CHAPTER III
THE HOUSE OF MOURNING
EUSTACE MARCHMONT came in sight of Penarvon Castle just as the last rays of the winter sunset were striking upon its closed windows and turning them into squares of flashing red light dazzling to the eye. The castle stood commandingly upon its lofty promontory of jagged cliff, and from its garden walls, as the young man remembered well, the spectator could look sheer down a deep precipice into the tossing waves of the sea beneath. He remembered the long side terrace of the castle, against which the thunder of the surf in winter months made a perpetual roar and battle; whilst even on summer evenings, when the sea lay like a sheet of molten gold beneath them, the ceaseless murmur was always to be heard, suggestive of the restless life of the ocean. It was natural perhaps that Eustace should draw rein and look at the majestic pile with something of pride in his gaze, for he was the Duke’s next of kin, and in the course of nature would one day be master here. Yet there was no exultation in the steady gaze he fixed upon his future home: it was speculative and thoughtful rather than triumphant. There was a shade of perplexity in the wide-open grey eyes intently fixed upon the place, which looked at the moment as though lit up for illumination, and the firm lips set themselves in lines that were almost grim.
Eustace Marchmont was clad in a suit of black, which was evidently quite new, although slightly stained and disordered by the evidences of a long and hasty journey. He had, in fact, ridden hard from town ever since the news of the Duchess’s death reached him, now three days ago. He knew that propriety demanded he should be present at her funeral, even without the invitation from the Duke. He had come as fast as post-horses could bring him, with his two servants in attendance, and had travelled without mischance.
It was many years now since Eustace had visited Penarvon. His father (dead two years since) and the Duke were cousins, and the Duke had no brother. As young men there had been some attachment between them, but they had grown apart with the advance of years. The Duke was by many years the elder of the two; and perhaps on account of seniority, perhaps from his position as head of the family, had striven with possibly unwise persistence to mould his cousin after his own wishes. Disagreement had ended in coolness, and the intercourse had become slacker. Although Eustace had visited his “uncle’s” house (he had been taught so to speak of the Duke), he did not remember ever having seen his father there, and since his own boyhood he had not seen the place himself.
He had not understood at the time why his visits ceased, but he knew it well enough now. Although the Duke long cherished hopes of a son of his own to succeed him, he had always regarded Eustace as a possible heir, and had desired to have a voice in his education. The boy had been sent to Eton at his suggestion; but when his school-days were ended, and his uncle naturally supposed that the University would be the next step in his training, Mr. Marchmont had suddenly decided to travel abroad with the boy and see the world—the close of the long war having just rendered travelling possible with safety. When he himself returned to England at the end of two years, it was with the news that Eustace had been left behind in Germany to finish his education there; and the indignant remonstrances of the Duke had resulted in a coolness which had never been altogether conquered. He considered that the young man would be rendered entirely unfit by such training, for the position every year seemed to make it more probable he would one day hold, whilst Mr. Marchmont argued that, the youth’s heart being set upon it, it was far better to give him his own way than try to force him into paths uncongenial and distasteful.
Eustace was now seven-and-twenty, and in command of an ample fortune. Both his parents were dead—his mother he did not even remember, and he had neither brother nor sister. His second cousin, Lady Bride Marchmont, whom he dimly remembered as a shrinking little girl, for ever clinging to her mother’s hand, was the only relative of his own generation that he possessed; and it had naturally occurred to him before now that to marry the Duke’s daughter, if he could learn to love her and teach her to love him, would be the best reparation he could make to her for the lack of brothers of her own. It seemed to him a hard and unjust thing that her sex should disqualify her from succeeding to her father’s wealth and title. Eustace was no lover of the time-honoured laws of primogeniture, entail, or the privileges of the upper classes. The leaven of the day was working strongly in him, and he was ready to break a lance in the cause of freedom and brotherly equality with whatever foe came in his way.
His face bespoke something of this temperament. He had the broad lofty brow of the thinker, the keen steady eye of the man of battle, the open sensitive nostril of the enthusiast, and the firm tender mouth of the philanthropist. Without being handsome he was attractive, and his face was worthy of study. There was something of quiet scorn lying latent in his expression, which argument easily called into active existence. The face could darken sternly, or soften into ardent tenderness and enthusiasm, as the case might be. He had the air of a leader of men. His voice was deep, penetrating, and persuasive, and he had a fine command of language when his pulses were stirred. In person he was tall and commanding, and had that air of breeding which goes far to win respect with men of all classes. He moved with the quiet dignity and ease of one perfectly trained in all physical exercises, and in whom no thought of self-consciousness lurks. He looked well on horseback, riding with the grace of long practice. As he followed the windings of the zigzag road which led up to the castle, looking about him with keen eyes to observe what changes time had made in the old place, he looked like one whom the Duke might welcome with pride as his heir, since it had not pleased Providence to bestow upon him a son of his own.
