The History of Godfrey Kinge

Front matter

THE HISTORY OF GODFREY KINGE BY W. CARLTON DAWE AUTHOR OF ' YELLOW AND WHITE,' ' MOUNT DESOLATION,' 'THE EMU'S HEAD,' ETC. LONDON WARD & DOWNEY LIMITED 12 YORK BUILDINGS ADELPHI W.C. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. — THE BIRTH OF A MAN CHILD, .... I II. — OF THINGS IN GENERAL, AND ONE THING IN PAR- TICULAR, ...... 9 III. — MASTER GODFREY WIPES OUT AN OLD SCORE, . . 19 IV. — MR DARGE ENTERS, ..... 30 V. — THE PASSING OF MR KINGE, ■ ■ • 39 VI. — THE NEW REGIME, . . . . .52 VII. — HOW GODFREY AND JACK SET OUT TO FACE THE GREAT WORLD, ...... 63 VIII. — HOW ALL CONCERNED CONSOLED THEMSELVES, . 71 IX. — A TARNISHED REPUTATION, . . . -77 X. — GODFREY WIPES OUT ANOTHER OLD SCORE, . 88 XL — AT THE SIGN OF 'THE ANGEL AND MAN,' . . 96 XII. — A MODERN PHAETON, ..... 102 XIII. — CONCERNING CERTAIN MISADVENTURES, . .

Ill XIV. — AMONG THE THESPIANS, . . . . . Il8 XV. — A DISCOURSE ON ART AND ONIONS, . . . 130 XVI. — A SUGGESTION FOR A NEW r6lE, . . . I4I XVII. — A GLANCE BACKWARD, . . . . . I46 XVIII. — THE FOOLISH VIRGIN, ..... ISO XIX. — IN WHICH THE LAMP BURNS LOW, . . • 158 XX. — HOW GODFREY PLAYED THE NEW ROLE, . . CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE XXI. — IN WHICH THE LAMP GOES OUT, . . . 169 XXII. — HOW GODFREY AND MR WOBBLES STUDIED AS- TRONOMY, . . . . . .177 XXIII. — THE HONOURABLE MRS GLYN-GORE, . . 186 XXIV. — MASTER KINGE'S LINES FALL IN PLEASANT PLACES, I96 XXV. — MASTER BENJAMIN'S ATONEMENT, . . . 201 XXVI. — ASPASIA SQUARE, . . . . .211 XXVII. — AN AFFECTING INCIDENT, .... 217 XXVIII. — PARK STREET, ..... 222 XXIX. — IN WHICH THE VELVET PAW IS UNCOVERED, . 23O XXX. — TOTTENHAM-COURT ROAD, .... 235 XXXI. — AT THE BASE OF THE OBELISK, . . . 247 XXXII. — THE SILVER LINING, ... . 255 XXXIII. — KINGESCOURT, . . . . 2(jr XXXIV. — FATHER AND SON, . . . . 272 XXXV. — HOW MR MADDESON WAS DEPOSED, . . . 234 XXXVI.— HOW THE FATTED CALF WAS KILLED, . . 292 XXXVII. —OF THE DEPOSITION OF DARGE AND CO., . . 30O XXXVIII.— IN WHICH THE CURTAIN IS RUNG DOWN, . .

Chapter I The Birth Of

A MAN CHILD A proud and beautiful smile illumined the benevolent features of Mr Godfrey Kinge, of Kingescourt, in the county of Devon, when the sweet partner of his joys and woes whispered shyly in his ear that she believed the long-wished-for event was at length approaching realisation. And as the time flew on, and there was no longer any doubt of her condition (for ladies have been known to raise false hopes), Mr Kinge grew proportionately excited and happy till there was no madder, merrier boy in all the broad county than he. For six long, sweet, melancholy years he had yearned for this glorious announcement, and now that it was really come, and under conditions which proved its undoubted honesty, his delight and expectation knew no bounds. With head thrown back he marched with all the pomposity of a drum-major through the one street of the village, much to the amusement of all the old cronies, who smilingly nudged each other and whispered that the squire was proud as a peacock now — that last word being accompanied by an exceedingly knowing look.

