Rosalindherself was much aroused by this discussion. She thought it unjust and cruel. She had done nothing to call forsuch a reproach. She had not attempted to make Mr. Rivers love her, nor to keep him from his work, nor to interfere in any way with his movements. She had even avoided him at the first—almost disliked him, she said to herself—and that she should be exposed to remark on his account was not to be borne. She retired to her room, full of lively indignation against her aunt and Roland, and even against Rivers, who was entirely innocent, surely, if ever man was. This was another phase, one she had not thought of, in the chapter of life which had begun by that wonder in her mind why she had no lover. She had been surprised by the absence of that figure in her life, and then had seen him appear, and had felt the elation, the secret joy, of being worshipped. But now the matter had entered into another phase, and she herself was to be judged as an independent actor in it; she, who had been only passive, doing nothing, looking on with curiosity and interest, and perhaps pleasure, but no more. What had she to do with it? She had no part in the matter: it was their doing, theirs only, all through. She had done nothing to influence his fate. She had conducted herself towards him no otherwise than she did to old Sir John, or Mr. Penworthy, the clergyman, both of whom were Rosalind’s good friends. If Mr. Rivers had taken up a different idea of her, that was his doing, not hers. She detain him, keep him from his business, interfere with his career! She thought Aunt Sophy must be mad, or dreaming. Rosalind was indignant to be made a party at all in the matter. It had thus entered a stage of which she had no anticipation. It had been pleasant inasmuch as it was entirely apart from herself, the attentions unsolicited, the admiration unsought. It was a new idea altogether that she should be considered accountable, or brought within the possibility of blame. What was she to do? Mr. Rivers was expected at the Elms that very evening, at one of Mrs. Lennox’s everlasting dinner-parties. Rosalind had not hitherto looked upon them as everlasting dinner-parties. She had enjoyed the lively flow of society, whichAunt Sophy (who enjoyed it very much) considered herself obliged to keep up for Rosalind’s sake, that she should have pleasant company and amusement. Now, however, Miss Trevanion was suddenly of opinion that she had hated them all along; that, above all, she had disliked the constant invitations to these men. It would be indispensable that she should put up with this evening’s party, which it was now much too late to elude. But after to-night she resolved that she would make a protest. She would say to Aunt Sophy that henceforward she must be excused. Whatever happened, she must disentangle herself from this odious position as a girl who was responsible for the feeling, whatever it was, entertained for her by a gentleman. It was preposterous, it was insupportable. Whatever he chose to think, it was his doing, and not hers at all.
These sentiments gave great stateliness to Rosalind’s aspect when she went down to dinner. They even influenced her dress, causing her to put aside the pretty toilet she had intended to make, and attire herself in an old and very serious garment which had been appropriated to evenings when the family was alone. Mrs. Lennox stared at her niece in consternation when she saw this visible sign of contrariety and displeasure. It disturbed her beyond measure to see how far Rosalind had gone in her annoyance: whereas the gentlemen, with their usual density, saw nothing at all the matter, but thought her more dazzling than usual in the little black dress, which somehow threw up all her advantages of complexion and the whiteness of her pretty arms and throat. She had put on manners, however, which were more repellent than her dress, and which froze Hamerton altogether, who had a guilty knowledge of what was the matter which Rivers did not share. Roland was frozen externally, but it cannot be denied that in his heart there was a certain guilty pleasure. He thought that the suggestion that she had encouraged Rivers was quite enough to make Rosalind henceforward so much the reverse of encouraging that his rival would see the folly of going on with his suit, and the fieldwould be left free to himself, as before. Rosalind might not be the better inclined, in consequence, to himself: but it was worth something to get that fellow, whom nobody could help looking at, away. There were two or three indifferent people in the company this evening, to whose amusement Rosalind devoted herself, ignoring both the candidates for her favor; and, as is natural in such circumstances, she was more lively, more gay, than usual, and eager to please these indifferent persons. As for Rivers, he thought she was out of sorts, perhaps out of temper (for he was aware that in this point she was not perfect), her usual friendliness and sweetness clouded over. But a man of his age does not jump into despair as youth does, and he waited patiently, believing that the cloud would pass away. Rivers had been very wise in his way of approaching Rosalind. He had not tried openly to appropriate her society, to keep by her side, to make his adoration patent, as foolish Roland did. To-night, however, he, too, adopted a different course. Perhaps her changed aspect stirred him up, and he felt that the moment had come for a bolder stroke. However this might be, whether it was done by accident or on principle, the fact was that his tactics were changed. When Rosalind rose, by Mrs. Lennox’s desire, and went to the writing-table to write an address, Rivers rose too, and followed her, drawing a chair near hers with the air of having something special to say. “I want to ask your advice, if you will permit me, Miss Trevanion,” he said.
“My advice! oh, no!” said Rosalind; “I am not wise enough to be able to advise any one.”
“You are young and generous. I do not want wisdom.”
“Not so very young,” said Rosalind. “And how do you know that I am generous at all? I do not think I am.”
He smiled and went on, without noticing this protest. “My mother,” he said, “wishes to come to London to be near me. I am sometimes sent off to the end of the world, and often in danger. She thinks she would hear of me more easily, benearer, so to speak, though I might happen to be in India or Zululand.”
Rosalind was taken much by surprise. Her thoughts of him, as of a man occupied above everything else by herself, seemed to come back upon her as if they had been flung in her face. His mother! was she the subject of his anxiety? She felt as though she had been indulging a preposterous vanity and the most unfounded expectations. The color flew to her face; for what had she to do with his mother, if his mother was what he was thinking of? She was irritated by the suggestion, she could scarcely tell why.
“I think it is very natural she should wish it, and you would be at home, I suppose, sometimes,” she replied, with a certain stiffness.
“Do you think so? You know, Miss Trevanion, my family and I are in two different worlds; I should be a fool if I tried to hide it. Would the difference be less, do you think, between St. James’s and Islington, or between London and Clifton? I think the first would tell most. They would not be happy with me, nor I, alas! with them. It is the penalty a man has to pay for getting on, as they call it. I have got on in my small way, and they—are just where they were. How am I to settle it? If you could imagine yourself, if that were possible, in my position, what would you do?”
There was a soft insinuation in his voice which would have gone to any girl’s heart; and his eyes expressed a boundless faith in her opinion which could not be mistaken. The irritation which was entirely without cause died away, and, with the usual rebound of a generous nature, Rosalind, penitent, felt her heart moved to a return of the confidence he showed in her. She answered softly, “I would do what my mother wished.” She was seated still in front of the writing-table where stood the portrait, the little carved door of the frame half closed on it. A sudden impulse seized her. She pointed to it quickly, without waiting to think: “That is the children’s mother,” she said.
He gave her a look of mingled sympathy and pain. “I had heard something.”
“What did you hear, Mr. Rivers? Something that was not true? If you heard that she was not good, the best woman in the world, it was not true. I have always wanted to tell you. She went away not with her will; because she could not help it. The children have almost forgotten her, but I can never forget. She was all the mother I have ever known.”
