Hartleigh Towers, a story of English life

Front matter

HAETLEIGH TOWEKS VOL. I HARTLEIGH TOWERS gl «?to.B of ©nglisfj lift By Mrs. MILNE RAE AUTHOR OF " MORAG," " GEORDIE's TRYST," "ANDREW GRAy's STORY," ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. I. LONDON Wm. ISBISTER, Limited 56, LUDGATE HILL LONDON : PRINTED BY VIRTUE AND CO., LIMITED, CITY ROAD. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. Chap. Page I. Beginning Lite 1 II. The Skeleton of Chadsthorpe . . . .23 III. The Young Squire 43 IV. Hugh Hartleigh's Inheritance . . . .64 V. Mrs. Tuckett's Lodger 82 VI. Muriel Morgan's Home 102 VII. Mulberry Park and its Inmates .... 122 VIII. Mrs. Carew finds a Congenial Acquaintance . 145 IX. A Dinner Party at Mulberry Park . . . 160 X. Peter's Last Fight 189 XI. Dick Hayward's Wrongs 216 XII. A Day's Skating at the Alder Pond . . .

Chapter I. Beginning Life

" Oh ! happy rest, if once the race were run Oh ! hlessed slumbers ii the fight were won. Dreams that were sweet at eve, at noon were sin With foes to conquer and a goal to win." IF you had happened to be a wayfaring stranger on the pleasant high-road which leads from the ancient borough of St. Oswald's to the little village of Chadsthorpe, on the afternoon of the 31st of July, 18 — , your interest might possibly have been awakened in a fellow-pedestrian who was pursuing his way thither. From the rapid and energetic pace at which he made his start, you would conclude that he was bent on reaching, in the shortest possible time, the old-fashioned hamlet, set amid its green pastures, at the foot of an eastward hill, full twelve miles distant. Its weekly VOL. I. B coach was standing in front of an old posting-house, on the outskirts of the town, with its ancient horn giving prolonged, discordant intimation to all intend ing passengers ; but the young gentleman in question only deigned to commit to it his travelling bag.

Hurrying into the courtyard as he passed, he tossed it on the coach's top, where a lad was arranging the packages, and turned to go on his way. " We ben't smart enough for 'em as is corrupted wi' the sinful speed o' them tearin' trains, I'm thinkin', Mister Frank," said the old driver, who stood in the doorway of the inn, buttoning himself into the upper most coat of many similar garments, which would have made a more fitting covering for the polar regions than for Western England on a sultry July day. " Holloa, Mr. Rydal, I didn't notice you," said the young man, swinging his tall figure round with a lithe gesture. " Come, now, it's too bad to talk of my being corrupted by trains, when I've been feeling specially bored by my journey from London to-day. I've backed the 'Highflyer,' as you know, against any vehicle in the world, ever since I was a small boy."

A slow, pleased smile stole across the old man's face. " That you have, Mr. Frank, and you'll sure enough oppose 'em as is for bringin' trains and trash to our very door. Knaves, that they are. Lawyer Rush worth and that lot." " My opposition wouldn't go for much, I fear," replied the young man, with a shrug. " You must try to get hold of your wandering squire for that kind of thing. Seen any of my people lately, Mr. Rydal ? " " 'Twas but yesterday that I saw your father a crossin' the common. He was walkin' more bent than he should do for a young man like him," said the old coachman, speaking from the heights of his green fourscore years. " A good man and a handsome^is your father, as all Chadsthorpe knows at last — and time to them. You'll never be a man like your father, Mister Frank," he added, putting his hands into his pockets and glancing at him with a critical air.

