Маргарет Олифант
Madam
CHAPTER XXXIX
Thus Mrs. Trevanion went away out of reach and knowledge of everything that belonged to her old life. She had not been very happy in that life. The principal actor in it, her husband, had regarded her comfort less than that of his horses or hounds. He had filled her existence with agitations, but yet had not made life unbearable until the last fatal complications had arisen. She had been surrounded by people who understood her more or less, who esteemed and approved her, and she had possessed in Rosalind the sweetest of companions, one who was in sympathy with every thought, who understood almost before she was conscious of thinking at all; a creature who was herself yet not herself, capable of sharing everything and responding at every point. And, except her husband, there was no one who regarded Madam Trevanion with anything but respect and reverence. No one mistook the elevation of her character. She was regarded with honor wherever she went, her opinions prized, her judgment much considered. When a woman to whom this position has been given suddenly descends to find herself in the sole company of one who cares nothing for her judgment, to whom all her opinions are antiquated or absurd, and herself one of those conventional female types without logic or reason, which are all that some men know of women, the confusing effect which is produced upon earth and heaven is too wonderful for words. More than any change of events, this change of position confuses and overwhelms the mind. Sometimes it is the dismal result of an ill-considered marriage. Sometimes it appears in other relationships. She was pulled rudely down from the pedestal she had occupied so long, and rudely, suddenly, made to feel that she was no oracle, that her words had no weight because she said them, but rather carried with them a probability of foolishness because they were hers. The wonder of this bewildered at first; it confused her consciousness, and made her insecure of herself. And at last it produced the worse effect of making everything uncertain to her. Though she had been supposed so self-sustained and strong in character, she was too natural a woman not to be deeply dependent upon sympathy and the support of understanding. When these failed she tottered and found no firm footing anywhere. Perhaps she said to herself she was really foolish, as Edmund thought, unreasonable, slow to comprehend all character that was unlike her own. She was no longer young; perhaps the young were wiser, had stronger lights; perhaps her beliefs, her prejudices, were things of the past. All this she came to think with wondering pain when the support of general faith and sympathy was withdrawn. It made her doubtful of everything she had done or believed, timid to speak, watching the countenance of the young man whose attitude towards her had changed all the world to her. This was not part of the great calamity that had befallen her. It was something additional, another blow; to be parted from her children, to sustain the loss of all things dear to her, was her terrible fate, a kind of vengeance for what was past; but that her self-respect, her confidence, should thus be taken away from her was another distinct and severe calamity. Sometimes the result was a mental giddiness, a quiver about her of the atmosphere and all the solid surroundings, as though there was (but in a manner unthought of by Berkeley) nothing really existent but only in the thoughts of those who beheld it. Perhaps her previous experiences had led her towards this; for such had been the scope of all her husband’s addresses to her for many a day. But she had not been utterly alone with him, she had felt the strong support of other people’s faith and approval holding her up and giving her strength. Now all these accessories had failed her. Her world consisted of one soul, which had no faith in her; and thus, turned back upon herself, she faltered in all her moral certainties, and began to doubt whether she had ever been right, whether she had any power to judge, or perception, or even feeling, whether she were not perhaps in reality the conventional woman, foolish, inconsistent, pertinacious, which she appeared through Edmund’s eyes.
