“And will thee, nill thee, I must love   Till the grass grows my head above.”
 
TRANS. OF DES POURINNS BéARNAIS SONGS.
 
“Ihre Augen waren nicht die Sch?nsten die ich jemals sah, aber die tiefsten, hinter denen man am meisten erwartete.”
 
WAHRHETT UND DICHTUNG.
 
 
 
THE weeks passed on quietly, and to outward seeming, uneventfully enough.
 
Cissy and Marion grew so accustomed to their calm, pleasant, life at Altes, that save for occasional home letters, they could have fancied themselves permanently settled in the pretty little southern town.
 
Harry wrote frequently and very cheerfully, only bewailing, as the Christmas holidays drew nearer, that they must be spent away from Marion. At rarer intervals there came paternal epistles from Mr. Vere, to which Marion always dutifully replied. Cissy, as her share, had regular letters from her husband, who latterly had alluded to a prospect before him of obtaining ere long a staff appointment in a part of the country sufficiently healthy for his wife to rejoin him there without risk.
 
Mrs. Archer was in great spirits at this news, and chattered away about returning to India, as if it were the most easily managed little journey in the world. But Marion, as she looked at her, felt certain vague misgivings. She was not satisfied that her cousin was gaining strength from her sojourn at Altes, for at times she looked sadly fragile. The slightest extra exertion utterly prostrated her, and yet so buoyant and high-spirited was she, that Marion found it impossible to persuade her to take more care of herself. Poor little Cissy! What a baby she was after all! And yet a difficult baby to manage, with all her genuine sweet temper and pretty playfulness.
 
Marion’s governess duties were faithfully, performed, and on the whole with ease and satisfaction. Certainly it was not all smooth sailing in this direction, but still the storms were rarer, and less important, than might have been expected. Sybil caused her from time to time anxiety, but never displeasure. Lotty, on the other hand, was now and then extremely provoking; disobedient, inattentive and impertinent. But Marion had succeeded in gaining the child’s affection, and in the end these fits of haughtiness were sure to be followed by repentance, genuine, though somewhat short-lived.
 
Now and then Miss Vyse favoured the schoolroom party with her presence. These were the days the young governess dreaded. Not that then, was anything in Florence’s manner actually to be complained of. She refrained from the slightest appearance of interfering, and indeed went further than this; for she paraded her respect for the governess, in a way that to Marion was more offensive than positive insult or contemptuous neglect. She it was who always reproved the refractory Lotty for any sign of disrespect or inattention.
 
“Oh, Lotty,” she would say, in an inexpressibly mischief-making tone, “how can you be so forgetful of your duty to Miss Freer! Remember, dear, what your grandmamma was saying only yesterday. I am sure you were never so troublesome with me when I helped you with your lessons. And that was only a sort of play-learning you know. Now Miss Freer is here on purpose to teach you; you know dear, you must be obedient.”
 
All of which, of course, further excited the demon of opposition, and defiance of her gentle governess, in the naughty Lotty’s heart!
 
Florence managed too to show that she came, in a sense, as a spy on Miss Freer. Little remarks made, as it were, in all innocence; half questions, apologised for as soon as uttered: in these and a hundred other ways she succeeded in making Marion conscious that she was not fully trusted. And far worse, she instilled into Lotty, by nature so generous and unsuspicious, a most unsalutary feeling, half of contempt, half of distrust of the young governess; the being, who of all that had ever come into contact with Charlotte Severn, might have exercised the happiest influence on the child’s rich, but undisciplined, nature. Marion did not see much of Lady Severn, whose civilities to Mrs. Archer were generally of a kind that did not of necessity include Miss Freer. A proposal to “sit an hour” with her in the morning before lessons were over in the Rue des Lauriers, or an invitation to accompany the dowager in her very stupid afternoon drive: these, and such-like little attentions she showed her, some of which accepted as a duty, though by no means a pleasure; to the last day of her stay at Altes, Mrs. Archer could not succeed in making the deaf lady hear what she said without ludicrous, and well-nigh superhuman exertions.
 
