WALLS END CASTLE.
Walls End Castle was the seat of John, Earl of Pit Town. It had come
into the family through the marriage of a former earl with the heiress
of the great Chudleigh family. It was one of England's show places. The
great park which surrounded it was one of the most celebrated in all
England, celebrated alike for its size and its beauty. The entry to the
park was never denied to artists; and they, their easels, and their
umbrellas, might be seen at the various well-known "bits" all through
the summer and autumn. The boys of the Elizabethan Grammar School had
also the privilege of roaming in the park; and time had been when the
people of the neighbouring town and the public generally were admitted;
but excursionists had arrived in crowds, they had destroyed the poetry
of the place with pieces of greasy newspaper, broken bottles, ham bones,
and the remains of their Homeric banquets. They had shouted and whistled
in the great picture galleries, they had written their names upon the
window panes, they had committed all the innumerable offences that such
people do commit; but the final straw which determined the present earl
to exclude them, was their having played at the game of
Kiss-in-the-ring, one Whit-Monday, directly under the windows of the
noble owner. After that memorable day, Lord Pit Town kept his castle and
his park to himself.
His lordship during the earlier part of his reign never came near Walls
End Castle. The widowed earl travelled continuously in Southern Europe.
He travelled, and he collected pictures, statuary, gems, plate,
china--nothing came amiss to him. But John, Earl of Pit Town, was wise
in his generation; he remembered that "if you sup with the devil, it is
best to use a long spoon." He never purchased without an expert's aid;
consequently the immense collection he had gradually accumulated was
free from rubbish. Nothing doubtful or "reputed" ever arrived in the
huge packing-cases consigned to Walls End Castle. For years his lordship
was seldom seen in London, the great house in Grosvenor Square was never
opened. When Lord Pit Town was in England, he stayed at Long's Hotel.
Friends he had none; his doctor and his courier were the people who saw
most of him. But as years rolled on his lordship grew tired of travel,
his well-known figure, in the short blue cloak and velvet collar, was
seen no more in the great picture galleries of Europe. Lord Pit Town now
commenced the work of his life, the building of the new galleries at
Walls End Castle. Winter and summer the little old man, for he was over
sixty now, might be seen in the blue cloak, inspecting the growth of the
vast galleries with a critical eye. Emilius Wolff, his German architect,
was his constant companion. The great Mr. Buskin paid him a yearly
visit; on these occasions Dr. Wolff (for Wolff was a doctor of
philosophy) joined his lordship and the great art-critic at dinner. At
length the great Pit Town collection was housed as it deserved to be.
Its principal feature was the picture gallery. This was a vast building
of classical design, resembling a Grecian temple. Dr. Wolff was a
Berliner, and the tradition of Berlin is that a picture gallery should
resemble a Greek temple. The vast galleries were probably among the best
in Europe. They were lighted and heated to perfection. But the great
galleries had one peculiarity; at irregular intervals along the wall
were blank spaces of varying size; in the centre of each space was a
label in his lordship's own writing: on these labels were inscribed the
names of various great painters. It was now the only business of the
Earl of Pit Town to gradually fill these spaces, each with a
representative masterpiece of the artist indicated. Possibly John, Earl
of Pit Town, notwithstanding his boundless wealth, could hardly hope to
complete such a work in his own lifetime. The great Mr. Abrahams had an
unlimited commission to secure at any price, a long list of great works.
There was but one condition attached, any purchase must be above
suspicion. But even the great Mr. Abrahams, on one notable occasion at
least, had been deceived. A new acquisition, purchased from the
collection of a wealthy amateur in the Rue Drouot, had arrived at Walls
End Castle. A furious controversy concerning this picture had arisen
among art critics. Herr Vandenbossche had defended the authenticity of
the work, but old Mr. Creeps had demolished him in an exhaustive article
in the _Friday Review_. Old Mr. Creeps was considerably astonished at
receiving an almost affectionate letter from Lord Pit Town. His lordship
thanked him for the article, and requested what he termed "the exceeding
great pleasure of receiving you here;" the letter was dated from Walls
End Castle. Old Mr. Creeps accepted the invitation for a couple of days.
On his arrival at the local railway station he was met by his lordship
in person. Lord Pit Town, one of the proudest and most exclusive of men,
treated old Mr. Creeps with marked deference. At dinner, at which John
Buskin and Dr. Wolff were present, conversation ran purely upon art
matters. Old Mr. Creeps, the critic, had never enjoyed himself so much;
the sitting was prolonged till the small hours. Next day, at noon, the
council of four sat in solemn conclave upon Lord Pit Town's latest
purchase. Old Mr. Creeps triumphantly proved his case. Lord Pit Town
looked at Mr. Buskin. Mr. Buskin nodded. "Well, Wolff?" remarked his
lordship.
