The Light of Scarthey: A Romance

"You want me to believe he is mad, I suppose?" she snapped, at last.

"Dear me! No, no, no!" responded the other, in his airy way. "I did not mean to go so far as that; but – well, there are very painful matters, and hitherto I have avoided all discussion upon them, even with Sophia. My affection for Adrian – "

"Fiddlesticks!" interrupted Tanty. "You meant something, I suppose; either the man's mad, or he is not. And I, for one, don't believe a word of it. The worst sign about him, that I can see, is the blind confidence the poor fellow seems to put in you."

Here Molly, who had been listening to the discussion "with all her ears" – anything connected with the mysterious personality of the absent head of the house was beginning to have a special fascination for her – gave an irrepressible little note of laughter.

Rupert looked up at her quickly, and their eyes met.

"Hold your tongue, Miss," cried Miss O'Donoghue, sharply; aware that she had gone too far in her last remark, and glad to relieve her oppression in another direction, "how dare you laugh? Sophia, this is a terrible thing your brother wants me to believe – may I ask what your opinion is? Though I'll not deny I don't think that will be worth much."

Sophia glanced helplessly at Rupert, but he was far too carefully possessed of himself to affect to perceive her embarrassment.

"Come, come," cried Miss O'Donoghue, whose eyes nothing escaped, "you need not look at Rupert, you can answer for yourself, I suppose – you are not absolutely a drivelling idiot —all the Landales are not ripening for lunatic asylums – collect your wits, Sophia, I know you have not got any, but you have enough to be able to give a plain answer to a plain question, I suppose. Do you think your brother mad, child?"

"God forbid," murmured Sophia, at the very extremity of those wits of which Miss O'Donoghue had so poor an opinion. "Oh, no, dear aunt, not mad, of course, not in the least mad."

Then, gathering from a restless movement of Rupert's that she was not upon the right tack she faltered, floundered wildly, and finally drew forth the inevitable pocket-handkerchief, to add feelingly if irrelevantly from its folds, "And indeed if I thought such a calamity had really fallen upon us – and of course there are symptoms, no doubt there are symptoms…"

"What are his symptoms – has he tried to murder any of you, hey?"

"Oh, my dear aunt! No, indeed, dear Adrian is gentleness itself."

"Does he bite? Does he gibber? Oh, away with you, Sophia! I am sure I cannot wonder at the poor fellow wanting to live on a rock, between you and Rupert. I am sure the periwinkles and the gulls must be pleasant company compared to you. That alone would show, I should think, that he knows right well what he is about. Mad indeed! There never was any madness among the O'Donoghues except your poor uncle Michael, who got a box on the ear from a windmill – and he wasn't an O'Donoghue at all! You will be kind enough, nephew, to have delivered to Sir Adrian, no later than to-day, the letter which I shall this moment indite to him."

"Perhaps," said Rupert, "if you will only favour me with your attention for a few minutes first, aunt, and allow me to narrate to you the circumstances of my brother's return here, and of his subsequent self-exile, you will see fit to change your opinion, both as regards him and myself."

A self-controlled nature will in the long run, rightly or wrongly, always assume the ascendency over an excitable one. The moderateness of Rupert's words, the coolness of his manner, here brought Tanty rapidly down from her pinnacle of passion.

Certainly, she said, she was not only ready, but anxious to hear all that Rupert could have to say for himself; and, smoothing down her black satin apron with a shaking hand, the old lady prepared to listen with as much judicial dignity as her flustered state allowed her to assume. Rupert drew his chair opposite to hers and leant his elbow on the table, and fixed his bright, hard eyes upon her.

"You remember, of course," he began after a moment's pause, "how at the time of my poor father's death, Adrian was reported to have lost his life in the Vendée war – though without authoritative confirmation – at the same time as the fair and unhappy Countesse de Savenaye, to whose fortune he had so chivalrously devoted himself."

Tanty bowed her head in solemn assent; but Molly, watching with the most acute attention, felt her face blaze at the indefinable shade of mockery she thought to catch upon the speaker's curling lip.

