NEWTON PRIORY.
Newton Priory was at this time inhabited by two gentlemen,--old
Gregory Newton, who for miles round was known as the Squire; and his
son, Ralph Newton,--his son, but not his heir; a son, however, whom
he loved as well as though he had been born with an undoubted right
to inherit all those dearly-valued acres. A few lines will tell all
that need be told of the Squire's early life,--and indeed of his life
down to the present period. In very early days, immediately upon his
leaving college, he had travelled abroad and had formed an attachment
with a German lady, who by him became the mother of a child. He
intended to marry her, hoping to reconcile his father to the match;
but before either marriage or reconciliation could take place the
young mother, whose babe's life could then only be counted by months,
was dead. In the hope that the old man might yield in all things,
the infant had been christened Ralph; for the old Squire's name was
Ralph, and there had been a Ralph among the Newtons since Newton
Priory had existed. But the old Squire had a Ralph of his own,--the
father of our Ralph and of the present parson,--who in his time was
rector of Peele Newton; and when the tidings of this foreign baby and
of the proposed foreign marriage reached the old Squire,--then he
urged his second son to marry, and made the settlement of the estate
of which the reader has heard. The settlement was natural enough. It
simply entailed the property on the male heir of the family in the
second generation. It deprived the eldest son of nothing that would
be his in accordance with the usual tenure of English primogeniture.
Had he married and become the father of a family, his eldest son
would have been the heir. But heretofore there had been no such
entails in the Newton family; or, at least, he was pleased to
think that there had been none such. And when he himself inherited
the property early in life,--before he had reached his thirtieth
year,--he thought that his father had injured him. His boy was as
dear to him, as though the mother had been his honest wife. Then
he endeavoured to come to some terms with his brother. He would do
anything in order that his child might be Newton of Newton after
him. But the parson would come to no terms at all, and was powerless
to make any such terms as those which the elder brother required.
The parson was honest, self-denying, and proud on behalf of his own
children; but he was intrusive in regard to the property, and apt to
claim privileges of interference beyond his right as the guardian of
his own or of his children's future interests. And so the brothers
had quarrelled;--and so the story of Newton Priory is told up to the
period at which our story begins.
Gregory Newton and his son Ralph had lived together at the Priory for
the last six-and-twenty years, and the young man had grown up as a
Newton within the knowledge of all the gentry around them. The story
of his birth was public, and it was of course understood that he was
not the heir. His father had been too wise on the son's behalf to
encourage any concealment. The son was very popular, and deserved to
be so; but it was known to all the young men round, and also to all
the maidens, that he would not be Newton of Newton. There had been
no ill-contrived secret, sufficient to make a difficulty, but not
sufficient to save the lad from the pains of his position. Everybody
knew it; and yet it can hardly be said that he was treated otherwise
than he would have been treated had he been the heir. In the
hunting-field there was no more popular man. A point had been
stretched in his favour, and he was a magistrate. Mothers were kind
to him, for it was known that his father loved him well, and that
his father had been a prudent man. In all respects he was treated
as though he were the heir. He managed the shooting, and was the
trusted friend of all the tenants. Doubtless his father was the more
indulgent to him because of the injury that had been done to him.
After all, his life promised well as to material prosperity; for,
though the Squire, in writing to Sir Thomas, had spoken of selling
half the property with the view of keeping the other half for his
son, he was already possessed of means that would enable him to
make the proposed arrangement without such sacrifice as that. For
twenty-four years he had felt that he was bound to make a fortune for
his son out of his own income. And he had made a fortune, and mothers
knew it, and everybody in the county was very civil to Ralph,--to
that Ralph who was not the heir.
But the Squire had never yet quite abandoned the hope that Ralph who
was not the heir might yet possess the place; and when he heard of
his nephew's doings, heard falsehood as well as truth, from day to
day he built up new hopes. He had not expected any such overture as
that which had come from Sir Thomas; but if, as he did expect, Ralph
the heir should go to the Jews, why should not the Squire purchase
the Jews' interest in his own estate? Or, if Ralph the heir should,
more wisely, deal with some great money-lending office, why should
not he redeem the property through the same? Ralph the heir would
surely throw what interest he had into the market, and if so, that
interest might be bought by the person to whom it must be of more
value than to any other. He had said little about it even to his
son;--but he had hoped; and now had come this letter from Sir Thomas.
The reader knows the letter and the Squire's answer.
