"Enter, enter, I pray. I am right glad--What! do my eyes deceive me? Sure I am in some strange dream! Petronella! Surely it cannot be Petronella! The features are the same; but the Petronella I once knew was wan and frail as a fair wood lily, and thou--nay, but it cannot be!"
"But it is--it is!" cried the girl, making a bound forward and flinging her arms round Kate"s neck in an ecstasy of happiness; "and, O Kate, I have seen him again! I saw him ride to the door by thy side! Perchance I shall even have words with him ere he journey forth again! Ah, how rejoiced was I when I heard that thou wert coming! O Kate, I have such news for thee--such news, such news!"
The two girls were folded in each other"s arms. Between every few words they paused to kiss and laugh in the very exuberance of their happiness. It seemed like a dream to Kate; she could scarce believe her eyes.
"Petronella--but how earnest thou here?"
"I came when the weather grew so inclement that Cuthbert would no longer let me share his forest life. He brought me to this house, and our aunts, when they heard our story, opened their doors to me; and I have been here three whole weeks--ever since the summer"s heats broke in storms of rain. But here I go by the name of Ellen Wyvern, lest haply it should come to my father"s ears that I am here, and he should fetch me away. But I have almost ceased to quake at that thought; I have had my freedom so long."
"I scarce know thee, thou art so changed--so full of sunshine and courage," cried Kate. "Erstwhile thou wert like a creature of moonlight and vapour; a breath seemed as though it would blow thee away. What has befallen to change thee so? What hast thou been doing all this while? And where is Cuthbert?"
"Cuthbert is yet in the forest," answered Petronella, sinking her voice to the merest whisper, as if afraid that even the walls would have ears. "His task is not yet finished. It is one that takes great skill and patience and watchfulness. But it is being accomplished by slow and sure degrees. Ah, Kate! what news thinkest thou that I have for thee? The time has not yet come when the world may know all; but I trow that thou mayest know, for thou hast ever been with us in the secret of the quest."
Kate"s face flushed and paled; her heart beat fast with hope and wonder. She well knew what difference to her future would be made by the restoration to the house of Trevlyn of that lost treasure. She could scarce frame the words she longed to speak, but her eyes asked the question for her; and Petronella, putting her lips close to her cousin"s ear, whispered the wondrous news that the lost treasure was found.
"Found--really found!" and Kate gave a great gasp. "Nay, but, Petronella, tell me how."
Petronella laid a warning hand upon Kate"s lips.
"Nay, cousin, but thou must call me Ellen here. And we must wait till the household be at rest, and we share the same bed, ere I dare to pour into thine ears all the tale. And thou must promise to breathe no word of it, bad nor good, till the moment has come for the world to know. It will not be long now, I trow; but we are pledged, and were it not that I know well thou art stanch and true, I dared not have shared the joyful secret with thee."
"It is safe with me," cried Kate; "I will never betray it. O Ellen, how I long to hear the whole! But since that may not be now, tell me more of these great aunts of ours. What treatment am I to look for beneath their roof? Am I to be received as kinswoman or as prisoner? for marry I know not myself."
Petronella"s face kindled into smiles, those bright happy smiles that gave it a charm never seen in past days. She bent an arch glance upon her cousin, and then made reply.
"The Lady Humbert is a fine stately dame, before whom my heart quailed mightily when first I stood before her. Her voice is sharp; her eyes look you through and through; her frown sets you quaking, and makes you wish the earth would swallow you up. But for all that, when once you get to know her, you find that a warm heart beats beneath her stiff bodice, and that though she will speak sharply to you before your face, she will do you many a kind act of which you know little or nothing. Mistress Dowsabel is younger, smaller, less fearsome to the eye; indeed she is timorous and often full of fears herself. She too is kind, though I truly think that Lady Humbert has the larger heart. They love each other well, and are willing to befriend all who have claims of kindred. For the rest, they live much secluded from the world, and think that the times are sadly changed for the worse since the days when they were young."
"And what think they of me?" asked Kate, with natural girlish self consciousness.
Petronella repeated her arch glance.
"To me they say that thou art a wilful maid who needest watching and stern guarding. They shake their heads at such loose marriage, and tell me to take warning and not fall into like folly and sin through overmuch love of my own way. But I heard them talking together of thee when they forgot that I was by; and then there was something different in their words, and I could scarce forbear to smile."
"What said they then?" asked Kate eagerly.
"My Lady Humbert, she said that Lord Andover was a good man and stanch, and that all spoke well of his son. They added that if thou wouldst one day be Countess of Andover, they would gladly think that thou wouldst worthily fill that place. Aunt Dowsabel asked if thou hadst made a good beginning in this hasty marriage or troth plight of thine; whereat Lady Humbert gave a laugh, and said she was glad that thou hadst had the spirit of thy ancestors in thee, and that for her part, if you were both true and stanch in your love, she saw small harm in letting love have the mastery over prudence. And then it turned out, as I learned from their talk, that she herself had run away to be married when she was a girl, and that she had never for one hour repented the act. So she plainly felt that thou wast her own kinswoman in all faith; and although she may speak to thee with stern rebuke, thou mayest know in thy heart that she thinks kindly of thee, and that she will stand thy friend with thy father, and make the peace with thy mother if she may."
