The scenery amid which we are born and brought up, if we remain long
enough therein to have passed that early period of existence on which
memory seems to have no hold, sinks, as it were, into the spirit of
man; twines itself intimately with every thought, and becomes a part
of his being. He can never cast it off, any more than he can cast off
the body in which his spirit acts. Almost every chain of his after
thoughts is linked at some point to the magical circle which bounds
his youth's ideas; and even when latent, and in no degree known, it is
still present, affecting every feeling and every fancy, and giving a
bent of its own to all our words and our deeds.
I have heard a story of a girl who was captive to some Eastern prince,
and wore upon her ancles a light golden ring. She learned to love her
master devotedly, and was as happy as she could be in his love.
Adored, adorned, and cherished, she sat beside him one day in all the
pomp of Eastern state, when suddenly her eye fell upon the golden ring
round her ancle, which custom had rendered so light that she had
forgotten it altogether. The tears instantly rose in her eyes as she
looked upon it, and her lover divining all at once, asked, with a look
of reproach, "Would you be free?" She cast herself upon his bosom and
answered, "Never!"
Thus, often the links that bind us to early scenes and places, in
which we have passed happy or unhappy hours, are unobserved and
forgotten, till some casual circumstance turns our eyes thitherward.
But if any one should ask us whether we would sever that chain, there
is scarcely one fine mind that would not also answer, Never! The
passing of our days may be painful, the early years may be checkered
with grief and care, unkindness and frowns may wither the smiles of
boyhood, and tears bedew the path of youth; yet, nevertheless, when we
stand and look back, in later life, letting Memory hover over the
past, prepared to light where she will, there is no period in all the
space laid out before her over which her wings flutter so joyfully, or
on which she would so much wish to pause, as the times of our youth.
The evils of other days are forgotten; the scenes in which those days
passed are remembered, detached from the sorrows that checkered them,
and the bright misty light of life's first sunrise still gilds the
whole with a glory not its own. It is not alone, however, after long
years have passed away, and crushed out the gall from sorrows endured,
that fine and enchanting feelings are awakened by the scenes in which
our early days have gone by, and that the thrill of association is
felt in all its joyfulness, acting as an antidote to the poisonous
sorrows which often mingle with our cup.
It was so, at least, with Charles Tyrrell as he returned towards the
home of his fathers. The sun rose upon his journey when he was about
twenty miles from home, but still in scenes of which every rood was
familiar to him; and while the first red and blushing hues upon the
eastern sky were changing into the bright and golden splendour that
surrounds the half-risen sun, the road wound out upon the side of a
hill, showing him a wide extent of country to the right, scattered
with many a mound and many a tumulus, each, in general, planted with a
small clump of dark fir-trees, which waved above the conical hillocks
like plumes from the casques of the warriors who now slept beneath.
Beyond that extent again might be beheld long lines of hill and
woodland, broken, before the eye reached the faintest line in the
distance, by a tall, curiously-shaped hill, known by the name of
Harbury Hill, or, as some called it, Harbury Fort, though, to say
sooth, scarcely a vestige of a fort existed there, except the broken
vallum of a Roman camp, on the short sweet grass of which now grazed
some innocent sheep and peaceful cows.
Looking forth, as well as he could, from the window, the eyes of
Charles Tyrrell instantly sought out Harbury Hill, which was, it may
be remembered, within a very short distance of his paternal mansion.
They lighted on it at once; and, notwithstanding all that he had
suffered there, and felt he was still to suffer, a thrill of
satisfaction passed through his bosom, again to behold the well-known
scenes of his early years; the hill, the valley, the wood, the plain,
all glowing in the early light of the morning, which imaged not amiss
the light of youth pouring its lustre through all that surrounds it.
He gazed and enjoyed; and, with an economy of pleasure, which the
harsh lessons of the world had taught him to practise even then, he
enjoyed, perhaps, the more, because he felt that that first glow of
joy was the only pleasure which was likely to be his during his
sojourn there.