Rosalind did not know at all why at such a moment she should suddenly have opened her heart to him on this subject, through which he had given her such a wound. She took it up hastily, instinctively, in the quickening impulse of her disturbed thoughts. She added in a low voice, “What you said hurt me—oh, it hurt me, that night; but afterwards, when I came to think of it, the feeling went away.”
“There was nothing to hurt you,” said Rivers, hastily. “I saw it was so, but I could not explain. Besides, I was a stranger, and understood nothing. Don’t you think I might be of use to you perhaps, if you were to trust me?” He looked at her with eyes so full of sympathy that Rosalind’s heart was altogether melted. “I saw,” he added quietly, “that there was a whole history in her face.”
“Tell me all you saw—if you spoke to her—what she said. Oh! if she had only known you were coming here! But life seems like that—we meet people as it were in the dark, and we never know how much we may have to do with them. I could not let you go away without asking you. Tell me, before you go away.”
“I will tell you. But I am not going away, Miss Trevanion.”
“Oh!” cried Rosalind. She felt confused, as if she had gone through a world of conflicting experience since she first spoke. “I thought you must be going, and that this was why you asked me.”
“About my mother? It was with a very different view I spoke. I wished you to know something more about me. Iwished you to understand in what position I am, and to make you aware of her existence, and to find out what you thought about it; what would appear to you the better way.” He was more excited and tremulous than became his years; and she was softened by the emotion more than by the highest eloquence.
“It must be always best to make her happy,” Rosalind said.
“Shall I tell you what would make her happy? To see me sitting here by your side, to hear you counselling me so sweetly; to know that was your opinion, to hope perhaps—”
“Mr. Rivers, do not say any more about this. You make so much more than is necessary of a few simple words. What I want you to tell me is abouther.”
“I will tell you as much as I know,” he said, with a pause and visible effort of self-restraint. “She was travelling by unusual routes, but without any mystery. She had a maid with her, a tall, thin, anxious woman.”
“Oh, Jane!” cried Rosalind, clasping her hands together with a little cry of recognition and pleasure; this seemed to give such reality to the tale. She knew very well that the faithful maid had gone with Mrs. Trevanion; but to see her in this picture gave comfort to her heart.
“You knew her? She seemed to be very anxious about her mistress, very careful of her. Miss Trevanion, it may very well be that in my wanderings I may meet with them again. Shall I say anything? Shall I carry a message?”
Rosalind found her voice choked with tears. She made him a sign of assent, unable to do more.
“What shall I tell her? That you trust me—that I am a messenger from you? I would rather be your ambassador than the queen’s. Shall I say that I have been so happy as to gain your confidence—or even perhaps—”
“Oh, a little thing will do,” cried the girl; “she will understand you as soon as you say that Rosalind—”
He was leaning forward, his eyes fixed upon hers, his face fullof emotion. He put out his hand and touched hers, which was leaning on the table. “Yes,” he said, “I will say that Rosalind—so long as you give me an excuse for using that name.”
Rosalind came to herself with a little shock. She withdrew her hand hastily. “Perhaps I am saying too much,” she said. “It is only a dream, and you may never see her. But I could not bear that you should imagine we did not speak of her, or that I did not love her, and trust her,” she added, drawing a long breath. “This is a great deal too much about me, and you had begun to tell me of your own arrangements,” Rosalind said, drawing her chair aside a little in instinctive alarm. It was the sound she made in doing so which called the attention of John Trevanion—or, rather, which moved him to turn his steps that way, his attention having been already attracted by the fixed and jealous gaze of Roland, who had sat with his face towards the group by the writing-table ever since his rival had followed Rosalind there.
Rivers saw that his chance was over, with a sigh, yet not perhaps with all the vehement disappointment of a youth. He had made a beginning, and perhaps he was not yet ready to go any further, though his feelings might have hurried him on too hastily, injudiciously, had no interruption occurred. But he had half frightened without displeasing her, which, as he was an experienced man, was a condition of things he did not think undesirable. There is a kind of fright which, to be plunged into yet escape from, to understand without being forced to come to any conclusion, suits the high, fantastical character of a young maiden’s awakening feelings. And then before he, who was of a race so different, could actually venture to ask a Miss Trevanion of Highcourt to marry him, a great many calculations and arrangements were necessary. He thought John Trevanion, who was a man of the world, looked at him with a certain surprise and disapproval, asking himself, perhaps, what such a man could have to offer, what settlements he could make, what establishment he could keep up.
“Are not you cold in this corner,” John said, “so far from the fire, Rosalind?—and you are a chilly creature. Run away and get yourself warm.” He took her chair as she rose, and sat down with an evident intention of continuing the conversation. As a matter of fact, John Trevanion was not asking himself what settlements a newspaper correspondent could make. He was thinking of other things. He gave a nod of his head towards the portrait, and said in a low tone, “She has been talking to you ofher.”
Rivers was half disappointed, half relieved. It proved to him, he thought, that he was too insignificant a pretender to arouse any alarm in Rosalind’s relations, which was a galling thought. At the same time it was better that he should have made up his mind more completely what he was to say, before he exposed himself to any questioning on the subject. So he answered with a simple “Yes.”
“We cannot make up our minds to think any harm of her,” said Trevanion, leaning his head on his hand. “The circumstances are very strange, too strange for me to attempt to explain. And what you said seemed damaging enough. But I want you to know that I share somehow that instinctive confidence of Rosalind’s. I believe there must be some explanation, even of the—companion—”
Rivers could not but smile a little, but he kept the smile carefully to himself. He was not so much interested in the woman he did not know as he was in the young creature who, he hoped, might yet make a revolution in his life.
Itwas not very long after this that one of “England’s little wars” broke out—not a little war in so far as loss and cost went, but yet one of those convulsions that go on far from us, that only when they are identified by some dreadful and tragicincident really rouse the nation. It is more usual now than it used to be to have the note of horror struck in this way, and Rivers was one of the most important instructors of the English public in such matters. He went up to the Elms in the morning, an unusual hour, to tell his friends there that he was ordered off at once, and to bid them good-bye. He made as little as possible of his own special mission, but there was no disguising the light of excitement, anxiety, and expectation that was in his eyes.
“If I were a soldier,” he said, “I should feel myself twice as interesting; and Sophy perhaps would give me her ribbon to wear in my cap; but a newspaper correspondent has his share of the kicks, and not much of the ha’pence, in the way of glory at least.”
“Oh, I think quite the reverse,” said Mrs. Lennox, always anxious to please and encourage; “because you know we should never know anything about it at home, but for you.”
“And the real ha’pence do fall to your share, and not to the soldiers,” said John.
