Sir Roland gave his guide, philosopher, and friend a look of such gratitude that she began to laugh; but, composing her countenance to an expression of the requisite propriety, she advanced to the rival coach, and so timed her movements that he was enabled to help the fair Hypatia to the ground – a slight, but smile-compelling service, which repaid the giver a hundredfold.
Taking a mean advantage of Buckhurst, who was compelled for some reason to overlook the unharnessing of his horses, he thereupon walked away with the entrancing personage towards the assembled party, abandoning Miss Branksome, who discreetly preferred to busy herself in animated conversation with the newcomers.
After this fortunate commencement all went well. Smiling as the morn, pleased (and what woman is not?) with the marked attention of a "personage," Miss Tollemache confessed the exhilaration proper to that pleasantest of informal gatherings – a picnic to a spot of historic interest in an English county, with congenial intimates, and perhaps still more interesting strangers.
Her companion was well up in the provincial records, and thereby in a position of superiority to the rest of the company conversationally.
They had pulled up for lunch in the meadow, deep-swarded and thick with the clovers white and purple, mingled with the tiny fodder plants which nestle around a ruin in green England. The party was full of exclamations.
"What a darling old church! – thousands of years old it must be," said one of the Miss Wensleydales. "Now, can any one tell me whether it is a Norman or a Saxon one?"
"Oh, Norman, surely!" was the verdict of several feminine voices, all at once.
"I am not quite certain," said Lady Roxburgh; "I always intended to look it up. What do you say, Miss Tollemache? You know more about these matters than we do."
"Oh, I don't pretend to any knowledge of architecture. A grand old ruin like this is such a thing of beauty that it seems a pity to pick it to pieces. That south door with its round arches looks rather Saxon. What does Sir Roland think? It's not far from Massinger, is it?"
"I used to know it well in my boyhood," replied that gentleman, who, truth to tell, had been waiting to be referred to. "Miss Tollemache is right; you will find its history in the Domesday Book. The manor was held by the secular canons of St. Wereburgh till the Conqueror gave it to Hugh Lupus, who granted it to the Benedictine monks."
"And was it an abbey church?" asked Miss Branksome, who may or may not have divined Sir Roland's special knowledge of church history.
"Certainly," he replied; "all the authorities are distinct on the point. The manor was held under the abbots by a family of the same name, so it must have belonged to the original Saxon stock."
"And why did they not keep it?" asked Lady Roxburgh. "Really, this is most interesting."
"A lady in the case," answered Sir Roland. "Alice de Sotowiche conveyed it away by her marriage with Robert de Maurepas. What the Normans did not get by the sword they seem to have acquired by matrimony. It did not go out of the family, though, till the time of Edward the First. These De Maurepases battled for their manorial rights, too, which included fishing in the Welland, always providing that sturgeon went to the overlord."
"I always knew it was a dear old place," said Lady Roxburgh, "but now it seems doubly interesting. I must get up this history business for future use, and Miss Branksome shall give a little lecture about it next time we have a picnic."
"Thanks awfully, my dear Lady Roxburgh," said that young lady, "but I never could learn anything by heart in my life. I don't mind writing it down, though, from Sir Roland's notes, so that you can have it printed for private circulation at breakfast-time on picnic days."
"I think we might manage a county historical society," continued her ladyship. "It would be a grand idea for house-parties – only now it must be lunch-time. I see they have been unpacking. We must verify these quatrefoils, chevrons, and things afterwards."
They lunched under the mouldering walls, picturing a long-past day when, issuing forth from the courtyard of the neighbouring castle, had ridden knight and squire and lady fayre, attended by falconers and woodsmen, with hawk on wrist and hound in leash.
"What glorious times they must have had of it!" said Miss Tollemache. "I should like to have lived then. Life was more direct and sincere than in these artificial days."
"If we could only have seen the people as they really were," he replied, "'in their habit as they lived,' mental or otherwise, it would be such splendid opera business, would it not? But they must have been awfully dull between times. Hardly any books, no cigars till later on; war and the chase their only recreations."
"Noble occupations both," said Miss Tollemache, with an air of conviction; "they left little room for the frivolous indolence of these latter days."
