The Buckhurst Volunteers. A novel

Front matter

To be had at all Libraries, in 3 vols. THE MOSAIC-WORKER'S DAUGHTER. A Novel. By J. M. CAPES, M.A. From the Guardian. " Mr. Capes' novel represents a certain definite state of society and go vernment at Rume, and its effects on morality and happiness : and it represents these effects as very deplorable. We are perfectly sure that Mr. Capes has actual facts in view and present to his mind, when he draws his imaginary picture of Francesca and her fortunes. He is a man who has given pledges of candour and resolute love of truth, which, whether we agree with him or not — and he represents a position which is not ours — not many men can be said to have given. . . . He ha-t the evidence before him, but we have not ; and we are asked to believe this represen tation of the disastrous and corrupting course of clerical government at Kome, shown to us under feigned names and imaginary situations. . . .

Mr. Capes has power over the more tragic parts of his subject, and there he is deeply in earnest. It would be read with interest as an Italian story, written by one who knows his ground. It is of still more painful interest as an illustration, fanciful in form, but with full purpose to represent what is true, of those views of the practical working of the Roman system at Rome, which Mr. Capes put forth some time ago in a series of letters in this paper." From the Athenæum. " l The Mosaic-worker's Daughter " deals with an English family resident in Rome, and contains interesting pictures of Roman manners and society. . . . There is an air of truthfulness and good feeling throughout the book, which makes it pleasant to read. If it is, as we suppose, the author's first work, we shall hope to meet him again."

From the Nonconformist. " Though Mr. Capes has for some time held an honourable place among the writers of the day, he has struck out into an entirely new line in his novel of 'The Mosaic-worker's Daughter;' and has achieved so much success, as to furnish good promise for the future. His plot is laid in Rome, and has all the mystery and complication which we associate with the idea of Italian stories ; but there is very little of a merely sensational character, and the author contrives to weave in the various threads of his tale with considerable art. . . . Here is a man trying to do right, yet horror-struck and driven almost to madness by the conflict between his own affections and sense of right, and the vows which forbid him, as a priest, to violate the secrets of the Confessional. The chapters in which his mental struggle is described, are among the most powerful and exciting in the volumes. . . .

Chapter I. Squire Thornbury

Four years ago the officers and men of the Buckhurst corps of rifle volunteers were looking forward to their annual shooting festiva] with mingled feelings of pleasure and annoyance. From the first enrolment of the company the whole town from which it derived its name had taken an unusual degree of interest in this yearly competition for prizes. Instead of the very business like and non-festal affair which is the form that English zeal in rifle-shooting ordinarily assumes, the Buckhurst gathering was a fete VOL. I. of the Swiss or German type. The prizes offered were not numerous, but they were handsome and valuable, and all classes entered keenly into the contest. The gentlefolks in the surrounding neighbourhood and in Buckhurst itself supplied a few very good shots, and the working men and shopkeepers of the town were scarcely a whit behind them, both in skill and in zeal.

They had, moreover, not only a satisfactory range for practice at no inaccessible dis tance, but on the day when the prizes were shot for, a special range was prepared for them in the picturesque park belonging to the Harcourt family, which extended almost up to the boundaries of the town. But the chief source of the brilliance and popularity of the yearly festival was to be sought elsewhere. Love and jealousy supplied motive powers to the competing marks men far more efficacious than the mere pas sion for sending bullets into a bull's-eye, or the desire for possessing silver vases or splendidly-mounted rifles. Four or five of the best shots were to compete under the bright eyes of sisters and cousins, and of other fair spectators dearer even than tbe most tender of sisters or the prettiest of cousins.

