Grace Clifford. A novel

Front matter

GRACE CbIFFORD % PfllJtl BY H. BOUVERIE PIGOTT IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. I LONDON JOHN MAXWELL AND COMPANY 122, FLEET STREET 31 DCCO LXV [All rights reserved] CONTENTS OF VOL. I. .CIlAPTEn PAGE I. STEDLEIGH MANOR 1 II. RETROSPECTIVE 8 III. AIRS. DOUGLAS AND HER STEP DAUGHTER. 30 IV. A POACHER'S DEATH BED 45 T. THE ADMIRAL AND HIS SON 58 VI. naboth's vineyard 73 VII. IN WHICH GRACE CLIFFORD AND FEEDE- PICK OSBORNE ARE INTRODUCED TO THE READER 90 VIII. LANDLORD AND TENANT 105 IX. A PEEP INTO A PARSONAGE 126 X. TWO SCENES IN THE OLD nOMFSTEAD . . 142 XI. CHIT CHAT 167 XII. HELEN DOUGLAS. TnE RED SPOT ON TEE MAP 185 XIII. archie's letter 211 xiv. inchcauldie 222 XV. WILL THAT DO, ANGUS ? 24S XVI. SPRING DATS AT STEDLEIGH 268 XVII. A DIP INTO POLITICS G R ACE C L I F F 0 E D.

Chapter I. Stedleigh Manor

The sun was shining over the broad sleep ing sea, and across the wood and lawn of Stedleigh. The glow of summer was gone ; golden autumn lights rested on the trees, where as yet the changing season only showed in the varied beauty of brown and green and yellow. Stedleigh was a grand old place. I must try to sketch it with my pen, as others have sketched it with their pencils. They came from all sides, gay tourists, and dusty tourists, artists young and old, amateurs who coidd draw, and amateurs who could only bungle ; vol. r. r> for Stedleigh lay right in the path of summer wanderers. So they took it from the hill, from the valley, and from the sea, while some took it, as I am taking it now, from the foot of the incline that sloped up from the edge of a silver lake, with a pretty ivy-covered boat house on its margin, and the light pleasure boat moored to the trunk of a broad beech. whose bending boughs, weighty with still un scattered foliage, droop into the stream.

The house stood on the summit of the hill. It was a large building, fronted with white stone ; high broad steps led under a wide colonnade, supported by tall pillars. Two huge stone lions guarded the entrance, reclining on their posts, with outstretched paws and heads erect ; their curled lips, shewing the long teeth in their massive stone jaws ; but they were harmless beasts after all. Notwithstanding its stern guardians, Stedleigh was a very peaceful place, although it had witnessed strange things in its day, and more than once changed masters. Down below on the shore, people pointed out the creek from wdience the then owner of Stedleigh stole away in an open boat, to meet the ship that was to take him to France, in order to follow the fortunes of the second Charles. His name had been written on the roll of Battle Abbey, and his blood made him cling to the King, in place of the Parliament, so one of Cromwell's Round head officers got the grant of Stedleigh.

Years had gone by since then, and Stedleigh had once more changed masters. The de scendants of the Roundhead-soldier, instead of cropping their polls, and howling hymns, kept fox-hounds and hunters, rode, drank, and gambled, until the Stedleigh acres refused to bear the weight of another mortgage, and the old place passed by purchase to Mr. West brooke, a rich London banker, who came down to Stedleigh with his head full of altera tions, building plans, and what not besides. Two new wings rose up where old battlemented towers once stood on each side of the centre building ; and on these wings were placed two stone eagles, who with spread pinions seemed threatening to swoop down on the visitor as he approached ; and Mr. Wcstbrooke congra tulated himself on the fine idea it was to match n the two kings of beasts under the colonnade, with the two kings of birds above it.

