The Hotel Venat that night closed its doors upon many anxious and
troubled souls. A certain agitation seemed to have crept through the
house itself. The landlady was disturbed in her bureau, moving about
restlessly, giving short answers to the many inquirers who came to know
what was the matter. “What is there, do you ask?” she said, stretching
out her plump hands, “there is nothing! there is that mademoiselle, the
young _Anglaise_, has an _attaque des nerfs_. Nothing could be more
simple. The reason I know not. Is it necessary to inquire? An affair of
the heart! _Les Anglaises_ have two or three in a year. Mademoiselle has
had a disappointment. The uncle has come to interfere, and she has a
seizure. I do not blame her; it is the weapon of a young girl. What has
she else, _pauvre petite_, to avenge herself?”
“But, madame, they say that something has been seen--a ghost, a--”
“There are no ghosts in my house,” the indignant landlady said; and her
tone was so imperious and her brow so lowering that the timid
questioners scattered in all directions. The English visitors were not
quite sure what an _attaque des nerfs_ was. It was not a “nervous
attack;” it was something not to be defined by English terms. English
ladies do not have hysterics nowadays; they have neuralgia, which
answers something of the same purpose, but then neuralgia has no sort of
connection with ghosts.
In Mrs. Lennox’s sitting-room up-stairs, which was so well lighted, so
fully occupied, with large windows opening upon the garden, and white
curtains fluttering at the open windows, a very agitated group was
assembled. Mrs. Lennox was seated at a distance from the table, with her
white handkerchief in her hand, with which now and then she wiped off a
few tears. Sometimes she would throw a word into the conversation that
was going on, but for the most part confined herself to passive
remonstrances and appeals, lifting up now her hands, now her eyes, to
heaven. It was half because she was so overcome by her feelings that
Mrs. Lennox took so little share in what was going on, and half because
her brother had taken the management of this crisis off her hands. She
did not think that he showed much mastery of the situation, but she
yielded it to him with a great and consolatory consciousness that,
whatever should now happen, _she_ could not be held as the person to
blame.
Rosalind’s story was that which the reader already knows, with the
addition of another extracted from little Amy, who had one of those
wonderful tales of childish endurance and silence which seem scarcely
credible, yet occur so often, to tell. For many nights past, Amy,
clinging to her sister, with her face hidden on Rosalind’s shoulder,
declared that she had seen the same figure steal in. She had never
clearly seen the face, but the child had been certain from the first
that it was mamma. Mamma had gone to Johnny first, and then had come to
her own little bed, where she stood for a moment before she disappeared.
Johnny’s outcry had been always, Amy said, after the figure disappeared,
but she had seen it emerge from out of the dimness, and glide away, and
by degrees this mystery had become the chief incident in her life. All
this Rosalind repeated with tremulous eloquence; and excitement, as she
stood before the two elder people, on her defence.
“But I saw her, Uncle John; what argument can be so strong as that? You
have been moving about, you have not got your letters; and
perhaps--perhaps--” cried Rosalind with tears--“perhaps it has happened
only now, only to-night. A woman who was far from her children might
come and see them--and see them,” she struggled to say through her sobs,
“on her way to heaven.”
“Oh, Rosalind! it is a fortnight since it begun,” Mrs. Lennox said.
“Do people die in a moment?” cried Rosalind. “She may have been dying
all this time; and perhaps when they thought her wandering in her mind
it might be that she was here. Oh, my mother; who would watch over her,
who would be taking care of her? and me so far away!”
John Trevanion sprang from his chair. It was intolerable to sit there
and listen and feel the contagion of this excitement, which was so
irrational, so foolish, gain his own being. Women take a pleasure in
their own anguish, which a man cannot bear. “Rosalind,” he cried, “this
is too terrible, you know. I cannot stand it if you can; I tell you, if
anything had happened, I must have heard. All this is simply impossible.
You have all got out of order, the children first, and their fancies
have acted upon you.”
“It is their digestion, I always said so--or gout in the system,” said
Aunt Sophy, lifting her handkerchief to her eyes.
“It is derangement of the brain, I think,” said John. “I see I must get
you out of here; one of you has infected the other. Come, Rosalind, you
have so much sense--let us see you make use of it.”
