‘Really,’ said Vanda, ‘when we want to see our Australian friends, the
proper thing is to come to England. We have certainly met more in a
month here than we ever did in a year in the colonies.’
‘And we never should have fallen across Captain Hay——I beg his pardon,
Captain Bucklaw in Australia,’ assented Hermione. ‘I wonder what will
be his end. Something romantic and far from peaceful, I feel certain.
Oh, here he comes to say good-bye! Why can’t he stay another day, I
wonder?’
‘Reasons of State! The Captain never stays long in one place, I’ve
remarked,’ said Mr. Lilburne, who, with his wife, now joined them. ‘He
had a wire from his agent that the cargo was complete, and the
_Haitchi Maru_ only waiting for her commander.’
Mr. and Mrs. Banneret now came forward, while the Lilburnes shook
hands warmly with the man who had been their friend in need, whatever
might have been his career under other circumstances.
‘_We_ shall never forget you,’ said Mrs. Lilburne; ‘you saved two
lives when you rescued Alister from that inferno.’
‘The Captain knows he may count on us whenever he likes to call,’ said
her husband. ‘We hope to be able to repay him in kind.’
‘It was time for us to go, my lads;
It was time for us to go,’
said he, chaunting the refrain of an old sailor-song, in deep
melodious tones. ‘I have never yet been caught napping, but, believe
me, this meeting of true friends will be among the most precious
memories of a reckless life, and if any of the present company should
find themselves in danger on sea, or land, within a hundred miles of
this skipper, he’ll effect a diversion if it’s in the power of mortal
man. But, after all, it’s a ten-to-one chance we never meet again.
Think of me as one who might have been a better man with better luck.
Adios, señora. Adios, Don Carlos Alvarez. Adios, señoritas.’ Here he
shook hands once more with the men, and bowing low to the girls and
Mrs. Banneret, strode away to a swift hansom which awaited him, and
disappeared from their eyes.
There was a peculiar feeling, somewhat allied to regret, yet perhaps
even more to relief, when their picturesquely lawless friend took his
departure. This sentiment was shared in lesser degree by the older,
more experienced individuals of the party. But the girls were frankly
grieved at the loss of so romantic an acquaintance—the tears, indeed,
coming into Vanda’s eyes as she realised that she could hardly hope
to know ‘a real pirate’ again.
‘Do you think he really _was_ engaged in the Black Flag
business—death’s head and crossbones, and so on?’ queried Eric.
‘I don’t think that was ever proved,’ answered Lilburne; ‘more likely
a trifle of privateering, or “blackbirding,” as labour-recruiting was
called in the early days of the Queensland sugar-planting industry.
But there _was_ a warrant out for him, and, indeed, for Hilary
Telfer—that tall, fair man standing near Mrs. Banneret with his lovely
wife; he was supercargo on board the famous _Leonora_.’
‘What a beautiful creature she is!’ said Hermione; ‘what a figure,
what eyes, and such a face, lit up by a charming smile! She is
something like a Spanish girl we saw at Santa Barbara, and yet not
quite the same type—far more beautiful, with grace personified. I
can’t quite place her.’
‘She is a descendant of Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, the leader of
the mutineers of the _Bounty_, who disappeared somewhere about the
year 1788, and formed that very interesting community at Pitcairn
Island. They were not discovered until September 1808, when Captain
Folger, of the American ship _Topaz_, seeing smoke rising from an
island, from which a canoe was approaching, was hailed by the
occupants in good Saxon English. “Won’t you heave us a rope, now?” was
the request from the frail bark, and, a rope being thrown out, a fine
young man sprang actively on deck. “I’m Thursday October Christian,”
he said modestly, “son of Fletcher Christian, and the first man born
on the island.” H.M.S. the _Briton_ and the _Tagus_—the former
commanded by Sir T. Staines—were in search of an American ship which
had seized some English whalers, when they suddenly came in sight of
an uncharted island. It was Pitcairn, but should have been two hundred
miles distant—being placed on the chart by Captain Carteret (who
discovered it in 1767) three degrees out of its true longitude.’
