ALTON GRANGE
A dreary old place was Alton Grange, and one which would have had a
sobering, not to say saddening, effect, even on the most mercurial
temperament. To one naturally of a melancholy turn of mind, its aspect
was positively dispiriting. Outside the house the grounds were
overgrown with plantations and shrubberies, unthinned, and luxuriating
into a wilderness that was not devoid of beauty, but it was a beauty of
a sombre and uncomfortable character. Every tree and shrub of the
darkest hues, seemed to shut out the sunlight from Alton Grange. Huge
cedars overshadowed the slope behind the house; hollies, junipers, and
yew hedges kept the garden in perpetual night. Old-fashioned terraces,
that should have been kept in perfect repair, were sliding into decay
with mouldering walls and unpropped banks, whilst a broken stone
sun-dial, where sun never shone, served but to attract attention to the
general dilapidation around.
It was not the old family place of the Egertons. That was in a northern
county, and had been sold by my father in his days of wild extravagance,
long ago; but he had succeeded to it in right of his mother, at a time
when he had resolved, if possible, to save some remnant from the wreck
of his property, and, when in England, he had resided here ever since.
To me it was home, and dearly I loved it, with all its dulness and all
its decay. The inside corresponded with the exterior. Dark passages,
black wainscotings, everywhere the absence of light; small as were the
windows, they were overhung with creepers, and the walls were covered
with ivy; damp in winter, darkness in summer, were the distinguishing
qualities of the old house. Of furniture there was but a scanty supply,
and that of the most old-fashioned description: high-backed chairs of
carved oak, black leathern _fauteuils_, chimney-pieces that the tallest
housemaid could never reach to dust, would have impressed on a stranger
ideas of anything but comfort, whilst the decorations were confined to
two or three hideous old pictures, representing impossible sufferings of
certain fabulous martyrs; and one or two sketches of my father's, which
had arrived at sufficient maturity to leave the painting-room, and adorn
the every-day life of the establishment.
The last-named apartment was cheerful enough: it was necessarily
supplied with a sufficiency of daylight, and as my father made it his
own peculiar den, and spent the greater part of his life in it, there
were present many smaller comforts and luxuries which might have been
sought elsewhere in the house in vain. But no room was ever comfortable
yet without a woman. Men have no idea of order without formality, or
abundance without untidiness. My father had accumulated in his own
particular retreat a heterogeneous mass of articles which should have
had their proper places appointed, and had no business mixed up with his
colours, and easel, and brushes. Sticks, whips, cloaks, umbrellas,
cigar-boxes, swords, and fire-arms were mingled with lay-figures,
models, studies, and draperies, in a manner that would have driven an
orderly person out of his senses; but my father never troubled his head
about these matters, and when he came in from a walk or ride, would
fling his hat down in one corner of the room, the end of his cigar in
another, his cloak or whip in a third, and begin painting again with an
avidity that seemed to grow fiercer from the enforced abstinence of a
few hours in taking necessary exercise. My poor father! I often think
if he had devoted less attention to his art, and more to the common
every-day business of life, which no one may neglect with impunity, how
much better he would have succeeded, both as a painter and a man.
He was hard at work when I came home from school. I knew well where to
find him, and hurried at once to the painting-room. He was seated at
his easel, but as I entered he drew a screen across the canvas, and so
hid his work from my inquiring gaze. I never knew him do so before; on
the contrary, it had always seemed his greatest desire to instil into
his son some of his own love for the art; but I had hardly time to think
of this ere I was in his arms, looking up once more in the kind face, on
which I never in my whole life remembered to have seen a harsh
expression. He was altered, though, and thinner than when I had seen
him last, and his hair was now quite grey, so that the contrast with his
flashing dark eye--brighter it seemed to me than ever--was almost
unearthly. His hands, too, were wasted, and whiter than they used to be,
and the whole figure, which I remembered once a tower of strength, was
now sunk and fallen in, particularly about the chest and shoulders.
When he stood up, it struck me, also, that he was shorter than he used
to be, and my heart tightened for a moment at the thought that, he might
be even now embarking on that long journey from which there is no
return. I remembered him such a tall, handsome, stalwart man, and now
he seemed so shrunk and emaciated, and quite to totter and lean on me
for support.
