Frances was quiet too, and there was in her also the vehemence of a tranquil nature transported beyond all ordinary bounds.
Mrs Clarendon stopped and looked at her fixedly, then suddenly changed her tone. “Your father might have written to me,” she said—“he might have written to me. He is my only brother, and I am all that remains of the family, now that Minnie, poor Minnie, who was so much mixed up with it all, is gone. It was natural enough that he should go away. I always understood him, if nobody else did; but he might have trusted his own family, who would never, never have betrayed him. And to think that I should owe my knowledge of him now to that ill-grown, ill-conditioned—— O Frances, it was a bitter pill! To owe my knowledge of my brother and of you and everything about you to Markham—I shall never be able to forget how bitter it was.”
“You forget that Markham is my brother, aunt Caroline.”
“He is nothing of the sort. He is your half-brother, if you care to keep up the connection at all. But some people don’t think much of it. It is the father’s side that counts. But don’t let us argue about that. Tell me how is your father? Tell me all about him. I love you dearly, for his sake; but above everything, I want to hear about him. I never had any other brother. How is he, Frances? To think that I should never have seen or heard of him for twelve long years!”
“My father is—very well,” said Frances, with a sort of strangulation both in heart and voice, not knowing what to say.
“‘Very well!’ Oh, that is not much to satisfy me with, after so long! Where is he—and how is he living—and have you been a very good child to him, Frances? He deserves a good child, for he was a good son. Oh, tell me a little about him. Did he tell you everything about us? Did he say how fond and how proud we were of him? and how happy we used to be at home all together? He must have told you. If you knew how I go back to those old days! We were such a happy united family. Life is always disappointing. It does not bring you what you think, and it is not everybody that has the comfort we have in looking back upon their youth. He must have told you of our happy life at home.”
Frances had kept the secret of her father’s silence from every one who had a right to blame him for it. But here she felt herself to be bound by no such precaution. His sister was on his side. It was in his defence and in passionate partisanship for him that she had assailed the mother to the child. Frances had even a momentary angry pleasure in telling the truth without mitigation or softening. “I don’t know whether you will believe me,” she said, “but my father told me nothing. He never said a word to me about his past life or any one connected with him; neither you nor—any one.” Though she had the kindest heart in the world, and never had harmed a living creature, it gave Frances almost a little pang of pleasure to deliver this blow.
Mrs Clarendon received it, so to speak, full in the face, as she leaned forward, eagerly waiting for what Frances had to say. She looked at the girl aghast, the colour changing in her face, a sudden exclamation dying away in her throat. But after the first keen sensation, she drew herself together and regained her self-control. “Yes, yes,” she cried; “I understand. He could not enter into anything about us without telling you of—others. He was always full of good feeling—and so just! No doubt, he thought if you heard our side, you should hear the other. But when you were coming away—when he knew you must hear everything, what message did he give you for me?”
In sight of the anxiety which shone in her aunt’s eyes, and the eager bend towards her of the rigid straight figure not used to any yielding, Frances began to feel as if she were the culprit. “Indeed,” she said, hesitating, “he never said anything. I came here in ignorance. I never knew I had a mother till Constance came—nor any relations. I heard of my aunt for the first time from—mamma; and then to conceal my ignorance, I asked Markham; I wanted no one to know.”
It was some minutes before Mrs Clarendon spoke. Her eyes slowly filled with tears, as she kept them fixed upon Frances. The blow went very deep; it struck at illusions which were perhaps more dear than anything in her actual existence. “You heard of me for the first time from—— Oh, that was cruel, that was cruel of Edward,” she cried, clasping her hands together—“of me for the first time—and you had to ask Markham! And I, that was his favourite sister, and that never forgot him, never for a day!”