Monica, Volume 1 (of 3)

Lady Diana looked very thoughtful.

“Monica is undoubtedly beautiful,” she said, “and she is interesting, which perhaps is better.” Her brother, however, made no reply, and as he did not appear inclined to discuss the matter farther – they were seldom in entire accord in talking of Monica – she presently rose and quitted the room, saying softly to herself as she did so, “I should love to see that proud girl with a husband’s strong hand over her.”

That evening, when alone with his daughter, Lord Trevlyn introduced the topic most in his thoughts at that time.

“Monica, do you never want a little variety? What should you say to a visitor at Trevlyn?”

“I would try to make one comfortable. Are you expecting anyone, father?”

“Yes, a kinsman of ours: Mr. Trevlyn, whose acquaintance I wish to make.”

“Who is he? I never heard of him before.”

“No; I have not known much about him myself till lately, when circumstances made him my heir. Monica, have you ever thought what will happen at Trevlyn in the event of my death?”

A very troubled look crept into Monica’s dark, unfathomable eyes. Her face looked pained and strained.

“I think you ought to know, Monica,” said the earl, gently. “Perhaps you have thought that the estates would pass to you in due course of time.”

Monica pressed her hands closely together, but her voice was steady, her words were quietly spoken.

“I do not know if I have ever thought about it; but I suppose I have fancied you would leave all to Arthur or to me.”

“Exactly, you would naturally inherit all I have to leave; but Trevlyn is entailed in the male line, and goes with the title. At my death Mr. Randolph Trevlyn will be the next earl, and all will be his.”

Monica sat very still, feeling as if she had received some sudden stunning blow; but she could not take in all in a moment the gist of such intelligence. A woman in some matters, she was a child in others.

“But, father,” she said quietly, and without apparent emotion, “Arthur is surely much nearer to you than this Mr. Trevlyn, whom you have never seen?”

The earl smiled half-sadly, and shook his head.

“My dear, you do not understand these things; I feel towards Arthur as if he were my son, but he is not of my kindred. He is my wife’s son, not mine; he is not a Trevlyn at all.”

Monica’s troubled gaze rested on her father’s face.

“He cannot live anywhere but at Trevlyn,” she said, slowly. “It would kill him to take him anywhere else;” and in her heart she added – a little jealous hostility rising up in her heart against the stranger and usurper who was coming – “He ought to have it. He is a son and a brother here. By every law of right Trevlyn should be his.”

Foolish, irrational Monica! Where Arthur was concerned her eyes were blinded, her reason was warped by her love. And the ways of the great outside world were so difficult to understand.

Presently she spoke in very low, measured tones, though not without a little falter in her voice now and then.

“You mean that if – if you were to die – Arthur and I should be turned out of Trevlyn.”

“You would neither of you have any right to remain,” answered Lord Trevlyn, choosing his words with care. “You would find a home with your aunt; and as for Arthur, I suppose he would go to his cousins – unless, indeed, if he seemed unable to live away from the place, some arrangement with my successor could be made. Everything would depend on him, but of course it would be a difficult arrangement.”

She drew a long breath, and passed her hand across her eyes.

“Mr. Trevlyn is coming here, you say?”

“Yes, next week. I think it is right that we should become acquainted with our kinsman, especially as so much may depend upon him in the future.”

“I think so too,” answered Monica; and then she quietly left him, without uttering another word.

CHAPTER THE SECOND.

MONICA’S RIDE

The next morning dawned fair and clear, as is often the case after a storm. Monica rose early, her first thought, as usual, for Arthur. She crept on tip-toe to his room, to find him as she had left him, sleeping calmly – as he was likely now to do for hours, after the attack of the previous day; and finding herself no longer required by him, the girl was not long in making up her mind how these early hours of glimmering daylight were to be spent.

Seven o’clock found her in the saddle, mounted on her glossy black thorough-bred, who, gentle under her hand, would brook no other rider, and showed his mettle in every graceful eager movement, and in the restless quivering of his shapely limbs. His coat shone like satin in the pale early sunlight; he pranced and curvetted as he felt his rider upon his back. Monica and her horse together made a picture that for beauty and grace could hardly meet its match in the length and breadth of the land.

The girl was perfectly at home in the saddle. She heeded no whit the pawing of her steed, or the delighted baying of the great hounds who formed her escort, and whose noise caused Guy’s delicate nerves many a restive start. She gathered up her reins with practised hand, soothed him by a gentle caress, and rode quietly and absently out of the great grass-grown court-yard and through a stretch of tangled park beyond. Once outside the gates, she turned to the right, and quickly gained a narrow grass-grown track, which led for miles along the edge of the great frowning cliffs that almost overhung at a giddy height the tossing ocean far below. It was a perilous-looking path enough – one false step would be enough to hurl both horse and rider to certain destruction, but Monica rode fearlessly onward; she and her horse were familiar with every step of the way, both knew the wild cliff path, and both loved it; and Guy stretched his delicate supple limbs in one of those silent gallops over the elastic turf in which his heart delighted.

Monica seldom passed more than a day without traversing that well-known track. She loved to feel the fresh salt wind as it blew off the sea and met her face. Sometimes it was warm and tender as a caress, sometimes fierce and boisterous, a wet, blinding blast, laden with spray from the tempest-tossed waves below; but to-day it was a keen, fresh wind, salt, and strong, and life-giving – a wind that brought the warm colour to her cheek, the light to her eye and gave a peculiar and indescribable radiance to her usually cold and statuesque beauty.

