THERE are moments in life which are so sweet as to light up whole weeks of gloom; and there are moments so dreadful as to make the unfortunate actors in them tremble at the recollection to the end of their lives. Such a moment in the life of Frank Renton was that in which he suddenly heard the padrona’s knock at her own door. He had been as happy as a young man could be. He had felt himself willing, and over again willing, to give up everything without a regret, for the sake of the love he had won, and which was, he said to himself, of everything in earth and heaven the most sweet. This he had said to himself a hundred times over as he hung over Alice in the first ecstasy of their betrothal. He could not imagine how he ever could have doubted. Going to India would, as he had said, be going to heaven. Where he went, she would be with him. He should have her all to himself, free from any interference. They would be free to go forth together, hand in hand, like Adam and Eve. What was any advantage the world could give in comparison to such blessedness? He was in the full flush of his delight when that awful knock was heard at the door.
At the sound of it Alice started too. She clung to him first, and then she shrank from him. ‘Oh, it is mamma!’ she cried, with sudden dismay. Then there was a pause. Frank let go the hand he had been holding. Nature and the world stood still in deference to the extraordinary crisis. He turned his face, which had suddenly grown pale, to the door. And they heard her talking as she came up the stairs, unconcerned, laughing as if nothing had happened! ‘It will be a surprise to Alice,’ she said audibly, pausing in the passage, at the dining-room door. And Alice shuddered as she listened. A surprise! If the padrona could but know what a terrible surprise had been prepared for herself!
And then she came in upon them, smiling and blooming, her soft colour heightened by a little fresh breeze that was blowing, bright from the pleasant unusual intercourse with the outside world. ‘I am sorry you did not come with us, Alice,’ she said. ‘It is not so hot as we thought it was. Ah, Mr. Renton!’ and she held out her hand to him. Upon what tiny issues does life hang. If Alice had not thought it too hot to go out, all this might never have happened. And the mother to speak of it so lightly, thinking of nothing more important than the walk, ignorant what advantage had been taken of her absence! To the two guilty creatures who knew, every word was an additional stab.
‘I came up again to-day about the same business,’ said Frank, faltering.
Alice bent trembling over her work, and said nothing. She did not go, as was her wont, with soft, tender hands, to untie the bonnet and take off the shawl, taking pride in her office as ‘mamma’s maid.’ She put on an aspect of double diligence over her work, though her hands trembled so that she could scarcely hold her needle.
Even Mrs. Severn’s unsuspicious nature was startled. She turned to Miss Hadley, who had come in behind her, and said, half in dumb-show, with a certain impatience, ‘What does he mean by coming so often?’
‘No good,’ answered Miss Hadley, solemnly, under her breath; which laconic utterance amused the padrona so much, that her momentary uneasiness flew away. She sat down smiling, turning her kind face upon the trembling pair. ‘Poor Laurie’s brother!’ she said to herself. That was argument enough for tolerating him and showing him all kindness.
‘Alice, how is it you are so busy?’ she said. ‘I think you might order some tea. Though it is not so very hot, it is pleasant to get into the shade. I hope your business has made progress, Mr. Renton,’ she added, politely. As the padrona looked at them it became slowly apparent to her that something was wrong. Alice had not liked the task of entertaining a stranger all by herself; or——! But of course it must be that. It was ill-bred of him, even though he was Laurie’s brother, to insist on coming in when there was nobody but the child to receive him. Mrs. Severn began to feel uncharitably towards the young man. Alice flushed one moment, and the next was quite pale. She was reluctant to raise her eyes, and neglected all her usual petits soins. When she had to get up to obey her mother, it was with a shy avoidance of her look, which went to the padrona’s heart. What could be the matter? Was she ill? Had he been rude to her? But that was impossible. ‘Is there anything wrong, my darling?’ she said, half rising from her seat.
‘Oh, no, mamma!’ said Alice, breathlessly, in a fainting voice.
The padrona gave Miss Hadley a look which meant,—Go and see what is the matter; and then with a very pre-occupied mind turned towards Frank to play politeness and do her social duties. ‘I hope your business has made progress,’ she repeated, vaguely; and then it became apparent that he was agitated too.
