When the Century was Young. A story, etc

Front matter

WHEN THE CENTURY WAS YOUNG It is the first dance i dread so."— p. 83. WHEN THE CENTURY WAS YOUNG Jl g>tovx? foC6 in "gen and "g*enciC BY M. M. BLAKE Author of the "Siege of Norwich Castle," Toddlcbcn's Hero," " Courtship by Command," etc. ILLUSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR LONDON JARROLD & SONS, 10 & n, WARWICK LANE, E.C. [All Rights Reserved] THE "FLEUR DE LYS" SERIES Of Illustrated 6s. Novels, Uniform with " When the Century was Young." Crown 8vo, Cloth Elegant. THE LORD OF LOWEDALE. By R. D. Chetwode, Author of " The Marble City," " The Fortune of the Quittentuns." Illustrated by G. Grenville Manton. WHEN THE CENTURY WAS YOUNG. By M. M. Blake, Author of "The Siege of Norwich Castle," " Toddleben's Hero," etc., with numerous Illustrations by the Authoress. NEW 5s. BOOKS. Crown Svo, Cloth, Illustrated.

BY THE NORTH SEA : or the Protector's Grand-daughter. By Mrs. Emma Marshall, Author of " In the East Country," etc., etc. Illustrated by W. Miller-Smith. THE TWO ALTHEAS. By Edith E. Horsman, Author of " Severn-Side," etc. Illustrated by G. Demain Hammond. London : Jarrold & Sons, io & n, Warwick Lane, E.C., And of all Booksellers. pedicatetX TO MY WELL-BELOVED FRIENDS, KATE M. NICHOLS and M. GRACE SEWELL, AS A SMALL OFFERING OF GRATITUDE, FOR THE NEVER-FAILING SYMPATHY AND HELP THEY HAVE GIVEN ME, THROUGH MANY YEARS OF ENDEAVOUR. INDEX. CHAPTF.7- PAGE I. THE FENTONS AND THE DARNELLS ... ... 15 II. THE FAIRPOINT GHOST ... ... 29 ID. MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING ... ... 44 IV. A WITCH'S TREASURE ... ... 57 V. GRANTLEY FENTON COMES OF AGE ... ... 74 VI. NEWS OF JUSTIN ... ... ... 87 ATI. A RESCUE ... ... ... ... 100 VIII.

LADY ALICIA IS SURPRISED ... ... 115 IX. GOOD-BYE ... ... ... ... 127 X. MR. HERDER MAKES A MISTAKE ... 145 XI. AN ELECTION ... ... ... ... 154 XII. THROUGH THE WINTER NIGHT ... ... 169 Xin. TWO UNDER ONE ROOF ... ... ... 184 xtv. missing ... ... ... ... 195 xv. lady alicia adopts a daughter ... ... 208 xvi. "in the pleasant land of france" ... 223 xvii. " c'est la peste ! " ... ... ... INDEX, CHAPTER PAGE xviii. le medicin, le cure et la mere fourgevin 246 xix. an empty home ... ... ... 265 xx. a florentine vllla ... ... ... 278 xxi. across europe ... ... ... 290 xxii. the duchess of richmond's ball ... ... 299 xxih. the bursting of the storm ... ... 312 xxtv. "those also serve who only stand and wait" ... ... ... ... 325 xxv. foemen worthy of our steel ... 341 xxvi. avith the women ... ... ... 355 xxvii. through the valley of the shadow of DEATH ... ... ... 371 XXATII.

Chapter I. The Fentons And The Darnells

" rTlHE negotiations have failed, my lady," Mr. Withers said. -*- "Mr. Alexander Darnell refuses finally, and can't be shook. He means to come and live at Heatherside himself, and will not entertain the idea of selling the place for a moment. He say it have been in his family a good four hundred years." Mr. Withers was a lean little man, with russet-apple cheeks, dry brown hair, and keen grey eyes, that had in them, at that moment, a malicious twinkle, for he was steward on the Fairpoint estate, under the control of Lady Alicia Fenton ; its owner and Lady Alicia's husband, Colonel Fenton, being away in India, fighting the Mahrattas under Sir Arthur Wellesley. Mr. "Withers, who had served the Fentons in various capacities ever since he was of age to serve at all, had given all his strength and affections to that family, eschewing marriage, lest domestic cares of his own should interfere with their interests, and be had always deemed it a spiteful trick of that jade Fortune, to arrange matters so that he should be under a woman's rule after all, aud that woman not even a Fenton.

