Cold Comfort. A novel

Front matter

NEW NOVELS BY POPULAR AUTHORS. In 3 Vols. COLD COMFORT. By the Author of *' Even Betting," &c. "The author," says the Daily Telegraph, " almost rivals 'Harry Lorrequer,' in the brilliancy of his word painting, and in the force and incisiveness of his style." In 1 Vol. 10s. 6d. IN SPITE OF ALL. "I think," writes the late Charles Dickens, " this Btory possesses very great merit, and in some respects attains to excellence. . . I have read many parts of it with unusual interest." In 2 Vols. (Now Ready.) RICH AND RARE. By LUCIUS O'BRIEN BLAKE, Author of " American and Italian Cantatrici." In 2 Vols. BREAD CAST ON THE WATERS. By EMMA PICKERING, Author of " Forsaking all Others." In 2 Vols. 21s. THE CONQUERING HERO In 1 Vol. Price 7s. 6d. THE PRISONER OF HAM Authentic Details of the Captivity and Escape of PEINCE NAPOLEON LOUIS.

By F. T. BRIFFAULT. AND IMPORTANT NOTES BY THE EDITOR. In 3 Vols. MAYFAIR TO MILLBANK. By W. HA.RRIS. "A lively Btory, full of well depicted incident. The author has a vigorous style, and considerable descriptive power, and writes like an experienced man of the world." — Liverpool Albion. In 2 Vols. COLLEGE DEBTS. The tale is natural, and not badly told. The different scenes in which the hero is engaged while up at Oxford are fairly put. We sincerely trust the work may do the good the author anticipates " Athenæum. T COLD COMFORT A NOVEL. IN THREE VOLUMES. BY BDEKE O'FARKELL, Author of " Even Betting." VOL. II. fottium: CAUTLEY NEWBY, PUBLISHER 30, WELBECK STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE. 1871. [ALL BIGHTS RESERVED.] COLD COMFOET.

Chapter I. The Darkest Hour Before The Dawn

Two more years passed by, monotonously enough for the inhabitants of the Bed House, Cold Comfort, and nothing happened worthy of note. At Lady Augusta Ferrars' request her august family bestirred themselves in behalf of Reginald Scrope, and their interest procured him a capital berth in one of the swell Government offices : he bung out at the Albany, kept his mail phaeton, frequented the best society, spent double his income, and in course of time developed into a most splen didly indolent and haw-haw man about town. He used frequently to encounter his old tutor at some fashionable reunion or other, for Quintin Esquiros, Esq., Q.C., was a very great man indeed now, much talked about VOL. II. %,# B and run after ; and though so busy, he always found time to go everywhere, so that his name appeared in the " Court Journal" and " Morn ing Post " as having been present at three or four of the most recherchees assemblies of the nobility, and diplomatic world every night.

Indeed, he was always to be seen making his way through some crowded salon, very much in the same manner as he did through the barristers and attorneys of some County Assize Court; holding the premier by the button hole, listening with the crafty deference of a worldly-wise wolf to the broken English of some Russian, or Portugese Ambassador, or leaning like another Counsellor Silver tongue over the chair-back of some corpulent and magnificent old duchess of sixty. As for Rex, the coolly patronizing nod he was wont to receive from his ex-tutor was something sublime. But Mr. Esquiros still kept up his friendship, if friendship it could be called, with Newell, and nearly two years after the Croome livings affair, our hero received a letter from him, or rather five lines in that gentleman's curt dry style, saying that he had passed one more milestone on the road to fame, and had successfully canvassed the free and independent electors of an important metro politan district.

Mr. Scrope wrote an affectionate letter of congratulation, and addressed it to Quintin Esquiros, Esq., Q.C., M.P. After that he remained in deep thought for some time, with his head resting against his hand, and his dark eyes fixed on the fire. Oh! how bard it was to lie year after year im prisoned by his infirmities, when his soul within him longed to be up and doing, when the wings of his powerful mind beat against the prison bars of his poor body of clay, and his ardent spirit, like some noble race-horse, strained every nerve, and sinew in its useless longing to shake off the restraining curb, and shoot after the brilliant courser that was speeding lightning-like over the course to fame. Yes, it was very hard — so hard that it must have broken alike the heart, and spirit of an ordinary man.

