Chapter Forty One.
Aunt Marguerite Makes Plans.
“I could not—I could not. A wife should accept her husband, proud of him, proud of herself, the gift she gives him with her love; and I should have been his disgrace. Impossible! How could I have ever looked him bravely in the face? I should have felt that he must recall the past, and repented when it was too late.”
So mused Louise Vine as she sat trying to work that same evening after a wearisome meal, at which Aunt Marguerite had taken her place to rouse them from their despondent state. So she expressed it, and the result had been painful in the extreme.
Aunt Marguerite’s remedy was change, and she proposed that they should all go for a tour to the south of France.
“Don’t shake your head, George,” she said. “You are not a common person. The lower classes—the uneducated of course—go on nursing their troubles, but it is a duty with people of our position to suffer and be strong. So put the trouble behind us, and show a brave face to the world. You hear this, Louise?”
“Yes, aunt,” said Louise, sadly.
“Then pray listen to it as if you took some interest in what I said, and meant to profit by it, child.”
Louise murmured something suggestive of a promise to profit by her aunt’s wisdom, and the old lady turned to her brother.
“Yes, George, I have planned it all out. We will go to the south of France, to the seaside if you wish, and while Louise and I try and find a little relaxation, you can dabble and net strange things out of the water-pools. Girl; be careful.”
This to poor Liza, whose ears seemed to be red-hot, and her cheeks alternately flushed and pale, as she brought in and took out the dinner, waiting, at other times being dispensed with fortunately. For Liza’s wits were wool-gathering, according to Aunt Marguerite’s theory, and in her agitation respecting the manner in which she had been surprised, when yielding to her mother’s importunities, she was constantly watching the faces or her master and Louise, and calculating the chances for and against ignominious dismissal. One minute she told herself they knew all. The next minute her heart gave a thump of satisfaction, for Louise’s sad eyes had looked so kindly in hers, that Liza told herself her young mistress either did not know or was going to forgive her.
Directly after Liza dropped the cover of a vegetable dish in her agitation right on Aunt Marguerite’s black silk crape-trimmed dress, for her master had told her to bring him bread, and in a tone of voice which thrilled through her as he looked her in the face with, according to her idea, his eyes seeming to say, “This is some of the bread you tried to steal.”
Liza escaped from the room as soon as possible, and was relieving her pent-up feelings at the back door when she heard her name whispered.
“Who’s there? what is it?” she said.
“It’s only me, Liza, my dear. Has she told—”
“Oh, mother! You shouldn’t,” sobbed Liza. “You won’t be happy till you’ve got me put in prison.”
“Nonsense, my dear, they won’t do that. Never you fear. Now look here. What became of that parcel you made up?”
“I don’t know; I’ve been half wild ever since, and I don’t know how it’s going to end.”
“Then I’ll tell you,” cried the old fish-woman. “You’ve got to get me that parcel, or else to make me up another.”
“I won’t; there?” cried Liza angrily.
“How dare you say won’t to your mother, miss!” said the old woman angrily. “Now look here; I’m going a bit farther on, and then I’m coming back, and I shall expect to find the napkin done up all ready. If it isn’t you’ll see.”
Liza stood with her mouth open, listening to her mother’s retiring footsteps; and then with a fresh burst of tears waiting to be wiped away, she ran in to answer the bell, and clear away, shivering the while, as she saw that Aunt Marguerite’s eyes were fixed upon her, watching every movement, and seeming to threaten to reveal what had been discovered earlier in the day.
Aunt Marguerite said nothing, however, then, for her thoughts were taken up with her project of living away for a time. She had been talking away pretty rapidly, first to one and then to the other, but rarely eliciting a reply; but at last she turned sharply upon her brother.
“How soon shall we be going, George?”
“Going? Where?” he replied dreamily.
“On the Continent for our change.”
“We shall not go on the Continent, Marguerite,” he said gravely. “I shall not think of leaving here.”
Aunt Marguerite rose from the table, and gazed at her brother, as if not sure that she had heard aright. Then she turned to her niece, to gaze at her with questioning eyes, but to gain no information there, for Louise gazed down at the work she had taken from a stand.
“Did you understand what your father said?” she asked sharply.
“Yes, aunt.”
“And pray what did he say?”
“That he would not go on the Continent.”
“What?”
“That he would not leave home with this terrible weight upon his mind.”
Aunt Marguerite sat bolt upright in her chair for a few moments without speaking, and the look she gave her brother was of the most withering nature.
“Am I to understand,” she said at last, “that you prefer to stay here and visit and nurse your Dutch friend?”
Her brother looked at her, but there was no trace of anger in his glance.
Aunt Marguerite lowered her eyes, and then turned them in a supercilious way upon Louise.
“May I count upon your companionship,” she said, “if I decide to go through Auvergne and stay there for a few days, on my way to Hyères.”
“If you go, aunt?” said Louise wonderingly.
“There is a certain estate in the neighbourhood of Mont d’Or,” she continued; “I wish to see in what condition it is kept. These things seem to devolve now on me who am forced to take the lead as representative of our neglected family.”
“For Heaven’s sake, Marguerite!” cried Vine impetuously. “No—no, no,” he muttered, checking himself hastily. “Better not—better not.”
“I beg pardon, brother,” she said, raising her glass.
