“Oh! I don’t think she would care—” began Raymond; but Sir Simon cut him short again.
“Is your son coming down for a shot at the partridges?”
“Not he; at least not that I know of; he is off fishing near Norway, or was the last time I heard of him; but for all I know he may have joined your friend young De Winton at the North Pole by this. Well, good-by, my dear. I should dearly like a kiss. Would you mind kissing the old woman?”
Franceline put her soft, vermilion lips to the wrinkled cheek. Neither Lady Anwyll nor Raymond saw how instantaneously the blood had forsaken them, leaving them white as her brow; but Sir Simon did, and it smote him to the heart. He walked on before the good-bys were over, ostensibly to give some order about the carriage that was drawn up at a turn in the avenue, but in reality to avoid meeting Raymond’s glance.
Late that evening a note came to The Lilies to say that he was obliged to start at a moment’s notice for the south of France, where his step-mother, Lady Rebecca, was dangerously ill. He was sorry to have to rush off without saying good-by, but he had not a moment to lose to catch the express.
Sir Simon did start by the express, and after a day or two in London, where he saw Admiral de Winton, and ascertained that nothing new had turned up in Clide’s affairs, he thought he might just as well go to the south of France, where he would be within reach of his interesting relative in case she should need him, or die, which the older she grew the less she seemed inclined to do, in spite of Mr. Simpson’s periodical tolling of her death-knell. Fate, that abstract divinity invoked by pagans and novelists, interfered with the fulfilment of Franceline’s engagement to Lady Anwyll. A letter—a real letter—awaited her at home from her son-in-law, saying that his wife was taken suddenly ill, and entreated her mother to come to her without delay. Franceline was rather glad than sorry when the note came to postpone her visit. The desire to go to Rydal was gone. She wanted to be left alone. She was not equal to the effort of seeming amused. And yet, again, in another way she regretted it. A day or two’s absence from her father would have been a relief; the strain of keeping up false appearances before him was worse than it need have been amongst strangers; it would have sufficed them to be calm; at home she must be gay. After the sudden shock which those words so carelessly uttered by Lady Anwyll had caused her, Franceline’s first thought was to screen her feelings from her father. She was helped in her effort to do this by her certainty that he had no key to them, that he had not for a moment connected her and Clide de Winton in his thoughts. If she had known how much had been disclosed to him, how closely he had watched her ever since that fatal conversation with Sir Simon, concealment would have been impossible. As it was, she found it hard enough; but there was an unsuspected strength of will, a vitality of power in her, that enabled her to act the part she had resolved upon. She called up all her love for her father and all her native woman’s pride and maiden delicacy to the effort, and she achieved it. Her father watched her with the jealous eye of anxious affection, but he could see nothing forced in her spirits; he heard no hollow note in her laugh; he saw no trace of sadness in her smile. She was merrier, brighter, more talkative for several days after Lady Anwyll’s visit than he remembered to have seen her. Raymond sighed with relief many times a day as he heard her singing to herself, or caressing her doves with new names of endearment and fresh delight. She succeeded perfectly in blinding him, but not in silencing the wild tumult of her own heart. It was all mystery yet; pain and wonder were predominant, but hope was not absent from the chaos of conflicting emotions, and there was nothing of wounded self-respect, no definite feeling of reproach towards Clide. It seemed as if everything were a mistake; no one had done anything wrong, and yet everything had gone wrong. Was it all a dream the life she had been living for those few blissful weeks? Was his devotion to her, his exclusive assiduity during all that time, nothing but the customary demeanor of a gentleman to a young girl in whose society chance had thrown him? Franceline asked herself this over and over again, and could only find one answer to it—the echo of her own heart. But what did she really know about such things—what standard had she to go by? What had she ever seen to guide her in forming a reasonable conclusion?—for she wanted to be reasonable: to judge calmly without listening to the longings and tyrannical affirmations of this heart. “He may have been so assiduous in attending me in my rides simply to please Sir Simon,” whispered reason; but the response came quickly: “Need he have looked and spoken as he did to please Sir Simon? And that night of the ball, was it to please Sir Simon that he was stung and angry when I deserted him for Lord Roxham? Was it for that that he spoke those words that had set my every fibre thrilling? ‘What does anything matter to us, Franceline, as long as we are not angry with each other?’ To what melting tenderness was his voice toned as he uttered them! How his glance sought mine and rested in it, completing all that the words had left unsaid! And I am to believe that he had meant no more than the customary gallantries of a man of the world to his partner in the dance?” She laughed to herself as the outrageous question rose in her thoughts. Then, apart from this unanswerable testimony, there was evidence of Clide’s feelings and motives towards herself in his conduct towards her father. How anxious he had shown himself to please M. de la Bourbonais, to secure his advice and follow it, and make her aware that he did so! No; she had not assuredly been won unsought. This certainty supported and cheered her. If she had been sought, she would be sought again. Clide would return and claim what he had won. It was impossible to doubt but that he would. Whenever Franceline arrived at this point in her cogitations her spirits rose to singing pitch, and she would break out into carol and song, like a bird, and run down to Angélique and tease her to exasperation, pulling out her knitting-needles and playing tricks like a kitten, till she drove her nearly frantic, and sent her complaining to M. le Comte that la petite was grown as full of mischief as a squirrel; there was no being safe a minute from her tricks once your back was turned. And Raymond would look up with a beaming face, and beg pardon for the culprit. “She keeps life in our old veins, ma bonne,” he would say; “what should we do without our singing bird?”
But there were days when the singing bird was silent, when there was no music in her, and when she could have broken into passionate tears if they had not been restrained by a strong effort of will. These alternations, however, passed unobserved by the two who might have noticed them. Raymond had made up his mind that Sir Simon’s brilliant scheme had failed, and that as the failure had dealt no blow at Franceline’s happiness, it was not to be regretted. It had been altogether too brilliant to be practicable; he felt that from the first, and his instinct served him better than Sir Simon’s experience, shrewd man of the world though he was. “Kind, foolish friend, his affection blinded him and made him see everything as he desired it for Franceline, and now he is vexed with himself, and ashamed very likely, and so he keeps away from me. Perhaps he imagines I would reproach him. This poor, dear Simon has more heart than head.”
And with these indulgent reflections, Raymond sank back into his dreamy historical world, and left off watching the changeful aspects of his child. She was safe; things were just as they used to be.
A month went by; during that time one letter had come from the baronet, affectionate as ever, but evidently written under some feeling of restraint. He talked of the annoyances he had had on the road, and the loss of some of his luggage, and about French politics. M. de le Bourbonais fancied he saw through the awkwardness; he answered the letter in a more than usually affectionate strain; was very communicative about himself and Franceline, who was growing quite beyond Angélique’s and his control, he assured his friend, and required Sir Simon’s hand to keep her within bounds, so he had better hasten home as quickly as possible if he had any pity for the two victims of her tyranny and numberless caprices. This letter had the effect intended; it brought another without many days’ delay, and written with all the abandon and spirit of the writer’s most cheerful mood.
Lady Anwyll returned at the end of the month, and bore down on The Lilies the very next day. Franceline would have fought off if she could have done so with any chance of success; but the dowager was peremptory in claiming what had been distinctly promised, and she agreed to be ready the next day to accompany the old lady to Rydal.