The elevation on which the house stood was tracked with terrace steps round and round, between which were dotted gay flower beds, interspersed with patches of bright green grass, until the terraces ended on the smooth level sward of the lawn on the one side, and the brink of the lake on the other. Behind the house stretched the old wrood, where maple, alders and stout oaks mixed with white barked lime trees, and green and copper beeches. Tall poplars; steeples of foliage pointed to the sky, while shadows light and dark rested on the golden brown of the autumn foliage. Quiet as it appeared in the distance, the wood was stirring with busy life. The whistling note of the blackbird was echoed by the wood-pigeon's cry, while the robin singing his song min gled with the full gushing trill of the thrush.

Through the trees with stealthy step, and wary eye, a fox crept with a poor water-fowl in his mouth which he had caught up the lake stream, aud a bright cock pheasant peeped down on him from a neighbouring bouo-h where he sat dressing his pretty feathers before he went to rest, while a daring squirrel crossed his path, whisking up a branch, with his tail over his head. There, away to the right, lay the broad blue sea, fringed with bold crags, rising grey and stern out of the water. Beyond again Avas the village of Stedleigh close by the sea-side, with its landing piers from whence the fishing boats, whose white sails are dotting the edge of the horizon, went out at early morning with the hope of many a home aboard them. As the sun declines and night shadows begin to fall, three figures come over the lake towards the house ; they pass under the broad trees out upon the open path, then up the terrace steps, and in through the drawing-room window, in the right wing, which lies open to the ground.

The party consists of a lady and two gentlemen. The lady, who has therightof precedence in the introduction, is young, fair and slight. Long curls fall over her neck aud shoulders, and her pretty head is poised on a well turned throat, her face is calm and placid, in its expression, more sweet than beautiful, although she is pretty and graceful enough to please the elder of the two gentlemen who walks by her side, and keeps bending down talking to her assiduously. Like his companion this gentleman is fair haired and blue-eyed, with a frank expression in his thoroughly English face. He wears a suit of grey clothes fitting closely to his well set, but not very tall figure, which has some thing of the sailor build, although he has never been at sea. The other gentleman who goes carelessly along a little in advance of the party, is the young lady's brother.

He is some three years her junior, and — I was going to describe him, but I have changed my mind. He is to be my hero ; his good deeds, and misdeeds are to be the staple out of wdiich I must build my story, so I cannot think of bringing him in at the end of a chapter, as if he were nobody at all. While I have been thinking about Archibald Douglas, the party have gone indoors, the lights are burning in the drawing-room, and the curtains drawn. Marion Douglas is at the piano singing a song she promised Harry Osborne as they came homewards ; Harry stands by her, turning her music, while my hero has flung himself into a chair, in a very careless unhcro-likc manner. He is whistling the air his sister plays, and pulling the ears of a great shaggy dog, who has followed his master all the day, and now lies at his feet, Night is over Stedleigh.

The light from the drawing-room gleams out through the curtains on the terraces. Everything is still, the world is asleep, the fox has eaten his supper, the squirrel has gone to rest, bird notes are heard no longer, and the whit-tu whoo' of the owl and the flapping of bats' wings, are the only sounds that break the silence.

Chapter II. Retrospective

In foUowing out the heading of my chapter, I feel that I am putting a tax upon the patience of my readers in asking them to go backwards instead of forwards, but I must needs give a retrospective glance at the history of the people I am writing about, and then, when we get the clue in our hands as to who they are, and what they are, we shall try to get on pleasantly to the end, without again tripping up the interest of my story, that is to say if it have any interest to trip up. Mr. Douglas was known as Mr. Douglas of RETROSPECTIVE. 9 the Grange before his marriage with Mary Westbrookc, the daughter of a London banker, who had purchased Stedleigh when it was in the market. The two properties adjoined each other, and when Mr. Westbrooke came to reside on his newly acquired estate, old Mr. Douglas and lie struck up an acquaintance which ended in a close intimacy.

