SQUIRE DUDLEY.
Arthur Dudley, Esquire, of Berrie Down Hollow, in the parish of Fifield,
Hertfordshire, was in the habit of informing all those whom the
intelligence might, and a great number whom it might not concern, that
he had, to borrow his own expression, “missed his life.” And, as is
usual with men who employ such a phrase, he imagined the miss had been
in fortune, not in himself.
He had lost, he felt satisfied, not for want of skill in playing his
game, but because the game of life was an unfair one, in which the cards
were packed, and all the trumps dealt to one man, while all the low,
poor, insignificant, valueless bits of pasteboard were left for another,
in which from birth all the odds were against one player, while the
stakes were thrust, _nolens volens_, into his opponent’s hand.
It is a nice, contented, comforting, reassuring creed this for any human
being to hold. It makes a man utterly dissatisfied with his lot, while
it leaves him only too well satisfied with himself. He is, so he thinks,
as competent to take his leaps as the best in the land; and when in
succession he misses every one, he still believes it was only the fault
of the steed he rode, of the groom who did not girth his horse tight
enough, of the saddler who sent him in reins which broke in his fingers,
of the nature of the ground, of the labourer who staked the hedge, of
the proprietor who wire-fenced the field.
Other men go flying over every obstacle, and gallop past him to the goal
all are striving to reach, while he labours wearily after, or lies
maimed and shattered beside the first gate. Yet, mark you, this is never
his fault; it is his “cursed luck,” to quote Arthur Dudley over again.
Providence, in his inmost heart the Squire considered, had a spite
against him from his mother’s womb, and consequently, and by reason only
of this injustice on the part of Providence, he failed where others
succeeded.
In the world’s great workshop he was a very bad workman, and,
accordingly, he was eternally complaining of his tools. His fellows
moved up in the social scale, but he never rose a step higher. With a
rusty nail one picked the lock of Fortune’s treasure casket; but then,
as Arthur Dudley truly observed, _that_ rusty nail never came into his
hands. With sledge and hammer, and file and chisel, common drudges, as
they seemed to him, bought their estates and took rank in the country.
His schoolfellows—mere idiots he had thought some of them then—mere
idiots, indeed, he thought them still, had climbed great parts of the
steep hill of worldly success, and were talked of as rising men in the
pulpit, at the bar, in the hospitals, in literature, science, and art.
There was Holland, for instance, who went with him to Oxford. Well,
Holland had no brains, any more than most of the people Squire Dudley
knew, and yet he had somehow obtained a capital post under Government,
lived at the West End, and had married a beautiful young widow with,
rumour said, many thousands a year.
There was Morris, also, a man without a sixpence, without appearance,
connection, manner, friends, or father or mother to speak of, and yet
he, even he——. But it is useless to continue the catalogue.
Fate had helped every one, except Squire Dudley, on in the world, and
Squire Dudley did not in the least believe that every man’s Nemesis is
himself.
Berrie Down Hollow, however, bore no traces of belonging to a person who
held this peculiar doctrine regarding his own life. There was no
disorder, no neglect. When once the gates swung back, friend and
stranger alike beheld a place which was kept as well as Kemms’
Park:—where no weeds grew on the walks; where the grass was like a
bowling-green; where crocuses and snowdrops filled the flower-beds in
the early part of the year; where there was a blaze of scarlet
geraniums, and a brilliant decking of white, and red, and purple
verbena, of petunias and gladioli, lobelias, and all other plants that
make our beautiful English summer more beautiful still.
Never a litter of dead leaves was there about those walks; never a gate
hung loose for want of hinge or screw; never a thing was left undone
that willing hands could speedily put to rights; and yet there was an
indescribable look of shortness of money, both within and without the
dwelling, which those who were in the secrets of the family knew was
attributable to absolute pecuniary poverty; for, although Arthur Dudley
owned house and lands, stock and well-filled barns, he was poor as a
gentleman with such possessions could be.
And that was where the shoe pinched Squire Dudley. He had money’s worth,
but not money. He paid no rent; he killed his fatted calves and his
prime Southdowns; he brewed his own ale; his fowls were duly trussed for
his table; he ate of the produce of his own lands, and drank of the only
vintages English fields will yield; he had his goodly orchard, and his
fair flower-gardens; he had his horses in the stable, and his colts
running loose in the paddock; he had his broad meadows, and his rich
pastures; he had still a young wife, and two children; he had sinned no
grievous sin; he had no secret he feared being brought to light, yet he
had “missed his life.” So he said, so his friends said, and the reason
for this unusual unanimity of opinion chanced to be that he had no
money.
