Kate Grenville

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGR

I. SIXTY AND SIXTEEN 1

n. A DAUGHTER OF EVE 23

Chapter I

John Grenville sat buried in thought in his library, the only room in the big house he had owned and occupied for twenty years, in which he felt thoroughly at home.

He was sixty years old that day, and could look back upon the past with more satisfaction than falls to the lot of most of us. The inheritor of a good estate in the west country, and of honourable family traditions, gifted with unusual intelligence and power of application, he had made use of these advantages, not with a view to his own aggrandisement, but in accordance with his conception of duty. Of an amiable, affectionate, and retiring disposition, he had sought for happiness, and found it in the small cii'cle of his family

B and intimate friends, and saw without a particle of envy the rise of some dunces and not a few knaves to great positions, which they filled with much satisfaction to themselves under the comfortable conviction that success is the best of merit.

But though, where possible, he would put a charitable construction on the conduct of others, occasions would arise in which all the barriers of reserve and shyness would break down. For faults, and even crimes of impulse, he would make ample allowance ; but, once persuaded that a man had deliberately and in cold blood acted the part of a sneak, he would blaze out against the culprit with unrestrained invective.

In this respect the lapse of years had left him absolutely unchanged, except that experience had taught him to barb the shafts of his denunciation with a keener point, and to aim them with more deadly effect. Nature had given him great facility in the use of language, and education and circumstances had combined to equip him with the faculty of expressing simply and with accuracy every shade of meaning.

At Eton and at Cambridge he learnt steadily and well whatever task was set before him, was one of the best all-round scholars of his year, and in due course became a Fellow of Trinity.

At this time he possessed only the modest competence allotted to a younger son, as his elder brother Eichard was then alive; so our scholar was called to the Bar, set up in Chambers in Lincoln's Inn, and was supplied with conveyancing work by the family solicitor. John Grenville's subtle intellect was specially adapted to grapple with the old-world technicaUties that many generations of lawyers had engrafted on this branch of the law. It must not be supposed, however, that he looked with favour upon the system by which he profited, a system by which plain instructions could only be transferred to legal documents through the medium of a language which none but experts could understand, and under rules which few experts had thoroughly mastered. This was a state of things which in due course he determined he would do his best to remedy ; but, unlike many reformers, he thought it advisable first of all to understand the system which he intended to denounce.

His efforts in this direction were attended by a welcome discovery. He knew that he could learn. He had a well-grounded confidence in his ability to comprehend the mysteries of conveyancing. His attainments were of a high order, but as regards scholarship, some of his competitors at the Bar were his equals, and even his superiors ; what his experience as a conveyancer showed was that as a teacher he stood without a rival.

The discovery came about in this wise. When Grenville practised it was well known in Lincoln's Inn that there were certain judicial decisions which were the wonder and despair of conveyancers, who could only account for them by attributing to some of Her Majesty's judges a hopeless incapacity to understand the rudiments of the craft. Now Grenville, on the contrary, would maintain that he firmly believed there was not a judge upon the bench who, if you once fathomed his ignorance, to begin with, could not be brought by slow degrees, and by arguments adapted to his knowledge and capacity, to take a fairly intelligent view even of a somewhat abstruse point of conveyancing. He soon had the opportunity of putting his theory to the test under the most unpromising conditions. He had to uphold a conveyancing opinion he had given before a judge whose ignorance of conveyancing law, prejudice, and fixed determination not to suffer himself to undergo the degradation of being instructed by an unknown and youthful barrister, were all that could be desired in order to render the test complete. For some hours the result was in doubt, but at last tact, patience, and perseverance won the day. The right decision was given, and the conveyancing fraternity breathed again. Grenville observed to his friends : * I always said you greatly over-estimated the incapacity of the learned judge. He is quite capable of working out a simple rule-of-three sum if the principle is properly explained to him. He can think if he likes ; what you have to do is to make him think. Directly I got him to listen to me I knew it was all right.' One is sorry to think that this is the way in which clever barristers — and, indeed, barristers who are not clever — sometimes talk of Her Majesty's judges.

