Trevethlan: A Cornish Story. Volume 1

This feeling was soon charmed away by the perfect quiet of their reception. Mr. Winter at Lincoln's Inn, and Mr. Winter at Hampstead, were very different men: there, he considered the moments as precious for work; here, they were only precious for enjoyment: there, he governed them; here, he yielded to them. A shade of impatience might be detected in his manner at chambers; nothing ruffled him at home. And Mrs. Winter, accustomed as she had always been to see only the sunny side of things, ministered admirably to the happiness of all around her, and particularly of her husband. They and their eldest daughter Emily, a blue-eyed girl with light hair, were in the drawing-room, when Randolph and Helen arrived. Before dinner was announced, the orphans had forgotten all their solicitude.

And except that they talked with rather too much preciseness, too much like a book as people say, they acquitted themselves very well in the gentle stream of conversation which their host kept tranquilly flowing. And by the time that Mrs. Winter rose to retire, they felt that they had been introduced to a new pleasure, that of agreeable society.

"So, Mr. Morton," the lawyer then said, "you wish to prepare yourself for our English forum: as honourable an arena as the Roman, although our advocates do accept of fees. Are you acquainted with the mysteries of initiation?"

Randolph referred to the old editions of Blackstone and Burn. Mr. Winter apprehended, but did not say, that there might be something to unlearn.

"Faith," said he, "the process has more to do with beef than with Blackstone; you eat your way, rather than read it. True, the sign-posts and mile-stones are not to be neglected, but you may arrive at the full dignity of wig and gown, without having turned a leaf. I don't say that is the way to turn a penny."

"It is with the last purpose that I aspire to the dignity," Randolph said, "and very much obliged to you shall I be for any advice which may further it."

"And happy I shall be to give the best I can, Mr. Morton," observed Winter. "The first step is to enter at an Inn of Court. There are four. Divers bits of doggerel describe their respective merits. Have you any predilection?"

"No, Mr. Winter," Randolph answered, "none: I am ignorant of their distinguishing peculiarities."

"Lincoln's Inn is the largest, Gray's the smallest of the societies," said Winter. "The Temples are intermediate. The Middle famous for its fine hall, the Inner for its fine garden. No well-defined professional advantages attaching to any one. It is a matter of whim. What say you?"

"One of the Temples," replied Randolph, "and I prefer the garden to the hall."

"So be it," the lawyer said. "Anything but indecision. The Inner Temple wins. Come down to town with me in the morning, and I will introduce you. And after that you must, in the first place, work; and in the second place, work; and in the third place, work. Fill your glass, Mr. Morton."

"The work should be directed, I suppose," Randolph observed, obeying the invitation.

"Certainly," said Winter. "But I'll tell you what. Let me direct you for two months or so. Take the run of my office. See a little of the actual practice of the law. And then you will go into a pleader's chambers, with a sense of the reality of your business, which increases at once both its interest and its profit."

In accepting the offer thus made, Randolph little thought how short lived its fruits were destined to be. Man proposes, Heaven disposes. There was a certain poetry in the visions of Trevethlan Castle, which veiled the real prosiness of the orphans' scheme. They knew nothing of the world. And as they walked home that evening under the stars, and thought that so they were shining upon their native towers, the doubts of the morning again beset them, and they retired to rest with foreboding hearts.

The next day Mr. Winter drove Randolph to Lincoln's Inn. "Now," said the lawyer, when they alighted in Chancery Lane, "that is the way to the Temple. Prowl about; look at the garden, and the dingy buildings around it. Ask for the treasurer's office. There say you wish to enter as a student for the bar. They'll give you a paper. Bring it to me. But take your time. Be here again at one."

