Best Short Stories Omnibus - Volume 3

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER VIII.

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It is needless to add that Claire did not say a word in remonstrance or objection. She was startled and unprepared for such summary measures. And yet she said to herself that she had fully expected it, and was not surprised that her employer should take energetic measures to stop such a mésalliance. A mésalliance! But she reflected with her usual philosophy that it would be so, that her beau nom meant nothing—less even in her own country than here. If she had been a man who could confer that beau nom in return for some romantic nobody's money, then perhaps there might have been some value in it; but to her, a woman, an old maid, a governess! She was far too proud to ask for an hour's delay, even for so much as would enable her to travel by day instead of by night; yet there was no doubt that it was with a very strange sensation that she felt herself dismissed from the recognised place in which yesterday she had expected to remain for years, and facing once more a blank world, in which she knew not where to go, or what her next standing-point might be. It is true that she was in no way destitute or without a refuge. She had her mother's house to go to, the little shabby apartment in Paris, where she could scarcely hope to be triumphantly received, seeing that her return meant a diminution of its slender resources, besides the inference which old Aunt Clotilde at least would be so ready to draw, that Claire had left her good situation in disgrace. This suggestion made her blood boil, and it was one which was inevitable. But still there was nothing hopeless or even terrible in her position. She was sufficiently well known in the circles where people of her class are known to have little fear of finding another situation. And she had already known so many new beginnings that another did not appal her. No, there was nothing desperate, nothing tragical in her circumstances. A little additional humiliation, a shock, perhaps a reproach, but no more. And perhaps it was the best thing that could have happened. It put a stop summarily to an episode that never would have come to anything, which was well; surely from any point of view it was well. When she found herself on the Channel, looking somewhat wistfully at the clear sky overhead, full of the softness of the summer stars, and at the dim whiteness of the cliffs she was leaving behind, it is possible that Claire saw them blurred yet amplified though the medium of a tear. In front of her the other coast was lost in the distance and darkness of night, so that while what was past was still clear, what was future was wholly invisible, which was a perfect symbol of life itself. She noted the similitude with that love of imagery which is natural to a soul in trouble, with forlorn interest. How little she had expected last night to be crossing the Channel thus! how suddenly her existence had changed!

But these are vicissitudes which must occur in the life of a governess, for whom more than for most human creatures there is no continuing city; and by the time Mademoiselle had left behind her that dark and mystic interval of the Channel, with all its suggestions, she had begun to be able to indulge in a rueful smile at the transformation scene which had been played for her (doubtful) amusement in her late home in the Square. Mrs Wargrave's indignation at her fastidious and romantic objection to marry a man who could make a provision for her turned in a moment into swift horror and alarm lest such a catastrophe should occur, and the acknowledgment that Mademoiselle had "behaved very well" in the reluctance which half an hour before she had denounced as folly! Claire had known how it would be from the first, and it was an amusing exhibition of human inconsistency. But yet she was not so much amused after all. Exhibitions of this kind, perhaps, fail of their effect when they are too closely connected with ourselves. The spectator must not be too much involved in them if he would retain his power to smile.

When Charles Wargrave next appeared at the Square he was greeted by his two small cousins with rapture. They had great news to tell him. Mademoiselle had gone away. "Oh, Uncle Charles, only think what has happened!" The information was so unexpected that he was off his guard, and his consternation was evident. "Mademoiselle de Castel-Sombre!" he said, in tones of dismay. Mrs Wargrave kept her countenance very well, and maintained a close watch upon him under her eyelids, without betraying herself; but Leicester Wargrave, who was at home, as it was Sunday, was exceedingly uneasy, and hewed away at the roast-mutton before him, though everybody had been helped, to conceal the agitation he felt.

"Oh, you know her name? It is such a funny name, like a name in a novel. I never could keep it in mind; but, of course, to introduce her to any one, in her position, it was enough to say Mademoiselle."

"Do you think so? It is scarcely like your usual good breeding," said Charles, concealing his agitation too as best he could under a tone of high and somewhat acrid superiority. "And perhaps you don't know that Castel-Sombre is a historical name, and one of the best in Béarn—which makes a difference."

"Oh, if you go so far as that," said Mrs Wargrave, with a slight quaver in her voice. She did not resent what he said; indeed, she felt very humble before him, and deprecated any argument. "We did not know, of course, when she came, that she was any one—in particular. I mean, any one out of the ordinary."

"And has it been long settled that she was to go away?" said Charles Wargrave in his most formal voice, addressing his cousin grandly from an eminence: which he had a right to do, as at once a man of fashion and the principal partner in the firm—a right, however, which he very seldom exercised.

