Stretton

Chapter I. '

Does Nature sympathise with disaster? Of all poets' fancies, that is the most foolish. Is " the wind to be howling in turret and tree " whenever disaster, and sin, and terror are walking abroad? We should have fine weather, I trow, were that the case.

The crystal purity of a perfect evening at the end of April was settling do^vn over the beautiful valley which lies between Shrewsbury and Ludlow ; on the one hand, the Longmynd rolled its great sheets of grouse-moor and scarps of rock up, fold beyond fold ; while, on the other, the sharp peak of Caradoc took the evening, and smiled upon his distant brother, the towering Plinlimmon ; while Plinlimmon, in the West, with silver infant Severn streaming down his bosom, watched the sinking sun after Caradoc and Longmynd had lost it ; and when it sank, blazed out from his summit a signal to his brother watchers, and, wrapping himself in puq3le robes, slept in majestic peace.

Down below in the valley, among the meadows, the lanes, and the fords, it was nearly as peaceful and quiet as it was aloft on the mountain-tops ; and under the darkening shadows of the rapidly leafing elms, you could hear, it was so still, the cows grazing and the trout rising in the river. Day was yet alive in some region aloft in the air, loftier than the summits of Plinlimmon or Caradoc, for the democratic multitude of the stars had not been able as yet to show themselves through the train of glorious memories which the abdicated king had left behind him. The curfew came booming up the valley sleepily, and ceased. It was a land lapped in order and tradition ; good landlords, good tenants, well-used labourers, if ever there were such in late years in England. Surely a land of peace !

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Who comes here, along the path, through the growing clover ? , Who is this womaa who walks swiftly, bareheaded under the dew ? Who is this btrtinge -looking woman, with an Indian shawl halffallen off her shoulders, \fith clenched fists, one of which she at times 'beats on her Ijeautiful head ? Can it be Mrs. Evans, of the Castle, or her ghost ? Or is it her in the flesh, and has she gone mad ?

Such were the questions put to one another by a young pair of lovers, who watched her from beneath a plantation where they were innocently rambling. The young man said, " That is a queer sight for a fellow courting," and the young woman said, ''There was too much love-making there, I doubt." And the young man said, "How about the banns next Sunday? " And the young woman said, " Have your own way about it, and don't plague me," which I suppose meant ''Yes."

We must follow this awful, swift- walking figure of poor Mrs. Evans, and watch her.

She was an exceedingly beautiful woman, in exact age forty-one, with that imperial dome -like head, and splendid carriage of that same head, which the Merionethshire people say is a specialite of the Merediths, though I have seen it elsewhere. If you had told her that she had Celtic blood in her veins, she would probably have denied it ; but she was certainly behaving in a most Celtic manner now. Anything more un-Norman than her behaviour now, cannot be conceived. The low, inarticulate moans — the moans which mean so much more than speech — the wild, swift walk, the gesticulation, the clenched fists, all told of Celtic excitability; yet she was no Celt. It is only the old, stale story of Hibernis ipsis Hibemiores. She was behaving like a Celt because she had been brought up among them ; but there was a depth of anger and fury in her heart which must have come from the conquering race.

As she neared her husband's Castle, she grew more calm, adjusted her shawl, and put her hair straight ; fo? she feared him, gentle as he was. He would have lain down so that she should walk over him ; but he would have been angry with her had he seen her in her late disorder. And she had never seen his wrath but once, and that was towards his o^vn son ; and she did not care to face it, for it was as deep and passionate as his love. So she bound up her hair, left off clenching her fists, pulled her shawl straight, and, stepping in by the flower-garden, let herself in by the postern, and appeared before him, as he stalked up and down the library.

"Is it over, darling of my heart? " he said.

'*lt is all over," she said, spreading her ten white fingers before her.

'' And how is she ? " he asked.

*' She is dead ! " answered Mrs. Evans.

"Dead! dead! dead! " she was going on hysterically, when he caught her in his arms and kissed her into quiescence.

" Be quiet," he said ; " there is trouble enough without more. What have we done that God should afflict us like this ? Is the chUd alive?"

"Yes; but it cannot live," replied Mrs. Evans. "It is a weak thing : but God forgive us, there is no doubt about its father."

In the house of Evans, the qualities of valour in war, of faith to the death with friends, and of strict probity towards the women of the estate, were always considered to be hereditary — more especially the last quality. The servants in the family were always taken from some family resident in the 11,000 acres which made the estate. Such of them as were traditionally supposed to require the quality of good looks, the ladies' -maids and the pad-grooms, were always selected from three or four families notorious for those qualities. Again, even in such a strong family as the Evanses, nurses were often required, and were selected always, if possible, from one of those three or four fau^ilies : so that, in fact, most of the servants, male and female, were actual foster-brothers of some one member of the house. The idea of any m'ong was actually incredible ; but it had come, and there was wild weeping over it.

