Our variable skies had cast off their wintry hue, and assumed almost the aspect of summer. Cloud and storm had passed away. Sleet and rain no longer beat in the face of the traveller; and though November was growing old, yet the melancholy month showed himself much more mild and placable in his age than in his youth: there was a bright, warm smile in the sky, and the sun towards midday was actually hot. There was a great deal of activity and bustle in the gardens of Mr. Tracy. The sage old folks in the neighbourhood remarked, that a new broom swept clean; and the head-gardener was certainly seen from day-break till sunset in every part of the extensive grounds, directing the labours of the men under him, and preparing everything against the wintry months that were coming. Mr. Tracy was delighted. For the first time he saw all his own plans proceeding rapidly and energetically; for the gardener, with more sound tact than gardeners usually have, applied himself to execute, alone, what his master proposed or suggested, but took care it should be executed well, and as rapidly as possible.
A new spirit seemed to come into the whole house with the new gardener. Everybody, but one, although it was certainly an unpropitious season of the year, seemed to be seized with the mania of gardening. Old General Tracy himself, after having been confined for four or five days to his room, by the consequences of his intimacy with farmer Thorp's bull, which he had at first neglected, but was afterwards compelled to remember, might be seen with a spade in his hand delving with the rest. Mr. Tracy and Emily were constantly here and there in the grounds, conversing with the head-gardener, and laying out plans for immediate or future execution; and the only one who, like the warm beams of summer, seemed to abandon the garden as winter approached, was Mr. Tracy's youngest daughter Rose, whose visits were confined to the morning and the evening, when a task, to which she had accustomed herself from her childhood, and which she had no excuse for neglecting now, called her down to the end of what was called "the ladies' walk." This task was, indeed, a somewhat childish one; namely, to feed a number of beautiful gold and silver fishes collected in a large marble basin, and sheltered from snow and frost by a not very bad imitation of a Greek temple.
There is a very mistaken notion current, that fish are not overburdened with plain common sense. We have too few opportunities of observing them to judge; but Rose's gold and silver fish certainly displayed considerable discrimination. One would have thought that they knew the sound of her beautiful little feet; only fish have got no ears. However, as her step approached, they were sure to swim in multitudes towards her, jostling their scaly sides against each other, and evidently looking up with interest and pleasure. They did not do the same to any one else. They came indeed, but came more slowly, if Emily approached; and hovered at a timid distance from the side if anything in a male garb was seen.
Two or three times, whilst standing by the side of the basin, Rose saw the head-gardener pass by; but he took no further notice of her, than merely by raising his hat, with a bow, which might have suited a drawing-room as well as a garden.
Rose had become very thoughtful--not at all times--for when she was with the rest of the family, she was as gay as ever; but when she was in her own room with a book in her hand, the book would often rest upon her knee unread; and her eyes would gaze out of the window upon the far prospect, while the mind was very busy with things within itself. There was something that puzzled Rose Tracy sadly. What could she be thinking of? Strange to say, Rose was thinking of the head-gardener; yet she never mentioned his name, even when all the rest were praising him, marvelling at his taste, at his information, at his manners for a man in that rank of life. She never went near the places where he was most likely to be found; and a fortnight passed ere she exchanged a single word with him.
At length, one morning, a short conversation, of which it may be necessary to transcribe only a few sentences, took place at breakfast between her father and her uncle; which worked a great change in Rose Tracy.
"It certainly is the most extraordinary will that ever was made," said Mr. Tracy; "and so unjust, that I cannot think it will be maintained in law. He leaves his whole property to his eldest son, towards whom he showed nothing but coldness and dislike for many years, and leaves the second actually nothing but a mere recommendation to his brother's favour. Now, the whole Elmsly property, to the amount of at least seventeen thousand a-year, came to him in right of Lady Jane; and it is generally the custom for the mother's property to descend to the younger children."
"At all events, they should have a fair share of it," answered old Walter Tracy. "For my part, I would do away with the law of primogeniture altogether. It is a barbarous and unnatural law. But perhaps Sir Harry, in his eccentric way, left verbal directions with his eldest son."
"Not at all, not at all," answered Mr. Tracy. "I understand from Lawrence Graves, who is their near relation, that Sir William declares he has no instructions whatever but those contained in the will. And, as Mr. Winslow and his brother have not been upon good terms for some years, the young gentleman refuses absolutely to receive any thing from him whatever."
"Then, in Heaven's name! what will become of him," exclaimed Emily, "if he is left penniless?"
"He might have done well enough in many professions," said the General, "if this had occurred earlier. But he is three or four and twenty now; too old for the army; and both the church and the bar are sad slow professions; requiring a fortune to be spent before a pittance can be gained."
"What will become of him no one knows," rejoined Mr. Tracy. "But it seems, he set out for London, with a bold heart, declaring he would carve his way for himself; and be dependent upon no man."
"A fine bold fellow--I like him!" cried the General. "Lily, my love, another cup of coffee, and more cream, or I will disinherit you."
When breakfast was over, Rose ran up to her own room, locked the door, and sat down and cried. "Then this was the cause," she murmured: "and he must think me unkind and mean."
About two o'clock that day, Rose went out in a little park phæton, with a small postillion upon the near blood-horse. She had several things to do in the neighbouring village, about two miles distant: some shops to visit; a girls' school to look into; and one or two other matters of lady life. Horace Fleming, too, came up and talked to her for a few minutes, standing by the side of the phæton.
