New Faces
The inmates of Fairoaks were drowsily pursuing this humdrum existence,
while the great house upon the hill, on the other side of the River
Brawl, was shaking off the slumber in which it had lain during the
lives of two generations of masters, and giving extraordinary signs of
renewed liveliness.
Just about the time of Pen’s little mishap, and when he was so absorbed
in the grief occasioned by that calamity as to take no notice of events
which befell persons less interesting to himself than Arthur Pendennis,
an announcement appeared in the provincial journals which caused no
small sensation in the county at least, and in all the towns, villages,
halls and mansions, and parsonages for many miles round Clavering Park.
At Clavering Market; at Cackleby Fair; at Chatteris Sessions; on
Gooseberry Green, as the squire’s carriage met the vicar’s one-horse
contrivance, and the inmates of both vehicles stopped on the road to
talk; at Tinkleton Church gate, as the bell was tolling in the
sunshine, and the white smocks and scarlet cloaks came trooping over
the green common, to Sunday worship; in a hundred societies round
about—the word was, that Clavering Park was to be inhabited again.
Some five years before, the county papers had advertised the marriage
at Florence, at the British Legation, of Francis Clavering, Esq., only
son of Sir Francis Clavering, Bart., of Clavering Park, with Jemima
Augusta, daughter of Samuel Snell, of Calcutta, Esq., and widow of the
late J. Amory, Esq. At that time the legend in the county was that
Clavering, who had been ruined for many a year, had married a widow
from India with some money. Some of the county folks caught a sight of
the newly-married pair. The Kickleburys, travelling in Italy, had seen
them. Clavering occupied the Poggi Palace at Florence, gave parties,
and lived comfortably—but could never come to England. Another
year—young Peregrine, of Cackleby, making a Long Vacation tour, had
fallen in with the Claverings occupying Schloss Schinkenstein, on the
Mummel See. At Rome, at Lucca, at Nice, at the baths and gambling
places of the Rhine and Belgium, this worthy couple might occasionally
be heard of by the curious, and rumours of them came, as it were by
gusts, to Clavering’s ancestral place.
Their last place of abode was Paris, where they appear to have lived in
great fashion and splendour after the news of the death of Samuel
Snell, Esq., of Calcutta, reached his orphan daughter in Europe.
Of Sir Francis Clavering’s antecedents little can be said that would be
advantageous to that respected baronet. The son of an outlaw, living in
a dismal old chateau near Bruges, this gentleman had made a feeble
attempt to start in life with a commission in a dragoon regiment, and
had broken down almost at the outset. Transactions at the
gambling-table had speedily effected his ruin; after a couple of years
in the army he had been forced to sell out, had passed some time in Her
Majesty’s prison of the Fleet, and had then shipped over to Ostend to
join the gouty exile, his father. And in Belgium, France and Germany,
for some years, this decayed and abortive prodigal might be seen
lurking about billiard-rooms and watering-places, punting at
gambling-houses, dancing at boarding-house balls, and riding
steeple-chases on other folks’ horses.
It was at a boarding-house at Lausanne that Francis Clavering made what
he called the lucky coup of marrying the widow Amory, very lately
returned from Calcutta. His father died soon after, by consequence of
whose demise his wife became Lady Clavering. The title so delighted Mr.
Snell of Calcutta, that he doubled his daughter’s allowance; and dying
himself soon after, left a fortune to her and her children the amount
of which was, if not magnified by rumour, something very splendid
indeed.
Before this time there had been, not rumours unfavourable to Lady
Clavering’s reputation, but unpleasant impressions regarding her
ladyship. The best English people abroad were shy of making her
acquaintance; her manners were not the most refined; her origin was
lamentably low and doubtful. The retired East Indians, who are to be
found in considerable force in most of the continental towns frequented
by English, spoke with much scorn of the disreputable old lawyer and
indigo-smuggler her father, and of Amory, her first husband, who had
been mate of the Indiaman in which Miss Snell came out to join her
father at Calcutta. Neither father nor daughter were in society at
Calcutta, or had ever been heard of at Government House. Old Sir Jasper
Rogers, who had been Chief Justice of Calcutta, had once said to his
wife, that he could tell a queer story about Lady Clavering’s first
husband; but greatly to Lady Rogers’s disappointment, and that of the
young ladies his daughters, the old Judge could never be got to reveal
that mystery.
