The subjects of these consultations were at the moment in the full
course of a sonata, and oblivious of everything else in the world but
themselves, their music, and their concerns generally. A fortnight had
passed of continual intercourse, of much music, of that propinquity
which is said to originate more matches than any higher influence.
Nothing can be more curious than the pleasure which young persons, and
even persons who are no longer young, find perennially in this condition
of suppressed love-making, this preoccupation of all thoughts and plans
in the series of continually recurring meetings, the confidences, the
divinations, the endless talk which is never exhausted, and in which the
most artificial beings in the world probably reveal more of themselves
than they themselves know--when the edge of emotion is always being
touched, and very often, by one of the pair at least overpassed, in
either a comic or a tragic way. It is not necessary that there should be
any real charm in either party, and what is still more extraordinary, it
is possible enough that one may be a person of genius, and the other not
far removed from a fool; that one may be simple as a rustic, and the
other a man or woman of the world. No rule, in short, holds in those
extraordinary yet most common and everyday conjunctions. There is an
amount of amusement, excitement, variety, to be found in them which is
in no other kind of diversion. This is the great reason, no doubt, why
flirtation never fails. It is dangerous, which helps the effect. For
those sinners who go into it voluntarily for the sake of amusement, it
has all the attractions of romance and the drama combined. If they are
intellectual, it is a study of human character; in all cases, it is an
interest which quickens the colour and the current of life: who can tell
why or how? It is not the disastrous love-makings that end in misery and
sin, of which we speak. It is those which are practised in society
every day, which sometimes end in a heart-break indeed, but often in
nothing at all.
Constance was not unacquainted with the amusement, though she was so
young; and it is to be feared that she resorted to it deliberately for
the amusement of her otherwise dull life at the Palazzo, in the first
shock of her loneliness, when she felt herself abandoned. It was, of
course, the victim himself who had first put the suggestion and the
means of carrying it out into her hands. And she did not take it up in
pure wantonness, but actually gave a thought to him, and the effect it
might produce upon him, even in the very act of entering upon her
diversion. She said to herself that Captain Gaunt, too, was very dull;
that he would want something more than the society of his father and
mother; that it would be a kindness to the old people to make his life
amusing to him, since in that case he would stay, and in the other, not.
And as for himself, if the worst came to the worst, and he fell
seriously in love--as, indeed, seemed rather likely, judging from the
fervour of the beginning--even that, Constance calculated, would do him
no permanent harm. “Men have died,” she said to herself, “but not for
love.” And then there is that famous phrase about a liberal education.
What was it? To love her was a liberal education? Something of that
sort. Then it could only be an advantage to him; for Constance was aware
that she herself was cleverer, more cultivated, and generally far more
“up to” everything than young Gaunt. If he had to pay for it by a
disappointment, really everybody had to pay for their education in one
way or another; and if he were disappointed, it would be his own fault;
for he must know very well, everybody must know, that it was quite out
of the question she should marry him in any circumstances--entirely out
of the question; unless he was an absolute simpleton, or the most
presumptuous young coxcomb in the world, he _must_ see that; and if he
were one or the other, the discovery would do him all the good in the
world. Thus Constance made it out fully, and to her own satisfaction,
that in any case the experience could do him nothing but good.
Things had gone very far during this fortnight--so far, that she
sometimes had a doubt whether they had not gone far enough. For one
thing, it had cost her a great deal in the way of music. She was a very
accomplished musician for her age, and poor George Gaunt was one of the
greatest bunglers that ever began to study the violin. It may be
supposed what an amusement this intercourse was to Constance, when it is
said that she bore with his violin like an angel, laughed and scolded
and encouraged and pulled him along till he believed that he could play
the waltzes of Chopin and many other things which were as far above him
as the empyrean is above earth. When he paused, bewildered, imploring
her to go on, assuring her that he could catch her up, Constance
betrayed no horror, but only laughed till the tears came. She would turn
round upon her music-stool sometimes and rally him with a free use of a
superior kind of slang, which was unutterably solemn, and quite unknown
to the young soldier, who laboured conscientiously with his fiddle in
the evenings and mornings, till General Gaunt’s life became a burden to
him--in a vain effort to elevate himself to a standard with which she
might be satisfied. He went to practise in the morning; he went in the
afternoon to ask if she thought of making any expedition? to suggest
that his mother wished very much to take him to see this or that, and
had sent him to ask would Miss Waring come? Constance was generally
quite willing to come, and not at all afraid to walk to the bungalow
with him, where, perhaps, old Luca’s carriage would be standing to drive
them along the dusty road to the opening of some valley, where Mrs
Gaunt, not a good climber, she allowed, would sit and wait for them till
they had explored the dell, or inspected the little town seated at its
head. Captain Gaunt was more punctilious about his mother’s presence as
_chaperon_ than Constance was, who felt quite at her ease roaming with
him among the terraces of the olive woods. It was altogether so idyllic,
so innocent, that there was no occasion for any conventional safeguards:
and there was nobody to see them or remark upon the prolonged
_tête-à-tête_. Constance came to know the young fellow far better than
his mother did, better than he himself did, in these walks and talks.
