Madam

Mrs. Trevanion, as these days went on, resumed gradually her former habits, so far as was possible in view of the fact that all her married life had been devoted to her husband’s service, and that she had dropped one by one every pursuit that separated her from him. The day before the funeral she came into the little morning-room in which Rosalind was sitting, and drew a chair to the fire. “I had almost forgotten the existence of this room,” she said. “So many things have dropped away from me. I forget what I used to do. What used I to do, Rosalind, before—”

She looked up with a pitiful smile. And, indeed, it seemed to both of them as if they had not sat quietly together, undisturbed, for years.

“You have always done—everything for everybody—as long as I can remember,” said Rosalind, with tender enthusiasm.

She shook her head. “I don’t think it has come to much use. I have been thinking over my life, over and over, these few days. It has not been very successful, Rosalind. Something has always spoiled my best efforts, I wonder if other people feel the same? Not you, my dear, you know nothing about it; you must not answer with your protestations. Looking back, I can see how it has always failed somehow. It is a curious thing to stand still, so living as I am, and look back upon my life, and sum it up as if it were past.”

“It is because a chapter of it is past,” said Rosalind. “Oh, mamma, I do not wonder! And you have stood at your post till the last moment; no wonder you feel as if everything were over.”

“Yes, I stood at my post: but perhaps another kind of woman would have soothed him when I irritated him. Your father—was not kind to me, Rosalind—”

The girl rose and put her arms round Mrs. Trevanion’s neck and kissed her. “No, mother,” she said.

“He was not kind. And yet, now that he has gone out of my life I feel as if nothing were left. People will think me a hypocrite. They will say I am glad to be free. But it is not so, Rosalind, remember: man and wife, even when they wound each other every day, cannot be nothing to each other. My occupation is gone; I feel like a wreck cast upon the shore.”

“Mother! how can you say that when we are all here, your children, who can do nothing without you?”

“My children—which children?” she said, with a wildness in her eyes as if she did not know what she was saying; and then she returned to her metaphor, like one thinking aloud; “like a wreck—that perhaps a fierce, high sea may seize again, a high tide, and drag out upon the waves once more. I wonder if I could beat and buffet those waves again as I used to do, and fight for my life—”

“Oh, mother, how could that ever be?—there is no sea here.”

“No, no sea—one gets figurative when one is in great trouble—what your father used to call theatrical, Rosalind. He said very sharp things—oh, things that cut like a knife. But I was not without fault any more than he; there is one matter in which I have not kept faith with him. I should like to tell you, to see what you think. I did not quite keep faith with him. I made him a promise, and— I did not keep it. He had some reason, though he did not know it, in all the angry things he said.”

Rosalind did not know what to reply; her heart beat high with expectation. She took her stepmother’s hand between hers, and waited, her very ears tingling, for the next word.

“I have had no success in that,” Mrs. Trevanion said, in the same dreary way, “in that no more than the rest. I have not done well with anything; except,” she said, looking up with a faint smile and brightening of her countenance, “you, Rosalind, my own dear, who are none of mine.”

“I am all of yours, mother,” cried the girl; “don’t disown me, for I shall always claim you—always! You are all the mother I have ever known.”

Then they held each other close for a moment, clinging one to the other. Could grief have appeared more natural? The wife and daughter, in their deep mourning, comforting each other, taking a little courage from their union—yet how many strange, unknown elements were involved. But Mrs. Trevanion said no more of the confidence she had seemed on the point of giving. She rose shortly after and went away, saying she was restless and could not do anything, or even stay still in one place. “I walk about my room and frighten Jane, but that is all I can do.”

“Stay here, mamma, with me, and walk about, or do what you please. I understand you better than Jane.”

Mrs. Trevanion shook her head; but whether it was to contradict that last assertion or merely because she could not remain, it was impossible to say. “To-morrow,” she said, “will be the end, and, perhaps, the beginning. I feel as if all would be over to-morrow. After that, Rosalind—”

She went away with the words on her lips. “After to-morrow.” And to Rosalind, too, it seemed as if her powers of endurance were nearly ended, and to-morrow would fill up the sum. But then, what was that further mysterious trouble which Uncle John feared?