Tbere was also a sprinkling of warm-hearted and somewhat peppery grandfathers, who were as eager for the success of their grandsons as if the happiness of their future lives depended on their carrying off the prizes they desired ; while if any further stimulus were needed, it was furnished by the rivalries of certain families, both in the town and in tbe neighbourhood, who sought for fresh degrees of distinction in their struggles upwards in the social scale. From the lord-lieutenant of the county — Buckhurst is in one of the midland coun ties — down to the working men of the httle back streets of the town, almost everybody had come to regard the winning of some 1—2 prize as an absolute necessity to the future enjoyment of life. It would be an " honour," they all felt, and would place them and their wives and daughters one step higher in " position" than those families with whom they had hitherto been ranked as equals.

Why, indeed, the lord-lieutenant, who was a duke, with a large fortune, and happy in the possession of the Order of the Garter, should set his heart upon seeing one of his sons carry off the first prize was a sore puzzle, not only to his own valet and the duchess's lady's-maid, but to all the squires, and the lawyers, and the brewers, and the grocers, and the bricklayers, who either in their own persons, or in the persons of their kinsfolk, sought for distinctions which, as they thought, must be so utterly trivial in ducal eyes. On the whole, however, there was but little ill-feeling in the breasts of the Buckhurst riflemen and their friends. There was so much that was genuine in the enthusiasm, that the meaner passions were kept in the background. And when it was whis pered that the two chief favourites for the great autumnal prize were the lord lieutenant's second son and a son of the lord-lieutenant's head gardener, all other rivalries were found to be comparatively uninteresting and commonplace.

So far there was every prospect of a pleasant and successful gala on the day when the shooting was to take place. It was the personal character of their captain which troubled the souls of the amateur soldiery of Buckhurst. " Really Harcourt grows more intolerable every day," observed the good-natured Squire Thornbury, who acted as lieutenant to the corps, in reply to the questionings of his wife, after a parade from which he had just returned, looking tired and worried. " We shall have a row before long, or my name's not Dick Thornbury." "What has he been after to-day, my dear?" answered the squire's plump little wife. " Mr. Harcourt is quite above me. I don't understand men like him at all." " Only rapping out an angry oath at one of the men who turned restive under his cool and contemptuous manner," said the squire.

"That's aU." " But, Richard," replied the lady, " what an ungentlemanly thing to do ! I hope he begged the man's pardon." " Not he !" rejoined the squire. " And the worst of it is that the man is not only one of the best conducted, but one of the poorest members of the corps. If Harcourt had let fly his ' damn you' at me, nothing would have come of it. I should have known it was ill-temper, and he would have come over and begged my pardon. But if this sort of game goes on much longer, you may give up all thoughts of asking the girls down here for the prize shooting, for the whole corps will be blown into the air before the day comes on." " I can't make out Mr. Harcourt at all," repeated Mrs. Thornbury. " He always seems like a gentleman in his own house, and wherever I meet him. Surely he will apologize when he thinks the matter over coolly."

" No, Patty, he will never do that," said the squire. " It is not this oflence only that is breeding all the mischief. The men see plainly enough that even when he is most civil to them it is all mere restraint and condescension. He has one manner for his equals, another for smaller gentlefolks, a third for the tradespeople, and a fourth for the mechanics. And you wdl see that they wont stand it much longer." " Ah ! it's a thousand pities you did not take my advice about it at the beginning," said the lady. " Of course," the squire went on, without heeding his wife's ejaculations, " I don't want him to be hail-feHow-well-met with every clown that comes across him. What he ought to do is to let people feel that while they may be his inferiors in society, they are his equals as men. I don't believe that Har court has a spark of genuine sympathy with any human being ; and that is what is at the bottom of his infernal hauteur."

" Well, my dear," rejoined his wife, " he should never have been chosen captain of the Buckhurst riflemen." " My dear Patty," replied the squire, " it was impossible to do otherwise, as I have told you again and again. A man with ten thousand a year, and the daughter of the lord-lieutenant for his wife, cannot be set aside for a plain squire like Dick Thorn bury. I was quite ready to act under him as his lieutenant, though I am ten years older than he is ; for I have the success of the corps quite at heart. But if I had allowed the Buckhurst people to choose me, when Harcourt was graciously pleased to intimate his readiness to serve, where, I ask you, would have been his subscription and the subscription and patronage of the lord-lieutenant, and all the other big wigs and small wigs who are always on the look - out to see which way the wind blows?"

