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MISER FAREBROTHER.
A Novel.
BY
B. L. FARJEON,
AUTHOR OF
"GREAT PORTER SQUARE," "GRIF," "IN A SILVER SEA," "THE HOUSE OF WHITE
SHADOWS," ETC.
_IN THREE VOLUMES._
VOL. I.
London:
WARD & DOWNEY,
12, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
1888.
[_Dramatic rights protected and reserved._]
PRINTED BY
KELLY AND CO., GATE STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, W.C.;
AND MIDDLE MILL, KINGSTON-ON-THAMES.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I.--THE LAST OF THE CARE-TAKERS 1
II.--MISER FAREBROTHER RECONNOITRES THE GROUND AND
RECEIVES A SHOCK 17
III.--THE NEW TENANTS ARRIVE, AND ONE DEPARTS 31
IV.--PHOEBE AND THE ANGELS 50
V.--MRS. PAMFLETT RECOMMENDS A NEW CLERK TO THE MISER 60
VI.--A VERY SMALL BOY COVERS HIMSELF WITH GLORY 76
VII.--MISER FAREBROTHER ENVIES FAUST 90
VIII.--A DAY-DREAMER IN LONDON STREETS 109
IX.--A NEW DOMESTIC DRAMA, BY UNCLE LETH 117
X.--'MELIA JANE, GODDESS OF POTS AND PANS 132
XI.--KISS HAS SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT THEATRICAL MANAGERS 145
XII.--THE READING OF THE NEW PLAY 163
XIII.--CURL-PAPER CONFIDENCES 174
XIV.--A BIT OF EDELWEISS 191
XV.--JEREMIAH PAMFLETT'S OPINIONS OF GIRLS 201
XVI.--TOM BARLEY HAS A SCENE WITH THE MISER 218
XVII.--FANNY CONFIDES A SECRET TO HER MOTHER 228
XVIII.--MRS. PAMFLETT DEVELOPS A SUDDEN AFFECTION FOR PHOEBE 243
XIX.--A BEAUTIFUL BIRTHDAY 257
MISER FAREBROTHER.
CHAPTER I.
THE LAST OF THE CARE-TAKERS.
In Dropmore Beeches, near Beddington, county of Surrey, stands a red
brick mansion, in the Gothic style, known as Parksides. It is situated
on the outskirts of an estate of forty acres, comprised of a few acres
of cover, and, for the rest, of shrubberies, meadow-land, and a
wilderness wood, upon the arrangement of which great care had been
bestowed and a vast amount of money expended. This was in the old days,
when the house had been occupied by a family of good standing, the
heirs of which had resided in it for many generations. Pride was taken
in it then, and it was deservedly renowned for its beauty. The country
people round about quoted Parksides as a possession which reflected
honour upon themselves, and the vicarious distinction was accounted of
high value. They had good reasons for being proud of it, and of its
masters and mistresses, who were to the fore not only in the county but
in the metropolis. The gentlemen fought for King and country, and
administered the laws; the ladies dispensed charities and set the
fashions; they attended Court, hunted, travelled, and held their heads
high, as was their due. But other times, other men. The family that had
owned Parksides for centuries slipped out of the ranks--for which they
had none but themselves to blame. A strain of foreign blood was
introduced by marriage, and the heir born of that union inherited the
vices of his mother's family. He ran his course merrily; and after him
a spendthrift heir, and after him another, reaped what had been bred
and zealously cultivated in the bone. They played the part of
absentees, and plunged into the fashionable dissipations of the
city--raked, and made matches on the race-courses, rattled the dice-box
from night till morning, were always ready for any mad prank, drank
deeply, and borrowed at exorbitant interest--until they had thoroughly
succeeded in squandering their fortune. It was too late, then, for
repentance: Parksides was lost to them and theirs for ever. There had
been long and complicated law proceedings in connection with the
estate, and at the period of the opening of this story it was supposed
to be in Chancery--which troubled itself not at all in the matter--and
to have no rightful or legal owner. Nevertheless, it was occupied by a
man who had earned the name of Miser Farebrother, who paid rent to no
one, and was not called upon to do so. It was really doubtful whether
any person had authority to demand it; and if a claimant had come
forward, his right would have been stubbornly contested by Miser
Farebrother, who had papers in his fire proof safe proving, in some
entangled way, that he had advanced money upon the estate which
entitled him to possession. The lawyers, for a great number of years,
had gathered rich harvests out of Parksides, and, after picking its
bones clean and involving it in legal complications which the entire
learned profession could not have unravelled, had turned their backs
upon it and flown to more profitable game. Its fate, long before it
fell into the hands of Miser Farebrother, may be described in one
word--decay. The wilderness wood, the wild charms of which had been
preserved with much care and skill, was so encumbered with stunted wood
