Note: Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
http://archive.org/details/pittowncoronetfa01will
Project Gutenberg has the other two volumes of this work.
Volume II: see https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42168
Volume III: see https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42169
THE PIT TOWN CORONET:
A Family Mystery.
by
CHARLES J. WILLS,
Author of
"In the Land of the Lion and Sun," etc.
In Three Volumes.
VOL. I.
Ward and Downey,
12, York Street, Covent Garden, London, W.C.
1888
[The right of translation is reserved, and the Dramatic Copyright
protected.]
Printed by
Kelly and Co., Gate Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, W.C.;
and Middle Mill, Kingston-on-Thames.
THE PIT TOWN CORONET.
INSCRIBED
TO
EDMUND YATES, Esq.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I.--IN THE ROSE GARDEN 1
II.--THE CROQUET PARTY 26
III.--THE VILLAGE DORCAS 45
IV.--WALLS END CASTLE 67
V.--AT THE PANDEMONIUM CLUB 96
VI.--GEORGIE'S WEDDING 118
VII.--LORD MAYOR'S DAY 138
VIII.--AT THE CASTLE 161
IX.--ANASTATIA'S COURTSHIP 182
X.--ROME.--THE BALLO PAPAYANI 205
XI.--A MEETING IN THE GOOD OLD STYLE 229
XII.--THE VILLA LAMBERT 256
THE PIT TOWN CORONET.
CHAPTER 1.
IN THE ROSE GARDEN.
Big Reginald Haggard had been exceedingly attentive to the elder of two
very pretty girls of the name of Warrender. Both families came from the
eastern counties. The Warrenders had inhabited The Warren, or at all
events the older portion of the house, for nearly four centuries. They
were harmless people. They manfully stuck to their ancestral acres of
fat Essex land. The present head of the family farmed the greater part
of the estate himself, as his fathers had done before him. Many a
Warrender had held the rich living of King's Warren, and the parson,
whoever he might be, and the reigning Squire Warrender were always the
two greatest men in King's Warren village and parish.
In the rather old-fashioned garden at The Warren sat a young lady, an
open book upon her lap; the book was not a novel, it was an
argumentative work, a book which dealt with the social problems of the
day. But, alas! the book which Georgina Warrender had brought out with
the serious intention of reading, for the Warrenders of either sex,
though always soft-hearted, were a hard-headed race, lay upside down
upon her lap. The fact is that she was weighing a man in the balance, an
interesting occupation for a lady, and, alas! finding him a little
wanting. Georgie Warrender had received a great deal of attention during
the London season. Her people were well-to-do, the ancestral freeholds
were unencumbered, her family was eminently respectable and well known,
her connections unimpeachable; but Miss Warrender's principal attraction
to those who had the privilege of her acquaintance outside the world of
balls, dinner parties and musical evenings, was the sturdy
open-heartedness of her character, which often distinguishes well
brought-up young ladies who have been reared in an atmosphere at once
intelligent and healthy, but not ultra-intellectual. Miss Warrender had
no craze. She played and sang sufficiently well, but not well enough to
be a terror to the home circle. She drew and sketched, as a pastime, but
she had no desire to compete with professional artists, nor was her
conversation interlarded with the jargon of the craft. Her reading had
been carefully directed by her governess, Miss Hood, who had remained to
discharge the onerous duties of chaperon, guide, philosopher, and, above
all, friend to Georgie Warrender and her cousin Lucy.
