Grey of Greybury. A novel

Front matter

VOL. I H IRovel. BY THE MARQUIS BIDDLE-COPE OF KOMK. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. BURNS AND OATES. LONDON : GRANVILLE MANSIONS, ORCHARD STREET, W. NEW YORK : CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY CO., BARCLAY STREET. ERRATA. VOL. I. Page 12, line 2 — for " autico" read " antico. 141, ,, 7 —for "you remind of what" read "you remind me of what." „ 160, „ \2—for " hours of time " read " hours of the time." ,, 219, „ ys—for " members " read " numbers." „ 226, ,, 12 — for " Eucoenia" read " Encoenia."

Preface

. No story that is not true is worth the reading. The sculptor's marble, the painter's canvas, the poet's or musician's rhapsody, and the novelist's romance, may be, and ought to be, one and all, as true as the most unerring chronicle. The truth, indeed, is often of a different kind. It happens frequently, for self-evident reasons, that little facts of great value and interest to us poor mortals, episodes of mental struggle and temptation, of human selfishness and misery, each with its private view of heartlessness on the one hand, and its "gushings of warm tears" on the other, can only be presented to the world under the mask of fiction. But where circum stances thus render a literal accuracy impossible, it is none the less an author's duty to remain absolutely faithful to artistic truth. I have never ceased to keep this principle before me in writing " Grey of Greybury ; " but

PREFACE.

. VI besides, whenever it has been in my power, and that very often indeed, I have drawn my scenes from life, exactly as they really happened, and have sketched the portraits, so to speak, of those personally known to me. Yet I do not claim historical accuracy for the book as a whole ; it is a novel, not a chapter of biography. I have almost always given my characters fictitious names — always except in one or two unimportant cases, where persons of public notoriety have quickly crossed my little stage. Nor is this all. I have used a novelist's privi lege still more freely, in transposing and chang ing events to suit the purpose of my story. Perhaps I may owe a special word of con ciliation to the estimable Society of Friends. I offer my tribute of respectful homage to their almost Catholic discipline, to the almost saint like virtues whose practice they enjoin as a rule of life.

I admire these as sincerely as I re pudiate the melancholy errors of their creed. Unfortunately the portraits of " Friend Brown" and his sister are artistically true, but they represent individual cases only, and by4no means commonly recurring types among their co religionists. I crave the indulgence, too, of my American

PREFACE.

. VII kindred, as well as of my English friends, thanks to whose hospitable kindness, extended over eight happy years, I came to forget at last that I was not myself an Englishman. I beg those whose opinions are opposed to mine, to take no offence, at least, at the boldness and perhaps occasional roughness of my touch when handling certain burning questions of the hour. I pray them to believe that this plain dealing has its origin in strong convictions only, backed by the kindliest feelins*- in the world. o THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. THE QUAKER CITY ...... I II. A BIRD'S-EYE PEEP ...... 6 III. RAYMOND THE TROUBLESOME IO IV. DINAH'S BREAKFAST TRAY . . . . 2 1 V. LIFE AT GREYBURY ...... 25 VI. ON THE "CHINA" . . . . . . 3 I VII. THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE .... 38 VIII. "WILL YOU WALK INTO MY PARLOUR?"

SAID THE SPIDER TO THE FLY . . . . . 42 IX. A FAIR PRISONER . . . . . . 5 1 X. IN THE TOILS ....... 60 XI. A WARNING ....... 64 XII. AN ENGLISH ARCADIA ..... 74 XIII BRAMBLEDEANE ...... 83 XIV. A STRANGE VISIT . . . . . . 9 1 xv. sir Roland's lawn meet .... 96 XVI. STRAIGHT DOWN WIND I CONTENTS. X CHAP. PACK XVII. LOST ON THE COTSWOLD . . . . Il6 XVIII. A MYSTERIOUS APPARITION . . . .123 XIX. INCIDENTS. ...... 134 XX. A GREAT CHANGE 1 44 XXI. OLD MR. GREY'S WILL . .... 153 XXII. AN* IMPORTANT INTERVIEW . . . . 164 XXIII. DANGER . . . . . . .177 XXIV. A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE . . .184 XXV. THE CITY BY THE ISIS . . . .195 XXVI. AN OXFORD SUPPER PARTY . . . . 208 XXVII. A NEW SENSATION ..... 221 XXVIII. NECK OR NOTHING ..... 237 XXIX. TWO TO ONE ON THE BLUE .... 247 XXX. WET BLANKETS . . . . . . 261 XXXI. A STOLEN LETTER . . . .275 XXXII. A SPY ..... .