The horses, one and both, agreed that it was very tiresome to be kept standing so long in the streets of a dull little place like that. As soon as they were suffered to go on, they dashed away in very gay style towards their home; but Rose was not likely to alarm herself at a little rapid motion, and the fastest trot they could go did not at all disturb her. Horses, however, when they are going homeward, and get very eager, are sometimes more nervous than their drivers or riders. All went well, then, through the first mile of country roads, and narrow lanes; but about a quarter of a mile further, a man very like farmer Thorpe--Rose did not see distinctly, but she thought it was he--pushed his way through the trees, on the top of the low bank, just before the horses. Both shied violently to the near side; the small postillion was pitched out of the saddle into the hedge; and on the two beasts dashed, no longer at a trot, but a gallop, with the rein floating loose. Rose Tracy did not scream; but she held fast by the side of the phæton, and shut her eyes. It was all very wrong, but very natural, for a woman who knew that there were three turns on the road before the house could be reached, and there, a pair of iron gates, generally closed. She did not wish to see what her brains were going to be dashed out against, till it was done, nor to fly further when the phæton overset than necessary; and therefore, she did as I have said. But after whirling on for two or three minutes, turning sharp round one corner, and bounding over a large stone; she felt a sudden check, which threw her on her knees into the bottom of the phæton, and heard a voice cry, "So ho! stand, boy, stand! so ho! quiet, quiet!" and opening her eyes, she saw the horses plunging a little and endeavouring to rear, in the strong grasp of the head-gardener, who held them tight by the bridles, and strove to soothe them. One of the under-gardeners was scrambling over the palings of her father's grounds, where the other had passed before; and in a minute the two fiery bays were secured and quieted.
"I hope you are not much hurt or terrified, Miss Tracy," said the head-gardener, approaching the side, while the other man held the reins; and Rose saw a look of eager interest in his eyes, and heard it in his voice.
"Terrified, I am, certainly, Mr.--Mr. Acton," she said, hesitating at the name; "but not hurt, thank God! though, I believe I owe my life to you."
"I was much alarmed for you," he answered; "for I feared when I saw them coming, as I stood on the mound, that I should not be in time. But had you not better get out and walk home. I will open the garden-gate; and then go and look for the boy. I hope the wheels did not go over him, for I suppose he fell off."
"I trust he is not hurt," answered Rose, allowing him to hand her out. "The horses took fright at a man in the hedge, and threw him; but I think he fell far from the carriage."
"Here he comes, Miss," cried the under-gardener; "here he comes, a running. There's no bones broke there."
So it proved: the boy came with a face all scratched, and hands all full of thorns; but otherwise uninjured, except in temper. Vanity, vanity, the great mover in half--half! might I not say nine-tenth's?--of man's actions; what wonderful absurdities is it not always leading us into! All small postillions are wonderfully vain, whether their expeditions be upon bright bays or hobby horses; and if they be thrown, especially before the eyes of a mistress, how pugnacious the little people become! The boy was inclined to avenge himself upon the horses, and made straight to their heads with his teeth set, and his knotted whip, newly recovered, in his hand; but the under-gardener was learned in small postillions, and taking him by the collar, before he could do more than aim one blow at the poor beasts, he held him at arm's length, saying, "Thou art a fool, Thomas. The cattle won't be a bit better for licking. They did not intend to make thee look silly when they sent thee flying."
"Thomas," cried the voice of Rose, "for shame! If you attempt to treat the horses ill, I shall certainly inform my father."
"Why, Miss, they might have killed you," answered little vanity, assuming--she is own sister to Proteus--the shape of generous indignation.
"Never mind," answered Rose. "I insist upon it, you treat them gently and kindly; or depend upon it you will be punished yourself."
"Half the vicious horses that we see, Miss Tracy," said the head-gardener, "are made so by man. We are all originally tyrants, I fear, to those who cannot remonstrate; and the nearer we are to the boy in heart and spirit, the stronger is the tyrant in our nature. It is sorrow, disappointment, and sad experience that makes us men."
He had forgotten himself for a moment; and Rose forgot herself too. She looked up in his face and smiled as no lady (except Eve) ever smiled upon a gardener, without being a coquette.
They both recovered themselves in a minute, however; and, walking on in silence to the garden-gate, about three hundred yards further up the lane, the gardener opened it with his key and then saw her safely till she was within sight of the house. Rose paused for a moment, and smiled when he had bowed, and retired. "This cannot go on," she said. "I may as well speak to him at once, now I know the circumstance; for this state of things must come to an end. I owe him life, too; and may well venture to do all I can, and proffer all I can, to console and assist him. My father, I am sure, would aid him, and my uncle too, if he would but confide in them." And with half-formed purposes she returned to the house, and horrified and delighted her sister, who was the only person she found at home, with an account of her danger and her deliverance.
About an hour and a half after, Rose Tracy stood by the basin of gold-fish, with her little basket of fine bread crumbs in her hand. The fishes were all gathered near in a herd, looking up to her with more than usual interest in their dull round eyes--at least so it might have seemed to fancy. Her fair face, with the large, soft, silky-fringed eyes, was bent over the water; the clusters of her dark brown hair fell upon her warm cheek, which glowed with a deeper hue, she knew not why. The light green hat upon her head seemed like the cup of a bending rose; and any one who saw her might have fancied her the spirit of the flower whose name she bore.
With a careful and equitable hand she scattered the food over the surface of the water; and never were brighter colours presented by the finny tenants of the pond of the half marble king of the black islands, than her favourites displayed as they darted and flashed, sometimes past, sometimes over each other, while a solitary ray of the setting sun poured through the evergreens, passed between the columns, and rested on the surface of the water.
A slow, quiet, firm step sounded near; and Rose's cheek became a little paler; but she instantly raised her head, and looked round with a sparkling eye. The head-gardener was passing from his daily avocations towards his cottage. Rose paused for a minute, with a heart that fluttered. Then she beckoned to him, (as he took off his hat respectfully,) and said aloud, "I want to speak with you."
