‘NOT AS A CHILD SHALL WE AGAIN BEHOLD HER.’
Maurice Clissold went back to Cornwall next day, with full powers, so
far as Justina’s interests were concerned. Her greatest anxiety was to
see the unhappy mother from whom she had been severed since the hour of
her birth; but to bring about a meeting between these two was not the
easiest thing in the world. Other interests were at stake. The Albert
Theatre could not get on without Justina, or so the manager affirmed;
and Justina’s engagement was for the entire season. No breaking it, save
by forfeiture of reputation with the public, and at the hazard of a
lawsuit.
The only thing to be done was to bring Muriel nearer London so soon as
she should be strong enough to bear the journey. Maurice hoped much from
the daughter’s influence upon the mother’s disordered brain. He was at
Borcel End by eight o’clock in the evening—neither Mr. Trevanard nor his
son suspecting that their erratic guest had been further than
Seacomb—and found the aspect of things improving. Muriel was calmer; the
burns had proved of the slightest, and all was going on favourably. He
went in and sat by her bedside for a few minutes, and talked to her. The
wan eyes looked at him calmly enough, but with a curious wonder. He
found that she remembered nothing of the fire, and had no idea why she
had been ill and in pain. But she did remember the promise he had made
her about her daughter.
‘Some one told me I should see my baby again,’ she said. ‘I don’t know
who it was, but some one told me so, and I know that I shall see
her—when we meet our friends in heaven.’
‘You shall see her here, on this earth,’ said Maurice.
‘Is that true?’
‘Quite true.’
‘Then let me go to sleep till she comes. Lay her here beside me, and let
me find her here when I open my eyes—my sweet baby!’
‘Consider how many years have come and gone since you saw her. She is an
infant no longer, but a beautiful young woman.’
Muriel stared at him with a puzzled look. ‘I don’t want to see any young
women; I want my baby again—the little baby my mother stole from me.’
This made things difficult. Maurice saw in this a fond clinging to the
past, memory strong enough to make the lapse of years as nothing. He
made no attempt to argue the point, but left Muriel to the devoted
grandmother’s care.
The blind woman sat in her easy chair by the bed, knitting
industriously, and murmuring a soothing word now and then. No voice had
such power to comfort Muriel.
‘When shall I see my niece, and when will you tell father?’ Martin
asked, eagerly, directly he and Maurice were alone together.
‘You shall see your niece as soon as your sister is strong enough to
bear a journey, when you can bring her up to some quiet little place in
the neighbourhood of London. As for your father, I think my chain of
evidence is now so complete that I cannot tell him too soon. I will get
a quiet hour with him to-morrow after breakfast, if I can. Later I am
going to the Manor House to examine my ground and discover if there is
any chance of a friendly compromise.’
‘I hope you’ll be able to settle things pleasantly,’ said Martin. ‘I
can’t bear the idea of those poor young ladies—Mrs. Penwyn and Miss
Bellingham—being turned out of house and home.’
‘It shall not be so bad as that, depend upon it,’ replied Maurice.
He was down early next morning, and asked Mr. Trevanard for half an
hour’s conversation after breakfast.
‘An hour, if you like,’ answered Michael, in his listless way. ‘There’s
not much for me to do upon the farm. I only potter about; the men would
get on quite as well without me, I dare say.’
‘I can’t believe that, Mr. Trevanard,’ said Maurice, cheerily. ‘The
master’s eye—you know the old adage?’
‘Bridget was the ruling mind, sir. Bridget was worth twenty of me!’
It was a cold and blusterous morning—the dead leaves falling fast from
the few trees about Borcel, but Michael and his companion were fond of
the open air, so they went out into the neglected garden, a wilderness
where Muriel had been wont to range alone and at liberty for the last
twenty years.
Here, in a narrow path screened by hazel bushes, the farmer and Maurice
Clissold paced up and down while Maurice told his story, taking care to
soften Bridget Trevanard’s part in the domestic tragedy, and to
demonstrate that, when erring most, she had been actuated only by regard
for the family honour, and a mistaken family pride.
