Produced by Andrea Ball, Christine Bell & Marc D'Hooghe
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PENELOPE BRANDLING
By
VERNON LEE
A TALE OF THE WELSH COAST IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
M CM III
TO
AUGUSTINE BULTEAU
THIS STORY
OF NORTHERN WRECKERS,
IN RETURN FOR A PIECE OF PARIAN
MARBLE PICKED UP IN THE
MEDITERRANEAN SURF
AT PALO
GRANDFEY, NEAR F., IN SWITZERLAND.
_May_ 15, 1822.
Having reached an age when the morrow is more than uncertain, and
knowing how soon all verbal tradition becomes blurred and distorted, I,
Sophia Penelope, daughter of Jacques de Morat, a cadet of the Counts of
that name, sometime a captain in the service of King Louis XV., and of
Sophia Hamilton, his wife; and furthermore, widow of the late Sir
Eustace Brandling, ninth baronet, of St. Salvat's Castle, in the county
of Glamorgan, have yielded to the wishes of my dear surviving sons, and
am preparing to consign to paper, for the benefit of their children and
grandchildren, some account of those circumstances in my life which
decided that the lot of this family should so long have been cast in
foreign parts and remote colonies, instead of in its ancestral and
legitimate home.
I can the better fulfil this last duty to my dear ones, living and dead,
that I have by me a journal which, as it chanced, I was in the habit of
keeping at that period; and require to draw upon my memory only for such
details as happen to be missing in that casual record of my daily life
some fifty years ago. And first of all let me explain to my children's
children that I began to keep this journal two years after my marriage
with their grandfather, with the idea of sending it regularly to my
dearest mother, from whom, for the first time in my young life, I was
separated by my husband's unexpected succession and our removal from
Switzerland to his newly-inherited estates in Wales. Let me also explain
that before this event, which took place in the spring of seventeen
hundred and seventy-two, Sir Eustace Brandling was merely a young
Englishman of handsome person, gentlemanly bearing, an uncommon
knowledge of the liberal arts and sciences, and a most blameless and
amiable temper, but with no expectations of fortune in the future, and
only a modest competence in the present. So that it was regarded in our
Canton and among our relations as a proof of my dear mother's high-flown
and romantic temper, and of the unpractical influence of the writings of
Rousseau and other philosophers, that she should have allowed her only
child to contract such a marriage. And at the time of its celebration it
did indeed appear improbable that we should ever cease residing with my
dearest mother on her little domain of Grandfey; still more that our
existence of pastoral and philosophic happiness should ever be exchanged
for the nightmare of dishonour and misery which followed it.
The beginning of our calamities was, as I said, on the death of Sir
Thomas Brandling, my husband's only brother. I have preserved a most
vivid recollection of the day which brought us that news, perhaps
because, looked back upon ever after, it seemed the definite boundary of
a whole part of our life, left so quickly and utterly behind, as the
shore is left even with the first few strokes of the oars. My dear
mother and I were in the laundry, where the maids were busy putting by
the freshly ironed linen. My mother, who was ever more skilful with her
hands, as she was nimbler in her thoughts, than I, had put aside all the
most delicate pieces and the lace to dress and iron herself; while I,
who had made a number of large bundles of lavender (our garden had
never produced it in so great profusion), was standing on a chair and
placing them in the shelves of the presses, between each bale of sheets
and table linen which the maids had lifted up to me. When, looking
through the open glass door, I saw Vincent, the farm servant, hurrying
along the lime walk, and across the kitchen garden, and waving a packet
at us. He had been to the city to buy sugar, I remember, for the
raspberry jam, which my mother, an excellent cook, had decided to
sweeten a second time, for fear of its turning.
"He seems very excited," said my mother, looking out. "I declare he has
a book or packet, perhaps it is the _Journal des Savants_ for Eustace,
or that opera by Monsieur Gluck, which your uncle promised you. I hope
he has not forgotten the nutmegs." I write down these childish details
because I cherished them for years, as one might cherish a blade of
grass or a leaf, carelessly put as a marker in a book, and belonging to
a country one will never revisit.
"It is a letter for Eustace," said my mother, "and very heavy too. I am
glad Vincent had more money than necessary, for it must have cost a lot
at the post." And going under my husband's laboratory window she asked
whether he wanted the letter at once, or would wait to open it at dinner
time. "I am only cleaning my instruments," he answered, "let me have
the letter now." His voice, as I hear it through all those years, sounds
so happy and boyish. It was altered, and it seemed at the time naturally
enough, when he presently came down to the laundry and said very
briefly, "My brother is dead ... it is supposed a stab from a drunken
sailor at Bristol. A shocking business. It is my Uncle Hubert who
writes." He had sat down by the ironing table and spoke in short, dry
sentences.
There was something extraordinary about his voice, not grief, but
agitation, which somehow made it utterly impossible for me to do what
would have been natural under the circumstances, to put my arms round
his neck and tell him I shared his trouble. Instead of which every word
he uttered seemed to ward me off as with the sword's point, and to cover
himself, as a fencer covers his vitals.
