_A DINNER AT BRENTWOOD._
There was rejoicing at Brentwood that evening. All the guests staying in
the house were assembled in the drawing-room before dinner, when Mr.
Oliver Smith, who had retained quarters at the "George," walked in with
an appearance of high satisfaction, and immediately began to say, "I
bring you good news. Buller has made up his mind to do the right thing,
Burleigh, and give you a plumper. He hailed my cab as I was passing the
'Red Lion' on my road here, and told me his decision. Do you carry
witchcraft about with you?"
"Buller could not resist the old name and the old colors. Miss Fairfax
is my witchcraft," said Mr. Cecil Burleigh with a profound bow to
Bessie, in gay acknowledgment of her unconscious services.
Bessie blushed with pleasure, and said, "Indeed, I never opened my
mouth."
"Oh, charms work in silence," said Mr. Oliver Smith.
Lady Angleby was delighted; Mr. Fairfax looked gratified, and gave his
granddaughter an approving nod.
The next and last arrivals were Mr. and Mrs. Chiverton. Mr. Chiverton
was known to all present, but the bride was a stranger except to one or
two. She was attired in rich white silk--in full dress--so terribly
trying to the majority of women, and Bessie Fairfax's first thought on
seeing her again was how much less beautiful she was than in her simple
_percale_ dresses at school. She did not notice Bessie at once, but when
their eyes met and Bessie smiled, she ran to embrace her with expansive
cordiality. Bessie, her beaming comeliness notwithstanding, could assume
in an instant a touch-me-not air, and gave her hand only, though that
with a kind frankness; and then they sat down and talked of Caen.
Mrs. Chiverton's report as a woman of extraordinary beauty and virtue
had preceded her into her husband's country, but to the general observer
Miss Fairfax was much more pleasing. She also wore full dress--white
relieved with blue--but she was also able to wear it with a grace; for
her arms were lovely, and all her contours fair, rounded, and dimpled,
while Mrs. Chiverton's tall frame, though very stately, was very bony,
and her little head and pale, classical face, her brown hair not
abundant, and eyes too cold and close together, with that expression of
intense pride which is a character in itself, required a taste
cultivated amidst statuary to appreciate. This taste Mr. Chiverton
possessed, and his wife satisfied it perfectly.
Bessie looked at Mr. Chiverton with curiosity, and looked quickly away
again, retaining an impression of a cur-like face with a fixed sneer
upon it. He was not engaged in conversation at the time; he was
contemplating his handsome wife with critical admiration, as he might
have contemplated a new acquisition in his gallery of antique marbles.
In his eyes the little girl beside her was a mere golden-haired, rosy,
plump rustic, who served as a foil to his wife's Minerva-like beauty.
Lady Angleby was great lady enough to have her own by-laws of etiquette
in her own house, and her nephew was assigned to take Miss Fairfax to
dinner. They sat side by side, and were wonderfully sociable at one end
of the table, with the hostess and Mr. Fairfax facing them at the other.
Besides the guests already introduced, there was one other gentleman,
very young--Sir Edward Lucas--whose privilege it was to escort Mrs.
Chiverton. Mr. Forbes gave his arm to Miss Burleigh. Mr. Chiverton and
Mr. Oliver Smith had no ladies: Lady Angleby liked a preponderance of
gentlemen at her entertainments. Everybody talked and was pleasant, and
Bessie Fairfax felt almost at ease, so fast does confidence grow in the
warm atmosphere of courtesy and kindness. When the ladies retired to the
drawing-room she was bidden to approach Lady Angleby's footstool, and
treated caressingly; while Mrs. Chiverton was allowed to converse on
philanthropic missions with Miss Burleigh, who yawned behind her fan and
marvelled at the splendor of the bride's jewels.
