Sir Percival; a story of the past and of the present

Front matter

SIE PEECIVAL

SIE PEECIVAL

A STORY OF THE PAST AND OF TEE PRESENT

CHAPTER I KiNGSWOOD

CHAPTER m

PAGE 1

CHAPTER n

Port-Royal des Champs . . . .29

V3

CHAPTER IV

A Chantret of Priests . . . , 107

CHAPTER V

Virginia Clare . . . . .145

CHAPTER VI

The Garden Door , . • .178

CONTENTS

CHAPTER VII

PAGE

The Valley op the Shadow of Death . .196

CHAPTEE VIII

Lady Elizabeth . . . . .214

CHAPTER IX A Sekmon. ..... 232

CHAPTER X

The Garden Door again . . .255

CHAPTER XI

The finding of the Grail . „ , 269

CHAPTER I

KINGSWOOD

I SUPPOSE that no one ever denied that Kingswood was a beautiful house, though some may have objected to it on the ground of inconvenience. It stood in the centre of an agricultural and wooded country, remote, with one slight exception, from any mining or manufacturing population. It was immediately surrounded by acres, or, I should rather say, miles of chase and forest, untouched since the Saxon time, when it had been the favourite hunting-ground of king and etheling. Through miles of tangled fern and forest glade the narrow, unkempt drive led to the house, a series of low, almost detached buildings sur-

S B rounding a quadrangle. The entrance hall was said to date from the Saxon time ; but if this cannot be accepted, the house itself as a whole was certainly one of the most ancient inhabited houses in England. The deer came up unchecked, amid the beds of fern, to the long low front, which was more regular than the other sides of the quadrangle, with small windows at regular intervals at some height from the ground, which lighted in fact only the upper rooms, and pierced in the centre by a gateway in a low cupolaed tower. This front was said to have been added in the reign of Henry the Seventh, when the house was restored after the wars. Inside the quadrangle, in the centre of the gravel, stood the tall pillar of a sun-dial, erected on a base of four steps, and having four gnomons, one on each of its four sides. Opposite to the entrance gate, up a flight of curved steps, was the door of the great hall. The stone door frame, supported by pillars in half relief, and carved with a profusion of armorial q uarterings, was carried up to the roof, and, at the time of which I speak, was in perfect preservation, having some years before been most carefully restored. It gave a richness and perfection to this aspect of the house which it would otherwise have lacked. The rest of the quadrangle was most irregular in character, having square projections and windows both square and circular in muUioned stone frames, roofs of distinct buildings and of different heights, and chimneys of every form and size. In certain sheltered parts ivy and other creeping plants had grown up the walls, but in general the mellowed stone-work was perceptible, interspersed in one or two places with the small red brickwork of the Jacobean time. Not a stone was allowed to decay without being replaced, and this exquisite nicety and perfection of detail, contrasted with the rustic woodland surroundings, was the distinct charm of the place.

Inside, the hall reached to the roof, and was lighted by two high square windows, with diamond panes of glass, on either side of the door. It was entirely panelled, as indeed was the whole house, with oak. On the right hand, as you entered, was an immense stone fireplace which reached to the rafters of the open roof, and was carved with an elaborate sculpture, representing Actseon being devoured by his hounds. The other furniture consisted of a comparatively modern oak table of massive size, two or three high-back chairs, some skins of deer thrown upon the hearth, and a curious collection of armour arranged along the upper part of the walls. This armour was considered to be one of the curiosities of the place. The tradition was that it consisted of pieceS(. of armour which were too old and obso-

t'

lete to be used when a troop was equipped for the king's service at Edgehill, and that, as very few of the more modern weapons, ofiensive and defensive, survived Marston Moor and Naseby to return to the ancestral home, these relics of a still remoter past were rearranged and burnished up to make the best show they could on the denuded walls. They certainly, except perhaps to the eye of the expert, presented in no way an imposing appearance ; but for this reason, perhaps, they were the more valuable. I think I have heard of gorgeous suits of restored steel armour, at which some have been inclined to scoff.

To the right of the hall, by the side of the fireplace, was a door opening into an apartment which contained a staircase. These staircases were a feature of Kingswood. They were innumerable ; indeed the several parts of the house were so disjointed and the storeys so irregular that there was little communication between them, and almost every part required a separate staircase. These were generally composed of a number of short flights consisting of three or four steps each, and went wandering and twisting about in all sorts of surprising directions. They were all panelled with oak, most of it bleached almost white with age and sunshine, and twisted and worn out of its original shape, as were also the irregular steps. They were ornamented, sparsely, with pictures, mostly of the Dutch school ; and I do not know that I delighted in anything more during the long years of childhood — and how long those years of childhood were ! - — in this wonderful house, in which I found so much delight, than I did in brooding over some exquisite bit of landscape or winter skating piece, some meadow scene of Cuyp or some wayside group of Berghem, standing out, a brilliant gem, from the waste of pale oak panel, which contrasted and yet harmonised so perfectly with its repose and with its truth.