The prettiest girl of all these good-looking families had been the very last admitted into the Castle, as companion and lady'smaid to that splendid beauty, Eleanor Evans. Admitted, do I say ? She had been admitted when she was a wailing infant of a week old, as foster-sister to the equally wailing Eleanor : for Mrs. Evans had not been so lucky as usual, and had kept about a little too long. Elsie grew up almost as much at Stretton as she did at her own cottage, and had been as free of the Castle as was her foster-sister Eleanor.

Perhaps, because she had had only one nurse while Eleanor had two — who can say ? — she grew up very delicate and small, though very beautiful. Eleanor (I was going to say Aunt Eleanor, but must not as yet) grew up so physically strong that the wiser old ladies, after looking at her through their spectacles, pronounced that she was very splendid, but would get coarse. We shall see about that hereafter.

It was on the eve of Waterloo that the gentle little maid was fully accredited for the first time to her full powers of being thoroughly bullied by Eleanor. "Now, you little fool, I have got you, body and bones," said Eleanor, when they went upstairs together, " and I'll make you wish you were dead in a week ; " which made the little maid laugh, and yet cry ; upon which Eleanor bent down over her and kissed her. '' What is the matter with you, you little idiot 9 " she said. " You want bullying, and you shall be bullied. Come up, and take my hair down." And the little maid did as she told her."

" Set all the doors open," said Eleanor, " that I may walk to the end of the corridor and back. A dog would not sleep to-night. Oh, Charles ! brother of my heart, acquit thyself well ! My father and mother are praying for the heir of the house, but I — I, girl, cannot pray ! Why are you weeping, girl ? "

*' I was thinking of Master Charles and the battle, miss."

*' What is he to you ? How dare you cry while I am dry-eyed ! Idiot ! Good Duke ! Good Duke ! Tarre ! He should wait behind Soignies for Blucher ; but he knows. In front of Soignies there are open downs. Child, why do you weep? Is it for your brothers, who have followed mine ? I do not weep for iny brother "

Yes, hut she did though. Broke down all in one instant, while the words were yet in her mouth. But it was soon over. She was soon after walking up and down the corridor, with her hair down, speculating on the chances of the war.

Late at night she came to her father and mother's bedroom. They had not gone to bed, but sat waiting for news, which could not possibly come for a week. ''Mother," she said, "I can do nothing with my poor little maid. She has got hysterical about her two brothers at the war, and keeps accusing poor Charles, who, I am sure, never tempted them."

" What? " said Mrs. Evans, sharply.

" Keeps on accusing Charles in the most senseless manner. I am sure "

"Go and sit with your father," said Mrs. Evans. "Engage his, attention ; keep him amused. I'll see to the girl."

She went and saw to the girl ; but took uncommonly good care that no one else did. She was an hour with her. When she came back to her husband's bedroom she found Eleanor sitting up, with a map of Belgium before her, chatting comfortably, but solemnly, about the movements of the amiies.

She had seen the girl, she said ; and the girl was hysterical about her brothers, and accused Charles of leading them to the war. The girl was weak in her health, and would be always weak. The girl had always been a fool, and apparently mtended to remam one. The girl must have change of air and scene. She had an aunt at Carlisle, who kept a stationer's shop. The girl must go there for a time ; for there was trouble enough without her tantrums. Charles, with his furious headlong way of doing things, was almost certainly killed, &c., &c., with a sly, kind eye on her husband and her daughter.

They both were on her in a moment, at such a supposition. She, when she saw that she had led them on the wrong scent, recovered her good temper, and allowed them to beat her pillar to post, while they proved that the allies would carry everything before them, and that nothing could happen to Charles (except accidents of war, which are apt to be numerous). Yet, complacent as she was, there were times when her hands caught together and pulled one another, as though the right hand would have pulled the fingers up by the roots. These were the times when she was saying to herself, about her own darling son, " He had better die there ! He had better die there ! ' '

For the rest nothing was to be noted in this lady's behaviour for the present, save that the new lady's-maid was sent to Carlisle, that Mrs. Evans seemed to take the news of Waterloo rather coolly, and that she received her son, now Captain Evans, with extreme coolness on his return from Waterloo, covered with wounds and glory.

She thought him guilty. Why should she say to him, *' Honourable conduct is of more avail than glory ? " He was chilled and offended, for he felt himself innocent.

