.dt A Strange World, Vol II, by M. E. Braddon-A Project Gutenberg eBook
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A STRANGE WORLD
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A Novel
BY THE AUTHOR OF
‘LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET’
ETC. ETC. ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II.
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[Illustration: Publisher’s Logo]
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LONDON
JOHN MAXWELL AND CO.
4, SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET
1875
[All rights reserved.]
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CONTENTS TO VOL. II.
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CHAP. | | PAGE
I. | ‘Farewell,’ quoth she, ‘and come again to-morrow’ | #1:ch01#
II. | ‘O’er all there hung a shadow and a fear’ | #16:ch02#
III. | ‘He Cometh not,’ she said | #26:ch03#
IV. | ‘And I shall be alone until I die’ | #53:ch04#
V. | ‘Surely, most bitter of all sweet things thou art’ | #67:ch05#
VI. | ‘We are past the season of divided ills’ | #83:ch06#
VII. | ‘The drowsy night grows on the world’ | #100:ch07#
VIII. | ‘Good night, good rest. Ah! neither be my share’ | #107:ch08#
IX. | ‘Such a lord is love’ | #121:ch09#
X. | ‘Then streamed life’s future on the fading past’ | #134:ch10#
XI. | ‘A merrier hour was never wasted there’ | #158:ch11#
XII. | ‘It was the hour when woods are cold’ | #165:ch12#
XIII. | ‘Now half to the setting moon have gone, and half to the rising day’ | #182:ch13#
XIV. | ‘O heaven! that one might read the book of fate!’ | #201:ch14#
XV. | ‘Qui peut sous le soleil tromper sa destinee?’ | #209:ch15#
XVI. | ‘This is more strange than such a murder is’ | #225:ch16#
XVII. | ‘Ah, love, there is no better life than this’ | #235:ch17#
XVIII. | ‘Love is a thing to which we soon consent’ | #251:ch18#
XIX. | Sorrow augmenteth the Malady | #265:ch19#
XX. | ‘But oh! the thorns we stand upon!’ | #281:ch20#
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A STRANGE WORLD
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CHAPTER I||‘FAREWELL,’ QUOTH SHE, ‘AND COME AGAIN TO-MORROW.’
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The old housekeeper’s eyes were dim as she finished
her story of the heir of Penwyn.
.pi
‘He was the best of all,’ she said; ‘Mr. Balfour
we saw very little of after he grew up, being the
youngest to marry and leave home; Mr. James was
a kind, easy-going young fellow enough; but Mr.
George was everybody’s favourite, and there wasn’t
a dry eye among us when the Squire called us
together after his illness, and told us how his son
had died. “He died like a gentleman—upholding
the honour of his Queen and his country, and the
name of Penwyn,” said the master, without a tremble
in his voice, though it was feebler than before the
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stroke, “and I am proud to think of him lying in
his far-off grave, and if I were not so old I would
go over the sea to kneel beside my poor boy’s
resting-place before I die. He displeased me once,
but we are good friends now, and there will be no
cloud between us when we meet in another world.”’
Here Mrs. Darvis was fairly overcome, much to
the astonishment of the girl Elspeth, whose uncanny
black eyes regarded her with a scornful wonder.
Maurice noticed that look.
‘Sweet child,’ he said to himself. ‘What a charming
helpmeet you will make for some honest peasant
in days to come, with your amiable disposition!’
He had taken his time looking at the old house,
and listening to the housekeeper’s story. The sun
was low, and he had yet to find a lodging for the
night. He had walked far since morning, and was
not disposed to retrace his steps to the nearest town,
a place called Seacomb, consisting of a long straggling
street, with various lateral courts and alleys, a
market-place, parish church, lock-up, and five dissenting
chapels of various denominations. This Seacomb
was a good nine miles from Penwyn Manor.
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‘Perhaps you’d like to see the young Squire’s
portrait,’ said Mrs. Darvis, when she had dried those
tributary tears.
‘The young Squire?’
‘Mr. George. We used to call him the young
Squire sometimes.’
‘Yes, I should like to have a look at the poor
fellow, now you’ve told me his history.’
‘It hangs in the old Squire’s study. It’s a
bit of a room, and I forgot to show it to you just
now.’
Maurice followed her across the hall to a small
door in a corner, deeply recessed and low, but solid
enough to have guarded the Tolbooth, one would
suppose. It opened into a narrow room, with one
window looking towards the sea. The wainscot
was almost black with age, the furniture, old walnut
wood, of the same time-darkened hue. There was a
heavy old bureau, brass handled and brass clamped;
a bookcase, a ponderous writing desk, and one capacious
arm-chair, covered with black leather. The high,
narrow chimney-piece was in an angle of the room,
and above this hung the portrait of George Penwyn.
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It was a kit-kat picture of a lad in undress uniform,
the face a long oval, fair of complexion, and
somewhat feminine in delicacy of feature, the eyes
dark blue. The rest of the features, though sufficiently
regular, were commonplace enough; but the
eyes, beautiful alike in shape and colour, impressed
Maurice Clissold. They were eyes which might
have haunted the fancy of girlhood, with the dream
of an ideal lover; eyes in whose somewhat melancholy
sweetness a poet would have read some
strange life-history. The hair, a pale auburn, hung
in a loosely waving mass over the high narrow brow,
and helped to give a picturesque cast to the patrician-looking
head.
‘A nice face,’ said Maurice, critically. ‘There is
a little look of my poor friend James Penwyn, but
not much. Poor Jim had a gayer, brighter expression,
and had not those fine blue-grey eyes. I
fancy Churchill Penwyn must be a plain likeness of
his uncle George. Not so handsome, but more
intellectual-looking.’
‘Yes, sir,’ assented Mrs. Darvis. ‘The present
Squire is something like his uncle, but there’s a
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harder look in his face. All the features seem cut
out sharper; and then his eyes are quite different.
Mr. George had his mother’s eyes; she was a
Tresillian, and one of the handsomest women in
Cornwall.’
‘I’ve seen a face somewhere which that picture
reminds me of, but I haven’t the faintest notion
where,’ said Maurice. ‘In another picture, perhaps.
Half one’s memories of faces are derived from
pictures, and they flash across the mind suddenly,
like a recollection of another world. However, I
mustn’t stand prosing here, while the sun goes down
yonder. I have to find a lodging before nightfall.
What is the nearest place, village, or farmhouse,
where I can get a bed, do you think, Mrs. Darvis?’
‘There’s the “Bell,” in Penwyn village.’
‘No good. I’ve tried there already. The
landlady’s married daughter is home on a visit,
and they haven’t a bed to give me for love or
money.’
Mrs. Darvis lapsed into meditation.
‘The nearest farmhouse is Trevanard’s, at Borcel
End. They might give you a bed there, for the place
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is large enough for a barrack, but they are not the
most obliging people in the world, and they are too
well off to care about the money you may pay them
for the accommodation.’
‘How far is Borcel End?’
‘Between two and three miles.’
‘Then I’ll try my luck there, Mrs. Darvis,’
said Maurice, cheerily. ‘It lies between that and
sleeping under the open sky.’
‘I wish I could offer you a bed, sir; but in my
position——’
‘As custodian such an offer would be a breach of
good faith to your employers. I quite understand
that, Mrs. Darvis. I come here as a stranger to you,
and I thank you kindly for having been so obliging
as to show me the house.’
He dropped a couple of half-crowns into her
hand as he spoke, but these Mrs. Darvis rejected
most decidedly.
‘Ours has never been what you can call a show
place, sir, and I’ve never looked for that kind of
perquisite.’
‘Come, young one,’ said Maurice, after taking
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leave of the friendly old housekeeper, ‘you can put
me into the right road to Borcel End, and you shall
have one of these for your reward.’
Elspeth’s black eyes had watched the rejection
of the half-crowns with unmistakable greed. Her
sharp face brightened at Maurice’s promise.
‘I’ll show you the way, sir,’ she said; ‘I know
every step of it.’
‘Yes, the lass is always roaming about, like a
wild creature, over the hills, and down by the sea,’
said Mrs. Darvis, with a disapproving air. ‘I don’t
think she knows how to read or write, or has as
much Christian knowledge as the old jackdaw in
the servants’ hall.’
‘I know things that are better than reading and
writing,’ said Elspeth, with a grin.
‘What kind of things may those be?’ asked
Maurice.
‘Things that other people don’t know.’
‘Well, my lass, I won’t trouble you by sounding
the obscure depths of your wisdom. I only want
the straightest road to Trevanard’s farm. He is a
tenant of this estate, I suppose, Mrs. Darvis?’
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‘Yes, sir. Michael Trevanard’s father was a
tenant of the old Squire’s before my time. Old
Mrs. Trevanard is still living, though stone-blind,
and hardly right in her head, I believe.’
They had reached the lobby door by this time,
the chief hall door being kept religiously bolted
and barred during the absence of the family.
‘I shall come and see you again, Mrs. Darvis,
most likely, before I leave this part of the country,’
said Maurice, as he crossed the threshold. ‘Good
evening.’
‘You’ll be welcome at any time, sir. Good
evening.’
Elspeth led the way across the lawn, with a step
so light and swift that it was as much as Maurice
could do to keep pace with her, tired as he was, after
a long day afoot. He followed her into the pine
wood. The trees were not thickly planted, but they
were old and fine, and their dense foliage looked
inky black against a primrose-coloured sky. A
narrow footpath wound among the tall black trunks,
only a few yards from the edge of the cliff, which
was poorly guarded by a roughly fashioned timber
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railing, the stakes wide apart. The vast Atlantic
lay below them, a translucent green in the clear
evening light, melting into purple far away on the
horizon.
Maurice paused to look back at Penwyn Manor
House, the grave, substantial old dwelling-house
which had seen so little change since the days of
the Tudors. High gable ends, latticed windows
gleaming in the last rays of the setting sun; stone
walls moss-darkened and ivy-shrouded, massive
porch, with deep recesses, and roomy enough for a
small congregation; mighty chimney-stacks, and
quaint old iron weathercock, with a marvellous
specimen of the ornithological race pointing its
gilded beak due west.
‘Poor old James! what good days we might have
had here!’ sighed Maurice, as he looked back at the
fair domain. It seemed a place saved out of the
good old world, and was very pleasant to contemplate
after the gimcrack palaces of the age we live
in—in which all that architecture can conjure from
the splendour of the past is more or less disfigured
by the tinsel of the present.
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‘Dear old James, to think that he wanted to
marry that poor little actress girl, and bring her to
reign down here, in the glow and glory of those
stained-glass windows—gorgeous with the armorial
devices of a line of county families! Innocent,
simple-hearted lad! wandering about like a prince
in a fairy tale, ready to fall in love with the first
pretty girl he saw by the roadside, and to take her
back to his kingdom.’
‘If you want to see Trevanard’s farm before
dark you must come on, sir,’ said Elspeth.
Maurice took the hint, and followed at his
briskest pace. They were soon out of the pine
grove, which they left by a little wooden gate, and
on the wild wide hills, where the distant sheep-bell
had an eerie sound in the still evening air.
Even the gables of the Manor House disappeared
presently as they went down a dip in the hills.
Far off in a green hollow, Maurice saw some white
buildings—scattered untidily near a patch of water,
which reflected the saffron-hued evening sky.
‘That’s Trevanard’s,’ said Elspeth, pointing to
this spot.
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‘I thought as much,’ said Maurice, ‘then you
need go no further. You’ve fairly earned your
fee.’
He gave her the half-crown. The girl turned
the coin over with a delighted look before she put
it in her pocket.
‘I’ll go to Borcel End with you,’ she
said. ‘I’d as lief be on the hills as at home—sooner,
for grandmother is not over-pleasant company.’
‘But you’d better go back now, my girl, or it’ll
be dark long before you reach home.’
Elspeth laughed, a queer impish cachinnation,
which made Maurice feel rather uncomfortable.
‘You don’t suppose I’m afraid of the dark,’
she said, in her shrill young voice, so young and
yet so old in tone. ‘I know every star in the sky.
Besides, it’s never dark at this time of year.
I’ll go on to Borcel End with you. May be you
mayn’t get accommodated there, and then I can
show you a near way across the hills to Penwyn
village. You might get shelter at one of the cottages
anyhow.’
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‘Upon my word you are very obliging,’ said
Maurice, surprised by this show of benevolence upon
the damsel’s part.
‘Do you know anything about this Borcel End?’
he asked, presently, when they were going down into
the valley.
‘I’ve never been inside it,’ answered Elspeth,
glibly, more communicative now than she had been
an hour or two ago, when Churchill questioned her
about the house of Penwyn. ‘Mrs. Trevanard isn’t
one to encourage a poor girl like me about her place.
She’s a rare hard one, they say, and would pinch and
scrape for a sixpence; yet dresses fine on Sundays,
and lives well. There’s always good eating and
drinking at Borcel End, folks say. I’ve heard tell
as it was a gentleman’s house once, before old
Squire Penwyn bought it, and that there was a fine
park round the house. There’s plenty of trees now,
and a garden that has all gone to ruin. The gentleman
that owned Borcel spent all his money, people
say, and old Squire Penwyn bought the place cheap,
and turned it into a farm, and it’s been in the hands
of the Trevanards ever since, and they’re rich
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enough to buy the place three times over, people
say, if Squire Penwyn would sell it.’
‘I don’t suppose I shall get a very warm welcome
if this Mrs. Trevanard is such a disagreeable
person,’ said Maurice, beginning to feel doubtful
as to the wisdom of asking hospitality at Borcel
End.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that. She’s civil
enough to gentlefolks, I’ve heard say. It’s only her
servants and such like she’s so stiff with. You can
but try.’
They were at the farm by this time. The old
house stood before them—a broad stretch of greensward
in front of it, with a pool of blackish-looking
water in the middle, on which several broods of
juvenile ducks were swimming gaily.
The house was large, the walls rough-cast, with
massive timber framework. There was a roomy
central porch, also of plaster and timber, and this
and a projecting wing at each end of the house gave
a certain importance to the building. Some relics
of its ancient gentility still remained, to show that
Borcel End had not always been the house of a
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tenant farmer. A coat of arms, roughly cut on a
stone tablet over the front door, testified to its former
owner’s pride of birth; and the quadrangular range
of stables, stone-built, and more important than the
house, indicated those sporting tastes which might
have helped to dissipate the fortunes of a banished
and half-forgotten race. But Borcel End, in its
brightest day, had never been such a mansion as the
old Tudor Manor House of Penwyn. There was a
homeliness in the architecture which aspired to
neither dignity nor beauty. Low ceilings, square
latticed windows, dormers in the roof, and heavy
chimney-stacks. The only beauty which the place
could have possessed at its best was the charm of
rusticity—an honest, simple English home. To-day,
however, Borcel End was no longer at its best. The
stone quadrangle, where the finest stud of hunters in
the county had been lodged, was now a straw-yard
for cattle; one side of the house was overshadowed
by a huge barn, built out of the débris of the park
wall; a colony of jovial pigs disported themselves
in a small enclosure which had once been a maze.
A remnant of hedgerow, densest yew, still marked
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the boundary of this ancient pleasance, but all the
rest had vanished beneath the cloven hoof of the
unclean animal.
Though the farmyard showed on every side the
tokens of agricultural prosperity, the house itself had
a neglected air. The plaster walls, green and weather-stained,
presented the curious blended hues of a
Stilton cheese in prime condition, the timber seemed
perishing for want of a good coat of paint. Poultry
were pecking about close under the latticed windows,
and even in the porch, and a vagabond pigling was
thrusting his black nose in among the roots of one
solitary rose bush which still lingered on the barren
turf. Borcel End, seen in this fading light, was
hardly a homestead to attract the traveller.
‘I don’t think much of your Borcel End,’ said
Maurice, with a disparaging air. ‘However, here
goes for a fair trial of west-country hospitality.’
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CHAPTER II||‘O’ER ALL THERE HUNG A SHADOW AND A FEAR.’
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Mr. Clissold entered the porch, scattering the
affrighted fowls right and left. As they sped cackling
away, the house door, which had stood ajar, was
opened wider by a middle-aged woman, who looked
at the intruder frowningly. ‘We never buy anything
of pedlars,’ she said, sharply. ‘It’s no use coming
here.’
.pi
‘I’m not a pedlar, and I haven’t anything to sell.
I am going through Cornwall on a walking tour, and
want to find a place where I could stop for a week
or so, and look about the country. I am prepared
to pay a fair price for a clean homely lodging.
The housekeeper at Penwyn Manor told me to try
here.’
‘Then she sent you on a fool’s errand,’ replied
the woman; ‘we don’t take lodgers.’
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‘Not as a rule perhaps, but you might strain a
point in my favour, I dare say.’
Maurice Clissold had a pleasant voice and a
pleasant smile. Mrs. Trevanard looked at him doubtfully,
softened in spite of herself by his manner.
And then no Trevanard was ever above earning an
honest penny. They had not grown rich by refusing
chances of small profits.
‘Come, mother,’ cried a cheery voice from within,
while she was hesitating, ‘you can ask the gentleman
to come in and sit down a bit, anyhow. That won’t
make us nor break us.’
‘You can walk in and sit down, sir, if you like,’
said Mrs. Trevanard, with a somewhat unwilling
air.
Maurice crossed the threshold, and found himself
in a large stone-paved room, which had once been
the hall, and was now the living room. The staircase,
with its clumsy, black-painted balustrades,
shaped like gouty legs, occupied one side of the
room; on the other yawned the mighty chimney,
with a settle on each side of the wide hearth, a
cosy retreat on winter’s nights. The glow of the
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fire had a comfortable look even on this midsummer
evening.
A young man—tall, broad-shouldered, good-looking,
clad in a suit of velveteen which gave him
something the air of a gamekeeper—stood near the
hearth cleaning a gun. He it was who had spoken
just now—Martin Trevanard, the only son of the
house, and about the only living creature who had
any influence with his mother. Pride ruled her,
religion, or bigotry, had power over her, gold was the
strongest influence of all. But of all the mass of
humanity there was but one unit she cared for besides
herself, and that one was Martin.
‘Sit down and make yourself at home, sir,’ said
the young man, heartily. ‘You’ve walked far, I
dare say.’
‘I have,’ answered Maurice, ‘but I don’t want to
rest anywhere until I am sure that I can get a
night’s shelter. There was no room for me at the
“Bell” at Penwyn, but I left my knapsack there,
thinking I should be forced to go back to the village
anyhow. It was an afterthought coming on here.
Oh, by the way, there’s a girl outside, the lodge-keeper’s
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daughter, who has been my guide so far,
and wants to know my fate before she goes home.
What can you do with me, Mrs. Trevanard? I’m
not particular. Give me a truss of clean hay in one
of your barns, if you’re afraid to have me in the house.’
‘Don’t be ill-natured, old lady,’ said the young
man, ‘the gentleman is a gentleman. One can see
that with half an eye.’
‘That’s all very well, Martin; but what will your
father say to our taking in a stranger, without so
much as knowing his name?’
‘My name is Clissold,’ said the applicant, taking
a card out of his pocket-book and throwing it on the
polished beechwood table, the only handsome piece
of furniture in the room. A massive oblong table,
big enough for twelve or fourteen people to sit at.
‘There are my name and address. And so far as
payment in advance goes,’—he put a sovereign down
beside the card—‘there’s for my night’s accommodation
and refreshment.’
‘Put your money in your pocket, sir. You’re a
friend of Mr. Penwyn’s, I suppose?’ asked Mrs.
Trevanard, still doubtful.
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‘I know the present Mr. Penwyn, but I cannot
call myself his friend. The poor young fellow who
was murdered, James Penwyn, was my nearest and
dearest friend, my adopted brother.’
‘Let the gentleman stop, mother. We’ve rooms
enough, and to spare, in this gloomy old barrack.
A fresh face always brightens us up a little, and it’s
nice to hear how the world goes on. Father’s always
satisfied when you are. You can put the gentleman
in that old room at the end of the corridor. You
needn’t be frightened, sir, there are no ghosts at Borcel
End,’ added Martin Trevanard, laughing.
His mother still hesitated—but after a pause she
said, ‘Very well, sir. You can stop to-night, and
as long as you please afterwards at a fair price—say
a guinea a week for eating, drinking, and
sleeping, and a trifle for the servant when you go
away.’
Even in consenting the woman seemed to have
a lingering reluctance, as if she were giving assent to
something which she felt should have been refused.
‘Your terms are moderation itself, madam, and I
thank you. I’ll send away my small guide.’
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He went out to the porch where Elspeth sat
waiting—no doubt a listener to the conversation.
Maurice rewarded her devotion with an extra sixpence,
and dismissed her. Away she sped through
the gathering gloom, light of foot as a young fawn.
Maurice felt considerably relieved by the comfortable
adjustment of the lodging question. He seated
himself in an arm-chair by the hearth, and stretched
out his legs in the ruddy glow, with a blissful sense
of repose.
‘Is there such a thing as a lad about the place
who would go to the “Bell” at Penwyn to fetch my
knapsack for a consideration?’ he asked.
There was a cowboy who would perform that
service, it seemed. Martin went out himself to
look for the rustic Mercury.
‘He’s a good-natured lad, my son,’ said Mrs.
Trevanard, ‘but full of fancies. That comes of idleness,
and too much education, his father says. His
grandmother yonder never learned to read or write
and ’twas she and her husband made Borcel End
what it is.’
Following the turn of Mrs. Trevanard’s head,
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Maurice perceived that an object which in the
obscurity of the room he had taken for a piece of
furniture was in reality a piece of humanity—a
very old woman, dressed in dark garments, with
only a narrow white border peeping from under a
cowl-shaped black silk cap, a dingy red handkerchief
pinned across her shoulders, and two bony
hands, whose shrivelled fingers moved with a mechanical
regularity in the process of stocking
knitting.
‘Ay,’ said a quivering voice. ‘I can’t read or
write—that’s to say I couldn’t even when I had my
sight—but between us, Michael and I made Borcel
what it is. Young people don’t understand the
old ways—they have servants to wait upon ’em,
and play the harpsichord—but little good comes
of it.’
‘Is she blind?’ asked Maurice of the younger
Mrs. Trevanard, in a whisper.
The old woman’s quick ear caught the question.
‘Stone blind, sir, for the last eighteen years.
But the Lord has been good to me. I’ve a comfortable
home and kind children, and they don’t
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turn me out of doors, though I’m such a useless
creature.’
A gloomy figure in that dark corner beyond the
glow of the fire. Maurice felt that the room was
less comfortable somehow, since he had discovered
the presence of this old woman, with her sightless
orbs, and never-resting fingers, long and lean,
weaving her endless web, gloomy as Clotho herself.
A plump, ruddy-cheeked maid-servant came
bustling in with preparations for supper, making an
agreeable diversion after this sad little episode. She
lighted a pair of tall tallow candles in tall brass
candlesticks, which feebly illumined the large low
room. The wainscoted walls were blackened by
smoke and time, and from the cross-beams that sustained
the low ceiling hung a grove of hams, while
flitches of bacon adorned the corners, where there
was less need of headway. Every object in the
room belonged to the useful rather than the
beautiful. Yet there was something pleasant to
Maurice’s unaccustomed eye in the homely old-world
comfort of the place.
He took advantage of the light to steal a glance
// 028.png
.pn +1
at the face of his hostess, as she helped the servant
to lay the cloth and place the viands on the table.
Bridget Trevanard was about fifty years of age, but
there were few wrinkles on the square brow, or about
the eyes and mouth. She was tall, buxom, and
broad-shouldered; a woman who looked as if she
had few feminine weaknesses, either moral or
physical. The muscular arm and broad open chest
betokened an almost virile strength. Her skin was
bright and clear, her nose broad and thick, but fairly
modelled of its kind, her under lip full, and firm as
if wrought in iron, the upper lip long, straight, and
thin. Her eyes were dark brown, bright and hard,
with that sharp penetrating look which is popularly
supposed to see through deal boards, and even stone
walls on occasion. So at least thought the servants
at Borcel End.
A model farmer’s wife, this Mrs. Trevanard, a
severe mistress, yet not unjust or unkind, a proud
woman, and in her own particular creed something
of a zealot. A woman who loved money, not so
much for its own sake, as because it served the only
ambition she had ever cherished, namely, to be more
// 029.png
.pn +1
respectable than her neighbours. Wealth went a
long way towards this superior respectability, therefore
did Mrs. Trevanard toil and spin, and never
cease from labour in the pursuit of gain. She was
the motive power of Borcel End. Her superlative
energy kept Michael Trevanard, a somewhat lazy
man by nature, a patient slave at the mill. Martin
was the only creature at Borcel who escaped her
influence. For him life meant the indulgence of his
own fancies, with just so much work as gave him an
appetite for his meals. He would drive the waggon
to the mill, or superintend the men at hay-making
and harvest. He rather liked attending market, and
was a good hand at a bargain, but to the patient
drudgery of every-day cares young Trevanard had a
rooted objection. He was good-looking, good-natured,
walked well, sang well, whistled better than
any other man in the district, and was a general
favourite. People said that the good blood of the
old Trevanards showed in young Martin.
// 030.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch03
CHAPTER III||‘HE COMETH NOT,’ SHE SAID.
.sp 2
.ni
When the supper-table was ready, the servant
girl ran to the porch and rang a large bell, which
was kept under one of the benches—a bell that
pealed out shrilly over the silent fields. This
summons brought home Michael Trevanard, who
appeared in about five minutes, pulling down
his shirt-sleeves, and carrying his coat over his
arm, while some stray wisps of hay which hung
about his hair and clothes indicated that he had
but that moment left the yard where they were
building a huge stack, which Maurice had seen
looming large through the dusk as he approached
Borcel.
.pi
‘We’ve stacked the fourteen acre piece, mother,’
said the farmer, as he pulled on his coat, ‘and a fine
stack it is, too, as sweet as a hazel nut. No fear of
// 031.png
.pn +1
mildew this year. And now I’ll give myself a
wash——’
He stopped, surprised at beholding a stranger
standing by his hearth. Maurice had risen to
receive the master of the house.
Martin explained the traveller’s presence.
‘We’ve taken to lodging-letting since you’ve
been out, father,’ he said, in his easy way. ‘This
gentleman wants to stay here and to look about the
country round for a few days, and as mother thought
he’d be company for me, and knew you wouldn’t
have any objection, she said yes. Mr. Clissold,
that’s the gentleman’s name, is a friend of the family
up yonder.’ An upward jerk of Martin’s head indicated
the Manor House.
‘Any friend of the Squire’s, or any one your
mother thinks proper to accommodate, my lad, she’s
missus here,’ answered Mr. Trevanard. ‘You’re
kindly welcome, sir.’
The farmer went out to some back region, whence
was immediately heard an energetic pumping and
splashing, and a noise as of a horse being rubbed
down, after which Mr. Trevanard reappeared, lobster-like
// 032.png
.pn +1
of complexion, and breathing hard after his
rapid exertions.
He was a fine-looking man, with a face which
might fairly be supposed to show the blood of the
Trevanards, for the features were of a patrician
type, and the broad open brow inspired at once
respect and confidence. That candid countenance
belonged to a man too incapable of deceit to be
capable of suspicion; a man whom an artful child
might cheat with impunity, a man who could never
have grown rich unaided.
Mr. and Mrs. Trevanard, their son, and their
guest, sat down to supper without delay; but the
old blind mother still kept her seat in the shadowy
corner, and ate her supper apart. It consisted only
of a basin of broth, sprinkled with chopped parsley,
which the old woman sipped slowly, while the rest
were eating their substantial meal.
Maurice had eaten nothing since noon, and did
ample justice to the lordly round of corned beef, and
home-cured chine, the freshly gathered lettuces, and
even the gooseberry pie and clotted cream. He and
Martin talked all supper-time, while the house-mother
// 033.png
.pn +1
carved, and the farmer abandoned himself to
the pleasures of the table, and drank strong cider
with easy enjoyment after the toilsome day.
‘There’s no place like a hay-field for making a
man thirsty,’ he said, by way of apology, after one
of his deep draughts; ‘and I can’t drink the cat-lap
mother sends to the men.’
Martin talked of field sports and boating. He
had a little craft of his own, four or five tons burden,
and was passionately fond of the water. By and by
the conversation drifted round to the Squire of
Penwyn.
‘He rides well,’ said Martin, ‘but I don’t believe
he’s over-fond of hunting, though he subscribes
handsomely to the hounds. I never knew such a
fellow for doing everything liberally. He’s bound
to be popular, for he’s the best master they ever had
at the Manor.’
‘And is he popular?’ asked Maurice.
‘Well, I hardly know what to say about that. I
only know that he ought to be. People are so hard
to please. There are some say they liked the old
Squire best, though he wasn’t half so generous, and
// 034.png
.pn +1
didn’t keep any company worth speaking of. He
had a knack of talking to people and making himself
one of them that went a long way. And then
some people remember Mr. George, and seem to
have a notion that this man is an interloper. He
oughtn’t to have come into the property, they say.
Providence never could have meant the son of the
youngest son to have Penwyn. They’re as full of
fancies as an egg is full of meat in our parts.’
‘So it seems. Mrs. Penwyn is liked, I suppose?’
‘Yes, she made friends with the poor people in
no time. And then she’s a great beauty; people go
miles to see her when she rides to covert with her
husband. There’s a sister, too, still prettier to my
mind.’
Martin promised to show his new friend all that
was worth seeing for twenty miles round Borcel.
He would have the dog-cart ready early next morning,
directly after breakfast, in fact, and six o’clock
was breakfast-time at the farm. Maurice was
delighted with the friendly young fellow, and
thought that he had stumbled upon a very agreeable
household.
// 035.png
.pn +1
Mrs. Trevanard was somewhat stern and repellent
in manner, no doubt, but she was not absolutely
uncivil, and Mr. Clissold felt that he should be able
to get on with her pretty well.
She had said grace before meat, and she stopped
the two young men in their talk presently, and
offered a thanksgiving after the meal. It was a long
grace, Methodistical in tone, with an allusion to
Esau’s mess of pottage, which was brought in as a
dreadful example of gluttony.
After this ceremonial Mrs. Trevanard went upstairs
to superintend the preparation of the stranger’s
apartment. The grandmother vanished at the same
time, spirited away by the serving wench, who led
her out by a little door that opened near her corner,
and the three men drew round the hearth, lighted
their pipes, and smoked and talked in a very friendly
fashion for the next half-hour or so. They were
talking merrily enough when Mrs. Trevanard came
downstairs again, candle in hand. She had taken
out one of the old silver candlesticks which had
been part of her dower, in order to impress the
visitor with a proper notion of her respectability.
// 036.png
.pn +1
‘Your room’s ready, Mr. Clissold,’ she said, ‘and
here’s your bedroom candle.’
Maurice took the hint, and bade his new friends
good night. He followed Mrs. Trevanard up the broad,
bulky old staircase, and to the end of a corridor.
The room into which she led him was large, and had
once been handsome, but some barbarian had painted
the oak paneling pink, and the wood carving over
the fireplace had been defaced by the industrious
knives of several generations of schoolboys; there
was a good deal of broken glass in the lattices, and a
general air of dilapitude. A fire burned briskly in
the wide basket-shaped grate, and, though it brightened
the room, made these traces of decay all the
more visible.
‘It’s a room we never use,’ said Mrs. Trevanard,
‘so we haven’t cared to spend money upon it.
There’s always enough money wanted for repairs,
and we haven’t need to waste any upon fanciful
improvements. The place is dry enough, for I take
care to open the windows on sunny days, and there’s
nothing better than air and sun to keep a room dry.
I had the fire lighted to-night for cheerfulness’ sake.’
// 037.png
.pn +1
‘You are very kind,’ replied Maurice, pleased to
see his knapsack on a chair by the bed, ‘and the
room will do admirably. It looks the pink of cleanliness.’
‘I don’t harbour dirt, even in unused rooms,’
answered Mrs. Trevanard. ‘It needs a mistress’s
eye to keep away cobwebs and vermin, but I’ve
never spared myself trouble that way. Good night,
sir.’
‘Good night, Mrs. Trevanard. By the way,
you’ve no ghosts here, I think your son said?’
‘I hope both you and he know better than to
believe any such rubbish, sir.’
‘Of course; only this room looks the very picture
of a haunted chamber, and if I were capable
of believing in ghosts I should certainly lie awake
on the look-out for one to-night.’
‘Those whose faith is surely grounded have no
such fancies, sir,’ replied Mrs. Trevanard, severely,
and closed the door without another word.
‘The room looks haunted, for all that,’ muttered
Maurice, and then involuntarily repeated those
famous lines of Hood’s,—
// 038.png
.pn +1
.pm verse-start
‘O’er all there hung a shadow and a fear;
A sense of mystery the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
The place is haunted!’
.pm verse-end
The bedstead was a four-poster, with tall, spirally
twisted posts, and some dark drapery, shrunken with
age, and too small for the wooden framework. There
was an old-fashioned press, or wardrobe, of black wood,
whose polished surface reflected the firelight. A
three-cornered wash-hand stand, and a clumsy-looking
chest of drawers between the windows, surmounted
by a cracked looking-glass, completed the
furniture of the room. The boards were uncarpeted,
and showed knots and dark patches in the worm-eaten
wood, which a morbid fancy might have taken
for the traces of some half-forgotten murder.
‘Not a cheerful-looking room by any means,
even with the aid of that blazing fire,’ thought
Maurice.
He opened one of the casements and looked out.
The night air was soft and balmy, perfumed with
odours of clover and the newly stacked hay. The
Atlantic lay before him, shining under the great red
moon, which had but just risen. A pleasanter prospect
// 039.png
.pn +1
this than the bare walls of faded, dirty
pink, the black clothes-press, and funereal four-poster.
Maurice lingered at the window, his arms folded
on the broad ledge, his thoughts wandering idly—wandering
back to last year and the moonlight that
had shone upon the cathedral towers of Eborsham,
the garden of the ‘Waterfowl’ Inn, and the winding
river.
