In the City of Flowers; or, Adelaide's awakening

Front matter

O Florence, with thy Tuscan fields and hills, Thy famous Arno, fed with all the rills, Thou brightest star of star -bright Italy ! Coleridge. OR, ADELAIDE'S AWAKENING BY EMMA MARSHALL Author of " UNDER THE MENDIPS," " IN COLSTON'S DAYS" "ON THE BANKS OF THE OUSE," &C. LONDON SEELEY & CO., 48, ESSEX STREET, STRAND TO MY FRIENDS IN THE CITY OF FLOWERS. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. DRYB0R0UGH - I II. LADY ANNA - - 25 III. AN ENCLOSURE - - - - 49 IV. THE TIDE TURNS - - - - - 73 V. EN ROUTE - - - - 99 VI. COMPLICATIONS - - - 1 28 VII. SAN MINIATO - - - 155 VIII. AWAKENING - - - 181 IX. "LE PREMIER PAS" - - - 209 X. ONLY A NAME - - - 231 XI. PROBLEMS HARD TO SOLVE - 266 XII. DISCLOSED ------ 303 XIII. IN CRUTTWELL COURT AGAIN - - 327 XIV. "VAIN IS THE HELP OF MAN" - - - 35 1 XV. UNDER A NEW MASTER - - - 373 XVI. AFTER ONE YEAR -

Chapter I. Dryborough

Cruttwell Court stood within a mile of the old county-town of Dryborough ; a town which had defied the march of modern improvement, and held almost fiercely to its ancient traditions. When the railway came within an easy distance of the town, and a board was put up at the little roadside station, on which was painted in large letters " Dryborough Junction," a step was made in the direction of progress. The landlord of the Crown Inn started a smart omnibus, which travelled the four miles of straight sandy road three times a day, to meet the trains. But very often the omnibus rumbled back empty, and the people who turned to look at it as it passed were disappointed if they had hoped to see a passenger inside. A dusty pedestrian might perchance have been picked up, or a basket and a hamper for the Court, but of paying passengers there were few Naturally a town thus self-contained and self supporting did not, as a rule, desire incursions from the outer world.

Of course there were excep tions to this rule, as to every rule — the landlord of the Crown Inn was one. He had set his hopes high when the branch line was opened from Tillingham, on an access of customers : strangers who wished to see the fine old church, the ruins of the castle, and the old gateway leading to the Court. But apparently these antiquities of Dryborough did not attract the general public, and the spirits of the landlord of the Crown sank, and he began to think seriously of stopping the omnibus. People held their own at Dryborough. No one attempted to question the fact that Dr. Townley was the cleverest surgeon to be found in the United Kingdom. Had not his father — yes, and his grand father — held the whole practice of the neighbourhood in his hands, including the family at the Court ?

Once or twice a smart young doctor had come to try his fortune in Dryborough, but he had been promptly " snuffed out," as the doctor expressed it. Was not his own qualified assistant and pupil worth fifty such whipper - snappers ? Then there was Miss Castigan, who had educated the young ladies of Dryborough for forty years, first as her mother's assistant, then as sole principal, with resident governesses at her command. Could any new-fangled High School mistress touch the hem of Miss Castigan's garment ? Dryborough answered DRYBOROUGH. 3 that question by a hearty negative, and a succession of girls, from the children of the vicar and his curate, and the lawyer and land-agent, were finished by Miss Castigan, and finished well. Miss Castigan was decidedly aristocratic in her notions, and she drew her line of demarcation at the children of shopkeepers and farmers.

"A distant con nection " of hers — whom some people believed to be her first cousin — met the wants of the " lower class " in a smaller house in the High Street. Miss Castigan held strictly to the " upper class," as in duty bound, when entrusted with the education of Hester Pon sonby and Adelaide Millington. It is true that both girls had now finished their education, but there was still some connection kept up, as Adelaide continued her drawing and painting lessons under the care of a niece of Miss Castigan ; and Hester still received lessons in music from the organist of the church, who acted as music and singing master at Miss Castigan's school. Miss Castigan, by-the-bye, disliked the word "school," and never spoke of anything but her "establishment." Cruttwell Court, surrounded by its fir-trees, which flourish in that sandy soil and clothe the slopes which the Dryborough people count for hills, was a solemn sombre house.

