"Therefore he loved gold in special."--Chaucer.
"It is a great calamity, a heavy dispensation!" said a neighbour to
Patty Fripp.
"He will get over it in time--the master," said others, especially
the women; "all men get over these things--he'll marry again, no
doubt; he is too young to live all alone in the world."
Patty was very indignant at this suggestion being made already.
"Time tries all, and soothes all," said another gossip; "we shall see
by and by--men don't break their hearts for love, look you. And how
about the little boy?"
"Poor little soul! he is fretting sorely for his mother," said Patty,
polishing her face with her checked apron, after having 'a good cry';
"but that is just human natur, I s'pose."
To the lonely man it seemed strange that Mary was no longer in the
cottage at Finglecombe, and it was difficult for him, for a time, to
realise the idea that she was gone for ever from her place; that he
would never see her again; and that morning and night would come
inexorably; the weeks become months, and the months become years; and
that no Mary, with all her great love and tenderness, was there to
bear a part in the long vista of life that lay before him.
His loneliness became at times insupportable, and he was frequently
absent from home--a circumstance which never occurred in Mary's time.
On these occasions the long and sleepless hours of night were
terrible to little Derval, with his true Devonshire dread of the
supernatural, for he had no longer the sweet consciousness of the
near presence of his watchful mother.
At such times, till sleep sealed his eyes, he had but one
thought--that out there in the dew and darkness of night, as in the
sunshine by day, was the grave of one who had loved him and tended
him, as no other human being would do, in the little churchyard,
where the white tombstones and crosses contrasted so strongly and
beautifully with the emerald green of the turf and the darker tint of
the vast ancient yew that overshadowed them.
In all the wide earth--the earth of which he had, as yet, so little
conception, there was already no spot so dear to little Derval as the
turf that covered his mother's grave; and thus in the darkness of the
moonless nights he was wont to waken and weep when he heard the cold
wind sighing and the rain falling; and he shuddered at the thought
that she was out there, exposed to them both, as it seemed to his
heated fancy.
Then a great terror would come over him, till he crept softly into
bed beside old Patty Fripp.
So the first heart-piercing days of sorrow and unavailing regret
began to pass away, and the old craving after wealth, the world, and
mammon began to resume its sway in the mind of Greville Hampton, and
the dreams of which we have spoken came to his fancy again.
He began to think of Mary with more composure, and could hear, in
silence, Mr. Asperges Laud, when urged by him, gently and sweetly, to
remember that she had only faded out, as the stars fade, to shine
again; had died as the flowers die in autumn, for resurrection in a
brighter summer, in which he should meet her again, and there should
be neither sorrow nor parting. All this sounded and seemed too
remote and vague for the ache, the bitter void made by her departure.
Yet though Mr. Laud knew by experience that Father Time was a great
consoler, there was another nearer at hand than his Reverence had
quite reckoned on.
Over the life of little Derval there was now a change, which he felt,
though did not quite understand. The loss of his mother he had
become accustomed to; but somehow, though there seemed plenty of
happiness in the world, it never came to him. Other children whom he
saw, or met at Mr. Laud's classes, seemed all well fed, neatly clad,
and joyous, for they had come thither with mothers' kisses on their
rosy cheeks, and the same caresses awaited them when they went home;
but he had no one to kiss him now, save old Patty Fripp, who, like a
genuine maid-of-all-work, was seldom without a smudge on one side of
her nose.
Papa seemed for ever absent, for, as the months ran on, he seemed to
have found some mysterious occupation elsewhere than at Finglecombe.
There was a time when Greville Hampton used to steal to the bedside
of his little boy, and hang over him in his sleep, parting the thick
curly hair from his forehead, softly and tenderly, while remarking
with fondness, that there still he could see Mary's long eyelashes,
Mary's brow and pure sweet profile, and all the loving memory of her
would gush up in his heart.
Observant Patty thought that he was wont to do this less and less
now, while his absences from the lonely cottage became more frequent
and long. She marvelled much at this. Had he fallen in with some
schemes by which to amend his shattered fortune--the schemes on which
she had again and again heard him descant in times past? But
whatever caused the change in his habits and bearing, it was soon to
be made apparent to her now.
Patty was startled from her usual propriety, or the even tenor of her
way, when Greville Hampton, with some reluctance or hesitation in his
manner, as if conscious of the speculation he would excite, announced
that three guests were coming to dinner on a certain day; and
thereupon great bustle ensued at the cottage of Finglecombe, whither
the railway van brought various wines, fruits, and condiments, "even
to the last grapes and first cucumbers of the season," as Patty Fripp
said, for the expected guests; and Patty had to obtain the aid of a
neighbour as a helping hand, and the united wonder and excitement
culminated, when two of the guests arrived in a handsome and
well-appointed brougham, and proved to be ladies--an old and a young
one--a Mrs. Rookleigh (of whom Patty had never heard) and her niece,
whom, with all her beauty, she mentally deemed to be hard, bold, and
haughty.
