A VISIT TO MELCOMBE.
"Fairest fair, best of good.
Too high for hope that stood;
White star of womanhood shining apart
O my liege lady,
And O my one lady,
And O my loved lady, come down to my heart.
"Reach me life's wine and gold,
What is man's best all told,
If thou thyself withhold, sweet, from thy throne?
O my liege lady,
And O my loved lady,
And O my heart's lady, come, reign there alone."
Afterwards while Valentine stood in the church, though his eyes and his
surface thoughts were occupied with the approaching ceremony, still in
devouter and more hopeful fashion than he had found possible of late, he
repeated, "Please God, when I have given up all, as my poor father would
wish, I shall have my chance over again. I'll work, like my betters, and
take not a stick or a clod away from that Melcombe."
The guests were arriving. John Mortimer had been standing at the
altar-rails, his three sons with him. Several members of the family
grouped themselves right and left of him. This was to be the quietest of
weddings. And Miss Christie Grant thought what a pity that was; for a
grander man than the bridegroom or handsomer little fellows than his two
younger sons it would be hard to find. "He's just majestic," she
whispered to Mrs. Henfrey. "Never did I see him look so handsome or so
content, and there's hardly anybody to see him. Ay, here they come."
Miss Christie seldom saw anything to admire in her own sex. Valentine
looked down the aisle; his sister was coming, and John Mortimer's
twin-daughters, her only bridesmaids, behind her.
The children behaved very well, though it was said afterwards that a
transaction took place at that moment between Bertie and Hugh, in the
course of which several large scarlet-runner beans were exchanged for
some acorns; also that when John Mortimer moved down the aisle to meet
his bride little Anastasia, seizing Mrs. Henfrey's gown to steady
herself, thrust out her crutch toward Valentine, that he might have the
privilege of again admiring it.
The peculiarity of this wedding, distinguishing it from others where
love is, was the measureless contentment of the future step-children.
"Nothing new in this family," observed Mrs. Henfrey. "When Emily's
mother came here, all her children took to my father directly, and loved
him as if he had been their own."
Emily had been married from her brother's house, Valentine's old home,
and in the dining-room there was spread a wedding breakfast. The room
looked nearly as it had done when Valentine should have appeared to be a
bridegroom himself; but he did not know this so well as Dorothea did;
yet he felt exceedingly sheepish, and was only consoled by observing
that she also was a good deal out of countenance, and scarcely knew
whether to blush or to smile when she spoke to him or met his eyes.
So the ceremony of the breakfast well over, and John Mortimer and his
wife departed, Valentine was very glad to take leave of his family and
walk across the fields with Johnnie. He did this partly to while away
the time before his train started, partly to see Swan, who, with Mrs.
Swan in gorgeous array, was found walking about the garden, her husband
showing her the plants and flowers, and enlarging on their perfections.
"But how can I find time for it, even on this noble occasion, Mr.
Melcombe, my wife's just been saying, is a wonder, for that long new
conservatory all down the front of the house will take a sight of
filling--filled it shall be, and with the best, for if ever there was a
lady as deserved the best, it's Mrs. John Mortimer. I'm sorry now I
burnt so many of my seedlings."
"Burnt them, Nicholas?"
"Why yes, sir," said Mrs. Swan, "when he used to be sitting up with Mr.
Johnnie, he had plenty of time to think, and he did it."
Johnnie being not yet so strong as before his accident, now went into
the house to rest, and Swan proceeded to explain matters.
"It seems, sir, that the new mistress said some time ago, that if there
was a conservatory along the front of the house, the rooms could be
entered from it, and need not be thoroughfares; so Mr. John Mortimer
built one, for he prizes every word she ever said. Now he had allers
allowed me to sell for my own benefit such of my seedlings as we
couldn't use ourselves. And Fergus sent, when the children were ill, and
made me a handsome bid for them. But there air things as can't be made
fair and square anyhow. The farrier has no right to charge me so high
for shoeing my horse that I'm forced to sell him my horse to pay his
bill; but he has a right to say he won't shoe him at all. Well, I
reckoned as a fair price wouldn't do for me, and an unfair price I was
above asking, so I flung the seedlings on my pea-sticks, and made a
bon-fire on 'em."
