Uncle Crotty's Relations

Front matter

UNCLE CROTTY'S RELATIONS. By HERBERT GLYN, AUTHOR OF "THE COTTON LORD." LN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL. M.DCCCLXm. 7he Right of Translation is reservcd.1 CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. Chap. Pace I. Jessamine Cottage 1 H. Miss Cbottt's Nephew 21 HI. Bbanksome Dene 41 FV. The Wedding Moening 64 V. The New Will 91 VI. At Home 121 VII. The Bazaak 146 VlH. The Bakonet come Home 181 LX. The Picnic 204 X. Aunt Crotty's Will 229 XI. Regkets and Longings 258 XTT. The Gipst's Prescription

Chapter I. Jessamine Cottage

Lying some two hundred yards from the public road, and only to be reached by a broad uneven pathway through the thick belt of fir-trees that surrounded the little habitation, was situated Miss Elizabeth Crotty's cottage. It was a low two-storied building, with old-fashioned diamond-paned lattices looking out upon the world from beneath the thick overhanging thatch like watchful deep-sunk eyes, and with roses and jessamine csimbing high up the rough mud walls. In front was a trim litde grass plot with two oval flower-beds in it, backed up vol. i. by a luxuriant row of laurels, behind which rose the fir-trees, dark and sombre, effectually excluding any view that might otherwise have been obtained of the meadows and cornfields that stretched out over the broad landscape, varied by an occasional clump of trees, turnpike road, and cottage.

So backward in all modern improvements was' the cottage that science and civisization seemed for the last fifty years to have passed by, as though ignorant of its very existence. An old-fashioned porch sheltered the doorway facing the path through the Avood, and over it the honeysuckle clustered in Avildest luxuriance, hanging in careless grace over head, and shading the narrow bench on either side of the porch. On the left hand a rude well, with the bucket and well-worn rope standing at the head, completed the rustic appearance of the humble little dweUing, as it would first meet the traveller's view as he issued from the wood. It was about five o'clock on a sunny afternoon early in the month of May, the slanting rays of light were falling upon the front of the cottage, Avhich, facing westward, always saw the last of the sun, till he sank blood-red behind the dark firs, and made the little diamond Avindow-panes glisten again.

It had been a mild, warm day, and Nature in her new suit had looked her best and brightest, the tender green leaves on the trees just bursting out into all the importance of foliage, Avhile the wild flowers peeping up among the thick undergrowth, or nestling on bank or siedgerow, seemed half to court and half to shun observation. There came presently out of the porch a tall, slim girl of some seventeen years of age, carrying in her hand a carpenter's tool-basket, which she deposited on the ground, and returned in-doors, whence she presently re-issued, bringing a chair, and having placed it on one side of the porch, and selected from her basket a nail, a bit of flannel edge, and a hammer, she mounted the chair, to reclaim to something like order a straggling vine-branch, that grew against the cottage by the side of the porch.

Charlotte Avas not \*ery handsome, for her features lacked regularity, and her face was too full of the health and bloom of robust girlhood to preserve the severe outlines of classic beauty. Heroines who enjoy that exquisite and delicately tinted complexion so often apportioned to them, can never venture out 1—2 into the daylight without a parasol, and my lady's rosy-tipped fingers never handle a flower stalk, much less a rude hammer, without being carefully gloved ; Avhereas Miss Charlotte Crombie was apt to wear her hat swinging in her hand, and on seeing a primrose where it was never expected to groAv, might be seen scrambling over stdes and hedges: an occupation which will account for the bright bloom on her cheeks, and the deep crimson of her lips. A great luxuriant tangle of red brown curls shaded cheek and brow, and her eyes were big, and blue, and truthful, and made you feel she was innately honest and loving : it was a face that could not lie.

