Madam

She did not know how long she remained pondering these questions, making a circuitous round through the grounds, under the shadows, until she got back again, gliding noiselessly to the veranda, from which she could dart into the house at any return of her unwelcome suitor. But she still stood there after all had relapsed into the perfect silence of night in such a place. The tourists in the boat had rowed to the beach and disembarked, and disappeared on their way home. The evening breeze dropped altogether and ceased to move the trees, while she still stood against the trellis-work scarcely visible in the gloom, wondering, trying to think, trying to satisfy the questions that arose in her mind, with a vague sense that if she but knew what young Everard meant, there might be in it some guide, some clue to the mystery which weighed upon her soul. But this was not all that Rosalind was to encounter. While she stood thus gazing out from her with eyes that noted nothing, yet could not but see, she was startled by something, a little wandering shadow, not much more substantial than her dreams, which flitted across the scene before her. Her heart leaped up with a pang of terror. What was it? When the idea of the supernatural has once gained admission into the mind the mental perceptions are often disabled in after-emergencies. Her strength abandoned her. She covered her eyes with her hands, with a rush of the blood to her head, a failing of all her powers. Something white as the moonlight flitting across the moonlight, a movement, a break in the stillness of nature. When she looked up again there was nothing to be seen. Was there nothing to be seen? With a sick flutter of her heart, searching the shadows round with keen eyes, she had just made sure that there was nothing on the terrace, when a whiteness among the shrubs drew her eyes farther down. Her nerves, which had played her false for a moment, grew steady again, though her heart beat wildly. There came a faint sound like a footstep, which reassured her a little. In such circumstances sound is salvation. She herself was a sight to have startled any beholder, as timidly, breathlessly, under the impulse of a visionary terror, she came out, herself all white, into the whiteness of the night. She called “Is there any one there?” in a very tremulous voice. No answer came to her question; but she could now see clearly the other moving speck of whiteness, gliding on under the dark trees, emerging from the shadows, on to a little point of vision from which the foliage had been cleared a little farther down. It stood there for a moment, whiteness on whiteness, the very embodiment of a dream. A sudden idea flashed into Rosalind’s mind, relieving her brain, and, without pausing a moment, she hurried down the path, relieved from one fear only to be seized by another. She reached the little ghost as it turned from that platform to continue the descent. The whiteness of the light had stolen the color out of the child’s hair. She was like a little statue in alabaster, her bare feet, her long, half-curled locks, the folds of her nightdress, all softened and rounded in the light. “Amy!” cried Rosalind—but Amy did not notice her sister. Her face had the solemn look of sleep, but her eyes were open. She went on unconscious, going forward to some visionary end of her own from which no outward influence could divert her. Rosalind’s terror was scarcely less great than when she thought it an apparition. She followed, with her heart and her head both throbbing, the unconscious little wanderer. Amy went down through the trees and shrubs to the very edge of the lake, so close that Rosalind behind hovered over her, ready at the next step to seize upon her, her senses coming back, but her mind still confused, in her perplexity not knowing what to do. Then there was for a moment a breathless pause. Amy turned her head from side to side, as if looking for some one; Rosalind seated herself on a stone to wait what should ensue. It was a wonderful scene. The dark trees waved overhead, but the moon, coming down in a flood of silver, lit up all the beach below. It might have been an allegory of a mortal astray, with a guardian angel standing close, watching, yet with no power to save. The water moving softly with its ceaseless ripple, the soft yet chill air of night rustling in the leaves, were the only things that broke the stillness. The two human figures in the midst seemed almost without breath.

Rosalind did not know what to do. In the calm of peaceful life such incidents are rare. She did not know whether she might not injure the child by awaking her. But while she waited, anxious and trembling, Nature solved the question for her. The little wavelets lapping the stones came up with a little rush and sparkle in the light an inch or two farther than before, and bathed Amy’s bare feet. The cold touch broke the spell in a moment. The child started and sprang up with a sudden cry. What might have happened to her had she woke to find herself alone on the beach in the moonlight, Rosalind trembled to think. Her cry rang along all the silent shore, a cry of distracted and bewildering terror: “Oh, mamma! mamma! where are you?” then Amy, turning suddenly round, flew, wild with fear, fortunately into her sister’s arms.