Obeying these instructions, the neophyte traversed the hurrying throng of Fleet Street, and passed under the ancient arch that forms the portal of Inner Temple Lane, not without a momentary recollection of Dante's famous "All hope abandon, you who enter here." He felt immediately that he was in the toils; law stationers on each hand showed their red tape, and quills, and parchment, polite slips of the latter presenting King George's greeting to his sheriff of what county you will; dapper clerks were bustling along with bundles of paper; every door-post was crowded with a host of names, among which Randolph might recognize some he had been used to read in the newspaper. He passed under the porch of the church, recalling the days when the sword was more powerful than the pen; read the inscription recording the fire and rebuilding of the cloister; and looked with respect on the powdered wigs in the hairdresser's window. He felt benumbed by the high, dismal, worm-eaten buildings, but was relieved when the sound of falling water attracted his eye to the fountain, flinging its column of silver into the air amidst elms and sycamores. Hastening towards this green spot, he saw the hall of which Mr. Winter had spoken, and proceeded to the stairs leading to the quiet little garden, one of the pleasantest retreats in all London. Randolph gazed some time on this oasis in the legal desert, and then turned to fulfil the rest of his mission. And now he marked the many singular dials, fixed aloft against the buildings, so that one or other was always available, reminding the denizens of the value of the minutes by their dry mottos, "Time and tide tarry for no man," "Pereunt et imputantur," they perish and are laid to charge. Retracing his steps, he surveyed with pleasure the more spacious garden which had decided his choice of a society for his studentship.

The office which he sought was close at hand. On making his application he was provided with a printed form, and instructed to fill up the blanks and return it. With this he obtained admission to the garden, and sat down in one of the alcoves by the river-side to examine the document. Perplexity fell upon him as he read. Two barristers were to certify that they knew him, and believed him to be a gentleman. The expression awoke all the pride of a Trevethlan.

"Was my father, then, right?" he thought, gazing moodily on the water. "Is this a course meet for one of our name? To skulk among men in disguise? To beg certificates of honour? Believed to be a gentleman! Already my dream is fading away. Oh! my own sister, would we were back at Trevethlan! Yet shall I vex you too with my doubts?… Know me? Who knows me? Who in London knows Randolph Morton?"

Irresolute and half desponding, Randolph returned to Mr. Winter's. That gentleman soon solved the difficulty implied in the conclusion of the above reverie. "Come with me," he said; conducted the neophyte to some neighbouring chambers, presented him to Mr. Flotsam, and told his errand. "Happy to oblige a friend of yours, Winter," said the conveyancer, signing the paper; "hope Mr. Morton will prosper." The second signature was still more a matter of form, Mr. Winter merely sending the paper to Mr. Jetsam, with his compliments. "There," said he to Randolph, "now take it back to the Temple; refer to Mr. Flotsam as your acquaintance; and in a week or so you will hear of your admission."

It was as the lawyer said. But the new student received the announcement with feelings very different from those he had so long cherished in his home by the sea.

CHAPTER VI

"Yon bosky dingle still the rustics name;'Twas there the blushing maid confessed her flame.Down yon green lane they oft were seen to hie,When evening slumbered on the western sky.That blasted yew, that mouldering walnut bare,Each bears mementos of the fated pair."Kirke White.

Wilderness Gate was the most picturesque, although not the principal entrance to the park of Pendarrel. The enclosing wall, formed of rough gray stones, and coloured with mosses and ferns, there swept inwards from the public road, leaving a space of turf, usually occupied by the geese of the neighbouring cottagers. The gate was in the centre of the recess, and opened on a long winding avenue of Scotch firs, the branches of which met overhead, and made the path slippery with their fallen spines. On either hand the eye might glance between their straight stems to some open ground beyond, of uneven surface, mostly covered with tall ferns, and chequered with birch-trees. A streamlet might be heard, but not seen, rippling along not far from the walk. Here and there the antlers of a stag would rise above the herbage, and a hare or rabbit might be occasionally seen to bound across an exposed plot of grass. The scene wore an air of neglect. The dead leaves were not swept from the paths; the brambles extended their long shoots at pleasure; the ruggedness of the ground was the work of nature. But the avenue wound gently up an eminence; the wood on each side became deeper, until, on arriving at the summit of a ridge, the visitor emerged suddenly from the dark firs, and gazed down upon the trim plantations and nicely-shorn lawns immediately surrounding the Hall. The portion of the park through which he had passed was called the Wilderness, and gave its name to the gate by which he entered.