Beauty may at times deceive us, but not the instinctive childish innocence that we see flushing into great earnestness, simply because the feelings are so strong, and vitality so great. Before Charlotte had finished her work, there drove up to the door an old-fashioned, rusty gig, draAvn by an ambling old pony, used to take his own time over everything, especially getting over the ground, and which contained Miss Crotty and her baUiff and head man, John Saunders. It was Miss Crotty who drove, and who alighted first, and then assisted her steward to do the same ; not that he was in any way deformed, or unable to get down by himself, but the two had been col lecting rents, and John's pockets contained the results of the day's Avork, so that for the time he Avas invested Avith a value certainly not legitimately his own.

"Come in, and make the tea," said Miss Crotty to her niece, " we've had a dreadful day of it ; folks get worse than eA*er, I think." " The only Avay I can account for it is the weather," began Mr. Saunders ; whereupon Miss Crotty cut him short, by marshalling him into the cottage before her, through the little stone-floored passage, and thence into the parlour. John had only one reliable cause for every evil under the sun, from bankruptcy to death, and that was the weather. Miss Crotty was a tall, angularly formed Avoman, wearing a great coal-scuttle bonnet, with large ribbon bows, and a Avide frilled cap inside, from under which border her large features and narrow keen eyes, looked forth upon humanity generally, and her own kith and kin especially, with an un ceasing suspicion. She was a hard, stern woman, soured in her youth, and fretted ever since, by her utter inability to trust any living soul around her, and her constant anxiety not to be cheated out of a single halfpenny of the large income that was rightfully hers.

Some little of her property, principally in small cottages, lay within riding distance of her present abode, and to collect these rents Aveekly formed her chief care in life ; every Monday for the last ten years, had she and John Saunders gone their accustomed round, which nothing was poAverful enough to prevent or put off. As soon as tea was over, and had been removed by the one servant the establishment owned, the two collectors settled themselves down to business; John ranged his money bags in a row on the table for Miss Crotty to count the contents of, Avhile he called over the separate items from the long ill-written list on which he had checked the payments during the day. And Charlotte having first been designated " an untidy huzzy " by her aunt, for neglecting to darn the table-cloth as she had been told, retired to the window, with an inward resolve to render the two no assistance over the figures, that she knew from experience invariably puzzled them, and defied their utmost efforts to make them " come right."

For nearly an hour the routine of counting into Uttle heaps by the one, and ticking off by the other, went on without interrup tion ; but on Mr. Saunders adding up the total of cash received, and Miss Crotty doing the like with the cash in hand, the tAvo were so widely different, and so utterly defied their efforts to make them agree, that after several attempts on either side, Miss Crotty was obsiged to appeal to her niece, which appeal John further strengthened, by adding his long persuasive, " Come, come, my lass, thee can do it if thee likes, thee knows." Whereupon Charlotte at once repented of her revengeful intention, and taking up her seat between them, began to add up the crabbed figures to the best of her ability. But come right they would not ; Charlotte said it was the figures, and John said it was the money, and Miss Crotty in a pet said it was both, and Charley into the bargain.

" That's what comes of your fine lady boarding .schools, where everything's taught that's no good to anybody, and nothing that is," exclaimed Miss Crotty. " I suppose it's vulgar to do sums now, and girls know so little of figures, that it's no wonder how they run their husbands into debt, just because they forget that two and two make four, and that it will soon be eight before they know it." " Come, my lass, thee can do it if thee likes, thee knows thee can," pleaded John, pathetically. " Not she ! " returned Miss Crotty, incredulously. " I know something of fine educations ; I've seen them before and know what they come to. My sister Jane was educated in that manner, while I stopped at home and minded the shop; and a nice conceited minx she used to come home twice a year, ashamed of the shop, and her father and mother, and all of us ; and when we came into our money, I that had worked and slaved for ten years or more, was of no account to nobody, but she with her accomplishments and her fine airs was everybody.