‘Poor James!’ he mused, ‘how happy that light-hearted
fellow might have been at Penwyn Manor!—how
happy, and how popular! He would have
had the knack of pleasing people, with that frank,
easy kindness of his, and would have made friends of
half the county. And if he had married that actress
girl? A folly, no doubt; but who knows if all
might not have ended happily? There was nothing
vulgar or low about that girl—indeed, she had the
air of one of Nature’s gentlewomen. It would have
been a little difficult for her to learn all the duties
of a châtelaine, perhaps—how to order a dinner, and
whom to invite—the laws of precedence—the science
of morning calls. But if James loved her, and chose
// 040.png
.pn +1
her from all other women for his wife, why should
he not have been happy with her? I was a fool to
oppose his fancy, still more a fool for leaving him.
He might be alive now, perhaps, but for that wild-goose
journey of mine.’
Here his thoughts took another turn. They went
back to that train of circumstances which had brought
about his absence from Eborsham on the night of
James Penwyn’s murder.
It was past midnight when Maurice Clissold
roused himself from that long reverie, and prepared
for peaceful slumber in the funereal bed. His fire
had burned low by this time, and the red glow of the
expiring embers was drowned in the full splendour
of the risen moon, whose light silvered the bare
boards, and brought into strong relief those stains
and blotches upon the wood which looked so like
the traces of ancient murder. The bed was luxurious,
for there was no stint of feathers at Borcel End; yet
Maurice wooed the god of sleep in vain. He began
to think that there must be some plumage of game
birds mingled with the stuffing of his couch, and
that, soft and deep as it was, this was one of those
// 041.png
.pn +1
beds upon which a man could neither sleep nor
die comfortably.
‘I ought to be tired enough to sleep on a harder
bed than this, considering the miles I’ve walked to-day,’
he thought.
It may have been that he was over-tired, or it
may have been that flood of silver light streaming
through the diamond-panes of yonder lattice. Whatever
might be the reason of his restlessness, sleep
came not to straighten his unquiet limbs, or to steep
his wandering thoughts in her cool waters of forgetfulness.
He heard a distant clock—in the hall where he
had supped, most likely—strike two, and just at this
time a gentle drowsiness began to steal over him.
He was just falling deep down into some sleepy
hollow, soft as a bed of poppies, when his door was
opened by a cautious hand, and a light footstep
sounded on the floor. He was wide awake in a
minute, and without moving from his recumbent position,
drew the dark curtain back a little way and looked
towards the door. The shadow of the curtain fell upon
him as he lay, and the bedstead looked unoccupied.
// 042.png
.pn +1
‘The ghost!’ he said to himself, with rather an
awful feeling. ‘I knew there must be one in such a
room—or perhaps the house is on fire, and some one
has come to warn me.’
No; that wanderer through the deep of night
had evidently no business with Mr. Clissold—nay,
was unconscious of, or indifferent to, the fact of his
existence. The figure slowly crossed the floor, with
a light step, but a little sliding noise, as of a foot ill-shod—a
slipper down at heel.
It came full into the moonlight presently, between
the bedstead and the two windows.
‘Ay, verily a ghost,’ thought Maurice, with a
feeling like ice-cold water circulating slowly through
every artery in his body.
Never had he seen, or conceived within his
mind, a figure more spectral, yet with a certain wild
beauty in its ghastliness. He raised himself in
his bed, still keeping well within the shadow of
the curtains, and watched the spectre with eyes
which seemed endowed with a double power of
vision in the thrilling intensity of that moment.
The spectre was a woman’s form; tall, slender—nay,
// 043.png
.pn +1
so wasted that it seemed almost unnaturally
tall. The face was death-pale in that solemn
light, the eyes large and dark, the hair ebon-black
and falling in long loose masses over the white
garment, whose folds were straight as those of a
winding-sheet. So might the dead, risen from a
new-made grave, have looked.
The figure went straight to one of the casements—that
furthest from the bed, and at right
angles with it—unfastened the hasp, and flung the
window wide open. She drew a chair close to the
open window, and kneeled upon it, resting her
arms on the sill, and leaning out of the window,
as if watching for some one to come, thought
Maurice, that frozen blood of his beginning to
thaw a little.
‘Those actions seem too deliberate and real for
a ghost,’ he told himself. ‘Phantoms must surely
be soundless. Now I heard the slipshod feet upon
the floor. I heard the scrooping of the chair. I
can see a gentle heaving of the breast under that
shroud-like garment. Ergo my visitor is not a ghost.
Who can she be? Not Mrs. Trevanard assuredly,
// 044.png
.pn +1
nor the old blind grandmother, nor the buxom
lass who waited on us at supper. I thought those
were all the women kind in the house.’
A heavy sigh from that unearthly-looking
intruder startled him, a sigh so long, so full of
anguish, so like the utterance of some lost soul in
pain! Difficult not to yield to superstitious fear as
he gazed at that kneeling figure, with its long
dark hair, and delicate profile, sharply outlined
against the black shadow of the deep-sunk casement.
Again came the sigh, despairing, desolate.
‘Oh, my love, my love, why don’t you come
back to me?’
The words broke like a cry of despair from those
pale lips. Not loud was the sorrowful appeal,
but so full of pain that it touched the listener’s
heart more deeply than the most passionate burst
of louder grief could have done.
‘Dear love, you promised, you promised me.
How could I have lived if I had not thought you
would come back?’
Then the tone changed. She was no longer
// 045.png
.pn +1
appealing to another, but talking to herself,
hurriedly, breathlessly, with ever increasing agitation.
‘Why not to-night? Why shouldn’t he come
back to-night? He was always fond of moonlight
nights. He promised to be true to me, and stand
by me, come what might. No harm should ever
come to me. He swore that, swore it with his arms
round me, his eyes looking into mine. No man
could be false, and yet look as he looked, and speak
as he spoke.’
Silence for a brief space, and then a sudden
cry—a sharp anguish-stricken cry, as of a broken
heart.
‘Who said he was dead and gone, dead and gone
years ago? The world wouldn’t look as bright as it
does if he were dead. He loved the moonlight.
Could you shine, false moon, if he were dead?’
Again a pause, and then a slower, more thoughtful
tone, as if doubts disturbed that demented brain.
‘Was it last year he used to come, last year when we
were so happy together—last year when——’
A sudden burst of tears interrupted the sentence.
// 046.png
.pn +1
The woman’s face fell forward on her folded arms,
and the frail body was shaken by her sobs.
Maurice Clissold no longer doubted his visitant’s
humanity.
This was real grief, perchance real madness.
For a little while he had fancied it a case of
somnambulism. But the eyes which he had seen
lifted despairingly to that moonlit sky had too
much expression for the eyes of a somnambulist.
For a long time—or time that seemed long to
Clissold’s mind—the woman knelt by the window,
now silent, motionless as an inanimate figure, now
talking rapidly to herself, anon invoking that
absent one whose broken promises were perhaps
the cause of her wandering wits. Never had the
young man beheld a more piteous spectacle. It
was as if one of Wordsworth’s most pathetic pastorals
were here realized. His heart ached at the
sound of those heart-broken sighs. This flesh and
blood sorrow moved him more deeply than any
spectral woe. This was no ghostly revisitant of earth,
who acted over agonies dead and gone, but a living,
loving woman, who mourned a lost or a faithless lover.
// 047.png
.pn +1
At last, with one farewell look seaward, as if it
were along yon moonlit track across the waves she
watched for the return of her lover, this new
Hero turned from the casement, closed it carefully
and quietly, and then slowly left the room.
Maurice heard that slipshod foot going slowly
along the passage, until the sound dwindled and
died in the distance.
He fancied sleep would have been impossible
after such a scene as this, but perhaps that over-strained
attention of the last hour had exhausted
his wakefulness, for he fell off presently into a
sound slumber, from which he was only awakened
by a friendly voice outside his door saying, ‘Six
o’clock, Mr. Clissold. If you want the long round
I promised you last night we ought to start at
seven.’
‘All right,’ answered Maurice, as gaily as if no
uncanny visitor had shortened his slumbers. ‘I’ll
be with you in half an hour.’
He kept his word, and was down in the hall,
or family sitting-room, just in time to hear the
noisy old eight-day clock strike the half-hour,
// 048.png
.pn +1
with a slow and laborious movement of its inward
anatomy, as if fast subsiding into dumbness and
decrepitude. Mr. Trevanard had breakfasted an
hour ago, and gone forth to his haymakers. Mrs.
Trevanard was busy about the house, but the old
blind grandmother sat in her corner, plying those
never-resting needles, just as she had sat, just as
she had knitted last night; with no more apparent
share or interest in the active life around her than
the old clock had.
There was a liberal meal ready for the stranger.
Last night’s round of beef, and a Cornish ham,
archetype of hams, adorned the board, but were
only intended as a reserve force in case of need,
while the breakfast proper consisted of a dish of
broiled ham and eggs, and another of trout, caught
a hundred yards or so from the house that
morning. Home-baked bread, white and brown, a
wedge of golden honeycomb, and a plate of strawberries
counted for nothing.
Both young men did justice to the breakfast,
which they eat together, making the best use of
the half-hour allotted for the meal, and not
// 049.png
.pn +1
talking so much as they had done last night at the
more leisurely evening repast.
‘I hope you slept pretty well,’ said Martin,
when he had taken the edge off a healthy
appetite, and was trifling with a slice of beef.
‘Not quite so well as I ought to have done in
so comfortable a bed. My brain was a little over-active,
I believe.’
‘Ah, that’s a complaint I don’t suffer from.
Father says I haven’t any brains. I tell him brains
don’t grow at Borcel End. One year is so like
another that we get to be a kind of clockwork, like
poor old granny yonder. We get up every morning
at the same hour, look out of our windows to see
what sort of weather it is, eat and drink, and walk
about the farm, and go to bed again, without using
our minds at all from the beginning to the end
of the business. Father and I brighten up a little on
market days, but for the rest of our lives we might
just as well be a couple of slow-going machines.’
‘There is nothing drowsy or mechanical about
your mother’s nature, I should think, in spite of the
quiet life you all lead here.’
// 050.png
.pn +1
‘No, mother’s mind is a candle that would burn
to waste in a dark cellar. Her blood isn’t poppy-juice,
like the Trevanards’. Do you know that my
father has never been as far as Plymouth one way,
or as far as Penzance the other way, in his life? He
has no call to go, he says, so he doesn’t go. He
squats here upon his land like a toad, and would if
his life was to be threescore and ten centuries
instead of as many years.’
‘You would like a different kind of life, I dare
say,’ suggested Maurice.
The young man’s bright eye reminded him of a
caged squirrel’s—a wild, freeborn creature, longing
for the liberty of forests and untrodden groves.
‘Yes, if I could have chosen my own life, I
would have been a soldier, like George Penwyn.’
‘To die by the hands of savages.’
‘Yes, they say he had a hard death, that those
copper-coloured devils scalped him—tied him to a
tree—tortured him. His soldiers went mad with
revenge, and roasted some of the miscreants alive
afterwards, I believe; but that wouldn’t bring the
captain to life again.’
// 051.png
.pn +1
‘Do you remember him?’
‘Well. He used to come fishing in our water;
the very stream that trout came out of this morning.
I was a little chap of eight or nine years old when
the Captain was last home, and used to catch flies
for him, and carry his basket and loaf about with
him half the day through; and many a half-crown
has he given me, for he was an open-handed fellow
always, and one of the handsomest, pleasantest
young men I ever remember seeing—when I say
young, I suppose he must have been past thirty at
this time, for he was the oldest of the three
brothers, and Balfour, the youngest, had been
married ever so many years. But here’s the trap,
and we’d better be off; good-bye, granny.’
The old woman gave a hoarse chuckle of response,
marvellously like the internal rumbling of
the ancient clock.
‘Good morning, ma’am,’ said Maurice, anxious to
be civil; but of his salutation the dame took no
notice.
The horse, though clumsily built, and not unacquainted
with the plough, was a good goer. The
// 052.png
.pn +1
two young men had soon left Borcel End behind
them, down in its sleepy hollow, and were driving
over the fair green hills.
‘Now to fathom the mystery of last night’s
adventure,’ thought Maurice, when they were
out of sight of Borcel. ‘I think I can venture
to speak pretty freely to this good-natured young
man.’
He meditated a few minutes, and then began the
attack.
‘When you asked me at breakfast how I rested
last night, I didn’t give you quite a straightforward
answer,’ he said. ‘There was a reason for my not
getting a full allowance of sleep, which I didn’t care
to speak of till you and I were alone.’
‘Indeed,’ said Martin Trevanard, looking round
at him sharply. ‘What was that?’
There was a lurking anxiety in that keen glance
of scrutiny, Maurice Clissold thought.
‘Some one came into my room in the dead of
the night—a woman,’ he said. ‘At first I almost
thought she was a ghost. I was never so near
yielding to superstitious terror in my life. But I
// 053.png
.pn +1
soon discovered my mistake, and that she was only
a living, suffering fellow-creature.’
‘I am very sorry such a thing should have
happened,’ said Martin, gravely. ‘She ought to be
better taken care of. The person you saw must
have been my unfortunate sister.’
‘Your sister?’
‘Yes. She is ten years older than I, and not
quite right in her mind. But she is perfectly
harmless—has never in her life attempted to injure
any one—not even herself, poor soul, though her own
existence is dreary enough; and neither my father
nor my mother will consent to send her away to be
taken care of. Our old doctor sees her now and
then, and doesn’t call her mad. She is only considered
a little weak in her intellect.’
‘Has she been so from childhood?’ asked
Maurice.
‘Oh dear no. She went to school at Helstone, and
was quite an accomplished young woman, I believe—played
the piano, and painted flowers, and was
brought up quite like a young lady; never put her
hand to dairy work, or anything of the kind. She
// 054.png
.pn +1
was a very handsome girl in those days, and father and
mother were uncommonly proud of her. I can just
remember her when she left school for good. I was
always hanging about her, and I used to think she
was like a beautiful princess in a fairy tale. She
was very good to me, told me fairy stories, and sung
to me in the twilight. Many a time I’ve fallen
asleep in her lap, lulled by her sweet voice, when I
was a little chap of eight or nine. There were only
us two, and she was very fond of me. Poor Muriel!’
‘What was it brought about such a change in
her?’
‘Well, that’s a story I’ve never quite got to the
bottom of. It’s a sore subject even with father,
who’s easy enough to deal with about most things.
And as to mother, you have but to mention Muriel’s
name to make her look like thunder. Yet she’s
never unkind to the poor soul. I know that.’
‘Does your sister live among you when you are
alone?’
‘No, she has a little room over granny’s, with a
little old-fashioned staircase leading up to it. A
room quite cut off from the rest of the house. You
// 055.png
.pn +1
can’t reach it except by going through granny’s bedroom,
which is on the ground-floor, you must
understand, on account of the old lady’s weak legs.
Now one of poor Muriel’s fancies is to roam about
the house in the middle of the night, especially
moonlight nights, for the moonlight makes her
wakeful. So, as a rule, granny locks her door of a
night. However, I suppose last night the old lady
forgot, in consequence of the excitement caused by
your arrival, and that’s how you happened to have
such an uncomfortable time.’
‘You haven’t told me even the little you do
know as to the cause of your sister’s state.’
‘Haven’t I? All I know is what my father told
me once. She was crossed in love, it seems—loved
some one rather above her in station—and never got
over it. That comes of being constant to one’s first
fancy.’
‘You say she lives in a room by herself. Does
she never have air or exercise?’
‘Do you imagine us barbarians? Yes, she
roams about the old neglected garden at the back of
the house, just as she pleases, but never goes beyond.
// 056.png
.pn +1
She has a pretty clear notion that that is her beat,
poor girl, and I’ve never known her break bounds.
Mother fetches her indoors at sunset, and gives her
her supper, and sees that she’s comfortable for the
night, and tries to keep her clothes decent and tidy,
but the poor soul tears them sometimes when her
melancholy fit is upon her.’
// 057.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch04
CHAPTER IV||‘AND I SHALL BE ALONE UNTIL I DIE.’
.sp 2
.ni
The image of that white-robed figure, pallid face, and
ebon hair haunted Maurice Clissold throughout the
day, though his day was very pleasant, and Martin
Trevanard the most cheerful of companions. They
halted at various villages, explored old parish
churches, where tarnished and blackened brasses
told of mitred abbots, and lords of the soil, otherwise
unrecorded and forgotten. Clissold was learned in
church architecture, and not a gargoyle escaped his
keen eye. Martin was pleased to exhibit the interesting
features of his native land, and listened deferentially
to Maurice’s disquisitions on brasses, fonts, and
piscinæ.
.pi
They stopped at a wayside inn, lunched heartily
on bread and cheese and cider, and were altogether
as companionable as young men can well be.
// 058.png
.pn +1
Martin had read about half a dozen books since he
left Helstone grammar school, but those were of the
highest character, and he had them in his heart of
hearts. Shakespeare, Pope, and Byron were his
poets; Fielding, Goldsmith, and Scott his only
romances.
From Shakespeare and Scott he had learned
history, from Fielding and Goldsmith he had caught
the flavour of wit and humour that are dead as the
Latin classics. Thus Clissold found, not without a
touch of surprise, that the farmer’s son was no unworthy
companion for a man who had made literature
his profession.
On their homeward round they pulled up at
Penwyn Church, which stood high and dry on the
green hill-side, midway between the village and the
manor, and looked like a church that had fallen
from the sky, so completely was it out of everybody’s
way. Tradition insisted that in the Middle
Ages there had been a village close to the church,
but no trace of that vanished settlement remained.
There stood the temple, square-towered, with
crocketed finials at the four angles of the tower.
// 059.png
.pn +1
There lay its ancient slumberous graveyard on the
slope of the hill, the dead for ever basking in the
southern sun, which, in this midsummer weather,
seemed to have power enough to warm them back to
life again.
Here Maurice saw the resting-place of the
Penwyns, almost as old as the church itself, a vault
so large that these lords of the soil seemed to have
a whole crypt to themselves. Very mouldy, and
cold and dark, was this last abode of the squires and
their race. Here he saw also the parish registers,
which contained a concise synopsis of the history of
the Penwyns since the Middle Ages, how they had
been christened, married, and buried.
‘James ought to have been brought down here,’
said Maurice, when they were in the churchyard,
where the deep soft grass was full of field flowers,
and the air of sweet homely odours; not in that
mouldy old crypt with his ancestral dust, but here
amongst this thymy grass, face to face with the sun
and the sea, and with the skylark singing above his
grave. ‘It would have been ever so much better than
Kensal Green.’
// 060.png
.pn +1
It was eight o’clock when they drove down into
the valley, where the old white house and its
numerous barns and outbuildings looked like a
village nestling in that grassy hollow. The scene
looked just the same as last night, when Maurice
Clissold approached it for the first time—the
same stillness upon all things, the same low yellow
light in the western sky, the same red glow from the
hall fire, the same changeless figure of the old
grandmother in her high-backed leather-covered arm-chair,
half hidden in the shadow of the corner where
she sat.
It wanted an hour to supper, and Mr. Trevanard
was struggling with some accounts at a table by
one of the windows, where he had the last of the
dying daylight.
‘Hope you’ve had a pleasant day, sir,’ he said,
without looking up from his papers, or relaxing the
frown with which he contemplated a long column of
figures. ‘Take a pull of that cider after your drive;
it’s only just drawn.—You might give me a hand
with these accounts, Martin. I never was a dab at
figures.’
// 061.png
.pn +1
‘All right, father, we’ll soon tot ’em up.’
Martin sat down by his father, and took the pen
out of his hand. Maurice refreshed himself with a
draught of cider, and then went to the porch.
‘I should like to take a look round the place
between this and supper-time, if you don’t mind,
Mr. Trevanard,’ he said.
‘Look where you please, sir, you’re free and
welcome. You’ll hear the supper-bell at nine
o’clock.’
Maurice lighted a cigar as he left the porch, and
prepared for a contemplative, dreamy stroll, one calm
hour of solitude before the day was done.
He avoided the stackyard, and did not honour
the various families of black and white piglings, in
divers stages of infancy and adolescence, with his
attention. He made a circuit of the pond, and went
round to the back of the homestead, where lay that
neglected garden which he had seen from the distance.
At this midsummer-time it was a wilderness
of verdure, and flowers ran wild. Great lavender
bushes, forests of unpruned roses, tall white lilies,
syringa, carnations, weeds, and blossoms, growing as
// 062.png
.pn +1
they would. Moss-grown paths, a broken sundial
fallen across a bed of heart’s-ease and mignonnette.
Beyond the flower-garden there was a still deeper
wilderness of hazel, quinces, and alders, which drew
their chief sustenance from a shallow pool, whose
dark shining surface was almost hidden by the
spreading branches, the grey old trunks, the thick
screen of leaves, through which the light came dimly
even at noon.
A delightful spot for a meditative poet. Maurice
was charmed with garden and wilderness, and lighted
a second cigar on the strength of his discovery of
the alder and quince grove.
It was not easy walking here by reason of the
undergrowth of St. John’s-wort, fern, and briar,
which made a dense jungle, but after a little exploration
Mr. Clissold came upon a narrow footpath,
evidently well trodden, which wound in and out
among the old grey trunks, and under the hazel
boughs, till it brought him to the brink of the
water.
The pool was wider than he had thought, but so
covered with water-lilies that the dark water only
// 063.png
.pn +1
showed in patches through that thick carpet of
shining leaves. Just such a pool as a stranger might
easily walk into unawares. Maurice pulled up in
time, and seated himself on the gnarled trunk of an
alder, whose roots straggled deep down into the
water, among sedges and innocent, harmless cresses.
Here he slowly pulled at his cigar, abandoning himself
to such thoughts as a poet has in such a scene
and such an hour.
The last yellow gleam of the sun shone faintly
behind the low thick trees, and through the one
break in the wood the distant sea-line showed darkly
grey, just where ocean merged into sky.
‘I should write better verses if I lived here for a
year,’ thought Maurice, musing upon a certain volume
which he meant to give the world by and bye. He
hardly knew whether there would be much in it
worthy the world’s acceptance. It was only the
outpouring of a strong, fresh soul, a soul that had
known its share of human sorrow, and done a brave
man’s battle with care.
He was deep in a reverie that had led him very far
away from Borcel End when he heard a rustling of
// 064.png
.pn +1
the branches near him, and turned quickly round,
expecting to see Martin Trevanard.
The face that looked at him from between the
parted hazel boughs startled him almost as much as
that white-robed figure last night. It was the face
he had seen in the moonlight, and which he saw now
with peculiar distinctness in the clear grey light—a
wan white face, with large dark eyes—a face which
once must have been most beautiful. The dark eyes,
the delicate features, were still beautiful, but the complexion
was almost ghastly in its pallor, and the
eyes were unnaturally bright. This was Muriel
Trevanard.
Maurice thought she would have been frightened
at sight of him, and would have hurried away. But,
to his surprise, she came a little nearer him, cautiously,
stealthily even, those restless eyes glancing
right and left as she approached. There was a curious
intensity in her gaze when her eyes fixed themselves
at last upon his face, peering at him, scrutinizing
him with something of her mother’s keen look. One
hand was lifted to her head to push back the wild
mass of tangled hair, and the loose sleeve of her
// 065.png
.pn +1
gown fell back from the white wasted arm. Face
and body seemed alike wasted by the mind’s consuming
fire.
‘You can tell me, perhaps,’ she said, in a quick
eager voice, ‘others won’t, they’re too unkind, for
they must know. You can tell me, I’m sure. When
will he come back?’
‘My poor soul, I would gladly tell you if I knew.
But I don’t even know whom you are talking of.’
‘Oh yes, you do. Mother knows. She told you,
I dare say. I’m not going to tell his name. I
promised to keep that secret, whatever it cost me to
be silent, and I’m not going to break my promise.
When is he coming back?’
She paused, looking at him with beseeching expectant
eyes, as if she waited breathless for his
answer.
‘Is he ever coming back?’
She waited again.
‘Indeed, Miss Trevanard, I know nothing about it.’
‘How dare you call me Miss Trevanard? That’s
not my name.’
‘Muriel, then.’
// 066.png
.pn +1
‘That’s better. He called me Muriel.’
Her chin dropped on her breast, and she stood
for a few moments looking down at the water, all her
face softened by some sweet sad thought.
‘He called me Muriel,’ she repeated. ‘Muriel,
Muriel. I can hear his voice now. Hear it—yes,
as plainly as I can see him when I close my eyes.’
Again a pause, and then an eager question.
‘How can he be dead when he is so near me?
How can he be dead when I hear him and see him,
and can even feel the touch of his hand upon my
head, his lips upon my lips. He awakes me from
my sleep sometimes with a kiss, but when I open
my eyes he is gone. Was he always a spirit?’
She seemed unconscious of Maurice’s presence
as she moved a few paces further along the water’s
edge, always looking downward, in self-communion.
‘My love, how can they say that you are dead,
when I am waiting for you so patiently, and will
wait for you to the end—wait till you come to take
me away with you? It was to be little more than a
year, you told me. Oh, God, what a long year!’
The anguish in that last ejaculation pierced the
// 067.png
.pn +1
listener’s heart as it had been pierced by her wild
cry of sorrow last night. He followed her along the
brink of the pool, put his arm round her shrunken
form protectingly, and tried to comfort her as best
he might, knowing so little of her grief.
‘Muriel,’ he said gently, and her name so spoken
seemed to have a softening influence upon her, ‘I
am almost a stranger to this place and to you, but I
would gladly be your friend if I could. Tell me if
there is anything I can do to comfort you. Are you
happy in your home, with your poor old grandmother?
or would you rather be somewhere else?’
He wanted to find out if she was suffering
from any sense of ill-usage, if she felt herself a
prisoner and an alien in her father’s house.
‘No,’ she said, resolutely, ‘I must stay here. He
will come and fetch me.’
‘But you speak sometimes as if you knew him
to be dead. Is it not foolish, vain, to hope for that
which cannot happen?’
‘He is not dead. People have told me so on
purpose to break my heart, I think. Haven’t I told
you that I see him very often?’
// 068.png
.pn +1
‘Then why are you so unhappy?’
‘Because he will not stay with me—because he
does not come to fetch me away, as he promised, in
a little more than a year—because he comes and
goes like a spirit. Perhaps they are right, and he is
really dead.’
‘Would it not be better to make up your mind
to that, and to leave off watching for him, and roaming
about the house at night?’
‘Who told you that?’ she asked, quickly.
‘Never mind who told me. You see I know how
foolish you are. Wouldn’t it be wiser to try and go
back to the common business of life, to bind up all
that loose hair neatly, like a lady, and to try to be a
comfort to your father and mother.’
At that last word an angry cry broke from the
pale lips.
‘Mother!’ echoed Muriel, ‘I have no mother.
That woman yonder,’ pointing towards the house,
‘is my worst enemy. Mother! My mother!’
with a bitter laugh. ‘Ask her what she has done
with my child?’
That question came upon Maurice Clissold like a
// 069.png
.pn +1
revelation. Here was a sadder story than he had
dreamt of, a story which no word of Martin’s had
hinted at, a story of shame as well as of sorrow,
perchance. He remained silent, troubled and
perplexed by this new turn of affairs. His office
of consoler, his attempt to smooth the tangled
threads of a disordered brain, came to an end all
at once.
The woman turned from him impatiently, muttering
to herself as she went away. He followed her
along the sinuous footpath, and across the garden,
and watched her as she entered by a low half-glass
door at the back of the house. He passed this door
afterwards, and stole a glance through the glass into
a large low room, where there was a fire burning—a
room which he divined to be the grandmother’s
chamber.
An old-fashioned tent bedstead, with red and
white chintz curtains, occupied one side of the room;
a ponderous old arm-chair stood near the fireplace; a
huge wooden chest made at once a seat and a receptacle
for all kinds of household stores; a corner cupboard
filled with crockery ware, and a small round
// 070.png
.pn +1
table near the hearth, completed the catalogue of
furniture.
Here, on the hearth-rug, sat Muriel, her wild hair
falling about her face, her hands clasped upon her
knees, her eyes bent gloomily upon the burning
log.
The supper-bell rang from the porch on the other
side of the homestead while Maurice was watching
that melancholy figure by the hearth.
‘She has taken away my appetite for supper,’
he said to himself, ‘and has almost set me against
Borcel End.’
That last speech of Muriel Trevanard’s troubled
him—‘Ask her what she has done with my child?’
It set him thinking of dark stories of family
pride and hidden crime. It took the flavour of
enjoyment out of this rustic home, and imparted
a taint of mystery and suspicion which poisoned
the atmosphere.
// 071.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch05
CHAPTER V||‘SURELY, MOST BITTER OF ALL SWEET THINGS THOU ART.’
.sp 2
.ni
Maurice Clissold keenly scrutinized Bridget Trevanard’s
face as they sat at supper that evening.
Muriel’s look of horror at the mention of her mother’s
name had inspired unpleasant doubts upon the subject
of his hostess’s character. He remembered how
Elspeth had told him that Mrs. Trevanard was known
as a hard woman; and he told himself that cruelty,
or even crime, might be consistent with that hard
nature which had won for the farmer’s wife the reputation
of a stern and exacting mistress. His closer
examination of that face showed him no indication
of lurking evil. That square, unwrinkled brow,
those dark brown eyes, with their keen, straight outlook,
denoted at least an honest nature. The firm
lips, the square jaw, gave severity to the countenance—a
resolute woman—a woman not to be turned from
// 072.png
.pn +1
her purpose, thought Maurice, but a woman whom
he could hardly imagine capable of crime.
.pi
And then why give credence to the rambling
assertions of lunacy? It is the nature of madness
to accuse the sane. Maurice tried to put the
thought of Muriel’s wild talk out of his mind; yet
that awful question, ‘What has she done with my
child?’ haunted him.
He felt less desire to prolong his stay at Borcel.
The restful tranquillity of the place seemed to have
departed. Muriel’s fevered mind had its influence
upon the atmosphere. He could not forget that she
was near—wakeful, unhappy—waiting for the lover
who was never to return to her.
He took good care to lock his door that night,
and his slumbers were undisturbed. The next
morning was devoted to a long ramble with Martin.
They walked to a distant hill-side, where there were
some Druidic remains well worth inspection; came
back to the farm in time for the substantial early
dinner, had a look at the haymakers dining
plenteously in a great stone kitchen, and then
retired to a field where the hay was cocked, to lie
// 073.png
.pn +1
basking in the sun, with their faces seaward, dreaming
away the summer afternoon.
Here Maurice told Martin the story of James
Penwyn’s death, and the brief love story which had
come to so pitiful an ending.
‘Poor child,’ he said, musingly, recalling his last
interview with Justina, ‘I verily believe she loved
him truly and honestly, and would have made him a
good wife. I never saw a nobler countenance than
that player girl’s. I’m sorry I thrust myself between
them with so much as one hard word.’
‘Was no one ever suspected of the murder?’
asked Martin.
‘Yes,’ replied Maurice, without taking his cigar
from his lips, ‘I was for a little while.’
This was rather startling. Martin Trevanard
stared at his new acquaintance with a curious look
for a moment or so, before he recovered himself.
‘You were?’
‘Yes. Didn’t you know? My name was in the
papers, but I believe they did me the favour to spell
it wrong. Perhaps I ought to have mentioned the
fact when I was asking Mrs. Trevanard to take me
// 074.png
.pn +1
in. Yes, I, his bosom friend, was the only person
they could pitch upon when they wanted to find the
assassin. Yes, I have been in Eborsham gaol under
suspicion as a murderer. The charge broke down
at the inquest, and I came off with flying colours, I
believe. Still there the fact remains. The
Spinnersbury detectives put the crime down to
me.’
‘It would need pretty strong proof to make me
suspect you,’ said Martin, heartily.
‘I was a good many miles away from the spot
when that cursed deed was done, but it did not suit
me to advertise my exact whereabouts to the world.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because to have told the truth would have been
to compromise a woman, the only one I ever loved,
as a man loves one chosen woman out of all the
world.’
Martin threw away his unfinished cigar, turned
himself about upon the haycock which he had
chosen for his couch, and settled himself to hear
something interesting, with a bright eager look in his
dark eyes.
// 075.png
.pn +1
‘Tell me all about it,’ he said.
‘Bah! weak sentimentality,’ muttered Maurice,
‘I should only bore you.’
‘No, you wouldn’t. I should like to hear it.’
‘Well, naming no names, and summing up the
matter briefly, there will be no harm done. It is the
story of a dead and buried folly, that’s all; a hackneyed
commonplace story enough.’
He sighed, as if the recollection hurt him a little,
dead as this old foolishness might be—sighed and
looked seaward dreamily, as if he were looking back
into the past.
‘You must know that when I was a year or two
younger, and life was fresher to me, I went a good
deal into what people call society—didn’t set my
face against new acquaintances, dinner parties,
dances, and so forth, as I do now. I’ve a fair
income for a bachelor, belong to a good family, and
can hold my own position well in a crowd. Now
amongst the houses I visited in those days there
were only two or three where I went from sheer
honest regard for the people I visited. Among these
was the house of a certain fashionable physician, not
// 076.png
.pn +1
a hundred miles from Cavendish Square. He was a
widower, with three daughters, the two elder
thorough women of the world, and most delightful
girls to know. We were chums from the outset.
They drove me about in their barouche, made me useful
as an escort at flower shows, a perambulatory
catalogue at picture galleries, and we all three comprehended
perfectly that I was not to dream of
marrying either of them.’
‘Dangerous, I should think,’ suggested Martin.
‘Safe as the Tarpeian rock. My feelings for the
dear girls were of a purely fraternal character from
the first. I would as soon have bought the winner of
the last Derby for a Park hack as had one of these
two for my wife. I went shopping with them
occasionally, twiddled my thumbs at Peter Robinson’s
while they turned over silks, and I knew
the amount of millinery required for their sustenance.
No, Martin, there was no peril here. Unluckily,
there was the third daughter—a tender slip
of a girl, hardly out of the schoolroom—a child who
had her gowns meted out to her by her sisters, and
wore perpetual white muslin for evening dress, and
// 077.png
.pn +1
brown holland for morning. Good heavens! I can
see her this moment, standing by the piano in her
holland frock, with a blue ribbon twisted through her
loose brown hair, and those divine hazel eyes looking
at me pleadingly, as who should say, “Be gentle to
me, you see what a child I am.” No worldliness
here—no ambition here—no avid desire of
millinery—no set purpose of making a great
marriage, I said to myself. Only innocence, and
trustfulness, and childlike meekness. So I fell
over head and ears in love with my friend’s third
daughter.’