Archibald Douglas was a tall, strong youth in those days. He was well built in figure, and rather handsome in features, but of a beautv that had a certain hardness in it — aruggedness of brow, a thinness of lip and an expression of sternness rarely seen in so young a face. He was of Scotch descent by his father's side and of English by his mother's. At the time of their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Douglas had not much to begin life upon, he having only his pay as a lieutenant in a Scottiish regiment, and his wife some trifling sum of money ; consequently their rash love match angered the grandfather of our Mr. Douglas, and led him to leave whatever remnants of broken up family property he had in his power to his second son instead of the elder. RETROSPECTIVE. In later years, while Archibald Douglas was still a child, the death of Mrs. Douglas's brother put her in possession of the Grange, after which event her husband left the army and went to reside there.

The young heir to their good fortune was in due time sent to Eton, and then to Oxford, where he distinguished himself more by his prowess in all manly sports than by any un usual aptitude for learning. Yet his love for such exercises never led him into any of the scrapes or dangers of his more reckless com panions. Debt he always abhorred ; notwithstanding the temptation to expense surrounding him and the example set him by others, he was never tempted to exceed his allowance, and passed through College without blame or trouble. Anything like an untruth he shrunk from ; a school or college companion could never induce young Douglas to shelter him by a falsehood. If he were asked who did this or that, he would not say he did not know, but he would say he would not tell, and bear the penalty of his temerity unflinchingly.

RETROSPECTIVE. In those days gymnastics were not the science they have become now, but school and college lads had their games of rough, healthy play; and at rowing, leaping, or raisingheavy weights, none could beat young Douglas of The Grange. But one thing was strange, notwithstanding his fearless courage, notwithstanding his powerful strength, attributes far higher in the estimation of school fellows and college chums than grasp of mind or educational attainments, Douglas had not been a favourite either at Eton or Oxford. Perhaps it was because he was not a lad of warm feelings or quick sympathies. No fellow ever thought of coming to him in trouble or difficulty. He did not get into scrapes himself, and had little pity for those who did. Yet his heart was not callous, nor his purse closed to the unfortunate, although he had scant com passion for trouble self-produced.

He looked at the sinner, and saw not the distress or fear he suffered for his folly, but the sin. He could be just, cruelly just, sometimes. It never occurred to him through life that if the measure he dealt to others, were dealt to him, RETROSPECTIVE. where would he be ? If the Judge of all our actions kept looking ever at our crimes, and never saw our sorrow or repentance, how many errors in his own life might have re mained unatoned. Such natures as his rarely excite or hold the love of their fellow men. Faulty characters are often more popular, and so he passed through Eton and Oxford without winning love ; but he passed through them blamelessly, affording no cause for cavil at home or abroad. Several years passed away, during which Archibald Douglas never seemed to think of marriage. But when the death of both his parents left The Grange empty, he began looking about with a view of giving it a mistress.

In those times young country squires did not whirl away by rail in search of a bride, as if none of the fair girls in their own neighbourhood, who had grown up under their eye, were good enough for them. Those were the slow coach days, before the railway had made travelling as rapid and agreeable as it is now. Ladies and gentlemen did not gad RETROSPECTIVE. about, and pick one another up matrimonially, on the ascent to Vesuvius, or at some German Spa. Then Italy was an unknown region, and the Pyramids of Egypt the antipodes ; whereas now a run over to Alexandria and Cairo is nothing, and a trip to Germany and Switzerland has become a Sabbath day's journey. But as carriages were only beginning to be propelled by steam in the courting days of Mr. Douglas of the Grange, he just looked round the fair olive branches about his neigh bour's stables, and chose Miss Westbrooke of Stedleigh, who had grown from childhood to womanhood during the years which had elapsed since he quitted college.

It was a wise choice, just such a one as people might have supposed Mr. Douglas likely to make ; for Stedleigh was a property ten times more valuable than The Grange, and as the lands adjoined each other, they could be amalgamated conveniently. One end of Mr. Douglas's lawn looked out over the broad meadows of the Stedleigh estate. They were so close that surely they should RETROSPECTIVE. belong to one proprietor; so he leisurely set about winning the lady and the land at one and the same time. The overtures of the handsome young Scotchman were well received by Miss West brooke herself, and her father, who was getting up in years, and broken in health, yielded to her wishes in the matter, satisfied with the safe character of the man to whose care he entrusted her. It was true the value of the Grange rent-roll was nothing in comparison to Stedleigh, or to that of other wooers of Miss Westbrooke.

