Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 15, No. 85, January, 1875

"But, Mr. Trelyon," said Wenna, looking round, "hadn't we better turn? We shall be at Trevenna directly."

"Yes, you are quite right," said Master Harry: "you will be at Trevenna directly, and you are likely to be there for some time. For Mabyn and I have resolved to have luncheon there, and we are going down to Tintagel, and we shall most likely climb to King Arthur's Castle. Have you any objections?"

Wenna had none. The drive through the cool and bright day had braced up her spirits. She was glad to know that everything looked promising about this scheme of hers. So she willingly surrendered herself to the holiday, and in due time they drove into the odd and remote little village and pulled up in front of the inn.

So soon as the hostler had come to the horses' heads the young gentleman who had been driving jumped down and assisted his three companions to alight: then he led the way into the inn. In the doorway stood a stranger, probably a commercial traveler, who, with his hands in his pockets, his legs apart and a cigar in his mouth, had been visiting those three ladies with a very hearty stare as they got out of the carriage. Moreover, when they came to the doorway he did not budge an inch nor did he take his cigar from his mouth; and so, as it had never been Mr. Trelyon's fashion to sidle past any one, that young gentleman made straight for the middle of the passage, keeping his shoulders very square. The consequence was a collision. The imperturbable person with his hands in his pockets was sent staggering against the wall, while his cigar dropped on the stone. "What the devil—!" he was beginning to say, when Trelyon got the three women past him and into the small parlor. Then he went back: "Did you wish to speak to me, sir? No, you didn't: I perceive you are a prudent person. Next time ladies pass you, you'd better take your cigar out of your mouth or somebody'll destroy that two-pennyworth of tobacco for you. Good-morning."

Then he returned to the little parlor, to which a waitress had been summoned: "Now, Jinny, pull yourself together and let's have something nice for luncheon—in an hour's time, sharp. You will, won't you? And how about that Sillery with the blue star—not the stuff with the gold head that some abandoned ruffian in Plymouth brews in his back garden. Well, can't you speak?"

"Yes, sir," said the bewildered maid.

"That's a good thing—a very good thing," said he, putting the shawls together on a sofa. "Don't you forget how to speak until you get married. And don't let anybody come into this room. And you can let my man have his dinner and a pint of beer. Oh, I forgot: I'm my own man this morning, so you needn't go asking for him. Now, will you remember all these things?"

"Yes, sir; but what would you like for luncheon?"

"My good girl, we should like a thousand things such as Tintagel never saw, but what you've got to do is to give us the nicest things you've got: do you see? I leave it entirely in your hands. Come along, young people."

And so he bundled his charges out again into the main street of the village; and somehow it happened that Mabyn addressed a timid remark to Mrs. Trelyon, and that Mrs. Trelyon, in answering it, stopped for a moment; so that Master Harry was sent to Wenna's side, and these two led the way down the wide thoroughfare. There were few people visible in the old-fashioned place: here and there an aged crone came out to the door of one of the rude stone cottages to look at the strangers. Overhead the sky was veiled over with a thin fleece of white cloud, but the light was intense for all that, and indeed the colors of the objects around seemed all the more clear and marked.

"Well, Miss Wenna," said the young man gayly, "how long are we to remain good friends? What is the next fault you will have to find with me? Or have you discovered something wrong already?"

"Oh no," she said with a quiet smile, "I am very good friends with you this morning. You have pleased your mother very much by bringing her for this drive."

"Oh, nonsense!" he said. "She might have as many drives as she chose; but presently you'll find a lot of those parsons back at the house, and she'll take to her white gowns again, and the playing of the organ all the day long, and all that sham stuff. I tell you what it is: she never seems alive, she never seems to take any interest in anything, unless you're with her. Now, you will see how the novelty of this luncheon-party in an inn will amuse her; but do you think she would care for it if she and I were here alone?"

"Perhaps you never tried?" Miss Wenna said gently.

"Perhaps I knew she wouldn't come. However, don't let's have a fight, Wenna: I mean to be very civil to you to-day—I do, really."

