A Romance of the Undercliff; or, the Isle of Wight in 1799

Chapter I. Heybrook

At the end of the last century, in a remote corner of the Isle of Wight, Heybrook Grange nestled in a coombe, lying to the back of the Undercliff, and seldom attracted the notice of casual passers-by on the old road, called Whitwell Street, leading up from St. Lawrence to the village of the same name. Heybrook was half farm, half manor-house, dating in many parts far back in the history of the island — further back than the larger and more important Jacobean mansion in the occupation of a branch of the old family of the Worsleys within two miles' distance. Heybrook had probably been a religious house, connected with the two chapels which form in these days one church belonging to the parish of HEYBROOK. 6 Whitwell. There were at the time in which my story begins, remains of a ruined chapel within a high wall, moss-grown and lichen-covered ; but with here and there a fragment of a pointed arch, or tooth ornament, which seemed to show that the wall had enclosed a small monastery.

The wall had wide gaps in it, through which an uneven piece of turf, where broken stones cropped up in fantastic shapes, stretched to the side entrance of the manor-house, which faced towards the sea ; though nothing could be seen from the windows but the sides of the coombe, with its cushions of heather and prickly gorse-bushes, which in May were a blaze of flowers, golden and sweet. Turning off Whitwell Street, a narrow lane led down into the coombe, where the ruts made by heavy cart-wheels rendered it anything but easy walking for unwary feet. On this December day, in the year 1798, a girl in a bright scarlet cloak, the hood tied under her chin, came with a springing tread down the lane, regardless of ruts and obstacles, for Therese — commonly called Tessa — had " the fall of fairy feet," like the Annie of the Scotch ballad.

Singing too as she came, out of the lightness of heart, which was Tessa de Montazem bert's inheritance from her French ancestry. Quick HEYBROOK. 7 and impulsive in every gesture, Tessa was a marked contrast to her cousin, Dowsabel Bassett, who was standing at the gate leading up to the Grange, apparently watching for her return. The somewhat cumbrous name of Dowsabel had been contracted by most people who knew her into Sabella ; but amongst these people her father would not be reckoned, nor her grave, silent brother, William Bassett, who, like his father, clung to the old family names with great tenacity. " There's always been a Dowsabel in the Bassett family ; only one who turned it into a fingle-fangle, Frenchified name, and took up with a Frenchman for her husband — more shame to her, and trouble to her kith and kin — worse luck," Mr. Bassett would say.

Dowsabel or Sabella Bassett was a large-made young woman of four or five and twenty ; tall, and with a well-proportioned figure ; and with a face on which was written her character. Now some faces are not at all a safe index of the inner man or woman, and are difficult to read ; at least, an observer of such faces is often puzzled by the varying expression of the quick-changing moods. But Dowsabel's fair face was like an open book. Her eyes — large blue eyes — were pure and guileless ; her mouth, which was rather too wide for beauty, had HEYBROOK. lips on which was most truly the law of kindness ; her complexion had the healthful glow which tells of a country life, when the fresh air of heaven blows freely over the strong young body, and gives it all that delicious sense of the fulness of life and vigour which is the best heritage of youth.

As Dowsabel stood waiting till Tessa came up to her, the wind caught, the abundant masses of her light hair, and swelled the shawl thrown over her shoulders, so that Tessa exclaimed laughing — " You look like a ship in full sail, Sabella. There's a fine lot out to sea to-day with the flags flying." " Where have you been, Tessa ? " " To the top of St. Catherine's Hill, of course. What's amiss ? " The girl spoke with a slight foreign accent ; her r's rolled, and she had a pretty little bird-like motion of her head, and made graceful gestures with her hands as she repeated — " What's amiss ? " Nothing more than usual ; but I think father's put out because Antony is not come home. He is spending money in London, and doing no good." " Well, it's pretty dull here. I dare say I would go to London if I had the chance, or Paris — Paris — beautiful Paris !

" HEYBROOK. 9 Dowsabel put her arm round Tessa's little lithe figure, and looking down into her face, said — ■ " London would not be a safe place for you, child, let alone Paris." " Safe, safe ; oh, I think safe places are very dull. Don't be vexed, Sabella — dear, good Sabella ! I love you, and I am content to be where you are." "Listen, Tessa, darling. Don't talk about the French ships or Paris before father ; he does hate to hear about the place ; he thinks it the wickedest place in the world, and the people who live in it wicked too." " Wicked, wicked ! That's only the lie of you English. Was not my father good ? Oh, he was good — it is a lie to say he was wicked." Then the girl broke away from Dowsabel's pro tecting clasp, and said defiantly — "I'll be off to Paris. I will go to one of yonder French ships.

