Читать книгу Stretton - Henry Kingsley - Страница 11

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Pulverbatch, one would think, was (at least in the old coaching days) as far, intellectually speaking, from anywhere, as any place could be. It was even out of the then road from Shrewsbury to Ludlow--one would have thought a very quiet road--and was intensely sleepy.

The Grange, Miss Eleanor Evans' inalienable property, was a heavy old Grange, with an actual moat, in which Miss Eleanor lived as a Mariana, though with a difference. There were eight hundred acres of fat meadow and corn-land around it, washed down from Caradoc, Lawley, and Longmynd; every acre of which this strenuous lady held in her own hands.

When she took possession of it, after the lapse of a bad tenant's lease, and announced her intention of farming it, her brother gave her a little good advice.

"It is worth two pounds an acre, Nell, now that the Dower Farm has fallen in, even after Dell has scourged it so. 1600l. a year--I'll find you a good tenant."

"Thank you," she said, "but I am going to find a good tenant in myself."

"You will make a mess of it."

"Why?"

"Because you can't farm."

"Fiddle-de-dee," said Eleanor, "I have been bored to death with it all my life; I ought to know something about it by this time. And, besides women are much sharper than men. Any one can farm; don't tell me. I will take my four thousand a year off that land, or I will know the reason why."

"My dear Eleanor," said her brother, "I know you to be shrewd and determined; I will allow that you have quite sufficient intellect to manage the property."

"That is to say, as much intellect as Dell, who has 780 acres of yours. Thank you, for I am very much obliged to you for comparing me with a tipsy, muddled, uneducated old man like him. Go on," said Eleanor.

"You are angry, my dear," said her brother, "but you must remember that farming is a second nature to him."

"What was his first?" she asked.

This was one of those pieces of pure nonsense which scatter men's nonsense. Squire Charles picked himself up as well as he could, and said somewhat heavily--

"Supposing that you could actually get this farm in order, and get money's worth off it, you would be beaten at marketing."

"Why?" said Eleanor.

"Because, not being able to go to market yourself, you would have to send your bailiff, who would cheat you."

"But I am not going to have any bailiff. And I am going to market my own self."

"The farmers will be too much for you," said Charles.

"Will they?" she said; "they must have had a sudden accession of brains then."

"Do you mean to tell me, Eleanor, that you are actually going into Shrewsbury market with samples of oats?"

"Certainly."

"It will be thought very odd, and some will say improper."

"I know nothing about your last epithet. With regard to oddity, now look round among the county families around us, and say whether or no there is not a queer story among every one of them. There is an odd story in our own family, Charles."

"You mean about me."

"I mean about you. But I want to finish about this farming business. I am going to do it. I pay rent to myself; I have quite as much knowledge of farming as Dell, and ten times his intellect; why should I not do well?"

"You will be beaten in market," said Charles.

"You will see about that," said Eleanor.

She certainly was right, for she "gave her mind to it," and became one of the best farmers and keenest marketers about. Her scourged land recovered, as if by magic. She had good years and bad years, but she made money and a good deal of it; as a diligent and clever person, with no rent to pay, and over seven hundred acres of fine land, may do. As time went on her brother saw that he was wrong, and he told her so; and added, "And you seem to be very happy, Eleanor."

"I am as happy as the day is long," she said. "I have no time to be otherwise. I am interested and amused all day long, in all weathers, and I have perfect health, and no cares. Women are frequently very great fools to marry."

"Yet it would be well to have another to care and work for," said Charles.

"I have got Eddy; he is my son, and I know he will be extravagant, and bring my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. I have spoilt him," she added, laughing, "therefore I must work to meet his extravagance. As I have brewed, so must I bake; I have made my bed and I must lie on it, as regards him. I gave him a new watch last week."

"So I saw. I hope he did not ask for it?"

"Oh, no; he never asks for anything, only he looks so pretty when he is pleased, and he likes bright and glittering things. I must work and save for him."

