I think my lady was not aware of Mr. Horner’s views on education (as
making men into more useful members of society) or the practice to which
he was putting his precepts in taking Harry Gregson as pupil and
protégé; if, indeed, she were aware of Harry’s distinct existence at
all, until the following unfortunate occasion. The anteroom, which was a
kind of business-place for my lady to receive her steward and tenants
in, was surrounded by shelves. I cannot call them book-shelves, though
there were many books on them; but the contents of the volumes were
principally manuscript, and relating to details connected with the
Hanbury property. There were also one or two dictionaries, gazetteers,
works of reference on the management of property; all of a very old date
(the dictionary was Bailey’s, I remember; we had a great Johnson in my
lady’s room, but where lexicographers differed, she generally preferred
Bailey).
In this antechamber a footman generally sat, awaiting orders from my
lady; for she clung to the grand old customs, and despised any bells,
except her own little hand-bell, as modern inventions; she would have
her people always within summons of this silvery bell, or her scarce
less silvery voice. This man had not the sinecure you might imagine. He
had to reply to the private entrance; what we should call the back door
in a smaller house. As none came to the front door but my lady, and
those of the county whom she honoured by visiting, and her nearest
acquaintance of this kind lived eight miles (of bad road) off, the
majority of comers knocked at the nail-studded terrace-door; not to have
it opened (for open it stood, by my lady’s orders, winter and summer, so
that the snow often drifted into the back-hall, and lay there in heaps
when the weather was severe), but to summon some one to receive their
message, or carry their request to be allowed to speak to my lady. I
remember it was long before Mr. Gray could be made to understand that
the great door was only opened on state occasions, and even to the last
he would as soon come in by that as the terrace entrance. I had been
received there on my first setting foot over my lady’s threshold; every
stranger was led in by that way the first time they came; but after that
(with the exceptions I have named) they went round by the terrace, as
it were by instinct. It was an assistance to this instinct to be aware
that from time immemorial, the magnificent and fierce Hanbury
wolf-hounds, which were extinct in every other part of the island, had
been and still were kept chained in the front quadrangle, where they
bayed through a great part of the day and night, and were always ready
with their deep, savage growl at the sight of every person and thing,
excepting the man who fed them, my lady’s carriage-and-four, and my lady
herself. It was pretty to see her small figure go up to the great,
crouching brutes, thumping the flags with their heavy, wagging tails,
and slobbering in an ecstacy of delight, at her light approach and soft
caress. She had no fear of them; but she was a Hanbury born, and the
tale went, that they and their kind knew all Hanburys instantly, and
acknowledged their supremacy, ever since the ancestors of the breed had
been brought from the East by the great Sir Urian Hanbury, who lay with
his legs crossed on the altar-tomb in the church. Moreover, it was
reported that, not fifty years before, one of these dogs had eaten up a
child, which had inadvertently strayed within reach of its chain. So you
may imagine how most people preferred the terrace-door. Mr. Gray did not
seem to care for the dogs. It might be absence of mind, for I have
heard of his starting away from their sudden spring when he had
unwittingly walked within reach of their chains; but it could hardly
have been absence of mind, when one day he went right up to one of them,
and patted him in the most friendly manner, the dog meanwhile looking
pleased, and affably wagging his tail, just as if Mr. Gray had been a
Hanbury. We were all very much puzzled by this, and to this day I have
not been able to account for it.
But now let us go back to the terrace-door, and the footman sitting in
the antechamber.
One morning we heard a parleying which rose to such a vehemence, and
lasted for so long, that my lady had to ring her hand-bell twice before
the footman heard it.
“What is the matter, John?” asked she, when he entered.
“A little boy, my lady, who says he comes from Mr. Horner, and must see
your ladyship. Impudent little lad!” (this last to himself.)
“What does he want?”
“That’s just what I have asked him, my lady, but he won’t tell me,
please your ladyship.”
“It is, probably, some message from Mr. Horner,” said Lady Ludlow, with
just a shade of annoyance in her manner; for it was against all
etiquette to send a message to her, and by such a messenger too!
“No! please your ladyship, I asked him if he had any message, and he
said no, he had none; but he must see your ladyship for all that.”
“You had better show him in then, without more words,” said her
ladyship, quietly, but still, as I have said, rather annoyed.
