Whiteladies

“I do not care for the cousin. I wish he were not here. I wish there was no one – no one but ourselves; ourselves! that does not mean anything, now,” cried Reine, indignant and broken-hearted. The tears welled up into her eyes. She did not take what she had heard so calmly as her mother had done. She was sore and mortified, and wounded and cut to the heart.

“Juste ciel!” cried Madame de Mirfleur, “thy eyes! you will have red eyes if you cry. Julie, fly toward my child – think not more of me. Here is the eau de rose to bathe them; and, quick, some drops of the eau de fleur de orange. I never travel without it, as you know.”

“I do not want any fleur de orange, nor eau de rose. I want to be as once we were, when we were fond of each other, when we were happy, when, if I watched him, Bertie knew it was for love, and nobody came between us,” cried the girl. Impossible to tell how sore her heart was, when it thus burst forth – sore because of what she had heard, sore with neglect, and excitement, and expectation, and mortification, which, all together, were more than Reine could bear.

“You mean when your brother was sick?” said Madame de Mirfleur. “You would not like him to be ill again, chérie. They are like that, ma Reine – unkind, cruel, except when they want us, and then we must not be absent for a moment. But, Reine, I hope thou art not so foolish as to expect sense from a boy; they are not like us; they have no understanding; and if thou wouldst be a woman, not always a child, thou must learn to support it, and say nothing. Come, my most dear, my toilette is made, and thy eyes are not so red, after all – eyes of blue do not show like the others. Come, and we will say bon jour to the cousin, who will think it strange to see neither you nor me.”

“Stop – stop but one moment, mamma,” cried Reine. She caught her mother’s dress, and her hand, and held her fast. The girl was profoundly excited, her eyes were not red, but blazing, and her tears dried. She had been tried beyond her powers of bearing. “Mamma,” she cried, “I want to go home with you – take me with you! If I have been impatient, forgive me. I will try to do better, indeed I will. You love me a little – oh, I know only a little, not as I want you to love me! But I should be good; I should try to please you and – every one, ma mère! Take me home with you!”

“Reine, chérie! Yes, my most dear, if you wish it. We will talk of it after. You excite yourself; you make yourself unhappy, my child.”

“No, no, no,” she cried; “it is not I. I never should have dreamed of it, that Herbert could think me a burden, think me intrusive, interfering, disagreeable! I cannot bear it! Ah, perhaps it is my fault that people are so unkind! Perhaps I am what he says. But, mamma, I will be different with you. Take me with you. I will be your maid, your bonne, anything! only don’t leave me here!”

“My Reine,” said Madame de Mirfleur, touched, but somewhat embarrassed, “you shall go with me, do not doubt it – if it pleases you to go. You are my child as much as Babette, and I love you just the same. A mother has not one measure of love for one and another for another. Do not think it, chérie. You shall go with me if you wish it, but you must not be so angry with Herbert. What are men? I have told you often they are not like us; they seek what they like, and their own way, and their own pleasures; in short, they are fools, as the selfish always are. Herbert is ungrateful to thee for giving up thy youth to him, and thy brightest years; but he is not so unkind as he seems – that which he said is not what he thinks. You must forgive him, ma Reine; he is ungrateful – ”

“Do I wish him to be grateful?” said the girl. “If one gives me a flower, I am grateful, or a glass of water; but gratitude – from Herbert – to me! Do not let us talk of it, for I cannot bear it. But since he does not want me, and finds me a trouble – mother, mother, take me home with you!”

