Lady Markham did not forget her promise. Whatever else a great lady may
forget in these days, her sick people, her hospitals, she is sure never
to forget. She went early to the lodgings, which were not far off,
hidden in one of the quaint corners of little old lanes behind
Piccadilly, where poor Gaunt was. She did not object to the desire of
Frances to go with her, nor to the anxiety she showed. The man was ill;
he had become a “case;” it was natural and right that he should be an
object of interest. For herself, so far as Lady Markham’s thoughts were
free at all, George Gaunt was much more than a case to her. A little
while ago, she would have given him a large share in her thoughts, with
a remorseful consciousness almost of a personal part in the injury
which had been done him. But now there were so many other matters in the
foreground of her mind, that this, though it gave her one sharp twinge,
and an additional desire to do all that could be done for him, had yet
fallen into the background. Besides, things had arrived at a climax:
there was no longer any means of delivering him, no further anxiety
about his daily movements; there he lay, incapable of further action. It
was miserable, yet it was a relief. Markham and Markham’s associates had
no more power over a sick man.
Lady Markham managed her affairs always in a business-like way. She sent
to inquire what was the usual hour of the doctor’s visit, and timed her
arrival so as to meet him, and receive all the information he could
give. Even the medical details of the case were not beyond Lady
Markham’s comprehension. She had a brief but very full consultation with
the medical man in the little parlour down-stairs, and promptly issued
her orders for nurses and all that could possibly be wanted for the
patient. Two nurses at once--one for the day, and the other for the
night; ice by the cart-load; the street to be covered with hay; any
traffic that it was possible to stop, arrested. These directions Frances
heard while she sat anxious and trembling in the brougham, and watched
the doctor--a humble and undistinguished practitioner of the
neighbourhood, stirred into excited interest by the sudden appearance of
the great lady, with her liberal ideas, upon the scene--hurrying away.
Lady Markham then disappeared again into the house,--the small, trim,
shallow, London lodging-house, with a few scrubby plants in its little
balconies on the first floor, where the windows were open, but veiled by
sun-blinds. Something that sounded like incessant talking came from
these windows--a sound to which Frances paid no attention at first,
thinking it nothing but a conversation, though curiously carried on
without break or pause. But after a while the monotony of the sound gave
her a painful sensation. The street was very quiet, even without the
hay. Now and then a cart or carriage would come round the corner, taking
a short-cut from one known locality to another. Sometimes a street cry
would echo through the sunshine. A cart full of flowering-plants, with a
hoarse-voiced proprietor, went along in stages, stopping here and there;
but through all ran the strain of talk, monologue or conversation, never
interrupted. The sound affected the girl’s nerves, she could not tell
why. She opened the door of the brougham at last, and went into the
narrow little doorway of the house, where it became more distinct,--a
persistent dull strain of speech. All was deserted on the lower floor,
the door of the sitting-room standing open, the narrow staircase leading
to the sick man’s rooms above. Frances felt her interest, her eager
curiosity, grow at every moment. She ran lightly, quickly up-stairs. The
door of the front room, the room with the balconies, was ajar; and now
it became evident that the sound was that of a single voice, hoarse, not
always articulate, talking. Oh, the weary strain of talk, monotonous,
unending--sometimes rising faintly, sometimes falling lower, never done,
without a pause. That could not be raving, Frances said to herself. Oh,
not raving! Cries of excitement and passion would have been
comprehensible. But there was something more awful in the persistency of
the dull choked voice. She said to herself it was not George Gaunt’s
voice: she did not know what it was. But as she put forth all these
arguments to herself, trembling, she drew ever nearer and nearer to the
door.
“Red--red--and red. Stick to my colour: my colour--my coat, Markham, and
the ribbon, her ribbon. I say red. Play, play--all play--always:
amusement: her ribbon, red. No, no; not red, black, colour death--no
colour: means nothing, all nothing. Markham, play. Gain or
lose--all--all: nothing kept back. Red, I say; and red--blood--blood
colour. Mother, mother! no, it’s black, black. No blood--no blood--no
reproach. Death--makes up all--death. Black--red--black--all death
colours, all death, death.” Then there was a little change in the voice.
“Constance?--India; no, no; not India. Anywhere--give up everything.
