"Of course, of course," he answered. "But your mamma takes care of all that." He thought she was going to ask for money.

"But pray do hear me, papa. They say ... This marriage...."

"Of course, my dear. Your mamma has arranged it all. Very agreeable man, Mr. Melcomb. Calls me Petruchio. Marriage! Why, you'll be the envy of half the ladies in London!"

"But, papa, it cannot be. I have told him so."

"Cannot! I don't understand. You must speak to mamma. She manages it all. There--there--"

So saying, he kissed her cheek hastily and departed. Mildred knew not where to turn. Her mother's tactics defeated the support which she had expected from Mrs. Winston, for although the latter threw all the discredit she could upon the rumours of the approaching marriage, no pretence was afforded for any interference of a more active kind. But Mildred, becoming more and more restless, at length seized an opportunity of telling her mother suddenly, that she would go no more into society until the report of her engagement was positively contradicted. Mrs. Pendarrel flew into a violent rage. All her plans were very far advanced. Almost every particular was definitely settled.

She was flushed with her triumph at Bodmin. Was everything to be undone by the whim of a foolish girl?

"What!" Esther exclaimed, with fury sparkling in her eyes, "have you courage to be openly disobedient? Will you dare to fly in my face? Do you think to make me wanting to my pledged word? Do you imagine I will bear the scoffs and taunts bestowed upon a beaten match-maker? No, Miss Pendarrel. You will marry as I bid you, or--but there is no alternative."

In the heat of her anger, Esther almost gasped for breath. She had for some time observed her daughter's manner with smouldering wrath, and now Mildred's avowal produced a fierce burst of flame. It deprived Mrs.

Pendarrel of her prudence.

"And hark!" she cried. "Do you suppose that I am blind? Do you fancy I know nothing about what you call your heart? Have I forgotten who trembled on my arm, when that upstart pretender dared to intrude into society which he could not have entered honestly, and laid claim to a name to which he had no right? Do I not remember whose cheeks were reddened, and whose voice said 'my cousin?'"

Mildred's cheeks were red enough now, and she trembled from head to foot, and opened her lips to speak, but her mother continued with increasing vehemence.

"And suppose he had been Randolph Trevethlan, as he falsely called himself; suppose that he had been a true descendant of that ancient house, and lawful owner of Trevethlan Castle, do you dream, girl, that I would suffer his alliance with a daughter of mine? Do you not know that I hate him? Do you not know that he hates me? Did I not hunt his father to death? Have I not pursued him, the son of that base peasant-woman, with a hatred which can only be extinguished in the grave? Have I not even now consummated his ruin? Has he a house to hide his head? Is he not a beggar on the earth?"

Again Mrs. Pendarrel paused for breath. Mildred's colour came and went with agitation, and she panted as if her heart would break. She had not in the least expected to arouse such a storm.

"And this is the miserable person you have dared to love? Yes; I ask you again, do you think I am blind, or that there are no eyes but mine? Did I not hear of that meeting on the cliff? Of folding arms, and hands clasped, and lips----? Ay, girl, do you quiver and blush? Cousin, indeed! A creature that has no right to any name at all; homeless, houseless, penniless! Do you know that he is at this moment in my hands?

that I can throw him into prison, to languish till he dies? And where is he? where is he hiding? Do you know that his people are charged with the burning of Pendarrel, that he may be implicated himself? Fie, girl!

Shall the lion love the jackal? Shall the eagle love the owl?"

"Mother," Mildred e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, taking advantage of another break in Esther's fierce harangue, "I love Randolph Trevethlan! I have vowed to be his wife; and I will."

She was leaving the room, but Mrs. Pendarrel caught her by the wrist and detained her, looking full in her face, and almost choking with the rage which she was unable to express.

"Yes, mother," Mildred said, faltering as she spoke, "in that meeting, which was watched by some miserable spy--that meeting, which I shall remember for ever, which brings no shame to my cheek--in that meeting Randolph won the pledge which nothing but death can break. Did I love him when first I called him my cousin? Did I love him at that meeting on the cliff? Mother, I love him now a thousandfold. Is he houseless, homeless, an outcast, and a beggar? The more need has he of my love.

Tell me not of dishonour: there is none with him. Speak to me not of shame: I know it not with him. Is his fate in your hands? So is mine.

They cannot be divided. He is mine, and I am his."

As her daughter spoke, Mrs. Pendarrel tightened her hold upon her wrist, and when she flung it loose at the close of Mildred's words, it was discoloured by the pressure. She flung it scornfully from her, and said, in tones whose concentrated but cold indignation was remarkably at variance with her previous vehemence:--

"Go to your chamber, girl. We must see a quick end to this folly. And as for him, you have sealed his doom."

