La Belle Marie. A romance of the Cornish coast

Front matter

Pontan.ce of thc dornish (Eoast. BY EOSA MACKENZIE KETTLE, Ai AUTHOR OF " SMUGGLERS AND FORESTERS," " LEWELL PASTURES," " THE ranger's LODGE," "lord maskelyne's DAUGHTER," etc., etc. The ship rodo down with courses free, The daughter of a distant sea : Her sheet was loose, her anchor stored. The merry Bottreau bells on board. " Come to thy God in time 1" Rang out Tintagel chime ; " Youth, manhood, old age, past, Come to thy God at last ! " Still when the storm of Bottreau's wavcH Is wakening in his weedy caves, Those bells that sullen surges hide, Peel their deep notes beneath the tide. " Come to thy God in time," Thus saith the ocean chime ; " Youth, manhood, old age, past, Come to thy God at last." Robert Stephen Hawker, Vicar of Jsorwenstow. LONDON : JAMES WEIR, 283, REGENT STREET. 1880. [All Bights Reserved.]

Chapter I

On the rude, north coast of Cornwall, a craggy fissure, filled with masses of densest foliage, runs up from the sea into the stony heart of the moor. Rocks of uncouth shape start forth from this wilderness of trees and brambles, the roar and dash of imprisoned waterfalls rises out of the gloom of its sunless depths, but no silvery gleam shines through the tangled maze. It is difficult even for those who know the place to pierce their way to the Keeve, or basin of granite, hollowed out by the action of the stream which finds by that rocky channel its outlet to the sea. Erom the verge of the dark schistose cliffs, at whose base the Atlantic surges beat in perpetual foam, the ground rises irregularly, broken by combes and gullies, and dotted over with church-towers and a few villages and lonely farms.

These desolate heights, once a barrier between the Briton and the Saxon, sterilised by the salt spray, swept by the keen sea-blast, assume yet severer features as they stretch away inland. There is often not a sign of man's dwelling for miles and miles ; the vicinity of some isolated homestead is indicated by flocks of geese congregated round sedgy pools on the open common ; rich tufts of crimson foxglove crown the crumbling turf banks ; occasionally a broken sign-post points out the track leading to the great slate quarries of the district ; or a ragged girl, starting up from behind a furze-bush, demands toll from the traveller, who is astonished to find thus embodied the local idea of a turnpike. Over these wilds, the romantic ranges of the Cornish Tors look down, like the outposts of an army guarding the limits of civilisation.

The sultry sunshine of mid-day, in August, was falling in chequered rays through the thick foliage of the beech-trees that almost filled up the higher end of the valley, and yet cast less impervious gloom than the entanglement of interlacing boughs and brambles nearer to the sea. Beds of waving fern leaves, some feathery, some fan-like, others sharply pointed, but broad and shining, slightly vibrated as the hot wind passed over them. Through flowers and briers a stream gurgled along, scarce seen, but plainly heard, till the water flowed into alternate light and shadow beneath a rough bridge, and then was lost to view altogether, where it plunged over ledges of rock into the dark depths of the wood beyond. Underneath these waving branches, over the mossy lonely road, their broad wheels creaking and groaning on the slabs of granite, four or five waggons and carts, full of household fur niture and heavy chests, were painfully drawn along by strong teams of horses.

In the lightest and foremost of these vehicles was seated a young and very pretty woman, and by her side a handsome, but sullen, military looking man, who got down frequently and bestowed more blame than assistance on the drivers, who were making their toilsome way with the loaded wains through the intricacies of the wood. Their progress was very slow, for the gnarled boughs stretching across the road had to be lopped away, and the jutting stones removed, before the luggage carts could pass. More than one oath escaped the master of the goods and chattels, which might be expected at any moment to strew the ground; and the impatient, girlish-looking creature, beside him, sprang down from her seat at last, declaring that she would sit in the shade till some of their difficulties were sur mounted.

