WILLSWORTHY.
The night of storm was succeeded by a fresh and sparkling morning. The
rain hung on every bush, twinkling in prismatic colours. There still
rose smoke from the moor, but the wind had shifted, and it now carried
the combined steam and smoke away to the east. The surface of Dartmoor
was black, as though bruised all over its skin of fine turf. Hardly any
gorse bushes were left, and the fire had for more than one year robbed
the moor of the glory of golden blossom that crowned it in May, and of
the mantle of crimson heath wherewith it was enfolded in July.
Luke Cleverdon, Curate of Mary Tavy, walked slowly up the hill from the
bridge over the brawling River Tavy towards Willsworthy. He was a tall,
spare young man, with large soft brown eyes, and a pale face. His life
had not been particularly happy. His parents had died when he was young,
and old Cleverdon, of Hall, had taken charge of the boy in a
grumblingly, ungracious fashion, resenting the conduct of his brother in
dying, and encumbering him with the care of a delicate child. Luke was
older than young Anthony, and possibly for a while old Anthony may have
thought that, in the event of his wife giving him no son, Hall and his
accumulations would devolve on this frail, white-faced, and timid lad.
The boy proved to be fond of books, and wholly unsuited for farm life.
Consequently he was sent to school, and then to College, and had been
ordained by the Bishop of Exeter to the Curacy of Tavy St. Peter, or
Petery-Tavy, as it was usually called. His uncle had never shown him
affection, his young cousin, Anthony, had been in everything and every
way preferred before him, and had been suffered to put him aside and
tyrannise over him at his will. Only in Bessie had he found a friend,
though hardly an associate, for Bessie's interests were other than those
of the studious, thoughtful boy. She was a true Martha, caring for all
that pertained to the good conduct of the house, and Luke had the dreamy
idealism of Mary. The boy had suffered from contraction of the chest,
but had grown out of his extreme delicacy in the fresh air of the
country, and living on the abundant and wholesome food provided in a
farm. His great passion was for the past. He had so little to charm him
in the present, and no pursuit unfolding before him in the future, that
he had been thrown as a lad to live in the past, to make the episodes of
history his hunting fields. Fortunately for him, Dartmoor was strewn
with prehistoric antiquities; upright stones ranged in avenues, in some
instances extending for miles, with mysterious circles of unhewn blocks,
and with cairns and kistvaens, or stone coffins, constructed of rude
slabs of granite. Among these he wandered, imagining strange things,
peopling the solitude, and dreaming of the Druids who, he supposed, had
solemnised their ritual in these rude temples.
Old Cleverdon was angered with the pursuits of his nephew. He utterly
despised any pursuit which did not lead to money, and archæology was one
which might, and often did, prove expensive, but was not remunerative
from a pecuniary point of view. As soon as ever Luke was ordained and
established in a curacy, the old man considered that his obligation
towards him had ceased, and he left the poor young man to sustain
himself on the miserable salary that was paid him by his non-resident
Rector. But Luke's requirements were small, and his only grief at the
smallness of his stipend was that it obliged him to forego the purchase
of books.
He was on his way to Willsworthy, four miles from the parish church, at
the extreme end of the parish, to pay a pastoral visit to Mistress
Malvine, who was an invalid. Before reaching the house he came to a
ruined chapel, that had not been used since the Reformation, and there
he suddenly lighted upon Urith.
His pale face flushed slightly. She was seated on a mass of fallen wall,
with her hands in her lap, occupied with her thoughts. To her surprise,
on her return late on the preceding night, before the breaking of the
storm, her mother had not followed her accustomed practice of covering
her with reproaches; and this had somewhat disconcerted Urith. Mrs.
Malvine was a woman of not much intelligence, very self-centred, and
occupied with her ailments. She had a knack of finding fault with every
one, of seeing the demerits of all with whom she had to do; and she was
not slow in expressing what she thought. Nor had she the tact to say
what she thought and felt, and have done with it, she went on nagging,
aggravating, exaggerating, and raking up petty wrongs or errors of
judgment into mountains of misdemeanour, so that when at one moment she
reproved such as had acted wrongly, she invariably in the next reversed
positions, for she rebuked with such extravagance, and enlarged on the
fault with such exaggeration as to move the innate sense of proportion
and equity in the soul of the condemned, and to rouse the consciousness
of injustice in the accused.
