A chronicle of two months

Chapter I

Let me affirm, before describing the people here, as I purpose to do, that " The Owlery " is a charmingold house — so overgrown with ivy that all the windows peer out from amidst it like the eyes of the owls themselves beneath the overhanging eaves of their brows. Partly this, and partly the quantity of dark oak there is in the way of staircases and panelling, makes the place somewhat dusky and gloomy within ; but, except at night when I accompany a long brass candlestick up to bed, I have, heretofore, been principally out of doors. Once, however, I made the tour of the abode. Mr. Septimus Hazlit conducted me. Septimus ! Well, he is the seventh child, and now the elder living son "A CHRONLCLE OF TWO MONTHS." of the master of the demesne. The six who preceded him, girls and boys, are dead. Although the house is not remarkably large, the passages are so narrow, the small rooms so numerous, and every part is so broken by short and long flights of stairs, that it struck me as a perfect labyrinth, and I found myself casting straining glances into dark corners — for a lurking Minotaur.

If I belonged to the family I should make a rule of going round thoroughly, periodically, so as to ensure not losing the way if I casually required to seek a book or a work-basket in some nemote closet. It seems to me that these Hazlits must occasionally get astray, for they habitually live in six rooms or so, and pile the furniture in corners in the others, so that one's eye only rests on dark wainscoting, queer pictures, and quaint window-seats. I spend hours in the gardens — especially in the flower-garden — the kitchen-garden is exquisitely kept on rigid utilitarian principles. The household enjoy the produce, and the surplus is bartered at market. Until two years back, when his health failed, old Mr. Hazlit tended it himself, assisted by a lad whose father owed him money. Now, he is obliged to employ a man, and on the days when he comes I enjoy quite a little comedy.

I plant myself by the partition hedge in the flower-garden, and watch this man, bending over the soil, digging and toiling like a veritable son of Adam. Presently he pauses, elevates and straightens his back, and commences to mop his brow. Lo, behold ! swiftly and stealthily round a near turn shoots Mr. Hazlit in his wheeled chair, and instantly his harsh strident voice rises in a torrent of wrath against the cheat who dares to waste his master's time and money by idle loitering. The chair wheels are kept oiled, and the charioteer's feet softly shod, so that the arrival may take the culprit un awares. Only yesterday he was working near me, and, first furtively looking round, stopped for a breathing-pause Instantly I perceived the avenger's white beard gleaming through the gooseberry trees.

So I put my hand to my mouth and said gently, " See, he's coming ! " The man gaped at me in amazement, but took the warning just in time, and was so busy when Mr. Hazlit skimmed round the corner that there was no ground for reproach, which was, therefore, vented roundly on his young pioneer, who chanced to jolt him over a pebble. The flower-garden is my delight. It is all neglected luxuriance, an unkempt Eden. In former days Septimus' wife had it in hand and it flourished — trimly. But words arose anent the expense, and she threw up her employment in disgust. Moss now carpets the paths, their stone borders, the sun-dial. Shrubs, ground ivy, and blossoms make confused tangles of flowers and greenery. Then there is a grass plot, which it is almost an insult to call "velvety," and there are such scents in the air that I am continually exulting in the sense of smell.

The place itself has need of loveliness, for I must proceed conscientiously to declare that the people — the ci-devant manufacturer and money-lender, his sons, and daughter-in-law — are among the most unpleasing, most detest able, I have met. I must be waxing old, very old, when I can live with them, observe how they live, guess their aims and motives, note the sole dominant end that sways them, and their utter insensibi lity to all that softens or raises ordinary human nature, and feel myself not half so keenly disgusted as I ought. As a girl, these people would have made me miserable. Now, some amusement mingles with my disrelish for their doings, and I can analyse and study them. To begin. Mr. Hazlit loves his money about as well as he hates his two sons. He lost his wife when his younger son, George, was a lad.

Perhaps when he had a larger family to share this sentiment he did not dislike them individually so strongly as at present, when the whole amount has to be spent on two. The feeling is painful to him in its intensity. I have noticed it sometimes, kindling his fierce dark eyes, and a spasm crosses his face as if it were a fire that burnt him. I have met him after an interview with Septimus — -who is the active agent for all the business — beating his clenched hand against his chest, and muttering angrily to himself. Once or twice before me, even, money matters have been touched upon, and I have seen his expression sharpen into an unnatural eager ness, and glow with nothing short of vindictive fury. He wishes to understand and direct everything still, but his mind begins to play traitor to him, and he gets dazed and confused.

