“When I got there,” said Miss Susan, drawing a long breath, “I found them willing enough; but the man was old, and his son was dead, and there was nothing but daughters left. In the room with them was a daughter, a young married woman, a young widow—”
“Yes, there was me,” said Giovanna. “To what good is all this narrative, Madame Suzanne? Me, I know it before, and Monsieur ’Erbert is not amused; look, he yawns. We have assez, assez, for to-day.”
“There was she; sitting in the room, a poor, melancholy, neglected creature; and there was the other young woman, Gertrude, pretty and fair, like an English girl. She was—going to have a baby,” said Miss Susan, even at that moment hesitating in her old maidenliness before she said it, her old face coloring softly. “The devil put it into my head all at once. It was not premeditated; I did not make it up in my mind. All at once, all at once the devil put it into my head! I said suddenly to the old woman, to old Madame Austin, ‘Your daughter-in-law is in the same condition?’ She was sitting down crouched in a corner. She was said to be sick. What was more natural,” cried poor Miss Susan looking round, “than to think that was the cause?”
Perhaps it was the first time she had thought of this excuse. She caught at the idea with heat and eagerness, appealing to them all. “What more natural than that I should think so? She never rose up; I could not see her. Oh, children,” cried Miss Susan, wringing her hands, “I cannot tell how much or how little wickedness there was in my first thought; but answer me, wasn’t it natural? The old woman took me up in a moment, took up more—yes, I am sure—more than I meant. She drew me away to her room, and there we talked of it. She did not say to me distinctly that the widow was not in that way. We settled,” she said after a pause, with a shiver and gasp before the words, “that anyhow—if a boy came—it was to be Giovanna’s boy and the heir.”
Herbert made an effort at this moment to relinquish Giovanna’s hand, which he had been holding all the time; not, I believe, because of this information, which he scarcely understood as yet, but because his arm was cramped remaining so long in the same position; but she, as was natural, understood the movement otherwise. She held him for a second, then tossed his hand away and sprang up from her chair. “Après?” she cried, with an insolent laugh. “Madame Suzanne, you radotez, you are too old. This goes without saying that the boy is Giovanna’s boy.”
“Yes, we know all this,” said Herbert, pettishly. “Aunt Susan, I cannot imagine what you are making all this fuss and looking so excited about. What do you mean? What is all this about old women and babies? I wish you would speak out if you have anything to say. Giovanna, come here.”
“Yes,” she said, throwing herself on the sofa beside him; “yes, mon Herbert, mon bien-aimé. You will not abandon me, whatever any one may say?”
“Herbert,” cried Miss Susan, “let her alone, let her alone, for God’s sake! She is guilty, guiltier than I am. She made a pretence as her mother-in-law told her, pretended to be ill, pretended to have a child, kept up the deceit—how can I tell how long?—till now. Gertrude is innocent, whose baby was taken; she thought it died, poor thing, poor thing! but Giovanna is not innocent. All she has done, all she has said, has been lies, lies! The child is not her child; it is not the heir. She has thrust herself into this house, and done all this mischief, by a lie. She knows it; look at her. She has kept her place by threatening me, by holding my disgrace before my eyes; and now, Herbert, my poor boy, my poor boy, she will ruin you. Oh, put her away, put her away!”
Herbert rose up, trembling in his weakness. “Is this true, Giovanna?” he said, turning to her piteously. “Have you anything to say against it? Is it true?”
Reine, who had been standing behind, listening with an amazement beyond the reach of words, came to her brother’s side, to support him at this terrible moment; but he put her away. Even Miss Susan, who was the chief sufferer, fell into the background. Giovanna kept her place on the sofa, defiant, while he stood before her, turning his back upon the elder offender, who felt this mark of her own unimportance, even in the fever of her excitement and passion.