‘Yes,’ he said; and then he came forward to her quite pale and with an air of mingled supplication and alarm which filled her with the profoundest bewilderment. ‘Oh, Mrs. Severn, forgive us!’ he cried. He would have gone down on his knees had he thought that would have been effectual; but he did not dare to go down on his knees. He stood before her like a culprit about to be sentenced; and she looked at him with eyes in which alarm and suspicion began to glow. There was something wrong; but even now the mother to whom her child was indeed a child did not guess what it was.
‘Us!’ she said; and somehow a thought of Laurie struck into the maze of her thoughts. He could not have done anything, poor fellow, in his exile, to call for forgiveness in this passionate way. ‘I cannot tell what you mean,’ she cried. ‘What have I to forgive? And who are the sinners?’ and she tried to laugh, though it was difficult enough.
‘Mrs. Severn,’ he said, ‘I would not, believe me, have taken advantage of your absence, not willingly. She is so young. I know I ought to have spoken to you first. I did not mean it when I came——’
‘She?’ cried the padrona, with a little cry. Not yet did she see what it was; but instinct told her what kind of a trenchant blow was coming, and all the blood seemed to rush back upon her heart.
‘Yes,’ said Frank, rising into the calm of passion, ‘I found her all by herself. And I loved her so! From that first moment I saw her,—when you called her, and she came and stood there,’ he cried, pointing vaguely at the door; ‘and I had come to tell you I was going away. And she was sorry. It all came upon us in a moment. How could I help telling her? I loved her so! Forgive me for Alice’s sake.’
The padrona sat gazing at him for some moments with dilated eyes; then suddenly she hid her face in her hands, and uttered a low, moaning cry as of a creature in pain. All at once it had come upon her what it meant. Frank standing there, full of anxiety, yet full of confidence, was bewildered, not knowing what this meant in reference to himself. But the truth was that Mrs. Severn was not thinking of him, had no room in her mind for him at that terrible moment. It was her child she was thinking of,—Alice, who was here half an hour ago, and now was not here, and could never again be, for ever. It all burst upon her in an instant, not anything remediable, as a thing might be which was independent of the child’s own will, but voluntary, her own doing, her choice! Something sung and buzzed in her ears; her eyes felt hot and scorched up; sharp pulsations of pain came into her temples. ‘My child!—my baby!—my first-born!’ she said to herself. It was as if the earth had shaken beneath her feet, and the house had crumbled down about her. Her whole fabric of happiness seemed to shrink up; and yet it was not so much—not so much that she asked; not anything for herself, not the ease, the comfort, the leisure, the pleasures, so many had. Was she not content, more than content to work late and early, to spare herself in nothing, to labour with both hands, as it were, never grudging? Only her children, that was all she asked to have! And here was the first of her children, the sweetest of all, her excellency and the beginning of her strength, her companion, and tender consoler, and sweet helper—gone! She gave a cry, a half-smothered moan, such as could not be put into words. And all this time Frank stood before her, pale, somewhat desperate, but courageous, knowing that however the mother might be against him, the daughter was for him,—and trusting in his fate.
When the padrona at last withdrew her hands from her face it struck her as with a sense of offence that he should still be standing there. Why did he, a stranger, stand and gaze at her misery? What right had he? And then she remembered that it was this boy whom her child had chosen out of the world, to give up her home for him. In her heart, at that moment, the padrona hated Frank. She raised her head, and even he, though he had no love in his eyes to enlighten him respecting the changes in her face, saw that the lines were drawn and haggard, the colour gone, and that a look of age and suffering had fallen upon her. But she commanded herself. She spoke after a minute with an effort. ‘Mr. Renton, this is a very serious matter you tell me.’ she said; ‘my daughter is a child,’ and then she had to stop and take breath, and moisten her dry lips. ‘She is too young,—to judge what is best,—for her life. And so are you,’ she added, looking at him with a certain pity for the boy who was so young too, and Laurie’s brother to boot; ‘you are both too young to know what you are doing. You should not have disturbed my Alice!’ she cried, suddenly, unable to keep in the reproach. ‘Such thoughts would never have come into my darling’s mind. You had no right to disturb my child!’
She got up as she spoke in a blaze of momentary excitement,—anger, grief’s twin brother, rising sudden into the place of grief. She made a step or two away from him, and began to collect Alice’s work and fold it up with her trembling hands, turning her back upon him, as if this sudden piece of business she had found was the most important matter in the world. Then she turned round, raising her hand, with an outburst of natural eloquence. ‘She was only a child,’ she cried; ‘as much a child as when she sat on my lap. She had not a thought that was not open to me. I have worked for her almost all her life, watched over her, nursed her, smiled for her when my heart was breaking,—and all in a moment, for a young man’s vanity, my child is to be mine no longer. Why did you not come to me fairly, like an honest enemy, and warn me what you meant to do?’
