# The Atlantic Monthly/Volume 17/Number 101/Griffith Gaunt: or, Jealousy

Featured in Volume 17, Number 101 of The Atlantic Monthly. (March 1866)
GRIFFITH GAUNT; OR, JEALOUSY.
CHAPTER IX.
GRIFFITH, with an effort he had not the skill to hide, stammered out, "Mistress Kate, I do wish you joy." Then, with sudden and touching earnestness, "Never did good fortune light on one so worthy of it."
"Thank you, Griffith," replied Kate, softly. (She had called him "Mr. Gaunt" in public till now.) "But money and lands do not always bring content. I think I was happier a minute ago than I feel now," said she, quietly.
The blood rushed into Griffith's face at this; for a minute ago might mean when he and she were talking almost like lovers about to wed. He was so overcome by this, he turned on his heel, and retreated hastily to hide his emotion, and regain, if possible, composure to play his part of host in the house that was his no longer.
Kate herself soon after retired, nominally to make her toilet before dinner; but really to escape the public and think it all over.
The news of her advancement had spread like wildfire; she was waylaid at the very door by the housekeeper, who insisted on showing her her house.
"Nay, never mind the house," said Kate; "just show me one room where I can wash my face and do my hair."
Mrs. Hill conducted her to the best bedroom; it was lined with tapestry, and all the colors flown; the curtains were a deadish yellow.
"Lud! here's a colored room to show me into," said the blonde Kate; "and a black grate, too. Why not take me out o' doors and bid me wash in the snow?"
"Alack, mistress," said the woman, feeling very uneasy, "we had no orders from Mr. Gaunt to light fires up stairs."
"O, if you wait for gentlemen's orders to make your house fit to live in! You knew there were a dozen ladies coming, yet you were not woman enough to light them fires. Come, take me to your own bedroom."
The woman turned red. "Mine is but a small room, my lady," she stammered.
"But there's a fire in it," said Kate, spitefully. "You servants don't wait for gentlemen's orders, to take care of yourselves."
Mrs. Hill said to herself, "I'm to leave; that's flat." However, she led the way down a passage, and opened the door of a pleasant little room in a square turret; a large bay window occupied one whole side of the room, and made it inexpressibly bright and cheerful, though rather hot and stuffy; a clear coal fire burned in the grate.
"Ah!" said Kate, "how nice! Please open those little windows, every one. I suppose you have sworn never to let wholesome air into a room. Thank you: now go and forget every cross word I have said to you,—I am out of sorts, and nervous, and irritable. There, run away, my good soul, and light fires in every room; and don't you let a creature come near me, or you and I shall quarrel downright."
Mrs. Hill beat a hasty retreat. Kate locked the door and threw herself backwards on the bed, with such a weary recklessness and abandon as if she was throwing herself into the sea, to end all her trouble,—and burst out crying.
It was one thing to refuse to marry her old sweetheart; it was another to take his property and reduce him to poverty. But here was she doing both, and going to be persuaded to marry Neville, and swell his wealth with the very possessions she had taken from Griffith; and him wounded into the bargain for love of her. It was really too cruel. It was an accumulation of different cruelties. Her bosom revolted; she was agitated, perplexed, irritated, unhappy, and all in a tumult; and although she had but one fit of crying,— ​the naked eye,—yet a person of her own sex would have seen that at one moment she was crying from agitated nerves, at another from worry, and at the next from pity, and then from grief.
In short, she had a good long, hearty, multiform cry; and it relieved her swelling heart, so far that she felt able to go down now, and hide her feelings, one and all, from friend and foe; to do which was unfortunately a part of her nature.
She rose and plunged her face into cold water, and then smoothed her hair.
Now, as she stood at the glass, two familiar voices came in through the open window, and arrested her attention directly. It was her father conversing with Griffith Gaunt. Kate pricked up her quick ears and listened, with her back hair in her hand. She caught the substance of their talk, only now and then she missed a word or two.
Mr. Peyton was speaking rather kindly to Griffith, and telling him he was as sorry for his disappointment as any father could be whose daughter had just come into a fortune. But then he went on and rather spoiled this by asking Griffith bluntly what on earth had ever made him think Mr. Charlton intended to leave him Bolton and Hernshaw.
Griffith replied, with manifest agitation, that Mr. Charlton had repeatedly told him he was to be his heir. "Not," said Griffith, "that he meant to wrong Mistress Kate, neither: poor old man, he always thought she and I should be one."
"Ah! well," said Squire Peyton, coolly, "there is an end of all that now."
At this observation Kate glided to the window, and laid her cheek on the sill to listen more closely.
But Griffith made no reply.
Mr. Peyton seemed dissatisfied at his silence, and being a person who, notwithstanding a certain superficial good-nature, saw his own side of a question very big, and his neighbor's very little, he was harder than perhaps he intended to be.
"Why, Master Gaunt," said he, "surely you would not follow my daughter now,—to feed upon a woman's bread. Come, be a man; and, if you are the girl's friend, don't stand in her light. You know she can wed your betters, and clap Bolton Hall on to Neville's Court. No doubt it is a disappointment to you: but what can't be cured must be endured; pluck up a bit of courage, and turn your heart another way; and then I shall always be a good friend to you, and my doors open to you come when you will."
Griffith made no reply. Kate strained her ears, but could not hear a syllable, A tremor ran through her. She was in distance farther from Griffith than her father was; but superior intelligence provided her with a bridge from her window to her old servant's mind. And now she felt that this great silence was the silence of despair.
But the Squire pressed him for a definite answer, and finally insisted on one. "Come, don't be so sulky," said he; "I'm her father: give me an answer, ay or no."
Then Kate heard a violent sigh, and out rushed a torrent of words that each seemed tinged with blood from the unfortunate speaker's heart. "Old man," he almost shrieked, "what did I ever do to you, that you torment me so? Sure you were born without bowels. Beggared but an hour agone, and now you must come and tell me I have lost her by losing house and lands! D'ye think I need to be told it? She was too far above me before, and now she is gone quite out of my reach. But why come and fling it in my face? Can't you give a poor, undone man one hour to draw his breath in trouble? And when you know I have got to play the host this bitter day, and smile, and smirk, and make you all merry, with my heart breaking! O Christ, look down and pity me, for men are made of stone! Well, then, no; I will not, I cannot say the word to give her up. She will ​discharge me, and then I'll fly the country and never trouble you more. And to think that one little hour ago she was so kind, and I was so happy! Ah, sir, if you were born of a woman, have a little pity, and don't speak to me of her at all, one way or other. What are you afraid of? I am a gentleman and a man, though sore my trouble: I shall not run after the lady of Bolton Hall. Why, sir, I have ordered the servants to set her chair in the middle of the table, where I shall not be able to speak to her, or even see her. Indeed I dare not look at her: for I must be merry. Merry! My arm it worries me, my head it aches, my heart is sick to death. Man! man! show me some little grace, and do not torture me more than flesh and blood can bear."