It is a strange but true assertion, that anxiety, like misfortune,
can lend misgiving and fear to any unwonted occurrence, and now Patty
Fripp, for the little boy's sake, began to apprehend--she scarcely
knew what!
"When I'm 'urried I'm flurried," said she to her gossip, "and look
you, it ain't easy to get this place, a cottage though it be, ready
by myself--to sort rooms and toilet-tables, kill chickens and dress
'em, and bake cakes, look you, like the king as burned 'em, lay
tables, and all that sort o' thing!"
Mr. Hampton received his guests with great _empressement_, welcomed
them to Finglecombe, with the beautiful surroundings of which they
were greatly delighted, and--as Patty's watchful and wondering eyes
were upon him--he was not sorry when the Curate arrived, and he
desired her to conduct the ladies to a room, and assist them to
remove the costumes they had driven in.
About the elder lady there was so little to remark that Patty
scarcely noticed her, but her niece, Miss Anne Rookleigh, then nearer
her thirtieth than her twentieth year, was brilliantly fair in
complexion, with large and languishing eyes of that golden-hazel
colour which so often goes with a duplicity of character, a
magnificent figure, and masses of light chesnut coloured hair. Save
that her bearing and expression were hard and cold, despite the
languor in her eyes, the most severe connoisseur in female beauty
could have found no fault with her, unless his glance fell upon her
hands, which, for a lady so generally refined in aspect, were
decidedly large and even coarse-looking.
Since his mother had been borne away--it seemed so long ago now--in
that grim funeral car with its black plumes, no ladies had ever been
under their roof, till these two came, and now to Derval it seemed
that his papa was far less gloomy than he had been--indeed, was quite
gay; one of these ladies, Derval thought, eyed him curiously, even
hostilely through her gold glass, and he, grasping the while his top
and whip, looked steadily up in her proud face with a reconnoitring
gaze that piqued her.
The dinner passed over like any other. Greville Hampton was
scrupulously attentive to both aunt and niece, but was so delicate
and guarded in his manner, that Patty, who knew not the language of
the eyes, could, as yet, obtain no clue to her suspicions; but, for
the first time in his short life, the child was conscious of a
something undefinable, he knew not what, in the manner of his father
to himself, and felt that if the former did not quite repel his
advances and wished-for caresses, he failed completely to respond to
them, while under the golden hazel eyes of Miss Anne Rookleigh.
Derval then drew to the side of her aunt, who was intently conversing
with Mr. Asperges Laud, and whom he utterly failed to interest, on
the subject of his pet canary, and the big Dorking hen, that had been
mamma's, and laid so many eggs.
At last the ladies rose, and quitting the table resolved to seek the
garden, leaving their host and the curate to their wine and cigars.
"You have a piano here, Greville," said Miss Rookleigh with a bright
smile.
"It is locked," said he uneasily.
"But there is a key, of course?"
"I have lost it," said he evasively; for the piano had been Mary's,
and he could not yet have a stranger's fingers running over the keys
where hers had brought forth the familiar notes.
So the ladies swept forth into the little garden, where they found a
rustic chair under the shadow of a golden laburnham tree, and where
the roses that Mary's hands had tended were now in all the beauty and
luxuriance of midsummer; and ere long, Patty Fripp, who was not above
eaves-dropping, while collecting fresh salad for supper, and
unobserved was close by listening to all the two visitors said,
obtained a clue to the whole matter.
In fact, Greville Hampton, the widower, was engaged to Miss Anne
Rookleigh!
"Yes," said the latter, leisurely fanning herself, "that child of his
will be a great bore!"
"A greater bore if you have any little ones of your own," said the
aunt, laughing; "but don't begin with this spirit in your breast,
Anne--take care."
"Take care of what?" asked the niece, haughtily.
"I mean of abusing the great power you so evidently possess over your
intended."
"I little thought, aunt, when I was only amusing myself with him at
Ilfracombe, rambling among the Tors, sketching the Lover's Leap,
talking, playing chess with him, singing to him, accepting his
flowers and all that, I would come to love him as I do, and end at
last by finding this engagement ring on my finger!"
("So-so!" muttered Patty, under her breath, with a vicious sniff; "my
old gossip was right--men don't break their hearts and die of
love--for their wives at all events, look you!")
"Yes, I love him for himself alone," resumed Miss Rookleigh, after a
pause, "not his fortune certainly," she added with a mocking laugh;
"he is so handsome and winning. But I know, aunt, that though you
are a widow, you deem it impossible that there can be any romance in
a second marriage; and yet in such, a man may learn that his first
was a mistake, and that now he only loves for the first time," and
with a dreamy smile in her bright hazel eyes she swayed her fan to
and fro.
