“To whom were you talking, Rosalind?”
“To--nobody, Uncle John!” she said, in her surprise at the sudden
question which came over her shoulder, and, turning round, waited till
he joined her. She had changed her mind and come back after she had
crossed the water upon the impromptu bridge, with a half apprehension
that her new acquaintance intended to accompany her to the village, and
had, to tell the truth, walked rather quickly to the park gates.
“But I met the man--a young fellow--whose appearance I don’t know.”
“Oh! I don’t know who it was either; a gentleman; at least, I suppose he
was a gentleman.”
“And yet you doubt. What cause had you to doubt?”
“Well, Uncle John, his voice was nice enough, and what he said. The only
thing was, he paid me a sort of a--compliment.”
“What was that?” said John Trevanion, quickly.
“Oh, nothing,” said Rosalind, inconsistently. “When I said I was sorry
he had taken the trouble, he said, ‘Oh, if it was any trouble it was
repaid.’ Nothing at all! Only a gentleman would not have said that to a
girl who was--alone.”
“That is true; but it was not very much after all. Fashions change. A
few generations ago it would have been the right thing.” Then he dropped
the subject as a matter without importance, and drew his niece’s arm
within his own. “Rosie,” he said, “I am afraid we shall have to face the
future, you and I. What are we to do?”
“Are things so very bad, Uncle John?” she cried, and the tears came
welling up into her eyes as she raised them to his face.
“Very bad, I fear. This last attack has done him a great deal of harm,
more than any of the others; perhaps, because, as the doctor says, the
pace is quicker as he gets near the end, perhaps because he is still as
angry as ever, though he is not able to give it vent. I wonder if such
fury may not have some adequate cause.”
“Oh, Uncle John!” Rosalind cried; she clasped her hands upon his arm,
looking up at him through her tears. He knew what was the meaning in her
tone, though it was a meaning very hard to put into words. A child
cannot say of her father when he is dying that his fury has often been
without any adequate cause.
“I know,” he said, “and I acknowledge that no one could have a more
devoted nurse. But whether there have not been concealments, clandestine
acts, things he has a right to find fault with--”
“Even I,” said Rosalind, hastily, “and I have nothing to hide--even I
have had to make secrets from papa.”
“That is the penalty, of course, of a temper so passionate. But she
should not have let you do so, Rosalind.”
“It was not she. You think everything is her fault; oh, how mistaken you
are! My mother and I,” cried the girl, impetuously, “have no secrets
from each other.”
John Trevanion looked into the young, ingenuous countenance with
anxiety: “Then, Rosalind,” he said, “where is it that she goes? Why does
she go out at that hour of all others, in the dark? Whom does she meet?
If you know all this, I think there cannot be another word to say; for
nothing that is not innocent would be intrusted to you.”
Rosalind was silent. She ceased to look at him, and even withdrew her
clasping hands from his arm.
“You have nothing to say? There it is: she has no secrets from you, and
yet you can throw no light on this one secret. I have always had a great
admiration and respect for your stepmother, Rosalind.”
“I wish you would not call her my stepmother! It hurts me. What other
mother have I ever known?”
“My dear, your love for her is a defence in itself. But, Rosalind,
forgive me, there is some complication here. If she will not explain,
what are we to do? A mystery is always a sign of something wrong; at
least, it must be taken for something wrong if it remains unexplained. I
am, I hope, without passion or prejudice. She might have confided in
me--”
“If there was anything to confide,” Rosalind said under her breath. But
he went on.
“And now your father has sent for his lawyer--to do something, to change
something. I can’t tell what he means to do, but it will be trouble in
any case. And you, Rosalind--I said so before, you--must not stay here.”
“If you mean that I am to leave my mother, Uncle John--”
“Hush! not your mother. My dear, you must allow others to judge for you
here. Had you been her child it would have been different: but we must
take thought for your best interests. Who is that driving in at the
gate? Why, it is Blake already. I wonder if a second summons has been
sent. He was not expected till to-morrow. This looks worse and worse,
Rosalind.”
“Uncle John, if you will let me, I will run in another way. I--don’t
wish to meet Mr. Blake.”
“Hallo, Rosalind! you don’t mean to say that Charley Blake has ever
presumed-- Ah! this comes of not having a mother’s care.”
“It is nothing of the kind,” she cried, drawing her hand violently from
his arm. “He hates her because she never would-- Oh, how can you be so
cruel, so prejudiced, so unjust?” In her vehemence Rosalind pushed him
away from her with a force which made his steady, middle-aged figure
almost swerve, and darted across the park away from him just in time to
make it evident to Mr. Blake, driving his dog-cart quickly to make up to
the group in advance, that it was to avoid him Miss Trevanion had fled.
“How is he?” was the eager question he put as he came up to John
Trevanion. “I hope I am not too late.”
“For what? If it is my brother you mean, I hear he is a little better,”
said John, coldly.
“Then I suppose it is only one of his attacks,” the new-comer said, with
a slight tone of disappointment; not that he had any interest in the
death of Mr. Trevanion, but that the fall from the excitement of a great
crisis to the level of the ordinary is always disagreeable. “I thought
from the telegram this morning there was no time to lose.”
“Who sent you the telegram this morning?”
“Madam Trevanion, of course,” said the young man.
This reply took John Trevanion so much by surprise that he went on
without a word.
