SORROW AUGMENTETH THE MALADY.
THIS happy easy-going life of Maurice Clissold’s was suddenly disturbed
by a letter from Martin Trevanard. Some time had elapsed without any
communication from the young man when this letter arrived, but Maurice,
in his new happiness, had been somewhat forgetful of his Cornish friend.
He felt a touch of remorse as he read the letter.
‘Things have been going altogether wrong here,’ wrote Martin. ‘I don’t
mean in the way of worldly prosperity. We have had a first-rate harvest,
and a good year in all respects. But I am sorry to say my mother’s
health has been declining for some time. She has been unable to attend
to the house, and things get out of gear without her. My father has
grown moody and unhappy, and, I’m afraid, puts a dash of brandy into his
cider oftener than is good for him. Muriel is much the same as usual,
and the good old grandmother holds out bravely. It is my mother gives me
most uneasiness. I feel convinced that she has something on her mind. I
have sometimes thought that her trouble is in some way connected with
poor Muriel. I only wish you were here. Your clearer mind might
understand much that is dark to me. If it were not asking too much from
your friendship, I would willingly beg you to come down here for a week
or two. It would do me more good than I can express to see you.’
Maurice’s answer to this appeal was prompt and brief.
‘DEAR MARTIN,—I shall be at Borcel End, all things going well,
to-morrow night.
‘Yours always,
‘M. C.’
It was a hard thing for him to leave town just now. There was his new
poem, which had all the charm and freshness of a composition recently
begun. Little chance for him to continue his work at Borcel, with Martin
always at his elbow, and the family troubles and family secrets on his
shoulders. And then there was Justina—his afternoon cup of tea in the
second-floor parlour—all his new hopes and fancies, which had grouped
themselves around the young actress, like the Loves and Graces round
Venus, in an allegorical ceiling by Lely or Kneller. But friendship with
Maurice Clissold being something more than a name, he felt that he could
do no otherwise than hasten to his friend’s relief. So he took his
farewell cup of tea out of the dragon china, and departed by an early
express next morning, after promising Justina to be away as brief a span
as possible.
Borcel End looked very much as when he had first seen it, save that the
warm glow of summer had faded from the landscape, and that the old
farmhouse had a gloomy look in the autumn dusk. Maurice had chartered a
vehicle at Seacomb station, and driven five miles across country, a wild
moorland district, made awful by a yawning open shaft here and there,
marking the place of an abandoned mine.
The glow of the great hall fire shining through the latticed windows was
the only cheerful thing at Borcel. All the rest of the long rambling
house was dark.
Martin received his friend at the gate.
‘This is good of you, Clissold,’ he said, as Maurice alighted. ‘I feel
ashamed of my selfishness in asking you to come to such a dismal place
as this; but it will do me a world of good to have you here. I’ve told
my mother you were coming for a fortnight’s ramble among the moors. It
wouldn’t do for her to know the truth.’
‘Of course not. But as to Borcel being a dismal place, you know that I
never found it so.’
‘Ah, you have never lived here,’ said Martin, with a sigh; ‘and then
you’ve the family up at the Manor to enliven the neighbourhood for you.
There’s always plenty of cheerfulness there.’
‘And how is Mr. Penwyn going on? Is he getting popular?’
‘He ought to be, for he has done a great deal for the neighbourhood.
You’ll hardly recognise the road between here and the Manor when you
drive there. But I don’t believe the Squire will ever be as popular as
Mrs. Penwyn. The people idolize her. But they seem to have a notion that
whatever the Squire does is done more for his own advantage than the
welfare of his tenants. And yet, take him for all in all, there never
was a more liberal landlord.’
Martin was carrying his friend’s small portmanteau to the porch as he
talked. Having deposited that burden, he ran back and told the driver to
take his horse round to the stables, and to go round to the kitchen
afterwards for his own supper. This hospitable duty performed, Martin
opened the door, and ushered Maurice into the family sitting-room.
There sat the old grandmother in her accustomed corner, knitting the
inevitable grey stocking which was always in progress under those swift
fingers. There, in an arm-chair by the fire, propped up with pillows,
sat the mistress of the homestead, sorely changed since Maurice had last
seen her. The keen dark eyes had all their old brightness; nay, looked
brighter from the pallor of the shrunken visage; the high cheek-bones,
the square jaw, were more sharply outlined than of old; and the hand
which the invalid extended to Maurice—that honest hard-working hand,
which had once been coarse and brown—was now white and thin.
Michael Trevanard sat at the opposite side of the hearth, with a pewter
tankard, a newspaper, and a long clay pipe on the square oak table at
his elbow. These idle autumn evenings were trying to the somewhat
mindless farmer, to whom all the world of letters afforded no further
solace than the county paper, or an occasional number of the _Field_.
‘I am sorry to see you looking so ill, Mrs. Trevanard,’ Maurice said
kindly.
