“Offensive and defensive,” said Sir Thomas. “We have given each other mutual commissions, and we are great friends, as you see. But these are our little secrets, which we don’t mean to tell. How is Nelly, Lady Markham? And is it all right about the will?”
“The will is the least of my cares. I could not inquire into that, as you may suppose; nor is there any need, so far as I know. Nelly is quite enough to have on one’s hands, without thinking of the will. She is very nervous and very headstrong. She would have rushed away out of the house, if I had not used—almost force. She cannot bear to be under the same roof with death.”
“It was the old way. I scarcely wonder, for my part: for it was never pretended, I suppose, that there was any love in the matter.”
“Oh no” (Lady Markham looked at her own elderly knight and at her young daughter, and said to herself, What if Frances——?); “there was no love. But she has always been very good, and done her duty by him—that, everybody will say.”
“Poor Nelly!—that is quite true. But still I should not like, if I were such a fool as to marry a young wife, to have her do her duty to me in that way.”
“You would be very different,” said Lady Markham with a smile. “I should not think you a fool at all; and I should think her a lucky woman.” She said this with Nelly Winterbourn’s voice still ringing in her ears.
“Happily, I am not going to put it to the test. Now, I must go—to look after your affairs, Miss Frances; and remember that you are pledged to look after mine in return.”
Lady Markham looked after him very curiously as he went away. She thought, as women so often think, that men were very strange, inscrutable—“mostly fools,” at least in one way. To think that perhaps little Frances—— It would be a great match, greater than Claude Ramsay—as good in one point of view, and in other respects far better than Nelly St John’s great marriage with the rich Mr Winterbourn. “I am glad you like him so much, Frances,” she said. “He is not young—but he has every other quality; as good as ever man was, and so considerate and kind. You may take him into your confidence fully.” She waited a moment to see if the child had anything to say; then, too wise to force or precipitate matters, went on: “Poor Nelly gives me great anxiety, Frances. I wish the funeral were over, and all well. Her nerves are in such an excited state, one can’t feel sure what she may do or say. The servants and people happily think it grief; but to see Sarah Winterbourn looking at her fills me with fright, I can’t tell why. She doesn’t think it is grief. And how should it be? A dreadful, cold, always ill, repulsive man. But I hope she may be kept quiet, not to make a scandal until after the funeral at least. I don’t know what she said to you, my love, that day; but you must not pay any attention to what a woman says in such an excited state. Her marriage has been unfortunate (which is a thing that may happen in any circumstances), not because Mr Winterbourn was such a good match, but because he was such a disagreeable man.”
Frances, who had no clue to her mother’s thoughts, or to any appropriateness in this short speech, had little interest in it. She said, somewhat stiffly, that she was sorry for poor Mrs Winterbourn—but much more sorry for her own mother, who was having so much trouble and anxiety. Lady Markham smiled upon her, and kissed her tenderly. It was a relief to her mind, in the midst of all those anxious questions, to have a new channel for her thoughts; and upon this new path she threw herself forth in the fulness of a lively imagination, leaving fact far behind, and even probability. She was indeed quite conscious of this, and voluntarily permitted herself the pleasant exercise of building a new castle in the air. Little Frances! And she said to herself there would be no drawback in such a case. It would be the finest match of the season; and no mother need fear to trust her daughter in Sir Thomas’s hands.
Sir Thomas came back next morning when Lady Markham was again absent. He informed Frances that he had gone to several places where he was told Captain Gaunt was likely to be found, and had seen Markham as usual “frittering himself away;” but Gaunt had nowhere been visible. “Some one said he had fallen ill. If that is so, it is the best thing that could happen. One has some hope of getting hold of him so.” But where did he live? That was the question. Markham did not know, nor any one about. That was the first thing to be discovered, Sir Thomas said. For the first time, Frances appreciated her mother’s business-like arrangements for her great correspondence, which made an address-book so necessary. She found Gaunt’s address there; and passed the rest of the day in anxiety, which she could confide to no one, learning for the first time those tortures of suspense which to so many women form a great part of existence. Frances thought the day would never end. It was so much the more dreadful to her that she had to shut it all up in her own bosom, and endeavour to enter into other anxieties, and sympathise with her mother’s continual panic as to what Nelly Winterbourn might do. The house altogether was in a state of suppressed excitement; even the servants—or perhaps the servants most keenly of any, with their quick curiosity and curious divination of any change in the atmosphere of a family—feeling the thrill of approaching revolution. Frances with her private preoccupation was blunted to this; but when Sir Thomas arrived in the evening, it was all she could do to curb herself and keep within the limits of ordinary rule. She sprang up, indeed, when she heard his step on the stair, and went off to the further corner of the room, where she could read his face out of the dimness before he spoke; and where, perhaps, he might seek her, and tell her, under some pretence. These movements were keenly noted by her mother, as was also the alert air of Sir Thomas, and his interest and activity, though he looked very grave. But Frances did not require to wait for the news she looked for so anxiously.