Maude Talbot

Chapter I. The Oriel Chamber At Old Court

A GREAT North of England Town. A Ioav quarter, abandoned almost exclusively to the poorer artisans, and those nondescript charac ters who are the dregs of every manufacturing population. A dense labyrinth of narrow, filthy streets; huge red-brick factories; giant chimneys overlooking all, blackening all with smoke. The rain coming doAvn with a wiry pertinacity that refuses to be entreated ; the sky low, leadcn-hued; the wind making sudden rushes round sharp corners, and, finding no thoroughfare, howling at its baffled efforts to escape from the hundred and one blind alleys in which it has lost itself; AA-histling and swirling amongst crooked tumble-down chim- A neys ; invading the privacy of dark foul garrets through half open traps ; shouting loud nothings to the daws in the crazed tower of St Grim; admonishing those who have firesides to seek them speedily ; and suggesting to those who have none, thoughts of the comparative ease and comfort of those narrow homes under the church walls, which men, be they never so mean, never so hard of heart, are not apt to begrudge each other.

Saturday7 afternoon. The clock on the stroke of four. The streets are almost empty. Here and there a group of adventurous child ren, revelling in the mud, unsuspicious of irate mothers about to swoop down amongst them ; a masterless cur or two, wet and blear eyed, almost savage with hunger and per secution. St Grim's clock is a rigid time marker. One, two, three, four. Spite of wind, spite of rain, the lanes and streets and alleys, are all alive now. Pourin" out from the factory gates come crowds of men, Avomen, girls. The rude jostlings, the foul abuse, the often and unprovoked oath, the THE OBIEL CHAMBER. diseased frames, the discontented faces, the angered hearts and warped minds, are all there. Policy does not counsel concealment amongst these untaught human beings. The naked hideousness of brazened vice stands out palpable ; challenging rebuke, but receiving none.

They have their week's wages. Some go to their poverty-smitten homes : amongst the men, few. There are flaring taverns at every street corner, which seem to drive a flourishing trade from the groups who press w7ithin their doors. Women too, and girls : girls of fourteen, with gaudy handkerchiefs over their hair, and countenances morally and physically hardened. Not all such, however. Some go their way silently to the wretched homes which they share with many others like themselves. In half an hour or so the wind has the streets to itself again ; an occasional click of pattens on the wet flags, announcing the transit of some marketing mother of a family from " the shop" to her expectant flock, is the only sound that breaks the incessant drop, drop of the rain in the streaming gutter. Twilight is clouding over, and the wind rises higher with the night ; how bitter cold it is.

There is a solitary woman breasting her way resolutely against the blast ; her cloak wrapped tightly round her shoulders, her umbrella up and held steadily ; neither rain nor storm seem to have much effect on her, though she does not disdain the partial shelter afforded by a huge, dead stone wall. Just as St Grim's clock strikes five, she stops at a low postern gate sunk in the wall ; inserts a key into the lock, a sturdy turn, a push, and she stands within a great flagged court-yard. It is quite another country from that beyond the gate. In the uncertain light, it looks a strange ghost ly place. There are two toavs of bare trees, waving their branches wildly against the sky, and creaking dismally in the blast as it goes shrieking about their tops, as if they were afraid their hour was come : as well they may be, for there is scarce a living tree within miles of them, and how they have survived so long is little short of a miracle.

The back ground is a huge pile of masonry, seeming huger in the misty twilight. Very lofty and very irregular ; wonderful stacks of chim neys ; quaint windows, peering out of the roof like eyes ; oddly fashioned gables; projecting upper stories ; doors in unexpected places ; windows of all forms and all sizes; an oriel about the centre, sheAving by its red glow that there is a bright fire wdthin ; under it a vast heavy door, with a great flight of steps worn hollow in the middle by the foot-steps of comers and goers, not of the present day, but of past times, when Old Court Avas a favoured resi dence of the Earls Talbot; before they, in their munificence, when they found it no longer a fit habitation for themselves, scantily endoAved it as a refuge for forty destitute gentleAvomen. Time was, no longer than eighty years ago, when fields and waving Avoods were round Old Court, instead of SAvarming hives of human industry.

