Madam: A Novel

by Mrs. Oliphant

“If he had been like others, accustomed to these restraints—for no doubt it is a restraint—”

“Oh, yes, Madam.”

“And perhaps with time and use,” she said, sighing and faltering.

“Yes, Madam,” said Jane.

“Why do you say no and yes,” she cried, with sudden vehemence, “as if you had no opinion of your own?”

Then Jane faltered too. “Madam,” she said, “everything is to be hoped from—time, as you say, and use—”

“You don’t think so,” her mistress replied, with a moan, and then all settled into silence again.

It is not supposed that anything save vulgar speed and practical convenience is to be got from the railway; and yet there is nothing that affords a better refuge and shelter from the painful thoughts that attend a great catastrophe in life, and those consultations which an individual in deep trouble holds with himself, than a long, silent journey at the desperate pace of an express train over the long, dark sweeps of the scarcely visible country, with the wind of rapid progress in one’s face. That complete separation from all disturbance, the din that partially deadens in our ears the overwhelming commotion of brain and heart, the protection which is afforded by the roar and sweep of hot haste which holds us as in a sanctuary of darkness, peace, and solitude, is a paradox of every-day life which few think of, yet which is grateful to many. Mrs. Trevanion sank into it with a sensation which was almost ease. She lay back in her corner, as a creature wounded to death lies still after the anguish of medical care is ended, throbbing, indeed, with inevitable pain, yet with all horror of expectation over, and nothing further asked of the sufferer. If not the anguish, at least the consciousness of anguish was deadened by the sense that here no one could demand anything from her, any response, any look, any word. She lay for a long time dumb even in thought, counting the throbs that went through her, feeling the sting and smart of every wound, yet a little eased by the absolute separation between her and everything that could ask a question or suggest a thought. It is not necessary for us in such terrible moments to think over our pangs. The sufferer lies piteously contemplating the misery that holds him, almost glad to be left alone with it. For the most terrible complications of human suffering there is no better image still than that with which the ancients portrayed the anguish of Prometheus on his rock. There he lies, bound and helpless, bearing evermore the rending of the vulture’s beak, sometimes writhing in his bonds, uttering hoarsely the moan of his appeal to earth and heaven, crying out sometimes the horrible cry of an endurance past enduring, anon lying silent, feeling the dew upon him, hearing soft voices of pity, comforters that tell him of peace to come, sometimes softening, sometimes only increasing his misery; but through all unending, never intermitting, the pain—“pain, ever, forever” of that torture from which there is no escape. In all its moments of impatience, in all its succumbings, the calm of anguish which looks like resignation, the struggle with the unbearable which looks like resistance, the image is always true. We lie bound and cannot escape. We listen to what is said about us, the soft consoling of nature, the voices of the comforters. Great heavenly creatures come and sit around us, and talk together of the recovery to come; but meanwhile without a pause the heart quivers and bleeds, the cruel grief tears us without intermission. “Ah me, alas, pain, ever, forever!”

If ever human soul had occasion for such a consciousness it was this woman, cut off in a moment from all she loved best—from her children, from her home, from life itself and honor, and all that makes life dear. Her good name, the last possession which, shipwrecked in every other, the soul in ruin and dismay may still derive some miserable satisfaction from, had to be yielded too. A faint smile came upon her face, the profoundest expression of suffering, when this thought, like another laceration, separated itself from the crowd. A little more or less, was that not a thing to be smiled at? What could it matter? All that could be done to her was done; her spiritual tormentors had no longer the power to give her another sensation; she had exhausted all their tortures. Her good name, and that even in the knowledge of her children! She smiled. Evil had done its worst. She was henceforward superior to any torture, as knowing all that pain could do.

There are some minds to which death is not a thought which is possible, or a way of escape which ever suggests itself. Hamlet, in his musings, in the sickness of his great soul, passes it indeed in review, but rejects it as an unworthy and ineffectual expedient. And it is seldom that a worthy human creature, when not at the outside verge of life, can afford to die. There is always something to do which keeps every such possibility in the background. To this thought after a time Mrs. Trevanion came round. She had a great deal to do; she had still a duty—a responsibility—was it perhaps a possibility, in life? There existed for her still one bond, a bond partially severed for long, apparently dropped out of her existence, yet never forgotten. The brief dialogue which she had held with Jane had betrayed the condition of her thoughts in respect to this one relationship which was left to her, as it betrayed also the judgment of Jane on the subject. Both of these women knew in their hearts that the young man who was now to be the only interest of their lives had little in him which corresponded with any ideal. He had not been kind, he had not been true; he thought of nothing but himself, and yet he was all that now remained to make, to the woman upon whom his folly had brought so many and terrible losses, the possibility of a new life. When she saw the cold glimmer of the dawn, and heard the beginnings of that sound of London, which stretches so far round the centre on every side, Mrs. Trevanion awoke again to the living problem which now was to occupy her wholly. She had been guilty towards him almost all his life, and she had been punished by his means; but perhaps it might be that there was still for her a place of repentance. She had much to do for him, and not a moment to lose. She had the power to make up to him now for all the neglect of the past. Realizing what he was, unlike her in thought, in impulse, in wishes, a being who belonged to her, yet who in heart and soul was none of hers, she rose up from the terrible vigil of this endless night, to make her life henceforward the servant of his, its guardian perhaps, its guide perhaps, but in any case subject to it, as a woman at all times is subject to those for whom she lives. She spoke again, when they were near their arrival, to her maid, as if they had continued the subject throughout the night: “He will be sure to follow us to-morrow night, Jane.”