Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs

CHAPTER XXII.
A MALIGNANT CASE

Sir Roland smiled at his mother’s position, and air of stern attention, as he came back from his book-room with a small but heavy oaken box. This he placed on a chair, and without any mystery, unlocked it. But no sooner had he flung back the lid and shown the case above described, than he was quite astonished at the expression of Lady Valeria’s face. Something more than fear, a sudden terror, as if at the sight of something fatal, had taken the pale tint out of her cheeks, and made her fine forehead quiver.

“Dear mother, how foolish I am,” he said, “to worry you with these trifles! I wish I had kept to my own opinion – ”

“It is no trifle; you would have been wrong to treat it as a trifle. I have lived a long life, and seen many strange things; it takes more than a trifle to frighten me.”

For a minute or two she lay back, and was not fit to speak or be spoken to; only she managed to stop her son from ringing for her maid or the housekeeper. He had never beheld her so scared before, and could scarcely make out her signs to him that she needed no attendance.

Like most men who are at all good and just, Sir Roland was prone to think softly and calmly, instead of acting rapidly; and now his mother, so advanced in years, showed less hesitation than he did. Recovering, ere long, from that sudden shock, she managed to smile at herself and at his anxiety about her.

“Now, Roland, I will not meddle with this formidable and clumsy thing. It seems to be closed most jealously. It has kept for two centuries, and may keep for two more, so far as I am concerned. But if it will not be too troublesome to you, I should like to hear what is said about it.”

“In this old document, madam? Do you see how strangely it has been folded? Whoever did that knew a great deal more than now we know about folding.”

“The writing to me seems more strange than the folding. What a cramped hand! In what language is it written?”

“In Greek, the old Greek character, and the Doric dialect. He seems to have been proud of his classic descent, and perhaps Dorian lineage. But he placed a great deal too much faith in the attainments of his descendants. Poor Sedley would have read it straight off, I daresay; but the contractions, and even some of the characters, puzzled me dreadfully. I have kept up, as you know, dear mother, whatever little Greek I was taught, and perhaps have added to it; but my old Hedericus was needed a great many times, I assure you, before I got through this queer document; and even now I am not quite certain of the meaning of one or two passages. You see at the head a number of what I took at first to be hieroglyphics of some kind or other; but I find that they are astral or sidereal signs, for which I am none the wiser, though perhaps an astronomer would be. This, for instance, appears to mean the conjunction of some two planets, and this – ”

“Never mind them, Roland. Read me what you have made out of the writing.”

“Very well, mother. But if I am at fault, you must have patience with me, for I am not perfect in my lesson yet. Thus it begins: —

“‘Behold, ye men, who shall be hereafter, and pay heed to this matter. A certain Carian, noble by birth and of noble character, to whom is the not inglorious name, Agasicles Syennesis, hath lived not in the pursuit of wealth, or power, or reputation, but in the unbroken study of the most excellent arts and philosophies. Especially in the heavenly stars, and signs of the everlasting kosmos, hath he disciplined his mind, and surpassed all that went before him.’ There is nothing like self-praise, is there, now, dear mother?”

“I have no doubt that he speaks the truth,” answered the Lady Valeria: “I did not marry into a family accustomed to exaggerate.”

“Then what do you think of this? ‘Not only in intellect and forethought, but also in goodwill and philanthropy, modesty, and self-forgetfulness, did this man win the prize of excellence; and he it is who now speaks to you. Having lived much time in a barbarous island, cold, and blown over with vaporous air, he is no longer of such a sort as he was in the land of the fair afternoons. And there is when it is to his mind a manifest and established thing, that the gates of Hades are open for him, and the time of being no longer. But he holds this to be of the smallest difference, if only the gods produce his time to the perfect end of all the things lying now before him.’”

“How good, and how truly pious of him, Roland? Such a man’s daughter never could have had any right to run away from him.”