"Perhaps so," assented her companion. "You had either to knock people on the head or undergo the operation yourself. Then, mark the opposite side of the shield. In that very castle – while the gay troop was riding out with pennons flying – the feudal enemy or 'misproud' retainer was probably lying in the dungeon (they had one there, Orme says) after an imprisonment of years."
The gathering was a pronounced success. The ruin provided subjects for unlimited conversation as well as occasions for heroic daring in the matter of climbing. The lunch was perfect in its way; the ensuing walks and talks all that could be wished.
And when, after, as one of the young people declared, the "truly excellent – really delicious day" came so near to its close that the horses were brought up, Miss Branksome playfully suggested that she and Miss Tollemache should change seats, as she wished to take a lesson from the opposition charioteer in driving, and when, after a moment's playful contest, the fair enslaver was placed on the seat beside him, Sir Roland's cup of happiness was full.
"Let Fate do her worst;
There are moments of joy,
Bright dreams of the past,
Which she cannot destroy" —
must have been written by the poet, he felt assured, with that wondrous instinctive insight into the inmost soul of him, and all true lovers, which stamps the heaven-born singer.
Then the drive back to Roxburgh Hall, where they were to reassemble for the impromptu dance! The horses, home-returning, pulled just sufficiently to enable the box passenger to appreciate the strong arm and steady hand of her companion; and when, after an hour, the lamps were lit and the star-spangled night appeared odorous with the scents of early spring, the girl's low voice and musical laugh seemed the appropriate song-speech for which the star-clustered night formed fitting hour and circumstance.
Roland Massinger in that eve of delicious companionship abandoned himself to hope and fantasy. His fair companion had been so far acted upon by her environment, that she had permitted speculative allusions to the recondite problems of the day; to the deeper aims of life – subjects in which she evinced an interest truly exceptional in a girl of such acknowledged social distinction; while he, drawn on by the thought of possible companionship with so rarely-gifted a being, abandoned his usual practical and chiefly negative outlook upon the world, acknowledging the attraction of self-sacrifice and philanthropic crusade. His mental vision appeared to have received an illuminating expansion, and as those low, earnest, but melodious tones made music in his ear, emanating from the fair lips so closely inclined towards his own, he felt almost moved to devote his future energies, means, lands, and life to the amelioration of the race – to the grand aims of that altruistic federation of which, it must be confessed, that he had been a formal, if not indifferent, professor. If only he might persuade this "one sweet spirit to be his minister"! Then, how cheerfully would he fare forth through whatever lands or seas she might appoint.
But that fatal if!
Why should he be privileged to appropriate this glorious creature, redolent of all the loveliness of earth's primal vigour, and yet informed with the lore of the ages, heightening her attractions a hundred – yes, a thousand-fold? Almost he despaired when thinking of his superlative presumption.
Fortunately for the safety of the passengers, who little knew what tremendous issues were oscillating in the brain of their pilot, he mechanically handled the reins in his usual skilled and efficient fashion. Nor, indeed, did the fair comrade, or she would scarcely have emphasized the conventional remark, "Oh, Sir Roland, what a delightful drive we have had! I feel so grateful to you!" as he swung his horses round, and, with practised accuracy, almost grazed the steps at the portico of Roxburgh Hall.
CHAPTER II
Events shaped themselves much after the manner customary since that earliest recorded compromise between soul and sense which mortals throughout all ages have agreed to call Love. Ofttimes such pursuits and contests have been protracted. After the first skirmish of temperaments, war has been declared by Fate, and through wearisome campaigns the rival armies have ravaged cities, so to speak, and assaulted neutral powers before the beleaguered citadel surrendered.
At other times, the maiden fortress has been taken by a coup de main, the assailant's resistless ardour carrying all before it. More frequently, perhaps, has the too venturous knight been repulsed with scorn, and, as in earlier days, been fain to betake himself to Palestine or other distant region blessed with continuous warfare, and exceptional facilities for acquiring fame or getting knocked on the head, as the case might be.