“Well, perhaps it does pay better, which you will think an ignoble distinction,” he said, turning to Rosalind with a laugh. “But picking up news is not without danger any more than inflicting death is, and the trouble we take to forestall our neighbors is as hard as greater generalship.” He was very uneasy, looking anxiously from one to another. The impossibility of getting these people out of the way! What device would do it? he wondered. Mrs. Lennox sat in her chair by the fire with her crewel work as if she would never move; Sophy had a holiday and was pervading the room in all corners at once; and John Trevanion was writing at Rosalind’s table, with the composure of a man who had no intention of being disturbed. How often does this hopeless condition of affairs present itself when but one chance remains for the anxious lover! Had Rivers been a duke, the difficulty might easily have been got over, but he whose chief hope is not in thefamily, but in favor of the lady herself, has a more difficult task. Mrs. Lennox, he felt convinced, would have no desire to clear the way for him, and as for Mr. Trevanion, it was too probable that even had the suitor been a duke, on the eve of a long and dangerous expedition, he would have watched over Rosalind’s tranquillity and would not have allowed her to be disturbed. It was a hopeless sort of glance which the lover threw round him, ending in an unspoken appeal. They were very kind to him; had he wanted money or help of influence, or any support to push him on in the world, John Trevanion, a true friend to all whom he esteemed, would have given it. But Rosalind—they would not give him five minutes with Rosalind to save his life.
Mrs. Lennox, however, whose amiability always overcame her prudence, caught the petition in his eyes and interpreted it after her own fashion.
“Dear me,” she said, “how sorry we shall be to lose you! But you really must stay to lunch. The last time! You could not do less for us than that. And we shall drink your health and wish you a happy return.”
“That will do him so much good; when he must have a hundred things to do.”
“The kindness will do me good. Yes, I have a hundred things to do, but since Mrs. Lennox is so kind; it will do me more good than anything,” Rivers said. His eyes were glistening as if there was moisture in them; and Rosalind, looking up and perceiving the restlessness of anxiety in his face, was affected by a sympathetic excitement. She began to realize what the position was—that he was going away, and might never see her again. She would be sorry too. It would be a loss of importance, a sort of coming down in the world, to have no longer this man—not a boy, like Roland; a man whose opinions people looked up to, who was one of the instructors and oracles of the world—depending upon her favor. There was perhaps more than this, a slightly responsive sentiment on her own part,not like his, but yet something—an interest, a liking. Her heart began to beat; there was a sort of anguish in his eyes which moved her more, she thought, than she had ever been moved before—a force of appeal to her which she could scarcely resist. But what could she do? She could not, any more than he could, clear the room of the principal persons in it, and give him the chance of speaking to her. Would she do it if she could?—she thought she would not. But yet she was agitated slightly, sympathetically, and gave him an answering look in which, in the excitement of the moment, he read a great deal more than there was to read. Was this to be all that was to pass between them before he went away? How commonplace the observations of the others seemed to them both! especially to Rivers, whose impatience was scarcely to be concealed, and who looked at the calm, every-day proceedings of the heads of the house with a sense that they were intolerable, yet a consciousness that the least sign of impatience would be fatal to him.
“Are you frightened, then, Mr. Rivers, that you look so strange?” said Sophy, planting herself in front of him, and looking curiously into his face.
“Sophy, how can you be so rude?” Mrs. Lennox said.
“I don’t think I am frightened—not yet,” he said, with a laugh. “It is time enough when the fighting begins.”
“Are you very frightenedthen? It is not rudeness; I want to know. It must be very funny to go into battle. I should not have time to be frightened, I should want to know how people feel—and I never knew any one who was just going before. Did you ever want to run away?”
“You know,” said Rivers, “I don’t fight, except with another newspaper fellow, who shall get the news first.”
“I am sure Mr. Rivers is frightened, for he has got tears in his eyes,” said theenfant terrible. “Well, if they are not tears, it is something that makes your eyes very shiny. You have always rather shiny eyes. And you have never got a chair allthis time, Mr. Rivers. Please sit down; for to move about like that worries Aunt Sophy. You are as bad as Rex when he comes home for the holidays. Aunt Sophy is always saying she will not put up with it.”
“Child!” cried Mrs. Lennox, with dismay, “what I say to you is not meant for Mr. Rivers. Of course Mr. Rivers is a little excited. I am sure I shall look for the newspapers, and read all the descriptions with twice as much interest. Rosalind, I wish you would go and get some flowers. We have none for the table. You were so busy this morning, you did not pay any attention. Those we have here will do very well for to-day, but for the table we want something fresh. Get some of those fine cactuses. They are just the thing to put on the table for any one who is going to the wars.”
“Yes, Aunt Sophy,” said Rosalind, faintly. She saw what was coming, and it frightened, yet excited her. “There is plenty of time. It will do in—half an hour.”
“My dear,” said Mrs. Lennox, with an absurd insistence, as if she meant something, “you had better go at once.”
“I am nervous, as Sophy has discovered, and can’t keep still,” said Rivers. “May I go too?”
Rosalind looked at him, on her side, with a kind of tremulous appeal, as he took her basket out of her hand. It seemed to say “Don’t!” with a distinct sense that it was vain to say so. Aunt Sophy, with that foolish desire to please which went against all her convictions and baffled her own purpose, looked up at them as they stood, Rosalind hesitating and he so eager. “Yes, do; it will cheer you up a little,” the foolish guardian said.
And John Trevanion wrote on calmly, thinking nothing. They abandoned her to her fate. It was such a chance as Rivers could not have hoped for. He could scarcely contain himself as he followed her out of the room. She went very slowly, hoping perhaps even now to be called back, though she scarcely wished to be called back, and would have been disappointed too, perhaps. She could not tell what her feelings were, norwhat she was going to do. Yet there came before her eyes as she went out a sudden vision of the other, the stranger, he whom she did not know, who had wooed her in the silence, in her dreams, and penetrated her eyes with eyes not bright and keen, like those of Rivers, but pathetic, like little Johnny’s. Was she going to forsake the visionary for the actual? Rosalind felt that she too was going into battle, not knowing what might come of it; into her first personal encounter with life and a crisis in which she must act for herself.
“I did not hope for anything like this,” he said, hurriedly; “a good angel must have got it for me. I thought I should have to go without a word.”
“Oh, no! there will be many more words; you have promised Aunt Sophy to stay to lunch.”
“To see you in the midst of the family is almost worse than not seeing you at all. Miss Trevanion, you must know. Perhaps I am doing wrong to take advantage of their confidence, but how can I help it? Everything in the world is summed up to me in this moment. Say something to me! To talk of love in common words seems nothing. I know no words that mean half what I mean. Say you will think of me sometimes when I am away.”
Rosalind trembled very much in spite of all she could do to steady herself. They had gone through the hall without speaking, and it was only when they had gained the shelter of the conservatory, in which they were safe from interruption, that he thus burst forth. The interval had been so breathless and exciting that every emotion was intensified. She did not venture to look up at him, feeling as if something might take flame at his eyes.
“Mr. Rivers, I could say that very easily, but perhaps it would not mean what you think.”
“Yes,” he said, “I see how it is; the words are too small for me, and you would mean just what they say. I want them to mean a great deal more, everything, as mine do. At myage,” he said, with an agitated smile—“for I am too old for you, besides being not good enough in any way—at my age I ought to have the sense to speak calmly, to offer you as much as I can, which is no great things; but I have got out of my own control, Rosalind. Well, yes, let me say that—a man’s love is worth that much, to call the girl whom he loves Rosalind—Rosalind. I could go on saying it, and die so, like Perdita’s prince. All exaggerated nonsense and folly, I know, I know, and yet all true.”