Well, see what came of her ? " " And what did come of her, aunt ?" asked Charlotte, looking up from her figures. " Get that done first, and then I'U teU you." " I've found out the mistake ; here's one rent put down twice over," returned Charlotte, pointing, pen in hand, to the error in question. " John Saunders, you're a fool," said Miss Crotty, contemptuously. " It's the weather," said the old man, feebly ; "nothing but the weather could have made me do that, I know. Let me see, Miss Charlotte — ah — yes, now we are right." And on its being found that with this error cor rected, the difference between the theoretical and practical results vanished, Mr. Saunders took his leave, and Miss Crotty tied up her money in little bags, and settled down for the evening to her knitting. Charlotte lit a solitary candle, put up the shutters, threw a litde coal on the fire, and swept up the hearth ; through all of which performances her aunt watched her carefully.

"They didn't teach you to do that at your fine school, I suppose," she remarked, presently; "you have improved a bit since you've been with me. Your sister couldn't do anything for herself, not to save her Use." "She doesn't need," returned Charlotte, "she's going to be married, and be a fine lady. Mr. Telford has taken a very pretty place, not far from the Mudleigh Salterns; and do you know, aunt, the marriage is fixed for three weeks to-morrow ? " " Then I suppose you'll be going home ? " " Why, yes, of course ; I'm to be one of the bridesmaids. And Mr. St. Lo will be there too. Oh, aunt, your sister Jane that you were going to tell me of was his mother, wasn't she ? " " Ay, and she's been dead these twenty-two years : and all her own fault too. People said she died of fretting, but I say she died of idleness : having nothing to do kills more folks than you've any notion of; it begins declines and low fevers, and I don't know what beside."

Charlotte was sitting opposite, resting her chin on her hands, watching the grim old woman as she plied her needles busily and explained her hard philosophy, with the dull light on her thin face, and the shadow of her broad frilled cap falling on her scant grey hair. A narrow, hard-minded dis senter was Elizabeth Crotty, into whose notions very little that was generous ever came ; all through life she had held fast to the poor little ideas of right and wrong, that had first come to her in her young days, Avhen a sense of injustice had miscoloured them, and Avhen she had first learnt to look upon what ever was beautiful or attractive with intense mis trust: and it was in strict unison with this feeling that, when Mr. Crombie had desired her to choose one of his daughters for a companion, she had rejected the eldest, simply because she was very handsome, and taken Charlotte, as having little but an honest face to recommend her.

" The other will take to things quicker, perhaps," she said, Avhen Mr. Crombie demurred at the chance of a legacy that his favourite daughter was losing, " but she will deceive me in the end. Besides, her face and accomplishments will get her a husband — for there are plenty of fools in the world yet, Mr. Crombie — and Charlotte's never wdl." So Charlotte had been handed over to Miss Crotty; and that lady had been doing her best, for the last two years, to counteract the effects of the usual education her father had given her, at a fashionable boarding-school, and teach her to be useful. This will explain to the reader, why, on being introduced to a young lady, with a good position in life, and very extensive expectations, he found her nailing up a vine, sweeping the hearth, and, earlier in the day, might have discovered her making a pudding.

" Tell me, aunt, about your sister Jane," pursued Charlotte, with a girl's usual curiosity about a history in which she knew lay some little romance, "andAvhy you quarrelled." " Why do people ahvays quarrel with those that are stuck above them in the world, just because they happen to be better looking and better taught ? " demanded Miss Crotty, a little fiercely. " I don't think they do, aunt ; my sister is all that above me, and better liked too, but we don't quarrel," returned Charlotte, in a loAver tone. " My father is proud of Kate, and he never was of me ; I think, indeed, he very often forgets that I am his daughter, or have any claim upon him for affection." Miss Crotty in her turn looked over at the girl opposite, and put down her knitting in her lap : nobody could ever tell from her manner whether she had any real liking for her niece, and even Charlotte herself fancied she was regarded only in the light of a handmaiden, as it were ; but then that young woman always required very strong proofs before she believed anybody cared for her, and she never remembered Miss Crotty having bestowed an endearing word or caress upon her since she first entered the house: not even when she had nursed her aunt through rheumatic fever, a feAV months ago.

