Читать книгу The White Prior - Fergus Hume - Страница 4

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With the impatient egotism of six-and-twenty, Gilbert Tresham assumed that he was hardly treated in being relegated to a country life, shelved as it were, at the fighting age of intellectuality; and, but for the small matter of poverty, he would have remained by preference in London. A novel, a play, a volume of poems, a book of essays, on these rested his hopes of fortune and fame; but as all had been rejected by the publishers, his prudence, inherited from a Scotch mother, inclined him to fall back on his teaching capabilities. He lacked money, friends, and influence; so cautiously resolved to wait, until he had one of the three, at least, to aid his ambition. With characteristic promptitude, he acted on this resolution, and hence found himself in a second-class smoking carriage on his way to a tutorial appointment at Marlow. Foolhardiness is not valour, and Gilbert, who was difficult to please in the matter of literary form and style, acted wisely in declining Grub Street and its pot-boiling work.

This he knew, and was content to abide by his decision; yet, so hard was the battle of inclination against common-sense, that he could not suppress a sigh, as the train slid out of the bustling station; and later emerged from the canopy of smoke which overhangs London’s lights, into the fertile country.

To create characters for stage and novel was more tempting to one of his imaginative temperament than to instruct the intellect of a dull lad; and without looking forward with absolute repugnance to his task, Gilbert had but little relish for the employment to which he was condemned for want of money. The most masterful spirit cannot always control the rebellious flesh, and the young man had considerable difficulty in forcing himself to take a calm view of his situation.

He had opportunity to indulge his disgust without restraint, as the compartment was tenanted solely by himself; but in place of wasting time and strength in futile rage, be threw himself on the cushions and, lighting his pipe, abandoned himself to philosophical reflections. With the lucidity of a trained thinker, he reviewed his life so far, from what he remembered of his childish years, to his present position in the twenties. Between that and this had occurred the many events which made him the man he was.

Hitherto, to use a hackneyed image, his life had resembled a placidly flowing river pursuing its course over a smooth bed, through peaceful plains. If he had not known wealth, he had not felt the sting of poverty and from nursery to school, from school to college, from college to London, he had had a singularly uneventful career. To recur to the above-mentioned image, no shoals had impeded his course, no rocks had fretted the even flow of his waters, but on and on his days, like the stream, had glided unchecked, unvaried, undisturbed. But now the river of years was rounding a curve, and it was impossible to prognosticate in what tortuous windings it might flow.

Left an orphan at an early age, Tresham had been consigned to the care of a bookish uncle who was the rector of a Devonshire parish. His father, a captain in the army, had perished in one of the frontier wars of the Empire, and had shortly been followed to the other world by his attached wife. Kind friends dispatched the orphan of three years to the care of the Rev. Simon Tresham, his paternal uncle; and henceforth, to the age of seventeen, Gilbert had dwelt on the verge of Exmoor. His relative, a kindly old creature, albeit rather given to dry-as-dust pursuits, had taught the lad excellently well; and when he was entered at Exeter College there were few undergraduates possessed of sounder learning, or a wider range of subjects.

The sombre existence in that quiet rectory had somewhat shadowed the spirit of the lad, and he was grave beyond his years. Though no mean athlete, as was testified by his well-knit frame, he affected the library and class-room rather than the river and cricketfield; being resolved, as he early stated, to devote himself to literature. To this end he studied hard, and left Oxford with a brilliant record and an M.A. degree. Thence, with the approbation of his uncle, he repaired to London, and in a shabby Bloomsbury lodging sought to amplify his scholastic lore by a knowledge of city life.

Gifted with talent, and scholarship, and indomitable perseverance, he would doubtless have achieved those first difficult steps of Fame’s ladder; but that Fortune, as though regretting her former liberality, placed a hindrance in his path. Hardly had he been settled a year in London when his uncle died, and Gilbert hurried down to the Exmoor rectory to find himself a friendless pauper. What small income the Rev. Simon Tresham possessed died with him, and, with the exception of two hundred pounds, the young aspirant to letters was without funds. Nevertheless, such an amount seemed riches to one of his habits, and he re-entered the turmoil of London with every hope that he would be enabled to gain bread by his pen, before his capital vanished.

But as time was the most necessary of all things to complete the magic draught of Mephistopheles, so is time requisite to gain a name and fortune. The first unsteady steps in the literary profession are very slow, and require to be well planted in order to avoid a retrograde movement. A man may have the genius of Shakespere, the perseverance of a factory-begotten millionaire, and yet remain years in London without being able to thrust his head and shoulders above the thronging millions of the city. No doubt to such a one the chance comes, but Gilbert could not afford to wait for the propitious moment. With the strictest economy he was unable to make his money last for more than eighteen months, and with the utmost perseverance he failed to get a book published, or a play read. Many men would have fought their way onward with the strength of despair, but Tresham was sufficiently wise to see that such penury and hasty work would strangle his small measure of genius. He was not a great man, and at the best possessed only a bright and lively fancy which, polished by culture, might enable him to arrest the ear of the public. To speak honestly, he lacked power, and his literary ramblings were rather produced by artificial incubation than by material inspiration. His small creative germ was amplified and polished and tended until it grew into a bright flowering shrub, pretty enough to look at, but without the enduring qualities or grandeur of the oak. He worked slowly, and polished incessantly, so above all things required time to produce his works in a sufficiently dainty guise to attract attention. Hitherto, despite all efforts, his delicate wares had met with no appreciation, and when his money dwindled down to a score of pounds he found himself compelled either to renounce his ambition of moderate fame, or—sad alternative—to resign himself to the heart-breaking profession of a literary hack.