"Get some brandy for him, Penelope. He is feeling faint," said my
mother, tossing me her keys. I obeyed, feeling that she understood and I
did not, as often happened between us. I was a few minutes away, for I
had to cross the yard to the dwelling house, and then I found that my
mother had given me the wrong keys. I filled a glass from a jar of
cherries we had just put up, and returned to the laundry. My husband was
white, but did not look at all faint. He was leaning his elbow on the
deal table covered with blanket, and nervously folding and stretching a
ruffle which lay by the bowl of starch. When I came in he suddenly
stopped speaking, and my mother saw that I noticed it.
"Eustace was saying, my dear," she said, "that he will have to
go--almost immediately--to England, on account of the property. He
wanted to go on alone, and fetch you later, when things should be a
little to rights. But I was telling him, Penelope, that I felt sure you
would recognise it as your duty to go with him from the very first, and
help him through any difficulties."
My dear mother had resumed her ironing; and as she said these last
words, her voice trembled a little, and she stooped very attentively
over the cap she was smoothing.
Eustace was sitting there, so unlike himself suddenly, and muttered
nervously, "I really can see no occasion, Maman, for anything of the
sort."
I cannot say what possessed me; I verily think a presentiment of the
future. But I put down the plate and glass, looked from my mother to my
husband, and burst into a childish flood of tears. I heard my husband
give a little peevish "Ah!" rise, leave the room, and then bang the door
of his laboratory upstairs behind him. And then I felt my dear mother's
arms about me, and her kiss on my cheek. I mopped my eyes with my apron,
but at first I could not see properly for the tears. When I was able to
see again what struck me was the scene through the long window, open
down to the ground.
It was a lovely evening, and the air full of the sweetness of lime
blossom. The low sunlight made the plaster of our big old house a pale
golden, and the old woodwork of its wooden eaves, wide and shaped like
an inverted boat, as is the Swiss fashion, of a beautiful rosy purple.
The dogs were lying on the house steps, by the great tubs of hydrangeas
and flowering pomegranates; and beyond the sanded yard I could see the
bent back of Vincent stooping among the hives in the kitchen garden. The
grass beyond was brilliant green, all powdered with hemlock flower; and
the sun made a deep track in the avenue, along which the cows were
trotting home to be milked. I felt my heart break, as once or twice I
had foolishly done as a child, and in a manner in which I have never
felt it again despite all my later miseries. I suppose it was that I was
only then really ceasing to be a child, though I had been married two
years. It was evidently in my mother's thoughts, for she followed my
glance with hers, and then said very solemnly, and kissing me again (she
had not let go of me all this while), "My poor little Penelope! you must
learn to be a woman. You will want all your strength and all your
courage to help your husband."
That was really the end, or the beginning. There were some weeks of
plan-making and preparations, a bad dream which has faded away from my
memory. And then, at the beginning of August of that year--1772--my
husband and I started from Grandfey for St. Salvat's.
I
_September_ 29, 1772.
This is my first night in what, henceforward, is going to be my home.
The thought should be a happy and a solemn one; but it merely goes on
and on in my head like the words of a song in some unknown language.
Eustace has gone below to his uncles; and I am alone in this great room,
and also, I imagine, in the whole wing of this great house. The wax
lights on the dressing-table, and the unsnuffed dip with which the old
housekeeper lit us through endless passages, leave all the corners dark.
But the moonlight pours in through the vast, cage-like window. The moon
is shining on a strip of sea above the tree-tops, and the noise of the
sea is quite close; a noise quite unlike that of any running water, and
methinks very melancholy and hopeless in expression. I tried to enjoy it
like a play, or a romance which one reads; and indeed, the whole
impression of this castle is marvellously romantic.
When Eustace had unstrapped my packages, and in his tender manner placed
all my little properties in order, he took me in his arms, meaning
thereby to welcome me to my new home and the house of his fathers. We
were standing by the window, and I tried, foolishly it seems, to hide my
weakness of spirit (for I confess to having felt a great longing to cry)
by pointing to that piece of moonlit sea, and repeating a line of
Ossian, at the beginning of the description of the pirates crossing the
sea to the house of Erved. Foolishly, for although that passage is a
favourite with Eustace, indeed one we often read during our courtship,
he was annoyed at my thinking of such matters, I suppose, at such a
moment; and answered with that kind of irritated deprecation that is so
new to me; embracing me indeed once more, but leaving me immediately to
go to his uncles.
Foolish Penelope! It is this no doubt which makes me feel lonely just
now; and I can hear you, dearest mother, chiding me laughingly, for
giving so much weight to such an incident. Eustace will return
presently, as gentle and sympathising as ever, and all will be right
with me. Meanwhile, I will note down the events of this day, so
memorable in my life.
We seemed to ride for innumerable hours, I in the hired chaise, and my
husband on the horse he had bought at Bristol. The road wound endlessly
up and down, through a green country, with barely a pale patch of reaped
field, and all veiled in mist and driving rain. There seemed no villages
anywhere, only at distances of miles, a scant cottage or two of grey
stone and thatch; and once or twice during all those hours, a desolate
square tower among distant trees; and all along rough hedges and grey
walls with stones projecting like battlements. Inland mountain lines
like cliffs, dim in the rain; and at last, over the pale green fields,
the sea--quite pale, almost white. We had to ask our way more than once,
losing it again in this vague country without landmarks, where
everything appeared and disappeared in mist. I had begun to feel as if
St. Salvat's had no real existence, when Eustace rode up to the chaise
window and pointed out the top of a tower, and a piece of battlemented
wall, emerging from the misty woods, and a minute after we were at a
tall gate tower, with a broken escutcheon and a drawbridge, which
clanked up behind us so soon as we were over. We stopped in a great
castle yard, with paved paths across a kind of bowling green, and at the
steps of the house, built unevenly all round, battlemented and turreted,
with huge projecting windows made of little panes.
