THE EVENING AFTER.
The outcry that rose when, after Montjoie's comic song, a performance of
the broadest and silliest description, was over, it was discovered that
Bice had disappeared, and especially the blank look of the performer
himself when turning round from the piano he surveyed the company in
vain for her, gratified the Contessa beyond measure. She smiled
radiantly upon the assembly in answer to all their indignant questions.
"It has been for once an indulgence," she said; "but little girls must
keep early hours." Montjoie was wounded and disappointed beyond measure
that it should have been at the moment of his performance that she was
spirited away. His reproaches were vehement, and there was something of
the pettishness of a boy in their indignant tones. "I shouldn't have
sung a note if I'd thought what was going on," he cried. "Contessa, I
would not have believed you could have been so mean--and I singing only
to please you."
"But think how you have pleased me--and all these ladies!" cried the
Contessa. "Does not that recompense you?" Montjoie guessed that she was
laughing at him, but he did not, in fact, see anything to laugh about.
It was natural enough that the other ladies should be pleased; still he
did not care whether they were pleased or not, and he did care much that
the object of his admiration had not waited to hear him. The Contessa
found the greatest amusement in his boyish sulk and resentment, and the
rest of the evening was passed in baffling the questions with which, now
that Bice was gone, her friends overpowered her. She gave the smallest
possible dole of reply to their interrogations, but smiled upon the
questioners with sunshiny smiles. "You must come and see me in town,"
she said to Montjoie. It was the only satisfaction she would give him.
And she perceived at a much earlier hour than usual that Lucy was
waiting for her to go to bed. She gave a little cry of distress when
this seemed to flash upon her.
"Sweet Lucy! it is for me you wait!" she cried. "How could I keep you so
late, my dear one?"
Montjoie was the foremost of those who attended her to the door, and got
her candle for her, that indispensable but unnecessary formula.
"Of course I shall look you up in town; but we'll talk of that
to-morrow. I don't go till three--to-morrow," the young fellow said.
The Contessa gave him her hand with a smile, but without a word, in that
inimitable way she had, leaving Montjoie a prey to such uncertainty as
poisoned his night's rest. He was not humble-minded, and he knew that he
was a prize which no lady he had met with as yet had disregarded; but
for the first time his bosom was torn by disquietude. Of course he must
see her to-morrow. Should he see her to-morrow? The Contessa's smile,
so radiant, so inexplainable, tormented him with a thousand doubts.
Lucy had looked on at all this with an uneasiness indescribable. She
felt like an accomplice, watching this course of intrigue, of which she
indeed disapproved entirely, but could not clear herself from a certain
guilty knowledge of. That it should all be going on under her roof was
terrible to her, though it was not for Montjoie but for Bice that her
anxieties were awakened. She followed the Contessa upstairs, bearing her
candle as if they formed part of a procession, with a countenance
absolutely opposed in expression to the smiles of Madame di
Forno-Populo. When they reached the Contessa's door, Lucy, by a sudden
impulse, followed her in. It was not the first time that she had been
allowed to cross the threshold of that little enchanted world which had
filled her with wonder on her first entrance, but which by this time she
regarded with composure, no longer bewildered to find it in her own
house. Bice sprang up from a sofa on which she was lying on their
entrance. She had taken off her beautiful dress, and her hair was
streaming over her shoulders, her countenance radiant with delight. She
threw herself upon the Contessa, without perceiving the presence of Lady
Randolph.
"But it is enchanting; it is ravishing. I have never been so happy," she
cried.
"My child," said the Contessa, "here is our dear lady who is of a
different opinion."
"Of what opinion?" Bice cried. She was startled by the sudden
appearance, when she had no thought of such an apparition, of Lucy's
face so grave and uneasy. It gave a contradiction which was painful to
the girl's excitement and delight.
"Indeed, I did not mean to find fault," said Lucy. "I was only
sorry----" and here she paused, feeling herself incapable of expressing
her real meaning, and convicted of interference and unnecessary severity
by the girl's astonished eyes.
"My dear one," said the Contessa, "it is only that we look from two
different points of view. You will not object to little Bice that she
finds society intoxicating when she first goes into it. The child has
made what you call a sensation. She has had her little _succes_. That is
nothing to object to. An English girl is perhaps more reticent. She is
brought up to believe that she does not care for _succes_. But Bice is
otherwise. She has been trained for that, and to please makes her
happy."
"To please--whom?" cried Lady Randolph. "Oh, don't think I am finding
fault. We are brought up to please our parents and people who--care for
us--in England."
Here Bice and the Contessa mutually looked at each other, and the girl
laughed, putting her hands together. "_She_ is pleased most of all," she
cried; "she is all my parents. I please her first of all."
"What you say is sweet," said the Contessa, smiling upon Lucy; "and she
is right too. She pleases me most of all. To see her have her little
triumph, looking really her very best, and her dress so successful, is
to me a delight. I am nearly as much excited as the child herself!"
