“My dear, all these agitations are too much for you,” said John Trevanion. “I think I must take you away.”
“Uncle John, it is not agitation. I was not agitated to-night; I was quite at ease, thinking about—oh, thinking about very different things; I am ashamed of myself when I remember how little I was thinking. Russell is right, and I was to blame.”
“My dear, I believe there is a safeguard against bodily ailments in that condition. We must look after her better again.”
“But she has seen mamma, Uncle John!”
“Rosalind, you are so full of sense—”
“What has sense to do with it?” she cried. “Do you think the child came back by herself? And yet there was no one with her—no one. Who else could have led her back? Mamma took away her hand and she awoke. Uncle John, none of you can find her; but if she is not dead—and you say she is not dead—my mother must be here.”
Jane had dropped upon her knees, and was keeping down by force, with her face pressed against her mistress’s dress, her sobs and tears. But Mrs. Trevanion clung to her tree and listened and made no sound. There was a smile upon her face of pleasure that was heartrending, more pitiful than pain.
“My dear Rosalind,” said John, in great distress, “my dearest girl! I have told you she is not dead. And if she is here we shall find her. We are certain to find her. Rosalind, ifshewere here, what would she say to you? Not to agitate and excite yourself, to try to be calm, to wait. My dear,” he said, with a tremble in his voice, “your mother would never wish to disturb your life; she would like you to be—happy; she would like you—you know—your mother—”
It appeared that he became incoherent, and could say no more.
The house was closed again and all quiet before Jane, who had been in despair, could lead Mrs. Trevanion away. She yielded at length from weakness; but she did not hear what her faithful servant said to her. Her mind had fallen, or rather risen, into a state of semi-conscious exaltation, like the ecstasy of an ascetic, as her delicate and fragile form grew numb and powerless in the damp and cold.
“Did you think any one could stand and hear all that and never make a sign?” she said. “Did you see her face, Jane? It was like an angel’s. I think that must be her window with the light in it. And he said her mother— John was always my friend. He said her mother— Where do you wantme to go? I should like to stay in the porch and die there comfortably, Jane. It would be sweet; and then there could be no more quarrelling or questions, or putting any one to the test. No test! no test! But dying there would be so easy. And Sophy Lennox would never forbid it. She would take me in, and lay me on her bed, and bury me—like a good woman. I am not unworthy of it. I am not a bad woman, Jane.”
“Oh, Madam,” Jane cried, distracted, “do you know the carriage is waiting all this time? And the people of the hotel will be frightened. Come back, for goodness sake, come back!”
“The carriage,” she said, with a wondering air. “Is it the Highcourt carriage, and are we going home?”
Theday had come which Rosalind had looked forward to as the decisive moment. The day on which her life of submission was to be over, her independent action to begin. But to Rivers it was a day of almost greater import, the day on which he was to know, so far as she was concerned, what people call his fate. It was about noon when he set out from Aix, at a white heat of excitement, to know what was in store for him. He walked, scarcely conscious what he trod on, along the commonplace road; everything appeared to him as through a mist. His whole being was so absorbed in what was about to happen that at last his mind began to revolt against it. To put this power into the hands of a girl—a creature without experience or knowledge, though with all the charms which his heart recognized; to think that she, not much more than a child in comparison with himself, should thus have his fate in her hands, and keep his whole soul in suspense, and be able to determine even the tenor of his life. It was monstrous, it wasridiculous, yet true. If he left Bonport accepted, his whole career would be altered; if not— There was a nervous tremor in him, a quiver of disquietude, which he was not able conquer. To talk of women as wanting votes or freedom, when they had in their hands such unreasonable, such ridiculous, and monstrous power as this! His mind revolted though his heart obeyed. She would not, it was possible, be herself aware of the full importance of the decision she was about to make; and yet upon that decision his whole existence would turn. A great deal has been said about the subduing power of love, yet it was maddening to think that thus, in spite of reason and every dictate of good sense, the life of a man of high intelligence and mature mind should be at the disposal of a girl. Even while he submitted to that fate he felt in his soul the revolt against it. To young Roland it was natural and beautiful that it should be so, but to Rivers it was not beautiful at all; it was an inconceivable weakness in human nature—a thing scarcely credible when you came to think of it. And yet, unreasonable as it was, he could not free himself or assert his own independence. He was almost glad of this indignant sentiment as he hurried along to know his fate. When he reached the terrace which surrounded the house, looking back before he entered, he saw young Everard coming in at the gate below with an enormous bouquet in his hand. What were the flowers for? Did the fool mean to propitiate her with flowers? or had he—good heavens! was it possible to conceive that he had acquired a right to bring presents to Rosalind? This idea seemed to fill his veins with fire. The next moment he had entered into the calm of the house, which, so far as external appearances went, was so orderly, so quiet, thrilled by no excitement. He could have borne noise and confusion better. The stillness seemed to take away his breath.
And in another minute Rosalind was standing before him. She came so quickly that she must have been looking for him. There was an alarmed look in her eyes, and she, too, seemedbreathless, as if her heart were beating more quickly than usual. Her lips were apart, as if already in her mind she had begun to speak, not waiting for any question from him. All this meant, must mean, a participation in his excitement. What was she going to say to him? It was in the drawing-room, the common sitting-room, with its windows open to the terrace, whence any one wandering about looking at the view, as every fool did, might step in at any moment and interrupt the conference. All this he was conscious of instantaneously, finding material in it both for the wild hope and the fierce despite which had been raging in him all the morning—to think not only that his fate was in this girl’s hands, but that any vulgar interruption, any impertinent caller, might interfere! And yet what did that matter if all was to go well?
