And now, as this cold resistless flood calmly reclaimed its ancient channel, swallowed up Nanny Stilgoe’s well, and cut off the Rector from his own church; as if to encounter its legendary bane, a poor young fellow, depressed, and shattered, feeble, and wan, and heavy-hearted, was dragging his reluctant steps up the valley of the Adur. Left on the naked rocks of Spain, conquered, plundered, and half-starved, Hilary Lorraine had fallen, with the usual reaction of a sanguine temperament, into low spirits and disordered health. So that when he at last made his way to Corunna, and found no British agent there, nor any one to draw supplies from, nothing but the pride of his family kept him from writing to the Count of Zamora. Of writing to England there was no chance. All communication ran through the channels of the distant and victorious army. So that he thought himself very lucky (in the present state of his health and fortunes), when the captain of an oil-ship bound for London, having lost three hands on the outward voyage, allowed him to work his passage. The fare of a landsman in feeble health was worth perhaps more than his services; but the captain was a kind-hearted man, and perceived (though he knew not who Hilary was) that he had that very common thing in those days, a “gent under a cloud” to deal with. And the gale, which had opened the Woeburn, shortened Hilary’s track towards it, by forcing his ship to run for refuge into Shoreham harbour.
“How shall I go home? What shall I say? Disgraced, degraded, and broken down, a stain upon my name and race, I am not fit to enter our old doors. What will my father say to me? And proud Alice—what will her thoughts be?”
With steps growing slower at each weary drag, he crossed the bridge of Bramber, and passed beneath the ivied towers of the rivals of his ancestors, and then avoiding Steyning town, he turned up the valley of West Lorraine. And the rain which had come on at middle-day, and soaked his sailor’s slops long ago, now took him on the flank judiciously. And his heart was so low, that he received it all without talking either to himself or it.
“I will go to the rectory first,” he thought; “Uncle Struan is violent, but he is warm. And though he has three children of his own, he loves me much more than my father does.”
With this resolution, he turned on the right down a lane that came out by the rectory. The lane broke out suddenly into black water; and a tall robust man stood in the twilight, with a heavy spade over his shoulder. And Hilary Lorraine went up to him.
“No, no, my man; not a penny to spare!” said the Rector in anticipation; “we have a great deal too much to do with our own poor, and with this new trouble especially. The times are hard—yes, they always are; I never knew them otherwise. But an honest man always can get good work. Or go and fight for your country, like a man. But we can’t have any vagrants in my parish.”
“I have fought for my country like a man, Uncle Struan; and this is all that has come of it.”
“Good God, Hilary!” cried the Rector; and for a long time he found nothing better to say.
“Yes, Uncle Struan, don’t you understand? Every one must have his ups and downs. I am having a long spell of downs just now.”
“My dear boy, my dear boy! Whatever have you done?”
“Do you mean to throw me over, Uncle Struan, as the rest of the world has beautifully done! Everything seems to be upset. What is the meaning of this broad, black stream?”
“Come into my study, and tell me all. I can let you in without sight of your aunt. The shock would be too great for her.”
Hilary followed, without a word. Mr. Hales led him in at the window, and warmed him, and covered him with his own dressing-gown, and watched him slowly recovering.
“Never mind the tar on your hands; it is an honest smell,” he said; “my poor boy, my poor boy, what you must have been through!”
“Whatever has happened to me,” answered Hilary, spreading his thin hands to the fire, “has been all of my own doing, Uncle Struan.”
“You shall have a cordial, and you shall tell me all. There, I have bolted the door. I am your parson as well as your uncle. All you say will be sacred with me. And I am sure you have done no great harm after all. We shall see what your dear aunt thinks of it.”
Then Hilary, sipping a little rum-and-water, wandered through his story; not telling it brightly, as once he might have done, but hiding nothing consciously.
“Do you mean to tell me there is nothing worse than that?” asked the Rector, with a sigh of great relief.
“There is nothing worse, uncle. How could it be worse?”
“And they turned you out of the army for that! How thankful I am for belonging to the Church! You are simply a martyred hero.”
“Yes, they turned me out of the army for that. How could they help it?” Reasoning thus, he met his uncle’s look of pity, and it was too much for him. He did what many a far greater man, and braver hero has done, and will do, when the soul is moving. He burst into a hot flood of tears.
Sir Roland Lorraine was almost as free from superstition as need be. To be wholly quit of that romantic element is a disadvantage still; and excepts a neighbour even now from the general neighbourly sympathy. Threescore years ago, of course, that prejudice was threefold.
