Chantry House - Charlotte Yonge 9 стр.

We heard no more of they Fordys for some time.  The married pair went away to stay with friends, and we only once met the old gentleman, when I was waiting in the street at Wattlesea in the donkey chair, while my mother was trying to match netting silk in the odd little shop that united fancy work, toys, and tracts with the post office.  Old Mr. Fordyce met us as we drew up, handed her out with a grand seigneurs courtesy, and stood talking to me so delightfully that I quite forgot it was from Christian duty.

My father corresponded with the old Rector about the state of the parish, and at last went over to Bath for a personal conference, but without much satisfaction.  The Earlscombe people were pronounced to be an ungrateful good-for-nothing set, for whom it was of no use to do anything; and indeed my mother made such discoveries in the cottages that she durst not let Emily fulfil her cherished scheme of visiting them.  The only resemblance to the favourite heroines of religious tales that could be permitted was assembling a tiny Sunday class in Chapmans lodge; and it must be confessed that her brothers thought she made as much fuss about it as if there had been a hundred scholars.

However, between remonstrances and offers of undertaking a share of the expense, my father managed to get Mr. Mears services dispensed with from the ensuing Lady Day, and that a resident curate should be appointed, the choice of whom was to rest with himself.  It was then and there decided that Martyn should be brought up to the Church, as people then used to term destination to Holy Orders.  My father said he should feel justified in building a good house when he could afford it, if it was to be a provision for one of his sons, and he also felt that as he had the charge of the parish as patron, it was right and fitting to train one of his sons up to take care of it.  Nor did Martyn show any distaste to the idea, as indeed there was less in it then than at present to daunt the imagination of an honest, lively boy, not as yet specially thoughtful or devout, but obedient, truthful, and fairly reverent, and ready to grow as he was trained.

CHAPTER XII

MRS. SOPHIAS FEUD

We had a houseful at Christmas.  The Rev. Charles Henderson, a Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, lately ordained a deacon, had been recommended to us by our London vicar, and was willing not only to take charge of the parish, but to direct my studies, and to prepare Martyn for school.  He came to us for the Christmas vacation to reconnoitre and engage lodgings at a farmhouse.  We liked him very muchmy mother being all the better satisfied after he had shown her a miniature, and confided to her that the original was waiting till a college living should come to him in the distant future.

Admiral Griffith could not tear himself from his warm rooms and his club, but our antiquarian friend, Mr. Stafford, came with his wife, and revelled in the ceilings of the mullion room, where he would much have liked to sleep, but that its accommodations were only fit for a bachelor.

Our other visitor was Miss Selby, or rather Mrs. Sophia Selby, as she designated herself, according to the becoming fashion of elderly spinsters, which to my mind might be gracefully resumed.  It irked my father to think of the good ladys solitary Christmas at Bath, and he asked her to come to us.  She travelled half-way in a post-chaise, and then was met by the carriage.  A very nice old lady she was, with a meek, delicate babyish face, which could not be spoilt by the cap of the period, one of the most disfiguring articles of head gear ever devised, though nobody thought so then.  She was full of kindness; indeed, if she had a fault it was the abundant pity she lavished on me, and her determination to amuse me.  The weather was of the kind that only the healthy and hardy could encounter, and when every one else was gone out, and I was just settling in with a new book, or an old crabbed Latin document, that Mr. Stafford had entrusted to me to copy out fairly and translate, she would glide in with her worsted work on a charitable mission to enliven poor Mr. Edward.

However, this was the means of my obtaining some curious enlightenments.  A dinner-party was in contemplation, and she was dismayed at the choice of the fashionable London hour of seven, and still more by finding that the Fordyces were to be among the guests.  She was too well-bred to manifest her feelings to her hosts, but alone with me, she could not refrain from expressing her astonishment to me, all the more when she heard this was reciprocity for an invitation that it had not been possible to accept.  Her poor dear uncle would never hear of intercourse with Hillside.  On being asked why, she repeated what Chapman had said, that he could not endure any one connected with Mrs. Hannah More and her canting, humbugging set, as the ungodly old man had chosen to call them, imbuing even this good woman with evil prejudices against their noble work at Cheddar.

