Delphi Works of M. E. Braddon

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

  ‘We shall find out all about this Mr. Hamleigh — no Hammond — in a day or two,’ replied her ladyship, placidly; ‘and in the meantime we must tolerate him, and be grateful to him if he reconcile Maulevrier to remaining at Fellside for the next six weeks.’

  Lesbia was silent. She did not consider Maulevrier’s presence at Fellside an unmitigated advantage, or, indeed, his presence anywhere. Those two were not sympathetic. Maulevrier made fun of his elder sister’s perfections, chaffed her intolerably about the great man she was going to captivate, in her first season, the great houses in which she was going to reign. Lesbia despised him for that neglect of all his opportunities of culture which had left him, after the most orthodox and costly curriculum, almost as ignorant as a ploughboy. She despised a man whose only delight was in horse and hound, gun and fishing-tackle. Molly would have cared very little for the guns or the fishing-tackle perhaps in the abstract; but she cared for everything that interested Maulevrier, even to the bagful of rats which were let loose in the stable-yard sometimes, for the education of a particularly game fox-terrier.

  There was plenty of talk and laughter at the dinner-table, while the Countess and Lady Lesbia conversed gravely and languidly in the dimly-lighted drawing-room. The dinner was excellent, and both travellers were ravenous. They had eaten nothing since breakfast, and had driven from Windermere on the top of the coach in the keen evening air. When the sharp edge of the appetite was blunted, Maulevrier began to talk of his adventures since he and Molly had last met. He had not being dissipating in London all the time — or, indeed, any great part of the time of his absence from Fellside; but Molly had been left in Cimmerian, darkness as to his proceedings. He never wrote a letter if he could possibly avoid doing so. If it became a vital necessity to him to communicate with anyone he telegraphed, or, in his own language, ‘wired’ to that person; but to sit down at a desk and labour with pen and ink was not within his capacities or his views of his mission in life.

  ‘If a fellow is to write letters he might as well be a clerk in an office,’ he said, ‘and sit on a high stool.’

  Thus it happened that when Maulevrier was away from Fellside, no fair châtelaine of the Middle Ages could be more ignorant of the movements or whereabouts of her crusader knight than Mary was of her brother’s goings on. She could but pray for him with fond and faithful prayer, and wait and hope for his return. And now he told her that things had gone badly with him at Epsom, and worse at Ascot, that he had been, as he expressed it, ‘up a tree,’ and that he had gone off to the Black Forest directly the Ascot week was over, and at Rippoldsau he had met his old friend and fellow traveller, Hammond, and they had gone for a walking tour together among the homely villages, the watchmakers, the timber cutters, the pretty peasant girls. They had danced at fairs — and shot at village sports — and had altogether enjoyed the thing. Hammond, who was something of an artist, had sketched a good deal. Maulevrier had done nothing but smoke his German pipe and enjoy himself.

  ‘I was glad to find myself in a world where a horse was an exception and not the rule,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, how I should love to see the Black Forest!’ cried Mary, who knew the first part of Faust by heart, albeit she had never been given permission to read it, ‘the gnomes and the witches — der Freischütz — all that is lovely. Of course, you went up the Brocken?’

  ‘Of course,’ answered Mr. Hammond; ‘Mephistopheles was our valet de place, and we went up among a company of witches riding on broomsticks.’ And then quoted,

  ‘Seh’ die Bäume hinter Bäumen,

  Wie sie schnell vorüberrücken,

  Und die Klippen, die sich bücken,

  Und die langen Felsennasen,

  Wie sie schnarchen, wie sie blasen!’

  This was the first time he had addressed himself directly to Mary, who sat close to her brother’s side, and never took her eyes from his face, ready to pour out his wine or to change his plate, for the serving-men had been dismissed at the beginning of this unceremonious meal.

  Mary looked at the stranger almost as superciliously as Lesbia might have done. She was not inclined to be friendly to her brother’s friend.

  ‘Do you read German?’ she inquired, with a touch of surprise.

  ‘You had better ask him what language he does not read or speak,’ said her brother. ‘Hammond is an admirable Crichton, my dear — by-the-by, who was admirable Crichton? — knows everything, can twist your little head the right way upon any subject.’