The swing of British judgment mainly takes magnetic repulse from whatever the French are rushing after. When they are Republican, all of us rally for throne and Constitution. When they have a Parliament, we want none. When they are pressed under empire, we are apt to be glad that it serves them right. We know them to be brave and good, lovers of honour, and sensitive; but we cannot get over the line between us and them—and the rest of the world, perhaps.
Whatever might be said or reasoned, for or against the whole of such things, Sir Roland had long made up his mind to be moderate and neutral. He liked everybody to speak his best (according to self-opinion), and he liked to keep out of the way of them all, and relapse into the wiser ages. He claimed his own power to think for himself, as well as the mere right of doing so. And therefore he long had been “heterodox” to earnest, right-minded people.
Never the more, however, could he shake himself free from the inborn might of hereditary impress. The traditions of his house and race had still some power over him, a power increased by long seclusion, and the love of hearth and home. Therefore, when Trotman was cut off, on his way for his weekly paper, by a great black gliding flood, and aghast ran up the Coombe to tell it—Sir Roland, while he smiled, felt strange misgivings creeping coldly.
Alice, a sweet and noble maiden, on the tender verge of womanhood, came to her father’s side, and led him back to his favourite book-room. She saw that he was at the point of trembling; although he could still command his nerves, unless he began to think of them. Dissembling her sense of all this, she sat by the fire, and waited for him.
“My darling, we have had a very happy time,” he began at last to say to her; “you and I, for many years, suiting one another.”
“To be sure we have, father. And I mean to go on suiting you, for many more years yet.”
Her father saw by the firelight the sadness in her eyes; and he put some gaiety into his own, or tried.
“Lallie, you have brighter things before you—a house of your own, and society, and the grand world, and great shining.”
“Excellent things, no doubt, my father; but not to be compared with you and home. Have I done anything to vex you that you talk like this to me?”
“Let me see. Come here and show me. There are few things I enjoy so much as being vexed by you.”
“There, papa, you are in a hurry to have your usual laugh at me. You shall have no material now. ‘I knows what is right, and I means to do it’—as the man said to me at the turnpike-gate, when he made me pay twice over. Consider yourself, my darling father, saddled for all your life with me.”
Sir Roland loved his daughter’s quick bright turns of love, and filial passion when her heart was really moved. A thousand complex moods and longings played around or pierced her then; yet all controlled, or at least concealed, by an English lady’s quietude. Alice was so like himself, that he always knew what she would think; and he tried his best to follow the zigzag flash of feminine feeling.
“My dear child,” he said at last: “something has been too much for you. Perhaps that foolish fellow’s story of this mysterious water. A gross exaggeration, doubtless. The finny tribe fast sticking by the gills in the nest of the wood-pigeon. Marry come up! Let us see these wonders. The moon is at the full to-night; and I hear no rain on the windows now. Go and fetch my crabstick, darling.”
“Oh, may I come with you, papa? Do say yes. I shall lie awake all night, unless I go. The moon is sure to clear the storm off; and I will wrap up so thoroughly.”
“But you cannot wrap up your feet, dear child; and the roads are continually flooded now.”
“Not on the chalk, papa; never on the chalk, except in the very hollow places. Besides, I will put on my new French clogs. They can’t be much less than six inches thick. I shall stand among the deluge high enough for the fish to build their nests on me.”
“Daughter of folly, and no child of mine, go and put your clogs on. We will go out at the eastern door, to arouse no curiosity.”
As the master and his daughter passed beneath the astrologer’s tower, and left the house by his private entrance, they could not help thinking of the good old prince, and his kind anxiety about them. To the best of their knowledge, the wise Agasicles had never heard of the Woeburn; or perhaps his mind had been so much engrossed with the comet that he took no heed of it. And even in his time, this strange river was legendary as the Hydaspes.
After the heavy and tempestuous rain, the night was fair, as it generally is, even in the worst of weather, when the full moon rises. The long-chained hill, with its level outline stretching towards the south of east, afforded play for the glancing light of a watery and laborious moon. Long shadows, laid in dusky bars, or cast in heavy masses where the hollow land prevailed for them, and misty columns hovering and harbouring over tree-clumps, and gleams of quiet light pursuing avenues of opening—all of these, at every step of deep descent, appeared to flicker like a great flag waving.
“What a very lovely night! How beautifully the clouds lie!” cried Alice, being apt to kindle rashly into poetry: “they softly put themselves in rows, and then they float towards the moon, and catch the silver of her smile—oh, why do they do that, papa?”
“Because the wind is west, my dear. Take care; you are on a great flint I fear. You are always cutting your boots out.”
