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A STRANGE WORLD
A Novel
BY THE AUTHOR OF
‘LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET’
ETC. ETC. ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. II.
[Illustration: Publisher’s Logo]
LONDON
JOHN MAXWELL AND CO.
4, SHOE LANE, FLEET STREET
1875
[All rights reserved.]
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CONTENTS TO VOL. II.
-------
CHAP. PAGE
I. ‘FAREWELL,’ QUOTH SHE, ‘AND COME 1
AGAIN TO-MORROW’
II. ‘O’ER ALL THERE HUNG A SHADOW AND A 16
FEAR’
III. ‘HE COMETH NOT,’ SHE SAID 26
IV. ‘AND I SHALL BE ALONE UNTIL I DIE’ 53
V. ‘SURELY, MOST BITTER OF ALL SWEET 67
THINGS THOU ART’
VI. ‘WE ARE PAST THE SEASON OF DIVIDED 83
ILLS’
VII. ‘THE DROWSY NIGHT GROWS ON THE 100
WORLD’
VIII. ‘GOOD NIGHT, GOOD REST. AH! NEITHER 107
BE MY SHARE’
IX. ‘SUCH A LORD IS LOVE’ 121
X. ‘THEN STREAMED LIFE’S FUTURE ON THE 134
FADING PAST’
XI. ‘A MERRIER HOUR WAS NEVER WASTED 158
THERE’
XII. ‘IT WAS THE HOUR WHEN WOODS ARE 165
COLD’
XIII. ‘NOW HALF TO THE SETTING MOON HAVE 182
GONE, AND HALF TO THE RISING DAY’
XIV. ‘O HEAVEN! THAT ONE MIGHT READ THE 201
BOOK OF FATE!’
XV. ‘QUI PEUT SOUS LE SOLEIL TROMPER SA 209
DESTINEE?’
XVI. ‘THIS IS MORE STRANGE THAN SUCH A 225
MURDER IS’
XVII. ‘AH, LOVE, THERE IS NO BETTER LIFE 235
THAN THIS’
XVIII. ‘LOVE IS A THING TO WHICH WE SOON 251
CONSENT’
XIX. SORROW AUGMENTETH THE MALADY 265
XX. ‘BUT OH! THE THORNS WE STAND UPON!’ 281
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A STRANGE WORLD
CHAPTER I
‘FAREWELL,’ QUOTH SHE, ‘AND COME AGAIN TO-MORROW.’
THE old housekeeper’s eyes were dim as she finished her story of the
heir of Penwyn.
‘He was the best of all,’ she said; ‘Mr. Balfour we saw very little of
after he grew up, being the youngest to marry and leave home; Mr. James
was a kind, easy-going young fellow enough; but Mr. George was
everybody’s favourite, and there wasn’t a dry eye among us when the
Squire called us together after his illness, and told us how his son had
died. “He died like a gentleman—upholding the honour of his Queen and
his country, and the name of Penwyn,” said the master, without a tremble
in his voice, though it was feebler than before the stroke, “and I am
proud to think of him lying in his far-off grave, and if I were not so
old I would go over the sea to kneel beside my poor boy’s resting-place
before I die. He displeased me once, but we are good friends now, and
there will be no cloud between us when we meet in another world.”’
Here Mrs. Darvis was fairly overcome, much to the astonishment of the
girl Elspeth, whose uncanny black eyes regarded her with a scornful
wonder. Maurice noticed that look.
‘Sweet child,’ he said to himself. ‘What a charming helpmeet you will
make for some honest peasant in days to come, with your amiable
disposition!’
He had taken his time looking at the old house, and listening to the
housekeeper’s story. The sun was low, and he had yet to find a lodging
for the night. He had walked far since morning, and was not disposed to
retrace his steps to the nearest town, a place called Seacomb,
consisting of a long straggling street, with various lateral courts and
alleys, a market-place, parish church, lock-up, and five dissenting
chapels of various denominations. This Seacomb was a good nine miles
from Penwyn Manor.
‘Perhaps you’d like to see the young Squire’s portrait,’ said Mrs.
