Russell left Highcourt in such wild commotion of mind and temper, such
rage, grief, compunction, and pain, that she was incapable of any real
perception of what had happened, and did not realise, until the damp air
blowing in her face as she hurried across the park, sobbing and crying
aloud, and scarcely able to keep herself from screaming, brought back
her scattered faculties, either what it was that she had been
instrumental in doing, or what she had brought upon herself. She did not
now understand what it was that had happened to Madam, though she had a
kind of vindictive joy, mingled with that sinking of the heart which
those not altogether hardened to human suffering feel in regarding a
catastrophe brought about by their means, in the thought that she had
brought illimitable, irremediable harm to her mistress, whom she had
always hated. She had done this whatever might come of it, and even in
the thrill of her nerves that owned a human horror of this calamity,
there was a fierce exhilaration of success in having triumphed over her
enemy. But perhaps she had never wished, never thought, of so complete a
triumph. The desire of revenge, which springs so naturally in the
undisciplined mind, and is so hot and reckless in its efforts to harm
its object, has most generally no fixed intention, but only a vague wish
to injure, or, rather, punish; for Russell, to her own consciousness,
was inspired by the highest moral sentiment, and meant only to bring
retribution on the wicked and to open the eyes of a man who was
deceived. She did not understand what had really occurred, but the fact
that she had ruined her mistress was at the same time terrible and
delightful to her. She did not mean so much as that; but no doubt Madam
had been found out more wicked than was supposed, and her heart swelled
with pride and a gratified sense of importance even while she trembled.
But the consequences to herself were such as she had never foreseen, and
for the moment overwhelmed her altogether. She wept hysterically as she
hurried to the village, stumbling over the inequalities of the path,
wild with sorrow and anger. She had meant to remain in Madam’s service,
though she had done all she could to destroy her. She thought nothing
less than that life would go on without much visible alteration, and
that she herself, because there was nobody like her, would necessarily
remain with the children to whom her care was indispensable. She had
brought them all up from their birth. She had devoted herself to them,
and felt her right in them almost greater than their mother’s. “My
children,” she said, as the butler said “my plate,” and the housemaid
“my grates and carpets.” She spent her whole life with them, whereas it
is only a part of hers that the most devoted mother can give. The woman,
though she was cruel and hard-hearted in one particular, was in this as
tender and sensitive as the most gentle and feminine of women. She loved
the children with passion. The idea that they could be torn away from
her had never entered her mind. What would they do without her? The two
little ones were delicate: they required constant care; without her own
attention she felt sure they never could be “reared:” and to be driven
from them at a moment’s notice, without time to say good-bye! Sobs came
from her breast, convulsive and hysterical, as she rushed along. “Oh, my
children!” she cried, under her breath, as if it were she who had been
robbed, and who refused to be comforted. She passed some one on the way,
who stopped astonished, to look after her, but whom she could scarcely
see through the mist of her tears, and at last, with a great effort,
subduing the passionate sounds that had been bursting from her, she
hurried through the nearest corner of the village to her mother’s house,
and there, flinging herself down upon a chair, gave herself up to all
the violence of that half-artificial, half-involuntary transport known
as hysterics. Her mother was old, and beyond such violent emotions; but
though greatly astonished, she was not unacquainted with the
manifestation. She got up from the big chair in which she was seated,
tottering a little, and hurried to her daughter, getting hold of and
smoothing out her clinched fingers. “Dear, dear, now, what be the
matter?” she said, soothingly; “Sarah, Sarah, come and look to your poor
sister. What’s come to her, what’s come to her, the poor dear? Lord
bless us, but she do look bad. Fetch a drop of brandy, quick; that’s the
best thing to bring her round.”
When Russell had been made to swallow the brandy, and had exhausted
herself and brought her mother and sister into accord with her partial
frenzy, she permitted herself to be brought round. She sat up wildly
while still in their hands, and stared about her as if she did not know
where she was. Then she seized her mother by the arm; “I have been sent
away,” she said.
“Sent away. She’s off of her head still, poor dear! Sent away, when they
can’t move hand nor foot without you!”
“That’s not so now, mother. It’s all true. I’ve been all the same as
turned out of the house, and by her as I nursed and thought of most of
all; her as was like my very own; Miss Rosalind! Oh!” and Russell showed
inclination to “go off” again, which the assistants resisted by promptly
taking possession of her two arms, and opening the hands which she would
have clinched if she could.
“There now, deary; there now! don’t you excite yourself. You’re among
them that wishes you well here.”
