When she got home her first step into the house was enough to drive every thought of this description out of her mind. She was aware of the change before she could ask—before she saw even a servant of whom to inquire. The hall, all the rooms, were vacant. She could find nobody, until, coming back after an ineffectual search, she met Jane coming away from the sick-room,carrying various things that had been used there. Jane shook her head in answer to Rosalind’s question. “Oh, very bad again—worse than ever. No one can tell what has brought it on. Another attack, worse than any he has had. I think, Miss Rosalind,” Jane said, drawing close with a tremulous shrill whisper, “it was that dreadful woman that had got in again the moment my poor lady’s back was turned.”
“What dreadful woman?”
“Oh, Russell, Miss Rosalind. My poor lady came out of the room for five minutes— I don’t think it was five minutes. She was faint with fatigue; and all at once we heard a cry. Oh, it was not master, it was that woman. There she was, lying at the room door in hysterics, or whatever you call them. And the spasms came on again directly. I pushed her out of my lady’s way; she may be lying there yet, for anything I know. This time he will never get better, Miss Rosalind,” Jane said.
“Oh, do not say so—do not say so,” the girl cried. He had not been a kind father nor a generous master. But such was the awe of it, and the quivering sympathy of human nature, that even the woman wept as Rosalind threw herself upon her shoulder. The house was full of the atmosphere of death.
Russellmeant no harm to her master. In the curious confusion which one passionate feeling brings into an undisciplined mind, she had even something that might be called affection for Mr. Trevanion, as the victim of the woman she hated. Something that she called regard for him was the justification in her own mind of her furious antipathy to his wife. And after all her excitement and suspense, to be compelled to witness what seemed to her the triumph of Madam, the quieting down of all suspicions, and her return, as more than ever indispensable, to the bedside of her husband, drove the woman almostto madness. How she lived through the week and executed her various duties, as in ordinary times, she did not know. The children suffered more or less, but not so much as might be supposed. For to Russell’s perverted perception the children were hers more than their mother’s, and she loved them in her way, while she hated Mrs. Trevanion. Indeed, the absorption of Madam in the sick-room left them very much in Russell’s influence, and, on the surface, more evidently attached to her than to the mother of whom they saw so little. If they suffered from the excitement that disturbed her temper, as well as other things, it was in a very modified degree, and they were indulged and caressed by moments, as much as they were hustled and scolded at others. The nursery-maids, indeed, found Russell unbearable, and communicated to each other their intention to complain as soon as Madam could be supposed able to listen to them; if not, to give notice at once. But they did not tell for very much in the house, and the nurse concealed successfully enough from all but them the devouring excitement which was in her. It was the afternoon hour, when nature is at its lowest, and when excitement and suspense are least supportable, that Russell found her next opportunity. She had gone down-stairs, seeking she knew not what—looking for something new—a little relief to the strain of suspense, when she suddenly saw the door of the sick-room open and Mrs. Trevanion come out. She did not stop to ask herself what she was to gain by risking an outbreak of fury from her master, and of blame and reproach from every side, by intruding upon the invalid. The temptation was too strong to be resisted. She opened the door without leaving herself time to think, and went in.
Then terror seized her. Mr. Trevanion was propped up in his bed, a pair of fiery, twinkling eyes, full of the suspicion and curiosity that were natural to him, peering out of the skeleton head, which was ghastly with illness and emaciation. Nothing escaped the fierce vitality of those eyes. He saw themovement of the door, the sudden apparition of the excited face, at first so eager and curious, then blanched with terror. He was himself comparatively at ease, in a moment of vacancy in which there was neither present suffering enough to occupy him, nor anything else to amuse his restless soul. “Hallo!” he cried, as soon as he saw her; “come in—come in. You have got something more to tell me? Faithful woman—faithful to your master! Come in; there is just time before Madam comes back to hear what you have to say.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the valet, who had taken Madam’s place, “but the doctor’s orders is—”
“What do I care for the doctor’s orders? Get out of the way and let Russell in. Here, woman, you have got news for me. A faithful servant, who won’t conceal from her master what he ought to know. Out, Jenkins, and let the woman come in.”
He raised himself up higher in his bed; the keen angles of his knees seemed to rise to his chin. He waved impatiently his skeleton hands. The valet made wild signs at the intruder. “Can’t you go away? You’ll kill him!” he cried in a hoarse whisper. “Come in—come in!” shrieked the skeleton in the bed, in all the excitement of opposition. Then it was that Russell, terrified, helpless, distracted, gave that cry which echoed through all the house, and brought Dr. Beaton rushing from one side and Mrs. Trevanion from the other. The woman had fallen at the door of the room in hysterics, as Jane said, a seizure for which all the attendants, absorbed in a more immediate danger, felt the highest contempt. She was pushed out of the way, to be succored by the maids, who had been brought by the cry into the adjacent passage, in high excitement to know what was going on. But Russell could not throw any light upon what had happened even when she came to herself. She could only sob and cry, with starts of nervous panic. She had done nothing, and yet what had she done? She had not said a word to him, and yet— It was soon understood throughoutall the house that Mr. Trevanion had another of his attacks, and that Dr. Beaton did not think he could ever rally again.
The room where the patient lay was very large and open. It had once been the billiard-room of the house, and had been prepared for him when it was found no longer expedient that he should go up and down even the easy, luxuriously carpeted stairs of Highcourt. There was one large window filling almost one side of the room, without curtains or even blind, and which was now thrown open to admit the air fully. The door, too, was open, and the draught of fresh, cold, wintry air blowing through made it more like a hillside than a room in a sheltered house. Notwithstanding this, Mrs. Trevanion stood by the bed, waving a large fan, to get more air into the panting and struggling lungs. On the other side of the bed the doctor stood, with the bony wrist of the patient in his warm, living grasp. It seemed to be Death in person with whom these anxious ministrants were struggling, rather than a dying man. Other figures flitted about in the background, Jane bringing, with noiseless understanding, according to the signs the doctor made to her, the things he wanted—now a spoonful of stimulant, now water to moisten his lips. Dead silence reigned in the room; the wind blew through, fluttering a bit of paper on the table; the slight beat of the fan kept a vibration in the air. Into this terrible scene Rosalind stole trembling, and after her her uncle; they shivered with the chill blast which swept over the others unnoticed, and still more with the sight of the gasping and struggle. Rosalind, unused to suffering, hid her face in her hands. She could do nothing. Jane, who knew what was wanted, was of more use than she. She stood timidly at the foot of the bed, now looking up for a moment at what she could see of her dying father, now at the figure of his wife against the light, never intermitting for a moment her dreadful, monotonous exercise. Mr. Trevanion was seated almost upright in the midst of his pillows, laboring in that last terrible struggle for breath, for death, not for life.
