Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source:
https://books.google.com/books?id=2mhVAAAAYAAJ
(Princeton University)
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
CHARLES TYRRELL;
OR,
THE BITTER BLOOD.
BY
G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.
AUTHOR OF "THE HUGUENOT," "THE ROBBER," "MARY
OF BURGUNDY," &c., &c.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
NEW YORK:
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS,
FRANKLIN SQUARE.
1855.
CHARLES TYRRELL;
OR,
THE BITTER BLOOD.
CHAPTER I.
Among all the many fine and beautiful figures and modes of reasoning
that the universe in which we dwell has afforded for the illustration
of the bright hope that is within us of a life renewed beyond the
tomb, there is none more beautiful or more exquisite, that I know of,
than that which is derived from the seasons; from the second life that
bursts forth in spring in objects apparently dead, and from the
shadowing forth in the renovation of everything around us of that
after destiny which divine revelation calls upon our faith to believe
shall yet be ours. The trees, that have faded and remained dark and
gray through the long, dreary lapse of winter, clothe themselves again
in green in the spring sunshine, and every leaf and every hue speaks
of life. The birds that were mute sing again as tunefully as ever; the
flowers that were trampled down and faded burst forth once more, in
freshness and in beauty; the streams break from the icy chains that
held them, and the glorious sun himself comes wandering back from his
far journey, giving summer and warmth, and fertility and magnificence
to everything around. All that we see breathes of the same hope;
everything that we see rekindles into life.
But, on the other hand, there are things within us that awake no more;
there are feelings in our hearts that, passed away, return not; there
are thoughts that can never be thought again: there are hopes that,
once put out, are put out for ever. These are the things that speak to
us of death! These are the things that would darken our hopes of
immortality, were we not to draw from them inferences of a higher
state of being, where love, and confidence, and happiness are not
delusions; where the plant of enjoyment has not its root in the earth,
and where the flowers of life wither not away. There are certainly
changes in our very nature which would fill our bosoms with many dark
and awful doubts, did we not find that, in the well-regulated mind,
the bright and intoxicating dreams of early youth, the love that has
been crushed or thwarted, the confidence that has been a thousand
times betrayed, may give place to firmer and more solid things,
feelings not so exquisite, but more deep and powerful; thoughts not so
brilliant, but more just and true, did we not find that, with proper
cultivation, the flowers made way for fruit; did we not find that
every stage of existence would have, but for our own faults, its
proper class of enjoyments, and that every stage but leads us on
towards an appreciation of that last noblest state of being, for which
all the rest are but a preparation. If we are immortal, is it not well
that we should find earth's flowers fade? If we are immortal, is it
not well that we should find earth's hopes deceive us? If we are
immortal, is it not well that we should learn to regret the passing
away of bright capabilities in our own nature, which are sure to be
renewed extended, multiplied in heaven?
The flowers that have been torn up can never take root again on earth;
but, nevertheless, there does occasionally come a time, there do
occasionally occur events, by which all the pain and agony that our
heart has suffered in disappointment of trust or expectation, is more,
far more than made up; and though, perhaps, the same flower is not to
be refreshed, brighter plants blossom in its stead, and give us back
our confidence.
In a pleasant part of Hampshire, where I have passed many of the
bright and sunshiny days of my early existence, not very far from the
seacoast, there stands a house with which is connected three or four
legends, each of a very interesting character, but from which I choose
one as having reference to times and events within my own remembrance.
It is a very large and convenient house, without any pretensions to
architectural decoration, with no relationship to any style
whatsoever, and constructed upon no principles except those implanted
by nature, which teaches man to construct for himself a dwelling the
best adapted to his own wants and conveniences. It had, in fact, at
one time been a small house, built indeed with regard to no economy of
space, but only with regard to the comfort of its first owners, who
required but few apartments, yet made them as roomy as could be
desired. It had been added to by about three generations, who,
increasing in wealth and luxury, demanded more accommodation; and
thus, though on one side of the building some degree of order and
regularity was still preserved--that is to say, the windows were all
in a line, and of the same number in each of the stories--on the other
side they had been posted wherever pleasure or convenience suggested;
so that the northern front was like a child's first drawing of a
house, in which a window and a door are put in wherever a place is
found open for them.