The presence of these pictures in such profusion at Kingswood is easily explained. After the Restoration, while the great estates and palaces belonging to the family, or which were obtained by them, were being recovered, and t KINGSWOOD 7

nursed, Kingswood was the residence with which crippled fortunes obliged them to be content ; and the exile, who returned from Holland with his king, had contracted a taste for the Dutch school of painters, and yearlyimported works of the best masters. There was then no landscape school of art existing in England, and this taste, though creditable, was not, I think, surprising.

A doorway, by the side of the staircase I have mentioned a^ being close to the hall, led into the drawing-room, which was situated at the back of the hall and faced the south. This room had a more modern appearance than most of the other apartments. It had been decorated in the last century during a temporary residence of the heir of the dukedom. The oak panelling had been painted white, and wreaths of fruit and flowers carved in wood, after the manner of Gibbons, had been introduced. The alternate spaces were filled with silver sconces, and between them some of the best pictures and portraits in the house had been hung. Close by the entrance door was a portrait by Gainsborough. It represented a boy dressed in what the last century chose to called a Vandyke costume — a costume familiar to all from the celebrated pictures of the Blue Boy. It was, I have always thought, the most speaking and life-like portrait I have ever seen. I thought so as a child ; I have had good cause to remember it since.

Were I writing only to please myself I should never tire of dwelling on the charms of this wonderful house, but I fear at the outset to weary my readers with too much description of that which cannot have the same charm for them which it has for me, and it may be wiser, therefore, for me to introduce at once my first personal experience — the experience of a little girl of three — of my home.

One night, I know that it was night by the candlelight everywhere, and by the great fires burnins; all over the house in the lobbies and halls, it seemed that my ordinary life ceased, and that I entered into fairyland. About the usual time of my going to bed Mrs. Poins, whom I then regarded as my special property, but who I have had, since, reason to suppose combined for my especial benefit the functions of housekeeper and voluntary head nurse, came to me and told me that I was to be dressed and go downstairs to dine with his Grace. I was immediately attired in white, with a gold sash. I know that especial care was taken with my hair, a proceeding which I particularly disliked. I was taken by Mrs. Poins, who struck me as being also elaborately dressed, down the great staircase — not the one I have already described, but another which occupied a sort of tower in the south front of the house, next to the drawing-room. This staircase, that night perhaps for the first time, but certainly often afterwards, impressed my childish fancy, as resembling, or perhaps, indeed, as being, Jacob's Ladder, so high it was, so full of steps, so crowded with stately forms of ladies and gentlemen in jewelled costumes and gold frames, ascending and descending, as it seemed to me. From the bottom of the staircase, through one of the innumerable little lobbies, with a brilliant fire, and two or three Dutch landscapes dreaming their sweetness away in quiet corners, we entered, by a small private door, the dining-room, which looked on to the courtyard towards the north. It was not a large room, but its aspect in some respects was striking. I thought so as a child, and, remembering it as I write, I think so still. It was lined, of course, with oak ; but whereas the rooms that faced the south and the sunshine had their panelling blanched and paled, the rooms that faced the courtyard and the north were dark and sombre with age and gloom. A lofty chimneypiece of carved wood, on the shelf of which stood a row of old Rhenish wine-glasses, occupied the end of the room by which we had entered, while at the opposite end, which communicated witli the great hall, there was a black buffet or sideboard, with tall flagons of antique plate. There were no pictures on the walls, but the black oak was covered in places by squares of old tapestry, the colours of which were yet bright. Between each of these pieces of tapestry were silver sconces of great size, holding candles.