He had cried out at first in broken gasps for “The woman—the woman! She’s got something—to tell me. Something more—to tell me. I’ll hear it— I’ll he-ar it— I’ll know—everything!” he now shrieked, waving his skeleton arms to keep them away, and struggling to rise. But these efforts soon gave way to the helplessness of nature. His cries soon sank into a hoarse moaning, his struggles to an occasional wave with his arms towards the door, an appeal with his eyes to the doctor, who stood over him inexorable. Every agitating movement had dropped before Rosalind came in into the one grand effort for breath. That was all that was left him in this world to struggle for. A man of so many passions, who had got everything he had set his heart on in life: a little breath now, which the November breeze, the winnowing of the air by the great fan, every aid that could be used, could not bring to his panting lungs. Who can describe the moment when nurses and watchers, and children and lovers stand thus awed and silent, seeing the struggle turn into a fight for death—not against it: feeling their own hearts turn, and their prayers, to that which hitherto they have been resisting with all that love and skill and patience can do? Nature is strong at such a time. Few remember that the central figure has been an unkind husband, a careless father; they remember only that he is going away from them into darkness unfathomable, which they can never penetrate till they follow; that he is theirs, but soon will be theirs no more.
Then there occurred a little pause; for the first moment Dr. Beaton, with a lifted finger and eyes suddenly turned upon the others, was about to say, “All is over,” when a faintly renewed throb of the dying pulse under his finger contradicted him. There was a dead calm for a few moments, and then a faint rally. The feverish, eager eyes, starting out of their sockets, seemed to calm, and glance with something like a dim perception at John Trevanion and Rosalind, who approached. Rosalind, entirely overcome by emotion and the terrible excitementof witnessing such an event, dropped down on her knees by the bedside, where with a slight flickering of the eyelids her father’s look seemed to follow her. But in the act that look was arrested by the form of his wife, standing always in the same position, waving the fan, sending wafts of air to him, the last and only thing he now wanted. His eyes steadied then with a certain meaning in them—a last gleam which gradually strengthened. He looked at her fixedly, with what in a person less exhausted would have been a wave of the hand towards her. Then there was a faint movement of the lips. “John!” was it perhaps? or “Look!” Then the words became more audible. “She’s—good nurse—faithful— Air!—stands—hours—but—” Then the look softened a little, the voice grew stronger; “I’m—almost—sorry—” it said.
For what—for what? In the intense stillness every feeble syllable was heard. Only a minute or two more was left to make amends for the cruelty of a life. The spectators held their breath. As for the wife, whose life perhaps hung upon these syllables as much as his did, she never moved or spoke, but went on fanning, fanning, supplying to him these last billows of air for which he labored. Suddenly a change came over the dying face, the eyes with all their old eagerness turned to the doctor, asking pitifully—was it for help in the last miserable strain of nature, this terrible effort to die?
Mrs. Trevanion seemed turned into stone. She stood and fanned after all need was over, solemnly winnowing the cold, penetrating air, which was touched with the additional chill of night, in waves towards the still lips which had done with that medium of life. To see her standing there, as if she had fainted or become unconscious, yet stood at her post still exercising that strange mechanical office, was the most terrible of all. The doctor came round and took her by the arm, and took the fan out of her hand.
“There’s no more need for that,” he cried in a broken voice; “no more need. Let us hope he is gone to fuller air than ours.”
She was so strained and stupefied that she scarcely seemed to understand this. “Hush!” she said, pulling it from his hands, “I tell you it does him good.” She had recovered the fan again and begun to put it in motion, when her eyes suddenly opened wide and fixed upon the dead face. She looked round upon them all with a great solemnity, yet surprise. “My husband is dead!” she said.
“Grace,” said John Trevanion, “come away. You have done everything up to the last moment. Come, now, and rest for the sake of the living. He needs you no more.”
He was himself very much moved. That which had been so long looked for, so often delayed, came now with all the force of a surprise. Rosalind, in an agony of tears, with her face hidden in the coverlid; Madam standing there, tearless, solemn, with alas, he feared, still worse before her than anything she divined; the young fatherless children outside, the boy at school, the troubles to be gone through, all rushed upon John Trevanion as he stood there. In a moment he who had been the object of all thought had abdicated or been dethroned, and even his brother thought of him no more. “For the sake of the living,” he repeated, taking his sister-in-law by the arm. The touch of her was like death; she was cold, frozen where she stood—penetrated by the wintry chill and by the passing of that chiller presence which had gone by her—but she did not resist. She suffered him to lead her away. She sank into a chair in the hall, as if she had no longer any power of her own. There she sat for a little while unmoving, and then cried out suddenly, “For the living!—for which of the living? It would be better for the living if you would bury me with him, he and I in one grave.”
Her voice was almost harsh in this sudden cry. What was it—a lie, or the truth? That a woman who had been so outraged and tormented should wish to be buried with her husband seemed to John Trevanion a thing impossible; and yet there was no falsehood in her face. He did not know what tothink or say. After a moment he went away and left her alone with her—what?—her grief, her widowhood, her mourning—or was it only a physical frame that could bear no more, the failure of nature, altogether exhausted and worn out?
“Themother might have managed better, Rosie—why wasn’t I sent for? I’m the eldest and the heir, and I ought to have been here. Poor old papa—he would miss me, I know. He was fond of me because I was the biggest. He used to tell me things, I ought to have been sent for. Why didn’t she send for me, Rosalind?”
“I have told you before, Rex. We did not know. When I went out in the afternoon he was better and all going well; and when I came back— I had only been in the park—he was dying. Oh, you should be rather glad you were not there. He took no notice of any one, and death is terrible. I never understood what it was—”
Reginald was silent for a little. He was sufficiently awestricken even now by the sensation of the closed shutters and darkened house. “That may be,” he said, in a softened voice, “but though you did not know, she would know, Rosie. Do you think she wanted me not to be there? Russell says—”
“Don’t speak to me of that woman, Rex. She killed my father—”
“Oh, come, Rosie, don’t talk nonsense, you know. How could she kill him? She wanted to tell him something that apparently he ought to have known. It wasthatthat killed him,” said the boy, with decision.
They were sitting together in one of the dark rooms; Reginald in the restless state of querulous and petulant unhappiness into which enforced seclusion, darkness, and the cessation of all active occupation warp natural sorrow in the mind of ayoung creature full of life and movement; Rosalind in the partially soothed exhaustion of strong but simple natural feeling. When she spoke of her father the tears came; but yet already this great event was over, and her mind was besieged, by moments, with thoughts of the new life to come. There were many things to think of. Would everything go on as before under the familiar roof, or would there be some change? And as for herself, what was to be done with her? Would they try to take her from the side of her mother and send her away among strangers? Mrs. Trevanion had retired after her husband’s death to take the rest she wanted so much. For twenty-four hours no one had seen her, and Jane had not allowed even Rosalind to disturb the perfect quiet. Since then she had appeared again, but very silent and self-absorbed. She was not less affectionate to Rosalind, but seemed further away from her, as if something great and terrible divided them. When even the children were taken to their mother they were frightened and chilled by the dark room and the cap which she had put on over her beautiful hair, and were glad when the visit was over and they could escape to their nursery, where there was light, and many things to play with. Sometimes children are the most sympathetic of all living creatures; but when it is not so, they can be the most hard-hearted. In this case they were impatient of the quiet, and for a long time past had been little accustomed to be with their mother. When she took the two little ones into her arms, they resigned themselves with looks half of fright at each other, but were very glad, after they had hugged her, to slip down and steal away. Sophy, who was too old for that, paced about and turned over everything. “Are those what are called widow’s caps, mamma? Shall you always wear them all your life, like old Widow Harvey, or will it only be just for a little while?” In this way Sophy made herself a comfort to her mother. The poor lady would turn her face to the wall and weep, when they hurried away, pleased to get free of her. And when Reginald came home, he had, after the firstburst of childish tears, taken something of the high tone of the head of the house, resentful of not having been called in time, and disposed to resist the authority of Uncle John, who was only a younger brother. Madam had not got much comfort from her children, and between her and Rosalind there was a distance which wrung the girl’s heart, but which she did not know how to surmount.