growth and overrun with giant weeds that it resembled a miniature
Forest of Despair; the shrubberies were wrecks; the meadow-land was
thick with tufts of rank grass; and the only part of the estate which
had thriven was the cover, in which the rabbits literally swarmed,
spreading destruction all around. Not a shilling did Miser Farebrother
expend upon the grounds--a proof that he did not regard his rights as
absolutely incontestable. He had a keen eye for the main chance, and
money could have been laid out on the land with profit, both in the
present and the future; but he was not the man to waste the smallest
coin upon a doubtful venture. "Safe and sure" had been his motto all
through his life, and from a worldly point of view he had made it pay.
He took possession of Parksides in the dead of night. For at least a
dozen years it had been without a tenant, and for many years before
that time its only inmates had been the care-takers appointed by the
Courts and the lawyers. The last of these care-takers were a very old
man and a very old woman of the name of Barley, who were supposed to
have died of starvation in the house. It was said that there were long
arrears of wages due to them, which were never paid, because the last
shilling of the available funds had been swept away by wig and gown. No
one cared to assume responsibility in the matter, and so this old
couple were left in possession to do as they pleased. They had come
from a distance to enter upon their duties, and nobody in the
neighbourhood knew anything about them or their antecedents; nor was it
known how they came to be appointed. That they were the poorest of the
poor was clear--all that they brought with them to Parksides were a
stick and a bundle. The old man carried the stick, and the old woman
the bundle.
How they subsisted was a mystery. In the autumn they were in the habit
of picking up bits of broken branches and carrying them into the house,
presumably to serve in lieu of coals when winter came on. Both of them
were bent nearly double with old age and rheumatism. Occasionally they
would be seen sitting on a log, very close to each other, with a little
pile of stones before them, which they shied with weak and trembling
hands at a rabbit or a bird, or at shadows which they mistook for
living creatures. They never by any chance hit anything they aimed at,
and they did not even succeed in frightening the birds or the rabbits,
which darted hither and thither and hopped about quite near to them in
the most unconcerned fashion. During the latter years of their tenancy
one or other of the old people would sometimes be seen, when the
weather was fine, creeping out of Parksides and out of Beddington,
starting early in the morning and returning late at night. On these
occasions it was observed that they carried a parcel, which without
further evidence it was decided was something abstracted from the
mansion, which they were travelling to a distance to sell, in order to
obtain food; and it was also decided that they did not dispose of these
articles in the immediate neighbourhood of Beddington, lest they should
be accused of theft. If this were really the case, the old couple might
have dismissed their fears; the difficulty of finding a prosecutor
would have been insurmountable; and as to portable property of a
sufficiently small size to be tied up in a pocket-handkerchief, there
was little enough of that in the mansion. All that was valuable and of
easy carriage had long since been seized and sold, lawfully or
unlawfully. The ruin of Parksides was not a grand crash, in the thunder
of which lightning-flashes of old glories made themselves visible; it
was a long and mean decline, made up of piecemeal borrowings and
bit-by-bit sales; of filchings and small robberies, a few feathers by
this sharp rogue, a few feathers by that, from the plumage of the birds
that were once the pride of the country. There was certainly plenty of
old furniture in the house, which had been allowed to remain, probably
because it was heavy and cumbersome and falling to pieces--bedsteads,
tables, chairs, benches and sideboards, quaintly and curiously carved;
rich tapestries too, mostly worn to shreds, and rotted by age and
neglect, in which old stories had been woven by fair hands. They and
the gallant deeds they recorded were now on an equality; the reflected
radiance of stately seasons of honourable life and dignified labour was
utterly and for ever dead, leaving no soul behind; the story was told,
and flesh and silk were little better than dust. There were not any
pictures in frames in the rooms; but there were paintings on the wall
panels, so faded now and colourless that the learning of an antiquary
were needed to describe them.