I'll say, ' Take me home — my father's home ; he was the Count de Montazembert ' — and they will listen, for Bonaparte is full of kindness to the haute noblesse ; he does not hate them." Sabella was accustomed to these bursts of passionate defence of Tessa's country and her father's people. She only said quietly — " No one hated your father ; do not speak like that. See, here is William come forth to look for us. It is HEYBROOK. 10 getting dark and cold, and near supper-time, and Grannie will be fidgeting about you." William now came up to the two girls with three or four great strides, and said slowly, looking into Tessa's lovely eyes, where, the storm of passion having died out, tears were glistening — " What's vexed you — eh, Tessa ? " " Nothing you can cure. You are as bad as the rest, I know.

There is only Antony who has any sense, and Antony will never come back, I think." " There's a letter from him. I brought it from Newport, not half an hour agone." " What does he say ? " " Nothing that he ought to say," William replied, deliberately. " Nothing that pleases anybody but himself — that you may be sure." " But I am not sure. I like Antony and his letters ; he has some spirit in him." Humph ! " was all Wrilliam said in reply. And now they were at the front of the house, and through one of the large lattice windows a blazing wood fire was seen, lighting the interior of the wide low kitchen with cheerful radiance. There was a small door between the two wide lattices, and it stood open. A large dog with coarse black and white hair and a pointed nose was lying HEYBROOK. 11 at the entrance on guard.

Beyond was a narrow passage, and on the right was the kitchen where the fire was blazing ; on the left another room, the floor of which was rough and uneven ; and beyond again a smaller chamber, down two or three steps, where guns and pistols and ammunition were kept. These rooms were the oldest part of the house. The kitchen was more modern — if that word could apply to any part of Heybrook — and a parlour opened from it which had a high, semi-circular bay window, blocked on one side by the entrance porch I have described, which abutted on the uneven turf, partly inclosed by ruined walls, and the fragments of what probably was the private chapel of the house in former times. Supper — an early meal, which was served daily, like dinner at noon with unfailing regularity, at five o'clock — was ready, and the farm-servants as well as the two household domestics sat at the lower end of the board.

At the head of the table stood the master of Hey brook, a tall, athletic man between fifty and sixty, with a stern, grave face, and dark, piercing eyes, which flashed from under the shaggy iron -gray brows as he struck the horn handle of the knife on the board and said — " Why do you lag behind, Dowsabel and William ? I wait to ask a blessing. Theresa " — with a marked HEYBROOK. 12 emphasis on the English of the first syllable, the having the full benefit of the letter h— " Theresa, none of your fooling." " Is it fooling to kiss Grannie ? I pray you, if it is, I would as lieve be a fool as a wise man." For coming behind Mrs. Bassett's chair, Tessa had leaned over her, and throwing her arms round her neck, said— " Kiss me, Grannie, and make me feel good." Age had left Mrs. Bassett's cheeks wonderfully free from wrinkles.

Her gray hair was gathered up under a mob-cap, which, surmounted by a black bow, was a becoming head-dress. Her linen kerchief was pinned over the bodice of her stuff gown, made with elbow-sleeves, which were met by mittens manufac tured of the soft, pliant leather known as " beaver." Mrs. Bassett was an old woman, perhaps nearer eighty than seventy, but there was about her the undefinable charm of old age which is gracefully accepted, and not shirked by the affectation of a younger time, in the hope of deceiving others, and often really deceiving itself. Mr. Bassett had a newspaper open before him as he eat and drank, a newspaper William had brought from Newport. But he made no remark till William broke the silence. HEYBROOK. 13 "The Channel is bristling with the French cruisers," he said.

" I have made up my mind to join the volunteers to-morrow. I have told Captain George." "You might do worse," was his father's reply. " If only I were a younger man I would join along with you." " I have spoken to Captain George, up at the great house, and I am to drill with the corps to-morrow." " What will your father do without you on the farm, William ? " " Antony is coming back*," William replied. " Least ways he says so in this letter. He may change his mind again, like as not." Meanwhile Dowsabel had made no remark on this declaration of William's intentions ; but presently she said — " There is nothing doing on the farm now. and William will not be wanted till the spring." " I couldn't hold back," William said, uneasily, conscious that this step he had taken had not pleased one at least of his hearers.