Amusement, did you say amusement? Don’t say so, don’t say so. Sport to
you--but death, death:--colour of death, black: or red--blood: all
death colours, death. Mother! don’t put on black--red ribbons like
hers--red, heart’s blood. No bullet, no--her little hand, little white
hand--and then blood-red. Constance! Play--play--nothing left--play.”
Frances stood outside and shuddered. Was this, then, what they called
raving? She shrank within herself; her heart failed her; a sickness
which took the light from her eyes, made her limbs tremble and her head
swim. Oh, what sport had he been to the two--the two who were nearest to
her in the world! What had they done with him, Mrs Gaunt’s boy--the
youngest, the favourite? There swept through the girl’s mind like a
bitter wind a cry against--Fate was it, or Providence? Had they but let
alone, had each stayed in her own place, it would have been Frances who
should have met, with a fresh heart, the young man’s early fancy. They
would have met sincere and faithful, and loved each other, and all would
have been well. But there was no Frances; there was only Constance,
to throw his heart away. She seemed to see it all as in a
picture--Constance with the red ribbons on her grey dress, with the
smile that said it was only amusement; with the little hand, the little
white hand, that gave the blow. And then all play, all play, red or
black, what did it matter? and the bullet; and the mother in mourning,
and Markham. Constance and Markham! murderers. This was the cry that
came from the bottom of the girl’s heart. Murderers!--of two; of him and
of herself; of the happiness that was justly hers, which at this moment
she claimed, and wildly asserted her right to have, in the clamour of
her angry heart. She seemed to see it all in a moment: how he was hers;
how she had given her heart to him before she ever saw him; how she
could have made him happy. She would not have shrunk from India or
anywhere. She would have made him happy. And Constance, for a jest, had
come between; for amusement, had broken his heart. And Markham, for
amusement--for amusement!--had destroyed his life; and hers as well.
There are moments when the gentle and simple mind becomes more terrible
than any fury. She saw it all as in a picture--with one clear sudden
revelation. And her heart rose against it with a sensation of wrong,
which was intolerable--of misery, which she could not, would not bear.
She pushed open the door, scarcely knowing what she did. The bed was
pulled out from the wall, almost into the centre of the room; and
behind, while this strange husky monologue of confused passion was going
on unnoted, Lady Markham and the landlady stood together talking in calm
undertones of the treatment to be employed. Frances’ senses, all
stimulated to the highest point, took in, without meaning to do so,
every particular of the scene and every word that was said.
“I can do no good by staying now,” Lady Markham was saying. “There is so
little to be done at this stage. The ice to his head, that is all till
the nurse comes. She will be here before one o’clock. And in the
meantime, you must watch him carefully, and if anything occurs, let me
know. Be very careful to tell me everything; for the slightest symptom
is important.”
“Yes, my lady; I’ll take great care, my lady.” The woman was overawed,
yet excited, by this unexpected visitor, who had turned the dull drama
of the lodger’s illness into a great, important, and exciting conflict,
conducted by the highest officials, against disease and death.
“As I go home, I shall call at Dr----’s”--naming the great doctor of
the moment--“who will meet the other gentleman here; and after that, if
they decide on ice-baths or any other active treatment---- But there
will be time to think of that. In the meantime, if anything important
occurs, communicate with me at once, at Eaton Square.”
“Yes, my lady; I’ll not forget nothing. My ’usband will run in a moment
to let your ladyship know.”
“That will be quite right. Keep him in the house, so that he may get
anything that is wanted.” Lady Markham gave her orders with the
liberality of a woman who had never known any limit to the possibilities
of command in this way. She went up to the bed and looked at the
patient, who lay all unconscious of inspection, continuing the hoarse
talk, to which she had ceased to attend, through which she had carried
on her conversation in complete calm. She touched his forehead for a
moment with the back of her ungloved hand, and shook her head. “The
temperature is very high,” she said. There was a semi-professional calm
in all she did. Now that he was under treatment, he could be considered
dispassionately as a “case.” When she turned round and saw Frances
within the door, she held up her finger. “Look at him, if you wish, for
a moment, poor fellow; but not a word,” she said. Frances, from the
passion of anguish and wrong which had seized upon her, sank altogether
into a confused hush of semi-remorseful feeling. Her mother at least was
occupied with nothing that was not for his good.
