CHAPTER VI

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WITHIN THE CASTLE.

"... My grief lies all within; And these external manners of Lament Are merely shadows to the unseen grief, That swells with silence in the tortur'd soul; There lies the substance." --SHAKESPEARE.

"In vain I trusted that the flowing bowl Would banish sorrow and enlarge the soul. To the late revel and protracted jest, Wild dreams succeeded and disorder'd rest." --PRIOR.

It was a glorious evening early in September, and Little Miss Primrose, who knew all the fairest nooks by the riverside, was letting the old coracle drift slowly along, between high wooded banks, gay with festoons of bright red berries and wreaths of woodbine and feathery clematis, enjoying to her heart's content the soft summer air and the evening sunlight glinting through the trees, which lit up her long yellow hair, till it looked like a halo round the face of some sweet saint. She was dreaming, as she often dreamed now, of her unknown mother, for she was now fourteen years of age, and for some time past there had been growing within her heart a craving to learn something of her mysterious parents--a craving which betrayed itself in the far-off, dreaming expression of her beautiful eyes, the look of one always seeking for the invisible. Deep in her own thoughts, she drifted slowly on, all unconscious of the mute admiration with which a fisherman, seated on a mossy knoll half-way up the bank, was regarding her, as the coracle came slowly towards him. The splash of his line in the water, and his sudden exclamation, as the tug of a big salmon nearly made him lose his balance and roll down the bank, made Little Miss Primrose look up and become suddenly aware of his presence. And when she had looked once, she looked again, for his face seemed familiar, and she thought him very beautiful, for he had thick curly hair, fine features, and merry blue eyes, and she was too young to pay much heed to the strangely irresolute expression in the mouth, which indeed was greatly concealed by a long, fair moustache, or to the restless, wandering look in the bright blue eyes, which with all their merry twinkle wore a look both of over-excitement and of dissatisfaction.

