“Have you ever noticed in your walks, doctor, a young fellow?--you
couldn’t but remark him--a sort of _primo tenore_, big eyed, pale
faced--”
“All pulmonary,” said Dr. Beaton. “I know the man you mean. He has been
hanging about for a month, more or less, with no visible object. To tell
the truth--”
John Trevanion raised his hand instinctively. “I find,” he said,
interrupting with a hurried precaution, “that he has been in hiding for
some offence, and men have come after him here because of an envelope
with the Highcourt stamp--”
Here Dr. Beaton began, with a face of regret, yet satisfaction, to nod
his head, with that offensive air of “I knew it all the time,” which is
more exasperating than any other form of remark.
“The Highcourt stamp,” continued Trevanion, peremptorily, “and a
direction written in my poor brother’s hand.”
“In your brother’s hand!”
“I thought I should surprise you,” John said, with a grim satisfaction.
“I suppose it is according to the rules of the profession that so much
time should have been let slip. I am very glad of it, for my part.
Whatever Reginald can have had to do with the fellow--something
accidental, no doubt--it would have been disagreeable to have his name
mixed up-- I saw the man myself trying to make himself agreeable to
Rosalind.”
“To Miss Trevanion?” cried the doctor, with evident dismay. “Why, I
thought--”
“Oh, it was a very simple matter,” said John, interrupting again. “He
laid down some planks for her to cross the floods. And the recompense
she gave him was to doubt whether he was a gentleman, because he had
paid her a compliment--which I must say struck me as a very modest
attempt at a compliment.”
“It was a tremendous piece of presumption,” said the doctor, with Scotch
warmth. “I don’t doubt Miss Rosalind’s instinct was right, and that he
was no gentleman. He had not the air of it, in my opinion--a limp,
hollow-eyed, phthisical subject.”
“But consumption does not spare even the cream of society, doctor. It
appears he must have had warning of the coming danger, for he seems to
have got away.”
“I thought as much!” said Dr. Beaton. “I never expected to see more of
him after-- Oh, I thought as much!”
John Trevanion eyed the doctor with a look that was almost threatening,
but he said nothing more. Dr. Beaton, too, was on the eve of departure;
his occupation was gone, and his _tête-à-tête_ with John Trevanion not
very agreeable to either of them. But the parting was friendly on all
sides. “The doctor do express himself very nicely,” Dorrington said,
when he joined the company in the housekeeper’s room, after having
solemnly served the two gentlemen at dinner, “about his stay having been
agreeable and all that--just what a gentleman ought to say. There are
medical men of all kinds, just as there are persons of all sorts in
domestic service; and the doctor, he’s one of the right sort.”
“And a comfort, whatever ailed one, to know there was a doctor in the
house, and as you’d be right done by,” the housekeeper said, which was
the general view in the servants’ hall. These regions were, as may be
supposed, deeply agitated. Russell, one of the most important among
them, had been sent forth weeping and vituperating, and the sudden
departure of the family had left the household free to make every
commentary, possible and impossible. Needless to say that Madam’s
disappearance had but one explanation among them. In all circles the
question would have been so decided by the majority; in the servants’
hall there was unanimity; no one was bold enough to make a different
suggestion, and had it been made it would have been laughed to scorn.
