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CHAPTER I
A large drawing-room in a country-house, in the perfect warmth, stillness, and good order of after-dinner, awaiting the ladies coming in; the fire perfection, reflecting itself in all the polished brass and steel and tiles of the fireplace; the atmosphere just touched with the scent of the flowers on the tables; the piano open, with candles lit upon it; some pretty work laid out upon a stand near the fire, books on another, ready for use, velvet curtains drawn. The whole softly, fully lighted, a place full of every gentle luxury and comfort in perfection—the scene prepared, waiting only the actors in it.
It is curious to look into a centre of life like this, all ready for the human affairs about to be transacted there. Tragedy or comedy, who can tell which? the clash of human wills, the encounter of hearts, or perhaps only that serene blending of kindred tastes and inclinations which makes domestic happiness. Who was coming in? A fair mother, with a flock of girls fairer still, a beautiful wife adding the last grace to the beautiful place? some fortunate man’s crown of well-being and happiness, the nucleus of other happy homes to come?
A pause: the fire only crackling now and then, a little burst of flame puffing forth, the clock on the mantelpiece chiming softly. Then there entered alone a young lady about eighteen, in the simple white dinner dress of a home party; a tall, slight girl, with smooth brown hair, and eyes for the moment enlarged with anxiety and troubled meaning. She came in not as the daughter of the house in ordinary circumstances comes in, to take her pleasant place, and begin her evening occupation, whatever it may be. Her step was almost stealthy, like that of a pioneer, investigating anxiously if all was safe in a place full of danger. Her eyes, with the lids curved over them in an anxiety almost despairing, seemed to plunge into and search through and through the absolute tranquillity of this peaceful place. Then she said in a half-whisper, the intense tone of which was equal to a cry, “Mother!” Nothing stirred: the place was so warm, so perfect, so happy; while this one human creature stood on the threshold gazing—as if it had been a desert full of nothing but trouble and terror. She stood thus only for a moment, and then disappeared. It was a painful intrusion, suggestive of everything that was most alien to the sentiment of the place: when she withdrew it fell again into that soft beaming of warmth and brightness waiting for the warmer interest to come.
The doorway in which she had stood for that momentary inspection, which was deep in a solid wall, with two doors, in case any breath of cold should enter, opened into a hall, very lofty and fine, a sort of centre to the quiet house. Here the light was dimmer, the place being deserted, though it had an air of habitation, and the fire still smouldered in the huge chimney, round which chairs were standing. Sounds of voices muffled by closed doors and curtains came from the farther side where the dining-room was. The young lady shrank from this as if her noiseless motion could have been heard over the sounds of the male voices there. She hurried along to the other end of the hall, which lay in darkness with a glimmer of pale sky showing between the pillars from without. The outer doors were not yet shut. The inner glass door showed this paleness of night, with branches of trees tossing against a gray heaven full of flying clouds—the strangest weird contrast to all the warmth and luxury within. The girl shivered as she came in sight of that dreary outer world. This was the opening of the park in front of the house, a width of empty space, and beyond it the commotion of the wind, the stormy show of the coursing clouds. She went close to the door and gazed out, pressing her forehead against the glass, and searching the darkness, as she had done the light, with anxious eyes. She stood so for about five minutes, and then she breathed an impatient sigh. “What is the good?” she said to herself, half aloud.
Here something stirred near her which made her start, at first with an eager movement of hope. Then a low voice said—“No good at all, Miss Rosalind. Why should you mix yourself up with what’s no concern of yours?”
Rosalind had started violently when she recognized the voice, but subdued herself while the other spoke. She answered, with quiet self-restraint: “Is it you, Russell? What are you doing here? You will make it impossible for me to do anything for you if you forget your own place!”
“I am doing what my betters are doing, Miss Rosalind—looking out for Madam, just as you are.”
“How dare you say such things! I—am looking out to see what sort of night it is. It is very stormy. Go away at once. You have no right to be here!”
“I’ve been here longer than most folks—longer than them that has the best opinion of themselves; longer than—”
“Me perhaps,” said Rosalind. “Yes, I know—you came before I was born; but you know what folly this is. Mamma,” the girl said, with a certain tremor and hesitation, “will be very angry if she finds you here.”
“I wish, Miss Rosalind, you’d have a little more respect for yourself. It goes against me to hear you say mamma. And your own dear mamma, that should have been lady of everything—”
“Russell, I wish you would not be such a fool! My poor little mother that died when I was born. And you to keep up a grudge like this for so many years!”
“And will, whatever you may say,” cried the woman, under her breath; “and will, till I die, or till one of us—”
“Go up-stairs,” said Rosalind, peremptorily, “at once! What have you to do here? I don’t think you are safe in the house. If I had the power I should send you away.”
“Miss Rosalind, you are as cruel as— You have no heart. Me, that nursed you, and watched over you—”
“It is too terrible a price to pay,” cried the girl, stamping her foot on the floor. “Go! I will not have you here. If mamma finds you when she comes down-stairs—”
The woman laughed. “She will ask what you are doing here, Miss Rosalind. It will not be only me she’ll fly out upon. What are you doing here? Who’s outside that interests you so? It interests us both, that’s the truth; only I am the one that knows the best.”
Rosalind’s white figure flew across the faint light. She grasped the shoulder of the dark shadow, almost invisible in the gloom. “Go!” she cried in her ear, pushing Russell before her; the onslaught was so sudden and vehement that the woman yielded and disappeared reluctantly, gliding away by one of the passages that led to the other part of the house. The girl stood panting and excited in the brief sudden fury of her passion, a miserable sense of failing faith and inability to explain to herself the circumstances in which she was, heightening the fervor of her indignation. Were Russell’s suspicions true? Had she been in the right all along? Those who take persistently the worst view of human nature are, alas! so often in the right. And what is there more terrible than the passion of defence and apology for one whom the heart begins to doubt? The girl was young, and in her rage and pain could scarcely keep herself from those vehement tears which are the primitive attribute of passion. How calm she could have been had she been quite, quite sure! How she had laughed at Russell’s prejudices in the old days when all was well. She had even excused Russell, feeling that after all it was pretty of her nurse to return continually to the image of her first mistress—Rosalind’s own mother—and that in the uneducated mind the prepossession against a stepmother, the wrath with which the woman saw her own nursling supplanted, had a sort of feudal flavor which was rather agreeable than otherwise.
Rosalind had pardoned Russell as Mrs. Trevanion herself had pardoned her. So long as all was well: so long as there was nothing mysterious, nothing that baffled the spectator in the object of Russell’s animadversions. But now something had fallen into life which changed it altogether. To defend those we love from undeserved accusations is so easy. And in books and plays, and every other exhibition of human nature in fiction, the accused always possesses the full confidence of those who love him. In ordinary cases they will not even hear any explanation of equivocal circumstances—they know that guilt is impossible: it is only those who do not know him who can believe anything so monstrous. Alas! this is not so in common life—the most loving and believing cannot always have that sublime faith. Sometimes doubt and fear gnaw the very souls of those who are the champions, the advocates, the warmest partisans of the accused. This terrible canker had got into Rosalind’s being. She loved her stepmother with enthusiasm. She was ready to die in her defence. She would not listen to the terrible murmur in her own heart; but yet it was there. And as she stood and gazed out upon the park, upon the wild bit