The Castleford Case

Front matter

THE CASTLEFORD CASE. BY FRANCES BROWNE, AUTHOR OF "MY SHARE OF THE WORLD." IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HEXRY COLBURN, 13, GEIiAT MARLCCROUCin STREET. 1862. 27ie right of Translation is reserved. LONDON ! FEINTED BT R. BORN, GLOUCESTER STREET, REGENT'S PARK. TO THE MOST NOBLE THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE. My Lord, Your kind acceptance of the dedication of my first novel encourages me to dedicate this also to you. I am but one — and doubtless one of the least account — among the many labourers in the field of letters who have special reason to honour your Lordship's name. It has been inscribed on works to which the best of mine can never bear comparison ; yet such as I have I offer, in token of sincere respect and grateful remembrance, and remain, my Lord, Your humble and obedient servant, FRANCES BROWNE.

Chapter I. Home From The Wfddtng

Early in the afternoon of a clear January day, about forty years ago, the maids and mistresses of the Harrow road, in the outskirts of Paddington, whose windows happened to be within range, were on the look-out after a handsome carriage which drove up to the largest and most aristocratic mansion then in the neigh bourhood. They called the house Berkley Villa. It was a better specimen of that Continental style of building than is generally found in the vicinity of London. Its smooth lawn sprinkled with flowering shrubs, its well-kept garden and blooming conservatory, could be seen through the rustic paling which screened but did not shut it in from the public road ; and about the whole there was an air of elegance, comfort, and convenience, as if wealth and taste were there, not busy or ostentatious, but living at their ease.

VOL. I. B Well, the carriage drove up to its gate along the gravel walk which traversed its lawn, and at the hall door there alighted two ladies, clad in a costume too gay and summery for that January day. But they were returning from acting the friends' and relations' part at a fashionable wedding in St. George's, Hanover Square, with the usual after-piece of an elegant dijeune at the house of the bride's uncle, and the happy pair sent forth on their bridal tour. The ladies looked near an age, yet the one was approaching fifty, and the other not thirty-five. Both were of that large and bony figure which is more akin to strength than beauty. They had the same form of face, large and square, with features to match — the same dark complexion, hair, and eyes. At first sight a casual observer would have taken them for closely-resembling sisters ; but in the countenance of the elder lady there was a look of calm and earnest thought, in her manner there was a quiet and noble composure which no training can teach ; while in the face of the younger there were restless traces — they might have been of anxiety, they might have been of passion, but they were not of intellect.

The two ladies were the Honourable Mrs. Berkley and her niece, Miss Windham. They had entered the drawing-room in their wedding garments, seated them selves in easy chairs close by a blazing fire, and began to discuss the whole affair at St. George's — the dresses, the looks, the company in general, and the happy pair in particular. "I thought they both looked out of spirits," said Miss Windham. " No wonder, my dear," replied her aunt. " They say the omens of the future are apt to come at such times, and both have done a very foolish thing." "I suppose all weddings might be safely classed under that denomination ;" and Miss Windham tried to look very much at her ease. "But why do you think Charles and Caroline have committed such a particular folly . " "Because they have both deceived themselves," said her aunt.

" Charles imagines that he can forget the o _ beautiful girl who was too poor for him to marry, or too proud to take him on his own terms. We don't know, and probably never will hear, the rights of that story ; but he can't and won't forget her. Caroline has made a worse mistake in believing that, with her utter want of grace and beauty, she could ever attract or hold the heart of such a man." " Aunt, I did not think you set such a value on mere personal charms." " What value I set upon them, my dear, is not the question. My own share of the commodity was never large ; but, from my knowledge of the world, and perhaps of nature, I am certain that no other posses sion can make up for their deficiency to a woman in this matter of love." " What, aunt ! Are not the graces of mind a thousand times more estimable than those of the mere ex terior, which time will wither, and death destroy?

Have I not heard yourself say so repeatedly ? " " You have, my dear, and I hold the same opinion still, as regards our own individual good as well as that of the world. But in the relation of man and woman B the case is different. There the external holds the first place ; it is the law and constitution of the thing. When the Greeks made the goddess of beauty the mother of love, they showed their unquestionable wisdom. However tastes may differ, no man ever loved the woman he did not think fair. To no other ex cellence is that offering really made. Montaigne la ments the fact in very plain language, and time has made no alteration in it since his day." "Montaigne spoke from his own experience. He was naturally sensual, and no other sort of man would so far undervalue mental endowments." "The man does not undervalue gold who says it would make but a bad cooking pot," said Mrs. Berkley.

