HUMILIATION.
The statements made to Audley Trevelyan by his father as to the
dubious position of the two ladies at Porthellick--artful statements
which seemed, without collusion, to corroborate so much that Mabel
and Rose Trecarrel hinted or openly advanced--had seriously grieved
and perplexed him. Thus, while loving Sybil and longing for her
society on one hand, with the selfishness or vacillation peculiar to
many young men, on the other, he began to wish that he had not gone
quite so far--that he had been less precipitate in his love-making;
but his perplexity increased to utter bewilderment, not unmixed with
indignation, when his usually languid mother, with considerable scorn
and irritation of manner, informed him that "the person calling
herself Mrs. Devereaux" was but an _intriguante_, who had sought to
lure his foolish uncle Richard into marriage; and his father admitted
that he and others had long suspected his brother of having some low
and illicit entanglement.
Now Audley knew that this "_intriguante_" had a son, whose existence
might endanger his own succession to a title.
Was this fair, slender and delicate girl, whose gentle image had
wound itself about the heart of Audley, and on whose "engagement
finger" he had so recently slipped a ring, actually a cousin; but one
whom he could not acknowledge--a person whom he dared not marry, in
dread of that trumpet-tongued bugbear called "Society"?
He had ceased for some days to write to her. In this he accused
himself of gross selfishness; but his father's open threats of
withdrawing every shilling of his allowance, of turning his back upon
him for ever, and so forth, if he dared to countenance the Devereaux
in any way; and his total inability to live anywhere on his
subaltern's pay alone, together with the dread of compromising his
cold, proud, and intensely aristocratic mother and sister--in fact,
it would seem, his whole family too--made him strive to crush in his
heart the young love it was so sweet to brood upon; but Audley strove
in vain, and began to think that the sooner he was back to India the
better for all.
He had been nervous, irritable, and "out of sorts" since he had
returned to Rhoscadzhel, and obtaining a passing glimpse of the
little white villa as the train passed it, en route, had made him
worse. He had procured Champagne and various other vintages too
freely from Jasper Funnel; he had broken the knees of a favourite
horse; ripped up the green cloth of the new billiard table when
practising alone, and more than once had angrily laid his whip across
the back of unoffending Rajah.
On the afternoon of the visit which closes the preceding chapter, his
mother who was seated languidly in a deep easy chair near the library
fire, playing with a feather fan, while her daintily slippered little
feet rested on a velvet tabourette, said in her soft and monotonous
voice,--
"I do wish, Audley, that odious dog of yours was dead--shot or lost."
"Why, mother, it was poor Jack Delamere's dying legacy."
"It is such a shaggy, self-willed, huge and savage animal--always
about one's skirts or in one's way."
"You are unusually energetic in your adjectives this evening, my lady
mother," replied Audley; "poor Rajah is as gentle as a lamb, and I
might have found a kind owner for him ere this, however," he added,
as he thought sadly of the winning Sybil on whose skirts his splendid
pet had been permitted to nestle unrebuked.
"Visitors, mamma!" exclaimed Gartha Trevelyan, a fair-haired and
languid edition of her mother, and already, in her sixteenth year,
the imitator of all her tones and ways; "who can they be--in a hired
carriage, too?"
"Ladies in deep mourning," said General Trecarrel, glancing uneasily
at Audley.
"By Jove!" muttered the latter, growing quite pale, as he recognised
them from a bay window, and at once quitting the library, descended
by a private staircase to where his horse and groom happened to be
awaiting him.
"My cousin--he is my own cousin; this was the secret sympathy--the
tie of blood that drew us to each other," Sybil was thinking softly,
in her timid heart, to keep her courage up, at the very time when he
who, without flinching, would have faced a Sikh gun-battery, or a
horde of Afghans, was avoiding her, and galloping ingloriously away
from what he deemed "a scene--a deuced family row," with a blush on
his cheek, shame, pity, and anger mingling in his soul, with the
half-formed wish that he had never met and never known her!
Advancing into the room, the mother and daughter bowed, and then
stood irresolute. The former had expected to have seen Downie alone;
but finding him thus, amid his family, and the General present too,
all her pre-arranged and carefully considered explanations and
remarks completely fled her memory, and her mind became blank as a
sheet of unwritten paper, as Downie, after a rapid whisper to his
wife, over whose colourless face there flashed a look of angry scorn,
took the initiative.
His wife, with her everlasting smelling-bottle or vinaigrette and
lace handkerchief; her newly-cut novel close by; her pale, dull eyes
and unmeaning smile; her "company manners;" her soft white hands,
smooth and unwrinkled as her forehead, yet cold and puerile as her
heart, was always a kind of bore; but now her _tout-ensemble_ had all
the impress of insipidity, animated by insolence; for weak though the
lawyer's wife was in character, she felt that she was mistress of the
situation; and at least _pro tem._, if not for life, Lady Lamorna.
