'WHAT GREAT ONES DO, THE LESS WILL PRATTLE OF.'
A year had gone by since James Penwyn met his death by the lonely river
at Eborsham, and again Maurice Clissold spent his summer holiday in a
walking tour. This time he was quite alone. Pleasant and social though
he was, he did not make friendships lightly or quickly. In the year
that was gone he had found no friend to replace James Penwyn. He had
plenty of agreeable acquaintances, knew plenty of men who were glad
to dine with him or to give him a dinner. He was famous already, in a
small way, at the literary club where he spent many of his evenings
when he was in London, and men liked to hear him talk, and prophesied
fair things for his future as a man of letters, all the more surely
because he was not called upon to write for bread, but could follow
the impulse that moved him, and wait, were it ever so long, for the
moment of inspiration; never forced to spur the jaded steed, or work
the too willing horse to death.
Not one among the comrades he liked well enough for a jovial evening,
or a cosy dinner, had crept into his heart like the lad he had sworn to
cherish in the ears of a dying woman five years ago. So when the roses
were in bloom, and London began to look warm and dusty, and the parks
had faded a little from their vernal green, Maurice Clissold set forth
alone upon a voyage of adventure, with a pocket Shakespeare and a quire
or so of paper in his battered, old leathern knapsack, and just so much
clothing and linen as might serve him for his travels.
Needless to say that he avoided that northern city of Eborsham, where
such sudden grief had come upon him, and all that route which he had
trodden only a year ago with the light-hearted, hopeful lad who now
slept his sweetest sleep in one of the vaults at Kensal Green, beside
the mother he had loved and mourned.
Instead of northward, to the land of lakes and mountains, Maurice went
due west. Many a time had he and James Penwyn talked of the days they
were to spend together down at the old place in Cornwall, and behold!
that visit to Penwyn Manor, deferred in order that James should see the
Lake country, was destined never to be paid. Never were those two to
walk together by the Atlantic, never to scale Tintagel's rugged height,
or ramble among the rocks of Bude.
Maurice had a curious fancy for seeing the old home from which death
had ousted James Penwyn. He might have gone as a visitor to the Manor
House had he pleased, for Churchill had been extremely civil to him
when they last met at the funeral, and had promised him a hearty
welcome to Penwyn whenever he liked to come there; but Mr. Clissold
infinitely preferred to go as an unknown pedestrian—knapsack on
shoulder—having first taken the trouble to ascertain that Churchill
Penwyn and his beautiful young wife were in London, where they had,
for this season, a furnished house in Upper Brook Street. He saw
their names in the list of guests at a fashionable reception, and
knew that the coast would be clear, and that he could roam about the
neighbourhood of his dead friend's ancestral home without let or
hindrance. He went straight to Plymouth by an express train, crossed
the Tamar, and pursued his journey on foot, at a leisurely pace,
lingering at all the prettiest spots—now spending a day or two at some
rustic wayside inn—sketching a little, reading a little, writing a
little, thinking and dreaming a great deal.
It was an idle fancy that had brought him here, and he gave a free
rein to all other idle fancies that seized him by the way. It was a
morbid fancy, perhaps, for it must needs be but a melancholy pleasure,
at best, to visit the domain which his friend had never enjoyed, to
remember so many boyish schemes unfulfilled, so many bright hopes
snapped short off by the shears of Atropos.
The long blue line of sea, and the wide moorland were steeped in
the golden light of a midsummer afternoon when Maurice drew near
Penwyn Manor. The scene was far more lonely than he had imagined it.
Measureless ocean stretched before him, melting into the hazy summer
sky—sea and heaven so near of a colour that it was hard to tell where
the water ended and the sky began—measureless hills around him—and,
except the white sheep yonder, making fleecy dots upon the side of the
topmost hill, no sign of life. He had left the village of Penwyn behind
him by a good two miles, but had not yet come in sight of the Manor
House, though he had religiously followed the track pointed out to him
by the hostess of the little inn—a mere cottage—where he left his
knapsack, and where he had been respectfully informed that he could not
have a bed.
'At the worst I can sleep on the lee side of one of these hills,' he
said to himself. 'It can hardly be very cold, even at night, in this
western climate.'
He walked a little further on, upon a narrow footpath high above the
sea level. On his right hand there were wide corn-fields, with here and
there an open tract of turnip or mangold; on his left only the wild
moorland pastures, undulating like a sea of verdure. The ground had
dipped a little while ago, and as it rose again, with a gentle ascent,
Maurice Clissold saw the chimney-stacks of the Manor House between him
and the sea.