At the time I knew the building it was covered with stucco on the
outside, and in appearance was as unlike a place in which tragedy or
romance ever had been, or ever was likely to be enacted, as it is
possible to conceive. There was a cheerfulness about its aspect, a
bright, whitewashed, unsentimental gayety of appearance that spoke of
blithe and joyful things; but, at the same time, it was relieved from
the harshness and vulgarity with which whitewashed buildings are
generally invested by the scenery that surrounded it, by the pleasant
irregularity of its aspect, and by a number of old chimneys that came
peeping over the parapets in odd places where nobody expected them. It
was imbosomed, too, in a deep wood, which came up to three out of the
four angles of the building, leaving long sunshiny lawns--only broken
here and there by a fine tree with a garden-seat beneath it--sweeping
up to the three principal fronts of the house.
The fourth front had once been the principal one; but, according to
the plan of modern improvement, which in so many instances conceives
that it produces all that can be desired by turning the back part of
things foremost, that front had now been dedicated to the offices.
From it wound away a long wide avenue of fine old elm-trees, like that
which we see so frequently leading up to an antique French chateau;
and I remember, in my young days, I used to dispute with myself in the
summer and the winter, as I rode up the broad green road between the
two rows, which looked the best and most congenial to the scene, those
fine trees in the dark green fulness of their midsummer clothing, or
in the cold, gray, solemn bareness of the winter, when all the bright
things that had decorated them through the rest of the year were cast
down withering at their feet, like the passing pleasures of existence
cast off from a mind preparing for a tomb. I believe I then preferred
the summer aspect, perhaps I might now find more harmony in the
winter.
The woods that surrounded the building on the other sides were, in
fact, kept as pleasure-grounds. They were full of winding walks,
cleanly and carefully swept, though the extent was very great; while
underneath the beeches and the elms, on either side of those paths,
grew up an abundance of wild flowers, the plain white strawberry, the
graceful and beloved plant of the winds, the columbine, the violet,
and the primrose.
One of those walks which led away towards the south, at a distance of
half a mile from the house, divided into two. The left-hand branch,
which followed the original direction, brought me to another broad
walk, which faced the risen sun upon the edge of the wood; and while
the fine beech-trees, sweeping down with their long branches like a
penthouse, sheltered it entirely from the sun in the summer, and from
the rain in the spring and the autumn, they did not at all obstruct
the view over some sunny fields to another little wood beyond, over
which again rose up Harbury Hill, the chief landmark of the country
round about.
The other branch of the road took a direction somewhat to the west,
and at the distance of about a quarter of a mile, or a little more,
from the place where the two separated, it reached the wall of the
kitchen-garden, which lay imbosomed in the deepest part of the wood,
containing within itself a space of about two acres, surrounded by
high brick walls on all sides. There were two doors in this wall, the
one exactly opposite to the path we have mentioned, the other on the
other side. Besides this, however, there was a way in and out through
the back of one of the two gardeners' cottages, which were built
against the wall in the inside.
On the outside of the wall all was fair and smooth, no building of any
kind being suffered to deface the external appearance of that high and
imposing mass of lichen-covered brickwork, except--alas! that there
should be an exception to everything in this world--except one little
solitary toolshed, of the ugliest and most anomalous aspect, stuck on
like an imposthume on the face of the tall wall, and offending the eye
on the very first approach to the garden. Many and many a time have I
petitioned that it should be removed; but there was some impediment in
the very nature of things, it would seem, which prevented the request
from being attended to.
The tools that were kept therein were not, it would seem, a part and
parcel of the gardener's utensils. They belonged to the woodmen, and,
of course, the gardener would not give them admission within his
domain. The place where the great bulk of the woodmen's tools were
kept was at the opposite side of the wood, a mile and a half off. It
was very handy to have the tools near; and it would seem, that for
various reasons, the nature of which I could never find out, or, at
least, not understand, there was no place whatsoever in the wood round
about which was so convenient as that spot against the garden wall.
Such, at least, was the report of the woodman; and, of course, as he
was a very veracious person, and somewhat surly withal, I was bound to
believe him, and say nothing more upon the subject.