Amidst these ancient surroundings the last of the care-takers, old Mr.
and Mrs. Barley, moved and starved. One can imagine them creeping up
the wide staircases, and tottering about the rooms, living ghosts,
clinging to each other for support (they were both past seventy, and
chronically weak from want of proper nourishment), wondering whether
they had not reached the dead world upon the brink of which they stood.
There came a hard winter, and a fall of snow which lasted
intermittently, but pretty steadily, nevertheless, for a full
fort-night. It was during this winter that an incident occurred in the
career of the last of the care-takers.
Said a gossip to a kindred heart, trudging through the snow at least a
hundred yards for the purpose, "My man, coming home from work last
night, passed the gates of Parksides."
"He does always, doesn't he?" was the response, evincing in the querist
an ungracious spirit, for Gossip Number Two was aware that her
neighbour had not walked ankle-deep in the coldest of carpets to impart
this information.
"Yes, he does always, when he doesn't go another way."
"What other way?"
"The way of the Hog in the Pound." (For comprehension to uninformed
minds, a public-house.)
"That's the way he likes best," observed Gossip Number Two, still with
the ungracious spirit upon her.
"_You_ needn't boast," said Gossip Number One; "your man leaves half
his wages there."
"Yes; worse luck! But what about Parksides?"
"He saw a woman going in."
"Old Mrs. Barley?"
"No; a youngish woman, looking like a beggar, with a boy holding on to
her."
"A tramp! The Barleys can't help her--can't help themselves."
"She asked my man whether that was Parksides, and whether a married
couple of the name of Barley lived there. 'Lives there!' says my man to
her. 'Starves there, would be nearer the truth.' The woman gave a sigh,
and passed into the grounds."
"Is that all?" asked Gossip Number Two, disappointed in a story so bare
of incident.
"That's all," replied Gossip Number One. "Leastways it's all my man
told me."
"It ain't much."
"No, it ain't. But," added Gossip Number One, cheerfully illogical, her
temperament being livelier than that of her neighbour, "what can we
expect in such weather? Just look how the snow's coming down again!"
This shifting of responsibility from a colourless story to a remarkable
storm--which, despite its inconveniences, was interesting because it
afforded a sound theme for conversation--somewhat mollified Gossip
Number Two, who, accompanied by her visitor, stepped to the window to
gaze upon the whirling flakes. They were thick and heavy, and a strong,
uncertain wind was lashing them furiously about, this way and that,
with a bewildering lack of method which furnished an exception to the
indisputable truth that order is nature's first law. The window through
which the gossips were looking was in the front room of the cottage,
and faced the narrow lane which led to the main road. Along this lane a
woman was walking, with a little boy scarcely three years of age
tugging at her gown. Presently they reached the cottage, where the
woman paused to wipe the snow from her face and eyes. She was very
poorly dressed, and belonged evidently to the lower orders.
"Is that her?" asked Gossip Number Two.
"It might be. She's got a little boy with her, and she looks like a
beggar. Let's have her in."
Candour compels the admission that it was not an instinct of
hospitality or humanity that prompted the suggestion. It was simply
curiosity to discover what connection existed between the poor woman
and her child and old Mr. and Mrs. Barley.
