Mrs. Pennant was a woman of some strength of character, which had
never before come out so vividly as it did on the occasion of her
husband’s death.
She spent very little time in weeping over his loss. She was one of
those women in whom the instincts of maternal affection are much
stronger than the marital; and in truth her patience had been so
hardly tried by Captain Pennant’s almost imbecile mismanagement of his
affairs and the necessity of controlling her exasperation into the
outer aspect of submissive respect, that there was a touch of relief
even in her sorrow.
The few days between the death and the funeral were passed by all in
an uneasy state of apprehension as to what would follow. Rees was
hardly ever in the house, and could not be approached on the subject
of his future actions. Hervey mooned about, comforting himself, after
his usual fashion, by great thoughts of life and death, and the
impracticable things he would do to get his family out of their
difficulties. Godwin went quietly backwards and forwards to the bank
as usual. Deborah kept out of Mrs. Pennant’s way, believing, poor
child, that as that lady had never liked her, and had only suffered
her to remain a member of the household in consequence of the
captain’s express wish, she should now be ignominiously expelled on
the first decent opportunity.
Deborah was Captain Pennant’s truest mourner. During the days when he
lay dead in the house, she spent most of her time watching by his
coffin, gazing at the passionately loved face of her “father,” as she
had always called him, and grieving over her loss with all the
intensity of her fiercely loving nature. The remaining hours of her
time she spent, not in luxurious regret at leaving the old house which
had so long been her home, but in looking over the clothes of the boys
and mending such as wanted repairs, and in doing every little bit of
active work she could think of to save Mrs. Pennant trouble. She did
not love Mrs. Pennant; sometimes she had felt she almost hated her;
but she appreciated the sense of duty to her husband which had made
the lady tolerate her presence, and she felt bound to make what small
return she could before breaking what she believed to be to the elder
lady a galling tie.
So, on the day after the funeral, Deborah presented herself early in
the day before Mrs. Pennant in her walking dress. The elder lady was
writing at the table, and the girl stood for some moments watching
her, without speaking; she was a good deal affected by the prospect of
parting, now that it was so near, more especially as she noticed that
Mrs. Pennant had aged suddenly, and that her handsome face showed the
lines and wrinkles brought by care and anxiety more clearly than ever
before. At last Mrs. Pennant looked up.
“Oh, are you going out, Deborah? Would you mind taking these letters
to the post for me? I have just finished.”
Deborah murmured assent, and Mrs. Pennant bent over her writing. As
she closed the last envelope, she looked up again. The girl stepped
forward and quietly took up the letters. Then, turning to go, she
addressed Mrs. Pennant without facing her, for she was afraid of
breaking down, and bringing upon herself a cold reproof.
“I am going away, mamma. I came in to say good-bye to you. I am afraid
you will not believe me when I say I am sorry to leave you; you think
me ungrateful, but I am not. I am afraid I have been a burden on you
for a great many years; but, thanks to your goodness, I can support
myself now. I shall never forget you, or the boys, or--or my dear,
dear father--I mean Captain Pennant.”
Mrs. Pennant was entirely taken aback. It was not until this moment
that she knew how much she should miss the bright, beautiful face, or
how lonely she should feel without the girl whom, in spite of herself,
she had long secretly looked upon as a daughter.
“This, this is very sudden. You might have spoken to me. I had a right
to expect to be consulted,” she said, trying to speak coldly, but with
a tremor in her voice.
“I didn’t know how--I didn’t like to trouble you,” faltered the girl.
“Where are you going to? What do you want to do?”
“I have got a situation as help, lady-help they call it, at a little
town the other side of Monmouth.”
“Lady--help! A girl brought up as Captain Pennant’s daughter!” cried
the poor lady, in disgust and dismay.
“Well, mamma, what could I do? I should never have had the patience to
teach children; and I can cook and sew a little, and I’m sure I could
scrub. Nobody will ever know me as Captain Pennant’s daughter any
more,” she said sadly. “I am simply Deborah Audaer, the fisherman’s
daughter.”
“But you can’t go back like that, it’s impossible,” said Mrs. Pennant
pettishly. “You are a lady now, whatever you were born. And my husband
adopted you as his daughter, so his daughter you will always be to me.
And you must remain with me. Understand that.”
She spoke sharply and querulously, but with determination. Still
Deborah stood before her, looking perturbed and undecided.
“Do you hear what I say?” asked the old lady, peremptorily.
“Yes, I hear, mamma,” answered Deborah, in a low-toned, broken voice.