"No one looks for romance in a second marriage--at least, I should
not," replied her practical aunt; "I have always deemed them, like
most first marriages, matters of convenience or of calculation,
now-a-days. At all events you must admit, Anne, that all freshness
of the heart must be gone?"
"Aunt, you are very unpleasant! I believe a man is quite capable of
loving twice, and the second time more than the first; because he
must know his own mind better. If I thought that Greville had only
the shadow of love to offer me--but I shall not canvas the idea!
Greville's first marriage must seem like a dream to him now, and, if
otherwise, it will go hard with me if I do not soon obliterate all
memory of a former affection. He married his first wife for her
beauty, I believe; but she was a poor namby-pamby little thing.
He'll soon forget her, nay, he must have forgotten her now!" And a
flash came into her eyes, of subtle colour, as she spoke.
"Hush, Anne, how would you like to be spoken of thus? Besides, his
child--_her_ child--will be a perpetual reminder."
"It is aggravating! I believe the little brat already views me as an
interloper; and though I knew his age, he is on a larger scale than I
expected, and certainly looks old for the child of a man so youthful
as Greville; and then he speaks with the odious Devonshire patois!"
"One lucky thing is that your engagement will not be a long one, if
you are satisfied for the time with this poor--though certainly
pretty--place."
"It satisfied _her_," thought Patty, glancing at the distant spire,
the shadow of which was falling on Mary's grave; and the old woman
crept away, as she had heard more than enough, muttering, "after all
these years I'd give him warning this very hour, but for the sake of
the child. Poor Derval! from this day, I fear me, his life will be a
blighted one! Dear, dear! but the master has soon begun to sweeten
the hay again!" she added, referring to an old Cornish practice
common among lovers in haymaking time.
So barely a year had elapsed, since the woman who clung to him so
tenderly and truly in poverty, as in wealth, and whose heart had been
for years against his own, had been laid in the silent grave, when
Greville Hampton brought another--but not a fairer--wife to share his
cottage home.
That home he had spared no expense his means permitted to decorate
for the new idol, who had certainly not come to him undowered. Many
old and familiar objects had been removed--there were cogent reasons
why--and gave place to newer fancies.
While Derval and Patty had been the sole occupants of the cottage at
Finglecombe, the wedded pair had been spending their honeymoon on the
continent; they had seen Antwerp with its cathedral and the art
treasures of its galleries; Cologne and Coblentz, the precipitous
Kolandseck with its baronial ruin and mouldering arch; hill-encircled
Ems, the banks of the picturesque Lake, wooded Nassau and merry
Wiesbaden; Greville the while judiciously silent that he had gone all
that bridal tour once _before_. But now he thoroughly believed in
his second election; and it has been said that, at few times, or at
no time, of his life, is a man such a true believer in faith and love
as when he plunges into matrimony; and we must suppose that it was so
with Greville Hampton.
The arrival of the bride at Finglecombe, with all her boxes and that
"particular baggage," as Patty thought, her own maid, was a source of
sore worry to the former, who could no longer pursue the even tenor
of her way under the new state of things.
Greville kissed his little boy, who clung fondly to him; but the
bride gave the latter her gloved hand coldly, and scanned him through
her glass, while he eyed her with mistrust and wonder, and with a
strange shrinking, for somehow her eye chilled him, and thus, at the
very home-coming there was a petty _contretemps_.
"Kiss him, Anne dearest," said Greville; "go and be kissed by your
mamma, Derval."
"She is not my mamma," said the child recoiling.
"Go and be kissed by her instantly, sir!"
"I won't, Papa."
"Then leave the room, sir!"
"He gives me a cold reception, certainly," said Mrs. Hampton, her
golden-coloured eyes sparkling dangerously under their rather white
lashes, as she threw off some of her travelling wraps and appeared to
Patty's wondering eyes in a rich and handsome dress, that accorded
well with the stately character of her beauty; and Derval slunk away,
doubtful and fearing, whether he had done right or wrong; but then,
what did papa mean by calling this strange woman his mamma?
"His presence shall not annoy you, Anne."
"But, until he gets accustomed to me, Greville?"
"I shall compel him to stay in his own room, or in the kitchen with
Patty, till he knows how to treat you."
So on this day the troubles of Derval really began. He felt that he
could never be even confident in the presence of this stranger who
had so suddenly taken a high place in their little household. There
was everything in her manner and bearing to repel him, and when she
spoke to him his large eyes dilated under her stony gaze, as those of
a bird are said to do when a serpent begins its charm of fear; and
when rated for some trifle, he said sullenly:
"I want my own mamma. Why did papa bring _you_ here, and set you in
_her_ place at table?"