"You did! I think that was waste, Swan. I think it was wrong."
"No, sir, I think not; for, as I said, some things won't pay at any
figure. Their soil's better than ours. He meant to bribe me, and so beat
me, and bring me down through my own plants. But would it pay a man to
insure his brig that was not seaworthy (though he was to get £50,000 if
she went down) provided he had to sail in her himself? Better by half
break her up in the harbour, and have a dry burial for his corpse when
his time was come, and mourners to follow, decent and comfortable. Now
it's reason that if I'd known of this here new conservatory, and the new
lad I'm to have to help me, I'd have kept them."
"Mrs. Swan," said Valentine, observing that she was moving away, "if
it's agreeable to you, I'll come in shortly and take a cup of tea with
you."
Mrs. Swan expressed herself pleased, and Swan marched off after her to
get ready some cuttings which he was very desirous to send to the
gardener at Melcombe.
"How Swanny talks!" said Barbara, who had now returned with her sisters
in the carriage, and joined Valentine; "he is so proud when his wife has
her best things on, her silk gown and her grand shawl; she only wears
them at flower shows and great days like this because she's a
Methodist."
Mrs. Swan, in fact, consented out of wifely affection to oblige her
husband by wearing this worldly array when he specially desired it, but
she always sighed more than usual, and behaved with even more sobriety
and gravity then, as if to show that the utmost splendour of the world
as represented by the satinet gown and a Paisley shawl could not make
her forget that she was mortal, or puff up her heart with unbecoming
pride.
Valentine, when a young boy, had often taken tea with Mrs. Swan,
generally by invitation, when radishes and fruit were added to the
buttered muffins.
On this occasion she gave him brown bread and butter, and some delicate
young onions, together with a cake, baked in honour of Mr. Mortimer's
wedding. Valentine thought it was only due to her that she should be
told something concerning Joseph's wedding. A man's mother does not
often care to hear of her son's love for another woman, but Valentine
expected to please Mrs. Swan on this occasion.
"Like old times to see you, sir," she said, "ain't it, Nicholas?"
Then Valentine, seated at his ease, told his story, and was aware before
it was half over that Swan was attempting to feign a surprise he did not
feel, and that Mrs. Swan was endeavouring to keep within due bounds her
expression of the surprise she did feel.
"Bless my heart!" she exclaimed, "you take this very easy, Nicholas."
Then Mr. Swan said, looking rather foolish, "Well, Maria, there's many
more wonderful things in this world to hear on than to hear that a young
man have fell in love with a young woman."
Mrs. Swan gasped. "Our Joey!" she exclaimed; "and what will Mr. Mortimer
think?"
Valentine sat, composed, and almost impassive.
"You think she likes our boy, sir?"
"I am sure of it."
"How is he ever to maintain her as she'll expect!"
"She has a thousand pounds of her own; that will help him. I have
written to him that he must settle it on her."
Here Mrs. Swan's added surprise made her thoughtful.
"She is a good, modest, virtuous young lady, as I've heerd," said Swan,
looking pointedly at Valentine, as if to admonish-him that the mother
would like to have this confirmed.
"Yes," answered Valentine, with great decision; "she is all that and
more, she is very affectionate, and has a good temper."
"Well," said Swan, drawing a deep breath, "all I have to observe is,
that wives were made afore coats of mail, though coats of female would
be more to the purpose here" (he meant coats of arms), "and," continued
the gardener, with that chivalrous feeling which lies at the very core
of gentlemanhood, "I'm not going to disparage my son, my Joey, that
would be to disparage her _chice_. If she thinks he's ekal to be her
husband, she'll respect him as a wife should. Why, bless you, Maria, my
dear, if you come to that, there's hardly a young man alive that's ekal
to his young wife, whether she be gentle or simple. They're clean above
us, most on 'em. But he can rise; Joseph can rise if she'll help him."
