CHAPTER XXII.

"MRS. GRUNDY."

General Trecarrel, who was an amiable and well-disposed man, felt the utmost regret in having been present at an interview so painful, unseemly, and perplexing. Notwithstanding the calmness, dignity, and confidence with which Constance asserted her claims to wifehood and nobility, he had his secret doubts--which Downie had not--as to the legality of the ties that had subsisted between her and his late friend, Richard Trevelyan. Yet he could not but think of her kindly, humanely, and with interest; she seemed so perfectly ladylike, was so gentle and so beautiful.

In short, the old soldier, little given to study character or matters not military, felt sorely bewildered by the strange story so suddenly unfolded by his fair neighbour, and withdrew to think over it and to dress for dinner.

"So that odious woman and the cunning minx, her daughter, are gone at last?" said Mrs. Downie--the acknowledged Lady Lamorna--entering the carpeted library, softly and noiselessly, in her usual languid and wearied way.

"Yes, Gartha--at last," replied her husband, who was still seated at the writing-table with his head resting on his left hand, for he was full of thoughts that oppressed him.

"You look disturbed, Downie dear?" she lisped, as she sank into her easy chair and resumed the feather fan or hand screen.

"That idiot Audley has complicated matters by forming an attachment for the woman's daughter; but Trecarrel, who goes soon to India now, shall take him off there at once."

"And what was the object of her visit, pray?"

"Oh, she came here to try the favourite Whig scheme--conciliation at any price, no matter how humiliating; and exhibited a letter she had manufactured, as from my brother; but it won't pass with me--no, no!"

"You are right to repel such attempts as this; and I agree with you that Audley had better relinquish what remains of his leave and quit England," she replied, yet not without a sigh, for her son had been but a short time at home, and India was so far away. But anything was better than that he should entangle himself with a girl like this--her son Audley, when she had almost registered a vow "never to syllable a name unchronicled by Debrett;" the idea was absurd, horrible in the extreme!

"Perhaps, Downie dear," said she, after a little consideration, "we are too fearful. I have read somewhere that 'boy and girl cousins never fraternise.'"

"Don't they, by Jove!" growled Downie; "especially when they come to the age of puberty, without having known each other previously. Then the Scots have a proverb about 'blood being thicker than water,' though I can't see it in that way myself. The girl is remarkably handsome, and Audley's affair with her must have made considerable progress ere her letter came into my possession in London."

"Handsome? dear, dear! do you really think so? I thought her very saucy in expression, and a positive dowdy, in a dress made, no doubt, by some Penzance milliner," replied the lady, while contemplating complacently her own magnificent black _moire_, for she did not entertain more charitable opinions respecting the daughter than the mother.

Though more advanced in life than Constance (for she had been married some years before her), the wife of Downie had still considerable remains of beauty, and, despite time and dimples turning fast to wrinkles, she was bent upon being gay, young, and beautiful still. She had an air that decidedly denoted high breeding, with much of languor and indifference to all that passed around her. She had completely attained that bearing of placidity, utter vacuity or unimpressionability, so sedulously affected or adopted by many among the upper class of English society, and even by their middle-class imitators. However, all the little spirit or energy she ever possessed fired up now, in the conviction that she was the Right Honourable Lady Lamorna, that Audley was one of "England's Honourable Misters," and that Gartha should find a husband among the tufts and strawberry leaves at least.

Downie had not her ambition even in these matters, but had naturally avarice; and his profession had, of course, taught him trickery. "Despair of no man," it has been said: "there are touches of kindness in natures the very roughest, that redeem whole lives of harshness;" but to have sought for charity or kindness at the hands of Downie were a task as easy as taking a bone from a famished tiger.

That day, at the dinner-table, after the ladies had withdrawn, and Downie, the General, and Audley were lingering over their wine (or wines rather), the conversation naturally turned to the recent visit of Constance and her daughter; and a painful theme it proved to the young officer.

From General Trecarrel he had previously obtained a narrative of all that had passed, and though he thanked Heaven that he had been absent, his heart was preyed upon by many keen and conflicting emotions. He loved Sybil tenderly, he acknowledged to himself; but could he think of marriage with her, when she was the daughter of a woman in a position as dubious as that of Constance was now openly declared to be--one, moreover, whose claims were so startling, and whose allegations were, as his father called them, so daring as to merit criminal prosecution,--for so had the lawyer said in his wrath and the strength of his own position!

Intense pity for the girl mingled with his passion for her, and added to his great perplexity; and thus, while his cheek alternately flushed and grew pale, he sat with half-averted face, and the fingers of one hand buried among his thick brown hair, irritated by the conviction that his father's cold, keen, and scrutinising eyes were bent loweringly upon him, while in silence he heard the General bluntly urging him "if he had any tender views in that quarter, to get rid of them as soon as possible, and be off to join his regiment;" for to Trecarrel military service seemed a cure for every human ill.

"But the letter she showed you?" pled Audley.

"That letter, sir, I have already denounced as a most daring forgery!" replied Downie, with as much energy as his usually quiet manner permitted.

"Could she--one so eminently like a lady--be guilty of such a crime?"

"Your uncle's mistress would be, of course, familiar with his handwriting."

Audley felt his heart vibrate painfully at this injurious but, as the circumstances seemed to stand, not inapplicable term. Compassion and tenderness pleaded for the dove-eyed Sybil; but policy, society, or the promptings of "Mrs. Grundy" urged that he should, nay must, relinquish all thought of her for ever; so while sitting there, sipping his golden-tinted château yquem, and playing with the embossed grape scissors, to all appearance very calm and quiet, a storm of doubt and shame was struggling in his heart with love; "for this passion," says Lord Bacon, "hath its floods in the very times of weakness, which are great prosperity and great adversity, both which times kindle love and make it more fervent." And now Sybil was in an adversity of which he knew not the actual depth.