It was a substantial-looking house, built of greyish stone, a long
low building, with grounds that stretched to the edge of the cliff,
sheltered by a belt of fir and evergreen oak. The blue sea showed
in little patches of gleaming colour through the dark foliage, and
the spicy odour of the pines perfumed the warm, still air. In its
utter loneliness the house had a gloomy look, despite the grandeur
of its situation, on this bold height above the sea. The grounds
were extensive, but to Maurice Clissold they seemed somewhat barren;
orderly, beyond doubt, and well timbered, but lacking the smiling
fertility, the richness of ornament, which a student of Horace and
Pliny desired in his ideal garden.
But Mr. Clissold did not make acquaintance with the inside of the
shrubbery or gardens without some little difficulty. His footpath led
him ultimately into a villanous high road, just in front of the gates
of Penwyn, so the landlady of the village inn had not sent him astray.
There was a lodge beside the gate, a square stone cottage, covered
with myrtle, honeysuckle, and roses, from which emerged an elderly
female, swarthy of aspect, her strongly marked countenance framed in a
frill cap, which gave an almost grotesque look to that tawny visage.
'Can I see the house and grounds, ma'am?' asked Maurice, approaching
this somewhat grim-looking personage with infinite civility.
He had a vague idea that he must have seen that face before, or
imagined it in a dream, so curiously did it remind him of some past
occasion in his life—what, he knew not.
'The house is never shown to strangers,' answered the woman.
'I know Mr. Penwyn, and will leave my card for him.'
'You'd better apply to the housekeeper. As to the grounds, my
granddaughter will take you round, if you like.—Elspeth,' called the
woman, and a black-eyed girl of twelve appeared at the cottage door,
like a sprite at a witch's summons.
'Take this gentleman round the gardens,' said the old woman, and
vanished, before Maurice could quite make up his mind as to whether
he had seen a face like that in actual flesh and blood or only on a
painter's canvas.
The girl, who had an impish look, he thought, with her loose black
locks, scarlet petticoat, and scanty scarlet shawl pinned tightly
across her bony shoulders, led the way through a wild-looking
shrubbery, where huge blocks of granite lay among the ferns, which
grew with rank luxuriance between the straight pine-stems. A sandy
path wound in and out among trees and shrubs, till Maurice and his
guide emerged upon a spacious lawn at the back of the house, whose
many windows blinked at them, shining in the western sun. There were
no flower-beds on the lawn, but there was a small square garden, in
the Dutch style, on one side of the house, and a bowling-green on
the other. A terraced walk stretched in front of the windows, raised
three or four feet above the level of the lawn, and guarded by a stone
balustrade somewhat defaced by time. A fine old sun-dial marked the
centre of the Dutch garden, where the geometrical flower-beds were
neatly kept, and where Maurice found a couple of gardeners, elderly
men both, at work, weeding and watering in a comfortable, leisurely
manner.
'What a paradise for the aged!' thought Maurice; 'the woman at the
lodge was old, the gardeners are old, everything about the place is
old, except this impish girl, who looks the oldest of all, with her
evil black eyes and vinegar voice.'
Mr. Clissold had not come so far without entering into conversation
with the damsel. He had asked her a good many questions about the
place, and the people to whom it belonged. But her answers were of the
briefest, and she affected the profoundest ignorance about everything
and everybody.
'You've not been here very long, I suppose, my girl,' he said at last,
with some slight sense of irritation, 'or you'd know a little more
about the place.'
'I haven't been here much above six months.'
'Oh! But your grandmother has lived here all her life, I dare say?'
'No, she hasn't. Grandmother came when I did.'
'And where did you both come from?'
'Foreign parts,' answered the girl.
'Indeed! you both speak very good English for people who come from
abroad.'
'I didn't say we were foreigners, did I?' asked the girl, pertly. 'If
you want to ask any more questions about the place or the people, you'd
better ask 'em of the housekeeper, Mrs. Darvis; and if you want to see
the house you must ask lief of her; and this is the door you'd better
ring at, if you want to see her.'
They were at one end of the terrace, and opposite a half-glass door
which opened into a small and darksome lobby, where the effigies
of a couple of ill-used ancestors frowned from the dusky walls, as
if indignant at being placed in so obscure a corner. Maurice rang
the bell, and after repeating that operation more than once, and
waiting with consummate patience for the result, he was rewarded
by the appearance of an elderly female, homely, fresh-coloured,
comfortable-looking, affording altogether an agreeable contrast to
the tawny visage of the lodge-keeper, whose countenance had given the
traveller an unpleasant feeling about Penwyn Manor.