"A fine fellow, think you not so?" said the fisherman, as the child checked her little skiff for a moment in its onward course, to gaze with admiring eyes at the beautiful salmon he had just landed. "Dad has never caught one so big," answered Little Miss Primrose, nodding an admiring assent, and favouring the stranger with a swift glance out of her dark-fringed eyes. "There are beautiful fish in the river, sir; I often go out fishing with my father." "Beshrew me if I know not your sweet face!" said the stranger, "and if I mistake not, I know your coracle, fair maiden, likewise. Are you not both the property of Jack the boatman?" "Yes, sir," answered the child with a smile. "Do you know my father?--Not my real father, you know, but I love him just as much." "I know him right well," said the fisherman, "and he is verily one of the best fellows I know! So you are Little Miss Primrose?" "Yes," she answered, "that is the name dad says I told him I was called when I was a little baby. He does not know if I have any other name whatever." "It is a very pretty name, and well suited to so fair a flower!" said the stranger gallantly. "But the primrose was only a little opening bud when I saw it last! How many years ago? Why, eight or nine, if I mistake not! Now behold, it is just blossoming into a full-grown flower. Jack must needs ere long cease to call you _Little_ Miss Primrose!" "Ah, not yet, please sir!" she said earnestly. "I would fain not be grown-up yet awhile! I am but fourteen years old, and dad will call me his 'little girl' a long time yet, I hope." "Well, if you are not 'dad's' own little girl," said the stranger, "whose are you? Methinks it were a pity so tender a blossom should be tossed about by every chance wind! Are you a fairy or a changeling?" "I do not know, sir," answered Primrose gravely. "No one knows. My mother sends dad money twice every year for his care of me, but I do not know why she left me with him when I was a little baby, and I know not if I shall ever see her. I care not greatly to find a new father, for I love dad so much; but sometimes I would fain have a mother like other children!" "And is that all this little heart craves?" said the stranger. "Are you verily well content to dwell with my old friend Jack, haunting alone these silent river-banks like some golden-haired water-sprite?" "Quite content," she answered, with a little emphatic nod of the pretty golden head. "A mother is the only thing I would like." "Alas!" said the stranger. "Would that _I_ had such a spirit of sweet content that one gift of the gods could render me supremely happy! But how is this fair head stored with knowledge? Craves it indeed no key to this world's mysteries than such as yon Dame School madam can supply? Are these great unfathomable eyes content to look forth into the years but through the narrow spectacles she fits upon the brows of her scholars?" "Ah, I did not mean I was content with my knowledge!" exclaimed the child; "but that methinks I shall never be, sir, if I should live to be a hundred! Not even when I have read all the books on Master Rhys' shelves," she added musingly. "He is my master," she continued, gaining confidence in the stranger, "and I love him dearly. But his books frighten me, when I see how many there are, and think how much I must learn ere I am fit to be grown-up!" "What standard of knowledge and excellence would you fain reach, ere that desirable period of human existence arrives?" asked the stranger with an amused laugh. But a look of strange solemnity had crept into the dark eyes of his little companion, and it was in a voice of very real seriousness that she answered, speaking more openly to this unknown friend than she had ever yet dared to speak to any one: "Sometimes I think there is something before me--something very far off--which I must needs be ready for, and I must learn a great many things before I shall be ready for it. I cannot guess what it is, but it feels in my heart like a hand always beckoning to me out of a far-off darkness, through which I cannot see." "You are too young to have evil surmisings, warning dreams, and such like," said the fisherman, scrutinising the child's face curiously. "Play while you can, prithee, sweet child, and leave the grown-up time of life to take care of itself. Heaven knows it is no such pleasant time as it would fain show itself through the golden telescope of youthful eyes," he muttered; "but let us e'en look through the telescope as long as we may! Well, Little Miss Primrose, I dearly loved, when a boy, to skim the surface of the fair-flowing Gwynnon in your ancient coracle! Will you grant me a place beside you therein, and beg for me some light refreshment at honest Jack's hands, an I give you my fine salmon in exchange?" "For me, sir?" exclaimed the child, and the anxious look in the dark eyes gave place in a moment to a sparkle of childish joy. "It is too beautiful a present! Yes indeed, I will be proud to row you to our little home, but you must please sit very still, or perchance I may upset you!" The stranger laughed, and handing his fishing-tackle to a serving-man of foreign appearance, who had remained at a little distance, he leaped lightly into the little barque, and talked with boyish enjoyment of his old pastime, as the coracle sped back to the bridge. And Little Miss Primrose chattered merrily in response, puzzling her brains to think who this old friend of her foster-father's might be, whom she herself so dimly recollected. She drew back suddenly, and flushed crimson, when, as they drew to land, Jack came forward with a glad exclamation of surprise, and greeting the stranger with a low reverence, said in tones of delighted astonishment; "Welcome, my lord Bryn Afon! This is indeed an honour you have been pleased to give my Little Miss Primrose!"

