Читать книгу The Duke's Sweetheart: A Romance - Dowling Richard - Страница 7

Wyechester is a small city in the Midlands. It does not contain more than thirty thousand people, so that it is possible for every man and woman of the middle class to know everyone of the same class, or, at all events, to know everything about everybody, which is almost as good, if not better.

Wyechester is not a place of any importance now, save what it draws from its cathedral and its bishop, and the other great dignitaries around the cathedral. If the city disappeared wholly one night the world of England would hardly miss it, provided the cathedral and church dignitaries were spared. It does not manufacture anything; it has no mines near it. No one ever thought of hunting or shooting in the neighbourhood but those who lived in the neighbourhood. The fishing is poor; and the land, although fairly fertile, is not held in much esteem by farmers. It is a faded, washed-out, old cathedral city, surrounded on all sides by an uninteresting country.

It had one virtue, which, as it concerned only itself, did not spread its fame-it was pious. It was the most pious city in England. It could not, of course, be said with truth that there was no hypocrisy in it; but, speaking relatively, there was very little, much less than in any other city of its size.

It was pious, and it was severe. To do any wrong there was much worse than to do the same wrong in any other city or town in England. Going to church twice on Sunday regularly for thirty years entitled one to consideration; going once freed one from adverse comment; going only twice a month was looked on as bad, very bad; but not going at all made middle-class people in Wyechester think that the sooner the offender left the diocese the better.

Five-and-thirty years before the pole of the omnibus went through the door of the Duke of Shropshire's brougham, five-and-thirty years before Edward Graham decided upon painting that landscape revealed to him under the bridge at Anerly, Mrs. Mansfield, widow of the Rev. James Mansfield, lived in Wyechester. The Rev. James Mansfield died very young. He was, at the time of his death, curate to one of the city churches, and was looked upon as a very exemplary and clever young man, who had a career before him. But his career seemed never to have begun, for he died before he was thirty. He left behind him a widow and daughter and about a hundred and fifty pounds a year, from money in the Funds, willed him by an aunt who had the warmest affection for this nephew.

On this modest income, and about seventy pounds a year coming in from other sources, the widow managed to live quietly, respectably, and to give her daughter a very good education. Five-and-thirty years before what may be taken as the present time of this story, a thing occurred which horrified all Wyechester and bowed down the head of Mrs. Mansfield for ever.

At that time Harriet Mansfield was on a visit with some friends in the country. One morning Miss Mansfield left the house of the friends she was staying with and did not return. Neither did she go home. After days of anxiety a letter, in the daughter's handwriting, came from London, in which she simply said she had left her home for good, and that there was no chance whatever of her going back.

Mrs. Mansfield was then forty-three years of age, but, with the flight of her daughter, her life may be said to have closed, although she was living at the time this story opened, being then seventy-eight years of age. She loved her daughter with all the love she was capable of. But she was a hard, cold, stern nature. To her daughter she never showed her love except in rigours, and insisting on doing her own duty by her child, without any sympathetic conception of what effect doing her own duty would have on a gentle, soft, and confiding nature like her daughter's. The result was that the mother did her duty according to her own lights. She endeavoured to bring up her daughter according to her own rigid code, and she justified herself to herself.

But the daughter had no Spartan nature. She loved pretty things and soft subjects to wear. She was not allowed to keep pets, or to be too familiar with other children. While in the world, and now and then coming in contact for a brief period with pleasant people and grateful things, she was under a discipline as rigid as a convent without any sustaining code; for she did not believe it necessary to be uncomfortable in order to be good. So when love for the first time approached her, and she was from under the immediate eye of her mother, the oppressive goodness of that cathedral city, and the prospect of love and brightness and sunshine and freedom were all presented to her eyes by a man who owned the gift of erratic eloquence, and who was richer than any other man she had ever met, richer than even the bishop, she did not hesitate long. She fled with him. She knew that running away was wrong, but she under-estimated the risk, or indeed did not think there was any risk at all; for she was as simple as a child, and did willingly all things her lover told her, as all her life she had reluctantly obeyed her mother when uncongenial tasks were imposed.

In that letter from London, a letter dictated by the companion of her flight, she said nothing about him, nothing about marriage. It was therefore plain to the mother that the daughter was not married. So the mother cast the image of her daughter out of her heart, and shut up her heart against her child for ever. All through her widowhood this girl had been the sole source of her secret love and happiness, as far as worldly things were allowed to count in the love and happiness of one who ruled herself by the rule of duty.

Now that child had become the only source of secret and open reproach to her. Soon after she got that letter everyone in the city knew all about her misfortune, and the neighbours turned up their eyes and held aloft their hands in virtuous shame. Her daughter had disgraced her home, had disgraced the sacred order to which she might be said to belong, had disgraced the city which had given her birth. Into the mother's heart the image of the daughter should come no more. Across the mother's threshold the foot of the daughter should never pass. It was hard to keep the image out always; but no sooner did it gain an entrance than she cast it forth with bitter reproaches against herself for her sinful weakness in holding commune with the only thing which had ever brought shame to her.