“Don’t you know,” Reginald said, “that there was something that Russell had to tell him? She will not tell me what it was; but if it was her duty to tell him, how could it be her fault?”
“As soon as mamma is well enough to think of anything, Russell must go away.”
“You are so prejudiced, Rosalind. It does not matter to me; it is a long time since I had anything to do with her,” said the boy, who was so conscious of being the heir. “But for the sake of the little ones I shall object to that.”
“You!” cried Rosalind, with amazement.
“You must remember,” said the boy, “that things are changed now. The mother, of course, will have it all in her hands (I suppose) for a time. But it is I who am the head. And when she knows that I object—”
“Reginald,” his sister cried; “oh, how dare you speak so? What have you to do with it?—a boy at school.”
A flush came over his face. He was half ashamed of himself, yet uplifted by his new honors. “I may be at school—and not—very old; but I am Trevanion of Highcourt now. I am the head of the family, whatever Uncle John may say.”
Rosalind looked at her young brother for some time without saying anything, with an air of surprise. She said at last with a sigh, “You are very disappointing, Rex. I think most people are. One looks for something so different. I thought you would be sorry for mamma and think of her above everything, but it is of yourself you are thinking. Trevanion of Highcourt! I thought people had the decency to wait at least until— Papa is in the house still,” she added, with an overflow of tears.
At this Reginald, who was not without heart, felt a sudden constriction in his throat, and his eyes filled too. “I didn’t mean,” he said, faltering, “to forget papa.” Then, after a pause, he added, “Mamma, after all, won’t be so very much cut up, Rosie. He—bullied her awfully. I wouldn’t say a word, but he did, you know. And so I thought, perhaps, she might get over it—easier—”
To this argument what could Rosalind reply? It was not a moment to say it, yet it was true. She was confused between the claims of veracity and that most natural superstition of the heart which is wounded by any censure of the dead. She cried a little; she could not make any reply. Mrs. Trevanion did not show any sign of taking it easily. The occupation of her life was gone. That which had filled all her time and thoughts had been removed entirely from her. If love had survived in her through all that selfishness and cruelty could do to destroy it, such miracles have been known. At all events, the change was one to which it was hard to adapt herself, and the difficulty, the pain, the disruption of all her habits, even, perhaps, the unaccustomed thrill of freedom, had such a confusing and painful effect upon her as produced all the appearances of grief. This was what Rosalind felt, wondering within herself whether, after all she had borne, her mother would in reality “get over it easier,” as Reginald said—a suggestion which plunged her into fresh fields of unaccustomed thought when Reginald left her to make a half-clandestine visit to the stables; for neither grief nor decorum could quench in the boy’s heart the natural need of something to do. Rosalind longed to go and throw herself at her mother’s feet, and claim her old place as closest counsellor and confidante. But then she paused, feeling that there was a natural barrier between them. If it should prove true that her father’s death was a relief to his oppressed and insulted wife, that was a secret which never, never could bebreathed in Rosalind’s ear. It seemed to the girl, in the absoluteness of her youth, as if this must always stand between them, a bar to their intercourse, which once had no barrier, no subjects that might not be freely discussed. When she came to think of it, she remembered that her father never had been touched upon as a subject of discussion between them; but that, indeed, was only natural. For Rosalind had known no other phase of fatherhood, and had grown up to believe that this was the natural development. When men were strong and well, no doubt they were more genial; but sick and suffering, what so natural as that wives and daughters, and more especially wives, should be subject to all their caprices? These were the conditions under which life had appeared to her from her earliest consciousness, and she had never learned to criticise them. She had been indignant at times and taken violently Mrs. Trevanion’s side; but with the principle of the life Rosalind had never quarrelled. She had known nothing else. Now, however, in the light of these revelations, and the penetration of ordinary light into the conditions of her own existence, she had begun to understand better. But the awakening had been very painful. Life itself had stopped short and its thread was broken. She could not tell in what way it was to be pieced together again.
Nothing could be more profoundly serious than the aspect of Uncle John as he went and came. It is not cheerful work at any time to make all the dismal arrangements, to provide for the clearing away of a life with all its remains, and make room for the new on the top of the old. But something more than this was in John Trevanion’s face. He was one of the executors of his brother’s will; he and old Mr. Blake, the lawyer, who had come over to Highcourt, and held what seemed a very agitating consultation in the library, from which the old lawyer came forth “looking as if he had been crying,” Sophy had reported to her sister. “Do gentlemen ever cry?” that inquisitive young person had added. Mr. Blake would see noneof the family, would not take luncheon, or pause for a moment after he had completed his business, but kept his dog-cart standing at the door, and hurried off as soon as ever the conference was over, which seemed to make John Trevanion’s countenance still more solemn. As Reginald went out, Uncle John came into the room in which Rosalind was sitting. There was about him, too, a little querulousness, produced by the darkened windows and the atmosphere of the shut-up house.
“Where is that boy?” he said, with a little impatience. “Couldn’t you keep him with you for once in a way, Rosalind? There is no keeping him still or out of mischief. I did hope that you could have exercised a little influence over him—at this moment at least.”
“I wish I knew what to do, Uncle John. Unless I amuse him I cannot do anything; and how am I to amuse him just now?”
“My dear,” said Uncle John, in the causeless irritation of the moment, “a woman must learn to do that whether it is possible or not. Better that you should exert yourself a little than that he should drift among the grooms, and amuse himself in that way. If this was a time to philosophize, I might say that’s why women in general have such hard lives, for we always expect the girls to keep the boys out of mischief, without asking how they are to do it.” When he had said this, he came and threw himself down wearily in a chair close to the little table at which Rosalind was sitting. “Rosie,” he said, in a changed voice, “we have got a terrible business before us. I don’t know how we are to get out of it. My heart fails me when I think—”
Here his voice stopped, and he threw himself forward upon the table, leaning his elbow on it, and covering his face with his hand.
“You mean— Wednesday, Uncle John?” She put out her hand and slid it into his, which rested on the table, or rather placed it, small and white, upon the brown, clinched hand, withthe veins standing out upon it, with which he had almost struck the table. Wednesday was the day appointed for the funeral, to which, as a matter of course, half the county was coming. She pressed her uncle’s hand softly with hers. There was a faint movement of surprise in her mind that he, so strong, so capable of everything that had to be done, should feel it so.
He gave a groan. “Of what comes after,” he said, “I can’t tell you what a terrible thing we have to do. God help that poor woman! God forgive her if she has done wrong, for she has a cruel punishment to bear.”
