Courcy
When Frank Gresham expressed to his father an opinion that Courcy
Castle was dull, the squire, as may be remembered, did not pretend to
differ from him. To men such as the squire, and such as the squire's
son, Courcy Castle was dull. To what class of men it would not be
dull the author is not prepared to say; but it may be presumed that
the de Courcys found it to their liking, or they would have made it
other than it was.
The castle itself was a huge brick pile, built in the days of William
III, which, though they were grand for days of the construction of
the Constitution, were not very grand for architecture of a more
material description. It had, no doubt, a perfect right to be called
a castle, as it was entered by a castle-gate which led into a court,
the porter's lodge for which was built as it were into the wall;
there were attached to it also two round, stumpy adjuncts, which
were, perhaps properly, called towers, though they did not do much in
the way of towering; and, moreover, along one side of the house, over
what would otherwise have been the cornice, there ran a castellated
parapet, through the assistance of which, the imagination no doubt
was intended to supply the muzzles of defiant artillery. But any
artillery which would have so presented its muzzle must have been
very small, and it may be doubted whether even a bowman could have
obtained shelter there.
The grounds about the castle were not very inviting, nor, as grounds,
very extensive; though, no doubt, the entire domain was such as
suited the importance of so puissant a nobleman as Earl de Courcy.
What, indeed, should have been the park was divided out into various
large paddocks. The surface was flat and unbroken; and though
there were magnificent elm-trees standing in straight lines, like
hedgerows, the timber had not that beautiful, wild, scattered look
which generally gives the great charm to English scenery.
The town of Courcy--for the place claimed to rank as a town--was
in many particulars like the castle. It was built of dingy-red
brick--almost more brown than red--and was solid, dull-looking, ugly
and comfortable. It consisted of four streets, which were formed by
two roads crossing each other, making at the point of junction a
centre for the town. Here stood the Red Lion; had it been called the
brown lion, the nomenclature would have been more strictly correct;
and here, in the old days of coaching, some life had been wont to
stir itself at those hours in the day and night when the Freetraders,
Tallyhoes, and Royal Mails changed their horses. But now there was a
railway station a mile and a half distant, and the moving life of the
town of Courcy was confined to the Red Lion omnibus, which seemed to
pass its entire time in going up and down between the town and the
station, quite unembarrassed by any great weight of passengers.
There were, so said the Courcyites when away from Courcy, excellent
shops in the place; but they were not the less accustomed, when
at home among themselves, to complain to each other of the vile
extortion with which they were treated by their neighbours. The
ironmonger, therefore, though he loudly asserted that he could beat
Bristol in the quality of his wares in one direction, and undersell
Gloucester in another, bought his tea and sugar on the sly in one
of those larger towns; and the grocer, on the other hand, equally
distrusted the pots and pans of home production. Trade, therefore, at
Courcy, had not thriven since the railway had opened: and, indeed,
had any patient inquirer stood at the cross through one entire day,
counting customers who entered the neighbouring shops, he might well
have wondered that any shops in Courcy could be kept open.
And how changed has been the bustle of that once noisy inn to the
present death-like silence of its green courtyard! There, a lame
ostler crawls about with his hands thrust into the capacious pockets
of his jacket, feeding on memory. That weary pair of omnibus jades,
and three sorry posters, are all that now grace those stables where
horses used to be stalled in close contiguity by the dozen; where
twenty grains apiece, abstracted from every feed of oats consumed
during the day, would have afforded a daily quart to the lucky
pilferer.
Come, my friend, and discourse with me. Let us know what are thy
ideas of the inestimable benefits which science has conferred on us
in these, our latter days. How dost thou, among others, appreciate
railways and the power of steam, telegraphs, telegrams, and our new
expresses? But indifferently, you say. "Time was I've zeed vifteen
pair o' 'osses go out of this 'ere yard in vour-and-twenty hour;
and now there be'ant vifteen, no, not ten, in vour-and-twenty days!