He served Lady Alicia faithfully, for he was an honest man ; TOUNO. but, doing all he could to forward the prosperity of her affairs, he was not wholly without satisfaction when accidents set things at cross purposes. Lady Alicia, as a rule, put him at fault sadly by makiug him feel that, woman as she was, her wit was sharper, her knowledge of business wider, and her will stronger than his own, so he might be pardoned if he had some enjoyment on an occasion like the present, when she had over-ruled his advice, and only got a snub for her pains. "A good four hundred year," he repeated, for that phrase pleased him extremely, as the Fentons had only possessed Fairpoint since the time of Queen Anne ; quite a recent period in the spring of 1801 ! Lady Alicia — a woman of commanding presence, with clear-cut aquiline features, a pair of restless black eyes, dark arched eyebrows, and hair whitened, not by age, but by powder, and stretched over a cushion after a somewhat bygone style — drew up her tall, angular figure, and took the letter which he handed to her with an air of ill-concealed vexation ; tapping the pointed toe of her high-heeled shoe on the floor as she read it.

" It is very tiresome ! " she exclaimed, tossing the letter down impatiently, after glancing through it. " The estate would be so well rounded if it were not for that farm usurping a piece of it. I should much have liked to write to Colonel Fenton that I had acquired it. Besides, it is inconvenient to have two squires in one parish ! " " Particularly such a one as this Mr. Darnell, your ladyship," said Mr. Withers, who was such a comforter as Job's celebrated friends. " He is, I understand, a clientless lawyer, who can advocate nothing so well as the cause of the French cut-throat Revolutionaries, in whose honour, I'm told, he has written a volume, and well-nigh got sent to prison for it. If your ladyship will glance at the letter you'll see 'tis franked by one of Mr. Fox's following." Her ladyship did so, and gave an impatient groan of annoy ance.

Her party denounced Mr. Fox as "the blind apologist of injustice and massacre, and the careless, if not Jacobinical, spectator of the downfall of monarchy." " 'Tis a pity your ladyship deigned to make him a second offer," observed the steward, as a parting shot ; after which he politely bowed himself out of the room. The property which Lady Alicia desired to add to the Fenton estate was situated about three miles from Fairpoint by road, and about two if measured by the crow's flight across the ridge of moorland which lay northward of the fine mansion which a Fenton, who had served under Marlborough, had built on his return from his Flanders campaigns. Before that date the Darnells had occupied the first place in the parish, and the poor folk had still an uncomfortable habit of calling Mr. Darnell " The Squire."

The late occupant of the high-roofed, many-gabled old house, that had sheltered so many generations of Darnells — Mr. John Darnell — had been dead about a month, and, as he was a bachelor, Lady Alicia had conceived the hope that his brother and heir, Mr. Alexander Darnell, who was practising law in Manchester, would sell her the property, and so put an end to the duplicate squireship. Her application to Mr. Darnell, unfortunately, reached him at an unseasonable hour. As a matter of fact, he had made Man chester too hot to hold him, and Heatherside afforded him shelter at a safe distance from the scenes of his unsuccessful combats. £ YOUNG. The late Mr. John Darnell had been a small Squire, or perhaps it might be more correct to say " yeoman " of the old school, who jogged through life as quietly as he jogged through the country lanes on his plump white mare ; a typical John Bull, holding strong Tory opinions ; who, while priding himself on the length of his own pedigree, had never failed to acknowledge the superior social claims of the Fentons.

The younger brother was a man of very different calibre. Eager and intelligent, he had in his boyhood won the notice of a London lawyer of repute, who had taken him into his office, from whence he had moved to Manchester, where he had married and settled, and was in the way of obtaining a good practice of his own. Unfortunately politics proved to be the fly in the amber of his success, for he took up hotly the side championed by Mr. Fox, and, the cause of the populace being a very unpopular cause just then, his democratical sympathies did not gain him profitable clients, while it lost him many. His wife, who was as practical as he was visionary, sighed and remonstrated ; but in vain. Mr. Darnell not only in sisted on asserting his opinions in and out of season, but wrote pamphlets in support of them, and published them at his own expense.