“My dear mother, I disagree with you, if he always praised himself in that style. But let him speak for himself again, as he seems to know very well how to do: ‘These things have not been said, indeed, for the sake of any boasting, but rather to bring out thoroughly forward the truth in these things lying under, as if it were a pavement of adamant. Now, therefore, know ye, that Agasicles, carefully pondering everything, has found (so to say the word) an end to accomplish, and to abide in. And this is no other thing, than to save the generations descended from him, from great evil fortunes about to fall, by the ill-will of some divinity, at a destined time, upon them. For a man, of birth so renowned and lofty, has not been made to resemble a hand-worker, or a runaway slave; but has many stars regarding him, from many generations. And now he perceives, that his skill and wisdom were not given to him to be a mere personal adornment; but that he might protect his descendants, to the remote futurity. To him, then – it having been revealed, that in the seventh generation hence, as has often come to pass with our house, or haply in the tenth (for the time is misty), a great calamity is bound to happen to those born afar off from Syennesis – the sage has laboured many labours, though he cannot avert, at least to make it milder, and to lessen it. He has not, indeed, been made to know, at least up to the present time, what this bane will be; or whether after the second, or after the third century from this period. But knowing the swiftness of evil chance, he expects it at the earlier time; and whatever its manner or kind may be, Agasicles in all his discoveries has discovered no cure for human evils, save that which he now has shut up in a box. This box has been so constructed, that nothing but dust will meet the greedy eyes of any who force it open, in the manner of the tomb of Nitocris. But if be opened with the proper key, and after the proper interval, when the due need has arisen – there will be a fairer sight than ever broke upon mortal eyes before.’

“There mother, now, what do you think of all that? I am quite out of breath with my long translation, and I am not quite sure of all of it. For instance, where he says – ”

“Roland,” his mother answered quickly, “I am now much older than the prince, according to tradition, can have been. But I make no pretence to his wisdom; and I have reasons of my own for wondering. What have you done with the key of that case?”

“I have never seen it. It was not in the closet. And I meant to have searched, throughout his room, until I found out the meaning of this very crabbed postscript – ‘That fool, Memel, hath lost the key. It will cost me months to make another. My hands now tremble, and my eyes are weak. If there be no key found herewith, let it be read that Nature, whom I have vanquished, hath avenged herself. Whether, or no, have I laboured in vain? Be blest now, and bless me, my dear descendants.’”

“That appears to me,” said the Lady Valeria, being left in good manners by her son, to express the first opinion, “to be of the whole of this strange affair the part that is least satisfactory.”

“My dear mother, you have hit the mark. What satisfaction can one find in having a case without a key, and knowing that if we force it open there will be nothing but dust inside? Not a quarter so good as a snuff-box. I must have a pinch, my dear mother, excuse me, while you meditate on this subject. You are far more indulgent in that respect than little Alice ever is.”

“All gentlemen take snuff,” said the lady; “who is Alice, to lay down the law? Your father took a boxful three times a week. Roland, you let that young girl take great liberties with you.”

“It is not so much that I let her take them. I have no voice in the matter now. She takes them without asking me. Possibly that is the great calamity foretold by the astrologer. If not, what other can it be, do you think?”

“Not so,” she answered, with a serious air, for all her experience of the witty world had left her old age quite dry of humour; “the trouble, if any is coming, will not be through Alice, but through Hilary. Alice is certainly a flighty girl, romantic, and full of nonsense, and not at all such as she might have been, if left more in my society. However, she never has thought it worth while to associate much with her grandmother; the result of which is that her manners are unformed, and her mind is full of nonsense. But she has plenty, and (if it were possible) too much of that great preservative – pride of birth. Alice may come to affliction herself; but she never will involve her family.”

“Any affliction of hers,” said Sir Roland, “will involve at least her father.”

“Yes, yes, of course. But what I mean is the honour and rank of the family. It is my favourite Hilary, my dear, brave, handsome Hilary, who is likely to bring care on our heads, or rather upon your head, Roland; my time, of course, will be over then, unless he is very quick about it.”

“He will not be so quick as that, I hope,” Sir Roland answered, with some little confusion of proper sentiments; “although in that hotbed of mischief, London, nobody knows when he may begin. However, he is not in London at present, according to your friend Lady de Lampnor. I think you said you had heard so from her.”

