Horace Plumpton. A novel

Front matter

HOEACE PLUMPTON HORACE PLUMPTON a Jiobrl IN TWO VOLUMES B* JOHN STAPLETON Author of " Eeligion in Europe" etc VOL I LONDON REMINGTON & CO PUBLISHERS HENRIETTA STREET COVENT GARDEN 1S86 [AU Rights Reserved] CHAPTEE I. In the year 1880, on the 1st of March, a servant, who had arrived from England two days before, presented himself at the Gesu, which we need hardly tell our readers is a great Jesuit College in Borne, announcing that he came to take away one of the pupils, who was to go with him to England. His arrival was not unexpected. The Rector had received a letter from Smith, Fielding, and Co., solicitors, Southam, who wrote to inform him of the death of their client, Nicholas Plumpton, Esq., three weeks previous to the date of their letter, and that they had, with the concurrence ot the nearest relative of the deceased, who had obtained letters of administration, sent a servant to bring the pupil, Horace Plumpton, over to Eng- VOL. I. B land.

They added that the servant's name was Antonio Botticelli, and that Horace might pos sibly remember him, as he was the same who had taken him to Rome eight years ago. A junior partner in one of the Roman banks had called the day before to settle Horace's account, and had left a small sum to be handed to him on his departure. The journey money, he said, had already been given to the servant, who was to call for Horace on the following dav. Antonio was shown up to the Rector, who bade him take a seat. This he did partly through that religious humility which knows no distinction between a servant and a gentleman, but more in order to put Antonio at his ease, and so make him communicative, by which means he might learn something about Horace, who had always been a mystery to the fathers of the Gesu.

Since Antonio had brought him there eight years ago, he had never been out with friend or relation for a holiday, nor received a single letter from home, unless a letter he had lately received from a cousin, written after his father's death, could be reckoned as such. This letter, which he had shown to the Rector, after announcing his father's death, and the letters of administration which had been given to the writer, went on to express much sympathy with Horace, not on account of his bereavement, but on account of his forlorn con dition, ending with an invitation to the writer's house, and an assurance that everything would be explained to him on his arrival. As it was not the Rector's policy to help Antonio, by appearing to know his business, the latter, as is usual with such persons, made a long story of it, not plunging into the middle like an epic poet, but beginning at the beginning like a biographer, and occasionally harking back to put in something he had forgotten.

Chapter II

When the station was reached Antonio took the tickets, leaving Horace outside the barrier, which careful foreigners always put up as a protection to the clerk who issues the tickets. He took second class ones. When they got into their carriage they found several fellow-travellers, all of whom seemed to be Italians. There was a great deal of chattering amongst them, in which Antonio took part, but Horace remained silent. By degrees the company was thinned, passengers getting out and no others getting in at the stations nearest to Rome. At last, when they were fairly bey7ond the suburban district and that which might be travelled to and fro in a day, there were only two passengers left besides Horace and Antonio. These were a professor from the University of Padua and his wife. Delivered from their noisy companions they began to take great interest in Horace, whose continued silence and melancholy face they had not failed to observe.

The differ ence in rank and breeding between him and Antonio was too evident to escape their notice. Thence they inferred, by a slight exercise of that logical acumen which is inherent in the staff of a university, what the relation was which existed between them. Then, theorising, as professors and professors' wives are very apt to do, they came to the conclusion that Antonio was taking Horace to some place to which he was unwilling to go. What could that place be but a noviciate? Horace was too old to be sent to school, and never was there a youth who did not like going to a university. Now, being of the Liberal party, and not at all friendly to the Church, they were led on by the bent of their minds to suspect that undue influence had been brought to bear upon Horace. The pro fessor supposed some worldly motive on the father's part.

It might be the hope of Church preferment for his son, or merely the sparing of his estate by diminishing the number of those between whom it would have to be divided at his death. But his wife put the hard fate which she imagined for Horace down to feminine bigotry, and even allowed herself to conjecture sins of the mother which were to be atoned for by the* sacrifice of her son. Having thus excited herself about the hand some youth before her, she entered into conversa tion with him by asking whether he was going to Florence. The question was not put at random, but rested upon the fact that a monastery there had recently been the choice of some pious youths of a better class than the generality of those who became monks. Horace answered somewhat equi vocally — perhaps this little prevarication came from his eight years spent amongst the Jesuits that Florence was not his destination.