But those things lived only in tradition, or the memory of the oldest inha bitant; though the building itself held its ground, an abode of unimpeachable respec tability : in the mob, but not of it; as distinct in all its belongings and associations from its modern neighbours, as were these flaring redbrick structures, from its weather - stained walls and ivy-wreathed gables. Within its wide court-yard is a more dreary seclusion than would easily be found amongst the wilds of nature : in most respects it is a suitable house for those human relics of de cayed gentility Avho find a retreat, there to end their pilgrimage. Everything about it has the stamp of a past age ; from the mutilated griffins peering down from the pillars of the entrance, to the moss-grown flags beyond the avenue. It is also highly suggestive of the independent and conflicting tastes of its various possessors.

The main body of the building is Tudor, but an anglo-corinthian portico juts out beneath an oriel window ; and a wing after the Italian manner is curiously dove-tailed into the original edifice at one extremity, whilst an unpretending addition in brick and mortar balances it at the other. The thick ivy par tially conceals these discrepancies, and when the sun does make its way down into Old Court yard, there is a quaint, monastic repose about its look, very refreshing after the turmoil and hubbub incessantly surging without its walls. But in the October twilight, it has an unmitigated scoavI of ghostliness and decay, by no means pleasant to contemplate. Some such thought as this hastens the woman's steps up to the door. Heavy as it looks, it is not difficult to open : a single turn of the key and the wind does the rest : and darting in after her, makes a hasty inspection of all the remote corners, and then rushes back, hoping to escape out into the night again ; but finding the door shut, it abandons it for mysterious corridors, and interminable staircases, and abyss-like chimneys.

The hall is not quite in darkness, but nearly so : a little oil-lamp stands on a bracket by the empty fire-place, and another in a corner of the first great landing-place ; the feeble lights flick er in the eddying gusts and cast strange shadowy shapes on the walls, as if some of the spirits of the restless Talbots had left the vaults of St Grim to hold a meeting in the place Avhich they had tenanted in life, aud probably reluctantly abandoned in death : for if tradition and legend spake truth, they had in old times been more notorious for the strong arm and daring spirit, than the just and holy heart. Up the bare stairs the woman gropes her Avay, still folding her cloak closely about her, and scarcely able to repress a shiver as the wind sweeps up before her. The nearer she ap proaches the top of the stairs, the more her step lags, and on the last she actually sits down, rocks herself to and fro, and, from the stifled sound, weeps.

It is very evident that the Oriel Room, brightly as its window glows in the October twilight, is not the pleasant place it would appear. She does not rest long, but rises suddenly, and before she gives her self time to change again, is in the room, — the largest and most cheerful-looking in Old Court ; but not happy, nevertheless. The fire is piled high in the grate, and gives out light and heat enough to fill even that vast apartment, with its Oriel window at the upper end, almost a room of itself. The black wainscoat catches the gleams and shines duskily ; the red curtains of a carved oaken bedstead in a recess, and its white r coverlid folded down from several heaped up pillows, daintily frilled ; the low, cushion ed couch ; the few pictures in handsome but old frames, and choice in themselves ; the antique china vases filled with evergreens, and the soft carpet covering the floor, sufficiently attest the luxurious tastes of the ancient personage who occupies the Oriel Chamber, — tastes which neither age nor poverty have sufficed wholly to obliterate.