One thing in her daily life, for long struck Marion as curious. She never, by any chance, saw Sir Ralph in his mother’s house. Had she not been informed to the contrary, she would have imagined he was not a member of the establishment. The children talked of him sometimes, indeed Sybil would never have tired of chattering about him, but Marion did not encourage it. Much chattering would effectually interfered with lessons, and besides this, the girl-governess had of late begun to suspect that her discretion in this could not be carried too far; as she had a sort of instinctive fear that all or a great part of the schoolroom conversation was extracted from Lotty by Miss Vyse. Not that she cared about the thing itself; though the feeling of a spy in the camp, is not a pleasant one, even to the most candid and innocent; and in her present position, Marion could not feel herself invulnerable. But it was very trying to her, trying and almost sickening, to see the sweet child-trustfulness gradually melting away out of Lotty’s nature.
 
She thought it better to say very little about the children to Sir Ralph, when she met him in Mrs. Archer’s house. And, indeed, he by no means encouraged her doing so. The mention of her morning’s employment always appeared so to annoy him that at last it came to be tacitly avoided, and really, for the time being, forgotten. For they were at no loss for things to talk about, those three, in the afternoons, generally one or two a week, that Sir Ralph spent in Cissy’s drawing-room.
 
Pleasant afternoons they were! To him indeed there could be no doubt of their being so, as otherwise he would not have thus sought them voluntarily. He took care, however, never to come on a Friday. Sophy Berwick’s chatter, Dora Bailey’s silliness, and Mr. Chepstow’s ponderous platitudes, all at one time, in one little room, would really, he declared irreverently, have been too much fox him.
 
“And so,” said Cissy, “just like a man, you leave us poor weak women to endure as best we may, what you confess would be beyond your powers.”
 
“Now, Mrs. Archer,” he replied, “that’s not fair at all. ‘What’s one man’s meat is another man’s poison.’ I can’t suppose your drawing-room-full of friends is disagreeable to you, as, to speak plainly, you have yourself to thank for it. If you don’t want to see all these people, what do you ask them for?”
 
“I never said I didn’t want to see them,” said illogical Cissy; “I only said you might come and help me to entertain them. Besides,” added she mischievously, “there’s Marion. She didn’t ask them, so she’s not to blame for the infliction, if such it be. You might come to help her to get through the afternoon.”
 
“Great use I should be!” he said, lightly, and then went on more seriously, “Besides, do you know, Mrs. Archer, I am really busy just now.”
 
“Busy; what about?” she asked coolly.
 
“Oh, things that you would think very stupid. Hunting up specimens of the old language and dialects once spoken about here. I’m doing it for a friend who is taking up the subject thoroughly.”
 
“I should think that very interesting work,” said Marion.
 
“Yes, indeed,” he replied warmly; “indeed, interesting is no word for it. It has quite reconciled me to spending the winter here. A prospect that was dreadful enough to few months ago, I can assure you.”
 
Just at that moment Charlie appeared with a whispered message to his mother, who, thereupon, left the room, saying as she did so, that she would return in a few minutes, and that in the meantime, Sir Ralph might amuse himself and Marion by giving her some specimens of the ancient language he was so interested in.
 
Charlie followed his mother, but stopped for a moment as he reached the door, to announce in a stage whisper, with a confidential nod:
 
“It’s only the dressmaker!” which piece of impertinence was audibly punished by a box on the ear from his indignant mamma.
 
“Is your name, Miss Freer—the name Marion, I mean—spelt with an A or an O?” asked Sir Ralph, somewhat irrelevantly, it appeared to the young lady.
 
“With an O,” she replied.
 
“Oh, I fancied so,” he said, with satisfaction. “Mrs. Archer told me to amuse you with specimens of the old dialects just now, but she would be surprised if I told her that there is an old song, old though not ancient, actually dedicated to a lady who must have borne your name.”
 
