of all these Rosalind had remained, if that may be said of a step-child when a woman has a family of her own, the favorite, the mother’s constant companion, everything that an eldest girl could be. Neither the one nor the other ever betrayed a consciousness that they were not mother and daughter. Mr. Trevanion himself, when in his capricious, irritable way he permitted any fondness to appear, preferred Reginald, who was his heir and personal representative. But Rosalind was always by her mother’s side. But for Russell, the nurse, and one or two other injudicious persons, she would probably never have found out that Madam was not her mother; but the discovery had done good rather than harm, by inspiring the natural affection with a passionate individual attachment in which there were all those elements of choice and independent election which are the charm of friendship. Mrs. Trevanion was Rosalind’s example, her heroine, the perfect type of woman to her eyes. And, indeed, she was a woman who impressed the general mind with something of this character. There are many good women who do not do so, who look commonplace enough in their life, and are only known in their full excellence from some revelation afterwards of heroism unknown. But Mrs. Trevanion carried her diploma in her eyes. The tenderness in them was like sunshine to everybody about her who was in trouble. She never was harsh, never intolerant, judged nobody—which in a woman so full of feeling and with so high a standard of moral excellence was extraordinary. This was what gave so great a charm to her manners. A well-bred woman, even of an inferior type, will not allow a humble member of society to feel himself or herself de trop; but there are many ways of doing this, and the ostentatious way of showing exaggerated attention to an unlucky stranger is as painful to a delicate mind as neglect. But this was a danger which Mrs. Trevanion avoided. No one could tell what the rank was of the guests in her drawing-room, whether it was the duchess or the governess that was receiving her attentions. They were all alike gentlewomen in this gracious house. The poor, who are always the hardest judges of a new claimant of their favor, and who in this case were much set on finding out that a woman who came from “abroad” could be no lady, gave in more reluctantly, yet yielded too like their betters—with the exception of Russell and the family in the village to which she belonged. These were the only enemies, so far as any one was aware, whom Madam possessed, and they were enemies of a visionary kind, in no open hostility, receiving her favors like the rest, and kept in check by the general state of public opinion. Still, if there was anything to be found out about the lady of Highcourt, these were the only hostile bystanders desirous of the opportunity of doing her harm.
But everything had fallen into perfect peace outside the house for years. Now and then, at long intervals, it might indeed be remarked in the course of a genealogical conversation such as many people love, that it was not known who Mrs. Trevanion the second had been. “His first wife was a Miss Warren, one of the Warrens of Warrenpoint. The present one—well, I don’t know who she was; they married abroad.” But that was all that now was ever said. It would be added probably that she was very handsome, or very nice, or quite comme il faut, and so her defect of parentage was condoned. Everything was harmonious, friendly, and comfortable outside. The county could not resist her fine manners, her looks, her quiet assumption of the place that belonged to her. But within doors Mrs. Trevanion soon came to know that no very peaceful life was to be expected. There were people who said that she had not the look of a happy woman even when she first came home. In repose her face was rather sad than otherwise at all times. Mr. Trevanion was still in the hot fit of a bridegroom’s enthusiasm when he brought her home, but even then he was the most troublesome, the most exacting, the most fidgety of bridegrooms. Her patience with all his demands was boundless. She would change her dress half a dozen times in an evening to please him. She would start off with him on a sudden wild expedition at half an hour’s notice, without a word or even look of annoyance. And when the exuberance of love wore off, and the exactions continued, with no longer caresses and sweet words, but blame and reproach and that continual fault-finding which it is so hard to put up with amiably, Mrs. Trevanion still endured everything, consented to everything, with a patience that would not be shaken. It was now nearly ten years since the heart-disease which had brought him nearly to death’s door first showed itself. He had rheumatic fever, and then afterwards, as is so usual, this terrible legacy which that complaint leaves behind it. From that moment, of course, the patience which had been so sweetly exercised before became a religious duty. It was known in the house that nothing must cross or agitate or annoy Mr. Trevanion. But, indeed, it was not necessary that anything should annoy him; he was his own chief annoyance, his own agitator. He would flame up in sudden wrath at nothing at all, and turn the house upside down, and send everybody but his wife flying, with vituperations which scarcely the basest criminal could have deserved. And his wife, who never abandoned him, became the chief object of these passionate assaults. He accused her of every imaginable fault. He began to talk of all she owed him, to declare that he married her when she had nothing, that he had taken her out of the depths, that she owed everything to him; he denounced her as ungrateful, base, trying to injure his health under pretence of nursing him, that she might get the power into her own hands. But she would find out her mistake, he said; she would learn, when he was gone, the difference between having a husband to protect her and nobody. To all these wild accusations and comments the little circle round Mrs. Trevanion had become familiar and indifferent. “Pegging away at Madam, as usual,” Mr. Dorrington, the butler, said. “Lord, I’d let him peg! I’d leave him to himself and see how he likes it,” replied the cook and housekeeper. No one had put the slightest faith in the objurgations of the master. To Rosalind they were the mere extravagances of that mad temper which she had been acquainted with all her life. What her father said about his wife was about as reasonable as his outburst of certainty that England was going to the devil when the village boys broke down one of the young trees. She did not judge papa for such a statement. She cried a little at his vehemence, which did himself so much harm, and laughed a little secretly, with a heavy sense of guilt, at his extravagance and exaggerations. Poor papa! it was not his fault, it was because he was so ill. He was too weak and ailing to be able to restrain himself as other people did. But he did not mean it—how could he mean it? To say that mamma wanted to break his neck if she did not put his pillow as he liked it, to accuse her of a systematic attempt to starve him if his luncheon was two minutes late or his soup not exactly to his taste—all that was folly. And no doubt it was also folly, all that about raising her from nothing and taking her without a penny. Rosalind, though very much disturbed when she was present at one of these scenes, yet permitted herself to laugh at it when it was over or she had got away. Poor papa! and then when he had raged himself into a fit of those heart-spasms he was so ill; how sad to see him suffering so terribly, gasping for breath! Poor papa! to think that he did so much to bring it on himself was only a pity the more.
Thus things had gone on for years. When Dr. Beaton came to live in the house there had been a temporary amendment. The presence of a stranger, perhaps, had been a check upon the patient; and perhaps the novelty of a continual and thoroughly instructed watcher—who knew how to follow the symptoms of the malady, and foresaw an outburst before it came—did something for him; and certainly there had been an amendment. But by and by familiarity did away with these advantages. Dr. Beaton exhausted all the resources of his science, and Mr. Trevanion ceased to be upon his guard with a man whom he saw every day. Thus the house lived in a forced submission to the feverish vagaries of its head; and he himself sat and railed at everybody, pleased with nothing, claiming every thought and every hour, but never contented with the service done him. And greater and greater became the force of his grievances against his wife and his sense of having done everything for her; how he had stood by her when nobody else would look at her, how he had lifted her out of some vague humiliation and abandonment, how she owed him everything, yet treated him with brutal carelessness, and sought his death, were the most favorite accusations on his lips. Mrs. Trevanion listened with a countenance that rarely showed any traces of emotion. She had shrunk a little at first from these painful accusations; but soon had come to listen to them with absolute calm. She had borne them like a saint, like a philosopher; and yet within the last month everybody saw there had been a change.
CHAPTER VII
When Mrs. Trevanion came to Highcourt, she brought with her a maid who had, during all the sixteen years of her married life, remained with her without the slightest breach of fidelity or devotion.
