Gwen Wynn Part 11

"Yes, captain; her they calls Gwen."

Ryecroft questions no farther. He has learnt enough to give him food for reflection--not only during the rest of that day, but for a week, a month--it may be throughout the remainder of his life.

CHAPTER X.

THE CUCKOO'S GLEN.

About a mile above Llangorren Court, but on the opposite side of the Wye, stands the house which had attracted the attention of Captain Ryecroft; known to the neighbourhood as "Glyngog"--Cymric synonym for "Cuckoo's Glen." Not immediately on the water's edge, but several hundred yards back, near the head of a lateral ravine which debouches on the valley of the river, to the latter contributing a rivulet.

Glyngog House is one of those habitations, common in the county of Hereford as other western shires--puzzling the stranger to tell whether they be gentleman's residence, or but the dwelling of a farmer. This from an array of walls, enclosing yard, garden, even the orchard--a plenitude due to the red sandstone being near, and easily shaped for building purposes.

About Glyngog House, however, there is something besides the circ.u.mvallation to give it an air of grandeur beyond that of the ordinary farm homestead; certain touches of architectural style which speak of the Elizabethan period--in short that termed Tudor. For its own walls are not altogether stone; instead, a framework of oaken uprights, struts, and braces, black with age, the panelled masonry between plastered and white-washed, giving to the structure a quaint, almost fantastic, appearance, heightened by an irregular roof of steep pitch, with projecting dormers, gables acute angled, overhanging windows, and carving at the coigns. Of such ancient domiciles there are yet many to be met with on the Wye--their antiquity vouched for by the materials used in their construction, when bricks were a costly commodity, and wood to be had almost for the asking.

About this one, the enclosing stone walls have been a later erection, as also the pillared gate entrance to its ornamental grounds, through which runs a carriage drive to the sweep in front. Many a glittering equipage may have gone round on that sweep; for Glyngog was once a manor-house.

Now it is but the remains of one, so much out of repair as to show smashed panes in several of its windows, while the _enceinte_ walls are only upright where sustained by the upholding ivy; the shrubbery run wild; the walks and carriage drive weed-covered; on the latter neither recent track of wheel, nor hoof-mark of horse.

For all, the house is not uninhabited. Three or four of the windows appear sound, with blinds inside them; while at most hours smoke may be seen ascending from at least two of the chimneys.

Few approach near enough the place to note its peculiarities. The traveller gets but a distant glimpse of its chimney-pots; for the country road, avoiding the dip of the ravine, is carried round its head, and far from the house. It can only be approached by a long, narrow lane, leading nowhere else, so steep as to deter any explorer save a pedestrian; while he, too, would have to contend with an obstruction of over-growing thorns and trailing brambles.

Notwithstanding these disadvantages, Glyngog has something to recommend it--a prospect not surpa.s.sed in the western shires of England. He who selected its site must have been a man of tastes rather aesthetic than utilitarian. For the land attached and belonging--some fifty or sixty acres--is barely arable; lying against the abruptly sloping sides of the ravine. But the view is superb. Below, the Wye, winding through a partially wood-covered plain, like some grand constrictor snake; its sinuosities only here and there visible through the trees, resembling a chain of detached lakes--till sweeping past the Cuckoo's Glen, it runs on in straight reach towards Llangorren.

Eye of man never looked upon lovelier landscape; mind of man could not contemplate one more suggestive of all that is, or ought to be, interesting in life. Peaceful smokes ascending out of far-off chimneys; farm-houses, with their surrounding walls, standing amid the greenery of old homestead trees--now in full leaf, for it is the month of June--here and there the sharp spire of a church, or the showy facade of a gentleman's mansion--in the distant background, the dark blue mountains of Monmouthshire; among them conspicuous the Blorenge, Skerrid, and Sugar Loaf. The man who could look on such a picture, without drawing from it inspirations of pleasure, must be out of sorts with the world, if not weary of it.

