CHAPTER XXX.
FERN IN DIE WELT.
If this story were not tied by its title to the duchy of Cornwall, it might be interesting enough to follow Mr. Roscorla into the new world that had opened all around him, and say something of the sudden shock his old habits had thus received, and of the quite altered views of his own life he had been led to form. As matters stand, we can only pay him a flying visit.
He is seated in a verandah fronting a garden, in which pomegranates and oranges form the principal fruit. Down below him some blacks are bringing provisions up to Yacca Farm along the cactus avenue leading to the gate. Far away on his right the last rays of the sun are shining on the summit of Blue Mountain Peak, and along the horizon the reflected glow of the sky shines on the calm sea. It is a fine, still evening; his cigar smells sweet in the air; it is a time for indolent dreaming and for memories of home.
But Mr. Roscorla is not so much enraptured by thoughts of home as he might be. "Why," he is saying to himself, "my life in Basset Cottage was no life at all, but only a waiting for death. Day after day passed in that monotonous fashion: what had one to look forward to but old age, sickness, and then the quiet of a coffin? It was nothing but an hourly procession to the grave, varied by rabbit-shooting. This bold breaking away from the narrow life of such a place has given me a new lease of existence. Now I can look back with surprise on the dullness of that Cornish village, and on the regularity of habits which I did not know were habits. For is not that always the case? You don't know that you are forming a habit: you take each act to be an individual act, which you may perform or not at will; but, all the same, the succession of them is getting you into its power; custom gets a grip of your ways of thinking as well as your ways of living; the habit is formed, and it does not cease its hold until it conducts you to the grave. Try Jamaica for a cure. Fling a sleeping man into the sea, and watch if he does not wake. Why, when I look back to the slow, methodical, common-place life I led at Eglosilyan, can I wonder that I was sometimes afraid of Wenna Rosewarne regarding me as a somewhat staid and venerable individual, on whose infirmities she ought to take pity?"
He rose and began to walk up and down the verandah, putting his foot down firmly. His loose linen suit was smart enough: his complexion had been improved by the sun. The consciousness that his business affairs were promising well did not lessen his sense of self-importance.
"Wenna must be prepared to move about a bit when I go back," he was saying to himself. "She must give up that daily attendance on cottagers' children. If all turns out well, I don't see why we should not live in London, for who will know there who her father was? That consideration was of no consequence so long as I looked forward to living the rest of my life in Basset Cottage: now there are other things to be thought of when there is a chance of my going among my old friends again."
By this time, it must be observed, Mr. Roscorla had abandoned his hasty intention of returning to England to upbraid Wenna with having received a ring from Harry Trelyon. After all, he reasoned with himself, the mere fact that she should talk thus simply and frankly about young Trelyon showed that, so far as she was concerned, her loyalty to her absent lover was unbroken. As for the young gentleman himself, he was, Mr. Roscorla knew, fond of joking. He had doubtless thought it a fine thing to make a fool of two or three women by imposing on them this cock-and-bull story of finding a ring by dredging. He was a little angry that Wenna should have been deceived; but then, he reflected, these gypsy rings are so much like one another that the young man had probably got a pretty fair duplicate. For the rest, he did not want to quarrel with Harry Trelyon at present.
But as he was walking up and down the verandah, looking a much younger and brisker man than the Mr. Roscorla who had left Eglosilyan, a servant came through the house and brought him a couple of letters. He saw they were respectively from Mr. Barnes and from Wenna; and, curiously enough, he opened the reverend gentleman's first—perhaps as schoolboys like to leave the best bit of a tart to the last.
He read the letter over carefully; he sat down and read it again; then he put it before him on the table. He was evidently puzzled by it. "What does this man mean by writing these letters to me?"—so Mr. Roscorla, who was a cautious and reflective person, communed with himself.—"He is no particular friend of mine. He must be driving at something. Now he says that I am to be of good cheer. I must not think anything of what he formerly wrote. Mr. Trelyon is leaving Eglosilyan for good, and his mother will at last have some peace of mind. What a pity it is that this sensitive creature should be at the mercy of the rude passions of this son of hers! that she should have no protector! that she should be allowed to mope herself to death in a melancholy seclusion!"
An odd fancy occurred to Mr. Roscorla at this moment, and he smiled: "I think I have got a clew to Mr. Barnes's disinterested anxiety about my affairs. The widower would like to protect the solitary and unfriended widow, but the young man is in the way. The young man would be very much in the way if he married Wenna Rosewarne; the widower's fears drive him into suspicion, then into certainty; nothing will do but that I should return to England at once and spoil this little arrangement. But as soon as Harry Trelyon declares his intention of leaving Eglosilyan for good, then my affairs may go anyhow. Mr. Barnes finds the coast clear: I am bidden to stay where I am. Well, that is what I mean to do; but now I fancy I understand Mr. Barnes's generous friendship for me and his affectionate correspondence."
He turned to Wenna's letter with much compunction. He owed her some atonement for having listened to the disingenuous reports of this scheming clergyman. How could he have so far forgotten the firm, uncompromising rectitude of the girl's character, her sensitive notions of honor, the promises she had given?