He rode quietly up to the great sweep before the gateway and passed beneath it, answering the respectful salute of the porter with a friendly nod, and found himself in the quadrangle upon which the great hall door opened. His approach had been observed, and the servants in their sombre dress were waiting to receive him; but the drawn blinds over all the windows, and the deep hush which pervaded the house, struck a chill upon the spirit of the young man as he passed beneath the portal, and a quick glance round the hall assured him that none but servants were there.
A great hound lying beside the roaring fire of logs rose with a suspicious bay and advanced towards him, but seeming to recognise kinship in the stranger, permitted him to stroke his head, as Eustace, standing beside the hearth, addressed the butler in low tones:—
“How is it with his Grace?”
The man slowly shook his head.
“Sadly, sir, but sadly. He keeps himself shut up in his own room—the room next to that in which her Grace lies—and unless it be needful nobody disturbs him. He looks ten years older than he did a month back: it has made an old man of him in a few weeks.”
“And the Lady Bride?”
“She is bearing up wonderfully, but we think she has scarce realised her loss yet. She seems taken out of herself by it all—uplifted like—almost more than is natural in so young a lady. But she was always half a saint, like her Grace herself. She will be just such another as her mother.”
“And the funeral is to-morrow?”
“Yes, sir—on the first day of the new year. Her Grace died very early upon the morning of Christmas Day—just a week from now.”
Eustace was silent for a few minutes, and then turning to the servant, said—
“Does his Grace know I am here? Shall I see him to-day? Does he see anybody?”
“If you will let me show you your rooms, sir, I will let him know you have arrived. He will probably see you at dinner-time. He and Lady Bride dine together at five—their other meals they have hitherto taken in their own rooms, but that may be changed now. You will join them at dinner, of course, sir.”
“If they wish it, certainly,” answered Eustace; “but I have no wish to intrude if they would prefer to be alone. Is anybody else here?”
“There is nobody else to come, sir. Her Grace’s few relatives are in Ireland, and there has not been time to send for them, and they were not nearly related to her either. I am glad you are here, sir. It is a long time since Penarvon has seen you.”
“Yes, I have been much abroad, but the place looks exactly the same. I could believe I had been here only yesterday.”
And then Eustace followed the man up the grand marble staircase and down a long corridor, so richly carpeted that their foot-falls made no sound, till they reached a small suite of apartments, three in number, which had been prepared for the use of the guest, and which were already bright with glowing fires, and numbers of wax candles in silver sconces arranged along the walls.
The costliness and richness of his surroundings was strange to Eustace, for although wealth was his, his habits were very simple, and he neither desired nor appreciated personal indulgences of whatever kind they might be. He looked round him now with a smile not entirely free from contempt, although he recognised in the welcome thus accorded him a spirit of friendly regard, which was pleasant.
“Unless, indeed, it is all the work of hired servants,” he said, after a moment’s cogitation. “Probably it is so—who else would have thought to spare for a guest at such a time as this? This is the regular thing at the castle for every visitor. There is nothing personal to me in all this warmth and brightness.”
His baggage had arrived, and his servant had laid out his evening dress: but Eustace never required personal attention, and the man had already taken his departure. The young man donned his new suit of decorous black with rapidity and precision. He was no dandy, but he was no sloven either, and always looked well in his clothes. After his rapid toilet was completed, he sat down beside the fire to muse, and was only interrupted by the message to the effect that his Grace desired the pleasure of his company at the dinner-table that evening.
This being the case, and the hands of the clock on the mantelpiece pointing ten minutes only to the hour of five, Eustace at once rose and descended to the drawing-room, the door of which was thrown open for him by one of the footmen carrying in some logs to feed the huge fire. One glance round the once familiar apartment showed him that it was empty. It was the smallest of the three drawing-rooms, opening one into the other in a long suite, and formed indeed the ante-chamber to the larger ones beyond; but it was the one chiefly used when there were no guests at the castle; and Eustace remembered well the pictures on the white and gold walls, the amber draperies, and the cabinets with their treasures of silver, china, and glass.
Nothing seemed changed about the place, and the sense of stationary immutability and repose struck strangely upon the alert faculties of the young man, whose life had always been full of variety—not only of place and scene, but of thought and principle. A dreamlike feeling came over him as he stood looking about him, and he did not know whether the predominant sensation in his mind were of satisfaction or impatience.