“Miss Waring, don’t laugh at a fellow. I know I deserve it.--Oh yes, do,
if you like. I had rather you laughed than closed the piano. I had a
good long grind at it this morning; but somehow these triplets are more
than I can fathom. Let us have that movement again, will you? Oh, not if
you are tired. As long as you’ll let me sit and talk. I love music with
all my heart, but I love----”
“Chatter,” said Constance. “I know you do. It is not a dignified word to
apply to a gentleman; but you know, Captain Gaunt, you do love to
chatter.”
“Anything to please you,” said the young man. “That wasn’t how I
intended to end my sentence. I love to--chatter, if you like, as long as
you will listen--or play, or do anything; as long as----”
“You must allow,” said Constance, “that I listen admirably. I am
thoroughly well up in all your subjects. I know the station as well as
if I lived there.”
“Don’t say that,” he cried; “it makes a man beside himself. Oh, if
there was any chance that you might ever----! I think--I’m almost
sure--you would like the society in India--it’s so easy; everybody’s so
kind. A--a young couple, you know, as long as the lady is--delightful.”
“But I am not a young couple,” said Constance, with a smile. “You
sometimes confuse your plurals in the funniest way. Is that Indian too?
Now come, Captain Gaunt, let us get on. Begin at the andante. One,
two--three! Now, let’s get on.”
And then a few bars would be played, and then she would turn sharp round
upon the music-stool and take the violin out of his astonished hands.
“Oh, what a shriek! It goes through and through one’s head. Don’t you
think an instrument has feelings? That was a cry of the poor ill-used
fiddle, that could bear no more. Give it to me.” She took the bow in her
hands, and leaned the instrument tenderly against her shoulder. “It
should be played like this,” she said.
“Miss Waring, you can play the violin too?”
“A little,” she said, leaning down her soft cheek against it, as if she
loved it, and drawing a charmingly sympathetic harmony from the ill-used
strings.
“I will never play again,” cried the young man. “Yes, I will--to touch
it where you have touched it. Oh, I think you can do everything, and
make everything perfect you look at.”
“No,” said Constance, shaking her head as she ran the bow softly, so
softly over the strings; “for you are not perfect at all, though I have
looked at you a great deal. Look! this is the way to do it. I am not
going to accompany you any more. I am going to give you lessons. Take it
now, and let me see you play that passage. Louder, softer--louder. Come,
that was better. I think I shall make something of you after all.”
“You can make anything of me,” said the poor young soldier, with his
lips on the place her cheek had touched--“whatever you please.”
“A first-rate violin-player, then,” said Constance. “But I don’t think
my power goes so high as that. Poor General, what does he say when you
grind, as you call it, all the morning?”
“Oh, mother smooths him down--that is the use of a mother.”
“Is it?” said Constance, with an air of impartial inquiry. “I didn’t
know. Come, Captain Gaunt, we are losing our time.”
And then _tant bien que mal_, the sonata was got through.
“I am glad Beethoven is dead,” said Constance, as she closed the piano.
“He is safe from that at least: he can never hear us play. When you go
home, Captain Gaunt, I advise you to take lodgings in some quite
out-of-the-way place, about Russell Square, or Islington, or somewhere,
and grind, as you call it, till you are had up as a nuisance; or
else----”
“Or else--what, Miss Waring? Anything to please you.”
“Or else--give it up altogether,” Constance said.
His face grew very long; he was very fond of his violin. “If you think
it is so hopeless as that--if you wish me to give it up altogether----”
“Oh, not I. It amuses me. I like to hear you break down. It would be
quite a pity if you were to give up, you take my scolding so
delightfully. Don’t give it up as long as you are here, Captain Gaunt.
After that, it doesn’t matter what happens--to me.”
“No,” he said, almost with a groan, “it doesn’t matter what happens
after that--to me. It’s the Deluge, you know,” said the poor young
fellow. “I wish the world would come to an end first”--thus
unconsciously echoing the poet. “But, Miss Waring,” he added anxiously,
coming a little closer, “I may come back? Though I must go to London, it
is not necessary I should stay there. I may come back?”
