MY FIRST INTERVIEW.
My own history has little or nothing to do with the present narrative,
and therefore I will not allude to it, except where it is absolutely
necessary. Suffice it to say, that my parents were in India, and that
for many years Fairburn Rectory was my home. I had no vacations, in the
sense that the word is generally understood to mean; I had nowhere else
to go to, nor did I wish to go anywhere. No father could have been
kinder, or have done his duty better by me, than did Mr. Long. How poor
Marmaduke used to envy me my wardship to that good man! I well remember
the first day I came to Fairburn. It was early summer; its great woods
were in all their glory; and to me, fresh from shipboard and the vast
waste of sea, the place seemed a bower of bliss. First, the grey old
church tower upon the hill; and then the turrets of the Hall,
half-hidden in oak; and last, the low-roofed, blossom-entangled cottage
where I found so bright a welcome--that was the order in which Fairburn
was introduced to visitors from town. The Church, and the Hall, and the
Rectory all lay together; the churchyard, dark with yews, encroached
upon the Rectory garden; and that bright spot, so trimly kept, that one
was moved to pick up a fallen leaf, if such were on its lawn, sloped
down into the heart of the Park. A light iron railing, with wires to
prevent the hares and rabbits from entering in and nibbling the flowers,
alone divided the great man's land from Mr. Long's trim demesne. The
deer came up and pushed their velvet horns against it. In copse and
fern, twinkled the innumerable ear and tail. I had never seen such
animals before, and they delighted me hugely. After dinner, on the very
day that I arrived, I fed them through the rails, and they ate the bread
from my open hand.
"They take you for Marmaduke," said Mr. Long, smiling; "for otherwise,
they would be shy of a stranger."
"And who is Marmaduke, sir?"
"He is your fellow pupil, and I make no doubt will be your friend. I
wish that he was resident with me, like yourself; but his uncle, who
lives at the Hall yonder, will not part with him. He reads with me
morning and afternoon, however."
"Does he like reading, sir?" inquired I with hesitation, for I for my
part did not. My education, such as it was, had been fitful incomplete,
and in a word, Indian; and I had come back much older than most European
boys have to come home, a sad dunce.
"Yes, Marmaduke is very fond of reading," pursued my tutor; "that is,
reading of a certain sort. He always does his work well with me, so I
must not be hard on him; but he is certainly too fond of novels. And
yonder he comes, see, with a book in his hand, even as he walks." My
tutor pointed to the Park; and there, coming slowly down a long, broad
"ride," with his eyes fixed upon a volume he held in his hand, was a
youth of seventeen years old or so, which was about my own age. As he
came nearer, I began to see why the deer had mistaken me for him; not,
indeed, because he was very handsome (which was not at all the case with
me), but inasmuch as his complexion was as olive as my own.
"Why, he has been to India too!" whispered I to my tutor, rather
disappointed than otherwise, for I had had enough of Indian playmates,
and to spare.
"No," returned he in the same low voice; "his mother was an Italian."
Then he introduced us; and I began to hang my head, and play with the
buttons of my waistcoat, as is the graceful manner of hobbledehoys upon
such a ceremony; but Marmaduke, completely self-possessed, asked about
my journey, and particularly what I had seen at sea. He knew so much
about sharks and porpoises, that I thought he must have made some long
voyage himself; but he told me that such was not the case.
"Though I should like to go to sea of all things," said he; "and I would
cruise about that cape--what's its name?--until I met with the "Flying
Dutchman:" that is the vessel which I wish to see."
"I have never heard of her," said I, proud of that nautical use of the
feminine. "Is she one of the Company's ships?"