“No, papa, no. I have got you this time. That shows how much you attend to me. I have got my great French clogs on.”
“Then how very unsafe to be looking at the moon! Lean on me steadily, if you must do that. The hill is slippery with slime on the chalk. You will skate away to the bottom, and leave me mourning.”
“Oh, how I should love to skate, if ladies ever could do such a thing! I can slide very nicely, as you know, papa. Don’t you think, after all this rain, we are sure to have a nice cold winter?”
“Who can tell, Lallie? I only hope not. You children, with your quick circulation, active limbs, and vigorous lungs, are always longing for frost and snow. But when they come, you get tired of them, within a week at the utmost. But in your selfish spring of life you forget all the miseries of the poor and old, or even young folk who are poor, and the children starving everywhere. And the price of all food is now most alarming.”
“I am sure I meant no harm,” said Alice; “one cannot always think of everything. Papa, do you know that you have lately taken to be very hard on me?”
“Well now, everybody says that of me,” Sir Roland answered thoughtfully; “I scarcely dreamed that my fault was that. But out of many mouths I am convicted. Struan Hales says it; and so does my mother. Hilary seemed to imply it also, at the time when he last was heard of. Mine own household, Trotman, Mrs. Pipkins, and that charitable Mrs. Merryjack, have combined to take the same view of me. There must be truth in it. I cannot make head against such a cloud of witnesses. And now Alice joins them. What more do I want? I must revise my opinion of myself, and confess that I am a hard-hearted man.”
This question Sir Roland debated with himself, in a manner which had long been growing upon him, in the gathering love of solitude. Being by nature a man with a most extraordinary love of justice, he found it hard (as such rare men do) to be perfectly sure about anything. He always desired to look at a subject from every imaginable outside view, receding (like a lark in the clouds) from groundling consideration, yet frankly open (like a woodcock roasting) to anything good put under him. Nobody knew him; but he did his best when he thought of that matter, to know himself.
Now, his daughter allowed him to follow out his meditation quietly; and then she said as they went down the hill, warily heeding each other’s steps—
“Papa, I beg you particularly to pay no attention whatever to your own opinion, or any other opinion in the world, except perhaps, at least, perhaps——”
“Perhaps that of Alice.”
“Quite so, papa. About my own affairs my opinion is of no value: but about yours, and the family in general, it is really—something.”
“Wisest of our race, and bravest, you are rushing into the water, darling—stop; you have forgotten what we came for. We came to see the Woeburn, and here it is!”
“Is this it? And yesterday I walked across this very place! Oh, what a strange black river!”
As Alice drew suddenly back and shuddered, Sir Roland Lorraine threw his left arm round her, without a word, and looked at her. The light of the full moon fell on her face, through a cleft of jagged margins, and the shadow of a branch that had lost its leaves lay on her breast, and darkened it.
“Why, Lallie, you seem to be quite frightened,” her father said, after waiting long; “look up at me, and tell me, dear.”
“No, I am not at all frightened, papa, but perhaps I am a little out of spirits.”
“Why?” asked Sir Roland; “you surely do not pay heed to old rhymes and silly legends. I call this a fine and very lively water. I only wish it were always here.”
“Oh, papa, don’t say that, I implore you. And I felt you shiver when you saw it first. You know what it means for our family,—loss of life once, loss of property twice, and the third time the loss of honour,—and with that, of course, our extinction.”
“You little goose, none can lose their honour without dishonourable acts. Come, Miss Cassandra; of the present Lorraines—a very narrow residue—who is to be distinguished thus?”
“Father, you know so much more than I do; but I thought that many people were disgraced, without having ever deserved it.”
“Disgraced, my darling; but not dishonoured. What could disgrace ever be to us?—a thing that comes and goes according to the fickle season—a result of the petty human weather, as this melancholy water is of the larger influence.”
“Papa, then you own that it is melancholy. That was just what I wanted you to do. You always take things so differently from everybody else, that I began to think you would look upon this as a happy outburst of a desirable watering-water.”
“Well done, Lallie! The command of language is an admirable gift. But the want of it leads to still finer issues. This watering-water seems inclined to go on for a long time watering.”
“Of course, it must go flowing, flowing, until its time is over.”
“Lallie, you have, among many other gifts, a decided turn for epigram. You scarcely could have described more tersely the tendencies of water. I firmly believe that this stream will go on flowing and flowing, until it quite stops.”
