AT TURNOVER CASTLE.
Mrs. Fenwick had many quips and quirks with her husband as to those
tidings to be made in a pleasant spirit which were expected from
Turnover Castle. From the very moment that Lord St. George had given
the order,--upon the authority chiefly of the unfortunate Mr. Bolt,
who on this occasion found it to be impossible to refuse to give an
authority which a lord demanded from him,--the demolition of the
building had been commenced. Before the first Sunday came any use of
the new chapel for divine service was already impossible. On that
day Mr. Puddleham preached a stirring sermon about tabernacles in
general. "It did not matter where the people of the Lord met," he
said, "so long as they did meet to worship the Lord in a proper
spirit of independent resistance to any authority that had not come
to them from revelation. Any hedge-side was a sufficient tabernacle
for a devout Christian. But--," and then, without naming any name, he
described the Church of England as a Upas tree which, by its poison,
destroyed those beautiful flowers which strove to spring up amidst
the rank grass beneath it and to make the air sweet within its
neighbourhood. Something he said, too, of a weak sister tottering to
its base, only to be followed in its ruin by the speedy prostration
of its elder brother. All this was of course told in detail to the
Vicar; but the Vicar refused even to be interested by it. "Of course
he did," said the Vicar. "If a man is to preach, what can he preach
but his own views?"
The tidings to be made in a pleasant spirit were not long waited
for,--or, at any rate, the first instalment of them. On the 2nd of
September there arrived a large hamper full of partridges, addressed
to Mrs. Fenwick in the Earl's own handwriting. "The very first
fruits," said the Vicar, as he went down to inspect the plentiful
provision thus made for the vicarage larder. Well;--it was certainly
better to have partridges from Turnover than accusations of
immorality and infidelity. The Vicar so declared at once, but his
wife would not at first agree with him. "I really should have such
pleasure in packing them up and sending them back," said she.
"Indeed, you shall do nothing of the kind."
"The idea of a basket of birds to atone for such insults and calumny
as that man has heaped on you!"
"The birds will be only a first instalment," said the Vicar,--and
then there were more quips and quirks about that. It was presumed by
Mr. Fenwick that the second instalment would be the first pheasants
shot in October. But the second instalment came before September was
over in the shape of the following note:--
Turnover Park, 20th September, 186--.
The Marquis of Trowbridge and the Ladies Sophie and
Carolina Stowte request that Mr. and Mrs. Fenwick will do
them the honour of coming to Turnover Park on Monday the
6th October, and staying till Saturday the 11th.
"That's an instalment indeed," said Mrs. Fenwick. "And now what on
earth are we to do?" The Vicar admitted that it had become very
serious. "We must either go, and endure a terrible time of it,"
continued Mrs. Fenwick, "or we must show him very plainly that we
will have nothing more to do with him. I don't see why we are to be
annoyed, merely because he is a Marquis."
"It won't be because he is a Marquis."
"Why then? You can't say that you love the old man, or that the
Ladies Sophie and Carolina Stowte are the women you'd have me choose
for companions, or that that soapy, silky, humbugging Lord St. George
is to your taste."
"I am not sure about St. George. He can be everything to everybody,
and would make an excellent bishop."
"You know you don't like him, and you know also that you will have a
very bad time of it at Turnover."
"I could shoot pheasants all the week."
"Yes,--with a conviction at the time that the Ladies Sophie and
Carolina were calling you an infidel behind your back for doing so.
As for myself I feel perfectly certain that I should spar with them."
"It isn't because he's a Marquis," said the Vicar, carrying on his
argument after a long pause. "If I know myself, I think I may say
that that has no allurement for me. And, to tell the truth, had he
been simply a Marquis, and had I been at liberty to indulge my own
wishes, I would never have allowed myself to be talked out of my
righteous anger by that soft-tongued son of his. But to us he is a
man of the very greatest importance, because he owns the land on
which the people live with whom we are concerned. It is for their
welfare that he and I should be on good terms together; and therefore
if you don't mind the sacrifice, I think we'll go."
"What;--for the whole week, Frank?"
The Vicar was of opinion that the week might be judiciously
curtailed by two days; and, consequently, Mrs. Fenwick presented her
compliments to the Ladies Sophie and Carolina Stowte, and expressed
the great pleasure which she and Mr. Fenwick would have in going to
Turnover Park on the Tuesday, and staying till the Friday.
"So that I shall only be shooting two days," said the Vicar, "which
will modify the aspect of my infidelity considerably."
They went to Turnover Castle. The poor old Marquis had rather a bad
time of it for the hour or two previous to their arrival. It had
become an acknowledged fact now in the county that Sam Brattle had
had nothing to do with the murder of Farmer Trumbull, and that his
acquaintance with the murderers had sprung from his desire to see his
unfortunate sister settled in marriage with a man whom he at the time
did not know to be disreputable. There had therefore been a reaction
in favour of Sam Brattle, whom the county now began to regard as
something of a hero. The Marquis, understanding all that, had come to
be aware that he had wronged the Vicar in that matter of the murder.