The mother made no steps to follow the daughter. Several people came and offered help. She wanted no help. Her daughter had taken her fate into her own hands, and there matters should rest. She was inflexible. Nothing could move her in the least way.

Clergymen who had been friends of her husband called and expostulated, and said that it was wrong and sinful of her not to do something to win back the fugitive. But she would not listen to them with patience. She told them she had done her duty by the girl, and the girl had taken herself off, and she, the mother, could not think of receiving her daughter back. They then told her this was not a Christian spirit, and that she must remember the story of the poor Prodigal. And, upon this, she grew angry with them, for it hurt her beyond endurance to hear her daughter, her only child, referred to in such a way. She told them she knew her duty as a Christian as well as anyone, that they ought to be aware she had been under good guidance, the guidance of her husband, for many years, and that she was much obliged to them, but that her mind was made up beyond the chance of change.

Time proved she could adhere to her resolve, for she never made the least inquiry. Nor did she ever see her child again.

Harriet Mansfield had behaved very badly. There could be no excuse for her running away as she did. She was weak by nature, and her weakness betrayed her; but her weakness was no justification. Yet her folly had not betrayed her into such a desperate position as her mother imagined. She had run away, and she had run away with a lover; but there the disgrace ended.

The people with whom Harriet Mansfield was staying when she eloped were Mr. and Mrs. Gore, old friends of Mrs. Mansfield. They were childless, and lived in good style in a comfortable house close by an excellent trout-stream. Mr. Gore went to his office in town close by every day, and came home to a late dinner. During most of the day Mrs. Gore was engaged about domestic affairs, and could give little attention to her guest. This was the first time Harriet had ever been free. It was lovely weather, and she soon found out a few pleasant walks in the neighbourhood. The place was beautiful compared to the dull monotony of the scenery round Wyechester. Her favourite walk was along the banks of this trout-stream, which wound in and out through delightful shady glens and peaceful meadows.

One day by chance she met here a fine stalwart gentleman fishing. He was more impetuous than careful, and he managed to fix one of the flies of his casting-line in her dress. The hook had to be extracted at the cost of some slight injury to the dress; apologies had to be made; and by the time apologies had been offered and accepted, an acquaintance had been established. He asked if he might be permitted to know the name of the lady to whom he had caused such annoyance, and whose dress he had so shamefully injured. She told him her name, and then he in return told her his name was Cheyne.

From that day forth they met daily by the stream, and before a fortnight had gone he had asked her to marry him and she had consented. He was impulsive, chivalric, romantic; the man more than any other calculated to set on fire the heart of a girl who had been so repressed all her life.

He obtained a complete mastery over her. She submitted herself to his word as she had submitted herself to her mother's; only one submission was voluntary, joyous-the other a task, a burden. He made passionate speeches to her, explaining how, if they got married now, it must for his sake be kept an inviolate secret. She did not understand the reasons he gave, but she understood his wish-that no word of their marriage should go abroad then or it would injure him-and she made the necessary promise. She understood only one thing of the reason why their marriage should not be made known at present; and that was, that if it was known he had married a poor woman now, a property worth ten thousand a year might be taken from him. Whereas, under the will of his father, he would in a year or so come into more than would pay all his debts twice over.

He had told her the simple truth. If he had told her the simplest lie, it would have been just as satisfactory to her; for she did not think in any matter which concerned him. She was willing to do, to dare, to suffer anything for the love of him. So she took him at his word, and ran away with him on the understanding that they were to be married in some quiet out-of-the-way place, and that she was to say nothing of their marriage until he came into his fortune.

He brought her first to London, where she wrote that letter dictated by him. Then he took her to Anerly, where he married her. Between the time of his taking her away from the Gores' house until the ceremony at Anerly Church he treated her as though she were a foreign princess whom he was escorting to espouse a prince.

For a few months after the marriage the life of Harriet Cheyne went on like a dream of delight. Her husband was erratic; but he was kindly erratic. He never tired of inventing or devising some agreeable treat or pleasing wonder for her. They travelled much in England and on the Continent. Every place she went to was Fairyland, and he was the enchanter. He was never from her side. He told her he would rather hear her call his name than find the praise of all the world else within his ears. She was intoxicated with happiness, and could scarcely speak, her joy was so great. The black dreary past was more than a million times compensated for. When she lay down at night she dreaded to go to sleep, lest on waking she should find herself back in cold wretched Wyechester. Each waking of mornings was a new delivery from the past. She now knew how unwise her mother's treatment of her had been. But she forgave her; and often, when she woke at dead of night, she thought of her hard-faced stern mother at home, and a tear stole down her cheek-a tear of pity for the poor woman who had the misfortune to bring up a daughter that had acted with such perfect indifference to a mother's feelings.

But at last a sad change came. They were abroad. A letter arrived one day to her husband, saying that some of his enemies had got hold of the fact of his marriage, and were preparing to sell the information to his creditors. Something must be done at once. The bride and bridegroom were then at Brussels. It was essential he should set off at once for England, and under the circumstances it would be exceedingly dangerous for her to accompany him. So he went, giving her emphatic instructions not to leave Brussels, no matter what might happen, until she saw him or heard from him.

She never heard from him nor saw him afterwards.