He read her letter, and as he read his eyes seemed to grow hot with rage. He paid no heed to the passionate contrition of the trembling lines—to the obvious pain that she had endured in telling the story, without concealment, against herself—to the utter and abject wretchedness with which she awaited his decision. It was thus that she had kept faith with him the moment his back was turned! Such were the safeguards afforded by a woman's sense of honor! What a fool he had been, to imagine that any woman could remain true to her promise so soon as some other object of flirtation and incipient love-making came in her way!
He looked at the letter again: he could scarcely believe it to be in her handwriting. This the quiet, reasonable, gentle and timid Wenna Rosewarne, whose virtues were almost a trifle too severe? The despair and remorse of the letter did not touch him—he was too angry and indignant over the insult to himself—but it astonished him. The passionate emotion of those closely-written pages he could scarcely connect with the shy, frank, kindly little girl he remembered: it was a cry of agony from a tortured woman, and he knew at least that for her the old quiet time was over.
He knew not what to do. All this that had happened was new to him: it was old and gone by in England, and who could tell what further complications might have arisen? But his anger required some vent: he went in-doors, called for a lamp, and sat down and wrote with a hard and resolute look on his face:
"I have received your letter. I am not surprised. You are a woman, and I ought to have known that a woman's promise is of value so long as you are by her side to see that she keeps it. You ask what reparation you can make: I ask if there is any that you can suggest. No: you have done what cannot be undone. Do you think a man would marry a woman who is in love with, or has been in love with, another man, even if he could overlook her breach of faith and the shameless thoughtlessness of her conduct? My course is clear, at all events. I give you back the promise that you did not know how to keep; and now you can go and ask the young man who has been making a holiday toy of you whether he will be pleased to marry you.
"RICHARD ROSCORLA."
He sealed and addressed this letter, still with the firm, hard look about his face: then he summoned a servant—a tall, red-haired Irishman. He did not hesitate for a moment: "Look here, Sullivan: the English mails go out to-morrow morning. You must ride down to the post-office as hard as you can go; and if you're a few minutes late, see Mr. Keith and give him my compliments, and ask him if he can possibly take this letter if the mails are not made up. It is of great importance. Quick, now!"
He watched the man go clattering down the cactus avenue until he was out of sight. Then he turned, put the letters in his pocket, went in-doors, and again struck a small gong that did duty for a bell. He wanted his horse brought round at once. He was going over to Pleasant Farm: probably he would not return that night. He lit another cigar, and paced up and down the gravel in front of the house until the horse was brought round.
When he reached Pleasant Farm the stars were shining overhead, and the odors of the night-flowers came floating out of the forest, but inside the house there were brilliant lights and the voices of men talking. A bachelor supper-party was going forward. Mr. Roscorla entered, and presently was seated at the hospitable board. They had never seen him so gay, and they had certainly never seen him so generously inclined, for Mr. Roscorla was economical in his habits. He would have them all to dinner the next evening, and promised them such champagne as had never been sent to Kingston before. He passed round his best cigars, he hinted something about unlimited loo, he drank pretty freely, and was altogether in a jovial humor.
"England!" he said, when some one mentioned the mother-country. "Of one thing I am pretty certain: England will never see me again. No, a man lives here: in England he waits for his death. What life I have got before me I shall live in Jamaica: that is my view of the question."
"Then she is coming out to you?" said his host with a grin.
Roscorla's face flushed with anger. "There is no she in the matter," he said abruptly, almost fiercely. "I thank God I am not tied to any woman!"
"Oh, I beg your pardon," said his host good-naturedly, who did not care to recall the occasions on which Mr. Roscorla had been rather pleased to admit that certain tender ties bound him to his native land.
"No, there is not," he said. "What fool would have his comfort and peace of mind depend on the caprice of a woman? I like your plan better, Rogers: when they're dependent on you, you can do as you like, but when they've got to be treated as equals, they're the devil. No, my boys, you don't find me going in for the angel in the house—she's too exacting. Is it to be unlimited?"
Now to play unlimited loo in a reckless fashion is about the easiest way of getting rid of money that the ingenuity of man has devised. The other players were much better qualified to run such risks than Mr. Roscorla, but none played half so wildly as he. His I.O.U.'s went freely about. At one point in the evening the floating paper bearing the signature of Mr. Roscorla represented a sum of about three hundred pounds, and yet his losses did not weigh heavily on him. At length every one got tired, and it was resolved to stop short at a certain hour. But from this point the luck changed: nothing could stand against his cards; one by one his I.O.U.'s were recalled; and when they all rose from the table he had won about forty-eight pounds. He was not elated.
He went to his room and sat down in an easy-chair; and then it seemed to him that he saw Eglosilyan once more, and the far coasts of Cornwall, and the broad uplands lying under a blue English sky. That was his home, and he had cut himself away from it, and from the little glimmer of romance that had recently brightened it for him. Every bit of the place, too, was associated somehow with Wenna Rosewarne. He could see the seat fronting the Atlantic on which she used to sit and sew on the fine summer forenoons. He could see the rough road leading over the downs on which he met her one wintry morning, she wrapped up and driving her father's dog-cart, while the red sun in the sky seemed to brighten the pink color the cold wind had brought into her cheeks. He thought of her walking sedately up to church; of her wild scramblings among the rocks with Mabyn; of her enjoyment of a fierce wind when it came laden with the spray of the great rollers breaking on the cliff outside. What was the song she used to sing to herself as she went along the quiet woodland ways?—
Your Polly has never been false, she declares,
Since last time we parted at Wapping Old Stairs.