There were various stories told about her supposed lover, and several
different suppositions current. Gentlemen of different appearances had
been seen about the park by different spectators, and men in careful
disguises had even been admitted into the house, some were certain. That
new man who came to wind the clocks! Why should a new man have been
sent? And he had white hands, altogether unlike the hands of one who
worked for his living. The young man who had lived at the Red Lion was
not left out of the suspicions of the house, but he had not so important
a place there as he had in the mind, for example, of Dr. Beaton, who
had, with grief and pain, but now not without a certain satisfaction,
concluded upon his identity. The buzz and talk, and the whirl of
suppositions and real or imaginary evidence, made a sort of
reverberation through the house. Now and then, when doors were open and
the household off their guard, which, occurred not unfrequently in the
extraordinary calm and leisure, the sounds of the eager voices were
heard even as far as the library, in which John Trevanion sat with his
papers, and sometimes elicited from him a furious message full of
bitterness and wrath. “Can’t you keep your subordinates quiet and your
doors shut,” he said to Dorrington, “instead of leaving them to disturb
me with their infernal clatter and gossip?” “I will see to it, sir,”
said Dorrington, with dignity; “but as for what goes on in the servants’
’all, I ’ear it only as you ’ear it yourself, sir.” John bade the
over-fine butler to go to--a personage who need not be named, to whom
very fine persons go; and went on with his papers with a consciousness
of all that was being said, the flutter of endless talk which before now
must have blown abroad over all the country, and the false conclusions
that would be formed. He could not publish her letter in the same
way--her letter, which said so much yet so little, which did not, alas,
explain anything. She had accepted the burden, fully knowing what it
was, not deceiving herself as to anything that was to follow; but in
such a case the first sufferer is scarcely so much to be pitied as the
succeeding victims, who have all the misery of seeing the martyr
misconstrued and their own faith laughed at. There were times indeed
when John Trevanion was not himself sure that he had any faith, and felt
himself incapable of striving any longer with the weight of probability
against her which she had never attempted to remove or explain.
He went through all the late Mr. Trevanion’s papers without finding any
light on the subject of his connection with Everard, or which could
explain the fact of his letter to that person. Several letters from his
bankers referred indeed to the payment of money at Liverpool, which was
where the offender had lived, but this was too faint a light to be
calculated upon. As the days went on, order came to a certain degree out
of the confusion in John Trevanion’s mind. To be suddenly turned out of
the easy existence of a London bachelor about town, with his cosey
chambers and luxurious club, and made to assume the head and charge of a
family so tragically abandoned, was an extraordinary effort for any man.
It was a thing, could he have known it beforehand, which would have made
him fly to the uttermost parts of the earth to avoid such a charge; but
to have no choice simplifies matters, and the mind habituates itself
instinctively to what it is compelled to do. He decided, after much
thought, that it was better the family should not return to Highcourt.
In the changed circumstances, and deprived of maternal care and
protection as they were, no woman about them more experienced than
Rosalind, their return could not be otherwise than painful and
embarrassing. He decided that they should remain with their aunt, having
absolute confidence in her delighted acceptance of their guardianship.
Sophy, indeed, was quite incapable of such a charge, but they had
Rosalind, and they had the ordinary traditions by which such families
are guided. They would, he thought, come to no harm. Mrs. Lennox lived
in the neighborhood of Clifton, far enough off to avoid any great or
general knowledge of the family tragedy. The majority of the servants
were consequently dismissed, and Highcourt, with its windows all closed
and its chimneys all but smokeless, fell back into silence, and stood
amid its park and fine trees, a habitation of the dead.
It was not until he had done this that John Trevanion carried her
stepmother’s letter to Rosalind. He had a very agitating interview with
her on the day of his arrival at the Limes, which was the suburban
appellation of Sophy’s house. He had to bear the artillery of anxious
looks during dinner, and to avoid as he could his sister’s questions,
which were not over wise, as to what he had heard, and what he thought,
and what people were saying; and it was not till the evening, when the
children were disposed of, and Sophy herself had retired, that Rosalind,
putting her hand within his arm, drew him to the small library, in which
Mrs. Lennox allowed the gentlemen to “make themselves comfortable,” as
she said, tolerating tobacco. “I know you have something to say to me,
Uncle John--something that you could not say before--them all.”
“Little to say, but something to give you, Rosalind.” She recognized her
stepmother’s handwriting in a moment, though it was, as we have said,
little remarkable, and with a cry of agitated pleasure threw herself
upon it. It was a bulky letter, not like that which he had himself
received, but when it was opened was found to contain a long and
particular code of directions about the children, and only a small
accompanying note. This Rosalind read with an eagerness which made her
cheeks glow.
“My Rosalind, I am sometimes glad to think now that you are not
mine, and never can have it said to you that your mother is not--as
other mothers are. Sophy and little Amy are not so fortunate. You
must make it up to them, my darling, by being everything to
them--better than I could have been. And when people see what you
are they will forget me.