But the lady, who was not to be foiled, said — " Oh, then you will stop at Siena." Antonio, who thought they were purposely shutting him out from the conversation, and who was determined not to submit to the ex clusion, and who perhaps thought it better not to let the young gentleman commit himself by answering the question, answered it for him. " The young gentleman," he said, " is return ing with me from Rome, where he has been at school, to his own country." Without replying directly to Antonio, the lady asked Horace of what country he might be a native. Horace answered, " England ; at least, my father was an Englishman, and I was born there." '" You seem sorry to leave Italy." " Indeed, I leave many regrets behind me." " You must have stayed here a long while to -speak our language so perfectly."

Horace did not care to say that he had learnt it from his mother, so he answered — " I have been eight years at the Gesu." This statement astonished the lady. She could not understand any schoolboy leaving such a school with regret to go home, unless the prospect before him was dreary indeed. The professor, however, reading her thoughts, came to her assis tance by the — to an Italian — natural explanation that he preferred the clear sky of Italy to the fogs of his own country, and then, turning to Horace, told him that if he preferred Italy to England he could not do better than finish his education at an Italian university. Whereupon his wife added — " At the University of Padua. There you will rub off a little of the mould you must have been gathering during your sojourn with the Jesuits."

Horace replied by a quotation in English — " Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see, My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee, And drags at each remove a lengthening chain." But seeing that they understood as little of it as if it was a passage from Ferdusi, and thinking that they had gone farther than politeness. warranted in speaking of his college and his country, he drew back into his corner with an air which showed clearly enough that he did not wish to continue the conversation. The professor and his wife did the same, and in a short time gave evident signs of being in the enjoy7ment of their siesta. Antonio would have followed their example had he not been prevented by a nudge from his young companion. Horace seized the opportunity, for which he had been on the watch ever since the carriage had been cleared of its other occupants, of learning something from Antonio about home.

" Tell me," he said, " everything that has been happening at home since you brought me here ? "" Antonio had long been expecting this question to be put, indeed he had discussed the matter before he left England, not only with Messrs. Smith, Fielding, and Co., but also with the cousin who had taken out letters of administration, Mr. Horace Plumpton, and yet he did not know how to begin his answer to it. So he began with that which should have come last, the death of his master. As Horace found nothing interesting in the manner of it, so we think neither would our readers. When Antonio came to a stop, Horace said, looking earnestly at him — " Tell me about my mother." Antonio inwardly blamed the Rector for not having taken advantage of what he had revealed to break the matter to the boy. However, he made a virtue of necessity, and took courage to approach the subject in the best manner that he could.

" She had gone away from home long before your father's death. I was absent at the time. In fact, it occurred when I was bringing you to Rome. Her maid went with her, and I had a letter from her dated from New York, and another from Buenos Ayres, in which she said they were going up the country to settle. Nothing since has been heard of them. Your father took no trouble in the matter. It is his indifference which has thrown a doubt upon your legitimacy." " Were my father and mother already living together when you entered his service ? " " Yes, they were staying in Paris, living as man and wife, when the maid and I were engaged to go with them to England. We were chosen because we were Italians, and your mother could speak no other language." " Was there ever any doubt of their being man and wife ?

" " Not, I think, until after she went away." " Were they received in society ? " " Not well. We attributed that to your mother being of humble extraction. But I had it from the maid that she herself attributed it to her having been married in Italy, and by a Roman Catholic priest. She was very anxious to have the marriage gone over again in the Protestant Church. To this your father would not consent." " Did they live happily together? " " At first ; indeed, I may say until about two years after your birth. From that time they seemed to care less and less for each other. When you were about four years old they ceased to cohabit. He withdrew to the other end of the house. I think you must remember his bedroom in the west wing and study7 adjoining. He was a great deal older than your mother.