"Dare you say so; you are a very bold child!" she exclaimed with some
heat, and in her hard constrained voice, when a more generous woman
would have smiled and resorted to caresses; "you ought to learn to
love me."
"Never!" said the chubby Derval stoutly; "I shall only love my own
mamma; she allowed me to climb on papa's knee and kiss him, but you
won't."
"This brat, Derval," she thought, "must certainly remind him of that
woman he loved, or fancied he loved, in the days of his youth and
folly! Derval must be sent from this--out of this, somehow--anyhow!
I would that he were old enough to go to sea."
To sea! Was his future shadowed forth in this idea?
Time will show.
And already she began to hate the child, all the more that her
husband in his dreams--for he was as great a dreamer as ever--more
than once, in her hearing, muttered or whispered to himself, softly
and sadly, as to one near him, the name of "Mary," when doubtless the
present was forgotten, and the days of the past came back in the
visions of the night.
"He is thinking of his boyish fancies and his wax doll," Anne would
mutter; "how shall I have patience to endure this if it occurs often?"
Tall, proud, haughty, and imperious in her secret nature, she was in
all things the reverse of the _mignonne_, gentle and affectionate
"wax doll," she thought of so contemptuously.
The poor for miles around felt a change now. Mary had ever but
little to spare from her own slender store, and that little was given
freely with kind words to all; yet the new bride that had come to
Finglecombe, though wealthier far than ever poor Mary hoped to be,
even amid all Greville's brilliant schemes and aspirations, gave not
a crumb of broken victuals to the passing mendicant; and as for the
sick and needy in the adjacent lanes, and little cob-villages, she
knew not of their existence.
She had brought him a round sum of money, which, perhaps, more than
even her beauty and unmistakable advances, had lured Greville Hampton
into this second alliance; and with this he had speedily begun to
speculate successfully in the purchase of land at Finglecombe, and to
see, in prospect, the possible realisation of his golden dreams!
Had anyone ventured to hint to Greville Hampton that he had now
forgotten Mary, he would have repelled the accusation with anger.
But he had been lonely--he felt the want of companionship; this woman
was handsome, and had been bent on winning him, for he was possessed
of much manly beauty, with a fine presence; and the dowry she had,
roused in him anew that craving thirst, that eager longing for "the
gold that perisheth."
But in her love for him, and jealousy of the dead, she was somewhat
exacting, and tried him considerably at times.
"You loved your first wife, of course, Greville, because it is your
nature to be tender and loving," said she on one occasion; "but do,
please, put her portrait away."
"Why, Anne?"
"Because the eyes of it seem to follow me everywhere, to watch me;
and I can never see it without thinking--thinking--"
"Of what?"
"That she was as dear to you, perhaps--as near to you, certainly--as
I am."
"Your ideas are foolish, Anne," said he; but the portrait was removed
eventually, and one of her aunt, Mrs. Rookleigh, took its place.
Sometimes she went further than this, and would test his veracity a
little unwarrantably, in her inordinate vanity, and with ineffably
bad taste.
"Tell me, dearest Greville," she said, hanging over him, and
caressing him with great _empressement_, "did you ever love before as
you love me now?"
He smoked his old briar-root, but made no reply.
"Tell me--tell me," she persisted, while playfully pulling his ear;
but his heart felt a pang, and his eye wandered involuntarily to
where poor Mary's portrait used to hang.
"Why so inquisitive?" said he; "you know that I was married before.
Do you think I am so vile as to marry without loving?"
"That is no answer. But were you ever so much in love as you are
now?"
Wishing to evade the inquiry, he smoked rather doggedly on; so she
questioned him again.
"Some fellows are in love a score of times, with every pretty girl
they meet, in fact," said he.
"But you, Greville, are not one of those men."
"No, Anne, most certainly not."
So she could extract no more from him. He was weak in her hands, but
to have said what she wished, he felt would he coarse treason to the
dead, and thought, "why could she not be content?"
And when she sang--but in a style Mary never sang--she indulged in
high fantastic flourishes, running her hands heavily over the same
keys that Mary's pretty fingers had been wont to touch so lightly.
For a time Greville Hampton winced at the familiar sound of the
instrument, as if a spirit was conjured up by it; but ere long he
became hardened--accustomed to it.
Soon her piano, almost every immediate relic of Mary, disappeared;
and times there were when her successor spoke--but never in
Greville's hearing--of her memory in a sneering manner, that stung
the sensitive Derval, and as he grew older, maddened and infuriated
him. However, he was but a child yet, and barely understood the
tithe of what she said.
To her he was a perpetual eyesore; and in the round of her daily
life--especially in the absence of Greville--she found a hundred
petty means of venting her groundless dislike upon him.