It would be time enough if she followed in half-an hour; since they must be longer before they were able to get clear of the branches, and climb the steep side of the glen. The young woman sat down on a mass of rock by the road side, and remained watching, with a discontented countenance, the slow transit of her worldly goods. There was inexpressible bitterness in the glance which she cast back along the way they had travelled from the moor, and forward into the dark depths of the woodland. Her own early home had been in a rich and beautiful part of the country, and since her marriage she had travelled about with her husband and visited many gay and pleasant places. She hated the wild aspect of the scenery in which she had now to dwell, and despised the homely fashion in which they were drawing near her husband's moorland farm.

A parrot hung in its cage at the back of the last waggon. It spread its wings and screamed at sight of its mistress, as if re proaching her for the temporary abandonment. The little boy in the covered van, called to her as the woman held it up to look at its mother, but she sat regardless, heeding neither bird nor child, longing to go back, fearful to go forward ; half afraid of the solitude, half wishing they would leave her behind and forget her altogether. The dark cool shade of the woodland boughs soothed her fretfulness. The play of the brook amused the childish creature. She went nearer to it, groping her way through the boughs, and, bending over the stream, drank the water out of the hollow of her hand. As she stood by the rivulet the tread of a horse's hoofs on the road startled her.

She turned from the reflection of her own face, altered by the ripples that chased each other over the surface ; and, with her gipsy hat hanging by the strings in her hand, stood looking at the 1—2 horseman. Her own attitude, half-shy, half-inviting, was very attractive, and the gentleman rode past the spot slowly. He did not forget the form and face on which he gazed so fixedly ; with the light play of the fluttering leaves above her head, and the waters glancing past her small feet. For a moment he felt inclined to address the young solitary girl, but a more gentle manly instinct prevailed, and he passed on; leaving her yet more solitary, as it seemed to her, than before. The young woman was roused by his searching glance to the necessity for self-exertion, and walked quickly on: soon managing to overtake the waggons, which, heavily laden as they were, hardly seemed to make any progress.

Her husband lifted her kindly to her seat in the spring cart, and the child cried as if it wished to come to her, but she did not notice it. The men had covered over the parrot's cage to prevent its shrieking. The party journeyed on for a mile or two farther at a foot's pace ; so slowly that the young woman was tired to death, and longed to be at her journey's end. Her husband told her at last that now they were close at home. The wood opened, revealing a tall grey house. Over the chimneys a flight of rooks was circling, before taking roost in the tops of a fine row of old elm trees. This was the Manor Farm, belonging to a relation, of which Mr. Fleming was to take charge. His wife's plenishing was very useful, as the family had not lived in the place for years. With a good deal of noise and confusion, the waggons were emptied and the goods disposed of tempo rarily.

That first night at Woods Farm the woman and her little son cried themselves to sleep, and time, as it passed, did not mend matters. Fleming was no agriculturist. Fortunately, as it seemed, he was able to engage a clever bailiff. Whatever he himself undertook came to naught. He was a spendthrift, and the money his wife brought him soon melted away, as his own small fortune had done. In her old home at the Sussex farm there had been plenty. At the Grange was something nearly akin to want.

Chapter II

At either end of a table covered with snowy damask and old fashioned French china, in the sunny morning-room of the Parsonage at Lezant, a small sea-port town about three miles distant from Lord Boscawen's Grange, the farm occupied by Lancelot Fleming and his young wife, the Rector and his brother were seated at breakfast. Both were tall, handsome men, in the prime of life ; but the country clergyman and magistrate, though, in fact, the younger of the two, looked older than the man of camps and courts. Colonel St. Erme had seen some hard service abroad, and now held an appointment in the royal household. He had married early, and been left a widower. A very strong affection, by no means ostenta tiously brought forward, existed between the brothers; they were alike fastidious, refined, and haughty.