Darvis, when she had dried those tributary tears.
‘The young Squire?’
‘Mr. George. We used to call him the young Squire sometimes.’
‘Yes, I should like to have a look at the poor fellow, now you’ve told
me his history.’
‘It hangs in the old Squire’s study. It’s a bit of a room, and I forgot
to show it to you just now.’
Maurice followed her across the hall to a small door in a corner, deeply
recessed and low, but solid enough to have guarded the Tolbooth, one
would suppose. It opened into a narrow room, with one window looking
towards the sea. The wainscot was almost black with age, the furniture,
old walnut wood, of the same time-darkened hue. There was a heavy old
bureau, brass handled and brass clamped; a bookcase, a ponderous writing
desk, and one capacious arm-chair, covered with black leather. The high,
narrow chimney-piece was in an angle of the room, and above this hung
the portrait of George Penwyn.
It was a kit-kat picture of a lad in undress uniform, the face a long
oval, fair of complexion, and somewhat feminine in delicacy of feature,
the eyes dark blue. The rest of the features, though sufficiently
regular, were commonplace enough; but the eyes, beautiful alike in shape
and colour, impressed Maurice Clissold. They were eyes which might have
haunted the fancy of girlhood, with the dream of an ideal lover; eyes in
whose somewhat melancholy sweetness a poet would have read some strange
life-history. The hair, a pale auburn, hung in a loosely waving mass
over the high narrow brow, and helped to give a picturesque cast to the
patrician-looking head.
‘A nice face,’ said Maurice, critically. ‘There is a little look of my
poor friend James Penwyn, but not much. Poor Jim had a gayer, brighter
expression, and had not those fine blue-grey eyes. I fancy Churchill
Penwyn must be a plain likeness of his uncle George. Not so handsome,
but more intellectual-looking.’
‘Yes, sir,’ assented Mrs. Darvis. ‘The present Squire is something like
his uncle, but there’s a harder look in his face. All the features seem
cut out sharper; and then his eyes are quite different. Mr. George had
his mother’s eyes; she was a Tresillian, and one of the handsomest women
in Cornwall.’
‘I’ve seen a face somewhere which that picture reminds me of, but I
haven’t the faintest notion where,’ said Maurice. ‘In another picture,
perhaps. Half one’s memories of faces are derived from pictures, and
they flash across the mind suddenly, like a recollection of another
world. However, I mustn’t stand prosing here, while the sun goes down
yonder. I have to find a lodging before nightfall. What is the nearest
place, village, or farmhouse, where I can get a bed, do you think, Mrs.
Darvis?’
‘There’s the “Bell,” in Penwyn village.’
‘No good. I’ve tried there already. The landlady’s married daughter is
home on a visit, and they haven’t a bed to give me for love or money.’
Mrs. Darvis lapsed into meditation.
‘The nearest farmhouse is Trevanard’s, at Borcel End. They might give
you a bed there, for the place is large enough for a barrack, but they
are not the most obliging people in the world, and they are too well off
to care about the money you may pay them for the accommodation.’
‘How far is Borcel End?’
‘Between two and three miles.’
‘Then I’ll try my luck there, Mrs. Darvis,’ said Maurice, cheerily. ‘It
lies between that and sleeping under the open sky.’
‘I wish I could offer you a bed, sir; but in my position——’
‘As custodian such an offer would be a breach of good faith to your
employers. I quite understand that, Mrs. Darvis. I come here as a
stranger to you, and I thank you kindly for having been so obliging as
to show me the house.’
He dropped a couple of half-crowns into her hand as he spoke, but these
Mrs. Darvis rejected most decidedly.
‘Ours has never been what you can call a show place, sir, and I’ve never
looked for that kind of perquisite.’
‘Come, young one,’ said Maurice, after taking leave of the friendly old
housekeeper, ‘you can put me into the right road to Borcel End, and you
shall have one of these for your reward.’
Elspeth’s black eyes had watched the rejection of the half-crowns with
unmistakable greed. Her sharp face brightened at Maurice’s promise.
