The consternation with which Frances obeyed this request it would be difficult to describe. She had not understood the talk in the drawing-room, and she did not understand this. But it gave her ideas a strange shock. A woman whose husband was dying, and who was away from him—who called Markham by his Christian name, and apparently preferred his ministrations to her own! She would not go back as she came, to afford the ladies in the drawing-room a new subject for their comments, but went out instead by the open door, not thinking that the only path by which she could return indoors led past the window of her mother’s room, which opened on the lawn round the angle of the house. Lady Markham was standing there looking out as Frances came in sight. She knocked upon the window to call her daughter’s attention, and opening it hurriedly, called her in. “Have you seen Markham?” she said, almost before Frances could hear.
“I have left him, this moment.”
“You have left him. Is he alone, then? Who is with him? Is Nelly Winterbourn there?”
Frances could not tell why it was that she disliked to answer. She made a little assenting movement of her head.
“It ought not to be,” cried Lady Markham—“not at this moment—at any other time, if they like, but not now. Don’t you see the difference? Before, nothing was possible. Now—when at any moment she may be a free woman, and Markham—— Don’t you see the difference? They should not, they should not, be together now!”
Frances stood before her mother, feeling that a claim was made upon her which she did not even understand, and feeling also a helplessness which was altogether foreign to her ordinary sensations. She did not understand, nor wish to understand—it was odious to her to think even what it could mean. And what could she do? Lady Markham was agitated and excited—not able to control herself.
“For I have just seen the doctor,” she cried, “and he says that it is a question not even of days, but of hours. Good heavens, child! only think of it,—that such a thing should happen here; and that Markham—Markham!—should have to manage everything. Oh, it is indecent—there is no other word for it. Go and call him to me. We must get him to go away.”
“Mamma,” said Frances, “how can I go back? He told me to go and leave them.”
“He is a fool,” cried Lady Markham, stamping her foot. “He does not see how he is committing himself; he does not mind. Oh, what does it matter what he said to you! Run at once and bring him to me. Say I have something urgent to tell him. Say—oh, say anything! If Constance had been here, she would have known.”
Frances was very sensible to the arrow thus flung at her in haste, without thought. She was so stung by it, that she turned hastily to do her mother’s commission at all costs. But before she had taken half-a-dozen steps, Markham himself appeared, coming leisurely, easily, with his usual composure, round the corner. “What’s wrong with you, little un?” he asked. “You are not vexed at what I said to you, Fan? I couldn’t help it, my dear.”