The tutor's story : an unpublished novel

Prefatory Note

The history of this book is sufficiently peculiar to merit a few words of introduction.

The literary notebooks and manuscripts- — published and unpublished — of my father, Charles Kingsley, were left to me by my mother. Nominally they came into my possession at the date of her death, in 1892. But circumstances, into which it is unnecessary for me to enter here, prevented my making a thorough exami¬ nation of them until last winter.

I knew my father had planned, and begun writing, two novels — one called “The Pilgrimage of Grace,” dealing with the suppression of the monasteries under Henry VIII ; the other called “ Darling, the History of a Wise Woman,” the scene of which was laid in the New Forest and the plot of which concerned the doings of certain French refugees in the years immediately following The Terror. Portions of both these 1 found amongst a mass of lectures, essays, poems, sketches of character, etc.

But I also found about a hundred and fifty foolscap pages of another novel, entitled “ The Tutor’s Story,” which was entirely new to me. I never remember hearing my father speak of it, nor do I find any allusion to it in “ The Letters of Charles Kingsley and

VI

PREFATORY NOTE

Memories of his Life.” The fact that the Yorkshire scenery, along with various names of persons and places, is common to “The Tutor’s Story” and the opening chapters of “The Water Babies” leads me to suppose it was written before and, probably, put aside in favour of the latter book. More than this I neither know nor can, at this distance of time, conjecture. The discovery came as an absolute and delightful sur¬ prise to me, and to my sister when I showed her the manuscript.

The whole is in my father’s hand, evidently written with a flowing pen, at odd moments as the fancy took him. Here and there a word or phrase is scratched out and another substituted ; but the bulk of the copy is in the rough, neither revised nor polished. The first fifty or sixty pages are fairly consecutive. Then follow chapters and skeletons of chapters far on in the story, stray pages — notes — as, “ here he comes home drunk,” and suchlike suggestions of intimate drama. But, notwithstanding discrepancies and obvious omissions, the characters are there, distinct and even vivid, living, talking, and not unfrequently behaving very badly. The scenery, in part at least, is there. The plot is there, too, firmly based though unresolved, events and situations being recorded the how and wherefore of which are neither led up to nor accounted for.

The manuscript, in short, offers a puzzle of which a good many pieces either are lost or have never existed — since it was my father’s habit to put down a scene, description, or dialogue just as it occurred to

PREFATORY NOTE

YU him, leaving all linking np and filling in to a final rewriting of his book.

How far I have succeeded in supplying these missing pieces it is for others to judge. I have de¬ veloped the characters, disentangled the plot, and completed the story to the best of my understanding and ability, and have doubled the length of the original manuscript in the process. I have tried to preserve peculiarities of style, and maintain a moral and emotional unity throughout — to maintain, further, a certain freshness and simplicity of outlook which has the rather pathetic charm of a “day that is dead.” I, personally, hold no brief for that day either in its literary, social, or political methods. Yet I find the charm a very real one; and I cannot but hope the readers of “The Tutor’s Story” — thus set forth in book form after lying hid for the better part of half a century — may endorse my opinion and find that charm a real one also.

LUCAS MALET.

August, 1916.

After the opening numbers of “ The Tutor’s Story ” appeared in the Cornhill Magazine, my attention was called, through the kind¬ ness of a correspondent, to the following passage, occurring on pages 17 and 18 of “The Letters of Malcolm Kingsley Macmillan ” — my father’s godson — printed for private circulation in 1898. The passage in question would seem to throw an interesting light upon vm

PREFATORY NOTE the plan and fate of a novel of which “The Tutor’s Story” formed the earlier portion.

“ Oxford, February 13, 1879.

“ Twenty years ago or so Kingsley told my father of a scheme he had for a novel to be called Alcibiacles. The idea was, of course, to be a young, well-born nature, which, after being imbued with philosophy (at an English university, presumably), and shown itself apt to learn, is corrupted by wealth, fashionable society, powers of persuading men, etc. Alcibiades’ career, in fact, translated into modern times, whether to end in a partial redemption, like the service which the historical A. performs when in exile, by a complete, as it were, Christian redemption, or quite tragically, I don’t know. I should think it would depend on his own mood, and what he observed himself. Of course I should have added before that A. must have been the cause of calamities to his country. This idea is, of course, imbued through and through with Plato. But when once in my hearing my father asked Kingsley about this, lie said : * The truth is, Macmillan, that I now know too much ever to write the book. I have been too much behind the scenes {i.e. of court, fashionable, diplomatic, etc., life), and should inevitably do what is most wrong for a novelist, introduce personal portraits, paint real calamities.’”