The other strange, new sensations that Madam encountered in these years, while her little children throve and grew under the care of Mrs. Lennox, and Rosalind developed into the full bloom of early womanhood, were many and various. She had thought herself very well acquainted with the mysteries of human endurance, but it seemed to her now that at the beginning of that new life she had known nothing of them. New depths and heights developed every day; her own complete breaking down and the withdrawal from her of confidence in herself being the great central fact of all. On Edmund’s side the development too was great. He had looked and wished for pleasure and ease and self-indulgence when he had very little power of securing them. When by a change of fortune so extraordinary and unexpected he actually obtained the means of gratifying his instincts, he addressed himself to the task with a unity of purpose which was worthy of a greater aim. He was drawn aside from his end by no glimmer of ambition, no impulse to make something better out of his life. His imperfect education and ignorance of what was best in existence had perhaps something to do with this. To him, as to many a laboring man, the power of doing no work, nor anything but what he pleased, seemed the most supreme of gratifications. He would not give himself the trouble to study anything, even the world, confident as only the ignorant are in the power of money, and in that great evidence that he had become one of the privileged classes, the fact that he did not now need to do anything for his living. He was not absolutely bad or cruel; he only preferred his own pleasure to anybody else’s, and was a little contemptuous of a woman’s advice and intolerant of her rule and impatient of her company. Perhaps her idea that she owed herself to him, that it was paying an old debt of long-postponed duty to devote herself to him now, to do her best for him, to give him everything in her power that could make him happy, was a mistaken one from the beginning. She got to believe that she was selfish in remaining with him, while still feeling that her presence was the only possible curb upon him. How was she to find a way of serving him best, of providing for all his wants and wishes, of keeping him within the bounds of possibility, yet letting him be free from the constraint of her presence? As time went on, this problem became more and more urgent, yet by the same progress of time her mind grew less and less clear on any point. The balance of the comparative became more difficult to carry. There was no absolute good within her reach, and she would not allow even to herself that there was any absolute bad in the young man’s selfish life. It was all comparative, as life was. But to find the point of comparative advantage which should be best for him, where he should be free without being abandoned, and have the power of shaping his course as he pleased without the power of ruining himself and her—this became more and more the engrossing subject of her thoughts.
As for Edmund, though he indulged in many complaints and grumbles as to having always a woman at his heels, his impatience never went the length of emancipating himself. On the whole, his indolent nature found it most agreeable to have everything done for him, to have no occasion for thought. He had the power always of complaint, which gave him a kind of supremacy without responsibility. His fixed grievance was that he was kept out of London; his hope, varying as they went and came about the world, that somewhere they would meet the family from which Mrs. Trevanion had been torn, and that “on the sly,” or otherwise (though he never repeated those unlucky words), he might find himself in a position to approach Rosalind. In the meantime he amused himself in such ways as were practicable, and spent a great deal of money, and got a certain amount of pleasure out of his life. His health was not robust, and when late hours and amusements told upon him he had the most devoted of nurses. On the whole, upon comparison with the life of a clerk on a small salary in a Liverpool office, his present existence was a sort of shabby Paradise.
About the time when Rosalind heard from Mr. Rivers of that chance encounter which revived all her longings for her mother, and at the same time all the horror of vague and miserable suspicion which surrounded Mrs. Trevanion’s name, a kind of crisis had occurred in this strange, wandering life. Edmund had fallen ill, more seriously than before, and in the quiet of convalescence after severe suffering had felt certain compunctions cross his mind. He had acknowledged to his tender nurse that she was very kind to him. “If you would not nag a fellow so,” he said, “and drive me about so that I don’t know what I am doing, I think, now that I am used to your ways, we might get on.”
Mrs. Trevanion did not defend herself against the charge of “nagging” or “driving” as she might perhaps have done at an earlier period, but accepted with almost grateful humility the condescension of this acknowledgment. “In the meantime,” she said, “you must get well, and then, please God, everything will be better.”
“If you like to make it so,” he said, already half repentant of the admission he had made. And then he added, “If you’d only give up this fancy of yours for foreign parts. Why shouldn’t we go home? You may like it, you speak the language, and so forth: but I detest it. If you want to please me and make me get well, let’s go home.”
“We have no home to go to, Edmund—”
“Oh, that’s nonsense, you know. You don’t suppose I mean the sort of fireside business. Nothing is so easy as to get a house in London; and you know that is what I like best.”
“Edmund, how could I live in a house in London?” she said. “You must remember that a great deal has passed that is very painful. I could not but be brought in contact with people who used to know me—”
“Ah!” he cried, “here’s the real reason at last. I thought all this time it was out of consideration for me, to keep me out of temptation, and that sort of thing; but now it crops up at last. It’s for yourself, after all. It is always an advance to know the true reason. And what could they do to you, those people with whom you might be brought in contact?”
