He stood and smiled at her, patting her on the shoulder. “I wonder if you will stand by me like that, when you hear me get my due? Who is your aunt Clarendon? She is your father’s sister, Fan; I think the only one who is left.”
“Papa’s sister! I thought it must be--on the other side.”
“My mother,” said Markham, “has few relations--which is a misfortune that I bear with equanimity. Mrs Clarendon married a lawyer a great many years ago, Fan, when he was poor; and now he is very rich, and they will make him a judge one of these days.”
“A judge,” said Frances. “Then he must be very good and wise. And my aunt----”
“My dear, the wife’s qualities are not as yet taken into account. She is very good, I don’t doubt; but they don’t mean to raise her to the Bench. You must remember when you go there, Fan, that they are _the other side_.”
“What do you mean by ‘the other side’?” inquired Frances anxiously, fixing her eyes upon the kind, queer, insignificant personage, who yet was so important in this house.
Markham gave forth that little chuckle of a laugh which was his special note of merriment. “You will soon find it out for yourself,” he replied; “but the dear old mammy can hold her own. Is that all? for I’m running off; I have an engagement.”
“Oh, not all--not half. I want you to tell me--I want to know--I--I don’t know where to begin,” said Frances, with her hand on the sleeve of his coat.
“Nor I,” he retorted with a laugh. “Let me go now; we’ll find an opportunity. Keep your eyes, or rather your ears, open; but don’t take all you hear for gospel. Good-bye till to-night. I’m coming to dinner to-night.”
“Don’t you live here?” said Frances, accompanying him to the door.
“Not such a fool, thank you,” replied Markham, stopping her gently, and closing the door of the room with care after him as he went away.
Frances was much discouraged by finding nothing but that closed door in front of her where she had been gazing into his ugly but expressive face. It made a sort of dead stop, an emphatic punctuation, marking the end. Why should he say he was not such a fool as to live at home with his mother? Why should he be so _nice_ and yet so odd? Why had Constance warned her not to put herself in Markham’s hands? All this confused the mind of Frances whenever she began to think. And she did not know what to do with herself. She stole to the window and watched through the white curtains, and saw him go away in the hansom which stood waiting at the door. She felt a vacancy in the house after his departure, the loss of a support, an additional silence and sense of solitude; even something like a panic took possession of her soul. Her impulse was to rush up-stairs again and shut herself up in her room. She had never yet been alone with her mother except for a moment. She dreaded the (quite unnecessary, to her thinking) meal which was coming, at which she must sit down opposite to Lady Markham, with that solemn old gentleman, dressed like Mr Durant, and that gorgeous theatrical figure of a footman, serving the two ladies. Ah, how different from Domenico--poor Domenico, who had called her _carina_ from her childhood, and who wept over her hand as he kissed it, when she was coming away. Oh, when should she see these faithful friends again?