Trevethlan: A Cornish Story. Volume 2

CHAPTER V

Meantime Michael Sinson's scheme was ripening into action. The plot matured in the metropolis was about to break on the towers of Trevethlan. Two gentlemen crossed one another in the hurry of Lincoln's Inn, and stopped to exchange a cordial greeting and a little chat.

"By the by, Winter," said Mr. Truby, as they were parting, "we're bringing ejectment against a client of yours."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the second lawyer, "and who may that be?"

"Oh, the parties are old antagonists," answered the first. "It's by no means the first time we've met. Doc d Pendarrel v. Trevethlan. Clerk gone down to serve declaration and notice. You'll hear of it in a post or two."

"Good Heaven!" thought Mr. Winter, as he proceeded on his way; "what new calamity is this? Is not that hapless family even yet sufficiently broken? Poor Morton! Now I will wager this comes in some way out of that mad scheme."

And indeed it might well seem that nothing was needed to increase the gloom that invested Trevethlan Castle. It was lonely and desolate in the lifetime of its late possessor, but there was then at least the buoyancy of youth to relieve the dreary monotony; and now, even that had vanished. So far was Helen from being able to restore anything like cheerfulness to her brother, that she herself became infected by his sombre moodiness. Strange was the contrast between those dimly latticed Gothic apartments, and the light and lively saloons of Pendarrel: the wanderer in the former almost dreading to break the silence with his footfall, and the latter ringing with careless laughter and mirthful conversation. Polydore Riches himself could with difficulty preserve his ever-hopeful equanimity; and Griffith often reproached himself to his wife for the facility with which he consented to that ill-omened visit to the metropolis: while the few domestics began to fear moving about singly after dusk, and to whisper of mysterious sounds heard, and sights seen, in the darkening corridors.

Such tales spread outside the castle, and were improved upon in their progress. It became rumoured that the spirit of the unhappy Margaret wandered through its halls in the silence of night, and harassed the children she was not permitted to love in her lifetime. The villagers began to look upon Randolph as the easterns do upon one possessed of the evil eye, and rather shunned than courted his familiarity. And some of the older folk recalled his father's marriage, and began to ask themselves, was it after all only a mockery? Then, indeed, would poor Margaret have cause to seek vengeance for the deceit by which she was beguiled. And so they went on stringing story upon story, until in the rush of the night wind they heard the wailings and howlings which in days long gone were said to portend disaster to the house of Trevethlan.

Randolph was entirely unconscious of the popular mysticism, and too much absorbed in his own feelings to have heeded it in any case. Every day he went forth to the outskirts of the park of Pendarrel, and roamed round its circuit, in the hope of meeting Mildred; and every day that he returned disappointed, made him more restless and reserved. Such an excursion at last led him by Wilderness Gate, and it happened that Maud Basset was sunning herself there as he passed.

"Randolph Trevethlan," she cried, as he went by; and he turned, and she came out to the plot of grass to meet him.

"Randolph Trevethlan," she repeated, "son of a murdered mother, there's a dark hour at hand for thy house, but not darker than is due. I see it written on thy brow. I heard it in the screams that came down on the wind of the night. Say they her spirit is abroad in the towers where her bliss was made her bane? Ay, he is dead, but he shall answer it in his son."

The wildness of the old crone's language suited Randolph's humour. She came quite close to him and looked up in his face.

"Hast seen her?" she asked, lowering her voice to a whisper, "hast seen her, grandson Randolph? Thou knowest who I mean—thy mother, boy. My Margaret, my winsome Margaret. They tell me she's been seen in the castle. 'Tis long, long sin' I saw her myself. They said she grew pale and pale, but they wouldna let me come nigh. And is it true they say? Hast seen her, grandson Randolph?"

"Ay, it is true, indeed," he answered, in a bewildered manner. "I have seen her indeed."

There was the trunk of a large tree lying on the grass close beside them. The old woman took his hand and drew him to a seat upon it. He had neither the power nor the wish to resist.

"Now I can see thee," Maud said. "Thou'st grown so tall; but art not like the gleesome lad that used to sport with my Michael. Woe's me! And how did she look? Said she aught to thee?"

