“Are things so very bad, Uncle John?” she cried, and the tears came welling up into her eyes as she raised them to his face.
“Very bad, I fear. This last attack has done him a great deal of harm, more than any of the others; perhaps, because, as the doctor says, the pace is quicker as he gets near the end, perhaps because he is still as angry as ever, though he is not able to give it vent. I wonder if such fury may not have some adequate cause.”
“Oh, Uncle John!” Rosalind cried; she clasped her hands upon his arm, looking up at him through her tears. He knew what was the meaning in her tone, though it was a meaning very hard to put into words. A child cannot say of her father when he is dying that his fury has often been without any adequate cause.
“I know,” he said, “and I acknowledge that no one could have a more devoted nurse. But whether there have not been concealments, clandestine acts, things he has a right to find fault with—”
“Even I,” said Rosalind, hastily, “and I have nothing to hide—even I have had to make secrets from papa.”
“That is the penalty, of course, of a temper so passionate. But she should not have let you do so, Rosalind.”
“It was not she. You think everything is her fault; oh, how mistaken you are! My mother and I,” cried the girl, impetuously, “have no secrets from each other.”
John Trevanion looked into the young, ingenuous countenance with anxiety: “Then, Rosalind,” he said, “where is it that she goes? Why does she go out at that hour of all others, in the dark? Whom does she meet? If you know all this, I think there cannot be another word to say; for nothing that is not innocent would be intrusted to you.”
Rosalind was silent. She ceased to look at him, and even withdrew her clasping hands from his arm.
“You have nothing to say? There it is: she has no secrets from you, and yet you can throw no light on this one secret. I have always had a great admiration and respect for your stepmother, Rosalind.”
“I wish you would not call her my stepmother! It hurts me. What other mother have I ever known?”
“My dear, your love for her is a defence in itself. But, Rosalind, forgive me, there is some complication here. If she will not explain, what are we to do? A mystery is always a sign of something wrong; at least, it must be taken for something wrong if it remains unexplained. I am, I hope, without passion or prejudice. She might have confided in me—”
“If there was anything to confide,” Rosalind said under her breath. But he went on.
“And now your father has sent for his lawyer—to do something, to change something. I can’t tell what he means to do, but it will be trouble in any case. And you, Rosalind—I said so before, you—must not stay here.”
“If you mean that I am to leave my mother, Uncle John—”
“Hush! not your mother. My dear, you must allow others to judge for you here. Had you been her child it would have been different: but we must take thought for your best interests. Who is that driving in at the gate? Why, it is Blake already. I wonder if a second summons has been sent. He was not expected till to-morrow. This looks worse and worse, Rosalind.”
“Uncle John, if you will let me, I will run in another way. I—don’t wish to meet Mr. Blake.”
“Hallo, Rosalind! you don’t mean to say that Charley Blake has ever presumed—Ah! this comes of not having a mother’s care.”
“It is nothing of the kind,” she cried, drawing her hand violently from his arm. “He hates her because she never would—Oh, how can you be so cruel, so prejudiced, so unjust?” In her vehemence Rosalind pushed him away from her with a force which made his steady, middle-aged figure almost swerve, and darted across the park away from him just in time to make it evident to Mr. Blake, driving his dog-cart quickly to make up to the group in advance, that it was to avoid him Miss Trevanion had fled.
“How is he?” was the eager question he put as he came up to John Trevanion. “I hope I am not too late.”
“For what? If it is my brother you mean, I hear he is a little better,” said John, coldly.
“Then I suppose it is only one of his attacks,” the new-comer said, with a slight tone of disappointment; not that he had any interest in the death of Mr. Trevanion, but that the fall from the excitement of a great crisis to the level of the ordinary is always disagreeable. “I thought from the telegram this morning there was no time to lose.”
“Who sent you the telegram this morning?”
“Madam Trevanion, of course,” said the young man.
This reply took John Trevanion so much by surprise that he went on without a word.
She knew very well what Blake’s visit portended to herself. But what a strange, philosophical stoic was this woman, who did not hesitate herself to summon, to hasten, lest he should lose the moment in which she could still be injured, the executioner of her fate. A sort of awe came over John. He begun to blame himself for his miserable doubts of such a woman. There was something in this silent impassioned performance of everything demanded from her that impressed the imagination. After a few minutes’ slow pacing along, restraining his horse, Blake threw the reins to his groom, and, jumping down, walked on by John Trevanion’s side.
“I suppose there is no such alarming hurry, then,” he said. “Of course you know what’s up now?”
“If you mean what are my brother’s intentions, I know nothing about them,” John said.
“No more do I. I can’t think what he’s got in his mind; though we have been very confidential over it all.” Mr. Blake elder was an old-fashioned and polite old gentleman, but his son belonged to another world, and pushed his way by means of a good deal of assurance and no regard to any one’s feelings. “It would be a great assistance to me,” he said, “if he’s going to tamper with that will again, to know how the land lies. What is wrong? There must have been, by all I hear, a great flare-up.”
“Will you remember, Blake, that you are speaking of my brother’s affairs? We are not in the habit of having flares-up here.”
“I mean no offence,” said the other. “It’s a lie, then, that is flying about the country.”
“What is flying about the country? If it is about a flare-up you may be sure it is a lie.”
“I don’t stand upon the word,” said Blake. “I thought I might speak frankly to you. Rumors are flying everywhere—that Mr. Trevanion is out of one fit into another—dying of it—and that Madam—”
“What of Madam?” said John Trevanion, firmly.
“I have myself the greatest respect for Mrs. Trevanion,” said the lawyer, making a sudden pause.
“You would be a bold man if you expressed any other sentiment here; but rumor has not the same reverential and perfectly just feeling, I suppose. What has it ventured to say of my sister?”
John Trevanion, with all his gravity, was very impulsive; and the sense that her secret, whatever it was, had been betrayed, bound him at once to her defence. He had probably never called her his sister before.
“Of course it is all talk,” said Blake. “I dare say the story means nothing; but knowing as I do so much about the state of affairs generally—a lawyer, you know, like a doctor, and people used to say a clergyman—”
“Is bound to hold his tongue, is he not?” John Trevanion said.