Richard Carvel — Complete

by Winston Churchill

  CHAPTER II. SOME MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD

  A traveller who has all but gained the last height of the greatmist-covered mountain looks back over the painful crags he has masteredto where a light is shining on the first easy slope. That light is evervisible, for it is Youth.

  After nigh fourscore and ten years of life that Youth is nearer to menow than many things which befell me later. I recall as yesterday theday Captain Clapsaddle rode to the Hall, his horse covered with sweat,and the reluctant tidings of Captain Jack Carvel's death on his lips.And strangely enough that day sticks in my memory as of delightrather than sadness. When my poor mother had gone up the stairs on mygrandfather's arm the strong soldier took me on his knee, and drawinghis pistol from his holster bade me snap the lock, which I was barelyable to do. And he told me wonderful tales of the woods beyond themountains, and of the painted men who tracked them; much wilder andfiercer they were than those stray Nanticokes I had seen from time totime near Carvel Hall. And when at last he would go I clung to him,so he swung me to the back of his great horse Ronald, and I seized thebridle in my small hands. The noble beast, like his master, loved achild well, and he cantered off lightly at the captain's whistle, whocried "bravo" and ran by my side lest I should fall. Lifting me off atlength he kissed me and bade me not to annoy my mother, the tears in hiseyes again. And leaping on Ronald was away for the ferry with never somuch as a look behind, leaving me standing in the road.

  And from that time I saw more of him and loved him better than any mansave my grandfather. He gave me a pony on my next birthday, and a littlehogskin saddle made especially by Master Wythe, the London saddler inthe town, with a silver-mounted bridle. Indeed, rarely did the captainreturn from one of his long journeys without something for me and ahandsome present for my mother. Mr. Carvel would have had him make hishome with us when we were in town, but this he would not do. He lodgedin Church Street, over against the Coffee House, dining at that hostelrywhen not bidden out, or when not with us. He was much sought after.I believe there was scarce a man of note in any of the colonies notnumbered among his friends. 'Twas said he loved my mother, and couldnever come to care for any other woman, and he promised my father in theforests to look after her welfare and mine. This promise, you shall see,he faithfully kept.

  Though you have often heard from my lips the story of my mother, I mustfor the sake of those who are to come after you, set it down hereas briefly as I may. My grandfather's bark 'Charming Sally', CaptainStanwix, having set out from Bristol on the 15th of April, 1736, witha fair wind astern and a full cargo of English goods below, near theMadeiras fell in with foul weather, which increased as she entered thetrades. Captain Stanwix being a prudent man, shortened sail, knowing theharbour of Funchal to be but a shallow bight in the rock, and worse thanthe open sea in a southeaster. The third day he hove the Sally to; beinga stout craft and not overladen she weathered the gale with the loss ofa jib, and was about making topsails again when a full-rigged ship wasdescried in the offing giving signals of distress. Night was coming onvery fast, and the sea was yet running too high for a boat to live, butthe gallant captain furled his topsails once more to await the morning.It could be seen from her signals that the ship was living throughoutthe night, but at dawn she foundered before the Sally's boats could beput in the water; one of them was ground to pieces on the falls. Out ofthe ship's company and passengers they picked up but five souls, foursailors and a little girl of two years or thereabouts. The men knewnothing more of her than that she had come aboard at Brest withher mother, a quiet, delicate lady who spoke little with the otherpassengers. The ship was 'La Favourite du Roy', bound for the FrenchIndies.

  Captain Stanwix's wife, who was a good, motherly person, took chargeof the little orphan, and arriving at Carvel Hall delivered her to mygrandfather, who brought her up as his own daughter. You may be sure theemblem of Catholicism found upon her was destroyed, and she was baptizedstraightway by Doctor Hilliard, my grandfather's chaplain, into theEstablished Church. Her clothes were of the finest quality, and herlittle handkerchief had worked into the corner of it a coronet, with theinitials "E de T" beside it. Around her neck was that locket with thegold chain which I have so often shown you, on one side of which is theminiature of the young officer in his most Christian Majesty's uniform,and on the other a yellow-faded slip of paper with these words: "Elleest la mienne, quoiqu'elle ne porte pas mou nom." "She is mine, althoughshe does not bear my name."