Mr. Clissold stated his business, and after spelling over his card and
deliberating a little, Mrs. Darvis consented to admit him, and to show
him the house.
'We used to show it to strangers pretty freely till the new Squire came
into possession,' she said, 'but he's rather particular. However, if
you're a friend of his——'
'I know him very well; and poor James Penwyn was my most intimate
friend.'
'Poor Mr. James! I never saw him but once, when he came down to see the
place soon after the old Squire's death. Such a frank, open-hearted
young gentleman, and so free-spoken. It was a terrible blow to all of
us down here when we read about the murder. Not but what the present
Mr. Penwyn is a liberal master and a kind landlord, and a good friend
to the poor. There couldn't be a better gentleman for Penwyn.'
'I am glad to hear you give him so good a character,' said Maurice.
The girl Elspeth had followed him into the house, uninvited, and
stood in the background, open-eyed, with her thin lips drawn tightly
together, listening intently.
'As for Mrs. Penwyn,' said the housekeeper, 'why, she's a lady in a
thousand! She might be a queen, there's something so grand about her.
Yet she's so affable that she couldn't pass one of the little children
at the poor school without saying a kind word; and so thoughtful for
the poor that they've no need to tell her their wants, she provides for
them beforehand.'
'A model Lady Bountiful,' exclaimed Maurice.
'You may run home to your grandmother, Elspeth,' said Mrs. Darvis.
'I was to show the gentleman the grounds,' answered the damsel, 'he
hasn't half seen 'em yet.'
In her devotion to the service she had undertaken, the girl followed at
their heels through the house, absorbing every word that was said by
Mrs. Darvis or the stranger.
The house was old, and somewhat gloomy, belonging to the Tudor
school of architecture. The heavy stonework of the window-frames,
the lozenge-shaped mullions, the massive cross-bars, were eminently
adapted to exclude light. Even what light the windows did admit was
in many places tempered by stained glass emblazoned with the arms and
mottoes of the Penwyn family, in all its ramifications, showing how
it had become entangled with other families, and bore the arms of
heiresses on its shield, until that original badge, which Sir Thomas
Penwyn, the crusader, had first carried atop of his helmet, was almost
lost among the various devices in a barry of eight.
The rooms were spacious, but far from lofty, the chimney-pieces
of carved oak and elaborate workmanship, the paneling between
mantel-board and ceiling richly embellished, and over all the principal
chimney-pieces appeared the Penwyn arms and motto, '_J'attends_.'
There was much old tapestry, considerably the worse for wear, for the
house had been sorely neglected during that dreary interval between the
revolution and the days of George the Third, when the Penwyn family
had fallen into comparative poverty, and the fine old mansion had been
little better than a farmhouse. Indeed, brawny agricultural labourers
had eaten their bacon and beans and potato pasty in the banqueting
hall, now the state dining-room, handsomely furnished with plain and
massive oaken furniture by the old Squire, Churchill's grandfather.
This room was one of the largest in the house, and looked towards the
sea. Drawing-room, music-room, library, and boudoir were on the garden
side, with windows opening on the terrace. The drawing-room and boudoir
had been refurnished by Churchill, since his marriage.
'The old Squire kept very little company, and hardly ever went inside
any of those rooms,' said Mrs. Darvis. 'In summer he used to sit in
the yew-tree bower, on the bowling-green, after dinner; and in winter
he used to smoke his pipe in the steward's room, mostly, and talk to
his bailiff. The dining-room was the only large room he ever used, so
when Mr. Churchill Penwyn came he found the drawing-room very bare
of furniture, and what there was was too shabby for his taste, so he
had that and the boudoir furnished, after the old style, by a London
upholsterer, and put a grand piano and a harmonium in the music-room;
and the drawing-room tapestry is all new, made by the Goblins, Mrs.
Penwyn told me, which, I suppose, was only her fanciful way of putting
it.'
The dame opened the door as she spoke, and admitted Maurice into this
sacred apartment, where the chairs and sofas were shrouded with holland.