Chapter I. The Quaker City

Between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers, where they meet, is a vast, flat bed of clay, of excellent quality for the manufacture of red bricks. It forms a sort of peninsula, this great clay bed, washed on the east by the Delaware, and on the west by the Schuylkill. It was there that William Penn, the Quaker, mapped out his model city in the seventeenth century ; " a sayre, greene country towne " it was called in those days. There he planned the broad, straight streets, Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce, and Pine, running parallel to each other east and west, and cut at right angles in the most geometrical manner by other streets run ning north and south. How far they extend to-day ! All across the low, clayey " flat," across the Schuylkill by half a-dozen bridges, continued even on the New Jersey shore, beyond the Delaware.

VOL. I. A What flotillas of steamers and trading-ships crowd that noble stream ! How many tall chimneys smoke on the outskirts of the city ! What neat, smart suburbs lie beyond ! What a belt of country there is on the north and west, dotted all over for miles and miles with picturesque villas and country-seats! In short, what a vast human hive it has become ! what a "spread" it makes — this "City of Brotherly Love," this new Philadelphia ! I call it " new," for indeed there is nothing really old but the rocks and rivers on that marvellous Atlantic seaboard of the west. It is new, too, compared to old Philadelphia in Asia Minor, with the white walls and minarets, looking down from its high perch among the Lydian hills. Yet we can hardly call Penn's city new — not really new — when we think of the two hundred years that part us from the day when it made its appearance suddenly, and without premoni tory symptoms, in the midst of the mighty forest, until then the abode of wolves, and red-deer, and red-skinned savages.

Merry King Charles II. , of happy memory, was the first sovereign who ruled over Phila delphia and the goodly province of Penn sylvania. In the old State House in Chestnut Street are portraits of nearly all the kings and queens from his time down to George III. And not even that unfo.tunate and incor rigible monarch has been dethroned from the important position which he occupies upon the wall. THE QUAKER CITY. 3 There are all sorts of quaint legends of the colonial days, — the Quaker days, — when drab and broad-brimmed hats were the established religion, and a power in the State. And, oh ! such precious relics of Queen Anne architecture as there are here and there ! — all in red and black brick and white-painted wood, with little, leaded squares of glass ! They are real gems some of them, and would make the fortune of Bedford Park, if Mr. Norman Shaw could transplant them thither.

Then there are the revolutionary memories, and the imperial memories of the time when Philadelphia was capital city of the new federa tion of states. The American Revolution definitely estab lished a great change, which was already creeping into Penn's city and province ; it may be said to have finally ended the supremacy of the Society of Friends in the whole colony. There were two causes for this, — the rise of a "war-spirit" among the Young American party, and the introduction of a military element into Philadelphian society. Up to this time there had been hardly any thing that could really be called society ; but when Howe occupied the city, in the autumn of 1777, a brilliant coterie formed about him. Then, and for some years after, Philadelphia could boast of salons unequalled, perhaps, out of Paris for wit and verve, for culture and good taste.

The traditions of this first social impetus survived long after the impetus itself had died away, and a sort of hazy legend of the social superiority of Philadelphia has come down to our own day. There is a certain shadow of truth in this, as there is in most legends. A number of gentle English families went to Pennsylvania in the colonial days. Many were Quakers, but there were among them, now and then, Episcopalians of the Established Church of England. These came to the front while Howe was in the city. At the same time a good many Quakers beat their pruning-hooks into swords for the benefit of the colonial cause — " Renegades," as the Orthodox brethren called them — and these, too, when the war was over, came to swell the gay circle which then formed the fashionable set of Philadelphia ; and a really excellent society it was, not in accordance, however, with the ideas of to-day.