Such a scene had taken place the previous day, when her mother, aided by
the blundering Uncle Solomon, had driven Urith into one of her fits of
passion, in which she had run away. When Mistress Malvine discovered
what she had done--that she had actually pressed her child beyond
endurance, and that the girl had run to the wilderness, where she could
no more be traced, when the day and evening passed without her return,
the sick woman became seriously alarmed, and faintly conscious that she
had transgressed due bounds in the reprimand administered to Urith for
rejecting the suit of Anthony Crymes. Consequently, when finally the
girl did reappear, her mother controlled herself, and contented herself
with inquiring where she had been.
Luke Cleverdon knew Urith better than did his cousins; in his rambles on
the moor, as a boy, he had often come this way, and had frequently had
Urith as his companion. The friendship begun in childhood continued
between them now that he was curate in charge of souls, and she was
growing into full bloom of girlhood.
He now halted, leaning both his hands on his stick, and spoke to her,
and asked after her mother.
Urith rose to accompany him to the house. "She is worse; I fear I have
caused her trouble and distress of mind. I ran away from home yesterday,
and might have been lost on the moor, had not"--she hesitated, her cheek
assumed a darker tinge, and she said--"had not I fortunately been guided
aright to reach home."
"That is well," said Luke. "We are all liable thus to stray, and well
for us when we find a sure guide, and follow him."
For a young man he was gaunt. He was dressed in scrupulously correct
clerical costume, a cassock and knee-breeches, white bands, and a
three-cornered hat.
Urith spoke about the fire on the moor, the bewilderment caused by the
smoke, and then of the storm during the night. He stood listening to her
and looking at her; it seemed to him that he had not before properly
appreciated her beauty. He had wondered at her strange temper--now
frank, then sullen and reserved; he did not know the reason why this was
now for the first time revealed to him--it was because in the night a
change had taken place in the girl, for the first time she had felt the
breath of that spirit of love which like magic wakes up the sleeping
charms of soul and face, gives them expression and significance. Not,
however, now for the first time did the thought cross his mind that, of
all women in the world, she was the only one he could and did love. He
had long loved her, loved her deeply, but hopelessly, and had fought
many a hard battle with himself to conquer a passion which his judgment
told him must be subdued. He knew the girl--wild, sullen,
undisciplined--the last to mould into the proper mate for a village
pastor. Moreover, what was he but a poor curate, without interest with
patrons, without means of his own, likely, as far as he could judge, to
live and die, a curate. He knew not only that Urith was not calculated
to make a pastor's wife, but he knew also that hers was not a character
that could consort with his. He was studious, meek, yet firm in his
principles; she was hardly tame, of ungovernable temper, and a creature
of impulse. No, they could not be happy together even were circumstances
to allow of his marrying. He had said all this to himself a thousand
times, yet he could not conquer his passion. He held it in control, and
Urith, least of all, had a notion of its existence. She exercised on him
that magic that is exercised on one character by another the reverse at
every point. The calm, self-ruled, in-wrapped nature of Luke looked out
at the turbulence or the moroseness of the wild girl with admiration
mingled with fear. It exercised over him an inexplicable but
overpowering spell. He knew she was not for him, and yet that she should
ever belong to another was a thought that he could not bear to
entertain. He walked at her side to the house listening to her, but
hardly knowing what she said. The glamour of her presence was on him,
and he walked as in a cloud of light, that dazzled his eyes and confused
his mind.
Willsworthy was a very small and quaint old manor house--so small that a
modern farmer would despise it. It consisted of a hall and a couple of
sitting-rooms and kitchen on the ground floor, with a projecting porch,
with pavise over it. The windows looked into the little court that was
entered through old granite gates, capped with balls, and was backed by
a cluster of bold sycamores and beech, in which was a large rookery.
Mrs. Malvine was in the hall. She had been brought down. She was unable
to walk, and she sat in her armchair by the hearth. The narrow mullioned
lights did not afford much prospect, and what they did reveal was only
the courtyard and stables that fronted the entrance to the house. To the
back of the house was, indeed, a walled garden; but it was void of
flowers and suffered from the neglect which allowed everything about
Willsworthy to sink into disrepair and barrenness. It grew a few
pot-herbs, half-choked by weeds. There was no gardener kept; but a
labourer, when he could be spared off the farm, did something in a
desultory fashion to the garden--always too late to be of use to it.
"Peace be to this house!" said Luke, and passed in at the door.