The conspicuous ability shown in one of these productions caused such a stir that the Government of the day thought it incumbent on them as honest Tories to put down so dangerous a leveller ; for he had ventured to assert that " according to the most orthodox teachers, all men were equally descended from Adam, and had, therefore, each a right to his share in the general forefather's estate, whether prince or peasant." He was prosecuted "for publishing seditious writings calculated to inflame the minds of the lower orders, and cause riot and anarchy," and the jury found him guilty, and the judge sentenced him to a fine of £500, or, " in default, two years' imprisonment." He thought he had got off lightly, as Mr. Thomas Muir had not long before been sentenced to fourteen years' transportation for only advising people to read revolutionary books, and those who followed his advice retired by stealth into the fields on Sundays, and took their turns to read, or to look out for the constable.

In the state of Mr. Darnell's finances, however, it was no easy matter to raise the cash to pay the fine imposed, and he was preparing to accept the alternative of passing a couple of years in jail, when a black-edged letter was handed into Court, and he learnt of the death of his brother, and his own succession to the family estate. It was a part of his character to welcome every gleam of good fortune with light-hearted optimism, and he comported himself as a millionaire as soon as the absolute pressure of need was removed from his shoulders ; so when, a few days later, he re ceived Lady Alicia's offer, he would not entertain the proposition for a moment. Mrs. Darnell desired him to accept it, as the terms were liberal ; for she had no faith in her unpractical husband's ability to make a living by farming, and pointed out to him in vivid phrases his want of acquaintance with agricul tural matters.

To which he replied, with a flood of theoretical eloquence which astonished and silenced her. He was by no means unacquainted with agricultural matters he told her, for AVHEN THE CENTURY WAS YOUNG. he had long held that a chief cause of human misery was the flocking of crowds into cities, and the consequent depopulation of the country villages. His aim had ever been to do his own duty, as he conceived it in this matter, by purchasing a farm and spending his old age therein ; but, owing to the troubled times, his profession had not been sufficiently lucrative to admit of this. Now, the opportunity he sought had been given into his hand, and he certainly should not throw it away. Moreover, the estate, though small, had been in the family for centuries ; he believed the British yeomanry to be the mainstay of the kingdom, and he should not give over the little farm which had reared sturdy specimens of this class for generations, to swell the pride of au aristocrat.

Mrs. Darnell had learned by long and bitter experience that on such occasions it was useless to reply, but she regretted silently the schools and chances of the great city, the advantages of which would be lost to her growing family by the removal. There were four young Darnells — William, a lad of fourteen, already entered in the race for subsistence in a merchant's office, and to leave whom behind in Manchester, as must needs be done, wrung the mother's heart ; Justinian, two years younger, a merry schoolboy ; Mary, a brown-eyed maiden of nine ; and Cicely, a flaxen-haired elf of six. Of course the three young people who were to accompany their parents were wild with joy at the prospect of "living in the country;" and, when in course of time anticipations were exchanged for realities, they did not suffer disappointment.

One fair May morning, little Mary Darnell stood under the porch of the quaint old house at Heatherside, looking at the reddening buds on the honey-suckle which festooned its timber barred plaster walls — "callimanco work" they called the style of building in those days — and wondering how long it would take them to reach full bloom. She looked, as we should think, like a figure from one of Kate Greenaway's Christmas cards, in her clean white dress, with her hands full of lilac, which, when her attention was arrested by the sound of wheels, she was just about to carry indoors. To her surprise, a stately carriage, bedecked with gold fringe, and bearing arms on the panels, drawn by a pair of fat high-stepping bays, piloted by a coachman in plum-coloured livery, with a powdered peruke and a rubicund face, drove in at the gate, and swept forward to the door.