There was the duik--not this 'un; he be'ant no gude; but this 'un's
vather--why, when he'd come down the road, the cattle did be a-going,
vour days an eend. Here'd be the tooter and the young gen'lmen, and
the governess and the young leddies, and then the servants--they'd
be al'ays the grandest folk of all--and then the duik and the
doochess--Lord love 'ee, zur; the money did fly in them days! But
now--" and the feeling of scorn and contempt which the lame ostler
was enabled by his native talent to throw into the word "now," was
quite as eloquent against the power of steam as anything that has
been spoken at dinners, or written in pamphlets by the keenest
admirers of latter-day lights.
"Why, luke at this 'ere town," continued he of the sieve, "the grass
be a-growing in the very streets;--that can't be no gude. Why, luke
'ee here, zur; I do be a-standing at this 'ere gateway, just this
way, hour arter hour, and my heyes is hopen mostly;--I zees who's
a-coming and who's a-going. Nobody's a-coming and nobody's a-going;
that can't be no gude. Luke at that there homnibus; why, darn me--"
and now, in his eloquence at this peculiar point, my friend became
more loud and powerful than ever--"why, darn me, if maister harns
enough with that there bus to put hiron on them 'osses' feet,
I'll--be--blowed!" And as he uttered this hypothetical denunciation
on himself he spoke very slowly, bringing out every word as it were
separately, and lowering himself at his knees at every sound, moving
at the same time his right hand up and down. When he had finished,
he fixed his eyes upon the ground, pointing downwards, as if there
was to be the site of his doom if the curse that he had called down
upon himself should ever come to pass; and then, waiting no further
converse, he hobbled away, melancholy, to his deserted stables.
Oh, my friend! my poor lame friend! it will avail nothing to tell
thee of Liverpool and Manchester; of the glories of Glasgow, with her
flourishing banks; of London, with its third millions of inhabitants;
of the great things which commerce is doing for this nation of thine!
What is commerce to thee, unless it be commerce in posting on that
worn-out, all but useless great western turnpike-road? There is
nothing left for thee but to be carted away as rubbish--for thee
and for many of us in these now prosperous days; oh, my melancholy,
care-ridden friend!
Courcy Castle was certainly a dull place to look at, and Frank, in
his former visits, had found that the appearance did not belie the
reality. He had been but little there when the earl had been at
Courcy; and as he had always felt from his childhood a peculiar
distaste to the governance of his aunt the countess, this perhaps may
have added to his feeling of dislike. Now, however, the castle was
to be fuller than he had ever before known it; the earl was to be at
home; there was some talk of the Duke of Omnium coming for a day or
two, though that seemed doubtful; there was some faint doubt of Lord
Porlock; Mr Moffat, intent on the coming election--and also, let us
hope, on his coming bliss--was to be one of the guests; and there was
also to be the great Miss Dunstable.
Frank, however, found that those grandees were not expected quite
immediately. "I might go back to Greshamsbury for three or four days
as she is not to be here," he said naïvely to his aunt, expressing,
with tolerable perspicuity, his feeling, that he regarded his visit
to Courcy Castle quite as a matter of business. But the countess
would hear of no such arrangement. Now that she had got him, she
was not going to let him fall back into the perils of Miss Thorne's
intrigues, or even of Miss Thorne's propriety. "It is quite
essential," she said, "that you should be here a few days before her,
so that she may see that you are at home." Frank did not understand
the reasoning; but he felt himself unable to rebel, and he therefore,
remained there, comforting himself, as best he might, with the
eloquence of the Honourable George, and the sporting humours of the
Honourable John.
Mr Moffat's was the earliest arrival of any importance. Frank had
not hitherto made the acquaintance of his future brother-in-law, and
there was, therefore, some little interest in the first interview. Mr
Moffat was shown into the drawing-room before the ladies had gone up
to dress, and it so happened that Frank was there also. As no one
else was in the room but his sister and two of his cousins, he had
expected to see the lovers rush into each other's arms. But Mr Moffat
restrained his ardour, and Miss Gresham seemed contented that he
should do so.