But Newell Scrope was no ordinary man ; his life was, and always had been, one long fierce struggle of mind with matter ; and mind had ever been triumphant : no bodily pains, or weakness had ever been able to dim, or obscure the brilliancy, and power of his intelligence; moreover, he was b sustained and supported by a strength that was not of this world, and which enabled him to bear his trials with a calm and infinite patience. Wounded in his affections— wounded in his most sacred feelings — wounded in every hope he had ever entertained on earth, he was yet able to endure all things in silence, and submission ; his poor human will so merged in that of God, that he scarcely seemed to have a will at all, he whose nature was so proudly reserved, so firmly self-reliant. Yet Newell Scrope had the soul, and pas sions of a man ; all the aching of heart, the weariness, the desolation, the cruel yearning anguish that ever mocked the spirit of poor humanity wrung his soul with tenfold violence, he was so acutely sensitive, so won derfully alive to all the phases of the soul's bitterest travail.

Like a great man but lately beatified, there could have been no medium course for Newell Scrope, he must have been either a great saint or a great sinner, the elements of both good and bad were so strangely strong within him ; and, perhaps, had not his singular beauty of face been counteracted by his deformity of body, he might have been the latter. But God had willed that he should be a great, though nameless saint; and He who bad chosen to afflict him so sorely — who knew every drop in the martyr's cup of agony, and alone fathomed the length, and depth, and breadth, and height of his ineffable sorrow, knew also how true, and noble be was under it all, and how his strong spirit wrestled with itself to endure all thino-s in silence. There was yet another reason for Newell's quiet resignation now, and for the compara tively little pain it gave him to see another earning that glory, which he had once so yearned to achieve, and that was a sort of feeling that was daily gaining ground in his breast, a feeling that for him the fashions of this world were passing away, and that in a little space " the fever called living " would be over at last.

In his earliest days he had always known that it was very improbable he would ever live to manhood, and in manhood that it was all but impossible he would ever attain to middle age, yet he had lived on— lived on to see his eight and thirtieth year. But now the expectation of everybody seemed about to be fulfilled ; a decided change for the worse became gradually apparent in him, and he began to show symptoms of that decline of the physical powers which the doctors had always looked forward to. He grew weaker and weaker, every day, and every day with some small particle of his bodily strength departed also a portion of that active energy of mind which had heretofore buoyed him up. His nights were restless, a dry short cough of the churchyard order distressed him inces santly, so that he became quite painfully thin, and he spit blood continually.

" Poor fellow ! well it will be a happy release, that's one thing," said old Dr. Smythe, the same who had known him from a child. Yes, a happy release, very happy, if he could only see her face once more, if he could only hold her hand in his for a moment, and feel his dying heart warmed by that dear tender smile, which it thrilled his pulse to remember — nay, even if he could be sure that she would remember, and think of him sometimes when he was gone. And then he clasped his hands and prayed silently that God would grant him this one boon in compensation for all he had suffered on earth. It was just at this time that his step mother's advertisement for a finishing gover ness appeared in the " Times." Mrs. Scrope, according to her wont, said nothing, or next to nothing, about the matter to her step-son.

When the subject had first been mooted, after the departure of the last victim, who had been martyrised by this amiable woman and her offspring (the Scropes never kept a governess longer than six months), Mrs. Scrope told her step-son that she absolutely required a very superior governess, highly accomplished, and knowing all the modern languages, for the girls, and never scrupled to ask him to oblige her by paying the salary. Mr. Scrope of course consented, though he could ill afford the constant demands made on his purse by his insatiable family, whose hungry maws gaped to him for the supply of all their wants, as if he was Crœsus in person, instead of the much tormented possessor of a very moderate competence. Indeed, he gave so much away that he had nothing left for himself, and was often forced to deny himself the commonest comforts of life, and this he did with a cheerful willingness that would have deceived an ordinary obser ver into believing that he made no sacrifice at all.