“Mr. Rivers,” Rosalind said at once, with an eagerness which was full of agitation, “I have asked you to come—to tell you I am afraid you will be angry. I almost think you have reason to be angry. I want to tell you; it has not been my fault.”
He felt himself drop down from vague, sunlit heights of expectation, down, down, to the end of all things, to cold and outer darkness, and looked at her blankly in the sternness and paleness of a disappointment all the greater that he had said to himself he was prepared for the worst. He had hoped to cheat fate by arming himself with that conviction; but it did not stand him in much stead. It was all he could do to speak steadily, to keep down the impulse of rising rage. “This beginning,” he said, “Miss Trevanion, does not seem very favorable.”
“Oh, Mr. Rivers! If I give you pain I hope you will forgive me. Perhaps I have been thoughtless— I have so much to think of, so much that has made me unhappy—and now it has all come to a crisis.”
Rivers felt that the smile with which he tried to receive this, and reply to her deprecating, anxious looks, was more like ascowl than a smile. “If this is so,” he said, “I could not hope that my small affair should dwell in your mind.”
“Oh, do not say so. If I have been thoughtless it is not—it is not,” cried Rosalind, contradicting herself in her haste, “for want of thought. And when I tell you I have made up my mind, that is scarcely what I mean. It is rather that one thing has taken possession of me, that I cannot help myself. If you will let me tell you—”
“Tell me that you have resolved to make another man happy and not me? That is very gracious, condescending,” he cried, scarcely able to keep control of himself; “but perhaps, Miss Trevanion—”
“It is not that,” she cried, “it is not that. It is something which it will take a long time to tell.” She came nearer to him as she spoke, and putting out her hand touched his arm timidly. The agitation in his face filled her with grief and self-reproach. “Oh,” she said, “forgive me if I have given you pain! When you spoke to me at the Elms, you would not let me answer you; and when you came here my mind was full—oh, full—so that I could not think of anything else.”
He broke into a harsh laugh. “You do me too much honor, Miss Trevanion; perhaps I am not worthy of it. A story of love when it is not one’s own is— Bah! what a savage I am! and you so kindly condescending, so sorry to give me pain! Perhaps,” he cried, more and more losing the control of himself, “you may think it pleasant to drag a man like me at your chariot-wheels for a year; but I scarcely see the jest. You think, perhaps, that for a man to stake his life on the chance of a girl’s favor is nothing—that to put all one’s own plans aside, to postpone everything, to suspend one’s being—for the payment of—a smile—” He paused for breath. He was almost beside himself with the sense of wrong—the burning and bitterness that was in his mind. He had a right to speak; a man could not thus be trifled with and the woman escape scot-free.
Rosalind stood, looking at him, turning from red to pale, alarmed, bewildered, overcome. How was she, a girl hemmed in by all the precautions of gentle life, to know what was in the heart of a man in the bitterness of his disappointment and humiliation? Sorry to have given him pain! that was all she had thought of. But it had never occurred to her that the pain might turn to rage and bitterness, and that instead of the pathos of a rejected lover, she might find herself face to face with the fury of a man who felt himself outraged, and to whom it had been a matter of resentment even that she, a slight girl, should have the disposal of his fate. She turned away to leave him without a word. But feeling something in her that must be spoken, paused a moment, holding her head high.
“I think you have forgotten yourself,” she said, “but that is for you to judge. You have mistaken me, however, altogether, all through. What I meant to explain to you was something different—oh, very different. But there is no longer any room for that. And I think we have said enough to each other, Mr. Rivers.” He followed her as she turned towards the door. He could not let her go, neither for love nor for hate. And by this time he began to see that he had gone too far; he followed her, entreating her to pause a moment, in a changed and trembling voice. But just then there occurred an incident which brought all his fury back. Young Everard, whom he had seen on the way, and whose proceedings were so often awkward, without perception, instead of entering in the ordinary way, had somehow strayed on to the terrace with his bouquet, perhaps because no one had answered his summons at the door, perhaps from a foolish hope that he might be allowed to enter by the window, as Mrs. Lennox, in her favor for him, had sometimes permitted him to do. He now came in sight, hesitating, in front of the open window. Rosalind was too much excited to think of ordinary rules. She was so annoyed and startled by his appearance that she made a sudden imperative movement of her hand, waving him away. It was made in utterintolerance of his intrusion, but it seemed to Rivers like the private signal of a mutual understanding too close for words, as the young fellow’s indiscretion appeared to him the evidence of privileges only to be accorded to a successful lover. He stopped short with the prayer for pardon on his lips, and bursting once more into a fierce laugh of fury, cried, “Ah, here we have the explanation at last!”
Rosalind made no reply. She gave him a look of supreme indignation and scorn, and left him without a word—left him in possession of the field—with the other, the accepted one, the favored lover—good heavens!—standing, hesitating, in his awkward way, a shadow against the light. Rivers had come to a point at which the power of speech fails. It was all he could do to keep himself from seizing the bouquet and flinging it into the lake, and the bearer after it. But what was the use? If she, indeed, loved this fellow, there could be nothing further said. He turned round with furious impatience, and flung open the door into the ante-room—to find himself, breathing fire and flame as he was, and bearing every sign of his agitation in his face, in the midst of the family party streaming in from different quarters, for luncheon, all in their ordinary guise. For luncheon! at such a moment, when the mere outside appearances of composure seemed impossible to him, and his blood was boiling in his veins.
“Why, here is Rivers,” said John Trevanion, “at a good moment; we are just going to lunch, as you see.”
“And I am going away from Aix,” said Rivers, with a sharpness which he felt to be like a gun of distress.
“Going away! that is sudden; but so much the more reason to sit down with us once more. Come, we can’t let you go.”