The Squire himself was a very handsome man, tall, broad-shouldered,
square-faced, with hair and whiskers almost snow-white already, but
which nevertheless gave to him but little sign of age. He was very
strong, and could sit in the saddle all day without fatigue. He was
given much to farming, and thoroughly understood the duties of a
country gentleman. He was hospitable, too; for, though money had been
saved, the Priory had ever been kept as one of the pleasantest houses
in the county. There had been no wife, no child but the one, and no
house in London. The stables, however, had been full of hunters: and
it was generally said that no men in Hampshire were better mounted
than Gregory the father and Ralph the son. Of the father we will
only further say that he was a generous, passionate, persistent,
vindictive, and unforgiving man, a bitter enemy and a staunch friend;
a thorough-going Tory, who, much as he loved England and Hampshire
and Newton Priory, feared that they were all going to the dogs
because of Mr. Disraeli and household suffrage; but who felt, in
spite of those fears, that to make his son master of Newton Priory
after him would be the greatest glory of his life. He had sworn to
the young mother on her death-bed that the boy should be to him
as though he had been born in wedlock. He had been as good as his
word;--and we may say that he was one who had at least that virtue,
that he was always as good as his word.
The son was very like the father in face and gait and bearing,--so
like that the parentage was marked to the glance of any observer. He
was tall, as was his father, and broad across the chest, and strong
and active, as his father had ever been. But his face was of a nobler
stamp, bearing a surer impress of intellect, and in that respect
telling certainly the truth. This Ralph Newton had been educated
abroad, his father, with a morbid feeling which he had since done
much to conquer, having feared to send him among other young men,
the sons of squires and noblemen, who would have known that their
comrade was debarred by the disgrace of his birth from inheriting
the property of his father. But it may be doubted whether he had not
gained as much as he had lost. German and French were the same to
him as his native tongue; and he returned to the life of an English
country gentleman young enough to learn to ride to hounds, and to
live as he found others living around him.
Very little was said, or indeed ever had been said, between the
father and son as to their relative position in reference to the
property. Ralph,--the illegitimate Ralph,--knew well enough and had
always known, that the estate was not to be his. He had known this
so long that he did not remember the day when he had not known it.
Occasionally the Squire would observe with a curse that this or
that could not be done with the property,--such a house pulled down,
or such another built, this copse grupped up, or those trees cut
down,--because of that reprobate up in London. As to pulling down,
there was no probability of interference now, though there had been
much of such interference in the life of the old rector. "Ralph,"
he had once said to his brother the rector, "I'll marry and have a
family yet if there is another word about the timber." "I have not
the slightest right or even wish to object to your doing so," said
the rector; "but as long as things are on their present footing, I
shall continue to do my duty." Soon after that it had come to pass
that the brothers so quarrelled that all intercourse between them was
at an end. Such revenge, such absolute punishment as that which the
Squire had threatened, would have been very pleasant to him;--but not
even for such pleasure as that would he ruin the boy whom he loved.
He did not marry, but saved money, and dreamed of buying up the
reversion of his nephew's interest.
His son was just two years older than our Ralph up in London, and
his father was desirous that he should marry. "Your wife would be
mistress of the house,--as long as I live, at least," he had once
said. "There are difficulties about it," said the son. Of course
there were difficulties. "I do not know whether it is not better that
I should remain unmarried," he said, a few minutes later. "There are
men whom marriage does not seem to suit,--I mean as regards their
position." The father turned away, and groaned aloud when he was
alone. On the evening of that day, as they were sitting together over
their wine, the son alluded, not exactly to the same subject, but to
the thoughts which had arisen from it within his own mind. "Father,"
he said, "I don't know whether it wouldn't be better for you to make
it up with my cousin, and have him down here."
"What cousin?" said the Squire, turning sharply round.
"With Gregory's eldest brother." The reader will perhaps remember
that the Gregory of that day was the parson. "I believe he is a good
fellow, and he has done you no harm."
"He has done me all harm."
"No; father; no. We cannot help ourselves, you know. Were he to die,
Gregory would be in the same position. It would be better that the
family should be kept together."
"I would sooner have the devil here. No consideration on earth shall
induce me to allow him to put his foot upon this place. No;--not
whilst I live." The son said nothing further, and they sat together
in silence for some quarter of an hour,--after which the elder of the
two rose from his chair, and, coming round the table, put his hand
on the son's shoulder, and kissed his son's brow. "Father," said
the young man, "you think that I am troubled by things which hardly
touch me at all." "By God, they touch me close enough!" said the
elder. This had taken place some month or two before the date of Sir
Thomas's letter;--but any reference to the matter of which they were
both no doubt always thinking was very rare between them.
