AFTER this, for about a fortnight, Captain Gaunt was very often visible in Eaton Square. He dined next evening with Lady Markham and Frances—Sir Thomas, who scarcely counted, he was so often there, being the only other guest. Sir Thomas was a man who had a great devotion for Lady Markham, and a very distant link of cousinship, which, or something in themselves which made that impossible, had silenced any remark of gossip, much less scandal, upon their friendship. He came in to luncheon whenever it pleased him; he dined there—when he was not dining anywhere else. But as both he and Lady Markham had many engagements, this was not too often the case, though there was rarely an evening, if the ladies were at home, when Sir Thomas did not “look in.” His intimacy was like that of a brother in the cheerful easy house. This cheerful company, the friendliness, the soothing atmosphere of feminine sympathy around him, and underneath all the foolish hope, more sweet than anything else, that a certain relenting on the part of Constance must be underneath, took away the gloom and dejection, in great part at least, from the young soldier’s looks. He exerted himself to please the people who were so kind to him, and his melancholy smile had begun to brighten into something more natural. Frances, for her part, thought him a very delightful addition to the party. She looked at him across the table almost with the pride which a sister might have felt when he made a good appearance and did himself credit. He seemed to belong to her more or less,—to reflect upon her the credit which he gained. It showed that her friends after all were worth thinking of, that they were not unworthy of the admiration she had for them, that they were able to hold their own in what the people here called Society and the world. She raised her little animated face to young Gaunt, was the first to see what he meant, unconsciously interpreted or explained for him when he was hazy—and beamed with delight when Lady Markham was interested and amused. Poor Frances was not always quite clever enough to see when it happened that the two elders were amused by the man himself, rather than by what he said—and her gratification was great in his success. She herself had never aspired to success in her own person; but it was a great pleasure to her that the little community at Bordighera should be vindicated and put in the best light. “They will never be able to say to me now that we had no Society, that we saw nobody,” Frances said to herself—attributing, however, a far greater brilliancy to poor George than he ever possessed. He fell back into melancholy, however, when the ladies left, and Sir Thomas found him dull. He had very little to say about Waring, on whose behalf the benevolent baronet was so much interested.
“Do you think he shows any inclination towards home?” Sir Thomas asked.
“I am sure,” young Gaunt answered, with a solemn face, “that there is nothing there that can satisfy such a creature as that.”
“He has no society, then?” asked Sir Thomas.
“Oh, society! it is like the poem,” said the young man, with a sigh. “I should think it would be so everywhere. ‘Ye common people of the sky, what are ye when your queen is nigh?’”
Sir Thomas had been much puzzled by the application to Waring, as he supposed, of the phrase, “such a creature as that;” but now he perceived, with a compassionate shake of his head, what the poor young fellow meant. Con had been at her tricks again! He said, with the pitying look which such a question warranted, “I suppose you are very fond of poetry?”
“No,” said the young soldier, astonished, looking at him suddenly. “Oh no. I am afraid I am very ignorant; but sometimes it expresses what nothing else can express. Don’t you think so?”
“I think perhaps it is time to join the ladies,” Sir Thomas said. He was sorry for the boy, though a little contemptuous too; but then he himself had known Con and her tricks from her cradle, and those of many another, and he was hardened. He thought their mothers had been far more attractive women.
Was it the same art which made Frances look up with that bright look of welcome, and almost affectionate interest, when they returned to the drawing-room? Sir Thomas liked her so much, that he hoped it was not merely one of their tricks; then paused, and said to himself that it would be better if it were so, and not that the girl had really taken a fancy to this young fellow, whose heart and head were both full of another, and who, even without that, would evidently be a very poor thing for Lady Markham’s daughter. Sir Thomas was so far unjust to Frances, that he concluded it must be one of her tricks, when he recollected how complacent she had been to Claude Ramsay, finding places for him where he could sit out of the draught. They were all like that, he said to himself; but concluded that, as one nail drives out another, a second “affair,” if he could be drawn into it, might cure the victim. This rapid résumé of all the circumstances, present and future, is a thing which may well take place in an experienced mind in the moment of entering a room in which there are materials for the development of a new chapter in the social drama. The conclusion he came to led him to the side of Lady Markham, who was writing the address upon one of her many notes. “It is to Nelly Winterbourn,” she explained, “to inquire—— You know they have dragged that poor sufferer up to town, to be near the best advice; and he is lying more dead than alive.”
“Perhaps it is not very benevolent, so far as he is concerned; but I hope he’ll linger a long time,” said Sir Thomas.
“Oh, so do I! These imbroglios may go on for a long time and do nobody any harm. But when a horrible crisis comes, and one feels that they must be cleared up!” It was evident that in this Lady Markham was not specially considering the sufferings of poor Mr Winterbourn.
“What does Markham say?” Sir Thomas asked.
“Say! He does not say anything. He shuffles—you know the way he has. He never could stand still upon both of his feet.”
“And you can’t guess what he means to do?”
“I think—— But who can tell? even with one whom I know so intimately as Markham. I don’t say even in my son, for that does not tell for very much.”