As if in mockery of the humble visitor, the footman threw open both
battants of the door, and in the opening their stood a lithe, wiry lad,
with a thick head of hair, standing out in every direction, as if
stirred by some electrical current, a short, brown face, red now from
affright and excitement, wide, resolute mouth, and bright, deep-set
eyes; which glanced keenly and rapidly round the room, as if taking in
everything (and all was new and strange) to be thought and puzzled over
at some future time. He knew enough of manners not to speak first to one
above him in rank, or else he was afraid.
“What do you want with me?” asked my lady; in so gentle a tone that it
seemed to surprise and stun him.
“An’t please your ladyship?” said he, as if he had been deaf.
“You come from Mr. Horner’s: why do you want to see me?” again asked
she, a little more loudly.
“An’t please your ladyship, Mr. Horner was sent for all on a sudden to
Warwick this morning.”
His face began to work; but he felt it, and closed his lips into a
resolute form.
“Well?”
“And he went off all on a sudden-like.”
“Well?”
“And he left a note for your ladyship with me, your ladyship.”
“Is that all? You might have given it to the footman.”
“Please your ladyship, I’ve clean gone and lost it.”
He never took his eyes off her face. If he had not kept his look fixed,
he would have burst out crying.
“That was very careless,” said my lady, gently. “But I am sure you are
very sorry for it. You had better try and find it. It may have been of
consequence.”
“Please, Mum--please your ladyship--I can say it off by heart.”
“You! What do you mean?” I was really afraid now. My lady’s blue eyes
absolutely gave out light, she was so much displeased, and, moreover,
perplexed. The more reason he had for affright, the more his courage
rose. He must have seen,--so sharp a lad must have perceived her
displeasure, but he went on quickly and steadily.
“Mr. Horner, my lady, has taught me to read, write, and cast accounts,
my lady. And he was in a hurry, and he folded his paper up, but he did
not seal it; and I read it, my lady; and now, my lady, it seems like as
if I had got it off by heart;” and he went on with a high pitched voice,
saying out very loud what, I have no doubt, were the identical words of
the letter, date, signature and all: it was merely something about a
deed, which required my lady’s signature.
When he had done, he stood almost as if he expected commendation for his
accurate memory.
My lady’s eyes contracted till the pupils were as needle-points; it was
a way she had when much disturbed. She looked at me, and said,
“Margaret Dawson, what will this world come to?” And then she was
silent.
The lad, beginning to perceive he had given deep offence, stood stock
still--as if his brave will had brought him into this presence, and
impelled him to confession, and the best amends he could make, but had
now deserted him, or was extinct, and left his body motionless, until
some one else with word or deed made him quit the room. My lady looked
again at him, and saw the frowning, dumb-foundering terror at his
misdeed, and the manner in which his confession had been received.
“My poor lad!” said she, the angry look leaving her face, “into whose
hands have you fallen?”
The boy’s lips began to quiver.
“Don’t you know what tree we read of in Genesis?--No! I hope you have
not got to read so easily as that.” A pause. “Who has taught you to read
and write?”
“Please, my lady, I meant no harm, my lady.” He was fairly blubbering,
overcome by her evident feeling of dismay and regret, the soft
repression of which was more frightening to him than any strong or
violent words would have been.
“Who taught you, I ask?”
“It were Mr. Horner’s clerk who learned me, my lady.”
“And did Mr. Horner know of it?”
“Yes, my lady. And I am sure I thought for to please him.”
“Well! perhaps you were not to blame for that. But I wonder at Mr.
Horner. However, my boy, as you have got possession of edge-tools, you
must have some rules how to use them. Did you never hear that you were
not to open letters?”
“Please, my lady, it were open. Mr. Horner forgot for to seal it, in his
hurry to be off.”
“But you must not read letters that are not intended for you. You must
never try to read any letters that are not directed to you, even if they
be open before you.”
“Please, my lady, I thought it were good for practice, all as one as a
book.”
My lady looked bewildered as to what way she could farther explain to
him the laws of honour as regarded letters.
“You would not listen, I am sure,” said she, “to anything you were not
intended to hear?”
He hesitated for a moment, partly because he did not fully comprehend
the question. My lady repeated it. The light of intelligence came into
his eager eyes, and I could see that he was not certain if he could tell
the truth.
“Please, my lady, I always hearken when I hear folk talking secrets; but
I mean no harm.”
