Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs

CHAPTER XX.
A RECTOR OF THE OLDEN STYLE

One part of Coombe Lorraine is famous for a sevenfold echo, connected by tradition with a tale of gloom and terror. Mr. Hales, being proud of his voice, put this echo through all its peals, or chime of waning resonance. It could not quite answer, “How do you do?” with “Very well, Pat, and the same to you” – and its tone was rather melancholy than sprightly, as some echoes are. But of course a great deal depended on the weather, as well as on the time of day. Echo, for the most part, sleeps by daylight, and strikes her gong as the sun goes down.

Failing of any satisfaction here, the Rev. Struan Hales rode on. “Ride on, ride on!” was his motto always; and he seldom found it fail. Nevertheless, as he rang the bell (which he was at last compelled to do), he felt in the crannies of his heart some wavers as to the job he was come upon. A coarse nature often despises a fine one, and yet is most truly afraid of it. Mr. Hales believed that in knowledge of the world he was entitled to teach Sir Roland; and yet could not help feeling how calmly any impertinence would be stopped.

The clergyman found his brother-in-law sitting alone, as he was too fond of doing, in his little favourite book-room, walled off from the larger and less comfortable library. Sir Roland was beginning to yield more and more to the gentle allurements of solitude. Some few months back he had lost the only friend with whom he had ever cared to interchange opinions, a learned parson of the neighbourhood, an antiquary, and an elegant scholar. And ever since that he had been sinking deeper and deeper into the slough of isolation and privacy. For hours he now would sit alone, with books before him, yet seldom heeded, while he mused and meditated, or indulged in visions, mingled of the world he read of, and the world he had to deal with. As no less an authority than Dr. Johnson has it – “This invisible riot of the mind, this secret prodigality of being, is secure from detection, and fearless of reproach. The dreamer retires to his apartment, shuts out the cares and interruptions of mankind, and abandons himself to his own fancy.” And again – “This captivity it is necessary for every man to break, who has any desire to be wise or useful. To regain liberty, he must find the means of flying from himself; he must, in opposition to the Stoic precept, teach his desires to fix upon external things; he must adopt the joys and the pains of others, and excite in his mind the want of social pleasures and amicable communication.”

Sir Roland Lorraine was not quite so bad as the gentleman above depicted; still he was growing so like him, that he was truly sorry to see the jovial face of his brother-in-law. For his mind was set out upon a track of thought, which it might have pursued until dinner-time. But, of course, he was much too courteous to show any token of interruption.

“Roland, I must have you out of this. My dear fellow, what are you coming to? Books, books, books! As if you did not know twice too much already! Even I find my flesh falling away from me, the very next day after I begin to punish it with reading.”

“That very remark occurs in the book which I have just put down. Struan, let me read it to you.”

“I thank you greatly, but would rather not. It is in Latin or Greek, of course. I could not do my duty as I do, if I lost my way in those dead languages. But I have the rarest treat for you; and I borrowed a pony, to come and fetch you. Such a badger you never saw! Sir Remnant is coming to see it, and so is old General Jakes, and a dozen more. We allow an hour for that, and then we have a late dinner at six o’clock. My daughters came up the hill, to fetch your young Alice to see the sport. But they had some blaze-up about some trifle; as the chittish creatures are always doing. And so pretty Alice perhaps will lose it. Leave them to their own ways, say I: leave them to their own ways, Sir Roland. They are sure to cheat us, either way; and they may just as well cheat us pleasantly.”

“You take a sensible view of it, according to what your daughters are,” Sir Roland answered, more sharply than he either meant or could maintain; and immediately he was ashamed of himself. But Mr. Hales was not thin of skin; and he knew that his daughters were true to him. “Well, well,” he replied, “as I said before, they are full of tricks. At their age and sex it must be so. But a better and kinder team of maids is not to be found in thirteen parishes. Speak to the contrary who will.”

“I know that they are very good girls,” Sir Roland answered kindly; “Alice likes them very much: and so does everybody.”

“That is enough to show what they are. Nobody ever likes anybody, without a great deal of cause for it. They must have their faults, of course, we know; and they may not be quite butter-lipped, you know – still I should like to see a better lot, take them in and out and altogether. Now you must come and see Fox draw that badger. I have ten good guineas upon it with Jakes; Sir Remnant was too shy to stake. And I want a thoroughly impartial judge. You never would refuse me, Roland, now?”

“Yes, Struan, yes; you know well that I will. You know that I hate and despise cruel sports: and it is no compliment to invite me, when you know that I will not come.”

“I wish I had stayed at the bottom of the hill, where that young scamp of a boy lives. When will you draw that badger, Sir Roland, the pest of the Downs, and of all the county?”

