“I will speak to her as soon as I can. I cannot see her until—until the child has been taken away from me.”
Mrs. Filmer pressed him no further. She thought it best to leave him much alone. His thin, worn cheeks, and sunken eyes—showing pain, anxiety, and sleepless nights—were touchingly human. They said plainer than any words could, “Trouble me no more until I am stronger; until my soul can reach that serene depth where it can say, ‘Thy will be done,’ until, indeed, I can turn to Romans, the eighth chapter and the twenty-eighth verse, and stand firmly with its grand charter of God’s deliverance in my hand.”
When the child was buried, Antony made an effort to speak to his wife. But she would not speak to him. She had assumed an attitude quite unexpected—that of an injured woman. She complained to her mother that an infamous advantage had been taken of a trifling escapade. “I simply went to see an old friend off to Cuba; and Yanna—because of a conversation I 240 had with her a few days previously—is sure I am going to desert my husband and child. She races down to the steamer, and makes a scene there; and Antony follows to bring on a grand climax! No! I will not forgive either Yanna or Antony.”
“What had you said to Yanna?”
“Just a little serious conversation—such as I wanted to be good, and so on—and I asked her if anything happened to me to look after baby. Feeling always makes a fool of me. I won’t feel any more. I won’t want to be good any more.”
“You had no necessity to ask that woman to look after baby. Was not I sufficient?”
“I was in one of my good moods. I wanted Yanna to think I was lovely. I do not care now what any one thinks.”
And she acted out this programme to its last letter. She was either despondently or mockingly indifferent to all that was proposed. After some delay, her father and mother went to Europe. Yanna and Harry went to stay with Miss Alida; and Antony made what preparations were necessary, and removed his household to the Filmer place at Woodsome. Rose took no part in the removal. When she perceived that the house was to be closed, she accompanied Antony to the country. But no good resulted from the change. She refused to see visitors; if she went out, it was entirely alone; and she passed Yanna and Miss Alida as if they were utter strangers to her. A spoiled, wilful girl, who had never felt the bit on her life, she had suddenly thrown off all control but that of the evil spirit which had taken possession of her.
Still she preserved a kind of decorum. There was a general impression that she had nearly lost her reason 241 about her child’s death; and people excused and pitied her aberrations in consequence, or if rumors of the real truth permeated society at Woodsome, it was quickly discredited. Men and women alike pointed to the devotion of Antony and refused to believe it; and in some way the sorrowful shake of Miss Alida’s head at Rose’s name, and Yanna’s painful silence, impressed on the community an idea of Rose’s suffering rather than of her wickedness. Sometimes a servant would say boldly that Mrs. Van Hoosen was ill-tempered and took too much wine, but no one credited the judgment, except those who hated Rose and wished to believe it.
Indeed, in the latter respect Rose’s temper had had a good result. Antony would have neither wine nor liquor of any kind in his house, and as Rose refused to visit, her opportunities for indulging the taste were limited. She did not appear to mind this deprivation as much as might have been expected. Her insane indulgence of temper swallowed up every other vice. She had drunk mainly to induce that exhilaration which she fancied added so much to her beauty, and to excite that boundless flow of repartee which made her the center of a crowd of silly young men who liked to have their small wits tickled, and who hoarded her jokes to retail as their own.