“To be sure, Mr. Malahide told her himself. The dear boy has overworked himself so, that he has gone to some healthy and quiet place, to recruit his exhausted energies.”

“Dear me,” said Sir Roland, “I could never believe it, unless I knew from experience, what a very little work is enough to upset him. To write a letter to his father, for instance, is so severe an exertion, that he requires a holiday the next day.”

“Now, Roland, don’t be so hard upon him. You would apprentice him to that vile law, which is quite unfit for a gentleman. I am not surprised at his being overcome by such odious labour; you would not take my advice, remember, and put him into the only profession fit for one of his birth – the army. Whatever happens, the fault is your own. It is clear, however, that he cannot get into much mischief where he is just now – a rural and quiet part of Kent, she says. It shows the innocence of his heart to go there.”

“Very likely. But if he wanted change, he might have asked leave to come home, I think. However, we shall have him here soon enough.”

“How you speak, Roland! Quite as if you cared not a farthing for your only son! It must be dreadfully galling to him, to see how you prefer that Alice.”

“If he is galled, he never winces,” answered Sir Roland with a quiet smile; “he is the most careless fellow in the world.”

“And the most good-natured, and the most affectionate,” said Lady Valeria, warmly; “nothing else could keep him from being jealous, as nine out of ten would be. However, I am tired of talking now, and on that subject I might talk for ever. Take away that case, if you please, and the writing. On no account would I have them left here. Of course you will lock them away securely, and not think of meddling with them. What is that case made of?”

“I can scarcely make out. Something strong and heavy. A mixture, I think, of shagreen and some metal. But the oddest thing of all is the keyhole. It is at the top of the cone, you see, and of the strangest shape, an irregular heptagon, with some rare complications of points inside. It would be next to impossible to open this case, without shattering it altogether.”

“I do not wish to examine the case, I wish to have it taken away, my son. There, there, I am very glad not to see it; although I am sure I am not superstitious. We shall do very well, I trust, without it. I think it is a most extraordinary thing that your father never consulted me about the writing handed down to you. He must have been bound by some pledge not to do so. There, Roland, I am tired of the subject.”

With these words the ancient lady waved her delicate hand, and dismissed her son, who kissed her white forehead, according to usage, and then departed with case and parchment locked in the oaken box again. But the more he thought over her behaviour, the more he was puzzled about it. He had fully expected a command to open the case, at whatever hazard; and perhaps he had been disappointed at receiving no such order. But above all, he wanted to know why his mother should have been taken aback, as she was, by the sight of these little things. For few people, even in the prime of life, possessed more self-command and courage than Lady Valeria, now advancing into her eighty-second year.

CHAPTER XXIII.
THE BAITER BAITED

At the top of the hill, these lofty themes were being handled worthily; while, at the bottom, little cares had equal glance of the democrat sun, but no stars allotted to regard them. In plain English, – Bonny and Jack were as busy as their betters. They had taken their usual round that morning, seeking the staff of life – if that staff be applicable to a donkey – in village, hamlet, and farm-house, or among the lanes and hedges. The sympathy and goodwill between them daily grew more intimate, and their tastes more similar; so that it scarcely seemed impossible that Bonny in the end might learn to eat clover, and Jack to rejoice in money. Open air, and roving life, the ups and downs of want and weal, the freedom of having nothing to lose, and the joyful luck of finding things – these, and perhaps a little spice of unknown sweetness in living at large on their fellow-creatures’ labours, combined to make them as happy a pair, as the day was long, or the weather good. In the winter – ah! why should we think of such trouble? Perhaps there will never be winter again.

At any rate, Bonny was sitting in front of the door of his castle (or rather in front of the doorway, because he was happy enough not to have a door), as proud and contented as if there could never be any more winter of discontent. He had picked up a hat in a ditch that day, lost by some man going home from his inn; and knowing from his patron, the pigman Bottler, that the surest token of a blameless life is to be found in the hat of a man, the boy, stirred by the first heave of ambition, had put on this hat, and was practising hat-craft (having gone with his head as it was born hitherto), to the utter surprise, and with the puzzled protest, of his beloved donkey. It was a most steady church-going hat of the chimney-pot order (then newly imported into benighted regions, but now of the essence of a godly life all over this free country), neither was it such a shocking bad hat as a man would cast away, if his wife were near. For Bonny’s young head it was a world too wide, but he had padded it with a blackbird’s nest; and though it seemed scarcely in harmony with his rakish waistcoat, and bare red shanks (spread on the grass for exhibition, and starred with myriad furze and bramble), still he was conscious of a distinguished air, and nodded to the donkey to look at him.