Mrs. Trevanion appeared again to dinner, which was a very brief meal, but retired immediately; and the house was full of preparation for to-morrow—every one having, or seeming to have, something to do. Rosalind was left alone. She could not go and sit in the great, vacant drawing-room, all dimly lighted, and looking as if some party of the dead might be gathered about the vacant hearth; or in the hall, where now and then some one of the busy, nameless train of to-morrow’s ceremony would steal past. And it was too early to go to bed. She wrapped herself in a great shawl, and, opening the glass door, stole out into the night. The sweeping of the chill night air, the rustle of the trees, the stars twinkling overhead, gave more companionship than the silence and gloom within. She stood outside on the broad steps, leaning against one of the pillars, till she got chilled through and through, and began to think, with a kind of pleasure, of the glow of the fire.

But as she turned to go in a great and terrible shock awaited her. She had just come away from the pillar, which altogether obliterated her slight, dark figure in its shadow and gave her a sort of invisibility, when the glass door opened at a touch, and some one else came out. They met face to face in the darkness. Rosalind uttered a stifled cry; the other only by a pant of quickened breathing acknowledged the alarm. She was gliding past noiselessly, when Rosalind, with sudden courage, caught her by the cloak in which she was wrapped from head to foot. “Oh, not to-night, oh, not to-night!” she said, with a voice of anguish; “for God’s sake, mother, mother, not to-night!”

There was a pause, and no reply but the quick breathing, as if the passer-by had some hope of concealing herself. But then Madam spoke, in a low, hurried tone—“I must go; I must! but not for any pleasure of mine!”

Rosalind clung to her cloak with a kind of desperation. “Another time,” she said, “but not, oh, not to-night!”

“Let me go. God bless my dear! I cannot help it. I do only what I must. Rosalind, let me go,” she said.

And next moment the dark figure glided swiftly, mysteriously, among the bushes towards the park. Rosalind came in with despair in her heart. It seemed to her that nothing more was left to expect, or hope for. Her mother, the mistress of this sad house, the wife of the dead who still lay there awaiting his burial. At no other moment perhaps would the discovery have come upon her with such a pang; and yet at any moment what could it be but misery? Jane was watching furtively on the stairs to see that her mistress’s exit had been unnoticed. She was in the secret, the confidante, the— But Rosalind’s young soul knew no words; her heart seemed to die within her. She could do or hope no more.

CHAPTER XVIII

All was dark; the stars twinkling ineffectually in the sky, so far off, like spectators merely, or distant sentinels, not helpers; the trees in all their winter nakedness rustling overhead, interrupting the vision of these watchers; the grass soaked with rain and the heavy breath of winter, slipping below the hurrying feet. There was no sound, but only a sense of movement in the night as she passed. The most eager gaze could scarcely have made out what it was—a shadow, the flitting of a cloud, a thrill of motion among the dark shrubs and bushes, as if a faint breeze had got up suddenly and was blowing by. At that hour there was very little chance of meeting anybody in these damp and melancholy glades, but the passenger avoided all open spaces until she had got to some distance from the house. Even then, as she hurried across, her muffled figure was quite unrecognizable. It was enough to raise a popular belief that the park was haunted, but no more. She went on till she came to a thick copse about half-way between the house and the village. Then another figure made a step out of the thick cover to receive her, and the two together withdrew entirely into its shade.

What was said there, what passed, no one, even though skirting the copse closely, could have told. The whisperers, hidden in its shade, were not without an alarm from time to time; for the path to the village was not far off, and sometimes a messenger from the house would pass at a distance, whistling to keep his courage up, or talking loudly if there were two, for the place was supposed to be ghostly. On this occasion the faint movement among the bare branches would stop, and all be as still as death. Then a faint thrill of sound, of human breathing, returned. The conversation was rapid. “At last!” the other said; “do you know I have waited here for hours these last nights?”

“You knew it was impossible. How could I leave the house in such circumstances? Even now I have outraged decency by coming. I have gone against nature—”

“Not for the first time,” was the answer, with a faint laugh.

“If so, you should be the last to reproach me, for it was for you.”

“Ah, for me! that is one way of putting it. Like all those spurious sacrifices, if one examined a little deeper. You have had the best of it, anyhow.”