Lucy looked from one to another, and felt that it was impossible for her
to say what she wished to say. The girl's pleasure seemed so innocent,
and that of her protectress and guardian so generous, so tender. All
that had offended Lucy's instincts, the dramatic effort of the
Contessa, the careful preparation of all the effects, the singling out
of young Montjoie as the object, all seemed to melt away in the girlish
delight of Bice, and the sympathetic triumph of her guardian. She did
not know what to say to them. It was she who was the culprit, putting
thoughts of harm which had not found any entrance there into the girl's
mind. She flushed with shame and an uneasy sense that the tables were
thus turned upon her; and yet how could she depart without some warning?
It was not only her own troubled uncomfortable feeling; but had she not
read the same, still more serious and decided, in her husband's eyes?
"I don't know what to say," said Lucy. "But Sir Tom thinks so too. He
will tell you better, he knows better. Lord Montjoie is--I do not know
why he was asked. I did not wish it. He is--dear Madame di Forno-Populo,
you have seen so much more than I--he is vulgar--a little. And Bice is
so young; she may be deceived."
For a moment a cloud, more dark than had ever been seen there before,
overshadowed the Contessa's face. But Bice burst forth into a peal of
laughter, clapping her hands. "Is that vulgar?" the girl cried. "I am
glad. Now I know how he is different. It is what you call fun, don't you
know?" she cried with sudden mimicry, at which Lucy herself could not
refuse to laugh.
"I waited outside to hear a little of the song. It was so wonderful that
I could not laugh; and to utter all that before you, Madama, after he
had heard you--oh, what courage! what braveness!" cried Bice. "I did not
think any one could be so brave!"
"You mean so simple, dear child," said the Contessa, whose brow had
cleared; "that is really what is so wonderful in these English men. They
are so simple, they never see how it is different. It is brave if you
please, but still more simple-minded. Little Montjoie is so. He knows no
better; not to me only, but even to you, Bice, with that voice of yours,
so pure, so fresh, he listens, then performs as you heard. It is
wonderful, as you say. But you have not told me, Lucy, my sweetest, what
you think of the little one's voice."
"I think," said Lucy, with that disapproval which she could not
altogether restrain, "that it is very wonderful, when it is so fine,
that we never heard it before----"
"Ah, Bice," cried the Contessa, "our dear lady is determined that she
will not be pleased to-night. We had prepared a little surprise, and it
is a failure. She will not understand that we love to please. She will
have us to be superior, as if we were English."
"Indeed, indeed," cried Lucy, full of compunction, "I know you are
always kind. And I know your ways are different--but----" with a sort of
regretful reflectiveness, shaking her head.
"All England is in that but," said the Contessa. "It is what has always
been said to me. In our country we love to arrange these little effects,
to have surprises, impromptus, events that are unexpected. Bice, go, my
child, go to bed, after this excitement you must rest. You did well, and
pleased me at least. My sweet Lucy," she said, when the girl with
instant obedience had disappeared into the next room, "I know how you
see it all from your point of view. But we are not as you, rich, secure.
We must make while we can our _coup_. To succeed by one _coup_, that is
my desire. And you will not interfere?"
"Oh, Contessa," cried Lucy, "will you not spare the child? It is like
selling her. She is too good for such a man. He is scarcely a man; he is
a boy. I am ashamed to think that you should care to please----him, or
any one like him. Oh, let it come naturally! Do not plan like this, and
scheme and take trouble for----"
"For an establishment that will make her at once safe and sure; that
will give her so many of the things that people care for--beautiful
houses, a good name, money---- I have schemed, as you say, for little
things much of my life," said the Contessa, shaking her head with a
mournful smile; "I have told you my history: for very, very little
things--for a box at the opera, for a carriage, things which are
nothing, sweetest Lucy. You have plenty; such things are nothing to you.
You cannot understand it. But that is me, my dear one. I have not a
higher mind like you; and shall I not scheme," cried the Contessa, with
sudden energy, "for the child, to make her safe that she may never
require scheming? Ah, my Lucy! I have the heart of a mother to her, and
you know what a mother will do."
Lucy was silent, partly touched, partly resisting. If it ever could be
right to do evil that good might come, perhaps this motive might justify
it. And then came the question how much, in the Contessa's code, was
evil, of these proceedings? She was silenced, if not satisfied. There is
a certain casuistry involved in the most Christian charity: "thinketh no
evil," sometimes even implies an effort to think that there is no harm
in evil according to the intention in it. Lucy's intellect was confused,
though not that unobtrusive faculty of judgment in her which was
infallible, yet could be kept dumb.
"My love," said the Contessa, suddenly kissing her as a sort of
dismissal, "think that you are rich and we poor. If Bice had a
provision, if she had even as much as you give away to your poor friends
and never think of again, how different would all things be for her! But
she has nothing; and therefore I prepare my little tableaux, and study
all the effects I can think of, and produce her as in a theatre, and
shut her up to _agacer_ the audience, and keep her silent and make her
sing, all for effect; yes, all for effect. But what can I do? She has
not a penny, not a penny, not even like your poor friends."