As she spoke, standing before him with her arm lifted in unconscious action, almost towering over him in the greatness of her suffering and indignation, Frank stood lost in astonishment. Mothers, so far as he knew, were glad to get their daughters off their hands. Such was the tradition in all regions he had ever frequented. He had expected difficulties, no doubt, but not of this kind. It was with a certain consternation that he gazed at her, asking himself what it meant. It was all real, there could be no doubt of that. But yet,—he was in Fitzroy Square. It was not a duke’s daughter he had ventured on engaging to himself, but a humble artist’s, who everybody would have thought would have been glad enough to have her child provided for. This Frank knew, or, at least, he believed he knew, was the light in which the matter would have been regarded by sensible people. And he, though Belgravia no doubt might have scorned him, was no such contemptible match for the daughter of the painter. He stood surprised and discomfited, not knowing how to reply to a woman who addressed him so strangely. Perhaps it would be best to let her have it all her own way, and exhaust her indignation without contradicting or opposing her; but then the passion in her face moved the young man.
‘I never thought of coming as an enemy,’ he said, with some heat. ‘I have loved her ever since I saw her. I am not to blame for that.’ How could he be to blame? He had done naught in hate, but all in honour. And thus the mother and the lover stood confronting each other, rivals; but in a conflict which for one of them was without hope.
Then there was an interval of silence,—a truce between the foes. Frank mechanically turned over and over the books which lay on a little table against which he was leaning, and the padrona threw herself into her chair trembling in her agitation. Again and again her lips forced themselves to speak, but the effort was a vain one. She had not the heart to speak. What was there to say? If Alice’s heart was gone from her, then everything was gone. It was not as in old days, when she could have forbidden an unsuitable indulgence with the certainty that after the pain of the first few minutes the smiles would come back, the little heart melt, and the child be herself again. Here was a serious trial now, and the padrona’s heart was sick. She sat, not even looking at him, with her head turned to one side, and her mind full of bitter thoughts. This silence was worse than anything for Frank. He bore it as long as he could, standing with his eyes fixed upon her, expecting the verdict which was to come. Then, as she did not speak, he summoned up all his courage. He made a few steps forward, so as to bring himself before her eyes, and thus addressed her, with as much steadiness and calm as he could command;—‘Mrs. Severn,’ he said, ‘could you not put yourself in my position? I did not mean to betray myself. I meant to say good-bye, and go away, and never trouble you more. But she was sorry, God bless her! She looked at me, and pitied me, and I did not know what I was saying. I will not tell you a lie, and say I regret,’ cried Frank, with excitement; ‘but I will say I am sorry I had not the chance of speaking to you first. Surely, surely, you will not refuse her to me for that!’
‘Refuse her to you!’ said the padrona, with an unconscious contempt; ‘refuse her to you! You cannot think it is you I am thinking of. Oh, young man, how little you know! There is the sting of it! I would give everything I have in the world she had never seen you; but you make me work out my own sorrow. Can you believe I would hesitate a moment if it were only refusing you?’ she cried, with a gesture unconsciously full of scorn, throwing, as it were, something from her. Frank had never been spoken to in such a tone before. He had been an important personage at Richmont. Not so would his prayer have been received there. The wounded amour propre of his youth made itself felt in his displeasure. He went to the nearest window, and stood staring out into the street, disgusted with himself, and half disgusted, if the truth must be told, with all the circumstances. He had been a fool in thus committing himself. He had behaved like a fool in every way, and this was his reward;—not rejection even, but scorn!