“All this,” she said, with a tone of despair, “has been said so often before. It was not for this you insisted on my coming. What is it? Tell me quickly, and let me go before I am found out. Found out! I am found out already. I dare not ask myself what they think.”

“Whatever they think you may be sure it is not the truth. Nobody could guess at the truth. It is too unnatural, that I should be lurking here in wretchedness, and you—”

“But you are comfortable,” she said quickly. “Jane told me—”

“Comfortable according to Jane’s ideas, which are different from mine. What I want is to know what you are going to do; what is to become of me? Will you do me justice now, at last?”

“Oh, Edmund, what justice have you made possible? What can I do but implore you to go? Are not you in danger every day?”

“Less here than anywhere; though I understand there have been inquiries made; the constable in the village shows a degree of interest—”

“Edmund,” she cried, seizing him by the arm, “for God’s sake, go!”

“And not bring shame upon you, Madam? Why should I mind? If I have gone wrong, whose fault is it? You must take that responsibility one time or other. And now that you are free—”

“I cannot defy the law,” she said, with a miserable moan. “I can’t deliver you from what you have done. God knows, though it had been to choose between you and everything else, I would have done you justice, as you say, as soon as it was possible. But to what use now? It would only direct attention to you—bring the—” She shuddered, and said no more.

“The police, you mean,” he replied, with a careless laugh. “And no great harm either, except to you; for of course all my antecedents would be published. But there are such things as disguises, and I am clever at a make-up. You might receive me, and no one would be the wiser. The cost of a new outfit, a new name—you might choose me a nice one. Of all places in the world, a gentleman’s house in the country is the last where they would look for me. And then if there was any danger you could swear I was—”

“Oh, Edmund, Edmund, spare me! I cannot do this—to live in a deception under my children’s eyes.”

“Your children’s eyes!” he said, and laughed. The keen derision of his tone went to her very heart.

“I am used to hear everything said to me that can be said to a woman,” she said quickly, “and if there was anything wanting you make it up. I have had full measure, heaped up and running over. But there is no time for argument now. All that might have been possible in other circumstances; now there is no safety for you but in getting away. You know this, surely, as well as I do. The anxiety you have kept me in it is impossible to tell. I have been calmer since he is gone: it matters less. But for your own sake—”

The other voice said, with a change of tone, “I am lost anyhow. I shall do nothing for my own sake—”

“Oh, Edmund, Edmund, do not break my heart—at your age! If you will only set your mind to better ways, everything can be put right again. As soon as I know you are safe I will take it all in hand. I have not been able hitherto, and now I am afraid to direct observation upon you. But only go away; let me know you are safe: and you have my promise I will pay anything, whatever they ask.”

“Misprision of felony! They won’t do that; they know better. If there is any paying,” he said, with his careless laugh, “it had much better be to me.”

“You shall be provided,” she said breathlessly, “if you will only think of your own safety and go away.”

“Are you sure, then, of having come into your fortune? Has the old fellow shown so much confidence in you? All the better for me. Your generosity in that way will always be fully appreciated. But I would not trouble about Liverpool; they’re used to such losses. It does them no harm, only makes up for the salaries they ought to pay their clerks, and don’t.”

“Don’t speak so lightly, Edmund. You cannot feel it. To make up to those you have—injured—”

“Robbed, if you like, but not injured. That’s quite another matter. I don’t care a straw for this part of the business. But money,” he said, “money is always welcome here.”

A sigh which was almost a moan forced itself from her breast. “You shall have what you want,” she said. “But, Edmund, for God’s sake, if you care either for yourself or me, go away!”

“You would do a great deal better to introduce me here. It would be safer than Spain. And leave it to me to make my way. A good name—you can take one out of the first novel that turns up—and a few good suits of clothes. I might be a long-lost relative come to console you in your distress. That would suit me admirably. I much prefer it to going away. You should see how well I would fill the post of comforter—”

“Don’t!” she cried; “don’t!” holding out her hands in an appeal for mercy.

“Why,” he said, “it is far the most feasible way, and the safest, if you would but think. Who would look for an absconded clerk at Highcourt, in the midst of family mourning and all the rest of it? And I have views of my own— Come, think it over. In former times I allow it would have been impossible, but now you are free.”