“Rosalind! is it Rosalind? And where is mamma? oh, take me to mamma. She said she would be here.” It was all Rosalind could do to subdue and control the child, who nearly suffocated her, clinging to her throat, urging her on: “I want mamma—take me to mamma!” she cried, resisting her sister’s attempts to lead her up the slope towards the house. Rosalind’s strength was not equal to the struggle. After a while her own longing burst forth. “Oh, if I knew where I could find her!” she said, clasping the struggling child in her arms. Amy was subdued by Rosalind’s tears. The little passion wore itself out. She looked round her, shuddering in the whiteness of the moonlight. “Rosalind! are we all dead, like mamma?” Amy said.

The penetrating sound of the child’s cry reached the house and far beyond it, disturbing uneasy sleepers all along the edge of the lake. It reached John Trevanion, who was seated by himself, chewing the cud of fancy, bitter rather than sweet, and believing himself the only person astir in the house. There is something in a child’s cry which touches the hardest heart; and his heart was not hard. It did not occur to him that it could proceed from any of the children of the house, but it was too full of misery and pain to be neglected. He went out, hastily opening the great window, and was, in his terror, almost paralyzed by the sight of the two white figures among the trees, one leaning upon the other. It was only after a momentary hesitation that he hurried towards them, arriving just in time, when Rosalind’s strength was about giving way, and carried Amy into the house. The entire household, disturbed, came from all corners with lights and outcries. But Amy, when she had been warmed and comforted, and laid in Rosalind’s bed, and recovered from her sobbing, had no explanations to give. She had dreamed she was going to mamma, that mamma was waiting for her down on the side of the lake. “Oh, I want mamma, I want mamma!” the child cried, and would not be comforted.

CHAPTER LIII

Arthur Rivers had come home on the top of the wave of prosperity; his little war was over, and if it were not he who had gained the day, he yet had a large share of its honors. It was he who had made it known to all the eager critics in England, and given them the opportunity to let loose their opinion. He had kept the supply of news piping hot, one supply ready to be served as soon as the other was despatched, to the great satisfaction of the public and of his “proprietors.” His well-known energy, daring, and alertness, the qualities for which he had been sent out, had never been so largely manifested before. He had thrown himself into the brief but hot campaign with the ardor of a soldier. But there was more in it than this. It was with the ardor of a lover that he had labored—a lover with a great deal to make up to bring him to the level of her he loved. And his zeal had been rewarded. He was coming home, to an important post, with an established place and position in the world, leaving his life of adventure and wandering behind him. They had their charms, and in their time he had enjoyed them; but what he wanted now was something that it would be possible to ask Rosalind to share. Had he been the commander, as he had only been the historian of the expedition; had he brought back a baronetcy and a name famous in the annals of the time, his task would have been easier. As it was, his reputation—though to its owner very agreeable—was of a kind which many persons scoff at. The soldiers, for whom he had done more than anybody else could do, recommending them to their country as even their blood and wounds would never have recommended them without his help, did not make any return for his good offices, and held him cheap; but, on the other hand, it had procured him his appointment, and made it possible for him to put his question to Rosalind into a practical shape and repeat it to her uncle. He came home with his mind full of this and of excitement and eagerness. He had no time to lose. He was too old for Rosalind as well as not good enough for her, not rich enough, not great enough. Sir Arthur Rivers, K.C.B., the conquering hero—that would have been the right thing. But since he was not that, the only thing he could do was to make the most of what he was. He could give her a pretty house in London, where she would see the best of company; not the gentle dulness of the country, but all the wits, all that was brilliant in society, and have the cream of those amusements and diversions which make life worth living in town. That is always something to offer, if you have neither palaces nor castles, nor a great name, nor a big fortune. Some women would think it better than all these; and he knew that it would be full of pleasures and pleasantness, not dull—a life of variety and brightness and ease. Was it not very possible that these things would tempt her, as they have tempted women more lofty in position than Rosalind? And he did not think her relations would oppose it if she so chose. His family was very obscure; but that has ceased to be of the importance it once was. He did not believe that John Trevanion would hesitate on account of his family. If only Rosalind should be pleased! It was, perhaps, because he was no longer quite young that he thought of what he had to offer; going over it a thousand times, and wondering if this and that might not have a charm to her as good, perhaps better, than the different things that other people had to offer. He was a man who was supposed to know human nature and to have studied it much, and had he been writing a book he would no doubt have scoffed at the idea of a young girl considering the attractions of different ways of living and comparing what he had to give with what other people possessed. But there was a certain humility in the way in which his mind approached the subject in his own case, not thinking of his own personal merits. He could give her a bright and full and entertaining life. She would never be dull with him. That was better even than rank, he said to himself.

