Маргарет Олифант - Madam

Still she did not utter a word of apology, but stooped and found the footstool, which she placed at her husband’s feet. “This is the one that suits you best,” she said. “Come, John, if I am the culprit, let us lose no more time.”

Mr. Trevanion kicked the footstool away. “D’ye think I am going to be smoothed down so easily?” he cried. “Oh, yes, as soon as Madam pleases, that is the time for everything. I shall not play. You can amuse yourselves if you please, gentlemen, at Mrs. Trevanion’s leisure, when she can find time to pay a little attention to her guests. Give me those newspapers, Rosalind. Oh, play, play! by all means play! don’t let me interrupt your amusement. A little more neglect, what does that matter? I hope I am used to— Heaven above! they are not cut up. What is that rascal Dorrington about? What is the use of a pack of idle servants? never looked after as they ought to be; encouraged, indeed, to neglect and ill-use the master that feeds them. What can you expect? With a mistress who is shut up half her time, or out of the way or—What’s that? what’s that?”

It was a singular thing enough, and this sudden exclamation called all eyes to it. Mrs. Trevanion, who had risen when her husband kicked his footstool in her face, and, turning round, had taken a few steps across the room, stopped with a slight start, which perhaps betrayed some alarm in her, and looked back. The train of her dress was sweeping over the hearthrug, and there in the full light, twisted into her lace, and clinging to her dress, was a long, straggling, thorny branch, all wet with the damp of night. Involuntarily they were all gazing— John Trevanion looking down gravely at this strange piece of evidence which was close to his feet; the doctor, with the cards in his hand, half risen from his seat stooping across the table to see; while Rosalind, throwing herself down, had already begun to detach it with hands that trembled.

“Oh, mamma!” cried the girl, with a laugh which sounded wild, “how careless, how horrid of Jane! Here is a thorn that caught in your dress the last time you wore it; and she has folded it up in your train, and never noticed. Papa is right, the servants are—”

“Hold your tongue, Rose,” said Mr. Trevanion, with an angry chuckle of satisfaction; “let alone! So, Madam, this is why we have to wait for everything; this is why the place is left to itself; and I—I—the master and owner, neglected. Good heavens above! while the lady of the house wanders in the woods in a November night. With whom, Madam? With whom?” he raised himself like a skeleton, his fiery eyes blazing out of their sockets. “With whom, I ask you? Here, gentlemen, you are witnesses; this is more serious than I thought. I knew my wishes were disregarded, that my convenience was set at naught, that the very comforts that are essential to my life were neglected, but I did not think I was betrayed. With whom, Madam? Answer! I demand his name.”

“Reginald,” said John Trevanion, “for God’s sake don’t let us have another scene. You may think what you please, but we know all that is nonsense. Neglected! Why she makes herself your slave. If the other is as true as that! Doctor, can’t you put a stop to it? He’ll kill himself—and her.”

“Her! oh, she’s strong enough,” cried the invalid. “I have had my suspicions before, but I have never uttered them. Ah, Madam! you thought you were too clever for me. A sick man, unable to stir out of the house, the very person, of course, to be deceived. But the sick man has his defenders. Providence is on his side. You throw dust in the eyes of these men; but I know you; I know what I took you from; I’ve known all along what you were capable of. Who was it? Heaven above! down, down on your knees, and tell me his name.”

Mrs. Trevanion was perfectly calm, too calm, perhaps, for the unconsciousness of innocence; and she was also deadly pale. “So far as the evidence goes,” she said quietly, “I do not deny it. It has not been folded up in my train, my kind Rosalind. I have been out of doors; though the night, as you see, is not tempting; and what then?”

She turned round upon them with a faint smile, and took the branch out of Rosalind’s hand. “You see it is all wet,” she said, “there is no deception in it. I have been out in the park, on the edge of the woods. Look, I did not stop even to change my shoes, they are wet too. And what then?”

“One thing,” cried the doctor, “that you must change them directly, before another word is said. This comes in my department, at least. We don’t want to have you laid up with congestion of the lungs. Miss Rosalind, take your mamma away, and make her, as we say in Scotland, change her feet.”

“Let her go altogether, if she pleases,” said the invalid; “I want to see no more of her. In the park, in the woods—do you hear her, gentlemen? What does a woman want in the woods in a winter night? Let her have congestion of the lungs, it will save disgrace to the family. For, mark my words, I will follow this out. I will trace it to the foundation. Night after night she has done it. Oh, you think I don’t know? She has done it again and again. She has been shameless; she has outraged the very house where— Do you hear, woman? Who is it? My God! a groom, or some low fellow—”

The doctor grasped his arm with a hand that thrilled with indignation as well as professional zeal, while John Trevanion started forward with a sudden flush and menace—

“If you don’t respect your wife, for God’s sake think of the girl—your own child! If it were not for their sakes I should not spend another night under this roof—”

“Spend your night where you please,” said the infuriated husband, struggling against the doctor’s attempt to draw him back into his chair. “If I respect her? No, I don’t respect her. I respect nobody that ill-uses me. Get out of the way, Rosalind! I tell you I’ll turn out that woman. I’ll disgrace her. I’ll show what she’s made of. She’s thrown dust in all your eyes, but never in mine. No, Madam, never in mine; you’ve forgotten, I suppose, what you were when I took you and married you, like a fool—but I’ve never forgotten; and now to break out at your age? Who do you suppose can care for you at your age? It is for what he can get, the villain, that he comes over an old hag like you. Oh, women, women! that’s what women are. Turn out on a winter’s night to philander in the woods with some one, some—”

He stopped, incapable of more, and fell back in his chair, and glared and foamed insults with his bloodless lips which he had not breath to speak.

Mrs. Trevanion stood perfectly still while all this was going on. Her face showed by its sudden contraction when the grosser accusations told, but otherwise she made no movement. She held the long, dangling branch in her hand, and looked at it with a sort of half-smile. It was so small a matter to produce so much—and yet it was not a small matter. Was it the hand of fate! Was it Providence, as he said, that was on his side! But she did not say another word in self-defence. It was evident that it was her habit to stand thus, and let the storm beat. Her calm was the resignation of long usage, the sense that it was beyond remedy, that the only thing she could do was to endure. And yet the accusations of this evening were new, and there was something new in the contemplative way in which she regarded this piece of evidence which had convicted her. Hitherto the worst accusations that had rained upon her had been without evidence, without possibility—and everybody had been aware that it was so. Now there was something new. When she had borne vituperation almost as violent for her neglect, for her indifference, sometimes for her cruelty, the wrong had been too clear for any doubt. But now: never before had there even been anything to explain. But the bramble was a thing that demanded explanation. Even John Trevanion, the just and kind, had shown a gleam of surprise when he caught sight of it. The good doctor, who was entirely on her side, had given her a startled look. Rosalind, her child, had put forth a hesitating plea—a little lie for her. All this went to her heart with a wringing of pain, as if her very heart had been crushed with some sudden pressure. But the habit of endurance was unbroken even by these secret and novel pangs. She did not even meet the eyes directed to her with any attempt at self-defence. But yet the position was novel; and standing still in her old panoply of patience, she felt it to be so, and that former expedients were inadequate to the occasion. For the first time it would have better become her to speak. But what? She had nothing to say.