There were a lot of men upon the steps, who surrounded the postchaise;
they were roughly and variously dressed, some like fishermen and
keepers, but none as I had hitherto seen the gentlemen of this country.
But as we stopped, another came down the steps with a masterful air,
pushed them aside, opened the chaise, lifted me out, and made me a very
fine bow as I stood quite astonished at the suddenness of his ways. He
was dressed entirely in black broadcloth, with a frizzled wig and bands,
as clergymen are dressed here, and black cloth gaiters.
"May it please the fair Lady Brandling," he said, with a fine gesture,
"to accept the hearty welcome of her old Uncle Hubert, and of her other
kinsmen." The others came trooping round awkwardly, with little show of
manners. But the one called Hubert, the clergyman, gave me his arm,
waived them away, said something about my being tired from the long
ride, and swept, nay, almost carried me up the great staircase and
through the passages to the room where dinner was spread. Of this he
excused himself from partaking, alleging the lateness of the hour and
his feeble digestion; but he sat over against my husband and me while we
were eating, drank wine with me, and kept up a ceaseless flow of
conversation, rather fulsomely affable methought and packed with
needless witticisms; but which freed me from the embarrassment produced
by the novelty of the situation, by my husband's almost utter silence,
and also, I must add, by the man's own scrutinising examination of me. I
was heartily glad when, the glasses being removed, he summoned the
housekeeper, and with another very fine bow, committed me to her
charge. Eustace begged to be excused for accompanying me to my chamber,
and promised to return and drink his wine presently with his kinsmen.
And now, dear mother, I have told you of our arrival at St. Salvat's;
and I have confessed to you my childish fear of I know not what. "Mere
bodily fatigue!" I hear you briskly exclaiming, and chiding me for such
childish feelings. But if you were here, dearest mother, you would take
me also in your arms, and I should know that you knew it was not all
foolishness and cowardice, that you would know what it is, for the first
time in my little life, to be without you.
_October_ 5, 1772.
It has stopped raining at last, and Eustace, who is again the kindest
and most considerate of men, has taken me all over the castle and the
grounds, or at least a great part. St. Salvat's is even more
romantically situated than I had thought; and with its towers and
battlements hidden in deep woods, it makes one think of castles, like
that of Otranto, which one reads of in novels; nay, I was the more
reminded of the latter work of fiction (which Eustace believes to be
from the pen of the accomplished Mr. Walpole, whom we knew in Paris),
that there are, let into the stonework on either side of the porch, huge
heads of warriors, filleted and crowned with laurel, which though
purporting to be those of the Emperors Augustus and Trajan, yet look as
if they might fit into some gigantic helmet such as we read of in that
admirable tale.
From the house, which has been built at various times (Eustace is of
opinion mainly in the time of the famous Cardinal Wolsey, as the
architecture, it appears, is similar to that of His Majesty's palace at
Hampton Court), into the old castle; from the house, as I say, the
gardens descend in great terraces and steps into the woods and to the
sea. The gardens are indeed very much neglected, and will require no
doubt, a considerable expenditure of labour; but I am secretly charmed
by their wild luxuriance: a great vine and a pear tree hang about the
mullioned windows almost unpruned, and the box and bay trees have grown
into thickets in the extraordinary kindliness of this warm, moist
climate. There is in the middle of the terraces, a pond all overgrown
with lilies, and with a broken leaden statue of a nymph. Here, when he
was a child, Eustace was wont to watch for the transformation into a
fairy of a great water snake which was said to have lived in that pond
for centuries; but I well remember his awakening my compassion by
telling me how, one day, his brother Thomas, wishing to displease him,
trapped the poor harmless creature and cruelly skinned it alive. "That
is the place of my poor water snake," Eustace said to-day; and it was
the first time since our coming, that he has alluded to his own or his
family's past. Poor Eustace! I am deeply touched by the evident painful
memories awakened by return to St. Salvat's, which have over-clouded his
reserved and sensitive nature, in a manner I had not noticed (thank
Heaven) since our marriage. But to return to the castle, or rather its
grounds. What chiefly delights my romantic temper are the woods in which
it is hidden, and its singular position, on an utterly isolated little
bay of this wild and dangerous coast. You go down the terraces into a
narrow ravine, lined with every manner of fern, and full of venerable
trees; past the little church of which our Uncle Hubert is the
incumbent, alongside some ruined buildings, once the quarters of the
Brandlings' troopers, across a field full of yellow bog flowers, and on
to a high wall. And on the other side of that wall, quite unexpected, is
the white, misty sea, dashing against a bit of sand and low pale rocks,
where our uncles' fishing boats are drawn up, and chafing, further off
against the sunken reefs of this murderous coast. And to the right and
the left, great clumps of wind-bent trees and sharp cliffs appear and
disappear in the faint, misty sunshine.