"You are mad, young sir," said the Squire, sternly, "and want locking up on bread and water for a month."
"I am almost mad," said Griffith, humbly. "But if you would only let me alone, and not tear my heart out of my body, I can hide my agony from the whole pack of ye, and go through my part like a man. I wish I was lying where I laid my only friend this afternoon."
"O, I don't want to speak to you," said Peyton, angrily; "and, by the same token, don't you speak to my daughter no more."
"Well, sir, if she speaks to me, I shall be sure to speak to her, without asking your leave or any man's. But I will not force myself upon the lady of Bolton Hall; don't you think it. Only for God's sake let me alone. I want to be by myself." And with this he hurried away, unable to bear it any more.
Peyton gave a hostile and contemptuous snort, and also turned on his heel, and went off in the opposite direction.
The effect of this dialogue on the listener was not to melt, but exasperate her. Perhaps she had just cried away her stock of tenderness. At any rate, she rose from her ambush a very basilisk; her eyes, usually so languid, flashed fire, and her forehead was red with indignation. She bit her lip, and clenched her hands, and her little foot beat the ground swiftly.
She was still in this state, when a timid tap came to the door, and Mrs. Hill asked her pardon, but dinner was ready, and the ladies and gentlemen all a waiting for her to sit down.
This reminded Kate she was the mistress of the house. She answered civilly she would be down immediately. She then took a last look in the glass; and her own face startled her.
"No," she thought, "they shall none of them know nor guess what I feel." And she stood before the glass and deliberately extracted all emotion from her countenance, and by way of preparation screwed on a spiteful smile.
When she had got her face to her mind, she went down stairs.
The gentlemen awaited her with impatience, the ladies with curiosity, to see how she would comport herself in her new situation. She entered, made a formal courtesy, and was conducted to her seat by Mr. Gaunt. He placed her in the middle of the table. "I play the host for this one day," said he, with some dignity; and took the bottom of the table himself.
Mr. Hammersley was to have sat on Kate's left, but the sly Neville persuaded him to change, and so got next to his inamorata; opposite to her sat her father, Major Rickards, and others unknown to fame.
Neville was in high spirits. He had the good taste to try and hide his satisfaction at the fatal blow his rival had received, and he entirely avoided the topic; but Kate saw at once, by his demure complacency, he was delighted at the turn things had taken, and he gained nothing by it: he found her a changed girl. Cold monosyllables were all he could extract from her. He returned to the charge a hundred times, with indomitable gallantry, but it was no use. Cold, haughty, sullen!
Her other neighbor fared little better; and in short the lady of the house made a vile impression. She was an ​iceberg,—a beautiful kill-joy,—a wet blanket of charming texture.
And presently Nature began to co-operate with her: long before sunset it grew prodigiously dark; and the cause was soon revealed by a fall of snow in flakes as large as a biscuit. A shiver ran through the people; and old Peyton blurted out, "I shall not go home to-night." Then he bawled across the table to his daughter: "You are at home. We will stay and take possession."
"O papa!" said Kate, reddening with disgust.
But if dulness reigned around the lady of the house, it was not so everywhere. Loud bursts of merriment were heard at the bottom of the table. Kate glanced that way in some surprise, and found it was Griffith making the company merry,—Griffith of all people.
The laughter broke out at short intervals, and by and by became uproarious and constant. At last she looked at Neville inquiringly.
"Our worthy host is setting us an example of conviviality," said he. "He is getting drunk."
"O, I hope not," said Kate. "Has he no friend to tell him not to make a fool of himself?"
"You take a great interest in him," said Neville, bitterly.
"Of course I do. Pray, do you desert your friends when ill luck falls on them?"
"Nay, Mistress Kate, I hope not."
"You only triumph over the misfortunes of your enemies, eh?" said the stinging beauty.
"Not even that. And as for Mr. Gaunt, I am not his enemy."
"O no, of course not. You are his best friend. Witness his arm at this moment."
"I am his rival, but not his enemy. I'll give you a proof." Then he lowered his voice, and said in her ear: "You are grieved at his losing Bolton; and, as you are very generous and noble-minded, you are all the more grieved because his loss is your gain." (Kate blushed at this shrewd hit.) Neville went on: "You don't like him well enough to marry him; and since you cannot make him happy, it hurts your good heart to make him poor."
"It is you for reading a lady's heart," said Kate, ironically.
George proceeded steadily. "I'll show you an easy way out of this dilemma."
"Thank you," said Kate, rather insolently.
"Give Mr. Gaunt Bolton and Hernshaw, and give me—your hand."
Kate turned and looked at him with surprise; she saw by his eye it was no jest. For all that, she affected to take it as one. "That would be long and short division," said she; but her voice faltered in saying it.
"So it would," replied George, coolly; "for Bolton and Hernshaw both are not worth one finger of that hand I ask of you. But the value of things lies in the mind that weighs 'em. Mr. Gaunt, you see, values Bolton and Hernshaw very highly; why, he is in despair at losing them. Look at him; he is getting rid of his reason before your very eyes, to drown his disappointment."
"Ah! oh! that is it, is it?" And, strange to say, she looked rather relieved.
"That is it, believe me: it is a way we men have. But, as I was saying, I don't care one straw for Bolton and Hernshaw. It is you I love,—not your land nor your house, but your sweet self; so give me that, and let the lawyers make over this famous house and lands to Mr. Gaunt. His antagonist I have been in the field, and his rival I am and must be, but not his enemy, you see, and not his ill-wisher."
Kate was softened a little. "This is all mighty romantic," said she, "and very like a preux chevalier, as you are; but you know very well he would fling land and house in your face, if you offered them him on these terms."
"Ay, in my face, if I offered them; but not in yours, if you."
"I am sure he would, all the same."
"Try him."
"What is the use?"
​"Try him."
Kate showed symptoms of uneasiness. "Well, I will," said she, stoutly. "No, that I will not. You begin by bribing me; and then you would set me to bribe him."
"It is the only way to make two honest men happy."
"If I thought that—"
"You know it. Try him."
"And suppose he says nay?"
"Then we shall be no worse than we are."
"And suppose he says ay?"
"Then he will wed Bolton Hall and Hernshaw, and the pearl of England will wed me."
"I have a great mind to take you at your word," said Kate; "but no; it is really too indelicate."
George Neville fixed his eyes on her. "Are you not deceiving yourself?" said he. "Do you not like Mr. Gaunt better than you think? I begin to fear you dare not put him to this test: you fear his love would not stand it?"
Kate colored high, and tossed her head proudly. "How shrewd you gentlemen are!" she said. "Much you know of a lady's heart. Now the truth is, I don't know what might not happen were I to do what you bid me. Nay, I'm wiser than you would have me; and I'll pity Mr. Gaunt at a safe distance, if you please, sir."
