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."
"No one can mistake that of Mrs. Winston's," Melcomb said, rising and bowing. "My dear Mrs. Pendarrel, suffer me to take my leave."
"Now, Mildred dear, away and make ready," said Gertrude, smiling, and her sister immediately complied with the wish.
"Mrs. Winston!" exclaimed the mother.
"Yes, dear mamma," Gertrude answered.
"Am I the mistress of my own house?"
"I presume so, dear mamma."
"Then note me. My visitors shall not be affronted here by you."
"Surely, mamma, Mr. Melcomb would thank me for a compliment. Every one knows he is proud of his reputation."
"Every one knows your sarcasm," said Mrs. Pendarrel, "and I, at least, perfectly understand your meaning. Once for all, Mrs. Winston, I will suffer no interference with my intentions for Mildred. Why, I almost think you would not have her settled at all. Very sisterly indeed, Gertrude. Yet in your situation–"
"Mother," exclaimed Mrs. Winston, "not another word. But listen. Rather than see Mildred settled even as I am, without offence, as without affection, I know not to what I would not doom her! Rather than see her wedded to one like Melcomb, would she might die in my sight! You know me, mother. She is here."
"There's no danger, Gertrude," said Mrs. Pendarrel, as Mildred entered; "au revoir."
The sisters then descended the stairs. As they passed through the hall, they might have observed the presence of a young man, not in livery, plainly dressed, having an appearance of mauvaise honte not often imputable to the denizens of London. They might have noticed that after the first glimpse he caught of Mildred, his gaze was rivetted upon her face, and the colour deepened in his cheeks as she approached and swept by him, almost brushing him with the trimming of her mantle. But in fact, they saw nothing of the kind, passing along in polite indifference to Mrs. Winston's carriage.
"And so, Mildred," that lady said, as they drove away, "another admirer! You are growing quite a coquette."
"Not exactly," answered the younger sister. "But I like to amuse myself with the vanity of men. After all, I wish I were married."
Mrs. Winston sighed. "At another time, Mildred dear," she said, "I might rally you for the avowal. But beware. Marriage is a sad lottery."
"You are happy, Gertrude," said Mildred with some surprise.
Mrs. Winston looked out of her window.
"Melcomb will never make a woman happy," she said, after a pause.
"He will certainly never make me happy," exclaimed Mildred, half laughing. "But really, Gertrude, how silly I am! What does Mr. Melcomb care about me!"
"Very little, I dare say, not to flatter you, dear. Very little about Mildred: a good deal about Mildred's money. And perhaps mamma would not care to add Tolpeden to Pendarrel. You know they join. There's something for your cogitation."
For a while the sisters were silent. Then the younger spoke.
"Dearest Gertrude," she said, "believe me I will never marry without—believe me, I have not yet seen anyone whom I would marry. When I spoke just now, I hardly knew what I meant."
Poor Gertrude knew her sister's meaning perfectly well. She recollected the weight of the chain from which she had recklessly made her escape, without calculating the cost.
"Mildred," said she, "let me ever be your confidante as now."
And so in a less serious mood, the sisters pursued their way round the November dreariness of Hyde Park, at the season when:—
"Remote, unfriended, solitary, slow,
Scarce one lone horseman paces Rotten Row."
The stranger they had passed in Mrs. Pendarrel's vestibule was Michael Sinson, newly arrived in London, and come with proper diligence to pay his respects to his patroness. The young countryman was completely overwhelmed by the vision of the two fine ladies who swept by him. But his wonder was not indiscriminating, and it was Mildred who fixed his gaze. He had seen her at Pendarrel, but not with the same impression. In kind and familiar intercourse with the tenantry, she was a very different person. Here she seemed almost a creature of another sphere. With her mien, so quiet and yet so proud; her step, scarcely touching the ground, yet appearing to spurn it; her repose, exhibiting a security which it was impossible to disturb. Michael followed her with his eyes until she had entered the carriage, and continued looking vacantly in the same direction, even after the hall-door was closed. A tap on the shoulder roused him from his abstraction, and he followed a servant into the presence of Mrs. Pendarrel.
The interview was of no great duration. Sinson's patroness was pleased to notice with praise that he was improved in appearance and address; and asked him a few questions respecting the country, which he answered to her satisfaction. She made no allusion to the peculiar services she expected from him, but referred him to her husband at his office for information respecting his promised employment. It was necessary to know a little more of his temper and disposition before making him her confidential agent.
The new Cymon, as in one sense the young rustic might be called, quitted the house in May Fair, filled with vague admiration and ambition. In the fascinations surrounding Miss Pendarrel, he recognised a power superior to anything within his experience; and he framed fantastic expectations from the career he supposed opening before him. But the lover of Iphigenia had concealed a noble heart under a rugged exterior, and his passion developed its high qualities. Michael Sinson was a very different character from Boccaccio's hero.
And was Mercy Page already forgotten?—Happy, perchance, for the too faithful maiden, if so it were.