by Graeme Davis
Meanwhile, Sir John’s serving-men below had obeyed their master’s orders. They had gone through the house, closing every window, every shutter, and every door, but leaving all else just as it was—the cold meats on the table, the hot meats on the spit, the silver flagons on the side-board, all just as if it were ready for a feast; and then Sir John’s head-servant, he that I spoke of before, came up and told his master all was ready.
“Is the horse and the pillion all ready? Then you and I must be my lady’s tire-women;” and as it seemed to her in mockery, but in reality with a deep purpose, they dressed the helpless woman in her riding things all awry, and strange and disorderly, Sir John carried her down stairs; and he and his man bound her on the pillion; and Sir John mounted before. The man shut and locked the great house-door, and the echoes of the clang went through the empty Hall with an ominous sound. “Throw the key,” said Sir John, “deep into the mere yonder. My lady may go seek it if she lists, when next I set her arms at liberty. Till then I know whose house Morton Hall shall be called.”
“Sir John! It shall be called the Devil’s House, and you shall be his steward.”
But the poor lady had better have held her tongue; for Sir John only laughed, and told her to rave on. As he passed through the village, with his serving-men riding behind, the tenantry came out and stood at their doors, and pitied him for having a mad wife, and praised him for his care of her, and of the chance he gave her of amendment by taking her up to be seen by the King’s physician. But, somehow, the Hall got an ugly name; the roast and boiled meats, the ducks, the chickens had time to drop into dust, before any human being now dared to enter in; or, indeed, had any right to enter in, for Sir John never came back to Morton; and as for my lady, some said she was dead, and some said she was mad, and shut up in London, and some said Sir John had taken her to a convent abroad.
“And what did become of her?” asked we, creeping up to Mrs. Dawson.
“Nay, how should I know?”
“But what do you think?” we asked pertinaciously.
“I cannot tell. I have heard that after Sir John was killed at the battle of the Boyne she got loose, and came wandering back to Morton, to her old nurse’s house; but, indeed, she was mad then, out and out, and I’ve no doubt Sir John had seen it coming on. She used to have visions and dream dreams: and some thought her a prophetess, and some thought her fairly crazy. What she said about the Mortons was awful. She doomed them to die out of the land, and their house to be razed to the ground, while pedlars and huxters, such as her own people, her father, had been, should dwell where the knightly Mortons had once lived. One winter’s night she strayed away, and the next morning they found the poor crazy woman frozen to death in Drumble meeting-house yard; and the Mr. Morton who had succeeded to Sir John had her decently buried where she was found, by the side of her father’s grave.”
We were silent for a time. “And when was the old Hall opened, Mrs. Dawson, please?”
“Oh! when the Mr. Morton, our Squire Morton’s grandfather, came into possession. He was a distant cousin of Sir John’s, a much quieter kind of man. He had all the old rooms opened wide, and aired, and fumigated; and the strange fragments of musty food were collected and burnt in the yard; but somehow that old dining-parlour had always a charnel-house smell, and no one ever liked making merry in it—thinking of the grey old preachers, whose ghosts might be even then scenting the meats afar off, and trooping unbidden to a feast, that was not that of which they were baulked. I was glad for one when the squire’s father built another dining-room; and no servant in the house will go an errand into the old dining-parlour after dark, I can assure ye.”
“I wonder if the way the last Mr. Morton had to sell his land to the people at Drumble had anything to do with old Lady Morton’s prophecy,” said my mother, musingly.
“Not at all,” said Mrs. Dawson, sharply. “My lady was crazy, and her words not to be minded. I should like to see the cotton-spinners of Drumble offer to purchase land from the squire. Besides, there’s a strict entail now. They can’t purchase the land if they would. A set of trading pedlars, indeed!”
I remember Ethelinda and I looked at each other at this word “pedlars;” which was the very word she had put into Sir John’s mouth when taunting his wife with her father’s low birth and calling. We thought, “We shall see.”
Alas! we have seen.