Then, after a moment’s further hesitation, she moved two steps nearer,
sank down on her knees, and hid her face in Mrs. Pennant’s chair.
“Mamma,” she whispered, “I can’t stay--if you speak to me like that.
You must try to be fond of me, and I’ll stay, and be good to you, work
for you if I can, comfort you if I can. You would never let me love
you before--will you try now? Captain Pennant is gone, Rees doesn’t
care for me now; I can’t live without any love, in the place where I
had so much. I would rather go away among strangers; I could bear that
better.”
Mrs. Pennant was touched. At last she felt her heart go out to the
brave, frank girl, and she put a trembling hand upon her neck, where
the soft brown hair strayed from under the sombre black bonnet.
“Stay, child,” she whispered. “You shall not have to complain.”
Half a word was enough for Deborah, craving, as she did, an affection
to replace what she had lost. She threw her strong young arms round
her with a clasp in which the poor harassed lady felt at last not only
comfort, but support. And from that hour Deborah transferred, if not
all, at least a great part of the affection she had felt for her
adopted father to his widow, whom she cherished and served with a true
daughter’s devotion.
Meanwhile, the unhappiest member of the household was poor Rees, who,
before his father had been dead a week, found that his own position as
head of the family had been practically usurped by his younger brother
Godwin. This shrewd and energetic fellow, on learning Lord St.
Austell’s offer to Rees and the latter’s refusal of it, had instantly
been seized with the idea of applying himself for the post.
The earl was rather cold at first, feeling, on account of Rees’s
conduct, a temporary disgust with the whole family. But Godwin
insisted so humbly, representing truly enough that he had had, young
as he was, much more business experience than his elder brother, that
at last he gained his point to the extent of being appointed assistant
steward on trial.
When Rees learnt this, although he tried to congratulate his brother,
and to wish him God-speed on his journey northwards, he fell into a
passion of remorse and anger, and, rushing out of the house towards
the spot which he now began to haunt as regularly as Goodhare himself,
he flung himself down under the trees in a large field which stretched
under the western wall of the castle, and burying his face in his
hands, gave himself up to a paroxysm of despair.
What had he done, he the spoiled favorite of the county, who had begun
to look upon all men’s indulgence as his right, that he should
suddenly find himself thrown down from his long-established position,
an exile from Llancader, cut by all its inmates, neglected by
Goodhare, and even avoided by his faithful slave, Deborah? For the
girl’s spirit had at last rebelled against his curt assumption of
indifference towards her; while, as for Amos, he had had reasons for
his own for giving the young man a wide berth for a few days. Those
few days, however, were now over; and that very afternoon Amos, having
seized the opportunity of his dinner-hour for a prowl round the goal
of his dreams, saw the young fellow as he lay stretched on the grass,
and instantly decided that the time was ripe for another step. He came
down to the lower ground, therefore, and called Rees gently by his
name before the young fellow had heard his footsteps.
The lad sprung up with a flushed, wild face and reckless manner.
“Goodhare,” cried he, hoarsely, “I’ll begin hunting to-night, this
very night.”
The elder man smiled gravely, and stroked his beard in a meditative
manner.
“You have decided, then, to give Lord St. Austell the third part of a
handsome fortune, if indeed we are so fortunate as to find anything at
all, which possibly we may not do.”
“Well, let’s find it first, and we can talk about Lord St. Austell
afterwards. The finders of a big hoard are entitled to something, I
suppose?”
“Very little. They may claim a trifling percentage, I believe, perhaps
2 per cent. or 3 per cent., on the value of the find as assessed by
the Crown. Enough to pay the expenses of the journey to London to
claim it. But even then, there are such pleasures in London, such
wines, such lovely faces--a week’s visit would be well worth all the
trouble.”
“Wines! I don’t suppose the finest wine that ever was made would
intoxicate me like a gallop over the hills here!” said Rees,
doubtfully. “And as for faces, I don’t believe there’s another in
England as handsome as Deborah’s!”
An ugly flush rose in the elder man’s cheeks at the mention of her
name.
“Deborah! Why, she’s a negress compared to the London girls. They are
the pick of the beauty-basket, as I think you will say. For if you
cannot judge a woman’s beauty, who should, when all the pretty lasses
in the county are waiting for you to throw them the handkerchief? But
they are dumpy, dowdy creatures you will find when you get to London.”