“Oh no, impossible to let you go, Mr. Rivers, without saying good-bye,” said the mellow voice of Mrs. Lennox. “What a good thing we all arrived in time. The children and Rosalind would have been so disappointed to miss you. And though we are away from home, and cannot keep it as we ought, this is alittle kind of feast, you know, for it is Rosalind’s birthday; so you must stay and drink her health. Oh, and here is Mr. Everard too. Tell him to put two more places directly, Sophy. And how did you know it was Rosalind’s birthday, Mr. Everard? What a magnificent bouquet! Come in, come in; we cannot let you go. You must drink Rosalind’s health on such an important day.”
Rivers obeyed, as in a dream; he was exhausted with his outbreak, remorseful, beginning to wonder whether, after all,thatwas the explanation? Rosalind came in alone after the rest. She was very pale, as if she had suffered too, and very grave; not a smile on her face in response to all the smiles around. For, notwithstanding the excitement and distress in the house, the family party, on the surface, was cheerful enough, smiling youthfulness and that regard for appearances which is second nature carrying it through. The dishes were handed round as usual, a cheerful din of talk arose; Rex had an appetite beyond all satisfaction, and even John Trevanion—ill-timed as it all seemed—bore a smiling face. As for Mrs. Lennox, her voice ran on with scarcely a pause, skimming over those depths with which she was totally unacquainted. “And are you really going away, Mr. Rivers?” she said. “Dear me, I am very sorry. How we shall miss you. Don’t you think we shall miss Mr. Rivers dreadfully, Rosalind? But to be sure you must want to see your own people, and you must have a great deal of business to attend to after being so long away. We are going home ourselves very soon. Eh! What is that? Who is it? What are you saying, John? Oh, some message for Rosalind, I suppose.”
There was a commotion at the farther end of the room, the servants attempting to restrain some one who forced her way in, in spite of them, calling loudly upon John Trevanion. It was Russell, flushed and wild—in her out-door clothes, her bonnet half falling off her head, held by the strings only, her cloak dropping from her shoulders. She pushed her way forward to John Trevanion at the foot of the table. “Mr. John,” she cried,panting, “I’ve got on the track of her! I told you it was no ghost. I’ve got on the tracks of her; and there’s some here could tell you more than me.”
“What is she talking about? Oh, I think the woman must have gone mad, John? She thinks since we brought her here that she may say anything. Send her away, send her away.”
“I’ll not be sent away,” cried Russell. “I’ve come to do my duty to the children, and I’ll do it. Mr. John, I tell you I am on her tracks, and there’s two gentlemen here that can tell you all about her. Two, the young one and another. Didn’t I tell you?” The woman was intoxicated with her triumph. “That one with the gray hair, that’s a little more natural, like her own age—and this one,” cried the excited woman, sharply, striking Everard on the shoulder, “that ran off with her. And everything I ever said is proved true.”
Rivers rose to his feet instinctively as he was pointed out, and stood, asking with wonder, “What is it? What does she mean? What have I done?” Everard, who had turned round sharply when he was touched, kept his seat, throwing a quick, suspicious glance round him. John Trevanion had risen too, and so did Rex, who seized his former nurse by the arm and tried to drag her away. The boy was furious. “Be off with you, you —— or I’ll drag you out,” he cried, crimson with passion.
At this moment, when the whole party was in commotion, the wheels of a carriage sounded in the midst of the tumult outside, and a loud knocking was heard at the door.
Itwas difficult to explain the impulse which drew them one after another into the ante-room. On ordinary occasions it would have been the height of bad manners; and there was no reason, so far as most of the company knew, why common laws should be postponed to the exigencies of the occasion. JohnTrevanion hurried out first of all, and Rosalind after him, making no apology. Then Mrs. Lennox, with a troubled face, put forth her excuses—“I am sure I beg your pardon, but as they seem to be expecting somebody, perhaps I had better go and see—” Sophy, who had devoured Russell’s communications with eyes dancing with excitement, had slipped from her seat at once and vanished. Rex, with a moody face and his hands in his pockets, strolled to the door, and stood there, leaning against the opening, divided between curiosity and disgust. The three men who were rivals alone remained, looking uneasily at each other. They were all standing up, an embarrassed group, enemies, yet driven together by stress of weather. Everard was the first to move; he tried to find an outlet, looking stealthily from one door to another.
“Don’t you think,” he said at last, in a tremulous voice, “that if there is—any family bother—we had better—go away?”
“I suppose,” said Roland Hamerton, with white lips, “it must be something about Mrs. Trevanion.” And he too pushed forward into the ante-room, too anxious to think of politeness, anxious beyond measure to know what Rosalind was about to do.
A little circular hall, with a marble floor, was between this ante-room and the door. The sound of the carriage driving up, the knocking, the little pause while a servant hurried through to open, gave time for all these secondary proceedings. Then there was again an interval of breathless expectation. Mrs. Lennox’s travelling servant was a stranger, who knew nothing of the family history. He preceded the new-comer with silent composure, directing his steps to the drawing-room; but when he found that all the party had silently thronged into the ante-room, he made a formal pause half-way. No consciousness was in his unfaltering tones. He drew his feet into the right attitude, and then he announced the name that fell among them like a thunderbolt—“Mrs. Trevanion”—at the top of a formal voice.