  My grandfather wrote to the owners of 'La Favourite du Roy', andlikewise directed his English agent to spare nothing in the search forsome clew to the child's identity. All that he found was that the motherhad been entered on the passenger-list as Madame la Farge, of Paris, andwas bound for Martinico. Of the father there was no trace whatever.The name "la Farge" the agent, Mr. Dix, knew almost to a certainty wasassumed, and the coronet on the handkerchief implied that the child wasof noble parentage. The meaning conveyed by the paper in the locket,which was plainly a clipping from a letter, was such that Mr. Carvelnever showed it to my mother, and would have destroyed it had he notfelt that some day it might aid in solving the mystery. So he kept it inhis strongbox, where he thought it safe from prying eyes. But my UncleGrafton, ever a deceitful lad, at length discovered the key and read thepaper, and afterwards used the knowledge he thus obtained as a reproachand a taunt against my mother. I cannot even now write his name withoutrepulsion.

  This new member of the household was renamed Elizabeth Carvel, thoughthey called her Bess, and of a course she was greatly petted andspoiled, and ruled all those about her. As she grew from childhood towomanhood her beauty became talked about, and afterwards, when MistressCarvel went to the Assembly, a dozen young sparks would crowd about thedoor of her coach, and older and more serious men lost their heads onher account.

  Her devotion to Mr. Carvel was such, however, that she seemed to carebut little for the attention she received, and she continued to gracehis board and entertain his company. He fairly worshipped her. It washis delight to surprise her with presents from England, with rich silksand brocades for gowns, for he loved to see her bravely dressed. Thespinet he gave her, inlaid with ivory, we have still. And he caused achariot to be made for her in London, and she had her own horses and hergroom in the Carvel livery.

  People said it was but natural that she should fall in love with CaptainJack, my father. He was the soldier of the family, tall and straight anddashing. He differed from his younger brother Grafton as day fromnight. Captain Jack was open and generous, though a little given to rashenterprise and madcap adventure. He loved my mother from a child. Hisfriend Captain Clapsaddle loved her too, and likewise Grafton, but itsoon became evident that she would marry Captain Jack or nobody. He wasmy grandfather's favourite, and though Mr. Carvel had wished him moreserious, his joy when Bess blushingly told him the news was a pleasureto see. And Grafton turned to revenge; he went to Mr. Carvel with thepaper he had taken from the strong-box and claimed that my mother was ofspurious birth and not fit to marry a Carvel. He afterwards spread thestory secretly among the friends of the family. By good fortune littleharm arose therefrom, since all who knew my mother loved her, and werewilling to give her credit for the doubt; many, indeed, thought thestory sprang from Grafton's jealousy and hatred. Then it was that Mr.Carvel gave to Grafton the estate in Kent County and bade him shift forhimself, saying that he washed his hands of a son who had acted such apart.

  But Captain Clapsaddle came to the wedding in the long drawing-room atthe Hall and stood by Captain Jack when he was married, and kissed thebride heartily. And my mother cried about this afterwards, and said thatit grieved her sorely that she should have given pain to such a nobleman.

  After the blow which left her a widow, she continued to keep Mr.Carvel's home. I recall her well, chiefly as a sad and beautiful woman,stately save when she kissed me with passion and said that I bore myfather's look. She drooped like the flower she was, and one spring daymy grandfather led me to receive her blessing and to be folded fort
he last time in those dear arms. With a smile on her lips she roseto heaven to meet my father. And she lies buried with the rest of theCarvels at the Hall, next to the brave captain, her husband.

  And so I grew up with my grandfather, spending the winters in town andthe long summers on the Eastern Shore. I loved the country best, and theold house with its hundred feet of front standing on the gentle sloperising from the river's mouth, the green vines Mr. Carvel had fetchedfrom England all but hiding the brick, and climbing to the angledroof; and the velvet green lawn of silvery grass brought from England,descending gently terrace by terrace to the waterside, where lay ourpungies and barges. There was then a tiny pillared porch framing thefront door, for our ancestors never could be got to realize the Marylandclimate, and would rarely build themselves wide verandas suitable tothat colony. At Carvel Hall we had, to be sure, the cool spring houseunder the willows for sultry days, with its pool dished out for bathing;and a trellised arbour, and octagonal summer house with seats wheremy mother was wont to sit sewing while my grandfather dreamed over hispipe. On the lawn stood the oaks and walnuts and sycamores which stillcast their shade over it, and under them of a summer's evening Mr.Carvel would have his tea alone; save oftentimes when a barge would comeswinging up the river with ten velvet-capped blacks at the oars, andone of our friendly neighbours--Mr. Lloyd or Mr. Bordley, or perchancelittle Mr. Manners--would stop for a long evening with him. They seldomcame without their ladies and children. What romps we youngsters hadabout the old place whilst our elders talked their politics.

