Read the book: «Whiteladies», page 31
CHAPTER XXXVI
Reine did not go back from her resolution; she did not change her mind, as her mother expected, and forgive Herbert’s étourderie. Reine could not look upon it as étourderie, and she was too deeply wounded to recover the shock easily; but I think she had the satisfaction of giving an almost equal shock to her brother, who, though he talked so about the limitation of a girl’s understanding, and the superiority of his own, was as much wounded as Reine was, when he found that his sister really meant to desert him. He did not say a word to her, but he denounced to his mother the insensibility of women, who only cared for a fellow so long as he did exactly what they wished, and could not endure him to have the least little bit of his own way. “I should never have heard anything of this if I had taken her about with me everywhere, and gone to bed at ten o’clock, as she wished,” he cried, with bitterness.
“You have reason, mon ’Erbert,” said Madame de Mirfleur; “had you cared for her society, she would never have left you; but it is not amusing to sit at home while les autres are amusing themselves. One would require to be an angel for this.”
“I never thought Reine cared for amusement,” said Herbert; “she never said so; she was always pleased to be at home; it must all have come on, her love for gayety, to spite me.”
Madame de Mirfleur did not reply; she thought it wisest to say nothing in such a controversy, having, I fear, a deep-rooted contempt for the masculine understanding in such matters at least. En revanche, she professed the most unbounded reverence for it in other matters, and liked, as Miss Susan did, to consult “a man” in all difficult questions, though I fear, like Miss Susan, it was only the advice of one who agreed with her that she took. But with Herbert she was silent. What was the use? she said to herself. If he could not see that Reine’s indifference to amusement arose from her affection for himself, what could she say to persuade him of it? and it was against her principles to denounce him for selfishness, as probably an English mother would have done. “Que voulez-vous? it is their nature,” Madame de Mirfleur would have said, shrugging her shoulders. I am not sure, however, that this silence was much more satisfactory to Herbert than an explanation would have been. He was not really selfish, perhaps, only deceived by the perpetual homage that had been paid to him during his illness, and by the intoxicating sense of sudden emancipation now.
As for Everard, he was totally dismayed by the announcement; all the attempts at self-assertion which he had intended to make failed him. As was natural, he took this, not in the least as affecting Herbert, but only as a pointed slight addressed to himself. He had left home to please her at Christmas, of all times in the year, when everybody who has a home goes back to it, when no one is absent who can help it. And though her invitation was no invitation, and was not accompanied by one conciliating word, he had obeyed the summons, almost, he said to himself, at a moment’s notice; and she for whom he came, though she had not asked him, she had withdrawn herself from the party! Everard said to himself that he would not stay, that he would push on at once to Italy, and prove to her that it was not her or her society that had tempted him. He made up his mind to this at once, but he did not do it. He lingered next day, and next day again. He thought it would be best not to commit himself to anything till he had talked to Reine; if he had but half an hour’s conversation with her he would be able to see whether it was her mother’s doing. A young man in such circumstances has an instinctive distrust of a mother. Probably it was one of Madame de Mirfleur’s absurd French notions. Probably she thought it not entirely comme il faut that Reine, now under her brother’s guardianship, should be attended by Everard. Ridiculous! but on the whole it was consolatory to think that this might be the mother’s doing, and that Reine was being made a victim of like himself. But (whether this also was her mother’s doing he could not tell) to get an interview with Reine was beyond his power. He had no chance of saying a word to her till he had been at least ten days in Cannes, and the time of her departure with Madame de Mirfleur was drawing near. One evening, however, he happened to come into the room when Reine had stepped out upon the balcony, and followed her there hastily, determined to seize the occasion. It was a mild evening, not moonlight, as (he felt) it ought to have been, but full of the soft lightness of stars, and the luminous reflection of the sea. Beyond her, as she stood outside the window, he saw the sweep of dim blue, with edges of white, the great Mediterranean, which forms the usual background on this coast. There was too little light for much color, only a vague blueness or grayness, against which the slim, straight figure rose. He stepped out softly not to frighten her; but even then she started, and looked about for some means of escape, when she found herself captured and in his power. Everard did not take any sudden or violent advantage of his luck. He began quite gently, with an Englishman’s precaution, to talk of the weather and the beautiful night.
