Mary Seaham Volume Iii Part 20

A shout from the spectators, now congregated in considerable numbers, announced the anxiously expected arrival of Eugene Trevor. One second's pause, as raising himself in his stirrups, he seemed in one wild, hurried, desperate glance to review the fearful scene--then casting away the reins and springing to the ground, called out in a hoa.r.s.e loud voice an inquiry for his father; but without waiting an answer--or perhaps reading the full truth too plainly revealed on the countenances of those around him--he darted forward, almost as the servant had related (it might have appeared with the desperate impulse to attempt even then the rescue of his father's remains); when, either repelled by the violent heat or suddenly recalled to recollection, he staggered back, struck his clenched hand wildly against his brow, and turned away just as that part of the roofing gave way; the flames bursting out with increasing fury necessitating a hasty retreat. The conflagration presented altogether a scene of awful grandeur. Engines were playing on the other extremity of the mansion, though little hopes of checking the devastation were entertained.

All the furniture and other valuable property which it had been possible to rescue had been already removed, and now lay strewn out in the park before the house; and there, a little aloof from the rest of the crowd, with arms folded on his breast, stood Eugene Trevor watching the progress of the demolition--the terrible glare distinctly revealing the expression of dark despair settled in his glazed eyes and upturned countenance.

A few gentlemen of the neighbourhood were on the spot, but a feeling of delicacy restrained them from intruding on the sufferer their sympathy at that dreadful moment.

The feelings of a man who stands beholding the house of his forefathers burning before his eyes, with the fearful knowledge that a parent's blackened corpse is consuming to ashes beneath the ruins, might seem indeed to require no other consideration to render their harrowing nature complete. But were these the subject matter of the thoughts which pressed upon the soul of Eugene Trevor at that awful moment?--or had it been the natural promptings of filial piety alone which at first had impelled him to rush forwards in that fatal direction?

Alas! no--rather must we fear it was the impulse of the man, goaded by the consciousness that there too was consuming the papers on whose existence all which he had staked his greedy soul to obtain, and the destruction of which must be the total demolition of all his unrighteous hopes and prospects, bring him to the feet of an injured and offended brother, and prove, in short, his ruin.

The work of destruction continued unabated; portion after portion of the burning ma.s.s gradually gave way; the roof of the large dining-room fell in with a tremendous crash, and all the interior part of the mansion being now destroyed, nothing remained but the mere skeleton of one of the oldest, stateliest residences in the kingdom.

By this time, Eugene Trevor had turned away, and exerted himself to speak with the superior servants and superintendents of the estate; and then the friends still lingering by, hesitated no longer to draw near.

They first shook hands in silent and sorrowful token of their sympathy with the bereaved man, proceeding to press upon him invitations to accompany them to their respective homes. Eugene received their advances with as much calmness as could be expected; their hospitality, however, he thankfully declined.

If he went anywhere he had promised to return to Silverton, but his presence would be required on the spot some time longer. After he had seen to everything that remained to be done, he should probably go to ----, the town four miles distant. He had hurt his arm by approaching too near the fire, and must have it looked at by a surgeon.

His friends had too much consideration to urge him further, and having received his repeated thanks, and a.s.sured them that they could not be of any further a.s.sistance, they departed.

The further proceedings of that night, or rather morning (for it was about four o'clock) before the work of ruin was finally achieved, were, as may be supposed, to seek for the remains of Mr. Trevor from amidst the wreck of the fallen house. They were at length discovered.

There they lay: the iron chests which lined the apartment, (once the general library of the mansion, but long since monopolized by Mr. Trevor for his especial use and purposes)--and which alone remained of everything belonging to it, testified to its ident.i.ty. The existence of these giving hopes of the security of its contents, caused a ray of renovated hope to kindle on the countenance of Eugene Trevor, who superintended the investigation in person.

But the hope was but transitory. The position of the blackened bones indicating his father's remains, plainly betokened the vicinity of the miser to the old oak _bureau_, at the time of his dreadful death: of that receptacle, of course, nothing now remained but the iron bends which had once so jealously secured its contents, and the blackened ashes of paper in considerable quant.i.ty; rendering it still more probable that the horrible catastrophe had originated through their means--namely, that the wretched old man had set some of them on fire during their examination; indeed, within the fleshless hand of the miser, clutched doubtless in his dying agony, there still remained a scorched fragment of parchment, upon which the eager eyes of his son still deciphered a word or two, which at once told him his fate was decided; that it was the unrighteous will on which his future fortunes so strongly depended, the last atom of which, miraculously preserved, he now beheld.