"You will not save much with those new cottages," said her brother; "you ought never to lay one brick on another till you see your way to a clear 7 per cent., exclusive of bad debts; and you will never see three there."

"Say two and a half," said Eleanor; "but it pays me indirectly on my own estate. I have my labourers on my own ground, close to their work. What would you say of the wisdom of a slave-owner who made her niggers walk three miles to the cotton grounds?"

You will raise the rates."

"I don't care. Oh! by the by, your head keeper has been asking me whether he may rear some pheasants in my large spinney, and I have told him that I should like to catch him at it. Your partridges I will protect for you, but I won't have pheasants, rabbits, or hares; you have plenty of ground of your own without bothering me."

Squire Charles laughed, and left her admiringly.

So she went on, busy, happy, quiet, contented, until I regret that it becomes necessary to pick her up at the age of forty-four years, just at the time when that extraordinary set of boys, which I have previously described, had begun their most eccentric career at St. Paul's College.

The Grange at Pulverbatch was like so many Shropshire houses, a place worthy a long summer-day's visit. It was a low stone house, shrouded in and darkened by great dense groves of elms. Sooner than touch one bough of which, Eleanor would have sold her watch; though she had very much spoilt the scenery of the valley, by slashing into her hedge-row timber elsewhere most unmercifully, and cutting down her hedges to the famishing point. I am not antiquarian enough to say who built it or why it was built, but Eleanor had chosen to get it into her head that it was built by a small country gentleman, at the time, as she put it, "when the greatest of all Englishmen for all time, Oliver Cromwell, ruled the land, and had one Milton for his Poet Laureate." A mild antiquarian, on one occasion, by way of making himself agreeable, told her in a mild voice that her house was formerly a religious house, a cell of the larger house of St. Lawrence at Stretton.

"It was nothing of the kind, sir," she answered, indignantly.

"I think you will find that I am right," said the mild man.

"I don't believe a word of it," said Eleanor. And the mild antiquarian said no more.

"It was moated around on all sides, for defence," she said; "Carp-ponds," said the antiquarian; and this moat was part of her belief in the place.

There were carp in this moat, and although she was shrewd enough to prefer the splendid trout which came out of the stream running through her estate for her own eating, yet on state occasions she always, as a great treat, gave her guests these abominable masses of dry bones out of the moat. They were to her as a haggis or a sheep's head is to a Scotchman. She used to send them to her neighbours, as rare compliments and presents. Well, she had few prejudices, and those were very innocent.

We shall see more of her kind, innocent, wise life as we go on: a little more about her house, and herself, and she will be sufficiently fully introduced.

I should think, from what I have observed, that almost the first ambition of every clever woman was to have a room of her own, a place where she was mistress, and could do as she pleased (surely some clever woman has said this before, though I cannot recollect where, but it is true). I have seen such rooms; I know at least two; and I guess that in these maiden bowers, women, whether poor or rich, symbolise their own souls, or the phases of them. I know a bower, hung with crude oil-sketches and photographs of great pictures; again, I know another, full of saints, angels, and crucifixes. I suppose that every woman would have such a nest--alas! how few are able. Eleanor, however, had her nest, which most decidedly symbolised her pursuits.

Eleanor's nest was what her brother called "the dining-room," but what she would insist on calling, out of contradiction mainly, I think, "the best parlour." It was a dark wainscoted room, with a large stone-jammed bay-window at the end furthest from the door, in front of which her great library table, with innumerable drawers, was placed, and by which the only available light was let into this wonderfully uncomfortable room. At this table she could look over her beloved moat, and write her letters. Here she received her men, and her poor folks; and here she sat one afternoon, soon after the boys had gone to St. Paul's, reading her letters and answering them.

She was in her usual riding habit, and had been on foot or on horseback since six o'clock in the morning. As the light from the only window fell upon her face, you could see that, although her complexion might have suffered (or been improved) by wind, weather, and hard work, there was no doubt that she was still a singularly beautiful woman.

