THE PHYSICIAN'S DISCOVERY.
"Let a man contend to the uttermost
For his life's set prize, be it what it will."
--ROBERT BROWNING.
Primrose was not wrong in her conjecture that some great conflict of
soul had been secretly undergone by Percival Vere during the year
which had elapsed since their first meeting and the dawning of that
happy friendship which had made the year to herself so full of new
gladness and sunshine. That it could not have been a season of
uninterrupted gladness to him was plainly evident from the new lines
of care which the months had left on his countenance, and which, at
her first meeting again with him, she had at once noted with sorrow
and wonder.
The chaplain had indeed undergone long and wearisome struggles of
heart since those sunny weeks at Glyn Melen a year since, when he had
only too fully realised his love for his fair young companion,
together with the glad, dawning hope that one day it might not prove
in vain. It was not until they had parted, and he was once more face
to face with the serious work of life, that a painful doubt took
possession of him as to his right to enjoy the prospect of so
blissful a future as seemed possibly within his reach. He had
voluntarily entered upon a special career, which he dared not forego
for any alluring prospect of domestic ease and happiness. Come what
might of sorrow and self-denial, the work to which he had vowed
himself must be accomplished without faltering. The question was,
whether it could be better, or less well accomplished, side by side
with such a companion as her to whom he had given his heart? If less
well, she must be renounced and his work must be done, at whatever
sacrifice, alone and unaided. But no, if he had judged her rightly,
then surely she would but spur him on to greater endeavour, and the
more truly and worthily help him to realise that high ideal of life
ever kept before him, and, as he knew, none the less ever aimed at by
herself. Yet even so--that his work would indeed at her side be
better and more nobly done,--dare he bind her to himself at such a
price--to share sorrow-bringing labours, obloquy and ridicule
perchance from the world at large, and at home either the knowledge
with him of the dread curse, which might too sorely hurt her tender
soul, or the perpetual hiding of it on his part from her, which might
on the other hand too grievously try her wifely faith and trust in
him? Ought a man, with so many possibilities of future suffering for
the woman he loved, ask her to share his life and his fortunes?
Ought he not rather to leave her to the almost undoubted certainty of
some other happier marriage, and himself tread alone, as he had
already ever contemplated, save in some few wild moments, his path of
self-denial and pain? Often was this question considered in all its
aspects, and wrestled with during many a sleepless night by the
chaplain during those autumn weeks which followed his sojourn with
Lady Bryn Afon and Primrose at Glyn Melen, and as oft was it laid
aside in sore perplexity, to be fought out again in some calmer
moment. But a new and unexpected burden of thought was to be
grappled with before Percival's heart might rest; for while in the
midst of his first conflict, the startling revelation of the true
relation borne by Lady Bryn Afon to her fair young companion was
revealed to him by the former, bringing with it a fresh weight of
wearisome struggle. Then, his pride up in arms at the thought, that
by now seeking Primrose for the true and God-given helpmeet of his
life, he might appear to her in the abhorred light of a
fortune-seeker, he wished in fierce impatience that he had already
confessed his love while she was still, as he had believed, the
humble attendant of his patroness! Then, dismissing this thought as
one which did wrong to her pure and beautiful nature, a new torturing
thought presented itself. This knowledge of her birth must needs
involve him in new responsibilities of conscience, for in its light
the curse upon her doomed house stood forth between herself and him
like a grim, mocking shadow of darkness, waving him back from her
with outstretched arm, defying his advance in the path of earthly
bliss, and reminding him of fresh sufferings of soul to be faced and
battled with ere he could see the right. Had he but been ignorant of
its nature, he often cried passionately to himself in this new
bitterness of spirit, then he could have bravely ignored it, defied
its unknown power, and only the more eagerly claimed his right to
protect for ever her he loved from its horrid toils! But he, alone
of all men, save Rhiwallon the physician, cognisant of the curse in
all its deadly evil, and vowed from boyhood to its removal, did such
power ever lie in his hand, dared not hastily act against his own
light and knowledge. Already had the "sins of the fathers been
visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation," and
better than that her tender heart should hereafter break for the evil
deeds or woful sufferings of her own children--better, far better
that he should never in this world behold her fair face more! Better