‘I’ll show you the way, sir,’ she said; ‘I know every step of it.’
‘Yes, the lass is always roaming about, like a wild creature, over the
hills, and down by the sea,’ said Mrs. Darvis, with a disapproving air.
‘I don’t think she knows how to read or write, or has as much Christian
knowledge as the old jackdaw in the servants’ hall.’
‘I know things that are better than reading and writing,’ said Elspeth,
with a grin.
‘What kind of things may those be?’ asked Maurice.
‘Things that other people don’t know.’
‘Well, my lass, I won’t trouble you by sounding the obscure depths of
your wisdom. I only want the straightest road to Trevanard’s farm. He is
a tenant of this estate, I suppose, Mrs. Darvis?’
‘Yes, sir. Michael Trevanard’s father was a tenant of the old Squire’s
before my time. Old Mrs. Trevanard is still living, though stone-blind,
and hardly right in her head, I believe.’
They had reached the lobby door by this time, the chief hall door being
kept religiously bolted and barred during the absence of the family.
‘I shall come and see you again, Mrs. Darvis, most likely, before I
leave this part of the country,’ said Maurice, as he crossed the
threshold. ‘Good evening.’
‘You’ll be welcome at any time, sir. Good evening.’
Elspeth led the way across the lawn, with a step so light and swift that
it was as much as Maurice could do to keep pace with her, tired as he
was, after a long day afoot. He followed her into the pine wood. The
trees were not thickly planted, but they were old and fine, and their
dense foliage looked inky black against a primrose-coloured sky. A
narrow footpath wound among the tall black trunks, only a few yards from
the edge of the cliff, which was poorly guarded by a roughly fashioned
timber railing, the stakes wide apart. The vast Atlantic lay below them,
a translucent green in the clear evening light, melting into purple far
away on the horizon.
Maurice paused to look back at Penwyn Manor House, the grave,
substantial old dwelling-house which had seen so little change since the
days of the Tudors. High gable ends, latticed windows gleaming in the
last rays of the setting sun; stone walls moss-darkened and
ivy-shrouded, massive porch, with deep recesses, and roomy enough for a
small congregation; mighty chimney-stacks, and quaint old iron
weathercock, with a marvellous specimen of the ornithological race
pointing its gilded beak due west.
‘Poor old James! what good days we might have had here!’ sighed Maurice,
as he looked back at the fair domain. It seemed a place saved out of the
good old world, and was very pleasant to contemplate after the gimcrack
palaces of the age we live in—in which all that architecture can conjure
from the splendour of the past is more or less disfigured by the tinsel
of the present.
‘Dear old James, to think that he wanted to marry that poor little
actress girl, and bring her to reign down here, in the glow and glory of
those stained-glass windows—gorgeous with the armorial devices of a line
of county families! Innocent, simple-hearted lad! wandering about like a
prince in a fairy tale, ready to fall in love with the first pretty girl
he saw by the roadside, and to take her back to his kingdom.’
‘If you want to see Trevanard’s farm before dark you must come on, sir,’
said Elspeth.
Maurice took the hint, and followed at his briskest pace. They were soon
out of the pine grove, which they left by a little wooden gate, and on
the wild wide hills, where the distant sheep-bell had an eerie sound in
the still evening air.
Even the gables of the Manor House disappeared presently as they went
down a dip in the hills. Far off in a green hollow, Maurice saw some
white buildings—scattered untidily near a patch of water, which
reflected the saffron-hued evening sky.
‘That’s Trevanard’s,’ said Elspeth, pointing to this spot.
‘I thought as much,’ said Maurice, ‘then you need go no further. You’ve
fairly earned your fee.’
He gave her the half-crown. The girl turned the coin over with a
delighted look before she put it in her pocket.
‘I’ll go to Borcel End with you,’ she said. ‘I’d as lief be on the hills
as at home—sooner, for grandmother is not over-pleasant company.’
‘But you’d better go back now, my girl, or it’ll be dark long before you
reach home.’
Elspeth laughed, a queer impish cachinnation, which made Maurice feel
rather uncomfortable.
