‘farewell,’ quoth she, ‘and come again to-morrow.’
the old housekeeper’s eyes were dim as she finished her story of the heir of penwyn.
‘he was the best of all,’ she said; ‘mr. balfour we saw very little of after he grew up, being the youngest to marry and leave home; mr. james was a kind, easy-going young fellow enough; but mr. george was everybody’s favourite, and there wasn’t a dry eye among us when the squire called us together after his illness, and told us how his son had died. “he died like a gentleman—upholding the honour of his queen and his country, and the name of penwyn,” said the master, without a tremble in his voice, though it was feebler than before the stroke, “and i am proud to think of him lying in his far-off grave, and if i were not so old i would go over the sea to kneel beside my poor boy’s resting-place before i die. he displeased me once, but we are good friends now, and there will be no cloud between us when we meet in another world.”’
here mrs. darvis was fairly overcome, much to the astonishment of the girl elspeth, whose uncanny black eyes regarded her with a scornful wonder. maurice noticed that look.
‘sweet child,’ he said to himself. ‘what a charming helpmeet you will make for some honest peasant in days to come, with your amiable disposition!’
he had taken his time looking at the old house, and listening to the housekeeper’s story. the sun was low, and he had yet to find a lodging for the night. he had walked far since morning, and was not disposed to retrace his steps to the nearest town, a place called seacomb, consisting of a long straggling street, with various lateral courts and alleys, a market-place, parish church, lock-up, and five dissenting chapels of various denominations. this seacomb was a good nine miles from penwyn manor.
‘perhaps you’d like to see the young squire’s portrait,’ said mrs. darvis, when she had dried those tributary tears.
‘the young squire?’
‘mr. george. we used to call him the young squire sometimes.’
‘yes, i should like to have a look at the poor fellow, now you’ve told me his history.’
‘it hangs in the old squire’s study. it’s a bit of a room, and i forgot to show it to you just now.’
maurice followed her across the hall to a small door in a corner, deeply recessed and low, but solid enough to have guarded the tolbooth, one would suppose. it opened into a narrow room, with one window looking towards the sea. the wainscot was almost black with age, the furniture, old walnut wood, of the same time-darkened hue. there was a heavy old bureau, brass handled and brass clamped; a bookcase, a ponderous writing desk, and one capacious arm-chair, covered with black leather. the high, narrow chimney-piece was in an angle of the room, and above this hung the portrait of george penwyn.
it was a kit-kat picture of a lad in undress uniform, the face a long oval, fair of complexion, and somewhat feminine in delicacy of feature, the eyes dark blue. the rest of the features, though sufficiently regular, were commonplace enough; but the eyes, beautiful alike in shape and colour, impressed maurice clissold. they were eyes which might have haunted the fancy of girlhood, with the dream of an ideal lover; eyes in whose somewhat melancholy sweetness a poet would have read some strange life-history. the hair, a pale auburn, hung in a loosely waving mass over the high narrow brow, and helped to give a picturesque cast to the patrician-looking head.
‘a nice face,’ said maurice, critically. ‘there is a little look of my poor friend james penwyn, but not much. poor jim had a gayer, brighter expression, and had not those fine blue-grey eyes. i fancy churchill penwyn must be a plain likeness of his uncle george. not so handsome, but more intellectual-looking.’
‘yes, sir,’ assented mrs. darvis. ‘the present squire is something like his uncle, but there’s a harder look in his face. all the features seem cut out sharper; and then his eyes are quite different. mr. george had his mother’s eyes; she was a tresillian, and one of the handsomest women in cornwall.’
‘i’ve seen a face somewhere which that picture reminds me of, but i haven’t the faintest notion where,’ said maurice. ‘in another picture, perhaps. half one’s memories of faces are derived from pictures, and they flash across the mind suddenly, like a recollection of another world. however, i mustn’t stand prosing here, while the sun goes down yonder. i have to find a lodging before nightfall. what is the nearest place, village, or farmhouse, where i can get a bed, do you think, mrs. darvis?’
‘there’s the “bell,” in penwyn village.’
‘no good. i’ve tried there already. the landlady’s married daughter is home on a visit, and they haven’t a bed to give me for love or money.’
mrs. darvis lapsed into meditation.
‘the nearest farmhouse is trevanard’s, at borcel end. they might give you a bed there, for the place is large enough for a barrack, but they are not the most obliging people in the world, and they are too well off to care about the money you may pay them for the accommodation.’