"Get out of the way--leave the room, boy--go and play in the
garden--you are not wanted here!" Such were hourly the greetings to
the child now--no kisses, no caresses as of old. All his sweet
childish impulses were crushed or checked, and thrust back upon
himself, and distrust and dislike of her, the typical rather than the
real stepmother (fortunately for humanity's sake), grew strong in his
heart--his little yearning heart, that felt half broken at times by
neglect, for he had no one now, save old Patty, to whom he could tell
all the wondrous secrets, and deep, tender confidences of child-life.
And even Patty he might not have long, as in Mrs. Hampton's mind she
contrasted unfavourably with her own maid; she deemed her gauche, for
Patty was a stout, broad, and short-necked woman, with a clumsy gait,
a ruddy complexion, red sandy hair, eyes rather green than grey, and
with a resolute mouth and chin that came of her Cornish blood.
"Poor little Master Derval, poor darling!" said Patty once to
Greville. "She has never said a kind word to him since she came to
the house; and look you, sir, he would think she was mocking him if
she said one now--yah!" and she ground her teeth.
"Silence, Patty; I cannot permit you to speak thus of Mrs. Hampton,"
said he angrily.
"Missus Hampton, indeed!" grumbled Patty, but under her breath,
however. But one day Greville overheard a remark which gave him a
pang.
"Derval, where are you going, sir?" demanded Mrs. Hampton
imperiously, as he was taking his little cap.
"To the sea-shore," he answered shyly.
"Again? You are never anywhere else, and always come back with wet
and sandy shoes. What takes you there?"
"I like to watch the waves come in, and listen to what they are
saying."
"You are a little fool; I say you shall not go!" and seizing him with
hands, which we have said were not small ones, she shook him
violently, and tears sprang to his eyes.
"Oh," he wailed, "that my own mamma would come out of the ground, and
help her little boy!"
"Ah, but your mamma can't," she said spitefully; "she is deep enough
down, thank Heaven!"
"Hush, Anne," said Greville, suddenly appearing; "for Heaven's sake
don't speak to the child in that manner."
"He aggravates me so!" she replied, colouring; but more with anger
than shame.
"Oh, I do beg your pardon," said Derval one day, approaching in great
tribulation, with his little hands pressed tremblingly together.
"For what?" she asked sharply.
"Please, I have broken your little china vase."
"The vase that dear Aunt Rookleigh gave me! Oh you clumsy, obnoxious
brat!" she exclaimed, while her eyes gleamed with anger; and as no
one was near she punished him severely.
"Mother, mother! mamma, mamma!" he cried, panting in her grasp, "oh,
come back to your little boy, and save him from this terrible woman!"
"Woman, indeed, you fractious imp; I'll teach you what your mamma, as
you call her, never did--manners!" and she continued to beat him till
he, and herself, were quite breathless, and then she flung him in a
heap into a corner, to sob himself into sullen composure.
In the lust of her cruelty she, by the pursuance of a system all her
own, succeeded in actually weaning much of the regard of his father
from him, and had him excluded from the dining-room when dessert--to
which he had always been admitted--was on the table.
Banishment from dessert seemed to Derval the acme of ill-usage; and,
apart from the loss of the good things thereat, he never forgot the
day he found himself thus banished.
He had come into the room when he knew "papa was there," and rushed,
breathless and laughing, up to his side.
"My chair is not put in for me, papa!" he exclaimed; "why is this?"
Seizing one, he began to drag it across the room towards the table,
and to his father's side. Mrs. Hampton looked at him darkly (she was
rather an Epicurean and did not like to be worried at meals), and
Greville did so silently and uneasily, for he was not unmoved just
then by the tender and pleading expression he read in the child's
eyes.
"I thought you said, my dear, that we were not to be disturbed in
this way by that _gauche_ boy?" said Mrs. Hampton; "and you know the
nervous condition to which he reduces me--just now, at least."
"Leave the room, Derval; mamma does not want you to-day."
"Oh, papa, you are not angry with me?"
"Yes--no--but go; you are a bad boy to insist on coming to table."
And so Derval never sat at that table again till the day came when he
was to leave the house for ever.
As he was peremptorily forbidden to go near the sea-shore, he
frequently went to the churchyard of Finglecombe and spent hours
there, weaving chaplets of daisies and wild flowers.
"What brings you here so often, my poor child?" asked Mr. Asperges
Laud (patting him on the head) the curate, in his long-tailed coat,
gaiters, and Roman collarino.
"To be near mamma's grave," said Derval, gulping down a sob.
"Besides, it is a quiet place for a good cry," he added, as the kind
curate took him into his little thatched parsonage.
