READING AN EPITAPH.
CLEVE VERNEY next afternoon was again, on board his yacht. Wind and tide
both favouring, the cutter was running under a press of canvas that
brought her gunwale to the water's edge once more for Penruthyn Priory.
This time it was no mere aquatic whim; it was pursuit.
Searching the wooded sea-board of Malory with his glass, from the
terrace of Ware, he had seen an open sail-boat waiting at the jetty.
Down came a servant with cloaks and rugs. Cleve grew more and more
interested as he adjusted the focus of his glass more exactly. On a
sudden, from the little door in the boundary wall, emerged two ladies.
There was no mistake; he could swear to them. They were the very same
whom he had seen on Sunday in the Malory seat.
He watched till he saw the boat round the point, and then--"Yes," he
thought, "they are certainly going to Penruthyn Priory."
And away went Cleve Verney in pursuit of the shadow which he secretly
adored. From Ware to Penruthyn Priory is about six miles, and by the
time the pursuing cutter was in motion the chase had made more than a
mile of her course, and was within two of the landing point at the ruin.
Cleve saw the two ladies disembark. It was now plain that they had come
either to visit the ruins, or for a walk in that wild and lonely park
called the Warren. Cleve had brought his gun with him, only for an
excuse.
Little more than five minutes after the arrival of the open boat, Cleve
Verney set his foot upon the rude landing place, as old perhaps as the
Priory itself; a clumsy little pier, constructed of great rocks,
overgrown with sea-rack, over which slippery platform he strode with
reckless haste, and up by that steep and pretty little winding lane, the
trees overhanging which look centuries old, stooping and mantled in ivy.
They may have heard the tinkle of the bells of the prior's mule, as he
ambled beneath their boughs, and the solemn swell of the monkish requiem
from the melancholy little churchyard close by, under the old Priory
windows. The thick stone wall that fences this ancient by-road is
clasped together with ivy, and hoar with lichens, irregular, and broken
as the battlements of a ruined tower. The approach, and the place
itself, are in their picturesque sadness and solitude the very scene and
setting of such a romance as Cleve Verney was pursuing.
Into the Warren, by the stile up this road's side, went Cleve, and
climbed the gray rocky hillock that commands an extensive view of that
wild park; but there they were not.
Well, they must, then, have pursued the path up to the Priory, and
thither he followed.
Oh, ho! here they are; the young lady at a little distance looking up at
the singular ruin; the old lady engaged in an active discussion with
shrewish old Mrs. Hughes, who was very deaf, and often a little tipsy,
and who was now testily refusing the ladies admission within the iron
gate which affords access to the ruins, of which she held the keys.
No situation could have been more fortunate for Cleve. The Warren and
the Priory being his uncle's property, and the termagant Mrs. Hughes his
officer, he walked up to the visitor, and inquired very courteously the
object of the application, and forthwith ordered the portress to open
the gate and deliver up her keys; which she did, a good deal frightened
at sight of so unexpected a _deus ex machina_.
An unmistakable gentleman, handsome, and plainly a sort of prince in
this region, the old lady, although she did not know to whom she was
obliged, was pleased at his offer to act as cicerone here, and accepted
it graciously.
"My young friend will be very glad; she draws a little, and enjoys such
sights immensely. Margaret!" she called. The young lady turned, and
Cleve saw before him once more in flesh and blood, that wonderful
portrait of Beatrice Cenci, which had haunted him for three days.
The young lady heard what her companion had to say, and for a moment her
large eyes rested on Cleve with a glance that seemed to him at once
haughty, wild, and shy.
With one hand he held the gate open, and in the other his hat was raised
respectfully, as side by side they walked into the open court. They each
bowed as they passed, the elder lady very cheerily, the younger with a
momentary glance of the same unconscious superiority, which wounded him
more than his pride would have allowed; and a puzzled recollection
flitted across his mind of having once heard, he could not remember
when, that Booth Fanshawe had married a beautiful Italian, an heiress (a
princess--wasn't she?)--at all events, a scion of one of their proud old
houses, whose pedigrees run back into the Empire, and dwarf into
parvenus the great personages of Debrett's Peerage. What made it worse
was, that there was no shyness, no awkwardness. She talked a good deal
to her companion, and laughed slightly once or twice, in a very sweet
tone. The old lady was affable and friendly; the young lady, on the
contrary, so far from speaking to him, seemed hardly to give herself the
trouble of listening to what he said. This kind of exclusion, to which
the petted young man certainly was not accustomed, galled him extremely,
the more so that she looked, he thought, more beautiful than ever, and
that her voice, and pretty, slightly foreign accent, added another charm
to the spell.
He made them a graceful little lecture on the building, as they stood in
the court. If she had any cleverness she would see with what a playful
and rapid grace he could convey real information. The young lady looked
from building to building as he described them, but with no more
interest in the speaker, it seemed to him, than if the bell-man of
Cardyllian had been reading it from a handbill. He had never done
anything so well in the House of Commons, and here it was accepted as a
piece of commonplace. The worst of it was that there was no finesse in
all this. It was in perfect good faith that this beautiful young lady
was treating him like a footman. Cleve was intensely piqued. Had she
been less lovely, his passion might have recoiled into disgust; as it
was, with a sort of vindictive adoration, he vowed that he would yet
compel her to hang upon his words as angels' music, to think of him, to
watch for him, to love him with all that wild and fiery soul which an
intuition assured him was hers.
So, with this fierce resolve at his heart, he talked very agreeably with
the accessible old lady, seeming, in a spirit, I dare say, altogether
retaliatory, to overlook the young lady's presence a good deal.