She is sitting in a high-backed chair, prop ped up with pillows ; her thin features drawn into a peevish, querulous expression ; her eyes, overshadowed by brows, arched, and still black, are fixed on thc fire; her elboAvs rest on the arms of her chair ; her hands, white and transparent, are clasped. She has not a word or a look for the new comer. She looks the very beau ideal oi a cross, discontented, unhappy old woman. " How do you feel now, grandmama? " said the other, coming up to her chair and bend ing down towards her. " Neither better nor worse, Miriam : do make haste and get me my chocolate. I thought you were never coming home to-night. I think you might have consideration enough for me to recollect how much I hate to be alone," said the elder lady. Without remov ing any part of her walking attire except her heavy cloak, Miriam drew a small table to her grandmother's side, and in a few minutes the impatient lady was consoling herself with a cup of hot chocolate, and some delicate biscuits.

Having thus administered to the wants of her exacting relative, Miriam Sedley went into an inner room, small and much less choicely furnished, but her own undisputed and private retreat : there she could indulge herself in a sigh of weariness, and even occasionally in a tear or two ; but now she hastily disembarrassed herself of all her outer garments, put on a loose wrapping gown of dark stuff, and immediately returned to the larger room. For a minute or two she stood musing before the fire, the red glow thrown upwards on her figure and face. A young, beautiful girl ? Nothing of the kind: her grandmother in the high-backed chair, with the attenuated haughty features, is far more of a picture than she is. She is a little, dark person, and might be taken for any age between twenty and forty.

There is some character in her face : not much feminine softness perhaps, and no strict regularity of feature, but a deep, steady eye, a firm lip, and broad brow : no lines of strong suffering or painful thought, but a quiet energy to do, and a resolute fortitude to endure : and much need has she for them. Her complexion is absolutely colourless, but not unhealthy, and her hair is very dark and abundant. It is just possible that in other circumstances hers might have been a distinguished countenance, but in the coarse stuff gown, unrelieved by trimming or or nament, the evidences of work and privation arc too glaring for her slight figure and quiet face to overbalance them. Her few moments of reflection passed, she seated herself at a table a short distance from the fire, lighted a lamp, and opened out her embroidery frame.

During the day a teacher of music, she was at night a needlewoman. It Avas hard dnnlgerv, but Miriam was not one to murmur that all her time and all her labour went to gratify the selfish Avhims of her aged relative : it Avas a duty, — pity that it could not be made a pleasant one ! For an hour or more the only sounds in the room were the sharp click of Miriam's needle, and the cinders dropping from the bars. Mrs Sedley was meditative, or dosing: things synonymous in her vocabulary ; it Avas quite a relief to the painful silence Avhen St G rim's clock struck eight. For a Avhile after that, Miriam's needle rather lagged over its gay flower-work : her fingers Avere tired, and her eyes ached with gazing on the bright tints. Her grandmother had been roused by the striking of the hour, and iioav sat peering at her coldly, almost angrily, from beneath her heavy brows.

Miriam never idled long, and after a few minutes' pause she went on ; not so rapidly as at first, but mechanically, steadily : quite unconscious of the unloving look that Avatched her so keenly. " You are not like other girls, Miriam, how stupid and dull you groAv. I shall not know you soon if you go on in this mopish way. What a dress you disfigure yourself with ! " said Mrs Sedley. " You forget, grandmama, that I am not a girl now, — I am eight and twenty," replied Miriam, purposely disregarding the lat ter part of her grandmama's observation. " You cannot mean that it is eleven years since Philip Warburton went abroad ? " " Yes, it is eleven years, — long ones they seem to me." " If it were not for the change in your face and looks altogether, I should scarcely think it Avas five years ago : but you are so altered, — so — " Mrs Sedley hesitated.

"So plain, grandrnama— I know it," added Miriam: "but it is fortunate, in my position. If I were beautiful, as you must have been, I could not go from house to house teaching, or asking for embroidery work. No, a beautiful face would be a great hindrance." " I haA'e had a visitor to-day : an unexpect ed one : no other than Philip Warburton," said Mrs Sedley, mollified by the compliment to her vanished beauty. Neither the start, the vivid blush, the deathly pallor that succeeded it, nor the sigh of mingled weariness and trouble with which this announcement was received, escaped her : " You do not say anything, Miriam : I imagined he was a friend of yours." " It is so long ago," replied Miriam, bend ing lower over her embroidery frame: "I was a mere child when he went away ; he must have forgotten me."