What was he like at this time ? For the present we must take his sister Eleanor's account of him, who says that he was the very image of his son, Roland, — which must be very satisfactory to the reader. The ladies may like to know, however, by the same authority, that if my friend, Eleanor, is right, and that Charles Evans was like his son Roland, that he was also, by the same authority, extremely like Antinous.

Antinous Charles had been brought up with this poor, pretty little maid, Elsie, and he had fallen in love with her, and she with him, which was against the rules of the house of Evans, for she was foster-sister of Ids sister. They loved like others. In what followed, Charles's own mother was against him, and gave him up as a villain who had transgressed the immutable traditions of the house. One of the girl's brothers was killed at Waterloo, one came home with Charles, as his regimental servant. Charles gave out that he was going to London ; but his silly servant came home to Stretton and vaguely let out the fact that Captain Charles had not been to London at all, but had been to Carlisle to see his sister, Elsie.

Mr. Evans's fury was terrible. He wrote in a friendly way to the colonel of Charles's regiment, begging him, as an old friend, to recall Charles instantly, and save him from what he feared was a very low intrigue. He sent old Mrs. Gray, the girl's mother, off to Carlisle after her daughter at once, bearing such a letter as made Charles avoid home in returning to Chatham at the peremptory summons of his commanding officer.

Let us say but little about it, as it is not among such painful scenes as this that we shall have to walk together. Charles had not been very long at Carlisle, but he had been too long it seemed. The unhappy girl came home, and was confined in six months' time. She died that night, but the child lingered on, and on.

Did Mrs. Evans wish that it should die ? Who can say ? Did she wish the disgrace buried and ended ? Who can say ? I think, however, that she slept none the worse after Mrs. Gray came to her and told her that the child was dead.

It had been baptized, and so was buried and registered — the illegitimate son of Elsie Gray ; the sexton patted down the turf, and all the scandal was over and done. Old James Evans said that Charles was now free for a new start, and had better go to India on his roster, and had better not come home first. And so a pale and rather wild-looking young captain paraded his company on the main deck of the East India Company's ship. The Veda, and sailed for India accordingly.

*' Taking things rather coolly," you say. Why, no ; but somewhat hotly : yet submitting. This young fellow of a captain had violated every traditional rule of his house, and felt guilty. Yet he was not without sources of information. He dared not face his family in the state of things as they were ; and he dared not see the woman he loved best in the world. He consoled himself and her by passionate, wild, foolish letters, carefully transmitted, and carefully and tenderly answered, not only to poor Elsie, but also to his sister Eleanor, whom we shall see again. When unhappy affairs of this kind take place, there are apt to be domestic scenes. I will give you one.

At breakfast, one bright May morning, some two months before the child so soon to die was bom, Eleanor had a letter, and was reading it. Her mother looked at her father, and her father looked at her mother, and at last her father. Squire James Evans, spoke :

'' My dear Eleanor, you have a letter from your brother Charles. WiU you let me read it ? "

*-No, I won't," said Eleanor.

" Is that the way to speak to j'our father ? " said Mrs. Evans.

*' Yes," said Eleanor, " if he proposes to read letters which are not directed to him. The letter is from Charles to me ; if he had intended to let my father see it, he would have directed it to him. He, on the other hand, has directed it to me, and I mean to keep it to myself."

Mrs. Evans wept.

Squire Evans said, " This is well. My son has been a villain, and my daughter backs him up."

" You do ill to call your son a villain, sir," replied Aunt Eleanor. *' Call him fool and coward ; but you do ill, you two, to call him villain." And so Aunt Eleanor, then, by the way, a very beautiful young girl of eighteen, takes up her letter, and scornfully sweeps out of the room, with her nose in the air. Fine times indeed !

Poor Elsie Gray was with her mother, as we said, and that devoted woman had more than one trouble on her hands at a time. It turned out now that young Robert G-ray, the soldier-servant of Charles, had quietly, without leave of his commandant, without the slightest means of supporting her, married a pretty girl two parishes off, and now wrote coolly to his mother from Chatham to announce the fact, and inform his mother that the young lady would come to her for her confinement.

This child, as Mrs. Gray could tell, was bom at the same time, or nearly, as the other. And the soldier's child lived, while the child of his master died. Little Gray grew up, and grew strong. And we shall have to see a great deal of him in many positions. It was about three weeks after Mrs. Evans came wringing her hands through the green lanes, lamenting the dishonour of her husband's house and her own, that the other little child wailed itself into silence, into peace, into death, and was heard of no more.