‘It seems almost incredible,’ said Mr. Banneret, ‘that a canoe carried
on a man’s shoulders should be safely handled amidst such terrific
surges, but I recollect seeing Australian aboriginals at Two-fold Bay
carrying their bark canoes _on their heads_ to the water, and fishing
successfully when it was by no means smooth. English-speaking
strangers proved themselves to be unsurpassed boatmen—to be recognised
in the aftertime as such amongst the best whalemen in the world.
Twenty years had elapsed since Fletcher Christian and his mutineer
associates, with their Tahitian wives, had left Mataavai Bay. During
the whole of that time the actors in the tragedy had disappeared from
mortal ken as completely as if they had been sunk “deeper than plummet
lies,” with their broken-up and abandoned vessel the _Bounty_.’
In 1808 Captain Mayhew Folger first came upon the little community of
Pitcairn Island; in 1814 the Anglo-Tahitians had increased to the
number of forty. Nothing was done by the British Government until
1825, when Captain Beechey, in the _Blossom_, on a voyage of
discovery, paid a visit to Pitcairn Island. A boat under sail was
observed coming towards the ship. The crew consisted of old Adams and
ten young men of the island. The young men were tall, robust, and
healthy, with good-natured countenances, and a simplicity of manner
combined with a fear of doing something that might be wrong, which
prevented the possibility of giving offence. None of them had shoes or
stockings. Adams, in his sixty-fifth year, was dressed in a sailor’s
shirt and trousers, and wore a low-crowned hat. He still retained his
sailor manners, doffing his hat whenever he was addressed by the
officers.
Sir Thomas Staines’s letter, written on 18th October 1814, stated that
every individual on the island (forty in number) spoke excellent
English. They proved to be the descendants of the deluded crew of the
_Bounty_. The venerable old man, John Adams, was the only surviving
Englishman of those who last quitted Tahiti in her. The pious manner
in which all those born on the island had been reared, and the correct
sense of religion which had been instilled into their young minds by
the old man, had given him the pre-eminence over the whole of them.
And to him they looked up as the Patriarch of their tribe.
* * * * *
The great day, the great race was over. The Australian family had
enjoyed their modest triumph in seeing the good horse from a sister
colony win the blue ribbon of the great cross-country contest, coming
in victorious over hedge and ditch, brook and rail, with the best
blood of England eight lengths behind. That was an honour which could
never be taken away from them. In years to come any of them would be
able to say, ‘I saw Moifaa sweep over the four miles and a half of a
stiff course (as English people reckon) with as much ease as if it had
been a hurdle race. And until we see an imported horse from England
win a steeplechase at Flemington, we shall be entitled to hold that
the horses bred south of the line possess unequalled speed, stoutness,
and jumping ability.’
From the far ocean-surrounded islands of the south land, where still
linger the traces of the moa, and the apteryx perplexes the tourist,
to the torrid levels of the West Australian fields, where the miner’s
harvest is weighed and reckoned in ounces of fine gold, the love of
athletic sports, which the British emigrants carried with them, has
caused their representative champions to be respected from India to
the Pole.
After this equine battle of Waterloo it was, of course, natural for
the victorious Austro-Britons to fall back upon their base in
London—the Hotel Cecil, where they and the Allied Forces might arrange
for future operations during the spring and summer campaigns.
The Bannerets were not, as may be imagined, without acquaintances,
and, indeed, friends of long standing in high places. Cadets of noble
houses had visited Australia in the early ’fifties (1852 to 1856),
when the goldfields of Ballarat and Bendigo, Eaglehawk and
Maryborough, were at their marvellous height of productiveness;
where, also, the purchase of a few shares overnight might result in a
fortune before breakfast for the investor. Besides such glimpses into
Aladdin’s cave, there was the entirely new spectacle of goldfields,
where the precious metal might be seen in the matrix, and the
operations for its extraction by chance workers of every degree of
age, nationality, or occupation witnessed. It was a fascinating and
novel experience to watch the process in shallow ground, hardly less
primitive than the ordinary digging of potatoes: to mark the runaway
sailors, farm hands, shepherds, or stock-riders, joking the while, as
they occasionally threw up a ten- or twenty-ounce ‘nugget’ of almost
pure gold, worth £4 per ounce, or a lump of the gold-studded quartz,
to the tourist bystander peering down the edge of the shaft, with the
touching confidence that it would be punctiliously returned, after
being wondered at, and perhaps weighed, by the obliged stranger. Such
things sound improbable, but are, nevertheless, strictly, rigidly
true, as can be avouched by any miner of the period. The neighbouring
squatters, in a general way men of birth and breeding, had been
pleased to welcome these agreeable strangers to their homes, where,
the daughters of the land being often handsome and attractive, the
stranger guest had no particular objection to prolonging his stay when
his hosts and other neighbouring magnates were so anxious to secure
his society.
