“She was, they say, when she was presented, so much admired. She might have been a maid of honour; but mamma would not. And I, a poor little brown sparrow, in all the fine feathers—I feel inclined to call out, ‘I am only Frances.’ But that is not needed, is it, when any one looks at me?” she said, with a laugh. She had met with nobody with whom she could be confidential among all her new acquaintances. And George Gaunt was a new acquaintance too, if she had but remembered; but there was in him something which she had been used to, something with which she was familiar, a breath of her former life—and that acquaintance with his name and all about him which makes one feel like an old friend. She had expected for so many years to see him, that it appeared to her imagination as if she had known him all these years—as if there was scarcely any one with whom she was so familiar in the world.
He looked at her attentively as she spoke, a little touched, a little charmed by this instinctive delicate familiarity, in which he at last, having so lately come out of the hands of a true operator, saw, whatever Sir Thomas might think, that it was not one of their tricks. She did not want any compliment from him, even had he been capable of giving it. She was as sincere as the day, as little troubled about her inferiority as she was convinced of it; the laugh with which she spoke had in it a genuine tone of innocent youthful mirth, such as had not been heard in that house for long. The exhilarating ring of it, so spontaneous, so gay, reached Lady Markham and Sir Thomas in their colloquy, and roused them. Frances herself had never laughed like that before. Her mother gave a glance towards her, smiling. “The little thing has found her own character in the sight of her old friend,” she said; and then rounded her little epigram with a sigh.
“The young fellow ought to think much of himself to have two of them taking that trouble.”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Lady Markham. “Do you think she is taking trouble? She does not understand what it means.”
“Do any of them not understand what it means?” asked Sir Thomas. He had a large experience in Society, and thought he knew; but he had little experience out of Society, and so, perhaps, did not. There are some points in which a woman’s understanding is the best.
The evening had not been unpleasant to any one, not even, perhaps, to the lovelorn, when Markham appeared, coming back from his dinner-party, a signal to the other gentlemen that it was time for them to disappear from theirs. He gave his mother the last news of Winterbourn; and he told Sir Thomas that a division was expected, and that he ought to be in the House. “The poor sufferer” was sinking slowly, Markham said. It was quite impossible now to think of the operation which might perhaps have saved him three months since. His sister was with Nelly, who had neither mother nor sister of her own; and the long-expected event was thus to come off decorously, with all the proper accessories. It was a very important matter for two at least of the speakers; but this was how they talked of it, hiding, perhaps, the anxiety within. Then Markham turned to the other group.
“Have you got all the feathers and the furbelows ready?” he said. “Do you think there will be any of you visible through them, little Fan?”
“Don’t frighten the child, Markham. She will do very well. She can be as steady as a little rock: and in that case it doesn’t matter that she is not tall.”
“Oh, tall—as if that were necessary! You are not tall yourself, our mother; but you are a very majestic person when you are in your war-paint.”
“There’s the Queen herself, for that matter,” said Sir Thomas. “See her in a procession, and she might be six feet. I feel a mouse before her.” He had held once some post about the court, and had a right to speak.