‘You don’t suppose I’m afraid of the dark,’ she said, in her shrill
young voice, so young and yet so old in tone. ‘I know every star in the
sky. Besides, it’s never dark at this time of year. I’ll go on to Borcel
End with you. May be you mayn’t get accommodated there, and then I can
show you a near way across the hills to Penwyn village. You might get
shelter at one of the cottages anyhow.’
‘Upon my word you are very obliging,’ said Maurice, surprised by this
show of benevolence upon the damsel’s part.
‘Do you know anything about this Borcel End?’ he asked, presently, when
they were going down into the valley.
‘I’ve never been inside it,’ answered Elspeth, glibly, more
communicative now than she had been an hour or two ago, when Churchill
questioned her about the house of Penwyn. ‘Mrs. Trevanard isn’t one to
encourage a poor girl like me about her place. She’s a rare hard one,
they say, and would pinch and scrape for a sixpence; yet dresses fine on
Sundays, and lives well. There’s always good eating and drinking at
Borcel End, folks say. I’ve heard tell as it was a gentleman’s house
once, before old Squire Penwyn bought it, and that there was a fine park
round the house. There’s plenty of trees now, and a garden that has all
gone to ruin. The gentleman that owned Borcel spent all his money,
people say, and old Squire Penwyn bought the place cheap, and turned it
into a farm, and it’s been in the hands of the Trevanards ever since,
and they’re rich enough to buy the place three times over, people say,
if Squire Penwyn would sell it.’
‘I don’t suppose I shall get a very warm welcome if this Mrs. Trevanard
is such a disagreeable person,’ said Maurice, beginning to feel doubtful
as to the wisdom of asking hospitality at Borcel End.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that. She’s civil enough to gentlefolks, I’ve
heard say. It’s only her servants and such like she’s so stiff with. You
can but try.’
They were at the farm by this time. The old house stood before them—a
broad stretch of greensward in front of it, with a pool of
blackish-looking water in the middle, on which several broods of
juvenile ducks were swimming gaily.
The house was large, the walls rough-cast, with massive timber
framework. There was a roomy central porch, also of plaster and timber,
and this and a projecting wing at each end of the house gave a certain
importance to the building. Some relics of its ancient gentility still
remained, to show that Borcel End had not always been the house of a
tenant farmer. A coat of arms, roughly cut on a stone tablet over the
front door, testified to its former owner’s pride of birth; and the
quadrangular range of stables, stone-built, and more important than the
house, indicated those sporting tastes which might have helped to
dissipate the fortunes of a banished and half-forgotten race. But Borcel
End, in its brightest day, had never been such a mansion as the old
Tudor Manor House of Penwyn. There was a homeliness in the architecture
which aspired to neither dignity nor beauty. Low ceilings, square
latticed windows, dormers in the roof, and heavy chimney-stacks. The
only beauty which the place could have possessed at its best was the
charm of rusticity—an honest, simple English home. To-day, however,
Borcel End was no longer at its best. The stone quadrangle, where the
finest stud of hunters in the county had been lodged, was now a
straw-yard for cattle; one side of the house was overshadowed by a huge
barn, built out of the _débris_ of the park wall; a colony of jovial
pigs disported themselves in a small enclosure which had once been a
maze. A remnant of hedgerow, densest yew, still marked the boundary of
this ancient pleasance, but all the rest had vanished beneath the cloven
hoof of the unclean animal.
Though the farmyard showed on every side the tokens of agricultural
prosperity, the house itself had a neglected air. The plaster walls,
green and weather-stained, presented the curious blended hues of a
Stilton cheese in prime condition, the timber seemed perishing for want
of a good coat of paint. Poultry were pecking about close under the
latticed windows, and even in the porch, and a vagabond pigling was
thrusting his black nose in among the roots of one solitary rose bush
which still lingered on the barren turf. Borcel End, seen in this fading
light, was hardly a homestead to attract the traveller.
‘I don’t think much of your Borcel End,’ said Maurice, with a
disparaging air. ‘However, here goes for a fair trial of west-country
hospitality.’
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