" Well, Richard," said his wife, " I can't argue, and I never could ; but I am sure I am right nevertheless." " Then again," continued the squire, "how was I to resist the entreaties of Edward Grey? You remember it was before he took to schoolmastering, and his father was still alive ; and I saw plainly there was some reason or other for his being so anxious about Harcourt being chosen captain." " You then thought it was to please Lady Marion," said Mrs. Thornbury ; " do you think so still?" " I really can't tell," said the squire. " You know that Edward Grey was an old pet of Lady Marion, and he knows more of the affairs of the Harcourt household than anybody else. Of course I could not cate chize him closely ; but when he came to me with that horribly pathetic face of his, and implied that Harcourt's wife was most anxious that her husband should not be snubbed by the Buckhurst people, he had me to leeward, and what could I do ?

Of course I gave in." " He's a very curious person, is Mr. Edward Grey," replied Mrs. Thornbury. " Curious or not curious, my dear," replied the squire, " he's a mighty friend of Lady Marion's, and a mighty friend of young Harcourt's into the bargain. I like him well enough myself, but not so well as that jolly little sister of his." " Yes, Richard," said his wife, " I know how fond you are of Mary Grey, and therefore I need not ask whether you have for gotten my commission and brought me the book I asked her to get bound for me." " The book is not ready," said the squire, now restored to his usual equanimity, " for she begged me to offer you her apologies." "And how is she getting on, do you think?" asked Mrs. Thornbury. "It's a very odd scheme of hers, I do think." " Sbe is getting on splendidly, Patty," rejoined the squire; "and developing the most wonderful capacity for business.

If ever I were to be ruined, were it not for the dreadful Tartar who now rules despotically over the Thornbury household, I should certainly marry Mary Grey myself." "No, squire," rejoined his wife, laughing, " you would never marry Mary Grey. She is not handsome enough for your fastidious taste." "But surely, Patty, one handsome wo man in the course of his life is enough for any reasonable man," said the squire, gal lantly taking his wife's hand and kissing it in the old-fashioned way. " And you think," said his wife, " she has never regretted her choosing to turn bookseller at Buckhurst rather than go out governessing, like other young women, when their fathers die and leave them to work for their living ?" " Not she, Patty," said the squire ; " she has far too much sense. Why should she ?

And they tell me she is the only creature in Buckhurst who knows how to put Harcourt down when he goes into the shop with his magnificently condescending graciousness, intending to show the late vicai-'s daughter that she still enjoys the light of the Har court countenance. Mary then puts on the whole manner of the aristocratic grande dame to perfection ; and but for the slightest possible play upon her lips, one would suppose that instead of selling him a packet of letter paper she was receiving his homage in a Grosvenor-square drawing-room. Peo ple tell me that whenever Harcourt is seen going in, there are sure to be three or four fellows following him to see the fun." " It is fortunate that Mary is not hand some," said Mrs. Thornbury, though with out the least ill-nature, " or it would do her no good to have her shop made a lounge for all the idle men in Buckhurst."

" So I told her myself, Patty," replied the squire. "You told her that yourself, Richard," echoed his wife ; " you amaze me !" " Why not, my dear ?" asked the squire. " Mary knows she is not pretty. She told me so when we were discussing the governess question. She said she hated teaching, and hated dependence, and hated being in a house where she would be neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, nor yet good red herring ; and that the only qualification she had for being a governess was that she was not good' looking." " And there she was right," rejoined Mrs. Thornbury, emphatically ; " people don't like pretty governesses." " I don't see that," said the squire. " If we had had the happiness of possessing half a dozen girls, my dear, I should certainly have preferred a pretty governess to an ugly one.

