While William was thus treading a noted and an honourable career, his elder brother, who had married into a clergyman’s family, and soon lost his consort, had with his only child, a daughter named Lucy, resided in his paternal mansion in undisturbed obscurity. The discreditable character and habits of the preceding lords of Warlock, which had sunk their respectability in the county, as well as curtailed their property, had rendered the surrounding gentry little anxious to cultivate the intimacy of the present proprietor; and the heavy mind and retired manners of Joseph Brandon were not calculated to counterbalance the faults of his forefathers, nor to reinstate the name of Brandon in its ancient popularity and esteem. Though dull and little cultivated, the squire was not without his ‘proper pride;’ he attempted not to intrude himself where he was unwelcome, avoided county meetings and county balls, smoked his pipe with the parson, and not unoften with the surgeon and the solicitor, and suffered his daughter Lucy to educate herself, with the help of the parson’s wife, and to ripen (for Nature was more favourable to her than Art) into the very prettiest girl that the whole county – we long to say the whole country – at that time could boast of. Never did glass give back a more lovely image than that of Lucy Brandon at the age of nineteen. Her auburn hair fell in the richest luxuriance over a brow never ruffled, and a cheek where the blood never slept; with every instant the colour varied, and at every variation that smooth, pure, virgin cheek seemed still more lovely than before. She had the most beautiful laugh that one who loved music could imagine, – silvery, low, and yet so full of joy! All her movements, as the old parson said, seemed to keep time to that laugh; for mirth made a great part of her innocent and childish temper; and yet the mirth was feminine, never loud, nor like that of young ladies who had received the last finish at Highgate seminaries. Everything joyous affected her, and at once; – air, – flowers, – sunshine, – butterflies. Unlike heroines in general, she very seldom cried, and she saw nothing charming in having the vapours. But she never looked so beautiful as in sleep! And as the light breath came from her parted lips, and the ivory lids closed over those eyes which only in sleep were silent – and her attitude in her sleep took that ineffable grace belonging solely to childhood, or the fresh youth into which childhood merges, – she was just what you might imagine a sleeping Margaret, before that most simple and gentle of all a poet’s visions of womanhood had met with Faust, or her slumbers been ruffled with a dream of love.
We cannot say much for Lucy’s intellectual acquirements; she could, thanks to the parson’s wife, spell indifferently well, and write a tolerable hand; she made preserves, and sometimes riddles – it was more difficult to question the excellence of the former than to answer the queries of the latter. She worked to the admiration of all who knew her, and we beg leave to say that we deem that ‘an excellent thing in woman.’ She made caps for herself and gowns for the poor, and now and then she accomplished the more literary labour of a stray novel that had wandered down to the Manor-house, or an abridgement of ancient history, in which was omitted every thing but the proper names. To these attainments she added a certain modicum of skill upon the spinet, and the power of singing old songs with the richest and sweetest voice that ever made one’s eyes moisten, or one’s heart beat.
Her moral qualities were more fully developed than her mental. She was the kindest of human beings; the very dog that had never seen her before, knew that truth at the first glance, and lost no time in making her acquaintance. The goodness of her heart reposed upon her face like sunshine, and the old wife at the lodge said poetically and truly of the effect it produced, that ‘one felt warm when one looked on her.’ If we could abstract from the description a certain chilling transparency, the following exquisite verses of a forgotten poet* might express the purity and lustre of her countenance: –
Her face was like the milky way i’ the sky,
A meeting of gentle lights without a name.
She was surrounded by pets of all kinds, ugly and handsome, from Ralph the raven to Beauty the pheasant, and from Bob, the sheep-dog without a tail, to Beau, the Blenheim with blue ribands round his neck; all things loved her, and she loved all things. It seemed doubtful at that time whether she would ever have sufficient steadiness and strength of character. Her beauty and her character appeared so essentially womanlike – soft, yet lively, buoyant, yet caressing, – that you could scarcely place in her that moral dependence that you might in a character less amiable, but less yieldingly feminine. Time, however, and circumstance, which alter and harden, were to decide whether the inward nature did not possess some latent, and yet undiscovered properties. Such was Lucy Brandon, in the year —, and in that year, on a beautiful autumnal evening, we first introduce her personally to our readers.