“And if we find all this, we shall only get a few pounds? But that is
not fair. What right has the Crown to it, that never heard of it? Or
Lord St. Austell, who laughed at the idea of its existence?”
“That’s what I want to know. The Crown portion will perhaps be paid
away in the pensions of those noblemen who are paid handsomely by the
State for being the descendants of Charles the Second’s mistresses. Or
it may be spent in keeping up Buckingham Palace, where the Sovereign
never lives, and where a collection of splendid pictures moulders away
in the company of the Royal spiders, the public not being allowed to
enter and see them. I don’t know. And Lord St. Austell’s portion?
Well, he will be able to enjoy himself in town upon that,” added Amos,
with suggestive dryness.
“At any rate,” said Rees with excitement, “the thing is first to find
it, before we settle what’s to be done with it.”
“That is just what I say.”
“How shall we begin?”
“You must take up a craze, say botany for instance, and start
specimen-hunting inside the castle walls. You must have a pickaxe and
spade; I will get you those up over the walls--and you must explore
systematically, bit by bit. I will be on the watch outside. You will
always let me know what part you are at work in, and I will keep
watch. I have two hours in the middle of the day, and as many as you
like at night.”
“All right. We’ll begin to-night.”
They parted with only a few more words, for Rees was oppressed by the
consciousness that, explain it away as he might, he was about to do an
underhand action; and Goodhare, when he had gained a point, was not a
man to weaken his effect by superfluous words.
That night the search began. Day after day and night after night it
continued, and always without result, until the young man’s heart grew
sick within him, and the elder grew fierce with disappointed longing.
In the hot afternoons, when the trees that grew thickly on the high
banks of the Wye seemed to dance in a heat-mist; in the cool, summer
nights, when the owls peered out with gleaming eyes from the ivy
bushes which hung round the broken turrets, Rees worked on. He dug
deep in the beaten earth which had collected in the ruined chambers.
He clave with his pickaxe old beams that had fallen to the ground to
become food for the busy worms. Not a grating in the ground that he
did not examine; not a blocked-up doorway into which, by long and
patient labor, he did not grope. Their way of working answered
admirably. If any one from the neighborhood, or a party of tourists,
approached the outer gate, Rees had instant warning from the watcher
outside, and on the entrance of the visitors a handsome young man
would be found seated on a broken step in the outer court or on a
massive window embrasure in one of the damp, cool vaults below,
attentively studying a bramble or a weed by the aid of a book or a
microscope.
One curious discovery he made in the second week of his labors. It was
that the earth on which the castle was built possessed the property of
preserving, almost uninjured by damp or decay, anything which was
buried at a certain depth within its bosom. For he came upon the
bodies of various dead pets, a guinea-pig, a rabbit, and a white rat,
to which his brothers, in their childhood, had given honorable
sepulture within the castle walls; and they were all in a perfect
state of preservation, except that they had become dry and shrivelled.
Amos Goodhare’s information here came in to account for this. He had
himself visited certain caves in the neighborhood of Bordeaux, in
which the bodies of a dozen dead monks were preserved, their habits
still clinging, uninjured, round the shrivelled and wasted forms. He
gave Rees a scientific account of the properties of the soil which
produced this effect, to which the young man was too much excited to
take heed.
For he had got an idea into his head that the subterranean passage, if
it existed at all, by which the unlucky Lord Hugh had tried to make
his escape, must start from a certain large vaulted chamber, the base
of which and part of the walls were formed in the rock itself. This
chamber was the lowest part of the castle, and not being so much
exposed as the rest to storm and siege, was in an excellent stage of
preservation. It looked out through a deep-walled window over the
river, which formed at this point a beautiful bend, with trees on one
side and swelling meadow ground on the other. The original level of
the floor was at present not easily to be found, as the rock surface
was encumbered with stones and earth.
Here it was, however, that Rees had resolved to make a search, the
thoroughness of which should be complete. At last, on the fifth
evening of his labors, when he had dug deep down in the piled-up
earth, until the last of the daylight had faded out of the sky, he
felt the floor tremble under his feet.
He was by this time in utter darkness, his spade working mechanically
in the hard earth.
He stopped, shivering from head to foot, cold from excitement and an
instinct of mad joy. A hoarse shout escaped his lips in spite of
himself.
The next moment it turned to a low-breathed exclamation of savage
impatience. For a girl’s voice called to him from the outer court, and
in another minute the faint light which came through the doorway was
blocked by her figure. It was Lady Marion Cenarth.
“What are you doing here, Rees Pennant,” she asked sharply.