UNCLE CORNY’S LOVE-TALE.
“A DISCONTENTED and sour man,” said my Uncle Corny, one Saturday night
when I had dropped into supper, “is as likely as not—unless he prays to
God every morning of his life—to turn into a Liberal. I have known a
lot do it, and being nabbed on the nail by the shady lot who are always
near the corners, never get any chance again to come back into honesty.
Kit, is that sort of thing going on with you?”
“Not likely,” I answered, for my principles were sound; “is it likely
that I would join a party including Lord Roarmore and his grandson?
Conservatives commit no outrage.”
My uncle considered that statement gravely. He was too large-minded
and candid of nature to accept it without the support of fact. He was
probing his memory, to see if this were so.
“Well,” he said at last, “there is some truth in it, though it seems
at first sight to go a little too far. I have known many very tranquil
Radicals, and one or two Tories of an energetic turn. All I feared was
that you might be driven by the vile wrongs you have suffered into
that miserable frame of mind, when people are hatched into Radicals.
They injured me, not quite so much as you, my lad, but bitterly, very
bitterly. Yet I carried my principles sound through it all.”
“Oh, uncle, you promised to tell me the story of the wrong done to you,
in your early days. I have often longed to hear it; but was afraid to
ask you, because of the trouble it has been to you. But if you could
bring yourself, without feeling it too much, to tell me how that matter
was, it would be a great satisfaction to me, and do me a lot of good, I
do believe.”
“Well, my boy, it is a frosty night. How soon the year comes round
again; though I do not think we shall have a winter fit to compare with
the last one. But the east wind is coming up the lane pretty sharp, and
we are likely to have a week of it. Let Tabby take the things away, and
bring another log or two. You had better come down here, if the frost
goes on. You will get frozen up there all alone.”
“Not I. I can keep the fire up, and I believe it is warmer up there
than here, because of the wind from the river. How glad I am Bessy is
still at Baycliff. They never feel the cold wind there. But go ahead,
uncle, according to your promise; I don’t know how many times you have
cheated me. Tabby, look sharp, and go home before it snows now.”
“Well, you must put up with my in and outs. I can lay a tree in
straight enough, but I am out of my line telling things. And you
wouldn’t believe, to see me now, that I was ever a brisk young chap,
proud of the cut of his boots and breeches—for we used to wear no long
slops then—and blushing at the mention of a pretty girl, and wondering
what they were made of. But though you would not think it now, nor
anybody else, except the young women that are dead and gone, I was
quite as much the swell of Sunbury then, as you were before you fell
into your bad luck; not so tall, of course, but I daresay quite as
strong, and the master of any lad about the village.
“Somehow or other, I was like you too, and your father as well for that
matter, in not making up to any damsel in the place; although they
were pretty ones then, I can tell you, as pretty as any of the young
ones now, and prettier too to my eyes, and ever so much modester and
more becoming. But the queen of the neighbourhood, in my opinion, ay,
and of the county, too, was Myra Woodbridge, the daughter of a farmer
near Bedfont, who held land under Squire Coldpepper. If I was to tell
you what she was like, you would think I was trying to put you out of
all conceit with—with almost everybody in the world. And her looks,
although they were so sweet and gentle, were not the best part of her,
or not the only good one. A kinder-hearted, truer-hearted maiden never
lived; and you could talk to her by the hour, without her being tired,
or you either of what she had to say.
“Naturally enough, all the young men round about were hankering after
this fair maid; and it did not go against her that her father was well
off, having made a deal of money in the great war-time, by contracts
for fodder for the troops, and so on. Myra was his favourite child,
and pretty sure to come in for a good share of his wealth some day.
She could play the piano, and sing like an angel, and talk French, and
keep accounts, and do anything. The difficulty was for me to get near
her, till I thrashed a young miller from Uxbridge who annoyed her, and
then I thrashed two other fellows who were after her, for they never
summoned people for such little matters then; and that made her begin
to think kindly of me; and we used to walk by the brook, every Sunday
evening.
“All was going on quite as well as I could wish, and old Robert
Woodbridge was quite coming round to the coaxing of his lovely
daughter, and the banns were to be put up just before the grass
was cut, so that we might have our wedding-day between the hay and
wheat—when suddenly everything was thrown abroad, and both our lives
were spoilt for ever.
“Give me the sugar, Kit; I did think I should have some one to mix for
me, in my old days—a faithful companion of many years, or perhaps a
daughter or a grandchild. But God’s will be done. It is useless to take
on.