"Oh, it was only on Friday," cried Edith; "she never said a word till then."

"And she went away the same night, oh! in such a hurry," added Dorothy, breathless to bring forth her part of the news before she could be frustrated. "She went by the night train."

"After she had that talk in the morning, mother, with you and papa in the library," Edith burst in.

"Yes, poor thing!" said Mrs Wargrave. "She had told me on Monday night her mother was ill; and, of course, in the circumstances, I spoke to Leicester, and we did what we could to make it easier for her." Leicester paused in his destruction of the leg of mutton at this speech, and gave his wife an astonished look; but Charles was too much preoccupied to note these signs of excitement, and he had to defend himself from observation at the same time.

"That was kind of you," he said, though with a certain haughtiness. He was angry that they should have given her aid, that she should have accepted it; but this was a sentiment impossible to express. "Then I suppose you little ones have holidays now, and no lessons?" he said, attempting a lighter tone.

"Only till the new governess comes," said Edith; "and oh! mother went out that very day to ask about another," cried Dorothy, in an aggrieved tone.

"Oh!" he said; "then Mademoiselle de Castel-Sombre is not coming back?"

"She is so anxious about her mother," said Mrs Wargrave, "we thought—that is, she made up her mind—that it would be better to look for something in Paris, that she might be near her mother. You know," added the lady, seeing a chance of administering a return blow, "her mother must be quite an old lady, for Mademoiselle herself is far from young."

Charles Wargrave gave her a keen look. But the pudding had been placed before her, and she was busy serving it, an occupation quite inconsistent, surely, with any unkind meaning. Leicester was a great deal more likely to betray himself, and was indeed very uneasy, looking and feeling very guilty, wondering how his wife should be able to tell such lies, yet not venturing to contradict her; for he had been as strong as she was on the necessity of parting Charlie (if he was really such a fool) from Mademoiselle.

Little more, however, was said. Charles was so much confused by this sudden catastrophe that it took him some time to collect his thoughts. And he felt it quite possible that Claire might have fled from him, and not by any means the worst omen for his success. If she had fled it was that she was afraid of yielding. His heart rose as he reflected that, by going home, she had freed herself from all hindrance to their i*********e; that he might go and see her without having to watch for an opportunity; that he might gain partisans in her family, make himself friends. These reflections cleared his brow, and made this alarming explanation, which had hung like a thunder-cloud over Mrs Leicester Wargrave, pass over with more ease than could have been hoped. The pair exchanged a look of congratulation as they rose from the table. The danger for the moment was past, or so at least they thought.

"By the way," said Charles, when his cousin and he strolled out into the garden to smoke the inevitable cigarette, "I suppose you can give me Mademoiselle de Castel-Sombre's address in Paris?" He took his cigarette from his mouth and blew away a long pennon of smoke, as if it had been the most simple question in the world.

"Mademoiselle's address!" said Leicester Wargrave, with open eyes and mouth.

"Yes. I've—I've got a book of hers which I should like to send back."

"You'd better send it to my wife," said Leicester. "Women have ways of managing these things. You had much better send it to my wife."

"Women have ways! One would think it was some mystery you were talking of."

"I say, Charlie, I'm older than you are, and I've seen more of the world. Don't you go after that Frenchwoman. They're not to be trusted. Marry if you like, but marry an English——"

"What are you talking of?" cried Charles, red with wonder and wrath.

"Well, I don't know. Perhaps it's only the silly way women have of looking at a thing. They said, you know—but I don't generally mind them for my part.

"I should like very much to know what they said."

Mrs Wargrave was seized with a panic when she saw the two gentlemen together. She had no confidence in her husband. "He will go and spoil everything," she said to herself; and the consequence was that she hurried out to join them, arriving just at this critical point in the conversation. "What who said?" she asked, lightly. "I believe you are talking gossip, you two."

"Leicester tells me that somebody, whom he calls the women, have been talking—apparently about me. I want to know what they said."

"You are a pair of regular old gossips," said the lady, though she grew a little pale. "They said, and he said, and she said! You need not be afraid, dear Charlie; nobody says any harm of you."

"It is to be hoped so," he replied, shortly. "Perhaps you will tell me, Marian, the address of Mademoiselle de Castel-Sombre in Paris; Leicester does not seem to know."

"Mademoiselle's address!" cried Mrs Leicester, startled like her husband.

"Is there anything so wonderful in my question? I may have something to send her. I may know some one who wants—her help."

"Dear Charlie," said Mrs Wargrave, "I know you'll think it strange when I tell you—just as if she had something to conceal!—she left no address."

