Penelope Brandling: A Tale of the Welsh coast in the Eighteenth Century

her, my husband, poor faithful Davies and the wretched villains of St. Salvat's, have long since ceased to live, and those f

own solitary memory; and, standing all alone, look into that f

events nothing to lose (since we knew our lives in jeopardy) by a desperate attempt to escape from what was virtually our prison. Eustace had summed up our position when he had said that we were

rap laid by Hubert; and Eustace, partly from guilelessness and partly from a sense of duty to St. Salvat's, walked straight in, carrying me with him as an additional pledge to evil fortune. He was scarcely in, when the door, like the drawbridge which had risen after our entry into that frightful place, closed and showed him he was a prisoner. It was Hubert's plan to make use of our presence (which, moreover, put an end to his own isolation among those besotted villains) in order to remove whatever suspicions might exist in the outside world. The presence of a studious and gentlemanly owner, of a young wife and possible children, was to make people believe that a new leaf had been turned over at St. Salvat's, and that the old former pages of its history were not so shocking as evil reports had had it. So, during the first weeks after our arrival, and while the brothers were being coerced into an attempt at decent behaviour, Eustace was being importuned with every kind of plan which should draw him into further complicity, and compromise him along with the rest of the band. Hubert, being a clergyman, had since his elder brother's death, also been the chief magistrate of the district; and, shocking to relate, this wrecker and murderer had sat in judgment on poachers and footpads. Having made use of this position to silence any inclination to blab about St. Salvat's, he was apprehensive of this scandal getting to headquarters, and therefore desirous of putting in his place a man

, the more we discussed them. The house and grounds were guarded, and our actions spied upon. We were cut off from the outer world, for we had long since understood that our letters, even when despatched, were intercepted and read by Hubert. But the worst difficulty almost was the lack of money. For some months past, Hubert had taken to doling it out only in trifling sums and on our asking for it, and he supplied our needs and even fancies with such lavishness, forestalling them in many instances, that a request for any considerable sum would have been tantamount to an intimation of our intended flight. Such were the external obstacles; I fo

rightful to my ears, of the brawling of the uncles below. I rose in alarm, for my apartments were completely isolated from the part of the house which they occupied, and for months past all the intermediate doors had been kept carefully closed by the tacit consent of both parties. The noise became greater; I could distinguish the drunken voices of Simon and Richard, and a sharp altercation between the other ones, and just as I had stepped,

clothes torn half off him, his hair in dis

runken brutes wanted to force me through some beastly form of initiation into their gang. Faugh!" and he looked at his arm, which I was washing; "they did it with a broken bottle, the ho

er. But that new look in him awoke a sudden hope in me, and I determined to strike while the iron was hot. "Eustace," I said very gravely as I bound a handkerchief round his arm, "if your impression is correct, this is almost the worst of our misery. Ce

chair. "I have been a miserable coward." And, to my horror, I he

mirror, and, assuming the most matter-of-fact tone I could muster, "Davies," I said, "Sir Eustace and I have decided on leaving St. Salvat's, an

kness of one who thought herself doomed? Would it might have been the latter. But of all the things which I wou

f on her knees and covered my hand with kisses. "All is ready," sh

trived to communicate with her son, the one who had every good reason to bear a grudge to the villains of St. Salvat's. My husband and I were to walk on foot, and separately, out of the grounds; horses were to meet us at a given point of the road, and take us, not

distant part of the coast. The maids, very few in number, and any of the servants left behind, Davies had undertaken to intoxicate or drug into

emory refuses to register them or even bear their trace. All I know is that Eustace spent all his time in his laboratory, constructing various appliances, an occupation which I explained as imposed upon himself in

g? Methought it was the first of these possibilities. For on Friday morning he came to my apartments, which was not his wont, early in the day and offered to pay me a visit. But Davies had the presence of mind to answer that I was sick, and lest he should doubt it, to force me to bed at once, and borrow certain medicines from him. After this he sought for Eustace, and finding him busy among his chemical instruments, his suspicions, if he had any, were quieted;

