The Nest of the Sparrowhawk: A Romance of the XVIIth Century
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CHAPTER IV
GRINDING POVERTY
It was about an hour later. Sir Marmaduke's guests had departed, DameHarrison in her rickety coach, Mistress Pyncheon in her chaise, whilstSquire Boatfield was riding his well-known ancient cob.
Everyone had drunk sack-posset, had eaten turkey pasties, and enjoyedthe luscious fruit: the men had striven to be agreeable to the heiress,the old ladies to be encouraging to their proteges. Sir Marmaduke hadtried to be equally amiable to all, whilst favoring none. He was anunpopular man in East Kent and he knew it, doing nothing tocounterbalance the unpleasing impression caused invariably by his surlymanner, and his sarcastic, often violent, temper.
Mistress Amelia Editha de Chavasse was now alone with her brother-in-lawin the great bare hall of the Court, Lady Sue having retired to her roomunder pretext of the vapors, and young Lambert been finally dismissedfrom work for the day.
"You are passing kind to the youth, Marmaduke," said Mistress deChavasse meditatively when the young man's darkly-clad figure haddisappeared up the stairs.
She was sitting in a high-backed chair, her head resting against thecarved woodwork. The folds of her simple gown hung primly round herwell-shaped figure. Undoubtedly she was still a very good-looking woman,though past the hey-day of her youth and beauty. The half-light causedby the depth of the window embrasure, and the smallness of the glasspanes through which the summer sun hardly succeeded in gainingadmittance, added a certain softness to her chiseled features, and tothe usually hard expression of her large dark eyes.
She was gazing out of the tall window, wherein the several broken paneswere roughly patched with scraps of paper, out into the garden and thedistance beyond, where the sea could be always guessed at, even when notseen. Sir Marmaduke had his back to the light: he was sitting astride alow chair, his high-booted foot tapping the ground impatiently, hisfingers drumming a devil's tattoo against the back of the chair.
"Lambert would starve if I did not provide for him," he said with asneer. "Adam, his brother, could do naught for him: he is poor as achurch-mouse, poorer even than I--but nathless," he added with a violentoath, "it strikes everyone as madness that I should keep a secretarywhen I scarce can pay the wages of a serving maid."
"'Twere better you paid your servants' wages, Marmaduke," she retortedharshly, "they were insolent to me just now. Why do you not pay thegirl's arrears to-day?"
"Why do I not climb up to the moon, my dear Editha, and bring down afew stars with me in my descent," he replied with a shrug of his broadshoulders. "I have come to my last shilling."
"The Earl of Northallerton cannot live for ever."
"He hath vowed, I believe, that he would do it, if only to spite me. Andby the time that he come to die this accursed Commonwealth will haveabolished all titles and confiscated every estate."
"Hush, Marmaduke," she said, casting a quick, furtive look all roundher, "there may be spies about."
"Nay, I care not," he rejoined roughly, jumping to his feet and kickingthe chair aside so that it struck with a loud crash against the flaggedfloor. "'Tis but little good a man gets for cleaving loyally to theCommonwealth. The sequestrated estates of the Royalists would have beendistributed among the adherents of republicanism, and not held tobolster up a military dictatorship. Bah!" he continued, allowing histemper to overmaster him, speaking in harsh tones and with many aviolent oath, "it had been wiser to embrace the Royal cause. The LordProtector is sick, so 'tis said. His son Richard hath no backbone, andthe present tyranny is worse than the last. I cannot collect my rents; Ihave been given neither reward nor compensation for the help I gave in'46. So much for their boasted gratitude and their many promises! MyLord Protector feasts the Dutch ambassadors with music and with wine, myLords Ireton and Fairfax and Hutchinson and the accursed lot of cantingPuritans flaunt it in silks and satins, whilst I go about in a raggeddoublet and with holes in my shoes."
"There's Lady Sue," murmured Mistress de Chavasse soothingly.
"Pshaw! the guardianship of a girl who comes of age in three months!"
"You can get another by that time."
"Not I. I am not a sycophant hanging round White Hall! 'Twas sheer goodluck and no merit of mine that got me the guardianship of Sue. LordMiddlesborough, her kinsman, wanted it; the Courts would have given herto him, but old Noll thought him too much of a 'gentleman,' whilst I--anout-at-elbows country squire, was more to my Lord Protector's liking.'Tis the only thing he ever did for me."
There was intense bitterness and a harsh vein of sarcasm running throughSir Marmaduke's talk. It was the speech of a disappointed man, who hadhoped, and striven, and fought once; had raised longing hands towardsbrilliant things and sighed after glory, or riches, or fame, but whoserestless spirit had since been tamed, crushed under the heavy weight ofunsatisfied ambition.
