Madam

Only a very short time after another knock came to his door, and Rosalind entered, with an atmosphere about her of urgency and excitement. She said, without any preface:

“Uncle John, I have come to tell you what I have made up my mind to do. Do you remember that in two days I shall be of age, and my own mistress? In two days!”

“My dear,” he said, “I hope you have not been under so hard a taskmaster as to make you impatient to be free.”

“Yes,” said Rosalind. “Oh, not a hard taskmaster; but life has been hard, Uncle John! As soon as I am my own mistress I am going, Amy and I, to—you know. I cannot rest here any longer. Amy will be safe; she can have my money. But this cannot go on any longer. If we should starve, we must find my mother. I know you will say she is not my mother. And who else, then? She is all the mother I have ever known. And I have left her these two years under a stain which she ought not to bear, and in misery which she ought not to bear. Was it ever heard of before that a mother should be banished from her children? I was too young to understand it all at first; and I had no habit of acting for myself; and perhaps you would have been right to stop me; but now—”

“Certainly I should have stopped you. But, Rosalind, I have come myself to a similar resolution,” he said. “It must all be cleared up. But not by you, my dear, not by you. If there is anything to discover that is to her shame—”

“There is nothing, Uncle John.”

“My dear, you don’t know how mysterious human nature is. There are fine and noble creatures such as she is—as she is! don’t think I deny it, Rosalind—who may have yet a spot, a stain, which a man like me may see and grieve for and forgive, but you—”

“Oh, Uncle John, say that a woman like me may wash away with tears, if you like, but that should never, never be betrayed to the eyes of a man!”

He took her into his arms, weeping as she was, and he not far from it. “Rosalind, perhaps yours is the truest way; but yet, as common people think, and according to the way of the world—”

“Which is neither your way nor mine,” cried the girl.

“And you can say nothing to change my mind; I was too young at the time. But now—if she has died,” Rosalind said, with difficulty swallowing down the “climbing sorrow” in her throat, “she will know at least what we meant. And if she is living there is no rest but with our mother for Amy and me. And the child shall not suffer, Uncle John, for she shall have what is mine.”

“Rosalind, you are still in the absolute stage—you see nothing that can modify your purposes. My dear, you should have had your mother to speak to on this subject. There are two men here, Rosalind, to whom—have you not some duty, some obligation? They both seem to me to be waiting—for what, Rosalind?”

Rosalind detached herself from her uncle’s arm. A crimson flush covered her face. “Is it—dishonorable?” she said.

In the midst of his emotion John Trevanion could not suppress a smile. “That is, perhaps, a strong word.”

“It would be dishonorable in a man,” she cried, lifting her eyes with a hot color under them which seemed to scorch her.

“It would be impossible in a man, Rosalind,” he said gravely; “the circumstances are altogether different. And yet you too owe something to Roland, who has loved you all his life, poor fellow, and to Rivers, who has come here neglecting everything for your sake. I do not know,” he added, in a harsher tone, “whether there may not be still another claim.”

“I think you are unjust, Uncle John,” she said, with tremulous dignity. “And if it is as you say, these gentlemen have followed their own inclinations, not mine. Am I bound because they have seen fit— But that would be slavery for a woman.” Then her countenance cleared a little, and she added, “When you know all that is in my mind you will not disapprove.”

“I hope you will make a wise decision, Rosalind,” he said. “But at least do nothing—make up your mind to do nothing—till the time comes.” He spoke vaguely, and so did she, but in the excitement of their minds neither remarked this in the other. For he had not hinted to her, nor her to him, the possibility of some great new event which might happen at any moment and change all plans and thoughts.

CHAPTER LVII

Rosalind left her uncle with the thrill of her resolution in all her veins. She met, as she crossed the ante-room, Rivers, who had just come in and was standing waiting for a reply to the petition to be admitted to see her which he had just sent by a servant. She came upon him suddenly while he stood there, himself wound up to high tension, full of passion and urgency, feeling himself ill-used, and determined that now, at last, this question should be settled. He had failed indeed in pushing his suit by means of the mysterious stranger whom he had not seen again; but this made him only return with additional vehemence to his own claim, the claim of a man who had waited a year for his answer. But when he saw Rosalind there came over him that instant softening which is so apt to follow an unusual warmth of angry feeling, when we are “wroth with those we love.” He thought at first that she had come to him in answer to his message, granting all he asked by that gracious personal response. “Rosalind!” he cried, putting out his hands. But next moment his countenance reflected the blush in hers, as she turned to him startled, not comprehending and shrinking from this enthusiastic address. “I beg your pardon,” he said, crushing his hat in his hands. “I was taken by surprise. Miss Trevanion, I had just sent to ask—”