He advanced at once to her side, without the slightest appearance of surprise; and Rose held out her hand to him.
"I have to thank you for saving my life," she said in a hurried and agitated tone--much more agitated than she wished it to be, or thought it was; "and I believe we have all to thank you for saving the life of my dear uncle. But I should take another time and means of expressing my gratitude, had I not something else to say. I have a sadly tenacious memory. Let me ask you frankly and candidly--have we not met before you came here?"
The head-gardener smiled sorrowfully; but he answered at once. "We have, dear Miss Tracy, in other scenes and other circumstances. We met at the Duchess of H----'s: a day which I shall never forget, and which I have never forgotten. And I had the happiness of passing more than one hour entirely with you. For, if you remember, the crowd was so great that we could not find your aunt; and you were cast upon tedious company as your only resource."
Rose smiled, and answered not the latter part of his reply; but with a varying colour, and in broken, embarrassed phrase, went on as follows:--"You thought I had forgotten your appearance, Mr. Winslow; but, as I have said, I have a sadly tenacious memory, and I recollected you at once. I could not conceive what was the cause of what I saw--of why or how you could be here--in--in such circumstances--and it puzzled and--and embarrassed me very much; for I thought--I was sure--that if I mentioned what I knew, it might be painful to you--and yet to meet often one whom I had known in such a different position, without a word of recognition--might seem--I do not know what, but very strange."
"I thank you deeply for your forbearance," replied Chandos, "and I will beseech you, dear Miss Tracy, not to divulge the secret you possess to anyone. If you do, it will force me immediately to quit your father's service, and to abandon a scheme of life--a whim, if you will, which--"
"My father's service!" cried Rose, eagerly. "Oh, Mr. Winslow, why should you condemn yourself to use such words. It is only this morning that I have heard your history; but indeed, indeed, such a situation becomes you not. Oh, be advised by one who has a title--the title of deep gratitude, to obtrude advice. Tell my father, when he comes to-morrow to thank you for saving his child's life, who you are. He already knows how hardly, how iniquitously you have been used, and this very day was expressing his sense of your wrongs. Oh tell him, Mr. Winslow! You will find him kind, and feeling, and ready, I am sure, to do anything to counsel and assist you. Pray, pray do!" and Rose Tracy laid her fair beautiful hand upon his arm in her eager petitioning.
Chandos took it in his and pressed it, not warmly, but gratefully. "Thank you; a thousand times thank you," he answered. "Such sympathy and such kindness as you show, are worth all the assistance and the encouragement that the whole world could give. Yet forgive me for not following your advice. I am poor, Miss Tracy; but not so poor as to render it necessary for me to follow this humble calling for support. I am quite independent of circumstances. A relation left me sufficient for existence some years ago. My father bequeathed me a fine library and some other things of value. But it is my wish to try a different mode of life from that to which I have been accustomed. I will confess to you," he added, "that when I came here, I had no idea you were Mr. Tracy's daughter, or perhaps I should not have come--"
Her colour varied, and he went on--"The same causes," he said, with a rapid and hasty voice, "which, had my expectations, reasonable or unreasonable, been fulfilled, might have brought me hither eagerly, would, in changed circumstances, have prevented me from coming. But enough of this. I will not trouble you with all my motives and my views--call them whims, call them follies, if you like; but I will only say that I wish, for a short time, to give my mind repose from the daily round of thoughts to which every man moving in one particular circle alone is subject, which grind us down and fashion our very hearts and spirits into artificial forms, till we deem everything that is conventional right, and, I fear, are apt to imagine that everything which is natural is wrong. I wish to see all objects with different eyes from those with which I have hitherto seen them; or, perhaps, to use a more rational figure, I would fain place myself on a new spot in the great plain of society, whence I can obtain a sight of the whole under a different point of view. I have looked down at the world from the hill, dear Miss Tracy, I am determined now to look up at it from the valley."
Rose smiled with a look of interest, but yet a look of melancholy; and shaking her head she answered, "You will soon be found out for a mountaineer; they are already wondering at you."
"That I cannot help," replied Chandos. "But at all events give me as much time as possible; and if you would really oblige me, do not mention to any one who and what I am. Let me be the gardener still--except when, perhaps, at such a moment as this, you will condescend to remember me as something else."
"Oh, I am bound to keep your secret," said Rose; "or, indeed, to do much more, if I knew how. But my father must express both his own and his daughter's gratitude for the preservation of her life; and in the meantime I will of course be silent as to your name and character. But had I not better, Mr. Winslow, let you know, if I perceive any probability of your being discovered?"
"That would indeed be a great favour," replied Chandos; "for circumstances might occur which would render discovery not only painful, but highly detrimental."
"Then I will give you warning of the first suspicion," answered Rose. "And now farewell; for it is nearly dark, and the dinner bell will soon ring."
Chandos bent down his head, and kissed her hand. It was the first act touching in the least upon gallantry which he had permitted himself; but it called the colour into Rose's cheek; and with another farewell, she left him.
It was evening. The cottage fire blazed bright and warm. Two tallow candles were upon the table; for Chandos loved light, and burnt two tallow candles. Moreover, the people of the hamlet thought him a great man because he did so. Such is the appreciation of the world--such the all-pervading influence of the spirit of the country and the times--such the admiration of money in theUnitedKingdom! of Great Britain and Ireland, that the neighbouring peasantry thought him a much greater man than the last head-gardener, because he burnt two tallow candles, and the last burnt only one. Take it home to you, ye gentlemen in Grosvenor-square. Your services of gilded plate, your rich dinners, your innumerable lackeys, (none below six feet two), which gain you such envious reverence from those who use Sheffield plate, and content themselves with a foot-boy, is nothing more than the burning of two tallow candles, in the eyes of your inferiors in wealth. Be vain of it, if you can!
