CHAPTER X.
READING AN EPITAPH.
CLEVE VERNEY next afternoon was again, on board his yacht. Wind and tideboth favouring, the cutter was running under a press of canvas thatbrought her gunwale to the water's edge once more for Penruthyn Priory.This time it was no mere aquatic whim; it was pursuit.
Searching the wooded sea-board of Malory with his glass, from theterrace of Ware, he had seen an open sail-boat waiting at the jetty.Down came a servant with cloaks and rugs. Cleve grew more and moreinterested as he adjusted the focus of his glass more exactly. On asudden, from the little door in the boundary wall, emerged two ladies.There was no mistake; he could swear to them. They were the very samewhom he had seen on Sunday in the Malory seat.
He watched till he saw the boat round the point, and then--"Yes," hethought, "they are certainly going to Penruthyn Priory."
And away went Cleve Verney in pursuit of the shadow which he secretlyadored. From Ware to Penruthyn Priory is about six miles, and by thetime the pursuing cutter was in motion the chase had made more than amile of her course, and was within two of the landing point at the ruin.
Cleve saw the two ladies disembark. It was now plain that they had comeeither to visit the ruins, or for a walk in that wild and lonely parkcalled the Warren. Cleve had brought his gun with him, only for anexcuse.
Little more than five minutes after the arrival of the open boat, CleveVerney set his foot upon the rude landing place, as old perhaps as thePriory itself; a clumsy little pier, constructed of great rocks,overgrown with sea-rack, over which slippery platform he strode withreckless haste, and up by that steep and pretty little winding lane, thetrees overhanging which look centuries old, stooping and mantled in ivy.They may have heard the tinkle of the bells of the prior's mule, as heambled beneath their boughs, and the solemn swell of the monkish requiemfrom the melancholy little churchyard close by, under the old Priorywindows. The thick stone wall that fences this ancient by-road isclasped together with ivy, and hoar with lichens, irregular, and brokenas the battlements of a ruined tower. The approach, and the placeitself, are in their picturesque sadness and solitude the very scene andsetting of such a romance as Cleve Verney was pursuing.
Into the Warren, by the stile up this road's side, went Cleve, andclimbed the gray rocky hillock that commands an extensive view of thatwild park; but there they were not.
Well, they must, then, have pursued the path up to the Priory, andthither he followed.
Oh, ho! here they are; the young lady at a little distance looking up atthe singular ruin; the old lady engaged in an active discussion withshrewish old Mrs. Hughes, who was very deaf, and often a little tipsy,and who was now testily refusing the ladies admission within the irongate which affords access to the ruins, of which she held the keys.
No situation could have been more fortunate for Cleve. The Warren andthe Priory being his uncle's property, and the termagant Mrs. Hughes hisofficer, he walked up to the visitor, and inquired very courteously theobject of the application, and forthwith ordered the portress to openthe gate and deliver up her keys; which she did, a good deal frightenedat sight of so unexpected a _deus ex machina_.
An unmistakable gentleman, handsome, and plainly a sort of prince inthis region, the old lady, although she did not know to whom she wasobliged, was pleased at his offer to act as cicerone here, and acceptedit graciously.
"My young friend will be very glad; she draws a little, and enjoys suchsights immensely. Margaret!" she called. The young lady turned, andCleve saw before him once more in flesh and blood, that wonderfulportrait of Beatrice Cenci, which had haunted him for three days.
The young lady heard what her companion had to say, and for a moment herlarge eyes rested on Cleve with a glance that seemed to him at oncehaughty, wild, and shy.
With one hand he held the gate open, and in the other his hat was raisedrespectfully, as side by side they walked into the open court. They eachbowed as they passed, the elder lady very cheerily, the younger with amomentary glance of the same unconscious superiority, which wounded himmore than his pride would have allowed; and a puzzled recollectionflitted across his mind of having once heard, he could not rememberwhen, that Booth Fanshawe had married a beautiful Italian, an heiress (aprincess--wasn't she?)--at all events, a scion of one of their proud oldhouses, whose pedigrees run back into the Empire, and dwarf intoparvenus the great personages of Debrett's Peerage. What made it worsewas, that there was no shyness, no awkwardness. She talked a good dealto her companion, and laughed slightly once or twice, in a very sweettone. The old lady was affable and friendly; the young lady, on thecontrary, so far from speaking to him, seemed hardly to give herself thetrouble of listening to what he said. This kind of exclusion, to whichthe petted young man certainly was not accustomed, galled him extremely,the more so that she looked, he thought, more beautiful than ever, andthat her voice, and pretty, slightly foreign accent, added another charmto the spell.
He made them a graceful little lecture on the building, as they stood inthe court. If she had any cleverness she would see with what a playfuland rapid grace he could convey real information. The young lady lookedfrom building to building as he described them, but with no moreinterest in the speaker, it seemed to him, than if the bell-man ofCardyllian had been reading it from a handbill. He had never doneanything so well in the House of Commons, and here it was accepted as apiece of commonplace. The worst of it was that there was no finesse inall this. It was in perfect good faith that this beautiful young ladywas treating him like a footman. Cleve was intensely piqued. Had shebeen less lovely, his passion might have recoiled into disgust; as itwas, with a sort of vindictive adoration, he vowed that he would yetcompel her to hang upon his words as angels' music, to think of him, towatch for him, to love him with all that wild and fiery soul which anintuition assured him was hers.
So, with this fierce resolve at his heart, he talked very agreeably withthe accessible old lady, seeming, in a spirit, I dare say, altogetherretaliatory, to overlook the young lady's presence a good deal.