Lord Salisbury was known to have lived in a tent, with a friend or
two, _more Australico_, and personally, as ‘Mr. Cecil,’ studied the
humours of a ‘rush’ near Bendigo. As he did not stay long or,
presumably, make a fortune, he probably consoled himself with the
reflection that he had gained the rare experience of a personal
examination of a vast colonial industry at first hand, which would be
valuable in forming political opinion as to the treatment of British
colonies, under new and original conditions. In the light of his
Lordship’s ministerial responsibilities in later life, perhaps it was
well for him that he should be in a position to observe the process of
formation of a British state, with municipal, mercantile, civil, and
military functions, of a character befitting the Empire, evolved from
the heterogeneous components of a goldfields population. How doubtful,
how improbable, that order, achievement, high attainment, should ever
have been so produced, contemporary journalists and visitors have left
on record. For the proof, _respice finem_, behold the tree-shaded
street, broad, straight, tram-pervaded, at Ballarat; the lake where
formerly the wild duck swam amid the reedy marsh; the steamers thereon
which equalise the traffic; the gardens where the weary tourist may
rest, or read, upon a bench prepared by the municipalities, while he
gazes around on the wide transformed landscape. Naval officers, cadets
of great houses, budding field-marshals, had all been temporarily
adopted at Arnold Banneret’s paternal home. The middies were now, some
of them, admirals; the Honourable Mr. Sedley and Mr. Villiers were now
barons and earls, having ‘come into their kingdoms,’ so to speak.
They did not forget the friends who had dined and mounted them,
provided shooting and hunting parties, thought nothing too good for
them; and invitations flowed into the Hotel Cecil for garden parties,
dances, dinners—in fact, all the gaieties of the season.
And what a season it was! ‘Oh to be in England, now that April’s
here!’ For the nonce it was a fine, warm, even _dry_ summer, which
enhanced the green glory of the century-old oaks, the ‘immemorial
elms,’ and the various flowers of the great parks and also of the
natural woodland. What joy it was to these young people to wander with
their brothers along the ‘leafy lanes, where the trees met overhead,
when the merry brooks ran clear and gay’! To note, lying underneath
the aged oaks, the skylark rising from the field, and pealing his
matin song of gladness.
‘Hark, hark! the lark at heaven’s gate sings,
And Phœbus ’gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes:
With everything that pretty is,
My lady sweet, arise!’
quoted Hermione.
Then the wild-flowers: what a feast of plant life! What various
colour, shape, bloom—of every shade and tint, from the dingle, ‘where
the rath violets grow,’ to the daffodil bank, by the sun-kissed lake.
‘Isn’t that delicious?’ said Hermione; ‘who but our Shakespeare could
have pictured so delightfully the lovely summer of old England, with
the hedgerows and the pastures all glistening with dew! That dear lark
is coming down again—a living song, floating through the blue ocean of
sky—singing as he falls. Then at last dropping like a stone into the
field—I saw him close to that patch of red clover.’
‘But _we_ have skylarks in Australia,’ said Vanda, who objected to
unqualified praise of England for being England; ‘our bird doesn’t fly
so high, certainly, and stops more quickly, but he sings a sweet
little tuneful lay. He has not had a thousand years in which to
practise.’