“Arthur was born to be a rich man,” said the elders among his kith and
kin; but, if Nature had intended any such beneficial arrangement in his
behalf, she frustrated her own design by permitting him to be born in
the wrong house, and amongst the wrong people, and with the wrong
temperament for much good fortune to befall him.
After all, Nature does make these little mistakes occasionally, and each
man and woman amongst the unsuccessful thinks he or she could have
managed matters infinitely better for himself or herself, if only the
disposition of affairs had been left in the hands of the person
interested.
Squire Dudley thought so, at any rate. He bore a grudge against Nature
for having spoiled his worldly chances, which grudge he paid with
interest to Nature’s representatives on earth—his fellow-creatures.
Had he been born at Kemms’ Park, with the typical silver spoon in his
mouth, he would, doubtless, have proved a very charming member of
society. As it was, he had fallen into the habit of quarrelling with the
bread and butter fate had provided for him, to such a degree that there
was not a labourer on his farm, a servant in his house, a friend he
possessed in the world, who would have borne with Arthur Dudley’s
dissatisfied temper, his discontent, and his complainings, had it not
been for the sake of his wife, who was the only person on earth who
thoroughly and devotedly, and believingly and disinterestedly, loved the
young Squire.
Matrimonially, luck had not been against him. If the chances of marriage
be but as one eel to a bagful of snakes, many a man, who thrust his
hands into that lottery after Arthur Dudley, must have had cause to
lament his evil fortune.
Matrimonially the Squire, who had otherwise “missed his life,” had done
well, so the world thought at least; but then this was one of the many
questions of which Arthur Dudley secretly joined issue with the world.
In the experiences of his earlier manhood there had been certain love
passages between himself and a handsome young heiress, whom it was the
wish of his aunt, Miss Alethea Hope, that he should marry.
Then visions of a life worth living, of a position worth having,
beatified the dreariness of the Squire’s prosaic existence. Like all men
who are utterly dissatisfied with their position, he permitted hope to
tell him many a flattering tale, which had not the slightest shadow of a
foundation in truth. Indeed, in the management of his farm, Arthur
Dudley was but as a reed shaken by the wind of whatever fancy whispered
to him over night; and it was natural enough that, when wandering about
the grounds of Copt Hall, with his first real love—worth five thousand a
year, and expectations—he should dream of a social position unenjoyed by
the Dudleys for many a year; of a town house; of Berrie Down Hollow
filled with grand company; of taking rank in the county; of, perhaps,
tacking M.P. to the end of his name.
The future, then, seemed as full of promise to him as the old gardens at
Copt Hall of roses. Can you wonder? Youth was at the helm and Pleasure
at the prow, and an heiress about to become a passenger for the voyage
of life; a handsome heiress too—graceful and accomplished, and much
sought after, by reason not merely of her wealth, but of her beauty.
Among the roses at Copt Hall she promised to marry Squire Dudley, and
yet before the roses were in bloom again she had consented to make
another “happy.”
That was the first serious accident which befell the young man’s
life-boat; and he retired to Berrie Down Hollow, feeling he had been
jilted, not merely by his lady-love, but by the jade Fortune.
It is true, I suppose, that, if the cause of the mental death or
paralysis of any man’s life be closely inquired into, a woman will prove
to have been at the bottom of the apparent mystery.
Directly or indirectly, white soft hands fill the cup, either with
strengthening wine, or pure water, or the drugged liquor, that steals
the strength away, and impairs the finest genius.
Those from whom we expected the greatest results go to their long sleep,
and leave no mark behind by which their fellows shall remember them; and
why? because, although they had the power to achieve much, some woman
prevented their doing anything.
The obstacle, which at one point or other threw them off the rails, wore
petticoats, be certain. Either they did not get the right women, or they
married the wrong ones. Somewhere there was a story in their lives; ay,
and it may be a tragedy too. Adam, one might have thought, considering
the circumstances of his marriage, had a fair chance of happiness; and
yet, see what a mess Eve made of his prospects. Since which time to the
present it may fairly be questioned whether any man has ever chosen the
proper helpmeet; whether in effect even the Adams of the nineteenth
century are not originally placed in a paradise, out of which, in due
time, some woman contrives to lead them. Whether or not his matrimonial
disappointment really was the cause of Squire Dudley’s ill success, one
thing is undeniable, viz., that he, in his heart, attributed much of his
subsequent bad fortune to it. Such natures are not, perhaps, capable of
any great degree of passionate attachment; and, however unromantic the
statement may sound, I am bound to confess it was never the woman he
regretted so much as the heiress.
