Читать книгу Henry Smeaton - G. P. R. James - Страница 4

We will now move, for a while, to a far distant scene, and go back to a somewhat earlier period of the year; for, having a violent objection to all stiff rules, I cannot even consent to bind myself by the very good advice of Count Antoine Hamilton--"Mon ami, toujours commencez par le commencement;" in which he differed from Horace, and a great many wonderful men of old.

On the western coast of England, and in one of the most beautiful parts of that beautiful coast, is a spot which I must describe, not only for the benefit of those who may profit by it, or of those who may love to identify any place they read of, with some place which they remember or imagine, but because many of the principal events of my tale occurred in the midst of that precise scene. Those who know the sea-board of Devonshire will, I think, have no difficulty in recognising the locality from certain distinctive marks.

The place to which I allude is a little bay, taking somewhat the form of a horse-shoe, and indenting the land deeply. It is formed by a high headland, on the south western side, which shelters it from the prevailing winds. The face of this promontory, to its very extreme point, is one precipitous cliff of cold grey stone, varying from six to nine hundred feet in height, rugged and broken indeed, but apparently pathless; and bold would be the man who should attempt to scale it; still bolder he who should seek to descend from the height above. This is called Ale Head; and the opposite limb of the bay consists of another promontory, not so steep or precipitous, indeed, but still lofty and scarped enough, which bears the name of Ale Down. Neither does it project so far into the sea from the general line of coast, which trends away to the eastward at no very abrupt angle. Protected thus on three sides by very high ground, and with only a somewhat narrow opening in one direction, the waters of that bay, during the greater part of the year, are as soft and tranquil as a dream of heaven; but they are very deep also, for the cliffs run down far below the low water-mark. Standing on the heights above, I have looked down, and beheld the sea lying beneath my feet, as smooth as a mirror and as blue as a sapphire. A hundred-gun ship could anchor in that bay, within pistol-shot of the cliffs of Ale Head.

Between the higher promontory and the lower, however, is a deep dell. I must not call it a valley; for the sides are too steep, and the concavity too narrow, to admit of that name. Down this dell flows a strong deep stream of beautifully clear water, over a rooky bed, from which a large quantity of sand is carried down, forming a soft dry landing-place, where the dell opens upon the bay. This little beach is not at all extensive, being, from the foot of the rock on the one side to the base of the hill on the other, not more than two hundred yards wide, and perhaps forty in depth. Through the centre of it flows the stream into the sea; and, twice a-day, ocean comes up to meet its tributary, covering by far the greater part of the sands.

There were then, and are now--at least I have never seen it without--some five or six boats hauled up on the shore, giving the first intimation which one receives on entering Ale Bay from the seaward, that that wild and lonely scene has human habitations near. But so it is; and, on each side of the little river, commencing at about a hundred yards from the mouth, and ending about a quarter of a mile farther up the dell, are built a number of fishermen's cottages, pressed between the steep hill-side on the one hand and the deep banks of the stream on the other. At various places down the dell, too, little bridges are built across from bank to bank; sometimes merely the trunk of a tree flattened on the side that lies uppermost--sometimes an ill-turned arch of roughly hewn stone. These are all foot-bridges, I need hardly say; for horse, cart, or carriage, never, I believe, ventured so far down the valley.

The next object, speaking of human life, which you see after the boats, on entering the bay, is the end of the lowest fisherman's hut, peeping out through the opening of the valley; but a moment or two afterwards, as you pull on, you will perceive upon the side of the hill to the south-west, if you raise your eyes in that direction, the gables and chimneys of a large old mansion, rising above a wood of considerable extent and luxuriance which clothes the valley nearly to the shore, for in that favoured climate vegetation does not shrink from the sea air; and at no great distance may be seen the trees actually dipping their branches in the waves. They wisely eschew, however, the cutting winds upon the hill top; and the high summit of Ale Head is as bare as the back of a tortoise, and well nigh as brown.

We must look a little more closely at the mansion, however. Let us suppose, then, that we have landed by the side of the stream, crossed the dry sands, and entered the little dell, with light clouds floating rapidly overhead and making the blue bay and the grey cliffs, and the brown downs above, sparkle with gleams like the sweet transitory hopes that brighten, as they pass, the hard stern features of this earthly life. Oh, ye bright visions of imagination, could one but grasp and arrest ye for an hour, how much happier, how much better, might man be!--what a different thing were life! But ye are of air, and only given us, in this stormy scene, to assure the sad and tempest-beaten heart that there is still sunshine above the clouds.