Often, in public life, the courtier and soldier met with jars and disappointments, which were confided only to his recluse brother. At such times the Cornish hermitage, as he called it, smiled a pleasant welcome to him ; while to the quieter, but scarcely more satisfied spirit of the dweller in the wastes, these oc casional visits appeared as bright spots marked strongly in the dull calendar of the year's events. Ever and anon the Rector glanced at his sermon, which lay in its neat case on the breakfast-table beside him ; but still he lingered, listening to anecdotes not much in character with the text he had chosen for the heading of his grave discourse. At another moment he might have heard without pain his brother's careless expressions ; but, with the holy calm of the Sabbath morning round him, and the words of solemn preparation for prayer almost on his lips, he longed to choose some graver subject of conversation.

The fear, however, of giving offence, and putting an end to the pleasant habit of frank, unrestrained confidence, which they had maintained from boyhood, for some time kept him silent. He was relieved when Colonel St. Erme, rising from table, went to the window, and stood admiring the landscape, as he always did, winter or summer, when he came to Lezant. There was, indeed, no season when those verdant grounds, with the undulating downs beyond, and brightly sparkling ocean, were not beautiful ; but the Rector, who was not so ardent a lover of nature as his brother, never enjoyed the place so much as when he saw how greatly it ministered to the gratification of his favourite guest. He was a fine classical scholar, and longed to tread the shores of Greece and Italy; but there were no associations which interested him connected with the Cornish tors and the broad sweeps of the hills, heaved up in masses, on which the light fell broken by the cloud shadows.

The travelled man of the world, conscious that his present tranquil existence was but a thing of the moment, wliich he could change as soon as it palled upon him, professed himself never weary of gazing upon that glorious prospect. " Upon my word, Reginald, I envy you ! Lezant is the pleasantest place I know," he ended with observing. " You must excuse me if I am a defaulter from church this sunshiny afternoon. There is something positively irresistible in the aspect of those cliffs." " Do not stay away without a better reason, Edmund," said his brother, affectionately. " Our one weekly service is not too severe a tax upon your powers of attention. You will have plenty of time for a stroll on the cliff's before it begins ; or I will go with you afterwards. It gives me pain to see the ordi. nances of the Church neglected, especially by one staying under my roof ; and I am sorry to say mine is but a scanty congre gation.

Besides, I have prepared my sermon with much care; and I should like to have one intelligent listener. I think it will interest you." " I am sorry that I cannot hear it this afternoon. You must preach it over again some other Sunday for me. The fact is, Reginald," he said, seeing that his brother looked mortified, " Fleming and I have had a quarrel. He does me the honour to be jealous, and swears I shall not speak to his pretty wife. Now, I am not going to be dictated to by him ; and, at the same time, I should not wish to be a party to a brawl at your church-door : so the only plan I can adopt is to keep away. He is hardly enough of the gentleman for me to call him out ; but if he ill-uses Mrs. Fleming, as he has done once or twice in my presence, I shall certainly be constrained to teach him better manners.."

" Do not interfere between them, Edmund !" said his brother, anxiously. " The Flemings are a most unhappy couple. You cannot mend, but may make matters worse. Though he is distantly related to Lord Boscawen, Fleming is fast losing every pretension to be regarded as a gentleman. His habits are low and intemperate. What pleasure can a person like yourself derive from such society 1" " You are quite right, Reginald. Fleming is a brute !" Colonel St. Erme answered, with strong indignation. " How shamefully he treats his poor wife ! There was a red mark yesterday on her wrist, which is not larger than my Mary's. I should not like to know how she came by it." " She is a weak, vain coquette. I wonder you name her in the same breath with your little daughter !" said the Rector, gravely. "Fleming's temper, especially when aggravated, as it constantly is by intoxication, is quite ungovernable.