He was a nice, dapper man, rather above the middle height, and
good-looking enough had he had a little more expression in his face.
He had dark hair, very nicely brushed, small black whiskers, and a
small black moustache. His boots were excellently well made, and
his hands were very white. He simpered gently as he took hold of
Augusta's fingers, and expressed a hope that she had been quite well
since last he had the pleasure of seeing her. Then he touched the
hands of the Lady Rosina and the Lady Margaretta.
"Mr Moffat, allow me to introduce you to my brother?"
"Most happy, I'm sure," said Mr Moffat, again putting out his hand,
and allowing it to slip through Frank's grasp, as he spoke in a
pretty, mincing voice: "Lady Arabella quite well?--and your father,
and sisters? Very warm isn't it?--quite hot in town, I do assure
you."
"I hope Augusta likes him," said Frank to himself, arguing on the
subject exactly as his father had done; "but for an engaged lover he
seems to me to have a very queer way with him." Frank, poor fellow!
who was of a coarser mould, would, under such circumstances, have
been all for kissing--sometimes, indeed, even under other
circumstances.
Mr Moffat did not do much towards improving the conviviality of
the castle. He was, of course, a good deal intent upon his coming
election, and spent much of his time with Mr Nearthewinde, the
celebrated parliamentary agent. It behoved him to be a good deal
at Barchester, canvassing the electors and undermining, by Mr
Nearthewinde's aid, the mines for blowing him out of his seat, which
were daily being contrived by Mr Closerstil, on behalf of Sir Roger.
The battle was to be fought on the internecine principle, no quarter
being given or taken on either side; and of course this gave Mr
Moffat as much as he knew how to do.
Mr Closerstil was well known to be the sharpest man at his business
in all England, unless the palm should be given to his great rival
Mr Nearthewinde; and in this instance he was to be assisted in the
battle by a very clever young barrister, Mr Romer, who was an admirer
of Sir Roger's career in life. Some people in Barchester, when they
saw Sir Roger, Closerstil and Mr Romer saunter down the High Street,
arm in arm, declared that it was all up with poor Moffat; but others,
in whose head the bump of veneration was strongly pronounced,
whispered to each other that great shibboleth--the name of the Duke
of Omnium--and mildly asserted it to be impossible that the duke's
nominee should be thrown out.
Our poor friend the squire did not take much interest in the matter,
except in so far that he liked his son-in-law to be in Parliament.
Both the candidates were in his eye equally wrong in their opinions.
He had long since recanted those errors of his early youth, which
had cost him his seat for the county, and had abjured the de Courcy
politics. He was staunch enough as a Tory now that his being so would
no longer be of the slightest use to him; but the Duke of Omnium,
and Lord de Courcy, and Mr Moffat were all Whigs; Whigs, however,
differing altogether in politics from Sir Roger, who belonged to
the Manchester school, and whose pretensions, through some of those
inscrutable twists in modern politics which are quite unintelligible
to the minds of ordinary men outside the circle, were on this
occasion secretly favoured by the high Conservative party.
How Mr Moffat, who had been brought into the political world by Lord
de Courcy, obtained all the weight of the duke's interest I never
could exactly learn. For the duke and the earl did not generally act
as twin-brothers on such occasions.
There is a great difference in Whigs. Lord de Courcy was a Court
Whig, following the fortunes, and enjoying, when he could get it, the
sunshine of the throne. He was a sojourner at Windsor, and a visitor
at Balmoral. He delighted in gold sticks, and was never so happy as
when holding some cap of maintenance or spur of precedence with due
dignity and acknowledged grace in the presence of all the Court.
His means had been somewhat embarrassed by early extravagance; and,
therefore, as it was to his taste to shine, it suited him to shine at
the cost of the Court rather than at his own.