In the burning heat of a July noontide, the shadow of the firs might be welcome, perhaps ; but in the dark days of winter their plumy branches seemed to shut out light, and life, and brightness, from Cruttwell. i — The Squire who reigned there was a gouty, irascible invalid, dependent on his wife for attention within doors, and on his agent, Mr. Smithers, for the management of his estate out of doors. His wife, Lady Mary Beauchamp, always seemed like a plant which gets neither sun nor air. She was tall and stately. Her face was pale, and she never wore any bright colours to relieve the monotony of her appearance. The Squire had no children by his second marriage, but there was a tradition in the town that his first wife had left him a son. Mystery shrouded the Squire's past. He had left Cruttwell Court for many years ; when he returned to it, he brought the daughter of an Irish peer to be mistress of the house, and to minister to his whims, which seemed to increase in number ever}' year.

Lady Mary was a good and gentle woman, who probably had told out some story of romance in her youth, and in later times had accepted the offer of a home and a husband, when Irish affairs were getting more and more hopeless, and her brother, the Earl of Fernclyffe, had candidly confessed he was unable to pay her the small yearly income to which she was entitled by her father's will from the estate. If the estate paid one shilling where it once had paid twenty, what was the Earl to do ? It was plain Lady Mary must find some means of support. There was nothing left for her but to marry — the only thing a woman of her position, it seems, can DRYBOROUGH. 5 do in such circumstances : noblesse oblige ! For Lady Mary could scarcely have been a nursery governess or lady-help, and she was not educated even up to the standard of Miss Castigan's establishment, for a higher position.

Thus, falling in with the Squire at a German bath — whither he had gone for the cure of his gout — Lady Mary accepted his offer, and found herself, to her own and Lord Fernclyffe's supreme satisfaction, provided for for life. The quiet of Cruttwell Court, and the absence of society in Dryborough, was congenial rather than other wise, and when her cousin, Mrs. Ponsonby, came as a widow to live in a small house between the Court and the town, Lady Mary was quite content. Mrs. Ponsonby had one child, a girl, who was, as we know, one of the most desirable of Miss Castigan's pupils, and Adelaide Millington was her chief friend. Adelaide's stepfather had married her mother long before she could remember, and her step-sisters were only reminded by the difference in name that they were the children of another father.

Mr. Wardlaw, indeed, was perhaps more inclined to spoil Adelaide than his own girls, and she had the reputation of being very clever, and altogether of a superior type, reaching a standard of excellence to which her two dull little sisters might, by Miss Castigan's showing, never hope to attain. They were rather proud of having Adelaide for a sister ; jealousy did not enter their heads ; and what with Hester Ponsonby's warm affection, which blinded ner to any faults in Adelaide, it was not to be wondered at that she valued herself pretty highly, and was quite satisfied to be told that she was the coming artist, whose pictures might one day be hung at the Royal Academy, fetch a large price, and raise her family to affluence. Mr. Wardlaw was one of those men who make shipwreck in life from a certain want of persistence in any one direction.

He had a small fortune, which made absolute work for his living unnecessary. He dabbled in literature, and edited certain books of old classics. He had taken Holy Orders early in life, had been a master at a public school, then retired to a country living, where he hoped, he said, to end his days. But after a few years he tired of " the com mon round and daily task." His enforced duties became irksome to him, and he resigned his living, which was not twenty miles from Dryborough, to which he was attracted by seeing a house advertised to let, near the church and with a fine view of the castle and the ancient Norman gateway of Cruttwell Court. Mrs. Wardlaw always acquiesced in what her husband wished ; and though leaving the home where she had been so happy, and her children had been born, was pain and grief to her, she bravely accepted the inevitable, and about ten years from this time had made her home in the house at Dryborough, which Mr. Wardlaw had really taken without consulting her.