"I've got the key of the church, also; you'll allow me, I hope, to show
it to you. It is really very curious--a much older style than the rest
of the building--and there are some curious monuments and epitaphs."
The old lady would be charmed, of course, and her young companion, to
whom she turned, would like it also. So Cleve, acting as porter, opened
the ponderous door, and the party entered this dim and solemn Saxon
chapel, and the young lady paused and looked round her, struck, as it
seemed with a sense of something new and very interesting.
"How strange! How rude it is, and irregular; not large, and yet how
imposing!" murmured the girl, as she looked round with a momentary awe
and delight. It was the first remark she had made, which it was possible
for Cleve Verney to answer.
"That's so true! considering how small it is, it does inspire a
wonderful awe," said he, catching at the opportunity. "It's very dark,
to be sure, and that goes a long way; but its style is so rough and
Cyclopean, that it overcomes one with a feeling of immense antiquity;
and antiquity is always solemn, a gift from the people so remote and
mysterious, as those who built this chapel, is affecting."
At this point Cleve Verney paused; either his ideas failed him, or he
felt that they were leading him into an oration. But he saw that the
young lady looked at him, as he spoke, with some interest, and he felt
more elated than he had done for many a day.
"Is that a broken pillar?" asked Miss Sheckleton,--as I shall for the
future call the elder lady.
"That's the font--very ancient--there's some odd carving about it, which
has puzzled our antiquaries," said Cleve, leading the way to it.
The young lady had not followed. His exposition was to Miss Sheckleton,
whose inquisitiveness protracted it. It was dry work for Cleve. The
young lady had seated herself in a sort of oak stall, and was looking up
at the groining of the round ribbed arches, at some distance. The effect
was singular. She was placed in the deep chiaroscuro, a strong gleam of
light entering through a circular aperture in the side wall, illuminated
her head and face with a vivid and isolated effect; her rich chestnut
hair was now disclosed, her bonnet having fallen back, as she gazed
upward, and the beautiful oval face was disclosed in the surrounding
shadow with the sudden brilliancy and isolation of a picture in a
phantasmagoria.
Verney's eyes were not upon the font on which he was lecturing, his
thoughts were wandering too, and Miss Sheckleton observed perhaps some
odd vagueness and iteration in his remarks; but the young lady changed
her position, and was now examining another part of the church.
Cleve either felt or fancied, seeing, as the Italians say, with the tail
of his eye, that she was now, for a moment, looking at him, believing
herself unseen. If this were so, was it not the beginning of a triumph?
It made him strangely happy.
If Cleve had seen those sights in town, I can't say whether their effect
would have been at all similar; but beautiful scenery, like music,
predisposes to emotion. Its contemplation is the unconscious abandonment
of the mind to sentiment, and once excite tenderness and melancholy, and
the transition to love is easy upon small provocations. In the country
our visions flit more palpably before us; there is nothing there, as
amid the clatter and vulgarities of the town, to break our dreams. The
beautiful rural stillness is monotony itself, and monotony is the spell
and the condition of all mesmeric impressions. Hence young men, in part,
are the dangers of those enchanted castles called country houses, in
which you lose your heads and hearts; whither you arrive jubilant and
free, and whence you are led by delicate hands, with a silken halter
round your necks, with a gay gold ring in your obedient noses, and a
tiny finger crooked therein, and with a broad parchment pinned upon your
patient shoulders, proclaiming to the admiring world that your estates
have gone the way of your liberties, and that you and they are settled
for life.
"Now, _this_," said he, pointing to a block of carved stone placed in
the aisle, "is the monument of old Martha Nokes; pray ask your young
lady to come for one moment; it's worth reading."
"_Margaret!_" called the elder visitor, in the subdued tone suited to
the sacred place. "Come, darling, and see this."
"This inscription is worth reading, and I can tell you about the old
woman, for I remember her quite well. I was eight years old when she
died. Old Martha Nokes; she died in her hundred and twentieth year."
The young lady stood by and listened and read. The epitaph related her
length of service, her fidelity, and other virtues, and that "this stone
was placed here in testimony of the sincere and merited esteem, respect,
and affection cherished for the deceased, by Eleanor, Viscountess
(Dowager) Verney, of Malory."
"There's some beautiful embroidery on satin, worked by her more than a
hundred and fifteen years ago, at Ware," said Cleve Verney. "They say
such work can't be had now. '_In the course of her long pilgrimage_,'
you see by the epitaph, '_she had no less than twenty-three substantial
offers of marriage, all which she declined, preferring her single state
to the many cares and trials of wedded life, and willing also to remain
to the end of her days in the service of the family of Verney, (to whom
she was justly grateful,) and in which she had commenced her active and
useful, though humble life, in the reign of King George the First_.' So
you see she spent all her life with us; and I'll tell our people, if
you should happen to pass near Ware--it's not an hour's sail across--and
would care to see it, to show you her embroidery, and her portrait; and
if there's anything else you think worth looking at; there are some
pictures and bronzes--they'll be quite at your service; my uncle is
hardly ever at Ware; and I only run down for a little boating and
shooting, now and then."
"Thank you," said the old lady, and utter silence followed. Her young
companion glanced at her for a moment, and saw her look blank and even
confounded. She averted her gaze, and something, I suppose, struck her
as comical, for, with a sudden little silvery laugh, she said--
"What a charming, funny old woman she must have been!"
And with this excuse she laughed more--and again, after a little
interval. Nothing more contagious than this kind of laughter, especially
when one has an inkling of the cause. Cleve looked at the font, and
lowered his large eyes to the epitaph of the Virgin Martha Nokes, and
bit his lips, but he _did_ laugh a little in spite of himself, for there
was something nearly irresistible in pleasant Miss Sheckleton's look of
vacant consternation.