In the dark nights of winter he could recal how tenderly mamma put
him to bed, and watched beside him till he slept. It was old Patty
Fripp who did so now, who tucked him cosily into his little crib and
kissed him some twenty times ere she bade him "good-night," but, by
order of Mrs. Hampton, was not permitted to linger beside him.
"The child tells you, ma'm, that he can't sleep in the dark alone,
from fear," urged Patty on one occasion.
"Fear of what?" she asked curtly.
"The Long Cripples."
"What _do_ you mean?"
Patty then told her that snakes in Devonshire were called "long
cripples," and Derval had heard of the one at Manaton, that was as
big as a human body, and had legs as well as wings, and uttered a
hiss that could be heard for miles around.
"The boy is a fool, and you are another; leave him to sleep, or wake,
as he chooses," was the mandate. So Derval was left to sob himself
asleep in the dark, cowering under his coverlet, fearing "the Long
Cripple" was coming when the wind moaned in the chimney, or the
ivy-leaves pattered on the window-panes.
Apart from the comments of Patty, the remarks of schoolfellows and
neighbours were not wanting to foster the growing animosity of Derval
to his stepmother. Curious eyes watched him, and the inquisitive
questioned him, extracting answers, to which they gave suggestions
all calculated to inflame his impotent wrath; and now a day came when
the cottage at Finglecombe was turned topsy-turvy, and Derval, to his
utter bewilderment, was banished for some time to the parsonage.
The real Lord of Finglecombe had come in the shape of a baby-brother
to him--a baby whom the Rev. Asperges Laud made a little Christian by
the name of Rookleigh Greville Hampton.
And now, more than ever, as this little one had come, did the father
bless his increasing prospects in the acquisition of land, and in the
profits thereon, as, like the man in the _Canterbury Tales_,
"therefore loved he gold in special."
New hopes sprang up in the heart of Greville, and with the wealth he
seemed likely to acquire, he ceased to regret that which he had lost,
and to repine about the title of which his father and grandsire had
been, as he believed, illegally deprived.
But in the years to come this baby-brother was fated to have a
terrible and calamitous influence upon the destiny of Derval Hampton.
Greville Hampton was so successful in his speculations that he
actually hoped, in time, to make quite an estate of Finglecombe.
Money makes money, and thus he became a wealthy man; for true it is,
"that the thing we look forward to often comes to pass, but never in
the way we have imagined it."
His dreams of an El Dorado, and Mary's reading thereof, came back to
his memory, when he saw house after house being built in the little
dell that overlooked the sea; and he recalled her words, "Your riches
lie, not in California, but _here_ in Finglecombe." How prophetic
were her words!
Now that he was becoming wealthy, many persons who had held somewhat
aloof from him began to discover a hundred good qualities in him they
had never dreamed of before. Ladies had always admitted that he was
a more than ordinarily handsome man; their husbands--county
men--praised his seat on horseback, his manner and bearing, remarked
the cheerfulness and good nature expressed in his face, and began to
extol the great frankness of his manner, though, sooth to say, they
saw little of him; for he, remembering how they had ignored his
existence in the past, ignored theirs in the present time.
He steadily added acre to acre. A small, but pretty village,
approaching the dignity of a watering-place, had sprung up in the
lovely dell where the little cottage of Finglecombe stood, for it had
now given place to an imposing brick villa, which seemed to look
haughtily down on the humbler dwellings around, with its plate-glass
oriels, ogee gables, its handsome oaken porch of fanciful design, and
its sweeping approaches, rolled and gravelled between beautiful
shrubberies.
As wealth flowed in and brought back wonted luxuries with it, he
ceased to remember poor Mary's pathetic attempts at a little ornament
and refinement amid the humility of her later surroundings, for
Greville Hampton became a sorely changed man to all, and to Derval
especially.
Could Mary have dreamed that a day would ever come when her child
would pine for his father's love, as Derval pined in secret? But
under the cruel influence of the second wife and her little boy it
was so. Much of this, perhaps, arose from Hampton's absorption in
his own pursuits, so fearful was he of losing any time that might add
to his increasing store. Thus no word of endearment, of praise for
studious conduct, no caress cheered the lonely little boy, who saw
all such as his father could spare exacted by Mrs. Hampton for his
baby-brother, while her petty tyranny and aversion to himself grew
daily together, and a woman so petty, weak-minded, and
jealous--jealous even of the dead--found much to inflict in the round
of home life.
Once, during a protracted absence of his father--not that his
presence perhaps would have mattered much--his little pet dog was
taken from him, and sent away he knew not where, and when he wept and
clamoured for it, she beat him and pulled his ears till his head
ached. On another occasion she deprived him of his canary, as its
seed and chickweed "made a mess"; and then he felt--as when she sent
"mamma's big Dorking" to the spit--something like murder in his
little heart.