“Yes, chérie, yes; it shall be as you will,” said Madame de Mirfleur, drawing Reine’s throbbing head on to her bosom, and soothing her as if she had been still a child. She consoled her with soft words, with caresses, and tender tones. Probably she thought it was a mere passing fancy, which would come to nothing; but she had never crossed any of her children, and she soothed and petted Reine instinctively, assenting to all she asked, though without attaching to what she asked any very serious meaning. She took her favorite essence of orange flowers from her dressing-case, and made the agitated girl swallow some of it, and bathed her eyes with rose-water, and kissed and comforted her. “You shall do what pleases to you, ma bien aimée,” she said. “Dry thy dear eyes, my child, and let us go to salute the cousin. He will think something is wrong. He will suppose he is not welcome; and we are not like men, who are a law to themselves; we are women, and must do what is expected – what is reasonable. Come, chérie, or he will think we avoid him, and that something must have gone wrong.”

Thus adjured, Reine followed her mother to the sitting-room, where Everard had exhausted everything he had to say to Herbert, and everything that Herbert had to say to him; and where the two young men were waiting very impatiently, and with a growing sense of injury, for the appearance of the ladies. Herbert exclaimed fretfully that they had kept him waiting half the morning, as they came in. “And here is Everard, who is still more badly used,” he cried; “after a long journey too. You need not have made toilettes, surely, before you came to see Everard; but ladies are all the same everywhere, I suppose!”

Reine’s eyes gave forth a gleam of fire. “Everywhere!” she cried, “always troublesome, and in the way. It is better to be rid of them. I think so as well as you.”

Everard, who was receiving the salutations and apologies of Madame de Mirfleur, did not hear this little speech; but he saw the fire in Reine’s eyes, which lighted up her proud sensitive face. This was not his Reine of the moonlight, whom he had comforted. And he took her look as addressed to himself, though it was not meant for him. She gave him her hand with proud reluctance. He had lost her then? it was as he thought.

CHAPTER XXXVI

Reine did not go back from her resolution; she did not change her mind, as her mother expected, and forgive Herbert’s étourderie. Reine could not look upon it as étourderie, and she was too deeply wounded to recover the shock easily; but I think she had the satisfaction of giving an almost equal shock to her brother, who, though he talked so about the limitation of a girl’s understanding, and the superiority of his own, was as much wounded as Reine was, when he found that his sister really meant to desert him. He did not say a word to her, but he denounced to his mother the insensibility of women, who only cared for a fellow so long as he did exactly what they wished, and could not endure him to have the least little bit of his own way. “I should never have heard anything of this if I had taken her about with me everywhere, and gone to bed at ten o’clock, as she wished,” he cried, with bitterness.

“You have reason, mon ’Erbert,” said Madame de Mirfleur; “had you cared for her society, she would never have left you; but it is not amusing to sit at home while les autres are amusing themselves. One would require to be an angel for this.”

“I never thought Reine cared for amusement,” said Herbert; “she never said so; she was always pleased to be at home; it must all have come on, her love for gayety, to spite me.”

Madame de Mirfleur did not reply; she thought it wisest to say nothing in such a controversy, having, I fear, a deep-rooted contempt for the masculine understanding in such matters at least. En revanche, she professed the most unbounded reverence for it in other matters, and liked, as Miss Susan did, to consult “a man” in all difficult questions, though I fear, like Miss Susan, it was only the advice of one who agreed with her that she took. But with Herbert she was silent. What was the use? she said to herself. If he could not see that Reine’s indifference to amusement arose from her affection for himself, what could she say to persuade him of it? and it was against her principles to denounce him for selfishness, as probably an English mother would have done. “Que voulez-vous? it is their nature,” Madame de Mirfleur would have said, shrugging her shoulders. I am not sure, however, that this silence was much more satisfactory to Herbert than an explanation would have been. He was not really selfish, perhaps, only deceived by the perpetual homage that had been paid to him during his illness, and by the intoxicating sense of sudden emancipation now.