“Oh, I know that, mother. But Miss Rosalind, she’s as good as taken me
by the shoulders and put me out of the house, and took my children from
me as I’ve brought up; and what am I to do without my babies? Oh, oh! I
wish I had never been born.”
“I hope you’ve got your wages and board wages, and something over to
make up? You ought to have that,” said the sister, who was a woman of
good sense. Russell, indeed, had sufficient command of herself to nod in
assent.
“And your character safe?” said the old woman. “I will say that for you,
deary, that you have always been respectable. And whatever it is that’s
happened, so long as it’s nothing again your character, you’ll get
another place fast enough. I don’t hold with staying too long in one
family. You’d just like to stick there forever.”
“Oh, don’t speak to me about new places. My children as I’ve brought up!
It has nothing to do with me; it’s all because I told master of Madam’s
goings-on. And he’s been and put her away in his will--and right too.
And Miss Rosalind, that always was unnatural, that took to that woman
more than to her aunt, or me, or any one, she jumps up to defend Madam,
and ‘go out of the house, woman!’ and stamping with her foot, and going
on like a fury. And my little Master Johnny, that would never go to
nobody but me! Oh, mother, I’ll die of it, I’ll die of it--my children
that I’ve brought up!”
“I’ve told you all,” said the old woman, “never you meddle with the
quality. It can’t come to no good.” She had given up her ministrations,
seeing that her patient had come round, and retired calmly to her chair.
“Madam’s goings-on was no concern of yours. You ought to have known
that. When a poor person puts herself in the way of a rich person, it’s
always her as goes to the wall.”
Of these maxims the mother delivered herself deliberately as she sat
twirling her thumbs. The sister, who was the mistress of the cottage,
showed a little more sympathy.
“As long as you’ve got your board wages,” she said, “and a somethin’ to
make up. Mother’s right enough, but I’ll allow as it’s hard to do.
They’re all turned topsy-turvy at the Red Lion about Madam’s young
man--him as all this business was about.”
“What’s about him?” cried Russell, for the first time with real energy
raising her head.
“It turns out as he’s robbed his masters in Liverpool,” said Sarah, with
the perfect coolness of a rustic spectator; “just what was to be
expected; and the detectives is after him. He was here yesterday, I’ll
take my oath, but now he’s gone, and there’s none can find him. There’s
a reward of--”
“I’ll find him,” cried Russell, springing to her feet. “I’ll track him.
I’m good for nothing now in a common way. I cannot rest, I cannot settle
to needlework or that sort.” She was fastening her cloak as she spoke,
and tying on her bonnet. “I’ve heaps of mending to do, for I never had a
moment’s time to think of myself, but only of them that have showed no
more gratitude-- My heart’s broke, that’s what it is-- I can’t settle
down; but here’s one thing I’m just in a humor to do-- I’ll track him
out.”
“Lord, Lizzie! what are you thinking of it? You don’t know no more than
Adam what way they’re gone, or aught about him.”
“And if you’ll take my advice, deary,” said the old woman, “you’ll
neither make nor meddle with the quality. Right or wrong, it’s always
the poor folk as go to the wall.”
“I’ll track him, that’s what I’ll do. I’m just in the humor for that,”
cried Russell, savagely. “Don’t stop me. What do I care for a bit of
money to prove as I’m right. I’ll go and I’ll find them. Providence will
put me on the right way. Providence’ll help me to find all that villainy
out.”
“But, Lizzie! stop and have a bit to eat at least. Don’t go off like
that, without even a cup of tea--”
“Oh, don’t speak to me about cups of tea!” Russell rushed at her mother
and dabbed a hurried kiss upon her old cheek. She waved her hand to her
sister, who stood open-mouthed, wondering at her, and finally rushed out
in an excitement and energy which contrasted strangely with her previous
prostration. The two rustic spectators stood gazing after her with
consternation. “She was always one as had no patience,” said the mother
at last. “And without a bit of dinner or a glass of beer, or anything,”
said Sarah. After that they returned to their occupations and closed the
cottage door.
Russell rushed forth to the railway station, which was at least a mile
from the village. She was transported out of herself with excitement,
misery, a sense of wrong, a sense of remorse--all the conflicting
passions which the crisis had brought. To prove to herself that her
suspicions were justified about Madam was in reality as strong a motive
in her mind as the fierce desire of revenge upon her mistress, which
drove her nearly frantic; and she had that wild confidence in chance,
and indifference to reason, which are at once the strength and weakness
of the uneducated. She would get on the track somehow; she would find
them somehow; Madam’s young man, and Madam herself. She would give him
up to justice, and shame the woman for whose sake she had been driven
forth. And, as it happened, Russell, taking her ticket for London, found
herself in the same carriage with the man who had come in search of the
stranger at the Red Lion, and acquired an amount of information and
communicated a degree of zeal which stimulated the search on both sides.
