Five-Chimney Farm. A novel

Chapter I. Old Friends

"While these petty scandals were saving Bramberfield from absolute stagnation, the great world was agitated by the vaster scan dals of the Spanish marriages, which had already brought forth the new scandal of the Queen of Spain's separation from her husband. In June came the charges made by Emile de Girardin, it was not quite clear against whom ; but some one had sold a promise of a peerage for eighty thousand francs. The Chamber of Peers summoned M. de Girardin to explain himself. M. de Girardin explained that he was bound in VOL. II. AO B FIVE-CHIMNEY FAKM. honour not to explain himself. Posterity is left in doubt whether to condemn most the man who made an accusation in the dark, or the House of Peers, which " acquitted him of intending any disrespect to itself." In July, all Paris was excited by the tremendous scandal of the Company Par mentier, which involved two ex-Ministers of State and many high officials and peers of France, and which was regarded by all honest people as a national humiliation, but scantily redeemed by the severity of the sentences pronounced against the guilty parties.

Close upon this followed the murder of the Duchess of Praslin by her husband. He came of a house to which many dark suspicions attached; his grandfather had murdered an Italian lady ; for generations the odour of crime had hung about the name. The duke poisoned himself in prison, to the indignation of the populace, who exulted at the crime of an aristocrat, and declared that he had been poisoned to avoid the scandal of a trial. That August of 1847 was a month of TROUBLE IN THE A.1E. crimes. Count Alfred de Montesquieu was found dead in his bed, stabbed through the heart. The Prince of Echmuhl went mad, and attempted to commit murder. A clerk was murdered in a shop in open daylight. The very air seemed full of trouble and dismay. Kate, hearing of such things from her grandfather or M. Bernard (neither of whom had any longer any reserves before her), felt her heart sink.

They rejoiced at each fresh crime (especially if committed by aristocrat or bourgeois), as at one more blow aimed at the existing order of things. Every day brought some new expose of official corruption, and the agitators were constantly at work, fanning the flame of discontent and enlarging upon the rotten state of society. But it was seventeen years since the days of July* and even those who heard the grumbling of the storm did not seriously believe that it would break in worse than an emeute. Kate had made a few friends among the English in Paris. Constance "West was an B FIVE -CHIMNEY FARM. externe at the Pension Duvergny, Rue de Varennes, and boarded with her cousins, the Butlers. Mr. Butler was brother to the Rector of Linstead, and Kate could talk of the old Bramberfield days to her heart's content when she went to spend a day with " Aunt Butler," as Constance called her (though she was only her mother's second cousin).

Here, too, she met other old friends in due time. I have not yet said that Francois was ostensibly studying at the Ecole de Mede cine. Kate herself had not known this, until in arranging his books she found several medical works with his name,, and " Ecole de Medecine," written in them. Francois explained that it was better on all accounts that he should have some nominal occupation. The expense of a medical training in Paris is so small that Francois, at his grandfather's suggestion, was well content thus to purchase the right to describe himself as " Sieve de V Ecole de Medecine," a title which could cover a multitude of sins, and which, besides, gave him opportunities of mixing unquestioned in all A MEDICAL STUDENT. sorts of society. For the rest, Francois studied just enough to avoid exciting remark.

It was with a sharp conscience-prick that Kate replied to Mrs. Butler's questions about her brother. He was at the Ecole ? How long had he been there, and how did he like it ? To which Kate was glad to be able to reply that she did not know. Frank generally talked to her of other things. " Ah, to be sure," said Mrs. Butler. " Gen tlemen do not talk of such subjects to young ladies. You talk about England and your early days, no doubt. Pray give our com pliments to your brother, my dear, and tell him we shall be glad to see him whenever his professional duties allow him leisure for a visit. By-the-bye, Constance, my dear, we must really ask Mr. Ford to meet your young friend." " Oh ! auntie, why did you tell her ? I wanted to see if Kate would know him. Don't say any more, there's a dear auntie."