" Few women are mere children at seventeen, and Philip Warburton has a tenacious memory." " I shall forgive him, then, if he does not recognise me ; — sometimes I scarcely know myself." " No wonder : you neglect your dress ; and certainly I cannot compliment you on in heriting my taste, or your father's either." Miriam made no reply : it was vain to re mind her selfish relative that her own fancies absorbed all the produce of her grand child's labour; that the decent out-of-door gar ments were so scrupulously hoarded that they might last the longer, and the unbecoming stuff-gown Avas an economical contrivance to save them still farther: — she thought, perhaps, that it was fortunate she did not inherit expensive tastes, since they could never have been lawfully gratified, and so would have become a torment ; as in Mrs Sedley's case.

" It used to be considered disrespectful, when I was a girl, not to reply to our elders," said the old lady stiffly ; " but everything is changed since then — everything." " I meant no disrespect, grandmama." "No tiresome explanations, Miriam, pray !" interrupted Mrs Sedley peevishly : " I really believe you are becoming more stupid and indifferent every day ; — you are almost in sensible, I declare : — perhaps it is as well. You will tell me, next, that you were born Avithout a heart as Avithout beauty : any7 other girl would have feigned, even had she not felt, an interest in an old friend who has been absent for the last ten years and more." Little need of feigning on Miriam's part ;■ she was only too curious, too interested in Philip Warburton, to venture to ask questions about him. She would rather be taunted with insensibility than be suspected of loving unsought.

Yes, the poor teacher was proud. She heard the accusation silently, and only stooped her head a little lower over her frame, and plied her needle more assiduously than before. Mrs Sedley, like some elderly women of narrow capacity and few pursuits, had a great delight in making a mystery out of a trifle, and a malicious pleasure in torturing the curiosity of her grandchild. The expression of Miriam's face was as legible to the keen-eyed old lady as were her sensations to Miriam herself ; never theless it pleased her to accuse her of fail ings which were not hers, and of a want of affection : of which she — miserable, selfish mortal that she Avas — ought to have been the very last to charge her with ; for Miri am's labours were the source from which she drew all her own luxuries and indulgences.

True to her character, Mrs Sedley, after satisfying herself by a tolerably long scrutiny that Miriam was longing to hear everything she could tell of Philip Warbur ton, lay back in her chair, folded her hands, closed her eyes, and settled herself for a comfortable dose ; internally consigning her much-enduring companion to all the torments of suspense. This was nothing new to Miriam; she merely glanced across to where her grandmother sat, and smiled with the slightest possible tinge of bitterness, as she repressed a sigh of disappointment. As the night went on she still worked, and passed in mental revieAv the latter part of her life. It would not bear much reflection : it was very dull and monotonous — nothing to dAvell on with satisfaction ; nothing either to regret, — merely a tedious catalogue of duties done, and annoyances endured.

To say that Philip Warburton was not thought of in that meditative mood Avould be false ; but to tell how or what she thought of him, would be exceedingly difficult. Brought up in that very room, and by that grim old lady, her youth had known but feAV pleasures : its greatest had been the rare visits paid by Philip Warburton, as a school-boy, to her B grandmother, when she was still involved in the mysterious labyrinths of Lindley Murray and cross-stitch ; and later on, but less often still, when he returned from college, grave and seemingly proud, yet with a fund of kindness and gentleness for " little Miriam :" as he al ways persisted in calling her, though she was sixteen. It is doubtful whether he had ever thought anything about her, except as a shrewd, clever girl, who bore with exemplary fortitude, amounting almost to indifference, the wearisome exactions and taunts of an abomin able old woman, whose loss of fortune, and consequently of rank, had embittered a naturally bad temper to an insufferable point.

