The Light of Scarthey: A Romance

"It is a strange thing," she said at last, "but constancy seems to run in the family. There is no denying that. Here is Sophia, a ridiculous spectacle – and you yourself, my dear Rupert… And now poor Adrian, too, and his case of mere calf-love, as one would have thought."

"A calf may grow into a fine bull, you know," returned Mr. Landale, who had winced at his aunt's allusion to himself and now spoke in the most unemotional tone he could assume, "especially if it is well fostered in its youth."

"And I suppose," said Miss O'Donoghue, with a faint smile, "you think I ought to know all about bulls." She again put up her glasses to survey the portrait with critical deliberation; after which, recommending him once more strenuously to have a curtain erected, she observed, that it would break her heart to look at it one moment longer and requested to be conducted from the room.

Mr. Landale could not draw any positive conclusion from his aunt's manner of receiving his confidence, nor determine whether she had altogether grasped the whole meaning of what he had intended delicately to convey to her concerning his brother's past as well as present position; but he had said as much as prudence counselled.

CHAPTER XIII

THE DISTANT LIGHT

In spite of their first petulant or dolorous anticipation, and of the contrast between the even tenor of country life and the constant stream of amusement which young people of fashion can find in a place like Bath, the two girls discovered that time glided pleasantly enough over them at Pulwick.

Instead of the gloomy northern stronghold their novel-fed imagination had pictured (the more dismally as their sudden removal from town gaieties savoured distantly of punishment at the hand of their irate aunt), they found themselves delivered over into a bright, admirably-ordered house, replete with things of beauty, comfortable to the extremity of luxury; and allowed in this place of safety to enjoy almost unrestricted liberty.

The latter privilege was especially precious, as the sisters at that time had engrossing thoughts of their own they wished to pursue, and found more interest in solitary roamings through the wide estate than in the company of the hosts.

On the fifth day Miss O'Donoghue took her departure. Her own travelling coach had rumbled down the avenue, bearing her and her woman away, in its polished yellow embrace, her flat trunk strapped behind, and the good-natured old face nodding out of the window, till Molly and Madeleine, standing (a little disconsolate) upon the porch to watch her departure, could distinguish even the hooked nose no longer. Mr. Landale, upon his mettled grey, a gallant figure, as Molly herself was forced to admit, in his boots and buckskins, had cantered in the dust alongside, intent upon escorting his aged relative to the second stage of her journey.

That night, almost for the first time since their arrival, there was no company at dinner, and the young guests understood that the household would now fall back into its ordinary routine.

But without the small flutter of seeing strangers, or Tanty's lively conversation, the social intercourse soon waned into exceeding dulness, and at an early hour Miss Molly rose and withdrew to her room, pretexting a headache, for which Mr. Landale, with his usual high courtesy, affected deep concern.

As she was slowly ascending the great oaken staircase, she crossed Moggie, the gatekeeper's daughter, who in her character of foster-sister to one of the guests had been specially allotted to them as attendant, during the remainder of their visit to Pulwick.

Molly thought that the girl eyed her hesitatingly, as if she wished to speak:

"Well, Moggie?" she asked, stopping on her way.

"Oh, please, miss," said the buxom lass, blushing and dropping a curtsey, "Renny Potter, please, miss, is up at our lodge to-night, he don't care to come to the 'ouse so much, miss. But when he heard about you, miss, you could have knocked him down with a feather he was so surprised and that excited, miss, we have never seen him so. And he's so set on being allowed to see ye both!"

Molly as yet failed to connect any memories of interest with the possessor of the patronymic mentioned, but the next phrase mentioned aroused her attention.

"He is Sir Adrian's servant, now, miss, and goes back yonder to the island, that is where the master lives, to-morrow morning. But he would be so happy to see the young ladies before he goes, if the liberty were forgiven, he says. He was servant to the Madam your mother, miss.

"Well, Moggie," answered Miss Molly, smiling, "if that is all that is required to make Renny Potter happy, it is very easily done. Tell Renny Potter: to-morrow morning." And she proceeded on her way pondering, while the successful emissary pattered down to the lodge in high glee to gather her reward in her sweetheart's company.

When later on Madeleine joined her sister, she found her standing by the deep recessed window, the curtains of which were drawn back, resting her head on her hand against the wainscot, and gazing abroad into the night.

She approached, and passing her hand round Molly's waist looked out also.

"Again at your window?"

"It is a beautiful night, and the view very lovely," said Molly. And indeed the moon was riding high in a deep blue starry heaven, and shimmered on the strip of distant sea visible from the windows.

"Yes, but yesterday the night was not fine, and nothing was to be seen but blackness; and it was the same the day before, and yet you stared out of this window, as you have every night since our coming. It is strange to see you so. What is it, why don't you tell me?"

"Madeleine," said Molly, suddenly, after a lengthy pause, "I am simply haunted by that light over yonder, the Light of Scarthey. There is a mystery about those ruins, on which I keep meditating all day long. I want to know more. It draws me. I would give anything to be able, now, to set sail and land there all unknown to any one, and see what manner of life is led where that light is burning."

But Madeleine merely gave a pout of little interest. "What do you think you would find? A half-witted middle-aged man, mooning among a litter of books, with an old woman, and a little Frenchman to look after him. Why, Mr. Landale himself takes no trouble to conceal that his poor brother is an almost hopeless lunatic."