" You're not encouraging this afternoon, Mr. Rydal; good-bye," replied the young man, laughing as he moved away. " Why, Mister Frank, are you really not agoin' to mount into your old place, after all ? " cried the old driver, in a disappointed tone. "No, not to-day, I rather want the tramp; but three cheers for the ' Highflyer ' all the same," said the young man, as he strode away at his quickest pace. The coachman stepped forward and stood watching him, with his hand shading his eyes, till he was out of sight. "Mister Frank's not hisself to-day — there's summat on his mind, I'll be bound," he soliloquised, as he hobbled back across the courtyard and "proceeded to swing his rheumatic limbs into his driving box. If you, too, had decided in favour of the journey on foot, you might have been surprised presently to over take the young man, his brisk starting pace having merged into the slowest of meditative saunters.

It was evidently not the enjoyment of the sweet sylvan landscape which caused him to loiter, for he seemed oblivious of his surroundings, and walked forward with his head bent down, absorbed in his own thoughts. Even his old friend the ' Highflyer ' rumbled past with out any recognition from him, convincing Mr. Rydal more than ever that "Mister Frank was not hisself" this afternoon. Presently, however, there seemed to come to him some sudden infusion of energy, and he walked forward with quickened step and uplifted head, whistling a gay tune. Taking his hat into his band, he passed his fingers through his fair wavy hair as if welcoming the sweet meadowy breeze which had just swept across the valley. And now you can see his face better. Though evidently quite emerged from boyhood, it had a more youthful air than you would have expected from his tall, firmly-knit figure.

It. was a fair, smooth, blond face, unmarked by any traces of stirring experiences of life. He looked bright and gay and sociable, and, indeed, Frank Carew had all these qualities, though just then it is possible that none of them might have been discoverable, if you had entered into conversation with him, as he made his way along the high-road, his face marked by a shade of worry which was new to it. At last he seemed to decide in favour of more steadily rapid progression. Perhaps some stimulus was given to him by the fuller view of his destination, which a sweep of the dusty turnpike now revealed. The little cluster of houses, dotted like white coral round the foot of the sloping hill, looked a cool, quiet goal on this hot afternoon. There was no bold, rugged glory of form or colour about the low hill-crests whose undulations were now reflecting every change in the bright summer sky, but tender curves and sweet har monies of light and shade, which melted one into the other with soothing softness.

Upland fields, which had encroached on the moorland lay yellow in the bright sunlight. Pleasant homesteads and gables of straw-thatched barns peeped from their sentinel-like clusters of ancient ashes and elms, with quiet apple orchards lying round them, where the long, cool grass caught a silver gleam as the light breeze from the common rippled over it. And all through this pleasant land there wound leafy lanes, with hedgerows so high that the sun could hardly penetrate into their green cloistered recesses. Frank Carew could remember a time when these dense walls of green were less tall and bushy than they were to-day, for they were both natives of the same soil, and had grown tall in company. Well he knew each nook and cranny all about, where a wealth of nests and rare wild flowers lurked.

But other images seemed to be coming between the young man and the familiar features of his childhood's home, though it was many months since he had last looked on them. Leaving the turnpike a few hundred yards before it merged into the straggling street of the village, Frank turned down one of these deep-rutted lanes, which ran parallel with the high-road, though it indulged in some pleasant windings not permitted to the turnpike. Pre sently he reached a break in the hedge, where a little white gate was set. Within it there stretched a green lawn, from the further end of which stood out the low gable of an old yellow -tinted house. The young man flung open the gate with a jerk and glanced hurriedly across the lawn, as if in search of occupants in some of its shady nooks. There were traces of recent sitters out in the cluster of chairs under the old cedar, on one of which some scattered leaves of the Spectator still lay.

But the great bough, which flung its dark shadow on the grass, gave rather delusive promise of coolness under it on such an afternoon. The sun was streaming down in fierce perpendicular rays on the lawn. No breath stirred the lightest leaf; the warm air fell laden with the scent of flowers ; and an almost oppressive silence prevailed. The stillness seemed to jar on the young man. He impatiently threw aside his half-smoked cigar, and began whistling a cheerful tune as he crossed the bot grass, going towards a rustic summer-house standing at an angle of the thick setting of trees which bounded the little home-like lawn. "Not a soul there, either," he exclaimed, in a ruffled tone, as he glanced in at the window of the little retreat. " He often writes there on afternoons like this. I thought I might find him alone, and make a clean breast of it all without more bother.