But more showy pre tensions, or a larger income, might be accompanied by unsettled habits or ruinous extrava gance. Mr. Westbrooke knew that neither The Grange nor Stedleigh Manor would be likely to become less in the hands of Mr. Douglas and he suffered his daughter to bestow her self and her possessions on her stalwart suitor, to whom she had given all the warmth of affection she was mistress of. Mrs. Douglas did not love her husband passionately — but passionate love was not a part of her nature. She was a quiet, good RETROSPECTIVE. 15 girl, with no nonsense about her ; Mr. Douglas liked her all the better in that she was not demonstrative. For the first five years of their married life they were childless. During that time old Mr. Westbrooke died, and the two properties were joined together.

But what was the use of them if there was no son to inherit the broad lands ? At the end of these five years a child was born, but it was a girl, and only lived three weeks. Then four more years passed away without another face coming to gladden the household. The son so anxiously looked for never came, and at the close of nine years Mrs. Douglas died in giving birth to a second daughter, from whom her father, even in the early days of mourning for the death of his wife, turned away in angry disappointment. It may seem unnatural that the loss of the mother did not make him cling to the child, but it did not. The springs of our feelings are strange sometimes. Accustomed to have his own way, successful in life as he had been, one thing had been denied him, and he could ' RETROSPECTIVE. not bear it.

This puny, fair-haired child, whose sex divided her from her father's love, was to be the heiress of the wide acres of Stedleigh. In the time to come she would bring it, as her mother had done, into another family, and sink the name of Douglas in that of her husband. This was her father's grievance. Had her mother died childless the property was to come to him. Then he might have married again, and given it an heir of the right sort ; now it was hopeless. This child was a barrier to his dream of masculine posterity. None of us are fond of barriers to our desires, still less such men as Mr. Douglas. At the end of a year of widowerhood, when his little girl was just able to toddle, Mr. Douglas did a foolish thing. He married again — not that marrying in itself was foolish ; he was a youngish man, only forty-three, and no one expected that he would sit alone much longer by a desolate hearth — but the choice he made was foolish, very foolish.

It was inconsistent with the steady uniformity of his past life, which had always turned in the RETROSPECTIVE. 17 right groove until he committed the extrava gance of marrying a young girl for love. The act was so utterly opposed to his na ture, as it had hitherto exhibited itself, that it took people by surprise. It unhinged all their preconceived notions of him, and set them first wondering and theu finding fault. It is strange that, although we are not accountable to people for our acts, they will go on cavUling at and questioning them. That Mr. Douglas meant to marry Miss Os borne when he began visiting constantly at Admiral Osborne's, was a thing everybody expected, and everybody approved of, ex cepting, of course, the mothers of young ladies who were not the objects of his choice, or the young ladies themselves.

But to the people about the neighbourhood of Stedleigh generally, the thing seemed fitting and right. Miss Osborne possessed a good sum in the funds, and that is very desirable in a lady, and by no means lessens her matrimonial value. " What did that handsome man see in that plain, uninteresting woman he married ?" we have heard asked. The answer, " Oh ! VOL. i. c RETROSPECTIVE. she had a large fortune !" settles the matter at once. The questioner elevates his brows, smdes, nods, and goes away satisfied. It is a thing of every-day occurrence. The gentleman has sold his inches, his beauty, and his freedom for so much a year. People say they are not happy. The lady, perhaps, is exacting or jealous — the gentleman captious and discontented. But then they look weU in public, and as to private life, they get through it somehow.

