Herbert Vanlennert

Front matter

popular 6s. iRovels. The Manxman. By Hall Caine. The Bondman. By Hall Caine. The Scapegoat. By Hall Caine. The Ebb-Tide. By Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne. The Heavenly Twins. By Sarah Grand. Ideala. A Study from Life. By Sarah Grand. Our Manifold Nature. By Sarah Grand Corruption. By Percy White. In Haste and at Leisure. By Mrs. Lynn Linton. A Victim of Good Luck. By W. E. Norris. The Countess Radna By W. E. Norris. The Potter's Thumb. By Flora Annie Steel. From the Five Rivers. By Flora Annie Steel. The Last Sentence. By Maxwell Gray. The Tower of Taddeo. By Ouida. Illustrated. The Master. By I. Zangwill. The King of Schnorrers. By I. Zangwill. Illustrated. Children of the Ghetto. By I. Zangwill. The Premier and the Painter. By I. Zangwill and Louis Cowen. A Drama in Dutch. By Z. Z. The Naulahka By Rudyard Kipling and Wolcott Balestier.

The O'Connors of Balllnahinch. By Mrs. Hungerford. A Superfluous Woman. Transition. By the Author of ' A Superfluous Woman. At the Gate of Samaria. By W. J. Locke. Elder Conklin, and other Stories. By Frank Harris. Terminations. By Henry James. Sentimental Studies. By H. Crakanthorpe. Chimæra. By F. Mabel Robinson. An Imaginative Man. By R. S. Hichens. Out of Due Season. By Adeline Sergeant. London: WM. HEINEMANN, 21 Bedford St., W.C. By C. F. Keary , Author of " The Two Lancrofts," " A Mariage de Convenance," etc. format cnim Naturafrius nos intits ad ontnem Fortnnarum liabilum London William Heinemann

Chapter I

A pleasant September sunshine with no pretence of bril liancy was pouring down upon a stubble-field, across which there trudged two sportsmen each of some twenty-three years of age ; and on the left of the line, a keeper. The three pro ceeded in that silent stolid manner which sport exacts, at any rate in England. Presently a whirr of wings broke on the still air, and a small covey of partridges rose into view. Two reports rang out almost simultaneously, a third, and a fourth. For a moment the whole covey flew on as if untouched ; the next, one fluttered and sank to the ground. At a word from the keeper, Becky, the retriever bitch, bounded forward. But the bird had dropped close to a bank of furze bushes, the border of the field upon the left hand, and the outwrork of a fir plantation which shut off all the view upon that side and de scended down the slope of the hill.

The other four birds sailed in level flight over the stone wall at the end of the field, seemed for a moment to hang suspended against the pale blue sky, and then sank out of sight behind the wall. Becky no doubt knew as well as anyone that the wounded bird was lost, and had no serious intention of pricking her nose in the gorse. But she knew or thought she knew that a certain show of zeal was expected of her ; and so, with short suppressed barks, she began to career up and down before the bank of furze, over a continually wider and wider course. The two young sportsmen, on their side, walked straight on to the oppo site gate, followed by the keeper. " Oh, come back, you brute !" cried one of them, Bertie Van lennert. " Don't go playing the fool like that." " This is sickening," said Charles Orcher, his companion, as he leant his gun against the gate.

" We shan't do any more good. I should think we may as well have lunch now." And Le looked at the watch upon his wrist and hoisted himself up upon the gate. He was a typical young English gentleman, tall, straight, fair, and freckled by the sun. The other was slight and dark, with a keen, eager, not altogether satisfied ex pression in his eyes. "All right;" Vanlennert climbed the gate and stretched himself at full length upon the low stone wall. Sometimes he sat up for a moment or two to take a few bi+es at his sandwich ; but he always returned to his horizontal position once more. The wall was only five feet above the field, but was much higher above the road upon the other side, towards which it displayed a mixture of masonry and native rock. Beyond the road was another wall at a considerably lower level, only high enough to shut off the near parts of a wide valley which stretched below like the trough of a huge wave.

