RAVENSWORTH HALL.
In the immediate neighbourhood of Kilburn on the gentle acclivity rising
towards Wilsden Green, stood a noble mansion in the midst of a spacious
park.
Every thing about that vast structure, within and without, denoted
aristocratic grandeur combined with exquisite taste.
The adjunction of no modern buildings had spoiled the antique and
time-honoured appearance of Ravensworth Hall: the hand of the mason,
when repairing the ravages of years, had successfully studied to
preserve the effect of the beautiful Elizabethan architecture.
Thus the splendid mansion,—with its numerous gables, its tall chimneys,
its picturesque belfry, its immense windows with small diamond-shaped
panes, and its ample portals approached by a flight of twenty
steps,—seemed well adapted for the residence of a peer who could trace
his family back to the epoch of the Conquest, and who preserved as much
feudal state and grandeur as modern systems and habits would permit.
It was the 1st of February; and as early as six o'clock on that
morning—before it was light—Ravensworth Hall was a scene of bustle and
excitement.
Some grand event was evidently about to take place.
The chimneys belonging to the kitchen and servants' offices in the rear
of the building, sent forth dense columns of smoke, which seemed to
imply that extensive culinary preparations were in progress.
The butler,—a venerable old man with hair as white as snow, but with a
stately portliness of form that was scarcely bent by age,—was busy in
selecting the choicest wine from the immense stock of which he was the
guardian. The female domestics were early employed in preparing the
grand apartments of the mansion for the reception of a brilliant
company:—windows were cleaned, coverings removed from the velvet
cushions of chairs and sofas, heavy hangings and curtains arranged in
the nicest folds so as to display the richness of their texture to the
best advantage, and China ornaments carefully dusted.
Lord Ravensworth rose earlier than he had done for some weeks; for
before the clock struck eight he descended from his dressing-room to a
chamber which he denominated his "cabinet."
He was a man of about fifty years of age, and had evidently been very
handsome. But his countenance was now colourless, haggard, and painfully
indicative of some deeply seated disease which was preying upon his
vitals. His eyes were sunken and lustreless: his cheeks were hollow,—and
yet seldom had an individual of his age possessed so splendid a set of
teeth, the whole of which were perfect. So thin and wasted was his form,
that, although he was naturally of a powerful and portly structure, the
dressing-gown which he had on hung as loosely about him as if on a
skeleton.
And how rapidly had these ravages of an unknown and unaccountable malady
worked their terrific influence on a man who had lately appeared to
possess that constitutional vigour and robustness of health which
predicate a long life!
Three months previously to the time of which we are writing had Lord
Ravensworth first experienced a change in his physical energies which
began to alarm him. He was then staying, with his young and beautiful
wife, to whom he had only then been married half-a-year, at his
town-mansion; and when the primal symptoms of his malady
appeared,—evidencing themselves in want of appetite, intervals of deep
lethargic languor, and an apathetic listlessness in respect to every
thing passing around him,—his physicians advised him to essay the
bracing air and change of scene of Ravensworth Park. His lordship was,
however, unwilling to remove his young wife—the lovely Adeline—from the
gaieties of London, at that season when all the fashionable world was
returning to the metropolis after the autumnal visits to their country
seats or favourite watering-places; and he had accordingly persisted in
passing the Christmas holidays at his town-residence.
But he rapidly grew worse:—his appetite totally failed him; and it was
with the greatest difficulty that he could force himself to take the
sustenance necessary to sustain life. He had always been a great smoker;
and his only solace now appeared to be his meerschaum. Alone in his own
private apartment, he would sit for hours with no other companion than
the eternal pipe. He was fond of oriental tobacco, because the Turkish
and Persian weeds possessed a peculiar aroma which rendered their use a
habit comparatively inoffensive to others. And here we may observe that
the only reciprocal attentions which had taken place for years between
Lord Ravensworth and his younger brother, the Honourable Gilbert Vernon,
consisted in the annual interchange of presents:—thus, as Gilbert had
resided in oriental climes, he was in the habit of sending Lord
Ravensworth every year a small chest containing the most rare and
excellent samples of tobacco grown in Asia Minor and Persia; and in
return he received from his elder brother a box filled with all the
newest English publications, and a variety of choice articles for the
toilette, such as Gilbert could not have procured in the East.