“Struan, the boy is not half so bad as might be expected of him. I have thought once or twice that I ought to have him taught, and fed, and civilized.”

“Send him to me, and I’ll civilize him. A born little poacher! I have scared all the other poachers with the comet; but the little thief never comes to church. Four pair of birds, to my knowledge, nested in John Gates’ vetches, and hatched well, too, for I spoke to John – where are they? Can you tell me where they are?”

“Well, Struan, I give you the shooting, of course; but I leave it to you to look after it. But it does seem too cruel to kill the birds, before they can fly for you to shoot them.”

“Cruel! I call it much worse than cruel. Such things would never be dreamed of upon a properly managed property.”

“You are going a little too far,” said Sir Roland, with one of his very peculiar looks; and his brother-in-law drew back at once, and changed the subject clumsily.

“The shooting will do well enough, Sir Roland; I think, however, that you may be glad of my opinion upon other matters. And that had something to do with my coming.”

“Oh, I thought that you came about the badger, Struan. But what are these, even more serious matters?”

“Concerning your dealings with the devil, Roland. Of course, I never listen to anything foolish. Still, for the sake of my parish, I am bound to know what your explanation is. I have not much faith in witchcraft; though in that perhaps I am heterodox; but we are bound to have faith in the devil, I hope.”

“Your hope does you credit,” Sir Roland answered; “but for the moment I fail to see how I am concerned with this orthodoxy.”

“Now, my dear fellow, my dear fellow, you know as well as I do, what I mean. Of course there is a great deal of exaggeration; and knowing you so well, I have taken on myself to deny a great part of what people say. But you know the old proverb, ‘No smoke without fire;’ and I could defend you so much better, if I knew what really had occurred. And besides all that, you must feel, I am sure, that you are not treating me with that candour which our long friendship and close connection entitle me to expect from you.”

“Your last argument is the only one requiring any answer. Those based on religious, social, and even parochial grounds, do not apply to this case at all. But I should be sorry to vex you, Struan, or keep from you anything you claim to know in right of your dear sister. This matter, however, is so entirely confined to those of our name only; at the same time so likely to charm all the gossips who have made such wild guesses about it; and, after all, it is such a trifle except to a superstitious mind; that I may trust your good sense to be well content to hear no more about it, until it comes into action – if it ever should do so.”

“Very well, Sir Roland, of course you know best. I am the last man in the world to intrude into family mysteries. And my very worst enemy (if I have one) would never dream of charging me with the vice of curiosity.”

“Of course not. And therefore you will be well pleased that we should drop this subject. Will you take white wine, or red wine, Struan? Your kind and good wife was quite ready to scold me, for having forgotten my duty in that, the last time you came up the hill.”

“Ah, then I walked – to-day I am riding. I thank you, I thank you, Sir Roland; but the General and Sir Remnant are waiting for me.”

“And, most important of all, the badger. Good-bye, Struan; I shall see you soon.”

“I hardly know whether you will or not,” the rector answered testily; “this is the time when those cursed poachers scarcely allow me a good night’s rest. And to come up this hill; and hear nothing at the top! It is too bad at my time of life! After two services every Sunday, to have to be gamekeeper all the week!”

“At your time of life!” said Sir Roland, kindly: “why, you are the youngest man in the parish, so far as life and spirits go. To-day you are not yourself at all. Struan, you have not sworn one good round oath!”

“Well, what can you expect, Roland, with these confounded secrets held over one? I feel myself many pegs down to-day. And that pony trips so abominably. Perhaps, after all, I might take one glass of red wine, before I go down the hill.”

“It is a duty you owe to the parish. Now come, and let me try to find Alice, to wait upon you. Alice is always so glad to see you.”

“And I am always so glad to see her. How narrow your doors are in these old houses! Those Normans must have been a skewer-shouldered lot. Now, Roland, if I have said anything harsh, you will make all allowance for me, of course; because you know the reason.”

“You mean that you are a little disappointed – ”

“Not a bit of it. Quite the contrary. But after such weather as we’ve had, and nothing but duty, duty, to do – one is apt to get a little crotchety. What kind of sport can be got anywhere? The landrail-shooting is over, of course, and the rabbits are running in families; the fish are all sulky, and the water low, and the sea-trout not come up yet. There are no young hounds fit to handle yet; and the ground cracks the heels of a decent hack. One’s mouth only waters at oiling a gun; all the best of the cocks are beginning to mute; and if one gets up a badger-bait, to lead to a dinner-party, people will come, and look on, and make bets, and then tell the women how cruel it was! And with all the week thus, I am always expected to say something new, every Sunday morning!”