“Is there, really?” exclaimed Marion. “I had no idea my name was to be found anywhere out of England, or Great Britain, I should say, for there are plenty of Scotch Marions. Oh, tell me about the song, Sir Ralph; or can you show it to me? Is it pretty? And has it been set to music?”
 
“It has been set to music, and I think it very pretty,” he replied. “I could show it to you, for I have both copied it and translated it. But I can’t show it you just now. Indeed, I am not sure that it would not please you more if I gave it to some one else to show you.”
 
He looked at her closely as he spoke. But she only appeared puzzled.
 
“If you gave it to some one else to show me?” she repeated. “I don’t understand what you mean, Sir Ralph. Really I don’t.”
 
“Really, don’t you?” said he again; “truly and really?” He spoke, as it were, in jest, and yet something in his voice sounded as if he were in earnest.
 
“Think again, Miss Freer. Though you may never have seen this little song, you may easily enough fancy that, pretty and simple as it is, there was only one person who could have ventured to address it to the Marion of those days without fear of its being scornfully rejected. That Marion must have been young and fair; but now-a-days there are others as young and as fair. And there are knights, too, gallant enough, though not exactly cast in the mould of the old-world ones. You see, Miss Freer, I should not like my poor little song to be scorned. I would rather keep it till the true knight passes this way, and I am anxious to—”
 
He stopped, at a loss to finish his sentence. Half ashamed, indeed, of having said so much.
 
Marion had listened quietly. No sign of displeasure in her face, but an expression of slight bewilderment, and somewhat, too, of sadness, overspread it.
 
“Sir Ralph,” she said, “I won’t say again I don’t know what you are talking about; but, truly, I may say I don’t know whom you are referring to. You wouldn’t wish to vex me, I know. If even there is anything you wish to warn me about, I am sure you would do it most gently and kindly. I am not very old, and I daresay not very wise,” she added, with a smile; “but, truly, I don’t quite understand. No knight, as you call it, is likely to pass this way on my account.”
 
She spoke so earnestly and simply that Ralph all but moved out of his habitual self-control, looked up again with the sun-light look over his face.
 
“Miss Freer,” he began, eagerly, and still more eager words were on his lips; but— —the door opened, and in walked, with the air of one thoroughly at home, and sure of a welcome, Frank Berwick!
 
It was not the first time Ralph’s pleasant afternoons had been interrupted by this young gentleman. He rose, the bright look utterly gone from his face, shook hands with Frank, and, Mrs. Archer shortly after returning to the room, seized the first opportunity of taking leave of the little party. As he bade good-bye to Marion he said, in a low voice, heard by her only:
 
“Forgive me, Miss Freer, for what I said. I must have seemed very impertinent, but, truly, I did not mean to be so. Remember how many years older I am than you, and let that prevent your thinking me unpardonably officious.”
 
Marion said nothing, but for one half instant raised her eyes to his face, with a curious expression, part deprecating, part reproachful. The sort of look one sees in the face of a child who has been scolded for a fault which it does not feel conscious of or understand. Then she said, or whispered—or, indeed, was it only his fancy; the words were so faint and low?—
 
“How little you understand me!”
 
When Ralph left Mrs. Archer’s house he did not turn towards the Rue des Lauriers, but walked briskly in the opposite direction. Like many other men, he had a habit, when perplexed or annoyed, of “taking it out of himself,” as he would have called it, by sharp, physical exercise. Not till he was some way out of the town, in a quiet country lane, did he slacken his pace, and begin steadily to think—thus:
 
“What a weak fool I am, after all! Can it really be that after all these years, I, now that I am middle-aged (for thirty-three is more than middle-aged for men like me), have caught the strange infection, hitherto so incomprehensible to me? What is there about this girl, this grave-eyed Marion, that utterly changes me when in her presence? Oh! Madness and Folly are no words for what I was nearly doing just now, who of all men in the world am least fitted, have indeed least right to marry! Lucky it was that that boy, Berwick, came in when he did. Not, after all, that it would have mattered much. She could not care, or ever learn to care, for me. But the thing might have distressed her all the same, and increased the discomfort of her position. How odious it is to think of her trudging backwards and forwards every morning as a daily governess, and that hateful Florence sneering at and insulting her in her cat-like way!”
 