She had had all kinds of letters by that post, and she had read them, and laid them aside for answer. Mr. Sutton, of Reading, informed Miss Evans that he did not approve of such a large admixture of triticum in the grass-seed intended for soil washed from lime-stone hills, but had executed the order under Miss Evans's direction, and begged to inform her that the "Student" parsnip, from Cirencester, was well worth a trial. Barr and Sugden informed her that they would, if possible, execute her small order for 5,000 snowdrops, but that a regular customer had come down on them for 14,000, and they were at present uncertain. A neighbouring miller wrote to say that if she would thrash out at once, he would chance the four big ricks at 54 (to which she said, "I daresay"); under all of which there was a letter from her lawyer, telling her that the dispute about the old arrears, hanging on since Dell's time, was settled against her; and several begging-letters.

These were put aside for answering: they caused her no thought. It was the two she had just read which made her sit with her handsome head in the light, and really think. Let us look over her shoulder. The first was from young Allan Gray, the young man who was the son of the soldier Gray, and who, by natural laws, was nephew of Charles and Eleanor Evans, and cousin to Roland and Edward.

It ran thus:--

"MY DEAR MADAM,--I enclose you Mr. Secretary's Cowell's receipt for the very noble donation to our poor little work. I know that the pleasure you had in giving it is even higher than is ours in receiving it; I am requested to thank you for it, madam, and I thank you accordingly. Mr. Taunton, one of our best helpers, offered prayer for you to-night, madam, in the general prayer and by name. This I know will be gratifying to you."

("Well, and so it is," said Eleanor. "I am sure we all want it.'')

"I wish, madam, that you could come and pay us a visit here, say when you come to the Cattle Show, at Christmas. I wish that such a shrewd and yet kind heart as yours could see what actual good we are doing among the misery and guilt around us.

"With deep reverence and gratitude, I remain, dear madam, your devoted servant,

"ALLAN GRAY."

"Yes," said Eleanor, "you are a good boy, and a shrewd boy, and a grateful boy; but I doubt I can't like you. You would be glad to be rid of your obligations to me to-morrow. I ought to like you, but I can't."

She was a shrewd, hard woman, this Eleanor Evans; not given to show sentiment, yet when she opened the next letter she kissed it, and said, "My darling, now we will have you, after this Methodistical young prig. All the flowers in May are not so sweet as you, but you might write better, you know." The letter was from Eddy, and she read it with concentrated attention, weighing every word, this sensible and keen lady, going over the sentences three or four times to extract their meaning (of which there was but little). Don't laugh at her; a love as keen and pure as hers is not ridiculous. Perhaps Gray's letter was more sensible, but this boy's nonsense was infinitely dearer to her.

"DEAR AUNT NELL,--You know that in one of our delightful, confidential talks the other day, you, in laying down our mutual plans for the future, said that one day I must get a good wife, and come and live with you. You hinted that you would, in the case of such an event, make over the main part of your personal property to me; only reserving to yourself one single room. You remember the alacrity with which I fell into the arrangement, and the extreme anxiety I have always shown to carry out your wishes. Consequently, I have kept my weather-eye open for above a fortnight, and after long and painful consideration, I am able to declare myself suited for life.

"To a well-balanced mind, such as I believe mine to be (it is your look-out if it is not), wealth, position, nay, even beauty itself, weigh as nothing in the balance in a choice of this kind, in comparison with solidity of character. Gain that and you gain everything. I have gained it.

"Of course I should not think of moving definitely in such an important matter as this without consulting you, my more than mother, to whom I owe so much. By-the-bye, this last remark reminds me that I may as well owe you a little more, while we are at it. Roland has boned all my money because young Mordaunt and I gave half-a-sovereign a-piece to a young man we found on the Trumpington road, with scarcely shoes to his feet, just come out of Reading Hospital. So do send me some; make it a tenner, if you can; as much more as you like. I am sure that you must have thrashed out the three ricks by now, and must be in cash. Don't you hold your corn back in the way you do, raising the market on the poor. You thrash out, and send me a ten-pound note, and I'll bring you a present, if there is any of it left.