Poverty--grinding, unceasing, uninteresting poverty, had been SirMarmaduke's relentless tormentor ever since he had reached man's estate.His father, Sir Jeremy de Chavasse, had been poor before him. Theyounger son of that Earl of Northallerton who cut such a brilliantfigure at the Court of Queen Elizabeth, Jeremy had married MistressSpanton of Acol Court, who had brought him a few acres of land heavilyburdened with mortgage as her dowry. They were a simple-minded,unostentatious couple who pinched and scraped and starved that their twosons might keep up the appearances of gentlemen at the Court of KingCharles.
But both the young men seemed to have inherited from their brilliantgrandfather luxurious tastes and a love of gambling and of show--butneither his wealth nor yet his personal charm of manner. The eldest,Rowland, however, soon disappeared from the arena of life. He marriedwhen scarce twenty years of age a girl who had been a play-actress. Thismarriage nearly broke his doting mother's heart, and his own, too, forthe matter of that, for the union was a most unhappy one. Rowland deChavasse died very soon after, unreconciled to his father and mother,who refused to see him or his family, even on his deathbed.
Jeremy de Chavasse's few hopes now centered on his younger son,Marmaduke. In order to enable the young man to remain in London, to mixfreely and to hold his own in that set into which family traditions hadoriginally gained him admittance, the fond mother and indulgent fatherdenied themselves the very necessities of life.
Marmaduke took everything that was given him, whilst chafing at thepaucity of his allowance. Determined to cut a figure at Court, he spenttwo years and most of his mother's dowry in a vain attempt to capturethe heart of one or the other of the rich heiresses who graced theentourage of Charles I.
But Nature who had given Marmaduke boundless ambition, had failed tobestow on him those attributes which would have helped him on towardsits satisfaction. He was neither sufficiently prepossessing to please anheiress, nor sufficiently witty and brilliant to catch the royal eye orthe favor of his uncle, the present Earl of Northallerton. His effortsin the direction of advantageous matrimony had earned for him at Courtthe nickname of "The Sparrowhawk." But even these efforts had soon to berelinquished for want of the wherewithal.
The doting mother no longer could supply him with a sufficiency of moneyto vie with the rich gallants at the Court, and the savings which SirJeremy had been patiently accumulating with a view to freeing the Acolestates from mortgage went instead to rescue young Marmaduke from adebtor's prison.
Poor Sir Jeremy did not long survive his disappointment. Marmadukereturned to Acol Court only to find his mother a broken invalid, and hisfather dead.
Since then it had been a perpetual struggle against poverty and debt, abitter revolt against Fate, a burning desire to satisfy ambition whichhad received so serious a check.
When the great conflict broke out between King and Parliament, he threwhimself into it, without zest and without conviction, embracing thecause of the malcontents with a total lack of enthusiasm, merely out ofdisappointment--out of hatred for the brilliant Court and circle inwhich he had once hoped to become a prominent figure.
He fought under Ireton, was commended as a fairly good sol
dier, thoughtoo rebellious to be very reliable, too self-willed to be whollytrusted.
Even in these days of brilliant reputations quickly made, he remainedobscure and practically unnoticed. Advancement never came his way andwhilst younger men succeeded in attracting the observant eye of oldNoll, he was superseded at every turn, passed over--anon forgotten.
When my Lord Protector's entourage was formed, the Household organized,no one thought of the Sparrowhawk for any post that would have satisfiedhis desires. Once more he cursed his own poverty. Money--the want ofit--he felt was at the root of all his disappointments. A burning desireto obtain it at any cost, even that of honor, filled his entire being,his mind, his soul, his thoughts, every nerve in his body. Money, andsocial prestige! To be somebody at Court or elsewhere, politically,commercially,--he cared not. To handle money and to command attention!
He became wary, less reckless, striving to obtain by diplomatic meansthat which he had once hoped to snatch by sheer force of personality.The Court of Chancery having instituted itself sole guardian andadministrator of the revenues and fortunes of minors whose fathers hadfought on the Royalist side, and were either dead or in exile, andarrogating unto itself the power to place such minors under thetutelage of persons whose loyalty to the Commonwealth was undoubted, SirMarmaduke bethought himself of applying for one of these officialguardianships which were known to be very lucrative and moreover,practically sinecures.
Fate for once favored him; a half-contemptuous desire to do somethingfor this out-at-elbows Kentish squire who had certainly been a loyaladherent of the Commonwealth, caused my Lord Protector to favor hisapplication. The rich daughter of the Marquis of Dover was placed underthe guardianship of Sir Marmaduke de Chavasse with an allowance ofL4,000 a year for her maintenance, until she came of age. A handsomefortune and stroke of good luck for a wise and prudent man:--a drop inan ocean of debts, difficulties and expensive tastes, in the case of SirMarmaduke.