They were all, however, glad enough to go to Lady Clavering’s parties,
when her ladyship took the Hotel Bouilli in the Rue Grenelle at Paris,
and blazed out in the polite world there in the winter of 183—. The
Faubourg St. Germain took her up. Viscount Bagwig, our excellent
ambassador, paid her marked attention. The princes of the family
frequented her salons. The most rigid and noted of the English ladies
resident in the French capital acknowledged and countenanced her; the
virtuous Lady Elderbury, the severe Lady Rockminster, the venerable
Countess of Southdown—people, in a word, renowned for austerity, and of
quite a dazzling moral purity:—so great and beneficent an influence had
the possession of ten (some said twenty) thousand a year exercised upon
Lady Clavering’s character and reputation. And her munificence and
good-will were unbounded. Anybody (in society) who had a scheme of
charity was sure to find her purse open. The French ladies of piety got
money from her to support their schools and convents; she subscribed
indifferently for the Armenian patriarch; for Father Barbarossa, who
came to Europe to collect funds for his monastery on Mount Athos; for
the Baptist Mission to Quashyboo, and the Orthodox Settlement in
Feefawfoo, the largest and most savage of the Cannibal Islands. And it
is on record of her, that, on the same day on which Madame de Cricri
got five Napoleons from her in support of the poor persecuted Jesuits,
who were at that time in very bad odour in France, Lady Budelight put
her down in her subscription-list for the Rev. J. Ramshorn, who had had
a vision which ordered him to convert the Pope of Rome. And more than
this, and for the benefit of the worldly, her ladyship gave the best
dinners, and the grandest balls and suppers, which were known at Paris
during that season.
And it was during this time, that the good-natured lady must have
arranged matters with her husband’s creditors in England, for Sir
Francis reappeared in his native country, without fear of arrest; was
announced in the Morning Post, and the county paper, as having taken up
his residence at Mivart’s Hotel; and one day the anxious old
housekeeper at Clavering House beheld a carriage and four horses drive
up the long avenue, and stop before the moss-grown steps in front of
the vast melancholy portico.
Three gentlemen were in the carriage—an open one. On the back seat was
our old acquaintance, Mr. Tatham of Chatteris, whilst in the places of
honour sate a handsome and portly gentleman enveloped in mustachios,
whiskers, fur collars, and braiding, and by him a pale languid man who
descended feebly from the carriage, when the little lawyer, and the
gentleman in fur, nimbly jumped out of it.
They walked up the great moss-grown steps to the hall-door, and a
foreign attendant, with earrings and a gold-laced cap, pulled
strenuously at the great bell-handle at the cracked and sculptured
gate. The bell was heard clanging loudly through the vast gloomy
mansion. Steps resounded presently upon the marble pavement of the hall
within; and the doors opened, and finally Mrs. Blenkinsop, the
housekeeper, Polly, her aide-de-camp, and Smart, the keeper, appeared
bowing humbly.
Smart, the keeper, pulled the wisp of hay-coloured hair which adorned
his sunburnt forehead, kicked out his left heel as if there were a dog
biting at his calves, and brought down his head to a bow. Old Mrs.
Blenkinsop dropped a curtsey. Little Polly, her aide-de-camp, made a
curtsey and several rapid bows likewise; and Mrs. Blenkinsop, with a
great deal of emotion, quavered out, “Welcome to Clavering, Sir
Francis. It du my poor eyes good to see one of the family once more.”
The speech and the greetings were all addressed to the grand gentleman
in fur and braiding, who wore his hat so magnificently on one side, and
twirled his mustachios so royally. But he burst out laughing, and said,
“You’ve saddled the wrong horse, old lady—I’m not Sir Francis Clavering
what’s come to revisit the halls of my ancestors. Friends and vassals!
behold your rightful lord!”
And he pointed his hand towards the pale, languid gentleman who said,
“Don’t be an ass, Ned.”
“Yes, Mrs. Blenkinsop, I’m Sir Francis Clavering; I recollect you quite
well. Forgot me, I suppose?—How dy do?” and he took the old lady’s
trembling hand; and nodded in her astonished face, in a not unkind
manner.
Mrs. Blenkinsop declared upon her conscience that she would have known
Sir Francis anywhere, that he was the very image of Sir Francis, his
father, and of Sir John who had gone before.
“O yes—thanky—of course—very much obliged—and that sort of thing,” Sir
Francis said, looking vacantly about the hall “Dismal old place, ain’t
it, Ned? Never saw it but once, when my governor quarrelled with
gwandfather in the year twenty-thwee.
“Dismal?—beautiful!—the Castle of Otranto!—the Mysteries of Udolpho, by
Jove!” said the individual addressed as Ned. “What a fireplace! You
might roast an elephant in it. Splendid carved gallery! Inigo Jones, by
Jove! I’d lay five to two it’s Inigo Jones.”
“The upper part by Inigo Jones; the lower was altered by the eminent
Dutch architect, Vanderputty, in George the First his time, by Sir
Richard, fourth baronet,” said the housekeeper.
“O indeed,” said the Baronet “Gad, Ned, you know everything.”
“I know a few things, Frank,” Ned answered. “I know that’s not a
Snyders over the mantelpiece—bet you three to one it’s a copy. We’ll
restore it, my boy. A lick of varnish, and it will come out
wonderfully, sir. That old fellow in the red gown, I suppose, is Sir
Richard.”