She stood upon the threshold without advancing, her black veil thrown back, her black dress hanging in heavy folds about her worn figure, her face very pale, tremulous with a pathetic smile. She was holding fast by Jane with one hand to support herself. She seemed to stand there for an indefinite time, detached and separated from everything but the shadow of her maid behind her, looking at them all, on the threshold of the future, on the verge of the past; but in reality it was only for a moment. Before, in fact, they had time to breathe, a great cry rang through the house, and Rosalind flung herself, precipitated herself, upon the woman whom she adored. “Mother!” It rang through every room, thrilling the whole house from its foundations, and going through and through the anxious spectators, to whom were now added a circle of astonished servants, eager, not knowing what was happening. Mrs. Trevanion received the shock of this young life suddenly flung upon her with a momentary tottering, and, but for Jane behind her, might have fallen, even as she put forth her arms and returned the vehement embrace. Their faces met, their heads lay together for a moment, their arms closed upon each other, there was that murmur without words, of infinite love, pain, joy, undistinguishable. Then, while Rosalind still clasped and clung to her, without relaxing a muscle, holding fast as death what she had thus recovered, Mrs. Trevanion raised her head and looked round her. Her eyes were wistful, full of a yearning beyond words. Rosalind was here, but where were the others, her own, the children of her bosom? Rex stood in the doorway, red and lowering, his brows drawn down over his eyes, his shoulders up to his ears, a confused and uneasy embarrassment in every line of his figure. He said not a word, he looked straight before him, not at her. Sophy had got behind a curtain, and was peering out, her restless eyes twinkling and moving, her small figure concealed behind the drapery. The mother looked wistfully out over the head of Rosalind lying on her bosom, supporting the girl with her arms, holding her close,yet gazing, gazing, making a passionate, pathetic appeal to her very own. Was there to be no reply? Even on the instant there was a reply; a door was flung open, something white flashed across the ante-room, and added itself like a little line of light to the group formed by the two women. Oh, happiness that overflows the heart! Oh misery that cuts it through like a knife! Of all that she had brought into the world, little Amy alone!
“My mistress is not able to bear it. I told her she was not able to bear it. Let her sit down. Bring something for her; that chair, that chair! Have pity upon her!” cried Jane, with urgent, vehement tones, which roused them from the half-stupefaction with which the whole bewildered assembly was gazing. John Trevanion was the first to move, and with him Roland Hamerton. The others all stood by looking on; Rivers with the interest of a spectator at a tragedy, the others with feelings so much more personal and such a chaos of recollections and alarms. The two who had started forward to succor her put Mrs. Trevanion reverently into the great chair; John with true affection and anguish, Roland with a wondering reverence which the first glance of her face, so altered and pale, had impressed upon him. Then Mrs. Lennox bustled forward, wringing her hands; how she had been restrained hitherto nobody ever knew.
“Oh, Grace, Grace! oh, my poor Grace! oh, how ill she is looking! Oh, my dear, my dear, haven’t you got a word for me? Oh, Grace, where have you been all this time, and why didn’t you come to me? And how could you distrust me, or think I ever believed, or imagine I wasn’t your friend! Grace, my poor dear! Oh, Jane, is it a faint! What is it? Who has got a fan? or some wine. Bring some wine! Oh, Jane, tell us, can’t you tell us, what we ought to do?”
“Nothing,” said Mrs. Trevanion, rousing herself; “nothing, Sophy. I knew you were kind always. It is only—a little too much—and I have not been well. John—oh, yes, that is quiteeasy—comfortable. Let me rest for a moment, and then I will tell you what I have come to say.”
They were all silent for that brief interval; even Mrs. Lennox did nothing but wring her hands; and those who were most concerned became like the rest, spectators of the tragedy. Little Amy, kneeling, half thrown across her mother’s lap, made a spot of light upon the black dress with her light streaming hair. Rosalind stood upright, very upright, by the side of the mother whom she had found again, confronting all the world in a high, indignant championship, which was so strangely contrasted with the quiet wistfulness and almost satisfaction in the face of the woman by whom she stood. Jane, very anxious, watching every movement, her attention concentrated upon her mistress, stood behind the chair.
When Mrs. Trevanion opened her eyes she smiled. John Trevanion stood by her on one side, Rosalind on the other. She had no lack of love, of sympathy, or friendship. She looked from between them over Amy’s bright head with a quivering of her lips. “Oh, no test, no test!” she said to herself. She had known how it would be. She withdrew her eyes from the boy standing gloomy in the doorway. She began to speak, and everybody but he made some unconscious movement of quickened attention. Rex did not give any sign, nor one other, standing behind, half hidden by the door.
“Sophy,” she said quietly, “I have always had the fullest trust in your kindness; and if I come to your house on Rosalind’s birthday that can hurt no one. This dreadful business has been going on too long—too long. Flesh and blood cannot bear it. I have grown very weak—in mind, I mean in mind. When I heard the children were near me I yielded to the temptation and went to look at them. And all this has followed. Perhaps it was wrong. My mind has got confused; I don’t know.”
“Oh, Grace, my dear, how could it be wrong to look at your little children, your own children, whom you were so cruelly, cruelly parted from?”
Mrs. Lennox began to cry. She adopted her sister-in-law’s cause in a moment, without hesitation or pause. Her different opinion before mattered nothing now. Mrs. Trevanion understood all and smiled, and looked up at John Trevanion, who stood by her with his hand upon the chair, very grave, his face full of pain, saying nothing. He was a friend whom she had never doubted, and yet was it not his duty to enforce the separation, as it had been his to announce it to her?
“I know,” she cried, “and I know what is your duty, John. Only I have a hope that something may come which will make it your duty no longer. But in the meantime I have changed my mind about many things. I thought it best before to go away without any explanations; I want now to tell you everything.”
Rosalind clasped her hand more closely. “Dear mother, what you please; but not because we want explanations,” she said, her eyes including the whole party in one high, defiant gaze.
“Oh no, dear, no. We want nothing but just to enjoy your society a little,” cried Mrs. Lennox. “Give dear Grace your arm, and bring her into the drawing-room, John. Explanations! No, no! If there is anything that is disagreeable let it just be forgotten. We are all friends now; indeed we have always been friends,” the good woman cried.
