Rosalind left her uncle with the thrill of her resolution in all her
veins. She met, as she crossed the ante-room, Rivers, who had just come
in and was standing waiting for a reply to the petition to be admitted
to see her which he had just sent by a servant. She came upon him
suddenly while he stood there, himself wound up to high tension, full of
passion and urgency, feeling himself ill-used, and determined that now,
at last, this question should be settled. He had failed indeed in
pushing his suit by means of the mysterious stranger whom he had not
seen again; but this made him only return with additional vehemence to
his own claim, the claim of a man who had waited a year for his answer.
But when he saw Rosalind there came over him that instant softening
which is so apt to follow an unusual warmth of angry feeling, when we
are “wroth with those we love.” He thought at first that she had come to
him in answer to his message, granting all he asked by that gracious
personal response. “Rosalind!” he cried, putting out his hands. But next
moment his countenance reflected the blush in hers, as she turned to him
startled, not comprehending and shrinking from this enthusiastic
address. “I beg your pardon,” he said, crushing his hat in his hands. “I
was taken by surprise. Miss Trevanion, I had just sent to ask--”
Rosalind was seized by a sort of helpless terror. She was afraid of him
and his passion. She said, “Uncle John is in his room. Oh, forgive me,
please! If it is me, will you wait--oh, will you be so kind as to wait
till Thursday? Everything will be settled then. I shall know then what I
have to do. Mr. Rivers, I am very sorry to give you so much trouble--”
“Trouble!” he cried; his voice was almost inarticulate in the excess of
emotion. “How can you use such words to me? As if trouble had anything
to do with it; if you would send me to the end of the earth, so long as
it was to serve you, or give me one of the labors of Hercules-- Yes, I
know I am extravagant. One becomes extravagant in the state of mind in
which-- And to hear you speak of trouble--”
“Mr. Rivers,” said Rosalind, humble in her sense of guilt, “I have a
great many things to think of. You don’t know how serious it is; but on
Thursday I shall be of age, and then I can decide. Come then, if you
will, and I will tell you. Oh, let me tell you on Thursday--not now!”
“That does not sound very hopeful for me,” he said. “Miss Trevanion,
remember that I have waited a year for my answer--few men do that
without--without--”
And then he paused, and looked at her with an air which was at once
fierce and piteous, defiant and imploring. And Rosalind shrank with a
sense of guilt, feeling that she had no right to hold him in suspense,
yet frightened by his vehemence, and too much agitated to know what to
say.
“On Thursday,” she said, mechanically; “on Thursday-- You shall not
complain of me any more.” She held out her hand to him with a smile,
apologetic and deprecatory, which was very sweet, which threw him into a
bewilderment unspeakable. She was cruel without knowing it, without
intending it. She had, she thought, something to make up to this man,
and how could she do it but by kindness--by showing him that she was
grateful--that she liked and honored him? He went away asking himself a
thousand questions, going over and over her simple words, extracting
meanings from them of which they were entirely innocent, framing them at
last to the signification which he wished. He started from Bonport full
of doubt and uneasiness, but before he reached his hotel a foolish
elation had got the better of these sadder sentiments. He said to
himself that these words could have but one meaning. “You shall not
complain of me any more.” But if she cast him off after this long
probation he would have very good reason to complain. It was impossible
that she should prepare a refusal by such words; and, indeed, if she had
meant to refuse him, could she have postponed her answer again? Is it
not honor in a woman to say “No” without delay, unless she means to say
“Yes?” It is the only claim of honor upon her, who makes so many claims
upon the honor of men, to say “No,” if she means “No.” No one could
mistake that primary rule. When she said “Thursday,” was it not the last
assurance she could give before a final acceptance, and “You shall not
complain of me any more?” This is a consequence of the competitive
system in love which Mr. Ruskin evidently did not foresee, for Rosalind,
on the other hand, was right enough when she tried to assure herself
that she had not wished for his love, had not sought it in any way, that
she should be made responsible for its discomfiture. Rivers employed
his time of suspense in making arrangements for his departure. He was a
proud man, and he would not have it said that he had left Aix hastily in
consequence of his disappointment. In the evening he wrote some letters,
vaguely announcing a speedy return. “Perhaps almost as soon as you
receive this,” he said, always guarding against the possibility of a
sudden departure; and then he said to himself that such a thing was
impossible. This was how he spent the intervening days. He had almost
forgotten by this time, in the intensity of personal feeling, the
disappointment and shock to his pride involved in the fact that the lady
of the garden had appeared no more.
