Читать книгу The Interpreter - A Tale of the War - George J. Whyte-Melville - Страница 16

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A dreary old place was Alton Grange, and one which would have had a sobering, not to say saddening, effect, even on the most mercurial temperament. To one naturally of a melancholy turn of mind, its aspect was positively dispiriting. Outside the house the grounds were overgrown with plantations and shrubberies, unthinned, and luxuriating into a wilderness that was not devoid of beauty, but it was a beauty of a sombre and uncomfortable character. Every tree and shrub of the darkest hues, seemed to shut out the sunlight from Alton Grange. Huge cedars overshadowed the slope behind the house; hollies, junipers, and yew hedges kept the garden in perpetual night. Old-fashioned terraces, that should have been kept in perfect repair, were sliding into decay with mouldering walls and unpropped banks, whilst a broken stone sun-dial, where sun never shone, served but to attract attention to the general dilapidation around.

It was not the old family place of the Egertons. That was in a northern county, and had been sold by my father in his days of wild extravagance, long ago; but he had succeeded to it in right of his mother, at a time when he had resolved, if possible, to save some remnant from the wreck of his property, and, when in England, he had resided here ever since. To me it was home, and dearly I loved it, with all its dulness and all its decay. The inside corresponded with the exterior. Dark passages, black wainscotings, everywhere the absence of light; small as were the windows, they were overhung with creepers, and the walls were covered with ivy; damp in winter, darkness in summer, were the distinguishing qualities of the old house. Of furniture there was but a scanty supply, and that of the most old-fashioned description: high-backed chairs of carved oak, black leathern fauteuils, chimney-pieces that the tallest housemaid could never reach to dust, would have impressed on a stranger ideas of anything but comfort, whilst the decorations were confined to two or three hideous old pictures, representing impossible sufferings of certain fabulous martyrs; and one or two sketches of my father's, which had arrived at sufficient maturity to leave the painting-room, and adorn the every-day life of the establishment.

The last-named apartment was cheerful enough: it was necessarily supplied with a sufficiency of daylight, and as my father made it his own peculiar den, and spent the greater part of his life in it, there were present many smaller comforts and luxuries which might have been sought elsewhere in the house in vain. But no room was ever comfortable yet without a woman. Men have no idea of order without formality, or abundance without untidiness. My father had accumulated in his own particular retreat a heterogeneous mass of articles which should have had their proper places appointed, and had no business mixed up with his colours, and easel, and brushes. Sticks, whips, cloaks, umbrellas, cigar-boxes, swords, and fire-arms were mingled with lay-figures, models, studies, and draperies, in a manner that would have driven an orderly person out of his senses; but my father never troubled his head about these matters, and when he came in from a walk or ride, would fling his hat down in one corner of the room, the end of his cigar in another, his cloak or whip in a third, and begin painting again with an avidity that seemed to grow fiercer from the enforced abstinence of a few hours in taking necessary exercise. My poor father! I often think if he had devoted less attention to his art, and more to the common every-day business of life, which no one may neglect with impunity, how much better he would have succeeded, both as a painter and a man.

He was hard at work when I came home from school. I knew well where to find him, and hurried at once to the painting-room. He was seated at his easel, but as I entered he drew a screen across the canvas, and so hid his work from my inquiring gaze. I never knew him do so before; on the contrary, it had always seemed his greatest desire to instil into his son some of his own love for the art; but I had hardly time to think of this ere I was in his arms, looking up once more in the kind face, on which I never in my whole life remembered to have seen a harsh expression. He was altered, though, and thinner than when I had seen him last, and his hair was now quite grey, so that the contrast with his flashing dark eye—brighter it seemed to me than ever—was almost unearthly. His hands, too, were wasted, and whiter than they used to be, and the whole figure, which I remembered once a tower of strength, was now sunk and fallen in, particularly about the chest and shoulders. When he stood up, it struck me, also, that he was shorter than he used to be, and my heart tightened for a moment at the thought that, he might be even now embarking on that long journey from which there is no return. I remembered him such a tall, handsome, stalwart man, and now he seemed so shrunk and emaciated, and quite to totter and lean on me for support.