In the dining-room conversation became more animated when the gentlemen
were left to themselves. Mr. Chiverton loved to take the lead. He had
said little during dinner, but now he began to talk with vivacity, and
was heard with the attention that must be paid to an old man possessed
of enormous wealth and the centre of great connexions. He was accustomed
to this deference, and cared perhaps for none other. He had a vast
contempt for his fellow-creatures, and was himself almost universally
detested. But he could bear it, sustained by the bitter tonic of his own
numerous aversions. One chief aversion was present at this moment in the
elegant person of Mr. Oliver Smith. Mr. Oliver Smith was called not too
strong in the head, but he was good, and possessed the irresistible
influence of goodness. Mr. Chiverton hated his mild tenacity. His own
temper was purely despotic. He had represented a division of the county
for several years, and had finally retired from Parliament in dudgeon at
the success of the Liberal party and policy. After some general remarks
on the approaching election, came up the problem of reconciling the
quarrel between labor and capital, then already growing to such
proportions that the whole community, alarmed, foresaw that it might
have ere long to suffer with the disputants. The immediate cause of the
reference was the fact of a great landowner named Gifford having asked
for soldiers from Norminster to aid his farmers in gathering in the
harvest, which was both early and abundant. The request had been
granted. The dearth of labor on his estates arose from various causes,
but primarily from there not being cottages enough to house the
laborers, his father and he having both pursued the policy of driving
them to a distance to keep down the rates.
"The penuriousness of rich men is a constant surprise to me," said Mr.
Forbes. "Dunghill cottages are not so frequent as they were, but there
are still a vast number too many. When old Gifford made a solitude
round him, Blagg built those reed-thatched hovels at Morte which
contribute more poor rogues to the quarter sessions than all the
surrounding parishes. That strip of debatable land is the seedbed of
crime and misery: the laborers take refuge in the hamlet, and herd
together as animals left to their own choice never do herd; but their
walk to and from their work is shortened by one half, and they have
their excuse. We should probably do the same ourselves."
"The cottages of the small proprietors are always the worst," remarked
Mr. Chiverton.
"If you and Gifford would combine to rebuild the houses you have allowed
to decay or have pulled down, Morte would soon be left to the owls and
the bats," said the clergyman. "By far the larger majority of the men
are employed on your farms, and it is no longer for your advantage that
their strength should be spent in walking miles to work--if ever it was.
You will have to do it. While Jack was left in brute ignorance, it was
possible to satisfy him with brute comforts and control him with brute
discipline; but teach Jack the alphabet, and he becomes as shrewd as his
master. He begins to consider what he is worth, and to readjust the
proportion between his work and his wages--to reflect that the larger
share of the profit is, perhaps, due to himself, seeing that he reaps by
his own toil and sweat, and his master reaps by the toil and sweat of a
score."
Mr. Chiverton had manifested signs of impatience and irritability during
Mr. Forbes's address, and he now said, with his peculiar snarl for which
he was famous, "Once upon a time there was a great redistribution of
land in Egypt, and the fifth part of the increase was given to Pharaoh,
and the other four parts were left to be food to the sowers. If
Providence would graciously send us a universal famine, we might all
begin again on a new foundation."
"Oh, we cannot wait for that--we must do something meanwhile," said Sir
Edward Lucas, understanding him literally. "I expect we shall have to
manage our land less exclusively with an eye to our own revenue from
it."
Mr. Chiverton testily interrupted the young man's words of wisdom: "The
fact is, Jack wants to be master himself. Strikes in the manufacturing
towns are not unnatural--we know how those mercantile people grind their
hands--but since it has come to strikes amongst colliers and miners, I
tremble at the prospect for the country. The spirit of insubordination
will spread and spread until the very plough-boys in the field are
infected."
"A good thing, too, and the sooner the better," said Mr. Oliver Smith.
"No, no!" cried Mr. Fairfax, but Mr. Forbes said that was what they were
coming to. Sir Edward Lucas listened hard. He was fresh from Oxford,
where boating and athletic exercises had been his chief study. His
father was lately dead, and the administration of a great estate had
devolved upon him. His desire was to do his duty by it, and he had to
learn how, that prospect not having been prepared for in his education,
further than by initiation in the field-sports followed by gentlemen.
Mr. Chiverton turned on Mr. Oliver Smith with his snarl: "Your conduct
as a landowner being above reproach, you can afford to look on with
complacency while the rest of the world are being set by the ears."
Mr. Oliver Smith had very little land, but as all there knew what he had
as well as he knew himself, he did not wince. He rejoined: "As a class,
we have had a long opportunity for winning the confidence of the
peasants; some of us have used it--others of us have neglected it and
abused it. If the people these last have held lordship over revolt and
transfer their allegiance to other masters, to demagogues hired in the
streets, who shall blame them?"
"Suppose we all rise above reproach: I mean to try," said Sir Edward
Lucas with an eagerness of interest that showed his good-will. "Then if
my people can find a better master, let them go."
