CHAPTER VI.

RICHARD'S MYSTERY.

To explain much that the reader may have begun to suspect or misjudge, we must now go back a few years, into the private life of Richard Trevelyan.

When stationed with his regiment in Montreal he had made, at some public assembly, the acquaintance of Constance Devereaux, then a girl fresh from school. He was fascinated by her rare beauty, and a certain _espieglerie_ of manner, which the thoughts and cares of future years eventually crushed out of her; and she, on her part, was dazzled by the attentions of a handsome and wealthy young officer; for Richard being his uncle's favourite nephew and heir, received from him a handsome yearly allowance, in addition to that which he inherited from his father.

Unfortunately Constance Devereaux, with all her beauty and accomplishments, was the daughter of one who would have been deemed of very humble caste indeed, if judged by the standard applied to such matters at Rhoscadzhel. The girl loved him passionately and blindly, and little foreseeing all such a step would cost her in the end, she consented to a private marriage; so they were united in secret by Père Latour, the catholic curé of the chapel of St. Mary, near Montreal; an acolyte of the chapel and Richard's servant, a soldier named Derrick Braddon, being the only witnesses.

The marriage was duly registered in the books of the little church, and an attested copy was lodged with the curé who performed the ceremony; but as the regiment was ordered soon after to another colony, it was left in his hands for the time.

Richard obtained leave of absence, and soon after, much to his uncle's surprise, left the army by selling out, and led a kind of wandering life on the Continent, taking his wife's name of Devereaux, the better to conceal from the proud, and as yet unsuspecting old lord, the _mésalliance_ he had formed--a union, however; of which he had never cause to repent, for his wife was gentle and tender, and possessed many brilliant mental qualities; but well did Richard know that if that union were discovered, the immense fortune, which was at Lord Lamorna's entire disposal, would be left, if not altogether to Downie, to others, and past himself and the heirs of his line; and that such a calamity should not occur he became more anxious and more solicitous after the birth of two children, a son whom he named Denzil, after his own father, and a daughter, Sybil, born to them since their wanderings in Italy.

Many difficulties attended the course of this secret matrimonial life! Even in their continental travels, when seeking the most secluded places, stray English tourists would come suddenly upon them if they ventured near a table d'hôte; once or twice an old brother officer, or other people who knew or recognised in the so-called Captain Devereaux, Richard Trevelyan; and then mysterious nods or knowing smiles were exchanged, and odd whispers went abroad in the clubs of London and elsewhere--innuendoes that would have withered up the heart of Constance had she heard them.

She knew all that might be suspected, and felt that the positions of herself and her children, were alike false and liable to misconstruction; that malignant scandal might be busy with the names of them all. But the die was cast now, and she had but to suffer and endure; to pray and to wait the death of the poor old man who was so kind to her husband, and who loved him so well--yet not well enough to forgive--had he ever discovered it--the deception which had been practised upon him and upon society.

Repining in secret, sorrowing for the falsehood of her position, knowing that her husband, the father of her children, passed in the world as an eligible bachelor, the object of many a designing mother, open to the attentions, the coquetries and captivations of their daughters, aware that he resided with her only by stealth and under another name than his own, Constance had indeed much to endure, though rewarded in some degree therefor, to see her children growing up in health and beauty, each a reproduction of their parents, for Denzil had all the personal attributes of his father, with much higher mental qualities, while the soft-eyed Sybil possessed all the dark beauty, the petite figure and lady-like grace of Constance herself.

The latter, we have said, was but the daughter of a Canadian trader; yet amid all the ease and luxury with which her husband's ample means and tender love supplied her, there were times, when she could not but murmur in her heart at the anomaly of her situation, so different from the honest security of her father's humble home, and her native pride revolted against it; and with this pride there grew a species of shame, which she felt to be totally unmerited, and then she felt an utter loathing for the very name of Lord Lamorna, (though it should one day be borne by her own husband) as being the cause of all her secret suffering, her dread of the present and doubt of the future.