‘Very natural,’ said Martin. ‘I don’t see why it
shouldn’t have ended pleasantly.’
‘I didn’t act like a sneak—make love to the
girl behind her sisters’ backs, and bide my time for
winning her. I went to the doctor at once, told him
what had happened, ventured to add that I thought
my darling liked me, and asked his permission to
offer her my hand. He hummed and hawed, said
there was no one he would like better for a son-in-law;
but his youngest child was really not out of
the nursery, any question of an engagement was
// 078.png
.pn +1
absurd. It seemed only yesterday that he had
bought her a Shetland pony. However, he gave me to
understand, in a general way, that I was free to
come and go, so our intimacy knew no abatement.
I still did the walking-stick business at flower
shows, and the catalogue business at exhibitions,
and made myself generally useful, seeing a good
deal of my fair blossom-like maiden in the meanwhile.
We met very often, sat together of an
evening unnoticed when the room was full, and before
long we knew that we loved each other, and
we had sworn that for us two there, should be no
love but this. Papa might say what he liked about
youth and foolishness and Shetland ponies. We
were not impatient, we would wait for ever so many
years, if necessary, but in good time we two should
be one. Sweet and tender promises breathed in
the twilight from lips too lovely to betray, dove-like
eyes lifted shyly to mine, soft little hand resting so
fondly within my arm! I laugh when I think of you,
and how it all ended.’
He did laugh bitterly, savagely almost, as he
flung the stump of his cigar across the hay-cocks
// 079.png
.pn +1
towards the sea. Martin waited in respectful silence,
awed by this little gust of passion.
‘Well, we were pledged to each other and happy.
This went on for a year. Nobody took any notice
of us, any more than if we had been children playing
at lovers. We lived in a foolish Paradise of our own,
at least I did. Heaven only knows what her thoughts
may have been. One day, when I had been away
from town for a week or so, I called in Cavendish
Square, saw the two elder girls, and heard that my
betrothed had gone for a long visit to some friends
in Yorkshire, at a place called Tilney Longford, a
fine old country seat. Papa had thought her looking
pale and thin, and had sent her off at a day’s notice.
She might be away two or three months. Lady
Longford was the kindest of women, and was
always asking them to stay at her place. “We can’t
go, of course,” they said, “with our large circle; but
that child has no ties, and can stay as long as they
like to keep her.”
‘This was hard upon me. The privilege of correspondence
was denied us, for I could not write my
darling a clandestine letter. I went to the doctor a
// 080.png
.pn +1
second time, and told him that I had waited a year,
that I was so much deeper in love by every day of
that blessed year, and urged him to receive me as his
daughter’s suitor. He treated the question rather
more seriously than before, repeated his assurance
that I was the very man he would have liked for
a son-in-law, but added that he did not consider my
income sufficiently large, or my profession sufficiently
lucrative to allow of his entrusting his daughter’s
happiness to my care. “My girls have been expensively
brought up,” he said. “You have no notion
what they cost me. I have been too busy to teach
them prudence. It has been easier for me to earn
money for them to waste than to find leisure to
check their extravagance. We live in too fast an
age for the vulgar virtues.” I argued the point,
but vainly, and told him that whatever decision he
might arrive at, his youngest daughter and I had
made up our minds to be true to each other against
all opposition. “I am sorry to hear that,” he replied,
“for it will oblige me to ask you to discontinue your
visits here when my little girl comes back, a discourtesy
which goes very much against the grain.”
// 081.png
.pn +1
I left him in a white heat, went straight off to James
Penwyn, and arranged a tour which we had been
talking about ever so long. We were to walk
through the north of England, and I was to coach
poor Jim for his last struggle at Oxford. London
was hateful to me now that my darling had left it,
and James Penwyn’s company the only society I
cared for.’
He paused, abandoned himself to the memory of
that vanished past for a little, and then went on more
hurriedly.
‘It was at Eborsham, the morning before James
Penwyn’s murder, that I received the first and last
letter I was ever to get from my love. She had
addressed it to me at my London lodgings, and it
had been travelling about after me for the last three
weeks. Her first letter! I opened it with such a
thrill of joy, thinking how divine it was of her to
be so daring as to write to me. Such a broken-hearted
letter!—telling me how a certain rich landowner,
near Lady Longford’s, had proposed to her—she
broke into a parenthesis, a page long, to assure
me she had never given him the faintest encouragement—and
// 082.png
.pn +1
how everybody persuaded her to accept
him, and how her father himself had come down to
Tilney to lecture her into subjection. “But it is
all useless,” she said, “I will marry no one but my
own dear love; and, oh, please, write and tell me
what I am to do.” Think what I must have felt,
Trevanard, when I considered that the letter was
three weeks old, and what persecution the poor little
soul might have had to suffer in the interval.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Can you ask me? I started off without a
quarter of an hour’s delay, and got to Tilney as soon
as the trains would carry me. It was an abominable
cross-country journey, and there I was eating my
heart out at dismal junctions for half the day. It
was past three o’clock when I ended my journey of
something less than a hundred miles, and found
myself at a detestable little station called Tilney
Road, eight miles from Tilney Longford, and no
conveyance of any kind to be had. I did the distance
in something under two hours, and entered
the park gates just as the church clock hard by
was striking five.’
// 083.png
.pn +1
‘You went straight to the house?’
‘No, I didn’t want to bring trouble upon that
poor child, so I prowled about the place like a
poacher, skirting the carriage roads. Luckily for
me, there was a right of way through the park,
so I was able to get pretty close to the house
without attracting any one’s particular attention.
I reflected that, unless the doctor was still there—not
a likely thing for a man whose moments were
gold—there was no one to recognise me except my
poor pet. As I approached the gardens I heard
laughter and fresh young voices, and a general
hubbub, on the other side of the haw-haw which
divided the park from a croquet lawn. There
was a gaily striped marquee on one side of the
lawn, a group of people taking tea under a gigantic
cedar, and a double set of croquet players disporting
on the level sward. My eyes were keen as a hawk’s
to distinguish my dearest in mauve muslin and an
innocent little chip hat trimmed with daisies—I
observed even details, you see—busily engaged with
her attendant cavalier, and with no appearance of
being bored by his society. Her fresh young laugh
// 084.png
.pn +1
rang out silver-clear—that girlish laugh which had
been one of her many charms, to my mind. “That
hardly sounds like a broken heart,” I said to
myself.’
He sighed, and waited for a minute or so, and
then resumed in a harder voice,—
‘Well, I was determined to form no judgment
from appearances; and I could not stand on the other
side of the haw-haw taking observations from the
covert of an old hawthorn for ever, so I went round
to the back of the house, waylaid a neat little Abigail,
and asked her if she could find Miss Blank’s maid for
me. I accompanied my question with a fee which
insured compliance, and my pretty one’s handmaiden
appeared presently at the gate where I was waiting.
She remembered me among the intimates in Cavendish
Square, and consented to give her mistress the note
I scribbled on a leaf of my pocket-book: “I hope I
am not doing wrong, sir,” she said, “but a young
lady in my mistress’s position cannot be too careful
how she acts—” “In what position?” I asked.
“Didn’t you know, sir, my young lady is to be
married the day after to-morrow?”’
// 085.png
.pn +1
‘That was a facer!’ exclaimed Martin.
‘It wasn’t a pleasant thing to hear, was it—with
that letter in my pocket vowing eternal fidelity?
The remembrance of that gay young laughter was
hardly pleasant either. The man I had seen on the
croquet lawn was a good-looking fellow enough; and
then one man is so like another now-a-days. A
woman may be constant to the type whilst she jilts
the individual. I had written to my betrothed,
asking her to meet me in the park at nine o’clock,
by a certain obelisk which I had observed on my
way. By nine she would be free, I fancied, in that
half hour of liberty which the women get after
dinner, while the men are talking politics and pretending
to be very wise about claret.’
‘Did she come?’
‘Yes, poor, pretty, shallow-hearted thing, looking
very sweet in the moonlight, but tearful and trembling,
as if she thought I should beat her. She
sobbed out her wretched little story. Papa had been
so kind, her elder sisters had badgered her. Poor
Reginald, the lover, had been so good, so generous, so
self-sacrificing, and it had ended as such things generally
// 086.png
.pn +1
do end, I dare say. She was to be married to
him the day after to-morrow. “And oh, Maurice,
pray give me back my letter,” she said, “for I don’t
know what would become of me if it ever fell into
Reginald’s hands.”’
‘How did you answer her?’
‘With never a word. I tore the lying letter into
atoms, and threw them away on the summer wind. I
made my love a respectful bow and left her, never,
I trust in God, to see her fair, false face again.’
// 087.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch06
CHAPTER VI||‘WE ARE PAST THE SEASON OF DIVIDED ILLS.’
.sp 2
.ni
If any one had asked Maurice Clissold why he had
bared old wounds in the dreamy restfulness of that
June afternoon in the hayfield, and why he had
chosen Martin Trevanard for his father-confessor, he
would have been sorely puzzled to answer so natural
a question. That inexpressible longing to talk of
himself and his own sorrows which seizes upon men
now and then had laid hold of him, and there had
been a kind of bitter pleasure, a half-cynical enjoyment
in going over that story of the dead past.
There was something sympathetic about Martin, too,
a man who might have been crossed in love himself,
Maurice thought, or who at least had a latent
capacity for sincerest passion. Friendship had
proved a plant of rapid growth in the utter solitude
of Borcel End. Maurice felt that he could talk to
// 088.png
.pn +1
this young Trevanard very much as he had talked to
James Penwyn, knowing very well that he might not
be always understood when his flights of fancy went
widest, but very sure of sympathy at all times.
.pi
That afternoon was Saturday, and on the following
morning perfect rest reigned at Borcel End.
Even the ducks seemed less noisy than usual, as if
their own voices startled them unpleasantly in the
universal silence. Mr. and Mrs. Trevanard came
down to the eight o’clock breakfast, luxurious Sabbath
hour, in their best clothes, the farmer seeming somewhat
embarrassed by the burden of respectability
involved in sleek new broad cloth and a buff waistcoat
starched to desperation, Mrs. Trevanard stern
and even dignified of aspect in her dark grey silk
gown and smart Sunday cap.
‘Would you like to go to church?’ Martin asked,
with some faint hesitation, lest his new friend, being
something of a poet, should also be something of an
infidel.
‘By all means. You drive, I suppose, as it’s
so far?’
Penwyn church, that lonely church among the
// 089.png
.pn +1
hills, was the nearest to Borcel, a good four miles off
at least.
‘Yes, we drive to church and back. Mother
says it goes against her to have the horse out on
the Sabbath, but the distance is more than she could
manage.’
The morning service began at half-past ten, so at
half-past nine the dog-cart was at the door, for there
was a good deal of walking up and down hill to be
allowed for, driving in this part of the country being
not altogether a lazy business. The two young men,
who occupied the back seat, were continually getting
up and down, and had walked about half the distance
by the time they came to the quiet old church
whose single bell clanged over the green hill-side.
‘I’m blest if the Squire and Mrs. Penwyn haven’t
come back!’ cried Martin, descrying a handsome
landau and pair in front of them as they drew near
the church.
‘Are you sure that’s the Penwyn carriage? They
were not expected three days ago,’ said Maurice.
‘Quite sure. We’ve no other gentry hereabouts,
except the Morgrave Park people, and they hardly
// 090.png
.pn +1
ever are at home. There is no doubt about it. That
is Mr. Penwyn’s carriage.’
‘Then I’ll renew my acquaintance with him after
church,’ said Maurice.
The old grey church, which he had explored two
days ago, had quite a gay look in its Sunday guise.
The farmers’ wives and daughters in their fine
bonnets—the villagers, with their sunburnt faces
and Sabbath cleanliness—the servants from the
Manor, occupying two pews under the low gallery,
within which dusky recess the livery of Churchill
Penwyn’s serving-men gleamed gaily, while the
bonnets of the maids, all more or less in the last
Parisian fashion, made the shadowy corner a perfect
flower-bed. And most important of all, in a large
square pew in the chancel appeared the Manor
House family—Churchill, gentlemanlike and inscrutable,
with his pale, thoughtful face, and grave
grey eyes—Madge, looking verily the young queen
of that western land—and Viola, fair and flower-like,
a beauty to be worshipped so much the more for
that frail loveliness which had a fatal air of evanescence.
// 091.png
.pn +1
‘I’m afraid she won’t live long,’ whispered Martin
to his companion, in one of the pauses of the service,
while the purblind old clerk was hunting for the
antiquated psalm, Tate and Brady, which it was his
duty to give out.
‘Not Mrs. Penwyn? Why, she looks the picture
of health,’ replied Maurice, in a similar undertone.
Martin coloured like a schoolboy justly suspected
of felonious views in relation to apples.
‘I meant the fair one,’ he gasped, ‘her sister.’
‘She! Ah! looks rather consumptive,’ replied
Maurice, heartlessly.
The Borcel End and Manor House families met
in the churchyard after the service—Borcel End
respectful, and not intrusive—the Manor House
kindly, cordial even, with no taint of patronage.
In sooth, Michael Trevanard was the best tenant a
landowner could have; a man who was always improving
his holding, and paid his rent to the hour;
a man to take the chair at audit dinners, and stumble
through a proposal of his landlord’s health.
‘You didn’t expect to see us so soon, did
you, Mrs. Trevanard?’ said Madge, with her bright
// 092.png
.pn +1
smile; ‘but we all grew tired of town in the middle
of the season.’
‘We’re always glad to see you back,’ said Michael,
screwing up his courage, and jerking out the words
as if they were likely to choke him. ‘The place
doesn’t seem homelike when there’s no family at
the Manor House. You see we were accustomed to
see the old Squire pottering about the place from
year’s end to year’s end, and entering into every
little bit of improvement we made; and as familiar,
you know, as if he was one of ourselves. That
spoiled us a bit, I make no doubt.’
‘It shall not be my fault if you do not come
to consider me one of yourselves in good time,
Mr. Trevanard,’ said Churchill kindly—kindly, but
without that real heartiness which makes a country
gentleman popular among his vassals.
Maurice was standing in the background, and it
was only at this moment that Mr. Penwyn recognised
him. Something like a spasm of pain
changed his face for a moment, as if some unwelcome
memory were suddenly brought back to
him.
// 093.png
.pn +1
‘Natural enough,’ thought Maurice. ‘The last
time we met was at his cousin’s funeral, and it is
hardly a pleasant idea for any man that he stands
in the shoes of the untimely dead.’
That momentary flush of pain past, Mr. Penwyn
welcomed the stranger in the land with exceeding
cordiality.
‘How long have you been in Cornwall, Mr.
Clissold?’ he asked. ‘You ought not to come to
Penwyn without putting up at the Manor House.’
‘You are very good. I have been to the Manor
House, and ventured to put forward my acquaintance
with you as a reason why your faithful old housekeeper
should let me see your house. I dare say she
has forgotten to mention the fact.’
‘There has been scarcely time. We only arrived
last night. Let me present you to my wife.—Madge,
this is the Mr. Clissold of whom you have heard me
speak; Mr. Clissold, Mrs. Penwyn, her sister Miss
Bellingham.’
Madge acknowledged the introduction with something
less than her accustomed sweetness. Although
Churchill was so thoroughly convinced of the man’s
// 094.png
.pn +1
innocence, Madge had not quite made up her mind
that he was guiltless of his friend’s blood. He
had been suspected, and the taint clung to him
yet.
Still when she looked at the dark earnest eyes,
the open brow, the firm mouth with its expression
of subdued power, the countenance on which thought
had exercised its refining influence, she began to think
that Churchill must be right in this opinion as in
all other things, and that this man was incapable
of crime.
So when, after questioning Mr. Clissold as to his
whereabouts, Churchill asked him to go back to the
Manor House with them for luncheon, and to
bring his friend Martin Trevanard, Madge seconded
the invitation. ‘If Mrs. Trevanard can
spare her son for a few hours,’ she added graciously.
Mrs. Trevanard curtseyed, and thanked Mrs.
Penwyn for her condescension, but added that she
did not hold with young people keeping company
with their superiors, and thought that Martin would
be better at home in his own sphere.
// 095.png
.pn +1
‘If I had ever seen good come of it I might think
differently,’ said the farmer’s wife with a gloomy
look, ‘but I never have.’
Martin looked angry, and his father embarrassed.
‘I hope you’ll excuse my wife for being so free-spoken,’
Mr. Trevanard said, in a rather clumsy
apology. ‘She doesn’t mean to be uncivil, but there
are points——’ here he came aground hopelessly,
and could only repeat in a feeble tone—‘There are
points.’
‘Thanks for your kind invitation, Mr. Penwyn,’
said Martin, still flushed with shame and anger,
‘but you see I’m not supposed to have a will of
my own yet awhile, and must do as my mother
tells me.’
‘Come along, old lady,’ said Michael, and after
making their salaams to the quality, the Borcel End
party retired to the dog-cart. The horse had been
tethered on the sward near at hand, browsing calmly
throughout the hour and a half service.
Maurice drove off with the Penwyns in the
landau.
// 096.png
.pn +1
‘What a very disagreeable person that Mrs.
Trevanard seems!’ said Madge. ‘I should think
it could be hardly pleasant staying in her house,
Mr. Clissold.’
‘She is eccentric rather than disagreeable, I
think,’ replied Maurice, ‘a woman with a fixed idea
which governs all her conduct. I had hard work to
persuade her to let me stop at the farm, but she
has been an excellent hostess. And her son Martin
is a capital fellow—one of Nature’s gentlemen.’
‘Yes, I liked his manner, except when he got so
angry with his mother. But she was really too
provoking, with her preachment about equality, more
especially as these Trevanards belong to a good old
Cornish family. Do they not, Churchill?’
‘Yes, love. By Tre, Pol, and Pen, you may know
the Cornish men. I believe these are some of the
original Tres. Admirable tenants too. One can hardly
make too much of them.’
‘Do you know anything about their daughter?’
asked Maurice of Mr. Penwyn.
‘Yes, I have heard of her, but never seen her. A
poor half-witted creature, I believe.’
// 097.png
.pn +1
‘Not half-witted, but deranged. Her brain has
evidently been turned by some great sorrow. From
what I can gather she must have loved some one
superior to her in rank, and been ill-treated by him.
I fancy this is why Mrs. Trevanard says bitter things
about inequality of station.’
‘An all-sufficient reason. I shall never feel angry
with Mrs. Trevanard again,’ said Madge.
The Manor House looked much gayer and brighter
to-day, with servants passing to and fro, great bowls
of roses on all the tables, banks of flowers in the
windows, new books scattered on the tables, holland
covers banished to the limbo of household stores, and
two pretty women lending the charm of their presence
to the scene.
Never had Maurice Clissold seen husband and
wife so completely happy, or more entirely suited to
each other than these two seemed. Domestic life at
Penwyn Manor House was like an idyll. Simple,
unaffected happiness showed itself in every look, in
every word and tone. There was just that amount
of plenteousness and luxury in all things which
makes life smooth and pleasant, without the faintest
// 098.png
.pn +1
ostentation. A certain subdued comfort reigned
everywhere, and Churchill in no wise fell into the
common errors of men who have suffered a sudden
elevation to wealth. He neither ‘talked rich,’ nor
told his friends with a deprecating shrug of his shoulders
that he had just enough for bread and cheese.
In a word, he took things easily.
As a husband he was, in Viola’s words, ‘simply
perfect.’ It was impossible to imagine devotedness
more thorough yet less obtrusive. His face never
turned towards his wife without brightening like a
landscape in a sudden gleam of sunlight. There was
nothing that could be condemned as ‘spooning’
between these married lovers, yet no one would fail
to understand that they were all the world to each
other.
Viola had long since altered her mind about Mr.
Penwyn. From thinking him ‘not quite nice,’ she
had grown to consider him adorable. To her he had
been all generosity and kindness, treating her in
every way as if she had been his own sister, and a
sister well beloved. She had the prettiest possible
suite of rooms at Penwyn, a horse of Churchill’s
// 099.png
.pn +1
own choosing, her own piano, her own maid, and
more pocket-money than she had ever had in her
life before.
‘It comes rather hard upon Churchill to have
two young women to provide for instead of one.’
Viola remarked to her sister; ‘but he is so divinely
good about it—she was a young lady who delighted
in strong adverbs—that I hardly realize what a
sponge I am.’
And then came sisterly embracings and protestations.
Thus the Penwyn Manor people were altogether
the happiest of families.
Maurice thoroughly enjoyed his day at Penwyn.
After luncheon they all rambled about the grounds,
Churchill and his wife always side by side, so that
the guest had the pretty Miss Bellingham for his
companion.
‘It might be dangerous for another man,’ he
said to himself, ‘but I’ve had my lesson. No
more fair soft beauties for me. If ever I suffer myself
to fall in love again it shall be with a girl who
looks as if she could knock me down if I offended
her. A girl with as much character in her face as
// 100.png
.pn +1
that actress poor James was so fond of. Of the two
I think I would rather have Clytemnestra than
Helen. I dare say Menelaus believed his wife a
pattern of innocence and purity till he woke one
morning and found she had levanted with Paris.’
Thus secure from the influence of her attractions
Mr. Clissold made himself very much at home with
Miss Bellingham. She showed him all the beauties
of Penwyn, spots where a glimpse of the sea looked
brightest through a break in the pine grove, hollows
where the ferns grew deepest and greenest, and
proved a very different guide from Elspeth.
‘I have been through the grounds before,’ said
Maurice, ‘but on that occasion my companion did
not enhance the beauties of nature by the charm of
her society.’
‘Who was your companion?’
‘The granddaughter of the woman at the Lodge.
Rather curious people, are they not?’
‘Yes, I have often wondered how my brother
came to pick them up, for they are not natives of
the soil, as almost every one else is at Penwyn.
But Churchill says the old woman is a very estimable
// 101.png
.pn +1
person, well worthy of her post, so one can say no
more about it.’
When Maurice wanted to take leave, his new
friends insisted that he should stay to dinner,
Mr. Penwyn offering to send him home in a dog-cart.
This favour, however, the sturdy pedestrian
steadfastly declined.
‘I am not afraid of a night walk across the hills,’
he said, ‘and am getting as familiar with the country
about here as if I were to the manner born.’
So he stayed, and assisted at Mrs. Penwyn’s
kettledrum, which was held in the old Squire’s yewtree
bower on the bowling-green, an arbour made of
dense walls of evergreen, cool in summer, and comfortably
sheltered in winter.
Here they drank tea, lazily enjoying the freshening
breeze from the great wide sea, the sea which
counts so many argosies for her spoil, the mighty
Atlantic! Here they talked of literature and the
world, and rapidly progressed in friendliness. But
not one word was said of James Penwyn, who,
save for that shot fired from behind a hedge, would
have been master of grounds and bower, manor
// 102.png
.pn +1
and all thereto belonging. That was a thought
which flashed more than once across Maurice’s mind.
‘How happy these people seem in the possession
of a dead man’s goods!’ he thought, ‘how placidly
they enjoy his belongings, how coolly they accept
fate’s awful decree! Only human nature I suppose.’
‘“Les morts durent bien peu, laissons les sous
la pierre.”’
He stayed till ten o’clock, and left charmed with
host and hostess.
Churchill Penwyn had been at his best all day,
a man whose talk was worth hearing, and whose
opinions were not feeble echoes of Saturday’s literary
journals. After dinner they had music, as well as conversation,
and Madge played some of Mozart’s finest
church music—choice bits culled from the Masses.
‘How long do you stay in Cornwall?’ was the
question at parting.
‘About a week longer at Borcel End, I suppose.
But I am my own master as to time. I have no
legitimate profession—for I believe literature hardly
comes under that head,—and am therefore something
of a Bohemian: not in a bad sense, Miss Bellingham,
so please don’t look alarmed.’
// 103.png
.pn +1
‘Why not come to us instead of staying at
Borcel End?’ asked Churchill.
‘You are too good. But I could hardly do that.
When I offered myself to Mrs. Trevanard as a lodger,
I said I should stay for a week or two, and she is
just the kind of woman to feel wounded if I left her
abruptly. And then, Martin and I are great friends.
He is really one of the best fellows I ever met,
except—except the friend I lost,’ he added, quickly
and huskily, feeling that any allusion of that kind
was ill-judged here.
‘Well, you must do just as you please about it,
but give us as much of your company as you can.
We shall have a dinner next week, I believe.’
‘Saturday,’ said Madge.
‘You will come to us then, of course. And as
often in the meanwhile as you can.’
‘Thanks. The dinner-party is out of the question.
I travel with a knapsack, and am three hundred
miles from my dress suit. But if you will allow me
to drop in now and then between this and Saturday
I shall be delighted.’
// 104.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch07
CHAPTER VII||‘THE DROWSY NIGHT GROWS ON THE WORLD.’
.sp 2
.ni
The advent of the Manor House family made life all
the more pleasant to Mr. Clissold at Borcel End. It
imparted variety to his existence, and the homely
comfort of the farmhouse was agreeably contrasted
by the refinement of Mr. Penwyn’s surroundings.
He dined at Penwyn twice during the week, and as
he became more familiar with the interior of
Churchill’s home, only saw fresh proofs of its perfect
happiness. Here were a man and a woman who made
the most and the best of wealth and position, and
shed an atmosphere of contentment around them.
.pi
With Martin for his companion, Maurice saw all
that was worth seeing within the reach of Borcel
End. They drove to Seacomb, the nearest market
town, and explored the church there, which was old
and full of interest. Here, in looking over the
// 105.png
.pn +1
register for some name of world-wide renown,
Maurice stumbled upon an entry that aroused his
curiosity.
It was in the register of baptisms,—
‘Emily Jane, daughter of Matthew Elgood,
comedian, and Jane Elgood his wife.’ The date was
just eighteen years ago.
‘Matthew Elgood. That girl’s father was
Matthew,’ thought Maurice, ‘can it be the same
man, I wonder? Yes, Matthew Elgood, comedian.
There would hardly be two men of the same name
and calling. His daughter must be the age of the
child baptized here, for I remember James telling
me that she was just seventeen.’
The infant was certainly recorded in the register
as Emily Jane, and the young actress’s name was
Justina. But Mr. Clissold concluded that this was
merely a fictitious appellation, chosen for euphony.
He made up his mind that the child entered in these
old yellow pages, and the girl he had seen weeping
for his friend’s untimely death, were one and the
same. Strange that the sweetheart of James
Penwyn’s choice had been born so near the cradle of
// 106.png
.pn +1
his own race. It was as if there had been some
subtle sympathy between these children of the same
soil, and their hearts had gone forth to each other
spontaneously.
‘Is there a theatre at Seacomb?’ asked Maurice,
wondering how that quiet old town could have
afforded a field for Mr. Elgood’s talents.
‘Not now,’ replied Martin. ‘There used to be,
some years ago. The building exists still, but
it has been converted into a chapel. It answers
better than the theatre did, I believe.’
The week came to an end. Maurice attended a
second service at Penwyn Church, and paid a farewell
visit to the Manor House on Sunday afternoon.
This time he refused Mr. Penwyn’s hearty invitation
to dinner, and wished his new friends good-bye
shortly after luncheon, with cordial expressions of
friendship on both sides.
He walked across the hills, ruminating upon all
that had happened since he first followed that
track, with Elspeth for his guide. He had made
acquaintance with the interior of two families since
then, in both of which he felt considerable interest.
// 107.png
.pn +1
‘Churchill Penwyn must be a thoroughly good
fellow,’ he said to himself, ‘or he would never have
behaved so well as he has to me. It would have
been so natural for him to be prejudiced against me
by that business at Eborsham. But he has not only
done me the justice to disbelieve the accusation from
the very first; he has taken pains to let me see I am
in no way damaged in his opinion by the suspicion
that has attached to me.’
Maurice had made up his mind to leave Borcel
End next day. He had thoroughly explored the
neighbourhood, and thoroughly enjoyed the tranquil
pastoral life at the farmhouse, and he saw no reason
for delaying his departure to fresher scenes. Mrs.
Trevanard had heard of his resolution with indifference,
her husband with civil regret, Martin with
actual sorrow.
‘I don’t know how I shall get on when you are
gone,’ he said. ‘It has been so nice to have some
one to talk to, whose ideas rise above threshing-machines
and surface drainage. Father’s a good old
soul, but he and I have precious little to say to each
other. Now, with you, the longest day seems short.
// 108.png
.pn +1
I think you’ve taught me more since we’ve been
together than all I learnt at Helstone.’
‘No, Martin, I haven’t taught you anything.
I’ve only stirred up the old knowledge that was in
you, hidden like stagnant water under duckweed,’
answered Maurice. ‘But we are not going to bid
each other good-bye for ever. I shall come down to
Borcel End again, you may be very sure, if your
people will let me; and whenever you come to
London you must take up your quarters with me,
and I’ll show you some of the pleasantest part of
London life.’
Maurice really regretted parting from the young
man who had been the brightest and most light-hearted
of companions, and he regretted leaving
Borcel End without knowing a little more of Muriel
Trevanard’s history.
He had thought a good deal upon this family
secret during the past week, though in all his
wanderings about the old neglected garden, or down
in the wilderness of hazel by the pond—and he had
smoked many a cigar there in the interval—he had
never again encountered Muriel. He had no reason
// 109.png
.pn +1
to suppose there was any undue restraint placed
upon her movements, or that she was unkindly
treated by any one. Yet the thought that she was
there, a part of the family, yet divided from it,
banished from the home circle, yet so near, cut off
from all the simple pleasures of her father’s hearth,
haunted him at all times. He was thinking of her
this afternoon during his lonely walk across the
hills. She was more in his thoughts than the
people he had left.
It was past six o’clock when he entered the old
hall at Borcel End, and he was struck at once by
the quietude of the place. The corner where old
Mrs. Trevanard was wont to sit was empty this
evening. The hearth was newly swept, as it always
seemed to be, and the fire, not unacceptable on this
dull grey afternoon, burned bright and red. The
table was laid with a composite kind of meal, on one
side a small tea-tray, on the other the ponderous
Sunday sirloin and a tempting salad, a meal prepared
for himself, Maurice felt sure. The maid-servant
entered from the adjoining kitchen at the
sound of his footsteps.
// 110.png
.pn +1
‘Oh, if you please, sir, they’re all gone to tea at
Limestone Farm. Mr. Spurcombe, at Limestone, is
an old friend of master’s. And missus said if you
should happen to come home before they did, would
you please to make yourself comfortable, and I was
to lay tea for you.’
‘Your mistress hardly expected me, I suppose?’
‘I don’t think she did, sir. She said she thought
you’d dine up at Penwyn, most likely.’
Maurice was not long about his evening meal.
Perhaps he made shorter work of it than he might
have done otherwise, perceiving that the maid was
longing for the moment when she might clear the
table, and slip away by the back door to her Sunday
evening tryst. Maid-servants at Borcel were kept
very close, and were almost always under the eye of
their mistress, yet as a rule the Borcel End domestic
always had her ‘young man.’ Maurice heard the
back door shut, stealthily, and felt very sure that the
kitchen was deserted. He drew his chair nearer to
the hearth, lighted a cigar, and abandoned himself
to idle thought.
// 111.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch08
CHAPTER VIII||‘GOOD NIGHT, GOOD REST. AH! NEITHER BE MY SHARE.’
.sp 2
.ni
Maurice Clissold sat for some time, smoking and
musing by the hearth—sat till the light faded outside
the diamond-paned windows, and the shadows deepened
within the room. He might have sat on longer
had he not been surprised by the opening of a door
in that angle of the hall which was sacred to age and
infirmity in the person of old Mrs. Trevanard.
.pi
It was the door of her room which had opened.
‘Have they come back yet?’ asked her feeble old
voice.
‘No, ma’am,’ answered Maurice, ‘not yet. Can
I do anything for you?’
‘No, sir. It’s the strange gentleman, Mr.—Mr.——’
‘Clissold. Yes, ma’am. Won’t you come to your
old place by the fire?’
// 112.png
.pn +1
‘No; I’ve my fire in here, thank you kindly. But
the place seems lonesome when they’re away.
I’m not much of a one to talk myself, but I like
to hear voices. The hours seem so long without
them. You can come in, if you please, sir. My room
is kept pretty tidy, I believe; I should fret if I
thought it wasn’t.’
The old woman was standing on the threshold of
the door opening between the two rooms. Maurice
had risen to offer her assistance.
‘Come in and sit down a bit,’ she said, pleased at
having found some one to talk to, for it was a notorious
fact at Borcel End that old Mrs. Trevanard
always had a great deal more to say for herself when
her daughter-in-law was out of the way than she
had in the somewhat freezing presence of that
admirable housewife.
Maurice complied, and entered the room which
he had observed through the half-glass door, a comfortable
homely room enough, in the light of an
excellent fire. Old Mrs. Trevanard required a great
deal of warmth.
She went back to her arm-chair, and motioned
// 113.png
.pn +1
her visitor to a seat on the other side of the
hearth.
‘It’s very kind of you to be troubled with an old
woman like me,’ she mumbled.
‘I dare say you could tell me plenty of interesting
stories about Borcel End if you were inclined,
Mrs. Trevanard,’ said Maurice.
‘Ah, there’s few houses without a history; few
women of my age that haven’t seen a good deal of
family troubles and family secrets. The best thing
an old woman can do is to hold her tongue. That’s
what my daughter-in-law’s always telling me. “Least
said, soonest mended.”’
‘Ah,’ thought Maurice, ‘the dowager has been
warned against being over-communicative.’
Contemplating the room more at his leisure now
than he had done from outside, he perceived a picture
hanging over the chimney-piece which he had not
noticed before. It was a commonplace portrait
enough, by some provincial limner’s hand, the
portrait of a young woman in a gipsy hat and
flowered damask gown—a picture that was perhaps
a century old.
// 114.png
.pn +1
‘Is that picture over the chimney a portrait
of one of your son’s family, ma’am?’ asked
Maurice.
‘Yes. That’s my husband’s mother, Justina
Trevanard.’
Justina. The name startled him—so uncommon
a name—and to find it here in the Trevanard
family.
‘That’s a curious name,’ he said, ‘and one which
recalls a person I met under peculiar circumstances.
Have you had many Justinas in the Trevanard family
since that day?’
