Valentine Forde. A novel

Chapter I

rpHERE is nothing prettier in all the -■- West of England than the banks of the Blee for about a mile of its course between Bleminster and Manilands. As it creeps along the outskirts of the town, by Ditch-lane and Hammer-corner, it is only a crawling, slimy stream of black water, partaking in its nature of that degradation and squalor through which it moves, and of which it bears the reflection on its surface. But once escaped from Bleminster, and out among the fields, it begins to cleanse itself from contamination, rapidly regaining the old characteristics with which it sprang VOL. i. from the moors, and developing as it flows on, from an insignificant streamlet into a deep though narrow river. Five miles below Bleminster it begins to move among trees, and the plantations on the banks grow ever thicker, until at the Devil's Loop it reaches at once the shadiest and the most beautiful point in its whole course.

The fan-like piece of land enclosed by the river in that eccentric wandering which is called the Loop, attains at its widest part a certain amount of elevation. It is covered with a dense coppice, principally of fir, merging towards the water's edge in many various growths, and in innumerable shades of green. At its highest point stands a strange kind of summer-house amongst the trees, the sole trace visible of human agency, except a few steps cut roughly in the steep red bank down to the margin of the stream. The opposite side is not so densely wooded, and the summer-house commands a view of cheerful sun-lit meadows, interspersed with fields under the plough. But down at the water's edge thick fringes of willow and alder shut out the distant prospect, with long intertwined arms that hang over the banks and dip into the stream.

Under their shelter, the river, rapid and turbid at other parts of its course, moves on slowly, with shadowy reflections of over hanging branch, and bank tufted with grass and fern, upon its breast. Here and there the ripple round some large stone intruding too far into the bed of the water, breaks the smooth, dark surface, and here and there some sudden sunbeam penetrates the thickness of the overarching boughs, and flecks the cool green gloom with specks of light. At the neck of the Loop, where the ground enclosed between the curves of the river is not much more than an acre across, the plantation, grown likewise very narrow, recedes from the edge of the stream, leaving a space of smooth green grass, from which 1—2 a precipitous bank, of some feet in height, runs down into the water. The copse sweeps presently back behind the Loop, and a succession of lawn-like meadows, with high hedges and many isolated clumps of trees, slopes down to the river, the ground gradually assuming a more and more park like character as it approaches Manilands, the old family seat of the Fordes.

The most picturesque, and a few years ago the worst managed farm on the estate, is the River Farm, lying close to the edge of the water, just where, on the Bleminster side, the stream bends in before taking that sudden outward curve which forms the Devil's Loop. A path runs right through the coppice, well carpeted at all seasons of the year with skeleton leaves and moss and fir cones from the summer-house overlooking the river to this quaint homestead, no strong and handsome building, looking like a gentleman's residence playing at farm-house, but a strange, low-roofed, straggling dwell ing, with tall thatched gables, and low white walls, white where the wearing: of the upper coating does not display a yellow pigment underneath, or where the clinging ivy, clustering round the little lattice windows, and the old-fashioned big chim neys, does not hide everything with a robe of green.

A porch, covered with china roses, and cornices, protects the old-fashioned house door, in front of which is a square barton or farmyard, sloping towards the middle, and flanked on two sides by barns, and cattle sheds, and stabling, equally old fashioned with the house, and like it, less commo dious than picturesque. The bottom of the barton has for boundary a low wall, beyond which a rough uneven orchard sloped away to the river edge. At the back of the house, sheltering it from the easterly winds, is the dark coppice, with a broad road running through it, well marked with waggon wheels and hoofs of beasts, finding, with the little path out of the Loop, admittance at a large five-barred gate, with one post set against the end of the house, and the other against the low wall at the bottom of the yard.

The hollow in the middle of the barton seemed long intended by the combined efforts of nature and art as a paradise for pigs, and here in the hot summer evenings, with the sunset streaming over the river upon the homestead, they would lie so sheltered under the straw, that only an occa sional grunt could reveal their presence to an unaccustomed passer-by. A heifer would stand about wearily in the sunshine, or stretch her neck over the wall, and low to her companions in the orchard. A stamp of hoofs, and rattle of headstall chains, would issue from the stables, and a sheep dog would be lying before the porch, with his nose between his paws, blinking at the sunset with his half-closed eyes. A few years ago, it was in no respect a model farm. Many signs of ignorance, and of that wastefulness which belongs to ignorance, might be discerned about the place, and the fields at the back of the copse, rich in soil though they were, yielded but little in comparison of what with proper cultivation they might be made to yield.

