The two men went out to Bonport together, and on the way John Trevanion,
half revolted that he should have to tell it, half relieved to talk of
it to another man, and see how the matter appeared to a person
unconcerned, with eyes clear from prepossession of any kind, either
hostile or tender, gave his companion all the particulars of his painful
story. It was a relief; and Rivers, who had been trained for the bar,
gave it at once as his opinion that the competent authorities would not
hesitate to set such a will aside, or at least, on proof that no moral
danger would arise to the children, would modify its restrictions
greatly. “Wills are sacred theoretically; but there has always been _a
power of_ revision,” he said. And he suggested practical means of
bringing this point to a trial--or at least to the preliminary trial of
counsel’s advice, which gave his companion great solace. “I can see that
we all acted like fools,” John Trevanion confessed, with a momentary
over-confidence that his troubles might be approaching an end. “We were
terrified for the scandal, the public discussion, that would have been
sure to rise--and no one so much as she. Old Blake was all for the
sanctity of the will, as you say, and I--I was so torn in two with
doubts and--miseries--”
“But I presume,” Rivers said, “these have all been put to rest. There
has been a satisfactory explanation--”
“Explanation!” cried John. “Do you think I could ask, or she condescend
to give, what you call explanations? She knew her own honor and purity;
and she knew,” he added with a long-drawn breath, “that I knew them as
well as she--”
“Still,” said Rivers, “explanations are necessary when it is brought
before the public.”
“It shall never be brought before the public!”
“My dear Trevanion! How then are you to do anything, how set the will
aside?”
This question silenced John; and it took further speech out of the mouth
of his companion, who felt, on his side, that if he were about to be
connected with the Trevanion family, it would not be at all desirable,
on any consideration, that this story should become public. He had been
full of interest in the woman whose appearance had struck him before he
knew anything about her, and who had figured so largely in his first
acquaintance with Rosalind. But when it became a question of a great
scandal occupying every mind and tongue, and in which it was possible
his own wife might be concerned--that was a very different matter. In a
great family such things are treated with greater case. If it is true
that an infringement on their honor, a blot on the scutcheon, is
supposed to be of more importance where there is a noble scutcheon to
tarnish, it is yet true that a great family history would lose much of
its interest if it were not crossed now and then by a shadow of
darkness, a tale to make the hearers shudder; and that those who are
accustomed to feel themselves always objects of interest to the world
bear the shame of an occasional disclosure far better than those sprung
from a lowlier level whose life is sacred to themselves, and who guard
their secrets far more jealously than either the great or the very
small. Rivers, in the depth of his nature, which was not that of a born
patrician, trembled at the thought of public interference in the affairs
of a family with which he should be connected. All the more that it
would be an honor and elevation to him to be connected with it, he
trembled to have its secrets published. It was not till after he had
given his advice on the subject that this drawback occurred to him. He
was not a bad man, to doom another to suffer that his own surroundings
might go free; but when he thought of it he resolved that, if he could
bring it about, Rosalind’s enthusiasm should be calmed down, and she
should learn to feel for her stepmother only that calm affection which
stepmothers at the best are worthy of, and which means separation rather
than unity of interests. He pondered this during the latter part of the
way with great abstraction of thought. He was very willing to take
advantage of his knowledge of Mrs. Trevanion, and of the importance it
gave him to be their only means of communication with her; but further
than this he did not mean to go. Were Rosalind once his, there should
certainly be no room in his house for a stepmother of blemished fame.
And there were many things in his visit to Bonport which were highly
unsatisfactory to Rivers. John Trevanion was so entirely wrapped in his
own cares as to be very inconsiderate of his friend, whose real object
in presenting himself at Aix at all he must no doubt have divined had he
been in possession of his full intelligence. He took the impatient lover
into the grounds of the house where Rosalind was, and expected him to
take an interest in the winding walks by which little Amy had strayed
down to the lake, and all the scenery of that foolish little episode.