"Mr. Landale – " Molly began, with much contempt; but she interrupted herself, and went on simply, "Mr. Landale is a very fine gentleman, with very superior manners. He speaks like a printed book – but for all that I would like to know."

Madeleine laughed. "The demon of curiosity has a hold of you, Molly; remember the fable they made us repeat: De loin c'est quelque chose, et de près ce n'est rien. Now you shall go straight into your bed, and not take cold."

And Miss Madeleine, after authoritatively closing the curtains, kissed her sister, and was about to commence immediate disrobing, when she caught sight of the shagreen-covered book, lying open on the table.

"So your headache was your diary – how I should like to have a peep."

"I daresay!" said Molly, sarcastically, and then sat down and, pen in hand, began to re-read her night's entry, now and then casting a tantalising glance over her shoulder at her sister. The lines, in the flowing convent hand, ran thus:

"Aunt O'Donoghue left us this morning, and so here we are, planted in Pulwick; and she has achieved her plan, fully. But what is odd is that neither Madeleine nor I seem to mind it, now. What has come over Madeleine is her secret, and she keeps it close; but that I should like being here is strange indeed.

"And yet, every day something happens to make me feel connected with Pulwick – something more, I mean, than the mere fact that we were born here. So many of the older people greet me, at first, as if they knew me – they all say I am so like 'the Madam;' they don't see the same likeness in Madeleine for all her grand air. There was Mrs. Mearson, the gatekeeper, was struck in amazement. And the old housekeeper, whenever she has an opportunity tries to entertain me about the beautiful foreign lady and the grand times they had at Pulwick when she was here, and 'Sir Tummas' was still alive.

"But, though we are made to feel that we are more than ordinary guests, it is not on account of Mr. Landale, but on account of Sir Adrian– the Master, as they call him, whom we never see, and whom his brother would make out to be mad. Why is he so anxious that Sir Adrian should not know that Aunt Rose has brought us here? He seemed willing enough to please her, and yet nothing that she could say of her wish could induce him even to send a messenger over to the rock. And now we may be here all these two months and never even have caught a sight of the Master. I wonder if he is still like that portrait – whether he bears that face still as he now sits, all alone, brooding as his brother says, up in those ruined chambers, while the light burns calm and bright in the tower! What can this man of his have to say to me?"

Molly dotted her last forgotten "i," blotted it, closed and carefully locked the book. Then, rising, she danced over to her sister, and forced her into a pirouette.

"And now," she cried gaily, "our dear old Tanty is pulling on her nightcap and weeping over her posset in the stuffy room at Lancaster regretting me; and I should be detesting her with all my energies for leaving me behind her, were it not that, just at present, I actually find Pulwick more interesting than Bath."

Madeleine lifted her heavy-lidded eyes a little wonderingly to her sister's face, as she paused in her gyration.

"What fly stings thee now?" she inquired in French.

"You do not tell me about your wounds, my dear, those wounds which little Dan Cupid has made upon your tender heart, with his naughty little arrow, and which give you such sweet pain, apparently, that you revel in the throes all day long. And yet, I am a good child; you shall guess. If you guess aright, I shall tell you. So now begin."

They stood before the fire, and the leaping tongues of light played upon their white garments, Madeleine's nightgear scarcely more treacherously tell-tale of her slender woman's loveliness than the evening robe that clung so closely to the vigorous grace of Molly's lithe young figure.

The elder, whose face bore a blush distinct from the reflected glow of the embers, fell to guessing, as commanded, a little wildly:

"You begin to find the beau cousin Rupert a little more interesting than you anticipated."

"Bah," cried Molly, with a stamp of her sandalled foot, "it is not possible to guess worse! He is more insufferable to me, hour by hour."

"I think him kind and pleasant," returned Madeleine simply.

"Ah, because he makes sweet eyes at you, I suppose – yet no – I express myself badly – he could not make anything sweet out of those hard, hard eyes of his, but he is very – what they call here in England – attentive to you. And he looks at you and ponders you over when you little think it – you poor innocent – lost in your dream of … Smith! There, I will not tease you. Guess again."

"You are pleased to remain here because you are a true weather-cock – because you like one thing one day another the next – because the country peace and quiet is soothing to you after the folly and noise of the great world of Bath and Dublin, and reminds you refreshingly, as it does me, of our happy convent days." The glimmer of a dainty malice lurked in the apparent candour of Madeleine's grave blue eyes, and from thence spread into her pretty smile at the sight of Molly's disdainful lip, "Well then, I give it up. You have some mischief on foot, of that at least I am sure."

"No mischief – a work of righteousness rather. Sister Madeleine, you heard all that that gallant gentleman you think so highly of – your cousin Rupert, my dear" (it was a little way of Molly's to throw the responsibility of anything she did not like, even to an obnoxious relationship, upon another person's shoulders), "narrated of his brother Sir Adrian, and how he persuaded Tanty that he was, as you said just now, a hopeless madman – "

"But yes – he does mad things," said the elder twin, a little wonderingly.

"Well, Madeleine, it is a vile lie. I am convinced of it."

"But, my darling – "