Passages from the life of Agnes Home

Chapter I

Weary Life. ' ' Oh that my heart was quiet as a grave Asleep in moonlight." Alexander Smith. J.T was five o'clock on a wretched December after noon — one of those greasy, foggy afternoons so com mon in London in December, when the whole city seems as it were one great cauldron of mud and vapour of smoke, crammed with creatures looking like shadows in the mist, hurrying to and fro as you see animalcula through a microscope, aimless apparently and objectless, but each with a hidden purpose of his own. Amongst the multitude of cabs and omnibuses that thronged the streets, one (a four-wheeler), holding two men with a due proportion of luggage, was brought to a dead stop just in the middle of London Bridge. B They had been in a state of spasmodic starts and stoppages ever since leaving the Temple, and it now seemed a hopeless thing to reach the London-bridge StatioD in time to catch the train.

" By Jove ! we shall miss it after all ; there's no other till nine o'clock, and the old boy's carriage is to be at the station to meet us. We shall lose our dinner, and " The rest of the sentence was lost, the speaker having for the tenth time within the last ten minutes thrust his body out of the window, where it hung helplessly for a moment, looking for all the world like a Gurgoyle, or figure of stone, such as you see craning round the corner of old cathedrals, always looking for something and never finding it. There was the endless row of cabs in front, out of which projected other Gurgoyles, as if in mockery of his helplessness. " Oh, hang dinner and the old boy, and the carriage and the train, and everything else !" moaned out the other. " I wish I had never agreed to go at all. I wish I was back again at my lonely chambers : there I could have at least the luxury of giving full vent to my misery."

After a minute's pause, and seeing his companion took no heed of him, " I wish to God," he broke out, " the world would go back a thousand years, and, instead of being stuck fast in the middle of London Bridge with all this hurrying, restless life on all sides of us, I was going across the water in a ferry to end my days as a monk in the Abbey of Bermond sey. There in its pleasant gardens with the fish ponds I could moon about and think of my dinner ; and there in due season kneeling in the great church alone, prostrate before the altar, with the never-dying lamp above my head making light amid the gloom, could pray for that peace which the world cannot give." His rhapsody was somewhat rudely ended by his friend saying, " Bravo, old stick-in-the-mud ! you have reached a climax now. A monk in the Abbey of Ber mondsey !

Brother Stephen of Bermondsey ! Forgive me for treating your holy aspirations so lightly, but I can't help laughing at the idea. That little notion of yours about the dinner," he continued, " was the only bit of sense in the whole. But we're moving again, and I think we may do it." They were by this time over the bridge, and cabby made a little spurt, just bringing them to the station with two minutes to spare. By dint of bribery and corruption of porters they managed to tumble into places just as the train was moving. The carriage was full, — no one in it of note save one man in a corner seat, whose face if once seen would not be readily forgotten. Not a face easy to describe even to a man gifted with a power of description. The only thing I shall observe about him at present is, that whenever either of our friends looked at him (and there was something about his face which continually prompted them to do so), so surely was that dark and furtive eye of his fixed upon them, to be immediately withdrawn on his gaze meeting theirs.

It was a strange eye, not quick or piercing, but b slow and sad, almost fixed in its expression : un œil mome the French would call it, a term hardly translatable into English, but expressive for all that. By this time the two travellers had settled them selves into their railway rugs, and were preparing to pass the two hours that must elapse before they could reach their station, each after his own fashion. He of the light heart and cheerful countenance, after a vain attempt to read the evening paper by the light of a railway lamp, composed himself to sleep, and the aspirant after monastic life to indulge in the luxury of free and undisturbed melancholy. It is perhaps time that something should be said of the position, mode of life, and history of the two men thus unceremoniously thrust upon the reader's notice.

By all his friends (and they were many) Harry Stratford was pronounced emphatically to be the best fellow in the world. I am quite aware that this is a term which may mean very little, and is some what indiscriminately used in the present day. " He's the best fellow in the world ; but " — and then comes something disparaging — is what one constantly hears said of men. In the present case, however, the "but" is omitted, and I trust it will be understood that the expression has really the meaning which the words imply. The only son of his father, a wealthy English mer chant, he seemed born under a fortunate star. One of those fellows who go through life without a regret, or if they have one it is only when the hour comes for their giving up what they have enjoyed so well. Stratford was a popular man, born for society, of which, with his gentlemanly manners and pleasant presence, he was the darling, and of his own set the head and leader.