Walking on before the fishermen's cottages, along the very very narrow path, we come to a spot where the road extends, but is no longer carried on upon both sides of the stream. It mounts, too; the valley becomes less deep, more wide. The left, or south-western side, is covered with wood; the right slopes up sharply, clothed with short green sward. Suddenly, at about half-a-mile from the bay, a road branches off to the left, while that which you have been pursuing by the bank of the stream widens out and becomes a good sound carriage-road. We must take the left-hand road, however, which, forming an acute angle with the path by which we have arrived, seems as if its ultimate point, or terminus, as we should now corruptly call it, was destined to be the very highest and farthest part of the promontory of Ale Head. But it has no such ambitious notions; and, after rising somewhat abruptly for a little way, it runs on towards the sea, with a very slight inclination upwards, winding through the wood till, with a sharp turn to the right, it passes between two gates of hammered iron-work, supported upon stone columns, with large round globes on the top. Then come two or three little glades in a slight hollow of the hill, and then the old mansion, standing on a somewhat higher point. How can one describe it? It is but a collection of innumerable gables, and walls, and windows, built in the reign of Elizabeth, added to in the reign of James, left to go to decay during the Commonwealth, repaired and re-decorated under Charles II. It is all of the grey stone of the country; but the sea air, and the proximity of the woods, have tinged it with many colours, so that its aspect is not that of a venerable old man who has passed his life in peace and tranquillity, but rather like the weather-beaten face of an old sailor, bronzed and tinted by the wind and tempests.

Within, are many rooms and many passages; flights of steps go down, apparently merely for the purpose of going up again; and you are continually meeting doors and new rooms where nobody expected them. But many of these rooms are very handsome--spacious, lofty, and well-formed; and though, to say the truth, they would be more lightsome and cheerful were they not generally panelled with walnut or black oak--yet there is something fine and impressive in that dark carved wainscoting; and, when the sunshine steals in and brightens it, it is like a sweet smile upon the face of age.

In one of these large handsome rooms, upon the first floor above the ground, on a spring day in 1715, sat a girl of about eighteen years of age, in the dress of a highborn lady of that time. I need not, and had better not, describe it; for it was as stiff and as ugly a costume as ever was invented by the capricious taste of man. The character of an epoch is always displayed in the dress of the generation; and what could be expected from the dry gallantry of Louis the Fourteenth's latter days, and the stiff decorum of George the First's? Nevertheless, the most hard and unbending garments in which that fair form could be encased could never have repressed its wild grace or shackled its free light movements. Her maid complained that she burst more bodice-laces than any lady in the country; and it is a certain fact that her hair contrived to disentangle itself from combs and fillets, and sport in the wind like wreaths of smoke, more frequently than she herself wished or even knew. How it happened she could not tell, and she gave herself no great trouble to enquire; for her mind was often wandering after other things, sometimes with the eager sportiveness of a child after a butterfly, sometimes with steady and untiring thought, like a wayfarer on a long journey.

It must be said, too, in justice to her good taste, that she abhorred the vile fashions of the day in which she lived, and would often stand and contemplate the portraits of Vandyke, of which there were several in the house, or other older pictures still, and wonder by what curious process the mind of man had been led to abandon what is flowing and beautiful for that which is rigid and ugly. There was a refuge, however, even in the costume of those times, which saved part of the day from being spent in durance vile; and this was in what ladies called their night-clothes. The term, it is true, was a deceit; and the words, "night-clothes," meant merely a light and easy morning-dress, in which they often spent the early hours of the day before they dressed for parks and promenades. It was put on as soon as they rose in the morning, in exchange for the garments in which they had really passed the night. Sometimes they even went out in those, wrongly called, "night-clothes" before the conventional hour for appearing in public had arrived.

The young lady I have brought before the reader sat a little out of the sun-beams, which, pouring in, and painting the floor with moving tracery, fell also over the table before her; but her eyes could reach the blue sky and catch the clouds wafted over it, as with silent speed they hurried along upon the wings of the wind. It was very still and quiet in that wide high room. The birds could be heard singing without; the busy little flies, those most wonderful pieces of mechanism, buzzed about the windows; and a clock at the top of the stairs ticked faintly. But these were all the sounds; and they seemed only to soothe the silence.