“I told you that I mistrusted Markham,” she said, as they drove away.
“He did not mean any harm. But that is his life. And I think I told you
that I was afraid Constance---- Oh, my dear, a mother has a great many
hard offices to undertake in her life--to make up for things which her
children may have done--_en gaieté du cœur_, without thought.”
“_Gaieté du cœur_--is that what you call it,” cried Frances, “when you
murder a man?” Her voice was choked with the passion that filled her.
“Frances! Murder! You are the last one in the world from whom I should
have expected anything violent.”
“Oh,” cried the girl, flushed and wild, her eyes gleaming through an
angry dew of pain, “what word is there that is violent enough? He was
happy and good, and there were--there might have been--people who could
have loved him, and--and made him happy. When one comes in, one who had
no business there, one who--and takes him from--the others, and makes a
sport of him and a toy to amuse herself, and flings him broken away. It
is worse than murder--if there is anything worse than murder,” she
cried.
Lady Markham could not have been more astonished if some passer-by had
presented a pistol at her head. “Frances!” she cried, and took the
girl’s hot hands into her own, endeavouring to soothe her; “you speak as
if she meant to do it--as if she had some interest in doing it. Frances,
you must be just!”
“If I were just--if I had the power to be just--is there any punishment
which could be great enough? His life? But it is more than his life. It
is misery and torture and wretchedness, to him first, and then to--to
his mother--to----” She ended as a woman, as a poor little girl,
scarcely yet woman grown, must--in an agony of tears.
All that a tender mother and that a kind woman could do--with due regard
to the important business in her hands, and a glance aside to see that
the coachman did not mistake Sir Joseph’s much frequented door--Lady
Markham did to quench this extraordinary passion, and bring back calm to
Frances. She succeeded so far, that the girl, hurriedly drying her
tears, retiring with shame and confusion into herself, recovered
sufficient self-command to refrain from further betrayal of her
feelings. In the midst of it all, though she was not unmoved by her
mother’s tenderness, she had a kind of fierce perception of Lady
Markham’s anxiety about Sir Joseph’s door, and her eagerness not to lose
any time in conveying her message to him, which she did rapidly in her
own person, putting the footman aside, corrupting somehow by sweet words
and looks the incorruptible functionary who guarded the great doctor’s
door. It was all for poor Gaunt’s sake, and done with care for him, as
anxious and urgent as if he had been her own son; and yet it was
business too, which, had Frances been in a mood to see the humour of it,
might have lighted the tension of her feelings. But she was in no mind
for humour--a thing which passion has never any eyes for or cognisance
of. “That is all quite right. He will meet the other doctor this
afternoon; and we may be now comfortable that he is in the best hands,”
Lady Markham said, with a sigh of satisfaction. She added: “I suppose,
of course, his parents will not hesitate about the expense?” in a
faintly inquiring tone; but did not insist on any reply. Nor could
Frances have given any reply. But amid the chaos of her mind, there came
a consciousness of poor Mrs Gaunt’s dismay, could she have known. She
would have watched her son night and day; and there was not one of the
little community at Bordighera--Mrs Durant, with all her little
pretences; Tasie, with her airs of young-ladyhood--who would not have
shared the vigil. But the two expensive nurses, with every accessory
that new-fangled science could think of--this would have frightened out
of their senses the two poor parents, who would not “hesitate about the
expense,” or any expense that involved their son’s life. In this point,
too, the different classes could not understand each other. The idea
flew through the girl’s mind with a half-despairing consciousness that
this, too, had something to do with the overwhelming revolution in her
own circumstances. A man of her own species would have understood
Constance; he would have known Markham’s reputation and ways. The pot of
iron and the pot of clay could not travel together without damage to the
weakest. This went vaguely through Frances’ mind in the middle of her
excitement, and perhaps helped to calm her. It also stilled, if it did
not calm her, to see that her mother was a little afraid of her in her
new development.
Lady Markham, when she returned to the brougham after her visit to Sir
Joseph, manifestly avoided the subject. She was careful not to say
anything of Markham or of Constance. Her manner was anxious,
deprecatory, full of conciliation. She advised Frances, with much
tenderness, to go and rest a little when they got home. “I fear you have
been doing too much, my darling,” she cried, and followed her to her
room with some potion in a glass.
