Here ends the diary kept half a century ago by the woman of twenty-two, who was once myself. Those of whom it treats, my mother, my husband, poor faithful Davies and the wretched villains of St. Salvat's, have long since ceased to live, and those for whose benefit I gather together these memories—my sons and daughters, were not yet born at the time this diary deals with.
In order to complete my story I can, therefore, seek only in my own solitary memory; and, standing all alone, look into that far away past which only my own eyes and heart are left to descry.
After the scene with which my diary closes, and when we could compare all that each of us knew of our strange situation, it appeared to my husband and me that we had everything to gain, and at all events nothing to lose (since we knew our lives in jeopardy) by a desperate attempt to escape from what was virtually our prison. Eustace had summed up our position when he had said that we were hostages in the hands of the uncles. For these villains, unconscious of any bonds of family honour, made sure that our escape would infallibly bring about the exposure of their infamous practices.
It appears that after the murder of my brother-in-law, whom the most violent of the gang had put to death on a mere threat of betrayal, the uncles had taken for granted that Eustace would accept some manner of pension as his brother had done, and like him, leave St. Salvat's in their undisputed possession. And they had been considerably nonplussed when my husband declared his intention of returning to Wales. The perception of the blunder they had committed in getting rid of my brother-in-law, made them follow the guidance of Hubert, who had opposed the murder of Sir Thomas, if not from humanity, at all events from prudence. It was Hubert's view that since Eustace refused to stay away, no difficulties should be put in the way of his coming, but on the contrary, that he be taken, so to speak, in a trap, and once at St. Salvat's, persuaded or compelled into becoming a passive, if not an active, accomplice. Hubert had therefore written so pressingly about the need of putting the property to rights, of making a new start at St. Salvat's, and of therefore bringing me and settling at once in the place, that Eustace had judged the rumours concerning the real trade of his kinsmen, and his own childish suspicions, to have been mere exaggeration, and imagined that the uncles, brought to order by so superior a man as Hubert, were perhaps even willing to abandon the dangerous business of smuggling which had been carried on almost avowedly during the lifetime of his father. Such was the trap laid by Hubert; and Eustace, partly from guilelessness and partly from a sense of duty to St. Salvat's, walked straight in, carrying me with him as an additional pledge to evil fortune. He was scarcely in, when the door, like the drawbridge which had risen after our entry into that frightful place, closed and showed him he was a prisoner. It was Hubert's plan to make use of our presence (which, moreover, put an end to his own isolation among those besotted villains) in order to remove whatever suspicions might exist in the outside world. The presence of a studious and gentlemanly owner, of a young wife and possible children, was to make people believe that a new leaf had been turned over at St. Salvat's, and that the old former pages of its history were not so shocking as evil reports had had it. So, during the first weeks after our arrival, and while the brothers were being coerced into an attempt at decent behaviour, Eustace was being importuned with every kind of plan which should draw him into further complicity, and compromise him along with the rest of the band. Hubert, being a clergyman, had since his elder brother's death, also been the chief magistrate of the district; and, shocking to relate, this wrecker and murderer had sat in judgment on poachers and footpads. Having made use of this position to silence any inclination to blab about St. Salvat's, he was apprehensive of this scandal getting to headquarters, and therefore desirous of putting in his place a man as clear of suspicion and as obviously just as Eustace, yet whom he imagined he could always coerce in all vital matters. But Eustace saw through this fine scheme at once, and resolutely refused to become a magistrate in Hubert's place. This was the first hint Hubert received that it was useless to seek an accomplice in his nephew; and this recognition speedily grew into a fear lest Eustace might become a positive danger, particularly if he ever learned for certain that Sir Thomas had not been murdered at Bristol, but at St. Salvat's. The situation was made more critical by the fact that on discovering what manner of place the castle really was, Eustace had declared with perfect simplicity, his intention of taking me back to my mother. It was then he had learned in as many words, that both he and I were prisoners, and that he, at all events, would never leave St. Salvat's alive. Thus the terrible months had been spent in gauging the depth of his miserable situation, in making and unmaking plans for my escape, for sending me away without letting me guess the real reason, all of which had been frustrated by my miscarriage and the long illness following upon it. And meanwhile, Eustace had had to endure the constant company of his gaoler Hubert, the wretch's occasional attempts to compromise him in the doings of the gang; and what was horridest of all, Hubert's very sincere pleasure in our presence and conversation, and his ceaseless attempts to strike up some kind of friendship.
