MOUNT ROYAL
A Novel
BY THE AUTHOR OF "LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET" ETC. ETC. ETC.
In Three Volumes
VOL. III.
LONDON
JOHN AND ROBERT MAXWELL
MILTON HOUSE, SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET
1882
[_All rights reserved_]
Ballantyne Press
BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO., EDINBURGH
CHANDOS STREET, LONDON
CONTENTS TO VOL. III.
CHAP. PAGE
I. "WITH SUCH REMORSELESS SPEED STILL COME NEW WOES" 1
II. "YOURS ON MONDAY, GOD'S TO-DAY" 26
III. DUEL OR MURDER? 43
IV. "DUST TO DUST" 57
V. "PAIN FOR THY GIRDLE, AND SORROW UPON THY HEAD" 81
VI. "I WILL HAVE NO MERCY ON HIM" 91
VII. "GAI DONC, LA VOYAGEUSE, AU COUP DU PÈLERIN!" 129
VIII. "TIME TURNS THE OLD DAYS TO DERISION" 143
IX. "THOU SHOULDST COME LIKE A FURY CROWNED WITH
SNAKES" 172
X. "HIS LADY SMILES; DELIGHT IS IN HER FACE" 189
XI. "LOVE BORE SUCH BITTER AND DEADLY FRUIT" 223
XII. "SHE STOOD UP IN BITTER CASE, WITH A PALE YET
STEADY FACE" 257
XIII. WE HAVE DONE WITH TEARS AND TREASONS 301
MOUNT ROYAL.
CHAPTER I.
"WITH SUCH REMORSELESS SPEED STILL COME NEW WOES."
The next morning was damp, and grey, and mild, no autumn wind stirring
the long sweeping branches of the cedars on the lawn, the dead leaves
falling silently, the world all sad and solemn, clad in universal
greyness. Christabel was up early, with her boy, in the
nursery--watching him as he splashed about his bath, and emerged rosy
and joyous, like an infant river-god sporting among the rushes; early at
family prayers in the dining room, a ceremony at which Mr. Tregonell
rarely assisted, and to which Dopsy and Mopsy came flushed and
breathless with hurry, anxious to pay all due respect to a hostess whom
they hoped to visit again, but inwardly revolting against the
unreasonableness of eight-o'clock prayers.
Angus, who was generally about the gardens before eight, did not appear
at all this morning. The other men were habitually late--breakfasting
together in a free-and-easy manner when the ladies had left the
dining-room--so Christabel, Miss Bridgeman, and the Miss Vandeleurs sat
down to breakfast alone, Dopsy giving little furtive glances at the door
every now and then, expectant of Mr. Hamleigh's entrance.
That expectancy became too painful for the damsel's patience, by-and-by,
as the meal advanced.
"I wonder what has become of Mr. Hamleigh," she said. "This is the first
time he has been late at breakfast."
"Perhaps he is seeing to the packing of his portmanteau," said Miss
Bridgeman. "Some valets are bad packers, and want superintendence."
"Packing!" cried Dopsy, aghast. "Packing! What for?"
"He is going to London this afternoon. Didn't you know?"
Dopsy grew pale as ashes. The shock was evidently terrible, and even
Jessie pitied her.
"Poor silly Dop," she thought. "Could she actually suppose that she
stood the faintest chance of bringing down her bird?"
"Going away? For good?" murmured Miss Vandeleur faintly--all the flavour
gone out of the dried salmon, the Cornish butter, the sweet home-baked
bread.
"I hope so. He is going to the South of France for the winter. Of
course, you know that he is consumptive, and has not many years to
live," answered Miss Bridgeman.
"Poor fellow!" sighed Dopsy, with tears glittering upon her lowered
eyelids.
She had begun the chase moved chiefly by sordid instincts; her tenderest
emotions had been hacked and vulgarized by long experience in
flirtation--but at this moment she believed that never in her life had
she loved before, and that never in her life could she love again.
"And if he dies unmarried what will become of his property?" inquired
Mopsy, whose feelings were not engaged.
"I haven't the faintest idea," answered Miss Bridgeman. "He has no near
relations. I hope he will leave his money to some charitable
institution."
"What time does he go?" faltered Dopsy, swallowing her tears.
"Mr. Hamleigh left an hour ago, Madam," said the butler, who had been
carving at the side-board during this conversation. "He has gone
shooting. The dog-cart is to pick him up at the gate leading to St.
Nectan's Kieve at eleven o'clock."
"Gone shooting on his last morning at Mount Royal!" exclaimed Jessie.
"That's a new development of Mr. Hamleigh's character. I never knew he
had a passion for sport."
