Маргарет Олифант - Madam

“Where is your mother?” Mr. Trevanion said, looking round for matter of offence.

“Oh!” said Rosalind, with a quick drawing of her breath; “mamma has gone for a moment to the nursery—I suppose.” She drew breath again before the last two words, thus separating them from what had gone before—a little artifice which Uncle John perceived, but no one else.

“Now this is a strange thing,” said Mr. Trevanion, “that in my own house, and in my failing state of health, I cannot secure my own wife’s attention at the one moment in the day when she is indispensable to me. The nursery! What is there to do in the nursery? Is not Russell there? If the woman is not fit to be trusted, let her be discharged at once and some one else got.”

“Oh! it is not that there is any doubt about Russell, papa, only one likes to see for one’s self.”

“Then why can’t she send you to see for yourself. This is treatment I am not accustomed to. Oh, what do I say? Not accustomed to it! Of course I am accustomed to be neglected by everybody. A brat of a child that never ailed anything in its life is to be watched over, while I, a dying man, must take my chance. I have put up with it for years, always hoping that at last— But the worm will turn, you know; the most patient will break down. If I am to wait night after night for the one amusement, the one little pleasure, such as it is— Night after night! I appeal to you, doctor, whether Mrs. Trevanion has been ready once in the last fortnight. The only thing that I ask of her—the sole paltry little complaisance—”

He spoke very quickly, allowing no possibility of interruption, till his voice, if we may use such a word, overran itself and died away for want of breath.

“My dear sir,” said the doctor, taking up the cards, “we are just enough for our rubber; and, as I have often remarked, though I bow to the superiority of the ladies in most things, whist, in my opinion, is altogether a masculine game. Will you cut for the deal?”

But by this time Mr. Trevanion had recovered his breath. “It is what I will not put up with,” he said; “everybody in this house relies upon my good-nature. I am always the souffre-douleur . When a man is too easy he is taken advantage of on all hands. Where is your mother? Oh, I mean your stepmother, Rosalind; her blood is not in your veins, thank Heaven! You are a good child; I have no reason to find fault with you. Where is she? The nursery? I don’t believe anything about the nursery. She is with some of her low friends; yes, she has low friends. Hold your tongue, John; am I or am I not the person that knows best about my own wife? Where is your mistress? Where is Madam? Don’t stand there looking like a stuck pig, but speak!”

This was addressed to an unlucky footman who had come in prowling on one of the anonymous errands of domestic service—to see if the fire wanted looking to—if there were any coffee-cups unremoved—perhaps on a mission of curiosity, too. Mr. Trevanion was the terror of the house. The man turned pale and lost his self-command. “I—I don’t know, sir. I—I think, sir, as Madam—I—I’ll send Mr. Dorrington, sir,” the unfortunate said.

John Trevanion gave his niece an imperative look, saying low, “Go and tell her.” Rosalind rose trembling and put down her work. The footman had fled, and young Hamerton, hurrying to open the door to her (which was never shut) got in her way and brought upon himself a glance of wrath which made him tremble. He retreated with a chill running through him, wondering if the Trevanion temper was in her too, while the master of the house resumed. However well understood such explosions of family disturbance may be, they are always embarrassing and uncomfortable to visitors, and young Hamerton was not used to them and did not know what to make of himself. He withdrew to the darker end of the room, where it opened into a very dimly lighted conservatory, while the doctor shuffled the cards, letting them drop audibly through his fingers, and now and then attempting to divert the flood of rising rage by a remark. “Bless me,” he said, “I wish I had been dealing in earnest; what a bonnie thing for a trump card!” and, “A little farther from the fire, Mr. Trevanion, you are getting overheated; come, sir, the young fellow will take a hand to begin with, and after the first round another player can cut in.” These running interruptions, however, were of little service; Mr. Trevanion’s admirable good-nature which was always imposed upon; his long-suffering which everybody knew; the advantage the household took of him; the special sins of his wife for whom he had done everything—“Everything!” he cried; “I took her without a penny or a friend, and this is how she repays me”—afforded endless scope. It was nothing to him in his passion that he disclosed what had been the secrets of his life; and, indeed, by this time, after the perpetual self-revelation of these fits of passion there were few secrets left to keep. His ivory countenance reddened, his thin hands gesticulated, he leaned forward in his chair, drawing up the sharp angles of his knees, as he harangued about himself and his virtues and wrongs. His brother stood and listened, gazing blankly before him as if he heard nothing. The doctor sat behind, dropping the cards from one hand to another with a little rustling sound, and interposing little sentences of soothing and gentle remonstrance, while the young man, ashamed to be thus forced into the confidence of the family, edged step by step farther away into the conservatory till he got to the end, where was nothing but a transparent wall of glass between him and the agitations of the stormy night.

Rosalind stole out into the hall with a beating heart. Her father’s sharp voice still echoed in her ears, and she had an angry and ashamed consciousness that the footman who had hurried from the room before her, and perhaps other servants, excited by the crisis, were watching her and commenting upon the indecision with which she stood, not knowing what to do. “Go and tell her.” How easy it was to say so! Oh, if she but knew where to go, how to find her, how to save her not only from domestic strife but from the gnawing worm of suspicion and doubt which Rosalind felt in her own heart! What was she to do? Should she go up-stairs again and look through all the rooms, though she knew it would be in vain? To disarm her father’s rage, to smooth over this moment of misery and put things back on their old footing, the girl would have done anything; but as the moments passed she became more and more aware that this was not nearly all that was wanted, that even she herself, loving Mrs. Trevanion with all her heart, required more. Her judgment cried out for more. She wanted explanation; a reason for these strange disappearances. Why should she choose that time of all others when her absence must be so much remarked; and where, oh, where did she go? Rosalind stood with a sort of stupefied sense of incapacity in the hall. She would not go back. She could not pretend to make a search which she knew to be useless. She could not rush to the door again and watch there, with the risk of being followed and found at that post, and thus betray her suspicion that her mother was out of the house. She went and stood by one of the pillars and leaned against it, clasping her hands upon her heart and trying to calm herself and to find some expedient. Could she say that little Jack was ill, that something had happened? in the confusion of her mind she almost lost the boundary between falsehood and truth; but then the doctor would be sent to see what was the matter, and everything would be worse instead of better. She stood thus against the pillar and did not move, trying to think, in a whirl of painful imaginations and self-questionings, feeling every moment an hour. Oh, if she could but take it upon herself, and bear the weight, whatever it might be; but she was helpless and could do nothing save wait there, hidden, trembling, full of misery, till something should happen to set her free.