CHAPTER II.
The gentlemen who came into the drawing-room at Highcourt were four in number: the master of the house, his brother, the doctor, and a young man fresh from the university, who was a visitor. Mr. Trevanion was an invalid; he had been a tall man, of what is called aristocratic appearance; a man with fine, clearly cut features, holding his head high, with an air “as if all the world belonged to him.” These fine features were contracted by an expression of fastidious discontent and dissatisfaction, which is not unusually associated with such universal proprietorship, and illness had taken the flesh from his bones, and drawn the ivory skin tightly over the high nose and tall, narrow forehead. His lips were thin and querulous, his shoulders stooping, his person as thin and angular as human form could be. When he had warmed his ghostly hands at the fire, and seated himself in his accustomed chair, he cast a look round him as if seeking some subject of complaint. His eyes were blue, very cold, deficient in color, and looked out from amid the puckers of his eyelids with the most unquestionable meaning. They seemed to demand something to object to, and this want is one which is always supplied. The search was but momentary, so that he scarcely seemed to have entered the room before he asked, “Where is your mother?” in a high-pitched, querulous voice.
Mr. John Trevanion had followed his brother to the fire, and stood now with his back to the blaze looking at Rosalind. His name was not in reality John, but something much more ornamental and refined; but society had availed itself of its well-known propensity in a more judicious manner than usual, and rechristened him with the short and manly monosyllable which suited his character. He was a man who had been a great deal about the world, and had discovered of how little importance was a Trevanion of Highcourt, and yet how it simplified life to possess a well-known name. One of these discoveries without the other is not improving to the character, but taken together the result is mellowing and happy. He was very tolerant, very considerate, a man who judged no one, yet formed very shrewd opinions of his own, upon which he was apt to act, even while putting forth every excuse and acknowledging every extenuating circumstance. He looked at Rosalind with a certain veiled anxiety in his eyes, attending her answer with solicitude; but to all appearance he was only spreading himself out as an Englishman loves to do before the clear glowing fire. Dr. Beaton had gone as far away as possible from that brilliant centre. He was stout, and disapproved, he said, “on principle,” of the habit of gathering round the fireside. “Let the room be properly warmed,” he was in the habit of saying, “but don’t let us bask in the heat like the dogues,” for the doctor was Scotch, and betrayed now and then in a pronunciation, and always in accent, his northern origin. He had seated himself on the other side of the card-table, ready for the invariable game. Young Roland Hamerton, the Christchurch man, immediately gravitated towards Rosalind, who, to tell the truth, could not have given less attention to him had he been one of the above-mentioned “dogues.”
“Where is your mother?” Mr. Trevanion said, looking round for matter of offence.
“Oh!” said Rosalind, with a quick drawing of her breath; “mamma has gone for a moment to the nursery—I suppose.” She drew breath again before the last two words, thus separating them from what had gone before—a little artifice which Uncle John perceived, but no one else.
“Now this is a strange thing,” said Mr. Trevanion, “that in my own house, and in my failing state of health, I cannot secure my own wife’s attention at the one moment in the day when she is indispensable to me. The nursery! What is there to do in the nursery? Is not Russell there? If the woman is not fit to be trusted, let her be discharged at once and some one else got.”
“Oh! it is not that there is any doubt about Russell, papa, only one likes to see for one’s self.”
“Then why can’t she send you to see for yourself. This is treatment I am not accustomed to. Oh, what do I say? Not accustomed to it! Of course I am accustomed to be neglected by everybody. A brat of a child that never ailed anything in its life is to be watched over, while I, a dying man, must take my chance. I have put up with it for years, always hoping that at last—But the worm will turn, you know; the most patient will break down. If I am to wait night after night for the one amusement, the one little pleasure, such as it is—Night after night! I appeal to you, doctor, whether Mrs. Trevanion has been ready once in the last fortnight. The only thing that I ask of her—the sole paltry little complaisance—”
He spoke very quickly, allowing no possibility of interruption, till his voice, if we may use such a word, overran itself and died away for want of breath.
“My dear sir,” said the doctor, taking up the cards, “we are just enough for our rubber; and, as I have often remarked, though I bow to the superiority of the ladies in most things, whist, in my opinion, is altogether a masculine game. Will you cut for the deal?”
But by this time Mr. Trevanion had recovered his breath. “It is what I will not put up with,” he said; “everybody in this house relies upon my good-nature. I am always the souffre-douleur. When a man is too easy he is taken advantage of on all hands. Where is your mother? Oh, I mean your stepmother, Rosalind; her blood is not in your veins, thank Heaven! You are a good child; I have no reason to find fault with you. Where is she? The nursery? I don’t believe anything about the nursery. She is with some of her low friends; yes, she has low friends. Hold your tongue, John; am I or am I not the person that knows best about my own wife? Where is your mistress? Where is Madam? Don’t stand there looking like a stuck pig, but speak!”
This was addressed to an unlucky footman who had come in prowling on one of the anonymous errands of domestic service—to see if the fire wanted looking to—if there were any coffee-cups unremoved—perhaps on a mission of curiosity, too. Mr. Trevanion was the terror of the house. The man turned pale and lost his self-command. “I—I don’t know, sir. I—I think, sir, as Madam—I—I’ll send Mr. Dorrington, sir,” the unfortunate said.
John Trevanion gave his niece an imperative look, saying low, “Go and tell her.” Rosalind rose trembling and put down her work. The footman had fled, and young Hamerton, hurrying to open the door to her (which was never shut) got in her way and brought upon himself a glance of wrath which made him tremble. He retreated with a chill running through him, wondering if the Trevanion temper was in her too, while the master of the house resumed. However well understood such explosions of family disturbance may be, they are always embarrassing and uncomfortable to visitors, and young Hamerton was not used to them and did not know what to make of himself. He withdrew to the darker end of the room, where it opened into a very dimly lighted conservatory, while the doctor shuffled the cards, letting them drop audibly through his fingers, and now and then attempting to divert the flood of rising rage by a remark. “Bless me,” he said, “I wish I had been dealing in earnest; what a bonnie thing for a trump card!” and, “A little farther from the fire, Mr. Trevanion, you are getting overheated; come, sir, the young fellow will take a hand to begin with, and after the first round another player can cut in.” These running interruptions, however, were of little service; Mr. Trevanion’s admirable good-nature which was always imposed upon; his long-suffering which everybody knew; the advantage the household took of him; the special sins of his wife for whom he had done everything—“Everything!” he cried; “I took her without a penny or a friend, and this is how she repays me”—afforded endless scope. It was nothing to him in his passion that he disclosed what had been the secrets of his life; and, indeed, by this time, after the perpetual self-revelation of these fits of passion there were few secrets left to keep. His ivory countenance reddened, his thin hands gesticulated, he leaned forward in his chair, drawing up the sharp angles of his knees, as he harangued about himself and his virtues and wrongs. His brother stood and listened, gazing blankly before him as if he heard nothing. The doctor sat behind, dropping the cards from one hand to another with a little rustling sound, and interposing little sentences of soothing and gentle remonstrance, while the young man, ashamed to be thus forced into the