The Brighton Road Part 17

[Ill.u.s.tration: CUCKFIELD, 1789. _From an aquatint after Rowlandson._]

All this was so long ago that nature has healed the scars made by that busy time. Wooded hills replace the uplands made bare by the smelters, the cinder-heaps and mounds of slag are hidden under pastures, the "hammer-ponds" of the smelteries and foundries have become the resorts of artists seeking the picturesque, and the descendants of the old iron-masters, the Burrells and the Sergisons, have for generations past been numbered among the county families.

[Sidenote: CUCKFIELD]

Cuckfield very narrowly escaped being directly on the route of the Brighton railway, but it pleased the engineers to bring their line no nearer than Hayward's Heath, some two miles distant. They built a station there, on the lone heath, "for Cuckfield," with the result, sixty years later, that the sometime solitude is a town and still growing, while Cuckfield declines. Hayward's Heath, curiously enough, is, or was until December, 1894, in the parish of Cuckfield, but the time is at hand when the two will be joined by the spread of that railway upstart; and then will be the psychological moment for abolishing the name of Hayward's Heath--which is a shocking stumbling-block for the aitchless--and adopting that of the parental "Cookfield."

Meanwhile, I shall drop no sentimental tears over the chance that Cuckfield lost, sixty years ago, of becoming a railway junction and a modern town. Of junctions and mushroom towns we have a sufficiency, but of surviving sweet old country townlets very few.

To see Cuckfield thoroughly demands some little leisure, for although it is small one must needs have time to a.s.similate the atmosphere of the place, if it is to be appreciated at its worth; from the grey old church with its tall shingled spire and its monuments of Burrells and Sergisons of Cuckfield Place, to the staid old houses in the quiet streets, and those two fine old coaching inns, the "Talbot" and the "King's Head."

Rowlandson made a picture of the town in 1789, and it is not wholly unlike that, even now, but where is that Fair we see in progress in his spirited rendering? Gone, together with the smart fellow driving the curricle, and all the other figures of that scene, into the forgotten. There, in one corner, you see the Recruiting Sergeant and the drummer, impressing with military glory a typical smock-frocked Hodge, gaping so outrageously that he seems to be opening his face rather than merely his mouth; the artist's idea seems to have been that, like a dolphin, he would swallow anything, either in the way of food or of stories. There are no full-blooded Sergeant Kites and gaping yokels nowadays.

Cuckfield is evidently feeling, more and more, the altered condition of affairs. Motorists, who are supposed to bring back prosperity to the road, do nothing of the kind on the road to Brighton; for those who live at Brighton or London merely want to reach the other end as quickly as possible, and, with a legal limit up to twenty miles an hour, can cover the distance in two hours and a half, and, with an occasional illegal interval, easily in two hours. Except in case of a breakdown, the wayside hostelries do not often see the colour of the motorists' money, but they smell the stink, and are choked with the dust of them, and landlords and every one else concerned would be only too glad if the project for building a road between London and Brighton, exclusively for motor traffic, were likely to be realised. Then ordinary users of the highway might once more be able to discern the natural scenery of the road, at present obscured with dust-clouds.

The text for these remarks is furnished by the recent closing, after a hundred and fifty years or more, of the once chief inn of Cuckfield: the fine and stately "Talbot," now empty and "To Let"; the hospitable quotation "You're welcome, what's your will," from _The Merry Wives of Windsor_ on its fanlight, reading like a bitter mockery.

The interior of Cuckfield Church is crowded with monuments of the Sergisons and the Burrells. Pride of place is given in the chancel to the monument of Charles Sergison, who died in 1732, aged 78. It is a very fine white marble monument, with a figure of Truth gazing into her mirror, and holding with one hand a medallion partly supported by a Cupid, displaying a portrait of the lamented Sergison, who, we learn from a sub-acid inscription, was "Commissioner of the Navy forty-eight years, till 1719, to the entire satisfaction of the King and his Ministers." "The civil government of the Navy then being put into military hands, he was esteemed by them not a fit person to serve any longer." He was, in short, like those "rulers of the Queen's (or King's) Navee" satirised by Sir W.

S. Gilbert in modern times, and "never went to sea." At the period of his compulsory retirement it seems to have rather belatedly occurred to the authorities that such an one could not be well acquainted with the needs of the Navy; so the "Capacity, Penetration, exact Judgment" of this "true patriot" were shelved; but, at any rate, he had had his whack, and it was surely high time for the exact judgment, true patriotism, capacity and penetration of others to have a chance of making something out of the nation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ROAD OUT OF CUCKFIELD.]