The Duke of Omnium was a Whig of a very different calibre. He rarely
went near the presence of majesty, and when he did do so, he did it
merely as a disagreeable duty incident to his position. He was very
willing that the Queen should be queen so long as he was allowed to
be Duke of Omnium. Nor had he begrudged Prince Albert any of his
honours till he was called Prince Consort. Then, indeed, he had,
to his own intimate friends, made some remark in three words, not
flattering to the discretion of the Prime Minister. The Queen might
be queen so long as he was Duke of Omnium. Their revenues were
about the same, with the exception, that the duke's were his own,
and he could do what he liked with them. This remembrance did not
unfrequently present itself to the duke's mind. In person, he was a
plain, thin man, tall, but undistinguished in appearance, except that
there was a gleam of pride in his eye which seemed every moment to be
saying, "I am the Duke of Omnium." He was unmarried, and, if report
said true, a great debauchee; but if so he had always kept his
debaucheries decently away from the eyes of the world, and was not,
therefore, open to that loud condemnation which should fall like a
hailstorm round the ears of some more open sinners.
Why these two mighty nobles put their heads together in order that
the tailor's son should represent Barchester in Parliament, I cannot
explain. Mr Moffat, was, as has been said, Lord de Courcy's friend;
and it may be that Lord de Courcy was able to repay the duke for his
kindness, as touching Barchester, with some little assistance in the
county representation.
The next arrival was that of the Bishop of Barchester; a meek, good,
worthy man, much attached to his wife, and somewhat addicted to his
ease. She, apparently, was made in a different mould, and by her
energy and diligence atoned for any want in those qualities which
might be observed in the bishop himself. When asked his opinion, his
lordship would generally reply by saying--"Mrs Proudie and I think so
and so." But before that opinion was given, Mrs Proudie would take
up the tale, and she, in her more concise manner, was not wont to
quote the bishop as having at all assisted in the consideration of
the subject. It was well known in Barsetshire that no married pair
consorted more closely or more tenderly together; and the example of
such conjugal affection among persons in the upper classes is worth
mentioning, as it is believed by those below them, and too often with
truth, that the sweet bliss of connubial reciprocity is not so common
as it should be among the magnates of the earth.
But the arrival even of the bishop and his wife did not make the
place cheerful to Frank Gresham, and he began to long for Miss
Dunstable, in order that he might have something to do. He could not
get on at all with Mr Moffat. He had expected that the man would at
once have called him Frank, and that he would have called the man
Gustavus; but they did not even get beyond Mr Moffat and Mr Gresham.
"Very hot in Barchester to-day, very," was the nearest approach to
conversation which Frank could attain with him; and as far as he,
Frank, could see, Augusta never got much beyond it. There might be
_tête-à-tête_ meetings between them, but, if so, Frank could not
detect when they took place; and so, opening his heart at last to the
Honourable George, for the want of a better confidant, he expressed
his opinion that his future brother-in-law was a muff.
"A muff--I believe you too. What do you think now? I have been with
him and Nearthewinde in Barchester these three days past, looking up
the electors' wives and daughters, and that kind of thing."
"I say, if there is any fun in it you might as well take me with
you."
"Oh, there is not much fun; they are mostly so slobbered and dirty. A
sharp fellow in Nearthewinde, and knows what he is about well."
"Does he look up the wives and daughters too?"
"Oh, he goes on every tack, just as it's wanted. But there was
Moffat, yesterday, in a room behind the milliner's shop near
Cuthbert's Gate; I was with him. The woman's husband is one of the
choristers and an elector, you know, and Moffat went to look for his
vote. Now, there was no one there when we got there but the three
young women, the wife, that is, and her two girls--very pretty women
they are too."
"I say, George, I'll go and get the chorister's vote for Moffat; I
ought to do it as he's to be my brother-in-law."
"But what do you think Moffat said to the women?"
"Can't guess--he didn't kiss any of them, did he?"
"Kiss any of them? No; but he begged to give them his positive
assurance as a gentleman, that if he was returned to Parliament he
would vote for an extension of the franchise, and the admission of
the Jews into Parliament."
"Well, he is a muff!" said Frank.