“Yes, surely, if you wish it, my dear,” said Mr Waring. Something moist had touched his forehead, which was too warm to be rain. He waited politely till she had gone before he wiped it off. It was the edge of a tear, hot, miserable, full of anger as well as pain, which had made that mark upon his high white forehead. It made him pause for a minute or two in his reading. “Poor little girl!” he said, with a sigh. Perhaps he was not so insensible as he seemed.
CHAPTER V.
It is a common impression that happiness and unhappiness are permanent states of mind, and that for long tracts of our lives we are under the continuous sway of one or other of these conditions. But this is almost always a mistake, save in the case of grief, which is perhaps the only emotion which is beyond the reach of the momentary lightenings and alleviations and perpetual vicissitudes of life. Death, and the pangs of separation from those we love, are permanent, at least for their time; but in everything else there is an ebb and flow which keeps the heart alive. When Frances Waring told the story of this period of her life, she represented herself unconsciously as having been oppressed by the mystery that over-shadowed her, and as having lost all the ease of her young life prematurely in a sudden encounter with shadows unsuspected before. But as a matter of fact, this was not the case. She had a bad night—that is, she cried herself asleep; but once over the boundary which divides our waking thoughts from the visions of the night, she knew no more till the sun came in and woke her to a very cheerful morning. It is true that care made several partially successful assaults upon her that day and for several days after. But as everything went on quite calmly and peacefully, the impression wore off. The English family found out, as was inevitable, where Mr Waring lived, without any difficulty; and first the father came, then the mother, and finally the pair together, to call. Frances, to whom a breach of decorum or civility was pain unspeakable, sat trembling and ashamed in the deepest corner of the loggia, while these kind strangers encountered Mariuccia at the door. The scene, as a matter of fact, was rather comic than tragic, for neither the visitors nor the guardian of the house possessed any language but their own; and Mr and Mrs Mannering had as little understanding of the statement that Mr Waring did not “receive” as Frances had expected.
“But he is in—è in casa—è IN?” said the worthy Englishman. “Then, my dear, of course it is only a mistake. When he knows who we are—when he has our names——”
“Non riceve oggi,” said Mariuccia, setting her sturdy breadth in the doorway; “oggi non riceve il signore” (The master does not receive to-day).
“But he is in?” repeated the bewildered good people. They could have understood “Not at home,” which to Mariuccia would have been simply a lie—with which indeed, had need been, or could it have done the padrone any good, she would have burdened her conscience as lightly as any one. But why, when it was not in the least necessary?
Thus they played their little game at cross-purposes, while Frances sat, hot and red with shame, in her corner, sensible to the bottom of her heart of the discourtesy, the unkindness, of turning them from the door. They were her father’s friends; they claimed to have “stuck by him through thick and thin;” they were people who knew about him, and all that he belonged to, and the conditions of his former life; and yet they were turned from his door!
She did not venture to go out again for some days, except in the evening, when she knew that all the strangers were at the inevitable table d’hôte; and it was with a sigh of relief, yet disappointment, that she heard they had gone away. Yes, at last they did go away, angry, no doubt, thinking her father a churl, and she herself an ignorant rustic, who knew nothing about good manners. Of course this was what they must think. Frances heard those words, “Non riceve oggi,” even in her dreams. She saw in imagination the astonished faces of the visitors. “But he will receive us, if you will only take in our names;” and then Mariuccia’s steady voice repeating the well-known phrase. What must they have thought? That it was an insult—that their old friend scorned and defied them. What else could they suppose?
They departed, however, and Frances got over it: and everything went on as before; her father was just as usual—a sphinx indeed, more and more hopelessly wrapped up in silence and mystery, but so natural and easy and kind in his uncommunicativeness, with so little appearance of repression or concealment about him, that it was almost impossible to retain any feeling of injury or displeasure. Love is cheated every day in this way by offenders much more serious, who can make their dependants happy even while they are ruining them, and beguile the bitterest anxiety into forgetfulness and smiles. It was easy to make Frances forget the sudden access of wonderment and wounded feeling which had seized her, even without any special exertion; time alone and the calm succession of the days were enough for that. She resumed her little picture of the palms, and was very successful—more than usually so. Mr Waring, who had hitherto praised her little works as he might have praised the sampler of a child, was silenced by this, and took it away with him into his room, and when he brought it back, looked at her with more attention than he had been used to show. “I think,” he said, “little Fan, that you must be growing up,” laying his hand upon her head with a smile.
“I am grown up, papa; I am eighteen,” she said.