DRYBOROUGH. 7 He had a large room at the back of the house for his study, which held his books, and the two little rooms, one on either side of the small passage, were enough for his wife and the children. Mr. Ward law sank down into contented appreciation of the retirement of Dryborough, and supplemented Miss Castigan's education with a little Latin and Italian, which Adelaide caught up readily enough ; while Nina and Susie shed bitter tears over the old gram mars, which represented to them nothing but hard words they could neither learn nor understand. I said the fir-trees which shadowed Cruttwell Court were a welcome shade in summer, and it was on a hot August afternoon that Adelaide Millington and her friend Hester were slowly walking up the avenue from the old gateway. Nothing could be more picturesque than the far stretching avenue, as the sun pierced the dark plumes of the firs, and shot bright beams of golden light across the drive, at the farther end of which the house was seen — a solid block of gray stone, which, even in the surrounding brightness, looked grave and solemn.

One of Adelaide's arms was linked in Hester's, and under the other she carried a portfolio. " Do you really think Lady Mary will care to see the picture ?" Adelaide asked. " Of course she will ; it is so lovely. You know that, Adelaide !" Adelaide untied the string of the portfolio, and took out a water-colour drawing of a boy fishing by a stream. " Sit down a minute, Hester," she said, making a rest of her knees, against which the folio leaned, and looking half fondly, half sadly at her latest pro duction. " It wants something," she said with a sigh ; " I see that ; but I don't know what it wants." " I don't think it wants anything. Miss Castigan says it is the best picture you have ever done ; and so did Mrs. Birley; and mother says she would give anything if I could do one thing well, instead of being a Jack-of-all-trades and master of none.

I can't think what is the matter with you, Adelaide, to-day. You are so dreadfully in the dumps. It is so strange, when you ought to be pleased." " Pleased !" Adelaide exclaimed, starting up ; "of course I am pleased. But you know, Hester, some times I should be glad of a little real criticism. I never can get that here, because no one knows how to give it. Of course I can paint — and no one can paint as well in Dryborough. But since I went to London and saw the Academy and the National Gallery, I have felt an immense longing to see more, to know more. Dryborough is not the world, and yet we all think it is." " It is a very pleasant world to me," said Hester. " I am very well contented. I have you for a friend, to begin with ; and I like Mary Birley very much, and some of the girls at Miss Castigan's are nice enough."

Cruttwell Court. DRYBOROUGH. 9 " And some of the boys at the Vicarage, too," Adelaide said, laughing; " this one, for instance." As she spoke the figure of a young man was seen coming from under the old Norman gateway, and after a quick look right and left he advanced to the stump of a tree, where the two girls were sitting. "Oh!" said Hester, with a heightened colour, " do come and look at Adelaide's picture. Is it not lovely ?" " I am not a great judge of pictures," Hugh Birley said ; " that is, not pictures on cardboard. I prefer living ones, like that I saw just now through the gateway — a study in pink and white !" he added, with an admiring glance at Hester's pretty pink cotton dress, which contrasted with Adelaide's white canvas. Hugh Birley was at Oxford, and flattered himself he knew a little more of the world than the generality of people living in Dryborough.

He was neither particularly clever, nor particularly good-looking, but a little self-confidence goes a long way, and there were some people who looked upon the Vicar's son as a person of distinction, and he accepted the position as if it were his right. It was not likely that two people who each set a high value on themselves should agree very well together. Adelaide thought Hugh conceited, and he thought her very ignorant of the ways of the world. " She ought to know that ridiculous baggy gown is out of fashion now. What a guy she makes of herself in that big hat, too ! But she does very well as a foil, and makes the study in pink and white complete," he thought, as he watched Adelaide re placing the picture in the portfolio, and preparing to walk towards the house. " We are going up to see Cousin Mary," Hester said.

