“Young men are a mystery to me,” said Mrs Gaunt, standing with agitated firmness in the middle of the loggia, taking no notice of the chair which had been offered her. She did not even look at Constance, but directed her remarks to the swaying palms in the foreground and the hills behind—“they are a mystery! There may be one under their very eyes that is as good as gold and as true as steel, and they will never so much as look at her. And there will be another that thinks of nothing but amusing herself, and that is the one they will adore. Oh, it is not for the first time now that I have found it out! I had my misgivings from the very first; but he was like all the rest—he would not hear a word from his mother; and now I am sure I wish his furlough was at an end; I wish he had never come home. His father and I would rather have waited on and pined for him, or even made up our minds to die without seeing him, rather than he should have come here to break his heart.”
She paused a moment and then resumed again, turning from the palms and distant peaks to concentrate a look of fire upon Constance, who sat sunk in her wicker chair, turning her head away.
“And if a man were to go astray after being used like that, whose fault would it be? If he were to go wrong—if he were to lose heart, to say What’s the good? whose fault would it be? Oh, don’t tell me that you didn’t know what you were doing—that you didn’t mean to break his heart! Did you think he had no heart at all? But then, why should you have taken the trouble? It wouldn’t have amused you, it would have been no fun, had he had no heart.”
“You seem,” said Constance, without turning her head, launching a stray arrow in self-defence, “to know all about it, Mrs Gaunt.”
“Perhaps I do know all about it,—I am a woman myself. I wasn’t always old and faded. I know there are some things a girl may do in innocence, and some—that no one but a wicked woman of the world—— Oh, you are young to be called such a name. I oughtn’t, at your age, however I may suffer by you, to call you such a name.”
“You may call me what name you like. Fortunately I have not to look to you as my judge. Look here,” cried Constance, springing to her feet. “You say you are a woman yourself. I am not like Frances, a girl that knew nothing. If your son is at my feet, I have had better men at my feet, richer men, far better matches than Captain Gaunt. Would any one in their senses expect me to marry a poor soldier, to go out to India, to follow the regiment? You forget I’m Lady Markham’s daughter as well as Mr Waring’s. Put yourself in her place for a moment, and think what you would say if your daughter told you that was what she was going to do. To marry a poor man, not even at home—an officer in India! What would you say? You would lock me up in my room, and keep me on bread and water. You would say, the girl is mad. At least that is what my mother, if she could, would do.”
Mrs Gaunt caught upon the point which was most salient and attackable. “An Indian officer!” she cried. “That shows how little you know. He is not an Indian officer—he is a Queen’s officer: not that it matters. There were men in the Company’s service that—— The Company’s service was—— How dare you speak so to me? General Gaunt was in the Company’s service!” she cried, with an outburst of injured feeling and excited pride.
To this Constance made reply with a mocking laugh, which nearly drove her adversary frantic, and resumed her seat, having said what she had to say.
Poor Mrs Gaunt sat down, too, in sheer inability to support herself. Her limbs trembled under her. She wanted to cry, but would not, had she died in that act of self-restraint. And as she could not have said another word without crying, force was upon her to keep silence, though her heart burned. After an interval, she said, tremulously, “If this is one of our punishments for Eve’s fault, it’s far, far harder to bear than the other; and every woman has to bear it more or less. To see a man that ought to make one woman’s happiness turned into a jest by another woman, and made a laughing-stock of, and all his innocent pleasure turned into bitterness. Why did you do it? Were there not plenty of men in the world that you should take my boy for your plaything? Wasn’t there room for you in London, that you should come here? Oh, what possessed you to come here, where no one wanted you, and spoil all?”
Constance turned round and stared at her accuser with troubled eyes. It was a question to which it was difficult to give any answer; and she could not deny that it was a very pertinent question. No one had wanted her. There had been room for her in London, and a recognised place, and everything a girl could desire. Oh, how she desired now those things which belonged to her, which she had left so lightly, which there was nothing here to replace! Why had she left them? If a wish could have taken her back, out of this foreign, alien, unloved scene, away from Mrs Gaunt, scolding her in the big hat and shawl, which would be only fit for a charade at home, to Lady Markham’s soft and lovely presence—to Claude, even poor Claude, with his beautiful eyes and his fear of draughts—how swiftly would she have travelled through the air! But a wish would not do it; and she could only stare at her assailant blankly, and in her heart echo the question, Why, oh why?