From the moment, therefore, that Mrs. Scrope had extracted a promise from him to pay her governess's salary, he heard no more upon the subject. She was a woman of a naturally shy, and close nature, fond of keeping secrets to herself, even about the veriest trifles, and moreover she was never in the habit of talking to her step-children, Mr. Scrope particularly, for in her heart she hated him as the bad always do bate the good whom they know fathom their iniquities. Sometimes, indeed, she did not enter his room for days together, never indeed, unless she wanted to get something out of him ; and except when she had to tell him that they were " in difficulties," and to ask him to pay their bills, he was as ignorant of their affairs and of what was going on in the household as if he lived a hundred miles away.

He learned incidentally from the girls (who occasionally sauntered in and out of the library, yawning, pulling about his books, and papers, but never staying more than five minutes), and more particularly from little Frida, " the baby," as she was still called, though she was ten years old, that their mamma had advertised in the " Times " for a governess, and that she had obtained one im mediately. " That's right, little one, I am glad to hear it," answered Mr. Scrope, " I shall tell her to keep a birch rod always in pickle for you," and he laughed pleasantly. " She's coming from some dreadfully grand place, Lady Thingamy's, of something Hall, in Warwickshire," volunteered " pretty Jemima," who always spoke as if she had plums in her mouth, and had a bold, ill-bred, flippant way of speaking, much encouraged by her fond mother, who mistook it for wit, "she knows everything in the world, and is sure to turn out a regular old blue, who will plague our lives out about musty old German verbs, and rap our knuckles with a rule when we are playing our nasty, horrid, five finger exercises, just like that beast of an old Craigie used to do."

" My dear Jemima, I cannot congratulate you on the elegance of your language," said Mr. Scrope, " I don't think that is exactly the proper way for a young lady to speak in, especially of her governess." b Jemima tossed her head, and threw a wet pen viciously down on a closely-written sheet of foolscap on the table, " Mind your own business and don't correct us," she said rudely, "you're not our keeper." " Neither do I wish to be," answered Mr. Scrope quietly, " the office of leader to such a bear as you, Jemima, is a post that I am sure nobody would desire," and he turned away. " What is the name of your new governess, Frida?" he asked. " Oh ! Finch, or French, or Pinch, or some thing," answered Gem (she was a gem of the first water) in no way abashed by her brother's reproof. " Ffrench !" echoed Mr. Scrope, and his heart seemed to expand and collapse again as with a sudden spasm, while a dark flush over spread his handsome features.

" Yes, Rebecca Deborah Finch, did you ever hear such a name?" and Jemima burst out into a loud laugh in which Frida joined merrily. They seemed to have some joke between them, but Newell did not enquire what, and soon after they ran out of the room. That was all he heard about the children's new governess until within a few days of her arrival when he casually learned that she was " coming on Wednesday." " And isn't it funny," said pretty Jemima, " that is the very day we are all going to the Clifden's party, so that if the coach is late she will have to carry her nasty old paper boxes on her back all the way from ' Pie Corner,' and will have the pleasure of her own delightful society all the evening, unless she chooses to sit in the kitchen.'' Mr. Scrope had never learned the point of that admirable joke which had amused his sisters so much a week or two before, and was quite unconscious that those lively young ladies had invented the euphonious names of Rebecca Deborah as the most effective, and likely to represent the initials, R. D. le Poer Ffrench, by which Desiree had signed herself.

To imagine that his sister's new finishing governess, and the lovely sister of Ryan Con naught O'Leary Viscount le Poer Ffrench, were one and the same, had never, of course for an instant, crossed his mind, and he fully expected to see some hard-featured, shrewd, middle-aged lady, staid and highly respectable, bearing the impress of having spent her life in imparting knowledge to refractory youth, and filled difficult posts of trust and responsi bility. Mr. Scrope's experience of his stepmother s governesses had not been inviting, for that estimable woman had always been what she called " unfortunate " in her choice of instruc tresses for her children. The greater part had been plain, plodding, ordinary women, well worn into the grooves of school-room routine, and with scarcely an idea beyond it.