‘No, there was never anybody christened after
her.’
‘I met your granddaughter in the garden the
other night, Mrs. Trevanard,’ said Maurice, determined
to find out whether this blind woman was a
friend to Muriel, ‘and I was grieved to see her in
so sad a condition.’
‘Muriel. Yes, poor girl, it’s very sad—sad for all
of us,’ answered the old woman, with a sigh, ‘saddest
of all for her father. He was so proud of that girl—spared
no money to make her a lady, and now
// 115.png
.pn +1
he can’t bear to see her. It wounds him too deep
to see such a wreck. Yet he won’t have her away
from the house. He likes to know that she’s near
him, and as well cared for as she can be—in her
state.’
‘It must have been a great sorrow that so
changed her?’
‘It was more sorrow than she could bear, poor
child; though others have borne harder things.’
‘She was crossed in love, her brother told me.’
‘Yes, yes—crossed in love, that was it. The
young man that she loved died young, and she was
told of it suddenly. The shock turned her brain.
She had a fever, and every one thought she was going
to die. She got the better of the illness, but her
senses never came back to her. She’s quite harmless,
as you’ve seen, I dare say; but she has her fancies,
and one is to think that the young man she was
fond of is still alive, and that he’ll keep his promise
and come back to her.’
Maurice told Mrs. Trevanard of his first night at
Borcel End, and the intrusion which had shortened
his slumbers.
// 116.png
.pn +1
‘Ah, to think that she should have happened to
find her way there that night, close as we keep her!
My door is always locked, and she can’t get out into
the house without coming through this room; but I
suppose that night I must have forgotten to take the
key out of the door and put it under my pillow as
I do mostly. And the poor child went roaming
about the house by moonlight. That’s an old trick
of hers. The room where you sleep was her room
once upon a time, and she always goes there if she
gets the chance. It was unlucky that it should
have happened the first night of your being here!’
‘She is very fond of you, I suppose,’ said Maurice,
anxious to hear more of one in whom he felt a strong
interest.
‘Yes, I think she likes me better than any one
else now.’
‘Better even than her own mother?’
‘Why, yes, she does not get on very well with
her mother; she has odd fancies about her.’
‘I thought as much. I have heard her speak of
a child. That was a mere delusion, I conclude.’
‘Yes, that was one of her fancies.’
// 117.png
.pn +1
‘Has Mrs. Trevanard never consulted any medical
man upon the state of her daughter’s mind?’
‘Medical man,’ repeated the old woman,
dubiously. ‘You mean a doctor, I suppose?
Yes; Dr. Mitchell, from Seacomb, has seen the
poor child many a time, and given her physic
for this, that, and the other, but he says her mind
will never be any different. There’s no use worrying
about that. He gives her stuff for her appetite
sometimes, for she has but a poor appetite at the
best. She’s sorely wasted away from the figure
she was once upon a time.’
‘She was a very beautiful girl, I have heard from
Martin.’
‘Yes, I never saw a handsomer girl than
Muriel when she came from school. It was all
along of sending her to boarding school things
went wrong.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Oh dear me, sir, you mustn’t listen to my
rambling talk, I’m a weak old woman, and I dare
say my mind goes astray sometimes, just like
Muriel’s.’
// 118.png
.pn +1
A light step sounded on the narrow stairs, a door
in the paneling opened, and the figure Maurice
had first seen in the spectral light of the moon
came towards the hearth, and crouched down at the
grandmother’s knees. A slender figure, dressed in
a light-coloured gown which looked white in the
uncertain flare of the fire, a pale worn face, a mass
of tangled hair.
Muriel took the old woman’s withered hand,
laid her hollow cheek against it, and kissed it
fondly.
‘Granny,’ she murmured, ‘patient, loving granny.
Muriel’s only friend.’
Mrs. Trevanard smoothed the dark hair with her
tremulous hand.
‘How tangled it is, Muriel! Why won’t you let
me brush it, and keep it nice for you? My poor
old hands can do that without the help of
eyes.’
‘Why should it be made smooth or nice? He
isn’t coming back yet. See here, granny, you shall
dress me the day he comes home—all in white—with
myrtle in my hair, like a bride. I would
// 119.png
.pn +1
have orange blossoms if I knew where to get any.
There are some orange trees up at the Manor House.
I’ll ask him to bring me some. I was never dressed
like a bride.’
‘Oh, Muriel, Muriel, so full of fancies!’
‘Ah! but there are some of them real—too
real. Where is the old cradle that my little brother
used to sleep in?’
‘I don’t know, darling. In the loft, perhaps.’
‘They should have burnt it. I peeped into
the loft one day, and saw it in a corner—the
old cradle. It set me thinking—such strange
thoughts!’
She remained silent for a few minutes, still
crouching at her grandmother’s knees, and with her
hollow eyes fixed on the low fire.
‘Didn’t you hear a child cry?’ she asked,
suddenly, looking up with a listening face first at
the old woman, then at Maurice. ‘Didn’t you,
granny?’
‘No, love. I heard nothing.’
‘Didn’t you, then?’ to Maurice.
‘No, indeed.’
// 120.png
.pn +1
‘Ah, you are all of you deaf. I hear that crying
so often—a poor little feeble voice. It comes and
goes like the wind in the long winter nights, but it
sounds so distant. Why doesn’t it come nearer?
Why doesn’t it come close to us, that we may take
the child in and comfort it?’
‘Ah, Muriel, Muriel, so full of fancies,’ repeated
the old woman, like the burden of an ancient
ballad.
The sound of doors opening, and loud voices,
announced the return of the family.
‘You’d better go back to the hall, sir. Bridget
won’t like to find you here with her,’ said Mrs.
Trevanard in a hurried whisper, pointing to the
figure leaning against her knees.
Maurice obeyed without a word. His last look
at Muriel showed him the great haggard eyes gazing
at the fire, the wasted hands clasped upon the
grandmother’s knee.
He left Borcel early next morning, Martin insisting
upon bearing him company for the first few
miles of his journey. He had paid liberally for his
entertainment, rewarded the servant, and parted upon
// 121.png
.pn +1
excellent terms with Mr. and Mrs. Trevanard and
the blind grandmother. But he saw no more of
Muriel, and it was with her image that Borcel End
was most associated in his mind. When he was
parting with Martin he ventured to speak of her,
for the first time since that conversation in the
dog-cart.
‘Martin, I am going to say something which will
perhaps offend you, but it is something I can’t help
saying.’
‘I don’t think there’s much fear of offence between
you and me—at least not on my side.’
‘I am not so sure of that; some subjects are
hazardous even between friends. You remember our
talk about your sister? Well, I have seen her twice
since then, never mind how or where; and I am
more interested at her sad story than I can well
express to you. It seems to me that there is something
in that story which you, her only brother, ought
to know, or, in a word, that she has need of your
love and protection. Do not suppose for a moment
that I would insinuate anything against your father
and mother. They have doubtless done their duty
// 122.png
.pn +1
to her according to their lights, but it is just possible
that she has need of more active friendship, more sympathetic
affection, than they can give. She clings to
her old grandmother—a fading succour. When old
Mrs. Trevanard dies, your sister will lose a natural
nurse and protector. It will be your duty to lighten
that loss for her, to interpose your love between her
and the sense of desolation that may then arise.
You are not angry with me for saying so much?’
‘Angry with you? no, indeed! You set me
thinking, that’s all. Poor Muriel! I used to be so
fond of her when I was a little chap, and perhaps I
have thought too little about her of late years. My
mother doesn’t like any interference upon that point—doesn’t
even like me to talk of my poor sister, and
so I’ve got into the way of taking things for granted,
and holding my tongue. Honestly, if I had thought
there was anything to be done for Muriel, that she
could be better off than she is, or happier than she
is, I should have been the first to make the attempt
to bring about that improvement. But my mother
has always told me there was nothing to be done
except submit to the will of Providence.’
// 123.png
.pn +1
‘Your mother may be right, Martin; it is not for
me, a stranger in your home, to gainsay her. But your
sister’s case seems to me most pitiful, and it will be
long before I shall get her image out of my mind.
If ever there should come a time when you may need
the advice or the assistance of a man of the world
upon that subject, be very sure my best services will
be at your disposal. And whenever you come to
London on business or on pleasure, remember that
you are to make my home yours.’
‘I shall take you at your word. But you are
more likely to come back to Borcel than I to come
to London, for, mind, I count upon your coming next
summer. And now you are so thick with the Manor
House people you’ve some inducement for coming,’
added Martin, with the faintest touch of bitterness.
‘There is temptation enough for me at Borcel
End, Martin, without any question of the Manor
House.’
Martin shook his head incredulously.
‘Miss Bellingham is too pretty to be left out of
the question,’ he said.
‘Miss Bellingham! A mere Dresden china
// 124.png
.pn +1
beauty, a very fine specimen of human waxwork.
I have told you my adventure in that line, Martin.
I’m not likely to make a second venture.’
They parted with the friendliest farewell, and
Maurice felt that he was leaving something more
than a chance acquaintance behind him at Borcel
End.
// 125.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch09
CHAPTER IX||‘SUCH A LORD IS LOVE.’
.sp 2
.ni
Nothing could be more perfect than that serenity
which ruled the domestic life of Penwyn Manor.
The judgment which Maurice Clissold had formed of
that life, as seen from the outside, was fully confirmed
by its inner every-day aspect. Mr. and
Mrs. Penwyn had no company manners. They did
not pose themselves before a stranger as model
husband and wife, and settle their small differences
at their leisure in the sanctuary of the lady’s dressing-room
or the gentleman’s study. They had no
differences, but lived in each other and for each
other.
.pi
Yet, so impossible is perfect happiness to erring
mortality, even here there was a hitch. Affection
the most devoted, peace that knew not so much as a
summer cloud across its fair horizon—these there
// 126.png
.pn +1
were truly—but not quite happiness. Madge
Penwyn had discovered somehow, by some subtle
power of intuition given to anxious wives, that the
husband she loved so fondly was not altogether
happy, that he had his hours of lassitude and depression,
when the world seemed to him, like
Hamlet’s world, ‘out of joint,’—his dark moments,
when even she had no spell that could exorcise his
demon.
Vainly she sought a cause for these changeful
moods. Was he tired of her? Had he mistaken
his own feelings when he chose her for his wife?
No, even when most perplexed by his fitful spirits,
she could not doubt his love. That revealed itself
with truth’s simple force. She knew him well
enough to know that his love for her was the diviner
half of his nature.
Once, on the eve of an event which was to complete
the sacred circle of their home life, when her
nature was most sensitive, and she clung to him
with a pathetic dependence, Madge ventured to
speak of her husband’s intervals of gloom.
‘I’m afraid there is something wanting even in
// 127.png
.pn +1
your life, Churchill,’ she said, gently, fearful lest she
should touch some old wound—‘that you are not
quite happy at Penwyn.’
‘Not happy! My dear love, if I am not happy
here, and with you, there is no such thing as happiness
for me. Why should I not be happy? I have
no wish unfulfilled, except perhaps some dim half-formed
aspiration to make my name famous—an
idea with which most young men begin life, and
which I can well afford to let stand over for future
consideration, while I make the most of the present
here with you.’
‘But, Churchill, you know that I would not
stand between you and ambition. You must know
how more than proud any success of yours would
make me.’
‘Yes, dearest, and by and by I will put up for
Seacomb, and try to make a little character in the
House, for your sake,’ replied Mr. Penwyn, with a
yawn. ‘It’s a wonderful thing how ambitious a
man feels while he has his living to win, and only
his own wits to help him. Then, indeed, the distant
blast of Fame’s trumpet is a sound that wakes him
// 128.png
.pn +1
early in the morning, and keeps him at his post in
the night watches. But then fame means income,
position, the world’s esteem, all the good things of
life. The penniless struggler knows he must be
Cæsar or nothing. Give the same man a comfortable
estate like Penwyn, and fame becomes a mere
addendum to his life, an ornament which vanity may
desire, but which hardly weighs against the delight
of idle days and nights that know not care. In
short, darling, since I won fortune and you I have
grown somewhat forgetful of the dreams I cherished
when I was a struggling bachelor.’
‘Is it regret for those old dreams that makes
you so gloomy sometimes, Churchill?’
‘I do not regret them. I regret nothing. I am
not gloomy,’ said Churchill, eagerly. ‘Never question
my happiness, Madge. Joy is a spirit too
subtle to endure a doubter’s analysis. God forbid
that you and I should be otherwise than utterly
happy. Oh, my dear love, never doubt me; let us
live for each other, and let me at least be sure that
I have made your life all sunshine.’
‘It has never known a cloud since our betrothal,
// 129.png
.pn +1
Churchill; except when I have thought you depressed
and despondent.’
‘Neither depressed nor despondent, Madge, only
thoughtful. A man whose early days have been for
the most part given up to thinking must have his
hours of thoughtfulness now and then. And perhaps
my life here has smacked a little too much of
the Lotus Land. I must begin to look about me,
and take more interest in the estate,—in short, follow
in the footsteps of my worthy grandfather, the old
Squire; as soon as I can add the respectable name
of father to my qualifications for the post.’
That time came before the sickle had been put
to the last patch of corn upon the uplands above
Penwyn Manor. The halting bell of Penwyn
Church rang out its shrill peal one August morning,
and the little world within earshot of the Manor
knew that the Squire rejoiced in the coming of his
firstborn. There were almost as many bonfires in
the district that summer night, outflaring the mellow
harvest moon, as at Penzance on the eve of St. John
the Evangelist. The firstborn was a son, whose
advent the newspapers, local and metropolitan, duly
// 130.png
.pn +1
recorded,—‘At Penwyn Manor, August 25th, the
wife of Churchill Penwyn, Esq., of a son (Nugent
Churchill).’ The new-comer’s names had been
settled beforehand.
‘The sweet thing,’ exclaimed Lady Cheshunt,
when she read the announcement in the reading-room
of a German Kursaal. ‘I feel as if she had
made me a grandmother.’
And Lady Cheshunt wrote straight off to her
silversmith, and ordered him to make the handsomest
thing in christening cups, and sent a six-page
letter to Mrs. Penwyn by the same post,
requesting, in a manner that amounted to a
command, that she might be represented by proxy
as sponsor to the infant.
The child’s coming gave new brightness to the
domestic horizon. Viola was in raptures. This
young nephew was the first baby that had ever
entered into the sum of her daily life. She seemed
to regard him as a phenomenon; very much as
grave fellows of the Zoological Society regarded
the first hippopotamus born in Regent’s Park.
Madge saw no more clouds on her husband’s
// 131.png
.pn +1
brow after that gentle remonstrance of hers. Indeed,
he took pains to demonstrate his perfect contentment.
His naturally energetic character re-asserted
itself. He threw himself heart and soul into that
one ambition of the old Squire, the improvement and
aggrandizement of the Penwyn estate. He made a
fine road across those lonely hills, and planted
the land on both sides of it with Scotch and
Norwegian firs, wherever there was ground available
for plantation. The young groves arose, as if by
magic, giving a new charm to the face of the landscape,
and a new source of revenue to the lord of the
soil. Mr. Penwyn also interested himself in the
mining property, and finding his agent an easy-going,
incapable sort of person, took the collection of
the royalty into his own hands, much to the improvement
of his income. People shrugged their
shoulders, and said that the new Squire was just
such another as ‘Old Nick,’ meaning the late
Nicholas Penwyn. But careful as he was of his
own interests, Churchill did not prove himself an
illiberal landlord or a bad paymaster. Those plantations
and new roads of his gave employment enough
// 132.png
.pn +1
to use up all the available labour of the district, and
impart new prosperity to the neighbourhood. When
he suggested an improvement to a tenant he was
always ready to assist in carrying it out. He
renewed leases to good tenants upon the easiest
terms, but was merciless in the expulsion of bad
tenants. He was just one of those landlords who do
most to improve the condition of an estate and the
people on it, and in Ireland would inevitably have
met with a violent death. The Celts of Western
England took matters more quietly, abused him a
good deal, owned that he was the right sort of man
for the improvement of the soil, and submitted to
fate which had given them King Stork, rather than
King Log, for their ruler.
When the election came on, Mr. Penwyn put
himself into nomination for Seacomb, and came in
with flying colours. All the trading classes voted
for him, out of self-interest. He had spent more
money in the town than any one of his name had
ever expended there. Madge’s popularity secured
the lower classes. Her schools were the admiration
of the district, and she was raising up a model
// 133.png
.pn +1
village between Old Penwyn and the Manor House.
‘Madge’s Folly,’ Mr. Penwyn called the pretty
cluster of cottages on the slope of the hill, but he
allowed his wife to draw upon his balance to any
extent she pleased, and never grumbled at the
builder’s bills, or troubled her by suggesting that the
money she was laying out was likely to produce
something less than two per cent.
So Churchill Penwyn wrote himself down M.P.,
and might be fairly supposed to have conquered all
good things which fortune could bestow upon a
deserving member of Burke’s Landed Gentry. He
had a fair young wife, who won love and honour
from all who knew her. His infant heir was
esteemed a model of all that is most excellent in
babyhood. His sister-in-law believed in him as the
most wonderful and admirable of husbands and men.
His estate prospered, his plantations grew and
flourished. The vast Atlantic itself was as a lake
beneath his windows, and seemed to call him lord.
No cloud, were it but the bigness of a man’s hand,
obscured the brightness of his sky.
Mr. and Mrs. Penwyn spent their second season
// 134.png
.pn +1
in town with greater distinction than their first.
More people were anxious to know them—more
exalted invitation cards showered in upon them,
and Churchill, who had been a successful man even
in the days of his poverty, felt that he had then only
tasted the skimmed milk of success, and that this
which was offered to his lips to-day was the cream.
There was a subtle difference in the manner of his
reception by the same world now-a-days. If he had
been only a country gentleman, with the ability to
take a furnished house in Belgravia, the difference
might have been slight enough; or, indeed, the
advantage might have been on the side of the
portionless barrister, with his way to make in life,
and his chances of success before him. But
Churchill’s maiden speech had been a success. He
had developed a special capacity for committees, had
shown slow-going county members how to get
through their work in about one-fifth of the time
they had been in the habit of giving to it, had
proved himself a master of railway and mining
economics—in a word, without noise, or bluster, or
assumption, had infused something of Transatlantic
// 135.png
.pn +1
go-a-headishness into all the business to which he
put his hand. Men in high places marked him as a
young man worth cultivating, and thus, before the
session was over, Churchill Penwyn had tasted the
firstfruits of parliamentary success.
Perhaps if ever a man went in danger of being
spoiled by a wife Churchill Penwyn was that man.
Madge simply worshipped him. To hear him
praised, to see him honoured, was to her of all
praise and honour the highest. She shaped all the
circumstances of her life to suit his interest and his
convenience; chose her acquaintance at his bidding,
would have given up the greatest party of the season
to sit by his side in the dingy Eton Square study,
copying paragraphs out of a blue-book for his use
and advantage. Churchill, on his side, was careful
not to impose upon devotion so unselfish, and was
never prouder than in assisting at his wife’s small
social triumphs. He chose the colours of her
dresses, and took as much interest in her toilet
as in the state of the mining market. He never
seemed so happy as in those rare evenings which he
contrived to spend alone with Madge, or in hearing
// 136.png
.pn +1
some favourite opera with her, and going quietly
home afterwards to a snug little tête-à-tête supper,
while Viola was dancing to her heart’s content
under the wing of some good-natured chaperon, like
Lady Cheshunt.
That friendly dowager was enraptured with her
protégée’s domestic life.
‘My sweet love, you renew one’s belief in
Arcadia,’ she exclaimed to Madge, after her enthusiastic
fashion. ‘I positively must buy you a crook
and a lamb or two to lead about with blue ribbons.
You are the simplest of darlings. To see how you
worship that husband of yours puts me in mind of
Baucis and what’s-his-name, and all that kind of
thing. And to think that I should have taken such
trouble to warn you against this very man! But
then who could imagine that young Penwyn would
have been so good-natured as to die?’
‘When are you coming to see me at the Manor,
Lady Cheshunt?’ asked Madge, laughing at her
friend’s raptures. ‘You can form no fair idea of my
domestic happiness in London. You must see me
at home in my Arcadia, with my crook and flock.’
// 137.png
.pn +1
‘You dear child! I shall certainly come in
August.’
‘I’m so glad. You must be sure to come before
the twenty-fifth. That’s Nugent’s birthday, you
know, and I mean to give a pastoral fête in honour
of the occasion, and you will see all my cottagers
and their children, and the rough miners, and discover
what a curious kingdom we reign over in the
West.’
‘My dearest love, I detest poor people, and
tenants, and cottagers—but I shall come to see
you.’
// 138.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch10
CHAPTER X||‘THEN STREAMED LIFE’S FUTURE ON THE FADING PAST.’
.sp 2
.ni
More than a year had gone by since Maurice
Clissold had said farewell to Borcel End, and he had
not yet found leisure to revisit that peaceful homestead.
He had corresponded with Martin Trevanard
regularly during the interval, and had heard all that
was to be told of Borcel and its neighbourhood; how
Mrs. Penwyn was daily becoming more and more
popular, how her schools flourished, her cottagers
thrived, her cottage gardens blossomed as the rose;
and how Mr. Penwyn, though respected for his
liberality and justice, and looked up to very much in
his parliamentary capacity, had not yet found the
knack of making himself popular. From time to
time, in reply to Maurice’s inquiries, Martin had
written a few words about Muriel. She was always
// 139.png
.pn +1
the same—there was no change. She was neither
better nor worse, and the good old grandmother was
very careful of her, and kept her from wandering
about the house at night. Nothing had happened
to disturb the even current of life at Borcel End.
.pi
This year that had gone had brought success,
and, in some measure, fame, to Maurice Clissold.
He had published the long-contemplated volume of
verse, the composition whereof had been his labour
and delight since he left the university. His were
not verses ‘thrown off’ in the leisure half-hours of a
man whose occupations were more serious—verses
to be apologized for, with a touch of proud humility,
in a preface. They contained the full expression of
his life. They were strong with all the strength of
his manhood. Passion, fervour, force, intensity, were
there; and the world, rarely slow to appreciate
youthful fire, was quick to recognise their real power.
Maurice Clissold slowly awoke to the fact that, under
his nom de plume, he was famous. He had taken
care not to affix his real name to that confession of
faith—not to let all the world know that his was
that inner life which a poet reveals half unconsciously,
// 140.png
.pn +1
even when he writes about the shadows his
fancy has created. In the story-poem which made
the chief portion of his volume Maurice had, in some
wise, told the story of his own passion, and his own
disappointment. Pain and disillusion had given
their bitter flavour to his verse; but happily for the
poet’s reputation, it was just that bitter-sweet—that
sub-acid, which the lovers of sentimental poetry like.
That common type of womanhood, fair and lovable,
and only false under the pressure of circumstance,
was here represented with undeniable vigour. The
modern Helen, the woman whose passive beauty and
sweetness are the source of tears and death, and whom
the world forgives because she is mild and fair, here
found a powerful limner. He had spared not a
detail of that cruel portrait. It was something
better than a miniature of that one girl who had
jilted him. It was the universal image of weakly,
selfish womanhood, yielding, unstable, caressing,
dependent, and innately false.
Side by side with this picture from life he had
set the ideal woman, pure, and perfect, and true,
lovely in face and form, but more lovely in mind
// 141.png
.pn +1
and soul. Between these two he had placed his
hero, wayward, mistaken, choosing the poison-flower,
instead of the sweet thornless rose, led through evil
ways to a tragical end, comforted by the angel-woman
only as chill death sealed his lips. Bitterness
and sorrow were the dominant notes of the verse,
but it was a pleasing bitter, and a melodious sadness.
There was a run on Mudie’s for ‘A Life Picture,
and other Poems,’ by Clifford Hawthorn. The book
was widely reviewed, but while some critics hailed
the bard as that real poet for whom the age had
been waiting, others dissected the pages with a
merciless scalpel, and denounced the writer as a
profligate and an infidel. The fugitive pieces,
brief lyrics some of them, with the delicate finish of
a cabinet picture, won almost universal favour. In
a word Maurice Clissold’s first venture was a
success.
He was not unduly elated. He did not believe
in himself as the poet for whom the expectant age
had been on the look-out. He had measured himself
against giants, and was pretty clear in his
// 142.png
.pn +1
estimate of his own powers. This pleasant taste of
the strong wine of success made him only more
intent upon doing better. It stimulated ambition,
rather than satisfied it. Perhaps the adverse criticism
did him most good, for it created just that spirit of
opposition which is the best incentive to effort.
Very happy was the bachelor-poet’s life in those
days. He had lived just long enough to survive the
pain of his first disappointment. It was a bitter
memory still, but a memory which but rarely
recurred to mar his peace. He had friends who
understood him—two or three real friends, who with
his publisher alone knew the secret of his authorship.
He had an occupation he loved, just enough
ambition to give a stimulus to life, and he had not
a care.
He had visited the Penwyns in Eton Square
several times during the course of the season, but he
had been careful not to go to that very pleasant
house too often. Afternoon tea in Mrs. Penwyn’s
drawing-room—the smaller drawing-room, with its
wealth of flowers, was a most delightful manner of
wasting an hour or so. But Maurice felt somehow
// 143.png
.pn +1
that it was an indulgence he must not give himself
too often. He had a lurking fear of Viola. She
was very fair, and sweet and gentle, like the girl he
had loved, and though he had, as yet, regarded her
with only the most fraternal feeling—nay, a
sentiment approaching indifference,—he had an
idea that there might be peril in too much friendliness.
Dropping in one afternoon at the usual hour, he
was pleased to see his own book on one of the gipsy
tables.
‘Have you read this “Life Picture,” which the
critics have been abusing so vigorously?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I saw it dreadfully cut up in the Saturday
Review, so I thought it must be nice, and sent to the
publishers for a copy,’ answered Madge. ‘I’ve had
it down on my Mudie’s list ever so long, without
effect. It’s a wonderful book. Viola and I were
up till three o’clock this morning reading it together.
Neither of us could wait. From the
moment we began with that picture of a London
twilight, and the two girls and the young lawyer
sitting in a balcony talking, we were riveted. It is
// 144.png
.pn +1
all so easy, so lifelike, so full of vigour and freshness
and colour.’
‘The author would be very much flattered if he
could hear you,’ said Maurice.
‘The author—oh, I’m afraid he must be rather a
disagreeable person. He seems to have such a bad
opinion of women.’
‘Oh, Madge, his heroine is a noble creature!’
cried Viola.
‘Yes, but the woman his hero loves best is
worthless.’
‘Well, I should like to know the author,’ said
Viola.
‘I don’t think Churchill would get on very well
with him,’ said Madge. And that to her mind made
an end of the question.
The only people she sought were people after
Churchill’s own heart. This poet had a wildness in
his ideas which the Squire of Penwyn would hardly
approve.
.tb
Among Mr. Clissold’s literary acquaintance was
a clever young dramatic author, whose work was
// 145.png
.pn +1
just beginning to be popular. One afternoon at the
club—a rather Bohemian institution for men of
letters, in one of the streets of the Strand—this
gentleman—Mr. Flittergilt—invited Maurice to assist
at the first performance of his last comedietta at a
small and popular theatre near at hand.
They dined together, and dropped in at the theatre
just as the curtain was falling on a half-hour farce
played while the house was filling. The piece of
the evening came next. ‘No Cards,’ an original
comedy in three acts; which announcement was
quite enough to convince Maurice that the motive
was adapted from Scribe, and the comic underplot
conveyed from a Palais Royal farce.
‘There’s a new girl in my piece,’ said Mr. Flittergilt,
on the tiptoe of expectation, ‘such a pretty girl,
and by no means a bad actress.’
‘Where does she come from?’
‘Goodness knows. It’s her first appearance in
London.’
‘Humph, comes to the theatre in her brougham,
I suppose, and has her dresses made by Worth.’
‘Not the least in the world. She wore a shabby
// 146.png
.pn +1
grey thing, which I believe you call alpaca, at rehearsal
this morning, and she ran into the theatre,
dripping like a naiad, in a waterproof—if you can
imagine a naiad in a waterproof—having failed to
get a seat in a twopenny omnibus.’
‘That is the prologue,’ said Maurice, with a slight
shoulder-shrug. ‘Perhaps Madge was right, and
that he really had a bad opinion of women.’
He turned to the programme listlessly presently,
and read the old names he knew so well, for this
house was a favourite lounge of his.
‘Is the piece really original, Jack?’ he inquired
of his friend.
‘Well,’ said Mr. Flittergilt, pulling on a new
glove, and making a wry face, perhaps at the tightness
of the glove—perhaps at the awkwardness of the
question—‘I admit there was a germ in that last
piece at the Vaudeville, which I have ripened and
expanded, you know. There always is a germ, you
see, Maurice. It’s only from the brains of a Jove
that you get a full-grown Minerva at a rush.’
‘I understand. The piece is a clever adaptation.
Why, what’s this?’
// 147.png
.pn +1
It was a name in the programme which evoked
that sudden question.
‘Celia Flower, Miss Justina Elgood.’
‘Flittergilt,’ said Maurice, solemnly, ‘I know
that young woman, and I regret to inform you
that, though really a superior girl in private life,
she is a very poor actress. If the fortunes of your
piece are entrusted to her, I am sorry for you.’
‘If she acts as well to-night as she did this
morning at rehearsal, I shall be satisfied,’ replied
Mr. Flittergilt. ‘But how did you come to know
her?’
Maurice told the story of those two days at
Eborsham. ‘Poor child, when last I saw her she
was bowed down with grief for my murdered friend.
I dare say she has forgotten all about him by this
time.’
‘She doesn’t look like a girl who would easily
forget,’ said the dramatist.
The curtain rose on one of those daintily furnished
interiors which the modern stage realizes to such
perfection. Flowers, birds, statuettes, pictures, a
glimpse of sunlit garden on one side, and an open
// 148.png
.pn +1
piano on the other. A girl was seated on the central
ottoman, looking over a photograph album. A young
man was in a half-recumbent position at her feet,
looking up at her. The girl was Justina Elgood—the
old Justina, and yet a new Justina—so
wondrously had the overgrown girl of seventeen
improved in womanly beauty and grace. The dark
blue eyes, with their depth of thought and tenderness
of expression, were alone unchanged. Maurice
could have recognised the girl anywhere by those
eyes.
The management had provided the costumes for
the piece, and Justina, in her white silk dress, with
its voluminous frills and flouncings, looked as elegant
a young woman as one could desire to see offered up,
Iphigenia-like, on the altar of loyalty at St. James’s
Palace, to be almost torn to pieces on a drawing-room
day. Celia Flower is the heroine of the
comedy, and this is her wedding morning, and this
young man at her feet is a cousin and rejected lover.
She is looking over the portraits of her friends,
in order to determine which she shall preserve
and which drop after marriage.
// 149.png
.pn +1
Mr. Flittergilt’s comedy goes on to show that
Celia’s intended union is altogether a mistake, that
she really loves the rejected cousin, that he honestly
loves her, that nothing but misery can result from
the marriage of interest which has been planned by
Celia’s relatives.
Celia is at first indifferent and frivolous, thinking
more of her bridal toilet than of the bond which it
symbolizes. Little by little she awakens to deeper
thought and deeper feeling, and here, slender as
Mr. Flittergilt’s work is, there is scope for the
highest art.
Curiously different is the actress of to-day from
the girl whose ineptitude the strolling company at
Eborsham had despised. There is a brightness and
spontaneity about her comedy, a simple artless
tenderness in her touches of sentiment, which show
the untaught actress—the actress whose art has
grown out of her own depth of feeling, whose acting
is the outcome of a rich and thoughtful mind rather
than the hard and dry result of tuition and study,
or the mechanical art of imitation. Impulse and
fancy give their bright brief flashes of light and
// 150.png
.pn +1
colour to the interpretation, and the dramatist’s
creation lives and moves before the audience,—not a
mere mouthpiece for smart sayings or graceful bits
of sentiment—but a being with a soul, an original
absolute creation of an original mind.
The audience are enchanted, Mr. Flittergilt is in
fits of admiration of himself and the actress. ‘By
Jove, that girl is as good as Nesbitt, and my dialogue
is equal to Sheridan’s!’ he ejaculates, when
the first act is over, and the rashly enthusiastic,
without waiting for the end, begin to clamour for
the author. And Maurice—well, Maurice sits in a
brown study, far back in the box, and unseen by
the actors, astride upon his chair, his arms folded
upon the back of it, his chin upon his folded arms,
the image of intense contemplation.
‘By heaven, the girl is a genius,’ he says to
himself. ‘I thought there was something noble
about her, but I did not think two short years
would work such a change as this.’
At the end of the piece Justina was received
with what it is the fashion to call an ovation. There
were no bouquets thrown to her, for these floral
// 151.png
.pn +1
offerings are generally pre-arranged by the friends
and admirers of an actress, and Justina had neither
friends nor admirers in all the great city to plan her
triumph. She had conquered by the simple force
of an art which was spontaneous and unstudied as
the singing of a nightingale. Time and practice had
made her mistress of the mechanism of her art, had
familiarized her with the glare of the lights and the
strange faces of the crowd, had made her as much at
her ease on the stage as in her own room. The rest
had come unawares, it had come with the ripening
of her mind, come with the thoughtfulness and depth
of feeling that had been the growth of that early
disappointment, that first brief dream of love, with
its sad sudden ending.
When the piece was over, and Justina and Mr.
Flittergilt had enjoyed their triumph, and all the
actors had been called for and applauded by a
delighted audience, Maurice suddenly left the box.
He had done nothing to help the applause, but had
stood in his dark corner like a rock, while the little
theatre shook with the plaudits of pit and gallery.
‘Come, I say, that’s rather cool,’ the dramatist
// 152.png
.pn +1
muttered to himself. ‘He might have said something
civil, anyhow; I was just going to ask him
if he’d like to go behind the scenes, too.’ The
accomplished Flittergilt had contented himself with
bowing from his box, and he was now in haste to
betake himself to the green-room, there to receive
the congratulations of the company, and to render
the usual meed of praise and thanks to the interpreters
of his play.