No dinner was considered complete without him, and at one time he had the hardihood to set himself up as a gourmet. To this high eminence he was not, however, destined to attain, and, after several fruitless efforts, during which his natural genius and aptitude carried him to the threshold of the sanctuary, he was forced to admit that it was not for him to proceed further in the mysteries of the occult science. He therefore prudently remained satisfied with the insight he had obtained, without seeking to hazard the loss of < his reputation by rashly attempting to raise the veil, which might have had the effect of blinding him with light, and so de priving him of that glimmer he already enjoyed. Stratford was a tolerably well-read man ; that is to say, he was up in the literature of the day, and some thing more, spoke French well, had travelled perhaps more than the average of men, and was altogether as fair a specimen of his species as one often meets on a summer day, or a winter one either.

His great defect was want of delicacy and sympathy. He was too much engrossed with himself and his own plea sures to bend to those of others. I don't know that he was selfish above the average of men, because if his fault were pointed out to him he would at once seek by every means in his power to atone for it. But he did not see, he did not at once divine, as some do (and how pleasant it is to meet such people), where sympathy and kindness were needed, and pour them in as did the Samaritan of old his oil and wine. A little spoilt with success, he had not sufficiently learnt to rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. Of Stephen Poyntz, the melancholy man of monastic inclinations, I must also say a little. Descended from a knightly family (as his name sufficiently indicates), his father was nevertheless in trade, wherein he made sufficient money to leave his wife a very hand some jointure, and his only son .£40,000, or there abouts.

Stephen went to Eton and Oxford, behaving there much as other boys and young men do. Perhaps he was from his childhood more of a dreamer than or dinary. In fact, both at school and college he was a dreamer rather than a worker. When he left Oxford he was called to the bar. Being too well off to make work necessary, he never worked at all. But at the same time he was far from idle. He read immensely, scribbled a little, went a good deal into society, was decidedly a lady's man, looked like one, and was one. With dark hair and a sentimental face, a certain set of girls raved about him and spoilt him. Some months previously he had been attacked with severe and lingering illness. It hung about him, and would not be shaken off. So Stephen, not being an energetic man, ceased to com bat with it, and resigned himself to what he con sidered inevitable bad health, to last for months, perhaps years.

This idea preyed upon his mind, naturally dreamy and sensitive, to such a degree that he sank into a state of settled gloom. His friends became alarmed about him. His mother insisted on his travelling. He did so, and came back better. But once settled down in his chambers in the Temple, the old feelings seemed to return upon his spirit, to enter in and dwell there, so that his last state was worse than the first. " I fancied," he would say in his bitterness, "that, when walking amongst the mountains of Switzerland, or gazing down into her great blue lakes, I had swept away this devil from my soul ; and so I had for the time, but he seems only to have left me to seek for seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and hav ing found them at Paris " (Stephen spent two months there on his way back), " they are rioting within me, holding their ghastly revelry unchecked, and God only knows what the end will be."

To add to his bitterness, he could not help feeling that, though he had not exactly misspent, he had thrown away the last ten years of his life ; that is to say, he had allowed opportunities to pass him, which, if he had profited by, might have made him some body in his day and generation, whereas, really, out of his own sphere of acquaintances and friends, he was nobody. He had, on leaving the university, been offered by a well-known and popular nobleman, an old friend and distant connection of his family, the post of private secretary. This would have been an opening to public life which might and probably would have ended in a seat in Parliament, and a subordinate place in the Government. All this he had thrown away, no one, himself in cluded, could tell why, and so lost his chances of distinction as a public man.

Then, as I said before, he was too well off to work hard at the bar where he might have been respectable, perhaps even eminent. Being thus an idle man, he had, as thousands have done before and are doing every day, dabbled in speculations, and, as almost always happens, was a Bull where he ought to have been a Bear, and a Bear where he ought to have been a Bull. By this inter esting process he was at one-and-thirty some two or three thousand pounds poorer than he was at one-and twenty, and could not help feeling besides that in other respects the ten best years of his life were gone without any adequate result. These things are not by any means pleasant or satisfactory to reflect upon, especially when the nerves are weakened by long and depressing illness : the mind becomes a perpetual self-tormentor.

A man of Poyntz's temperament is constantly saying to himself, " 0 God ! that I could redeem the time, and live my ten years over again, how differently I would act. I have let all my best days go by unimproved, wasted my property, thrown away my opportunities, and weakened my health : and now what is open to me ? " Forgetting all the time that he was still young and capable of doing good, if not great things. After all, Poyntz was not a vicious man. Did not drink or gamble, except in a small way on the Stock Exchange, and that he had almost given up. To be sure, just now, having spent rather more than usual during the past year, he had bought £10,000 Consols with a view of paying his Christmas bills with the profit to be derived therefrom, and, the funds taking it into their head to fall, he had closed his account at a loss of one and a-half per cent.