She raised her head for a moment and gave him a look in which there was a sort of tender gratitude yet half-reproach, as if entreating him to spare her that outburst of passion, to meet which she was so entirely prepared.
“I understand,” he said; “I can see into your sweet mind as if it were open before me, I am so much older than you are. But the love ought to be most on the man’s side. I will take whatever you will give me—a little, a mere alms!—if I cannot get any more. If you say onlythat, that you will think of me sometimes when I am away, and mean only that, and let me come back, if I come back, and see—what perhaps Providence may have done for me in the meantime—”
“Mr. Rivers, I will think of you often. Is it possible I could do otherwise after what you say? But when you come back, if you find that I do not—care for you more than now—”
“Do you care for me at all now, Rosalind?”
“In one way, but not as you want me. I must tell you the truth. I am always glad when you come, I shall be very glad when you come back, but I could not—I could not—”
“You could not—marry me, Rosalind?”
She drew back a little from his side. She said “No” in a quick, startled tone; then she added “Nor any one,” half under her breath.
“Nor any one,” he repeated; “that is enough. And you will think of me when I am away, and if I come back, I maycome and ask? All this I will accept on my knees, and, at present, ask for no more.”
“But you must not expect—you must not make sure of—when you come back—”
“I will wait upon Providence and my good angel, Rosalind!”
“What are you saying, Mr. Rivers, about angels and Rosalind? Do you call her by her name, and do you think she is an angel? That is how people talk in novels; I have read a great many. Why, you have got no flowers! What have you been doing all this time? I made Aunt Sophy send me to help you with the cactuses, and Uncle John said, ‘Well, perhaps it will be better.’ But, oh, what idle things you are! The cactuses are not here even. You look as if you had forgotten all about them, Rose.”
“We knew you were sure to come, and waited for you,” said Rivers; “that is to say, I did. I knew you were sure to follow. Here, Sophy, you and I will go for the cactuses, and Miss Trevanion will sit down and wait for us. Don’t you think that is the best way?”
“You call her Miss Trevanion now, but you called her Rosalind when I was not here. Oh, and I know you don’t care a bit for the flowers: you wanted only to talk to her when Uncle John and Aunt Sophy were out of the way.”
“Don’t you think that was natural, Sophy? You are a wise little girl. You are very fond of Uncle John and Aunt Sophy, but still now and then you like to get away for a time, and tell your secrets.”
“Were you telling your secrets to Rosalind? I am notveryfond of them. I like to see what is going on, and to find people out.”
“Shall I give you something to find out for me while I am away?”
“Oh, yes, yes, do; that is what I should like,” cried Sophy, with her little mischievous eyes dancing. “And I will writeand tell you. But then you must give me your address; I shall be the only one in the house that knows your address; and I’ll tell you what they are all doing, every one of them. There is nothing I should like so much,” Sophy cried. She was so pleased with this idea that she forgot to ask what the special information required by her future correspondent was.
Meanwhile Rosalind sat among the flowers, hearing the distant sound of their voices, with her heart beating and all the color and brightness round flickering unsteadily in her eyes. She did not know what she had done, or if she had done anything; if she had pledged herself, or if she were still free.
Ithappened after these events that sickness crept into Mrs. Lennox’s cheerful house. One of the children had a lingering fever; and Aunt Sophy herself was troubled with headaches, and not up to the mark, the doctor said. This no doubt arose, according to the infallible decrees of sanitary science, from some deficiency in the drainage, notwithstanding that a great deal of trouble had already been taken, and that a local functionary and expert in such matters had been almost resident in the house for some months, to set right these sources of all evil. As soon, however, as it was understood that for the sixth or seventh time the house would have to be undermined, Mrs. Lennox came to a resolution which, as she said, she had “always intended;” and that was to “go abroad.” To go abroad is a thing which recommends itself to most women as an infallible mode of procuring pleasure. They may not like it when they are there. Foreign “ways” may be a weariness to their souls, and foreign languages a series of unholy mysteries which they do not attempt to fathom; but going abroad is a panacea for all dulness and a good many maladies. The Englishwomanof simple mind is sure that she will be warmed and soothed, that the sun will always shine, the skies never rain, and everything go to her wish “abroad.” She returns discontented; but she goes away always hopeful, scarcely able to conceive that gray skies and cold winds prevail anywhere except in her own island. Mrs. Lennox was of this simple-minded order. When she was driven to the depths of her recollection she could, indeed, remember a great many instances to the contrary, but in the abstract she felt that these were accidents, and, the likelihood was, would never occur again. And then it would be so good for the children! They would learn languages without knowing, without any trouble at all. With this happy persuasion English families every day convey their hapless babes into the depths of Normandy, for example, to learn French. Mrs. Lennox went to the Riviera, as was inevitable, and afterwards to other places, thinking it as well, as she said, while they were abroad, to see as much as possible. It was no small business to get the little caravansary under way, and when it was accomplished it may be doubted how much advantage it was to the children for whose good, according to Aunt Sophy, the journey was prolonged. Little Amy and Johnny wandered with big eyes after the nurse who had replaced Russell, through Rome and Florence, and gazed alarmed at the towers of Bologna, which the children thought were falling upon them, without deriving very much instruction from the sight.
It was a thoroughly English party, like many another, carrying its own little atmosphere about it and all its insular customs. The first thing they did on arriving at a new place was to establish a little England in the foreign hotel orchambres garnieswhich they occupied. The sitting-room at the inn took at once a kind offauxair of the dining-room at the Elms, Mrs. Lennox’s work and her basket of crewels and her footstool being placed in the usual exact order, and a writing-table arranged for the family letters in the same light as that approvedat home. And then there were elaborate arrangements for the nursery dinner at a proper nursery hour, and for roast mutton and rice pudding, such as were fit food for British subjects of the age of nine and seven. Then the whereabouts of the English church was inquired into, and the English chemist, and the bookshop where English books, and especially the editions of Baron Tauchnitz, and perhaps English newspapers, might be had. Having ascertained all this, and to the best of her power obliterated all difference between Cannes, or Genoa, or Florence, or even Rome, and the neighborhood of Clifton, Mrs. Lennox began to enjoy herself in a mild way. She took her daily drive, and looked at the Italians from her carriage with a certain disapproval, much curiosity, and sometimes amusement. She disapproved of them because they were not English, in a general way. She was too sweet-tempered to conclude, as some of the ladies did whom she met at the hotel, that they were universally liars, cheats, and extortioners; but they were not English; though, perhaps, poor things, that was not exactly their fault.
