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“Tiens!” she said, in her gay voice, “whose child is he now? Take him if you will, Gertrude, you who were always the first, who knew yourself in babies, who were more beloved than the stupid Giovanna. Take him, then, since he is to thee!”
What a picture she would have made, standing there with the child, her great eyes flashing, her bosom expanded, looking down upon the plebeian pair before her with a triumphant smile! So Everard thought, who had entirely ranged himself on Giovanna’s side; and so thought poor Herbert, looking at her with his heart beating, his whole being in a ferment, his temper and his nerves worn to their utmost. He went away trembling from the sight, and beckoned Reine to him, and threw himself into a chair at the other end of the room.
“What is all this rabble to us?” he cried querulously, when his sister answered his summons. “For heaven’s sake clear the house of strangers – get them away.”
“All, Herbert?” said Reine, frightened.
He made no further reply, but dismissed her with an impatient wave of his hand, and taking up a book, which she saw he held upside down, and which trembled in his hand, turned his back upon the new-comers who had so strangely invaded the house.
As for these good people, they had nothing to say to this triumph of Giovanna. I suppose they had expected, as many innocent persons do, that by mere force of nature the child would turn to those who alone had a right to him. Gertrude, encumbered by her heavy travelling wraps, wearied, discouraged, and disappointed, sat down and cried, her round face getting every moment more blurred and unrecognizable. M. Guillaume, however, though tired too, and feeling this reception very different from the distinguished one which he had received on his former visit, felt it necessary to maintain the family dignity.
“I would speak with Madame Suzanne,” he said, turning to Reine, who approached. “Mademoiselle does not perhaps know that I am a relation, a next-of-kin. It is I, not the poor bébé, who am the next to succeed. I am Guillaume Austin, of Bruges. I would speak with Madame Suzanne. She will know how to deal with this insensée, this woman who keeps from my daughter her child.”
“My aunt is – ill,” said Reine. “I don’t think she is able to see you. Will you come into another room and rest? and I will speak to Giovanna. You must want to rest – a little – and – something to eat – ”
So far Reine’s hospitable instincts carried her; but when Stevens entered with a request from the driver of the cab which had brought the strangers hither, to know what he was to do, she could not make any reply to the look that M. Guillaume gave her. That look plainly implied a right to remain in the house, which made Reine tremble, and she pretended not to see that she was referred to. Then the old shopkeeper took it upon himself to send away the man. “Madame Suzanne would be uncontent, certainly uncontent, if I went away without to see her,” he said; “dismiss him then, mon ami. I will give you to pay – ” and he pulled out a purse from his pocket. What could Reine do or say? She stood trembling, wondering how it was all to be arranged, what she could do; for though she was quite unaware of the withdrawal of Miss Susan, she felt that in this case it was her duty to act for her brother and herself. She went up to Giovanna softly, and touched her on the arm.
“What are you going to do?” she said in a whisper. “Oh, Giovanna, have some pity upon us! Get them to go away. My Aunt Susan has been kind to you, and how could she see these people? Oh, get them to go away!”
Giovanna looked down upon Reine, too, with the same triumphant smile. “You come also,” she said, “Mademoiselle Reine, you, too! to poor Giovanna, who was not good for anything. Bien! It cannot be for to-night, but perhaps for to-morrow, for they are fatigued – that sees itself. Gertrude, to cry will do nothing; it will frighten the child more, who is, as you perceive, to me, not to thee. Smile, then – that will be more well – and come with me, petite sotte. Though thou wert not good to Giovanna, Giovanna will be more noble, and take care of thee.”
She took hold of her sister-in-law as she spoke, half dragged her off her chair, and leading her with her disengaged hand, walked out of the room with the child on her shoulder. Reine heard the sound of an impatient sigh, and hurried to her brother’s side. But Herbert had his eyes firmly fixed upon the book, and when she came up to him waved her off.
“Let me alone,” he said in his querulous tones, “cannot you let me alone!” Even the touch of tenderness was more than he could bear.
Then it was Everard’s turn to exert himself, who had met M. Guillaume before, and with a little trouble got him to follow the others as far as the small dining-room, in which Reine had given orders for a hasty meal. M. Guillaume was not unwilling to enter into explanations. His poor wife, he said, had been ill for weeks past.