For the patient and scientific conduct of a siege, according to the rules of the Court of Love – and such there be, if the poets and minstrels of all ages deserve credence – Roland Massinger was unfitted by constitution and opinion. His fixed idea was, that every woman knew her mind perfectly well with regard to a declared admirer. If favourable, it was waste of time and emotion to await events. If otherwise, the sooner a man was made aware of his dismissal the better. He could then shape his course in life without distraction or hindrance. In any case he was freed from the hourly torments under which the victim writhes, uncertain of his fate. It was the coup de grâce which frees the wretch upon the rack; the knife-thrust which liberates the Indian at the stake. And he trusted to his manhood to be equal to the occasion.
When he did "put his fortune to the touch, to win or lose it all" – as have done so many gallant lovers before this veracious history – he was too deeply grieved and shocked at the unexpected issue to place before the fateful maid any of the pleadings or protests deemed in such cases to be appropriate. He did not falter out statements inclusive of a "wrecked life," an "early grave," a career "for ever closed." Nor did he make the slightest reference to her having, so to speak, allured him to continue pursuit – "led him on," in more familiar terms.
Such commonplaces he disdained, although not without a passing thought that in the familiar play of converse, and her occasional touch upon the keynotes which evoke the deeper sympathies, an impartial judge might have discovered that perilous liking akin to love.
No! beyond one earnest appeal to her heart, into which he implored her to look, lest haply she had mistaken its promptings – a plea for time, for cooler consideration – he had no words with which to plead his cause, as he stood with sad reproachful gaze, assuring her that never would she know truer love, more loyal devotion.
What had she told him? Merely this: "That if she were to marry – a step which she had resolved not to take for some years, if at all – she confessed that there was no man whom she had yet known, with whom she felt more in sympathy, with whom, taking the ordinary phrase, she would have a greater prospect of happiness. But she held strong opinions upon the duties which the individual owed to the appealing hordes of fellow-creatures perishing for lack of care, of food, of instruction, by whom the overindulged so-called upper classes were surrounded. Such manifest duties were sacred in her eyes, though possibly incompatible with what was called 'happiness.' For years – for ever, it might be – such considerations would be paramount with her. They could be neglected only at the awful price of self-condemnation in this world and perdition in the next. She was grieved to the soul to be compelled to refuse his love. She blamed herself that she should have permitted an intimacy which had resulted so unhappily for him – even for herself. But her resolve was fixed; nothing could alter it."
This, or the substance of it, fell upon the unwilling ears of Roland Massinger in unconnected sentences, in answer to his last despairing appeal. Meanwhile his idol stood and gazed at him, as might be imagined some Christian maiden of the days of Diocletian, when called upon to deny her faith or seal it with martyrdom. Her eyes were occasionally lifted upward, as if she felt the need of inspiration from above.
For one moment the heart of her lover stood still.
He placed his hand on his brow as if to quell the tumult of his thoughts. She moved towards him, deprecating the intensity of his emotion. An intolerable sense of her divine purity, her ethereal loveliness, seemed to pervade his whole being. He felt an almost irresistible desire to clasp her in his arms in one desperate caress, ere they parted for ever. Had he done this, the current of both lives might have been altered. The coldest maids are merely mortal.
But he refrained; in his present state of mind it would have been sacrilege to his ideal goddess, to the saintly idol of his worship.
Raising her hand reverently to his lips, he bowed low and departed.
When he thus passed out of her sight – out of her life – Hypatia herself was far from unmoved. Regrets, questionings, impulses to which she had so far been a stranger, arose and contended with strange and unfamiliar power.
Never before had she met with any one in all respects so attractive to her physically, so sympathetic mentally; above all things manly, cultured, devoted, with the instincts of the best age of chivalry. She liked – yes, nearly, perhaps quite – loved him. Family, position, personal character, all the attributes indispensably necessary, he possessed.
Not rich, indeed; but for riches she cared little – despised them, indeed. Why, then, had she cast away the admittedly best things of life? For an abstraction! For toilsome, weary, perhaps ungrateful tasks among the poor, the disinherited of the earth.