‘I’ve had a bad time of it this year, Mr. Clissold,’ she answered. ‘I
had an attack of ague and low fever in the spring, and it left a cough
that has stuck to me ever since.’
‘I hope my coming here while you are an invalid, will not be troublesome
to you.’
‘No,’ answered Mrs. Trevanard, with a sigh, ‘I’ve got used to the notion
of things being in a muddle; and neither Michael nor Martin seem to
mind; so it doesn’t much matter that the house is neglected. I’ve been
obliged to take a second girl, and the two between them make more dirt
than ever they clean up. Your old room’s been got ready for you, Mr.
Clissold; at least I told Martha to clean it thoroughly, early this
morning, and light a good fire this afternoon; so I suppose it’s all
right. But you might as well make up your mind that the wind was always
to blow from one quarter, as that a girl would do her duty when your
eyes are off her. If I had a daughter, now, a handy young woman to look
after the house——’
She turned her head upon her pillow with a shuddering sigh. That thought
was too bitter.
‘My dear Mrs. Trevanard,’ cried Maurice, cheerfully, ‘I feel assured
that the room will be—well not so nice as you would have made it
perhaps, but quite clean and comfortable.’
He took his seat by the hearth, and entered into conversation with the
master of the house, who seemed cheered by the visitor’s arrival.
‘And pray what’s doing up in London, Mr. Clissold?’ Michael Trevanard
asked, as if he took the keenest interest in metropolitan affairs.
Maurice told him the latest stirring events—wars and rumours of wars,
reviews, royal marriages in contemplation—to which the farmer listened
with respectful attention, feeling these facts as remote from his life
as if they had occurred in the East Indies.
He, on his part, told Maurice all that had been stirring at Penwyn;
amongst other matters that curious circumstance of the attempted
burglary, and Mr. Penwyn’s lenity towards the offender.
‘I’m rather surprised to hear that,’ said Maurice. ‘I should not have
thought the Squire a particularly easy-going person.’
‘No, he can be stern enough at times,’ answered the farmer. ‘That
business up at the justice-room caused a good bit of talk. If it had
been one of us, folks said, Squire Penwyn wouldn’t have let go his grip
like that. They couldn’t understand why he should be so lenient just
because the man was the son of his lodge-keeper. It would have seemed
more natural for him to get rid of the whole lot altogether, for they’re
a set of vagabonds to be about a gentleman’s place. That girl Elspeth,
who brought you here, is always robbing the orchards and hen-roosts
about the neighbourhood. She’s a regular pest to the farmers’ wives.’
‘That curious-looking woman is still at the lodge, then?’ asked Maurice.
‘Yes, she’s still there.’
‘Perhaps it was Mrs. Penwyn who interceded for the son.’
‘Well, it was a curious business altogether,’ answered the farmer. ‘Mrs.
Penwyn and the woman has a talk together in a room to themselves, and
then Mrs. Penwyn comes back to the justice-room looking as white as a
corpse, and says a few words to her husband, and on that he talks over
Mr. Tresillian, and then Mr. Tresillian lets the vagabond off with a
reprimand. Now why Mrs. Penwyn should intercede for the woman’s son I
can’t understand, for it’s well known, through Mrs. Penwyn’s own maid
having talked about it, that the Squire’s lady can’t endure the woman,
and is vexed with her husband for keeping such trash on his premises.’
‘I dare say there’s something more in it than any of us Cornish folks
are likely to find out,’ said Mrs. Trevanard. ‘The Penwyns were always a
secret underhanded lot; smooth on the outside; as fair as whitened
sepulchres, and as foul within.’
‘Come, Bridget, you’re prejudiced against them. You always have been, I
think. It isn’t fair to speak ill of those that have been good landlords
to us.’
‘Haven’t we been good tenants? We’re even there, I think.’
The maid-servant came in to lay the supper-table, Mrs. Trevanard’s
watchful eyes following the girl’s every movement. A good substantial
supper had been prepared for the traveller, but the old air of comfort
seemed to have deserted the homestead, Maurice thought. The sick wife,
with that unmistakable prophetic look in her face, the forecast shadow
of coming death, gave a melancholy air to the scene. The blind old
grandmother, sitting apart in her corner, looked like a monument of age
and affliction. The farmer himself had the heavy dulness of manner which
betokens a too frequent indulgence in alcohol. Martin was spasmodically
gay, as if determined to enjoy the society of his friend; but care had
set its mark on the bright young face, and he was in no wise the Martin
of two years ago.
Maurice retired to his bedroom soon after supper, conducted by Martin.
The apartment was unchanged in its dismal aspect; the dingy old
furniture loomed darkly through the dusk, Martin’s one candle making
only an oasis of light in the desert of gloom.
The memory of his first night at Borcel End was very present to Maurice
Clissold as he seated himself by the hearth, where the fire had burned
black and dull.