"My word!" repeated Mrs. Swan several times over; and then added slowly,
"It'll be an awk'ard thing for Swan if Mr. Mortimer should take offence
about this."
Valentine was perfectly aware that something either in his manner, or
his account of his own part in the matter, had much surprised them; also
he thought that their poor place and preferment in this world seemed to
them to be menaced by it. He did what he could to dissipate any such
thoughts, and added a request that until they heard from Joseph that he
was actually married nothing might be said about the matter. This
request was very welcome to Mrs. Swan. It seemed to put off an eventful
day, which she was not ready for even in imagination.
"Swan," said Valentine, "when he had taken leave of his hostess, this is
no news to you."
"No, sir, Joseph told me all about it afore he sailed, and how he
thought he'd got over it. Mr. Mortimer knows, as you're aware. Well,
lastly, Joseph wrote again and told me he was fairly breaking his heart
about her, and he should try his chance once more. You see, sir, his
ways and fashions and hers are not alike. It would not have answered
here--but there they'd both have to learn perfectly new ways and
manners, and speak to their feller creatures in a new language. There's
hardly another Englishman for her to measure him with, and not one
English lady to let her know she should have made a better match."
"Mr. Mortimer knows?"
"Ay, sir."
"And you never told your wife?"
"No, she has a good deal to hear, Mr. Valentine, besides that, and I
thought I'd tell it her all at once."
Valentine saw that he was expected to ask a question here.
"What, Swanny, is something else coming off then?"
"Ay, sir; you see, Mr. Melcombe, I'm lost here, I'm ekal to something
better, Mr. Mortimer knows it as well as I do. He's said as much to me
more than once. What he'll do without me I'm sure I don't know, but I
know well enough he'll never get such another."
"No, I don't suppose he will."
"There ain't such a gardener going--not for his weight in gold. But I'm
off in the spring. I've done a'most all but break it to my wife. It's
Joseph that's helping me, and for hindrance I've got a Methodist chapel
and a boarded floor. There's boarded floors to her kitchen, and back
kitchen, as Mr. Mortimer put in for her, because she was so rheumatic,
they air what she chiefly vally's the place for. But at some of them
small West India islands there's a fine opening, Joey says, for a man
with a headpiece as can cultivate, and knows what crops require, and I
ought to go. I'm only sixty-one or thereabouts. You'll not say anything
about it, sir," he continued, as the twins, who were in the garden, came
towards Valentine.
They brought him in triumph to the schoolroom, which was decorated, and
full of the wedding presents the children had made for their father and
the dear mamma.
"And you'll remember," said Bertram, "how you promised us--promised us
_with all your might,_ that we should come to Melcombe."
"Yes, all of us," proceeded Anastasia; "he said the little ones too."
"So you should have done, you poor darlings, but for that accident,"
said Valentine.
"And we were to see the pears and apples gathered, and have such fun. Do
you know that you're a sort of uncle now to us?"
"What sort? The right sort?"
"Yes, and now when shall we come?"
"I am afraid I shall be away all the winter."
"In the spring, then, and father and the dear mamma."
"It's a long time till the spring," said Valentine, with a sigh; "but if
I am at Melcombe then-"
"You'll have us?"
"Yes."
"Then let it be in the Easter holidays," said Johnnie, "that I may come
too."
"All right," said Valentine, and he took leave of them, and departed in
one of their father's carriages for the Junction, muttering as he looked
back at the house, "No, you'll never see Melcombe, youngsters. I shall
be at the other end of the earth, perhaps, by that time."
"Oh, what a long time to wait!" quoth the younger Mortimers; "five
months and a half to Easter--twenty-three weeks--twenty-three times
seven--what a lot of days! Now, if we were going to sea, as the Brandon
baby is, we shouldn't mind waiting. What a pity that such a treat should
come to a little stupid thing that does nothing but sputter and crow
instead of to us! Such a waste of pleasure." They had never heard of
"the irony of fate," but in their youthful manner they felt it then.
