Machpelah: or, lost lives. A novel. By A. G. W

Front matter

JUST OUT. AT EVERY LIBRARY. DEAD LILIES. & gabtl, BY CECIL HASELWOOD. EDITED BY MRS. HENRY KINGSLEY. 2 Vols., Crown 8vo., 21s. REMIN&TON & Co., 5, Arundel Street, Strand, W.C. MACHPELAH: OR LOST LIVES. a jaobrl, IN TWO VOLUMES. BY O- "TKT- VOL. I. " The stage is more beholding to love than the life of man. For as to the stage, love is ever matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief; sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury." Lord Bacon. ftonticin : REMINGTON AND CO., 5, Arundei. Street, Strand, W.C. i879 [AU Rights Reserved.] TO MY MOTHER, 1 VERY AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE THESE VOLUMES. A. G. W. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. — The Kentish Maidens ... ... ... ... ... i II. — The New Pupil ... ... ... ... ... 19 III. — Florence Lancaster ... ... ... ... ... 25 IV. — Stratagem and Failure ... ... ... ... 36 V. — The Explanation ... ... ... ... ... 64 VI. — Mr. Daniel's Visit 75 VII. — Mrs. Lancaster's Letter ... ... ... ... 95 VIII. — A Companion Chosen ... ... ... ... 105 IX.— The Musical Soire'e 115 X.—L'Hotel de Tunis 143 XI. — Harold Trevelyan .'. 154 XII.— "The War of the Roses" 180 XIII.— The Telegram 210 XIV.— The Way they Parted 226 XV. — Violet Vernon's Legacy ... ... ... ■•■ 247 XVI.— A Woman's Cobweb MACHPELAH: OE, LOST LIVES.

Chapter I. The Kentish Maidens

11 'Tis edncation forms the common mind, Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined. Pope. Kent, with its hop gardens, its variety of scenery, and its general picturesqueness, may deservedly be considered one of the prettiest counties in England. The soil is fertile, and the climate mild, so that its agricultural arrangements are most productive. But Kent is likewise remarkably wealthy in historical reminiscences, and it will be remembered that here broke out the VOL. I. B MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. social insurrections under Wat Tyler, Jack Cade, and Sir Thomas Wyatt. Many of my readers have, doubtless, visited the fine old Cathedrals of Rochester and Canterbury; the latter once so justly famed for the magnificent tomb of Thomas a Becket, which was, up to the time of the Reformation, so lavishly adorned with jewels and other costly ornaments.

Lastly, it is to Kent that so many of us have gone from time to time to revel in the sea breezes, pleasant sands, and agreeable society, which are to be found at the famous watering-places of Margate, Ramsgate, and Tunbridge "Wells. As it is in the lovely County of Kent that I purpose to lay the first scenes in my story, I think I cannot do better than give a description (meagre though it may be) of a house situated in East Kent, in order to introduce a few characters, who may occupy rather a prominent part throughout the pages of this volume. MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. 3 Tyler Grange was a stone-built, bare-looking house a few miles from Winterbury, and had at one time belonged to the old family of Wigton, who had formerly been large landed proprietors, and had ranked among the lead ing people in the county.

But their territorial right to the soil had long since been severed, and the once fine old property, with its country seat and broad acres, had not only changed hands several times, but had long since been split up into various lots, and sold by auction for building purposes. Even the old house, besides having undergone complete restoration (which to lovers of antiquity, would have been considered mutilation), had only very recently been " thoroughly re novated," to use the expression of its present owner, an East Temple Bar man, who, thinking to complete the new and somewhat im posing stuccoed front, had had inscribed in old English characters on the new free-stone pillars which now supported the iron MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. gates (and which had taken the place of the ancient stone archway entrance) Tyler Grange.

So that the very name itself of this once fine old mansion, hitherto called " The Downes," had undergone renovation. It was in its present state of modernised pomposity, when it was rented by two spinster sisters, who, boasting of a respectable name, and numerous testimonials from members of the aristocracy, had rented Tyler Grange after the City Man had tired of it, and sent round circulars to all parts of England, puffing off the salubrity of the climate, the desirability of the neighbourhood, and, lastly, the special advantages in the way of tuition that were to be found in " The Misses Faversham's Seminary for Young Ladies." Some years have elapsed since the issue and circulation of these first prospectuses, which led to the prosperity and success of the spinster sisters ; and although the Misses Paversham (or the Kentish Maidens, as their MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. 5 pupils nicknamed them) had lately curtailed the number of young ladies from forty to the select number of twenty boarders, it must not from this be in any way inferred that the Seminary had lost its prestige; rather might it be considered in the very zenith of its reputation.