The door slowly opened, and in came a slim black-robed figure. For a moment Eustace, standing near to an interesting picture, and shadowed by a curtain, passed unnoticed, so that he took in the details of this living picture before he himself was seen. He knew in a moment who it was—his cousin Bride—the little timid girl of his boyish recollections; but if all else were unchanged at Penarvon, there was change at least here, for had he seen her in any other surroundings he would never have known or recognised her.
Bride’s face was very pale, and there were dark violet shadows beneath the eyes which told of vigil and of weeping; yet the face was now not only calm, but full of a deep spiritual tranquillity and exaltation, which gave to it an aspect almost unearthly in its beauty. Bride had inherited all her mother’s exceptional loveliness of feature, but she owed more to that expression—caught from, rather than transmitted by, that saintly mother—which struck the beholder far more than mere delicacy of feature or purity of colouring. Eustace was no mean student of art, and had studied at the shrine of the old masters with an enthusiasm born of true appreciation for genius; yet never had he beheld, even in the greatest masterpieces, such a wonderfully spiritualised and glorified face as he now beheld in the person of his cousin Bride. A wave of unwonted devotional fervour came suddenly upon him. He felt that he could have bent the knee before her and kissed the hem of her garment; but instead of that he was constrained by custom to walk forward with outstretched hand, meeting the startled glance of her liquid dark eyes as she found herself not alone.
“You are my cousin Eustace,” she said, in a low melodious voice that thrilled him strangely as it fell upon his ear; “my father will be glad you are come.”
For once Eustace’s readiness failed him. He held Bride’s hand, and knew not how to address her. His heart was beating with quick strong throbs. He felt as though he were addressing some being from another sphere. What could he say to her at such a moment?
Perhaps his silence surprised her, for she raised her soft eyes again to his, and the glance went home to his soul like a sword-thrust, so that he quivered all over. But he found his voice at last.
“Forgive me,” he said, and his voice was soft and even tremulous. “If I am silent, it is because I have no words in which to express what I wish. There are moments in life when we feel that words are no true medium of thought. I remember your mother, Bride—that is all I can find to say. I remember her—and before the thought of your great loss I am dumb. Silence is sometimes more eloquent that any speech can be.”
He still held her hand. She raised her eyes to his, and he saw that he had touched her heart, for they were swimming now in bright tears, but her sweet mouth did not quiver.
“Thank you,” she said, in tones that were little raised above a whisper. “I am glad you have said that. I am glad you remember her. I think she was fond of you, Eustace.”
Then the door opened and the Duke appeared.
Eustace was shocked at his aspect. He remembered him as a very upright, dignified, majestic man, whose words were few and to the point, whose personality inspired awe and reverence in all about him, whose wishes were law, and whose will none ventured to dispute. He beheld before him now a bowed, white-headed man, out of whose eyes the light and keenness had passed, whose voice was low and enfeebled, and whose whole aspect betokened a mind and heart broken by grief, and a physique shattered by the blow which had desolated his home.
Nevertheless this form of grief did not appear to the young man so pathetic as Bride’s, and he was not tongue-tied before the Duke. His well-chosen words of sympathy and condolence were received kindly by the old man, and before the first dinner was over Eustace felt that the ice was broken, and that he began to have some slight knowledge of the relatives with whom he felt he should in the future have considerable dealings if he succeeded in winning their favour. Their loneliness, isolation, and weakness appealed to the manly instincts of his nature, and he resolved that any service he could perform to lighten their burden should not be lacking.
When left alone with the Duke after Bride had vanished, little passed between them. The host apologised for his silence, but said he could not yet begin to talk of common things, and contented himself by obtaining a promise from Eustace to remain some weeks at the castle as his guest. In those days visits were always of considerable length, and Eustace had made his preparations for a lengthened absence from London, in case he should be required here. He accepted the invitation readily, and the Duke, rising and saying good night, with an intimation that he should retire at once to his room, Eustace strolled across the vast hall to the drawing-room, half expecting to find it empty; but his heart gave a quick bound as he saw it tenanted by the slim black-robed figure, and met the earnest gaze of Bride’s soft eyes.
She rose as he appeared, and advanced to met him. Upon her face was an expression which he did not understand till her next words explained it.
“Would you like to come and see her for the last time? To-morrow it will be too late.”
Eustace bent his head in voiceless assent. He could not say nay to such an invitation, albeit he thought that there was something morbid in the feeling which prompted it. Habituated to foreign ways and customs, this keeping of the dead unburied for so many days was in his eyes slightly repulsive; but he followed the noiseless steps of his guide, and was at last ushered into a large dim room, lighted by many wax tapers, the light of which seemed, however, absorbed into the heavy black draperies with which the walls were hung.