Had not others of whom she had heard, died, after wasting, so to speak, their lives and opportunities, with scarcely veiled regrets for the sacrifice? How many secretly bewailed the deprivation of the fair earth's light, colour, beauty, consented to in youth's overstrained sense of obedience to a divine injunction! Was this wealth of joyous gladness – the free, untrammelled spirit in life's springtime, which bade the bird to carol, the lamb to frisk, the wildfowl to sport o'er the translucent lake – but a snare to lead the undoubting soul to perdition? As these questioning fancies crossed her mind, in the lowered tone resulting in reaction from the previous mood of exaltation, she found her tears flowing fast, and with an effort, raising her head as if in scorn of her weakness, hurried to her room.
A sudden stroke of sorrow, loss, disappointment, or disaster affects men differently, but the general consensus is that the blow, like wounds that prove mortal, is less painful than stunning. Roland Massinger never doubted but that his wound was mortal. For days he wondered, in the solitude of his retreat to which he had, like other stricken deer, betaken himself, whether or no he was alive. He returned to the Court. He moved from room to room – he absorbed food. He even opened books in the library and essayed to read, finding himself wholly unable to extract the meaning of the lettered lines. He rode and drove at appointed hours, but always with a strange preoccupied expression. This change of habit and occupation was so evident to his old housekeeper and the other domestics, that the subject of their master's obvious state of mind began to be freely discussed. The groom was of opinion that he did not know the bay horse that carried him so well to hounds, from the black mare that was so fast and free a goer in the dog-cart.
He retired late, sitting in the old-fashioned study which served as a smoking-room, "till all hours," as the maids said.
He rose early, unconscionably so, as the gardener considered who had met him roaming through the shrubberies before sunrise. A most unusual proceeding, indefensible "in a young gentleman as could lie in bed till breakfast-bell rang."
The maids were instinctively of the opinion that "there was a lady in the case;" but, upon broaching their ingenuous theory, were so sternly silenced by Mrs. Lavender, the old housekeeper who had ruled in Massinger long before Sir Roland's parents had died, and remembered the last Lady Massinger as "a saint on earth if ever there was one," that they hastily deserted it, hoping "as he wouldn't have to be took to the county hospital." This theory proving no more acceptable than the other, they were fain to retire abashed, but clinging with feminine obstinacy to their first opinion.
Suddenly a change came over the moody squire who had thus exercised the intelligences of the household.
On a certain morning he ordered the dog-cart, in which he drove himself to the railway station, noticing the roadside incidents and mentioning the stud generally, in a manner so like old times, that the groom felt convinced that the desired change had taken place; so that hunting, shooting, and all business proper to the season would go on again with perhaps renewed energy.
"When the master jumped down and ordered the porter to label his trunk 'London,' he was a different man," said the groom on his return. "He's runnin' up to town to have a lark, and forgit his woes. That's what I should do, leastways. He ain't agoin' to make a break of it along o' Miss Tollemache, or any other miss just yet."
Though this information was acceptable to the inmates of a liberally considered household, who one and all expressed their satisfaction, the situation was not destined to be lasting. Within a week it was widely known that Massinger Court was for sale, "just as it stood," with furniture, farm-stock, library, stud, everything to be taken at a valuation – owner about to leave England.
What surprise, disapproval – indeed, almost consternation – such an announcement is calculated to create in a quiet county in rural England, those only who have lived and grown up in such "homes of ancient peace" can comprehend. A perfect chorus of wonder, pity, indignation, and disapproval arose.
The squirearchy lamented the removal of a landmark. The heir of an historic family, "a steady, well-conducted young fellow, good shot, straight-goer in the field – knew something about farming, too. Not too deep in debt either? That is, as far as anybody knew. What the deuce could he mean by cutting the county; severing himself from all his old friends – his father's friends, too?"
This was the lament of Sir Giles Weatherly, one of the oldest baronets in the county. "D – n it," he went on to say, "it ought to be prevented by law. Why, the place was entailed!"