“Uncle John, what has sense to do with it? I have seen her,” Rosalind
said.
“This is madness, Rosalind.”
“What is madness? Are my eyes mad that saw mamma? I was not thinking of
seeing her. In a moment I lifted up my eyes, and she was there. Is it
madness that she should die? Oh no, more wonderful how she can live; or
madness to think that her heart would fly to us--oh, like an arrow, the
moment it was free?”
“Rosalind,” said Mrs. Lennox, “poor Grace was a very religious woman; at
that moment she would be thinking about her Maker.”
“Do you think she would be afraid of him?” cried Rosalind, “afraid that
our Lord would be jealous, that he would not like her to love her
children? Oh, that’s not what my mother thought! My religion is what I
got from her. She was not afraid of him--she loved him. She would know
that he would let her come, perhaps bring her and stand by her;
perhaps,” the girl cried, clasping her hands, “if I had been better,
more religious, more like my mother, I should have seen him in the room
too.”
John Trevanion seized her hands almost fiercely. Short of giving up his
own self-control, and yielding to this stormy tide of emotion, it was
the only thing he could do. “I must have an end of this,” he said.
“Rosalind, you must be calm--we shall all go distracted if you continue
so. She was a good woman, as Sophy says. She never could, I don’t
believe it, have gratified herself at your expense like this. I shall
telegraph the first thing in the morning to the lawyers, to know if they
have any news. Will that satisfy you? Suspend your judgment till I hear;
if then it turns out that there is any cause--” Here his voice broke and
yielded to the strain of emotion; upon which Rosalind, whose face had
been turned away, rose up suddenly and flung herself upon him as Amy had
done upon her, crying, “Oh, my mother! oh, my mother! you loved her too,
Uncle John.”
Thus the passion of excited feeling extended itself. For a moment John
Trevanion sobbed too, and the girl felt, with a sensation of awe which
calmed her, the swelling of the man’s breast. He put her down in her
chair next moment with a tremulous smile. “No more, Rosalind--we must
not all lose our senses. I promise you if there is any truth in your
imagination you shall not want my sympathy. But I am sure you are
exciting yourself unnecessarily; I know I should have heard had there
been anything wrong. My dear, no more now.”
Next morning John Trevanion was early astir. He had slept little, and
his mind was full of cares. In the light of the morning he felt a little
ashamed of the agitation of last night, and of the credulity to which he
himself had been drawn by Rosalind’s excitement. He said to himself that
no doubt it was in the imagination of little Amy that the whole myth had
arisen. The child had been sleepless, as children often are, and no
doubt she had formed to herself that spectre out of the darkness which
sympathy and excitement and solitude had embodied to Rosalind also.
Nothing is more contagious than imagination. He had himself been all but
overpowered by Rosalind’s impassioned certainty. He had felt his own
firmness waver; how much more was an emotional girl likely to waver, who
did not take into account the tangle of mental workings even in a child?
As he came out into the cool morning air it all seemed clear enough and
easy; but the consequences were not easy, nor how he was to break the
spell, and recall the visionary child and the too sympathetic girl to
practical realities, and dissipate these fancies out of their heads. He
was not very confident in his own powers; he thought they were quite as
likely to overcome him as he to restore them to composure. But still
something must be done, and the scene changed at least. As he came along
the corridor from his room, with a sense of being the only person waking
in this part of the house, though the servants had long been stirring
below, his ear was caught by a faint, quick sound, and a whispering call
from the apartment occupied by his sister. He looked round quickly,
fearful, as one is in a time of agitation, of every new sound, and saw
another actor in the little drama, one whose name had not yet been so
much as mentioned as taking any part in it--the sharp, inquisitive,
matter-of-fact little Sophy, who was the one of the children he liked
least. Sophy made energetic gestures to stop him, and with elaborate
precaution came out of her room attired in a little dressing-gown of
blue flannel, with bare feet in slippers, and her hair hanging over her
shoulders. He stood still in the passage with great impatience while she
elaborately closed the door behind her, and came towards him on her
toes, with an evident enjoyment of the mystery. “Oh, Uncle John! hush,
don’t make any noise,” Sophy said.
“Is that all you want to tell me?” he asked severely.