"I believe there is a note for you, ma'am," said the butler to his
mistress.
He went out into the hall, and returned in a minute or two carrying a
letter upon his official salver, and handing it with official solemnity
to Mrs. Tregonell.
The letter-was brief and commonplace enough--
"DEAR MRS. TREGONELL,--
"After all I am deprived of the opportunity of wishing you good-by
this morning, by the temptation of two or three hours' woodcock
shooting about St. Nectan's Kieve. I shall drive straight from
there to Launceston in Mr. Tregonell's dog-cart, for the use of
which I beg to thank him in advance. I have already thanked you and
Miss Bridgeman for your goodness to me during my late visit to
Mount Royal, and can only say that my gratitude lies much deeper,
and means a great deal more, than such expressions of thankfulness
are generally intended to convey.
"Ever sincerely yours,
"ANGUS HAMLEIGH."
"Then this was what Leonard and he were settling last night," thought
Christabel. "Your master went out with Mr. Hamleigh, I suppose," she
said to the servant.
"No, ma'am, my master is in his study. I took him his breakfast an hour
ago. He is writing letters, I believe."
"And the other two gentlemen?"
"Started for Bodmin in the wagonette at six o'clock this morning."
"They are going to see that unhappy man hanged," said Miss Bridgeman.
"Congenial occupation. Mr. Montagu told me all about it at dinner
yesterday, and asked me if I wasn't sorry that my sex prevented my
joining the party. 'It would be a new sensation,' he said, 'and to a
woman of your intelligence that must be an immense attraction.' I told
him I had no hankering after new sensations of that kind."
"And he is really gone--without saying good-by to any of us," said
Dopsy, still harping on the departed guest.
"Yes, he is really gone," echoed Jessie, with a sigh.
Christabel had been silent and absent-minded throughout the meal. Her
mind was troubled--she scarcely knew why; disturbed by the memory of her
husband's manner as he parted with Angus in the corridor; disturbed by
the strangeness of this lonely expedition after woodcock, in a man who
had always shown himself indifferent to sport. As usual with her when
she was out of spirits, she went straight to the nursery for comfort,
and tried to forget everything in life except that Heaven had given her
a son whom she adored.
Her boy upon this particular morning was a little more fascinating and a
shade more exacting than usual; the rain, soft and gentle as it
was--rather an all-pervading moisture than a positive rainfall--forbade
any open-air exercise for this tenderly reared young person--so he had
to be amused indoors. He was just of an age to be played with, and to
understand certain games which called upon the exercise of a dawning
imagination; so it was his mother's delight to ramble with him in an
imaginary wood, and to fly from imaginary wolves, lurking in dark
caverns, represented by the obscure regions underneath a table-cover--or
to repose with him on imaginary mountain-tops on the sofa--or be
engulfed with him in sofa pillows, which stood for whelming waves. Then
there were pictures to be looked at, and little Leo had to be lovingly
instructed in the art of turning over a leaf without tearing it from end
to end--and the necessity for restraining an inclination to thrust all
his fingers into his mouth between whiles, and sprawl them admiringly on
the page afterwards.
Time so beguiled, even on the dullest morning, and with a lurking,
indefinite sense of trouble in her mind all the while, went rapidly with
Christabel. She looked up with surprise when the stable clock struck
eleven.
"So late? Do you know if the dog-cart has started yet, Carson?"
"Yes, ma'am, I heard it drive out of the yard half an hour ago,"
answered the nurse, looking up from her needlework.
"Well, I must go. Good-by, Baby. I think, if you are very good, you
might have your dinner with mamma. Din-din--with--mum--mum--mum"--a kiss
between every nonsense syllable. "You can bring him down, nurse. I shall
have only the ladies with me at luncheon." There were still further
leave-takings, and then Christabel went downstairs. On her way past her
husband's study she saw the door standing ajar.
"Are you there, Leonard, and alone?"
"Yes."
She went in. He was sitting at his desk--his cheque-book open,
tradesmen's accounts spread out before him--all the signs and tokens of
business-like occupation. It was not often that Mr. Tregonell spent a
morning in his study. When he did, it meant a general settlement of
accounts, and usually resulted in a surly frame of mind, which lasted,
more or less, for the rest of the day.
"Did you know that Mr. Hamleigh had gone woodcock shooting?"
"Naturally, since it was I who suggested that he should have a shy at
the birds before he left," answered Leonard, without looking up.
He was filling in a cheque, with his head bent over the table.
"How strange for him to go alone, in his weak health, and with a
fatiguing journey before him."
