Victory Deane. A novel. Third edition

Preface

TO THE THIRD EDITION. In publishing herewith the following correspondence with the ' Athenæum ' newspaper, we de sire to apologise beforehand for what is certainly an unusual, and may by some be considered an incorrect proceeding. We can only repeat what we have said in the correspondence itself, that nothing could be further from our mind than any pretension to interfere for one moment with the severest exercise of fair criticism. Even when a critic condemns a book through sheer honest VI inability to understand its merits, we hold that to be a matter for his editor and his public, and claim for author or publisher no ground of com plaint. But we do complain when a work " of power and promise," — the work especially of a young writer whose whole literary career lies, to some extent, at the mercy of an unscrupu lous reviewer, — is damned in a dozen lines by a writer who has not even taken the pains to read what he had all along made up his mind to condemn.

One word more. We are running some risk of not only provoking the hostdity of a journal which, whatever its real weight in the Hterary world, is none the less the trade oracle of half the small booksellers and librarians in the king dom, but of arousing also the natural esprit de corps of reviewers in general, very properly jealous of anything that bears even the semblance of interference. To these we respectfully say, the responsibility of this step is ours, and ours only. The author is a young lady barely of age, and entirely without literary experience or connection. Whilst, therefore, doubly bound to protect her interests, we should have felt it unfair to shift upon her any portion of the onus of such a measure by pretending to consult her upon it or even apprising her of our intention.

Saunders, Otley, & Co. 66, Brook Street, W. ISth March, 1867. Review of ' Victory Deane ' in 'Athenæum ' of 26th January, 1867. " Overcoming a series of obstacles that would have completely daunted and vanquished a less resolute will, we fought our way through the opening chap ters of this work of fiction, and then found ourselves at dead of night in the miserable kitchen of a dilapi dated farmhouse, and face to face with a repulsive old man and a wretched, half-starved, cowering girl. The old man, a miser, was making ready to beat the chfld, his grand-daughter, with a thick stick, and threaten ing to follow up the merciless castigation of the little creature by thrusting her into a dark cellar that swarmed with rats ; — [Extract] To stimulate Victory Deane's imagination, and terrify her yet further, the old man talks to her thus ; — {Extract. ~\ Even at this point* we did not throw the book aside in disgust, but went on toiling manfully through page after page until we had satisfied ourselves that ' Victory Deane ' was not a novel, but a nightmare.

Those who hke nightmares may read it ; all other persons had better leave it alone." COPY OF CORRESPONDENCE. ce> " 66, Brook Street, London, W. "February Wth, 1867. " Sir, — In forwarding you a copy of the Second Edition of ' Victory Deane,' we beg to direct your at tention to the notice of that work which has already appeared in the 'Athenæum.' " We are far from wishing to deprecate the utmost license of fair criticism ; but we think you will, on * i. e. Vol. I., page 80. examination, agree with us, that the notice in question is, on the face of it, unfair ; and has, in fact, been written without even a perusal of the book professed to be criticized. " We are confirmed in this view by the fact, that the two quotations, which make up the greater part of the notice, are both taken from pages accessible without the leaves beiny cut.

" The attack has, of course, very seriously injured the sale of the book, and, as writing of this sort must, we imagine, be almost equally injurious to the paper in which it appears, we have thought it best for all parties, to appeal, in the first instance, directly to you upon the subject. Awaiting the favour of an early reply, " We are, Sir, " Faithfully yours. Saunders, Otley, & Co. " (Signed) 'The Editor of the 'Athenæum.' ' " 66, Brook Street, London, W. " 1st March, 1867. " Sir, — Mr. Francis, the Publisher of the 'Athe næum,' called this morning to inform us that, in your X

PREFACE.