Mary, peering at this apparition with grave brown eyes, from beneath her " crop " of dark curls, saw that it contained an exceeding stately dame and a little boy about her own age. It was, in fact, Lady Alicia Fenton and her only child, the heir of the Fentons, and his mother's pride and joy. Her ladyship had come to the conclusion that, as she could not avoid having the Darnells for neighbours, it would be wiser to have them as friends rather than adversaries, and to that end had determined to flatter Mrs. Darnell by paying her the honour of a visit. " See, Grant, what a nice little girl ! " Lady Alicia said. " Get down from the carriage and ask if I am fortunate enough to catch her mother at home." Grant, a very imposing young dandy of ten years old, in a coat of sky-blue silk, embroidered with silver, and finished with Mechlin ruffles, a cocked hat to match, his golden curls tied with a blue bow, huge silver buckles on his shoes, and an ebony cane in his hand, prepared to obey the order with a quaint mixture of haughty dignity and childish bashfulness, a bedizened flunkey stepping forward and opening the carriage door for him.

Mary, however, alarmed at so much grandeur, turned rapidly away and fled into the house, scattering her fragrant lilacs as she went. She did not pause till she had reached the pantry, where Mrs. Darnell was busily superintending the cleansing and dusting of a cupboard filled with glass and china, in which unpractised eyes could scarcely have discovered a speck of dust before the commencement of the operation. Mrs. Darnell's idea of superintendence included a good deal of practical help. " Oh, mother ! " cried Mary, " there is such a grand carriage at the door, and a lady and a little boy in blue ! " A loud rat-a-tat at the knocker corroborated her statement. Mrs. Darnell guessed at once that it was Lady Alicia. Most ladies, when suddenly interrupted while straightening their pantries, would have thought it needful to hurry to their dressing-room, but Mrs. Darnell was always neat and comely, and had the most sovereign contempt for such housewives as could not attend to their duties without " making themselves in a moil."

All she did was to wash her hands, and divest herself of a long linen overall which she wore to protect her dress from the dust, rapidly questioning Mary as she did so regarding the style, bearing, and equipage of the visitor, and reproving her for running away from the young gentleman in blue. This done, she hastened forward with the alacrity of a staunch Tory lady possessing the British attribute of loving a lord — and also a lady— for she had never sympathized with her husband's Radical views, and liked them less than ever since they had led him into Court, and subjected him to fines — to offer her aristo cratic visitor a hearty welcome. She met Lady Alicia in the hall, and dropped a low and reverential curtsey. " Your ladyship is amazingly welcome to Heatherside," she cried, and thought it necessary to proffer many apologies for Mary's rude behaviour, which her visitor accepted with amused condescension, while Mary did her best to imitate her mother's curtsey.

Mrs. Darnell then prayed her ladyship to enter the parlour and taste her elderberry wine, which she ventured to say was as good as her ladyship was likely to taste even at Fairpoint, though doubtless not better ; an invitation which was graciously accepted. Mrs. Darnell's heart fluttered with delight, for she had never before had the pleasure of ushering a " lady in her own right " into her room ; nay, had never before even spoken to one. Meanwhile, Grant and Mary were shyly fraternising. " Would the young gentleman like to see round the place?" suggested Mrs. Darnell, willing to favour the friendship. " Mary will take him. Justin is somewhere in the garden, Mary. He can show Master Fenton his rabbits." " You can go with the little girl, Grantley," said Lady Alicia. "Venn will accompany you."

Venn was one of the footmen. It was out of the question that Grantley should stir without a footman to attend him. " Do you not wear a hat, and a veil to screen you from the sun?" Grant asked, as Mary went out with him bareheaded into the garden. "I wear a hat when I go on the high road," said Mary, " not in the garden." " But the sun is as hot in the garden as on the high road,'' objected Grant, with incontrovertible truth. " All the young ladies I know always wear hats to save their complexions." Mary looked impressed, and felt deeply conscious of her inferiority. " I thiuk it is monstrously sensible not to wear a hat, you know," Grant continued reassuringly. "I always hate women because they make such a fuss of such things. I won't wear a hat myself as you don't." With which the young misogynist took off his blue and silver-laced head-covering, and flung it towards the man servant.