There was not much wealth, and accordingly not much show ; but there were clever men and fair women, and good breeding everywhere. They made a long and sturdy fight, these old colonial people, when the tide of gilded vul garity began to rise around them. Little by little they were, of course, elbowed out of the field. Some let themselves go with the throno-; some disappeared altogether ; only a very few, six or a dozen houses perhaps, were able to maintain their post, and bar their doors against the ignorant and vulgar. So it came to pass that many whose names THE QUAKER CITY. 5 once upon a time were heard in every drawing room, buried themselves at last in the seclusion of their own homes. • They gave up society, as they said ; and it always happens that when people give up society, society in return gives them up, and forgets their existence in an in credibly short time.

There were also in Phila delphia a certain number of well-connected people who adhered to the religious traditions of colonial days, and held aloof, for that reason, from all sorts of social festivity. Among these exiles from gay life, cut off from the gossipers and dancers, the ball-goers and assembly-goers, might be numbered the Greys of Greybury, of whom we shall hear more presently.

Chapter II

a bird's-eye peep. Philadelphia to-day is a great metropolis of commerce and manufactures. If you should ascend in a balloon from Independence Square, in front of the State House, you would see, when you got high enough, a vast red patch beneath you, like a big daub of red paint on that particular part of the earth's surface. Everything is of red brick — the shops, the ware houses, the dwellings, the public buildings and churches, the very side-walks of the streets. It is not exactly a Quaker colour, but bricks are cheap, and building-stone is scarce and dear. To relieve the monotony of this omnipresent red, all the door-jambs and window-sills of the houses are painted white, and the Vene tian shutters bright green. The doorsteps are almost invariably of white marble, carefully scrubbed by the housemaid every mornino-.

It cannot be said that the general effect of this architecture is dignified or picturesque, and great efforts have been made of late to intro duce variety ; but years must pass before Phila delphia, with its straight, interminable streets A BIRD'S-EYE PEEP. 7 beginning and ending in nothing, can lay claim to anything approaching beauty. What a contrast, then, when you pass beyond the suburbs to the north or west ! A beautifully broken country of hill and winding dale, with bright, rapid streams and wooded slopes ; no more red brick, but handsome stone-built villas and country-seats of every form and size, perched on each coign of vantage, over foaming brooks or soft meadow lands. There is no other district in the New World where you can get so many exquisite home views, such Eng lish views, as you have in the environs of Philadelphia.

Certainly there are prettier bits in this same style to be found within fifty miles of London, or at Bournemouth, or Torquay, but not in America. I call them " English" views ; but there are points of difference to be noted carefully. The winters at Philadelphia are like enough to those of London, still more like those of Paris, rather worse, perhaps, in most respects, than either ; but the summers are as hot as a Neapolitan August, with a dash of India now and then, or the African Gold Coast. Observe the broad verandahs that sweep around the houses, giving them a sort of hybrid look between a Yorkshire hall and a Bengal bungalow. Come between the first of June and middle of September, when summer reigns in all her power in this favoured region. There is rank luxuriance everywhere. The fields are full of rustling GREY OF GREYBURY. maize, with silky plumes ; the red clover is more than knee-deep ; the grass in the meadows is above your middle.

The yucca and cactus, the orange and lemon, flourish in the open air ; the lawns and terraces are gay with beds of bright-leaved plants. All Nature teems with life ; there is a hum of myriad insects in the air ; the "katy-did" chirrups in the grove, the locustsings his shrill song in the tree-tops, gaudy dragon-flies and butterflies dart and flutter everywhere. The birds, too, wear the gorgeous livery of southern climes ; the Balti more oriole, the red-headed woodpecker, the gay yellow-bird, and the scarlet tanager light up the shades of copse and wood ; tiny hum ming-birds, with throats of flaming ruby, flit among the sweetest flowers, and sip their nectar. Everything is vivid, from the fiery sun that warms all these millions into life, to the grand electric flashes which from moment to moment, in nights of storm, bring out landscapes of elfin blue or glaring red from the inky blackness.