"To me it seems that you are somewhat severe in this whole affair, General," said he, after a pause.

"God forgive me if I am so!" replied Trecarrel, earnestly.

"Suppose this girl's position to be all you advance, if we love because we like and admire each other, are we to be censured?"

"Then who the devil should be censured?" said his father, with asperity.

"Destiny."

"Pshaw!" said Downie; "this is mere romance--mooning!"

"And deuced unlike one of the 14th Hussars," added Trecarrel.

"The very rubbish of which dramas are made."

"You are right, Downie; but, till now, I always thought this young fellow of yours was rather fond of my girl Rose."

Audley coloured deeply, and assisted himself to wine, as he said--

"I greatly admire both Miss Trecarrel and her sister Miss Rose; but I have not the honour to stand higher in their favour than that of others."

"But this girl Devereaux----" his father was beginning passionately.

"Excuse me, dear sir," interrupted Audley, "if I beg that you will cease to taunt me on this painful subject. The tenor of the letter she wrote to me--the letter which you found on my desk, and which in all fairness you should not have read--a Lieutenant of the Line not being exactly a schoolboy--sufficiently evinced that we were on terms of affection and intimacy. I knew not then who she was, or who her people were. I had saved her life, as the General knows, at considerable peril, and so there grew a tender tie between us; but all shall be ended now," he continued in a tone of emotion. "I see that it must be so, sir. I see also the necessity for not compromising your just title to the rank and place you hold by attaching myself in any way to the fortunes of the Devereaux. So I implore you to let the matter cease, or I shall quit the room--yes, even the house itself, so surely as I shall ere long quit England, perhaps never to return!"

"I thank you for this promise, Audley," said Downie emphatically; "and when once with your regiment, you shall find your allowance most amply increased."

"For that I thank you, sir," said Audley, sighing.

"I am richer now than when you were in the Hussars."

"And out of that wealth, Downie--I beg pardon, I mean my Lord Lamorna--I trust you will do something handsome now for poor Dick's widow and orphan?" blundered the General.

"Widow and orphan!" repeated Downie, with growing anger.

"Well, widow in one sense."

"In what sense?"

"A widow of the heart," persisted Trecarrel, reddening to the roots of his grizzled hair. "She and her pretty daughter have suffered a fearful stroke of fortune--and even poverty may not be the most severe trial before them."

"I shall settle a small sum on the mother, perhaps," said Downie, reluctantly; "and get the girl, if you wish it, a situation as companion at a distance from this."

"Companion? That is a kind of upper servant who must wash the spaniel, and feed the parrot," said the General, testily; "supervise the maid that dresses her mistress's hair, read novels aloud, and sermons on Sunday; write invitations, and answer them; pay all bills, and stand all manner of vapours and ill-humours, for thirty pounds per annum and a _quiet home_! Come, come, Downie, d--n it," added Trecarrel, "you might do something more handsome than that for a daughter of Richard Trevelyan."

"Sir," replied the other, becoming slightly ruffled by the old officer's perfect bluntness, "when certain people in this world cannot get white bread and wine, they should content them with brown bread and water; they must also work, if they would not beg. I think that I shall have done enough if I do what I propose for the daughter; and as for the mother, through my humble endeavours, a housekeeper's place or the matronage of a lunatic asylum may be procured for her, if she is in poverty, and if her want of previous character could be tided over with the Board of Guardians. By her daring claim, she has certainly striven to injure me and all my innocent family," added Downie loftily; "yet I do not wish evil to happen to her."

"Whether we wish it or wish it not, neither will come according to our mere human desire," retorted the General; "so pass the Madeira, please, Audley, for here comes Funnel with the coffee--a hint that we are to join the ladies in the drawing-room."

Downie Trevelyan had always had his secret fears of the family in the villa at Porthellick, and he knew not exactly how strong their claims upon his dead brother might be. However, he had lost no time in having himself fully served heir to the late lord, on the loss of the steamer "Admiral" becoming an ascertained fact; and, though a lawyer by profession, he now literally loathed the sight of the circulars and letters that poured in upon him on his accession to rank and fortune. There were legal details to be filled up, dry formalities to be gone through with perplexing repetitions and minuteness; there were entreaties from tradesmen that "his Lordship would not change the family custom," and applications of a similar nature from town and country agents to retain their agencies, &c., &c. Then there was "the suit of those Devereaux," as he called a bulky and menacing document which a shabby-looking fellow deposited at Rhoscadzhel one morning, with lists of the vexatious papers required for the defence--all the preparation of "some hedge-lawyer--some low legal desperado," as Downie styled him; for he now himself felt, in the tone and tenour of these legal letters and documents, the pointed stings he had for years past so pitilessly planted in others.

The legal document had the effect of completing all the silent arguments of Mrs. Grundy in the mind of Audley. But a few days ago, he was so happy in the conviction that he loved Sybil and was beloved again; and now he saw the necessity for action and resolution, and alike quitting her and England.

He seated himself at his desk one evening for the purpose of writing an explanatory or, if he could achieve it, an exculpatory and farewell letter to Sybil; but, after various attempts, he had got no further than the date, when Mr. Jasper Funnel entered the room, with a little sealed packet on a silver salver.

It had just come in the household despatch-box from Hayle, and bore the Porthellick postmark, so he tore it open with trembling hands.