Now, the discovery that I was aware of the frightful mysteries of the place, had entirely altered our position: first, because it was probable that the uncles now considered me as much of a danger as my husband, and therefore as an equally indispensable hostage; and secondly, because it was evident that I could no longer be induced to leave St. Salvat's by myself. Our only remaining hope was flight. But how elude the vigilance of our gaolers and overcome the obstacles they had built up around us? Day after day, and night after night, Eustace and I went over and over our possibilities; but they seemed to diminish, and difficulties to increase, the more we discussed them. The house and grounds were guarded, and our actions spied upon. We were cut off from the outer world, for we had long since understood that our letters, even when despatched, were intercepted and read by Hubert. But the worst difficulty almost was the lack of money. For some months past, Hubert had taken to doling it out only in trifling sums and on our asking for it, and he supplied our needs and even fancies with such lavishness, forestalling them in many instances, that a request for any considerable sum would have been tantamount to an intimation of our intended flight. Such were the external obstacles; I found, moreover, that there were other ones in the character and circumstances of my poor fellow prisoner. My husband's natural incapacity for planning active measures and taking sudden decisions, was not at all diminished, but the reverse, by his fear for my safety. And his indecision was aggravated by all manner of scruples; for he considered it cowardly to leave St. Salvat's in the undisputed possession of the villains who usurped it; and he wavered between a wish to punish the murder of his brother and that prejudice (which I had rightly divined) against exposing his kinsmen and his dead father to public infamy, however well earned by them.
This miserable state of doubt and fear was brought to a sudden close, as I vaguely expected it would, by a new move on the part of our adversaries. It was in the spring of 1774, and we had been at St. Salvat's about eighteen months, which felt much more like as many years. One evening after supper, as I sat in my room idly listening to the sound, now so terrible to me, of the sea on the rocks, I was suddenly aroused by the sound, no less frightful to my ears, of the brawling of the uncles below. I rose in alarm, for my apartments were completely isolated from the part of the house which they occupied, and for months past all the intermediate doors had been kept carefully closed by the tacit consent of both parties. The noise became greater; I could distinguish the drunken voices of Simon and Richard, and a sharp altercation between the other ones, and just as I had stepped, beyond my own door, I heard a horrid yell of curses, a scuffle, and the door opposite, which closed the main staircase, flew open, and what was my astonishment when my husband appeared, pushed forward, or rather hurled along by Hubert. The latter shouted to me to go back, and having thrust Eustace into my room, he disappeared as suddenly as he had come, slamming the doors after him. As he did so I heard the key click; he had locked us in.
My husband was in a shocking condition, his clothes torn half off him, his hair in disorder, and the blood dripping from his arm.
"Do not be frightened," he cried, "'tis merely a comedy of those filthy villains," and he showed me that his wound was merely a long scratch. "They want to frighten us," he added, "the drunken brutes wanted to force me through some beastly form of initiation into their gang. Faugh!" and he looked at his arm, which I was washing; "they did it with a broken bottle, the hogs! And as to Hubert, and his fine saving me from their clutches, that, I take it, was mere play-acting too, the most sickening part of the business, and meant only to give you a scare."
Eustace had thrown himself gloomily into a chair, and I had never seen him before with such a look of disgust and indignation. I was by no means as certain as he that no serious mischief had been intended, or that Hubert had not saved him from real danger. But that new look in him awoke a sudden hope in me, and I determined to strike while the iron was hot. "Eustace," I said very gravely as I bound a handkerchief round his arm, "if your impression is correct, this is almost the worst of our misery. Certainly no child of mine shall ever be born into such ignominy as this. It is high time we went. Better to die like decent folk than allow ourselves to be hacked about by these drunken brutes and pushed through doors by a theatrical villain like Hubert."