The true reason for the number of the pupils being lessened, was that the sisters, feeling old age creeping upon them, had found themselves of late almost unequal to the task of teaching such a number of girls, not that they themselves would for one moment have allowed they felt obliged to suc cumb to the frailties of old age. Rather would they have preferred boasting, with not a little pride, of the two or three refusals they had made to ladies, who had consulted the " Kentish Maidens " about placing their daughters under their care. In fact, it had become just a little habit with the youngest Miss Faversham, when she happened to be in a more garrulous humour than usual with her MACHPELAH : OE, LOST LIVES. pupils, to tell little stories about certain mammas who had bad interviews which had not been quite satisfactory, and on such oc casions the youngest Miss Faversham would smirk benignly, and, having finished her vocal ramble, would invariably wind up with the following expression — " They were very lady-like people, you know, my dears, but there were flaws in their vouchers, and my sister and I have always been so particular who we take."

After saying this, Miss Jane Faversham would blush, an accomplishment she had always felt great pride in being such a pro ficient in, though, at the time we are speaking about, she was long past forty. But she had always held it as one of the dogmas of her belief, that a blush was the sure sign of a true modest mind, and the following phrase was one of her pet sayings, when she wished to draw an example for the purpose of showing her pupils the MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. degeneracy of the present age — " That so few girls now can be made to blush, marks the absence of innocence and the presence of hardened consciences." Tt was one evening in the early spring, after the pupils had returned from their afternoon walk, that Miss Jane, being in one of her cheerful moods, had been treating the girls to a few of these little stories ; and as she had finished about the mammas with unsatisfactory vouchers, and still seemed inclined to sit and chatter, the girls — who knew that upon such occasions they could take advantage of the youngest Miss Faver sham, and indulge in a joke — -began to make electric signs, which were understood by them all to mean that they might now expect to hear the threadbare little parable con cerning the blush.

It had been Florence Lancaster (the eldest pupil in the school) who had first called Miss Jane's little weak ness " The parable of the blush," and as MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. Florence, among her school-fellows, was rather noted for hitting upon witty sayings, which she said were Miss Jane's little bones of contention converted into a curry in order to make them more palatable, her sayings were often quoted, and passed round as current bon-mots among the girls. This evening, however, Florence was not to be treated to the " little parable," and it was with some little surprise she heard Miss Jane suddenly whisper, in a confidential tone — " Girls, would you like to hear a secret ? if so I will tell you one, but please pretend to know nothing about it, or my sister will be so cross with me."

Here, it may be necessary to inform those who peruse these pages, that the youngest sister was very frightened of her elder one, and this often afforded Florence Lancaster a great loop-hole to power, as she frequently turned this fear on the part of Miss Jane to her own advantage, well knowing, as she MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. did, that this timid little woman would far sooner avoid exposing her own bad conduct, or that of any other of the pupils, if by so doing she would involve herself in a severe censure as well from her stern sister. By this time Florence had pretty well learnt by experience, that Miss Jane's threats of ex posing questionable conduct existed only in theory, and that any displeasure manifested towards herself could be easily coaxed back into amiability, attended with the very stale remark, as Florence contemptuously termed it, " This once I forgive you, but the next time I shall complain to Miss Faversham."

But I am breaking the connecting wire between my thoughts and the story, besides adding to the suspense of my readers, con cerning the secret Miss Jane is about to impart to her troublesome companions. " Do tell us about it," exclaimed Florence, eagerly ; " we will all promise to know nothing about this secret until it ceases to be MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. one, so Avill that satisfy you, Miss Jane?" added she, answering in her usual decided manner ex cathedra for the whole school, and which appeared to be a sufficient guarantee to the schoolmistress, who said, " We are going to take a new pupil, a Miss Vernon ; perhaps she will come early next week, but the day has not yet been fixed." " Is she pretty ? " enquired Florence, who held beauty to be the one thing needful in life. " I do not think you will consider her very pretty, but there is something very pleasing in her face, which is almost better than beauty — I mean intelligence.

Miss Vernon has been thought a very clever girl in the school she has just left, and I hope she will become a great favourite with all of you." " Girls ! What is all this chatter about ; why are you not preparing your lessons for to-morrow?" enquired a stern voice, and before the pupils had time to recover their MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. vacated seats, the eldest Miss Faversham stood before them in all the rigid severity of schoolmistress displeasure. Miss Faversham was a tall, lean, long waisted looking female ; very prim, precise, and methodical in all her ways, and exceed ingly angular in her movements. There was something about Miss Faversham which re minded one of the old Puritanical days in the aversion she showed towards the characteristic frivolities of; youth. She had a long nose, a high forehead, thin compressed lips, and cold grey eyes, with rather a sinister expression in them.