"You are grown, my boy," said he, looking fondly at me; "you are getting quite a man now, Vere; it will be sadly dull for you at the Grange: but you must stay with your old father for a time—it will not be for long—not for long," he repeated, and his eye turned to the screened canvas, and a glance shot from it that I could hardly bear to see—so despairing, yet so longing—so wild, and yet so fond. I had never seen him look thus before, and it frightened me.

Our quiet meal in the old oak parlour—our saunter after dinner through the dark walks and shrubberies—all was so like the olden time, that I felt quite a boy again. My father lighted up for a time into his former good spirits and amusing sallies, but I remarked that after every flash he sank into a deeper dejection, and I fancied the tears were in his eyes as he wished me good-night at the door of the painting-room. I little thought when I went to bed that it was now his habit to sit brooding there till the early dawn of morning, when he would retire for three or four hours to his rest.

So the time passed away tranquilly and dully enough at Alton Grange. My father was ever absorbed in his painting, but studied now with the door locked, and even I was only admitted at stated times, when the mysterious canvas was invariably screened. My curiosity, nay more, my interest, was intensely excited; I longed, yet feared, to know what was the subject of this hidden picture; twenty times was I on the point of asking my father, but something in his manner gave me to understand that it was a prohibited subject, and I forbore. There was that in his bearing which at once checked curiosity on a subject he was unwilling to reveal, and few men would have dared to question my father where he did not himself choose to bestow his confidence.

I read much in the old library; I took long walks once more by myself; I got back to my dreams of Launcelot and Guenever, and knights and dames, and "deeds of high emprize." More than ever I experienced the vague longing for something hitherto unknown, that had unconsciously been growing with my growth, and strengthening with my strength,—the restless craving of which I scarcely guessed the nature, but which weighed upon my nervous, sensitive temperament till it affected my very brain. Had I but known then the lesson that was to be branded on my heart in letters of fire,—could I but have foreseen the day when I should gnaw my fetters, and yet not wish to be free,—when all that was good, and noble, and kindly in my nature should turn to bitter self-contempt, and hopeless, helpless apathy,—when love, fiercer than hatred, should scorch and sting the coward that had not strength nor courage to bear his burden upright like a man,—had I but known all this, I had better have tied a millstone round my neck, and slept twenty feet deep below the mere at Beverley, than pawned away hope, and life, and energy, and manhood, for a glance of her dark eyes, a touch of her soft hand, from the heiress of Beverley Manor.

Yes, Alton Grange was distant but a short walk from Beverley. Many a time I found myself roaming through the old trees at the end of the park, looking wistfully at the angles and turrets of the beautiful Manor House, and debating within myself whether I ought or ought not to call and renew an acquaintance with the family that had treated me so kindly after the scrape brought on by Bold's insubordination. That favourite was now a mature and experienced retriever, grave, imperturbable, and of extraordinary sagacity. Poor Bold! he was the handsomest and most powerful dog I ever saw, with a solemn expression of countenance that denoted as much intellect as was ever apparent on the face of a human being. We were vastly proud of Bold's beauty at the Grange, and my father had painted him a dozen times, in the performance of every feat, possible or impossible, that it comes within the province of a retriever to attempt. Bold was now my constant companion; he knew the way to Beverley as well as to his own lair in my bed-room, where he slept. Day after day he and I took the same road; day after day my courage failed me at the last moment, and we turned back without making the intended visit. At last, one morning, while I strolled as usual among the old trees at one extremity of the park, I caught sight of a white dress rounding the corner of the house, and entering the front door. I felt sure it could only belong to one, and with an effort that quite surprised even myself, I resolved to master my absurd timidity, and walk boldly up to call.