He could not let her go. All the anger of wounded vanity had left his heart: he thought now only of the chance he was throwing away. Where else could he hope to find for himself so pleasant a companion and friend, who would cheer up his dull daily life with her warm sympathies, her quick humor, her winning womanly ways?
He thought of that letter he had sent away, and cursed his own folly. So long as she was bound by her promise he knew he could marry her when he pleased, but now he had voluntarily released her. In a couple of weeks she would hold her manumission in her hands; the past would no longer have any power over her; if ever they met they would meet as mere acquaintances. Every moment the prize slipping out of his grasp seemed to grow more valuable; his vexation with himself grew intolerable; he suddenly resolved that he would make a wild effort to get back that fatal letter.
He had sat communing with himself for over an hour: all the household was fast asleep. He would not wake any one, for fear of being compelled to give explanations; so he noiselessly crept along the dark passages until he got to the door, which he carefully opened and let himself out. The night was wonderfully clear, the constellations throbbing and glittering overhead: the trees were black against the pale sky.
He made his way round to the stables, and had some sort of notion that he would try to get at his horse, until it occurred to him that some suddenly awakened servant or master would probably send a bullet whizzing at him. So he abandoned that enterprise, and set off to walk as quickly as he could down the slopes of the mountain, with the stars still shining over his head, the air sweet with powerful scents, the leaves of the bushes hanging silently in the semi-darkness.
How long he walked he did not know: he was not aware that when he reached the sleeping town a pale gray was lightening the eastern skies. He went to the house of the postmaster and hurriedly aroused him. Mr. Keith began to think that the ordinarily sedate Mr. Roscorla had gone mad.
"But I must have the letter," he said. "Come now, Keith, you can give it me back if you like. Of course I know it is very wrong, but you'll do it to oblige a friend."
"My dear sir," said the postmaster, who could not get time for explanation, "the mails were made up last night—"
"Yes, yes, but you can open the English bag."
"They were sent on board last night."
"Then the packet is still in the harbor: you might come down with me."
"She sails at daybreak."
"It is not daybreak yet," said Mr. Roscorla, looking up.
Then he saw how the gray dawn had come over the skies, banishing the stars, and he became aware of the wan light shining around him. With the new day his life was altered; he would no more be as he had been; the chief aim and purpose of his existence had been changed.
Walking heedlessly back, he came to a point from which he had a distant view of the harbor and the sea beyond. Far away out on the dull gray plain was a steamer slowly making her way toward the east. Was that the packet bound for England, carrying to Wenna Rosewarne the message that she was free?
CHAPTER XXXI.
"BLUE IS THE SWEETEST."
The following correspondence may now, without any great breach of confidence, be published:
"EGLOSILYAN, Monday morning.
DEAR MR. TRELYON: Do you know what Mr. Roscorla says in the letter Wenna has just received? Why, that you could not get up that ring by dredging, but that you must have bought the other one at Plymouth. Just think of the wicked old wretch fancying such things! As if you would give a ring of emeralds to any one! Tell me that this is a story, that I may bid Wenna contradict him at once. I have got no patience with a man who is given over to such mean suspicions. Yours faithfully,
MABYN ROSEWARNE."
"LONDON, Tuesday night.
Dear Mabyn: I am sorry to say Mr. Roscorla is right. It was a foolish trick—I did not think it would be successful, for my hitting the size of her finger was rather a stroke of luck—but I thought it would amuse her if she did find it out after an hour or two. I was afraid to tell her afterward, for she would think it impertinent. What's to be done? Is she angry about it. Yours sincerely,
HARRY TRELYON."
"EGLOSILYAN.
Dear Mr. Trelyon: How could you do such a thing? Why, to give Wenna, of all people in the world, an emerald ring, just after I had got Mr. Roscorla to give her one, for bad luck to himself! Why, how could you do it? I don't know what to say about it, unless you demand it back, and send her one with sapphires in it at once.
Yours, M.R.
P.S.—As quick as ever you can."
"LONDON, Friday evening.
Dear Mabyn: Why, you know she wouldn't take a sapphire ring or any other from me. Yours faithfully,
H. TRELYON."
"MY DEAR MR. TRELYON: Pray don't lose any time in writing, but send me at once a sapphire ring for Wenna. You have hit the size once, and you can do it again; but in any case I have marked the size on this bit of thread, and the jeweler will understand. And please, dear Mr. Trelyon, don't get a very expensive one, but a plain, good one, just what a poor person like me would buy for a present if I wanted to. And post it at once, please: this is very important. Yours most sincerely,
MABYN ROSEWARNE."
In consequence of this correspondence Mabyn one morning proceeded to seek out her sister, whom she found busy with the accounts of the sewing club, which was now in a flourishing condition. Mabyn seemed a little shy. "Oh, Wenna," she said, "I have something to tell you. You know I wrote to ask Mr. Trelyon about the ring. Well, he's very, very sorry—oh, you don't know how sorry he is, Wenna—but it's quite true. He thought he'd please you by getting the ring, and that you would make a joke of it when you found it out; and then he was afraid to speak of it afterward."
