Bello:
hidden talent rediscovered
Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.
At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.
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Contents
Edith Olivier
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Edith Olivier
Dwarf's Blood
Edith Olivier (1872-1948) was born in the Rectory at Wilton, Wiltshire, in the late 1870s. Her father was Rector there and later Canon of Salisbury. She came from an old Huguenot family which had been living in England for several generations, and was one of a family of ten children. She was educated at home until she won a scholarship to St Hugh’s College, Oxford. Her first novel, The Love Child, was published in 1927 and there followed four works of fiction: As Far as Jane’s Grandmother’s (1928), The Triumphant Footman (1930), Dwarf’s Blood (1930) and The Seraphim Room (1932). Her works of non-fiction were The Eccentric Life of Alexander Cruden (1934), Mary Magdalen (1934), Country Moods and Tenses (1941), Four Victorian Ladies of Wiltshire (1945), Night Thoughts of a Country Landlady (1945), her autobiography, Without Knowing Mr. Walkley (1938) and, posthumously published, Wiltshire (1951).
Dedication
TO
REX WHISTLER
Chapter One
SIR HENRY ROXERBY was dead. As far as Brokeyates was concerned, he might well have died years earlier, for the place had begun to go to rack and ruin long before he took to his bed. During those last five years, the main drive had never been used. Sir Henry had no visitors, and the butcher and the baker preferred to reach the house by the stable entrance, near the churchyard. It was thus possible almost to avoid the Park altogether, and none of the village people cared about going farther into that than was absolutely necessary. It had a haunted look.
But now, the men who drove the hearse opened the great gates once more. The unwonted movement snapped one of the rusty hinges, and the iron gate fell forward, and lay across the wet roadway, embedded in the sodden brown leaves which had lain there since they were swept under the arch by the storm of last November. Grumbling and swearing, the men forced the gate back, and the hearse passed through, to be followed later in the morning by several carriages and motors. The old drive was found to be almost impassable. It had become little more than a rough track across the Park, its course indicated by the deep ruts made by an occasional farm cart. Grass had grown all over it, and great shaggy weeds. The ditches had not been cleaned out for years, and here and there the muddy water collected in stagnant puddles. In many places, the undergrowth had invaded the road, almost obliterating it, and now and again, a rotting bough lay, barring the way. When one of these was moved it fell to pieces, crumbling into damp dust. On the high ground in the Park, where the deer had scampered about in the old days, last year’s crop of thistles and nettles stood brown and withered against the heavy January sky. They spoke of poverty and neglect.
The house was a white Georgian one, and its stones had proved solid enough to withstand twenty years of penury, although the steps were crumbling. There was no paint left on the window frames, and the rain had got into the wood, splintering it in many places, while one of the windows in the west wing had been actually blown out, so that the wintry weather drove across the floor of the room. Lying in bed at the far end of the house, Sir Henry had been unaware of this, but even if he had known, he would have done nothing. His pride in his house had long ago turned into a bitter pride in its decay. The country people said that the old gentleman had been crossed in love as a young man, and that since then he had never had the heart to look after the old place. He had sat by and watched its ruin.
Sir Henry had outlived most of his contemporaries, and he had never had any friends. His attitude to life was defeatist, and his rancour against the Present showed itself in a sullen determination to give no Future to the home of his ancestors. He knew that when he died, his title must go to the grandson of that only brother of his, whom he had hated so bitterly: he could not prevent that. But he was resolved that the estate which went with the tide should be nothing but an inheritance of ruin and decay.
Ten or twelve neighbours had driven across the Park in the wake of the hearse, and they collected in the library waiting for the coffin to be carried downstairs. It was many years since the noble room had seen the light of day. Ann Dybbe, the old woman who, with her husband, had ‘done for the squire’ for the past fifteen years, had opened the shutters that morning, and had done her feeble best to dust the glass in the lower panes of the windows. Through them there struggled the half-light which had made its way through the overgrown box bushes outside. The walls of the room were for the most part covered with great leather-bound volumes, and these absorbed most of the light which succeeded in getting into the room. From these books there came a curious corpse-like smell of centuries of dust.
On the round table in the middle of the room, Mrs. Dybbe had put a plate of sandwiches, flanked by three or four bottles of beer, and some heavy cut-glass tumblers; but her attempt at hospitality was ignored by the little group of men who stood in the library. Instead, they tried, in the semidarkness, to examine the room, now seen by most of them for the first time. The great ceiling painting of Prometheus chained to the Rock had really fallen to bits. Part of it lay broken on the floor, and wide cracks ran in all directions across what was left. Over the fireplace, there still hung the Reynolds picture which had once been the pride of Brokeyates and, in the broken frame, Sir Joshua’s Lady Roxerby stood like a pillar of dust in an avenue of dust laden trees. The needlework hung threadbare on the fine Chippendale chairs, and the dust was so thick upon the beautiful old Indian carpet that it was impossible to see how much of it was left. The heavy silence of the room sank down upon its occupants, and no one spoke. They listened.