“I want to tell you how I left home,” Mrs. Trevanion said. She turned to her brother-in-law, who was stooping over the back of her chair, his face partially concealed. “John, you were right, yet you were all wrong. In those terrible evenings at Highcourt”—she gave a slight shudder—“I did indeed go night after night to meet—a man in the wood. When I went away I went with him, to make up to him—the man, poor boy! he was scarcely more than a boy—was—” She paused, her eye caught by a strange combination. It brought the keenest pang of misery to her heart, yet made her smile. Everard had been drawn by the intense interest of the scene into the room.He stood in the doorway close to young Rex, who leaned against it, looking out under the same lowering brows, in the same attitude of sullen resistance. She gazed at them for a moment with sad certainty, and yet a wonder never to be extinguished. “There,” she said, with a keen sharpness of anguish in her voice, “they stand together; look and you will see. My sons—both mine—and neither with anything in his heart that speaks for me!”
These words, and the unconscious group in the doorway, who were the only persons in the room unaffected by what was said, threw a sudden illumination upon the scene and the story and everything that had been. A strange thrill ran through the company as every individual turned round and gazed, and perceived, and understood. Mrs. Lennox gave a sudden cry, clasping her hands together, and Rosalind, who was holding Mrs. Trevanion’s hand, gave it such a sudden pressure, emphatic, almost violent, that the sufferer moved involuntarily with the pain. John Trevanion raised his head from where he had been leaning on her chair. He took in everything with a glance. Was it an older Rex, less assured, less arrogant, but not less determined to resist all softening influences? But the effect on John was not that of an explanation, but of an alarming, horrifying discovery. He withdrew from Mrs. Trevanion’s chair. A tempest of wonder and fear arose in his mind. The two in the doorway moved uneasily under the observation to which they were suddenly subjected. They gave each other a naturally defiant glance. Neither of them realized the revelation that had been made, not even Everard, though he knew it—not Rex, listening with jealous repugnance, resisting all the impulses of nature. Neither of them understood the wonderful effect that was produced upon the others by the sight of them standing side by side.
John Trevanion had suddenly taken up a new position; no one knew why he spoke in harsh, distinct tones, altogether unlike his usual friendly and gentle voice. “Let us know,now, exactly what this means; and, for God’s sake, no further concealment, no evasion. Speak out for that poor boy’s sake.”
There was surprise in Mrs. Trevanion’s eyes as she raised them to his face. “I have come to tell you everything,” she said.
“Sir,” said Jane, “my poor lady is far from strong. Before she says more and brings on one of her faints, let her rest—oh, let her rest.”
For once in his life John Trevanion had no pity. “Her faints,” he said; “does she faint? Bring wine, bring something; but I must understand this, whatever happens. It is a matter of life or death.”
“Uncle John,” said Rosalind, “I will not have her disturbed. Whatever there is amiss can be told afterwards. I am here to take care of her. She shall not do more than she is able for; no, not even for you.”
“Rosalind, are you mad? Don’t you see what hangs upon it? Reginald’s position—everything, perhaps. I must understand what she means. I must understand whatthatmeans.” John Trevanion’s face was utterly without color; he could not stand still—he was like a man on the rack. “I must know everything, and instantly; for how can she stay here, unless— She must not stay.”
This discussion, and his sharp, unhappy tone seemed to call Madam to herself.
“I did not faint,” she said, softly. “It is a mistake to call them faints. I never was unconscious; and surely, Rosalind, he has a right to know. I have come to explain everything.”
Roland Hamerton had been standing behind. He came close to Rosalind’s side. “Madam,” he said, “if you are not to stay here, wherever I have a house, wherever I can give you a shelter, it is yours; whatever I can do for you, from the bottom of my heart!”
Mrs. Trevanion opened her eyes, which had been closed. She shook her head very softly; and then she said almost in a whisper, “Rosalind, he is very good and honest and true. Ishould be glad if— And Amy, my darling! you must go and get dressed. You will catch cold. Go, my love, and then come back to me. I am ready, John. I want to make everything clear.”
Rosalind held her hand fast. She stood like a sentinel facing them all, her left hand clasping Mrs. Trevanion’s, the other free, as if in defence of her. And Roland stood close behind, ready to answer any call. He was of Madam’s faction against all the world, the crowd (as it seemed to these young people), before whom she was about to make her defence. These two wanted no defence; neither did Mrs. Lennox, standing in front, wringing her hands, with her honest face full of trouble, following everything that each person said. “She is more fit to be in her bed than anywhere else,” Mrs. Lennox was saying; “she is as white—as white as my handkerchief. Oh, John, you that are so reasonable, and that always was a friend to her—how can you be so cruel to her? She shall stay,” cried Aunt Sophy, with a sudden outburst, “in my house— I suppose it is my house—as long as she will consent to stay.”
Notwithstanding this, of all the people present, there was no one who in his heart had stood by her so closely as John Trevanion. But circumstances had so determined it that he must be her judge now. He made a pause, and then pointed to the doorway in which the two young men stood with a mutual scowl at each other. “Explain that,” he said, in sharp, staccato tones, “first of all.”