As for Everard, he was totally dismayed by the announcement; all the attempts at self-assertion which he had intended to make failed him. As was natural, he took this, not in the least as affecting Herbert, but only as a pointed slight addressed to himself. He had left home to please her at Christmas, of all times in the year, when everybody who has a home goes back to it, when no one is absent who can help it. And though her invitation was no invitation, and was not accompanied by one conciliating word, he had obeyed the summons, almost, he said to himself, at a moment’s notice; and she for whom he came, though she had not asked him, she had withdrawn herself from the party! Everard said to himself that he would not stay, that he would push on at once to Italy, and prove to her that it was not her or her society that had tempted him. He made up his mind to this at once, but he did not do it. He lingered next day, and next day again. He thought it would be best not to commit himself to anything till he had talked to Reine; if he had but half an hour’s conversation with her he would be able to see whether it was her mother’s doing. A young man in such circumstances has an instinctive distrust of a mother. Probably it was one of Madame de Mirfleur’s absurd French notions. Probably she thought it not entirely comme il faut that Reine, now under her brother’s guardianship, should be attended by Everard. Ridiculous! but on the whole it was consolatory to think that this might be the mother’s doing, and that Reine was being made a victim of like himself. But (whether this also was her mother’s doing he could not tell) to get an interview with Reine was beyond his power. He had no chance of saying a word to her till he had been at least ten days in Cannes, and the time of her departure with Madame de Mirfleur was drawing near. One evening, however, he happened to come into the room when Reine had stepped out upon the balcony, and followed her there hastily, determined to seize the occasion. It was a mild evening, not moonlight, as (he felt) it ought to have been, but full of the soft lightness of stars, and the luminous reflection of the sea. Beyond her, as she stood outside the window, he saw the sweep of dim blue, with edges of white, the great Mediterranean, which forms the usual background on this coast. There was too little light for much color, only a vague blueness or grayness, against which the slim, straight figure rose. He stepped out softly not to frighten her; but even then she started, and looked about for some means of escape, when she found herself captured and in his power. Everard did not take any sudden or violent advantage of his luck. He began quite gently, with an Englishman’s precaution, to talk of the weather and the beautiful night.

“It only wants a moon to be perfect,” he said. “Do you remember, Reine, the balcony at Kandersteg? I always associate you with balconies and moons. And do you remember, at Appenzell – ”

It was on her lips to say, “Don’t talk of Appenzell!” almost angrily, but she restrained herself. “I remember most things that have happened lately,” she said; “I have done nothing to make me forget.”

“Have I?” said Everard, glad of the chance; for to get an opening for reproach or self-defence was exactly what he desired.

“I did not say so. I suppose we both remember all that there is to remember,” said Reine, and she added hastily, “I don’t mean anything more than I say.”

“It almost sounds as if you did – and to see your letter,” said Everard, “no one would have thought you remembered anything, or that we had ever known each other. Reine, Reine, why are you going away?”

“Why am I going away? I am not going what you call, away. I am going rather, as we should say, home – with mamma. Is it not the most natural thing to do?”

“Did you ever call Madame do Mirfleur’s house home before?” said Everard; “do you mean it? Are not you coming to Whiteladies, to your own country, to the place you belong to? Reine, you frighten me. I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Do I belong to Whiteladies? Is England my country?” said Reine. “I am not so sure as you are. I am a Frenchwoman’s daughter, and perhaps, most likely, it will turn out that mamma’s house is the only one I have any right to.”

Here she paused, faltering, to keep the tears out of her voice. Everard did not see that her lip was quivering, but he discovered it in the tremulous sound.

“What injustice you are doing to everybody!” he cried indignantly. “How can you treat us so?”

“Treat you? I was not thinking of you,” said Reine. “Herbert will go to Whiteladies in May. It is home to him; but what is there that belongs to a girl? Supposing Herbert marries, would Whiteladies be my home? I have no right, no place anywhere. The only thing, I suppose, a girl has a right to is, perhaps, her mother. I have not even that – but mamma would give me a home. I should be sure of a home at least – ”

“I do not understand you, Reine.”