Lucas Malet.

Chapter I

I have often thought of writing the story of my life, at least of its most interesting and critical portion. It is not enough, it seems to me, to dream over this incident or that, just as association may call them up. I ought to lay the whole methodically before me as a mirror of my past self ; as a chart of the road along which heaven has led me. — Come, I will begin it now. It will be a useful and not ungrateful occupation for these long hot summer mornings, while all the rest of the parish is busy in the fields.

Not ungrateful, truly. Eor, though I can look back upon mistakes, I have no disgrace, not even any serious failure, with which to reproach myself ; and if I have had a hard battle to fight, I have conquered, I trust, not without honour. If much has been denied me, much has been given ; and I can say with David “ my lot is fallen in pleasant places,” though I cannot say, perhaps, that “ my cup runs over.” But why should my cup run over ? Why should I, like too many, have more pleasure than I can thoroughly and conscientiously enjoy and, intoxicated with variety

B

9, and excitement, let my own happiness run to waste ’? Better is it to have my cup, as now, half full, and to sip it delicately, deliberately, luxuriously, making the most of every drop.

Half full, did I say ? Surely that was a thankless speech. How much I have already. How much I have had for many peaceful years. Why should I pine, like the Arabian princess in the midst of her fairy palace, for the impossible roc’s egg which is to make it perfect. Shall I not be content with my fairy palace ; and with the fairies too, which haunt it ? With those noble children for whom I live, growing before me day by day in beauty and in virtue ; with the friendship of heroical spirits, the converse of worthy scholars, the love of villagers, whom I have trained from childhood to fear their God and honour their Queen ? Shall I not be content with this pleasant parsonage study, and its shelves full of books, grand old classics, and grander old divines ? With the lawn sloping to the broad river, my trim flower-beds and standard roses, “ laburnum dropping gold,” the deep avenues of lime beyond, and royal Hover towering over all amid the black peaks of those mighty pines ? — Yes, noble house, and noble souls that dwell therein — not in vain for myself, and not in vain, thank God, for you, did I come hither as a raw college lad full forty years ago. Under your gracious shadow I will dwell content till I slip away, once for all, into the little churchyard close at hand and lay down there the not unpleasant burden of mortality.

Forty years ago. That, I suppose is the point at which I should begin ; at the spring day in the year 1829, on which I got upon the mail to start, as I fancied, friendless out into the wide world. With what a homeless heart I went forth ! Mother, brothers, sister, all gone. And now my father gone too, gone after them and I left alone in the world, with a lame foot and an asthmatic cough to warn me that my life might be as short and as painful as that of my brothers had been. My darling ambition, too — the thing for which I had lived ever since I was seven years old — the hope of a high degree and a college fellowship, quashed as it seemed, utterly and for ever. Yes — that was a dark day for me. And yet how kind people were to me, and how good — kind and good, as I have found man¬ kind, even in the midst of their many faults, throughout my life.

How the old Master smiled with kindly triumph, when he told me he had secured me the post of tutor to young Lord Hartover. Told me he knew that I should always keep up the credit of the college, there as elsewhere ; all that I had to do now, was to play my cards well, save money, come back and take a fine degree and settle into a fat college fellow. How he insisted on lending me twenty pounds ; which I needed, for my father’s death had left me penniless. How kind the men, too, were ! How the fellowcommoners, who had not deigned to speak to me while I was the ambitious sizar and expected wrangler, shook hands with me ; and said — I cannot tell why — that they were sorry to lose me. How my friends insisted on giving me a farewell breakfast, ere I mounted the mail ; and would surely have made me drink cham¬ pagne in the morning, had I not been, from health rather than from inclination, a Nazarite from my birth. Kind souls ! their good-nature increased my loneliness. In leaving Cambridge, I had left all I knew, all I cared for on earth ; and, as the coach rolled away along the Huntingdon road, I looked back at the spires of King’s College and the dark walls of elm and chestnut as an emigrant looks back on the white cliffs of England, perhaps for the last time.