Staggering footsteps sounded overhead: and then the men were heard on the stairs, moving with that terrible, uncertain, weighted tread which has trampled upon so many hearts during the hundreds of years during which coffins have been carried out of houses. The sound brings with it the realization of man’s helplessness in face of death.
The listeners exchanged glances, and signified by movements of the head that the moment had come for them to pick up their hats and go to the churchyard. They left the house, and followed the coffin on foot.
Although Sir Henry Roxerby was the senior County magistrate, he had not appeared on the Bench for many years. Still, most of his fellow Justices thought it was their duty to pay a last token of respect to one of their number, and no one else seemed to be present at the funeral.
Th
e church was only a few hundred yards away, and when the little procession reached the gate, it was seen that most of the villagers were collected in the churchyard.
The burial of the Squire was the one and only entertainment arranged for them by the great house within the memory of most of them. Many of the tenants and labourers had never even seen the master whose coffin they now silently watched as it was lowered into the grave. The vicar was reading words familiar to them all. He had read them over the bodies of their own kith and kin; and suddenly the Squire was near to them. Hitherto, he had been only the invisible, and rather evil, influence responsible for their tumble-down cottages and their impure water supply. Now, he was one with them. As he was, so they would all be one day. They gazed, impressed and expressionless. The bell tolled, and a baby cried in its perambulator.
When the service was over, everyone seemed relieved. The neighbours who had attended the funeral could throw off the horrid sense of helplessness which had come upon them in the house. The world was once more normal. The air was clear, and a thrush was singing somewhere. Cigarettes and pipes were lit, and voices broke into ordinary conversation. Carriages drove up, and their owners got into them with genial farewells. It had been an unhappy scene. Less painful, perhaps, than when death has left living sorrow behind: and yet the fact that not one person had been found to mourn for Sir Henry Roxerby made it the more poignant a sight to see his coffin disappear. He seemed already to have reached the oblivion which awaits us all in a hundred years or so.
Old Colonel Bracton had given Arthur Fanshawe a lift, and he drove him back to Radway for luncheon after the funeral. The Colonel was, perhaps, the only person in the county who still remembered Brokeyates in the old days; and now, with the loquacity of his eighty-five years, he was glad of an audience for his reminiscences. He had already given them at considerable length to his grand-daughter Alethea, and, unlike many men of his age, he disliked telling the same story more than once to the same person. He therefore felt it was impossible to relate again to Alethea the story of Sir Henry’s quarrel with his brother; although he saw no reason why she should not accept the traditional role of the lady of the house, and sit by while he told it to someone else.
‘Yes, I suppose there’s no one left in the county who knew Henry Roxerby as I did. We were boys together. Not that we were ever specially friendly. My friend was his brother Bob, who was at Rugby with me, while Henry was at Eton. But it was not only because we were schoolfellows, for no one could look at Henry if Bob was by. He was the handsomest fellow I ever saw, and he had a wonderful charm. Henry was quite different, a heavy-looking fellow, short-sighted, and a bad shot. He was stupid too, and he hadn’t got the sense to hide that he was desperately jealous of Bob. It made him sulky when they were together, and so he showed up worse than ever. But of course Henry had the money, as well as the place and the title, and in those days the Roxerbys were very well off indeed. Henry had the whip hand there and he knew it. Bob had only got about £200 a year, and you can bet that Henry wasn’t going to make it any easier for him. He was dead keen to push him out to make his own living. And then at last they both fell in love with the same girl. That was the end of everything.’
The Colonel paused to give Arthur another slice from the saddle of mutton.
Arthur took advantage of the interval to remark sagely that of course Bob married the lady.
‘No he didn’t. But she was a beautiful creature, was Dulcibella Cheverell. I once thought of marrying her myself. Most people did, in those days. However, she did fall in love with Bob, and I suppose she couldn’t help that. They would have made a very fine pair, but when it came to the point, she couldn’t face being poor. That £200 a year of Bob’s stuck in her throat, and though she had told Bob she would wait for him, when Henry came along and proposed, she accepted him, Henry had no idea how matters stood between the girl and his brother. If he had guessed it, he would never have thought of falling in love with her, for he always hated anyone Bob liked. I think I was the only person who knew the truth. Bob had confided in me, and I shall never forget the night when he came over here and told me she had given him up for his own brother.’
Here Colonel Bracton drank a glass of claret.