"It was," continued he, "the constant strain, the long months of watching in vain for tidings, that told upon my father, rather than the actual grief of loss. When he died, the responsibilities of the headship of the house devolved naturally upon me, the only male representative left, seemingly, to undertake them. The months went by; to the most sanguine the belief in Adrian's death became inevitable. Our hopes died slowly, but they died at last; we mourned for him," here Rupert cast down his eyes till the thick black lashes which were one of his beauties swept his cheek; his tone was perfect in its simple gravity. "At length, urged thereto by all the family, if I remember rightly by yourself as well, dear aunt, I assumed the title as well as the position which seemed mine by right. I was very young at the time, but I do not think that either then, or during the ten years that followed, I unworthily filled my brother's place."

There was a proud ring of sincerity in the last words, and the old lady knew that they were true; that during the years of his absolute power as well as of his present more restricted mastership, Rupert's management of the estate was unimpeachable.

"Certainly not, my dear Rupert," she said in softer tones than she had hitherto used to him, "no one would dream of suggesting such a thing – pray go on."

"And so," pursued the nephew, with a short laugh, relapsing into that light tone of banter which was his most natural mode of expression; "when, one fine day, a hired coach clattered up Sir Rupert Landale's avenue and deposited upon his porch a tattered mariner who announced himself, in melancholy tones that would have befitted the ghost no doubt many took him for, as the rightful Sir Adrian, erroneously supposed defunct, I confess that it required a little persuasion to make me recognise my long-lost brother – and yet there could be no doubt of it. The missing heir had come to his own again; the dead had come back to life. Well, we killed the fatted calf, and all the rest of it – but I need not inflict upon you the narrative of our rejoicing."

"Faith, no," said Tanty, drily, "I can see it with half an eye."

"You know, too, I believe, the series of extraordinary adventures, or misadventures, which had kept him roaming on the high seas while we at home set up tablets to his memory and 'wore our blacks' as people here call it, and cultivated a chastened resignation. There was a good deal of correspondence going on at the time between Pulwick and Bunratty, if I remember aright, and you heard all about Adrian's divers attempts to land in England, about his fight with the King's men, his crack on the head and final impressment. At least you heard as much as we could gather ourselves. Adrian is not what one would call a garrulous person at the best of times. It was really with the greatest difficulty that we managed to extract enough out of him to piece together a coherent tale."

"Well, well," quoth Tanty, with impatience, "you are glib enough for two anyhow, my dear! All this does not tell me how Adrian came to live on a lighthouse, and why you put him down as a lunatic."

"Not as a lunatic," corrected Rupert, gently, "merely as slightly eccentric on certain points. Though, indeed, if you had seen him during those first months after his return, I think even you with your optimistic spirit would have feared, as we did, that he was falling into melancholia. Thank heaven he is better now. But, dear me, what we went through! I declare I expected every morning to be informed that Sir Adrian's corpse had been found hanging from his bedpost or discovered in a jelly at the bottom of the bluffs. And, indeed, when at length he disappeared for three days, after he had been last observed mooning along the coast, there was a terrible panic lest he should have sought a congenial and soothing end in the embraces of the quicksands… It turned out, however, that he had merely strolled over to Scarthey – where, as you know, my father established a beacon and installed a keeper to warn boats off our shoals – and, finding the place to his liking, had remained there, regardless of our feelings."

"Tut, tut!" said Tanty; but whether in reproof of Rupert's flippant language or of her elder nephew's erratic behaviour, it would have been difficult to determine.

"Of course," went on Rupert, smoothly, "I had resolved, after a decent period, to remove my lares and penates from a house where I was no longer master and to establish myself, with my small patrimony (I believe I ought to call it matrimony, as we younger children benefit by our O'Donoghue mother) in an independent establishment. But when I first broached the subject, Adrian was so vastly distressed, expressed himself so well satisfied with my management of the estate and begged me so earnestly to consider Pulwick as my home, vowing that he himself would never marry, and that all he looked forward to in life was to see me wedded and with future heirs to the name springing around me, that it would have been actual unkindness to resist. Moreover, as you can imagine, Adrian is not exactly a man of business, and his spasmodic interferences in the control of the property being already then of a very injudicious nature, I confess that, having nursed it myself for eleven years with some success, I dreaded to think what it would become under his auspices. And so I agreed to remain. But the position increased in difficulty. Adrian's moroseness seemed to grow upon him; he showed an exaggerated horror of company; either flying from visitors as from the pest, and shutting himself up in his own apartments, or (on the few disastrous occasions when my persuasions induced him to show himself to some old family friends) entertaining them with such unusual sentiments concerning social laws, the magistracy, the government, his Majesty the King himself, that the most extraordinary reports about him soon spread over the whole county. This was about the time – as you may remember – of my own marriage."