This triumph, and others similar to it, did not, however, obtain for Grenville any considerable general practice. His services were little in request except for that description of case in which they were indispensable. It cannot fairly be said that the narrow limit of his success was due entirely to the spirit of nepotism and the insensibility to merit alleged to be characteristic of the attorney class. His legal conscience was of a peculiar and

6 KATE GEENVILLE

uncompromising order. Everyone who has had the misfortune to be concerned in an action at law is aware that there are certain * tricks of the trade,* or, let us say, * strategic manoeuvres,' made use of to embarrass an opponent or to fortify one's own position. Some of these manoeuvres clearly partake of the nature of sharp practice, and are eschewed by all respectable firms of solicitors. Delicate questions are referred to a conventional code, by which the profession is quite content to be guided. Not so Grenville. He would not for a moment admit the plea of custom in justification of a proceeding that he condemned as dishonest, dishonourable, or unfair. Such proceedings he would denounce in bitter and scathing terms, utterly regardless of his own interests and the feelings of the client he addressed. It must be confessed that Grenville was not a pleasant person for solicitors to have any dealings with, and accordingly they let him severely alone, except where they deemed his assistance a necessity.

That his practice should be thus limited was not altogether distasteful to him. He found that his chamber practice in conveyancing took up as much of his time as he cared to devote to it, and much as he delighted in the exhilarating intellectual task of instructing the judges, he was not sorry that the calls of his profession left him leisure to enjoy his books and the society of his friends.

Happy in his employment, and still happier in the aflfection and esteem of the small circle in which he moved, the years passed quickly by. The routine of his daily life took a firmer and firmer hold upon him. Neither his scholarship nor his peculiar and narrow success at the Bar brought him much into contact with the practical aflfairs of life. His spacious chambers, in which he had by degrees collected a considerable library in classical and general literature, was the home where he asked nothing better than to spend the rest of his life.

But it was not to be. When he had been fifteen years at the Bar, and had attained the age of forty, his elder brother Eichard, who had never married, broke his neck out hunting, and John Grenville became the sole surviving representative of his family in the male line, and the absolute owner of the estate in the West of England, where many generations of Grenvilles had worthily sustained the reputation of their race.

Had he considered himself free to consult his own inclinations, nothing would have induced him to desert Lincoln's Inn to be master at Grenville Court, and take up a position for which he was unsuited both by temperament and long habit. He would thankfully have handed over his property and his duties to a brother or a cousin had such a course been open to him ; but having no Grenville relations, the call of duty was clear, and he must bow to the mysterious decree of Providence, which had replaced a popular fox-hunting squire by a musty, middle-aged conveyancer from Lincoln's Inn, who had no instinct for sport, and no practical knowledge of how the Game Laws are worked by the county bench.

In the performance of his difficult task he had the good fortune to be able to reckon confidently upon one invaluable ally. The Earl of Upperton, who owned a large adjoining property, and was deservedly the most popular man in the county, had been Grenville's fag at Eton, and was devotedly attached to him. The modest, simple, and affectionate nature of Upperton soon made a deep impression upon Grenville, who discerned under moderate abilities a most lovable disposition, and a friendship sprang up between the two boys that nothing could have severed. Grenville, by virtue of his two years' seniority and immensely superior ability, took the lead, and Upperton was more than content to be the humble disciple of one who, in his eyes, combined every excellence both of mind and of character.

The friendship thus begun had never been interrupted. Upperton was a frequent and welcome visitor at Grenville's chambers, heard with delight of the successful issue of his contests with the judges, thought him the cleverest fellow in the world, and went into raptures over his account of the wiggings he had administered to astonished and indignant solicitors.

Some years before Grenville left Lincoln's Inn, Upperton, who had suffered a disappointment in early life, fell a victim to a pretty girl who made a dead set at him. She had, however, little but high spirits and good looks to recommend her, and was filled with a prodigious sense of her position and importance. Grenville found it impossible to get on with her, and the dislike was mutual ; so, when he took possession of Grenville Court, while Upperton was his firm friend and admirer, he had to reckon on the ill-will of the Countess.

Generous and open-handed, the only difficulty

Grenville had to contend against in dealing with his tenants and dependants was the liability to be imposed upon. Here he found the advice of Upperton of the greatest use, and had it not been for the poachers and the Game Laws, his wellmeant endeavours to ingratiate himself with his neighbours of the male sex would perhaps have met with all the success they deserved.

Grenville, though no sportsman himself, was careful to explain that he would with pleasure have kept up the shooting on his property for the entertainment of his friends, had he not been deterred by the prospect of poaching affrays, of which he had heard something in his brother's time. Thus far his attitude was at least intelligible, and, making due allowance for his defective instincts and peculiar training, his neighbours did not seriously resent his determination to give up game-preserving.