Lucy Warrender was Georgie's cousin on the father's side. Colonel
Warrender, as the younger brother, was naturally intended for the
family living of King's Warren. But fiery young George Warrender
declined the Church altogether, so he was sent to Hailybury, and then he
became a soldier of John Company, and was soon known as Fighting George
Warrender, and by dint of following his own bent attained the colonelcy
of a native regiment. Then he had a good determined shake at the pagoda
tree. And then he made a fool of himself, for just as he had come down
to Bombay, having made up his mind to take two years' leave, he was
smitten by the blonde beauty of a newly-imported "spin," fresh from the
boarding-school; and being an impulsive man, Colonel George Warrender
married the little boarding-school miss, and changed his mind about his
furlough. Within a year his daughter Lucy was born. And then the cholera
came to Bebreabad, swept off Colonel Warrender and his pale-faced
child-wife; and the little Lucy, his orphan daughter, came home at once
in charge of an ayah in the Company's ship "Lord Clive." On her arrival
Squire Warrender pitied the little misery, as she was called by
everybody, and treated her as his own daughter. There was but two years'
difference between the girls, and they looked upon each other as
sisters. The squire's wife had died within a year of his daughter's
birth, so that practically neither of the cousins had ever known a
mother's care. Squire Warrender's wife had been a local beauty, and her
portrait, which hung in Mr. Warrender's study, represented a loveliness
of no common type.
Both the girls rode well, but neither was horsey nor doggy. One of the
greatest attractions in everybody's eyes about Georgie Warrender was her
openness; she never had a secret from Miss Hood, her father, or her
cousin. In fact, secrecy was foreign to her nature. As to her
appearance, she was a fine, well-developed, thoroughly English girl,
fully justifying the raptures and rhapsodies of her numerous admirers.
But it is not with her appearance that we are at present concerned, but
with the subject of her meditations.
That subject was a serious one, for in her pocket was a formal proposal
from Reginald Haggard, whom she had known as "Big Reginald Haggard" from
her childhood. It is probably an axiom that every English girl, under
ordinary circumstances, accepts her first offer; the reason of this is
not very manifest, but it is nevertheless a fact, and its being a fact
is doubtless one of the causes of the numerous ill-assorted matches that
constantly take place. But Miss Warrender, now twenty years of age, had
been an exception to the rule. During her first and successful London
season, now just over, she had refused three serious offers. The first
was from an impecunious young barrister, who had attained some repute in
the literary world, and had very nearly killed himself in the process.
Mr. Baliol had admired Miss Warrender, had made careful inquiries as to
her father's position, had discovered that the two girls would probably
be the old man's heiresses, and had promptly proposed to Georgie. He had
been as promptly refused. Mr. Baliol was in no wise disconcerted. He
immediately proceeded to dedicate his new novel, "A Woman's Fickle
Heart," "to Miss G---- W----, in token of respectful admiration." Baliol
scored another success at the circulating libraries, and at once ceased
to trouble himself any more about Miss G---- W----.
Georgina's second proposal was of a more serious nature. Young Lord
Spunyarn had made her an offer. Lord Spunyarn desired an ornamental
wife. To him the ideal Lady Spunyarn was a young person respectably
connected, good-tempered, and of prepossessing appearance. Not one iota
did Spunyarn care for money, birth or brains; of money he had plenty and
to spare: as to birth, was he not Lord Spunyarn? as to brains, clever
women were considered bores by his lordship. The young nobleman liked
Georgie Warrender, and he liked her people. Though rejected, rather to
his astonishment, it made no difference in his friendship with the
family. "It's an awful bore, you know. Unluckily they all know it at the
club--I mean that I was going to make you an offer--and I heard that one
of the society journals had the announcement of our engagement already
in type. You see, I was to have dined here to-morrow. If you don't mind,
I'll come all the same." He did come, did full justice to the dinner,
sat next to Georgie, whom he took down, and the pair, thoroughly
heartwhole, had a great deal to say to each other.
Georgina's next experience was of a more comic character; her conquest
was no longer a nobleman, but a "noble." Jones di Monte-Ferrato was a
Maltese noble. He possessed certain rights of nobility in the island,
his income was derived from the sale of Maltese oranges; in fact he was
the titular head of Jones and Co., the well-known fruit house of Thames
Street. In Thames Street, Jones di Monte-Ferrato said nothing about his
nobility, he was "our Mr. Jones." But on his visiting cards was a
portentous crown, and Jones di Monte-Ferrato habitually wore a coloured
_boutonnière_ in his frock coat; being red, this decoration was
popularly supposed to be the Legion of Honour: it had been purchased
however, and purchased cheaply, from the Pope. Jones' nobility carried
him far in Maida Vale and Bayswater. Needless to tell, Miss Warrender
would have nothing to say to him.