"It is onhappy, most onhappy," replied the doctor of philosophy, "but I
fear it is drue, too drue."
"What will your lordship do with it?" said old Mr. Creeps.
"You shall see," replied that eminent collector with a smile, as he
advanced to the easel on which the doubtful picture stood. His lordship
opened his penknife, carefully and quietly he cut the canvas out of the
frame, he folded it in half; again he cut it, as though he were cutting
up a sheet of brown paper; he repeated the process several times, then,
handing the pieces to the German, he merely remarked, "Oblige me by
burning these, Wolff."
"They shall make a vamous blaze," said the philosopher, as he left the
room to carry out the sentence.
"Would that all collectors could afford to do the same, Lord Pit Town,"
remarked John Buskin with a sigh.
"Your lordship has done a noble act," cheerfully cried old Mr. Creeps,
as he rubbed his hands. "Of course you will trounce Abrahams. When the
artistic world hears of this morning's work, Lord Pit Town, it will know
what it owes to England's most distinguished amateur."
"No, no, Mr. Creeps. I must ask you to keep this business a secret; no
cheap popularity for me," replied the old lord.
"Cheap!" echoed the critic, as he raised his eyes to the skylight. "Good
heavens! he calls it cheap," whispered the old man to John Buskin.
"His lordship is right," was the oracle's oracular reply.
Men said that Lord Pit Town was eccentric. Gossips said that he was mad.
Perhaps after all he was only honest according to his lights. Next day
the handsome frame, carefully packed, was returned to Mr. Abrahams; it
was duly deducted from his account. But he got his cheque for the price
of the picture, and his very liberal commission.
In vain did the artists who frequented Walls End Park attempt to stalk
the old nobleman in his lonely walks. They never succeeded in selling
him a picture from the easel. "Capital, capital," his lordship would
remark with great alacrity, when there was no other way of escape. The
eldest Miss Solomonson, the most talented member of that clever Hebrew
family--she is great at animals--tried to shoot the wary old lord with
her well-known picture of "The Timid Fawn," but she ignominiously
failed.
"The old wretch called me 'my dear,' and said he liked my sky, when I
hadn't even indicated the sky," she indignantly remarked to her amused
father.
Miss Solomonson's masses of jetty hair, and the fire from the glances of
her oriental eyes, were said to have melted the stony hearts even of
dealers who were her co-religionists. But with all her advantages Miss
Solomonson failed with the old lord, and she abuses him to this day. She
had her revenge, however, for in her well-known Academy picture of the
following year, "Balaam and his Ass," the angel was represented by a
glorified portrait of Miss Solomonson herself, who glared down in an
indignant manner upon the terrified and kneeling Balaam. Old Mr. Creeps
and the other art-critics chuckled as they recognized the angelic
portrait; but they chuckled still more, when they saw that the terrified
Balaam was but an ill-natured caricature of John, Earl of Pit Town.
"I'd have done him as the ass, you know, only he was too ugly. I hope
he'll like the figures better than the sky this time," snorted the
indignant Hebrew maiden.
The curse of the Earl of Pit Town's life was the so-called gallery of
old masters in Walls End Castle. He couldn't sell them; he couldn't burn
them; he was even compelled to insure them, to his intense disgust. For
when a former lord had inherited Walls End Castle from the Chudleighs,
old masters had been the fashion; and the purchaser, delighted with his
toy, had made the pictures heirlooms. But the present lord had shut up
what to him was a mere chamber of horrors. He and Dr. Wolff had actually
composed a catalogue _raisonné_ of the entire collection, in which the
fictitious nature of the claims to respect of each monstrous daub was
triumphantly demonstrated. The sprawling Rubenses were shown to be but
inferior copies, the Paul Veronese was proved a transparent sham, while
the great Vandyck, representing the Martyr-King seated on a gigantic
grey horse, was demonstrated to be but a wretched replica of a miserable
original. There they hung, the old Pit Town heirlooms, grimy with dirt;
for as the old lord used to say, "To have cleaned them would have been
only to make their natural hideousness still more apparent." Each
picture bore a label, giving a true description of the once-honoured
gem. Alas! these veracious tablets cruelly contrasted with the
flourishes of the old housekeeper's descriptions.