Miss Osborne was plain, stiff, and uninterest ing, with nothing to recommend her but that money in the funds. Her father had been a distinguished naval officer, who, having re tired on an Admiral's rank and pay, came to live near the Manor in a house perched on a bluff headland over-looking the sea. So long accustomed to the roar of the ocean, he could not bear an inland residence, and meant to live and die with the music of the surf in his ears. Admiral Osborne had had three sons, two of whom perished in the cause of their country. Bitterly the old man mourned the RETROSPECTIVE. Dead, for although the father's pride gloried in the gaUant death his two brave sons had found, grief could not be stiUed by flattering encomiums in despatches, or the monument their comrades erected in their honour.

They had lived together, served together, and died together. This was the simple story, and the old man prematurely bowed by their loss, retired from the service, and took up his resi dence at Stedleigh. Here his third son, who was the youngest of the Admiral's family, and a mere chdd at his brother's death, soon sprouted into a taU, straight boy, perilously fond of the sea, from which his father always tried to wean him. This one, at least, should not enter naval life, lest he, too, might be swept away. But now we must return to Mr. Douglas and his wooing. Neither handsome in person, nor agreeable in manner, Charlotte Osborne had scant chance of matrimony, except through the intervention of that potent sum in the funds. But if her want of attraction did not signify in the eyes of the Stedleigh people, it did in those of Mr. Douglas ! c RETROSPECTIVE.

Pretty women, according to the popular notion received at Stedleigh in those days, were good-for-nothing, idle, dressy creatures, with whom a wise man would not be bur dened. Nurses were fond of telling their charges how much better goodness was than beauty, until they actually grew to believe that amiability and loveliness were incompa tible. It was a pleasant doctrine for Sted leigh, too, and perhaps that caused its general acceptance. The Stedleigh ladies being far more useful than ornamental, excellent mothers, excellent housekeepers, harmless gossiping women, but not famous for personal charms — women who were married probably because those non-travelling days narrowed the choice of their suitors. Stedleigh had it all settled that Miss Os borne was to be Mrs. Douglas. She was just the person for him.

He wanted a mother for his little girl, and a companion for him self, not a flaunting, pretty woman, to spend his money. Well these may be the kind of wives our friends and the public choose for us, and as they are of course the best, it is a RETROSPECTIVE. sad pity that perverse human nature will not resign itself to the arrangements of such wise counsellors, and marry and be given in marriage in the full sense of the words. Perhaps the reader guesses, shrewd as I am sure he is, that Mr. Douglas is not going to marry Miss Osborne, but some one else very different, whom the good people of Stedleigh never thought of. Far-seeing and astute as they were, one thing was over looked, namely, that the Cliff contained another lady inmate besides Miss Osborne. However, if the Stedleigh folk forgot it, Mr. Douglas did not, and it was she who held the rein that drew him so often to the Admiral's. This lady was the daughter of an Irish clergyman, who at one time had been chap lain on board the Admiral's ship.

During that period a strong friendship had sprung up between them, and subsequently through his friend's good offices, he obtained a parish in the west of Ireland, where he married, and was left a widower with one daughter. This girl, in the early days of womanhood, had become, at the death of her father, a RETROSPECTIVE. portionless orphan ; and the kind old Admiral, who had just then left the navy, brought her to the Cliff, where she remained until Mr. Douglas, at the staid age of forty-three, transferred her to Stedleigh Manor. The fact that it was Margaret De Rinzy, and not Charlotte Osborne that was destined to become Mrs. Douglas, threw all Stedleigh into a state of consternation. It was like the shock of an earthquake. " Such a fool as Mr. Douglas was, and at his time of life, too !"

But people forget that men don't think themselves even at forty-three utterly beyond .the pale of a woman's love. And widowers with only a slight tinge of frost on their heads and none at all at their hearts, are apt to consider a young wife a very de sirable appendage, no matter what may be the opinion of their neighbours on the sub ject, therefore Mr. Douglas set all Stedleigh at defiance, and married Miss De Rinzy. It is a hardship if a man cannot indulge in one folly during his life without being found fault with. Mr. Douglas had never before done a foolish or a rash thing in all the forty- RETROSPECTIVE. 23 three years he had lived in the world, and surely the wisest among us can scarcely say so much as this. "After all, it may not be a folly ; she may make him a good wife and his child a good mother," some one said.