“Yes, John, I will explain,” Mrs, Trevanion said, with humility. “When I met my husband first—” She paused as if to take breath—“I was married, and I had a child. I feel no shame now,” she went on, yet with a faint color rising over her paleness. “Shame is over for me; I must tell my story without evasion, as you say. It is this, John. I thought I was a deserted wife, and my boy had a right to his name. The same ship that brought Reginald Trevanion brought the news that I was deceived. I was left in a strange country without afriend—a woman who was no wife, with a child who had no father. I thought I was the most miserable of women; but now I know better. I know now—”
John’s countenance changed at once. What he had feared or suspected was never known to any of them; but his aspect changed; he tried to interrupt her, and, coming back to her side, took her other hand. “Grace,” he cried, “Grace! it is enough. I was a brute to think— Grace, my poor sister—”
“Thank you, John; but I have not done. Your father,” she went on, unconsciously changing, addressing another audience, “saw me, and heard my story. And he was sorry for me—oh, he was more than sorry. He was young and so was I. He proposed to me after a while that if I would give up my boy—and we had no living, nothing to keep us from starvation—and marry him, he would take care of the child; it should want for nothing, but that I must never see it more. For a long time I could not make up my mind. But poverty is very sharp; and how to get bread I knew not. The child was pining, and so was I. And I was young. I suppose,” she said in a low voice, drooping her head, “I still wished, still needed to be happy. That seems so natural when one is young. And your father loved me; and I him—and I him!”
She said these words very low, with a pause between. “There, you have all my story,” with a glimmer of a smile on her face. “It is a tragedy, but simple enough, after all. I was never to see the child again; but my heart betrayed me, and I deceived your father. I went and looked at my boy out of windows, waited to see him pass—once met him on a railway journey when you were with me, Rosalind—which was all wrong, wrong—oh, wrong on both sides; to your father and to him. I don’t excuse myself. Then, poor boy, he fell into trouble. How could he help it? His father’s blood was in him, and mine too—a woman false to my vow. He was without friend or home. When he was in great need and alarm, he came—was it not natural?—to his mother. What could be morenatural? He sent for me to meet him, to help him, to tell him what to do. What could I do but go—all being so wrong, so wrong? Jane knows everything. I begged my poor boy to go away; but he was ignorant, he did not know the danger. And then Russell, you know, who had never loved me—is she there, poor woman?—found us out. She carried this story to your father. You think, and she thinks,” said Mrs. Trevanion, raising herself with great dignity in her chair, “that my husband suspected me of—of— I cannot tell what shameful suspicions. Reginald,” she went on, with a smile half scornful, “had no such thought. He knew me better. He knew I went to meet my son, and that I was risking everything for my son. He had vowed to me that in that case I should be cut off from him and his. Oh, yes, I knew it all. My eyes were open all the time. And he did what he had said.” She drew a long breath. There was a dispassionate sadness in her voice, as of winding up a history all past. “And what was I to do?” she resumed. “Cut off from all the rest, there was a chance that I might yet be of some use to him—my boy, whom I had neglected. Oh, John and Rosalind, I wrongedyou. I should have told you this before; but I had not the heart. And then, there was no time to lose, if I was to be of service to the boy.”
Everything was perfectly still in the room; no one had stirred; they were afraid to lose a word. When she had thus ended she made a pause. Her voice had been very calm, deliberate, a little feeble, with pauses in it. When she spoke again it took another tone; it was full of entreaty, like a prayer. She withdrew her hand from Rosalind.
“Reginald!” she said, “Rex! have you nothing to say to me, my boy!”
The direction of all eyes was changed and turned upon the lad. He stood very red, very lowering, without moving from his post against the door. He did not look at her. After a moment he began to clear his voice. “I don’t know,” he said,“what there is to say.” Then, after another pause: “I suppose I am expected to stick to my father’s will. I suppose that’s my duty.”
“But for all that,” she said, with a pleading which went to every heart; her eyes filled, which had been quite dry, her mouth quivered with a tender smile—“for all that, oh, my boy! it is not to take me in, to make a sacrifice; but for once speak to me, come to me; I am your mother, Rex.”
Sophy had been behind the curtain all the time, wrapped in it, peering out with her restless, dancing eyes. She was still only a child. Her little bosom had begun to ache with sobs kept in, her face to work, her mind to be moved by impulses beyond her power. She had tried to mould herself upon Rex, until Rex, with the shadow of the other beside him, holding back, repelling, resisting, became contemptible in Sophy’s keen eyes. It was perhaps this touch of the ridiculous that affected her sharp mind more than anything else; and the sound of her mother’s voice, as it went on speaking, was more than nature could bear, and roused impulses she scarcely understood within her. She resisted as long as she could, winding herself up in the curtain; but at these last words Sophy’s bonds were loosed; she shook herself out of the drapery and came slowly forward, with eyes glaring red out of her pale face.
“They say,” she said suddenly, “that we shall lose all our money, mamma, if we go to you.”
Mrs. Trevanion’s fortitude and calm had given way. She was not prepared for this trial. She turned towards the new voice and held out her arms without a word. But Sophy stood frightened, reluctant, anxious, her keen eyes darting out of her head.
“And what could I do?” she cried. “I am only a little thing, I couldn’t work. If you gave up your baby because of being poor, what should we do, Rex and I? We are younger, though you said you were young. We want to be well off, too. If we were to go to you, everything would be taken from us!” cried Sophy. “Mamma, what can we do?”
Mrs. Trevanion turned to her supporters on either side of her with a smile; her lips still trembled. “Sophy was always of a logical mind,” she said, with a faint half-laugh. The light was flickering round her, blackness coming where all these eager faces were. “I—I have my answer. It is just enough. I have no—complaint.”
There was a sudden outcry and commotion where all had been so still before. Jane came from behind the chair and swept away, with that command which knowledge gives, the little crowd which had closed in around. “Air! air is what she wants, and to be quiet! Go away, for God’s sake, all but Miss Rosalind!”
