EASTER AT TURNOVER CASTLE.
It was not only at Bullhampton that this affair of the Methodist
chapel demanded and received attention. At Turnover also a good deal
was being said about it, and the mind of the Marquis was not easy. As
has been already told, the bishop had written to him on the subject,
remonstrating with him as to the injury he was doing to the present
vicar, and to future vicars, of the parish which he, as landlord,
was bound to treat with beneficent consideration. The Marquis had
replied to the bishop with a tone of stern resolve. The Vicar of
Bullhampton had treated him with scorn, nay, as he thought, with most
unpardonable insolence, and he would not spare the Vicar. It was
proper that the dissenters at Bullhampton should have a chapel, and
he had a right to do what he liked with his own. So arguing with
himself, he had written to the bishop very firmly; but his own mind
had not been firm within him as he did so. There were misgivings
at his heart. He was a Churchman himself, and he was pricked with
remorse as he remembered that he was spiting the Church which was
connected with the state, of which he was so eminent a supporter. His
own chief agent, too, had hesitated, and had suggested that perhaps
the matter might be postponed. His august daughters, though they
had learned to hold the name of Fenwick in proper abhorrence,
nevertheless were grieved about the chapel. Men and women were
talking about it, and the words of the common people found their way
to the august daughters of the house of Stowte.
"Papa," said Lady Carolina; "wouldn't it, perhaps, be better to build
the Bullhampton chapel a little farther off from the Vicarage?"
"The next vicar might be a different sort of person," said the Lady
Sophie.
"No; it wouldn't," said the Earl, who was apt to be very imperious
with his own daughters, although he was of opinion that they should
be held in great awe by all the world--excepting only himself and
their eldest brother.
That eldest brother, Lord Saint George, was in truth regarded at
Turnover as being, of all persons in the world, the most august.
The Marquis himself was afraid of his son, and held him in extreme
veneration. To the mind of the Marquis the heir expectant of all the
dignities of the House of Stowte was almost a greater man than the
owner of them; and this feeling came not only from a consciousness
on the part of the father that his son was a bigger man than himself,
cleverer, better versed in the affairs of the world, and more thought
of by those around them, but also to a certain extent from an idea
that he who would have all these grand things thirty or perhaps even
fifty years hence, must be more powerful than one with whom their
possession would come to an end probably after the lapse of eight
or ten years. His heir was to him almost divine. When things at
the castle were in any way uncomfortable, he could put up with the
discomfort for himself and his daughters; but it was not to be
endured that Saint George should be incommoded. Old carriage-horses
must be changed if he were coming; the glazing of the new greenhouse
must be got out of the way, lest he should smell the paint; the game
must not be touched till he should come to shoot it. And yet Lord
Saint George himself was a man who never gave himself any airs; and
who in his personal intercourse with the world around him demanded
much less acknowledgment of his magnificence than did his father.
And now, during this Easter week, Lord Saint George came down to
the castle, intending to kill two birds with one stone, to take his
parliamentary holiday, and to do a little business with his father.
It not unfrequently came to pass that he found it necessary to
repress the energy of his father's august magnificence. He would go
so far as to remind his father that in these days marquises were not
very different from other people, except in this, that they perhaps
might have more money. The Marquis would fret in silence, not daring
to commit himself to an argument with his son, and would in secret
lament over the altered ideas of the age. It was his theory of
politics that the old distances should be maintained, and that the
head of a great family should be a patriarch, entitled to obedience
from those around him. It was his son's idea that every man was
entitled to as much obedience as his money would buy, and to no more.
This was very lamentable to the Marquis; but nevertheless, his son
was the coming man, and even this must be borne.
"I'm sorry about this chapel at Bullhampton," said the son to the
father after dinner.
"Why sorry, Saint George? I thought you would have been of opinion
that the dissenters should have a chapel."
"Certainly they should, if they're fools enough to want to build
a place to pray in, when they have got one already built for them.