The reasons he gave me for this change in his habits — you know I was his valets — were age and infirmity. Your mother saw nothing of him except at meals. She was little visited, so that her life was one of much solitude. Indeed, there was no one within walking distance except the clergyman's family, and they stood aloof on account of your not going to church." " Poor mother ! Her's was a hard case." " Your father's infirmities increased so that most of my time was occupied with him. One day7, when I was waiting at table, she asked if she might have a footman. He objected to the expense, but said that a boy might he engaged. The maid — it was the same who had been engaged in Paris, you will remember the name of Julia — asked if she might bring over her nephew, whom she described as a bit of a boy, and very handy, and who would be less expensive than an English servant, for to be near her he would take the place at very low wages.

A lad came ; Julia said we were to call him Alphonso. He was nearer eighteen than sixteen, the age she had led us to expect. Julia always pretended that her family had seen better days, and wanted us to look upon this boy as of better condition than ourselves. I could see nothing in him but a good-looking Roman of the lower class. He was put under me. As long as I was there I kept him in order. But after I went (now I am going to tell you what I heard from the cook on my return) he misbehaved in such a manner that she complained of him to the master, who ordered him to leave the next day. Julia said she would go with him. She packed up a quantity of things and had them sent to the railway the following morning in a fly. Your mother was absent from breakfast. It was supposed, when they found she was gone, that the fly had picked her up.

Julia and her nephew went by a short cut across the fields to the station. Your father examined your mother's room, as well as Julia's, along with the housemaid ; the only observation he made was, that they had taken nothing that did not belong to them." " I cannot blame my cousin for doubting my legitimacy. But surely some inquiry should be made before the matter is adjudged against me." " Inquiries have been made, both here in Italy and in South America, but nothing has been heard either of your mother or of a marriage between her and your father." Horace thanked Antonio for the information. Then, after a moment's reflection, he said, " The matter has not been throughly investigated as yet ? " To which Antonio replied — " The solicitors want somebody to back them with money. My belief is they have taken no step except by your cousin's instructions.

Some one should go to Buenos Ayres, but that would take money." They then lapsed inte silence until the train arrived at Siena. To Horace's surprise, Antonio announced that they were to break the journey there. He said it was his native place, and he had leave to stop one night in order to see his relations. The professor and his wife were astonished when the train went out of the station without them. The professor said 'they were a couple of scamps. Which, however, meant no more than that he put them on a level with students and their servants who befool a professor. The lady, however, was still true to Horace. She insisted that he was really being carried off to some monastery, there to be forced into a noviciate. She spoke of writing to the newspapers, and even of making representations to the Government.

All this, however, only shows how a middle-aged woman may be charmed by a pretty face, even in a boy of eighteen. Antonio called a porter, and proceeded with Horace to the best hotel in the town, explaining as they went that the conversations in the train and Horace's evident preoccupation had prevented him from mentioning this little arrangement. He then went on to praise Siena as only a native could do, from which Horace inferred that he would have time to visit its beauties. When they arrived at the hotel he found him self treated with great distinction, the second best rooms being allotted to him. Antonio having seen to this, excused himself till the morrow, saying that he was going to spend the time with his relations. The landlord put a very good dinner before him, elegantly served, and then retired.

He was succeeded by a pretty girl, who brought a small bottle of wine, and tarried for further orders. All this was so new to Horace, and such a con trast to what he was accustomed to in the refec tory of the Gesu, that a feeling came over him such as he had never felt before. It was his first moment of pleasure since he had opened the letter from his cousin. He had passed from the rigour of school life into the lap of luxury. He desired, as was natural, to enter into conversation. But, inexperienced as he was, he did not know how. Luckily the desire was mutual, and the girl was at no loss to open a conversation with a willing guest. She asked him if he liked the different things which had been put before him, and being answered with encomiums of the viands and the cookery, she told him that her father had cooked it all himself.

Horace having expressed his thanks for the distinction shown him — as Antonio was the paymaster he was not troubled by the prospect of the bill — she said — " Father is so delighted at seeing his brother again after eight years' absence that he would do anything for you, who have been twice the means of their meeting." Having thus broken the ice, Horace asked her about the beauties of Siena. She ran over all the places usually visited by foreigners with great volubility. The chief of these was of course the cathedral, a theme on which she grew quite eloquent, though dwelling perhaps a little too much on the jewels and millinery in which a wooden image of the virgin was dressed. Then she be thought herself that an English lady who was staying in the hotel, and who was making a par ticular study of the cathedral, and even taking copies of some of the frescoes, would be a nice companion for Horace.