“Sheriff of the county, and sate in parliament in the reign of Queen
Anne,” said the housekeeper, wondering at the stranger’s knowledge;
“that on the right is Theodosia, wife of Harbottle, second baronet, by
Lely, represented in the character of Venus, the Goddess of Beauty,—her
son Gregory, the third baronet, by her side, as Cupid, God of Love,
with a bow and arrows; that on the next panel is Sir Rupert, made a
knight banneret by Charles the First, and whose property was
confuscated by Oliver Cromwell.”
“Thank you—needn’t go on, Mrs. Blenkinsop,” said the Baronet, “We’ll
walk about the place ourselves. Frosch, give me a cigar. Have a cigar,
Mr. Tatham?”
Little Mr. Tatham tried a cigar which Sir Francis’s courier handed to
him, and over which the lawyer spluttered fearfully. “Needn’t come with
us, Mrs. Blenkinsop. What’s—his—name—you—Smart—feed the horses and wash
their mouths. Shan’t stay long. Come along, Strong,—I know the way: I
was here in twenty-thwee, at the end of my gwandfather’s time.” And Sir
Francis and Captain Strong, for such was the style and title of Sir
Francis’s friend, passed out of the hall into the reception-rooms,
leaving the discomfited Mrs. Blenkinsop to disappear by a side-door
which led to her apartments, now the only habitable rooms in the
long-uninhabited mansion.
It was a place so big that no tenant could afford to live in it; and
Sir Francis and his friend walked through room after room, admiring
their vastness and dreary and deserted grandeur. On the right of the
hall-door were the saloons and drawing-rooms, and on the other side the
oak room, the parlour, the grand dining-room, the library, where Pen
had found books in old days. Round three sides of the hall ran a
gallery, by which, and corresponding passages, the chief bedrooms were
approached, and of which many were of stately proportions and exhibited
marks of splendour. On the second story was a labyrinth of little
discomfortable garrets, destined for the attendants of the great folks
who inhabited the mansion in the days when it was first built: and I do
not know any more cheering mark of the increased philanthropy of our
own times, than to contrast our domestic architecture with that of our
ancestors, and to see how much better servants and poor are cared for
now, than in times when my lord and my lady slept under gold canopies,
and their servants lay above them in quarters not so airy or so clean
as stables are now.
Up and down the house the two gentlemen wandered, the owner of the
mansion being very silent and resigned about the pleasure of possessing
it; whereas the Captain, his friend, examined the premises with so much
interest and eagerness that you would have thought he was the master,
and the other the indifferent spectator of the place. “I see
capabilities in it—capabilities in it, sir,” cried the Captain. “Gad,
sir, leave it to me, and I’ll make it the pride of the country, at a
small expense. What a theatre we can have in the library here, the
curtains between the columns which divide the room! What a famous room
for a galop!—it will hold the whole shire. We’ll hang the morning
parlour with the tapestry in your second salon in the Rue de Grenelle,
and furnish the oak room with the Moyen-age cabinets and the armour.
Armour looks splendid against black oak, and there’s a Venice glass in
the Quai Voltaire, which will suit that high mantelpiece to an inch,
sir. The long saloon, white and crimson of course; the drawing-room
yellow satin; and the little drawing-room light blue, with lace
over—hay?”
“I recollect my old governor caning me in that little room,” Sir
Francis said sententiously; “he always hated me, my old governor.”
“Chintz is the dodge, I suppose, for my lady’s rooms—the suite in the
landing, to the south, the bedroom, the sitting-room, and the
dressing-room. We’ll throw a conservatory out, over the balcony. Where
will you have your rooms?”
“Put mine in the north wing,” said the Baronet, with a yawn, “and out
of the reach of Miss Amory’s confounded piano. I can’t bear it. She’s
scweeching from morning till night.”
The Captain burst out laughing. He settled the whole further
arrangements of the house in the course of their walk through it; and,
the promenade ended, they went into the steward’s room, now inhabited
by Mrs. Blenkinsop, and where Mr. Tatham was sitting poring over a plan
of the estate, and the old housekeeper had prepared a collation in
honour of her lord and master.
Then they inspected the kitchen and stables, about both of which Sir
Francis was rather interested, and Captain Strong was for examining the
gardens; but the Baronet said, “D—— the gardens, and that sort of
thing!” and finally he drove away from the house as unconcernedly as he
had entered it; and that night the people of Clavering learned that Sir
Francis Clavering had paid a visit to the Park, and was coming to live
in the county.
When this fact came to be known at Chatteris, all the folks in the
place were set in commotion: High Church and Low Church, half-pay
captains and old maids and dowagers, sporting squireens of the
viciniage, farmers, tradesmen, and factory people—all the population in
and round about the little place. The news was brought to Fairoaks, and
received by the ladies there, and by Mr. Pen, with some excitement.