“It was some mysterious attack of the nerves; no one could tell what it was,” the old man said. “I called doctor after doctor, if you will believe me, monsieur. I spared no expense. At last it was said to me, ‘It is a priest that is wanted, not a doctor.’ I am Protestant, monsieur,” said the old shopkeeper seriously. “I replied with disdain, ‘According to my faith, it is the husband, it is the father who is priest.’ I go to Madame Austin’s chamber. I say to her, ‘My wife, speak!’ Brief, monsieur, she spoke, that suffering angel, that martyr! She told us of the wickedness which Madame Suzanne and cette méchante planned, and how she was drawn to be one with them, pauvre chérie. Ah, monsieur, how women are weak! or when not weak, wicked. She told us all, monsieur, how she has been unhappy! and as soon as we could leave her, we came, Gertrude and I – for my part, I was not pressé – I said, ‘Thou hast many children, my Gertrude; leave then this one to be at the expense of those who have acted so vilely.’ And my poor angel said also from her sick-bed; but the young they are obstinate, they have no reason, and – behold us! We had a bad, very bad traversée; and it appears that la jeune-là, whom I know not, would willingly send us back without the repose of an hour.”
“You must pardon her,” said Everard. “We have been in great trouble, and she did not know even who you were.”
“It seems to me,” said the old man, opening his coat with a flourish of offended dignity, “that in this house, which may soon be mine, all should know me. When I say I am Guillaume Austin of Bruges, what more rests to say?”
“But, Monsieur Guillaume,” said Everard, upon whom these words, “this house, which may soon be mine,” made, in spite of himself, a highly disagreeable impression, “I have always heard that for yourself you cared nothing for it – would not have it indeed.”
“I would not give that for it,” said the old man with a snap of his fingers; “a miserable grange, a maison du campagne, a thing of wood and stone! But one has one’s dignity and one’s rights.”
And he elevated his old head, with a snort from the Austin nose, which he possessed in its most pronounced form. Everard did not know whether to take him by the shoulders and to turn him out of the house, or to laugh; but the latter was the easiest. The old shopkeeper was like an old cock strutting about the house which he despised. “I hate your England,” he said, “your rain, your Autumn, your old baraques which you call châteaux. For châteaux come to my country, come to the Pays Bas, monsieur. No, I would not change, I care not for your dirty England. But,” he added, “one has one’s dignity and one’s rights, all the same.”
He was mollified, however, when Stevens came to help him off with his coats, and when Cook sent up the best she could supply on such short notice.
“I thought perhaps, M. Austin, you would like to rest before – dinner,” said Reine, trembling as she said the last word. She hoped still that he would interrupt her, and add, “before we go.”
But no such thought entered into M. Guillaume’s mind. He calculated on staying a few days now that he was here, as he had done before, and being made much of, as then. He inclined his head politely in answer to Reine’s remark, and said, Yes, he would be pleased to rest before dinner; the journey was long and very fatiguing. He thought even that after dinner he would retire at once, that he might be remis for to-morrow. “And I hope, mademoiselle, that your villanous weather will se remettre,” he added. “Bon Dieu, what it must be to live in this country! When the house comes to me, I will sell it, monsieur. The money will be more sweet elsewhere than in this vieux maison delabré, though it is so much to you.”
“But you cannot sell it,” said Reine, flushing crimson, “if it ever should come to you.”
“Who will prevent me?” said M. Guillaume. “Ah, your maudit law of heritage! Tiens! then I will pull it down, mademoiselle,” he said calmly, sipping the old claret, and making her a little bow.
The reader may judge how agreeable M. Guillaume made himself with this kind of conversation. He was a great deal more at his ease than he had ever been with Miss Susan, of whom he stood in awe.
“After this misfortune, this surprise,” he went on, “which has made so much to suffer my poor wife, it goes of my honor to take myself the place of heir. I cannot more make any arrangement, any bargain, monsieur perceives, that one should be able to say Guillaume Austin of Bruges deceived the world to put in his little son, against the law, to be the heir! Oh, these women, these women, how they are weak and wicked! When I heard of it I wept. I, a man, an old! my poor angel has so much suffered; I forgave her when I heard her tale; but that méchante, that Giovanna, who was the cause of all, how could I forgive – and Madame Suzanne? Apropos, where is Madame Suzanne? She comes not, I see her not. She is afraid, then, to present herself before me.”
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.”