" I have no doubt that you would," said his wife, with a laugh ; " and so would a good many papas also. But what would the mammas and their daughters say to it, do you suppose ?" " If the papas were as well fortified against the fascinations of all rival beauties as is the Squire of Thornbury by the possession of such a mistress as Thornbury Court delights in," said her husband, " the mammas need not fear the charms of a legion of governesses." "Oh, Dick, Dick!" cried his wife, "you talk as much nonsense now as you did five and-twenty years ago, when you first prac tised on my simplicity: all which brings me round to what I said before about the volunteers — you ought to have been the captain, and nobody else."

Chapter II. Mary Grey

Buckhurst is in some respects one of the most fortunate of English country towns. Its population, about fourteen thousand, is sufficiently large to redeem it from the dead level of dulness which weighs upon the energies of the essentially small towns of all countries, without being so great as to impair that unity of local interest which is impossible in populous cities. Its buildings are of all sorts and dates, from the old manor-houses of the Tudors down to the snug or smart little villas of the retired tradesmen and the prosperous clerk. The neighbouring country is pleasant and varied, without being so noble as to attract a horde of sight-seeing tourists, to the benefit of the hotel-keepers and the annoyance of every body else. It is, moreover, in the possession of a large number of landowners, some great and some small, and is thus relieved from the oppression which weighs down those districts where two or three territorial magnates divide the whole soil between them, and exercise an almost feudal des potism on the bodies and souls of all who come within their influence.

But the crowning mercies of Buckhurst are theological and political ; or rather non theological and non-political. It rejoices in one sensible, kind-hearted, and non-aggres sive clergyman, and it sends no members to Parharnent. It has two churches, but St. Bede's is the mother parish, and its rector has the appointment of the incumbent of St. Oswald's. There are plenty of dis senting chapels of all denominations ; but vol. i. the same sort of spirit pervades them which is dominant at St. Bede's under the rector, Mr. Leighton, though less so at St. Oswald's, under the perpetual curate, Mr. Petherton. Consequently Buckhurst is a place which is marked with a double black cross in the secret archives of theological and political missionary societies. Deputa tions and travelling secretaries protest that it is one of the worst towns in all England for " meetings ;" and it figures for lament ably small sums in the subscription lists which attest the liberality or the credulity of the great English convert-manufacturing public.

Of course, in such a place, sensations are not of everyday occurrence. In fact, to go back a few weeks in our story, since the en rolment of its volunteer corps no sensation worth speaking of had ruffled the even surface of Buckhurst life, until it was one day announced that the daughter of the lately deceased vicar of Harcourt- Abbas was actually about to open a shop in the very best part of the High-street. For some days nobody would believe that the an nouncement was anything but a hoax, or a false report spread abroad to trouble the soul of a certain unpopular bookseller in Weymouth-street, who had contrived to affront half the tradespeople in the town. When at length the necessary alterations in the shop-fittings were nearly completed — the house had been a chemist's until the newcomer entered on the tenancy — and the words "Miss Grey" appeared in bright gold letters over the doorway, it is no ex aggeration to say that the whole mind of Buckhurst was stirred to its depths, and was more agitated than it would have been had both St. Bede's and St. Oswald's been burnt to the ground on the same night.

Churches are sometimes burnt to the ground, and the only questions that would 2— a have followed the twofold conflagration would have been as to the possibility of raising1 funds to rebuild them. But here was a far more serious innovation upon tbe existing order of things, and Buckhurst was distressed accordingly. And when finally, on the day after the display of the name in its brilliant letters on a blue ground, Miss Mary Grey herself appeared in the High street in Lady Marion Harcourt's barouche, sitting by the side of Lady Marion herself, and was driven up to the door, and straight way got out of the carriage, followed by Lady Marion, and with her entered the shop and disappeared from the eyes of the passers-by, within four-and-twenty hours afterwards tbere was not one single household in all Buckhurst in which some one of its members did not feel prepared to hear, as the next piece of intelligence, that the Queen had abdicated and that henceforth England would be governed as a republic.