Besides this, Fordyces and Winslows could never be friends, since the Fordyces had taken on themselves to dispute the will, and say it had been improperly obtained.

What will?

Mrs. WinslowsMargaret Fordyce that was.  She was the heiress, and had every right to dispose of her property.

But that was more than a hundred years ago!

So it was, my dear; but though the law gave it to usto my uncles grandfather (or great-grandfather, was it?)those Fordyces never could rest content.  Why, one of thema clergymans son tooshot young Philip Winslow dead in a duel.  They have always grudged at us.  Does your papa know it, my dear Mr. Edward?  He ought to be aware.

I do not know, I said; but he would hardly care about what happened in the time of Queen Anne.

It was curious to see how the gentle little lady espoused the family quarrel, which, after all, was none of hers.

Well, you are London people, and the other branch, and may not feel as we do down here; but I shall always say that Madam Winslows husbands son had every right to come before her cousin once removed.

I asked if we were descended from her, for, having a turn for heraldry and genealogy, I wanted to make out our family tree.  Mrs. Sophia was ready to hold up her hands at the ignorance of the other branch.  This poor heiress had lost all her children in their infancy, and bequeathed the estate to her stepson, the Fordyce male heir having been endowed by her father with the advowson of Hillside and a handsome estate there, which Mrs. Selby thought ought to have contented him, but some people never know when they have enough; and, on my observing that it might have been a matter of justice, she waxed hotter, declaring that what the Winslows felt so much was the accusation of violence against the poor lady.  She spoke as if it were a story of yesterday, and added, Indeed, they made the common people have all sorts of superstitious fancies about the room where she diedthat old part of the house.  Then she added in a low mysterious voice, I hear that your brother Mr. Griffith Winslow could not sleep there; and when the rats and the wind were mentionedYes, that was what my poor dear uncle used to say.  He always called it nonsense; but we never had a servant who would sleep there.  Youll not mention it, Mr. Edward, but I could not help asking that very nice housemaid, Jane, whether the room was used, and she said how Mr. Griffith had given it up, and none of the servants could spend a night there when they are sleeping round.  Of course I said all in my power to dispel the idea, and told her that there was no accounting for all the noises in old houses; but you never can reason with that class of people.

Did you ever hear the noises, Mrs. Selby?

Oh, no; I wouldnt sleep there for thousands!  Not that I attach any importance to such folly,my poor dear uncle would never hear of such a thing; but I am such a nervous creature, I should lie awake all night expecting the rats to run over me.  I never knew of any one sleeping there, except in the gay times when I was a child, and the house used to be as full as, or fuller than, it could hold, for the hunt breakfast or a ball, and my poor aunt used to make up ever so many beds in the two rooms, and then we never heard of any disturbance, except what they made themselves.

This chiefly concerned me, because home cosseting had made me old woman enough to be uneasy about unaired beds; and I knew that my mother meant to consign Clarence to the mullion chamber.  So, without betraying Jane, I spoke to her, and was answered, Oh, sir, Ill take care of that; Ill light a fire and air the mattresses well.  I wish that was all, poor young gentleman!

To the reply that the rats were slaughtered and the wind stopped out, Jane returned a look of compassion; but the subject was dropped, as it was supposed to be the right thing to hush up, instead of fostering, any popular superstition; but it surprised me that, as all our servants were fresh importations, they should so soon have become imbued with these undefined alarms.

My father was much amused at being successor to this family feud, and said that when he had time he would look up the documents.

Mrs. Sophia was a sight when Mr. Fordyce and his son and daughter-in-law were announced; she was so comically stiff between her deference to her hosts and her allegiance to her poor dear uncle; but her coldness melted before the charms of old Mr. Fordyce, who was one of the most delightful people in the world.  She even was his partner at whist, and won the game, and that she did like.

Parson Frank, as we naughty young ones called him, was all good-nature and genialitya thorough clergyman after the ideas of the time, and a thorough farmer too; and in each capacity, as well as in politics, he suited my father or Mr. Henderson.  His lady, in a blonde cap, exactly like the last equipment my mother had provided herself with in London, and a black satin dress, had much more style than the more gaily-dressed country dames, and far more conversation.  Mr. Stafford, who had dreaded the party, pronounced her a sensible, agreeable woman, and she was particularly kind and pleasant to me, coming and talking over the botany of the country, and then speaking of my brothers kindness to poor Amos Bell, who was nearly recovered, but was a weakly child, for whom she dreaded the toil of a ploughboy in thick clay with heavy shoes.