“I will not,” she said, suddenly raising her head. “I have done much, but there are some things that are too much. Understand me, I will not. In no conceivable circumstances, whatever may happen. Rather will I leave you to your fate.”

“What!” he said, “and bring shame and ruin on yourself?”

“I do not care. I am desperate. Much, much would I do to make up for my neglect of you, if you can call it neglect; but not this. Listen! I will not do it. It is not to be mentioned again. I will make any sacrifice, except of truth—except of truth!”

“Of truth!” he said, with a sneer; but then was silent, evidently convinced by her tone. He added, after a time, “It is all your fault. What was to be expected? I have never had a chance. It is just that you should bear the brunt, for it is your fault.”

“I acknowledge it,” she said; “I have failed in everything; and whatever I can do to atone I will do. Edmund, oh, listen! Go away. You are not safe here. You risk everything, even my power to help you. You must go, you must go,” she added, seizing him firmly by the arm in her vehemence; “there is no alternative. You shall have money, but go, go! Promise me that you will go.”

“If you use force—” he said, freeing himself roughly from her grasp.

“Force! what force have I against you? It is you who force me to come here and risk everything. If I am discovered, God help me! on the eve of my husband’s funeral, how am I to have the means of doing anything for you? You will understand that. You shall have the money; but promise me to go.”

“You are very vehement,” he said. Then, after another pause, “That is strong, I allow. Bring me the money to-morrow night, and we shall see.”

“I will send Jane.”

“I don’t want Jane. Bring it yourself, or there is not another word to be said.”

Mrs. Trevanion got back, as she thought, unseen to the house. There was nobody in the hall when she opened noiselessly the glass door, and flung down the cloak she had worn among the wraps that were always there. She went up-stairs with her usual stately step; but when she had safely reached the shelter of her own room, she fell into the arms of the anxious Jane, who had been waiting in miserable suspense, fearing discovery in every sound. She did not faint. Nerves strong and highly braced to all conclusions, and a brain yet more vigorous, still kept her vitality unimpaired, and no merciful cloud came over her mind to soften what she had to bear—there are some to whom unconsciousness is a thing never accorded, scarcely even in sleep. But for a moment she lay upon the shoulder of her faithful servant, getting some strength from the contact of heart with heart. Jane knew everything; she required no explanation. She held her mistress close, supporting her in arms that had never failed her, giving the strength of two to the one who was in deadly peril. After a time Mrs. Trevanion roused herself. She sat down shivering in the chair which Jane placed for her before the fire. Warmth has a soothing effect upon misery. There was a sort of restoration in it, and possibility of calm. She told all that had passed to the faithful woman who had stood by her in all the passages of her life—her confidante, her go-between: other and worse names, if worse can be, had been ere now expended upon Jane.

“Once more,” Madam said, with a long sigh, “once more; and then it is to be over, or so he says, at least. On the night of my husband’s funeral day; on the night before— What could any one think of me, if it were known? And how can I tell that it is not known?”

“Oh, dear Madam, let us hope for the best,” said Jane. “Besides, who has any right to find fault now? Whatever you choose to do, you have a right to do it. The only one that had any right to complain—”

“And the only one,” said Mrs. Trevanion, with sudden energy, “who had no right to complain.” Then she sank back again into her chair. “I care nothing for other people,” she said; “it is myself. I feel the misery of it in myself. This night, of all others, to expose myself—and to-morrow. I think my punishment is more than any woman should have to bear.”

“Oh, Madam, do not think of it as a punishment.”

“As what, then—a duty? But one implies the other. God help us! If I could but hope that after this all would be over, at least for the time. I have always been afraid of to-morrow; I cannot tell why. Not because of the grave and the ceremony; but with a kind of dread as if there were something in it unforeseen, something new. Perhaps it is this last meeting which has been weighing upon me—this last meeting, which will be a parting, too, perhaps forever—”

She paused for a moment, and then burst forth into tears. “I ought to be thankful. That is the only thing to be desired. But when I think of all that might have been, and of what is—of my life all gone between the one who has been my tyrant, and the other—the other against whom I have sinned. And that one has died in anger, and the other—oh, the other!”

