A day or two after, they all went to the Priory for Easter.
The Priory was in the Isle of Wight, and it was Markham’s house. It was
not a very great house, nor was it medieval and mysterious, as an
unsophisticated imagination naturally expected. Its name came, it was
said (or hoped), from an old ecclesiastical establishment once planted
there; but the house itself was a sort of Strawberry-Hill Gothic, with a
good deal of plaster and imitated ornament of the perpendicular
kind,--that is to say, the worst of its kind, which is, unfortunately,
that which most attracts the imitator. It stood on a slope above the
beach, where the vegetation was soft and abundant, recalling more or
less to the mind of Frances the aspect of the country with which she
was best acquainted--the great bosquets of glistering green laurel and
laurestine simulating the daphnes and orange-trees, and the grey downs
above recalling in some degree the scattered hill-tops above the level
of the olives; though the great rollers of the Atlantic which thundered
in upon the beach were not like that rippling blue which edged the
Riviera in so many rims of delicate colour. The differences, however,
struck Frances less than the resemblance, for which she had scarcely
been prepared, and which gave her a great deal of surprised pleasure at
the first glance. This put temporarily out of her mind all the new and
troublesome thoughts which her conversation with Markham had called
forth, and which had renewed her curiosity about her step-brother, whom
she had begun to receive into the landscape around her with the calm of
habit and without asking any questions. Was he really bad, or rather,
not good?--which was as far as Frances could go. Had he really been the
cause, or partly the cause, of the separation between her father and
mother? She was bewildered by these little breaks in the curtain which
concealed the past from her so completely--that past which was so well
known to the others around, which an invincible delicacy prevented her
from speaking of or asking questions about. All went on so calmly around
her, as if nothing out of the ordinary routine had ever been; and yet
she was aware not only that much had been, but that it remained so
distinctly in the minds of those smiling people as to influence their
conduct and form their motives still. Though it was Markham’s house, it
was his mother who was the uncontested sovereign, not less, probably
more, than if the real owner had been her husband instead of her son.
And even Frances, little as she was acquainted with the world, was aware
that this was seldom the case. And why should not Markham at his age,
which to her seemed at least ten years more than it was, be married,
when it was already thought important that Constance should marry? These
were very bewildering questions, and the moment to resume the subject
never seemed to come.
There was a party in the house, which included Claude Ramsay, and Sir
Thomas, the elder person in whom Lady Markham had thought there could
be nothing particularly interesting. He was a very frequent member of
the family party, all the same; and now that they were living under the
same roof, Frances did not find him without interest. There was also a
lady with two daughters, whose appearance was very interesting to the
girl. They reminded her a little of Constance, and of the difficulty she
had found in finding subjects on which to converse with her sister. The
Miss Montagues knew a great many people, and talked of them continually;
but Frances knew nobody. She listened with interest, but she could add
nothing either to their speculations or recollections. She did not know
anything about the contrivances which brought about the marriage between
Cecil Gray and Emma White. She was utterly incompetent even to hazard an
opinion as to what Lady Milbrook would do _now_; and she did not even
understand about the hospitals which they visited and “took an interest”
in. She tried very hard to get some little current with which she could
make herself acquainted in the river of their talk; but nothing could
be more difficult. Even when she brought out her sketch-book and opened
ground upon that subject--about which the poor little girl modestly
believed she knew by experience a very little--she was silenced in five
minutes by their scientific acquaintance with washes, and glazing, and
body colour, and the laws of composition. Frances did not know how to
compose a picture. She said: “Oh no; I do not make it up in my head at
all; I only do what I see.”
“You mean you don’t formulate rules,” said Maud. “Of course you don’t
mean that you merely imitate, for that is tea-board style; and your
drawings are quite pretty. I like that little bit of the coast.”
“How well one knows the Riviera,” said Ethel; “everybody who goes there
has something to show. But I am rather surprised you don’t keep to one
style. You seem to do a little of everything. Don’t you feel that
flower-painting rather spoils your hand for the larger effects?”
“It wants such a very different distribution of light and shade,” said
the other sister. “You have to calculate your tones on such a different
scale. If you were working at South Kensington or any other of the good
schools----”
“I should not advise her to do that--should you, Maud?--there is such a
long elementary course. But I suppose you did your freehand, and all
that, in the schoolroom?”
Frances did not know how to reply. She put away her little sketch with a
sense of extreme humiliation. “Oh, I am afraid I am not fit to talk
about it at all,” she said. “I don’t even know what words to use. It has
been all imitation, as you say.”
The two young ladies smiled upon her, and reassured her. “You must not
be discouraged. I am sure you have talent. It only wants a little hard
work to master the principles; and then you go on so much easier
afterwards,” they said. It puzzled Frances much that they did not
produce their own sketches, which she thought would have been as good as
a lesson to her; and it was not till long after that it dawned upon her
that in this particular Maud and Ethel were defective. They knew how to
do it, but could not do it; whereas she could do it without knowing how.