She regarded the widow with a cold and supercilious stare, to which
the former replied by a steady gaze, and each seemed to draw her
conclusions of the other in an instant, for "to women alone pertains
that marvellous freemasonry, which sees the character at a glance,
and investigates the sincerity of a disposition or the value of a
lace flounce with the same practised facility."
Downie, too, had his own peculiar acuteness and instincts, sharp and
keen, wherever he went; he saw everything in a moment; whoever he
met, he read their faces like a book, he marked all their features,
deduced their personal characters, just as if he had been intimate
with them for a life-time; and a very useful power this had proved to
him, in the course of his legal career; and now, in his mourning
suit, he looked like "one of those great crows that are to be seen,
apparently asleep, in a meadow in autumn; but which, nevertheless,
see everything that is going on around them." The gentle aspect, the
forlorn bearing, and uncommon beauty of Constance and her daughter,
would have softened any other heart than Downie's; but his was like
Cornish granite--the oldest and stoniest of all stones.
General Trecarrel--somewhat nervously it must be owned--shook hands
with the intruders, for as such they felt themselves viewed; but the
dog, Rajah, alone gave them a welcome by fawning round Sybil, who
trembled excessively, and could scarcely restrain her tears, while
the dog's recognition of her did not escape the wife of Downie, who
drew certain conclusions therefrom.
"Mrs. Devereaux, I believe?" said Downie Trevelyan, calmly, and with
his professional smile, as he looked up from the table, which was
literally heaped up with letters, many of them being unopened; "to
what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"
"You owe it to my sorrow, sir," replied Constance, gathering courage,
as her eye caught a portrait of Richard Trevelyan, in his uniform,
painted years ago, ere he went to America, and looking just as she
had seen him in the early days of their happy loverhood; and now the
pictured face seemed to smile upon her out of the past; "to the death
of my husband--your brother, as you know, by drowning," she added.
He gave her a stare of cold enquiry, over, and finally, through his
double gold eye-glass, which he specially wiped for the occasion, and
then turning to his wife, said,--
"Gartha, my dear, take your namesake and the boys with you--retire,
please, for we may have much to say that must not be said before you."
"Perhaps I--I too, am _de trop_?" said General Trecarrel, a little
nervously, assuming his hat and malacca cane.
"Not at all--pray be seated," replied Downie.
"If--Mrs.--Mrs.----"
"Oh, yes; Mrs. Devereaux will excuse you, General, I am sure,"
answered Downie, as his wife, with her four younger children, sailed
haughtily from the room, drawing in her skirts as she passed
Constance, whose pretty lip only quivered a little with disdain.
To do him justice, the barrister looked on the widow with something
of interest, mingling, momentarily, with his fear and anger--but
momentarily only. She was slenderly and so beautifully formed, small
featured, and dark haired, with much that was intense and
unfathomable in her pleading eyes--pleading for her children's honour
and her own: and there was Sybil, too, clad in the deepest mourning,
her high black dress, with its pretty cuffs, and a small white collar
round her delicate neck, made her fair skin seem fairer still, and
appeared to become the darkness of her hair and eyes better than any
other style of dress would have done; but, then, Sybil looked
charming in everything!
The little interest died, and Downie regarded them with intense
hostility, for he had all "that sublime philosophy which teaches us
to bear with tranquillity the woes of others."
"Oh--ah--yes," he said, after a most harassing pause; "you are the
lady who lives--in fact, who has lived for some time past, in a villa
near Porthellick?"
"The same, sir."
Downie knit his brows, for she accorded him no title, and he was
somewhat jealous on the point.
"It was a bold act of my brother to bring you here to Cornwall--a
secluded place--almost under the eyes of his own family too!"
"Circumstanced as we were by the eccentricity of his late uncle, it
was, perhaps, unwise," she replied, gently.
"I am glad that you admit so much: a little villa near St. John's
Wood, or some such place, had been more appropriate for persons so
situated."
The eyes of Constance began to flash dangerously.
"My son is Lord Lamorna!" she exclaimed; "and even on his
cold-blooded uncle may punish this cruel insult to his mother!"
The General, to whom all this revelation was new and startling, began
to feel uncomfortable, and to look quite perplexed; but Downie only
smiled a crafty smile, as he said--
"Pooh, my good woman, you are out of your senses; what can be the
object of this visit? I am busy--does your carriage wait?"
"Before scandals go forth in our name, I beseech you to consider
well, and to read this letter, which will show you who I am and what
I am, and why for years we have all borne the name of Devereaux,"
said Constance, making a prodigious effort to control her great grief
and just indignation, as she held the document before Downie; "it is
the last my dear, dear husband wrote me."
"Husband--absurd! This is the wildest of wild assertions," said
Downie Trevelyan, as he took the letter from her hand, nevertheless;
and as he did so, the words of her dead husband came back to her
memory, when he said "that proofs of their marriage, beyond mere
assertion, must be forthcoming;" and now those proofs were buried in
the sea.
"You must recognise the handwriting," said Constance, in a tremulous
tone; "and oh, sir," she added, as she eyed him doubtfully and
wistfully, "you will restore it to me, and not destroy it?"