On the education of their children, Richard, who doted on them, had spared nothing. Both were highly accomplished, and wherever they had wandered they had the most talented masters that wealth could procure. Now Denzil had taken the highest prizes at Sandhurst and was gazetted to a Regiment of the Line, and was going forth into the world under the false name of Devereaux!

How was this to be altered--how explained and rectified?

A necessity for being much about Rhoscadzhel, as being the heir to the estates and as his uncle's years increased, had compelled Richard Trevelyan to be more often present in his native county than he had hitherto been; hence, he had settled his secret ties in the pretty little villa of Porthellick, at what he conceived to be a safe distance of some forty miles or so from the residence of Lord Lamorna.

In and about that villa he was simply known as "Captain Devereaux," and as he had almost entirely relinquished hunting and field sports--save an occasional shot at a bird--and when there lived a retired and secluded life; and as his wife and children seemed to live for themselves and him only, making friends with few save the poor and ailing, time glided by, and the mystery of Richard's career was never fully laid bare.

For those there are in this world (and his uncle was one) who would have pardoned Richard making Constance Devereaux his mistress, and yet would mockingly have resented his making her a wedded wife!

Lamorna's friend General Trecarrel--the representative of one of the oldest families in Cornwall--who lived near Porthellick, had met Richard on horseback more than once in the vicinity of that place, when he was supposed to be in London, Paris, or elsewhere, and the mention of these circumstances caused Mr. Downie Trevelyan, who, as we have shown, had a keen personal interest in the matter, to prosecute certain inquiries in that part of the duchy, and the result led him to believe that the Captain Devereaux who occasionally resided at the Grecian Villa in the Willow Cove, and his irreproachable brother Richard, were one and the same person!

If it were so, the character of the lady must be--he supposed--somewhat questionable; and Downie knew right well that their uncle might forgive a liaison, but never a marriage with one of an inferior grade. The conduct and bearing of the lady at the villa seemed unimpeachable; so Downie had long felt doubtful how to act, and only indulged in vague hints to his brother's prejudice.

The pride and anger even these had kindled in the heart of the old lord, who was now gone, and the threats in which he had indulged, afforded Richard Trevelyan a fair specimen of what would assuredly be the result were his marriage ever known at Rhoscadzhel; and when pressed on the subject pretty pointedly, he had assured his uncle--while his cheek flushed and his heart burned with shame--that he was still unwedded and free; and even as he made the false avowal, the soft pleading eyes of Constance, his own true wife, and the voices of their children, came vividly and upbraidingly to memory!

Now the foolish old man had passed away, the barrier was removed, and all should be made light that had hitherto been darkness, as her husband's hastily written letter informed her.

Yet she thought, with honest indignation, how hard it was that she had been for all these eighteen years and more kept out of her proper sphere as the wedded wife of Richard Trevelyan, often taking almost flight from _this_ town and _that_ hotel, lest he should be recognised; consigned hence to a life of secresy and seclusion; a life that might yet cast doubts upon the very name and birth of her children, through the whim, the old-fashioned pride and folly of an absurd and antiquated peer, whose ideas went back, even far beyond the days of his youth, when people travelled in stage-coaches, used sand and sealing-wax for letters; when steam and telegraphy were unknown, when papers were published weekly at sixpence; and was one who deemed that railways, electricity, penny-dailies, and what is generally known as progress, are sending all the world to ruin.

Her husband's letter filled her with joy. He playfully added, "I fear I have drunk of the well of St. Keyne before you," alluding to the well-known spring near Liskeard, a draught from which the Cornish folks suppose will ensure ascendancy in domestic affairs, and the letter was signed for the first time "Your loving husband, LAMORNA."

How strange to her eye the new signature looked. She felt somehow that she preferred his old one of "Richard." But they were one and the same now, and a little time should see her in her place, as mistress of that stately dwelling, Rhoscadzhel, which she had only seen once from a distance, and felt then, with an emotion of unmerited humiliation, that she could not, and dared not, enter.

Like all its predecessors, this letter, that contained so much in a few lines, was addressed to her as "Mrs. Devereaux," and she felt a momentary pang, but remembered that to have addressed her by the title, which was now so justly hers, might have sorely perplexed the rural postman of her neighbourhood.