Wenna had quietly slipped the ring off her finger. She betrayed no emotion at the mention of Mr. Trelyon's name. Her face was a trifle red: that was, all. "It was a stupid thing to do," she said, "but I suppose he meant no harm. Will you send him back the ring?"
"Yes," she said eagerly. "Give me the ring, Wenna."
She carefully wrapped it up in a piece of paper and put it in her pocket. Any one who knew her would have seen by her face that she meant to give that ring short shrift. Then she said timidly, "You are not very angry, Wenna?"
"No. I am sorry I should have vexed Mr. Roscorla by my carelessness."
"Wenna," the younger sister continued, even more timidly, "do you know what I've heard about rings?—that when you've worn one for some time on a finger, you ought never to leave it off altogether: I think it affects the circulation, or something of that kind. Now, if Mr. Trelyon were to send you another ring, just to—to keep the place of that one until Mr. Roscorla came back—"
"Mabyn, you must be mad to think of such a thing," said her sister, looking down.
"Oh yes," Mabyn said meekly, "I thought you wouldn't like the notion of Mr. Trelyon giving you a ring. And so, dear Wenna, I've—I've got a ring for you—you won't mind taking it from me—and if you do wear it on the engaged finger, why, that doesn't matter, don't you see?"
She produced the ring of dark blue stones, and herself put it on Wenna's finger.
"Oh, Mabyn," Wenna said, "how could you be so extravagant? And just after you gave me that ten shillings for the Leans!"
"You be quiet," said Mabyn briskly, going off with a light look on her face.
And yet there was some determination about her mouth. She hastily put on her hat and went out. She took the path by the hillside over the little harbor, and eventually she reached the face of the black cliff, at the foot of which a gray-green sea was dashing in white masses of foam: there was not a living thing around her but the choughs and daws, and the white seagulls sailing overhead.
She took out a large sheet of brown paper and placed it on the ground. Then she sought out a bit of rock weighing about two pounds. Then she took out the little parcel which contained the emerald ring, tied it up carefully along with the stone in the sheet of brown paper: finally, she rose up to her full height and heaved the whole into the sea. A splash down there, and that was all.
She clapped her hands with joy: "And now, my precious emerald ring, that's the last of you, I imagine! And there isn't much chance of a fish bringing you back, to make mischief with your ugly green stones."
Then she went home, and wrote this note:
"EGLOSILYAN, Monday.
DEAR MR. TRELYON: I have just thrown the emerald ring you gave Wenna into the sea, and she wears the other one now on her engaged finger, but she thinks I bought it. Did you ever hear of an old-fashioned rhyme that is this?—
Oh, green is forsaken,
And yellow's forsworn;
And blue is thesweetest
Color that's worn.
You can't tell what mischief that emerald ring might not have done. But the sapphires that Wenna is wearing now are perfectly beautiful; and Wenna is not so heartbroken that she isn't very proud of them. I never saw such a beautiful ring. Yours sincerely,
MABYN ROSEWARNE.
P.S.—Are you never coming back to Eglosilyan any more?"
So the days went by, and Mabyn waited with a secret hope to see what answer Mr. Roscorla would send to that letter of confession and contrition Wenna had written to him at Penzance. The letter had been written as an act of duty, and posted too; but there was no mail going out for ten days thereafter, so that a considerable time had to elapse before the answer came.
During that time Wenna went about her ordinary duties just as if there was no hidden fire of pain consuming her heart; there was no word spoken by her or to her of all that had recently occurred; her mother and sister were glad to see her so continuously busy. At first she shrank from going up to Trelyon Hall, and would rather have corresponded with Mrs. Trelyon about their joint work of charity, but she conquered the feeling, and went and saw the gentle lady, who perceived nothing altered or strange in her demeanor. At last the letter from Jamaica came; and Mabyn, having sent it up to her sister's room, waited for a few minutes, and then followed it. She was a little afraid, despite her belief in the virtues of the sapphire ring.
When she entered the room she uttered a slight cry of alarm and ran forward to her sister. Wenna was seated on a chair by the side of the bed, but she had thrown her arms out on the bed, her head was between them, and she was sobbing as if her heart would break.
"Wenna, what is the matter? what has he said to you?"
Mabyn's eyes were all afire now. Wenna would not answer. She would not even raise her head.
"Wenna, I want to see that letter."
"Oh no, no!" the girl moaned. "I deserve it: he says what is true. I want you to leave me alone, Mabyn: you—you can't do anything to help this."
But Mabyn had by this time perceived that her sister held in her hand, crumpled up, the letter which was the cause of this wild outburst of grief. She went forward and firmly took it out of the yielding fingers: then she turned to the light and read it. "Oh, if I were a man!" she said; and then the very passion of her indignation, finding no other vent, filled her eyes with proud and angry tears. She forgot to rejoice that her sister was now free. She only saw the cruel insult of those lines, and the fashion in which it had struck down its victim. "Wenna," she said hotly, "you ought to have more spirit. You don't mean to say you care for the opinion of a man who would write to any girl like that? You ought to be precious glad that he has shown himself in his true colors. Why, he never cared a bit for you—never!—or he would never turn at a moment's notice and insult you."
