Mount Royal: A Novel. Volume 3 of 3

"Am I at liberty to reject that legacy on my son's part?" he asked.

"Certainly not. The money is left in trust. Your son can do what he likes when he comes of age. But why should you wish to decline such a legacy – left in such friendly terms? Mr. Hamleigh was your friend."

"He was my mother's friend – for me only a recent acquaintance. It seems to me that there is a sort of indirect insult in such a bequest, as if I were unable to provide for my boy – as if I were likely to run through everything, and make him a pauper before he comes of age."

"Believe me there is no such implication," said the lawyer, smiling blandly at the look of trouble and anger in the other man's face. "Did you never hear before of money being left to a man who already has plenty? That is the general bent of all legacies. In this world it is the poor who are sent empty away," murmured Mr. Bryanstone, with a sly glance under his spectacles at the seven blank faces of the seven cousins. "I consider that Mr. Hamleigh – who was my very dear friend – has paid you the highest compliment in his power, and that you have every reason to honour his memory."

"And legally I have no power to refuse his property?"

"Certainly not. The estate is not left to you – you have no power to touch a sixpence of it."

"And the will is dated?"

"Just three weeks ago."

"Within the first week of this visit here. He must have taken an inordinate fancy to my boy."

Mr. Bryanstone smiled to himself softly with lowered eyelids, as he folded up the will – a holograph will upon a single sheet of Bath post – witnessed by two of the Mount Royal servants. The family solicitor knew all about Angus Hamleigh's engagement to Miss Courtenay – had even received instructions for drawing the marriage settlement – but he was too much a man of the world to refer to that fact.

"Was not Mr. Hamleigh's father engaged to your mother?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Then don't you think that respect for your mother may have had some influence with Mr. Hamleigh when he made your son his heir?"

"I am not going to speculate about his motives. I only wish he had left his money to an asylum for idiots – or to his cousins" – with a glance at the somewhat vacuous countenances of the dead man's kindred, "or that I were at liberty to decline his gift – which I should do, flatly."

"This sounds as if you were prejudiced against my lamented friend. I thought you liked him."

"So I did," stammered Leonard, "but not well enough to give him the right to patronise me with his d – d legacy."

"Mr. Tregonell," said the lawyer, frowning, "I have to remind you that my late client has left you, individually, nothing – and I must add, that your language and manner are most unbefitting this melancholy occasion."

Leonard grumbled an inaudible reply, and walked back to the fireplace. The whole of this conversation had been carried on in undertones – so that the cousins who had gathered in a group upon the hearthrug, and who were for the most part absorbed in pensive reflections upon the futility of earthly hopes, heard very little of it. They belonged to that species of well-dressed nonentities, more or less impecunious, which sometimes constitute the outer fringe upon a good old family. To each of them it seemed a hard thing that Angus Hamleigh had not remembered him individually, choosing him out of the ruck of cousinship as a meet object for bounty.

"He ought to have left me an odd thousand," murmured a beardless subaltern; "he knew how badly I wanted it, for I borrowed a pony of him the last time he asked me to breakfast; and a man of good family must be very hard up when he comes to borrowing ponies."

"I dare say you would have not demurred to making it a monkey, if Mr. Hamleigh had proposed it," said his interlocutor.

"Of course not: and if he had been generous he would have given me something handsome, instead of being so confoundedly literal as to write his cheque for exactly the amount I asked for. A man of his means and age ought to have had more feeling for a young fellow in his first season. And now I am out of pocket for my expenses to this infernal hole."

Thus, and with other wailings of an approximate character, did Angus Hamleigh's kindred make their lamentation: and then they all began to arrange among themselves for getting away as early as possible next morning – and for travelling together, with a distant idea of a little "Nap" to beguile the weariness of the way between Plymouth and Paddington. There was room enough for them all at Mount Royal, and Mr. Tregonell was not a man to permit any guests, howsoever assembled, to leave his house for the shelter of an inn; so the cousins stayed, dined heavily, smoked as furiously as those furnace chimneys which are supposed not to smoke, all the evening, and thought they were passing virtuous for refraining from the relaxation of pool, or shell-out – opining that the click of the balls might have an unholy sound so soon after a funeral. Debarred from this amusement, they discussed the career and character of the dead man, and were all agreed, in the friendliest spirit, that there had been very little in him, and that he had made a poor thing of his life, and obtained a most inadequate amount of pleasure out of his money.

Mount Royal was clear of them all by eleven o'clock next morning. Mr. Montagu went away with them, and only Captain Vandeleur remained to bear Leonard company in a house which now seemed given over to gloom. Christabel kept her room, with Jessie Bridgeman in constant attendance upon her. She had not seen her husband since her return from the Kieve, and Jessie had told him in a few resolute words that it would not be well for them to meet.