He knows this, and it distracts him. •Mr. Hazlit is very striking-looking. He is a tall man, very thin, with bent broad shoulders ; he reminds me of a battered monument. His hair is silver-white, but his eyebrows are black and bushy, and his eyes are as fiery as an eagle's. I admire his pic turesque hooked nose, and his long snowy beard ; but his smile is ghastly, and his hands are like knotted talons. I must say that his manner to me is always a model of courtesy and urbanity. Indeed, all the people at the Owlery vie in civilities, and perhaps the most attentive of them is Septimus. He is quite full of petils soins and conversational blandish ments. Nevertheless, when I hear his steps behind me, a " creepy " feeling begins at my elbow, and steals up to the back of my ear. And yet he is so very pleasant !

So well fed (upon nothing), so neatly dressed (in clothes that I am told he has worn ever since he was married). He is not in the least like his father, but he is exceedingly like a painting of his mother, taken seated by a "A CHRONLCLE OF TWO MONTHS." 11 spinning-wheel (I wonder whether as a token of thrift?) which hangs in the parlour. He has long narrow grey eyes, and a curiously straight down-turning nose that gives me an indefinable impression of ruthless cruelty, in spite of its being coupled with a calm, fair, fat face, without hair, save some flat light whisker. Candidly, this young man is inclined to be fat altogether, and has a short thick neck that makes his head look sunk between his shoulders. With the exception of his father, it is wonderful what awe he seems to inspire in those who come in contact with him.

Wife, servants, clerks, all obey him behind his back as well as in his presence — a significant sign ! But he is quite cool and even, and has a particularly gentle voice. Once, however, an underlying nature betrayed itself. He was annoyed with his wife, and he drew his eyes together until they looked like lines of cutting steel, while his lips grew almost white ; and although his tones were not raised or excited they took an edge that was ominous. She is an out-and-out virago, both tall and strong, but she did not answer, and yielded implicitly. She and her two little girls are often at the Owlery, though they don't live here, but in a small house about two stones' -throw from the garden ssate. The elder child is a sweet little golden-haired pet of about five, and the old man positively idolises her.

It is strange to see him, who hates and distrusts all the world, turn from rating the ancient servant, or the gardener, to caress Maisie, and hear him call her his "pretty dear," his "ladybird," his "precious sweet one;" strange and pretty to see her perfect fearlessness with him. I fancy, when Septimus married, which he did without first saying a word to anybody, that he meant to bring his wife to his father's house to act as mistress, and turn out Lizzie Waylen, of whom I will speak another time- But Mr. Hazlit refused peremptorily to house his daughter-in-law, or give her an inch of authority within his walls. Still he wished to keep his son close by, to overlook his move ments, and give him less opportunity for sly transactions, and he offered, grumbling at the loss of a paying tenant, to let them live where they still are.

It is odd that Isabella, Septimus' wife, although she has money of her own, never seems to have had the slightest voice in any arrangement. She, who is such a termagant when she is in a passion that you can hear her scolding from their garden to ours ! Her children and domestic are terrified by her rages ; only her husband, in some subtle way, can turn her in an instant to a cowed creature. She may have been handsome when he married her, for she is a fine woman still. She has a good figure, but her face is growing coarse ; her complexion is thick, and her large eyes have a dull swollen appearance. She was certainly never born a lady ; little counter signs peep out continually, and when she gets excited become very obvious indeed. At those times her pronunciation glides easily into something closely resembling that of the work ing people in these parts.

Her dress is shabby and untidy, and well it may be, poor thing, if she does not possess her husband's knack of living in her clothes for half-a-dozen years without spoiling them. I don't suppose he has ever bought her anything since they were married, and I know that she rarely has a sixpence in her purse, as nothing that is sent to the house can be paid for unless Septimus is at home. It would seem that I must have been keeping my eyes and ears very wide open to glean all this in a fortnight ; but I have a garrulous gossip, who would be a perfect godsend to a scandal-monger, her tongue runs so freely and her confidences are so difficult to repulse. This is the domestic staff, the old servant, Mrs. Skey, and it was chance that first made her communicative. I had often seen the ill-favoured dame about, meeting her sometimes in the passages, or coming across her while she was being rated by Mr. Hazlit.