‘But I can’t refuse her anything!’ the padrona said with a sigh, that came out of the very bottom of her heart. There was the sting of it. She could not turn away, as impulse would have made her, the lover whom she felt to be her enemy. There was the child to be considered. It was no plain and easy matter to be decided upon in an arbitrary way. Fathers and mothers have refused their children’s wishes before now for their good. Daughters have been even shut up in their rooms, starved, imprisoned, bullied into giving up the undesirable suitor, as everybody knows. But these courses were not open to the padrona. She could no more have stood by and seen her child suffer than she could have flown. The one was as much an impossibility of nature as the other. She could not refuse Alice the desire of her heart. Oh, gentle heavens! to think it could be the desire of that tender creature’s heart to go away from her home where she had been cherished since ever she was born,—from her mother, who had loved and shielded her for all her sixteen years,—away to the end of the world with a young man, whom six months before she had never seen! And she not a woman with any weariness in her heart, nor a girl of adventurous instincts, curious and longing for the unknown, but, on the contrary, the purest womanly domestic child, caring little about all the noises of the great world without,—only sixteen, a soft, contented creature, happy in all the little business of her limited life! There was the wonder,—a thing not new, familiar every day;—and yet ever miraculous, a wonder and a portent to the padrona, as if it had never happened before.
It was just then that Alice came faltering into the room. She had cried and leaned her head on Miss Hadley’s breast when she was questioned what was the matter; but she would not tell even that faithful friend until mamma knew. Her faithful friend, indeed, was at no great loss. Her eyes were sharp enough to make up the lack of all suspicion in the innocent household. She divined the truth, and she also divined the scene that must be going on in the drawing-room. ‘I knew this was what would come of it,’ she allowed herself to say,—which was but natural; and she led Alice back to the door, though it was against her will. ‘My love, these two will never agree without you.’ she said, and stayed outside with that purest self-denial of the secondary spectator, burning with curiosity and interest, yet giving way to the chief personages concerned, which is so often seen among women. She would not even go into the dining-room, where she might have seen or heard something, but stayed outside in the passage, having carefully closed all the doors. So far as she herself was concerned, Miss Hadley was not Frank’s enemy. When a man spoke out she respected him, as she always said. It was only when he shilly-shallied that she had a contempt for him;—and to have one of them provided for would no doubt be a great matter. Such, taking Frank’s theory of what was proper and natural, was Miss Hadley’s way of thinking; but she knew only too well how impracticable Mrs. Severn could be.
Alice went in faltering, changing colour, ready to sink to the ground with innocent shame-facedness, but as much unaware of the struggle going on in her mother’s mind as if she had been a creature of a different species. When she had made a few steps into the room, she paused, and gave a quick timid glance at the two, who were both stirred by her approach. The padrona rose, and gazed at her child, who had thus left her side, while Frank started forward to place himself by her. This was the last touch, which the mother could not bear. She darted to Alice’s side, put him away with her hand, took the girl into her arms, and holding her fast, gazed into her face. ‘Alice,’ she said, ‘is it true? Never mind any one but me. Look at me,—at your mother, Alice. Tell me the truth,—the truth, my darling! Can it be? Do you want to go with him, and leave us all,—the boys, and Edith, and all that love you? Is it true? Do you want to leave me, my child?’ cried the mother, in a voice of anguish. And she stood holding her fast, reading the answer before it came in her eyes, in the modulations of her lips,—elevated to such a height of passionate feeling as she had never known before in all her life.
Nor was it a less trial for the young inexperienced creature, knowing nothing of passion, who was held thus in the grip of despair. Fortunately, Alice could not understand the full force of the tempest in her mother’s heart. ‘Oh, mamma, how can you think I want to leave you?’ she cried, with tears; and Frank, listening, felt with a pang that he was cast aside. Then she paused. ‘But, oh, mamma, dear!’ said Alice, with a soft, pleading, breathless tone, melodious like the cooing of a dove,—‘oh, mamma, dear!’—and she slid her tender arm round her mother’s neck, changing her attitude to one of utter supplication,—‘you have Edie and the boys, and my dearest love for ever and ever. And he has nobody; and he says,—— Will you only hear what he says? It is not fancy. He wants me most.’
It was not more than a minute that they stood thus clinging together, but Frank thought it an hour. He was left out of the matter. It was they who had to decide a question so momentous to them. And then he became aware that the padrona had cast her arms round her child to support herself, and was weeping wildly upon Alice’s shoulder. No need for any further questions. They had changed characters for the moment. The girl’s slight figure tottered, swayed, steadied itself, supporting with a supreme effort the weight of the mother’s yielding and anguish; and Alice gave him a look over that burthen,—a look of such pain and sweetness and confidence, that Frank’s heart was altogether melted. ‘Look what I have to bear,—what I have to give up for you!’ it seemed to say;—a pathetic glance; and yet there was in it the triumph of the new love rooting and establishing itself upon the ruins of the old.