Rivers arrived a few days after the Trevanion party had gone to Bonport. He was profoundly pleased and gratified to find John Trevanion waiting at the station, and to receive his cordial greeting. “My sister will expect to see you very soon,” he said. “They think it is you who are the hero of the war; and, indeed, so you have been, almost as much as Sir Ruby, and with fewer jealousies; and the new post, I hear, is a capital one. I should say you were a lucky fellow, if you had not worked so well for it all.”

“Yes, I hear it is a pleasant post; and to be able to stay at home, and not be sent off to the end of the earth at a moment’s notice—”

“How will you bear it? that is the question,” said John Trevanion. “I should not wonder if in a year you were bored to death.”

Rivers shook his head, with a laugh. “And I hope all are well,” he said; “Mrs. Lennox and Miss Trevanion.”

He did not venture as yet to put the question more plainly.

“We are all well enough,” said John, “though there are always vexations. Oh! nothing of importance, I hope; only some bother about the children and Rosalind. That’s why I removed them; but Rex is coming, and another young fellow, Hamerton—perhaps you recollect him at Clifton. I hope they will cheer us up a little. There is their train coming in. Let us see you soon. Good-night!”

Another young fellow, Hamerton! Then it was not to meet him, Rivers, that Trevanion was waiting. There was no special expectation of him. It was Rex, the schoolboy, and young Hamerton who was to cheer them up—Rex, a sulky young cub, and Hamerton, a thick-headed rustic. John went off quite unconscious of the arrow he had planted in his friend’s heart, and Rivers turned away, with a blank countenance, to his hotel, feeling that he had fallen down—down from the skies into a bottomless abyss. All this while, during so many days of travel, he had been coming towards her; now he seemed to be thrown back from her—back into uncertainty and the unknown. He lingered a little as the train from Paris came in, and heard John Trevanion’s cheerful “Oh, here you are!” and the sound of the other voices. It made his heart burn to think of young Hamerton—the young clodhopper!—going to her presence, while he went gloomily to the hotel. His appearance late for dinner presented a new and welcome enigma to the company who dined at the table d’hôte. Who was he? Some one fresh from India, no doubt, with that bronzed countenance and hair which had no right to be gray. There was something distinguished about his appearance which everybody remarked, and a little flutter of curiosity to know who he was awoke, especially among the English people, who, but that he seemed so entirely alone, would have taken him for Sir Ruby himself. Rivers took a little comfort from the sense of his own importance and of the sensation made by his appearance. But to arrive here with his mind full of Rosalind, and to find himself sitting alone at a foreign table d’hôte, with half the places empty and not a creature he knew, chilled him ridiculously—he who met people he knew in every out-of-the-way corner in the earth. And all the time Hamerton at her side—Hamerton, a young nobody! There was no doubt that it was very hard to bear. As soon as dinner was over he went out to smoke his cigar and go over again, more ruefully than ever, his prospects of success. It was a brilliant moonlight night, the trees in the hotel garden standing, with their shadows at their feet, in a blackness as of midnight, while between, every vacant space was full of the intense white radiance. He wandered out and in among them, gloomily thinking how different the night would have been had he been looking down upon the silver lake by the side of Rosalind. No doubt that was what she was doing. Would there be any recollection of him among her thoughts, or of the question he had asked her in the conservatory at the Elms? Would she think he was coming for his answer, and what in all this long interval had she been making up her mind to reply?