‘He was terribly hard hit,’ he went on. ‘It absolutely broke him up. He couldn’t see her again, but he just burnt his boats and went off to Australia. And then Dulcibella found that she couldn’t go through with it. She found Henry quite impossible, and I don’t wonder at it. But she behaved very badly. A week before the day fixed for the wedding, she threw him over, and she made it as bad for him as she could. I suppose she thought she would cure him of being in love; but she told him outright that she had never cared for him, and had cared for Bob all along. The Roxerbys never forgave each other. Each had spoilt the other’s life, and neither of them had got the lady. They each blamed the other, but they never met again. Bob didn’t live long. He was drowned, crossing a river in the bush, and I suppose he didn’t make much of a fight for his life. He was always a first-rate swimmer, and he could have saved himself if he’d had a mind to. However, he married out there, “caught on the rebound”, as they say, and he left a son. The boy was Henry’s heir, and the old fellow wouldn’t forgive that either. He ought to have married and got children of his own, but he was too bitter against women. He would never pay any one of ’em the compliment of making her his wife; so he just sulked and let his place go to pieces. It was his way of paying out Bob, and it showed what a fool he was, because of course, Bob never knew a thing about it. Everybody’s land went down in the seventies, and the rest of us made the best of it and tried to carry on. Roxerby would do no such thing. He shut himself up at Brokeyates, and let the place tumble about his ears. He went nowhere and he never had a soul to the place. To-day, you saw the end of it all.’
‘So this man, who is coming from Australia, is Sir Henry’s nephew.’
‘His great-nephew. Bob’s son died, but he seems to have done well for himself first, and married a woman with a lot of money, the daughter of a business man in Melbourne. I hear the boy is a millionaire, and he could do anything he likes to the place. Of course he may not want to live at Brokeyates, and I should hardly expect him to take a fancy to it, seeing it for the first time in such a condition.’
‘Lovely as it is, I can’t believe he could choose to live there,’ said Alethea. ‘It looks so terrible. An unhappy, fatal place.’
‘Still it is a fine house, and a beautiful Park,’ said Arthur. ‘He has never seen anything like it in Australia!’
‘You may safely say that,’ Colonel Bracton answered. ‘And I would venture to go further, and assert that he wouldn’t see anything quite like it anywhere else in the world. I, for one, never saw such a sight. And when I remember the place as it was! It shocked me very much, and I almost wish I hadn’t gone there to-day. I had lots of very happy memories connected with that library. It was a part of my boyhood. And when I think of it as I saw it this morning, I feel as if I had looked into a vault.’
Chapter Two
UNLIKE MOST reputed millionaires, who are usually not much better off than their neighbours, Sir Nicholas Roxerby was, if anything, even richer than he was said to be. He had no idea how much money he had. He only knew that he and his mother had never come within sight of its margin. And, too, the fortune increased every year, for the business was still flourishing, as Mrs. Roxerby had inherited not only her father’s riches, but the talent for accumulating them which had been possessed by the last two generations of her family. She managed the Melbourne works herself, making them, as time went on, more and more prosperous.
Sir Henry Roxerby died on the last day of the nineteenth century, and Nicholas was then twenty-five. The young man had plenty of ability, but this had found but little outlet in a business dominated by Mrs. Roxerby. He was glad to leave Australia, and to find himself at once independent, and the owner of an estate which it seemed would make such demands upon him. The name of Brokeyat
es had been poetry in his ear since he was a boy, and he could scarcely believe that his dream had materialized, that the moment had come when he could actually walk into this enchanted land. He came to England determined to find in it the purpose of his life, and the outlet for his fortune. He turned his back upon the long misery of his youth.
He did not reach Brokeyates till nearly six months after the death of Sir Henry, and during that time, the process of decay had continued. Yet the place had now a less doleful appearance. It was a radiant morning in May when Nicholas motored from London to see his home for the first time. Beside him in the car was Mr. Briscowe, the old family lawyer, in whose eyes Brokeyates was nothing but a disgrace. The evidences of neglect made him blush for the family which had employed his firm for the past four generations, and the name of Briscowe too seemed tarnished. He trembled to think of the effect which such dilapidation must make on the mind of a man accustomed to the brisk methods of a prosperous new country.
When they got to the drive, they found that those old ruts were worse than ever. The car jolted and swayed most alarmingly. It forced its way through bushes and brambles, now trespassing further than ever upon the road, for no one had attempted to control the ramping new life which surged through them in the spring. Un-hindered, they had sent out their shoots and branches, and tangled tendrils in all directions, lavishly spreading their lawless beauty around. Above the untidy undergrowth, the gallant old chestnuts of the ancient avenue still held up their thousand torches of red and white flame; and all around them the undulating parkland broke into billows of may-blossom. The hawthorn, of all trees, is the true emblem of the English country side.
The motor reached the summit of a little hill, and Nicholas looked down for the first time upon the house which had called him from one hemisphere to another. Before him, the ground fell away into a wide irregular valley, the sides of which were sprinkled with hundreds of may-trees, while bluebells rushed in sheets across the grass, to mirror themselves at last in the water of the lake. Nicholas told the chauffeur to pull up for a few moments, and he looked silently down upon Brokeyates. From the point they had reached, it was not possible to see that the house was on the verge of falling down. It shone clear and white against the belt of woodland which clothed the hill behind it, running away to the horizon. There was dignity in the solid unpretentious building. It had a character of reserve and composure. The house was entirely without ornament, and the beauty which it possessed was that intrinsic beauty which comes from sure proportions, thoughtful fenestration, and a sincere purpose in the placing of every line.
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