"I have deserved it all; it is every word of it true; he could not have written otherwise." That was all that Wenna would say between her sobs.
"Well," retorted Mabyn, "after all, I am glad he was angry. I did not think he had so much spirit. And if this is his opinion of you, I don't think it is worth heeding, only I hope he'll keep to it. Yes, I do. I hope he'll continue to think you everything that is wicked, and remain out in Jamaica. Wenna, you must not lie and cry like that. Come, get up, and look at the strawberries that Mr. Trewhella has sent you."
"Please, Mabyn, leave me alone, there's a good girl."
"I shall be up again in a few minutes, then: I want you to drive me over to St. Gwennis. Wenna, I must go over to St. Gwennis before lunch; and father won't let me have anybody to drive. Do you hear, Wenna?"
Then she went out and down into the kitchen, where she bothered Jennifer for a few minutes until she had got an iron heated at the fire. With this implement she carefully smoothed out the crumpled letter, and then she as carefully folded it, took it up stairs, and put it safely away in her own desk. She had just time to write a few lines:
"DEAR MR. TRELYON: Do you know what news I have got to tell you? Can you guess? The engagement between Mr. Roscorla and Wenna is broken off; and I have got in my possession the letter in which he sets her free. If you knew how glad I am! I should like to cry 'Hurrah! hurrah!' all through the streets of Eglosilyan; and I think every one else would do the same if only they knew. Of course she is very much grieved, for he has been most insulting. I cannot tell you the things he has said: you would kill him if you heard them. But she will come round very soon, I know: and then she will have her freedom again, and no more emerald rings, and letters all filled with arguments. Would you like to see her, Mr. Trelyon? But don't come yet—not for a long time: she would only get angry and obstinate. I'll tell you when to come; and in the mean time, you know, she is still wearing your ring, so that you need not be afraid. How glad I shall be to see you again! Yours most faithfully,
"MABYN ROSEWARNE."
She went down stairs quickly and put this letter in the letter-box. There was an air of triumph on her face. She had worked for this result—aided by the mysterious powers of Fate, whom she had conjured to serve her—and now the welcome end of her labors had arrived. She bade the hostler get out the dog-cart, as if she were the queen of Sheba going to visit Solomon. She went marching up to her sister's room, announcing her approach with a more than ordinarily accurate rendering of "Oh, the men of merry, merry England!" so that a stranger might have fancied that he heard the very voice of Harry Trelyon, with all its unmelodious vigor, ringing along the passage.
CHAPTER XXXII.
THE EXILE'S RETURN.
Perhaps you have been away in distant parts of the earth, each day crowded with new experiences and slowly obscuring the clear pictures of England with which you left: perhaps you have only been hidden away in London, amid its ceaseless noise, its strange faces, its monotonous recurrence of duties. Let us say, in any case, that you are returning home for a space to the quiet of Northern Cornwall.
You look out of the high window of a Plymouth hotel early in the morning. There is a promise of a beautiful autumn day—a ring of pink mist lies around the horizon; overhead the sky is clear and blue; the white sickle of the moon still lingers visible. The new warmth of the day begins to melt the hoarfrost in the meadows, and you know that out beyond the town the sun is shining brilliantly on the wet grass, with the brown cattle gleaming red in the light.
You leave the great world behind, with all its bustle, crowds and express engines, when you get into the quiet little train that takes you leisurely up to Launceston, through woods, by the sides of rivers, over great valleys. There is a sense of repose about this railway journey. The train stops at any number of small stations—apparently to let the guard have a chat with the station-master—and then jogs on in a quiet, contented fashion. And on such an autumn day as this, that is a beautiful, still, rich-colored and English-looking country through which it passes. Here is a deep valley, all glittering with the dew and the sunlight. Down in the hollow a farmyard is half hidden behind the yellowing elms; a boy is driving a flock of white geese along the twisting road; the hedges are red with the withering briers. Up here, along the hillsides, the woods of scrub-oak are glowing with every imaginable hue of gold, crimson and bronze, except where a few dark firs appear, or where a tuft of broom, pure and bright in its green, stands out among the faded brackens. The gorse is profusely in bloom: it always is in Cornwall. Still farther over there are sheep visible on the uplands; beyond these, again, the bleak brown moors rise into peaks of hills; overhead the silent blue, and all around the sweet, fresh country air.
With a sharp whistle the small train darts into an opening in the hills: here we are in the twilight of a great wood. The tall trees are becoming bare; the ground is red with the fallen leaves; through the branches the blue-winged jay flies, screaming harshly; you can smell the damp and resinous odors of the ferns. Out again we get into the sunlight! and lo! a rushing, brawling, narrow stream, its clear flood swaying this way and that by the big stones; a wall of rock overhead crowned by glowing furze; a herd of red cattle sent scampering through the bright-green grass. Now we get slowly into a small white station, and catch a glimpse of a tiny town over in the valley: again we go on by wood and valley, by rocks and streams and farms. It is a pleasant drive on such a morning.