“Squire Coldpepper’s daughter, Monica, the younger of the two very
handsome ladies, had taken a violent fancy to Myra; and now, when her
elder sister Arabella was carrying on, against her father’s will,
with that dashing young buck—as they called them then—the Honourable
Tom Bulwrag, Miss Monica, who never cared much for her sister, any
more than two firebrands rubbed together, she must needs send for my
sweet Myra, to come and stay at the Hall, for some purpose of her own,
whether to plot against her sister, or be company for herself, or what
else, I cannot tell.
“Myra was very loth to go, for she knew the tempers she would have to
deal with, and having a right pride of her own, she could not bear the
way they treated her, partly as a friend, and partly as a servant—for
she might not have meals with the family—and partly no doubt as a sort
of go-between, or what they call a buffer nowadays. And being a mean
lot, as everybody knows, their practice was to make her earn her keep
by sewing and doing handy jobs about the house, like a servant without
any wages. But whether she liked it or not, she must go, for her father
durst not disoblige his landlord, that peppery Squire Nicholas.
“Unluckily, while she was in the house, that strange thing happened
that I told you of. Tom Bulwrag was to have run away with the elder
girl, Arabella; but when everything was ready she burst out about some
trifle, and I am blest if he didn’t make off with the other; thinking,
I dare say, how sweet she was for taking his side in the shindy. It
was out of the frying-pan into the fire, and served him right, said
everybody. If the elder was a firebrand, the younger was a Fury; and
which is the worst, I should like to know?
“But they might have fought it out between themselves, and no harm
done to good people, if Miss Monica had not carried Myra Woodbridge
with her. She was forced to have some one perhaps, for her own sake,
little as she cared for opinion; but one of the servants would have
done as well, or better if she had been older. How Myra allowed herself
to be taken, I could never quite understand, for it was not likely
to help her father in the good graces of his landlord. Perhaps she
thought herself in duty bound to stand by the one who was fond of her,
or perhaps she hoped to see that things came right, and thought there
might be a worse mess of it with no one of common sense to help; at
any rate she went off in the chaise, and never had chance to come back
again.
“You can understand what a storm there was at the Manor, when the truth
came out. Our Miss Coldpepper had been locked up, and could not get out
till they found her; and then she was in such a state of mind, that
she could not speak her meaning clearly. The runaways had at least
six hours’ start, and it was hopeless to go after them; and in those
days there were only coaches, no railways, and no telegraphs. Squire
Nicholas swore himself into a fit; and it shortened his days, as the
doctors said, though he vowed he would live all the longer for it.
“Myra was of a gentle nature, as a woman should be; yet proud to resent
any charge against her, when she knew she was innocent. The obstinate
Squire, a pig-headed man, put all the blame upon her, or pretended to
do it, to screen himself and his own lazy ways with his daughter. Till
any one who listened to him would believe that the whole thing had been
devised and carried out by a daughter of one of his tenants. So that
when she wrote to her father—for the others left that job to her—to say
that they were all at Bath, and doing as well as could be expected,
Squire Nicholas sent a most thundering message, through old Robert
Woodbridge, that Myra had better never come near Bedfont, or he would
have her in prison for conspiring. Of course this was rubbish; but it
frightened the poor girl, and made her doubt what justice was.
“Then she wrote to me, a most pitiful letter, begging me to think the
best of her—as if I could think anything else—saying how sorry she was
for leaving home in that impulsive, foolish way, under a mistaken view
of right. Some day perhaps you will have a letter of that sort from
your Kitty. And she asked me, as she could not ask her father (who
would not forgive her till he saw her), to oblige her by just sending
money enough to bring her back to Bedfont. ‘I came away with only half
a crown, and there is none to be got from you know who’—the poor thing
said, for she was most careful not to write names that might lead to
mischief.
“But like a woman, exactly like a woman, who thinks that the whole
world knows everything about her, or else is afraid of their doing so,
the only address that she gave was ‘Bath, in the County of Somerset.’
It was hard to send money by post in those days. You must enclose and
risk it. But what was the use of putting money in a letter directed to
‘Miss Myra Woodbridge, Bath’? There was nothing more precise in her
letter to her father, and it took me three days to find out that, for
the old man was gone from home on business. I went to Squire Nicholas,
to see if he knew, but he only stormed at me, and told me to go to—a
place he was fitting himself for. So that four days were lost before I
could start, with your grandfather’s leave, for the west of England.
“When I got to Bath, it took me two days more, as an entire stranger in
the place, to find out where the Bulwrags had been stopping. And when I
discovered their hotel at last, they had left it on the day before, and
no one could tell me what their destination was. I came back to Sunbury
in very bad spirits, fearing greatly that I never should see my dear
again.