Yes, everything is bright. The soil is mica cious ; each road and by-path is covered with tiny particles, sparkling beneath the sun like diamond dust. The nights are brilliant with fire-flies, that rise up all the evening through the long grass, still rising up and up among the black shadows of the trees, till their little lanterns flash out against the sky like shooting stars. Then there are such sunsets ; not so infinitely A BIRD'S-EYE PEEP. 9 lovely as those of Italy, but more gorgeous. It is a country of extremes, everything is intense and exaggerated ; there is a greater strain upon the nerves, and the blood flows hotter in the veins.

Chapter III. Raymond The Troublesome

One mile from the much-favoured suburb of Quakertown, and five from the metropolis, is a pleasantly shaded entrance-gate by a broad and dusty highroad. Within are wide-spreading trees, and lawns sweet with the scent of flowering shrubs. An old, colonial mansion stands on a gentle eminence, half-concealed from the public road by high hedges and artistic planting. There is a very English air about it. The south front, to which the coach road leads, is stuccoed and painted ; on all the other sides the hard, grey stone of which the walls are built is left exposed, except where ivy and five-leaved creeper have drawn a green veil over them. Were it not for the deep verandah heavily shaded with wistaria, for the quaint, shingle roof and white balustrade, and the long trellis of vines on the garden front, you might believe yourself in England, the house looks so like a modest English country-seat.

There is an air of home about Greybury that one does not often find in America, or even in the British colonies; home in the English sense, I mean — comfort, seclusion, and that indefin able " something " which foreigners have not discovered, and of course have no word to express— that " something " which we vulgarly call a " home feeling." There was a home feeling, then, about the house at Greybury. The interior was plain, it is true ; rather severe, perhaps. Still, it was not cold, it did not repel, it was only the least in the world what our French cousins would call triste ; it was not such as to suggest the idea of luxury. The rooms were large enough, and the mahogany furniture had a look of real solidity ; but many of the sofas and chairs were covered with black haircloth, there were no curtains at the windows, only green Venetian blinds, and no pictures hung upon the wall.

Wherever you looked, at floor or fireplace, furniture or ceiling, there was evident a studied design to avoid mere ornament ; utility only was consulted in all the appointments of the house, but everything was of the best quality, and clean beyond the conception of an English housekeeper ; the chairs, too, and the sofas were comfortable. Yet, had it not been for the books, the whole effect of this interior must have been depressing in the extreme. But there were books everywhere, there were book cases filled to overflowing in every room ; every table, and shelf, and dtagcre was piled with books ; there were plain bindings and rich bindings, drab and scarlet, black and blue, with a dash of yellow and white now and then, of chocolate brown or giallo autico ; there were piles, too, of pamphlets, and newspapers, and magazines, and new books coming out in numbers.

There was no attempt to arrange according to artistic effect, there was no place set apart for show books ; the most abject democracy reigned amongst them, costly vellum was jostled by trumpery brown paper on all the shelves. Yet the books gave light, and colour, and character to the whole house, they were the one thing which caught the eye and held it in that interior. " Old Mary has brought another letter from Raymond, my dear," said an old gentleman with silvery locks, who sat beneath the shade of the Greybury verandah one hot June day in the year of grace 1868. As "old Mary" will not make her appearance again in this book, it may be well to explain that she was a sort of private post-woman, who carried letters from the Quakertown post-office to three or four families of the neighbourhood.

The lady — for it was a lady to whom the gentleman spoke — stepped from the open hall door and took a seat at his side. " Still the old tune," said Mr. Grey with a tone of weariness. " Raymond has an un fortunate disposition ; he never seems able to settle down. He fancies now that he does not like America, and actually asks if I won't let him take a course at Heidelberg." " Raymond is a peculiar boy," said his mother calmly ; " I should myself dread thwart ing him too frequently, unless it was done very judiciously." " But he has such crazy notions ! With his horse and gun at home, and what should be an ample allowance of pocket-money — doesn't it seem like ingratitude to Divine Providence, who has given him such a favoured lot ? I do fear for him with that restless, insubordinate disposition."