“It was Herbert’s madness that put it into her head. How could he be such a fool! but it is curious, you know, what set both of them on it at the same time, that horrible old woman at Bruges, and her here. It looks like what they call a brain-wave,” said Everard, “though that throws a deal of light on the matter; don’t it? Queenie, you are as white as the China rose on the porch. I hope Julie is there to look after you. My poor little queen! I wonder why all this trouble should fall upon you.”
“Oh, what is it to me in comparison?” said the girl, almost indignant; but he was so sorry for her, and his tender pity was in itself so sweet, that I think before they separated – her head still aching, though her heart was less sore – Reine, out of sympathy for him, had begun also to entertain a little pity for herself.
The morning rose strangely on the disturbed household – rose impudently, without the least compassion for them, in a blaze of futile, too early sunshine, which faded after the first half of the day. The light seemed to look in mocking at the empty rooms in which Susan and Augustine had lived all their lives. Reine was early astir, unable to rest; and she had not been downstairs ten minutes when all sorts of references were made to her.
“I should like to know, miss, if you please, who is to give the orders, if so be as Miss Susan have gone for good,” said Stevens; and Cook came up immediately after with her arms wrapped in her apron. “I won’t keep you not five minutes, miss; but if Miss Susan’s gone for good, I don’t know as I can find it convenient to stay. Where there’s gentlemen and a deal of company isn’t like a lady’s place, where there’s a quiet life,” said Cook. “Oh,” said Reine, driven to her wits’ end, “please, please, like good people, wait a little! How can I tell what we must do?” The old servants granted Reine the “little time” she begged, but they did it ungraciously and with a sure sense of supremacy over her. Happily she found a variety of trays with coffee going up to the strangers’ rooms, and found, to her great relief, that she would escape the misery of a breakfast with them; and François brought a message from Herbert to the effect that he was quite well, but meant to stay in his room till ces gens-là were out of the house. “May I not go to him?” cried Reine. “Monsieur is quite well,” François replied; “Mademoiselle may trust me. But it will be well to leave him till ce monsieur and ces dames have gone away.” And François too, though he was very kind to Mademoiselle Reine, gave her to understand that she should take precautions, and that Monsieur should not be exposed to scenes so trying; so that the household, with very good intentions, was hard upon Reine. And it was nearly noon before she saw anything of the other party, about whose departure she was so anxious. At last about twelve o’clock, perilously near the time of the train, she met Giovanna on the stairs. The young woman was pale, with the gayety and the triumph gone out of her. “I go to ask that the carriage may be ready,” said Giovanna. “They will go at midi, if Mademoiselle will send the carriage.”
“Yes, yes,” said Reine, eagerly; “but you are ill, Giovanna; you are pale.” She added half timidly, after a moment, “What are you going to do?”
Giovanna smiled with something of the bravado of the previous day. “I will derange no one,” she said; “Mademoiselle need not fear. I will not seek again those who have deserted me. C’est petit, ça!” she cried with a momentary outburst, waving her hand toward the door of Herbert’s room. Then controlling herself, “That they should go is best, n’est ce pas? I work for that. If Mademoiselle will give the orders for the carriage – ”
“Yes, yes,” said Reine, and then in her pity she laid her hand on Giovanna’s arm. “Giovanna, I am very sorry for you. I do not think you are the most to blame,” she said.
“Blame!” said Giovanna, with a shrug of her shoulders, “I did as I was told.” Then two big tears came into her eyes. She put her white, large, shapely hands on Reine’s shoulders, and kissed her suddenly on both her cheeks. “You, you are good, you have a heart!” she said; “but to abandon the friends when they are in trouble, c’est petit, ça!” and with that she turned hastily and went back to her room. Reine, breathless, ran downstairs to order the carriage. She went to the door with her heart beating, and stood waiting to see what would happen, not knowing whether Giovanna’s kiss was to be taken as a farewell. Presently voices were heard approaching, and the whole party came downstairs; the old man in his big coat, with his cache-nez about his neck, Gertrude pale but happy, and last of all Giovanna, in her usual household dress, with the boy on her shoulder. Gertrude carried in her hand a large packet of bon-bons, and got hastily into the carriage, while her father stood bowing and making his little farewell speeches to Reine and Everard. Giovanna coming after them with her strong light step, her head erect, and the child, in his little velvet coat with his cap and feather, seated on her shoulder, his hand twisted in her hair, interested them more than all M. Guillaume’s speeches. Giovanna went past them to the carriage door; she had a flush upon her cheek which had been so pale. She put the child down upon Gertrude’s lap, and kissed him. “Mamma will come to Jean presently, in a moment,” she said. “Regarde donc! how much of bon-bons are in Mama Gertrude’s lap. Thou wilt eat them all, petit gourmand, and save none for me.”