There was a neat row of books upon a shelf, against the little parlour wall. Many related to gardening; but there was Shakespeare and Milton, Ben, Beaumont and Fletcher, Herrick and Donne, and Cowley. Ranged near, too, were seen, in good old bindings, Virgil and Horace, Lucan, Tibullus, Martial, and Cicero. Ovid was not there; for Chandos had no taste for gods and goddessesen bagnio. Homer and Lucretius were put behind the rest, but where they could be got at easily.
There were tea-cups and saucers on the table; and the old woman who had been hired to keep his house orderly, and attend upon little Tim, after he had become a denizen of the cottage, was boiling the water in the adjoining kitchen.
"Great A," said Chandos; and, out of a number of pasteboard letters on the floor, the boy brought one, saying, "Great A. It looks like the roof of a house."
"Great B," repeated his self-installed master; and the boy brought great B, remarking that it was like two sausages on a skewer. For every letter he had some comparison; and it is wonderful how rapidly by his own system of mnemonics he had taught himself to recollect one from the other.
"Now for the little bit of catechism, Tim," said the young gentleman; "then a piece of bread-and-jam, and to bed."
The boy came and stood at his knee, as if it had been a father's, and repeated a few sentences of the First Catechism, in answer to Chandos's questions; and the young gentleman patted his head, gave him the thick-spread bread-and-jam, and was dismissing him to the care of Dame Humphreys, when the room-door was quietly pushed open--it had been ajar--and the tall, fine form of Lockwood appeared.
"Ah, Lockwood! good evening," said Chandos. "Why, you are a late visitor.--But what is the matter? You seem agitated."
"Nothing, nothing. Sir," answered the other. "Only, to see you and the little boy, put me in mind of my poor mother; and how she used to cry sometimes when she was teaching me my catechism, long before I could understand that it made her think that she had been wronged, and had done wrong, too, herself. But who is the lad? if it be not an impertinent question. He's not one of your own angles?"
"I do not understand you, Lockwood," replied Chandos, in some surprise. "If you mean to ask, whether he is a child of mine, I say, 'Certainly not.' Do you not see he is eight or nine years old?"
"I call all children angles," answered Lockwood, smiling, "because they are the meeting of two lines. You, for instance, are an isosceles angle, because the two sides are equal. I am not, you know; which is a misfortune, not a fault. But whose son is the boy? He seems a fine little fellow."
Chandos explained, and his explanation threw Lockwood into a fit of musing. During its continuance, his half-brother had an opportunity of examining what it was which had effected, since they last met, a considerable difference in his personal appearance; and at length he interrupted his meditation by observing, "I see you have let your whiskers grow, Lockwood."
"Yes," replied the other. "Yours pleased me; and so I determined to bebarbatusalso. Why men should shave off their beards at all I cannot divine. Saints and patriarchs wore them. All the greatest men in the world have worn them, with the exception of Newton, Moses, Mahomet, Friar Bacon, King Alfred, and Numa Pompilius, were all bearded, as well as Bluebeard, that strict disciplinarian, with Mr. Muntz, and his brother, the Shah of Persia, and Prester John, who, if we knew his whole history, was probably the greatest man amongst them. But whiskers must do for the present. Perhaps I shall come to a whole beard in time. I have brought you a leash of teal, and some news; for which you shall give me a cup of tea."
"I can give you a bed, too," answered Chandos; "for, thanks to your good care, all the rooms are furnished now."
"Not for me," answered Lockwood: "I am back by moonlight. The goddess rises at eleven, I think; and I will be her Carian boy to-night--only I will not sleep, but walk while she kisses my brow."
Another cup was brought, and Chandos added some more tea to the infusion. His companion seemed in a somewhat wandering mood of mind, and many were the subjects started before he came to the news which he had to tell. "What capital tea!" he said. "Mine is but sage and sloe leaf to this. How we go on adulterating! There is not a thing now-a-day that we eat or drink which is pure. Good things become condemned by the foul imitations which men sell for them; and the cheatery of the multitude robs the honest man of his due repute. Instead of standing out in bright singularity, he is confounded in the mass of rogues. Short measure, false weights, diminished numbers, forged tickets, fictitious representations, adulterated goods, and worthless fabrications, are the things upon which the once glorious British trader now thrives. But it is only for a little day. Found out, he will soon be despised; despised, neglected; and neglected, ruined--or, at least, if it touches not this generation, it will the next."
"But, my good friend, it is not the British trader or manufacturer alone," answered Chandos; "I can tell you, by having travelled a good deal, that it is the spirit of the age, and pervades the whole world, except in its most uncivilized districts. You can depend upon nothing that you buy. A rich traveller orders his bottle of Champagne at an inn, and is charged an enormous price for a deleterious beverage prepared within half-a-dozen yards of the spot where he drinks it, though that may be five hundred miles from Champagne. A spirit drinker requires a glass of brandy, gets some fermented juice of the potato, and is charged forold Cognac. Another asks for Saxony linen, and receives a mixture of cotton and lint that is worn out in half the time which would be required to use the article he paid for. Every man in Europe, with a very few exceptions, thinks only of present gain, without regard to honesty or future reputation."
"He will kill the goose with the golden eggs," said Lockwood.
"He cares not for that," answered Chandos. "The grand principle of action in the present day was developed nearly forty years ago, when one of a family, the wittiest perhaps that ever lived, and the one which most quickly seized the feelings of their times, asked, 'What did posterity ever do for me?' That is the secret of everything strange that we see around us. Each man lives alone for his own earthly life: he cares not either for those who come after, or for remote reputation, or for a world that is to come. In regard to the first, he thinks, 'They will take care of themselves, as I have done.' In regard to the second he says, 'It is a bubble that, as far as I am concerned, breaks when I die.' In regard to the third, his ideas are indefinite; and while he admits that there may be an hereafter, he takes his chance, and says, 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.'"