In one of the carriages in this train Master Harry Trelyon and his grandmother were seated. How he had ever persuaded her to go with him to Cornwall by train was mysterious enough, for the old lady thoroughly hated all such modern devices. It was her custom to go traveling all over the country with a big, old-fashioned phaeton and a pair of horses; and her chief amusement during these long excursions was driving up to any big house she took a fancy to, in order to see if there was a chance of its being let to her. The faithful old servant who attended her, and who was about as old as the coachman, had a great respect for his mistress, but sometimes he swore—inaudibly—when she ordered him to make the usual inquiry at the front-door of some noble lord's country residence, which he would as soon have thought of letting as of forfeiting his seat in the House of Peers or his hopes of heaven. But the carriage and horses were coming down, all the same, to Eglosilyan, to take her back again.
"Harry," she was saying at this moment, "the longer I look at you, the more positive I am that you are ill. I don't like your color: you are thin and careworn and anxious. What is the matter with you?"
"Going to school again at twenty-one is hard work, grandmother," he said. "Don't you try it. But I don't think I'm particularly ill: few folks can keep a complexion like yours, grandmother."
"Yes," said the old lady, rather pleased, "many's the time they said that about me, that there wasn't much to complain of in my looks; and that's what a girl thinks of then, and sweethearts and balls, and all the other men looking savage when she's dancing with any one of them. Well, well, Harry; and what is all this about you and the young lady your mother has made such a pet of? Oh yes, I have my suspicions; and she's engaged to another man, isn't she? Your grandfather would have fought him, I'll be bound; but we live in a peaceable way now. Well, well, no matter; but hasn't that got something to do with your glum looks, Harry?"
"I tell you, grandmother, I have been hard at work in London. You can't look very brilliant after a few months in London."
"And what keeps you in London at this time of the year?" said this plain-spoken old lady. "Your fancy about getting into the army? Nonsense, man! don't tell me such a tale as that. There's a woman in the case: a Trelyon never puts himself so much about from any other cause. To stop in town at this time of the year! Why, your grandfather, and your father too, would have laughed to hear of it. I haven't had a brace of birds or a pheasant sent me since last autumn—not one. Come, sir, be frank with me. I'm an old woman, but I can hold my tongue."
"There's nothing to tell, grandmother," he said. "You just about hit it in that guess of yours: I suppose Juliott told you. Well, the girl is engaged to another man: what more is to be said?"
"The man's in Jamaica?"
"Yes."
"Why are you going down to-day?"
"Only for a brief visit: I've been a long time away."
The old lady sat silent for some time. She had heard of the whole affair before, but she wished to have the rumor confirmed. And at first she was sorely troubled that her grandson should contemplate marrying the daughter of an innkeeper, however intelligent, amiable and well-educated the young lady might be; but she knew the Trelyons pretty well, and knew that if he had made up his mind to it, argument and remonstrance would be useless. Moreover, she had a great affection for this young man, and was strongly disposed to sympathize with any wish of his. She grew in time to have a great interest in Miss Wenna Rosewarne: at this moment the chief object of her visit was to make her acquaintance. She grew to pity young Trelyon in his disappointment, and was inclined to believe that the person in Jamaica was something of a public enemy. The fact was, her mere sympathy for her grandson would have converted her to a sympathy with the wildest project he could have formed.
"Dear! dear!" she said, "what awkward things engagements are when they stand in your way! Shall I tell you the truth? I was just about as good as engaged to John Cholmondeley when I gave myself up to your grandfather. But there! when a girl's heart pulls her one way, and her promise pulls her another way, she needs to be a very firm-minded young woman if she means to hold fast. John Cholmondeley was as good-hearted a young fellow as ever lived—yes, I will say that for him—and I was mightily sorry for him; but—but you see, that's how things come about. Dear! dear! that evening at Bath—I remember it as well as if it was yesterday; and it was only two months after I had run away with your grandfather. Yes, there was a ball that night; and we had kept very quiet, you know, after coming back; but this time your grandfather had set his heart on taking me out before everybody, and you know he had to have his way. As sure as I live, Harry, the first man I saw was John Cholmondeley—just as white as a ghost: they said he had been drinking hard and gambling pretty nearly the whole of these two months. He wouldn't come near me: he wouldn't take the least notice of me. The whole night he pretended to be vastly gay and merry: he danced with everybody, but his eyes never came near me. Well—you know what a girl is—that vexed me a little bit; for there never was a man such a slave to a woman as he was to me. Dear! dear! the way my father used to laugh at him, until he got wild with anger! Well, I went up to him at last, when he was by himself, and I said to him, just in a careless way, you know, 'John, aren't you going to dance with me to-night?' Well, do you know, his face got quite white again; and he said—I remember the very words, all as cold as ice—'Madam,' says he, 'I am glad to find that your hurried trip to Scotland has impaired neither your good looks nor your self-command.' Wasn't it cruel of him?—but then, poor fellow! he had been badly used, I admit that. Poor young fellow! he never did marry; and I don't believe he ever forgot me to his dying day. Many a time I'd like to have told him all about it, and how there was no use in my marrying him if I liked another man better; but though we met sometimes, and especially when he came down about the Reform Bill time—and I do believe I made a red-hot radical of him—he was always very proud, and I hadn't the heart to go back on the old story. But I'll tell you what your grandfather did for him: he got him returned at the very next election, and he on the other side, too; and after a bit a man begins to think more about getting a seat in Parliament than about courting an empty-headed girl. I have met this Mr. Roscorla, haven't I?"