He was so absorbed in these thoughts that he took no note of the few people about. These were very few, for though the night was as warm as it was bright, it was yet late in the season, and the rheumatic people thought there was a chill in the air. By degrees even the few figures that had been visible at first dwindled away, and Rivers at last awoke to the consciousness that there was but one left, a lady in black, very slight, very light of foot, for whose coming he was scarcely ever prepared when she appeared, and who shrank into the shadow as he came up, as if to avoid his eye. Something attracted him in this mysterious figure, he could not tell what, a subtile sense of some link of connection between her and himself; some internal and unspoken suggestion which quickened his eyes and interest, but which was too indefinite to be put into words. Who could she be? Where had he seen her? he asked, catching a very brief, momentary glimpse of her face; but he was a man who knew everybody, and it was little wonder if the names of some of his acquaintances should slip out of his recollection. It afforded him a sort of occupation to watch for her, to calculate when in the round of the garden which she seemed to be making she would come to that bare bit of road, disclosed by the opening in the trees, where the moonlight revealed in a white blaze everything that passed. He was for the moment absorbed in this pursuit—for it was in reality a pursuit, a sort of hunt through his own mind for some thread of association connected with a wandering figure like this—when some one else, a new-comer, came hastily into the garden, and established himself at a table close by. There was no mistaking this stranger—a robust young Englishman still in his travelling dress, whom Rivers recognized with mingled satisfaction and hostility. He was not then spending the evening with Rosalind, this young fellow who was not worthy to be admitted to her presence. That was a satisfaction in its way. He had been received to dinner because he came with the boy, but that was all. Young Hamerton sat down in the full moonlight where no one could make any mistake about him. He recognized Rivers with a stiff little bow. They said to each other, “It is a beautiful night,” and then relapsed respectively into silence. But in the heat of personal feeling thus suddenly evoked, Rivers forgot the mysterious lady for a moment, and saw her no more. After some time the new-comer said to him, with a sort of reluctant abruptness, “They are rather in trouble over there,” making a gesture with his hand to indicate some locality on the other side of the darkly waving trees.

“In trouble—”

“Oh, not of much importance, perhaps. The children—have all been—upset; I don’t understand it quite. There was something that disturbed them—in the hotel here. Perhaps you know—”

“I only arrived this evening,” Rivers said.

The other drew a long breath. Was it of relief? Perhaps he had spoken only to discover whether his rival had been long enough in the neighborhood to have secured any advantage. “We brought over the old nurse with us—the woman, you know, who— Oh, I forgot, you don’t know,” Hamerton added, hastily. This was said innocently enough, but it offended the elder suitor, jealous and angry after the unreasonable manner of a lover, that any one, much less this young fellow, whose pretensions were so ridiculous, should have known her and her circumstances before and better than himself.

“I prefer not to know anything that the Trevanions do not wish to be known,” he said sharply. It was not true, for his whole being quivered with eagerness to know everything about them, all that could be told; but at the same time there was in his harsh tones a certain justness of reproach that brought the color to young Hamerton’s face.

“You are quite right,” he said; “it is not my business to say word.”

And then there was silence again. It was growing late. The verandas of the great hotel, a little while ago full of chattering groups, were all vacant; the lights had flitted up-stairs; a few weary waiters lounged about the doors, anxiously waiting till the two Englishmen—so culpably incautious about the night air and the draughts, so brutally indifferent to the fact that Jules and Adolphe and the rest had to get up very early in the morning and longed to be in bed—should come in, and all things be shut up; but neither Hamerton nor Rivers thought of Adolphe and Jules.

