CHAPTER LIX.
THE GRAVE OF THE ASTROLOGER
“What can I do? Oh, how can I escape?” cried Alice to herself one morning, towards the end of dreary November; “one month out of three is gone already, and the chain of my misery tightens round me. No, don’t come near me, any of you birds; you will have to do without me soon; and you had better begin to practise. Ah me! you can make your own nests, and choose your mates; how I envy you! Well, then, if you must be fed, you must. Why should I be so selfish?” With tears in her eyes, she went to her bower and got her little basket of moss, well known to every cock-robin, and thrush, and blackbird, dwelling on the premises. At the bottom were stored, in happy ignorance of the fate before them, all the delicacies of the season – the food of woodland song, the stimulants of aerial melody. Here were woodlice, beetles, earwigs, caterpillars, slugs, and nymphs, well-girt brandlings, and the offspring of the tightly-buckled wasp, together with the luscious meal-worm, and the peculiarly delicious grub of the cockchafer – all as fresh as a West-end salmon, and savouring sweetly of moss and milk – no wonder the beaks of the birds began to water at the mere sight of that basket.
“You have had enough now for to-day,” said Alice; “it is useless to put all your heads on one side, and pretend that you are just beginning. I know all your tricks quite well by this time. No, not even you, you Methuselah of a Bob, can have any more – or at least, not much.”
For this robin (her old pet of all, and through whose powers of interpretation the rest had become so intimate) made a point of perching upon her collar, and nibbling at her ear, whenever he felt himself neglected. “There is no friend like an old friend,” was his motto; and his poll was grey, and his beak quite blunted with feeding a score of families, and his large black eyes were fading. “Methuselah, come and help yourself,” said Alice, relenting softly; “you will not have the chance much longer.”
Now, as soon as the birds, with a chirp and a jerk, and one or two furtive hops, had realised the stern fact that there was no more for them, and then had made off to their divers business (but all with an eye to come back again), Alice, with a smiling sigh – if there can be such a mixture – left her pets, and set off alone to have a good walk, and talk, and think. The birds, being guilty of “cupboard love,” were content to remain in their trees and digest; and as many of them as were in voice expressed their gratitude brilliantly. But out of the cover they would not budge; they hated to be ruffled up under their tails: and they knew what the wind on the Downs was.
“I shall march off straight for Chancton Ring,” said Alice Lorraine, most resolutely. “How thankful I am, to be able to walk! and poor Hilary – ah, how selfish of me to contrast my state with his!”
Briskly she mounted the crest of the coombe, and passed to the open upland, the long chine of hill which trends to its highest prominence at Chancton Ring – a land-mark for many a league around. Crossing the trench of the Celtic camp – a very small obstruction now – which loosely girds the ancient trees, Alice entered the vegetable throng of weather-beaten and fantastic trunks. These are of no great size, and shed no impress of hushed awe, as do the mossy ramparts and columnar majesty of New Forest beech-trees. Yet, from their countless and furious struggles with the winds in their might in the wild midnight, and from their contempt of aid or pity in their loneliness, they enforce the respect and the interest of any who sit beneath them.
At the foot of one of the largest trees, the perplexed and disconsolate Alice rested on a lowly mound, which held (if faith was in tradition) the bones of her native ancestor, the astrologer Agasicles. The tree which overhung his grave, perhaps as a sapling had served to rest (without obstructing) his telescope; and the boughs, whose murmurings soothed his sleep, had been little twigs too limp for him to hang his Samian cloak on. Now his descendant in the ninth or tenth generation – whichever it was – had always been endowed with due (but mainly rare) respect for those who must have gone before her. She could not perceive that they must have been fools, because many things had happened since they died; and she was not even aware that they must have been rogues, to beget such a set of rogues.
Therefore she had veneration for the remains that lay beneath her (mouldering in no ugly coffin, but in swaddling-clothes, committed like an infant into the mother’s bosom), and the young woman dwelt, as all mortals must, on death, when duly put to them. The everlasting sorrow of the moving winds was in the trees; and the rustling of the sad, sere leaf, and creaking of the lichened bough. And above their little bustle, and small fuss about themselves, the large, sonorous stir was heard of Weymouth pines and Scottish firs, swaying in the distance slowly, like the murmur of the sea. Even the waving of yellow grass-blades (where the trees allowed them), and the ruffling of tufted briars, and of thorny thickets, shone and sounded melancholy, with a farewell voice and gaze.
