LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2412, 28 December 1881, Page 4

LITERATURE.

AN IKON WELCOME. [From “Ail the Year Round ”] ( Concluded .) The house is grander far than Mrs Trahearne has ever pictured it, for her husband has been strangely silent about the home of his ancestors. As, led by Jane Latey, the mistress of the manor passes no a splendid flight of stairs and along a corridor that in length and luxurious appointments is worthy of a place in a pa'ace, she wonders at herself for feeling eo little elation. ‘ Are these all bedrooms ? ’ she aiks, pointing to the doors they are passing, and Jane tolls her—‘Yes, all of them, and there’s a sight more rooms in the wings and back of the house than she (Jane) can reckon up.’ She reaches her own suite of rooms at last. ‘ Madam’s apartments,’ they have always been called since the present master’s mother passed the latter years of her life in rigid seclusion in them, * grieving about her eldest son who died abroad, they do tell,’ Jane adds; and pretty, bright, light hearted Mrs Trehearne looks with tender interest at the rooms where the sad bereft mother mourned for her son.

* Grand and beantifnl—far, far grander than even I had hoped for ; but they don’t seem like home to me,’ the young wife says, as she seats herself at an open window, and looks down on the whitewashed cottages and brown-tanned sails of Polverrow. Meanwhile Roland Trehearne seeks his sister, where he has been told he shall find her in ‘ her usual place.’ She Is a tall, large-boned person, maaouline in mind and appearance, but neither coarse nor vulgar. As her slim, handsome, refined-looking brother comes into the plainly furnished ‘ office, ’ in which for years she has transacted all the business connected with his large estates, the idea would strike a stranger that this brother and sifter had changed costume and character in jest. Miss Trehearne throws down her pen as her brother enters, and, without rising from her chair, holds a large, capable hand ont to him.

‘ So, Eoland, you have come, in spite of my warnings and wishes. ’ The words are unkind, but the way in which they are uttered is not. Nevertheless, Koland Trehearne looks pained.

‘ Nell pressed the point of coming home, and what excuse had I to offer for keeping her away ?’ ho says, deprecatingly. Miss Trehearne shakes her head impatiently, and says—‘You should have told the truth—that the house is one in which she will never know happiness.’

* I could not tell her the truth. I dared not do it, Priscilla, for your sake as well as my own,’ he pleads. Then he sits down, buries his face in his hands, and asks, ‘ Is— Is this burden as likely to last as when we last spoke about it ?’ ‘ It is.’

The stricken master of the house cannot repress a groan as the brief answer falls upon his ears. The sound seems to ronse his sister to wrath. ‘You helped to lay the burden upon yourself, though you were fully aware of all the responsibilities it entailed. Why come and moan to me about it, Roland ? Remember it is ever present with me. I minister to all its wants. I live under the shadow of Its drear, depressing influence. I ask you, is it my place to do this more than yours ?’ ‘lt will kill me !’ he said, rising up and speaking with passionate vehemence, ‘My poor Nell ! My darling girl I What a homo I have brought her to. Do, if yon have a spark of womanly feeling in your breast, go to her and say words of kindness and welcome, even you don’t mean them, Priscilla ! Don’t let the poor girl feel the blight of this secret. She at least is innocent.’

‘And you would hint to me that I am not r’ Mias Trehearne says, slowly, 1 Well, Poland, I will stand even that reproach for your honor’s sake.’ ‘ For the sake of your accursed family pride, you mean.’ ‘ Perhaps I do,’ she says, a dull red flush mounting to her weather-beaten bronzed cheek.

Then she takes a couple of keys from a box, and advancing to a door at the far end of the room, she says, as she unlocks it, “ Have yon the courage to come and see our burthen ? Bo a man, Boland; it is as hard for me to witness It as for you. Yet I have to face it hourly. ’ He rouses himself with an effort, and strings himself up to the cruel task of following her. Ten minutes after he comes back into the office again, with his face of such an ashen hue that hla sister says, ‘Take some wine before you rejoin your wife, Roland. Take wine and courage.’ He obeys her In this, as he obeyed her In other things all his life, without demur. Then he goes back to 'madam’s apartments',’ and strives to make his ‘darling Nell' feel that nothing unkind is meant by hie sister’s indifference. They meet at dinner by-and-by, at a table set with massive gold and silver plate and deeply-cut antique glass,

and are served with rare wines and daintily dressed viands. The artist-hand of a French cook is plainly discernible in everything that is placed before young Mrs Trehearne. But, for all the splendour and dainty delicacy of the feast, she has no appetite, and seems ont of spirits. The table is a round one, placed at one end of the vast dining-room, or hall, and so appointed that it is difficult to discern which is tho head of it, till a st ‘.toly, carved oak chair, with a back like a throne, is wheeled up for Miss Trehearne. Then the spirit of the young wife rouses and asserts Itself.

