mr. and mrs. gaunt lived happily together—as times went.
a fine girl and boy were born to them; and need i say how their hearts expanded and exulted; and seemed to grow twice as large.
the little boy was taken from them at three years old: and how can i convey to any but a parent the anguish of that first bereavement?
well they suffered it together, and that poignant grief was one tie more between them.
for many years they did not furnish any exciting or even interesting matter to this narrator. and all the better for them: without these happy periods of dulness our lives would be hell, and our hearts eternally bubbling and boiling in a huge pot made hot with thorns.
in the absence of striking incidents, it may be well to notice the progress of character, and note the tiny seeds of events to come.
neither the intellectual nor the moral character of any person stands stock-still: a man improves, or he declines. mrs. gaunt had a great taste for reading; mr. gaunt had not: what was the consequence? at the end of seven years the lady's understanding had made great strides; the gentleman's had, apparently, retrograded.
now we all need a little excitement, and we all seek it, and get it by hook or by crook. the girl, who satisfies that natural craving with what the canting dunces of the day call a "sensational" novel, and the girl, who does it by waltzing till daybreak, are sisters; only one obtains the result intellectually, and the other obtains it like a young animal, and a pain in her empty head next day.
mrs. gaunt could enjoy company, but was never dull with a good book. mr. gaunt was a pleasant companion, but dull out of company. so, rather than not have it, he would go to the parlor of the "red lion," and chat and sing with the yeomen and rollicking young squires that resorted thither: and this was matter of grief and astonishment to mrs. gaunt.
it was balanced by good qualities she knew how to appreciate. morals were much looser then than now; and more than one wife of her acquaintance had a rival in the village, or even among her own domestics; but griffith had no loose inclinations of that kind, and never gave her a moment's uneasiness. he was constancy and fidelity in person.
sobriety had not yet been invented. but griffith was not so intemperate as most squires; he could always mount the stairs to tea, and generally without staggering.
he was uxorious, and it used to come out after his wine. this mrs. gaunt permitted at first, but by-and-by says she, expanding her delicate nostrils, "you may be as affectionate as you please dear, and you may smell of wine, if you will; but please not to smell of wine and be affectionate at the same moment. i value your affection too highly to let you disgust me with it."
and the model husband yielded to this severe restriction, and, as it never occurred to him to give up his wine, he forebode to be affectionate in his cups.
one great fear mrs. gaunt had entertained before marriage, ceased to haunt her. now and then her quick eye saw griffith writhe at the great influence her director had with her; but he never spoke out to offend her, and she, like a good wife, saw, smiled, and adroitly, tenderly soothed: and this was nothing compared to what she had feared.
griffith saw his wife admired by other men, yet never chid nor chafed. the merit of this belonged in a high degree to herself. the fact is, that kate peyton, even before marriage, was not a coquette at heart, though her conduct might easily bear that construction: and she was now an experienced matron, and knew how to be as charming as ever, yet check or parry all approaches of gallantry on the part of her admirers. then griffith observed how delicate and prudent his lovely wife was, without ostentatious prudery; and his heart was at peace.
he was the happier of the two, for he looked up to his wife, as well as loved her, whereas she was troubled at times with a sense of superiority to her husband. she was amiable enough, and wise enough, to try and shut her eyes to it; and often succeeded; but not always.
upon the whole, they were a contented couple; though the lady's dreamy eyes seemed still to be exploring earth and sky in search of something they had not yet found, even in wedded life.
they lived at hernshaw. a letter had been found among mr. charlton't papers explaining his will. he counted on their marrying, and begged them to live at the castle. he had left it on his wife's death; it reminded him too keenly of happier days; but, as he drew near his end, and must leave all earthly things, he remembered the old house with tenderness, and put out his dying hand to save it from falling into decay.
unfortunately considerable repairs were needed, and, as kate's property was tied up so tight, griffith's two thousand pounds went in repairing the house, lawn, park railings, and walled gardens; went, every penny, and left the bridge over the lake still in a battered, rotten, and, in a word, picturesque condition.
this lake was, by the older inhabitants, sometimes called the "mere," and sometimes the "fish-pools;" it resembled an hour-glass in shape, only curved like a crescent.
in medieval times it had no doubt been a main defense of the place. it was very deep in parts, especially at the waist or narrow that was spanned by the decayed bridge. there were hundreds of carp and tench in it older than any be in cumberland, and also enormous pike and eels; and fish from one to five pounds' weight by the million. the water literally teemed from end to end; and this was a great comfort to so good a catholic as mrs. gaunt. when she was seized with a desire to fast, and that was pretty often, the gardener just, went down to the lake and flung a casting-net in some favorite hole, and drew out half a bushel the first cast; or planted a flue-net round a patch of weeds, then belabored the weeds with a long pole, and a score of fine fish were sure to run out into the meshes.
the "mere" was clear as plate glass, and came to the edge of the shaven lawn, and reflected flowers, turf, and overhanging shrubs, deliciously.
yet an ill name brooded over its seductive waters. for two persons had been drowned in it during the last hundred years: and the last one was the parson of the parish, returning from the squire's dinner in the normal condition of a guest, at that epoch. but what most affected the popular mind, was, not the jovial soul hurried into eternity, but the material circumstance that the greedy pike had cleared the flesh off his bones in a single night; so that little more than a skeleton, with here and there a black rag hanging to it, had been recovered next morning.
this ghastly detail being stoutly maintained and constantly repeated by two ancient eye-witnesses, whose one melodramatic incident and treasure it was, the rustic mind saw no beauty whatever in those pellucid waters, where flowers did glass themselves.
as for the women of the village, they looked on this sheet of water as a trap for their poor bodies, and those of their children, and spoke of it as a singular hardship in their lot, that hernshaw mere had not been filled up threescore years agone.
the castle itself was no castle, nor had it been for centuries: it was just a house with battlements; but attached to the stable was an old square tower that really had formed part of the medieval castle.
however, that unsubstantial shadow, a name, is often more durable than the thing; especially in rural parts: but, indeed, what is there in a name for time's teeth to catch hold of?
though no castle, it was a delightful abode. the drawing-room and dining-room had both spacious bay windows, opening on to the lawn that sloped very gradually down to the clear lake, and there was mirrored. on this sweet lawn the inmates and guests walked for sun and mellow air, and often played bowls at eventide.
on the other side was the drive up to the house door, and a sweep, or small oval plot, of turf, surrounded by gravel; and a gate at the corner of this sweep opened into a grove of the grandest old spruce firs in the island.
this grove, dismal in winter, and awful at night, was deliciously cool and sombre in the dog days. the trees were spires, and their great stems stood serried like infantry in column, and flung a mighty canopy of sombre plumes over head. a strange, antique, and classic grove—nulli penetrabilis astro.
this retreat was enclosed on three sides by a wall, and on the east side came nearly to the house; a few laurel bushes separated the two. at night it was shunned religiously, on account of the ghosts. even by daylight it was little frequented, except by one person: and she took to it amazingly. that person was mrs. gaunt. there seems to be, even in educated women, a singular, instinctive love of twilight; and here was twilight at high noon. the place, too, suited her dreamy meditative nature. hither, then, she often retired for peace and religious contemplation, and moved slowly in and out among the tall stems, or sat still, with her thoughtful brow leaned on her white hand: till the cool, umbrageous retreat got to be called among the servants, "the dame's haunt."
this, i think, is all needs to be told about the mere place, where the gaunts lived comfortably many years; and little dreamed of the strange events in store for them; little knew the passions that slumbered in their own bosoms, and, like other volcanoes, bided their time.