In the midst of all this autumn sound, Alice felt her spirits fall. She knew that they were low before, and she was here to enlarge and lift them, with the breadth of boundless prospect, and the height of the breezy hill. But fog and cloud came down the weald, and grey encroachment creeping, and on the hill-tops lay some heavy sense of desolation. And Alice being at heart in union with the things around her (although she tried to be so brave), began to be weighed down, and lonesome, sad, and wondering, and afeared. From time to time she glanced between the uncouth pillars of the trees, to try to be sure of no man being in among them hiding. And every time when she saw no one, she was so glad that she need not look again – and then she looked again.
“It is quite early,” she said to herself; “nothing – not even three o’clock. I get into the stupidest, fearfullest ways, from such continual nursing. How I wish poor Hilary was here! One hour of this fine breeze and cheerful scene – My goodness, what was that!”
The cracking of a twig, without any sign of what had cracked it; the rustle of trodden leaves; but no one, in and out the graves of leafage, visible to trample them. And then the sound of something waving, and a sharp snap as of metal, and a shout into the distant valley.
“It is the astrologer,” thought Alice. “Oh, why did I laugh at him? He has felt me sitting on his dear old head. He is waving his cloak, and snapping his casket. He has had me in view for his victim always, and now he is shouting for me.”
In confirmation of this opinion, a tall grey form, with one arm thrown up, and a long cloak hanging gracefully, came suddenly gliding between the trees. The maiden, whose brain had been overwrought, tried to spring up with her usual vigour; but her power failed her. She fell back against the sepulchral trunk and did not faint, but seemed for the moment very much disposed thereto.
When she was perfectly sure of herself, and rid of all presence of spectres, she found a strong arm behind her head, and somebody leaning over her. And she laid both hands before her face, without meaning any rudeness; having never been used to be handled at all, except by her brother or father.
“I beg your pardon most humbly, madam. But I was afraid of your knocking yourself.”
“Sir, I thank you. I was very foolish. But now I am quite well again.”
“Will you take my hand to get up? I am sure, I was scared as much as you were.”
“Now, if I could only believe that,” said Alice, “my self-respect would soon return; for you do not seem likely to be frightened very easily.”
She was blushing already; and now her confusion deepened, with the consciousness that the stranger might suppose her to be admiring his manly figure; of which, of course, she had not been thinking, even for one moment.
“I ought not to be so,” he answered, in the simplest manner possible; “but I had a sunstroke in America, fifteen months ago or so; and since that I have been good for nothing. May I tell you who I am?”
“Oh yes, I should like so much to know.” Alice was surprised at herself as she spoke; but the stranger’s unusually simple yet most courteous manner led her on.
“I am one Joyce Aylmer, not very well known; though at one time I hoped to become so. A major in his Majesty’s service” – here he lifted his hat and bowed – “but on the sick-list, ever since we fought the Americans at Fort Detroit.”
“Oh, Major Aylmer, I have often heard of you, and how you fell into a sad brain-fever, through saving the life of a poor little child. My uncle, Mr. Hales, knows you, I believe, and has known your father for many years.”
“That is so. And I am almost sure that I must be talking to Miss Lorraine, the daughter of Sir Roland Lorraine, whom my father has often wished to know.”
“Yes. And perhaps you know my brother, who has served in the Peninsula, and is now lying very ill at home.”
“I am very sorry indeed to hear that of him. I know him of course, by reputation, as the hero of Badajos; but I think I was ordered across the Atlantic before he joined; or, at any rate, I never met him that I know of – though I shall hope to do so soon. May I see you across this lonely hill? Having frightened you so, I may claim the right to prevent any others from doing it.”