"She is very ill," said Jessie, standing on the threshold of the room, while Leonard remained in the corridor outside. "Dr. Hayle has seen her, and he says she must have perfect quiet – no one is to worry her – no one is to talk to her – the shock she has suffered in this dreadful business has shattered her nerves."

"Why can't you say in plain words that she is grieving for the only man she ever loved," asked Leonard.

"I am not going to say that which is not true; and which you, better than any one else, know is not true. It is not Angus Hamleigh's death, but the manner of his death, which she feels. Take that to your heart, Mr. Tregonell."

"You are a viper!" said Leonard, "and you always were a viper. Tell my wife – when she is well enough to hear reason – that I am not going to be sat upon by her, or her toady; and that as she is going to spend her winter dissolved in tears for Mr. Hamleigh's death, I shall spend mine in South America, with Jack Vandeleur."

Three days later his arrangements were all made for leaving Cornwall. Captain Vandeleur was very glad to go with him, upon what he, Jack, pleasantly called "reciprocal terms," Mr. Tregonell paying all expenses as a set-off against his friend's cheerful society. There was no false pride about Poker Vandeleur; no narrow-minded dislike to being paid for. He was so thoroughly assured as to the perfect equitableness of the transaction.

On the morning he left Mount Royal, Mr. Tregonell went into the nursery to bid his son good-bye. He contrived, by some mild artifice, to send the nurse on an errand; and while she was away, strained the child to his breast, and hugged and kissed him with a rough fervour which he had never before shown. The boy quavered a little, and his lip drooped under that rough caress – and then the clear blue eyes looked up and saw that this vehemence meant love, and the chubby arms clung closely round the father's neck.

"Poor little beggar!" muttered Leonard, his eyes clouded with tears. "I wonder whether I shall ever see him again. He might die – or I – there is no telling. Hard lines to leave him for six months on end – but" – with a suppressed shudder – "I should go mad if I stayed here."

The nurse came back, and Leonard put the child on his rocking-horse, which he had left reluctantly at the father's entrance, and left the nursery without another word. In the corridor he lingered for some minutes – now staring absently at the family portraits – now looking at the door of his wife's room. He had been occupying a bachelor room at the other end of the house since her illness.

Should he force an entrance to that closed chamber – defy Jessie Bridgeman, and take leave of his wife? – the wife whom, after the bent of his own nature, he had passionately loved. What could he say to her? Very little, in his present mood. What would she say to him? There was the rub. From that pale face – from those uplifted eyes – almost as innocent as the eyes that had looked at him just now – he shrank in absolute fear.

At the last moment, after he had put on his overcoat, and when the dog-cart stood waiting for him at the door, he sat down and scribbled a few hasty lines of farewell.

"I am told you are too ill to see me, but cannot go without one word of good-bye. If I thought you cared a rap for me, I should stay; but I believe you have set yourself against me because of this man's death, and that you will get well all the sooner for my being far away. Perhaps six months hence, when I come back again – if I don't get killed out yonder, which is always on the cards – you may have learnt to feel more kindly towards me. God knows I have loved you as well as ever man loved woman – too well for my own happiness. Good-bye. Take care of the boy; and don't let that little viper, Jessie Bridgeman, poison your mind against me."

"Leonard! are you coming to-day or to-morrow?" cried Jack Vandeleur's stentorian voice from the hall. "We shall lose the train at Launceston, if you don't look sharp."

Thus summoned, Leonard thrust his letter into an envelope, directed it to his wife, and gave it to Daniel, who was hovering about to do due honour to his master's departure – the master for whose infantine sports he had made his middle-aged back as the back of a horse, and perambulated the passages on all-fours, twenty years ago – the master who seemed but too likely to bring his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave, judging by the pace at which he now appeared to be travelling along the road to ruin.

CHAPTER V

"PAIN FOR THY GIRDLE, AND SORROW UPON THY HEAD."

Now came a period of gloom and solitude at Mount Royal. Mrs. Tregonell lived secluded in her own rooms, rarely leaving them save to visit her boy in his nursery, or to go for long lonely rambles with Miss Bridgeman. The lower part of the house was given over to silence and emptiness. It was winter, and the roads were not inviting for visitors; so, after a few calls had been made by neighbours who lived within ten miles or so, and those callers had been politely informed by Daniel that his mistress was confined to her room by a severe cough, and was not well enough to see any one, no more carriages drove up the long avenue, and the lodge-keeper's place became a sinecure, save for opening the gate in the morning, and shutting it at dusk.

Mrs. Tregonell neither rode nor drove, and the horses were only taken out of their stables to be exercised by grooms and underlings. The servants fell into the way of living their own lives, almost as if they had been on board wages in the absence of the family. The good old doctor, who had attended Christabel in all her childish illnesses, came twice a week, and stayed an hour or so in the morning-room upstairs, closeted with his patient and her companion, and then looked at little Leo in his nursery, that young creature growing and thriving exceedingly amidst the gloom and silence of the house, and awakening the echoes occasionally with bursts of baby mirth.