The lady stirred not, spoke not, but sat with her elbow leaning on the table, her cheek, warmly tinged with the rose, resting upon her white hand, the "fringed curtains of her eyes" raised up, and the bright, soft, hazel orbs themselves elevated towards the deep sunshiny heavens. A book was on the table; but she read it not. There was a mandolin in the corner; but she touched it not. Her thoughts were very busy; and her heart was with her thoughts. Yet the images, the questions, the answers which were presented to her mind, touched not upon those topics which any one who did not know her would suppose. She was in the bright expanding time of life, the spring of existence, when the opening bosom of the rose courts the bee. But yet she thought not of love. She knew it not; hardly by name, not at all by sensation, although the young heart will yearn for that which was the only want in Eden's garden when Adam was first formed. It was not of the gay ball, the play, the promenade, or any of the fashionable amusements of the day; for of them she was as ignorant as of love; but problems which have puzzled many an aged philosopher were present to her mind, though not stated in the most philosophical manner. Wildly and strangely they rose, like the fantastic forms of clouds; and she chased them eagerly in thought, as a child chases the fleeting shadows that mock his speed.

"What am I?" she asked herself. "Of what strange elements composed? Body and spirit, soul and mind! What are these things? Is the body the spirit's slave, or the spirit's jailor--servant or master? I can perceive nothing but what it will permit me to perceive. Through its means must be all my communications with things animate or inanimate. There it rules and triumphs. There it is the tyrant, the jailor; and yet I can close my eyes, and the spirit, as if free from its hard bondage, can wing its flight afar into that bright blue sky, and question the heavens as to what is between myself and them. Can it be that the human race is the great pausing point of God's creation, and that between us and Him there is one vast void, untenanted, inanimate? Or is yonder wide expanse of air, the stars, the heavens, the universe, peopled with beings that I see not? Are there spirits in those clouds that skim like ivory chariots through the sky? Are there creatures of light and joy, now sporting with the sun-beams, or resting under the green leaves of the wood? If so, is it possible that there is no means of communication between me and them, that this body is a barrier between the spirit that I feel within it, and the host of spirits thronging around me? Strange, strange existence? what art thou, what am I?"

On went the mind in the same course, inquiring, eager, keen, but untutored and unsatisfied. All the great problems of human existence seemed to crowd upon imagination and demand an answer from that which cannot give it.

These were strange thoughts for a girl of eighteen; but yet perhaps not unnatural for a quick and active spirit in the circumstances which surrounded her. The heart had no occupation to give; and it was impossible that imagination could rest idle. They were strange thoughts certainly; but such were the thoughts of Emmeline.

She was without companionship. She had none whom she could call friends around her. The poor fishermen of the village of Ale were her nearest neighbours. There was none in the house with her with whom she could exchange thought. It had been so during many years, and her mind carried her back to little else than the same state. Far, far away, in the distant past, images like phantoms were seen by the eye of memory--sweet and pleasant images, too, but faint and ill-defined; beings that she loved, forms that hung over her with affection, voices that sounded musical even in remembrance; but she saw them as through a glass; she could not approach nearer; she could not trace them more distinctly. It was like the sight of a distant land beheld across the sea, pleasant to view, but not to be reached, with the waves flowing between the beholder and it.

After that, and after a succeeding period of darkness, in which she perceived nothing, the figure of a venerable old man, the poor curate of the parish, came on her memory. She remembered him well. He had taught her much, and had seemed to regard her with peculiar tenderness and affection. He had instructed her to think, and to delight in thought; to read, and to ponder on what she read; for she had never received what may be called the trifling parts of a woman's education. Masters, it is true, had been procured for her from neighbouring towns; but they were dull, heavy, material teachers. The only one who had really instructed her was that old clergyman. But now he was gone, and she was without a guide, for the man who had succeeded was a fat and jovial priest who loved the material much more than the mental, and whose weekly sermon laid a heavier burden on the shoulders of his spirit than it was well able to bear. He sought not to acquire or to communicate knowledge, except as to where good wine was given or good punch brewed, or where, and at what hour, the savoury haunch was roasted.

I have said that the old clergyman had taught her much; but there was one subject on which he had taught her nothing: her own fate and history. He had studiously avoided it, suffering--perhaps unwillingly, but still intentionally--the facts of the past to drop from memory. She had sometimes inquired, it is true, but he had always stopped her gravely, and circumstances had occurred to make her think even at the early age of fourteen, which she had reached when he died, that he had been bound by some promise to forbear all such information. She even sometimes suspected that his silence as to her history was part of a compact--the condition on which he was permitted to visit and instruct her.