" Here, Venn ! Carry that for me," he cried. Venn remonstrated respectfully. " Her ladyship will be displeased if you walk without a hat, Master Grantley. You must please put it on again." " I shan't put it on again," retorted the young gentleman. " You are not accustomed to walk in the air without a hat, Master Grantley," urged the footman, in a tone of humble entreaty, " and you will certainly take cold." " Well, it does not matter to you if I do," replied the spoilt heir. " Do as I order you." " But it does matter to me, sir," replied the footman, " because her ladyship will blame me." " Here ! Give me the hat then ! " cried Grant, sorely wroth at having his dignity interrupted by this unseemly altercation, and Venn, having delivered it to him with a comforted heart, under the impression that he was going to restore it to his golden head, was sorely dismayed by seeing it flung into the bushes as far as the force of his young master's arm could fling it.

" Oh ! Your beautiful hat, with the silver lace ! " cried Mary, shocked at the mischievous deed. " Let him employ his time in finding it," answered Grant, in triumphant good humour, and laughing at Venn's rueful face. " Surely if a girl can go without a hat I can. I hate such trumpery." Venn, a sallow, consumptive, mild-tempered youth, who had lately succeeded to the post of a man whom Lady Alicia had dismissed for losing his temper with the spoiled heir, was utterly helpless with his rebellious young master, and felt himself on the horns of a dilemma. " Justin is most likely in the stable-yard, if j^ou will come," said Mary timidly, leading the way. She felt she would be glad to be near Justin instead of entertaining singly this young aristocrat, whose manners she did not quite understand.

Grant underwent a sudden accession of shyness. He had broken the ice with Mary, but he saw few strange faces, and did not relish having to repeat the process with her brother. " I would rather walk about with you," he said. But Mary had run on in front, through the gate that led into the stable-yard, and sought refuge by Justin's side. The boy was measuring out some peas for the pigeons, and did not let his sister's coming interrupt him. "Justin!" Mary cried, "here is Master Fenton, from Fair point." " Oh, indeed ! " replied Justin coldly. " Well, what is he better than anyone else that you should be so excited about it ? " It was clear that he had imbibed a smattering of his father's democratical opinions. "Oh, hush! Justin, he'll hear you His mamma is with him. They came in the grand carriage we have watched passing by."

" Did they ? I should like to have a look at the horses." " But I want you to show Master Fenton your rabbits, please. Mother said you would. You can look at the horses afterwards." Justin, who was a good-natured boy at the bottom, though rather rough ou the surface, yielded to his sister's wishes, aud went forward to speak to the grand young visitor. Grant, who always endeavoured to hide his real shyness by hauteur of demeanour, received him stiffly, and Justin was seized with an intense desire "to take the pride out of him." This, however, he repressed, and politely invited Grant to come and look at the rabbits, leading the way to the kitchen garden in which their hutch was kept, by vaulting over the low wall divid ing it from the yard. Grant beheld this feat with admiration, but could only accom pany Mary through the gate in the ordinary manner.

By this time Venn, having found and picked up the ill-used hat, had rejoined the children, and was following, humbly bear ing it before him like a chamberlain with a crown. " Is that fellow coming too ? " asked Justin. "I always have a servant to attend me," replied Grant, with dignity. "Oh, Lord!" cried Justin; "I would as soon be a madman with a keeper after me, or a baby in leading strings." Grant would fain have made a scathing reply, but he had had no practice in repartee, and Justin was altogether too much and too many for him, so he could only look angry, and ponder this new experience of meeting with a human being who was not in awe of him or his belongings. All vexations were forgotten, however, when he saw the pretty soft rabbits, for it so happened that although Grant possessed a pony, and a monkey, and two or three dogs, he had not a single rabbit.

He had not cared much for the prospect of seeing them, but when Justin took a silky white lop-ear, with wonderful red eyes, out of the hutch, and fondled it and stroked it, he could not repress his rapture and admiration. " Is it not a beauty ? " asked Mary, proudly. "Justin bought it out of his own pocket-money, and gave ever so much for it." " I never have any pocket-money," Grant said. Mary thought that a matter of condolence, aud expressed it. " Oh, but mamma always buys me everything I wish for," answered Grant hastily. " You know all Fairpoint, and the hall, and the park, and everything, will belong to me some day." Mary looked awe-struck. Justin disgusted. " You may die before then," said he. " Rich people die as well as poor ones, you know." Grant stared ; it was a new idea to him.