Whether the more enterprising among the poachers were altogether obliged to him for not keeping up a head of game is perhaps doubtful ; but on the great principle current among landlords, that every man has a right to do what he likes with his own, it was generally recognised that within the limits of his own domain Grenville was at liberty to take his own course, however disappointing it might be to the votary of sport,, whether legitimate or illegitimate.

It was on the county bench that the unpardonable offence was given. Here, from time immemorial, the Slenders and Shallows of the day have enunciated certain fixed and unalterable doctrines with regard to the iniquity of poachers and poaching, which they have enforced with all the rigour of the laws from time to time passed at their instance, in strict accordance with the doctrines aforesaid.

Now, Grenville had not practised at the Bar for fifteen years, he had not associated with conveyancers and convinced judges against their will, without having had occasion to appreciate the force of prejudice, and the extreme difficulty experienced by most of us in thoroughly realising and making due allowance for the point of view of those from whom we differ. Nevertheless, one day on the bench his quick temper and keen sense of justice burst through all restraint, and produced an explosion of the first magnitude.

A young man was had up for poaching. It was a common enough case, with no circumstances of aggravation ; but two previous convictions had

12 KATE GEENVILLE

been recorded against him, and Lord Upperton, the chairman, was about to pronounce a severe sentence, when Grenville objected, and the four magistrates present retired to discuss the case. Grenville had no difficulty in agreeing with his colleagues that the law must be respected and ■enforced. He admitted that the offence was one that interfered seriously with a pastime the law sanctioned, and to which landowners were passionately attached, a pastime which to many of them constituted the chief recreation of their lives ; but he ventured respectfully to remind his colleagues that as landowners themselves they were to some extent judges in their own case, and that he doubted if justice demanded or public opinion would endorse a severe penalty, where the offence was unaccompanied by violence, and the culprit in other respects bore a good character.

To this remonstrance one of his colleagues roughly retorted, * I cannot understand how any respectable man can have any feeling but that of loathing and detestation for these infernal scoundrels who never do a good day's work, and go prowling about at night on thieving expeditions when honest people are in bed. What has a labouring man got to do with guns and snares

SlXXy AND SIXTEEN 13-

and nets ? Whenever I see a poacher I know I

see a d d dishonest ruffian ready to commit

any crime under the sun. That is my opinion,, and I never heard any one who knew anything about them say anything different. You'll soon change your tone when you know better. To give this young vagabond a good heavy punishment is the best thing for him and for all of us, and how any one can deny it passes my comprehension.'

*And it passes my comprehension,' rejoined Grenville, * to understand how a landowner who makes sport not only the chief recreation but almost the sole business and occupation of his life, can have the monstrous hardihood and injustice to accuse a poor man of being ready to commit every crime under the sun because, impelled it may be by the same overpowering instinct for sport that engrosses your faculties, he gratifies that instinct in the only way he can gratify it. If you had been born in the rank of life of this poor boy, how many convictions for poaching do you suppose would have been recorded against you by this time? If any of us on the bench fail to remember your early exploits in setting snares on Dorney Common when you were at Eton, it is not for want of being constantly reminded of them.'

Though this parting shot raised a laagh at the expense of his adversary, and Upperton smoothed matters down as well as he could, Grenville's rejoinder gave serious oflfence, and the reports of it that were spread abroad were not free from embellishment and exaggeration.

Having thus got into trouble with the neighbours of his own sex, it was not long before his proceedings gave still more serious umbrage to the ladies of his acquaintance.

It must not be supposed that the fair sex viewed with indifference the advent of a new master to Grenville Court, particularly as the new-comer was a bachelor, and it might be hoped less •determined than his brother had been in the maintenance of his freedom. Forty was not by any means a hopeless age, and had not Lord Upperton represented Grenville as the slave of •duty, and was it not his duty as the last of his race to marry, if it were only for the prospect of preventing the extinction of an old and an honourable family ? That he was afflicted with shyness and a peppery temper would not deter any maiden of spirit from taking him in hand, and exercising a benign and humanising influence over his character.

These were considerations that presented themselves to the minds of many mothers and not a few daughters, nor did his want of orthodoxy in the matter of poachers and poaching, in the opinion of these good creatures, seriously aflFect the situation. Indeed, some of them took every opportunity of expressing to him their concurrence in his view.

He may have derived comfort from these manifestations of sympathy, but the comforters derived no substantial reward for their ingenuous ministrations.