She was sitting on a garden-seat by the river side with her father, who was deliberately conning the evening paper of a former week, and gravely seasoning the ancient news with the inspirations of that weed which so bitterly excited the royal indignation of our British Solomon. It happens, unfortunately for us, – for outward peculiarities are scarcely worthy the dignity to which comedy, whether in the drama or the narrative, aspires, – that Squire Brandon possessed so few distinguishing traits of mind, that he leaves his delineator little whereby to designate him, save a confused and parenthetical habit of speech, by which he very often appeared to those who did not profit by long experience, or close observation, to say exactly, and somewhat ludicrously, that which he did not mean to convey.
‘I say, Lucy,’ observed Mr Brandon, but without lifting his eyes from the paper; ‘I say, corn has fallen – think of that, girl, think of that! These times, in my opinion, (ay, and in the opinion of wiser heads than mine, though I do not mean to say that I have not some experience in these matters, which is more than can be said of all our neighbours) are very curious, and even dangerous.’
‘Indeed, papa!’ answered Lucy.
‘And I say, Lucy, dear,’ resumed the squire after a short pause, ‘there has been (and very strange it is, too, when one considers the crowded neighbourhood – bless me! What times these are!) a shocking murder committed upon (the tobacco-stopper – there it is) – think, you know, girl – just by Epping! An old gentleman!’
‘Dear, how shocking! By whom?’
‘Ay, that’s the question! The coroner’s inquest has (what a blessing it is to live in a civilized country, where a man does not die without knowing the why and the wherefore!) sat on the body, and declared (it is very strange, but they don’t seem to have made much discovery; for why? We knew as much before) that the body was found (it was found on the floor, Lucy) murdered; murderer or murderers (in the bureau, which was broken open, they found the money left quite untouched) – unknown!’
Here there was again a slight pause, and passing to another side of the paper, Mr Brandon resumed in a quicker tone, –
‘Ha! Well, now this is odd! But he’s a deuced clever fellow, Lucy! That brother of mine has (and in a very honourable manner too, which I am sure is highly creditable to the family, though he has not taken too much notice of me lately; – a circumstance which, considering I am his elder brother, I am a little angry at) – distinguished himself in a speech, remarkable, the paper says, for its great legal – (I wonder, by the by, whether William could get me that agistment-money! ’Tis a heavy thing to lose; but going to law, as my poor father used to say, is like fishing for gudgeons (not a bad little fish, we can have some for supper) with guineas) – knowledge, as well as its splendid and overpowering – (I do love Will for keeping up the family honour; I am sure it is more than I have done – heigh-ho!) – eloquence!’
‘And on what subject has he been speaking, papa?’
‘Oh, a very fine subject; what you call a – (it is astonishing that in this country there should be such a wish for taking away people’s characters, which, for my part, I don’t see is a bit more entertaining than what you are always doing – playing with those stupid birds) – libel!’
‘
But is not my uncle William coming down to see us? He promised to do so, and it made you quite happy, papa, for two days. I hope he will not disappoint you; and I am sure that it is not his fault if he ever seems to neglect you. He spoke of you to me, when I saw him, in the kindest and most affectionate manner. I do think, my dear father, that he loves you very much.’
‘Ahem!’ said the squire, evidently flattered, and yet not convinced. ‘My brother Will is a very acute fellow, and I make no – my dear little girl – question, but that – (when you have seen as much of the world as I have, you will grow suspicious) – he thought that any good word said of me to my daughter would – (you see, Lucy, I am as clear-sighted as my neighbours, though I don’t give myself all their airs; which I very well might do, considering my great-great-great-grandfather, Hugo Brandon, had a hand in detecting the Gunpowder Plot) – be told to me again!’
‘Nay, but I am quite sure my uncle never spoke of you to me with that intention.’
‘Possibly, my dear child; but when (the evenings are much shorter than they were!) did you talk with your uncle about me?’