"She always admires Adelaide's painting, as everyone does." Adelaide was a little in advance — perhaps pur posely — and Hugh Birley lingered at a slower pace by Hester's side, also purposely. As they drew near the house, Hester looked rather anxiously onward, to see if Mr. Beauchamp were on the terrace. She knew that the presence of Hugh Birley, or, indeed, any young man, was an irritation to the Squire. It was said of Lady Mary that she was the only person in the world who did not lose patience with the invalid. She was never heard to answer him sharply, or even shortly. " Cousin Mary is never snappish," Hester would say. " She has the most provokingly good temper. I do like people to fire up sometimes. It is dull to be always the same, and never to contradict anyone. Cousin Mary provokes me."

Perhaps she provoked the Squire, too. There is such a thing as being angry when you fail to make someone else angry. It is not too much to say that Mr. Beauchamp would have been better pleased to see his wife lose her self-control, and, as he said, " pay him back in his own coin." But in all the DRYBOROUGH. 11 twelve years of their married life he had never suc ceeded in this not very amiable desire. Hester saw that no one was on the terrace, and that Adelaide had gone round to the lawn on the other side of the house. On this lawn a large French window opened from Lady Mary's morning room. Adelaide found her there, as she expected, enjoying the quiet hour which the Squire's nap after his luncheon afforded her. She was sitting to-day in her arm-chair, her head thrown back, and her long white hands folded in her lap ; when she saw Adelaide she started up.

" Hester is here — we came up together ; and as you were not on the terrace I came round. I hope I did not frighten you, Lady Mary. Perhaps I ought to have gone round to the hall-door." " No, my dear ; you are always welcome here. But where is Hester ?" " Hugh Birley overtook us, and he is with her, I suppose." Lady Mary was on the alert at once. " Oh, my dear, I must go and tell Hester that I cannot invite Mr. Birley to come in. Mr. Beau champ's chair may be wheeled on the terrace at any moment, and — and — as you know, he does not care for the society of young men. It rather bores him, and perhaps ' Lady Mary broke off suddenly in her speech. She had that habit, and on this account her conversation was often disjointed and rather difficult to follow. Lady Mary now hastily put up a sunshade and stepped out on the lawn, Hester's rippling laugh falling on her ear, as she stood at the corner of the house with Hugh Birley.

" Come and sit in the shade under these trees," Lady Mary said, answering Hester's greeting with a kiss. " Will you come, too, Mr. Birley ?" " I did not know whether I might set my foot on this enchanted ground. It is, I know, a forbidden territory, like the garden of Princess Ida," Hugh Birley said with a bow and a smile. But Lady Mary did not smile. She merely said : " There is a nice seat under that tulip-tree ; shall we go there ? How is your mother to-day, Hester ?" " Mother has one of her bad headaches," was the reply. " She sent her love to you, Cousin Mary, and I was to thank you for the flowers and the strawberries." " The roses have been very fine this year. Now they are nearly over, and we must look forward to the autumn blossoming," Lady Mary replied. " Adelaide has brought you her last picture to see, Cousin Mary ; I am sure you will like it.

Do show it, Adelaide." But Adelaide, who had seated herself on the bench, had put the portfolio on the ground, and did not seem inclined to open it. DRYBOROUGH. 13 " I shall show it, if you do not," Hester said, springing towards the portfolio. But Adelaide was too quick for her, and had got possession of it before Hester could unfasten the strings. " It does not answer to throw pearls before perhaps that is what Miss Millington is thinking. Now with Lady Mary's permission," Hugh said, " I will stroll up to the summer-house at the top of the plantation, and when I am gone the pearl may be disclosed." He looked at Hester, and said : " Will you come ?" " May we, Cousin Mary ?" Hester asked. Lady Mary, who had been thinking over the easiest way of getting rid of Hugh Birley, said : " Yes, certainly.