These last she now turned towards Miss Jane, who seemed quite to quail beneath their withering glance. " You, Jane, at least, ought to know better than to be the ringleader of such idleness. Girls, sit down at once to your studies ; you, Grace Hatherway, have still that long exercise to write out ; and you, Edith, will have to answer those questions in Roman History, MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. before we go into tea. Florence Lancaster, I shall be ready to give you a German dicta tion in ten minutes, and shall expect to find you ready. In the meantime, I wish to have a few words with you, Jane, if you will follow me into the next room." And having finished her instructions, Miss Faversham left the room, closely followed by Miss Jane, who was now fearing a long lecture from her sister, and was only relieved by the thoughts of its taking place in a room away from the pupils ; for there were few things which made poor Miss Jane more nervous and uncomfort able than to find herself in for a scolding when present with the girls.

It took her quite a whole day to recover from the feeling of having been made to look so small. To find fault with her sister was not, however, Miss Faversham's intention on the present occasion ; the fact being, she had that after noon received a letter from a Mrs. Jessop, to whom she had referred, for the purpose of MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. enquiring into the antecedents of Miss Ver non, the new pupil, and these antecedents had turned out to be not " quite so satisfactory," as she, Miss Faversham, could have desired. " I would like you to read this letter from Mrs. Jessop, Jane ; there appears to be some mystery concerning this Miss Vernon's father, and, considering all things, I have almost regretted accepting her as a pupil." Miss Jane, before making any reply, un folded the letter that had been handed to her, and unclasping her gold rimmed spectacles, read what follows : — " Guy's Lodge, " Eastbrooke, " March 14th " Madam, — " I must apologise for not having answered your letter before this, but I was called away to Town on urgent business, and only returned home last evening.

MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. " I have known Violet Vernon from quite a little child, her mother having been among one of my earliest friends. "lam well aware that Mrs Vernon, by her marriage, made what was considered by her family a mesalliance ; I never rightly learnt the exact story, as I was abroad at the time the affair took place, and, though I was quite one of her most intimate friends up to the time of her death, which sad event took place about four years ago, I always carefully avoided all mention of so delicate and painful a subject, seeing she herself never alluded to it. " Mrs Vernon was an extremely nice woman, and was the youngest daughter of the late Earl Severn, a title which, you are doubtless aware, became extinct at his death, as he left only daughters to survive him. Violet Vernon's father I never saw, but I believe he died somewhere in New York, many years ago.

" Since her mother's death, Violet has MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. always spent her holidays with me, and I should utterly fail adequately to describe her good qualities did I attempt to do so in a letter ; nevertheless, should you at any time wish to ask me any further questions con cerning your new pupil, who, I feel sure, will do you every credit, I shall be only too happy to answer them. " Believe me to remain, " Yours sincerely, "Augusta Jessop." " I see nothing that is not desirable in the character Mrs. Jessop gives of Miss Vernon, Eliza ; it appears to me she could hardly have written anything more favourable," remarked Miss Jane, nervously taking off her spec tacles, and returning them to a pocket in her dress. " I said nothing about this Miss Vernon's personal character being unfavourable Jane ; the observation I made just now was, that MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. her antecedents were a little so," rejoined' Miss Faversham shortly.

" In the first place, there seems to be so very little known about the girl's father, and, although you may not think much of this matter, I have always con sidered knowledge of my pupils' parents ex tremely important, considering that the names they bear are all derived from them. Mrs. Jessop expresses herself as being ' fully aware' of the girl's mother having made in her marriage a mesalliance. Under these cir cumstances, do you think it would be wise for us to accept Violet Vernon as one of our pupils?" " I do not think this need prevent our taking her," timidly suggested Miss Jane. " The little I saw of the girl prepossessed me in her favour. Both her parents are now dead ; therefore, I do not think we need trouble ourselves much about them. Miss Vernon has been introduced to us by her aunt, Lady Elizabeth Morgan, who we know MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. holds a very substantial position in the county ; and surely the fact of Lady Eliza beth acknowledging Miss Vernon as her niece ought to be sufficient for us."

" Certainly, if it were so ; but that is just where the little hitch is," interrupted Miss Faversham coldly. " Lady Elizabeth said she did not wish it to be publicly known that this girl was her niece, and what she told me was this — " ' That she had promised her late sister (Miss Vernon's mother) to give her daughter every advantage in the way of a good educa tion ; but that after that she should expect Violet to make her own way in the world.' " And, from the little I made out, during the short interview I had with Lady Eliza beth, it appears that her sister dropped her title of Lady Violet, and accepted plain Mrs. with the name of her husband. I believe she did this because her father refused to acknowc VOL. I. MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. ledge her as his daughter after her marriage, and he kept to this decision up to his dying day."