“Oh, I hope so, Captain Gaunt. What would your mother do, if you did not
come back? But I suppose she will be going away for the summer.
Everybody leaves Bordighera in the summer, I hear.”
“I had not thought of that,” cried the young soldier. “And you will be
going too?’
“I suppose so,” said Constance. “Papa, I hope, is not so lost to every
sense of duty as to let me spoil my complexion for ever by staying
here.”
“That would be impossible,” he said, with eyes full of admiration.
“You intend that for a compliment, Captain Gaunt; but it is no
compliment. It means either that I have no complexion to lose, or that I
am one of those thick-skinned people who take no harm--neither of which
is complimentary, nor true. I shall have to teach you how to pay
compliments as well as how to play the violin.”
“Ah, if you only would!” he cried. “Teach me how to make myself what you
like--how to speak, how to look, how----”
“Oh, that is a great deal too much,” she said. “I cannot undertake all
your education. Do you know it is close upon noon? Unless you are going
to stay to breakfast----”
“Oh, thanks, Miss Waring. They will expect me at home. But you will give
me a message to take back to my mother. I may come to fetch you to drive
with her to-day?”
“It must be dreadfully dull work for her sitting waiting while we
explore.”
“Oh, not at all. She is never dull when she knows I am enjoying
myself--that’s the mother’s way.”
“Is it?” said Constance, with once more that air of acquiring
information. “I am not acquainted with that kind of mother. But do you
think, Captain Gaunt, it is right to enjoy yourself, as you call it, at
your mother’s cost?”
He gave her a look of great doubt and trouble. “Oh, Miss Waring, I don’t
think you should put it so. My mother finds her pleasure in that--indeed
she does. Ask herself. Of course I would not impose upon her, not for
the world; but she likes it, I assure you she likes it.”
“It is very extraordinary that any one should like sitting in that
carriage for hours with nothing to do. I will come with pleasure,
Captain Gaunt. I will sit with your mother while you go and take your
walk. That will be more cheerful for all parties,” Constance said.
Young Gaunt’s face grew half a mile long. He began to expostulate and
explain; but Waring’s step was heard stirring in the next room,
approaching the door, and the young man had no desire to see the master
of the house with his watch in his hand, demanding to know why Domenico
was so late. Captain Gaunt knew very well why Domenico was so late. He
knew a way of conciliating the servants, though he had not yet succeeded
with the young mistress. He said hurriedly, “I will come for you at
three,” and rushed away. Waring came in at one door as Gaunt disappeared
at the other. The delay of the breakfast was a practical matter, of
which, without any reproach of medievalism, he had a right to complain.
“If you must have this young fellow every morning, he may at least go
away in proper time,” he said, with his watch in his hand, as young
Gaunt had divined.
“Oh, papa, twelve is striking loud enough. You need not produce your
watch at the same time.”
“Then why have I to wait?” he said. There was something awful in his
tone. But Domenico was equal to the occasion, worthy at once of the
lover’s and of the father’s trust. At that moment, Captain Gaunt having
been got away while the great bell of Bordighera was still sounding,
the faithful Domenico threw open, perhaps with a little more sound than
was necessary, an ostentation of readiness, the dining-room door.
The meal was a somewhat silent one. Perhaps Constance was pondering the
looks which she had not been able to ignore, the words which she had
managed to quench like so many fiery arrows before they could set fire
to anything, of her eager lover, and was pale and a little preoccupied
in spite of herself, feeling that things were going further than she
intended; and perhaps her father, feeling the situation too serious, and
remonstrance inevitable, was silenced by the thought of what he had to
say. It is so difficult in such circumstances for two people, with no
relief from any third party, without even that wholesome regard for the
servant in attendance, which keeps the peace during many a family
crisis--for with Domenico, who knew no English, they were as safe as
when they were alone--it is very difficult to find subjects for
conversation, that will not lead direct to the very heart of the matter
which is being postponed. Constance could not talk of her music, for
Gaunt was associated with it. She could not speak of her walk, for he
was her invariable companion. She could ask no questions about the
neighbourhood, for was it not to make her acquainted with the
neighbourhood that all those expeditions were being made? The great
bouquet of anemones which blazed in the centre of the table came from
Mrs Gaunt’s garden. She began to think that she was buying her amusement
too dearly. As for Waring, his mind was not so full of these references,
but he was occupied by the thought of what he had to say to this
headstrong girl, and by a strong sense that he was an ill-used man, in
having such responsibilities thrust upon him against his will. Frances
would not have led him into such difficulties. To Frances, young Gaunt
would have been no more interesting than his father; or so at least this
man, whose experience had taught him so little, was ready to believe.