But she does most of her housework before we get up, and seems to confine her labours during the rest of the day to her kitchen. Mrs. Skey is as thin and almost as tall as her master. She is a very brown old woman, with wrinkles as close together as the lines on a map. Furthermore, she has an obtrusive front tooth which folds over her lower lip, and reminds me of an old witch. I once read of one in a fairy-tale, who had such an adorn ment, with which she used to stir her diabolical compounds. It chanced that I had never spoken to her, though she never failed at every opportunity to look me all over, from my hair to the end of my shoe, until the other day, when I wandered through the kitchen garden, struck down a path between two hedges that I had not explored before, and suddenly found myself in the rear of the house.

I had pene trated into a square yard, containing some empty stabling, and just by a little open window, at which stood the old woman. I was going quietly back, when she spied me, and waved a two-pronged fork invitingly. " Don't run away, miss, don't run away. I don't mind any one seeing me get my bit of dinner. Nobody can say that I waste the master's victuals." I didn't run away. I saw that Mrs. Skey for some reason or another wished for my company, and I sat down on a huge stone outside the window, making a remark about the prettiness of the country, and asking if she had lived here long. "Ay, it's pretty enough," she acquiesced indifferently, " but I'm not much of a one for going out; Indoors is good enough for me, and has been most of the thirty years I've lived in this house." " Thirty years !

Have you been here thirty years? " " That have I, miss, true as money. I was here when Mr. George was born, and his mother, for all she'd her little uns about her, was as well-looking as yourself, and almost as fine. Septimus is the moral of her, though she wasn't as fat as him, and had more colour in her cheeks, and more blue in her eyes, and she'd look you down contemptible and haughty like, if you crossed her, where he'll be as silky as soap, and yet make you shake in your shoes. But the nose ! There's the self-same shape to it, and well may be, seeing she was a Jewess, and perhaps had got it down through the family from the time when her forefathers worshipped the golden calf in Horeb." A Jewess. Ah, yes ! I remembered the picture, which, both in its treatment and in the style of its subject, suggested the old masters.

There is something in the features which speaks a daughter of the tribes. A slightly sinister type of face, sinister even when, like Mrs. Hazlit's, it is comely, I recollected, also, that I had taken down two or three dusty old books from some shelves in my bedroom, and on the fly-leaf had read the name, " Damaris Hazlit." " Is Mr. Hazlit a Jew, then ? " I inquired. "Bless you, no! Hazlits lived here and were well known and respected before his grandfather went into trade, and took the factory over at Bollerton. But they were poorish then, not rich, real rich, as they are now ; though they make no show. The old man was mighty fond of the mistress, and she was a hale woman as you might have taken a lease of her life. But, you see, she lost one child after another, and then her cade lamb, her favourite, Dick, was killed in an accident, somewhere in foreign parts, where there is a big school for young men.

Eh, I forget the name ! Mr. George went afterwards ; it's a place where they cut each other's faces with swords, and go drinking beer all day in gardens, as they should be ashamed of the waste ! " " Do you mean Heidelberg? " " That's the name ! I've heard them say it over and over. Madame Hazlit had a brother over there who was what they called a ' Professor,' and some of the boys got their education cheap through him. They were always grand folks for managing things; grand!" "And Mrs. Hazlit, was she like that? " " Just the same. Only she'd one little bit of folly with her. Though she was as savey as master most ways, she was fond of wearing a good silk gown, and a smart bonnet ; like you seem to be yourself." "Thank you." " Hee ! hee ! Well, I was going to'tellyou- After Dick died she turned sicklier and sicklier, until she went.

Master he was as if he'd lost his right hand, and took no food, and looked grim at every one. But, would you believe ! Soon as he came back from the funeral, and began to turn over her things, he sent for some dealers from Bollerton and sold all the smart clothes, boots, and bonnets, and everything. My gracious ! but I longed the missis had been alive again to hear how they went 'iggle-' aggie over the bargains ; it would have killed her with laughing, for she was one that could enjoy a joke, she was! " Mrs. Skey chuckled over this ghastly trans action, as if she herself thought it the best of jests. I did not comment; I was mute; and she resumed. " Ay, and there was more than that. That picture of her that hangs in the parlour, where she's took sitting by a spinning-wheel, and looks rare and fine.