All who saw him in those joyful days have solemnly averred that in a single week he grew to look ten years younger; and sundry shop keepers of Middlestoke will to this very day laugh loudly when they tell you of the grand airs of importance the worthy gentleman was wont to assume whenever he purchased a bauble for the babe unborn. The sex being naturally a matter of no little conjecture, the kind of toy best suited to its wants might also present serious difficulties to the unimaginative ; but Mr Kinge was a man of resource, and was determined that no babe unborn should steal a march on him. Therefore, in case A it should be a girl, he purchased dolls and dolls' clothes, rattles and corals by the dozen, while, on the other hand, if fate or dained that it was to be of the masculine gender, he had a brand-new nursery upstairs crammed full of horses, dogs, guns and swords — in fact, with everything that is supposed to thrill the bosom of the man in petticoats.

That he should prefer the coming wonder to be a boy was, perhaps, natural enough considering his childless state and the knowledge that the old place would pass into the hands of strangers ; for in those days, when evil befell this house, the family scattered to the four corners of the earth, and he had now no nearer relative than a forty-second cousin who lived somewhere in the north, who had never seen him, and who had never been seen by him. Kingescourt, the seat of this ancient family, though com paratively small as estates now go, was an exceedingly vener able one, and had been held in an almost unbroken line by the Kinge family from the days of Henry VIII., during whose reign one Sir Godfrey Kynge, a worthy and learned knight, was despatched as special envoy to the court of Spain. It has also been stated, in connection with this extremely ancient family, that it once bore the name of Fitzkynge, and that its founder sprang from the robust loins of no less a personage than Edward IV. ; but some people have been known to doubt this, though to deny it is impossible, for were not kings ever renowned for their magnanimity ?

Still, the name Fitzkynge, or, as it is more commonly called, Fitzroy, shows a sort of con nection with royalty which must not be despised ; and though, unfortunately, we are unable to trace an authentic history of this remarkable family right down from the fourth Edward, we are yet assured that it is one of those illustrious houses which reflect so much credit on a country. From Fitzkynge the family gradually took to the less antique form of the name, and for some considerable period (which concerns us not) was known as Kynge only, till one day it was subjected to a yet deeper degradation. Sir Peter Kynge, a wild fellow and boon companion of no less a divinity than Charles II., being hard-pressed for cash, delivered into the hands of a notorious Israelite a certain bond inscribed with the legend « Petar Kinge,' and though it was said that Sir Peter was drunk at the signing of the document, it never theless produced a revolution in our language and his name.

From that moment the y was banished for ever and the i sub stituted j and the story of ' Petar Kinge ' reaching Court, his majesty, who was a man of wit, pronounced it an excellent THE BIRTH OF A MAN CHILD 3 jest, and from that day to the day of his death Sir Peter was called by all who knew him, and by the vulgar thousands who knew him by reputation only, Sir Petar, or Sir Petah, and thus originated that method of speech cultivated by all superior persons. With the falling-off in the dignity of the name, so fell off the fortunes of the family. Step by step, fighting hard all the time, it pursued its downward career till it was eventually hustled into trade. For the first time in its existence it had to work for its living, and it found the ordeal a singularly painful one. In fact, it killed the first Mr Kinge, as well it might ; but Mr Kinge the second was a man of great resolution and undoubted ability.

He not only paid off all his father's debts, and bought back the old estate, but amassed a considerable fortune as well, and then died ere his many wide-waistcoated friends of the City could hoist him into the civic chair. This worthy gentleman was the father of Mr Kinge the third, who in turn is shortly to be the father of the hero of our history. And now we hope the genealogy of our hero (who is to be) is given with lucidity enough for all practical purposes, for, surely, there could be no more grievous sin than that of slurring over a man's pedigree. He may need it presently ; indeed, should he prove worthless ere we come to that portion of his life in which we relegate him to the future, we shall the better be able to con done his faults when we remember the privileged class to which he belonged.

