Strange. She thought of Mr. Trampleasure, of Sampson--she really knew
very few men, and those she knew were not of the best type. There was
the Captain, indeed, but he was unattainable, and Herring was at least
inoffensive and well-meaning. If she must be thrown to beasts, let her
be cast to such a gentle beast as this. Hereafter, only, will there be
no marrying nor giving in marriage, and women will be at peace; there,
into that blessed country, the men, if admitted at all, will be like
priests, wear petticoats and be shaven; above all, will be in such a
minority that they will be obliged to keep their distance and adopt a
submissive manner. Mirelle had a good deal of natural shrewdness, but
no experience of life. Brought up in a convent, the only world she knew
was the little world within four walls, in which the wildest hurricane
that raged was occasioned by a junior appropriating the chair properly
belonging to a senior, and the fiercest jealousies blazed when a father
director addressed four words to Sister Magdalen of S. Paul, and only
three to Sister Rose of the Cross. When she had gone out, it was on
visits to her mother, and there she had met very artificial old
gentlemen, and still more artificial old ladies, persons who looked like
pictures in illustrated story-books, and talked like the people she read
of in the same books. She supposed that her board and education were
paid for at the Sacre Coeur. She supposed so, she took it for granted.
She considered it probable that those pupils who could afford, paid, and
those who could not afford, were received gratuitously. The sisters
never mentioned such matters, her mother never alluded to them, and
Mirelle had scarce accorded such sordid cares a passing thought. Bread
and instruction came to her as food and light to the birds; the birds
take what is sent, and do not trouble their feathery heads about the how
and whence. Now she was driven to consider how she might live, and
whether it was right for her to subsist on alms, and those the alms of a
gentleman who was no relation, and how, if these means were withdrawn or
rejected, she was to live at all.
After much thought, little sleep, and many tears, she decided that she
would accept John Herring.
She had made up her mind. Now, she must obtain command of herself to go
through the approaching ordeal with dignity.
As Orange had anticipated, her letter brought Herring to Launceston. He
had gone to Welltown, his house in Cornwall on the coast, to look after
his business there. He had let the farm, but he had a slate-quarry in
the cliffs overhanging the sea, and he liked to keep an eye on it. This
slate-quarry had been worked in a desultory manner, chiefly to supply
local requirements, but Herring's ideas had expanded since he had seen
the rise and fall of Ophir, and since he had embarked in silver lead,
and he saw his way to an extension of the business. He knew that
Bristol was a port where he could dispose of any amount of slate, if he
were able to convey it thither. Below Welltown the cliffs rose sheer
from the beach; that beach was a thin strip of sand, only to be reached
by a dangerous path cut in the face of the rock. Welltown cove was to
some extent sheltered from the roll of the Atlantic by a reef from
Willapark, as a headland was called, which started out of the mainland
into the ocean, and was gnawed into on both sides by the waves,
threatening to convert it into an island.
Herring had a scheme in his head; he thought to construct a breakwater
on a continuation of the reef. Then he would be able to bring boats
under the face of his slate-quarries, and lower the roofing stone upon
their decks. The idea had not occurred to him before, because he had
been poor and unable to command a few thousand pounds. But now he had
Mirelle's diamonds to draw upon. He could invest her capital in his own
slate-quarry as well as in Upaver lead mine, and benefit himself as well
as Mr. Battishill. He would look after both investments himself. He
would hold both the slate and the lead in his own hands. Mirelle's
money would not only be safe, but would bring in rich dividends. Was he
justified in acting thus--in speculating with the fortune of another
without her knowledge and consent? He asked himself this question, and
answered it in the affirmative. Without his seeking, Providence had
thrust on him the charge of Mirelle's fortune, and he must do the best
he could with it. Her father had done what he thought best, and every
penny that had been intrusted to her guardians had been lost. Then
Providence had overruled matters so as to constitute him her guardian.
He would act justly by her. He was not self-seeking. It was true that
the development of the Welltown slate-quarry would improve his own
fortune, but this thought influenced him far less than consideration how
best to dispose of Mirelle's money. He would sink her diamonds in his
slate, not because it was his slate, but because he knew the security
and value of the investment. He was working for her, not for himself,
to increase her fortune, not his own, to insure her a future, not
himself. Thus it was for Mirelle that he was erecting machinery at
Upaver and planning a breakwater at Welltown. In the midst of his
schemes he received the letter of Orange, and the postscript made his
heart leap. He had been too humble-minded to hope. Mirelle stood aloof
from him, high above his sphere. She was to him the ideal of pure,
beautiful, and saintly maidenhood, to be dreamed of, not aspired to, to
be venerated, not sought. She had of late received him with more
kindliness than heretofore, had put away her early disdain, and had
treated him as an equal. There had transpired through face and manner
something even of appeal to him. Was it possible that she had begun to
regard him with liking, perhaps even with love? He was so modest in his
estimation of himself that he blushed at the thought--the audacious
thought--that this was possible.