“Mamma?” cried Rosalind, with blanched lips.
He made no distinct reply, but sat there silent, with a sort of despair in the pose of every limb. “God knows what we are all to do,” he said, “for it will affect us all. You, poor child, you will have to judge for yourself. I don’t mean to say or suggest anything. You will have to show what mettle is in you, Rosalind; you as well as the rest.”
“What is this terrible thing?” said Rosalind. “Oh, Uncle John, can’t you tell me? You make me wretched; I fancy I don’t know what.”
John Trevanion raised himself from the table. His face was quite colorless. “Nothing that you can fear will be so bad as the reality,” he said. “I cannot tell you now. It would be wrong to say anything till she knows; but I am as weak as a child, Rosie. I want your hand to help me; poor little thing, there is not much strength in it. That hour with old Blake this morning has been too much both for him and me.”
“Is it something in the will?” cried Rosalind, almost in a whisper. He gave a little nod of assent, and got up and began to pace about the room, as if he had lost power to control himself.
“Charley Blake will not show. He is ashamed of his share in it; but I suppose he could do nothing. It has made himill, the father says. There’s something—in Dante, is it?—about men being possessed by an evil spirit after their real soul is gone. I wonder if that is true. It would almost be a sort of relief to believe—”
“Uncle John, you are not speaking of my father?”
“Don’t ask any questions, Rosalind. Haven’t I told you I can’t answer you? The fact is, I am distracted with one thing and another, all the business coming upon me, and I can’t tell what I am saying. Where is that boy?”
“I think he has gone to the stables, Uncle John. It is hard upon him, being always used to the open air. He doesn’t know what to do. There is nothing to amuse him.”
“Oh, to be sure, it is necessary that his young lordship should be amused,” cried John, with something like a snarl of disgust. “Can’t you manage to keep him in the house at least, with your feminine influence that we hear so much of? Better anywhere than among those grooms, hearing tales, perhaps— Rosie, forgive me,” he cried, coming up to her suddenly, stooping over her and kissing her, “if I snap and snarl even at you, my dear; but I am altogether distracted, and don’t know what I am saying or doing. Only, for God’s sake, dance or sing, or play cards, or anything, it does not matter what you do, it will be a pious office; only keep him in-doors, where he will hear no gossip; that would be the last aggravation; or go and take him out for a walk, it will be better for you both to get into the fresh air.”
Thusa whole week of darkness and depression passed away.
Mr. Trevanion was a great personage in the county. It was fit that all honor should be done him. All the greatest persons in the neighborhood had to be convened to conduct him in due state to his other dwelling among the marbles of the mausoleumwhich his fathers had built. It had been necessary to arrange a day that would suit everybody, so that nothing should be subtracted from this concluding grandeur; and accordingly Highcourt remained, so to speak, in its suit of sables, with blinds drawn down and shutters closed, as if darkness had veiled this part of the earth. And, indeed, as it was the end of November, the face of the sky was dim with clouds, and heavy mists gathered over the trees, adding a deeper gloom to the shut-up house within. Life seemed to be congealed in the silent rooms, except when broken by such an outburst of impassioned feeling as that which John Trevanion had betrayed to Rosalind. Perhaps this relieved him a little, but it put a burden of vague misery upon her which her youth was quite unequal to bear. She awaited the funeral with feverish excitement, and a terror to which she could give no form.
The servants in a house are the only gainers on such an occasion: they derive a kind of pleasure from such a crisis of family fate. Blinds are not necessarily drawn down in the housekeeper’s room, and the servants’ hall is exempt from those heavier decorums which add a gloom above-stairs; and there is a great deal to talk about in the tragedy that is past and in the new arrangements that are to come, while all the details of a grand funeral give more gratification to the humbler members of the family, whose hearts are little affected, than they can be expected to do to those more immediately concerned. There was a stir of sombre pleasure throughout the house in preparation for the great ceremony which was being talked of over all the county: though Dorrington and his subordinates bore countenances more solemn than it is possible to portray, even that solemnity was part of the gloomy festival, and the current of life below was quickened by the many comers and goers whose office it was to provide everything that could show “respect” to the dead. Undertakers are not cheerful persons to think of, but they brought with them a great deal of commotion which was far from disagreeable, much eating and drinking, and additionalactivity everywhere. New mourning liveries, dresses for the maids, a flutter of newness and general acquisition lightened the bustle that was attendant upon the greater event. Why should some score of people mourn because one man of bad temper, seen perhaps once or twice a day by the majority, by some never seen at all, had been removed from the midst of them? It was not possible; and as everything that is out of the way is more or less a pleasure to unembarrassed minds, there was a thrill of subdued satisfaction, excitement, and general complacency, forming an unfit yet not unnatural background to the gloom and anxiety above. The family assembled at their sombre meals, where there was little conversation kept up, and then dispersed to their rooms, to such occupations as they could find, conversation seeming impossible. In any case a party at table must either be cheerful—which could not be looked for—or be silent, for such conversation as is natural while still the father lies dead in the house is not to be maintained by a mixed company around a common meal.
The doctor, who, of course, was one of the party, did his best to introduce a little variety into the monotonous meetings, but John Trevanion’s sombre countenance at the foot of the table was enough to have silenced any man, even had not the silence of Mrs. Trevanion and the tendency of Rosalind to sudden tears been enough to keep him in check. Dr. Beaton, however, was Reginald’s only comfort. They kept up a running talk, which perhaps even to the others was grateful, as covering the general gloom. Reginald had been much subdued by hearing that he was to return to school as soon as the funeral was over. He had found very little sympathy with his claims anywhere, and he was very glad to fall back upon the doctor. Indeed, if Highcourt was to be so dull as this, Rex could not but think school was far better. “Of course, I never meant,” he said to his sister, “to give up school—a fellow can’t do that. It looks as if he had been sent away. And now there’s those tiresome examinations for everything, even the Guards.”
“We shall be very dull for a long time,” said Rosalind. “How could it be possible otherwise? But you will cheer us up when you come home for the holidays; and, oh, Rex, you must always stand by mamma!”
“By mamma!” Rex said, with some surprise. “Why, she will be very well off—better off than any of us.” He had not any chivalrous feeling about his mother. Such a feeling we all think should spring up spontaneously in a boy’s bosom, especially if he has seen his mother ill-used and oppressed; but, as a matter of fact, this assumption is by no means to be depended on. A boy is at least as likely to copy a father who rails against women, and against the one woman in particular who is his wife, as to follow a vague general rule, which he has never seen put in practice, of respect and tender reverence for woman. Reginald had known his mother as the doer of everything, the endurer of everything. He had never heard that she had any weakness to be considered, and had never contemplated the idea that she should be put upon a pedestal and worshipped; and if he did not hit by insight of nature upon some happy medium between the two, it was not, perhaps, his fault. In the meantime, at all events, no sentiment on the subject inspired his boyish bosom.