This was how she travelled, and in a sober way enjoyed it. She thought the Riviera very pretty, if there were not so many sick people about; and Florence very pretty too. “But I have been here before, you know, my dear,” she said; therefore her admiration was calm, and never rose into any of the raptures with which Rosalind sometimes was roused by a new landscape. She lived just as she would have done if she had never stirred from home, and was moderately happy, as happy as a person of her age has any right to be. The children came to her at the same hours, they had their dinner and walk at the same hours, and they all went to church on Sunday just in the same way. Thetable d’hôte, at which she usually dined with Rosalind, was the only difference of importance between her life as a traveller and her life at home. She thought it was rather like a dinner-party without the trouble, and as she soon got to know a select little “set” of English of her own conditionin her hotel, and sat with them, the public table grew more and more like a private one, except in so far as that all the guests had the delightful privilege of finding fault. The clergyman called upon her, and made little appeals to her for deserving cases, and pleaded that Rosalind should help in the music, and talked the talk of a small parish to her contented ears. All this made her very much at home, while still enjoying the gentle excitement of being abroad. And at the end of six months Mrs. Lennox began to feel that she was quite a cosmopolitan, able to adapt herself to all circumstances, and getting the full good of foreign travel, which, as she declared she was doing it entirely for the children, was a repayment of her goodness upon which she had not calculated. “I feel quite a woman of the world,” was what Aunt Sophy said.
Perhaps, however, Rosalind, placed as she was between the children and their guardian, neither too old nor too young for such enjoyment, was, as lawyers say, the true beneficiary. She had the disadvantage of visiting a great many places of interest with companions who did not appreciate or understand them, it is true; with Aunt Sophy, who thought that the pictures as well as the views were pretty; and with the sharp little sister who thought picture-galleries and mountain landscapes equally a bore. But, notwithstanding, with that capacity for separating herself from her surroundings which belongs to the young, Rosalind was able to get a great deal of enjoyment as she moved along in Mrs. Lennox’s train. Aunts in general are not expected to care for scenery; they care for being comfortable, for getting their meals, and especially the children’s meals, at the proper time, and being as little disturbed in their ordinary routine as possible. When this is fully granted, a girl can usually manage to get a good deal of pleasure under their portly shadow. Rosalind saw everything as if nobody had ever seen it before; the most hackneyed scenes were newly created for her, and came upon her with a surprise almost more delightful than anything in life, certainly more delightful thananything that did not immediately concern the heart and affections. She thought, indeed, sometimes wistfully, that if it had been her mother, that never-to-be-forgotten and always trusted friend, who could have understood everything and felt with her, and added a charm wherever they went, the enjoyment would have been far greater. But then her heart would fall into painful questions as to where and with what companions that friend might now be, and rise into prayers, sometimes that they might meet to-morrow, sometimes that they might never meet—that nothing which could diminish her respect and devotion should ever be made known to her. Then, too, sometimes Rosalind would ask herself, in the leisure of her solitude, what this journey might have been hadsome one elsebeen of the party? Thissome one elsewas not Roland Hamerton: that was certain. She could not say to herself, either, that it was Arthur Rivers. It was—well, some one with great eyes, dark and liquid, whose power of vision would be more refined, more educated than that of Rosalind, who would know all the associations and all the poetry, and make everything that was beautiful before more beautiful by the charm of his superior knowledge. Perhaps she felt, too, that it was more modest, more maidenly, to allow a longing for the companionship of one whom she did not know, who was a mere ideal, the symbol of love, or genius, or poetry, she did not know which, than to wish in straightforward terms for the lover whom she knew, who was a man, and not a symbol. Her imagination was too shy, too proud, to summon up an actual person, substantial and well known. It was more easy and simple, more possible, to fill that fancy with an image that had no actual embodiment, and to call to her side the being who was nothing more than a recollection, whose very name and everything about him was unknown to her. She accepted him as a symbol of all that a dreaming girl desires in a companion. He was a dream; there need be no bounds to the enthusiasm, the poetry, the fine imagination, with which she endowed him,any more than there need be to the devotion to herself, which was a mere dream also. He might woo her as men only woo in the imagination of girls, so delicately, so tenderly, with such ethereal worship. How different the most glorious road would be were he beside her! though in reality he was beside her all the way, saying things which were finer than anything but fancy, breathing the very soul of rapture into her being. The others knew nothing of all this; how should they? And Mrs. Lennox, for one, sometimes asked herself whether Rosalind was really enjoying her travels. “She says so little,” that great authority said.
There was, however, little danger that she should forget one, at least, of her actual lovers. In the meantime a great deal had been going on in the world, and especially in that distant part of it to which Rivers had gone. The little war which he had gone to report had turned into a most exciting and alarming one; and there had been days in which the whole world, so to speak—all England at least, and her dependencies—had hung upon his utterance, and looked for his communications every morning almost before they looked at those which came from their nearest and dearest. And it was said that he had excelled himself in these communications. He had done things which were heroic, if not to hasten the conclusion of the war, to make it successful, yet at least to convey the earliest intelligence of any new action, and to make people at home feel as if they were present upon the very field, spectators of all the movements there.
This service involved him in as much danger as if he had been in the very front of the fighting; and, indeed, he was known to have done feats, for what is called the advantage of the public, to which the stand made by a mere soldier, even in the most urgent circumstances, was not to be compared. All this was extremely interesting, not to say exciting, to his friends. Mrs. Lennox had the paper sent after her wherever she travelled; and, indeed, it was great part of her day’s occupation toread it, which she did with devotion. “The correspondent is a friend of ours,” she said to the other English people in the hotels. “We know him, I may say, very well, and naturally I take a great interest.” The importance of his position as the author of those letters which interested everybody, and even the familiar way in which he talked of generals and commanders-in-chief, impressed her profoundly. As for Rosalind, she said nothing, but she, too, read all about the war with an attention which was breathless, not quite sure in her mind that it was not under a general’s helmet that those crisp locks of gray were curling, or that the vivid eyes which had looked into hers with such expression were not those of the hero of the campaign. It did not seem possible, somehow, that he could be less than a general. She took the paper to her room in the evening, when Aunt Sophy had done with it, and read and read. The charm was upon her that moved Desdemona, and it was difficult to remember that the teller of the tale was not the chief mover in it. How could she help but follow him in his wanderings wherever he went? It was the least thing she could do in return for what he had given to her—for that passion which had made her tremble—which she wondered at and admired as if it had been poetry. All this captivated the girl’s fancy in spite of herself, and gave her an extraordinary interest in everything he said, and that was said of him. But, notwithstanding, it was not Mr. Rivers who accompanied her in the spirit on all the journeys she made, and to all the beautiful places which filled her with rapture. Not Mr. Rivers—a visionary person, one whose very name was to her unknown.
Theevents of the night on which Mrs. Trevanion left Highcourt had at this period of the family story fallen into that softened oblivion which covers the profoundest scars of theheart after a certain passage of time, except sometimes to the chief actor in such scenes, who naturally takes a longer period to forget.