John Trevanion hurried to open the window, and the faithful servant wheeled the chair close to it in which her mistress lay. Just then two other little actors came upon the scene. Amy had obeyed her mother literally. She had gone and dressed with that calm acceptance of all wonders which is natural to childhood; then sought her little brother at play in the nursery. “Come and see mamma,” she said. Without any surprise, Johnny obeyed. He had his whip in his hand, which he flourished as he came into the open space which had been cleared round that chair.
“Where’s mamma?” said Johnny. His eyes sought her among the people standing about. When his calm but curious gaze found out the fainting figure he shook his hand free from that of Amy, who led him. “That!” he said, contemptuously; “that’s not mamma, that’s the lady.”
Against the absolute certainty of his tone there was nothing to be said.
Rivershad stood listening all through this strange scene, he scarcely knew why. He was roused now to the inappropriateness of his presence here. What had he to do in the midst ofa family tragedy with which he had no connection? His heart contracted with one sharp spasm of pain. He had no connection with the Trevanions. He looked round him, half contemptuous of himself, for some one of whom he could take leave before he closed the door of this portion of his life behind him, and left it forever. There was no one. All the different elements were drawn together in the one central interest with which the stranger had nothing to do. Rivers contemplated the group around Mrs. Trevanion’s chair as if it had been a picture. The drama was over, and all had resolved itself into stillness, whether the silence of death, or a pause only and interruption of the continuity, he could not tell. He looked round him, unconsciously receiving every detail into his mind. This was what he had given a year of his life for, to leave this household with which he had so strongly identified himself without even a word of farewell and to see them no more. He lingered only for a moment, the lines of the picture biting themselves in upon his heart. When he felt it to be so perfect that no after-experience could make it dim he went away; Roland Hamerton followed him to the door. Hamerton, on his side, very much shaken by the agitating scene, to which his inexperience knew no parallel, was eager to speak to some one, to relieve his heart.
“Do you think she is dead?” he said under his breath.
“Death, in my experience, rarely comes so easily,” Rivers replied. After a pause he added, “I am going away to-night. I suppose you remain?”
“If I can be of any use. You see I have known them all my life.”
“There you have the advantage of me,” said the other, sharply, with a sort of laugh. “I have given them only a year of mine. Good-bye, Hamerton. Our way—does not lie the same—”
“Good-bye,” said Roland, taken by surprise, and stopping short, though he had not meant to do so. Then he called afterhim with a kindly impulse, “We shall be sure to hear of you. Good luck! Good-bye.”
Good luck! The words seemed an insult; but they were not so meant. Rivers sped on, never looking back. At the gate he made up to Everard, walking with his head down and his hands in his pockets, in gloomy discomfiture. His appearance moved Rivers to a kind of inward laugh. There was no triumph, at least, in him.
“You have come away without knowing if your mother will live or die.”
“What’s the use of waiting on?” said young Everard. “She’ll be all right. They are only faints; all women have them; they are nothing to be frightened about.”
“I think they are a great deal to be frightened about—very likely she will never leave that house alive.”
“Oh, stuff!” Everard said; and then he added, half apologetically, “You don’t know her as I do.”
“Perhaps better than you do,” said Rivers; and then he added, as he had done to Hamerton, “Our ways lie in different directions. Good-bye. I am leaving Aix to-night.”
Everard looked after him, surprised. He had no good wishes to speak, as Roland had. A sense of pleasure at having got rid of an antagonist was in his mind. For his mind was of the calibre which is not aware when there comes an end. All life to him was a ragged sort of thread, going on vaguely, without any logic in it. He was conscious that a great deal had happened and that the day had been full of excitement; but how it was to affect his life he did not know.
Thus the three rivals parted. They had not been judged on their merits, but the competition was over. He who was nearest to the prize felt, like the others, his heart and courage very low; for he had not succeeded in what he had attempted; he had done nothing to bring about the happy termination; and whether even that termination was to be happy or not, as yet no one could say.
Madamwas conveyed with the greatest care and tenderness to the best room in the house, Mrs. Lennox’s own room, which it was a great satisfaction to that kind soul to give up to her, making the little sacrifice with joy.
“I have always thought what a nice room to be ill in—don’t you think it is a nice room, Grace?—and to get better in, my dear. You can step into the fresh air at once as soon as you are strong enough, and there is plenty of room for us all to come and sit with you; and, please God, we’ll soon have you well again and everything comfortable,” cried Mrs. Lennox, her easy tears flowing softly, her easy words rolling out like them. Madam accepted everything with soft thanks and smiles, and a quiet ending seemed to fall quite naturally to the agitated day. Rosalind spent the night by her mother’s bedside—the long, long night that seemed as if it never would be done. When at last it was over, the morning made everything more hopeful. A famous doctor, who happened to be in the neighborhood, came with a humbler brother from Aix and examined the patient, and said she had no disease—no disease—only no wish or intention of living. Rosalind’s heart bounded at the first words, but fell again at the end of the sentence, which these men of science said very gravely. As for Mrs. Trevanion, she smiled at them all, and made no complaint. All the day she lay there, sometimes lapsing into that momentary death which she would not allow to be called a faint, then coming back again, smiling, talking by intervals. The children did not tire her, she said. Little Johnny, accustomed to the thought that “the lady” was mamma, accepted it as quite simple, and, returning to his usual occupations, drove a coach and four made of chairs in her room, toher perfect satisfaction and his. The cracking of his whip did not disturb her. Neither did Amy, who sat on her bed, and forgot her troubles, and sang a sort of ditty, of which the burden was “Mamma has come back.” Sophy, wandering long about the door of the room, at last came in too, and standing at a distance, stared at her mother with those sharp, restless eyes of hers, like one who was afraid to be infected if she made too near an approach. And later in the afternoon Reginald came suddenly in, shamefaced and gloomy, and came up to the bed, and kissed her, almost without looking at her. At other times, Mrs. Trevanion was left alone with her brother-in-law and Rosalind, who understood her best, and talked to them with animation and what seemed to be pleasure.