“Papa, you are a great deal too bad. You must perceive that you are so even by the moonlight. I say the most sensible things ever thought of, and out of them you make nonsense. Now let me have my turn. So please you, have you thought of bridges? How is our butcher to come, or our miller, our letters, or even our worthy beggars? We are shut off in front. Without building a boat can I ever hear even uncle Struan preach? Hark! I hear something like him.”
“You frivolous Lallie! you are too bad. I cannot permit such views of things.”
“Of course, papa, I never meant that. Only please to listen.”
The dark and deep stream, which now had grown to a width of some twelve yards perhaps, was gliding swiftly, but without a murmur, towards the broad and watery moon. On the right-hand side, steep scars of chalk, shedding gleams of white rays, made the hollow places darker; while on the other side, furzy tummocks, patches of briar, and tufted fallows spread the many-pointed light among their shadows justly.
“Please to listen,” again said Alice, shrinking from her father, lest she might be felt to tremble. “What a plaintive, thrilling sound! It must be a good banshee, I am sure; a banshee that knows how good we are, and protests against our extinction. There it is again—and there seems to be another wail inside of it.”
“A Chinese puzzle of noises, Lallie, and none of them very musical. Your ears are keener than mine, of course; but being extinct of romance, I should say that I heard a donkey braying.”
“Papa, now! papa, if it comes to that—and I said it was like Uncle Struan’s voice! But I beg his pardon, quite down on my knees, if you think that it can be a donkey.”
“I am saved all the trouble of thinking about it. There he is, looking hard at us!”
“Oh no, papa, he is not looking hard at us. He is looking most softly and sadly. What a darling donkey! and his nose is like a snowdrop!”
Clearly in the moonlight shone, on the opposite bank of the Woeburn, the nose of Jack the donkey. His wailings had been coming long, and his supplications rising; he was cut off from his home, and fodder, and wholly beloved Bonny. And the wail inside a wail—as Alice had described it—was the sound of the poor boy’s woe, responsive to the forlorn appeal of Jack. On the brink of the cruel dividing water they must have been for a long time striding up and down, over against each other, stretching fond noses vainly forward, and outvying one another in the luxury of poetic woe.
“Don’t say a word, papa,” whispered Alice; “the boy cannot see us here behind this bush, and we can see him beautifully in the moonlight. I want to know what he will do, so much.”
“I don’t see what he can do except howl,” Sir Roland answered quietly: “and certainly he seems to possess remarkable powers in that way.”
“Bo-hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo!” wept Bonny in confirmation of this opinion; and “eke-haw, eke-haw,” from a nose of copious pathos, formed the elegiac refrain. Then having exhausted the well of weeping, the boy became fitter for reasoning. He wiped his eyes with his scarlet sleeves, and stretched forth his arms reproachfully.
“Oh Jack, Jack, Jack, whatever have I done to you? all the crumb of the loaf you had, and the half of the very last orchard I run, and the prime of old Nanny’s short-horns, and if you wasn’t pleased, you might a’ said so all the morning, Jack. There’s none in all the world as knoweth what you and I be, but one another. And there is none as careth for either on us, only you and me, Jack. Don’t ’ee, Jack, don’t ’ee go and run away. If ’ee do, I’ll give the thieves all as we’ve collected, and the rogues as calls us two waggabones.”
“My poor boy,” said Sir Roland Lorraine, suddenly parting the bush between them, in fear of another sad boo-hoo—for Bonny had stirred his own depths, so that he was quite ready to start again—“my poor boy, you seem to be very unhappy about your donkey.”
Bonny made answer to never a word. This woe belonged only to Jack and himself. They could never think of being meddled with.
“Bonny,” said Alice, in her soft sweet voice, and kindly touching him, as he turned away, “do you wish to know how to recover your Jack? Would you go a long way to get him back again?”
“To the outermost end of the world, Miss, if the whole of the way wor fuzz-bush. Miles and miles us have gone a’ready.”
“You need not go quite to the end of the world. Instead of going up and down these banks, keep steadily up the water. In about a mile you will come to its head, if what I have heard of it is true; then keep well above it, and round the hill, and you will meet the white-nosed donkey.”
“Hee-haw!” said Jack from the opposite bank, not without a whisk of tail. Then the boy, without a word of thanks, by reason of incredulity, whistled a quick reply, and set off to test this doubtful theory.
“Observe now the bliss of possessing a donkey,” Sir Roland began to meditate; “I am not at all skilful in asses, whether golden, or leaden, or wooden, or even as described by Ælian. But the contempt to which they are born, proves to my mind that they do not deserve it; or otherwise how would they get it? My sentence is clumsy. My idea—if there be one—has not managed to express itself. I hear the white-nosed donkey in the distance braying at me, with an overpowering echo of contempt. I am unequal to this contest. Let me withdraw to my book-room.”