"Ay, so it was with Mr. Parkington, the rich manufacturer who bought Greenlees, close by Winslow, and died there," said Lockwood. "When he was upon his death-bed, the parson of the parish went to console him, and talked of the joys of Heaven. He spoke too finely for the old spinner, I've a notion; for after he had told him of eternal happiness in the knowledge and love of God, the sick man raised his gray head and said, 'Thank you, thank you, Mr. Wilmington; but, after all,Old England fur my money!'"
Chandos could not refrain a smile. "Too true a picture," he said, "of the mind of a money-getting man. But the state of our society is in fault in giving such a bias to human weakness. We are taught from the earliest period of our lives to think that the great object of existence is money, and what money can procure. The whole tendency of the age, in short, is material; and political economists, while systematizing one class of man's efforts, have (unwittingly, I do believe) left out of all consideration the higher and more important duties and efforts which his station in creation imposes upon him. Were man but the most reasoning of animals, such systems might do very well; but for those who believe him to be something more, who know, or feel, or hope that he is a responsible agent, to whom powers are confided in trust for great purposes, a system that excludes or omits all the wider relations of spirit with spirit, which takes no count of man's immortal nature, which overlooks his dependence upon God and his accountability to Him, is not only imperfect, but corrupt. It may be said that it teaches man but one branch of the great social science; and that to mix the consideration of others with it, would but embarrass the theories which in themselves are right; but when a system affects the whole relations of man with his fellow-creatures, such an argument is inadmissible, upon the broad ground of reason, if it be admitted that man is more than a machine, and most vicious, if it be allowed that he is an accountable being under a code of laws divine in their origin. These two questions are inseparable from every argument affecting the dealings of man with man. Let those who reason either admit or deny our immortality. If they deny, they may be right, I say nought against it; and their reasoning regarding the machine,man, would in most instances be very fair;--but if they admit, they must take a wider grasp of the subject, and show that their doctrines are compatible with his responsibility to God."
"It would be wide enough and difficult enough," answered Lockwood. "But it is a science of which I understand nothing. It seems to have taught us more of the acquisition of wealth, than the acquisition of happiness; and to lead inevitably to the accumulation of money in few hands, without tending to its after-distribution amongst many. This is all I have seen it do yet."
"And that is a great evil," replied Chandos.
"A great evil, indeed," answered Lockwood, laughing. "For instance: your brother is a great deal too rich; and it would be a capital thing, if his property were distributed."
Chandos thought for a moment or two, very gravely, and then replied: "I envy him not, Lockwood. Perhaps you may think it strange; but, I assure you, what I am going to say is true: I would a great deal rather be as I am, with the poor pittance I possess, than my brother with his thoughts and feelings, and all his wealth. There must be things resting on his mind, which, to me at least, would embitter the richest food, and strew with thorns the softest bed."
"Ah, I know what you mean," answered Lockwood; "I heard of it at the time: seven or eight years ago. You mean that story of Susan Grey, the Maid of the Mill, as they called her, who drowned herself."
Chandos nodded his head, but made no reply; and Lockwood went on,
"Ay, I remember her well; she was as pretty a creature as ever I saw, and always used to put me in mind of the ballad of the 'Nut-brown Maid.' You know, the old man died afterwards. He never held up his head after your brother took her away. He became bankrupt in two years, and was dead before the third was over. And the ruins of the mill stand upon the hill, with the wind blowing through the plankless beams, as through a murderer's bones in chains on a gibbet. But, after all, though it was a very bad case, Sir William was but following his father's example. The Greeks used to say, 'Bad the crow, bad the egg!' and he trod in Sir Harry's footsteps."
"No, no, no!" said Chandos, vehemently; "my father might seduce, but he did not abandon to neglect and scorn. He might carry unhappiness--and he did--to many a hearth; but he did not, for the sake of a few pitiful pounds, cast off to poverty and misery the creature he had deluded. I know the whole story, Lockwood. This was the cause of the first bitter quarrel between my brother and myself. I was a boy of but seventeen then. But often I used to stop at the mill, when out shooting, and get a draught of good beer from the miller, or his pretty daughter. I was very fond of the girl, not with an evil fondness; for, as I have said, I was a boy then, and she was several years older than myself. But I thought her very beautiful and very good, blithe as a lark, and, to all appearance, innocent as an early summer morning. I saw her but two days before she went away; I saw her, also, on the very day of her death, when she returned, pale, haggard, in rags that hardly hid the proofs of her shame, to seek some compassion from him who had ruined and deserted her; ay, and driven her mad. It was I, who went in and told him she was in the park; and I did so fiercely enough, perhaps. He called me an impertinent fool; but went out to speak to her, while I ran hastily to my own room to bring her what little store of money I had; for I doubted my brother. What passed between them I do not well know; but, when I came to where they stood in the park, under the lime trees, not far from the high bank over the river, my brother's face was flushed and his look menacing; he was speaking fiercely and vehemently; and in a moment the girl turned from him and ran away up the bank. I followed to console and give her assistance, never dreaming of what was about to happen; but when I came up, I found some labourers, who were at work there, running down the little path to the river side. One of them had his coat and hat off, and, to my surprise, plunged into the water. But I need not tell you more of that part of the story; for you know it all already. I went back to the house, and straight to my father's room, and I told him all. There, perhaps, I was wrong; but indignation overpowered reflection, and I acted on the impulse of the moment. A terrible scene followed: my brother was sent for; my father reproached him bitterly for his ungenerous abandonment of the poor girl. He again turned his fury upon me, and struck me; and, boy as I was, I knocked him down at a blow before my father's face. Perhaps it is a just punishment for that violence, that to his generosity my fate in life was left. But yet it is very strange; for my father never forgave him; and me he was always fond of."