“Rosalind will not see,” she said with a smile, “that there comes a time when dying is the most natural—the most easy way of settling everything—the most pleasant for every one concerned.” There was no solemnity in her voice, though now and then it broke, and there were pauses for strength. She was the only one of the three who was cheerful and at ease. “If I were so ill-advised as to live,” she added with a faint laugh, “nothing could be changed. The past, you allow, has become impossible, Rosalind; I could not go away again. That answered for once, but not again.”
“You would be with me, mother, or I with you; for I am free, you know—I am free now.”
Mrs. Trevanion shook her head. “John,” she said, “tell her; she is too young to understand of herself. Tell her that this is the only way to cut the knot—that it is the best way—the most pleasant—John, tell her.”
He was standing by with his head bent upon his breast. He made a hasty sign with his hand. He could not have spoken to save his own life, or even hers. It was all intolerable, past bearing. He stood and listened, with sometimes an outcry—sometimes, alas, a dreadful consent in his heart to what she said, but he could not speak.
The conviction that now is the moment to die, that death is the most natural, noble, even agreeable way of solving a great problem, and making the path clear not only for the individual most closely concerned, but for all around, is not unusual in life. Both in the greater historical difficulties, and in those which belong to private story, it appears often that this would be the better way. But the conviction is not always sufficient to carry itself out. Sometimes it will so happen that he or she in whose person the difficulty lies will so prevail over flesh and blood, so exalt the logic of the situation, as to attain this easy solution of the problem. But not in all cases does it succeed. Madam proved to be one of those who fail. Though she had so clearly made out what was expedient, and so fully consented to it, the force of her fine organization was such that she was constrained to live, and could not die.
And, what was more wonderful still, from the moment when she entered Mrs. Lennox’s room at Bonport, the problem seemed to dissolve itself and flee away in unsubstantial vapor-wreaths like a mist, as if it were no problem at all. One of the earliest posts brought a black-edged letter from England, announcing the death of Mr. Blake, the second executor of Reginald Trevanion’s will, and John, with a start of half-incredulous wonder, found himself the only responsible authority in the matter. It had already been his determination to put it to the touch, to ascertain whether such a will would stand, even with the chilling doubt upon his mind that Mrs. Trevanion might not be able to explain the circumstances which involved her in suspicion. But now suddenly, miraculously, it became apparent to him that nothing need be done at all, no publicity given, no scandal made. For who was there to take upon him the odious office of reviving so odious an instrument? Who was to demand its observance? Who interfere with the matter if it dropped into contempt? The evil thing seemed to die and come to an end without any intervention. Its conditions had become a manifest impossibility—to be resisted to the death if need were;but there was no need: for had they not in a moment become no more than a dead letter? Might not this have been from the beginning, and all the misery spared? As John Trevanion looked back upon it, asking himself this question, that terrible moment in the past seemed to him like a feverish dream. No one of the actors in it had preserved his or her self-command. The horror had been so great that it had taken their faculties from them, and Madam’s sudden action, of which the reasons were only now apparent, had cut the ground from under the feet of the others, and forestalled all reasonable attempts to bring something better out of it. She had not been without blame. Her pride, too, had been in fault; her womanish haste, the precipitate measures which had made any better solution impossible. But now all that was over. Why should she die, now that everything had become clear?
The circumstances got revealed, to some extent, in Aix, among the English visitors who remained, and even to the ordinary population in a curious version, the point of the rumor being that the mysterious English lady had died with the little somnambulist in her arms, who, it was hoped for the sake of sensation, had died too. This was the rumor that reached Everard’s ears on the morning after, when he went to seek his mother in the back room she had inhabited at the hotel, and found no trace of her, but this legend to explain her absence. It had been hard to get at his heart, perhaps impossible by ordinary means; but this news struck him like a mortal blow. And his organization was not like hers. He fell prostrate under it, and it was weeks before he got better and could be removed. The hands into which this weakling fell were nerveless but gentle hands. Aunt Sophy had “taken to” him from the first, and he had always responded to her kindness. When he was able to go home she took “Grace’s boy” to her own house, where the climate was milder than at Highcourt; and by dint of a quite uncritical and undiscriminating affection, and perfect contentment with him as he was, in the virtue ofhis convalescence, did more to make of Edmund Everard a tolerable member of an unexacting society than his mother could ever have done. There are some natures for whose treatment it is well that their parents should be fools. It seems cruel to apply such a word to the kind but silly soul who had so much true bounty and affection in her. She and he gave each other a great deal of consolation and mutual advantage in the course of the years.
Russell had been, like Everard, incapable of supposing that the victim might die under their hands; and when all seemed to point to that certainty, the shock of shame and remorse helped to change the entire tenor of her life. She who had left the village triumphantly announcing herself as indispensable to the family and the children, could not return there in circumstances so changed. She married Mrs. Lennox’s Swiss servant in haste, and thereafter spent her life in angry repentance. She now keeps aPensionin Switzerland, where her quality of Englishwoman is supposed to attract English visitors, and lays up her gains bitterly amid “foreign ways,” which she tells any new-comer she cannot abide.
And Rosalind did what probably Mr. Ruskin’s Rosiere, tired of her seven suitors, would in most cases do—escaping from the illusions of her own imagination and from the passion which had frightened her, fell back upon the steady, faithful love which had executed no hard task for her, done no heroic deed, but only loved her persistently, pertinaciously, through all. She married Roland Hamerton some months after they all returned home. And thus this episode of family history came to an end. Probably she would have done the same without any strain of compulsion had these calamities and changes never been.
THE END.