At this my tutor began to rub his hands, and chuckle inwardly, as was
his wont when vastly amused; but perceiving that the colour came into my
cheeks, he laid his hand upon my shoulder kindly, and said that he was
glad to find <i>my</i> head, at least, was not stuck full of foolish stories,
as some people's heads were; while Marmaduke, without triumphing in the
least over my ignorance, explained to me all about that Phantom Ship,
which glides full sail upon the astonished voyager, and passes through
his vessel without shock or noise. He told the tale exactly as if he had
heard it straight from the lips of an eye-witness, and believed it
himself; he never laughed, and if he smiled, he seemed to be sorry that
he had done so directly afterwards. Some melancholy thought appeared to
occupy his mind at all times; and if a bright fancy crossed it, it was
but for an instant, like lightning through the cloud. I am not
describing an "interesting" youth, after the manner of romance-writers;
no "secret sorrow" obscured the young existence of Marmaduke Heath, but
simply, as I subsequently discovered, vulgar, abject terror. His whole
being was oppressed by reason of one man. The shadow of Sir Massingberd
cast itself over him alike when he went out from his hated presence and
when he was about to return to it. He was never free from its nightmare
influence--never. His passion for reading was not so much a love of
books, as a desire to escape in them from the circumstances of his
actual life. If he ever forgot him in earnest talk--and he was the most
earnest talker, as a boy, I ever knew--the mention of his uncle's name
was a Medusa's Head to turn him into stony silence on the instant. If
Marmaduke Heath could only have got away from Fairburn Hall when I first
knew him, his mind might have regained its natural vigour and
elasticity; but as it was, it grew more sombre and morbid every day. His
hungry intellect was nourished upon what associations happened to be at
hand, and they were very unhealthy food. The wickedness of Sir
Massingberd was, of course, sufficiently present to him, like some
hateful picture hung at a bed's foot, which the eyes of a sleepless man
cannot avoid; while every tongue about the Hall was ready to tell him of
the evil deeds of his forefathers. At first, I thought my young friend's
constant allusion to his family was the result of aristocratic pride,
although, indeed, there was nothing to be proud of in what he told me,
but very much the reverse; but I soon found that this was not the case.
The history of the Heaths was what interested him most of all histories,
and he favoured me with extracts from it solely upon that account. As
for the fact of their noble blood running in his own veins, he would, I
am confident, have far rather been the son of Mrs. Myrtle, the kind old
housekeeper at the Rectory.
"We are a doomed race, Peter," he once said to me, not long after we had
made friendship with one another. "Generation after generation of us
have sinned and sinned. The Corsicans have their family feuds
transmitted to them, but they are hostile only to their fellow men; the
Heaths have ever fought against Heaven itself. Each successor to the
title seems to have said, like the descendants of Tubal Cain--
'We will not hear, we will not know,
The God that was our father's foe.'
There is the Church," said he, pointing to that glorious pile, which, at
Fairburn, was almost a cathedral in magnitude and beauty, "and there is
the Hall. They are antagonistic; they are devoted to opposite purposes.
I tell you, yes; our family residence is consecrated to the devil."
I am afraid I could not help laughing at this singular notion.
"Nay," cried he, looking round him furtively, "but you shall see that it
is so." We were in the Rectory garden, which communicated with the
churchyard by a wicket. He led the way into it; and in a distant corner,
upon the north side of the chancel, he showed me a sombre
burying-ground, separated from the rest of the God's acre, and
imprisoned in dark purgatorial rails. "Do you know why we are all put
there," asked he, "instead of with the other--Christian--folks?"
"You are too proud to lie with the poor, perhaps," returned I, who had
still that idea in my mind with regard to Marmaduke himself.
"No," said he; "it is not that--it is because the Heaths will not be
buried in consecrated ground."
"But you have a family vault underneath the chancel, have you not?"
"Yes; but it is not 'snug lying.' None of us have been put there since
old Sir Hugh, in Queen Anne's time. When they opened the vault for him,
they found his father's coffin with its plate to the ground. It had
turned over. The witty parson would have it that it was only natural
that it should have done so, since its tenant, during life, had fought
alternately for Parliament and King, and was addicted to changing
sides. Bat when Sir Hugh's successor demanded lodging in the place in
his turn, they found Sir Hugh's coffin had turned over likewise. The
circumstance so terrified the dead man's heir--who had not been on the
best terms with him during life, and perhaps thought he owed him some
amends--that he swore his father should not lie in such restless
company; and as the late baronet had been at feud with the then rector,
he determined to dispense with any assistance from the church at all,
and buried him in an adjoining field, which was subsequently made the
last resting-place of all our race, as you perceive. The burial service
is dispensed with, of course. It would be mere mockery to address such
words as Hope and Faith to the corpse of a Heath of Fairburn."
"My dear Marmaduke," said I, "you make my very blood run cold. But
surely you exaggerate these things. Some of your people have been
Catholics, and been buried in their own chapel at the Hall, have they
not?"
"Only one of them," replied the boy with bitterness. "My
great-grandfather, Sir Nicholas, abjured his infidelity, and became a
papist, in order to secure his bride. He turned the chapel into a
banqueting-hall, however, and used the sacramental plate in his unholy
revels; but after death, the priests got hold of him at last, and 'Nick
the Younger,' as he was called, now lies under the altar which he so
often profaned. The beginning of his funeral ceremonies was not
conducted so decently as the last rites. He had got outlawed, I believe,
or, at all events, was driven abroad in his latter days, and died there.