To say that Georgie Warrender was perfectly heartwhole as she unfolded
Haggard's letter, is nothing but the truth. Of course she liked young
Haggard, but so did every one. Haggard had enjoyed an extraordinary
popularity. Related as he was to the Earl of Pit Town, he was a welcome
guest in the best houses. He had been a dancing man, and could dance
well, was exceedingly good-looking, and consequently a catch at the
small and earlies and also at more elaborate entertainments. When a very
young man he had been a detrimental, having rapidly dissipated his
little fortune. Penniless, he went to America; in eight years he
returned, well off, as good-looking as ever, and with the possibility,
the extremely unlikely possibility, of one day succeeding to the earldom
of Pit Town. There are some men who always fall on their feet, some men
for whom fortune is never tired of turning up trumps; Haggard was one of
these men. When it is said that Haggard was a man of the world in its
broadest sense, nothing remains to tell. If he had a religion at all it
was the worship of his own dear self. Big Reginald remembered Georgie
Warrender as a chit of twelve; he met her again one of the brightest
ornaments of London society; he heard her spoken of there as handsome
Miss Warrender; and just as he would have longed for a very valuable
hunter to carry his sixteen stone to hounds, so he desired to obtain
Georgie's hand; because without doubt she was the handsomest,
healthiest, pleasantest and most unexceptionable girl it had ever been
his good fortune to come across.
The letter seemed honest enough, it was short and to the point.
"DEAR MISS WARRENDER,
"You will probably not be surprised at my addressing you on a
subject important to us both. We have known each other since the
time when you were a little girl and I was a big bad boy. I
don't trouble you with business matters, but I have spoken to
Mr. Warrender and fully satisfied him on that head. It is with
his approbation that I ask you to become my wife. I know that
the very remote possibility of a coronet will not weigh with
you, but I do think you ought to let it count against my
disadvantages. You will get this at breakfast time. I shall ride
over about eleven to urge my suit in person; may I hope that
your good nature will spare me the negative I doubtless deserve,
and that you will give me a chance?
"Yours very affectionately,
"REGINALD HAGGARD."
As Georgie replaced the letter in its envelope she blushed; had Haggard
been indifferent to her she would not have hung out this signal of
distress. It is impossible to follow the course of reasoning of a
woman's mind. Georgie Warrender was no raw girl to be caught by the mere
good looks of big Reginald. But first impressions go a great way; she
remembered the young fellow in the reckless daring of his first youth;
she remembered, too, her feeling of pity when she heard of the
prodigal's banishment to a far country to feed the proverbial swine.
Georgie remembered, too, the triumphant return of that prodigal some six
months ago. She had been pleased at the prodigal's attentions, and she
knew that many girls, of far greater social pretensions than her own,
would willingly have accepted the addresses of the bronzed, curly-headed
giant with the big moustache. Perhaps she would have been wiser had she
taken counsel with Miss Hood, or had she deliberated more calmly. But
Georgie was a self-reliant girl. Even now she heard the measured tread
of her lover's hack as he trotted up to the hall door of The Warren. She
looked at her watch, it wanted five minutes of the hour. Miss Warrender
smiled at her lover's excessive punctuality; his impatience boded well
she thought.
Another instant and he is striding down the path of the rose garden; a
happy look is on his face, though it is slightly pale with suppressed
excitement. Georgie Warrender's pink roses attain a damask hue as she
rises to greet him.
Fortune, fickle goddess, still befriends her favourite. There was no
outward sign of hesitation or diffidence about Haggard, as he held out
his hand to Miss Warrender.