Two only of his heirlooms had stood the crucial inspections of Lord Pit
Town and his experts. These were the great Raphael, and the celebrated
portrait of Barbara Chudleigh, the well-known beauty of Charles the
Second's time, by Sir Peter Lely. Wicked Bab Chudleigh, as a wood nymph,
simpered upon the walls of the new gallery in which the Chudleigh
Raphael occupied the post of honour.
We have seen what manner of man John, Earl of Pit Town, was. We have
seen how his heirlooms troubled him not a little. We have seen how he
passed his life with the faithful Wolff at Walls End Castle, patiently
waiting to fill the numerous blanks on the walls of the new galleries,
in fact to accomplish his destiny. For if ever there was a born
collector, a real collector, to whom the actual intrinsic value of a
painting was absolutely of no importance, it was John, Earl of Pit Town.
And this indifference to the value at the hammer of their acquisitions,
marks the distinction between the genuine collector or connoisseur and
the ruck of the people who buy pictures; the bulk of whom are after all
but amateur dealers. When the successful stock-jobber leaves off dealing
in shares and takes to art, he merely deals in another more or less
intangible security of very fluctuating value. With childlike confidence
he follows the advice of some more or less honest dealer. He buys from
the easel with a hope of a "rapid rise." Works are knocked down to him
at Christie's simply because they are apparently cheap, and he is
carrying out the old axiom of his trade, "always buy rubbish." In the
same way he is perpetually buying and selling pictures upon the time
honoured maxim of Capel Court, "nail your profit, and cut your loss." He
will even go so far as to develop a taste for a particular master in
the hope that he may succeed ultimately in making a "corner" in that
special security. And the sole dream of such a man is the result in
pounds, shillings and pence of the auction that will inevitably take
place at his death. The possession of a certain number of valuable works
of art confers an amount of distinction upon their proprietor, and
Brown, who as Brown is a nobody, becomes a somebody as the owner of the
Brown collection. Of this fact Manchester "men" and Liverpool
"gentlemen" are well aware. But, as has been seen, a deep gulf divided
these amateur dealers from John, Earl of Pit Town.
The old earl's property, the source of his wealth, as from his title the
reader will have shrewdly guessed, was in collieries. With the
management of these, however, the Earl of Pit Town did not trouble
himself. His various agents paid yearly increasing sums into that
aristocratic bank in the Strand, which never allows interest on
deposits, which never advises any investment except Consols, and whose
clerks from time immemorial have worn white chokers.
For many years it had been the old lord's habit to entertain those
members of his family, never exceeding four in number, who were nearest
to the title. Twice a year the formal invitation was sent out by the old
nobleman to his only son, and to his two nephews. Once in the height of
the summer and once at Christmas these invitations were issued. They
were never refused, for their recipients looked upon them much in the
light of a royal command.
Lord Hetton, the earl's only son, and his heir, was always one of the
guests on these occasions; to him it was an exceedingly unpleasant time;
for father and son had quarrelled years ago, the old lord having sternly
declined to increase his son's very liberal allowance of five thousand a
year. A man can do a great deal on five thousand a year, but not much
is left for the annuitant when he is possessed by the idea that, some
day or other, it will be his good fortune to win the Derby. In all other
things but race-horses, Hetton was a man of frugal mind. For the sake of
his stud he had remained a bachelor; for he felt that were he to marry,
yet another obstacle would be raised to the attainment of his ambition.
Ever since his majority Lord Hetton had annually entered a colt in the
great race. His nominations had on two occasions even run into places.
Four years ago Hetton's horse had been first favourite, but it was
ignominiously beaten. This very year, that rank outsider, Dark Despair,
who, starting at sixty to one, had just been beaten on the post, was the
property of his persevering, but unlucky, lordship. Twice a year did
Lord Hetton present himself at Walls End Castle. He used to walk through
the park, and note with pleasure the care that his father bestowed on
the gigantic property. It pleased him to see how well kept was
everything about the place. It gratified him to find his opinions
deferentially listened to by the steward, and to perceive that year by
year the family solicitors treated him with a still greater
obsequiousness. But in his heart, he cursed what he called his father's
folly, as he looked at the new galleries; and he would have liked to
stamp and swear, as at every visit he dutifully admired each new and
costly acquisition of the old earl's. He would walk discontentedly up
and down the old picture gallery where hung the worthless heirlooms
that, in the ordinary course of nature, must one day be his own: and he
wondered whether he should ever possess the Golconda contained in the
new galleries. Perhaps it was only human nature that caused him to
watch, and watch in vain, for any apparent sign of increasing infirmity
in the old earl. But he never quarrelled with his father, for on the
morning of his departure from the paternal roof, he was accustomed to
receive a very considerable _solatium_ to his wounded feelings, in the
shape of a heavy cheque on the bank in the Strand. The amount of this
cheque was invariable; it kept Hetton on his good behaviour, and he had
learned to look upon it as part of his allowance. On one memorable
occasion he had presumed to remonstrate with his father on the enormous
cost of his last artistic acquisitions; the earl had merely shrugged his
shoulders. That visit had been indignantly remembered by Lord Hetton,
for when the venerable connoisseur bade his lordship good-bye, there had
been no cheque, though there was no change in his lordship's manner
towards his son.