So St. George Mortimer Brandon was borne off to the _Curlew_, and there,
indifferent to the glory of sunsets, or the splendour of bays and
harbours, he occupied his time in cutting several teeth, in learning to
seize everything that came near him, and in finding out towards the end
of the time how to throw or drop his toys overboard. He was even
observed on a calm day to watch these waifs as they floated off, and was
confidently believed to recognise them as his own property, while in
such language as he knew, which was not syllabic, he talked and scolded
at them, as if, in spite of facts, he meant to charge them with being
down there entirely through their own perversity.
There is nothing so unreasonable as infancy, excepting the maturer
stages of life.
His parents thought all this deeply interesting. So did the old uncle,
who put down the name of St. George Mortimer Brandon for a large legacy,
and was treated by the legatee with such distinguishing preference as
seemed to suggest that he must know what he was about, and have an eye
already to his own interests.
Four months and a half. The Mortimers did not find them so long in
passing as in anticipation, and whether they were long or short to their
father and his new wife, they did not think of considering. Only a sense
of harmony and peace appeared to brood over the place, and they felt the
sweetness of it, though they never found out its name. There was more
freedom than of yore. Small persons taken with a sudden wish to go down
and see what father and mamma were about could do so; one would go
tapping about with a little crutch, another would curl himself up at the
end of the room, and never seem at all in the way. The new feminine
element had great fascinations for them, they made pictures for Emily,
and brought her flowers, liking to have a kiss in return, and to feel
the softness of her velvet-gown.
The taller young people, instead of their former tasteless array, wore
delightfully pretty frocks and hats, and had other charming decorations
chosen for them. They began to love the memory of their dead mother.
What could she not have been to them if she had lived, when only a
step-mother was so sweet and so dear and so kind? And mamma had said to
them long before she had thought of marrying father, that their mother
would have greatly wished them to please their father's wife, and love
her if they could. Nothing was so natural as to do both, but it was
nice, to be sure, that she would have approved.
It was not long after John Mortimer and his wife returned from their
very short wedding tour that they had a letter from Valentine, and he
had spoken so confidently of his intended absence in the south of Europe
during the later autumn and the whole winter, that they were surprised
to find he had not yet started, and surprised also at the excessive
annoyance, the unreasonable annoyance he expressed at having been
detained to be a witness at some trial of no great importance. The trial
had not come on so soon as it should have done, and he was kept
lingering on at this dull, melancholy Melcombe, till he was almost moped
to death.
Emily folded up this letter with a sensation of pain and disappointment.
She had hoped that prosperity would do so much for Valentine, and
wondered to find him dissatisfied and restless, when all that life can
yield was within his reach.
His next letter showed that he meant to stay at Melcombe all the winter.
He complained no more; but from that time, instead of stuffing his
letters with jokes, good and bad, he made them grave and short, and
Emily was driven to the conclusion that rumour must be right, the rumour
which declared that young Mr. Melcombe was breaking his heart for that
pretty, foolish Laura.
At last the Easter holidays arrived, Johnnie came home, and forthwith
Emily received a letter from Valentine with the long-promised
invitation. The cherry orchards were in blossom, the pear-trees were
nearly out; he wanted his sister and John Mortimer to come, and bring
the whole tribe of children, and make a long stay with him. Some
extraordinary things were packed up as presents for cousin Val, an old
and much-loved leader, and Emily allowed more pets and more toys to
accompany the cavalcade than anybody else would have thought it possible
to get into two carriages. The little crutch, happily, was no longer
wanted.
