“How is it, I wonder,” said one of them, changing the subject after a little polite pause, which suggested fatigue, “that Mrs Winterbourn is not here this year?”
They looked at her for this information, to the consternation of Frances, who did not know how to reply. “You know I have not been long—here,” she said: she had intended to say at home, but the effort was beyond her—“and I don’t even know who Mrs Winterbourn is.”
“Oh!” they both cried; and then for a minute there was nothing more. “You may think it strange of us to speak of it,” said Maud at length; “only, it always seemed so well understood; and we have always met her here.”
“Oh, she goes everywhere,” cried Ethel. “There never was a word breathed against—— Please don’t think that, from anything we have said.”
“On the contrary, mamma always says it is so wise of Lady Markham,” said Maud; “so much better that he should always meet her here.”
Frances retired into herself with a confusion which she did not know how to account for. She did not in the least know what they meant, and yet she felt the colour rise in her cheek. She blushed for she knew not what; so that Maud and Ethel said to each other, afterwards: “She is a little hypocrite. She knew just as well as either you or I.”
Frances, however, did not know; and here was another subject about which she could not ask information. She carried away her sketch-book to her room with a curious feeling of ignorance and foolishness. She did not know anything at all—neither about her own surroundings, nor about the little art which she was so fond of, in which she had taken just a little pride, as well as so much pleasure. She put the sketches away with a few hasty tears, feeling troubled and provoked, and as if she could never look at them with any satisfaction, or attempt to touch a pencil again. She had never thought they were anything great; but to be made to feel so foolish in her own little way was hard. Nor was this the only trial to which she was exposed. After dinner, retiring, which she did with a sense of irritation which her conscience condemned, from the neighbourhood of Ethel and Maud, she fell into the hands of Sir Thomas, who also had a way of keeping very clear of these young ladies. He came to where Frances was standing in a corner, almost out of sight. She had drawn aside one edge of the curtain, and was looking out upon the shrubbery and the lawn, which stood out against the clear background of the sea—with a great deal of wistfulness, and perhaps a secret tear or two in her eyes. Here she was startled by a sudden voice in her ear. “You are looking out on the moonlight,” Sir Thomas said. It took her a moment before she could swallow the sob in her throat.
“It is very bright; it is a little like—home.” This word escaped her in the confusion of her thoughts.
“You mean the Riviera. Did you like it so much? I should have thought—— But no doubt, whatever the country is which we call home, it seems desirable to us.”
“Oh, but you can’t know how beautiful it is,” cried Frances, roused from her fit of despondency. “Perhaps you have never been there?”