“You mean poor Gaunt. It is a sad sight, and a sad story—too sad for a young creature like you to be mixed up in. Is it anything for him, that you want me to do?”
She looked at him through those hot gathering tears which interrupt the vision of women, and blind them when they most desire to see clearly. A sense of the folly of her hope, of the impossibility of making any one understand what was in her mind, overwhelmed her. “I cannot, I cannot,” she cried. “Oh, I know you are very kind. I wanted my own money, if I have any. But I know you will not give it me, nor think it right, nor understand what I want to do with it.”
“Have you so little trust in me?” said Sir Thomas. “I hope, if you told me, I could understand. I cannot give you your own money, Frances; but if it were for a good—no, I will not say that—for a sensible, for a practicable purpose, you should have some of mine.”
“Yours!” she cried, almost with indignation. “Oh no; that is not what I mean. They are nothing—nothing to you.” She paused when she had said this, and grew very pale. “I did not mean—— Sir Thomas, please do not say anything to mamma.”
He took her hand affectionately between his own. “I do not half understand,” he said; “but I will keep your secret, so far as I know it, my poor little girl.”
Lady Markham at her writing-table, with her back turned, went on with her correspondence all the time in high satisfaction and pleasure, saying to herself that it would be far better than Nelly Winterbourn’s—that it would be the finest match of the year.
CHAPTER XLIV.
It had seemed to Frances, as it appears naturally to all who have little experience, that a man who was so ill as Captain Gaunt must get better or get worse without any of the lingering suspense which accompanies a less violent complaint; but, naturally, Lady Markham was wiser, and entertained no such delusions. When it had gone on for a week, it already seemed to Frances as if he had been ill for a year,—as if there never had been any subject of interest in the world but the lingering course of the malady, which waxed from less to more, from days of quiet to hours of active delirium. The business-like nurses, always so cool and calm, with their professional reports, gave the foolish girl a chill to her heart, thinking, as she did, of the anxiety that would have filled, not the house alone in which he lay, but all the little community, had he been ill at home. Perhaps it was better for him that he was not ill at home,—that the changes in his state were watched by clear eyes, not made dim by tears or oversharp by anxiety, but which took him very calmly, as a case interesting, no doubt, but only in a scientific sense.
After a few days, Lady Markham herself wrote to his mother a very kind letter, full of detail, describing everything which she had done, and how she had taken Captain Gaunt entirely into her own hands. “I thought it better not to lose any time,” she said; “and you may assure yourself that everything has been done for him that could have been done, had you yourself been here. I have acted exactly as I should have done for my own son in the circumstances;” and she proceeded to explain the treatment, in a manner which was far too full of knowledge for poor Mrs Gaunt’s understanding, who could scarcely read the letter for tears. The best nurses, the best doctor, the most anxious care, Lady Markham’s own personal supervision, so that nothing should be neglected. The two old parents held their little counsel over this letter with full hearts. It had been Mrs Gaunt’s first intention to start at once, to get to her boy as fast as express trains could carry her; but then they began to look at each other, to falter forth broken words about expense. Two nurses, the best doctor in London—and then the mother’s rapid journey, the old General left alone. How was she to do it, so anxious, so unaccustomed as she was? They decided, with many doubts and terrors, with great self-denial, and many a sick flutter of questionings as to which was best, to remain. Lady Markham had promised them news every day of their boy, and a telegram at once if there was “any change”—those awful words, that slay the very soul. Even the poor mother decided that in these circumstances it would be “self-indulgence” to go; and from henceforward, the old people lived upon the post-hours,—lived in awful anticipation of a telegram announcing a “change.” Frances was their daily correspondent. She had gone to look at him, she always said, though the nurses would not permit her to stay. He was no worse. But till another week, there could be no change. Then she would write that the critical day had passed—that there was still no change, and would not be again for a week; but that he was no worse. No worse!—this was the poor fare upon which General Gaunt and his wife lived in their little Swiss pension, where it was so cheap. They gave up even their additional candle, and economised that poor little bit of expenditure; they gave up their wine; they made none of the little excursions which had been their delight. Even with all these economies, how were they to provide the expenses which were running on—the dear London lodgings, the nurses, the boundless outgoings, which it was understood they would not grudge? Grudge! No; not all the money in the world, if it could save their George. But where—where were they to get this money? Whence was it to come?
This Frances knew, but no one else. And she, too, knew that the lodgings and the nurses and the doctors were so far from being all. The poor girl spent the days much as they did, in agonised questions and considerations. If she could but get her money, her own money, whatever it was. Later, for her own use, what would it matter? She could work, she could take care of children, it did not matter what she did: but to save him, to save them. She had learned so much, however, about life and the world in which she lived, as to know that, were her object known, it would be treated as the supremest folly. Wild ideas of Jews, of finding somebody who would lend her what she wanted, as young men do in novels, rose in her mind, and were dismissed, and returned again. But she was not a young man; she was only a girl, and knew not what to do, nor where to go. Not even the very alphabet of such knowledge was hers.