This does not, as many of my readers (men at least) well know, tend to improve the temper and spirits, or give a rose-coloured tiut to the world and the things that are therein. Thinking of these things, it can hardly be wondered at that the sight of Stratford's large, good-looking, contented face, as he lay fast asleep in the opposite corner of the carriage, rather helped to embitter his thoughts. " Confound him ! " he muttered to himself, " he sleeps like a child ; and I " He gazed through the window out into the night, bleak and dreary. The trees, as they rushed past, looked wild and strange, and, as the wind swayed them to and fro, seemed, to the excited fancy of Poyntz, to mop and mow at him like something alive. " I am feeble and sore stricken," he murmured to himself, almost un consciously quoting the words of the Psalmist, "full of anguish and unrest ; and that great fat man oppo site — that hill of flesh — mocks me with his content ment."

"What's the row, old fellow? Who's a hill of flesh?" said Harry, as, waking from his sleep at the moment, he caught the last words. " You ! " returned the other. Stratford looked so puzzled at his com panion's wayward mood, that Poyntz could not help b i o Passages from the laughing, which I think did him good, as, when the train stopped at their station, he seemed altogether brighter and in better spirits than he had been all day. It was a little country station, and looked dreary and desolate, as all country stations do on wet foggy winters' evenings, with their one sleepy porter poking about in the luggage-van, vainly endeavouring to extract yours from the heap which, with that charming want of system peculiar to English railways, have no ticket or distinguishing mark whatever, so that it is quite a chance whether you get your own impedimenta, or an old woman's band-box.

However, with a good deal of difficulty, the two somewhat ponderous portmanteaus were dragged from the bottom and placed atop of Mr. Hansford's carriage, which was waiting to take them to his house, about three miles distant. What was our friends' astonishment on getting in to find one place occupied by the gentleman whom we have before mentioned as having travelled down in the train with them ! He hastened to introduce himself by saying, "It seems we are all to be Mr. Hansford's guests, and I am happy to make your acquaintance so early." The two men said a few ordinary words of polite ness in acknowledgment, and the stranger resumed, — " I fancied when you got into the railway-carriage that you were going to Mr. Hansford's, but, with the cha racteristic shyness of our countrymen, did not like to hazard the suggestion.

Is this your first visit here ? " he continued, addressing Poyntz, who sat opposite. On his replying in the affirmative, he added, " I really think it's the nicest place I know. The per fection of a country-house — everything pleasant. Old Hansford the jolliest fellow in the world, with a wife as nice as himself, two charming daughters, capital shooting, and a cook whose equal I don't know, and I know a good many." " Indeed you interest me," said Poyntz, with anima tion, and for the moment forgetting his troubles. " She really is," returned the other, who, with ready tact perceiving that Poyntz was interested in the sub ject, proceeded to enlarge upon it. " She was a poor girl on old Hansford's estate, living with her father and mother in a small cottage in the village. He happened to go in one day about dinner-time, attracted, as he always says (for he tells the story regularly whenever any one praises a dish), by a particularly savoury smell wafted through the open door, and on entering found the embryo artiste bending over a pan on the fire, and skimming the top with the tenderest and most anxious care.

"' What have you got there, Jenny?' he inquired. ' It smells very good.' " ' Ah ! you may well say that, Squire,' said Jenny's father, as the girl smiled and blushed at praise coming from so high a quarter. ' That girl is a jewel to cook, and what we should do without her I'm sure I don't know. She can make a nice savoury dish out of nothing a'most ; and when our neighbours come and ask her how she does it, she'll tell 'em, and then they goes home, and tries it thesselves ; but, Lor' bless you ! they haven't got it in 'em, so it's no use ; and, after trying once or twice, they goes back to their old ways. Ah, dear, dear ! I'm mortal hungry,' he continued. "The Squire took the hint, and his departure. "As he wandered slowly home through the park, musing and pondering over what he had heard and smelt, he became more and more anxious to cherish and encourage the native talent on which he had stumbled so unexpectedly. ' By Jove ! ' he muttered to himself, ' shall the celestial fire of genius' (the Squire was younger then than he is now, remember) ' waste and die for want of nurture and cultivation ?