The sudden energy with which this was said was indescribable. The
Contessa's countenance, usually so ivory-pale, shone with a sort of
reflection as if of light within, her eyes blazed, her smile gave place
to a seriousness which was almost indignation. She looked like a heroine
maintaining her right to do all that human strength could do for the
forlorn and oppressed; and there was, in fact, a certain _abandon_ of
feeling in her which made her half unconsciously open the door, and do
what was tantamount to turning her visitor out, though her visitor was
mistress of the house. Her feelings had, indeed, for the moment, got the
better of the Contessa. She had worked herself up to the point of
indignation, that Lucy who could, if she would, deliver Bice from all
the snares of poverty, had not done so, and was not, so far as appeared,
intending to do so. To find fault with the devices of the poor, and yet
not to help them--is not that one of the things least easily supportable
of all the spurns of patient merit? The Contessa was doing what she
could, all she could in her own fashion, strenuously, anxiously. But
Lucy was doing nothing, though she could have done it so easily: and
yet she found fault and criticised. Madame di Forno-Populo was swept by
a great flood of instinctive resentment. She put her hostess to the door
in the strength of it, tenderly with a kiss but not less hotly, and with
full meaning. Such impulses had stood her instead of virtue on other
occasions; she felt a certain virtue as of superior generosity and
self-sacrifice in her proceedings now.
As for Lucy, still much confused and scarcely recognising the full
meaning of the Contessa's warmth, she made her way to her own room in a
haze of disturbed and uneasy feeling. Somehow--she could not tell
how--she felt herself in the wrong. What was it she had done? What was
it she had left undone? To further the scheme by which young Montjoie
was to be caught and trapped and made the means of fortune and endowment
to Bice was not possible. In such cases it is usually of the possible
victim, the man against whom such plots are formed, that the bystander
thinks; but Lucy thought of young Montjoie only with an instinctive
dislike, which would have been contempt in a less calm and tolerant
mind. That Bice, with all her gifts, a creature so full of life and
sweetness and strength, should be handed over to this trifling
commonplace lad, was in itself terrible to think of. Lucy did not think
of the girl's beauty, or of that newly-developed gift of song which had
taken her by surprise, but only and simply of herself, the warm-hearted
and smiling girl, the creature full of fun and frolic whom she had
learned to be fond of, first, for the sake of little Tom, and then for
her own. Little Tom's friend, his playmate, who had found him out in his
infant weakness and made his life so much brighter! And then Lucy asked
herself what the Contessa could mean, what it was that made her own
interference a sort of impertinence, why her protests had been received
with so little of the usual caressing deference? Thoughts go fast, and
Lucy had not yet reached the door of her own room, when it flashed upon
her what it was. She put down her candle on a table in the corridor, and
stood still to realise it. This gallery at the head of the great
staircase was dimly lighted, and the hall below threw up a glimmer,
reflected in the oaken balusters and doors of the closed rooms, and
dying away in the half-lit gloom above. There were sounds below far off
that betrayed the assembly still undispersed in the smoking-room, and
some fainter still, above, of the ladies who had retired to their rooms,
but were still discussing the strange events of the evening. In the
centre of this partial darkness stood Lucy, with her candle, the only
visible representative of all the hidden life around, suddenly pausing,
asking herself--
Was this what it meant? Undoubtedly, this was what it meant. She had the
power, and she had not used it. With a word she could make all their
schemes unnecessary, and relieve the burden on the soul of the woman who
had the heart of a mother for Bice. Tears sprang up into Lucy's eyes
unawares as this recollection suddenly seized her. The Contessa was not
perfect--there were many things in her which Lady Randolph could with
difficulty excuse to herself: but she had the heart of a mother for
Bice. Oh, yes, it was true, quite true. The heart of a mother! and how
was it possible that another mother could look on at this and not
sympathise; and how was it that the idea had never occurred to her
before--that she had never thought how changed in a moment might be
Bice's position, if only---- Here she picked up her candle again, and
went away hastily to her room. She said to herself that she was keeping
Fletcher up, and that this was unkind. But, as a matter of fact, she was
not thinking about Fletcher. There had sprung up in her soul a fear
which was twofold and contradictory. If one of those alarms was
justified, then the other would be fallacious; and yet the existence of
the one doubled the force of the other. One of these elements of
fear--the contradiction, the new terror--was wholly unthought of, and
had never troubled her peace before. She thought--and this was her old
burden, the anxiety which had already restrained her action and made her
forego what she had never failed to feel as her duty, the carrying out
of her father's will--of her husband's objection, of his opposition, of
the terrible interview she had once had with him, when she had refused
to acquiesce in his command. And then, with a sort of stealthy horror,
she thought of his departure from that opposition, and asked herself,
would he, for Bice's sake, consent to that which he had so much objected
to in other cases? This it was that made her shrink from herself and her
own thoughts, and hurry into her room for the solace of Fletcher's
companionship, and to put off as long as she could the discussion of the
question. Would Sir Tom agree to everything? Would he make no
objections--for Bice's sake?