Neville bowed gravely. He felt sure this was a plausible evasion, and that she really was afraid to apply his test to his rival's love.
So now, for the first time, he became silent and reserved by her side. The change was noticed by Father Francis, and he fixed a grave, remonstrating glance on Kate. She received it, understood it, affected not to notice it, and acted upon it.
Drive a donkey too hard, it kicks.
Drive a man too hard, it hits.
Drive a woman too hard, it cajoles.
Now amongst them they had driven Kate Peyton too hard; so she secretly formed a bold resolution; and, this done, her whole manner changed for the better. She turned to Neville, and flattered and fascinated him. The most feline of her sex could scarcely equal her calinerie on this occasion. But she did not confine her fascination to him. She broke out, pro bono publico, like the sun in April, with quips and cranks and dimpled smiles, and made everybody near her quite forget her late hauteur and coldness, and bask in this sunny, sweet hostess. When the charm was at its height, the siren cast a seeming merry glance at Griffith, and said to a lady opposite, "Methinks some of the gentlemen will be glad to be rid of us," and so carried the ladies off to the drawing-room.
There her first act was to dismiss her smiles without ceremony; and her second was to sit down and write four lines to the gentleman at the head of the dining-table.
And he was as drunk as a fiddler.
CHAPTER X.
Griffith's friends laughed heartily with him while he was getting drunk; and when he had got drunk, they laughed still louder, only at him.
They "knocked him down" for a song; and he sang a rather Anacreontic one very melodiously, and so loud that certain of the servants, listening outside, derived great delectation from it; and Neville applauded ironically.
Soon after, they "knocked him down" for a story; and as it requires more brains to tell a story than to sing a song, the poor butt made an ass of himself. He maundered and wandered, and stopped, and went on, and lost one thread and took up another, and got into a perfect maze. And while he was thus entangled, a servant came in and brought him a note, and put it in his hand. The unhappy narrator received it with a sapient nod, but was too polite, or else too stupid, to open it, so closed his fingers on it, and went maundering on till his story trickled into the sand of the desert, and somehow ceased; for it could not be said to end, being a thing without head or tail.
​He sat down amidst derisive cheers. About five minutes afterwards, in some intermittent flash of reason, he found he had got hold of something. He opened his hand, and lo, a note! On this he chuckled unreasonably, and distributed sage, cunning winks around, as if he, by special ingenuity, had caught a nightingale, or the like; then, with sudden hauteur and gravity, proceeded to examine his prize.
But he knew the handwriting at once; and it gave him a galvanic shock that half sobered him for the moment.
He opened the note, and spelled it with great difficulty. It was beautifully written, in long, clear letters; but then those letters kept dancing so!
"Kate."
Griffith put the note in his pocket, and tried to think; but he could not think to much purpose. Then this made him suspect he was drunk. Then he tried to be sober; but he found he could not. He sat in a sort of stupid agony, with Love and Drink battling for his brain. It was piteous to see the poor fool's struggles to regain the reason he had so madly parted with. He could not do it; and when he found that, he took up a finger-glass, and gravely poured the contents upon his head.
At this there was a burst of laughter.
This irritated Mr. Gaunt; and, with that rapid change of sentiments which marks the sober savage and the drunken European, he offered to fight a gentleman he had been hitherto holding up to the company as his best friend. But his best friend (a very distant acquaintance) was by this time as tipsy as himself, and offered a piteous disclaimer, mingled with tears; and these maudlin drops so affected Griffith that he flung his one available arm round his best friend's head, and wept in turn; and down went both their lachrymose, empty noddles on the table. Griffith's remained there; but his best friend extricated himself, and, shaking his skull, said, dolefully, "He is very drunk." This notable discovery, coming from such a quarter, caused considerable merriment.
"Let him alone," said an old toper; and Griffith remained a good hour with his head on the table. Meantime the other gentlemen soon put it out of their power to ridicule him on the score of intoxication.
Griffith, keeping quiet, got a little better, and suddenly started up with a notion he was to go to Kate this very moment. He muttered an excuse, and staggered to a glass door that led to the lawn. He opened this door, and rushed out into the open air. He thought it would set him all right; but, instead of that, it made him so much worse that presently his legs came to a misunderstanding, and he measured his length on the ground, and could not get up again, but kept slipping down.
Upon this he groaned and lay quiet.
Now there was a foot of snow on the ground; and it melted about Griffith's hot temples and flushed face, and mightily refreshed and revived him.
He sat up and kissed Kate's letter, and Love began to get the upper hand of Liquor a little.
Finally he got up and half strutted, half staggered, to the turret, and stood under Kate's window.
The turret was covered with luxuriant ivy, and that ivy with snow. So the glass of the window was set in a massive frame of winter; but a bright fire burned inside the room, and this set the panes all aflame. It was cheery and glorious to see the window glow like a sheet of transparent fire in its deep frame of snow; but Griffith could not appreciate all that. He stood there a sorrowful man. The wine he had taken to drown his despair had lost its stimulating effect, and had given him a heavy head, but left him his sick heart.
He stood and puzzled his drowsy ​faculties why Kate had sent for him. Was it to bid him good by forever, or to lessen his misery by telling him she would not marry another? He soon gave up cudgelling his enfeebled brains. Kate was a superior being to him, and often said things, and did things, that surprised him. She had sent for him, and that was enough. He should see her and speak to her once more, at all events. He stood, alternately nodding and looking up at her glowing room, and longing for its owner to appear. But as Bacchus had inspired him to mistake eight o'clock for nine, and as she was not a votary of Bacchus, she did not appear; and he stood there till he began to shiver.
The shadow of a female passed along the wall; and Griffith gave a great start. Then he heard the fire poked. Soon after he saw the shadow again; but it had a large servant's cap on: so his heart had beaten high for Mary or Susan. He hung his head disappointed; and, holding on by the ivy, fell a nodding again.
By and by one of the little casements was opened softly. He looked up, and there was the right face peering out.
O, what a picture she was in the moonlight and the firelight! They both fought for that fair head, and each got a share of it: the full moon's silvery beams shone on her rose-like cheeks and lilified them a shade, and lit her great gray eyes and made them gleam astoundingly; but the ruby firelight rushed at her from behind, and flowed over her golden hair, and reddened and glorified it till it seemed more than mortal. And all this in a very picture-frame of snow.
Imagine, then, how sweet and glorious she glowed on him who loved her, and who looked at her perhaps for the last time.
The sight did wonders to clear his head; he stood open-mouthed, with his heart beating. She looked him all over a moment. "Ah!" said she. Then, quietly, "I am so glad you are come." Then, kindly and regretfully, "How pale you look! you are unhappy."
This greeting, so gentle and kind, overpowered Griffith. His heart was too full to speak.
Kate waited a moment; and then, as he did not reply to her, she began to plead to him. "I hope you are not angry with me," she said. "I did not want him to leave me your estates. I would not rob you of them for the world, if I had my way."