She on whom the blow had fallen at a moment when she was unprepared for it, when a faint sense of security had begun to steal over her in spite of herself, had received iten plein cœur, as the French say. We have no word which expresses so well the unexpected, unmitigated shock. She had said to herself, like the captive king in the Bible, that the bitterness of death was past, and had gone, like that poor prince, “delicately,” with undefended bosom, and heart hushed out of its first alarms, to meet her fate. The blow had gone through her very flesh, rending every delicate tissue before she had time to think. It does not even seem a metaphor to say that it broke her heart, or, rather, cut the tender structure sheer in two, leaving it bleeding, quivering, in her bosom. She was not a woman to faint or die at a stroke. She took the torture silently, without being vanquished by it. When nature is strong within us, and the force of life great, there is no pang spared. And while in one sense it was true that for the moment she expected nothing, the instantly following sensation in Madam’s mind was that she had known all along what was going to happen to her, and that it had never been but certain that this must come. Even the details of the scene seemed familiar. She had always known that some time or other these men would look at her so, would say just those words to her, and that she would stand and bear it all, a victim appointed from the beginning. In the greater miseries of life it happens often that the catastrophe, however unexpected, bears, when it comes, a familiar air, as of a thing which has been mysteriously rehearsed in our consciousness all our lives. After the first shock, her mind sprang with a bound to those immediate attempts to find a way of existence on the other side of the impossible, which was the first impulse of the vigorous soul. She said little even to Jane until the dreary afternoon was over, the dinner, with itshorrible formulas, and she had said what was really her farewell to everything at Highcourt. Then, when the time approached for the meeting in the park, she began to prepare for going out with a solemnity which startled her faithful attendant. She took from her desk a sum which she had kept in reserve (who can tell for what possibility?), and dressed herself carefully, not in her new mourning, with all its crape, but in simple black from head to foot. She always had worn a great deal of black lace; it had been her favorite costume always. She enveloped herself in a great veil which would have fallen almost to her feet had it been unfolded, doing everything for herself, seeking the things she wanted in her drawers with a silent diligence which Jane watched with consternation. At last the maid could restrain herself no longer.
“Am I to do nothing for you?” she cried, with anguish. “And, oh! where are you going? What are you doing? There’s something more than I thought.”
“You are to do everything for me, Jane,” her mistress said, with a pathetic smile. “You are to be my sole companion all the rest of my life—unless, if it is not too late, that poor boy.”
“Madam,” Jane said, putting her hand to her heart with a natural tragic movement, “you are not going to desert—the children? Oh, no! you are not thinking of leaving the children?”
Her mistress put her hands upon Jane’s shoulders, clutching her, and gave vent to a low laugh more terrible than any cry. “It is more wonderful than that—more wonderful—more, ah, more ridiculous. Don’t cry. I can’t bear it. They have sent me away. Their father—has sent me away!”
“Madam!” Jane’s shriek would have rung through the house had it not been for Madam’s imperative gesture and the hand she placed upon her mouth.
“Not a word! Not a word! I have not told you before, for I cannot bear a word. It is true, and nothing can be done.Dress yourself now, and put what we want for the night in your bag. I will take nothing. Oh, that is a small matter, a very small matter, to provide all that will be wanted for two poor women. Do you remember, Jane, how we came here?”
“Oh, well, well, Madam. You a beautiful bride, and nothing too much for you, nothing good enough for you.”
“Yes, Jane; but leaving my duty behind me. And now it is repaid.”
“Oh, Madam, Madam! He was too young to know the loss; and it was for his own sake. And besides, if that were all, it’s long, long ago—long, long ago.”
Mrs. Trevanion’s hands dropped by her side. She turned away with another faint laugh of tragic mockery. “It is long, long ago; long enough to change everything. Ah, not so long ago but that he remembers it, Jane. And now the time is come when I am free, if I can, to make it up. I have always wondered if the time would ever come when I could try to make it up.”
“Madam, you have never failed to him, except in not having him with you.”
“Except in all that was my duty, Jane. He has known no home, no care, no love. Perhaps now, if it should not be too late—”
And then she resumed her preparations with that concentrated calm of despair which sometimes apes ordinary composure so well as to deceive the lookers-on. Jane could not understand what was her lady’s meaning. She followed her about with anxious looks, doing nothing on her own part to aid, paralyzed by the extraordinary suggestion. Madam was fully equipped before Jane had stirred, except to follow wistfully every step Mrs. Trevanion took.
“Are you not coming?” she said at length. “Am I to go alone? For the first time in our lives do you mean to desert me, Jane?”
“Madam,” cried the woman, “it cannot be—it cannot be!You must be dreaming; we cannot go without the children.” She stood wringing her hands, beyond all capacity of comprehension, thinking her mistress mad or criminal, or under some great delusion—she could not tell which.
Mrs. Trevanion looked at her with strained eyes that were past tears. “Why,” she said, “why—did you not say so seventeen years ago, Jane?”
“Oh, Madam,” cried Jane, seizing her mistress by the hands, “don’t do it another time! They are all so young, they want you. It can’t do them any good, but only harm, if you go away. Oh, Madam, listen to me that loves you. Who have I but you in the world? But don’t leave them. Oh, don’t we both know the misery it brings? You may be doing it thinking it will make up. But God don’t ask these kind of sacrifices,” she cried, the tears running down her cheeks. “Hedon’t ask it. He says, mind your duty now, whatever’s been done in the past. Don’t try to be making up for it, the Lord says, Madam; but just do your duty now; it’s all that we can do.”
Mrs. Trevanion listened to this address, which was made with streaming eyes and a face quivering with emotion, in silence. She kept her eyes fixed on Jane’s face as if the sight of the tears was a refreshment to her parched soul. Her own eyes were dry, with that smile in them which answers at some moments in place of weeping.
“You cut me to the heart,” she said, “every word. Oh, but I am not offering God any vain sacrifices, thinking to atone. He has taken it into his own hand. Life repeats itself, though we never think so. What I did once for my own will God makes me do over again not of my own will. He has his meaning clear through all, but I don’t know what it is, I cannot fathom it.” She said this quickly, with the settled quietness of despair. Then, the lines of her countenance melting, her eyes lit up with a forlorn entreaty, as she touched Jane on the shoulder, and asked, “Are you coming? You will not let me go alone—”
“Oh, Madam, wherever you go—wherever you go! I have never done anything but follow you. I can neither live nor die without you,” Jane answered, hurriedly; and then, turning away, tied on her bonnet with trembling hands. Madam had done everything else; she had left nothing for Jane to provide. They went out together, no longer alarmed to be seen—two dark figures, hurrying down the great stairs. But the languor that follows excitement had got into the house: there were no watchers about; the whole place seemed deserted. She, who that morning had been the mistress of Highcourt, went out of the home of so many years without a soul to mark her going or bid her good-speed. But the anguish of the parting was far too great to leave room for any thought of the details. They stepped out into the night, into the dark, to the sobbing of the wind and the wildly blowing trees. The storm outside gave them a little relief from that which was within.