“It is tout simple, as mamma says; everything is tout simple,” she said; “that Herbert should stand by himself, not wanting me; and that I should have nothing and nobody in the world. Tout simple. I am not complaining; I am only saying the truth. It is best that I should go to Normandy and try to please mamma. She does not belong to me, but I belong to her, in a way – and she would never be unkind to me. Well, there is nothing so very wonderful in what I say. Girls are like that; they have nothing belonging to them; they are not meant to have, mamma would say. It is tout simple; they are meant to ménager, and to cajole, and to submit; and I can do the last. That is why I say that, most likely, Normandy will be my home after all.”

“You cannot mean this,” said Everard, troubled. “You never could be happy there; why should you change now? Herbert and you have been together all your lives; and if he marries – ” Here Everard drew a long breath and made a pause. “You could not be happy with Monsieur, your stepfather, and all the little Mirfleurs,” he said.

“One can live, one can get on, without being happy,” cried Reine. Then she laughed. “What is the use of talking? One has to do what one must. Let me go in, please. Balconies and moonlights are not good. To think too much, to talk folly, may be very well for you who can do what you please, but they are not good for girls. I am going in now.”

“Wait one moment, Reine. Cannot you do what you please? – not only for yourself, but for others. Everything will be changed if you go; as for me, you don’t care about me, what I feel – but Herbert. He has always been your charge; you have thought of him before everything – ”

“And so I do now,” cried the girl. Two big tears dropped out of her eyes. “So I do now! Bertie shall not think me a burden, shall not complain of me if I should die. Let me pass, please. Everard, may I not even have so much of my own will as to go out or in if I like? I do not ask much more.”

Everard stood aside, but he caught the edge of her loose sleeve as she passed him, and detained her still a moment. “What are you thinking of? what have you in your mind?” he said humbly. “Have you changed, or have I changed, or what has gone wrong? I don’t understand you, Reine.”

She stood for a moment hesitating, as if she might have changed her tone; but what was there to say? “I am not changed that I know of; I cannot tell whether you are changed or not,” she said. “Nothing is wrong; it is tout simple, as mamma says.”

What was tout simple? Everard had not a notion what was in her mind, or how it was that the delicate poise had been disturbed, and Reine taught to feel the disadvantage of her womanhood. She had not been in the habit of thinking or feeling anything of the kind. She had not been aware even for years and years, as her mother had said, whether she was girl or boy. The discovery had come all at once. Everard pondered dimly and with perplexity how much he had to do with it, or what it was. But indeed he had nothing to do with it; the question between Reine and himself was a totally different question from the other which was for the moment supreme in her mind. Had she been free to think of it, I do not suppose Reine would have felt in much doubt as to her power over Everard. But it was the other phase of her life which was uppermost for the moment.

He followed her into the lighted room, where Madame de Mirfleur sat at her tapisserie in the light of the lamp. But when Reine went to the piano and began to sing “Ma Normandie,” with her sweet young fresh voice, he retreated again to the balcony, irritated by the song more than by anything she had said. Madame de Mirfleur, who was a musician too, added a mellow second to the refrain of her child’s song. The voices suited each other, and a prettier harmony could not have been, nor a more pleasant suggestion to any one whose mind was in tune. Indeed, it made the mother feel happy for the moment, though she was herself doubtful how far Reine’s visit to the Norman château would be a success. “Je vais revoir ma Normandie,” the girl sang, very sweetly; the mother joined in; mother and daughter were going together to that simple rural home, while the young men went out into the world and enjoyed themselves. What more suitable, more pleasant for all parties? But Everard felt himself grow hot and angry. His temper flamed up with unreasonable, ferocious impatience. What a farce it was, he cried bitterly to himself. What did that woman want with Reine? she had another family whom she cared for much more. She would make the poor child wretched when she got her to that detestable Normandie they were singing about with so much false sentiment. Of course it was all some ridiculous nonsense of hers about propriety, something that never could have come into Reine’s poor dear little innocent head if it had not been put there. When a young man is angry with the girl he is fond of, what a blessing it is when she has a mother upon whom he can pour out his wrath! The reader knows how very little poor Madame de Mirfleur had to do with it. But though she was somewhat afraid of her daughter’s visit, and anxious about its success, Reine’s song was very pleasant to her, and she liked to put in that pretty second, and to feel that her child’s sweet voice was in some sense an echo of her own.