* I suppose I take my own place In my own honse, do X not, Roland ? ’ she asks, lightly advancing to the chair of state, and patting her hand on its arm, while Miss Trehearne frowns at her.

‘lf you take my seat you shall take my other duties as well,’ Priscilla says, gruffly, my brother may be able to tell yon what they are to night; some of th< m m»y not be pleasant to you, but your husband will share your labours, 1 am sure, and I will go away and have what I have not known for years—peace.’ With a shudder, Mrs Trehearne draws back. * While I stay here I will never, never interfere with your sister. Eoland,’ then she adds, while a sob almost chokes her ntterance, ‘but take me away from this home where I have had such an iron welcome. Take me away before it breaks my heart/ They do not talk much after this during dinner, nor are their tongues loosed after it in the drawing-room. At nine o’clock Miss Trehearne takes a hard, cold leave of them for tho night, and soon afterwards, tiredand disheartened beyond expression, Mrs Treheirne goes to bed. It is broad moonlight when she awakes. She has disregarded the orders which Jane latey tells her have been issued, to the effeot that all the shutters in ‘madam’s apartments’ a'O to bo tightly deed, and the raye stream Into her room, illuminating it uninterruptedly. Looking out of the window she sees some portion of tho vast mansion, of which she is the mistress, jutting out picturesquely. Inviting ivy-covered corners poop at her. Dark alcoves overhung with creepers awake her curiosity. She is broad awake, and her husband is sound asleep. It would be_ a shame to disturb him to satisfy her curiosity respecting these nooks and corners and alcoves. And yet, why shall she not gratify it ? Is she not the mistress of the house, the wife of Trehearne, of Trehearne ? Noiselessly she slips ont of bed, and dona her dressing gown and s'ippers. In another moment she is out in the corridor, speeding along towards tho staircase. The spirit of adventure is upon her. The interior of the old housi looks so weirdly grand by moonlight that she longs to see what the outside of it will look. Down in tho cloak room leading off the entrance hall she finds a big fnr wrap. With this around her she feels that she may go out in safety Into the fresh sweetness of the moonlighted summernight. It is not an easy task to get ont cf the Trehearne mansion without the aid of the giant keys which secure it every night. But Nell T rehearne is not easily baulked of her purpose to-night. Finding that exit through the doorways is Impracticable she investigates the windows, and at length in tho ante-room to the dining hall she finds shatters that she can unbolt and a window that she can unclasp.

In a few minutes she is standing in a grass grown court—a dim, secluded place inio which even the moonbeams find It hard to penetrate-. ‘How Roland will laugh at me when I tel! him of my restlessness and uncanny ramble,’ she says to herself, and ahe goes on to construct; a prettily colored little sketch of her nocturnal adventure for the benefit of the breakfast table the next morning. Trehearne is onrtonsly built. Odd-looking towers spring np in unexpected placer, and there are open air spaces left In an apparently aimless manner that makes Mrs Trehearne very angry with the prodigal architect of the long patt period io which the place was built.

She is just beginning to retrace her steps through some of these superfluous mazes with the serious intention in her mind of speaking to her husband in the morning on the subject of reclaiming these wasted spaces, when a light flashes into her face that does not come from the moon.

Stepping hastily back into the black shade of a projecting piece of wall, she looks np to the point from which I hie new light is streaming ; looks np to an open window, at which stands her tall brawny sister-in-law, wrapped in a military cloak that makes her look more masculine than ever, and with her a stooping shrunken form in an indescribable garment that gives no hint as to the sex of its wearer. In a moment all the stories she has ever read, from Jane Eyre to Birbara’s history, of mad wives concealed in impossible places in their lawful husbands' houses, rush into her mind. The next minute she loyally acquits Roland of any such sin ns this. But her heart is sore and troubled, and the gaze that is searcbingly directed to the open window is an anguished one. Presently Miss Trehearne and her companion move away from the window back into the interior of the room, and Nell sees them no longer. But it is a matter of moment to her now to find out all she can, and she knows that she has only herself to depend upon. So she sits down on a piece of rough stone that is in the court, and taking keen notice of its position, she learns off by heart the position of every window and piece of stone or brick work that can be seen. Then, marking the window from whioh the lamplight is still streaming, she makes her way back through the window, np the stairs, and along the corridor to her own apartment

When she finds herself safe and by his side again she cannot refrain from waking up and confiding in her husband. Accordingly in a few moments that bewildered gentleman is listening in sore distress to the story of her wanderings. ‘ Who can yonr sister have concealed there ? Roland, do you know anything of this romance of hers 1 ’ Mr Trchearne is silent.