"I've got the key of the church, also; you'll allow me, I hope, to showit to you. It is really very curious--a much older style than the restof the building--and there are some curious monuments and epitaphs."
The old lady would be charmed, of course, and her young companion, towhom she turned, would like it also. So Cleve, acting as porter, openedthe ponderous door, and the party entered this dim and solemn Saxonchapel, and the young lady paused and looked round her, struck, as itseemed with a sense of something new and very interesting.
"How strange! How rude it is, and irregular; not large, and yet howimposing!" murmured the girl, as she looked round with a momentary aweand delight. It was the first remark she had made, which it was possiblefor Cleve Verney to answer.
"That's so true! considering how small it is, it does inspire awonderful awe," said he, catching at the opportunity. "It's very dark,to be sure, and that goes a long way; but its style is so rough andCyclopean, that it overcomes one with a feeling of immense antiquity;and antiquity is always solemn, a gift from the people so remote andmysterious, as those who built this chapel, is affecting."
At this point Cleve Verney paused; either his ideas failed him, or hefelt that they were leading him into an oration. But he saw that theyoung lady looked at him, as he spoke, with some interest, and he feltmore elated than he had done for many a day.
"Is that a broken pillar?" asked Miss Sheckleton,--as I shall for thefuture call the elder lady.
"That's the font--very ancient--there's some odd carving about it, whichhas puzzled our antiquaries," said Cleve, leading the way to it.
The young lady had not followed. His exposition was to Miss Sheckleton,whose inquisitiveness protracted it. It was dry work for Cleve. Theyoung lady had seated herself in a sort of oak stall, and was looking upat the groining of the round ribbed arches, at some distance. The effectwas singular. She was placed in the deep chiaroscuro, a strong gleam oflight entering through a circular a
perture in the side wall, illuminatedher head and face with a vivid and isolated effect; her rich chestnuthair was now disclosed, her bonnet having fallen back, as she gazedupward, and the beautiful oval face was disclosed in the surroundingshadow with the sudden brilliancy and isolation of a picture in aphantasmagoria.
Verney's eyes were not upon the font on which he was lecturing, histhoughts were wandering too, and Miss Sheckleton observed perhaps someodd vagueness and iteration in his remarks; but the young lady changedher position, and was now examining another part of the church.
Cleve either felt or fancied, seeing, as the Italians say, with the tailof his eye, that she was now, for a moment, looking at him, believingherself unseen. If this were so, was it not the beginning of a triumph?It made him strangely happy.
If Cleve had seen those sights in town, I can't say whether their effectwould have been at all similar; but beautiful scenery, like music,predisposes to emotion. Its contemplation is the unconscious abandonmentof the mind to sentiment, and once excite tenderness and melancholy, andthe transition to love is easy upon small provocations. In the countryour visions flit more palpably before us; there is nothing there, asamid the clatter and vulgarities of the town, to break our dreams. Thebeautiful rural stillness is monotony itself, and monotony is the spelland the condition of all mesmeric impressions. Hence young men, in part,are the dangers of those enchanted castles called country houses, inwhich you lose your heads and hearts; whither you arrive jubilant andfree, and whence you are led by delicate hands, with a silken halterround your necks, with a gay gold ring in your obedient noses, and atiny finger crooked therein, and with a broad parchment pinned upon yourpatient shoulders, proclaiming to the admiring world that your estateshave gone the way of your liberties, and that you and they are settledfor life.
"Now, _this_," said he, pointing to a block of carved stone placed inthe aisle, "is the monument of old Martha Nokes; pray ask your younglady to come for one moment; it's worth reading."
"_Margaret!_" called the elder visitor, in the subdued tone suited tothe sacred place. "Come, darling, and see this."
"This inscription is worth reading, and I can tell you about the oldwoman, for I remember her quite well. I was eight years old when shedied. Old Martha Nokes; she died in her hundred and twentieth year."
The young lady stood by and listened and read. The epitaph related herlength of service, her fidelity, and other virtues, and that "this stonewas placed here in testimony of the sincere and merited esteem, respect,and affection cherished for the deceased, by Eleanor, Viscountess(Dowager) Verney, of Malory."
"There's some beautiful embroidery on satin, worked by her more than ahundred and fifteen years ago, at Ware," said Cleve Verney. "They saysuch work can't be had now. '_In the course of her long pilgrimage_,'you see by the epitaph, '_she had no less than twenty-three substantialoffers of marriage, all which she declined, preferring her single stateto the many cares and trials of wedded life, and willing also to remainto the end of her days in the service of the family of Verney, (to whomshe was justly grateful,) and in which she had commenced her active anduseful, though humble life, in the reign of King George the First_.' Soyou see she spent all her life with us; and I'll tell our people, ifyou should happen to pass near Ware--it's not an hour's sail across--andwould care to see it, to show you her embroidery, and her portrait; andif there's anything else you think worth looking at; there are somepictures and bronzes--they'll be quite at your service; my uncle ishardly ever at Ware; and I only run down for a little boating andshooting, now and then."
"Thank you," said the old lady, and utter silence followed. Her youngcompanion glanced at her for a moment, and saw her look blank and evenconfounded. She averted her gaze, and something, I suppose, struck heras comical, for, with a sudden little silvery laugh, she said--
"What a charming, funny old woman she must have been!"
And with this excuse she laughed more--and again, after a littleinterval. Nothing more contagious than this kind of laughter, especiallywhen one has an inkling of the cause. Cleve looked at the font, andlowered his large eyes to the epitaph of the Virgin Martha Nokes, andbit his lips, but he _did_ laugh a little in spite of himself, for therewas something nearly irresistible in pleasant Miss Sheckleton's look ofvacant consternation.