My poor lady sighed: she was not prepared to begin a long way off in
morals. Honour was, to her, second nature, and she had never tried to
find out on what principle its laws were based. So, telling the lad that
she wished to see Mr. Horner when he returned from Warwick, she
dismissed him with a despondent look; he, meanwhile, right glad to be
out of the awful gentleness of her presence.
“What is to be done?” said she, half to herself and half to me. I could
not answer, for I was puzzled myself.
“It was a right word,” she continued, “that I used, when I called
reading and writing ‘edge-tools.’ If our lower orders have these
edge-tools given to them, we shall have the terrible scenes of the
French Revolution acted over again in England. When I was a girl, one
never heard of the rights of men, one only heard of the duties. Now,
here was Mr. Gray, only last night, talking of the right every child had
to instruction. I could hardly keep my patience with him, and at length
we fairly came to words; and I told him I would have no such thing as a
Sunday-school (or a Sabbath-school, as he calls it, just like a Jew) in
my village.”
“And what did he say, my lady?” I asked; for the struggle that seemed
now to have come to a crisis, had been going on for some time in a quiet
way.
“Why, he gave way to temper, and said he was bound to remember he was
under the bishop’s authority, not under mine; and implied that he should
persevere in his designs, notwithstanding my expressed opinion.”
“And your ladyship--” I half inquired.
“I could only rise and curtsy, and civilly dismiss him. When two persons
have arrived at a certain point of expression on a subject, about which
they differ as materially as I do from Mr. Gray, the wisest course, if
they wish to remain friends, is to drop the conversation entirely and
suddenly. It is one of the few cases where abruptness is desirable.”
I was sorry for Mr. Gray. He had been to see me several times, and had
helped me to bear my illness in a better spirit than I should have done
without his good advice and prayers. And I had gathered, from little
things he said, how much his heart was set upon this new scheme. I liked
him so much, and I loved and respected my lady so well, that I could not
bear them to be on the cool terms to which they were constantly getting.
Yet I could do nothing but keep silence.
I suppose my lady understood something of what was passing in my mind;
for, after a minute or two, she went on:--
“If Mr. Gray knew all I know,--if he had my experience, he would not be
so ready to speak of setting up his new plans in opposition to my
judgment. Indeed,” she continued, lashing herself up with her own
recollections, “times are changed when the parson of a village comes to
beard the liege lady in her own house. Why, in my grandfather’s days,
the parson was family chaplain too, and dined at the Hall every Sunday.
He was helped last, and expected to have done first. I remember seeing
him take up his plate and knife and fork, and say, with his mouth full
all the time he was speaking: ‘If you please, Sir Urian, and my Lady,
I’ll follow the beef into the housekeeper’s room;’ for, you see, unless
he did so, he stood no chance of a second helping. A greedy man, that
parson was, to be sure! I recollect his once eating up the whole of some
little bird at dinner, and by way of diverting attention from his
greediness, he told how he had heard that a rook soaked in vinegar and
then dressed in a particular way, could not be distinguished from the
bird he was then eating. I saw by the grim look of my grandfather’s face
that the parson’s doing and saying displeased him; and, child as I was,
I had some notion what was coming, when, as I was riding out on my
little, white pony, by my grandfather’s side, the next Friday, he
stopped one of the gamekeepers, and bade him shoot one of the oldest
rooks he could find. I knew no more about it till Sunday, when a dish
was set right before the parson, and Sir Urian said: ‘Now, Parson
Hemming, I have had a rook shot, and soaked in vinegar, and dressed as
you described last Sunday. Fall to, man, and eat it with as good an
appetite as you had last Sunday. Pick the bones clean, or by----, no
more Sunday dinners shall you eat at my table!’ I gave one look at poor
Mr. Hemming’s face, as he tried to swallow the first morsel, and make
believe as though he thought it very good; but I could not look again,
for shame, although my grandfather laughed, and kept asking us all round
if we knew what could have become of the parson’s appetite.”
“And did he finish it?” I asked.
“O yes, my dear. What my grandfather said was to be done, was done
always. He was a terrible man in his anger! But to think of the
difference between Parson Hemming and Mr. Gray! or even of poor, dear
Mr. Mountford and Mr. Gray. Mr. Mountford would never have withstood me
as Mr. Gray did!”
“And your ladyship really thinks that it would not be right to have a
Sunday-school?” I asked, feeling very timid as I put the question.