There was not much to learn. The last of the care-takers were her
parents. Having lost her husband, and being at her wits' end how to
live, she had tramped a matter of sixty miles to Parksides in the hope
that her parents might be able to assist her. Her hope was shattered
the moment she saw them. So desperate were their circumstances that she
would stop with them only one night, and she was now on her way back to
her native town, in which, at all events, she had a claim upon the
poor-house. She did not complain. She had been so used to poverty and
hardships that she harboured them without a murmur, but she said it was
bitter weather, and she did not know how ever she would get home again.
While she was telling her tale, sitting by the fireside--for the warmth
of which she expressed herself humbly thankful--the little fellow in
her lap fell asleep.
"What is his name?"
"Tom--after his poor father," said the woman.
Gossip Number One looked at Gossip Number Two, who nodded, and going to
the cupboard took therefrom a teapot, a tea-caddy, and a loaf of bread.
A full kettle was steaming on the hob. As the woman raised her head,
her hostess saw tears glistening in her eyes.
"There, there, my dear," she said, "we none of us know what we may come
to. A cup of tea'll warm your inside. And, I declare! it's left off
snowing again!"
Half an hour afterward the woman, having thanked her entertainers,
resumed her journey, and the gossips stood on the doorstep and gazed at
her vanishing form until a turn in the narrow lane hid her from their
sight. Comforting food and human sympathy had strengthened her, and she
was carrying her child, who, as his mother declared, was almost "dead
with sleep." Strange and subtle are the invisible links which connect
life with life and already one was spiritually forged between the
slumbering lad and men and women who will play their parts in this
story of human love and passion and suffering and desire.
In the ancient decayed house yonder old Mr. and Mrs. Barley were
talking in quavering tones of their Jane, who had paid them her last
earthly visit.
"She'll marry agin, mother, will our Jane," piped the old man; "she was
always a taking lass. It's only yesterday she was in pinafores."
For three years longer the Barleys remained tenants of Parksides, and
then departed for another bourne. It was bruited about the
neighbourhood that they had been found dead in the kitchen, clasped in
each other's arms. So little had been seen of them during the last
years of their tenancy that but small interest had been taken in them.
They troubled nobody, and nobody troubled them. But being dead, the
case was different; popular fancy placed them on a pinnacle, and they
became distinguished.
"So the Barleys have gone," was said. "Who'll be the next?"
No records are to hand throwing light upon what was done with their
bodies; among the uninformed the general belief was that they were not
buried, but that they "disappeared." Of course their spirits remained,
to the comfort of superstitious souls still in the flesh. There was a
talk of "ghosts," and the ball, being set rolling, grew apace. The
natural consequence was that Parksides acquired the reputation of being
a haunted house. The ghosts of the old people were seen by many persons
of all ages--who were ready to testify to the same in the
witness-box--standing at the windows, or moving familiarly about the
grounds, or seated on the roof top; always very lovingly arm in arm.
Not in the memory of the oldest inhabitant had such an enjoyable
excitement been furnished, and the superstition caused Parksides to be
avoided at night-time. Those who were fearsomely courageous enough to
make a special excursion to "see the ghosts" always went in company,
and always came back with white faces and trembling limbs. Children
would huddle together in a shrinking heap, standing so for a few
minutes, and then, startled into active movement by a sudden cry from
one among them, would scream: "There they are! Oh! oh! They're coming
after us!" and would scamper off as fast as their legs would carry
them; until, at a safe distance, they would pause, breathless, to
compare notes.
Here was a chance for the imagination, and it ran riot. No speculation
was too extravagant.
"Did _you_ see them? _I_ did! What did they look like? Like what they
are, you dunce--ghosts! Old Barley had a night-cap on. So had she. They
were all in white. He was smoking a pipe. Did you see the fire coming
out of his mouth? He blew it at us. Yes, and when they saw we didn't go
away they got up, and grew and grew till they were higher than the
trees! Johnny, come home with me to mother. She wouldn't believe _me_
when I told her. Oh, didn't they look awful!"
Uninteresting as old Mr. and Mrs. Barley had been during their
lifetime, it cannot be denied that their ghosts supplied an
entertainment better than any theatre.