Or, if that simile hold good for the valleys in every country called undu lating, then we may liken valleys such as this, which are rather characteristic of this corner of Derbyshire, to mighty Atlantic rollers ; so even are they, and so stately, one may say, is the sweep of these hills and dales. On this side of the county the fields are bounded more often by stone walls than by hedges. Here and there a fine oak or ash stood solitary in the grass fields. But there was little to interrupt your gaze over the bottom of this terrene wave to where, a mile or so away, an other wave began to climb. There was little too to mark the distances ; so that to Bertie Vanlennert, for whom the imme diate foreground was cut off, the grey buildings straight below him looked more like a toy farm-yard than a real one.

A tiny cart stood upon one side of it, and tiny ricks were placed like sentinels along one wall within. For a man in certain moods there is something especially fascinating in a sight such as this. Life seems for the first time reduced to its just proportions when relegated, in this way, to a place in the middle distance. It was impossible to believe that the miniature Farmer Hillyard, who had just emerged from the house down there with the miniature Swipes at his heels, could be affected by any but the lesser ills of life. He might be re volving in the minute head of him that eternal problem, what would be left over, when he had made up his rent by next quarter day — even with the reduction of twenty per cent. ; or of what use really were to him, with wheat at five-and-thirty ehillino-s a bushel (though that price would be reckoned riohea to-day), those ricks of corn which to unsophisticated eyes seemed such an embodiment of garnered wealth.

Questions such as these, though they be matter enough for debate, seem not possibly of supreme importance to anyone whom you behold thus reduced in physical size ; and, by a rebound of thought, our own troubles too fall into scale, and what within four walls might seem a heavy misfortune, takes its proper place in the large economy of Nature. Inarticulate thoughts of this kiud were passing through the head of Bertie Vanlennert, and for a time he and his friend ate their lunch in silence. But presently he himself broke the silence without changing his position. " This is a poor job so far I must say," he said. " The birds ought to come and be shot by the ould family, instead of waiting for the new — who, however, as cockneys, will probably give them a good time." " H'm, h'm ! they've a pretty good one as it is," said his friend from the gate.

" You've been shooting abominably to day, anyhow. Our bag, such as it is, is Higgins's and mine. I suppose you're rather down in the mouth, ain't you, old chap ? I don't believe you've made a hit." " Oh, I don't know. I hit them when they come my way." (Vanlennert's face, which was turned skywards, had in fact as sumed a rather gloomy expression.) " Any way, if I miss them now, I hope they'll miss me when I've gone." " Shan't you stay and see the new tenants . . . ?" " Oh, my dear Charlie, if you knew how sick I am of that damned pun. No, I shan't stay ; Uncle George did all the ne gotiations. I only came of age, you know, when I was twenty three." " I didn't know you had regularly come of age." " What do you mean by ' regularly come of age' ? We didn't go in for fireworks and the fatted calf and that sort of thing."

" I imagined that you didn't majorize till twenty-five or some thing of that sort, and that it was only till then that he wanted to let Netley." " Oh, did you ? Nobody wants to let Netley, if you come to that. Needs must when the devil drives . . ." " What a bore !" said the other. " Of course I knew . . ." But not knowing exactly how to finish the sentence, he pulled out his pipe and began filling it. And there was a few minutes' pause. " By the way," said Bertie. " I forget whether I ever asked you before. Do you know anything about these people? You're a kind of man of fashion you know. The glassy fashion and the mouldy form. That's Shakespeare, isn't it ?" (And he gave the ghost of a chuckle.) " Idiot ! . . . Well, I know about them. YWre a sucking barrister, or pretend to be, so I suppose you know what the old boy is — Attorneyor Solicitor-General or something, whatever the difference may be."

