Lost Sir Massingberd Volume I Part 13

Conceive, then, how every face was turned interrogatively towards Master Meredith--no, Mr. Meredith, now that the object of everybody was to please him. How the dames dropped courtesies, and hoped my honour was well; and my honour's friend too, Mr. Marmaduke, he was well too, they trusted--Heaven bless him; and he was staying away from Fairburn a good bit, was he not? and how did has uncle like that, who had always kept him at home so strict?--and was it true that he was residing with Mr.

Harvey Gerard? well, dear me, and how odd that was; an atheist and a democrat, people did say; but there, there were some again as spoke well of him.

Sedate Mr. Arabel, set on, without doubt, by his inquisitive lady, even waylaid me in a narrow lane, and insisted upon my looking in at the farm, and partaking of casual hospitality. "Ye'll just have three drars and a spet," said he (meaning by that farm of expression a few whiffs of a pipe), "and take a gla.s.s of ale;" and when I declined the first offer upon the ground of not being a smoker, and the second on the plea that it was only eleven o'clock, A.M., and consequently rather early for ale, he confessed that his missus was a-waiting for me with a bottle of cowslip wine, and a seed-cake of her own making. It was rather difficult to escape from hospitable snares of this kind, but I revealed as little as possible without giving absolute offence. On the other hand, I received some information, the details of which had not been confided to me by Mr. Long.

"Well, sir," remarked Mrs. Arabel, after I had told her all I meant to tell, which was not much, "and it's no wonder as Mr. Marmaduke should have run away, I'm sure."

"My good lady," observed I, "pray, be particular; I never said he ran away; I said his horse ran away."

"Yes, of course, sir," responded the mistress of the Grange, winking in a manner that made me quite uncomfortable; "you are very right to say that, Mr. Meredith, very right. But Sir Ma.s.singberd's opinion is, that it was all planned from first to last, only he says you nearly overdid it."

"Ah, indeed," said I; "how was that?"

"Well, it seems Sir Ma.s.singberd was quite deceived about that horse he bought for his nephew; instead of being quiet, and fit for the lad, it was a perfect demon; and it was sheer madness of you young gentlemen to go racing in order to make it run away; then, to arrange with Mr. Gerard all beforehand; well, I must say I shouldn't have thought that either of you would have had the depth."

"Thank you, Mrs. Arabel," said I, laughing; "I am sorry you entertained so low an idea of our intelligence."

"Well, sir," returned the farmer's wife, with an air of excessive candour, "my husband, you see, he often has said to me, says he, 'That young squire Marmaduke, I'm darned if he ain't little better than a fool; he don't know what shot to use for rabbits, that he don't; I never saw his equal for ignorance. And as for that lad from the Ingies--that was you, you know, sir--well, of all the young fellows turned of seventeen as I ever saw, he's the'--"

Here Mrs. Arabel crimsoned, and stopped short, as if she had been very nearly betrayed into saying something which was not entirely complimentary.

"Pray, go on, my dear madam," said I; "'of all the young fellows turned of seventeen whom he had ever seen, I was the'--"

"Well, sir, he'd just the same opinion of you as he had of Master Marmaduke; but, for my part, I always said, that although you might neither on you know so much as you ought to, and though you might seem, as it were--"

"Ay, you always stood our friend, and said we were not such fools as we looked; did you?"

"Just so," replied Mrs. Arabel, simply; "and so you see it has turned out. If Mr. Marmaduke can only live elsewhere till something happens to Sir Ma.s.singberd--although, indeed, he looks as if nothing ever could hurt him--his life will doubtless be much pleasanter than at the Hall; it is no place for a young gentleman like him, surely, although, indeed, things are better there than they were. The dark-eyed foreigneering-looking young person, although, indeed, she was old enough to know better; well, she's gone."

"So I have heard," said I drily.

"Yes, she went away in a whirlwind, she did," continued Mrs. Arabel, reflectively.

"Dear me," replied I, "I never heard that."

"Ah, indeed, I daresay not; why, you see, Mr. Long was a little mixed up in it. Perhaps he thought it better not to tell you. Take another gla.s.s of cowslip wine, sir; it has been more than ten years in bottle; and the cake is as good a cake as you will put teeth into in all Midshire, though I say it as shouldn't say it. Well; the thing happened in this way, you see. The foreigneering female, she used to throw things at folks; dishes, plates, whatever came first to hand, whenever she was in her tantrums. Mr. Gilmore he had his head opened with a slop-basin, so that you could lay your finger in it; and Oliver Bradford, I believe she fired a gun at him, charged with swan-shot. However, at times, she was quite otherwise, crying and submissive as a child. They said it was Religion up at the Hall; but they knows nothing about that; how should they? It was hysterics, I daresay, and serve her right too. Well, who should come here, the very Sunday after Mr. Marmaduke had run away, and when Sir Ma.s.singberd was like a wild man with rage, and couldn't speak without blaspheming, but one of them Methodee preachers as sometimes hold forth upon our common. Now the foreigneering female was a-walking in the park shrubbery, with one of her hysterical fits upon her, I suppose, and what does she hear through the palings but words as I suppose the poor creature never listened to before; and presently out she comes upon the common, and stands up among all the people, with her great eyes swollen with weeping, and her painted cheeks--and I always said they were painted--daubed and smeared with tears. Carter John, who is very much given to that sort of worship, he was there; and he told me she looked for all the world like the woman in the great picture over the communion-table in Crittenden Church, who is wiping the feet of our Lord with her hair.