Each individual in the baffled pack of matrons and maidens was beginning to console herself for her want of success by the cheering reflection that every other member of the pack had suflFered a like disappointment, when it was rumoured that the object of all their solicitation had been got at by an odious little woman whom nobody knew or wanted to know, the widow of a scamp who had deserted her, and died of yellow fever in the West Indies, a woman (as they all agreed) probably of no character at all, who had dropped from the clouds and settled in a little house not far from Grenville Court.

These rumours turned out to be only too true.

and before a year was ended Grenville had married the successful intruder.

This proceeding on his part was neither so surprising nor so foolish as some persons were pleased to represent. The * odious little woman ' was not much over thirty, handsome, clever, and remarkably well-informed. Grenville pitied her loneliness, her misfortunes touched him, and above all he was indignant at the suspicion and distrust with which she was regarded by her own sex. She was a good wife to him, and as the strictest inquiries failed to elicit anything damaging to her character, the mistress of Grenville Court enjoyed as much of her neighbours* society as she cared to cultivate.

But in five years Grenville's married life came to an end. His wife died of a fever, leaving him with a little girl aged two and a half.

To this child he now devoted himself, and determined that no one else should undertake her education. He soon found he had excellent material to work upon. To health and high spirits she united an unusual degree of intelligence and a keen desire to learn. Wilful in other respects, at her lessons she was all obedience and docility. With such a teacher and such a pupil, no wonder lessons were delightful and progress rapid. At nine she had already a fair knowledge of Latin.

About this time Upperton was in trouble with regard to the education of his second and youngest son, Tom Carruthers. Tom was turned eleven, had been at school a year, had learnt next to nothing, and was reported to be a hopeless dunce. Upperton in his distress came to Grenville, who saw Tom, and having asked him very few questions about his lessons, and a great many about other subjects of deeper interest to him, assured his father that the boy, though at present a dunce, was no fool, and volunteered to take sole charge of his education, and fit him for a good place at Eton.

So it came to pass that Tom Carruthers and Kate Grenville for a year and a half pursued their studies together. This arrangement was in every respect a. success. They quarrelled and teased one another for all the world like brother and sister. Kate helped Tom with his lessons, and in return Tom taught her a good deal of schoolboy slang and various manly accomplishments, such as how to throw a ball and to tie a reef-knot. The little pair were so happy together that it was with very

C mixed feelings that Tom received the announcement that he was now ready to go to Eton.

Grenville thus addressed him : * Tom, I am glad to say you have done your best, and I have done my best, to secure for you what you call " a good time " at Eton. You will go there at twelve and a half, and take the highest place a new boy can take. In enabling you to do this, a little experience of the Eton system will make you understand the full extent of the advantages you will enjoy over those who have not received the same early coaching. For three or four years you will have to pass examinations about once a year, and if during that period you can continue to remember about half of what I have taught you, in less than six years you will be in Sixth Form. Your family will then have the satisfaction of hearing you on the Fourth of June recite (very badly, my dear Tom, I am sure) in full dress as a representative of the scholarship of Eton. You will not be even a passable scholar, Tom, far from it ; but under the Eton system deficiency in scholarship will not stand in the way of your upward progress in the school. During the whole of your stay at Eton you will be very high up for your age ; you will be captain of your house, have four fags, and.

with fair success in games, will enjoy much consideration. Many boys older than you will, for want of good early coaching, take a lower place, and having a far greater aptitude for learning than you, will beat your head off in every examination ; but under the Eton system they will never be allowed to catch you up. Mortifying perhaps to them, but satisfactory for you. I never had a harder task than that of preparing you for Eton. I've crammed you for your own good as full as you can hold. With few and capricious exceptions, the Eton system decrees that the place a boy takes when he goes to Eton shall within narrow limits regulate his position in the school till he leaves. Of that system, Tom, I have given you the full advantage. I don't envy the Eton masters the efforts they will make — ineffectually, I am sure — to keep up your scholarship when once you have discovered how little is required for a pass ; but you are a good fellow, like your father, and will be a credit to Eton. Good-bye, Tom ; God bless you.'

Since that day six years and more had elapsed, when Grenville was aroused from the reverie in which we found him at the beginning of thi& chapter by the entrance of a girl dressed in a

c 2 riding habit, and carrying a cup of tea. She was in the first bloom of youth and beauty. Of middle stature, her figure was at once slender and full, her complexion had the freshness of perfect health, her features were delicate and regular ; but her chief attraction consisted in the vivacity and intelligence that lighted up her face, and animated every gesture and movement. Her fair hair hung down her back, and her blue eyes sparkled with pleasure.