Mrs. Trevanion, as these days went on, resumed gradually her former habits, so far as was possible in view of the fact that all her married life had been devoted to her husband’s service, and that she had dropped one by one every pursuit that separated her from him. The day before the funeral she came into the little morning-room in which Rosalind was sitting, and drew a chair to the fire. “I had almost forgotten the existence of this room,” she said. “So many things have dropped away from me. I forget what I used to do. What used I to do, Rosalind, before—”
She looked up with a pitiful smile. And, indeed, it seemed to both of them as if they had not sat quietly together, undisturbed, for years.
“You have always done—everything for everybody—as long as I can remember,” said Rosalind, with tender enthusiasm.
She shook her head. “I don’t think it has come to much use. I have been thinking over my life, over and over, these few days. It has not been very successful, Rosalind. Something has always spoiled my best efforts, I wonder if other people feel the same? Not you, my dear, you know nothing about it; you must not answer with your protestations. Looking back, I can see how it has always failed somehow. It is a curious thing to stand still, so living as I am, and look back upon my life, and sum it up as if it were past.”
“It is because a chapter of it is past,” said Rosalind. “Oh, mamma, I do not wonder! And you have stood at your post till the last moment; no wonder you feel as if everything were over.”
“Yes, I stood at my post: but perhaps another kind of woman would have soothed him when I irritated him. Your father—was not kind to me, Rosalind—”
The girl rose and put her arms round Mrs. Trevanion’s neck and kissed her. “No, mother,” she said.
“He was not kind. And yet, now that he has gone out of my life I feel as if nothing were left. People will think me a hypocrite. They will say I am glad to be free. But it is not so, Rosalind, remember: man and wife, even when they wound each other every day, cannot be nothing to each other. My occupation is gone; I feel like a wreck cast upon the shore.”
“Mother! how can you say that when we are all here, your children, who can do nothing without you?”
“My children—which children?” she said, with a wildness in her eyes as if she did not know what she was saying; and then she returned to her metaphor, like one thinking aloud; “like a wreck—that perhaps a fierce, high sea may seize again, a high tide, and drag out upon the waves once more. I wonder if I could beat and buffet those waves again as I used to do, and fight for my life—”
“Oh, mother, how could that ever be?—there is no sea here.”
“No, no sea—one gets figurative when one is in great trouble—what your father used to call theatrical, Rosalind. He said very sharp things—oh, things that cut like a knife. But I was not without fault any more than he; there is one matter in which I have not kept faith with him. I should like to tell you, to see what you think. I did not quite keep faith with him. I made him a promise, and— I did not keep it. He had some reason, though he did not know it, in all the angry things he said.”
Rosalind did not know what to reply; her heart beat high with expectation. She took her stepmother’s hand between hers, and waited, her very ears tingling, for the next word.
“I have had no success in that,” Mrs. Trevanion said, in the same dreary way, “in that no more than the rest. I have not done well with anything; except,” she said, looking up with a faint smile and brightening of her countenance, “you, Rosalind, my own dear, who are none of mine.”
“I am all of yours, mother,” cried the girl; “don’t disown me, for I shall always claim you—always! You are all the mother I have ever known.”
Then they held each other close for a moment, clinging one to the other. Could grief have appeared more natural? The wife and daughter, in their deep mourning, comforting each other, taking a little courage from their union—yet how many strange, unknown elements were involved. But Mrs. Trevanion said no more of the confidence she had seemed on the point of giving. She rose shortly after and went away, saying she was restless and could not do anything, or even stay still in one place. “I walk about my room and frighten Jane, but that is all I can do.”
“Stay here, mamma, with me, and walk about, or do what you please. I understand you better than Jane.”
Mrs. Trevanion shook her head; but whether it was to contradict that last assertion or merely because she could not remain, it was impossible to say. “To-morrow,” she said, “willbe the end, and, perhaps, the beginning. I feel as if all would be over to-morrow. After that, Rosalind—”
She went away with the words on her lips. “After to-morrow.” And to Rosalind, too, it seemed as if her powers of endurance were nearly ended, and to-morrow would fill up the sum. But then, what was that further mysterious trouble which Uncle John feared?
Mrs. Trevanion appeared again to dinner, which was a very brief meal, but retired immediately; and the house was full of preparation for to-morrow—every one having, or seeming to have, something to do. Rosalind was left alone. She could not go and sit in the great, vacant drawing-room, all dimly lighted, and looking as if some party of the dead might be gathered about the vacant hearth; or in the hall, where now and then some one of the busy, nameless train of to-morrow’s ceremony would steal past. And it was too early to go to bed. She wrapped herself in a great shawl, and, opening the glass door, stole out into the night. The sweeping of the chill night air, the rustle of the trees, the stars twinkling overhead, gave more companionship than the silence and gloom within. She stood outside on the broad steps, leaning against one of the pillars, till she got chilled through and through, and began to think, with a kind of pleasure, of the glow of the fire.
But as she turned to go in a great and terrible shock awaited her. She had just come away from the pillar, which altogether obliterated her slight, dark figure in its shadow and gave her a sort of invisibility, when the glass door opened at a touch, and some one else came out. They met face to face in the darkness. Rosalind uttered a stifled cry; the other only by a pant of quickened breathing acknowledged the alarm. She was gliding past noiselessly, when Rosalind, with sudden courage, caught her by the cloak in which she was wrapped from head to foot. “Oh, not to-night, oh, not to-night!” she said, with a voice of anguish; “for God’s sake, mother, mother, not to-night!”
There was a pause, and no reply but the quick breathing, as if the passer-by had some hope of concealing herself. But then Madam spoke, in a low, hurried tone—“I must go; I must! but not for any pleasure of mine!”
Rosalind clung to her cloak with a kind of desperation. “Another time,” she said, “but not, oh, not to-night!”
“Let me go. God bless my dear! I cannot help it. I do only what I must. Rosalind, let me go,” she said.
And next moment the dark figure glided swiftly, mysteriously, among the bushes towards the park. Rosalind came in with despair in her heart. It seemed to her that nothing more was left to expect, or hope for. Her mother, the mistress of this sad house, the wife of the dead who still lay there awaiting his burial. At no other moment perhaps would the discovery have come upon her with such a pang; and yet at any moment what could it be but misery? Jane was watching furtively on the stairs to see that her mistress’s exit had been unnoticed. She was in the secret, the confidante, the— But Rosalind’s young soul knew no words; her heart seemed to die within her. She could do or hope no more.
Allwas dark; the stars twinkling ineffectually in the sky, so far off, like spectators merely, or distant sentinels, not helpers; the trees in all their winter nakedness rustling overhead, interrupting the vision of these watchers; the grass soaked with rain and the heavy breath of winter, slipping below the hurrying feet. There was no sound, but only a sense of movement in the night as she passed. The most eager gaze could scarcely have made out what it was—a shadow, the flitting of a cloud, a thrill of motion among the dark shrubs and bushes, as if a faint breeze had got up suddenly and was blowing by. At that hour there was very little chance of meeting anybodyin these damp and melancholy glades, but the passenger avoided all open spaces until she had got to some distance from the house. Even then, as she hurried across, her muffled figure was quite unrecognizable. It was enough to raise a popular belief that the park was haunted, but no more. She went on till she came to a thick copse about half-way between the house and the village. Then another figure made a step out of the thick cover to receive her, and the two together withdrew entirely into its shade.