This colloquy took place one morning before breakfast, at which
unusual time, about 5 A.M., these young people elected to get up, for
once in a way, that they might be enabled to say they had seen an
English sunrise, and heard an English skylark. They were staying at an
old—ever so old English hall, where everything was in keeping with
tradition and history. The century-old oaks were there; the forest was
the same, mercifully spared, and lovingly tended; the aged oaks were
the immediate descendants of those under which Gurth and Wamba lay and
chaunted their roundelay when Bois-Guilbert, the Templar of the
period, inquired the way to Rotherwood, and was directed all wrong by
the eccentric Wamba.
Yes! there were the oaks, huge of girth, mighty of spread and shade,
and clothed to the very tips of their enormous branches with delicate
leaflets, bursting buds, and every variety of leafage which goes to
furbish up the glorious green garb of an English spring.
Now that the spring had arrived, the real English spring—written
about, talked about, sung about by everybody that had ever been in
England, or read about the great and glorious Motherland—they were all
mad with hope and expectation, also with ardent desire to go in and
possess the land of faerie. Fortunately, for once, the climate did not
betray them. The weather continued fine and open. Frosts were few and
far between. The grass in the meadows, thick and verdant, spread a
velvet garment over all the land. Over the fields around stood ancient
farm-houses, near villages with names as old as the Norman Conquest.
Around were ruined abbeys and crumbling spires, besides bridges over
brooks, where swam the fat carp which had tempted the monks to sink
their foundations first, and to follow up with the stately piles,
which sheltered so many a lordly abbot and his train of cowled
brethren, lay and spiritual, with servitors, tenants, and retainers,
military and otherwise.
All this strengthened the desire of the Bannerets to establish
themselves in a country residence, whence they might issue forth in
quest of the more desirable entertainments, at the same time
preserving the home feeling, and having a _pied à terre_ which would
give them standing in the county superior to that of mere birds of
passage.
The girls of the family, now that the spring was distinctly on, and
the summer, by natural course of nature, might be expected to follow,
desired no change. They felt, and indeed repeatedly affirmed, that
their cup of joy was full—that they never expected to be so truly,
consciously, ecstatically happy. Every night Hermione and Vanda
retired, after a day filled with novel and delicious sensations, to
dream of a new kind of felicity on the morrow; a forecast the reality
of which rarely disappointed them. Their parents occasionally uttered
a note of warning as to the too eager pursuit of pleasure, and the
need of moderation even, on the score of health. But there was small
reason for caution on that score: the young people had exceptionally
strong constitutions—sound, unworn, and elastic, with all the
marvellous recuperative power of early youth. Their cousins and
friends in the country districts of Australia had been known to ride
thirty or forty miles to a ball, at which to dance until daylight
afterwards, with but little or no fatigue. They belonged to the same
type, and were not a whit behind them in endurance, defying fatigue or
lassitude where pleasure or interesting travel was concerned. So all
manner of recreative experiences had been tested—hackneys for the
park, rides and drives, concerts and theatres, balls and parties,
receptions given by certain returned Governors, to whom they had been
socially known in Australia. These proconsuls lost no time in inviting
them to entertainments where they met various great ones of the land,
to whom it was explained that they were really ‘nice’—distinguished
even in a sense, and ever so rich—owning gold mines of unquestioned,
almost fabulous richness.
There was then no difficulty about invitations and engagements; the
trouble was to keep up with them all, and so arrange that they did not
clash, and at the same time to find out the right people at whose
entertainments to be ‘seen.’ They were naturally popular in this new
environment, with more or less foreign elements. The girls were voted
pretty (Hermione, indeed, was very handsome), well dressed, well
mannered, and above all ‘nice’—that mysterious adjective which goes
for so much in English society. The young men, too, were good-looking,
well turned out, and so closely resembling Englishmen of their age and
standing, that surprise was expressed that they should be Australians,
there being no peculiarity of accent, or appearance, betokening their
colonial origin. They were also athletic beyond average form—being
skilled at tennis, cricket, and other fashionable games.
Now the vitally important matter next on hand was the selection of a
home. Mr. Banneret, after due consideration, had decided to invest in
an estate. The Hotel Cecil was well managed, comfortable, even
luxurious. It was, of course, expensive, even perhaps extravagant. But
that was not the reason for disapproval. Money was no object, as the
phrase runs.