Captain Menteith, who rented the farm, knew nothing about agriculture, and found it so uncongenial, that, though still retaining the house for his own use, he had obtained permission to underlet the land, making it over to one Abraham Dalton, who was farming it as badly as might be expected of a man utterly ignorant of all modern improve ments, who knew, in fact, nothing but what his father had known before him, and was alike destitute of capital and education. Underletting was not suffered as a rule upon the Manilands estate, and Mr. Forde was known to be profoundly dissatisfied with the state of the River Farm. But he had consented to the present arrangement at the request of his son Valentine, who had some acquaintance with Captain Men teith, and though Mr. Forde was very strict in some matters with both his sons, in a good many things the wishes of the favoured eldest were as powerful as law.

Ever since the death of his wife, many years ago, partly out of devotion to her memory, and partly with the view of re deeming by strict economy the extravagance of earlier days, Mr. Forde had lived in great seclusion, displaying now and then a cordial freedom to the inferior tenantry, but avoid ing the society of any who might claim in virtue of birth or education to be treated as equals. Thus, though Captain Menteith was a friend of Valentine's, and Mrs. Menteith a friend of Frederica Forde's, the niece who had been to him from her child hood as a daughter, he had but little per sonal acquaintance with the man he thus consented to oblige. Aline Menteith was almost the only woman friend, almost indeed the only woman acquaintance on an equal sooting, that Frederica had. Perhaps it was for this reason, an effect of that seclusion which, since her aunt's death, not long after she had been brought, a little child without father or mother, to Manilands, had deprived her of all society but that of her uncle and her two boy cousins, that Freda, as she was generally called, could not at all times understand her friend.

It is difficult to understand that to which we have not been accustomed, or to sym pathize with what we do not understand. And though Freda's isolation from her own sex had not made her, strictly speaking, at all unfeminine, the inevitable result had been to make her highly unconventional, and she found in the thoroughly conven tional womanhood of Aline Menteith, clever, amusing, attractive though she was, many things that puzzled, and some things even that amazed. Nevertheless, they were frequent com panions. Captain Menteith, a person of rather doubtful character and pursuits, was but little in the society of his wife, and about the time of their coming to the River Farm, Valentine was yet at college, and George had just joined the regiment, so that Freda found herself much alone. She had acquired a habit of running over at odd hours to the farm-house, a habit which, whenever her cousins were at home, was continued in their company.

Later on, Valentine ended his career at college, where he had earned for himself no special distinction for anything bnt beauty and good nature, and George accom panied his regiment to India. During his absence Freda had her friend to herself. The uninterrupted enjoyment of Mrs. Men teith's society did not, however, compensate her for the loss of that one of her cousins, who, as being nearer to her in age, had been her chief companion, and when he was invalided home at the end of three years, it was with some consternation that she dis covered him to have in that time grown strange to her, and saw reason to suppose that his old friendship with Aline Men teith would be more easily revived than the former cousinly intimacy with her self. Perhaps his wider acquaintance with the world made the utter seclusion of his home a little trying to the young man, and disposed him to cultivate with assiduity the only ac quaintance within his reach.

Or it might be that, bringing fresher light to bear upon the state of things to which they had long been accustomed, he perceived with surprise the close companionship betAveen Valentine and Captain Menteith, and was curious to ascertain upon what community of tastes it could be founded, and to what results it might be likely to lead. His visits to the River Farm were renewed with their old frequency, and Freda fancied herself, as of old, neglected in the company of Aline and George. One summer evening, about a month after George's return home, he and Valentine and Freda walked together to the River Farm. Valentine was to start upon the morrow for a fishing excursion in Norway, and was anxious to see Captain Menteith before he went. Ou their arrival, however, Captain Menteith was found to have gone to Bleminster, and after tea all three sat with Mrs. Menteith in the kitchen of the farm-house.

There was a parlour, as it was called, of course; but it was very small, and the sunset was blazing into it, and they had all preferred the kitchen, — a prett}', old fashioned place, with deep window seats, and the rose-covered porch opening out of it. There was a black oak dresser in it, rich in variegated crockery, set against the inner wall. The chairs were of ancient oak, and a deep settle, ebony colour with age, stood beside the hearth, where the ashes of the wood fire smouldered yet. Beyond there was another kitchen, or backhouse, whither the domestics, two country maidens, who taxed to the utmost Aline's powers of indifferent scorn, had been relegated to make room for their betters. They had not stayed there ; they were wandering in the copse, or sitting on the steps outside, as little bursts of rural laughter, faint in the distance, occasionally announced to the group in the best kitchen.