Why, I actually feel like a criminal, when, after all, I've only changed my mind — and for a very good reason, too," he added, after a smiling pause, as he slowly sauntered, with his hands in his pockets, towards the house. The entrance door stood open, as it always did on such afternoons. As he walked in from the sun's glare to the little square hall, he did not at first notice two figures, who stood staring at him as if he had been a ghost. "It's Mr. Frank, it is — come all the way from Lun'on already ! " exclaimed one of them, an old peasant woman, engaged in earnest conversation with a servant-maid, who hurried away, with something like a sob, when she caught sight of the visitor. " I knowed you would come as quick as lightnin', though they said as how you wouldn't be here till to-morrow at the quickest.

But you're too late, Mister Frank ; it's all over," she added, with a mournful shake of her head. " Why, what's the matter — what has happened, Mrs. Lamb ? " asked the young man, in a surprised tone, as he stood motionless on the threshold. " Happened, Mister Frank ; you'll be a white-headed man before you know all that's happened to ye this day," said the old woman, as she came forward and laid her weather-beaten hand on his arm. " We're all poorer o' the kindest friend we're like to have in this world. But my old eyes are right glad to see ye, Mister Frank. Susan there was just argufying wi' me that ye couldn't be here till the morning light ; but, I says, ' Susan, where there's a will there's a way,' and then you just steps in at the door," she narrated, evidently not without a feeling of triumph in the midst of her distress that she had been proved right.

" Miss Margaret, poor heart, was with your blessed father till the last, but they said as how he wanted you so bad." " My father ! What do you mean — where is he ? " cried the young man incoherently. " I got no message — nothing." " Eh, Mister Frank ! Is it possible you never knowed he was ill ? Woe's me ! Your father died two hours ago." Frank Carew remained motionless for a moment, mechanically repeating the words he had just heard, as if he had difficulty in understanding their meaning. Rousing himself at length, he hurried forward, as if groping blindfold, muttering, with blanched lips, " Where is he ? where is my father ? " Opening the door of a sitting-room on the left hand side of the hall, he glanced in. A slight breeze, sway ing the closed Venetians, was the only sound which broke the silence.

As the door opened, the cross cur rent of air scattered some loose papers which lay strewn on a writing-table standing in the embrasure of a large bow window. In front of the table a stooping, girlish figure leant. A ray of sunlight rested on her brown, rippling hair, but her face you could not see ; it was covered by her hands. The other inmate of the room was lying on a sofa near the fireplace. She was a middle-aged woman, but she looked younger than her years by reason of her well-preserved complexion and delicate features. Pos sibly it was that she did not happen to be within reach of the cool breeze from the window that she kept fan ning herself assiduously, as she sobbed and sighed. On catching a glimpse of the young man in the door way she sprang up from her cushions with a hysterical cry.

"My son, my dear, dear boy, you have come to comfort me. You will be my support in this awful trial. You had always a more sympathetic nature than Margaret there." " It can't be true, it isn't true, that he's dead — dead ; and I never knew, Margaret ! " cried the young man, in a tone of agony, glancing towards the other inmate of the sitting-room, whilst his mother clung to him and poured forth her wailings. The girl had risen from the window table, and stood looking at him with an intensely forlorn expression. " Yes, Frank, he's dead — quite dead. I thought he wasn't at first, when they said it ; but it's true. He's lying there — our father, Frank ! " And Margaret turned away, and buried her face again among the strewn books and papers. " Somebody spoke of a message. I got no message. I never knew he was even ill.