He rushed at her and contrived to inflict sundry kicks about her
ankles, which made her scream, and in a moment the strong and
athletic hand of his father was upon him.
"Ask instant pardon of your mamma, sir!" was the command.
"I won't--she is not my mamma."
"I tell you, sir, she is," and the blows fell like a hailstorm about
the head and shoulders of Derval. But not a tear came from his eyes
now; his lips were firmly compressed, his face was deadly pale, and
he regarded his father with a steady and unflinching eye.
"Go to your room, sir, and remain there till you are sent for."
Under this unjust treatment the boy became sullen and resentful;
thus, when a little pool he had constructed in the garden, to hold a
shoal of minnows, by her order was emptied and filled up, he revenged
himself by poodling her favourite Persian cat, the gift of her aunt,
Mrs. Rookleigh, and for this she resolved to inflict condign
punishment, with great form and ceremony.
She armed herself with her riding switch (for Greville now kept a
pretty pad for her) and desired the groom to bring Master Derval to
the stable, and as she did so, in her silly malignity, her very
handsome face had a very tiger-like expression, and she grasped the
jewelled handle of the switch resolutely in her large white hand.
"Lock the door on the inside," said she when Derval was brought
before her. "Off with his jacket and tie up his hands to the knob on
that heelpost."
And almost before Derval could realise the situation, he found
himself a prisoner, denuded of his jacket, a halter-rope looped round
his wrists, and himself "seized up," for deliberate punishment,
standing almost on tip-toe, and with considerable tension.
"Will that do, mum?" asked the groom, who thought the situation an
amusing one, "a rum start," as he afterwards said in the kitchen,
adding that he never thought so "handsome a lady could be so
downright savage."
Derval turned his head half round with an appealing expression on his
sweet boyish face--a look that reminded her of the expression of
Mary's eyes in her banished portrait,--but at that instant she swung
the elastic switch round, and it fell with a smart and stinging thud
upon his shoulders, which had no protection now save his little
shirt. Derval winced, but set his teeth firmly together, determined
to die rather than give her the satisfaction of hearing him cry out
or supplicate for mercy.
With steady and regular sweep the switch descended on Derval's
quivering shoulders again and again; but not a cry escaped him, and
enraged anew by his fortitude, or "obstinacy," as she deemed it, Mrs.
Hampton exerted herself afresh, and Derval, while clenching his teeth
and breathing hard, boy-like, thought of the cruel enchantress who
used to whip the bare back of the helpless young king of the Black
Isles in the Arabian Nights, and longed for some such punishment to
fall on his tormentor as fell on that remarkable lady.
We know not how many strokes were administered, but Mrs. Hampton was
becoming somewhat breathless, and the tension of the rope that bound
her victim to the heelpost seemed as if dragging his arms out of
their sockets.
"Do stop, please mum, the little lad is fainting," exclaimed the
groom.
"Nonsense, he is shamming, he is as cunning as a fox!' she exclaimed;
but it was as the groom said, for Derval's head drooped on his breast
and he hung on the rope like a dead weight, while no motion was made
by him.
"Untie him; dear me, I had no idea of this," said Mrs. Hampton,
becoming suddenly alarmed, while the groom released the passive hands
of Derval, and tenderly carried him into the stable-yard, where the
fresh air fanned his face, which was now bathed with cold water from
a fountain into which Mrs. Hampton dipped her cambric handkerchief.
"He will revive in a few minutes," said she, becoming certainly still
more alarmed at the pallor of his face and seeing that his eyes
remained closed.
"Lord, mum," said the groom, who rather enjoyed her growing terror,
"I hope we won't be having a crowner's 'quest in the house!"
"Fool!" said she, darting an angry look at the speaker, and then
applying her little bottle of aromatic vinegar to Derval's nostrils.
He revived, however, rapidly, put his jacket on, and walked sullenly
but unsteadily away.
For the first time in her life she feared her husband--was glad of
his absence, and hoped that Derval's back, which she anointed when he
was sound asleep, would bear no trace of what he had undergone when
Greville Hampton returned.
"Flogged like a black nigger for poodling a dirty cat--my eyes!" was
the comment of the groom, when relating the episode in the kitchen;
and poor old Patty Fripp wept tears of rage when she heard of it.
Derval's back was still stiff and painful, and his tender wrists were
excoriated, when his father returned a day or two after, but the idea
of complaining about what he had undergone never occurred to him; in
fact, he was too much accustomed to systematic ill-usage now.
He longed to be old enough to run away and be a soldier or a
sailor--he cared not which--and he would sit by his mother's grave
brooding over such thoughts, till led away by Mr. Asperges Laud, or
found by Patty Fripp.