Thus was it that, when the nobleman found a strange and insidious malady
growing upon him, he naturally sought relief, both mental and physical,
in his favourite recreation; and never had the present of his brother
seemed more valuable to him than when he forgot his ailments in the
soothing enjoyments of the aromatic Turkish or mildly-flavoured Persian
tobacco.
For two months had he been subject to a mysterious and deeply-rooted
disease,—which one physician treated as atrophy, and which another
honestly confessed he could not comprehend,—when about the beginning of
the year, he had yielded to the entreaties of his wife and removed to
Ravensworth Hall.
There he appeared to rally for a few days,—taking powerful exercise on
horseback and on foot, and indulging but little in the luxury of the
meerschaum. One day, however, the weather was so intemperate that he
could not stir abroad; and he passed several hours in his "cabinet,"
with his favourite meerschaum. From that period the apathy which he had
to some extent shaken off, returned with increased power: his manner
seemed more lethargic and indifferent than it had yet been; and the
companionship of his pipe grew more welcome to him than ever. He now
spent the greater portion of each day in his cabinet, with positive
orders that he was not to be disturbed; and there he enjoyed that
baleful comfort which is experienced by the _Teryaki_, or oriental
opium-eaters. Reclining in a capacious arm-chair, with the tube of his
meerschaum between his lips, Lord Ravensworth forgot the world
without,—remembered not his wife,—thought not of the infant that she
bore in her bosom,—and even seemed insensible to the fearful wasting
away which his physical strength was rapidly undergoing. He refused to
allow his physician to prescribe for him; and though the work of
enfeeblement and decay progressed with alarming velocity, he seldom
appeared to reflect that he must shortly be numbered with the dead.
It is due to Adeline to state that,—attached to pleasure and gaiety, and
fond of society as she was,—she endeavoured to arouse her husband as
much as she could from that mortal apathy which, even in her presence,
shrouded all his sensibilities as it were in a premature grave. His case
presented the remarkable and mysterious anomaly of a man in the noon of
lusty-hood, and without any apparent ailment of a specific kind, passing
out of existence by a geometrical progression of decay.
Such was the condition of Lord Ravensworth at the period when we
introduce our readers to the Hall.
A few words will explain the motive which had induced him to rise at so
unusually early an hour on the 1st of February, and which also led him
to a temporary, and, alas! very feeble exertion to shake off the torpor
of listlessness and the opiate influence of his mortal apathy.
[Illustration]
Lady Ravensworth's cousin, the Honourable Miss Maria Augusta Victoria
Amelia Hyacintha Villiers, was, in fashionable language, "to be that
morning led to the hymeneal altar." This young lady was rich only in her
names: she was a portionless orphan; and the cold calculation of her
guardian, Lord Rossville (Adeline's father), had induced him to consent
to the sacrifice of the poor girl to a suitor whose wealth and title of
Baronet were his only recommendations.
Miss Maria Augusta Victoria Amelia Hyacintha Villiers had been residing
with her cousin Adeline, ever since the marriage of the latter with Lord
Ravensworth; and it was to consummate the sacrifice ere now alluded to
that all the grand preparations before mentioned were in progress. Lord
and Lady Rossville and Lady Ravensworth all conceived that Lord
Ravensworth would be benefited by the excitement attending the
assemblage of a marriage party at the Hall; and their expectations
appeared to be in some measure justified. His lordship descended at an
unusually early hour to his cabinet, and, instead of having recourse to
his meerschaum, he summoned the butler, to whom he gave instructions
relative to the service of particular wines.
For nearly a month past his lordship had not meddled in any of the
affairs of the household; and the venerable servant was overjoyed to
think that his noble master was giving unequivocal signs of recovery.
This idea seemed to acquire confirmation from the circumstance that the
nobleman afterwards returned to his dressing-room without smoking a
single pipe, and, aided by his valet, attired himself with unusual
precision and care.