" Raymond will be twenty next week," said Mrs. Grey quietly ; " doesn't thee think that is a very critical age ? He will probably soon be launched out into busy life, if the Lord spares him ; and I do very much fear launching him out among worldly people with a disgust for his home surroundings." " But what would thee suggest, my dear ? " rejoined her husband, with a little impatience. " Would thee have me let him go off alone to Heidelberg, quite away from the influence and restraints of our religious society ? Among total strangers, too, in a foreign country, with his delicate constitution ?" Here Mr. Grey's voice grew softer, and a shade of anxiety seemed to pass over Mrs. Grey's face. " But," he added, " the truth is that ' Friends' ' discipline is irksome to him, and unless he comes to listen to the monitions of Divine grace, I fear for his future.

Next week, too, he is to leave Samuel Alltop and come home. Still, although he is restless yet, I hope he has turned over a new leaf, and that we shall have nothing approaching a repetition of his past follies." Mrs. Grey's large, deep, blue eyes were fixed with an earnest expression upon her husband's face. She was past the meridian of life ; there were wrinkles on her cheek and brow. But in her day she had been beautiful, and beauty's traces were still there. Her skin was fair, her cheek still wore its roses, and her form was graceful and erect. Her husband's figure, once as upright as her own, was bowed with age and failing health. His step was slow and his hand tremulous ; only the eyes, dark with that intense clear darkness peculiar to certain of the Latin races, retained their brightness.

Now Mr. Grey came by his eyes in this way : his paternal grandsire, Colonel Grey, married the daughter of a Provencal Huguenot, during the War of Independence, and a dash of the dark southern blood could still be traced in his descendants. In Mr. Grey's eyes, underlying the calm and almost haughty look which spoke of English lineage, there was sometimes a quick glance of fire that seemed to threaten storm. But the storms never came ; for Mr. Grey was a philo sopher, and had gained a habit of perfect self control and self-repression. The old couple, as they sat for a while in silence, on the deep verandah at Greybury, might have carried one's mind back a hundred years or more. They looked like a bit of the eighteenth century — a perfect picture of the time of King George II. Mr. Grey wore a coat of thin summer twilling, blue, with fine white stripes close together, and cut like that of a cabinet minister.

His nankeen trou sers and waistcoat were pale buff. His high peaked collar and smooth shirt bosom were stiff and spotless. His neck was confined by a high black stock ; and a plain gold watch key hung from his leather guard. Mrs. Grey's dress was no . less remarkable. She wore, in fact, precisely the costume with which we are familiar in the well-known portrait of Mrs. Fry ; hair drawn down smoothly over the brow, cap and handkerchief of the finest white book-muslin — there were only half-a-dozen women in Philadelphia who could starch and iron them properly — shawl of the most delicate cream-coloured silk, and an India silk gown of that goldeny, greeny colour, now so fashionable, which is neither a green, nor a gold, nor a drab, but something between the three,' softer and more pleasing than either.

But it was not their dress alone that gave them such an old time look, nor was it certainly their finely moulded features, or their air of good breeding. There are always plenty of handsome, high bred people in the world, and if nobility, like wine, improves with age, the breed should not deteriorate. But there was something a little quaint in the manner of Mr. and Mrs. Grey, a courtli ness in their bearing which gave proof that they had not been much in the gay world of late years. The silence was broken by Mrs. Grey. " I was told yesterday that Julia Henry is going abroad for a year, with Thomas and Bessie Brown. I suppose they will sail from New York next month." " Thee is changing the subject rather abruptly, my dear ; unless, indeed, thy remark is meant as a suggestion." " Well, dear, it had occurred to me that they might be pleased to have Raymond's company.