" Would you like to hold ' Snowball' yourself? " asked Mary, anxious to keep the peace. Grant yielded to the soft seduction, and received the silky shrinking creature into his arms. Justin then exhibited the rest of his stock, and descanted on their various qualities and defects, and Grant listened eagerly, and felt that all his possessions were incomplete without a hutch of rabbits like Justin's. " Why don't you buy some, as you are so rich ? " enquired their owner. Grant experienced a disagreeable consciousness that his riches were unavailable to him without his mother's leave and con currence in any proposed expenditure. It was humiliating to have to confess this. " I know a boy who has a nice white lop-ear nearly as good as this, and who would let you have it cheap," said Justin. The desire to possess the rabbit, and also to show off his independence and wealth, rose above all prudential considera tions with Grant.

" Oh ! Buy it for me, will you ? " he answered. " It does not matter whether it is cheap." He did not know whether cheapness in rabbits was counted by shillings or pounds. " All right. Then I'll bring it up to Fairpoint next Satur day. That's my only free day, you know. I go to Loombridge Grammar School from the Monday to the Friday " Justin's mode of procedure, as independent aud business-like as if he had been a man, took Grant by surprise. He did not like to appear less free, and almost before he was aware of it, had assented to the proposition, and promised in return to show his own pets to Justin, although he was well aware that to do so much without consulting his mother was an unprecedented liberty, and his heart sank as he thought of telling her what he had done.

Chapter II. The Fairpoint Ghost

pi RANTLEY FENTON was of those who are born with *—* "silver spoons in their mouths." He had enjoyed during his short life a full and overflowing measure of the best the world contained, as far as material luxuries were concerned ; living always on the fat of the land, apparelled in the richest that might be obtainable, and ruling absolutely everyone in his little kingdom — except his mother. Yet this curled and pampered darling had his own peculiar trials and crosses. Literally the curling of his long golden locks was one of them ; he hated the process, partly because ot the pinch and discomfort of sleeping with hard lumps of paper between his head and the down pillow, but principally because his maternal uncle, Lord Seftan, when he had come over to Fairpoint for the shooting in September, had laughed at his yellow tresses, called him " Little Missy," and declared that "his father would not own such a fop for a son."

After this Grantley took no pleasure in his finery of silk and velvet suits, frilled cambric and lace ruffles, buckled shoes and such brave gew-gaws, but despised them all as feminine trumpery, which it degraded him as a member of the nobler sex, to be decked out in. The boy's imagination was fired by his uncle's handsome face and dashing figure, and he gave great weight to the opinions enunciated in his rich musical voice, and hoped when he grew up to be just such another jovial, hard-riding, sport-loving gentleman, to keep hunters and ride to hounds, shoot, fish, and attend the cock-pit and prize-ring, and, in short, do all that his uncle did or even more. It was, therefore, a great vexation to him to be under the suspicion of a leaning towards foppery, which the said uncle despised, and he protested with tears, and alas ! kicks and sulks also, when, on the arrival of visitors, his nurse cut short happy romps to frizz aud deck him in drawing-room trim, and some times he carried rebellion so far as to take refuge under the side-tables in that stately apartment itself, instead of making a polite bow and receiving the many honied phrases of compliment which the guests had ready for so elegant a young gentleman.

Lord Seftan, for his part, eujoyed the result of his banter, and repeated it, laughed at his sister for making a molly-coddle of the boy, and altogether encouraged the revolt. It was in this mood that Grantley met Justin Darnell, and with desperate valour invited him to Fairpoint and invested in rabbits. What he had done in haste he repented at leisure, and ihe morning on which he expected Justin to appear had dawned without his having found courage to explain matters to Lady Alicia. Meanwhile Justin Darnell had purchased a fine white lop-ear for Grantley, which many thought was quite as handsome as Snowball. Of course Justin would not admit this, and pointed out several details in which it fell short of the ideal perfection in lop-ears. " However," he said, " I believe it is the second best in all the country round, and it is well worth the money."