"Angry with you!" said Griffith. "I'm not such a villain. Mr. Charlton did the right thing, and—" He could say no more.
"I do not think so," said Kate. "But don't you fret: all shall be settled to your satisfaction. I cannot quite love you, but I have a sincere affection for you; and so I ought. Cheer up, dear Griffith; don't you be down-hearted about what has happened to-day."
Griffith smiled. "I don't feel unhappy," he said; "I did feel as if my heart was broken. But then you seemed parted from me. Now we are together, I feel as happy as ever. Mistress, don't you ever shut that window and leave me in the dark again. Let me stand and look at your sweet face all night, and I shall be the happiest man in Cumberland."
"Ay," said Kate, blushing at his ardor; "happy for a single night; but when I go away you will be in the dumps again, and perhaps get tipsy; as if that could mend matters! Nay, I must set your happiness on stronger legs than that. Do you know I have got permission to undo this cruel will, and let you have Bolton Hall and Hernshaw again?"
Griffith looked pleased, but rather puzzled.
Kate went on, but not so glibly now. "However," said she, a little nervously, "there is one condition to it that will cost us both some pain. If you consent to accept these two estates from me, who don't value them one straw, why then—"
"Well, what?" he gasped.
"Why, then, my poor Griffith, we shall be bound in honor—you and I—not to meet for some months, ​perhaps for a whole year: in one word,—do not hate me,—not till you can bear to see me—another—man's—wife."
The murder being out, she hid her face in her hands directly, and in that attitude awaited his reply.
Griffith stood petrified a moment; and I don't think his intellects were even yet quite clear enough to take it all in at once. But at last he did comprehend it, and when he did, he just uttered a loud cry of agony, and then turned his back on her without a word.
Man does not speak by words alone. A mute glance of reproach has ere now pierced the heart a tirade would have left untouched; and even an inarticulate cry may utter volumes.
Such an eloquent cry was that with which Griffith Gaunt turned his back upon the angelical face he adored, and the soft, persuasive tongue. There was agony, there was shame, there was wrath, all in that one ejaculation.
It frightened Kate. She called him back. "Don't leave me so," she said. "I know I have affronted you; but I meant all for the best. Do not let us part in anger."
At this Griffith returned in violent agitation. "It is your fault for making me speak," he cried. "I was going away without a word, as a man should, that is insulted by a woman. You heartless girl! What! you bid me sell you to that man for two dirty farms! O, well you know Bolton and Hernshaw were but the steps by which I hoped to climb to you: and now you tell me to part with you, and take those miserable acres instead of my darling. Ah, mistress, you have never loved, or you would hate yourself and despise yourself for what you have done. Love! if you had known what that word means, you couldn't look in my face and stab me to the heart like this. God forgive you! And sure I hope he will; for, after all, it is not your fault that you were born without a heart. Why, Kate, you are crying."
CHAPTER XI.
"Crying!" said Kate. "I could cry my eyes out to think what I have done; but it is not my fault: they egged me on. I knew you would fling those two miserable things in my face if I did, and I said so; but they would be wiser than me, and insist on my putting you to the proof."
"They? Who is they?"
"No matter. Whoever it was, they will gain nothing by it, and you will lose nothing. Ah, Griffith, I am so ashamed of myself,—and so proud of you."
"They?" repeated Griffith, suspiciously. "Who is this they?"
"What does that matter, so long as it was not Me? Are you going to be jealous again? Let us talk of you and me, and never mind who them is. You have rejected my proposal with just scorn: so now let me hear yours; for we must agree on something this very night. Tell me, now, what can I say or do to make you happy?"
Griffith was sore puzzled. "Alas! sweet Kate," said he, "I don't know what you can do for me now, except stay single for my sake."
"I should like nothing better," replied Kate warmly; "but unfortunately they won't let me do that. Father Francis will be at me to-morrow, and insist on my marrying Mr. Neville."
"But you will refuse."
"I would, if I could but find a good excuse."
"Excuse? why, say you don't love him."
"O, they won't allow that for a reason."
"Then I am undone," sighed Griffith.
"No, no, you are not; if I could be brought to pretend I love somebody else. And really, if I don't quite love you, I like you too well to let you be unhappy. Besides, I cannot bear to rob you of these unlucky farms: I think there is nothing I would not do rather than that. I think—I would rather—do—something very silly ​indeed. But I suppose you don't want me to do that now? Why don't you answer me? Why don't you say something? Are you drunk, sir, as they pretend? or are you asleep? O, I can't speak any plainer: this is intolerable. Mr. Gaunt, I'm going to shut the window."
Griffith got alarmed, and it sharpened his wits. "Kate, Kate!" he cried, "what do you mean? am I in a dream? would you marry poor me after all?"
"How on earth can I tell, till I am asked?" inquired Kate, with an air of childlike innocence, and inspecting the stars attentively.
"Kate, will you marry me?" said Griffith, all in a flutter.
"Of course I will—if you will let me," replied Kate, coolly, but rather tenderly, too.
Griffith burst into raptures. Kate listened to them with a complacent smile, then delivered herself after this fashion: "You have very little to thank me for, dear Griffith. I don't exactly downright love you, but I could not rob you of those unlucky farms, and you refuse to take them back any way but this; so what can I do? And then, for all I don't love you, I find I am always unhappy if you are unhappy, and happy when you are happy; so it comes pretty much to the same thing. I declare I am sick of giving you pain, and a little sick of crying in consequence. There, I have cried more in the last fortnight than in all my life before, and you know nothing spoils one's beauty like crying. And then you are so good, and kind, and true, and brave; and everybody is so unjust and so unkind to you, papa and all. You were quite in the right about the duel, dear. He is an impudent puppy; and I threw dust in your eyes, and made you own you were in the wrong, and it was a great shame of me, but it was because I liked you best. I could take liberties with you, dear. And you are wounded for me, and now I have disinherited you. O, I can't bear it, and I won't. My heart yearns for you,—bleeds for you. I would rather die than you should be unhappy; I would rather follow you in rags round the world than marry a prince and make you wretched. Yes, dear, I am yours. Make me your wife; and then some day I dare say I shall love you as I ought."
She had never showed her heart to him like this before; and now it overpowered him. So, being also a little under vinous influence, he stammered out something, and then fairly blubbered for joy. Then what does Kate do, but cry for company?
Presently, to her surprise, he was half-way up the turret, coming to her.
"O, take care! take care!" she cried. "You'll break your neck."
"Nay," cried he; "I must come at you, if I die for it."
The turret was ornamented from top to bottom with short ledges consisting of half-bricks. This ledge, shallow as it was, gave a slight foothold, insufficient in itself; but he grasped the strong branches of the ivy with a powerful hand, and so between the two contrived to get up and hang himself out close to her.
"Sweet mistress," said he, "put out your hand to me; for I can't take it against your will this time. I have got but one arm."
