Читать книгу The Hillyars and the Burtons - Henry Kingsley - Страница 16

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COULD one ever have been happy in such a squalid unromantic place? Among such sounds, such smells, such absence of fresh air and sunshine, with poverty and vulgarity in its grossest forms on every side of one,--shrill Doll Tearsheet, distinctly and painfully audible round the corner, telling the nuthook that he had lied, and that sort of thing, all day long; and Pistol, the cutpurse, ruffling and bullying it under the gas-lamp by the corner, from cockshoot to curfew, at which latter time we used to be rid of him for an hour or so? Could any one have had a happy home amidst all this squalor and blackguardism? And could any one, having gained wealth and honor, ever feel a longing kindness for the old, for the cramped horizon, and the close atmosphere, of the place one once called home?

Yes. I often feel it now. The other day the summer wind was still, and the summer clouds slept far aloft, above the highest boughs of the silent forest; and peace and silence were over everything as I rode slowly on among the clustering flowers. And then and there the old Chelsea life came back into my soul and pervaded it completely, and the past drove out the present so utterly and entirely that, although my mortal body--which, when no longer useful, must perish and rot, like one of the fallen logs around me--was passing through the glorious Australian forest, yet the immortal part of me had travelled back into the squalid old street, and I was there once again.

Dear old place! I can love it still. I were but an ingrate if I could not love it better than all other places. After we had been out here ten years, Joe went back on business, and went to see it. A certain change, which we shall hear of, had taken place; the old neighbors were gone, and Chelsea, so far as we cared about it, was desolate. But, as Joe leant lonely against the railings in the new Paulton Square, he heard a cry coming from towards the river, which thrilled to his heart as he came nearer and nearer. What was it, think you. It was old Alsop, the fishmonger, bawling out, as of old, the audacious falsehood that his soles were alive. It was nothing more than that, but it was the last of the old familiar Chelsea sounds which was left. When Joe told us this story we were all (simple souls) very much moved. My father said, huskily, that "there were worse chaps than Bill Alsop, mind you, though he did not uphold him in all things," which I was glad to hear. As for my mother, she dissolved into such a flood of tears that the recently--invented pocket-handkerchief was abandoned as useless, and the old familiar apron was adopted instead. Such is the force of habit, that my mother cannot cry comfortably without an apron. The day I was married, Emma had a deal of trouble with her on this account. It was evident that she wanted to wipe her eyes on her horribly expensive mauve satin gown, and at last compromised the matter by crying into her black lace shawl, which was of about as much use as a fishing net, God bless her.

I have, as I have said, an affection for the old place still; and, when I think of it at its brightest, when I love it best of all, it comes back to me on a fine September evening, on the evening after Joe and I met with our wonderful adventures at Stanlake.

I think I have mentioned before that my father used to relieve me in the shop when he had done his tea; and so I used to have my tea after all the others had done,--at which times my sister and I used to have a pleasant talk, while she waited on me.

Latterly I had always had a companion. It was an unfortunate business, but my brother Harry had acquired a sort of habit of getting kept in at school, nearly every day. My mother contrived a meeting with the school--master, and asked him why. The answer was, that he was a good little fellow, but that he would draw on his slate. The evening next after she had gained this intelligence, we, all sitting round the fire and expecting to hear the story of how my father came home tipsy the night the Reform Bill was passed, were astonished to find that my mother had composed, and was prepared with, an entirely new story, in the awful-example style of fiction, which she there and then told us. It appeared that she knew a little girl (mark how she wrapped it up) as drew on her slate, and was took with the chalkstone gout in the jints of her fingers. And, while that child was a droring, the chalkstones kep' dropping from her knuckles, and the children kep' picking on 'em up and drawing devils on the desks. Harry was at the time both alarmed and distressed at this story. But it had no effect. The next day he drew a devil so offensive that he was not only kept in, but caned.

So Harry, being late from school, was my companion at tea, and sat beside me. Frank, who adored Harry because Harry used to morphise Frank's dreams for him on slates and bits of paper, stayed with him. Fred, the big-headed, who was brought into the world apparently to tumble down stairs, and to love and cuddle everybody he met, sat on my knee and pulled my hair in a contemplative way; while Emma sat beside me sewing, and softly murmured out the news of the day, carefully avoiding any mention of the Avery catastrophe.

Mr. Pistol and Mr. Bardolph had been took by the police for a robbery in the Fulham Road, and Mrs. Quickly was ready to swear on her Bible oath, that they were both in bed and asleep at the time. Polly Ager had been kept in at school for pinching Sally Holmes. Tom Cole was going to row for Dogget's coat and badge, &c., &c.

Frank told us, that the evening before last he had walked on to Battersea Bridge with Jerry Chittle, and to the westward he had seen in the sky, just at sunset, an army of giants, dressed in purple and gold, pursuing another army of giants dressed in gray, who, as the sun went down, seemed to turn on their pursuers. He said that the thunder-storm which happened that night was no thunder-storm at all, but the battle of these two armies of giants over our heads. He requested Harry to draw this scene for him on his slate, which Harry found a difficulty in doing.