The tapestry was an exquisite specimen of that patient art. Its subject
was the story of Arion. The friendly dolphin, and the blue summer sea,
the Greek sailors, Periander's white-walled palace, lived upon the
work. Triangular cabinets of carved ebony adorned the corners of the
room, and were richly furnished with the Bellingham bric-a-brac, the
only dower Sir Nugent had been able to give his daughter. The chairs
and sofas, from which Mrs. Darvis lifted a corner of the holland
covering for the visitor's gratification, were of the same dark wood,
upholstered with richest olive-green damask, of mediæval diaper
pattern. Window-curtains of the same sombre hue harmonized admirably
with the brighter colours of the tapestry. The floor was darkest
oak, only covered in the centre with a Persian carpet. The boudoir,
which opened out of the drawing-room, was furnished in exactly the
same style, only here the tapestried walls told the story of Hero and
Leander.
'I believe it was all Mrs. Penwyn's taste,' said the housekeeper,
when Maurice had admired everything. '"Her rooms upstairs are a
picture—nothing of character with the house," the head upholsterer
said. "There's so few ladies have got any notion of character," he
says. "They'll furnish an old manor-house with flimsy white and gold
of the Lewis Quince style, only fit for a drawing-room in the Shamps
Eliza; and if you ask them why, they'll say because it's fashionable,
and they like it. Mrs. Penwyn is an artist," says the upholsterer's
foreman.'
Maurice did not hurry his inspection, finding the housekeeper
communicative, and the place full of interest. He heard a great deal
about the old Squire, Nicholas Penwyn, who had reigned for forty years,
and for whom his dependants had evidently felt a curious mixture of
fear, respect, and affection.
'He was a just man,' said Mrs. Darvis, 'but stern; and it was but
rarely he forgave any one that once offended him. It took a good deal
to offend him, you know, sir; but when he did take offence, the wound
rankled deep. I've heard our old doctor say the Squire had bad flesh
for healing. He never got on very well with his eldest son, Mr. George,
though he was the handsomest of the three brothers, and the best of
them too, to my mind.'
'What made them disagree?' asked Maurice. They had made the round
of the house by this time, and the traveller had seated himself
comfortably on a broad window-seat in the entrance hall, a window
through which the setting sun shone bright and warm. Mrs. Darvis sat
on a carved oak bench by the fireplace, resting after her unwonted
exertions. Elspeth stood at a respectful distance, her arms folded
demurely in her little red shawl, listening to the housekeeper's
discourse.
'Well, you see, sir,' returned Mrs. Darvis, in her slow, methodical
way, 'the old Squire would have liked Mr. George to stop at home, and
take an interest in the estate, for he was always adding something to
the property, and his heart and mind were wrapped up in it, as you may
say. Folks might call him a miser, but it was not money he cared for;
it was land, and to add to the importance of the family, and to bring
the estate back to what it had been when this house was built. Now Mr.
George didn't care about staying at home. It was a lazy, sleepy kind
of life, he said, and he had set his heart upon going into the army.
The Squire gave way at last, and bought Mr. George a commission, but it
was in a foot regiment, and that went rather against the grain with the
young gentleman, for he wanted to go into the cavalry. So they didn't
part quite so cordial like as they might have done when Mr. George
joined his regiment and went out to India.'
'You were here at the time, I suppose?'
'Lord love you, sir, I was almost born here. My mother was housekeeper
before me. She was the widow of a tradesman in Truro, very respectably
connected. Mrs. Penwyn, the Squire's lady, took me for her own maid
when I was only sixteen years of age, and I nursed her all through her
last illness twelve years afterwards, and when my poor mother died I
succeeded her as housekeeper, and I look forward to dying in the same
room where she died, and where I've slept for the last twenty years,
when my own time comes, please God.'
'So the Squire and his eldest son parted bad friends?'
'Not exactly bad friends, sir; but there was a coolness between
them; anybody could see that. Mr. George—or the Captain, as we used
generally to call him after he went into the army—hadn't been gone
a twelvemonth before there was a quarrel between the Squire and his
second son, Mr. Balfour, on account of the young gentleman marrying
beneath him, according to his father's ideas. The lady was a brewer's
daughter, and the Squire said Mr. Balfour was the first Penwyn who had
ever degraded himself by marrying trade. Mr. Balfour was not much above
twenty at the time, but he took a high hand about the matter, and never
came to Penwyn Manor after his marriage.'
'How was it that the eldest son never married?' asked Maurice.
'Ah, sir, "thereby hangs a tale," as the saying is. Mr. George
came home from India after he'd been away above ten years, and had
distinguished himself by his good conduct and his courage, people
told me who had read his name in the papers during the war. He looked
handsomer than ever, I thought, when he came home, though he was
browned by the sun; and he was just as kind and pleasant in his manner
as he had been when he was only a lad. Well, sir, the Squire seemed
delighted to have him back again, and made a great deal of him. They
were always together about the place, and the Squire would lean on his
son's arm sometimes, when he had walked a long way and was a trifle
tired. It was the first time any one had ever seen him accept anybody's
support. They used to sit over their wine together of an evening,
talking and laughing, and as happy as father and son could be together.