“It only wants a moon to be perfect,” he said. “Do you remember, Reine, the balcony at Kandersteg? I always associate you with balconies and moons. And do you remember, at Appenzell – ”
It was on her lips to say, “Don’t talk of Appenzell!” almost angrily, but she restrained herself. “I remember most things that have happened lately,” she said; “I have done nothing to make me forget.”
“Have I?” said Everard, glad of the chance; for to get an opening for reproach or self-defence was exactly what he desired.
“I did not say so. I suppose we both remember all that there is to remember,” said Reine, and she added hastily, “I don’t mean anything more than I say.”
“It almost sounds as if you did – and to see your letter,” said Everard, “no one would have thought you remembered anything, or that we had ever known each other. Reine, Reine, why are you going away?”
“Why am I going away? I am not going what you call, away. I am going rather, as we should say, home – with mamma. Is it not the most natural thing to do?”
“Did you ever call Madame do Mirfleur’s house home before?” said Everard; “do you mean it? Are not you coming to Whiteladies, to your own country, to the place you belong to? Reine, you frighten me. I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Do I belong to Whiteladies? Is England my country?” said Reine. “I am not so sure as you are. I am a Frenchwoman’s daughter, and perhaps, most likely, it will turn out that mamma’s house is the only one I have any right to.”
Here she paused, faltering, to keep the tears out of her voice. Everard did not see that her lip was quivering, but he discovered it in the tremulous sound.
“What injustice you are doing to everybody!” he cried indignantly. “How can you treat us so?”
“Treat you? I was not thinking of you,” said Reine. “Herbert will go to Whiteladies in May. It is home to him; but what is there that belongs to a girl? Supposing Herbert marries, would Whiteladies be my home? I have no right, no place anywhere. The only thing, I suppose, a girl has a right to is, perhaps, her mother. I have not even that – but mamma would give me a home. I should be sure of a home at least – ”
“I do not understand you, Reine.”
“It is tout simple, as mamma says; everything is tout simple,” she said; “that Herbert should stand by himself, not wanting me; and that I should have nothing and nobody in the world. Tout simple. I am not complaining; I am only saying the truth. It is best that I should go to Normandy and try to please mamma. She does not belong to me, but I belong to her, in a way – and she would never be unkind to me. Well, there is nothing so very wonderful in what I say. Girls are like that; they have nothing belonging to them; they are not meant to have, mamma would say. It is tout simple; they are meant to ménager, and to cajole, and to submit; and I can do the last. That is why I say that, most likely, Normandy will be my home after all.”
“You cannot mean this,” said Everard, troubled. “You never could be happy there; why should you change now? Herbert and you have been together all your lives; and if he marries – ” Here Everard drew a long breath and made a pause. “You could not be happy with Monsieur, your stepfather, and all the little Mirfleurs,” he said.
“One can live, one can get on, without being happy,” cried Reine. Then she laughed. “What is the use of talking? One has to do what one must. Let me go in, please. Balconies and moonlights are not good. To think too much, to talk folly, may be very well for you who can do what you please, but they are not good for girls. I am going in now.”
“Wait one moment, Reine. Cannot you do what you please? – not only for yourself, but for others. Everything will be changed if you go; as for me, you don’t care about me, what I feel – but Herbert. He has always been your charge; you have thought of him before everything – ”
“And so I do now,” cried the girl. Two big tears dropped out of her eyes. “So I do now! Bertie shall not think me a burden, shall not complain of me if I should die. Let me pass, please. Everard, may I not even have so much of my own will as to go out or in if I like? I do not ask much more.”
Everard stood aside, but he caught the edge of her loose sleeve as she passed him, and detained her still a moment. “What are you thinking of? what have you in your mind?” he said humbly. “Have you changed, or have I changed, or what has gone wrong? I don’t understand you, Reine.”
She stood for a moment hesitating, as if she might have changed her tone; but what was there to say? “I am not changed that I know of; I cannot tell whether you are changed or not,” she said. “Nothing is wrong; it is tout simple, as mamma says.”
