There was no more said for a day or two about the journey. But that it was to take place, that Markham was waiting till his step-sister was ready, and that Frances was making her preparations to go, nobody any longer attempted to ignore. Waring himself had gone so far in his recognition of the inevitable as to give Frances money to provide for the necessities of the journey. “You will want things,” he said. “I don’t wish it to be thought that I kept you like a little beggar.”

“I am not like a little beggar, papa,” cried Frances, with an indignation which scarcely any of the more serious grievances of her life had called forth. She had always supposed him to be pleased with the British neatness, the modest, girlish costumes which she had procured for herself by instinct, and which made this girl, who knew nothing of England, so characteristically an English girl. This proof of the man’s ignorance—which Frances ignorantly supposed to mean entire indifference to her appearance—went to her heart. “And it is impossible to get things here,” she added, with her usual anxious penitence for her impatience.

“You can do it in Paris, then,” he said. “I suppose you have enough of the instincts of your sex to buy clothes in Paris.”

Girls are not fond of hearing of the instincts of their sex. She turned away with a speechless vexation and distress which it pleased him to think rudeness.

“But she keeps the money all the same,” he said to himself.

Thus it became very apparent that the departure of Frances was desirable, and that she could not go too soon. But there were still inevitable delays. Strange! that when love embittered made her stay intolerable, the washerwoman should have compelled it. But to Frances, for the moment, everything in life was strange.

And not the least strange was the way in which Markham, whom she liked, but did not understand—the odd, little, shabby, unlovely personage, who looked like anything in the world but an individual of importance—was received by the little world of Bordighera. At the little church on Sunday, there was a faint stir when he came in, and one lady pointed him out to another as the small audience filed out. The English landlady at the hotel spoke of him continually. Lord Markham was now the authority whom she quoted on all subjects. Even Domenico said “meelord” with a relish. And as for the Durants, their enthusiasm was boundless. Tasie, not yet quite recovered from the excitement of Constance’s arrival, lost her self-control altogether when Markham appeared. It was so good of him to come to church, she said; such an example for the people at the hotels! And so nice to lose so little time in coming to call upon papa. Of course, papa, as the clergyman, would have called upon him as soon as it was known where he was staying. But it was so pretty of Lord Markham to conform to foreign ways and make the first visit. “We knew it must be your doing, Frances,” she said, with grateful delight.

“But, indeed, it was not my doing. It is Constance who makes him come,” Frances cried.

Constance, indeed, insisted upon his company everywhere. She took him not only to the Durants, but to the bungalow up among the olive woods, which they found in great excitement, and where the appearance of Lord Markham partially failed of its effect, a greater hero and stranger being there. George Gaunt, the General’s youngest son, the chief subject of his mother’s talk, the one of her children about whom she always had something to say, had arrived the day before, and in his presence even a living lord sank into a secondary place. Mrs Gaunt had been the first to see the little party coming along by the terraces of the olive woods. She had, long, long ago, formed plans in her imagination of what might ensue when George came home. She ran out to meet them with her hands extended. “Oh Frances, I am so glad to see you! Only fancy what has happened. George has come!”

“I am so glad,” said Frances, who was the first. She was more used to the winding of those terraces, and then she had not so much to talk of as Constance and Markham. Her face lighted up with pleasure. “How happy you must be!” she said, kissing the old lady affectionately. “Is he well?”

“Oh, wonderfully well; so much better than I could have hoped. George, George, where are you? Oh, my dear, I am so anxious that you should meet! I want you to like him,” Mrs Gaunt said.

Almost for the first time there came a sting of pain to Frances’ heart. She had heard a great deal of George Gaunt. She had thought of him more than of any other stranger. She had wondered what he would be like, and smiled to herself at his mother’s too evident anxiety to bring them together, with a slight, not disagreeable flutter of interest in her own consciousness. And now here he was, and she was going away! It seemed a sort of spite of fortune, a tantalising of circumstances; though, to be sure, she did not know whether she should like him, or if Mrs Gaunt’s hopes might bear any fruit. Still, it was the only outlet her imagination had ever had, and it had amused and given her a pleasant fantastic glimpse now and then into something that might be more exciting than the calm round of every day.

She stood on the little grassy terrace which surrounded the house, looking towards the open door, but not taking any step towards it, waiting for the hero to appear. The house was low and broad, with a veranda round it, planted in the midst of the olive groves, where there was a little clearing, and looking down upon the sea. Frances paused there, with her face towards the house, and saw coming out from under the shadow of the veranda, with a certain awkward celerity, the straight slim figure of the young Indian officer, his mother’s hero, and, in a visionary sense, her own. She did not advance—she could not tell why—but waited till he should come up, while his mother turned round, beckoning to him. This was how it was that Constance and Markham arrived upon the scene before the introduction was fully accomplished. Frances held out her hand, and he took it, coming forward; but already his eyes had travelled over her head to the other pair arriving, with a look of inquiry and surprise. He let Frances’ hand drop as soon as he had touched it, and turned towards the other, who was much more attractive than Frances. Constance, who missed nothing, gave him a glance, and then turned to his mother. “We brought our brother to see you,” she said (as Frances had not had presence of mind to do). “Lord Markham, Mrs Gaunt. But we have come at an inappropriate moment, when you are occupied.”