And Thomas Brown, thee knows, is a sober youth, not likely to encourage him in improper ways; and then Julia would watch over him, as if he were her own son ; Bessie " " But, my dear, what good could possibly come of such an experiment ? I look upon it, I confess, with something approaching conster nation. What good could come of it ? Why, Julia Henry and her party are exactly the sort of gay Friends who would indirectly encourage Raymond's insubordination by their frivolities, at least by their disregard of the testimonies of our Society. Would it not be inconsistent to throw him into the lion's path, when, for so many years, we have been trying to impress upon his mind that we are a 'peculiar people,' set apart from the worldlings, and hedged about by our ' plainness of speech, behaviour, and apparel ? ' " A tear stood in Mrs. Grey's eye, as she replied — " I don't feel, dear, that my conscience would be easy if I did not tell thee how I tremble inwardly to think of the possible effect, in a few years, of trying to force the observance of our testimonies upon Raymond.

May there not have been a warning for us in what took place at Bluetown, and in the affair of the plain coat ? " "Yes," said Mr. Grey, very slowly, "I feel the weight of what thee says. Raymond's is a character that I do not understand yet, and perhaps I may never understand it thoroughly ; probably not, indeed, for it is not likely that the days of my pilgrimage will be much extended. But doesn't thee shrink at all from placing the lad under such influences ? " " Yes, in some ways my mind shrinks from the prospect ; but I do not feel as though the opening were closed altogether to such a course. The time must come soon when, if life is spared him, it will be in Raymond's own power to place himself under the influence of such surroundings as he may choose. And, if thee will think it over, dear, the influence of Julia Henry's party would not be altogether in favour of the spirit of change which seems to be creeping into a certain section of our Society.

Thee remembers, I presume, what we have heard of Thomas Brown's fidelity to our testimonies. With the Divine assistance we might hope a great deal for Raymond from the companionship of such a youth. Thee knows, too, that Thomas is studying conveyancing ; perhaps he VOL. I. B might influence our boy to turn his attention to the same pursuit." Conveyancing, or that part of the legal chamber - practice relating to the transfer of real estate, forms in Philadelphia a profession by itself, in great repute among the Quakers, who object to the practice at the bar, through a dread of being led to throw a false light upon unjust causes. The quaint language spoken by Mr. and Mrs. Grey will sound strange in English ears. Above all it will be hard to reconcile their punctilious accuracy of speech with such a flagrant breach of grammatical rule as the use of the objective personal pronoun for the nominative.

It would not be difficult, in a philological treatise, to account for the almost universal existence of this strange peculiarity among the Philadelphia Quakers, even those of the best position and most finished educa tion. It is enough here to state it as a fact, and to say that the correct use of the pronoun " thou " is almost entirely confined to a small number of those persons whom we might call, were we irreverently disposed, the "super sanctified," the very cream of the elect. But to return to the Greybury verandah. Before Mr. and Mrs. Grey had retired from the warm, scented shade of wistaria and honey suckle to the cooler shades within the mansion, it was decided that, with Mrs. Henry's consent, Raymond should be one of her party. This decision was reached with many misgivino-s and not a few tears, and would never have been arrived at had Mr. Grey been able to find any practicable alternative.

As it was, he only reassured himself a little by repeatedly calling to mind that the journey was to be nothing but a pleasure-trip or finish to the boy's education. Above all, Raymond was to look for no after consequences beyond the additional knowledge and experience that he would certainly bring back with him. Nothing further was to result from the journey ; it might have the effect of steadying the boy, as Mrs. Grey hoped, or of unsettling him still more, as Mr. Grey feared ; but in any case it was to be looked upon as Mr. Grey's extremest concession, and not as the prelude to anything which should withdraw Raymond in the smallest degree from under the ægis of the Society of Friends, — least of all to a course of study in a European university. In Switzerland, and especially in Italy, his parents knew that he would see something of the Roman Catholic Church, and trusted that the papistical mummery, of which he would be witness in many of the cathedrals, might so disgust him with Popery that he would never be tempted to listen to the insinuating argu ments of the Roman priests.