What was tout simple? Everard had not a notion what was in her mind, or how it was that the delicate poise had been disturbed, and Reine taught to feel the disadvantage of her womanhood. She had not been in the habit of thinking or feeling anything of the kind. She had not been aware even for years and years, as her mother had said, whether she was girl or boy. The discovery had come all at once. Everard pondered dimly and with perplexity how much he had to do with it, or what it was. But indeed he had nothing to do with it; the question between Reine and himself was a totally different question from the other which was for the moment supreme in her mind. Had she been free to think of it, I do not suppose Reine would have felt in much doubt as to her power over Everard. But it was the other phase of her life which was uppermost for the moment.
He followed her into the lighted room, where Madame de Mirfleur sat at her tapisserie in the light of the lamp. But when Reine went to the piano and began to sing “Ma Normandie,” with her sweet young fresh voice, he retreated again to the balcony, irritated by the song more than by anything she had said. Madame de Mirfleur, who was a musician too, added a mellow second to the refrain of her child’s song. The voices suited each other, and a prettier harmony could not have been, nor a more pleasant suggestion to any one whose mind was in tune. Indeed, it made the mother feel happy for the moment, though she was herself doubtful how far Reine’s visit to the Norman château would be a success. “Je vais revoir ma Normandie,” the girl sang, very sweetly; the mother joined in; mother and daughter were going together to that simple rural home, while the young men went out into the world and enjoyed themselves. What more suitable, more pleasant for all parties? But Everard felt himself grow hot and angry. His temper flamed up with unreasonable, ferocious impatience. What a farce it was, he cried bitterly to himself. What did that woman want with Reine? she had another family whom she cared for much more. She would make the poor child wretched when she got her to that detestable Normandie they were singing about with so much false sentiment. Of course it was all some ridiculous nonsense of hers about propriety, something that never could have come into Reine’s poor dear little innocent head if it had not been put there. When a young man is angry with the girl he is fond of, what a blessing it is when she has a mother upon whom he can pour out his wrath! The reader knows how very little poor Madame de Mirfleur had to do with it. But though she was somewhat afraid of her daughter’s visit, and anxious about its success, Reine’s song was very pleasant to her, and she liked to put in that pretty second, and to feel that her child’s sweet voice was in some sense an echo of her own.
“Thanks, chérie,” she said when Reine closed the piano. “I love thy song, and I love thee for singing it. Tiens, my voice goes with your fresh voice well enough still.”
She was pleased, poor soul; but Everard, glaring at her from the balcony, would have liked to do something to Madame de Mirfleur had the rules of society permitted. He “felt like hurling things at her,” like Maria in the play.
Yet – I do not know how it came to pass, but so it was – even then Everard did not carry out his intention of making a start on his own account, and going off and leaving the little party which was just about to break up, each going his or her own way. He lingered and lingered still till the moment came when the ladies had arranged to leave. Herbert by this time had made up his mind to go on to Italy too, and Everard, in spite of himself, found that he was tacitly pledged to be his young cousin’s companion, though Bertie without Reine was not particularly to his mind. Though he had been partially weaned from his noisy young friends by Everard’s presence, Herbert had still made his boyish desire to emancipate himself sufficiently apparent to annoy and bore the elder man, who having long known the delights of freedom, was not so eager to claim them, nor so jealous of their infringement. Everard had no admiration for the billiard-rooms or smoking-rooms, or noisy, boyish parties which Herbert preferred so much to the society of his mother and sister. “Please yourself,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, as he left the lad at the door of these brilliant centres of society; and this shrug had more effect upon Herbert’s mind than dozens of moral lectures. His first doubt, indeed, as to whether the “life” which he was seeing, was not really of the most advanced and brilliant kind, was suggested to him by that contemptuous movement of his cousin’s shoulders. “He is a rustic, he is a Puritan,” Herbert said to himself, but quite unconsciously Everard’s shrug was as a cloud over his gayety. Everard, however, shrugged his shoulders much more emphatically when he found that he was expected to act the part of guide, philosopher, and friend to the young fellow, who was no longer an invalid, and who was so anxious to see the world. Once upon a time he had been very ready to undertake the office, to give the sick lad his arm, to wheel him about in his chair, to carry him up or down stairs when that was needful.
