“I married her without a penny,” Mr. Trevanion was saying. “I was a fool
for my pains. If you think you will purchase attention and submission in
that way you are making a confounded mistake. Set a beggar on horseback,
that’s how it ends. A duke’s daughter couldn’t stand more by her own
way; no, nor look more like a lady,” he added with a sort of pride in
his property; “that must be allowed her. I married her without a penny;
and this is how she serves me. If she had brought a duchy in her apron,
or the best blood in England, like Rosalind’s mother, my first poor
wife, whom I regret every day of my life-- O-h-h!--so you have
condescended, Madam, to come at last.”
She was a tall woman, with a figure full of dignity and grace. If it was
true that nobody knew who she was, it was at least true also, as even
her husband allowed, that she might have been a princess so far as her
bearing and manners went. She was dressed in soft black satin which did
not rustle or assert itself, but hung in long sweeping folds, here and
there broken in outline by feathery touches of lace. Her dark hair was
still perfect in color and texture. Indeed, she was still under forty,
and the prime of her beauty scarcely impaired. There was a little fitful
color on her cheek, though she was usually pale, and her eyes had a kind
of feverish, suspicious brightness like sentinels on the watch for
danger signals. Yet she came in without hurry, with a smile from one to
another of the group of gentlemen, none of whom showed, whatever they
may have felt, any emotion. John Trevanion, still blank and quiet
against the firelight; the doctor, though he lifted his eyes
momentarily, still dropping through his hands, back and forwards, the
sliding, smooth surfaces of the cards. From the dimness in the
background Hamerton’s young face shone out with a sort of Medusa look of
horror and pain, but he was so far out of the group that he attracted no
notice. Mrs. Trevanion made no immediate reply to her husband. She
advanced into the room, Rosalind following her like a shadow. “I am
sorry,” she said calmly, “to be late: have you not begun your rubber? I
knew there were enough without me.”
“There’s never enough without you,” her husband answered roughly; “you
know that as well as I do. If there were twice enough, what has that to
do with it? You know my play, which is just the one thing you do know.
If a man can’t have his wife to make up his game, what is the use of a
wife at all? And this is not the first time, Madam; by Jove, not the
first time by a dozen. Can’t you take another time for your nap, or your
nursery, or whatever it is? I don’t believe a word of the nursery. It is
something you don’t choose to have known, it is some of your low--”
“Rosalind, your father has no footstool,” said Mrs. Trevanion. She
maintained her calm unmoved. “There are some fresh cards, doctor, in the
little cabinet.”
“And how the devil,” cried the invalid, in his sharp tones, “can I have
my footstool, or clean cards, or anything I want when you are
away--systematically away? I believe you do it on purpose to set up a
right--to put me out in every way, that goes without saying, that
everybody knows, is the object of your life.”
Still she did not utter a word of apology, but stooped and found the
footstool, which she placed at her husband’s feet. “This is the one that
suits you best,” she said. “Come, John, if I am the culprit, let us lose
no more time.”
Mr. Trevanion kicked the footstool away. “D’ye think I am going to be
smoothed down so easily?” he cried. “Oh, yes, as soon as Madam pleases,
that is the time for everything. I shall not play. You can amuse
yourselves if you please, gentlemen, at Mrs. Trevanion’s leisure, when
she can find time to pay a little attention to her guests. Give me those
newspapers, Rosalind. Oh, play, play! by all means play! don’t let me
interrupt your amusement. A little more neglect, what does that matter?
I hope I am used to-- Heaven above! they are not cut up. What is that
rascal Dorrington about? What is the use of a pack of idle servants?
never looked after as they ought to be; encouraged, indeed, to neglect
and ill-use the master that feeds them. What can you expect? With a
mistress who is shut up half her time, or out of the way or--What’s
that? what’s that?”
It was a singular thing enough, and this sudden exclamation called all
eyes to it. Mrs. Trevanion, who had risen when her husband kicked his
footstool in her face, and, turning round, had taken a few steps across
the room, stopped with a slight start, which perhaps betrayed some alarm
in her, and looked back. The train of her dress was sweeping over the
hearthrug, and there in the full light, twisted into her lace, and
clinging to her dress, was a long, straggling, thorny branch, all wet
with the damp of night. Involuntarily they were all gazing-- John
Trevanion looking down gravely at this strange piece of evidence which
was close to his feet; the doctor, with the cards in his hand, half
risen from his seat stooping across the table to see; while Rosalind,
throwing herself down, had already begun to detach it with hands that
trembled.