“Indeed, papa, you will do nothing of the sort. You are always withdrawing to your book-room; and even I must not come in; and what good ever comes of it? You must, if you please, make up your mind to meet things very differently. And only think how long it is since we have heard of poor Hilary! There are troubles coming, overwhelming troubles, on all with the name or love of Lorraine, as sure as I stand, my dear father, before you.”
“Then I pray you to stand behind me, Alice. What an impulsive child it is! And the moonlight, my darling, has had some effect, as it always has, wonderfully on such girls. You have worked yourself up, Lallie; I can see it. My pet, I must watch you carefully.
“What a mistake you make, papa! I never do anything of the sort. You seem to regard me as anybody’s child, to be reasoned with, out of a window. I may be supposed to say foolish things, and to imagine all sorts of nonsense; and, of course, I cannot reason, because it is not born with us. And then, when I try, I have no chance whatever; though perfect justice is my aim; and—who comes lingering after me?”
“Your excellent father,” Sir Roland answered, kissing away his child’s excitement. “Your loving father does all this, my pet, and brings you quite home to stern reason. And now he will take you home to your home. You have caught the sad spirit of the donkey, petling; you long to go up and down this water, with some one to bewail you on the other side.”
“Yes, papa, so I do. You are so clever! But I think I should go down and up, papa; if the quadruped you are thinking of went up and down.”
“Now Lallie!” he said; and he said no more. For he knew that she hinted at Stephen Chapman, and wanted to fight her own battle against him, now that she was in the humour. The father was ready to put off the conflict—as all good fathers must be—and he led his dear child up the hill, or let her lead him peacefully.
Three days of gloom and storm ensued upon the outbreak of the water; while the old house at the head of the Coombe in happy ignorance looked down upon its hereditary foe. But dark foreboding and fine old stories agitated the loyal hearts of the domestics of the upper conclave,—that ancient butler Onesimus Binns, Mrs. Pipkins, and Mrs. Merryjack. With such uneasy feelings prevalent in the higher circle, nothing short of terror, or even panic, could be expected among the inferior dignitaries, now headed by John Trotman. This young man had long shown himself so ambitious and aggressive, even “cockroaching” as Mrs. Merryjack said, “on the most sacred rights of his betters,” that the latter had really but one course left—to withdraw to their upper room, and exclude “all as didn’t know how to behave theirselves.”
Of these unhappily there were too many; and they seemed to enjoy themselves more freely after their degradation. For Trotman (though rapid of temper, perhaps, and given to prompt movements of the foot) was not at all bad (when allowed his own way), and never kicked anybody who offered to be kicked. So with his dictatorship firmly established in the lesser lower regions he became the most affable of mankind, and read all the crimes of the county to the maids and drew forth long sighs of delicious horror, that his own brave self might console them. And now, when they heard of the sombre Woeburn, with its dismal legend, enhanced by ghastly utterances of ancient Nanny Stilgoe, and tidings brought through wailing winds of most appalling spectres, the stoutest heart was agitated with mysterious terror. At the creak of a door or the flit of a shadow, the rustle of a dry leaf, or the waving of a window-blind, the hoot of an owl, or even the silent creep of gloomy evening—“My goodness, Mary Ann, what was that?” Or, “Polly, come closer, I hear something;” or, “Jane, do ’ee look behind the plate-screen;” and then with one voice, “John, John, John, come down; that’s a dear man, John!” Such was the state of the general nerve, as proved by many a special appeal from kitchen, back-kitchen, and scullery, pantry, terrible cellar, or lonesome wash-house; and the best of everything was kept for John.
Even in the world of finer, feebler, and more foreign English; in dining-room, drawing-room, parlour, and book-room, and my lady’s chamber, a mild uneasiness prevailed, and a sense of evil auspices. Lady Valeria, most of all, who carried conservatism into relapse, felt that troublous days were coming, and almost longed to depart in peace; or at any rate she said so. But with her keen mind, and legal insight, she was bound to perceive that the authorized version of the other world is democratic; as might be that of this world if Christianity made Christians. Therefore her ladyship preferred to wait. Things might get better; and they could scarcely get worse. She had a good deal to see to and settle among things strictly visible, and she threatened everybody with her decease; but did not prepare to make it.