She would not perhaps have said anything about herself had he not beguiled her by the momentary softness of his tone. And now one of those rapid scintillations of cross light which were continually gleaming upon her life and motives flashed over her and changed everything. To be sure! it was selfishness, no doubt, though she had not seen it so. She answered, faltering a little: “They could do nothing to me. Perhaps you are right, Edmund. It may be that I have been thinking too much of myself. But I am sure London would not be good for you. To live there with comfort you must have something to do, or you must have—friends—”
“Well!” he said, with a kind of defiance.
“You have no friends, Edmund.”
“Well,” he repeated, “whose fault is that? It is true that I have no friends; but I could have friends and everything else if you would take a little trouble—more than friends; I might marry and settle. You could do everything for me in that way if you would take the trouble. That’s what I want to do; but I suppose you would rather drag me forever about with you than see me happy in a place of my own.”
Mrs. Trevanion had lost her beauty. She was pale and worn as if twenty additional years had passed over her head instead of two. But for a moment the sudden flush that warmed and lighted up her countenance restored to her something of her prime. “I think,” she said, “Edmund, if you will let me for a moment believe what I am saying, that, to see you happy and prosperous, I would gladly die. I know you will say my dying would be little to the purpose; but the other I cannot do for you. To marry requires a great deal that you do not think of. I don’t say love, in the first place—”
“You may if you please,” he said. “I’m awfully fond of— Oh, I don’t mind saying her name. You know who I mean. If you were good enough for her, I don’t see why I shouldn’t be good enough for her. You have only got to introduce me, which you can if you like, and all the rest I take in my own hands.”
“I was saying,” she repeated, “that love, even if love exists, is not all. Before any girl of a certain position would be allowed to marry, the man must satisfy her friends. His past, and his future, and the means he has, and how he intends to live—all these things have to be taken into account. It is not so easy as you think.”
“That is all very well,” said Edmund; though he paused with a stare of mounting dismay in his beautiful eyes, larger and more liquid than ever by reason of his illness—those eyes which haunted Rosalind’s imagination. “That is all very well: but it is not as if you were a stranger: when they know who I am—when I have you to answer for me—”
A flicker of self-assertion came into her eyes. “Why do you think they should care for me or my recommendation? You do not,” she said.
He laughed. “That’s quite different. Perhaps they know more—and I am sure they know less—than I do. I should think you would like them to know about me for your own sake.”
She turned away with once more a rapid flush restoring momentary youth to her countenance. She was so changed that it seemed to her, as she caught a glimpse of herself, languidly moving across the room, in the large, dim mirror opposite, that no one who belonged to her former existence would now recognize her. And there was truth in what he said. It would be better for her, for her own sake, that the family from whom she was separated should know everything there was to tell. After the first horror lest they should know, there had come a revulsion of feeling, and she had consented in her mind that to inform them of everything would be the best, though she still shrank from it. But even if she had strength to make that supreme effort it could do her no good. Nothing, they had said, no explanation, no clearing up, would ever remove the ban under which she lay. And it would be better to go down to her grave unjustified than to place Rosalind in danger. She looked back upon the convalescent as he resumed fretfully the book which was for the moment his only way of amusing himself. Illness had cleared away from Edmund’s face all the traces of self-indulgence which she had seen there. It was a beautiful face, full of apparent meaning and sentiment, the eyes full of tenderness and passion—or at least what might seem so in other lights, and to spectators less dismally enlightened than herself. A young soul like Rosalind, full of faith and enthusiasm, might take that face for the face of a hero, a poet. Ah! this was a cruel thought that came to her against her will, that stabbed her like a knife as it came. She said to herself tremulously that in other circumstances, with other people, he might have been, might even be, all that his face told. Only with her from the beginning everything had gone wrong—which again, in some subtile way, according to those revenges which everything that is evil brings with it, was her fault and not his. But Rosalind must not be led to put her faith upon promises which were all unfulfilled. Rosalind must not run any such risk. Whatever should happen, she could not expose to so great a danger another woman, and that her own child.