“Certainly not. As I told Mr. Gray, I consider a knowledge of the Creed,
and of the Lord’s Prayer, as essential to salvation; and that any child
may have, whose parents bring it regularly to church. Then there are the
Ten Commandments, which teach simple duties in the plainest language. Of
course, if a lad is taught to read and write (as that unfortunate boy
has been who was here this morning) his duties become complicated, and
his temptations much greater, while, at the same time, he has no
hereditary principles and honourable training to serve as safeguards. I
might take up my old simile of the race-horse and cart-horse. I am
distressed,” continued she, with a break in her ideas, “about that boy.
The whole thing reminds me so much of a story of what happened to a
friend of mine--Clément de Créquy. Did I ever tell you about him?”
“No, your ladyship,” I replied.
“Poor Clément! more than twenty years ago, Lord Ludlow and I spent a
winter in Paris. He had many friends there; perhaps not very good or
very wise men, but he was so kind that he liked every one, and every one
liked him. We had an apartment, as they call it there, in the Rue de
Lille; we had the first-floor of a grand hôtel, with the basement for
our servants. On the floor above us the owner of the house lived, a
Marquise de Créquy, a widow. They tell me that the Créquy coat-of-arms
is still emblazoned, after all these terrible years, on a shield above
the arched porte-cochère, just as it was then, though the family is
quite extinct. Madam de Créquy had only one son, Clément, who was just
the same age as my Urian--you may see his portrait in the great
hall--Urian’s, I mean.” I knew that Master Urian had been drowned at
sea; and often had I looked at the presentment of his bonny hopeful
face, in his sailor’s dress, with right hand outstretched to a ship on
the sea in the distance, as if he had just said, “Look at her! all her
sails are set, and I’m just off.” Poor Master Urian! he went down in
this very ship not a year after the picture was taken! But now I will go
back to my lady’s story. “I can see those two boys playing now,”
continued she, softly, shutting her eyes, as if the better to call up
the vision, “as they used to do five-and-twenty years ago in those
old-fashioned French gardens behind our hôtel. Many a time have I
watched them from my windows. It was, perhaps, a better play-place than
an English garden would have been, for there were but few flower-beds,
and no lawn at all to speak about; but instead, terraces and balustrades
and vases and flights of stone steps more in the Italian style; and
there were jets-d’eau, and little fountains that could be set playing by
turning water-cocks that were hidden here and there. How Clément
delighted in turning the water on to surprise Urian, and how gracefully
he did the honours, as it were, to my dear, rough, sailor lad! Urian was
as dark as a gypsy boy, and cared little for his appearance, and
resisted all my efforts at setting off his black eyes and tangled curls;
but Clément, without ever showing that he thought about himself and his
dress, was always dainty and elegant, even though his clothes were
sometimes but thread-bare. He used to be dressed in a kind of hunter’s
green suit, open at the neck and half-way down the chest to beautiful
old lace frills; his long golden curls fell behind just like a girl’s,
and his hair in front was cut over his straight dark eyebrows in a line
almost as straight. Urian learnt more of a gentleman’s carefulness and
propriety of appearance from that lad in two months than he had done in
years from all my lectures. I recollect one day, when the two boys were
in full romp--and, my window being open, I could hear them
perfectly--and Urian was daring Clément some scrambling or climbing,
which Clément refused to undertake, but in a hesitating way, as though
he longed to do it if some reason had not stood in the way; and at
times, Urian, who was hasty and thoughtless, poor fellow, told Clément
that he was afraid. ‘Fear!’ said the French boy, drawing himself up;
‘you do not know what you say. If you will be here at six to-morrow
morning, when it is only just light, I will take that starling’s nest on
the top of yonder chimney.’ ‘But why not now, Clément?’ said Urian,
putting his arm round Clément’s neck. ‘Why then, and not now, just when
we are in the humour for it?’ ‘Because we De Créquys are poor, and my
mother cannot afford me another suit of clothes this year, and yonder
stone carving is all jagged, and would tear my coat and breeches. Now,
to-morrow morning I could go up with nothing on but an old shirt.’
“‘But you would tear your legs?’
“‘My race do not care for pain,’ said the boy, drawing himself from
Urian’s arm, and walking a few steps away, with a becoming pride and
reserve; for he was hurt at being spoken to as if he were afraid, and
annoyed at having to confess the true reason for declining the feat. But
Urian was not to be thus baffled. He went up to Clément, and put his arm
once more about his neck, and I could see the two lads as they walked
down the terrace away from the hôtel windows: first Urian spoke eagerly,
looking with imploring fondness into Clément’s face, which sought the
ground, till at last the French boy spoke, and by-and-by his arm was
round Urian too, and they paced backwards and forwards in deep talk, but
gravely, as became men, rather than boys.
