Читать книгу Barren Honour - George A. Lawrence - Страница 4

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A very central place is Newmanham, both by local and commercial position—a big, black, busy town, waxing bigger and blacker and busier day by day. For more than a century that Queen of Trade has worn her iron crown right worthily; her pulse beats, now, sonorously with the clang of a myriad of steam-hammers; her veins swell almost to bursting with the ceaseless currents of molten metals; and her breath goes up to heaven, heavy and vaporous with the blasts of many furnaces.

Whenever I pass that way, as a born Briton, an unit of a great mercantile nation, I feel or suppose myself to feel, a certain amount of pride and satisfaction in witnessing so many evidences of my country's wealth and prosperity; they are very palpable indeed, those evidences, and not one of the senses will be inclined to dispute their existence. If I chance to have an exiled Neapolitan prince, or a deposed grand-duke, or any other potentate in difficulties, staying with me (which, of course, happens constantly), I make a point of beguiling the illustrious foreigner into the dingy labyrinth of Newmanham, from which he escapes not till he has done justice to every one of its marvels. Nevertheless, as an individual whose only relations with commerce consist in always wanting to buy more things than one can possibly afford, and in never, by any chance, having anything to sell, except now and then a horse or two, more or less "screwed," or a parcel of ideas, more or less trivial—as such an one, I say, I am free to confess, that my first and abiding emotion, after being ten minutes in that great emporium, is a desolate sense of having no earthly business there, and of being very much in everybody's way—a sentiment which the natives seem perfectly to fathom and coincide with.

It is not that they make themselves in any wise disagreeable, or cast you forth with contumely from their hive. The operative element does not greet the stranger with the "'eave of a arf-brick," after the genial custom of the mining districts; neither is he put to confusion by a broad stare, breaking up into a broader grin, as sometimes occurs in our polite sea-port towns. A quick careless glance, as if the gazer had no time even for curiosity, is the worst ordeal you will have to encounter in passing a group of the inhabitants, whether at work, or by a rare chance, resting from their labours. There are "roughs" to be found there more dangerous, they say, than in most places: but these do not show much in daylight or frequented thoroughfares. They have their own haunts, and when the sun arises they lie down in their dens. In deed, the upper Ten Thousand—the great manufacturers and iron-founders or their representatives—will treat you with no small kindness, especially if you have letters of introduction: they will show you over their vast works and endless factories, adapting their conversation always to your limited capacity, becoming affably explanatory or blandly statistical, as the occasion demands, only indulging in a mild and discreet triumph, as they point out some unutterably hideous combination of steel and iron peculiar to their own establishment, which produces results as unexpected as a conjuring trick. Even so have we seen Mr. Ambrose Arcturus, the stout and intrepid voyager, beguile a Sabbath afternoon in exhibiting to a friend's child—to the officer of the day from the contiguous barracks—to a fair country cousin—or some other equally innocent and inquisitive creature—the treasures of the Zoological Society, not a few of which are the captives of his own bow and spear; lingering, perhaps fondly, for a moment, opposite a gigantic bivalve or mollusca which he is reported to have vanquished in single combat.

But, in spite of all this hospitality, the consciousness of being in a false position, of taking up people's time where time is money—in fact, of being rather a nuisance than otherwise—cannot easily be shaken off: the eye grows weary with seeking a resting-place where everything illustrates perpetual motion, and the brain dizzy with the everlasting tremor and whir of wheels. It is a positive relief when we find ourselves starting on one of the lines that radiate from Newmanham to every point of the compass, like the feelers of a cuttle-fish, always dragging in "raw material" to the voracious centre: it is an absolute luxury, an hour afterwards, to sweep on through the great grazing grounds again, and to see forty acres of sound, undulating pasture stretching away up to the black "bullfinch" that cuts the skyline.

You may easily guess what the political tone of such a borough must be: Liberalism of the most enlightened description flourishes there unchecked and unrivalled; for no Conservative candidate has yet been found so self-sacrificing as to solicit the suffrages of Newmanham. Were such an one to present himself, it is scarcely probable that the free and independent electors would content themselves with such playful missiles as graveolent eggs or decomposed cabbage-stalks: they would be more likely to revive, for his especial benefit, that almost obsolete argumentum a lapide which has silenced, if it did not convince, many obstinate enthusiasts—who, nevertheless, were not far from the truth, after all. In no other town of England are Mr. Bright's harangues received with such favour and sincere sympathy. When the santon-fit is on that meek Man of Peace, and carries him away in a flood of furious diatribe against "those who sit in high places and grind the faces of the poor," it is curious to remark how willingly and completely his audience surrender themselves to the influence of the hour. You may see the ground-swell of passion swaying and surging through the mass of operatives that pack the body of the hall, till every gaunt grimed face becomes picturesque in its savage energy: you have only to look round to be aware that education, and property, and outward respectability, are no safeguards against the contagion: it is spreading fast now through that phalanx of decent broad-clothed burghers on the platform, and—listen—their voices chime in with ominous alacrity in the cheer that rewards a peroration that in old days would have brought the speaker to the pillory.