Mr. Haggard, of the Home Office, a faultlessly-dressed gentleman, whose
principal characteristic was his brilliant whist, which it was said
brought him in a certain but variable income, was the next heir in
direct succession; he was the nephew of his lordship, and a childless
bachelor. His presence, also, always graced Walls End Castle at the
regulation periods.
Mr. John Haggard, of Ash Priory, the father of big Reginald, was always
the third guest. John Haggard, the second nephew of Lord Pit Town, was a
J.P. for his county, of the Shakespearian type. He was fond of good
living, his eye was severe, and his beard of sober cut. He embodied the
law, in his own immediate neighbourhood, to the intense terror of local
delinquents. He had meted out stern justice to his own son, when he had
banished big Reginald to South America; but he had his virtues. He lived
within his means, he entertained his neighbours at rather heavy dinners,
he gave his wife and daughters a fortnight in town during the season,
and he habitually took the first prize at the county show for black
pigs. He never forgot that he was third in succession to the title. He
never doubted his capacity, should he ever be called to occupy the
position of a hereditary legislator; and now that his son had returned a
considerably wealthier man than he himself was, he chuckled, when in his
mind's eye he thought of him as some day bearing the courtesy title of
Lord Hetton.
The earl and the doctor of philosophy sat at breakfast in a little oak
wainscoted room whose windows commanded a full view of the new
galleries. In this little room the galleries had been designed; the
windows had looked upon the commencement of the great work. An army of
navvies had dug out the earth for the gigantic foundations. Then arose a
very forest of scaffold-poles. Two huge steam engines had snorted and
puffed for three whole years. A colossal steam "traveller" had
ceaselessly carried great blocks of stone and long steel girders from
point to point. The clink of the stone-masons' chisels had resounded
year after year from morning till night. Then came the carpenters, and
the noise of their busy hammers had been deafening. When not actually
on the works, Lord Pit Town had viewed them from the window of his
favourite room. But scaffold poles, steam engines and labourers had
disappeared; the rubbish had been cleared away, and the huge white block
stood out in the clear air; dominating the grey weather-stained gables
of Walls End Castle much as Aladdin's palace is said to have dominated
the more ancient but less magnificent residence of his father-in-law the
Emperor of China. There was an air of spick-and-spanness about the whole
thing that annoyed the earl. The new galleries had been finished four
whole years, but they still looked painfully fresh.
"I hear that I am to have the pleasure of welcoming another of your
lordship's relatives this year," said the doctor of philosophy to the
earl.
"Yes; Wolff 'where the carcase is there shall the eagles be gathered
together.' I have kept them waiting for some years, and I don't feel a
bit like dying, Wolff. Though I confess I dread Hetton's critical
examination. He always looks me over in his stud-groom sort of way. But
I suppose, as he is my nearest relative, it is but natural he should be
anxious about my health. As for the young fellow, I have never even seen
him. My nephew wished to bring him, and he is about to marry. In fact he
and his father will be the only married men among my direct heirs."
"And does the young man love art?"
"No. I think his talents are confined to spending money and getting into
trouble. But my nephew tells me that he is now going to forswear sack
and live cleanly."
"That is what I cannot understand, my lord. I had a cold the other day,
a most severe cold. I tell the young man to bring me a cup of sack; he
sends to me the butler. I say to him, 'Give me the sack.' He replied to
me, 'I cannot do that, sir, it's only his lordship can do that.' What
is, then, this precious drink I read of in my Shakespeare--so precious,
that your lordship will not trust him to his butler? And now you tell me
that your nephew will drink him no more. I never see your lordship drink
him. Has, then, your lordship forsworn him too?"
His lordship laughed as he finished his coffee. "No one drinks sack
now-a-days, Wolff, and the quotation was merely figurative; while the
other sack the butler talked about was but a vulgarism used by his
class. You will never get that either, in my lifetime at least."