Chapter II

Was Mrs. Evans sori-y ? Who can say ? Those Merediths and Ap-Merediths, who call themselves Celtic, yet are as Norse as they can look at you out of their two eyes, have a singularly un- Celtic trick of concealing emotion. Eleanor could not say whether her paother was sorry or glad,

It was not the custom, in families of that class, for the mother to allude, even in the most distant way, to her daughters on any points regarding marriage relations. Mrs. Evans broke through this rule once, and when her daughter and she were alone, said, very quietly, " That child of Gray's, the soldier, is growing strong and hearty. You are old enough to understand that if things had gone right, that child would have called you aunt. His father is the brother of the woman whom you should have called sister, had it not been for the incalculable villainy of Charles."

*' Mother, leave Charles alone. I will not have Charles abused."

"A most maidenly, daughterly speech," said Mrs. Evans, scornfully.

" Mother, I mean all duty ; but circumstances alter cases."

*' This is well," said Mrs. Evans. '' This is uncommoniy well. There is some old cross of the Evans blood coming out here.

This is the Duchess of N 's blood, I doubt, which is now

defying her own flesh and blood."

''Don't talk like that, mother."

'' I will not," replied Mrs. Evans ; *' but allow me to tell you that if Lord Homerton had heard you utter such atrocious sentiments, he would at once cease his visits, and would not propose."

'' Oh, he has proposed," said Eleanor. " He proposed yesterday."

" What did he say ? " said Mrs. Evans, eagerly.

" Well," said Eleanor, coolly, " he merely, as I believe men do (and dreadful fools they look when they do it), asked me if he might consider himself engaged to be married to me."

" And what did you say ? " asked Mrs. Evans.

*' I said that I was at a loss to conceive what he had seen in my conduct which induced him to take such an unwarrantable liberty."

" Good heavens ! " said Mrs Evans. " Then are you off with him?"

**I never was on with him that I know of," said Eleanor. "He is a good fellow, and I like him well ; but I don't see why I should marry him. We shouldn't get on. He is not religious, and does not care for his estate."

'' Your influence would have made him care for both his estate and his religion," said Mrs. Evans.

'' Not a bit of it," repHed Eleanor. " George is a man, although we never hit it off together."

''Is it hopeless ? " said Mrs, Evans, " How did you dismiss him?"

" Well, I kissed him, and as he went out of the room, I gave him a pat on the hack, and I said, * Go on, George ; go off to Greenwood. There is a girl there, worth fifty of me, who is dying for you. You would never have made such a fool of yourself ahout me, if it had not heen for our two families.' And then he wanted to kiss me again, hut I would not stand that. And so he rode off to Greenwood, and I think you will find that Laura Mostyn will be announced as Lady Homerton next week."

"You will never be married at this rate," said Mrs. Evans, biting her lip.

" Never mean to make such a fool of myself," replied Eleanor.

" A woman must many to get position and station," said Mrs. Evans, looking keenly, and in a puzzled manner, on this radiant young beauty of eighteen.

" I have both," said Eleanor. " I have the Pulverbatch Farm, and that will bring me in £500 a year, and take up all my time. I tell you that I don't choose to have any husband but one, and he is my brother Charles. Let us drop this perfectly vain conversation, and tell me what you want done about this child."

Mrs. Evans was beaten by that inexorable, beautiful face. She said, after a pause, " I wish you quietly to be godmother to it, and when I am dead, to look to it. We have done evil enough to that family as it is."

" Is it to be brought up as a gentleman? " she asked.

" Certainly not," said her mother ; " only respectably. I wish you would imdertake it for me, for the sight of the child and of the whole of that family is distasteful to me."

Eleanor said, "Yes," wondering. But when she said yes she meant yes, and she did what was desired of her.

Chapter III

The sudden and very lamentable death of Squire James Evans in the hunting-field threw a gloom, not in the mere newspaper acceptation of the term, but in reality, over that part of Shropshire, for nearly a week. He was a most deservedly popular man, and what they wrote on his tomb was every word of it true. He ivas a good son, a good husband, a good father, a good landlord, a pious churchman, a firm friend, and he died without one single enemy. One little fact was omitted from his tombstone : he died without being reconciled to his son, at least formally. There may have been a reconciliation at heart, and those low, inarticulate moans, as he lay dying in his groom's arms in the ditch, may have been the attempted expression of it ; but the mouth was loose in death before they were ever uttered.

Mrs. Evans was not long after him. She was aged and worried, and she moped and brooded until she died. The old clergyman who attended her at the last, left her at the very last with a dissatisfied and rather puzzled face. Eleanor she would not see for the last four days.