And then, though he had been told upon very good authority,--no less
than that of his daughters, who had been so informed by the sisters
of a most exemplary neighbouring curate,--that Mr. Fenwick was a man
who believed "just next to nothing," and would just as soon associate
with a downright Pagan like old Brattle, as with any professing
Christian,--still there was the fact of the Bishop's good opinion;
and, though the Marquis was a self-willed man, to him a bishop was
always a bishop. It was also clear to him that he had been misled in
those charges which he had made against the Vicar in that matter of
poor Carry Brattle's residence at Salisbury. Something of the truth
of the girl's history had come to the ears of the Marquis, and he
had been made to believe that he had been wrong. Then there was the
affair of the chapel, in which, under his son's advice, he was at
this moment expending £700 in rectifying the mistake which he had
made. In giving the Marquis his due we must acknowledge that he cared
but little about the money. Marquises, though they may have large
properties, are not always in possession of any number of loose
hundreds which they can throw away without feeling the loss. Nor was
the Marquis of Trowbridge so circumstanced now. But that trouble did
not gall him nearly so severely as the necessity which was on him to
rectify an error made by himself. He had done a foolish thing. Under
no circumstances should the chapel have been built on that spot. He
knew it now, and he knew that he must apologise. Noblesse oblige.
The old lord was very stupid, very wrong-headed, and sometimes very
arrogant; but he would not do a wrong if he knew it, and nothing on
earth would make him tell a wilful lie. The epithet indeed might have
been omitted; for a lie is not a lie unless it be wilful.
Lord Trowbridge passed the hours of this Tuesday morning under
the frightful sense of the necessity for apologising;--and yet he
remembered well the impudence of the man, how he had ventured to
allude to the Ladies Stowte, likening them to--to--to--! It was
terrible to be thought of. And his lordship remembered, too, how
this man had written about the principal entrance to his own mansion
as though it had been no more than the entrance to any other man's
house! Though the thorns still rankled in his own flesh, he had to
own that he himself had been wrong.
And he did it,--with an honesty that was beyond the reach of his much
more clever son. When the Fenwicks arrived, they were taken into the
drawing-room, in which were sitting the Ladies Sophie and Carolina
with various guests already assembled at the Castle. In a minute or
two the Marquis shuffled in and shook hands with the two new comers.
Then he shuffled about the room for another minute or two, and at
last got his arm through that of the Vicar, and led him away into his
own sanctum. "Mr. Fenwick," he said, "I think it best to express my
regret at once for two things that have occurred."
[Illustration: The drawing-room at Turnover Castle.]
"It does not signify, my lord."
"But it does signify to me, and if you will listen to me for a moment
I shall take your doing so as a favour added to that which you have
conferred upon me in coming here." The Vicar could only bow and
listen. "I am sorry, Mr. Fenwick, that I should have written to the
bishop of this diocese in reference to your conduct." Fenwick found
it very difficult to hold his tongue when this was said. He imagined
that the Marquis was going to excuse himself about the chapel,--and
about the chapel he cared nothing at all. But as to that letter to
the bishop, he did feel that the less said about it the better. He
restrained himself, however, and the Marquis went on. "Things had
been told me, Mr. Fenwick;--and I thought that I was doing my duty."
"It did me no harm, my lord."
"I believe not. I had been misinformed,--and I apologise." The
Marquis paused, and the Vicar bowed. It is probable that the Vicar
did not at all know how deep at that moment were the sufferings of
the Marquis. "And now as to the chapel," continued the Marquis.
"My lord, that is such a trifle that you must let me say that it is
not and has not been of the slightest consequence."
"I was misled as to that bit of ground."
"I only wish, my lord, that the chapel could stand there."
"That is impossible. The land has been appropriated to other
purposes, and though we have all been a little in the dark about
our own rights, right must be done. I will only add that I have the
greatest satisfaction in seeing you and Mrs. Fenwick at Turnover, and
that I hope the satisfaction may often be repeated." Then he led the
way back into the drawing-room, and the evil hour had passed over his
head.
Upon the whole, things went very well with both the Vicar and his
wife during their visit. He did go out shooting one day, and was
treated very civilly by the Turnover gamekeeper, though he was
prepared with no five-pound note at the end of his day's amusement.
When he returned to the house, his host congratulated him on his
performance just as cordially as though he had been one of the laity.
On the next day he rode over with Lord St. George to see the County
Hunt kennels, which were then at Charleycoats, and nobody seemed to
think him very wicked because he ventured to have an opinion about
hounds. Mrs. Fenwick's amusements were, perhaps, less exciting, but
she went through them with equanimity. She was taken to see the
parish schools, and was walked into the parish church,--in which the
Stowte family were possessed of an enormous recess called a pew,
but which was in truth a room, with a fireplace in it. Mrs. Fenwick
thought it did not look very much like a church; but as the Ladies
Stowte were clearly very proud of it she held her peace as to that
idea. And so the visit to Turnover Park was made, and the Fenwicks
were driven home.
"After all, there's nothing like burying the hatchet," said he.
"But who sharpened the hatchet?" asked Mrs. Fenwick.
"Never mind who sharpened it. We've buried it."