Newton Priory was a place which a father might well wish to leave
unimpaired to his son. It lay in the north of Hampshire, where that
county is joined to Berkshire; and perhaps in England there is no
prettier district, no country in which moorland and woodland and
pasture are more daintily thrown together to please the eye, in which
there is a sweeter air, or a more thorough seeming of English wealth
and English beauty and English comfort. Those who know Eversley and
Bramshill and Heckfield and Strathfieldsaye will acknowledge that
it is so. But then how few are the Englishmen who travel to see the
beauties of their own country! Newton Priory, or Newton Peele as the
parish was called, lay somewhat west of these places, but was as
charming as any of them. The entire parish belonged to Mr. Newton, as
did portions of three or four parishes adjoining. The house itself
was neither large nor remarkable for its architecture;--but it was
comfortable. The rooms indeed were low, for it had been built in the
ungainly days of Queen Anne, with additions in the equally ungainly
time of George II., and the passages were long and narrow, and the
bedrooms were up and down stairs, as though pains had been taken
that no two should be on a level; and the windows were of ugly shape,
and the whole mass was uncouth and formless,--partaking neither of
the Gothic beauty of the Stuart architecture, nor of the palatial
grandeur which has sprung up in our days; and it stood low, giving
but little view from the windows. But, nevertheless, there was a
family comfort and a warm solidity about the house, which endeared it
to those who knew it well. There had been a time in which the present
Squire had thought of building for himself an entirely new house, on
another site,--on the rising brow of a hill, some quarter of a mile
away from his present residence;--but he had remembered that as
he could not leave his estate to his son, it behoved him to spend
nothing on the property which duty did not demand from him.
The house stood in a park of some two hundred acres, in which the
ground was poor, indeed, but beautifully diversified by rising knolls
and little ravines, which seemed to make the space almost unlimited.
And then the pines which waved in the Newton woods sighed and moaned
with a melody which, in the ears of their owner, was equalled by
that of no other fir trees in the world. And the broom was yellower
at Newton than elsewhere, and more plentiful; and the heather was
sweeter;--and wild thyme on the grass more fragrant. So at least Mr.
Newton was always ready to swear. And all this he could not leave
behind him to his son;--but must die with the knowledge, that as soon
as the breath was out of his body, it would become the property of
a young man whom he hated! He might not cut down the pine woods, nor
disturb those venerable single trees which were the glory of his
park;--but there were moments in which he thought that he could take
a delight in ploughing up the furze, and in stripping the hill-sides
of the heather. Why should his estate be so beautiful for one who was
nothing to him? Would it not be well that he should sell everything
that was saleable in order that his own son might be the richer?
On the day after he had written his reply to Sir Thomas he was
rambling in the evening with his son through the woods. Nothing could
be more beautiful than the park was now;--and Ralph had been speaking
of the glory of the place. But something had occurred to make his
father revert to the condition of a certain tenant, whose holding on
the property was by no means satisfactory either to himself or to his
landlord. "You know, sir," said the son, "I told you last year that
Darvell would have to go."
"Where's he to go to?"
"He'll go to the workhouse if he stays here. It will be much better
for him to be bought out while there is still something left for him
to sell. Nothing can be worse than a man sticking on to land without
a shilling of capital."
"Of course it's bad. His father did very well there."
"His father did very well there till he took to drink and died of it.
You know where the road parts Darvell's farm and Brownriggs? Just
look at the difference of the crops. There's a place with wheat on
each side of you. I was looking at them before dinner."
"Brownriggs is in a different parish. Brownriggs is in Bostock."
"But the land is of the same quality. Of course Walker is a different
sort of man from Darvell. I believe there are nearly four hundred
acres in Brownriggs."
"All that," said the father.
"And Darvell has about seventy;--but the land should be made to bear
the same produce per acre."
The Squire paused a moment, and then asked a question. "What should
you say if I proposed to sell Brownriggs?" Now there were two or
three matters which made the proposition to sell Brownriggs a very
wonderful proposition to come from the Squire. In the first place he
couldn't sell an acre of the property at all,--of which fact his son
was very well aware; and then, of all the farms on the estate it was,
perhaps, the best and most prosperous. Mr. Walker, the tenant, was a
man in very good circumstances, who hunted, and was popular, and was
just the man of whose tenancy no landlord would be ashamed.
[Illustration: "What should you say if I proposed to sell
Brownriggs?"]
"Sell Brownriggs!" said the young man. "Well, yes; I should be
surprised. Could you sell it?"
"Not at present," said the Squire.
"How could it be sold at all?" They were now standing at a gate
leading out of the park into a field held by the Squire in his own
hands, and were both leaning on it. "Father," said the son, "I wish
you would not trouble yourself about the estate, but let things come
and go just as they have been arranged."
"I prefer to arrange them for myself,--if I can. It comes to this,
that it may be possible to buy the reversion of the property. I could
not buy it all;--or if I did, must sell a portion of it to raise the
money. I have been thinking it over and making calculations. If we
let Walker's farm go, and Ingram's, I think I could manage the rest.