Mildred obeyed, and retired to her own apartment. There she threw herself on a couch, and wept long and pa.s.sionately. But one thought at last seized her, and restored her to herself.

"His doom sealed!" she murmured. "Did my mother say his doom was sealed?

And through me? No, no: it must not be. And is he, indeed, in such danger and distress, and I here, far away, instead of sharing his sorrows, as is my right and my duty? Oh, mother! mother! you little know what you have done."

And she rose, and dried her eyes, and wrote two notes, inclosing one within the other, and directing the outer one to Helen Trevethlan. She had never been one of those dramatic heroines who, in every little trouble, seek consolation from their maids. With regard to them, one might be inclined to avail oneself of the qualification attached to the Highgate oath. Mildred had never asked Rhoda to do her any secret service before. But when she summoned her now, and requested her to convey the note she had just written to its destination at Mrs.

Winston's, the natural quickness of a soubrette at once perceived, from the mere selection of the messenger, that the errand was confidential, and it was with gratified self-esteem that Rhoda accepted the mission, and delivered the billet into Miss Trevethlan's own hands. Rhoda advanced very rapidly in the confidence of her young mistress that evening.

Mrs. Pendarrel had been thunderstruck by the att.i.tude a.s.sumed by her daughter. She had wrapped herself securely in reliance upon her own power, and so bold a defiance almost stunned her. She bitterly regretted the sarcasms into which she had been betrayed by pa.s.sion. She readily perceived the effect they would have upon a temper like Mildred's, a temper in some respects like her own. And should all her schemes, all the plans which she built up with so much care and labour, be frustrated by the obstinacy of a love-sick girl? Should Esther Pendarrel confess herself defeated? There was little hope of that. But she felt dim fears and doubts besetting her. She experienced anew some of the despondency caused by the destruction of her house; she looked to the future with some foreboding of evil. But activity must subdue all such misgivings.

This insolent suitor must be crushed at once. Her daughter must be schooled into instant submission. Nearly cotemporaneously with Mildred's letter-writing, her mother also indited two epistles. The one she despatched the same evening, by a trusty hand, to Tolpeden Park; the other she sent immediately to Messrs. Truby's offices in Lincoln's Inn.

There would apparently be some searing of hearts, before the war which was that day proclaimed arrived at a peaceful termination.

CHAPTER VI.

These violent delights have violent ends, And in their triumph die; like fire and powder, Which, as they kiss, consume. The sweetest honey Is loathsome in its own deliciousness, And in the taste confounds the appet.i.te: Therefore, love moderately; long love doth so; Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

Shakspeare.

It was a notable fact at this time that Seymour Rereworth, the recluse law-student, whom Mrs. Winston used to rally for his devotion to so crabbed a mistress, became a frequent haunter of the house in Cavendish Square. His acquaintance with the Trevethlans, and his relationship to Gertrude, opened the door, closed to all besides, of that little boudoir where she and Helen used to sit together, when they were unengaged; precisely the same room from which Randolph pointed out to Mildred the star which he fancifully chose as the arbiter of his destiny. There Rereworth, forsaking the tangled intricacies of Astraea, learned to disentangle skeins of silk; there, instead of threading the mazes of some perplexing quibble, he could, on occasion, thread a needle; there, instead of reading of the wars of the alphabet, A against B, and C against D, he would read aloud the newest poem of Byron, or the latest novel of Scott; and Seymour was a good reader, and did not object to hear himself read, particularly when Helen Trevethlan listened. And the expression one can throw into such poetry and such prose is very convenient. So Rereworth was now the Corsair, with--

My own Medora, sure thy song is sad.

Then Selim, with--

Bound where thou wilt, my barb; or glide, my prow-- But be the star that guides the wanderer--thou.

And again he played the romantic with Flora Mac Ivor, or sang serenades with Henry Bertram. It is, we say, a convenient way of making love, which was something very like Seymour's present occupation, when--

The deep, the low, the pleading tone With which we _read_ another's love, Interpret may our own.

Pleasant it is to contrast the even and tranquil affection which was thus ripening between Rereworth and Miss Trevethlan, with the turbulent and rebellious pa.s.sion which linked together Mildred and Randolph. Helen had soon learned to like her brother's friend in his winter visits to Mr. Peach's cottage: her heart thanked him for the zeal which he now displayed in investigating the fraud practised at the recent trial; and she listened to these readings in a mood prepared readily to acquiesce in the emotions they were calculated to excite. Although it must be confessed that the wild pa.s.sions of Lord Byron's heroes had more in common with the angry humour of Randolph than with her own gentle disposition. Perhaps her pleasure was derived from the voice of the reader rather than the poetry which he read.