In this, as it seemed to me, awful and mystic apartment, I was placed at a table — a little child three years old, Mrs. Poins standing behind my chair — in solitary company with a kindly and very beautiful old gentleman, as he seemed to me, whom I had previously seen but seldom, but whom I knew to be the Duke. He was dressed in ordinary evening clothes, but wore a broad blue ribbon across his chest. Behind his chair stood a personage in black, and before the great bufi'et was another magnate, also in black. Now in ordinary life, and by daylight, I knew these two great personages intimately, and did not scruple, if my fancy led me so to do, to pull tliem by their whiskers and beard. Even at that solemn moment I knew that they were Mr. Priest, his Grace's body-servant, and Mr. Giles, the head butler, but seen under these awful circumstances, and impressed by the extreme gravity of their demeanour, they seemed to me transfigured, so to speak, and I should not have dreamed of claiming acquaintance with them. Other beings, in gorgeous raiment, but whom I seemed also to have a dim consciousness of having known under widely different aspects, flitted about the room.

Every detail of that stately meal is distinct in my memory even now. Of course I must have had very little given me to eat, and I do not remember the taste of anything. What I do remember is the amused, kindly, and concentrated attention of which I was the centre — the reserved and stately, and yet real and even humorous enjoyment in which every one entered into the spirit of the hour. Finally, a tiny drop of some sparkling wonderful drink was given me, and Mrs. Poins, leaning over me, whispered : ' Bow to his Grace, darling, and drink.'

And I see now, in my old age, the gracious kindly face of the old noble bowing to the little child over his lifted glass.

I never heard any explanation of this night. I can only suppose that, my aunt being indisposed, it occurred to some one that the sight of the little girl at table might amuse the Duke, and that this earliest recollection of my girlhood was the result of this humorous fancy.

My aunt, I called her so, but she was really my great-aunt, was the second wife of the Duke of Cressy and de la Pole, of one of the proudest families that the world has ever seen, in whose veins ran the blood of Valois, of Plantagenet, and of Anjou. She was herself the daughter of a Dean, and of a distinguished family, in no way iinsuited to her lofty alliance, but she was, what was still more, the gentlest and kindest woman that ever lived.

In those early days when I had been sent, a little child, from India, my girl -mother lying dead, the Duke and Duchess only came down to Kingswood at intervals. But the place had a singular fascination for his Grace as advancing years told upon him^the visits to this retired spot became longer. Gradually all ties to the gay or political world became weakened, and at length, when I had reached the age of twelve or fourteen, the Duke and Duchess, resigning their magnificent palaces and country seats — all the grandeur of society and all the leadership in Government — to the Marquis of Clare and his wife, settled down with most perfect satisfaction to a life of absolute repose.

Some three or four years after the death of his wife my father was killed in some nameless skirmish with a frontier tribe, in one of those little wars which occupy a paragraph or two in a morning paper. I am only a woman, and my opinion is of little worth, but I have often thought with surprise that what seems to me to be a unique characteristic of the English race is not more thought of than it is.

I say the English race, because I have a distinct idea in my mind, though it is somewhat difficult of expression — the great victories of the world, the victories that have triumphed over death and hell, have been won, for the most part, by the English race ; the noble and the peasant standing side by side, and 'jeopardising their lives unto the death in the high places of the field.'

I would cut out my tongue rather than it should speak a word that would imply disparagement of that ' thin red line ' that has won for the world priceless victories which never would have been won but for that superb characteristic of the English race, manifested as much in the peasant as in the noble. But after all there is something in the gift — the supreme gift — of leadership, and there is a class in England, history teaches us so on every page, without whom the world's victories would never have been won.

' Their graves are severed far and wide By mount and stream and sea.'

Civilisation pursues its beneficent march, forwarded, for the most part, by this glorious English race — forwarded too, for the most part, by these little nameless wars. Three lines only in the gazette, but some bright young life is laid down without a murmur — not a vulgar life, but a life the ofi'spring of a family, the flower and type of the human race — some home is made desolate, with no thought save ' we have done that which it was our duty to do.' I have been told by clever men that in the days when Eome was the mistress of the world something like this was also known. Whether it were so or not I cannot say.

By the time I had attained the age of seventeen or eighteen years the life at Kingswood had become so settled and regular that I fancy even a conventual household could scarcely surpass it for regularity and repose.

We breakfasted in a room in the south-west angle of the house beyond the drawing-room. This room was chosen in preference to one in the east front, which might have seemed more suitable for a morning-room, because it communicated with the library, which was situated in the west front. The Duke received few letters or papers, all business letters being disposed of by the Marquis or his agents. The Duke opened a paper two days' old, and gave us an account of such news as he thought would interest us. Immediately after breakfast he retired into the library. Exactly at eleven his horses were brought to the door, unless the weather was very unfavourable. He had two rides, wliicli he never varied, one for each alternate day. The one lay towards the west, through the chase and wooded lanes, with here and there a breezy common, and led you at last to a country town. Here the accustomed horse stopped of his own accord at the agent's gate, where the Duke sat for a few moments in his saddle in consultation, then on to the rectory, where, if the rector and his wife were at home, his Grace would alight and take a glass of sherry. Were it market day, he would pass through the market-place and speak many a gracious word.