As he grew older he became painfully conscious, however, of the
different treatment of his younger brother and himself; he saw how he
was permitted to go threadbare and shabby, with tattered cap and
seamy boots, while little Rookleigh--or Rook as he called him--was
kept like a princeling in purple and fine linen, and all the while
their father seemed careless or oblivious of the difference.
"I'll not stay here, Patty," said Derval one day in great soreness of
heart, while smarting under some new affront; "I'll run away."
"Run away, child, and let the Pixies or the Long Cripple get thee!"
exclaimed his old nurse.
But Derval had nearly ceased to fear these things now, and he had no
dread of any created thing, though he did shrink from the malice and
the severe and vindictive eyes of his stepmother, and from contending
with the low forces of her small and narrow mind.
Had Greville Hampton shown more, or even any remarkable preference
for his first-born than for little Rookleigh, there might have been
some reason for her jealousy though none for her cruelty; but so
absorbed was he, as we have said, in the novel and pleasant task of
money-making, that he never gave a thought at all to Derval.
As the latter approached boyhood, and Rookleigh childhood from mere
infancy, the continued difference in the treatment of both, in food,
raiment, and even in toys, was perceptible to all. Derval shunned
alike the dining-room and drawing-room, for _she_ was sure to be in
either one or other. He lurked in the stable, the gardens, on the
sea-shore, anywhere to be away from her, and his father never missed
him apparently.
Rookleigh, petted, master, and more than master of the establishment,
grew up a froward, petulant, sullen and cunning child--a greedy one
too, who ate his cakes and sweetmeats in secrecy and haste, sharing
none and nothing with his elder brother or anyone else; and in many
ways, as her own peculiar rearing, he was becoming the counterpart of
his mother.
Again and again had the latter hinted at sending Derval away
somewhere, to hoard or be bound apprentice, she cared not to what;
but time passed on, till he attained his fourteenth year, and his
half-brother was seven years old, with his mother's chestnut hair and
her cunning yellow-hazel eyes, but with a strange shifty expression
in them.
At home in his father's house, Derval was beginning to feel homeless
now. Though impulsive and enthusiastic, what to him were now the
leafy rustle of the woods and apple-orchards of Finglecombe; the
trill of the lark above his head, the white-flecked azure of the
summer sky, the cornfields ripe for the sickle, the glare of the
golden sunshine, the soft curve of the distant hills, the bold rocky
coast of Devon, and the sea that lapped it?
He only longed to be far away from them all and from "that woman,"
for Finglecombe was no longer home to him; no welcome was there, and
love had departed.
Often did the boy visit the ruins of the old castle of Oakhampton,
and wander there, as he had been wont to do in happier times, when
led by his father's hand, longing to be the lord of it, or of some
such place--but of it more than all. For he had been told it was
theirs by right, and the coat of arms above the mouldering portal,
the shield with its three choughs, and the motto _Clarior e
Tenebris_, was theirs also.
The grim stone vaults, the dimly-lighted chamber, the roofless hall,
he peopled in imagination with mail-clad soldiers, their pikes
glittering and banners waving, as his mind filled with feudal fancies
and monastic longings, and he loved the old walls, which had been the
cradle of his race, especially when they, and the masses of
dark-green ivy that clothed them, were steeped in the redness of the
setting sun, and the gathering shadows of evening added to their
melancholy, their stillness, and gloom.
He felt his heart swell with romance and pride, as he recalled all
his father and even Patty Fripp had told him of the Hamptons of other
days, and of the rights he had lost, and bold and daring were the
fancies that filled the mind of the brave boy at times, for he was
now at the age when all life is illusion.
The sea-shore was his other favourite resort, and he spent hours
there listening to the lap, lapping of the waves upon the shingle,
and marvelling of other lands that were far, far away; and there was
one morning, the excitement of which he never forgot, when a nameless
and unknown wreck was found floating in the bay, a mastless and
battered hulk--battered by the fury of some great storm, in which the
water had contended with the spirits of the air, till all on board
had perished.
Another haunt was a ruined and unused mill at Mill-brook, where the
old wheel, covered with green moss and grey lichens, looked so
picturesque, while the brook foamed and boiled unheeded beneath it,
and some ancient trees with drooping branches cast a shadow over the
ivied walls, where all, so busy once, was now silent, and made up a
picture of which Derval never wearied in his childish rambles, though
the pixies were said to grind their corn there at night, when the old
wheel, so silent and still by day, was seen revolving furiously in
the light of the moon.
Thus, a strange and shadowy expression--induced by his
loneliness--began to come into the boy's eyes, as if he had thoughts
no one understood, or cared to understand, and as if by day he
dreamed of things unthought of by others. Mr. Asperges Laud saw all
this in his face, and longed to see the little lad away from
Finglecombe and its influence, and the wish was likely to be soon
gratified.