“And so it turned out; although I had one more letter from her, which
was enough to break any one’s heart almost. I have it upstairs, but I
shall never show it. God only knows what a man goes through. When my
time comes, you will find it, Kit; and I wish to have that, and the
other, with me. There is more than a twelvemonth between the two; and
the second is dated from a German city.
“I could not understand it at the time, because I had no more thought
of any other woman, than you have since you lost your Kitty. Afterwards
I found out the whole. The poor girl became indispensable to them. She
alone eked out their resources, and kept them from going to the dogs,
before Bulwrag learned some roguish way of turning money. And to keep
her from quitting them and going home, they lied through thick and
thin to her, about her father and about myself, and backed up their
lies with forgeries. They vowed that her father would never receive
her; and that I was married to a Sunbury girl. Her father could make
no inquiries about her, for he had been taken with a paralytic stroke;
and her brothers, jealous wretches, did not want her nearer home. As
for me, I could do nothing, any more than you can now. I knew that they
were all upon the Continent, and trusted in her good faith and loyalty,
for many a sad day. And although she had been deeply hurt and wounded
at my silence, which of course had been twisted to their selfish ends,
I believe that she was faithful to me, to the very last.
“The old man died on the very day when I received her second letter,
and I went to his funeral with it in my pocket. The brothers looked
askance at me, and smiled a sour smile, as much as to say—‘You don’t
cut in for any of it’—and I did not even speak to them about their
sister. But they soon came to grief, by the will of the Lord; and the
farm is now occupied by George Fletcher.
“In reply to that letter, which astounded me, I wrote to say that every
word she had heard was false. That I had never forgotten her, as she
supposed (although she did not reproach me with it); that I cared for
no one else, and should never do so, and hoped from the bottom of my
heart, that her illness was not so serious as she believed. If she
would only write that she wished to see me, I would go to her anywhere
in the world. Then I told her of her poor father’s death, and that
he had loved her always, and been yearning for her. She was on her
deathbed, when she received that letter, and it comforted her dearly,
and she died with it in her hand.
“Now what do you think my dear girl died of? It is almost too bad to
tell you, Kit; and I can scarcely command myself to do it. I cannot
prove it. If I only could—but vengeance belongs to the Lord in heaven.
Slowly, but surely, it will fall; and a part is already upon them.
Monica Bulwrag killed my Myra, not on the moment, but by slow death.
That was why she was so scared with you. That is the reason that her
power passes into terror, when she tries to face any of us.
“That scoundrel, her husband, growing tired of his wife, began to pay
attentions to Miss Woodbridge. He began very craftily, for like his
son, he was cunning as well as furious; and the poor girl scarcely
suspected it, or could not bring herself to believe it true. But his
wife, knowing well what he was, saw through it; and you may suppose how
her passion raged. She came in one day when they were together, Myra
standing innocently by the window, Bulwrag gazing at her in his vile
licentious way. That woman lost all self-command, at the sight. She
strode up to Myra, and with all her weight and strength struck her on
the bosom with her clenched fist. Myra fell backward and lay stunned
upon the floor, her head being dashed against the sill as she fell. But
it was not that which killed her; but the heavy blow on the chest, the
most dangerous part of the delicate frame.
“No doubt, she would have left them, if she could, though she might
have to beg her way home again; and she even left the house, but could
not get far. There had been some fatal harm done inside, by that blow
of a brute beast; and the days of the best girl that ever lived were
short in a land of strangers. She had trouble in breathing, and some
fainting fits; a good doctor could have saved her, I do believe. But
those brutes were afraid to have medical advice, even if they desired
it. She pined away, and died. She did not care to live, until it was
too late to do it. But she died in happiness. Thank God for that. She
died with the knowledge that her father had been her father to the
last, and that I had never failed her.
“Well, my boy, it was a bitter time for me; and my heart was full of
fury, as well as anguish. But it is arranged for us, by a Higher Power,
that these crushing strokes come upon us, from a mist. We know not the
manner of their descending, we hope that they are not as they appear to
be, we call up our faith in Heaven’s justice to protect us, and we moan
when it is useless. Nevertheless, for all of that, I believe that truth
and equity are vindicated before we die, if only we live long enough.
And if not, let us be content. We are fitter for another world, than
those who have destroyed our life in this.”
I saw that my uncle had been overdone, brave, and strong-hearted, and
stout as he was. People who complain, can support that habit; and a
habit it becomes, never touching them inside. But he was of a hardy and
courageous fibre; yet now he leant over his long pipe-stem, and his
pipe had gone out, like the vapours of the past.