But this she declined. "No, no," said she; "you do nothing but torment and terrify me,—there." And so gave it him; and he mumbled it.
This last feat won her quite. She thought no other man could have got to her there with two arms; and Griffith had done it with one. She said to herself, "How he loves me!—more than his own neck." And then she thought, "I shall be wife to a strong man; that is one comfort."
In this softened mood she asked him demurely, would he take a friend's advice.
"If that friend is you, ay."
"Then," said she, "I'll do a downright brazen thing, now my hand is in. I declare I'll tell you how to secure me. You make me plight my troth with you this minute, and exchange rings with ​you, whether I like or not; engage my honor in this foolish business, and if you do that, I really do think you will have me in spite of them all. But there,—la!—am I worth all this trouble?"
Griffith did not share this chilling doubt. He poured forth his gratitude, and then told her he had got his mother's ring in his pocket; "I meant to ask you to wear it," said he.
"And why didn't you?"
"Because you became an heiress all of a sudden."
"Well, what signifies which of us has the dross, so that there is enough for both?"
"That is true," said Griffith, approving his own sentiment, but not recognizing his own words. "Here's my mother's ring, on my little finger, sweet mistress. But I must ask you to draw it off, for I have but one hand."
Kate made a wry face, "Well, that is my fault," said she, "or I would not take it from you so."
She drew off his ring, and put it on her finger. Then she gave him her largest ring, and had to put it on his little finger for him.
"You are making a very forward girl of me," said she, pouting exquisitely.
He kissed her hand while she was doing it.
"Don't you be so silly," said she; "and, you horrid creature, how you smell of wine! The bullet, please."
"The bullet!" exclaimed Griffith. "What bullet?"
"The bullet. The one you were wounded with for my sake. I am told you put it in your pocket; and I see something bulge in your waistcoat. That bullet belongs to me now."
"I think you are a witch," said he. "I do carry it about next my heart. Take it out of my waistcoat, if you will be so good."
She blushed and declined, and, with the refusal on her very lips, fished it out with her taper fingers. She eyed it with a sort of tender horror. The sight of it made her feel faint a moment. She told him so, and that she would keep it to her dying day. Presently her delicate finger found something was written on it. She did not ask him what it was, but withdrew, and examined it by her candle. Griffith had engraved it with these words:—
"I LOVE KATE."
He looked through the window, and saw her examine it by the candle. As she read the inscription, her face, glorified by the light, assumed a celestial tenderness he had never seen it wear before.
She came back and leaned eloquently out as if she would fly to him. "O Griffith, Griffith!" she murmured, and somehow or other their lips met, in spite of all the difficulties, and grew together in a long and tender embrace.
It was the first time she had ever given him more than her hand to kiss, and the rapture repaid him for all.
But as soon as she had made this great advance, virginal instinct suggested a proportionate retreat.
"You must go to bed," she said, austerely; "you will catch your death of cold out here."
He remonstrated: she insisted. He held out: she smiled sweetly in his face, and shut the window in it pretty sharply, and disappeared. He went disconsolately down his ivy ladder. As soon as he was at the bottom, she opened the window again, and asked him, demurely, if he would do something to oblige her.
He replied like a lover; he was ready to be cut in pieces, drawn asunder with wild horses, and so on.
"O, I know you would do anything stupid for me," said she; "but will you do something clever for a poor girl that is in a fright at what she is going to do for you?"
"Give your orders, mistress," said Griffith, "and don't talk of me obliging you. I feel quite ashamed to hear you talk so,—to-night especially."
"Well, then," said Kate, "first and foremost, I want you to throw yourself on Father Francis's neck."
"I'll throw myself on Father ​Francis's[Pg 375] neck," said Griffith, stoutly. "Is that all?"
"No, nor half. Once upon his neck you must say something. Then I had better settle the very words, or perhaps you will make a mess of it. Say after me now: O Father Francis, 'tis to you I owe her."
"O Father Francis, 'tis to you I owe her."
"You and I are friends for life."
"You and I are friends for life."
"And, mind, there is always a bed in our home for you, and a plate at our table, and a right welcome, come when you will."
Griffith repeated this line correctly, but, when requested to say the whole, broke down. Kate had to repeat the oration a dozen times; and he said it after her, like a Sunday-school scholar, till he had it pat.
The task achieved, he inquired of her what Father Francis was to say in reply.
At this simple question Kate showed considerable alarm. "Gracious heavens!" she cried, "you must not stop talking to him; he will turn you inside out, and I shall be undone. Nay, you must gabble these words out, and then run away as hard as you can gallop."
"But is it true?" asked Griffith. "Is he so much my friend?"
"Hum!" said Kate, "it is quite true, and he is not at all your friend. There, don't you puzzle yourself, and pester me; but do as you are bid, or we are both undone."
Quelled by a menace so mysterious, Griffith promised blind obedience; and Kate thanked him, and bade him good night, and ordered him peremptorily to bed.
He went.
She beckoned him back.
He came.
She leaned out, and inquired, in a soft, delicious whisper, as follows: "Are you happy, dearest?"
"Ay, Kate, the happiest of the happy."
"Then so am I," she murmured.
And now she slowly closed the window, and gradually retired from the eyes of her enraptured lover.
CHAPTER XII.
But while Griffith was thus sweetly employed, his neglected guests were dispersing, not without satirical comments on their truant host. Two or three, however, remained, and slept in the house, upon special invitation. And that invitation came from Squire Peyton. He chose to conclude that Griffith, disappointed by the will, had vacated the premises in disgust, and left him in charge of them; accordingly he assumed the master with alacrity, and ordered beds for Neville, and Father Francis, and Major Rickards, and another. The weather was inclement, and the roads heavy; so the gentlemen thus distinguished accepted Mr. Peyton's offer cordially.
There were a great many things sung and said at the festive board in the course of the evening, but very few of them would amuse or interest the reader as they did the hearers. One thing, however, must not be passed by, as it had its consequences. Major Rickards drank bumpers apiece to the King, the Prince, Church and State, the Army, the Navy, and Kate Peyton. By the time he got to her, two thirds of his discretion had oozed away in loyalty, esprit du corps, and port wine; so he sang the young lady's praises in vinous terms, and of course immortalized the very exploit she most desired to consign to oblivion: Arma viraginemque canebat. He sang the duel, and in a style which I could not, consistently with the interests of literature, reproduce on a large scale. Hasten we to the concluding versicles of his song.
"So then, sir, we placed our men for the third time, and, you may take my word for it, one or both of these heroes would have bit the dust at that discharge. But, by Jove, sir, just as they were going to pull trigger, in galloped your adorable daughter, and swooned off her foaming horse in the middle of ​us,—disarmed us, sir, in a moment, melted our valor, bewitched our senses, and the great god of war had to retreat before little Cupid and the charms of beauty in distress."