Rosalind was seized by a sort of helpless terror. She was afraid of him and his passion. She said, “Uncle John is in his room. Oh, forgive me, please! If it is me, will you wait—oh, will you be so kind as to wait till Thursday? Everything will be settled then. I shall know then what I have to do. Mr. Rivers, I am very sorry to give you so much trouble—”

“Trouble!” he cried; his voice was almost inarticulate in the excess of emotion. “How can you use such words to me? As if trouble had anything to do with it; if you would send me to the end of the earth, so long as it was to serve you, or give me one of the labors of Hercules— Yes, I know I am extravagant. One becomes extravagant in the state of mind in which— And to hear you speak of trouble—”

“Mr. Rivers,” said Rosalind, humble in her sense of guilt, “I have a great many things to think of. You don’t know how serious it is; but on Thursday I shall be of age, and then I can decide. Come then, if you will, and I will tell you. Oh, let me tell you on Thursday—not now!”

“That does not sound very hopeful for me,” he said. “Miss Trevanion, remember that I have waited a year for my answer—few men do that without—without—”

And then he paused, and looked at her with an air which was at once fierce and piteous, defiant and imploring. And Rosalind shrank with a sense of guilt, feeling that she had no right to hold him in suspense, yet frightened by his vehemence, and too much agitated to know what to say.

“On Thursday,” she said, mechanically; “on Thursday— You shall not complain of me any more.” She held out her hand to him with a smile, apologetic and deprecatory, which was very sweet, which threw him into a bewilderment unspeakable. She was cruel without knowing it, without intending it. She had, she thought, something to make up to this man, and how could she do it but by kindness—by showing him that she was grateful—that she liked and honored him? He went away asking himself a thousand questions, going over and over her simple words, extracting meanings from them of which they were entirely innocent, framing them at last to the signification which he wished. He started from Bonport full of doubt and uneasiness, but before he reached his hotel a foolish elation had got the better of these sadder sentiments. He said to himself that these words could have but one meaning. “You shall not complain of me any more.” But if she cast him off after this long probation he would have very good reason to complain. It was impossible that she should prepare a refusal by such words; and, indeed, if she had meant to refuse him, could she have postponed her answer again? Is it not honor in a woman to say “No” without delay, unless she means to say “Yes?” It is the only claim of honor upon her, who makes so many claims upon the honor of men, to say “No,” if she means “No.” No one could mistake that primary rule. When she said “Thursday,” was it not the last assurance she could give before a final acceptance, and “You shall not complain of me any more?” This is a consequence of the competitive system in love which Mr. Ruskin evidently did not foresee, for Rosalind, on the other hand, was right enough when she tried to assure herself that she had not wished for his love, had not sought it in any way, that she should be made responsible for its discomfiture. Rivers employed his time of suspense in making arrangements for his departure. He was a proud man, and he would not have it said that he had left Aix hastily in consequence of his disappointment. In the evening he wrote some letters, vaguely announcing a speedy return. “Perhaps almost as soon as you receive this,” he said, always guarding against the possibility of a sudden departure; and then he said to himself that such a thing was impossible. This was how he spent the intervening days. He had almost forgotten by this time, in the intensity of personal feeling, the disappointment and shock to his pride involved in the fact that the lady of the garden had appeared no more.