Sir Roland Lorraine, on the other hand, paid little heed, of his own accord, to superstitious vanities. He found a good many instances, in classic, Persian, and Italian literature, of the outbreak of underground waters; and there it was always a god who caused it—either by chasing river-nymphs, or by showing the power of a horse’s heels, or from benevolent motives, and a desire to water gardens. Therefore Sir Roland gathered hope. He had not invested his mind as yet in implicit faith in anything; but rather was inclined to be tolerant, and tentative, and diffident of his own opinions. And these not being particularly strong, self-assertive, or self-important, and not being founded on any rock, but held on the briefest building-lease, their owner, lease-holder, or tenant-at-will, was a very pleasant man to talk with.
That means, of course, when he could be got to talk. And less and less could he be got to talk, as the few people who had the key to his liking dropped off; and no others came. Never, even in his brightest days, had he been wont to sparkle, flash, or even glow, in converse. He simply had a soft large way of listening, and a small dry knack of so diverting serious thought, that genial minds went roving. But now his own mind had grown more and more accustomed to go a-roving; and though, having never paid any attention to questions of science, or even to the weather (now gradually becoming one of them), he could not satisfy himself about the menacing appearance; in a very few hours he buried the portent in a still more portentous pile of books.
But Alice, though fond of reading and of meditating in her little way, was too full of youth and of healthy life, to retire into the classic ages of even our English language. Her delight was rather in the writers of the day, so many of whom were making themselves the writers of all future days—Coleridge, Wordsworth, Campbell, and above all others, the “Wizard of the North,” whose lays of romance and legend were a spur that raised the clear spirit of Alice.
On the third day from the Woeburn’s rise, she sat in her garden bower, absorbed in her favourite “Lady of the Lake.” Her bower though damp and mossy, and dishevelled by the storms of autumn, was still a pleasant place to rest in, when the view was clear and bright. The fairest view, however, now, and the most attractive study, were not of flower, and tree, and landscape, but of face and figure—the face of Alice Lorraine, so gentle, pure, and rapt with poetic thought; and the perfect maiden form inspired by the roused nobility of the mind. The hair, in lines of flowing softness fallen back, disclosed the clear tranquillity of forehead, in contrast with the quick tremor of lip, and the warmth that tinted, now and then, the delicate moulding of bright young cheeks. And as the sweet face, more and more lit up with sequent thought, and bowed with the flitting homage of a reader, genial tears for dead and buried love, and grief, and gallantry arose, and glistened in dark grey eyes, and hung like the gem that quivers in the lashes of the sun-dew.
“Plaize, Miss Halice, my leddy desireth to see you, at wonst, if you plaize, Miss.”
Thus spake the practical, and in appearance most unpoetical, Trotman, glancing at Alice, and then at her book, with more curiosity than he durst convey. “Please to say that I will be with her as soon as I can finish some important work,” she answered, speedily quenching Trotman’s hope of finding out what she was reading, so as to melt the housemaids therewith at night. “Well, she always were a rum un,” he muttered in his disappointment, as he returned to his own little room, which he always called his “study;” “the captain will have to stand on his head to please her, or I’m mistaken. Why, a body scarce dare look at her. Sooner him than me, say I; although she is such a booty. But the old un will give her her change I hope.”
Meanwhile the young lady (unloved of Trotman, because she held fast by old Mr. Binns) put aside, with a sigh, both the poem and her own poetic dreamings, and proved that her temper, however strong, was sweet and large and well controlled, by bridling her now closed lips from any peevish exclamation. She waited a little time, until the glow of her cheeks abated, and the sparkle of her eyes was tranquil, and then she put her pretty hat on (deep brown, trimmed with plumes of puce), and thinking no more of herself than that, set forth to encounter her grandmother.
By this time Alice Lorraine had grown, from a sensitive spirited girl, into a sensitive spirited woman. The things which she used to think and feel to be right, she was growing to know to be right; and the fleeting of doubt from her face was beginning to form the soft expression. That is to say—if it can be described, and happily it never can be—goodwill, largeness of heart, rich mercy, sympathy and quick tenderness combined with grace and refinement, towards the perfection of womanly countenance.
So, whatever there was to be done, this Alice was always quite ready to do it. She had not those outlets for her active moods which young ladies have at the present day, who find or form an unknown quantity of most pressing duties. “Oh no, I have no time to marry anybody,” they exclaim in a breathless manner; “if I did, I must either neglect my district, or my natural history.”
Poor Alice had neither district, duck-weed net, nor even microscope; and what was even worse, she had no holy priest to guide her thoughts, no texts to work in moss and sago, nor even any croquet. Whatever she did, she had to do without any rush of the feminine mind into masculine channels prepared for it; and even without any partnership of dear and good companions. So that the fight before her was to be fought out by herself alone.