The green-room at the Royal Albert Theatre
was a very superior apartment to the green-room at
Eborsham. It was small, but bright and comfortable-looking,
with carpeted floor, looking-glasses over
chimney-piece and console table, photographs and
engraved portraits of popular actors and actresses
upon the gaily papered walls, a cushioned divan all
round the room, and nothing but the table and
its appurtenances wanted to make the apartment
resemble a billiard-room in a pleasant unpretentious
country house.
Here, standing by the console table, and
evidently quite at his ease, Mr. Flittergilt found his
friend talking to the new actress. Mr. Clissold had
// 153.png
.pn +1
penetrated to the sacred chamber somehow, without
the dramatist’s safe-conduct.
‘How did you get here?’ asked Flittergilt,
annoyed.
‘Oh, I hardly know. The old man at the stage
door didn’t want to admit me. I’m afraid I said I
was Miss Elgood’s brother, or something of that kind,
I was so desperately anxious to see her.’
He had been congratulating Justina on her
developed talents. The girl’s success had surprised
herself more than any one else. She had been
applauded and praised by provincial critics of late,
but she had not thought that a London audience was
so easily conquered. The dark eyes shone with a
new light, for success was very sweet. In the background
stood a figure that Maurice had not observed
till just now, when he made way for Mr. Flittergilt.
This was Matthew Elgood, clad in the same
greasy-looking frock coat, or just such a coat as that
which he had worn two years ago at Eborsham, but
smartened by an expanse of spotless shirt-front,
which a side view revealed to be only frontage, and not
an integral part of his shirt, and a purple satin cravat.
// 154.png
.pn +1
‘How do you do, Mr. Elgood? Are you engaged
here too?’ asked Maurice.
‘No, sir. There was no opening for a man of
my standing. The pieces which are popular now-a-days
are too flimsy to afford an opening for an actor
of weight, or else they are one-part pieces written
for some mannerist of the hour. The genuine old
legitimate school of acting—the school which was
fostered in the good old provincial theatres—is
nowhere now-a-days. I bow to the inevitable stroke
of Time. I was born some twenty years too late. I
ought to have been the compeer of Macready.’
‘Your daughter has been fortunate in making
such a hit.’
‘Ay, sir. The modern stage is a fine field for a
young woman with beauty and figure, and when
that young woman’s talents have been trained and
fostered by a man who knows his art, she enters the
arena with the assurance of success. There was
a time when the malignant called my daughter a
stick. There was a time when my daughter hated
the profession. But my fostering care has wrought
the change which surprises you to-night. A
// 155.png
.pn +1
dormant genius has been awakened—I will not
venture to say by a kindred genius, lest the remark
should savour of egotism.’
‘You are without occupation, then, in London,
Mr. Elgood?’
‘Yes, Mr. Clissold, but I have my vocation; I
am here as guardian and protector of my innocent
child.’
‘I told Miss Elgood two years ago that, if ever
she came to London and needed a friend, my best
services should be at her disposal. But her success
of to-night has made her independent of friendship.’
‘I don’t know about that, Mr. Clissold. You
are a literary man, I understand, a friend of Mr.
Flittergilt’s, and you have doubtless some influence
with dramatic critics. One can never have too
much help of that kind. There is a malevolent
spirit in the press which requires to be soothed and
overcome by friendly influences. Beautiful, gifted
as my daughter is, I feel by no means sure of the
newspapers. Our unpretending domicile is at
No. 27, Hudspeth Street, Bloomsbury, a lowly
but a central locality. If you will favour us with a
// 156.png
.pn +1
call I shall be delighted. Our Sunday evenings are
our own.’
‘I shall lose no time in availing myself of your
kind permission,’ said Maurice; and then he added
in a lower tone, for Mr. Elgood’s ear only, ‘I hope
your daughter has got over the grief which that
dreadful event at Eborsham occasioned her.’
‘She has recovered from the blow, sir, but she
has not forgotten it. A curiously sensitive child,
Mr. Clissold. Who could have supposed that so
brief an acquaintance with your murdered friend
could have produced so deep an impression upon
that young mind? She was never the same girl
afterwards. From that time she seemed to me to
dwell apart from us all, in a world of her own.
She became after a while more attentive to her
professional duties—more anxious to excel—more
interested in the characters she represented, and she
began to surprise us all by touches of pathos which
we had not expected from her. She engaged with
Mr. Tilberry, of the Theatre Royal, Westborough, for
the juvenile lead about six months after your young
friend’s death, and has maintained a leading position
// 157.png
.pn +1
in the provinces ever since. “Sweet are the uses of
adversity, which, like the toad,” &c. Her genius
seemed to have been called into being by sorrow.
Good night, Mr. Clissold. I dare say Justina will be
ready to go home by this time. If you can square any
of the critics for us, you will discover that Matthew
Elgood knows the meaning of the word gratitude.’
Maurice promised to do his best, and that
evening at his club near the Strand, used all the
influence he had in Justina’s favour. He found his
task easy. The critics who had seen Mr. Flittergilt’s
new comedy were delighted with the new actress.
Those who had been elsewhere, assisting at the production
of somebody else’s new piece, heard their
brothers of the pen enthusiastic in their encomiums,
and promised to look in at the Royal Albert Theatre
on Monday.
To-night was Saturday. Maurice promised himself
that he would call in Hudspeth Street to-morrow
evening. He had another engagement, but
it was one that could be broken without much
offence. And he was curious to see the successful
actress at home. Was she much changed from the
// 158.png
.pn +1
girl he had surprised on her knees by the clumsy
old arm-chair, shedding passionate tears for James
Penwyn’s death? He had thought her half a child
in those days, and the possibilities of fame whereof
he had spoken so consolingly very far away. And
behold! she was famous already—in a small way,
perhaps, but still famous. On Monday the newspapers
would be full of her praises. She would be
more immediately known to the world than he, the
poet, had made himself yet. And she had already
tasted the sweetness of applause coming straight
from the hearts and hands of her audience, not
filtered through the pens of critics, and losing considerable
sweetness in the process.
.tb
The illimitable regions of Bloomsbury have room
enough for almost every diversity of domicile, from
the stately mansions of Russell Square to the lowly
abode of the mechanic and the charwoman. Hudspeth
Street is an old-fashioned, narrow street of
respectable and substantial-looking houses, which
must once have been occupied by the professional
classes, or have served as the private dwellings of
// 159.png
.pn +1
wealthy traders, but which now are for the most part
let off in floors to the shabby-genteel and struggling
section of humanity, or to more prosperous mechanics,
who ply their trades in the sombre paneled rooms,
with their tall mantel-boards and deep-set windows.
The street lies between the oldest square of this
wide district and a busy thoroughfare, where the
costermongers have it all their own way after dark;
but Hudspeth Street wears at all times a tranquil
gloom, as if it had been forgotten somehow by the
majority, and left behind in the general march of
progress. Other streets have burst out into stucco,
and masked their aged walls with fronts of plaster,
as ancient dowagers hide their wrinkles under
Bloom de Ninon or Blanc de Rosati. But here the
dingy old brick façades remain undisturbed, the old
carved garlands still decorate the doorways, the old
extinguishers still stand ready to quench torches that
have gone to light the dark corridors of Hades.
To Maurice Clissold on this summer evening—Sunday
evening, with the sound of many church
bells filling the air—Hudspeth Street seems a social
study, a place worth half an hour’s thought from a
// 160.png
.pn +1
philosophical lounger, a place which must have its
memories.
No. 27 is cleaner and brighter of aspect
than its immediate neighbours. A brass plate
upon the door announces that Louis Charlevin,
artist in buhl and marqueterie, occupies the ground-floor.
Another plate upon the doorpost bears the
name of Miss Girdleston, teacher of music; and a
third is inscribed with the legend, Mrs. Mapes,
Furnished Lodgings, and has furthermore a little
hand pointing to a bell, which Maurice rings.
The door is opened by a young person, who is
evidently Mrs. Mapes’s daughter. Her hair is too
elaborate, her dress too smart, her manner too easy
for a servant under Mrs. Mapes’s dominion. She
believes that Mr. Elgood is at home, and begs the
visitor to step up to the second floor front, not
troubling herself to precede and announce him.
Maurice obeys, and speeds with light footstep
up the dingy old staircase. The house is clean and
neat enough, but has not been painted for the last
thirty years, he opines. He taps lightly at the door
and some one bids him enter. Mr. Elgood is lying
// 161.png
.pn +1
on a sofa, smoking luxuriously, with a glass of cold
punch on the little table at his elbow. The Sunday
papers lie around him. He has been reading the
records of Justina’s success, and is revelling in the
firstfruits of prosperity.
Justina is sitting by an open window, dressed in
some pale lavender-hued gown, which sets off the
tall and graceful figure. Her head leans a little
back against the chintz cushion of the high-backed
chair, an open book lies on her lap. It falls as she
rises to receive the visitor, and Maurice stoops to
pick it up.
His own poem.
It gives him more pleasure, somehow, to find it
in her hands than he derived from the praises of
those two fashionable and accomplished women,
Mrs. Penwyn and her sister. It touches him more
deeply still to see that Justina’s cheeks are wet
with tears.
‘She has been crying over some foolish poetry,
instead of thanking Providence for such criticism as
this,’ said Mr. Elgood, slapping his hand upon the
Sunday Times.
// 162.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch11
CHAPTER XI||‘A MERRIER HOUR WAS NEVER WASTED THERE.’
.sp 2
.ni
August came—a real August—with cloudless blue
skies, and scorching noontides, and a brief storm
now and then to clear the atmosphere. The yellow
corn-fields basked in the sun’s hot rays, scarce
stirred to a ripple by the light summer air. The
broad Atlantic seemed placid as that great jasper
sea men picture in their dreams of heaven. The
pine trees stood up straight and dark and tall and
solemn against a background of azure sky. Ocean’s
wide waste of waters brought no sense of coolness to
the parched wayfarer, for all that vast expanse
glowed like burnished gold beneath the splendour of
the sun-god. The road across the purple moor
glared whitely between its fringe of plantations, and
the flower-gardens at Penwyn Manor made patches
of vivid colour in the distance. The birthday of the
// 163.png
.pn +1
heir had come and gone, with many bonfires, sky-rockets,
much rejoicing of tenants and peasantry,
eating and drinking, bounties to the poor, speechifying,
and general exultation. At twelve months old
Churchill Penwyn’s heir, if not quite the paragon
his parents and his aunt believed him, was fairly
worth some amount of rejoicing. He was a sturdy,
broad-shouldered little fellow, with chestnut locks
cut straight across his wide, fair forehead, and large
blue eyes, dark, and sweet, and truthful, a loving,
generous-hearted little soul, winning the love of all
creatures—from the grave, thoughtful father who
secretly worshipped him, to the kitten that rolled
itself into a ball of soft white fur in his baby lap.
.pi
The general rejoicings for tenants and cottagers,
the public celebration, as it were, of the infant’s first
anniversary, being happily over, with satisfaction to
all—even to the Irish reapers, who were regaled with
supper and unlimited whisky punch in one of the
big barns—Mrs. Penwyn turned her attention to
more refined assemblies. Lady Cheshunt was at
Penwyn, and had avowed herself actually charmed
with the gathering of the vulgar herd.
// 164.png
.pn +1
‘My dear, they are positively refreshing in their
absolute naïveté,’ she exclaimed, when she talked
over the day’s proceedings with Madge and Viola in
Mrs. Penwyn’s dressing-room. ‘To see the colours
they wear, and the unsophisticated width of their
boots, and scantiness of their petticoats, and the way
they perspire, and get ever so red in the face without
seeming to mind it; and the primitive way they
have of looking really happy—it is positively like
turning over a new leaf in the book of life. And
when one can see it all without any personal exertion,
sitting under a dear old tree and drinking iced
claret cup—how admirably your people make claret
cup!—it is intensely refreshing.’
‘I hope you will often turn over new leaves,
then, dear Lady Cheshunt,’ Madge answered, smiling.
‘And on Thursday you are going to give a
dinner party, and show me the genteel aborigines,
the country people; benighted creatures who have
no end of quarterings on their family shields, and
never wear a decently cut gown, and drive horses
that look as if they had been just taken from the
plough.’
// 165.png
.pn +1
‘I don’t know that our Cornish friends are quite
so lost in the night of ages as you suppose them,’
said Madge, laughing. ‘Brunel has brought them
within a day’s journey of civilization, you know.
They may have their gowns made in Bond Street
without much trouble.’
‘Ah, my love, these are people who go to London
once in three years, I dare say. Why, to miss a
single season in town is to fall behind one’s age;
one’s ideas get mouldy and moss-grown; one’s
sleeves look as if they had been made in the time of
George the Third. To keep abreast with the march
of time one must be at one’s post always. One
might as well be the sleeping beauty at once, and
lose a hundred years, as skip the London season. I
remember one year that I was out of health, and
those tiresome doctors sent me to spend my spring
and summer in Germany. When I came to London
in the following March, I felt like Rip Van Winkle.
I hardly remembered the names of the Ministry, or
the right use of asparagus tongs. However, sweet
child, I shall be amused to see your county people.’
The county families assembled a day or two
// 166.png
.pn +1
afterwards, and proved not unintelligent, as Lady
Cheshunt confessed afterwards, though their talk
was for the most part local, or of field sports. The
ladies talked chiefly of their neighbours. Not
scandal by any means. That would have been most
dangerous; for they could hardly have spoken of
any one who was not related by cousinship or
marriage with somebody present. But they talked
of births, and marriages, and deaths, past or to
come; of matrimonial engagements, of children,
of all simple, social, domestic subjects; all which
Lady Cheshunt listened to wonderingly. The
flavour of it was to the last degree insipid to the
metropolitan worldling. It was like eating whitebait
without cayenne or lemon—whitebait that
tasted only of frying-pan and batter. The young
ladies talked about curates, point lace, the penny
readings of last winter, amateur concerts, new
music—ever so old in London—and the school
children; or, grouped round Viola, listened with
awful interest to her descriptions of the season’s
dissipations—the balls, and flower shows, and
races, and regattas she had assisted at, the royal
// 167.png
.pn +1
personages she had beheld, the various on dits
current in London society about those royal personages,
so fresh and sparkling, and, if not true,
at least possessing a richness of detail that seemed
like truth. Viola was eminently popular among
the younger branches of the county families. The
sons played croquet and billiards with her, the
daughters copied the style of her dresses, and chose
their new books and music at her recommendation.
Mrs. Penwyn was popular with all—matrons
and maidens, elderly squires and undergraduates,
rich and poor. She appealed to the noblest and
widest feelings of human nature, and not to love
her would have been to be indifferent to virtue and
sweetness.
This first dinner after the return to Penwyn
Manor was more or less of a state banquet. The
Manor House put forth all its forces. The great
silver-gilt cups, and salvers, and ponderous old wine-coolers,
and mighty venison dishes, a heavy load for
a strong man, emerged from their customary retirement
in shady groves of green baize. The buffet
was set forth as at a royal feast; the long dinnertable
// 168.png
.pn +1
resembled a dwarf forest of stephanotis and
tremulous dewy-looking fern. The closed venetians
excluded the glow of a crimson sunset, yet admitted
evening’s refreshing breeze. The many tapers
twinkled with a tender subdued radiance. The
moon-like Silber lamps on the sideboard and
mantel-piece gave a tone of coolness to the room.
The women in their gauzy dresses, with family
jewels glittering star-like upon white throats and
fair round arms, or flashing from coils of darkest
hair, completed the pleasant picture. Churchill
Penwyn looked down the table with his quiet
smile.
‘After all, conventional, commonplace, as this
sort of thing may be, it gives one an idea of
power,’ he thought, in his half-cynical way, ‘and
is pleasant enough for the moment. Sardanapalus,
with a nation of slaves under his heel, could
only have enjoyed the same kind of sensation
on a larger scale.’
// 169.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch12
CHAPTER XII||‘IT WAS THE HOUR WHEN WOODS ARE COLD.’
.sp 2
.ni
While the Squire of Penwyn surveyed his flower
and fern-bedecked board, and congratulated himself
that he was a power in the land, his lodge-keeper,
the woman with tawny skin, sun-browned almost to
mahogany colour, dark brows and night-black eyes,
sat at her door-step watching the swiftly changing
splendours of the west, where the sky was still
glorious with the last radiance of the sunken sun.
The crimson light glows on the brown skin, and
gleams in the dusky eyes as the woman sits with
her face fronting westward.
.pi
She has a curious fancy for out-of-door life, and
is not often to be found inside the comfortable lodge.
She prefers the door-step to an arm-chair by the
hearth, even in winter; nay, she has been seen to
sit at her threshold, with a shawl over her head,
// 170.png
.pn +1
during a pitiless storm, watching the lightning with
those bright bold eyes of hers. Her grandchild
Elspeth has the same objection to imprisonment
within four walls. She has no gates to open, and
can roam where she lists. She avails herself of that
privilege without stint, and wanders from dawn till
sunset, and sometimes late into the starry night.
She has resisted all Mrs. Penwyn’s kind attempts to
beguile her along the road to knowledge by the easy
steps of the parish school. She will not sit among
the rosy-cheeked Cornish children, or walk to church
with the neatly-clad procession from the Sunday
school. She is more ignorant than the small
toddlers of three or four, can neither read nor write,
hardly knows the use of a needle, and in the matter
of Scriptural and theological knowledge is a very
heathen.
If these people had not been the Squire’s
protégées they would have been dismissed from
orderly Penwyn long ere now. They were out of
harmony with their surroundings, they made a discordant
note in the calm music of life at the Manor.
While all else was neatness, exquisite cleanliness,
// 171.png
.pn +1
the lodge had a look of neglect, a slovenliness which
struck the observer’s eye disagreeably—a curtain
hanging awry at one of the lattices, a tattered
garment flying like a pennant from an open casement,
a trailing branch of jessamine, a handleless
jug standing on a window-sill, a muddy door-step.
Trifles like these annoyed Mrs. Penwyn, and she
had more than once reproved the lodge-keeper for
her untidiness. The woman had heard her quietly
enough, had uttered no insolent word, and had
curtseyed low as the lady of the mansion passed on.
But the dark face had been shadowed by a sullen
frown, and no amendment had ever followed Mrs.
Penwyn’s remonstrances.
‘I really wish you would get rid of those people
at the north lodge,’ Madge said to Churchill, one
day, after having her patience peculiarly tried by the
spectacle of a ragged blanket hanging to dry in the
lodge garden. ‘They make our grounds look like
some Irish squireen’s place, where the lodge-keeper
is allowed a patch of potatoes and a drying-ground
for the family linen at the park gates. If they
are really objects of charity, it would be better to
// 172.png
.pn +1
allow them a pension, and let them live where
they like.’
‘We will think about it, my love, when I have
a little more time on my hands,’ answered Mr.
Penwyn.
He never said an absolute ‘No’ to his wife;
but a request which had to be thought about by
him was rarely granted.
Madge gave an impatient sigh. These people at
the lodge exercised her patience severely.
‘Waiting till you have leisure seems absurd,
Churchill,’ she said. ‘With your parliamentary
work, and all that you have to see to here, there can
be no such thing as spare time. Why not send
these people away at once? They make the place
look horribly untidy.’
‘I’ll remonstrate with them,’ replied Churchill.
‘And then they are such queer people,’ continued
Madge. ‘That girl Elspeth is as ignorant as a
South Sea Islander, and I dare say the grandmother
is just as bad. They never go to church, setting
such a shocking example to the villagers.’
‘My love, there are many respectable people who
// 173.png
.pn +1
never go to church. I rarely went myself in my
bachelor days. I used to reserve Sunday morning
for my arrears of correspondence.’
‘Oh, Churchill!’ cried Madge, with a shocked
look.
‘My dearest love, you know I do not set up for
exalted virtue.’
‘Churchill!’ she exclaimed, tenderly, but still
with that shocked look. She loved him so much
better than herself that she would have liked heaven
to be a certainty for him even at the cost of a cycle
in purgatory for her.
‘Come, dear, you know I have never pretended
to be a good man. I do the best I can with my
opportunities, and try to be as much use as I can in
my generation.’
‘But you call yourself a Christian, Churchill?’
she asked, solemnly. Their life had been so glad, so
bright, so busy, so full of action and occupation, that
they had seldom spoken of serious things. Never
till this moment had Madge asked her husband that
simple, solemn question.
He turned from her with a clouded face, turned
// 174.png
.pn +1
from her impatiently even, and walked to the other
end of the room.
‘If there is one thing I hate more than another,
Madge, it is theological argumentation,’ he said,
shortly.
‘There is no argument here, Churchill; a man is
or is not a follower of Christ.’
‘Then I am not,’ he said.
She shrank away from him as if he had struck
her, looked at him for a few moments with a pale
agonized face, and left him without a word. She
could not trust herself to speak—the blow had been
too sudden, too heavy. She went away to her own
room and shut herself in, and wept for him and
prayed for him. But she loved him not the less
because by his own lips he stood confessed an infidel.
That was how she interpreted his words of self-condemnation.
She forgot that a man may believe
in Christ, yet not follow Him: believe, like the
devils, and, like the devils, tremble.
.tb
Mrs. Penwyn never spoke to her husband of the
people at the north lodge after this. They were
// 175.png
.pn +1
associated with a too painful memory. Churchill,
however, did not forget to reprove the lodge-keeper’s
slovenliness, and his brief and stern remonstrance had
some effect. The lodge was kept in better order, at
least so far as its external appearance went. Within
it was still a disorderly den.
The lodge-keeper’s name was Rebecca—by this
name at least she was known at Penwyn. Whether
she possessed the distinction of a surname was a
moot point. She had not condescended to communicate
it to any one at the Manor. She had been
at Penwyn nearly two years, and had not made a
friend—nay, not so much as an acquaintance who
cared to ‘pass the time of day’ as he went by her
door. The peasantry secretly thought her a witch, a
dim belief in witchcraft and wise women still lingering
in nooks and corners of this remote romantic
West, despite the printing press and the School
Board. The women-servants were half disposed to
share that superstition. Everybody avoided her.
Unpopularity so obvious seemed a matter of supreme
indifference to the woman who called herself Rebecca.
Certain creature comforts were needful to her well-being,
// 176.png
.pn +1
and these she had in abundance. The sun and
the air were indispensable to her content. These
she could enjoy unhindered. Her ruling vice was
slothfulness, her master passion love of ease. These
she could indulge. She therefore enjoyed as near an
approach to positive happiness as mere animal mankind
can feel. Love of man or of God, the one
divine spark which lights our clay, shone not here.
She had a vague sense of kindred which made some
kind of tie between her and her own flesh and blood,
but she had never known what it was to love anything.
She kept her grandchild, Elspeth, gave her
food, and raiment, and shelter—first, because what
she gave cost her nothing; and secondly, because
Elspeth ran errands for her, carried a certain stone
bottle to be filled and refilled at the little inn in
Penwyn village, did whatever work there was to be
done in the lodge, and saved her grandmother trouble
generally. The delicious laziness of the lodge-keeper’s
days would have been less perfect without Elspeth’s
small services; otherwise it would have given this
woman little pain to know that Elspeth was shelterless
and starving.
// 177.png
.pn +1
She sat and watched the light fade yonder over
the lake-like sea, and heavy mists steal up the moorlands
as the day died. Presently, sure that no one
would come to the gates at this hour, she drew a
short blackened clay pipe from her pocket, filled and
lighted it, and began to smoke—slowly, luxuriously,
dreamily—if so mindless a being could dream.
She emptied her pipe, and filled again, and
smoked on, happy, while the moon showed silver-pale
in the opal sky. The opal faded to grey; the
grey deepened to purple; the silver shield grew
brighter while she sat there, and the low murmur of
summer waves made a soothing music—soft, slow,
dreamily monotonous. The brightening moon shone
full upon that moorland track by which Maurice
Clissold first came to Penwyn Manor. In making
his road across the uplands, the Squire had not followed
this narrow track. The footpath still remained,
at some distance from the road.
Turning her eyes lazily towards this path, Rebecca
was startled by the sight of a figure approaching
slowly in the moonlight, a man, broad-shouldered,
stalwart, walking with that careless freedom of gait
// 178.png
.pn +1
which betokens the habitual pedestrian, the wanderer
who has tramped over many a hill-side, and
traversed many a stony road, a nomad by instinct
and habit.
He came straight on, without pause or uncertainty,
came straight to the gate, and looked in at
the woman sitting on the door-step.
‘Ah!’ he said, ‘it was the straight tip Josh
Collins gave me. Good evening, mother.’
The woman emptied the ashes of her pipe upon
the door-step before she answered this filial greeting.
Then she looked up at the wanderer frowningly.
‘What brings you here?’
‘There’s a heartless question!’ cried the man.
‘What brings a son to look after his blessed old
mother? Do you allow nothing for family feeling?’
‘Not in you, Paul, or any of your breed. What
brought you here?’
‘You’d better let me in first, and give me something
to eat and drink. I don’t care about looking
through iron bars, like a wild beast in Wombwell’s
show.’
// 179.png
.pn +1
Rebecca hesitated—looked at her son doubtfully
for a minute or so before she made up her mind to
admit him, weighed the possibilities of the case, and
then took her key and unlocked the gate. If it had
been practicable to keep this returned prodigal outside
without peril to herself, she would have done it,
but she knew her son’s disposition too well to trifle
with feelings which were apt to express themselves
with a savage freedom.
‘Come in,’ she said, sulkily, ‘and eat your fill,
and go your ways when you’ve eaten. It was an ill
wind for me that blew you this way.’
‘That’s not over-kind from a mother,’ responded
the nomad, carelessly. ‘I’ve had work enough to
find you since you gave us the slip at Westerham
fair.’
‘You might have been content to lose me, considering
the little store you ever set by me,’ retorted
Rebecca, bitterly.
‘Well, perhaps I might have brought myself to
look at it in that light, if I hadn’t heard of you two
or three months ago from a mate of mine in the
broom trade, who happened to pass this way last
// 180.png
.pn +1
summer, and saw you here, squatting in the sun like
a toad. He made a few inquiries about you—out of
friendliness to me—in the village yonder, and heard
that you were living on the fat of the land, and had
enough to spare. Living in service—you, that were
brought up to something better than taking any
man’s wages—and eating the bread of dependence.
So I put two and two together, and thought perhaps
you’d contrived to save a little bit of money by this
time, and would help me with a pound or two if I
looked you up. It would be hard lines if a mother
refused help to her son.’
‘You treated me so well when we were together
that I ought to be very fond of you, no doubt,’ said
Rebecca. ‘Come in, and eat. I’ll give you a meal
and a night’s lodging if you like, but I’ll give you no
more, and you’d better make yourself scarce soon
after daybreak. My master is a magistrate, and has
no mercy on tramps.’
‘Then how did he come to admit you into his
service? You hadn’t much of a character from your
last place, I take it.’
‘He had his reasons.’
// 181.png
.pn +1
‘Ay, there’s a reason for everything. I should
like to know the reason of your getting such a berth
as this, I must say.’
He followed his mother into the lodge. The room
was furnished comfortably enough, but dirt and disorder
ruled the scene. Of this, however, the wanderer’s
eye took little note as he briefly surveyed the
chamber, dimly lighted by a single tallow candle
burning in a brass candlestick on the mantel-piece.
He flung himself into the high-backed Windsor arm-chair,
drew it to the table, and sat there waiting for
refreshment, his darkly bright eyes following Rebecca’s
movements as she took some dishes from a
cupboard, and set them on the board without any
previous ceremony in the way of spreading a cloth or
clearing the litter of faded cabbage-leaves and stale
crusts which encumbered one side of the table.
The tramp devoured his meal ravenously, and
said not a word till the cravings of hunger were
satisfied. At the rate he ate this result was quickly
attained, and he pushed away the empty dish with a
satisfied sigh.
‘That’s the first hearty feed I’ve had for a week,’
// 182.png
.pn +1
he said. ‘A snack of bread and cheese and a mug
of beer at a roadside public has had to serve me
for breakfast and dinner and supper, and a man of
my stamina can’t live on bread and cheese. And
now tell me all about yourself, mother, and how
you came into this comfortable berth, plenty to eat
and drink and nothing to do.’
‘That’s my business, Paul,’ answered the woman,
with a dogged air which meant resistance.
‘Come, you needn’t make a secret of it. Do
you suppose I haven’t brains enough to find out for
myself, if you refuse to tell me? It isn’t every
day in the year that a fine gentleman and a lady
take a gipsy fortune-teller into their service. Such
things are not done without good reason. What
sort of a chap is this Squire Penwyn?’
‘I’ve nothing to tell you about him,’ answered
the woman, with the same steady look.
‘Oh, you’re as obstinate as ever, I see. All the
winds that blow across the Atlantic haven’t blown
your sullen temper out of you. Very well, since
you’re so uncommunicative, suppose I tell you something
about this precious master of yours. There
// 183.png
.pn +1
are other people who know him—people who are
not afraid to answer a civil question. His name is
Penwyn, and he is the first cousin of that poor
young fellow who was murdered at Eborsham,
and by that young man’s death he comes into this
property. Rather a lucky thing for him, wasn’t
it, that his cousin was shot from behind a hedge?
If such luck had happened to a chap of my
quality, a rogue and vagabond bred and born,
there’d have been people in the world malicious
enough to say that I had a hand in the murder.
But who could suspect a gentleman like Mr.
Penwyn? No gentleman would shoot his cousin
from behind a hedge, even though the cousin
stood between him and ever so many thousands a
year.’
‘I don’t know what you mean by your sneers,’
returned Rebecca. ‘Mr. Penwyn was over two
hundred miles away at the time.’
‘Oh, you know all about him. You occupy a
post of confidence here, I see. Pleasant for you.
Shall I tell you something more about him? Shall
I tell you that he has family plate worth thousands—solid
// 184.png
.pn +1
old plate that has been in the family for
more than a century; that his wife makes no more
account of her diamonds than if they were dog-roses
she pulled out of the hedges to stick in her
hair? That’s what I call good luck, for they were
both of ’em as poor as Job until that cousin was
murdered. Hard for a chap like me to stand outside
their gates and hear about their riches, and
pass on, with empty stomach, and blistered feet—pass
on to wheedle a few pence out of a peasant
wench, or steal a barn-door fowl. There’s destiny
for you!’
He emptied the beer jug, which had held a quart
of good home-brewed, took out his pipe and began
to smoke, his mother watching him uneasily all the
time. Those two were alone in the lodge. The
moonlight and balmy air had lured Elspeth far
afield, wandering over the dewy moorland, singing
her snatches of gipsy song, and happy in her own
wild way—happy though she knew she would get
a scolding with her supper by and by.
‘They’ve got a party to-night, haven’t they?’
asked Paul. ‘Half a dozen fine carriages passed
// 185.png
.pn +1
me an hour or so ago, before I struck out of the
road into the footpath.’
‘Yes, there’s a dinner party.’
The gipsy rose and went to the open window.
The lighted windows of the Manor House shone
across the shadowy depth of park and shrubberies.
Those dark eyes of his glittered curiously as he
surveyed the scene.
‘I should like to see them feasting and enjoying
themselves,’ he said, moving towards the
door.
‘You mustn’t go near the house, you mustn’t
be seen about the place,’ cried Rebecca, following
him hurriedly.
‘Mustn’t I?’ sneered the gipsy. ‘I never
learnt the meaning of the word mustn’t. I’ll go
and have a peep at your fine ladies and gentlemen—I’m
not quite a fool, and I shan’t let them
see me—and then come back here for a night’s
rest. You needn’t be frightened if I’m rather long.
It’ll amuse me to look on at the high jinks through
some half-open window. There, don’t look so
anxious. I know how to keep myself dark.’
// 186.png
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.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch13
CHAPTER XIII||‘NOW HALF TO THE SETTING MOON HAVE\
GONE, AND HALF TO THE RISING DAY.’
.sp 2
.ni
The dinner party is over, the county families
have retired to their several abodes. They are dispersed,
like the soft summer mist which has melted
from the moorland with the broadening light of the
harvest moon.
.pi
Madge, Viola, and Lady Cheshunt are assembled
in Mrs. Penwyn’s dressing-room, a long, low room,
with a wide and deep bow-window at one end, and
three other old-fashioned windows, with broad
cushioned seats therein—a room made for lounging
and pleasant idleness, and half-hours with the best
authors. Every variety of the genus easy chair is
there, chintz-covered, and blossoming with all the
flowers of the garden, as they only bloom upon
chintz, large, gorgeous, and unaffected by aphides or
// 187.png
.pn +1
blight of any kind. There are tables here and there—gipsy
tables, loaded with new books and other
trumpery. There is a large Duchesse dressing table
in one of the windows, and an antique ebony wardrobe,
with richly carved doors, in a convenient
recess; but baths, and all the paraphernalia of the
toilet, are in a small chamber adjoining; this large
apartment being rather a morning-room, or boudoir,
than dressing-room proper.
There are water-colour landscapes and little bits
of genre on the walls, by famous modern masters;
a portrait of Churchill Penwyn, in crayon, hangs
over the velvet-covered mantel-board; there are
dwarf bookcases containing Madge’s own particular
library, the poets, old and new, Scott, Bulwer,
Dickens, Thackeray, Carlyle; altogether the room
has just those homely lovable characteristics which
make rooms dear to their owners.
To-night the windows are all open to the soft
summer air. The day has been oppressively warm,
and the breath of night brings welcome refreshment
to jaded humanity. Madge sits before her dressing-table,
slowly unclasping her jewels as she talks. Her
// 188.png
.pn +1
maid has been dismissed, Mrs. Penwyn being in no
wise dependent on her Abigail’s help; and the jewel-case,
with its dark velvet lining, stands open on the
wide marble slab. Lady Cheshunt lies back in the
deepest and softest of the easy chairs, fanning herself
with a big black and gold fan, a large and splendid
figure in amber satin and hereditary rose-point lace,
which one of the queens of Spain had presented to
the dowager’s mother when her husband was ambassador
at Madrid. She looks like a picture by
Rubens, large and fair, and full of colour.
‘Well, my love, all dinner parties are more or
less heavy, but upon the whole your county people
were better than I expected,’ remarked the dowager,
with her authoritative air. ‘I have seen duller parties
in the home counties. Your people seemed to enjoy
themselves, and that is a point gained, however dull
their talk of the births, marriages, and deaths of
their belongings might be to nous autres. They have
a placid belief that their conversation is entertaining
which is really the next best thing to being really
amusing. In a word, my dear Madge, I was not
nearly so much bored as I expected to be.—Those
// 189.png
.pn +1
diamonds are positively lovely, child; where did
you get them?’