As we stood on the sea wall, listening to the rustle of the waves, a
ship, with three masts and full sail, passed slowly at a great
distance, to my very great pleasure.
"Where is she going, do you know?" I asked rather childishly.
"To Bristol," answered Eustace curtly. "It is perhaps, some West
Indiaman, laden with sugar, and spirits, and coffee and cotton. All the
vessels bound for Bristol sail in front of St. Salvat's."
"And is not the coast very dangerous?" I asked, for the sight of that
gallant ship had fascinated me. "Are there not wrecks sometimes along
those reefs we see there?"
"Sometimes!" exclaimed Eustace sadly. "Why at seasons, almost daily. All
that wood which makes the blue flame you like so much, is the timber of
wrecked vessels, picked up along this coast."
My eye rested on the boats drawn up on the sand of the little cove:
stout black boats, such as Eustace had pointed out to me at Bristol as
pilchard boats.
"And when there is a wreck?" I asked, "do your uncles go out to save the
poor people with those boats?"
"Alas, dear Lady Brandling," answered an unexpected voice at my elbow,
"it is not given to poor weak mortals like us to contend with the
decrees of a just, though wrathful Providence."
I turned round and there stood, leaning on the sea wall, with his big
liquorice-coloured eyes fixed on me, and a smile (methought) of polite
acquiescence in shipwrecks, our uncle, the Reverend Hubert, in his fine
black coat and frizzled white wig.
_October_ 12, 1772.
We have been here over a fortnight now, and although it feels as if I
never could grow accustomed to all this strangeness, it seems months;
and those years at Grandfey, all my life before my marriage, and before
our journey, a vivid dream.
Where shall I begin? During the first week Eustace and I had our meals,
as seemed but natural, in the great hall with his uncles and his one
cousin. For two days things went decently enough. The uncles--Simon,
Edward, Gwyn, David, and the cousin, Evan, son of David, were evidently
under considerable restraint, and fear (methought) of the Reverend
Hubert, who seems somehow a creature from another planet. The latter sat
by Eustace and me, at the high end of the table; the others, and with
them the Bailiff Lloyd, at the lower. The service was rough but clean,
and the behaviour, although gloomily constrained, decent and
gentlemanly. But little by little a spirit of rebellion seemed to arise.
It began by young Evan, a sandy-haired lad of seventeen, coming to
dinner with hands unwashed and red from skinning, as he told us, an
otter; and on the Reverend Hubert bidding him go wash before appearing
in my presence, his father, David, taking his part, forcing the lad
into his chair, and saying something in the unintelligible Welsh
language, which contained some rudeness towards me, for he plainly
nodded in my direction and struck the table with his fist. At this the
Reverend Hubert got up, took the boy Evan by the shoulders and led him
to the door, without one of the party demurring. "The lovely Lady
Brandling," he said, turning to me as he resumed his place, "must
forgive this young Caliban, unaccustomed like the one of the play, to
beautiful princesses." I notice he loves to lard his speech with
literary reminiscences, and is indeed a better read person than one
would expect to meet in such a place. This was, however, only the
beginning. Uncle David appeared next night undoubtedly in liquor, and
was with difficulty constrained to decent behaviour. Simon, a heavy,
lubberly creature, arrived all covered with mud, in shirtsleeves, and
smelling vilely of stale fish. Then it was the turn of Edward, a great
black man, with a scar on his cheek, to light his pipe at table, and
pinch the Welsh serving wench as she passed, and whisper to her in Welsh
some jest which made the others roar. Eustace and Hubert, between whom I
sat at the far end, pretended not to notice, though Eustace reddened
visibly, and Hubert took an odd green colour, which seems to be the
complexion of his anger. And then while our clergyman uncle and Eustace
busily fell to discussing literature, and even (in a manner which,
under other circumstances, would have made me laugh) quoting the
classics, the conversation at the lower end became loud and violent in
Welsh.
"They are discussing the likelihood of a shoal of pilchards," said
Hubert to me with a faint uneasy smile. "My brothers, I grieve to say,
dear Lady Brandling, are but country bred, and very rough diamonds; and
the Saxon, as they call our Christian language, is a difficulty to their
heathenishness."
"So great a difficulty, apparently," I answered, suddenly rising from
the table, for I felt indignant with the want of spirit of my two
gentlemen, "that methinks I shall in future leave them to their
familiar Welsh, and order my meals in my parlour, where you two
gentlemen may, if you choose, have them with me." Eustace turned
crimson, bit his lip; Uncle Hubert went very green; and I own I myself
was astonished at my decision of tone and attitude: it was like an
unknown _me_ speaking with my voice.
Contrary to my expectation, neither Eustace nor Hubert manifested any
vexation with me. We went upstairs and sat down to cards as if nothing
had happened. But the next day Hubert brought me a long message of
apology, which I confess sounded very much of his making up, from Uncle
David. But added that he quite agreed that it was better that Eustace
and I should have our meals above, "and leave the hogs to their wash."
"Only," he said, with that politeness which I like so little (though
Heaven knows politeness ought to be a welcome drug in this place), "I
trust my dear young niece will not cast me out of the paradise I have,
after so many years, tasted of; and allow her old rough Uncle Hubert
occasionally to breathe the air of refinement she has brought to this
castle."