"Very strange, indeed," answered Lockwood. "But this brings us by a diagonal line to what I have got to tell you. Mr. Roberts has been over at the Abbey for these last two days, and is putting all things in order. A number of the tenants have been sent for, especially those who have not got leases, but stand upon agreements; and he has given them to know, that he is likely to quit your brother's service at the end of three months."
"Indeed!" exclaimed Chandos. "I am sorry for that. But yet it does not much surprise me. He and William are not made to act together. What else has he done?"
"Why, he has behaved very well," answered Lockwood; "and I believe he is an honest man. He left the people to judge for themselves, whether they would demand leases upon their agreements, or not. But it has got abroad, that the Abbey is to be immediately pulled down, all the furniture sold, and perhaps the estates sold too. At all events, the park is to be divided into two farms; though Mr. Roberts laughed and said, he did not know who would take them, with my rights of free warren over both."
Chandos leaned his head upon his hand, and closed his eyes with a look of bitter mortification. "This is sad," he said, at length: "the fine old Abbey, which has been in our family for three centuries! Well, well! Every one has a bitter cup to drink at some time; and this, I suppose, is the beginning of mine. Everything to be sold, did you say, Lockwood? The family pictures and all?"
"All of them," answered Lockwood; "everything but what is left to you: that is, the furniture of those two rooms and the books."
"I must have my mother's picture, let it cost what it will," said Chandos. "I will write to Roberts about it, if you will give him the note."
"Oh, there is time enough," rejoined his half-brother; "the sale won't take place for some weeks yet. In the mean time we must think of placing the books and bookcases, and all the rest of the things, in some secure place; and next time I come over, I will go and talk to Mr. Fleming about it. Here is the inventory I took of the things. Roberts went over it with me and signed it, as you see. He says, you may be rich enough after all; for, besides the books, which he estimates at seven thousand pounds, he declares that the marble things in the library are very valuable; and calls the little pictures in the study, gems. I don't know what he means by that; for to me, they seem as exactly like places, and things, and people I have seen a hundred times, as possible. There's an old woman looking out of the window, with a bottle in her hand, that, if the dress were not different, I could swear, was a picture of my grandmother. However, he vows it is worth a mint of money, though it is not much bigger than a school-boy's slate."
"The Gerard Dow," said Chandos, smiling. "It is very valuable, I believe; but I am so covetous, that I do not think I can make up my mind to part with any of them. You must see to their being well packed up, Lockwood; for the least injury to such pictures is fatal. The books also must be taken great care of, especially those in the glazed bookcases."
"Ay; but have you got the keys?" asked Lockwood. "Mr. Roberts was asking for them, and says he does not know where they are."
"I have them not," answered Chandos; "I never had. My brother has them, most likely."
"No," answered Lockwood; "he gave all the keys belonging to the Abbey to Mr. Roberts; and these are not amongst them. But the locks can easily be picked. I have always remarked, when people die, or change their house, the keys go astray. But there's some one tapping at the door; and so I shall go."
"Stay, stay," cried Chandos; "I should like to write that note to Roberts at once: I would not have that picture of my mother go into other hands, for all I possess. Come in!" and as he spoke, the door of the room opened, and the head of the gipsey-woman, Sally Stanley, was thrust in.
"You are not afraid of a gipsey at this time of night, master gardener?" said the woman with a smile. "I want to see my boy, and give him a kiss; for we are off at day-break to-morrow."
Lockwood stared at her, with a sort of scared look, as if her race stood higher in his fears than estimation, and shook his head suspiciously; while Chandos replied: "No, no, Sally, I am not afraid. Go into that room; and the old woman will take you to your boy. He is getting on very well, and knows his alphabet already."
The woman nodded her head, well pleased; and, with a glance from the face of Chandos to that of his guest, walked on towards the door of the kitchen.
"Now, Chandos," said Lockwood, "let me have the note."
The young gentleman raised his finger as a caution to his half-brother not to mention aloud the name which he no longer bore. But the warning was too late; the name was pronounced, and the gipsey-woman heard it.
Time flew rapidly with both Chandos Winslow and Rose Tracy. They knew not what had thus now plumed the great decayer's pinions for him. Chandos thought that, in his own case, it was, that he had assumed one of those old primeval occupations which in patriarchal days made the minutes run so fast that men lived a thousand years as if they had been but seventy. There was nothing for him like the life of a gardener.
Rose was somewhat more puzzled to account for the cheerful passing of the minutes. When she had been a hundred times more gay, which was, upon a fair calculation, some six weeks before, she had often called the hours lazy-footed loiterers; but now they sped on so fast--so fast--she hardly knew that the year was nearly at the end. She was now as much in the garden as her father, her sister, or her uncle. Whenever they were there, she was with them. When they talked to the head-gardener, she talked to him too; and sometimes a merry smile would come upon her warm little lips, of which her companions did not well see the cause. But Rose was seldom in the garden alone--never indeed but at the two stated times of the day when she went to feed her gold-fishes. That she could not help. It must be deeply impressed upon the reader's mind--ay, and reiterated, that from childhood this had been her task; and it was quite impossible that she could abandon it now--at least, so thought Rose.
Every morning, then, and every evening, she visited the little basin, and hung over her glossy favourites for several minutes. Well was she named--for she was like her name--and very seldom has the eye of man beheld anything more fair than Rose Tracy as she looked down upon the water under the shade of the marble dome above: the soft cheek like the heart of a blush rose, the clustering hair falling like moss over her brow, the bending form, graceful as the stem of a flower.