Still, Arnold Banneret and his wife disliked hotel life _en
permanence_. The continual change of acquaintances, with whom a
certain sort of association was almost impossible to avoid, was
distasteful to them. They did not, as their experience matured, think
it, in all respects, beneficial to the girls. For them and their
brothers they wished to re-create the home feeling. They longed for
the change once more to peaceful country life—where they might live
among such neighbours as made the chief rural luxury, and secure, if
such might be, valuable and enduring friendships.
To this end it was decided to _buy_ an estate. Leased houses, with
perhaps suitable grounds, furniture, and belongings, were all very
well in their way. But people’s ideas about furniture and other
matters differed widely sometimes. And, at the delivering-up day,
misunderstandings were likely to arise—had arisen within their
experience. Thus it was decided to buy. They could then comfort
themselves with knowing that they were safely settled for years to
come—could not be turned out by the whim of the proprietor, or any one
else. And if the worst came to the worst, and circumstances compelled
them to return to their own country, they could, of course, re-sell;
and as estates in England, valuable and well placed, did not vary much
in value, they could get their money back without serious deduction.
The girls at first did not take kindly to the idea. They found their
present mode of existence much to their taste. But their mother had
with some regret observed that a subtle change was taking place in the
character of her daughters. Constant amusement, of course, they had no
difficulty in procuring. It was furnished without effort on their
part. But it pained her to discover that an alteration of taste was
even now showing itself. They did not care so much for the more
rational forms of amusement; they began to crave more and more for
excitement; and provided that it was of a sufficiently novel and
bizarre nature, they seemed, to her watchful eye, to be growing more
and more careless of surroundings, and of the status of the people
with whom they were necessarily associated.
In order to combat this feeling, and to render the departure from the
Hotel Cecil, and its continuous round of gaieties, less depressing,
Mrs. Banneret began diplomatically to descant upon the more
permanently attractive features of English country life,—the ancient
trees, the historical associations of the manor-house and the grounds;
the neighbouring gentry, the hunting fixtures, the pleasant parties
made up for shooting, coursing, fishing, and other time-honoured
sports, for the performance of which desirable guests would be brought
down from town or invited from neighbouring families; the archery
meetings, after which it was the fashion of the county to have
impromptu dances; the hounds on the lawn, the distinguished
personages, the aristocratic M.F.H., the ‘coffee-house’ feature of the
meets, the hunting women, the road riders, their friends, and other
people’s friends, the garden parties—in short, all the hundred and one
pleasant meetings, half sport, half business, which only a country
life could adequately provide.
‘Think,’ she said, ‘my dear girls, what a different life it would be
for us all! Your father is pining for a return to regular home life,
such as he and I enjoyed when you were little, and which, in spite of
the troubles of a Gold Commissioner’s life, we even now look back upon
as our happiest days. He wants to have a decent stable, a couple of
hacks, a brace or two of hunters; his phaeton pair, and a dogcart
horse; a landau for me and you on great occasions; a safe hunter
apiece for you girls, and perhaps another, or so, for a friend.
Besides, with a moderate-sized estate—ten or twelve thousand acres—he
can enjoy some shooting and amateur farming, which will give him
healthy exercise—he doesn’t get enough now, and it’s bad for him. He’s
getting too stout; you see that yourselves, don’t you? Then we shall
be the Bannerets of Hexham Hall. I feel quite like the Lady of the
Manor already.’
As the good matron kept summing up the joys of this ideal life—the
glorious awakening in the fresh, sweet atmosphere of the country, the
song of the birds, the dewy lawns—the girls watched her face glow and
her eyes sparkle with almost youthful lustre. They could bear the
situation no longer.
‘Mother! dear mother!’ cried Hermione, ‘don’t go on—I can’t bear it.
We have been wicked, selfish girls not to have seen it before. I
thought you and father had been looking out of spirits lately. I see
now how it was telling on you. We’ll go, Vanda, wherever we are told.
It’s a shame that we should have had to be asked. Only we must have a
family council before the place—the manor, the castle, or whatever it
is to be—is finally decided upon. It can’t be so very dreadful after
all.’