He had seen many Miriams, — she had never seen but one Philip : there was the difference be tween them. The Oriel Chamber had never looked so dreary as on that afternoon when Philip War burton paid his farewell visit, and that a short one, to Mrs Sedley. More or less he had beeu in Miriam's thoughts daily since that memor able afternoon eleven years before; but whether the news of his visit gave more pain or pleasure now, would be no easy matter to decipher. He had been a pleasant, happy idea to muse upon ; she had chosen to dream for him in stead of herself: — perhaps fivre minutes' inter view might overthrow all her preconceived notions ; and how doubly wearisome her em broidery would become if he were to fall from his high estate in her imagination ! o o But that could scarcely be. She had heard him spoken of by people, who little thought how earnestly the poor music-teacher listened to their remarks, as a popular and rising character, — a man of the times and for the times.

She had yet to learn how much a long-cherished idea is capable of influencing our fate for good or evil. It wras not a wise thing altogether, perhaps, to suffer any one object to engross her thoughts as Philip Warburton had done; — eight-and-twenty should have had more sense ; but Miriam Avas much the same in mind at that venerable age as she had been at eighteen. Her face had faded gradually, and her figure had lost its youthful roundness ; these things, however, she had scarcely considered : she had retrograded, — he had matured. Foreign travel, study, society, for Philip Warburton, — Old Court and daily labour for Miriam Sedley : she was outwardly a middle-aged woman, he a talented, successful man of the world, with no more than thirty years on his shoulders. We are not to suppose that these comparisons entered into Miriam's brain, for they were very far from it indeed : on the whole her reflections must have been of a more enliven ing character; for when St Grim's clock struck ten, and Mrs Sedley roused herself with a grunt, she rose gaily from her seat, and pushed her embroidery frame hastily upon the table.

" Have a little pity on my nerves, Miriam, do ! " exclaimed the old lady sharply ; " give me my wine and water, and I will go to bed. It has been a very unpleasant evening: I might as well live alone as with such a silent, meditative being as yourself." Her behests were complied with in the mechanical manner peculiar to Miriam. The wine and water sipped, and a few devotion al exercises dosed over, Miriam performed TIIE ORIEL CHAMBER. 21 the unenviable office of femme de chambre to her exacting relative. This important duty ended, without more than the usual amount of peevish rebuke, and the red curtains closed round the bed, Miriam rang the bell and returned to her embroidery. Willingly would she have desisted ; but the work was promised by a certain day, and well she knew the penalty she must pay if she forfeited that promise.

In a few minutes the door opened cautiously and softly, and a woman armed Avith sweep ing and hearth brushes, and all the parapher nalia of housemaids' work, came creeping into the room. Miriam turned and nodded her head slightly, then went on with her business. The new comer, who was a very old woman, knelt down before the fire, and proceeded to rake it out, burnish the grate, and replenish it with coal and sticks, for lighting next morn ing; she then pushed the chairs into their places, dusted the ornaments, shook up the sofa-cushions, and in the space of half-an-hour had succeeded in imparting to the place as orderly and comfortless an aspect as it was capable of wearing. " Do you want anything more to-night, Miss Sedley?" asked the portress and house maid-geueral to Old Court. " No, thank you, Martha, nothing more," replied Miriam, looking up.

Martha collected the implements of her profession, and went one step nearer the door. Poor old woman, she was Miriam's salvation ! She was the only creature who spoke a kindly word to her, or ever had seemed to think she could possibly have wants or feelings like other girls. After this nightly service was done, they gene rally talked in a low voice for fear of disturb ing Mrs Sedley ; and though Martha was going all the time she stayed, their chat often extended to twenty minutes or even more. " Gossip with servants is improper," some model reader may exclaim at this : " Miriam degraded herself sadly." — Let me ask — have you been condemned to a life of loneliness and privation like hers ? if not, let me tell you, you are no fit judge for her :— fully to appreciate her position you must endure it.