“Oh, mamma!” cried the girl, with a laugh which sounded wild, “how
careless, how horrid of Jane! Here is a thorn that caught in your dress
the last time you wore it; and she has folded it up in your train, and
never noticed. Papa is right, the servants are--”
“Hold your tongue, Rose,” said Mr. Trevanion, with an angry chuckle of
satisfaction; “let alone! So, Madam, this is why we have to wait for
everything; this is why the place is left to itself; and I--I--the
master and owner, neglected. Good heavens above! while the lady of the
house wanders in the woods in a November night. With whom, Madam? With
whom?” he raised himself like a skeleton, his fiery eyes blazing out of
their sockets. “With whom, I ask you? Here, gentlemen, you are
witnesses; this is more serious than I thought. I knew my wishes were
disregarded, that my convenience was set at naught, that the very
comforts that are essential to my life were neglected, but I did not
think I was betrayed. With whom, Madam? Answer! I demand his name.”
“Reginald,” said John Trevanion, “for God’s sake don’t let us have
another scene. You may think what you please, but we know all that is
nonsense. Neglected! Why she makes herself your slave. If the other is
as true as that! Doctor, can’t you put a stop to it? He’ll kill
himself--and her.”
“Her! oh, she’s strong enough,” cried the invalid. “I have had my
suspicions before, but I have never uttered them. Ah, Madam! you thought
you were too clever for me. A sick man, unable to stir out of the house,
the very person, of course, to be deceived. But the sick man has his
defenders. Providence is on his side. You throw dust in the eyes of
these men; but I know you; I know what I took you from; I’ve known all
along what you were capable of. Who was it? Heaven above! down, down on
your knees, and tell me his name.”
Mrs. Trevanion was perfectly calm, too calm, perhaps, for the
unconsciousness of innocence; and she was also deadly pale. “So far as
the evidence goes,” she said quietly, “I do not deny it. It has not been
folded up in my train, my kind Rosalind. I have been out of doors;
though the night, as you see, is not tempting; and what then?”
She turned round upon them with a faint smile, and took the branch out
of Rosalind’s hand. “You see it is all wet,” she said, “there is no
deception in it. I have been out in the park, on the edge of the woods.
Look, I did not stop even to change my shoes, they are wet too. And what
then?”
“One thing,” cried the doctor, “that you must change them directly,
before another word is said. This comes in my department, at least. We
don’t want to have you laid up with congestion of the lungs. Miss
Rosalind, take your mamma away, and make her, as we say in Scotland,
change her feet.”
“Let her go altogether, if she pleases,” said the invalid; “I want to
see no more of her. In the park, in the woods--do you hear her,
gentlemen? What does a woman want in the woods in a winter night? Let
her have congestion of the lungs, it will save disgrace to the family.
For, mark my words, I will follow this out. I will trace it to the
foundation. Night after night she has done it. Oh, you think I don’t
know? She has done it again and again. She has been shameless; she has
outraged the very house where-- Do you hear, woman? Who is it? My God! a
groom, or some low fellow--”
The doctor grasped his arm with a hand that thrilled with indignation as
well as professional zeal, while John Trevanion started forward with a
sudden flush and menace--
“If you don’t respect your wife, for God’s sake think of the girl--your
own child! If it were not for their sakes I should not spend another
night under this roof--”
“Spend your night where you please,” said the infuriated husband,
struggling against the doctor’s attempt to draw him back into his chair.
“If I respect her? No, I don’t respect her. I respect nobody that
ill-uses me. Get out of the way, Rosalind! I tell you I’ll turn out that
woman. I’ll disgrace her. I’ll show what she’s made of. She’s thrown
dust in all your eyes, but never in mine. No, Madam, never in mine;
you’ve forgotten, I suppose, what you were when I took you and married
you, like a fool--but I’ve never forgotten; and now to break out at your
age? Who do you suppose can care for you at your age? It is for what he
can get, the villain, that he comes over an old hag like you. Oh, women,
women! that’s what women are. Turn out on a winter’s night to philander
in the woods with some one, some--”
He stopped, incapable of more, and fell back in his chair, and glared
and foamed insults with his bloodless lips which he had not breath to
speak.