‘Dreadful!’ cried Vanda; ‘it’s delicious. I’ll undertake the dairy—and
we must have lots of lovely tiles, and such cream-pans, and a floor
like glass, and walls that can be washed down twice a day. The next
thing is to find the Castle of Otranto. Will there be ruins, ghosts,
and a helmet to fall down with a crash? I must have vaults, too, and a
secret passage, where the former lord of the castle was concealed when
the Roundheads sacked it. And such a range of stabling, too! I must
have two hunters if I am to keep up my riding.’
The sons gave their unhesitating opinion in favour of the estate. Land
was cheap in England at present—many of the owners being only too glad
to get rid of property which paid ridiculously low in interest on
capital, and was year by year involving the so-called proprietor in
heavier expense. As to the value of a large historic family mansion,
it was looked upon as the proverbial white elephant, which the owners
would be only too pleased to get rid of, once and for ever.
Then the choice—that was the difficulty. Arnold Banneret shuddered
when he thought of the scores of desirable places, old and
half-ruinous, ill-drained, decayed, damp, smothered in ivy, shaded by
vast growths of world-old groves that it would be sacrilege to cut
down, and death by slow and gradual process to leave unaltered. The
new mansion ghastly with stucco—redolent of fresh paint—the mistaken
ambition of the manufacturer, tired of so soon after the contractor
was paid, and disgracefully new like the baronetcy; these and other
failures, like Banquo’s line of shadowy kings, passed before him in
review, until he almost resolved to cut the whole concern and go back
to Australia, where, at any rate, one could enjoy one’s life in peace.
This was after a long day’s rail to examine an over-praised,
over-valued, highly unsuitable investment, with too much house and too
little land—both being indecently inferior in quality, besides being
in a dull and undesirable county.
‘It was thought,’ declared the agent, ‘that it would just suit a
gentleman from Australia, being a bit wild-like, and not too trim and
polished up, as it were.’ He seemed surprised at being curtly informed
that a man did not come all the way from Australia to encumber himself
with an indifferent house and exceptionally bad land, as the attempts
at crops plainly showed; that he had been misled by the advertisement,
and would be sorry to take the place as a gift.
This was a bad beginning, but his wife comforted him by saying that
she could see that he had been so bored by inaction that he was
evidently glad of the chance of taking a journey _somewhere_, if only
to end in disappointment; that she was glad to see that he had so much
of his old energy left; that she must go with him next time, when
better counsels would prevail, and success attend them eventually.
At length, after tedious delays and disappointing inspections of every
kind of country house—mansion, manor, and historic castellated
abode—even including a moat, an altogether satisfactory purchase was
effected. The place was historic, a royal princess had lived there
under strict guardianship during her nonage. The place was certainly
far from modern in outward appearance, but the interior had been
restored tastefully, and in accordance with the latest requirements,
by the owner, who, having fallen upon evil times, was only too pleased
to take a moderate price in cash for a property which, with costly
renovation and additions, had cost a third more than the sale price.
When the probable purchaser and his wife ran down by train to have a
full and leisurely inspection, they were more pleased than they cared
to show at the _coup d’œil_.
It was the early forenoon. The day was fine—the air mild, almost
breezeless; the great oaks, the venerable elms, the ancient walls
which surrounded the ‘pleasaunce,’ gave the whole place the look of a
monarch’s retreat for the time when he might wish to rest from the
cares of State and enjoy a rare solitude, apart from the crowding
cares of sovereignty and the distraction of churchmen and contending
nobles.
Such indeed had Hexham Hall been in the days of old. Princesses had
lived there in the time of their tutelage—princesses who must have
chafed, and perhaps cherished rebellious thoughts; perhaps dreamed
over the policy which they would carry out when they became queens—for
queens they did become in due course of time, and having uncontrolled
power, they did carry out that policy; nor was blood spared in the
process which a lofty and fearless ideal of the ‘might, majesty, and
dominion’ of Britain demanded. An estate of twelve thousand acres went
with the property.
It was favourably situated in the matter of sport and social centres.
Several packs of hounds met within easy distance. The shooting was
good, and had been carefully preserved. There was a trout stream such
as would have delighted the heart of the ‘Compleat Angler,’
particularly a stretch of water not far from a ruined mill, which,
owing to latter-day mechanical inventions, had been put out of
commission.