that he should wound her now by his seeming faithlessness, and, by
never renewing that friendship, which six months ago had surely given
secret promise of a yet sweeter fulfilment, allow her ever henceforth
to think of him as a man but like others, well content to amuse
himself for a few passing moments with so fair a flower, and ready
enough ere long to leave her to droop alone, while he sought out some
new blossom. But Percival, in the steadfastness of his heart, and
his innate love of absolute truth in all things, could ill brook the
intolerable pain of letting himself be so judged by her, and even yet
more weary was this second burden of agonised thought than his first
struggle. Moreover, he must bear its weight alone, for he dared not
trust in Lady Bryn Afon's repeated asseverations of belief in her
daughter's complete immunity from the inherited evil. Was she not as
a woman naturally guided by love rather than by reason, and as a
mother, ready to believe aught that was for a beloved daughter's
good? His bosom friend, Master Jeremy Taylor, who now, entered upon
the duties of his chaplaincy with Archbishop Laud, was near at hand,
and a constant visitor in Lord Bryn Afon's town-house, was ever as
faithful and sympathising a companion as Percival could desire, and
withal a man of wondrously deep learning and wisdom for one so young,
yet of the particular matter relating to the curse, of which Percival
had himself made minute study from his boyhood, he was not qualified
to judge impartially, having thereon only such general opinions as
all good men must have, but never having given to the subject that
detailed and scrutinising attention which must of necessity bias the
honest decision of Percival Vere, as to whether or no he might
unselfishly and without sin seek Shanno Bryn Afon for his wife. The
pain of these conscientious scruples was only intensified for a time
by his chance discovery one day from certain light remarks let fall
by the earl, that it had for some time past been a cherished wish of
his own to see his beloved chaplain and his wife's beautiful young
companion--whom he little imagined to be his own daughter--united in
marriage. The very ease with which he might win his coveted prize
made the possible duty of sacrificing it to a higher purpose only the
more unendurable to contemplate, but the chaplain was too true a man
not to face it boldly, wince as he might under the pain.
At length, like a sudden flash of light across the darkness of his
troubled thoughts, came the recollection of the marvellous medicinal
skill and wisdom of Rhiwallon, the survivor of the far-famed brothers
of Glyn Helen, and of that secret remedy for the ills caused by the
curse, which he had for years been labouring to perfect, and which,
in his treatment of the unhappy earl had already, as Percival knew,
often proved of wondrous efficacy in mitigating his sufferings.
Here was one of far superior age and wisdom to himself, skilled far
beyond his own youthful knowledge in all depths of medical lore, and
in particular of that one matter in which so much was involved, a man
possessing the accumulated wisdom of a long line of illustrious and
skilled ancestors, and devoting his life to the further development
of the marvellous cure, the secret of which had been bequeathed to
him in an imperfect state by his father, and by which he hoped one
day to wholly conquer and subdue the dread evil which had for
centuries reigned over the House of Bryn Afon, and to which his own
lost love had fallen a prey in her turn. Unable longer to endure his
struggle of mind alone and unaided, the young chaplain eagerly sought
out the physician one evening, finding him in his laboratory, deeply
engrossed in the secrets of his art, his black eyebrows fiercely knit
in thought, and his piercing eyes eagerly scrutinising a liquid
contained in a small phial, which he was holding up to the light, and
over which he was smiling to himself a grim smile of satisfaction and
pride.
"It is perfected at last, I verily believe, Percival!" he exclaimed,
as the chaplain entered. "And in the use I have hitherto made of the
wondrous herb, I have not been so very far wrong! At least, I may
say with assurance, it has not failed for good, and my doubts of its
efficacy have been over-conscientious! With this new preparation I
am, notwithstanding, more fully satisfied. Ah, Percival, who shall
say what measure of good you and I may in our time be permitted to
effect for the doomed house we serve? You, with your spiritual, and
I with my physical forces--we may indeed ere we die see the removal
of the curse! But you look weary unto death, my friend, and surely
need my prescriptions for yourself?" "You can give me no better
prescription than the certain knowledge of the efficacy of your great
discovery," said Percival. "Rhiwallon, had I a kingdom, I would give
it you for such good assurance! I love the daughter of this doomed
race, and I would verily give you ten thousand kingdoms, were they
mine to give, an you could swear to me that I might seek to wed her
without sin in the sight of God!"