Only the vulgar must be virtuous. When Mr Kinge the third was in his nineteenth year he was placed by his father in the business (which was that of an Indian and Colonial merchant, Mud Lane, City), and for fifteen long years, from morning till night, he slaved away at his dingy desk. At the expiration of that period, however, his father considerately died, and he immediately emerged from insignificance to consequence. Thus far he had been over shadowed by the swagger and style of his pushing parent, but he was now somebody in the busy world in which he moved, and, truth to tell, he liked not the sensation. Being a man of extreme sweetness of character, coupled with a retiring nature and most unconquerable shyness, he soon found the gush and flattery of his new friends, and they were legion now, ill-suited to his simple tastes, and so he began to think of the ancestral seat of Kingescourt and Miss Elizabeth Digby— a young lady of his acquaintance — and, being a man of no impetuosity, he continued to think of Miss Digby for five years (which was very cruel of him), and then made up his mind that she of all the women he had ever met was the one most likely to make his married state supremely blest.

She was calm, grave, dignified ; had tastes in common with his own, and though not singularly beautiful, had been endowed by nature with grace enough to captivate his fancy. At this period she was in her thirty-third year, he being seven years her senior. It will scarcely be necessary for us to enter into a lengthy account of his wooing, but we may state that exactly two years and three months from the time when he conclusively proved to himself that Miss Elizabeth Digby would make him an excellent wife, he led her from the altar a pale but happy bride. Then, being possessed of a good five thousand a year, and being, as we have said, of a modest disposition, he sold out his business in the city and retired to the rural serenity of Kinges court. Their life was now a singularly happy one, and but for their one gentle sorrow would have been devoid of the faintest shadow.

The years slipped on, but the heir never came, and though her husband spoke not of his disappointment, she saw the unuttered regret in his eyes, and morning, noon and night prayed that God might grant her the happiness of bearing him a son, even though it should be at the cost of her own life. But both God and nature seemed deaf to all her prayers and entreaties. The days and months rushed on, the years came and went, but the prayer remained unanswered. And so, in his despair, poor Mr Kinge took to writing poetry (having always had, in his quiet way, a hankering after that divine art), in which he extolled the music of children's voices, the charm ing artlessness of their ways, and the thousand and one little things with which they delight the hearts of fond parents. Had he been a painter he would have depicted some of those delightful children with soiled or clean pinafores, dolls or puppy dogs, which spring with such remarkable regularity from the fertile brains of our great artists.

But not having cultivated the pictorial expression in youth, he was compelled to abandon the pleasing idea of seeing his creations on canvas, and so he took to poetry. And sometimes, in his pride of authorship, he was cruel enough to read these effusions to his wife, who duly praised them in her sweet, sad way • but they used to go straight to her heart, and when his back was turned she would weep as though that heart were breaking. And now, when five years had gone by, husband and wife lost every hope, and Mr Kinge, to brighten the dulness of his ill-starred life, and to open up some possible interest in the THE BIRTH OF A MAN CHILD 5 future, abandoned his infantile rhymes, and began to compose the ' Life of Jesus ' in heroic verse. The sketched plan of this great poem told of twenty-four books, but the good man could never get beyond the second.

To quit the subject of his hero's childhood was to him impossible. It haunted him like a bottle-imp. Sleeping or waking he never escaped it. And so he dwelt upon it, enlarged it, revelled in it. Indeed, had he not known such a proceeding to be absurd, he would have filled the whole of the twenty-four books with a description of that wondrous infancy. Was it not an infinite source of thought, a very Niagara of ideas ? Overwhelming, too ; un manageable, chaotic. Yet there can be little doubt that his description of that humble birth was a masterpiece in its way. But it was unnecessarily cruel of him to read to his poor wife, and in such passionate accents, too, that beautiful pæan on the glory of the Virgin motherhood. Every word cut her like a lash, and, bursting into tears, she wondered what she had ever done in her pure life that heaven should treat her so harshly. ' Oh, God ! ' she would say, ' grant me this, grant me this.' And when at length the day did come in which she made the announcement that opens this history, she was in such a flutter lest her surmises should again prove incorrect that she knew no peace of mind till everything was absolutely certain.