"I suppose this will be the first intimation you will have had of our splendid success. Roland has done such a thing which is simply unequalled in history. To be continued in our next, provided you send the money.

"Yours lovingly,

"EDWARD EVANS.

"P.S.--I bought a squirrel of a cad in the meadow, who said it was tame. On calling it to our rooms, it bit me to the bone, and ran up the chimney. This is a wicked and ungrateful world. I doubt I am already night weary of it."

Aunt Eleanor put this letter aside, and answered young Gray's first.

"MY DEAR MR. GRAY,--I must beg that in any future communications to me, you will omit mentioning any obligations which you conceive you still owe to me. Such obligations certainly existed at one time, but they exist no longer. I therefore request, sir, that they may be no longer mentioned between us.

"At my mother's desire, I did all I possibly could for you. You on your part have repaid me a thousand-fold, by turning out so well, and by leading such a blameless, godly, and, I hope, prosperous life as you are leading. What I did for you was from a sense of duty, and not on any sentimental grounds, for you and I never liked one another, which you know as well as I do, if you choose--(last three words erased). Consequently, my dear sir, now you have risen to your present honourable position, I must tell you that these continual protestations of gratitude towards a woman you always disliked are not good ton.

"It seems strange that two people so utterly separated as we are by every thought and every feeling should be engaged in the same work, that of ameliorating the condition of the poor. But it is so. If you wish to put me under obligations, you will show me how I can further assist you in your very noble work, and further how I can, in ease of your requiring pecuniary help yourself, assist you. I can admire you without liking you; and I am told by Mr. Cowell, whom I knew before you did, that you are decreasing your own income by these good works.

"ELEANOR EVANS."

When Allan Gray got this letter, he rose with set lips and walked up and down the room. "A bitter, bitter, hard, cruel woman," he said; "an insult in every tone of it. Well, if she can be bitter, I can be bitter too;" and so he sat down and wrote:--

"MADAM,--I very much regret that a few expressions of personal gratitude, which since your last letter are no longer felt, should have caused you such very deep annoyance. The cause being removed the effect will not reappear.

"With regard to my personal pecuniary matters, madam, they are in good order. With regard to the Refuge, send as much money to us as you possibly can. 'Sell all that thou hast,' if you like. With regard to our personal relations, madam, I can only say, as a man who never told a lie, that I respect and reverence you deeply.

"ALLAN GRAY."

"The fellow has got go, though," said Eleanor: "but a brimstone temper; well, we are rid of him for a time. I will send them some money, and go and see them."

Now we come to the answer to Eddy's letter, and the reply to that. A bitter, hard woman, was she, Master Gray? Bitter to you: bitter to one who showed her every day and all day that he disliked his obligations to her, but not a bitter woman, though shrewd of tongue, towards the world. Was she strong? certainly; as strong a woman as most. Was she weak? she was weaker than water to some few; to a very few. She could fight and beat her brother easily, and he was an "upstanding" man. Young Gray she could beat as the dust under her feet; yet he was as self-contained and as mentally powerful a young man as most; you will see that for yourselves. Yet where she loved she was utterly powerless. And among others, she loved Eddy: nay, she loved him the dearest of them all.

Her brother went about with her on the subject of spoiling Eddy. He pointed out to her that her power over him was great, that her responsibilities with regard to him were great, amid that she should not let him have his own way.

"I can't help it," she said.

"You, so strong-minded and energetic," said her brother, "allow yourself to be made a perfect fool of by that boy!"

"I tell you I can't help it," said Eleanor, somewhat emphatically.

"You should. You will spoil him," said her brother.