" Do you mean Jack Ford ? " asked Kate. " I used to see him in Canterbury sometimes, but we were not allowed to speak to gentlemen in the street." " A very proper regulation, my dear, for young ladies at school," said Mrs. Butler. The Butlers had no children, and they seemed more like old bachelor and old maid than married people. Constance was the only person, Mr. Butler not excepted, who ventured on any freedom with Mrs. Butler. Yet they had been married thirty years — married happily, in an eminently decorous fashion ; and during sixteen of the thirty years they had lived in Paris, Mr. Butler having been appointed early in Louis Philippe's reign to a very confidential post in a banking-house, which did most of its business with England. He was a rather nervous man, very unlike the fresh-coloured, clean-limbed Rector of Linstead, whom Kate remembered riding by on his white mare, looking, to her childish fancy, as though he were riding to a tournament.

" Ah, yes," said Mr. Butler, to whom Mrs. Butler repeated this " touching remi niscence;" "ah, yes, poor Gus ! Com pletely buried alive down there ! Nothing " LA PROPRIETE c'EST LE VOL.' 7 to do but to ride about on a prancing horse. I should vegetate if I lived in the country." And he complacently rubbed his dry little hands, and set up the tuft of dust brown hair, which made him look like a respectable drab macaw. Mr. Butler's mind was at this time con siderably disturbed. Perhaps the most dan gerous — because the most cultivated and the coolest — of the Apostles of Destruction had lately said, so loud that even Mr. Butler in his counting-house heard, " La propriete c'est le vol." The statement was not original — Brissot de Warwille had said it nearly seventy years ago, in the days before the deluge.

But the cry was now repeated by a man terrible for the calm dispassionateness of his reasoning. Other men raved and foamed; he, in a tone of cold and calm conviction, in a gentle, almost monotonous voice, denounced every one of the fundamental beliefs of the world. He was called a great original genius, because he inverted the world, and showed it upside down in his magic-lantern. He was called a philosopher, because his intellect, and not his passions, carried him away ; and a re generator of society, because he would leave not one stone standing on another in the social fabric. In listening to him, the hearer was so won over by the reasonable ness and truth of most of his premises, as to be taken at a disadvantage by his con clusions. Worst of all, he clothed his most startling doctrines in brief, epigrammatic phrases, which every one could remember, and which every one thought he could un derstand.

Men of quick, but shallow intel lects can hardly resist an epigram, especially if they secretly feel they could never have invented one themselves. The Philosopher had said " Dieu, c'est sottise et IdchHe ; Dieu, c'est tyrannie et misere ; Dieu, c'est le mal ; and had in an outburst of unusual vehemence, commanded his Maker to retire. Mr. Butler was deeply shocked at this, and wondered at the Phi losopher's daring (with, however, to do him justice, no admiration of it) ; but he was a banker, and the attack on capital touched him even more nearly, coming home to his business and bosom indeed. A MEETING. It happened one Sunday morning, but a very few weeks after Kate's arrival in Paris, that in coming out of the Chapelle Marbœuf ( where she and Phœbe went every Sunday), she dropped her Prayer book.

It was picked up and returned to her by a gentleman who stood behind her. As Kate took it her eyes met the stranger's with mutual recognition. For a moment neither spoke. " You have not forgotten me, Miss Copley ? " said a second gentleman, whose round, boyish face looked absurdly juvenile, joined to an almost gigantic frame. " Jack Ford ! Felix ! " exclaimed Kate. " I am hurt ; you did not know me till you saw Jack," said Felix, as they turned out of the avenue. " Yes, I did ; but I was so surprised. And Mr. Ford is not altered a bit, except — " " Except that do as he will, he cannot leave off growing," said Felix. "It's a bad habit he formed in early youth, and as the twig's bent the tree's inclined." " It's my whiskers ; they won't come on. A big fellow looks a fool with a smooth face," said Jack, with the utmost good nature.

