could she do you an ill turn? That is, Jane, I beg your pardon, she might, perhaps, be nasty to you—but, mamma! What blow, as you call it, can be struck at mamma?”
“Oh, how can I tell?” said Jane; “I never was clever; there’s things happening every day that no one can foresee; and when a woman is always watching to spy out any crevice, you never can tell, Miss Rosalind, in this world of trouble, what may happen unforeseen.”
This speech made no great impression on Rosalind’s mind at the time, but it recurred to her after, and gave her more trouble than any wickedness of Russell’s had power to do. In the meantime, leaving Jane, she went to the nursery, and with the preoccupation of youth carried with her the same subject, heedless and unthinking what conclusions Russell, whose faculties were always alert on this question, might draw.
“Russell,” she said, after a moment, “why are you always so disagreeable to mamma?”
“Miss Rosalind, I do hate to hear you call her mamma. Why don’t you say ‘my stepmother,’ as any other young lady would in your place?”
“Because she is not my stepmother,” said the girl, with a slight stamp on the floor. “Just look at little Johnny, taking in all you say with his big eyes. She is all the mother I have ever known, and I love her better than any one in the world.”
“And just for that I can’t bear it,” cried the woman. “What would your own dear mamma say?”
“If she were as jealous and ill-tempered as you I should not mind what she said,” said the girl. “Don’t think, if you continue like this, you will ever have any sympathy from me.”
“Oh, Miss Rosalind, what you are saying is as bad as swearing; worse, it’s blasphemy; and the time will come when you’ll remember and be sorry. No, though you think I’m a brute, I sha’n’t say anything before the children. But the time will come—”
“What a pity you are not on the stage, Russell! You would make a fine Meg Merrilies, or something of that kind; the old woman that is always cursing somebody and prophesying trouble. That is just what you are suited for. I will come and see you your first night.”
“Me! on the stage!” cried Russell, with a sense of outraged dignity which words cannot express. Such an insult had never been offered to her before. Rosalind went out of the room quickly, angry but laughing when she had given this blow. She wanted to administer a stinging chastisement, and she had done so. Her own cleverness in discovering what would hit hardest pleased her. She began to sing, out of wrathful indignation and pleasure, as she went down-stairs.
“Me! on the stage!” Russell repeated to herself. A respectable upper servant in a great house could not have had a more degrading suggestion made to her. She could have cried as she sat there gnashing her teeth. And this too was all on account of Madam, the strange woman who had taken her first mistress’s place even in the heart of her own child. Perhaps if Rosalind had treated her stepmother as a stepmother ought to be treated, Russell would have been less antagonistic; but Mrs. Trevanion altogether was obnoxious to her. She had come from abroad; she had brought her own maid with her, who was entirely unsociable, and never told anything; who was a stranger, a foreigner perhaps, for anything that was known of her, and yet was Russell’s equal, or more, by right of Madam’s favor, though Russell had been in the house for years. What subtle antipathy there might be besides these tangible reasons for hating them, Russell did not know. She only knew that from the first moment she had set eyes upon her master’s new wife she had detested her. There was something about her that was not like other women. There must be a secret. When had it ever been known that a maid gave up everything—the chat, the game at cards, the summer stroll in the park, even the elegant civilities of a handsome butler—for the love of her mistress? It was unnatural; no one had ever heard of such a thing. What could it be but a secret between these women which held them together, which it was their interest to conceal from the world? But the time would come, Russell said to herself. If she watched night and day she should find it out; if she waited for years and years the time and opportunity would come at last.
CHAPTER VIII
This conversation, or series of conversations, took place shortly before the time at which this history begins, and it was very soon after that the strange course of circumstances commenced which was of so much importance in the future life of the Trevanions of Highcourt. When the precise moment was at which the attention of Rosalind was roused and her curiosity excited, she herself could not have told. It was not until Madam Trevanion had fallen for some time into the singular habit of disappearing after dinner, nobody knew where. It had been very usual with her to run up to the nursery when she left the dining-room, to see if the children were asleep. Mr. Trevanion, when he was at all well, liked to sit, if not over his wine, for he was abstemious by force of necessity, yet at the table, talking with whomsoever might be his guest. Though his life was so little adapted to the habits of hospitality, he liked to have some one with whom he could sit and talk after dinner, and who would make up his rubber when he went into the drawing-room. He had been tolerably well, for him, during the autumn, and there had been a succession of three-days’ visitors, all men, succeeding each other, and all chosen on purpose to serve Mr. Trevanion’s after-dinner talk and his evening rubber. And it was a moment in which the women of the household felt themselves free. As for Rosalind, she would establish herself between the lamp and the fire and read a novel, which was one of her favorite pastimes; while Mrs. Trevanion, relieved from the constant strain of attendance, would run up-stairs, “to look at the children,” as she said. Perhaps she did not always look long at the children, but this served as the pretext for a moment of much-needed rest, Rosalind had vaguely perceived a sort of excitement about her for some time—a furtive look, an anxiety to get away from the table as early as possible. While she sat there she would change color, as was not at all her habit, for ordinarily she was pale. Now flushes and pallor contended with each other. When she spoke there was a little catch as of haste and breathlessness in her voice, and when she made the usual little signal to Rosalind her hand would tremble, and the smile was very uncertain on her lip. Nor did she stop to say anything, but hurried up-stairs like one who has not a moment to lose. And it happened on several occasions that Mr. Trevanion and the guest and the doctor were in the drawing-room, however long they sat, before Madam had returned. For some time Rosalind took no notice of this. She did not indeed remark it. It had never occurred to her to watch or to inspect her stepmother’s conduct. Hitherto she had been convinced that it was right always. She read her novel in her fireside corner, and never discovered that there was any break in the usual routine. When the first painful light burst upon her she could not tell. It was first a word from Russell, then the sight of Jane gazing out very anxiously upon the night, when it rained, from a large staircase window, and then the aspect of affairs altogether. Mr. Trevanion began to remark very querulously on his wife’s absence. Where was she? What did she mean by always being out of the way just when he wanted her? and much more of the same kind. And when Madam came in she looked flushed and hurried, and brought with her a whole atmosphere of fresh out-door air from the damp and somewhat chilly night. It was the fragrance and sensation of this fresh air which roused Rosalind the most. It startled her with a sense of something that was new, something that she did not understand. The thought occurred to her next morning when she first opened her eyes, the first thing that came into her mind. That sudden gush of fresh air, how did it come? It was not from the nursery that one could bring an atmosphere like that.
And thus other days and other evenings passed. There was something new altogether in Mrs. Trevanion’s face, a sort of awakening, but not to happiness. When they drove out she was very silent, and her eyes were watchful as though looking for something. They went far before the carriage, before the rapid horses, with a watchful look. For whom could she be looking? Rosalind ventured one day to put the question. “For whom—could I be looking? I am looking for no one,” Mrs. Trevanion said, with a sudden rush of color to her face; and whereas she had been leaning forward in the carriage, she suddenly