"Of course you have."
"A good-looking man rather, with a fresh complexion and gray hair?"
"I don't know what you mean by good looks," said Trelyon shortly. "I shouldn't think people would call him an Adonis. But there's no accounting for tastes."
"Perhaps I may have been mistaken," the old lady said, "but there was a gentleman at Plymouth Station who seemed to be something like what I can recall of Mr. Roscorla: you didn't see him, I suppose?"
"At Plymouth Station, grandmother?" the young man said, becoming rather uneasy.
"Yes. He got into the train just as we came up. A neatly-dressed man, gray hair and a healthy-looking face. I must have seen him somewhere about here before."
"Roscorla is in Jamaica," said Trelyon positively.
Just at this moment the train slowed into Launceston Station, and the people began to get out on the platform.
"That is the man I mean," said the old lady.
Trelyon turned and stared. There, sure enough, was Mr. Roscorla, looking not one whit different from the precise, elderly, fresh-colored gentleman who had left Cornwall some seven months before.
"Good Lord, Harry!" said the old lady nervously, looking at her grandson's face, "don't have a fight here."
The next second Mr. Roscorla wheeled round, anxious about some luggage, and now it was his turn to stare in astonishment and anger—anger, because he had been told that Harry Trelyon never came near Cornwall, and his first sudden suspicion was that he had been deceived. All this had happened in a minute. Trelyon was the first to regain his self-command. He walked deliberately forward, held out his hand, and said, "Hillo, Roscorla! back in England again? I didn't know you were coming."
"No," said Mr. Roscorla, with his face grown just a trifle grayer—"no, I suppose not."
In point of fact, he had not informed any one of his coming. He had prepared a little surprise. The chief motive of his return was to get Wenna to cancel for ever that unlucky letter of release he had sent her, which he had done more or less successfully in subsequent correspondence; but he had also hoped to introduce a little romanticism into his meeting with her. He would enter Eglosilyan on foot. He would wander down to the rocks at the mouth of the harbor on the chance of finding Wenna there. Might he not hear her humming to herself, as she sat and sewed, some snatch of "Your Polly has never been false, she declares"? or was that the very last ballad in the world she would now think of singing? Then the delight of regarding again the placid, bright face and earnest eyes, of securing once more a perfect understanding between them, and their glad return to the inn!
All this had been spoiled by the appearance of this young man: he loved him none the more for that.
"I suppose you haven't got a trap waiting for you?" said Trelyon with cold politeness. "I can drive you over if you like."
He could do no less than make the offer: the other had no alternative but to accept. Old Mrs. Trelyon heard this compact made with considerable dread.
Indeed, it was a dismal drive over to Eglosilyan, bright as the forenoon was. The old lady did her best to be courteous to Mr. Roscorla and cheerful with her grandson, but she was oppressed by the belief that it was only her presence that had so far restrained the two men from giving vent to the rage and jealousy that filled their hearts.
The conversation kept up was singular.
"Are you going to remain in England long, Roscorla?" said the younger of the two men, making an unnecessary cut at one of the two horses he was driving.
"Don't know yet. Perhaps I may."
"Because," said Trelyon with angry impertinence, "I suppose if you do, you'll have to look round for a housekeeper."
The insinuation was felt; and Roscorla's eyes looked anything but pleasant as he answered, "You forget I've got Mrs. Cornish to look after my house."
"Oh, Mrs. Cornish is not much of a companion for you."
"Men seldom want to make companions of their housekeepers," was the retort, uttered rather hotly.
"But sometimes they wish to have the two offices combined, for economy's sake."
At this juncture Mrs. Trelyon struck in, somewhat wildly, with a remark about an old ruined house which seemed to have had at one time a private still inside: the danger was staved off for the moment. "Harry," she said, "mind what you are about: the horses seem very fresh."
"Yes, they like a good run: I suspect they've had precious little to do since I left Cornwall."
Did she fear that the young man was determined to throw them into a ditch or down a precipice, with the wild desire of killing his rival at any cost? If she had known the whole state of affairs between them—the story of the emerald ring, for example—she would have understood at least the difficulty experienced by these two men in remaining decently civil toward each other.
So they passed over the high and wide moors until far ahead they caught a glimpse of the blue plain of the sea. Mr. Roscorla relapsed into silence: he was becoming a trifle nervous. He was probably so occupied with anticipations of his meeting with Wenna that he failed to notice the objects around him; and one of these, now become visible, was a very handsome young lady, who was coming smartly along a wooded lane, carrying a basket of bright-colored flowers.
"Why, here's Mabyn Rosewarne! I must wait for her."
Mabyn had seen at a distance Mrs. Trelyon's gray horses: she guessed that the young master had come back, and that he had brought some strangers with him. She did not like to be stared at by strangers. She came along the path with her eyes fixed on the ground: she thought it impertinent of Harry Trelyon to wait to speak to her.
"Oh, Mabyn," he cried, "you must let me drive you home. And let me introduce you to my grandmother. There is some one else whom you know."