"What's the fatigue of lolling in a railway carriage? Confound it,
you've made me spoil the cheque!" muttered Leonard, tearing the oblong
slip of coloured paper across and across, impatiently.
"How your hand shakes! Have you been writing all the morning?"
"Yes--all the morning," absently, turning over the leaves of his
cheque-book.
"But you have been out--your boots are all over mud."
"Yes, I meant to have an hour or so at the birds. I got as far as
Willapark, and then remembered that Clayton wanted the money for the
tradesmen to-day. One must stick to one's pay-day, don't you know, when
one has made a rule."
"Of course. Oh, there are the new Quarterlies!" said Christabel, seeing
a package on the table. "Do you mind my opening them here?"
"No; as long as you hold your tongue, and don't disturb me when I'm at
figures."
This was not a very gracious permission to remain, but Christabel seated
herself quietly by the fire, and began to explore the two treasuries of
wisdom which the day's post had brought. Leonard's study looked into the
stable-yard, a spacious quadrangle, with long ranges of doors and
windows, saddle rooms, harness rooms, loose boxes, coachmen's and
groom's quarters--a little colony complete in itself. From his open
window the Squire could give his orders, interrogate his coachman as to
his consumption of forage, have an ailing horse paraded before him,
bully an underling, and bestow praise or blame all round, as it suited
his humour. Here, too, were the kennels of the dogs, whose company Mr.
Tregonell liked a little better than that of his fellow-men.
Leonard sat with his head bent over the table, writing, Christabel in
her chair by the fire turning the leaves of her book in the rapture of a
first skimming. They sat thus for about an hour, and then both looked up
with a startled air, at the sound of wheels.
It was the dog-cart that was being driven into the yard, Mr. Hamleigh's
servant sitting behind, walled in by a portmanteau and a Gladstone bag.
Leonard opened the window, and looked out.
"What's up?" he asked "Has your master changed his mind?"
The valet alighted, and came across the yard to the window.
"We haven't seen Mr. Hamleigh, Sir. There must have been some mistake, I
think. We waited at the gate for nearly an hour, and then Baker said
we'd better come back, as we must have missed Mr. Hamleigh, somehow, and
he might be here waiting for us to take him to Launceston."
"Baker's a fool. How could you miss him if he went to the Kieve? There's
only one way out of that place--or only one way that Mr. Hamleigh could
find. Did you inquire if he went to the Kieve?"
"Yes, Sir. Baker went into the farmhouse, and they told him that a
gentleman had come with his gun and a dog, and had asked for the key,
and had gone to the Kieve alone. They were not certain as to whether
he'd come back or not, but he hadn't taken the key back to the house. He
might have put it into his pocket, and forgotten all about it, don't you
see, Sir, after he'd let himself out of the gate. That's what Baker
said; and he might have come back here."
"Perhaps he has come back," answered Leonard, carelessly. "You'd better
inquire."
"I don't think he can have returned," said Christabel, standing near the
window, very pale.
"How do you know?" asked Leonard, savagely. "You've been sitting here
for the last hour poring over that book."
"I think I should have heard--I think I should have known," faltered
Christabel, with her heart beating strangely.
There was a mystery in the return of the carriage which seemed like the
beginning of woe and horror--like the ripening of that strange vague
sense of trouble which had oppressed her for the last few hours.
"You would have heard--you would have known," echoed her husband, with
brutal mockery--"by instinct, by second sight, by animal magnetism, I
suppose. You are just the sort of woman to believe in that kind of rot."
The valet had gone across the yard on his way round to the offices of
the house. Christabel made no reply to her husband's sneering speech,
but went straight to the hall, and rang for the butler.
"Have you--has any one seen Mr. Hamleigh come back to the house?" she
asked.
"No, ma'am."
"Inquire, if you please, of every one. Make quite sure that he has not
returned, and then let three or four men, with Nicholls at their head,
go down to St. Nectan's Kieve and look for him. I'm afraid there has
been an accident."
"I hope not, ma'am," answered the butler, who had known Christabel from
her babyhood, who had looked on, a pleased spectator, at Mr. Hamleigh's
wooing, and whose heart was melted with tenderest compassion to-day at
the sight of her pallid face, and eyes made large with terror. "It's a
dangerous kind of place for a stranger to go clambering about with a
gun, but not for one that knows every stone of it, as Mr. Hamleigh do."
"Send, and at once, please. I do not think Mr. Hamleigh, having arranged
for the dog-cart to meet him, would forget his appointment."
"There's no knowing, ma'am. Some gentlemen are so wrapt up in their
sport."