* I won’t believe that yon can know anything about it. Tell me that it is your sister’s secret and not yours, and I’ll never ask another question,’ she says proudly, and he bends his head miserably and answers : ‘My darling, I cannot lie to you; the secret is mine as much as my sister’s, and—--1 cannot tell it yon. The following day Polverrow is convulsed to the centre of its being, or as it expresses itself, is ‘ shook all of a no how like’ by the news conveyed to it in an ecstasy of emotion by Jane Latey. ‘ Mrs Trehearne, the master’s wife, have took herself off without nn, and master be broken-hearted like, and Mias Trehearne like the Evil One himself.’ The information is only too correct. The master of Trehearne has been staunch for once in refusing to obey his wife’s wishes It is in vain that she has wept, implored, entreated him to tell her what this mystery is. His sister has commanded him not to reveal it, and with the feeling that he is a craven for so doing, Mr Trehearne has obeyed his sister. Mrs Trehearne, with youth, brightness, desire to please, longing to forget, and plenty of money in her favor, goes to London, where society does not accord her an iron welcome by any means. And it might be written that her end is likely to be anything but peace, were it not that soon after her arrival in London a little son smiles upon her, and the woman who fears that her boy may have to blnsh for his father is resolved that he shall not have to do so for his mother.

‘ If I am not the legal Mrs Trehearne, I can at least he an honorable and good woman,’ she tells herself, and so she lives on an embittered life for a few weary months, during which she refuses to hold any com munication with Trehearne, of Trehearne, unless ho will clear up the mystery which has separated them. By and by she hears that he has gone abroad again, and guesses that his sister has resumed her solitary arbitrary reign undiaputedly. But she doss not guess—poor harassed, anxious woman that she la—what remorse and vain yearnings are swellicg her husband’s heart.

4 He has a shameful secret, and I and my boy, ble bod, are the sufferers. We will bear our own load of sorrow alone, my son, and never make a sign,’ So she says to the baby Trehearne, whom she has bad christened Trehearne In * order that he may have some right to the name,’ as she tells herself bitterly, when the days grow long and weary, and neither the husband nor the explanation come.

At last, after a few dreary months of waiting have nearly washed the Iron welcome from her mind, Mrs Trehearne finds that

there la balm In Gilead still. For her husband comes to her with hia confession on his lips. And hia confession does not invalidate her c'aims Hia Is a story of temptation and wrong doing, of sorrow and sin, but not of shame for her or for her boy. It is this. That eldest son, whose loss his mother—the “ madam ’’ of Trehearne—had deplored so deeply, that elder brother and rightful heir, whom all men lud believed had died abroad, is dead now, after years of incarceration in the house of hia fathers as a madman. And the grim sister who has devoted her life to the maintenance of the honor of her race finds herself spoken of as a person who has been privy to the concealment of a dangerous maniac, because for the sake of her names honor she has enclosed her hopelessly mad brother within barriers of ignorance and foreign tongnes. Verily Priscilla Trohearne has borne a hideous burden for the sake of the honour of her race. It has been her object that the world should think the heir of Trehearne dead rather than mad, for It is a tradition of the Trehearnes that only so long as they are right in mind, body and estate they will hold their lands. but this bad spell is broken now, for Roland Trehearne lives at Trehearne happily with hia wife, who is the mother of his son, and Annt Priscilla looks after the dairy and poultry, and is happier and gentler than she has ever been before in her burdened life.

For the afflicted brother, who is laid to rest in Polverrow churchyard, has ceased to be either a burden or a shame, and the rooms where hia broken-hearted mother wept for him, and conjured her daughter Priscilla to “ save his name at any c'>st to herself or Roland,’ are occupied by a mother now who never thanks God so fervently as when she thanks Him for the great gift of healthy reason to her son —the little Trehearne Trehearne, of Trehearne.