"And who are you going to kill, Will?" Tessa asked. " You'll be pleased enough with your smart coat and sword ; but what if you get killed instead of killing — eh ? " HEYBROOK. 14 Tessa's dark eye flashed with something between amusement and contempt ; and in truth Will Bassett had not much of the warrior about him— in appearance, at least. "I am thinking only of duty," he said, sternly. " If all the strong arms in this island are getting ready to guard it against invaders — well, it's not for me to hang back." "Well spoken, Will," said his father. "And the island will muster strong, or I am much mistaken." " Do they talk of peace, dear Mark ? " asked his mother's gentle voice. " Peace, no — war to the knife ; and we may as well once for all show the rascally Frenchmen that we know how to thrash them."

Tessa suddenly pushed back the bench on which she was sitting, and was gone before either Dowsabel or her grandmother's gentle remonstrance could avail to stop her. Tessa had thrown off her scarlet cloak and hood when she came in to supper, but as she passed the peg where it hung she snatched it up, flung it round her, and was gone out under the clear starlit sky of the winter evening. " Dear Mark," his mother said, " the child's heart is always sore when you speak harshly of her own people." HE YBROOK. 15 " Her own people ! I never heard such rubbish such folly ! It is only her contrary temper, and some mad pride about her father, the trumpery Count. Count, indeed ! There was one fool less in the world when he left it." " Is there really fear of invasion, father ? " Dowsabel asked, trying to bring the subject into a less irritating and personal channel.

" Invasion ! They'll try it, but they won't succeed, though they will do their puny best." " A sloop was boarded to-day off Brading Harbour, and all the crew taken prisoners." " I dare say — I dare say. Well, Will, never trouble about the sloop or the corps ; go and prove yourself a Bassett, which always means, so your grandmother can tell you if she choose, a brave Englishman to the core." When the meal was over, the servants began to clear the board ; and Mrs. Bassett, putting her arm through Dowsabel's, went through the kitchen into the parlour, which was her own special domain. " Where is the poor child, Sabella ? I would she were less passionate. Dearly as I love her, I mourn over her ill-controlled spirit. As I sit here and think of the past, I see how our wages are paid HEYBROOK. even in this life.

I ever indulged the child's mother — my own poor Dowsabel ! — and then she took her own way, and left others to rue the consequences. She must needs go to a school at Southampton ; she must get this and that ; she could not mope here ; and then this Frenchman taught her to love him as well as learn the language, and you know the rest. Return to France, lured by the idea that the King was to rule and have the best of the struggle, instead of being worsted and murdered. Then poor Louis de Montazembert fell, and my child escaped as by a miracle from those awful scenes, and fled here with her child to die broken-hearted. Your father, who had loved her and cherished her after her grandfather's death, was hard, oh ! very hard on her, and — " A quick tapping at the casement of the window made both Dowsabel and her grandmother start.

" Let me in by the big door, Sabella. I want to come in. 1 am good now. The stars are so bright — quick, Sabella! I don't want to go through the other wa)*, because of the big lion's roar, you know." Dowsabel closed -the square of the casement she had opened to hear what Tessa said, and was about to take a big, rusty key from a nail in the wall to open the heavy door under the porch, when Tessa, HEYBROOK. 17 who had been standing on the stone coping below the window, suddenly disappeared, and she said — " I hear William's voice ; he will bring her round the other way, and this door is so hard to open, the key is rusty, and the bolts so stiff." William indeed it was, who had been sorely dis tressed by the scene at supper, and reproaching him self for not trying to stop his father's denunciations of the French.

" Tessa," he said ; " Tessa ! "—but Tessa, when she saw his huge figure making a dark shadow across the uneven turf thrown by the moon just rising in the east, had jumped down from her elevation, and laughing, said — " What do you want, Will ? Catch me, and tell me." Then she began a series of dances over the old stones, with a mocking laugh, repeating, " Catch me," and leaving poor William further from the attainment of his wishes every time he stretched out a hand to catch her. " Tessa, you'll catch a bad fall," he said, as at last she sprang up some broken steps which were left in the wall of the chapel. " Stop, Tessa," he continued, as she turned towards him, and seen in the moonlight, looked like some elfish vision in her red cloak and dark hair flying HEYBROOK. 18 over her shoulders.

For the hood had fallen back, and Tessa's face looked unnaturally white in the silvery light in its dark setting of almost raven hair. " You daren't come up here, Will ; you are too heavy ; you'd bring the poor old steps down with your big clumsy feet ! I shall go into the chamber above next." " I pray you don't, Tessa ; you will kill yourself, Tessa." Laughing still merrily, she came down at last with a bound ; made a curtsey with all the inimitable grace that she possessed, and then said — " There is a big chamber up there ; I shall go and live there by myself if you are cross-grained. Well, sir, what is your pleasure ? No " — laughing — " don't be so melancholy, dear old Will. See, I will put my hand in yours, and you shall lead me round to the front of the house, and save me from the lion.