In the meantime, while all this was going on, Reginald was out on the
shining water in a boat, which was the first thing the English boy
turned to in that urgent necessity for “something to do” which is the
first thought of his mind. He had taken Sophy with him condescendingly
for want of a better, reflecting contemptuously all the time on the
desertion of that beggar Hamerton, with whom he was no longer the first
object. But Sophy was by no means without advantages as a companion. He
sculled her out half a mile from shore with the intention of teaching
her how to row on the way back; but Sophy had made herself more amusing
in another way by that time, and he was willing to do the work while she
maintained the conversation. Sophy was nearly as good as Scheherazade.
She kept up her narrative, or series of narratives, with scarcely a
pause to take breath, for she was very young and very long-winded, with
her lungs in perfect condition, and her stories had this advantage, to
the primitive intelligence that is, that they were all true; which is to
say that they were all about real persons, and spiced by that natural
inclination to take the worst view of everything, which, unfortunately,
is so often justified by the results, and makes a story-teller piquant,
popular, and detested. Sophy had a great future before her in this way,
and in the meantime she made Reginald acquainted with everything, as
they both concluded, that he ought to know. She told him about Everard,
and the saving of Amy and Johnny, which he concluded to be a “plant,”
and “just like the fellow;” and about the encouragement Rosalind gave
him, at which Rex swore, to the horror, yet delight, of his little
sister, great, real oaths. And then the story quickened and the interest
rose as she told him about the apparitions, about what the children saw,
and, finally, under a vow of secrecy (which she had also administered to
Russell), what she herself saw, and the conclusion she had formed. When
she came to this point of her story, Reginald was too much excited even
to swear. He kept silence with a dark countenance, and listened, leaning
forward on his oars with a rapt attention that flattered Sophy. “I told
Uncle John,” cried the child, “and he asked me what I was going to do?
How could I do anything, Rex? I watched because I don’t believe in
ghosts, and I knew it could not be a ghost. But what could I do at my
age? And, besides, I did not actually see her so as to speak to her. I
only touched her as she passed.”
“And you are sure it was--” The boy was older than Sophy, and understood
better. He could not speak so glibly of everything as she did.
“Mamma? Yes, of course I am sure. I don’t take fits like the rest; I
always know what I see. Don’t you think Uncle John was the one to do
something about it, Rex? And he has not done anything. It could never be
thought that it was a thing for me.”
“I’ll tell you what, Sophy,” said Rex, almost losing his oars in his
vehemence; “soon it’ll have to be a thing for me. I can’t let things go
on like this with all Aunt Sophy’s muddlings and Uncle John’s. The
children will be driven out of their senses; and Rosalind is just a
romantic-- I am the head of the family, and I shall have to interfere.”
“But you are only seventeen,” said Sophy, her eyes starting from their
sockets with excitement and delight.
“But I am the head of the house. John Trevanion may give himself as many
airs as he likes, but he is only a younger son. After all, it is I that
have got to decide what’s right for my family. I have been thinking a
great deal about it,” he cried. “If--if--Mrs. Trevanion is to come like
this frightening people out of their wits--”
“Oh, Reginald,” cried Sophy, with a mixture of admiration and horror,
“how can you call mamma Mrs. Trevanion?”
“That’s her name,” said the boy. His lips quivered a little, to do him
justice, and his face was darkly red with passion, which was scarcely
his fault, so unnatural were all the circumstances. “I am going to
insist that she should live somewhere, so that a fellow may say where
she lives. It’s awful when people ask you where’s your mother, not to be
able to say. I suppose she has enough to live on. I shall propose to let
her choose where she pleases, but to make her stay in one place, so that
she can be found when she is wanted. Amy could be sent to her for a bit,
and then the fuss would be over--”
“But, Rex, you said we should lose all our money--”
“Oh, bother!” cried the boy. “Who’s to say anything? Should I make a
trial and expose everything to take her money from Amy? (It isn’t so
very much you have, any of you, that I should mind.) I suppose even, if
I insisted, they might take a villa for her here or somewhere. And then
one could say she lived abroad for her health. That is what people do
every day. I know lots of fellows whose father, or their mother, or some
one, lives abroad for their health. It would be more respectable. It
would be a thing you could talk about when it was necessary,” Rex said.
Sophy’s mind was scarcely yet open to this view of the question. “I wish
you had told me,” she said peevishly, “that one could get out of it like
that; for I should have liked to speak to mamma--”
“I don’t know that we can get out of it like that. The law is very
funny; it may be impossible, perhaps. But, at all events,” said
Reginald, recovering his oars, and giving one great impulse forward with
all his strength, which made the boat shoot along the lake like a living
thing, “I know that I won’t let it be muddled any longer if I can help
it, and that I am going to interfere.”