Here an alteration crept into Mr. Landale's voice, and Molly looked at him curiously, while Miss Sophia gave vent to an audible sniff.

"To be sure," said Tanty, hastily. Comfortably egotistic old ladies have an instinctive dislike to painful topics. And that Rupert's sorrow for his young wife had been, if self-centred and reserved, of an intense and prolonged nature was known to all the family.

The widower himself had no intention of dilating upon it. His wife's name he never mentioned, and no one could guess, heavily as the blow was known to have fallen upon him, the seething bitterness that her loss had left in his soul, nor imagine how different a man he might have been if that one strong affection of his life had been spared to soften it.

"Adrian fled from the wedding festivities, as you may remember, for you were our honoured guest at the time, and greatly displeased at his absence," he resumed, after a few seconds of darkling reflection. "None of us knew where he had flown to, for he did not evidently consider his owl's nest sufficiently remote; but we had his fraternal blessing to sustain us. And after that he continued to make periodical disappearances to his retreat, stopping away each time longer and longer. One fine day he sent workmen to the island with directions to repair certain rooms in the keep, and he began to transfer thereto furniture, his books and his organ. A dilapidated little French prisoner next appeared on the scene (whom my brother had extracted from the Tower of Liverpool, which was then crammed with such gentry), and finally we were informed that, with this worthy companion, Sir Adrian Landale was determined to take up his abode altogether at Scarthey, undertaking the duties of the recently defunct light-keeper. So off he went, and there he is still. He has extracted from us a solemn promise that his privacy is to be absolutely respected, and that no communications, or, above all, visits are to be made to him. Occasionally, when we least expect it, he descends upon us from his tower, upsets all my accounts, makes the most absurd concessions to the tenants, rides round the estate with his eyes on the ground and disappears again. Et voilà, my dear aunt, how we stand."

"Well, nephew," said Miss O'Donoghue, "I am much obliged to you, I am sure, for putting me au courant of the family affairs. It is all very sad – very sad and very deplorable; but – "

But Mr. Landale was quite aware that Tanty was not yet convinced to the desired extent. He therefore here interrupted her to play his last card – that ace he had up his sleeve, in careful preparation for this trial of skill with his keen-witted relative, and to the suitable production of which he had been all along leading.

Rising from his chair with slow, deliberate movement, he proceeded, as if following his own train of thought, without noticing that Miss O'Donoghue was intent on speech herself:

"You have not seen him, I believe, since he was quite a lad. You would have some difficulty in recognising him, though he bears, like the rest of us, what you call the unmistakable Landale stamp. His portrait is here, by the way – duly installed in its correct position. That," with a laugh, "was one of his freaks. It was his duty to keep up the family traditions, he said – and there you will approve of him, no doubt; but hardly, perhaps, of the manner in which he has had that laudable intention carried out. My own portrait was, of course, deposed (like the original)," added Mr. Landale, with something of a sneer; "and now hangs meekly in some bedroom or other – in that, if I mistake not, at present hallowed by my fair cousins' presence. Well, it is good for the soul of man to be humbled, as we are taught to believe from our earliest years!"

Tanty was fumbling for her eye-glasses. She was glad to hear that Adrian had remembered some of his obligations (she observed, sententiously, as she hauled herself stiffly out of her chair to approach the chimney-piece); it was certainly a sign that he was more mindful of his duties as head of the house than one would expect from a person hardly responsible, such as Rupert had represented him to be, and …

Here, the glasses being adjusted and focussed upon the portrait, Miss O'Donoghue halted abruptly with a dropping jaw.