There's no reason on earth why they shouldn't have a chapel, seeing
that nothing that we can do will save them from schism."
"We can't prevent dissent, Saint George."
"We can't prevent it, because, in religion as in everything else, men
like to manage themselves. This farmer or that tradesman becomes a
dissenter because he can be somebody in the management of his chapel,
and would be nobody in regard to the parish church."
"That is very dreadful."
"Not worse than our own people, who remain with us because it sounds
the most respectable. Not one in fifty really believes that this or
that form of worship is more likely to send him to heaven than any
other."
"I certainly claim to myself to be one of the few," said the Marquis.
"No doubt; and so you ought, my lord, as every advantage has been
given you. But, to come back to the Bullhampton chapel,--don't you
think we could move it away from the parson's gate?"
"They have built it now, Saint George."
"They can't have finished it yet."
"You wouldn't have me ask them to pull it down? Packer was here
yesterday, and said that the framework of the roof was up."
"What made them hurry it in that way? Spite against the Vicar, I
suppose."
"He is a most objectionable man, Saint George; most insolent,
overbearing, and unlike a clergyman. They say that he is little
better than an infidel himself."
"We had better leave that to the bishop, my lord."
"We must feel about it, connected as we are with the parish," said
the Marquis.
"But I don't think we shall do any good by going into a parochial
quarrel."
"It was the very best bit of land for the purpose in all
Bullhampton," said the Marquis. "I made particular inquiry, and there
can be no doubt of that. Though I particularly dislike that Mr.
Fenwick, it was not done to injure him."
"It does injure him damnably, my lord."
"That's only an accident."
"And I'm not at all sure that we shan't find that we have made a
mistake."
"How a mistake?"
"That we have given away land that doesn't belong to us."
"Who says it doesn't belong to us?" said the Marquis, angrily. A
suggestion so hostile, so unjust, so cruel as this, almost overcame
the feeling of veneration which he entertained for his son. "That is
really nonsense, Saint George."
"Have you looked at the title deeds?"
"The title deeds are of course with Mr. Boothby. But Packer knows
every foot of the ground,--even if I didn't know it myself."
"I wouldn't give a straw for Packer's knowledge."
"I haven't heard that they have even raised the question themselves."
"I'm told that they will do so,--that they say it is common land.
It's quite clear that it has never been either let or enclosed."
"You might say the same of the bit of green that lies outside the
park gate,--where the great oak stands; but I don't suppose that that
is common."
"I don't say that this is--but I do say that there may be difficulty
of proof; and that to be driven to the proof in such a matter would
be disagreeable."
"What would you do, then?"
"Take the bull by the horns, and move the chapel at our own expense
to some site that shall be altogether unobjectionable."
"We should be owning ourselves wrong, Augustus."
"And why not? I cannot see what disgrace there is in coming forward
handsomely and telling the truth. When the land was given we thought
it was our own. There has come up a shadow of a doubt, and sooner
than be in the wrong, we give another site and take all the expense.
I think that would be the right sort of thing to do."
Lord Saint George returned to town two days afterwards, and the
Marquis was left with the dilemma on his mind. Lord Saint George,
though he would frequently interfere in matters connected with the
property in the manner described, would never dictate and seldom
insist. He had said what he had got to say, and the Marquis was left
to act for himself. But the old lord had learned to feel that he was
sure to fall into some pit whenever he declined to follow his son's
advice. His son had a painful way of being right that was a great
trouble to him. And this was a question which touched him very
nearly. It was not only that he must yield to Mr. Fenwick before the
eyes of Mr. Puddleham and all the people of Bullhampton; but that he
must confess his own ignorance as to the borders of his own property,
and must abandon a bit of land which he believed to belong to the
Stowte estate. Now, if there was a point in his religion as to which
Lord Trowbridge was more staunch than another, it was as to the
removal of landmarks. He did not covet his neighbour's land; but he
was most resolute that no stranger should, during his reign, ever
possess a rood of his own.