  In childhood the season which delighted me the most was spring. I wouldcount the days until St. Taminas, which, as you knew, falls on the firstof May. And the old custom was for the young men to deck themselves outas Indian bucks and sweep down on the festivities around the Maypole onthe town green, or at night to surprise the guests at a ball and forcethe gentlemen to pay down a shilling, and sometimes a crown apiece, andthe host to give them a bowl of punch. Then came June. My grandfathercelebrated his Majesty's birthday in his own jolly fashion, and I had myown birthday party on the tenth. And on the fifteenth, unless it chancedupon a Sunday, my grandfather never failed to embark in his pinnace atthe Annapolis dock for the Hall. Once seated in the stern between Mr.Carvel's knees, what rapture when at last we shot out into the bluewaters of the bay and I thought of the long summer of joy before me.Scipio was generalissimo of these arrangements, and was always at thedock punctually at ten to hand my grandfather in, a ceremony in which hetook great pride, and to look his disapproval should we be late. As heturned over the key of the town house he would walk away with a sterndignity to marshal the other servants in the horse-boat.

  One fifteenth of June two children sat with bated breath in thepinnace,--Dorothy Manners and myself. Mistress Dolly was then asmischievous a little baggage as ever she proved afterwards. She wascoming to pass a week at the Hall, her parents, whose place was next toours, having gone to Philadelphia on a visit. We rounded Kent Island,which lay green and beautiful in the flashing waters, and at lengthcaught sight of the old windmill, with its great arms majesticallyturning, and the cupola of Carvel House shining white among the trees;and of the upper spars of the shipping, with sails neatly furled, lyingat the long wharves, where the English wares Mr. Carvel had commandedfor the return trips were unloading. Scarce was the pinnace brought intothe wind before I had leaped ashore and greeted with a shout the Hallservants drawn up in a line on the green, grinning a welcome. Dorothyand I scampered over the grass and into the cool, wide house, restingawhile on the easy sloping steps within, hand in hand. And then away forthat grand tour of inspection we had been so long planning together. Howwell I recall that sunny afternoon, when the shadows of the great oakswere just beginning to lengthen. Through the greenhouses we marched,monarchs of all we surveyed, old Porphery, the gardener, presentingMistress Dolly with a crown of orange blossoms, for which she thankedhim with a pretty courtesy her governess had taught her. Were we notking and queen returned to our summer palace? And Spot and Silver andSong and Knipe, the wolf-hound, were our train, though not as decorousas rigid etiquette demanded, since they were forever running after thebutterflies. On we went through the stiff, box-bordered walks of thegarden, past the weather-beaten sundial and the spinning-house and thesmoke-house to the stables. Here old Harvey, who had taught me toride Captain Daniel's pony, is equerry, and young Harvey our personalattendant; old Harvey smiles as we go in and out of the stalls rubbingthe noses of our trusted friends, and gives a gruff but kindly warningas to Cassandra's heels. He recalls my father at the same age.

  Jonas Tree, the carpenter, sits sunning himself on his bench before theshop, but mysteriously disappears when he sees us, and returns presentlywith a little ship he has fashioned for me that winter, all completewith spars and sails, for Jonas was a shipwright on the Severn in theold country before he came as a king's passenger to the new. Dolly andI are off directly to the backwaters of the river, where the new boatis launched with due ceremony as the Conqueror, his Majesty's latestship-of-the-line. Jonas himself trims her sails, and she sets off rightgallantly across the shallows, heeling to the breeze for all the worldlike a real man-o'-war. Then the King would fain cruise at once againstthe French, but Queen Dorothy must needs go with him. His Majesty pointsout that when fighting is to be done, a ship of war is no place for awoman, whereat her Majesty stamps her little foot and throws her crownof orange blossoms from her, and starts off for the milk-house in highdudgeon, vowing she will play no more.

  And it ends as it ever will end, be the children young or old, for theFrench pass from his Majesty's mind and he runs after his consort toimplore forgiveness, leaving poor Jonas to take care of the Conqueror.

  How short those summer days? All too short for the girl and boy who hadso much to do in them. The sun rising over the forest often found uspeeping through the blinds, and when he sank into the bay at night wewere still running, tired but happy, and begging patient Hester for halfan hour more.

  "Lawd, Marse Dick," I can hear her say, "you an' Miss Dolly's been onyo' feet since de dawn. And so's I, honey."