"I am so much obliged to you," she said meekly. "But pray don't give yourself unnecessary trouble."

"Oh," said he, "I'd always be civil to you if you would treat me decently. But you say far more rude things than I do—in that soft way, you know, that looks as if it were all silk and honey. I do think you've awfully little consideration for human failings. If one goes wrong in the least thing, even in one's spelling, you say something that sounds as pleasant as possible, and all the same it transfixes one just as you stick a pin through a beetle. You are very hard, you are—mean with those who would like to be friends with you. When it's mere strangers and cottagers and people of that sort, who don't care a brass farthing about you, then I believe you're all gentleness and kindness; but to your real friends the edge of a saw is smooth compared to you."

"Am I so very harsh to my friends?" the young lady said in a resigned way.

"Oh, well," he said, with some compunction, "I don't quite say that, but you could be much more pleasant if you liked, and a little more charitable to their faults. You know there are some who would give a great deal to win your approval; and perhaps when you find fault they are so disappointed that they think your words are sharper than you mean; and sometimes they think you might give them credit for trying to please you, at least."

"And who are these persons?" Wenna said, with another smile stealing over her face.

"Oh," said he rather shamefacedly, "there's no need to explain anything to you: you always see it before one need put it in words."

Well, perhaps it was in his manner or in the tone of his voice that there was something which seemed at this moment to touch her deeply, for she half turned and looked up at his face with her honest and earnest eyes, and said to him kindly, "Yes, I do know without you telling me; and it makes me happy to hear you talk so; and if I am unjust to you, you must not think it intentional. And I shall try not to be so in the future."

Mrs. Trelyon was regarding with a kindly look the two young people walking on in front of her. Whatever pleased her son pleased her, and she was glad to see him enjoy himself in so light-hearted a fashion. These two were chatting to each other in the friendliest manner: sometimes they stopped to pick up wild flowers: they were as two children together under the fair and light summer skies.

They went down and along a narrow valley, until they suddenly stood in front of the sea, the green waters of which were breaking in upon a small and lonely creek. What strange light was this that fell from the white skies above, rendering all the objects around them sharp its outline and intense in color? The beach before them seemed of a pale lilac, where the green waves broke in a semicircle of white. On their right some masses of ruddy rock jutted out into the cold sea, and there were huge black caverns into which the waves dashed and roared. On their left and far above them towered a great and isolated rock, its precipitous sides scored here and there with twisted lines of red and yellow quartz; and on the summit of this bold headland, amid the dark green of the sea-grass, they could see the dusky ruins—the crumbling walls and doorways and battlements—of the castle that is named in all the stories of King Arthur and his knights. The bridge across to the mainland has, in the course of centuries, fallen away, but there, on the other side of the wide chasm, were the ruins of the other portions of the castle, scarcely to be distinguished in parts from the grass-grown rocks. How long ago was it since Sir Tristram rode out here to the end of the world, to find the beautiful Isoulde awaiting him—she whom he had brought from Ireland as an unwilling bride to the old king Mark? And what of the joyous company of knights and ladies who once held high sport in the courtyard there? Trelyon, looking shyly at his companion, could see that her eyes seemed centuries away from him. She was quite unconscious of his covertly staring at her, for she was absently looking at the high and bare precipices, the deserted slopes of dark sea-grass and the lonely and crumbling ruins. She was wondering whether the ghosts of those vanished people ever came back to this lonely headland, where they would find the world scarcely altered since they had left it. Did they come at night, when the land was dark, and when there was a light over the sea only coming from the stars? If one were to come at night alone, and to sit down here by the shore, might not one see strange things far overhead or hear some sound other than the falling of the waves?

"Miss Wenna," he said—and she started suddenly—"are you bold enough to climb with me up to the castle? I know my mother would rather stay here."