"Little idiot!" observed the tender parent; and was much distempered.
He said no more about it to Major Rickards; but when they all retired for the night, he undertook to show Father Francis his room, and sat in it with him a good half-hour talking about Kate.
"Here's a pretty scandal," said he. "I must marry the silly girl out of hand before this gets wind, and you must help me."
In a word, the result of the conference was that Kate should be publicly engaged to Neville to-morrow, and married to him as soon as her month's mourning should be over.
The conduct of the affair was confided to Father Francis, as having unbounded influence with her.
CHAPTER XIII.
Next morning Mr. Peyton was up betimes in his character of host, and ordered the servants about, and was in high spirits; only they gave place to amazement when Griffith Gaunt came down, and played the host, and was in high spirits.
Neville too watched his rival, and was puzzled at his radiancy.
So breakfast passed in general mystification. Kate, who could have thrown a light, did not come down to breakfast. She was on her defence.
She made her first appearance out of doors.
Very early in the morning, Mr. Peyton, in his quality of master, had ordered the gardener to cut and sweep the snow off the gravel walk that went round the lawn. And on this path Miss Peyton was seen walking briskly to and fro in the frosty, but sunny air.
Griffith saw her first, and ran out to bid her good morning.
Her reception of him was a farce. She made him a stately courtesy for the benefit of the three faces glued against the panes, but her words were incongruous. "You wretch," said she, "don't come here. Hide about, dearest, till you see me with Father Francis. I'll raise my hand so when you are to cuddle him, and fib. There, make me a low bow, and retire."
He obeyed, and the whole thing looked mighty formal and ceremonious from the breakfast-room.
"With your good leave, gentlemen," said Father Francis, dryly, "I will be the next to pay my respects to her." With this he opened the window and stepped out.
Kate saw him, and felt very nervous. She met him with apparent delight.
He bestowed his morning benediction on her, and then they walked silently side by side on the gravel; and from the dining-room window it looked like anything but what it was,—a fencing match.
Father Francis was the first to break silence. He congratulated her on her good fortune, and on the advantage it might prove to the true Church.
Kate waited quietly till he had quite done, and then said, "What, I may go into a convent now that I can bribe the door open?"
The scratch was feline, feminine, sudden, and sharp. But, alas! Father Francis only smiled at it. Though not what we call spiritually-minded, he was a man of a Christian temper. "Not with my good-will, my daughter," said he; "I am of the same mind still, and more than ever. You must marry forthwith, and rear children in the true faith."
"What a hurry you are in."
"Your own conduct has made it necessary."
"Why, what have I done now?"
"No harm. It was a good and humane action to prevent bloodshed, but the world is not always worthy of good actions. People are beginning to make free with your name for your interfering in the duel."
Kate fired up. "Why can't people mind their own business?"
​"I do not exactly know," said the priest, coolly, "nor is it worth inquiring. We must take human nature as it is, and do for the best. You must marry him, and stop their tongues."
Kate pretended to reflect. "I believe you are right," said she, at last; "and indeed I must do as you would have me; for, to tell the truth, in an unguarded moment, I pitied him so that I half promised I would."
"Indeed!" said Father Francis. "This is the first I have heard of it."
Kate replied that was no wonder, for it was only last night she had so committed herself.
"Last night!" said Father Francis; "how can that be? He was never out of my sight till we went to bed."
"O, there I beg to differ," said the lady. "While you were all tippling in the dining-room, he was better employed,—making love by moonlight. And O what a terrible thing opportunity is, and the moon another! There! what with the moonlight, and my pitying him so, and all he has suffered for me, and my being rich now, and having something to give him, we two are engaged. See else: this was his mother's ring, and he has mine."
"Mr. Neville?"
"Mr. Neville? No. My old servant, to be sure. What, do you think I would go and marry for wealth, when I have enough and to spare of my own? O, what an opinion you must have of me!"
Father Francis was staggered by this adroit thrust. However, after a considerable silence he recovered himself, and inquired gravely why she had given him no hint of all this the other night, when he had diverted her from a convent, and advised her to marry Neville.
"That you never did, I'll be sworn," said Kate.
Father Francis reflected.
"Not in so many words, perhaps; but I said enough to show you."
"O!" said Kate, "such a matter was too serious for hints and innuendoes; if you wanted me to jilt my old servant and wed an acquaintance of yesterday, why not say so plainly? I dare say I should have obeyed you, and been unhappy for life; but now my honor is solemnly engaged; my faith is plighted; and were even you to urge me to break faith, and behave dishonorably, I should resist. I would liever take poison, and die."
Father Francis looked at her steadily, and she colored to the brow.
"You are a very apt young lady," said he; "you have outwitted your director. That may be my fault as much as yours; so I advise you to provide yourself with another director, whom you will be unable, or unwilling, to outwit."
Kate's high spirit fell before this: she turned her eyes, full of tears, on him. "O, do not desert me, now that I shall need you more than ever, to guide me in my new duties. Forgive me; I did not know my own heart—quite. I'll go into a convent now, if I must; but I can't marry any man but poor Griffith. Ah, father, he is more generous than any of us! Would you believe it? when he thought Bolton and Hernshaw were coming to him, he said if I married him I should have the money to build a convent with. He knows how fond I am of a convent."
"He was jesting; his religion would not allow it."
"His religion!" cried Kate. Then, lifting her eyes to Heaven, and looking just like an angel, "Love is his religion!" said she, warmly.
"Then his religion is Heathenism," said the priest, grimly.
"Nay, there is too much charity in it for that," retorted Kate, keenly.
Then she looked down, like a cunning, guilty thing, and murmured: "One of the things I esteem him for is he always speaks well of you. To be sure, just now the poor soul thinks you are his best friend with me. But that is my fault; I as good as told him so: and it is true, after a fashion; for you kept me out of the convent that was his only real rival. Why, here he comes. O ​father, now don't you go and tell him you side with Mr. Neville."
At this crisis Griffith, who, to tell the truth, had received a signal from Kate, rushed at Father Francis and fell upon his neck, and said with great rapidity: "O Father Francis, 'tis to you I owe her,—you and I are friends for life. So long as we have a house there is a bed in it for you, and whilst we have a table to sit down to there's a plate at it for you, and a welcome, come when you will."
Having gabbled these words he winked at Kate, and fled swiftly.
Father Francis was taken aback a little by this sudden burst of affection. First he stared,—then he knitted his brows,—then he pondered.
Kate stole a look at him, and her eyes sought the ground.
"That is the gentleman you arranged matters with last night?" said he, drily.
"Yes," replied Kate, faintly.
"Was this scene part of the business?"
"O father!"
"Why I ask, he did it so unnatural. Mr. Gaunt is a worthy, hospitable gentleman; he and I are very good friends; and really I never doubted that I should be welcome in his house ——— until this moment."
"And can you doubt it now?"
"Almost: his manner just now was so hollow, so forced; not a word of all that came from his heart, you know."