“Oh no! It is so kind of you to come. This is my son George, Miss Waring. He arrived last night. I have so wanted him to meet——” She did not say Frances; but she looked at the little girl, who was quite eclipsed and in the background, and then hurriedly added, “your—family: whose name he knows, as such friends! And how kind of Lord Markham to come all this way!”

She was not accustomed to lords, and the mother’s mind jumped at once to the vain, but so usual idea, that this lord, who had himself sought the acquaintance, might be of use to her son. She brought forward George, who was a little dazzled too; and it was not till the party had been swept into the veranda, where the family sat in the evening, that Mrs Gaunt became aware that Frances had followed, the last of the train, and had seated herself on the outskirts of the group, no one paying any heed to her. Even then, she was too much under the influence of the less known visitors to do anything to put this right.

“I am delighted that you think me kind,” said Markham, in answer to the assurances which Mrs Gaunt kept repeating, not knowing what to say. “My step-father is not of that opinion at all. Neither will you be, I fear, when you know my mission. I have come for Frances.”

“For Frances!” she cried, with a little suppressed scream of dismay.

“Ah, I said you would not be of that opinion long,” Markham said.

“Is Frances going away?” said the old General. “I don’t think we can stand that. Eh, George? that is not what your mother promised you. Frances is all we have got to remind us that we were young once. Waring must hear reason. He must not let her go away.”

“Frances is going; but Constance stays,” interposed that young lady. “General, I hope you will adopt me in her stead.”

“That I will,” said the old soldier; “that is, I will adopt you in addition, for we cannot give up Frances. Though, if it is only for a short visit, if you pledge yourself to bring her back again, I suppose we will have to give our consent.”

“Not I,” said Mrs Gaunt under her breath. She whispered to her son, “Go and talk to her. This is not Frances; that is Frances,” leaning over his shoulder.

George did not mean to shake off her hand; but he made a little impatient movement, and turned the other way to Constance, to whom he made some confused remark.

All the conversation was about Frances; but she took no part in it, nor did any one turn to her to ask her own opinion. She sat on the edge of the veranda, half hidden by the luxuriant growth of a rose which covered one of the pillars, and looked out rather wistfully, it must be allowed, over the grey clouds of olives in the foreground, to the blue of the sea beyond. It was twilight under the shade of the veranda; but outside, a subdued daylight, on the turn towards night. The little talk about her was very flattering, but somehow it did not have the effect it might have had; for though they all spoke of her as of so much importance, they left her out with one consent. Not exactly with one consent. Mrs Gaunt, standing up, looking from one to another, hurt—though causelessly—beyond expression by the careless movement of her newly returned boy, would have gone to Frances, had she not been held by some magnetic attraction which emanated from the others—the lord who might be of use—the young lady, whose careless ease and self-confidence were dazzling to simple people.

Neither the General nor his wife could realise that she was merely Frances’ sister, Waring’s daughter. She was the sister of Lord Markham. She was on another level altogether from the little girl who had been so pleasant to them all, and so sweet. They were very sorry that Frances was going away; but the other one required attention, had to be thought of, and put in the chief place. As for Frances, who knew them all so well, she would not mind. And thus even Mrs Gaunt directed her attention to the new-comer.

Frances thought it was all very natural, and exactly what she wished. She was glad, very glad that they should take to Constance; that she should make friends with all the old friends who to herself had been so tender and kind. But there was one thing in which she could not help but feel a little disappointed, disconcerted, cast down. She had looked forward to George. She had thought of this new element in the quiet village life with a pleasant flutter of her heart. It had been natural to think of him as falling more or less to her own share, partly because it would be so in the fitness of things, she being the youngest of all the society—the girl, as he would be the boy; and partly because of his mother’s fond talk, which was full of innocent hints of her hopes. That George should come when she was just going away, was bad enough; but that they should have met like this, that he should have touched her hand almost without looking at her, that he should not have had the most momentary desire to make acquaintance with Frances, whose name he must have heard so often, that gave her a real pang. To be sure, it was only a pang of the imagination. She had not fallen in love with his photograph, which did not represent an Adonis; and it was something, half a brother, half a comrade, not (consciously) a lover, for which Frances had looked in him. But yet it gave her a very strange, painful, deserted sensation when she saw him look over her head at Constance, and felt her hand dropped as soon as taken. She smiled a little at herself, when she came to think of it, saying to herself that she knew very well Constance was far more charming, far more pretty than she, and that it was only natural she should take the first place. Frances was ever anxious to yield to her the first place. But she could not help that quiver of involuntary feeling. She was hurt, though it was all so natural. It was natural, too, that she should be hurt, and that nobody should take any notice—all the most everyday things in the world.