“Nothing—nothing,” he replied.
“Well, Louise, child, I am waiting,” she continued, turning her eyes in a half pitying, condescending way upon her niece. “Well? May I count upon you?”
“Aunt dear—”
“It will do you good. You look too pale. This place crushes you down, and narrows your intellect, my child. A little French society would work a vast change in you.”
“Aunt, dear,” said Louise, rising and crossing to her to lay her hands upon the old lady’s shoulder, “don’t talk about such things now. Let me come up to your room, and read to you a little while.”
Aunt Marguerite smiled.
“My dear Louise, why do you talk to me like this? Do you take me for a child?”
George Vine heaved a deep sigh, and turned in his chair.
“Do you think I have lived all these years in the world and do not know what is best for such a girl as you?”
“But indeed, aunt, I am not ill. I do not require a change.”
“Ah, poor young obstinacy! I must take you well in hand, child, and see if I cannot teach you to comport yourself more in accordance with your position in life. I shall have time now, especially during our little journey. When would it be convenient for you to be ready?”
“Aunt dear! It is impossible; we could not go.”
“Impossible? Then I must speak. You will be ready in three days from now. I feel that I require change, and we will go.”
“Margaret!” cried Vine, who during the past few minutes had been writhing in his seat, “how can you be so absurd!”
“Poor George!” she said, with a sigh, as she rose from her chair. “I wish I could persuade him to go. Mind, Louise, my child, in three days from now. We shall go straight to Paris, perhaps for a month. You need not trouble about dress. A few necessaries. All that you will require we can get in Paris. Come in before you go to bed, I may have a few more words to say.”
She sailed slowly across the room, waving her fan gently, as if it were a wing which helped her progress, as she preserved her graceful carriage. Then the door closed behind her, and Louise half ran to her father’s side.
“Shall I go up with her?” she whispered anxiously.
Her father shook his head.
“But did you not notice how strange she seemed?”
“No more strange, my dear, than she has often been before, after something has agitated her greatly. In her way she was very fond of poor Harry.”
“Yes, father, I know; but I never saw her so agitated as this.”
“She will calm down, as she has calmed down before.”
“But this idea of going abroad?”
“She will forget it by to-morrow. I was wrong to speak as I did. It only sets her thinking more seriously. Poor Margaret! We must be very patient and forbearing with her. Her life was turned out of its regular course by a terrible disappointment. I try always to remember this when she is more eccentric—more trying than usual.”
Louise shrank a little more round to the back of her father’s chair, as he drew her hand over his shoulder, and she laid her cheek upon his head as, with fixed eyes, she gazed straight before her into futurity, and a spasm of pain shot through her at her father’s words, “a terrible disappointment,” “eccentric.” Had Aunt Marguerite ever suffered as she suffered now? and did such mental agony result in changing the whole course of a girl’s young life?
The tears stood in her eyes and dimmed them; but in spite of the blurring of her vision, she seemed to see herself gradually changing and growing old and eccentric too. For was not she also wasting with a terrible disappointment—a blow that must be as agonising as any Aunt Marguerite could have felt?
The outlook seemed so blank and terrible that a strange feeling of excitement came over her, waking dream succeeding waking dream, each more painful than the last; but she was brought back to the present by her father’s voice.
“Why, my darling,” he said, “your hand is quite cold, and you tremble. Come, come, come, you ought to know Aunt Margaret by now. There, it is time I started for Van Heldre’s. I faithfully promised to go back this evening. Perhaps Luke will be there.”
“Yes, father,” she said, making an effort to be calm, “it is time you went down. Give my dear love to Madelaine.”
“Eh? Give your love? why, you are coming too.”
“No, no,” she said hastily; “I—I am not well this evening.”
“No, you are not well,” he said tenderly. “Your hands are icy, and—yes, I expected so, your forehead burns. Why, my darling, you must not be ill.”
“Oh no, dear. I am not going to be ill, I shall be quite well to-morrow.”
“Then come with me. The change will do you good.”
“No; not to-night, father. I would rather stay.”
“But Madelaine is in sad trouble, too, my child, and she will be greatly disappointed, if you do not come.”
“Tell her I felt too unwell, dear,” said Louise imploringly, for her father’s persistence seemed to trouble her more and more; and he looked at her wonderingly, she seemed so agitated.
“But I don’t like to leave you like this, my child.”
“Yes, yes; please go, dear. I shall be so much better alone. There, it is growing late. You will not stop very long.”
“No; an hour or two. I must be guided by circumstances. If that man is there—I cannot help it—I shall stay a very short time.”
“That man, father?”
“Yes,” said Vine, with a shudder. “Crampton. He makes me shiver whenever we meet.”
His face grew agonised as he spoke; and he rose hastily and kissed Louise.
“You will not alter your mind and come?” he said tenderly.
“No, no, father; pray do not press me. I cannot go to-night.”
“Strange!” said George Vine thoughtfully. “Strange that she should want to stay.”
He had crossed the little rock garden, and closed the gate to stand looking back at the old granite house, dwelling sadly upon his children, and mingling thoughts of the determined refusal of Louise to come, with projects which he had had in petto for the benefit of his son.
He shuddered and turned to go along the level platform cut in the great slope before beginning the rapid descent.