"Then the preacher, he bade her repent while there was yet time, and fear nothing but only G.o.d. But Sir Ma.s.singberd, he came out, and dragged her in from the very preacher's hand, and presently back again he comes with a horse-whip, and swears there shall be no Methodees in his parish, and if he caught the hypocritical ranter--as he called him--within hearing again, he'd split his ears. Now, I don't go with him there,"

pursued Mrs. Arabel, gravely. "It isn't for us, Mr. Meredith, to say as n.o.body can't pick up good, unless it's in church; and least of all should such things be said by Sir Ma.s.singberd, who lets that beautiful family pew get damp and mouldy, with the fireplace always empty all the winter long, and never puts his nose into it from year's end to year's end. However, what does the foreigneering female do, but declare she would starve herself to death, before she would eat the bread of unrighteousness any longer; and not one morsel of food would she take, though they locked her up, and tried to tempt her with her most favourite dishes. So Sir Ma.s.singberd, being at his wits' end, came over to the parson, and begged him to come and persuade the woman to be reasonable, and take some refreshment; and Mr. Long--he at first declined to interfere in such a matter at all, but presently thinking the poor creature might be really penitent, although it came about through a Methodee, and hoping to do her some good, although not in the way Sir Ma.s.singberd intended, he accompanied him to the Hall; and what do you think? Why, they found the poor woman was in such earnest, that she had cut off the whole of her beautiful black hair, and there it lay on the carpet, like so much rubbish. So the Squire he swore that he didn't care now whether she starved or not, and turned her out of the house, as I said at first, in a whirlwind. She was very faint and weak; and Mr. Long, who would never exchange a syllable with her before, made Mrs. Myrtle give her a good meal, and gave her some good words himself, and sent her away to her friends--for it seems she had some friends, poor wretch; and this has made Sir Ma.s.singberd wilder than ever against the rector, whom he had already accused of aiding and abetting young Mr.

Marmaduke in his running away; so that altogether the Squire is ready to make an end of everybody."

This last statement, although a little highly coloured, as Mrs. Arabel's descriptions usually were, was really not far from the truth. It did almost seem as if the baronet was so transported with pa.s.sion as to be capable of any enormity. What the law permitted him to do in the way of oppression, that, of course, he practised to the uttermost; his morality, never very diffuse, had concentrated itself upon one position--the defence of the game and trespa.s.s laws. His keepers were exhorted to increased vigilance; the worst characters in the parish were const.i.tuted his spies. Every night, it was now the custom of their lord and master to go the rounds in his own preserves, and visit the outposts, to see that the sentinels did their duty. He employed no Warnings or Trespa.s.s Boards in Fairburn Park; his object was not to deter, but to catch the contemners of the sacred rights of property in the very act. The pursuit of his life had become man-hunting. I write that word without any reference to Marmaduke Heath, for, indeed, at that time I thought that Sir Ma.s.singberd had given up all hope of recovering possession of his nephew. A considerable period had now elapsed since the young man's convalescence; and yet the baronet had taken no steps to compel his return. He had written, indeed, to Marmaduke a letter of anything but a conciliatory character, and calculated to re-arouse the lad's most morbid fears; but Mr. Harvey Gerard had intercepted the dispatch, and returned it with an answer of his own composition. He had stated briefly the results of the late conference at the Dovecot respecting his young guest; he had reiterated his intention of bringing, in a court of justice, the gravest charges against the baronet, in case of any legal molestation from him; and he had finished with a personal recommendation to that gentleman to rest satisfied with the enjoyment of the allowance that was supposed to go to the maintenance of his nephew.

Epistolary communication by hand was rendered impracticable, on the part of the baronet, by the removal of the Dovecot household to town.

