Rivers obeyed, as in a dream; he was exhausted with his outbreak, remorseful, beginning to wonder whether, after all, that was the explanation? Rosalind came in alone after the rest. She was very pale, as if she had suffered too, and very grave; not a smile on her face in response to all the smiles around. For, notwithstanding the excitement and distress in the house, the family party, on the surface, was cheerful enough, smiling youthfulness and that regard for appearances which is second nature carrying it through. The dishes were handed round as usual, a cheerful din of talk arose; Rex had an appetite beyond all satisfaction, and even John Trevanion—ill-timed as it all seemed—bore a smiling face. As for Mrs. Lennox, her voice ran on with scarcely a pause, skimming over those depths with which she was totally unacquainted. “And are you really going away, Mr. Rivers?” she said. “Dear me, I am very sorry. How we shall miss you. Don’t you think we shall miss Mr. Rivers dreadfully, Rosalind? But to be sure you must want to see your own people, and you must have a great deal of business to attend to after being so long away. We are going home ourselves very soon. Eh! What is that? Who is it? What are you saying, John? Oh, some message for Rosalind, I suppose.”
There was a commotion at the farther end of the room, the servants attempting to restrain some one who forced her way in, in spite of them, calling loudly upon John Trevanion. It was Russell, flushed and wild—in her out-door clothes, her bonnet half falling off her head, held by the strings only, her cloak dropping from her shoulders. She pushed her way forward to John Trevanion at the foot of the table. “Mr. John,” she cried, panting, “I’ve got on the track of her! I told you it was no ghost. I’ve got on the tracks of her; and there’s some here could tell you more than me.”
“What is she talking about? Oh, I think the woman must have gone mad, John? She thinks since we brought her here that she may say anything. Send her away, send her away.”
“I’ll not be sent away,” cried Russell. “I’ve come to do my duty to the children, and I’ll do it. Mr. John, I tell you I am on her tracks, and there’s two gentlemen here that can tell you all about her. Two, the young one and another. Didn’t I tell you?” The woman was intoxicated with her triumph. “That one with the gray hair, that’s a little more natural, like her own age—and this one,” cried the excited woman, sharply, striking Everard on the shoulder, “that ran off with her. And everything I ever said is proved true.”
Rivers rose to his feet instinctively as he was pointed out, and stood, asking with wonder, “What is it? What does she mean? What have I done?” Everard, who had turned round sharply when he was touched, kept his seat, throwing a quick, suspicious glance round him. John Trevanion had risen too, and so did Rex, who seized his former nurse by the arm and tried to drag her away. The boy was furious. “Be off with you, you —— or I’ll drag you out,” he cried, crimson with passion.
At this moment, when the whole party was in commotion, the wheels of a carriage sounded in the midst of the tumult outside, and a loud knocking was heard at the door.
CHAPTER LXII.
It was difficult to explain the impulse which drew them one after another into the ante-room. On ordinary occasions it would have been the height of bad manners; and there was no reason, so far as most of the company knew, why common laws should be postponed to the exigencies of the occasion. John Trevanion hurried out first of all, and Rosalind after him, making no apology. Then Mrs. Lennox, with a troubled face, put forth her excuses—“I am sure I beg your pardon, but as they seem to be expecting somebody, perhaps I had better go and see—” Sophy, who had devoured Russell’s communications with eyes dancing with excitement, had slipped from her seat at once and vanished. Rex, with a moody face and his hands in his pockets, strolled to the door, and stood there, leaning against the opening, divided between curiosity and disgust. The three men who were rivals alone remained, looking uneasily at each other. They were all standing up, an embarrassed group, enemies, yet driven together by stress of weather. Everard was the first to move; he tried to find an outlet, looking stealthily from one door to another.
“Don’t you think,” he said at last, in a tremulous voice, “that if there is—any family bother—we had better—go away?”
“I suppose,” said Roland Hamerton, with white lips, “it must be something about Mrs. Trevanion.” And he too pushed forward into the ante-room, too anxious to think of politeness, anxious beyond measure to know what Rosalind was about to do.