Then with a laugh and mocking menace she stepped back into a corner, where she was invisible to the child, and stood there motionless till the old man got in beside his daughter, and the carriage drove away. A little cry, wondering and wistful, “Mamma! mamma!” was the last sound audible as the wheels crashed over the gravel. Reine turned round, holding out her hands to the forlorn creature behind her, her heart full of pity. The tears were raining down in a storm from Giovanna’s eyes, but she laughed and shook them away. “Mon Dieu!” she cried, “I do not know why is this. Why should I love him? I am not his mother. But it is an attack of the nerfs – I cannot bear any more,” and drawing her hands out of Reine’s she fled with a strange shame and passion, through the dim passages. They heard her go upstairs, and, listening in some anxiety, after a few minutes’ interval, heard her moving about her room with brisk, active steps.
“That is all right,” said Everard, with a sigh of relief. “Poor Giovanna! some one must be kind to her; but come in here and rest, my queen. All this is too much for you.”
“Oh, what is it to me in comparison?” cried Reine; but she suffered herself to be led into the drawing-room to be consoled and comforted, and to rest before anything more was done. She thought she kept an ear alert to listen for Giovanna’s movements, but I suppose Everard was talking too close to that ear to make it so lively as it ought to have been. At least before anything was heard by either of them, Giovanna in her turn had gone away.
She came downstairs carefully, listening to make sure that no one was about. She had put up all her little possessions ready to be carried away. Pausing in the corridor above to make sure that all was quiet, she went down with her swift, light step, a step too firm and full of character to be noiseless, but too rapid at the present moment to risk awaking any spies. She went along the winding passages, and out through the great porch, and across the damp grass. The afternoon had begun to set in by this time, and the fading sunshine of the morning was over. When she had reached the outer gate she turned back to look at the house. Giovanna was not a person of taste; she thought not much more of Whiteladies than her father-in-law did. “Adieu, vieil baraque,” she said, kissing the tips of her fingers; but the half-contempt of her words was scarcely carried out by her face. She was pale again, and her eyes were red. Though she had declared frankly that she saw no reason for loving little Jean, I suppose the child – whom she had determined to make fond of her, as it was not comme il faut that a mother and child should detest each other – had crept into her heart, though she professed not to know it. She had been crying, though she would not have admitted it, over his little empty bed, and those red rims to her eyes were the consequence. When she had made that farewell to the old walls she turned and went on, swiftly and lightly as a bird, skimming along the ground, her erect figure full of health and beautiful strength, vigor, and unconscious grace. She looked strong enough for anything, her firm foot ringing in perfect measure on the path, like a Roman woman in a procession, straight and noble, more vigorous, more practical, more alive than the Greek; fit to be made a statue of or a picture; to carry water-jars or grape-baskets, or children; almost to till the ground or sit upon a throne. The air cleared away the redness from her eyes, and brought color back to her cheeks. The grand air, the plein jour, words in which, for once in a way, the French excel us in the fine abundance and greatness of the ideas suggested, suited Giovanna; though she loved comfort too, and could be as indolent as heart could desire. But to-day she wanted the movement, the sense of rapid progress. She wore her usual morning-dress of heavy blue serge, so dark as to be almost black, with a kind of cloak of the same material, the end of which was thrown over the shoulder in a fashion of her own. The dress was perfectly simple, without flounce or twist of any kind in its long lines. Such a woman, so strong, so swift, so dauntless, carrying her head with such a light and noble grace, might have been a queen’s messenger, bound on affairs of life and death, carrying pardon and largesse or laws and noble ordinances of state from some throned Ida, some visionary princess. Though she did not know her way, she went straight on, finding it by instinct, seeing the high roof and old red walls of the Grange ever so far off, as only her penetrating eyes and noble height could have managed to see. She recovered her spirits as she walked on, and nodded and smiled with careless good-humor to the women in the village, who came to their doors to look after her, moved by that vague consciousness which somehow gets into the very atmosphere, of something going on at Whiteladies. “Something’s up,” they all said; though how they knew I cannot tell, nor could they themselves have told.