In the meantime, while all this was going on, Reginald was out on the shining water in a boat, which was the first thing the English boy turned to in that urgent necessity for “something to do” which is the first thought of his mind. He had taken Sophy with him condescendingly for want of a better, reflecting contemptuously all the time on the desertion of that beggar Hamerton, with whom he was no longer the first object. But Sophy was by no means without advantages as a companion. He sculled her out half a mile from shore with the intention of teaching her how to row on the way back; but Sophy had made herself more amusing in another way by that time, and he was willing to do the work while she maintained the conversation. Sophy was nearly as good as Scheherazade. She kept up her narrative, or series of narratives, with scarcely a pause to take breath, for she was very young and very long-winded, with her lungs in perfect condition, and her stories had this advantage, to the primitive intelligence that is, that they were all true; which is to say that they were all about real persons, and spiced by that natural inclination to take the worst view of everything, which, unfortunately, is so often justified by the results, and makes a story-teller piquant, popular, and detested. Sophy had a great future before her in this way, and in the meantime she made Reginald acquainted with everything, as they both concluded, that he ought to know. She told him about Everard, and the saving of Amy and Johnny, which he concluded to be a “plant,” and “just like the fellow;” and about the encouragement Rosalind gave him, at which Rex swore, to the horror, yet delight, of his little sister, great, real oaths. And then the story quickened and the interest rose as she told him about the apparitions, about what the children saw, and, finally, under a vow of secrecy (which she had also administered to Russell), what she herself saw, and the conclusion she had formed. When she came to this point of her story, Reginald was too much excited even to swear. He kept silence with a dark countenance, and listened, leaning forward on his oars with a rapt attention that flattered Sophy. “I told Uncle John,” cried the child, “and he asked me what I was going to do? How could I do anything, Rex? I watched because I don’t believe in ghosts, and I knew it could not be a ghost. But what could I do at my age? And, besides, I did not actually see her so as to speak to her. I only touched her as she passed.”

“And you are sure it was—” The boy was older than Sophy, and understood better. He could not speak so glibly of everything as she did.

“Mamma? Yes, of course I am sure. I don’t take fits like the rest; I always know what I see. Don’t you think Uncle John was the one to do something about it, Rex? And he has not done anything. It could never be thought that it was a thing for me.”

“I’ll tell you what, Sophy,” said Rex, almost losing his oars in his vehemence; “soon it’ll have to be a thing for me. I can’t let things go on like this with all Aunt Sophy’s muddlings and Uncle John’s. The children will be driven out of their senses; and Rosalind is just a romantic— I am the head of the family, and I shall have to interfere.”

“But you are only seventeen,” said Sophy, her eyes starting from their sockets with excitement and delight.

“But I am the head of the house. John Trevanion may give himself as many airs as he likes, but he is only a younger son. After all, it is I that have got to decide what’s right for my family. I have been thinking a great deal about it,” he cried. “If—if—Mrs. Trevanion is to come like this frightening people out of their wits—”

“Oh, Reginald,” cried Sophy, with a mixture of admiration and horror, “how can you call mamma Mrs. Trevanion?”

“That’s her name,” said the boy. His lips quivered a little, to do him justice, and his face was darkly red with passion, which was scarcely his fault, so unnatural were all the circumstances. “I am going to insist that she should live somewhere, so that a fellow may say where she lives. It’s awful when people ask you where’s your mother, not to be able to say. I suppose she has enough to live on. I shall propose to let her choose where she pleases, but to make her stay in one place, so that she can be found when she is wanted. Amy could be sent to her for a bit, and then the fuss would be over—”

“But, Rex, you said we should lose all our money—”

“Oh, bother!” cried the boy. “Who’s to say anything? Should I make a trial and expose everything to take her money from Amy? (It isn’t so very much you have, any of you, that I should mind.) I suppose even, if I insisted, they might take a villa for her here or somewhere. And then one could say she lived abroad for her health. That is what people do every day. I know lots of fellows whose father, or their mother, or some one, lives abroad for their health. It would be more respectable. It would be a thing you could talk about when it was necessary,” Rex said.

Sophy’s mind was scarcely yet open to this view of the question. “I wish you had told me,” she said peevishly, “that one could get out of it like that; for I should have liked to speak to mamma—”

“I don’t know that we can get out of it like that. The law is very funny; it may be impossible, perhaps. But, at all events,” said Reginald, recovering his oars, and giving one great impulse forward with all his strength, which made the boat shoot along the lake like a living thing, “I know that I won’t let it be muddled any longer if I can help it, and that I am going to interfere.”