He got to England safely, and reached Anerly, made an ineffectual attempt to bribe Goolby, left Anerly that day, and died within a couple of days. His death made a final settlement with his creditors, and whether he had married or not was no longer a matter of the least consequence to them.

At Brussels, Cheyne's child was born months afterwards. The mother, whose stock of money had by this time dwindled down to almost nothing, had saved a twenty-pound note, and this she gave to a woman whom she knew she could trust to bring her baby-boy to Wyechester to her mother; for she was dying, and knew it. She sent a very brief note with the boy, saying he had not been christened, that his name was Charles Augustus Cheyne, that she was dying, that she had been legally married, but that owing to circumstances the fact of her marriage could not be divulged. Then she appealed to her mother in very pathetic terms to be kind to the boy and provide for him, as she had no means, and had not heard of her husband for months. She also said she sent by bearer a sealed packet of letters and papers belonging to her husband, and begged her mother to keep it, and not to break the seals until some momentous occasion arose for doing so, as she was under important promises to her husband regarding certain matters reference to which was contained in the papers in the packet. Then there came a plea for forgiveness.

At first Mrs. Mansfield was filled with dismay. It was horrible to think of her daughter dying, deserted by the man who had taken her away, and dying in a foreign land too. There was of course an appeal for forgiveness in the letter; but to Mrs. Mansfield's mind the appeal came far too late, and even if it had come earlier it would have appeared an appeal to an affection of the flesh, which was in itself an offence against the spirit.

Mrs. Mansfield had tried to crush down Nature, but Nature was too strong for her; and when the messenger threw back the covering from the face of the infant, the tears, tears of the flesh, stood in her eyes, and her hand trembled. For that small, white, contented, sleeping baby-face reminded her of the time when her own infant lay in her own arms, and she speculated as to what her baby's future might be. And now here was her child's child; and the little one who had lain sleeping in her lap years ago, that seemed no farther off than yesterday, was dying in disgrace among strangers. Her own baby had come into the world sanctified, to her mind, by the very atmosphere in which it was born. Its father was an exemplar of what a man and a clergyman should be. There was every reason to suppose her baby would grow up into a woman who would be spoken of as a model of all a woman should be. Now here was her child's child. It was an unholy, an unrighteous child. There was no blessing or grace about it.

Ah, it was hard to hold that babe in her arms and think of her own child, and have a proper Christian feeling towards its father!

And the grandmother, who was not yet forty-five years of age, undid the baby's hood and passed her hand over the child's beating head, and touched the little fat double chin with her bent finger, softly pinched its white cheeks, and forgot for a while all that had happened since, and was back again in the old time.

Then all at once, as though God had taken pity on her, her tears began to fall, and she became less of a rigid Christian of the poor and narrow kind, and more of a Christian in light of the Sermon on the Mount and the story of the Good Samaritan. She said: "I'll take the boy and do my duty by him." She added after a pause: "I'll take the boy and do all I can for him," At that moment she did not so much want to do her own duty as to be good to him.

But when the messenger had gone, and she found herself alone with the baby, she receded somewhat from the advanced position she had taken. She had resolved for a few moments to keep the boy and live down the talk of idle tongues. Now that idea seemed no more than a temptation to give way to vainglory, and she resolved to send the boy away as speedily as possible.

She took the boy with her to a town a hundred miles from Wyechester, and had him there baptized Charles Augustus Cheyne. Subsequently she got a nurse for him, and, having made a liberal arrangement with the nurse, she said:

"I shall come and see you and him at irregular intervals; and whenever I come and find him looking well and comfortable, I will give you a guinea in addition to what I have arranged with you for."

By this she intended to secure the continual good treatment of the child; for though she had failed in her heroic resolve of living down talk of the idle tongues of Wyechester, she had made up her mind to be as good to the orphan as she could.

When she got home she found news awaiting her of the death of her daughter. She put away the thought of her daughter as much as she could from her mind; and, in a few years, when the boy was old enough to go to school, she went to that town again, and having requested an attorney to preserve secrecy in the matter, without giving him any reason for it, she asked the lawyer to find a school for the boy. Accordingly he was sent to the school kept by the old maid, and later to a college. Subsequently he was put to business in London; but from the time he left the place where he had been brought up, he had never seen his grandmother, and the early days at his nurse's had completely faded out of his memory.

The grandmother was now a very old woman. She still lived in her house at Wyechester. She had altered greatly in face and figure, but her nature had softened in no way with years. She was still as stiff and intellectually assured as ever she had been. She had the willing power of one hundred and fifty pounds a year; the other seventy died with her; and she had made this will in favour of Charles Augustus Cheyne, of Long Acre, in London. Although he had never within his memory heard her name, she had always taken care to know what he was doing, and how he was getting on.

She had even so far given way to worldliness as to read the publications to which he contributed; and as she read them she thought of how strange it should be that his grandfather was younger than his grandson when he died, and here was she now reading what the grandson had written!

But in all that Charles Augustus Cheyne had ever written, there was nothing so surprising as would have been the result of bringing together the sealed packet held by his grandmother, the registry of Anerly Church, and Charles Augustus Cheyne.