All of us—we were all old servants—felt pleased to see it; for we were
all fond of Mr. George, and looked to him as our master in days to come.'
'And pray how long did this pleasant state of things endure?'
'Two or three months, sir; and then all at once we saw a cloud. Mr.
George began to go out shooting early in the morning—it was the autumn
season just then—and seldom came home till dark; and the Squire seemed
silent and grumpy of an evening. None of us could guess what it all
meant, for we had heard no high words between the two gentlemen, till
all at once, by some roundabout way, which I can't call to mind now,
the mystery came out. There was an elderly gentleman living at Morgrave
Park, a fine old place on the other side of Penwyn village, with an
only daughter, an heiress, and very much thought of. Mr. Morgrave and
his daughter had been over to luncheon two or three times since Mr.
George came home, and he and the Squire had dined at Morgrave Park more
than once; and I suppose Miss Morgrave and our Mr. George had met at
other places, for they seemed quite friendly and intimate. She was a
fine-looking young lady, but rather masculine in her ways—very fond
of dogs and horses, and such like, and riding to hounds all the season
through. But whatever she did was right, according to people's notions,
on account of her being an heiress.'
'And George Penwyn had fallen in love with this dashing young lady?'
'Not a bit of it, sir. It came to our knowledge, somehow, that the
Squire wanted Mr. George to marry her, and had some reason to believe
that the young lady would say "yes," if he asked her. But Mr. George
didn't like her. She wasn't his style, he said; at which the Squire
was desperately angry. "Join Penwyn and Morgrave, and you'll have the
finest estate in the county," he said, "an estate fit for a nobleman. A
finer property than the Penwyns owned in the days of James the First."
Mr. George wouldn't listen. "I see what it is," the Squire cried, in
a rage, "you want to disgrace me by some low marriage, to marry a
shopkeeper's daughter, like your brother Balfour. But, by heavens! if
you do, I'll alter my will, and leave the estate away from my race!
It didn't matter so much in Balfour's case, neither he nor his are
ever likely to be masters here, but I won't stand rebellion from you!
I won't have a pack of kennel-born mongrels rioting here when I'm
mouldering in my grave!"'
'What a sweet old gentleman!'
'Mr. George swore that he had no thought of making a low marriage, no
thought of marrying at all yet awhile. He was happy enough as he was,
he said, but he wouldn't marry a woman he didn't like, even to please
his father. So they went on pretty quietly together for a little while
after this, the Squire grumpy, but not saying much. And then Mr. George
went up to London, and from there he went to join his regiment in
Ireland, where they were stationed after they came from India, and he
was about at different places for two or three years, during which time
Miss Morgrave got married to a nobleman, much to the Squire's vexation.
But I'm afraid I'm tiring you, sir, with such a long story.'
'Not at all. I like to hear it.'
'Well, Mr. George came back one summer. He was home on leave for a
little while before he went on foreign service, and he and the Squire
were pretty friendly again. It was a very hot summer, and Mr. George
used to spend most of his time out of doors, fishing or idling away
the days somehow. The Squire had a bad attack of gout that year, and
was kept pretty close in his room. You couldn't expect a young man to
sit indoors all day, of course, but I've often wondered what Master
George could find to amuse him among these solitary hills of ours, or
down among the rocks by the sea. He stayed all through the summer,
however, and seemed happy enough, and at the beginning of the winter
he went away to join his regiment, which was ordered off to Canada. I
was thankful to remember afterwards that he and the Squire parted good
friends.'
'Why?' asked Maurice.
'Because they were never to meet again. Mr. George was killed in a
fight with the savages six months after he went away. I remember the
letter coming that brought the news one fine summer evening. The Squire
was standing in this hall, just by that window, when Miles, the old
butler, gave him the letter. He just read the beginning of it, and
fell down as if he had been struck dead. It was his first stroke of
apoplexy, and he was never quite the same afterwards, though he was a
wonderful old gentleman to the last.'
END OF VOL. I.
J. AND W. RIDER, PRINTERS, LONDON.
Transcriber's Note
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations
in hyphenation have been standardized but all other spelling and
punctuation remains unchanged.
Contents to Volume I: Page number for Chapter XIII corrected.
End of Project Gutenberg's A Strange World, Volume 1 (of 3), by M. E. Braddon