In this sombre apartment the Duchess had lain in state (if such a phrase might be used) for many days. The whole population of St. Bride and St. Erme had combined to plead for a last look upon her who in life had been so greatly beloved; and both the Duke and his daughter had been touched by the request, which was promptly gratified.
And so Eustace now found himself before a prostrate figure that bore the likeness of a marble effigy, but was clad in soft white robes of sheeny texture, the fine dark hair being dressed as in life, and crowned by the film of priceless lace which the Duchess was wont to wear. Tall lilies in pots made a background for the recumbent figure, and the wax tapers cast their light most fully upon the tranquil face of the dead. And when once the eye rested on that face, the accessories were all forgotten. Eustace looked, and a great awe and wonder fell upon him. Bride looked, and her face kindled with that expression which he marked upon it when first he had seen her, and which afterwards, when he heard the words, seemed to him best described in this phrase, “Death is swallowed up of victory.”
She knelt down beside the couch on which all that was mortal of her mother lay, and when Eustace turned his eyes away from the peaceful face of the dead, it was to let them rest for a moment upon the ecstatic countenance of the living.
But after one glance he softly retired, unnoticed by Bride, and shut the door behind him noiselessly.
In the shelter of his own room the sense of mystic awe and wonder that possessed him fell away by degrees. He paced up and down, lost in thought, and presently a frown clouded the eyes that had been till now full of pity and sympathy.
“She looks as though she had been living with the dead till she is more spirit than flesh. How can they let her? It is enough to kill her or send her mad! Well, thank heaven, the funeral is to-morrow. After that this sort of thing must cease. Poor child, poor girl! A father who seems to have no knowledge of her existence, her mother snatched away in middle life. And she does not look made of the stuff that forgets either. She will have a hard time of it in the days to come. I wonder if she will let me help her, if I can in any wise comfort her. That must be a heart worth winning, if one had but the key.”
Upon the forenoon of the next day the funeral of the Duchess was celebrated with all the pomp and sombre show incident to such occasions in the days of which we write. Bride did not accompany the sable procession as it left the castle and wound down the hill. Women did not appear in public on such occasions then; and she only watched from a turret window the mournful cortège as it set forth, the servants of the household forming in rank behind the coaches, and walking in procession in the rear, and as the gates were reached, being followed in turn by almost every man, woman, and child within a radius of five miles, the whole making such a procession as had never been seen in the place before.
Hitherto the girl had been supported by the feeling that her mother, although dead, was still with her; that she could gaze on that dear face at will, feel the shadowing presence of her great love, and know something of the hallowing brooding peace which rested upon the quiet face of the dead. Moreover, she was upheld all these days by a wild visionary hope that perhaps even yet her mother would be restored to her. Her intense faith in the power of God made it easy to her to imagine that in answer to her fervent prayer the soul might be restored to its tenement—the dead raised up to life. If the prayer of faith could move mountains—if all things were possible to him that believeth, why might not she believe that her own faith, her own prayer, might be answered after this manner? Had not men been given back from the dead before now? Why not this precious life, so bound up in her own and in the hearts of so many?
Thus the girl had argued, and thus she had spent her days and her nights in fasting and prayer, raised up above the level of earth by her absorbing hope and faith, till she had almost grown to believe that the desired miracle would become a reality. And now that the dream was ended, now that she stood watching the disappearance of that long procession, and knew that God had not answered her prayers, had not rewarded her faith as she felt it deserved to be rewarded, a strange leaden heaviness fell upon her spirit. The reaction from the ecstatic fervour of spirit set in with somewhat merciless force. She felt that the earth was iron and the heavens brass, that there was none below to love her, none above to hear her. A sense akin to terror suddenly possessed her. She turned from her post of observation and fled downwards. She felt choking, and craved the fresh salt air, which had not kissed her cheek for more than this eternity of a week. At the foot of the turret was a door opening into the garden. She fled down, and found herself in the open air, and with hasty steps she passed through the deserted gardens till she came to the great glass conservatory, which had been erected at no small cost for the winter resort of the Duchess since she became so much the invalid; and flinging herself down upon the couch which still stood in its accustomed place in the recess made for it, the girl burst into wild weeping, and beat her head against the cushions in a frenzy akin to despair.
How long she thus remained she knew not. Darkness seemed to fall upon her, and a great horror of she knew not what. The next sensation of which she was really conscious was the touch of a hand on her shoulder, and the sound of a kindly and familiar voice in her ear—
“Lady Bride, ladybird, don’tee take on so bitterly, my lamb. It is not her they have put underground. May be she is near yu now whilst you weep. May be it was she who put it into my heart to come here just at this time. If they can grieve whom the peace of God Almighty has wrapped round, I think ’twould grieve her to see yu breaking your heart to-day.”
