Birds of Prey by M.E. Braddon

M >> M.E. Braddon >> Birds of Prey

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37

The damsel's face was turned away from me, but there was something in
the carriage of the head, something in the modelling of the firm full
throat, which reminded me of--

But then, when a man is over head and ears in love, everything in
creation reminds him more or less of his idol. Your pious Catholic
gives all his goods for the adornment of a church; your true lover
devotes his every thought to the dressing up of one dear image.

The damsel turned as my steps drew near, loud on the crisp gravel. She
turned, and showed me the face of Charlotte Halliday.

I must entreat posterity to forgive me, if I leave a blank at this
stage of my story. "There are chords in the human heart which had
better not be wibrated," said Sim Tappertit. There are emotions which
can only be described by the pen of a poet. I am not a poet; and if my
diary is so happy as to be of some use to posterity as a picture of the
manners of a repentant Bohemian, posterity must not quarrel with my
shortcomings in the way of sentimental description.

CHAPTER IV.

IN PARADISE.

We stood at the white gate talking to each other, my Charlotte and I.
The old red-tiled roof which I had seen in the distance sheltered the
girl I love. The solitary farm-house which it had been my whim to
examine was the house in which my dear love made her home. It was here,
to this untrodden hillside, that my darling had come from the prim
modern villa at Bayswater. Ah, what happiness to find her here, far
away from all those stockbroking surroundings--here, where our hearts
expanded beneath the divine influence of Nature!

I fear that I was coxcomb enough to fancy myself beloved that day we
parted in Kensington-gardens. A look, a tone--too subtle for
definition--thrilled me with a sudden hope so bright, that I would not
trust myself to believe it could be realised.

"She is a coquette," I said to myself. "Coquetry is one of the graces
which Nature bestows upon these bewitching creatures. That little
conscious look, which stirred this weak heart so tumultuously, is no
doubt common to her when she knows herself beloved and admired, and has
no meaning that can flatter my foolish hopes." This is how I had
reasoned with myself again and again during the dreary interval in
which Miss Halliday and I had been separated. But, O, what a hardy
perennial blossom hope must be! The tender buds were not to be crushed
by the pelting hailstones of hard common sense. They had survived all
my philosophical reflections, and burst into sudden flower to-day at
sight of Charlotte's face. She loved me, and she was delighted to see
me. That was what her radiant face told me; and could I do less than
believe the sweet confession? For the first few moments we could
scarcely speak to each other, and then we began to converse in the
usual commonplace strain.

She told me of her astonishment on seeing me in that remote spot. I
could hardly confess to having business at Huxter's Cross, so I was
fain to tell my dear love a falsehood, and declare that I was taking a
holiday "up at the hills."

"And how did you come to choose Huxter's Cross for your holiday?" she
asked _naively_.

I told her that I had heard the place spoken of by a person in the
city--my simple-minded Sparsfield to wit.

"And you could not have come to a better place," she cried, "though
people do call it the very dullest spot in the world. This was my dear
aunt Mary's house--papa's sister, you know. Grandpapa Halliday had two
farms. This was one, and Hyley the other. Hyley was much larger and
better than this, you know, and was left to poor papa, who sold it just
before he died."

Her face clouded as she spoke of her father's death. "I can't speak
about that without pain even now," she said softly, "though I was only
nine years old when it happened. But one can suffer a great deal at
nine years old."

And then, after a little pause, she went on to speak of her Yorkshire
home.

"My aunt and uncle Mercer are so kind to me; and yet they are neither
of them really related to me. My aunt Mary died very young, when her
first baby was born, and the poor little baby died too: and uncle
Mercer inherited the property from his wife, you see. He married again
after two years, and his second wife is the dearest, kindest creature
in the world. I always call her aunt, for I don't remember poor papa's
sister at all; and no aunt that ever lived could be kinder to me than
aunt Dorothy. I am always so happy here," she said; "and it seems such
a treat to get away from the Lawn--of course I am sorry to leave mamma,
you know," she added, parenthetically--"and the stiff breakfasts, and
Mr. Sheldon's newspapers that crackle, crackle, crackle so shockingly
all breakfast-time; and the stiff dinners, with a prim parlor-maid
staring at one all the time, and bringing one vegetables that one
doesn't want if one only ventures to breathe a little louder than
usual. Here it is Liberty Hall. Uncle Joe--he is aunt Dorothy's
husband--is the kindest creature in the world, just the very reverse of
Mr. Sheldon in everything. I don't mean that my stepfather is unkind,
you know. O, no, he has always been very good to me--much kinder than I
have deserved that he should be. But uncle Joe's ways are _so_
different. I am sure you will like him; and I am sure he will like you,
for he likes everybody, dear thing. And you must come and see us very
often, please, for Newhall farm is open house, you know, and the
stranger within the gates is always welcome."

Now my duty to my Sheldon demanded that I should scamper back to
Huxter's Cross as fast as my legs would carry me, in order to be in
time for the hybrid vehicle that was to convey me to Hidling station;
and here was this dear girl inviting me to linger, and promising me a
welcome to the house which was made a paradise by her presence.