Then the sweetness of her life made up for years of hopelessness. Mr Kinge had always been the kindest and most affable of hus bands ; now he was positively the most adorable of men. He waited on her every gesture, waited on her hand and foot : he kissed her hands, her hair, her face — he would have kissed her feet had she allowed him. He forbade her to move, to exert herself in any way. The child must be a paragon — he would look to that. You see, Mr Kinge knew all about it. She had no whim, no wish that was not gratified. He was determined that his child should come into the world flawless, and had his wife asked for an elephant he most certainly would have got her one. And so by slow yet sure degrees the time crept on, and when at length the eventful hour did come, and Mr Kinge, who stood pale and trembling outside the bedroom door, heard within the soft, low cry of the little stranger, he began to shake so violently that he would have fallen to the floor had he not leant for support against the wall.

A few minutes later the doctor emerged from the room, a broad smile on his broad face. ' Well, well ? ' gasped Mr Kinge, excitedly. ' It is well, well with them both,' smiled the physician. ' A fine boy, sir. Let me congratulate you.' A great, proud light beamed in the face of the happy father. 'And she?' ' Well, sir ; both well,' repeated the doctor. ' Thank God ! Can I do anything ? ' ' Yes,' said the man of medicine, the amused smile deepen ing on his face ; ' go downstairs, mix yourself a strong dose of brandy and water, and wait till you're sent for.' And with a bow to the worthy gentleman the doctor re-entered the room. For a minute or two Mr Kinge stood looking at the door in an aimless sort of way, his heart and brain aglow with his new, great joy ; then turning slowly about he descended the stairs like one in a dream.

Seizing the decanter he helped himself, in the same objectless manner, to so stiff a dose of the fiery spirit that he went close upon terminating his aimless exist ence ; and he was still wiping the copious tears from his eyes when the nurse entered the room some time after. ' Will you come up and see the baby, sir ? ' He surveyed the woman, without answering, in a vacant, wondering way, seeming unable to realise the precise nature of the request. Though for so many weeks past he had eagerly looked forward to this day, now that it was really come he half doubted its reality. The nurse, in the meantime, favoured him with a somewhat contemptuous stare, showing plainly what she thought of the man who allowed such a trifling matter to affect him thus ; but she was not altogether a prepossessing female, her firm jaw and piercing eyes denoting little sympathy with human weakness. ' Thank you, Mrs Winter.

Yes, I will come.' The woman fell back a pace or tw7o, the ghost of a smile flitting across her firm lips, and Mr Kinge tumbled up the stairs, for between the brandy and the excitement, walk he could not. Yet when he entered the room and saw his wife lying so pale, so altered, and yet so sweet, with the infant by her side, all his oddness vanished as if by some stroke of magic, and throwing himself on his knees he buried his face beside her and wept like a child. A smile, as beautiful as the smile of a saint, lit up her wan features, and stretching out one pale, thin hand to him, she whispered, ' Kiss me, Godfrey, kiss me.' And he stooped over her, the tears still glistening in his eyes, and kissed her again THE BIRTH OF A MAN CHILD 7 and again — even as he did six years ago when he brought her home on her bridal night. ' You are happy now ? ' For answer he looked long into her face without speaking, but he kissed her lips again, and the great tears rose in her pure eyes — tears of the profoundest joy a woman ever shed. ' Come, come, sir,' said the man of pills, interposing in his bluff, good-natured way, ' I really cannot allow you to distress my patient in this manner.

It is injurious, sir, absolutely injurious.' Mr Kinge turned to the man with a sweet smile. Arising, he took the doctor's hand between his own. ' You know what they are to me,' he said. ' God bless them.' And the doctor, rough old fellow though he be, has since declared that if the light of heaven ever reflected itself on a human face, it was on Mr Kinge's that day. For the next week things went on splendidly with the boy. He made just as much noise as his weight and age would per mit, and stuck his little fist into his doting father's eye fully a dozen times before he was three days old — a feat which im measurably delighted that good man. He had heard of other people having wonderful children, but he had never seen them. Hitherto all babies had seemed alike to him, but they were not like this one.