“If her sister had not followed her, what might have happened? The child
might have been drowned, or, worse still, might have gone mad in the
shock of finding herself out there all alone. It makes one shudder to
think of it.” Rivers did not shudder; he was not very much interested
about Amy. But his nerves were all jarred by the contrariety of the
circumstances as he looked up through the shade of the trees to the
house at the top of the little eminence, where Rosalind was, but as much
out of his reach as if she had been at the end of the world. He did not
see her until much later, when he returned at John Trevanion’s
invitation to dinner. Rosalind was very pale, but blushed when she met
him with a consciousness which he scarcely knew how to interpret. Was
there hope in the blush, or was it embarrassment--almost pain? She said
scarcely anything during dinner, sitting in the shadow of the pink
_abat-jour_, and of her aunt Sophy, who, glad of a new listener, poured
forth her soul upon the subject of sleep-walking, and told a hundred
stories, experiences of her own and of other people, all tending to
prove that it was the most usual thing in the world, and that, indeed,
most children walked in their sleep. “The thing to do is to be very
careful not to wake them,” Mrs. Lennox said. “That was Rosalind’s
mistake. Oh, my dear, there is no need to tell me that you didn’t mean
anything that wasn’t for the best. Nobody who has ever seen how devoted
you are to these children--just like a mother--could suppose that; but I
understand,” said Aunt Sophy with an air of great wisdom, “that you
should never wake them. Follow, to see that they come to no harm, and
sometimes you may be able to guide them back to their own room--which is
always the best thing to do--_but never wake them_; that is the one
thing you must always avoid.”
“I should think Rivers has had about enough of Amy’s somnambulism by
this time,” John said. “Tell us something about yourself. Are you going
to stay long? Are you on your way northwards? All kinds of honor and
glory await you at home, we know.”
“My movements are quite vague. I have settled nothing,” Rivers replied.
And how could he help but look at Rosalind, who, though she never lifted
her eyes, and could not have seen his look, yet changed color in some
incomprehensible way? And how could he see that she changed color in the
pink gloom of the shade, which obscured everything, especially such a
change as that? But he did see it, and Rosalind was aware he did so.
Notwithstanding his real interest in the matter, it was hard for him to
respond to John Trevanion’s questions about the meeting planned for this
evening. It had been arranged between them that John should accompany
Rivers back to the hotel, that he should be at hand should the
mysterious lady consent to see him; and the thought of this possible
interview was to him as absorbing as was the question of Rosalind’s
looks to his companion. But they had not much to say to each other, each
being full of his own thoughts as they sat together for those few
minutes after dinner which were inevitable. Then they followed each
other gloomily into the drawing-room, which was vacant, though a sound
of voices from outside the open window betrayed where the ladies had
gone. Mrs. Lennox came indoors as they approached. “It is a little
cold,” she said, with a shiver. But Rivers found it balm as he stepped
out and saw Rosalind leaning upon the veranda among the late roses, with
the moonlight making a sort of silvery gauze of her light dress. He came
out and placed himself by her; but the window stood open behind, with
John Trevanion within hearing, and Mrs. Lennox’s voice running on quite
audibly close at hand. Was it always to be so? He drew very near to her,
and said in a low voice, “May I not speak to you?” Rosalind looked at
him with eyes which were full of a beseeching earnestness. She did not
pretend to be ignorant of what he meant. The moonlight gave an
additional depth of pathetic meaning to her face, out of which it stole
all the color.
“Oh, Mr. Rivers, not now!” she said, with an appeal which he could not
resist. Poor Rivers turned and left her in the excitement of the moment.
He went along the terrace to the farther side with a poor pretence of
looking at the landscape, in reality to think out the situation. What
could he say to recommend himself, to put himself in the foreground of
her thoughts? A sudden suggestion flashed upon him, and he snatched at
it without further consideration. When he returned to where he had left
her, Rosalind was still there, apparently waiting. She advanced towards
him shyly, with a sense of having given him pain. “I am going in now to
Amy,” she said; “I waited to bid you good-night.”
“One word,” he said. “Oh, nothing about myself, Miss Trevanion. I will
wait, if I must not speak. But I have a message for you.”
“A message--for me!” She came a little nearer to him, with that strange
divination which accompanies great mental excitement, feeling
instinctively that what he was about to say must bear upon the subject
of her thoughts.
“You remember,” he said, “the lady whom I told you I had met? I have met
her again, Miss Trevanion.”
“Where?” She turned upon him with a cry, imperative and passionate.
“Miss Trevanion, I have never forgotten the look you gave me when I said
that the lady was accompanied by a man. I want to explain; I have found
out who it was.”
“Mr. Rivers!”
“Should I be likely to tell you anything unfit for your ears to hear? I
know better now. The poor lady is not happy, in that any more than in
any other particular of her lot. The man was her son.”
“_Her son!_” Rosalind’s cry was such that it made Mrs. Lennox stop in
her talk; and John Trevanion, from the depths of the dark room behind,
came forward to know what it was.
“I felt that I must tell you; you reproached me with your eyes when I
said-- But, if I wronged her, I must make reparation. It was in all
innocence and honor; it was her son.”