Having turned the matter over in her mind whilst she was clearing the table, she said to Horace — "Father destined this room for your exclusive use. But I think you would not object to the company of an English lady, for Antonio says you are half English. She is full of conversation, knows more things than I can tell you of, so I am sure she will cheer you up." Horace, who was making progress in the world's ways, said — " You have done that already." "Thank you," she replied, taking Horace's words for a compliment, " you did look so melancholy, and then we are under such obligations to you for bringing Antonio here." Having finished clearing the table she left with the tray7 without finishing her sentence. Soon she returned with tea-things, and informed Horace that the English lady would take tea in his room.

He was not a little curious to see this lady, having been for eight years shut out altogether from female society. Her being English made her still more interesting, for he, too, was English, and his suture life might be cast among that people. The lady shortly appeared and sat down to her "tea. While she was pouring out and seasoning it, Horace had an opportunity of examining her. She was past the middle age, and, as he thought, probably older than his mother. He read in her face that she was benevolent and intelligent. As the room had been described as his room, he thought that it would not be presumptuous in him to accost her. So he opened the conver sation by telling her that he had heard from the young woman of the house that she was thoroughly acquainted with the Cathedral. He found that he had touched a spring which put the little member, whose elasticity is so much stronger with women than with men, in such a state of motion that, with little more of interruption than assents from him, it continued in activity till the little maid appeared with a cup of coffee for him and a suggestion that he should see the Cathedral before it was too late, adding that she had been reminded of the hour of its closing by the ringing of the Angelus.

The conversation having stopped, the tolling of the Angelus was distinctly heard. The English lady observed Horace's lips move. He was saying a "Hail Mary." She offered to take him to the Cathedral. She did this the more readily because, as she saw he was a Catholic, an English Catholic, she felt sure of his decent be haviour in the sacred edifice. For though a Protestant herself, she was annoyed at anything approaching to indecorum in any of her fellow countrymen who came into the Cathedral whilst she was at work, more especially if they claimed fellowship with her. She then went to get herself ready to go out. During her absence the little maid asked him how he liked the English lady ; to which he answered that he had found her con versation instructive as well as entertaining. When the lady returned she and Horace went together to the Cathedral.

Not only did Horace behave reverently while she commented on the frescoes, which his Roman education enabled him to understand better than such of his countrymen as she had previously expounded them to, but in passing the altar he made a genuflexion, and when she finished her exposition he fell on his knees on the floor, and, burying his face in the nearest chair, kept her waiting whilst he uttered a short prayer. We opine that he prayed more for his mother, whom the meeting with this lady had called to his mind, than he did for himself. When they had returned to the inn, and had separated, as he thought, for the night, but it was for ever, he missed her company, and a sense of his loneliness came over him. Left to himself, he turned over the newspapers, which the little girl spread on the table after she had turned on the gas.

She tried to draw him into conversation about the Cathedral, but he answered vaguely, for a shade of melancholy was passing over him, as the puzzle about his mother presented itself to his mind. She bade him good night and went her way. A sigh which caught her ear, while she was still on the threshold, so disconcerted her that she thought seriously of asking Antonio whether it was safe for him to be left all alone during the night. But Antonio was already in bed. When she was gone, for something to do until bedtime which might distract his thoughts, he settled himself down to read a newspaper. Not know ing where to begin or what to pass over, he read it through from beginning to end. Luckily it was a small sheet, not exceeding a fifth part of the size of those we are accustomed to. Such as it was, it contained enough to throw a different light upon Italy from that in whicii he had seen it through the mist which enveloped him whilst a student in the Gesu.

Two little paragraphs and the report of a trial showed him that the fidelity of wives and the chastity of women was not so general as he had supposed. He read on in the hopes of finding something to show that it was commonly the fault of the men, for between the two parents his leaning was to his mother. But the paper did not happen to contain anything which favoured that view. At last, the time came for him to retire to rest. They had given him a bedroom adjoining his sitting room, and put a bed-candle ready for him on the side table, so he had nothing to do but to pass from one room to the other. Still, one thing puzzled his inexperience, and that was the gas. Should he put it out or should he leave it burning all niorht. To do the one would be an assertion of exclusive possession which he thought presump tuous, to do the other manifest waste.

