Madam

She started and turned round. It was the same stranger whom she had already twice seen on the road. “Oh! pray don’t let me trouble you. Dunmore will be here directly,” she said.

This did not, however, prevent the young man from rendering the necessary assistance. He got into one of the nearer boats, and stretching out from the bow of it, secured the stray pinnace. It was not a dangerous act, nor even one that gave the passer-by much trouble, but Rosalind, partly out of a sense that she had been ungracious, partly, perhaps—who can tell—out of the utter monotony of all around her, thanked him with eagerness. “I am sorry to give you trouble,” she said again.

“It is no trouble, it is a pleasure.” Was he going to be so sensible, so judicious, as to go away after this? He seemed to intend so. He put on his hat after bowing to her, and turned away, but then there seemed to be an after-thought which struck him. He turned back again, took off his hat again, and said: “I beg your pardon, but may I ask for Mr. Trevanion? The village news is so uncertain.”

“My father is still very ill,” said Rosalind, “but it is thought there is now some hope.”

“That is good news indeed,” the stranger said. Certainly he had a most interesting face. It could not be possible that a man with such a countenance was “not a gentleman,” that most damning of all sentences. His face was refined and delicate; his eyes large, liquid, full of meaning, which was increased by the air of weakness which made them larger and brighter than eyes in ordinary circumstances. And certainly it was kind of him to be glad.

“Oh, yes, you told me before you knew my father,” Rosalind said.

“I cannot claim to know Mr. Trevanion; but I do know a member of the family very well, and I have heard of him all my life.”

Rosalind was no more afraid of a young man than of an old woman, and she thought she had been unjust to this stranger, who, after all, notwithstanding his rough dress, had nothing about him to find fault with. She said, “Yes; perhaps my Uncle John? In any case I am much obliged to you, both for helping me and for your interest in papa.”

“May I sometimes ask how he is? The villagers are so vague.”

“Oh, certainly,” said Rosalind; “they have a bulletin at the lodge, or if you care to come so far as Highcourt, you will always have the last report.”

“You are very kind, I will not come to the house. But I know that you often walk in the park. If I may ask you when we—chance to meet?”

This suggestion startled Rosalind. It awoke in her again that vague alarm—not, perhaps, a gentleman. But when she looked at the eyes which were searching hers with so sensitive a perception of every shade of expression, she became confused and did not know what to think. He was so quickly sensible of every change that he saw he had taken a wrong step. He ought to have gone further, and perceived what the wrong step was, but she thought he was puzzled and did not discover this instinctively, as a gentleman would have done. She withdrew a step or two involuntarily. “Oh, no,” she said with gentle dignity, “I do not always walk the same way; but you may be sure of seeing the bulletin at the lodge.” And with this she made him a courtesy and walked away, not hurrying, to show any alarm, but taking a path which was quite out of the way of the public, and where he could not follow. Rosalind felt a little thrill of agitation in her as she went home. Who could he be, and what did he do here, and why did he throw himself in her way? If she had been a girl of a vulgarly romantic imagination, she would no doubt have jumped at the idea of a secret adoration which had brought him to the poor little village for her sake, for the chance of a passing encounter. But Rosalind was not of this turn of imagination, and that undefined doubt which wavered in her mind did a great deal to damp the wings of any such fancy. What he had said was almost equal to asking her to meet him in the park. She blushed all over at the thought—at the curious impossibility of it, the want of knowledge. It did not seem an insult to her, but such an incomprehensible ignorance in him that she was ashamed of it; that he should have been capable of such a mistake. Not a gentleman! Oh, surely he could never, never— And yet the testimony of those fine, refined features—the mouth so delicate and sensitive, the eyes so eloquent—was of such a different kind. And was it Uncle John he knew? But Uncle John had passed him on the road and had not known him. It was very strange altogether. She could not banish the beautiful, pleading eyes out of her mind. How they looked at her! They were almost a child’s eyes in their uncertainty and wistfulness, reading her face to see how far to go. And altogether he had the air of extreme youth, almost as young as herself, which, of course, in a man is boyhood. For what is a man of twenty? ten years, and more, younger and less experienced than a woman of that sober age. There was a sort of yearning of pity in her heart towards him, just tempered by that doubt. Poor boy! how badly he must have been brought up—how sadly ignorant not to know that a gentleman— And then she began to remember Lord Lytton’s novels, some of which she had read. There would have been nothing out of place in them had such a youth so addressed a lady. He was, indeed, not at all unlike a young man in Lord Lytton. He interested her very much, and filled her mind as she went lightly home. Who could he be, and why so anxious about her father’s health? or was that merely a reason for addressing her—a way, perhaps he thought, of securing her acquaintance, making up some sort of private understanding between them. Had not Rosalind heard somewhere that a boy was opt to select a much older woman as the object of his first admiration? Perhaps that might furnish an explanation for it, for he must be very young, not more than a boy.

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.

CHAPTER XV

Russell meant 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 almost to 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 the movement 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 throughout all 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 excitement of 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 to think 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?

CHAPTER XVI

“The mother 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 was that that 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 a young 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 first burst 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 be breathed 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.