Miss Trelawny

“ Why, whenever I find that I am recognized by people, and pointed out—people in the pit of a theatre, in the street, no matter where; and when I can fancy they're saying to each other, "Look! that was Miss Trelawny! you remember—Trelawny! Trelawny of the 'Wells!'"——
[They cry "Trelawny!" and "Trelawny of the 'Wells!'" and again "Trelawny!" wildly. Then there is the sound of a sharp rat-tat at the front door. Imogen leaves the piano and looks out of the window.]
Imogen.
[To somebody below.] What is it?
A Voice.
Miss Trelawny, ma'am. We can't wait.
Rose. ”

“ Miss Trelawny is the stuff of which great actresses are made.
All.
Hear, hear!
Ablett.
[Softly.] 'Ear, 'ear!
Telfer.
So much for the actress. Now for the young lady—nay, the woman, the gyirl. Rose is a good girl——
[Loud applause, to which Ablett and Sarah contribute largely. Avonia rises and impulsively embraces Rose. She is recalled to her seat by a general remonstrance.] A good girl——
Mrs. ”

“ Along the West Looe water is the lovely inlet of Trelawne Mill, just above the bridge, with dense woods clothing the hillsides and mirrored in the still waters. Here is Trelawne, seat of the Trelawny family since the time of Sir Jonathan Trelawny, Bishop of Bristol, and afterwards successively of Exeter and Winchester, one of the Seven Bishops sent to imprisonment in the Tower of London by James the Second in 1688. The "Song of the Western Men," written by Hawker, using the old refrain, "And shall Trelawny die?" refers to that occasion:—
"A good sword and a trusty hand! ”

“ Gower and his family, and then the bond will be signed, the compact entered upon, the mutual trust accepted. Riches this youthful pair will possess—but what is gold? May they be rich in each other's society, in each other's love! May they—I can wish them no greater joy—be as happy in their married life as my—my—as Miss Sylvester and I 'ave been in ours! [Raising his glass.] Miss Rose Trelawny—Mr. Arthur Gower! [The toast is drunk by the company, upstanding. Three cheers are called for by Colpoys, and given. Those who have risen then sit.] Miss Trelawny. ”

“ Trelawny to living with Miss Jobson. To Miss Jobson, I had a decided aversion; for Mr. Trelawny, I felt neither love or hatred. My mind was not made up on the subject, when my father came to me: he had seen Trelawny, and expressed himself greatly pleased with the prudence and propriety of my answer.
[Pg 212]
'"My Adelina knows," continued he, "that the happiness of my children is the only wish I have on earth; and I may tell her, too, that my solicitude for her exceeds all my other cares—solicitude, which will be at an end if I can see her in the protection of a man of honour and fortune. ”

“ So there's nothing left for her but to starve, or to make artificial flowers. Miss Trelawny I'm speaking of! [Going to Rose, and embracing her.] Our Rose! our Trelawny! [To Rose, breaking down.] Excuse me for interfering, ducky. [Retiring, in tears.] Good-day, Sir Gower. [She goes out.]
Sir William.
[After a pause, to Rose.] Is this—the case?
Rose.
[Standing, and speaking in a low voice.] Yes. As you have noticed, fortune has turned against me, rather.
Sir William.
.
[Penitently.] I—I'm sorry, ma'am. I—I believe ye've kept your word to us concerning Arthur. I-I——
Rose. ”

“ What Trelawny cared for in literature was Imagination, the more sublime the better, while in life he had a taste for Truth and Freedom. He was always something of an oddity. He loathed superstition, cant and snobbery and said so in a way that gave much pain to the nicest people. He was of that disconcerting sort which, excelling in all that ordinary people admire, admires, for its part, what they hate—the abnormal and distinguished. He was a man of action who mistrusted common sense, a good fellow on the side of cranks: the race has never been common and is now almost extinct. ”

“ He was in England again in 1835, went into society, and married for the third time, to make another woman miserable. For a number of years he lived at Putney Hill, and then took a farm at Usk, in Monmouthshire, and amused himself with farming.
In or about 1870, Trelawny, then seventy-eight years old, bought a house and a small plot of land at Sompting, near Wortham, and occupied himself with gardening. ”