A few moments more, and Eugene Trevor turned his back upon the smoking ruins of his home; and soon, in the hateful light of morning, with bent brow and livid cheek, was riding away to ----, with feelings at his heart it would be indeed but a futile endeavour to describe.

With the guilty woe of him who ponders over a well-merited fate--a serpent wound around the heart, stinging its every thought to strife--can alone perhaps suggest a fit comparison, when applied to the state of a man's mind under circ.u.mstances like the present.

CHAPTER XIX.

Away, come down from your tribunal seats; Put off your robes of state, and let your mien Be pale and humbled.

Mr. de Burgh was in the north of England when he received news of the destruction of Montrevor, by means both of the public papers and a few hurried lines from his wife.

He had been contemplating at the time a speedy return; but this dreadful intelligence hastened his movements, and three days after the fire he arrived at Silverton.

Mr. de Burgh did not see Mary at first. The unrest and agitation of mind under which for some time she had been suffering, brought to a climax by the shock this last dire event had occasioned, produced its physical effect, a kind of low nervous fever, now confined her to her bed.

Her cousin Louis was surprised to hear of Mary's being at Silverton, Mrs. de Burgh having slightly mentioned the fact in her hurried letter to him; nor did she consider it at all necessary to enlighten her husband as to the cause and circ.u.mstances of her visit when on the night of his return, Mr. de Burgh commented somewhat sarcastically on the subject.

"Yes, Mary was very kind to come to me, when I told her of my accident and loneliness--indeed I do not see in the least why she should not have come," Mrs. de Burgh remarked.

"Nor I either, if she likes it," he answered drily--"at any rate this fire will bring matters to a crisis both as regards her affair with Eugene Trevor, as it will also a few others."

"Of course you will go and see after poor Eugene to-morrow, and try and persuade him to come here."

"Of course--but as to coming to stay here, I am pretty well persuaded that Eugene Trevor will have too much on his mind just now to think of visiting any where. I shall be curious to know how things will turn out."

"Oh, of course my poor uncle left Eugene all the money," Mrs. de Burgh said.

"Most probably, all his immense savings, but you know the estates are strictly entailed."

"Yes ...," was the answer, with some hesitation; "but if Eustace Trevor does not make his appearance."

"That will not alter the entail whilst he is alive, and every exertion will be made which can lead to his discovery, if his father's death does not, indeed, as there is every likelihood, make him come forward of himself."

"But if he is mad?"

"Pshaw!" was the only reply deigned by Mr. de Burgh, with the expression of indignant incredulity, which any such allusion always excited in him.

Mrs. de Burgh was silent for a few moments, but there was a very significant display of intelligence visible on her countenance.

The fact was, that she was inwardly struggling between a very womanly desire to let out the secret of which she was in possession, and the unwillingness she felt to gratify her husband by the communication of Eugene's rejection by Mary--also she felt some hesitating repugnance to relate the particulars concerning the ident.i.ty of the lost Eustace Trevor with Mr. Temple, the esteemed and beloved friend of all the Seaham family. But then her silence would but for a few hours postpone the intelligence--the truth would be revealed by Mary on the first opportunity, if it transpired not through other means. So at length, after keeping it fluttering for some time on the tip of her undecided tongue, the final plunge was taken, some mysteriously oracular words were spoken, which excited Mr. de Burgh's curiosity, and led to the full and final developement of the whole story of "Mr. Temple," and every particular relating to him as received from Mary. The surprise and interest of Mr. de Burgh at this communication, was of course extreme.

He was much excited, walking about the room and questioning his wife over and over again on the subject, whilst she having once broken the ice scrupled not to afford him every satisfaction in her power--nay, taxing her imagination and ingenuity to make the romantic story even more extraordinary than it really was.

The following morning Mr. de Burgh rode off immediately after breakfast for the town of ----, and on his return late that afternoon desired to see Mary, and though Mrs. de Burgh objected that she was not fit for any exciting conversation--that she was very weak and ill, so much so, that she was going to write to Arthur Seaham to come to Silverton as soon as it was possible--Mr. de Burgh persisted on its being a matter of importance, the more so when he heard, that, on that very morning Mary had received a foreign letter, which Mrs. de Burgh supposed was from her friend the clergyman, the companion of Eustace Trevor, though she had not as yet alluded to its contents, which seemed nevertheless to have considerably affected Mary.