Mr. Cecil Burleigh turned to the young man: "It depends upon yourself
whether they shall find a better master or not. Resolve that they shall
not. Consider your duty to the land and those upon it as the vocation of
your life, and you will run a worthy career."
Sir Edward was at once gratified and silenced. Mr. Cecil Burleigh's
reputation was greater yet than his achievement, but a man's
possibilities impress the young and enthusiastic even more than his
successes accomplished.
"You hold subversive views, Burleigh--views to which the public mind is
not educated up, nor will be in this generation," said Mr. Chiverton.
"The old order of things will last my time."
"Changes move fast now-a-days," said Mr. Fairfax. "I should like to see
a constitutional remedy provided for the Giffords of the gentry before I
depart. We are too near neighbors to be friends, and Morte adjoins my
property."
"Gifford was brought up in a bad school--a vaporing fellow, not true to
any of his obligations," said Mr. Oliver Smith.
"It is Blagg, his agent, who is responsible," began Mr. Chiverton.
Mr. Oliver Smith interrupted contemptuously: "When a landlord permits an
agent to represent him without supervision, and refuses to look into the
reiterated complaints of his tenants, he gives us leave to suppose that
his agent does him acceptable service."
"I have remonstrated with him myself, but he is cynically indifferent to
public opinion," said Mr. Forbes.
"The public opinion that condemns a man and dines with him is not of
much account," said Mr. Oliver Smith, with a glance at Mr. Chiverton,
the obnoxious Gifford's very good friend.
"Would you have him cut?" demanded Mr. Chiverton. "I grant you that it
is a necessary precaution to have his words in black and white if he is
to be bound by them--"
"You could not well say worse of a gentleman than that, Chiverton--eh?"
suggested Mr. Fairfax.
There was a minute's silence, and then Mr. Forbes spoke: "I should like
our legal appointments to include advocates of the poor, men of
integrity whose business it would be to watch over the rights and listen
to the grievances of those classes who live by laborious work and are
helpless to resist powerful wrong. Old truth bears repeating: these are
the classes who maintain the state of the world--the laborer that holds
the plough and whose talk is of bullocks, the carpenter, the smith, and
the potter. All these trust to their hands, and are wise in their work,
and when oppression comes they must seek to some one of leisure for
justice. It is a pitiful thing to hear a poor man plead, 'Sir, what can
I do?' when his heart burns with a sense of intolerable wrong, and to
feel that the best advice you can give him is that he should bear it
patiently."
"I call that too sentimental on your part, Forbes," remonstrated Mr.
Chiverton. "The laborers are quiet yet, and guidable as their own oxen,
but look at the trades--striking everywhere. Surely your smiths and
carpenters are proving themselves strong enough to protect their own
interests."
"Yes, by the combination that we should all deprecate amongst our
laborers--only by that. Therefore the wise will be warned in time, for
such example is contagious. Many of our people have lain so long in
discontent that bitter distrust has come of it, and they are ready to
abandon their natural leaders for any leader who promises them more
wages and less toil. If the laborers strike, Smith's and Fairfax's will
probably stick to their furrows, and Gifford's will turn upon him--yours
too, Chiverton, perhaps." Mr. Forbes was very bold.
"God forbid that we should come to that!" exclaimed Mr. Fairfax
devoutly. "We have all something to mend in our ways. Our view of the
responsibility that goes with the possession of land has been too
narrow. If we could put ourselves in the laborer's place!"
"I shall mend nothing: no John Hodge shall dictate to me," cried Mr.
Chiverton in a sneering fury. "A man has a right to do what he likes
with his own, I presume?"
"No, he has not; and especially not when he calls a great territory in
land his own," said Mr. Forbes. "That is the false principle out of
which the bad practice of some of you arises. A few have never been
guided by it--they have acted on the ancient law that the land is the
Lord's, and the profit of the land for all--and many more begin to
acknowledge that it is a false principle by which it is not safe to be
guided any longer. Pushed as far as it will go, the result is Gifford."
"And myself," added Mr. Chiverton in a quieter voice as he rose from his
chair. Mr. Forbes looked at him. The old man made no sign of being
affronted, and they went together into the drawing-room, where he
introduced the clergyman to his wife, saying, "Here, Ada, is a
gentleman who will back you in teaching me my duty to my neighbor;" and
then he went over to Lady Angleby.
"You are on the side of the poor man, then, Mrs. Chiverton?" said Mr.
