THE TALLANTS OF BARTON.
A Tale of Fortune and Finance.
BY
JOSEPH HATTON,
Author of “Bitter Sweets: a Love Story;” “Against the Stream,”
etc., etc.
“The wheel of Fortune turns incessantly round, and who can say within
himself, I shall to-day be uppermost?”--_Confucius._
IN THREE VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18, CATHERINE ST., STRAND.
1867.
[_The Right of Translation is reserved._]
LONDON:
BRADBURY, EVANS, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I.--IN THE SHADOW OF BERNE HILLS 1
II.--INTRODUCES THE READER TO THE MERCHANT’S
SON AND DAUGHTER 13
III.--BRINGS US TO THE HALL FARM, WHERE THE
READER MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF THE
SOMERTONS AND A CERTAIN LANDSCAPE
PAINTER 22
IV.--THE METER IRON WORKS COMPANY 36
V.--THE DIBBLES AND THEIR NEW LODGER 49
VI.--THE TWO FRIENDS AND THE TWO VIGNETTES 61
VII.--IS A SENTIMENTAL CHAPTER, CONTAINING A
FEW MORAL REFLECTIONS BY THE WAY 77
VIII.--IN WHICH PAUL SOMERTON ENTERS UPON A
DELICATE, DIFFICULT, AND DANGEROUS TASK 84
IX.--WHICH INTRODUCES THE READER TO THE
SUMMER-HOUSE ON BERNE HILLS, AND ILLUSTRATES
THE TRUTH OF AN OLD PROVERB
ABOUT EAVES-DROPPERS 95
X.--MR. RICHARD TALLANT INTERRUPTS A CHARMING
TÊTE-À-TÊTE 107
XI.--ANOTHER UNEXPECTED VISITOR APPEARS AT
BARTON HALL 119
XII.--BENEATH THE GOWN 132
XIII.--DESCRIBES A GREAT FINANCIAL STORM AND EXHIBITS
THOMAS DIBBLE IN A NEW CHARACTER 143
XIV.--ARTHUR PHILLIPS AT WORK 155
XV.--RETURNS TO AVONWORTH VALLEY, AND GLANCES
AT MRS. SOMERTON’S SECRET 169
XVI.--MAY BE SAID TO INAUGURATE A SERIES OF IMPORTANT
CHANGES IN THE LIVES OF SEVERAL
NOTABLE PERSONS IN THIS HISTORY 179
XVII.--CHIEFLY CONCERNS THE FORTUNES OF PAUL
SOMERTON 190
XVIII.--RETURNS TO THE MEETING AT THE LONDON
TAVERN 199
XIX.--OF CERTAIN REPORTS IN THE NEWSPAPERS 210
XX.--SHOWS HOW THE PURSE FOUND ITS WAY INTO
PAUL SOMERTON’S BOX 224
XXI.--WHEREIN THOMAS DIBBLE “RUNS AWAY,” AND
MEETS WITH A VERY REMARKABLE COMPANION 236
XXII.--IN WHICH THOMAS DIBBLE CONTINUES TO “RUN
AWAY” 246
XXIII.--IS OF A MISCELLANEOUS AND DISCURSIVE CHARACTER,
BUT ESSENTIAL TO THE NARRATIVE 261
XXIV.--CHRISTABEL TAKES DIBBLE INTO HER CONFIDENCE 278
CHAPTER I.
IN THE SHADOW OF BERNE HILLS.
Barton Hall is a conspicuous feature of the landscape in the smiling
Vale of Avonworth, and it stands beneath the shadow of Berne Hills.
Built of white stone, and in the Italian style of architecture, it
has the appearance of a modern mansion removed from Kensington Palace
Gardens, and planted amongst the rare scenery of this beautiful western
district of the Midlands.
All that wealth and taste can do to make the house generally worthy of
the site has been lavished upon it, inside and out. It is furnished
with everything that is costly and comfortable, with ornaments and
articles of _vertu_ from all parts of the earth.
A long gravelly drive leads up to the principal entrance, which is cut
off from the park with iron fencing and chains. On the other side of
the house there are conservatories of flowers and extensive gardens.