Arabella’s raven tresses never appeared before his mental vision with
one-half the same frequency as did her gold. When he failed to dig
nuggets out of Berrie Down Hollow, he reflected sorrowfully on the
faithless fair’s five thousand a year.
Had he married another woman with money, there can be little doubt but
that then he would have thought disconsolately about Miss Laxton’s face,
Miss Laxton’s perfections; as it was, want of money being the one most
pressing evil in his life, Cupid folded his wings and perched on one of
the elm-trees, laughing to himself, no doubt, while Mammon walked with
Squire Dudley up and down the meadows and across the lea.
Passionately, perhaps, as he ever loved any woman, Arthur loved the
stately fair whom he had wooed in the old-fashioned gardens at Copt
Hall. She was his style of beauty; his ideal of feminine perfection;
haughty and queenlike; capricious and fanciful; strong-willed and
domineering; a woman to rule slaves—to govern so feeble and purposeless
a nature as his, despotically. Had all things gone well, she would, as
Miss Hope declared, have “ruled the roast” at Berrie Down; she would
have been mistress and master too; she would have led him a pleasant
life of it in the old Hertfordshire home; she would have taught him
meekness and submission, and it may be contentment also, for some men
are like children, better satisfied when a strong hand guides their
course. As it was, the years had gone by, leaving Squire Dudley
intensely dissatisfied with all mundane arrangements, particularly with
those arrangements which affected himself.
And yet any other person might have made a good thing out of his life.
There was the rub! The owner of Berrie Down Hollow wanted not to make
good things, but to have good things made for him; and it was for this
the world quarrelled with Arthur Dudley.
“Hang the man,” said Compton Raidsford, who was worth half a million of
money, and had worked for every sixpence of it. “A dissatisfied idiot.
Has not he got Berrie Down, the sweetest place in the county, and,
confound him, has he not got the sweetest wife, too?”
Which statements might be perfectly true, and yet hold no comfort for
the possessor of place or wife. What was the use of Berrie Down without
money to keep the estate properly; and what to such a man was the good
of having a wife with whom even he could find no fault, unless, indeed,
it might be, that she was a trifle too sweet—too perfect?
After all, it is scarcely pleasant to discover, when you have thought to
make a woman supremely happy, that the world will persist in thinking it
is the woman who is making you happy.
This was an idea hurtful to Arthur Dudley in the extreme, and those who
loved his wife best discovered in due time that the greatest kindness
any friend could do her was to refrain from speaking to her husband of
the blessing he possessed.
And yet Arthur Dudley was by no means either unamiable or ungenerous. He
was not a bad man; he was only that which oftentimes produces infinitely
worse results, a weak one; he was not cruel, nor wicked, nor wanton, nor
wasteful. He had no sins, but he had many grievous faults. He was a man
going to the dogs, as fast as bad management could take him, when he
married his wife; and when we enter the gates of Berrie Down Hollow he
is a man going to the dogs more slowly, but not less surely still.
Every one knew that his wife was the drag on the wheels of his descent.
Every person was fully aware that whatever of comfort and happiness, and
real respectability, his life had held, was due to her beneficent
influence; and under this knowledge Squire Dudley himself chafed
secretly. Had she been an ill-tempered shrew; had she been an idle,
flaunting, extravagant, wasteful woman; had she drank; had she been a
confirmed invalid; had she been a loud-talking, boastful, hard, managing
semi-man; had she been anything, indeed, but what she was, her husband
would have had a grievance and rested satisfied. As it was, he himself
could not have told what his feeling was towards her. He did not love
her much, and yet she loved him exceedingly. He did not consider her at
all, and yet, from sunrise to sunset, her first thought was how to
benefit and pleasure him.
She had set up an idol for herself, and fell down and worshipped it;
and, as is not unusual in such cases, the idol half despised her for her
pains.
At the bottom of his heart, his idea about her was the same as his idea
about Berrie Down Hollow.
No doubt the thing was very good; but let a thing be ever so good, if it
be not the thing you want—what then? Why, then you are apt to look with
a little disfavour and petulance upon it, even though it be perfect of
its kind—a diamond without speck or flaw.
And besides, his marriage had not quite answered his expectations; that
match, indeed, had needed to be made in a dozen heavens which would have
satisfied the expectations of Squire Dudley.