Mrs. Trevanion stood perfectly still while all this was going on. Her
face showed by its sudden contraction when the grosser accusations told,
but otherwise she made no movement. She held the long, dangling branch
in her hand, and looked at it with a sort of half-smile. It was so small
a matter to produce so much--and yet it was not a small matter. Was it
the hand of fate! Was it Providence, as he said, that was on his side!
But she did not say another word in self-defence. It was evident that it
was her habit to stand thus, and let the storm beat. Her calm was the
resignation of long usage, the sense that it was beyond remedy, that the
only thing she could do was to endure. And yet the accusations of this
evening were new, and there was something new in the contemplative way
in which she regarded this piece of evidence which had convicted her.
Hitherto the worst accusations that had rained upon her had been without
evidence, without possibility--and everybody had been aware that it was
so. Now there was something new. When she had borne vituperation almost
as violent for her neglect, for her indifference, sometimes for her
cruelty, the wrong had been too clear for any doubt. But now: never
before had there even been anything to explain. But the bramble was a
thing that demanded explanation. Even John Trevanion, the just and kind,
had shown a gleam of surprise when he caught sight of it. The good
doctor, who was entirely on her side, had given her a startled look.
Rosalind, her child, had put forth a hesitating plea--a little lie for
her. All this went to her heart with a wringing of pain, as if her very
heart had been crushed with some sudden pressure. But the habit of
endurance was unbroken even by these secret and novel pangs. She did not
even meet the eyes directed to her with any attempt at self-defence. But
yet the position was novel; and standing still in her old panoply of
patience, she felt it to be so, and that former expedients were
inadequate to the occasion. For the first time it would have better
become her to speak. But what? She had nothing to say.
The scene ended as such scenes almost invariably ended here--in an
attack of those spasms which were wearing Mr. Trevanion’s life away. The
first symptoms changed in a moment the aspect of his wife. She put down
the guilty bramble and betook herself at once to her oft-repeated,
well-understood duty. The room was cleared of all the spectators, even
Rosalind was sent away. It was an experience with which the house was
well acquainted. Mrs. Trevanion’s maid came noiselessly and swift at the
sound of a bell, with everything that was needed; and the wife, so
angrily vituperated and insulted, became in a moment the devoted nurse,
with nothing in her mind save the care of the patient who lay helpless
in her hands. The doctor sat by with his finger on the fluttering
pulse--while she, now fanning, now bathing his forehead, following every
variation and indication of the attack, fulfilled her arduous duties. It
did not seem to cross her mind that anything had passed which could
slacken her vigilance or make her reluctant to fulfil those
all-absorbing duties; neither when the patient began to moan did there
seem any consciousness in him that the circumstances were anyhow
changed. He began to scold in broken terms almost before he had
recovered consciousness, demanding to know why he was there, what they
were doing to him, what was the occasion of the appliances they had been
using. “I’m all right,” he stammered, before he could speak, pushing
away the fan she was using. “You want to kill me. Don’t let her kill me,
doctor; take that confounded thing away. I’m--I’m--all right; I--I want
to get to bed. You are keeping me out of bed, on purpose--to kill me!”
he cried with a new outburst. “That is all right; he’ll do now,” said
the doctor, cheerfully. “Wait a moment, and we’ll get you to bed--” The
peaceful room had changed in the most curious way while all these rapid
changes had gone on. The very home of tranquillity at first, then a
stage of dramatic incident and passion, now a scene in which feeble life
was struggling with the grip of death at its throat. Presently all this
commotion and movement was over, and the palpitations of human existence
swept away, leaving, indeed, a little disorder in the surroundings; a
cushion thrown about, a corner of the carpet turned up, a tray with
water-bottles and essences on the table: but nothing more to mark the
struggle, the conflicts which had been, the suffering and misery. Yes;
one thing more: the long trail of bramble on another table, which was
the most fatal symbol of all.
When everything was quiet young Hamerton, with a pale face, came out of
the conservatory. He had again retreated there when Mrs. Trevanion came
in, and the husband had begun to rage. It pained him to be a party to
it; to listen to all the abuse poured upon her was intolerable. But what
was more intolerable still was to remember what he had seen. That woman,
standing so pale and calm, replying nothing, bearing every insult with a
nobleness which would have become a saint. But, oh heavens! was it her
he had seen--her--under shelter of the night? The young man was generous
and innocent, and his heart was sick with this miserable knowledge. He
was in her secret. God help her! Surely she had excuse enough; but what
is to become of life or womanhood when such a woman requires an excuse
at all?