“Mamma insisted I should wear them, and nothing else, aunt Caroline.”
“Yes, I daresay. You have nothing else good enough to go with them, most likely. And Lady Markham knows a good thing very well, when she sees it. Have you been put through all that you have to do, Frances? Remember to keep your right hand quite free; and take care your train doesn’t get in your way. Oh, why is it that your poor father is not here to see you, to go with you! It would be a very different thing then.”
“Nothing would make papa go, aunt Caroline. Do you think he would dress himself up like Markham, to be laughed at?”
“I promise you nobody would laugh at my brother,” said Mrs Clarendon. “As for Lord Markham——” But she bit her lip, and forbore. She spoke to none of the other ladies, who swarmed like numerous bees in the room, keeping up a hum in the air; but she made very formal acknowledgments to Lady Markham as she went away. “I am much obliged to you for letting me come to see Frances dressed. She looks very well on the whole, though, perhaps, I should have adopted a different style had it been in my hands.”
“My dear Caroline,” cried Lady Markham, ignoring this ungracious conclusion, “how can you speak of letting you come? You know we are only too glad to see you whenever you will come. And I hope you liked the effect of your beautiful pearls. What a charming present to give the child; I thought it so kind of you.”
“So long as Frances understands that they are family ornaments,” said Mrs Clarendon, stiffly, rejecting all acknowledgments.
There was a little murmur and titter when she went away. “Is it Medusa in person?” “It is Mrs Clarendon, the wife of the great Q.C.” “It is Frances’ aunt, and she does not like any remark.” “It is my dear sister-in-law,” said Lady Markham. “She does not love me; but she is kind to Frances, which covers a multitude of sins.” “And very rich,” said another lady, “which covers a multitude more.” This put a little bitterness into the conversation to Frances, standing there in her fine clothes, and not knowing how to interfere; and it was a relief to her when Markham, though she could not blame the whispering girls who called him a guy, came in shuffling and smiling, with a glance and nod of encouragement to his little sister to take the mother down-stairs to her carriage. After that, all was a moving phantasmagoria of colour and novel life, and nothing clear.
And it was not until after this great day that Captain Gaunt appeared again. The ladies received him with reproaches for his absence. “I expected to see you yesterday at least,” said Lady Markham. “You don’t care for fine clothes, as we women do; but five o’clock tea, after a Drawing-room, is a fine sight. You have no idea how grand we were, and how much you have lost.”
Captain Gaunt responded with a very grave, indeed melancholy smile. He was even more dejected than when he made his first appearance. Then his melancholy had been unalloyed, and not without something of that tragic satisfaction in his own sufferings which the victims of the heart so often enjoy. But now there were complications of some kind, not so easily to be understood. He smiled a very serious evanescent smile. “I shall have to lose still more,” he said, “for I think I must leave London—sooner than I thought.”
“Oh,” cried Frances, whom this concerned the most; “leave London! You were to stay a month.”