He will ill-treat his wife more and more, and probably insult you, if you offer her attentions, which are considered in quite another light in this parish from that in which they probably appear to a man of your gay habits. These people of Lezant are no triflers, but a dogged, hardened race, ready to impute to you a worse design than the mere foolish flirtation into which her light speech and conduct have led you. Connected with this heartless amusement are a thousand disagreeable contingencies for me, for you, and, above all, for this poor, silly woman. Give it up, I entreat you !" Colonel St. Erme coloured. " You would not have me own myself in the wrong, by withdrawing attentions which are no more than any pretty woman might claim as her due 1 Let us say no more on the subject." The Rector took up his sermon, and retreated to his study, while his brother left the house and sauntered towards the cliffs, where he often lay basking for hours in the sunshine.

When he reached the summit of the grassy promontory which overlooked the town and the surrounding country, he threw himself down on the turf, and remained for some time idly watching the different groups wending their way to church, from farm-houses hidden in nooks among the downs ; masters and mistresses, with their labourers and domestics, the women riding, according to the universal fashion in Cornwall, and merry children running on in front. When the latest laggard of the congregation had entered the portal of the sacred edifice, Colonel St. Erme rose and walked for some distance along the edge of the cliff, in the direction of the Manor Farm. He had not gone far, when, along the road he had been watching, which wound with a tor tuous course through the valley, came the pretty mistress of Woods, mounted on her favourite horse, the best in her husband's stables.

She blushed when he accosted her, and said that she was returning home by the short bridle-path over the cliffs, on account of having left her little boy ailing. Mr. Fleming had said she ought to go to church ; but, when she got half way, she felt so anxious about Lance, that she had per suaded him to let her go back. Whatever might have been her previous intentions, her pace was slow, as she rode with Colonel St. Erme's hand upon the rein of her horse, guiding it past the dangerous gaps in the cliff to the gates of Woods, where she took leave of him. Colonel St. Erme returned to the Parsonage in time to dress for dinner. He did not mention to his brother any intention he had formed of leaving Lezant, but seemed to be in good spirits, admiring, with his usual zest, the moonlight view, which was even more beautiful than the brilliant morning sunshine had been.

Whenever the Colonel was staying with his brother, he lost no opportunity of going out to enjoy such a spectacle ; and now, the moon being at the full, he possessed himself of the Rector's private key, and went through the grounds to the summit of the promontory. The light lay in golden masses on the sea, while against the rocks, which stood out blacker than ever by contrast, the tide rolled in thunderingly, filling the curious caverns and inlets with which the coast was indented. The broad surface of the hills, heaved up in wild ridges and hollows, gleamed white through mist ; and the dark wooded chasm, in which the waterfalls kept up a continual chant, brooded in unbroken darkness. At a late hour of that bright summer night, Mrs. Fleming was sitting up nursing her little boy in a room called, from its furniture, the Walnut-wood Chamber, at the old Manor-house in the ravine.

There was a fire burning, for the place was damp at all seasons, and the white moonbeams fell through the wide window on the floor, almost meeting the red reflection from the hearth. She had gone to bed early, but had risen when the child cried, and thrown upon the iron dogs occupying the wide place of a modern grate a large oak bough, which was sparkling and crackling half way up the spacious chimney. The young woman cowered over the fire, crying silently ; for the last words which had passed between Fleming and herself had been angry ones, and she had been forced to bear even harsher tokens of his displeasure. He had gone out late, and would probably return mad with drink ; — she knew not that her life was safe in that lone place, now that jealousy had kindled his worst passions. Very different words dwelt in her recollection — kind, soothing, almost tender compliments — flattering glances which had lately been too familiar.

Very bitterly she contrasted those courtly adulations with her husband's savage violence ; and yet henceforward, Fleming had told her, in terms which she knew were no idle threats, that she was not to hold speech with the Colonel. She would be running a very terrible risk if she again disobeyed him. As the night wore on, she took stealthily from a drawer in an old cabinet a very handsone hunting watch in a chased gold cover, and, pressing the spring, made it repeat the hour. She was dreadfully troubled in mind about the safest mode of returning this costly trinket to its owner. Colonel St. Erme had lent it to her a few days previously, bidding her, jestingly, keep better time at church ; and hinting plainly that he should waylay her in her homeward route, in case she preferred, like himself, to watch the influx of the highest tide of the year, in stead of listening to the Rector's sermon.