" The people stare at him in the streets — they think he is an escaped giant. For my part, I think no one ought to be al lowed to be more than six feet high ; it is a standing insult to the rest of mankind," said Felix. Felix himself was tall, but Jack towered nearly a head above him. He was rather loosely made, but not ill-proportioned, nor without a certain easy grace, which great physical strength often gives. Felix was more changed than Jack. He had out grown the delicacy of appearance which had once made him seem younger than his years, and a quiet determination had taken the place of the old dreamy look. A great many questions were asked and answered on the way to the Rue du Mou lin Vert. Felix had come to Paris to finish his medical course, as he had always hoped to do. Jack had come for the same pur pose, and to be near Felix.

These two had kept up the friendship begun at Bram berfield so long ago. There is always some- JACK AND FELIX. 11 thing touching in the friendship of two men for each other ; he is no common man who can be said to love another man. That a man should love a woman, after a fashion, does not of itself imply any great qualities of either mind or heart ; but the man who can love another man thereby shows himself capable of a purely disin terested affection. Such was certainly John Ford's love for Felix. " Go it, old fellow; I'll back you up," he used to say, whenever one of those tournaments of words, dear to Frenchmen, and especially to French students, seemed likely to begin. And he was as good as his word. It was the unsuspecting John who asked Kate what her brother was doing ? " He is studying medecine," said Kate, with a guilty qualm — she already guessed more than she knew about those studies.

"At the Ecole V " Yes." "That's odd; I thought we knew all the English students, didn't you, Felix ? " " I thought so. And I should have noticed the name of Copley," said Felix, who perfectly remembered all about Philip Copley, and had had his doubts as to how far his son might be like him, but was reassured by this account of him. " I think he takes our mother's name," said Kate, feeling very hot. "He is more French than I, and I do not think he — I mean, he would be more with the French students — and his name is really Francois Latourelle Copley — he only leaves out — " Kate was very angry with herself for being so confused, there was really nothing to be confused about, she told herself. It was very natural that Francois, who was much more than half a Frenchman, should wish to be called by a French name.

But she was nevertheless conscious of a great dread of what they might know, or might ever come to know, of her grandfather, and Bernard, and all the would-be plotting going on around Francois, and in which he was a more or less willing; assent. " What would they think if they knew how Francois and grandpapa talk ? " she thought. Felix and John had exchanged looks, MORE FOREIGN WAYS. 13 which fortunately Kate did not observe — she was trying to conceal her own embar rassment, which they, on their part were too much surprised to notice. On hearing the name of Latourelle, John had been betrayed into a whistle, which he hastily converted into a cough. Felix, after a minute's pause, turned the con versation to safer subjects, and admired Phœbe's cap, which she had adopted, after enduring for a month the remarks of the gamins on her black drawn-silk bonnet, the pride of her heart.

" I be main an' glad young Mr. Durrell be here, Miss Kate," said she, when they had climbed up to their own room. " He looks a steady young gentleman, and so do young Mr. Ford." " And they both knew you directly, Phœbe." " They be two nice young gentlemen, Miss Kate, and it do do my heart good to see a clean face again. Foreigners mostly looks grabby, to my thinking." " And yet, Phœbe, how you admired Toinette's cap." " Their caps may be clean, Miss Kate, but I don't b'lieve they ever wash their faces. You told me yourself they think it spiles the complexion. But what can you expect of Papises ? " By which word Phœbe was wont to describe her Roman Catholic fellow-Chris tians. Toinette was gone from the kitchen. She and Phœbe had found that apartment too small for a divided empire. Phœbe could certainly have confined her atten tions entirely to Kate; but her energies demanded a wider scope.