" I was ten years old when Jane was born," began Miss Crotty, " and I had to nurse her, and drag her about for over two years, instead of going to school; and she never seemed out of my hands, or out of my sight, untd she was six, for she was fuU of adments. Some people always are full of ailments; there's always something the matter Avith them, and if there isn't, there is going to be, or there might, so they have to be taken the same care of, for fear. I never had anything the matter with me; or if I had, I must bear it out, and be taken no notice of. And after all this, as we were getting a bit better on in the world, she must be sent to school and educated, and I went into the shop and slaved there, till my father came all of a sudden into a large fortune, and we sold our business, and set up for gentlefolks ; then Jane came back a fine lady, playing the piano, and giving herself airs, and being ashamed of introducing us plain folks to her fine friends."

" I've heard a different account of that," broke in Charlotte, with some spirit. "I've heard that she cut her new friends because they were not liked at home and you and her mother couldn't go out too. Old Susan in the kitchen has told me so lots of times." "I don't know about cutting them, since she married one of them at last," said Miss Crotty, not caring to pursue an argument in which she may have felt, even then, that she was wrong. " She and some young fellow managed to make it up between them, and though I went to her and tried to turn her from it, and my father sAvore he would never see her again, they went and got married; and his friends cut him, because he was well born and had married a grocer's daughter, and my father said that, for all she'd been his favourite, he'd be glad to see her starve for disobeying him : and he kept to his word."

" Were they so poor then, aunt ? " "Not while he lived; for he had some little in dependence in him, and said he'd be beholden to no one, and get his own living : but before they'd been married two years, he died." " Well, aunt, and what became of her ? " asked Charlotte, for Miss Crotty had stopped short: even through all those years, perhaps, a pang of remorse shot through that stern heart, and made her hesitate. " We lost sight of her then, Charlotte, for a time," she went on, presently, " and then she wrote to my father, saying that she and her boy were starving, and praying for a Uttle money. She said she had been supporting herself with making shirts till her sight was failing, and that now there was nothing before her but starvation." " And you went to her, and relieved her ? " anticipated Charlotte, eagerly.

Miss Crotty looked at her, and her lips tAvitched nervously. " When the first letter came, my father was down with the beginning of his last illness, and when he saw it, he was so angry at the application, that he burst a blood-vessel ; so it was not answered, and when the others came I did not show them." " And did no one go or send ? " " What had she ever done for me ? " cried Miss Crotty, starting up passionately, and with her lips quivering " what had she ever done for me, that I should repay her by running the risk of being disin herited myself, to do her a service? Had she been so kind, so considerate, so thoughtful of my feelings, that I must consider her, plead for her, and forgive her? Charlotte, I tell you it pleased me to read those letters ; it pleased me to look back at her, as I had known her, above, far above me in everything, and then to think of her, as she really was, as those letters showed her to be — starving, ill, and alone !

" There was something terrible in the old woman's fierce recollection of all this, as she strode to and fro in the dim light, retailing her cruelty and treachery, without a symptom of remorse; nay, almost with exultation. " She had brought it on herself," Miss Crotty con tinued, " by her vanity and her heedlessness ; and why should I have helped her when she reaped what she had sowed ? Was it any fault of mine that she was starving, or that I Avas then first, as she had once been ? And so at last the old man died." " Without forgiving her ? " asked Charlotte. Miss Crotty came to the fireplace, and leant over it thoughtfully ; presently she replied : "No. When he was dying and I was near him, he said, 'Bring her to me, let me see my child.' But I went to him: was I not his child, too? He shook his head, and moaned for Jane, and — and so died.