Yet I notice he has but rarely eaten with Eustace and me; coming up,
however, to drink wine (or pretend, for he never empties his glass and
complains he has but a weak head), or play cards, or hear me sing to the
harpsichord, a performance of which he seems inordinately fond.
I cannot help wondering what Eustace and he discuss, besides literature,
over their wine. For Eustace must surely intend, sooner or later, to
resume his position of master of St. Salvat's, and dispose, some way, of
the crew of Caliban uncles.
_October_ 18, 1772.
I ought to say something to my dear mother (though I am getting doubtful
of distressing her with my small and temporary troubles) about the
domestic economy of St. Salvat's. This is odd enough, to my thinking.
The greater part of the castle is unoccupied, and from what I have seen,
quite out of repair; nor should I have deemed it possible that so many
fine dwelling-rooms could ever have been filled and choked up, as is
here the case, with lumber, and, indeed, litter, of all kinds. The
uncles, all except Hubert, are lodged in the great south wing, and I
should guess in a manner more suitable to their looks than to their
birth, while Eustace and I occupy his mother's apartments, done up in
the late reign, in the north wing looking on the sea. The centre of the
castle is taken up by the great hall, going from ground to ceiling, so
that the two halves are virtually isolated; certainly isolated so far as
I am concerned, since the fear of eavesdropping on my uncles' brawling
has already stopped my using the gallery which runs under the ceiling of
the hall, and connects my apartments with the main staircase. The dairy,
still-room, pantry, and even the kitchen are in outhouses, from which
the serving men bring in the food often in pouring rain in an incredibly
reckless manner. I say "serving men," because one of the peculiarities
of St. Salvat's (for I can scarce believe it to be an universal practice
in England or even in Wales) is the predominance of the male sex. But
let not your fancy construe this as a sign of grandeur, or conjure up
bevies of lacqueys in long coats and silver badges! Like master, like
man; the men at St. Salvat's have the same unkempt, sea-wolfish look as
the masters, are equally foul in their habits and possess even less
English. By some strange freak the cook only is not of these parts,
indeed, a mulatto, knowing only Spanish. "All good sea-faring folk,
able to man the boats on a stormy night," explained Uncle Gwyn, as if it
were quite natural that the castle of St. Salvat's should be a
headquarters of pilchard fishing! I have only seen the mulatto at a
distance, and at first believed him to be an invention of Uncle Simon's,
the wag of the family, who informed me he had him off a notorious pirate
ship, where he had learnt to grill d----d French frogs during the late
war and serve them up with capers.
The small number of women servants is scarce to be regretted, judging by
the few there are. Though whether, indeed, these sluts should be judged
at all as serving women I feel inclined to doubt; for no secret is made
of the dairymaid and the laundress being the sultanas of Uncles Simon
and Gwyn, with whom they often sit to meals; while the little waiting
wench at first allotted to me was too obviously courted by the oaf Evan
to be kept in my service. Uncle Hubert had indeed thought it needful to
explain to me that the gentry of these parts all live worse than
heathens, and has attempted (but the subject gave me little
satisfaction) to confirm this by the _chronique galante_ of the
neighbourhood; 'tis wonderful how quick the man is at taking a hint, and
adapting his views to his listeners', at least to mine. To come back to
the maids, if such a name can be applied here, I find the only reputable
woman in the castle (her age, and something in her manner give her a
claim to such an adjective) is Mrs. Davies, the supposed housekeeper,
who now attends on my (luckily very simple) wants. She was the
foster-mother and nurse of my brother-in-law, the late Baronet; and 'tis
plain there was no love lost betwixt Eustace and her. Indeed, I seem to
guess she may have helped to make his infancy the sad and solitary one
it was. Yet, for all this suspicion, and a confused impression (which I
can't account for) that the woman is set over us to spy, I am bound to
say that of all people here, not excepting Uncle Hubert here, Mrs.
Davies is the one most to my taste. She has been notably beautiful, and
despite considerable age, has an uncommon active and erect bearing; and
there is about her harsh, dark face, and silent, abrupt manners,
something which puts me at ease by its strength and straightforwardness.
This seems curious after saying she has been _set to spy_; but 'tis my
impression that in this heathenish country spying, aye, and I can fancy
robbing and murdering, might be done with a clean conscience as a duty
towards one's masters; and Hubert, and the memory of Sir Thomas, are the
real masters, and not Eustace and I.... Will it always be so? Things
look like it; and yet, at the bottom of my soul, I find a hope, almost
an expectation, that with God's grace I shall clean out this Augean
stable, and burn out these wasp's nests....
_October_ 29.
On my asking about prayers, a practice I had noticed in every family
since my arrival in England, Uncle Hubert excused himself by explaining
that most of the common folk about here had followed Mr. Wesley's sect,
and for the rest few of the household understood English. The same
reason methought prevented his fulfilling his clergyman's office in
public; and when three Sundays had passed, I got to think that the
church in the glen was never opened at all. To my surprise last night,
being Saturday, the Reverend Hubert invited us very solemnly to Divine
Service the following morning; invited, for his manner was very much
that of a man requesting one's company at a concert or theatrical
entertainment. I am just returned, and I confess my astonishment. Uncle
Hubert, though in a style by no means to my taste, and with no kind of
real religious spirit, is undoubtedly a preacher of uncommon genius, nor
was there any possibility, methought, that his extempore sermon was
learned by heart. The flowing rhetorical style, more like that of Romish
divines, was of a piece also with his conversation, and he had the look
of enjoyment of one conscious of his own powers. I own the interest of
the performance (for such I felt it) was so great that it was only on
reflection I perceived the utter and almost indecent inappropriateness
thereof. Despite the lack of English, the entire household, save the
mulatto, were present, mostly asleep in constrained attitudes; and the
other uncles, all except David and Gwyn, lay snoring in their pews.
