Madam - Mrs. Oliphant

Скачать книгу

one; they betrayed in their faces the fact that whatever their secret struggle was, one was getting the better of the other. Jane gave Rosalind pathetic looks, as if asking whether she might confide in her, while Russell uttered hints and innuendoes, ending, indeed, as has been seen, in intimations more positive. When she spoke so to Rosalind it may be supposed that she was not silent to the rest of the house; or that she failed, with the boldness of her kind, to set forth and explain the motives of her mistress. For some time before the incident of the bramble, every one in the house had come to be fully aware that Madam went out every evening, however cold, wet, and miserable it might be. John Trevanion acquired the knowledge he could not tell how; he thought it was from that atmosphere of fresh air which unawares she brought with her on those occasions when she was late, when the gentlemen had reached the drawing-room before she came in. This was not always the case. Sometimes they found her there, seated in her usual place, calm enough, save for a searching disquiet in her eyes, which seemed to meet them as they came in, asking what they divined or knew. They all knew—that is to say, all but Mr. Trevanion himself, whose vituperations required no particular occasion, and ran on much the same whatever happened, and the temporary three-days’ guest, who at the special moment referred to was young Hamerton. Sometimes incidents would occur which had no evident bearing upon this curious secret which everybody knew, but yet nevertheless disturbed the brooding air with a possibility of explosion. On one occasion little Sophy was the occasion of a thrill in this electrical atmosphere which nobody quite understood. The child had come in to dessert, and was standing by her father’s side, consuming all the sweetmeats she could get.

      “Oh, mamma!” Sophy said suddenly and loudly, addressing her mother across the table; “you know that gentleman at the Red Lion I told you about?”

      “What gentleman at the Red Lion?” said her father, who had a keen ear for gossip.

      “Do not encourage her, Reginald,” said Madam from the other end of the table; “I cannot let her bring the village stories here.”

      “Let us hear about the gentleman from the Red Lion,” he said; “perhaps it is something amusing. I never am allowed to hear what is going on. Come, Sophy, what’s about him? We all want to know.”

      “Oh, but mamma will be so cross if I tell you! She will not let me say a word. When I told her before she stamped her foot—”

      “Ha, Madam!” said the husband, “we’ve caught you. I thought you were one that never lost your temper. But Sophy knows better. Come, what of this gentleman—”

      “I think, Rosalind, we had better go,” said Mrs. Trevanion, rising. “I do not wish the child to bring tales out of the village. Sophy!” The mother looked at her with eyes of command. But the little girl felt herself the heroine of the occasion, and perfectly secure, held in her father’s arm.

      “Oh, it is only that nobody knows him!” she said in her shrill little voice; “and he gets up in the middle of the day, and never goes out till night. Russell knows all about him. Russell says he is here for no good. He is like a man in a story-book, with such big eyes. Oh! Russell says she would know him anywhere, and I think so should I—”

      Mrs. Trevanion stood listening till all was said. Her face was perfectly without color, her eyes blazing upon the malicious child with a strange passion. What she was doing was the most foolish thing a woman could do. Her anger succeeded by so strange a calm, the intense seriousness with which she regarded what after all was nothing more than a childish disobedience, gave the most exaggerated importance to the incident. Why should she take it so seriously, everybody asked? What was it to her? And who could hinder the people who were looking on, and knew that Madam was herself involved in something unexplainable, something entirely new to all her habits, from receiving this new actor into their minds as somehow connected with it, somehow appropriated by her? When the child stopped, her mother interfered again with the same exaggeration of feeling, her very voice thrilling the tranquillity of the room as she called Sophy to follow her. “Don’t beat her,” Mr. Trevanion called out, with a chuckling laugh. “Sophy, if they whip you, come back to me. Nobody shall whip you for answering your father. Come and tell me all you hear about the gentleman, and never mind what Madam may say.”

      Sophy was frightened, however, there could be no doubt, as she followed her mother. She began to cry as she crept through the hall. Mrs. Trevanion held her head high; there was a red spot on each of her cheeks. She paused for a moment and looked at Rosalind, as if she would have spoken; then hurried away, taking no notice of the half-alarmed, half-remorseful child, who stood and gazed after her, at once relieved and disappointed. “Am I to get off?” Sophy whispered, pulling at Rosalind’s dress. And then she burst into a sudden wail of crying: “Oh, Rosalind, mamma has never said good-night!”

      “You do not deserve it, after having disobeyed her,” said Rosalind. And with her young mind all confused and miserable, she went to the drawing-room to her favorite seat between the fire and the lamp; but though her novel was very interesting, she did not read it that night.

       Table of Contents

      Next day, as they drove out in the usual afternoon hour while Mr. Trevanion took his nap after luncheon, a little incident happened which was nothing, yet gave Rosalind, who was alone with her stepmother in the carriage, a curious sensation. A little way out of the village, on the side of the road, she suddenly perceived a man standing, apparently waiting till they should pass. Madam had been very silent ever since they left home, so much more silent than it was her habit to be that Rosalind feared she had done something to incur Mrs. Trevanion’s displeasure. Instead of the animated conversations they used to have, and the close consultations that were habitual between them, they sat by each other silent, scarcely exchanging a word in a mile. Rosalind was not herself a great talker, but when she was with this other and better self, she flowed forth in lively observation and remark, which was not talk, but the involuntary natural utterance which came as easily as her breath. This day, however, she had very little to say, and Madam nothing. They leaned back, each in her corner, with a blank between them, which Rosalind now and then tried to break with a wistful question as to whether mamma was cold, whether she did not find the air too keen, if she would like the carriage closed, etc., receiving a smile and a brief reply, but no more. They had fallen into silence almost absolute as they passed through the village, and it was when they emerged once more into the still country road that the incident which has been referred to took place. Some time before they came up to him, Rosalind remarked the man standing under one of the hedgerow trees, close against it, looking towards them, as if waiting for the carriage to pass. Though she was not eager for the tales of the village like Sophy, Rosalind had a country girl’s easily roused curiosity in respect to a stranger. She knew at once by the outline of him, before she could make out even what class he belonged to, that this was some one she had never seen before. As the carriage approached rapidly she grew more and more certain. He was a young man, a gentleman—at least his dress and attitude were like those of a gentleman; he was slim and straight, not like the country louts. As he turned his head towards the carriage, Rosalind thought she had never seen a more remarkable face. He was very pale; his features were large and fine, and his pallor and thinness were made more conspicuous by a pair of very large, dreamy, uncertain dark eyes. These eyes were looking so intently towards the carriage that Rosalind had almost made up her mind that there was to be some demand upon their sympathy, some petition or appeal. She could not help being stirred with all the impetuosity of her nature, frank and warm-hearted and generous, towards this poor gentleman. He looked as if he had been ill, as if he meant to throw himself upon their bounty, as if—The horses sped on with easy speed as she sat up in the carriage and prepared herself for whatever might happen. It is needless to say that nothing happened as far as the bystander was concerned. He looked intently at them, but did no more. Rosalind was so absorbed in a newly awakened interest that she thought of nothing else, till suddenly, turning round to her companion, she met—not her stepmother’s sympathetic countenance, but the blackness of a veil in which Mrs. Trevanion had suddenly enveloped herself. “That must surely be the gentleman Sophy was talking

Скачать книгу