Frances dropped the hand which she had laid upon his arm. “It shall be exactly as you please, papa. I seem to know a great deal—oh, a great deal more than I knew at dinner. I don’t think I am the same person; and I thought it might save us all trouble if you would tell me—as much as you think I ought to know.”
She had sat down in her usual place, in her careful little modest pose, a little stiff, a little prim—the training of Mariuccia. After Constance, there was something in the attitude of Frances which made her father smile, though he was in no mood for smiling; and it was clear that he could not, that he ought not to escape. He would not sit down, however, and meet her eye. He stood by the table for a few minutes, with his eyes upon the books, turning them over, as if he were looking for something. At last he said, but without looking up, “There is nothing very dreadful to tell; no guilty secret, though you may suppose so. Your mother and I——”
“Then I have really a mother, and she is living?” the girl cried.
He looked at her for a moment. “I forgot that for a girl of your age that means a great deal—I hadn’t thought of it. Perhaps if you knew—— Yes; you have got a mother, and she is living. I suppose that seems a very wonderful piece of news?”
Frances did not say anything. The water came into her eyes. Her heart beat loudly, yet softly, against her young bosom. She had known it, so that she was not surprised. The surprise had been broken by Constance’s careless talk, by the wonder, the doubt, the sense of impossibility, which had gradually yielded to a conviction that it must be so. Her feeling was that she would like to go now, without delay, without asking any more questions, to her mother. Her mother! and he hadn’t thought before how much that meant to a girl—of her age!
Mr Waring was a little disconcerted by having no answer. Of course it meant a great deal to a girl; but still, not so much as to make her incapable of reply. He felt a little annoyed, disturbed, perhaps jealous, as Frances herself had been. It was with difficulty that he resumed again; but it had to be done.
“Your mother and I,” he said, taking up the books again, opening and shutting them, looking at the title-page now of one, now of another, “did not get on very well. I don’t know who was in fault—probably both. She had been married before. She had a son whom you hear Constance speak of as Markham. Markham has been at the bottom of all the trouble. He drove me out of my senses when he was a boy. Now he is a man: so far as I can make out it is he that has disturbed our peace again—hunted us up, and sent Constance here. If you ever meet Markham—and of course now you are sure to meet him—beware of him.” Here he made a pause again, and looked with great seriousness at the book in his hand, turning the leaf to finish a sentence which was continued on the next page.
“I beg your pardon, papa,” said Frances; “I am afraid I am very stupid. What relation is Markham to me?”
He looked at her for a moment, then threw down the book with some violence on the table, as if it were the offender. “He is your step-brother,” he said.
“My—brother? Then I have a brother too?” After a little pause she added, “It is very wonderful, papa, to come into a new world like this all at once. I want—to draw my breath.”