Trevethlan: A Cornish Story. Volume 1

From that time, Randolph's attention was almost entirely engrossed by his fascinating neighbour. He missed the statue's nod, and lost his share of the laugh at Naldi's comic terror. His sister observed the cause of his abstraction, and looked in the same direction, at a moment when the elder lady happened to turn towards her.

"Surely," Helen exclaimed, "I have seen that face before! Yet how can it be?"

Randolph knew right well, but he was silent.

"Do you know those ladies, Mrs. Winter?" Helen asked.

"No, Miss Morton. It is really a beautiful girl."

"Beautiful!" Randolph thought; "beautiful! Ay, she is more than beautiful."

And the presentiment he had felt before came gloomily back upon his heart.

But the fair stranger was not the only damsel who attracted admiration in the opera-house that night.

"Who is that, Melcomb?" asked a portly, good-humoured personage, leaning on the rail of the orchestra, and looking towards Mrs. Winter's box. "A new face, is it not?"

"The girl with the bird of paradise in her hair?" answered Melcomb. "Fie! Winesour. Have you forgotten Cressy?—Though, to be sure, the gentle Cressida may have a new face to-night, or any night."

"Pooh! you know who I mean," Winesour persisted; "in the tier below."

"The pallid thing in black?" said Melcomb. "It's in a state of willowhood. You see through a glass of Chambertin."

"May I never drink another," cried Winesour, with a quaint twinkle of his small grey eye, "if she ever saw an opera before. Think you I have no eyes? Vorrei e non vorrei. She followed Fodor's notes with her lips apart, and tears in her eyes. She cried, Melcomb."

"Winesour turned enthusiastic for a pale-cheeked girl!" said Melcomb. "What next? But I love not rhapsody, so—adieu!"

But while he chose to speak of Helen's appearance in these disparaging terms, Melcomb had really observed her with admiration, and determined to ascertain who she might be. He was one of those handsome, careless, profligate fellows, who are too well regarded by the men, and too easily pardoned by the women. One murder, it has been rather absurdly said, makes a villain; ten thousand, a hero. But it may with some truth be remarked, that the number of hearts a Melcomb breaks rather adds to his fame than diminishes his reputation. He rises upon ruin.

Melcomb, however, was at last positively thinking of marriage, and had become the slave professed of Mildred Pendarrel. But he sped not in his wooing as he conceived he had a right to expect. Now, it is an annoying thing for one accustomed to carry the citadel by storm, to be obliged to sit down and proceed according to the slow routine of a siege; and still more disagreeable to be unable to make any impression on the enemy's works. This was Melcomb's present position. He was favoured by the mother, he was foiled by the daughter. It was a case quite out of his experience. Mildred rode with him, danced with him, flirted with him; but she never let him utter more than one serious word. The instant he assumed an air of gravity, she prevented his speech with a jest. His courtship was a perpetual laugh. It grew quite fatiguing. Love was pleasant enough, except to make. Melcomb sometimes thought of retiring from the field. He was not stimulated by difficulty, and he was afraid of rejection. Melcomb refused! What a disgrace! Yet he felt morally certain that this would be his fate, if he now ventured to drive Mildred to Yes or No. At the same time, he was unwilling to withdraw. The match would be decidedly advantageous to him, and the lady correctly ornamental. So he bore with her frolic humour as best he might. When accosted by Winesour in the pit, he had sought refuge there from Mildred's sallies; and had been struck by the strange beauty, whose earnest interest in the music seemed, indeed, to distinguish a novice, and excited a languid curiosity in the used-up coxcomb. He now returned to Mrs. Pendarrel's box, to obtain a nearer view of the fair unknown, and not without some notion of provoking Mildred's jealousy. But her mother anticipated him.

"Can you tell me," she asked, "who those ladies are, Mr. Melcomb? You know everybody."

"My knowledge is at fault," he answered. "Shall I inquire?"

"I should like to know," Mrs. Pendarrel continued; "but they are going, and so shall I."

Mrs. Winter's party, unconscious of the interest they excited, were waiting, clustered together, for the announcement of their carriage, when Mrs. Pendarrel's was declared to stop the way. At the sound of the name, Randolph and Helen involuntarily turned, and found themselves face to face with the lady who had before attracted their observation. She swept haughtily past them, without seeming to be aware of their surprise, and was followed by Mildred, leaning on the arm of Melcomb.