What was said there, what passed, no one, even though skirting the copse closely, could have told. The whisperers, hidden in its shade, were not without an alarm from time to time; for the path to the village was not far off, and sometimes a messenger from the house would pass at a distance, whistling to keep his courage up, or talking loudly if there were two, for the place was supposed to be ghostly. On this occasion the faint movement among the bare branches would stop, and all be as still as death. Then a faint thrill of sound, of human breathing, returned. The conversation was rapid. “At last!” the other said; “do you know I have waited here for hours these last nights?”
“You knew it was impossible. How could I leave the house in such circumstances? Even now I have outraged decency by coming. I have gone against nature—”
“Not for the first time,” was the answer, with a faint laugh.
“If so, you should be the last to reproach me, for it was for you.”
“Ah, for me! that is one way of putting it. Like all those spurious sacrifices, if one examined a little deeper. You have had the best of it, anyhow.”
“All this,” she said, with a tone of despair, “has been said so often before. It was not for this you insisted on my coming. What is it? Tell me quickly, and let me go before I am found out. Found out! I am found out already. I dare not ask myself what they think.”
“Whatever they think you may be sure it is not the truth. Nobody could guess at the truth. It is too unnatural, that I should be lurking here in wretchedness, and you—”
“But you are comfortable,” she said quickly. “Jane told me—”
“Comfortable according to Jane’s ideas, which are different from mine. What I want is to know what you are going to do; what is to become of me? Will you do me justice now, at last?”
“Oh, Edmund, what justice have you made possible? What can I do but implore you to go? Are not you in danger every day?”
“Less here than anywhere; though I understand there have been inquiries made; the constable in the village shows a degree of interest—”
“Edmund,” she cried, seizing him by the arm, “for God’s sake, go!”
“And not bring shame upon you, Madam? Why should I mind? If I have gone wrong, whose fault is it? You must take that responsibility one time or other. And now that you are free—”
“I cannot defy the law,” she said, with a miserable moan. “I can’t deliver you from what you have done. God knows, though it had been to choose between you and everything else, I would have done you justice, as you say, as soon as it was possible. But to what use now? It would only direct attention to you—bring the—” She shuddered, and said no more.
“The police, you mean,” he replied, with a careless laugh. “And no great harm either, except to you; for of course all my antecedents would be published. But there are such things as disguises, and I am clever at a make-up. You might receive me, and no one would be the wiser. The cost of a new outfit, a new name—you might choose me a nice one. Of all places in the world, a gentleman’s house in the country is the lastwhere they would look for me. And then if there was any danger you could swear I was—”
“Oh, Edmund, Edmund, spare me! I cannot do this—to live in a deception under my children’s eyes.”
“Your children’s eyes!” he said, and laughed. The keen derision of his tone went to her very heart.
“I am used to hear everything said to me that can be said to a woman,” she said quickly, “and if there was anything wanting you make it up. I have had full measure, heaped up and running over. But there is no time for argument now. All that might have been possible in other circumstances; now there is no safety for you but in getting away. You know this, surely, as well as I do. The anxiety you have kept me in it is impossible to tell. I have been calmer since he is gone: it matters less. But for your own sake—”
The other voice said, with a change of tone, “I am lost anyhow. I shall do nothing for my own sake—”
“Oh, Edmund, Edmund, do not break my heart—at your age! If you will only set your mind to better ways, everything can be put right again. As soon as I know you are safe I will take it all in hand. I have not been able hitherto, and now I am afraid to direct observation upon you. But only go away; let me know you are safe: and you have my promise I will pay anything, whatever they ask.”
“Misprision of felony! They won’t do that; they know better. If there is any paying,” he said, with his careless laugh, “it had much better be to me.”
“You shall be provided,” she said breathlessly, “if you will only think of your own safety and go away.”
“Are you sure, then, of having come into your fortune? Has the old fellow shown so much confidence in you? All the better for me. Your generosity in that way will always be fully appreciated. But I would not trouble about Liverpool; they’re used to such losses. It does them no harm, only makes up for the salaries they ought to pay their clerks, and don’t.”
“Don’t speak so lightly, Edmund. You cannot feel it. To make up to those you have—injured—”
“Robbed, if you like, but not injured. That’s quite another matter. I don’t care a straw for this part of the business. But money,” he said, “money is always welcome here.”
A sigh which was almost a moan forced itself from her breast. “You shall have what you want,” she said. “But, Edmund, for God’s sake, if you care either for yourself or me, go away!”
“You would do a great deal better to introduce me here. It would be safer than Spain. And leave it to me to make my way. A good name—you can take one out of the first novel that turns up—and a few good suits of clothes. I might be a long-lost relative come to console you in your distress. That would suit me admirably. I much prefer it to going away. You should see how well I would fill the post of comforter—”
“Don’t!” she cried; “don’t!” holding out her hands in an appeal for mercy.
“Why,” he said, “it is far the most feasible way, and the safest, if you would but think. Who would look for an absconded clerk at Highcourt, in the midst of family mourning and all the rest of it? And I have views of my own— Come, think it over. In former times I allow it would have been impossible, but now you are free.”
“I will not,” she said, suddenly raising her head. “I have done much, but there are some things that are too much. Understand me, I will not. In no conceivable circumstances, whatever may happen. Rather will I leave you to your fate.”
“What!” he said, “and bring shame and ruin on yourself?”
“I do not care. I am desperate. Much, much would I do to make up for my neglect of you, if you can call it neglect; but not this. Listen! I will not do it. It is not to be mentioned again. I will make any sacrifice, except of truth—except of truth!”
“Of truth!” he said, with a sneer; but then was silent, evidently convinced by her tone. He added, after a time, “It is all your fault. What was to be expected? I have never had a chance. It is just that you should bear the brunt, for it is your fault.”
“I acknowledge it,” she said; “I have failed in everything; and whatever I can do to atone I will do. Edmund, oh, listen! Go away. You are not safe here. You risk everything, even my power to help you. You must go, you must go,” she added, seizing him firmly by the arm in her vehemence; “there is no alternative. You shall have money, but go, go! Promise me that you will go.”
“If you use force—” he said, freeing himself roughly from her grasp.
“Force! what force have I against you? It is you who force me to come here and risk everything. If I am discovered, God help me! on the eve of my husband’s funeral, how am I to have the means of doing anything for you? You will understand that. You shall have the money; but promise me to go.”
“You are very vehement,” he said. Then, after another pause, “That is strong, I allow. Bring me the money to-morrow night, and we shall see.”
“I will send Jane.”
“I don’t want Jane. Bring it yourself, or there is not another word to be said.”