My own impression was oddly disagreeable; but on the service ending, I
brought myself to compliment our uncle. "You should have been a bishop,"
I said, "at your age, Uncle Hubert."
He sighed deeply, "A bishop? I ought to have--I might have
been--everything, anything--save for this cursed place and my own
weakness. But doubtless," he added, hypocritically, "it is a just decree
of Providence that has decided thus. But it is hard sometimes. There are
two natures in us, occasionally, and the one vanquishes and overwhelms
the other. In me," and here he began to laugh, "the fisherman for
pilchards has got the better of the fisherman for souls."
"Fishing appears to have wondrous attractions," I answered negligently.
He turned and looked at me scrutinisingly. "We have all had the passion,
we Brandlings," he said, "except that superfine gentleman yonder,"
nodding at Eustace. And added, in a loud, emphatic voice, "And none of
us has been a more devoted fisherman, you will admit, dear Eustace, than
your lamented father."
Eustace, I thought, turned pale, but it might have been the greenish
light through the bottle-glass windows of the little church, on whose
damp floor we three were standing before the tombs of the Brandlings of
former times, quaint pyramids of kneeling figures, sons and daughters
tapering downwards from the kneeling father and mother; and recumbent
knights, obliterated by centuries in the ruined roofless chapel, so that
the dog at their feet, the sword by their side, let alone their poor
washed features, were scarce distinguishable....
"They look like drowned people," I said, and indeed the green light
through the trees and the bottle glass, and the greenish damp stains all
round, made the church seem like a sea cave, with the sea moaning round
it.
"Where have you seen drowned people, Penelope?" asked Eustace, and I
felt a little reproved for the horridness of my imaginings.
"Nowhere," I hastily answered; "just a fancy that passed through my
head. And you said there are so many wrecks on this coast, you know."
"We are all wrecks on the ocean of Time," remarked the Reverend Hubert,
"overwhelmed by its flood."
"You are the bishop now," I laughed, "not the pilchard fisher," and we
went through the damp churchyard of huddled grassy mounds and crooked
gravestones under the big trees of the glen.
"Eustace," I said that evening, "I wish I might not be buried down
there," and then, considering that all his ancestors were, I felt sorry.
But he clasped my arm very tenderly, and exclaimed with a look of deep
pain, "For God's sake do not speak of such things, my love. Even in jest
the words make me feel faint and sick."
Poor Eustace! I fear he is not well; and that what he has found at St.
Salvat's is eating into his spirits.
_November_ 15, 1772.
I have been feeling doubtful, for some days past, whether to send my
diary regularly to my mother, lest she should be distressed (at that
great distance) by my account of this place and our life here. Yet I
felt as if something had suddenly happened, a window suddenly closed or
a door slammed in my face, when Eustace begged me to-day to be very
reserved in anything I wrote in my letters.
"These country postmasters," he said, not without hesitation, "are not
to be trusted with any secrets; they are known to amuse their leisure
and entertain their gossips with the letters which pass through their
hands." He laughed, but not very naturally. "Some day," he said, "I will
be sending a special messenger to Cardiff, and then your diary--for I
know that you are keeping one--shall go to your mother. But for the
present I would not say more than needful about ... about our
surroundings, my dear Penelope."
I felt childishly vexed.
"'Tis that hateful Uncle Hubert;" I cried, "that reads our letters,
Eustace! I feel sure of it!"
"Nonsense," answered Eustace. "I tell you that it is a well-known habit
among postmasters and postmistresses in this country," and he went away
a little displeased, as I thought.
My poor journal! And yet I shall continue writing it, and perhaps even
more frankly now it will be read only by me; for while I write I seem to
be talking to my dearest mother, and to be a little less solitary....
II
_December_ 21, 1772.
Winter has come on: a melancholy, wet and stormy winter, without the
glitter of snow and ice; and with the sea moaning or roaring by turns. I
think with longing (though I hope poor Eustace does not guess how near I
sometimes am to crying for homesickness) of our sledging parties with
the dear cheerful neighbours at Grandfey; of the skating on the ponds,
and the long walks on the crisp frozen snow, when Eustace and I would
snowball or make long slides, laughing like children. At St. Salvat's
there are no neighbours; or if there are (but the nearest large house is
ten miles off, and belongs to a noble lord who never leaves London) they
do not show themselves. I do not even know what there is or is not in
the country that lies inland; in fact, since our coming, I have never
left the grounds and park of St. Salvat's, nor gone beyond the old
fortified walls which encircle them. My very curiosity has gradually
faded. I have never pressed Hubert for the saddle horse and the equipage
(the coach-house contains only broken-down coaches of the days of King
George I.) which he promised rather vaguely to procure for me on our
first coming; I have no wish to pass beyond that drawbridge; like a
caged bird, I have grown accustomed to my prison. Since the bad weather
I have even ceased my rambles in the shrubberies and on the grass-grown
terraces: the path to the sea has been slippery with mud; besides I hate
that melancholy winter sea, always threatening or complaining.