Nor could her righteous soul endure Toinette's ways, nor her English stomach Toinette's cookery. Phœbe poured open contempt on Toinette's dusting, and would go about in the most aggravatingly phlegmatic manner, redust ing the furniture, and investigating for gotten holes and corners, under Toinette's very eyes. To Toinette's lively remon strances, she replied by pointing to the tell-tale dust on her cloth. The cooking was even worse. Toinette was indignant that the English bonne would not eat DOMESTIC DIFFERENCES. what she prepared. She said that Phœbe was un gros cochon Anglais, and Phœbe called her " a messing foreigner." As, however, neither of the parties understood each other's language, peace was patched up from time to time, but only for war to break out again. Phœbe even was per suaded to learn a few of Toinette's culinary secrets, when, on the concierge leaving, Toinette was offered the situation.

Since then the adverse powers exchanged civil enough greetings, when Phœbe passed out and in ; and Phœbe was installed in the kitchen. She had picked up most that was worth knowing of Toinette's " dodges," as she insisted on calling them ; and Fran cois soon admitted the greater comfort of her wholesome English ways of doing everything. Poor Kate rejoiced over this, as a possible means of " making Frank more English." As for Latourelle, he had indirectly brought this change about, glad to have a woman who understood no French, instead of sharp, cunning Toinette, with a pair of French eyes and ears always open.

Chapter II

" IS THAT ENOUGH ? " " So Latourelle is her brother," said Jack, as he and Felix went home to their lodgings. " What a fool I must have been not to know it before ! I was certain I had heard that man's name somewhere or other, but I could never remember where." " Do you think she knows? " " Probably not. And after all, Jack, what is there to know ? He vapours and declaims, but it's the fashion with French men ; they are never happy unless they are denouncing something. It all ends in talk." "Not always," said Jack. "These A SECRET SOCIETY. 17 streets have heard something louder than words." (They were near the Hotel de Ville by this time.) "What's come to you, Felix? I've heard you say that Latourelle was a dangerous man." Felix was silent. He had thought Francois a dangerous man. It was well known among the students that he was one of the most active members of a society which called itself the Societe des Amis Ecoliers : about which no one out side knew anything definite ; and which was, for all that, well known to be a little hot-bed of sedition.

To call it a secret society would be scarcely correct; its members avoided the appearance of secrecy, by permitting any student who wished to send his name for election. At least three members of the society must support his claim, after which the votes were taken. Sometimes, the candi date was informed that he had not ob tained the necessary two-thirds of the votes, and was advised to wait a few months, and try again. This method was adopted with regard to candidates whom VOL. II. c it was safe to snub. More popular or prominent students, whose rejection might have raised suspicion, were allowed to be elected. But they gained little. Only the dullest medical questions were ever made the subject of debate when they were present. A dreary paper was read by one of the members, and discussed afterwards with studious dulness.

The new member was soon disgusted, and ceased to attend. He was politely in formed that any member who absented himself three times running, except from sickness, forfeited his membership. Per haps he went once more, to hear another uninteresting discussion — in which any re marks he himself made were always ruled out of order, or beside the question. By such means, the society was kept clear of unsafe members, while there was apparent openness in their proceedings. Notices were affixed to the door of the room in which they met, announcing the subject of the next debate — always some medical subject ; and the authorities had no suspicions as to the questions LES AMIS ECOLIERS. 19 really debated by the Societe des Amis Ecoliers. But students are less easily blinded ; and many of them believed that more exciting questions were argued before the chosen few, into whose councils it was so impossible to penetrate.

Nor were the opinions of Francois and his friends a secret. Felix had more than once crossed swords with Latourelle on some very fundamental questions, and had not been without fears that he, and such as he, might try one day to put their theories into practice. " You know he's one of the ringleaders of that d d society that no one knows anything about," said Jack Ford, finding that Felix did not speak. "I wish some fellow could get in in disguise, and find out what they're up to. I shouldn't like to do it myself, but some French fellow might ; they're not so particular as we. are about spying." Not even this illiberal sentiment roused Felix. He was trying to recall Kate's old confidences about her grandfather. c " Did Miss Copley say that her grand father lived with them, Jack ? " " I think she did.