Kate"s face flushed happily.
"Nay, now, that is good hearing! Why did we not know these good aunts before? I can go before them with a light heart now. I repent me of nothing save that I displeased my parents, and hid the matter from them all this while. I trow I shall never repent that I let Culverhouse persuade me to plight my troth to him."
Kate was glad of the a.s.surance Petronella"s words had given her when she was presently summoned before her relatives, and stood in the dim panelled room before their straight-backed chairs, feeling the stern eyes of Lady Humbert fixed full upon her, whilst she heard that her father and brother had already left, since it was only pain and grief to them to be beneath the same roof as their obdurate and disobedient daughter and sister.
Kate received the lecture addressed her by the mistress of the house with all becoming humility, and without that sinking of heart that she might otherwise have felt at the cold stern tone; and she gladly pa.s.sed her word, when desired to do so, not to go beyond the precincts of the great walled garden without special permission. In her walks and rides abroad she was always to be attended, and was to promise never to slip away from her escort. If she would faithfully promise this, she might be allowed the companionship of Ellen Wyvern, now a guest beneath the roof of Cross Way House; and to give this promise cost Kate no pang, for she had no feverish desire after unfettered liberty, but was content to await the time she knew must shortly come now, when Culverhouse would come to claim her for his own, and would find her no longer the portionless maiden she once had been, but dowered with some of the rich spoil from that long-lost h.o.a.rd.
Supper was served in solemn state in the dining parlour, and the two girls sat with their aged relatives to partake of it. Petronella was a little sad that Philip had gone without even knowing of her presence beneath that roof: but she was certain their meeting would not be much longer delayed, and was content to wait. The Wyvern sisters did not keep a great establishment, as their means were not large, though they clung to the old house which had come down to them, and would have sacrificed much rather than sell it. But Kate soon discovered that the largest rooms were shut up and partially dismantled in order that comfort should reign in those parts of the house that were habitually used; that the staff of servants was but small; and that of these nearly all were old men and women who had grown gray and enfeebled in the service of the family, and were kept on by the present mistresses, who themselves disliked any changes in their establishment, and who could hardly see their way to finding the wages that able-bodied servants would look to receive. So they lived in this very quiet fashion, surrounded by retainers almost as aged as themselves, and led on the whole a happy and a placid life. Petronella was proving of so much use that the burden of her maintenance was not felt, and Sir Richard Trevlyn made generous arrangements for the cost of his daughter. But there was something altogether quaint and curious in the life of the house, and Kate thought it exceedingly interesting even before the first evening had pa.s.sed.
Yet all the while she was longing to hear Petronella"s tale, and was glad when the tapestry work was put away, and formal good nights had been exchanged. The girls ran up to the guest chamber prepared for Kate, which they had agreed to share together from that time forth. It did not take them long to slip into bed; and old Dyson, the waiting woman, who also acted as housekeeper, came quickly in to see that the lights were safely extinguished, after which only the glow of the fire illuminated the darkness of the big room; and Kate in an eager whisper begged Petronella to lose no time in telling her tale.
With breathless eagerness she heard of the girl"s flight from home, and of her rescue of Cuthbert from the very jaws of death. She could not understand Petronella"s shuddering horror at the thought of having killed a man.
"I would have killed fifty, and been glad to rid the earth of them were they such wretches as Long Robin!" she cried.
Then in deep silence she heard of Cuthbert"s dive into the well, and of the golden flagon he had brought up as an earnest of what was to come. Petronella went on to say that, having made absolutely sure of the presence of the treasure in the well, Cuthbert had then directed all his energies to detecting the sources of the hidden springs that fed it, and after long search and patience had satisfied himself that it was filled by two, both rising in the high ground not far distant.
He had then set to work to see how these waters could be diverted so as to leave the well dry at his will; and though it had taken months to perform this feat, and had only been done at the cost of immense labour and trouble, still it had been done, and one day in early September the brother and sister had stood together to see the water ebbing slowly and more slowly away, until at last their eyes beheld a vast quant.i.ty of silver and gold lying exposed at the bottom of the well, and knew that the lost treasure of Trevlyn was theirs indeed.
But their labours were not yet ended. It was plain to both that they must quickly find some safe spot whither they could transport it all, else some pa.s.sing traveller might even now see and report what he had seen, and so rob them of the fruit of their toil.