Alice would have declined the escort of any other stranger; but she had heard such noble stories of this Major Aylmer, and felt such pity for a brave career baffled by its own bravery (which in some degree resembled her poor brother’s fortunes), that she gave him one of her soft bright smiles, such a smile as he never had received before. Therefore he set down his broad sketch-book, and case of pencils, and went to the rim of the Ring that looks towards the vale of Sussex; and there he shouted, to countermand the groom who had been waiting for him at the farm-house far below.
“I am ordered to ride about,” he said, as he returned to Alice, “and be out of doors all day – a very pleasant medicine. And so, for something to do, I have taken up my old trick of drawing; because I must not follow hounds. I would not talk so about myself, except to show you how it was that you did not hear me moving.”
“How soon it gets dark on the top of these hills!” cried Alice, most unscientifically; “I always believe that they feel it sooner, because they see the sun go down.”
“That seems to me to be a fine idea,” Joyce Aylmer answered faithfully. And his mind was in a loose condition of reason all the way to Coombe Lorraine.
CHAPTER LX.
COURTLY MANNERS
Sir Remnant Chapman, in his dry old fashion, was a strongly-determined man. He knew the bitter strait of Coombe Lorraine for ready money; and from his father, Sir Barker Chapman (a notorious usurer), he had inherited the gift of spinning a disc into a globe. But, like most of the men who labour thus to turn their guineas, he could be very liberal with them for the advancement of his family. And though the Chapmans had gradually acquired such a length of rent-roll, their pedigree was comparatively short among their Norman neighbours. Nothing would cure that local defect more speedily and permanently than a wedlock with Lorraine; and father and son were now eager tenfold, by reason of Hilary’s illness. They had made up their minds that he must die within a few months; and then Alice, of course, would be the heiress of Coombe Lorraine. But the marriage must be accomplished first before the mourning stopped it. Then Hilary would drop out of the way; and after Sir Roland’s time was passed, and the properties had been united, there ought not to be any very great trouble, with plenty of money to back the claim, in awakening the dormant earldom of Lorraine, and enhancing its glory with a Chapman.
To secure all this success at once, they set forth in their yellow coach, one fine November morning. They knew that Sir Roland was fretting and pining (although too proud to speak of it) at his son’s disgrace, and the crippled and fettered fortunes of the family. Even apart from poor Hilary’s illness, and perhaps fatal despondency, the head of the house of Lorraine would have felt (with his ancient pride and chivalry) that a stain must lie on his name until the money was made good again. And now the last who could prolong male heritage unbroken – of which the Lorraines were especially proud – was likely to go to a world that does not heed direct succession – except from the sinful Adam – for the want of £50,000.
Cut, and clipped, and cleft with fissures of adjacent owners, the once broad lands of Lorraine were now reduced, for the good of the neighbours. But even in those evil days, when long war had lowered everything, the residue of the estates would have been for that sum good security, being worth about twice the money. This, however, was of no avail; because, by the deed of settlement (made in the time of the late Sir Roger, under the Lady Valeria), nothing could be bound, beyond life-interest, while Alice was living, and under age. This point had been settled hopelessly, by reference to the highest and deepest legal authority of the age, Sir Glanvil Malahide, K.C. Sir Glanvil was not all the man to stultify his own doings. He had been instructed to tie tight; and he was pleased to show now how tight he had tied, after his own remonstrance. “I am of opinion,” wrote this great lawyer (after drawing his pen through the endorsement of a fifty-guinea fee on the case), “that under the indentures of Lease and Release, dated Aug. 5th and 6th, 1799, the estates comprised therein are assured to uses precluding any possibility of valid title being made, until Alice Lorraine is of age, or deceased.” There was a good deal more, of course; but that was the gist of the matter.
Having learned from the Rector how these things stood, the captain devised a clever stroke, by which he could render the escape of Alice almost an impossibility. For by this contrivance he could make Sir Roland most desirous of the match, who up to the present, though well aware of the many substantial advantages offered, had always listened to his daughter’s pleading, and promised not to hurry her. The captain’s plan was very simple, as all great ideas are; the honour of the family was to be redeemed by the sacrifice of Alice. For, among other points, it had been arranged upon the treaty of marriage, that £50,000 should be settled on Alice, for her separate use, with the usual powers of appointment.