It was to Jane’s faithful bosom that she turned again to stifle the sobs which would not be restrained. Jane stood supporting her, weeping silently, patting with pathetic helplessness her mistress’s shoulder. “Oh, Madam,” she said, “who can tell? his heart may be touched at the last.”

CHAPTER XIX

Next day there was a great concourse of people at Highcourt, disturbing the echoes which had lain so silent during that week of gloom. Carriages with the finest blazons, quartered and coronetted; men of the greatest importance, peers, and those commoners who hold their heads higher than any recent peers—M.P.’s; the lord-lieutenant and his deputy, everything that was noted and eminent in those parts. The procession was endless, sweeping through the park towards the fine old thirteenth-century church which made the village notable, and in which the Trevanion chantry, though a century later in date, was the finest part; though the dark opening in the vault, canopied over with fine sculptured work, and all that pious art could do to make the last resting-place beautiful, opened black as any common grave for the passage of the departed. There was an unusual band of clergy gathered in their white robes to do honor to the man who had given half of them their livings, and all the villagers, and various visitors from the neighboring town, shopkeepers who had rejoiced in his patronage, and small gentry to whom Madam had given brevet rank by occasional notice. Before the procession approached, a little group of ladies, in crape from head to foot and closely veiled, were led in by the curate reverently through a side door. A murmur ran through the gathering crowd that it was Madam herself who walked first, with her head bowed, not seeing or desiring the curate’s anxiously offered arm. The village had heard a rumor of trouble at the great house, and something about Madam, which had made the elders shake their heads, and remind each other that she was a foreigner and not of these parts, which accounted for anything that might be wrong; while the strangers, who had also heard that there was a something, craned their necks to see her through the old ironwork of the chancel-screen, behind which the ladies were introduced. Many people paused in the midst of the service, and dropped their prayer-books to gaze again, and wonder what she was thinking now, if she had indeed, as people said, been guilty. How must she feel when she heard the deep tones of the priest, and the organ pealing out its Amens. Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. Had he forgiven her before he died? Was she broken down with remorse and shame, or was she rejoicing in her heart, behind her crape veil, in her freedom? It must not be supposed, because of this general curiosity, that Madam Trevanion had lost her place in the world, or would not have the cards of the county showered upon her, with inquiries after her health from all quarters; but only that there was “a something” which gave piquancy, such as does not usually belong to such a melancholy ceremonial, to the great function of the day. The most of the audience, in fact, sympathized entirely with Madam, and made remarks as to the character of the man so imposingly ushered into the realm of the dead, which did not fit in well with the funeral service. There were many who scoffed at the hymn which was sung by the choirs of the adjacent parishes, all in the late Mr. Trevanion’s gift, and which was very, perhaps unduly, favorable to the “dear saint” thus tenderly dismissed. He had not been a dear saint; perhaps, in such a case, the well-known deprecation of trop de zèle is specially appropriate. It made the scoffer blaspheme to hear so many beautiful qualities attributed to Mr. Trevanion. But perhaps it is best to err on the side of kindness. It was, at all events, a grand funeral. No man could have desired more.

The third lady who accompanied Mrs. Trevanion and her daughter was the Aunt Sophy to whom there had been some question of sending Rosalind. She was the only surviving sister of Mr. Trevanion, Mrs. Lennox, a wealthy widow, without any children, to whom the Highcourt family were especially dear. She was the softest and most good-natured person who had ever borne the name of Trevanion. It was supposed to be from her mother, whom the Trevanions in general had worried into her grave at a very early age, that Aunt Sophy got a character so unlike the rest of the family. But worrying had not been successful in the daughter’s case; or perhaps it was her early escape by her marriage that saved her. She was so apt to agree with the last person who spoke, that her opinion was not prized as it might have been by her connections generally; but everybody was confident in her kindness. She had arrived only the morning of the funeral, having come from the sickbed of a friend whom she was nursing, and to whom she considered it very necessary that she should get back; but it was quite possible that, being persuaded her sister-in-law or Rosalind had more need of her, she might remain at Highcourt, notwithstanding that it was so indispensable that she should leave that afternoon, for the rest of the year.