The young lady bowed to Mrs. Trelyon; then she stared and changed color somewhat when she saw Mr. Roscorla; then she was helped up into a seat.
"How do you do, Mr. Trelyon?" she said. "I am very glad to see you have come back.—How do you do, Mr. Roscorla?"
She shook hands with them both, but not quite in the same fashion.
"And you have sent no message that you were coming?" she said, looking her companion straight in the face.
"No—no, I did not," he said, angry and embarrassed by the open enmity of the girl. "I thought I should surprise you all."
"You have surprised me, any way," said Mabyn, "for how can you be so thoughtless? Wenna has been very ill—I tell you she has been very ill indeed, though she has said little about it—and the least thing upsets her. How can you think of frightening her so? Do you know what you are doing? I wish you would go away back to Launceston or London, and write her a note there, if you are coming, instead of trying to frighten her."
This was the language, it appeared to Mr. Roscorla, of a virago; only, viragoes do not ordinarily have tears in their eyes, as was the case with Mabyn when she finished her indignant appeal.
"Mr. Trelyon, do you think it is fair to go and frighten Wenna so?" she demanded.
"It is none of my business," Trelyon answered with an air as if he had said to his rival, "Yes, go and kill the girl. You are a nice sort of gentleman, to come down from London to kill the girl!"
"This is absurd," said Mr. Roscorla contemptuously, for he was stung into reprisal by the persecution of these two: "a girl isn't so easily frightened out of her wits. Why, she must have known that my coming home was at any time probable."
"I have no doubt she feared that it was," said Mabyn, partly to herself: for once she was afraid of speaking out. Presently, however, a brighter light came over the girl's face. "Why, I quite forgot," she said, addressing Harry Trelyon—"I quite forgot that Wenna was just going up to Trelyon Hall when I left. Of course she will be up there. You will be able to tell her that Mr. Roscorla has arrived, won't you?"
The malice of this suggestion was so apparent that the young gentleman in front could not help grinning at it: fortunately, his face could not be seen by his rival. What he thought of the whole arrangement can only be imagined. And so, as it happened, Mr. Roscorla and his friend Mabyn were dropped at the inn, while Harry Trelyon drove his grandmother up and on to the Hall.
"Well, Harry," the old lady said, "I am glad to be able to breathe at last: I thought you two were going to kill each other."
"There is no fear of that," the young man said: "that is not the way in which this affair has to be settled. It is entirely a matter for her decision; and look how everything is in his favor. I am not even allowed to say a word to her; and even if I could, he is a deal cleverer than me in argument. He would argue my head off in half an hour."
"But you don't turn a girl's heart round by argument, Harry. When a girl has to choose between a young lover and an elderly one, it isn't always good sense that directs her choice. Is Miss Wenna Rosewarne at all like her sister?"
"She's not such a tomboy," he said, "but she is quite as straightforward and proud, and quick to tell you what is the right thing to do. There's no sort of shamming tolerated by these two girls. But then Wenna is gentler and quieter, and more soft and lovable, than Mabyn—in my fancy, you know; and she is more humorous and clever, so that she never gets into those school-girl rages. But it is really a shame to compare them like that; and, indeed, if any one said the least thing against one of these girls, the other would precious soon make him regret the day he was born. You don't catch me doing that with either of them. I've had a warning already when I hinted that Mabyn might probably manage to keep her husband in good order. And so she would, I believe, if the husband were not of the right sort; but when she is really fond of anybody, she becomes their slave out and out. There is nothing she wouldn't do for her sister; and her sister thinks there's nobody in the world like Mabyn. So you see—"
He stopped in the middle of this sentence.
"Grandmother," he said, almost in a whisper, "here she is coming along the road."
"Miss Rosewarne?"
"Yes: shall I introduce you?"
"If you like."
Wenna was coming down the steep road between the high hedges with a small girl on each side of her, whom she was leading by the hand. She was gayly talking to them: you could hear the children laughing at what she said. Old Mrs. Trelyon came to the conclusion that this merry young lady, with the light and free step, the careless talk and fresh color in her face, was certainly not dying of any love-affair.
"Take the reins, grandmother, for a minute."
He had leapt down into the road, and was standing before her almost ere she had time to recognize him. For a moment a quick gleam of gladness shone on her face: then, almost instinctively, she seemed to shrink from him, and she was reserved, distant, and formal.
He introduced her to the old lady, who said something nice to her about her sister. The young man was looking wistfully at her, troubled at heart that she treated him so coldly.
"I have got to break some news to you," he said: "perhaps you will consider it good news."
She looked up quickly.
"Nothing has happened to anybody—only some one has arrived. Mr. Roscorla is at the inn."
She did not flinch. He was vexed with her that she showed no sign of fear or dislike. On the contrary, she quickly said that she must then go down to the inn; and she bade them both good-bye in a placid and ordinary way, while he drove off with dark thoughts crowding into his imagination of what might happen down at the inn during the next few days. He was angry with her, he scarcely knew why.
Meanwhile Wenna, apparently quite calm, went on down the road, but there was no more laughing in her voice, no more light in her face.
"Miss Wenna," said the smaller of the two children, who could not understand this change, and who looked up with big, wondering eyes, "why does oo tremble so?"
[TO BE CONTINUED.]