"I never spoilt you, at all events," flashed out Eleanor. And Squire Charles, with certain schoolroom reminiscences in his mind, was obliged to admit that she certainly never had.

Now, with the almost cruel, almost vulgar tone of the answer to young Gray fresh in one's mind, let us turn to her answer to that bright little nephew of hers, Eddy Evans, and see whether or no there were not two sides to this woman:--

"DEAREST EDDY,--Your letter gives me the deepest interest. I congratulate you sincerely, my dear, in having found a partner for life. I go this afternoon to take the joyful intelligence to your father and mother, who will, no doubt, be made as happy as I am. Pray give my dearest love to your dear one, and say that I shall be happy to receive her on a visit as soon as she chooses, and to present her to her new father and mother-in-law.

"I think it of all things important that a person of a character so frivolous and empty as yours, should early become imbued with a sense of responsibility, and on those grounds I am delighted that you have taken this important step.

"I have not thrashed-out yet; the steamer comes to-morrow; but I have found an odd ten pounds. Do get out of that foolish habit of giving your money away like a baby. You will probably hear from your father the day after to-morrow on the subject of your grand alliance.

"Write to me, and tell me what Roland has done, what 'your great success' is, and what share you had in it. I can quite understand that Roland has done something unexampled in history, for I believe Roland to be capable of anything; the only thing which puzzles me is that you should have had any hand in it. Write and explain. I will do anything at any time, my dear, to give you pleasure."

After a few pleasant days among her turnips and her beasts, during which she was observed to have very often a smile of amusement on her face, Aunt Eleanor got Eddy's reply:--

"DEAR AUNT,--If you are willing to do anything to give me pleasure, you had better send another cheque for ten pounds (unless you like to make it twenty), because that gave me the deepest pleasure, as it did also to Jimmy Mordaunt. We have spent some of it in riot and dissipation, but have still some of it in hand. You have no idea of the temptations of this place, the facilities of credit, and the easiness with which young men of my personal appearance and of my expectations can raise money from the lenders at ruinous interest. If I sent a son here, the first thing I should take care of would be that he was supplied with large sums of ready money, and so kept from all risk of temptation. Believe me that such is my experience.

"With regard to the young person of whom I spoke to you in my first letter (I never spoke to her), I doubt if she will do. She is a barmaid down the river. I don't think she will do; but, as you have told father, I will keep my eye on her, with a view of keeping her hanging over his head, and keeping him civil.

"We never were frivolous so long together before, aunt. Suppose we drop it; but this place is a perfect atmosphere of chaff. I don't like it half as well as the old place. There, between-whiles of racket and horse-play, we were serious. Well, there is not much that is serious in what I am going to tell you, except that old Roland has suddenly become a kind of hero in the University. Roland is the first man who ever won the University sculls in his first term, and my share in the victory was running along the bank and howling at him.

"I need not remind you of the Doctor's objections to our having Robert Coombes to Gloucester to teach us to row, and how his objections were overcome by our father and Mr. Mordaunt; at all events, as far as money went. The fruits of that teaching have come out now.

"The third day we were here, Roland and I went early in the day, before the others were on the river, and Roland began trying sculling boats at the principal place where they are let. He was a long time before he found one to suit him, and kept going up and down in front of the barges, trying one after another, and changing frequently, during which time I noticed that he was attracting the attention of the people who were standing by. At last he found one which he said he could feel, and sent a waterman and myself to the tow-path side, at which time I observed that the principal boat-proprietors, and at least a dozen other people, had crossed, and were standing about, or walking slowly down the tow-path.

"He kept us waiting for a long time, but at last he came raging down, bare-legged and bare-headed, at a racing pace: and I said to myself, 'I should like to see some of these University oars.' The waterman and I got our elbows up and went after him, and, as we went, I heard muttered exclamations of wonder and admiration. I felt as if I was the proprietor of a show.