I came quite by chance, because I wanted to see him very much about some thing," added Frank, in a faltering voice. " My poor boy ! it wasn't with my will that you didn't know last night," sobbed Mrs. Carew, retreating again among her cushions. " You know, Margaret, how I urged it. But your poor father would not listen. I have heard that dying people get fanciful. Every time I mentioned it he said, ' Wait till Thursday, and then you may send for Frank.' I reproach myself now that I didn't take the matter into my own hands, and send for you at once. But it was all so awfully sudden ; my poor head got quite confused. Oh ! it's too dread ful to think of." And Mrs. Carew lay back in a fresh burst of tears. " Oh, Frank ! he talked so much about you," said Margaret, raising her head, and speaking in an eager tone.

" It was only yesterday, you know, that he was taken ill, as he sat writing here. I'm sure he knew that he was dying from the very first, and longed to see you, oh, so much. But he wouldn't let us send, because of the examinations, you know. And, just a little while before the last, he said, with that smile of his, you remember, Frank, ' It is strange we should be beginning life together ; he, here ; and I — there.' " The despairing expression crept out of Margaret's face as her thoughts went back to those hours when she could still hear the sound of her father's voice and feel the grasp of his hand. Full as they had been of suspense and terror of coming evil, yet they seemed almost joyous in comparison to the present. She was going on to share more treasured last words with Frank, when he interrupted her in a shrinking tone.

" Oh, hush, Margaret ! I can't stand it." And leaning down his head, he added, after a pause, "Perhaps I had better tell you at once that I didn't go up for the examination yesterday. Not that I had any fear of being plucked, or anything of that kind. I was ready enough for it ; but I've changed my mind about being a doctor. I came to-day to tell him why." " Changed your mind, Frank ! " echoed Margaret, with the extremest astonishment perceptible in her tone. "Why, yes; mayn't a fellow change his mind? There isn't anything so wonderful about that," replied her brother, with his face still hidden in his hand. " Of course one may," chimed in Mrs. Carew. "And, for my part, I'm heartily glad you have changed your mind, my dear boy. Why, the news comes like a ray of sunshine in a dark sky. I believe Providence has made you bring it now.

Why should you be a martyr to that horrid profession ? I always told your poor father it would be the death of him. So it has, though he doesn't happen to have died of an infectious disease." "Oh, Frank, tell me, is this really true?" asked Margaret, in a repressed tone. She had risen and come close to him as she spoke. " Of course it is, Margaret. It isn't likely I would take to joking at such a time," he jerked out, with an evident effort ; and then, as if he dreaded more words, he rose hurriedly and left the room. " My poor, dear boy ! What a sad home-coming for him, after being away so long ! How sensible of him to give up all idea of that thankless profession ! And yet I almost wonder he has ; he was so bound up in it. It must be providential, my dear ; it is so fortunate. Your poor, poor father, what a toiling life he had !

If he had changed his mind at Frank's age, how different it might have been ! It gnaws one's poor heart to think of it." And Mrs. Carew buried her face in her pocket-handkerchief again. Margaret had crept back to the window embrasure, and stood looking dreamily on the contents of the writing-table. Dr. Carew's books and papers were lying just as he left them when he rose in deadly pain from his last day's work. His microscope, the open books, the half-finished manuscript on which the pen still lay, seemed to wait for the time when head and hand should come back to them again. The sight of them lying thus had, somehow, brought comfort to his daughter's heart each time she happened to stray into the neglected sitting-room. He would want them to-morrow ; why should she put them away? she said to herself, with a hope that hoped against hope during the long hours of that sad summer day.

But now they need not lie there any longer ; nobody would ever want them more, Margaret whispered, with quivering lip, as she replaced the heavy books in their places on the shelves on either side of the window embrasure. With tender fingers and lingering touch she folded away the papers which lay strewn about. Each familiar thing which she touched brought to her a sharp pang of remembrance. Some of them told of labours projected, but laid aside ; not, however, from the restless instability with which the story of our un finished work is so often written over. To Dr. Carew's daughter's mind these unused materials brought no such recollection ; she recognised in them rather the monuments of a life which had been faithful in that which is least, which had sacrificed the hopes and plans of earlier years to the humblest toils of his profession, in the little village where he had come in his early man hood, a passing stranger for a brief professional sojourn.