CHAPTER LVIII

Roland Hamerton did not find any trace of her. He had pledged himself easily, in utter ignorance of all ways and means, to find her, knowing nothing, neither how to set about such a search, or where he was likely to meet with success in it. It is easy for a young man, in his fervor, to declare that he is able to do anything for the girl he loves, and to feel that in that inspiration he is sure to carry all before him. But love will not trace the lost even when it is the agony of love for the lost, and that passion of awful longing, anxiety, and fear which is, perhaps, the most profound of all human emotions. The fact that he loved Rosalind did not convert him into that sublimated and heroic version of a detective officer which is to be found more often in fiction than reality. He, too, went to all the hotels, as John Trevanion had done; he walked about incessantly, looking at everybody he met, and trying hard, in his bad French, to push cunning inquiries everywhere—inquiries which he thought cunning, but which were in reality only very innocently anxious, betraying his object in the plainest way. “A tall lady, English, with remains of great beauty.” “Oui, monsieur, nous la connaissons;” a dozen such lively responses were made to him, and he was sent in consequence to wander about as many villas, to prowl in the gardens of various hotels, rewarded by the sight of some fine Englishwomen and some scarecrows, but never with the most distant glimpse of the woman he sought. He did, however, meet and recognize almost at every turn the young fellow whose appearances at Bonport had been few since Rosalind’s repulse, but whom he had seen several times in attendance upon Mrs. Lennox, and of whom he knew that he was understood to have been seen in the village at Highcourt, presumably on account of Rosalind, and was therefore a suitor too, and a rival. Something indefinable in his air, though Roland did not know him sufficiently to be a just judge, had increased at first the natural sensation of angry scorn with which a young lover looks upon another man who has presumed to lift his eyes to the same objet adoré; but presently there arose in his mind something of that same sensation of fellowship which had drawn him, on the first night of his arrival, towards Rivers. They were in “the same box.” No doubt she was too good for any of them, and Everard had not the sign and seal of the English gentleman about him—the one thing indispensable; but yet there was a certain brotherhood even in the rivalry. Roland addressed him at last when he met him coming round one of the corners, where he himself was posted, gazing blankly at an English lady pointed out to him by an officious boatman from the lake. His gaze over a wall, his furtive aspect when discovered, all required, he felt, explanation. “I think we almost know each other,” he said, in a not unfriendly tone. Everard took off his hat with the instinct of a man who has acquired such breeding as he has in foreign countries, an action for which, as was natural, the Englishman mildly despised him. “I have seen you, at least, often,” he replied. And then Roland plunged into his subject.

“Look here! You know the Trevanions, don’t you? Oh yes, I heard all about it—the children and all that. I am a very old friend;” Roland dwelt upon these words by way of showing that a stranger was altogether out of competition with him in this respect at least. “There is a lady in whom they are all—very much interested, to say the least, living somewhere about here; but I don’t know where, and nobody seems to know. You seem to be very well up to all the ways of the place; perhaps you could help me. Ros— I mean,” said Roland, with a cough to obliterate the syllable—“they would all be very grateful to any one who would find—”

“What,” said Everard, slowly, looking in Roland’s face, “is the lady’s name?”

It was the most natural question; and yet the one man put it with a depth of significance which to a keener observer than Roland would have proved his previous knowledge; while the other stood entirely disconcerted, and not knowing how to reply. It was perfectly natural; but somehow he had not thought of it as a probable question. And he was not prepared with an answer.

“Oh—ah—her name. Well, she is a kind of a relation, you know—and her name would be—Trevanion.”

“Oh, her name would be Trevanion? Is there supposed to be any chance that she would change her name?”

“Why do you ask such a question?”

“I thought, by the way you spoke, as if there might be a doubt.”

“No,” said Roland, after a moment, “I never thought— I don’t think it’s likely. Why should she change her name?”

Everard answered with great softness, “I don’t know anything about it. Something in your tone suggested the idea, but no doubt I am wrong. No, I cannot say, all in a moment, that I am acquainted—” Here his want of experience told like Roland’s. He was very willing, nay anxious, to deceive, but did not know how. He colored, and made a momentary pause. “But I will inquire,” he said, “if it is a thing that the—Trevanions want to find out.”

Roland looked at him with instinctive suspicion, but he did not know what he suspected. He had no desire, however, to put this quest out of his own hands into those of a man who might make capital of it as he himself intended to do. He said hastily, “Oh, I don’t want to put you to trouble. I think I am on the scent. If you hear anything, however, and would come in and see me at the hotel—to-night.”

The other looked at him with something in his face which Roland did not understand. Was it a kind of sardonic smile? Was it offence? He ended by repeating, “I will inquire,” and took off his hat again in that Frenchified way.