He found that, for all his good wish, nothing at the moment was farther
removed from Willsworthy, than peace, Solomon Gibbs had slept long and
heavily after his carouse, and had but just come down the stairs, and
had just acted the inconsiderate part of telling his sister of the
outrage committed by Anthony Cleverdon on her husband's grave. The poor
widow was in an hysterical condition of effervescent wrath and
lamentation.
The story was repeated, when Luke and Urith appeared, in a broken,
incoherent fashion--the widow telling what she knew, with additions of
her own, Solomon throwing in corrections.
Urith turned chill in all her veins. Her heart stood still, and she
stood looking at her uncle with stony eyes. Anthony Cleverdon, who had
behaved to her with such kindness--Anthony, who had held her in his
arms, had carried her through the fire, who had looked into her face
with such warmth in his eyes--he thus insult her father's name and her
family! It was impossible, incredible.
Luke paced the little hall with his arms folded behind his back. He had
heard nothing of this at Peter Tavy when he left it. He hoped there was
some mistake--some exaggeration. What could have been Anthony's object?
Mr. Solomon Gibbs's account was certainly sufficiently involved and
obscure to allow of the suspicion that there was exaggeration, for Mr.
Solomon's recollection of the events was clouded by the punch imbibed
overnight. But the fact that the headpiece of the grave had been brought
to the tavern by his cousin could not be got over. Luke's heart was
filled with commiseration for the distress of the widow, and pain for
Urith, and with bitterness against Anthony. He had nothing but
platitudes to say--nothing that could pacify the excited woman, who
went from one convulsion into another.
Suddenly the door was thrust open and in, without a knock, without
permission, came Anthony himself--the first time he had crossed that
threshold.
Urith's arms fell to her side, and her fists became clenched. How dare
he appear before them, after having committed such an offence? Mistress
Malvine held up her hands before her face to hide the sight of him from
her eyes.
"I have come," said Anthony, "I have come because of that bit of
tomfoolery last night."
Luke saw that his cousin was approaching the widow, and he stepped
between them. "For shame of you, 'Tony!" he said, in quivering voice.
"You ought never to show your face after what has been done--at all
events here."
"Get aside," answered Anthony roughly, and thrust him out of the way.
"Madame Malvine," said he, planting himself before the hysterical widow,
"listen to me. I am very sorry and ashamed for what I did. It was in
utter ignorance. I was dared to go to the churchyard last night when the
ghosts walk, and Fox said no one would believe me that I had been there
unless I brought back some token. We had all been drinking. The night
was pitch-dark. I got up the avenue under the trees, and pulled up the
stake nearest to the church porch I could feel. Whose it was, as Heaven
is my witness, I did not know. I was wrong in doing it; but I was dared
to do something of the kind."
"You must have known that my brother-in-law lay on the right-hand side
of the porch," said Solomon Gibbs.
"How should I know?" retorted Anthony. "I am not sexton, to tell where
every one lies. And on such a pitch-black night too, I could find my way
only by feeling."
"Your offence," said Luke, sternly, "is not against this family only,
but against God. You have been guilty of sacrilege."
"I will ask you not to interfere," answered Anthony. "With God I will
settle the matter in my own conscience. I am come here to beg
forgiveness of Mistress Malvine and of Urith."
He turned sharply round to the latter, and spoke with a deep flush in
his cheek, and with outstretched arm. "Urith! you will believe me! You
will forgive me! With my best heart's blood I would wipe out the
offence. I never, never dreamed of injuring and paining you. It was a
misadventure, and my cursed folly in sitting drinking at the Hare and
Hounds, and of allowing myself to be taunted to a mad act by Fox Crymes,
who is my evil genius."
"It was Fox Crymes who urged you to do it?" asked Urith, her rigidity
ceasing, and the colour returning to her cheeks and lips.
"He goaded me to the act, but he had nothing to do with my bringing your
father's headpiece to the tavern--that was the devil's own witchcraft."
"Mother," said Urith, "do you hear; it was Fox Crymes's doing. On him
the blame falls."
"You believe me, Urith--I know you must! You know I would not injure
you, offend you, grieve you in any way. You must know that, Urith--you
do in your heart know it; assure your mother of that. Here, give me your
hand in pledge that you believe--that you forgive me."
She gave it him at once.
"Now see, Mistress Malvine, Urith is my testimony--Good God! what is the
matter?"
Mrs. Malvine had fallen back in her chair, and was speechless.