Thus a whole week of darkness and depression passed away.
Mr. Trevanion was a great personage in the county. It was fit that all
honor should be done him. All the greatest persons in the neighborhood
had to be convened to conduct him in due state to his other dwelling
among the marbles of the mausoleum which his fathers had built. It had
been necessary to arrange a day that would suit everybody, so that
nothing should be subtracted from this concluding grandeur; and
accordingly Highcourt remained, so to speak, in its suit of sables, with
blinds drawn down and shutters closed, as if darkness had veiled this
part of the earth. And, indeed, as it was the end of November, the face
of the sky was dim with clouds, and heavy mists gathered over the trees,
adding a deeper gloom to the shut-up house within. Life seemed to be
congealed in the silent rooms, except when broken by such an outburst of
impassioned feeling as that which John Trevanion had betrayed to
Rosalind. Perhaps this relieved him a little, but it put a burden of
vague misery upon her which her youth was quite unequal to bear. She
awaited the funeral with feverish excitement, and a terror to which she
could give no form.
The servants in a house are the only gainers on such an occasion: they
derive a kind of pleasure from such a crisis of family fate. Blinds are
not necessarily drawn down in the housekeeper’s room, and the servants’
hall is exempt from those heavier decorums which add a gloom
above-stairs; and there is a great deal to talk about in the tragedy
that is past and in the new arrangements that are to come, while all the
details of a grand funeral give more gratification to the humbler
members of the family, whose hearts are little affected, than they can
be expected to do to those more immediately concerned. There was a stir
of sombre pleasure throughout the house in preparation for the great
ceremony which was being talked of over all the county: though
Dorrington and his subordinates bore countenances more solemn than it is
possible to portray, even that solemnity was part of the gloomy
festival, and the current of life below was quickened by the many comers
and goers whose office it was to provide everything that could show
“respect” to the dead. Undertakers are not cheerful persons to think of,
but they brought with them a great deal of commotion which was far from
disagreeable, much eating and drinking, and additional activity
everywhere. New mourning liveries, dresses for the maids, a flutter of
newness and general acquisition lightened the bustle that was attendant
upon the greater event. Why should some score of people mourn because
one man of bad temper, seen perhaps once or twice a day by the majority,
by some never seen at all, had been removed from the midst of them? It
was not possible; and as everything that is out of the way is more or
less a pleasure to unembarrassed minds, there was a thrill of subdued
satisfaction, excitement, and general complacency, forming an unfit yet
not unnatural background to the gloom and anxiety above. The family
assembled at their sombre meals, where there was little conversation
kept up, and then dispersed to their rooms, to such occupations as they
could find, conversation seeming impossible. In any case a party at
table must either be cheerful--which could not be looked for--or be
silent, for such conversation as is natural while still the father lies
dead in the house is not to be maintained by a mixed company around a
common meal.
The doctor, who, of course, was one of the party, did his best to
introduce a little variety into the monotonous meetings, but John
Trevanion’s sombre countenance at the foot of the table was enough to
have silenced any man, even had not the silence of Mrs. Trevanion and
the tendency of Rosalind to sudden tears been enough to keep him in
check. Dr. Beaton, however, was Reginald’s only comfort. They kept up a
running talk, which perhaps even to the others was grateful, as covering
the general gloom. Reginald had been much subdued by hearing that he was
to return to school as soon as the funeral was over. He had found very
little sympathy with his claims anywhere, and he was very glad to fall
back upon the doctor. Indeed, if Highcourt was to be so dull as this,
Rex could not but think school was far better. “Of course, I never
meant,” he said to his sister, “to give up school--a fellow can’t do
that. It looks as if he had been sent away. And now there’s those
tiresome examinations for everything, even the Guards.”
“We shall be very dull for a long time,” said Rosalind. “How could it be
possible otherwise? But you will cheer us up when you come home for the
holidays; and, oh, Rex, you must always stand by mamma!”
“By mamma!” Rex said, with some surprise. “Why, she will be very well
off--better off than any of us.” He had not any chivalrous feeling about
his mother. Such a feeling we all think should spring up spontaneously
in a boy’s bosom, especially if he has seen his mother ill-used and
oppressed; but, as a matter of fact, this assumption is by no means to
be depended on. A boy is at least as likely to copy a father who rails
against women, and against the one woman in particular who is his wife,
as to follow a vague general rule, which he has never seen put in
practice, of respect and tender reverence for woman. Reginald had known
his mother as the doer of everything, the endurer of everything. He had
never heard that she had any weakness to be considered, and had never
contemplated the idea that she should be put upon a pedestal and
worshipped; and if he did not hit by insight of nature upon some happy
medium between the two, it was not, perhaps, his fault. In the meantime,
at all events, no sentiment on the subject inspired his boyish bosom.
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.