He turned upon his cousin, who was gazing at his wife, and caught him unawares. Seizing his arm: "Is that true?" he said.

"Charlie, don't!" said Leicester Wargrave. "My good fellow, don't do it. You'll never repent it but once, and that will be all your life."

"What does he mean?" said Charles, turning from the husband to the wife.

"How can I tell what he means?" cried that lady. "You are very uncivil to ask him if what I say is true. It is perfectly true. He may talk as much nonsense as he pleases, but it is the plain fact that I don't know Mademoiselle's address."

Charles Wargrave looked her in the face sternly. "I do not believe you!" he said, as if every word had been a stone; and, flinging his cigarette among the bushes, he turned round and left the garden and the house. It startled him a little as he went out to receive the same answer from the butler to whom he repeated his question. "The young lady, sir, went off in a great hurry. I asked her where I should send her letters, but she said she expected no letters. And she went off without leaving an address."

Was it a conspiracy against him, framed by her? or was it some interference of Marian's? or was it true, which would almost be worst of all?

It is a bad thing not to leave an address, but it is not such an effectual shield of privacy as might be wished. What with directories and other aids, it is very difficult for any one who does not belong to the hopelessly nomadic portion of the population to conceal their whereabouts for long. Charles Wargrave had all his wits about him, and he knew his Paris as well as foreigners ever succeed in knowing that wonderful city. The result of his investigations was that before a fortnight had passed he knocked at a door on the second floor of a house in one of the smaller streets near the Arc de Triomphe, and asked to see Madame Castel. He was shown into a tiny salon, looking out upon a narrow court,—a little room full of traces of a larger life, which did not make it more attractive now, with furniture too large, pictures which seemed to overshadow its small dimensions like clouds—relics evidently of a time when the family life was not pinched and restrained as now. A photograph of Claire was on the mantelpiece among other household treasures, at sight of which the visitor gave an exclamation of relief: for, though he had come in so boldly, he had been quite uncertain whether this was or was not the place he was seeking. He was standing before the little picture which had given him the welcome assurance that he was right, when the door opened and an old lady came in. She was, as Mrs Leicester Wargrave had suggested, quite an old lady, with, a cap made of black lace covering her rusty grey hair. Keen curiosity and an almost hunger of earnestness were in her blue eyes, which kept their colour and brightness, though the countenance was so faded. She had the air of one who had kept asking, "What is it? what is it?" for weary and unsatisfied years. She was dressed with that curious neglect which characterises so many Frenchwomen indoors, in garments indescribably dingy, of the colour of poverty, a well-ascertained and understood hue—the same, with variations, which was visible in the carpets and curtains and all the old furniture—but had so much intelligence in her face that her age and shabbiness had nothing in them that was disagreeable. Charles Wargrave made her his bow, like an Englishman, not like a Frenchman, and the old lady, though her nationality had been partly washed out by long acquaintance with Parisian shabbiness and mannerisms and formality, the reverse of the medal of which the brighter side only is visible to visitors, noted the difference with a favourable impression. There was a certain witchlike ruggedness in her features and look which betrayed the old Scotch stock, never uncongenial with the French, from which she sprang.

"You have a daughter, Madame," said Wargrave, who felt as shy as a schoolboy before the keen old lady, who measured him from head to foot with her penetrating eyes.

"Two," she replied, quickly. "That is Claire, at which you are looking; and that is Leonore, who is away, who is in a situation. My eldest daughter came home about a fortnight ago. She has gone out to see some people who put an advertisement in 'Galignani.' Perhaps you wish to see her—about an engagement?"

"That is exactly what I wish," said Wargrave, with an uneasy smile.

"Ah! will you take a seat? She may come back at any moment; and if I could in the meantime give you any particulars——"

"Madame de Castel-Sombre——"

"No, no," said the old lady, putting away the double-barrelled name, as it were, with a wave of her hand. "Plain Castel, if you please; that is enough for us now."

"Madame," repeated Charles Wargrave, "it is not the kind of engagement you think of, which I wish to propose to Mademoiselle Claire."

"Ah!" cried the mother with a sudden start; "is it, well—what is it? I may misunderstand you. Please to speak plainly. You are——?" She gave a quick glance at his card, which she held in her hand. "It is the same name as Claire's employers in London. Perhaps I am making a mistake. Is she called back?"

"The people in London are my relations. I saw your daughter there; you will not wonder, perhaps, that I admired her, that I did all I could to make myself known to her—that I loved her."

He made a pause, feeling his story somewhat embarrassing to tell under the close inspection of the mother's eyes.

"No," she said, after a moment's pause, "I am not surprised. I have always thought Claire a very interesting woman; but, pardon me, I should have thought her a little too old for you."