Madge had just taken her necklace—a string of
large single stones—from her neck, and was laying
it in its velvet nest.
‘They are heirlooms; some of them, at least,’
she answered, ‘and came to Churchill with the
estate. They had been locked up in an old tin cashbox
at the county bank for a quarter of a century,
I believe, and nobody seemed to know anything
about them. They were described in the old Squire’s
will as “sundry jewels in a tin box at the bank.”
Churchill had the stones reset, and bought a good
many more to complete the set.’
‘Well, my dear, they are worthy of a duchess.
I hope you are careful of them.’
‘I don’t think it is in Madge’s nature to be
careful of anything now she is rich,’ said Viola.
‘She was thoughtful and saving enough when we
lived with poor papa, and when it was such a hard
struggle to keep out of debt. But now she has
plenty of money she scatters it right and left, and
is perpetually enjoying the luxury of giving.’
// 190.png
.pn +1
‘But I am not careless about my diamonds, Viola.
Mills will come presently, and carry off this box to
the iron safe in the plate-room.’
‘I never believed much in plate-rooms,’ said
Lady Cheshunt. ‘A plate-room with its iron door
is a kind of invitation to burglars. It tells them
where the riches of the house are concentrated.
When I am in other people’s houses I generally
keep my jewel-case on my dressing-table, but I take
care to have it labelled “Gloves,” and that it looks
as little like a jewel-case as possible. I wouldn’t
trust it in anybody’s plate-room. There, child, you
are yawning, I see, in spite of your efforts to conceal
the operation.—Come, Viola, your sister is tired
after the mental strain she has undergone, in pretending
to be interested in all those people’s innumerable
relations.’
The ladies kissed and parted with much affection,
and Madge was left alone, to sit by her dressing-table
in a dreamy attitude, forgetful of the lateness
of the hour.
It was a sad thought which kept her musing
there while the night deepened, and the harvest moon
// 191.png
.pn +1
sank lower in the placid sky. She thought that all
was not well with the husband of her love. She
could not forget that look and gesture of his when
she had questioned him about his faith as a Christian—nothing
fearing his answer to that solemn
inquiry when she asked it. That darkening brow,
those gloomy eyes turned upon her for a moment in
anger or in pain, had haunted her ever since. Not
a Christian! Her beloved, her idol, the dearer half
of soul, and heart, and mind. Death assumed new
terrors in the thought that in worlds beyond they
two must be parted.
‘Rather let us endure a mutual purgation,’ she
thought, with a wish that was half a prayer. ‘Let
me bear half the burden of his sins.’
He had gone to church with her, he had assisted
in the service with grave attention—nay, sometimes
even with a touch of fervour, but he had never
taken the sacrament. That had troubled her not a
little; but when she had ventured to speak to him
upon the subject, he had replied with the common
argument, ‘I do not feel my faith strong enough to
share in so exalted a mystery.’
// 192.png
.pn +1
She had been content to accept this reason,
believing that time would strengthen his faith in holy
things. But now he had told her in hardest, plainest
words, that he had no right to the name of Christian.
She sat brooding upon this bitter thought for
some time, then rose, changed her dinner dress for
a loose white muslin dressing-gown, and went into
her bedroom, which opened out of the dressing-room.
She had not once thought of those earthly jewels in
the open box on the table, or even wondered why
Mills had not come to fetch them. The truth being
that—distracted by the abnormal gaiety which prevailed
below stairs, where the servants regaled
themselves with a festive supper after the patrician
banquet—Miss Mills had forgotten her duties so
far as to become, for the time being, unconscious of
the existence of Mrs. Penwyn’s diamonds. At this
moment she was sleeping comfortably in her
chamber in the upper storey, and the diamonds
were left to their fate.
Lady Cheshunt was accustomed to late hours, and
considered midnight the most agreeable part of her
day, so on leaving Madge’s dressing-room she took
// 193.png
.pn +1
Viola to her own apartment at the other end of the
corridor, for another half-hour or so of friendly
chat, to which Viola, who was an inveterate gossip,
had not the slightest objection. They talked over
everybody’s dress and appearance, the discussion
generally ending in a verdict of ‘guy,’ or ‘fright.’
They talked over Churchill, Viola praising him
enthusiastically, Lady Cheshunt good-naturedly
allowing that she had been mistaken in him.
‘He used to remind me of Mephistopheles, my
dear,’ said the vivacious matron. ‘I don’t mean that
he had a hooked nose or diagonal eyebrows, or a
cock’s feather in his hat; but he had a look of
repressed power that almost frightened me. I fancied
he was a man who could do anything—whether great
or wicked—by the sovereign force of his intellect and
will: but that was before his cousin died. Wealth
has improved him wonderfully.’
At last a clock in the corridor struck one. Viola
gave a little scream of surprise, kissed her dear Lady
Cheshunt for the twentieth time that night, and
tripped away. She had gone half way down the
corridor when she stopped, startled by a sight that
// 194.png
.pn +1
moved her to scream louder than she had done just
now at the striking of the clock, had not some
instinctive feeling of caution checked her.
A man—a man of the vagabond or burglar
species—that very man who a few hours earlier had
presented himself to Rebecca at the lodge—was in
the act of leaving Mrs. Penwyn’s dressing-room.
His back was turned to Viola, he looked neither to
the right nor the left, but crept along the corridor
with stealthy yet rapid footsteps. Viola paused not
a moment ere she pursued him. Her footfall hardly
sounded on the carpeted floor, but the flutter of her
dress startled the intruder. He looked at her, and
then dashed onward to the head of the staircase,
almost throwing himself down the shallow oak stairs,
the flying figure in its airy white robe closely pursuing
him.
At the head of the stairs Viola gave the alarm,
with a cry which rang through the silent house.
She was gaining upon the thief. At the bottom of
the stairs she had him in her grasp, the two small
hands clutching his greasy velveteen collar.
He turned upon her with a fierce oath, would
// 195.png
.pn +1
have struck her to the ground, perhaps, and marred
her delicate beauty for ever with one blow of his
iron fist, had not the billiard-room door opened
suddenly and Mr. Penwyn appeared, Sir Lewis
Dallas, a visitor staying in the house, at his
elbow.
‘What is the matter? Who is this man?’
cried Churchill, while he and Sir Lewis hastened
to Viola’s side, and drew her away from the
ruffian.
‘A thief, a burglar!’ gasped the excited girl. ‘I
saw him coming out of my sister’s dressing-room.
He has murdered her, perhaps. Oh, do go and
see if she is safe, Churchill!’
‘Hold him, Lewis,’ cried Churchill, and ran upstairs
without another word.
Sir Lewis was tall and muscular, an athlete by
nature and art. In his grip the marauder waited
submissively enough till Churchill returned, breathless
but relieved in his mind. Madge was safe—Madge
did not even know that there was anything
amiss.
‘Thanks, Lewis,’ he said, quietly, taking the
// 196.png
.pn +1
intruder from his friend’s hand as coolly as if he
had been some piece of lumber.
‘Go upstairs to your room, Vio, and sleep
soundly for the rest of the night,’ added Churchill
to his sister-in-law. ‘I’ll compliment you on your
prowess to-morrow morning.’
‘I don’t think I could go to bed,’ said Viola,
shuddering. ‘There may be more burglars about
the house. I feel as if it was swarming with
them, like the beetles Mills talks about in the
kitchen.’
‘Nonsense, child! The fellow has no companions.
Perhaps you’d be kind enough to see
my sister as far as the end of the corridor,
Lewis?’
‘Oh no,’ cried Viola, quickly. ‘Indeed, I’m not
frightened. I don’t want any escort;’ and she ran
upstairs so fast that Sir Lewis lost his opportunity
of saying something sweet at the end of the corridor.
His devotion to the pretty Miss Bellingham was
notorious, and Viola apprehended some soft speech,
perhaps a gentle pressure of her hand, a fervid
assurance that no peril should come near her while
// 197.png
.pn +1
he watched beneath that roof. And the portionless
daughter of Sir Nugent Bellingham was not wise
enough in her generation to encourage this wealthy
young baronet.
‘Now, you sir, go in there!’ said Churchill,
pushing the gipsy into his study. ‘You needn’t
wait, Lewis. I can tackle this fellow single-handed.’
‘No! I can’t let you do that. He may have a
knife about him.’
‘If he has I don’t think he’ll try it upon me.
I brought this from my dressing-room just now.’
He pointed to the butt-end of a revolver lurking
in the breast-pocket of his smoking coat.
‘Well, I’ll smoke a cigar in the billiard-room
while you hold your parley with him. I shall be
within call.’
Sir Lewis retired to enjoy his cigar, and Churchill
went into his study. He found that the burglar
had availed himself of this momentary delay, and
was beginning to unfasten the shutters.
‘What? You’d like to get out that way,’ said
the Squire. ‘Not till you and I have had our talk
// 198.png
.pn +1
together. Let go that shutter, if you please, while I
light the lamp.’
He struck a wax match and lighted a shaded
reading lamp that stood on the table.
‘Now,’ he said, calmly, ‘be good enough to
sit down in that chair while I overhaul your
pockets.’
‘There’s nothing in my pockets,’ growled Paul,
prepared for his resistance.
‘Isn’t there? Then you can’t object to have
them emptied. You’d better not be needlessly objective.
I’ve an argument here that you’ll hardly
resist,’ showing the pistol, ‘and my friend who
grappled you just now is ready to stand by me.’
The man made no further resistance. Churchill
turned out the greasy linings of his pockets, but
produced nothing except loose shreds of tobacco
and various scraps of rubbish. He felt inside the
vagabond’s loose shirt, thinking that he might have
hidden his booty in his bosom, but with no result.
A cunning smile curled the corners of the scoundrel’s
lips, a smile that told Churchill to persist in his
search.
// 199.png
.pn +1
‘Come,’ he said, ‘you’ve some of my wife’s
diamonds about you. I saw the case open, and
half empty. You were not in that room for
nothing. You shall strip to your skin, my man.
But first, off with that neckerchief of yours.’
The man looked at him vengefully, eyed the
pistol in his captor’s hand, weighed the forces
against him, and then slowly and sullenly untied
the rusty black silk handkerchief which encircled
his brawny throat, and threw it on the table.
Something inside the handkerchief struck sharply
on the wood.
‘I thought as much,’ said Churchill.
He untwisted the greasy wisp of silk, whereupon
his wife’s collet necklace and the large single stones
she wore in her ears fell upon the table. Churchill
put the gems into his pocket without a word.
‘Is that all?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ the man answered, with an oath.
Churchill looked at him keenly. ‘You will go
straight from here to jail,’ he said, ‘so concealment
wouldn’t serve you much. You are a gipsy,
I think?’
// 200.png
.pn +1
‘I am.’
‘What brought you here to-night?’
‘I came to see a relation.’
‘Here, on these premises?’
‘At the lodge. The woman you’ve chosen for
your lodge-keeper is my mother.’
‘Rebecca Mason?’
‘Yes.’
Churchill took a turn or two up and down the
room thoughtfully.
‘Since you’ve been so uncommonly kind to her,
perhaps you’ll strain a point in my favour,’ said
the gipsy. ‘I shouldn’t have tried to rob you if
I hadn’t been driven to it by starvation. It goes
hard with a man when he has a wolf gnawing
his vitals, and stands outside an open window and
sees a lot of women with thousands of pounds on
their neck, in the shape of blessed gems that do no
more real good to any one than the beads our
women bedizen themselves with. And then he
sees the old ivy roots are thick enough to serve
for a ladder, and the windows upstairs left open and
handy for him to walk inside. That’s what I call
// 201.png
.pn +1
temptation. Perhaps you were outside the good
things of this world at some time of your life,
and can feel for a poor wretch like me.’
‘I have known poverty,’ answered Churchill,
wondrously forbearing towards this vagrant, ‘and
endured it?’
‘Yes, but you hadn’t to endure it for ever.
Fortune was kind to you. It isn’t often a man
drops into such a berth as this by a fluke.
You’ve got your property, and you may as well
let me off easily, for my mother’s sake?’
‘You don’t suppose your mother is more to
me than any other servant in my employ,’ said
Churchill, turning upon him sharply.
‘Yes, I do. You wouldn’t go to the gipsy tents
for a servant unless you had your reasons. What
should have brought you to Eborsham to hunt for
a lodge-keeper?’
The mention of that fatal city startled Churchill.
Seldom was that name uttered in his hearing.
It was among things tabooed.
‘I’m sorry I can’t oblige you by condoning a
felony,’ he said, in his most tranquil manner. ‘As
// 202.png
.pn +1
a justice of the peace any sentimentality on my
part would be somewhat out of character. The
utmost I can do for you is to get the case heard
without delay. You may anticipate the privilege
of being committed for trial, to-morrow at noon, at
the petty sessions.’
He left the room without another word, and
locked the door on his prisoner. The lock was
good and in excellent order, the door one of those
ponderous portals only to be found in old manor
houses and their like.
But Mr. Penwyn seemed to have forgotten the
window, which was only guarded on the inside.
He had shut one side of a trap, ignoring the possibility
of escape on the other.
He looked into the billiard-room before he went
up stairs. Sir Lewis Dallas had finished his cigar
and was slumbering peacefully, stretched at full
length on one of the divans, like an uninterested
member of the House of Commons.
‘He’s nearly as well off there as in his room,
so I won’t interrupt his dreams,’ thought Churchill,
as he retired.
// 203.png
.pn +1
That shriek of Viola’s had awakened several of
the household. Mills had heard it, and had descended
half dressed to the corridor, in time to
meet Miss Bellingham on her way upstairs, and to
hear the history of the gipsy’s attempt from that
young lady. Mills had taken the news back to the
drowsy housemaids—had further communicated it
to the startled footman, who looked out of his half-opened
door to ask what was the row. Thus by
the time the household began to be astir again,
between five and six next morning, everybody
knew more or less about the attempted robbery.
‘What have they done with the robber?’ asked
the maids and the odd man and boot-cleaner, who
alone among the masculine retainers condescended
to rise at this early hour.
‘I think he must be shut up in master’s study,’
answered one of the women, whose duty it was to
open the house, ‘for the door’s locked and I
couldn’t get in.’
‘Did you hear anybody inside?’ asked the cook,
with keen interest.
‘Not a sound. He must be asleep, I suppose.’
// 204.png
.pn +1
‘The hardened villain. To think that he can
sleep with such a conscience as his, and the likelihood
of being sent to Botany Bay in a week or
two.’
‘Botany Bay has been done away with,’ said
the odd man, who read the newspapers. ‘They’ll
send him no further than Dartmoor.’
// 205.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch14
CHAPTER XIV||‘O HEAVEN! THAT ONE MIGHT READ THE BOOK OF FATE!’
.sp 2
.ni
Churchill Penwyn looked something the worse
for that half-hour’s excitement overnight when
the Manor House party assembled at breakfast,
between eight and nine next morning. The days
began early at Penwyn, and only Lady Cheshunt
was guilty of that social malingering involved in
a chronic headache, which prevented her appearing
on the dewy side of noon. Perhaps Mr.
Penwyn’s duties as host during the previous
evening might have fatigued him a little. He had
a weary look in that bright morning sunshine—a
look of unrest, as of one who had slept but little
in the night hours. Madge glanced at him every
now and then with half-concealed anxiety. Every
change, were it ever so slight, in that one beloved
face was visible to her.
// 206.png
.pn +1
.pi
‘I hope last night’s business has not worried
you, love,’ she said tenderly, making some excuse
for carrying him his breakfast-cup with her own
hands. ‘The diamonds are safe, and no doubt the
man will be properly punished for his audacity.’
Churchill had told her all about the attempted
robbery, in his clear, passionless way, but not a
word of that interview in the study, between
gentleman and vagabond. Madge, merciful to all
innocent sufferers, had no sentimental compassion
for this frustrated burglar, but desired that he
should be duly punished for his crime.
‘I am not particularly worried, dear. It was
rather an unpleasant ending to a pleasant evening,
that is all.’
They were still seated at the breakfast-table,
and Sir Lewis Dallas was still listening with rapt
attention to Viola’s account of her feelings at the
sight of the thief, when the butler, who had left the
room a few minutes before, in compliance with a
whispered request from his subordinate, re-entered,
solemn of aspect, and full of that self-importance
common to the craft.
// 207.png
.pn +1
‘The man has been taken again, sir, and is in the
village lock-up,’ he announced to his master.
Churchill rose hastily.
‘Taken again! What do you mean? I left
him locked up in my study at two o’clock this
morning.’
‘Yes, sir, but he unfastened the shutters and
got out of the window, and would have got clean
off, I dare say, if Tyrrel, the gamekeeper, and his
son hadn’t been about with a couple of dogs, on the
look-out for poachers. The dogs smelt him out
just as he was getting over the fence in the pine
wood, and the Tyrrels collared him, and took him
off to the lock-up then and there. He fought hard,
Tyrrel says, and would have been almost a match
for the two of ’em if it hadn’t been for the dogs.
They turned the scale,’ concluded the butler,
grandly.
‘Imagine the fellow so nearly getting off!’
exclaimed Sir Lewis. ‘I wonder it didn’t strike
you that he would get out at the window, Penwyn.
You locked the door, and thought you had him safe.
Something like the painter fellow, who went in for
// 208.png
.pn +1
the feline species, and cut two holes in his studio
door, a big one for his cat, and a little one for her
kitten, forgetting that the little cat could have got
through the big cat’s door. That’s the way with
you clever men, you’re seldom up to trap in trifles.’
‘Rather stupid of me, I confess,’ said Churchill,
‘but I suppose I was a little obfuscated by the
whole business. One hasn’t a burglar on one’s
hands every night in the week. However,’ he
added, slowly, ‘he’s safe in the lock-up; that’s the
grand point, and I shall have the pleasure of assisting
at his official examination at twelve o’clock.’
‘Are the petty sessions on to-day?’ asked Sir
Lewis, warmly interested. ‘How jolly!’
‘You don’t mean to say that you take any
interest in that sort of twaddle?’ said Churchill.
‘Anything in the way of crime is interesting
to me,’ replied the young man; ‘and to assist at
the examination of the ruffian who frightened Miss
Bellingham will be rapture. I only regret that the
old hanging laws are repealed.’
‘I don’t feel quite so unmerciful as that,’ said
Madge, ‘but I should like the man to be punished,
// 209.png
.pn +1
if it were only as an example. It isn’t nice to lose
the sense of security in one’s own house, to be
afraid to open one’s window after dark, and to feel
that there may be a burglar lurking in every corner.’
‘And to know that your burglar is your undeveloped
assassin,’ added Sir Lewis. ‘I’ve no
doubt that scoundrel would have tried to murder
us both last night if it hadn’t been for my biceps
and Churchill’s revolver.’
The breakfast party slowly dispersed, some to
the grounds, some to the billiard-room. Every one
had letters to write, or some duty to perform, but
no one felt in the cue for performance. Nor could
anybody talk of anything except the burglar, Viola’s
courage, Churchill’s coolness in the hour of peril,
and carelessness in the matter of the shutters.
Lady Cheshunt required to have bulletins carried
to her periodically, while she sipped orange Pekoe
in the luxurious retirement of an Arabian bed.
Thus the morning wore on till half-past eleven,
at which time the carriage was ordered to convey
Mrs. Penwyn, Miss Bellingham, and Sir Lewis
Dallas to the village inn, attached whereto was
// 210.png
.pn +1
the justices’ room, where Mr. Penwyn and his
brother magistrate, or magistrates, were to meet in
solemn assembly.
Viola and Sir Lewis were wanted as witnesses.
Mrs. Penwyn went, ostensibly to take care of her
sister, but really because she was acutely anxious
to see the result of the morning’s work. That look
of secret care in her husband’s face had disturbed
her. Looks which for the world at large meant
nothing had their language for her. She had
studied every line of that face, knew its lights and
shadows by heart.
The day was lovely, another perfect August day.
The shining faces of the reapers turned towards
them as they drove past the golden fields, broad
peasant faces, sun-browned, and dewy with labour’s
honourable sweat. All earth was gay and glad.
Madge Penwyn looked at this fair world sadly,
heavy with a vague sense of secret care. The skylark
sang his thrilling joy-notes high up in the blue
vault that arched these golden lands, and the note
of rapture jarred upon the wife’s ear.
‘I’m afraid we have been too happy, Churchill
// 211.png
.pn +1
and I,’ she thought, and then recalled two lines of
Hood’s, full of deepest pathos,—
.pm verse-start
‘For there is e’en a happiness
That makes the heart afraid.’
.pm verse-end
They had been utterly happy only a little while
ago, but since that confession of Churchill’s, the
wife’s heart had been burdened with a secret grief.
And to-day she felt that hidden care keenly. Something
in her husband’s manner had suggested concealed
anxieties, fears, cares which he could not or
would not share with her. ‘If he did but know how
loyal I could be to him,’ she thought, ‘he would
hardly shrink from trusting me.’
Viola was full of excitement, and quite ferociously
disposed towards the burglar.
‘I suppose to-day’s business is only a kind of
rehearsal,’ she said, gaily, ‘and that we shall have
to give our evidence again at Bodmin assizes. And
some pert young barrister on the Western Circuit
will browbeat me and try to make me contradict
myself, and make fun of me, and ask if I had put
my hair in papers, or had unplaited my chignon
when I ran downstairs after the burglar.’
// 212.png
.pn +1
‘I should like to see him do it,’ muttered Sir
Lewis, in a vengeful tone.
They were in Penwyn village by this time, the
old-fashioned straggling village, two rows of cottages
scattered apart on the wide high road, a tiny
Methodist chapel in a field, the pound, the lock-up,
big enough for one culprit, and the village inn,
attached to which there was the justice-room, a
long narrow upper chamber, with a low ceiling.
All the inhabitants of Penwyn had turned out
to see the great folks. It was like an Irish crowd,
children, old women, and young matrons with infants
in their arms. The children had just turned out
from the pretty Gothic school-house, which Mr.
Penwyn had built for them. They bobbed deferentially
as their patroness descended from her
carriage, and a murmur of praise and love ran
through the little crowd—sweetest chorus to a
woman’s ear.
‘We ought to be happy in this fair land,’
thought Madge, as her heart thrilled at the sight of
her people. ‘It is like ingratitude to God to keep
one secret care when He has blessed us so richly.’
// 213.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch15
CHAPTER XV||‘QUI PEUT SOUS LE SOLEIL TROMPER SA DESTINEE?’
.sp 2
.ni
Churchill was waiting at the inn door to receive
his wife. He had ridden across on his favourite
horse Tarpan—a long-necked, raking bay, over sixteen
hands, and a great jumper—a horse with a
tremendous stride, just such a brute as Lenore’s
lover might have bestridden in that awful nightride.
.pi
‘Is the man here, Churchill?’ Madge asked,
anxiously.
‘Yes, love. There is nothing to be uneasy
about,’ answered her husband, replying to her looks
rather than to her words.
‘Yet you seem anxious, Churchill.’
‘Only in my magisterial capacity. Tresillian is
here. We shall commit this fellow in no time. It
// 214.png
.pn +1
will only need a few words from Viola and Sir
Lewis.’
Not a syllable about the diamond necklace had
Mr. Penwyn said to his wife. He had replaced the
gems in her dressing-case while she slept peacefully
in the adjoining room, and no one but himself and
the burglar knew how far the attempted robbery
had gone.
They all went up the narrow little staircase,
Mr. Penwyn leading his wife up the steep stairs,
Viola and Sir Lewis following. The justice-room
was full of people—or at least that end of it devoted
to the public. The other end of it was fenced
off, and here at a table sat Mr. Tresillian, J. P., and
his clerk—ready for action.
‘Look, Churchill,’ whispered Madge, as her
husband put her hand through his arm and led her
towards this end of the room, ‘there is the woman at
the lodge. What can have brought her here?’
Mr. Penwyn’s glance followed his wife’s for a
moment. Yes, there stood Rebecca, of the North
Lodge, sullen, even threatening of aspect, or seeming
so to the eye that looked at her now. What a
// 215.png
.pn +1
horrible likeness she bore to that ruffian he had
dealt with last night!
Mr. Tresillian shook hands with the two ladies.
He was a tall, stout man, with a florid countenance,
who rode to hounds all the season, and devoted
himself to the pleasures of the table for the rest of
the year. It was something awful to the crowd to
see him shake hands, and smile, and talk about the
weather, just like a common mortal; to see him
pretend to be so good-natured too, when it was his
function—the very rule of his being—to inflict
summary punishment upon his fellow-men, to have
no compassion for pleasant social vices, and to be as
hard on a drunkard as upon a thief.
There was only one case to be heard this
morning, and the thrilling interest of that one case
held the spectators breathless. Women stood on
tiptoe peering over the shoulders of the men—women
who ought to have been at their washtubs,
or baking homely satisfying pasties for the family
supper.
The ruffian was brought in closely guarded by
a couple of rural policemen, and looking considerably
// 216.png
.pn +1
the worse for last night’s recapture. He had
fought like a wild cat for his freedom, had given and
taken a couple of black eyes, had furthermore received
a formidable cut across his forehead, and
had had his clothes torn in the scuffle.
The two Tyrrels, father and son, also in a
damaged condition, were there to relate proudly how
they had pounced upon the offender just as he was
clambering over a fence. They had told their story
already so many times, in an informal manner, to
curious friends and acquaintances, that they were
prepared to give it with effect presently when they
should be put upon oath.
Mr. Tresillian, who went to work in a very slow
and ponderous way, was still conferring with his
clerk in a bass undertone, which sounded like distant
organ music, when Rebecca Mason pushed her way
through the crowd, and came to that privileged
portion of the room where Mr. Penwyn and his
wife were sitting.
‘I want to know if you’re going to press this
charge, Mr. Penwyn,’ she asked, quietly enough, but
hardily.
// 217.png
.pn +1
‘Of course he is,’ answered Madge, with a flash
of anger. ‘Do you suppose we are going to overlook
such an attempt—a man breaking into our
house after midnight, and frightening my sister
nearly out of her wits? We should never feel
secure at the Manor if this man were not made
an example of. Pray what interest have you in
pleading for him?’
‘I’ll tell you that by and by, ma’am. I did not
ask the question of you, but of my master.’
‘Your master and I have but one thought in the
matter.’
‘Do you mean to prosecute that man,
Mr. Penwyn,’ asked Rebecca, looking steadfastly at
the Squire. Even while addressing Madge she had
kept her eyes on Churchill’s face. The brief
dialogue had been carried on in an undertone, while
Mr. Tresillian and the clerk were still muttering
to each other.
‘The case is out of my hands. I have no power
to prevent the man’s committal.’
‘Yes, you have,’ answered Rebecca, doggedly.
‘You have power to do anything here. What is law
// 218.png
.pn +1
or justice against a great landowner, in a place like
this? You are lord and master here.’
‘Why do you bother me about this burglar?’
‘He is my son.’
‘I am sorry any servant of mine should be
related to such a scoundrel.’
‘I am not proud of the relationship,’ answered
the lodge-keeper, coolly. ‘Yet there are men capable
of worse crimes than entering another man’s house—criminals
who wear smooth faces and fine broadcloth—and
stand high in the world. I’d rather have
that vagabond for my son than some of them.’
Churchill glanced at his wife, as if to consult
her feelings. But Madge, so tender and pitying to
the destitute and afflicted, had an inflexible look
just now. Rebecca was her particular antipathy, a
blot upon the fair face of Penwyn manor, which she
was most anxious to see removed; and now this
Rebecca appeared in a new and still more disagreeable
light as the mother of a burglar. It
was hardly strange, therefore, that Mrs. Penwyn
should be indisposed to see the law outraged in
the cause of mercy.
// 219.png
.pn +1
‘I regret that my wish to serve you will not
allow me to condone a felony on behalf of your son,
said Churchill, with slow distinctness, and meeting
that piercing gaze of the gipsy’s with as steady a
look in his own grey eyes. ‘The attempt was too
daring to be overlooked. A man breaks into my
house at midnight, naturally with some evil intent.’
Still not a word about the diamonds which he
had recovered from the burglar’s person.
‘He did not break into your house,’ argued
Rebecca, ‘you left your windows open, and he
walked in. He had been drinking, I know, and
hardly knew where he was going, or what he was
doing. If he had had his wits about him, he
wouldn’t have allowed himself to be caught by a
girl,’ she added, contemptuously.
‘He may have been drunk,’ said Churchill, with
a thoughtful look, ‘but that hardly mends the matter.
It isn’t pleasant to have a drunken vagabond prowling
about one’s house. What do you say, my queen?’
he asked, turning to Madge, with a smile, but not
quite the smile which was wont to brighten his face
when he looked at her. ‘Will you exercise your
// 220.png
.pn +1
prerogative of mercy? Shall I try what I can
do to get this vagabond off with a few days in
Penwyn lock-up, instead of having him committed
for trial?’
‘I have no compassion for a man who lifted his
hand against my sister,’ answered Madge, warmly.
‘Sir Lewis told me all about it, Churchill. He saw
that villain raise his clenched fist to strike
Viola’s face. He would have disfigured her for life,
or killed her perhaps, if Sir Lewis had not caught
his arm. So you suppose I am going to plead
for such a scoundrel as that?’
‘Come, Mrs. Penwyn, you are a woman and
a mother,’ pleaded Rebecca, ‘you ought to be merciful.’
‘Not at the expense of society. Justice and
order would, indeed, be outraged if the law were
stretched in favour of such a ruffian as your son.’
‘You’re hard, lady,’ said the gipsy, ‘but I think
I can say a word that will soften you. Let me
speak to you in the next room,’ looking towards
a half-open door that communicated with a small
parlour adjoining. ‘Let me speak with you alone
// 221.png
.pn +1
for five minutes—you’d better not say no, for his
sake,’ she urged, with a glance at Churchill.
Mr. Penwyn rose suddenly with darkening brow,
and seized Madge by the arm, as if he would hold
her away from the woman.
‘I will not suffer any communication between
you and my wife,’ he exclaimed. ‘You have said
your say and have been answered. I will do anything
I can for you, grant anything you choose to
ask for yourself,’ with emphasis, ‘but your son
must take his chance.—Tresillian, we are ready.’
‘Lady, you’d better hear me,’ pleaded the gipsy.
That plea weighed lightly enough with Madge
Penwyn. She was watching her husband’s face,
and it was a look in that which alone influenced
her decision.
‘I will hear you,’ she said to the gipsy.
‘Ask Mr. Tresillian to wait for a few minutes,
Churchill.’
‘Madge, what are you thinking of?’ cried her
husband. ‘She can have nothing to say that has not
been said already. She has had her answer.’
‘I will hear her, Churchill, and alone.’
// 222.png
.pn +1
That ‘I will’ was accompanied by an imperious
look not often seen in Madge Penwyn’s face—never
before seen by him she looked at now.
‘As you will, love,’ he answered, very quietly,
and made way for her to pass into the adjoining room.
Rebecca followed, and shut the door between
the two rooms. There was a faint stir, and then the
low hum of the little crowd sank into silence. Every
eye turned to that closed door; every mind was
curious to know what those two women were saying
on the other side of it.
There was a pause of about ten minutes. Churchill
sat by the official table, silent and thoughtful. Mr.
Tresillian fidgeted with the stationery, and yawned
once or twice. The ruffian stood in his place,
dogged and imperturbable, looking as if he were
the individual least concerned in the day’s proceedings.
At last the door opened, and Madge appeared.
She came slowly into the room,—slowly, and like
a person who only walked steadily by an effort. So
white and wan was the face turned appealingly
towards Churchill, that she looked like one newly
// 223.png
.pn +1
risen from some sickness unto death. Churchill
rose to go to her, but hesitatingly, as if he were
doubtful whether to approach her—almost as if
they had been strangers.
‘Churchill,’ she said faintly, looking at him with
pathetic eyes—a gaze in which deepest love and
despair were mingled. At that look and word he
went to her, put his arm round her, and led her
gently back to her seat.
‘You must get this man off, Churchill,’ she
whispered faintly. ‘You must.’
He bent his head, but spoke not a word, only
pressed her hand with a grip strong as pain or death.
And then he went to Mr. Tresillian, who was growing
tired of the whole business, and was at all times
plastic as wax in the hands of his brother magistrate,
not being troubled with ideas of his own in a
general way. Indeed, he had expended so much
brain-power in the endeavour to out-manœuvre the
manifold artifices of certain veteran dog foxes in
the district, that he could hardly be supposed to have
much intellectual force left for the Bench.
‘I find there has been a good deal of muddle in
// 224.png
.pn +1
this business,’ said Churchill to him confidentially.
‘The man is the son of my lodge-keeper, and a decent
hard-working fellow enough, it seems. He had been
drinking, and strayed into the Manor House in an
obfuscated condition last night—my servants are
most to blame for leaving doors open—and Viola
saw him, and was frightened, and made a good deal
of unnecessary fuss. And then my keepers knocked
the fellow about more than they need have done.
So I really think if you were to let him off with
a day or two in the lock-up, or even a severe reprimand——’
‘Yes—yes—yes—yes—yes,’ said Mr. Tresillian,
keeping up a running fire of muttered affirmatives
throughout Churchill’s speech. ‘Certainly. Let the
fellow off, by all means, if he had no felonious intention,
and Mrs. Penwyn wishes it. Ladies are so
compassionate. Yes, yes, yes, yes.’
Mr. Tresillian was thinking rather more about a
certain fifteen-acre wheat-field now ready for the sickle
than of the business in hand. Reapers were scarce in
the land just now, and he was not clear in his mind
about getting in that corn.
// 225.png
.pn +1
So, instead of swearing in witnesses and holding
a ceremonious examination, Mr. Tresillian disappointed
the assembled audience by merely addressing
a few sharpish words to the delinquent, and sending
him about his business, with a warning never more
to create trouble in that particular neighbourhood,
lest it should be worse for him. The offender was
further enjoined to be grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Penwyn
for their kindness in not pressing the charge. And
thus the business was over, and the court rose. The
crowd dispersed slowly, grumbling not a little about
Justice’s justice, and deeply disappointed at not
having seen the strange offender committed for trial.