George Gaunt came to the Palazzo next day. He came in the afternoon with his father, to be introduced to Waring; and he came again after dinner—for these neighbours did not entertain each other at the working-day meals, so to speak, but only in light ornamental ways, with cups of tea or black coffee—with both his parents to spend the evening. He was thin and of a slightly greenish tinge in his brownness, by reason of India and the illnesses he had gone through; but his slim figure had a look of power; and he had kind eyes, like his mother’s, under the hollows of his brows: not a handsome young man, yet not at all common or ordinary, with a soldier’s neatness and upright bearing. To see Markham beside him with his insignificant figure, his little round head tufted with sandy hair, his one-sided look with his glass in his eye, or his ear tilted up on the opposite side, was as good as a sermon upon race and its advantages. For Markham was the fifteenth lord; and the Gaunts were, it was understood, of as good as no family at all. Captain George from that first evening had neither ear nor eye for any one but Constance. He followed her about shyly wherever she moved; he stood over her when she sat down. He said little, for he was shy, poor fellow; yet he did sometimes hazard a remark, which was always subsidiary or responsive to something she had said.

Mrs Gaunt’s distress at this subversion of all she had intended was great. She got Frances into a corner of the loggia while the others talked, and thrust upon her a pretty sandalwood box inlaid with ivory, one of those that George had brought from India. “It was always intended for you, dear,” she said. “Of course he could not venture to offer it himself.”

“But, dear Mrs Gaunt,” said Frances, with a low laugh, in which all her little bitterness evaporated, “I don’t think he has so much as seen my face. I am sure he would not know me if we met in the road.”

“Oh, my dear child,” cried poor Mrs Gaunt, “it has been such a disappointment to me. I have just cried my eyes out over it. To think you should not have taken to each other after all my dreams and hopes.”

Frances laughed again; but she did not say that there had been no failure of interest on her side. She said, “I hope he will soon be quite strong and well. You will write and tell me about everybody.”

“Indeed I will. Oh Frances, is it possible that you are going so soon? It does not seem natural that you should be going, and that your sister should stay.”

“Not very natural,” said Frances, with a composure which was less natural still. “But since it is to be, I hope you will see as much of her as you can, dear Mrs Gaunt, and be as kind to her as you have been to me.”

“Oh, my dear, there is little doubt that I shall see a great deal of her,” said the mother, with a glance towards the other group, of which Constance was the central figure. She was lying back in the big wicker-work chair; with the white hands and arms, which showed out of sleeves shorter than were usual in Bordighera, very visible in the dusk, accompanying her talk by lively gestures. The young captain stood like a sentinel a little behind her. His mother’s glance was half vexation and half pleasure. She thought it was a great thing for a girl to have secured the attentions of her boy, and a very sad thing for the girl who had not secured them. Any doubt that Constance might not be grateful, had not yet entered her thoughts. Frances, though she was so much less experienced, saw the matter in another light.

“You must remember,” she said, “that she has been brought up very differently. She has been used to a great deal of admiration, Markham says.”

“And now you will come in for that, and she must take what she can get here.” Mrs Gaunt’s tone when she said this showed that she felt, whoever was the loser, it would not be Constance. Frances shook her head.

“It will be very different with me. And dear Mrs Gaunt, if Constance should not—do as you wish——”

“My dear, I will not interfere. It never does any good when a mother interferes,” Mrs Gaunt said hurriedly. Her mind was incapable of pursuing the idea which Frances so timidly had endeavoured to suggest. And what could the girl do more?

Next day she went away. Her father, pale and stern, took leave of her in the bookroom with an air of offence and displeasure which went to Frances’ heart. “I will not come to the station. You will have, no doubt, everybody at the station. I don’t like greetings in the market-places,” he said.

“Papa,” said Frances, “Mariuccia knows everything. I am sure she will be careful. She says she will not trouble Constance more than is necessary. And I hope——”

“Oh, we shall do very well, I don’t doubt.”

“I hope you will forgive me, papa, for all I may have done wrong. I hope you will not miss me; that is, I hope—oh, I hope you will miss me a little, for it breaks my heart when you look at me like that.”

“We shall do very well,” said Waring, not looking at her at all, “both you and I.”

“And you have nothing to say to me, papa?”

“Nothing—except that I hope you will like your new life and find everything pleasant. Good-bye, my dear; it is time you were going.”

And that was all. Everybody was at the station, it was true, which made it no place for leave-takings; and Frances did not know that he watched the train from the loggia till the white plume of steam disappeared with a roar in the next of those many tunnels that spoil the beautiful Cornice road. Constance walked back in the midst of the Gaunts and Durants, looking, as she always did, the mistress of the situation. But neither did Frances, blotted out in the corner of the carriage, crying behind her veil and her handkerchief, leaving all she knew behind her, understand with what a tug at her heart Constance saw the familiar little ugly face of her brother for the last time at the carriage-window, and turned back to the deadly monotony of the shelter she had sought for herself, with a sense that everything was over, and she herself completely deserted, like a wreck upon a desolate shore.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.