" Solicitor-General. I know that much. But I mean what is the family like ?" " Well, Lady Tennant is a kind of Thackeray lady of fashion, one of the pushing sort, always trying to shove up, you know. So I've always understood. I believe the daughters are awfully pretty. In fact I know one of them, Mrs. Forster, is ... I tell you what you've got to do. Swear eternal hatred and ven geance against the whole family. Then, when one of the girls is coming along, get old — that old chap down there, I forget his name — to let out a mad bull at her. You come out of a prac ticable bush as they say, open an umbrella and drive it off. I know I read a plot like that somewhere. Only you'd better get a circus bull, trained to run round and do no harm." " But you see as I am going . . ." " Well, I am, too.

I forgot to tell you that, by the bye. I heard this morning. I'm going to cut Alehester and the F. 0. for evermore. I'm sent to Rome." " Oh — Good biz — what are you ?" " A third sec. — what they call attache, you know — unpaid, of course. Why shouldn't you come abroad with me ? We could go together to Switzerland or somewhere first. I've got to be in Rome the 1st of November." " Done. That'll be jolly. It is rather beastly leaving this place, I don't mind owning that." " Of course it is, old man. It's an awful bore, I must say. My mother told me to see if I could get you to come to them." " No. Let's go off abroad ; that's much better." " We'll start on Saturday week or thereabouts if that suits you. Well, I've done. I suppose we may as well be movinoon now. Becky, you'retired of waiting anyhow, I know.

Here's the last sandwich for you, old bitch." " Where shall we go to now, Higgins ?" " Well, Master Herbert . . ." " If you call me ' Master Herbert,' I'll dismiss you from Sir William Tennant's service." Higgins only partially succeeded in grasping the joke. " Well, sir, suppose you was to try Grantley Gorse. I see a one or two of black game there last month. And nobody's fired a gun there this year."

Chapter II

When Crawfurd Tennant was asked by Sir Roper Smyth, the Judge of Appeal, why his father, now that he no longer went circuit, had taken a place so far away in the midlands, he re plied, that it was because of Mr. Attewoode's precarious state of health. " Dear me ! I didn't know. Is he a near relation ?" " He's not the slightest relation," said Crawfurd. " But he's member for West Derbyshire." " Oh, ah!" said Sir Roper, and his eyes twinkled. Crawfurd Tennant was one of his special favourites. " You know at Bulgeness," the latter went on in his sleepy way, " if they could put off choosing a member till the other constituencies had voted, it would be all right. They have a fancy there for always being represented by someone on the Government side of the house. I don't know why, I'm sure. But it's their hobby : and, like most people, they are prepared to sacrifice a good deal for their hobby.

This time they sacri ficed my father; and found after all that they had just made a wrong shot. We've been gaining in the counties lately, you know. ... I say ' we,' I'm sure I don't know why. I suppose one ought to be of the same politics as one's father. " My mother comes from Derbyshire, too," he added, after a pause. " I rather like the idea of getting away from the home counties myself. I'm going down there at the end of the month. Will you come ?" " Your father asked me down after Christmas. I think I'll wait till then. I thought he wasn't going just yet." " No more he is. But I shall go down for a week or two, and take some of the Johnnies from the circuit for a little shooting." " I hope Gertrude won't have gone back before I come." " Oh, no. She won't go back." " Not at all ? I thought she was devoted to her husband, as people say."

"I daresay. She says she is." (His countenance did not change from its passivity one hair's-breadth.) " Forster's not a bad chap by any means — rather a fool, of course." " Well, he wasn't a fool when he married Gertrude," said Sir Roper. " My god-daughter has grown uncommonly pretty too. She's not picked up anybody yet, I suppose ?" " I've not heard of anybody in particular. ... I think this claret is about the best they've got." " I tell you what," said Sir Roper. " I hear that two of Shuckborough's brothers come up for election next week. Now, what I maintain is, that as this is not a political club, they've no right to put forward men whose only claim is that their brother's in the Cabinet. Shuckborough's all right. He goes too far for me in his politics, though I daresay you don't care about that.

