INTELLIGENCE AT LAST.
On seeing Constance without her bonnet, and with her dark hair
somewhat in disorder, the first impression of the General was, how
extremely like her daughter she proved, and how very youthful too;
for her figure, as we have elsewhere said, was petite; her features
were minute, beautiful and full of animation at all times, but never
more so than now, when she started forward on the entrance of the
visitor, with her delicate hands uplifted, her fine eyes sparkling
through their tears, full of hope and inquiry, and her lips parted,
showing the whiteness and faultless regularity of her teeth.
"You have news for me, General?" she faltered.
"Happily, good news, madam," said he, bowing low; "your daughter is
safe and well."
"Oh, sir--oh, General Trecarrel, how can I thank you?"
"By composing yourself, my dear madam," he replied, leading her to a
chair; but Constance became almost hysterical; she clasped his hand
in hers, and almost sought to kiss it, in expression of her deep
gratitude, greatly to the confusion of the old soldier, who was
Englishman enough to dislike a "scene."
"Under the circumstances, no apology is necessary for the abruptness
of my visit," said he; "we are pretty near neighbours, and I hope
shall ultimately be friends, though, singular to say, I have never
had the pleasure of meeting Captain Devereaux."
These words recalled Constance to a sense--the ever-bitter sense--of
the awkwardness of her position, and she faltered out--
"Captain Devereaux is absent at present--abroad indeed--but I hope he
shall soon be home now. And our dear daughter--she escaped the
rising tide----"
"By fortunately being able to find shelter in the Pixies' Hole, from
which she was promptly rescued by a young friend--a brother-officer
of mine."
"Oh, how I shall bless him and ever treasure his name."
"He is Mr. Audley Trevelyan, and has conveyed her, in the first
place, to old Mike Treherne's cottage. She was drenched by rain and
spray, suffering from chill, and overcome with terror."
"My poor little Sybil!"
The General did not add to the mother's alarm by adding that he had
left Sybil insensible, but only said--
"She should not return till to-morrow, when perhaps the rain may
cease, and the storm abate; but I have ordered my carriage, and she
shall have the use of it with pleasure. It must be here in a few
minutes now."
Constance could only murmur her heartfelt thanks; but now, more than
ever, she felt the peculiarity of her position--its extreme
awkwardness, and its doubtful aspect. It was but a few weeks since
her husband, now known as Lord Lamorna, had stood by the General's
side at the late lord's grave, amid a crowd of bareheaded tenantry,
and here they were talking of him as "Captain Devereaux!"
Sybil's cousin-german had saved and protected her, thus cementing the
acquaintance begun by chance at the little lake upon the moor, and
was with her now too, probably; he was her husband's nephew, and
while that husband was absent, with her own rank, name, and his
concealed, she dared not avow the relationship that existed among
them all! Poor Constance felt her cheek grow paler, with the sickly
thoughts that oppressed her heart, as she muttered under her breath--
"Patience yet a while, and, with God's help, dear Richard shall see
me through all this!"
In a few words the General, with military brevity, related the whole
affair of the evening; the providential discovery of her daughter in
the chasm, by her voice, as it was rightly conjectured, having
reached the ears of Audley's Thibet mastiff; but for which
circumstance she must have perished of cold and exhaustion, or
perhaps fallen down the shaft of the old mine and never been heard of
again, her fate remaining a mystery to all--contingencies, the
contemplation of which appalled the heart of the poor mother, who
said in a very faint voice--
"My daughter is long in returning to me. Oh, sir, can it be that you
are kindly concealing something from me?"
"Nay, madam, the tempestuous state of the weather and the feeble
condition of the young lady herself require----"
"Ah, that is it! my daughter is ill--dying perhaps, while I am idly
talking here. Winny--Winny Braddon, my bonnet and cloak; I shall set
forth this instant for Treherne's cottage!"
"I assure you, madame, that my carriage was at her disposal, and it
shall bring your daughter home."
"Oh, General, the gratitude of my heart----"
"There--there, please don't thank me for a little common humanity,"
continued the kind old soldier, "but give my compliments--General
Trecarrel's compliments--to Captain Devereaux when he returns, and
say that I think he ought, in etiquette, to have waited upon me as
his senior officer; for such was the fashion in my young days, when
two brethren of the sword took up their quarters in a district so
secluded as this; and I should like my girls to know your daughter."
"I have a son, too, General--my dear Denzil--who left us but lately
to join his Regiment."
"Ah--indeed--you quite interest me. Where is it stationed?"
"In India--far, far from me."
"Of course, you could not have him always at your apron-strings.
What, or which, is his corps?"
"The Cornish Light Infantry."
"My own Regiment! I am the full colonel of it: why did he not leave
a card with me on appointment?--he must have known of my whereabouts."
A cloud came over the fair open countenance of Trecarrel, and
Constance felt that, in the further prosecution of their systematic
incognito, a breach of military etiquette and punctilio had taken
place.
"My young friend Trevelyan is in the same corps," said the General,
after a pause.