Finally, after a long silence, the younger man spoke again. His mind was full of one subject, and he wanted some one to speak to, were it only his rival. “This cannot be a healthy place,” he said; “they are not looking well—they are all—upset. I suppose it is bad for—the nerves—”

“Perhaps there may be other reasons,” said Rivers. His heart stirred within him at the thought that agitation, perhaps of a nature kindred to his own, might be affecting the one person who was uppermost in the thoughts of both—for he did not doubt that Hamerton, who had said them, meant Rosalind. That she might be pale with anticipation, nervous and tremulous in this last moment of suspense! the idea brought a rush of blood to his face, and a warm flood of tender thoughts and delight to his heart.

“I don’t know what other reasons,” said Hamerton. “She thinks— I mean there is nothing thought of but those children. Something has happened to them. The old nurse, the woman— I told you—came over with us to take them in hand. Poor little things? it is not much to be wondered at—” he said, and then stopped short, with the air of a man who might have a great deal to say.

A slight rustling in the branches behind caught Rivers’ attention. All his senses were very keen, and he had the power, of great advantage in his profession, of seeing and hearing without appearing to do so. He turned his eyes, but not his head, in the direction of that faint sound, and saw with great wonder the lady whom he had been watching, an almost imperceptible figure against the opaque background of the high shrubs, standing behind Hamerton. Her head was a little thrust forward in the attitude of listening, and the moon just caught her face. He was too well disciplined to suffer the cry of recognition which came to his lips to escape from them, but in spite of himself expressed his excitement in a slight movement—a start which made the rustic chair on which he was seated quiver, and displaced the gravel under his feet. Hamerton did not so much as notice that he had moved at all, but the lady’s head was drawn back, and the thick foliage behind once more moved as by a breath, and all was still. Rivers was very much absorbed in one pursuit and one idea, which made him selfish; but yet his heart was kind. He conquered his antipathy to the young fellow who was his rival, whom (on that ground) he despised, yet feared, and forced himself to ask a question, to draw him on. “What has happened to the children,” he said; “are they ill?” There was a faint breeze in the tree-tops, but none down here in the solid foliage of the great bushes; yet there was a stir in the laurel as of a bird in its nest.

“They are not ill, but yet something has happened. I believe the little things have been seeing ghosts. They sent for this woman, Russell, you know—confound her—”

“Why confound her?”

“Oh, it’s a long story—confound her all the same! There are some women that it is very hard for a man not to wish to knock down. But I suppose they think she’s good for the children. That is all they think of, it appears to me,” Roland said, dejectedly. “The children—always the children—one cannot get in a word. And as for anything else—anything that is natural—”

This moved Rivers on his own account. Sweet hope was high in his heart. It might very well be that this young fellow could not get in a word. Who could tell that the excuse of the children might not be made use of to silence an undesired suitor, to leave the way free for— His soul melted with a delicious softness and sense of secret exultation. “Let us hope their anxiety may not last,” he said, restraining himself, keeping as well as he could the triumph out of his voice. Hamerton looked at him quickly, keenly; he felt that there was exultation—something exasperating—a tone of triumph in it.

“I don’t see why it shouldn’t last,” he said. “Little Amy is like a little ghost herself; but how can it be otherwise in such an unnatural state of affairs—the mother gone, and all the responsibility put upon one—upon one who— For what is Mrs. Lennox?” he cried, half angrily; “oh yes, a good, kind soul—but she has to be taken care of too—and all upon one—upon one who—”

“You mean Miss Trevanion?”

“I don’t mean—to bring in any names. Look here,” cried the young man, “you and I, Rivers—we are not worthy to name her name.”

His voice was a little husky; his heart was in his mouth. He felt a sort of brotherly feeling even for this rival who might perhaps, being clever (he thought), be more successful than he, but who, in the meantime, had more in common with him than any other man, because he too loved Rosalind. Rivers did not make any response. Perhaps he was not young enough to have this feeling for any woman. A man may be very much in love—may be ready even to make any exertion, almost any sacrifice, to win the woman he loves, and yet be unable to echo such a sentiment. He could not allow that he was unworthy to name her name. Hamerton scarcely noticed his silence, and yet was a little relieved not to have any response.