I daresay his brothers maybe all right, too. But what I mean is, that we don't know anything about them. And if we let in the principle of electing people because . . ." " Because their brother plays the German flute, exactly, I quite agree." " No, really it won't do," said Sir Roper, who had begun to grow warmer than suited with his corpulent person and the ex cellence of his dinner. As he had proposed, Crawfurd Tennant came down to Netley Park in the latter days of October with a party of friends. Contrary to Herbert Vanlennert's anticipations, he was an ex cellent shot. Indeed, he did most things well ; too many things well to care to do any one of them for long at a time. By the middle of November he had returned to town, to his practice, whatever that might be. Crawfurd Tennant was still a bachelor, though his hair was beginning to turn grey.

People said he looked as old as his father. But, as a bachelor, to one half of the polite society of West Derbyshire, he was not the least interesting member of the new household. At the beginning of December the Tennant family, properly so called, that is to say, Lady Tennant and two of her daughters Mrs. Forster and Silvia, settled themselves definitely at Netley and there, at the beginning of the Christmas vacation, they were joined by Sir William. And before Christmas Bertie Vanlennert was again in Derbyshire, staying with " Uncle George " at Gretton Rectory. " I don't make much way with Sir William," Uncle Geor°*e said, " or with Lady Tennant either, for the matter-a-that, though I used to know her years ago when she was Lucy Reid. But Mrs. Forster is an exceedingly pleasant person ; she's just back from India, and " " And you're sure to fall in love with Silvia," said Molly Vanlennert.

" Well, if I must I must," her cousin said. He was of the age when boys say to each other, " For my part, I am not easily pleased," and when the mere vision of a petticoat accelerates to some degree the current of their blood. So that, when a few days after his arrival, the Tennants came to dine at Gretton Rectory, and while Bertie was still dressing for dinner, misty visions flitted through his brain of a fair skinned golden-haired damsel (so had Silvia been described) who, if he was not precisely to fall in love with her on the spot — indeed, he had no idea in his mind whether he was ever to do this or no — was most certainly in the course of that evening to be supremely charmed by his person and conver sation. Wherefore, before he had ever seen Sylvia Tennant, he was half in love with his own anticipation.

" You look nervous, you're going to do it," said Molly, when they were assembled in the drawing-room, the long low drawing room, pannelled and painted white, with pairs of candles in brass sconces in each of the three uprights down the wall. The room was almost as familiar to Bertie as the drawing-room at Netley. But from that evening onwards it had an especial vividness in his recollection. " You know I always am nervous before strangers to a certain extent," replied Herbert. " I daresay, the honourable and gallant is too, if the truth were known : only he hides it behind his eyeglass." The " honourable and gallant" was the name given in the family to Lieutenant Gerard Vanlennert, of the Derbyshire Regiment, Molly's brother. " I can't understand that," said Molly. " I don't think I was, even at your age," she added.

Then the guests began to come in, Captain Banbury, the agent for Lord Banbury's Gretton property, his wife and son came first. Bertie Vanlennert was still struggling with a sleeve link when Sir William Tennant and his two daughters were announced ; Lady Tennant had sent an excuse. The daughters had the indescribable air of chic which familiarity with London society gives. Two tall, fair girls. If Gertrude Forster could not properly be called a girl she looked one, at any rate, from a few yards off, though two years in India had done something to dim a complexion which had once been the most delicate in the world almost. " My mother is so very sorry not to be able to come," she said nominally to Mrs. Vanlennert, but half turning to Bertie. " She particularly wanted to meet you, Mr. Vanlennert.