All the country was white with blossom when Valentine met his guests at
the door of Melcombe House. It was late in the afternoon. Emily thought
her brother looked thin, but the children rushing round him, and taking
possession of him, soon made her forget that, and the unwelcome thought
of Laura, for she saw his almost boyish delight in his young guests, and
they made him sit down, and closed him in, thrusting up, with tyrannous
generosity, cages of young starlings, all for him, and demanding that a
room, safe from cats, should immediately be set aside for them. Then two
restless, yelping puppies were proudly brought forward, hugged in their
owner's arms. Emily, who loved a stir, and a joyous chattering, felt her
spirits rise. Her marriage had drawn the families yet nearer together,
and for the rest of that evening she pleased herself with the thought.
The next morning she wanted to see this beautiful house and garden.
Valentine was showman, and the whole family accompanied her, wandering
among the great white pear-trees, and the dark yews, then going into the
stable-yard, to see the strange, old out-buildings, with doors of heavy,
ancient oak, and then on to the glen.
Valentine did not seem to care about his beautiful house, he rather
disparaged it.
"You're not to say, 'it's well enough,' when it's beautiful," observed
Anastasia.
Then with what was considered by the elder portion of the party to be a
pretty specimen of childish sagacity, Hugh admonished his little
sister--
"But he mustn't praise his own things; that's not good manners. He talks
in this way to make us think that he's not conceited; but he really
knows in his heart that they're very handsome."
"Is he grander than father, mamma dear?" asked Anastasia.
"I don't think so, my sweet," answered Emily laughing. "I see you are
not too grand, Val, to use your father's old repeater."
"No," said Valentine, who had been consulting rather a shabby old watch,
and who now excused himself for leaving the party on the ground of an
appointment that he had made. "This, and a likeness of him that I have
in the house, are among the things I most value."
What did the appointment matter to them?
John noticed that he walked as if weary, or reluctant perhaps to leave
them. He was the only person who noticed anything, for you must
understand that the place was full of nests. All sorts of birds built
there, even herons; and to stand at the brink of the glen, and actually
see them--look down on to the glossy backs of the brooding mothers, and
count the nests--wealth incalculable of eggs, and that of all sorts,--to
do this, and not to be sure yet whether you shall ever finger them, is a
sensation for a boy that, as Mr. Weller said, "is more easier conceived
than described."
And so Valentine went in. There were two appointments for him to keep,
one with his doctor, one with his lawyer. The first told him he had
unduly tired himself, and should lie down. So lying down, in his
grandmother's favourite sitting-room, he received the second, but could
decide on nothing, because he had not yet found opportunity to consult
the person principally concerned.
So after the man of law had departed, Valentine continued to lie quietly
on the sofa for perhaps an hour; he closed his eyes, and had almost the
air of a man who is trying to gather strength for something that he has
to do.
Children's voices roused him at last. Emily was moving up the garden
towards the house, leaning on John's arm; the two younger children were
with them, all the others having dispersed themselves about the place.
Valentine sat up to gaze, and as their faces got nearer a sudden
anguish, that was not envy, overcame him.
It was not so much the splendour of manly prime and strength that struck
him with the contrast to himself, not so much even the sight of love, as
of hope, and spring, and bloom, that were more than he could bear. How
sufficient to themselves they seemed! How charming Emily was! A woman
destined to inspire a life-long love seldom shows much consciousness of
it. "I never saw a fellow so deeply in love with his wife," thought
Valentine. "Surely she knows it. What are you saying to her, John?" They
had stopped under the great fruit-trees near the garden-door. John bent
down one of the blossom-laden boughs, and she, fair, and almost pale,
stood in the delicate white shadow looking at it.
Beautiful manhood and womanhood! beautiful childhood, and health, and
peace! Valentine laid himself down again and shut his eyes.
Emily had betrayed a little anxiety about him that morning. He was very
thin, she said; he must take care of himself.
"Oh, yes," he had answered, "I shall do that. I have been very unwell,
but I am better now." And then he had noticed that John looked at him
uneasily, and seemed disturbed when he coughed. He thought that as they
stood under the fruit-trees John had caught sight of him.