This was the last quiet day of her life; the last day for thinking of little things; the last day of properly feeding her pets, her poultry, and tame hares, and pigeons, self-important robins (perched upon their own impudence), and sweetly trustful turtle-doves, that have no dream of evil. She fed them all; and if it were not her last day of feeding them, it was the last time she could feed them happily, and without envying their minds.
This was that important work, which she was bound to attend to, before she could hurry to the side of her grandmother. That fine old lady always made a point of sending for Alice, whenever she knew her need—or rather, without knowing, needed the relief of a little explosion. Her dignity strictly barred this outlet towards those creatures of a lower creation, who had the bliss of serving her. To all such people she was most forbearing, in a large and liberal style; because it must be so impossible for them at all to understand her. And, for this courteous manner, every woman in the place disliked her. The men, however, having slower perceptions, thought that her ladyship was quite right. They could make allowances for her—that they could; and after all, if you come to think of it, the “femmel” race was most aggravating. So they listened to what the women had to tell; and without contradiction wisely let female opinion waste itself.
Lady Valeria Lorraine, though harassed and weakened by rheumatism and pain of the nerves (which she sternly attributed to the will of God and the weather), still sat as firmly erect as ever, and still exacted, by a glance alone, all those little attentions which she looked so worthy to receive. The further she became removed from the rising generation, the greater was the height of contempt from which she deigned to look down upon it. So that Alice used to say to her father sometimes, “I wonder whether I have any right to exist. Grandmamma seems to think it so impertinent of me.” “One thing is certain,” Sir Roland answered, with a quiet smile at his favourite; “and that is, that you cannot exist without impertinence, my dear.”
This fine old lady was dressed with her usual taste and elaboration; no clumsy chits would she have to help her, during the three hours occupied, by what she termed, most truly, her “devotions.” She wore a maroon-coloured velvet gown of the softest and richest fabric, trimmed, not too profusely, with exquisite point-lace; while her cap, of the same lace, with dove-coloured ribbon, at the same time set off and was surpassed by the beauty of her snow-white hair. Among many other small crotchets, she held that brilliants did not suit a very old lady; and she wore no jewels, except a hoop of magnificent pearls with a turquoise setting, to preserve her ancient wedding-ring. And now, as her grandchild entered quietly, she was a little displeased at delay, and feigned to hear no entrance.
“Here I am, grandmamma, if you please,” said Alice, after three most graceful curtseys, which she was always commanded to make, and made with much private amusement; “will you please to look round, grandmamma, and tell me what you want of me?”
“I could scarcely have dreamed,” answered Lady Valeria, slowly turning towards her grandchild, and smiling with superior dignity, “that any member of our family would use the very words of the clown in the ring. But, perhaps, as I always try to think, you are more to be pitied than condemned. Partly through your own fault, and partly through peculiar circumstances, you have lost those advantages which a young lady of our house is entitled to. You have never been at Court; you have seen no society; you have never even been in London!”
“Alas! it is all too true, grandmamma. But how often have you told me that I never must hope, in this degenerate age, to find any good model to imitate! And you have always discouraged me, by presenting yourself as the only one for me to follow.”
“You are quite right,” said the ancient lady, failing to observe the turn of thought, as Alice was certain that she would do, else scarcely would she have ventured it; “but you do not make the most of even that advantage. You can read and write, perhaps better than you ought, or better than used to be thought at all needful; but you cannot come into a room, or make a tolerable curtsey; and you spend all your time with dogs, and poets, and barrows of manure, and little birds!”
“Now really, madam, you are too hard upon me. I may have had a barrow-load of poets; but more than a month ago, you gave orders that I was not to have one bit more of manure.”
“Certainly I did, and high time it was. A young gentlewoman to dabble in worms, and stable-stuff, and filthiness! However, I did not send for you to speak about such little matters. What I have to say is for your own good; and I will trouble you not to be playing with your hands, but just listen to me.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Alice, gently; “I did not know I was moving my hands. I will listen, without doing that any more.”
“Now, my dear child,” began Lady Valeria, being softened by the dutiful manner and sweet submission of the girl: “whatever we do is for your own good. You are not yet old enough to judge what things may profit, and what may hurt you. Even I, who had been brought up in a wholly superior manner, could not at your age have thought of anything. I was ready to be led by wiser people; although I had seen a good deal of the world. And you, who have seen nothing, must be only too glad to do the same. You know quite well, what has long been settled, between your dear father and myself, about what is to be done with you.”
“To be done with me!” exclaimed poor Alice, despite her resolve to hold her tongue. “To be done with me! As if I were just a bundle of rags, to be got rid of!”