I can't tell you how much she likes Netley, and how grateful we are to you for letting us take such a beautiful place." " Oh, thank you, yes," Bertie blurted out. This could not be taken as a specimen of the brilliant conversation which he had been imagining an hour before ; at the same moment entered the last comers, Mr. and Mrs. Orcher of Roundway Temple. " How are you, dear Bertie ?" said Mrs. Orcher, squeezing Bertie's hand, for he was a great favourite at Roundway. Then dinner was announced. " I hope you're comfortable at Netley," said Uncle George to Mrs. Forster on his left hand. " Oh, most comfortable : I was just telling Mr. Vanlennert" — she looked across to Herbert — '• how grateful we were," etc. . . . " Most delightful," echoed Silvia from her corner, also turning to Bertie, who had taken her in.

" Those old houses are often very inconvenient unless you are used to them," said Mrs. Orcher, with the suspicion of a sniff. " We don't find Netley so in the least. Is it very old ? You have never told me the history of it, do you know ?" — this to Uncle George — " but I hope Mr. Vanlennert will come over very soon and do the honours of the ghosts if there are any." " Oh, no, Netley's not old at all," said Herbert. " The only really old house about here is Roundway Temple." " My dear Bertie! How can you say so ?" exclaimed Mrs. Orcher. — " That's quite a mistake, Mrs. Forster. Our house is really quite new, except the cellars." " Well, I meant the cellars," Bertie replied. " And the left wing — you know that's old too. What I meant was, it's an historical sort of place." " Our house is called Roundway Temple," explained Mr. Orcher to Gertrude, " because it was once, that is, a part of it was once, a house of the Knights Templars."

" Who were the Templars?" said the lieutenant to Mrs. Forster. " Do you know exactly ? As people used to say to me, you were at school later than I was." " Well, Silvia was at school later still," said Gertrude, looking towards her sister. " Yes, I think I know," said Silvia in answer to Gerard Van lennert's eyeglass. She had attended M. Roche's classes and took life seriously. " The Good Templars," put in Bertie, who did not. " Oh, everybody has heard of them !" Silvia began to feel angry with her next neighbour, whom she had been ready to make something of a hero of, but who turned out to be such a mere boy. She had come prepared to take an interest in Mr. Vanlennert, the dispossessed heir — only temporarily dispossessed, no doubt ; but still there was some thing romantic in an heir to an estate even in temporary difficulties.

He did not look so unlike an Edgar of Ravenswood, rather undersized and of rather a plain type. But his be haviour was very different. She did not know whether he was really ignorant or whether he meant that for a joke. "If it is a joke it's a very silly one," she thought. Then she began in a polite, indifferent way to ask questions upon matters in which he might be expected to take an interest, Netley, the village, hunting, what university he had been at, getting rather lame and stammering replies. For Bertie Vanlennert on his side the whole room which he knew so well had become changed. It was as if he had never seen it before. General Vanlennert, whose portrait (the replica of the one at Netley) stared down on him from the opposite wall, was half alive. The buzz of conversation all round the room fell upon his ears like the sound of a rising storm, full of portentous meaning which he could not decipher and yet must.

Above all, the companion beside him was a miraculous being charged with unknown influences, too strong for him to try to analyse. The touch of her dress could not have been more magical if, instead of being a commonplace Indian muslin, it had been an electric dress emitting sparks, nor the flash of her diamond bangle as she raised her hand to the lace about her throat (an habitual action of Silvia Tennant's) been more dazzling had she been armed with the " terrible fringed ægis" which Athene bore upon the plains of Troy. He did not know afterwards how he could have looked and talked as usual, nor whether he had done so. A miracle had indeed taken place in his moral being. But it is one which takes place every day, and is called " falling in love." When you are struck a sudden blow by a stone, say, thrown you know not whence, for one minute fraction of time you for get all your past ; the world begins again for you ; the hedges, the grass at your feet, are for that short moment unknown ob jects which have to be learnt afresh.