The other ride lay due north, entirely through the chase, through tangled thickets of twisted thorn and holly, with distant glades of oak and beech ; at last, on a rising ground, a ruined tower and a flash of far-off sea. After lunch, should the weather be propitious, the carriage came to the door exactly at three. For the Duke and Duchess there was only one drive, and this lay towards the east. Why they never visited the market town which was the scene of the Duke's morninof ramble I never knew ; but they never did. The road lay through the chase for about a mile till it reached a quaint little church — a spot so dear to me that I shall presently describe it more fully — and, after a further stretch of chase and open common, passed a group of cottages, also connected with the story I have to tell, and then, by a long reach of country road, well kept, came, at the end of some two miles or a little more, to what might be called a considerable town. Its position on a river, navigable, for the few miles which lay between it and the sea, for ships of what in those days was considered a respectable size, had made it in former days a port of some importance; and some small deposits of coal and ironstone had encouraged enterprising persons to erect more than one quaint little factory, which in no degree detracted from the picturesque aspect of the place. There were old - fashioned

20 SIR PERCIVAL chai'.

wharves and offices, sleeping in the sunshine, with bales of goods and strange-looking cranes and landing-stages ; very seldom, if ever, did we penetrate so far as these.

This was particularly the Duchess' drive, and had only two objects in view. The first in position was the parish school, which was situated at the entrance to the town. Here on alternate days the carriage stopped. Her Grace alighted and entered the school. The Duke never accompanied her ; for half an hour, or sometimes more, he would remain quite silent in the carriage, open or closed according to the time of year. As the carriage always stopped precisely at the same place the aspect of the scene was invariably the same, yet it never seemed to weary the Duke. I know from frequent experience the sight that met his eyes. Opposite the school was a stone garden wall, above which in the season apple and pear trees were in blossom. Beyond this was a little cottage of two stories occupied by a cobbler, whose work was exbibited in an old-fashioned bulkhead window. Day after day this confined view seemed to satisfy the Duke. Whether he saw it at all, what thoughts, what recollections of a long life passed in the gay capitals of Europe, filled his mind, during these quiet afternoon hours, who can tell ?

He was satisfied with the narrow prospect from the windows of a brougham, but in summer from an open carriage there was a wider view. Past the old garden wall, with the ruddy apples perhaps overtopping it, — past the cobbler's hutch, — the eye wandered down a picturesque bit of street winding between irregular red and white houses, with here and there a projecting sign. Overhead was the wide expanse of the English heaven — that gentle heaven of pale blue sky and passing cloud. Over the tiled roofs that formed the line of the street rose against the sky the red cupolaed tower of a Queen Anne church. The narrow winding footpaths were paved with irregular and broken flags and the gutters with pebble stones, amid which grass and dock leaves forced their way. Every now and then as the Duke sat, patient and silent, in the warm sunny street, a solitary figure would approach along the pathway, giving a momentary life and even excitement to the scene. A perceptible quiver of interest passed through the perfectly trained servants ; none ever passed, were it even a stranger tramp, without raising his hat — without receiving a touch of the hat from the Duke.

Inside the school the Duchess took a class, now of girls, now of boys, now of infants. Some survival of the early training of her life, in her father's parish, made it impossible for her to pass her life without some such efi'ort for the good of others. I have ample knowledge, from certain experience, that these efforts of the Duchess were productive of exceeding good.

The object of the drive on the alternate days took the carriage a little' farther on into the centre of the little market-place, where was a stone market hall supported by pillars. The visit was so arranged as never to fall upon a market day. Here the carriage always stopped at a small shop kept by two old ladies who were sisters — a book, stationery, and Berlin wool shop. The visit to these old ladies was the one dissipation of her Grace's life. It was her Eegent Street and Piccadilly. Any new book which the unerring judgment of the Misses Smith assured them would meet the approval of their patroness was always procured. The Duchess was devoted to the writings of Miss Yonge, but, as it was obvious that it was impossible for that lady to keep her Grace supplied with a new work on each occasion of her visit, she was obliged to depend upon the taste and instinct of her friends, and I have reason to know that the trust was never misplaced. The Duke invariably accompanied his wife into this shop ; seated on a chair by the counter he appeared to take the greatest interest in its entire contents, not at all excluding the wool and crewel work. His taste in novels was limited. He thought it proper to admire Scott, considering his principles correct and even excellent, but it is my conviction that he was often bored by Scott's novels. The writer of fiction whom he really unafiectedly admired was the late G. P. E,. James. The tone of his novels, he said, was invariably high, his English style unafi'ected and pure, and his stories interesting. But what really delighted him was Mr. James' knowledge and grasp of French history and life. The Duke had been, in his youth, an attache to the embassy in Paris during the Bourbon Kestoration, and his judgment on this point was worthy of attention. He has often pointed out to me the minute knowledge of old France possessed by Mr. James, extending to the points of junction of bye and crossroads in the times of the old provinces. This visit to the Misses Smith and the talk with which it was accompanied — much of which was regularly repeated — was always a source of pleasure on both sides. The Duchess sometimes purchased articles at the other shops in the quiet square, but rarely alighted.