This was a bitter blow to the lord of Fairburn; he knew so well the abject fear which he had inspired in my unhappy friend, that, notwithstanding all that had come and gone yet, he did not doubt that a few words in his own handwriting would bring the truant back, however loath. We are living now in such quiet times, and under the protection of such equal laws, that I am aware my younger readers will have a difficulty in conceiving how one human being, however powerful, could be held in such terror by others. I was aware, from the first, that the present universal security would give my narrative an air of improbability, and I fear that this must increase as it proceeds. I have only to say, that at the period of which I write, there was no poor man in Fairburn parish, however honest, however prudent, who might not have been lodged in jail at the instance of his squire, and would have found it difficult to clear himself; or who might not, on a hint from the same quarter, have been pressed, if he did but give the opportunity, on board a man-of-war. I am likewise certain that had Sir Ma.s.singberd ventured upon such a step, he might have recovered possession of his nephew, or at least withdrawn him from his protector, by the strong hand of the law, upon the ground of Mr. Gerard's professing revolutionary principles. In these days of Palmerston and Derby, of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, it is impossible for those who are not old enough to have witnessed it, to imagine the rancour of political parties half a century ago, or the despotism and flagrant injustice that were sanctioned under the convenient name of Order.

For the haughty baronet to be thus cut off from all intercourse with his victim, was to be foiled indeed. At first, he stung himself well-nigh to frenzy, like a scorpion within its circle of flame; but after a time the white heat of his wrath began apparently to abate. He seemed to have made up his mind to sit down quietly under his defeat, and to content himself with tyrannizing over those who were yet in his power. This comparatively peaceful state of things was looked upon by Mr. Long and myself at first with suspicion, but at last with real satisfaction. When Sir Ma.s.singberd sent over five pine-apples and some splendid grapes to the Rectory with his compliments (for the first time within twenty years), we shook our heads, and my tutor addressed the messenger of his bounty in these words; "Tell your master I am exceedingly obliged to him for his kindness. 'Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.'"

"Would you be so good as to write that down, sir?" said the man.

"You may give him the message without the tail," replied the rector, a little discomfited at his own indiscretion, but congratulating himself very much that he had expressed his thoughts so cla.s.sically.

But when pine-apples and grapes became common presents from the Hall, we began really to think that the stubborn old baronet had come to the conclusion that it was as pleasant to be on good terms with his neighbour as not, and that he was genuinely bent on reconciliation. A soft answer is said to be efficacious to this end, but it is nothing compared to hothouse dainties out of season; and notwithstanding all I knew, and all I suspected, I began to regard Sir Ma.s.singberd Heath, not indeed with less contempt and dislike, but with less positive loathing, and certainly with less fear. I had not set foot upon his property since Marmaduke's departure, and the baronet took occasion to stop me as I rode by his gate one day, and remonstrate upon the incivility of such a course of conduct.

"It can do me no damage, young gentleman, that you should take your pleasure in my park, more especially as you are not a sportsman, who would covet my hares and pheasants; and I cannot but think that your omission to do so is a proof of ill-feeling towards me, which I am not conscious of having deserved at your hands."

He spoke stiffly, and without condescension, as a man might speak to an equal, between himself and whom a misunderstanding existed unexplained, but capable of explanation, and, foolish boy as I was, I felt flattered by his behaviour.

If the least notion of making myself out to be a hero had existed in my brain when I began to write these Recollections, it has been dissipated long ago. I have been quite as much surprised during this recital as any of my readers have been, at the contemplation of my own meannesses; if I had known how many and how serious they were to be, perhaps I should have hesitated to recall them; but I commenced with as strong a determination, nothing to extenuate with respect to myself, as to set nothing down in malice with respect to others; and thus I shall proceed to the end.

While, then, matters were on this less antagonistic footing, and when Marmaduke had been away about a year, business happened to take Mr. Long from Fairburn, and I was left a day and a night my own master. He had not been gone an hour when Mrs. Myrtle came into the study, where I was employed at my books, with a letter in her hand; she looked quite pale and frightened, as she said, "Lor', Mr. Peter, if this note ain't from Sir Ma.s.singberd hisself for you. I feels all of a tremble, so as you might knock me down with a peac.o.c.k's feather."

"Well," said I, forcing a laugh, "but I am not going to use any such weapon, Mrs. Myrtle. What on earth is there to be afraid of in the squire's handwriting? It can't bite." But I felt in a cold perspiration nevertheless, and my fingers trembled as they undid the missive. It was a polite invitation to dine with the baronet that evening.

"You are not going, sir, I do hope!" exclaimed the housekeeper eagerly, as soon as I had acquainted her with the contents of the note.

"Why, such a thing hasn't happened for this quarter of a century. He'll poison you, as sure as my name's Martha Myrtle. I never saw you and master eating his pine-apples without a shudder; the rector was uncommon ill after one of them, one day."

"Yes, Mrs. Myrtle," said I quietly, "and I have suffered also from the same cause myself; but I don't think the squire was to blame."

"But you ain't a-going, sir; I am sure as master wouldn't like it. Oh, pray, say you ain't a-going."

