Eustace Marchmont: a Friend of the People
Copyright© 2025 by Evelyn Everett-Green
Chapter 3: The House of Mourning
EUSTACE MARCHMONT came in sight of Penarvon Castle just as the last rays of the winter sunset were striking upon its closed windows and turning them into squares of flashing red light dazzling to the eye. The castle stood commandingly upon its lofty promontory of jagged cliff, and from its garden walls, as the young man remembered well, the spectator could look sheer down a deep precipice into the tossing waves of the sea beneath. He remembered the long side terrace of the castle, against which the thunder of the surf in winter months made a perpetual roar and battle; whilst even on summer evenings, when the sea lay like a sheet of molten gold beneath them, the ceaseless murmur was always to be heard, suggestive of the restless life of the ocean. It was natural perhaps that Eustace should draw rein and look at the majestic pile with something of pride in his gaze, for he was the Duke’s next of kin, and in the course of nature would one day be master here. Yet there was no exultation in the steady gaze he fixed upon his future home: it was speculative and thoughtful rather than triumphant. There was a shade of perplexity in the wide-open grey eyes intently fixed upon the place, which looked at the moment as though lit up for illumination, and the firm lips set themselves in lines that were almost grim.
Eustace Marchmont was clad in a suit of black, which was evidently quite new, although slightly stained and disordered by the evidences of a long and hasty journey. He had, in fact, ridden hard from town ever since the news of the Duchess’s death reached him, now three days ago. He knew that propriety demanded he should be present at her funeral, even without the invitation from the Duke. He had come as fast as post-horses could bring him, with his two servants in attendance, and had travelled without mischance.
It was many years now since Eustace had visited Penarvon. His father (dead two years since) and the Duke were cousins, and the Duke had no brother. As young men there had been some attachment between them, but they had grown apart with the advance of years. The Duke was by many years the elder of the two; and perhaps on account of seniority, perhaps from his position as head of the family, had striven with possibly unwise persistence to mould his cousin after his own wishes. Disagreement had ended in coolness, and the intercourse had become slacker. Although Eustace had visited his “uncle’s” house (he had been taught so to speak of the Duke), he did not remember ever having seen his father there, and since his own boyhood he had not seen the place himself.
He had not understood at the time why his visits ceased, but he knew it well enough now. Although the Duke long cherished hopes of a son of his own to succeed him, he had always regarded Eustace as a possible heir, and had desired to have a voice in his education. The boy had been sent to Eton at his suggestion; but when his school-days were ended, and his uncle naturally supposed that the University would be the next step in his training, Mr. Marchmont had suddenly decided to travel abroad with the boy and see the world—the close of the long war having just rendered travelling possible with safety. When he himself returned to England at the end of two years, it was with the news that Eustace had been left behind in Germany to finish his education there; and the indignant remonstrances of the Duke had resulted in a coolness which had never been altogether conquered. He considered that the young man would be rendered entirely unfit by such training, for the position every year seemed to make it more probable he would one day hold, whilst Mr. Marchmont argued that, the youth’s heart being set upon it, it was far better to give him his own way than try to force him into paths uncongenial and distasteful.
Eustace was now seven-and-twenty, and in command of an ample fortune. Both his parents were dead—his mother he did not even remember, and he had neither brother nor sister. His second cousin, Lady Bride Marchmont, whom he dimly remembered as a shrinking little girl, for ever clinging to her mother’s hand, was the only relative of his own generation that he possessed; and it had naturally occurred to him before now that to marry the Duke’s daughter, if he could learn to love her and teach her to love him, would be the best reparation he could make to her for the lack of brothers of her own. It seemed to him a hard and unjust thing that her sex should disqualify her from succeeding to her father’s wealth and title. Eustace was no lover of the time-honoured laws of primogeniture, entail, or the privileges of the upper classes. The leaven of the day was working strongly in him, and he was ready to break a lance in the cause of freedom and brotherly equality with whatever foe came in his way.