When they parted in town she was provided with an address to which to
telegraph instantly on finding any trace of the fugitives, and flung
herself upon the great unknown world of London with a faith and a
virulence which were equally violent. She did not know where to go nor
what to do; she had very little acquaintance with London. The Trevanions
had a town house in a street near Berkeley Square, and all that she knew
was the immediate neighborhood of that dignified centre--of all places
in the world least likely to shelter the fugitives. She went there,
however, in her helplessness, and carried consternation to the bosom of
the charwoman in charge, who took in the strange intelligence vaguely,
and gaped and hoped as it wasn’t true. “So many things is said, and few
of ’em ever comes true,” this philosophical observer said. “But I’ve
come out of the middle of it, and I know it’s true, every word,” she
almost shrieked in her excitement. The charwoman was a little hard of
hearing. “We’ll hope as it’ll all turn out lies--they mostly does,” she
said. This was but one of many rebuffs the woman met with. She had spent
more than a week wandering about London, growing haggard and thin; her
respectable clothes growing shabby, her eyes wild--the want of proper
sleep and proper food making a hollow-eyed spectre of the once smooth
and dignified upper servant--when she was unexpectedly rewarded for all
her pangs and exertions by meeting Jane one morning, sharply and
suddenly, turning round a corner. The two women paused by a mutual
impulse, and then one cried, “What are you doing here?” and the other,
grasping her firmly by the arm, “I’ve caught you at last.”
“Caught me! Were you looking for me? What do you want? Has anything
happened to the children?” Jane cried, beginning to tremble.
“The children! how dare you take their names in your mouth, you as is
helping to ruin and shame them? I’ll not let you go now I’ve got you;
oh, don’t think it! I’ll stick to you till I get a policeman.”
“A policeman to me!” cried poor Jane, who, not knowing what mysterious
powers the law might have, trembled more and more. “I’ve done nothing,”
she said.
“But them as you are with has done a deal,” cried Russell. “Where is
that young man? Oh, I know-- I know what he’s been and done. I have took
an oath on my Bible that I’ll track him out. If I’m to be driven from my
place and my dear children for Madam’s sake, she shall just pay for it,
I can tell you. You thought I’d put up with it and do nothing, but a
worm will turn. I’ve got it in my power to publish her shame, and I’ll
do it. I know a deal more than I knew when I told master of her
goings-on. But now I’ve got you I’ll stick to you, and them as you’re
with, and I’ll have my revenge,” Russell cried, her wild eyes flaming,
her haggard cheeks flushing; “I’ll have my revenge. Ah!”
She paused here with a cry of consternation, alarm, dismay, for there
stepped out of a shop hard by, Madam herself, and laid a hand suddenly
upon her arm.
“Russell,” she said, “I am sorry they have sent you away. I know you
love the children.” At this a convulsive movement passed across her
face, which sent through the trembling, awe-stricken woman a sympathetic
shudder. They were one in this deprivation, though they were enemies.
“You have always hated me, I do not know why: but you love the
children. I would not have removed you from them. I have written to Miss
Rosalind to bid her have you back when--when she is calmer. And you that
have done me so much harm, what do you want with me?” said Madam,
looking with the pathetic smile which threw such a strange light upon
her utterly pale face, upon this ignorant pursuer.
“I’ve come-- I’ve come”--she gasped, and then stood trembling, unable to
articulate, holding herself up by the grasp she had taken with such
different intentions of Jane’s arm, and gazing with her hollow eyes with
a sort of fascination upon the lady whom at last she had hunted down.
“I think she is fainting,” Madam said. “Whatever she wants, she has
outdone her strength.” There was a compassion in the tone, which, in
Russell’s weakened state, went through and through her. Her mistress
took her gently by the other arm, and led her into the shop she had just
left. Here they brought her wine and something to eat, of which she had
the greatest need. “My poor woman,” said Madam, “your search for me was
vain, for Mr. John Trevanion knows where to find me at any moment. You
have done me all the harm one woman could do another; what could you
desire more? But I forgive you for my children’s sake. Go back, and
Rosalind will take you again, because you love them; and take care of my
darlings, Russell,” she said, with that ineffable smile of anguish; “say
no ill to them of their mother.”
“Oh, Madam, kill me!” Russell cried.
That was the last that was seen in England of Madam Trevanion. The
woman, overcome with passion, remorse, and long fasting and misery,
fainted outright at her mistress’s feet. And when she came to herself
the lady and her maid were both gone, and were seen by her no more.