"Well, then, I won't go, Mrs. Myrtle. The fact is, I feel one of my colds coming on; they generally begin with a lump in my throat; so I shall write to excuse myself."

I really had a lump in my throat; my heart had jumped up and stopped there at the mere notion of a tete-a-tete with Sir Ma.s.singberd, diversified--no, intensified--by the presence of Gr.i.m.j.a.w. I wouldn't have gone through it for a thousand pounds; so I wrote to decline the honour upon the ground of indisposition. I was compelled to keep the house, I said, for the entire day. Half an hour afterwards, another letter arrived from the Hall. Since Sir Ma.s.singberd might not enjoy the pleasure of my company at dinner, would I permit him to come over to the Rectory that morning, and have a few words of conversation with me upon a matter deeply interesting to both of us? There was no getting out of this. If I had gone to bed, on plea of illness, I felt that even that course would have been no protection to me. Sir Ma.s.singberd would have forced a dying man to play with him at pitch-and-toss, if so inopportune a game had happened to take his fancy. On the other hand, Mrs. Myrtle's suggestion that I should mount my horse, and ride away after Mr. Long, was really too pusillanimous a proceeding; I therefore wrote back to the baronet a polite falsehood, to the effect that I should be very happy to see him; and in a very few minutes afterwards, I was face to face with Marmaduke's foe.

He came in unushered--Mrs. Myrtle not being equal to such an occasion--filling the doorway with his gigantic form, and well-nigh touching the ceiling of the low-roofed room with his head.

"I am sorry to intrude upon an invalid," said he, "but what I had to say was of a private nature, and I was not sure of finding you alone at any other time."

I bowed, and begged my visitor to be seated.

"It is something," thought I, "that this man is civil at least." For there is this great advantage in being habitually insolent and overbearing, that when one does condescend to behave decently, people appreciate one's good maimers very much.

"I have called upon you," continued the baronet, "with respect to my nephew and your friend, Marmaduke Heath. It is idle to deny that he and I have not been to one another what our mutual relationship should have led us to be. I am naturally a hard man; losses and poverty have doubtless rendered me more morose. Marmaduke, on the other hand, is of an over-sensitive and morbid nature. We did not get on together at all well. There were faults on both sides; it was six of one, and--"

I shook my head.

"Very well, then," resumed Sir Ma.s.singberd, with candour, "let us say that it was I who was in the wrong. I have not the patience and gentleness requisite for dealing with a character like him; my temper is arbitrary; I have behaved with but little courtesy even to yourself. You are polite enough to contradict me, but nevertheless it is true. For that, however, reparation can be made. I wish that I could as easily make atonement in the other quarter. This, however, I feel is utterly impossible. Things have gone too far. I make no complaint of my nephew's having been encouraged in his rebellious course by one whose duty it was, on the contrary, to reconcile us. I wish to say nothing that could only lead to fruitless discussion, and perhaps a disagreement between you and me; that would be most impolitic on my part, since I come here to solicit your good offices."

"Mine, Sir Ma.s.singberd? mine?"

"Yes, I desire your kindly a.s.sistance in bringing about a better understanding between Marmaduke and myself."

"Sir," said I, "what you ask is a sheer impossibility. Marmaduke Heath may be wrong in his estimate of your character, but it will remain unchanged to his dying day. I am as certain of this, as that yonder yellowing tree will presently lose its leaves."

"You speak frankly, Mr. Meredith," returned the baronet, calmly, "and I do not respect you less upon that account. It is not, however, as a mediator that I need your a.s.sistance; I ask a much less favour than that; I simply wish you to inclose a letter from me to my nephew."

"Sir Ma.s.singberd Heath," said I, with some indignation, "you have done me the favour of calling upon me in my tutor's absence, in the expectation of finding me so weak as to be unable to refuse whatever you chose to ask, or so treacherous as to be willing to deceive those who are generously protecting my best friend from one whom he has every cause to fear. I am extremely obliged to you for the compliment;" and with that I laid my hand upon the bell.

"One moment," observed the baronet, quietly, nay, with suavity, though the letter U upon his forehead deepened visibly, and the veins of his great hand, as it rested on the table, grew big with pa.s.sion; "one moment before you ring. I am sorry you should have taken such a view of my conduct as you have described; you young men are somewhat hasty in the imputation of motive. I am a straightforward, rough fellow, and may have displeased you; but I am not aware that I have done anything to justify you in accusing me of meanness and duplicity. Those persons who have charge of my nephew are, in my judgment, deeply culpable; but I do not wish you to act deceitfully towards them on that account. Matters have come to that pa.s.s, however, that I cannot even communicate with my nephew, even though I have that to say which would give him genuine pleasure. This Mr. Harvey Gerard"--his deep voice shook with hatred as he mentioned that name--"has taken upon himself to return my letters to Marmaduke unopened. I know not how to convey to him even such a one as this."