Now let not the reader suppose that either in the long and vague
proemium with which this chapter opens, and in which he will find
hereafter some reference to the tale; or in this minute and curious
description of the house and grounds, especially of the paths leading
to the back walk and the garden, that I have been led away by the vain
desire of reading homilies to those who will not hear, or of dwelling
with a sort of doting pleasure upon scenes which I loved in my youth,
and about which few care or are interested besides myself. Every
author, whose fingers are worthy to hold a pen, has an object in each
sentence that he writes; and--although in the multitude of characters
which throng the world, and the difficulty of ascertaining men's real
feelings from their outward appearances, it would be impossible to put
the right direction upon each epistle--every half page of every book
that is worth reading is addressed to some particular person or class
of persons, who are supposed by the author to be capable of
understanding and appreciating him. The description that we have
given, however, has a more general purpose, and the reader is besought
earnestly to remember every word of it, or, at all events, to put a
piece of paper in the place, inasmuch as, without having that scene
constantly before his eyes, and knowing and comprehending it all as
well as if he had walked through it a hundred times, he cannot clearly
and distinctly understand the matter that is to follow.
Having given an account of the place, it now behooves us to speak of
those who inhabited it; and certainly, at the period I speak of--I do
not mean that period within my own personal acquaintance with the
spot--it offered anything but an illustration of the beautiful words
of Hooker in his description of the celestial dwelling-places.
Nevertheless, we shall make the quotation, if it were but for the
pleasure of transcribing those beautiful words, independent of the
splendid opposition which they afford to all that we are about to
describe. "Angels," he says, "are spirits immaterial and intellectual.
The glorious inhabitants of those sacred palaces, where there is
nothing but light and immortality, no shadow of matter for tears,
discontentments, griefs, and uncomfortable passions to work upon; but
all joy, tranquillity, and peace, even for ever do dwell."
This may be taken for a grand description of everything which that
dwelling was not. Beautiful as was the scene, and pleasant as all the
accessories round about, there was seldom anything like peace and
tranquillity within. The pheasants came strutting upon the lawns, the
timid hare lost a part of her shyness, and scarcely deigned to stand
erect and listen with elevated ears for the half-heard sound; the
squirrel crossed from one plantation to another within twenty yards of
the windows; all the habits of the sylvan world around spoke of peace
and tranquillity. But peace was not within. The truth was, that the
inmates of that dwelling were too busy in making war upon each other
to turn their attacks upon the people of the woods without.
But it is time that we should enter into more specific details, and
bring the characters, one by one, before the reader.
Sir Francis Tyrrell, the proprietor of that mansion and of some very
large estates in that vicinity, was in possession, besides, of a
baronetcy, derived in a direct line by himself from an ancestor who
had received it at the time whereat that mixed breed between the baron
and the knight was first propagated. His ancestry was also distinctly
traceable through several centuries before, producing a great number
of very ornamental people in former times, who shone in the tiltyard,
the tournament, and the battle-field; and, in later times, more than
one who had received the high distinction of swinging in effigy upon a
signpost, either as the distinctive mark of the house, or a
recommendation to the beer within.
There were various of his progenitors, indeed, whose names were but
lightly touched upon in the family history; they were not omitted, as
that would have caused a breach in the line, but belonging to that
numerous class of persons who may be best described by saying, _the
less said about them the better_, those who compiled the genealogy had
been cautious in dealing with them. Deeper investigations, however,
would have shown that these members, who met with scanty mention, had
generally encountered fates more or less tragical; one had been killed
by a blow of an axe received from a woodman; another had been almost
torn to pieces by a mob at the end of the reign of James II., and died
of the injuries received; three or four of them had been killed in
duels, and one had been shot by a soldier under his command, who was
afterward executed for the offence.
All these were certainly mentioned by the genealogist, and, in some
instances, their lamentable fate was commented on with praises of
their virtues, &c. But the causes of those duels, the provocation
given to the soldier, the woodman, and the mob, were not mentioned.
There were three in the line whose birth and death alone were
recorded; and it was shrewdly suspected by those who understood such
matters, that one, if not two, of these had perished by the hands of a
functionary of the law, while the other, or others, were supposed to
have taken their departure unsummoned to their long account.
On looking nearer still, it was found that, in the whole race, there
was a fierce and furious disposition, an impetuous and ungovernable
temper, which, combined with a general fearlessness of character and
heedlessness of consequences, formed that very moral constitution
which was best calculated to lead them into dangers, difficulties, and
even crimes. The man who had been killed by the axe had been proved to
have exasperated the unfortunate woodman to such a degree by his
intemperate violence and domineering pride, that a jury could not be
found to condemn the slayer, though an inquest had brought in a
verdict of murder upon the slain.