She went with him mechanically. She followed him up the rude steps cut in the steep slopes of slate, holding his hand where that was possible, but her head was so full of dreams that she answered him when he spoke only with a vague yes or no. When they descended again they found that Mabyn had taken Mrs. Trelyon down to the beach, and had inveigled her into entering a huge cavern, or rather a natural tunnel, that went right through underneath the promontory on which the castle is built. They were in a sort of green-hued twilight, a scent of seaweed filling the damp air, and their voices raising an echo in the great hall of rock.

"I hope the climbing has not made you giddy," Mrs. Trelyon said in her kind way to Wenna, noticing that she was very silent and distrait.

"Oh no," Mabyn said promptly. "She has been seeing ghosts. We always know when Wenna has been seeing ghosts: she remains so for hours."

And, indeed, at this time she was rather more reserved than usual all during their walk back to luncheon and while they were in the inn; and yet she was obviously very happy, and sometimes even amused by the childlike pleasure which Mrs. Trelyon seemed to obtain from these unwonted experiences.

"Come, now, mother," Master Harry said, "what are you going to do for me when I come of age next month? Fill the house with guests—yes, you promised that—with not more than one parson to the dozen? And when they're all feasting and gabbling, and missing the targets with their arrows, you'll slip quietly away, and I'll drive you and Miss Wenna over here, and you'll go and get your feet wet again in that cavern, and you'll come up here again and have an elegant luncheon, just like this. Won't that do?"

"I don't quite know about the elegance of the luncheon, but I'm sure our little excursion has been very pleasant. Don't you think so, Miss Rosewarne?" Mrs. Trelyon said.

"Indeed I do," said Wenna, with her big, earnest eyes coming back from their trance.

"And here is another thing," remarked young Trelyon. "There's a picture I've seen of the heir coming of age—he's a horrid, self-sufficient young cad, but never mind—and it seems to be a day of general jollification. Can't I give a present to somebody? Well, I'm going to give it to a young lady who never cares for anything but what she can give away again to somebody else; and it is—well, it is—Why don't you guess, Mabyn?"

"I don't know what you mean to give Wenna," said Mabyn naturally.

"Why, you silly! I mean to give her a dozen sewing-machines—a baker's dozen—thirteen. There! Oh, I heard you as you came along. It was all, 'Three sewing-machines will cost so much, and four sewing-machines will cost so much, and five sewing-machines will cost so much. And a penny a week from so many subscribers will be so much, and twopence a week from so many will be so much;' and all this as if my mother could tell you how much twice two was. My arithmetic ain't very brilliant, but as for hers—And these you shall have, Miss Wenna—one baker's dozen of sewing-machines, as per order, duly delivered, carriage free—empty casks and bottles to be returned."

"That is very kind of you, Mr. Trelyon," Wenna said—and all the dreams had gone straight out of her head so soon as this was mentioned—"but we can't possibly accept them. You know our scheme is to make the sewing club quite self-supporting—no charity."

"Oh, what stuff!" the young gentleman cried. "You know you will give all your labor and supervision for nothing: isn't that charity? And you know you will let off all sorts of people owing you subscriptions the moment some blessed baby falls ill. And you know you won't charge interest on all the outlay. But if you insist on paying me back for my sewing-machines out of the overwhelming profits at the end of next year, then I'll take the money. I'm not proud."

"Then we will take six sewing-machines from you, if you please, Mr. Trelyon, on those conditions," said Wenna gravely. And Master Harry—with a look toward Mabyn which was just about as good as a wink—consented.

As they drove quietly back again to Eglosilyan, Mabyn had taken her former place by the driver, and found him uncommonly thoughtful. He answered her questions, but that was all; and it was so unusual to find Harry Trelyon in this mood that she said to him, "Mr. Trelyon, have you been seeing ghosts, too?"

He turned to her and said, "I was thinking about something. Look here, Mabyn: did you ever know any one, or do you know any one, whose face is a sort of barometer to you? Suppose that you see her look pale and tired or sad in any way, then down go your spirits, and you almost wish you had never been born. When you see her face brighten up and get full of healthy color, you feel glad enough to burst out singing or go mad: anyhow, you know that everything's all right. What the weather is, what people may say about you, whatever else may happen to you, that's nothing: all you want to see is just that one person's face look perfectly bright and perfectly happy, and nothing can touch you then. Did you ever know anybody like that?" he added rather abruptly.