"Then his heart is changed very lately."
The priest shook his head. "Anything more like a puppet, and a parrot to boot, I never saw. 'Twas done so timely, too. He ran in upon our discourse. Let me see your hand, mistress. Why, where is the string with which you pulled yonder machine in so pat upon the word?"
"Spare me!" muttered Kate, faintly.
"Then do you drop deceit and the silly cunning of your sex, and speak to me from your heart, or not at all." (Diapason.)
At this Kate began to whimper.
"Father," she said, "show me some mercy." Then, suddenly clasping her hands: "Have pity on him, and on me."
This time Nature herself seemed to speak, and the eloquent cry went clean through the priest's heart.
"Ah!" said he; and his own voice trembled a little: "now you are as strong as your cunning was weak. Come, I see how it is with you; and I am human, and have been young, and a lover into the bargain, before I was a priest. There, dry thy eyes, child, and go to thy room; he thou couldst not trust shall bear the brunt for thee this once."
Then Kate bowed her fair head and kissed the horrid paw of him that had administered so severe but salutary a pat. She hurried away up stairs, right joyful at the unexpected turn things had taken.
Father Francis, thus converted to her side, lost no time; he walked into the dining-room and told Neville he had bad news for him.
"Summon all your courage, my young friend," said he, with feeling, "and remember that this world is full of disappointments."
Neville said nothing, but rose and stood rather pale, waiting like a man for the blow. Its nature he more than half guessed: he had been at the window.
It fell.
"She is engaged to Gaunt, since last night; and she loves him."
"The double-faced jade!" cried Peyton, with an oath.
"The heartless coquette!" groaned Neville.
Father Francis made excuses for her: "Nay, nay, she is not the first of her sex that did not know her own mind all at once. Besides, we men are blind in matters of love; perhaps a woman would have read her from the first. After all, she was not bound to give us the eyes to read a female heart."
He next reminded Neville that Gaunt had been her servant for years. "You ​knew that," said he, "yet you came between them ——— at your peril. Put yourself in his place: say you had succeeded: would not his wrong be greater than yours is now? Come, be brave; be generous; he is wounded, he is disinherited; only his love is left him: 'tis the poor man's lamb; and would you take it?"
"O, I have not a word to say against the man," said George, with a mighty effort.
"And what use is your quarrelling with the woman?" suggested the practical priest.
"None whatever," said George, sullenly. After a moment's silence he rang the bell feverishly. "Order my horse round directly," said he. Then he sat down, and buried his face in his hands, and did not, and could not, listen to the voice of consolation.
Now the house was full of spies in petticoats, amateur spies, that ran and told the mistress everything of their own accord, to curry favor.
And this no doubt was the cause that, just as the groom walked the piebald out of the stable towards the hall door, a maid came to Father Francis with a little note: he opened it, and found these words written faintly, in a fine Italian hand:—
"I scarce knew my own heart till I saw him wounded and poor, and myself rich at his expense. Entreat Mr. Neville to forgive me."
He handed the note to Neville without a word.
Neville read it, and his lip trembled; but he said nothing, and presently went out into the hall, and put on his hat, for he saw his nag at the door.
Father Francis followed him, and said, sorrowfully, "What, not one word in reply to so humble a request?"
"Well, here's my reply," said George, grinding his teeth. "She knows French, though she pretends not.
'Le bruit est pour le fat, la plainte est pour le sot, L'honnête homme trompé s'eloigne et ne dit mot.'"
And with this he galloped furiously away.
He buried himself at Neville's Cross for several days, and would neither see nor speak to a soul. His heart was sick, his pride lacerated. He even shed some scalding tears in secret; though, to look at him, that seemed impossible.
So passed a bitter week: and in the course of it he bethought him of the tears he had made a true Italian lady shed, and never pitied her a grain till now.
He was going abroad: on his desk lay a little crumpled paper. It was Kate's entreaty for forgiveness. He had ground it in his hand, and ridden away with it.
Now he was going away, he resolved to answer her.
He wrote a letter full of bitter reproaches; read it over; and tore it up.
He wrote a satirical and cutting letter; read it; and tore it up.
He wrote her a mawkish letter; read it; and tore it up.
The priest's words, scorned at first, had sunk into him a little.
He walked about the room, and tried to see it all like a by-stander.
He examined her writing closely: the pen had scarcely marked the paper. They were the timidest strokes. The writer seemed to kneel to him. He summoned all his manhood, his fortitude, his generosity, and, above all, his high-breeding; and produced the following letter; and this one he sent:—
"Mistress Kate,—I leave England to-day for your sake; and shall never return unless the day shall come when I can look on you but as a friend. The love that ends in hate, that is too sorry a thing to come betwixt you and me.
"George Neville."
And he went straight to Italy.
Kate laid his note upon her knee, and sighed deeply; and said, "Poor fellow! How noble of him! What can such ​men as this see in any woman to go and fall in love with her?"
Griffith found her with a tear in her eye. He took her out walking, and laid all his radiant plans of wedded life before her. She came back flushed, and beaming with complacency and beauty.
Old Peyton was brought to consent to the marriage. Only he attached one condition, that Bolton and Hernshaw should be settled on Kate for her separate use.
To this Griffith assented readily; but Kate refused plump. "What, give him myself, and then grudge him my estates!" said she, with a look of lofty and beautiful scorn at her male advisers.
But Father Francis, having regard to the temporal interests of his Church, exerted his strength and pertinacity, and tired her out; so those estates were put into trustees' hands, and tied up tight as wax.
This done, Griffith Gaunt and Kate Peyton were married, and made the finest pair that wedded in the county that year.
As the bells burst into a merry peal, and they walked out of church man and wife, their path across the churchyard was strewed thick with flowers, emblematic, no doubt, of the path of life that lay before so handsome a couple.
They spent the honeymoon in London, and tasted earthly felicity.
Yet did not quarrel after it; but subsided into the quiet complacency of wedded life.
CHAPTER XIV.
Mr. and Mrs. Gaunt lived happily together—as times went.
A fine girl and boy were born to them; and need I say how their hearts expanded and exulted, and seemed to grow twice as large.
The little boy was taken from them at three years old; and how can I convey to any but a parent the anguish of that first bereavement?
Well, they suffered it together, and that poignant grief was one tie more between them.
For many years they did not furnish any exciting or even interesting matter to this narrator. And all the better for them: without these happy periods of dulness our lives would be hell, and our hearts eternally bubbling and boiling in a huge pot made hot with thorns.
In the absence of striking incidents, it may be well to notice the progress of character, and note the tiny seeds of events to come.
Neither the intellectual nor the moral character of any person stands stock-still: a man improves, or he declines. Mrs. Gaunt had a great taste for reading; Mr. Gaunt had not: what was the consequence? At the end of seven years the lady's understanding had made great strides; the gentleman's had apparently retrograded.