"It was the miniature," Helen whispered to her brother, who had become suddenly pale.

In a few moments Melcomb returned to the crush room, and observed the strangers with a well-bred stare. Randolph frowned, and the coxcomb smiled. Mrs. Winter's carriage was called. Melcomb noted the name, and learnt the destination. For the present it was enough. The beau had become too idle and indifferent to be very mischievous. He accepted a sensation if it fell in his path, but he would not go out of his way to seek one. "Hampstead's a great distance," he muttered, and drove to the Argyll Rooms.

CHAPTER X

"He that has light within his own clear breast, May sit in the centre, and enjoy bright day; But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts, Benighted walks under the mid-day sun: Himself is his own dungeon."Milton.

Extremely startled was Mrs. Pendarrel by the appearance of the orphans of Trevethlan at the opera. Domestic affairs had temporarily diverted her suspicions respecting them, and her intentions were in a manner dormant. Great, therefore, was her surprise, when following a glance of Mildred's in which she detected some slight emotion, her own eye fell upon a face, like, yes the very image of Henry Trevethlan: the very image of what he was that fatal day, when her hasty and haughty speech drove him from her presence, for once and for ever. With a sort of fascination she gazed upon the stranger, and saw that he returned the regard with a curiosity or wonder, that changed while she looked into hatred and defiance. "Can it be possible?" she asked herself. Several times during the remainder of the performance, she turned towards Mrs. Winter's box, and never failed to catch Randolph's eye. And finally, in leaving the house, she noticed the manner in which both he and Helen started at the announcement of her name, and again met that proud resentment which she remembered so well in the lover of her girlhood.

"Winter!" she mused when she lay down for rest, "Winter! Ay, that is the name of their lawyer. I ought to know it well. And what do they here? Why this apparent privacy? Why seek this veil for their poverty? I must discover. They must be unmasked. Who knows but they are involved? What plan are they devising to save those mouldering towers?"

A long train of reflections passed through Esther's mind as she lay awake that night. In the morning she summoned Michael Sinson to her presence. The young man was already considerably improved in appearance, had lost his rusticity, and acquired a manner "free and easy," with a very excellent opinion of himself. The change might be partly due to certain vague aspirations which pleased his vanity, and at the same time sharpened his natural foresight and cunning. He was abject in deference towards his patroness.

"Sinson," said she, when he came before her, "you know Mr. Trevethlan well?"

"Certainly, ma'am; from his very cradle."

"They say, he is abroad."

He noted the words—they say. "Yes, ma'am."

"There is a Mr. Winter, a lawyer, living at Hampstead," Mrs. Pendarrel continued. "He has some friend remarkably like what I should expect … young Trevethlan to be. I desire to find out who this person is, and what are his pursuits. Be so good as to inquire, if you can. Good morning, Sinson."

But the peasant lingered.

"Did you ever hear, ma'am," he said, brushing his hat, and casting down his eyes, "that the late Mr. Trevethlan's marriage was not regular?"

Mrs. Pendarrel lost no word of the slow-spoken insinuation. Every nerve of her body quivered, but she was silent.

"It was no blame to my unfortunate relation, ma'am," Sinson proceeded; "but the report was very common, I have heard, at Trevethlan, soon after the time."

"Pshaw! sir," Esther said, having now mastered her emotion; "common fame is a common liar. Good-day to you."

And Michael departed, well aware that his patroness suspected this friend of Mr. Winter to be no other than the heir of Trevethlan, and believing also that he had sent a shaft home to her heart, which might further the projects lurking dimly in his own. The more he advanced in her confidence the greater became his own assurance, and he now quitted the house in May Fair, with a certain exultation gleaming in his dark sinister eyes.

He had already supposed that he might find a subordinate instrument of use to him, and had even selected his man. He mingled now and then in the promiscuous assembly of vice and folly which met at the Argyll Rooms. There he had occasionally thrown away a guinea—he was liberally supplied with money—at hazard and had played at the same table with Melcomb. There also he met a man, in the smallness of whose stakes and the desperation of his play, Sinson read ruin. He paid the gambler assiduous court.