None of the servants knew exactly what was amiss with Mrs. Tregonell. Jessie guarded and fenced her in with such jealous care, hardly letting any other member of the household spend five minutes in her company. They only knew that she was very white, very sad-looking; that it was with the utmost difficulty she was persuaded to take sufficient nourishment to sustain life; and that her only recreation consisted in those long walks with Jessie – walks which they took in all weathers, and sometimes at the strangest hours. The people about Boscastle grew accustomed to the sight of those two solitary women, clad in dark cloth ulsters, with close-fitting felt hats, that defied wind and weather, armed with sturdy umbrellas, tramping over fields and commons, by hilly paths, through the winding valley where the stream ran loud and deep after the autumn rains, on the cliffs above the wild grey sea – always avoiding as much as possible all beaten tracks, and the haunts of mankind. Those who did meet the two reported that there was something strange in the looks and ways of both. They did not talk to each other as most ladies talked, to beguile the way: they marched on in silence – the younger, fairer face pale as death and inexpressibly sad, and with a look as of one who walks in her sleep, with wide-open, unseeing eyes.

"She looks just like a person who might walk over the cliff, if there was no one by to take care of her," said Mrs. Penny, the butcher's wife, who had met them one day on her way home from Camelford Market; "but Miss Bridgeman, she do take such care, and she do watch every step of young Mrs. Tregonell's" – Christabel was always spoken of as young Mrs. Tregonell by those people who had known her aunt. "I'm afraid the poor dear lady has gone a little wrong in her head since Mr. Hamleigh shot himself; and there are some as do think he shot himself for her sake, never having got over her marrying our Squire."

On many a winter evening, when the sea ran high and wild at the foot of the rocky promontory, and overhead a wilder sky seemed like another tempestuous sea inverted, those two women paced the grass-grown hill at Tintagel, above the nameless graves, among the ruins of prehistorical splendour.

They were not always silent, as they walked slowly to and fro among the rank grass, or stood looking at those wild waves which came rolling in like solid walls of shining black water, to burst into ruin with a thunderous roar against the everlasting rocks. They talked long and earnestly in this solitude, and in other solitary spots along that wild and varied coast; but none but themselves ever knew what they talked about, or what was the delight and relief which they found in the dark grandeur of that winter sky and sea. And so the months crept by, in a dreary monotony, and it was spring once more; all the orchards full of bloom – those lovely little orchards of Alpine Boscastle, here nestling in the deep gorge, there hanging on the edge of the hill. The gardens were golden with daffodils, tulips, narcissus, jonquil – that rich variety of yellow blossoms which come in early spring, like a floral sunrise – and the waves ran gently into the narrow inlet between the tall cliffs. But those two lonely women were no longer seen roaming over the hills, or sitting down to rest in some sheltered corner of Pentargon Bay. They had gone to Switzerland, taking the nurse and baby with them, and were not expected to return to Mount Royal till the autumn.

Mr. Tregonell's South American wanderings had lasted longer than he had originally contemplated. His latest letters – brief scrawls, written at rough resting-places – announced a considerable extension of his travels. He and his friend were following in the footsteps of Mr. Whymper, on the Equatorial Andes, the backbone of South America. Dopsy and Mopsy were moping in the dusty South Belgravian lodging-house, nursing their invalid father, squabbling with their landlady, cutting, contriving, straining every nerve to make sixpences go as far as shillings, and only getting outside glimpses of the world of pleasure and gaiety, art and fashion, in their weary trampings up and down the dusty pathways of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.

They had written three or four times to Mrs. Tregonell, letters running over with affection, fondly hoping for an invitation to Mount Royal; but the answers had been in Jessie Bridgeman's hand, and the last had come from Zurich, which seemed altogether hopeless. They had sent Christmas cards and New Year's cards, and had made every effort, compatible with their limited means, to maintain the links of friendship.

"I wish we could afford to send her a New Year's gift, or a toy for that baby," said Mopsy, who was not fond of infants. "But what could we send her that she would care for, when she has everything in this world that is worth having. And we could not get a toy, which that pampered child would think worth looking at, under a sovereign," concluded Mop, with a profound sigh.

And so the year wore on, dry, and dreary, and dusty for the two girls, whose only friends were the chosen few whom their brother made known to them – friends who naturally dropped out of their horizon in Captain Vandeleur's absence.

"What a miserable summer it has been," said Dopsy, yawning and stretching in her tawdry morning gown – one of last year's high-art tea gowns – and surveying with despondent eye the barren breakfast-table, where two London eggs, and the remains of yesterday's loaf, flanked by a nearly empty marmalade pot, comprised all the temptations of the flesh. "What a wretched summer – hot, and sultry, and thundery, and dusty – the cholera raging in Chelsea, and measles only divided from us by Lambeth Bridge! And we have not been to a single theatre."

"Or tasted a single French dinner."