But there were other means of setting the wheels of fate in motion, with which Madame Trevanion had nothing to do.
CHAPTER XL
Towards the end of the summer, during the height of which Mrs. Lennox’s party had returned to the Italian lakes, one of the friends she made at Cadenabbia represented to that good woman that her rheumatism, from which she had suffered during the winter, though perhaps not quite so severely as she imagined, made it absolutely necessary to go through a “cure” at Aix-les-Bains, where, as everybody knows, rheumatism is miraculously operated upon by the waters. Aunt Sophy was very much excited by this piece of advice. In the company which she had been frequenting of late, at the tables d’hôte and in the public promenades, she had begun to perceive that it was scarcely respectable for a person of a certain age not to go through a yearly “cure” at some one or other of a number of watering-places. It indicated a state of undignified health and robustness which was not quite nice for a lady no longer young. There were many who went to Germany, to the different bads there, and a considerable number whose “cure” was in France, and some even who sought unknown springs in Switzerland and Italy; but, taken on the whole, very few indeed were the persons over fifty of either sex who did not reckon a “cure” occupying three weeks or so of the summer or autumn as a necessary part of the routine of life. To all Continental people it was indispensable, and there were many Americans who crossed the ocean for this purpose, going to Carlsbad or to Kissingen or somewhere else with as much regularity as if they had lived within a railway journey of the place. Only the English were careless on so important a subject, but even among them many become convinced of the necessity day by day.
Mrs. Lennox, when this idea fully penetrated her mind, and she had blushed to think how far she was behind in so essential a particular of life, had a strong desire to go to Homburg, where all the “best people” went, and where there was quite a little supplementary London season, after the conclusion of the genuine article. But, unfortunately, there was nothing the matter with her digestion. Her rheumatism was the only thing she could bring forward as entitling her to any position at all among the elderly ladies and gentlemen who in August were setting out for, or returning from, their “cures.” “Oh, then, of course, it is Aix you must go to,” her informants said; “it is a little late, perhaps, in September—most of the best people will have gone—still, you know, the waters are just as good, and the great heat is over. You could not do better than Aix.” One of the ladies who thus instructed her was even kind enough to suggest the best hotel to go to, and to proffer her own services, as knowing all about it, to write and secure rooms for her friend. “It is a pity you did not go three weeks ago, when all the best people were there; but, of course, the waters are just the same,” this benevolent person repeated. Mrs. Lennox became, after a time, very eager on this subject. She no longer blushed when her new acquaintances talked of their cure. She explained to new-comers, “It is a little late, but it did not suit my arrangements before; and, of course, the waters are the same, though the best people are gone.” Besides, it was always, she said, on the way home, whatever might happen.
They set off accordingly, travelling in a leisurely way, in the beginning of September. Mrs. Lennox felt that it was expedient to go slowly, to have something of the air of an invalid before she began her “cure.” Up to this moment she had borne a stray twinge of pain when it came, in her shoulder or her knee, and thought it best to say nothing about it; but now she made a little grimace when that occurred, and said, “Oh, my shoulder!” or complained of being stiff when she got out of the carriage. It was only right that she should feel her ailments a little more than usual when she began her cure.
The hotels were beginning to empty when the English party, so helpless, so used to comfort, so inviting to everybody that wanted to make money out of them, appeared. They were received, it is needless to say, with open arms, and had the best suites of rooms to choose from. Mrs. Lennox felt herself to grow in importance from the moment she entered the place. She felt more stiff than ever when she got out of the carriage and was led up-stairs, the anxious landlady suggesting that there was a chair in which she could be carried to her apartment if the stairs were too much for her. “Oh, I think I can manage to walk up if I am not hurried,” Aunt Sophy said. It would have been quite unkind, almost improper, not to adopt the rôle which suited the place. She went up quite slowly, holding by the baluster, while the children, astonished, crowded up after her, wondering what had happened. “I think I will take your arm, Rosalind,” murmured the simple woman. She did really feel much stiffer than usual; and then there was that pain in her shoulder. “I am so glad I have suffered myself to be persuaded to come. I wonder Dr. Tennant did not order me here long ago; for I really think in my present condition I never should have been able to get home.” Even Rosalind was much affected by this suggestion, and blamed herself for never having discovered how lame Aunt Sophy was growing. “But it is almost your own fault, for you never showed it,” she said. “My dear, I did not, of course, want to make you anxious,” replied Mrs. Lennox.