" All things in their places is the rule and reckoning of nature." " I have heard men speak a great deal more sensibly on the subject, aunt. You acknowledge to no great share of beauty yourself, yet I am sure my uncle loved you." " No, my dear, he did not," said Mrs. Berkley, and her look grew more coldly calm. " He was a young man, beginning the world with a small capital, a good education, and very genteel ideas. I was a plain woman, with a large fortune, easily flattered into a match, because I flattered myself. None of us know how much inducement we hold out to others to deceive us. Between the temptation of worldly advantage and convenient wooing he made a marriage which was never to his mind, and I woke up too late to the true state of things. There was a poor soul of an Irish servant-maid, who had worked in the boarding-house where he spent most of his bachelor days — a beautiful creature, with a slender frame, finely -chiselled features, clear brown complexion, and a half Spanish, or rather Eastern look, peculiar to the south and west of her country.

He loved that girl, and he married me. The story would not sound well in public, though everybody knows it to be a common one. Poor Kitty had claims upon him before I became Mrs. Berkley — before we got acquainted at Brighton. He settled her in a small house in Old Brompton; we lived at Knightsbridge then, and he used to steal to see her and his child, when I thought he had gone to the club. It came to my knowledge by acci dent, when we had been married almost two years ; but my eyes had been opened by that time. A thousand circumstances in the course of our domestic life had proved, slowly but surely, that Vernon Berkley had never loved the woman he found it convenient to wed. I need not tell you how much the discovery cost me. The mistakes of the heart are always dearly paid for, but in the process I learned how far I had been my own deceiver, and also, I think, wisdom enough to make the best of a very bad bargain.

I had linked my fate with Vernon's before the world, and would not give it occa sion of remark or amusement. Neither would I bring the demon of discord into our home. He had always behaved with respect and affection to me. The man was good as men go. Very like his cousin Herbert in mind as well as in person, and I loved him still, or rather my own ideal in him, so I kept my discoveries to myself, appeared to see nothing that I should not see, and we lived in great harmony. I believe he es teemed and confided in me ; but esteem and confidence are not love, they belong to its nobler sister, friendship, which could not be between us nevertheless, for each heart had its own secret to keep. So time went on, till he fell into the decline which took him from me, and I saw poor Kitty stealing about the house.

Then I let him know, as easily as I could, how long and how per fectly the case had been known to me, and sent her word that she might come and see him. I don't know if you remember anything of the woman. She passed for a poor relation of mine in her comings about the house. The poor soul had led a quiet, humble life, and was honest in her way in spite of an unlucky position. I think she would have served me on her knees for letting her see Vernon ; perhaps she loved him, too — that made a link between us. At all events, I encouraged him to provide for her in his will, aud would have adopted her child — we never had any, and I have been thankful for that, because they might have been girls, and had their mother's fortunes. However, Kitty would not part with the child, but took it to Liverpool, among her Irish relations.

There, either her annuity or the powers of mischief tempted her to marry a Lan cashire carrier, many years younger than herself. 1 know not how things went with them, for the pair somehow passed beyond the bounds of my inquiry ; but poor Kitty did not live long after her marriage, and Vernon's daughter has grown up as plain and unsafelooking a specimen of womankind as one could wish to have no dealings with." " I could not have lived in such a manner!" cried Miss Windham, with a large assumption of scorn in her tone. "I know you could not, my dear," said her aunt, without appearing to notice the demonstration ; " and therefore I trust you will never be so tried. Harriet, there are strong points of resemblance between you and me, in position, person, and character. It is for that reason I have told you what none living has ever heard from me.

Make what use of it you can for your own help or warning. In these matters there is no adviser hke ourselves. What I was in my youth, so are you — prone to expect that which is not to be found, and keen to see the flaw when, perhaps, it is too late. Your mother was far more happily constituted for a world like this. Honest woman — she never went too deep in search of motives or probabilities. Sir George courted, married, and took her home to his encumbered estate — which his old uncle and family are likely to keep Herbert out of, now that they have paid off the mort gage — hved for the turf, the gaming-table, and some more private attractions, and played the devoted husband when money grew scarce with him (which was not a rare occurrence). By good fortune and our father's old and sagacious lawyer, the bank property was settled on herself as well as on me— so it has descended to you, my dear; and the last talk I ever had with your poor mother, her part of it was concerning the sincere affection and domestic happiness which subsisted between her and Sir George."