The rare exceptions to this rule began with a certain Miss Julia Wentworth, a pretty, con ceited girl of five and twenty, who made a dead set at Newell from the moment she entered the house, and that in the most coolly business-like way imaginable. She was tired of being a governess, and of countless flirta tions that never ended in matrimonial pro posals, at least from quarters that were high enough to suit her ambition, and wished to be settled. Mr. Scrope appeared to her in the light of an eligible parti, and she immediately favoured him with her most fascinating smiles, evidently imagining that she had only to come, to be seen, and to conquer, with such a man as the master of the Red House, Cold Com fort. But Mr. Scrope's dark eyes read her through and through, and though his manner was always kind and courteous, yet he had a quiet way of putting down Miss Wentworth' s pretty familiarities which greatly astonished that coolly-calculating young damsel, who ever afterwards treated him to an amount of flip pant impertinence, and contempt that would have insured her instant dismissal from the house of any one less gently forbearing than Mr. Scrope.

But Miss Julia's reign at the Red House was a short one, owing to the tendency which manifested itself in several of the neighbouring masculines to make love to her, a proceeding which Mrs. Scrope would rather have bad directed towards her own daughters ; and Mr. Payne having been heard to declare that she was the prettiest girl in the county, that virtuous woman immediately ordered her to pack up her things, and be off. Her successor was a sentimental old maid of forty-five at least, with a long waist, thin red nose, and sand-coloured, corkscrew ring lets, who struck up an innocent young friendship with Polly, round whose waist her arm was always entwined, sung Volksleid ex ecrably to a cracked guitar, and wrote sonnets to an imaginary " My Baby," " The Bird with the Wounded Wing," " The Dead Kitten," " and vermin of all sorts," as Mr. Payne dis gustedly remarked, after she had recited several of the above odes to him, in a highly touching manner.

This mature lady was no less anxious than Julia Wentworth to become mistress of the Bed House; but it was in vain that she wreathed her hay-coloured hair with simple field flowers, like Ophelia, for the subjuga tion of Newell Scrope's heart ; in vain that she called Paulina, in his presence, " her own sweet sister," and said how much she wished she was her very, very own. (" Why doesn't she wish she was her grand mother? that would be more like it," said Bex, who had run down from town for a day or two, and heard her). In vain that she set " My Baby" to feeble music, and twanged it on her jingling guitar to him, or asked him if she wasn't " fondly his own," on the same rusty-stringed instrument ; he did not seem at all to take it to himself, so at last she left Cold Comfort in despair. Miss Craigie came next, and formed the last of the only three exceptions to the rule of common-place which seemed established for Mrs. Scrope's governesses.

She was a tall, raw-boned, strong-minded Scotchwoman, with a very large nose, loud voice, and a decided will of her own, who, eschewing the society of Mrs. Scrope, and her daughters, retired sys tematically to her own room after school hours, when she translated Schiller, and wrote dry essays on dryer subjects for the "Edinburgh Review" and other periodicals, entirely ignoring the example of all her nu merous predecessors, who had entertained matrimonial hopes with regard to Mr. Scrope, for there had never been one too old, too ug]y. or *°o common place to imagine herself a suitable wife for him; indeed they seemed to think that because he was a cripple he must necessarily be only too glad to get any one to marry him. It appeared to them, therefore, exceedingly ungrateful on his part that bis beautiful dark eyes should remain so blind to his own happiness, and their kindness in bringing themselves to overlook his phy sical defects.

With these specimens of the genus gouver nante before his eyes, therefore, it was with no idea of deriving any personal pleasure from her society that Newell Scrope determined on sacrificing bis own feelings, and inviting Miss Ffrench to spend the evening of her arrival in his own rooms ; but rather that his kindly heart, ever thoughtful for others, though nobody ever thought of him, could not bear the idea of a lady coming from a comfortable home, and valued friends to meet with such a cold reception, and scant courtesy as his step-mother, and sisters evidently felt no scruple in treating her to. Therefore, weak an d ill as he was, with his habitual love of retirement, and shrinking dislike to being gazed upon by strangers, intensified tenfold by long sickness of soul, and body, he determined to rouse himself for once, and entertain this stranger as best he might.