"You are grown, my boy," said he, looking fondly at me; "you are getting
quite a man now, Vere; it will be sadly dull for you at the Grange: but
you must stay with your old father for a time--it will not be for
long--not for long," he repeated, and his eye turned to the screened
canvas, and a glance shot from it that I could hardly bear to see--so
despairing, yet so longing--so wild, and yet so fond. I had never seen
him look thus before, and it frightened me.
Our quiet meal in the old oak parlour--our saunter after dinner through
the dark walks and shrubberies--all was so like the olden time, that I
felt quite a boy again. My father lighted up for a time into his former
good spirits and amusing sallies, but I remarked that after every flash
he sank into a deeper dejection, and I fancied the tears were in his
eyes as he wished me good-night at the door of the painting-room. I
little thought when I went to bed that it was now his habit to sit
brooding there till the early dawn of morning, when he would retire for
three or four hours to his rest.
So the time passed away tranquilly and dully enough at Alton Grange. My
father was ever absorbed in his painting, but studied now with the door
locked, and even I was only admitted at stated times, when the
mysterious canvas was invariably screened. My curiosity, nay more, my
interest, was intensely excited; I longed, yet feared, to know what was
the subject of this hidden picture; twenty times was I on the point of
asking my father, but something in his manner gave me to understand that
it was a prohibited subject, and I forbore. There was that in his
bearing which at once checked curiosity on a subject he was unwilling to
reveal, and few men would have dared to question my father where he did
not himself choose to bestow his confidence.
I read much in the old library; I took long walks once more by myself; I
got back to my dreams of Launcelot and Guenever, and knights and dames,
and "deeds of high emprize." More than ever I experienced the vague
longing for something hitherto unknown, that had unconsciously been
growing with my growth, and strengthening with my strength,--the
restless craving of which I scarcely guessed the nature, but which
weighed upon my nervous, sensitive temperament till it affected my very
brain. Had I but known then the lesson that was to be branded on my
heart in letters of fire,--could I but have foreseen the day when I
should gnaw my fetters, and yet not wish to be free,--when all that was
good, and noble, and kindly in my nature should turn to bitter
self-contempt, and hopeless, helpless apathy,--when love, fiercer than
hatred, should scorch and sting the coward that had not strength nor
courage to bear his burden upright like a man,--had I but known all
this, I had better have tied a millstone round my neck, and slept twenty
feet deep below the mere at Beverley, than pawned away hope, and life,
and energy, and manhood, for a glance of her dark eyes, a touch of her
soft hand, from the heiress of Beverley Manor.
Yes, Alton Grange was distant but a short walk from Beverley. Many a
time I found myself roaming through the old trees at the end of the
park, looking wistfully at the angles and turrets of the beautiful Manor
House, and debating within myself whether I ought or ought not to call
and renew an acquaintance with the family that had treated me so kindly
after the scrape brought on by Bold's insubordination. That favourite
was now a mature and experienced retriever, grave, imperturbable, and of
extraordinary sagacity. Poor Bold! he was the handsomest and most
powerful dog I ever saw, with a solemn expression of countenance that
denoted as much intellect as was ever apparent on the face of a human
being. We were vastly proud of Bold's beauty at the Grange, and my
father had painted him a dozen times, in the performance of every feat,
possible or impossible, that it comes within the province of a retriever
to attempt. Bold was now my constant companion; he knew the way to
Beverley as well as to his own lair in my bed-room, where he slept. Day
after day he and I took the same road; day after day my courage failed
me at the last moment, and we turned back without making the intended
visit. At last, one morning, while I strolled as usual among the old
trees at one extremity of the park, I caught sight of a white dress
rounding the corner of the house, and entering the front door. I felt
sure it could only belong to one, and with an effort that quite
surprised even myself, I resolved to master my absurd timidity, and walk
boldly up to call.
