The Railway Man and His Children - Mrs. Oliphant

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by the most accidental touch. She was sitting by herself one bright morning, languid, in the bare conventional sitting-room of the hotel, which was by no means less lonely because it was the best sitting-room, and cost a great deal of money in the height of the season. She had received a letter from her husband, in which she had been trying hard to read between the lines what were his ideas about his children, whether they had pleased him. The letter was a little stiff, she thought, guarded in its expression. “Archie is quite a man in appearance, and Marion a nice well-grown girl. They have had every justice done them so far as their health is concerned,” Mr. Rowland wrote; but he did not enter into any further details. Was he pleased? had the spell of nature asserted itself? did he fear her criticism, and had he determined that no one should object to them? Evelyn was much concerned by these questions, which she could not answer to her own satisfaction. The thing she most feared was the very natural possibility that he might resent her interference, and allow no opinion to be expressed on the subject, whatever might be his own. And it vexed her that he said nothing more, closed his heart, or at least his lips, and gave no clue to what he was thinking. It was the first time this had occurred—to be sure, it was the first time he had communicated his sentiments to her by way of writing, and probably he had no such freedom in expressing himself that way as by word of mouth. Whatever the fact might be, Evelyn felt herself cast down, she scarcely knew why. She vaguely devined that there was no satisfaction in his own mind, and to be thrust away from his confidence in this respect would be very painful to her, as well as making an end of all attempts on her part for the good of the children.

      Evelyn was in this melancholy mood, sitting alone, and with everything suspended in her life, feeling a little as if she had been brought away from India where she had at least a definite known plan and work, to be stranded on a shore which had grown cold, unknown, and inhospitable to her, when in the newspaper which she had languidly taken up she saw suddenly the name of an old friend. She had said to herself that she would not seek to renew acquaintance with her old friends: but it is one thing to say that when one feels no need of them, and another to reflect when you are lonely and in low spirits, that there is some one in the next street, round the next corner, who would probably receive you with a smile of delight, fall upon your neck, and throw open to you the doors of her heart. Evelyn represented to herself when she saw this name that here was one of whom she would have made an exception in any circumstances, one who would certainly have sought her out in her trouble, and would rejoice in her well-being. She half resisted, half played with the idea for half the morning—at one time putting it away, at another almost resolved to act upon it. And at length the latter inclination carried the day. Part of the reluctance arose from the fact that she did not know how to introduce herself. Would any one in London have heard of the wedding far away at an obscure station in India? Would any one imagine that it was she who was the bride? She took out her new card with Mrs. James Rowland upon it, in a curious shamefacedness, and wrote Evelyn Ferrars upon it with an unsteady hand. But she had very little time to entertain these feelings of uncertainty. It was so like Madeline to come flying with her arms wide open all the length of the deep London drawing-room against the light, with that shriek of welcome. Of course she would shriek. Evelyn knew her friend’s ways better, as it proved, than she knew that friend herself.

      “So it is you! At last! I meant to go out this very day on a round of all the hotels to find you; but I couldn’t believe you wouldn’t come, for you knew where to find me.”

      “At last!” said Evelyn astonished. “How did you know I was in London at all?”

      “Oh, my dear Eve, don’t be affected,” cried this lively lady, “as if a great person like Mr. Rowland could travel and bring home his bride without all the papers getting hold of it! Why, we heard of your wedding-dress and the diamonds he gave you, almost as soon as you did. They were in one of the ladies’ papers of course. And so, Evelyn, after waiting so long, you have gone and made a great match after all.”

      “Have I made a great match? indeed I did not know it. I have married a very good man which is of more consequence,” said Evelyn, with almost an air of offence. But that, of course, was absurd, for Lady Leighton had not the most distant idea of offending.

      “Oh, that goes without saying,” she said lightly; “every new man is more perfect than any other that went before him. But you need not undervalue your good things all the same. I suppose there were advantages in respect to the diamonds? He would be able to pick them up in a way that never happens to us poor people at home.”

      “I dare say he will be glad to tell you if you want to know; but, Madeline, that is not what interests me most. There are so many things I should like to hear of.”

      “Yes; to be sure,” said Lady Leighton, growing grave; “but, my dear, if I were you I wouldn’t inquire—not now, when everything is so changed.”

      “What is so changed?” said Evelyn, more and more surprised.

      Her friend made a series of signals with her eyes, indicating some mystery, and standing, as Evelyn now perceived, in such a position as to screen from observation an inner room from which she had come. The pantomime ended by a tragic whisper: “He is there—don’t see him. It would be too great a shock. And why should you, when you are so well off?”

      “Who is there? And why should I not see, whoever it is? I can’t tell what you mean,” Mrs. Rowland said.

      “Oh, if that is how you feel!” said her friend; “but I would not in your place.”

      At this moment Evelyn heard a sound as of shuffling feet, and looking beyond her friend’s figure, saw an old man, as she supposed, with an ashy countenance and bowed shoulders, coming towards them. At the first glance he seemed very old, very feeble; some one whom she had never seen before—and it took him some time to make his way along the room. Even when he came near she did not recognize him at first. He put out feebly a lifeless hand, and said, in a thick mumbling tone: “Is this Evelyn Ferrars? but she has grown younger instead of older. Not like me.”

      Evelyn rose in instinctive respect to the old man whom she did not know. She thought it must be some old relative of Madeline, some one who had known her as a child. She answered some indifferent words of greeting, and dropped hastily as soon as she had touched it, the cold and flabby hand. It could be no one whom she had known, though he knew her.

      “Oh, Mr. Saumarez,” said Lady Leighton, “I am so sorry this has happened I do hope it will not hurt you. Had I not better ring for your man? You know that you must not do too much or excite yourself. Let me lead you back to your chair.”

      A faint smile came over the ashen face. “She doesn’t know me,” he said.

      Oh, heaven and earth, was this he? A pang of wonder, of keen pain and horror, shot through Evelyn like a sudden blow, shaking her from head to foot. It was not possible! the room swam round her, and all that was in it. He! The name had been like a pistol shot in her head, and then something, a look, as if over some chilly snowy landscape, a gleam of cold light had startled her even before the name. “Is it——is it? I did not know you had been ill,” she said, almost under her breath.

      “Yes, it is my own self, and I have been ill, extremely ill; but I am getting better. I will sit down if you will permit me. I am not in the least excited; but very glad to see Mrs. Rowland and offer her my congratulations. I am not in such good case myself—nobody is likely to congratulate me.”

      “I do not see that,” said Lady Leighton. “You are so very much better than you have been.”

      “That’s very true. I may be congratulated so far. I should offer to call at your hotel on Mr. Rowland, but I fear my strength is not to be trusted. I am more glad than I can tell you to have seen you looking so well and happy, after so many years. Lady Leighton, I think I will now accept your kind offer to ring for my man.” He put out the grey tremulous hand again, and enfolded that of Evelyn in it. “I am very glad, very glad,” he said with emphasis, in a low but firm tone, Lady Leighton having turned away to ring the bell, “to have seen you again, and so well, and so young, and I don’t doubt so happy. My wife is dead, and I am a wreck as you see——”

      “I

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