"He went down to the starting-post and rowed over, steered by the waterman. As we neared the barges we found others running with us, and Roland rowing more splendidly every minute. His last rapid rush home was Imperial--with a large I.

"When he stopped, there was perfect silence among the boat-builders and watermen. They were bent, as I have understood, on business, and were none of them inclined to commit themselves. I said to the man--a most respectable tradesman, as rich as you, I believe--who had let the boat to us, 'My brother rows well for a Freshman.' He answered, 'I have not time to build him a boat, sir, but would earnestly beg him to use the one he is in, and not change.' I thought, of course, that he was afraid of our going to his rival over the water, till that rival came to me, and said: 'I should be glad of your custom, sir, but do urge your brother to stay in that boat. I have no boat in which he could show his form as well as in that. Beg him, sir, not to train down; it is only a fortnight to the race.'

"I was utterly puzzled at all this, and looked for Roland. He had locked his boat to a punt in front of the University barge, and was talking to Jasper Meredith, who lay in it on cushions. I hailed them, and they took me in. I told them what I had heard. Jasper answered:

"'I have been trying to persuade your brother from entering for the boat-race,' said he to me. 'His answer is that he will not run against these older men. I watched you two this morning, and crutched it down to follow you, and see Roland row--a thing which delights me--and I have few pleasures. And I have been here, and heard those cads making bets on our own Roland; discussing the points in his body, as if he were a horse--his legs, his arms, his chest, his thighs--nay more, his manner of living, and his morality. All I can say is, that the whole business was immeasurably indecent. Since the days of Commodus, there was never such a thing done as for Roland to go down into the arena. It is a pleasure to me to see him row, but if he had heard the expressions those cads used about him, he would never row again as long as he lived.'

"'You are looking only at one side of the question,' said Roland. 'I only match myself against another gentleman.'

"'Yes; but on what terms?' said Jasper. 'I heard one of them say, "If a cove could only persuade him to train, what a pot of money a fellow might put on." He did not say "fellow," but I spare your ears. And Roland has dropped to this!'

"Roland, laughing, said: 'I am not sure that I am going to row, and I don't think I am going to win. I only know that I am not going to bet.' And he shot away and left us.

"But he rowed and he won. He had infinitely the worst side, and Jemmy Mordaunt and I ran through the Meadows with punts over the ditches, to steer him, The thing was easily done, Roland rowed his man--a Henley winner--down, and after the first half mile, kept him working on his wash. Although he had scrupulously practised in public, few believed in him against the Henley winner, and the cheers were very slight. He came into the University-barge, as did the other man, and they got locked together. Roland said: 'We cannot all win, sir. I am sorry you have lost, but I am glad I have won.' The other man said: 'I give you my shoes, sir, and I think you will wear them well.' And then I took Roland out of his boat, and put the waterman in, and we stood alone on the barge.

"Not a soul knew us personally, and so not a soul would speak to us. We wanted to get the cup, but did not know whom to ask about it. We were not likely to speak to men who would not speak to us, and there we stood like fools; Roland, in breeches, with his legs bare (for these barbarians row in trousers). How long we should have stood, I cannot say, but the President came, parting the throng, and made Roland's acquaintance.

"His influence here is so great that it broke the ice at once. He had actually called on us that morning, it seemed, which gave him the right of introducing us. So one happy result of the race is that we, with our charming manners, and our splendid personal appearance, have a new world opened to us. I was not aware, until I went to other colleges, that our college was a marked and disliked one; but it is. So much for Roland's boat-race.

"On the Meadows we picked up Jasper Meredith, and, strangely enough, the young man to whom I gave ten shillings, who is now one of his servants. 'For heaven's sake,' said Jasper, 'don't begin talking about the boat-race. I am sorry he has won. Give me the address of this man, if you know it. He is a friend of yours.' He wanted the address of Allan Gray, for what purpose I did not ask him. Send it to him, for I have not got it. He has moved."