“No, Uncle John; but we must not wake these poor things, they are all
asleep. I want to tell you--do you think we are safe here and nobody can
hear us? Please go back to your room. If any one were to come and see
me, in bare feet and my dressing-gown--”
He laughed somewhat grimly, indeed with a feeling that he would like to
whip this important little person; but Sophy detected no under-current
of meaning. She cried “Hush!” again, with the most imperative energy,
under her breath, and swinging by his arm drew him back to his room,
which threw a ray of morning sunshine down the passage from its open
door. The man was a little abashed by the entrance of this feminine
creature, though she was but thirteen, especially as she gave a quick
glance round of curiosity and sharp inspection. “What an awfully big
sponge, and what a lot of boots you have!” she said quickly. “Uncle
John! they say one ought never to watch or listen or anything of that
sort; but when everybody was in such a state last night, how do you
think I could just stay still in bed? I saw that lady come out of the
children’s room, Uncle John.”
The child, though her eyes were dancing with excitement and the delight
of meddling, and the importance of what she had to say, began at this
point to change color, to grow red and then pale.
“You! I did not think you were the sort of person, Sophy--”
“Oh, wait a little, Uncle John! To see ghosts you were going to say. But
that is just the mistake. I knew all the time it was a real lady. I
don’t know how I knew. I just found out, out of my own head.”
“A real lady! I don’t know, Sophy, what you mean.”
“Oh, but you do, it is quite simple. It is no ghost, it is a real lady,
as real as any one. I stood at the door and saw her come out. She went
quite close past me, and I felt her things, and they were as real as
mine. She makes no noise because she is so light and thin. Besides,
there are no ghosts,” said Sophy. “If she had been a ghost she would
have known I was there, and she never did, never found me out though I
felt her things. She had a great deal of black lace on,” the girl added,
not without meaning, though it was a meaning altogether lost upon John
Trevanion. Though she was so cool and practical, her nerves were all in
commotion. She could not keep still; her eyes, her feet, her fingers,
all were quivering. She made a dart aside to his dressing-table. “What
big, big brushes--and no handles to them! Why is everything a gentleman
has so big? though you have so little hair. Her shoes were of that soft
kind without any heels to them, and she made no noise. Uncle John!”
“This is a very strange addition to the story, Sophy. I am obliged to
you for telling me. It was no imagination, then, but somebody, who for
some strange motive-- I am very glad you had so much sense, not to be
deceived.”
“Uncle John!” Sophy said. She did not take any notice of this applause,
as in other circumstances she would have done; everything about her
twitched and trembled, her eyes seemed to grow large like Amy’s. She
could not stand still. “Uncle John!”
“What is it, Sophy? You have something more to say.”
The child’s eyes filled with tears. So sharp they were, and keen, that
this liquid medium seemed inappropriate to their eager curiosity and
brightness. She grew quite pale, her lips quivered a little. “Uncle
John!” she said again, with an hysterical heave of her bosom, “I think
it is mamma.”
“Sophy!” He cried out with such a wildness of exclamation that she
started with fright, and those hot tears dropped out of her eyes.
Something in her throat choked her. She repeated, in a stifled, broken
voice, “I am sure it is mamma.”
“Sophy! you must have some reason for saying this. What is it? Don’t
tell me half, but everything. What makes you think--?”
“Oh, I don’t think at all,” cried the child. “Why should I think? I saw
her. I would not tell the others or say anything, because it would harm
us all, wouldn’t it, Uncle John? but I know it is mamma.”
He seized her by the shoulder in hot anger and excitement. “You
little--! Could you think of that when you saw your mother--if it is
your mother? but that’s impossible. And you can’t be such a little--such
a demon as you make yourself out.”
“You never said that to any one else,” cried Sophy, bursting into tears;
“it was Rex that told me. He said we should lose all our money if mamma
came back. We can’t live without our money, can we, Uncle John? Other
people may take care of us, and--all that. But if we had no money what
would become of us? Rex told me. He said that was why mamma went away.”