A few monuments are hidden behind the organ, among them one to Guy Carleton, "son of George, Lord Bishop of Chichester." He, it seems, "died of a consumption, cl=c=l=c=cxxiv," which appears to be the highly esoteric way of writing 1624. "_Mors vitae initium_" he tells us, and ill.u.s.trates it with the pleasing fancy of a skull mounted on an hour-gla.s.s, with ears of wheat sprouting from the eyeless sockets. Other equally pleasant devices, encircled with fragments of Greek, are plentiful, the whole concluding with the announcement that "The end of all things is at hand." Holding that opinion, it would seem to have been hardly worth while to erect the monument, but in the result it survives to show what a very gross mistake he made.

Two ill.u.s.trations of the quiet annals of Cuckfield, widely different in point of time, are the old clock and the wall-plate memorial to one Frank Bleach of the Royal Suss.e.x Volunteer Company, who died at Bloemfontein in 1901. The ancient hand-wrought clock, made in 1667 by Isaac Leney, probably of Cuckfield, finally stopped in 1867, and was taken down in 1873. After lying as lumber in the belfry for many years, it was in 1904 fixed on the interior wall of the tower.

XXVII

[Sidenote: "ROOKWOOD"]

Cuckfield Place, acknowledged by Harrison Ainsworth to be the original of his "Rookwood," stands immediately outside the town, and is visible, in midst of the park, from the road. That romantic home of ghostly tradition is fittingly approached by a long and lofty avenue of limes, where stands the clock-tower entrance-gate, removed from Slaugham Place.

Beyond it the picturesquely broken surface of the park stretches, beautifully wooded and populated with herds of deer, the grey, many-gabled mansion looking down upon the whole.

[Sidenote: AINSWORTH]

"Rookwood," the fantastic and gory tale that first gave Harrison Ainsworth a vogue, was commenced in 1831, but not completed until 1834. Ainsworth died at Reigate, January 3, 1882. Thus in his preface he acknowledges his model:

"The supernatural occurrence forming the groundwork of one of the ballads which I have made the harbinger of doom to the house of Rookwood, is ascribed by popular superst.i.tion to a family resident in Suss.e.x, upon whose estate the fatal tree (a gigantic lime, with mighty arms and huge girth of trunk, as described in the song) is still carefully preserved.

Cuckfield Place, to which this singular piece of timber is attached, is, I may state for the benefit of the curious, the real Rookwood Hall; for I have not drawn upon imagination, but upon memory in describing the seat and domains of that fated family. The general features of the venerable structure, several of its chambers, the old garden, and, in particular, the n.o.ble park, with its spreading prospects, its picturesque views of the hall, 'like bits of Mrs. Radcliffe' (as the poet Sh.e.l.ley once observed of the same scene), its deep glades, through which the deer come lightly tripping down, its uplands, slopes, brooks, brakes, coverts, and groves are carefully delineated."

[Ill.u.s.tration: CUCKFIELD PLACE.]

"Like Mrs. Radcliffe!" That romance is indeed written in the peculiar convention which obtained with her, with Horace Walpole, with Maturin, and "Monk" Lewis; a convention of Gothic gloom and superst.i.tion, delighting in gore and apparitions, responsible for the "Mysteries of Udolpho," "The Italian," "The Monk," and other highly seasoned reading of the early years of the nineteenth century. Ainsworth deliberately modelled his manner upon Mrs. Radcliffe, changing the scenes of his desperate deeds from her favourite Italy to our own land. His pages abound in apparitions, death-watches, highwaymen, "pistols for two and breakfasts for one,"

daggers, poison-bowls, and burials alive, and, with a little literary ability added to his horribles, his would be a really hair-raising romance. But the blood he ladles out so plentifully is only coloured water; his spectres are only illuminated turnips on broomsticks; his verses so deplorable, his witticisms so hobnailed that even schoolboys refuse any longer to be thrilled. He "wants to make yer blood run cold,"

but he not infrequently raises a hearty laugh instead. It would be impossible to burlesque "Rookwood"; it burlesques itself, and shall be allowed to do so here, from the point where Alan Rookwood visits the family vault, to his tragic end:

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CLOCK-TOWER AND HAUNTED AVENUE, CUCKFIELD PLACE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HARRISON AINSWORTH. _From the Fraser portrait._]

"He then walked beneath the shadow of one of the yews, chanting an odd stanza or so of one of his wild staves, wrapped the while, it would seem, in affectionate contemplation of the subject-matter of his song:

THE CHURCHYARD YEW.

'----Metuendaque succo Taxus.'

A noxious tree is the churchyard yew, As if from the dead its sap it drew; Dark are its branches, and dismal to see, Like plumes at Death's latest solemnity.

Spectral and jagged, and black as the wings Which some spirit of ill o'er a sepulchre flings: Oh! a terrible tree is the churchyard yew; Like it is nothing so grimly to view.

