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{v3-20} 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{v3-21} 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{v3-22} 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,{v3-23} 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{v3-24} 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.{v3-25}
“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{v3-26} 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.{v3-27}
“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{v3-28} 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............