"It's very good of you to see me; I'm afraid I don't deserve it," he
said, seating himself beside her on the rustic bench, and, man-like,
commencing to bore holes in the gravel with the stout ash-plant which he
carried. Youth and maid decorously continued to gaze upon the ground and
to critically study their own foot coverings. Haggard was a man who
looked well in any dress, but the grey tweed suit which he wore, the
artistic bit of red of his loosely-tied sailor's knot, his big grey felt
hat, his leggings also of tweed, even his stout but well-made lace-up
boots seem to give the young giant the needful halo of romance. This,
the usual morning dress of a young English gentleman in the country, is
what is generally selected as the costume of the hero of an Adelphi
drama, when that wonderful young man is discovered in his virtuous home
prior to the commencement of his numerous sufferings and hair-breadth
escapes. As for Georgie, the conventional French muslin set off her
faultless figure, a large Leghorn hat protected her delicate complexion
from the sun's rays, her magnificent hair was worn in the rather severe
Grecian style, but then the big plait at the back was all her own, and
the bronze chestnut locks, tightly strained as they were around her
head, disclosed the small shell-like ear, that sign of breeding which it
is impossible to counterfeit. Probably Georgie Warrender had been right
when, as a girl, she had declined to have those pretty ears pierced. If
we accept the hypothesis that beauty unadorned is adorned the most, then
Georgie in her native loveliness was, indeed, highly decorated. But she
was nervous in this formal _tête-à-tête_; this showed itself in her
heightened colour, which was still maintained, and in the occasional
movement of her delicately fashioned little bronze shoes. As Sir John
Suckling said long ago:
"Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice peeped in and out,
As though they feared the light."
The quotation is somewhat hackneyed, perhaps; but it ran through
Reginald Haggard's mind, as he prodded his stick into the gravel.
"I'm afraid, Miss Warrender, that I have betrayed you into a
_tête-à-tête_. Your father wished me luck, and told me I should find you
here, while your cousin informed me that we should be _quite_
undisturbed. May I hope that you will give me a chance; that possibly,
after a time, I may not altogether be indifferent to you, Georgie?"
Again the rosy flush mantled on the girl's tell-tale cheek. Haggard
continued, "Of course you have seen, dear Georgie, that I have been
very hard hit this season, for a lazy ne'er-do-weel like myself to dance
attendance at every entertainment that Miss Warrender graced with her
presence, must have made the state of my affections pretty manifest I
suppose. We have known each other a long time. I have never done
anything mean or dirty that I know of, Georgie. Of course I was a young
fool, and kicked up my heels as young fools do. But I think I have had
all the nonsense knocked out of me. My roving life in Mexico and my
chase after the almighty dollar have sobered me. Can you trust me,
Georgie? I'll be good to you, upon my word I will. Good to you and proud
of you, if you'll only give me the chance. You are too clever for me to
attempt to argue you into it. But, dear Georgie, I love you as I never
loved any woman breathing, and not with the mere passing fancy of a boy.
I have seen the world and a good deal of life, the gilded and the seamy
sides. Tell me, Georgie. May I hope? Will you give me a chance?"
Georgie looked into his eyes and smiled. He had spoken it trippingly on
the tongue, though seemingly spontaneous, it had been well thought out;
for Haggard was an actor, a leading gentleman, well experienced in
lovers' _rôles_. It is not meant by this that Haggard was what the old
song calls a "star-breasted villain." But Georgie Warrender was not by
any means his first love. Haggard looked upon Georgie as a valuable
acquisition; from the physical point of view she was the finest,
freshest, fairest girl he had come across. And he coveted her as an
amateur covets a picture; that it may belong to him, and that others may
fruitlessly desire his pearl of great price. True, no sordid
consideration influenced Haggard. Can we call this love? Let us be
charitable and do so. But we will also be just and qualify. It was love
of the nineteenth century, of the society type.
"You pay me a great compliment, Mr. Haggard, a very undeserved
compliment. I cannot pretend to be taken by surprise, for, as you say,
your attentions _have_ been very marked. What am I to say to you? With a
girl it is a very serious matter; for once we give our hearts, at least
some of us, Mr. Haggard, we give them for good and all. A mistake once
made, in our case, cannot be set right. Our affections once given away
to a man, and perhaps afterwards flung aside, then leave us with nothing
to bestow but our miserable selves. Are you quite sure you have made up
your mind, and that you won't want to change it?" she said, looking up
archly in his face.