At this point he stopped short in his meditations, and laughed at himself.
 
“Really, I am too absurd! Now to be reasonable about it, what shall I do? So far, surely, I am not so very far gone. No necessity for my running away from Altes. And before long, I have very little doubt, the temptation will be beyond my reach, for of young Berwick’s intentions I have not the shadow of a doubt. He is not a bad fellow, by any means, and will make a fair enough husband, I dare say. Not good enough for her, of course, but then that’s the way in such things. Besides, going out to India with him is, suppose, a preferable lot to being a governess at home. But I hope his people will treat her properly. My poor little girl! But what right have I to even think of her so? Ah! After all, if things had been different!”
 
Thus he thought to himself as he slowly walked homewards. Turning the thing round and round in his mind, and looking at it from all sides. Finally deciding that all he could do was gradually to dismiss this wild dream from his mind (not realizing in his inexperience, that in such matters it is hearts, not minds, we have to deal with), and so far as possible forget that it had ever visited him.
 
As no one but himself was involved, no one’s happiness or suffering in question but his own, he decided he need not absent himself from Altes for a little, as had been his first impulse, on making this extraordinary discovery. Not, at least at present. But he would be careful. He would not lay up for himself unnecessary perplexity or suffering; for after all, his belief in his own self-control had received a great shock. So he resolved, and acted upon his resolution by not calling at Mrs. Archer’s till the next week; when, trusting to the safety, which we are told, lies in numbers, he purposely chose a Friday for his visit.
 
It was disagreeable, as he had anticipated, and indeed almost hoped it would be.
 
The day being chilly, none of Mrs. Archer’s friends ventured out on the terrace, and the small drawing-room was therefore rather crowded. There was the usual set; the Bailey girls, Mr. Chepstow, and Monsieur De l’Orme, the Frasers and Sophy Berwick, accompanied, of course, by her brother. Erbenfeld was there too, amusing himself by trying to get up a flirtation with Mrs. Archer; by no means an easy undertaking, as he found to his cost; for Cissy’s self-possession, quick wit and unaffected, utter indifference to his graceful compliments and sentimental allusions, baffled him far more effectively than any affectation of matronly dignity, or the most freezing airs of propriety. It was really rather amusing to watch, for Erbenfeld was clever enough in his shallow way, and evidently quite unaccustomed to have his flattering attentions thus smilingly rejected. Ralph had not been there two minutes before he began to wish himself away; but he had resolved to say half-an-hour or so, to avoid the appearance of any marked change; and so he sat on patiently, thinking to himself it was no bad discipline for his powers of self-control to sit there trying to talk nonsense to Sophy Berwick, all the time that he was intensely conscious or Marion’s near presence at the piano, where she was eagerly examining sonic new music which Frank had just brought her, the giver, of course, standing close by, replying to her remarks with a bright smile on his handsome face.
 
Suddenly some one proposed that they should have, a little music. The glee party collected round the piano, and went through their little performances successfully enough. This over, there was an exhibition of instrumental music from one or two of the young ladies. In the moving about the room that ensued, Ralph found himself, for the first time that afternoon, near Marion. In his nervous hurry to say something, he, of course, said about the stupidest thing he could have chosen:
 
“Do you sing, Miss Freer?”
 
She looked up at, him with surprise, but when she saw the perfect good faith in which he had asked the question, she began to laugh in spite of herself.
 
“Yes,” said she, “I think I have told you before that I sing a little, and if you had been listening you would have heard me singing just now.”
 
“Were you singing?” he said, “truly I did not know. Certainly I would have listened had I known it was you. I was thinking the other day how odd it was I had never heard you sing.”
 
“I was not singing alone, just now,” she said, more seriously, “I only took a part in those glees.”
 
“Ah!” he replied, “then it was not bad of me after all. But I should very much like to hear you sing alone. When Miss Bailey finishes this affair she is playing, will you sing, Miss Freer?”
 
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