Many of these hopes, Margaret knew, had been transferred for their realisation to her only brother, who from his boyhood had been destined for his father's profession. Neither capacity nor enthusiasm were wanting, and he had gone towards it step by step until the time had come for him to take his degree. It had been a joyful epoch to his father, which not even the conscious nearness of death had bereft of its warm human interest. Why Frank had not gone up for his examination was a mystery which Margaret felt too sad-hearted to care to solve just then. The pain lay in the fact that he had renounced the pro fession to which he had pledged himself for so long. There could not possibly be any good reason for such a step, she decided, with an angry feeling overmaster ing her grief. Presently she heard Frank come down stairs from his own room with slow, heavy footsteps.

He crossed the hall, and she knew that he had entered the silent room and was standing by his father's side. Her first impulse was to join him there. Strong, tender, fatherly words came crowding back to her memory. Should she not hurry to her brother's side to share this loving legacy ? But then the bitter thoughts came uppermost again. Frank could not have loved him as she had done, or he would not have decided to trample on his dearest wishes. Let him feel a sting of reproach now, as he stands gazing on the dead face from which " decay's effacing fingers " have not yet begun to sweep the lines of high resolve and quiet steadfastness which marked it through life. With listless hands and aching heart, Margaret seated herself again at the forsaken working corner. If only night were come, she longed, that she might fold her empty hands in sleep, for she felt none of that physical weariness which often visits in mercy sorrowstricken hearts.

J_ast night there was sweet work to be done, loving thanks to be earned, God to be entreated to spare the beloved father and friend, making the time of suspense seem one of hopeful happiness compared with the present. And yet life seemed likely to flow on as it had been wont to do before the light had gone out of it. Mrs. Carew's exhausted nerves had found solace in brief slumbers ; very different, perhaps, from her usual " siesta," as she called it ; but there she was, asleep, VOL. I. C as was her wont at that hour of the day. The servant was now bringing tea, and the post-bag was laid on the table, as if to await the master's opening. Each trace of the familiar daily routine came to Margaret's wounded heart like a fresh stab of pain. " Dear, dear, I've actually been asleep, Margaret. Why did you allow me to go over, dear?

It only makes it more trying to wake up and find that it is a reality, and not a horrid dream. To think of being a widow — and you fatherless, my poor children. But I must not give way, there is so much to be done," said Mrs. Carew, drying her eyes. " Where is my dear Frank — why has he left my side ? Margaret, is that tea Jane has brought ? Well, since she has brought it, I think I shall have a cup. It may, perhaps, revive me, and there is so much to be done and thought about — that dreadful funeral, the mourning, and all. Come, my dear, let us have tea." Margaret moved towards the table, and was handing to her mother the desired cup of tea, when her eye fell on a parcel which the servant brought in with the post-bag. " Oh, mamma ! there are the magazines for the mines. They have come a day earlier than they sometimes do.

How glad he would have been ! He was always disappointed when they were late. The men looked forward to their coming so eagerly — some of them, at least, he used to say." " Yes, indeed, your poor father made too many journeys to these horrid mines. A thankless set these men are — so dirty and discontented, and so hardened. I told your father that I considered it quite hopeless to do them any good, they had been neglected for so long. It is years since I declared that I, for one, would not encourage their vicious habits by setting my foot among these wretched hovels — and I never did. But my opposition was quite unavailing ; your father would continue to wear himself out there," and Mrs. Carew sighed as she pensively stirred her tea. Margaret had not been listening to her mother's later remarks.