“Mrs. Pybus says there is a very pretty girl in the family, Arthur,”
Laura said, who was as kind and thoughtful upon this point as women
generally are: “a Miss Amory, Lady Clavering’s daughter by her first
marriage. Of course, you will fall in love with her as soon as she
arrives.”
Helen cried out, “Don’t talk nonsense, Laura.” Pen laughed, and said,
“Well, there is the young Sir Francis for you.”
“He is but four years old,” Miss Laura replied. “But I shall console
myself with that handsome officer, Sir Francis’s friend. He was at
church last Sunday, in the Clavering pew, and his mustachios were
beautiful.”
Indeed the number of Sir Francis’s family (whereof the members have all
been mentioned in the above paragraphs) was pretty soon known in his
town, and everything else, as nearly as human industry and ingenuity
could calculate, regarding his household. The Park avenue and grounds
were dotted now with town folks of the summer evenings, who made their
way up to the great house, peered about the premises, and criticised
the improvements which were taking place there. Loads upon loads of
furniture arrived in numberless vans from Chatteris and London; and
numerous as the vans are, there was not one but Captain Glanders knew
what it contained, and escorted the baggage up to the Park House.
He and Captain Edward Strong had formed an intimate acquaintance by
this time. The younger Captain occupied those very lodgings at
Clavering, which the peaceful Smirke had previously tenanted, and was
deep in the good graces of Madame Fribsby, his landlady; and of the
whole town, indeed. The Captain was splendid in person and raiment;
fresh-coloured, blue-eyed, black-whiskered, broad-chested, athletic—a
slight tendency to fulness did not take away from the comeliness of his
jolly figure—a braver soldier never presented a broader chest to the
enemy. As he strode down Clavering High Street, his hat on one side,
his cane clanking on the pavement, or waving round him in the execution
of military cuts and soldatesque manoeuvres—his jolly laughter ringing
through the otherwise silent street—he was as welcome as sunshine to
the place, and a comfort to every inhabitant in it.
On the first market-day he knew every pretty girl in the market: he
joked with all the women; had a word with the farmers about their
stock, and dined at the Agricultural Ordinary at the Clavering Arms,
where he set them all dying with laughing by his fun and jokes. “Tu be
sure he be a vine veller, tu be sure that he be,” was the universal
opinion of the gentlemen in top-boots. He shook hands with a score of
them, as they rode out of the inn-yard on their old nags, waving his
hat to them splendidly as he smoked his cigar in the inn-gate. In the
course of the evening he was free of the landlady’s bar, knew what rent
the landlord paid, how many acres he farmed, how much malt he put in
his strong beer; and whether he ever ran in a little brandy unexcised
by kings from Baymouth, or the fishing villages along the coast.
He had tried to live at the great house first; but it was so dull he
couldn’t stand it. “I am a creature born for society,” he told Captain
Glanders. “I’m down here to see Clavering’s house set in order; for
between ourselves, Frank has no energy, sir, no energy; he’s not the
chest for it, sir (and he threw out his own trunk as he spoke); but I
must have social intercourse. Old Mrs. Blenkinsop goes to bed at seven,
and takes Polly with her. There was nobody but me and the Ghost for the
first two nights at the great house, and I own it, sir, I like company.
Most old soldiers do.”
Glanders asked Strong where he had served? Captain Strong curled his
mustache, and said with a laugh, that the other might almost ask where
he had not served. “I began, sir, as cadet of Hungarian Uhlans, and
when the war of Greek independence broke out, quitted that service in
consequence of a quarrel with my governor, and was one of seven who
escaped from Missolonghi, and was blown up in one of Botzaris’s
fireships, at the age of seventeen. I’ll show you my Cross of the
Redeemer, if you’ll come over to my lodgings and take a glass of grog
with me, Captain, this evening. I’ve a few of those baubles in my desk.
I’ve the White Eagle of Poland; Skrzynecki gave it me” (he pronounced
Skrzynecki’s name with wonderful accuracy and gusto) “upon the field of
Ostrolenka. I was a lieutenant of the fourth regiment, sir, and we
marched through Diebitsch’s lines—bang thro’ ’em into Prussia, sir,
without firing a shot. Ah, Captain, that was a mismanaged business. I
received this wound by the side of the King before Oporto,—where he
would have pounded the stock-jobbing Pedroites, had Bourmont followed
my advice; and I served in Spain with the King’s troops, until the
death of my dear friend, Zumalacarreguy, when I saw the game was over,
and hung up my toasting iron, Captain. Alava offered me a regiment, the
Queen’s Muleteros; but I couldn’t—damme, I couldn’t—and now, sir, you
know Ned Strong—the Chevalier Strong they call me abroad—as well as he
knows himself.”