Behind, at a short distance, there is stabling for many horses, shut
out from view by shrubs and young trees.
In front of the house a smooth tract of mossy lawn ends in a sunk
fence; and beyond lies the park, skirted by green fields, which mount
up the Berne Hills and lose themselves in the foliage of oaks, and
elms, and larches.
Here and there on the lawn are clumps of young aspiring cedars, silver
birch trees, ash plants, and sycamores, hemmed round about with rims
of white creepers and luxuriant mosses. In “Gems of the Poets,”
pictorially adorned by Laydon, you will find a fanciful illustration of
Gray’s well-known lines:
“Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark, unfathom’d caves of ocean bear.”
In the foreground there is a leafy vignette of exotic and other plants
and trees sprouting up from an island-rock. Turn the water into grass,
and replace the tall cocoa-nut trees with a couple of silver birches,
and you have one of the Barton Hall lawn groups; for the place is so
completely “shut out from the rude world” and the easterly and northern
winds, that the climate is more like southern France than western
England, and vegetation flourishes there nearly all the year round.
Close by the principal lodge-entrance to the park lies a clear deep
lake, fed by a stream from the Berne Hills, and the rendezvous of
innumerable wild and tame water-fowl.
Few places in broad England can compare with this modern house and
grounds. The sunsets are more beautiful here than anywhere else in all
this western land. The twilights are full of yellows, and delicate
neutral tints, and shifting lights. And the mists that float about
those Berne Hills, like angel shadows! and the gentle rains that follow
them, filling the air with a thousand mixed perfumes, and brightening
the greens and browns in the landscape,--they might make an artist
frantic with delight.
In rain or sunshine, in winter or summer, Barton Hall, beneath the
shadow of Berne Hills, is always beautiful. In evening sunsets, with
the red light on its great flashing windows, and a tinge of gold on the
vane of its Italian tower, you might take it for the romantic retreat
of a southern king rather than the home of a merchant prince of Old
England.
Christopher Tallant was to all intents and purposes a self-made man.
He had begun life in a humble capacity in the counting-house of some
great works in the north of England, where so many men of position and
influence have made their way upwards from minor posts.
They look more at a boy’s talents than at his friends in those busy
hives of industry northwards. No matter how highly a young fellow
may be connected, he has no position without ability in these busy
districts.
A rare practical race, these said northerners--a race to be brought up
amongst, studied for example’s sake. As a class they do not possess the
refinements of manner and speech of the southern races of England, and
they do not count so much upon etiquette. They are rough like their
north-east winds, but genial as their own firesides.
Their rivers are black with coal washings, and the banks thereof are
crowded with great works, from which blazing furnaces, and forges,
and flashes of sudden flame, cast ruddy reflections upon the sullen
tide. Their fields are covered with pit-heaps, and iron works, and
lime-kilns, and blasting cupolas. But here and there, in out-of-the-way
places, you come upon romantic woods, and running streams, and rocky
glens.
A wonderful land the north countrie, the seat of great enterprises, and
the home of strong-limbed, strong-willed, clear-headed men; one would
rather some of them had softer manners, but for our country’s good
we can afford to sacrifice that if only in deference to their active
brains and their inborn love of enterprise.
It was in the north, we say, where Mr. Christopher Tallant began life,
and where the key-note of his career may be said to have been struck;
but as a young man he had lived in the south-west of England, and
had mastered the leading principles of trade and commerce in several
great private and public works. He had proved himself an adept at
legislative finance, at devising and carrying out great schemes; and
at a comparatively early age he had raised himself to a position of
commercial distinction and opulence.
He had been twice married. His first union was an unhappy one. It was
altogether a mysterious marriage, which had puzzled and astonished his
friends at the time, as well it might; for without the smallest warning
the young fellow had returned from a short visit to London with a
handsome, dashing woman, whom he introduced as his wife. At this time
he was manager of the Vulcan Forge Works on the Avon, twenty miles on
the other side of a famous western city, and he had the _entrée_ to
very respectable society.