Poor soul, she would not have thought conversation with the meanest of God's creatures degrad ing ! much less than with so staid and stately a dame as old Martha ; who, clad after the fashion of twenty years before, hating new fangled notions, and precise in her habits and principles, was as respectable as a retainer of so respectable an establishment should be. But Martha shall speak for herself. " I'm sure, Miss Sedley, you will be cold. Pray you now, don't sit up long over that stitch work ; it makes my eyes ache only to look at it : and surely it can't be true, — but they tell me now that they can make car pet work in their looms fifty times finer than ladies can Avork, and cheaper besides." " I am afraid that it is the case, — or will be soon," replied Miriam. " I can't abide them factories!" said Mar tha, spitefully.

Miriam cordially agreed with her. " I may say, with Madam there, everythiug is changed since I was a girl," continued the old Avoinan, pointing to the bed : — " everything. Why, I was born not four hundred yards from this very spot where I am stand ing now. It was in a cottage with a fine oak planting at the back, and a grass field sloping down to the river. Where could you pick out an inch of ground in this brick and mortar wilderness that looks as if it had ever been a country place ? Why, it might have been standing since the flood, it's so black. I think the very seasons themselves is different from what they was : the summers is hot enough, but it is a stifling sort of heat; not bright and shiny like, but a burning fog. Then the winters : they were hard enough to be sure, even then, but they never made such deed amongst poor folks as now.

You didn't hear then of Avomen and childer dying of hunger within a stone's throw of Old Court. The Talbots had a full purse, and they were not close-handed either : — yes, those were the times, — the good times folks like to preach about so much ! " " You are attached to the old race, Martha." " Indeed Miss, and I am. I have eaten of their bread for eighty years and more, and it does spite me to see this new7 order of things : cotton-spinners buying up land over the heads of the old lords ; setting themselves up as their equals and betters; getting made members of parliament and the like ! Cotton lords, for sooth ! cotton muck, say I !" " You are a furious aristocrat, Martha !" said Miriam, smiling at the old Avoman's Avrath. " Somebody had the impudence to poke a paper under the gate yesterday ; I brought it in, thinking it Avas a bill of some sale or other ; but when I came to look at it, I found it was some of their chartist rubbish, about the worst and the weakest going to the wall : — meaning the old nobility, — aristocrats as they call them.

If I had had the man that wrote that paper, I would have asked him a question or tAvo on his own text ; — ay, and answered them for him too. I'd have said, — Tell me, you Sir, has not ' the Order,' as you are pleased to call it : — has not the Order been good and true in its generation ? else why has it stood so long ? Why does it stand yet firm and fast, while your vile mob is howling for its downcome ? Ay, and they may howl on, the vagabonds : it will outlast them !" " There must be a fault somewhere, Martha: a whole people never raises an outcry about nothing. I am almost afraid to pass along the streets sometimes, when I see the men's scowling looks, the women almost worse, and children by dozens rolling in the mud, shrieking out their doggrel rhymes almost before they can speak plain."

" There is a fault, Miss Sedley; and a black fault it is : — a sin, indeed. But it isn't amongst these miserable working fellows : it isn't among the great lords, either ; but amongst them mill owners and the like. They may be clever men, and ' enterprising men,' and all that ; but only look at the riches they've scraped together, some of them. How have they got it, I should like to know, if it is not by grinding the faces of their poor workmen : by giving 'em wages that'll hard ly keep body and soul together ? Oh yes, they've laid up, they have, and gathered into barns ; and much may their gains profit 'em. In nine cases out of ten, these men, risen from the people, make harder masters than these old lords of feudal times, that we read of in books. Then there was some dependence, and somebody to look to in days of trouble : but now, the poor belong to nobody, and as it is nobody's business to see they're fed, so half of 'em starve.