Читать книгу Trevethlan: A Cornish Story. Volume 3 - Watson William Davy - Страница 3

The destruction of Pendarrel Hall was the crowning outrage of the riotous. It was a crime for which a severe retribution was certain to be exacted. On information, given partly by the prisoners taken at the fire, partly by volunteers who hoped to screen themselves, the civil and military authorities swept the country far and wide, and arrested numbers of suspected individuals. The hamlet of Trevethlan felt the visitation, and among its accused was the unfortunate Edward Owen. Many people, shuddering at the consciousness of guilt, fled for shelter to the wild moors and desolate carns, or lurked in the caverns of the sea-shore, obtaining a scanty and precarious nourishment from venturous friends or kindred. The prime mover of all the mischief, Gabriel Denis, had been captured on the spot; and there was scarcely a cottage between the two seas, which did not miss from the family circle some son or brother now lying in prison or lurking in the waste.

On the night of the disaster, the Pendarrels were at last persuaded to seek repose in such accommodation as was afforded by the lodge; but sleep was out of the question. Jaded and sad, they met in the morning, and went forth to survey the ruins of their home. Melancholy enough was the mere destruction of the edifice, yet that was the least among their sorrows. Wealth might restore the house to all its former splendour, but other losses were irreparable. All the relics of bygone days; the pledges of friendship and of love, the trinkets associated with old personal reminiscences, the memorials of travel and adventure, the rarities collected with their own hands, the family heir-looms, the toys of one childhood laid by to amuse another, the books of early lessons and early leisure, the sketches and drawings, the portraits and miniatures of the dead,—all of these had perished, and could never be replaced; for Pendarrel was their home, their old familiar dwelling-place, the storehouse of all things dear,—their cradle and their grave. Other houses they had, but none like Pendarrel.

Even the stern pride of Esther might bend a little under so great a calamity. Only the morning before she had been exulting over the humiliation of Trevethlan, and now her own hearth was desolate. In the terror of the night she had been surprised into an unusual display of tenderness towards her daughter. But any such feelings were merely transitory. Tale-bearers soon brought to her ear the shouts of "Hurrah for Trevethlan," which had been heard among the rioters. She thought of the scornful silence with which her invitation of yesterday had been received at the Castle, and permitted herself to suspect that the night's outrage might have had more than empty sympathy from its inmates.

She perceived also, with impatience, that the event would necessarily postpone the marriage of her daughter, and require it to be celebrated in London. Both the delay and the place was obnoxious, because the watchful mother still feared that Mildred's outward docility covered a strong resolve, and she was sorry to restore her to the protecting influence of Mrs. Winston. Such were the cold and harsh thoughts, which in Mrs. Pendarrel succeeded to the first depression occasioned by the calamity. But coming so suddenly on her triumph, it would be strange indeed if it were wholly unfelt, and the sequel may show that its effects were more considerable than Esther suspected at the time.

The exiles selected one from a host of offers of hospitality, but only availed themselves of the shelter for a single night; setting out the following morning on their way to town, and arriving in May Fair in due course. Mrs. Winston awaited their coming. She had her full share of the recent catastrophe. True it was she had made another home for herself, but much of her heart remained at Pendarrel. Even in a lately-written letter Mildred had mentioned their partnership in books. In fact, the fire might long be remembered in the annals of the family, becoming an epoch to date from, like that commemorated among the Jews by the spot left bare in the decoration of their walls, "the memory of desolation."

In the first tête-à-tête between the sisters, they turned from their own misfortunes to that which had befallen their cousins of Trevethlan, and when Gertrude had mentioned the invitation which she had already despatched to Helen, Mildred suffered herself to be drawn into a confession of all that had passed under the hawthorns on the cliff.

"Ah, Mildred," her sister said, shaking her head in gentle reproof, "remember that while I will do anything to save you from a union you dislike, I will do nothing to promote one which our parents disapprove. And that I fear will be the case as regards this gentleman. Count nothing, my dear, from my invitation to his sister. I should, perhaps, have hesitated to give it, had I known the state of the case."

But Mildred heard this little lecture without much heeding its warning. She was meditating on designs of her own, which she had no intention of confiding even to her sister. Her mother was not at all unlikely to find that she had raised a devil which she would be unable to lay.

Mildred rejoiced, however, at one circumstance: her unwelcome suitor did not immediately follow her to London. He had not been present at the fire; for although his domains joined those of Pendarrel, the houses were very far apart; and there was sufficient uncertainty at Tolpeden respecting the locality of the flames to excuse the indolent coxcomb from proceeding to assist, an excuse of which he readily availed himself in the midst of such a storm. He was greatly vexed when he heard the truth in the morning, and he paid a visit of polite condolence to the family, at which, however, he was not favoured with the company of Mildred.