* Papa, dear,' she said, putting the cup down before him, 'here is your tea. By-the-bj',* she added, looking at an addressed envelope on his writing desk, * that letter ought to have gone to Mrs. Price this morning, you bad old dawdle.'

.'Yes, Kate,' said her father, 'and I put the directed envelope in front of me as a reminder ; but it was my birthday to-day, and I thought about a great many things. I haven't written the letter yet, but I will directly. "Where are you going ? '

' It's the first day of the Eton holidays, and I'm going to meet Tom at the lake at half-past five, as I promised him on the Fourth of June, and have come to give you your tea before I start. I shall give Tom a good teasing.'

* How old is Tom now ? '

' Tom is eighteen and a half, and I am sixteen and a half, and our united ages amount to just thirty-five years.'

' So you are going to tease Tom? '

* Yes, papa/

* Do you thmk Tom likes it ? *

* I suppose he does ; anyhow, I do.'

* Don't be too aggravating, or you will lose your playfellow.'

* No fear ; Tom and I understand one another perfectly. We're as thick as thieves ; and oh, papa, what dreadfully rude things he says to me sometimes ! If I was his sister he couldn't slang me more. Suppose I do rile him a bit, there's plenty of time during the hoKdays to set it all right.'

* Very well, my dear ; go off to meet Tom by all means. You must fight it out between you.'

When she reached the hall door she saw George the groom mounted ready to go with her.

* George,' she said, * what's this ? '

* If you please, Miss, Master said I was to go with you when you went out a-riding.'

' Well, George, I sha'n't want you to-day. I'm not going far, and I can open the gates myself — and, George '

22 KATE iiEENVILLE

' Yes, Miss.'

* How's your mother to-day ? I heard yesterday she wasn't well.'

* If you please, Miss, she's very middling ; very middling, indeed. Miss.'

* 1 am sorry to hear it, George. Now, you go off and see her, I sha'n't be back for two hours. You should be kind to your mother, George.'

* Yes, Miss.'

So George went off in one direction and Kate in another.

CHAPTEE II

The Honourable Thomas Carruthers arrived at the lake well before the appointed time, attended by his black retriever, Ponto, the inseparable companion of his walks abroad. The place of meeting agreed upon was a seat commanding a distant view of the house. He endeavoured to wile away the time by throwing his walking-stick into the water for Ponto's edification, and when the monotony of that form of entertainment palled upon him, he sat down gloomily on the rustic seat, wondering what on earth had detained Kate, and keeping his eyes fixed on the landscape intervening between him and the house.

Before long he saw her on her pony emerge over the ridge of an undulation in the park grounds, a long way out of the direct line between him and the house. The pony was going at a gallop, and apparently she failed to see Tom, for she kept straight on, without taking any notice of him. He called out, but she still held on her course, so he ran after the pony, shouting, and it was not till he was quite out of breath that Kate turned her head, reined in the pony, and graciously extending her hand, said, ' Oh, Tom, is that you, and Ponto, too ? How do, Tom ? Glad to see you, I'm sure.' Tom sulkily took her hand. * I say, Kate, this is really too bad ; you know you settled at Eton, on the Fourth of June, to meet me here to-day at half-past five ; we talked no end about the good time we would have together these holidays.'

* Fourth of June ! Bless you, Tom, why, that's two months ago. Well, you are unreasonable. Just as if I had nothing else to do for the last two months but remember all the silly things we said to one another on the Fourth of June. Everyone is dreadfully hard up for conversation on the Fourth of June, and I had to say something, you know ; and just consider how kind it was of me to come at all. I had to come up the day before, and spend two nights in town with your mother and brother. Oh, Tom, that brother of yours ! You can't tell me that the Lord Viscount Grandcourt's conversation is entertaining.'

* Well,* said Tom, * you must recollect I'm only a younger son, and Granny's a swell ; but if I were Granny I don't think I should put quite so much "side" on. Seems to me Granny rather overdoes it.'

* Yes, Tom, he is a pompous little duflfer, if you like. But I was about to observe, Tom, when you interrupted me, that I felt obliged to be very kind to you on the Fourth of June, because I was so sorry for you when you got so hot and red and uncomfortable reciting Gray's Ode, and what a hash you made of it ! Dear Tom, I did feel for you somuch. Didn't you hear them laugh when you had done ? '