Forbes pleasantly. "It is certainly a legitimate sphere of female
influence in country neighborhoods."
The stately bride drew her splendid dress aside to make room for him on
the ottoman, and replied in a measured voice, "I am. I tell Mr.
Chiverton that he does not satisfy the reasonable expectations of his
people. I hope to persuade him to a more liberal policy of management on
his immense estates; his revenue from them is very large. It distresses
me to be surrounded by a discontented tenantry, as it would do to be
waited on by discontented servants. A bad cottage is an eyesore on a
rich man's land, and I shall not rest until I get all Chiver-Chase
cleared of bad cottages and picturesquely inconvenient old farmsteads.
The people appeal to me already."
Bessie Fairfax had come up while her old school-fellow was gratifying
Mr. Forbes's ears with her admirable sentiments. She could not forbear a
smile at the candid assertion of power they implied, and as Mr. Forbes
smiled too with a twinkle of amused surprise, Bessie said sportively,
"And if Mr. Chiverton is rebellious and won't take them away, then what
shall you do?"
Mrs. Chiverton was dumb; perhaps this probability had not occurred to
her ruling mind. Mr. Forbes begged to know what Miss Fairfax herself
would do under such circumstances. Bessie considered a minute with her
pretty chin in the air, and then said, "I would not wear my diamonds.
Oh, I would find out a way to bring him to reason!"
A delicate color suffused Mrs. Chiverton's face, and she looked proudly
at Bessie, standing in her bright freedom before her. Bessie caught her
breath; she saw that she had given pain, and was sorry: "You don't care
for my nonsense--you remember me at school," she whispered, and laid her
hand impulsively on the slim folded hands of the young married lady.
"I remember that you found something to laugh at in almost
everything--it is your way," said Mrs. Chiverton coldly, and as her
flush subsided she appeared paler than before. She was so evidently hurt
by something understood or imagined in Bessie's innocent raillery that
Bessie, abashed herself, drew back her hand, and as Mr. Forbes began to
speak with becoming seriousness she took the opportunity of gliding away
to join Miss Burleigh in the glazed verandah.
It was a dark, warm night, but the moon that was rising above the trees
gradually illumined it, and made the garden mysterious with masses of
shadow, black against the silver light. In the distance rose the ghostly
towers of the cathedral. Miss Burleigh feared that the grass was too wet
for them to walk upon it, but they paced the verandah until Mr. Cecil
Burleigh found them and the rising hum of conversation in the
drawing-room announced the appearance of the other gentlemen. Miss
Burleigh then went back to the company, and there was an opportunity for
kind words and soft whisperings between the two who were left, if either
had been thereto inclined; but Bessie's frank, girlish good-humor made
lovers' pretences impossible, and while Mr. Cecil Burleigh felt every
hour that he liked her better, he felt it more difficult to imply it in
his behavior. Bessie, on her side, fully possessed with the idea that
she knew the lady of his love, was fast throwing off all sense of
embarrassment in his kindness to herself; while onlookers, predisposed
to believe what they wished, interpreted her growing ease as an
infallible sign that his progress with her was both swift and sure.
They were still at the glass door of the verandah when Mrs. Chiverton
sought Bessie to bid her good-night. She seemed to have forgotten her
recent offence, and said, "You will come and see me, Miss Fairfax, will
you not? We ought to be friends here."
"Oh yes," cried Bessie, who, when compunction touched her, was ready to
make liberal amends, "I shall be very glad."
Mrs. Chiverton went away satisfied. The other guests not staying in the
house soon followed, and when all were gone there was some discussion of
the bride amongst those who were left. They were of one consent that she
was very handsome and that her jewels were most magnificent.
"But no one envies her, I hope?" said Lady Angleby.
"You do not admire her motive for the marriage? Perhaps you do not
believe in it?" said Mr. Cecil Burleigh.
"I quite believe that she does, but I do not commend her example for
imitation."
Miss Burleigh, lingering a few minutes in Miss Fairfax's room when they
went up stairs, delivered her mind on the matter. "My poor ambition
flies low," she said. "I could be content to give love for love, and do
my duty in the humblest station God might call me to, but not for any
sake could I go into the house of bondage where no love is. Poor Mrs.
Chiverton!"
Bessie made a very unsentimental reply: "Poor Mrs. Chiverton, indeed!