Christabel sat down in the hall, and waited while Daniel, the butler,
made his inquiries. No one had seen Mr. Hamleigh come in, and everybody
was ready to aver on oath if necessary that he had not returned. So
Nicholls, the chief coachman, a man of gumption and of much renown in
the household, as a person whose natural sharpness had been improved by
the large responsibilities involved in a well-filled stable, was brought
to receive his orders from Mrs. Tregonell. Daniel admired the calm
gravity with which she gave the man his instructions, despite her
colourless cheek and the look of pain in every feature of her face.
"You will take two or three of the stablemen with you, and go as fast as
you can to the Kieve. You had better go in the light cart, and it would
be as well to take a mattress, and some pillows. If--if there should
have been an accident those might be useful. Mr. Hamleigh left the house
early this morning with his gun to go to the Kieve, and he was to have
met the dog-cart at eleven. Baker waited at the gate till twelve--but
perhaps you have heard."
"Yes, ma'am, Baker told me. It's strange--but Mr. Hamleigh may have
overlooked the time if he had good sport. Do you know which of the dogs
he took with him?"
"No. Why do you ask?"
"Because I rather thought it was Sambo. Sambo was always a favourite of
Mr. Hamleigh's, though he's getting rather too old for his work now. If
it was Sambo the dog must have run away and left him, for he was back
about the yard before ten o'clock. He'd been hurt somehow, for there was
blood upon one of his feet. Master had the red setter with him this
morning, when he went for his stroll, but I believe it must have been
Sambo that Mr. Hamleigh took. There was only one of the lads about the
yard when he left, for it was breakfast time, and the little guffin
didn't notice."
"But if all the other dogs are in their kennels--"
"They aren't, ma'am, don't you see. The two gentlemen took a couple of
'em to Bodmin in the break--and I don't know which. Sambo may have been
with them--and may have got tired of it and come home. He's not a dog to
appreciate that kind of thing."
"Go at once, if you please, Nicholls. You know what to do."
"Yes, ma'am."
Nicholls went his way, and the gong began to sound for luncheon. Mr.
Tregonell, who rarely honoured the family with his presence at the
mid-day meal, came out of his den to-day in answer to the summons, and
found his wife in the hall.
"I suppose you are coming in to luncheon," he said to her, in an angry
aside. "You need not look so scared. Your old lover is safe enough, I
daresay."
"I am not coming to luncheon," she answered, looking at him with pale
contempt. "If you are not a little more careful of your words I may
never break bread with you again."
The gong went on with its discordant clamour, and Jessie Bridgeman came
out of the drawing-room with the younger Miss Vandeleur. Poor Dopsy was
shut in her own room, with a headache. She had been indulging herself
with the feminine luxury of a good cry. Disappointment, wounded vanity,
humiliation, and a very real _penchant_ for the man who had despised her
attractions were the mingled elements in her cup of woe.
The nurse came down the broad oak staircase, baby Leonard toddling by
her side, and making two laborious jumps at each shallow step--one
on--one off. Christabel met him, picked him up in her arms, and carried
him back to the nursery, where she ordered his dinner to be brought. He
was a little inclined to resist this change of plan at the first, but
was soon kissed into pleasantness, and then the nurse was despatched to
the servants' hall, and Christabel had her boy to herself, and
ministered to him and amused him for the space of an hour despite an
aching heart. Then, when the nurse came back, Mrs. Tregonell went to her
own room, and sat at the window watching the avenue by which the men
must drive back to the house.
They did not come back till just when the gloom of the sunless day was
deepening into starless night. Christabel ran down to the lobby that
opened into the stable yard, and stood in the doorway waiting for
Nicholls to come to her; but if he saw her, he pretended not to see her,
and went straight to the house by another way, and asked to speak to Mr.
Tregonell.
Christabel saw him hurry across the yard to that other door, and knew
that her fears were realized. Evil of some kind had befallen. She went
straight to her husband's study, certain that she would meet Nicholls
there.
Leonard was standing by the fireplace, listening, while Nicholls stood
a little way from the door, relating the result of his search, in a low
agitated voice.
"Was he quite dead when you found him?" asked Leonard, when the man
paused in his narration.
Christabel stood just within the doorway, half hidden in the obscurity
of the room, where there was no light but that of the low fire. The door
had been left ajar by Nicholls, and neither he nor his master was aware
of her presence.
"Yes, Sir. Dr. Blake said he must have been dead some hours."
"Had the gun burst?"
"No, Sir. It must have gone off somehow. Perhaps the trigger caught in
the hand-rail when he was crossing the wooden bridge--and yet that
seemed hardly possible--for he was lying on the big stone at the other
side of the bridge, with his face downwards close to the water."
"A horrible accident," said Leonard. "There'll be an inquest, of course.