Now we all need a little excitement, and we all seek it, and get it by hook or by crook. The girl who satisfies that natural craving with what the canting dunces of the day call a "sensational" novel, and the girl who does it by waltzing till daybreak, are sisters; only one obtains the result intellectually, and the other obtains it like a young animal, and a pain in her empty head next day.
Mrs. Gaunt could enjoy company, but was never dull with a good book. Mr. Gaunt was a pleasant companion, but dull out of company. So, rather than not have it, he would go to the parlor of the "Red Lion," and chat and sing with the yeomen and rollicking young squires that resorted thither: and this was matter of grief and astonishment to Mrs. Gaunt.
It was balanced by good qualities she knew how to appreciate. Morals were much looser then than now; and more than one wife of her acquaintance had a rival in the village, or even among her own domestics; but Griffith had no loose inclinations of that kind, and never gave her a moment's uneasiness. He was constancy and fidelity in person.
Sobriety had not yet been invented. ​But Griffith was not so intemperate as most squires; he could always mount the stairs to tea, and generally without staggering.
He was uxorious, and it used to come out after his wine. This Mrs. Gaunt permitted at first, but by and by says she, expanding her delicate nostrils: "You may be as affectionate as you please, dear, and you may smell of wine, if you will; but please not to smell of wine and be affectionate at the same moment. I value your affection too highly to let you disgust me with it."
And the model husband yielded to this severe restriction; and, as it never occurred to him to give up his wine, he forbore to be affectionate in his cups.
One great fear Mrs. Gaunt had entertained before marriage ceased to haunt her. Now and then her quick eye saw Griffith writhe at the great influence her director had with her; but he never spoke out to offend her, and she, like a good wife, saw, smiled, and adroitly, tenderly soothed: and this was nothing compared to what she had feared.
Griffith saw his wife admired by other men, yet never chid nor chafed. The merit of this belonged in a high degree to herself. The fact is, that Kate Peyton, even before marriage, was not a coquette at heart, though her conduct might easily bear that construction; and she was now an experienced matron, and knew how to be as charming as ever, yet check or parry all approaches to gallantry on the part of her admirers. Then Griffith observed how delicate and prudent his lovely wife was, without ostentatious prudery; and his heart was at peace.
He was the happier of the two, for he looked up to his wife, as well as loved her; whereas she was troubled at times with a sense of superiority to her husband. She was amiable enough, and wise enough, to try and shut her eyes to it; and often succeeded, but not always.
Upon the whole, they were a contented couple; though the lady's dreamy eyes seemed still to be exploring earth and sky in search of something they had not yet found, even in wedded life.
They lived at Hernshaw. A letter had been found among Mr. Charlton's papers explaining his will. He counted on their marrying, and begged them to live at the castle. He had left it on his wife's death; it reminded him too keenly of happier days; but, as he drew near his end, and must leave all earthly things, he remembered the old house with tenderness, and put out his dying hand to save it from falling into decay.
Unfortunately, considerable repairs were needed; and, as Kate's property was tied up so tight, Griffith's two thousand pounds went in repairing the house, lawn, park palings, and walled gardens; went, every penny, and left the bridge over the lake still in a battered, rotten, and, in a word, picturesque condition.
This lake was by the older inhabitants sometimes called the "mere," and sometimes "the fish-pools"; it resembled an hour-glass in shape, only curved like a crescent.
In mediæval times it had no doubt been a main defence of the place. It was very deep in parts, especially at the waist or narrow that was spanned by the decayed bridge. There were hundreds of carp and tench in it older than any He in Cumberland, and also enormous pike and eels; and fish from one to five pounds' weight by the million. The water literally teemed from end to end; and this was a great comfort to so good a Catholic as Mrs. Gaunt. When she was seized with a desire to fast, and that was pretty often, the gardener just went down to the lake and flung a casting-net in some favorite hole, and drew out half a bushel the first cast; or planted a flue-net round a patch of weeds, then belabored the weeds with a long pole, and a score of fine fish were sure to run out into the meshes.
The "mere" was clear as plate glass, and came to the edge of the shaven lawn, and reflected flowers, turf, and overhanging shrubs deliciously.
Yet an ill name brooded over its ​seductive waters; for two persons had been drowned in it during the last hundred years: and the last one was the parson of the parish, returning from the squire's dinner in the normal condition of a guest, a.d. 1740-50. But what most affected the popular mind was, not the jovial soul hurried into eternity, but the material circumstance that the greedy pike had cleared the flesh off his bones in a single night, so that little more than a skeleton, with here and there a black rag hanging to it, had been recovered next morning.
This ghastly detail being stoutly maintained and constantly repeated by two ancient eye-witnesses, whose one melodramatic incident and treasure it was, the rustic mind saw no beauty whatever in those pellucid and delicious waters, where flowers did glass themselves.
As for the women of the village, they looked on this sheet of water as a trap for their poor bodies and those of their children, and spoke of it as a singular hardship in their lot, that Hernshaw Mere had not been filled up threescore years agone.
The castle itself was no castle, nor had it been for centuries. It was just a house with battlements; but attached to the stable was an old square tower, that really had formed part of the mediæval castle.
However, that unsubstantial shadow, a name, is often more durable than the thing, especially in rural parts; but, indeed, what is there in a name for Time's teeth to catch hold of?
Though no castle, it was a delightful abode. The drawing-room and dining-room had both spacious bay-windows, opening on to the lawn that sloped very gradually down to the pellucid lake, and there was mirrored. On this sweet lawn the inmates and guests walked for sun and mellow air, and often played bowls at eventide.
On the other side was the drive up to the house-door, and a sweep, or small oval plot, of turf, surrounded by gravel; and a gate at the corner of this sweep opened into a grove of the grandest old spruce-firs in the island.
This grove, dismal in winter and awful at night, was deliciously cool and sombre in the dog-days. The trees were spires; and their great stems stood serried like infantry in column, and flung a grand canopy of sombre plumes overhead. A strange, antique, and classic grove,—nulli penetrabilis astro.
This retreat was enclosed on three sides by a wall, and on the east side came nearly to the house. A few laurel-bushes separated the two. At night it was shunned religiously, on account of the ghosts. Even by daylight it was little frequented, except by one person,—and she took to it amazingly. That person was Mrs. Gaunt. There seems to be, even in educated women, a singular, instinctive love of twilight; and here was twilight at high noon. The place, too, suited her dreamy, meditative nature. Hither, then, she often retired for peace and religious contemplation, and moved slowly in and out among the tall stems, or sat still, with her thoughtful brow leaned on her white hand,—till the cool, umbrageous retreat got to be called, among the servants, "The Dame's Haunt."
This, I think, is all needs be told about the mere place, where the Gaunts lived comfortably many years, and little dreamed of the strange events in store for them; little knew the passions that slumbered in their own bosoms, and, like other volcanoes, bided their time.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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