THE MANWARING “FAMILY TREE.”
AVERSE from field sports, and taking little interest in public affairs,
Mr. Manwaring had one hobby which he was never tired of riding.
Genealogy and Heraldry were his favourite studies, and for him the
Fine Arts only existed as the machinery by which Family portraits were
transmitted to posterity, and as a means of emblazoning the Manwaring
Coat of Arms with its sixty quarterings. Though he took no interest in
agriculture or botany, the Family Tree of the Manwarings was an object
of his never-ceasing care and solicitude.
The Squire’s younger uncle, Edgar, who for some years had led a
dissipated and extravagant life at Bath, Cheltenham, and other inland
watering-places, had an only son named Tresham; and as he never
expected him to succeed to the family estates, he apprenticed him to
a Mr. Grubbe, a solicitor of good repute and considerable practice at
Clitheroe, and the young man, on the death of his principal, set up for
himself. Tresham Manwaring had not, or at all events was not supposed
to have, inherited the vices of his father. On the contrary, he was
persevering to a degree, economical, and even parsimonious in his
habits, and his worst enemy (and he had many) could not have accused
him of the crime which Archbishop Whately so bitterly denounced, to
wit, of having ever given a halfpenny to a beggar.
For the rest, Tresham was secretly self-indulgent, when self-indulgence
could be purchased at a cheap rate; rude in his manners; and he took
a delight in affecting a coarseness of behaviour and a vulgarity of
diction which were altogether out of harmony with the education he
had received. A more selfish man never existed, and the ruling maxim
by which he steered his conduct was the base one, “_Take care of
Number One._” When he set up on his own hook, the young lawyer felt
the want of ready money, and he accordingly wooed and won the wealthy
heiress of a retired cheesemonger of Halifax, who rejoiced in the
euphonious name of Sally Potts, on the easy condition of taking the
name of Potts in lieu of his own, and of assuming the newly-granted
arms of that family, to wit, on a Field, Vert, three Milk Pails Or,
with the motto _“Ex Vaccâ, sed Potabilis_.” The lady, who was
considerably older than himself, was a vulgar, ambitious woman, whose
main object in life was to obtain a position amongst the “County
Families.” In her husband’s eyes her sole merit was probably the grist
that she brought to his mill. In nature, she was prolific, and she
annually offered the tribute of a new daughter to her disgusted spouse,
who would have been glad of a male heir to the family of Potts.
When the Head of the Family heard of this ill-starred and ignominious
match, he felt it his duty to make an example of the chief offender,
and accordingly, before witnesses, he solemnly erased his name from the
Family Pedigree, and gave strict orders that his cousin’s name should
never be mentioned in his presence again. Pride, like love, is blind;
and in the performance of this judicial act, the Squire of Holmcastle
forgot that his cousin Tresham was _in the entail_!
It will be seen from all this, that, though in his eccentricities Mr.
Cuthbert Manwaring bore a resemblance to Captain Roland de Caxton, yet
in that nobleness of soul which underlay those eccentricities he was
no Roland at all, but simply his own selfish self. True, he had made
“Honour,” “the Honour of his Family,” the ruling passion of his life;
but he had mistaken the nature and basis of true honour, and had so
misinterpreted it as altogether to ignore the principle of Justice, the
rarest attribute of man, the most glorious attribute of God.
Soon after the death of Lady Honoria, Mr. Manwaring began to compile a
huge history of his family from the earliest known period, which, to
say the truth, was anterior to the Norman Conquest. This work gradually
became the one amusement and the one solace of his isolated life. In a
voluminous preface he expounded the theory that his Race sprang from a
noted Scandinavian “Ver,” “Wer,” or Warrior, and that his descendants
hence acquired the name of “Veringas,” the Sons of the Hero, which was
subsequently corrupted into “Waringas, or Warings.” This theory he
supported by a mass of ponderous arguments, and he held that he had
proved its truth beyond doubt or cavil. He was less positive as to the
prefix “Man.” He showed, however, that from his noble and _manly_
qualities, his first historical progenitor _might_ have been,
and probably _was_ called the “Man” _par excellence_, and
that thus his posterity came to be know as Manwaringas, or Manwarings;
but he rather inclined to the belief that the Family acquired the
prefix on account of their possessing the Long Maen, Man, or Stone
of Stanwick. The last syllable of this name, again, he was at great
pains to connect with the Scandinavian Vik-ingas, or Vik-ings, some of
whom, as was abundantly proved by numerous Northern names of places,
had unquestionably settled on the coast of Lancashire; and he also
conjectured that the Var-angian guard of the Byzantine Emperors was in
all probability formed of members of the Man-war-angian, or Manwaring
Family.