Herring posted to Launceston, and went at once to Dolbeare. Mirelle was
in the little garden house as he passed. She saw him, and knew that the
crisis in her life was come. He was admitted to Dolbeare, and sat with
Mrs. Trampleasure and Orange for half an hour. The latter had discovered
some important business requiring advice, and this was discussed; yet
Herring saw plainly enough that this was not of sufficient importance to
have made Orange summon him. Mr. Flamank could have advised her equally
well. There was something behind. What that was Orange let him
understand.
'And now,' said she, 'we must detain you no longer. Mirelle is in the
summer-house. She likes to be alone, dear girl, and she wants to see
you. You slipped away, on the occasion of our return hither, without
awaiting her thanks. She has been troubled at this; she knows she owes
you some return. Go and see her; she is expecting you, and angry with
us for keeping you from her so long over our own poor affairs.'
Herring coloured. Orange had not a delicate way of putting things. He
knew that Mirelle had not asked Orange to act as intermediary between
them, yet this was what the words and manner of Orange implied.
He bowed and withdrew.
Mirelle was awaiting him, She had been given time to school herself for
the trial. Twilight had set in, and but for the fire that glowed on the
hearth it would have been dark in the little room. The fire was of
peat, without flame, colouring the whole room very red.
Mirelle rose from her seat and stepped forward to meet Herring. He
looked her in the face. She was very pale; the colour had deserted even
her lips, but the light of the burning turf disguised her death-like
whiteness. As he took her hand he felt how cold it was; it trembled,
and was timorously withdrawn the moment it had touched his fingers. His
heart was beating tumultuously. Hers seemed scarce to pulsate; it was
iced by her great fear and misery, and the strong compulsion she exerted
to keep herself calm.
'I am glad to see you, Mr. Herring,' she said. She spoke first, and she
spoke, as on a former occasion, like one repeating a lesson learned by
heart. 'I was told that you were coming, and I have prepared myself to
speak to you, and say what has to be said. You have been good to me,
very good. You have done more for me than I had any right to expect. I
have no claim on you, save the claim which appeals to every Christian
heart, the claim of the friendless and helpless. That is a great claim,
I have been taught, the greatest and most sacred of all. But the world
does not recognise it; it does not allow you permission to pour on me so
many benefits. You have bought everything the house contains with your
own money--for me. You have taken the lease of the house, and paid the
rent out of your own purse--for me. You have undertaken to find me an
income on which I can live in comfort; you rob yourself--for me.'
She paused a moment.
A conflict woke up in the mind of John Herring. Should he tell her all?
Should he say that this was not true--he had used her money, not his
own? If at that moment he had done so, that event which was to trouble
and darken both their futures would not have occurred. Herring was
young; he was without strength of character to decide in a moment what
to do. He let the occasion slip. He would wait; the revelation could be
made later. He did not understand the supreme importance of the moment.
He did not realise to what Mirelle's words led.
'Countess,' he said----
'No,' she interrupted hastily, 'do not speak. You must let me say what
I want. Il me faut me decharger le coeur. If I had been a nun at the
head of an orphanage, I would have said, Give all, and God on high will
repay you. Give; no one will deny you the right, and I will accept with
joy. I will be your almoner to the little ones of Christ. But, alas! it
is not so. I can spend what you provide only on myself, and I do not
find that this is right. In the world is one fashion, in religion is
another fashion. You see well yourself it cannot be.'
'Countess, will you allow me to explain?'
'No; I need no explanation. One only question I ask, for there is one
thing I desire greatly to know. That neck-chain and that coronet of
diamonds, have you sold them?'
'No, I have them yet. You intrusted them to me.'
'They are false. Do you know the brooch you sent me for Orange was all
of false stones--of paste? I doubt not the rest of the set is the same.
Did you know this?'
'Certainly not. I have not examined and proved the stones. I had no
suspicion that they were not genuine.'
'My father sent the set as a present to my mother,' said Mirelle, 'and
they were of paste.'