I know not how fate, fortune, or design had arranged it; but so it was, that the hours when Chandos returned to his cottage, either in the morning to breakfast, or in the evening to rest, were always a few minutes after the periods when Rose visited the basin; and his way at either time was sure to lie near that spot. If Emily was with her, as sometimes happened, the head-gardener doffed his hat and passed on. If Rose was alone, Chandos Winslow paused for a time, resumed his station and himself, and enjoyed a few sweet moments of unreserved intercourse with the only person who knew him as he really was.
The strange situation in which they were placed, their former meeting in a brighter scene, the future prospects and intentions of one, at least, of the parties to those short conversations, furnished a thousand subjects apart from all the rest of the world's things, which had the effect that such mutual stores of thought and feeling always have--they drew heart towards heart; and Chandos soon began to feel that there was something else on earth than he had calculated upon to struggle for against the world's frowns.
Yet love was never mentioned between them. They talked confidingly and happily; they did not know that they met purposely; there was a little timidity in both their bosoms, but it was timidity at their own feelings, not in the slightest degree at the fact of concealment. She called him Mr. Winslow, and he called her Miss Tracy, long after the names of Chandos and Rose came first to the lip.
The quiet course of growing affection, however, was not altogether untroubled--it never is. A gay party came down to Mr. Tracy's, to eat his dinners and to shoot his pheasants. There were battues in the morning, and music and dancing in the evening; and the wind wafted merry sounds to the cottage of the gardener. Chandos was not without discomfort; not that he longed to mix again in the scenes in which he had so often taken part, to laugh with the joyous, to jest with the gay. But he longed to be by the side of Rose Tracy; and when he thought of her surrounded by the bright, the wealthy, and the great; when he remembered that she was beautiful, graceful, captivating, one of the co-heiresses of a man of great wealth; when he recollected that there was no tie between him and her, he began to fear that the bitterest drops of the bitter cup of fortune were yet to be drank.
He knew not all which that cup might still contain.
When they went not out early to shoot, the guests at Northferry House sometimes would roam through the grounds, occasionally with their inviter or his daughters, occasionally alone; and one day, when an expedition to a high moor in the neighbourhood, where there was excellent wild shooting, had been put off till the afternoon, a gay nobleman, who fluttered between Emily and Rose, perfectly confident of captivating either or both if he chose, exclaimed as they all left the breakfast table, "I shall go and talk to your gardener, Tracy. Such a fellow must be a curiosity, as much worth seeing as a bonassus.--A gardener who talks Latin and quotes poetry! Upon my life you are a favoured man! Will you not go and introduce me, Miss Tracy, to this scientific son of Adam, whom your father has told me of."
"Excuse me, my lord," answered Emily, "your lordship will need no introduction. I have a letter to write for post."
"Will not the fair Rose take compassion on me, then?" asked Viscount Overton. "Who but the Rose should introduce one to the gardener?"
"Roses are not found on the stalk in the winter, my good lord," replied General Tracy for his niece, who, he saw, was somewhat annoyed. "But I will be your introducer, if needful, though, according to the phrase of old playwrights and novelists, a gentleman ofyour figurecarries his own introduction with him."
"General, you are too good," replied the other, with an air of mingled self-satisfaction and persiflage. "But really that was an excellent jest of yours--I must remember it--Roses are not foundon the stalkin the winter! Capital! Do you make many jests?"
"When I have fair subjects," answered Walter Tracy, with perfect good humour. "But let us go, Viscount, if you are disposed. We shall find Mr. Acton in the garden at this time. It is a pity you are not an Irishman; for he is the best hand at managing a bull I ever saw."
As they went, the story of the adventure with Farmer Thorpe's wild beast was related, much to the delight of Lord Overton, who was a man of a good deal of courage and spirit, though overlaid with an affectation of effeminacy; and by the time it was done, they were by the side of Chandos. General Tracy informed the head-gardener who the noble lord was, and jestingly launched out into an encomium of his taste for and knowledge of gardening.
"I can assure you, Mr. Acton," said Lord Overton, in a tone of far too marked condescension, "that, though the General makes a jest of it, I am exceedingly fond of gardening, and both can and do take a spade or rake in hand as well as any man."
"I am glad to hear it, my lord," replied Chandos, who did not love either his look or his manner; "our nobility must always be the better for some manly employments."
The Viscount was a little piqued, for there certainly was somewhat of a sneer in the tone; and he replied, "But I hear that you, my good friend, occasionally vary your labours with more graceful occupations--studying Latin and Greek, and reading the poets, thinking, I suppose, 'Ingenuas didicisse fideliter, artes, emollit mores, nec sinit esse feros.' I dare say you know where the passage is."
"In the Eton Latin Grammar," answered Chandos, drily; and turning to one of the under-gardeners, he gave him some orders respecting the work he was about.
"He does not seem to have had his manners much softened," said Lord Overton in a low voice to Walter Tracy. But the General only replied by a joyous peal of laughter; and, though the peer would not suffer himself to be discomfited, and renewed the conversation with Chandos, he could win no sign of having converted him to a belief, that he was at all honoured by his condescension.
"He's a radical, I suppose," said Lord Overton, when they turned away. "All these self-taught fellows are radicals."
"No, there you are mistaken, my good lord," answered Walter Tracy; "he is a high tory. That is the only bad point about him."
"Ah, General! you always were a terrible whig," said the Viscount, with a shake of the head.
"And always shall be," replied his companion, with a low and somewhat cynical bow; "though the great abilities I see ranged on the other side may make me regret that I am too old and too stiff to change."