But though everybody was astonished, opinions as to the propriety of Miss Grey's proceedings were divided. They were in deed so much divided, and took such a variety of forms, that when night came, the brain of little Mr. Llewellyn Jones, who had spent the entire day in discussing the question with the Buckhurst notabilities of various grades, was in a state of the most hopeless bewilderment. Mr. Llewellyn Jones, who on the strength of having once held an appointment in the advertisement department of a great London newspaper, regarded himself as a social philosopher, weU instructed in the hidden mysteries of English life, now filled the post of living advertiser in general for the whole population of Buckhurst and the neighbourhood. He had given up his situation in London on receiving a rather handsome legacy from a distant relation ; and being unmarried, very active, and very puzzle-headed, he quickly became one of the most notorious personages in the place.

Just as the Harcourt carriage drove up to the newly fitted-up shop, Mr. Llewellyn Jones happened to be passing along the High-street, and having waited to ascertain the reality of the fact, which at first sight seemed to be but a phantom or a dream, he felt that it was a direct call to him from Providence to disseminate the intelligence far and wide. Being a sound churchman and conservative, he considered that his first visit, as in duty bound, must be to the rector of St. Bede's. Within five minutes after Lady Marion and Miss Grey had vanished from his sight, he was at the rectory, and was at once admitted to the drawing-room. " It's a fact, my dear sir," he began at full speed, scarcely waiting to be asked to sit down ; " I assure you it's a fact. I saw it with my own eyes. And would you believe it, Mrs. Leighton, she came up to the house in Lady Marion's barouche, and Lady Marion went with her into the shop.

I assure you that in aU my experience in the advertisement department of the Times, I never heard of such a thing before. It is wholly and entirely unprecedented, you may believe me." " What is unprecedented, Mr. Jones ?" asked the rector, as soon as his visitor paused from want of breath. "Her name is put up — in gold letters, sir," went on the httle man ; " and I thought it my duty, sir, to come and ask you, as the chief representative of our be loved church and state in Buckhurst, what we ought to think of a proceeding so en tirely without authority or example ?" " I suppose you mean something or other in reference to this gossip about Miss Grey," replied the rector. " And do you mean to say, Mr. Jones," interposed his wife, " that Lady Marion brought Miss Grey in her own carriage ?" " In her own carriage, ma'am," replied LleweUyn : " her claret-coloured barouche, with four greys.

The affair is wholly and entirely without precedent." " Humph !" said, or rather grunted the rector's wife. " Well, Mr. Jones," interrupted the rector, " I think it is no business of ours." " But surely, sir," said Llewellyn, " it must have some bearing upon religion and our venerable constitution. And, excuse me for the liberty, but if you would just give me your views on the subject, it would ma terially assist me in the matter." " My dear Mr. Jones," said Mr. Leighton, gravely, but scarcely able to repress a smile, " I have no views on the subject at all." " And you are sure about Lady Marion and the barouche ?" asked Mrs. Leighton. " It is there at this moment, I have no doubt," replied Llewellyn. " Humph !" muttered Mrs. Leighton again. " Then I may say that you have no views about the propriety of this young lady's conduct, sir ?" said Llewellyn.

" Pray say nothing of the kind, I beg you," replied the rector. " Dear me ! dear me !" ejaculated Lle wellyn, as he took his leave, in a most un comfortable condition of feeling. " This is a very awkward business," observed Mrs. Leighton to her husband, as soon as the visitor's back was turned. " Why so, my dear ?" he replied. " Don't you foresee the consequences, Henry ?" said his wife. " What ? bankruptcy to the poor girl, or marriage, or what ?" said the rector. " Why we shall have to ask her to drink tea," rejoined Mrs. Leighton, in a tone of inquiry; "and then think of the conse quences. Where are we to draw the line ? We shall have to ask aU the shopkeepers in Buckhurst, or they will be affronted. It is really very wrong of Miss Grey ; very wrong indeed. And very wrong of her father to leave her unprovided for in this way !