It was late in the evening when the earl, after delighting the boatman's heart by a prolonged visit, and much pleasant discourse upon divers matters, political and religious, intermingled with many a gay tale of court life, to all of which Primrose listened with eager ears, returned at length to the castle, and entered his wife's boudoir, a small yet richly-furnished apartment, with deep mullioned windows, overlooking the river. At one of these windows sat Lady Bryn Afon, in a listless attitude, her arms resting upon the sill, and her gaze fixed abstractedly upon the valley below, where the evening shades were rapidly gathering, dimming the silvery surface of the river, and veiling the boatman's cottage in their deepening gloom. So she had sat for hours, almost without moving, with thoughts presumably far from cheerful, to judge by the wan, weary look in the pale face which she turned from the window for an instant as her husband entered. "Why, verily, sweet Guinevere, thou hast not moved from the spot where I left thee!" he said carelessly, as he kissed her pale cheek. "What strange fancy holds you spellbound to this casement?" "Since I cannot come out with you, and share in your enjoyment of the beautiful river and the summer sunshine," answered Lady Bryn Afon, with a weary sigh, "is it not surely natural that I should enjoy what I may from my window? And what view from the castle is so fine as from this spot, whence the silver line of yon fair Gwynnon may be traced mile after mile through the valley, and whence one may watch the purple shades of evening creep slowly over the folding hills, till they veil in gloom e'en the proud crest of the lonely Craig Aran?" "It is, in sooth, a fine view," said the earl, "and you do well, dear love, to enjoy it to the utmost. Yet, since it is to you but a distant and melancholy pleasure, I doubt each time I yield to your entreaties that I do wisely in bringing you hither." "It is not often I urge it, Morveth!" she pleaded, looking earnestly into his face. "For your sake it is but rarely I plead the indulgence! Three times only, for a few short weeks, since our marriage, and one visit of the three in secret! This is only the second time you have shown your face here since our marriage." "I hate the place!" said Lord Bryn Afon impatiently. "The atmosphere is haunted with the curse!" "Break the curse then!" said his wife, rising suddenly and standing before him, her figure drawn to its full height, and her eyes dilating with eagerness. "Be a man, Morveth, and break the curse! Trample it under foot! Do not let it crush you as it has crushed your forefathers for generations!" "I am powerless to break it, Guinevere!" answered the earl helplessly, that strange irresolution of eye and mouth betraying itself only too conspicuously as he spoke, and destroying all the dignity of the handsome features and lofty brow. "It has as firm a hold on me as ever it had upon my father, and I know the doom that awaits me, just as well as I know my own inability to avert it!" Lady Bryn Afon shuddered. "We will not talk on the subject," she said. "What is the good? you know your weakness, and what wife can do, to help you in struggling against it, I have ever done, and will do to the last. We will leave Bryn Afon. It is not good for you to spend much time in this o'ershadowed place. Dear," she added, laying her hand on his arm with sudden tenderness, "you have indeed been good to me, in yielding to my whim, and in twice burying yourself here with me, that I might gratify it. I will leave the castle when you will, and we will travel again--what you please." "I have a thought, Guinevere," said the earl, recovering his lightness of manner in his usual thoughtless fashion. "I have thought many times of late that you would be less lonely if you had some young companion. Why should we not adopt a child, since we have none of our own? I am right marvellously taken with yon fair child below--Little Miss Primrose, who has beauty, grace, and dignity enough, I trow, to be herself heiress of the ancient house of Bryn Afon! What say you, sweet wife? Why should we not adopt her, an Jack the boatman is willing to give her up? She is not his own, and therefore he need not shrink aghast from such a proposition, though she has verily crept deep down, I fear, into his rough but honest old heart! It would be a pleasing new interest in life for you, and I must needs confess that such a little golden-haired fairy would even perchance make Bryn Afon itself an endurable residence."

Lady Bryn Afon listened to her husband's sudden proposition in absolute stillness, only the tight, convulsive clasping of her hands upon her knee showing that such an idea caused her any emotion. "The unnatural mother who could part with an innocent babe, to leave it in a stranger's hands," continued the earl, "for stranger Jack was, if indeed a relative, is not likely in my opinion to come forward and reclaim it--or what saith your woman's wit? And for the child's own sake, surely Jack would not raise any objection? He knows well enough that she is not his own child, and he must see, as I have done myself, that she is gifted by nature for a far different life to what she must needs lead as his daughter, just as--" and stooping to kiss his wife hastily, he went on; "There, Guinevere, can you picture yourself in a few years' time the proud mother of a graceful and accomplished daughter, such as we might make of Little Miss Primrose? You would find endless joy and amusement, I trow, in training and educating the child!" "Tell me what she is like," said his wife in a low voice, and without raising her eyes. "She is verily as fair and sweet as the flower whose name she bears," answered the earl, "as sweet a budding primrose as could ever have been a true daughter of the Bryn Afons! Glorious deep eyes, Guinevere, of blue-grey hue, fringed with the longest and darkest lashes you e'er beheld, and then, in marked contrast, a glittering shower of thick golden curls, falling around the purest of childlike faces! Beshrew me, if I think not that our faithful Jack's 'distant relative' hath surely mated with some faithless scion of a noble race! Think you not I have drawn a glowing picture?"

Lady Bryn Afon raised her dark eyes to her husband's face, and as she gazed with a strangely wistful intentness into his, large tears gathered in her own, and fell slowly down upon her clasped white hands. "Think you truly then, Morveth," she asked bitterly, "that our miserable house is a fit dwelling for so fair a flower as you describe? Would you cloud such a bright young life with the heavy shadow of the curse? Morveth, tempt me not with dreams which you know are vain! Tell me--I wish not to reproach my husband--but tell me, are you fit to be guardian to a beautiful innocent child? Is my life one that can be spent in constant devotion to the education and careful rearing of a loved daughter?" The earl covered his face for a moment with his hands, then rose abruptly.