“Thanks, chérie,” she said when Reine closed the piano. “I love thy song, and I love thee for singing it. Tiens, my voice goes with your fresh voice well enough still.”

She was pleased, poor soul; but Everard, glaring at her from the balcony, would have liked to do something to Madame de Mirfleur had the rules of society permitted. He “felt like hurling things at her,” like Maria in the play.

Yet – I do not know how it came to pass, but so it was – even then Everard did not carry out his intention of making a start on his own account, and going off and leaving the little party which was just about to break up, each going his or her own way. He lingered and lingered still till the moment came when the ladies had arranged to leave. Herbert by this time had made up his mind to go on to Italy too, and Everard, in spite of himself, found that he was tacitly pledged to be his young cousin’s companion, though Bertie without Reine was not particularly to his mind. Though he had been partially weaned from his noisy young friends by Everard’s presence, Herbert had still made his boyish desire to emancipate himself sufficiently apparent to annoy and bore the elder man, who having long known the delights of freedom, was not so eager to claim them, nor so jealous of their infringement. Everard had no admiration for the billiard-rooms or smoking-rooms, or noisy, boyish parties which Herbert preferred so much to the society of his mother and sister. “Please yourself,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, as he left the lad at the door of these brilliant centres of society; and this shrug had more effect upon Herbert’s mind than dozens of moral lectures. His first doubt, indeed, as to whether the “life” which he was seeing, was not really of the most advanced and brilliant kind, was suggested to him by that contemptuous movement of his cousin’s shoulders. “He is a rustic, he is a Puritan,” Herbert said to himself, but quite unconsciously Everard’s shrug was as a cloud over his gayety. Everard, however, shrugged his shoulders much more emphatically when he found that he was expected to act the part of guide, philosopher, and friend to the young fellow, who was no longer an invalid, and who was so anxious to see the world. Once upon a time he had been very ready to undertake the office, to give the sick lad his arm, to wheel him about in his chair, to carry him up or down stairs when that was needful.

“But you don’t expect me to be Herbert’s nurse all by myself,” he said ruefully, just after Madame de Mirfleur had made a pretty little speech to him about the benefit which his example and his society would be to her boy. Reine was in the room too, working demurely at her mother’s tapisserie, and making no sign.

“He wants no nurse,” said Madame de Mirfleur, “thank God; but your society, cher Monsieur Everard, will be everything for him. It will set our minds at ease. Reine, speak for thyself, then. Do not let Monsieur Everard go away without thy word too.”

Reine raised her eyes from her work, and gave a quick, sudden glance at him. Then Everard saw that her eyes were full of tears. Were they for him? were they for Herbert? were they, for herself? He could not tell. Her voice was husky and strained very different from the clear carol with which this night even, over again, she had given forth the quavering notes of “Ma Normandie.” How he hated the song which she had taken to singing over and over again when nobody wanted it! But her voice just then had lost all its music, and he was glad.

“Everard knows – what I would say,” said Reine. “He always was – very good to Bertie;” and here her tears fell. They were so big that they made a storm of themselves, and echoed as they fell, these two tears.

“But speak, then,” said her mother, “we go to-morrow; there is no more time to say anything after to-night.”

Reine’s eyes had filled again. She was exercising great control over herself, and would not weep nor break down, but she could not keep the tears out of her eyes. “He is not very strong,” she said, faltering, “he never was – without some one to take care of him – before. Oh! how can I speak? Perhaps I am forsaking him for my own poor pride, after all. If he got ill what should I do?”

“Chérie, if he gets ill, it will be the will of God; thou canst do no more. Tell what you wish to your cousin. Monsieur Everard is very good and kind; he will watch over him; he will take care of him – ”