I'm not sure, though." And Felix reflected with dis may that the grandson of that life-long conspirator was a far more dangerous person than Francois Latourelle, medical student, who was probably his puppet. For one moment, Felix came near guessing the actual state of affairs ; but the next, the idea seemed too preposterous. Plots ! Conspirators ! And all these honest bour geois, with their wives and children, laughing and talking, as they went to distract themselves in the Champs Elysees — ridiculous ! Old Latourelle was a restless, dis appointed old man ; Francois, a visionary young one. There were many such, everywhere. What of that ? And at that moment there was a little commotion, and the Roi Citoyen rolled by in his carriage, the Queen beside him, smiling and bowing with no pomp or cir cumstance about him.

But to Felix it seemed to-day that there was little enthusiasm in the people; he " THEY ARE VERY ENGLISH." 21 even fancied that he heard one or two hostile murmurs, and the word " corruption." Kate told Francois of her meeting with these old friends of hers. " I know them but little," he said. " They are very English. There is little sympathy between us." It often seemed to Kate, about this time, that she was living in a dream. The old painful sense of unreality came back, stronger than ever. Which was real ? Those long conversations with Francois, in which he unfolded to her all the conflict ing doubts which tore his soul; or the pleasant, cheerful days which she spent with Constance, sometimes driving out to the Bois de Boulogne, sometimes playing duets in Mrs. Butler's pretty salon ? Now and then, on those pleasant Thurs days, Felix, or Jack, or both, would drop in ; and to them Mr. Butler, bustling in from the bank, and declaring himself " quite ready for a cup of your tea, my dear," would sometimes speak of the things belonging to the other half of Kate's life.

" Shocking times these, Mr. Durrell ! " the little banker would say, with a quick, nervous glance in the looking-glass, and a sudden smoothing of his already perfectly smooth and bolt-upright fore-lock. " Shock ing times ! There are people abroad, in this very city, this afternoon, Mr. Durrell, capable of anything— anything ! Thank you, my dear Miss Kate." (This to Kate, who had handed him his cup.) " Yes," he would continue, violently stirring his tea, " capable of anything ! The most awful opinions — worse than that man Owen's, my dear, that we used to hear so much about — are openly advocated. I'm sure, I was shown a newspaper to-day — they ought to be put down, they ought indeed !" " Perhaps that would make them too important, sir," observes Felix. "Too important, sir? too important!" Mr. Butler is growing red in the face, and is " exciting himself," as his wife says.

" Too important ? What can be more im portant, sir, than Capital, and the sacred rights of Property ? And they attack that ! The scoundrel who wrote that atrocious MR. BUTLER EXCITES HIMSELF. pamphlet in which he said that Capital was the only tyrant in the world, is writing articles every week ; articles, sir, that all the riff-raff read — " " Dear Benjamin, don't excite yourself," says Mrs. Butler. " There is no doubt that a great many very dangerous opinions are being propa gated just now," says Felix, seeing that some such speech is expected from him. " Oh, I'm glad you admit that ! " ex claims the banker. " But do you not hope that the common sense of the majority — " " No, I don't," says Mr. Butler. (His wife is quite distressed at his brusqueness, and puts him down for a curtain-lecture.)

" The majority of Frenchmen have no com mon sense. I repeat, there are men in this city capable of any enormity !" " I suppose you hear a good deal about these things among the students, Mr. Dur rell?" asks Mrs. Butler, hoping to create a slight diversion. " A good deal goes on under the surface, which English students are not allowed to hear much of. I believe the theories which Mr. Butler is speaking of are unsettling people's minds a good deal." " I'm quite certain of it," exclaims the banker. " It's throwing lighted matches amongst gunpowder — that's what it is !" " What does your brother say of it all, my dear?" says Mrs. Butler to Kate. Kate never knew what she answered. She began to stammer out something ; but Felix came to the rescue. " I had a long talk with your brother this morning," he said.

