Transcriber's Notes:
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http://www.archive.org/details/lawrenceclaveri00masouoft
LAWRENCE
CLAVERING
BY
A. E. W. MASON
AUTHOR OF
"THE WATCHERS," "CLEMENTINA," "THE FOUR FEATHERS,"
"THE TRUANTS," ETC.
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED
LONDON AND MELBOURNE
_Made and Printed in Great Britain by_
WARD, LOCK & Co., LIMITED, LONDON.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. TELLS OF A PICTURE.
II. I TAKE A WALK AND HEAR A SERMON IN THE COMPANY OF LORD
BOLINGBROKE.
III. MY KINSMAN AND I RIDE DIFFERENT WAYS.
IV. AND MEET. I CROSS TO ENGLAND AND HAVE A STRANGE ADVENTURE ON
THE WAY.
V. BLACKLADIES.
VI. MR. HERBERT.
VII. A DISPUTE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
VIII. THE AFTERNOON OF THE 23RD OF AUGUST.
IX. THE NIGHT OF THE 23RD: IN THE GARDEN.
X. A TALK WITH LORD DERWENTWATER. I ESCAPE.
XI. APPLEGARTH.
XII. I RETURN TO KESWICK.
XIII. DOROTHY CURWEN.
XIV. I DROP THE CLOAK.
XV. I REVISIT BLACKLADIES.
XVI. ASHLOCK GIVES THE NEWS.
XVII. THE MARCH TO PRESTON.
XVIII. AT PRESTON AND AFTERWARDS.
XIX. APPLEGARTH AGAIN.
XX. A CONVERSATION IN WASTDALE CHURCH.
XXI. I TRAVEL TO CARLISLE AND MEET AN ATTORNEY.
XXII. REPARATION.
XXIII. THE LAST.
LAWRENCE CLAVERING.
CHAPTER I.
TELLS OF A PICTURE.
The picture hangs at my lodgings here at Avignon, a stone's throw from
the Porte de la Ligne, and within the shadow of Notre Dame des Doms,
though its intended housing-place was the great gallery of
Blackladies. But it never did hang there, nor ever will; nor do I care
that it should--no, not the scrape of a fiddle. I have heard men
circumstanced like myself tell how, as they fell into years, more and
more their thoughts flew homewards like so many carrier-pigeons, each
with its message of longing. But Blackladies, though it was the only
home I ever knew in England, did not of right belong to me, and the
period during which I was master there was so populous with troubles,
so chequered with the impertinent follies of an inexperienced youth
raised of a sudden above his station, that even now, after all these
years, I look back on it with a burning shame. And if one day,
perchance, as I walk in the alleys here beyond the city walls, the
wind in the branches will whisper to me of the house and the brown
hills about it--it is only because I was in England while I lived
there. And if, again, as I happen to stand upon the banks of the
Rhone, I see unexpectedly reflected in the broken mirror of its
waters, the terraces, the gardens, the long row of windows, and am
touched for the moment to a foolish melancholy by the native aspect of
its gables--why, it is only because I look out here across a country
of _tourelles_.
However, I come back to my lodging, and there is my picture on the
wall--an accountant, as it were, ever casting up the good fortune and
the mishaps of my life, and ever striking a sure balance in my favour.
I take the description of it from a letter which Mr. George Vertue
wrote to a friend of mine in London, and that friend despatched to me.
For, since the picture is a portrait of myself, it may be that an
account of it from another's hand will be the more readily credited.
Mr. Vertue saw it some years since at a dealer's in Paris, whither,
being at that time hard pressed for money, I had sent it, but was
lucky enough not to discover a purchaser.
"I have come across a very curious picture," he wrote, "of which I
would gladly know more, and I trust that you may help me to the
knowledge. For more than once you have spoken to me of Mr. Lawrence
Clavering, who fought for the Chevalier de St. George at Preston, and
was out too in the Forty-five. The picture is the bust of a young
gentleman painted by Anthony Herbert, and with all the laborious
minuteness which was distinctive of his earlier methods. Indeed, in
the delicacy with which the lace of the cravat is figured, the painter
has, I think, exceeded himself, and even exceeded Vandermijn, whom at
this period he seems to have taken for his model. The coat, too, which
is of a rose-pink in colour, is painted with the same elaboration, the
very threads of the velvet being visible. The richness of the work
gives a very artful effect when you come to look at the face, which
chiefly provokes my curiosity. In colour it is a dead white, except
for the lips, which are purple, as though the blood stagnated there;
the eyes are glassy and bright, with something of horror or fear
staring out of them; the features knotted out of all comeliness; the
mouth half opened and curled in the very sickness of pain; the whole
expression, in a word, that of a man in the extremity of suffering--a
soul's torture superimposed upon an agony of the body; and all this
painted with such circumstantial exactness as implies not merely great
leisure in the artist, but also a singular pleasure and gusto in his
subject...."
After a few more remarks of a like sort, he continues: "I made it my
business to inquire of Mr. Herbert the history of the picture. But he
would tell me no more than this: that it was the portrait of Mr.
Lawrence Clavering, painted in that gentleman's youth, and that if I
would have fuller knowledge on the matter, I must get it from Mr.
Clavering himself; and Mrs. Herbert, a very gentle woman, now growing
old, but I should say of considerable beauty in her prime, warmly
seconded him in his reticence. Therefore I address myself to you to
act as an intermediary between Mr. Clavering and myself."
The information I did not think it fitting at that time to deliver.
But both Mr. Herbert and his wife are dead these three years past; and
so I write out the history of my picture, setting down, as my memory
serves, the incidents which attach to it in the due order of their
sequence. For if the picture is a strange one, it has, I think, a
history to match.