"Entail broken years ago; but that wouldn't mend matters," his companion, Squire Topthorne, replied – a hard-riding, apple-faced old gentleman, credited with a shrewd appreciation of the value of money. "You can't force a man to live on a place, though he mustn't sell it. It wouldn't help the county much to have the Court shut up, with only the old housekeeper, a gardener, and a maid, like Haythorpe. Besides, some decent fellow might buy it – none of us could afford to do so just now. I couldn't, I know."
"Nor I either," returned Sir Giles, "with wheat at thirty shillings a quarter, and farms thrown back on your hands, like half a dozen of mine. But why couldn't Roland have stopped in England; married and settled down, if it comes to that? There are plenty of nice girls in Herefordshire; a good all-round youngster like him, with land at his back, might marry any one he pleased."
"That's the trouble, from what I hear," said Mr. Topthorne, with a quiet smile. "Young men have a way of asking the very girl that won't have them, while there are dozens that would. Same, the world over. And the girls are just as bad – won't take advice, and end up as old maids, or take to 'slumming' and Zenana work. I hear it's Hypatia Tollemache who's responsible."
"Whew-w!" whistled Sir Giles. "She's a fine girl, and knows her value, I suppose, but she's bitten by this 'New Woman' craze – wants to regenerate society, and the rest of it. In our time girls did what they were told – learned house-keeping, and thought it a fair thing to be the mistress of some good fellow's household; to rear wholesome boys and girls to keep up the honour of old England. I have no patience with these fads."
"Well! it can't be helped. Have you any idea who is likely to make a bid for the place?"
"Not the slightest. We're safe to have a manufacturer, or some infernal colonist – made his money by gold-digging or sheep-farming, drops his aitches, and won't subscribe to the hounds."
"Suppose we do? You're too hard on colonists, who, after all, are our own countrymen, with the pluck to go abroad, instead of loafing at home. Often younger sons, too – men of as good family as you or I. We're too conservative here, I often think. They always spend their money liberally, give employment, and entertain royally if they do the thing at all."
"I suppose there's something in what you say; but all the same, I don't like to see a Massinger go out of the county where his family have lived since the time of Hugh Lupus. Viscount the Sire de Massinger came out of Normandy along with Duke William. He was a marshal commanding a division of archers at Hastings. 'For which service both the Conqueror and Hugh Lupus rewarded him' (says an old chronicle) 'with vast possessions, among which was Benham Massinger in Cheshire; and the said Hamon de Massinger was the first Baron de Massinger.' There's a pedigree for you! Pity they hadn't kept their lands; but they're not the only ones, as we know too well."
These and the like colloquies took place during the period which intervened between the direful announcement of the sale of the Court and its actual disposal by an auction sale, at which the late owner was not present.
It was then made public that the stranger who bought that "historic mansion, Massinger Court, with lands and messuages, household furniture, and farm stock, horses and carriages," was acting as agent only for Mr. Lexington, the great Australian squatter, who had made a colossal fortune in New South Wales and Queensland, numbering his sheep by the half-million and his cattle by the twenties of thousands. He had, moreover, agreed to take the furniture, books, pictures – everything – at a valuation, together with the live stock, farm implements, and – in fact, the whole place, exactly as it stood; Sir Roland, the auctioneer said, having removed his personal belongings previously to London immediately after offering the Court for sale. He only returned to bid farewell to the friends of his youth and the home of his race.
Yes! it was hard – very hard, he thought, at the last. There was the garden – old-fashioned, but rich in fruit and flower, with box-borders, clipped yew hedges, alleys of formal shape and pattern; the south wall where the fruit ripened so early, and to which his childish eyes had so often been attracted; the field wherein he had, with the old keeper in strict attendance, been permitted to blaze at a covey of partridges – he remembered now the wild delight with which he marked his first slain bird; the stream in which he had caught his first trout, and whence many a basket had been filled in later days; the village church, under the floor of which so many de Massingers lay buried – the family pew, too large for the church, but against the size and shape of which no innovating incumbent had thought fit to protest.
How well he remembered his mother's loving hand as he walked with her to church —every Sunday, unless illness or unusual weather forbade! That mother, too, so gentle, so saintly sweet, so charitable, so beloved, why should she have died when he was so young? And his father, the pattern squire, who shot and hunted, lived much at home, and was respected throughout the county as a model landlord, who did his duty to the land which had done so much for the men of his race? Why should these things be?