While these were gazing at one another, with free interchange of opinion, the rector of the parish, on his little pony, turned the corner bluntly. He was on his way home, at the bottom of the coombe, not in the very best temper perhaps, in spite of the sport in prospect; because Sir Roland had met so unkindly his kind desire to know things.

“What have you got on your lap, boy?” Mr. Hales so strongly shouted, that sulky Echo pricked her ears; and “on your lap, boy,” went all up the lonely coombe melodiously.

Bonny knew well what was on his lap – a cleverly-plaited hare-wire. Bottler had shown him how to do it, and now he was practising diligently, under the auspices of his first hat. Mr. Hales was a “beak,” of course; and the aquiline beak of the neighbourhood. Bonny had the honour of his acquaintance, in that fierce aspect, and in no other. The little boy knew that there was a church, and that great people went there once a-week, for still greater people to blow them up. But this only made him the more uneasy, to clap his bright eyes on the parson.

“Hold there! whoa!” called the Rev. Struan, as Bonny for his life began to cut away; “boy, I want to talk to you.”

Bonny was by no means touched with this very fine benevolence. Taking, perhaps, a low view of duty, he made the ground hot, to escape what we now call the “sacerdotal office.” But Struan Hales (unlike our parsons) knew how to manage the laity. He clapped himself and his pony, in no time, between Master Bonny and his hole, and then in calm dignity called a halt, with his riding-whip ready at his button-hole.

“It is – it is – it is!” cried Bonny, coming back with his head on his chest, and meaning (in the idiom of the land) that now he was beaten, and would hold parley.

“To be sure, it is!” the rector answered, keeping a good balance on his pony, and well pleased with his own tactics. He might have chased Bonny for an hour in vain, through the furze, and heather, and blackberries; but here he had him at his mercy quite, through his knowledge of human nature. To put it coarsely – as the rector did in his mental process haply – the bigger thief anybody is, the more sacred to him is his property. Not that Bonny was a thief at all; still, that was how Mr. Hales looked at it. In the flurry of conscience, the boy forgot that a camel might go through the eye of a needle with less exertion than the parish incumbent must use to get into the Bonny-castle.

“Oh hoo, oh hoo, oh hoo!” howled Bonny, having no faith in clerical honour, and foreseeing the sack of his palace, and home.

“Give me that wire,” said Mr. Hales, in a voice from the depth of his waistcoat. “Now, my boy, would you like to be a good boy?”

“No, sir; no, sir; oh no, plaize, sir! Jack nor me couldn’t bear it, sir.”

“Why not, my boy? It is such a fine thing. Your face shows that you are a sharp boy. Why do you go on living in a hole, and poaching, and picking, and stealing?”

“Plaize, sir, I never steals nothin’, without it is somethin’ as don’t belong to me.”

“That may be. But why should you steal even that? Shall I go in, and steal your things now?”

“Oh hoo, oh hoo, oh hoo! Plaize, sir, I ha’n’t got nothin’ for ’e to steal.”

“I am not at all sure of that,” said the rector, looking at the hermit’s hole longingly; “a thief’s den is often as good as the bank. Now, who taught you how to make this snare? I thought I knew them all pretty well; but this wire has a dodge quite new to me. Who taught you, you young scamp, this moment?”

“Plaize, sir, I can’t tell ’e, sir. Nobody taught me, as I knows on.”

“You young liar, you couldn’t teach yourself. What you mean is, that you don’t choose to tell me. Know, I must, and know I will, if I have to thrash it out of you.” He had seized him now by his gorgeous waistcoat, and held the strong horsewhip over his back. “Now, will you tell, or will you not?”