“ Her only daughter by Bonville brought Trelawn, and other estates, to Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset. On the attainder of his grandson Henry Duke of Suffolk, they were seized by the Crown. Queen Elizabeth, in the 42d year of her reign, sold the manor of Trelawn and the lands of Hendersich and Portello, in Talland prrish, to Sir Jonathan Trelawny. The old and famous family of Trelawny take their name from the barton of Trelawny, in the parish of Alternun. The arms of this 295 family are Argent, a chevron Sable, sometimes charged with three oak-leaves Proper. ”

“ To the active loyalty inherited from his ancestors and from his cavalier father, Trelawny united as bishop the passive obedience of his order. He accepted the papistry of the king until it became aggressive. While at Dorchester, on his first visitation, he severely reprimanded a preacher who made insinuations in a sermon against the king's good faith. By 1 June 1686 Trelawny had finished his visitation, and laid before the archbishop the results which pointed to gross neglect by the clergy of their duties (Tanner MSS. xxx. 50) . ”

“ It is so silly to be frightened when gentlemen have a little bit of fun. It doesn't mean anything."
There were tears in Esther's eyes, but she held them bravely back.
"I can't help being frightened at Mr. Trelawny, mama. I know he is kind but he does frighten me. Is Mr. Earle a friend of his? And is he really our tutor?"
"He will be soon. But the boys are to have a week to settle down first before beginning lessons. Yes, Mr. Earle is the son of an old friend of Mr. Trelawny's; and he is very clever, and a great lover of the same things that interest Mr. Trelawny so much. ”

“ Trelawny came to England in 1832. In January 1833 he went to America, and remained there until June 1835. Among his achievements there were his holding Fanny Kemble in his arms to give her a view of Niagara; his swimming across the river between the rapid and the falls; and his buying the freedom of a man slave, a circumstance which remained unknown until after his death. After 1837 the principal authority for his life ceases with the discontinuance of his affectionate correspondence with Mary Shelley. ”

“ Trelawny would be the master, and we should all have to keep his rules. But that might be a good thing for the boys. I sometimes think they want a stronger hand over them."
"I think it would be a very good plan," said Esther; "they are getting so much better, and they are fond of Mr. Trelawny. He would make them obey, and they would like it. They always obey Mr. Earle now, and they like him better than anybody almost."
"It would be more the sort of life they have been accustomed to—a big house and a man's authority," said Mrs. St. Aiden reflectively. ”

“ Is Miss Trelawny in her room?
Mrs. Mossop.
No, Mrs. Gadd; she's at rehearsal.
Avonia.
Oh——
[Mrs. Mossop draws the curtains, hiding the bed from view. Avonia enters by the door on the right in a morning wrapper which has seen its best days. She carries a pair of curling-tongs, and her hair is evidently in process of being dressed in ringlets.]
Avonia.
Of course she is; I forgot. There's a call for The Peddler of Marseilles. Thank Gawd, I'm not in it. [Singing.] "I'm a great guerrilla chief, I'm a robber and a thief, I can either kill a foe or prig a pocket-handkerchief——"
Mrs. ”

“ Trelawny advises me to have the boys, dear," she said; "so I have been writing to your uncle. I suppose it is the best thing to do, especially as Mr. Trelawny has undertaken to find a suitable tutor. That would have been difficult for me; but he is a clever man, and knows the world. He will be sure to select the right person."
"Yes, mama," said Esther gently; but she shook in her shoes the while. A tutor selected by Mr. Trelawny might surely be a very terrible person. ”

“ Trelawny, I'm too heavy to be carried!" she cried.
"You're not half as heavy as you should be. I must know about that too. We've got you a prisoner between us, my little maid, and we shall not let you go till we've——"
123Mr. Trelawny stopped suddenly, because Mr. Earle had begun to speak to him in the strange language Esther had heard him use upon another occasion. She shut her eyes tightly, and tried to be brave; but if only she might have gone home by herself! The Crag was a very terrible place to come to. ”

“ With the return from Greece, the great days of adventure are at an end, the rest of Trelawny’s long life is the story of the kind of man the world calls a “character.”
The pause in England was brief, and in 1829 he returned to Italy, took a house in Florence, and busied himself bringing up his little daughter Zela, born to him of his Greek wife, and writing his autobiographical romance. It seems reasonably sure that sometime during these Italian years he proposed to Mary Shelley, but without success; the lady was not exactly a person to be an incident in anybody’s life. ”

