“I always want you,” said Lady Markham, stooping to kiss her. “But I quite understand why you did not come. There was nobody that could have interested you. Some old friends of mine, and a man or two whom Markham brought to dine; but nothing young or pleasant. And did you have a tolerable day? Was poor Caroline a little less grey and cold? But Constance used to tell me she was only cold when I was there.”
“I don’t think she was cold. She was—very kind; at least that is what she meant, I am sure,” said Frances, anxious to do her aunt justice.
Lady Markham laughed softly, with a sort of suppressed satisfaction. She was anxious that Frances should please. She had herself, at a considerable sacrifice of pride, kept up friendly relations, or at least a show of friendly relations, with her husband’s sister. But notwithstanding all this, the tone in which Frances spoke was balm to her. The cloak was an evidence that the girl had succeeded; and yet she had not joined herself to the other side. This unexpected triumph gave a softness to Lady Markham’s voice.
“We must remember,” she said, “that poor Caroline is very much alone. When one is much alone, one’s very voice gets rusty, so to speak. It sounds hoarse in one’s throat. You may think, perhaps, that I have not much experience of that. Still, I can understand; and it takes some time to get it toned into ordinary smoothness. It is either too expressive, or else it sounds cold. A great deal of allowance is to be made for a woman who spends so much of her life alone.”
“Oh yes,” cried Frances, with a burst of tender compunction, taking her mother’s soft white dimpled hand in her own, and kissing it with a fervour which meant penitence as well as enthusiasm. “It is so good of you to remind me of that.”
“Because she has not much good to say of me? My dear, there are a great many things that you don’t know, that it would be hard to explain to you: we must forgive her for that.”
And for a moment Lady Markham looked very grave, turning her face away towards the vacancy of the dark room with something that sounded like a sigh. Her daughter had never loved her so much as at this moment. She laid her cheek upon her mother’s hand, and felt the full sweetness of that contact enter into her heart.
“But I am disturbing your beauty-sleep, my love,” she said; “and I want you to look your best to-morrow; there are several people coming to-morrow. Did she give you that great cloak, Frances? How like poor Caroline! I know the cloak quite well. It is far too old for you. But that is beautiful sable it is trimmed with; it will make you something. She is fond of giving presents.” Lady Markham was very quick—full of the intelligence in which Mrs Clarendon failed. She felt the instinctive loosening of her child’s hands from her own, and that the girl’s cheek was lifted from that tender pillow. “But,” she said, “we’ll say no more of that to-night,” and stooped and kissed her, and drew her covering about her with all the sweetness of that care which Frances had never received before. Nevertheless, the involuntary and horrible feeling that it was clever of her mother to stop when she did and say no more, struck chill to the girl’s very soul.
Next day Mr Ramsay came in the afternoon, and immediately addressed himself to Frances. “I hope you have not forgotten your promise, Miss Waring, to give me all the renseignements. I should not like to lose such a good chance.”
“I don’t think I have any information to give you—if it is about Bordighera, you mean. I am fond of it; but then I have lived there all my life. Constance thought it dull.”