But with whom was the compact? Probably with that swarthy man who is now walking on the terrace below, booted and spurred as for a journey, and waiting for his horses to be brought round. There is nothing very remarkable in his appearance. His face is not forbidding, his features not ill-formed, though his eyes are perhaps somewhat too near together, and the pupils too small, as if they were always in excess of light. He is about the middle height, stout, but not corpulent, and perhaps fifty years of age. His air and manner are those of a gentleman, his dress rich and costly. He is altogether a good-looking middle aged man, but with a certain look of over-shrewdness that might perhaps warn men to be careful in their dealings with him. This is Sir John Newark, the possessor of Ale Manor-House and estates.

Emmeline could not remember when she had first seen him. It was too far back for memory; but she knew that she was not his child. She felt it too, and he always called himself her guardian. By that term he did not mean her tyrant, for he was kind to her, as kind as a man of a cold, calculating, selfish nature could be. Nor was he altogether an unpleasant companion; for, though he had not the slightest spark of imagination, and fancy with him was a bird without wings--though he could not even comprehend the existence of imagination in others, and still less any of the generous and thoughtless impulses of the heart--yet he had a good stock of information upon many subjects, conversed well, and had seen a great deal of the world. He did not in the least understand the character of Emmeline; but yet, as I have said, he was kind to her, and even indulgent. She had her horses to ride, her servants to attend upon her. She was allowed to roam about, through the woods, over the hills, down to the fishermen's cottages, and even to the neighbouring towns. All the restraints he placed upon her were such as the customs of society in that day justified, if they did not require. She was not permitted to visit any house, unless accompanied by an elderly woman, whom he had placed about her, and who acted the part of duenna with much skill and discretion. When she went to the small town of Seaford, she was always well accompanied, and was never out of sight of some one, except while in Ale Manor-House or Park. There she was at full liberty; and she enjoyed it.

It must not be supposed that she thought Sir John's restraints very hard; she knew that they were in some degree customary; and he had always good reasons to give for every regulation. He would often talk with her on such subjects in the evening, when they sat alone; but there were two or three points which he strove to impress strongly upon her mind, and which created doubts and enquiries; for I must not call them suspicions. He had a great dislike to foreigners--no matter what their class; and when any even of the fishermen or smugglers from the Coast of France visited the little village of Ale, as was sometimes the case, he enjoined Emmeline strictly to hold no communication with them, but to keep herself within the walls of the Park, and to receive nothing from their hands, even though sent as a present.

"You are not fond of gauds or laces, Emmeline," he would say; "that I know right well; but you might think it discourteous to refuse any little gift, presented with the grace which all these men have. Remember, however, these things are never offered without an object, and that generally an evil one."

At first, when she was very young, she listened to these injunctions with unquestioning reverence; but as she grew older and read much, she began first to doubt whether he was not prejudiced, and then, from his constant recurrence to the same theme, to imagine that he had some motive which he did not utter; for she had already discovered, by his dealings with others, that he seldom acted or spoke without a personal object. We too often forget that we teach children our own characters, as well as other things, and that each day is a lesson.

One evening, when perhaps, such thoughts were in her mind, she said, in a musing sort of way, that she should like to see foreign lands and foreigners in their own country. The start that he gave alarmed her; but he answered nothing at the time, remaining, during the whole of the rest of the evening, in deep and somewhat gloomy reverie.

The night following, however, he returned to the subject himself, speaking in a grave but kindly tone, and evidently upon a plan. It seemed as if he had made up his mind to enter upon a subject which he would rather have avoided, and had weighed every word he was to utter.

"You told me last night, Emmeline," he said, "that you should like to visit foreign countries. You know not what you wish, my child. To do so would be your destruction."

"Then I will wish it no longer," she answered, with a bright look, followed by a momentary shade as she added--"But I did not know, I had not heard, that foreigners were so wicked, or their lands so evil. Indeed, I had read of many a high and noble act amongst them, and fancied they were much like Englishmen, only speaking another tongue."

"Far different, Emmeline, and far inferior," answered Sir John Newark; "but, if that were all, I should little care, and would take you readily to some gay foreign court to let you judge of the difference."

"I have seen no courts as yet," replied Emmeline, "and little wish to see them."