‘Oh, when staying with Mrs Warner, in London; to be sure, it is six years ago; but I remember it perfectly. I recollect, in particular, that he spoke of you very handsomely to Lord Mauleverer, who dined with him one evening when I was there, and when my uncle was so kind as to take me to the play. I was afterwards quite sorry that he was so good-natured, as he lost – (you remember I told you the story) – a very valuable watch.’
‘Ay, ay, I remember all about that, and so, – how long friendship lasts with some people! – Lord Mauleverer dined with William! What a fine thing it is for a man – (it is what I never did, indeed, I like being what they call “Cock of the Walk” – let me see, now I think of it, Pillum comes tonight to play a hit at backgammon) – to make friends with a great man early in (yet Will did not do it very early, poor fellow! He struggled first with a great deal of sorrow – hardship that is –) life! It is many years now since Will has been hand-and-glove with my (’tis a bit of a puppy) Lord Mauleverer, – what did you think of his lordship?’
‘Of Lord Mauleverer? Indeed I scarcely observed him; but he seemed a handsome man, and was very polite. Mrs Warner said he had been a very wicked person when he was young, but he seems good-natured enough now, papa.’
‘By the by,’ said the squire, ‘his lordship has just been made – (this new ministry seems very unlike the old, which rather puzzles me; for I think it my duty, d’ye see, Lucy, always to vote for his Majesty’s government, especially seeing that old Hugo Brandon had a hand in detecting the Gunpowder Plot; and it is a little odd, at least, at first, to think that good now, which one has always before been thinking abominable) Lord Lieutenant of the county.’
‘Lord Mauleverer our Lord Lieutenant?’
‘Yes, child; and since his lordship is such a friend of my brother’s, I should think, considering especially what an old family in the county we are, – not that I wish to intrude myself where I am not thought as fine as the rest, – that he would be more attentive to us than Lord — was; but that, my dear Lucy, puts me in mind of Pillum, and so, perhaps, you would like to walk to the parson’s as it is a fine evening. John shall come for you at nine o’clock with (the moon is not up then) the lantern.’
Leaning on his daughter’s willing arm, the good old man then rose and walked homeward; and so soon as she had wheeled round his easy chair, placed the backgammon board on the table, and wished the old gentleman an easy victory over his expected antagonist, the apothecary, Lucy tied down her bonnet, and took her way to the rectory.
When she arrived at the clerical mansion, and entered the drawing-room, she was surprised to find the parson’s wife, a good, homely, lethargic old lady, run up to her, seemingly in a state of great nervous agitation and crying,
‘Oh, my dear Miss Brandon! Which way did you come? Did you meet nobody by the road? Oh, I am so frightened! Such an accident to poor dear Dr Slopperton! Stopped in the king’s highway, robbed of some tithe-money he had just received from Farmer Slowforth: if it had not been for that dear angel, good, young man, God only knows whether I might not have been a disconsolate widow by this time!’
While the affectionate matron was thus running on, Lucy’s eye glancing round the room discovered in an armchair the round and oily little person of Dr Slopperton, with a countenance from which all the carnation hues, save in one circular excrescence on the nasal member, that was left, like the last rose of summer, blooming alone, were faded into an aspect of miserable pallor: the little man tried to conjure up a smile while his wife was narrating his misfortune, and to mutter forth some syllable of unconcern; but he looked, for all his bravado, so exceedingly scared, that Lucy would, despite herself, have laughed outright, had not her eye rested upon the figure of a young man who had been seated beside the reverend gentleman, but who had risen at Lucy’s entrance, and who now stood gazing upon her intently, but with an air of great respect. Blushing deeply, and involuntarily, she turned her eyes hastily away, and approaching the good doctor, made her inquiries into the present state of his nerves, in a graver tone than she had a minute before imagined it possible that she should have been enabled to command.
‘Ah! My good young lady,’ said the doctor, squeezing her hand, ‘I – may, I may say the church – for am I not its minister? – was in imminent danger: – but this excellent gentleman prevented the sacrilege, at least in great measure. I only lost some of my dues – my rightful dues – for which I console myself with thinking that the infamous and abandoned villain will suffer hereafter.’