The same conduct was shown to have been the case in regard to him who
was torn to pieces by the mob, he having, in his magisterial capacity,
done anything but attempt to calm and quiet the sedition, but, on the
contrary, had done all that he could to exasperate, to irritate, and
to drive into madness. This was put forth, indeed, by his biographer
as a bold and valiant proceeding on his part; but there were others
who thought that it was only an evidence of the same furious,
irritable, scornful disposition which had made itself so remarkable in
the race.
The father of Sir Francis Tyrrell had differed very little from his
ancestors. He had been a bold, fearless, overbearing, and tyrannical
man; a soldier in his youth, a fox-hunter in his latter days; a despot
in his magisterial capacity, an irritating neighbour, and an
insufferable master of his house. He had been a very handsome man
withal; and, in order to prove his disregard for personal beauty, he
had married a young lady of the neighbourhood of considerable fortune,
but who certainly possessed few personal attractions. As a girl, she
had been silent, calm, unobtrusive, apparently thoughtful; in person,
little, dark, pale, with small, keen black eyes, and a somewhat
pointed nose. Her voice had been sharp, but not very musical; and
there was something in her whole demeanour which made the old
clergyman of the parish, who had known her from her youth, and who
was, moreover, somewhat waggishly disposed, declare, when he heard of
the marriage about to take place, that he was excessively glad of it,
for that she was just the wife for Sir John Tyrrell.
When they were once fairly married, more of the lady's character
appeared; not that she ever became more loquacious or loud-tongued
than she had been before; but Sir John very soon found that she had
always ready for any of his furious breakings forth of passion a calm,
quiet, stinging reply, in which she seemed to combine with diabolical
ingenuity everything that was most disagreeable for him to hear, and
to compress it into the fewest possible words. She had a particular
art, too, of modulating her voice, so that, in the midst of one of his
most furious and noisy fits of rage, her low, quiet tones made
themselves distinctly heard, and not one biting word was lost to his
ear.
Sir John was not a man to be frustrated even by this sort of warfare,
and he carried it on with his lady through the whole of his life; but
he was a candid man, and used occasionally to acknowledge that his
furious speeches and behaviour, compared with the quiet words and
demeanour of his wife, were as a drubbing with a crabstick to a cut
with a scythe.
The offspring of this hopeful union was Sir Francis Tyrrell, and well
might his biographer declare that he combined in his own person all
the virtues and qualities of his father and his mother: for, to an
ungovernable temper, such as had descended to him from his ancestors,
he added a sarcastic bitterness peculiarly his own.
Sir Francis Tyrrell was a learned and a literary man; in person
somewhat below the middle size, dark in complexion, with sharp
features and overhanging eyebrows, which, at the time I choose for
opening this tale, were grizzled with some long gray hairs, which from
time to time he industriously pulled out with tweezers, while they,
with a pertinacity worthy of him from whom they sprang, regularly grew
up again, longer, and grayer, and more prominent than ever. He wrote a
good deal at various times, and produced works marked by very superior
talents; and he also formed frequent theories, which were by no means
always correct, but which all displayed genius of a certain kind, and
considerable originality, if not perversity of thought. Of these works
and these theories Sir Francis was not a little vain, and this was one
of the most irritable points in his character. He could bear to be
touched upon almost all other subjects but those; or rather we might
say, that though it was not without danger that any one touched him
upon any subject, upon these he became quite furious.
His family were totally without what the phrenologists call the organ
of veneration. They had little respect for anything, and set out with
having no respect for themselves. This they concealed in their own
case, of course, as far as possible; but this want of respect never
failed to make itself manifest both in words and deeds, when it
referred to any member of their own family. Thus, Sir Francis was
heard to declare that his father was one of the greatest fools that
ever lived, and on being asked why, replied, "For marrying my mother."
"A man puts a lemon to a bottle of spirits," he said, "and people call
him a sensible fellow, and go to drink punch with him; but if a man
were to eat a whole lemon, plain people would say he was mad."