“But you don’t expect me to be Herbert’s nurse all by myself,” he said ruefully, just after Madame de Mirfleur had made a pretty little speech to him about the benefit which his example and his society would be to her boy. Reine was in the room too, working demurely at her mother’s tapisserie, and making no sign.
“He wants no nurse,” said Madame de Mirfleur, “thank God; but your society, cher Monsieur Everard, will be everything for him. It will set our minds at ease. Reine, speak for thyself, then. Do not let Monsieur Everard go away without thy word too.”
Reine raised her eyes from her work, and gave a quick, sudden glance at him. Then Everard saw that her eyes were full of tears. Were they for him? were they for Herbert? were they, for herself? He could not tell. Her voice was husky and strained very different from the clear carol with which this night even, over again, she had given forth the quavering notes of “Ma Normandie.” How he hated the song which she had taken to singing over and over again when nobody wanted it! But her voice just then had lost all its music, and he was glad.
“Everard knows – what I would say,” said Reine. “He always was – very good to Bertie;” and here her tears fell. They were so big that they made a storm of themselves, and echoed as they fell, these two tears.
“But speak, then,” said her mother, “we go to-morrow; there is no more time to say anything after to-night.”
Reine’s eyes had filled again. She was exercising great control over herself, and would not weep nor break down, but she could not keep the tears out of her eyes. “He is not very strong,” she said, faltering, “he never was – without some one to take care of him – before. Oh! how can I speak? Perhaps I am forsaking him for my own poor pride, after all. If he got ill what should I do?”
“Chérie, if he gets ill, it will be the will of God; thou canst do no more. Tell what you wish to your cousin. Monsieur Everard is very good and kind; he will watch over him; he will take care of him – ”
“I know, I know!” said Reine, under her breath, making a desperate effort to swallow down the rising sob in her throat.
Through all this Everard sat very still, with a rueful sort of smile on his face. He did not like it, but what could he say? He had no desire to watch over Herbert, to take care of him, as Madame de Mirfleur said; but he was soft-hearted, and his very soul was melted by Reine’s tears, though at the same time they wounded him; for, alas! there was very little appearance of any thought for him, Everard, in all she looked and said.
And then there followed a silence in which, if he had been a brave man, he would have struck a stroke for liberty, and endeavored to get out of this thankless office; and he fully meant to do it; but sat still looking at the lamp, and said nothing, though the opportunity was afforded him. A man who has so little courage or presence of mind surely deserves all his sufferings.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Everard and Herbert made their tour through Italy without very much heart for the performance; but partly out of pride, partly because, when once started on a giro of any kind, it is easier to go on than to turn back, they accomplished it. On Herbert’s part, indeed, there was occasion for a very strong backbone of pride to keep him up, for the poor young fellow, whose health was not so strong as he thought, had one or two warnings of this fact, and when shut up for a week or two in Rome or in Naples, longed unspeakably for the sister who had always been his nurse and companion. Everard was very kind, and gave up a great deal of his time to the invalid; but it was not to be expected that he should absolutely devote himself, as Reine did, thinking of nothing in the world but Herbert. He had, indeed, many other things to think of, and when the state of convalescence was reached, he left the patient to get better as he could, though he was very good to him when he was absolutely ill. What more could any one ask? But poor Herbert wanted more. He wanted Reine, and thus learned how foolish it was to throw his prop away. Reine in the meanwhile wanted him, and spent many wretched hours in the heart of that still Normandy, longing to be with the travellers, to know what they were about, and how her brother arranged his life without her. The young men arrived at the Château Mirfleur at the earliest moment permissible, getting there in the end of April, to pick up Reine; and as they had all been longing for this meeting, any clouds that had risen on the firmament dispersed at once before the sunshine.
They were so glad to be together again, that they did not ask why or how they had separated. And instead of singing “Ma Normandie,” as she had done at Cannes, Reine sang “Home, sweet home,” bringing tears into the eyes of the wanderers with that tender ditty. Herbert and she were indeed much excited about their home-going, as was natural. They had not been at Whiteladies for six years, a large slice out of their young lives. They had been boy and girl when they left it, and now they were man and woman. And all the responsibilities of life awaited Herbert, now three-and-twenty, in full possession of his rights. In the first tenderness of the reunion Reine and he had again many talks over this life which was now beginning – a different kind of life from that which he thought, poor boy, he was making acquaintance with in billiard-rooms, etc. I think he had ceased to confide in the billiard-room version of existence, but probably not so much from good sense or any virtue of his, as from the convincing effect of those two “attacks” which he had been assailed by at Rome and Naples, and which proved to him that he was not yet strong enough to dare vulgar excitements, and turn night into day.