“Nothing at all,” said the social philosopher.
“Oh, a little, sometimes. I believe to a certain extent in a kind of magnetic sympathy. You don’t, I know. I think, then, so far as I can make out, that Markham would rather do nothing at all. He likes the status quo well enough. But then he is only one; and the other—one cannot tell how she might feel.”
“Nelly is the unknown quantity,” said Sir Thomas; and then Lady Markham sent away, by the hands of the footman, her anxious affectionate little billet “to inquire.”
Meanwhile young Gaunt sat down by Frances. On the table near them there was a glorious show of crimson—the great dazzling red anemones, the last of the season, which Mrs Gaunt had sent. It had been very difficult to find them so late on, he told her; they had hunted into the coolest corners where the spring flowers lingered the longest, his mother quite anxious about it, climbing into the little valleys among the hills. “For you know what you are to my mother,” he said, with a smile, and then a sigh. Mrs Gaunt had often made disparaging comparisons—comparisons how utterly out of the question! He allowed to himself that this candid countenance, so open and simple, and so full of sympathy, had a charm—more than he could have believed; but yet to make a comparison between this sister and the other! Nevertheless it was very consolatory, after the effort he had made at dinner, to lay himself back in the soft low chair, with his long limbs stretched out, and talk or be talked to, no longer with any effort, with a softening tenderness towards the mother who loved Frances, but with whom he had had many scenes before he left her, in frantic defence of the woman who had broken his heart.
“Mrs Gaunt was always so kind to me,” Frances said, gratefully, a little moisture starting into her eyes. “At the Durants’ there seemed always a little comparison with Tasie; but with your mother there was no comparison.”
“A comparison with Tasie!” He laughed in spite of himself. “Nothing can be so foolish as these comparisons,” he added, not thinking of Tasie.
“Yes, she was older,” said Frances. “She had a right to be more clever. But it was always delightful at the bungalow. Does my father go there often now?”
“Did he ever go often?”
“N-no,” said Frances, hesitating; “but sometimes in the evening. I hope Constance makes him go out. I used to have to worry him, and often get scolded. No, not scolded—that was not his way; but sent off with a sharp word. And then he would relent, and come out.”
“I have not seen very much of Mr Waring,” Gaunt said.
“Then what does Constance do? Oh, it must be such a change for her! I could not have imagined such a change. I can’t help thinking sometimes it is a great pity that I, who was not used to it, nor adapted for it, should have all this—and Constance, who likes it, who suits it, should be—banished; for it must be a sort of banishment for her, don’t you think?”
“I—suppose so. Yes, there could be no surroundings too bright for her,” he said, dreamily. He seemed to see her, notwithstanding, walking with him up into the glades of the olive-gardens, with her face so bright. Surely she had not felt her banishment then! Or was it only that the amusement of breaking his heart made up for it, for the moment, as his mother said?
“Fancy,” said Frances; “I am going to court on Monday—I—in a train and feathers. What would they all say? But all the time I am feeling like the daw in the peacock’s plumes. They seem to belong to Constance. She would wear them as if she were a queen herself. She would not perhaps object to be stared at; and she would be admired.”
“Oh yes!”
“She was, they say, when she was presented, so much admired. She might have been a maid of honour; but mamma would not. And I, a poor little brown sparrow, in all the fine feathers—I feel inclined to call out, ‘I am only Frances.’ But that is not needed, is it, when any one looks at me?” she said, with a laugh. She had met with nobody with whom she could be confidential among all her new acquaintances. And George Gaunt was a new acquaintance too, if she had but remembered; but there was in him something which she had been used to, something with which she was familiar, a breath of her former life—and that acquaintance with his name and all about him which makes one feel like an old friend. She had expected for so many years to see him, that it appeared to her imagination as if she had known him all these years—as if there was scarcely any one with whom she was so familiar in the world.
He looked at her attentively as she spoke, a little touched, a little charmed by this instinctive delicate familiarity, in which he at last, having so lately come out of the hands of a true operator, saw, whatever Sir Thomas might think, that it was not one of their tricks. She did not want any compliment from him, even had he been capable of giving it. She was as sincere as the day, as little troubled about her inferiority as she was convinced of it; the laugh with which she spoke had in it a genuine tone of innocent youthful mirth, such as had not been heard in that house for long. The exhilarating ring of it, so spontaneous, so gay, reached Lady Markham and Sir Thomas in their colloquy, and roused them. Frances herself had never laughed like that before. Her mother gave a glance towards her, smiling. “The little thing has found her own character in the sight of her old friend,” she said; and then rounded her little epigram with a sigh.
“The young fellow ought to think much of himself to have two of them taking that trouble.”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Lady Markham. “Do you think she is taking trouble? She does not understand what it means.”
“Do any of them not understand what it means?” asked Sir Thomas. He had a large experience in Society, and thought he knew; but he had little experience out of Society, and so, perhaps, did not. There are some points in which a woman’s understanding is the best.