And Roland went on, unaided, somewhat discouraged, indeed, with his inquiries. Sometimes he saw in the distance a figure in the crowd which he thought he recognized, and hurried after it, but never with any success. For either it was gone when he reached the spot, or turned out to be one of the ordinary people about; for of course there were many tall ladies wearing black to be seen about the streets of Aix, and most of them English. He trudged about all that day and the next with a heavy heart, his high hopes abandoning him, and the search seeming hopeless. He became aware when night fell that he was not alone in his quest. There drifted past him at intervals, hurried, flushed, and breathless, with her cloak hanging from her shoulders, her bonnet blown back from her head, her eyes always far in front of her, investigating every corner, a woman so instinct with keen suspicion and what looked like a thirst for blood that she attracted the looks even of the careless passers-by, and was followed, till she outstripped him, by more than one languid gendarme. Her purpose was so much more individual than she was that, for a time, in the features of this human sleuth-hound he failed to recognize Russell. But it was Russell, as he soon saw, with a mixture of alarm and horror. It seemed to him that some tragic force of harm was in this woman’s hand, and that while he wandered vaguely round and round discovering nothing, she, grim with hatred and revenge, was on the track.

CHAPTER LIX

When John Trevanion questioned Everard, as already recorded, the young man, though greatly disconcerted, had made him a very unexpected reply. He had the boldness to say what was so near the truth that there was all the assurance of conviction in his tone; and John, on his side, was confounded. Everard had declared to him that there was a family connection, a relationship, between himself and Mr. Trevanion, though, on being more closely questioned, he declined to explain how it was; that is, he postponed the explanation, saying that he could only make the matter clear by reference to another relation, who could give him the exact information. It was a bold thought, conceived at the moment, and carried through with the daring of desperation. He felt, before it was half said, that John Trevanion was impressed by the reality in his tone, and that if he dared further, and told all his tale, the position of affairs might be changed. But Rosalind’s reply to the sudden declaration which in his boldness he had made, and to his vague, ill-advised promises to reward her if she would listen to him, had driven for some days everything out of his mind; and when he met Roland Hamerton he was but beginning to recall his courage, and to say to himself that there was still something which might be done, and that things were not perhaps so hopeless as they seemed. From that brief interview he went away full of a sudden resolution. If, after all, this card was the one to play, did not he hold it in his hand? If it were by means of the lost mother that Rosalind was to be won, it was by the same means alone that he could prove to John Trevanion, all he had promised to prove, and thus set himself right with Rosalind’s guardian. Thoughts crowded fast upon him as he turned away, instinctively making a round to escape Hamerton’s scrutiny. This led him back at length to the precincts of the hotel, where he plunged among the shrubbery, passing round behind the house, and entered by a small door which was almost hid by a clump of laurels. A short stair led from this to a small, entirely secluded apartment separated from the other part of the hotel. The room which young Everard entered with a sort of authoritative familiarity was well lighted with three large windows opening upon the garden, but seemed to be a sort of receptacle for all the old furniture despised elsewhere. It had but one occupant, who put down the book when Everard came in, and looked up with a faint, inquiring smile. The reader does not need to be told who was the banished woman who sat here, shut out and separated from the external world. She had thought it wise, amid the risks of travel, to call herself by the name he bore, and had been living here, as everywhere, in complete retirement, before the arrival of the Trevanions. The apartment which she occupied was cheap and quiet, one of which recommendations was of weight with her in consequence of Edmund’s expenses; the other for reasons of her own. She had changed greatly in the course of these two years, not only by becoming very thin and worn, but also from a kind of moral exhaustion which had taken the place of that personal power and dignity which were once the prevailing expression of her face. She had borne much in the former part of her life without having the life itself crushed out of her; but her complete transference to a strange world, her absorption in one sole subject of interest which presented nothing noble, nothing elevated, and, finally, the existence of a perpetual petty conflict in which she was always the loser, a struggle to make a small nature into a great one, or, rather, to deal with the small nature as if it were a great one, to attribute to it finer motives than it could even understand, and to appeal with incessant failure to generosities which did not exist—this had taken the strength out of Mrs. Trevanion. Her face had an air of exhausted and hopeless effort. She saw the young man approaching with a smile, which, though faint, was yet one of welcome. To be ready to receive him whenever he should appear, to be always ready and on the watch for any gleam of higher meaning, to be dull to no better impulse, but always waiting for the good—that was the part she had to play. But she was no longer impatient, no longer eager to thrust him into her own world, to convey to him her own thoughts. That she knew was an endeavor without hope. And, as a matter of fact, she had little hope in anything. She had done all that she knew how to do. If anything further were possible she was unaware what it was; and her face, like her heart, was worn out. Yet she looked up with what was not unlike a cheerful expectation. “Well, Edmund?” she said.