And then how it screamed and ate — milk, truly, but what a quantity ! Did ever a baby have such an appetite, and such lungs ? And how it grew ! Prodigious, wasn't it ? Did the doctor ever see such a marvel ? Never ? He thought not. They didn't grow those sort of babies every day ; and in the contemplation of his son's surprising attributes good Mr Kinge was lost in wonder. But with the mother things went not quite so well. At her age the bearing of a first child was attended with consider able risk, and so instead of recovering in due course from her prostration, she gradually began to sink. At first her more than ordinary weakness, which she carefully hid from her husband, occasioned no great alarm ; but as the symptoms each day grew worse, even the doctor began to exhibit his concern, while she, with that acute penetration which sickness seems to give some people, read the fatal knowledge in his looks. 'It's no use worrying, doctor,' she said. 'I know I shall never get better ; but don't — don't tell Mr Kinge.' ' Tut, tut, my dear madam,' replied the worthy man, tossing his head disdainfully at the thought, 'what are you talking about ?

Not get better, indeed. How dare you think of such a disgraceful thing ? ' 'You know it is true,' she answered, with a wistful smile. ' You will pardon me, my dear madam, but I know abso lutely nothing of the kind.' She shook her head and smiled sadly; but she never got better, and two weeks after Mr Kinge knew his wife was dying. As he hung over the bed holding her faded hand, a great moan went up to Heaven, — ' Take all, take all, but spare this life.' And had the angels heard, they must have pitied him. ' Don't weep so, Godfrey,' she said, pressing his trembling hand in hers, ' we shall only be parted for a time, and you have our boy.' But he only moaned more incoherently. ' It makes it all the harder to go,' she continued in her sweet, low voice, ' oh, so much harder. You don't know how I love you, Godfrey, how I have always loved you, my husband, and the parting, though I believe that God is waiting for me, is bitter, oh, so bitter.

But you have our boy, my dear ; you must live for him. I — I will die for him.' ' No, no, no,' moaned the unhappy man. ' A thousand times,' she continued, ' nay, a hundred thousand times, I have prayed God to grant us your great wish, even though it should cost me my life, and He has taken me at my word, that is all.' ' My poor girl.' ' I knew it would be fraught with great danger to me, ' she went on, smiling like an angel through her tears, ' but you wanted it, my husband, and I have proved my love.' ' But to die, to die,' he repeated, like one who could not comprehend the terrible thought. ' But for him,' she replied, with a brave smile. ' There is no one for whom I would sooner die — except for you.' ' What have I done ? What have I done ? ' he moaned. ' Nay, Godfrey,' she answered sweetly, ' you have done nothing.

How were you to know ? I never spoke of fear. To have given you your heart's desire I would have died a thousand deaths. Dearest, kiss me once — once more.' He stooped and kissed her passionately. ' Ah,' she said, brighten ing up for a moment, ' that was like the Godfrey of old the Godfrey of old. But I am getting tired, dear, very tired, and think I shall go to sleep. Take care of our boy, my dear ; remember all — remember all. If he should cry for his mother Godfrey, don't forget to wake me, will you ? ' ' No, no,' came like a mighty sob from the lips of the wretched man. ' Then good-night, Godfrey, dear, good-night — good-night.' And when he laid across her breast the pale hand which he had held so long, it was stiff and cold in death. The shock was of such magnitude to him that for three whole days he neither ate nor slept, but wandered from room to room, pale and silent as a spectre.

At one time they feared for his reason, but the very gentleness of his nature proved his safeguard. The light had flown from his eyes, the colour from his cheeks ; his frame seemed shattered as if by some sudden paralytic stroke, but his mind was still reasonable, his disposi tion sweet, and he answered every question with a sad smile. He never once asked for the child, never expressed a wish to see it. His thoughts were centred in the dark room yonder, before the door of which he paced with a soft, ceaseless tread. Numerous was the gathering around the graveside of his beloved. To the many deep expressions of sympathy he tried hard to listen, but he never remembered one word of all that was said. His thoughts were away in the clouds, away beyond the sun. That night he asked for the child for the first time.