"You shall soon," said her guardian; "for it is needful that every woman should see courts who is destined to move in the higher sphere of life. But, to return to what I was saying. To visit foreign lands might be--nay, inevitably would be--your destruction. Some time ere long, and certainly when you marry, I will tell you the whole history of your family. It would be improper now to do so; but thus much I may tell you, that there are pertinacious enemies of your race living beyond the seas, whose anxious dearest wishes would be gratified if they could but get you into their power."

"What would they do with me?" asked Emmeline, simply.

The question seemed to puzzle him; and he paused for an instant, in dark meditation.

"I cannot tell," he said; "but all I know is, that they have ruined many by their schemes. You are the last that remains to destroy. They might indeed," he added, in a thoughtful considering tone, "they might indeed, in consideration of your youth and innocence, restrain themselves to shutting you up in a convent, never to come forth again."

"That would be worse than death," replied Emmeline.

But he went on, not seeming to listen to her.

"Their object might be attained by that means as well as by others; and it is, probably, the course they would take, if they could make all so sure and irrevocable that no chance of your ever appearing again in the world would be left. If they could put you to this living death, they might be content."

Emmeline shuddered, and gazed at him with a look of fear.

"My only care is for you, dear child," he went on to say. "So long as I live, I will defend and protect you. When you are married, your husband, whoever he may be, will do the same; but till then, be warned, my Emmeline. Avoid, as you would a person with the plague, all persons from beyond the seas; for there is no art nor violence to which your enemies would not have recourse, if they saw even a chance of success. Hitherto I have guarded you, and will continue to do so; but you are old enough now to take precautions on your own behalf. I have warned you of the danger; keep it ever in mind, and strive to avoid it by every means in your power."

Emmeline answered not, but remained with her eyes cast down and her fair brow bent, as if in earnest thought, till he asked, somewhat sharply--

"Do you hear me, Emmeline? I said, 'strive to avoid this danger by every means.'"

"I will, I will indeed," exclaimed Emmeline, clasping her hands together; but, the next instant, she burst into tears, and ran out of the room.

Her guardian's only observation to himself was--

"It has had more effect than I expected; but it is quite as well."

Great, indeed, was the effect; for it produced the first fear her mind had ever known. She was not aware till then that she had an enemy upon earth. Every human being seemed to love her; all had been kind to her; even the rude, dull, obtuse son of her guardian, a lad about seventeen years of age, somewhat deficient in intellect, was fond of, and gentle with, her; and, when at home (which was seldom, for he was kept at a school in London in the hope of strengthening and brightening his dull and feeble mind), Emmeline could do anything with him. He would sit beside her, choosing by preference a footstool near her feet, listening to all she said, talking to her in return, and seeming to gain some brightness from her light. All had seemed friendly to her; all had seemed kind. But now she found she had an enemy--an enemy of the most dark and irreconcilable kind--an enemy without a cause. It was very terrible to her; and even the vagueness of the information she had received--the dark obscure hints, which merely shadowed forth the passions, and the danger, and the person, added to the horror. It was in vain she attempted to nerve her heart against all fears, or to scan the things which surrounded her in order to discover where any real peril lay, and of what nature it was; her mind was like a timid person wandering in the dark, and casting his eyes round only to find objects of terror for the sight of fancy. All she knew was, that she had an enemy, dark, mysterious, malignant; but that was quite enough to depress, and agitate, and terrify her.

The heart of youth, however, has a restorative power which does not easily fail; and the effect of the words which had been spoken to her, though permanent, was greatly softened during the two or three months which had passed since their utterance. She had taken refuge in thoughts and fancies; she had read more than before, dreamed more--waking, I mean--and had found solace in such occupations. She confined herself more to the park, however; seemed anxious to have more people with her when she went beyond its precincts; and kept altogether to the house, unbidden, for two whole days, when she was told that a foreign cutter was in Ale Bay. Her guardian remarked this conduct, and was well pleased, and now, when he was setting out for London upon business which seemed of importance, from the thoughtful brow which he bore for two days before his departure, he left her, convinced that the apprehensions which he had instilled would act as perfect safeguards during his absence. As she sat there, gazing up towards the sky, Emmeline did not know that he was actually about to depart; for he was not fond of leave-takings, and seldom said farewell when he went away. A minute or two after, however, she heard the sound of the feet of several horses, and, running to the window, saw Sir John Newark in the act of mounting, with two or three servants around him, and a pack-horse held by a man on foot. Her guardian raised his eyes to the window as soon as he was in the saddle; and Emmeline waved her hand, saying, "Adieu!" He merely nodded his head, however, and rode away, leaving her the mistress of the house, and apparently of her own actions.