She knew very well what Blake’s visit portended to herself. But what a
strange, philosophical stoic was this woman, who did not hesitate
herself to summon, to hasten, lest he should lose the moment in which
she could still be injured, the executioner of her fate. A sort of awe
came over John. He begun to blame himself for his miserable doubts of
such a woman. There was something in this silent impassioned performance
of everything demanded from her that impressed the imagination. After a
few minutes’ slow pacing along, restraining his horse, Blake threw the
reins to his groom, and, jumping down, walked on by John Trevanion’s
side.
“I suppose there is no such alarming hurry, then,” he said. “Of course
you know what’s up now?”
“If you mean what are my brother’s intentions, I know nothing about
them,” John said.
“No more do I. I can’t think what he’s got in his mind; though we have
been very confidential over it all.” Mr. Blake elder was an
old-fashioned and polite old gentleman, but his son belonged to another
world, and pushed his way by means of a good deal of assurance and no
regard to any one’s feelings. “It would be a great assistance to me,” he
said, “if he’s going to tamper with that will again, to know how the
land lies. What is wrong? There must have been, by all I hear, a great
flare-up.”
“Will you remember, Blake, that you are speaking of my brother’s
affairs? We are not in the habit of having flares-up here.”
“I mean no offence,” said the other. “It’s a lie, then, that is flying
about the country.”
“What is flying about the country? If it is about a flare-up you may be
sure it is a lie.”
“I don’t stand upon the word,” said Blake. “I thought I might speak
frankly to you. Rumors are flying everywhere--that Mr. Trevanion is out
of one fit into another--dying of it--and that Madam--”
“What of Madam?” said John Trevanion, firmly.
“I have myself the greatest respect for Mrs. Trevanion,” said the
lawyer, making a sudden pause.
“You would be a bold man if you expressed any other sentiment here; but
rumor has not the same reverential and perfectly just feeling, I
suppose. What has it ventured to say of my sister?”
John Trevanion, with all his gravity, was very impulsive; and the sense
that her secret, whatever it was, had been betrayed, bound him at once
to her defence. He had probably never called her his sister before.
“Of course it is all talk,” said Blake. “I dare say the story means
nothing; but knowing as I do so much about the state of affairs
generally--a lawyer, you know, like a doctor, and people used to say a
clergyman--”
“Is bound to hold his tongue, is he not?” John Trevanion said.
“Oh, as for that, a member of the family is not like a stranger. I took
it for granted you would naturally be on the injured husband’s side.”
“Mr. Blake,” said John, “you make assumptions which would be intolerable
even to a stranger, and to a brother and friend, understanding the whole
matter, I hope, a little better than you do, they are not less so, but
more. Look here; a lawyer has this advantage, that he is sometimes able
to calm the disordered fancy of a sick man, and put things in a better
light. Take care what you do. Don’t let the last act of his life be an
injustice if you can help it. Your father--if your father were here--”
“Would inspire Mr. John Trevanion with more confidence,” said the other,
with a suppressed sneer. “It is unfortunate, but that is not your
brother’s opinion. He has preferred the younger man, as some do.”
“I hope you will justify his choice,” said John Trevanion, gravely. “It
is a great responsibility. To make serious changes in a moment of
passion is always dangerous--and, remember, my brother will in all
probability have no time to repent.”
“The responsibility will be Mr. Trevanion’s, not mine,” said Blake. “You
should warn him, not me. His brother must have more constant access to
him than even his family lawyer, and is in a better position. I am here
to execute his wishes; that is all that I have to do with it.”
John Trevanion bowed without a word. It was true enough. The elder Blake
would perhaps have been of still less use in stemming the passionate
tide of the sick man’s fury, but at least he would have struggled
against it. They walked up to the house almost without exchanging
another word. In the hall they were met by Madam Trevanion, upon whom
the constant watching had begun to tell. Her eyes were red, and there
were deep lines under them. All the lines of her face were drawn and
haggard. She met the new-comer with an anxious welcome, as if he had
been a messenger of good and not of evil.
“I am very glad you have come, Mr. Blake. Thank you for being so prompt.
My husband perhaps, after he has seen you, will be calmer and able to
rest. Will you come to his room at once?”
If he had been about to secure her a fortune she could not have been
more anxious to introduce him. She came back to the hall after she had
led him to Mr. Trevanion’s room.
“I am restless,” she said; “I cannot be still. Do you know, for the
first time he has sent me away. He will not have me with him. Before,
whatever he might have against me was forgotten when he needed me. God
grant that this interview he is so anxious for may compose him and put
things on their old footing.”
Perhaps it was only her agitation and distress, but as she spoke the
tears came and choked her voice. John Trevanion came up to her, and
laying his hands upon her shoulders gazed into her face.
“Grace,” he said, “is it possible that you can be sincere?”
“Sincere!” she cried, looking at him with a strange incomprehension. She
had no room in her mind for metaphysical questions, and she was
impatient of them at such a crisis of fate.
“Yes, sincere. You know that man has come for some evil purpose.
Whatever they say or do together it will be to your hurt, you know; and
yet you hasten his coming, and tell him you are glad when he arrives--”
“And you think it must be false? No, it is not false, John,” she said,
with a faint smile. “So long as he does it and gets it off his mind,
what is it to me? Do you know that he is perhaps dying? I have nursed
him and been the only one that he would have near him for years. Do you
think I care what happens after? But I cannot bear to be put out of my
own place now.”
“Your own place! to bear all his caprices and abuse!”
“My own place, by my husband’s bedside,” she said with tears. “When he
has done whatever he wants to do his mind will be relieved. And I can do
more for him than any one. He shortens his own life when he sends me
away.”