  ‘Oh,’ thought Mary, ‘highly cultivated, is he? Very proper in a man who was educated on charity to have worked his hardest at the University.’

  She was not prepared to think very kindly of young men who had been successful in their college career, since poor Maulevrier had made such a dismal failure of his, had been gated and sent down, and ploughed, and had everything ignominious done to him that could be done, which ignominy had involved an expenditure of money that Lady Maulevrier bemoaned and lamented until this day. Because her brother had not been virtuous, Mary grudged virtuous young men their triumphs and their honours. Great, raw-boned fellows, who have taken their degrees at Scotch Universities, come to Oxford and Cambridge and sweep the board, Maulevrier had told her, when his own failures demanded explanation. Perhaps this Mr. Hammond had graduated north of the Tweed, and had come southward to rob the native. Mary was not any more inclined to be civil to him because he was a linguist. He had a pleasant manner, frank and easy, a good voice, a cheery laugh. But she had not yet made up her mind that he was a gentleman.

  ‘If some benevolent old person were to take a fancy to Charles Ford, the wrestler, and send him to a Scotch University, I daresay he would turn out just as fine a fellow,’ she thought, Ford being somewhat of a favourite as a local hero.

  The two young men went off to the billiard-room after they had dined. It was half-past ten by this time, and, of course, Mary did not go with them. She bade her brother good-night at the dining-room door.

  ‘Good-night, Molly; be sure you are up early to show me the dogs,’ said Maulevrier, after an affectionate kiss.

  ‘Good-night, Lady Mary,’ said Mr. Hammond, holding out his hand, albeit she had no idea of shaking hands with him.

  She allowed her hand to rest for an instant in that strong, friendly grasp. She had not risen to giving a couple of fingers to a person whom she considered her inferior; but she was inclined to snub Mr. Hammond as rather a presuming young man.

  ‘Well, Jack, what do you think of my beauty sister?’ asked his lordship, as he chose his cue from the well-filled rack.

  The lamps were lighted, the table uncovered and ready, Carambole in his place, albeit it was months since any player had entered the room. Everything which concerned Maulevrier’s comfort or pleasure was done as if by magic at Fellside; and Mary was the household fairy whose influence secured this happy state of things.

  ‘What can any man think except that she is as lovely as the finest of Reynold’s portraits, as that Lady Diana Beauclerk of Colonel Aldridge’s, or the Kitty Fisher, or any example you please to name of womanly loveliness?’

  ‘Glad to hear it,’ answered Maulevrier, chalking his cue; ‘can’t say I admire her myself — not my style, don’t you know. Too much of my lady Di — too little of poor Kitty. But still, of course, it always pleases a fellow to know that his people are admired; and I know that my grandmother has views, grand views,’ smiling down at his cue. ‘Shall I break?’ and he began with the usual miss in baulk.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mr. Hammond, beginning to play. ‘Matrimonial views, of course. Very natural that her ladyship should expect such a lovely creature to make a great match. Is there no one in view? Has there been no family conclave — no secret treaty? Is the young lady fancy free?’

  ‘Perfectly. She has been buried alive here; except parsons and a few decent people whom she is allowed to meet now and then at the houses about here, she has seen nothing of the world. My grandmother has kept Lesbia as close as a nun.
She is not so fond of Molly, and that young person has wild ways of her own, and gives everybody the slip. By-the-by, how do you like my little Moll?’

  The adjective was hardly accurate about a young lady who measured five feet six, but Maulevrier had not yet grown out of the ideas belonging to that period when Mary was really his little sister, a girl of twelve, with long hair and short petticoats.

  Mr. Hammond was slow to reply. Mary had not made a very strong impression upon him. Dazzled by her sister’s pure and classical beauty, he had no eyes for Mary’s homelier charms. She seemed to him a frank, affectionate girl, not too well-mannered; and that was all he thought of her.

  ‘I’m afraid Lady Mary does not like me,’ he said, after his shot, which gave him time for reflection.