“That is not to say, my dearest, that you are to give up your faith
in me. For the moment all is darkness--perhaps will always be
darkness, all my life. There are cases that may occur in which I
shall be able to tell you everything, but what would that matter so
long as your father’s prohibition stands? My heart grows sick when
I think that in no case-- But we will not dwell upon that. My own
(though you are not my own), remember me, love me. I am no more
unworthy of it than other women are. I have written down all I can
think of about the children. You will no doubt have dismissed
Russell, but after a time I almost think she should be taken back,
for she loves the children. She always hated me, but she loves
them. If you can persuade yourself to do it, take her back. Love is
too precious to be lost. I am going away from you all very quietly,
not permitting myself to reflect. When you think of me, believe
that I am doing all I can to live--to live long enough to see my
children again. My darling, my own child, I will not say good-bye
to you, but only God bless you; and till we meet again,
“Your true MOTHER AND FRIEND.”
“My true mother,” Rosalind said, with the tears in her eyes, “my dearest
friend! Oh, Uncle John, was there ever any such misery before? Was it
ever so with any woman? Were children ever made wretched like this, and
forced to suffer? And why should it fall to our share?”
John Trevanion shook his head, pondering over the letter, and over the
long, perfectly calm, most minute, and detailed instructions which
accompanied it. There was nothing left out or forgotten in these
instructions. She must have spent the night in putting down every little
detail, the smallest as well as the greatest. The writing of the letter
to Rosalind showed a little trembling; a tear had fallen on it at one
spot; but the longer paper showed nothing of the kind. It was as clear
and steady as the many manuscripts from the same hand which he had
looked over among his brother’s papers; statements of financial
operations, of farming, of improvements. She had put down all the
necessary precautions to be taken for her children in the same way,
noting all their peculiarities, for the guidance of the young sister who
was hereafter to have the charge of them. This document filled the man
with the utmost wonder. Rosalind took it a great deal more easily. To
her it was natural that her mother should give these instructions; they
were of the highest importance to herself in her novel position, and she
understood perfectly that Madam would be aware of the need of them, and
that to make some provision for that need would be one of the first
things to occur to her. But John Trevanion contemplated the paper from a
very different point of view. That a woman so outraged and insulted as
(if she were innocent) she must feel herself to be, should pause on the
eve of her departure from everything dear to her, from honor and
consideration, her home and her place among her peers, to write about
Johnny’s tendency to croup and Amy’s readiness to catch cold, was to him
more marvellous than almost anything that had gone before. He lingered
over it, reading mechanically all those simple directions. A woman at
peace, he thought, might have done it, one who knew no trouble more
profound than a child’s cough or chilblains. But this woman--in the
moment of her anguish--before she disappeared into the darkness of the
distant world! “I do not understand it at all,” he said as he put it
down.
“Oh,” cried Rosalind, “who could understand it? I think papa must have
been mad. Are not bad wills sometimes broken, Uncle John?”
“Not such a will as this. He had a right to leave his money as he
pleased.”
“But if we were all to join--if we were to show the mistake, the
dreadful mistake, he had made--”
“What mistake? You could prove that your stepmother was no common woman,
Rosalind. A thing like this is astounding to me. I don’t know how she
could do it. You might prove that she had the power to make fools of you
and me. But you could prove nothing more, my dear. Your father knew
something more than we know. It might be no mistake; he might have very
good reason. Even this letter, though it makes you cry, explains
nothing, Rosalind.”
“I want nothing explained,” cried the girl. “Do you think I have any
doubt of _her_? I could not bear that she should explain--as if I did
not know what she is! But, Uncle John, let us all go together to the
judge that can do it, and tell him everything, and get him to break the
will.”
“The judge who can do that is not to be found in Westminster, Rosalind.
It must be one that sees into the heart. I believe in her too--without
any reason--but to take it to law would only be to make our domestic
misery a little better known.”
Rosalind looked at him with large eyes full of light and excitement. She
felt strong enough to defy the world. “Do you mean to say that, whatever
happens, though we could prove what we know of her, that she is the
best--the best woman in the world--”
“Were she as pure as ice, as chaste as snow, there is nothing to be
done. Your father does not say, because of this or that. What he says is
absolute. If she continue with the children, or in communication with
them, they lose everything.”
“Then let us lose everything,” cried Rosalind in her excitement; “rather
be poor and work for our bread, than lose our mother.”
John Trevanion shook his head. “She has already chosen,” he said.