All the passengers in the coach were still sound asleep; and after a
glance, which gave him no satisfaction, at the sharp, astute
countenance of Mr. Driesen, he turned away from the fat, unmeaning
faces of the rest, heated with travelling and dirty with a journey,
and continued to gaze at every well-remembered object till the coach
stopped, the horses were unharnessed, and four staid and heavy
animals, but very little like the light blood tits that now gallop
over the ground with the Highflyer behind them, were brought out, and
with somewhat slow and clumsy hands attached to the heavy Blue. The
stopping of the coach roused almost all the inside passengers, and
amid many expressions of wonder at the sun having risen while they
were all asleep, Mr. Driesen put forth his head from the coach window,
commented on the beauty of the morning, and assured Charles Tyrrell
that, though he had been absent but a few months, he would find very
great improvements in the neighbourhood of Harbury Park.
"Indeed," said Charles; "I have not heard of any, either in progress
or contemplation."
"It is nevertheless true," replied Mr. Driesen, "and I may say that I
have had some share therein, for I suggested several of the plans to
your father; and I hear that he is not only executing them, but
greatly improving upon them: I am even now on my way to spend a week
or two at the Park, and see what progress has been made."
"Pray, in what may these improvements consist?" demanded Charles
Tyrrell. "I do not understand how any very considerable improvements
could be made, especially in so short a time."
"You will see, you will see," replied his companion. "But you remember
the old manor-house which your father was at one time talking of
pulling down, and laying out the gardens by the bank of the stream in
meadows?"
"I remember it well," replied Charles Tyrrell, as the words of his
companion called up before his mind the picture of a place where he
had often played in infancy. It was situated in a valley, at the
distance of about three quarters of a mile from his father's dwelling,
with a clear and rapid stream rushing through the green turf of the
lawn. The house was an old house, built of flints, with manifold gable
ends turning in every different direction, but with an air of grave
and quiet antiquity about it all which was pleasant to the
imagination. It was the property of Sir Francis Tyrrell; but the house
in which he dwelt was more convenient and suitable to him in every
respect; and though he had once let the old manor-house, he had
contrived to quarrel so violently with his tenant, that no one could
be found to take it when the lease expired.
It had thus remained uninhabited for many years and on it time had
consequently had the destroying effect which time has on all man's
works, when once they are deprived of the constant superintendence of
his care. It had not, indeed, been totally neglected, but still it had
fallen into decay; and when an occasional servant was sent down to
open the windows and give admission to the healing air and sunshine,
the rooms appeared damp and chilly, while the garden, with less
tendance than was required to keep it up, showed a crop of speedy
grass upon its gravel walks, and a sad luxuriance of weeds.
Nevertheless, Lady Tyrrell loved it, and would often wander thither
with her child and the nurse in the days of Charles's infancy, to
enjoy an hour or two of peace at some distance from her troublous
home. He thus did, indeed, remember it well; and at the very name, the
clear rushing stream seemed to flow on before him, the green lawns to
slope out beneath his feet.
"I remember it well," he said: "but what of it? My father is not going
to pull it down, I hope."
"Oh, no," replied his companion, with a cynical sneer, which he could
not restrain even when speaking of his best friend. "Oh, no! your
mother said she wished he would, and so, of course, he has abandoned
that idea. No; on the contrary, he has repaired and beautified it; has
had all the gardens trimmed and put in order, and made it one of the
sweetest spots in the country."
Charles Tyrrell was surprised; and revolving rapidly in his mind what
could be his father's motive, he was inclined to believe, and the
belief was not unpleasant to him, that his father contemplated a
separation from Lady Tyrrell, and intended to give her the old
manor-house for her dwelling. The belief, we have said, was pleasant
to him; for, notwithstanding some pain and some annoyance which might
still exist, he felt confident that tranquillity and peace, which were
the only objects that Lady Tyrrell could now hope for in life, were
only to be obtained by separating her from him who had inflicted upon
her twenty years of misery.
As one is very much accustomed to do in conversing with one in whom we
have little confidence, and with whom we have few sources of feeling
in common, Charles Tyrrell pondered what he had heard in his own mind
for some moments before he asked any explanation from his companion.
When he had done so, however, and began to doubt, from what he knew of
his father's nature, whether his first solution of the mystery was
correct, he once more turned to his informant and demanded, "Pray what
may be my father's purpose in this new arrangement, do you know?"
"Ay, that you will learn hereafter," replied Mr. Driesen, with a
sententious shake of the head, expressive of all the importance of a
profound but not unpleasant secret. "Ay, that you will learn
hereafter; but you must hear that from your father himself."