" I cannot understand you at all, aunt. Do you really mean that because a woman happens not to be hand some — in the common sense of that term — she cannot expect to be loved, and therefore ought not to marry." and Miss Windham spoke with great earnestness. " Marriage, in many cases, may be a matter of convenience or expediency. I hold that some of the most harmonious unions are such ; but to look for love without the charms which attract it, is a piece of folly so great that those who commit it deserve, as well as ensure, disappointment." " I do not believe it, and I never will, aunt. If love be only given to the blooming cheek or the brilliant eye — mere accidents, in which we have neither merit nor choice — is it worth an intelligent being's while to covet or think of it at all . " " No, my dear, it is not ; and if women had more intellect, more knowledge, perhaps more occupation for the brain, they would busy themselves less about it.

Is that one passion so particularly important — more than all the rest of our nature — that we must sacrifice to it ? Are there not a thousand pursuits and pleasures independent of it . The increase of our knowledge in any direction, the cultivation of our nobler powers — particularly to us whom fortune has favoured with means and leisure — are surely fields of better promise, and far less disappointment. Any occupation at all — business, philanthropy, fashion, the setting up of a new sect, the establishment of a society for anything. Nay, if one can do no better, there are cards, the mineral waters, and the doctors." Mrs. Berkley paused, for a flush on the face of her niece, who chanced to sit opposite the window, made her look at a group of visitors approach ing the door. " Here comes Herbert Leiton, my poor Vernon's closely resembling cousin.

Well, there is truth in the proverb about talking of some people. But who can that gentleman and those beautiful girls be ? Not the Castleford people, I'm sure." " They don't look like them," said Miss Windham, smoothing down at once her perturbed countenance and her crumpled satin. Before either operation was fairly concluded, Mrs. Berkley's footman had ushered in the visitors. The first, whom both ladies greeted in the familiar style of relations, was in the flower of man's age — about thirty ; tall, and strongly built, with a ruddy cheek, a fair complexion, and that reddish tinge which our continental neighbours consider the general attribute of English hair and whiskers. His features were good, though not finely cut. His look was good humoured, and his manner gentlemanly ; but there was something hard and keen in the cold blue eyes — some thing of more cunning than courage about the otherwise well-set mouth.

It was a character that would pay its debts, keep the law, and stand in awe of the world's opinion ; but it would never forget its worldly interests, nor run risks for anything but its own gratification. Nature had cast the second in a finer mould, but a less substantial one. His figure was tall, but slender for his time of life, which was verging on middle age. His face might have belonged to an ancient Greek, its form and features were so classical; and a complexion dark enough to have been given by a southern sun, the jetty blackness of his hair, and a foreign ease and polish in his air and manner, helped the illusion. The two men were followed by a pair of girls, of that age when childhood looks out on youth ; they might have been thirteen, and both were beautiful, but so different in look that no one would take them for sisters.

The tallest had a sort of resemblance to the man to whom they kept nearest — she had the same classical features, the same fine eyes and jet-black hair; her figure, like his, was tall and slender ; her manner had the same foreign tinge, but the girl was fair as alabaster — and, girl as she was, there was a look of more firmness and resolution in her steady step and somewhat compressed lips. Her companion was leaning on her arm, and not quite so tall ; she, too, was a lovely girl, but the pro fusion of brown and shining curls which flowed from beneath her hat ; her round, rosy face, which owed its beauty less to cut than colour ; her more substantial frame and school-girl ways all belonged, without ques tion, to the soil on which they stood. " Allow me," said Mr. Leiton, when he had done his own devoirs to both ladies, " to introduce my cousin, Henry Hope, of whom we have talked so often ;" and he presented the gentleman, who first bowed cour teously, as if not quite sure of the terms of his reception, and then cordially shook Mrs. Berkley's offered hand ; while she expressed, and looked, too, her happi ness to make his acquaintance, and her feeling that they were old, and not new friends — she had heard so much of him from Herbert, and the whole family.

Miss Windham was not less kind, but it came like an afterthought upon her ; and then Mr. Hope presented the girls. " My daughter Annie, and her sister, who happens to be called Miss Jessie Monro — it ought to be the Flower of Dumblane, I think." " And so do I," said Mrs. Berkley ; " but your own Annie is as fair a flower. I was just going to wonder if you had two daughters." " No ; Jessie is the daughter of my friend, Dr. Monro, a Scotch gentleman. He came out, some years ago, to New Orleans, and would have succeeded there, but the heat of the climate was too great for his health — it is so different from Scotland, I presume. But he is now comfortably settled near Liverpool, and keeps a sort of private boarding-school. I have left Desmond and Henry, my two boys, with him, for I am sure the Doctor will be kind to them," said Mr. Hope.