In this way almost everybody in Clavering came to know Ned Strong. He
told Madame Fribsby, he told the landlord of the George, he told Baker
at the reading-rooms, he told Mrs. Glanders, and the young ones, at
dinner: and, finally, he told Mr. Arthur Pendennis, who, yawning into
Clavering one day, found the Chevalier Strong in company with Captain
Glanders; and who was delighted with his new acquaintance.
Before many days were over, Captain Strong was as much at home in
Helen’s drawing-room as he was in Madame Fribsby’s first floor; and
made the lonely house very gay with his good-humour and ceaseless flow
of talk. The two women had never before seen such a man. He had a
thousand stories about battles and dangers to interest them—about Greek
captives, Polish beauties, and Spanish nuns. He could sing scores of
songs, in half a dozen languages, and would sit down to the piano and
troll them off in a rich manly voice. Both the ladies pronounced him to
be delightful—and so he was; though, indeed, they had not had much
choice of man’s society as yet, having seen in the course of their
lives but few persons, except old Portman and the Major, and Mr. Pen,
who was a genius, to be sure; but then your geniuses are somewhat flat
and moody at home.
And Captain Strong acquainted his new friends at Fairoaks, not only
with his own biography, but with the whole history of the family now
coming to Clavering. It was he who had made the marriage between his
friend Frank and the widow Amory. She wanted rank, and he wanted money.
What match could be more suitable? He organised it; he made those two
people happy. There was no particular romantic attachment between them;
the widow was not of an age or a person for romance, and Sir Francis,
if he had his game at billiards, and his dinner, cared for little
besides. But they were as happy as people could be. Clavering would
return to his native place and country, his wife’s fortune would pay
his encumbrances off, and his son and heir would be one of the first
men in the county.
“And Miss Amory?” Laura asked. Laura was uncommonly curious about Miss
Amory.
Strong laughed. “Oh, Miss Amory is a muse—Miss Amory is a mystery—Miss
Amory is a femme incomprise.” “What is that?” asked simple Mrs.
Pendennis—but the Chevalier gave her no answer: perhaps could not give
her one. “Miss Amory paints, Miss Amory writes poems, Miss Amory
composes music, Miss Amory rides like Diana Vernon. Miss Amory is a
paragon, in a word.”
“I hate clever women,” said Pen.
“Thank you,” said Laura. For her part she was sure she should be
charmed with Miss Amory, and quite longed to have such a friend. And
with this she looked Pen full in the face, as if every word the little
hypocrite said was Gospel truth.
Thus, an intimacy was arranged and prepared beforehand between the
Fairoaks family and their wealthy neighbours at the Park; and Pen and
Laura were to the full as eager for their arrival, as even the most
curious of the Clavering folks. A Londoner, who sees fresh faces and
yawns at them every day may smile at the eagerness with which country
people expect a visitor. A cockney comes amongst them, and is
remembered by his rural entertainers for years after he has left them,
and forgotten them very likely—floated far away from them on the vast
London sea. But the islanders remember long after the mariner has
sailed away, and can tell you what he said and what he wore, and how he
looked and how he laughed. In fine, a new arrival is an event in the
country not to be understood by us, who don’t, and had rather not, know
who lives next door.
When the painters and upholsterers had done their work in the house,
and so beautified it, under Captain Strong’s superintendence, that he
might well be proud of his taste, that gentleman announced that he
should go to London, where the whole family had arrived by this time,
and should speedily return to establish them in their renovated
mansion.
Detachments of domestics preceded them. Carriages came down by sea, and
were brought over from Baymouth by horses which had previously arrived
under the care of grooms and coachmen. One day the ‘Alacrity’ coach
brought down on its roof two large and melancholy men, who were dropped
at the Park lodge with their trunks, and who were Messieurs Frederic
and James, metropolitan footmen, who had no objection to the country,
and brought with them state and other suits of the Clavering uniform.
On another day, the mail deposited at the gate a foreign gentleman,
adorned with many ringlets and chains. He made a great riot at the
lodge-gate to the keeper’s wife (who, being a West-country woman, did
not understand his English or his Gascon French), because there was no
carriage in waiting to drive him to the house, a mile off, and because
he could not walk entire leagues in his fatigued state and varnished
boots. This was Monsieur Alcide Mirobolant, formerly Chef of his
Highness the Duc de Borodino, of his Eminence Cardinal Beccafico, and
at present Chef of the bouche of Sir Clavering, Baronet:—Monsieur
Mirobolant’s library, pictures, and piano had arrived previously in
charge of the intelligent young Englishman, his aide-de-camp. He was,
moreover, aided by a professed female cook, likewise from London, who
had inferior females under her orders.
He did not dine in the steward’s room, but took his nutriment in
solitude in his own apartments, where a female servant was affected to
his private use. It was a grand sight to behold him in his
dressing-gown composing a menu. He always sate down and played the
piano for some time before that. If interrupted, he remonstrated
pathetically with his little maid. Every great artist, he said, had
need of solitude to perfectionate his works.