" I shall not be the gayest of company for her," soliloquised he, " and so I only pray that she may not resemble Miss Wentworth. Still, there are plenty of books here, and even a dog's society would be better than nobody's in that great empty drawing-room, I should think." On the eventful Wednesday evening, there fore, he sent his servant to beg Mrs. Scrope to step into his room for a moment. His step-mother appeared soon after, looking as ill-tempered as possible. " Well, what do you want?" said she sharply. Mrs. Scrope could be very rude sometimes in her own house, however silky and fawning she might be in other people's. " Please to make haste and say what you have got to, as I am busy and cannot be at your beck, and call all day." Mr. Scrope apologised for detaining her with quiet courtesy that contrasted strangely with her ill-bred abruptness — he was quite used to his step-mother's scant politeness by this time — and. then he proffered his kind request that she would allow him to ask Miss Ffrench to spend the evening in the library. Mrs. Scrope gave an ungracious assent, and bounced out of the room, banging the door after her.

Chapter II. At The World's End

The nearest railway station to Cold Comfort was ten miles off, across the open country, but the stage coach, which with its rollicking horn and four gallant horses, seemed a remnant of the " good old times," passed within a mile and a half of the Red House, and occasion ally dropped a stray passenger or so, pack and package, in the middle of the road, at a certain lonely spot beyond the Croome Woods, called Pie Corner. Here, in the grey gloam ing of a stormy November day, was Desiree Ffrench deposited, with all her luggage, after a dreary journey across interminable moorlands, purple with heather, where the black cock rose with a whir from the wiry bent by the road side, and crowed defiance from some neighbouring cairn of stones ; and the round, red sun, with a bloody disc, had gone down behind the low ridge of distant hills, " all flecked with bars," like that in the " Ancient Mariner."

To tell the truth, the little marquise was tired, hungry, and rather cross to boot, as she stood in her travelling dress of black velvet, and beaver, with her tiny hands in her muff, a scarlet wrap shawl on her arm, and the damp of that autumn lane insidiously working its way through her ravishing little French boots, in spite of the tremendously high heels, which ought to have lifted her out of the dirt, and would have lifted her out of any other dirt than that of Croome Lane at Pie Corner; while she watched, with somewhat disconsolate eyes, the red body of the old "Defiance" disappearing in the gather ing mists of evening, through which the hoofs of the gallant team flashed fire; and listened to the merry blasts of the horn, growing fainter and fainter in the distance, till the dreary echoes of the lonesome pine woods sunk into silence that was almost awful.

Lady Gwendoline Dene had dispatched her maid, a trusty middle-aged Frenchwoman, Madame Dupuis by name, to travel with Miss Ffrench ; and this estimable person was the sharer of Desiree's just feelings of anger, and indignation as they stood alone at the corner of four cross roads, with endless lonely covert woods of funeral fir stretching on every side of them, the luggage (innumerable grand looking trunks, and packages of Russian leather from Vienna), forlornly deposited on a heap of stones by the wayside, and not a single sign of a human being or a human habitation near, except a little dark, dreary, disreputable looking pot-house, probably fre quented only by tramps, and poachers, which stood a few hundred yards down the Long Kyneton road ; and even that seemed silent and deserted as the grave, except for a chained-up dog that was howling dismally somewhere in the back premises.

" Well, this is a nice state of things I must say," cried Desirde, stamping her little foot, which was beginning to feel uncomfortably cold, and wet. " No carriage, nobody to meet us, nothing. There must be some mis take, of course ; but what a stupid woman that Mrs. Scrope must be ; and she gave me all the directions herself too." " Mais a present, what will Mademoiselle do?" exclaimed the Frenchwoman, wringing her hands. " Does it not occur to Mademoi selle that we may be robbed and murdered in this so barbarous spot?" " Oh ! I am not afraid of that," replied Desired, though indeed she might well have been, for the place was lonesome, and ill omened enough. Then she went up to a tall white finger post that glimmered indistinctly through the dusk, like something " no so canny," with its ghostly arms extended, and peering up at it made out the words — " To Cold Comfort 1 mile J," on the hand that pointed down the long, damp, dismal lane that stretched inter minably in front of them, till it became lost in the mist and gloom of its own darkness.

