Notwithstanding these disadvantages, Glyngog has something to recommend it – a prospect not surpassed in the western shires of England. He who selected its site must have been a man of tastes rather æsthetic 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 façade 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 japanned 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 glass.
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 constitution 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 glass 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 "hells," punting high or low, as the luck has gone for or against him. At a later period in Paris, during the Imperial régime– worst hell 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 à 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 impassable 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 entitling 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 glass.
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 café 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