RICHARD'S MYSTERY.
To explain much that the reader may have begun to suspect or
misjudge, we must now go back a few years, into the private life of
Richard Trevelyan.
When stationed with his regiment in Montreal he had made, at some
public assembly, the acquaintance of Constance Devereaux, then a girl
fresh from school. He was fascinated by her rare beauty, and a
certain _espieglerie_ of manner, which the thoughts and cares of
future years eventually crushed out of her; and she, on her part, was
dazzled by the attentions of a handsome and wealthy young officer;
for Richard being his uncle's favourite nephew and heir, received
from him a handsome yearly allowance, in addition to that which he
inherited from his father.
Unfortunately Constance Devereaux, with all her beauty and
accomplishments, was the daughter of one who would have been deemed
of very humble caste indeed, if judged by the standard applied to
such matters at Rhoscadzhel. The girl loved him passionately and
blindly, and little foreseeing all such a step would cost her in the
end, she consented to a private marriage; so they were united in
secret by Père Latour, the catholic curé of the chapel of St. Mary,
near Montreal; an acolyte of the chapel and Richard's servant, a
soldier named Derrick Braddon, being the only witnesses.
The marriage was duly registered in the books of the little church,
and an attested copy was lodged with the curé who performed the
ceremony; but as the regiment was ordered soon after to another
colony, it was left in his hands for the time.
Richard obtained leave of absence, and soon after, much to his
uncle's surprise, left the army by selling out, and led a kind of
wandering life on the Continent, taking his wife's name of Devereaux,
the better to conceal from the proud, and as yet unsuspecting old
lord, the _mésalliance_ he had formed--a union, however; of which he
had never cause to repent, for his wife was gentle and tender, and
possessed many brilliant mental qualities; but well did Richard know
that if that union were discovered, the immense fortune, which was at
Lord Lamorna's entire disposal, would be left, if not altogether to
Downie, to others, and past himself and the heirs of his line; and
that such a calamity should not occur he became more anxious and more
solicitous after the birth of two children, a son whom he named
Denzil, after his own father, and a daughter, Sybil, born to them
since their wanderings in Italy.
Many difficulties attended the course of this secret matrimonial
life! Even in their continental travels, when seeking the most
secluded places, stray English tourists would come suddenly upon them
if they ventured near a table d'hôte; once or twice an old brother
officer, or other people who knew or recognised in the so-called
Captain Devereaux, Richard Trevelyan; and then mysterious nods or
knowing smiles were exchanged, and odd whispers went abroad in the
clubs of London and elsewhere--innuendoes that would have withered up
the heart of Constance had she heard them.
She knew all that might be suspected, and felt that the positions of
herself and her children, were alike false and liable to
misconstruction; that malignant scandal might be busy with the names
of them all. But the die was cast now, and she had but to suffer and
endure; to pray and to wait the death of the poor old man who was so
kind to her husband, and who loved him so well--yet not well enough
to forgive--had he ever discovered it--the deception which had been
practised upon him and upon society.
Repining in secret, sorrowing for the falsehood of her position,
knowing that her husband, the father of her children, passed in the
world as an eligible bachelor, the object of many a designing mother,
open to the attentions, the coquetries and captivations of their
daughters, aware that he resided with her only by stealth and under
another name than his own, Constance had indeed much to endure,
though rewarded in some degree therefor, to see her children growing
up in health and beauty, each a reproduction of their parents, for
Denzil had all the personal attributes of his father, with much
higher mental qualities, while the soft-eyed Sybil possessed all the
dark beauty, the petite figure and lady-like grace of Constance
herself.
The latter, we have said, was but the daughter of a Canadian trader;
yet amid all the ease and luxury with which her husband's ample means
and tender love supplied her, there were times, when she could not
but murmur in her heart at the anomaly of her situation, so different
from the honest security of her father's humble home, and her native
pride revolted against it; and with this pride there grew a species
of shame, which she felt to be totally unmerited, and then she felt
an utter loathing for the very name of Lord Lamorna, (though it
should one day be borne by her own husband) as being the cause of all
her secret suffering, her dread of the present and doubt of the
future.