Lewis Everope had inherited a moderate patrimony, and lived as if it were inexhaustible. He had been to a university, only to squander his money, and to obtain no distinction. Confident in his abilities, he never gave them fair play. He seemed to think that intuition could supply the place of information. He rarely finished a book—did he not know what the author was about to say? Thus his knowledge was of little value, because it was never complete. Every hour a new Cynthia attracted his attention. He did almost everything by halfs, and therefore few things well. Desultory men are not often men of principle, and he was not one of the exceptions. He was fond of society, and too careless to avoid its temptations. Very soon he learned the difficulty of saying "No."

His career was much the same, when he quitted the university with a very ignoble degree, and entered an inn of court and a pleader's chambers, in the idea of being admitted to the forum. He became immersed in gay company; enjoyed, like Alfieri when an ensign in the Asti militia, the greatest possible liberty of doing nothing, which was precisely the one thing he was determined to do; in spite of the remonstrances of his friends, continually postponed his call to the bar; and in point of fact never was called.

So the years sped by in idleness, and Everope's resources dwindled and dwindled. At little over forty he was without means, and without a profession. He still hung about the inns of court, pitied by the charitable, despised by the worldly wise. His naturally sanguine temper lent him a certain gaiety of heart, which made him popular with some; and as he never plagued people with his embarrassments, he was still able to find companions. He had been one of Travers's early pupils, and he occasionally looked in at his chambers even yet, although it must be owned very far from a welcome guest.

But he had reached the end of his tether. One might fancy him going wistfully round and round, straining his chain to nibble at some distasteful weed, eagerly pursuing any waif or stray wafted within his circle by the wind, not yet showing his straits by the poorness of his coat, still able to raise a laugh by some eccentricity, but with the lustre of his eyes sadly dimmed, and the confidence of his bearing wofully abated. "When things come to the worst, they must mend," he had been wont to say, forgetting that things never do come to the worst on this side the grave. And now, sanguine still, he clung to hope in the midst of despair, and trusted to chance to retrieve his ruin. It is one of the evils of a course like his, that by the time it is run, the energy which might have shaped a new one is lost, and the self-deluded victim falls, too probably never again to rise. And then is such a course most miserable, when its slave is aware of his own degradation, repents and sins on, always harassed by self-contempt, never safe in self-reliance, always thinking of what he might have been, never remembering what he yet may be.

Men in Everope's condition have but little option in selecting their acquaintance, and often find the embarrassments they cannot uniformly conceal, embolden intrusion, which they would gladly avoid, but are unable to repel. So when Sinson made some advances towards him, the spendthrift intuitively hated, yet silently endured them. And now Michael determined, if possible, to make Everope his bondman.

He had lost no time in fulfilling Mrs. Pendarrel's behest, and found little difficulty in tracing Morton to the pleader's chambers. He had not obtained an opportunity of seeing him, but felt certain that the student was no other than Trevethlan. He recollected that Everope had some connection with the law, and might be of service in the schemes which fluctuated indistinctly in his mind. He sought the gambler at the Argyll Rooms.

And he was not disappointed. He saw the wretched man's last guinea swept away by the ruthless rake, and met him as he rose from the table, pale and desperate. "Fortune's a jade, sir," Sinson said, "come and drink a glass of champagne." Everope, scarcely knowing what he did, accepted the invitation, and quaffed glass after glass of the fluid which promised him a temporary oblivion of his plight. He undoubtedly achieved this object, and was unable to resist when his entertainer undertook to see him home. He was, however, sensible enough to be surprised when Sinson followed him into his chambers.

"You are a cool fellow," he stammered. "This is not exactly a palace. I'll get a light, that is if there's a match, and then you can spy the nakedness of the land. Hang me, if you don't look like a spy."

Michael answered by producing a flask. The spendthrift's eyes glistened, and with some trouble he discovered a couple of glasses.

"It is reversing the order of things," he muttered, "reversing the order of things. But no matter. Sufficient for the day—"

As they continued to converse, Everope's contempt for his companion, slid gradually into familiarity. At length the latter, after glancing round the room, exclaimed:—

"Egad! Everope, I guess you're not in arrears for rent?"