That same cheer, once heard, is not easily forgotten: there is not the faintest echo of anything joyous, or kindly, or hopeful, in its accent; one feels that it issues from the depths of hearts that are more than dissatisfied—through lips parched with a fiery longing and thirst for something never yet attained. For what? God help them! they could not tell you—if they dared. Go to an agricultural dinner (farmers are the most discontented race alive, you know), mark the tumult among the yeomen when the health of the county favorite has been given, or rather intimated, for they knew what the speaker would say, and before he could finish, the storm of great, healthy voices broke in. Those two acclamations differ from each other more strikingly than does the full round shout of a Highland regiment "doubling" to charge, from the hoarse, cracked "hour-ra" of a squadron of Don Cossacks.

With these dispositions, you may conceive that, albeit Newmanham rather covets land as an investment (they make very fair and not unkindly seigneur, those Novi homines), she cherishes little love or respect for the landed interest, its representatives, and traditions. Yet, when a brother magnate from Tarenton or New Byrsa comes to visit one of these mighty burghers, to what object of interest does the host invariably first direct the attention of his honored guest? Deferring to another day the inspection of his own factory, and of all other town wonders, he orders round the gorgeous barouche, with the high-stepping greys, overlaid with as much precious metal as the Beautiful Gate, and takes the stranger fifteen miles away, to view the demesne which, through the vicissitudes of six centuries, has been the abiding-place of the Vavasours of Dene.

The house is not so ancient, nor does it stand on the site of the old Castle. All that would burn of that crumbled down in a whirlwind of flame, one black winter's night during the Wars of the Roses. There had long been a feud between the Vavasours and a neighboring family nearly as powerful and overbearing. Sir Hugh Mauleverer was a shrewd, provident man, and cool even in his desperation. When he saw signs of the tide turning against Lancaster, he determined to settle one score, at least, before he went to the wall. So, on New-Year's eve, when the drinking was deep, and they kept careless watch at Dene Castle, the Lancastrians came down in force, and made their way almost into the banqueting hall unopposed. Then there was a struggle—short, but very sharp. The retainers of the Vavasour, though taken by surprise, were all fully armed, and, partly from fidelity, partly because they feared their stern master more than any power of heaven or hell, partly because they had no other chance, fought like mad wild cats. However, three to one are heavy odds. All his four sons had gone down before him, and not a dozen men were left at his back, when Simon Vavasour struck his last blow. It was a good, honest, bitter blow, well meant and well delivered, for it went through steel and bone so deep into Hugh Mauleverer's brain that his slayer could not draw out the blade; the grey old wolf never stirred a finger after that to help himself, and never uttered a sound, except one low, savage laugh as they hewed him in pieces on his own hearth-stone. When the slaughter was over, the sack, of course, began, but the young Mauleverer, though heated by the fight, and somewhat discomposed by his father's death, could not forget the courtesy and charity on which he rather prided himself. So, when every living thing that had down on its lip was put out of pain, he would not suffer the women and children to be outraged or tortured, magnanimously dismissing them to wander where they would into the wild weather, with the flames of Dene Castle to light them on their way. Most of them perished before daybreak; but one child, a grandson of the baron's, was saved at the price of its mother's life. She stripped herself of nearly her last garment to cover the heir of her house, and kissed him once as she gave him to the strongest of the women to carry, and then lay down wearily in the snow-drift to die.

When Walter Vavasour came to manhood, the House of York was firm on the throne, and another manor or two rewarded his family for what it had suffered in their cause. He commenced building on the site of the present mansion; but it was reserved for his grandson (who married one of the greatest heiresses at the court of Henry VIII.) to complete the stately edifice as it now stands, at the cost of all his wife's fortune, and a good part of his own.