Oh, but she does not want our pity! That old man is a slave to her, just
as the girls were at school. She adores power, and if she is allowed to
help and patronize people, she will be perfectly happy in her way.
Everybody does not care, first and last, to love and be loved. I have
been so long away from everybody who loves me that I am learning to do
without it."
"Oh, my dear, don't fancy that," said Miss Burleigh, and she stroked
Bessie's face and kissed her. "Some of us here are longing to love you
quite as tenderly as any friends you have in the Forest." And then she
bade her good-night and left her to her ruminations.
Miss Burleigh's kiss brought a blush to Bessie's face that was slow to
fade even though she was alone. She sat thinking, her hands clasped, her
eyes dreamily fixed on the flame of the candle. Some incidents on board
the Foam recurred to her mind, and the blush burnt more hotly. Then,
with a sigh, she said to herself, "It is pleasant here, everybody is
good to me, but I wish I could wake up at Beechhurst to-morrow morning,
and have a ride with my father, and mend socks with my mother in the
afternoon. There one felt _safe_."
There was a knock at the door, and Mrs. Betts entered, complacent with
the flattering things that had been said of her young lady in the
steward's room, and willing to repeat them on the smallest
encouragement: "Miss Jocund is really cleverer than could have been
supposed, miss. Your white silk fits most beautiful," she began.
"I was not conscious of being newly dressed to-night, so her work must
be successful," replied Bessie, untying the black velvet round her fair
throat. Mrs. Betts took occasion to suggest that a few more ornaments
would not be amiss. "I don't care for ornaments--I am fond of my old
cross," Bessie said, laying it in the rosy palm of her hand. Then
looking up with a melancholy, reflective smile, she said, "All the
shining stones in the world would not tempt me to sacrifice my liberty."
Mrs. Chiverton was in her thoughts, and Lady Latimer.
Mrs. Betts had a shrewd discernment, and she was beginning to understand
her young lady's character, and to respect it. She had herself a vein of
feeling deeper than the surface; she had seen those she loved suffer,
and she spoke in reply to Miss Fairfax with heartfelt solemnity: "It is
a true thing, miss, and nobody has better cause than me to know it, that
happiness does not belong to rank and riches. It belongs nowhere for
certain, but them that are good have most of it. For let the course of
their lives run ever so contrary, they have a peace within, given by One
above, that the proud and craving never have. Mr. Frederick's wife--she
bears the curse that has been in her family for generations, but she had
a pious bringing-up, and, poor lady! though her wits forsook her, her
best comfort never did."
"Some day, Mrs. Betts, I shall ask you to tell me her story," Bessie
said.
"There is not much to tell, miss. She was the second Miss Lovel (her
sister and she were co-heiresses)--not to say a beauty, but a sweet
young lady, and there was a true attachment between her and Mr.
Frederick. It was in this very house they met--in this very house he
slept after that ball where he asked her to marry him. It is not telling
secrets to tell how happy she was. Your grandfather, the old squire,
would have been better pleased had it been some other lady, because of
what was in the blood, but he did not offer to stop it, and they lived
at Abbotsmead after they were married. The house was all new done-up to
welcome her; that octagon parlor was her design. She brought Mr.
Frederick a great fortune, and they loved one another dearly, but it did
not last long. She had a baby, and lost it, and was never quite herself
after. Poor thing! poor thing!"
"And my uncle Laurence's wife," said Bessie, not to dwell on that
tragedy of which she knew the issue.
"Oh! Mr. Laurence's wife!" said Mrs. Betts in a quite changed tone. "I
never pitied a gentleman more. Folks who don't know ladies fancy they
speak and behave pretty always, but that lady would grind her teeth in
her rages, and make us fly before her--him too. She would throw whatever
was in her reach. She was a deal madder and more dangerous in her fits
of passion than poor Mrs. Frederick: she, poor dear! had a delusion that
she was quite destitute and dependent on charity, and when she could get
out she would go to the cottages and beg a bit of bread. A curious
delusion, miss, but it did not distress her, for she called herself one
of God's poor, and was persuaded He would take care of her. But it was
very distressing to those she belonged to. Twice she was lost. She
wandered away so far once that it was a month and over before we got her
back. She was found in Edinburgh. After that Mr. Frederick consented to
her being taken care of: he never would before."
"Oh, Mrs. Betts, don't tell me any more, or it will haunt me."
"Life's a sorrowful tale, miss, at best, unless we have love here and a
hope beyond."