  ‘Oh, Molly is rather farouche in her manners; never would train fine, don’t you know. Her ladyship lectured till she was tired, and now Mary runs wild, and I suppose will be left at grass till six months before her presentation, and then they’ll put her on the pillar-reins a bit to give her a better mouth. Good shot, by Jove!’

  John Hammond was used to his lordship’s style of conversation, and understood his friend at all times. Maulevrier was not an intellectual companion, and the distance was wide between the two men; but his lordship’s gaiety, good-nature, and acuteness made amends for all shortcomings in culture. And then Mr. Hammond may have been one of those good Conservatives who do not expect very much intellectual power in an hereditary legislator.

  * * *

  CHAPTER VII.

  IN THE SUMMER MORNING.

  John Hammond loved the wild freshness of morning, and was always eager to explore a new locality; so he was up at five o’clock next morning, and out of doors before six. He left the sophisticated beauty of the Fellside gardens below him, and climbed higher and higher up the Fell, till he was able to command a bird’s-eye view of the lake and village, and just under his feet, as it were, Lady Maulevrier’s favourite abode. He was provided with a landscape glass which he always carried in his rambles, and with the aid of this he could see every stone of the building.

  The house, added to at her ladyship’s pleasure, and without regard to cost, covered a considerable extent of ground. The new part consisted of a straight range of about a hundred and twenty feet, facing the lake, and commandingly placed on the crest of a steepish slope; the old buildings, at right angles with the new, made a quadrangle, the third and fourth sides of which were formed by the dead walls of servants’ rooms and coach-houses, which had no windows upon this inner enclosed side. The old buildings were low and irregular, one portion of the roof thatched, another tiled. In the quadrangle there was an old-fashioned garden, with geometrical flower-beds, a yew tree hedge, and a stone sun-dial in the centre. A peacock stalked about in the morning light, and greeted the newly risen sun with a discordant scream. Presently a man came out of a half glass door under a verandah which shaded one side of the quadrangle, and strolled about the garden, stopping here and there to cut a dead rose, or trim a geranium, a stoutly-built broad shouldered man, with gray hair and beard, the image of well-fed respectability.

  Mr. Hammond wondered a little at the man’s leisurely movements as he sauntered about, whistling to the peacock. It was not the manner of a servant who had duties to perform — rather that of a gentleman living at ease, and hardly knowing how to get rid of his time.

  “Some superior functionary, I suppose,” thought Hammond, “the house-steward, perhaps.”

  He rambled a long way over the hill, and came back to Fellside by a path of his own discovering, which brought him to a wooden gate leading into the stable-yard, just in time to meet Maulevrier and Lady Mary emerging from the kennel, where his lordship had been inspecting the terriers.

  ‘Angelina is bully about the muzzle,’ said Maulevrier; ‘we shall have to give her away.’

  ‘Oh, don’t,’ cried Mary. ‘She is a most perfect darling, and laughs so deliciously whenever she sees me.’

  Angelina was in Lady Mary’s arms at this moment; a beautifully marked little creature, all thew and sinew, palpitating with suppressed emotions, and grinning to her heart’s content.

  Lady Mary looked very fresh and bright in her neat tailor gown, kilted kirtle, and tight-fitting bodice, with neat little brass buttons. It was a gown of Maulevrier’s ordering, made at his own tailor’s. Her splendid chestnut hair was uncovered, the short crisp curls about her forehead dancing in the morning air. Her large, bright, brown eyes were dancing, too, with delight at having her brother home again.

  She shook hands with Mr. Hammond more graciously than last night; but still with a carelessness which was not complimentary, looking at him absently, as if she hardly knew that he was there, and hugging Angelina all the time.

  Hammond told his friend about his ramble over the hills, yonder, up above that homely bench called ‘Rest, and be Thankful,’ on the crest of Loughrigg Fell. He was beginning to learn the names of the hills already. Yonder darkling brow, rugged, gloomy looking, was Nab Scar; yonder green slope of sunny pasture, stretching wide its two arms as if to enfold the valley, was Fairfield; and here, close on the left, as he faced the lake, were Silver Howe and Helm Crag, with that stony excrescence on the summit of the latter known as the ‘Lion and the Lamb.’ Lady Maulevrier’s house stood within a circle of mountain peaks and long fells, which walled in the deep, placid, fertile valley.

