This was too profound a saying to be understood at the first moment, and Frances had no reply to make to it. She said only by way of apology, “But Markham approved?”
“My love,” said her mother, “Markham is an excellent son to me. He rarely wounds me himself—which is perhaps because he rarely does anything particular himself—but he is not always a safe guide. It makes me very happy to see that you take to him, though you must have heard many things against him; but he is not a safe guide. Hush! here are the men coming up-stairs. If Claude talks to you, be as gentle with him as you can—and sympathetic, if you can,” she said quickly, rising from her chair, and moving in her noiseless easy way to the other side. Frances felt as if there was a meaning even in this movement, which left herself alone with a vacant seat beside her; but she was confused as usual by all the novelty, and did not understand what the meaning was.
It was balked, however, if it had anything to do with Mr Ramsay, for it was the other gentleman—the old gentleman, as Frances called him in her thoughts—who came up and took the vacant place. The old gentleman was a man about forty-five, with a few grey hairs among the brown, and a well-knit manly figure, which showed very well between the delicate youth on the one hand and Markham’s insignificance on the other. He was Sir Thomas, whom Lady Markham had declared to be of no particular interest to any one; but he evidently had sense enough to see the charm of simplicity and youth. The attention of Frances was sadly distracted by the movements of Claude, who fidgeted about from one table to another, looking at the books and the nick-nacks upon them, and staring at the pictures on the walls, then finally came and stood by Markham’s side in front of the fire. He did well to contrast himself with Markham. He was taller, and the beauty of his countenance showed still more strikingly in contrast with Markham’s odd little wrinkled face. Frances was distracted by the look which he kept fixed upon herself, and which diverted her attention in spite of herself away from the talk of Sir Thomas, who was, however, very nice, and, she felt sure, most interesting and instructive, as became his advanced age, if only she could attend to what he was saying. But what with the lively talk which her mother carried on with Markham, and to which she could not help listening all through the conversation of Sir Thomas, and the movements and glances of the melancholy young lover, she could not fix her mind upon the remarks that were addressed to her own ear. When Claude began to join languidly in the other talk, it was more difficult still. “You have got a new picture, Lady Markham,” she heard him say; and a sudden quickening of her attention and another wave of colour and heat passing over her, arrested even Sir Thomas in the much more interesting observation which presumably he was about to make. He paused, as if he, too, waited to hear Lady Markham’s reply.
“Shall we call it a picture? It is my little girl’s sketch from her window where she has been living—her present to her mother; and I think it is delightful, though in the circumstances I don’t pretend to be a judge.”
Where she has been living! Frances grew redder and hotter in the flush of indignation that went over her. But she could not stand up and proclaim that it was from her home, her dear loggia, the place she loved best in the world, that the sketch was made. Already the bonds of another life were upon her, and she dared not do that. And then there was a little chorus of praise, which silenced her still more effectually. It was the group of palms which she had been so simply proud of, which—as she had never forgotten—had made her father say that she had grown up. Lady Markham had placed it on a small easel on her table; but Frances could not help feeling that this was less for any pleasure it gave her mother, than in order to make a little exhibition of her own powers. It was, to be sure, in her own honour that this was done—and what so natural as that the mother should seek to do her daughter honour? but Frances was deeply sensitive, and painfully conscious of the strange tangled web of motives, which she had never in her life known anything about before. Had the little picture been hung in her mother’s bedroom, and seen by no eyes but her own, the girl would have found the most perfect pleasure in it; but here, exhibited as in a public gallery, examined by admiring eyes, calling forth all the incense of praise, it was with a mixture of shame and resentment that Frances found it out. It produced this result, however, that Sir Thomas rose, as in duty bound, to examine the performance of the daughter of the house; and presently young Ramsay, who had been watching his opportunity, took the place by her side.
“I have been waiting for this,” he said, with his air of pathos. “I have so many things to ask you, if you will let me, Miss Waring.”
“Surely,” Frances said.
“Your sketch is very sweet—it is full of feeling—there is no colour like that of the Riviera. It is the Riviera, is it not?”
“Oh yes,” cried Frances, eager to seize the opportunity of making it apparent that it was not only where she had been living, as her mother said. “It is from Bordighera, from our loggia, where I have lived all my life.”
“You will find no colour and no vegetation like that near London,” the young man said.