oat; he handed me a smaller pistol, showed me that it was primed, and gave me at the same time a little folded white paper. "You are a brave woman, Penelope," he said, kissing me, "and I know there is no likelihood of your using either of these things rashly or in a moment of panic. But our enterprise is uncertain; we may possibly be parted, and I have no right to let you fall alive into the hands of those villains." Then, he sat down at my work-table and began drawing on a sheet of paper, while I looked out of the window and listened to the unvarying song of that bird. Davies did not come, and it was broad daylight. But neither of us ventured to remark on this fact

tter, I thought, have awaited Davies

t rap came on the wainscot door near my bed, the door leading to the back

avies," I s

ressed with uncommon neatness, not in his fisherman's clothes, but as a clergyman, and, what was by no means constantly the

her waiting on you. I have been giving her some of the consolations of religion, and hearing her confession, a practice I by no means reject as Popish," and the villain smiled suavely.

taking my arm and preventing my rising, "that's just what I want to talk about. I have a prejudice against killing members of my own family, a prejudice not shared by my brothers, worse luck to the sots, or else you would not be Lady Brandling as yet, and that poor, silly coxcomb of a Thomas would still be enjoying his glass and his lass. I hate a scandal, and intend to avoid one; also, I am genuinely attached to you and to your husband, for thoug

was looking in my eyes wi

taken the precaution to relieve him of all those dangerous swords and pistols of his, which a learned man might hurt himself with. I give you five minutes to make up your mind. If you accept my terms, you and Sir Eustace Brandling shall live honoured and happy at St. Salvat's among your obliged kinsmen. If you refuse, I shall, very re

sat down to the harpsichord, on which he began to pick out a tune. It was that very "Phyllis plus avare que tendre," which I had sung to my husband

rb you. You have still four minutes to think over your answer, dear Lady Brandling." The familiar notes arouse

notes seemed to ooze out from under his fin

ears, I quite understand how I did that, and when I recall it all, I feel that, old as I am, I would do it over again. What I cannot explain is what I did afterwards, nor the amazing coolness and clearness of head which I enjoyed at that moment. For without losing a minute I went to the harpsichord, and despite the horrid, hot trickle all over my hands, I turned out his pockets and took his keys. Then I left the room, locked it from the outside, and went downstairs singing that French shepherd's song a

ut to my astonishment he barely gave me time t

also are dead!" and seizing my arm he drags me away, down the remaining stairs, out b

thless, "this is not the way; we

and dragging, almost carrying, me a

to me, random and mad climbing up through the wet b

t in the house, at least, there is no one in

dared not tell him that besides that dead man, the h

With a decision I should never have expected from him, and an extraordinary degree of strength and agility, my husband climbed on to the wall, pulled me up, let himself drop into the dry

"I must see! I must see!" A

ht of St. Salvat's, and if ever there could be a dangerous place to stop in, it was this. But Eustace pointed to the wet grass, "Sit down," he said, and sat down himself, after looki

safe?" he asked, again

n the effect it would have on him, "Hube

l I regret is that that villain should share in the honour." So saying, he started up on to his feet, and pul

inute, less half a minute

t a cannon's mouth; the hill shook and the air bellowed, and we fell back half stunned. When I could see o

the skeletons of the great trees, black and branchless, stood out like th

kissing me as we stood on the brink of the green sward, with the rain falling gently upon us, "Come, Pene

d swiftly but quietly towar

m my lips, and sufficient explanation for the remoter posterity of Eustace Brandling and myself, of the mystery

other presumable victims-my husband and myself. The gang of villains, deprived of its headquarters, and deprived of its master spirit, speedily fell to pieces. Richard and Gwyn appear to have come to a violent end in quarrelling over the booty of the last wicked expedition; Simon and Evan, and some of their followers ended in prison

ur possible heirs, while ourselves should be accounted as mysteriously disappeared, and forbidden to enter the kingdom. So we wandered for many years in the new world and the old; and it was far from St. Salvat's that our children were successively born. And it was only on the death of my dear husband, which occurred in 1802, that a Brandling, our eldest son, reappeared and claimed his title and inheritance. It was the wish of my son Piers that I should accompany him and his wife to England, and help to rebuild the home which I had helped to destroy. But the recollection of the