And he was far from impatient to accompany her to town. The gossips at Mrs. Pendarrel's party had indeed exaggerated his embarrassments, but they were sufficiently heavy. Returning unable to fulfil his undertaking to his creditors, he should awaken a hundred sinister suspicions. The fire would be but a bad excuse for the delay, where all excuses prolonged the chapter of accidents. So Melcomb dreaded to make his appearance until everything was definitively arranged, and he could meet his foes with renewed promises of satisfaction.

To his unsuspected rival the fire was a godsend. It sent his patroness to London, exactly when with a doubting heart, Sinson was preparing to visit her in Cornwall, and thus enabled him to hold down his bondman Everope, with one hand, while with the other he preferred his audacious suit. Could Mrs. Pendarrel have read what was passing in her servant's heart, when he came cringing before her with congratulations on the result of the trial and condolence for the ruin of her house mingled in equal proportions, she would have cursed the hour when she took the fawning rustic into her service. He was now manœuvring to induce the wretched Everope to go abroad, in order that his last fears might be laid to sleep. But the spendthrift was not at all willing to accede to the proposition. And after all, Sinson thought, what did it matter? A little space would disclose the whole of his plot. And when his patroness was once implicated, there would be no danger of exposure. Should circumstances make it necessary, the Trevethlans might be quietly re-instated in their small patrimony, and Michael would be perfectly contented with the domain of Pendarrel. Everope might do as he pleased.

And now Esther had the mortification—for such it was to her—of receiving condolence from all the circle of her acquaintance. The burning of her house made no little stir in the metropolis. In public it was not unreasonably mentioned as affording a good ground for the general alarm. It might figure considerably in the Parliamentary debates—we need not specify the volume of Hansard—it might occupy some space in the reports of secret committees; it might have a green bag all to itself. It was the topic of the day, and became a source of so much exasperation to the mistress of the ruined mansion, that she would almost have rejoiced to sink Pendarrel in some fathomless pool off the Lizard. It is so difficult to condole in a manner at all sufferable. Rarely is it pleasant to be pitied. People are apt to lavish their sorrow on what they think they would have most regretted themselves, and to forget the real weight of the calamity, in considering some detail which strikes their particular fancy. So Angelina might remember the gold fish in the garden, and hope they were not killed when the water was needed for the engines. Now as Esther really loved her home, and deeply deplored its ruin, it sometimes cost her an effort to answer her friends' sympathy with polite equanimity. For the condolers mean kindly, and must be kindly met.

But she was gratified also at times. Some hardy spirit would venture to approach her with a sarcasm. The town, that is to say such men as Winesour, could recollect the late Mr. Trevethlan, at the time he was squandering his fortune; when his companions called him a fool, and were very fond of his society. Such people remembered him with a certain kind of attachment, and heard of the final ruin of his supposed children with a certain sort of regret. And some of them were half aware of the old love-passages between the lord of the castle and the lady of the hall, and guessed for themselves the cause of Henry Trevethlan's desperation. And so with polished incivility, they contrived to compare the fire and the law-suit, and to send a diamond-headed shaft home to Mrs. Pendarrel's heart.

Now this Esther liked. It exasperated her, but it put her upon her mettle; and enabled her to exhibit a wit, delicate and keen as any that attacked her. And she wanted something of the kind. Disguise it as she would, she was bitterly humiliated by the catastrophe of that terrible night.

when there was no place of the former appellation to claim its share in the prediction. The prophecy itself seemed to mock her. The fretfulness induced by these conflicting emotions, restrained abroad, vented itself at home, and fell heavily upon poor Mildred.

And now London was very full. The brilliant froth was bubbling and foaming over the edges of the cup. And so a perpetual round of gaiety invited the votaries of fashion, like the whirling dance about the funeral pyre of Arvalan. Into the fascinating circle Mrs. Pendarrel led her daughter, and took pains to let every one know, that the fillet was already bound round the victim's brow. But the latter was as little likely to succumb in patience to the intended doom, as the German poet's Bride of Corinth.

And was Esther at all mindful of her defeated adversaries? She heard of their answering her trembling invitation by a precipitate abandonment of their ancient home, and she took little heed of their further proceedings. She did not yet know the full extent of her triumph, and left the effects of the verdict to be developed in the dens of the lawyers.