A FAMILY GROUP.
And so he was gone--this tender husband, who had loved her so dearly,
and whose secret she had shared so unavailingly for years; and apart
from the horror of the doubt that hung over the future of her
children, whose means and honour, like her own, had too probably
perished with him, a despair grew in the heart of Constance when she
surveyed the familiar objects, the little household gods of their
once happy home, and thought upon the days that could never, never
come again.
There were times when she could not believe that she had lost him;
that her sorrow was a painful dream from which she must awake. She
perpetually found herself softly whispering his name, especially in
the waking hours of the night. Thus too, from overtension of the
nervous system, she would start at the fancied sound of her own name,
uttered as if by his voice at a vast distance.
In the delicacy and tenderness of Constance, there was an amount of
keenness and intensity possessed by few, and thus her heart bled for
her daughter, rather than for her own dubious position, the fact of
which had been so coarsely thrust upon her by the insolent letter of
Downie Trevelyan, who was now formally spoken of and everywhere
announced and received as "Lord Lamorna."
That Sybil had given all the wealth of her young heart to this man's
son, was but too evident to her anxious mother's observation; but how
would matters tend now, and could that misplaced love have a
successful termination?
Days were passing in sorrow now; no letters from Audley came to
either. Sybil looked delicate and grew pale and thin, for a double
grief was consuming her, and Constance began to marvel in her heart,
was she meant to live in suffering and penury, perhaps to die early,
this child--her dead father's idol, so loved and petted by him.
Sybil felt secretly pleased with the idea that there existed between
her and Audley a tie--the tie of blood--which even the antagonism of
his crafty father could not break. "The idea of cousinly intimacy to
girls is undoubtedly pleasant," says Anthony Trollope; "and I do not
know whether it is not the fact, that the better and the purer the
girl, the sweeter and the pleasanter is the idea."
How often had Constance asked of herself--but never of him who was
gone--"How long is this deception to be carried on? How long am I to
wait before I take my place in the world as the wife of Richard
Trevelyan, and cease to figure as a sham Devereaux, and how long are
our children to be thus under a cloud?" All obstacles were removed
now, but the sham was becoming a reality, and the cloud was growing
darker than ever.
And was her poor Denzil, then so far away from her, to be tamely
robbed of his noble inheritance after all?
The necessity for action in some way, even before acquainting him
with his father's death and real rank, compelled Constance to bestir
herself. She knew no one whom she felt tempted to consult with
confidence, and was totally ignorant of the line of action to adopt,
but on hearing, before a week had passed, that the whole family of
the Trevelyans had come from town and taken up their residence at
Rhoscadzhel, she resolved to lose no time in confronting the usurper
personalty, attended only by her daughter. She could--she feared
not--fully prove the identity of "Captain Devereaux" with Captain
Trevelyan the late lord, and her husband's miniature, which she wore,
and his letters, especially the last from Montreal, would prove still
further the fact of her marriage, and his intentions as regarded his
will, though they were all addressed to her as Mrs. Devereaux, and
simply bore his signature as "Richard," save one already mentioned,
to which he appended his title.
So she thought and flattered herself while, clad in the deepest
mourning, she and Sybil traversed, by the Cornwall Railway, the forty
odd miles that lay between Porthellick and Rhoscadzhel, followed by
the prayers and blessings of old Winny Braddon.
"That which we fancy must break our hearts, we can bear patiently,
and what is more, so learn to conform to, that after a few years of
life, we can wonder that we thought them hardships," says a writer
with much truth. So did Constance think her heart would break, when
all the reality of her desolate condition was brought home to her, by
her mirror reflecting her face--the face that Richard loved so
well--encircled by a widow's cap--that odious ruche of tulle; but she
already felt the conviction strongly, that whatever happened now, she
would not have many years of life before her.
Mother and daughter sat silent and sad while the train swept on,
Lostwithiel with its antique octagon spire and the ruins of
Restormal, with their moat full of sweet-briars; St. Blazey, to whose
shrine the woolcombers made their pilgrimages in the days of old (the
saint having been tortured or curried to death with wool-combs, by
the Cornish men who declined to be converted from Druidism), with
many a spacious lawn and bare autumnal wood and many a purple moor,
were speedily left behind; and now it was past Grampound with its
market-house and ancient granite cross, the train went screaming and
clanking. Redruth next, in a dreary and barren district whose wealth
lies far below the soil, which is literally honeycombed by the shafts
and levels of mines; and then came Hayle, the houses of which are all
built of scoria or slag, the debris of ancient mines; and then the
travellers hired at the "White Hart," a carriage for Rhoscadzhel.
To Constance, the scenery there had its chief interest in the
circumstance that in youth and manhood her husband must have been
familiar with every feature of it, and must have shot and hunted over
it all. Noon was past now; but the sun shed a rich golden light upon
a calm sea, of which they had lovely glimpses at times between the
grey granite _carns_ and clumps of oak and elm. Sometimes the
carriage rolled past wildernesses of rock and morass, where wild
tarns reflected in their glassy depths the blue sky above, and where
valleys opened westward to the Bristol Channel, whose waves were
buttressed out by precipices of bold and striking outline, and the
heart of Constance began to beat painfully as each revolution of the
wheels drew her nearer and nearer to the house, that long ere this
should have been her home.
She felt, or thought, that now she was about to face, confront, and
grapple with her fate, and to know the best or worst! The secret
burden so long intolerable, would now be cast aside, and the adoption
of any line of action, in lieu of the existence she had led since her
loss was confirmed--the dumb mechanical life of one too paralysed
even to think--was a relief. Yet moments there were when she half
repented of her journey.