Now the captain’s excellent idea was, that on his wedding-day, this sum should be paid in hard cash to Sir Roland and Hilary, as trustees for Alice; and they, by deed of even date, should charge that sum on the Lorraine estate – “valeat quantum,” as the lawyers say; for they could only bind their own interests. The solicitors would be directed to waive the obvious objections, which might lead to mischief, or might not, according to circumstances. Thus the flaw of title, which would be fatal to any cold-blooded mortgage, might well be turned to good use, when stopped by a snug little family arrangement.
Sir Remnant, with inherited instinct, saw the blot of this conception. “It comes to this,” he said, as soon as ever he was told of it, “that you get the Lorraine property saddled with a loss of £50,000, which has gone to the scoundrelly Government! The Government rob us all they can. In a sensible point of view, young Lorraine is the first sensible man of his family. He has stolen £50,000, which the Government stole from us tax-payers. As for paying it back again – an idiot might think of it! It makes me kick; and that always hurts me.”
Nevertheless, he was brought round (when he had kicked his passion out), as most of the obstinate old men are, to the plans and aims of the younger ones. Steenie was a fool – they all were fools – there was scarcely any sense left in anybody but himself, and the boy who stole all that money, and was dying for fear of being prosecuted. Sir Remnant could not bring himself to believe a word of the story, except as himself had shaped it. Thus he worked himself up, with his want of faith, to believe that poor Hilary had got the money buried somewhere on the Downs, and would dig it up like a morel, as soon as the stir of the moment was over. If so, there could be no loss after all; only it would have been very much better to make no fuss about the money stolen.
Revolving these things in his mind, and regretting the good old times when any one (if at all in a good position) might have stolen £50,000 without any trumpery scandal, this baronet of the fine old school prepared to listen, in a quiet way, to any plans that would come home again. And he thought that this plan of his son would do so, either in money or in kind. Yet having formed some misty sketch of the character of Sir Roland, each of these Chapmans wished the other to begin the overture.
It would have been pleasant for anybody quite outside of danger, to watch the great yellow coach of the captain labouring up the chalky road, the best approach to Coombe Lorraine, now that the Steyning road was stopped, for all who could not walk a tree, by the outburst of the water. All the roads were drenched just now; and wet chalk is a most slippery thing, especially when it has taken blue stripes from the rubbing of soft iron, the “drag” of some heavy waggon sliding down the steep with a clank and jerk. Sir Remnant had very little faith in his son’s most expensive gift of driving; and he jerked out his bad head at every corner in anxiety for his good body and soul. The wicked, however, are protected always; and thus this venturesome baronet was fetched out of his coach, with much applause, and a little touch of gout about him, such as he would not stop to groan at.
Sir Roland Lorraine was not glad to see them, and did not feign to be so. He wanted to be left alone just now, with such a number of things to think of. He perceived that they were come to hurry him about a thing he was not ripe with. Knowing his daughter’s steadfast nature, and his mother’s stubborn stuff, in the calm of his heart he had hoped good things. To balance one against the other in psychological counterpoise – as all good English writers of the present day express it – or, as our rude granddads said, “to let them fight it out between them.”
“Over your books again, Lorraine? Well, well, I can understand all that. I was pretty nigh taking to such things myself, after I put my knee-cap out. Steenie is a wonderful scholar now. I believe a’ can construe Homer!”
“That depends on the mood I am in,” said the captain, modestly; “sometimes I can make out a very nice piece.”
“Well, that is more than any man can say in the county, that I know of. Except, of course, one or two new parsons, and Sir Roland here, and some ragamuffins that come about teaching their stuff in lodgings. Lorraine now, after all, how are you? How do you get through these bad times?”
Sir Roland Lorraine, for the third time now, shook hands with Sir Remnant Chapman. Not from any outburst of hospitality on his part, but because the other would have it so. A strong opinion had newly set in, that all good Britons were bound to shake hands; that dirty and cold-blooded Frenchmen bowed at a distance homicidally; and therefore that wholesome Englishman must squeeze one another’s knuckles to the utmost. And that idea is not yet extinct.
“And how is her ladyship?” asked Sir Remnant, striking his gold-headed stick on the floor very firmly at the mere thought of her. “Do you think she will see her most humble servant? Gadzooks, sir, she is of the true old sort.”