"I knew he would come up as soon as he found opportunity, and here he
is," thought Valentine, not moving from his place, but simply lifting up
his head as John entered. "What have you done with Emily?" he asked.
"Emily is gone up to her dressing-room. She means to hear the children
read."
"Ah," exclaimed Valentine, with a sudden laugh of good-humoured
raillery, "of all womankind, John, you have evidently secured the pearl,
the 'one entire and perfect chrysolite.' You know you think so."
"Yes," answered John gravely, "but don't put me off, my dear fellow."
"What do you want? What do you mean?" said Valentine, for John sitting
down near him, held out his hand. "Oh, nonsense; I'm all right." But he
put his own into it, and let John with his other hand push up the sleeve
of his coat.
"Too thin by half, isn't it?" he said, affecting indifference, as John
gravely relinquished it; "but I am so mummied up in flannels that it
doesn't show much."
"My dear fellow," John Mortimer repeated.
"Yes, I have been long unwell, but now I have leave to start in one
week, John. I'm to take a sea voyage. You told me you could only stay
here a few days, and there is a great deal that ought to be done while
you are here. Don't look so dismayed, the doctors give me every hope
that I shall be all right again."
"I devoutly hope so----"
"There's nothing to drive the blood from your manly visage," Valentine
said lightly, then went on, "There is one thing that I ought not to have
neglected so long, and if I were in the best health possible I still
ought to do it, before I take a long sea voyage." He spoke now almost
with irritation, as if he longed to leave the subject of his health and
was urgent to talk of business matters. John Mortimer, with as much
indifference as he could assume, tried to meet his wishes.
"You have been in possession of this estate almost a year," he said,
"so I hope, indeed I assume, that the making of a will is not what you
have neglected?"
"But it is."
Rather an awkward thing this to be said to the heir-at-law. He paused
for a moment, then remarked, "I met just now, driving away from your
door, the very man who read to us our grandmother's will."
"I have been telling him that he shall make one for me forthwith."
"When I consider that you have many claims," said John, "and consider
further that your property is all land, I wonder at your----"
"My neglect. Yes, I knew you would say so."
"When shall this be done then?"
"To-morrow."
Then Valentine began to talk of other matters, and he expressed, with a
directness certainly not called for, his regret that John Mortimer
should have made the sacrifices he had acknowledged to, in order
eventually to withdraw his name and interest altogether from his banking
affairs.
John was evidently surprised, but he took Valentine's remarks
good-humouredly.
"I know you have had losses," continued Valentine. "But now you have got
a partner, and----"
"It's all settled," said John, declining to argue the question.
"You fully mean to retire from probable riches to a moderate
competence?"
"Quite; I have, as you say, made great sacrifices in order to do so."
"I rather wonder at you," Valentine added; "there was no great risk,
hardly any, in fact."
"I do not at all repent my choice," said John with a smile in his eyes
that showed Valentine how useless it was to say more. John was amused,
surprised, but not moved at all from his determination. He thought
proper to add, "My father, as you know, left two thousand pounds each
to every one of my children."
"And he gave the same sum to me," Valentine broke in. "You said my
property was all land, but it is not. And so, John, you will no longer
be a rich man."
"I shall be able to live just as I do at present," answered John
Mortimer, calmly turning him round to his own duty. "And you have
relatives who are decidedly poor. Then one of your sisters has married a
curate without a shilling, or any seeming chance of preferment; and your
brother, to whom you owe so much, has cramped his resources very much
for the sake of his mother's family. Of course, when I married Emily, I
insisted on repaying him the one thousand pounds he had made over to her
on her first marriage, but----"
"Giles is very fairly off," interrupted Valentine, "and some day no
doubt his wife will have a good fortune."
"I thought the old man had settled eight thousand pounds on her."
"He made a settlement on her when she was to marry me, and he signed it.
But that settlement was of no use when she married St. George."
"Had he the imprudence, then, to leave everything to chance?"
"Even so. But, John, St. George will never have a single acre of
Melcombe."