In his will he never mentioned her, but left his wealth to be divided between myself, James, and Andrew." " And had she no mother ? " urged Charlotte. " She died some years before. There, Charlotte, let us end it. I heard that some relatives of her husband's at last took compassion on her and hunted her out, and when she died a feAV months after, they adopted this Harry St. Lo, who you say is visiting at your father's now : I suppose he takes after his mother, in preferring to live on anybody but him self." Charlotte made no reply : going over again through this treacherous story, the girl wondered with a shudder if her OAvn jealous feeling about Kate could ever take such firm root, and result in such wretched ness. Presently her aunt roused her, saying it was time for bed. " Aunt," asked Charlotte, thoughtfully, as she lit another candle, while Miss Crotty was putting up her 2 VOL. I. knitting, " do you think Mr. St. Lo knew how you treated him and his mother ?

" " What should I care, what he knows or thinks? " replied the old woman, who, having taken up her little bags, marched upstairs, her tall, gaunt shadow, Avith its nodding cap frill, falling on. Charlotte, as she folloAved her into the large, low bedroom. The principal object in this room was a large four-post bed, between whose top and the ceiling there Avere but a few inches of space. Now Miss Crotty, having a profound mistrust of country bankers, kept her money on the top of her bed, and it Avas Charlotte's business to throw the bags, one by one, on to the top of the four-poster : which, as the ceiling was so low, required no little dexterity. One after the other they went, till all had disappeared, and that performance being over, Charlotte was free to go to bed ; but when she reached the door, she lingered.

" Aunt, did my father say anything about my going home ? " " Why, do you think he wants you ? " sneered Miss Crotty. "I don't know, I'm sure; but he — at least my mother may, when Kate's gone." "I suppose you are tired of stopping here and Avant to be off. Well, you can go." " If they want me at home, I must," returned Charlotte. " Good night." And the girl went to her own room, in a state of some uncertainty as to whether she would be meeting her father's views in returning home, or not. The fact Avas, that Mr. Crombie, being possessed of considerable business tact, and having moreover a good eye for future advantages, had considered his second daughter very well provided for, when he saw her established as confidential companion to his Avife's rich aunt : and his expectations had been fully realized two years ago, when he had been called in, in his professional character of Miss Crotty's solicitor, to draAV out, witsi all due formalities, a last wdl and testament, wherein that lady had stated her intention of leaving all her worldly possessions, amounting to some three thousand a year, to her then charge and companion, Charlotte Crombie.

This document having been signed, and Avitnessed by Alfred Mullens, the laAvyer's clerk, was then in Mr. Crombie's private possession; and the thought of it, and the benefit he expected to reap from it 2—2 when once it should please Heaven to remove Miss Crotty from an unappreciating and ungrateful world, buoyed him up under many present pecuniary diffi culties. Nay, it probably served to mitigate his regrets at the loss of his second daughter's society, for he had not as yet given Charlotte any hint that her return home would be a permanent one.

Chapter II. Miss Crotty's Nephew

Me. St. Lo, who formed the subject of the foregoing conversation, was engaged in superintending the radway that was being laid between the junction and Lakemouth. At the time my story opens he had fiUed the position for some months, and settled down for the time being in a little cottage outside the town. Years ago, he had filled a similar situa tion, but had thrown it aside from sheer disgust of the routine of such a life, and had gone away to satisfy his craving for foreign travel and foreign hardships. He owned to having had a hand-to-mouth life of it in the Australian bush, and had more than once worked his passage home without friends or money; but these rough experiences of life siad taught him a good deal of contentment and easy philosophy, and made him ready to turn his hand to anything that came in his way : certainly they had prevented him from adopting that elegant nonchalance Avhich is mistaken for high breeding by our well-educated young men of the pre sent day.

