Away, come down from your tribunal seats;
Put off your robes of state, and let your mien
Be pale and humbled.
Mr. de Burgh was in the north of England when he received news of the
destruction of Montrevor, by means both of the public papers and a few
hurried lines from his wife.
He had been contemplating at the time a speedy return; but this dreadful
intelligence hastened his movements, and three days after the fire he
arrived at Silverton.
Mr. de Burgh did not see Mary at first. The unrest and agitation of mind
under which for some time she had been suffering, brought to a climax by
the shock this last dire event had occasioned, produced its physical
effect, a kind of low nervous fever, now confined her to her bed.
Her cousin Louis was surprised to hear of Mary's being at Silverton,
Mrs. de Burgh having slightly mentioned the fact in her hurried letter
to him; nor did she consider it at all necessary to enlighten her
husband as to the cause and circumstances of her visit when on the night
of his return, Mr. de Burgh commented somewhat sarcastically on the
subject.
"Yes, Mary was very kind to come to me, when I told her of my accident
and loneliness--indeed I do not see in the least why she should not have
come," Mrs. de Burgh remarked.
"Nor I either, if she likes it," he answered drily--"at any rate this
fire will bring matters to a crisis both as regards her affair with
Eugene Trevor, as it will also a few others."
"Of course you will go and see after poor Eugene to-morrow, and try and
persuade him to come here."
"Of course--but as to coming to stay here, I am pretty well persuaded
that Eugene Trevor will have too much on his mind just now to think of
visiting any where. I shall be curious to know how things will turn
out."
"Oh, of course my poor uncle left Eugene all the money," Mrs. de Burgh
said.
"Most probably, all his immense savings, but you know the estates are
strictly entailed."
"Yes ...," was the answer, with some hesitation; "but if Eustace Trevor
does not make his appearance."
"That will not alter the entail whilst he is alive, and every exertion
will be made which can lead to his discovery, if his father's death does
not, indeed, as there is every likelihood, make him come forward of
himself."
"But if he is mad?"
"Pshaw!" was the only reply deigned by Mr. de Burgh, with the expression
of indignant incredulity, which any such allusion always excited in him.
Mrs. de Burgh was silent for a few moments, but there was a very
significant display of intelligence visible on her countenance.
The fact was, that she was inwardly struggling between a very womanly
desire to let out the secret of which she was in possession, and the
unwillingness she felt to gratify her husband by the communication of
Eugene's rejection by Mary--also she felt some hesitating repugnance to
relate the particulars concerning the identity of the lost Eustace
Trevor with Mr. Temple, the esteemed and beloved friend of all the
Seaham family. But then her silence would but for a few hours postpone
the intelligence--the truth would be revealed by Mary on the first
opportunity, if it transpired not through other means. So at length,
after keeping it fluttering for some time on the tip of her undecided
tongue, the final plunge was taken, some mysteriously oracular words
were spoken, which excited Mr. de Burgh's curiosity, and led to the full
and final developement of the whole story of "Mr. Temple," and every
particular relating to him as received from Mary. The surprise and
interest of Mr. de Burgh at this communication, was of course extreme.
He was much excited, walking about the room and questioning his wife
over and over again on the subject, whilst she having once broken the
ice scrupled not to afford him every satisfaction in her power--nay,
taxing her imagination and ingenuity to make the romantic story even
more extraordinary than it really was.
The following morning Mr. de Burgh rode off immediately after breakfast
for the town of ----, and on his return late that afternoon desired to
see Mary, and though Mrs. de Burgh objected that she was not fit for
any exciting conversation--that she was very weak and ill, so much so,
that she was going to write to Arthur Seaham to come to Silverton as
soon as it was possible--Mr. de Burgh persisted on its being a matter of
importance, the more so when he heard, that, on that very morning Mary
had received a foreign letter, which Mrs. de Burgh supposed was from her
friend the clergyman, the companion of Eustace Trevor, though she had
not as yet alluded to its contents, which seemed nevertheless to have
considerably affected Mary.
Mr. de Burgh was, therefore, in the course of the evening, taken to
Mary's room, where she was lying on the sofa ready to receive her
cousin, for whose visit she had been previously prepared.
The interview lasted some time--when Mr. de Burgh left the room, he
immediately sat down and wrote a note, which he dispatched without
delay. It was, he afterwards told Mrs. de Burgh, when she could induce
him to satisfy her curiosity, to the lawyer concerned in the management
of the Trevor affairs, whom he had seen that day. He had just written
to inform him where Eustace Trevor was to be found, it being proposed
to send a special messenger abroad to summon him to England, in order to
take possession of his inheritance.
"No will of any kind having been found in existence, Eustace Trevor
comes of course into undisputed possession of the property and estates,
both entailed and unentailed, that is to say," added Mr. de Burgh, with
something of sarcastic triumph in his tone, "if he is found in a fit
state of mind to enter upon his rights."