Master got a dealer down from London for that ; for it's a good one, and cost money. ' For,' says he, ' I can remember her without a painting, only 'twas her freak to have it done.' But he didn't like to say it was his wife's picture, and he told the man it was St. Catherine, and painted years ago. And he'd better have left his heathenish saints alone, for the man flew up in a rage, and said he was trying to swindle him, and took him for an idiot. Lord, they got to such words I thought there' d have been murder! So I suppose master thought better of it ; for he called in no more dealers, and there the por trait remains." I mentally rejoiced that Mr. Hazlit's defec tive hagiology, which had led him to think one sort of wheel as appropriate to St. Catherine as another, had prevented his making merchandise of his wife's picture.

Terrible old man ! "You must be a valuable servant to have stayed here all these years," I abruptly said. I had been musing what amount of recompense would persuade me to remain two years in such a service ; and here was this woman — an old, and, I doubted not, ill-paid drudge, who had spent a short lifetime in it. " You say right, you say right, and they know it, for all the old man drives me so ! Look at that, miss " — she rose from her chair in her excitement, and now thrust through the open doorway the plate of untempting scraps she had been eating ; an unappetising sight from which I hastily averted my eyes. " Would they find another to save them in victuals like that ? Would they find another — with my wage — as could have put by from it in an old handkercher what would bury half a-dozen interloping hussies like her in the parlour?

Not they! But I don't grudge service to them, for they're grand folks! Grand folks for making and putting by, I tell ye ! Are you going, miss ? Nay, bide a bit, for never a soul except the family comes into the place ; and it rests my tongue to get some one to talk to." Mrs. Skey began again when she saw I went not ; and confided to me that the old gentle man was very different now from what he used to be. At one time he stayed all day long at the factory, and then he would go down into the strong room — down among the cellars it was — until after midnight. " Nobody but himself ever went there ; but there was a fine lot in it, to be sure ; for along with heaps of papers that all meant money, there was family plate and jewels that had once belonged to big swells all over the kingdom. The master lent money on them to begin with, and now they were mostly his.

Mr. Septimus would like to get in there, but his father was too jealous and having to let him. George didn't worry about business, he'd no say in anything; besides, he'd had his mother's money since he was twenty five, and was independent-like. George wasn't quite a chip of the old block yet, and he hadn't so smooth a temper as his brother ; still, he was young enough to mend. But when the other came to be master, Lizzie Waylen would have to bundle out in quick-sticks ; and quite right, too. Who was she, a paltry beggar's daughter, that she should housekeep, and have the keys, and write letters for the old man, and nurse him, and sit at table with ladies who shouldn't be in the room with the likes of her? When, too, there was sons in the place, besides those who had lived there before she was born.

Well, well, no fool like an old one ! And she'd better perhaps hold her tongue." So the old dame broke off abruptly, and inquired if the Owlery wasn't a dull place for a London lady. " Aren't you wishing )'ourself back, miss ? " I told her no. The country air had done me so much good. I felt stronger than I had done for a long time. " Well, it's a fine air, sure. But I couldn't believe it when she" — her emphasis denoted, I inferred, the obnoxious Lizzie — " said there was a lady coming to stay here for her health, and told me to get a room ready. I forget what it is you'recalled, miss ? " I told her my name was Markenfield, and that I was a widow. "A widder. Ay — I remember that now; but you're so young-like, I'd forgotten all about it. You look nothing like a widder ! " I was obliged to say that I had been a widow for eight years, for I caught her looking with a tinge of sceptical disfavour at my blue dress and light hat.

" Eight years ! eight years ! Why, what sort of a chit were you when you were married ? Whoever married you ? " While I couldn't forbear laughing at her blunt surprise, I satisfied her curiosity by replying that I had been married when I was eighteen, and that my husband was much older than myself. " It's a pity," Mrs. Skey commented mus ingly, " a pity that it's no good thinking of the gentlemen here. It's such a family to bring money into ; and you've got money, I reckon. They lay it by, and add to it, and don't waste it in fal-lals and trinkum-trankums. But you see Mr. George never seems one for marrying, and the other — worse luck ! for he'd have just suited you — is married already." This was too much. The notion of coming to this place, and forming schemes of matri mony, coupled with the mention of the elder brother, who happens to be particularly repel lent to me, made me want to laugh so irre sistibly, that with an inaudible excuse I fled to indulge my merriment elsewhere.