‘If it had been one of us,’ a man remarked
to a neighbour, ‘we shouldn’t have got off so
easy.’
‘No,’ growled another. ‘If it had been some
poor devil had up for licking his wife, he’d have got
it hot.’
All was over. Viola and Sir Lewis Dallas, who
had been indulging in a little quiet flirtation by an
open window, and not attending to the progress of
events, were beyond measure surprised at the
// 226.png
.pn +1
abrupt close of the proceedings, and not a little
disappointed, for Viola had quite looked forward to
appearing in the witness-box at Bodmin Assize
Court, and being cross-examined by an impertinent
barrister, and then complimented upon her
heroism by the judge, and perhaps cheered by
the multitude. Nothing could be flatter than this
ending.
‘It’s just like Madge,’ exclaimed Viola. ‘She
may make believe to be angry for half an hour or
so, but that soft heart of hers is melted at the first
piteous appeal. That horrid woman at the lodge
has begged off her horrid son.’
Madge, whiter than summer lilies, did not look
in a condition to be questioned just now.
‘See how ill she looks,’ said Viola to Sir Lewis.
‘They have worried her into a nervous state with
their goings on. Let us get her away.’
There was no need for Sir Lewis’s intervention.
Churchill led his wife out of the room. Erect, and
facing the crowd firmly enough both of them, but
one pale as death.
‘Are you going to ride home, Churchill?’ asked
// 227.png
.pn +1
Madge, as her husband handed her into the
carriage.
‘Yes, love, I may as well go back as I came
on Tarpan.’
‘I had rather you came with us,’ she said, with
an appealing look.
‘As you like, dear. Lewis, will you ride
Tarpan?’
Sir Lewis looked at Viola and then at his boots.
It was an honour to ride Tarpan, but hardly a
pleasant thing to ride him without straps; and then
Sir Lewis would have liked that homeward drive,
with Viola for his vis-à-vis.
‘By all means, if Mrs. Penwyn would rather you
went back in the carriage,’ he said good-naturedly,
but with a look at Viola which meant ‘You know
what a sacrifice I am making.’
That drive home was a very silent one. Viola
was suffering from reaction after excitement, and
leaned back with a listless air. Madge looked
straight before her, with grave fixed eyes, gazing
into space. And still there was not a cloud in the
blue bright sky, and the reapers standing amongst
// 228.png
.pn +1
the tawny corn turned their swart faces towards the
Squire’s carriage, and pulled their moistened forelocks,
and thought what a fine thing it was for the
gentry to be driving swiftly through the clear warm
air, lolling back upon soft cushions, and with no
more exertion than was involved in holding a silk
umbrella.
‘But how white Madam Penwyn looks!’ said one
of the men, a native of the place, to his mate.
‘She doant look as if the good things of this life
agreed with her. She looks paler and more tired
like than you nor me.’
// 229.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch16
CHAPTER XVI||‘THIS IS MORE STRANGE THAN SUCH A MURDER IS.’
.sp 2
.ni
They were in Madge’s dressing-room, that spacious,
many-windowed chamber, with its closed venetians,
which was cool and shadowy even on a blazing
August day like this. They were alone together,
husband and wife, face to face, two white faces
turned towards each other, blanched by passions
stronger and deeper than it is man’s common lot
to suffer.
They had come here straight from the carriage
that brought them back to the Manor House, and
they were alone for the first moment since Madge
had heard Rebecca Mason’s petition.
‘Churchill,’ she said slowly, with agonized eyes
lifted to his face, ‘I know all—all that woman could
tell; and she showed me——’
She stopped, shuddering, and clasped her hands
// 230.png
.pn +1
before her face. Her husband stood like a rock, and
made no attempt to draw nearer to her. He stood
aloof and waited.
‘I know all,’ she repeated, with a passionate
sob, ‘and I remember what I said when you asked
me to be your wife. You were too poor—we were
too poor. I could not marry you because of your
poverty. It was my worldliness, my mercenary
decision that influenced you, that urged you to——Oh,
Churchill, half the fault was mine. God give
me leave to bear half the burden of His anger.’
She flung herself upon her husband’s shoulder,
and sobbed there, clinging to him more fondly
than in their happiest hour, her arms clasping him
round the neck, her face hidden upon his breast,
with such love as only such a woman can feel—love
which, supreme in itself, rises above every
lesser influence.
‘What! you touch me, Madge! You come to
my arms still; you shed compassionate tears upon
my breast. Then I am not wholly lost. Vile as I
am, there is comfort still. My love, my fond one,
fortune gave me nothing so sweet as you.’
// 231.png
.pn +1
‘Oh, Churchill, why, why—?’ she sobbed.
He understood the question involved in that one
broken word, hardly audible for the sobs that shook
his wife’s frame.
‘Dearest, Fate was hard upon me, and I wanted
you!’ he said, with a calmness that chilled her soul.
‘A good man would have trusted in Providence, no
doubt, and waited unrepiningly for life’s blessings
until he was grey and old, and went down to his
grave without ever having known earthly bliss,
taking with him some vague notion that he was to
come into his estate somewhere else. I am not a
good man. My passionate love and my scorn of
poverty would not let me wait. I knew that, by
one swift bold act—a wicked deed if you will, but
not a cruel one, since every man must die once—I
could win all I desired. Fortune had made two
men’s lots flagitiously unequal. I balanced them.’
‘Oh, Churchill, it is awful to hear you speak like
that. Surely you have repented—surely all your
life must be poisoned with regret.’
‘Yes, I have felt the canker called remorse. I
could surrender all good things that earth can give—yes,
// 232.png
.pn +1
let you go from these fond arms, beloved, if
that which was done could be undone. And now
you will loathe me, and we must part.’
‘Part, Churchill! What, leave you because you
are the most miserable of men? No, dearest, I will
cling to you, and hold by you to the end of life,
come what will. If it was I who tempted you to
sin, you shall not bear your burden alone. Loathe
you!’ she cried, passionately, looking up at him with
streaming eyes, ‘no, Churchill! I cannot think of
that hideous secret without horror; I cannot think
of the sinner without pity. There is a love that
is stronger than the world’s favour, stronger than
right, or peace, or honour, and such a love I have
given you.’
‘My angel—my comforter! Would to God I had
kept my soul spotless for your sake!’
‘And for our child, Churchill, for our darling.
Oh, dearest, if there can be pardon for such a sin as
yours—and Christ spoke words of mercy and promise
to the thief on the cross—let us strive for it, strive
with tears and prayers, and deepest penitence. Oh,
my love, believe in a God of mercy, the God who
// 233.png
.pn +1
sent His Son to preach repentance to sinners. Love,
let us kneel together to that offended God, let us
sue for mercy, side by side.’
Her husband drew her closer to his breast,
kissed the pale lips with unspeakable tenderness,
looked into the true brave eyes which did not shrink
from his gaze.
‘Even I, who have had you for my wife, did not
know the divinity of a woman’s love—until this
miserable hour. My dearest, even to comfort you,
I cannot add deliberate blasphemy to my sins. I
cannot kneel, or pray to a Power in which my faith
is of the weakest. Keep your gentle creed, dearest,
adore your God of mercy—but I have hardened my
heart against these things too long to find comfort
in them now. My one glory, my one consolation, is
the thought that, lost as I am, I have not fallen too
low for your love. You will love me and hold by
me, knowing my sin; and let my one merit be that
in this dark hour I have not lied to you. I have
not striven to outweigh that woman’s accusation by
some fable which your love might accept.’
‘No, Churchill, you have trusted me, and you
// 234.png
.pn +1
shall find me worthy of your trust,’ she answered,
bravely. ‘No act of mine shall ever betray you.
And if you cannot pray—if God withholds the light
of truth from you for a little while, my prayers shall
ascend to Him like ever-burning incense. My intercession
shall never cease. My faith shall never falter.’
He kissed her again without a word—too deeply
moved for speech,—and then turned away from her
and paced the room to and fro, while she went to her
dressing-table, and looked wonderingly at the white
wan face, which had beamed so brightly on her
guests last night. She looked at herself thoughtfully,
remembering that henceforward she had a part to
act, and a fatal secret to keep. No wan looks, no
tell-tale pallor must betray the horrid truth.
‘Madge,’ said her husband, presently, after two
or three thoughtful turns up and down the room, ‘I
have not one word to say to you in self-justification.
I stand before you confessed, a sinner of the blackest
dye. Yet you must not imagine that my whole life
is of a colour with that one hideous act. It is not
so. Till that hour my life had been blameless
enough—more blameless perhaps than the career of
// 235.png
.pn +1
one young man in twenty, in our modern civilization.
Temptation to vulgar sins never assailed me. I was
guiltless till that fatal hour in which my evil genius
whispered the suggestion of a prize worth the price
of crime. Macbeth was a brave and honourable
soldier, you know, when the fatal sisters met him
on the heath, and hissed their promise into his ear.
And in that moment guilty hope seized upon his
soul, and already in thought he was a murderer.
Dearest, I have never been a profligate, or cheat, or
liar, or coward. I have concentrated the wickedness
which other men spread over a lifetime of petty sins
in one great offence.’
‘And that shall be forgiven,’ cried Madge, with a
sublime air of conviction. ‘It shall, if you will but
repent.’
‘If to wish an act undone is repentance, I have
repented for more than two years,’ he answered.
‘Hark, love! that is the luncheon-bell. We must
not alarm our friends by our absence. Or stay, I
will go down to the dining-room. You had better
remain here and rest. Poor agonized head, tender
faithful heart, what bitter need of rest for both!’
// 236.png
.pn +1
‘No, dear, I will go down with you,’ Madge
answered, firmly. ‘But let me ask one question first,
Churchill, and then I will never speak to you more
of our secret. That hateful woman—you have
pacified her for to-day, but how long will she be
satisfied? Is there any fear of new danger?’
‘I can see none, dearest. The woman was satisfied
with her lot, and would never have given me any
trouble but for this unlucky accident of her son’s
attempt last night. I will get the man provided for
and sent out of the country, where you shall never
hear of him again. The woman is harmless enough,
and cares little enough for her son; but that brute
instinct of kindred, which even savages feel, made
her fight for her cub.’
‘Why did you bring her here, Churchill? Was
that wise?’
‘I thought it best so. I thought it wise to have
her at hand under my eye, where she could only
assail me at close quarters, and where she was not
likely to find confederates—where she could have
all her desires gratified, and could have no motive
for tormenting me.’
// 237.png
.pn +1
‘It is best, perhaps,’ assented Madge. ‘But it
is horrible to have her here.’
‘The Egyptians had a skeleton at their feasts,
lest they should forget to make the most of their
brief span of carnal pleasures. It is as well to be
reminded of the poison in one’s cup of life.’
‘And now go to our guests, Churchill. Your
face tells no tale. Say that I am coming almost
immediately.’
‘My darling, I fear you are exacting too much
from your fortitude.’
‘No, Churchill; I shall begin as I mean to go
on. If I were to shut myself up—if I were to give
myself time for thought to-day—just at first—I
should go mad.’
He went, half unwillingly. She stood for a few
moments, fixed to the spot where he had left her, as
if lost in some awful dream, and then walked dizzily
to the adjoining room, where she tried to wash the
ashy pallor from her cheeks with cold spring water.
She rearranged her hair, with hands that trembled
despite her endeavour to be calm; changed her dress—fastened
a scarlet coque in her dark hair, and went
// 238.png
.pn +1
down to the dining-room, looking a little wan and
fatigued, but not less lovely than she was wont to
look. What a mad world it seemed to her when she
saw her guests assembled at the oval table, talking
and laughing in that easy unreserved way which
seems natural at the mid-day meal, when servants
are banished, and gentlemen perform the onerous
office of carver at the loaded sideboard; when
hungry people, just returned from long rambles over
hills and banks where the wild thyme grows, or
from a desperate croquet match, or a gallop across
the moorland, devour a heterogeneous meal of
sirloin, perigord pie, clotted cream, fruit, cutlets,
and pastry, and drink deeper draughts of that
sparkling Devonian cider, better a hundred times
than champagne, than they would quite care to acknowledge,
if a reckoning were demanded of them.
Everybody seemed especially noisy to-day—talk,
flirtation, laughter, made a Babel-like hubbub—and
at the end of the table sat the Squire of
Penwyn, calm, inscrutable, and no line upon the
expansive forehead, with its scanty border of crisp,
brown hair, showed the brand of Cain.
// 239.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch17
CHAPTER XVII||‘AH, LOVE, THERE IS NO BETTER LIFE THAN THIS.’
.sp 2
.ni
Justina had made a success at the Royal Albert
Theatre. The newspapers were tolerably unanimous
in their verdict. The more æsthetic and critical
journals even gave her their approval, which was a
kind of cachet. The public, always straightforward
and single-minded in their expression of satisfaction,
had no doubt about her. She was accepted at once
as one of the most popular and promising young
actresses of the day—natural yet artistic—free from
all trick, unaffected, modest, yet with the impulsive
boldness of a true artist, who forgets alike herself
and her audience in the unalloyed delight of her
art.
.pi
A success so unqualified gave the girl extreme
pleasure, and elevated Matthew Elgood to a region
of bliss which he had never before attained. For the
// 240.png
.pn +1
first time in his life he found himself supplied with
ample means for the gratification of desires which,
at their widest, came within a narrow limit. The
manager of the Royal Albert Theatre had made
haste to be liberal, lest other managers, ever on the
watch for rising talent, should attempt to lure
Justina to their boards by offers of larger reward.
He sprang his terms at once from the weekly three
guineas, which Matthew had gladly accepted at the
outset, to double that amount, and promised further
increase if Miss Elgood’s second part were as
successful as the first.
‘With a very young actress one can never be
sure of one’s ground,’ he said, diplomatically. ‘The
part in “No Cards” just fits your daughter. I’ve
no idea what she may be in the general run of
business. I’ve seen so many promising first
appearances lead to nothing.’
‘My daughter has had experience, and tuition
from an experienced actor, sir,’ replied Matthew,
with dignity. ‘She has a perfect knowledge of her
art, and the more you call upon her the better stuff
you will get from her. Such a part as that in “No
// 241.png
.pn +1
Cards” is a mere bagatelle for her. Fits her,
indeed! It fits her too well, sir. Her genius has
no room to expand in it!’
Six guineas—by no means a large income in the
eyes of a paterfamilias with a wife, and a servant or
two, and a nest-full of small children to provide for,
to say nothing of the rent of the nest to pay—seemed
wealth to Mr. Elgood, whose ideas of luxury
were bounded by a Bloomsbury lodging, a hot
dinner every day, and his glass of gin and water
mixed with a liberal hand. He expanded himself
in this new sunshine, passed his leisure in spelling
through the daily papers, escorting his daughter to
and from the theatre, and hanging about the green-room,
where he told anecdotes of Macready, bragged
of Justina’s talents when she was out of the room,
and made himself generally agreeable.
That Bloomsbury lodging of Mr. Elgood’s, though
located in the shabbier quarter of the parish, seemed
curiously near that highly respectable street where
Maurice Clissold had his handsome first-floor
chambers, so little account did Mr. Clissold make of
the distance between the two domiciles. He was
// 242.png
.pn +1
always dropping in at Mr. Elgood’s, bringing Justina
fresh flowers from the glades of Covent Garden, or
a new book, or some new music. She had improved
her knowledge of that delightful art during
the last two years, and now played and sang
sweetly, with taste and expression that charmed the
poet.
Before Justina had been many weeks at the
Albert Theatre, it became an established fact that
Mr. Clissold was to drink tea with Miss Elgood every
afternoon. The gentle temptations of the kettledrum,
which he had resisted so bravely in Eton
Square, beguiled him here in Bloomsbury, though the
simple feast was held on a second floor, with a French
mechanic working sedulously at his trade below.
Many an hour did Maurice Clissold waste in careless
happy talk in that second-floor sitting-room, with its
odour of stale tobacco, its shabby old-fashioned furniture,
its all-pervading air of poverty and commonness.
The room was glorified for him somehow, as he sat
by the sunny window sipping an infusion of congou
and pekoe out of a blue delft teacup.
One day it struck him suddenly that Justina
// 243.png
.pn +1
ought to have prettier teacups, and a few days afterwards
there arrived a set of curious old dragon-china
cups and saucers. He had not gone to a
china-shop, like a rich man, and ordered the newest
and choicest ware that Minton’s factory had produced.
But he had walked half over London, and
peered into all manner of obscure dens in the broker’s
shop line, till he found something to please him.
Old red and blue sprawling monsters of the crocodile
species, on thinnest opalescent porcelain, cups and
saucers that had been hoarded and cherished by
ancient housekeepers, only surrendered when all that
life can cling to slipped from death’s dull hand. The
old fragile pottery pleased him beyond measure, and
he carried the cups and saucers off to a cab, packed
in a basket of paper shavings, and took them himself
to Justina.
‘I don’t suppose they are worth very much now-a-days
when Oriental china is at a discount,’ he said,
‘and they cost me the merest trifle. But I thought
you’d like them.’
Justina was enraptured. Those old cups and
saucers were the first present she had ever received—the
// 244.png
.pn +1
first actual gift bestowed out of regard for her
pleasure which she could count in all her life; except
the same donor’s offerings of books and music.
‘How good of you!’ she said, more than once,
and with a look worth three times as many words.
Maurice laughed at her delight.
‘It was worth my perambulation of London to
see you so pleased,’ he said.
‘What, did you take so much trouble to get
them?’
‘I walked a good long way. The only merit
my offering has is that I took some pains to find it.
I am not a rich man, you know, Justina.’
He called her by her Christian name always, with
a certain brotherly freedom that was not unpleasant
to either.
‘I am so glad of that,’ she exclaimed, naïvely.
‘Glad I’m not rich? Why, that’s scarcely
friendly, Justina.’
‘Isn’t it? But if you were rich you wouldn’t
come to see us so often, perhaps. Rich people have
such hosts of friends.’
‘Yes, Crœsus has generally a wideish circle—not
// 245.png
.pn +1
the best people, possibly, but plenty of them. But
I don’t think all the wealth of the Indies—the peacock
throne of the great Mogul, and so on—would
make any difference in my desire to come here. No,
Justina, were the chief of the Rothschilds to transfer
his balance to my account to-morrow I should drop
in all the same for my afternoon refresher, as regularly
as five o’clock struck.’
They had talked of literature and poetry, and
fully discussed that new poet whose book Justina
had wept over, but by no word had Maurice hinted
at his identity with the writer. He liked to hear
her speculate upon that unknown poet—wondering
what he was like—setting up her ideal image of
him. One day he made her describe what manner
of man she imagined the author of ‘A Life Picture;’
but she found it difficult to reduce her fancies to
words.
‘I cannot compliment you on the clearness of
your delineation,’ he said. ‘I haven’t yet arrived at
the faintest notion of your ideal poet. If you could
compare him to any one we know, it might help me
out. Is he like Mr. Flittergilt, the dramatist?’
// 246.png
.pn +1
‘Mr. Flittergilt,’ she cried, contemptuously.
‘Mr. Flittergilt, who is always making bad puns,
and talking of his own successes, and telling us that
clever remark he made yesterday!’
‘Not like Flittergilt? Has he any resemblance
to me, for instance?’
Justina laughed, and shook her head—a very
positive shake.
‘No, you are too light-hearted for a poet. You
take life too easily. You seem too happy.’
‘In your presence, Justina. You never see me in
my normal condition,’ remonstrated Maurice, laughing.
‘No, I cannot fancy the author of that poem at
all like you. He is a man who has suffered.’
Maurice sighed.
‘And you think I have never suffered?’
‘He must be a man who has loved a false and
foolish woman, and who has been stung to the quick
by remorse for his own weakness.’
‘Ah, we are all of us weak once in our lives, and
apt to be deceived, Justina. Happy the man who
knows no second weakness, and is not twice deceived.’
// 247.png
.pn +1
He said this gravely enough for poet and thinker.
Justina looked at him with a puzzled expression.
‘Now you seem quite a different person,’ she
said. ‘I could almost fancy you capable of being a
poet. I know there are glimpses of poetry in your
talk sometimes.’
‘When I talk to you, Justina. Some people
have an influence that is almost inspiration. All
manner of bright thoughts come to me when you
and I are together.’
‘That cannot be true,’ she said. ‘It is you who
bring the bright thoughts to me. Consider how
ignorant I am, and how much you know—all the
great world of poetry, of which so many doors are
barred against me. You read Goethe and Schiller.
You go into that solemn temple where the Greek
poets live in their strange old world. When you
took me to the museum the other day, you pointed
out all the statues, and talked of them as familiarly
as if they had been the statues of your own friends.
While I, who have hardly a schoolgirl’s knowledge
of French, cannot even read that Alfred de Musset
of whom you talk so much.’
// 248.png
.pn +1
‘You know the language in which Shakespeare
wrote. You have all that is noblest and grandest in
human literature in your hand when you take up
that calf-bound, closely printed, double-columned
volume yonder, from the old Chiswick press. I
think an English writer who never read anything
beyond his Bible and his Shakespeare would have a
nobler style than the man of widest reading, who
had not those two books in his heart of hearts.
Other poets are poets. That one man was the god
of poetry. But we will read some of De Musset’s
poems together, Justina, and I will teach you something
more than a schoolgirl’s French.’
After this it became an established thing for
Maurice and Justina to read together for an hour or
so, just as it was an established thing for Maurice to
drop in at tea-time. He made his selections from
De Musset discreetly, and then passed on to Victor
Hugo; and thus that more valuable part of education
which begins when a schoolgirl has been ‘finished’
was not wanting to Justina. Never was a pupil
brighter or more intelligent. Never master more
interested in his work.
// 249.png
.pn +1
Matthew Elgood looked on, not unapprovingly.
In the first place, he was a man who took life lightly,
and always held to the gospel text about the day
and the evil thereof. He had ascertained from
good-natured Mr. Flittergilt that Maurice Clissold
had an income of some hundreds per annum, and
was moreover the scion of a good old family.
About the good old family Matthew cared very
little; but the income was an important consideration,
and assured of that main fact, he saw
no harm in the growing intimacy between Justina
and Maurice.
‘It’s on the cards for her to do better, of course,’
reflected Mr. Elgood; ‘actresses have married into
the peerage before to-day, and no end of them have
married bankers and heavy mercantile swells. But,
after all, Justina isn’t the kind of beauty to take the
world by storm; and this success of hers may be
only a flash in the pan. I haven’t much confidence
in the duration of this blessed new school of acting,
these drawing-room comedies, with their how-d’ye-do,
and won’t-you-take-a-chair dialogue. The good
old heavy five-act drama will have its turn by and
// 250.png
.pn +1
by, when the public is tired of this milk and water.
And Justina has hardly physique enough for the five-act
drama. It might be a good thing to get her
comfortably married if I was quite clear about my
own position.’
That was an all-important question. Justina single
and on the stage meant, at a minimum, six guineas
a week at Mr. Elgood’s disposal. The girl handed
her salary over to the paternal exchequer without a
question, and was grateful for an occasional pound
or two towards the replenishment of her scanty
wardrobe.
Mr. Elgood lost no time in trying to arrive at
Maurice’s ideas upon this subject.
‘It’s a hard thing for a man when he outlives
his generation,’ he remarked, plaintively, one Sunday
evening when Maurice had dropped in and found the
comedian alone, Justina not having yet returned from
evening service at St. Pancras. ‘Here am I, in the
prime of life, with all my faculties in their full vigour,
laid up in port, as useless a creature as if I were a
sheer hulk, like poor Tom Bowling—actually dependent
upon the industry of a girl! There’s something
// 251.png
.pn +1
degrading in the idea. If it were not for Justina,
I’d accept an engagement for the heavies at
the lowest slum in London, roar my vitals out in
three pieces a night, rather than eat the bread of
dependence. But Justina won’t have it. “I want
you to bring me home from the theatre of a night,
father,” she says. And that’s an argument I can’t
resist. The streets of London are no place for unprotected
innocence after dark, and cabs are an expensive
luxury. Yet it’s a bitter thing to consider that
if Justina were to marry I should have to go to the
workhouse.’
‘Hardly, if she married an honest man, Mr.
Elgood,’ replied Maurice. ‘No honest man would
take your daughter away from you without making
some provision for your future.’
‘Well, I have looked at it in that light,’ said
Matthew, reflectively, as if the question had thus
dimly presented itself before him. ‘I think an
honest man wouldn’t feel it quite the right thing to
take away my bread-winner, and leave me to spend
my declining days in want and misery. Yet, as
Shakespeare has it, “Age is unnecessary.” “Superfluous
// 252.png
.pn +1
lags the veteran on the stage.” “To have done
is to hang—
.pm verse-start
“Quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail,
In monumental mockery.”’
.pm verse-end
‘Be assured, Mr. Elgood, that if your daughter
marries a man who really loves her, your age will
not be uncared for.’
‘I do not wish to be a burden upon my child,’
pursued the actor, tearfully.
His second tumbler of gin and water was nearly
emptied by this time.
‘A hundred and four pounds per annum—two
pounds a week—secured to me, would give me all I
ask of luxury; my lowly lodging, say in May’s
Court, St. Martin’s Lane, or somewhere between
Blackfriars Bridge and the Temple; my rasher or
my bloater for breakfast, my beefsteak for dinner;
and my modest glass of gin and water hot, to soothe
the tired nerves of age. These, and an occasional
ounce of tobacco, are all the old man craves.’
‘Your desires are very modest, Mr. Elgood.’
‘They are, my dear boy. I would bear the pang
of severance from my sweet girl, if I saw her ascend
// 253.png
.pn +1
to a loftier sphere, and keep my lowly place without
repining. But I should like the two pounds a
week made as certain as the law of the land could
make it.’
This was a pretty clear declaration of his views,
and having thus expressed himself, Mr. Elgood
allowed life to slip on pleasantly, enjoying his
comfortable little two o’clock dinners, and his afternoon
glass of gin and water, and dozing in his easy
chair, while Maurice and Justina read or talked, only
waking at five o’clock when the dragon teacups
made a cheerful clatter, and Justina was prettily
busy with the task of tea-making.
Even the old common lodging-house sitting-room
began by and by to assume a brighter and more
homelike air. A vase of choice flowers, a row of
books neatly arranged on the old-fashioned sideboard,
a Bohemian glass inkstand, clean muslin
covers tacked over the faded chintz chair-backs—small
embellishments by which a woman makes the
best of the humblest materials. The dragon china
tea-service was set out on the chiffonier top when
not in use, and made the chief ornament of the
// 254.png
.pn +1
room. Composition statuettes of Shakespeare and
Dante, which Maurice had bought from an itinerant
image-seller, adorned the chimney-piece, whence the
landlady’s shepherd and shepherdess were banished.
In a scene so humble, in a circle so narrow,
Maurice spent some of the happiest hours of his
life. He remembered Cavendish Square sometimes
with a pang, the shadowy drawing-room at twilight,
the flower-screened balcony, so pleasant a spot to
linger in when the lamps were lighted in the square
below, and the long vista of Wigmore Street converged
to a glittering point, and the moon rose above
the gloomy roof of Cavendish House—hours of
happiness as unalloyed—dreams that were over,
days that were gone. And he asked himself whether
this second birth of joy was a delusion and a snare
like the first.
// 255.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch18
CHAPTER XVIII||‘LOVE IS A THING TO WHICH WE SOON CONSENT.’
.sp 2
.ni
Maurice Clissold had not forgotten that entry
in the register at Seacomb Church, and one afternoon,
when Matthew, Justina, and he were cosily
seated at the clumsy old lodging-house table drinking
tea, he took occasion to refer to his rambles in
Cornwall, and his exploration of the little out-of-the-way
market town.
.pi
‘I should fancy you children of Thespis must
have found life rather difficult at such a place as
Seacomb,’ he said. ‘Dramatic art must be rather
out of the line of those Nonconformist miners. I
saw three Dissenting chapels in the small town,
one of them being the very building which was
once the theatre.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Elgood, with a thoughtful look,
‘we had a bad time of it at Seacomb. My poor
// 256.png
.pn +1
wife was ill, and if it hadn’t been for the kindness of
the people we lodged with—well, we might have had
a closer acquaintance with starvation than any man
cares to make. There’s no such touchstone for the
human heart as distress, and no man knows the
goodness of his fellow-men till he has sounded the
lowest deep of misery.’
‘You had a child christened at Seacomb, had
you not, Mr. Elgood?’ asked Maurice.
The comedian looked up with a startled expression.
‘How did you know that?’ he asked.
‘I was turning over the parish register, looking
for another entry, when I stumbled across the baptism
of a child of yours, whose name was not Justina.
I thought perhaps Justina was an assumed name,
and that the infant christened at Seacomb was Miss
Elgood, as the age seemed to correspond.’
‘No,’ replied Matthew, hurriedly. ‘That infant
was an elder sister of Justina’s. She died at six
weeks old.’
‘Why, father,’ exclaimed Justina, ‘you never told
me that you lost a child at Seacomb. I did not even
// 257.png
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know I ever had a brother or sister. I thought I
was your only child.’
‘The only one to live beyond infancy, my dear.
Why should I trouble you with the remembrance of
past sorrows? We have had cares enough without
raking up dead-and-gone griefs.’
‘Was your wife a Cornish woman, Mr. Elgood?’
asked Maurice.
‘No; she was born within the sound of Bow
bells, poor soul. Her father was a bookbinder in
Clerkenwell. She had a pretty voice, and a wonderful
ear for music; and some one told her she
would do very well on the stage. Her home was
dull and poor, and she felt she ought to earn her
living somehow. So she began to act at a little
amateur theatre near Coldbath Fields, and having
a bright pretty way with her, she got a good deal of
notice, and was offered an engagement to play small
singing parts at Sadler’s Wells. I was a member of
the stock company there at the time, and her pretty
little face and her pretty little ways turned my
stupid head somehow, and I told myself that two
salaries thrown into one would go further than they
// 258.png
.pn +1
would divided; never considering that managers
would want to strike a bargain with us—lump us
together on the cheap—when we were married; or
that when two people are earning no salary it’s
harder for two to live than one. Well, we married,
and lived a hard life afterwards; but I was true to
my poor girl, and fond of her to the last; and when
hunger was staring us in the face we were not all
unhappy.’
‘Justina is like her mother, I suppose,’ said
Maurice, ‘as she doesn’t at all resemble you?’
‘No,’ replied Matthew, ‘my wife was a pretty
woman, but not in Justina’s style.’
‘What made you hit upon such an out-of-the-way
name as Justina? Mind, I like the name
very much, but it is a very uncommon one.’
Mr. Elgood looked puzzled.
‘I dare say it was a fancy of my wife’s,’ he said.
‘But I really don’t recollect anything about it.’
‘I’ll tell you why I ask the question,’ pursued
Maurice. ‘While I was in Cornwall, staying at a
farm called Borcel End, I came across the name.’
The comedian almost dropped his teacup.
// 259.png
.pn +1
‘Borcel End!’ he exclaimed, ‘you were at Borcel
End?’
‘Yes. You know the place, it seems. But that’s
hardly strange, since you lived so long at Seacomb.
Did you know the Trevanards?’
‘No, I only knew the farm from having it
pointed out to me once when a friend gave me a drive
across the moor in his dog-cart. A queer, out-of-the-way
place. What could have taken you there?’
‘It was something in the way of an adventure,’
replied Maurice, and then proceeded to relate his
experience on that midsummer afternoon among the
Cornish hills.
He touched lightly upon his visit to Penwyn
Manor House, knowing that this might be a painful
subject for Justina. But she showed a warm interest
in his story.
‘You saw his house,’ she said, ‘the old Manor
House he told me about that night at Eborsham.
Oh, how like the memory of a dream it seems when
I think of it! I should like so much to see that
place.’
‘You shall see it some day, Justina, if—if you
// 260.png
.pn +1
will let me show it you,’ said Maurice, stumbling
a little over the last part of the sentence. ‘It is
strange that you should be twice associated with
that remote corner of the land, once in your birth,
a second time in poor James Penwyn’s devotion to
you.’
‘It is very strange, sir,’ said the comedian,
solemnly, and then with his grand Shakespearean
manner continued,—
.pm verse-start
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”’
.pm verse-end
‘It was at Borcel End I heard the name of
Justina,’ said Maurice, going back to the subject
most interesting to him. ‘There is an old picture
there, a portrait of the present proprietor’s grandmother,
whose name was Justina.’
‘Is the old grandmother living still?’ asked
Matthew, suddenly.
‘What, blind old Mrs. Trevanard? Yes, she is
still living. But you said you did not know the
Trevanards.’
‘Only by repute. I heard people talk about
them. Rather a curious family, I fancy.’
// 261.png
.pn +1
‘In some respects,’ answered Maurice, puzzled
by the comedian’s manner. It seemed as if he were
affecting to know less about the family at Borcel
End than he really knew. Yet why should he conceal
so simple a circumstance as his acquaintance
with the Trevanards?
When Maurice and Justina were alone together
for a short time next day, the girl questioned her
companion about his visit to Penwyn Manor.
‘I want you to describe the old place,’ she said.
‘I cannot think of it without pain. Yet I like to
hear of it. Please tell me all about it.’
Maurice obeyed, and gave a detailed description
of the grave old mansion, as he had seen it that
summer afternoon.
‘How happy he would have been there!’ said
Justina. ‘How bright and fair that young life
would have been! I am not thinking of my own
loss,’ she said, as if in answer to an unspoken
question of Maurice’s. ‘I never forgot what you
said about unequal marriages that evening at Eborsham,
when you came in and found me in my grief,
and spoke some hard truths to me. I felt afterwards
// 262.png
.pn +1
that you were wiser than I; that all you said was
just and true. I should have been a basely selfish
woman if I had taken advantage of his foolish impulsive
offer—if I had let the caprice of a moment
give colour to a life. But believe me, when I let
myself love him, I had no thought of his worldly
wealth. It was his bright kind nature that drew
me to him. No one had ever spoken to me as he
spoke. No one had ever praised me before. It was
a childish love I gave him, perhaps, but it was true
love, all the same.’