“I ’ont, I ’ont. If ’e kills me, I ’ont,” the boy cried, wriggling vainly, and with great tears of anticipation rolling down his sun-burnt cheeks.

The parson admired the pluck of the boy, knowing his own great strength of course, and feeling that if he began to smite, the swing of his arm would increase his own wrath, and carry him perhaps beyond reason. Therefore he offered him one chance more. “Will you tell, sir, or will you not?”

“I ’ont tell; that I ’ont,” screamed Bonny; and at the word the lash descended. But only once, for the smiter in a moment was made aware of a dusty rush, a sharp roar of wrath, and great teeth flashing under mighty jaws. And perhaps he would never have walked again if he had not most suddenly wheeled his pony, and just escaped a tremendous snap, well aimed at his comely and gaitered calf.

“Ods bods!” cried the parson, as he saw the jackass (with a stretched-out neck, and crest erect, eyes flashing fire, and a lashing tail, and, worst of all terrors, those cavernous jaws) gathering legs for a second charge, like an Attic trireme, Phormio’s own, backing water for the diecplus.

“May I be dashed,” the rector shouted, “if I deal any more with such animals! If I had only got my hunting-crop; but, kuk, kuk, kuk, pony! Quick, for God’s sake! Off with you!”

With a whack of full power on the pony’s flanks, away went he at full gallop; while Jack tossed his white nose with high disdain, and then started at a round trot in pursuit, to scatter them more disgracefully, and after them sent a fine flourish of trumpets, to the grand old national air of hee-haw.

While the Rev. Struan Hales was thus in sore discomfiture fleeing away as hard as his pony could be made to go, and casting uneasy glances over one shoulder at his pursuer, behold, he almost rode over a traveller footing it lightly round a corner of the lane!

“Why, Uncle Struan!” exclaimed the latter; “is the dragon of St. Leonard’s flying after you? Or is this the usual style of riding of the beneficed clergy?”

“Hilary, my dear boy,” answered the rector; “who would have thought of seeing you? You are just come in time to defend your uncle from a ravenous beast of prey. I was going home to bait a badger, but I have had a pretty good bait myself. Ah, you pagan, you may well be ashamed of yourself, to attack your clergyman!”

For Jack, perceiving the reinforcement, and eyeing the stout stick which Hilary bore, prudently turned on his tail and departed, well satisfied with his exploit.

“Why, Hilary, what has brought you home?” asked his uncle, when a few words had passed concerning Jack’s behaviour. “Nobody expects you, that I know of. Your father is a mysterious man; but Alice would have been sure to tell me. Moreover, you must have walked all the way from the stage, by the look of your buckles; or perhaps from Brighton even.”

“No; I took the short cut over the hills, and across by way of Beeding. Nobody expects me, as you say. I am come on important business.”

“And, of course, I am not to know what it is. For mystery, and for keeping secrets, there never was such a family.”

“As if you did not belong to it, uncle!” Hilary answered, good-naturedly. “I never heard of any secrets that I can remember.”

“And good reason too,” replied the rector; “they would not long have been secrets, my boy, after they came to your ears, I doubt.”

“Then let me establish my reputation by keeping my own, at any rate. But, after all, it is no secret, uncle. Only, my father ought to know it first.”

“Alas, you rogue, you rogue! Something about money, no doubt. You used to condescend to come to me when you were at school and college. But now, you are too grand for the purse of any poor Sussex rector. I could put off our badger for half-an-hour, if you think you could run down the hill again. I should like you particularly to see young Fox; it will be something grand, my boy. He is the best pup I ever had in all my life.”

“I know him, uncle; I know what he is. I chose him first out of the litter, you know. But you must not think of waiting for me. If I come down the hill again, it will only be about eight o’clock for an hour’s rabbit-shooting.”

Since he first met Mabel Lovejoy, Hilary had been changing much, and in every way for the better. Her gentleness, and soft regard, and simple love of living things (at a time when cruelty was the rule, and kindness the rare exception), together with her knowledge of a great deal more than he had ever noticed in the world around, made him feel, in his present vein of tender absence from her, as if he never could bear to see the baiting of any badger. Therefore he went on his way to his father, pitying all things that were tormented.