Isn't he savage to-night ? " William was delighted at this proof of Tessa's favour ; he took the little cold hand in his huge palm, and drawing her nearer to him, said — " Look here, Tessa ; I hate to vex you. I wish they were any people under the sun but Frenchmen that we shall have to fight— Dutch, or Spaniards, or Indians," William added, coming to a full stop in his list of nationalities. " But, Tessa, you wouldn't have me thought a coward and a craven. All the young men are joining the volunteer ranks, and I could not hold back. But, Tessa, I wish you'd say you forgive me — before I go to-morrow — and — I wish you would say — " " What ? — you dear old Will — you are so stupid— what am I to say ? " " That you would be sorry if I was run through by a French sword, or killed by a French bullet.

Say that, Tessa." " I'll say, yes, and good-night ; " and then Tessa darted through the door, as she lifted the latch, and was in her own chamber at the top of the house before William had turned into the passage discon solately, and made fast bars and bolts for the night.

Chapter II. Captain

george The next morning the household was astir long before daybreak, and Dowsabel was at her place in the kitchen preparing breakfast for her father and William. William was busy in the little inner chamber beyond the room on the left of the passage, cleaning up several rusty swords and blunderbusses, with the view of taking them up to the Manor-house, where the volunteers were to go through their drill. The tallow candle in its iron candlestick flared and flickered on the motley array of old-fashioned instru ments of warfare, from which William had chosen a sword and a pair of pistols, which, covered with rust, required a great deal of polishing with oil and fine sand before they were bright enough to please him. He was thus employed when his father came into the room with a coat and leather breeches slung across his arm.

" Here's a buff coat that will suit you, my lad. I wore it when I was out with the troops, when there was a scare about the Americans ; it will fit you, I expect." " I was thinking," William said, slowly ; " I was thinking I must find out from the Captain what I ought to wear. There's a uniform for Worsley 's troop, no doubt." " Oh, well, please yourself," Mr. Bassett said, in a tone which betrayed disappointment. " Leastways, you'd cut a better figure in that buff coat and good leather belt for jour sword than in that corduroy when you go up to the Manor." Then William threw off his coat without further remonstrance, for his kindly heart did not like to slight his father's proposition. And presently he stood arrayed in a coat which was very much too wide at the waist and long at the wrists, but which the buckling of the strong leather belt kept in its place, not with comfort to the wearer ; for if the coat was too large, the belt was too tight.

William walked uneasily in his accoutrements into the kitchen, and it was a decided relief to him to see only Dowsabel was there. " He looks like a soldier now, eh, Dowsabel ? " asked her father, as he seated himself before a large basin of smoking hot porridge. "Yes," Dowsabel said; "but I expect Captain Worsley will have his corps fitted out at Cowes or Newport, with the same uniform. Still it's better Will should appear as he is, I dare say. There's a sound of horses' feet coming down through the yard," Dowsabel said ; and she stopped with the pitcher of milk in her hand from which she was about to fill up William's basin. A sharp tap at the door, and a man's voice made Mr. Bassett rise and go into the passage. " Ah ! good-day, Bassett," said a young man, fully equipped in a scarlet coat with gold facings, and who held a plumed cap in his hand.

" I am come down to look after my recruit, from whom I expect great things. Why, Will," the young man said, laughing, " you look ready to run twenty Frenchmen through the body. Who wore that buff coat — eh ? Did it belong to Noah ? " Dowsabel's colour rose, and she resented seeing her brother made fun of by this smart young officer, who was known as Captain George, a nephew of the Governor who had lately come to the Island. " I did not know that the coat made the soldier," she said, looking straight at Captain George, with her clear eyes. " I should have thought a brave man could fight as well in a buff coat as in a red one." " Come, come, Dowsabel," her father said ; " don't be saucy ; it suits you ill." It did not escape William's attention that Captain George looked continually in the direction of the door, as if expecting that some one else might appear.

To tell the truth, William himself was hoping against hope, that Tessa might come to bid him farewell ; and yet he dreaded what her parting words might be. Captain George took the seat at the table Mr. Bassett offered him, and with the easy manners of the true gentleman, he accepted a basin of porridge which Dowsabel offered him, with some pretty compliment, saying, that it would be the sweetest porridge he had ever tasted, made by her hands. Then he talked of the news of the day ; the certainty that if the Island were not well guarded, the French would get a landing by Brading Harbour ; and that the Governor ordered, that watch should be kept day and night, and beacon-fires lighted on the hills to let the enemy see there were strong defences against them. At last the time for starting came.