"Your lordship is better this morning," observed the valet,
deferentially.
"Yes—I am a little better, Quentin," returned the nobleman; "and yet I
hardly know that I have ever felt actually ill. Want of appetite is the
principal ailment which affects me. It makes me grow thin, you
perceive:—but am I so _very_ thin, Quentin?"
"Oh! no, my lord," answered the valet, who belonged to a class that
never tell disagreeable truths so long as their wages are regularly
paid. "Your lordship is certainly not so stout as your lordship was;
but——"
"But what, Quentin?"
"I think—if your lordship would not be offended—that I am acquainted
with the cause of that want of appetite, which prevents your lordship
from taking proper sustenance."
"Go on, Quentin: I shall not be offended. I know you are a faithful
fellow," exclaimed the nobleman. "What do you think is the cause?"
"With your lordship's permission, I should say that smoking too much—"
began the valet, timidly.
"Pooh! pooh!—nonsense!" interrupted Lord Ravensworth, impatiently. "I
have always been a great smoker: you know I have. I began to smoke when
I was only fourteen; and as I was so long a bachelor—during the best
years of my life, indeed—I had no reason to curb myself in my favourite
recreation. It would be different, perhaps, if I used the filthy tobacco
which you buy in England—or if I smoked strong Havannah cigars. But that
mild and aromatic plant, which is reared in the East, cannot injure a
soul:—a child might smoke it."
"Your lordship knows best," observed the valet, feeling that he was
treading on delicate ground. "But I think your lordship has smoked more
lately than——"
"I dare say I have," again interrupted the nobleman, with some little
petulance. "But the last chest of tobacco which my brother sent me is so
much better than all the former ones; and there is such a delightful
soothing influence in the samples of Turkish and Persian, that I cannot
lay aside my pipe when once I take it up. Let me see! It was only last
October—yes, and at the end of October, too—that I received the chest;
and I have already made a deep inroad into it."
"Is the Honourable Mr. Vernon still in Turkey, my lord?" inquired the
valet.
"Yes: at least, when I heard from him last—that was when he sent me the
chest of tobacco in October—he stated in his letter that he should yet
remain abroad for two or three years. He seems devoted to the East. But
you know, Quentin, that he and I are not upon the very best of terms,
although we occasionally correspond and interchange little civilities
every now and then. However, I can scarcely blame myself for any
coldness that may subsist between us. I have behaved to him as an elder
brother ought to a younger one;—and because I would not consent to
minister to his extravagant propensities he took umbrage. When I
espoused her ladyship last May, I wrote to Mr. Vernon, who was then at
Beyrout, acquainting him with that event; and his reply, which
accompanied the chest of tobacco in October, was more kind and
conciliatory than I could have expected, considering his gloomy and
morose character."
"I am glad that he exhibited a proper feeling towards your lordship,"
said Quentin, by way of making some observation, because his master had
paused.
"And so am I," continued the nobleman. "Then I wrote to him again in
November, to inform him that Lady Ravensworth was in a way that gave
promise of a continuation of our name,—the name of Ravensworth is a very
ancient one, Quentin——"
"Yes, my lord. I believe your lordship can trace it back to the invasion
of Britain by the Romans?"
"No—not quite that," returned the nobleman; "but to the conquest by
William the Norman. However, I wrote to my brother, as I have informed
you; and I received no answer. I therefore conclude that he has renewed
his travels through Asia-Minor."
The toilet of Lord Ravensworth was now complete; and he hesitated for a
moment whether he should repair to his cabinet and take "just one little
pipe," or whether he should hasten to the drawing-room at once.
The valet understood what was passing in the nobleman's mind; but as he
was really attached to his master, and moreover entertained a belief
that the too liberal use of tobacco had reduced him to his present
wretched physical condition, he hastened to exclaim, "The company are
already assembled, my lord, in the drawing-room; and her ladyship will
be quite delighted to see your lordship looking so very well to-day."
Once more Lord Ravensworth, who for a moment was about to relapse into a
state of listless apathy, brightened up, and wrestled with the fatal
influence that was creeping over him; and in this improved state of mind
and body he proceeded to the drawing-room.