" Jessie and Annie have come with me to London — I had busi ness in town — but we are all on our way to Castleford. Old Mr. Windham's wife — I should say, the late Mrs. Windham — was sister to Mrs. Monro. There is another sister living near Bury St. Edmunds — of course she is Jessie's aunt — and I have the important charge of her niece and namesake, who is going to reside with her, and get her education at a select day-school in the neighbourhood. It is a nice, quiet place, and Miss Scott has offered to take Annie as a boarder ; so Jessie and she will live together, and go to the same school, for a year or two, till I get business matters arranged, and take a house for her to keep in London — and Jessie will come and see us. In the meantime, I must be bachelor at large, in Simmons's Family Hotel, Oxford Street, where we have been staying."

"Will you make a long visit at Castleford?" inquired Mrs. Berkley, with more than usual curiosity. " I cannot remain long," said Mr. Hope ; " but pro bably the girls will. We have had such kind and pressing invitations, doubtless on Jessie's account, for my own and Annie's relationship to the family is very distant. Indeed, I remember very little of Mr. Wind ham, or his sister, who, I understand, manages the housekeeping now ; but he has daughters, very clever girls, I believe, and the young people will, no doubt, enjoy themselves. I should like to see the old place, for Sir George's sake. Might I ask if you are acquainted with the present family ?" " Very slightly," said Mrs. Berkley. " Sir George and his uncle were not on the best of terms, I believe, and the old gentleman has, or had, a reputation for being rather close-handed.

However, the family means were small. He got the estate heavily encumbered, and, I believe, has paid off the mortgage. His sister is said to be a remarkable manager. He has three daughters, but I am sorry to hear they have but deli cate health. Young people may grow over that, how ever; and you, and cousin Herbert here, will not grudge them long lives, as, being girls, they cannot keep you out of the entailed estate." Mr. Hope and Mr. Leiton at once disclaimed their prospects of the inheritance, the one declaring that the old man, by all accounts, had a tolerable chance of out living him, and the other protesting that he never liked waiting for dead men's shoes. Leiton was seated close beside Miss Windham; Hope, and the girls, at Mrs. Berkley's side of the fire. Both parties, thus divided, carried on their separate con verse ; the former concerning a private exhibition of West's pictures, for which Leiton had got a ticket, and was pressing Miss Windham to accompany him — the latter regarding the difference of life in England and America, the sights of London, and the visit to Castle ford.

Then came accounts of the wedding, which each lady gave to her own audience ; but the smaller group evidently found them the most interesting. At length, Miss Windham consented to change her dress, and accompany Cousin Herbert to the exhibition. He de clared his mother and sisters would expect her to dinner. Mr. Hope and the girls were pressed in vain to rest themselves for that evening at Berkley Villa. They had promised, and must go ; the old man would pro bably be waiting for them at Colchester, where the coach would arrive at six. So the visitors and the niece departed. The aunt looked after them down the lawn, and out of the gate — Miss Windham arm-in-arm with Herbert, Mr. Hope walking at her disengaged side, and the two girls tripping on before. There was a good deal of sombre speculation in Mrs. Berkley's eyes.

Was she thinking of to how little advantage her niece looked, in spite of finery and fashion, between the two handsome men ? Was she thinking of the contrast which those two men presented ? Leiton, with his common-place gentility, and an air of well-pro vided-f or, well-taken care-of life, which had known no shocks, without or within— and Hope, scarcely ten years his senior, so polished, so superior, both in look and manner, yet so careworn and weary, when one took time to see it, that he seemed like a man who had striven beyond his strength with the adverse powers of fortune, and, despite his name, was losing both hope and energy. Mrs. Berkley was the youngest daughter and co-heiress of the head of the banking-house known as Seldon and Co., which, at that time, carried on business in Lombard Street, and was considered as safe as the Bank of Eng land.

Her father had made his own fortune ; and, having no son to succeed him in the bank property, he divided it equally between his two daughters, by a will which provided that the inheritance should descend to their children unimpaired ; and, failing such natural heirs, their husbands, if they survived them, were to have a life-interest in the property, which, on their de cease, was to revert to old Seldon's only sister and her family — the household of a worthy silk-mercer, named Rothwell, who emulated fashion, were frequently supposed to be approaching the Gazette, though they never got into it, and could not forgive the banker for leaving them in such uncertainty. The eldest of the Misses Seldon married Sir George Windham, a baronet with a heavily encumbered and strictly entailed estate. The youngest married the Honourable Vernon Berkley, a barrister with no practice, and distantly related to a peerage.