TO THE THIRD EDITION. opinion, there was nothing in our letter of the 11th ult. to which to reply. "While thanking Mr. Francis for the courtesy of his visit, we submit that a distinct charge against your Reviewer of having condemned a book unread, does, when courteously put, and sup ported by at least presumptive evidence, call for both reply and refutation ; and, that their omission can only be accounted for on the supposition that, while determined to refuse any redress, you have, either with or without inquiry, convinced yourself that the charge is correct. This being so, but one course is open to us. Whether the attack was due to per sonal malice against the author, or to a commercial grudge against us, the publishers, or to a mere desire to say something smart at some one else's expense, we cannot, of course, pretend to say.

But in either ease we are bound to defend the interests of the young authoress so wantonly assailed. We are advised to proceed against you for libel ; but the law is tardy and uncertain, and we prefer appealing to public opinion. ' If, even now, your reviewer, being a gentle man, will give his word as such, that he really did read ' Victory Deane ' before writing his notice of it, we will withdraw, and, if you desire it, apologize for any imputation we have made. Failing this, or other satisfactory reply, and in the full conviction that all who read the book will agree with us that the 'Athe næum's ' notice of ' Victory Deane ' is a spiteful and dishonest attack upon a work the reviewer had never read, we will at once place these letters before the pubhc, leaving the decision in their hands, and your vindication in your own.

" Tour obedient Servants, " (Signed) Saunders, Otlet, & Co. "The Editor of the 'Athenæum."' " (Private.) 'Athenæum ' Office, " 20, Wellington Street, Strand, W.C. " March ith, 1867. " The Editor of the 'Athenæum ' begs to acknow ledge the receipt of the Messrs. Saunders, Otley, and Co.'s letter of March 1st, and to refer them to the review of 'Victory Deane ' in the 'Athenæum' for an answer to their query." "Messrs. Saunders, Otley, and Co. beg to acknow ledge the receipt of the Editor's note of the 4th inst., which, as their charge against the reviewer was ex-

PREFACE.

TO THE THIRD EDITION. pressly founded on obvious inference from the terms of the review in question, they must assume to be an admission, unaccompanied by excuse or redress, of its correctness. Under these circumstances, they would not have thought any further communication necessary, but that the indorsement 'private,' on the Editor's note seems to require them, before publishing it with the rest of the correspondence, to give this notice of their intention so to do. " 66, Brook Street, W. "5th March, 1867."

Chapter I

The close of a dull February day was falling upon Sumpton Waste. The sky was heavy with impending snow ; the gorse and heath that clothed some thousands of acres of uncultivated land, were withering before a low but bitter wind. In the shallow hollows, where, as they broke the level of the general surface, the winter rains had formed long pools, the water lay black and stiU below a covering of thick ice. To right and left, sweeping in long undulating dips and swells, gradual elevations, of height invol. i. B appreciable in so vast a space, depressions of in significant depth, the wilderness stretched out into the gathering shadows of the afternoon. Still unbroken, still uncultivated, towards the north it rose into a long, low ridge, beyond which sight could not travel nor imagination care to penetrate.

The rising ground was as monoto nous, as barren, as repellent in the long formless outline which it traced against the sky, as was the level wilderness itself. Southwards the country acquired by degrees a less desolate aspect. In clear weather a distant view of trees and fields, the green slopes of an inhabited and fertile valley, reUeved the dreariness of that barren landscape. In the very centre of the Waste, a space too small and treeless to affect materially the general impression of desolation and neglect, an inap preciable oasis in the vastness of the wilderness had been enclosed, and partitioned into fields. A cluster of thatched roofs, dominated by one large, grey stone house, had gathered upon those few hundred acres of more or less cultivated land. This was Sumpton-Lumley, not a village — scarcely a hamlet — just half-a-dozen cottages or so, one or two farms, and the rarely inhabited and almost ruinous house, which, deriving half its name from the surrounding moor, had given the whole to the collection of inferior buildings rising at its feet.