"So," said the Black Horseman, his fierce black eyes glittering with
what looked very like a sudden rush of unshed tears, "you love fair
Shanno--the fair maid of Gwynnon? You loved her some months since,
if I mistake not? Rhiwallon's eyes are keen, and are wont to take
secret note of hidden things. Poor boy! And your love then has made
you suffer? Think you it is perchance not returned?" The chaplain's
face flushed, and his eager eyes fell with a sudden, proud humility
veiled beneath their long lashes.
"I have not yet sought to know whether it is returned or not," he
answered steadily. "And it were too great presumption to speak
openly of the glad hope my heart doth cherish. Let it suffice,
Rhiwallon, that I love her! But a few weeks since did I pray and
hope ere long to come to the honest conviction that I might
honourably and fearlessly, in the sight of God and man, seek to win
her for the helpmeet of my life; but now, with the knowledge of her
parentage, lately made known to me by her mother, has come a new
torment, which you alone can set at rest, if rest may come. If
not--well--I shall not be the first whose heart has been crushed
within him by the weight of the cruel curse!" And involuntarily his
glance travelled towards the picture on the wall opposite Rhiwallon's
chair, on which the Black Horseman's own eyes were fixed with an
expression of infinite pain--a portrait of the fair, golden-haired
Lady Gwendolen--Shanno's beautiful girl-aunt, and almost exact image.
"Nay, you will not be the first," said the physician dreamily, and he
sat for some minutes lost in thought, while Percival Vere waited with
a sinking heart for his next words. They came abruptly.
"What do you then seek to know of me, Percival?" he asked, suddenly
turning his eyes full upon the young man's face.
"I seek to know," said Percival steadily, and meeting boldly the
eagle glance of the physician, "whether, as an honest and true
physician, you can assure me that in her whom I love the curse has
truly, as her mother affirms, lost its power, and become, through the
means used to preserve her from its toils, wholly dead? On your
answer to that question depends my course of action----"
"And also your life's happiness--and hers?" said Rhiwallon sharply.
"Mine own, truly," answered the chaplain sadly. "Would to God her
own may not be as yet wholly in my keeping!"
"It is more in your keeping, my young friend, than you wot of, I
trow," said the Black Horseman; "but enough of that--it is the
maiden's own part to make such confession--not mine. And what," he
suddenly demanded fiercely, breaking off abruptly in his speech,
"what will you do, Percival, an I tell you that the ill lurks as
surely in fair Shanno's veins as in those of all her forefathers?"
The chaplain's face blanched to a deadly whiteness, and he clutched
the arm of his chair convulsively. "I shall renounce my cherished
dream," he answered steadily, looking the Black Horseman full in the
face, "and live and die in her service, but unwed!" "And break your
heart, forsooth?" said the physician, his keen, glittering eyes still
fixed on Percival, as though he would read into his inmost soul. "My
heart is in God's keeping," answered the young man bravely, "and must
be strong for His service whate'er may betide. I must live to fulfil
my appointed tasks for Him, and to bear the sorrows of her I vainly
love, if such blessing may be vouchsafed me. If the worst befall,
our love will not be in vain hereafter." "It shall not be in vain in
this present world!" cried Rhiwallon, his eyes flashing strange fire,
and his thin nervous fingers working restlessly. "Percival, I too
love your fair Primrose--not as you love her, nor as I loved
_her_"--and he waved his hand towards the sweet face of Lady
Gwendolen--"but as I should love my own dear daughter, had I such.