Mr. de Burgh was, therefore, in the course of the evening, taken to Mary's room, where she was lying on the sofa ready to receive her cousin, for whose visit she had been previously prepared.

The interview lasted some time--when Mr. de Burgh left the room, he immediately sat down and wrote a note, which he dispatched without delay. It was, he afterwards told Mrs. de Burgh, when she could induce him to satisfy her curiosity, to the lawyer concerned in the management of the Trevor affairs, whom he had seen that day. He had just written to inform him where Eustace Trevor was to be found, it being proposed to send a special messenger abroad to summon him to England, in order to take possession of his inheritance.

"No will of any kind having been found in existence, Eustace Trevor comes of course into undisputed possession of the property and estates, both entailed and unentailed, that is to say," added Mr. de Burgh, with something of sarcastic triumph in his tone, "if he is found in a fit state of mind to enter upon his rights."

"And poor Eugene," demanded Mrs. de Burgh, bitterly.

"Eugene, I did not see," answered her husband; "a hurt he received the night of the fire, it seems, was inclining to inflammation, and he was ordered to keep quiet; at least, he would not see me when I called at the inn. The lawyer tells me he seems suffering much anxiety and distress of mind; no wonder, for from what I hear, it will go hard with him, if he finds not a generous and forgiving brother in Eustace Trevor; his ten thousand pounds, the portion secured by the marriage settlement to the younger children, will be but a poor set off against the immense expectations on which he had speculated so securely."

"You are very ungenerous and unkind to speak in that way of a fallen man; I hope Mary does not enter into your sentiments, I am sure I shall always stand up for Eugene."

"Oh, no doubt, through thick and thin," was the rather sneering reply, "unkind indeed, I should say, it was cruel kindness 'that the wrong from right defends;' as for Mary, I am glad to find that she has for some time not been quite the blindly obstinate and deluded person I had began regretfully to esteem her, that her infatuation has long since been giving way before the evidences of truth and reason--yes, her charity in the point in question is rather more honourable to her character than that which you profess; there being an old proverb I have somewhere read, which says: 'Charity is an angel when it rejoices in the truth; but (something with a very different name) when it embraces that, which it should only pity and weep over.'"

Tears, indeed; the tears of many mingled and conflicting feelings were trickling through the pale fingers clasped over Mary's aching eyes when left alone by her cousin. The letter that morning received from Mr.

Wynne, the superscription of which had been noted down by Mr. de Burgh, held tight in her other hand; that letter, which indeed contained such fearful testimony to the truth of Jane Marryott's story, and all she had heard a.s.signed against him, whom she had once so blindly and ignorantly wors.h.i.+pped. Mr. Wynne related succinctly the whole story of Eustace Trevor's wrongs, as confided by his own lips on his first arrival in Wales. This Mr. Wynne had taken on himself to do unauthorized by his friend; it was all, indeed, which Mary's letter seemed purposed to effect--her own communication of having entirely broken off her engagement with Eugene Trevor, only rendering more wholly out of the question the execution of the step she had so urged upon Eugene's brother.

For her own sake, for her preservation from a fate he so deprecated on her account--he had promised to sacrifice his own interest--to take no step likely to lead to the well-merited discomfiture and disturbance of his brother, or an exposure of the past. The point on which the agreement turned had now been established. He would not too closely inquire by what means, and in what manner; but the promise he must still consider binding on his part, a promise but too much in unison with the solemn determination of his aggrieved and wounded spirit when last he quitted his father's house, never again to seek a son or brother's place within those dishonoured walls. This had been the substance of Mr.

Wynne's letter. How changed the aspect of affairs since the period when it had been penned. How mighty the hand, and by what terrible means had been effected, that which her weak influence had attempted to achieve!

It might, indeed, be called an instance in which the still small voice must fail, but the power of the all mighty one be heard in the fire.

And now, all the past--the strange position in which she stood--the circ.u.mstances in which she had become involved, pa.s.sed before Mary's mind's eye as in a bewildering dream--confused and conflicting feelings she could scarcely divide from one another, troubling her enfeebled spirits; till, at length, those relieving drops had flowed, and prayers mingled with those tears to the all wise and the all merciful disposer of events, in whom she trusted.