Picturesque though it was, it was but a kitchen, after all, and Aline Menteith seemed out of place in it. No one could look at her, sitting on the dark oak settle, because, as she declared, the one comfort of her present life was the facility it afforded for ap proaching the kitchen fire at all seasons of the year, without perceiving something ex ceedingly incongruous between her and her surroundings. It was not by any means her extreme beauty, for though she had the loveliest figure in the world her face had many defects. The forehead was too high and square, her brown eyes wanted softness, because no eyebrows gave them shade, and the undue prominence of the lower jaw im parted a certain hardness to her mouth. But there was something striking in her air, something that irresistibly suggested wealth and its accessories to the beholder.

She did not look at home in the corner of the hard upright settle, though the curves of her white-robed figure were perfectly graceful as she sat there discoursing with George Forde, who, as he stood in the shade behind the settle, was forced by his great height to bend down towards her, putting his arms upon the top of it as he talked. The other two sat in the window looking out over the barton, with a glimpse of the river, and something of a cooler air from it coming up through the orchard trees. They were more in harmony with the room than Aline was, for the room was pretty and unconventional, and they were uncon ventional, and had a great deal of beauty between them. Freda Forde was at this time about twenty; tall and slender; too thin perhaps, but with a magnificent long throat, on which was perfectly set a very well shaped head, surrounded by an aureole of red gold hair.

She had an eager, impulsive, change ful face, imperious now and then, and then again wildly gay or beseechingly tender, blue eyes, large and long lashed, that could flash well, or melt, or be merely mirthful, according to her passing mood; red lips, full and yet delicate, that could give utte rance to saucy things that would offend one, that could talk nonsense for one to laugh at, or smile after a fashion that anybody must love. The two coushns had certainly a good deal of beauty between them, but Valen tine's was by far the largest share. It was conceivable that to certain tastes, or viewed under certain aspects, Freda might not please. But it was quite inconceivable that any taste should ever be offended by a face and figure that would have beseemed an ideal Apollo, with beauties of colour and expression, and sudden graces of gesture, such as could never have been fixed and imprisoned in marble by the most skilful hand.

Freda had lived with him for years, and had grown so accustomed to his beauty, that she had learned to love him for being so gay and gentle and affectionate, however thoughtless sometimes, and even passionate now and then, and not at all for being so much handsomer than other men. But even to her it would seem sometimes, with the force of a fresh conviction, that he was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. He had not been quite so gay as usual that afternoon ; the absence of Captain Menteith had disappointed him, for as he was to start very early the next morning he would have no opportunity of seeking him again. But with Valentine, vexation, if he felt any, rarely brought any disagreeable ex pression to his face. Annoyance, perplexity, disappointment, or any of those moods of mind which make other people look cross, only caused him to jest a very little less than usual, and put a certain wistfulness into his large violet eyes, that made it seem difficult, and almost wicked to annoy him in any way.

Freda had detected this wistfulness all the afternoon, and when he presently said, " You cannot possibly be interested in hearing for the hundredth time about this wretched ball — the only one she ever went to, she will make me believe," the tone of his question betrayed for him so near an approach to other people's mode of manifesting impatience as made her certain that he had been vexed in no ordinary degree. She looked up with an inquiring face, but in return he only smiled down on her serenely. " I should like to dance at a ball with you Freda, very much. And I would let you talk it all over once afterwards. After that the strictest silence should be imposed." "How would you do that?" she asked, a little indifferently, however, and turning her head away from him towards the others. Valentine leaned forward and pulled her VOL. I. dress.

" Don't look at them — look at me. Am I to suppose that I am not worth look ing at?'' He would make such saucy jesting references to his own beauty now and then, but without vanity, when he wanted to make her laugh. " I'd find a way — " he began, answering her question, as she turned to him, smiling, but somehow a little sad at heart. And then he suddenlv broke off, and the wistful longing in his eyes grew so intense that it changed for a moment the expression of his face. " Freda, I wish that man would come !" " But there isn't a chance of it. Mrs. Menteith says she does not expect him back till ten," answered Freda, wondering in a preoccupied way. " Well, I shall be off then," said Valen tine, with sighing resignation. " I've got two or three little things to settle before I go." He got up and crossed the room towards Mrs. Menteith— a tall young man, not so tall perhaps as George, and more slender, but perfectly formed at once for strength and grace.