To-day she felt strangely restless and uneasy. A sort of haunting fear was upon her, a presentiment of coming trouble, that was perhaps all the harder to bear from its very vagueness. She had never before realised that the future would bring any change to the course of her life, save that of gradually increasing age. Not for an instant had it ever occurred to her that a possibility such as that hinted at last night by her father could by any chance arise. That she and Arthur might ever have to leave Trevlyn seemed the wildest of all wild dreams, and yet that is what in all probability must happen in the event of her father’s death. Monica shuddered at the bare idea. Her beautiful dark eyes glowed strangely. It must not, it should not be. It would be too cruel, too hard, too unjust!

In deep abstraction, Monica rode along the cliff for some three miles, then turning her horse’s head inland, she crossed an open space of wind-swept down, leaped a low stone wall, and found herself in a road, which she followed for some considerable distance. It led at length to the quaint little town of St. Maws, a pretty little place, nestling down in a wooded hollow, and intersected by a narrow inlet from the sea, which was spanned by a many-arched bridge. All the trees in the neighbourhood seemed to have collected round St. Maws, and its inhabitants were justly proud of their stately oaks and graceful beeches.

Monica rode quietly through the empty streets, returning now and again a salutation from some tradesman or rustic. It was still early – only eight o’clock – and the sleepy little place was slowly awaking from its night’s repose. At the far end of the town stood a good-sized house, well hidden from view behind a high brick wall. Guy turned in at the gate of his own accord, and, following a short, winding carriage drive, halted before the front door. The house was of warm red brick, mellowed by age; there was an indescribable air of comfort and hospitality hanging over it. It was mantled by glossy ivy, and its gables, steep pitched roof, and twisted chimneys were charmingly picturesque. The door stood wide open as if to invite entrance. Monica’s hounds had already announced her approach, and a tall, wiry-looking man of some thirty summers was standing upon the threshold. He was not much like his brother, the blue-eyed, brown-bearded Raymond, having a thin, sharp, closely-shaved face, very keen penetrating eyes, and a cynical mouth. Tom Pendrill was himself a doctor, like his brother; but he did not practise on his own account, being a man of scientific predilections, with a taste for authorship. His college fellowship rendered him independent of lucrative employment, and, save for assisting his brother with critical cases, his time was spent in study and research.

“Well, Monica, you are abroad early to-day,” was his greeting. Arthur’s cousins had been like cousins to Monica almost ever since she could remember. “You have come to breakfast, of course?”

“I came to tell Raymond not to trouble to call at Trevlyn to-day, if he is busy. Arthur is much better. I want to see Aunt Elizabeth; but I should like some breakfast very much.”

“I will take your horse,” said Tom, as the girl slipped from the saddle. “You will find Aunt Elizabeth in the breakfast-room.”

The “Aunt Elizabeth” thus alluded to was the widow of the Pendrills’ uncle, and she had lived with them for many years, keeping their house, and bringing into it that element of womanly refinement and comfort which can never be found in a purely bachelor establishment. The young men were both warmly attached to her, as was her other nephew, Arthur, at the Castle. As for Monica, “Aunt Elizabeth” had been to her almost like a mother, supplying that great want in the girl’s life of which she was only vaguely conscious – the want of tender womanly comprehension and sympathy in the trials and troubles of childhood and youth.

It had been her habit for many years to bring all her troubles to Mrs. Pendrill. She did not discuss them with Arthur. Her mission was to soothe and cheer him, not to infect him with any fears or sorrows. He was her boy, her charge, her dearly-loved brother, but Aunt Elizabeth was her confidant and friend.

She was a very sweet-looking old lady, with snow-white hair, and a gentle, placid, earnest face. She greeted Monica with a peculiarly tender smile, and asked after Arthur with the air of one who loved him.

“He is better,” said Monica, “much better, or I could not have come. He is asleep; he will most likely sleep till noon. I want to talk to you, Aunt Elizabeth. I felt I must come to you. When breakfast is over, please let us go somewhere together. There is so much I want to say.”

When they found themselves at length secure from interruption in Mrs. Pendrill’s pretty little parlour, Monica stood very quiet for a minute or two, and then turning abruptly to her aunt, she asked:

“Is my father very much out of health?”

Mrs. Pendrill was a little startled.

“What makes you ask that, my love?”

“I can hardly say – I think it is the way he looked, the way he spoke. Please tell me the truth, dear Aunt Elizabeth. I have nobody but you to turn to,” and there was a pathetic quiver in the voice as well as in the pale, sweet face.

Mrs. Pendrill did not try to deceive her. She knew from both her nephews that Lord Trevlyn’s health was in a very precarious state, and she loved Monica too well not to wish to see her somewhat prepared for a change that must inevitably fall upon her sooner or later. She had always shrunk from thinking of this trouble, she shrank from bringing it home to Monica now; but a plain question had been asked, and her answer must not be too ambiguous.

Monica listened very quietly, as was her wont, not betraying any emotion save in the strained look of pain in her great dark eyes. Then very quietly, too, she told Mrs. Pendrill what her father had said the previous evening about his heir, and about the prospective visit.