In the winter we dined in the room looking on to the court, which I have already described as the scene of that never-to-be-forgotten evening ; but in the summer we dined in the same room we had breakfasted in, in the south-west corner of the house. This room had two windows looking towards the south and one towards the west. This western window, the three windows of the library, and the rest of the windows in the west front, looked on to what was called the Wilderness, but what was really an apple and pear orchard of immemorial antiquity. A long straight path ran up the middle of this piece of ground, and terminated, at some considerable distance, at a neglected terrace, with stone balustrades

2G SIR PERCIVAL chap.

and urns, overlooking ' the chase,' with a distant woodland of massive thorn -trees and oaks, and groups of Scotch firs against the western sky. As the Duke sat at dinner, at the end of the table opposite to this west window, a glory of sunset light suffused the Scotch firs and the apple blossom, set in the dark blue of the evening sky.

The other two windows of this morning and dining room looked out on to the garden, the only flower garden of the house. This was a square plot of ground, extending along the entire south front, and, being exactly square, occupying, of course, a considerable extent of ground. It was laid out in formal beds, and terminated at its farthest extent with an immensely broad gravel terrace, commanding a magnificent view of chase and woodland towards the south. I always regretted that we lived so much towards the south and west ; but I had one consolation. My own sleeping room faced the east, and reminded me always of that chamber of the House Beautiful, where Christian slept, that was called Peace, and faced towards the sun rising. The morning glories over wood and meadow fill my heart at this moment, so many years after, with gratitude and joy.

When we were alone we spent the evening in the library, which, as I have said, adjoined the room in which we had dined. I think I enjoyed this hour more than any other of the day. The Duke, as was natural from his extraction and early residence in Paris, was greatly read in French literature, and had collected a large number of French memoirs of the last two centuries. He delighted in Montaigne, and would read to us passages of the old humorist's courtly French with a grace and ease that made it impossible to miss the meaning. There was a rumour that in the last days of the true Bourbon- Monarchy this brilliant young English noble, himself of royal French blood, whom the

28 SIR PERCIVAL chap, i

king deigned to call ' Mon Cousin,' had formed an attachment to one of the princesses. The Duchess would sometimes, by way of courtesy, introduce her name, saying, ' I beheve you knew the Princess very intimately ; ' and the Duke would never fail to observe that she was ' une vraie fille de France ' — a true princess of the Blood-Eoyal.

As I recall these stories and such as these, there mingles with the regret that so much was passed unnoticed, and is forgotten, the pathetic sorrow that, the loved and familiar voices of our youth being for ever silent, we shall never hear the like any more.

Chapter II Port-royal Dbs Champs

I HAVE spoken of a quaint little church standing in the chase some mile or so on the road to Eivershead, as the little town, which was the object of the Duchess' afternoon drive, was called. I never approached this little church but I was reminded of those mysterious chapels in the forest-wilds of the * Morte d' Arthur,' — 'an olde chapel in a wast land,' as one is called ; ' an olde febel chappell,' — and I could have fancied almost, when the hush of summer noon stilled the sense of the present, and lulled it into dreamland, that this was the very chapel whose door Lancelot had found ' wasted and broken, and within lie saw a fair altar, richly arrayed with cloth of silk, and a candlestick of silver that bear six great candles ; and when he saw this sight he had a great will to enter into the chapel, but he could find no place where he might enter,' for though the door was not broken, yet it was as old, perhaps, as the ' Morte d' Arthur,' and it stood open all day long ; and although the passage was open, yet the place felt so holy and pure, in the fresh forest air, that I might well understand that a man, ' sinful and unconfessed,' might, indeed, find no place where he might enter.