“Nay, nay, Struan. Come now; we have never expected that of you. But here comes Alice, from her gardening work! Now, she does look well; don’t you think she does?”

“Not a rose in June, but a rose in May!” the rector answered gallantly, kissing his hand to his niece, and then with his healthy bright lips saluting her: “you grow more and more like your mother, darling. Ah, when I think of the bygone days, before I had any wife, or daughters, things occur to me that never – ”

“Go and bait your badger, Struan, after one more glass of wine.”

CHAPTER XXI.
A NOTABLE LADY

Nature appears to have sternly willed that no man shall keep a secret. There is a monster, here and there perhaps to be discovered, who can sustain his boast of never whispering anything; but he ought to expect to be put aside, in our estimate of humanity. And in compensation, the powers above provide him, for the most part, with a wife of fecund loquacity.

A word is enough on such parlous themes; and the least said, the soonest mended. What one of us is not exceeding wise, in his own, or his wife’s opinion? What one of us does not pretend to be as “reticent” as Minerva’s owl; and yet in his heart confess that a secret is apt to fly out of his bosom?

Nature is full of rules; and if the above should happen to be one of them, it was illustrated in the third attack upon Sir Roland’s secrecy. For scarcely had he succeeded in baffling, without offending, his brother-in-law, when a servant brought him a summons from his mother, Lady Valeria.

According to all modern writers, whether of poetry or prose, in our admirable language, the daughter of an earl is always lovely, graceful, irresistible; almost to as great an extent as she is unattainable. This is but a natural homage on the part of nature to a power so far above her; so that this daughter of an Earl of Thanet had been, in every outward point, whatever is delightful. Neither had she shown any slackness in turning to the best account these notable gifts in her favour. In short, she had been a very beautiful woman, and had employed her beauty well, in having her own will and way. She had not married well, it is true, in the opinion of her compeers; but she had pleased herself, and none could say that she had lowered her family. The ancestors of Lord Thanet had held in villeinage of the Lorraines, some three or four hundred years after the Conquest, until, from being under so gentle a race, they managed to get over them.

Lady Valeria knew all this; and feeling as all women feel, the ownership of her husband (active or passive, whichever it be), she threw herself into the nest of Lorraine, and having no portion, waived all past obligation to parental ties. This was a noble act on her part, as her husband always said. He, Sir Roger Lorraine, lay under her thumb, as calmly as need be; yet was pleased as the birth of children gave some distribution of pressure. For the lady ruled the house, and lands, and all that was therein, as if she had brought them under her settlement.

Although Sir Roger had now been sleeping, for a good many years, with his fathers, his widow, Lady Valeria, showed no sign of any preparation for sleeping with her mothers. Now in her eighty-second year, this lady was as brisk and active, at least in mind, if not in body, as half a century ago she had been. Many good stories (and some even true) were told concerning her doings and sayings in the time of her youth and beauty. Doings were always put first, because for these she was more famous, having the wit of ready action more than of rapid words, perhaps. And yet in the latter she was not slack, when once she had taken up the quiver of the winged poison. She had seen so much of the world, and of the loftiest people that dwell therein – so far at least as they were to be found at the Court of George the Second – that she sat in an upper stratum now over all she had to deal with. And yet she was not of a narrow mind, when unfolded out of her creases.

Her set of rooms was the best in the house, of all above the ground-floor at least; and now she was waiting to receive her son, with her usual little bit of state. For the last five years she had ceased to appear at the table where once she ruled supreme; and the servants, who never had blessed her before, blessed her and themselves for that happy change. For she would have her due as firmly and fairly (if not a trifle more so), as and than she gave the same to others, if undemanded.

In her upright seat she was now beginning – not to chafe, for such a thing would have been below her – but rather to feel her sense of right and duty (as owing to herself) becoming more and more grievous to her the longer she was kept waiting. She had learned long ago that she could not govern her son as absolutely as she was wont to rule his father; and having a clearer perception of her own will than of large principles, whenever she found him immovable, she set the cause down as prejudice. Yet by feeling her way among these prejudices carefully, and working filial duty hard, and flying as a last resort to the stronghold of her many years, she pretty nearly always managed to get her own way in everything.