Herring was surprised.
'This cannot be, Countess; your father was a diamond merchant, and knew
perfectly the false from the true. He could not have sent your mother
what was worthless. The stones must have been changed later.'
'They were in my mother's keeping,' said Mirelle.
That was answer enough. Her father might be guilty of a mean act; her
mother, never.
Herring had his own opinion, but he had the prudence not to express it.
'But enough about this,' Mirelle went on. 'I only asked for this
reason. If you had sold my stones, supposing them to be real, and had
used them to relieve me and the Trampleasures in the moment of our need,
when we had not a house to cover our heads, I should have been very,
very thankful.'
She said this with an involuntary sigh, and with such an intense
expression of earnestness that Herring caught the words up, and said
eagerly:--
'Do you mean this? Do you mean that you would have thanked me if I had
sold your diamonds and used the proceeds to relieve your necessities?'
'Yes, I do mean this.'
'Why did you not ask me to do this?'
'Because I supposed the stones were paste, and worthless.'
'Tell me, dear Countess Mirelle, if you had confided diamonds to me,
knowing them to be diamonds, you would not be angry with me for selling
them for this very purpose--to provide you with the means of living
yourself, and of returning the kindness shown you by Mrs. Trampleasure
and her daughter?'
'I would go down on my knees to thank you. I would be full of gratitude
to you.'
He breathed freely; he had received his absolution. He had been
justified in acting as he had done; Mirelle had approved of his conduct
with her own lips. He had carried out her wishes. It was unnecessary
for him to tell her all, now that he was certain that he acted as she
would have him act.
But he did not read her heart. He did not understand the real
significance of her words. She would indeed have been thankful to know
that she had received her own money, so as to be free from all
obligations to him--so as not to be forced to take the step the thought
of which killed the life out of her heart. That hope was gone--a poor
hope, but still a hope. Nothing remained for her but the surrender; she
must become a sacrifice.
'It was not so,' she went on sadly, 'I knew it was not so, for you would
not have parted with my mother's set of stones without consulting me.
No, Mr. Herring, I have not the poor pride of knowing I am my own
mistress, and independent of every one. You have been to me a generous
friend and a guardian when I needed assistance and protection.'
'Dear Countess Mirelle, I am ready still to act as your friend, your
guardian, and your protector.'
'I know it, Mr. Herring, and I frankly accept your offer. I am willing
that you should continue such for the rest of my life.'
'Countess!' Herring's voice shook; 'how happy, how proud you make me!'
'Let me speak,' she said. Then her heart failed her. She went to the
fire, and rested her hands on the mantelpiece, folded as in prayer, and
leaned her brow for a moment on them. The red glow of the fire smote
upwards and illumined and warmed the face. She was praying. Her
strength was ebbing away; the dreaded moment had come. 'I holy and
innocent Agnes, pure lamb! Thou who didst bow thy neck to the sword,
intercede for me! O Cicely, thou whose heart was filled with heavenly
music, making thee deaf to the voice of an earthly bridegroom, pray for
me! O Dorothy, thou who didst pine for the lilies and roses of
Paradise, plead for me!'
She raised her white brow from its momentary resting-place. The
strength had come. The moment of agony had arrived, and she was nerved
to pass through.
'Mr. Herring,' she spoke slowly, leisurely, 'I have no right to accept
your offer, unless you confer on me the right--the only right----'
She could speak no more. Her white, quivering face, her sunken eyes,
and uplifted hands that shook as with a palsy, showed her powerlessness
to proceed.
Herring took a step forward. She drew back, shrinking before him as
perhaps the martyr shrinks before the executioner.
'Stand there, I pray--oh, do not come nearer!' she pleaded, with pain in
her voice.
'Mirelle, dear Mirelle!' he said; and then the pent-up love of his heart
broke forth. He told her how he had loved her from the moment that he
first saw her, how, hopeless of ever winning her, he had battled with
his love, how vain his efforts had been, and how his highest ambition
was to live for her and make her happy. He spoke in plain, simple
words, with the rough eloquence of passion and sincerity.
She listened to him, with her hands again on the mantelpiece, looking at
him, with her dark eyes wide open, and the red glow of the fire in them.
She did not follow his words, she heard them without comprehending them.
She was full of her own grief and could think of nothing else.
She woke out of abstraction when he asked her, 'Mirelle, may I think
myself so happy as to be able to count on your being mine?'
'I will be your wife,' she said.