During the progress of this great undertaking, the compiler opened out
correspondence with all sorts and conditions of men whom he thought
would be likely to throw light on his subject. Country clergymen were
almost worried to death with applications for copies of registers,
which were never paid for, as the applicant considered the honour of
assisting in a work of such paramount importance a more than sufficient
recompense for labour and trouble, howsoever great. “Garter” himself
was heard to remark that he regretted he had ever been born; and
“Spotted Leopard” said “he’d be hanged if he wouldn’t go and destroy
himself, if that old fool of a Manwaring didn’t stop his nonsense and
rubbishy questions.”
Meanwhile--for the “Memorials of the Antient and Knightly Family of
Manwaring of Holmcastle Manor, in the County Palatine of Lancaster,”
was in progress for years and years, and indeed was scarcely half
finished at the author’s death--the Squire’s three children grew up
apace. Though he had little or no fatherly sympathy with them, and
probably looked on them rather as necessary evils, than as God-sent
gifts entrusted to him to be loved and cherished above all other
possessions, he was not what would be commonly called a bad father. The
children were not grudged meat or drink, or dress, or even luxuries
becoming their station--the “Honour of the Family” demanded that,--but
it is certain that, as they grew up, the Squire valued them chiefly
as possible producers of more heirs male, or on account of their real
or supposed likeness to their ancestors. Thus Lionel, the first-born,
was supposed to resemble Sir Ralph Manwaring, Governor of Calais under
Henry VII., of whom a fine portrait, by the elder Holbein, hung over
the mantelpiece in the dining-room; Evelyn was credited with a likeness
to Mistress Blanche Manwaring, who was kissed by his Sacred Majesty,
King Charles II., on the occasion of his visit to Holmcastle, and who
rewarded that merry monarch with a sound slap on the royal chops; while
Wilfred, who was a beautiful boy, with dark violet eyes, clustering
dark hair, and nobly-cut forehead, and in whose form grace and strength
were combined, as in that of a Ganymede cut by a Greek chisel, was
esteemed the living image of Sir Godfrey, who had been deemed a great
beauty at Court, and who had lost so many broad pieces to his royal
master in the great gallery at Whitehall, that he was forced to sell
many of the fair acres which the roundheads had left to the family,
when they spoiled gallant old Sir Walter for his attachment to King
Charles the First.
It had been the custom of the Family to educate the children well,
and in accordance with that precedent, no expense was spared by Mr.
Manwaring in the education of his daughter and his two sons. Lionel
went to Eton, where most of his ancestors, for three hundred years, had
been before him; and thence, after a brilliant career at the Academy at
Woolwich, he passed into the army, and speedily gained a reputation as
a young officer of the highest promise.
Evelyn, the pet of her elder, and the constant companion of her younger
brother, as she grew towards maturity, had as many masters over from
Preston, and even from Manchester and Liverpool, as her father thought
becoming to her station. Her bright intelligence and natural aptitude
for learning made her profit to the uttermost by the instruction she
received; while her religious education was lovingly and carefully
superintended by the Rector, whose merry, beaming daughter, Mary,
was her playmate in childhood, and her dearest friend as she grew
older. Left motherless at the birth of her younger brother, Evelyn’s
character, as she grew up to maturity, developed more quickly than
is usual with girls, and ere she was sixteen, she had fallen almost
imperceptibly into the position of mistress of her father’s house.
By her brothers, by the Rectory family, and by the few neighbours
with whom she was acquainted; by the dalesmen, and especially by
the poor around her, Evelyn was perfectly adored, and the charm and
beauty of “the Lily of Arrow Dale”--for she early acquired that pretty
_soubriquet_--was celebrated far and near. If ever the cold nature
of the Squire could be said to warm towards anyone, it was towards
his daughter; but he did not condescend to show the affection, such
as it was, which he may have felt for her, by any outward signs or
demonstrations. In his view, all love, all devotion, all honour was due
to himself as Head of the Family, and to himself alone.