The house of Sumpton-Lumley stood apart, desolate and ugly, upon ground somewhat higher than that occupied by the viUage, sheltered on the north side by the solitary group of trees that was visible over all the plain. A wide but ill kept carriagedrive ran down from the front door through this copse of firs, to a little-used and narrow road ; leading in one direction, with many windings and partial obliterations, to a village on the northern borders of the Waste. In the other, less winding, and with tolerable distinctness, it stretched from the gates of Sumpton-Lumley to join a more important track, — the means of com munication between the hamlet and Winstaun ton, a large village some three miles distant to the south. Between Winstaunton and Sumpton-Lumley B there was not so much as a single dwelling of any kind, — only the wilderness, scorching hot under the summer sun, almost impassable in the winter season of wind and rain.

A more dreary, uninviting spot than Sumpton-Lumley it would be difficult to find. A more unsatisfactory pro perty few landowners could possess. On that bleak afternoon, distinguished by aU the rawness and chilliness belonging to a mid- February day, the fortunate owner of house, village, and waste would have made them over to any one who coveted the possession, for the most inadequate exchange. He was making his first acquaintance with this unattractive portion of his property, and was naturally displeased with the repellent aspect which it wore. It was four years since he first became Mr. Lumley of Pavenham and Sumpton-Lumley, but, owing to a residence abroad, his knowledge of even the former place was recent, and what Sumpton-Lumley was like he had had but Httle notion until now. Two days ago he had arrived, towards evening, at the long disused house ; and the lateness of the hour then, and the rain that fell upon the following day, hindered the investigations he wished to make.

The next morning had been fine, and he had made the most of it, giving his attention to the other side of the hamlet. It was not until late in the afternoon, — an afternoon on which the finest prospect would have lost something of its beauty, and when the dreary moorland assumed its most forbidding aspect, — that Mr. Lumley found leisure to survey his pro perty upon the southern side. A few hundred yards from the spot where the road from the great house joined that to Win staunton, appeared the first house at that end of Sumpton-Lumley — the only one, perhaps, which Mr. Lumley had not already seen. It stood alone, and away from the others, to which, in original design, it was infinitely superior, like a sentinel, at the corner of the Moor. A square court or garden lay in front of it, shut in all round by laurel-hedges, putting forth, unchecked by the pruning-knife, the luxuriant and sombre growth of years.

A little gate in the middle of the roadside-hedge guarded a narrow path leading up to the front door, through a wilderness of matted and tangled grass, which looked as if it had never known the scythe. The paint upon the gate, and on the door and windows of the house, was almost all worn away ; and the thatch upon the roof was black with age, and moul dered away in many places by exposure to the wind and rain. The bare limbs of a vine, stretched half along the wall, and half torn down by the violence of some former storm, lay rotting upon the ground as they had fallen. Over the porch the hundred naked arms of some creeping plant, long since broken from its old support, swayed loosely in leafless festoons. The only visible sign of Hfe and occupation was the light of a fire flickering dimly at uncer tain intervals through the imperfect panes of a window on the left side of the door.

A wonderful dreariness hung about the place, — an appear ance of decay, more oppressive, more repulsive, than the natural desolation of the Waste. A large gate, at the further side of the building, led into the empty farmyard, and afforded glimpses of barns and stabling, in as ruinous a condition as the house itself; and across the road there was another gate and another yard or barton, — a mere stony enclosure, unused for stock or stack. A poorly-kept and broken hedge separated this little piece of ground from some fields lying beyond, — untilled and barren-looking fields, which, together with some at the back of the house, that had on his way down attracted Mr. Lumley's displeased observation, bore, Hke the buildings, an appear ance of desolation and neglect. Through the broken hedge of the lower barton, as he paused before the house, taking mental notes of its condition that he might make in quiry into the matter on the morrow, Mr. Lumley perceived two figures coming towards him, making for the largest gap, as if it were, to them at least, a usual and convenient way of passage.