Beside this gate, and close to the park-wall, was the lodge which Mrs. Pendarrel assigned as a dwelling to Maud Basset and Michael Sinson. They had previously resided at the farm-house occupied by the young man's father, the brother-in-law of the hapless Margaret. But the gloomy firs of Wilderness Lodge were more congenial to the disposition of the old woman than the cheerful garden of the Priory Farm, and the idle life of a gatekeeper suited Michael's habits better than the activity of his father's employment. The instructions also, which he received from Mrs. Pendarrel, raised vague ideas of future consequence in the young man's mind, and revived the hopes which had originally sprung from his connection with the family of Trevethlan. His new mistress discovered that he possessed some education, the abiding result of Polydore's teaching, and desired him to improve it, and to attend to his appearance, hinting at the same time rather than saying, that he might unobtrusively watch the proceedings at Trevethlan Castle, and report any changes he detected. These orders gratified his vanity, suited his meanness, and raised his expectations.

But the departure of the orphans seemed to deprive him of his occupation; nothing transpired to contradict the newspaper account of their intentions; and, indeed, these appeared so entirely natural, that a suspicion of incorrectness could hardly arise. None, at least, was likely to be suggested in the country. But only a brief space had elapsed, when a summons from Mrs. Pendarrel, requiring young Sinson to repair immediately to the metropolis, disturbed the serenity of Wilderness Lodge. His grandmother exulted in the news. Her only reading was in that fanatical literature, the study of which is apt either to find men mad, or to leave them so; and she was, besides, deeply versed in all the local superstitions of the district. Such lore had given her mind a sombre hue, and inclined her to indulge in the practice of vaticination. She had foretold a career of distinction for her grandson, and she fancied that he was now about to enter upon it. On the eve of his departure, his mother Cicely came to Wilderness Lodge to bid him farewell. She did not share in Maud's gratification.

"So," she said, sitting under the thatched verandah, "Mercy Page may suit herself now, I suppose; and Edward Owen need not fear another fall?"

"Mercy should know her own mind better," said Michael. "She might have had me long ago, if she pleased; 't is her own fault if it's too late now. But I don't think Owen'll win her, if I never try a fall with him again."

"Let her 'bide," muttered Maud; "let her 'bide. What want we with the folks of Trevethlan?"

"And what seeks my lady with you in London, Michael?" Cicely asked.

"I shall know when I get there, I dare say," he answered. "My lady's secrets are mine."

Cicely sighed.

"I thought you might let us know," she said.

"What I know not myself. Some office, my lady speaks of, I am to fit myself for."

"Ah! my son," continued his mother, "I do hope you'll not forget the country as well as Mercy Page. Life is wild in London, they say. Think of the poor squire."

"Think of my winsome Margaret," Maud exclaimed fiercely. "Think of her that the squire murdered! Wild! Na, na; he'll see the light."

Cicely was the only one of the family exempt from that hatred of the Trevethlans, which darkened the hue of the old woman's otherwise harmless enthusiasm, and burnt sullenly in her grandson. She had not long said her parting words, when Michael threw on his hat, shook himself free from the detaining grasp of old Maud, and walked briskly away in the direction of Trevethlan. About a mile from the castle, a rugged strip of waste land skirted the edge of the cliff over the beach, and supported a number of aged thorns, stunted and bent by the sea-breezes. It was to this spot that Michael turned his steps. The landscape was growing gray when he reached it, but there was yet sufficient light to discover the object he sought. A few strides placed him by the side of a young girl.

"Mercy," he said, in a low voice, "the first at a tryst! It is something new."

"The days are short," replied the girl, with affected indifference: "I should not have waited. Besides, you are going away, so one does not care."

"Is that your farewell, Mercy?" Michael asked.

"And why not?" she said, tossing her head. "You are a fine gentleman: going to London: to forget Mercy Page."

"Yes," answered Michael—his companion started at the word—"to forget the Mercy of to-night, but to remember another—the Mercy of old days; to forget her conceited and wilful, to remember her kind and winsome. You would not wish me remember the first—would you, Mercy?"

The maiden said nothing in reply; and Sinson, encouraged by her silence, drew her with gentle force to a seat on a bank of turf.