Then his maternal inheritance of prudence came to his aid, and he resolved to make use of his teaching capacities to gain bread. In the retirement of such a situation, he thought, he would be able to produce and send forth his fragile literary children, and at the same time be enabled to live comfortably and take time over his work. To this end he inserted an advertisement in several newspapers announcing his qualifications as a tutor, and after many disappointments was engaged by Mr. Vincent Harley of the Priory, Berkshire, to instruct his son and heir in the rudiments of the classics. The wage offered was small but certain, so Gilbert, not without regret, turned his back on literary London and took a second-class ticket for Marlow. From this brief review it will easily be seen that the comparison of his life to a river, smooth flowing and tranquil, is not lacking in point.

Having endowed a hero with but mediocre talents, eked out by indefatigable industry, and a vein of prudence, justice demands that his physical attributes should make amends for his mental deficiencies. But alas! Tresham was no Greek god of supernal beauty, and would be scorned by the frantic lady novelist, who draws her hero with the brain of Plato and the looks of Alcibiades. Again must Tresham sink to the level of the mediocrities, for he was simply a long-limbed, well-looking youth, with a kind face and an attractive manner. There are as many as good as he in England, for, despite the wailings of pessimists, our country produces as fine a crop of honourable stalwart lads as ever it did; and our little wars in savage lands show that English pluck and honour are as noticeable characteristics of our men of to-day as they ever were in the golden times of Elizabeth, and no higher character than this is necessary to any Englishman, much less to modest Gilbert Tresham. Once and for all in Amyas Leigh did Kingsley set forth the noble qualities of our islanders, and it were folly to add to or to take away aught from that grand type of our race.

It being thus stated that Tresham was a well-educated, athletic, and honourable English lad, there is nothing more to be said in his favour or against him. He lay on his back watching the yellow gaslight looming through clouds of smoke; and having grumbled a while, as is the fashion and privilege of our insular youth, shook himself free of regrets, and addressed himself to take an intelligent interest in his journey through the fertile lands of Berkshire.

It was a wet night, and the driving rain blurred the window-panes so that he could see nothing. Sometimes the lights of a village twinkled through the gloom as the train rattled past, but for the most part there was nothing but fields and hedgerows looming indistinctly on either side. Tresham found no interest in such monotony, and so betook himself to the re-reading of a letter from his friend Barstone, who had been mainly instrumental, along with the advertisement, in procuring him the appointment. The letter, among other things, hinted at the quality of the inmates he might expect to find in the Priory.

“Harley is a quiet old man,” said the letter, “rather whimsical and bookish. For weeks he will shut himself up in his library and see no one; then throw open his house, and invite the country-side. He is attended by an old valet called Jasper, with whom you should make friends, as he is all-powerful in the house—a dumb creature he is, savage and morose; and, evidently fearful of losing his influence over Harley, watches him as a cat does a mouse. He resembles a Turkish mute, misanthropic, silent, and evil. The housekeeper is a lady-like personage, whom I have only seen once, but is very melancholy, and looks like a mediaeval abbess of some especially strict convent. And talking about convents, Harley’s house, as you can guess by its name ‘The Priory,’ formerly had something to do with Catholicism. It is said to be haunted by the ghost of a guilty monk—though in what his guilt consists I don’t know. At all events, my dear Tresham, he strolls about the grounds at night, and if you are afraid of ghosts don’t go near the west wing. Your pupil is a pale-faced, delicate lad, who seems to me to have water on the brain; but you will no doubt find him easy enough to deal with. His sister Fay is—an angel.”

From this point the letter resolved itself into a series of ecstatic paragraphs about the said young lady, and Tresham had no difficulty in seeing that his friend Barstone was in love with her. The college career of that young man had been chequered by numerous episodes of a like nature. “And no doubt he will marry the girl,” thought he, returning the letter to his pocket. “It will be an excellent match, as Barstone’s acres lie contiguous to those of Harley’s. I wonder he doesn’t warn me against falling in love with Miss Harley. But there’s no fear of that, and even if there were, I should curb my passion, as she certainly would not look twice at a poor tutor.”

By this time the train had reached Bourne End, and Gilbert transferred himself and his baggage to the Marlow train. The progress of this latter was sufficiently slow, but he amused himself in speculating on the characters of the four people with whom he was to spend the next few years. The idea that the Priory was haunted appealed to the superstitious side of his nature, and he was quite determined on exploring the west wing. “Don’t nail his ear to the pump,” cried the old woman of the culprit, and it was immediately done. “Don’t go near the west wing,” wrote Barstone, and Gilbert forthwith determined to pay an early visit to the same.

At Marlow station he found a carriage awaiting him, and he was soon rolling over the bridge towards the Priory. On either side rose houses and hedgerows—these gave place to an avenue of trees—then between massive stone pillars the carriage passed into the grounds of his new home. As it stopped at the porch the door opened and a flood of yellow light poured forth; “a good omen,” quoth Gilbert, the superstitious “light in darkness.”