His face bespoke something of this temperament. He had the broad lofty brow of the thinker, the keen steady eye of the man of battle, the open sensitive nostril of the enthusiast, and the firm tender mouth of the philanthropist. Without being handsome he was attractive, and his face was worthy of study. There was something of quiet scorn lying latent in his expression, which argument easily called into active existence. The face could darken sternly, or soften into ardent tenderness and enthusiasm, as the case might be. He had the air of a leader of men. His voice was deep, penetrating, and persuasive, and he had a fine command of language when his pulses were stirred. In person he was tall and commanding, and had that air of breeding which goes far to win respect with men of all classes. He moved with the quiet dignity and ease of one perfectly trained in all physical exercises, and in whom no thought of self-consciousness lurks. He looked well on horseback, riding with the grace of long practice. As he followed the windings of the zigzag road which led up to the castle, looking about him with keen eyes to observe what changes time had made in the old place, he looked like one whom the Duke might welcome with pride as his heir, since it had not pleased Providence to bestow upon him a son of his own.
He rode quietly up to the great sweep before the gateway and passed beneath it, answering the respectful salute of the porter with a friendly nod, and found himself in the quadrangle upon which the great hall door opened. His approach had been observed, and the servants in their sombre dress were waiting to receive him; but the drawn blinds over all the windows, and the deep hush which pervaded the house, struck a chill upon the spirit of the young man as he passed beneath the portal, and a quick glance round the hall assured him that none but servants were there.
A great hound lying beside the roaring fire of logs rose with a suspicious bay and advanced towards him, but seeming to recognise kinship in the stranger, permitted him to stroke his head, as Eustace, standing beside the hearth, addressed the butler in low tones:—
“How is it with his Grace?”
The man slowly shook his head.
“Sadly, sir, but sadly. He keeps himself shut up in his own room—the room next to that in which her Grace lies—and unless it be needful nobody disturbs him. He looks ten years older than he did a month back: it has made an old man of him in a few weeks.”
“And the Lady Bride?”
“She is bearing up wonderfully, but we think she has scarce realised her loss yet. She seems taken out of herself by it all—uplifted like—almost more than is natural in so young a lady. But she was always half a saint, like her Grace herself. She will be just such another as her mother.”
“And the funeral is to-morrow?”
“Yes, sir—on the first day of the new year. Her Grace died very early upon the morning of Christmas Day—just a week from now.”
Eustace was silent for a few minutes, and then turning to the servant, said—
“Does his Grace know I am here? Shall I see him to-day? Does he see anybody?”
“If you will let me show you your rooms, sir, I will let him know you have arrived. He will probably see you at dinner-time. He and Lady Bride dine together at five—their other meals they have hitherto taken in their own rooms, but that may be changed now. You will join them at dinner, of course, sir.”
“If they wish it, certainly,” answered Eustace; “but I have no wish to intrude if they would prefer to be alone. Is anybody else here?”
“There is nobody else to come, sir. Her Grace’s few relatives are in Ireland, and there has not been time to send for them, and they were not nearly related to her either. I am glad you are here, sir. It is a long time since Penarvon has seen you.”
“Yes, I have been much abroad, but the place looks exactly the same. I could believe I had been here only yesterday.”
And then Eustace followed the man up the grand marble staircase and down a long corridor, so richly carpeted that their foot-falls made no sound, till they reached a small suite of apartments, three in number, which had been prepared for the use of the guest, and which were already bright with glowing fires, and numbers of wax candles in silver sconces arranged along the walls.
The costliness and richness of his surroundings was strange to Eustace, for although wealth was his, his habits were very simple, and he neither desired nor appreciated personal indulgences of whatever kind they might be. He looked round him now with a smile not entirely free from contempt, although he recognised in the welcome thus accorded him a spirit of friendly regard, which was pleasant.