Madam went swiftly, softly along, with that power of putting aside the overwhelming consciousness of wretchedness which is possessed by those whose appointed measure of misery is the largest in this world. To die then would have been best, but not to be helpless and encounter the pity of those who could give no aid. She had the power not to think, to address herself to what was before her, and hold back “upon the threshold of the mind” the supreme anguish of which she could never be free, which there would be time enough, alas! and to spare, to indulge in. Perhaps, though she knew so much and was so experienced in pain, it did not occur to her at this terrible crisis of life to think it possible that any further pang might be awaiting her. The other, who waited for her within shade of the copse, drew back when he perceived that two people were coming towards him. He scarcely responded even when Mrs. Trevanion called him in a low voice by name. “Whom have you got with you?” he said, almost in a whisper, holding himself concealed among the trees.
“Only Jane.”
“Only Jane,” he said, in a tone of relief, but still with a roughness and sullenness out of keeping with his youthful voice. He added, after a moment, “What does Jane want? I hope there is not going to be any sentimental leave-taking. I want to stay and not to go.”
“That is impossible now. Everything is altered. I am going with you, Edmund.”
“Going with me—good Lord!” There was a moment’s silence; then he resumed in a tone of satire, “What may that be for? Going withme! Do you think I can’t take care of myself? Do you think I want a nurse at my heels?” Then another pause. “I know what you mean. You are going away for a change, and you mean me to turn up easily and be introduced to the family? Not a bad idea at all,” he added, in a patronizing tone.
“Edmund,” she said, “afterwards, when we have time, I will tell you everything. There is no time now; but that has come about which I thought impossible. I am—free to make up to you as much as I can, for the past—”
“Free,” he repeated, with astonishment, “to make up to me?” The pause that followed seemed one of consternation. Then he went on roughly, “I don’t know what you mean by making up to me. I have often heard that women couldn’t reason. You don’t mean that you are flinging over the others now, to make a romance—and balance matters? I don’t know what you mean.”
Madam Trevanion grasped Jane’s arm and leaned upon it with what seemed a sudden collapse of strength, but this was invisible to the other, who probably was unaware of any effect produced by what he said. Her voice came afterwards through the dark with a thrill in it that seemed to move the air, something more penetrating than the wind.
“I have no time to explain,” she said. “I must husband my strength, which has been much tried. I am going with you to London to-night. We have a long walk before wereach the train. On the way, or afterwards, as my strength serves me, I will tell you—all that has happened. What I am doing,” she added, faintly, “is by no will of mine.”
“To London to-night?” he repeated, with astonishment. “I am not going to London to-night.”
“Yes, Edmund, with me. I want you.”
“I have wanted,” he said, “you—or, at least, I have wanted my proper place and the people I belonged to, all my life. If you think that now, when I am a man, I am to be burdened with two women always at my heels— Why can’t you stay and make everything comfortable here? I want my rights, but I don’t want you—more than is reasonable,” he added after a moment, slightly struck by his own ungraciousness. “As for walking to the train, and going to London to-night—you, a fine lady, that have always driven about in your carriage!” He gave a hoarse little laugh at the ridiculous suggestion.
Mrs. Trevanion again clutched Jane’s arm. It was the only outlet for her excitement. She said very low, “I should not have expected better—oh, no; how could he know better, after all! But I must go, there is no choice. Edmund, if anything I can do now can blot out the past—no, not that—but make up for it. You too, you have been very tyrannical to me these months past. Hush! let me speak, it is quite true. If you could have had patience, all might have been so different. Let us not upbraid each other—but if you will let me, all that I can do for you now—all that is possible—”
There was another pause. Jane, standing behind, supported her mistress in her outstretched arms, but this was not apparent, nor any other sign of weakness, except that her voice quivered upon the dark air which was still in the shadow of the copse.
“I have told you,” he said, “again and again, what would please me. We can’t be much devoted to each other, can we, after all! We can’t be a model of what’s affectionate. That was all very well when I was a child, when I thought a presentwas just as good, or better. But now I know what is what, and that something more is wanted. Why can’t you stay still where you are and send for me? You can say I’m a relation. I don’t want you to sacrifice yourself—what good will that do me? I want to get the advantage of my relations, to know them all, and have my chance. There’s one thing I’ve set my heart upon, and you could help me in that if you liked. But to run away, good Lord! what good would that do? It’s all for effect, I suppose, to make me think you are willing now to do a deal for me. You can do a deal for me if you like, but it will be by staying, not by running away.”
“Jane,” said Mrs. Trevanion, “he does not understand me; how should he? you did not understand me at first. It is not that he means anything. And how can I tell him?—not here, I am not able. After, when we are far away, when I am out of reach, when I have got a little—strength—”
“Madam!” said Jane, “if it is true, if you have to do it, if we must go to-night, don’t stand and waste all the little strength you have got standing here.”
He listened to this conversation with impatience, yet with a growing sense that something lay beneath which would confound his hopes. He was not sympathetic with her trouble. How could he have been so? Had not her ways been contrary to his all his life? But a vague dread crept over him. He had thought himself near the object of his hopes, and now disappointment seemed to overshadow him. He looked angrily, with vexation and gathering dismay, at the dark figures of the two women, one leaning against the other. What did she mean now? How was she going to baffle him this time—she who had been contrary to him all his life?
Itwas a long walk through the wind and blasts of rain, and the country roads were very dark and wet—not a night for a woman to be out in, much less a lady used to drive everywhere in her carriage, as he had said, and less still for one whose strength had been wasted by long confinement in a sick-room, and whose very life was sapped by secret pain. But these things, which made it less possible for Mrs. Trevanion to bear the fatigues to which she was exposed, reacted on the other side, and made her unconscious of the lesser outside evils which were as nothing in comparison with the real misery from which no expedient could set her free. She went along mechanically, conscious of a fatigue and aching which were almost welcome—which lulled a little the other misery which lay somewhere awaiting her, waiting for the first moment of leisure, the time when she should be clear-headed enough to understand and feel it all to the fullest. When they came into the light at the nearest railway station the two women were alone. They got into an empty carriage and placed themselves each in a corner, and, like St. Paul, wished for day; but yet the night was welcome too, giving their proceedings an air of something strange and out of all the habits of their life, which partially, momentarily, confused the every-day aspect of things around, and made this episode in existence all unnatural and unreal. It was morning, the dark, grim morning of winter, without light or color, when Mrs. Trevanion suddenly spoke for the first time. She said, as if thinking aloud, “It was not to be expected. Why should he, when he knows so little of me?” as if reasoning with herself.
“No, Madam,” said Jane.
“If he had been like others, accustomed to these restraints—for no doubt it is a restraint—”
“Oh, yes, Madam.”
“And perhaps with time and use,” she said, sighing and faltering.
“Yes, Madam,” said Jane.
“Why do you say no and yes,” she cried, with sudden vehemence, “as if you had no opinion of your own?”
Then Jane faltered too. “Madam,” she said, “everything is to be hoped from—time, as you say, and use—”
“You don’t think so,” her mistress replied, with a moan, and then all settled into silence again.