Yet this baleful tree hath a core so sound, Can nought so tough in a grove be found: From it were fashioned brave English bows, The boast of our isle, and the dread of its foes.

For our st.u.r.dy sires cut their stoutest staves From the branch that hung o'er their fathers' graves; And though it be dreary and dismal to view, Staunch at the heart is the churchyard yew.

"His ditty concluded, Alan entered the church, taking care to leave the door slightly ajar, in order to facilitate his grandson's entrance. For an instant he lingered in the chancel. The yellow moonlight fell upon the monuments of his race; and, directed by the instinct of hate, Alan's eye rested upon the gilded entablature of his perfidious brother Reginald, and muttering curses, 'not loud, but deep,' he pa.s.sed on. Having lighted his lantern in no tranquil mood, he descended into the vault, observing a similar caution with respect to the portal of the cemetery, which he left partially unclosed, with the key in the lock. Here he resolved to abide Luke's coming. The reader knows what probability there was of his expectations being realised.

[Sidenote: FARCICAL ROMANCE]

"For a while he paced the tomb, wrapped in gloomy meditation, and pondering, it might be, upon the result of Luke's expedition, and the fulfilment of his own dark schemes, scowling from time to time beneath his bent eyebrows, counting the grim array of coffins, and noticing, with something like satisfaction, that the sh.e.l.l which contained the remains of his daughter had been restored to its former position. He then bethought him of Father Checkley's midnight intrusion upon his conference with Luke, and their apprehension of a supernatural visitation, and his curiosity was stimulated to ascertain by what means the priest had gained admission to the spot unperceived and unheard. He resolved to sound the floor, and see whether any secret entrance existed; and hollowly and dully did the hard flagging return the stroke of his heel as he pursued his scrutiny. At length the metallic ringing of an iron plate, immediately behind the marble effigy of Sir Ranulph, resolved the point. There it was that the priest had found access to the vault; but Alan's disappointment was excessive when he discovered that this plate was fastened on the under-side, and all communication thence with the churchyard, or to wherever else it might conduct him, cut off; but the present was not the season for further investigation, and tolerably pleased with the discovery he had already made, he returned to his silent march around the sepulchre.

"At length a sound, like the sudden shutting of the church door, broke upon the profound stillness of the holy edifice. In the hush that succeeded a footstep was distinctly heard threading the aisle.

"'He comes--he comes!' exclaimed Alan joyfully; adding, an instant after, in an altered voice, 'but he comes alone.'

"The footstep drew near to the mouth of the vault--it was upon the stairs.

Alan stepped forward to greet, as he supposed, his grandson, but started back in astonishment and dismay as he encountered in his stead Lady Rookwood. Alan retreated, while the lady advanced, swinging the iron door after her, which closed with a tremendous clang. Approaching the statue of the first Sir Ranulph she pa.s.sed, and Alan then remarked the singular and terrible expression of her eyes, which appeared to be fixed upon the statue, or upon some invisible object near it. There was something in her whole att.i.tude and manner calculated to impress the deepest terror on the beholder, and Alan gazed upon her with an awe which momently increased.

Lady Rookwood's bearing was as proud and erect as we have formerly described it to have been, her brow was as haughtily bent, her chiselled lip as disdainfully curled; but the staring, changeless eye, and the deep-heaved sob which occasionally escaped her, betrayed how much she was under the influence of mortal terror. Alan watched her in amazement. He knew not how the scene was likely to terminate, nor what could have induced her to visit this ghostly spot at such an hour and alone; but he resolved to abide the issue in silence--profound as her own. After a time, however, his impatience got the better of his fears and scruples, and he spoke.

"'What doth Lady Rookwood in the abode of the dead?' asked he at length.

"She started at the sound of his voice, but still kept her eye fixed upon the vacancy.

"'Hast thou not beckoned me hither, and am I not come?' returned she, in a hollow tone. 'And now thou askest wherefore I am here. I am here because, as in thy life I feared thee not, neither in death do I fear thee. I am here because----'

"'What seest thou?' interrupted Alan, with ill-suppressed terror.

"'What see I--ha--ha!' shouted Lady Rookwood, amidst discordant laughter; 'that which might appal a heart less stout than mine--a figure anguish-writhen, with veins that glow as with a subtle and consuming flame. A substance, yet a shadow, in thy living likeness. Ha--frown if thou wilt; I can return thy glances.'

[Sidenote: MELODRAMA POUR RIRE]

"'Where dost thou see this vision?' demanded Alan.

"'Where?' echoed Lady Rookwood, becoming for the first time sensible of the presence of a stranger. 'Ha--who are you that question me?--what are you?--speak!'

"'No matter who or what I am,' returned Alan; 'I ask you what you behold?'