"I understand it not. But your grand-nephew, the young man, it pleases
you that he shall marry?"
"It is indifferent to me, Wolff; if I can only live to fill the vacant
wall spaces in the new galleries, I can seriously say, _après moi le
déluge_. But here comes the first arrival."
One of his lordship's close carriages was coming up the great chestnut
avenue; Lord Hetton was its sole occupant. As the old butler received
him in the hall, with the deference due to his master's son, the
sporting nobleman laughingly commiserated him.
"We have neither of us any luck, Russell, as usual," he said. "I thought
I had a real good thing this time. As usual, I put you on for a fiver,
Russell; as usual, it didn't come off." Lord Hetton was of a frugal
mind. He was continually presenting innumerable imaginary fivers to
little people. He was always putting them on for them at tremendous
odds, but the good things never came off, and the recipients of his
favours were never informed of his munificence _till after the event_.
"I most humbly thank your lordship," replied the butler with an air of
profound gratitude, as he chuckled in his sleeve. For the old man too
was of a sporting turn. He knew all about Dark Despair, and annually he
had carefully laid the odds against Lord Hetton's nomination for the
great race.
"The same rooms, I suppose, Russell?"
"Always the same rooms, your lordship."
Lord Hetton mechanically proceeded to his quarters.
On joining the earl, father and son met as if they had parted only the
previous day. The pursuits of neither interested the other. Art and
horse-flesh were subjects tabooed by mutual consent. A desultory
conversation on politics, in which neither took the slightest interest,
was a safe neutral ground. It was with a feeling of relief on both sides
that the arrival of Mr. Haggard, of the Home Office, was announced. His
lordship retired shortly to his study, Hetton and Mr. Haggard betook
themselves to the billiard-room.
At dinner the family party was increased by the presence of John Haggard
and his son, both of whom were well received by the earl, who now saw
his grand-nephew for the first time. Big Reginald's magnificent
physique made its due impression; his father was evidently proud of him,
and the old lord congratulated the young man on his approaching
marriage.
Reginald Haggard was not diffident, he truckled to no one. He frankly
avowed to his grand uncle that he knew nothing of art. When his lordship
retired early, as was his custom, the other men adjourned once more to
the billiard-room. Big Reginald took their lives at pool, and pocketed
their half-crowns in an easy genial way, which almost made losing a
pleasure.
During the fortnight in which Lord Pit Town entertained his relatives,
nothing occurred to mar the harmony of the meeting. During that
fortnight Big Reginald got on friendly terms with everybody.
Nothing seemed to overawe or intimidate the ingenuous youth. He saw with
evident pleasure the outward and visible signs of the old earl's immense
wealth. As he looked round upon the priceless collection in the new
galleries, as he thought of the old nobleman's huge estates, he
remembered that the investment that Mr. Hyam Hyams had made in his own
contingent post obits was probably a good one; he prudently determined
to pay off the Jew as soon as he should realize his American properties.
In his own mind he determined already that, should he ever be his
great-uncle's successor, he would distribute the great Pit Town
collection to the four winds of heaven. But he made one mental
reservation, as he stood before Sir Peter Lely's masterpiece, and gazed
on the lovely features and roving eye of "Wicked Bab Chudleigh:" "A
monstrous fine girl. Yes, I should stick to her." If Reginald Haggard
did come into the estates after all, and did "stick to her," she would
be the first one of her sex he had ever stuck to.
Walls End Castle, when the party broke up, returned to its normal state.
The earl and the philosopher continued the even tenour of their ways.
Lord Hetton took away his big cheque, which was duly honoured at the
old-fashioned bank in the Strand. A cheque for a like amount had been
given to Reginald Haggard by the earl. "Buy something for your wife
that-is-to-be," he said to his grand-nephew, as he handed him the folded
paper. "Warrender was one of my friends years ago, when I had friends,"
said the old nobleman with a sigh "They are good old-fashioned people
the Warrenders, and honest. Don't thank me," he said, as he shook hands
with the young fellow. "Of course you will come here with your father in
the winter. I shall hope to see the new Mrs. Haggard too," he added.
"Good-bye. I shall send you a formal invitation."
When big Reginald told his father of this interview, as they were
driving to the station, Justice Haggard did not conceal his
satisfaction. "He will outlive all of _us_, my boy, Hetton into the
bargain. Who knows but _you_ may be one day Earl of Pit Town? Keep in
with the old man if you can. His place, as you have seen, is perfect,
all but the piggeries. He doesn't go in for pigs though, he goes in for
pictures--every man to his taste. I prefer pigs."