She was absorbed in a plan that she was forming. Still holding the packet of periodicals in her hand, she glanced towards her mother, and said hesitatingly, "Mamma, don't you think I might take them to old Caleb Bartlett's to-night ? I should feel as if twere really doing some work for our father ; it would comfort me as nothing else can. Frank will be with you, you know, mamma," she added, as if eager to anticipate any probable objection. " Go out walking, and your poor father hardly dead ! The idea is revolting, my dear. You are a very unnatural child in many ways, and always were, Mar garet," sighed Mrs. Carew, as she handed her cup to be refilled. " It puzzles me sadly that I should have a daughter with such different feelings from my own. I would rather die than do such a thing — in fact, it would be my death to do it," and Mrs. Carew began to shed fresh tears.

" Then I mayn't go," said Margaret, as she laid down the bundle of magazines with a sigh. " I only thought he would have liked me to do it, and I wanted to see how poor old Caleb Bartlett was. Papa talked of him several times last night," she added, in a faltering tone. "What do you think your sister wants to do, my dear boy ? " said Mrs. Carew, turning to Frank, who at that moment entered the room. " To take those magazines to the mines. Is it not a most unnatural wish — and to that vile place too ? " " The place is vile enough, but our father worked hard that it should become less vile, mother," said Frank, in a low tone, as he went and stood by the window. " I don't really see why Margaret mayn't take the magazines to old Bartlett's," he added, turning round, after a pause. " I shall walk across the moor with you, if you like, Margaret."

" Well, if you are determined to commit such a breach of the ordinary rules of society and decorum, you may go. After all, you haven't to pass through the village, and those wretched creatures at the mines are too much sunk to notice anything of the kind, I fancy. " But, my dear boy, you will stay with me. You are looking wretchedly ill. You really must take care of yourself. You are all the comfort I have now. " Oh, yes, Frank ! do stay with mamma. It will be much better so," said Margaret, in a low decided tone, as she walked away. Frank glanced wistfully after her. He would fain have gone with her now, to share the story which had that day hurried him down from London, to tell to one who had ever been a patient listener and a lenient judge. Frank Carew was one of those characters who need the smiles and approval of their friends as flowers need sunshine.

His sister's half-uttered reproaches were rankling painfully, and he felt eagerly anxious to have her on his side, even in the midst of his present grief. But Margaret did not guess how much he longed for her sympathy just then. She only felt that the tidings of his fickle change of life-plans would have grieved her father so much that she would ever feel thankful he had not lived to have his dearest human hopes disappointed. She, at least, would find a cheerful pleasure in doing what he would have liked, she said to herself, with a feeling of feverish excitement, as she crossed the hall, and went to prepare for her walk to the mines.

Chapter II. The Skeleton Of Chadsthorpe

" To the old, sorrow is sorrow ; to the young, sorrow is despair. TTTHEN Margaret stepped out of the darkened • house to the soft brightness of the summer evening, it seemed as if years, not hours merely, had elapsed since she looked last on the familiar scene, with its calm unchanged face. The old house, green with climbing ivy, whose growth had marked all the years of her life, the narrow border of sweet old-fashioned English flowers, which peered up at her with their well-known faces, the smooth green lawn, the clus tering trees, whose leaves were gently stirred by the light sunset breeze, had not lost any of their calm loveliness of the previous day. The cold fair face of nature paid no heed, and gave no sympathetic response to the young despair of her first sorrow. Dr. Carew's favourite Skye terrier, Doss, lay guard ing the forsaken mimic encampment on the lawn.

He seemed to feel it to be the only little bit of duty left for him to do on this strange evening. Even his newly-returned young master had thrust him unheed ingly away when he ventured on a subdued word of welcome, and at last he crept out of the forlorn house with dejected footsteps, as if the spring had gone out of his little dog life. When he saw his young mistress come out, he raised his head with a surprised air, and, shaking himself, came creeping forward with a feeble wag of his tail, very different from the whirling, yelp ing ball of hair that generally greeted any symptoms of a companion for a walk. " Oh, Doss, poor dog ! — you know all about it. The master — the master is tying there, and all the world seems different to you and me," faltered Margaret, as she caught sight of the faithful family friend.