"Do you smell the wild thyme, Mercy?" he continued. "They call it a figure of love, rewarding with sweetness even what bruises it. It is so I have answered all your coldness. Mind you not the St. John's Eve, when the folks had caught you in the rope? Who fought his way to your help? And then you sat by my side on this very bank under the hawthorn; and when I asked, might I woo you?—you know what you said. And have I ever failed in my suit? Did I ever court another? When you were cross, and would not dance with me, did I seek any one else? Whose colours did I wear when I threw, one after another, all the best of Penwith? Yet, from that first evening, never could I win a civil word. And now I am called far away, Mercy will give me no hope. When I come back, she will be another's."

"No," said the maiden, and stopped short.

"Then why will she not be mine now?" asked Michael. "Why will she not go with me to London; there to be wed, and live together in happiness? Shall it not be so, dear Mercy? Alone in the great town, I shall always be thinking of Mercy—be thinking that she may be listening to Edward Owen, whom he has often thrown for her sake–"

"And shalt throw him again," interrupted a manly voice. "Shalt throw him again, or take a fall thyself."

The individual whom Michael had named stood before the astonished pair. Sinson sprang to his feet. Was it the duskiness of the evening, or passion, that made his face so dark?

"Owen," he said, in a fierce whisper, "thou wert best stand off now, or mayst get more than a fall."

"Come on!" cried his antagonist, without attempting to disguise his anger. "Come on, villain! I'm ready for you."

Fortunately perhaps for Michael, who was not in a mood to fight or wrestle fairly, Mercy interposed.

"Hoity-toity!" she cried; "pray, Master Edward, where did you learn to give such names to your betters? And where did you learn to follow honest people's steps, and watch them? And think you, my—do you hear?—my Michael is to fight with such as you? Go home, and learn manners."

"Oh, Mercy!" cried Owen, "you know not what you say. You know not what he means. But my part is done. Remember, Edward Owen's is not the only heart you'll break. And so, good-night."

He turned and walked steadily away. Michael endeavoured to resume the thread of his previous discourse. But his listener's mood was entirely changed.

"Saucy fellow!" she cried, laughing and looking after Owen; "he's a rare one to come and rate me. But do you know, Mr. Michael, I believe he's a better man than you. There, that will do. To London to be married! No, Mr. Michael, not quite so far, if you please. Oh, yes, of course. D'ye think I like fighting? There. Good-night, Mr. Michael. No. If you follow me, I shall call him back."

She disengaged herself from her suitor, and tripped lightly through the gloom in the footsteps of Owen.

Michael watched her retreating form with a scowl darker even than that with which he rose to meet the intruder upon his courtship. "Shalt rue the day"—he muttered, "shalt rue the day that saw thee cross my wooing. A better man than me, did she say? Look to thyself, Master Edward Owen."

With a heaving breast and an irregular gait, Sinson paced to and fro for some time along the edge of the cliff, and then turned moodily to Wilderness Lodge. The next day he departed on his way to London.

CHAPTER VII

"Il y a dans un mariage malheureux une force qui dépasse toutes les autres peines de ce monde."

Madame de Staël.

The summons which called Michael Sinson from the far-west to the metropolis, was the result of impulse rather than of settled design on the part of his patroness. Quick in reading the characters of all who crossed her path, in her first brief colloquy with the rustic, Mrs. Pendarrel detected his animosity towards Trevethlan; and in his sly but fierce countenance, in his well-built but cringing form, she saw the traits of one who would not be scrupulous in his mode of attacking an enemy. From the very first, she suspected that the announced continental tour of the orphans was a ruse, and the notion gained strength whenever it recurred to her mind. But if they were still in England, they were probably abiding in London. She caught at the idea, and thought suddenly it would be well to have some one at hand who knew them personally.

Suspiciousness is natural to tyranny: spies are the agents of despots. Love of rule, said by the fairy to be the universal passion of the sex, was undoubtedly dominant in Mrs. Pendarrel. But it is a desire which, at least in youth, will find one powerful rival. And so she proved. The haughty beauty kept her affection down with a strong hand, but it stung her nevertheless. The wound rankled ever in her heart; and many a time and oft she cast a rapid glance upon her life, and in momentary weakness compared what was indeed a dark reality, with a visionary possibility whose very glory made her sad.