Mrs. Trevanion got back, as she thought, unseen to the house. There was nobody in the hall when she opened noiselessly the glass door, and flung down the cloak she had worn among the wraps that were always there. She went up-stairs with her usual stately step; but when she had safely reached the shelter of her own room, she fell into the arms of the anxious Jane, who had been waiting in miserable suspense, fearing discovery in every sound. She did not faint. Nerves strong and highly braced to all conclusions, and a brain yet more vigorous, stillkept her vitality unimpaired, and no merciful cloud came over her mind to soften what she had to bear—there are some to whom unconsciousness is a thing never accorded, scarcely even in sleep. But for a moment she lay upon the shoulder of her faithful servant, getting some strength from the contact of heart with heart. Jane knew everything; she required no explanation. She held her mistress close, supporting her in arms that had never failed her, giving the strength of two to the one who was in deadly peril. After a time Mrs. Trevanion roused herself. She sat down shivering in the chair which Jane placed for her before the fire. Warmth has a soothing effect upon misery. There was a sort of restoration in it, and possibility of calm. She told all that had passed to the faithful woman who had stood by her in all the passages of her life—her confidante, her go-between: other and worse names, if worse can be, had been ere now expended upon Jane.
“Once more,” Madam said, with a long sigh, “once more; and then it is to be over, or so he says, at least. On the night of my husband’s funeral day; on the night before— What could any one think of me, if it were known? And how can I tell that it is not known?”
“Oh, dear Madam, let us hope for the best,” said Jane. “Besides, who has any right to find fault now? Whatever you choose to do, you have a right to do it. The only one that had any right to complain—”
“And the only one,” said Mrs. Trevanion, with sudden energy, “who had no right to complain.” Then she sank back again into her chair. “I care nothing for other people,” she said; “it is myself. I feel the misery of it in myself. This night, of all others, to expose myself—and to-morrow. I think my punishment is more than any woman should have to bear.”
“Oh, Madam, do not think of it as a punishment.”
“As what, then—a duty? But one implies the other. God help us! If I could but hope that after this all would be over,at least for the time. I have always been afraid of to-morrow; I cannot tell why. Not because of the grave and the ceremony; but with a kind of dread as if there were something in it unforeseen, something new. Perhaps it is this last meeting which has been weighing upon me—this last meeting, which will be a parting, too, perhaps forever—”
She paused for a moment, and then burst forth into tears. “I ought to be thankful. That is the only thing to be desired. But when I think of all that might have been, and of what is—of my life all gone between the one who has been my tyrant, and the other—the other against whom I have sinned. And that one has died in anger, and the other—oh, the other!”
It was to Jane’s faithful bosom that she turned again to stifle the sobs which would not be restrained. Jane stood supporting her, weeping silently, patting with pathetic helplessness her mistress’s shoulder. “Oh, Madam,” she said, “who can tell? his heart may be touched at the last.”
Nextday there was a great concourse of people at Highcourt, disturbing the echoes which had lain so silent during that week of gloom. Carriages with the finest blazons, quartered and coronetted; men of the greatest importance, peers, and those commoners who hold their heads higher than any recent peers—M.P.’s; the lord-lieutenant and his deputy, everything that was noted and eminent in those parts. The procession was endless, sweeping through the park towards the fine old thirteenth-century church which made the village notable, and in which the Trevanion chantry, though a century later in date, was the finest part; though the dark opening in the vault, canopied over with fine sculptured work, and all that pious art could do to make the last resting-place beautiful, opened black as any common grave for the passage of the departed.There was an unusual band of clergy gathered in their white robes to do honor to the man who had given half of them their livings, and all the villagers, and various visitors from the neighboring town, shopkeepers who had rejoiced in his patronage, and small gentry to whom Madam had given brevet rank by occasional notice. Before the procession approached, a little group of ladies, in crape from head to foot and closely veiled, were led in by the curate reverently through a side door. A murmur ran through the gathering crowd that it was Madam herself who walked first, with her head bowed, not seeing or desiring the curate’s anxiously offered arm. The village had heard a rumor of trouble at the great house, and something about Madam, which had made the elders shake their heads, and remind each other that she was a foreigner and not of these parts, which accounted for anything that might be wrong; while the strangers, who had also heard that there was a something, craned their necks to see her through the old ironwork of the chancel-screen, behind which the ladies were introduced. Many people paused in the midst of the service, and dropped their prayer-books to gaze again, and wonder what she was thinking now, if she had indeed, as people said, been guilty. How must she feel when she heard the deep tones of the priest, and the organ pealing out its Amens. Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. Had he forgiven her before he died? Was she broken down with remorse and shame, or was she rejoicing in her heart, behind her crape veil, in her freedom? It must not be supposed, because of this general curiosity, that Madam Trevanion had lost her place in the world, or would not have the cards of the county showered upon her, with inquiries after her health from all quarters; but only that there was “a something” which gave piquancy, such as does not usually belong to such a melancholy ceremonial, to the great function of the day. The most of the audience, in fact, sympathized entirely with Madam, and made remarks as to the character of the man so imposingly ushered into the realm of the dead,which did not fit in well with the funeral service. There were many who scoffed at the hymn which was sung by the choirs of the adjacent parishes, all in the late Mr. Trevanion’s gift, and which was very, perhaps unduly, favorable to the “dear saint” thus tenderly dismissed. He had not been a dear saint; perhaps, in such a case, the well-known deprecation oftrop de zèleis specially appropriate. It made the scoffer blaspheme to hear so many beautiful qualities attributed to Mr. Trevanion. But perhaps it is best to err on the side of kindness. It was, at all events, a grand funeral. No man could have desired more.
The third lady who accompanied Mrs. Trevanion and her daughter was the Aunt Sophy to whom there had been some question of sending Rosalind. She was the only surviving sister of Mr. Trevanion, Mrs. Lennox, a wealthy widow, without any children, to whom the Highcourt family were especially dear. She was the softest and most good-natured person who had ever borne the name of Trevanion. It was supposed to be from her mother, whom the Trevanions in general had worried into her grave at a very early age, that Aunt Sophy got a character so unlike the rest of the family. But worrying had not been successful in the daughter’s case; or perhaps it was her early escape by her marriage that saved her. She was so apt to agree with the last person who spoke, that her opinion was not prized as it might have been by her connections generally; but everybody was confident in her kindness. She had arrived only the morning of the funeral, having come from the sickbed of a friend whom she was nursing, and to whom she considered it very necessary that she should get back; but it was quite possible that, being persuaded her sister-in-law or Rosalind had more need of her, she might remain at Highcourt, notwithstanding that it was so indispensable that she should leave that afternoon, for the rest of the year.
The shutters had been all opened, the blinds raised, the windows let in the light, the great doors stood wide when they came back. The house was no longer the house of the dead,but the house of the living. In Mr. Trevanion’s room, that chamber of state, the curtains were all pulled down already, the furniture turned topsy-turvy, the housemaids in possession. In proportion as the solemnity of the former mood had been, so was the anxiety now to clear away everything that belonged to death. The children, in their black frocks, came to meet their mother, half reluctant, half eager. The incident of papa’s death was worn out to them long ago, and they were anxious to be released, and to see something new. Here Aunt Sophy was of the greatest assistance. She cried over them, and smiled, and admired their new dresses, and cried again, and bade them be good and not spoil their clothes, and be a comfort to their dear mamma. The ladies kept together in the little morning-room till everybody was gone. It was very quiet there, out of the bustle; and they had been told that there was no need for their presence in the library where the gentlemen were, John Trevanion with the Messrs. Blake. There was no need, indeed, for any formal reading of the will. There could be little uncertainty about a man’s will whose estates were entailed, and who had a young family to provide for. Nobody had any doubt that he would deal justly with his children, and the will was quite safe in the hands of the executors. Refreshments were taken to them in the library, and the ladies shared the children’s simple dinner. It was all very serious, very quiet, but there could be no doubt that the weight and oppression were partially withdrawn.