A good wife, a clever manager, a home-loving woman, she was to put all
crooked things straight, and to put all straight things straighter! The
Dudley millennium, a reign of utter order and of utter peace, was to
come to Berrie Down with the young wife. He told her all his
difficulties, and she promised hopefully to help him through them. He
announced to all his friends that, “once he was married,” he should get
on; and his friends, to a certain extent, believed him, for they knew a
mistress to be sorely needed at Berrie Down House, “where everything is
going to wreck and ruin,” he stated to his fiancée, who, in due time,
verified the truth of his assertion, and bravely put her shoulder to the
wheel, to prevent such a consummation.
“I have to clothe, educate, and maintain five brothers and sisters,” he
declared with that frankness concerning his grievances which was a
distinguishing feature of his character, and, although his future wife
looked a little horror-stricken at this revelation, yet she adventured
amongst those brothers and sisters cheerfully, and, without a murmur,
cast in her lot with theirs.
How much of her happiness, during the early years of her married
experience, she owed to that young life, Mrs. Dudley never stopped to
analyze; but there were those who knew that Berrie Down would have been
a terrible home for Arthur’s wife, had bright faces not grown brighter
at her approach, had strong willing hands not been stretched out to
smooth her way, to make her difficult path easy.
She would have found out all her husband’s faults in six months, had she
been thrown solely on his society during that period; as it was, she had
always something else to think about—something to step between her and
knowledge. She was sorry for him, and she was sorry for the “children,”
as she called them. It was hard for him, and it was hard for them; and
the dear hands were always laid entreatingly on some half-turned pettish
shoulder, and the dear voice was ever engaged in soothing the effect of
sharp and hasty words; for Heather Dudley was essentially a peace-maker,
a woman whose mission it seemed to turn away wrath, to bind up bleeding
wounds, to assuage with ointment the irritation of long-standing sores.
With Heather no man quarrelled, and no woman either. She was not a good
hater; she had never sounded the depths of a great sorrow, nor of a
great passion. Like many women who marry very young, even love had come
to her mildly. The disease taken in youth, is never so fierce as that
which attacks the patient in maturity; as is the strength, so is the
day; as are the years, so is the joy and the agony. She was wooed and
married! Smoother never ran the course of true love. On neither side was
there one to interpose an obstacle, or to prevent either following the
road inclination pointed out. She was a woman “without a story,” without
any previous attachment—without a wrong, a grief, a remorse, a regret.
Crime was to her an awful and abstract mystery, which existed only in
the police-reports, and as a secret, low-whispered in some unhappy
families. Of the world, she knew nothing: of its wickedness, of its
temptations, of its pleasures, of its sorrows, she was innocent as her
own children. She had plumbed the depth of no human joy or grief.
Through the meadows the rivulet of her life had flowed peacefully and
monotonously. Vaguely she understood that there were different
existences, that there were other lands, through which swept rivers,
broad and deep and dark, in the depths whereof lay wrecked hopes and
terrible memories; she had heard of existences lost on those great
streams, of corpses which the currents carried down to the vast ocean;
she vaguely comprehended that there were rapids and pools, contrary
currents, cruel storms to be encountered by some human ships, but it was
all vague to her—vague as the story in a book.
She had experienced trouble, but only such trouble as comes with the
morning, the clouds and mists whereof vanish under the beams of the
mid-day sun. Of that different sorrow which falls on humanity when the
darkness of evening is closing upon man’s onward course, when there is
no noonday to follow, and only the night left in which to travel darkly,
her life held no knowledge. She was like Berrie Down Hollow, sweet,
natural, unaffected; and Berrie Down would have seemed strange without
her, while she might, at a first introduction, scarcely have seemed so
entirely in keeping with any place away from Berrie Down.
She was the sun of that house, at any rate;—even Arthur knew things were
“never the same” when she went visiting; and, at the moment I ask you to
look out on the view from the drawing-room windows of Berrie Down
Hollow, you may see the Squire seated under the shade of a
chestnut-tree, reading the _Times_, and inwardly chafing over his wife’s
absence, and wondering whether, for certain, she will return from London
that evening, and bring Mrs. Ormson with her.
Mr. Dudley likes Mrs. Ormson, and he does not much like her daughter
Bessie, an exceedingly pretty girl, who sits on the turf at his feet,
spelling the other side of the sheet, resting her round cheek on her
hand the while.
All the young Dudleys, his brothers and sisters, his own son and his own
daughter, were harmless in comparison to Bessie Ormson, who had a will
of her own which she asserted, and opinions of her own which she stuck
to, and who was staying at Berrie Down for a couple of months, as
though, Squire Dudley remarked to his wife, “the house had not enough
people in it without her.”