I knew but little of the people and place whither I was going. The old Master, I saw, knew more than he chose to tell me. He had been tutor, in former days, to Lord Longmoor, father of my future charge : but he would give me no information as to the character of the Earl. Only one hint he did give, with a knowing smile, as he dismissed me — “ not, if I could help it, to fall in love with her ladyship ! ” — Her ladyship, as I understood, was not Lord Hartover’s mother, but a second wife. Of Lord Hartover himself he told me nothing : but a fellow-commoner had wished me joy of my pupil, with a shrug and a sneer, and informed me for my comfort that the “ fellow was sent away from Harrow — you’ll soon find out what for ” — news which was ill calculated to raise my spirits. For the rest, I only knew that Hover was a very grand place, and he who owned it a mighty prince, possessor of half a county, of coal mines, of factory towns, and, so they said, more than a hundred thousand a year, of which last I was to receive for my labours, two hundred pounds — so good a bargain had the dear Master made for me, in consideration — as he told me in after years — of my reputed virtues, and the exceeding naughtiness of my pupil whom no man living, it was supposed, could manage.

I recollect how that day, as the coach rolled along the wearisome road, I tried to “ take stock,” as it were, of my own capabilities for training this indomitable young viscount, and how my heart sank within me so short did the list appear ! Very uncertain health ; a lame leg ; a hesitating mode of speech which would have been a stammer, without great care on my part ; — altogether, as my class and my school-fellows had informed me long ago, as poor insignificant a little body as any sturdy labourer need wish to compare with his own, and glorify himself — if it be any comfort to him — with the contrast. And, for the furnishing of the said poor little carcass, what were there ? A fair quantity of Latin, Greek, and mathematics, certainly. It would have been a shame to me otherwise ; for I had read nothing but Latin and Greek ever since I could read at all. There was, too, thanks to a life of severe toil, the habit of steady application ; and perhaps, I hoped, something of the priceless “ art of learning,” which I felt must stand me in good stead, henceforth, if I was to succeed. For I was journeying into a new world, a new planet, and I really knew less of its laws than I did of those which rule Jupiter or the moon. Dreary and blank looked that unknown world ahead of me : I seemed to myself a frail little cock-boat, without chart, without even knowing my own destina¬ tion, thrusting out upon a boundless sea — whither ?

I never was a superstitious or even an excitable person ; nor was I overfond of those special petitions — supposed to draw down in return special interpositions from heaven — upon which my evangelical friends at Cambridge used to build so much. I could ask for strength and wisdom to do what I knew to be right ; but I shrank from thrusting upon a God who gives me every day and all day long, more than I deserve, rash entreaties for this and that fancied benefit over and above. Still I take no shame to myself when I confess that, closing my eyes and leaning back as I sat on the coach-top, I prayed earnestly — more earnestly than ever before in my life — to be kept out of temptation, and to be taught how to do my duty as a tutor though I had scantiest notion what that duty might be. Humbled by the sense of my own loneliness, ignorance, incapacity, I cast myself on the thought that I had a Father in Heaven ; and found, as I have found ever since, an inexhaustible spring of comfort in the thought.

Amid such meditations I sat patiently the weary day, mile after mile, stage after stage, through the monotonous roll of the Mercian grass-lands till, at even-fall, I began to see the moors piled against the Western sky. The coach stopped at last, in darkness, in a tidy little country town which was Hartover.

Chapter II

I got down at the comfortable looking Longmoor Hunt Inn, and asked for a conveyance to Hover. There was none I was informed, in tones of respect and sympathy, that ‘ they were very sorry and so forth, but all the flys were gone to Hover already. That they had never expected a gentleman so late or they would have procured one on purpose.”

That I should be late for the ball ; what a pity !

“ The finest thing, sir,” said the landlady, seeming ready to weep over my disappointment, ‘ that has been seen in this country for ten years. That’s to say, it will be ; for I drove over this very afternoon, and saw all the preparations, because the housekeeper’s my cousin, sir ’ — And so forth and so on.

“ My dear madam,” quoth I, “ I do not think that the ball will lose much from my not being there. You see, I am not a dancing man ” — and I glanced my eye down at my poor foot, and saw her woman’s eye follow, and light up with a pleasant motherly expression of interest and pity — “ but I am very anxious indeed to get to Lord Longmoor’s to-night.”

“ Well no wonder, no wonder. Sad to lose such a sight ! ”

“ But Mr. Braithwaite’s in the Commercial Room, and just going,” whispered her stalwart husband, “ and if he ”

“ What ? That Radical scum ? — And to take a gentleman up to my lord’s, who can’t hear his name without cursing, poor dear soul ? What are you thinking of ? ”

“ Well ! ” said the big Boniface — “ I always do say Mr. Braithwaite’s a very sensible free spoken gentle¬ man - ”

“ Gentleman ! ” quoth she with a scornful emphasis. “ What’s he but a tenant farmer ? ”

“ Still I was sorry when he and his lordship fell out.”