"Always the same old tale, Guinevere," he said impatiently. "Well, if you are content, I care not. I thought the idea might please you, that is all." "Pleasure has little place in my life," said Lady Bryn Afon; "you know that well, Morveth, and you know also that I am speaking rightly. My conscience can never let me yield to any such plan as you propose. I would die sooner than suffer this Little Miss Primrose of whom you speak to fall under the shadow which weighs down your life and mine! We have rather reason to thank God that we have in our home no child of our own, upon whose young life it must inevitably have fallen." "That thought must needs ever give you comfort!" said the earl bitterly. "Well, I am going to my smoking-room, and will return shortly." And he turned and left the room.

Lady Bryn Afon returned to her lonely watch at the stone-mullioned casement, and for some moments her bitter tears splashed down heavily upon the crimson-cushioned ledge, on which she leaned her head. She did not rouse herself from her mournful reverie till ten slow strokes of the clock suddenly broke the stillness of the dark room, and made her spring to her feet, exclaiming; "Morveth! How wicked of me to forget him! It is two full hours since he left me!" She lit a candle hastily, and hurried downstairs and along the deserted corridors which led to her husband's smoking-room. A strong odour of spirits greeted her as she opened the door, and the earl, his handsome face flushed, and his eyes glittering with the unsteady light and wandering expression of the drunkard, was in the act of raising his glass to his lips, with trembling fingers, as she entered. She sprang forward and dashed the glass from his hand, letting the fragments and the liquid fall unheeded on the floor. "Is this the way you keep your promise, Morveth?" she demanded scornfully, her eyes flashing with indignant reproach. "Did you not promise me faithfully this very morn that no strong drink should touch your lips to-day? Are you not for one hour to be trusted alone?" "I could not help it, Guinevere," stammered the earl, in thick, unsteady accents. "I know I promised, but it is no good. The craving is horrible! I have no power to resist it. I did not mean to do it, but the devil himself holds me in his chains!" "You never mean to do it," said his wife bitterly, "and you do it every day! You might have kept your promise and come back to me! But alas, it is my own wicked fault for forgetting you these two full hours in my own torturing thoughts. Yet may I never trust you? Must I needs ever be dogging your footsteps, or pay this price for leaving you in freedom? Come with me, Morveth." "Just one more glass--let me have one more glass, if you love me!" implored the earl, in the whining tone of a child teasing for a new toy. "You are so violent, Guinevere! Why can you not let me take my glass of wine peaceably, without all this clamour? Do you wish the servants to see how you treat your husband?" "I will see to that," said Lady Bryn Afon coldly, touching impatiently with her foot the broken fragments upon the floor. "Your servants know you well enough, Morveth. Do not pretend a shame which you have long outlived! Nay, you shall not touch the accursed thing again this night! Come with me at once," and she laid her hand on his arm, and tried to draw him away. "Take care, Guinevere!" exclaimed the earl, his maudlin state changing to one of sudden fury. "You go too far! Are you master of this house? You take strange liberties with your husband! Stand off! I tell you I will do what I will in my own house--I will not be ruled by a weak woman!" Lady Bryn Afon turned pale as he wrested himself from her grasp, but she quietly placed herself between him and the table towards which he staggered. "I am not afraid of you, Morveth," she said, fixing her eyes steadily upon him. "My will is stronger than yours, and I will force you to obey me. If you resist me," and she drew from her pocket a small silver whistle, "I have but to use this, and Rhiwallon will be at my side in a moment. You will scarce, however, wish me to rouse him from a bed of sickness to my rescue. See, I am going to lock up all these things, and then you will come with me to your room." The wretched earl made a quick motion forward, as if to stop her, as she hastily placed the bottles in a cupboard, and removed the key, but his mood suddenly changed again, and dropping into a chair, he began to sob helplessly. He made no further resistance, however, and allowed his wife to lead him upstairs to his chamber, where he soon sank into a heavy stupor, while she, wrapping a shawl round her, sat by the window, keeping sleepless watch through the summer night. Once only she fell suddenly upon her knees, and, throwing her arms wildly above her head, exclaimed in heart-rending tones; "Oh, Satan, tempt me not! It is impossible, impossible! Yet, my God, my God, it is harder than human heart can bear!"

Little Miss Primrose watched in vain next day by the riverside for the earl's tall figure, and the sunny September days rolled away one by one, but he came no more to the boatman's cottage.

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