" I hope you'll tell Menteith that I think it is confoundedly shabby of him to have played me false, Mrs. Menteith," he said, after his adieus were made. " I will," she answered, " when I see him, which wont be till to-morrow morning. I keep early hours, for however lovely the evenings are, it is dull work sitting up alone, and I haven't a book that I care to read. Captain Menteith wont be back till ten, and then he wont come here. He will go straight to the summer-house, and smoke, and sip dry sherry until twelve. And when he comes in he'll hurry to his bed in the room just behind here, and I can't promise to come downstairs and give him your message, even if I should be awake — which I probably shan't." " Well, never mind," said Valentine, smiling again. " Good-bye all of you. George and Freda keep late hours — I shan't see either of them to-morrow before I go." 2—2 He spoke in his usual tone, but Freda saw that he was, after his manner, a little put out.

He had not been gone a minute when he came to the outside of the open window where she sat. " Put that in your dress somewhere," he said, offering a monthly rose stolen from the porch, and framed in ivy leaves, with an especial grace which belonged to him in arranging flowers. She put it in her waistband, and looked up smiling her thanks. " Good-bye, dear — take care of yourself !" he cried gaily, and was gone.

Chapter II. Hhhe

breakfast-room at Manilands was an -*- old-fashioned apartment, wainscoted and boarded with dark oak. It looked out upon the slope of park-like meadows down to the river side, with a nearer view of well kept gardens and smooth lawns. Valentine had said truly that his brother George kept late hours, and it was nearly half-past nine o'clock the following morning when he first came down into this pleasant room. Freda had appeared a few minutes before, and was making the tea; her slim young figure and fair-tinted face sharply defined against the polished gloom of the oak panelling behind her. Valentine's place was empty — he must have started nearly three hours before, and she missed him, feeling that from that moment until the hour of his return, to her, as to everbody else at Mainlands, there would be something wanting.

Nevertheless, she was in no way depressed. He was coming back, and in the meantime she had to renew her acquaintance with George. He had become something of a stranger to her during these three years, and in learning his character afresh, there would possibly be more interest for a time than in the affectionate monotony of her daily intercourse with Valentine. As he entered, she bade him good-morning — for her, a little staidly, and without any of those half-saucy, half-loving additions which would have been affixed to her elder cousin's name, or to his own three years ago. She only lifted a momentary smiling glance from the tea-caddy, de voting her whole attention to it the instant after. After this interchange of greeting, George looked round the empty room in some sur prise. " You don't mean to say my father has had his breakfast, and is gone out already?"

"No — for a wonder, he's not come in yet." " Isn't that clock right then ? It is half past nine." " Something must have kept him," an swered Freda. " I am going to have a little joke when he comes in, and pretend to think he has only just left his room, though he must have gone out hours ago, as he always does, to bathe. I heard him talking to Val at some unearthly hour, but I don't know whether he went too. I wasn't ready to be awake, and went to sleep again as fast as I could." "That's my father now," said George, as a heavy tread crossed the anteroom, and the handle of the door slowly turned. There was nothing of Valentine in Mr. Forde ; he was altogether like his younger son. His hair had been black, as his eyebrows were still, and his eyes were large, like George's, not very bright, but with a certain steadiness of gaze, impressing the beholder, often quite erroneously, with the idea that they must be able to see through a good deal.

The nose, the most marked feature in his face, was high, and his mouth, well formed enough, was large, and clean shaven. In figure he and George were alike, tall and broad, equal to Valentine in strength and dignity, but wanting his suppleness and grace. Mr. Forde was generally considered very young and vigorous for his age, usually carrying his sixty-eight years as if they had been fewer by some fifteen than they were. This morning, however, he was looking ill. Freda noticed that he stooped, and that a curious grey look had replaced the ordinary healthy darkness of his face. A man of strongly marked character, he had his fancies and peculiarities also strongly marked, and one of these was a great dislike to being noticed, questioned, compassionated, if he was ill. She was careful therefore to make no remark, but entered at once upon the little jest she had been [planning, as if there had been nothing unusual in his appearance.

" What dissipation were you indulging in whilst we were at the River Farm last night, father, that you can't come down like a Christian, in respectable time? Do you see what's o'clock?" Mr. Forde smiled a little, and said, "You're saucy, are you, missy? Give me some tea." Then, as he took his place, he began to unfold the newspaper, without entering further into conversation. " Did you and Val bathe this morning, sir?" asked George. He had been three years absent from Manilands, and had forgotten some of his father's ways, besides he was naturally less keen of ob servation than Freda, and had not per ceived, as she did instantly, that Mr. Forde did not care about being spoken to just then. " No," he answered, slowly, as was his custom when anything made speech unwelcome to him. " Your brother was busy with his packing, and did not care to go.