Again, on the occasion of his own marriage, he set out upon the
principle of finding somebody the direct reverse of her who had been
chosen by his father, declaring that he looked upon it as a duty to
his children. Such an event, he said, as the marriage of his father
and mother was sufficient to serve ten generations, and that he would
do his best to dilute the quintessence of bitterness which had been
hence produced. He chose, accordingly, a young lady from a distant
part of the country, possessed of little of no fortune, of a gay and
happy disposition, who had been brought up in great subjection to the
will of parents that were really kind to her, and who had a fund of
gentle and kindly feelings and good principles, but who was somewhat
imprudent and incautious of speech, and of a timid as well as of an
affectionate nature. From the first sight of Sir Francis Tyrrell, she
had rather disliked him than otherwise. He had gained a little by
attention upon her good graces, and upon her esteem by some
philanthropic doctrines which he put forth, with no desire, indeed, of
deceiving her or others, but solely because they were theories for
which he had a fondness, and in which his vanity was concerned.
His progress in her favour, however, had not arrived beyond the
dangerous point of indifference when he proposed himself to her
parents as her future husband. She shrank from the very idea; but he
was wealthy, bore a fair reputation, had, indeed, acquired a high
character as a man of honour and integrity, and her parents pressed
her so urgently to accept him, that she who was accustomed to yield to
them in all things, yielded to them in this also, and she became the
wife of a man that she did not love; though it is but fair to say,
that there was no other person for whom she had any decided
preference.
She married Sir Francis Tyrrell with the full desire and determination
to love him as much as she could, and to make him as happy as it was
in her power to do, and there were a variety of circumstances which
combined to render the first two years of their union tolerably happy.
In the first place, there were novelty and passion upon his side; in
the next place, her very gentleness was a fortress to her upon which
it was difficult to begin an attack; in the third place, her mildness
and placability were something so new to the conceptions of Sir
Francis, that they made him feel more or less ashamed of his own
violence, till he became more familiar with the qualities which at
first disarmed him.
But he was one of those who did not like to lead, but rather preferred
to drive or to goad; and from the very first moment that some slight
remonstrance on the part of Lady Tyrrell, with regard to something in
which he had no business to interfere, gave the slightest suspicion of
opposition to his will, the violent, the sarcastic, the bitter, the
selfish spirit rose up with delight, unfettered; and the system of
domineering and tyranny began in full force. The parents of the lady
lived to see her apparent happiness, but not to witness its reverse.
Her mother died before she had been married six months, and her father
scarcely survived two years. Perhaps a suspicion of the truth troubled
his deathbed, but we cannot say.
Unless we listen to the voice of the better spirit within us,
prosperity and age generally lead forward selfishness between them;
and then that selfishness who has hidden herself bashfully in the
presence of the more generous feelings of youth, rushes forward with
daring impudence, and blindfolds our eyes lest we should see her
deformity. Such was the case with Sir Francis Tyrrell. There was no
counterbalancing power to check or to control. His feelings of
religion, if he had any, were not active; he had speculated away the
greater part of his morality. He would not, indeed, have done anything
that was glaringly and universally admitted to be evil; first, because
his vanity would not consent to his incurring the reputation of a
vicious man; and, secondly, because his passions did not particularly
take that course. But of the moralities of life, which go hand in hand
with the charities of life, he had no conception. To trample upon
those who were prostrate before him; to make his own house a hell, and
to act the part of ruling fiend himself; to cast every kind of
aspersion and imputation, true or false, upon every one that offended
him, and many that never offended him at all; to be suspicious,
jealous, irritable without cause; to allow no opinion to prevail but
his own; to deal a very different measure to himself and others; to
exact the utmost, and to grant the least; to be avaricious while he
was ostentatious, sensorious when he affected to be candid, and
harshly severe to every one while he assumed the language of
philanthropy, he considered to be no wrong, and sat down with the
conviction that he was a very good and virtuous man.
The effect upon his wife was, that for a time she sank into a state of
timid and cheerless despair, from which she at length rallied herself
to make ineffectual resistance. When he accused her of things she had
never committed, and purposes she had never entertained, she would now
rouse herself to repel the charge, but still, having the worst of the
argument, and cut to the heart by sarcasms and insinuations, she would
have recourse to flight to her own chamber, and end the day in tears.
When he was simply violent, she had the good sense to sit in quiet and
make no reply.
But under all these cruel circumstances her health was daily injured,
and she who had been full of bloom, and life, and health, became pale,
and worn, and thin, and unequal to the least exertion. Sir Francis and
Lady Tyrrell had but one child, a son, who was born in the second year
of their marriage; but of that son, for various reasons, it will be
necessary to speak apart.