This was more than Reine’s self-denial could bear. “I do not know who you are,” she cried indignantly. “I never heard there were any Austins who were not gentlemen. Do not stop me, Everard. This house is my brother’s house, and I am his representative. We have nothing to do with you, heir or not heir, and know nothing about your children, or your wife, or any one belonging to you. For poor Giovanna’s sake, though no doubt you have driven her to do wrong through your cruelty, you shall have what you want for to-night. Miss Susan Austin afraid of you! Everard, I cannot stay any longer to hear my family and my home insulted. See that they have what they want!” said the girl, ablaze with rage and indignation.
M. Guillaume, perhaps, had been taking too much of the old claret in his fatigue, and he did not understand English very well when delivered with such force and rapidity. He looked after her with more surprise than anger when Reine, a little too audibly in her wrath, shut behind her the heavy oak door.
“Eh bien?” he said. “Mademoiselle is irritable, n’est ce pas? And what did she mean, then, for Giovanna’s sake?”
Everard held it to be needless to explain Reine’s innocent flourish of trumpets in favor of the culprit. He said, “Ah, that is the question. What do you mean to do about Giovanna, M. Guillaume?”
“Do!” cried the old man, and he made a coarse but forcible gesture, as of putting something disagreeable out of his mouth, “she may die of hunger, as she said—by the road, by the fields—for anything she will get from me.”
CHAPTER XLVII.
I NEED not say that the condition of Whiteladies that evening was about as uncomfortable as could be conceived. Before dinner—a ceremonial at which Everard alone officiated, with the new-comers and Giovanna, all of whom ate a very good dinner—it had been discovered that Miss Susan had not gone to her own room, but to her new house, from which a messenger arrived for Martha in the darkening of the Winterly afternoon. The message was from Miss Augustine, written in her pointed, old-fashioned hand; and requesting that Martha would bring everything her mistress required for the night; Augustine forgot that she herself wanted anything. It was old John Simmons, from the Almshouses, who brought the note, and who told the household that Miss Augustine had been there as usual for the evening service. The intimation of this sudden removal fell like a thunderbolt upon the house. Martha, crying, packed her little box, and went off in the early darkness, not knowing, as she said, whether she was “on her head or her heels,” and thinking every tree a ghost as she went along the unfamiliar road, through the misty, dreary night. Herbert had retired to his room, where he would not admit even his sister, and Reine, sad and miserable, with a headache as well as a heartache, not knowing what was the next misfortune that might happen, wandered up and down all the evening through, fretting at Everard’s long absence, though she had begged him to undertake the duties of host, and longing to see Giovanna and talk to her, with a desire that was half liking and half hatred. Oh, how dared she, how dared she live among them with such a secret on her mind? Yet what was to become of her? Reine felt with a mixture of contempt and satisfaction that, so far as Herbert was concerned, Giovanna’s chances were all over forever. She flitted about the house, listening with wonder and horror to the sound of voices from the dining-room, which were cheerful enough in the midst of the ruin and misery that these people had made. Reine was no more just, no more impartial, than the rest. She said to herself, “which these people had made,” and pitied poor Miss Susan whose heart was broken by it, just as M. Guillaume pitied his suffering angel, his poor wife. Reine on her side threw all the guilt upon that suffering angel. Poor Giovanna had done what she was told, but it was the wretched old woman, the vulgar schemer, the wicked old Fleming who had planned the lie in all its details, and had the courage to carry it out. All Reine’s heart flowed over with pity for the sinner who was her own. Poor Aunt Susan! what could she be thinking? how could she be feeling in the solitude of the strange new house! No doubt believing that the children to whom she had been so kind had abandoned her. It was all Reine could do to keep herself from going with Martha, to whom she gave a hundred messages of love. “Tell her I wanted to come with you, but could not because of the visitors. Tell her the old gentleman from Bruges—Bruges, Martha, you will not forget the name—came directly she had gone; and that I hope they are going away to-morrow, and that I will come to her at once. Give her my dear love, Martha,” cried the girl, following Martha out to the porch, and standing there in the darkness watching her, while Miss Susan’s maid walked out unwillingly into the night, followed by the under-gardener with her baggage. This was while the others were at dinner, and it was then that Reine saw the cheerful light through the great oriel window, and heard the voices sounding cheerful too, she thought, notwithstanding the strange scenes they had just gone through. She was so restless and so curious that she stole upstairs into the musicians’ gallery, to see what they were doing. Giovanna was the mistress of the situation still; but she seemed to be using her power in a merciful way. The serious part of the dinner was concluded, and little Jean was there, whom Giovanna—throwing sweetmeats across the table to Gertrude, who sat with her eyes fixed upon her as upon a goddess—was beguiling into recollection of and friendship with the new-comers. “C’est Maman Gertrude; c’est ton autre maman,” she was saying to the child. “Tiens, all the bonbons are with her. I have given all to her. Say ‘Maman Gertrude,’ and she will give thee some.” There was a strained air of gayety and patronage about Giovanna, or so at least Reine thought, and she went away guiltily from this peep at them, feeling herself an eavesdropper, and thinking she saw Everard look up to the corner he too knew so well; and thus the evening passed, full of agitation and pain. When the strangers were got to their rooms at last, Everard found a little eager ghost, with great anxious eyes, upon the stairs waiting for him; and they had a long eager talk in whispers, as if anybody could hear them. “Giovanna is behaving like a brick,” said Everard. “She is doing all she can to content the child with the new people. Poor little beggar! I don’t wonder he kicks at it. She had her little triumph, poor girl, but she’s acting like a hero now. What do you think, Reine? Will Herbert go on with it in spite of all?”
“If I were Herbert—” cried the girl, then stopped in her impulsive rapid outcry. “He is changed,” she said, tears coming to her eyes. “He is no longer my Bertie, Everard. No, we need not vex ourselves about that; we shall never hear of it any more.”
“So much the better,” said Everard; “it never would have answered; though one does feel sorry for Giovanna. Reine, my darling, what a blessing that old Susan, God help her! had the courage to make a clean breast of it before these others came!”
“I never thought of that,” said the girl, awestricken. “So it was, so it was! It must have been Providence that put it into her head.”