He had already lingered longer than he had in tended upon his walk, which had, after all, some other object besides this further investigation into the state of a place which only became the more repulsive for minuter inspection. But this corner of Sumpton - Lumley, especially this particular nouse — no mere cottage, but a well-built dwel ling-house, — offered such strange evidence of un necessary desolation and premature decay as in duced him to seek an earlier opportunity of learn ing how it was to be accounted for. These two people, belonging doubtless to the village, could at least tell him a part of what he wanted to know. Leaning on the gate, he waited till they reached its opposite side, — an old man and a girl — a child, — both poorly dressed and heavily laden with large faggots of brambles and small sticks.

They had a dog with them, walking slowly beside the little girl, — a half-starved and stupid animal, that took no notice of the stranger's presence. "What's the name of this place?" asked Mr. Lumley, as they came up. He had an authorita tive manner of speaking, not overbearing exactly, but hasty, and implying a confidence in the im portance of any inquiries which he might think fit to make, whereof the invariable reasonableness might not be beyond dispute. It was a manner that demanded an immediate answer, and perhaps generally obtained it, having nothing in it really disagreeable or repellent. On this occasion it failed of its usual effect, probably because his appearance and their suspicion of his identity absorbed the two natives of Sumpton-Lumley, whom he addressed, beyond the power of speech.

It was already too dusk for any close obser vation; and whdst they studied the gentleman mutely, he had quickly satisfied himself with the perception that those he questioned belonged to the very poorest class, ill fed, ill clothed, and, judging by their delay in answering when spoken to, ill-bred besides. Of the girl's face he could see little, it was so hidden underneath a large flapping sun-bonnet, tilted over her forehead to keep off the wind and rain. The old man, to whom he turned with more of interest, as the best qualified to give the de sired reply, had nothing prepossessing in his ap pearance. Without light or inclination for the observation of particular features, Mr. Lumley was aware of a low, sinister expression, scarcely compatible with any great honesty or amiability of character.

Both the old man and the girl looked up at him with natural curiosity, and their silent scru tiny was so long and so intent, that he smiled at last, in spite of himself, forgetting his impatience in a feeling of amusement. " Do you know the name of the house there ? " he asked again, with the smile still upon his lips, — pleasant lips, that possibly had not worn for very many years their present luxuriant covering of light hair. " Has it a name ? Who lives in it?" This repeated questioning roused the old man at last to speech. " Thik there place behind ?" he said. " 'Tis Millbrook, that is." "And who lives there ? " A fresh pause succeeded the fresh inquiry, simple though it was. The old man looked about him uneasily for a few moments, and cast another curious glance at his interlocutor. "'Tis Mr. Lumley, ain't it?" he asked in his his turn.

" Yes. Don't you know who lives in that house ? " " Thik there's my place." "Yours ? " Mr. Lumley gazed at the poverty stricken figure before him, and then turned to survey once more the house behind. Truly it had never been built for such an occupant as this, but in its present condition it seemed scarcely fit to be inhabited at aU. " How long have you lived there ? " he asked. " Fourteen year." " Are those the fields belonging to Millbrook at the back ? " " Them's some of 'em." " You're not doing much good with the land," said Mr. Lumley ; " I have just come down along side of those fields. What's your name ? Does that child belong to you ? " "Andrew Ellet's my name," was the reply, some sullen mistrustful reluctance appearing in the tone, "Thik there maid's my grand-daughter." He turned towards her as he spoke, and per ceived that she had laid her faggot on the ground at some little distance from the gate, and seated herself upon it.

She had a weary air ; at least her attitude was weary, although probably capable of directing the keenest observation from under the convenient shelter of her bonnet. " Get up with yer, yer darned lazy thing ! " said Andrew Ellet savagely, but not so articulately that Mr. Lumley, unaccustomed to the west country accent, could understand anything be yond the general drift of objurgation and reproof. " Be they your manners to the Squire ? " However weary she might be, instant obedi ence was evidently inculcated by her education. She started to her feet, and curtsied with a be wildered kind of haste to Mr. Lumley. She was an uninteresting little creature to look at, with her damp soiled lilac frock clinging about her spare small figure, the sun-bonnet hiding all the upper part of her face. Mr. Lumley only glanced at her, in acknowledgment of this com pulsory salutation.