My retreat was so timed that as I ran down the hedged path I met George Hazlit, carrying a fish-basket in one hand and his rod in the other. He gathered both together to make me the peculiarly finished bow which seems to distinguish the family. It is one amongst their traits of manner, at any rate, which reminds you, spite of their sordid living, and entire alienation from social communion, that they should be gentle-people. I have not seen much of George Hazlit — our intercourse has been confined to an odd salutation or so ; for notwithstanding his fine bows, I believe he would go a roundabout way to avoid meeting me at all. He was out riding when a horribly dislocated old cab set me down at the Owlery, where I was received by his father with much politeness — he did the honours of the garden during the evening in his chair — and by Lizzie Waylen, the quasi mistress of the house, with nervous assiduity for my comfort.

But when Mr. George returned, and, after attending to his horse — they keep no man — came into the parlour where I was sitting with the others, he gave a palpable start, and the look which crossed his face was nothing short of vivid annoyance. I believe my advent was a complete surprise to him, they have such strange sly ways with each other. This youngest son is as taciturn as a policeman. He is out before I am down to breakfast, rarely has his meals at home, and when he is indoors seems to prefer his own room to the social circle. My innocent advertisement for a secluded country retreat, with a quiet family, for a couple of months or so, has brought me into the midst of extraordinary people ! I am puzzled, too, whether it was greed that induced Mr. Hazlit to offer to receive me into his house ? I should have thought that, with his recluse ways, the most liberal terms in the world would not have tempted him.

Chapter II

Miss Waylen is a wonderfully silent girl. So silent, so unobtrusive altogether, that if I did not have a glimpse of the reason, I should wonder at the antipathy some of the family show to her. We have been companions for more than an hour, and she has not volunteered one remark, though she has answered mine with that propitiatory, nervous politeness of hers which makes me sad. I long to say, "You are a pretty girl, a young girl, too, and you are not happy. Your youth is a sad failure here. Why do you stay ? You are insulted every hour of the day. Mr. Hazlit treats you decently himself, but he doesn't protect you from the rest. The bread of dependence is generally crusty, but if it must be yours, I could find some other place for you, where it would be far sweeter than it is now." And yet I know, if I were thus officious, the inscrutable young woman would raise her soft, and, I am afraid, utterly in sincere eyes to mine and reply that " I was quite mistaken.

She was perfectly con tented, and she was sure every one was very kind." Lizzie Waylen is certainly pretty and inter esting. She is tall — almost as tall as I am, and much thinner than she ought to be. The contour of her face is hollow before its time, and the white attenuation of her hands sug gests delicacy, but she does not give way to it. She is up early and late. She is summoned to Mr. Hazlit at all times. She is his nurse and amanuensis, and she fulfils all the duties of a housekeeper, with the drawback of being allowed a minimum to housekeep with. And yet her catering for the table, at which she and I sit down together, is admirable. Lizzie has a singularly pale face ; a pallor that looks as if it were caused by a continuous state of suppressed fear, and her delicately marked dark eyebrows stand out, as they always do with a complexion of her fine skinned, white-tinted kind, like pencillings of velvet, while her blue eyes and brown hair — masses of hair she has — seem much darker than they would with a pair of pink cheeks.

And with all this beauty there is an air of deceitfulness that is a cruel drawback. She rarely looks you in the face, for she is not a good steady falsehood teller — -she has, instead, a constant instinct to conceal, while she stealthily watches her little world. She looks furtively from the corners of her eyes, and notices everything that passes, without making any sign of doing so. Also, question her on what subject you will, she never answers as you expect — never says what she really thinks. And for all this I pity her heartily — for, I am convinced, it is the result of the tyranny and bullying to which a naturally cowardly nature has been subjected for a long course of time. The loud angry tones of Isabella Hazlit which occasionally resound from the garden, where she seems to be keeping her children in smart order, make Lizzie start over her work, and I was just thinking of suggesting that we should take a stroll, when Keezie put her head round the door.

" Miss Waylen, the master wants you." " Directly, Mrs. Skey? " " Ay, directly. Some things are so precious they can't be waited for, you know. But if I was you I'd keep him out of the wind, as his asthma was on him last night, and it's worth your while to coddle him a bit." And with a meaning sniff the old woman disappears, looking a sort of recognition of me. I looked at Miss Waylen. She did not seem to have heeded the words. She was thinking, with her hand to her forehead ; then as she got up to obey the summons she said to me, " Shall I bring you some luncheon before I go, Mrs. Markenfield ? Or would you like me to ask Mrs. Hazlit to sit with you when you have finished writing ? " "Neither, thank you, Mi.ss Waylen. I am going out myself, I think. And to eat again, now, would be base ingratitude to my breakfast."