On the education of their children, Richard, who doted on them, had
spared nothing. Both were highly accomplished, and wherever they had
wandered they had the most talented masters that wealth could
procure. Now Denzil had taken the highest prizes at Sandhurst and
was gazetted to a Regiment of the Line, and was going forth into the
world under the false name of Devereaux!
How was this to be altered--how explained and rectified?
A necessity for being much about Rhoscadzhel, as being the heir to
the estates and as his uncle's years increased, had compelled Richard
Trevelyan to be more often present in his native county than he had
hitherto been; hence, he had settled his secret ties in the pretty
little villa of Porthellick, at what he conceived to be a safe
distance of some forty miles or so from the residence of Lord Lamorna.
In and about that villa he was simply known as "Captain Devereaux,"
and as he had almost entirely relinquished hunting and field
sports--save an occasional shot at a bird--and when there lived a
retired and secluded life; and as his wife and children seemed to
live for themselves and him only, making friends with few save the
poor and ailing, time glided by, and the mystery of Richard's career
was never fully laid bare.
For those there are in this world (and his uncle was one) who would
have pardoned Richard making Constance Devereaux his mistress, and
yet would mockingly have resented his making her a wedded wife!
Lamorna's friend General Trecarrel--the representative of one of the
oldest families in Cornwall--who lived near Porthellick, had met
Richard on horseback more than once in the vicinity of that place,
when he was supposed to be in London, Paris, or elsewhere, and the
mention of these circumstances caused Mr. Downie Trevelyan, who, as
we have shown, had a keen personal interest in the matter, to
prosecute certain inquiries in that part of the duchy, and the result
led him to believe that the Captain Devereaux who occasionally
resided at the Grecian Villa in the Willow Cove, and his
irreproachable brother Richard, were one and the same person!
If it were so, the character of the lady must be--he
supposed--somewhat questionable; and Downie knew right well that
their uncle might forgive a liaison, but never a marriage with one of
an inferior grade. The conduct and bearing of the lady at the villa
seemed unimpeachable; so Downie had long felt doubtful how to act,
and only indulged in vague hints to his brother's prejudice.
The pride and anger even these had kindled in the heart of the old
lord, who was now gone, and the threats in which he had indulged,
afforded Richard Trevelyan a fair specimen of what would assuredly be
the result were his marriage ever known at Rhoscadzhel; and when
pressed on the subject pretty pointedly, he had assured his
uncle--while his cheek flushed and his heart burned with shame--that
he was still unwedded and free; and even as he made the false avowal,
the soft pleading eyes of Constance, his own true wife, and the
voices of their children, came vividly and upbraidingly to memory!
Now the foolish old man had passed away, the barrier was removed, and
all should be made light that had hitherto been darkness, as her
husband's hastily written letter informed her.
Yet she thought, with honest indignation, how hard it was that she
had been for all these eighteen years and more kept out of her proper
sphere as the wedded wife of Richard Trevelyan, often taking almost
flight from _this_ town and _that_ hotel, lest he should be
recognised; consigned hence to a life of secresy and seclusion; a
life that might yet cast doubts upon the very name and birth of her
children, through the whim, the old-fashioned pride and folly of an
absurd and antiquated peer, whose ideas went back, even far beyond
the days of his youth, when people travelled in stage-coaches, used
sand and sealing-wax for letters; when steam and telegraphy were
unknown, when papers were published weekly at sixpence; and was one
who deemed that railways, electricity, penny-dailies, and what is
generally known as progress, are sending all the world to ruin.
Her husband's letter filled her with joy. He playfully added, "I
fear I have drunk of the well of St. Keyne before you," alluding to
the well-known spring near Liskeard, a draught from which the Cornish
folks suppose will ensure ascendancy in domestic affairs, and the
letter was signed for the first time "Your loving husband, LAMORNA."
How strange to her eye the new signature looked. She felt somehow
that she preferred his old one of "Richard." But they were one and
the same now, and a little time should see her in her place, as
mistress of that stately dwelling, Rhoscadzhel, which she had only
seen once from a distance, and felt then, with an emotion of
unmerited humiliation, that she could not, and dared not, enter.
Like all its predecessors, this letter, that contained so much in a
few lines, was addressed to her as "Mrs. Devereaux," and she felt a
momentary pang, but remembered that to have addressed her by the
title, which was now so justly hers, might have sorely perplexed the
rural postman of her neighbourhood.