I'll have that girl up at the house. Who knows but that,by proper training and encouragement, she may become great, and thus make me a reputation as well as herself? — yes,' he continued, 'to give the best dinners in the county. Besides, the pride and gratification of the thing will do more in the way of getting me my seat ' (at that time the summit of the Squire's ambition) ' than anything else I know.' " The idea thus hatched in his brain was speedily carried out. Jenny, though the old people grumbled a little, was transferred to the house} at first in the humble capacity of kitchen-maid. In this position the by.no means unusual jealousy of the chef de cuisine might have kept her under and prevented her talents from expanding had it not fortunately happened that on one occasion, when the Squire had cards out for a large dinner party, the head cook was taken suddenly so ill as to be completely hors de combat for some weeks at least.

Mrs. Hansford was for putting the people off. ' Can't do it, my dear,' ui'ged the Squire. ' Who ever heard of putting off a dinner party because the cook's ill ? You know Lord Melford's only in this part of the country for a short time, and I particularly wish to be civil to him, and I want him to meet Sir Harry Walton. No, no, that won't do. I '11 tell you what,' he continued ; ' that girl shall do it. I know she's got it in her.' ' What girl ? ' said his wife. ' Jenny,' replied the Squire. 'Have you taken leave of your senses ''.' said Mrs. Hansford; 'Jenny cook a dinner for twenty people ! ' ' Leave her to me,' said her lord ; ' I '11 talk to her.' He had her up into the library, and the pair were in close conference for upwards of an hour. The Squire came out calm and self-satisfied, Jenny flushed and triumphant.

For several successive mornings were these conferences renewed, cookery books consulted, and the whole thing planned. At length the eventful day came. Jenny and old Hansford superintended everything, even to the arrangement of the fruit and flowers on the dinner-table. The banquet was a triumph — everything perfect — everybody delighted, except the sick cook, who never got over it, left her place, and Jenny reigns in her stead, the admiration of the county." " Really quite a little romance," yawned Stratford, who had not yet quite shaken off his railway sleep. " I must get an introduction to this remarkable cook. Is she pretty ? " he asked, addressing the narrator of the story. " Pretty ! " indignantly interrupted Poyntz. " I really must beg, Stratford," he continued, with ear nestness, "that if the woman does happen to be good-looking you won't distract her mind and render her careless of her high and holy calling by any ridiculous admiration — admiration of her personal appearance, I mean.

Admire her talent as much as you will. Remember that a foolish word of yours might stain and tarnish a glorious idea, put to flight a noble aspiration, and the result might be a badly cooked dinner, and, worse still, one totally wanting in that beauty of design and singleness of purpose that distinguishes a proficient in the glorious science." Stratford burst into another roar, " Bravo : old fel low ! try it again. His first," he said, addressing the stranger, who had also greeted Poyntz's speech with a laugh, strange, wiry, and hollow, very different from old Stratford's ha ! ha ! " was a romantic wish, that the world would go back a thousand years in order that he might pass his life in a state of monastic seclusion at the Abbey of Bermondsey. His second you heard just now." " The two are by no means inconsistent," said the hollow laugher.

" All monks who were good for any thing took most religious care of what they should eat and what they should drink, in spite of a some what authoritative precept to the coutrary. Look at Charles V., at Yuste. After his salvation came his dinner, and I'm not sure he didn't consider the latter the more important. By the way," he con tinued, " have you read Stirling's charming ' Cloister Life' ? " Poyntz was just going to reply, when Stratford in terrupted him. " Here we are at last," and the carriage turned in at the lodge gates and exchanged the hard rattle of the high road for the softer crumbling sound of the carriage drive running through the park. It seemed tolerably extensive, with nice trees, and in five minutes they stopped at the hall-door. It was a goodly sight — that pleasant comfortable hall, with the skins spread over the marble floor, and the cheerful firelight glancing on the wainscoted walls, forming a pleasant contrast to the cold without.

Mr. Hansford, who was standing with his back to the fire, came forward to receive and welcome his guests. Well-bred gentleman as he was, he could not restrain a little start of surprise and vexation on seeing three people make their appearance when he evidently only expected two. The unexpected visitor hastened to account for his being there. " I really must make a thousand apolo gies, Mr. Hansford, for having ventured to come unasked and unexpected ; hut the fact is, on coming to town yesterday from the North, on my way to Paris, I learnt accidentally that my cousin Agnes was staying with you, and as I was particularly anxious to see her before leaving England, probably for some time, I thought I might perhaps trespass on your hospitality for a few hours ; the more so as I really don't know when I shall have an opportunity of seeing her again, and there are a few matters of business I want to talk to her about, which cannot well be neglected."