" Poor thing ! " exclaimed Miss Jane sadly. " What a hard life she must have led. Let us not visit the misdeeds of the parents on this innocent child. The little I have seen of her tells me she is a sweet girl, and I should be sorry to think we had been in any way the cause of blighting her young life. You know that it is our present intention to give up our school in two years; by that time Violet Vernon will have completed her education, and will be ready to enter upon her life's career. Mrs Jessop assures us that, as a pupil, she will do us credit ; if so, we may live to feel proud of this girl having finished her education at Tyler Grange.

Chapter II The New Pupil

" Her virtue and the conscience of her worth, That would be wooed, and not unsought be won." " Paradise Lost." Violet was just seventeen when she was taken away from the small boarding school, where by far the larger portion of her young life had been spent, and placed by her aunt, Lady Elizabeth, under the care of the Misses Faversham, at Tyler Grange. At this time she was rather a short, awkward-looking girl, with a clumsy figure, and her chief and almost only beauty consisted in the truthful and intelligent expression of her eyes, which were of a bluish grey, and possessed a depth of thought which was rather an enigma to MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. fathom. Except for this, Violet was one who would have been considered rather devoid of personal attraction. Her neck, which was naturally short, she did her best to lengthen by the way in which she wore her light brown hair, which was neatly brushed over her broad brow, and twisted into a small knot almost at the top of her head.

This style, though far from being becoming to the generality of people, was peculiarly suitable in its classical severity to the contour of her face. In her early child hood Violet had undergone many hardships, owing to the extreme poverty of her mother, and these privations had slightly stamped themselves upon her features, leaving upon her face a rather hard uncompromising ex pression. Her manners were extremely cold and reserved, and she showed a chilliness to wards strangers which usually rather repelled their first overtures of friendship. Violet's mother, as has already been stated, MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. was the youngest daughter of the late Lord Severn, and had, when a girl of twenty-two, run away with an actor, called Alfred Vernon, a man about her own age, whom she had met whilst staying at a house in London, where he had been invited to take the management of some private theatricals.

Lord Severn, who had been a widower some years before the elopement of his daughter with this Alfred Vernon, had entirely ignored her after the marriage, and her husband, finding that instead of being a gainer, he was rather a loser, having to support a wife and child with his slender earnings on the stage, forsook her, emigrated to America, and died, about five years after, in New York. Two years after Alfred Vernon had left his wife and gone to America, Lord Severn died, and left the whole of his per sonal and real property to his eldest daughter, Lady Elizabeth Morgan, thereby totally dis inheriting his youngest child. Mrs. Vernon MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. was thus entirely thrown upon her own resources for a livelihood, and this she accomplished by deriving a small pittance from plain needlework, and by illuminating and devising new patterns for Christmas and Easter cards.

But besides what she gained from her own exertions, she was in the habit of receiving from time to time small remit tances of money from two or three kind, pitying friends, and soon after her father's death her sister, Lady Elizabeth, made her a promise to defray all the expenses of her daughter's education, so that after this most responsible duty had been taken off her hands, Mrs. Vernon managed to live toler ably well. Except during her holidays, Violet saw very little of her mother after her boarding school days had once begun, and even part of these were often spent with their kind friend, Mrs. Jessop ; so that, from not being of a very affectionate disposition, her mother's MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. death had not made that great impression upon her which might have been expected from an only child.

Since Mrs. Vernon's death Violet had spent the whole of her vaca tion with Mrs. Jessop, but as she was now seventeen, her aunt deemed it necessary to remove her from her present boarding-school, and to place her at the Misses Faversham's more finishing seminary in Kent. The first impression she made on the pupils at Tyler Grange during her first even ing was that she was both shy and uninteresting, and the unfortunate blush which mantled her cheeks whilst undergoing a critical examination from Miss Faversham, on the extent of her knowledge, increased Florence Lancaster's fund of satire, to an enormous extent, who might be overheard remarking to Kate Hatherway, the little girl who sat next to her — " That Miss Vernon was certain to be a great chum of Miss Jane's, as she was a MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. living example of her pet parable," and when bed time came, and Miss Faversham had con ducted the new pupil to her bedroom, Florence might have been overheard dis cussing and airing her opinion of Miss Vernon pretty freely.