And yet just such a man is now viewing it from Glyngog House, or rather the bit of shrubbery ground in front. He is seated on a rustic bench partly shattered, barely enough of it whole to give room beside him for a small j.a.panned tray on which are tumbler, bottle and jug--the two last respectively containing brandy and water; while in the first is an admixture of both. He is smoking a meerschaum pipe, which at short intervals he removes from his mouth to give place to the drinking gla.s.s.

The personal appearance of this man is in curious correspondence with the bench on which he sits, the walls around, and the house behind. Like all these, he looks dilapidated. Not only is his apparel out of repair, but his const.i.tution too, as shown by hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, with crows feet ramifying around them. This due not, as with the surrounding objects, to age; for he is still under forty. Nor yet any of the natural infirmities to which flesh is heir; but evidently to drink.

Some reddish spots upon his nose and flecks on the forehead, with the gla.s.s held in shaking hand, proclaims this the cause. And it is.

Lewin Murdock--such is the man's name--has led a dissipated life. Not much of it in England; still less in Herefordshire; and only its earlier years in the house he now inhabits--his paternal home. Since boyhood he has been abroad, staying none can say where, and straying no one knows whither--often seen, however, at Baden, Homburg, and other "h.e.l.ls,"

punting high or low, as the luck has gone for or against him. At a later period in Paris, during the Imperial _regime_--worst h.e.l.l of all. It has stripped him of everything; driven him out and home, to seek asylum at Glyngog, once a handsome property, now but a _pied a terre_, on which he may only set his foot with a mortgage around his neck. For even the little land left to it is let out to a farmer, and the rent goes not to him. He is, in fact, only a tenant on his patrimonial estate; holding but the house at that, with the ornamental grounds and an acre or two of orchard, of which he takes no care. The farmer's sheep may scale the crumbling walls, and browse the weedy enclosure at will: give Lewin Murdock his meerschaum pipe, with enough brandy and water, and he but laughs. Not that he is of a jovial disposition, not at all given to mirth; only that it takes something more than the pasturage of an old orchard to excite his thoughts, or turn them to cupidity.

For all, land does this--the very thing. No limited tract; but one of many acres in extent--even miles--the land of Llangorren.

It is now before his face, and under his eyes, as a map unfolded. On the opposite side of the river it forms the foreground of the landscape; in its midst the many-windowed mansion, backed by stately trees, with well-kept grounds, and green pastures; at a little distance the "Grange," or home-farm, and farther off others that look of the same belonging--as they are. A smiling picture it is; spread before the eyes of Lewin Murdock, whenever he sits in his front window, or steps outside the door. And the brighter the sun shines on it, the darker the shadow on his brow.

Not much of an enigma either. That land of Llangorren belonged to his grandfather, but now is, or soon will be, the property of his cousin--Gwendoline Wynn. Were she not, it would be his. Between him and it runs the Wye, a broad, deep river. But what its width or depth, compared with that other something between? A barrier stronger and more impa.s.sable than the stream, yet seeming slight as a thread. For it is but the _thread of a life_. Should it snap, or get accidentally severed, Lewin Murdock would only have to cross the river, proclaim himself master of Llangorren, and take possession.

He would scarce be human not to think of all this. And being human he does--has thought of it oft, and many a time. With feelings too, beyond the mere prompting of cupidity. These due to a legend handed down to him, telling of an unfair disposal of the Llangorren property; but a pittance given to his mother, who married Murdock of Glyngog; while the bulk went to her brother, the father of Gwen Wynn. All matters of testament, since the estate is unentailed; the only grace of the grandfather towards the Murdock branch being a clause ent.i.tling them to possession, in the event of the collateral heirs dying out. And of these but one is living--the heroine of our tale.

"Only she--but she!" mutters Lewin Murdock, in a tone of such bitterness, that, as if to drown it, he plucks the pipe out of his mouth, and gulps down the last drop in the gla.s.s.

CHAPTER XI.

A WEED BY THE WYESIDE.