‘I believe that, Justina. I believed it then
when I saw you, little more than a child, so faithfully
sorry for my poor friend’s fate. If I had
known you better in those days I should not
have called his love foolish. I should never have
opposed his boyish fancy. I look back now at
my self-assertive wisdom, and it seems to me a
greater folly than James Penwyn’s unreasoning
love.’
‘You must not say that,’ remonstrated Justina
gently, ‘all that you said was spoken well and
wisely; and if Providence had spared him, and if
// 263.png
.pn +1
he had married me, he would have been ashamed
of his actress-wife.’
‘I doubt it, Justina. A man must be hard to
please who could be ashamed of you.’
‘I suppose it is very wicked of me,’ said Justina,
after a brief silence, ‘but I cannot help grudging
those people their happiness in his house. It
makes me angry when I think of that cousin—Mr.
Churchill Penwyn—who gained so much by
James’s death. I remember his cold calm face as
I saw it at the inquest. There was no sorrow in
it.’
‘He could hardly be supposed to be sorry. He
and James had seen very little of each other; and
James’s death lifted him at a bound from poverty
to wealth.’
‘Yes, I can never think of him without remembering
that. He gains so much. The murderer
with his brutal greed of gain little thought
that he was helping another man to fortune—a
man who in the evil wish may have shared his
guilt.’
‘You have no right to say that, Justina.’
// 264.png
.pn +1
‘It is unjust, perhaps, but I cannot be temperate
when I think of James Penwyn’s murder.
Nobody thought of interrogating the man who profited
so much by his death. You were suspected
because you were not at your inn that night; but
no one asked where Mr. Churchill Penwyn spent
the night of the murder.’
‘There was no ground for suspecting him.’
‘There was the one fact that he was the only
gainer by the crime. He should have been made
to prove himself innocent. And now he is happy,
proud of his usurped position.’
‘So far as one man can judge another man’s
life, Churchill Penwyn seems to me completely
happy. His wife is a woman in a thousand, and
devoted to him; but I shall have the pleasure
of introducing you to her some day, perhaps,
Justina.’
‘Do not think of such a thing. I could never
regard Churchill Penwyn as a friend. I hope
never to see him again.’
Maurice Clissold saw that this feeling about
James Penwyn’s successor was deeply rooted, and
// 265.png
.pn +1
he argued the question no further. He was too
happy in Justina’s society to dwell long upon discordant
notes. They had so much to talk about,
small as was the actual world in which they had
mutual interest. Maurice had undertaken to show
all the glories of London to the girl whose life
hitherto had been spent in small provincial towns.
Justina had ample leisure for sight-seeing, for Mr.
Flittergilt’s original comedy proved an honest
success, and there was no new piece yet in rehearsal
at the Royal Albert Theatre. Nor had Mr. Elgood,
comedian, any prudish notions about the proprieties,
which might have hindered his daughter’s enjoyment
of picture galleries and museums, abbeys
and parks. He did not care for sight-seeing himself;
for his love of art, he confessed honestly, was
not strong enough to counterbalance certain gouty
symptoms in his feet, which made prolonged standing
a fatigue to him.
‘Let me enjoy my pipe and my newspaper,
and let Justina see the pictures and crockery,’ he
said, with reference to the South Kensington
Museum. So the two young people went about
// 266.png
.pn +1
together as freely as if they had been brother and
sister, and spent many a happy hour among the
national art treasures, or in Hyde Park, in whose
deserted alleys autumn’s first leaves were falling.
Mr. Clissold went less and less to his clubs, and
became, as it were, a dead letter in the minds of his
friends.
One man suggested that Clissold must be writing
a novel. Another opined that Clissold had fallen in
love.
In the meanwhile Clissold was perfectly happy
after his own fashion. Never had his mind been
more serene—never had his verse flowed clearer in
those quiet night hours which he gave to the Muses;
never had the notes of his lyre rung out with a
fuller melody. He was writing a poem to succeed
the ‘Life Picture,’ a romance in verse, calculated to
be as popular with Mudie’s subscribers as his first
venture had been. He soared to no empyrean
heights of metaphysical speculation, but in strong
melodious verse, with honest force and passion, told
his story of human joys and human sorrows, human
loves and human losses.
// 267.png
.pn +1
It pleased him to hear Justina praise the ‘Life
Picture,’ pleased him to think that he would be
exalted in her eyes were she to know him as its
author. But it pleased him still better to keep his
secret, to hear her frank expression of opinion, and
leave her free to form her ideal fancy of the poet.
‘The prize I seek to win must be won by
myself alone,’ he thought. ‘My literary work is
something outside myself. I will not be valued for
that.’
One Sunday, that being Justina’s only disengaged
evening, Maurice persuaded Mr. Elgood to
bring his daughter to dine with him in his bachelor
quarters.
‘I want to show you my books,’ he said to
Justina. ‘Collecting them has been my favourite
amusement for the last five years, and I think
it may interest you to see them.’
Justina was delighted at the idea. Mr. Elgood
foresaw something special in the way of dinner,
perhaps a bottle or two of champagne, so the invitation
was accepted with pleasure.
The September evenings were shortening by this
// 268.png
.pn +1
time. They dined by lamplight, and the bachelor’s
room, with its dark crimson curtains and paper, its
heterogeneous collection of pictures, prints, bronzes,
and china, looked its best in the mellow light of
a pair of Carcel lamps. The inner room was
lined from floor to ceiling with books, handsomely
bound most of them; for Mr. Clissold devoted all
his superfluous cash to books and bookbinding.
To this study and sanctum the party adjourned
for coffee and dessert, and while Mr. Elgood did
ample justice to a bottle of old port, Maurice
showed Justina his favourite authors, and expatiated
on the beauty of wide margins. Innocent, happy
hours; yes, every whit as happy as those days
of delusion in Cavendish Square. And all this
time there were all manner of distinguished people
anxious to be introduced to Miss Elgood; Richmond
and Greenwich dinners without number which she
might have eaten had she been so minded;
diamonds, broughams, sealskin jackets, pug-dogs,
all the glories of existence ready to be laid at her
feet.
// 269.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch19
CHAPTER XIX||SORROW AUGMENTETH THE MALADY.
.sp 2
.ni
This happy easy-going life of Maurice Clissold’s
was suddenly disturbed by a letter from Martin
Trevanard. Some time had elapsed without any
communication from the young man when this
letter arrived, but Maurice, in his new happiness,
had been somewhat forgetful of his Cornish friend.
He felt a touch of remorse as he read the letter.
.pi
‘Things have been going altogether wrong here,’
wrote Martin. ‘I don’t mean in the way of worldly
prosperity. We have had a first-rate harvest, and a
good year in all respects. But I am sorry to say my
mother’s health has been declining for some time.
She has been unable to attend to the house, and
things get out of gear without her. My father has
grown moody and unhappy, and, I’m afraid, puts a
dash of brandy into his cider oftener than is good
// 270.png
.pn +1
for him. Muriel is much the same as usual, and the
good old grandmother holds out bravely. It is my
mother gives me most uneasiness. I feel convinced
that she has something on her mind. I have sometimes
thought that her trouble is in some way
connected with poor Muriel. I only wish you were
here. Your clearer mind might understand much
that is dark to me. If it were not asking too much
from your friendship, I would willingly beg you to
come down here for a week or two. It would do me
more good than I can express to see you.’
Maurice’s answer to this appeal was prompt and
brief.
.pm letter-start
‘Dear Martin,—I shall be at Borcel End, all
things going well, to-morrow night.
.ti +15
‘Yours always,
.ti +20
‘M. C.’
.pm letter-end
It was a hard thing for him to leave town just
now. There was his new poem, which had all the
charm and freshness of a composition recently begun.
Little chance for him to continue his work at Borcel,
with Martin always at his elbow, and the family
// 271.png
.pn +1
troubles and family secrets on his shoulders. And
then there was Justina—his afternoon cup of tea in
the second-floor parlour—all his new hopes and
fancies, which had grouped themselves around the
young actress, like the Loves and Graces round
Venus, in an allegorical ceiling by Lely or Kneller.
But friendship with Maurice Clissold being something
more than a name, he felt that he could do
no otherwise than hasten to his friend’s relief. So
he took his farewell cup of tea out of the dragon
china, and departed by an early express next
morning, after promising Justina to be away as
brief a span as possible.
Borcel End looked very much as when he had
first seen it, save that the warm glow of summer had
faded from the landscape, and that the old farmhouse
had a gloomy look in the autumn dusk.
Maurice had chartered a vehicle at Seacomb station,
and driven five miles across country, a wild moorland
district, made awful by a yawning open shaft
here and there, marking the place of an abandoned
mine.
The glow of the great hall fire shining through
// 272.png
.pn +1
the latticed windows was the only cheerful thing
at Borcel. All the rest of the long rambling house
was dark.
Martin received his friend at the gate.
‘This is good of you, Clissold,’ he said, as
Maurice alighted. ‘I feel ashamed of my selfishness
in asking you to come to such a dismal place
as this; but it will do me a world of good to have
you here. I’ve told my mother you were coming for
a fortnight’s ramble among the moors. It wouldn’t
do for her to know the truth.’
‘Of course not. But as to Borcel being a dismal
place, you know that I never found it so.’
‘Ah, you have never lived here,’ said Martin,
with a sigh; ‘and then you’ve the family up at
the Manor to enliven the neighbourhood for you.
There’s always plenty of cheerfulness there.’
‘And how is Mr. Penwyn going on? Is he
getting popular?’
‘He ought to be, for he has done a great deal for
the neighbourhood. You’ll hardly recognise the
road between here and the Manor when you drive
there. But I don’t believe the Squire will ever be
// 273.png
.pn +1
as popular as Mrs. Penwyn. The people idolize her.
But they seem to have a notion that whatever the
Squire does is done more for his own advantage than
the welfare of his tenants. And yet, take him for
all in all, there never was a more liberal landlord.’
Martin was carrying his friend’s small portmanteau
to the porch as he talked. Having deposited
that burden, he ran back and told the driver to
take his horse round to the stables, and to go
round to the kitchen afterwards for his own supper.
This hospitable duty performed, Martin opened the
door, and ushered Maurice into the family sitting-room.
There sat the old grandmother in her accustomed
corner, knitting the inevitable grey stocking which
was always in progress under those swift fingers.
There, in an arm-chair by the fire, propped up with
pillows, sat the mistress of the homestead, sorely
changed since Maurice had last seen her. The keen
dark eyes had all their old brightness; nay, looked
brighter from the pallor of the shrunken visage;
the high cheek-bones, the square jaw, were more
sharply outlined than of old; and the hand which
// 274.png
.pn +1
the invalid extended to Maurice—that honest hard-working
hand, which had once been coarse and
brown—was now white and thin.
Michael Trevanard sat at the opposite side of the
hearth, with a pewter tankard, a newspaper, and a
long clay pipe on the square oak table at his elbow.
These idle autumn evenings were trying to the
somewhat mindless farmer, to whom all the world
of letters afforded no further solace than the
county paper, or an occasional number of the
Field.
‘I am sorry to see you looking so ill, Mrs.
Trevanard,’ Maurice said kindly.
‘I’ve had a bad time of it this year, Mr. Clissold,’
she answered. ‘I had an attack of ague and low
fever in the spring, and it left a cough that has
stuck to me ever since.’
‘I hope my coming here while you are an invalid,
will not be troublesome to you.’
‘No,’ answered Mrs. Trevanard, with a sigh,
‘I’ve got used to the notion of things being in a
muddle; and neither Michael nor Martin seem to
mind; so it doesn’t much matter that the house is
// 275.png
.pn +1
neglected. I’ve been obliged to take a second girl,
and the two between them make more dirt than
ever they clean up. Your old room’s been got
ready for you, Mr. Clissold; at least I told Martha
to clean it thoroughly, early this morning, and light
a good fire this afternoon; so I suppose it’s all right.
But you might as well make up your mind that the
wind was always to blow from one quarter, as that a
girl would do her duty when your eyes are off her.
If I had a daughter, now, a handy young woman to
look after the house——’
She turned her head upon her pillow with a
shuddering sigh. That thought was too bitter.
‘My dear Mrs. Trevanard,’ cried Maurice, cheerfully,
‘I feel assured that the room will be—well
not so nice as you would have made it perhaps, but
quite clean and comfortable.’
He took his seat by the hearth, and entered into
conversation with the master of the house, who
seemed cheered by the visitor’s arrival.
‘And pray what’s doing up in London,
Mr. Clissold?’ Michael Trevanard asked, as if he
took the keenest interest in metropolitan affairs.
// 276.png
.pn +1
Maurice told him the latest stirring events—wars
and rumours of wars, reviews, royal marriages
in contemplation—to which the farmer listened with
respectful attention, feeling these facts as remote
from his life as if they had occurred in the East
Indies.
He, on his part, told Maurice all that had been
stirring at Penwyn; amongst other matters that
curious circumstance of the attempted burglary, and
Mr. Penwyn’s lenity towards the offender.
‘I’m rather surprised to hear that,’ said Maurice.
‘I should not have thought the Squire a particularly
easy-going person.’
‘No, he can be stern enough at times,’ answered
the farmer. ‘That business up at the justice-room
caused a good bit of talk. If it had been one of us,
folks said, Squire Penwyn wouldn’t have let go his
grip like that. They couldn’t understand why he
should be so lenient just because the man was the
son of his lodge-keeper. It would have seemed
more natural for him to get rid of the whole lot
altogether, for they’re a set of vagabonds to be
about a gentleman’s place. That girl Elspeth,
// 277.png
.pn +1
who brought you here, is always robbing the orchards
and hen-roosts about the neighbourhood.
She’s a regular pest to the farmers’ wives.’
‘That curious-looking woman is still at the lodge,
then?’ asked Maurice.
‘Yes, she’s still there.’
‘Perhaps it was Mrs. Penwyn who interceded for
the son.’
‘Well, it was a curious business altogether,’
answered the farmer. ‘Mrs. Penwyn and the woman
has a talk together in a room to themselves, and then
Mrs. Penwyn comes back to the justice-room looking
as white as a corpse, and says a few words to her
husband, and on that he talks over Mr. Tresillian, and
then Mr. Tresillian lets the vagabond off with a reprimand.
Now why Mrs. Penwyn should intercede
for the woman’s son I can’t understand, for it’s well
known, through Mrs. Penwyn’s own maid having
talked about it, that the Squire’s lady can’t endure
the woman, and is vexed with her husband for
keeping such trash on his premises.’
‘I dare say there’s something more in it than
any of us Cornish folks are likely to find out,’ said
// 278.png
.pn +1
Mrs. Trevanard. ‘The Penwyns were always a secret
underhanded lot; smooth on the outside; as fair as
whitened sepulchres, and as foul within.’
‘Come, Bridget, you’re prejudiced against them.
You always have been, I think. It isn’t fair to
speak ill of those that have been good landlords
to us.’
‘Haven’t we been good tenants? We’re even
there, I think.’
The maid-servant came in to lay the supper-table,
Mrs. Trevanard’s watchful eyes following the girl’s
every movement. A good substantial supper had
been prepared for the traveller, but the old air of
comfort seemed to have deserted the homestead,
Maurice thought. The sick wife, with that unmistakable
prophetic look in her face, the forecast shadow
of coming death, gave a melancholy air to the scene.
The blind old grandmother, sitting apart in her
corner, looked like a monument of age and affliction.
The farmer himself had the heavy dulness
of manner which betokens a too frequent indulgence
in alcohol. Martin was spasmodically gay, as if
determined to enjoy the society of his friend; but
// 279.png
.pn +1
care had set its mark on the bright young face, and
he was in no wise the Martin of two years ago.
Maurice retired to his bedroom soon after
supper, conducted by Martin. The apartment was
unchanged in its dismal aspect; the dingy old
furniture loomed darkly through the dusk, Martin’s
one candle making only an oasis of light in the
desert of gloom.
The memory of his first night at Borcel End
was very present to Maurice Clissold as he seated
himself by the hearth, where the fire had burned
black and dull.
‘Poor Muriel,’ he thought, ‘what a dreary chamber
for youth and beauty to inhabit! And in a fatal
hour the girl’s first love dream came to illumine the
gloom—sweet delusive dream, bringing pain along
with it, and inextinguishable regret.’
Martin set down the candle on the dressing-table,
and poked the fire vehemently.
‘Poor mother’s right,’ he said. ‘Those girls
never do anything properly now she isn’t able to
follow them about. I told Phœbe to be sure to
have a bright fire to light up this cheerless old den,
// 280.png
.pn +1
and she has left nothing but a mass of smouldering
coal.’
‘Never mind the fire, Martin. Sit down like a
good fellow, and tell me all your troubles. Your
poor mother looks very ill.’
‘So ill that the doctor gives us no hope of her
ever getting better. Poor soul, she’s going to leave
us. Heaven only knows how soon. She’s been a
good faithful wife to father, and a tender mother to
me, and a good mistress and a faithful servant in
all things, so far as I can tell. Yet I’m afraid
there’s something on her mind—something that
weighs heavy. I’ve seen many a token of secret
care, since she’s been ill and sitting quietly by the
fire, thinking over her past life.’
‘And you imagine that her trouble is in some
way connected with your sister?’
‘I don’t see what else it can be. That’s the only
unhappiness we’ve ever had in our lives. All the
rest has been plain sailing enough.’
‘Have you questioned your mother about her
anxieties?’ asked Maurice.
‘Many times. But she has always put me off
// 281.png
.pn +1
with some impatient answer. She has never denied
that she has secret cares, but when I have begged
her to trust me or my father, she has turned from
me peevishly. “Neither of you could help me,” she
has told me. “What is the use of talking of old
sores when there’s no healing them?”’
‘An unanswerable question,’ said Maurice.
‘You remember what you said to me about poor
Muriel the day you left Borcel? Well, those words
of yours made a deep impression upon me, not so
much at the time as afterwards. I thought over all
you had said, and it seemed to grow clear to me
that there was something sadder about my poor
sister’s story than had ever come to my knowledge.
She had not been quite fairly used, perhaps. Things
had been hushed up and hidden for the honour of
her family, and she had been the victim of the family
respectability. My mother’s one fault is pride—pride
in the respectability of the Trevanards. She
doesn’t want to be on a level with her superiors, or
to be thought anything better than a yeoman’s wife,
but her strong point has been the family credit.
“There are no people in Cornwall more looked up
// 282.png
.pn +1
to than the Trevanards.” I can remember hearing
her say that, as soon as I can remember anything; and
I believe she would make any sacrifice of her own
happiness to maintain that position. It is just possible
that she may have sacrificed the peace of others.’
‘I agree with you there, Martin. Whatever
wrong has been done, great or small, has been done
for the sake of the good old name.’
‘Now it struck me,’ continued Martin, earnestly,
‘that although my mother cannot be persuaded to
confide in me, or in my father, who has been a little
dull of late, poor soul, she might bring herself to
trust you. I know that she respects you, as a clever
man, and a man of the world. You live remote
from this little corner of the earth where the
Trevanards are of importance. She would feel
less pain perhaps in trusting you with a family
secret than in telling it to her own kith and kin.
You would go away carrying the secret with you,
and if there were any wrong to be righted, as I
fear there must be, you might right it without
giving rise to scandal. This is what I have thought—foolishly,
perhaps.’
// 283.png
.pn +1
‘Indeed, no, Martin, I see no folly in your idea;
and if I can persuade your mother to trust me,
depend upon it I will.’
‘She knows you are a gentleman, and might be
willing to trust in your honour, where she would
doubt any commoner person.’
‘We’ll see what can be done,’ answered Maurice,
hopefully. ‘Your poor sister lives apart from you
all, I suppose, in the old way?’
‘Yes,’ replied the young man, ‘and I fear it’s a
bad way. Her wits seem further astray than ever.
When I meet her now in the hazel copse, where she
is so fond of wandering, she looks scared and runs
away from me. She sings to herself sometimes of
an evening, as she sits by the fire in grandmother’s
room. I hear her, now and then, as I pass the
window, singing some old song in her sad, sweet
voice, just as she used to sing me to sleep years
ago. But I think she hardly ever opens her lips to
speak.’
‘Does she ever see her mother?’
‘That’s the saddest part of all. For the last
year my mother hasn’t dared go near her. Muriel
// 284.png
.pn +1
took to screaming at the sight of her, as if she was
going into a fit; so, since then, mother and she
have hardly ever met. It’s hard to think of the
dying mother, so near her only daughter, and yet
completely separated from her.’
‘It’s a sad story altogether, Martin,’ said Maurice,
‘and a heavy burden for your young life. If I can
do anything to lighten it, be sure of my uttermost
help. I am very glad you sent for me. I am very
glad you trust me.’
On this the two young men shook hands and
parted for the night, Martin much cheered by his
friend’s coming.
No intrusion disturbed the traveller’s rest. He
slept soundly after his long journey, and awoke to
hear farmyard cocks crowing in the sunshine, and
to remember that he was more than two hundred
miles away from Justina.
// 285.png
.sp 2
.pn +1
.pb
.sp 4
.h2 id=ch20
CHAPTER XX||‘BUT OH! THE THORNS WE STAND UPON!’
.sp 2
.ni
Mr. Clissold spent the morning sauntering about
the farm, and lounging in one of the hill-side
meadows with Martin. The young man was depressed
by the sense of approaching calamity; and
the thought of parting with his mother, who had
been more tender to him than to any one else in the
world, was a bitter grief not to be put aside. But
he did his best to keep his sorrow to himself, and
to be an agreeable companion to his friend; while
Maurice, on his side, tried to beguile Martin to
forgetfulness, by cheery talk of that wide busy
world in which the young Cornishman longed to
take his place.
.pi
‘I shall have my liberty soon enough,’ said
Martin, with a sigh. ‘I could not leave Borcel
during my mother’s lifetime, for I knew it would
// 286.png
.pn +1
grieve her if I deserted the old homestead. But
when she is gone the tie will be broken. Father
can rub on well enough without me, if I find him
an honest bailiff to take my place. He can afford to
sit down and rest now, and take things easily; for
he’s a rich man, though he and mother always make
a secret of it. And I can run down here once or
twice a year, to see how things are going on. Yes,
I shall certainly go to London after my poor
mother’s death. Borcel would be hateful to me
without her. And if you can get me into a
merchant’s office, I would try my hand at commerce.
I am pretty quick at figures.’
‘I’ll do my best to start you fairly, dear boy,
though I have not much influence in the commercial
world. I think a year or two in London
would do you good, and perhaps reconcile you to
your country life afterwards. A little London goes
a long way with some people. And now I think I’ll
walk over to Penwyn, and see how the Squire and
his wife are getting on. I shall be back at Borcel
by tea-time. Will you come with me, Martin?’
‘I should like it of all things, but my mother
// 287.png
.pn +1
sets her face against any intercourse between the
two families. She doesn’t even like my father to
go to the audit dinner. And just now when she’s
so ill, I don’t care to do anything that can vex her.
So I’ll loaf about at home, while you go up yonder.’
‘So be it, then, Martin. I think you’re quite
right.’
The walk across the moorland was delightful in
the late September weather, a fresh breeze blowing
off the land, and the Atlantic’s mighty waves
breaking silver-crested upon the rugged shore.
‘If Justina were but here!’ thought Maurice, with
a longing for that one companion in whose presence he
had found perfect contentment—the companion who
always understood, and always sympathized—who
laughed at his smallest jokelet, for whom his loftiest
flight never soared too high. He thought of Justina,
mewed up in her Bloomsbury parlour, while he was
gazing on that wide ocean, breathing this ethereal
air, and he felt as if there were selfishness in his
enjoyment of the scene without her.
‘Will the day ever come when she and I shall
be one, and visit earth’s fairest scenes together?’ he
// 288.png
.pn +1
wondered. ‘Has she forgotten her romantic attachment
to my poor friend, and can she give me a
whole heart? I think she likes me. I have sometimes
ventured to tell myself that she loves me.
Yet there is that old memory. She can never give
me a love as pure and perfect as that early passion—the
firstfruits of her innocent, girlish heart, pure
as those vernal offerings which the Romans gave
their gods.’
He looked back to that summer day at Eborsham
when he had seen the overgrown, shabbily clad girl,
sitting in the meadow, with wild flowers in her lap,
lifting her pale young face, and looking up at him
with her melancholy eyes—eyes which had beheld
so little of earth’s brightness. Nothing fairer than
such a meadow on a summer afternoon.
‘I did not know that was my fate,’ he said to
himself, remembering his critical, philosophical consideration
of the group.
Thinking of Justina shortened that moorland
walk, the subject being, in a manner, inexhaustible;
just that one subject which, in the mind of a lover,
has no beginning, middle, or end.
// 289.png
.pn +1
By and by the pedestrian struck into one of
Squire Penwyn’s new roads, and admired the young
trees in the Squire’s plantations, and the thickets of
rhododendron planted here and there among the
stems of Norwegian and Scotch firs. A keeper’s or
forester’s lodge here and there, built of grey stone,
gave an air of occupation to the landscape. The
neatly kept garden, full of autumn’s gaudy flowers;
a group of rustic children standing at gaze to watch
the traveller.
These plantations wonderfully improved the approach
to Penwyn Manor House. They gave an
indication of residential estate, as it were, and added
importance to the country seat of the Penwyns; the
Manor House of days gone by having been an
isolated mansion set in a wild and barren landscape.
Now-a-days the traveller surveyed these well-kept
plantations on either side of a wide high road, and
knew that a lord of the soil dwelt near.
Maurice entered the Manor House grounds by
the north lodge. He might have chosen a shorter
way, but he had a fancy for taking another look at
the woman who had first admitted him to Penwyn,
// 290.png
.pn +1
and who had become notorious since then, on
account of her son’s wrong doing.
The iron gate was shut, but the woman was near
at hand, ready to admit visitors. She was sitting
on her door-step, basking in the afternoon sunshine.
She no longer wore the close white cap in which
Maurice had first seen her. To-day her dark hair,
with its streaks of grey, was brushed smoothly from
her swarthy forehead, and a scarlet handkerchief was
tied loosely across her head.
That bit of scarlet had a curious effect upon
Maurice Clissold’s memory. Two years ago he had
vaguely fancied the face familiar. To-day brought
back the memory of time and place, the very
moment and spot where he had first seen it.
Yes, he recalled the low water meadows, the
tow-path, the old red-tiled roofs and pointed gables
of Eborsham; the solemn towers of the cathedral,
the crook-backed willows on the bank; and youth
and careless pleasure personified in James Penwyn.
This lodge-keeper was no other than that gipsy
who had prophesied evil about Maurice Clissold’s
friend. A slight thing, perhaps, and matter for
// 291.png
.pn +1
ridicule, that dark saying about the severed line of
life on James Penwyn’s palm; but circumstances
had given a fatal force to the soothsayer’s words.
‘What!’ said Maurice, looking at the woman
earnestly as she unlocked the gate, ‘you and I have
met before, my good woman, and far away from here.’
She stared at him with a stolid look.
‘I remember your coming here two years ago,’
she said. ‘That was the first and last time I ever
saw you till to-day.’
‘Oh no, it was not—not the first time. Have
you forgotten Eborsham, and your fortune-telling
days, when you told my friend Mr. Penwyn’s
fortune, and talked about a cut across his hand?
He was murdered the following day. I should
think that event must have impressed the circumstance
upon your mind.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’
Rebecca Mason answered, doggedly. ‘I never saw
you till you came here. I was never at any place
called Eborsham.’
‘I cannot gainsay so positive an assertion from
a lady,’ said Maurice, ironically; ‘but all I can say
// 292.png
.pn +1
is, that there is some one about in the world who
bears a most extraordinary likeness to you. I hope
the fact may never get you into trouble.’
He passed on towards the house, sorely perplexed
by the presence of this woman at Mr.
Penwyn’s gates. He had no shadow of doubt as to
her identity. She was the very woman he had seen
plying her gipsy trade at Eborsham,—that woman,
and no other. And what could have brought her
here? Through what influence, by what pretence,
had she wormed her way into a respectable household,
and acquired so much power that her vagabond
son might attempt a burglary with impunity?
The question was a puzzling one, and worried
Maurice not a little. He remembered what Mrs.
Trevanard had said about there being something in
the background, something false and underhanded
in the Squire’s life. Only the suggestion of a
prejudiced woman, of course; but such suggestions
make their impression even upon the clearest mind.
He remembered Justina’s prejudice against the man
who had been so great a gainer by James Penwyn’s
death.
// 293.png
.pn +1
‘Heaven help Churchill Penwyn!’ he thought.
‘It is not a pleasant thing to succeed to a murdered
man’s heritage. Let him walk ever so straight,
there will be watchful eyes that will see crookedness
in all his ways.’
‘It’s a curious business about that gipsy woman,
though,’ he went on, after a pause. ‘Does Mr.
Penwyn know who she is, I wonder? or has she
deceived him as to her character, and traded upon
his benevolence? Although he is not much liked
here, he has done a good deal that indicates a
benevolent mind, and kindly intentions towards his
dependents. He may have given that woman her
post out of pure charity. I’ll try if I can get to
the bottom of the business.’
He drew near the house. Everywhere he saw
improvement—everywhere the indication of an all-pervading
taste, which had turned all things to
beauty. The gardens, whose half-neglected air he
remembered, were now in most perfect order.
Additions had been made to the house, not important
in their character, but in a manner completing
the harmony of the picture. And over all there
// 294.png
.pn +1
was a wealth of colour, and varied light and shadow,
which would have made most country mansions seem
dull and commonplace in comparison with this one.
‘It is Mrs. Penwyn’s taste, no doubt, which
has made the place so charming,’ Maurice thought.
‘Happy man to have such a wife. I will think no
ill of him, for her sake.’
The aspect of the house impressed Maurice as
suggestive of happy domestic life. Grandeur was
not the character of the mansion—home-like prettiness
rather, a gracious smiling air, which seemed
to welcome the stranger.
Maurice entered by an Elizabethan porch, which
had been added to the old lobby entrance at one end
of the house. The lobby had been transformed into
the prettiest little armory imaginable: the dark
and shining oak walls, decorated with weapons and
shields of the Middle Ages, all old English. This
armory opened into a corridor with a row of doors
on either side, a corridor which led straight to the
hall, now the favourite family sitting-room, and
provided with what was known as the ladies’
billiard-table. The billiard-room proper was an
// 295.png
.pn +1
apartment at the other end of the house, with an
open Gothic roof, and lighted from the top, a room
which Churchill had added to the family mansion.
Here, in the spacious old hall, Maurice found
the family and guests assembled after luncheon;
Lady Cheshunt enthroned in a luxurious arm-chair,
drawn close to the bright wood fire, which pleasantly
warmed the autumnal atmosphere; Viola
Bellingham deeply engaged in the consideration of
whether to play for the white or the red, her own
ball having been sent into a most uncomfortable
corner by her antagonist, Sir Lewis Dallas; Mrs.
Penwyn seated on a sofa by the sunniest window,
with the infant heir on her knees, a sturdy fair-haired
youngster in a dark blue velvet frock, trying
his utmost to demolish a set of Indian chessmen
which the indulgent mother had produced for his
amusement; Churchill seated near, glancing from
an open Quarterly to that pleasing picture of
mother and child; two or three young ladies and
a couple of middle-aged gentlemen engaged in
watching the billiard-players; and finally, Sir Lewis
Dallas engaged in watching Viola.
// 296.png
.pn +1
No brighter picture of English home life could
be imagined.
Churchill threw down his Quarterly, and rose to
offer the unexpected guest a hearty welcome, which
Madge as heartily seconded.
‘This time, of course, you have come to stay
with us,’ said Mr. Penwyn.
‘You are too good. No. I have put up at my
old quarters at Borcel End. But I dare say I shall
give you quite enough of my society. I walked over
to spend an hour or two, and perhaps ask for a cup
of tea from Mrs. Penwyn.’
‘You’ll stop to dinner, surely?’
‘Not this evening, tempting as such an invitation
is. I promised Martin Trevanard that I would go
back before dark.’
‘You and that young Martin are fast friends, it
seems.’
‘Yes. He is a capital young fellow, and I am
really attached to him,’ answered Maurice, somewhat
absently.
He was looking at Mrs. Penwyn, surprised, nay,
shocked, by the change which her beauty had
// 297.png
.pn +1
suffered since he had last seen the proud handsome
face, only a few months ago. There was the old
brightness in her smile, the same grand carriage of
the nobly formed head; but her face had aged somehow.
The eyes seemed to have grown larger; the
once perfect oval of the cheek had sharpened to a
less lovely outline; the clear dark complexion had
lost its carnation glow, and that warm golden tinge,
which had reminded Maurice of one of De Musset’s
Andalusian beauties, had faded to an ivory pallor.
Madge was as kind as ever, and seemed no less
gay. Yet Maurice fancied there was a change even
in the tone of her voice. It had lost its old glad ring.
The stranger was presented to the guests of the
house. The younger ladies received him with something
akin to enthusiasm, there being only one
eligible young man at Penwyn Manor, and he being
hopelessly entangled in the fair Viola’s silken net.
Lady Cheshunt asked if Mr. Clissold had come
straight from London, and, on being answered in the
affirmative, ordered him to sit down by her immediately,
and tell her all the news of the metropolis—about
that dreadful murder in the Bow Road,
// 298.png
.pn +1
and about the American comedian who had been
making people laugh at the Royal Bouffonerie
Theatre, and about the new French novel, which the
Saturday Review said was so shocking that no
respectable woman ought to look at it, and which
Lady Cheshunt was dying to read.
Maurice stayed for afternoon tea, which was
served in the hall, Viola officiating at a Sutherland
table, in the broad recess that had once been the
chief entrance.
‘So you have abandoned your ancient office,
Mrs. Penwyn,’ said Maurice, as he carried the lady
of the manor her cup.
‘Madge has not been very strong lately, and has
been obliged to avoid even small fatigues,’ answered
Churchill, who was standing near his wife’s chair.
‘There is a cloud on the horizon,’ thought
Maurice, as he set out on his homeward walk.
‘Not any bigger than a man’s hand, perhaps; but
the cloud is there.’
.sp 2
.nf c
END OF VOL. II.
J. AND W. RIDER, PRINTERS, LONDON.
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.it Transcriber’s Notes:
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.it Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
.it Typographical errors were silently corrected.
.it Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a\
predominant form was found in this book.
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.it Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
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