" A slow girl, an awfully slow girl," she remarked as she selected her silver candle stick from a row of metal ones (which was one of the special privileges this heiress enjoyed), " she has a fearful figure* and not a single good feature except her eyes, and they are certainly very pretty, don't you all think so ? " And without lingering for a reply to the question which she had asked in the tone of a foregone conclusion, this spoilt child of fortune lit her candle, and ten minutes afterwards might have been seen perusing the pages of an exceedingly doubtful publi cation in point of morality, over the com fortable fire which had been lit in her daintily furnished little bedroom.

Chapter III. Florence Lancaster

" Caress'd or chidden by a dainty hand, And singing airy trines this or that, Light hope at Beauty's call would perch and stand, And run through every change of sharp or flat ; And Fancy came and at her pillow sat, When sleep had bound her in his rosy hand, And chased away the still-recurring gnat, And woke her with a lay from fairy land." Tennyson. Florence Lancaster, at the time we are writing, had been nearly a year at Tyler Grange. Before that, she had spent most of her time in Paris with her parents. Gen eral and Mrs. Lancaster had had five children, but four of them had died as infants, and Florence now being their only surviving one, had been allowed every indulgence, and was MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. much spoilt. General Lancaster's family had long been very wealthy, and besides in heriting a fair fortune from his father, estates and funded property had since at different times been left to him from various collateral branches.

Since his retirement from the army, he had lived chiefly abroad with his wife and daughter; spending most of his time in the capitals of France and Austria, so that Florence had become quite a pro ficient in the languages of French and Ger man. Mrs. Lancaster had long been devoted to Paris, and generally managed to induce her husband to spend many months of each season in the gay French capital, consequently Florence had not only seen a great deal of life, but having been from her earliest years the constant companion of her mother, she had associated with few girls of her own age ; and mixing so much with grown up people, she had learnt to acquire their style, both in manner and conversation. In fact, Florence, MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. always a precocious child, might have been considered quite a grown up young lady at fourteen, and when other girls of her own age were still in short frocks, and with their hair hanging in wavy locks down their backs, she was to be seen with her dresses en train and her hair manipulated into one of the latest styles of Parisian erections.

When she first came to Tyler Grange direct from Paris, attired in one of the recent novelties from Worth's, she had almost taken away the breath of the homely and simple-minded Favershams ; bringing with her a para phernalia of foreign trunks, and carrying in one hand a sac de voyage, containing her jewels, and in the other a tiny toy terrier. Florence was a tall, elegant looking girl, with plenty of self-assurance, and a very great weakness for rings, which she had learnt to display with all the dexterity of French hand movement. Three jewelled gipsy ones she invariably wore on the engaged finger of her MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. left hand, which she called her " tokens of Platonic affections.'' It had been rather a wrench to General and Mrs. Lancaster to part with their daughter, but as so little of her life had hitherto been spent in England, and she spoke her own language with a slightly foreign accent, it had at first been thought necessary for her to finish her education at a first-rate London school.

But after a number of prospectuses had been scanned by these over anxious parents, and well known London seminaries, situated in the fashionable quarters of Mayfair and Belgravia, failed to satisfy even the fastidious Mrs. Lancaster (whose faith in immortality was quite secondary in importance, compared with her two creeds, which she laid down as dogmas, the first of these being — that it was absolutely absurd to call any one well dressed if they did not get all their things from Paris, and the second, that all people who did not dwell in a metropolis, MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. at least some portion out of every year, were out of the world) they at length turned their attention to a neatly engraved prospectus, which had been cast by fate into the hands of one of their very fashionable acquaintances, and where the numerous requirements in the way of home comforts, healthy climate, picturesque neighbourhood, and substantial educational advantages were to be met with at the Misses Faversham's Seminary in Kent.

After a little more hesitation on Mrs. Lan caster's part, who clung very tenaciously to her dogma concerning a metropolis, she was at length overruled by the somewhat pungent remark made by her husband — " Our girl is too bright already, a little provincial life in green pastures will do her all the good in the world. Florence has lived too much in large cities for us to have any fear about her becoming rusty." And thus persuaded, Mrs. Lancaster gave way, with some trifling mumbling remark MACHPELAH : OR, LOST LIVES. about Tyler Grange being situated at no very great distance from London, and quite close to a good, though somewhat ancient town. So to the Misses Faversham's Florence had been sent, after arrangements had been made that she was to be provided with every com fort, and that her every wish should be gratified, so long as her desires were not positively outside the pale of reason, and in no way opposed to the rules and regulations of the establishment, and, in order to insure still further the happiness of their daughter, General Lancaster agreed to pay at the rate of three hundred a year, and an extra hun dred was placed at the disposal of Florence, if she chose to indulge in horse exercise, or any other exceptional luxury.