“All at once, from the little chapel at the corner of the large garden
belonging to the Missions Etrangères, I heard the tinkle of the little
bell, announcing the elevation of the host. Down on his knees went
Clément, hands crossed, eyes bent down: while Urian stood looking on in
respectful thought.
“What a friendship that might have been! I never dream of Urian without
seeing Clément too,--Urian speaks to me, or does something,--but Clément
only flits round Urian, and never seems to see any one else!
“But I must not forget to tell you, that the next morning, before he was
out of his room, a footman of Madam de Créquy’s brought Urian the
starling’s nest.
“Well! we came back to England, and the boys were to correspond; and
Madame de Créquy and I exchanged civilities; and Urian went to sea.
“After that, all seemed to drop away. I cannot tell you all. However, to
confine myself to the De Créquys. I had a letter from Clément; I knew he
felt his friend’s death deeply; but I should never have learnt it from
the letter he sent. It was formal, and seemed like chaff to my hungering
heart. Poor fellow! I dare say he had found it hard to write. What could
he--or any one--say to a mother who has lost her child? The world does
not think so, and, in general, one must conform to the customs of the
world; but, judging from my own experience, I should say that reverent
silence at such times is the tenderest balm. Madame de Créquy wrote
too. But I knew she could not feel my loss so much as Clément, and
therefore her letter was not such a disappointment. She and I went on
being civil and polite in the way of commissions, and occasionally
introducing friends to each other, for a year or two, and then we ceased
to have any intercourse. Then the terrible revolution came. No one who
did not live at those times can imagine the daily expectation of
news,--the hourly terror of rumours affecting the fortunes and lives of
those whom most of us had known as pleasant hosts, receiving us with
peaceful welcome in their magnificent houses. Of course, there was sin
enough and suffering enough behind the scenes; but we English visitors
to Paris had seen little or nothing of that,--and I had sometimes
thought, indeed, how even Death seemed loth to choose his victims out of
that brilliant throng whom I had known. Madame de Créquy’s one boy
lived; while three out of my six were gone since we had met! I do not
think all lots are equal, even now that I know the end of her hopes; but
I do say, that whatever our individual lot is, it is our duty to accept
it, without comparing it with that of others.
“The times were thick with gloom and terror. ‘What next?’ was the
question we asked of every one who brought us news from Paris. Where
were these demons hidden when, so few years ago, we danced and feasted,
and enjoyed the brilliant salons and the charming friendships of Paris?
“One evening, I was sitting alone in Saint James’ Square; my lord off at
the club with Mr. Fox and others: he had left me, thinking that I should
go to one of the many places to which I had been invited for that
evening; but I had no heart to go anywhere, for it was poor Urian’s
birthday, and I had not even rung for lights, though the day was fast
closing in, but was thinking over all his pretty ways, and on his warm
affectionate nature, and how often I had been too hasty in speaking to
him, for all I loved him so dearly; and how I seemed to have neglected
and dropped his dear friend Clément, who might even now be in need of
help in that cruel, bloody Paris. I say I was thinking reproachfully of
all this, and particularly of Clément de Créquy in connection with
Urian, when Fenwick brought me a note, sealed with a coat-of-arms I knew
well, though I could not remember at the moment where I had seen it. I
puzzled over it, as one does sometimes, for a minute or more, before I
opened the letter. In a moment I saw it was from Clément de Créquy. ‘My
mother is here,’ he said: ‘she is very ill, and I am bewildered in this
strange country. May I entreat you to receive me for a few minutes?’
The bearer of the note was the woman of the house where they lodged. I
had her brought up into the anteroom, and questioned her myself, while
my carriage was being brought round. They had arrived in London a
fortnight or so before: she had not known their quality, judging them
(according to her kind) by their dress and their luggage; poor enough,
no doubt. The lady had never left her bed-room since her arrival; the
young man waited upon her, did everything for her, never left her, in
fact; only she (the messenger) had promised to stay within call, as soon
as she returned, while he went out somewhere. She could hardly
understand him, he spoke English so badly. He had never spoken it, I
dare say, since he had talked to my Urian.”