“Prouder and handsomer girls than you,” answered Lady Valeria, quietly—for she loved to provoke her grandchild, partly because it was so hard to do—“have become bundles of rags, by indulging just such a temper as yours is. You will now have the goodness to listen to me, without any vulgar excitement. Your marriage with Captain Chapman has for a very long time been agreed upon. It is high time now to appoint the day. Sir Remnant Chapman has done me the honour of a visit upon that subject. He is certainly a man of the true old kind; though his birth is comparatively recent. I was pleased with him; and I have pledged myself to the marriage, within three months from this day.”
“It cannot be! it shall not be! You may bury me, but not marry me. Who gave you the right to sell me? And who made me to be sold? You selfish, cold-hearted—no, I beg your pardon. I know not what I am saying.”
“You may well fall away, child, and cower like that; when you have dared to use such dreadful words. No, you may come to yourself, as you please. I am not going to give you any volatile salts, or ring, and make a scene of it. That is just what you would like; and to be petted afterwards. I hope you have not hurt yourself, so much as you have hurt me perhaps, by your violent want of self-control. I am not an old woman—as you were going to call me—but an elderly lady. And I have lived indeed to be too old, when any one descended from me has so little good blood in her as to call her grandmother an old woman!”
“I am very, very, sorry,” said Alice, with catches of breath, as she spoke, and afraid to trust herself yet to rise from the chair, into which she had fallen; “I used no such words, that I can remember. But I spoke very rudely, I must confess. I scarcely know what I am to do, when I hear such dreadful things; unless I bite my tongue off.”
“I quite agree with you. And I believe it is the very best thing all young people can do. But I strive to make every allowance for you, because you have been so very badly brought up. Now come to this window, child, and look out. Tut, tut—tears, indeed! What are young girls made of now? White sugar in a wet tea-cup. Now if the result of your violence allows you to see anything at all, perhaps you will tell me what that black line is, among the rough ground, at the bottom of the hill. To me it is perfectly clear, although I am such a very old woman.”
“Why, of course, it is the Woeburn, madam. It has been there for three days.”
“You know what it means; and you calmly tell me that!”
“I know that it means harm, of course. But I really could not help its coming. And it has not done any harm as yet.”
“No, Alice, it waits its due time, of course. Three months is its time, I believe, for running, before it destroys the family. Your marriage affords the only chance of retrieving the fortunes of this house, so as to defy disasters. Three months, therefore, is the longest time to which we can possibly defer it. How many times have we weakly allowed you to slip out of any certain day. But now we have settled that you must be Mrs. Chapman by the 15th of January at the latest.”
“Oh, grandmamma, to think that I ever should live to be called Mrs. Chapman.”
“The name is a very good one, Alice, though it may not sound very romantic. But poor Sir Remnant, I fear, is unlikely to last for a great time longer. He seemed so bent, and his sight so bad, and requiring so much refreshment! And then, of course, you would be Lady Chapman if you care about such trifles.”
“It is a piteous prospect, madam. And I think Captain Chapman must be older than his father. You know the old picture, ‘The Downhill of Life;’ the excellent and affectionate couple, descending so nicely hand-in-hand. Well, I should illustrate that at once. I should have to lead my—no, I won’t call him husband—but my tottering partner down the hill, whenever we came to see you and papa. Oh, that would be so interesting!”
“You silly child, you might do much worse than that. Lady de Lampnor has promised most kindly to see to your outfit in London. But I cannot talk of that at present. There now you may go. I have told you all.”
“Thank you, grandmamma. But, if you please, I have not told you all, nor half. It need not, however, take very long. It is just this. No power on earth shall ever compel me to marry Stephen Chapman; unless, indeed it were so to happen——”
“You disobedient and defiant creature—unless what should happen?”
“Unless the existence, and even the honour, of the Lorraines required it. But of that I see no possibility at all. At present it seems to be nothing more than a small and ignominious scheme. More and more I despise and dislike that heroic officer. I will not be sacrificed for nothing; and I have not the smallest intention of being the purchase-money for old acres.”
“After that I shall leave you to your father,” answered Lady Valeria, growing tired. “It may amuse you to talk so largely, and perhaps for the moment relieves you. But your small self-will and your childish fancies, cannot be always gratified. However, I will ask you one thing. If the honour, and even the life of Lorraine can be shown to you to require it, will you sacrifice your noble self?”
“I will,” answered Alice, with brave eyes flashing, and looking tall and noble. “If the honour of the Lorraines depends upon me, I will give myself and my life for it.”