Nobody at Fairburn had heard of him for many months, when one October
night, as Oliver Bradford, who is now the head-keeper, but was then a
very young man, was watching in the home-preserves, he heard a terrible
noise in the high-road, and making his way out, came upon this
spectacle: two men in black, and upon black horses, rode by him at full
speed, and close behind them came a hearse-and-four, likewise at the
gallop. The plumes upon it waved backwards, he says, like corn, and all
the black trappings of the thing fluttered and flapped as it went by.
Another man on horseback, singing to himself a drunken song, closed this
horrid procession. It moved up towards the village, and Oliver listened
to it until the noise seemed to cease about opposite to the Park gates.
The solitary witness, frightened enough before, was now doubly
terrified, for he made sure that what he had seen was the news of Sir
Nicholas's decease, brought over in this ghastly and characteristic
fashion. He did not for a single moment imagine that it was a palpable
vision; and yet he had seen a veritable funeral pass by. The old baronet
had died in France, leaving directions, and the money to carry them out,
that his corpse should be taken at night, and at full gallop, through
every town that lay between Dover and Fairburn.--Alive or dead," added
Marmaduke grimly, "the Heaths are a charming family."
"At all events, my dear fellow," said I, laying my hand upon his arm,
"you will have nothing to fear from comparison with your forefathers.
You may make a good reputation at a cheap price.[1] A very little
virtue will go a great way with the next tenant of Fairburn Hall, if
half the tales we hear be true."
"And what tales are those?" inquired a deep, low voice at my very elbow.
I believe I jumped a foot or two in the air myself, so great was my
alarm. But as far my companion, if those grass-grown tombs which we were
contemplating had given up their wicked skeletons before his eyes, he
could not have exhibited a greater excess of terror.
Beside me stood a man of Herculean proportions, who by his dress might
have been taken for an under-gamekeeper, but for a very massive gold
chain which hung from the top button-hole of his waistcoat down to its
deep-flapped pocket. What is now, I believe, called an "Albert guard,"
resembles it on a smaller scale; but at the time I speak of, such an
ornament was altogether unique. His face, too, evidently belonged to one
who was used to command. On the forehead was a curious indented curve
like the letter U, while his lip curled contemptuously upwards also, in
somewhat the same shape. The two together gave him a weird and indeed a
demoniacal look, which his white beard, although long and flowing, had
not enough of dignity to do away with. I had never heard Sir
Massingberd's personal appearance described; but even if I had not had
before me his shrinking nephew, I should have recognized at once the
features of Giant Despair.
"And what tales are those which are told against the present tenant of
Fairburn Hall?" reiterated the baronet, scanning me from head to foot
with his cold glittering eyes. "And who is this young gentleman who
comes to listen to them from the lips of my loving ward?"
"Sir," said I, "your nephew was saying nothing whatever against you, I
do assure you. I was merely referring to the gossip of the village,
which, indeed, does not make you out to be entirely a saint." I was
angry at having been frightened by this man, who, after all, could not
hurt <i>me</i>. I had been accustomed, too, to Indian life; which, without
making one bolder than other people, indisposes one to submit to
dictation, which is only the duty of the natives.
Sir Massingberd reached forth one iron finger, and rocked me with it to
and fro, though I stood as firm as I could. "Take care, young gentleman,
take care," said he; "that spirit of yours will not do down at Fairburn.
Mr. Long does not seem to have taught you humility, I think. Marmaduke,
go home." He spoke these last words exactly as a man speaks to his dog
who has injudiciously followed him to church on Sunday, in the hope that
he was bent on partridge shooting.
The boy instantly obeyed. He shrank away, passing as closely to the
churchyard railing as he could, as though he almost feared a blow from
his uncle.
"There is humility, there is docility!" sneered the baronet, looking
after him. "And if I had <i>you</i> up at the Hall, my young bantam, for four
and twenty hours or so, I'd make you docile too." He strode away with a
laugh like the creaking of an iron hinge, for he saw that I did not dare
to answer him. He strode away over the humble graves, setting his foot
deep into their daisied mounds as though in scorn; and his laugh echoed
again and again from the sepulchral walls, for it was joy to Sir
Massingberd Heath to know that he was feared.
[1] I am told by an able friend, who is good enough to revise for me
this manuscript, that it is not likely that a mere boy, as I then was,
would have made such an observation as the above. I do not doubt that
this remark is altogether just; but I am afraid it will apply to so much
else in this narrative, that it is scarcely worth while to make an
alteration. I am not used to literary composition; I cannot weigh
whether this or that is characteristic of a speaker. I am merely a
garrulous person, who has, however, such a striking story to tell, that
I trust the matter will atone for the manner.