“I hope so also,” said Giovanna cheerfully, as if that matter were not one which disturbed her very much; “but it was good, good that you spoke the first. The belle-mère had also remorse; she had bien de quoi! She sent them to say all, to take back—the child. Madame Suzanne,” cried Giovanna, “listen; I have given him back to Gertrude; I have taught him to be sage with her; I have made to smile her and the beau-père, and showed bounty to them. All that they would I have done, and asked nothing; for what? that they might go away, that they might not vex personne, that there might not be so much of talk. Tenez, Madame Suzanne! And they go when I am weary with to speak, with to smile, with to make excuse—they go, enfin! and I return to my chamber, and the little bed is empty, and the petit is gone away!”
There was no chair near her on which she could sit down, and at this point she dropped upon the floor and cried, the tears falling in a sudden storm over her cheeks. They had long been gathering, making her eyes hot and heavy. Poor Giovanna! She cried like a child with keen emotion, which found relief in that violent utterance. “N’importe!” she said, struggling against the momentary passion, forcing a tremulous smile upon the mouth which quivered, “n’importe! I shall get over it; but figure to yourself the place empty, empty! and so still! Why should I care? I am not his mother,” said Giovanna; and wept as if her heart would break.
Miss Susan rose from her sofa. She was weak and tottered as she got up. She went to Giovanna’s side, laid her hand on her head, and stooping over her, kissed her on the forehead. “Poor thing! poor thing!” she said, in a trembling voice, “this is my doing, too.”
“It is nothing, nothing!” cried Giovanna, springing up and shaking back a loose lock of her black hair. “Now, I will go and see what is to do. Put thyself on the sofa, Madame Suzanne. Ah, pardon! I said it without thought.”
Miss Susan did not understand what it was for which Giovanna begged pardon. It did not occur to her that the use of the second person could, in any case, be sin; but Giovanna, utterly shocked and appalled at her own temerity, blushed crimson, and almost forgot little Jean. She led Miss Susan back to the sofa, and placed her there with the utmost tenderness. “Madame Suzanne must not think that it was more than an inadvertence, a fault of excitement, that I could take it upon me to say thee to my superior. Oh, pardon! a thousand times. Now, I go to bring you of the thé, to shut the door close, to make quiet the people, that all shall be as Viteladies. I am Madame Suzanne’s servant from this hour.”
“Giovanna,” said Miss Susan, who, just at this moment, was very easily agitated, and did not so easily recover herself, “I do not say no. We have done wrong together; we will try to be good together. I have made you suffer, too; but, Giovanna, remember, there must be nothing more of that. You must promise me that all shall be over between you and Herbert.”
“Bah!” said Giovanna, with a gesture of disgust. “Me, I suffered, as Madame Suzanne says; and he saw, and never said a word; not so much as, ‘Poor Giovanna!’ Allez! c’est petit, ça!” cried the young woman, tossing her fine head aloft with a pride of nature that sat well on her. Then she turned, smiling to Miss Susan on the sofa. “Rest, my mistress,” she said, softly, with quaint distinctness of pronunciation. “Mademoiselle will soon be here to talk, and make everything plain to you. I go to bring of the thé, me.”
CHAPTER XLVIII.
Herbert came into the drawing-room almost immediately after Giovanna left. Francis had watched the carriage go off, and I suppose he thought that Giovanna was in it with the others, and his master, feeling free and safe, went down stairs. Herbert had not been the least sufferer in that eventful day and night. He had been sadly weakened by a course of flattery, and had got to consider himself, in a sense, the centre of the world. Invalidism, by itself, is nearly enough to produce this feeling; and when, upon a long invalid life, was built the superstructure of sudden consequence and freedom, the dazzling influence of unhoped for prosperity and well-being, the worship to which every young man of wealth and position is more or less subjected, the wooing of his cousins, the downright flattery of Giovanna, the reader will easily perceive how the young man’s head, was turned, not being a strong head by nature. I think (though I express the opinion with diffidence, not having studied the subject) that it is your vain man, your man whose sense of self-importance is very elevated, who feels a deception most bitterly. The more healthy soul regrets and suffers, but does not feel the same sting in the wound, that he does to whom a sin against himself is the one thing unpardonable. Herbert took the story of Giovanna’s deception thus, as an offence against himself. That she should have deceived others, was little in comparison; but him! that he should be, as it were, the centre of this plot, surrounded by people who had planned and conspired in such pitiful ways! His pride was too deeply hurt, his self-importance too rudely shaken, to leave him free to any access of pity or consideration for the culprits. He was not sorry even for Miss Susan; and toward Giovanna and her strange relatives, and the hideous interruption to his comfort and calm which they produced, he had no pity. Nor was he able to discriminate between her ordinary character and this one evil which she had done. Being once lowered in his imagination, she fell altogether, his chief attraction to her, indeed, being her beauty, which heretofore had dazzled and kept him from any inquiry into her other qualities. Now he gave Giovanna no credit for any qualities at all. His wrath was hot and fierce against her. She had taken him in, defrauded him of those, tender words and caresses which he never, had he known it, would have wasted on such a woman. She had humbled him in his own opinion, had made him feel thus that he was not the great person he had supposed; for her interested motives, which were now evident, were so many detractions from his glory, which he had supposed had drawn her toward him, as flowers are drawn to the sun. He had so low an opinion of her after this discovery, that he was afraid to venture out of his room, lest he should be exposed to some encounter with her, and to the tears and prayers his embittered vanity supposed she must be waiting to address to him. This was the chief reason of his retirement, and he was so angry that Reine and Everard should still keep all their wits about them, notwithstanding that he had been thus insulted and wounded, and could show feeling for others, and put up with those detestable visitors, that he almost felt that they too must be included in the conspiracy. It was necessary, indeed, that the visitors should be looked after, and even (his reason allowed) conciliated to a certain extent, to get them away; but still, that his sister should be able to do it, irritated Herbert. He came down, accordingly, in anything but a gracious state of mind. Poor fellow! I suppose his sudden downfall from the (supposed) highest level of human importance, respected and feared and loved by everybody, to the chastened grandeur of one who was first with nobody, though master of all; and who was not of paramount personal importance to any one, had stung him almost beyond bearing. Miss Susan whom he felt he had treated generously, had deceived, then left him without a word. Reine, to whom, perhaps, he had not been kind, had stolen away, out of his power to affect her in any primary degree, had found a new refuge for herself; and Giovanna, to whom he had given that inestimable treasure of his love? Poor Herbert’s heart was sore and sick, and full of mortified feeling. No wonder he was querulous and irritable. He came into the room where the lovers were, offended even by the sight of them together. When they dropped apart at his entrance, he was more angry still. Indeed, he felt angry at anything, ready to fight with a fly.
“Don’t let me disturb you,” he said; “though, indeed, if you don’t mind, and can put up with it for a few minutes, I should be glad to speak to you together. I have been thinking that it is impossible for me to go on in this way, you know. Evidently, England will not do for me. It is not October yet, and see what weather! I cannot bear it. It is a necessity of my nature, putting health out of the question, to have sunshine and brightness. I see nothing for it but to go abroad.”