The doctor came next morning, and everything was settled about the “cure.” He told the new-comers that there were still a good many people in Aix, and that all the circumstances were most favorable. Mrs. Lennox was taken to her bath in a chair the day after, and went through all the operations which the medical man thought requisite. He spoke excellent English—which was such a comfort. He told his patient that the air of the place where the cure was to be effected often seemed to produce a temporary recrudescence of the disease. Aunt Sophy was much exhilarated by this word. She talked of this chance of a recrudescence in a soft and subdued tone, such as became her invalid condition, and felt a most noble increase of dignity and importance as she proceeded with her “cure.”
Rosalind was one of the party who took least to this unexpected delay. She had begun to be very weary of the travelling, the monotony of the groups of new acquaintances all so like each other, the atmosphere of hotels, and all the vulgarities of a life in public. To the children it did not matter much; they took their walks all the same whether they were at the Elms or Aix-les-Bains, and had their nursery dinner at their usual hour, whatever happened. The absorption of Mrs. Lennox in her “cure” threw Rosalind now entirely upon the society of these little persons. She went with them, or rather they went with her, in her constant expeditions to the lake, which attracted her more than the tiresome amusements of the watering-place, and thus all their little adventures and encounters—incidents which in other circumstances might have been overlooked—became matters of importance to her.
It was perhaps because he was the only boy in the little feminine party, or because he was the youngest, that Johnny was invariably the principal personage in all these episodes of childish life. He it was whom the ladies admired, whom strangers stopped to talk to, who was the little hero of every small excitement. His beautiful eyes, the boyish boldness which contrasted so strongly with little Amy’s painful shyness, and even with his own little pale face and unassured strength, captivated the passers-by. He was the favorite of the nursery, which was now presided over by a nurse much more enlightened than Russell, a woman recommended by the highest authorities, and who knew, or was supposed to know, nothing of the family history. Rosalind had heard vaguely, without paying much attention, of various admirers who had paid their tribute to the attractions of her little brother, but it was not until her curiosity was roused by the appearance of a present in the form of a handsome and expensive mechanical toy, the qualities of which Johnny expounded with much self-importance and in a loud voice, that she was moved to any remark. The children were on the floor near her, full of excitement. “Now it shall run round and round, and now it shall go straight home,” Johnny said, while Amy watched and listened ecstatically, a little maiden of few words, whose chief qualities were a great power of admiration and a still greater of love.
Rosalind was seated musing by the window, a little tired, wondering when the “cure” would be over, and if Aunt Sophy would then recover the use of her limbs again, and consent to go home. Mrs. Lennox was always good and kind, and the children were very dear to their mother-sister; but now and then, not always, perhaps not often, there comes to a young woman like Rosalind a longing for companionship such as neither aunts or children can give. Neither the children nor her aunt shared her thoughts; they understood her very imperfectly on most occasions; they had love to give her, but not a great deal more. She sighed, as people do when there is something wanting to them, then turned upon herself with a kind of rage and asked, “What did she want?” as girls will do on whom it has been impressed that this wish for companionship is a thing that is wrong, perhaps unmaidenly. But, after all, there was no harm in it. Oh, that Uncle John were here! she said to herself. Even Roland Hamerton would have been something. He could have tried at least his very best to think as she did. Oh, that—! She did not put any name to this aspiration. She was not very sure who—which—it meant, and then she breathed a still deeper sigh, and tears came to her eyes. Oh! for her of whom nobody knew where she was wandering or in what circumstances she might be. She heard the children’s voices vaguely through her thinking, and by and by a word caught her ear.