‘how far is borcel end?’
‘between two and three miles.’
‘then i’ll try my luck there, mrs. darvis,’ said maurice, cheerily. ‘it lies between that and sleeping under the open sky.’
‘i wish i could offer you a bed, sir; but in my position——’
‘as custodian such an offer would be a breach of good faith to your employers. i quite understand that, mrs. darvis. i come here as a stranger to you, and i thank you kindly for having been so obliging as to show me the house.’
he dropped a couple of half-crowns into her hand as he spoke, but these mrs. darvis rejected most decidedly.
‘ours has never been what you can call a show place, sir, and i’ve never looked for that kind of perquisite.’
‘come, young one,’ said maurice, after taking leave of the friendly old housekeeper, ‘you can put me into the right road to borcel end, and you shall have one of these for your reward.’
elspeth’s black eyes had watched the rejection of the half-crowns with unmistakable greed. her sharp face brightened at maurice’s promise.
‘i’ll show you the way, sir,’ she said; ‘i know every step of it.’
‘yes, the lass is always roaming about, like a wild creature, over the hills, and down by the sea,’ said mrs. darvis, with a disapproving air. ‘i don’t think she knows how to read or write, or has as much christian knowledge as the old jackdaw in the servants’ hall.’
‘i know things that are better than reading and writing,’ said elspeth, with a grin.
‘what kind of things may those be?’ asked maurice.
‘things that other people don’t know.’
‘well, my lass, i won’t trouble you by sounding the obscure depths of your wisdom. i only want the straightest road to trevanard’s farm. he is a tenant of this estate, i suppose, mrs. darvis?’
‘yes, sir. michael trevanard’s father was a tenant of the old squire’s before my time. old mrs. trevanard is still living, though stone-blind, and hardly right in her head, i believe.’
they had reached the lobby door by this time, the chief hall door being kept religiously bolted and barred during the absence of the family.
‘i shall come and see you again, mrs. darvis, most likely, before i leave this part of the country,’ said maurice, as he crossed the threshold. ‘good evening.’
‘you’ll be welcome at any time, sir. good evening.’
elspeth led the way across the lawn, with a step so light and swift that it was as much as maurice could do to keep pace with her, tired as he was, after a long day afoot. he followed her into the pine wood. the trees were not thickly planted, but they were old and fine, and their dense foliage looked inky black against a primrose-coloured sky. a narrow footpath wound among the tall black trunks, only a few yards from the edge of the cliff, which was poorly guarded by a roughly fashioned timber railing, the stakes wide apart. the vast atlantic lay below them, a translucent green in the clear evening light, melting into purple far away on the horizon.
maurice paused to look back at penwyn manor house, the grave, substantial old dwelling-house which had seen so little change since the days of the tudors. high gable ends, latticed windows gleaming in the last rays of the setting sun; stone walls moss-darkened and ivy-shrouded, massive porch, with deep recesses, and roomy enough for a small congregation; mighty chimney-stacks, and quaint old iron weathercock, with a marvellous specimen of the ornithological race pointing its gilded beak due west.
‘poor old james! what good days we might have had here!’ sighed maurice, as he looked back at the fair domain. it seemed a place saved out of the good old world, and was very pleasant to contemplate after the gimcrack palaces of the age we live in—in which all that architecture can conjure from the splendour of the past is more or less disfigured by the tinsel of the present.
‘dear old james, to think that he wanted to marry that poor little actress girl, and bring her to reign down here, in the glow and glory of those stained-glass windows—gorgeous with the armorial devices of a line of county families! innocent, simple-hearted lad! wandering about like a prince in a fairy tale, ready to fall in love with the first pretty girl he saw by the roadside, and to take her back to his kingdom.’
‘if you want to see trevanard’s farm before dark you must come on, sir,’ said elspeth.
maurice took the hint, and followed at his briskest pace. they were soon out of the pine grove, which they left by a little wooden gate, and on the wild wide hills, where the distant sheep-bell had an eerie sound in the still evening air.
even the gables of the manor house disappeared presently as they went down a dip in the hills. far off in a green hollow, maurice saw some white buildings—scattered untidily near a patch of water, which reflected the saffron-hued evening sky.
‘that’s trevanard’s,’ said elspeth, pointing to this spot.