'Oh, dear, dear Mirelle! My whole life shall be devoted to you. This
is the happiest day I have ever known.'
'One thing I must say,' said she; 'you know I am a Catholic. I will
never give up my faith. You will assure me perfect freedom to follow my
own dear religion. I could live without everything, but not without
that.'
He gave her the requisite assurance.
'You and I,' she said sadly, 'have not the same faith--that is, as far
as I can see, you disbelieve in more than half of the verities which are
the very life of my soul. We cannot be united in the holiest and most
beautiful of all bonds, which has eternity before it, to which both
press on together. That cannot be. You go one way, I another. But as
far as can be, I will be all that you will require.'
'You are everything I desire now. I have but to look at you, and I
think I see a saint or angel from heaven.'
She put up her hand, and brushed his words away. They offended her.
But they were sincere; there was no flattery in them. Mirelle was an
ideal to Herring. Again he stepped forward. He would take her hands,
he would kiss colour and heat into those cold and faded lips. He had a
right to do this. Was she not about to become his wife?
But again she drew back, and in a tone of mingled terror and entreaty
said, 'Oh, Mr. Herring. I pray you do not come nearer to me. I am so
frightened and bewildered. The thoughts that rise up beat my temples and
contract my heart. I have gone through a great deal to-day, I have said
that I will be your wife. Do not exact of me more than I can bear. Do
not press the advantage you have gained over me, I entreat you. You are
kind and considerate. I am not very strong, and I think not very well.
Leave me to myself, I pray you; go away now. If I have made you happy,
I am glad of it; let my promise suffice. Come here to-morrow, if you
will. No, no'--again with her fear overmastering her, she grasped at a
respite--'not to-morrow. I shall not be sufficiently myself to receive
you. The day after will do. Then I shall have more strength to speak
to you about the future. Not now. I pray you leave me alone now.'
'Will you not even give me your hand?'
She hesitated, then timidly drew near, with her large eyes on him full
of anxiety, and she held out the long shaking white fingers. He kissed
them. They were cold as the fingers of the dead.
'I shall return the day after to-morrow,' he said.
'I shall be ready then to receive you,' she replied.
He went out. Then, when she knew that she was alone, at once all her
strength gave way, and she fell on her knees, clasping her hands
together, swaying her body in the agony of her pain, and broke into a
storm of tears.
Mirelle did not keep her word to Herring. She was unable to do so. That
night she was attacked by a nervous fever, and became delirious. The
strain had been too great for her delicate system.
Herring called, and heard how ill she was. He did not leave Launceston;
he remained till the crisis was past.
The doctors were uncertain what turn her illness would take, and how to
treat one constituted so differently from their run of patients. In
this uncertainty they did nothing, and, because they did nothing,
Mirelle recovered.
There was a natural elasticity in her youth which triumphed over the
disease.
Orange sat up with her, night after night. She would allow no one else
to share the burden with her till Mirelle's delirium was over.
During the height of the fever, Mirelle talked. Orange stayed with her,
not out of love for her cousin, but out of fear lest others should
discover, from the rambling talk of Mirelle, the secret which she alone
possessed. The name of Trecarrel was often on the lips of Mirelle; she
prayed, and broke off in the midst of a prayer to speak of Trecarrel.
At the same time she seemed oppressed by a great terror, and she cried
out to be saved from what was coming. Not once did the name of John
Herring pass her lips.
When, at length, Mirelle was well enough to be moved downstairs, then
Herring was admitted to see her. He had repeatedly sat before, by the
hour, with Mrs. Trampleasure or with Orange, talking of the poor girl
lying ill upstairs.
'She has been delirious,' said Orange, 'and, if it were not unfair, I
could tell you how often your name----'
'It is unfair,' interrupted Herring, 'and I decline to listen.'
'As you like,' said Orange, shrugging her shoulders; and, as she left
the room, she sneered.
When John Herring saw Mirelle at last, he could hardly command his
tears, she looked so thin and transparent; her eyes were very large and
bright, her face like ivory. She held out her hand to him. He scarce
ventured to touch it. She seemed to him like the ghost-moth which, when
grasped by the hand, vanishes, leaving only silvery plumes sprinkled
over the fingers.
He kissed the wasted hand with reverence and love, not with passion, and
Mirelle smiled.
'Mr. Herring,' she said, 'I have had a long time to myself, whilst I
have been ill, in which to prepare my thoughts. What must be--must be,
and may be soon. It is now Advent, a season in which it is forbidden by
the Church to marry; but I will be yours as soon after Christmas as you
like. Do not doubt. When I am your wife I will do my duty.'