"And poor Eugene," demanded Mrs. de Burgh, bitterly.
"Eugene, I did not see," answered her husband; "a hurt he received the
night of the fire, it seems, was inclining to inflammation, and he was
ordered to keep quiet; at least, he would not see me when I called at
the inn. The lawyer tells me he seems suffering much anxiety and
distress of mind; no wonder, for from what I hear, it will go hard with
him, if he finds not a generous and forgiving brother in Eustace Trevor;
his ten thousand pounds, the portion secured by the marriage settlement
to the younger children, will be but a poor set off against the immense
expectations on which he had speculated so securely."
"You are very ungenerous and unkind to speak in that way of a fallen
man; I hope Mary does not enter into your sentiments, I am sure I shall
always stand up for Eugene."
"Oh, no doubt, through thick and thin," was the rather sneering reply,
"unkind indeed, I should say, it was cruel kindness 'that the wrong from
right defends;' as for Mary, I am glad to find that she has for some
time not been quite the blindly obstinate and deluded person I had began
regretfully to esteem her, that her infatuation has long since been
giving way before the evidences of truth and reason--yes, her charity in
the point in question is rather more honourable to her character than
that which you profess; there being an old proverb I have somewhere
read, which says: 'Charity is an angel when it rejoices in the truth;
but (something with a very different name) when it embraces that, which
it should only pity and weep over.'"
Tears, indeed; the tears of many mingled and conflicting feelings were
trickling through the pale fingers clasped over Mary's aching eyes when
left alone by her cousin. The letter that morning received from Mr.
Wynne, the superscription of which had been noted down by Mr. de Burgh,
held tight in her other hand; that letter, which indeed contained such
fearful testimony to the truth of Jane Marryott's story, and all she had
heard assigned against him, whom she had once so blindly and ignorantly
worshipped. Mr. Wynne related succinctly the whole story of Eustace
Trevor's wrongs, as confided by his own lips on his first arrival in
Wales. This Mr. Wynne had taken on himself to do unauthorized by his
friend; it was all, indeed, which Mary's letter seemed purposed to
effect--her own communication of having entirely broken off her
engagement with Eugene Trevor, only rendering more wholly out of the
question the execution of the step she had so urged upon Eugene's
brother.
For her own sake, for her preservation from a fate he so deprecated on
her account--he had promised to sacrifice his own interest--to take no
step likely to lead to the well-merited discomfiture and disturbance of
his brother, or an exposure of the past. The point on which the
agreement turned had now been established. He would not too closely
inquire by what means, and in what manner; but the promise he must still
consider binding on his part, a promise but too much in unison with the
solemn determination of his aggrieved and wounded spirit when last he
quitted his father's house, never again to seek a son or brother's place
within those dishonoured walls. This had been the substance of Mr.
Wynne's letter. How changed the aspect of affairs since the period when
it had been penned. How mighty the hand, and by what terrible means had
been effected, that which her weak influence had attempted to achieve!
It might, indeed, be called an instance in which the still small voice
must fail, but the power of the all mighty one be heard in the fire.
And now, all the past--the strange position in which she stood--the
circumstances in which she had become involved, passed before Mary's
mind's eye as in a bewildering dream--confused and conflicting feelings
she could scarcely divide from one another, troubling her enfeebled
spirits; till, at length, those relieving drops had flowed, and prayers
mingled with those tears to the all wise and the all merciful disposer
of events, in whom she trusted.
* * * * *
It must not be supposed that Eustace Trevor had been unmoved by the
urgent appeal conveyed in Mary's letter; that the words she had written,
the argument she had used, had unimpressed him with their justice and
their truth. They brought to his recollection the words of the psalm
sung that afternoon in the little church of Ll---- by the simple village
choir, when first the fair face of Mary Seaham had cast its softening
spell upon his frowning destiny--those words which had even then struck
upon his fancy as strikingly applicable to his own strange case, and
which from Mary's low sweet voice had thrilled like an angel's soft
rebuke upon his ear.
"Since I have placed my trust in God
A refuge always nigh,
Why should I, like a timorous bird,
To yonder mountain fly."
But erroneous as might have been the cause of action, crooked the path
he had been morbidly driven to pursue; innumerable causes seemed now to
oppose the conduct that angel-like minister with unworldly and too
prevailing voice now urged him to pursue. No, for the present let it
suffice that she was saved from a fate, which apart from all selfish
feelings, he feared for her worse than death; for the rest, matters must
take their natural course, work out their own intended end, swayed by
the hand which ruleth the universe--much more the affairs of the sons of
men; for neither to blind chance, or what men call fate, did Eustace
Trevor commit his ways.