I was thinking whether or no I could think of anything to say concerning this giant story, and was coming to the conclusion that I could n't, when I looked up and saw Erne Hillyar and Joe in the doorway.

I saw Erne's noble face light up as he saw me. "Here he is" was all he said; but, from the way he said it, I knew that he had come after me.

I stood up, I remember, and touched my forehead, but he came quickly towards me and took my hand. "I want to be friends with you, Jim," he said; "I know you and I shall suit one another. Let me come and see you sometimes."

I did not know what to say, at least not in words; but as he took my hand, my eyes must have bid him welcome, for he laughed and said, "That is right. I knew you would like me, I saw it yesterday."

And then he turned on Emma, who was standing, respectful and still, beside me, with her hands closed before her, holding her work. And their eyes met; and Erne loved her, and has never loved any other woman since.

"This must be your sister," said Erne. "There is no doubt about that. Jim's sister, will you shake hands with me?"

She shook hands with him, and smiled her gentlest, kindest smile in his face.

"I am so glad," she said, "that you want to make friends with Jim. You cannot have a better friend than he, sir."

Here Joe came back, and whispered to me that he had been to father, and told him that a young gentleman had come to see me, and that father had said I was to stay where I was. So there we children sat all together; Erne on one side of me, and Emma on the other, talking about such things as children (for we were but little more) will talk about,--Erne sometimes leaning over me to speak to Emma, and waiting eagerly for her answer. Fred got on his knee, and twined his little fingers into his curling hair, and laid his big head upon Erne's shoulder. Frank and Harry drew their stools to his feet, and listened. We were a happy group. Since the wild, petulant Earl had built that great house, nigh three hundred years before, and had paced, and fumed, and fretted up and down that self-same floor, there never had been gathered, I dare swear, a happier group of children under the time-stained rafters of that room, than were we that night in the deepening twilight.

Joe and Erne talked most. Joe spoke of the wonderful old church hard by, a city of the mighty dead, and their monuments, where there were innumerable dark, dim recesses, crowded by tombs and effigies. Here lay the headless trunk of Sir Thomas More,--not under the noble monument erected by himself in the chancel before his death, but "neare the middle of the south wall,"--indebted to a stranger for a simple slab over his remains. In this chapel, too, knelt the Duchess of Northumberland, with her five daughters, all with clasped hands, praying for the soul of their unhappy father. One of them, Joe could not tell which, must have married Arthur Pole. Here lay Lord and Lady Dacre, with their dogs watching at their feet, under their many-colored canopy; and last, not least, here knelt John Hillyar, Esq., father of the first baronet, with his three simple-looking sons in ruffs, opposite his wife Eleanor, with her six daughters, and her two dead babies on the cushion before her.

"Four hundred years of memory," continued Joe, "are crowded into that dark old church, and the great flood of change beats round the walls, and shakes the door in vain, but never enters. The dead stand thick together there, as if to make a brave resistance to the moving world outside, which jars upon their slumber. It is a church of the dead. I cannot fancy any one being married in that church,--its air would chill the boldest bride that ever walked to the altar. No; it is a place for old people to creep into, and pray, until their prayer is answered, and they sleep with the rest."

"Hallo!" I said to myself, "Hal-lo! this is the same young gentleman who said of Jerry Chittle yesterday, 'That it worn't no business of his'n,' and would probably do so again to-morrow if necessary." Both Emma and I had noticed lately that Joe had two distinct ways of speaking; this last was the best example of his later style that we had yet heard. The young eagle was beginning to try his wings.

Then Erne began to talk. "Did you know, Jim and Joe, that this Church Place belonged to us before the Sloane Stanleys bought it?"

Joe had been told so by Mr. Faulkner.

"It seems so very strange to find you living here, Jim. So very strange. Do you know that my father never will mention the name of the house."

"Why not, sir!" I asked wondering.

"Why, my gentle Hammersmith, it has been such a singularly unlucky house to all who have lived in it. Do you know why?"

I could not guess.

"Church property, my boy. Built on the site of a cell of Westminster, granted by Henry to Essex in 1535. Tom Cromwell got it first and lost it; and then Walter Devereux bought it back for name's sake, because it had belonged to an Essex once before, I suppose; and then Robert built the house in one of his fantastic moods. Pretty luck they had with it,--Devereux the younger will tell you about that. Then we got it, and a nice mess we made of it,--there was never a generation without a tragedy. It is a cursed place to the Hillyars. My father would be out of his mind if he knew I were here. The last tragedy was the most fearful."

Frank immediately got up on Emma's lap. Erne did not want to be asked to tell us all about it.