And loving her from her cradle for the likeness she bore to yon
ill-starred girl, I vowed to save her, an it were possible, from the
doom which might in her turn await her. You know already from her
unhappy mother's lips how I alone shared with her the secret of the
child's existence, and how it has been my lot and my privilege to
watch over her these many years past in her lowly home by the
riverside, where from time to time, in my appointed visits, I took
much secret as well as open note of her fair growth and health of
mind and body. You see this liquid I hold in my hand? Its secret
was bequeathed to me by my father, who, believing it to be in its
perfected state an infallible remedy for the evils suffered by the
House of Bryn Afon, charged me earnestly to spare no pains in its
further development, but to devote myself especially to the study of
the marvellous properties of the secret herb of which it is
compounded, and so to perfect and fulfil in beneficent action for
this unhappy family his own dawning knowledge. My spare time has
been devoted to this study, and hour after hour I have sat in my
laboratory, deeply engrossed in my experiments, which, many years
since, I had good reason to believe rewarded with success, although
it is but this very night that has witnessed my last crowning
endeavour! Well--your fair Primrose has long been under a course of
this my famous elixir, her guardian having from her infancy
administered it to her mixed with portions of her daily food, at my
orders, conjoined with those of her mother. And this powerful
antidote to the evil we sought to avert from her, combined with her
innocent and healthful life and perfect ignorance of the curse,
together with her careful up-bringing apart from her doomed family,
have, I doubt not for a moment, secured to her a perfect immunity
from the sufferings of her race; and I fully concur in the belief her
mother has already expressed to you, that she is wholly free from the
blight of her forefathers. You have, I know well, made much study of
this particular ill in all its bearings, and I commend your bold and
unselfish hesitation to take a step which might be fraught with ill
for yet more future generations; but I have made yet deeper study
than you, Percival, as befits my greater years, and I bid you lay
aside all doubt and fear, and seek in all honest confidence and truth
to fulfil your life and hers in the way appointed by Heaven for your
greater mutual happiness.
"I have already held conversation upon this matter with Lady Bryn
Afon--a liberty you will perchance think? but I love you both as my
children, and have long since noted your growing secret affection one
for the other--and I have assured her that in the marriage of Shanno
with such an one as yourself, who have surely been chosen by Heaven,
with special purpose, to be her life's protector and saviour from the
doom of her race, doth verily lie the fair young girl's best and
surest happiness."
"Think you indeed that I may honestly so regard my love for her,"
interrupted Percival eagerly, "as indeed the means, graciously
vouchsafed me in answer to my earnest prayers, by which the salvation
of herself and her house from the fate of many generations may be
accomplished? If I might verily believe such a high privilege to be
accorded me by a merciful God, it would indeed be a rich reward for
the petty denials of self and the ridicule and obloquy which in my
weak moments have seemed hard to endure in that special path I have
long felt myself called to tread!" "Such is my large hope for you,
Percival," answered the physician. "Heaven grant that you may win
your fair bride, and behold in your children's children the fruits of
your own labours and mine for the noble House of Bryn Afon! Nay,
prithee trouble not thyself to speak, nor e'en to think a thankful
thought towards me! Whate'er I may have accomplished for the
salvation of your love has been done for the sake of mine own!" And
once again the Black Horseman's keen flashing eyes darkened with a
mist of tears, as he gazed at the portrait on the wall, and his grey
head was bowed for a moment upon his hand. Percival sprang from his
seat, and boy-like, despite his reverend attire, flung his arms round
his old friend's neck, and with a son's love and reverence kissed him
on the forehead. "Heaven bless you for ever, Rhiwallon!" he murmured
passionately; then, with sudden longing to be alone with God and his
new-found happiness, he quitted the laboratory.
The physician sat long, deep in thought, his face leaning on one
hand, the other tightly closed around his precious phial, which he
clutched once or twice convulsively. "Too late, too late!" he
muttered in heart-broken accents. "But I have saved another in your
stead, my Gwendolen--my poor lost love--victim of my boyish
inexperience! A few years later, and perchance I had saved you!"
Once more he held the phial to the light, and following his first
look of pride and triumph, as he gazed upon it, came a sudden
expression of strange irresolution and doubt. But it passed quickly,
and he exclaimed fiercely; "Another fair young girl shall not be
sacrificed! And Percival Vere shall not bear a life-long woe such as
I have borne! May God forgive me if I have lied to him!"