CHAPTER XIII.

THE TIDE IN!

For a little space we shall return to the pretty villa of Porthellick, and to the anxious life of her who dwelt there; her thoughts ever with her absent son and husband. In this instance we put Denzil before his father, for the return of Richard Lord Lamorna, was looked for daily, but that of his son might be the event of years to come; so Denzil's last fond glance ere he left her, and his calm aspect as he lay asleep and all unconscious that she hovered near his pillow, were deeply impressed on his poor mother's heart; and now an eternity of waters rolled between them, for his ship, she knew, must be ploughing the wide Indian Ocean.

To the wayfarer along the coast-road towards the quaint village of Endellion (with its weather-beaten church, and the ivied ruins of Rhoscarrock), that white-walled villa with its rose covered peristyle buried among the pale-green drooping willows from which the locality takes its Cornish name, no better example of peace, content and quiet could be given.

Yet the place was fated to be one of anxiety and sorrow.

Seated at a little buhl escritoire in her drawing-room, Constance was lingering over the last letter from her husband, after the removal of the tea equipage, and long after Sybil had set out on her charitable mission to the fisherman's widow.

"Richard is very long of returning, surely!" was her prevailing thought, as she sat with her graceful head resting on a white and dimpled hand, quite unconscious that the sun had set beyond the sea, and that the shades of evening were deepening around her.

No upbraiding thought of that absent husband entered the gentle heart of Constance; yet with all that heart's gentleness, she could not but think somewhat bitterly of the late Lord Lamorna, whose unreasonable prejudices and pride of birth and station, though only the result, the growth and maturity of centuries of time, and many generations of Trevelyans, had cost her years of anxiety, of unmerited seclusion and wandering in foreign lands under a name which was not that of her children's father, and thus keeping them in ignorance of their real family, its claims and rank--for the mystery had been continued, even to the gazetting of Denzil, under the name of Devereaux!

The rising wind as a sudden gust swept through the grove of willows, roused her from these thoughts, and she found old Winny Braddon, hard-featured and keen-eyed, lingering near, with anxiety depicted in her face.

"The winter is setting in early, surely," said Constance; "we are not out of autumn yet, Winny, and see how dark the evening has become!"

"_En hâv perkou gwâv_, my mother used to say, old Cornish for 'in summer, remember winter,'" replied Winny. "A sad night it will be for the poor fellows on board ship, ma'am, I fear."

"Do not say so, Winny!"

"The waves are rolling in fast, and breaking white as snow upon Tintagel Head, and all along Trebarreth Strand."

"And where is Miss Devereaux?"

"I know not, ma'am--only she has not returned."

"And she was to come by the shore!" exclaimed Constance, starting from her seat.

"The shore! do you mean the bit of sand that lies near the Pixies' Hole?"

"Yes--yes."

"The tide has long since been in--my God! oh mistress, our poor _chealveen_ may be lost!" exclaimed Winny, using the old endearing local word for 'child.'

Constance closed her escritoire with trembling hands, and went, in alarm, to the windows which faced the sea. The sun, we have said, had long since set, and athwart the dim and black and stormy clouds that now hid the point of his departure, a torrent of rain was falling aslant upon the dark and foam-flecked sea, and would ere long be drenching all the rocky shore. A little time and all should be darkness, and where was the absent Sybil?

Close-hauled, and running fast before the blast for shelter in Portquin Bay, a large boat, the last, perhaps, of the autumn pilchard fishers, careening wildly over amid the foam, was seen to vanish round a promontory.

A sudden access of terror now seized the heart of Constance. Instantly a mounted servant was dispatched to the hut of the widow, and the man soon came galloping back, with a scared visage and the tidings that Miss Devereaux had left her more than three hours ago, and had certainly descended to the beach, as she had been seen to do so. By this time, darkness had fairly set in; rain was falling fast upon the bleak coast, and "sowing wide the pathless main," while a heavy gale from thence was dashing a flood tide upon the shore, and the soul of Constance grew sick with apprehension.

"The tide in! oh my God--in what can I have offended Thee to be punished thus? My Sybil--my Sybil--is the cup of my bitterness to be filled to overflowing!" she exclaimed, in a low voice as she sank upon a sofa, while Winny Braddon wrung her hands, and in the noisy grief peculiar to her class, lamented, as already said, "the darling _chealveen_" she had nursed in her bosom.