Long, long he gazed into its little face, a world of confused memories rushing through his brain ; and as he gazed, the flood-gates of his eyes were loosened, the tears fell fast, kissing the face of the wondering infant as they fell. And far into the hush of that sad night he held the wee thing in his arms, kissing and caressing it, and talking to it of the angel mother who had died to give it birth.

Chapter II Of Things In General, And One Thing In Particular

And so five years passed on in quiet, Mr Kinge having ap parently grown resigned to his lot. The house was now governed with indomitable energy by Mrs Winter, who no longer occupied the menial position of nurse, but who had gradually merged herself into mistress, in all but name, of Kingescourt. Being a woman of iron nerve and great determination, she had set herself a task, the accomplishing of which she would have fought for with her life. Quiet, unobtrusive, she yet worked on ; and as the little mole makes its presence known by the hill it raises, so made she her presence felt, un obtrusively, till at length Mr Kinge allowed her to take upon herself the regulation of his household. She bullied the trades men, discharged and engaged servants, sat at one end of the table at dinner, and always poured out the coffee at breakfast.

In fact, she was, to all intents and purposes, undisputed mistress, and that she had hopes of ultimately occupying that lawful position anyone in Middlestoke could tell you — with, perhaps, the exception of Mr Kinge. That good man had the reputation of being the softest and most pliable person in the neighbourhood, and though everyone in the village knew how the squire's household was managed, it was currently reported that the solitary exception was the squire himself. Mrs Winter, on the other hand, had an entirely different sort of reputation, and if you had been in search of someone to pit against the devil at any game that gentleman might have chosen, the villagers would unhesitatingly have recommended her. And yet they had to admit her good points too. Her harshness may have been a little unchristianlike, but she was exact in all her dealings ; just to the uttermost farthing.

She attempted no fraud, no hypo crisy ; she would permit none, and there was certainly not a better church-goer in the place. Never a Sunday passed with out finding her with little Godfrey, or her own son, Benny, in the Kinges' family pew, and there was no other parishioner could show a like record. And yet the rural Solons shook their heads in doubt. Mr Kinge, however, thought her a marvellous woman. His poor Bessie, who had even a gentler nature than his own, was swindled with aggravating persistency by all who surrounded her ; but here was a woman upon whom nobody could impose ; who kept the house on half the cost, and, what was much more to the purpose, without a single murmur. Poor Bessie, on the other hand, was always in the wars, and not having sufficient courage to see them through, invariably deputed him to carry on the engagement — a proceeding from which he rarely re covered in anything under a week.

But under the new regime all this was quickly changed, and so carefully did Mrs Winter consider the comfort of her master, that only by the merest of accidents did he ever learn aught concerning the working of his own household. And, strange as it may seem, this dearth of knowledge was the one thing that pleased him most. Why should he be subjected to continual worry through petty domestic affairs? They were a woman's province. Really, when he came to think it over, he could not sufficiently thank Mrs Winter for her consideration ; and one day, in the fulness of his heart, he indiscreetly told her that she was absolutely indispensable. She thanked him humbly, as befitted her station, and also thanked God that she had lived to be of use to so noble and generous a master, a speech which considerably affected him.

He thought her an exceedingly good woman — he knew she w7as an exceptionally clever one — and she thought him — well, when she left the room she smiled grimly about the corners of her iron mouth, but she went about her work with renewed assiduity. During this period little Godfrey, for so the infant had been duly christened, came on by leaps and bounds, notwithstanding the fact that he was brought up on the bottle, and that his nurses, in spite of Mrs Winter's recommendation, were never too skilful. Yet these trifling drawbacks had no effect on his hardy constitution. He passed through the various stages of each childish complaint without arousing any great anxiety in the bosom of his devoted father. And so in his fifth year we find him as sturdy and chubby a young rogue as fat bacon and good solid victuals could make him.