“The lady said I was to do it like this. She did it for me on the table out in the garden. It nearly felled down,” said Johnny, “and then it would have broken itself, so she put it on the ground and went down on her knees.”
“Oh, what did she go on her knees for, like saying her prayers, Johnny?”
“Nothin’ of the sort. She just went down like this and caught hold of me. I expose,” said Johnny, whose language was not always correct, “she is stiff, like Aunt Sophy; for I was far more stronger and kept her up.”
“Who is this that he is talking of, Amy?” Rosalind said.
The little girl gave her a look which had some meaning in it, Rosalind could not tell what, and, giving Johnny a little push with her arm after the easy method of childhood, said, “Tell her,” turning away to examine the toy.
“It was the lady,” Johnny said, turning slightly round as on a pivot, and lifting to her those great eyes which Aunt Sophy had said were like—and which always went straight to Rosalind’s heart.
“What lady, dear? and where did you get that beautiful toy?” Rosalind followed the description the child had been giving, and came and knelt on the carpet beside him. “How pretty it is! Did Aunt Sophy give you that?”
“It was the lady,” Johnny repeated.
“What lady? Was it a stranger, Amy, that gave him such a beautiful toy?”
“I think, Miss Rosalind,” said the nurse, coming to the rescue, “it is some lady that has lost her little boy, and that he must have been about Master Johnny’s age. I said it was too much, and that you would not like him to take it; but she said the ladies would never mind if they knew it was for the sake of another—that she had lost.”
“Poor lady!” Rosalind said; the tears came to her eyes in sudden sympathy; “that must be so sad, to lose a child.”
“It is the greatest sorrow in this world, to be only sorrow,” the woman said.
“Only sorrow! and what can be worse than that?” said innocent Rosalind. “Is the lady very sad, Johnny? I hope you were good and thanked her for it. Perhaps if I were with him some day she would speak to me.”
“She doesn’t want nobody but me,” said Johnny. “Oh, look! doesn’t it go. It couldn’t go on the ground because of the stones. Amy, Amy, get out of the way, it will run you over. And now it’s going home to take William a message. I whispered in it, so it knows what to say.”
“But I want to hear about the lady, Johnny.”
“Oh, look, look! it’s falled on the carpet; it don’t like the carpet any more than the stones. I expose it’s on the floor it will go best, or on the grass. Nurse, come along, let’s go out and try it on the grass.”
“Johnny, stop! I want to know more about this lady, dear.”
“Oh, there is nothing about her,” cried the little boy, rushing after his toy. Sophy, who had been practising, got up from the piano and came forward to volunteer information.
“She’s an old fright,” said Sophy. “I’ve seen her back—dressed all in mourning, with a thick veil on. She never took any notice of us others that have more sense than Johnny. I could have talked to her, but he can’t talk to anybody, he is so little and so silly. All he can say is only stories he makes up; you think that is clever, but I don’t think it is clever. If I were his—aunt,” said Sophy, with a momentary hesitation, “I would whip him. For all that is lies, don’t you know? You would say it was lies if I said it, but you think it’s poetry because of Johnny. Poetry is lies, Rosalind, yes, and novels too. They’re not true, so what can they be but lies? that’s why I don’t care to read them. No, I never read them, I like what’s true.”
Rosalind caught her book instinctively, which was all she had left. “We did not ask you for your opinion about poetry, Sophy; but if this lady is so kind to Johnny I should like to go and thank her. Next time you see her say that Johnny’s sister would like to thank her. If she has lost her little boy we ought to be very sorry for her,” Rosalind said.
Sophy looked at her with an unmoved countenance. “I think people are a great deal better off that are not bothered with children,” she said; “I should send the little ones home, and then we could do what we liked, and stay as long as we liked,” quoth the little woman of the world.