“ And so was I,” answered a voice from behind.

Turning I saw a tall figure, wrapt in a drab drivingcoat with seven capes, as was the fashion of the time.

“ What am I wanted for ? ” The landlady drew back. “ I heard all, Mrs. Plummer, and found that, as usual, listeners hear no good of themselves.”

“ Well, sir — why, sir — I’m sure, sir ! ” said Boniface, while his wife was proudly silent — “ But women will meddle with politics - ”

“ So much the better. If they did not, politics would be very stupid things. So this gentleman wants to go to Hover ? ”

“ And all the flys are out.”

“ And therefore I must take him, eh ? ”

“ My dear sir,” I said, “ I could not think of such a thing.”

“ But I can. If you don’t like my company, well and good. I can do without yours. But if you have no objection to it, I shall be glad enough of a com¬ panion.”

“ But I shall be taking you out of your way.”

“ Only a mile or so, and what is that in the country ? Row ! Where’s your luggage ? A portmanteau and that box. Good. Put them under the dennet-seat,

ostler. As for that big box - ”

“It is far too heavy, my dear sir. It is full of books.”

“ Books, eh ? Then you must send it by the coach in the morning, Plummer. Now are you ready ? ” And, without more ado, we rattled off through the streets pleasantly enough, to the light of our own lamps, with a fast stepping horse before us.

I, of course, wished to get into conversation with my new acquaintance, but I hardly knew how to begin. However, he forestalled me by breaking out abruptly, as soon as we were outside of the little town —

“ A box full of books, eh ? And to what end, pray, are you carrying coals to Newcastle ? ”

“ Are there many books at Hover then ? ”

“ One of the finest private libraries in England they say, and never looked into from year’s end to year’s end. And then the aristocracy are surprised that the public envies them, and so forth ! Was the cow much to be blamed, sir, when she envied the dog in the manger ? ”

“ I shall take good care that there is some one to read them in future,” I said joyfully enough.

“ What, are you a scholar ? ”

“ I am just from Cambridge.”

“ Full of Latin, Greek, and mathematics, or of Newmarket and rat-hunting ? Which ? ”

“ Certainly not of the latter. Equally certainly not half enough of the former.”

“ Latin and Greek ? Ah ! there you fellows have the whip-hand of us manufacturing men after all. Humph — And what good are your classics going to do you at this ball ? ”

“ I am not going to the ball,” said I, laughing. “ I am going to be private tutor to Lord Hartover.”

“ Wheugh ! And what are you going to teach him ? ”

“ I have not the slightest notion,” I answered, laughing again. “ A little Latin and Greek, I suppose — and also to be a good boy — if I have the chance.”

“ Poor devil ! ”

“ Which ? He or I ? ”

“ Well — both of you, I should say. Curious custom in England — is it not — that the more responsibility any one has the less education is required to meet it. A farmer has to learn his trade from youth. A lawshark must begin by snapping at minnows for seven years or so before he is considered fit to swallow big fish. But your nobleman is taken for granted. Any one can manage half a county. At Cambridge, I hear, you common sons of earth — for, I presume I have not the honour of speaking to a nobleman, or even to a squire in prospect ? ”

“ Most distinctly not. I haven’t a thing in the world but what I carry on my back and in my boxes and my brains.”

“ Well — you common sons of earth require three years to get your degree. Your young noblemen only two, eh ? ”

“ True.”

“ Then what hope have you of educating this lad, when society itself and the very divines of your English Church are telling him that he need not be educated ? Where is the use of selling your liberty, becoming a flunkey and a hanger-on of these great folk when you know that you can’t do what you profess to do, because you won’t be allowed to do it ? ”

I was inclined to be nettled. But why be angry ? The man was in the act of doing me a kindness. He was evidently no ordinary person. And, after all, it is not often in this world that one has the chance of hearing the plain truth. Therefore I answered —

“ I sell my liberty, sir, because I am a penniless orphan, and must live. What my duty by this boy may be I do not know ; but I suppose God will show me. And if He does show me I suppose that He will give me sense and courage to do it.”

My companion turned round sharply on me, and looked at me keenly from under his hat. The night was so bright that we could both see each other plainly enough.

At last he spoke.