“Unless, indeed, it is all the work of hired servants,” he said, after a moment’s cogitation. “Probably it is so—who else would have thought to spare for a guest at such a time as this? This is the regular thing at the castle for every visitor. There is nothing personal to me in all this warmth and brightness.”
His baggage had arrived, and his servant had laid out his evening dress: but Eustace never required personal attention, and the man had already taken his departure. The young man donned his new suit of decorous black with rapidity and precision. He was no dandy, but he was no sloven either, and always looked well in his clothes. After his rapid toilet was completed, he sat down beside the fire to muse, and was only interrupted by the message to the effect that his Grace desired the pleasure of his company at the dinner-table that evening.
This being the case, and the hands of the clock on the mantelpiece pointing ten minutes only to the hour of five, Eustace at once rose and descended to the drawing-room, the door of which was thrown open for him by one of the footmen carrying in some logs to feed the huge fire. One glance round the once familiar apartment showed him that it was empty. It was the smallest of the three drawing-rooms, opening one into the other in a long suite, and formed indeed the ante-chamber to the larger ones beyond; but it was the one chiefly used when there were no guests at the castle; and Eustace remembered well the pictures on the white and gold walls, the amber draperies, and the cabinets with their treasures of silver, china, and glass.
Nothing seemed changed about the place, and the sense of stationary immutability and repose struck strangely upon the alert faculties of the young man, whose life had always been full of variety—not only of place and scene, but of thought and principle. A dreamlike feeling came over him as he stood looking about him, and he did not know whether the predominant sensation in his mind were of satisfaction or impatience.
The door slowly opened, and in came a slim black-robed figure. For a moment Eustace, standing near to an interesting picture, and shadowed by a curtain, passed unnoticed, so that he took in the details of this living picture before he himself was seen. He knew in a moment who it was—his cousin Bride—the little timid girl of his boyish recollections; but if all else were unchanged at Penarvon, there was change at least here, for had he seen her in any other surroundings he would never have known or recognised her.
Bride’s face was very pale, and there were dark violet shadows beneath the eyes which told of vigil and of weeping; yet the face was now not only calm, but full of a deep spiritual tranquillity and exaltation, which gave to it an aspect almost unearthly in its beauty. Bride had inherited all her mother’s exceptional loveliness of feature, but she owed more to that expression—caught from, rather than transmitted by, that saintly mother—which struck the beholder far more than mere delicacy of feature or purity of colouring. Eustace was no mean student of art, and had studied at the shrine of the old masters with an enthusiasm born of true appreciation for genius; yet never had he beheld, even in the greatest masterpieces, such a wonderfully spiritualised and glorified face as he now beheld in the person of his cousin Bride. A wave of unwonted devotional fervour came suddenly upon him. He felt that he could have bent the knee before her and kissed the hem of her garment; but instead of that he was constrained by custom to walk forward with outstretched hand, meeting the startled glance of her liquid dark eyes as she found herself not alone.
“You are my cousin Eustace,” she said, in a low melodious voice that thrilled him strangely as it fell upon his ear; “my father will be glad you are come.”
For once Eustace’s readiness failed him. He held Bride’s hand, and knew not how to address her. His heart was beating with quick strong throbs. He felt as though he were addressing some being from another sphere. What could he say to her at such a moment?
Perhaps his silence surprised her, for she raised her soft eyes again to his, and the glance went home to his soul like a sword-thrust, so that he quivered all over. But he found his voice at last.
“Forgive me,” he said, and his voice was soft and even tremulous. “If I am silent, it is because I have no words in which to express what I wish. There are moments in life when we feel that words are no true medium of thought. I remember your mother, Bride—that is all I can find to say. I remember her—and before the thought of your great loss I am dumb. Silence is sometimes more eloquent that any speech can be.”
He still held her hand. She raised her eyes to his, and he saw that he had touched her heart, for they were swimming now in bright tears, but her sweet mouth did not quiver.