As for Everard, it seemed to him that it was his fate to be left in the lurch. He had been told off to attend upon Herbert and take care of him when he had no such intention, and now, instead of rewarding him for his complaisance, Reine was intent upon cementing her own reconciliation with her brother, and making up for what she now represented to herself as her desertion of him. Poor Everard could not get a word or a look from her, but was left in a whimsical solitude to make acquaintance with Jeanot and Babette, and to be amiable to M. de Mirfleur, whom his wife’s children were not fond of. Everard found him very agreeable, being driven to take refuge with the honest, homely Frenchman, who had more charity for Herbert and Reine than they had for him. M. de Mirfleur, like his wife, found many things to be tout simple which distressed and worried the others. He was not even angry with the young people for their natural reluctance to acknowledge himself, which indeed showed very advanced perceptions in a step-father, and much forbearance. He set down all their farouche characteristics to their nationality. Indeed, there was in the good man’s mind, an evident feeling that the fact of being English explained everything. Everard was left to the society of M. de Mirfleur and the children, who grew very fond of him, and indeed it was he who derived the most advantage from his week in Normandy, if he had only been able to see it in that light. But I am not sure that he did not think the renewed devotion of friendship between the brother and sister excessive; for it was not until they were ploughing the stormy seas on the voyage from Havre, which was their nearest seaport, to England, that he had so much as a chance of a conversation with Reine. Herbert, bound to be well on his triumphal return home, had been persuaded to go below and escape the night air. But Reine, who was in a restless condition, full of suppressed excitement, and a tolerable sailor besides, could not keep still. She came up to the deck when the night was gathering, the dark waves running swiftly by the ship’s side, the night-air blowing strong (for there was no wind, the sailors said) through the bare cordage, and carrying before it the huge black pennon of smoke from the funnel.
The sea was not rough. There was something congenial to the commotion and excitement of Reine’s spirit in the throb and bound of the steamer, and in the dark waves, with their ceaseless movement, through which, stormy and black and full of mysterious life as they looked, the blacker solid hull pushed its resistless way. She liked the strong current of the air, and the sense of progress, and even the half-terror of that dark world in which this little floating world held its own between sky and sea. Everard tossed his cigar over the ship’s side when he saw her, and came eagerly forward and drew her hand through his arm. It was the first time he had been able to say a word to her since they met. But even then Reine’s first question was not encouraging.
“How do you think Bertie is looking?” she said.
Every man, however, be his temper ever so touchy, can be patient when the inducement is strong enough. Everard, though deeply tempted to make a churlish answer, controlled himself in a second, and replied —
“Very well, I think; not robust, perhaps, Reine; you must not expect him all at once to look robust.”
“I suppose not,” she said, with a sigh.
“But quite well, which is much more important. It is not the degree, but the kind, that is to be looked at,” said Everard, with a great show of wisdom. “Strength is one thing, health is another; and it is not the most robustious men,” he went on with a smile, “who live longest, Reine.”
“I suppose not,” she repeated. Then after a pause, “Do you think, from what you have seen of him, that he will be active and take up a country life? There is not much going on at Whiteladies; you say you found your life dull?”
“To excuse myself for coming when you called upon me, Reine.”
“Ah! but I did not call you. I never should have ventured. Everard, you are doing me injustice. How could I have taken so much upon myself?”
“I wish you would take a great deal more upon yourself. You did, Reine. You said, ‘Stand in my place.’ ”
“Yes, I know; my heart was breaking. Forgive me, Everard. Whom could I ask but you?”
“I will forgive you anything you like, if you say that. And I did take your place, Reine. I did not want to, mind you – I wanted to be with you, not Bertie – but I did.”
“Everard, you are kind, and so cruel. Thanks! thanks a thousand times!”