I stay within doors for days together, without pleasure or profit,
reading old plays and novels which I throw aside, or putting a few
stitches into useless tambour work; I who could formerly not live a day
within doors, nor do whatever I set to do without childish
strenuousness!
These two or three days past I have been trying to find diversion in
reading the history of these parts, where the Brandlings--kings of this
part of Wales in the time of King Arthur, crusaders later, and great
barons fighting at Crecy and at Agincourt--once played so great a part,
and now they have dwindled into common smugglers, for 'tis my growing
persuasion that such is the real trade hidden under the name of pilchard
fishing--defrauders of the King's Exchequer, and who knows? for all
Hubert's rank as magistrate, no better than thieves and outlawed
ruffians.
Hubert has been showing me the family archives. He lays great store by
all these deeds and papers, and one is surprised in a house so utterly
given over to neglect, to find anything in such good order. He saved the
archives himself he tells me, when (as I have always forgotten to note
down) the library of the castle was burnt down on the occasion of my
late brother-in-law's _wake_; a barbarous funereal feast habitual in
these parts, and during which a drunken guest set fire to the draperies
of the coffin. I did not ask whether the body of Sir Thomas, which had
been brought by sea from Bristol after his violent end there, had been
destroyed in this extraordinary pyre; and I judge that it was from
Eustace's silence and Hubert's evident avoidance of the point. Perhaps
he is conscious that his efforts were directed to a different object,
for it is well nigh miraculous how he should have saved those shelves
full of documents and all that number of valuable books bound with the
Brandling arms.
"You must have risked your life in the flames!" I exclaimed with
admiration at the man's heroism.
He bid me look at his hands, which indeed bear traces of dreadful
burning.
"I care about my ancestors," he answered, "perhaps more, to say the
truth, than for my living kinsfolk. Besides," he added, "I ought to say
that I had taken the precaution to remove the most valuable books before
giving over the library to their drunken rites. As it was, they burnt
my poor dead nephew to ashes like the phoenix of the Poets, only that
he, poor lad, will not arise from them till the day of judgment!"
_January_ 12, 1773.
A horrid circumstance has just happened, and oddly enough in that same
library which had been burnt, all but its ancient walls, at my
brother-in-law's funeral, I had persuaded Eustace to turn it into a
laboratory, for I think a certain melancholy may be due to the restless
idleness in which he has been living ever since we came here. In
building one of the furnaces the masons had to make a deep cavity in the
wall; and there, what should appear, but a number of skeletons, nine or
ten, walled up erect in the thickness of the masonry. I was taking the
air on the terrace outside, and hearing the men's exclamations, ran to
the spot. It was a ghastly sight. But my uncle Simon, who was smoking
his pipe in the great empty room, burst into uncontrollable laughter
over my horror; and going up to a little heap of mouldering bones which
had fallen out with the plaster, picked up a green and spongy shin and
brought it to me. "Here's some material for Eustace ready to hand!" he
cried with a vile oath. "Let him try whether he can bring these pretty
fellows to life again in his devil's cooking pots," and he thrust the
horrid object under my nose.
At this moment Hubert appeared, and, with his wolf's eyes, took in all
at a glance.
"Fie, fie," he cried, striking that horrid relic out of his brother's
hand, "are these fit sights for a lady, you hog, Simon?" and taking me
brusquely by the hand, leads me away, and, in the pantry, tries to make
me swallow a dose of brandy, with much petting and cosseting.
"Our ancestors, dear Lady Brandling (for so he affects to call me), were
but rough soldiers, though princes of these parts; and the relics of
their games scarce fit for your pretty eyes. But have a sup of brandy,
my dear, 'twill set you right."
I loathed the mealy-mouthed black creature, methought, worse than
drunken Simon, and worse almost than those horrid dead men.
"No, thank you, uncle," I said, "my stomach is stronger than you think.
My ancestors also were soldiers--soldiers on the field of battle--though
I never heard of their bricking up their enemies in the house wall."
"Nay, nay," he cried, "but that was an evil habit of those days, dear
Lady Brandling, hundreds and thousands of years ago, when we were
sovereign princes."
"Hundreds and thousands of years ago?" I answered, for I hated him at
that moment, "ah well, I had thought it was scarce so far removed from
us as all that."
_January_ 31, 1773.
A curious feeling has been tormenting me of late, of self-reproach for I
scarce know what, of lack of helpfulness, almost of disloyalty towards
my husband. Since we have been here, indeed I think ever since the first
announcement of Sir Thomas's death, Eustace has altered in his manner
towards me; a whole side of his life has, I feel, been hidden from me.