‘Poor Muriel,’ he thought, ‘what a dreary chamber for youth and beauty
to inhabit! And in a fatal hour the girl’s first love dream came to
illumine the gloom—sweet delusive dream, bringing pain along with it,
and inextinguishable regret.’
Martin set down the candle on the dressing-table, and poked the fire
vehemently.
‘Poor mother’s right,’ he said. ‘Those girls never do anything properly
now she isn’t able to follow them about. I told Phœbe to be sure to have
a bright fire to light up this cheerless old den, and she has left
nothing but a mass of smouldering coal.’
‘Never mind the fire, Martin. Sit down like a good fellow, and tell me
all your troubles. Your poor mother looks very ill.’
‘So ill that the doctor gives us no hope of her ever getting better.
Poor soul, she’s going to leave us. Heaven only knows how soon. She’s
been a good faithful wife to father, and a tender mother to me, and a
good mistress and a faithful servant in all things, so far as I can
tell. Yet I’m afraid there’s something on her mind—something that weighs
heavy. I’ve seen many a token of secret care, since she’s been ill and
sitting quietly by the fire, thinking over her past life.’
‘And you imagine that her trouble is in some way connected with your
sister?’
‘I don’t see what else it can be. That’s the only unhappiness we’ve ever
had in our lives. All the rest has been plain sailing enough.’
‘Have you questioned your mother about her anxieties?’ asked Maurice.
‘Many times. But she has always put me off with some impatient answer.
She has never denied that she has secret cares, but when I have begged
her to trust me or my father, she has turned from me peevishly. “Neither
of you could help me,” she has told me. “What is the use of talking of
old sores when there’s no healing them?”’
‘An unanswerable question,’ said Maurice.
‘You remember what you said to me about poor Muriel the day you left
Borcel? Well, those words of yours made a deep impression upon me, not
so much at the time as afterwards. I thought over all you had said, and
it seemed to grow clear to me that there was something sadder about my
poor sister’s story than had ever come to my knowledge. She had not been
quite fairly used, perhaps. Things had been hushed up and hidden for the
honour of her family, and she had been the victim of the family
respectability. My mother’s one fault is pride—pride in the
respectability of the Trevanards. She doesn’t want to be on a level with
her superiors, or to be thought anything better than a yeoman’s wife,
but her strong point has been the family credit. “There are no people in
Cornwall more looked up to than the Trevanards.” I can remember hearing
her say that, as soon as I can remember anything; and I believe she
would make any sacrifice of her own happiness to maintain that position.
It is just possible that she may have sacrificed the peace of others.’
‘I agree with you there, Martin. Whatever wrong has been done, great or
small, has been done for the sake of the good old name.’
‘Now it struck me,’ continued Martin, earnestly, ‘that although my
mother cannot be persuaded to confide in me, or in my father, who has
been a little dull of late, poor soul, she might bring herself to trust
you. I know that she respects you, as a clever man, and a man of the
world. You live remote from this little corner of the earth where the
Trevanards are of importance. She would feel less pain perhaps in
trusting you with a family secret than in telling it to her own kith and
kin. You would go away carrying the secret with you, and if there were
any wrong to be righted, as I fear there must be, you might right it
without giving rise to scandal. This is what I have thought—foolishly,
perhaps.’
‘Indeed, no, Martin, I see no folly in your idea; and if I can persuade
your mother to trust me, depend upon it I will.’
‘She knows you are a gentleman, and might be willing to trust in your
honour, where she would doubt any commoner person.’
‘We’ll see what can be done,’ answered Maurice, hopefully. ‘Your poor
sister lives apart from you all, I suppose, in the old way?’
‘Yes,’ replied the young man, ‘and I fear it’s a bad way. Her wits seem
further astray than ever. When I meet her now in the hazel copse, where
she is so fond of wandering, she looks scared and runs away from me. She
sings to herself sometimes of an evening, as she sits by the fire in
grandmother’s room. I hear her, now and then, as I pass the window,
singing some old song in her sad, sweet voice, just as she used to sing
me to sleep years ago. But I think she hardly ever opens her lips to
speak.’
‘Does she ever see her mother?’
‘That’s the saddest part of all. For the last year my mother hasn’t
dared go near her. Muriel took to screaming at the sight of her, as if
she was going into a fit; so, since then, mother and she have hardly
ever met. It’s hard to think of the dying mother, so near her only
daughter, and yet completely separated from her.’
‘It’s a sad story altogether, Martin,’ said Maurice, ‘and a heavy burden
for your young life. If I can do anything to lighten it, be sure of my
uttermost help. I am very glad you sent for me. I am very glad you trust
me.’
On this the two young men shook hands and parted for the night, Martin
much cheered by his friend’s coming.
No intrusion disturbed the traveller’s rest. He slept soundly after his
long journey, and awoke to hear farmyard cocks crowing in the sunshine,
and to remember that he was more than two hundred miles away from
Justina.
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