Michael heard him with deepest emotion.
‘My poor girl!—my beautiful Muriel! You don’t know how proud I was of
her—how I doted on her and to think that I should never have suspected
that all was not well, that my poor child was being ill-used in her own
home.’
‘Not ill-used,’ remonstrated Maurice, pleading for the dead wife who had
trusted him with her secret. ‘There was no unkindness.’
‘No unkindness? They made her suffer shame, they refused to believe in
her purity; was that no unkindness? They robbed her of her child! For
what? The world’s good word! I would have stood between my darling and
the world. None should have dared to slander her while I was near. What
right had my wife to take this matter into her own hands—to hoodwink me
with her secrecies and suppressions? I would have stood by my child.
Muriel would have trusted me. Yes, she would have trusted her indulgent
old father, even if she feared to confide in her mother. Bridget was
always too severe.’
‘Remember that your wife erred in her anxiety for your good name.’
‘Yes, yes, I know that. God knows, it goes hard with me to speak against
her in her grave—poor faithful soul! She was faithful according to her
notion of right. But she took too much heed of the world—her world—half
a dozen families within five miles of Borcel. The sun, and moon, and
heaven, and all God’s angels were not so much account to her. Poor soul!
She must have suffered. I’ve seen the lines of trouble growing deeper in
her face, and never knew why they came there. My poor, trampled-upon
Muriel! It was a cruel thing to send away the child. I could have loved
it dearly!’
‘You will love her dearly still, when I bring her to you.’
‘Yes, but not as I could have loved her twenty years ago—when she was a
helpless infant. My firstborn grandchild.’
The idea that this grandchild of his was the rightful owner of the
Penwyn estate, Borcel End included, moved Michael Trevanard but
slightly. He was not calm enough to consider this business from a
worldly point of view. He could only think of the grandchild that was
born under his roof, and spirited away while he lay in his bed,
unsuspecting of the evil that was being wrought for love of his good
name. He could only think of the persecuted daughter whose life had been
made so bitter—of the husband who had never lived to acknowledge his
wife—the father who had never known of his child’s birth. The thought of
these things altogether absorbed his mind, and he scarcely realized the
fact of his grandchild’s claim to wealth and position.
‘And where is she? What is she doing now—Muriel’s daughter—my
grandchild?’ he asked.
Maurice explained Justina’s position.
‘What!’ cried the old man, with a wry face, ‘a play actress? Raddled red
and white, and in short petticoats all over tinsel stars, capering
outside a show?’ his only notion of actresses was founded on his
experiences at Seacomb cattle fair—‘do you mean to say that my flesh and
blood has come to that?’
Maurice hastened to correct the farmer’s idea of the dramatic
profession, and to assure him that his granddaughter was to all intents
and purposes a lady; modest, refined in feeling and in manner, beautiful
in mind and person, a grandchild of whom he had ample reason to be
proud.
‘A London theatre is not in the least like those itinerant playhouses
you have seen at Seacomb fair,’ he said.
‘Humph! They don’t dance outside, I suppose? or play the Pandean pipes,
and beat a gong?’
‘Nothing approaching it. You might mistake a London theatre for a
church, looking at its outside.’
‘And they don’t raddle their faces, eh?’
‘Oh dear no!’ Maurice replied, with a faint twinge in that region of his
sensorium which phrenologists appropriate to conscientiousness. ‘Not in
the least. In short, acting in London is high art.’
‘And no short petticoats and tinsel stars, eh?’
‘No tinsel stars! Nor does your granddaughter ever appear in short
petticoats. She is a most refined and elegant actress, and I know that
whether you see her on or off the stage, you will be equally charmed
with her.’
‘I shall love her for Muriel’s sake,’ answered Michael Trevanard,
tenderly. ‘Yes, I should love her dearly; even if she raddled her cheeks
and danced outside a show at a fair!’
------------------------------------------------------------------------