Constance knew that too, and that it had been the Regiment of her
husband during their happiest days at Montreal; but when with it he
had borne his family surname, and _not_ that of Devereaux.
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave,
"When first we practise to deceive!"
So thought Constance, and who could not quite foresee the end of the
web. Her present perplexities were increasing, and her usually pale
cheeks began to blush scarlet.
But now, to her intense relief, the sound of wheels and hoofs at the
door, followed by quick steps in the entrance, announced an arrival,
and in a moment more mother and daughter were weeping joyfully in
each other's arms.
"Dearest mamma--darling mamma! Oh the joy of being safe with you
again! An age seems to have elapsed since I left you this evening!"
And old Winny Braddon came in for her share of caresses, while the
General and Trevelyan, though they now began to feel themselves
rather _de trop_, looked on with smiles of pleasure. So full of joy
was Constance at the restoration of Sybil, that she never noticed the
quaint and coarse (though comfortably dry) costume which the careful
wife of Treherne had substituted for her wet and sodden habiliments.
Audley's quick and practised eye saw that Constance was a woman
possessing more than an ordinary share of beauty and refinement. He
took in the whole details of the drawing-room, and perceived by a
glance that the occupants of this secluded villa "in the
willow-glen--those peculiar Devereaux," as the Trecarrel girls called
them, were evidently people of the best and most cultivated taste,
for the buhl or marquetterie tables, consoles, and cabinets exhibited
selections from the most chaste productions of Dresden and Sèvres;
delicate Venetian bronzes, quaint Majolica vases and groups, some
relics from Herculaneum; and other objects (more familiar to him)
from India and Burmah were there--four-armed gods and other idols in
silver or ivory.
Pausing for a moment in her caresses, Constance turned towards Audley
Trevelyan with a pleading glance of irresolution, yet one of
wonderful sweetness.
"My young friend, Mr. Trevelyan," said the General; "allow me to
introduce him, Mrs. Devereaux."
"Oh, sir, to you I owe the gratitude of a lifetime?" she exclaimed in
an accent of touching tenderness.
He seemed so like her absent Denzil, that all her heart yearned to
him, and in a genuine transport of gratitude she embraced him with
such _empressement_, that in a woman so young apparently for her
maternal character, and so very handsome too, rather perplexed
Trevelyan, who said,
"You owe me no thanks--indeed, indeed, you do not. I did but my
duty--I obeyed only the dictates of humanity; and I assure you that
you are quite as much indebted to Rajah as to me, Mrs. Devereaux."
The name he used recalled her to herself, and the peculiarity of her
position as regarded him--the secret she could not yet reveal; and
turning away as an expression of confusion come over her face, she
stooped, and casting her arms round the great Thibet mastiff,
caressed it with a grace and playfulness that partook of girlish glee.
By this time Sybil was reclining wearily, and with an air of utter
exhaustion and languor, on a sofa. Her face was very pale, save when
a kind of hectic flush passed over it, and her eyes seemed
unnaturally bright. Even to the unpractised observation of the two
gentlemen it was evident that they had better retire, and, after
exchanging a glance suggestive of this, they both rose, hat in hand.
"You will, I hope, permit me to call to-morrow and make inquiries?"
said Audley Trevelyan.
Constance bowed, and her tongue trembled: what she said she scarcely
knew, but it was a muttered wish of some kind, with many thanks and
reference to her husband's return, all oddly combined. That she
laboured under some species of hidden restraint was quite apparent to
the perception of him she addressed, and also to the General; and so,
after the usual well-bred wishes that both ladies should soon recover
from the effects of their recent terror, they withdrew together; and
as the sound of their carriage wheels died away in the willow avenue,
all other sounds, and the light too, seemed to pass away from Sybil,
as she sank gradually back, became insensible, and was conveyed to
bed by Winny Braddon and her startled mother, who summoned medical
aid without delay.
The next day found her in a species of nervous fever. She had
undergone too much of mental fear and bodily suffering for a nature
so delicate as hers, and remained for a time unconscious of all
around her. Slowly and gradually, like water filtering through a
rock--as some one describes the struggles of returning
sensibility--she became aware that she was in her own bed, with her
mother on one side and Winny Braddon on the other in watchful
attendance; then, with a shudder, she would recall the horrors she
had escaped, and clasp her hands as she had done ten years before,
when a little child in prayer.
Then exhaustion would bring sleep, but a sleep haunted by dreams,
and, at times, visions wild as those of an opium-eater; thus, for
many a night, long after this period, the episodes of that eventful
evening would come back to memory with all their harrowing details:
the advancing tide rolling against the impending cliffs and
thundering in the Pixies' Hole, after it had swallowed the drenched
sand; her retreating step by step fearfully and breathlessly before
it, in terror of being drowned on one hand and of falling down the
mine on the other!
Anon, she would imagine herself swung up that terrible shaft through
darkness and space, and that the rope was just on the eve of
_parting_, when she would wake with a half-stifled scream to find
that she was in the arms of her mamma, who was soothing and caressing
her.