‘There cannot be the least doubt of that,’ said the young man, ‘had he only robbed the mail coach, or broken into a gentleman’s house, the offence might have been expiable; but to rob a clergyman, and a rector, too! – Oh, the sacrilegious dog!’
‘Your warmth does you honour, sir,’ said the doctor, beginning now to recover. ‘And I am very proud to have made the acquaintance of a gentleman of such truly religious opinions!’
‘Ah!’ cried the stranger, ‘my foible, sir – if I may so speak – is a sort of enthusiastic fervour for the Protestant Establishment. Nay, sir, I never come across the very nave of the church, without feeling an indescribable emotion – a kind of sympathy, as it were – with–with – you understand me, sir – I fear I express myself ill.’
‘Not at all, not at all!’ exclaimed the doctor, ‘such sentiments are uncommon in one so young.’
‘Sir, I learned them early in life from a friend and preceptor of mine, Mr Mac Grawler, and I trust they may continue with me to my dying day.’
Here the doctor’s servant entered with (we borrow a phrase from the novel of —) ‘the tea-equipage,’ and Mrs Slopperton, betaking herself to its superintendence, inquired with more composure than hitherto had belonged to her demeanour, what sort of a looking creature the ruffian was.
‘I will tell you, my dear, I will tell you, Miss Lucy, all about it. I was walking home from Mr Slowforth’s, with his money in my pocket, thinking, my love, of buying you that topaz cross you wished to have.’
‘Dear, good man!’ cried Mrs Slopperton; ‘what a fiend it must have been to rob so excellent a creature.’
‘And,’ resumed the doctor, ‘it also occurred to me that the Madeira was nearly out – the Madeira, I mean, with the red seal; and I was thinking it might not be amiss to devote part of the money to buy six dozen more; and the remainder, my love, which would be about one pound eighteen, I thought I would divide – “for he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord!” – among the thirty poor families on the common: that is, if they behaved well, and the apples in the back garden were not feloniously abstracted!’
‘Excellent, charitable man!’ ejaculated Mrs Slopperton.
‘While I was thus meditating, I lifted my eyes, and saw before me two men; one of prodigious height, and with a great profusion of hair about his shoulders; the other was smaller, and wore his hat slouched over his face:
it was a very large hat. My attention was arrested by the singularity of the tall person’s hair, and while I was smiling at its luxuriance, I heard him say to his companion, – “Well, Augustus, as you are such a moral dog, he is in your line, not mine: so I leave him to you.” – Little did I think those words related to me. No sooner were they uttered, than the tall rascal leaped over a gate and disappeared; the other fellow then marching up to me, very smoothly asked me the way to the church, and while I was explaining to him to turn first to the right and then to the left, and so on – for the best way is, you know, exceedingly crooked – the hypocritical scoundrel seized me by the collar, and cried out – “Your money or your life!” I do assure you, that I never trembled so much; not, my dear Miss Lucy, so much for my own sake, as for the sake of the thirty poor families on the common, whose wants it had been my intention to relieve. I gave up the money, finding my prayers and expostulations were in vain; and the dog then, brandishing over my head an enormous bludgeon, said – what abominable language! – “I think, doctor, I shall put an end to an existence derogatory to yourself and useless to others.” At that moment the young gentleman beside me sprang over the very gate by which the tall ruffian had disappeared, and cried, “Hold, villain!” On seeing my deliverer, the coward started back, and plunged into a neighbouring wood. The good young gentleman pursued him for a few minutes, but then returning to my aid, conducted me home; and as we used to say at school: – “Te rediisse incolumem gaudeo”. Which, being interpreted, means, – (sir, excuse a pun, I am sure so great a friend to the church understands Latin) – that I am very glad to get back safe to my tea. He! He! And now, Miss Lucy, you must thank that young gentleman for having saved the life of your pastoral teacher, which act will no doubt be remembered at the Great Day!’
Paul Clifford Page 14
