“You should not contradict people who are older than yourself—it is not good manners,” he said, solemnly. “You are all that, I allow; but that is not the reason. It is simply because of some little physical peculiarity, some excellence of digestion, or so forth, if one may venture to use such a word: not because it is you—which I should think quite a natural and proper reason. No, for I have seen a creature as fair and as good almost as you are, Margaret (our travellers’ names are Margaret and Aubrey, you know—that’s understood), I have seen a beautiful young girl, everything that was sweet and charming, lying dishevelled, speechless, a prey to nameless horrors. Ah! that was a bad one!” said the young man, unable to conceal that he himself had become extremely pale.
“Oh! I am very sorry for her,” said Margaret, forgetting the compliment in the interest of the story. “Who was she, Mr. Aubrey?” and she turned her sympathetic eyes full upon him, which was almost more than, in his present state of sensation, he could bear; but, happily, Calais was within a stone’s-throw; and that is a circumstance which steels the suffering to endurance. He got up, saying, “I think I must look after the aunts.”
Margaret looked after him with a warm gush of sympathy. Who was this beautiful young girl who had been so ill? Was poor Aubrey, too, “in love?” She felt disposed to laugh a little, as is natural in the circumstances; for does not every one laugh when a love-story is suddenly produced? But she was deeply interested, and at once felt a kindred sympathy and affectionate interest opening up in her bosom. Poor Aubrey! Had anything happened, she wondered, to the beautiful young girl who was everything that was sweet and charming? Was not that enough to make everybody take an interest in her at once?
Margaret got no immediate satisfaction, however, about that beautiful young girl, but she often thought of her; and when she saw any shadow come over Aubrey’s face, she immediately set it down to the credit of this anonymous young lady. For the moment, however, she was herself carried away by the excitement of being “abroad.” But, alas! is not the very first of all sensations “abroad” a bewildering sense that it is just the same world as at home, and that “foreigners” are nothing else than men and women very much like the rest of us? For the first hour Margaret was in a kind of wonderland. The new, unusual sound of the language, the different looks of the people, delighted her, and she could understand what they were saying; though both Jean and Grace declared it to be such bad French that they never attempted to understand. “Is it very bad French?” she whispered to Aubrey; “perhaps that is why I know what they mean.” And he gave her a comical look which made Margaret inarticulate with suppressed laughter. Thus the two young people became sworn allies, and understood each other. But, after the first hour, the old familiar lines of the world she had been previously acquainted with came back to Margaret. The people, though they were dressed differently and spoke French, were the same kind of men and women as she had always known. Indeed, the old women in their white caps looked as if they had just come from Fife.
“That is just what they were at home,” she said again to Aubrey; “the old wives—those that never mind the fashions—even Bell!” There were some of the old women on the French roads, and at the stations, so like Bell that the sight of them brought tears to Margaret’s eyes.
“Who is Bell? I have so often heard of Bell. Bell has been put forward again and again, till I am afraid of her. I am sure you are afraid of her; and Aunt Jean, too, though she will not say so.”
“Oh, not me!” cried Margaret, uncertain as ever about her pronouns; “Bell is—she is just Bell. She was our house-keeper; she was everything to me; she brought me up. I never recollect any one else. Afraid of Bell—oh! no, no. But I would not like Bell to know,” said Margaret, slowly, “if I did anything that was bad—anything that was real wrong—”
“You never will,” said Aubrey, “so it doesn’t matter; but I should call that being afraid of her. Now there are some people whom you only go to when you have done something that is real wrong.”
“Are there? I don’t know. It was Bell that brought me up, more than any one else. She is living now near—on the way to the Kirkton. But you will not take any interest in that.”
“I take the greatest interest,” said Aubrey; and it so chanced that this conversation, broken off in the railway, was renewed again when they were settled at Mentone, where again old women were to be found like Bell. They passed rapidly through Paris, and settled at once in the place that was supposed to be good for Margaret. But by the time they reached the sunny Riviera Margaret had thrown off all trace of indisposition, and evidently wanted nothing but air and sunshine, and a little petting, like other flowers. They had a little villa on the edge of that brightest sea; and there along a path bordered by a hedge of aloes, and with a great stone-pine at the end, its solemn dome of foliage and its great column of trunk relieved against the Mediterranean blue, the two young people took a great many walks together.