Captain George took Dowsabel's hand, and bending his knee, kissed it, saying — ■ " Wish us Godspeed, Mistress Dowsabel." " I wish you courage and strength to fight, if it comes to fighting ; and, sir, I commend my brother to God, and to you. He is unused to soldiering, and may need more instruction than most; but Will has a brave heart." Yes, Dowsabel was right — Will's was a brave heart ; but it was beating now, not with fear, and not with any cowardly shrinking from the step he had taken, but from a sore sense of unfulfilled hopes. Tessa would let him go without a word — without a sign ; she would never forgive him for taking up the sword against her father's people — Tessa, whom poor Will loved better than life — Tessa, who was sometimes so gentle in her manner to him, though uncertain as the wind which blew over St. Catherine's Hill, and came from the four quarters, cold north or bitter east, balmy south or gentle west, at its own sweet will.

Captain George's horse and groom were waiting at the head of the narrow, rough road which, leading up as I have described from Whitwell, ended some hundred feet above the coombe where Heybrook lay hid in the wide stretch of gorse and heather which extended in one direction towards St. Catherine's Down, and inland to the Jacobean mansion, then in the occupation of a relation of the Worsley family, with which Captain George was connected by an intermarriage in the former generation between a daughter of that ancient house and a son of a Mr. Orde, who was a brother of the then Governor of the Island, Lord Boston. The dawn of the winter morning had broken now over land and sea, and the sun nearing the eastern horizon was colouring with loveliest crimson the lines of soft clouds which lay across an opal sky of varied hues, from a belt of deep orange to pale daffodil, losing itself at last in the faint blue of the sky overhead.

Here from this rising ground a lovely prospect opened out of broken coast-line and silver sea, repeating the eastern sky above it in delicate reflections with subdued tints on its calm breast. Far away in the clear light of early morning could be seen the distant Culver Cliffs, white as Carrara marble, the shimmer of Brading Haven, and dimly defined mass of Parkhurst Forest. Standing at this point, the Island was as a vantage-ground, separate from the mainland, which was invisible in the mist hanging over the coast of Hampshire ; and it was easy to fancy that there was no land beyond the waters of the Solent, and that the Island — an island indeed — was separate and complete in itself. The figures standing in bold relief against the background of moorland sky and undulating hill tops, were watched by one who was unobserved by the group collected there.

Tessa, although she had avoided any formal good bye, was anxious to see the last of William, and not unwilling to catch a glimpse of the gallant Captain George, who had of late paid several visits to Hey brook, and had by the grace and gallantry of his manners made her say to herself, " he was like a Frenchman." Tessa had a chosen spot, whither she often resorted to look over the sea and count the French ships, which she always thought she could distinguish from the English ; and many were her dreams in this place of a fair future when she should find herself in the country she always called ma belle France ; and per haps find some scion of her father's noble house with whom she could claim kindred. Tessa had made her escape from the house while Captain George had been talking in the kitchen, and in the dark before the dawn had been unnoticed.

She was fearless of danger ; and beside, who could harm her ? She knew her way, and skipped lightly over the boulders of rock which rose up here and there in fantastic shapes, as the brow of the Down above the cliff, well known as the Undercliff, begins at nearly its lowest part, increasing in height as the ground sinks below it till it reaches its loftiest level above Bonchurch. Tessa had her own particular fragment of rock, which had convenient ledges, and on the topmost one she could sit, sheltered from observation, and as I said, see without being seen. It was a bright but not a very cold morning, and Tessa had always a quick and healthful circulation — exercise was a joy to her, and perhaps it was well for poor William that he could not see his cousin, as wrapped in her scarlet cloak, her cheeks like a damask rose, her eyes bright as stars, and the little dainty hand holding her hood close under her dimpled chin, she looked a picture of health and beauty such as had never risen before on William's horizon, and perhaps rarely on Captain George's either.

" Ah," she exclaimed at last aloud, " there they are ! Oh, what a figure Will cuts clambering up his clumsy old mare ! Poor Will ! I could die of laughing to see his coat shaking out like a duck's tail when it waddles out of the water. Poor old Will ! I might have bid him good-bye. I could run over this quarter of a mile now. But I won't ; I'd only get a scowl from Uncle Mark, and hear for the hundredth time I was bold and forward. Ah, and there is Captain George ! How lightly he springs into his saddle ! What a splendid horse, and the groom standing by ! He is waving his hat and his hand to Uncle Mark, who makes no sign ; he could not wave his hand if his life depended on it. And there goes Will jogging along. He turns his head — and, ah, he was nearly off then. Have a care, Will, or you'll be thrown off old Bess before you have time to run a Frenchman through the body.