But we are advancing matters in the fulness of our love and respect for
Monsieur Mirobolant, and bringing him prematurely on the stage.
The Chevalier Strong had a hand in the engagement of all the London
domestics, and, indeed, seemed to be the master of the house. There
were those among them who said he was the house-steward, only he dined
with the family. Howbeit, he knew how to make himself respected, and
two of by no means the least comfortable rooms of the house were
assigned to his particular use.
He was walking upon the terrace finally upon the eventful day when,
amidst an immense jangling of bells from Clavering Church, where the
flag was flying, an open carriage and one of those travelling chariots
or family arks, which only English philoprogenitiveness could invent,
drove rapidly with foaming horses through the Park gates, and up to the
steps of the Hall. The two battans of the sculptured door flew open.
The superior officers in black, the large and melancholy gentlemen, now
in livery with their hair in powder, the country menials engaged to aid
them, were in waiting in the hall, and bowed like elms when autumn
winds wail in the park. Through this avenue passed Sir Francis
Clavering with a most unmoved face: Lady Clavering, with a pair of
bright black eyes, and a good-humoured countenance, which waggled and
nodded very graciously: Master Francis Clavering, who was holding his
mamma’s skirt (and who stopped the procession to look at the largest
footman, whose appearance seemed to strike the young gentleman), and
Miss Blandy, governess to Master Francis, and Miss Amory, her
ladyship’s daughter, giving her arm to Captain Strong. It was summer,
but fires of welcome were crackling in the great hall chimney, and in
the rooms which the family were to occupy.
Monsieur Mirobolant had looked at the procession from one of the
lime-trees in the avenue. “Elle est la,” he said, laying his jewelled
hand on his richly-embroidered velvet glass buttons, “Je t’ai vue, je
te benis, O ma sylphide, O mon ange!” and he dived into the thicket,
and made his way back to his furnaces and saucepans.
The next Sunday the same party which had just made its appearance at
Clavering Park, came and publicly took possession of the ancient pew in
the church, where so many of the Baronet’s ancestors had prayed, and
were now kneeling in effigy. There was such a run to see the new folks,
that the Low Church was deserted, to the disgust of its pastor; and as
the state barouche, with the greys and coachman in silver wig, and
solemn footmen, drew up at the old churchyard-gate, there was such a
crowd assembled there as had not been seen for many a long day. Captain
Strong knew everybody, and saluted for all the company—the country
people vowed my lady was not handsome, to be sure, but pronounced her
to be uncommon fine dressed, as indeed she was—with the finest of
shawls, the finest of pelisses, the brilliantest of bonnets and
wreaths, and a power of rings, cameos, brooches, chains, bangles, and
other nameless gimcracks; and ribbons of every breadth and colour of
the rainbow flaming on her person. Miss Amory appeared meek in
dove-colour, like a vestal virgin—while Master Francis was in the
costume, then prevalent, of Rob Roy Macgregor, a celebrated Highland
outlaw. The Baronet was not more animated than ordinarily—there was a
happy vacuity about him which enabled him to face a dinner, a death, a
church, a marriage, with the same indifferent ease.
A pew for the Clavering servants was filled by these domestics, and the
enraptured congregation saw the gentlemen from London with “vlower on
their heeds,” and the miraculous coachman with his silver wig, take
their places in that pew so soon as his horses were put up at the
Clavering Arms.
In the course of the service, Master Francis began to make such a
yelling in the pew, that Frederic, the tallest of the footmen, was
beckoned by his master, and rose and went and carried out Master
Francis, who roared and beat him on the head, so that the powder flew
round about, like clouds of incense. Nor was he pacified until placed
on the box of the carriage, where he played at horses with John’s whip.
“You see the little beggar’s never been to church before, Miss Bell,”
the Baronet drawled out to a young lady who was visiting him; “no
wonder he should make a row: I don’t go in town neither, but I think
it’s right in the country to give a good example—and that sort of
thing.”
Miss Bell laughed and said, “The little boy had not given a
particularly good example.”
“Gad, I don’t know, and that sort of thing,” said the Baronet. “It
ain’t so bad neither. Whenever he wants a thing, Frank always cwies,
and whenever he cwies he gets it.”
Here the child in question began to howl for a dish of sweetmeats on
the luncheon-table, and making a lunge across the table-cloth, upset a
glass of wine over the best waistcoat of one of the guests present, Mr.
Arthur Pendennis, who was greatly annoyed at being made to look
foolish, and at having his spotless cambric shirt front blotched with
wine.
“We do spoil him so,” said Lady Clavering to Mrs. Pendennis, finally
gazing at the cherub, whose hands and face were now frothed over with
the species of lather which is inserted in the confection called
meringues a la creme.