This in its way is a miracle of the intellect, only that you forget it as soon as it has passed. Falling in love, likewise, often seems afterwards and upon reflection a commonplace action enough. But in its essence it is, even more than the effect of the physical shock, a thing supernatural, passing all bounds of experience or of fore sight ; miraculous in itself, independently of its consequences or of its duration. Probably this too, like the physical blow, is an instantaneous shock. It is only in the retrospect that we think we can trace the slow preparation for it. . . . For some time past the talk has split itself up into fragments. But now Molly attracted general attention, speaking across the table to Mrs. Orcher — " Bertie has been distinguishing himself since he was here last by rescuing beautiful damsels from the jaws of death," she said.

" Ah, yes," said Mrs. Orcher. (Her conscience pricked her a little that she had become so friendly with Mrs. Forster during the past five minutes.) " I heard something about your having an adventure in Switzerland, Bertie. Do tell me all about it." " Yes, do tell us," said Silvia in her softest tones. " It wasn't a beautiful maiden ; at least I mean," he said, " she was only a little girl about fourteen or fifteen." " But how did it happen ?" "It was the most curious thing possible, the accident, that is to say. Because we were simply walking through a wood and it was perfectly plain sailing." "Where was that?" said Mrs. Banbury. " At Ober Schellingen. I met these people by chance. Charlie and I went over the Gries Pass, you know," he said to Mrs. Orcher: "he went on to Domo d'Osola. and I went back to Airolo and over the St. Gothard ; and as I say, I came across these people at Ober Schellingen.

It was rather late in the season, you know, for a place like that. His name is May nard. He's an artist." " Oh, Maynard !" said Mrs. Forster and Silvia, looking across to each other. " Yes," said Bertie. " Do you know him ?" " By reputation, oh, yes," said Silvia. " What does he paint ?" " Well, I think landscapes — doesn't he?" (to her sister ) " No, figures. Well, landscapes and figures," said Gertrude rather doubtfully. " I can't quite recall any of his pictures last year. Oh, yes ! ' The Cider Makers ;' don't you remember ? Rather a large But I beg your pardon, Mr. Vanlennert ; please go on and tell us about your adventure." " There was no adventure. He isn't half a bad chap, any way, whatever he paints. Well, we were walking through a wood ; he was first, this girl next, and I was last.

Suddenly her foot slipped, and before you could say Jack Robinson she had shot down a little slope and went over the edge. I suppose the fir-needles had made her boots slippery." " What edge ?" said Molly. " Well, there was a stream below, running down the valley ; and this wood was on the hill-side. It was a precipice, no doubt, which she rolled over — forty or fifty feet down to the stones in the river-bed ; enough to do for you, I daresay. When I got to the edge she had really gone over, and was hanging to a root with one hand. It was rather a touch-and go thing." " How dreadful I" said Mrs. Orcher. " What did you do ? Wasn't her father frightened to death ?" " She went over so quickly that she hadn't time even to cry out. It was my ' hollo 1' which made him turn round. I had to run down the slope.

Well, then, of course, I went down flat and caught hold of her. He held my legs. I gradually worked down till I could get a tight grip. She put her arms round my neck." " That was nice," said Gerard Vanlennert. " I told her to," said Bertie, with one of his quick smiles. " It was a pity, perhaps, she wasn't older," said Mrs. Forster. " I was rather glad myself. If she hadn't been so light she might have pulled me over after her. Her father was in such a funk — fright, that he didn't half hold on to my feet." " Was she hurt ?" said Silvia. " Yes. She'd scratched her arm rather, and her ankle was badly sprained or worse, a tendon broken or something. She wasn't well when I said good-bye." " Was that soon after the accident?" said Molly. " A week," he replied, looking a little self-conscious in spite of himself.

" He is a boy," said Silvia to herself once more. " What do you think of him ?" said Gertrude Forster to her sister opposite, as Sir William slumbered in his corner of the carriage on their way home. " Oh, I like him," said Silvia ; and Gertrude was glad that she had not replied " Who? Mr. Vanlennert?" For her own part, Gertrude had made identically the same reflection about him which had twice crossed the mind of Silvia, that he was a mere boy. Gertrude had very different views for her sister.