But though such reflections might sadden, they were far from softening her. They always terminated in the conviction that she had been ill used. As years sped by, and each showed her more plainly the vacancy of her existence, this feeling deepened into a quenchless thirst for revenge. Was she to be the only victim? Man had a hundred means of quelling or forgetting a hapless passion. Should he who had so lightly forsaken her—should he triumph while her heart was broken?

He threw the game into her hands, and died. Towards his children she entertained at the moment no very definite feeling. She had scarcely thought of them. But she had long cherished the idea of becoming mistress of Trevethlan Castle, and at last she deemed the hour was arrived. Met according to her expectations, she would probably have been kind to the orphans. Spurned, as she felt it, from their door, hatred burnt again fiercely in her breast. And it was quickened by a strange jealousy she conceived against their mother, whom she had only despised before, but now bitterly envied as the wife of her lover.

Could domestic happiness be expected with such a parent? Alas, for the answer which would come from Mrs. Pendarrel's children! The angry passions which raged in her breast gave an unmotherly hardness to her love of rule. And why were they daughters? He had a son. She, the wretched peasant, was the mother of a son. Thus did the effects of Esther's blighted affection fall even upon her offspring. But Gertrude rebelled from early childhood against the capricious rigour with which she was treated. She succumbed at last, however, and that in the most important event of her life. In obeying the maternal command to marry Mr. Winston, she thought she stooped to conquer. Gertrude Winston would be her own mistress. And so she was; but at what a price! Ay, what an account must they render, who degrade marriage into a convenience! who banish the household deities, so dear even to ancient paganism, from their place beside the hearth, and fill it with furies and fiends! who know not the meaning of our sweet English name of home! Five years had not reconciled Gertrude to a union in which her heart had no share. Her husband seemed to her cold, prudent, and dull. She was enthusiastic, generous, and clever. He was easy and good-natured, and his very submissiveness fretted her. He was, or pretended to be, fond of metaphysics, and was always engaged upon some terribly ponderous tome, while she participated in the popular fury for Byron and Scott. He liked a level road, and a good inn: she delighted in romantic scenery, and was half careless about the accommodation. They continually pulled against each other; but the husband was insensible to the chain which galled the wife to the quick. Yet Mr. Winston possessed qualities, which only required to be known to be beloved, and if Gertrude was ignorant of them, it was in no small degree her own fault. And she had not, like Mrs. Pendarrel, to contend with the memory of a previous attachment.

But, however bitter might be the feelings with which she contemplated her own position, there was one dear affection which she cherished with the utmost fondness. Nothing could exceed her solicitude to preserve her sister from the snares into which she had fallen herself. She kept a watchful eye upon all the society especially favoured by her mother, and observed Mildred's feelings with the warmest interest. And she was met in the same spirit. Sisterly love was the one humanizing tie in that broken family.

Each sister possessed great personal attractions; but though their features were strikingly alike, the character written on their faces was by no means the same. Gertrude's showed haughty indifference, Mildred's wishful thoughtfulness. The elder's smile was generally sarcastic, the younger's sympathetic. Knowledge of her situation, and consciousness that others knew it, flashed in defiance from the dark eyes of Mrs. Winston, and lent a hardiesse to her tongue, which occasionally seemed unfeminine. Trust and hope beamed from beneath the long lashes of Miss Pendarrel, and her speech was commonly soft and gentle; but in society she was lively and witty, and there was a spirit lurking in her heart, which might one day confound even her mother.

Coming one day about this time to May Fair, Gertrude found a gentleman of her acquaintance sitting with Mrs. Pendarrel and Mildred.

"Dear mamma," Mrs. Winston said, as she entered, "I am come to claim Mildred for an hour's drive.—Delighted to see you, Mr. Melcomb. You can settle a little dispute for me. 'Tis about the colour of the Valdespini's eyes."

"I would prefer to leave it to Mr. Winston," answered Melcomb. "He has some strange theory about colours, that they are in the eyes of the seer and not in the seen. It is dangerous to speak after such an authority. Your best referee is at home, Mrs. Winston."

"Not so," said the lady, "for he is one of the disputants. One said blue, another grey. None agreed. Some one suggested a reference to you, and it was voted unanimously. 'He knows the colour of all the eyes at the opera,' they said."