“Would you—think the same about me? Would you consider the life full of luxury, as you said—would you desire for me the same thing as for Constance?”
Lady Markham held the girl’s hand clasped in both of hers; the soft caressing atmosphere about her enveloped Frances. “My dear,” she said, “this is a very serious question. You are not asking me for curiosity alone?”
“It is a very serious question,” Frances said.
And the mother and daughter looked at each other closely, with more meaning, perhaps, than had as yet been in the eyes of either, notwithstanding all the excitement of interest in their first meeting. It was some time before another word was said. Frances saw in her mother a woman full of determination, very clear as to what she wanted, very unlikely to be turned from it by softer impulses, although outside she was so tender and soft; and Lady Markham saw in Frances a girl who was entirely submissive, yet immovable, whose dove’s eyes had a steady soft gaze, against which the kindred light of her own had no power. It was a mutual revelation. There was no conflict, nor appearance of conflict, between these two, so like each other—two gentle and soft-voiced women, both full of natural courtesy and disinclination to wound or offend; both seeing everything around them very clearly from her own, perhaps limited, point of view; and both feeling that between them nothing but the absolute truth would do.
“You trouble me, Frances,” said Lady Markham at length. “When such a case arises, it will be time enough. In the abstract, I should of course feel for one as I feel for the other. Nay, stop a little. I should wish to provide for you, as for Constance, a life of assured comfort,—well, if you drive me to it—of wealth and all that wealth brings. Assuredly that is what I should wish.” She gave Frances’ hand a pressure which was almost painful, and then dropped it. “I hope you have no fancy for poverty theoretically, like your patron saint,” she added lightly, trying to escape from the gravity of the question by a laugh.
“Mother,” said Frances, in a voice which was tremulous and yet steady, “I want to tell you—I think neither of poverty nor of money. I am more used, perhaps, to the one than the other. I will do what you wish in everything—everything else; but——”
“Not in the one thing which would probably be the only thing I asked of you,” said Lady Markham, with a smile. She put her hands on Frances’ shoulders and gave her a kiss upon her cheek. “My dear child, you probably think this is quite original,” she said; “but I assure you it is what almost every daughter one time or other says to her parents: Anything else—anything, but—— Happily there is no question between you and me. Let us wait till the occasion arises. It is always time enough to fall out.”
CHAPTER XXXII.
Nothing happened of any importance before their return to Eaton Square. Markham, hopping about with a queer sidelong motion he had, his little eyes screwed up with humorous meaning, seemed to Frances to recover his spirits after the Winterbourn episode was over, which was the subject—though that, of course, she did not know—of half the voluminous correspondence of all the ladies and gentlemen in the house, whose letters were so important a part of their existence. Before a week was over, all Society was aware of the fact that Ralph Winterbourn had been nearly dying at Markham Priory; that Lady Markham was in “a state” which baffled description, and Markham himself so changed as to be scarcely recognisable; but that, fortunately, the crisis had been tided over, and everything was still problematical. But the problem was so interesting, that one perfumed epistle after another carried it to curious wits all over the country, and a new light upon the subject was warmly welcomed in a hundred Easter meetings. What would Markham do? What would Nelly do? Would their friendship end in the vulgar way, in a marriage? Would they venture, in face of all prognostications, to keep it up as a friendship, when there was no longer any reason why it should not ripen into love? Or would they, frightened by all the inevitable comments which they would have to encounter, stop short altogether, and fly from each other?
Such a “case” is a delightful thing to speculate upon. At the Priory, it could only be discussed in secret conclave; and though no doubt the experienced persons chiefly concerned were quite conscious of the subject which occupied their friends’ thoughts, there was no further reference made to it between them, and everything went on as it had always done. The night before their return to town, Markham, in the solitude of the house, from which all the guests had just departed, called Frances outside to bear him company while he smoked his cigarette. He was walking up and down on the lawn in the grey stillness of a cloudy warm evening, when there was no light to speak of anywhere, and yet a good deal to be seen through the wavering greyness of sky and sea. A few stars, very mild and indistinct, looked out at the edges of the clouds here and there; the great water-line widened and cleared towards the horizon; and in the far distance, where a deeper greyness showed the mainland, the gleam of a lighthouse surprised the dark by slow continual revolutions. There was no moon: something softer, more seductive than even the moon, was in this absence of light.