Trevethlan: A Cornish Story. Volume 3 (of 3)Watson, William Davy
General
Trevethlan: A Cornish Story. Volume 3 (of 3)
Watson, William Davy
Cornwall (England : County) -- Fiction
Pendarrel Hall remained a ruin. The estate was settled upon Mildred and
her husband, and it seemed unnecessary to maintain two large residences
upon the united property. The flower-garden surrounding it was allowed
to run to waste, and the blackened walls continued standing, mournful
memorials of an outrage which had exiled several of its perpetrators
from their native land. Ivy was planted around the foundations, and at
some future day, the ruin might become a picturesque feature in the
landscape.
It was the doom which its mistress, in the opening of this narrative,
anticipated for the towers of Trevethlan. The menace or the desire had
been deeply avenged. But Esther was not the only person upon whom the
storm left traces of its passage. Mildred was often visited with
feelings of compunction and remorse, and the cloud which they brought
upon her brow called down a similar shadow upon Randolph's. And when her
mother survived Mr. Pendarrel, and in her loneliness accepted the
shelter of Trevethlan Castle, her aspect and demeanour were a constant
source of self-reproach to her daughter. Without being actually
imbecile, she required minute attention. She was very rigid and exacting
in all the little business of life. Her temper was uncertain, and it was
difficult to gratify her fleeting wishes. At times it might be thought
that she remembered how she should have been mistress of the castle, and
imagined for a brief space that she in fact occupied that position.
Frequently, too, she fell into long and silent reveries, and then it was
that the melancholy which overspread her countenance, caused the
greatest anxiety to her children. She always wore the miniature of
herself, and used to gaze at it, with a vacant but mournful expression,
for an hour at a time. But at length they found a means of diverting her
attention. She attached herself particularly to her eldest
grand-daughter; and whenever she sank into too prolonged a train of
musing, the little girl crept softly to her knees, and took her hand.
And then Esther awoke from her dream of the past, and smoothed the dark
hair upon the child's forehead, and told many little stories, which
delighted the young listener.
Rarely did it happen that this manner of relief failed of effect. But
sometimes Esther's abstraction was too deep to yield. At such seasons
she murmured to herself in low tones. And the little girl caused her
mother a bitter pang, by unwittingly telling her that, on one of these
occasions, grandmamma was only repeating, over and over again, and
without intermission--
"Pendar'l and Trevethlan shall own one name."
THE END.
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