“I am quite well,” Frances said; “there is nothing the matter with me.”
“But I am sure, my dearest, that you are overdone.” Her anxious and
conciliatory looks were of themselves a tonic to Frances, and brought
her back to herself.
Markham, when he appeared in the evening, showed unusual feeling too. He
was at the crisis, it seemed, of his own life, and perhaps other
sentiments had therefore an easier hold upon him. He came in looking
very downcast, with none of his usual banter in him. “Yes, I know. I
have heard all about it, bless you. What else, do you think, are those
fellows talking about? Poor beggar. Who ever thought he’d have gone down
like that in so short a time? Now, mother, the only thing wanting is
that you should say ‘I told you so.’ And Fan,--no, Fan can do worse; she
can tell me that she thought he was safe in my hands.”
“It is not my way to say I told you so, Markham; but yet----”
“You could do it, mammy, if you tried--that is well known. I’m rather
glad he is ill, poor beggar; it stops the business. But there are things
to pay, that is the worst.”
“Surely, if it is to a gentleman, he will forgive him,” cried Frances,
“when he knows----”
“Forgive him! Poor Gaunt would rather die. It would be as much as a
man’s life was worth to offer to--forgive another man. But how should
the child know? That’s the beauty of Society and the rules of honour,
Fan. You can forgive a man many things, but not a shilling you’ve won
from him. And how is he to mend, good life! with the thought of having
to pay up in the end?” Markham repeated this despondent speech several
times before he went gloomily away. “I had rather die straight off, and
make no fuss. But even then, he’d have to pay up, or somebody for him.
If I had known what I know now, I’d have eaten him sooner than have
taken him among those fellows, who have no mercy.”
“Markham, if you would listen to me, you would give them up--you too.”
“Oh, I----” he said, with his short laugh. “They can’t do much harm to
me.”
“But you must change--in that as well as other things, if----”
“Ah, if,” he said, with a curious grimace; and took up his hat and went
away.
Thus, Frances said to herself, his momentary penitence and her mother’s
pity melted away in consideration of themselves. They could not say a
dozen words on any other subject, even such an urgent one as this,
before their attention dropped, and they relapsed into the former
question about themselves. And such a question!--Markham’s marriage,
which depended upon Nelly Winterbourn’s widowhood and the portion her
rich husband left her. Markham was an English peer, the head of a family
which had been known for centuries, which even had touched the history
of England here and there; yet this was the ignoble way in which he was
to take the most individual step of a man’s life. Her heart was full
almost to bursting of these questions, which had been gradually
awakening in her mind. Lady Markham, when left alone, turned always to
the consolation of her correspondence--of those letters to write which
filled up all the interstices of her other occupations. Perhaps she was
specially glad to take refuge in this assumed duty, having no desire to
enter again with her daughter into any discussion of the events of the
day. Frances withdrew into a distant corner. She took a book with her,
and did her best to read it, feeling that anything was better than to
allow herself to think, to summon up again the sound of that hoarse
broken voice running on in the feverish current of disturbed thought.
Was he still talking, talking, God help him! of death and blood and the
two colours, and her ribbon, and the misery which was all play? Oh, the
misery, causeless, unnecessary, to no good purpose, that had come merely
from this--that Constance had put herself in Frances’ place,--that the
pot of iron had thrust itself in the road of the pot of clay. But she
must not think--she must not think, the girl said to herself with
feverish earnestness, and tried the book again. Finding it of no avail,
however, she put it down, and left her corner and came, in a moment of
leisure between two letters, behind her mother’s chair. “May I ask you a
question, mamma?”
“As many as you please, my dear;” but Lady Markham’s face bore a
harassed look. “You know, Frances, there are some to which there is no
answer--which I can only ask with an aching heart, like yourself,” she
said.
“This is a very simple one. It is, Have I any money--of my own?”
Lady Markham turned round on her chair and looked at her daughter.
“Money!” she said. “Are you in need of anything? Do you want money,
Frances? I shall never forgive myself, if you have felt yourself
neglected.”
“It is not that. I mean--have I anything of my own?”
After a little pause. “There is a--small provision made for you by my
marriage settlement,” Lady Markham said.
“And--once more--could, oh, could I have it, mamma?”
“My dear child! you must be out of your senses. How could you have it at
your age--unless you were going to marry?”