But Rereworth did not allow his attentions to the sister to prevail over his exertions on behalf of the brother. And Randolph, being now more independent, seconded his friend's efforts with his own. But it was a vague and unsatisfactory pursuit. With no little difficulty they opened a correspondence with the family of Everope, but they were disappointed in its result; for nothing precise could be recollected respecting the spendthrift's movements in that eventful autumn. His connections were by no means anxious to revive their knowledge of his habits. And in London he seemed to have entirely abandoned all his former haunts. His chambers remained permanently closed; no one had seen him for a long time.

Restless and impatient, Randolph roamed through the metropolis, scrutinizing the wayfarers, until his eyes became weary of the endless succession of unknown faces. Occasionally he visited places of questionable resort, having learned that such were much frequented by the object of his chase. Thus, once or twice, he went to the Argyll Rooms, and walked, care-worn and sad, among the giddy throng, where most especially, even in laughter, the heart was sorrowful, and the end of mirth was heaviness. And there one night he was mocked with a glimpse of the man he sought. He was watching, partly with interest, and partly with aversion, the proceedings at the hazard-table, when he noticed a player sitting opposite him, the quivering of whose fingers, as his forehead rested on them, showed how keen was his anxiety in the game.

While Randolph was observing him, a showy woman laid her hand upon the gambler's shoulder, and made him look up with a start. At the same moment his eye met Randolph's; he saw he was recognised, rose and vanished; and though his pursuer hurried after him, his inexperience and want of acquaintance with the ways of the place enabled Everope to elude his search.

Meantime, at Trevethlan, Griffith was quietly following another trail.

He took the proceedings at the inquest on the supposed Ashton as the basis of his hopes, and was eagerly inquiring among the country people what was remembered of the occurrences on the night of his suspected murder; for it might be presumed that they could not now feel any reluctance to tell all they knew, as the lapse of time would be sufficient to save them from harm. And, accordingly, the steward had little difficulty in ascertaining the particulars of the smuggling adventure of the night in question, and found that it was generally supposed the murderer had escaped in the lugger which came in with the illicit cargo. But there his researches were brought to an end. What had become of that lugger? In what seas she had sailed since, over what parts of the globe her crew were dispersed, were questions more easily asked than answered, with respect to a vessel of her character.

The hamlet was plunged in mourning. Already the note of preparation had been sounded for the formal taking possession of the castle by its new proprietor, and no rescue seemed probable. The old prediction was to be fulfilled at the expense of Trevethlan. The evil omen of the late squire's marriage was to be borne out by the event. And not a few families in the village were still bewailing the absence of some member now imprisoned on a charge of being concerned in the outrage at Pendarrel. The utmost rigour of the law was threatened against the guilty, and the offence was capital. The dark hour which old Maud Ba.s.set said was at hand for the house of Trevethlan had indeed arrived, and gloom hung around the towers on the cliff, and over the green of the hamlet.

The wrath of the villagers ran high against all who had in any way abetted the law-suit, and in particular against Michael Sinson. Upon his head many an imprecation was breathed, and against him many a threat was muttered. And the odium reflected upon his sweetheart. The people abused her for her rejection of Edward Owen. They said it was due to her that he was now lying in jail. They pointed at her, and flouted her. And poor Mercy often thought of the dismal denunciations of Dame Gudhan, and shuddered at the idea they might prove true.

Old Maud also shared in the unpopularity of her grandson. Over and over again the folks dinned into her ears that Margaret's marriage was broken, and that it was all her Michael's doing. That was the reason, they said, that the castle and lands pa.s.sed away from Squire Randolph.

It was her own favourite that had brought shame on the daughter of whom she was so proud. But Maud refused to understand. She sat, hour after hour, swaying herself to and fro in her rocking-chair, exulting in the ruin of the family which had wronged her Margaret, and, in a low voice, murmuring the hymns she had learned in childhood.

It would seem the fortunes of that family could hardly sink lower, but such was not the case. Griffith received a letter from Winter, informing him that Mr. Pendarrel's lawyer had intimated he was instructed to demand a rigid account of all the personal property left by his late master, and that, although he had replied the demand would be resisted, still the steward had better prepare for the worst. As yet no light appeared to brighten the condition in which they were left by the verdict in the ejectment. Griffith lifted up his hands in tribulation, and looked back through those five-and-thirty years.

This announcement was the result of Mrs. Pendarrel's interview with Mr.

Truby. She insisted on the lawyer pressing all the legal consequences of the verdict to the utmost, and without delay. She even inquired whether the so-called Mr. Trevethlan might not be arrested. But Truby coldly answered, that though perhaps he might, yet he could not be detained, and that such a procedure would be at variance with the common courtesy.

Common courtesy! Mrs. Pendarrel might think, what courtesy is there between me and him? She did not, however, venture to urge her proposition further.