It was some time before the little local coterie forgave his sudden
introduction of the unknown London wife. In a very short time he had
reason to repent his rashness and folly. His wife indulged in all kinds
of extravagance; she led the local fashions, she indulged in fast
flirtations which set all the gossips in the neighbourhood upon her;
finally, an unwomanly passion for drink set in, and after a few years
of wretchedness she died, leaving behind her one child, a son, who will
make a prominent figure in this history.
The poor woman’s misconduct had but little impeded her husband’s
worldly advances; he secured shares in several important patents;
he became director of one or two companies; and started as an iron
merchant on his own private account. At one time he held as his own
property half the iron bars of a whole district. This was during a
strike, after a period of great depression, and just before a time of
sudden and unexpected activity.
Well, by-and-by, in the course of half-a-dozen years, the iron merchant
married again, and took his wife home to that beautiful country
residence near Severntown, and beneath the shadow of Berne Hills. He
had only purchased the estate the year before his marriage.
His second wife, whom he had loved with a fervency characteristic
of his earnest character, was the daughter of a nobleman, and an
exceedingly handsome and lovable woman.
She died in giving birth to her first child, who, like her
half-brother, is one of the leading characters in this story.
The death of his second wife had been a great affliction to Christopher
Tallant. It was many months before he could bring himself even to look
at his child. Travel and change of scene, lapse of time, increased
ardour in business occupations, and new hopes, at length softened down
his great sorrow, and enabled him to take his place in the great world
calmly, and as became a man of his station and influence. His new hopes
centred round his only son, who was a lad about eight years old when
the merchant’s greatest trouble came upon him.
The boy exhibited considerable native talent. He was a smart,
well-looking, promising fellow, full of life and spirits and courage.
Before he was ten years old his father clung to him like a forlorn
hope, and centred in him schemes of future power and greatness. The
name of Tallant had of late years become famous in the world of trade
and money, and the name should be perpetuated in this son with honour
and distinction. This was the happiness which, it seemed to the
merchant, Fate had decreed he should have at last.
Such, briefly, is the outline of Mr. Tallant’s history. We introduce
him to our readers some two and twenty years after the death of his
second wife,--a man over fifty years of age. At the time when we make
his acquaintance he is Chairman of the great Meter Iron Works Company,
a director of two of the principal railway companies, and a shareholder
in many extensive city schemes.
Once a week he was to be found at the London offices of the Meter Works
at Westminster, and he usually returned from London the same day. You
could not have mistaken him for anything but a shrewd, conscientious
man of business if you had known him. He was above the middle height,
and usually wore a black shooting-coat, fitting the body tightly, and
with pockets at the side; shepherd’s plaid trowsers, and a black velvet
waistcoat. His hair was grey, and his face cleanly shaven. He had a
quick, discerning eye, and withal a genial expression of countenance;
for, though he had not forgotten the past, Time had been good to him,
as it is good to other sufferers who have lost dear ones from their
homes, and had comforted him with the affection of his children. He
bore an excellent character for kindness, integrity, and honour; but he
was known at the same time to be a man of unbending pride.
He was proud of his name, of his wealth, of his son, of his house,
of his grounds, of his farms, of his estates; proud of everything.
And to a certain extent it was a laudable pride, for his riches were
the result of his own ability and industry. He felt, with a certain
acknowledgment of the bounty of Providence, that he had made them
all himself. He might have thanked God a little more for his worldly
success and been none the less happy, and certainly more grateful; but
it was his pride that he had worked his way up, from the lowest rung of
the ladder, and that he stood on the top of it with safety.
Everything he had was better than anything anybody else had; he would
have it so, and yet he was a kindly, courteous sort of man, whom you
might have had pleasure in visiting. His pride of wealth would crop up
now and then; but his wines were superb, his _cuisine_ everything that
could be desired, the views from his windows magnificent, his pictures
modern and by the best moderns, his books modern and in glorious
bindings, and his daughter--there was nothing more sweet to look upon
in all the Avonworth valley, or beneath the Berne Hill shades, than the
merchant’s only daughter.