“I do not want to be thanked,” he said, standing over her; for she had drawn her hand from his arm, and was standing by the steep stairs which led below, ready for escape. “I don’t care for thanks. I want to be rewarded. I am not one of the generous kind. I did not do it for nothing. Pay me, Reine!”
Reine looked him in the face very sedately. I do not think that his rudeness alarmed, or even annoyed her, to speak of. A gleam of malice came into her eyes; then a gleam of something else, which was, though it was hard to see it, a tear. Then she suddenly took his hand, kissed it before Everard had time to stop her, and fled below. And when she reached the safe refuge of the ladies’ cabin, where no profane foot could follow her, Reine took off her hat, and shook down her hair, which was all blown about by the wind, and laughed to herself. When she turned her eyes to the dismal little swinging lamp overhead, that dolorous light reflected itself in such glimmers of sunshine as it had never seen before.
How gay the girl felt! and mischievous, like a kitten. Pay him! Reine sat down on the darksome hair-cloth sofa in the corner, with wicked smiles curling the corners of her mouth; and then she put her hands over her face, and cried. The other ladies, poor souls! were asleep or poorly, and paid no attention to all this pantomime. It was the happiest moment she had had for years, and this is how she ran away from it; but I don’t think that the running away made her enjoy it the less.
As for Everard, he was left on deck feeling somewhat discomfited. It was the second time this had happened to him. She had kissed his hand before, and he had been angry and ashamed, as it was natural a man should be, of such an inappropriate homage. He had thought, to tell the truth, that his demand for payment was rather an original way of making a proposal; and he felt himself laughed at, which is, of all things in the world, the thing most trying to a lover’s feelings. But after awhile, when he had lighted and smoked a cigar, and fiercely perambulated the deck for ten minutes, he calmed down, and began to enter into the spirit of the situation. Such a response, if it was intensely provoking, was not, after all, very discouraging. He went downstairs after awhile (having, as the reader will perceive, his attack of the love-sickness rather badly), and looked at Herbert, who was extended on another dismal sofa, similar to the one on which Reine indulged her malice, and spread a warm rug over him, and told him the hour, and that “we’re getting on famously, old fellow!” with the utmost sweetness. But he could not himself rest in the dreary cabin, under the swinging lamp, and went back on deck, where there was something more congenial in the fresh air, the waves running high, the clouds breaking into dawn.
They arrived in the afternoon by a train which had been selected for them by instructions from Whiteladies; and no sooner had they reached the station than the evidence of a great reception made itself apparent. The very station was decorated as if for royalty. Just outside was an arch made of green branches, and sweet with white boughs of the blossomed May. Quite a crowd of people were waiting to welcome the travellers – the tenants before mentioned, not a very large band, the village people in a mass, the clergy, and several of the neighbors in their carriages, including the Farrel-Austins. Everybody who had any right to such a privilege pressed forward to shake hands with Herbert. “Welcome home!” they cried, cheering the young man, who was so much surprised and affected that he could scarcely speak to them. As for Reine, between crying and smiling, she was incapable of anything, and had to be almost lifted into the carriage. Kate and Sophy Farrel-Austin waved their handkerchiefs and their parasols, and called out, “Welcome, Bertie!” over the heads of the other people. They were all invited to a great dinner at Whiteladies on the next day, at which half the county was to be assembled; and Herbert and Reine were especially touched by the kind looks of their cousins. “I used not to like them,” Reine said, when the first moment of emotion was over, and they were driving along the sunny high-road toward Whiteladies; “it shows how foolish one’s judgments are;” while Herbert declared “they were always jolly girls, and, by Jove! as pretty as any he had seen for ages.” Everard did not say anything; but then they had taken no notice of him. He was on the back seat, not much noticed by any one; but Herbert and Reine were the observed of all observers. There were two or three other arches along the rural road, and round each a little group of the country folks, pleased with the little show, and full of kindly welcomes. In front of the Almshouses all the old people were drawn up, and a large text, done in flowers, stretched along the front of the old red-brick building. “I cried unto the Lord, and He heard me,” was the inscription; and trim old Dr. Richard, in his trim canonicals, stood at the gate in the centre of his flock when the carriage stopped.