" She is tired with a hard day's work," he said, displeased notwithstanding with the something more than roughness which had marked Andrew Ellet's look and tone ; " let her alone, I don't care about curtsies. I am only newly come down here. What rent do you pay for this place ? " " Not none. I haven't never paid rent," said Andrew Ellet. "Not any? How's that?" " I had the place rent-free from the gentleman that was afore you," was the reply, at once mis trustful and defiant ; " I haven't never paid no rent, and 'tisn't worth none, not now." He began to open the gate as he spoke, obliging Mr. Lumley, who was resting his arms upon the topmost bar, to move. There was a little insolence in his tone, of which the Squire was quite conscious, and which harmonized admirably with the already noticed expression of the old man's face.

It was not always difficult to offend Mr. Lumley ; nevertheless, on this occasion, a sense of his superiority in Sumpton-Lumley, over any opposition that such as Andrew EUet might choose to offer, made him forbearing. " But it won't be allowed to remain as it is now," he said; " there are going to be a great many changes in Sumpton-Lumley." He had said so already to more than one inha bitant of Sumpton-Lumley, and found the pro spect of change productive of a ludicrously sub duing effect. Andrew EUet let go the gate, so that, in swinging back, it almost struck the girl following him through with the sheep-dog, to ob serve, earnestness replacing the ill-chosen accent of defiance — " You won't be hard, Sir, I don't suppose, upon them as Squire Stephen was friendly to ? " " No, not without cause," said Mr. Lumley.

He also began to leave the spot, turning first for one last look at Millbrook, as it stood dark and desolate in the gathering dusk. A good house, so strangely gone to ruin : and yet not strangely, judging by the appearance of the te nant who had held it for fourteen years without paying rent. That was the strange part of the matter, and in this particular Mr. Lumley ex pected to discover reason for a change at any rate. Confident, however, in his own power to introduce such alterations as he might see fit, he was able to regard Andrew EUet with some to leration, and returned his " good evening" with out any marks of great displeasure ; observing to himself nevertheless, as he walked away, that there was " a clearance to be effected there." The houses of the hamlet began to gather along the roadside a quarter of a mile beyond.

Mr. Lumley had been through the street that morning, and knew therefore that the fading twilight concealed nothing that was very well worthy to be seen. Walking quickly, for he was cold and in haste, he looked but Httle about him, and was only unobservantly aware of the dim white walls, out of whose windows the fitful blaze of a gorse fire flashed suddenly from time to time. After a time the road, making an abrupt turn, left the cottages behind, and ran on for a mde open on the left hand to the waste, the hedges still rising high and unbroken to the right. At leno-th the rough banks were succeeded by a trim bordering of laurel and box, and a green-painted door gave Mr. Lumley admittance into a garden. It belonged to a small house, rather fancifully built, with a thatched roof running up into cu riously steep and pointed gables, and a door pro tected by an eccentric and projecting porch.

The windows of the front rooms were as yet uncur-' tained, and a warm light streamed through them upon the patlf, the short, pale winter herbage of the lawn, and the skeletons of such plants as stiU braved the inclement season in the flower-beds. Passing before these windows to the porch, Mr. Lumley caught a glimpse of the interior, and could perceive two female figures by the fire. In another moment he had reached the door, and was asking of the maid, who opened it, with a certain eagerness differing a Httle from the usual man ner of his address — " What, is Mrs. Lumley arrived ? " Hearing that such an arrival had taken place that after noon, he went on past the servant to an inner door. "In here?" he said, and paused with his hand upon the lock.

Chapter II

The pause was brief, and for the moment that it lasted appeared one of recollection rather than hesitation. That recollection, whatever it might be, seemed deeply interesting to Mr. Lumley, — the revival before his mind's eye of some scene that had made a great impression at the time of its occurrence, — the remembrance of some not trifling event, in a life as yet too short for any very important incident to have been jostled out us its place in the memory by the multitude of others. Possibly, when fresher, the recollection had been full of pain, and might even yet occavol. i. si sion some uneasiness to trouble present enjoy ment, and repress reviving hope. Perhaps it was the sound of voices within the room, audible to him where he stood, although they were soft female voices, not raised above their natural pitch, that sent his thoughts back ward to the previous years.