  ‘If you are not too tired to see the gardens, we might show them to you before breakfast,’ said Maulevrier. ‘We have three-quarters of an hour to the good.’

  ‘Half an hour for a stroll, and a quarter to make myself presentable after my long walk,’ said Hammond, who did not wish to face the dowager and Lady Lesbia in disordered apparel. Lady Mary was such an obvious Tomboy that he might be pardoned for leaving her out of the question.

  They set out upon an exploration of the gardens, Mary clinging to her brother’s arm, as if she wanted to make sure of him, and still carrying Angelina.

  The gardens were as other gardens, but passing beautiful. The sloping lawns and richly-timbered banks, winding shrubberies, broad terraces cut on the side of the hill, gave infinite variety. All that wealth and taste and labour could do to make those grounds beautiful had been done — the rarest conifers, the loveliest flowering shrubs grew and flourished there, and the flowers bloomed as they bloom only in Lakeland, where every cottage garden can show a wealth of luxurious bloom, unknown in more exposed and arid districts. Mary was very proud of those gardens. She had loved them and worked in them from her babyhood, trotting about on chubby legs after some chosen old gardener, carrying a few weeds or withered leaves in her pinafore, and fancying herself useful.

  ‘I help ‘oo, doesn’t I, Teeven?’ she used to say to the gray-headed old gardener, who first taught her to distinguish flowers from weeds.

  ‘I shall never learn as much out of these horrid books as poor old Stevens taught me,’ she said afterwards, when the gray head was at rest under the sod, and governesses, botany manuals, and hard words from the Greek were the order of the day.

  Nine o’clock was the breakfast hour at Fellside. There were no family prayers. Lady Maulevrier did not pretend to be pious, and she put no restraints of piety upon other people. She went to Church on Sunday mornings for the sake of example; but she read all the newest scientific books, subscribed to the Anthropological Society, and thought as the newest scientific people think. She rarely communicated her opinions among her own sex; but now and then, in strictly masculine and superior society, she had been heard to express herself freely upon the nebular hypothesis and the doctrine of evolution.

  ‘After all, what does it matter?’ she said, finally, with her grand air; ‘I have only to marry my granddaughters creditably, and prevent my grandson going to the dogs, and then my mission on this insignificant planet will be accomplished. What new form that particular modification of molecules which you call Lady Maulevrier may take afterwards is hidden in the great mystery of material li
fe.’

  There was no family prayer, therefore, at Fellside. The sisters had been properly educated in their religious duties, had been taught the Anglican faith carefully and well by their governess, Fräulein Müller, who had become a staunch Anglican before entering the families of the English nobility, and by the kind Vicar of Grasmere, who took a warm interest in the orphan girls. Their grandmother had given them to understand that they might be as religious as they liked. She would be no let or hindrance to their piety; but they must ask her no awkward questions.

  ‘I have read a great deal and thought a great deal, and my ideas are still in a state of transition,’ she told Lesbia; and Lesbia, who was somewhat automatic in her piety, had no desire to know more.

  Lady Maulevrier seldom appeared in the forenoon. She was an early riser, being too vivid and highly strung a creature, even at sixty-seven years of age, to give way to sloth. She rose at seven, summer and winter, but she spent the early part of the day in her own rooms, reading, writing, giving orders to her housekeeper, and occasionally interviewing Steadman, who, without any onerous duties, was certainly the most influential person in the house. People in the village talked of him, and envied him so good a berth. He had a gentleman’s house to live in, and to all appearance lived as a gentleman. This tranquil retirement, free from care or labour, was a rich reward for the faithful service of his youth. And it was known by the better informed among the Grasmere people that Mr. Steadman was saving money, and had shares in the North-Western Railway. These facts had oozed out, of themselves, as it were. He was not a communicative man, and rarely wasted half an hour at the snug little inn near St. Oswald’s Church, amidst the cluster of habitations that was once called Kirktown. He was an unsociable man, people said, and thought himself better than Grasmere folk, the lodging-house keepers, and guides, and wrestlers, and the honest friendly souls who were the outcome of that band of Norwegian exiles which found a home in these peaceful vales.