He was in all he said and did very earnest and enthusiastic: not that any neAv fancy lasted him long, or that he was faithful to any opinion that it might suit his humour to propound with all the eagerness of firm conviction, for on the following day it would most likely be super seded by a neAv one. Yet, for the time being, his protestations would be quite sincere, and the intricate arguments, by which he Avould prove his case, per fectly unansAverable. His AveUstored mind and lively imagination, for ever on the qui vive, darted from one object to another with restless rapidity, and elicited an interest and originality from everything he sit upon, which his varied information never alloAved to be out of place, nor his fund of quiet humour weari some. Perhaps he wanted stability of purpose, perseverance, steadiness, or some other of the numerous virtues that are so continually being recommended to genius by prosaic, sober-minded people; who, plodding through their daily routine with never-failing regularity, cannot comprehend the wild flights of an imagination whose paces they cannot measure, nor understand Avhy Pegasus should not be put in harness like a cab horse, if that line of business paid better than his more lofty excursions.

But Harry St. Lo had no one to work for beside himself; the paternal grandmother who had reared him was long since dead, and all his relations on his mother's side were wealthy. So he lived alone in his three low-roofed rooms, and read, and invented, and photographed, and smoked, and made experi ments in chemistry and mechanics to fill up his spare time. But let us take him as he stands under the rustic, straw-thatched verandah outside his small dining room on this spring afternoon ; he has just dined, and having informed his housekeeper that he is going out till evening, is filling siis little meerschaum pipe pre paratory to stroUing towards his aunt Crotty's. He is an ordinary-looking young Englishman, in the possession of first-rate health and vigour, about the middle height, and rather broad-shouldered ; his face looks frank and honest, with bright, cheerful broAvn eyes, a wide, good-tempered mouth, fresh, ruddy colour, and a broad, open forehead, with a quantity of light broAvn curly hair brushed from it.

A London tailor has evidently dressed him, for the thick light grey suit fits him well, and is in good keeping Avith his careless gait and manner, as he picks up his wide-brimmed felt hat and stroUs off down the road in the sunshine. He does not affect white hands, and is apt to lose his gloves, which never fit him when he buys them, and since he has been in the country he wears boots that lace with great leather thongs and have soles an inch thick ; indeed, he rather prides himself on having put aside vanity in the shape of primrose kid and patent leather, and does not object to a dab of white clay on his coat-sleeve. They have expected him at Jessamine Cottage, and Charlotte having arranged the tea-tray on the sitting-room table, is standing by the kitchen fire place waiting for the kettle to boil, that she may be ready to grill the pink and white rashers of ham that lie cut on the clean table, Avhen he comes.

The batch cakes in the oven are progressing towards a state of short delicate crispness, and fill the little kitchen with the pleasant odour peculiar to new bread, and the fresh eggs and pale sweet butter lie ready on the dresser. It almost seems a pity that Harry has dined so late, and will not be able to appreciate this pleasant country fare that Charlotte has been at so much trouble to prepare. Miss Crotty, knitting as usual, seems not to take heed of the extra spread, or to notice that the busy little housekeeper has smartened her winter merino dress with a clean collar, a bright bow of ribbon and gay little silk apron. There is a bright flush on Char's clear cheek as she bends over the fire, and she is listening in tently for a tread she knows very well on the gravel walk. Mr. St. Lo is by no means a stranger there, but his coming is always an excitement for her.

He comes at last, walking without ceremony straight into the parlour, and bringing a faint odour of Cavendish in with him, and his arrival is the signal for Char to lift off the kettle and wet the tea; so while old Susan in a clean cap is cooking the ham, Charlotte takes out the cakes and butters them, and leaves them on the fender smoking hot. " Lord love you, miss," says Susan, who does not quite appreciate this interference in her domain ; " why doesn't thee go in ? " " I'm going, Susan : but you won't forget to time the eggs? — and I put the dish-cover ready for the ham," and Charlotte having no further excuse to linger goes in and shakes hands with Harry. Mr. St. Lo and his aunt were talking; it seems the old lady had been straightening an ancient cabinet that stood by the window, early in the day, and had come upon a little miniature portrait of her sister Jane.