“I want to say something to you, Constance,” he began at length, after
Domenico had left the room. “You must not stop my mouth by remarks
about middle-age parents. I am a middle-age parent, so there is an end
of it. Are you going to marry George Gaunt?”
“I--going to marry George Gaunt! Papa!”
“You had better, I think,” said her father. “It will save us all a great
deal of embarrassment. I should not have recommended it, had I been
consulted at the beginning. But you like to be independent and have your
own way; and the best thing you can do is to marry. I don’t know how
your mother will take it; but so far as I am concerned, I think it would
save everybody a great deal of trouble. You will be able to turn him
round your finger; that will suit you, though the want of money may be
in your way.”
“I think you must mean to insult me, papa,” said Constance, who had
grown crimson.
“That is all nonsense, my dear. I am suggesting what seems the best
thing in the circumstances, to set us all at our ease.”
“To get rid of me, you mean,” she cried.
“I have not taken any steps to get rid of you. I did not invite you, in
the first place, you will remember; you came of your own will. But I
was very willing to make the best of it. I let Frances go, who suited
me--whom I had brought up--for your sake. All the rest has been your
doing. Young Gaunt was never invited by me. I have had no hand in those
rambles of yours. But since you find so much pleasure in his
society----”
“Papa, you know I don’t find pleasure in his society; you know----”
“Then why do you seek it?” said Waring, with that logic which is so
cruel.
Constance, on the other side of the table, was as red as the anemones,
and far more brilliant in the glow of passion. “I have not sought it,”
she cried. “I have let him come--that is all. I have gone when Mrs Gaunt
asked me. Must a girl marry every man that chooses to be silly? Can I
help it, if he is so vain? It is only vanity,” she said, springing up
from her chair, “that makes men think a girl is always ready to marry.
What should I marry for? If I had wanted to marry---- Papa, I don’t wish
to be disagreeable, but it is _vulgar_, if you force me to say it--it is
common to talk to me so.”
“I might retort,” said Waring.
“Oh yes, I know you might retort. It is common to amuse one’s self. So
is it common to breathe and move about, and like a little fun when you
are young. I have no fun here. There is nobody to talk to, not a thing
to do. How do you suppose I am to get on? How can I live without
something to fill up my time?”
“Then you must take the consequences,” he said.
In spite of herself, Constance felt a shiver of alarm. She began to
speak, then stopped suddenly, looked at him with a look of mingled
defiance and terror, and--what was so unlike her, so common, so weak, as
she felt--began to cry, notwithstanding all she could do to restrain
herself. To hide this unaccountable weakness, she hastened off and hid
herself in her room, making as if she had gone off in resentment. Better
that, than that he should see her crying like any silly girl. All this
had got on her nerves, she explained to herself afterwards. The
consequences! Constance held her breath as they became dimly apparent to
her in an atmosphere of horror. George Gaunt no longer an eager lover,
whom it was amusing, even exciting to draw on, to see just on the eve of
a self-committal, which it was the greatest fun in the world to stop,
before it went too far--but the master of her destinies, her constant
and inseparable companion, from whom she could never get free, by whom
she must not even say that she was bored to death--gracious powers! and
with so many other attendant horrors. To go to India with him, to fall
into the life of the station, to march with the regiment. Constance’s
lively imagination pictured a baggage-waggon, with herself on the top,
which made her laugh. But the reality was not laughable; it was
horrible. The consequences! No; she would not take the consequences. She
would sit with Mrs Gaunt in the carriage, and let him take his walk by
himself. She would begin to show him the extent of his mistake from that
very day. To take any stronger step, to refuse to go out with him at
all, she thought, on consideration, not necessary. The gentler measures
first, which perhaps he might be wise enough to accept.
But if he did not accept them, what was Constance to do? She had run
away from an impending catastrophe, to take refuge with her father. But
with whom could she take refuge, if he continued to hold his present
strain of argument? And unless he would go away of himself, how was she
to shake off this young soldier? She did not want to shake him off; he
was all the amusement she had. What was she to do?
There glanced across her mind for a moment a sort of desperate gleam of
reflection from her father’s words: “You like to be independent; the
best thing you can do is to marry.” There was a kind of truth in it, a
sort of distorted truth, such as was likely enough to come through the
medium of a mind so wholly at variance with all established forms.
Independent--there was something in that; and India was full of novelty,
amusing, a sort of world she had no experience of. A tremor of
excitement got into her nerves as she heard the bell ring, and knew that
he had come for her. He! the only individual who was at all interesting
for the moment, whom she held in her hands, to do what she pleased with.
She could turn him round her little finger, as her father said: and
independence! Was it a Mephistopheles that was tempting her, or a good
angel leading her the right way?