Have I a right to it? This is what has been debating in my mind. A man
may have concerns which it is no duty of his to share with a wife; not
because she is only a wife, and he a husband, for my dear Eustace's mind
is too enlightened and generous, too thoroughly imbued with the noble
doctrines of our days, to admit of such a difference. But there is one
of my mother's sayings which has worked very deeply into my mind. It was
on the eve of my wedding. "Remember, dear little Penelope," she said,
"that no degree of love, however pure, noble, and perfect, can really
make two souls into one soul. All appearance to the contrary is a mere
delusion and dangerous. Every human soul has its own nature, its
necessary laws, and demands liberty and privacy to develop them; and
were this not the case, no soul, however loving and courageous, could
ever help another, for it would have no strength, no understanding, no
life, with which to bring help. Remember this, my child, till the moment
come when you shall understand it, and, I hope, act in the light of its
comprehension."
Well, methinks that ever since that day when the letter arrived which
changed our destiny, I have not merely remembered, but learned to
understand these words. So that I have fought against the soreness of
feeling that, on some matters at least, I was excluded from my husband's
confidence. After two years of such utter openness of heart as has
existed between us three--our mother, Eustace, and, younger and weaker
though I felt, myself--such free discussion of all ideas and interests,
of his scientific work, even to details which I could not grasp, after
this there is undoubtedly something strange in the absolute reserve,
indeed the utter silence, he maintains about everything concerning his
family, his property, and our position and circumstances, the more so
that, at the time of our marriage he often confided to me details
connected with it. Thus, in that past which seems already so remote, he
has often described to me this very house, these very rooms, told me his
childish solitude and terrors, and spoken quite freely of the unhappy
life of his mother by the side of his cruel and violent father, and
among his father's brutal besotted companions; he had told me of the
horrid heartlessness with which his only brother played upon his
sensitiveness and abused his weakness, and of the evil habits, the
odious scenes of intemperance and violence from which he was screened
by his poor mother, and finally saved by her generous decision to part
with him and have him educated abroad. He had mentioned the continual
brawls of his uncles. But since his succession to the property, never a
word has alluded to any of these things, nor to the knowledge he had
given me of them. Once or twice, when I have mentioned, quite naturally,
his dead brother, his mother (I am actually occupying her apartments,
sleeping in her bed, and only yesterday Eustace spent the afternoon
mending and tuning her harpsichord for me), he has let the subject drop,
or diverted the conversation in an unmistakable manner. Nay, what is
more significant, and more puzzling, Eustace has never given me a clue
to whether he knew of the arrangements, the life, we should find here;
before our arrival, he had never mentioned that the castle was, to all
intents and purposes, in the hands of his kinsmen; nor has he dropped a
word in explanation of so extraordinary a circumstance. And I have never
asked him whether he knew to what manner of life he was bringing me,
whether he intends it to continue, what are his reasons and plans. I
have respected his reserve. But have I been perfectly loyal in hiding my
wonder, my disappointment, my sorrow?
_February_ 5, 1773.
I cannot make up my mind about Uncle Hubert. Is he our fellow-victim or
the ringleader of this usurping gang of ruffians? The more I see, the
more I hesitate upon the point. But, as time goes on, I hesitate less
and less in my dislike of him, although I own it often seems
unreasonable and ungrateful. The man not only tries to make himself
agreeable to us, but I almost think he feels kindly. He has a real
appreciation of Eustace's genius; and, indeed, it is this, most likely,
which sometimes causes me to think well, though I fear never _kindly_,
of him. It is quite wonderful how he lights up whenever he can get
Eustace (no easy matter) to speak on philosophic subjects; it is a kind
of transfiguration, and all the obliquity and fawningness about the
creature vanishes. He has a good knowledge of mathematics, Eustace tells
me, is a skilful mechanic, and would evidently enjoy assisting my
husband in his experiments if he would let him. Towards myself he has, I
do believe, a kind of sentiment, and what is worse, of paternal
sentiment! _Worse_ because my whole nature recoils from him. He is most
passionately fond of music, plays fairly on the viol, and takes quite a
childish pleasure in making me sing and play. I ought indeed to be
grateful towards him, for his presence, although distasteful I think to
both of us, is a boon, in so far as it relieves the strain of feeling
that there is a secret--a something which has come between my husband
and me. Alas, alas! that the presence of a third person, of a person
such as Hubert, should ever have come to be a boon! But I dare not face
this thought. It is worse than any of the bad realities and bad
probabilities of this bad place.
If only Hubert would not make me presents, forcing me thus to feel how
hugely I hate having to accept anything from him. It began (almost as a
bribe, methought) in the shape of a fine gold watch and equipage the
very day after Uncle Edward's misbehaviour. Then, some time after, a cut
of handsome Lyons brocade, enough for a gown, though Heaven knows there
is no occasion for such finery at St. Salvat's! And this evening, after
listening to me through some songs of Monsieur Piccini, and teaching me
some of the plaintive airs of the Welsh peasantry, the man drew from his
coat a fine shagreen case, which proved to contain a string of large and
very regularly shaped and sorted pearls. I felt I could not bear it.
"Are they pearls of my mother-in-law's?" I asked without thanking him,
and in a tone anything, I fear, but grateful. Instead of being angry and
turning green, as I expected, Uncle Hubert looked merely very much hurt
and answered:
"Had they been heirlooms it would have been your husband, not your
uncle, to hand them you. Eustace is the head of the family, not I."
"The less said about the family and its head," I answered hotly, "the
better, Uncle Hubert," and I felt sorry the moment after.