In her hurry to get ready, when Fleming called her to accompany him, she had left the watch behind her ; and now she trembled at the idea of mentioning that she had it in her possession. Hour after hour went by, and at last she began to wonder that Fleming did not come home. She looked from the window, but all the woods were hushed ; not an owl, nor a nighthawk, disturbed their stillness. White waves of moonlight — deep masses of shade — lay stretched out before her. Then the child, when it heard her moving, cried out, and the necessary task of soothing it occupied her. Again the boy dropped off to sleep; but now a vaguer, wilder fear kept the mother watching. Though unkindness had grown up between her and her husband, who had taught her to dread him in his angry moods, and had now left home in company she disliked, Phœbe Fleming would have given the world to hear his returning footstep ; but though she waited up till daylight, he came not.

The next morning it was the same. Search was made, and on the unfrequented beach, over which, on the previous after noon, the great flood-tide of the year had swept, the body of the unfortunate tenant of the Grange was found by his ser vants. It was supposed, at first, that he had met with an accident, while returning home intoxicated from the village. He had been seen to take the path leading over Lezant headland, just at the time when, as it was afterwards proved, Colonel St. Erme let himself out upon the cliff from the Parsonage garden. The sentence which followed the verdict of the Cornish jury would certainly have been carried into effect, and the utmost penalty of the law endured by the convicted murderer, had not a cooler and more dispassionate judgment been formed else where of a case resting so entirely upon circumstantial evidence.

Mitigated, as it was, by the mercy of the Crown, Colonel St. Erme's doom amounted to utter ruin and perpetual disgrace. It was with difficulty that he was prevailed upon to admit even his brother to a parting interview ; and, when this painful leave taking was over, his chief desire became to depart immediately for his allotted place of exile. Degraded as he was to the rank of a criminal, he considered the greatest benefit which could accrue to his children and friends would be that his existence should be absolutely forgotten. If he had maintained during his banishment any communication with his family, it was kept profoundly secret.

Chapter III

The quiet-looking village of Lezant, niched in the green hill side, among the wildest of the Cornish moors, woke up into the strangest activity whenever — as was often the case fifty years ago — from the grassy heights which appeared to shut the place in from the sea, a foreign vessel might be seen cautiously rounding the points of the neighbouring inlet. On the longest winter night, lights would sparkle all through the darkness from most of the cottages, seeming as if suspended midway in air, so loftily were they perched on the naps, or rocky banks that overhung the valley. By day the place was tranquil enough, and a stranger might have imagined that its inhabitants had no more thriving and exciting occupation than tending the sheep on the downs, or loading the lighters which came occasionally into their port for a cargo of slate.

But at night, the quay and street were thronged by people, more especially when the nights were darkest, and the long boom of the thundering rollers from the Atlantic burst upon the ear, sounding as if the ocean-waves, instead of breaking on the other side of the great rounded promontory, were sweeping beneath and undermining it. At such times, Lezant was more than usually alive. The wind roaring round the sharp angles of the buildings, the wet, slippery pathways, were no impediments to the numerous foot passengers. Every small lighted window glimmered aloft, even while the population seemed mostly abroad, chaffering, swearing, gossiping, stopping up the steep, narrow thorough fare, into which the innumerable flights of steps, by-lanes, and alleys, wound their devious way. The entrance to the inlet was guarded by bold bluffs of black carbonaceous rock, with soft green turf crowning their rounded summits.

High up along the polished edges of the cliff ran the broad seamark left by the last flood-tide that dashed against it. Mighty hawsers lay stretched across the cove, ready to check the swaying of vessels anchored alongside of the small, but strongly built pier, which, with a few rude accommodations for landing goods and passengers, and some marine stores and workshops, constituted the port or harbour of Lezant. The strength of the chains and hooks used for fastening boats at the landing-place showed how stormily the waves at times set into the estuary. Most of the houses in the upper village were very old, and many of them tottering to their fall ; but, close to the water, a new and more neatly finished building had lately been erected. Near this spot a crowd of men and boys were collected, on a stormy evening of the month of April, looking at the workmen engaged in setting up the sign denoting that the place was in tended for the entertainment of the public.