There was a gamekeeper who went with the estate, and whose keen,
courageous expression at once enlisted the sympathies of the younger
Australians. His cottage, his neatly dressed wife and children, with
their air of deep respectfulness and old-fashioned curtseys, delighted
them beyond mention. The coops with young pheasants—the lovely setters
and retrievers—private property of the keeper—such a dear feudal name,
as Vanda observed: these were some of the new possessions which went
far to reconcile the daughters of the house to their removal from the
Hotel Cecil, with its endless joys.
The purchase of the baronial residence of Hexham Hall had been carried
to completion with marvellous ease and celerity.
The Bannerets’ legal representative had met the family lawyer of the
Hexham properties, and after certain conferences, with more or less
courteous but pointed argument, a cheque signed by Arnold Banneret
for the largest amount ever drawn by him was handed over, in exchange
for which acquittances and title-deeds, some of curiously ancient
date, were deposited in Messrs. Close and Carforth’s deed-box.
The Australian family now felt themselves to be invested with all
manner of feudal attributes; not perhaps quite including the privilege
of ‘pit and gallows,’ but, for all that, delightfully autocratic of
flavour and suggestion. They began to feel reconciled.
After the removal from town, which was effected with exceptional speed
and completeness, a rearrangement of the furniture was, of course,
necessary. The owner, an impoverished Earl with a family, had lived on
the Continent for years past. He therefore welcomed the possession of
so large a sum in cash, a portion of which, much to his private
gratification, he was enabled to devote to the clearing off of
long-standing debts, as well as to matters of family convenience. Lord
Hexham, indeed, came over from Bruges to ratify all arrangements made
by agents and representatives, and to have, as he explained to
Mr. Banneret, a short ‘run up to town on his own,’ so as to look in at
his clubs, to escape the monotony of the life at Bruges, which, though
economically prudent, was far from entertaining. ‘Nothing to do, day
after day, but to look at that confounded Cathedral, which I know by
heart—and all the Johnnies rave about till it’s perfectly sickenin’.
Never cared much about architecture—hardly know whether my own place
is Tudor or Gothic. Most awfully obliged to you, my dear fellow, for
taking it off my hands, and so on. Benefactor to the deservin’ poor,
don’t-cher-know—that sort of thing. Is there anything I can do to
oblige you? Only say the word!’
‘I don’t see that there is anything more,’ said the purchaser, ‘that
isn’t included in the agreement. Oh, by the bye, there are a few
articles of furniture, an old dower-chest with parchments, some
antique volumes, charters, and so on. I’m a bit of an antiquarian in
my leisure hours—having more than I care for now, sorry to say. Would
your man of law put a price upon them—that is, of course, if you have
no dislike to part with them—heirlooms probably?’
‘Would I turn them into cash? Like a bird, my dear fellow—your man and
mine can fight it out between them. You could have the title too, if
there was no law to prevent it. Many a time I’ve wished I could melt
it, like the family plate. Some of it _has_ gone that way. You smile!
It’s the “frozen truth,” as our friend Lady Neuchatel says.’
‘Of course you’re joking; your family succession——’
‘Not a bit of it. Talked it over with her Ladyship and the children
many a time. Jack, my eldest son—he’s in the Guards—quite agrees with
me. So do the girls. “Oh, take the cash, and let the title go.” Saw it
in _Omar Khayyám_, she said. Clever girl, Corisande! “Broken gods no
use any more, in modern times, without the money. Rank without money
the worst form of genteel poverty.” Give you my word, Mr. Banneret,
it’s most refreshin’ start I’ve had for years. To think of a decent
credit at one’s private bank account! Excuse my high spirits—makes me
feel like a boy again—not good form, I admit, but situation
exceptional.’
Arnold Banneret and this impoverished peer ‘got on,’ as the phrase is,
wonderfully well together. Like most Englishmen of rank, he was
utterly unaffected, never having had to take thought about his
position, or to trouble himself as to the amount of consideration due
to it. Sufficient deference is cheerfully yielded to Lords and
Honourables in England and her colonies, whether rich or poor, as long
as they merit respect from personal character. If they are not so
honoured it is entirely due to their want of the qualities which are
attributed to their birth and breeding. Lord Hexham had been in the
army; had sold out when he succeeded to the title; married shortly
afterwards, and, without being very extravagant, had lived a careless,
easy life, until the foreclosure of a long-standing mortgage, and the
accumulation of unpaid debts and obligations, compelled a surrender.