“It is very wrong,” said Mrs. Pendennis, as if she had never done such
a thing herself as spoil a child.
“Mamma says she spoils my brother,—do you think anything could, Miss
Bell? Look at him,—isn’t he like a little angel?”
“Gad, I was quite wight,” said the Baronet. “He has cwied, and he has
got it, you see. Go it, Fwank, old boy.”
“Sir Francis is a very judicious parent,” Miss Amory whispered. Don’t
you think so, Miss Bell? I shan’t call you Miss Bell—I shall call you
Laura. I admired you so at church. Your robe was not well made, nor
your bonnet very fresh. But you have such beautiful grey eyes, and such
a lovely tint.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Bell, laughing.
“Your cousin is handsome, and thinks so. He is uneasy de sa personne.
He has not seen the world yet. Has he genius? Has he suffered? A lady,
a little woman in a rumpled satin and velvet shoes—a Miss Pybus—came
here, and said he has suffered. I, too, have suffered,—and you, Laura,
has your heart ever been touched?”
Laura said “No!” but perhaps blushed a little at the idea or the
question, so that the other said,—
“Ah Laura! I see it all. It is the beau cousin. Tell me everything. I
already love you as a sister.”
“You are very kind,” said Miss Bell, smiling, “and—and it must be owned
that it is a very sudden attachment.”
“All attachments are so. It is electricity—spontaneity. It is
instantaneous. I knew I should love you from the moment I saw you. Do
you not feel it yourself?”
“Not yet,” said Laura; “but—I daresay I shall if I try.”
“Call me by my name, then.”
“But I don’t know it,” Laura cried out.
“My name is Blanche—isn’t it a pretty name? Call me by it.”
“Blanche—it is very pretty, indeed.”
“And while mamma talks with that kind-looking lady—what relation is she
to you? She must have been pretty once, but is rather passee; she is
not well gantee, but she has a pretty hand—and while mamma talks to
her, come with me to my own room,—my own, own room. It’s a darling
room, though that horrid creature, Captain Strong, did arrange it. Are
you eprise of him? He says you are, but I know better; it is the beau
cousin. Yes—il a de beaux yeux. Je n’aime pas les blonds,
ordinairement. Car je suis blonde moi—je suis Blanche et blonde,”—and
she looked at her face and made a moue in the glass; and never stopped
for Laura’s answer to the questions which she had put.
Blanche was fair, and like a sylph. She had fair hair, with green
reflections in it. But she had dark eyebrows. She had long black
eyelashes, which veiled beautiful brown eyes. She had such a slim
waist, that it was a wonder to behold; and such a slim little feet,
that you would have thought the grass would hardly bend under them. Her
lips were of the colour of faint rosebuds, and her voice warbled
limpidly over a set of the sweetest little pearly teeth ever seen. She
showed them very often, for they were very pretty. She was very
good-natured, and a smile not only showed her teeth wonderfully, but
likewise exhibited two lovely little pink dimples, that nestled in
either cheek.
She showed Laura her drawings, which the other thought charming. She
played her some of her waltzes, with a rapid and brilliant finger, and
Laura was still more charmed. And she then read her some poems, in
French and English, likewise of her own composition, and which she kept
locked in her own book—her own dear little book; it was bound in blue
velvet, with a gilt lock, and on it was printed in gold the title of
‘Mes Larmes.’
“Mes Larmes!—isn’t it a pretty name?” the young lady continued, who was
pleased with everything that she did, and did everything very well.
Laura owned that it was. She had never seen anything like it before;
anything so lovely, so accomplished, so fragile and pretty; warbling so
prettily, and tripping about such a pretty room, with such a number of
pretty books, pictures, flowers, round about her. The honest and
generous country girl forgot even jealousy in her admiration. “Indeed,
Blanche,” she said, “everything in the room is pretty; and you are the
prettiest of all.” The other smiled, looked in the glass, went up and
took both of Laura’s hands, and kissed them, and sat down to the piano,
and shook out a little song, as if she had been a nightingale.
This was the first visit paid by Fairoaks to Clavering Park, in return
for Clavering Park’s visit to Fairoaks, in reply to Fairoaks’s cards
left a few days after the arrival of Sir Francis’s family. The intimacy
between the young ladies sprang up like Jack’s Bean-stalk to the skies
in a single night. The large footmen were perpetually walking with
little rose-coloured pink notes to Fairoaks; where there was a pretty
house-maid in the kitchen, who might possibly tempt those gentlemen to
so humble a place. Miss Amory sent music, or Miss Amory sent a new
novel, or a picture from the ‘Journal des Modes,’ to Laura; or my
lady’s compliments arrived with flowers and fruit; or Miss Amory begged
and prayed Miss Bell to come to dinner; and dear Mrs. Pendennis, if she
was strong enough; and Mr. Arthur, if a humdrum party were not too
stupid for him; and would send a pony-carriage for Mrs. Pendennis; and
would take no denial.