“ If you talk in that way, young man, and mean what you say, you have come where you are wanted. I did not intend to offend you.”

“ You have not offended me in the least. I am glad to hear truth ; for - ”

I checked myself, since I was about to say I did not expect to hear any more for some time to come.

He was silent again. Then turning in his abrupt way—

“ God will show you your duty, you think ? Very good ; but you don’t expect special revelations or instructions direct from on high ? ”

“ Then what if He showed you by the plain mouth of a rational man, old enough to be your father ? ”

“ A very likely method,” I replied. “ Hdve you any advice to give me ? ”

“ I have. People call me a Radical and a destruc¬ tive. I know what I am ; and this I know — I don’t like these great noblemen. I consider them a great national evil. But here they are ; and we can’t get rid of them.”

“ Perhaps because we ought not ? ”

“ Perhaps so. I have altered my opinions in my life on most things, and may alter them again. But here these noblemen are, and will be : and our business — your business, rather — is to make the best of them, by making them the best they can be. Try to make that lad a good nobleman — never mind his Latin and Greek, or anything else but what will forward your doing so.”

“ To that end I should have to know what a noble¬ man ought to be.”

“ Then find out. Of what use is your scholarship

THE TUTOE’S STQEY

IB to you, if it won’t teach you that ? I have read history enough to see that there have been, in all ages, men possessed of arbitrary power and exclusive rank to which they had no right — yet they used their rank and power well. That poor boy will have power — immense power — to which he has no more right than his own groom. Teach him for his own sake, as well as for half a county’s sake, to use it well, and to be a good nobleman if a nobleman he must be. Do that. And work enough you’ll have to do it.”

“ How so ? ”

“ He is an awful pickle, they say — small wonder,, with the example he gets. You have heard, of course,, how he served your wretched predecessor ? ”

“ Ah ha ! If you had perhaps you would not be here. Threw him out of the window, and then stood a regular siege in his own room, threatening to shoot any one who entered ; till he capitulated at last on a full pardon, and marched out with colours flying and a double-barrel gun over his shoulder.”

“ Alas for me ! But I am not likely to infuriate him to trying physical force.”

“ So much the better. There, let’s talk of some¬ thing else. — Gate ho ! ”

We had reached the lodge of the Enchanted Castle.

Gates opened to us beneath the shadow of enormous trees, and we drove in.

“ How far are we from the house ? ”

“ Only three miles. Three miles of good land between ns and the big men, wasted upon deer and game, instead of growing corn and turnips. — Humph.”

We drove on for some time again in silence through the park — Hartover Chase, as my companion called it — over open heather and moor, sparkling with glow¬ worms, where the night- jar flapped and twisted under our horse’s nose, and then flitted away ghostly into the dark to churr like a stocking loom ; past deep gulfs of black wood, through which rose the tinkle of hidden rills ; along black avenues of pine, our lamps flashing blood-red upon their elephantine stems, till we saw, right in front, what appeared to me at first a great square mountain, black against the dappled cloud and pierced with fine oblong sheets of blazing light.

“ Can that be the house ? It must be a huge pile.”

“It is so. And those are the fine windows of the great hall, where they are caracolling and caprioling now. Yes, young man, there is the Enchanted Castle, and the Enchantress in it at the height of her sorceries. Take care that she does not enchant you.”

“ What do you mean ? ”

“ You will find out soon enough, sir. I only say? take care lest you go the way which as fine young fellows as you, for aught I know, have gone already. No — don’t ask me any more.”

I thought it well to change the subject.

“ You consider this land, then, as wasted ? ”

“ Of course I do.”

And then began a conversation upon matters for which the reader will not care. On farming, rural economy, the state of the poor, which he represented as frightful ; and, lastly, on the proposed new Poor Law, then just being agitated, and of which, I found, my companion was a strong supporter. We were in the midst of a discussion equally new and interesting to me, when he pulled up at a large pair of iron gates.

“ Here, we will go in the back way. The flunkies are all upstairs by now, and we may chance to find a groom here. Now, I hope our last quarter of an hour has shown you a little of what a nobleman might do?”

“ It has indeed,” said I, sadly enough.

“ Don’t be downhearted. Perhaps there were no flys at Hartover for a very good reason.”

“ I am thankful enough there were none.”

“ Then come and see me when you can. I am but three miles off. Though if you wish to keep on good terms with these folk, you had best neither say that you are coming or that I brought you here. So per¬ haps you will prefer not risking further acquaintance while you stay in the Enchanted Castle ? ”