“ Educated at Westminster School and at Christ Church, Oxford, Trelawny took holy orders in 1673, and in 1685, his elder brother having died in 1680, became third baronet in succession to his father. Having rendered good service to James II. during Monmouth’s rebellion, Trelawny was consecrated bishop of Bristol on the 8th of November 1685. He was loyal to King James until the first declaration of indulgence in April 1687, when, as a bishop, he used his influence with his clergy against the king, and, as a Cornish landowner, resisted the attempt to assemble a packed parliament. ”

“ We agree heartily; but, of course, there is more to be said—for instance, that Trelawny sometimes reminds us of an extraordinarily intelligent schoolboy, at others of a rather morbid minor poet. Only, the vitality of few schoolboys amounts almost to genius, and minor poets are not always blest with feelings fundamentally sound. Most of his vices were the defects of good qualities. A powerful imagination may be fairly held accountable for his habit of romancing, and a brave vocabulary for some of his exaggeration. ”

“ Of course, we were done, because only half of us were fighters, the rest being kids; and Trelawny himself being just fifteen and Bradwell fourteen and Ashby major twelve and a half, and I only eleven and a half, it was no good.
45“We surrender,” said Trelawny.
“Surrender, you little brute, I should think you did yield!” said Mannering, who had cut his hand getting the slates off the roof, and was in a rare bate.
“You needn’t insult a defeated force, sir,” said Trelawny, keeping his nerve jolly well. “We are prepared to pay the penalty of failure, and having meant well we--we don’t care.” ”

“ One day two men with guns in their hands requested permission to enter his grounds after a bird that had taken refuge there. He answered fiercely, "All the leave I will accord you is to shoot one another."
At Sompting, Trelawny died on August 13th, 1881, at the age of eighty-six. In accordance with his wish to be laid beside Shelley, his body was embalmed in England, cremated at Gotha, and the ashes taken to the Protestant burial-ground in Rome, and laid in the tomb he had bought fifty-eight years before, next to those of his friend. ”

“ The following extract may help us to a conclusion:
"I say! the poet [Shelley] was a thorough mormon—why did he not declare himself and anticipate the sect? I would have joined him and found him a settlement—it would not hold together without a superstition—for man all over the world are [sic] superstitious—it's the nature of the animal—your mother was a simpleton to have never heard of a man being in love with two women; when we are young we are in love with all women—the bible would call it by its proper name, lust."
So wrote Trelawny in 1869 (he had recovered his style) to Claire Clairmont. ”

“ TRELAWNY, CHARLES (1654–1731) , major-general, was fourth son of Sir Jonathan Trelawny, second baronet, by Mary, daughter of Sir Edward Seymour of Berry Pomeroy, near Totnes. Sir Jonathan Trelawny [q. v.] , bishop of Winchester, was his elder brother. ”

“ Some fellows thought that Thompson would be sent away at once, to avoid the affair becoming serious; others fancied we should be starved out or expelled to a man. Trelawny never hazarded any guess at what would be the end of it. “We are doing our duty in the interests of the school,” he said, “and whatever happens we mean well; and if it gets into print the sympathy of all chaps in public schools will be on our side.”
30 II When the gas was turned out at the meter on the night preceding the siege, Trelawny made a short speech. First he lighted two candles and made us sign the protest ”

“ After returning from Salona, Trelawny was with Odysseus in Eastern Greece, carrying on the war in guerilla fashion without any great results.
In the autumn he was at Argos, whence a letter (certainly his, though unsigned) was sent to his brother Lieutenant Harry Trelawny, r.n.
"... To give you an idea of the misery existing here is beyond all expression. The town is nothing more or less than a chaos of ruins; not a house inhabitable. The fever making great havoc, people actually falling down in the streets. ”

“ Trelawny is always in a hurry to carry out his plans."
Esther smiled a little at that. She knew very well that Mr. Trelawny never waited an hour if he could help it. It was his impatience of delay that had caused the accident which had partly destroyed his sight, and might have caused his death.
"I should like to go, mama, if you like me to. I have done my lessons for to-day. The boys are277 having their navigation. I don't do that with them."
"Well, then, run off, dear, with the answer. I don't see how we could refuse. And I always think that this house in the winter is just a little damp. ”