THE TWO SISTERS PIERCED THROUGH THE HEART.
Our story now takes us back to Pendrea-house, where we left several of
its inmates ill at ease both in body and mind. For, as some mighty
warrior, who has borne the burden and heat of the day on the
battle-field, and received bravely many a thrust from the point of a
lance without flinching, when he retires to his couch after his
fatigues, is worried and tormented almost beyond endurance by the bite
of a small mosquito,--so were the inmates of Pendrea-house--one and
all--disturbed and thrown out of their natural course, by the
sharp-pointed arrows of a certain little mischievous creature, who is
generally represented as a little innocent-looking, chubby-faced boy,
with tiny wings and a laughing eye. He had shot many an arrow at Miss
Pendray before, which merely grazed the surface of her smooth delicate
skin, and the wounds disappeared almost as quickly as they had been
inflicted, leaving scarcely a trace behind. But now his arrow had
pierced deeper, and caused a wound which disturbed the peace of mind of
this haughty beauty. Mr. Morley had paid her great attention during the
short time he had been in the neighbourhood, and had given unmistakeable
proofs of his admiration of her, and she had been fascinated by his
handsome person and agreeable manners and conversation, and had met him
more than halfway, and displayed without disguise the interest she took
in him and the pleasure she felt in his society. Yet he never once spoke
to her on the subject nearest her heart, and had left the neighbourhood
abruptly, without seeing her or bidding her farewell; and now he had
returned with Lieut. Fowler, and left again without seeking an interview
with her, or even calling at Pendrea-house. She felt that she had been
deceived by his attentions, and that he was perhaps after all only
trifling with her. This her proud haughty spirit would not brook, and
she tried to drive his image from her thoughts, but she could not
succeed; for the more she tried to pluck out the little barbed arrow
that had already pierced her heart so surely and sharply, the deeper did
it penetrate, and the wound was now becoming almost unbearable.
She tried to soothe her troubled mind, by taking her accustomed walks
along the cliffs, and sitting in solitary meditation on the bold
headlands, and watching the waves as they came surging and dashing
against the rocks beneath her feet. His image haunted her still, and
made her very miserable. She might now have sympathized with her poor
suffering sister; for she well knew the cause of her illness, although
her mother and her attendants attributed it to a different cause; but
her proud haughty spirit would not stoop to condole or sympathize with
one who had so boldly accused her of unseemly behaviour--even although
that one was her only, and till now her darling, sister. So the poor
little innocent Blanche continued to suffer in secret, having no one to
whom she could confide her sad tale. There was one consolation, however,
which she possessed unknown to anyone in her father's house except her
favourite maid, who was, as she termed it, "keeping company" with one of
Lieut. Fowler's men;--this was a letter which Lieut. Fowler had
contrived to send her through this medium; wherein he explained to her
the circumstances of his dismissal from the house, and the
cause,--reiterating his protestations of unalterable attachment, and his
determination to possess the object of his fond affection at all risks
and against all opposition, if Blanche was as true and devoted to him as
he believed her to be.
This letter distressed while it consoled her; for she now felt in its
fullest force that it was owing to her own weakness and persuasion,
that Lieut. Fowler had incurred her father's displeasure, and she felt
also that she ought to sacrifice everything to exonerate her generous
and fondly devoted lover from the disgraceful suspicion attached by her
father to his conduct. She believed that her sister, who inherited all
her father's pride and aristocratic notions, had set him against Lieut.
Fowler, by relating with considerable exaggeration their apparently
clandestine meetings, which seemed no doubt, as she had represented
them, very reprehensible, and sufficiently culpable to justify her
father in acting as he had done.
Blanche, therefore, thought that, if she could find an opportunity of
speaking to him alone, and explaining the nature of their meetings,
which were not clandestine, as her sister very well knew,--for she
generally knew when and where they met, and was frequently asked to join
them,--and if she could at the same time explain to her father that it
was by her own persuasion, and at her earnest request, that Lieut.
Fowler had refrained from naming his intentions to him earlier, he might
at least be induced to alter the harsh opinion he had formed of his
former friend. This she determined she would do;--she would take all the
blame on herself, to exonerate him who was all in all to her, and who
would, but for her, have boldly and honourably asked her father's
consent to their happiness long ago.
Squire Pendray was very fond of his children, especially of his little
pet, the gentle Blanche,--indeed, no one could help liking her. She
possessed the good-natured simplicity and kindness of her mother, and
was beloved by the poor as well as the rich; and many a little act of
charity did this gentle, loving, girl do for the poor and needy, whose
cottages she often visited in the course of her rambles.
Maud was kind and charitable to the poor also, and distributed her
bounties as freely and largely as her sister, and perhaps more so; but
her gifts were given with haughty pride, and the recipients were made to
feel their dependent inferiority, by the manner in which they were
bestowed. It was not so with Blanche;--she gave as if she were receiving
a favour instead of bestowing one. She conversed with the poor
recipients of her bounty, and freely entered into all their little
troubles, and sympathized with them as if she were one of themselves;
and yet they never presumed on her condescension, but looked upon her
almost as a being from another world, come down to minister to their
wants; and so her gifts were doubly valuable, and she was almost
worshipped in the parish.
The squire was a shrewd man of the world, and was proud in the enjoyment
of his wealth and position, and happy in the possession of two such
lovely daughters; and it was with feelings of the deepest regret, that
he saw them both pining away under the influence of some secret malady
of which he knew not the cause. The best medical advice that could be
procured was called in, but to no purpose,--the doctors could do them no
good whatever. At last, when all their efforts had failed, Mrs. Pendray
said to her husband one night, when they were sitting alone in the
dining-room, taking their solitary supper,--
"I tell you what it is, squire,--those two girls are ill-wished, as sure
as you are sitting in that chair."
