It was a gloomy evening, towards the autumn of the year 1676, and the driving blasts which swept from the sea upon Greville Cross, a dreary and exposed mansion on the coast of Lancashire, gave promise of a stormy night and added to the desolation which at all times pervaded its vast and comfortless apartments.
Greville Cross had formerly been a Benedictine Monastery, and had been bestowed at the Reformation, together with its rights of Forestry upon Sir Ralph de Greville, the ancestor of its present possessor. Although that part of the building containing the chapel and refectory had been long in ruins, the remainder of the gloomy quadrangle was strongly marked with the characteristics of its monastic origin. It had never been a favourite residence of the Greville family; who were possessed of two other magnificent seats, at one of which, Silsea Castle in Kent, the present Lord Greville constantly resided; and the Cross, usually so called from a large iron cross which stood in the centre of the court-yard, and to which thousand romantic legends were attached, had received few improvements from the modernizing hand of taste. Indeed as the faults of the edifice were those of solid construction, it would have been difficult to render it less gloomy or more convenient by any change that art could affect. Its massive walls and huge oaken beams would neither permit the enlargement of its narrow windows, nor the destruction of its maze of useless corridors; and it was therefore allowed to remain unmolested and unadorned; unless when an occasional visit from some member of the Greville family demanded an addition to its rude attempts of splendour and elegance. But it was difficult to convey the new-fangled luxuries of the capital to this remote spot; and the tapestry, whose faded hues and mouldering texture betrayed the influence of the sea air, had not yet given place to richer hangings. The suite of state apartments was cold and comfortless in the extreme, but one of the chambers had been recently decorated with more than usual cost, on the arrival of Lord and Lady Greville, the latter of whom had never before visited her Northern abode. Its dimensions, which were somewhat less vast than those of the rest of the suite, rendered it fitter for modern habits of life; and it had long ensured the preference of the ladies of the House of Greville, and obtained the name of “the lady's chamber,” by which it is even to this day distinguished. The walls were not incumbered by the portraits of those grim ancestors who frowned in mail, or smiled in fardingale on the walls of the adjacent galleries. The huge chimney had suffered some inhospitable contraction, and was surmounted with marble; and huge settees, glittering with gilding and satin, which in their turn would now be displaced by the hand of Gillow or Oakley, had dispossessed the tall straight ebony backed-chairs, which in the olden times must have inflicted martyrdom on the persons of our weary forefathers.
The present visit of Lord Greville to the Cross, was supposed to originate in the dangerous illness of an old and favourite female servant, who had held undisturbed control over the household since the death of the first Lady Greville about ten years before. She had been from her infancy attached to the family service, and having married a retainer of the house, had been nurse to Lord Greville, whom she still regarded with something of a maternal affection. Her husband had died the preceding year; equally lamented by the master whom he served, and the domestics whom he ruled; and his wife was now daily declining, and threatening to follow her aged partner to the grave. It was imagined by the other members of the establishment, that the old lady had written to her master, with whom she frequently corresponded, to entreat a personal interview, in order that she might resign her “Stewardship” into his hands before her final release from all earthly cares and anxieties; and in consideration of the length and importance of her services, none were surprised at the readiness with which her request was granted.
Lord Greville had never visited the North since the death of his first wife, a young and beautiful woman whom he had tenderly loved, and who died and was interred at Greville Cross. She left no children, and the heir, a fine boy in the full bloom of childhood and beauty, who now accompanied Lord Greville, was the sole offspring of his second marriage.
Helen, the present Lady Greville, was by birth a Percy; and although her predecessor had been celebrated at the Court of Charles, as one of the most distinguished beauties of her time, there were many who considered her eclipsed by the lovely and gentle being who now filled her place. She was considerably younger than her husband; but her attachment to him, and to her child, as well as her naturally domestic disposition, prevented the ill effects often resulting from disparity of years. Lord Greville, whose parents were zealous supporters of the royal cause, had himself shared the banishment of the second Charles; had fought by his side in his hour of peril, and shared the revelries of his court in his after days of prosperity. At an age when the judgement is rarely matured, unless by an untimely encounter with the dangers and adversities of the world, such as those disastrous times too often afforded, he had been employed with signal success in several foreign missions; and it was universally known that the monarch was ever prompt publicly to acknowledge the benefit he had on many occasions derived from the prudent counsels of his adherent, as well as from his valour in the field.
But notwithstanding the bond of union subsisting between them, from the period of his first marriage, which had taken place under the Royal auspices, Greville had retired to Silsea Castle; and resisting equally the invitations of his condescending master, and the entreaties of his former gay companions, he had never again joined the amusements of the court. Whether this retirement originated in some disgust occasioned by the licentious habits and insolent companions of Charles, whose present mode of life was peculiarly unfitted to the purer taste, and intellectual character of Lord Greville; or, whether it arose solely from his natural distaste for the parasitical existence of a courtier, was uncertain; but it was undeniable that he had faithfully followed the fortunes of the expatriate king, and even supplied his necessities from his own resources; and had only withdrawn his services when they were no longer required.
After the death of Lady Greville, his secluded habits seemed more than ever confirmed; but when he again became possessed of a bride, whose youth, beauty, and rank in society, appeared to demand an introduction to those pleasures which her age had hitherto prevented her from sharing; it was a matter of no small mortification to Lord and Lady Percy, to perceive that their son-in-law evinced no disposition to profit by the Royal favour, or to relinquish the solitude of Silsea, for the splendours of the Capital. But Helen shared not in their regrets. She had been educated in retirement; she knew but by report the licentious, but seductive gaieties of the Court of Charles, and she had not the slightest wish to increase her knowledge of such dangerous pleasures. Content with loving, and being beloved by a husband whom she regarded with profound veneration, her happiness was not disturbed by a restless search after new enjoyments; and her delighted parents soon forgot their disappointment in witnessing the contentment of their child.
For some years succeeding her marriage, they perceived no change in the state of her feelings, but at length the anxiety of parental love led them to form surmises, which renewed their former disapprobation of the conduct of Greville. During their frequent visits to Silsea, they observed that his love of study and retirement had deepened almost to moroseness; that his address, always cold and reserved, was becoming offensively distant; and that he was subject to fits of abstraction, and at other times to a peevish discontent, which materially threatened the happiness of their daughter. They also discovered that Helen, whose playful humour and gaiety of heart had been their solace and amusement, even from her infancy, was now pensive and dispirited. By degrees the bright expression of her countenance had lost all that becoming joyousness of youth, which had been its great attraction, and though still
“Sphered in the stillness of those heaven-blue eyes,
The soul sate beautiful,”
it was the soul of melancholy beauty.