When the padrona came to herself she called Frank Renton to her. It was not that she had fainted or become unconscious; but that, when a woman,—or a man either for that matter,—is suddenly called upon to sound the profoundest depths of suffering within her,—or his,—own being, a mist comes upon external matters, confusing place and fact, and above all, time, which goes fast or slow according to our consciousness. It might have been years, so far as she could tell, since she came in cheerfully from her walk, fearing no evil. She had been engaged in some awful struggle against her spiritual enemies, principalities and powers, such as she had never yet encountered; and all unprepared, unarmed for the conflict! She came to herself, lying back in her chair exhausted as if with an illness, without strength enough left to feel the full force of any calamity. She called Frank Renton to her, holding out her hand. ‘Sit down here and let me speak to you,’ she said. ‘I am to listen to what you have to say. And I will listen,—but not now. Such a thing had never entered into my mind. I thought the child was safe for years. I thought she was all mine,—my consolation. I have had so much to do, it seemed but fair I should have a consolation. But there is nothing fair in this world. And now it is you who have her heart, and not me,—and I don’t know you even. To be sure you are Laurie’s brother. Mr. Renton, if you will come back to me another time, when I have got a little used to it, I will hear everything you have to say.’
‘Thanks!’ said Frank, not knowing what answer to make, being utterly confused in his own mind, and as much out of his depth in every way as a young man could be. And he would have taken the hand she held out to him in token of amity,—but Mrs. Severn was not equal to any such signs of friendship.
‘It will be for another time,’ she said, sitting upright in her chair, and drawing back a little. ‘If I had received any warning;—but you have only met two,—three times;—is that all?’ she said, with a sudden spasm in her voice.
‘And at Richmont,’ said Frank, divided between offence and humility. Alice had left the room again, and the two were alone.
‘And at Richmont,’ the padrona repeated with a heavy sigh. ‘I might have known. But you don’t know my child,’ she added, with sudden energy. ‘You have seen her pretty face and heard her music, and it is those you care for,—that is all. And there are others as pretty, and who play as well. You cannot know my child.’
‘Look here, Mrs. Severn,’ cried Frank, driven wild in his turn; ‘I have loved her since the first moment I saw her under those curtains. Was it my doing? I was listening to the music, not thinking of any one; and you called Alice, and she came. And I have been struggling against it ever since. I will tell you the truth. I was to marry money,—everybody had made up their minds to it. I was to have a rich wife and give up India, and live a life that would suit me much better at home. That is the truth. And I tried,—tried hard to carry it out. But I had seen Alice, and I could not. To-day when I came I meant to try to say good-bye. I meant it honestly, upon my life. And that other girl is prettier, if you will speak so,’ cried the young man, with a kind of brutality, ‘than Alice. Judge if it is only for that——’
‘Then you will repent,’ said the padrona, blazing up into an inconsistent jealousy and resentment. ‘Believe me, Mr. Renton, it is far better to carry out your intention, and leave my penniless girl alone.’
The young man started up with a muttered oath. The moment of passion was over, but that of mutual exasperation had come. The light of battle kindled in the padrona’s eyes. She would have been glad to be rid of him at any price; and yet,—inconsistent woman,—though she hated him for loving Alice, the thought that he had struggled against that love, the thought that her child had been put in competition with another, set her all a-flame. ‘By heaven, you do me injustice!’ cried Frank. ‘Why will you misunderstand what I say? Let me tell you everything from the beginning. Is it just to judge me unheard? I am Laurie’s brother, whom you are fond of; and Alice is mine as well as yours. She has no doubt of me. Why cannot we be friends, we two? I should be your son——’
‘It must be for another time,’ said the padrona, letting her voice relapse into languor.
The sense of exhaustion had been thoroughly real when she expressed it before; but now, it must be allowed, it was exasperating. The elastic soul had touched the ground, and rebounded ever so little. But she had rebounded in a perverse, and not an amiable way. It was not the calm of despair, but an active wretchedness in which there was hope. And Frank, too, got set on edge, as she was, and left the house with but one soft word from Alice to console him as he went, flaming with opposition and resentment. He could turn the tables on her yet, if he were to try. He could make her regret her interference, if he would. And then a visionary Alice glided into the young man’s imagination, holding out her soft arms. Vex her because her mother was vexatious to him? Ah, no! not for the world!