And, Hester, do you mind going out at the gate at the top of the plantation, and then coming back here for Adelaide ? Mr. Birley will excuse seeing the Squire, for " " I had never dreamed of that honour," said Hugh, with a bow which was half sarcastic and half deferential. " I will not intrude further upon you, and, having seen Miss Ponsonby safely to the farther side of the grounds, I will take my leave." " Yes — thanks— that will be best, because — I don't know " The speech was unfinished ; but Hester had turned away, so that if it had been finished it would not have been heard. " Does Hester's mother approve of that friendship ?" Lady Mary said. " You see so much more of the Ponsonbys than I do, perhaps you can tell me, Adelaide." " Indeed I don't know what Mrs. Ponsonby thinks about Hugh Birley. / think him very conceited and disagreeable, and I only wonder at Hester's taste."

Adelaide's eyes flashed, and her lips curled. Then gentle Lady Mary laid her hand on the portfolio. " Let me see this picture, my dear. I am sure I shall admire it." Instead of the pride and delight with which Ade laide generally showed her performances, she said, with a sudden ring of sadness in her voice : " I don't think it is worthy to be admired. There is something wrong in the figure — it looks so stiff — and I could not get the leaves right. The sky may be pretty, but not the trees ; they ought to look as if they were waving, not as if the}7 were as straight as pokers. Oh, Lady Mary, I do so wish I could go and copy good pictures ■ not stupid things like the copies Miss Smart gives me ! I read in a book the other day that there was nothing so useful as the study of the Old Masters."

" Would you like to try and copy some of the old portraits here?" Lady Mary asked. "There are two or three rather pretty pictures. I do not know much about art, but, still, I believe they are thought to be good pictures. And, you know " " I know you are very kind," Adelaide said. " I wish very much to begin oil-painting ; it is so much DRYBOROUGH. 15 easier. If you make a mistake in water-colours, it is made for ever ; in oils, you can paint over and over again, and it does not matter. I will try and save up and buy a box of oil-paints and an easel, and then perhaps you will really let me try ?" " Indeed I will. Would you like to sell this picture ?" Adelaide's face flushed crimson. " Of course I should like to sell it, only I should not like anyone to feel obliged to buy it." " Well, leave it with me, my dear, and I will send it to Tillingham and get it nicely framed, and then find a purchaser.

My sister, who thinks of wintering in Florence, is very fond of pictures ; she may like this — at least — well, there is no harm in trying. And if not " " Imagine living in Florence ["Adelaide exclaimed; " how delightful ! I really do not think anyone in Dryborough ever thought of Florence or the picture galleries there. I was reading about the Pitti Palace in a book of father's the other day, and of the won derful pictures at the Uffizi. Here is the Squire !" Adelaide said, starting up. " Perhaps I had better go now?" Lady Mary waited to give an answer till she saw in what mood her lord and master might be. If fractious and contradictious, Adelaide had better go ; if, as was sometimes the case, he was inclined to be friendly to Adelaide, she might stay to tea, and wait for Hester's return.

The Squire was hobbling along with the help of his servant's arm and a stick. " Mary," he called — " Mary, what are you doing in the sun ? I can't sit out of doors. Come and read the paper to me in your room ; it is too hot — too hot for anything ! Take care, you rascal ! you'll throw me over !" These words were addressed to a frolicsome young Dachshund, who had just been let out from a long imprisonment, and was in a state of rapture only to be expressed by leaping frantically upon everyone, and wriggling at Mr. Beauchamp's gouty feet, en cased in black cloth slippers edged with fur. How Blitz yearned to get hold of that fur and worry it ! But his mistress called him off: "Blitz, Blitz! here !" Then she went down the grassy slope to her husband's side, and said : " It is very cool here under the tulip-tree.

Won't you try it ?" " No ; I won't. I don't want to be eaten up by midges. And how am I to get up to that seat ? Who is that ?" he asked in a rasping voice. " Only Adelaide Millington." "Oh !" said the Squire, with a grim laugh, " the young artist. The future Madame le Brun or Angelica Kauffman who wants to take my portrait —eh, Miss Addy ?" Of all things Adelaide hated to have her name shortened. Her name altogether was rather a grievance to her. She would have preferred some- DRYBOROUGH. 17 thing more suggestive. She only associated the name of Adelaide with the portrait of the Queen of William IV., with her stiff sausage curls and, in her eyes, ugly cap, with large bows. And, indeed, the name had come to Adelaide direct from that good Queen. An aunt of her father's had been lady in-waiting to the Queen Dowager.