His family was fairly large—four sons and three daughters—the eldest
son in the army, second navy, two younger boys still at school. For
the girls—Corisande was grown up; Adeline coming on, ambitious and
slightly combative; Mildred still with her governess. When all
liabilities had been liquidated or arranged, it was decided in a sort
of advisory committee, partly composed of creditors and partly of
relatives, that the family must settle for the next few years in a
cheap place, somewhere on the Continent, where the girls could learn
music and languages. But all expensive amusements—travel, sport, house
in town, yachting, etc.—must be done with once and for all. If the
rents were regularly devoted to payment of creditors and the release
of mortgages for a few years, the estate would be, perhaps not quite
free from debt, but in a condition to allow the head of the house a
reasonable income, and to afford the young people all the reasonable
social advantages to which, by their birth and station, they had a
natural claim. The position was felt by the Earl to be, in some
respects, ‘rather hard lines upon a fellow who hadn’t had much
spending out of the big indebtedness which had brought the family ship
aground.’ But it was felt that there was nothing else for it, and his
Lordship, taking his wife’s advice, submitted to it with a fairly good
grace.
‘Deuced hard for your Ladyship, come to think—and the girls won’t like
it one bit. But they’re young, and will get their music, and all the
rest of it, as good in Bruges, perhaps better, than in London—cheaper
too, ever so much cheaper. Jack and Falkland will be fighting
England’s foes on sea and land. Mustn’t outrun the constable, though;
but they’re steady chaps, particularly Jack—that’s one comfort. And
if—I say if—we can put in five years in this kind of rustication,
well, we’re not too old yet; we may look forward to a clean sheet,
and a little reasonable fun, in our—what’s the old song say?—“our
declinin’ days,” declinin’ days—that’s good, isn’t it? Well, I’ll try
to do my part—I _know_ you’ll do yours.’
That settled it. The hunters, the carriage horses, the park hacks,
were sold; the choice little herd of Jerseys, the greyhound kennel,
were disposed of. The well-known historic estate of Hexham was finally
sold out and out, to the wonder and surprise of the country people,
who had a fixed idea that it belonged to the Crown, or, in some
mysterious way, could not be disposed of without the royal sanction.
However, it _was_ sold, everything advertised in the county paper, and
a large attendance witnessed the disposal of all the belongings and
valuables not secured by special deed of settlement.
The all-important transaction being legally, equitably, peacefully
concluded, everything being brought to the hammer—a few heirlooms in
the shape of pictures, statuary, etc., being reserved,—Lord Hexham
gave up his right and title to house and lands, and the new family
acquired possession of the old Hall and the old acres.
It was a portentous proceeding, the girls considered, who acknowledged
a feeling half of awe and half of triumph as they found themselves in
possession of the ancient keep, with embattled walls, towers, and a
portion of a deep and broad moat. They were driven through the Norman
archway, seen through great elms and walnut trees, partly concealing
the quaint high chimneys of the outbuildings, preserved through the
entreaties, even threats, of Lady Ermentrude. The Dowager Countess
reached her ninetieth year before she surrendered her state and the
deference which she exacted as due to the most exalted pedigree in
Britain. A portion of ‘the flanking towers, with turrets high,’ did
certainly look rather grim and menacing, favouring the idea that an
attack in force might be expected at any time. But the remaining
portion of the great building, or rather the collection of buildings,
had been so modernised, that the perfection of comfort and artistic
elegance demanded by latter-day life had been secured, combined with
the luxurious amplitude of quasi-royal apartments. It was wonderful
how the huge building had lent itself to ornamentation, to surprises,
and luxurious lounging nooks and corners. Here quiet converse might be
had by congenial spirits, or wide landscapes surveyed, beauteous with
glimpses of lake and river varying the cultured sweep of pasture and
arable, which seemed only to end with the horizon.