  And so we had. We would spend whole days on the wharves, all bustle andexcitement, sometimes seated on the capstan of the Sprightly Bess orperched in the nettings of the Oriole, of which ship old Stanwix wasnow captain. He had grown gray in Mr. Carvel's service, and good Mrs.Stanwix was long since dead. Often we would mount together on the littlehorse Captain Daniel had given me, Dorothy on a pillion behind, to gowith my grandfather to inspect the farm. Mr. Starkie, the overseer,would ride beside us, his fowling-piece slung over his shoulder and hisholster on his hip; a kind man and capable, and unlike Mr. Evans, myUncle Grafton's overseer, was seldom known to use his firearms or therawhide slung across his saddle. The negroes in their linsey-woolseyjackets and checked trousers would stand among the hills grinning at uschildren as we passed; and there was not one of them, nor of the whiteservants for that matter, that I could not call by name.

  And all this time I was busily wooing Mistress Dolly; but she, littleminx, would give me no satisfaction. I see her standing among thestrawberries, her black hair waving in the wind, and her red lips redderstill from the stain. And the sound of her childish voice comes back tome now after all these years. And this was my first proposal:

  "Dorothy, when you grow up and I grow up, you will marry me, and I shallgive you all these strawberries."

  "I will marry none but a soldier," says she, "and a great man."

  "Then will I be a soldier," I cried, "and greater than the Governorhimself." And I believed it.

  "Papa says I shall marry an earl," retorts Dorothy, with a toss of herpretty head.

  "There are no earls among us," I exclaimed hotly, for even then I hadsome of that sturdy republican spirit which prevailed among the youngergeneration. "Our earls are those who have made their own way, like mygrandfather." For I had lately heard Captain Clapsaddle say this andmuch more on the subject. But Dorothy turned up her nose.

  "I shall go
home when I am eighteen,"--she said, "and I shall meet hisMajesty the King."

  And to such an argument I found no logical answer.

  Mr. Marmaduke Manners and his lady came to fetch Dorothy home. He wasa foppish little gentleman who thought more of the cut of his waistcoatthan of the affairs of the province, and would rather have been biddento lead the assembly ball than to sit in council with his Excellencythe Governor. My first recollection of him is of contempt. He must needshave his morning punch just so, and complained whiningly of Scipio ifsome perchance were spilled on the glass. He must needs be taken abroadin a chair when it rained. And though in the course of a summer he wasoften at Carvel Hall he never tarried long, and came to see Mr.Carvel's guests rather than Mr. Carvel. He had little in common with mygrandfather, whose chief business and pleasure was to promote industryon his farm. Mr. Marmaduke was wont to rise at noon, and knew not wheatfrom barley, or good leaf from bad; his hands he kept like a lady's,rendering them almost useless by the long lace on the sleeves, and hischief pastime was card-playing. It was but reasonable therefore, whenthe troubles with the mother country began, that he chose the King'sside alike from indolence and contempt for things republican.

  Of Mrs. Manners I shall say more by and by.

  I took a mischievous delight in giving Mr. Manners every annoyancemy boyish fancy could conceive. The evening of his arrival he and Mr.Carvel set out for a stroll about the house, Mr. Marmaduke mincing hissteps, for it had rained that morning. And presently they came uponthe windmill with its long arms moving lazily in the light breeze, neartouching the ground as they passed, for the mill was built in the Dutchfashion. I know not what moved me, but hearing Mr. Manners carelesslyhumming a minuet while my grandfather explained the usefulness of themill, I seized hold of one of the long arms as it swung by, andbefore the gentlemen could prevent was carried slowly upwards. Dorothyscreamed, and her father stood stock still with amazement and fear, Mr.Carvel being the only one who kept his presence of mind. "Hold on tight,Richard!" I heard him cry. It was dizzy riding, though the motion wasnot great, and before I had reached the right angle I regretted myrashness. I caught a glimpse of the Bay with the red sun on it, and asI turned saw far below me the white figure of Ivie Rawlinson, theScotch miller, who had run out. "O haith!" he shouted. "Hand fast,Mr. Richard!"--And so I clung tightly and came down without muchinconvenience, though indifferently glad to feel the ground again.

  Mr. Marmaduke, as I expected, was in a great temper, and swore he hadnot had such a fright for years. He looked for Mr. Carvel to cane mestoutly: But Ivie laughed heartily, and said: "I wad yell gang far foranither laddie wi' the spunk, Mr. Manners," and with a sly look at mygrandfather, "Ilka day we hae some sic whigmeleery."

  I think Mr. Carvel was not ill pleased with the feat, or with Mr.Marmaduke's way of taking it. For afterwards I overheard him telling thestory to Colonel Lloyd, and both gentlemen laughing over Mr. Manners'sdiscomfiture.