He recalled his mother's dear face, which grew pale, and yet more pale, during her long illness – her last words bidding him, to be a good man, to remember what she taught him, and to comfort his poor father when she was gone. And how he kneeled by her bedside, with her wasted hand in his, praying with her that he might live to carry out her last wishes, and do his duty fearlessly in the face of all men. Then the funeral – the long train of carriages, the burial service, where so many people wept, and he wished – how he wished! – that he could be buried with her. His father's set face, almost stern, yet more sorrowful than any tears. And how he went back to school in his black clothes, miserable and lonely beyond all words to describe.
In the holidays, too – how surprised he had been to find that the squire no longer shot, fished, hunted. He, that was so keen as long as he could remember, but now sat all day reading in the library, where they often used to find him asleep. And how, before the Christmas holidays came round again, he was sent for, to see his father once more before he died.
The squire spoke not – he had for days lost the power of speech – but he placed his hands upon his head and murmured an inarticulate blessing. He did not look pale or wasted like his poor mother, he remembered. The doctors said there was no particular ailment; he had simply lost all interest in life. The old housekeeper summed up the case, which coincided closely with the public feeling.
"It's my opinion," she affirmed, "that if ever a man in this world died of a broken heart, the squire did. He was never the same after the mistress died, God bless her! She's in heaven, if any one is. She was a saint on earth. And the squire, seeing they'd never been parted before – and I never saw two people more bound up in each other – well, he couldn't stay behind."
The new lord of the manor – for Massinger held manorial rights and privileges, which had been tolerably extensive in the days of "merrie England" – lost no time in taking possession.
A week had not elapsed before the Australian gentleman and his family arrived by train at the little railway station, much like any one else, to the manifest disappointment of the residents of the vicinity, who had expected all sorts of foreign appearances and belongings. Certain large trunks —not Saratogas – and portmanteaux were handed out of the brake-van and transferred to the waggonette, which they filled, while three ladies with their maid were escorted to the mail phaeton which had made so many previous journeys to the station with the visitors and friends of the Massinger family. A middle-aged, middle-sized, alert personage, fair-haired, clean-shaved, save for a moustache tinged with grey, mounted the dog-cart, followed by a tall young man who looked with an air of scrutiny at the horses and appointments. He took the reins from the groom, who got up behind, and with one of those imperceptible motions with which a practised whip communicates to well-conditioned horses that they are at liberty to go, started the eager animal along the well-kept road which led to the Court.
"Good goer," he remarked, after steadying the black mare to a medium pace. "If she's sound, she's a bargain at the money; horses seem tremendously dear in England."
"Yes, I should say so," replied his father. "And the phaeton pair are good-looking enough for anything: fair steppers also. I thought the price put on the horses and cattle high, but the agent told me they were above the average in quality. I see he was correct so far."
"Well, it's a comfort to deal with people who are straight and above-board," said the younger man. "It saves no end of trouble. I shouldn't wonder if the home-station – I mean the house and estate – followed suit in being true to description. If so, we've made a hit."
"Sir Roland wouldn't have a thing wrong described for the world, sir," here put in the groom, touching his hat. "No auctioneer would take that liberty with him; not in this county, anyhow."
"Glad to hear it. I thought as much, from seeing him once," said the elder man.
A short hour saw the black mare tearing up the neatly raked gravel in front of the façade of the Court, and by the time the dog-cart had departed for the stables, the phaeton came up to the door, with one of the young ladies in the driving seat.
"Well, this is a nice pair of horses!" said the damsel, who evidently was not unaccustomed to driving a pair, if not a more imposing team. "Fast, so well matched and well mannered; it's a pleasure to drive them. And oh! what a lovely old hall – and such darling trees! How fortunate we were to pick up such a place! It's not too large: there's not much land, but it's a perfect gem in its way. I suppose we are to have the pictures of the ancestors, too?"
"We shall have that reflected glory," said the matron with a smile. "Sir Roland would not sell them, but hoped we would give them house-room till he wanted them – which might not be for years and years."