Well, she died. And it took nearly six months to communicate to Squire Charles his most sudden and unexpected succession. He came home at the end of a year, and found Eleanor, his sister, in possession, keeping all things square for him : receiving rents, bullying attorneys, walking up and down among the fanns, in a dress which was considered remarkable even in those times, and attending to the wants of the tenants. She had practically given one of the family livings away, quite illegally, though the young cur^ite to whom she gave it took possession as a matter of course. On the other hand, she had been rather tight with the tenants on the subject of repairs ; and, it is reported, used the word *' humbug," just then coming into fashion, on more than one occasion. They tell an idle tale, those Shropshire folks. They say that she and the steward were standing together on the terrace, when Squire Charles rode up, on his return from India ; that the steward said, " Thank Heaven, he has come at last ! " And that Aunt Eleanor said, '' I quite agree. Now you and he take the estates in hand, for I am sick of it ; and a nice mess you will make of it together, you two."

They did nothing of the kind, however. The property did rather better under the more liberal rule of Squire Charles than under the near and close rule of his sister, Eleanor. Women are apt to be veiy near and mean in business. They will give as few men will yive, but they will haggle about sixpence, while they are irritating a ggod tenant. Was not the Antiquary, as near a man as another, upbraided by his usually submissive womankind for '' raising the price of fish on them " ?

Eleanor the beautiful whiffed away from her brother's establishment at once, leaving him^to manage his somewhat irritated tenants, and retired to her own faim at Pulverbatch. She marched off with her young child Gray.

The scandal about Charles Evans and Elsie Gray was known to very few persons, and was now almost forgotten even by those few : scarcely half a dozen all told. As for the county, they had never heard of it, and even if they had, would have taken small note of it, for there were plenty of scandals of the same kind in any one of their families. If it had got wind, the more ill-natured of them would have been pleased at such a fiasco occurring in such a saint-like family as the Evanses. But then it never did get wind, and Charles Evans was welcomed to his ancestral halls by the county generally, with lute, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and aU manner of musical instruments. He lied a little, I doubt, at the very first reception, for on being inquired of by the county, where was his sister Eleanor, he replied that she was not well, and having been overpowered by his sudden return, had gone home to her farm at Pulverbatch : whereas, the truth was that she was perfectly well, and had told him the day before that she was not in sufficient temper to meet all these idiots, and walked oft' to Pulverbatch, promising to come back to him as soon as he had got rid of his fools.

Yet they had had a pleasant meeting these two : worth giving perhaps. He took her in his arms, and she wound her fingers in his hair. And he said —

*' Love all the same, sister ? "

And she said : '' Not all the same, but more."

*' Has anybody been? " said the brother.

*'I should like to see them," said the sister. **My dear, I must marry you. No other arrangement is possible. Get rid of these fools, and find yourself a good wife, and I will come back and marry the pair of you."

'' But who is to marry you ? " said the brother.

" You," said the sister.

Chapter IV

It was a long time before Squire Charles married, but at last, when he was five-and-thirty, he married a Miss Meredith, a very distant connection to him by birth, who, as Eleanor said, had been kept by her parents for him, till, like a brown Beurre pear, she was running a chance of being mildewed. Eleanor came to the wedding and signalised herself by utterly routing and defeating a certain Squire Overley, a most estimable man, of great wealth even in Shropshire, who was seeking her hand in marriage. She was very civil to liim, but refused to speak of anything except medical science and the management of nursing sisterhoods. She beat that estimable young man, and saw that she had done so. "Heigh ho!" she said, as she got into bed. "One more goose choked, and another fool married. I'll be back with my pigs to-morrow. Overley is a good fellow though, and I'll find him a good wife. I wonder if Charley will let me have that sixty acres that Pilgrim wants to give up. If he don't I must give up my pigs ; for buy meal, I won't." And so the great Shropshire beauty went to her bed and slept the sleep of the just.

Charles's marriage was one of the most happy ones which ever took place, either in Novel-land or Earth-land. Within a year Roland, whom I hope you will get to like, was bom ; and Eleanor was asked to be godmother. She, dating from Pulverbatch, replied that she hated boys, because they were always wanting their ears boxed. She would undertake this part of a godmother's business with the greatest pleasure, but as a conscientious woman she could not, in this case. She had invested, for her, heavily in old Berkshire pigs, which took up the main of her time, and as a boy's ears always required to be boxed on the spot to produce the proper effect, she doubted that she could not be always on the spot to box them, so she declined, and bred pigs, not even coming to the christening.