The evening had not been unpleasant to any one, not even, perhaps, to the lovelorn, when Markham appeared, coming back from his dinner-party, a signal to the other gentlemen that it was time for them to disappear from theirs. He gave his mother the last news of Winterbourn; and he told Sir Thomas that a division was expected, and that he ought to be in the House. “The poor sufferer” was sinking slowly, Markham said. It was quite impossible now to think of the operation which might perhaps have saved him three months since. His sister was with Nelly, who had neither mother nor sister of her own; and the long-expected event was thus to come off decorously, with all the proper accessories. It was a very important matter for two at least of the speakers; but this was how they talked of it, hiding, perhaps, the anxiety within. Then Markham turned to the other group.
“Have you got all the feathers and the furbelows ready?” he said. “Do you think there will be any of you visible through them, little Fan?”
“Don’t frighten the child, Markham. She will do very well. She can be as steady as a little rock: and in that case it doesn’t matter that she is not tall.”
“Oh, tall—as if that were necessary! You are not tall yourself, our mother; but you are a very majestic person when you are in your war-paint.”
“There’s the Queen herself, for that matter,” said Sir Thomas. “See her in a procession, and she might be six feet. I feel a mouse before her.” He had held once some post about the court, and had a right to speak.
“Let us hope Fan will look majestic too. You should, to carry off the effect I shall produce. In ordinary life,” said Markham, “I don’t flatter myself that I am an Adonis; but you should see me screwed up into a uniform. No, I’m not in the army, Fan. What is my uniform, mother, to please her? A Deputy Lieutenant, or something of that sort. I hope you are a great deal the wiser, Fan.”
“People always look well in uniform,” said Frances, looking at him somewhat doubtfully, on which Markham broke forth into his chuckle. “Wait till you see me, my little dear. Wait till the little boys see me on the line of route. They are the true tests of personal attraction. Are you coming, Gaunt? Do you feel inclined to give those fellows their revenge?”
Markham had spoken rather low, and at some distance from his mother; but the word caught her quick ear.
“Revenge? What do you mean by revenge? Who is going to be revenged?” she cried.
“Nobody is going to fight a duel, if that is what you mean,” said Markham, quietly turning round. “Gaunt has, for as simple as he stands there, beaten me at billiards, and I can’t stand under the affront. Didn’t you lick me, Gaunt?”
“It was an accident,” said Gaunt. “If that is all, you are very welcome to your revenge.”
“Listen to his modesty, which, by-the-by, shows a little want of tact; for am I the man to be beaten by an accident?” said Markham, with his chuckle of self-ridicule. “Come along, Gaunt.”
Lady Markham detained Sir Thomas with a look as he rose to accompany them. She gave Captain Gaunt her hand, and a gracious, almost anxious smile. “Markham is noted for bad hours,” she said. “You are not very strong, and you must not let him beguile you into his evil ways.” She rose too, and took Sir Thomas by the arm as the young man went away. “Did you hear what he said? Do you think it was only billiards he meant? My heart quakes for that poor boy and the poor people he belongs to. Don’t you think you could go after them and see what they are about?”
“I will do anything you please. But what good could I do?” said Sir Thomas. “Markham would not put up with any interference from me—nor the other young fellow either, for that matter.”
“But if you were there, if they saw you about, it would restrain them: oh, you have always been such a true friend. If you were but there.”
“There: where?” There came before the practical mind of Sir Thomas a vision of himself, at his sober age, dragged into he knew not what nocturnal haunts, like an elderly spectre, jeered at by the pleasure-makers. “I will do anything to please you,” he said, helplessly. “But what can I do? It would be of no use. You know yourself that interference never does any good.”
Frances stood by aghast, listening to this conversation. What did it mean? Of what was her mother afraid? Presently Lady Markham took her seat again, with a return to her usual smiling calm. “You are right, and I am wrong,” she said. “Of course we can do nothing. Perhaps, as you say, there is no real reason for anxiety.” (Frances observed, however, that Sir Thomas had not said this.) “It is because the boy is not well off, and his people are not well off—old soldiers, with their pensions and their savings. That is what makes me fear.”
“Oh, if that is the case, you need have the less alarm. Where there’s not much to lose, the risks are lessened,” Sir Thomas said, calmly.
When he too was gone, Frances crept close to her mother. She knelt down beside the chair on which Lady Markham sat, grave and pale, with agitation in her face. “Mother,” she whispered, taking her hand and pressing her cheek against it, “Markham is so kind—he never would do poor George any harm.”
“Oh, my dear,” cried Lady Markham, “how can you tell? Markham is not a man to be read off like a book. He is very kind—which does not hinder him from being cruel too. He means no harm, perhaps; but when the harm is done, what does it matter whether he meant it or not? And as for the risks being lessened because your friend is poor, that only means that he is despatched all the sooner. Markham is like a man with a fever: he has his fits of play, and one of them is on him now.”
“Do you mean—gambling?” said Frances, growing pale too. She did not know very well what gambling was, but it was ruin, she had always heard.
“Don’t let us talk of it,” said Lady Markham. “We can do no good; and to distress ourselves for what we cannot prevent is the worst policy in the world, everybody says. You had better go to bed, dear child; I have some letters to write.”