Soon after that evening our good old friend Mrs. Dawson died. I remember it well, because Ethelinda and I were put into mourning for the first time in our lives. A dear little brother of ours had died only the year before, and then my father and mother had decided that we were too young; that there was no necessity for their incurring the expense of black frocks. We mourned for the little delicate darling in our hearts, I know; and to this day I often wonder what it would have been to have had a brother. But when Mrs. Dawson died it became a sort of duty we owed to the squire’s family to go into black, and very proud and pleased Ethelinda and I were with our new frocks. I remember dreaming Mrs. Dawson was alive again, and crying, because I thought my new frock would be taken away from me. But all this has nothing to do with Morton Hall.
When I first became aware of the greatness of the squire’s station in life, his family consisted of himself, his wife (a frail, delicate lady), his only son, “little master,” as Mrs. Dawson was allowed to call him, “the young squire,” as we in the village always termed him. His name was John Marmaduke. He was always called John; and after Mrs. Dawson’s story of the old Sir John, I used to wish he might not bear that ill-omened name. He used to ride through the village in his bright scarlet coat, his long fair curling hair falling over his lace collar, and his broad black hat and feather shading his merry blue eyes, Ethelinda and I thought then, and I always shall think, there never was such a boy. He had a fine high spirit, too, of his own, and once horsewhipped a groom twice as big as himself who had thwarted him. To see him and Miss Phillis go tearing through the village on their pretty Arabian horses, laughing as they met the west wind, and their long golden curls flying behind them, you would have thought them brother and sister, rather than nephew and aunt; for Miss Phillis was the squire’s sister, much younger than himself; indeed, at the time I speak of, I don’t think she could have been above seventeen, and the young squire, her nephew, was nearly ten. I remember Mrs. Dawson sending for my mother and me up to the Hall that we might see Miss Phillis dressed ready to go with her brother to a ball given at some great lord’s house to Prince William of Gloucester, nephew to good old George the Third.
When Mrs. Elizabeth, Mrs. Morton’s maid, saw us at tea in Mrs. Dawson’s room, she asked Ethelinda and me if we would not like to come into Miss Phillis’s dressing-room, and watch her dress; and then she said, if we would promise to keep from touching anything, she would make interest for us to go. We would have promised to stand on our heads, and would have tried to do so too, to earn such a privilege. So in we went, and stood together, hand-in-hand, up in a corner out of the way, feeling very red, and shy, and hot, till Miss Phillis put us at our ease by playing all manner of comical tricks, just to make us laugh, which at last we did outright, in spite of all our endeavours to be grave, lest Mrs. Elizabeth should complain of us to my mother. I recollect the scent of the maréchale powder with which Miss Phillis’s hair was just sprinkled; and how she shook her head, like a young colt, to work the hair loose which Mrs. Elizabeth was straining up over a cushion. Then Mrs. Elizabeth would try a little of Mrs. Morton’s rouge; and Miss Phillis would wash it off with a wet towel, saying that she liked her own paleness better than any performer’s colour; and when Mrs. Elizabeth wanted just to touch her cheeks once more, she hid herself behind the great arm-chair, peeping out, with her sweet, merry face, first at one side and then at another, till we all heard the squire’s voice at the door, asking her, if she was dressed, to come and show herself to madam, her sister-in-law; for, as I said, Mrs. Morton was a great invalid, and unable to go out to any grand parties like this. We
were all silent in an instant; and even Mrs. Elizabeth thought no more of the rouge, but how to get Miss Phillis’s beautiful blue dress on quick enough. She had cherry-coloured knots in her hair, and her breast-knots were of the same ribbon. Her gown was open in front, to a quilted white silk skirt. We felt very shy of her as she stood there fully dressed—she looked so much grander than anything we had ever seen; and it was like a relief when Mrs. Elizabeth told us to go down to Mrs. Dawson’s parlour, where my mother was sitting all this time.