Charles Tyrrell had a potent aversion to mysteries of every kind, and
an avowed animosity, not a little mingled with contempt, for those who
made them unnecessarily. To Mr. Driesen's answer, then, he offered not
the slightest rejoinder; and, unwilling to gratify him by letting him
see that his curiosity was excited in the least degree, he instantly
turned the conversation to some indifferent subject, talked of the
weather and the high road, the old heavy Blue coach and the horses
that drew it, and of anything, in short, but that in regard to which
he was really inclined to inquire.
In the mean while the coach rolled on, and bore him nearer and nearer
to his home. At one particular point the road commanded a view of the
old manor-house; and Charles, looking out of the window, saw it
gleaming out from among the trees. Though it was lost again almost
instantly, and he could catch none of the particulars, there was an
indefinable look of freshness about it, an air of renovation, which
showed him that it was greatly changed. A little farther on, the coach
rolled past the lodge, and it, too, had undergone improvement; but
that was not all. There was a servant in mourning livery standing at
the gate, and looking out at the pretty country scene before his eyes
with an expression which seemed to show that the whole scene was new
to him. The suit which he wore showed that he was not a servant of Sir
Francis Tyrrell; but Charles saw the small, keen black eyes of Mr.
Driesen wandering over his face, and he took no more notice than if
the servant had been a post at the gate of some house which he had
never seen before. About three quarters of a mile farther the coach
stopped at the lodge of the Park, and Charles Tyrrell and his
companion alighted, leaving the inside passengers to tell strange
stories of the violent temper and uncontrollable passions which were
considered in that neighbourhood as a part of the inheritance of the
Tyrrell family.
On entering his paternal mansion, Charles found his father apparently
in a more placable mood than usual; but it certainly seemed as if the
coming of Mr. Driesen afforded him greater pleasure than the visit of
his son. His mother was not present; and after spending a few minutes
in the library with Sir Francis Tyrrell, Charles rose to seek his
mother.
"You are in vast haste, Charles," said his father; "but I suppose it
is of great importance that you should make Lady Tyrrell aware how
soon young men at college learn to know everything better than their
father. You can seek her in her own room, where you will most likely
find her."
Charles's lip quivered and his nostril expanded. "I seek my mother,
sir," he replied, with a look of indignation that he could not well
control, "to inquire after her health, and to tell her about mine."
And though some other bitter words sprang up to his lips, he had the
good sense to remember that it was the first day of his return home,
and to repress them before they found utterance.
In order to make sure of his own temper, he left the room at once; but
could hear, as he shut the door, Mr. Driesen's low, sarcastic laugh,
and fancy pictured the figure of his father and the skeptic amusing
themselves with the anger which had been excited in his bosom. He
smothered that anger as far as he could, however, and hoped to leave
no trace of it ere he reached his mother's apartment; but, at all
events, his feelings were, of course, turned into gall and bitterness
by this first occurrence in his father's house.
Lady Tyrrell received him with joy; and as she gazed upon the
countenance of her son, with proud feelings at the noble and manly
aspect which his whole person was beginning to assume, she felt that
there was yet one tie between her and life, one bright spot for
affection to rest upon in the great desert of "this side the grave."
Their meeting was full of tenderness and affection, and in the first
overflowing of their feelings Charles forgot Mr. Driesen, and all that
he had told him of changes, improvements, and plans.
At length, however, after having passed about an hour with his mother
in telling her all that he had done at Oxford, hiding, indeed,
everything that was painful, and only displaying that which was
pleasant, his eye lighted upon his father and the sophist crossing the
lawn before his mother's windows, and slowly walking on towards that
part of the wood through which a tortuous pathway led to the grounds
of the old manor-house. His journey in the coach, and all that had
been said, then rose upon remembrance, and he said, "I forgot, my dear
mother, to tell you that fellow Driesen had come down in the coach
with me."
"I knew he was coming, my dear Charles," replied his mother; "I heard
your father mention it to one of the servants, telling him to get Mr.
Driesen's room ready; for it has gone on till the blue room at the top
of the staircase is called Mr. Driesen's room now."
Charles replied nothing, though his mother paused. After a short time,
Lady Tyrrell went on: "I grieve that that man is so much here,
Charles; he is a dangerous, a bad, and an unprincipled man; and I
should grieve still more if your character were anything but what it
is; but I feel certain that, notwithstanding all his art and all his
eloquence, both of which are undoubtedly very great, Mr. Driesen could
no sooner lead you than he could make oil and water mix."