Her husband, her sole protector, was gone, and the proofs of their
marriage, and of his intentions by will, too, were gone also! If her
arguments were repelled, her assertions denied, what must be her
fate, and how terribly should she and those he loved so well be
exposed to the sneers and heartlessness of a world that knew nothing
of their good qualities, or of the cause for that concealment which
might now prove the cause of their destruction.
What if even now, at the eleventh hour, as it were, she turned
prudently back, and concealed the fact that she was the true Lady
Lamorna--that her son was a peer of the realm--and let him and Sybil
pass through life as humble Devereaux, content to earn their bread as
best they could? But to see Downie Trevelyan, the author of that
harsh and most insulting letter, occupying the place of her
Denzil--no--no! a thousand times no!
Some such fears had been occurring to Sybil, who now said, in a low
voice, as they drew near the stately gate of Rhoscadzhel,
"I doubt, dearest mamma, whether this is a wise proceeding on our
part; if we have the legal right to call ourselves Trevelyans, that
right should be placed for proof in legal hands."
"If we have--" began Constance, impetuously, and then became silent,
for she felt that the views of her daughter were, perhaps, the most
correct.
The elaborate iron gate, and its tall granite pillars, each
supporting a grotesque _Koithgath_, surmounted by a coronet, were
left behind, and they proceeded along the stately avenue by which we
have so lately seen Richard passing as chief mourner at the funeral
of the old lord; and now, as the porte-cochère (which bore a double
hatchment) was approached, came a new perplexity to the mind of
Constance. How was she to announce herself?
As "Lady Lamorna," where there was already one who called herself so;
simply as "Mrs. Devereaux," or as "a lady wishing an interview with
Lord Lamorna"? But from the utterance of his name in this instance
she shrunk.
The pampered servants, on seeing that the approaching vehicle was
only a carriage hired from the neighbouring inn, and not an equipage
having coats of arms and showy liveries, were somewhat slow in
answering the summons at the bell; but as the hall door stood open,
and, luckily for the perplexed Constance, Mr. Jasper Funnel, the
solemn, portly, and intensely respectable-looking butler, was
lingering there, she asked if she could "see his master."
Now this was a mode to which Mr. Jasper Funnel was all unused, and he
might have been disposed to summon "Jeames" or "Chawles" to attend to
her; but there was now a hauteur in the bearing of Constance that
thoroughly bewildered, if it failed to awe him.
"Master, mum?" he stammered; "his lordship is at home, but engaged
with General Trecarrel--I can take in your card, however."
"I have not my card-case with me."
"What name, then?"
"It matters not--just say----"
"Perhaps, mum, relations of the family?" suggested Funnel, perceiving
the depth of mourning worn by the two ladies.
"Yes--near relations, indeed," replied Constance, restraining her
tears with difficulty.
The man of bins and vintages, who thought he knew the branches of the
Trevelyan family through all their ramifications, looked still more
perplexed; however, he said, with a still lower bow,
"This way, mum--please to follow me," and desiring their driver to
await them, Constance and Sybil entered the mansion of Rhoscadzhel.
As if to tantalise them by a display of all they were perhaps to
lose, or had already lost for ever, a valet, to whose care Mr. Funnel
now consigned them, conducted them by a somewhat circuitous route, as
all the suites of rooms were not in order, the family having arrived
unexpectedly from town.
Passing through the marble vestibule, an arch on one side of which
opened to a gay aviary, and one on the other to the beautiful
conservatory, they entered a long and lofty corridor, where the soft
carpet muffled every foot-fall, and where were the objects of
_vertu_, accumulated by several generations of Trevelyans; a
veritable museum it seemed, of glass cases filled with quaintly
illuminated vellum MSS., in fine old Roman bindings, red-edged and
clasped; old laces of Malines and Bruges; Chinese ivory carvings,
delicate as gossamer webs; Burmese idols; Japanese cabinets, covered
with flaming dragons; Majolica vases, where rosy cupids, grotesque
tritons, nude nymphs, and shining dolphins, were all grouped
together; Delft hardware of odd designs; Etruscan cups,
cream-coloured or crimson, with slender black demoniac figures
thereon; mediæval suits of armour; family portraits of dames in ruffs
and farthingales, and of past Trevelyans, all well-wigged, cuirassed,
and armed: some with Bardolph noses and paunches of comely curve,
suggestive of sack and venison; the chiefs of these being Lord Henry,
who was Governor of Rougemont Castle for Queen Elizabeth, and
Launcelot, the cavalier-lord, who sought shelter in Trewoofe from the
victorious Roundheads.
The refined and cultivated taste of Constance could well appreciate
all these objects; but now, as one in a dream, her eyes wandered over
those walls where many a gem of art was hanging; the soft-eyed and
white-skinned girls of Greuze; the bearded and doubleted nobles of
Vandyke; cattle, fat and lazy-looking, by Cuyp; hazy sea-pieces by
Turner, and more than one lovely Raphael; but then her every thought
was turned inward; and as if to support herself, she retained Sybil's
tremulous little hand, on which her clasp tightened, as the servant,
who was clad in mourning livery, with a black cord aiguilette on each
shoulder, opened noiselessly the half of a folding-door, and ushered
them into that splendid library where her husband had found his proud
old uncle dead at the writing-table, and Downie (with the unsigned
deed) hanging over him, with confusion and disappointment on his
usually stolid visage.
"Visitors, my lord," said the servant.
And to add to the perplexity of Constance, she found herself face to
face with the whole family group--the whole, at least, save one, her
nephew Audley.