Will Blake give the coroner notice--or must I?"
"Dr. Blake said he'd see to that, Sir."
"And he is lying at the farm----"
"Yes, Sir. We thought it was best to take the body there--rather than to
bring it home. It would have been such a shock for my mistress--and the
other ladies. Dr. Blake said the inquest would be held at the inn at
Trevena."
"Well," said Leonard, with a shrug and a sigh, "it's an awful business,
that's all that can be said about it. Lucky he has no wife or
children--no near relations to feel the blow. All we can do is to show
our respect for him, now he is gone. The body had better be brought home
here, after the inquest. It will look more respectful for him to be
buried from this house. Mrs. Tregonell's mind can be prepared by that
time."
"It is prepared already," said a low voice out of the shadow. "I have
heard all."
"Very sad, isn't it?" replied Leonard; "one of those unlucky accidents
which occur every shooting season. He was always a little awkward with a
gun--never handled one like a thoroughbred sportsman."
"Why did he go out shooting on the last morning of his visit?" asked
Christabel. "It was you who urged him to do it--you who planned the
whole thing."
"I! What nonsense you are talking. I told him there were plenty of birds
about the Kieve--just as I told the other fellows. That will do,
Nicholls. You did all that could be done. Go and get your dinner, but
first send a mounted groom to Trevena to ask Blake to come over here."
Nicholls bowed and retired, shutting the door behind him.
"He is dead, then," said Christabel, coming over to the hearth where her
husband was standing. "He has been killed."
"He has had the bad luck to kill himself, as many a better sportsman
than he has done before now," answered Leonard, roughly.
"If I could be sure of that, Leonard, if I could be sure that his death
was the work of accident--I should hardly grieve for him--knowing that
he was reconciled to the idea of death--and that if God had spared him
this sudden end, the close of his life must have been full of pain and
weariness."
Tears were streaming down her cheeks--tears which she made no effort to
restrain--such tears as friendship and affection give to the dead--tears
that had no taint of guilt. But Leonard's jealous soul was stung to fury
by those innocent tears.
"Why do you stand there snivelling about him," he exclaimed; "do you
want to remind me how fond you were of him--and how little you ever
cared for me. Do you suppose I am stone blind--do you suppose I don't
know you to the core of your heart?"
"If you know my heart you must know that it is as guiltless of sin
against you, and as true to my duty as a wife, as you, my husband, can
desire. But you must know that, or you would not have brought Angus
Hamleigh to this house."
"Perhaps I wanted to try you--to watch you and him together--to see if
the old fire was quite burnt out."
"You could not be so base--so contemptible."
"There is no knowing what a man may be when he is used as I have been
by you--looked down upon from the height of a superior intellect, a
loftier nature--told to keep his distance, as a piece of vulgar
clay--hardly fit to exist beside that fine porcelain vase, his wife. Do
you think it was a pleasant spectacle for me to see you and Angus
Hamleigh sympathizing and twaddling about Browning's last poem--or
sighing over a sonata of Beethoven's--I who was outside all that kind of
thing?--a boor--a dolt--to whom your fine sentiments and your flummery
were an unknown language. But I was only putting a case, just now. I
liked Hamleigh well enough--in his way--and I asked him here because I
thought it was giving a chance to the Vandeleur girls. That was my
motive--and my only motive."
"And he came--and he is dead," answered Christabel, in icy tones. "He
went to that lonely place this morning--at your instigation--and he met
his death there--no one knows how--no one ever will know."
"At my instigation?--confound it, Christabel--you have no right to say
such things. I told him it was a good place for woodcock--and it
pleased his fancy to try his luck there before he left. Lonely place, be
hanged. It is a place to which every tourist goes--it is as well known
as the road to this house."
"Yet he was lying there for hours and no one knew. If Nicholls had not
gone he might be lying there still. He may have lain there wounded--his
life-blood ebbing away--dying by inches--without help--without a
creature to succour or comfort him. It was a cruel place--a place where
no help could come."
"Fortune of war," answered Leonard, with a careless shrug. "A sportsman
must die where his shot finds him. There's many a day I might have
fallen in the Rockies, and lain there for the lynxes and the polecats to
pick my bones; and I have walked shoulder to shoulder with death on
mountain passes, when every step on the crumbling track might send me
sliding down to the bottomless pit below. As for poor Hamleigh; well, as
you say yourself, he was a doomed man--a little sooner or later could
not make much difference."
"Perhaps not," said Christabel, gloomily, going slowly to the door;
"but I want to know how he died."
"Let us hope the coroner's inquest will make your mind easy on that
point," retorted her husband as she left the room.