‘i thought as much,’ said maurice, ‘then you need go no further. you’ve fairly earned your fee.’
he gave her the half-crown. the girl turned the coin over with a delighted look before she put it in her pocket.
‘i’ll go to borcel end with you,’ she said. ‘i’d as lief be on the hills as at home—sooner, for grandmother is not over-pleasant company.’
‘but you’d better go back now, my girl, or it’ll be dark long before you reach home.’
elspeth laughed, a queer impish cachinnation, which made maurice feel rather uncomfortable.
‘you don’t suppose i’m afraid of the dark,’ she said, in her shrill young voice, so young and yet so old in tone. ‘i know every star in the sky. besides, it’s never dark at this time of year. i’ll go on to borcel end with you. may be you mayn’t get accommodated there, and then i can show you a near way across the hills to penwyn village. you might get shelter at one of the cottages anyhow.’
‘upon my word you are very obliging,’ said maurice, surprised by this show of benevolence upon the damsel’s part.
‘do you know anything about this borcel end?’ he asked, presently, when they were going down into the valley.
‘i’ve never been inside it,’ answered elspeth, glibly, more communicative now than she had been an hour or two ago, when churchill questioned her about the house of penwyn. ‘mrs. trevanard isn’t one to encourage a poor girl like me about her place. she’s a rare hard one, they say, and would pinch and scrape for a sixpence; yet dresses fine on sundays, and lives well. there’s always good eating and drinking at borcel end, folks say. i’ve heard tell as it was a gentleman’s house once, before old squire penwyn bought it, and that there was a fine park round the house. there’s plenty of trees now, and a garden that has all gone to ruin. the gentleman that owned borcel spent all his money, people say, and old squire penwyn bought the place cheap, and turned it into a farm, and it’s been in the hands of the trevanards ever since, and they’re rich enough to buy the place three times over, people say, if squire penwyn would sell it.’
‘i don’t suppose i shall get a very warm welcome if this mrs. trevanard is such a disagreeable person,’ said maurice, beginning to feel doubtful as to the wisdom of asking hospitality at borcel end.
‘oh, i don’t know about that. she’s civil enough to gentlefolks, i’ve heard say. it’s only her servants and such like she’s so stiff with. you can but try.’
they were at the farm by this time. the old house stood before them—a broad stretch of greensward in front of it, with a pool of blackish-looking water in the middle, on which several broods of juvenile ducks were swimming gaily.
the house was large, the walls rough-cast, with massive timber framework. there was a roomy central porch, also of plaster and timber, and this and a projecting wing at each end of the house gave a certain importance to the building. some relics of its ancient gentility still remained, to show that borcel end had not always been the house of a tenant farmer. a coat of arms, roughly cut on a stone tablet over the front door, testified to its former owner’s pride of birth; and the quadrangular range of stables, stone-built, and more important than the house, indicated those sporting tastes which might have helped to dissipate the fortunes of a banished and half-forgotten race. but borcel end, in its brightest day, had never been such a mansion as the old tudor manor house of penwyn. there was a homeliness in the architecture which aspired to neither dignity nor beauty. low ceilings, square latticed windows, dormers in the roof, and heavy chimney-stacks. the only beauty which the place could have possessed at its best was the charm of rusticity—an honest, simple english home. to-day, however, borcel end was no longer at its best. the stone quadrangle, where the finest stud of hunters in the county had been lodged, was now a straw-yard for cattle; one side of the house was overshadowed by a huge barn, built out of the débris of the park wall; a colony of jovial pigs disported themselves in a small enclosure which had once been a maze. a remnant of hedgerow, densest yew, still marked the boundary of this ancient pleasance, but all the rest had vanished beneath the cloven hoof of the unclean animal.
though the farmyard showed on every side the tokens of agricultural prosperity, the house itself had a neglected air. the plaster walls, green and weather-stained, presented the curious blended hues of a stilton cheese in prime condition, the timber seemed perishing for want of a good coat of paint. poultry were pecking about close under the latticed windows, and even in the porch, and a vagabond pigling was thrusting his black nose in among the roots of one solitary rose bush which still lingered on the barren turf. borcel end, seen in this fading light, was hardly a homestead to attract the traveller.
‘i don’t think much of your borcel end,’ said maurice, with a disparaging air. ‘however, here goes for a fair trial of west-country hospitality.’