I have not the slightest recollection of my ringing the door-bell, nor of the usual process by which a gentleman is admitted into a drawing-room; the rush of blood to my head almost blinded me, but I conclude that instinct took the place of reason, and that I demeaned myself in no such incoherent manner as to excite the attention of the servants, for I found myself in the beautiful drawing-room, which I remembered I had thought such a scene of fairyland years before, and seated, hat in hand, opposite Miss Beverley.

She must have thought me the stupidest morning visitor that ever obtained entrance into a country-house; indeed, had it not been for the good-natured efforts of an elderly lady with a hooked nose, who had been her governess, and was now a sort of companion, Miss Beverley would have had all the conversation to herself; and I am constrained to admit that once or twice I caught an expression of surprise on her calm sweet face, that could only have been called up by the very inconsequent answers of which I was guilty in my nervous abstraction. I was so taken up in watching and admiring her, that I could think of nothing else. She was so quiet and self-possessed, so gentle and ladylike, so cool and well-dressed. I can remember the way in which her hair was parted and arranged to this day. She seemed to me a being of a superior order, something that never could by any possibility belong to the same sphere as myself. She was more like the picture of Queen Dido than ever, but the queen, happy and fancy free, with kindly eyes and unruffled brow; not the deceived, broken-hearted woman on her self-selected death-bed. I am not going to describe her—perhaps she was not beautiful to others—perhaps I should have wished the rest of the world to think her positively hideous—perhaps she was then not so transcendently beautiful even to me; nay, as I looked, I could pick faults in her features and colouring. I had served a long enough apprenticeship to my father to be able to criticise like an artist, and I could see here a tint that might be deepened, there a plait that might be better arranged—I do not mean to say she was perfect—I do not mean to say that she was a goddess or an angel; but I do mean to say that if ever there was a face on earth which to me presented the ideal of all that is sweetest and most lovable in woman, that face was Constance Beverley's.

And yet I was not in love with her; no, I felt something exalting, something exhilarating in her presence—she seemed to fill the void in my life, which had long been so wearisome, but I was not in love with her—certainly not then. I felt less shy than usual, I even felt as if I too had some claim to social distinction, and could play my part as well as the rest on the shifting stage. She had the happy knack of making others feel in good spirits and at their ease in her society. I was not insensible to the spell, and when Sir Harry came in, and asked kindly after his old friend, and promised to come over soon and pay my father a visit, I answered frankly and at once; I could see even the thoughtless Baronet was struck with the change in my manner, indeed he said as much.

"You must come over and stay with us, Mr. Egerton," was his hospitable invitation; "or if your father is so poorly you cannot leave him, look in here any day about luncheon-time. I am much from home myself, but you will always find Constance and Miss Minim. Tell your father I will ride over and see him to-morrow. I only came back yesterday. How you're grown, my lad, and improved—isn't he, Constance?"

I would have given worlds to have heard Constance's answer, but she turned the subject with an inquiry after Bold (who was at that instant waiting patiently for his master on the door-step), and it was time to take leave, so I bowed myself out, with a faithful promise, that I was not likely to forget, of calling again soon.

"So she has not forgotten Bold," I said to myself, at least twenty times, in my homeward walk; and I think, fond as I had always been of my dog, I liked him that day better than ever.

"Father," I said, as I sat that evening after dinner, during which meal I felt conscious that I had been more lively, and, to use an expressive term, "better company," than usual; "I must write to London for a new coat, that black one is quite worn out."

"Very well, Vere," answered my father, abstractedly; "tell them to make it large enough—you grow fast, my boy."

"Do you think I am grown, father? Indeed, I am not so very little of my age now; and do you know, I was the strongest boy at Everdon, and could lift a heavier weight than Manners the usher; but, father"—and here I hesitated and stammered, till reassured by the kind smile on his dear old face,—"I don't mind asking you, and I do so wish to know—am I so very, very—ugly?" I brought out the hated word with an effort—my father burst out laughing.

"What an odd question—why do you wish to know, Vere?" he asked. I made no reply, but felt I was blushing painfully. My father looked wistfully at me, while an expression as of pain contracted his wan features; and here the conversation dropped.