“Mr. Rivers!” cried Rosalind, turning upon him, her breast heaving, her
lips quivering, “this shows it is a mistake. I might have known all the
time it was a mistake. She had no son except-- It was not the same. Thank
you for wishing to set me right; but it could not be the same. It is no
one we know. It is a mistake.”
“But when I tell you, Miss Trevanion, that she said--”
“No, no, you must not say any more. We know nothing; it is a mistake.”
Disappointment, with, at the same time, a strange, poignant smart, as of
some chance arrow striking her in the dark, which wounded her without
reason, without aim, filled her mind. She turned quickly, eluding the
hand which Rivers had stretched out, not pausing even for her uncle, and
hastened away without a word. John Trevanion turned upon Rivers, who
came in slowly from the veranda with a changed and wondering look. “What
have you been saying to Rosalind? You seem to have frightened her,” he
said.
“Oh, it seems all a mistake,” he replied vaguely. He was, in fact,
greatly cast down by the sudden check he had received. In the height of
his consciousness that his own position as holding a clew to the
whereabouts of this mysterious woman was immeasurably advantaged, there
came upon him this chill of doubt lest perhaps after all-- But then she
had herself declared that to hear of the Trevanions was to her as life
and death. Rivers did not know how to reconcile Rosalind’s instant
change of tone, her evident certainty that his information did not
concern her, with the impassioned interest of the woman whom he half
felt that he had betrayed. How he had acquired the information which he
had thought it would be a good thing for him thus to convey he could
scarcely have told. It had been partly divination, partly some echo of
recollection; but he felt certain that he was right; and he had also
felt certain that to hear it would please Rosalind. He was altogether
cast down by her reception of his news. He did not recover himself
during all the long walk back to Aix in the moonlight, which he made in
company with John Trevanion. But John was absorbed in the excitement of
the expected meeting, and did not disturb him by much talking. They
walked along between the straight lines of the trees, through black
depths of shadow and the white glory of the light, exchanging few words,
each wrapped in his own atmosphere. When the lights of the town were
close to them John spoke. “Whether she will speak to me or not, you must
place me where I can see her, Rivers. I must make sure.”
“I will do the best I can,” said Rivers; “but what if it should all turn
out to be a mistake?”
“How can it be a mistake? Who else would listen as you say she did? Who
else could take so much interest? But I must make sure. Place me, at
least, where I may see her, even if I must not speak.”
The garden was nearly deserted, only one or two solitary figures in
shawls and overcoats still lingering in the beauty of the moonlight.
Rivers placed John standing in the shadow of a piece of shrubbery, close
to the open space which she had crossed as she made her round of the
little promenade, and he himself took the seat under the laurels which
he had occupied on the previous night. He thought there was no doubt
that she would come to him, that after the hotel people had disappeared
she would be on the watch, and hasten to hear what he had to tell her.
When time passed on and no one appeared, he got up again and began
himself to walk round and round, pausing now and then to whisper to John
Trevanion that he did not understand it--that he could not imagine what
could be the cause of the delay. They waited thus till midnight, till
the unfortunate waiters on the veranda were nearly distracted, and every
intimation of the late hour which these unhappy men could venture to
give had been given. When twelve struck, tingling through the blue air,
John Trevanion came, finally, out of his hiding-place, and Rivers from
his chair. They spoke in whispers, as conspirators instinctively do,
though there was nobody to hear. “I cannot understand it,” said Rivers,
with the disconcerted air of a man whose exhibition has failed. “I don’t
think it is of any use waiting longer,” said John. “Oh, of no use. I am
very sorry, Trevanion. I confidently expected--” “Something,” said John,
“must have happened to detain her. I am disappointed, but still I do not
cease to hope; and if, in the meantime, you see her, or any trace of
her--” “You may be sure I will do my best,” Rivers said, ashamed, though
it was no fault of his, and, notwithstanding Rosalind’s refusal to
believe, with all his faith in his own conclusions restored.
They shook hands silently, and John Trevanion went away downcast and
disappointed. When he had gone down the narrow street and emerged into
the Place, which lay full in the moonlight, he saw two tall, dark
shadows in the very centre of the white vacancy and brightness in the
deserted square. They caught his attention for the moment, and he
remembered after that a vague question crossed his mind what two women
could be doing out so late. Were they sisters of charity, returning from
some labor of love? Thus he passed them quickly, yet with a passing
wonder, touched, he could not tell how, by something forlorn in the two
solitary women, returning he knew not from what errand. Had he but known
who these wayfarers were!