"Oh yes," said Mabyn, in a low voice: "that is when you are in love with some one. And there is only one face in all the world that I look to for all these things, there is only one person I know who tells you openly and simply in her face all that affects her, and that is our Wenna. I suppose you have noticed that, Mr. Trelyon?"

But he did not make any answer.

CHAPTER XXI.

CONFESSION

The lad lay dreaming in the warm meadows by the side of a small and rapid brook, the clear waters of which plashed and bubbled in the sunlight as they hurried past the brown stones. His fishing-rod lay beside him, hidden in the long grass and the daisies. The sun was hot in the valley—shining on a wall of gray rock behind him, and throwing purple shadows over the clefts; shining on the dark bushes beside the stream and on the lush green of the meadows; shining on the trees beyond, in the shadow of which some dark red cattle were standing. Then away on the other side of the valley rose gently-sloping woods, gray and green in the haze of the heat, and over these again was the pale blue sky with scarcely a cloud in it. It was a hot day to be found in spring-time, but the waters of the brook seemed cool and pleasant as they gurgled by, and occasionally a breath of wind blew over from the woods. For the rest, he lay so still on this fine, indolent, dreamy morning that the birds around seemed to take no note of his presence, and one of the large woodpeckers, with his scarlet head and green body brilliant in the sun, flew close by him and disappeared into the bushes opposite like a sudden gleam of color shot by a diamond.

"Next month," he was thinking to himself as he lay with his hands behind his head, not caring to shade his handsome and well-tanned face from the warm sun—"next month I shall be twenty-one, and most folks will consider me a man. Anyhow, I don't know the man whom I wouldn't fight or run or ride or shoot against for any wager he liked. But of all the people who know anything about me, just that one whose opinion I care for will not consider me a man at all, but only a boy. And that without saying anything. You can tell, somehow, by a mere look, what her feelings are; and you know that what she thinks is true. Of course it's true—I am only a boy. What's the good of me to anybody? I could look after a farm—that is, I could look after other people doing their work—but I couldn't do any work myself. And that seems to me what she is always looking at: 'What's the good of you, what are you doing, what are you busy about?' It's all very well for her to be busy, for she can do a hundred thousand things, and she is always at them. What can I do?"

Then his wandering day-dreamings took another turn: "It was an odd thing for Mabyn to say—'That is when you are in love with some one.' But those girls take everything for love. They don't know how you can admire, almost to worshiping, the goodness of a woman, and how you are anxious that she should be well and happy, and how you would do anything in the world to please her, without fancying straight away that you are in love with her, and want to marry her and drive about in the same carriage with her. I shall be quite as fond of Wenna Rosewarne when she is married, although I shall hate that little brute with his rum and his treacle. The cheek of him, in asking her to marry him, is astonishing. He is the most hideous little beast that could have been picked out to marry any woman, but I suppose he has appealed to her compassion, and then she'll do anything. But if there was anybody else in love with her, if she cared the least bit about anybody else, wouldn't I go straight to her and insist on her shunting that fellow aside? What claim has he on any other feeling of hers but her compassion? Why, if that fellow were to come and try to frighten her, and if I were in the affair, and if she appealed to me even by a look, then there would be short work with something or somebody."

He got up hastily, with something of a gloomy and angry look on his face. He did not notice that he had startled all the birds around from out of the bushes. He picked up his rod and line in a morose fashion, not seeming to care about adding to the half dozen small and red-speckled trout he had in his basket.

While he was thus irresolutely standing he caught sight of a girl's figure coming rapidly along the valley under the shadow of some ash trees growing by the stream. It was Wenna Rosewarne herself, and she seemed to be hurrying toward him. She was carrying some black object in her arms.

"Oh, Mr. Trelyon," she said, "what am I to do with this little dog? I saw him kicking in the road and foaming at the mouth; and then he got up and ran, and I caught him—"