His attitude, at least, became one of listening, as well as of recollection. But, whichever occupied him most, the pause was over in a few seconds, and, opening the door, he went in unannounced. It was a small room that he entered, very warm and bright. A large fire was blazing in the grate, and a moderator lamp dispensed from the centre table a mild and pleasant light. Warm tints of colouring in the furniture, in the variegated car pet, in the pictures on the walls, and in the dresses of its occupants, gave an agreeable rich ness to the general aspect of the room. The occupants were but two — mother and daughter evidently, by a certain likeness in com plexion, in figure, and in the tone of voice. The elder, not yet old, and still, handsome, was standing up, holding her hands out over the fire crack ling cheerfully in front of her, and revealing, with especial clearness, the fine proportions of a figure still vigorous, and even graceful.

Her fair hair had lost something possibly of its original brightness through the admixture of grey, n< t otherwise perceptible. She had a kind spirited face, with many pleasant, if it had some few hard and wilful lines. Her daughter, representing perhaps with sc me variations what she herself had been in youth, was sitting at her ease in a low chair, drawn close up to the hearth. She might be a little tired, a Httle ennui/ee, to judge by her listless at titude ; her head thrown back, and her hands clasped above it, the falling sleeves of her even ing dress displaying to perfection the whiteness and symmetry of two admirably rounded arms. The crimson lining of the chair, and the dark blue folds of her long, sweeping skirts made a gorgeous background for her golden hair, and, casting rich reflections upon a complexion as de licate as it was dazzling, threw out into statuesque c relief the sumptuous outlines of her neck and shoulders, clad lightly in transparent white.

She was a tall woman, grandly and yet not too massively made. Formed, though she was, upon a large scale, she was yet so beautifully propor tioned that there might have been more of her, and no one would have been found to say there was too much. Her face had quite as many charms as her figure, although it might be said there was some sort of contradiction between the two. At least her expression, varying from arch vivacity to an almost fretful pensiveness and a pretty childish petulance, half real and half as sumed, had in it nothing of that large repose which associates best with grand statuesque out line, and a height above the average. The most remarkable features of her face, giving a peculiar character to the whole, were her eyebrows, very highly arched, and, though deh cately traced, so dark as to be in strangest con trast with the golden hair parted in smooth waves over a forehead of peculiar whiteness.

She had large blue eyes, — at least the cavities of the eyes were large, and so were the eyelids, long, full, and drooping, fringed with thick, dark lashes. She had a very young look, and all the bloom belonging to very early youth. And yet Mr. Lumley knew she could not be less than six-and twenty, and had been Stephen Lumley's widow for the last four years, under circumstances that might be called peculiarly distressing; her husband and her only child dying, the former suddenly, each within a few months of the other. She was the first to be aware of Mr. Lumley's entrance. " Here is your expected guest, I think, Mamma," she said, and rose, a splendid, royal creature, — one of those few whose beauty puts forward a successful claim to be acknow ledged at first sight as of no ordinary degree.

Too fully developed to be called slender, she was yet very graceful, with a gracefulness of a pretty, rather than a dignified kind, correspond ing better with the changing expression of her face, than the majestic proportions of her figure. She was, in fact, in appearance, as perhaps in character, full of contradictions, and yet invariably charming. " It is so long since we met, that I really can't tell when it was," she said, with great cordiality, as she gave Mr. Lumley her hand. " My memory is better than yours," he an swered. " It is seven years and a few months since I saw you last." " I knew it was an asre ago," said Mrs. Lum ley. " If Mamma had not told me that you were coming, I should not have known who you were." The elder lady had not left her place upon the hearth, an absence of formality testifying to the warmth of her regard.