"Why so, sir?" asked the spendthrift, with a return of his distant manner.

"Why, there's nothing to levy."

Everope laughed, and dismal it was to hear.

"Clients are few," suggested Sinson, ignorantly.

No answer.

"Family unfriendly," continued the intruder.

"Family!" shouted Everope, springing to his feet with an oath, "what d'ye mean, sir?" He clenched his fist, but it fell to his side. "Ha!" said he, "I am feeble —

'Some undone widow sits upon my arm, And takes away the use o't; and my sword, Glued to my scabbard with wronged orphans' tears, Will not be drawn.'

Kean, sir, Kean–" He sank into his chair, and burst into tears.

This paroxysm restored him to some degree of recollection. When it passed away, Sinson drew his chair near him, and laid his hand on his arm. The spendthrift shrank from the touch. Michael quietly took out his purse, and allowed some pieces of gold to roll on the table.

"Mr. Everope," said he, in the oiliest tones possible, "I ask your pardon for my impertinent intrusion. It was meant all in good will. I was sorry to see the scurvy tricks fortune played you to-night. I came to ask if this petty sum would be any accommodation."

"Sir," Everope answered, while his fingers twitched convulsively, "I do not take such accommodation from strangers."

"We need not be strangers," said Sinson. "And if you are so delicate, you can give me your note of hand. I assure you I do not want the trifle."

Everope looked about the room.

"By the way," continued the tempter, "there's a fellow in the Temple called Morton. Pupil of a Mr. Travers. Know him?"

"I may have seen him at Travers's," the spendthrift answered, sullenly.

"I wish you could find out who he is," Sinson said, "and what he's doing. I have a sort of interest in him."

Everope only continued searching about the apartment.

"Was it paper you were looking for?" Sinson asked, and tore a leaf from his pocket-book.

I O U wrote Everope.

It requires no parchment and blood now-a-days to sign a compact with the fiend.

"Good-night, Everope," said Michael, folding the note in his book. "Recollect what I said about Morton."

The spendthrift closed his door, and returned to the table, and sat down and played mechanically with the golden counters. Embarrassed as he had often been, he had not yet learnt the ways and means of raising money, and this was his initiation. Miserable man! Better for him had it been to submit to any usury than, with his weak temper, to become the debtor of Michael Sinson.

His vacillation was remarkably shown the following day. He rose at a late hour, nervous and feverish, strangely troubled with an idea that he had sold himself to be the instrument of some villany. He knew nothing of the man who had furnished him with money. He could not even tell where to find him. What were his designs with regard to Morton? The little Everope had seen of the young student had won his respect. Ought he not to tell him what had occurred? If he knew where to find this Sinson, he would return the money.

It was dusk of the evening. He remembered that Morton would be keeping Hilary Term. He did not belong to the Temple, but he lived there. He went down into the cloisters and paced to and fro, waiting till hall should be over. At length Randolph came out alone, and Everope joined him abruptly.

"Morton," the spendthrift asked, in a low, husky voice, "were you ever in want?"

The owner of Trevethlan Castle was amazed and affronted, but he said nothing. Since the visit to the opera, every hour made him more impatient of his disguise.

"I ask you were you ever in want?" repeated Everope, with some fierceness. "I do not mean did you ever need a meal, or lack a coat; but were you ever embarrassed? Were you ever afraid, or ashamed to show your face? Did you ever tremble to think, not perhaps of to-morrow, but of to-morrow month? Did you ever shudder at the thought of disgrace? Have you any relatives whom you esteem and love? Whose memory has been to some extent your guardian angel? who have begun to pity and ceased to regard you? To whom you have done injustice? Ay, hark in your ear,—did you ever think that to them your death would be a relief?"

"Is the man mad?" Randolph asked himself, but said nothing aloud.

"I see," continued Everope, gloomily; "I see you are more fortunate. You have no sympathy with a vaurien. My confidence is made in vain: for if you cannot answer these questions, I can. You do not know the circumstances which give force to temptation. Pity those who do. Pity me, Morton. Lay up my words, and have a pardon ready when the day comes."