"She hung over my bed with a sweet smiling face, and she bent down and kissed my lips."

"A sweet smiling face!" Maud echoed; "that was hers indeed, my own Margaret. And she smiled on thee, and kissed thee! Then she doth not hate thee?"

"Why should she, Maud?"

"Art thou not his son? and did he not murder her?" exclaimed the crone, in her former harsh manner. "Who said there was no marriage? He! he! Surely thou wilt defend her fame, Randolph Trevethlan?"

"With my life," he answered.

"What's this I'm saying?" again Maud cried, checking herself. "There's a dark hour at hand for thy house, I tell thee. God give thee the strength to bear it!"

And she faltered away as quickly as she could, passed through the gate, and entered the lodge, leaving Randolph still seated, motionless, upon the timber.

Old Maud Basset was deeply versed in all the wild superstitions which still lingered among the Cornubians. She knew the presages which foretold sorrow or death to different old houses. Here, the fall of one of the trees in the avenue was the harbinger of dole; there, ancient logs of timber rose to the surface of the pool in the park before a coming vacancy at the family board. She could tell, too, how drowned persons broke the stillness of night by hailing their own names; of the candle borne by unseen hands in the track of a future funeral; of many a kind of unholy augury; of evil spirits who led wayfarers astray, and precipitated them from the summit of their carns; and in particular of Tregagel, condemned for his many ill deeds to empty the fathomless pool of Dosmary by means of a limpet shell with a hole in it.

The incoherence of the old woman's speech, and her half-uttered predictions, tallied very exactly with some of the feelings which had of late been familiar to Randolph. Mildred, indeed, still occupied by far the greatest portion of them; but his thoughts not unfrequently wandered from her to the dream which had visited him the first night of his return to the castle, and the fair face which had been pressed to his own. That the features so revealed were those of his mother he never doubted, and he felt a restless desire to learn something of the parent whom he had lost before he was three years' old. But to whom should he apply for information? Where could he find the sympathy which such a topic demanded? The long silence that had been observed respecting it, within the castle, must, he thought, have been the effect, in part, of a deficiency of interest, and therefore he was reluctant to open his wishes, even to the chaplain. And without the walls he knew no one to confer with on such a subject. So he was at once fascinated by old Maud's sudden allusion to her child, and answered her questions from the recollections of his dream.

But what did she mean by her reiterated reference to Margaret's death, and her dark announcement of coming calamity? The latter, indeed, harmonized but too well with his own gloomy forebodings—"Who said there was no marriage?—Thou wilt defend her fame?" What was the meaning of such ominous insinuations? Randolph mused on them, without quitting the posture in which Maud had left him, until they became so oppressive, that he resolved to learn all the story from Polydore, without delay.

In the dusk of the evening, he walked with the chaplain in the picture-gallery of the castle. The dim light which came through the high Gothic windows, gave strange and unintended expression to some of the portraits, and left others in such deep shadow that they could hardly be discerned, while the vaulted ceiling hung indistinct over head. Randolph paused at length before the likeness of his father. It was painted when Henry Trevethlan was in the prime of youth, and presented the aspect of a man very different indeed from the cold and stern personage with whom his son was acquainted.

"What changed that countenance, Mr. Riches?" Randolph asked. "What swept away the ardour and enthusiasm which beam from all those lineaments? From what he told me himself, in his dying hour, I framed a tale of hopeless attachment, of love striving to forget itself in ruin. Was it so? Did Esther Pendarrel indeed break my poor father's heart, after trifling with its affection? Methinks, he was not a man to be made a mock of. Yet the mocker has prevailed."

"Randolph," Polydore answered, with a deep sigh, "your speech brings back days of sorrow, which I would were forgotten. But that was all past before I became a resident here. From the steward only, and from popular report, did I learn the intimacy which once subsisted between your father and Mrs. Pendarrel. It was in a thoughtless hour, if all that's said be true, that she crushed his last hopes by wedding. And so, by this time, she knows, perhaps, too well."

"Did she love him, then, Mr. Riches?" Randolph inquired quickly.