I have not the slightest recollection of my ringing the door-bell, nor
of the usual process by which a gentleman is admitted into a
drawing-room; the rush of blood to my head almost blinded me, but I
conclude that instinct took the place of reason, and that I demeaned
myself in no such incoherent manner as to excite the attention of the
servants, for I found myself in the beautiful drawing-room, which I
remembered I had thought such a scene of fairyland years before, and
seated, hat in hand, opposite Miss Beverley.
She must have thought me the stupidest morning visitor that ever
obtained entrance into a country-house; indeed, had it not been for the
good-natured efforts of an elderly lady with a hooked nose, who had been
her governess, and was now a sort of companion, Miss Beverley would have
had all the conversation to herself; and I am constrained to admit that
once or twice I caught an expression of surprise on her calm sweet face,
that could only have been called up by the very inconsequent answers of
which I was guilty in my nervous abstraction. I was so taken up in
watching and admiring her, that I could think of nothing else. She was
so quiet and self-possessed, so gentle and ladylike, so cool and
well-dressed. I can remember the way in which her hair was parted and
arranged to this day. She seemed to me a being of a superior order,
something that never could by any possibility belong to the same sphere
as myself. She was more like the picture of Queen Dido than ever, but
the queen, happy and fancy free, with kindly eyes and unruffled brow;
not the deceived, broken-hearted woman on her self-selected death-bed.
I am not going to describe her--perhaps she was not beautiful to
others--perhaps I should have wished the rest of the world to think her
positively hideous--perhaps she was _then_ not so transcendently
beautiful even to me; nay, as I looked, I could pick faults in her
features and colouring. I had served a long enough apprenticeship to my
father to be able to criticise like an artist, and I could see here a
tint that might be deepened, there a plait that might be better
arranged--I do not mean to say she was perfect--I do not mean to say
that she was a goddess or an angel; but I do mean to say that if ever
there was a face on earth which to me presented the ideal of all that is
sweetest and most lovable in woman, that face was Constance Beverley's.
And yet I was not in love with her; no, I felt something exalting,
something exhilarating in her presence--she seemed to fill the void in
my life, which had long been so wearisome, but I was not in love with
her--certainly not then. I felt less shy than usual, I even felt as if
I too had some claim to social distinction, and could play my part as
well as the rest on the shifting stage. She had the happy knack of
making others feel in good spirits and at their ease in her society. I
was not insensible to the spell, and when Sir Harry came in, and asked
kindly after his old friend, and promised to come over soon and pay my
father a visit, I answered frankly and at once; I could see even the
thoughtless Baronet was struck with the change in my manner, indeed he
said as much.
"You must come over and stay with us, Mr. Egerton," was his hospitable
invitation; "or if your father is so poorly you cannot leave him, look
in here any day about luncheon-time. I am much from home myself, but
you will always find Constance and Miss Minim. Tell your father I will
ride over and see him to-morrow. I only came back yesterday. How
you're grown, my lad, and improved--isn't he, Constance?"
I would have given worlds to have heard Constance's answer, but she
turned the subject with an inquiry after Bold (who was at that instant
waiting patiently for his master on the door-step), and it was time to
take leave, so I bowed myself out, with a faithful promise, that I was
not likely to forget, of calling again soon.
"So she has not forgotten Bold," I said to myself, at least twenty
times, in my homeward walk; and I think, fond as I had always been of my
dog, I liked him that day better than ever.
"Father," I said, as I sat that evening after dinner, during which meal
I felt conscious that I had been more lively, and, to use an expressive
term, "better company," than usual; "I must write to London for a new
coat, that black one is quite worn out."
"Very well, Vere," answered my father, abstractedly; "tell them to make
it large enough--you grow fast, my boy."
"Do you think I am grown, father? Indeed, I am not so very little of my
age now; and do you know, I was the strongest boy at Everdon, and could
lift a heavier weight than Manners the usher; but, father"--and here I
hesitated and stammered, till reassured by the kind smile on his dear
old face,--"I don't mind asking you, and I _do_ so wish to know--am I so
_very, very_--ugly?" I brought out the hated word with an effort--my
father burst out laughing.
"What an odd question--why do you wish to know, Vere?" he asked. I made
no reply, but felt I was blushing painfully. My father looked wistfully
at me, while an expression as of pain contracted his wan features; and
here the conversation dropped.