Neither Arthur nor Laura wished to refuse. And Helen, who was, indeed,
somewhat ailing, was glad that the two should have their pleasure; and
would look at them fondly as they set forth, and ask in her heart that
she might not be called away until those two beings whom she loved best
in the world should be joined together. As they went out and crossed
over the bridge, she remembered summer evenings five-and-twenty years
ago, when she, too, had bloomed in her brief prime of love and
happiness. It was all over now. The moon was looking from the purpling
sky, and the stars glittering there, just as they used in the early,
well-remembered evenings. He was lying dead far away, with the billows
rolling between them. Good God! how well she remembered the last look
of his face as they parted. It looked out at her through the vista of
long years, as sad and as clear as then.
So Mr. Pen and Miss Laura found the society at Clavering Park an
uncommonly agreeable resort of summer evenings. Blanche vowed that she
raffoled of Laura; and, very likely, Mr. Pen was pleased with Blanche.
His spirits came back: he laughed and rattled till Laura wondered to
hear him. It was not the same Pen, yawning in a shooting jacket, in the
Fairoaks parlour, who appeared alert and brisk, and smiling and well
dressed, in Lady Clavering’s drawing-room. Sometimes they had music.
Laura had a sweet contralto voice, and sang with Blanche, who had had
the best continental instruction, and was charmed to be her friend’s
mistress. Sometimes Mr. Pen joined in these concerts, or oftener looked
sweet upon Miss Blanche as she sang. Sometimes they had glees, when
Captain Strong’s chest was of vast service, and he boomed out in a
prodigious bass, of which he was not a little proud.
“Good fellow, Strong—ain’t he, Miss Bell?” Sir Francis would say to
her. “Plays at ecarte with Lady Clavering—plays anything,
pitch-and-toss, pianoforty, cwibbage if you like. How long do you think
he’s been staying with me? He came for a week with a carpet-bag, and
Gad, he’s been staying here thwee years. Good fellow, ain’t he? Don’t
know how he gets a shillin’ though, begad I don’t, Miss Lauwa.”
And yet the Chevalier, if he lost his money to Lady Clavering, always
paid it; and if he lived with his friend for three years, paid for that
too—in good-humour, in kindness and joviality, in a thousand little
services by which he made himself agreeable. What gentleman could want
a better friend than a man who was always in spirits, never in the way
or out of it, and was ready to execute any commission for his patron,
whether it was to sing a song or meet a lawyer, to fight a duel or to
carve a capon?
Although Laura and Pen commonly went to Clavering Park together, yet
sometimes Mr. Pen took walks there unattended by her, and about which
he did not tell her. He took to fishing the Brawl, which runs through
the Park, and passes not very far from the garden-wall. And by the
oddest coincidence, Miss Amory would walk out (having been to look at
her flowers), and would be quite surprised to see Mr. Pendennis
fishing.
I wonder what trout Pen caught while the young lady was looking on? or
whether Miss Blanche was the pretty little fish which played round his
fly, and which Mr. Pen was endeavouring to hook? It must be owned, he
became very fond of that healthful and invigorating pursuit of angling,
and was whipping the Brawl continually with his fly.
As for Miss Blanche she had a kind heart; and having, as she owned,
herself “suffered” a good deal in the course of her brief life and
experience—why, she could compassionate other susceptible beings like
Pen, who had suffered too. Her love for Laura and that dear Mrs.
Pendennis redoubled: if they were not at the Park, she was not easy
unless she herself was at Fairoaks. She played with Laura; she read
French and German with Laura; and Mr. Pen read French and German along
with them. He turned sentimental ballads of Schiller and Goethe into
English verse for the ladies, and Blanche unlocked ‘Mes Larmes’ for
him, and imparted to him some of the plaintive outpourings of her own
tender Muse.
It appeared from these poems that this young creature had indeed
suffered prodigiously. She was familiar with the idea of suicide. Death
she repeatedly longed for. A faded rose inspired her with such grief
that you would have thought she must die in pain of it. It was a wonder
how a young creature (who had had a snug home or been at a comfortable
boarding-school, and had no outward grief or hardship to complain of)
should have suffered so much—should have found the means of getting at
such an ocean of despair and passion (as a runaway boy who will get to
sea), and having embarked on it should survive it. What a talent she
must have had for weeping to be able to pour out so many of Mes Larmes!
They were not particularly briny, Miss Blanche’s tears, that is the
truth; but Pen, who read her verses, thought them very well for a
lady—and wrote some verses himself for her. His were very violent and
passionate, very hot, sweet and strong: and he not only wrote verses;
but—O the villain! O, the deceiver! he altered and adapted former poems
in his possession, and which had been composed for a certain Emily
Fotheringay, for the use and to the Christian name of Miss Blanche
Amory.