“I was amused the last time you were here,” Sir Roland answered smiling, “to find how thoroughly you and my mother seemed to understand each other. I am sure that if she is well enough to see anybody, she will see you. Meanwhile, will you take something?”
“Now that is not the way to put it. Of course I will take something. I like to see the glasses all brought in, and then the cupboards opened and then the young women all going about, with hot and cold water, and sugar-tongs.”
“We will try to do those little things aright,” the host answered very quietly, “by the time of your reappearance. Trotman is come to say that my mother will do herself the honour of receiving you.”
“Steenie, you stop here,” shouted Sir Remnant, getting up briskly and setting his eyebrows, eyes, and knees for business. “Steenie, you are a boy yet, and Court ladies prefer the society of men. No, no; I can pick up my cane myself. Just you sit down quietly, Steenie, and entertain Sir Roland till I come back.”
Sir Remnant, though somewhat of a bear by nature, prided himself on his courtly manners, when occasion called for them. “Gadzooks, sir,” he used to say, “nurse my vittels, if I can’t make a leg with the very best of them!” And he carried his stick in a manner to prove that he must have kissed hands, or toes, or something.
Entering Lady Valeria’s drawing-room in his daintiest manner, the old reprobate (as he called himself, sometimes with pride, and sometimes with terror, according as his spirits were up or down) made a slow and deep obeisance, then kissed the tips of his fingers, and waved them, and, seeing a smile on the lady’s face, ventured to lay his poor hand on his heart.
“Oh, Sir Remnant, you are too gallant!” said the lady, who in good truth despised him, and hated him also as the owner of great broad stripes of the land of Lorraine. “We never get such manners now; never since the Court was broken up: and things that it would not become me at all to hint at are encouraged.”
“You are right, my lady; you are right all over. Gadzooks – ahem, I beg your ladyship’s pardon.”
“By no means, Sir Remnant. The gentlemen always, in the best society, were allowed to say those little things. And I missed them sadly when I came down here.”
“Madam, my admiration of you increases with every word you speak. From what I hear of the mock-Court now (as you and I might call it), and my son has been hand-in-glove for years with the P.R., indeed, the whole number of their Royal Highnesses, – in short, I cannot tell your ladyship – things are very bad, very bad indeed.” And Sir Remnant made a grimace, as if his own whole life had been purity.
“I fear that is too true,” the lady answered, looking straight at him. “We find things always growing worse, as we ourselves grow wiser. But come now, and sit in this chair, and tell me, if you please, Sir Remnant, how the poor things are getting on – your captain and my poor grandchild.”
“Well, madam, I need not tell a lady of your high breeding and experience; the maids of the present day are not at all the same thing as they used to be. But, thank the Lord, they get on, on the whole as well as can be expected. But Sir Roland will not help us; and the young maid flies and flickers, and don’t seem to come to know her own mind. You know, my lady, the Lord in heaven scarce knows what to make of them. They will have this, and they won’t have that; and they hates to look at anything but their swinging-glasses.”
“Oh, sir, you have not been at court for nothing. You have come to a very sad view of the ladies. But they deserve a great deal more than that. If you were to hear what even I, at this great distance, know of them – but I will say no more; it is always best, and charitable, not to speak of them. So let us go back, if you please, Sir Remnant; I have my own ways of considering things. Indeed, I am obliged to have them, in a manner now scarcely understood. But, I hear a noise – is it a mouse, or a rat, do you think?”
It was neither mouse nor rat; as Lady Valeria knew quite well. It was simply poor Sir Remnant tapping on the floor with his walking-stick; which of course he had no right to do, while the lady was addressing him.
“It sounds like a very little mouse,” he said; “or perhaps it was the death-tick. It often comes in these old rooms, when any of the people are going to die.”
The old gentleman had not been at Court for nothing (as the old lady had told him); he knew how timid and superstitious were the brave women of the fine old time.
“Now, sir, are you sure that you never made a tap?” asked Lady Valeria, anxiously.
“Not a quarter of a tap, as I hope to be saved,” the old reprobate answered, below his breath; “I pay no heed to nonsense; but a thing of this sort must mean something.”