" Aye, may," the Stedleigh people would echo; "who knows but it may snow in June some day ?" If there were numbers who condemned Mr. Douglas's choice, and were even angry with him because they had guessed wrong, there were others who laughed at their sur prise. These were chiefly, I am sorry to say, the male portion of the inhabitants, many of whom, notwithstanding the Stedleigh doctrine, thought a pretty girl a very desirable thing, although they scarcely dare utter the heresy aloud. Amongst the laughers was the good old Admiral himself, who thought he had made a capital provision for the daughter of his old friend, and was highly amused at the effect of the marriage on the steady minds of his surprised acquaintances. Mrs. Douglas's beauty had been a snare RETROSPECTIVE. to her husband— at least, so all Stedleigh declared; but whether it had been a snare in the somewhat evil sense in which they used the word or not, it had captivated him beyond a doubt, and even the most envious Stedleigh young lady could not deny that it was a beauty very likely to captivate.

Her cast of features were not such as we meet with on this side the channel, and the novelty of her style added to its charm. Her eyes were of the dark grey mixed with blue, prevalent in her race, with long lashes falling on an oval olive cheek. Her forehead, not very high, was smooth and polished, and shaded by soft dark hair. The whole ex pression of her face was that of vivacity, mellowed by a softness about the eyes and mouth which gave a rare charm to the whole. Whether or not this pretty " bit o' painted clay," to use John Knox's phrase for the lovely Scottish Queen, loved her husband was a subject of debate with the Stedleigh folk, and one that they were never able to settle satisfactorily. She made him a good, atten- RETROSPECTIVE. 25 tive wife, at all events ; the most censorious could scarcely deny that.

But three-and twenty years is a great difference in the ages of a husband and wife, and it is not to be ex pected that a girl of twenty could entertain any very passionate affection for a man of forty-three — the chasm is far too wide. But there are so many chords in a woman's heart, that men even somewhat advanced in life may touch some of them. There is honour and reverence, the regard and influence that an earnest manly nature can obtain over a woman, if she be a good woman. Besides this, there is the feeling of gratitude for name and position, perhaps, or for protection and kindness, faults gently borne, with tenderness never withheld. With such weapons as these a man may win with the odds against him, and make his way to his wife's heart in spite of some disparity in years, that is, if she have a heart.

As for Mrs. Douglas, gratitude was pro bably the kind of love she gave her husband, and gratitude from a warm, thankful, im pulsive nature like hers, was as strong, in RETROSPECTIVE. appearance, at least, as the very great affection he had inspired in the gentle heart which lay still in Stedleigh Churchyard. To a man of Mr. Douglas's age matrimony is a thing to be looked in the face, and done in a matter-of-fact earnest way. Over his courtship there had been no clouds, no per verseness either on the lady's part or on his own. But I am afraid I must admit that with all his cool philosophy, he was by far the most in love of the two. Miss De Rinzy liked him on the whole, although she sometimes shrunk from his cold stiffness. She admired his tall, straight figure and handsome face, on which time had not traced many lines ; she was flattered at his attentions to her, and somewhat dazzled and pleased with the good fortune fate had thrown in her way.

Hundreds of women marry on grounds like these and are happy. Why should not she ? This quiet, equable frame of mind made the courting go on pleasantly without any of the wrecks a deeper love might have caused in such a temperament as Mrs. Douglas's. RETROSPECTIVE. She did not lie awake thinking of him, going over his words or looks until she got ashamed of her own absorption. When he went away at night and said he would be back to-morrow, she received it as a fact that needed no further thinking about. Should he be away all day and come in the evening, the intervening hours were not spent in calculating the probable moment of his arrival, watching sidy through the window, or listening for his step in the hall. She did not stick her needle in her finger in place of in her embroidery on such occasions, but just put aside her work and received him with a pleasant smile of welcome.