There are more dangerous follies than a building mania; and perhaps it would have been well for Fulke Vavasour if he had ruined himself more utterly in its indulgence. Poverty might have kept him out of worse scrapes. If he resembled his portrait, his personal beauty must have been very remarkable, though of a character more often found in Southern Europe than in England. The Saxon and Norman races rarely produce those long, dark, languid eyes, and smooth, pale cheeks, contrasted with scarlet lips, and black masses of silky hair. Fair form and face were fatal endowments in those hot-blooded days, when lovers set no bounds to their ambition, and une caprice de grande dame would have its way in spite of—or by means of—poison, cord, and steel. All sorts of vague rumors were current as to the real cause which brought the last Lord Vavasour to the scaffold. The truth can never be known; for, on the same night that he was arrested, a cavalier (whom no one recognized) came to the Dene; he showed the Baron's signet ring, and required to be left alone in his private chamber. The day was breaking when the stranger rode away; and an hour afterwards a pursuivant was in possession of the house, making, as is the fashion of his kind, minute perquisitions, when there was nothing left to search for. Doubtless all clue to the mystery was destroyed or removed before he came. But it may well be, that, if Fulke Vavasour was innocent of the plot for which he died, he was not guiltless of a darker one, with which statecraft had nothing to do. It is certain that his widow—a most excellent and pious young woman, one of the earliest Protestant converts, and a great friend of The Bishops—made little moan over the husband whom she had long wearied with her fondness; she never indeed mentioned his name, except from necessity, and then with a groan of reprobation. They endure neglect like angels, and cruelty like martyrs; but what dévote ever forgot or forgave an infidelity?

Let it be understood, that I quote this fact of the widow's scant regret just for what it is worth—a piece of presumptive evidence bearing upon a particular case, and in no wise illustrating a general principle. I am not prepared to allow, that a fair gauge of any deceased person's moral worth is invariably the depth or duration of the affliction manifested by his nearest and dearest.

The barony of course became extinct with the attainted traitor; but the broad lands remained; for the Tiger, in a fit of ultra-leonine generosity, not only disdained himself to fatten on his victim, but even kept off the jackals. Perhaps, the contracting heart of the unhappy jealous old tyrant was touched by some dim recollection of early chivalrous days, when he took no royal road to win the favor of woman or fortune, but met his rivals frankly and fairly, and either beat them on their merits, or yielded the prize.

The sins of the unlucky reprobate were not visited on his children. The estate gradually shook off the burden he had laid upon it, and during the four succeeding generations the prosperity of the Vavasours rather waxed than waned. Like the rest of the Cavaliers, they had to bear their share of trouble about the time of the Commonwealth; but they were too powerful to be forgotten when the king came to his own again. Indeed, there was a good deal of vitality about the family, though individually its members came curiously often to violent or untimely ends; and the domain had descended in unbroken male succession to its present owner with scarcely diminished acreage. Yet, from a period far beyond the memory of man, there had been no stint or stay in the lavish expense and stately hospitality which had always been maintained at Dene. Twice in the last hundred years the offer had been made of reversing the attainder, and reviving the ancient barony, and each time, from whim or some wiser motive, rejected. No minister had yet been found cool enough to proffer a baronetcy to those princes of the Squire-archy.

It is not worth while describing the house minutely. It was a huge, irregular mass of building, in the Tudor style, with rather an unusual amount of ornamental stonework; well placed near the centre of a very extensive park, and on the verge of an abrupt declivity. The most remarkable features in it were the great hall—fifty feet square, going right up to the vaulted roof, and girdled by two tiers of elaborately-carved galleries in black oak—and the garden-front. The architect had availed himself right well of the advantages of the ground, which (as I have said) sloped steeply down, almost from the windows; so that you looked out upon a succession of terraces—each framed in its setting of curiously-wrought balustrades—connected by broad flights of steps leading down to a quaint stone bridge spanning a clear, shallow stream. Beyond this lay the Plaisance, with its smooth-shaven grass, studded with islets of evergreens, and endless winding walks through shady shrubberies, issuing from which, after crossing a deep sunk-fence, you found yourself again among the great oaks and elms of the deer-park. If there had been no other attraction at Dene, the trees would have been worth going miles to see; indeed, the stanch adherents of the Vavasours always brought the timber forward, as a complete and crushing refutation of any blasphemer who should presume to hint that the family ever had been, or could be, embarrassed. The stables were of comparatively modern date, and quite perfect in their way; they harmonized with the style of the main building, though this was not of much importance, for the belt of firs around them was so dense, that a stranger was only made aware of their existence by a slender spire of delicate stonework shooting over the tree-tops, the pinnacle of a fountain in the centre of the court. The best point of view was from the farther end of the Plaisance.

Looking back from thence, you saw a picture hardly to be matched even amongst the "stately homes of England," and to which the Continent could show no parallel, if you traversed it from Madrid to Moscow. The grand old house, rising, grey and solemn, over the long sloping estrade of bright flowers, reminded one of some aged Eastern king reclining on his divan of purple, and silver, and pearl. No wonder that Dene was a favorite resort of the haute bourgeoisie of Newmanham on Mondays, when the public was admitted to the gardens, the state apartments, and the picture gallery; indeed, on any other day it was easy to gain admission if the Squire was at home, for Hubert Vavasour, from his youth upwards, had always been incapable of refusing anybody anything in reason. If "my lady" happened to be mistress of the position, success was not quite such a certainty.

I think we have done our duty by the mansion; it is almost time to say something about its inmates.