She was god mother to her little grand-niece, and stipulated that she should be named Adelaide. Sometimes when Mr. Wardlaw called her with the soft Italian pro nunciation of every vowel — Adelaide — she was more reconciled ; but Addy ! She detested the Squire on many accounts, but I think the chief cause of offence was that habit of calling her " Miss Addy." The Squire was to-day in a good-temper — for him — as his man-servant, Preston, had told Mrs. Veal, the housekeeper. " For him " implied a great deal, and only meant, I am afraid, that Mr. Beauchamp had not thrown a book or his stick at Preston, or poured out a torrent of words which cannot well be written here, when his leg was bathed ! " I think I had better say good-bye, Lady Mary," Adelaide said. " I shall meet Hester at the east gate, and I can take her home to tea.

Good-bye, Mr. Beauchamp," she said, with a little dignified bow. " Where are you off to ? Nonsense ; stay and amuse me a little. When are they going to bring tea ? Everyone seems half-asleep. Yes, I'll sit out of doors ; who said I wouldn't ? What are you about, Mary?" " I was bringing your easy-chair near the window," Lady Mary said. " I thought you preferred being in the house." " Nonsense ! I said I didn't wish to sit under that tree ; I didn't say I wished to be broiled indoors. Look sharp now, my lady, and order tea, and spread the rug on the ground and pull the chair out. It ought to have been ready, Preston, you blockhead!" At last all the preparations were made, and the Squire sank heavily, with a growling sigh, into his chair. Almost at the same moment a footman appeared with a basket tea-table, and Hester came round from the front of the house.

Hester, with her round, good-tempered face, her bright smile and pretty lithe figure, was by no means a favourite with the Squire, while "Addy," with her quaint dress and artistic aspirations, interested him. He loved to tease her, and to see her flush with annoyance. Especially he liked to joke about her pictures, and laugh at the calm manner in which she would take any amount of praise from his gentle wife and Mrs. Ponsonby, and, as he was pleased to say, her "baby-faced daughter." The Squire had a strange, and to some people, un accountable dislike to young men. He had never a civil word for any who by chance came to the Court — and by chance or design there were very few. Hugh Birley was not easily discomposed, but even he rather shrank from exposing himself to a battery from Mr. Beauchamp.

Some people said that the reason DRYBOROUGH. 19 of the Squire's dislike to young men was to be found in the fact of his own childless condition. There was no son to inherit Cruttwell Court, and it would devolve on a distant cousin, whom the Squire had never seen or wished to see. As the estate was en tailed on male heirs, Godfrey Lysaght inherited it as the son of the son of a younger brother. He had married a Lysaght, and had taken the name with his wife. The Squire never made Godfrey Lysaght any sign of kinship, and, secure as to his claim, Godfrey had left his irascible kinsman to himself. There had been some flutter in the Lysaght family when the Squire married Lady Mary, and Godfrey Lysaght's father, who was then living, had waited anxiously lest there should be any children born of the marriage.

All fears had, however, been set to rest before his death, and Godfrey felt secure as the heir of a fine property and an old house, where Beauchamps had lived for many generations. It was believed that Godfrey had not even seen Cruttwell Court — certainly he had not made himself known there; and he was, in fact, a mythical personage, about whom no one ever thought or wished to think. " Well, where do you come from ?" was the Squire's greeting to Hester. " Have you been galli vanting with that young jackanapes? I caught a glimpse of him from the window. He knows better than to come here — the wisdom of a wise dog, eh, Miss Addy ?" Hester had no quick repartee ready, but Adelaide 2 — came to the rescue for her friend: " I should think you might wait till Mr. Birley showed the folly of the foolish dog, Mr. Beauchamp, before you talk of taking strong measures."