"Nay," said the chaplain, "that is a question which I cannot answer. But sure I am, that if one spark of feeling yet lives in her heart, as I would fain believe, she must be visited with deep remorse as often as she looks back upon the ruin wrought by her girlish levity. May you, my dear Randolph, never know the pangs of affection unrequited, or requited only to be broken. And, if such sad lot be yours, may Heaven teach you to bear up against it, nor hide misery in the show of defiance."

"'Tis well for her," Randolph mused aloud, having scarcely heard Polydore's last words, "'tis very well for her, if indeed she loved. For so is no account between us. But if it be otherwise, if, out of wilfulness or vanity, she broke the heart that adored her, then let her look to her own. Not unscathed shall she go down to the grave. Does not the vow lie heavy on my soul?"

"Oh, Randolph, Randolph!" Polydore exclaimed; "what words are these?"

But the young man heeded him not, and, taking his arm, led him several times up and down the long gallery in silence, and at last drew him to one of the windows, from which they looked forth upon the sea. The white crests of the waves were still visible in the increasing darkness.

"Pardon me, Mr. Riches," Randolph said, "if I recall days that are gone, and which are recollected only with pain. But these are topics which have been forbidden, which I can no longer resist approaching, on which I must be informed. My father's marriage, my mother.... How came it about? How did she die? Strange tales have fallen upon my ears–"

The chaplain was much distressed. "What!" thought he, "will they not let poor Margaret rest even in her grave? Do they bear their foul scandal to her son? And is it for me to tell him the story of his father's fault?"

"Speak, Mr. Riches," said Randolph, with some impatience; "let me hear all the truth of the history."

"You know not what you ask," Polydore answered sadly. "Margaret Basset could not resist the influence which made her the seeming mistress of this castle. I could not approve—I went away. The marriage was strictly private. The people were very jealous. Some said—be patient—that it was not duly performed. I know that it was. I had some slight acquaintance with Mr. Ashton the clergyman; he was murdered shortly after the ceremony, and the witness disappeared. The rumours spread; but they died away when you were born. You can imagine the details."

"How did she die?" Randolph asked again.

"You know your father, Randolph," the chaplain replied. "Cannot you conceive the position was too much for her? And her kindred were imprudent. She pined away. But she was an angel. We all loved her. If the devotion of those around her could have made up for the affection which should hallow her situation, surely she were living now."

His hearer mused again for some time in silence, thinking of his dream; and it produced its usual effect of soothing his excitement, and tranquillizing his spirits.

"Come, Mr. Riches," he said, "let us seek my sister. We must not leave her desolate too long."

But the chaplain laid his hand on his old pupil's arm, saying:

"One moment, Randolph; let me detain you one moment. Let me play the master again. What we have been discoursing of will be best forgotten. And oh! let it not be remembered in one fatal sense! Let not these sad events be the foundation of evils yet to come! You spoke of a vow. Such are often wrongly demanded and rashly given. Pride lingers on the bed of death, and bequeaths itself to its successors. Vengeance, unappeased, requires satisfaction by the hands of its heir. So hatred is handed down for ever, and rancour and strife made perpetual. Pray Heaven the vow you speak of requires none of these things! Pray Heaven, that if haply it do, it will be revoked and forgotten!"

"A parent's curse," said Randolph in a hollow voice, "is a terrible thing."

"To him!" the chaplain exclaimed. "To him it is, indeed, a terrible thing, and to his children, if it impels them into wrong-doing. There is no power in man to curse, my dear pupil, and surely Heaven is deaf to all such imprecations."

Alas! Polydore might as well have reasoned with the foaming waves beneath him. Randolph listened in respectful silence, but entirely unconvinced. As law is silent amid the din of arms, so is reason in the conflict of passions. Few sources have been more fruitful of evil than the pledges extorted by the dying. The giver succumbs absolutely to an obligation he ought never to have undertaken, allows himself no discretionary power, yields nothing to the alteration of circumstances, and acts as if the behest were imposed by certain foreknowlege and unerring wisdom. There is no absolution from a death-bed promise, and no chancery to qualify its mischievous engagements.