A prolonged visit to London with a view either of gaining a foothold inthe new Court, or of drawing the attention of the malcontents, of Monkand his party, or even of the Royalists, to himself, resulted in furtherdebts, in more mortgages, more bitter disappointments.
The man himself did not please. His personality was unsympathetic; LadySue's money which he now lavished right and left, bought neitherfriendship nor confidence. He joined all the secret clubs which indefiance of Cromwell's rigid laws against betting and gambling, were theresort of all the smart gentlemen in the town. Ill-luck at hazard anddice pursued him: he was a bad loser, quarrelsome and surly. Hisambition had not taught him the salutary lesson of how to make friendsin order to attain his desires.
His second return to the ancestral home was scarcely less disastrousthan the first; a mortgage on his revenues as guardian of Lady SueAldmarshe just saved him this time from the pursuit of his creditors,and this mortgage he had only obtained through false statements as tohis ward's age.
As he told his sister-in-law a moment ago, he was at his last gasp. Hehad perhaps just begun to realize that he would never succeed throughthe force of his own individuality. Therefore, money had become a stillmore imperative necessity to him. He was past forty now. Disappointedambition and an ever rebellious spirit had left severe imprints on hisface: his figure was growing heavy, his prominent lips, unadorned by amustache, had an unpleasant downward droop, and lately he had evennoticed that the hair on the top of his head was not so thick as ofyore.
The situation was indeed getting desperate, since Lady Sue would be ofage in three months, when all revenues for her maintenance would cease.
"Methinks her million will go to one of those young jackanapes who hangabout her," sighed Mistress de Chavasse, with almost as much bitternessas Sir Marmaduke had shown.
Her fortunes were in a sense bound up with those of her brother-in-law.He had been most unaccountably kind to her of late, a kindness which hismany detractors attributed either to an infatuation for his brother'swidow, or to a desire to further irritate his uncle the Earl ofNorthallerton, who--a rigid Puritan himself--hated the play-actress andher connection with his own family.
"Can naught be done, Marmaduke?" she asked after a slight pause, duringwhich she had watched anxiously the restless figure of herbrother-in-law as he paced up and down the narrow hall.
"Can you suggest anything, my dear Editha?" he retorted roughly.
"Pshaw!" she ejaculated with some impatience, "you are not so old, butyou could have made yourself agreeable to the wench."
"You think that she would have fallen in love with her middle-agedguardian?" he exclaimed with a harsh, sarcastic laugh. "That girl? ...with her head full of romantic nonsense ... and I ... in ragged doublet,with a bald head, and an evil temper ... Bah!!! ... But," he added, withan unpleasant sneer, "'tis unselfish and disinterested on your part, mydear Editha, even to suggest it. Sue does not like you. Her beingmistress here would not be conducive to your comfort."
"Nay! 'tis no use going on in this manner any longer, Marmaduke," shesaid dejectedly. "Pleasant times will not come my way so long as youhave not a shilling to give me for a new gown, and cannot afford to keepup my house in London."
She fully expected another retort from him--brutal and unbridled as washis wont when money affairs were being discussed. He was not accustomedto curb his violence in her presence. She had been his helpmeet in manyunavowable extravagances, in the days when he was still striving after abrilliant position in town. There had been certain rumors anent agambling den, whereat Mistress de Chavasse had been the presiding spiritand which had come under the watchful eye of my Lord Protector's spies.
Now she had perforce to share her brother-in-law's poverty. At any ratehe provided a roof over her head. On the advent of Lady Sue Aldmarsheinto his bachelor establishment he called on his sister-in-law for thepart of duenna.
At one time the fair Editha had exercised her undoubted charms overMarmaduke's violent nature, but latterly she had become a mere butt forhis outbursts of rage. But now to her astonishment, and in response toher petulant reproach, his fury seemed to fall away from him. He threwhis head back and broke out into uncontrolled, half-sarcastic, almostdefiant laughter.
"How blind you are, my dear Editha," he said with a shrug of his broadshoulders. "Nay! an I mistake not, in that case there will be somestrange surprises for you within the next three months. I pray you tryand curb your impatience until then, and to bear with the insolence of aserving wench, 'Twill serve you well, mine oath on that!" he addedsignificantly.
Then without vouchsafing further explanations of his enigmaticutterances, he turned on his heel--still laughing apparently at somepleasing thought--and walked upstairs, leaving her to meditate.