"Oh, one is never too old to mend," said Lord Overton; "and one never should be too stiff. That harsh, violent, obstinate adherence to party is the bane of our country."
"Surely your lordship has no occasion to complain of it in our days," observed the General. "If one read the speeches of the present men, delivered twenty, fifteen, ten years ago, and mustered them according to their opinions of that date, where should we find them? But I am no politician. It only strikes me that the difference of the two great parties is this, if I may use some military phraseology: the whigs, pushing on, bayonet in hand, are a little in advance of their first position. Their opponents are scattered all over the field, some fighting, some flying, and more surrendering to the enemy. But, to return, this young man, as I have said, seems to me a very rabid tory--I beg your pardon--but a very honest fellow, notwithstanding."
"The two things are quite compatible, General," said the Viscount, stiffly.
"Oh, perfectly," replied Walter Tracy. "As long as tories remain tories they are very honest people; but when they have turned round two or three times, I do not know what they are."
Lord Overton did not like the conversation, and changed it; and the two gentlemen returned to the house. Not many days after he took his departure for London, not quite able to make up his mind whether Rose or Emily, or either, was qualified by wealth, beauty, and grace to become Viscountess Overton. After three days thought in London, he decided that neither was, upon the consideration of the great moral objection that exists to men of rank marryingMisses, especially where that most horrible denomination is not corrected by the word honourable before it. If Emily had been even a maid of honour, so that her name might have appeared in the newspapers as the Honourable Miss Tracy, he might have consented; but as it was, he judged decidedly it would be amesalliance, although Mr. Tracy's direct ancestors stood upon the rolls of fame, when his own were herding cattle.
He saved himself a very great mortification; for, to be rejected when a man mistakenly thinks he is condescending, is the bitterest draught with which false pride can be medicined.
Both Emily and Rose Tracy were very glad when the peer was gone, for his fluttering from one to the other (though he annoyed Emily most) had much the same effect as having a bee or large fly in the room; but there was another person in the neighbourhood who rejoiced still more, and that was Horace Fleming. He had dined twice at Mr. Tracy's while the party of visitors were there, and he did not at all approve of Lord Overton's attentions to Emily. Chandos Winslow was not sorry, for although he had not such definite cause for uneasiness as Fleming, yet that little god of love, whom we hear so much of, and so seldom see, is not only a metaphysical god, but a very irritable god too. The sight of Rose Tracy had always been pleasant to him during the whole time he had been in Mr. Tracy's service. Her beautiful little ancle and tiny foot, as she walked along the paths, had to his fancy the power of calling up flowers as it passed. Her smile had seemed to him to give back summer to the wintry day; the light of her eyes to prolong the sunshine, and make the twilight bright. In the morning she was his Aurora, in the evening his Hesperus; and in a word, in the space of six weeks and a day, Chandos Winslow had fallen very much in love. But it must be remarked, that the odd day mentioned, was far detached from the six weeks, dating nearly one year before. It had been an epocha which he had always remembered however--one of the green spots in the past. A lovely and intelligent girl, fresh, and unspoiled by the great corruptor of taste, feeling, and mind--fashionable society--had been cast upon his care and attention for several hours, in a crowd which prevented her from finding her own party at a fête. They had danced together more than was prudent and conventional, because they did not well know what else to do; and the little embarrassment of the moment had only excited for her an additional interest over and above that created by youth, beauty, grace, and innocence. At the end of the evening, she had passed from his sight like a shooting star, as he thought, for ever. But he remembered the bright meteor, and its rays sometimes even had visited him in sleep. Thus that day had as much to do with the love of the case as the far-detached six weeks; though they had served to ripen, and perfect, and mature a passion of which but one solitary seed had been sown before.
Four days after Lord Overton had departed, and three after the rest of the guests had taken flight, Chandos saw Rose through the trees come along towards the marble basin with a quicker step than usual. The little velvet and chinchilla mantle was pressed tight over her full, fine bosom, to keep out the cold wind of the last day of the year; but there was an eager look in her bright eyes which made him think that her rapid pace had other motives than mere exercise; and he, too, hurried his steps, to reach the spot to which her steps tended, at the same time as herself. Just as they both approached it, however, one of the under-gardeners came up to ask a question of his superior officer. He got a quick but kindly answer; but then he asked another; and that was answered too. The devil was certainly in the man; for, having nothing more to say to Chandos, he turned to Rose, and inquired whether she would not like the screens put up to keep the pond from the cold wind; and by the time he had done, General Tracy appeared, and took possession of his niece's ear.
Rose went away with a slower step and less eager look than she came. But Chandos took care to be near the little basin at the time of sunset, marking out some alterations in the surrounding shrubs which he intended to propose against the spring. When Rose appeared, Emily was with her; and Chandos was again disappointed. He showed the two fair girls, however, what he intended to suggest to their father; and, for one single moment, while Emily, taking the basket, scattered some crumbs to her sister's favourites, Rose followed the head-gardener to a spot which he thought might be well opened out, to give a view beyond; and then, she said, in a low, hurried tone, "I am going to do what perhaps is not right; but I must speak to you to-morrow morning, at all risks. I will be here half-an-hour earlier than usual;" and with limbs shaking as if she had committed theft, Rose left him, and hurried back to her sister, ere Emily well perceived that she had left her side.
They were two sisters, however; loving like sisters, trusting like sisters, with barely a year between them; and though they knew that the one was younger, the other elder, they hardy felt it; for Lily was gentle and unpresuming, though firm as she was mild. She took nought upon her; and though she acted as the mistress of her father's house, yet Rose seemed to share her authority, and more than share her power. Emily pretended not to question or to rule her sister; and, had she been suspicious, she would have asked no questions: but she suspected nothing.