He was relieved from his embarrassment by the little maid coming in, who, being on the alert, had heard him moving about on the boards of the uncarpeted room. She came in the discharge of her duty, which was to see that the gas was put out. But what put such alacrity into her movements was the desire of catching him before he got into his bedroom, so that she might have one more look VOL. I. D and satisfy herself, if possible, that he was more cheerful and had the chance of a good night's rest. Her own presence contributed not a little to the fulfilment of her good-natured wish. The manifest interest she took in him drove away the bad im pressions he had derived from his perusal of the newspaper. And when he saw, as she, candle in hand, ushered him into his bedroom, the dainty bed that was prepared for him, with its clean linen sheet neatly turned down, the tasteful arrangement of the modest furniture, with the shapely crockery and fresh water ready for his use, he began to think that as his misfortunes had come through a woman, through women they would be removed.

He thought of Eve, and of the Virgin who had crushed the serpent's head. Having wished him a second good-night, more touching and more hearty than the first, for she added a wish that he might sleep well, which drew from him a compliment on the room and the bed which she had prepared for him, she withdrew, and having turned off the gas, crept to her own little bed in the attic. Left to himself, he slowly undressed, contem plating with pleasure the luxury prepared for him, for even a room in an inn, that is, such a room, was luxury to him after the dormitory of the <3esu. Being thus engaged, strange as it may appear in such a pious boy, he forgot his night prayers until his clothing was reduced to the single garment in which Samuel is arrayed in the famous picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Then, remembering the omission, he fell on his bare knees by the bed and would have repaired it, but the words would not come.

At the Gesu the night prayers were said in Latin and in the chapel, and were followed by one of the peni tential psalms, also in Latin, said aloud in the dormitory by one of the fathers whilst the boys were getting into bed. But now the dead lan guage would not rise to life upon his tongue. His heart was too full for that. For a while he was absorbed in inward prayer, not the less fervent because it found no vent in words. Then they came to his lips, but they were not in the dead language of the Church, but in the living one, with which alone for the last eight years he had been familiar. The fervour of his prayer was not as hitherto for himself and for his preservation from the dangers which pious people think more imminent during the night, as perhaps they were in the early days of Christianity, or from those to which he might be exposed by leaving the Gesu for a country in which heresy was in the ascendant.

For himself he could pray devoutly enough, but could not go beyond the staid piety which was his; wont. For his father he prayed as for one dead,, and did it quietly and sedately enough. But his mother ; he could no longer think of her as he had done, as one sadly afflicted through a Divine dis pensation, to which all are liable. She had sinned. He must pray for her forgiveness. And pray he did for her repentance, forgiveness, amendment, and, more than that, for her conversion to a true Christian life, which he figured to himself as one of continued penance, humiliation, and sorrow for her sins, even after she should have received absolution from them. As a good Catholic, he did not venture to go with such a petition directly to the throne of God. It was to the Virgin he addressed this prayer; to a woman to save a woman from the terrible abyss ; to God's mother, that she would restore his mother to him, so that they might live together a true Christian life.

So fervent was his prayer, so terrible the picture which his imagination conjured up of the fallen woman who was his mother, such his fears lest his prayer should be insufficient, that his soul fell into an agony in which grief and terror contended for the mastery. Then his voice became thrilled ; sobs mingled with his words. He fancied himself kneeling to the Virgin, such as he had seen her represented by her image in the Cathedral, clinging to her garments and watering her feet with his tears. At length he arose, exhausted but relieved by the tears which he had shed, and, perhaps, by a conviction which some kind spirit infused into him that his prayer was heard. Let us hope that we shall not be accused of bathos by any unfeeling critic if we mention that, his English overcoming his Italian nature, he took off the now sodden garment he was wearing and arrayed himself in clean linen, so that he could lie in the bed which had been so neatly and so nicely prepared for him without defiling it.