The fact was that Mrs. Scrope, having need of the brougham that evening, had contented herself with sending up one of the farm lads with a donkey cart to fetch the luggage from Pie Corner, and escort Miss Ffrench to her new home (delightful escort!). " It will be nothing for a governess to walk that short distance," said she to her eldest daughter Amelia ; " she must learn the use of her legs, for she will need them up here." " Of course, mamma," answered dutiful Amelia, " and you know the carriage will have to make two journeys to the Clifdens as it is." But the carter's boy having arrived at Pie Corner about an hour and a quarter before the time for the coach to pass, according to the custom of his kind, bad grown tired of waiting, and had therefore adjourned to the " Dick Turpin," which was the sign of the disreputable wayside pot-house already mentioned, where he sat at the present moment muddling himself with beer, in company with an itine rant knife-grinder, and a poaching cobbler ; the whole three being more or less drunk.

" Well ! something must be done," said Desiree, decidedly ; " we cannot stay here all night. I propose that we both go together and knock at the door of that suspicious looking hovel yonder ; I suppose it is intended to be an inn of some sort; perhaps they will take care of the luggage for us." Mme. Dupuis opposed this measure with vehemence, but she was as helpless as a child, and sitting down on one of the trunks, began to weep and wring her hands. At this moment, however, a waggoner, home returning after his day's work, with his old fustian jacket, and small empty beer cask slung over his shoulder, appeared in sight, so Desired straightway appealed to him for assist ance in their dilemma. It was some time before he could understand her, or she him, but the matter ended at last by his adjourning to the " Dick Tur pin," where he found Mr. Jim Hodges, the hero of the donkey cart, jibbering drunken nonsense over a beer pot, from which he was letting the last drops dribble down on to his dirty smock frock.

The landlord then acquainted the new comer with the state of the case, and the latter immediately took possession of the donkey cart, which was standing in the back yard. A quarter of an hour after, the luggage was all stowed away in it, and the donkey was making the best of his way towards home, conducted by the worthy chawbacon, whose wits had been considerably sharpened by the gift of half-a-crown from Desiree ; while that gay damsel, accompanied by the French maid, picked her way daintily through the mud and wet, guided by the uncouth gee boa's and coomoop's of her cavalier, who kept just in front ; and in spite of her fatigue and vexation, the little marquise could not help laughing heartily at the absurdity of the situation. By-and-bye they left the dreary pine woods of Croome behind, with their sombre recesses, through which resounded the continual hoot of a solitary barn-owl, which occasionally appeared slanting on oblique and ghost-like wings between the tall black fir stems just ahead ; their damp, grey, lichen-grown palings and rotting carpet of pungent smell ing cones, and dead leaves, and emerged on to the low undulating wolds again.

The road here became better, that is to say it was firm, and dry, but rough, as the way to Paradise, being composed of coarsely broken stones, and shingles, that played the deuce with little feet in dainty Parisian hessians. In the distance Desiree could hear the hollow roar of the sea thundering up the long grey sands with a sort of dull, monotonous boom ing, and the wild night wind that howled past seemed damp with spray, and laden with the fresh salt smell of the shining masses of seaweed that lay wreathed on the shore not half a mile away, where the receding tide left it stranded at every ebb of the out-rolling waves. It was too dark for her to make out much of the surrounding country, which lay dark and indistinct in the fast waning light, beneath the cold grey pall of the November sky ; but it appeared to be flat and dreary, a very end of the world spot, with never a tree nor the ghost of one, and nothing to break the monotony but rough stone walls bearing great affinity to the roads, though towards the horizon stretched a low line of broken ridges that could not be called hills.