But his teeth were set, and the muscles of his massive jaw were working
hard, as he gazed intently on the gravel at his feet. It was evidently
no laughing matter with Haggard. The muscles of his jaw had worked in a
similar way only a week ago, when he stood on the grand stand at Epsom,
and saw the favourite, whom he had backed heavily, almost "collared" on
the post; but the favourite had won, and Dark Despair had failed to land
the odds of sixty to one laid against him. So had the muscles of
Reginald Haggard's jaw worked when he had "bluffed" Don Emmanuel Garcia
at the almost historical game of poker, which they had played at
Chihuahua. Haggard had only held knave high, about as small a hand as a
poker player can hold; he had successfully "bluffed" the Mexican, and
won. He is bluffing now, for hearts are trumps at the game that is being
played; and we, who look over the cards of both hands, can see that big
Reginald's at least is a poor one. Will he win? Of course he will. What
chance has Georgie Warrender against so experienced a player? The stakes
were Haggard's before he had cut or shuffled the cards.
"Sure, Georgie? of course I'm sure. I may hope, then? I may dare to
hope?"
Wise man as he was, he carried the place by a determined rush. He took
her hand in his, the taper little fingers were not withdrawn.
"Georgie, darling, how can I thank you? I am not good at this sort of
thing."
If he had not attained perfection in the art of love, it was certainly
not for want of practice; for if the truth be told, the big Lothario
habitually made love to every pretty woman he met; and if there was no
pretty woman, then to the least unprepossessing one of those present.
The rest of the conversation went on much as such conversations usually
do. Haggard swore eternal constancy. Georgie confessed that she
"supposed she did care for him." But this modified sympathy did not
satisfy Haggard; he pleaded for something more explicit.
"I have always liked you, Mr. Haggard," she said, for Georgie could not
yet bring herself to address her lover by his Christian name; "but I
fear I must seem a very poor creature after all the dashing
South-American beauties, to say nothing of the many recognized successes
of the past season."
"But you were the success of the past season, Georgie. Everybody knows
it. Why, they raved about you. You must know very well that Madame
Hortense made a little fortune with the 'Warrender' hat."
"Ah, that was Lucy's idea, not mine, Mr. Haggard."
"A very charming idea, Georgie, but never so charming as when you wore
it."
Georgie Warrender rose and made him a low courtesy. "I see you deal in
sugared compliments," she said.
He got up and offered his arm.
The hideous and snobbish custom of taking a lady's arm had not then been
invented. And to do him justice, even if it had, Haggard was too much of
a gentleman to have attempted it. For customs borrowed from the habits
of the _demi monde_ would have been sadly out of place with a girl like
Georgie Warrender. With her cousin it might have been different; but
with Georgie the thing would have been impossible.
As the extent of his own good luck began to dawn upon Haggard, he felt
that the world had indeed gone very well with him; for as he had marched
down the walk of the old-fashioned rose garden that morning, for the
first time in his life he had felt diffident of success; for the first
time in his life he now vowed in his fickle mind to be true to the
smiling girl who, in the bright glamour of a first love, hung so
confidingly on his arm. Of course he vowed eternal constancy. At lovers'
perjuries they say Jove laughs, and well might the whole Olympian chorus
have joined in the loud guffaw with which the king of all the gods
doubtlessly greeted the protestations of Fortune's favourite. As each
drank deep draughts of the subtle poison from the other's eyes, their
glances grew brighter, and they were only awakened from the dream that
comes to us all, at least once in our lifetimes, by the imperious clash
of the luncheon-bell. Old Mr. Warrender and Lucy appeared upon the lawn,
and the broad smile on her father's face and Lucy's merry laugh told the
happy pair that they might spare any explanation. Georgie, in the pride
of her honest love, disdained to take her hand from the young man's arm.
With womanly dignity she advanced to meet her delighted father. He
kissed her on the forehead, and then the blushing girl took refuge in
her cousin's affectionate embrace.
"Be good to her, my boy," said Squire Warrender, his honest voice a
little broken as he thought of the old days of his own too short-lived
happiness, and of the proud dead beauty, Georgie's mother. It was a
short speech, but it rang in Reginald Haggard's ears for many a year.
Will he be good to her? He should be. If not good to her, surely
Reginald Haggard will be less than a dog.