"Destroy!" said he, sternly; "what are you talking about? I hope I
am too much of a lawyer to destroy any document."
"Before witnesses, at least," was the awkward addendum of the General.
Downie's legal eye quickly took in the situation, as detailed by his
brother Richard in that letter, which stated that the little chapel
of St. Mary, at Montreal, had been burned down three years after the
regiment had left the city; that the Père Latour and the acolyte were
both dead; that though the Registers had all perished in the flames,
the signed copy of the marriage certificate was preserved by Latour's
successor, and "is now in my possession," added the letter, the
signature to which, "Lamorna," made the reader's eyes to gleam with
secret rage; but he merely said,
"Suppose this letter were written by my brother--a supposition of
which I do not admit the truth,--who are 'those at home' whom he
doubts?"
"You, most probably," said the General, with soldierly candour.
"Absurd, my dear sir," replied Downie, tossing the letter
contemptuously to Constance. "This is a fabrication, written to suit
the occasion: the church burned; the Register destroyed; the
witnesses dead, too! It is a strange story, and strange chapter of
accidents. You lived with him long enough, I doubt not, madam, to
learn how to feign my brother's handwriting. This document has not
even an envelope--so where are the postal marks?"
"I lost it----"
"Bah! I thought so."
There was a peculiar basilisk flicker in the pale eyes of Downie
Trevelyan, and he surveyed the shrinking widow of his brother
pitilessly, with a glance of hate--a glance beyond all the eloquence
of fury or wrath, for he felt in his heart--or what passed for
such--that she spoke truth in all this matter, but a truth she would
have difficulty in proving.
"Oh mamma--mamma, let us go," implored Sybil.
"And this Dick Braddon who accompanied my brother--the other
witness--a worthless old Chelsea pensioner, and so he too is gone?"
"Gone with my husband," replied Constance, clasping her hands and
looking upward.
"As my poor brother never yet, to my knowledge at least, prior to his
luckless American tour, appended his name to any document as
_Lamorna_, we have no means of testing or comparing the signature to
your production, were such test necessary--which it is not."
Gathering courage, Constance was about to make some proud response,
when Downie, in his (external) character pure and unspotted as his
shirt front, said while turning to the General--
"My brother Richard picked up, of course, some of those dissipated
habits which are peculiar to the army, and----"
"Oh, pardon me, my lord," began the General, in a deprecatory tone,
while inserting his right hand in the breast of his closely buttoned
surtout.
"It is true, Trecarrel; you redcoats are a sad set, and here we see
the result of an unlucky liaison."
"Richard--Richard," wailed Constance, "how hard is all this to bear!"
"Yes, madam," said Downie; "but the way of transgressors is always
hard."
"Transgressors, sir?"
"Against the laws of morality and society, madam. Do not
misunderstand me, madam."
"Oh no--oh no," replied Constance, in a choking voice; "I quite
understand you."
The General was deeply moved; he advanced a pace or two towards her,
and lifted his hand with an air of entreaty; but Downie was pitiless,
and added--
"Yes, madam, and not content with seeking to entrap my brother, there
has actually been an attempt made, too, to entrap and delude my son!"
"Sir," said Constance, moving towards the door of the library, "I
came in hope--I must own, half-desperate hope--of having an
explanation from, or a compromise with you--perhaps a recognition of
our just claims. Assertion, even backed by such a letter as this,
is, I must own, but slender evidence; so a court of law shall prove
the rest."
"As you please, madam," replied Downie, rising and ringing a
hand-bell deliberately. "Show this--_lady_ out. So much for Mrs.
Devereaux!" he added furiously, for he was greatly disturbed and
ruffled.
A mist seemed before the eyes of both mother and daughter, as they
quitted the stately room mechanically, to seek their vehicle at the
porte-cochère. Constance kept her proud little head erect, however,
so long as she was under observation; for though her heart was wrung
with agony as she thought of her children, there was something of a
Spartan matron in the outward bearing she affected, and in her
perfect power of self-mastery then.
Stared at in the corridor by the wondering and mocking eyes of all
the younger children of Downie, who had taken their cue from the
manner in which their mamma had gathered her skirts in the library,
as if to avoid pollution; stared at too in the vestibule and portal
by Mr. Funnel the solemn Butler, by Boxer the rubicund coachman, and
by a group of whiskered valets, who all saw that something, they knew
not what, "was hup," they reached the hired carriage that was to take
them back to Hayle; and Jeames in powder, wearing "the uniform" of
the noble family, remarked to Chawles, a brother of the plush and
shoulder-knot, quite audibly, that "they both seemed the lady, quite;
but he feared they was only a couple of guv'nesses or companions out
of place--a lot as miserable as curates and tutors, and all that sort
o' thing."
Constance shivered as if with ague when she drew up the glasses of
the carriage, and they took their departure from Rhoscadzhel.
Open war alone could save or sink them now!