I was sorry when, after Emilys well-studied performance on the piano, Mrs. Fordyce was summoned away from me to sing, but her music and her voice were both of a very different order from ordinary drawing-room music; and when our evening was over, we congratulated ourselves upon our neighbours, and agreed that the Fordyces were the gems of the party.

Only Mrs. Sophia sighed at us as degenerate Winslows, and Emily reserved to herself the right of believing that the daughter was a horrid girl.

CHAPTER XIII

A SCRAPE

Perhaps it was of set purpose that our dinner-party had been given before Clarences return.  Griffith had been expected in time for it, but he had preferred going by way of London to attend a ball given by the daughter of a barrister friend of my fathers.  Selina Clarkson was a fine showy girl, with the sort of beauty to inspire boyish admiration, and Griffs had been a standing family joke, even my father condescending to tease him when the young lady married Sir Henry Peacock, a fat vulgar old man who had made his fortune in the commissariat, and purchased a baronetcy.  He was allowing his young wife her full swing of fashion and enjoyment.  My mother did not think it a desirable acquaintance, and was restless until both the brothers came home together, long after dark on Christmas Eve, having been met by the gig at the corner where the coach stopped.  The dinner-hour had been put off till half-past six, and we had to wait for them, the coach having been delayed by setting down Christmas guests and Christmas fare.  They were a contrast; Griffith looking very handsome and manly, all in a ruddy glow from the frosty air, and Clarence, though equally tall, well-made, and with more refined features, looked pale and effaced, now that his sailor tan was worn off.  The one talked as eagerly as he ate, the other was shy, spiritless, and with little appetite; but as he always shrank into himself among strangers, it was the less wonder that he sat in his drooping way behind my sofa, while Griffith kept us all merry with his account of the humours of the Peacock at home; the lumbering efforts of old Sir Henry to be as young and gay as his wife, in spite of gout and portliness; and the extreme delight of his lady in her new splendoursa gold spotted muslin and white plumes in a diamond agraffe.  He mimicked Sir Henrys cockneyisms more than my fathers chivalry approved towards his recent host, as he described the complaints he had heard against my Lady being refused the hentry at Halmacks, but treated like the wery canal; and how the devoted husband wowed he would get up a still more hexclusive circle, and shut hout these himpertinent fashionables who regarded Halmacks as the seventh eaven.

My mother shook her head at his audacious fun about Paradise and the Peri, but he was so brilliant and good-humoured that no one was ever long displeased with him.  At night he followed when Clarence helped me to my room, and carefully shutting the door, Griff began.  Now, Teddy, youre always as rich as a Jew, and I told Bill youd help him to set it straight.  Id do it myself, but that Im cleaned out.  Id give ten times the cash rather than see him with that hang-dog look again for just nothing at all, if he would only believe so and be rational.

Clarence did look indescribably miserable while it was explained that he had been commissioned to receive about £20 which was owing to my father, and to discharge therewith some small debts to London tradesmen.  All except the last, for a little more than four pounds, had been paid, when Clarence met in the street an old messmate, a good-natured rattle-pated youth,one of those who had thought him harshly treated.  There was a cordial greeting, and an invitation to dine at once at a hotel, where they were joined by some other young men, and by and by betook themselves to cards, when my poor brothers besetting enemy prevented him from withdrawing when he found the points were guineas.  Thus he lost the remaining amount in his charge, and so much of his own that barely enough was left for his journey.  His salary was not due till Lady Day; Mr. Castleford was in the country, and no advances could be asked from Mr. Frith.  Thus Griff had found him in utter despair, and had ever since been trying to cheer him and make light of his trouble.  If I advanced the amount, which was no serious matter to me, Clarence could easily get Peter to pay the bill, and if my father should demand the receipt too soon, it would be easy to put him off by saying there had been a delay in getting the account sent in.

I couldnt do that, said Clarence.

Well, I should not have thought you would have stuck at that, returned Griff.