They had reached Fleet-street. The spendthrift turned suddenly and hurried away, before Randolph could fulfil an intention he had conceived of offering assistance. His own mind was at this time so disturbed, that the episode scarcely increased his agitation. Nevertheless, he went the next morning to make the offer, which Everope's abrupt departure had prevented in the evening. The spendthrift lived in garrets looking down from a great height on a narrow dingy lane. The visitor found the outer door closed, "the oak sported," in the language of college. But he had learnt that this by no means proved the absence of the occupant, and he supposed that in Everope's case there might be good reason for the precaution. So he rapped long and loud at the massive door. There was no answer: no sound indicated the presence of any living creature. "Mr. Everope," Randolph shouted through the narrow aperture intended to receive letters. He repeated the call several times. At length a slight shuffling noise came along the passage inside, and paused at the door.

"Is it you, Morton?" the spendthrift asked.

"Yes. I wish to speak with you."

"Excuse me," said Everope; "I am not well. I cannot see you now. My head aches."

"Nay," Randolph urged, in a low tone. "Only for a moment. Can I be of service to you? I am not rich, but perhaps–From what you said, I thought–"

A sigh, so profound that it might be termed a groan, escaped from Everope's breast. But he lashed himself into a spasm of anger.

"You mistook me, sir," he said, savagely, "and you trouble me. I can hear no more."

And he went back from the door with a quick and heavy tread. He had been to the rooms again the night before, had lost all he borrowed, and accepted a fresh loan from Sinson. It is but the first step that costs.

Randolph betook himself to chambers with a notion that he did not engross all the misery of the world.

CHAPTER XI

There's a dark spirit walking in our house,And swiftly will the Destiny close on us.It drove me hither from my calm asylum,It mocks my soul with charming witchery,It lures me forward in a seraph's shape.I see it near, I see it nearer floating,It draws, it pulls me with a godlike power—And lo, the abyss.Coleridge. Piccolomini.

It would be difficult adequately to portray the conflict of emotions which now agitated our hero. His life at Trevethlan Castle might be described as a long childhood, and the boy became a man at one bound, instead of by insensible degrees. Hence he had not learned to control his sensations. He was driven about by every wind. His will was almost passive. No master-feeling yet called it into action. We have seen how keenly alive he was to the want of that deference which he considered his due; how his pride revolted from the familiarity of those around him; how his feigned name continually irritated him. And all these feelings were embittered by the visit to the opera. Often afterwards he remembered the dark presentiment which oppressed him during the gloomy ride, and which returned while he gazed, rapt in ecstasy, on that fair vision near him, on Mildred Pendarrel. In her he recognised the image which of late years haunted his dreams by the sea; the heroine of the romances which his fancy created; the mistress of his enchanted castle. She was the object for which he had been secretly yearning; the being destined to fill a void which had opened in his existence; the woman for whom he would live and die. In the first few moments he looked at her, his eyes drank in a deep draught of love, and he was hers for ever.

He revelled in the new passion. In those few moments he lived an age. What face was that which intervened between him and his love? Where had he seen those proud lineaments? He required no hint from Helen to remind him of the miniature. He recognised his father's Esther at a glance; he sprang to the conclusion that it was her daughter he adored; and he remembered the vow that lay upon his soul. What wonder that he should feel a presentiment of ill?

There are those who smile when they hear of "love at first sight." But he who drew Romeo was better versed in the heart of man. Such love is a more turbulent and consuming passion than the happier affection which grows up by gentle steps. Swift as the lightning, it is also as desolating. Hope cherishes the softer emotion; hopelessness often seems to fan the more sudden fire.

The first effect of his new passion upon Randolph was to give tenfold vigour to his hatred of his assumed name. Of right, he was Mildred's equal. Even studying for his profession as Randolph Trevethlan, he would still be her equal. But as the obscure pretender, Morton, he was degraded far beneath her. In his proper person, he could surmount all obstacles to obtain her. Could he? What, then, became of his vow?

That very pledge he had given in exchange for permission to wear the detested mask. What a web he had spun around himself! And should he break it at once? Should he dash boldly into the world in his own name, sweep impediments from before him, woo Mildred in spite of everything, and bear her off to his ancestral towers, ay, in defiance of her haughty mother? Would it not be a revenge acceptable to the shade of his broken-hearted father?