"Only she--but she!" he repeats, grasping the bottle by the neck, and pouring more brandy into the tumbler.

Though speaking _sotto voce_, and not supposing himself overheard, he is, nevertheless--by a woman, who, coming forth from the house, has stepped silently behind him, there pausing.

Odd-looking apparition she, seen upon the Wyeside; altogether unlike a native of it, but altogether like one born upon the banks of the Seine, and brought up to tread the Boulevards of Paris--like the latter from the crown of her head to the soles of her high-heeled boots, on whose toes she stands poised and balancing. In front of that ancient English manor-house, she seems grotesquely out of place--as much as a costermonger, driving his moke-drawn cart among the Pyramids, or smoking a "Pickwick" by the side of the Sphinx.

For all there is nothing mysterious, or even strange in her presence there. She is Lewin Murdock's wife. If he has left his fortune in foreign lands, with the better part of his life and health, he has thence brought her, his better-half.

Physically a fine-looking woman, despite some ravages due to time, and possibly more to crime. Tall and dark as the daughters of the Latinic race, with features beautiful in the past--even still attractive to those not repelled by the beguiling glances of sin.

Such were hers, first given to him in a _cafe chantant_ of the Tuileries--oft afterwards repeated in _jardin_, _bois_, and _bals_ of the demi-monde, till at length she gave him her hand in the Eglise La Madeleine.

Busied with his brandy, and again gazing at Llangorren, he has not yet seen her; nor is he aware of her proximity till hearing an exclamation:--

"_Eh, bien?_"

He starts at the interrogatory, turning round.

"You think too loud, Monsieur--that is if you wish to keep your thoughts to yourself. And you might--seeing that it's a love secret! May I ask who is this _she_ you're soliloquising about? Some of your old English _bonnes amies_, I suppose?"

This, with an air of affected jealousy she is far from feeling. In the heart of the _ex-cocotte_ there is no place for such a sentiment.

"Got nothing to do with _bonnes amies_, young or old," he gruffly replies. "Just now I've got something else to think of than sweethearts.

Enough occupation for my thoughts in the how I'm to support a wife--yourself, madame."

"It wasn't me you meant. No, indeed. Some other, in whom you appear to feel a very profound interest."

"There you're right, it was one other, in whom I feel all that."

"_Merci, Monsieur! Ma foi!_ your candour deserves all thanks. Perhaps you'll extend it, and favour me with the lady's name? A lady, I presume.

The grand Seigneur Lewin Murdock would not be giving his thoughts to less."

Ignorance pretended. She knows, or surmises, to whom he has been giving them; for she has been watching him from a window, and observed the direction of his glances. And she has more than a suspicion as to the nature of his reflections; since she is well aware as he of that something besides a river separating them from Llangorren.

"Her name?" she again asks, in tone of more demand, her eyes bent searchingly on his.

Avoiding her glance, he still pulls away at his pipe, without making answer.

"It is a love secret, then? I thought so. It's cruel of you, Lewin! This is the return for giving you--all I had to give!"

She may well speak hesitatingly, and hint at a limited sacrifice. Only her hand; and it more than tenderly pressed by scores--ay hundreds--of others, before being bestowed upon him. No false pretence, however, on her part. He knew all that, or should have known it. How could he help?

Olympe, the belle of the Jardin Mabille, was no obscurity in the _demi-monde_ of Paris--even in its days of glory under Napoleon le Pet.i.te.

Her reproach is also a pretence, though possibly with some sting felt.

She is drawing on to that term of life termed _pa.s.se_; and begins to feel conscious of it. He may be the same. Not that for his opinion she cares a straw--save in a certain sense, and for reasons altogether independent of slighted affection--the very purpose she is now working upon, and for which she needs to hold over him the power she has. .h.i.therto had. And well knows she how to retain it, rekindling love's fire when it seems in danger of dying out, either through appeal to his pity, or exciting his jealousy, which she can adroitly do, by her artful French ways and dark flashing eyes.