"There is a curious inscription underneath the escutcheon," said Mr. Landale composedly, "which latter, by the way, you may notice is the only one in the line which has no room for an impaled coat (Adrian's way of indicating not only that he is single, but means to remain such); Adrian composed it himself and indeed attached a marked importance to it. Let me read it for you, dear Tanty, the picture hangs a little high and those curveting letters are hard to decipher. It runs thus:

Sir Adrian William Hugh Landale, Lord of Pulwick and Scarthey in the County Palatine of Lancaster, eighth Baronet, born March 12th, 1775. Succeeded to the title and estate on the 10th February 1799, whilst abroad. Iniquitously pressed into the King's service on the day of his return home, January 2nd, 1801. Twice flogged for alleged insubordination, and only released at last by the help of a friend after five years of slavery. Died [Here a space for the date.] It is a record with a vengeance, is it not? Notice my brother's determination to die unmarried and to retire, once for all, from all or any of the possible honours connected with his position!"

They had all clustered in front of the picture; even Madeleine roused from her sweet day-dreams to some show of curiosity; Miss Landale's bosom, heaving with such sighs as to make the tombstone rise and fall like a ship upon a stormy sea; Molly with an eagerness she did not attempt to hide; and Miss O'Donoghue still speechless with horror and indignation.

Mr. Landale had gauged his aunt's temperament correctly enough. To one whose ruling passion was pride of family, this mockery of a consecrated family custom, this heirloom destined to carry down a record of degradation into future generations, was an insult to the name only to be explained to her first indignation by deliberate malice – or insanity.

And from the breezy background of blue sky and sea, contrasting as strangely with the dark solemnity of the other portraits as did the figure itself in its incongruous sailor dress, the face of the eighth baronet looked down in melancholy gravity upon the group gathered in judgment upon him.

"Disgraceful! Positively disgraceful!" at length cried the last representative of the O'Donoghues of Bunratty, in scandalised tones. "My dear Rupert, you should have a curtain put up, that this exhibition of folly – of madness, I hardly know what to call it – be not exposed to every casual visitor. Dear me, dear me, that I should live to see any of my kin deliberately throw discredit on his family, if indeed the poor fellow is responsible! Rupert, my good soul, can you ascribe any reason for this terrible state of affairs … that blow on the head?"

"In part perhaps," said Mr. Landale. "And yet there have been other causes at work. If I could have a private word in your ear," glancing meaningly over his shoulder at the two young girls who were both listening, though with very different expressions of interest and favour, "I could give you my opinion more fully."

"Go away now, my dear creatures," hereupon said Miss O'Donoghue, promptly addressing her nieces. "It is a fine morning, and you will lose your roses if you don't get the air. I don't care if it has begun to rain, miss! Go and have a game of battledore and shuttlecock then. Young people must have exercise. Well, my dear Rupert, well!" – when Molly, with a pettish "battledore and shuttlecock indeed!" had taken her sister by the arm and left the room.

"Well, my dear aunt, the fact is, I believe my unhappy brother has never recovered from – from his passion for Cécile de Savenaye, that early love affair, so suddenly and tragically terminated – well, it seems to have turned his brain!"

"Pooh, pooh! why that was twenty years ago. Don't tell me it is in a man to be so constant."

"In no sane man perhaps; but then, you know, Tanty, that is just the point… Remember the circumstances. He loved her madly; he followed her, lived near her for months and she was drowned before his eyes, I believe. I never heard, of course, any details of that strange period of his life, but we can imagine." This was a difficult, vague, subject to deal with, and Mr. Landale wisely passed on. "Moreover, his behaviour when in this house on his return at first has left me no doubt. I watched him closely. He was for ever haunting those rooms which she had inhabited. When he found her miniature in the drawing-room he went first as white as death, then he took it in his hand and stood gazing at it (I am not exaggerating) for a whole hour without moving; and, finally, he carried it off, and I know he used to talk to it in his room. And now, even if I had not given my poor brother my word of honour never to disturb his chosen solitude, I should have felt it a heavy responsibility to promote a meeting which would inevitably bring back past memories in a troublous manner upon him. In fact, were he to come across the children of his dead love – above all Molly, who must be startlingly like her mother – what might the result be? I hardly like to contemplate it. The human brain is a very delicately balanced organ, my dear aunt, and once it gets ever so slightly out of order one cannot be too careful to avoid risk."

He finished his say with an expressive gesture of the hand. Miss O'Donoghue remained for a moment plunged in reflection, during which the cloud upon her countenance gradually lifted.