Madam

But Mrs. Trevanion found herself now the subject of a succession of surprises very strange to her. She was brought into intimate contact with a nature she did not understand, and had to learn the very alphabet of a language unknown to her, and study impulses which left all her experience of human nature behind, and were absolutely new. When he understood that he was free, that everything against him was wiped off, that he was in a position superior to anything he had ever dreamed of, without need to work or deny himself, his superficial despair gave way to a burst of pleasure and self-congratulation. Even then he was on his guard not to receive with too much satisfaction the advantages of which he had in a moment become possessed, lest perhaps he should miss something more that might be coming. The unbounded delight which filled him when he found himself in London, with money in his pocket, and freedom, showed itself, indeed, in every look; but he still kept a wary eye upon the possibilities of the future, and would not allow that what he possessed was above his requirements or hopes. And when he perceived that the preparations for a further journey were by no means interrupted, and that Mrs. Trevanion’s plan was still to go abroad, his disappointment and vexation were not to be controlled.

“What should you go abroad for?” he said. “We’re far better in London. There is everything in London that can be desired. It is the right place for a young fellow like me. I have never had any pleasure in my life, nor the means of seeing anything. And here, the moment I have something in my power, you want to rush away.”

“There is a great deal to see on the other side of the Channel, Edmund.”

“I dare say—among foreigners whose language one doesn’t know a word of. And what is it, after all? Scenery, or pictures, and that sort of thing. Whereas what I want to see is life.”

She looked at him with a strange understanding of all that she would have desired to ignore, knowing what he meant by some incredible pang of inspiration, though she had neither any natural acquaintance with such a strain of thought nor any desire to divine it. “There is life everywhere,” she said, “and I think it will be very good for you, Edmund. You are not very strong, and there are so many things to learn.”

“I see. You think, as I am, that I am not much credit to you, Mrs. Trevanion, of Highcourt. But there might be different opinions about that.” Offence brought a flush of color to his cheek. “Miss Trevanion, of Highcourt, was not so difficult to please,” he added, with a laugh of vanity. “She showed no particular objections to me; but you have ruined me there, I suppose, once for all.”

This attack left her speechless. She could not for the moment reply, but only looked at him with that appeal in her eyes, to which, in the assurance not only of his egotism, but of his total unacquaintance with what was going on in her mind, her motives and ways of thinking, he was utterly insensible. This, however, was only the first of many arguments on the subject which filled those painful days. When he saw that the preparations still went on, Edmund’s disgust was great.

“I see Jane is still going on packing,” he said. “You don’t mind, then, that I can’t bear it? What should you drag me away for? I am quite happy here.”

“My dear,” she said, “you were complaining yourself that you have not anything to do. You have no friends here.”

“Nor anywhere,” said Edmund; “and whose fault is that?”

“Perhaps it is my fault. But that does not alter the fact, Edmund. If I say that I am sorry, that is little, but still it does not mend it. In Italy everything will amuse you.”

“Nothing will amuse me,” said the young man. “I tell you I don’t care for scenery. What I want to see is life.”

“In travelling,” said Mrs. Trevanion, “you often make friends, and you see how the people of other countries live, and you learn—”

“I don’t want to learn,” he cried abruptly. “You are always harping upon that. It is too late to go to school at my age. If I have no education you must put up with it, for it is your fault. And what I want is to stay here. London is the place to learn life and everything. And if you tell me that you couldn’t get me plenty of friends, if you chose to exert yourself, I don’t believe you. It’s because you won’t, not because you can’t.”

“Edmund!”

“Oh, don’t contradict me, for I know better. There is one thing I want above all others, and I know you mean to go against me in that. If you stay here quiet, you know very well they will come to town like everybody else, for the season, and then you can introduce me. She knows me already. The last time she saw me she colored up. She knew very well what I was after. This has always been in my mind since the first time I saw her with you. She is fond of you. She will be glad enough to come, if it is even on the sly—”

He was very quick to see when he had gone wrong, and the little cry that came from her lips, the look that came over her face, warned him a moment too late. He “colored up,” as he said, crimson to the eyes, and endeavored with an uneasy laugh to account for his slip. “The expression may be vulgar,” he said, “but everybody uses it. And that’s about what it would come to, I suppose.”

“You mistake me altogether, Edmund,” she said. “I will not see any one on the sly, as you say; and especially not— Don’t wound me by suggesting what is impossible. If I had not known that I had no alternative, can you suppose I should have left them at all?”

“That’s a different matter; you were obliged to do that; but nobody could prevent you meeting them in the streets, seeing them as they pass, saying ‘How do you do?’ introducing a relation—”

She rose up, and began to pace about the room in great agitation. “Don’t say any more, don’t torture me like this,” she said. “Can you not understand how you are tearing me to pieces? If I were to do what you say, I should be dishonest, false both to the living and the dead. And it would be better to be at the end of the world than to be near them in a continual fever, watching, scheming, for a word. Oh, no! no!” she said, wringing her hands, “do not let me be tempted beyond my strength. Edmund, for my sake, if for no other, let us go away.”

He looked at her with a sort of cynical observation, as she walked up and down the room with hurried steps at first, then calming gradually. He repeated slowly, with a half laugh, “For your sake? But I thought everything now was to be for my sake. And it is my turn; you can’t deny that.”

Mrs. Trevanion gave him a piteous look. It was true that it was his turn; and it was true that she had said all should be for him in her changed life. He had her at an advantage; a fact which to her finer nature seemed the strongest reason for generous treatment, but not to his.

“It is all very well to speak,” he continued; “but if you really mean well by me, introduce me to Rosalind. That would be the making of me. She is a fine girl, and she has money; and she would be just as pleased—”

She stopped him, after various efforts, almost by force, seizing his arm. “There are some things,” she said, “that I cannot bear. This is one of them. I will not have her name brought in—not even her name—”

“Why not? What’s in her name more than another? A rose, don’t you know, by any other name—” he said, with a forced laugh. But he was alarmed by Mrs. Trevanion’s look, and the clutch which in her passion she had taken of his arm. After all, his new life was dependent upon her, and it might be expedient not to go too far.

This interlude left her trembling and full of agitation. She did not sleep all night, but moved about the room, in her dingy London lodging, scarcely able to keep still. A panic had seized hold upon her. She sent for him in the morning as soon as he had left his room, which was not early; and even he observed the havoc made in her already worn face by the night. She told him that she had resolved to start next day. “I did not perceive,” she said, “all the dangers of staying, till you pointed them out to me. If I am to be honest, if I am to keep any one’s esteem, I must go away.”

“I don’t see it,” he said, somewhat sullenly. “It’s all your fancy. When a person’s in hiding, he’s safer in London than anywhere else.”

“I am not in hiding,” she said, hastily, with a sense of mingled irritation and despair. For what words could be used which he would understand, which would convey to him any conception of what she meant? They were like two people speaking different languages, incapable of communicating to each other anything that did not lie upon the surface of their lives. When he perceived at last how much in earnest she was, how utterly resolved not to remain, he yielded, but without either grace or good humor. He had not force enough in himself to resist when it came to a distinct issue. Thus they departed together into the world unknown—two beings absolutely bound to each other, each with no one else in the world to turn to, and yet with no understanding of each other, not knowing the very alphabet of each other’s thoughts.

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.