John Trevanion gazed at the little girl in her precocious wisdom with a
wonder for which he could find no words. Rex, too, that fresh and manly
boy, so admirable an example of English youth; to think of these two
young creatures talking it over, coming to their decision! He forgot
even the strange light, if it were a light, which she had thrown upon
the events of the previous evening, in admiration and wonder at this,
which was more wonderful. At length he said, with perhaps a tone of
satire too fine for Sophy, “As you are the only person who possesses
this information, Sophy, what do you propose to do?”
“Do?” she said, looking at him with startled eyes; “I am not going to do
anything, Uncle John. I thought I would tell you--”
“And put the responsibility on my shoulders? Yes, I understand that. But
you cannot forget what you have seen. If your mother, as you think, is
in the house, what shall you do?”
“Oh, Uncle John,” said Sophy, pale with alarm. “I have not really,
really seen her, if that is what you mean. She only just passed where I
was standing. No one could punish me just for having seen her pass.”
“I think you are a great philosopher, my dear,” he said.
At this, Sophy looked very keenly at him, and deriving no satisfaction
from the expression of his face, again began to cry. “You are making fun
of me, Uncle John,” she said. “You would not laugh like that if it had
been Rosalind. You always laugh at us children whatever we may say.”
“I have no wish to laugh, Sophy, I assure you. If your aunt or some one
wakes and finds you gone from your bed, how shall you explain it?”
“Oh, I shall tell her that I was-- I know what I shall tell her,” Sophy
said, recovering herself; “I am not such a silly as that.”
“You are not silly at all, my dear. I wish you were not half so clever,”
said John. He turned away with a sick heart. Sophy and those
unconscious, terrible revelations of hers were more than the man could
bear. The air was fresh outside, the day was young; he seemed to have
come out of an oppressive atmosphere of age and sophistication,
calculating prudence and artificial life, when he left the child behind
him. He was so much overwhelmed by Sophy that for the moment, he did
not fully realize the importance of what she had told him, and it was
not till he had walked some distance, and reconciled himself to nature
in the still brightness of the morning, that he awoke with a sudden
sensation which thrilled through and through him to the meaning of what
the little girl had said. Her mother--was it possible? no ghost, but a
living woman. This was indeed a solution of the problem which he had
never thought of. At first, after Madam’s sudden departure from
Highcourt, John Trevanion went nowhere without a sort of vague
expectation of meeting her suddenly, in some quite inappropriate
place--on a railway, in a hotel. But now, after years had passed, he had
no longer that expectation. The world is so small, as it is the common
vulgarity of the moment to say, but nevertheless the world is large
enough to permit people who have lost each other in life to drift apart,
never to meet, to wander about almost within sight of each other, yet
never cross each other’s paths. He had not thought of that--he could
scarcely give any faith to it now. It seemed too natural, too probable
to have happened. And yet it was not either natural or probable that
Mrs. Trevanion, such as he had known her, a woman so self-restrained, so
long experienced in the act of subduing her own impulses, should risk
the health of her children and shatter their nerves by secret visits
that looked like those of a supernatural being. It was impossible to him
to think this of her. She who had not hesitated to sacrifice herself
entirely to their interests once, would she be so forgetful now? And
yet, a mother hungering for the sight of her children’s faces, severed
from them, without hope, was she to be judged by ordinary rules? Was
there any expedient which she might not be pardoned for taking--any
effort which she might not make to see them once more?
The immediate question, however, was what to do. He could not insist
upon carrying the party away, which was his first idea; for various
visitors were already on their way to join them, and it would be cruel
to interrupt the “koor” which Mrs. Lennox regarded with so much hope.
The anxious guardian did as so many anxious guardians have done
before--he took refuge in a compromise. Before he returned to the hotel
he had hired one of the many villas in the neighborhood, the white board
with the inscription _à louer_ coming to him like a sudden inspiration.
Whether the appearance which had disturbed them was of this world or of
another, the change must be beneficial.
The house stood upon a wooded height, which descended with its fringe of
trees to the very edge of the water, and commanded the whole beautiful
landscape, the expanse of the lake answering to every change of the sky,
the homely towers of Hautecombe opposite, the mountains on either side,
reflected in the profound blue mirror underneath. Within this enclosure
no one could make a mysterious entry; no one, at least, clothed in
ordinary flesh and blood. To his bewildered mind it was the most
grateful relief to escape thus from the dilemma before him; and in any
case he must gain time for examination and thought.