‘It is just as if some clumsy delf pitcher were to pretend to be made of the same paste as Justina’s dragon china tea service,’ he said to himself.
He remembered how reticent Mr. Elgood had always been upon the subject of the past—how the little that he had even told had been told somewhat reluctantly, extorted, in a manner, by Maurice’s questioning. He remembered Mr. Elgood’s startled look when he, Maurice, had spoken for the first time of Borcel End.
‘I dare say, after all, the fancy is groundless,’ he said to himself, as he closed his pocket-book, ‘and that the circumstances which have impressed me so strongly could be explained in quite a different manner. A provincial actor’s wandering life may bring him to any corner of the earth and the name Justina may have been chosen out of some novel of the day by Mrs. Elgood. But since I have promised to do my uttermost to see Muriel Trevanard righted, I am bound to sift this matter thoroughly. And again, it would be hard if I were not allowed to investigate the pedigree of the woman I hope to win for my wife. The worst or the best that I can learn of my darling’s parentage will make no difference in my love for her true self.’
For three or four days after the funeral Maurice gave himself up almost entirely to friendship, and spent his time strolling about the farm with Martin, philosophizing, consoling, talking hopefully of the future, when the young man was to come to London, and carve out some kind of career for himself. But the last two days of his stay in Cornwall Mr. Clissold had apportioned to his own business. One day for a farewell visit to Penwyn Manor, another day for Seacomb, where he had certain inquiries and researches to make. He had arranged to leave Borcel the morning after his visit to the Manor House, and to spend the following night at an hotel in Seacomb. This would give him the whole of the day and evening in that somewhat melancholy town.
He had written to Mrs. Penwyn, gratefully acknowledging her kind invitation to make the Manor House his head-quarters, and explaining that his friendship for Martin obliged him to decline her hospitality. But in his heart of hearts there was another reason why he did not care to stay at Penwyn Manor, or increase his intimacy with Churchill Penwyn. Justina had expressed her antipathy to that gentleman, and Maurice felt as if it were in some manner treasonable to cultivate the friendship of any man whom Justina disliked. That large madness, Love, is a conglomeration of small follies.
Courtesy, however, demanded that he should pay his respects to the Penwyn family before leaving Cornwall, and he had a lurking curiosity about that household—a somewhat morbid interest, perhaps, with which Justina’s vague suspicions, far as they were from any thought of his own, may have had something to do.
That change in Madge Penwyn—hardly to be described, yet, to his eye, very palpable—had puzzled him not a little. Was it possible that the husband and wife, so devoted to each other a little while ago, had undergone some change of feeling? that one or the other had looked back upon the sunlit path of love, and perceived that the rose-bloom was fading from life’s garden? No, Maurice could not for a moment believe in any lessening of Madge Penwyn’s love of her husband, or Churchill’s devotion to her. He had seen that ‘little look across the crowd’ which the poet has sung of—the look of utter trust and sympathy which passes between a husband and wife now and then in some busy hour of the day, amidst some friendly circle, a sudden interchange of thought or feeling, stolen from the throng. And in Madge’s case he had seen a look of devotion curiously pathetic, love fraught with pity—a look of deepest melancholy. This dwelt in his memory, and influenced his thoughts of Churchill Penwyn and his wife. There was some hitch; some dissonant interval in the harmony of their lives; yet what the jarring notes could be it was hard for the student of humanity to discover. No life could seem outwardly more perfect. Churchill’s position was of all positions most enviable. Just sufficient wealth for all the joys of life; an estate large enough to give him importance in his neighbourhood, without the weighty responsibility of a large landowner ambition gratified by his parliamentary success; the fairest wife that man could desire to adorn his home. And yet there were shadows on the face of husband and wife that denoted a secret trouble. In this house which held all things the skeleton was not wanting.
‘Can there be any ground for Justina’s suspicion?’ Maurice asked himself. ‘And is a clear conscience the one thing, missing in Churchill Penwyn’s sum of happiness?’