“You will always remember Madame, I think, and I will remind you of me beside; and for the present farewell, and I hope you may be as ‘appy as you deserve.”
The large sinister face looked on me for a second with its latent sneer, and then, with a sharp nod and a spasmodic shake of my imprisoned thumb, she turned, and holding her dress together, and showing her great bony ankles, she strode rapidly away over the gnarled roots into the perspective of the trees, and I did not awake, as it were, until she had quite disappeared in the distance.
Events of this kind made no difference with my father; but every other face in Knowl was gladdened by the removal. My energies had returned, my spirits were come again. The sunlight was happy, the flowers innocent, the songs and flutter of the birds once more gay, and all nature delightful and rejoicing.
After the first elation of relief, now and then a filmy shadow of Madame de la Rougierre would glide across the sunlight, and the remembrance of her menace return with an unexpected pang of fear.
“Well, if there isn’t impittens!” cried Mrs. Rusk. “But never you trouble your head about it, Miss. Them sort’s all alike — you never saw a rogue yet that was found out and didn’t threaten the honest folk as he was leaving behind with all sorts; there was Martin the gamekeeper, and Jervis the footman, I mind well how hard they swore all they would not do when they was a-going, and who ever heard of them since? They always threatens that way — them sort always does, and none ever the worse — not but she would if she could, mind ye, but there it is; she can’t do nothing but bite her nails and cuss us — not she — ha, ha, ha!”
So I was comforted. But Madame’s evil smile, nevertheless, from time to time, would sail across my vision with a silent menace, and my spirits sank, and a Fate, draped in black, whose face I could not see, took me by the hand, and led me away, in the spirit, silently, on an awful exploration from which I would rouse myself with a start, and Madame was gone for a while.
She had, however, judged her little parting well. She contrived to leave her glamour over me, and in my dreams she troubled me.
I was, however, indescribably relieved. I wrote in high spirits to Cousin Monica; and wondered what plans my father might have formed about me, and whether we were to stay at home, or go to London, or go abroad. Of the last — the pleasantest arrangement, in some respects — I had nevertheless an occult horror. A secret conviction haunted me that were we to go abroad, we should there meet Madame, which to me was like meeting an evil genius.
I have said more than once that my father was an odd man; and the reader will, by this time, have seen that there was much about him not easily understood. I often wonder whether, if he had been franker, I should have found him less odd than I supposed, or more odd still. Things that moved me profoundly did not apparently affect him at all. The departure of Madame, under the circumstances which attended it, appeared to my childish mind an event of the vastest importance. No one was indifferent to the occurrence in the house but its master. He never alluded again to Madame de la Rougierre. But whether connected with her exposure and dismissal, I could not say, there did appear to be some new care or trouble now at work in my father’s mind.
“I have been thinking a great deal about you, Maud. I am anxious. I have not been so troubled for years. Why has not Monica Knollys a little more sense?”
This oracular sentence he spoke, having stopped me in the hall; and then saying, “We shall see,” he left me as abruptly as he appeared.
Did he apprehend any danger to me from the vindictiveness of Madame?
A day or two afterwards, as I was in the Dutch garden, I saw him on the terrace steps. He beckoned to me, and came to meet me as I approached.
“You must be very solitary, little Maud; it is not good. I have written to Monica; in a matter of detail she is competent to advise; perhaps she will come here for a short visit.”
I was very glad to hear this.
“You are more interested than for my time I can be, in vindicating his character.”
“Whose character, sir?” I ventured to enquire during the pause that followed.
One trick which my father had acquired from his habits of solitude and silence was this of assuming that the context of his thoughts was legible to others, forgetting that they had not been spoken.
“Whose? — your uncle Silas’s. In the course of nature he must survive me. He will then represent the family name. Would you make some sacrifice to clear that name, Maud?”
I answered briefly; but my face, I believe, showed my enthusiasm.
He turned on me such an approving smile as you might fancy lighting up the rugged features of a pale old Rembrandt.
“I can tell you, Maud; if my life could have done it, it should not have been undone — ubi lapsus, quid feci. But I had almost made up my mind to change my plan, and leave all to time — edax rerum — to illuminate or to consume. But I think little Maud would like to contribute to the restitution of her family name. It may cost you something — are you willing to buy it at a sacrifice? Is there — I don’t speak of fortune, that is not involved — but is there any other honourable sacrifice you would shrink from to dispel the disgrace under which our most ancient and honourable name must otherwise continue to languish?”
“Oh, none — none, indeed, sir — I am delighted!”
Again I saw the Rembrandt smile.
“Well, Maud, I am sure there is no risk; but you are to suppose there is. Are you still willing to accept it?”
Again I assented.
“You are worthy of your blood, Maud Ruthyn. It will come soon, and it won’t last long. But you must not let people like Monica Knollys frighten you.”
I was lost in wonder.
“If you allow them to possess you with their follies, you had better recede in time — they may make the ordeal as terrible as hell itself. You have zeal — have you nerve?”
I thought in such a cause I had nerve for anything.
“Well, Maud, in the course of a few months — and it may be sooner — there must be a change. I have had a letter from London this morning that assures me of that. I must then leave you for a time; in my absence be faithful to the duties that will arise. To whom much is committed, of him much will be required. You shall promise me not to mention this conversation to Monica Knollys. If you are a talking girl, and cannot trust yourself, say so, and we will not ask her to come. Also, don’t invite her to talk about your Uncle Silas — I have reasons. Do you quite understand my conditions?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your uncle Silas,” he said, speaking suddenly in loud and fierce tones that sounded from so old a man almost terrible, “lies under an intolerable slander. I don’t correspond with him; I don’t sympathise with him; I never quite did. He has grown religious, and that’s well; but there are things in which even religion should not bring a man to acquiesce; and from what I can learn, he, the person primarily affected — the cause, though the innocent cause — of this great calamity — bears it with an easy apathy which is mistaken, and liable easily to be mistaken, and such as no Ruthyn, under the circumstances, ought to exhibit. I told him what he ought to do, and offered to open my purse for the purpose; but he would not, or did not; indeed, he never took my advice; he followed his own, and a foul and dismal shoal he has drifted on. It is not for his sake — why should I? — that I have longed and laboured to remove the disgraceful slur under which his ill-fortune had thrown us. He troubles himself little about it, I believe — he’s meek, meeker than I. He cares less about his children than I about you, Maud; he is selfishly sunk in futurity — a feeble visionary. I am not so. I believe it to be a duty to take care of others beside myself. The character and influence of an ancient family is a peculiar heritage — sacred but destructible; and woe to him who either destroys or suffers it to perish!”
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