"Indeed, my dear mother, he could not," replied Charles Tyrrell: "I
know him thoroughly, I think, and dislike him not a little; but still
I shall keep away from him as far as possible; for he is continually
throwing out those sneers at everything that is holy and good; at
religion, at virtue, at feeling, which leave unpleasant impressions;
stains, in fact, which are difficult to efface."
"Do, do avoid him as much as possible, Charles," replied his mother.
"I sincerely believe that the only safeguard against such insidious
serpents is that tendency which nature has given us to avoid them from
our first abhorrence of their doctrines and feelings: I believe,
otherwise, very few would escape them."
"Oh, I do not think that," replied Charles Tyrrell; "I never yet heard
of a strong-built house being knocked down by footballs or beaten to
pieces by peashooters; but the one and the other may break the windows
if they go on too long. At all events, I shall keep out of his way,
because I dislike him. But tell me," he added, "what is this he has
been speaking of, and which must be true from the changes I observed
as I passed? The old manor-house, it seems, is repaired and
beautified, and I saw a servant standing at the lodge: what is the
meaning of all this?"
A smile, sad and thoughtful, but still a smile, came over Lady
Tyrrell's countenance. "It is a plot against you, I fear, my dear
Charles," she replied: "but, still, not one that is likely to be very
dangerous, unless you yield yourself to it. You have heard," she
added, seeing that she had excited her son's surprise, "you have often
heard your father speak of Mr. Effingham, who had a beautiful place in
Northumberland. It was at that house, then Mr. Effingham's father's,
that I first met my husband, and he has two or three times talked of
taking you there."
"I forgot all about it," interrupted Charles Tyrrell; "I remember the
name of Effingham, and hearing that he was my father's cousin, I
think, but nothing more."
"A very distant cousin indeed," replied Lady Tyrrell; "a Scotchman
might call it a close connexion; but we, who have no clans, forget
such cousinships except when it serves our purposes; but, as I was
going to tell you, Mr. Effingham died some months ago, and made your
father his executor. You know how fond he is of projects, and no
sooner did he find that Mr. Effingham had left a large estate somewhat
encumbered, together with a widow and a daughter not yet of age, than
he laid out in his own mind a scheme for bringing them to the old
manor-house, for saving sufficient from the rents to clear off the
encumbrances on the Northumberland estates, and for marrying you, I am
sure, to the daughter."
"Indeed!" said Charles. "I rather suppose that he will find himself
mistaken in his calculations; for, thank God, the time is gone by when
parents had it in their power to marry their sons and daughters to
whomsoever they pleased, and took them to the altar as to a cattle
fair, to sell them to whom they liked. I hope, my dear mother, you
have given no countenance to this scheme?"
"None whatever, Charles," replied his mother, "but quite on the
contrary. I was well aware, my dear boy, that the endeavour to force
anybody upon you was the readiest way to make you take a dislike to a
person whom you might otherwise have chosen for yourself; and,
besides, I had various reasons which made me anything but anxious that
such a marriage should take place. In the first place, I should much
wish you to see a good deal more of the world before you marry at all;
nor do I wish you to marry early. It is not, indeed, so much the
desire of keeping you altogether to myself, for my own comfort and
consolation, as for the sake of your own after happiness and the
happiness of the person you may choose. There are some men who
certainly should marry young, and who are all the happier in after
life for so doing; but such is not the case with your family, Charles.
You should all of you plunge into the world; endure even its sorrows
and its reverses; taste the uses of adversity; encounter
disappointment, care, anxiety, even overthrow and defeat, perhaps, to
take off the keen and fiery impetuosity with which you set out in
life, and never think of marrying till you can deliberately propose to
yourselves to seek in domestic life calmness, peace, tranquillity, and
the reciprocation of equal affection, rather than rule, domination,
and contention."
Charles Tyrrell was silent for several moments. He felt that what his
mother said was true in some degree, and yet there was a good deal in
it that mortified him. He loved her too well, however; he appreciated
her motives too well; he was of too frank and candid a nature to
suffer any mortification he felt to appear harshly.
"My dear mother," he said, in a melancholy tone, "I think, if you knew
all that I have felt, you would judge that I have had disappointments
and griefs enough in seeing my mother's unhappiness, and living in a
house of strife, to trample down, even from my infancy, great part of
those strong passions that you fear."