Just as we were telling how merry and comical Miss Phillis had been, in came a footman. “Mrs. Dawson,” said he, “the squire bids me ask you to go with Mrs. Sidebotham into the west parlour, to have a look at Miss Morton before she goes.” We went, too, clinging to my mother. Miss Phillis looked rather shy as we came in, and stood just by the door. I think we all must have shown her that we had never seen anything so beautiful as she was in our lives before; for she went very scarlet at our fixed gaze of admiration, and, to relieve herself, she began to play all manner of antics—whirling round, and making cheeses with her rich silk petticoat; unfurling her fan (a present from madam, to complete her dress), and peeping first on one side and then on the other, just as she had done upstairs; and then catching hold of her nephew, and insisting that he should dance a minuet with her until the carriage came; which proposal made him very angry, as it was an insult to his manhood (at nine years old) to suppose he could dance. “It was all very well for girls to make fools of themselves,” he said, “but it did not do for men.” And Ethelinda and I thought we had never heard so fine a speech before. But the carriage came before we had half feasted our eyes enough; and the squire came from his wife’s room to order the little master to bed, and hand his sister to the carriage.
I remember a good deal of talk about royal dukes and unequal marriages that night. I believe Miss Phillis did dance with Prince William; and I have often heard that she bore away the bell at the ball, and that no one came near her for beauty and pretty, merry ways. In a day or two after I saw her scampering through the village, looking just as she did before she had danced with a royal duke. We all thought she would marry some one great, and used to look out for the lord who was to take her away. But poor madam died, and there was no one but Miss Phillis to comfort her brother, for the young squire was gone away to some great school down south; and Miss Phillis grew grave, and reined in her pony to keep by the squire’s side, when he rode out on his steady old mare in his lazy, careless way.
We did not hear so much of the doings at the Hall now Mrs. Dawson was dead; so I cannot tell how it was; but, by-and-by, there was a talk of bills that were once paid weekly, being now allowed to run to quarter-day; and then, instead of being settled every quarter-day, they were put off to Christmas; and many said they had hard enough work to get their money then. A buzz went through the village that the young squire played high at college, and that he made away with more money than his father could afford. But when he came down to Morton, he was as handsome as ever; and I, for one, never believed evil of him; though I’ll allow others might cheat him, and he never suspect it. His aunt was as fond of him as ever; and he of her. Many is the time I have seen them out walking together, sometimes sad enough, sometimes merry as ever. By-and-by, my father heard of sales of small pieces of land, not included in the entail; and, at last, things got so bad, that the very crops were sold yet green upon the ground, for any price folks would give, so that there was but ready money paid. The squire at length gave way entirely, and never left the house; and the young master in London; and poor Miss Phillis used to go about trying to see after the workmen and labourers, and save what she could. By this time she would be above thirty; Ethelinda and I were nineteen and twenty-one when my mother died, and that was some years before this. Well, at last the squire died; they do say of a broken heart at his son’s extravagance; and, though the lawyers kept it very close, it began to be rumoured that Miss Phillis’s fortune had gone too. Any way, the creditors came down on the estate like wolves. It was entailed, and it could not be sold; but they put it into the hands of a lawyer, who was to get what he could out of it, and have no pity for the poor young squire, who had not a roof for his head. Miss Phillis went to live by herself in a little cottage in the village, at the end of the property, which the lawyer allowed her to have because he could not let it to any one, it was so tumble-down and old. We never knew what she lived on, poor lady; but she said she was well in health, which was all we durst ask about. She came to see my father just before he died, and he seemed made bold with the feeling that he was a dying man; so he asked, what I had longed to know for many a year, where was the young squire? He had never been seen in Morton since his father’s funeral. Miss Phillis said he was gone abroad; but in what part he was then, she herself hardly knew; only she had a feeling that, sooner or later, he would come back to the old place; where she should strive to keep a home for him whenever he was tired of wandering about, and trying to make his fortune.
“Trying to make his fortune still?” asked my father, his questioning eyes saying more than his words. Miss Phillis shook her head, with a sad meaning in her face; and we understood it all. He was at some French gaming-table, if he was not at an English one.