This suggestion Frances rejected with the contempt it merited. “I shall
never marry,” she said; “and there never could be a time when it would
be of so much importance to me to have it as now. Oh, tell me, is there
no way by which I could have it now?”
“Sir Thomas is one of our trustees. Ask him. I do not think he will let
you have it, Frances. But perhaps you could tell him what you want, if
you will not have confidence in me. Money is just the thing that is
least easy for me. I could give you almost anything else; but money I
have not. What can you want money for, a girl like you?”
Frances hesitated before she replied. “I would rather not tell you,” she
said; “for very likely you would not approve; but it is
nothing--wrong.”
“You are very honest, my dear. I do not suppose for a moment it is
anything wrong. Ask Sir Thomas,” Lady Markham said, with a smile. The
smile had meaning in it, which to Frances was incomprehensible. “Sir
Thomas--will refuse nothing he can in reason give--of that I am sure.”
Sir Thomas, when he came in shortly afterwards, said that he would not
disturb Lady Markham. “For I see you are busy, and I have something to
say to Frances.”
“Who has also something to say to you,” Lady Markham said, with a
benignant smile. Her heart gave a throb of satisfaction. It was all she
could do to restrain herself, not to tell the dear friend to whom she
was writing that there was every prospect of a _most happy_
establishment for dear Frances. And her joy was quite genuine and almost
innocent, notwithstanding all she knew.
“You have written to your father?” Sir Thomas said. “My dear Frances, I
have got the most hopeful letter from him, the first I have had for
years. He asks me if I know what state Hilborough is in--if it is
habitable? That looks like coming home, don’t you think? And it is
years since he has written to me before.”
Frances did not know what Hilborough was; but she disliked showing her
ignorance. And this idea was not so comforting to her as Sir Thomas
expected. She said: “I do not think he will come,” with downcast eyes.
But Sir Thomas was strong in his own way of thinking. He was excited and
pleased by the letter. He told her again and again how he had desired
this--how happy it made him to think he was about to be successful at
last. “And just at the moment when all is likely to be arranged--when
Markham---- You have brought me luck, Frances. Now, tell me what it was
you wanted from me?”
Frances’ spirits had fallen lower and lower while his rose. Her mind
ranged over the new possibilities with something like despair. It would
be Constance, not she, who would have done it, if he came
back--Constance, who had taken her place from her--the love that ought
to have been hers--her father--and who now, on her return, would resume
her place with her mother too. Ah, what would Constance do? Would she
do anything for him who lay yonder in the fever, for his father and his
mother, poor old people!--anything to make up for the harm she had done?
Her heart burned in her agitated, troubled bosom. “It is nothing,” she
said--“nothing that you would do for me. I had a great wish--but I know
you would not let me do it, neither you nor my mother.”
“Tell me what it is, and we shall see.”
Frances felt her voice die away in her throat. “We went this morning to
see--to see----”
“You mean poor Gaunt. It is a sad sight, and a sad story--too sad for a
young creature like you to be mixed up in. Is it anything for him, that
you want me to do?”
She looked at him through those hot gathering tears which interrupt the
vision of women, and blind them when they most desire to see clearly. A
sense of the folly of her hope, of the impossibility of making any one
understand what was in her mind, overwhelmed her. “I cannot, I cannot,”
she cried. “Oh, I know you are very kind. I wanted my own money, if I
have any. But I know you will not give it me, nor think it right, nor
understand what I want to do with it.”
“Have you so little trust in me?” said Sir Thomas. “I hope, if you told
me, I could understand. I cannot give you your own money, Frances; but
if it were for a good--no, I will not say that--for a sensible, for a
practicable purpose, you should have some of mine.”
“Yours!” she cried, almost with indignation. “Oh no; that is not what I
mean. They are nothing--nothing to you.” She paused when she had said
this, and grew very pale. “I did not mean---- Sir Thomas, please do not
say anything to mamma.”
He took her hand affectionately between his own. “I do not half
understand,” he said; “but I will keep your secret, so far as I know it,
my poor little girl.”
Lady Markham at her writing-table, with her back turned, went on with
her correspondence all the time in high satisfaction and pleasure,
saying to herself that it would be far better than Nelly
Winterbourn’s--that it would be the finest match of the year.