“How is it, I wonder,” said one of them, changing the subject after a
little polite pause, which suggested fatigue, “that Mrs Winterbourn is
not here this year?”
They looked at her for this information, to the consternation of
Frances, who did not know how to reply. “You know I have not been
long--here,” she said: she had intended to say at home, but the effort
was beyond her--“and I don’t even know who Mrs Winterbourn is.”
“Oh!” they both cried; and then for a minute there was nothing more.
“You may think it strange of us to speak of it,” said Maud at length;
“only, it always seemed so well understood; and we have always met her
here.”
“Oh, she goes everywhere,” cried Ethel. “There never was a word breathed
against---- Please don’t think _that_, from anything we have said.”
“On the contrary, mamma always says it is so wise of Lady Markham,” said
Maud; “so much better that he should always meet her here.”
Frances retired into herself with a confusion which she did not know how
to account for. She did not in the least know what they meant, and yet
she felt the colour rise in her cheek. She blushed for she knew not
what; so that Maud and Ethel said to each other, afterwards: “She is a
little hypocrite. She knew just as well as either you or I.”
Frances, however, did not know; and here was another subject about which
she could not ask information. She carried away her sketch-book to her
room with a curious feeling of ignorance and foolishness. She did not
know anything at all--neither about her own surroundings, nor about the
little art which she was so fond of, in which she had taken just a
little pride, as well as so much pleasure. She put the sketches away
with a few hasty tears, feeling troubled and provoked, and as if she
could never look at them with any satisfaction, or attempt to touch a
pencil again. She had never thought they were anything great; but to be
made to feel so foolish in her own little way was hard. Nor was this
the only trial to which she was exposed. After dinner, retiring, which
she did with a sense of irritation which her conscience condemned, from
the neighbourhood of Ethel and Maud, she fell into the hands of Sir
Thomas, who also had a way of keeping very clear of these young ladies.
He came to where Frances was standing in a corner, almost out of sight.
She had drawn aside one edge of the curtain, and was looking out upon
the shrubbery and the lawn, which stood out against the clear background
of the sea--with a great deal of wistfulness, and perhaps a secret tear
or two in her eyes. Here she was startled by a sudden voice in her ear.
“You are looking out on the moonlight,” Sir Thomas said. It took her a
moment before she could swallow the sob in her throat.
“It is very bright; it is a little like--home.” This word escaped her in
the confusion of her thoughts.
“You mean the Riviera. Did you like it so much? I should have
thought---- But no doubt, whatever the country is which we call home, it
seems desirable to us.”
“Oh, but you can’t know how beautiful it is,” cried Frances, roused from
her fit of despondency. “Perhaps you have never been there?”
“Oh yes, often. Does your father like it as well as you do, Miss Waring?
I should have supposed, for a man----”
“Yes,” said Frances, “I know what you mean. They say there is nothing to
do. But my father is not a man to want to do anything. He is fond of
books; he reads all day long, and then comes out into the loggia with
his cigarette--and talks to me.”
“That sounds very pleasant,” said Sir Thomas with a smile, taking no
notice of the involuntary quaver that had got into the girl’s voice.
“But I wonder if perhaps he does not want a little variety, a little
excitement? Excuse me for saying so. Men, you know, are not always so
easily contented as the better half of creation; and then they are
accustomed to larger duties, to more action, to public affairs.”
“I don’t think papa takes much interest in all that,” said Frances with
an air of authority. “He has never cared for what was going on. The
newspapers he sometimes will not open.”
“That is a great change. He used to be a hot politician in the old
days.”
“Did you know my father?” she cried, turning upon him with a glow of
sudden interest.
“I knew him very well--better than most people. I was one of those who
felt the deepest regret----”
She stood gazing at him with her face lifted to him with so profound an
interest and desire to know, that he stopped short, startled by the
intensity of her look. “Miss Waring,” he said, “it is a very delicate
subject to talk to their child upon.”
“Oh, I know it is. I don’t like to ask--and yet it seems as if I ought
to know.” Frances was seized with one of those sudden impulses of
confidence which sometimes make the young so indiscreet. If she had
known Sir Thomas intimately, it would not have occurred to her; but as a
stranger, he seemed safe. “No one has ever told me,” she added in the
heat of this sudden overflow, “neither how it was or why it was--except
Markham, who says it was his fault.”
“There were faults on all sides, I think,” said Sir Thomas. “There
always are in such cases. No one person is able to carry out such a
prodigious mistake. You must pardon me if I speak plainly. You are the
only person whom I can ask about my old friend.”
“Oh, I like you to speak plainly,” cried Frances. “Talk to me about him;
ask me anything you please.” The tears came into her voice, and she put
her hands together instinctively. She had been feeling very lonely and
home-sick, and out of accord with all her surroundings. To return even
in thought to the old life and its associations brought a flood of
bitter sweetness to her heart.
“I can see at least,” said Sir Thomas, “that he has secured a most
loving champion in his child.”