*CHAPTER XXXIX.*
*WELLTOWN.*
John Herring returned to Welltown. There was much to occupy him there.
He must prepare the house to receive its mistress. He must get what he
could ready for the extension of the slate-quarry. The breakwater could
not be begun in winter, but the stone could be quarried for it among the
granite of Row-tor, and the head taken off where the slate was to be
worked.
Welltown was a bleak spot. It stood against a hill, only a little way
in from the head of the cliffs. The hill had been quarried for the
stone of which the house was built, and then the end of the house had
been thrust into the hole thus scooped. The hill rose rapidly, and its
drip fell over the eaves of the old quarry about the walls of the house.
If the hill had been to seaward it would have afforded some shelter, but
it was on the inland side, and the house was therefore exposed to the
raging blasts, salt with Atlantic spray, that roared over the bare
surface of the land. Not a tree could stand against it, not a shrub,
except privet and the so-called teaplant. Larches shot up a few feet
and lost their leaders; even the ash died away at the head, and bore
leaves only near the ground. A few beech-trees were like broken-backed
beggars bent double.
Day and night the roar of the ocean filled the air, the roar of an ocean
that rolled in unbroken swell from Labrador, and dashed itself against
the ironbound coast in surprise and fury at being arrested; beneath its
stormy blows the very mainland quivered.
Welltown was an old house, built at the end of the sixteenth century by
a certain Baldwin Tink, who cut his initials on the dripstone
terminations of the main entrance. The Tinks had owned the place for
several generations, yeomen aspiring to become gentlemen, without arms,
but hoping to acquire a grant. Baldwin had built one wing and a porch,
and proposed in time to erect another wing, but his ability to build was
exhausted, and none of his successors were able to complete the house;
so it remained a queer lopsided erection, the earnest of a handsome
mansion unfulfilled. Baldwin Tink was an ambitious man; he expected to
be able to form a quadrangle, and pierced his porch with gateways
opposite each other, so that the visitor might pass through into the
courtyard, and there dismount in shelter. But as he was unable to add a
second wing to the front, so was he also unable to complete his
quadrangle; and the porch served as a gathering place for the winds,
whence they rushed upstairs and through chambers, piping at keyholes,
whizzing under doors, extinguishing candles, fluttering arras. The
windows were mullioned and cut in granite, the mullions heavy and the
lights narrow. The porch was handsomely proportioned and deeply
moulded, but as want of funds had prevented Baldwin Tink from completing
his exterior, so had it prevented him from properly furnishing the house
inside. The staircase was mean, provisional, rudely erected out of
wreck timber, and the impanelled walls were plastered white. As the rain
drove against the house, fierce, pointed as lances, it smote between the
joints of the stones, and, though the walls were thick, penetrated to
the interior and blotched the white inward face with green and black
stains. There was no keeping it out. When the house was built, nothing
was known of brick linings, and the only way in which the builders of
those days treated defects was to conceal them behind oak panelling.
Poverty forbade this at Welltown, and so the walls remained with their
infirmities undisguised. Our readers may have seen a grey ass on a moor
in a storm of hail. The poor brute is unable to face the gale, and
therefore presents his hinder quarters to it, and if there be a rock or
a tree near, the ass sets his nose against it, and stands motionless
with drooping ears, patiently allowing his rear to bear the brunt.
Welltown presented much this appearance--a dead wall was towards the
sea, and the head of the house was against the hill. The furiousness of
the gales from the south and west prevented Baldwin Tink facing his
house so as to catch the sun in his windows, and the only casement in
the entire house through which a golden streak fell was that of the back
kitchen.
What the house would have been when completed can only be conjectured;
as it was, it was picturesque, but dreary to the last degree.
The Tinks had long since passed away from Welltown. The final
representative of the family, unable to complete the house, sold the
estate. With the proceeds he started a drapery shop at Camelford, and
died a rich man. Political economists lament the extinction of the old
race of English yeomen, and advocate the creation of a race of peasant
proprietors. A natural law has fought against the yeoman, and will
forbid the spread of peasant proprietorships. The capital that is sunk
in land produces two and a half per cent., that sunk in trade brings in
ten, twenty, twenty-five per cent. The young yeoman had rather sell his
paternal acres to the squire and invest the purchase-money in business,
than struggle on upon the farm all his life, without the prospect of
becoming, in the end, more wealthy than when he started.