Lady Tyrrell shook her head, and Charles went on. "Well, well, my
dear mother, it does not signify; at all events, I am very glad that
you have given no encouragement to this scheme of my father's; for,
depend upon it, it must and will fail."
"I would have encouraged it on no account whatsoever," replied Lady
Tyrrell; "I should have thought it unjust and wrong in every respect;
but I am sorry to say that it has been the cause of as bitter a
quarrel between myself and your father as ever occurred, and they have
been but too many. He wished me to write and invite Mrs. Effingham
here; but I would not do so. I had never seen her, for Mr. Effingham
was not married when I was last at his father's house; and as your
father had often spoken of Mrs. Effingham as of a weak, poor-minded
person, with whom he did not wish me to keep up any acquaintance, of
course I never made the attempt; but I could not be expected suddenly
to turn round and affect great regard for persons I had never seen,
and towards whom I had shown some neglect. If, immediately after Mr.
Effingham's death, your father had asked me to write, and, as a matter
of kindness, invited Mrs. Effingham here for change of scene, I would
have done it with pleasure; but when it was to press her to come
hither after two or three months had elapsed, and to say everything I
could in my letter to forward a scheme I disapproved, of course I
endeavoured to avoid doing so; and on my showing the least reluctance,
your father took fire, and spoke and acted as you can conceive. He has
scarcely ever opened his lips to me since, except, indeed, the other
day, when he informed me that he himself had written to Mrs.
Effingham, and that she had accepted his invitation, which, of course,
did not raise her very high in my opinion. All the other arrangements
were concluded too, I find; so that she has taken the manor, and is
about to reside there with her daughter till Lucy becomes of age, and
is, consequently, no longer under your father's guardianship.
Everything will be prepared to receive them there in about ten days.
In the mean time, they come here before the end of the week; what day
I do not well know, as I have not been informed. I shall treat them,
of course, with kindness and civility, and trust you will do the same;
for your father has the fullest right to expect that at our hands,
though I cannot write hypocritically pressing invitations to people
that I not wish to see."
The impression produced on the mind of Charles Tyrrell by the account
which his mother gave him, was certainly anything but pleasant in
regard to Mistress and Miss Effingham; and certain it is that,
although he, as well as Lady Tyrrell, made up their minds to perform
every external act of civility, yet there was a predetermination on
the part of both to make that civility so cold and icy as to cut short
every project of an alliance with one whom they were resolved to
dislike.
Their conversation then turned to other subjects, on which it is not
necessary to dwell; and the only thing which occurred further between
the mother and son worthy of remark, was, that Charles Tyrrell, who
had always entertained a great antipathy to the name of Lucy, took
pains to repeat it with particular emphasis whenever the conversation
returned to Mistress and Miss Effingham.
In the evening Lady Tyrrell came down to dinner, which she had not
done for several days before; and willing to make her son's return
home as cheerful as she could, she restrained, as far as possible,
every appearance of bearing in mind the dispute between her husband
and herself, though it had thrown her into a fit of illness. Acting on
the same principle, she suffered Mr. Driesen to take her unresisting
hand, and in reply to several speeches, which he purposely rendered
extravagantly gallant, she uttered some civil words, of course.
Sir Francis, in the course of his walk, seemed to have been tutored to
politeness by Mr. Driesen, and both to his wife and son behaved with
an unusual degree of courteousness, though the very nature and
constitution of his mind prevented him from abstaining altogether from
an occasional sneer or sarcasm. In fact, his very politeness savoured
thereof, and there was nine times out of ten as much bitter as sweet
in everything he said.
On the whole, however, the evening passed over more pleasantly than
usual; and though both Lady Tyrrell and her son were well aware that
no real change for the better had taken place, they were only too
anxious to protract, as long as possible, the temporary suspension of
strife and irritation. It was to be remarked, too, that every time Mr.
Driesen found Sir Francis Tyrrell touching upon dangerous ground, he
skilfully contrived to draw him away, by throwing some new element
into the conversation of such a kind as he knew Sir Francis Tyrrell
would dash at, forgetful of what went before. Thus the whole party
were, in fact, in a much more placable mood, when the rush of a
carriage wheels was heard indistinctly through the open doors, and a
loud peal upon the bell called the servants to the gate.