This arrested her enthusiasm in a moment. She was too sincere to accept
such a solution of her own complicated feelings. Was she the loving
champion which she was so suddenly assumed to be? She became vaguely
aware that the things which had rushed back upon her mind and filled
her with longing were not the excellences of her father, but rather the
old peace and ease and ignorance of her youthful life, which nothing
could now restore. She could not respond to the confidence of her
father’s friend. He had kept her in ignorance; he had deceived her; he
had not made any attempt to clear the perplexities of her difficult
path, but left her to find out everything, more perhaps than she yet
knew. Sir Thomas was a little surprised that she made him no reply; but
he set it down to emotion and agitation, which might well take from so
young and innocent a girl the possibility of reply.
“I don’t know whether I am justified in the hope I have been
entertaining ever since you came,” he said. “It is very hard that your
father should be banished from his own country and all his duties
by--what was, after all, never a very important cause. There has been no
unpardonable wrong on either side. He is terribly sensitive, you know.
And Lady Markham--she is a dear friend of mine; I have a great affection
for her----”
“If you please,” said Frances quickly, “it is not possible for me to
listen to any discussion of mamma.”
“My dear Miss Waring,” he cried, “this is better and better. You are
then a partisan on both sides?”
Poor little Frances felt as if she were at least hemmed in on both
sides, and without any way of escape. She looked up in his face with an
appeal which he did not understand, for how was it possible to suppose
that she did not know all about a matter which had affected her whole
life?
“Don’t you think,” said Sir Thomas, drawing very close to her, stooping
over her, “that if we two were to lay our heads together, we might bring
things to a better understanding? Constance, to whom I have often spoken
on the subject, knew only one side--and that not the difficult side.
Markham was mixed up in it all, and could never be impartial. But you
know both, and your father best. I am sure you are full of sense, as
Waring’s daughter ought to be. Don’t you think----”
He had taken both Frances’ hands in his enthusiasm, and pressed so
closely upon her that she had to retreat a step, almost with alarm. And
he had his back to the light, shutting her out from all succour, as she
thought. It was all the girl could do to keep from crying out that she
knew nothing,--that she was more ignorant than any one; and when there
suddenly came from behind Sir Thomas the sound of many voices, without
agitation or special meaning, her heart gave a bound of relief, as if
she had escaped. He gave her hands a vehement pressure and let them
drop; and then Claude Ramsay’s voice of gentle pathos came in. “Are you
not afraid, Miss Waring, of the draught? There must be some door or
window open. It is enough to blow one away.”
“You look like a couple of conspirators,” said Markham. “Fan, your
little eyes are blinking like an owl’s. Come back, my dear, into the
light.”
“No,” said Claude; “the light here is perfect. I never can understand
why people should want so much light only to talk by. Will you sit here,
Miss Waring? Here is a corner out of the draught. I want to say
something more about Bordighera--one other little _renseignement_, and
then I shall not require to trouble you any more.”
Frances looked at Markham for help, but he did not interfere. He looked
a little grave, she thought; but he took Sir Thomas by the arm, and
presently led him away. She was too shy to refuse on her own account
Claude’s demand, and sat down reluctantly on the sofa, where he placed
himself at her side.
“Your sister,” he said, “never had much sympathy with me about draughts.
She used to think it ridiculous to take so much care. But my doctrine
always is, take care beforehand, and then you don’t need to trouble
yourself after. Don’t you think I am right?”
She understood very well how Constance would receive his little
speeches. In the agitation in which she was, gleams of perception coming
through the chaos, sudden visions of Constance, who had been swept out
of her mind by the progress of events, and of her father, whom her late
companion had been talking about--as if it would be so easy to induce
him to change all his ways, and do what other people wished!--came back
to her mind. They seemed to stand before her there, both appearing out
of the mists, both so completely aware of what they wanted to do--so
little likely to be persuaded into some one else’s mode of thought.
“I think Constance and you were not at all likely to think the same,”
she said.
Ramsay looked at her with a glance which for him was hasty and almost
excited. “No?” he said in an interrogative tone. “What makes you think
so? Perhaps when one comes to consider, you are right. She was always so
well and strong. You and I, perhaps, do you think, are more alike?”
“No,” said Frances, very decidedly. “I am much stronger than Constance.
She might have some patience with--with--what was fanciful; but I should
have none.”
“With what was fanciful? Then you think I am fanciful?” said Claude,
raising himself up from his feeble attitude. He laughed a little, quite
undisturbed in temper by this reproach. “I wish other people thought
so; I wish they would let me stay comfortably at home, and do what
everybody does. But, Miss Waring, you are not so sympathetic as I
thought.”
“I am afraid I am not sympathetic,” said Frances, feeling much ashamed
of herself. “Oh, Mr Ramsay, forgive me; I did not mean to say anything
so disagreeable.”
“Never mind,” said Claude. “When people don’t know me, they often think
so. I am sorry, because I thought perhaps you and I might agree better.
But very likely it was a mistake. Are you feeling the draught again? It
is astonishing how a draught will creep round, when you think you are
quite out of the way of it. If you feel it, you must not run the risk of
a cold, out of consideration for me.”