The baronet and his lady were both gone the way of all flesh some years before the period of our story. They had no son, and the entailed estate had passed to Sir George's uncle, its present possessor, com monly known as old Windham of Castleford : but one daughter inherited her mother's share of the house in Lombard Street, and was Miss Harriet Windham, the niece with whom Mrs. Berkley had talked so earnestly on their return from the wedding. The latter had been a widow so long that the time of weeds was over and almost forgotten ; yet nobody imagined Mrs. Berkley would marry again. The Honourable Vernon and she had been considered patterns of wedded felicity ; and when they retired from the West End, purchased the ground and built Berkley Villa, in the then out-of-town neighbourhood of Paddington, it was agreed that they were so devoted to each other as to care nothing for all the rest of the world.

But the Honourable Vernon died a few years after, and his widow lived on in her Villa, without adopting anybody's child, without adver tising for a companion, or even taking to a lap-dog. Some people said Mrs. Berkley was sensible, some that she was selfish, and a great many thought her a very singular woman. She could not be got to patronize Sunday Schools, attend Missionary meetings, or visit the poor. She had been vainly requested to preside over charity balls, to take stalls at fancy fairs, and to assist in all manner of reforming business. Mrs. Berk ley subscribed to every benevolent institution, was kind and liberal to her poor neighbours, servants, and de pendants ; but she kept her time to herself, lived for her own entertainment or instruction, read a good deal, thought more, dabbled a little in the fine arts, kept a select though not numerous circle, was generally respected, and very little understood.

Herbert Leiton was the cousin of her deceased husband, and had almost as good a claim to the title of Honourable ; for the late Mr. Berkley's would have been disputed at the Herald's College. He was the only son of a poor but genteel family, consisting, besides himself, of a widowed mother and four sisters far ad vanced in spinsterhood ; for Herbert was the youngest, and living on a small annuity saved out of the wreck which came with the death of the husband and father, who had been a physician in West-end practice. Her bert had been intended for a great many professions ; but, after finishing his college course with what was called credit, he spent a good deal of time in selecting his future vocation, and at length announced his deter mination to become a painter. Of course his mother and sisters believed in his talents — what family would not believe in an only son?

He was great on the subject in all companies; his studio was the most important part of the Leiton's home. There was no exhibition he did not visit, no artist of name and fame under whom he had not studied for some time. His criticisms on modern painters were particularly severe ; but, except the portrait of his best-looking sister, and those of some young lady acquaintances, Mr. Leiton had as yet executed nothing. The fact was, Mr. Leiton had a number of expectations. The coroneted family with whom he claimed relationship might do something for him, though they had never acknowledged his existence. He was"1 heir-at-law to the property of Castleford, through a Windham who had taken the name and arms, together with an heiress of the Leiton family, early in the preceding century. Moreover, though Mr. Leiton generally came out strong against mercenary marriages, and played the all-for-love tune to ladies young and old, his mother and sisters were in the habit of expressing their conviction that Herbert was entitled to a good match.

A Windham of the same ilk had once made a similar transfer of himself to the name and arms of Hope, that great family of bankers and merchants, who gave a peer age to Scotland, a notable banking-house to Amsterdam, and a firm of merchant princes to London. A branch of the Hopes had also settled in New Orleans when it was a French colony ; and from them was descended the Henry Hope who had visited at Berkley Villa that afternoon, and was known to be heir of the Castleford property next to Herbert Leiton. His father had been one of the wealthiest merchants in the city, his mother the daughter of a French family claiming kindred with the ancient Counts of Languedoc ; and Henry, who was an only son, had received a better education than was given to most merchants' sons in those days, and had been allowed to make the grand tour, and see life in Lon don and Paris before he settled down to business.

Some years previous an uncle, who had always maintained his mercantile connection with the old country, found it con venient to fix his residence in London, where he became acquainted with the Leitons, and married the sister of the late physician. In a long visit at his house, Henry Hope became the Leitons' cousin. They lived in Saville Row then ; the physician was alive, and in the height of his practice. It is needless to say that the young Ameri can was much made and more talked of. His handsome person and engaging manners would have made him an acquisition to any drawing-room, independent of his position and prospects ; but as his cousins and their circle were well aware of the latter, so many assaults, batteries, and dead sets were made upon the heart of Henry Hope, that his escape safe home amounted almost to a miracle.