Constance would have gone forth in person to search, bleak and rainy though the night; but she was too feeble and delicate to face the storm, nor would Nurse Braddon permit her. She sent all her servants, male and female, in search of the tidings she was terrified to hear; and ever and anon she rushed to the front portico and looked out upon the gloomy night, to where away beyond the willow groves that grew around the villa, the bleak high road wound seaward over a bare Cornish moor, towards those clumps of old trees that crowned the rocks which overlooked the fatal Pixies' Hole.

Slowly, as if each were an eternity of time, hour after hour passed now--periods filled up by agony and the pulsations of her heart; and ere long her watch told her that midnight was nigh.

Midnight, and her child still absent--her Sybil, the mistress of a thousand pretty, winning and affectionate ways!

Higher and more high rose the blustering wind, sweeping before its angry breath the last brown leaves of autumn; wildly the willows seemed to lash the stormy air, as their supple branches were tossed on the stormy blast; and from a distance up the valley came the roaring of the sea, whose waves at the horizon were brightened occasionally by a ghastly glare of lightning. Between the scudding clouds, the moon's pale crescent was visible for a time, above the ruins of King Arthur's castle on steep Tintagel Head, a tremendous bluff (which is cleft by a chasm from the mainland) adding thus to the weird and wild aspect of the night; and what served to increase the distraction of the wretched mother, was the strange circumstance that of the several messengers she sent forth, not one had yet returned with tidings of any kind. Suspense thus became as it were, a bodily agony; she was led to anticipate the worst; and Winny Braddon though her heart was a prey to the keenest alarm and anxiety, had to use almost affectionate force to prevent her mistress, a weak and delicate little woman as she was, from sallying forth in her despair to prosecute the search in person.

Winny had but slender hope, she knew every foot of her native shore, and was old enough to remember many a dark and terrible story of the Cornish wreckers, and when many a keg of French brandy, and many a bale of good tobacco were brought from the Scilly Isles, and without the knowledge of the Coast Guard, landed slyly in some quiet nook and cavern, where those to whom they were consigned knew well when to find them; she knew many who had perished in those secret places, when seeking for the hidden wares; and it was for being engaged in some of these little affairs, that her brother Derrick, had to "levant" from the duchy, and become a soldier in "the master's regiment"--the Cornish Light Infantry.

Alternately Constance lay in a species of stupor on a sofa, or started to the front door, where she listened with eager ears, the rain falling on her pale face, and the wind blowing about her hair, while she could see the lanterns of the searchers, glimmering like distant _ignes fatui_, as they proceeded to and fro along the heights that overhung the sea.

Denzil, she thought, was gone on life's highway, and might never return; their daughter drowned--their only child now it would seem, reft from them suddenly and cruelly! What would Richard say on his return, and how was she to meet his eye? What account was she to give of her maternal solicitude and of her stewardship? Yet in what way was she to blame?

Yes! she did accuse herself. The warnings and hints of Winny Braddon came to memory. She had been remiss; she had permitted Sybil to wander too much abroad with her sketch-book, and this was the end of it; yet who, without some divine prescience, could have foreseen a catastrophe so terrible? How often had Denzil filled her mind with fear and anxiety by his exploits among those very rocks, and by his explorations of that horrible Pixies Hole, where, too probably, his sister had perished miserably; yet her bold and handsome Denzil, always came back in safety to kiss and laugh away her fears and upbraidings.

"Oh why is this terrible calamity put upon me?" she moaned, as she lay with her face covered by her hands, and her damp dishevelled hair; "is it but the forerunner of a greater--if a _greater_ there can be? Can I have loved my husband and our children so much that I have forgotten to love my God!"

And for a moment or two, she actually turned over in her mind this strange idea--the first proposition of the Mystics, which was, that the love of the Supreme Being must be pure and disinterested; that is, exempt from all views of interest, all care of those we love on earth, and all hope of reward--tenets defended by Madame de Guyon, and advocated by the eloquent Fénélon.

A sudden knocking at the front door, and a violent pealing of the house-bell, caused her to start as if with an electric shock.

Tidings had come at last--tidings that might fill her soul with joy, or cause it to die within her.

"General Trecarrel, would speak with you ma'am," said Winny Braddon, hurrying in with fresh excitement in her tone and manner.