“There have been a great many signs of late,” said the old lady, after listening with her keener ear brought round, and the misty lace of her beautiful cap quivering like a spider’s web: “there seems to have been a great many signs of bad things coming, in their proper time.”
“They will come before we are ready, madam; old Scratch waits for no invitation. But they say that the death-tick runs before him, and keeps time with his cloven heel.”
“Oh Lord, Sir Remnant, how dreadfully you talk! I beg you to spare me; I have had no sleep since I was told of that horrible water, and of my poor grandson. Poor Hilary! He has done great things, and spent no money of his own; and indeed he had none of his own to spend; and having denied himself so, is it right that he should be disgraced and break his heart, because he could not help losing a little money, that was not at all his own? And he had taken a town worth ten times as much; now, truly speaking, is it fair of them?”
“Certainly not, madam; pox upon them! It is the scurviest thing ever heard of.”
“And you must remember, sir, if you please, that from his childhood upward, indeed ever since he could move on two legs, he always lost every sixpence put by kind people into his pockets. I gave him a guinea on his very fifth birthday; and in the afternoon what do you think he showed me? A filthy old tobacco-pipe, and nothing else – no change whatever. And his pride was more than he could set forth; though he always was a chatterer. Now, if such a thing as that could only be properly put at the Horse Guards, by some one of good position, surely, Sir Remnant, they would make allowance; they would see that it was his nature; at least they would have done so in my time.”
“Of course they would, of course, my lady. But things have been growing, from year to year, to such a pitch of” – here Sir Remnant took advantage of the lady’s courtly indulgence towards bad language – “that – that – they seem to want almost – gadzooks, they want to treat men almost all alike?”
“They never can do that, good sir. They never could be such fools as to try it. And, bad as they may be, they must be aware that my grandson has done no harm to them. Why, the money he lost was not theirs at all; it was all for the pay of the common soldiers. It comes out of everybody’s pocket, and it goes into nobody’s. And, to my mind, it serves them all perfectly right. Who is that General – I forget his name, an Irishman, if I remember aright – who is he, or of what family, that he should put a Lorraine to look after dirty money? The heir of all the Lorraines to be put to do a cashier’s business!”
“Heaven save me from such a proud woman as this!” thought poor Sir Remnant Chapman; “if Alice is like her, the Lord have pity on our unlucky Steenie! He won’t dare have his nip of brandy, even in a corner!”
“And now, poor dear, he is very ill indeed,” continued the ancient lady, recovering from the indignation which had even wrinkled her firm and smooth forehead; “he has pledged his honour to make good the money; and my son also thinks that the dignity of our family demands it: though to me it seems quite a ridiculous thing; and you of course will agree with me. And the doctors say that he has something on his mind; and if he cannot be relieved of it, he must die, poor boy. And then what becomes of the name of Lorraine that has been here for nearly eight hundred years?”
“It becomes extinct, of course, my lady,” answered Sir Remnant, as calmly as if the revolution of the earth need not be stopped; “but it might be revived in the female line, by royal licence, hereafter.”
“That would be of very little use. Why, even your grandson might be a Lorraine! Is that what you were thinking of?”
“No, no, no! Of course not, my lady. Nothing could be further from my thoughts.” The old baronet vainly endeavoured, as he spoke, to meet the suspicious gaze of the lady’s still penetrating and bright eyes.
“We are not so particular about the spindle,” she resumed with some condescension; “but in the sword line we must be represented duly; and we never could be supplanted by a Chapman.”
“Gadzooks, madam, are the Chapmans dirt? But in order to show how you wrong us, my lady, I will tell you what I am come to propose.”
Herewith he looked very impressive, and leaned both hands on his stick, as if inditing of an excellent matter. And thus he set forth his scheme, which bore at first sight a fair and magnanimous face; as if all that large sum of money were given, or without security trusted, for no other purpose, except to save a life precious to both families. The old lady listened with prudent reserve, yet an inward sense of relief, and even a faint suspicious gratitude. She was too old now to digest very freely any generous sentiment. Blessed are they who, crossing the limit of human years, can carry with them faith in worn humanity.