"What does that matter?" he cried, vehemently angry to have this objection produced against him from the last quarter in the world where it could have been expected.

"Well, nothing, if you don't think so," said this reasonable old lady. "I only mentioned it as a fact, you know. I am afraid it will weigh with Claire herself."

"Madame Castel, I have come to throw myself upon your protection. Would it not be better for Claire to be the mistress of her own house, and that a good one, to have her own life, and that a prosperous one, even though weighted with a husband, than to live and work as she is doing now?"

"Perhaps I should think the husband the best part of it," said Madame Castel. "Your appeal is a little bewildering, seeing that I never saw you before; but I agree with you, if it is as you say. My protection, however, is not of much importance. What would you have me to do?"

"Mademoiselle de Castel-Sombre is French, and in France a mother's power is supreme."

"Ah," said the old lady, shaking her head, "don't flatter yourself. A mother's power is seldom supreme over a daughter of thirty-five; and," she added, "I would gladly secure these good things for my Claire; but she is more able to judge than I am. Does she know?"

"I have done all I could to make her aware of my respectful devotion," said the young man, with a certain formality which came to him in the air of the unaccustomed foreign place; "but, indeed, I have no reason to flatter myself. My hope is that the objections which she thought valid in my cousin's house might not exist here."

"Ah, it was in your cousin's house. Then that explains——" Madame Castel said. She gave a sigh of relief. "I had been fearing something, I know not what. She came so suddenly, without any warning but a telegram. I see it now."

"Mother, what is it you see now?"

Claire came into the room, bringing the air of the morning with her, a fresh waft of outdoor atmosphere. She was not the Mademoiselle of the Square. There was a freedom in her movements—the freedom of a woman at home—not the enforced sobriety of an official. Her look was alert and bright; she had found pleasure in her native air, in the surroundings she loved: and yet there was a line of anxiety in her forehead. She was emancipated for the moment, and keenly felt the warm thrill of independence; but she was anxious for her future, and that of her mother, and full of care. Pleased, yet anxious and full of care—it seemed a contradiction in words—and yet Charles Wargrave saw all that, and read more, written in her face. She had not seen him as he sat within the shadow of the door, and, he thought, he had never seen her before, free to express any emotion, free to come and go as she pleased, carrying her heart in her face.

"I have not been successful," she said. "Never mind; better luck will come to-morrow. They say I am quite sure to hear of something before——Mr Wargrave!" she cried, with a sudden step back. The blood rushed to her face and then forsook it. Her brow clouded, her countenance fell.

"Yes, Mademoiselle Claire." He had risen to his feet, and stood before her with a painful, whimsical consciousness that he could not bow like a Frenchman, which, perhaps, was the sort of thing to please her, shooting through his mind even in the excitement of the moment, and all the eager rush of feeling roused by seeing her again in this new phase.

Claire was too much startled to know what she was saying. A flood of strange feelings seemed to carry her away. Her head, which she had carried with such airy grace, drooped; something seemed to dazzle her eyes. "I did not expect," she said, faltering, "to see you here."

"I have come—to seek the protection of your mother," he said. It was said in English, but the meaning was French. And there was something so strange in the idea of Madame Castel's protection—the shabby, eager, old lady—extended to this young man, who had everything that life could bestow, that Claire, after a hard effort to restrain herself, and with something hysterical climbing in her throat, suddenly broke the embarrassment of the situation by the most inappropriate thing in the world—a burst of unsteady laughter, which returned again and again, and would not be quieted. "My mother's protection!"

It was the ridiculous which follows so close upon the heels of the sublime. But though she laughed, Claire foresaw how it would be: Madame Castel's protection threw such a weight into the scales on Charles Wargrave's side that there was scarcely anything more to say. He was not sent away again. He remained, and found the little shabby apartment divine. It was his turn to laugh when they compared notes and found that even the obstacle of age meant nothing more than a few days. And thus this little drama, so exciting while it lasted, came to a speedy and satisfactory end. It is the penalty of a happy dénoûment that it is not half so interesting as the painful steps that sometimes lead to it; and Claire, in all the brilliancy of her late but perfect good fortune, was too happy to mind or to attract that sympathy which attended Mademoiselle.

The Leicester Wargraves found it a bitter experience when Mademoiselle returned as Madame, with a finer house, finer carriages, more social honours, than themselves. They said everything which she had herself predicted to Mrs Wargrave that they would say, calling her a designing woman, an artful adventuress, and half-a-dozen slanders more. But if anybody was harmed by their proceedings it was themselves, and not Claire.THE LILY AND THE THORN.

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