It is not supposed that anything save vulgar speed and practical convenience is to be got from the railway; and yet there is nothing that affords a better refuge and shelter from the painful thoughts that attend a great catastrophe in life, and those consultations which an individual in deep trouble holds with himself, than a long, silent journey at the desperate pace of an express train over the long, dark sweeps of the scarcely visible country, with the wind of rapid progress in one’s face. That complete separation from all disturbance, the din that partially deadens in our ears the overwhelming commotion of brain and heart, the protection which is afforded by the roar and sweep of hot haste which holds us as in a sanctuary of darkness, peace, and solitude, is a paradox of every-day life which few think of, yet which is grateful to many. Mrs. Trevanion sank into it with a sensation which was almost ease. She lay back in her corner, as a creature wounded to death lies still after the anguish of medical care is ended, throbbing, indeed, with inevitable pain, yet with all horror of expectation over, and nothing further asked of the sufferer. If not the anguish, at least the consciousness of anguish was deadened by the sense that here no one could demand anything from her, any response, any look, any word. She lay for a long timedumb even in thought, counting the throbs that went through her, feeling the sting and smart of every wound, yet a little eased by the absolute separation between her and everything that could ask a question or suggest a thought. It is not necessary for us in such terrible moments to think over our pangs. The sufferer lies piteously contemplating the misery that holds him, almost glad to be left alone with it. For the most terrible complications of human suffering there is no better image still than that with which the ancients portrayed the anguish of Prometheus on his rock. There he lies, bound and helpless, bearing evermore the rending of the vulture’s beak, sometimes writhing in his bonds, uttering hoarsely the moan of his appeal to earth and heaven, crying out sometimes the horrible cry of an endurance past enduring, anon lying silent, feeling the dew upon him, hearing soft voices of pity, comforters that tell him of peace to come, sometimes softening, sometimes only increasing his misery; but through all unending, never intermitting, the pain—“pain, ever, forever” of that torture from which there is no escape. In all its moments of impatience, in all its succumbings, the calm of anguish which looks like resignation, the struggle with the unbearable which looks like resistance, the image is always true. We lie bound and cannot escape. We listen to what is said about us, the soft consoling of nature, the voices of the comforters. Great heavenly creatures come and sit around us, and talk together of the recovery to come; but meanwhile without a pause the heart quivers and bleeds, the cruel grief tears us without intermission. “Ah me, alas, pain, ever, forever!”
If ever human soul had occasion for such a consciousness it was this woman, cut off in a moment from all she loved best—from her children, from her home, from life itself and honor, and all that makes life dear. Her good name, the last possession which, shipwrecked in every other, the soul in ruin and dismay may still derive some miserable satisfaction from, had to be yielded too. A faint smile came upon her face, the profoundestexpression of suffering, when this thought, like another laceration, separated itself from the crowd. A little more or less, was that not a thing to be smiled at? What could it matter? All that could be done to her was done; her spiritual tormentors had no longer the power to give her another sensation; she had exhausted all their tortures. Her good name, and that even in the knowledge of her children! She smiled. Evil had done its worst. She was henceforward superior to any torture, as knowing all that pain could do.
There are some minds to which death is not a thought which is possible, or a way of escape which ever suggests itself. Hamlet, in his musings, in the sickness of his great soul, passes it indeed in review, but rejects it as an unworthy and ineffectual expedient. And it is seldom that a worthy human creature, when not at the outside verge of life, can afford to die. There is always something to do which keeps every such possibility in the background. To this thought after a time Mrs. Trevanion came round. She had a great deal to do; she had still a duty—a responsibility—was it perhaps a possibility, in life? There existed for her still one bond, a bond partially severed for long, apparently dropped out of her existence, yet never forgotten. The brief dialogue which she had held with Jane had betrayed the condition of her thoughts in respect to this one relationship which was left to her, as it betrayed also the judgment of Jane on the subject. Both of these women knew in their hearts that the young man who was now to be the only interest of their lives had little in him which corresponded with any ideal. He had not been kind, he had not been true; he thought of nothing but himself, and yet he was all that now remained to make, to the woman upon whom his folly had brought so many and terrible losses, the possibility of a new life. When she saw the cold glimmer of the dawn, and heard the beginnings of that sound of London, which stretches so far round the centre on every side, Mrs. Trevanion awoke again to the living problemwhich now was to occupy her wholly. She had been guilty towards him almost all his life, and she had been punished by his means; but perhaps it might be that there was still for her a place of repentance. She had much to do for him, and not a moment to lose. She had the power to make up to him now for all the neglect of the past. Realizing what he was, unlike her in thought, in impulse, in wishes, a being who belonged to her, yet who in heart and soul was none of hers, she rose up from the terrible vigil of this endless night, to make her life henceforward the servant of his, its guardian perhaps, its guide perhaps, but in any case subject to it, as a woman at all times is subject to those for whom she lives. She spoke again, when they were near their arrival, to her maid, as if they had continued the subject throughout the night: “He will be sure to follow us to-morrow night, Jane.”
“I think so, Madam, for he will have nothing else to do.”
“It was natural,” said Mrs. Trevanion, “that he should hesitate to come off in a moment. Why should he, indeed? There was nothing to break the shock to him—as there was to us—”
“To break the shock?” Jane murmured, with a look of astonishment.
“You know what I mean,” her mistress said, with a little impatience. “When things happen like the things that have happened, one does not think very much of a midnight journey. Ah, what a small matter that is! But one who has—nothing to speak of on his mind—”
“He ought to have a great deal on his mind,” said Jane.
“Ought! Yes, I suppose I ought to be half dead, and, on the contrary, I am revived by the night journey. I am able for anything. There is no ought in such matters—it is according to your strength.”
“You have not slept a wink,” said Jane, in an injured voice.
“There are better things than sleep. And he is young,and has not learned yet the lesson that I have had such difficulty in learning.”
“What lesson is that?” said Jane, quickly. “If it is to think of everything and every one’s business, you have been indeed a long time learning, for you have been at it all your life.”
“It takes a long time to learn,” said Madam, with a smile; “the young do not take it in so easily. Come, Jane, we are arriving; we must think now of our new way of living.”
“Madam,” cried Jane, “if there had been an earthquake at Highcourt, and we had both perished in it trying to save the children—”
“Jane! do you think it is wise when you are in great trouble to fix your thoughts upon the greatest happiness in the world? To have perished at Highcourt, you and me, trying—” Her face shone for a moment with a great radiance. “You are a good woman,” she said, shaking her head, with a smile, “but why should there be a miracle to save me? It is a miracle to give me the chance of making up—for what is past.”
“Oh, Madam, I wish I knew what to say to you,” cried Jane; “you will just try your strength and make yourself miserable, and get no return.”
Mrs. Trevanion laughed with a strange solemnity. She looked before her into the vacant air, as if looking in the face of fate. What could make her miserable now? Nothing—the worst that could be done had been done. She said, but to herself, not to Jane, “There is an advantage in it, it cannot be done over again.” Then she began to prepare for the arrival. “We shall have a great deal to do, and we must lose no time. Jane, you will go at once and provide some clothes for us. Whatever happens, we must have clothes, and we must have food, you know. The other things—life can go on without—”
“Madam, for God’s sake, do not smile, it makes my blood run cold.”