I went out, and took the towels with me, but the air was chilly in the early morning, and I did not bathe." " Val went off at half-past seven, I suppose?" Mr. Forde, who had by this time un folded the " Times," did not answer for a minute. Then he said, "Yes; you young people must contrive to amuse each other for a while. I can't read and talk at the same time." It was not usual with him to do more than look at the paper during breakfast, but this morning he devoted himself to reading steadily, neglecting the food upon his plate, and only stirring his tea from time to time with an absent hand. His tone and bearing intimated both to George and Freda that all was not as usual with him, or well. Obeying his suggestion, they began to talk between themselves, and when their attention had been thus withdrawn from him Mr. Forde laid down the newspaper, drank off his tea, and went silently out of the room.

"What's the matter?" asked George, as the door closed. " Is there not something the matter? " " He's not well, I think," said Freda, " or else vexed. Vexed at Valentine's going, perhaps." " Didn't he wish him to go ? " " Yes — but he's so fond of him, you know. If it were anybody but Val one would say it was absurd." " I wanted to ask you about that," said George. "He and my father are on just the same terms as ever — are they?" Freda answered, " Quite," with a little wonder at the question and the tone of it, which made her presently add, " What makes you ask?" " I thought my father might disapprove Val's intimacy with Menteith. It's a thing I don't understand, myself, nor how Val can care to go and sit drinking brandy-andwater with him in that cock-loft place over the Loop." " But they don't drink much— do they?

" inquired Freda, rather anxiously. " Mrs. Menteith told me one day that her husband takes too much ; but, surely, Val does not?" " I was up there with them on Saturday, and then they both took too much. Indeed Val, as the least seasoned, I suppose, was the most affected of the two. Do you know,Freda," continued George, pushing his chair from the table and leaning his head back upon his hands, " the first thing that struck me on coming home was the altera tion in Val. I said to myself ' Good Heavens, what has come to our Crown Prince?'" — a jesting nickname which had long ago been given laughingly amongst themselves to the beloved heir apparent. " But there's nothing, you know, George," answered Freda. "There really isn't any thing." " Well, you've seen him every day all this time, and I haven't — you ought to know best," said George.

" But, depend upon it, Menteith is doing him no good. What can Val see in the fellow ? The way he treats his wife should be enough to shut him out of decent society." " I don't like him, and she, I believe she hates him ! I said once to the father that Mrs. Menteith had told me that her husband drank, but Valentine stopped me, saying he was a good fellow, and only got a little bit screwed now and then. And afterwards he asked me not to say anything against him. You know he can't bear hearing any one abused." " I'll abuse him while Val's gone then," answered George. " They've been here five years, haven't they? I wonder when the lease will be out." It was a subject upon which Freda could give no information. She, too, had pushed back her chair from the breakfast table, and sat musingly, gathering the crumbs upon her black silk apron into the palm of her hand, and weighing them with an intent and thoughtful expression of face.

She was wondering what change it was that George had seen in Valentine. She herself, when she came to think of it, re membered noticing that he had hardly seemed quite so invariably gay of late, that there had been fewer smiles and more of pensive wistfulness in his eyes. But it was so hard to connect that soft longing look with the idea of anything wrong, that to consider it a symptom of moral deterioration was impossible to her. Yet, in old days, she had been accustomed to yield large deference to George, and the habit was upon her still, enforced by his graver character, which made him, though nearly two years younger than Valentine, in manner and appearance at least, so much his elder. She began to be vaguely uneasy, not condemning Val, who was one of those people that rarely are so fortunate as to meet with sharp, downright condemna tion, but pitying him as one not so entirely happy and prosperous as she had believed.

It was a relief when George, whose thoughts had, meanwhile, wandered away to other things, inquired of her what she was going to do that morning? The question was more easily asked than answered, for there was a delightful, desul toriness about Freda's life and way of occu pying herself which suffered no one day, scarcely any one hour, to foretel the course and employment of the next. It was the result of the sort of education she had received, a curious education for a girl, in which feminine influences were scarcely to be traced ; an education which, accoi'ding to general standards of accomplishment, had been much neglected, and was largely to blame, or to praise, for that unconvention ality which distinguished her. Long years ago Mr. Forde had made the experiment of bringing a governess to Manilands, for his niece, but the seclusion of the place, together with the flat rebellion to which Freda was instigated by her cousins, rendered the post untenable to the stranger.