Of course it would depend on the value of my own life."
There was a long pause, during which they both were still leaning on
the gate. "It is a phantom, sir!" the young man said at last.
"What do you mean by a phantom? I don't see any phantom. A reversion
can be bought and sold as well as any other property. And if it be
sold in this case, I am as free to buy it as any other man."
"Who says it is to be sold, sir?"
"I say so. That prig of a barrister, Sir Thomas Underwood, has
already made overtures to me to do something for that young scoundrel
in London. He is a scoundrel, for he is spending money that is not
his own. And he is now about to make a marriage that will disgrace
his family." The Squire probably did not at the moment think of the
disgrace which he had brought upon the family by not marrying. "The
fact is, that he will have to sell all that he can sell. Why should I
not buy it!"
"If he were to die?" suggested the son.
"I wish he would," said the father.
"Don't say that, sir. But if he were to die, Gregory here, who is as
good a fellow as ever lived, would come into his shoes. Ralph could
sell no more than his own chance."
"We could get Gregory to join us," said the energetic Squire. "He,
also, could sell his right."
"You had better leave it as it is, sir," said the son, after another
pause. "I feel sure that you will only get yourself into trouble. The
place is yours as long as you live, and you should enjoy it."
"And know that it is going to the Jews after me! Not if I can help
it. You won't marry, as things are; but you'd marry quick enough if
you knew you would remain here after my death;--if you were sure that
a child of yours could inherit the estate. I mean to try it on, and
it is best that you should know. Whatever he can make over to the
Jews he can make over to me;--and as that is what he is about, I
shall keep my eyes open. I shall go up to London about it and see
Carey next week. A man can do a deal if he sets himself thoroughly to
work."
"I'd leave it alone if I were you," said the young man.
"I shall not leave it alone. I mayn't be able to get it all, but I'll
do my best to secure a part of it. If any is to go, it had better
be the land in Bostock and Twining. I think we could manage to keep
Newton entire."
His mind was always on the subject, though it was not often that he
said a word about it to the son in whose behalf he was so anxious.
His thoughts were always dwelling on it, so that the whole peace and
comfort of his life were disturbed. A life-interest in a property
is, perhaps, as much as a man desires to have when he for whose
protection he is debarred from further privileges of ownership is
a well-loved son;--but an entail that limits an owner's rights on
behalf of an heir who is not loved, who is looked upon as an enemy,
is very grievous. And in this case the man who was so limited,
so cramped, so hedged in, and robbed of the true pleasures of
ownership, had a son with whom he would have been willing to share
everything,--whom it would have been his delight to consult as to
every roof to be built, every tree to be cut, every lease to be
granted or denied. He would dream of telling his son, with a certain
luxury of self-abnegation, that this or that question as to the
estate should be settled in the interest, not of the setting, but of
the rising sun. "It is your affair rather than mine, my boy;--do as
you like." He could picture to himself in his imagination a pleasant,
half-mock melancholy in saying such things, and in sharing the reins
of government between his own hands and those of his heir. As the
sun is falling in the heavens and the evening lights come on, this
world's wealth and prosperity afford no pleasure equal to this. It
is this delight that enables a man to feel, up to the last moment,
that the goods of the world are good. But of all this he was to be
robbed,--in spite of all his prudence. It might perhaps sometimes
occur to him that he by his own vice had brought this scourge upon
his back;--but not the less on that account did it cause him to rebel
against the rod. Then there would come upon him the idea that he
might cure this evil were his energy sufficient;--and all that he
heard of that nephew and heir, whom he hated, tended to make him
think that the cure was within his reach. There had been moments
in which he had planned a scheme of leading on that reprobate into
quicker and deeper destruction, of a pretended friendship with the
spendthrift, in order that money for speedier ruin might be lent on
that security which the uncle himself was so anxious to possess as
his very own. But the scheme of this iniquity, though it had been
planned and mapped out in his brain, had never been entertained as
a thing really to be done. There are few of us who have not allowed
our thoughts to work on this or that villany, arranging the method of
its performance, though the performance itself is far enough from our
purpose. The amusement is not without its danger,--and to the Squire
of Newton had so far been injurious that it had tended to foster his
hatred. He would, however, do nothing that was dishonest,--nothing
that the world would condemn,--nothing that would not bear the light.
The argument to which he mainly trusted was this,--that if Ralph
Newton, the heir, had anything to sell and was pleased to sell it,
it was as open to him to buy it as to any other. If the reversion of
the estate of Newton Priory was in the market, why should he not buy
it?--the reversion or any part of the reversion? If such were the
case he certainly would buy it.