" You will be glad to hear, Mr. Butler, that Miss Copley's brother, who has very good opportunities of knowing, thinks the rival theorists are too violently opposed to each other ever to work together, and that therefore there is little chance of any of their theories ever being put in practice." " Gad ! I'm glad of it !" exclaimed the banker. " My dear ! " (From his wife.) " I beg your pardon, my dear. These scoundrels make me forget myself." But very often no word of these matters KATE IS NOT IN LOVE. intruded into Kate's holidays ; and then she would be troubled by the old dream feeling, and perhaps would fall into a reverie. " Kate ! I've spoken to you three times. What are you thinking of ? Do tell me — I tell you all my secrets." Constance's secrets concerned Jack Ford and a young Frenchman who visited the house.

They were very small secrets when all was told. " I was only thinking how different some days are from others." " What a funny girl you are, Kate ! you do say such odd things ! I wish you were in love ; I should dearly like to see you ! It is very disappointing ; I used to think you were in love with Felix Durrell, but I don't believe you are a bit ! " " What nonsense, Conny ! " " And he never says anything, when he is here. I call it provoking ! " Conny's nonsense made it impossible for Kate to tell her that Felix always insisted on seeing her and Phœbe home from the Chapelle Marbœuf, on Sundays. Conny would be always teasing her, if she knew this, and there was nothing in it ; Felix said that it was very little out of his way. A curious distance had grown up be tween Kate and Felix. Often, when Francois had been unburdening his heart to her, she longed for the old familiarity to be renewed, and in imagination she often spoke freely to Felix of all the things which troubled her, and imagined also some of the kind and wise answers which she felt sure he would make to her perplexities.

These imaginary conversa tions had eased her heart many a time ; but when Sunday came, she felt frozen up, and gave, as she though*, only stupid, commonplace replies to Felix's remarks. Then, too, Phœbe was there, and Kate could not speak of Francois before her. She had tried once or twice to find out how Felix felt about her brother, but with little suc cess. To tell the truth, conversation did not flow freely during the Sunday walks. But Felix did not think her stupid — he heard in the tones of the girl's voice the DO THE NEXT DUTY. sadness and perplexity which she could not put into words ; and, though he was far from guessing how heavy a burden was being laid on those young shoulders, he saw that she was weary. "I wish sermons were any use," she said one day, after an unexceptionable but perfectly irrelevant discourse.

" Such ser mons as that only puzzle me — they have nothing to do with anything that we really want to know." " What do you want to know ? " " Everything," said Kate wearily. " The only way to know is to do one's duty." " Yes, but how am I to know my duty ? How am I to know who is right ? " " Be right yourself, and never mind the others. Do your own little part. We all know what we ought to do the next minute. A wise man has said, ' Do the duty which lies nearest thee, which thou knowest to be a duty ! Thy second duty will already have become clearer.' There is nothing better than doing one's next duty, and leaving the rest to God." " And is that really enough? — however puzzled one were ? " " Yes, my little sister, that is enough for all the straits of life," said Felix. They were at her door, and he held her hand as he spoke.

" That is enough, if only you are faithful to it." He had never called her his little sister since the old days ; and the name hurt her somehow, even while it comforted her. But she thought much and long of what he had said. It was plainly her " next duty " to help Frank all she could ; there was no doubt about that. He had told her that he could not wrestle with these questions any longer alone ; and whom could he trust but his sister ? If she could bear it, it would be so infinite a relief to him to tell her of his struggles, to let the clear light of her pure and loving spirit shine in on his darkness. He would have some confidence in her unsophisticated judgment; she could have no interested motives. And Kate had accepted the confidence. She had listened to the strange fanatical " WHY DOES HE NOT MANIFEST HIMSELF ?