"Ill-wished! nonsense!" replied the squire; "who can have ill-wished
them, I should like to know? What harm have those two innocent girls
done to anyone, to cause them to be ill-wished. No, no, I can't believe
it."
"Well, whether you believe it or not," returned his wife, "I do,--in
fact I'm sure of it. What has happened to one may happen to another, any
time. There was Farmer Pollard's daughter, two years ago,--she pined
away, just as Blanche is doing now, and nothing seemed to do her good
until her father applied to the conjuror."
"Yes, I remember that case," said the squire; "and the conjuror
discovered that she was ill-wished by another young woman, through
jealousy. But that can't be the case with either of our daughters."
"There are many ways of ill-wishing, and many causes and reasons for
doing so," replied Mrs. Pendray. "I was talking with Mrs. Pollard about
it only yesterday, and she says that it may be that someone has a grudge
against you; and so they may have ill-wished our dear children out of
revenge, knowing how dear they are to us."
"If I thought that," said the squire, rising passionately, and pacing
the room, "I would horsewhip the fellow within an inch of his life,
whoever he is;--he should have some cause for his ill-will, at any
rate."
"You forget, my dear," replied his wife, "that you do not know who the
party is; and I only know of one way by which you can find out your
enemy."
"And that is by going to the conjuror, I suppose," said the squire, in a
sarcastic tone. "I don't dispute his skill, for I have seen proofs of it
among our neighbours; but I don't like the fellow,--and I believe there
are many of the same opinion as myself respecting him, but they are
afraid of him, and dare not speak their minds; for he has great power,
and manages to know what is going on around him, and even what is said
about him, in a most unaccountable manner; but I tell you I don't like
the fellow, and I wouldn't go near him if all my family were dying."
"Oh! don't say that," said Mrs. Pendray, putting her handkerchief to her
eyes to wipe away the tears which were trickling fast down her cheeks;
"you would not see our poor children pine away, and do nothing to avert
the calamity,--I'm sure you would not. Nothing seems to relieve
them;--the doctors have given them up; and now, alas! we have but one
sad prospect before us. After all the love and care we have bestowed
upon them from their infancy, and the many happy years we have devoted
to our darling children, and the pleasant future we looked forward to,
it is very hard thus to be deprived of them, and to see their strength
failing them, and the hand of death stealing over them in their prime,
when one word from their father would restore them,--yes, one sentence
spoken by their father, would restore them to their former health, and
relieve their parents from present grief, and a future of unmingled
misery and woe." And--overcome by her feelings, and the sad thoughts
that arose in her mind at the melancholy picture she had drawn--the poor
old lady gave way to a burst of grief, which touched the sterner heart
of her proud husband, who averted his head and brushed away a tear with
his hand, as he continued to pace the room in great agitation.
It may seem strange in these enlightened days, that persons in the
position of Mr. and Mrs. Pendray should believe for one moment, that one
person had the power to ill-wish another, or that it was in the power of
any man, however skilful in the occult sciences, to counteract their
evil imprecations. Yet such was the case. Superstition was rife in those
days, as we have said before, even among the best educated; and many a
poor old woman had suffered seriously, for exercising the power of
witchcraft which she supposed she possessed.
The district of the Land's-End was rather too remote for this crime to
be visited with severity by the authorities, and so the Land's-End
conjuror was left undisturbed,--indeed, he was too cautious, generally,
in his dealings with those who sought his aid, to give his enemies any
handle that they could take hold of against him. Like the master of a
puppet-show, he knew the mechanism of his figures, and knew what strings
to pull to make them work according to his will;--the only difference
was, that he exercised his skill on the minds of his figures instead of
their limbs.
Squire Pendray was a man of good common sense, and a magistrate, and yet
he had not escaped the common feeling of superstition which prevailed at
that time--not only in Cornwall, but in every other part of the kingdom.
It was not, therefore, from any want of confidence in the skill of the
conjuror, that he declined asking him to exercise it, but simply
because, as he said, "he didn't like the fellow." Probably he would have
been puzzled to have given a reason for this strong dislike to a man he
scarcely knew; for Mr. Freeman avoided coming in contact with the
squire, as much as he possibly could, and they had scarcely ever met. No
doubt the conjuror had his reasons for this. It would not have been
convenient for him at all times to have had the squire prying into his
little secret doings.
Mrs. Pendray had appealed to her husband's feelings, and revived in his
breast those chords of tender affection which she so well knew he
possessed, but which had, in a measure, lain dormant since his children
had grown into womanhood, and were able to take care of themselves. It
seemed now, however, as if his daughters had returned to their childhood
again, and required the tender care of their mother as much as ever they
did.
"It is very hard," said Mrs. Pendray, still sobbing, and speaking more
to herself than to her husband, "that, after all our care of the dear
girls for so many years, they should be allowed to die now, because
their father has some foolish scruples about asking the assistance of
the only man that can relieve them from the spell that has been cast
around them." And the poor old lady's grief burst forth afresh, while
the squire continued to pace the room more slowly and thoughtfully; for
conflicting passions agitated his mind, and he was debating within
himself between his hatred of the man of science and his love for his
children. At length parental affection prevailed, and he determined to
lay aside the hatred which he somehow entertained towards the conjuror,
and be a supplicant at his door the next morning, for his aid in
relieving his daughters from the spell by which he now felt convinced
they were bound. It was a severe struggle; but he had made up his mind
to go through with it, and no obstacle would now prevent him from
carrying it out.