“O Abner!” cried the girl, sitting up and pushing the heavy hair out of her eyes, “I am glad you have come! I felt as though there was no one left in the wide world but me—that I was all alone, and all the world was dead. But I have not been like this before. Till they took her away I felt I had her with me. I knew that she was near—that she was watching over me. There was always the hope that she was not dead—that her spirit might come back once more. O Abner, Abner! why does God always take those who can least be spared? There are so many who would scarce be missed, and she——”
Bride could not complete her sentence, and the old gardener looked tenderly at her. He had known her from her birth. He had guided her tottering steps round the garden before she could fairly walk alone. He had watched her growth and development with an almost fatherly tenderness and pride. She was as dear to him as though she had been his own flesh and blood; and the mother who was now taken away had never interfered with the friendship between the child and the old servant; nay, she had many and many a time held long talks herself with Abner, and knew how strong a sympathy there was between his views and her own, despite their widely different walk in life. And so in the old gardener Bride had a friend to whom at such a moment as this she could talk more freely than to any other living creature.
“May be the Lord wants the most beautiful flowers for His own garden, my Ladybird,” answered the old man, using the familiar pet name which had grown up between them in childhood. “When I used to gather flowers for her Grace’s room, I chose the sweetest and most perfect blossoms I could find. We mustn’t wonder if the Lord sometimes does the same—nor grudge Him the fairest and purest flowers, even though the loss is ours.”
Slightly soothed by the thought, Bride tried to smile.
“Only it seems as though we wanted them so much more,” said she.
“I don’t know. The dear Lord must have loved her full as much as we do. He lent her to us for many years; may be He knew she would be better placed in His garden now, where no pruning-knife need ever touch her, and no suns can scorch her, and where her leaves will never wither. Sure, my Ladybird, yu du not grudge her her place in God’s garden of Paradise?”
“O Abner! I will try not. I know what you mean; she did have much suffering to bear here, and I am thankful she will have no more. But there are some things so hard to understand, even when we believe them. I cannot bear to think of her body lying in the cold ground, and becoming—oh! it does not bear thinking of.”
“Then, why think of it, Ladybird?—why not look beyond this poor corruptible body, and think of the glorious resurrection body with which we shall all arise?”
“Oh, it is so hard to understand!” cried Bride, pressing her hands together—“it is so hard to understand!”
“I think it is not possible to understand,” said the old man quietly, “but surely it is easy to believe, for we see it every day and every year.”
“How do we see it?” asked Bride, almost listlessly.
Abner put his hand in his pocket and drew forth a little packet of seed, some of which he poured into his palm.
“Lady Bride,” he said in his grave meditative way, “it does not seem wonderful to yu that each of these tiny seeds will, after it has rotted in the ground, germinate and bear leaves and flowers and fruit. But if yu did not know it from constant seeing it year by year, if it was a strange thing that yu have been told, and yu would not believe it, and yu said to me, ‘No, Abner, that cannot be. It is not sense. It cannot be understood. I must prove it first before I believe it.’ And suppose yu took that seed and put it under that glass which clever men use for discoveries, and suppose beneath that powerful glass yu pulled it bit by bit to pieces to see if it contained the germ of the mystery, du yu think yu would find it there? Du yu think your seed would grow after being treated so?”
“No, of course not,” answered Bride.
“Well, isn’t it just so with the mysteries of God? He gives them to us, and says, ‘Here is your body. It is corruptible and mortal; but it has within it the germ of immortality, and though it will die and perish in the ground, yet it will rise again glorified when the day of resurrection comes.’ But men in these days take that mystery and say, ‘We will not take God’s word for it; we will put it beneath the glass of our great intellects, and examine and see if it be true, and if we may not prove it by examination, then we will not believe it!’ And so they set to work, and when they have done, they tell men not to believe God any longer, because they have proved Him a liar by the gauge of their own intellects. Du yu think these men would believe that this seed would sprout into a flower if they did not see it do so with their own eyes? No; they would laugh yu to scorn for telling them so. And so they laugh us to scorn who tell them that there will be a resurrection of the dead. But, Ladybird, never let your heart fail you. Never let doubt steal over your mind. What God has promised we know He will surely accomplish—and His words cannot fail.”
She rose with a faint smile and held out her hand, which the old gardener took reverently and tenderly between both of his own.
“I will try to think of that if ever I doubt again,” she said softly. “I do know—I do believe—but sometimes it is very hard to keep fast hold on the faith.”