And Lady Marion and the carriage, too ! that certainly must be a mistake of that silly little fetchand- carry, Jones." " Suppose, my dear," quietly replied the rector, with just the faintest touch of satire, " that Miss Grey were to decline any invitations with which you might favour her?" " Impossible, Henry !" ejaculated his wife ; " utterly impossible !" In the mean time Mr. Jones was on his way to carry the news to the perpetual curate of St. Oswald's, or as most people would have put it, to the perpetual curate's wife, inas much as no Salique law prevailed at St. Oswald's parsonage, and Mrs. Petherton reigned supreme. " I shall certainly patronise Miss Grey," announced that large, amiable, positive, and resolute lady, the moment Llewellyn had unburdened himself of his intelligence. " Petherton," she continued, turning to her husband, whom she usually thus addressed, " you want some sermon paper ; I think you had better order it at once from Miss Grey.

It will look well, and show that we approve of her laudable desire to earn her own living." " But, my dear Sophia," pleaded Mr. Petherton, who was smaU, short, and timid, and who lived in mortal fear of offending anyone's susceptibilities, "are you quite sure what will be said of this novelty in other quarters ? Innovations are dangerous things, and I know that the bishop " " Let the bishop attend to his own affairs," broke in Mrs. Petherton. " And I assure you, Mrs. Petherton," said Llewellyn, as soon as he could thrust in a word, " that Lady Marion Harcourt was in Buckhurst just now " " Let Lady Marion attend to her own affairs!" exclaimed Mrs. Petherton; "I intend to take up Miss Grey, whatever bishops and fine ladies may say to the con trary." " But, Mrs. Petherton," rejoined Lle wellyn, taken quite aback, " Lady Marion brought Miss Grey in her own barouche.

I saw it with my own eyes." " Then her ladyship has more sense than I gave her credit for," rejoined Mrs. Pether ton. " Petherton !" she added, " we'll ask her to dinner, the first day we have at liberty next week." " What, Lady Marion ?" asked Petherton, aghast at the unheard-of presumption. " Nonsense, Petherton," said his wife. " I mean Miss Grey, of course. And we'll ask you to come in the evening, Mr. Jones," she added, in her most gracious manner. Leaving St. Oswald's parsonage, Lle wellyn sought the office of Messrs. Coke and Selden, the principal attorneys in Buck hurst. Already his views about Mary Grey were in process of utter obfuscation, and he had not advanced a step towards deciding on the character of her conduct ; but lawyers, he said to himself, are always clever, acute men of the world, and understand human nature thoroughly.

" Ah, Jones !" exclaimed Mr. Coke, when the little gossip was shown into the inner office, " good day to you. What is the news to-day, man ? I see you are overflow ing before you speak." " She's done it, sir, I assure you," said Llewellyn ; " her name is over the door ; plain Miss Grey ; and she is there now her self." " Nonsense, Jones !" retorted the lawyer; " somebody's been making a fool of you. No hard matter either." The last words he kept to himself. "What's that?" called out his partner from the other end of the room. " Has the girl done it at last? Eh, Jones ?" " So he says," replied Coke, taking the words out of poor Llewellyn's mouth. " Ah, she's a deep girl is that," replied Selden. " Old Grey's daughter knows what she is about as well as any lawyer in West minster Hall. It looks queer, though, does it not, Jones ?" he went on, to Llewellyn's infinite perplexity.

" A screw loose any where ? Is that it — eh ?" " What's the girl like ?" asked Coke. " Is she good-looking, or strong-minded, or what? You used to go to the vicarage when her father was alive." " No, certainly not," said his partner ; " at least she's neither handsome nor pretty, but nobody would call her bad-looking. And as to her being strong-minded, I doubt it. But she's lively and active. Yet this is a queer move altogether." " Mary Grey's up to something, you may rely upon it," remarked the other. " She means mischief, but whether in the amatory or any other line time only will show." "Well, I don't see that," rejoined Selden. "It's odd, that is certain ; but that is all." " And do you know," said Llewellyn, at last edging in his word, " Lady Marion Harcourt brought her here in her own carriage."