Miss Phillis was right. It might be a year after my father’s death when he came back, looking old and grey and worn. He came to our door just after we had barred it one winter’s evening. Ethelinda and I still lived at the farm, trying to keep it up, and make it pay; but it was hard work. We heard a step coming up the straight pebble walk; and then it stopped right at our door, under the very porch, and we heard a man’s breathing, quick and short.
“Shall I open the door?” said I.
“No, wait!” said Ethelinda; for we lived alone, and there was no cottage near us. We held our breaths. There came a knock.
“Who’s there?” I cried.
“Where does Miss Morton live—Miss Phillis?”
We were not sure if we would answer him; for she, like us, lived alone.
“Who’s there?” again said I.
“Your master,” he answered, proud and angry. “My name is John Morton. Where does Miss Phillis live?”
We had the door unbarred in a trice, and begged him to come in; to pardon our rudeness. We would have given him of our best, as was his due from us; but he only listened to the directions we gave him to his aunt’s, and took no notice of our apologies.
CHAPTER II
Up to this time we had felt it rather impertinent to tell each other of our individual silent wonder as to what Miss Phillis lived on; but I know in our hearts we each thought about it, with a kind of respectful pity for her fallen low estate. Miss Phillis—that we remembered like an angel for beauty, and like a little princess for the imperious sway she exercised, and which was such sweet compulsion that we had all felt proud to be her slaves—Miss Phillis was now a worn, plain woman, in homely dress, tending towards old age; and looking—(at that time I dared not have spoken so insolent a thought, not even to myself )—but she did look as if she had hardly the proper nourishing food she required. One day, I remember Mrs. Jones, the butcher’s wife (she was a Drumble person) saying, in her saucy way, that she was not surprised to see Miss Morton so bloodless and pale, for she only treated herself to a Sunday’s dinner of meat, and lived on slop and bread-and-butter all the rest of the week. Ethelinda put on her severe face—a look that I am afraid of to this day—and said, “Mrs. Jones, do you suppose Miss Morton can eat your half-starved meat? You do not know how choice and dainty she is, as becomes one born and bred like her. What was it we had to bring for her only last Saturday from the grand new butcher’s, in Drumble, Biddy?”—(We took our eggs to market in Drumble every Saturday, for the cotton-spinners would give us a higher price than the Morton people: the more fools they!)
I thought it rather cowardly of Ethelinda to put the story-telling on me; but she always thought a great deal of saving her soul; more than I did, I am afraid, for I made ans
wer, as bold as a lion, “Two sweet breads, at a shilling a-piece; and a forequarter of house-lamb, at eighteen-pence a pound.” So off went Mrs. Jones, in a huff, saying, “their meat was good enough for Mrs. Donkin, the great mill-owner’s widow, and might serve a beggarly Morton any day.” When we were alone, I said to Ethelinda, “I’m afraid we shall have to pay for our lies at the great day of account;” and Ethelinda answered, very sharply—(she’s a good sister in the main)—“Speak for yourself, Biddy. I never said a word. I only asked questions. How could I help it if you told lies? I’m sure I wondered at you, how glib you spoke out what was not true.” But I knew she was glad I told the lies, in her heart.
After the poor squire came to live with his aunt, Miss Phillis, we ventured to speak a bit to ourselves. We were sure they were pinched. They looked like it. He had a bad hacking cough at times; though he was so dignified and proud he would never cough when any one was near. I have seen him up before it was day, sweeping the dung off the roads, to try and get enough to manure the little plot of ground behind the cottage, which Miss Phillis had let alone, but which her nephew used to dig in and till; for, said he, one day, in his grand, slow way, “he was always fond of experiments in agriculture.” Ethelinda and I do believe that the two or three score of cabbages he raised were all they had to live on that winter, besides the bit of meal and tea they got at the village shop.
One Friday night I said to Ethelinda, “It is a shame to take these eggs to Drumble to sell, and never to offer one to the squire, on whose lands we were born.” She answered, “I have thought so many a time; but how can we do it? I, for one, dare not offer them to the squire; and as for Miss Phillis, it would seem like impertinence.” “I’ll try at it,” said I.