"In 1686," he said, "it was the dower house of Jane, Dowager Lady Hillyar. Her son, Sir Cheyne Hillyar, was a bigoted papist, and, thinking over the misfortunes which had happened to the family lately, attributed them to the possession of this Church property, and determined that it should be restored forthwith to the Church, even though it were to that pestilent heretic Adam Littleton, D. D., the then rector of Chelsea; hoping, however, says my father, to see the same reverend Doctor shortly replaced, by an orthodox gentleman from the new Jesuit school in Savoy. But there was a hitch in the proceedings, my dear Jim. There was a party in the bargain who had not been sufficiently considered or consulted. Jane, Lady Hillyar, was, though a strong Catholic, a very obstinate old lady indeed. She refused, in spite of all the spiritual artillery that her son could bring to bear upon her, to have the transfer made during her lifetime; and, while the dispute was hot between them, her son, Sir Cheyne died.

"Then the old lady's conscience began to torment her. She believed that the house ought to be restored to the Church; but her avarice was opposed to this step, and between her avarice and superstition she went mad.

"All her children had deserted her, save one, a hunchbacked grand--daughter, who came here and lived with her for three months, and who died here. After this poor girl's death, the old woman kept no servants in the house at night, but used to sleep in a room at the top of the house, with her money under her bed. Is there such a room?"

"Yes," I said, "and her ghost walks there now."

"It should," said Erne, "by all reasons, for she was murdered there. They found her dead in the morning, on the threshold between two rooms. She had not been to bed, for she was dressed,--dressed in her old gray silk gown, and even had her black mittens on."

Nothing could shake my faith in the ghost after this. The fact of Erne and ourselves having both heard the same silly story, from apparently different, but really from the same sources, confirmed it beyond suspicion in my mind. The dread I had always had of that room at the top of the house, in which Reuben lived, now deepened into horror,--into a horror which was only intensified by what happened there afterwards. Even now, though the room has ceased to exist, the horror most certainly has not.

"But come," said Erne, "let me see this house, which has been so fatal to my family. The weird cannot extend to me, for we own it no longer. What do you say, Emma; has the luck turned?"

"I fear I must keep you ten years, or perhaps fifty, waiting for an answer," she said. "But, even then, I could only tell you what I can now, that your fate is to a very great extent in your own hands."

"You don't believe in destiny, or anything of that sort, then?" said Erne.

"Not the least in the world," she said.

"Then you are no true Mussulwoman," said Erne. "Let us come up stairs, and see the haunted mansion. Come on, Emma."

So we went into the empty room up stairs, and Emma showed him the view westward. While they stood together at the window, the sun smote upon their faces with his last ray of glory, and then went down behind the trees; so that, when Erne, Joe, and I started together up stairs to see Reuben's room, it grew darker and darker each step we went.

"A weird, dull place," said Erne, looking around. "There is another room inside this, and the old lady was murdered on the threshold. Does your cousin live here all alone?"

"All alone."

"He must be rather dull."

"The merriest fellow alive."

When we came down stairs, we found my father and mother awaiting us. My mother seemed very much delighted at my having picked up such a fine acquaintance; and my father said,--

"Sir, you are welcome. I am glad to see, sir, that my boy Jim is appreciated by gentlemen as well able to judge as yourself." And then my father proceeded to define the principal excellences of my character. I am sure I hope he was right. My crowning virtue, it appeared,--the one that contained the others, and surpassed them,--was, that I was "all there." My father assured Erne that he would find that to be the case. That no one had ever ventured to say that it was not the case. That if any one did say so, and was in anyways prepared to maintain his opinion, he would be glad to hear his reasons, and so on; turning the original proposition, about my being "all there," over and over, and inside out, a dozen times. Erne had no idea what he meant, but he knew it was something highly complimentary to me, and so he said he perfectly agreed with my father, and, that he had taken notice of that particular point in my character the very moment he saw me, which was carrying a polite fiction somewhat dangerously far. At last he said he must go, and, turning to my father, asked if he might come again. My father begged he would honor him whenever he pleased, and then he went away, and I walked with him.

"I've run away, Jim," he said, as soon as we were in the street. "I ran away to see you."

I ventured to express a wish that, at some future time, he might be induced to go back again.

"Yes," he said, "I shall go back to-morrow. I sleep at a friend's house here in Chelsea, and I shall go back to-morrow, but I shall come again. Often, I hope."

When I got home my father was sitting up alone smoking. I sat down opposite to him, and in a few minutes he said,--

"A fine young chap that, old man!"

"Very, indeed," I said, slightly anxious about the results of the interview.

"Yes! A fine, handsome, manly lad," continued he. "What's his name, by-the-by?"

I saw the truth must come out.

"His name is Hillyar," I said.

"Christian name?"

"Erne."

"Then you went to Stanlake yesterday?"

"Yes," I said. "We wanted to see it after what you said, and so we went."

My father looked very serious, and sat smoking a long time; at last he said,--

"Jim, you mind the night you was bound?"

"Yes."

"And what I told you about Samuel Burton and his young master, that carried on so hard?"

I remembered every word.

"This young Erne Hillyar is his brother. That's why your mother cried when Stanlake was spoke of; and all this has come out of those dratted water-lilies."

And so we went to bed; but I could not sleep at first. I lay awake, thinking of my disobedience, and wondering what complication of results would follow from it. But at last I fell asleep, saying to myself, "Will he come again to-morrow? when will he come again?"