The new inn was not popular at present, but its merits had not yet been tested. Its situation was certainly more convenient than that of the dilapidated incommodious structure on the top of the hill, wliich had hitherto satisfied the townspeople and fishermen of Lezant, and would still have gained their suffrages if the matter had been put to the vote. Outside every door of the houses in the main street were large bundles of furze and firewood, brought in and dropped there by carts from the country. Though the downs above the village rose high and bare, there was abundance of timber in the deep hollows among the hills. The litter on the narrow strip of side-pavement, formed by round stones set close together, left hardly any room for foot-passengers ; while the middle of the causeway was broken up by the transit of heavy trucks during the winter, conveying slate for shipment at the comparatively sheltered quay.

Two blacksmiths' forges, at which horses were standing, seemed in full play, and the high wind scattered the sparks abroad as they flew from the anvil. Up this steep stony street, a party of three persons, who had just landed from a boat belonging to a vessel in the offing, pro ceeded as fast as was possible, considering the impediments in their path. One of them was a female, and she was encumbered by a heavy boat-cloak and an umbrella, which threatened to turn inside-out as the gale caught it. Though she was young and handsome, neither of her companions offered to assist her, but she battled good-humouredly with the blast, drawing her skirts away from the brambles and prickly furze against which the wind blew them, and displaying momentarily a very pretty slender foot and ankle, cased in neat French boots, much too delicately soled for the muddy, unflagged pavement of Lezant.

Then, as the refractory umbrella resisted her efforts to manage it, she laughed merrily, shrugging her shoulders with a gesture which was not English, and looking half timidly, but with eager interest and curiosity, clown the dark, intricate passages be tween the houses, leading to other still more ruinous dwellings. Once only she paused, where a wider aperture allowed her, now that she had mounted so high, to get a glimpse of the sea, and of a raking-masted schooner tossing on its waves ; her bright dark eyes filled with tears, and she uttered one soft word in a foreign language, almost under her breath ; but, low as it was, the man at her right hand heard it. " So you're sorry to leave the schooner, mistress ? though you've had but a foul time of it," said the rough, but kindly natured English sailor, who was mate ofthe vessel in the offing.

" I'd rather by far be at sea, once we get a clear berth for the schooner to roll in, than pitching and tumbling in the ruts and mire of such a place as Lezant. Ugh ! what a hill it is ! and look at the litter 1 It's not going to be a pleasant night for travelling through those dark lone woods that lie along the road you're bound for. Here is our inn, mistress : you'd best go in and dry yourself." He pointed, as he spoke, to a large, rambling stone building, with a deep porch standing out into the road, over the portal of wliich three crowns were cut out roughly' in strong relief. " I never heard of the Boscawen Arms before to-night, but we all of us know our way to the Three Crowns ; and I see no need to set up another tap, when there's such a good one as Mother Brock's in the place. There she is, in the door-way !

I'll be bound she don't keep customers waiting, though she doesn't run after them, singing her own praises, like those gentry on the quay. Holloa, dame ! here's company to see you. You'll have to make much of visitors, now there's such opposition in the town. I'll warrant you've seen the schooner's masts already, and looked for a call from us." A middle-aged robust woman, who had come out into the porch with a light in her hand, welcomed the men cordially as they mounted the steep steps up the bank. She then went nearer to the girl, who hung back, as if tired and timid. " Here's this young woman wants to go to Woods to-night, dame. Is there any conveyance to hand V asked the mate. "We must look sharp to be aboard again." " Well, come in, come in ! It won't hurt you to warm yer selves, and take a glass of something hot this windy night.