There was, perhaps, a shade of stiffness in Mr. Hansford's manner as he held out his hand. " Pray make no apologies," he said ; " you have given such good reasons for coming, that I should be indeed wanting in hospitality if I didn't make you welcome." " That hospitality, I knew, is never wanting at your house," replied the stranger with an air of grave politeness, " and for that reason I had the less hesita tion in making my appearance here, feeling confident that the kindness you have always shown to my cousin would, on such an occasion, be extended to me." I can't tell why exactly, but there was something in this little speech, and in the tone and manner in which it was uttered, that jarred upon those who heard it. Poyntz especially, whose nerves were in a very touchy condition, felt something rasp him like a saw — of course, however, there was nothing for him to say.

The cheerful light in the hall enabled him to see more distinctly than he had hitherto done the man who had so strangely become Mr. Hansford's guest, for that night at all events. There was really nothing peculiarly noticeable about him — a middle-sized, rather good-looking gentleman like man, with a very slight Scotch accent. His air and manner were those of one who had all his life been accustomed to good society, perfectly quiet and com posed — nothing more. Mr. Hansford now turned away to give his directions to the servants concerning his guests' luggage, bustling about with the air and manner of a man thoroughly glad to see them, and determined to make everybody about him as comfortable and as much at their ease as he was himself. " Have a glass of sherry before dinner. Do, now ; just the thing to give a tone to the stomach after a two hours' drive through the cold fog. No ? Well, then, don't lose any time. The ladies are all in the drawing-room, and the second bell will ring in a quarter of an hour."

Chapter II

Wherein Poyntz begins to find life is not so weary after all. She grows on me like moonrise on tbe night. Oh ! let me live To love ' And yet what weariness was on your tongue An hour ago ! You shall he wearier yet. " Alexander Smith. X HERE are few • things more comfortable than to find yourself after a railway journey in a nice, well appointed bed-room with a cheerful fire, materials for a warm bath, and your dinner garments spread out for you all ready to put on. But Poyntz was in that unsatisfactory frame of body and mind which only makes all these outer comforts the more distasteful, as being so completely at variance with the gloom within. " I can't possibly go through the ordeal of dressing, and then face all those people afterwards. I've a deuced good mind, as 1 must shave, to cut my face or my throat, and so be unpresentable.

In the latter case, it might destroy Old Hansford's appetite for dinner, to see, on coming to my door in consequence of my taking no heed of the servant's summons to dinner, a dark stream slowly stealing under it, and then But I'm an ass," he muttered to himself, making with a great effort preparations to dress. He made the Squire angry by keeping them waiting ten minutes for dinner, and on entering the drawing room found all the party preparing to move. " Just in time, Poyntz ; take care of Miss Home," were the words that greeted him on his appearance. Though he had never seen the lady before, he turned instinctively to where she was sitting. She rose to meet him, and, with a very pleasant smile, put her arm in his. Something he could not well account for thrilled through him as he felt the light touch of her little hand.

I dare say many of my readers know what I mean, though it is difficult to explain, — a sort of creeping sensation running up your arm, spreading to the roots of your hair, and going out at your boots. Strange, but pleasant. Poyntz's small talk failed him for once, and he murmured awkwardly something about his fears tliat he had made an enemy of Miss Home by keeping her waiting for dinner. " Really, Mr. Poyntz," replied the lad)', " you must think either that I am very greedy, or that Mr. Hans ford is in the habit of depriving us of lunch. Let me beg to assure you thus early in our acquaintance that neither is the case." " Don't use so ugly a word as greedy," he replied, gaily, " for, without being that, I thought it just pos sible that your winged thoughts might have alighted on the entrees, some of which ten minutes might ruin for ever."

" Very true," she replied, thoughtfully, and did not speak again till she had finished her soup. The dinner-table was very fair to look on, em bowered in camellias and Christmas roses, mingled with fruit aud gay-coloured bon-bons, which were again toned down with quiet moss and green leaves. The party consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Hansford; their two daughters, Marion and Kate ; the unknown, who turned out to be Mr. Home, Agnes' cousin and guardian ; Agnes herself ; Stratford, Poyntz, aud the rector of the parish and his wife, a very pleasant party of ten. After the first glass of champagne, Poyntz began to think there was something worth living for, after all. He talked gaily to Agnes, and noted the entrees as they came in hot from the kitchen, and were handed one by one so as not to distract the guests.