or his
ear tilted up on the opposite side, was as good as a sermon upon race
and its advantages. For Markham was the fifteenth lord; and the Gaunts
were, it was understood, of as good as no family at all. Captain George
from that first evening had neither ear nor eye for any one but
Constance. He followed her about shyly wherever she moved; he stood over
her when she sat down. He said little, for he was shy, poor fellow; yet
he did sometimes hazard a remark, which was always subsidiary or
responsive to something she had said.
Mrs Gaunt’s distress at this subversion of all she had intended was
great. She got Frances into a corner of the loggia while the others
talked, and thrust upon her a pretty sandalwood box inlaid with ivory,
one of those that George had brought from India. “It was always intended
for you, dear,” she said. “Of course he could not venture to offer it
himself.”
“But, dear Mrs Gaunt,” said Frances, with a low laugh, in which all her
little bitterness evaporated, “I don’t think he has so much as seen my
face. I am sure he would not know me if we met in the road.”
“Oh, my dear child,” cried poor Mrs Gaunt, “it has been such a
disappointment to me. I have just cried my eyes out over it. To think
you should not have taken to each other after all my dreams and hopes.”
Frances laughed again; but she did not say that there had been no
failure of interest on her side. She said, “I hope he will soon be quite
strong and well. You will write and tell me about everybody.”
“Indeed I will. Oh Frances, is it possible that you are going so soon?
It does not seem natural that you should be going, and that your sister
should stay.”
“Not very natural,” said Frances, with a composure which was less
natural still. “But since it is to be, I hope you will see as much of
her as you can, dear Mrs Gaunt, and be as kind to her as you have been
to me.”
“Oh, my dear, there is little doubt that I shall see a great deal of
her,” said the mother, with a glance towards the other group, of which
Constance was the central figure. She was lying back in the big
wicker-work chair; with the white hands and arms, which showed out of
sleeves shorter than were usual in Bordighera, very visible in the dusk,
accompanying her talk by lively gestures. The young captain stood like
a sentinel a little behind her. His mother’s glance was half vexation
and half pleasure. She thought it was a great thing for a girl to have
secured the attentions of her boy, and a very sad thing for the girl who
had not secured them. Any doubt that Constance might not be grateful,
had not yet entered her thoughts. Frances, though she was so much less
experienced, saw the matter in another light.
“You must remember,” she said, “that she has been brought up very
differently. She has been used to a great deal of admiration, Markham
says.”
“And now you will come in for that, and she must take what she can get
here.” Mrs Gaunt’s tone when she said this showed that she felt, whoever
was the loser, it would not be Constance. Frances shook her head.
“It will be very different with me. And dear Mrs Gaunt, if Constance
should not--do as you wish----”
“My dear, I will not interfere. It never does any good when a mother
interferes,” Mrs Gaunt said hurriedly. Her mind was incapable of
pursuing the idea which Frances so timidly had endeavoured to suggest.
And what could the girl do more?
Next day she went away. Her father, pale and stern, took leave of her in
the bookroom with an air of offence and displeasure which went to
Frances’ heart. “I will not come to the station. You will have, no
doubt, everybody at the station. I don’t like greetings in the
market-places,” he said.
“Papa,” said Frances, “Mariuccia knows everything. I am sure she will be
careful. She says she will not trouble Constance more than is necessary.
And I hope----”
“Oh, we shall do very well, I don’t doubt.”
“I hope you will forgive me, papa, for all I may have done wrong. I hope
you will not miss me; that is, I hope--oh, I hope you will miss me a
little, for it breaks my heart when you look at me like that.”
“We shall do very well,” said Waring, not looking at her at all, “both
you and I.”
“And you have nothing to say to me, papa?”
“Nothing--except that I hope you will like your new life and find
everything pleasant. Good-bye, my dear; it is time you were going.”
And that was all. Everybody was at the station, it was true, which made
it no place for leave-takings; and Frances did not know that he watched
the train from the loggia till the white plume of steam disappeared with
a roar in the next of those many tunnels that spoil the beautiful
Cornice road. Constance walked back in the midst of the Gaunts and
Durants, looking, as she always did, the mistress of the situation. But
neither did Frances, blotted out in the corner of the carriage, crying
behind her veil and her handkerchief, leaving all she knew behind her,
understand with what a tug at her heart Constance saw the familiar
little ugly face of her brother for the last time at the
carriage-window, and turned back to the deadly monotony of the shelter
she had sought for herself, with a sense that everything was over, and
she herself completely deserted, like a wreck upon a desolate shore.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
* * * * *
A HOUSE
DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF
BY
MRS OLIPHANT
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II.
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MDCCCLXXXVI
A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF.