MADAM
A Novel
BY MRS. OLIPHANT
AUTHOR OF “THE LADIES LINDORES” ETC.
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
1885
BY MRS. OLIPHANT.
AGNES. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.
A SON OF THE SOIL. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents; Cloth, $1 00.
BROWNLOWS. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.
CARITA. Illustrated. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.
FOR LOVE AND LIFE. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.
HARRY JOSCELYN. 4to, Paper, 20 cents.
HESTER. 4to, Paper, 20 cents.
HE THAT WILL NOT WHEN HE MAY. 4to, Paper, 15 cents.
INNOCENT. Illustrated. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.
IT WAS A LOVER AND HIS LASS. 4to, Paper, 20 cents.
JOHN. 8vo, Paper, 25 cents.
KATIE STEWART. 8vo, Paper, 20 cents.
LADY JANE. 8vo, Paper, 10 cents.
LIFE OF EDWARD IRVING. 8vo, $3 50.
LUCY CROFTON. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50.
MADAM. 16mo, Cloth, 15 cents; 4to, Paper, 25 cents.
MADONNA MARY. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.
MISS MARJORIBANKS. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.
MRS. ARTHURS. 8vo, Paper, 40 cents.
OMBRA. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.
PHOEBE JUNIOR. 8vo, Paper, 35 cents.
SIR TOM. 4to, Paper 20 cents.
SKETCH OF SHERIDAN. 12mo, 75 cents.
SQUIRE ARDEN. 8vo, Paper. 50 cents.
THE ATHELINGS. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.
THE CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFORD. 8vo, Paper, 60 cents.
THE CURATE IN CHARGE. 8vo, Paper, 20 cents.
THE DAYS OF MY LIFE. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50.
THE FUGITIVES. 4to, Paper, 10 cents.
THE GREATEST HEIRESS IN ENGLAND. 4to, Paper, 15 cents.
THE HOUSE ON THE MOOR. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50.
THE LADIES LINDORES. 16mo, Cloth, $1 00; 4to, Paper, 90 cents.
THE LAIRD OF NORLAW. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50.
THE LAST OF THE MORTIMERS. 12 mo, Cloth, $1 50.
THE MINISTER’S WIFE. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.
THE PERPETUAL CURATE. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents; Cloth, $1 00.
THE PRIMROSE PATH. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.
THE QUEEN. Illustrated. 4to, Paper, 25 cents.
THE QUIET HEART. 8vo, Paper, 20 cents.
THE WIZARD’S SON. 4to, Paper, 25 cents.
VALENTINE AND HIS BROTHER. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.
WITHIN THE PRECINCTS. 4to, Paper, 15 cents.
YOUNG MUSGRAVE. 8vo, Paper, 40 cents.
PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
☛ _Any of the above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid,
to any part of the United States,
on receipt of the price._
MADAM.
CHAPTER I.
A large drawing-room in a country-house, in the perfect warmth,
stillness, and good order of after-dinner, awaiting the ladies coming
in; the fire perfection, reflecting itself in all the polished brass and
steel and tiles of the fireplace; the atmosphere just touched with the
scent of the flowers on the tables; the piano open, with candles lit
upon it; some pretty work laid out upon a stand near the fire, books on
another, ready for use, velvet curtains drawn. The whole softly, fully
lighted, a place full of every gentle luxury and comfort in
perfection--the scene prepared, waiting only the actors in it.
It is curious to look into a centre of life like this, all ready for the
human affairs about to be transacted there. Tragedy or comedy, who can
tell which? the clash of human wills, the encounter of hearts, or
perhaps only that serene blending of kindred tastes and inclinations
which makes domestic happiness. Who was coming in? A fair mother, with a
flock of girls fairer still, a beautiful wife adding the last grace to
the beautiful place? some fortunate man’s crown of well-being and
happiness, the nucleus of other happy homes to come?
A pause: the fire only crackling now and then, a little burst of flame
puffing forth, the clock on the mantelpiece chiming softly. Then there
entered alone a young lady about eighteen, in the simple white dinner
dress of a home party; a tall, slight girl, with smooth brown hair, and
eyes for the moment enlarged with anxiety and troubled meaning. She came
in not as the daughter of the house in ordinary circumstances comes in,
to take her pleasant place, and begin her evening occupation, whatever
it may be. Her step was almost stealthy, like that of a pioneer,
investigating anxiously if all was safe in a place full of danger. Her
eyes, with the lids curved over them in an anxiety almost despairing,
seemed to plunge into and search through and through the absolute
tranquillity of this peaceful place. Then she said in a half-whisper,
the intense tone of which was equal to a cry, “Mother!” Nothing stirred:
the place was so warm, so perfect, so happy; while this one human
creature stood on the threshold gazing--as if it had been a desert full
of nothing but trouble and terror. She stood thus only for a moment, and
then disappeared. It was a painful intrusion, suggestive of everything
that was most alien to the sentiment of the place: when she withdrew it
fell again into that soft beaming of warmth and brightness waiting for
the warmer interest to come.
The doorway in which she had stood for that momentary inspection, which
was deep in a solid wall, with two doors, in case any breath of cold
should enter, opened into a hall, very lofty and fine, a sort of centre
to the quiet house. Here the light was dimmer, the place being deserted,
though it had an air of habitation, and the fire still smouldered in the
huge chimney, round which chairs were standing. Sounds of voices muffled
by closed doors and curtains came from the farther side where the
dining-room was. The young lady shrank from this as if her noiseless
motion could have been heard over the sounds of the male voices there.
She hurried along to the other end of the hall, which lay in darkness
with a glimmer of pale sky showing between the pillars from without. The
outer doors were not yet shut. The inner glass door showed this paleness
of night, with branches of trees tossing against a gray heaven full of
flying clouds--the strangest weird contrast to all the warmth and luxury
within. The girl shivered as she came in sight of that dreary outer
world. This was the opening of the park in front of the house, a width
of empty space, and beyond it the commotion of the wind, the stormy show
of the coursing clouds. She went close to the door and gazed out,
pressing her forehead against the glass, and searching the darkness, as
she had done the light, with anxious eyes. She stood so for about five
minutes, and then she breathed an impatient sigh. “What is the good?”
she said to herself, half aloud.
Here something stirred near her which made her start, at first with an
eager movement of hope. Then a low voice said--“No good at all, Miss
Rosalind. Why should you mix yourself up with what’s no concern of
yours?”
Rosalind had started violently when she recognized the voice, but
subdued herself while the other spoke. She answered, with quiet
self-restraint: “Is it you, Russell? What are you doing here? You will
make it impossible for me to do anything for you if you forget your own
place!”
“I am doing what my betters are doing, Miss Rosalind--looking out for
Madam, just as you are.”
“How dare you say such things! I--am looking out to see what sort of
night it is. It is very stormy. Go away at once. You have no right to be
here!”
“I’ve been here longer than most folks--longer than them that has the
best opinion of themselves; longer than--”
“Me perhaps,” said Rosalind. “Yes, I know--you came before I was born;
but you know what folly this is. Mamma,” the girl said, with a certain
tremor and hesitation, “will be very angry if she finds you here.”
“I wish, Miss Rosalind, you’d have a little more respect for yourself.
It goes against me to hear you say mamma. And your own dear mamma, that
should have been lady of everything--”
“Russell, I wish you would not be such a fool! My poor little mother
that died when I was born. And you to keep up a grudge like this for so
many years!”
“And will, whatever you may say,” cried the woman, under her breath;
“and will, till I die, or till one of us--”
“Go up-stairs,” said Rosalind, peremptorily, “at once! What have you to
do here? I don’t think you are safe in the house. If I had the power I
should send you away.”
“Miss Rosalind, you are as cruel as-- You have no heart. Me, that nursed
you, and watched over you--”
“It is too terrible a price to pay,” cried the girl, stamping her foot
on the floor. “Go! I will not have you here. If mamma finds you when she
comes down-stairs--”
The woman laughed. “She will ask what you are doing here, Miss Rosalind.
It will not be only me she’ll fly out upon. What are you doing here?
Who’s outside that interests you so? It interests us both, that’s the
truth; only I am the one that knows the best.”
Rosalind’s white figure flew across the faint light. She grasped the
shoulder of the dark shadow, almost invisible in the gloom. “Go!” she
cried in her ear, pushing Russell before her; the onslaught was so
sudden and vehement that the woman yielded and disappeared reluctantly,
gliding away by one of the passages that led to the other part of the
house. The girl stood panting and excited in the brief sudden fury of
her passion, a miserable sense of failing faith and inability to explain
to herself the circumstances in which she was, heightening the fervor of
her indignation. Were Russell’s suspicions true? Had she been in the
right all along? Those who take persistently the worst view of human
nature are, alas! so often in the right. And what is there more terrible
than the passion of defence and apology for one whom the heart begins to
doubt? The girl was young, and in her rage and pain could scarcely keep
herself from those vehement tears which are the primitive attribute of
passion. How calm she could have been had she been quite, quite sure!
How she had laughed at Russell’s prejudices in the old days when all was
well. She had even excused Russell, feeling that after all it was pretty
of her nurse to return continually to the image of her first
mistress--Rosalind’s own mother--and that in the uneducated mind the
prepossession against a stepmother, the wrath with which the woman saw
her own nursling supplanted, had a sort of feudal flavor which was
rather agreeable than otherwise.
Rosalind had pardoned Russell as Mrs. Trevanion herself had pardoned
her. So long as all was well: so long as there was nothing mysterious,
nothing that baffled the spectator in the object of Russell’s
animadversions. But now something had fallen into life which changed it
altogether. To defend those we love from undeserved accusations is so
easy. And in books and plays, and every other exhibition of human nature
in fiction, the accused always possesses the full confidence of those
who love him. In ordinary cases they will not even hear any explanation
of equivocal circumstances--they know that guilt is impossible: it is
only those who do not know him who can believe anything so monstrous.
Alas! this is not so in common life--the most loving and believing
cannot always have that sublime faith. Sometimes doubt and fear gnaw the
very souls of those who are the champions, the advocates, the warmest
partisans of the accused. This terrible canker had got into Rosalind’s
being. She loved her stepmother with enthusiasm. She was ready to die in
her defence. She would not listen to the terrible murmur in her own
heart; but yet it was there. And as she stood and gazed out upon the
park, upon the wild bit of stormy sky, with the black tree-tops waving
wildly against it, she was miserable, as miserable as a heart of
eighteen ever was. Where had Madam gone, hurrying from the dinner-table
where she had smiled and talked and given no sign of trouble? She was
not in her room, nor in the nursery, nor anywhere that Rosalind could
think of. It was in reality a confession of despair, a sort of giving up
of the cause altogether, when the girl came to spy out into the wintry
world outside and look for the fugitive there.
Rosalind had resisted the impulse to do so for many an evening. She had
paused by stealth in the dark window above in the corridor, and blushed
for herself and fled from that spy’s place. But by force of trouble and
doubt and anguish her scruples had been overcome, and now she had
accepted for herself this position of spy. If her fears had been
verified, and she had seen her mother cross that vacant space and steal
into the house, what the better would she have been? But there is in
suspicion a wild curiosity, an eagerness for certainty, which grows like
a fever. She had come to feel that she must know--whatever happened she
must be satisfied--come what would, that would be better than the
gnawing of this suspense. And she had another object too. Her father was
an invalid, exacting and fretful. If his wife was not ready at his call
whenever he wanted her, his displeasure was unbounded; and of late it
had happened many times that his wife had not been at his call. The
scenes that had followed, the reproaches, the insults even, to which the
woman whom she called mother had been subjected, had made Rosalind’s
heart sick. If she could but see her, hasten her return, venture to call
her, to bid her come quick, quick! it would be something. The girl was
not philosopher enough to say to herself that Madam would not come a
moment the sooner for being thus watched for. It takes a great deal of
philosophy to convince an anxious woman of this in any circumstances,
and Rosalind was in the pangs of a first trouble, the earliest anguish
she had ever known. After she had driven Russell away, she stood with
her face pressed against the glass and all her senses gone into her eyes
and ears. She heard, she thought, the twitter of the twigs in the wind,
the sharp sound now and then of one which broke and fell, which was like
a footstep on the path; besides the louder sweep of the tree-tops in the
wind, and on the other hand the muffled and faint sound of life from the
dining-room, every variation in which kept her in alarm.
But it was in vain she gazed; nothing crossed the park except the sweep
of the clouds driven along the sky; nothing sounded in the air except
the wind, the trees, and sometimes the opening of a distant door or clap
of a gate; until the dining-room became more audible, a sound of chairs
pushed back and voices rising, warning the watcher. She flew like an
arrow through the hall, and burst into the still sanctuary of domestic
warmth and tranquillity as if she had been a hunted creature escaping
from a fatal pursuit with her enemies at her heels. Her hands were like
ice, her slight figure shivering with cold, yet her heart beating so
that she could scarcely draw her breath. All this must disappear before
the gentlemen came in. It was Rosalind’s first experience in that
strange art which comes naturally to a woman, of obliterating herself
and her own sensations; but how was she to still her pulse, to restore
her color, to bring warmth to her chilled heart? She felt sure that her
misery, her anguish of suspense, her appalling doubts and terrors, must
be written in her face; but it was not so. The emergency brought back a
rush of the warm blood tingling to her fingers’ ends. Oh never, never,
through her, must the mother she loved be betrayed! That brave impulse
brought color to her cheek and strength to her heart. She made one or
two of those minute changes in the room which a woman always finds
occasion for, drawing the card-table into a position more exactly like
that which her father approved, giving an easier angle to his chair,
with a touch moving that of Madam into position as if it had been risen
from that moment. Then Rosalind took up the delicate work that lay on
the table, and when the gentlemen entered was seated on a low seat
within the circle of the shaded lamp, warm in the glow of the genial
fireside, her pretty head bent a little over her pretty industry, her
hands busy. She who had been the image of anxiety and unrest a moment
before was now the culminating-point of all the soft domestic
tranquillity, luxury, boundless content and peace, of which this silent
room was the home. She looked up with a smile to greet them as they came
in. The brave girl had recovered her sweet looks, her color, and air of
youthful composure and self-possession, by sheer force of will, and
strain of the crisis in which she stood to maintain the honor of the
family at every hazard. She had been able to do that, but she could not
yet for the moment trust herself to speak.