With regard to the Castle de Werve, I have found out that it is
situated on the borders of Gelderland and Overyssel, and is surrounded
by extensive woods, moors, and arable land. It is at present occupied
by General von Zwenken, and formerly was in the possession of Aunt
Sophia's parents. To its possession is attached the title of Baron,
with seignorial rights--rights which in our time are little more than
nominal, yet to which old Aunt Sophia seems to have attached immense
value. Her father, old Baron Roselaer van de Werve, had no son (a great
trial for him, as you may suppose), but three daughters, of whom Aunt
Sophia was the second, and my mother's mother the youngest. The eldest,
Lady Mary Ann, became, on the death of her father, the rightful heir to
the Castle de Werve and the estates attached to it. This arrangement
was exceedingly offensive to Aunt Sophia, who had expected her father
to leave the castle to her, and at one time she had good reasons for
fostering such expectations.
Her eldest sister had been the source of much grief and sorrow to the
old people. She had secretly entered into a romantic love-engagement
with a young Swiss officer--then Captain von Zwenken--and considering
it impossible to obtain the consent of her parents to such a marriage,
she eloped with Von Zwenken, who took her to Switzerland, where they
were married. This union, according to Dutch law, and in the opinion
of Aunt Sophia, was illegal. The weak parents (as Sophia called them),
however, at length became reconciled to their son-in-law, and when
the lost child returned to her old home in reduced circumstances,
her parents received her with open arms.
In this family scene of reconciliation, Aunt Sophia imitated the
eldest son in the parable. She had never been on good terms with her
romantic sister; she persisted in regarding her brother-in-law as
an abductor and a deceiver, who had obtruded himself on the family;
charged her parents with blameworthy infirmity of purpose, and,
in short, declined all reconciliation.
The stay of the young people under the parental roof was brief; but
even these few days were stormy, and sufficed to divide the family
connexions into two parties, for and against the Von Zwenkens. Aunt
Sophia's strong point was the irregularity of the marriage, solemnized
in a foreign country. Those who disagreed with her and recognized
the Swiss captain as a relation, she looked upon as deadly enemies;
while those who took her side in the contest were received by Baron
and Baroness Roselaer with freezing coolness. In a word, it was the
history of the Montagues and the Capulets re-enacted on a small scale
in the eighteenth century on Dutch territory. They did not attack each
other with dagger and poison, but used the tongue for weapon. They
annoyed, they insulted each other, whenever and wherever they found
an opportunity; there were hair-splitting disputes, and retaliation
without truce or pity; and lawsuits followed which swallowed large sums
of money. A good business for the lawyers, who only made "confusion
worse confounded."
When old Baroness Roselaer--who always pleaded for peace and
forgiveness--shortly afterwards died, Sophia thought she would be
able to exert unlimited influence over her father, as she now became
the recognized mistress of the house. She even took advantage of
her position, during the stay of her brother-in-law for the funeral,
to make him so uncomfortable, that on leaving the house he told the
old Baron he would never enter it again. Sophia was in triumph. She
thought she had banished Von Zwenken from the house; but she forgot
her sister's children, and the joy and pride the old Baron was likely
to take in a grandson and future heir to his title and estates. Though
he never talked to Sophia on the subject, he was secretly embittered
against her as being the cause of this new estrangement, and his great
pleasure was to visit his grandchildren; and what is more surprising,
Sophia never suspected these visits.
Try, then, to imagine the effect produced upon her when her father's
will was read, and she found that the Castle de Werve, with its
seignorial rights, descended to Madame von Zwenken and her children.
It is true she inherited a just share of the property; but the very
part she loved best, the home of her childhood, where she had been
brought up, and which she never willingly would have quitted, was
taken from her and given to the man whom she considered so unworthy
of it, and so little capable of appreciating the advantages attached
to its possession. She felt herself slighted, and to this slight
is to be attributed the restless hatred and unrelenting bitterness
with which she pursued the General during the rest of her life. She
declared her brother and sister had worked upon her father's feelings
by cunning and intrigue; and she would never believe that the old
Baron had left them the property of his own free-will, or for the
sake of his grandchildren.
It being now the Captain's opportunity, he ordered her to leave the
house with all possible speed; and this was the more galling, as he
did not himself retire from active service and occupy the castle as the
old Baron had desired him to do. He was changed about from one garrison
town to another, daily expecting to be ordered on foreign service, and
therefore unable to derive much enjoyment from his possessions. His
wife and children would sometimes stay a few weeks at the castle
in the summer; but the former did not long survive her father. The
children stayed with Von Zwenken in the garrison, until the daughter
was old enough to go to a boarding-school in Switzerland, and the son
to be placed under a tutor, who was to coach him for the university.
I agree with Aunt Sophia in her assertion that Von Zwenken was not the
"right man in the right place." He made no good use of his possessions;
and the house was entrusted to a care-keeper, who was as incompetent as
he afterwards proved himself dishonest. The old steward, who had been
dismissed to make room for this stranger, was immediately engaged by
Aunt Sophia to stay in the neighbourhood and keep her informed of all
that happened at the castle. For though she had removed to another
province in which her own estates were situated, she could neither
separate her affections nor her thoughts from her old home.
Sometimes the Captain, who had now obtained the rank of Major, would
come with a party of friends for the shooting, but he never seemed to
observe that the whole place was going to rack and ruin. Further, he
was always in want of money; and when his daughter married an English
officer, Sir John Mordaunt, he was obliged to sell a considerable
part of his estates, so as to be able to give her the portion of the
fortune left her by her mother.
He had already several mortgages on the property, and as his son led a
wild life at college these went on increasing from year to year; until,
when at last on obtaining his colonel's pension and the honorary rank
of general he was able to retire to the Castle de Werve, all he could
call his own was the house, garden, and surrounding grounds.
Aunt Sophia, on the contrary, whom it must be confessed was a sharp,
clever woman, had in the meantime doubled her fortune, besides
inheriting largely from a rich cousin who had taken her part in the
family quarrel.
As the proverb says, "hatred has four eyes," and so she, making use
of the information obtained from the old steward, appointed a lawyer
to buy up on her behalf all the land sold by the General. This lawyer
had further instructions to advance money on the mortgages, and to
exact the interest with the greatest promptitude. In this way my
aunt became so well acquainted with Von Zwenken's money difficulties,
that she could calculate the day, nay, even the hour, when he would
be at her mercy.
At last, imagining the favourable moment had arrived, she sent a lawyer
to offer him a much larger sum for the castle and the seignorial
rights than any one else would be likely to give, seeing that she
was secretly in possession of the surrounding estates.
The General's answer was to this effect: "He would not sell the
seignorial rights at any price; and as for the castle, he had promised
his deceased wife to keep her sister out of it at all costs, and he
would rather see it fall about his ears than that Miss Sophia Roselaer
should ever set foot inside it again."
Poor man, he little knew how much she had him in her power, and all
the precautions she had taken. Otherwise he would have reflected
twice before sending such an answer. Something suddenly occurred
which obliged him to mortgage even the house itself--the cause is a
mystery--and now Aunt Sophia might have been revenged; but for some
inexplicable reason she countermanded her orders to Van Beek, who
does not himself know why. Just before her death she sent for him to
change her will, and it was on this occasion she made me her sole heir.