CHAPTER V.

PORTHELLICK VILLA.

More than forty miles distant from Rhoscadzhel, on that part of the Cornish coast which is washed by the waves of the Bristol Channel, at a place named Porthellick, or the Cove of Willows, was a beautiful white-walled villa, built in the Greek style of architecture, with an Ionic portico of six carved and painted wooden pillars. Its windows opened in the French fashion, and descended to the floor; luxuriant creepers, jasmines, and sweet brier, were trained on green trellis-work around it, and rare plants of gorgeous colours grew in stone vases, which were placed in a double row along the smooth gravelled terrace, from which the basement of the cottage rose--for the villa was a cottage in character, being but a one storeyed dwelling, though spacious and handsome, and having a noble conservatory and coach-house and stabling, and an approach of half a mile in length, bordered by a double line of those magnificent willows from which the place took its name, and affording, from the principal windows in front, an ample view of the sea, with ever and anon, a white sail lingering in the dim blue distance, or a passing steamer, with its pennant of smoke, streaming astern, as it sped towards Ireland or the Isle of Man.

On the evening of that day when Lord Lamorna died so suddenly, a lady was standing under the portico of this house, looking anxiously, not seaward, but inland, towards the willow avenue, by which her residence was approached from the road that leads by Stratton, among the hills, towards Camelford and Wadebridge, near the rocky valley of Hanter-Gantick.

The lady looked repeatedly at her watch, consulted a railway time-table, and entered the house, only to return to her post, and bend her eyes in anxious gaze along the avenue.

Mrs. Devereaux, for it was she, was young-looking--marvellously so for her years; she seemed to be quite a girl still; yet she was fully four-and-thirty, and the mother of two children. This youthful appearance doubtless arose from her very petite and slender figure; her strictly fashionable style of dress, and the piquante beauty that shone in the minute features of her charming little face. Her eyes were dark, yet full of light and sparkle, though their long lashes imparted a great softness of expression. Her eyebrows were very dark and well-defined--some might have deemed them too much so; but they imparted great character to her face. Her mouth and chin were perfect; her teeth like those of a child; and over all, her face, figure, and bearing, even to every motion of her hands and feet, Mrs. Devereaux was exquisitely lady-like.

"At last--at last they come!" she exclaimed; "and yonder is my dear, dear Denzil, whom I have not seen for so many, many months," she added, as her eyes filled with tears, and her soft cheek flushed with all a mother's joy.

As she uttered her thoughts aloud, a little basket-phaeton, drawn by two lovely cream-coloured Shetland ponies, was seen bowling down the avenue of pale green willows; a young lady was handling the ribbons of these Lilliputian steeds in a very masterly style; and beside her sat a young man, attired in fashionable travelling costume, who was alternately waving his cap and a newspaper, which he flourished so vigorously, that the sleek, brindled cattle grazing in the clover meadows close by, lifted their great brown eyes as if inquiringly, while the little drag, with its varnished wheels flashing, dashed along towards the villa, the walls of which shone white as snow in the evening sunlight.

The phaeton was reined up before the portico, when a handsome lad of eighteen, with fine regular features, dark blue--almost black--eyes, and short fair curly hair, sprang out, and was instantly clasped to his mother's breast.

"Oh, mamma--we have such news for you!" exclaimed the young lady, who seemed an exact reproduction of Mrs. Devereaux in height and face, though barely seventeen, with dark eyes and hair; "oh, such news!" she added, in high, girlish excitement, as she tossed her whip and reins to a groom who came promptly from the stable-yard, Derrick Braddon, once a soldier in Richard's regiment--

"Surely mamma knows all," said the youth; "have you not seen the _Gazette_?"

"_Gazette_?" repeated Mrs. Devereaux, growing very pale, as she led her son caressingly into the little morning-room, where a hasty repast had been prepared for him and his sister, and which opened off a handsome little vestibule, hung with fox-brushes crossed, the trophies of many a hunting day, brought home by his father, "Captain Devereaux."

"Denzil is now an officer, mamma," said the young girl, throwing off her hat and looking admiringly at her brother; "I was just in time to meet him at the train."

"Yes, mamma--I was yesterday gazetted to an ensigncy in the Cornish Light Infantry,--got leave from Sandhurst, and at once came right slick down here. Oh, how proud papa will be--is he not here?"

"No," replied Mrs. Devereaux, faintly; "and how does your name appear in the _Gazette_?"

"Here it is, mamma, dear," replied the youth, pointing to the paper he had been flourishing, and feeling proud to see his name, for the first time, in print. "'Cornish Light Infantry; Lieutenant Audley Trevelyan, from the 14th Hussars, to be lieutenant, vice Gascoigne, killed in action. Denzil Devereaux, gentleman cadet, from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, to be ensign, vice Foster, deceased.' And now, mamma, I am done at last with all the boredom of Euclid and fortification, Trigonometry, and all the rest of it."

"And you will soon be done with poor mamma, too!"

"Nay, mamma, dear; that can never, never be!" replied the lad, as he threw his arms round her neck and kissed away the tears that were already oozing from her long and beautiful eyelashes; "but I do so wish papa were at home--I have so much to tell, and so much to ask him!"

"Denzil--Devereaux?" said the mother, ponderingly, and as if to herself.

"Yes, mamma; and few fellows at Sandhurst had more marks opposite their names than Denzil Devereaux, for I worked hard that I might choose my own regiment; so I chose the 32nd because I am a kind of Cornish man, and because it was papa's old corps. Oh, how pleased he will be!"

"And where is the regiment stationed now?" asked Mrs. Devereaux, in a low voice.

"In India."

"India?" she repeated, mechanically, as if that separation, which is but as a living death, had already begun.

"I wonder who the Audley Trevelyan figuring along with me in the _Gazette_, may be. It is a pure Cornish name."

His mother was weeping now, and Sybil, who had hitherto been silent, began to do so from sympathy; for already, so we have said, the pang of the coming parting was felt, and the maternal heart was wrung at the thought of a long and doubtful separation from her only son--her Denzil--whom she deemed beautiful as Apollo, and clever as the admirable Crichton; for the Overland Route had not been opened, there was no electric cable to India, and its nearest point was distant a six months' journey by sea round the Cape; and so, full of aching thoughts that her children could not share--thoughts that must be all her own till her husband returned--poor Mrs. Devereaux could only fold her son to her breast and weep, till the young man's military and boyish enthusiasm became dulled, and his naturally warm and affectionate heart grew full with a perplexity that was akin to remorse, for seeking to leave her side and push his way in the world as a soldier. Yet that was the only career his father had ever indicated to him.

"A letter from papa--our dear papa!" exclaimed Sybil, glad to cause some diversion from the gathering gloom, as she caught the missive from the hand of the village postman, who appeared outside the open window.

"I wonder if he has heard of my appointment," surmised Denzil, his thoughts reverting to their old channel.

"It is sealed and edged with black!" exclaimed Sybil; "and--how singular--it bears the Penzance postmark!"

"How is this, mamma--I thought papa was in London?" asked Denzil.

Mrs. Devereaux trembled violently, as she tore open the letter, and muttering an excuse hastily left the room with it.

"What's up," said the ex-cadet, as he applied himself to the sherry decanter; "by Jove, Sybil, this is a strange way of receiving papa's letter. Who is dead, I wonder--I hope there is nothing wrong with him, anyway!"

"Oh, can he have met with an accident?"

"Scarcely, as the letter is written by himself; but to be at Penzance when we all thought he was in town--very odd, isn't it?"