Afraid to go to Trevlyn Chase for help, lest the news should in some way leak out to Nicholas at the Gate House, and also because the brother and sister had set their hearts on accomplishing the task entirely alone, it suddenly entered Cuthbert"s head to take his sister to the Cross Way House, and ask of its owners protection for her through the approaching inclement season; and then, if satisfied that these Wyvern kinswomen were to be trusted, and were friendly of disposition towards them, to whisper the secret of the treasure trove in their ears, and ask leave to deposit it all within the great strongroom underground, that the Wyvern house had always boasted, and of which the secret was known to very few.
This was the plan that had been carried out. His reception by Lady Humbert, and her kindness to the lonely Petronella when her pitiful story was told, quite decided Cuthbert to confide the golden secret to her. She listened in amaze, but was highly pleased at being the first person to know it. She laid her hand on Cuthbert"s head, and spoke to him of the old saw which predicted that fortune should return to the Wyverns through the daughters" sons, and declared that he was fulfilling the prophecy she had longed to live to see come true. Cuthbert trusted that such indeed would be the case, but did not know whether the Wyverns had any lot or share in the treasure trove. Whereat the old lady smiled, and said that she laid no claim to the gold--it was none of theirs, and never would be; but still, with her hand on Cuthbert"s head, she declared that after herself and her sister he should reign at the Cross Way House, and that his share of the treasure, which in all sooth should be a large one, since but for him it might never have been found, would go to restore the fallen fortunes of the house, and to fulfil in very truth the fondly-cherished prediction.
Cuthbert"s amazement had naturally been great; but this fair prospect held out to him had but given greater zest to his enterprise. Not to a single soul in the house would Lady Humbert confide the secret, lest amongst themselves the faithful old servants should gossip, and rumour get abroad that the lonely house was worth attacking. In the dead of night, upon appointed dates, Cuthbert brought to a certain iron-barred window the laden a.s.s bearing his costly burden, and Petronella and Lady Humbert themselves received the treasure and bore it piece by piece to the secret room. Not a creature slept on that side of the house--not a living being knew what was pa.s.sing in the dead hours of the night; and in this fashion the treasure was being brought, Cuthbert descending the well, into which a little water had now filtered--enough to conceal the treasure from a pa.s.sing observer if such there should chance to be--and with the a.s.sistance of their four-footed friend, drawing up as much as the patient beast could carry, and transporting it by night to this very house.
"When all is done," concluded Petronella--"and every load we think must surely be the last, there is so much of it--then he will forth to seek the gipsy in the forest, and tell her that the task is done. After that he will to London, to see how it fares with his cousins there, and to tell my uncle something of his tale, demanding, as I right well believe, the hand of our cousin Cherry in wedlock, since he may now support a wife in all comfort and ease. When that is done he will hither again, and Lady Humbert will ask to her house a gathering of kinsfolk for the Yuletide festival. And then the great secret will be told. The treasure will be divided between the Trevlyns a.s.sembled beneath this roof; and I trow, sweet Kate, that my Lord Culverhouse will contrive to be here, and that when the good news has been told to all, he will have small work in getting the parental blessing for those nuptials that will be celebrated anew with pomp and rejoicing, and will make thee in very truth, and without shadow of a doubt, the Viscountess Culverhouse."
Kate, laughing and quivering, clasped Petronella in her arms, as she cried between laughter and tears:
"And when that good hap befalls me, sweet Petronella, I will warrant that Philip will be in no wise behind in claiming his bride, and that thou as well as I shalt find that the recovered treasure of Trevlyn has smoothed our path to wedded happiness!"
Chapter 20: How It Fared With Cherry.
"Gramercy! what next, I wonder! Here"s a pretty kettle of fish! I always did say that no good came of letters. I wish folks had more sense than to spend their time writing! I never get a letter but what it brings a peck of bother with it."
Mistress Susan Holt was the speaker. She held in her hand a piece of paper which she was eying with many a scornful sniff. It had been left at the bridge house by a courier riding through to Westminster from the south country, and Martin Holt had called his sister down to his business parlour to open and read the missive.
He now looked up from his books with a pardonable curiosity to say:
"Well, sister Susan, letters do not trouble thee oft. And what may be the news in this one? and from whom comes it?"
"From Prudence Dyson."
"Prudence at the Cross Way House? And what says she? it is long since we had news of her."
"So long that I had almost forgot where she was: and I marvel she should trouble us thus. Thy daughters are not serving wenches, Martin. What can Prudence be thinking of?"
Martin smiled slightly. It seemed to him that beneath his sister"s iron rule his daughters did little but toil after the fashion of serving wenches from morning to night. As for Susan herself, she worked harder than any servant she had ever had beneath her sway.
"What says the letter?" he asked briefly; "what is the matter that angers thee?"
"I am not angry," answered Susan sharply. "I trust I know my duty better as a Christian than to be angered over trifles. I am but surprised at such a request. Prudence Dyson asks if I can spare one of my nieces and thy daughters to dwell for a while at Cross Way House, to help her with her duties there."
Martin Holt did not appear to see anything very unreasonable or extraordinary in that request.
"What has caused her to wish it?" he asked quietly. "Is she in any way ill or disabled?"