The short afternoon had begun to darken, and Aunt Sophy had already asked if it were not nearly time for tea, when Dorrington, the butler, knocked at the door, and with a very solemn countenance delivered “Mr. John Trevanion’s compliments, and would Madam be so good as step into the library for a few minutes?”
The few minutes were Dorrington’s addition. The look of the gentlemen seated at the table close together, like criminals awaiting execution, and fearing that every moment would bringthe headsman, had alarmed Dorrington. He was favorable to his mistress on the whole; and he thought this summons meant something. So unconsciously he softened his message. A few minutes had a reassuring sound. They all looked up at him as the message was given.
“They will want to consult you about something,” said Aunt Sophy; “you have managed everything for so long. He said only a few minutes. Make haste, dear, and we will wait for you for tea.”
“Shall I go with you, mamma?” said Rosalind, rising and following to the door.
Mrs. Trevanion hesitated for a moment. “Why should I be so foolish?” she said, with a faint smile. “I would say yes, come; but that it is too silly.”
“I will come, mamma.”
“No; it is absolute folly. As if I were a novice! Make your aunt comfortable, dear, and don’t let her wait for me.” She was going away when something in Rosalind’s face attracted her notice. The girl’s eyes were intent upon her with a pity and terror in them that was indescribable. Mrs. Trevanion made a step back again and kissed her. “You must not be frightened, Rosalind. There can be nothing bad enough for that; but don’t let your aunt wait,” she said; and closing the door quickly behind her, she left the peaceful protection of the women with whom she was safe, and went to meet her fate.
The library was naturally a dark room, heavy with books, with solemn curtains and sad-colored furniture. The three large windows were like shaded lines of vertical light in the breadth of the gloom. On the table some candles had been lighted, and flared with a sort of wild waving when the door was opened. Lighted up by them, against the dark background, were the pale faces of John Trevanion and old Mr. Blake. Both had a look of agitation, and even alarm, as if they were afraid of her. Behind them, only half visible, was the doctor, leaning against a corner of the mantelpiece, with his face hidden by hishand. John Trevanion rose without a word, and placed a chair for his sister-in-law close to where they sat. He drew nearer to his colleague when he sat down again, as if for protection, which, however, Mr. Blake, a most respectable, unheroic person, with his countenance like ashes, and looking as if he had seen a ghost, was very little qualified to give.
“My dear Grace,” said John, clearing his voice, which trembled, “we have taken the liberty to ask you to come here, instead of going to you.”
“I am very glad to come if you want me, John,” she said, simply, with a frankness and ease which confused them more and more.
“Because,” he went on, clearing his throat again, endeavoring to control his voice, “because we have something—very painful to say.”
“Very painful; more painful than anything I ever had to do with in all my life,” Mr. Blake added, in a husky voice.
She looked from one to another, questioning their faces, though neither of them would meet her eyes. The bitterness of death had passed from Mrs. Trevanion’s mind. The presentiment that had hung so heavily about her had blown away like a cloud. Sitting by the fire in the innocent company of Sophy, with Rosalind by her, the darkness had seemed to roll together and pass away. But when she looked from one of these men to the other, it came back and enveloped her like a shroud. She said “Yes?” quickly, her breath failing, and looked at them, who could not meet her eyes.
“It is so,” said John. “We must not mince our words. Whatever may have passed between you two, whatever he may have heard or found out, we can say nothing less than that it is most unjust and cruel.”
“Savage, barbarous! I should never have thought it, I should have refused to do it,” his colleague cried, in his high-pitched voice.
“But we have no alternative. We must carry his will out, and we are bound to let you know without delay.”
“This delay is already too much,” she said hurriedly. “Is it something in my husband’s will? Why try to frighten me? Tell me at once.”
“God knows we are not trying to frighten you. Nothing so terrible could occur to your mind, or any one’s, Grace,” said John Trevanion, with a nervous quivering of his voice. “The executioner used to ask pardon of those he was about to— I think I am going to give you your sentence of death.”
“Then I give you—my pardon—freely. What is it? Do not torture me any longer,” she said.
He thrust away his chair from the table, and covered his face with his hands. “Tell her, Blake; I cannot,” he cried.
Then there ensued a silence like death; no one seemed to breathe; when suddenly the high-pitched, shrill voice of the old lawyer came out like something visible, mingled with the flaring of the candles and the darkness all around.
“I will spare you the legal language,” said Mr. Blake. “It is this. The children are all provided for, as is natural and fit, but with this proviso—that their mother shall be at once and entirely separated from them. If Mrs. Trevanion remains with them, or takes any one of them to be with her, they are totally disinherited, and their money is left to various hospitals and charities. Either Mrs. Trevanion must leave them at once, and give up all communication with them, or they lose everything. That is in brief what we have to say.”
She sat listening without changing her position, with a dimness of confusion and amaze coming over her clear gaze. The intimation was so bewildering, so astounding, that her faculties failed to grasp it. Then she said, “To leave them—my children? To be separated from my children?” with a shrill tone of inquiry, rising into a sort of breathless cry.
John Trevanion took his hands from his face, and looked at her with a look which brought more certainty than words. Theold lawyer clasped his hands upon the papers before him, without lifting his eyes, and mournfully nodded again and again his gray head. But she waited for an answer. She could not let herself believe it. “It is notthat? My head is going round. I don’t understand the meaning of words. It is notthat?”
And then she rose up suddenly to her feet, clasping her hands together, and cried out, “My God!” The men rose too, as with one impulse; and John Trevanion called out loudly to the doctor, who hurried to her. She put them away with a motion of her hands. “The doctor? What can the doctor do for me?” she cried, with the scorn of despair. “Go, go, go! I need no support.” The men had come close to her on either side, with that confused idea that the victim must faint or fall, or sustain some physical convulsion, which men naturally entertain in respect to a woman. She made a motion, as if to keep them away, with her arms, and stood there in the midst, her pale face, with the white surroundings of her distinctive dress, clearly defined against the other dusk and troubled countenances. They thought the moments of suspense endless, but to her they were imperceptible. Not all the wisest counsellors in the world could have helped her in that effort of desperation which her lonely soul was making to understand. There was so much that no one knew but herself. Her mind went through all the details of a history unthought of. She had to put together and follow the thread of events, and gather up a hundred indications which now came all flashing about her like marsh-lights, leading her swift thoughts here and there, through the hitherto undivined workings of her husband’s mind, and ripening of fate. Thus it was that she came slowly to perceive what it meant, and all that it meant, which nature, even when perceiving the sense of the words, had refused to believe. When she spoke they all started with a sort of panic and individual alarm, as if something might be coming which would be too terrible to listen to. But what she said had a strange composure,which was a relief, yet almost a horror, to them. “Will you tell me,” she asked, “exactly what it is, again?”