But few of those who pride themselves on their knowledge of the human face would have perceived in this lady’s features any shape of steadfast will. Perhaps the expression had passed away, while the substance settled inwards: but however that may have been, her face was pleasant, calm, and gentle. Her manner also to all around her was courteous, kind, and unpretending; and people believed her to have no fault, until they began to deal with her. Her eyes, not overhung with lid, but delicately set and shaped, were still bright, and of a pale-blue tint; her forehead was not remarkably large, but straight, and of beautiful outline; while the filaments of fine wrinkles took, in some lights, a cast of silver from snowy silkiness of hair. For still she had abundant hair, that crown of glory to old age; and, like a young girl, she still took pleasure in having it drawn through the hands, and done wisely, and tired to the utmost vantage.

Sir Roland came into his mother’s room with his usual care and diligence. She with ancient courtesy rose from her straight-backed chair, and offered him one little hand, and smiled at him; and from the manner of that smile he knew that she was not by any means pleased, but thought it as well to conciliate him.

“Roland, you know that I never pay heed,” she began, with a voice that shook just a little, “to rumours that reach me through servants, or even allow them to think of telling me.”

“Dear mother, of course you never do. Such a thing would be far beneath you.”

“Well, well, you might wait till I have spoken, before you begin to judge me. If I listen to nothing, I must be quite unlike all the other women in the world.”

“And so you are. How well you express it! At last you begin to perceive, my dear mother, what I perpetually urge in vain – your own superiority.”

What man’s mother can be expected to endure mild irony, even half so well as his wife would?

“Roland, this manner of speech, – I know not what to call it, but I have heard of it among foreign people years ago, – whatever it is, I beg you not to catch it from that boy Hilary.”

“Poetical justice!” Sir Roland exclaimed; for his temper was always in good control, by virtue of varied humour; “this is the self-same whip wherewith I scourged little Alice, quite lately! Only I feel that I was far more just.”

“Roland, you are always just. You may not be always wise, of course; but justice you have inherited from your dear father, and from me. And this is the reason why I wish to know what is the meaning of the strange reports, which almost any one, except myself, would have been sure to go into, or must have been told of long ago. Your thorough truthfulness I know. And you have no chance to mislead me now.”

“I will imitate, though perhaps I cannot equal, your candour, my dear mother, by assuring you that I greatly prefer to keep my own counsel in this matter.”

“Roland, is that your answer? You admit that there is something important, and you refuse to let your own mother know it!”

“Excuse me, but I do not remember saying anything about ‘importance.’ I am not superstitious enough to suppose that the thing can have any importance.”

“Then why should you make such a fuss about it? Really, Roland, you are sometimes very hard to understand.”

“I was not aware that I had made a fuss,” Sir Roland answered, gravely; “but if I have, I will make no more. Now, my dear mother, what did you think of that extraordinary bill of Bottler’s?”

“Bottler, the pigman, is a rogue,” said her ladyship, peremptorily: “his father was a rogue before him; and those things run in families. But surely you cannot suppose that this is the proper way to treat the subject.”

“To my mind a most improper way – to condemn a man’s bill on the ground that his father transmitted the right to overcharge!”

“Now, my dear son,” said Lady Valeria, who never called him her son at all, unless she was put out with him, and her “dear son” only when she was at the extremity of endurance – “my dear son, these are sad attempts to disguise the real truth from me. The truth I am entitled to know, and the truth I am resolved to know. And I think that you might have paid me the compliment of coming for my advice before.”

Finding her in this state of mind, and being unable to deny the justice of her claim, Sir Roland was fain at last to make a virtue of necessity, while he marvelled (as so many have done) at the craft of people in spying things, and espying them always wrongly.

“Is that all?” said Lady Valeria, after listening carefully; “I thought there must have been something a little better than that, to justify you in making it such a mystery. Nothing but a dusty old document, and a strange-looking package, or case like a cone! However, I do not blame you, my dear Roland, for making so small a discovery. The old astrologer appears to me to have grown a little childish. Now, as I keep to the old-fashioned hours, I will ask you to ring the bell for my tea; and while it is being prepared, you can fetch me the case itself, and the document to examine.”

“To be sure, my dear mother, if you will only promise to obey the commands of the document.”

“Roland, I have lived too long ever to promise anything. You shall read me these orders, and then I can judge.”

“I will make no fuss about such a trifle,” he answered, with a pleasant smile; “of course you will do what is honourable.”

Surely men, although they deny so ferociously this impeachment, are open at times to at least a little side-eddy of curiosity; Sir Roland, no doubt, was desirous to know what were the contents of that old case, which Alice had taken for a “dirty cushion,” as it lay at the back of the cupboard in the wall; while his honour would not allow him comfortably to disobey the testator’s wish. At the same time he felt, every now and then, that to treat such a matter in a serious light, was a proof of superstition, or even childishness, on his part. And now, if his mother should so regard it, he was not at all sure that he ought to take the unpleasant course of opposing her.