I looked at my watch. It would have been impossible for me to reach
Huxter's Cross in time for the vehicle. Conscience whispered that I
could hire my landlord's dog-cart, and a boy to drive me to Hidling;
but the whispers of conscience are very faint; and love cried aloud,
"Stay with Charlotte: supreme happiness is offered to you for the first
time in your life. Fool that would reject so rare a gift!"

It was to this latter counsellor I gave my ear. My Sheldon's interests
went overboard; and I stayed by the white gate, talking to Charlotte,
till it was quite too late to heed the reproachful grumblings of
conscience about that dog-cart.

My Charlotte--yes, I boldly call her mine now--my dear is great in
agriculture. She enlightened my cockney mind on the subject of upland
farms, telling me how uncle and aunt Mercer's land is poor and sandy,
requiring very little in the way of draining, but producing by no means
luxuriant crops. It is a very picturesque place, and has a certain
gentlemanlike air with it pleasing to my snobbish taste. The house lies
in a tract of open grass-land, dotted here and there by trees, and
altogether of a park-like appearance. True that the mild and useful
sheep rather than the stately stag browses on that greensward, and few
carriages roll along the winding gravel road that leads to the house.

I felt a rapturous thirst for agricultural knowledge as I listened to
my Charlotte. Was there a vacancy for hind or herdsman on Newhall farm,
I wondered. What is the office so humble I would not fill for her dear
sake? O, how I sighed for the days of Jacob, that first distinguished
usurer, so that I might serve seven years and again seven years for my
darling!

I stayed by the white gate, abandoning all thought of my employer's
behests, unconscious of time--unconscious of everything except that I
was with Charlotte Halliday, and would not have resigned my position to
be made Lord Chancellor of England.

Anon came uncle Joe, with a pleasant rubicund visage beaming under a
felt hat, to tell Lotta that dinner was ready. To him I was immediately
presented.

"Mr. Mercer, my dear uncle Joseph--Mr. Hawkehurst, a friend of my
stepfather's," said Charlotte.

Two or three minutes afterwards we were all three walking across the
park-like sward to the hospitable farm-house; for the idea of my
departing before dinner seemed utterly preposterous to this friendly
farmer.

Considered apart from the glamour that for my eyes must needs shine
over any dwelling inhabited by Charlotte Halliday, I will venture to
say that Newhall farm-house is the dearest old place in the world. Such
delightful old rooms, with the deepest window-seats, the highest
mantelpieces, the widest fireplaces possible in domestic architecture;
such mysterious closets and uncanny passages; such pitfalls in the way
of unexpected flights of stairs; such antiquated glazed
corner-cupboards for the display of old china!--everything redolent
of the past.

In one corner a spinning-wheel, so old that its spindle might be the
identical weapon that pierced Princess Sleeping Beauty's soft white
hand; in another corner an arm-chair that must have been old-fashioned
in the days of Queen Anne; and O, what ancient flowered chintzes, what
capacious sofas, what darling mahogany secretaries and bureaus, with
gleaming brazen adornments in the way of handles!--and about everything
the odour of rose-leaves and lavender.

I have grown familiar with every corner of the dear old place within
the last few days, but on this first day I had only a general
impression of its antiquated aspect and homely comfort. I stayed to
dine at the same unpretending board at which my Charlotte had sat years
ago, elevated on a high chair, and as yet new to the use of knives and
forks. Uncle Joe and aunt Dorothy told me this in their pleasant
friendly way; while the young lady sat by, blushing and dimpling like a
summer sea beneath the rosy flush of sunrise. No words can relate how
delightful it was to me to hear them talk of my dear love's childhood;
they dwelt so tenderly upon her sweetness, they dilated with such
enthusiasm upon her "pretty ways." Her "pretty ways!" ah, how fatal a
thing it is for mankind when Nature endows woman with those pretty
ways! From the thrall of Grecian noses and Castilian eyes there may be
hope of deliverance, but from the spell of that indescribable witchery
there is none.

I whistled my Sheldon down the wind without remorse, and
allowed myself to be as happy as if I had been the squire of valley and
hillside, with ten thousand a year to offer my Charlotte with the heart
that loves her so fondly. I have no idea what we had for dinner. I know
only that the fare was plenteous, and the hospitality of my new friends
unbounded. We were very much at ease with one another, and our laughter
rang up to the stalwart beams that sustained the old ceiling. If I had
possessed the smallest fragment of my heart, I should have delivered it
over without hesitation to my aunt Dorothy--pardon!--my Charlotte's
aunt Dorothy, who is the cheeriest, brightest, kindest matron I ever
met, with a sweet unworldly spirit that beams out of her candid blue
eyes.

Charlotte seems to have been tenderly attached to her father the poor
fellow who died in Philip Sheldon's house--uncomfortable for Sheldon, I
should think. The Mercers talk a good deal of Thomas Halliday, for whom
they appear to have entertained a very warm affection. They also spoke
with considerable kindness of the two Sheldons, whom they knew as young
men in the town of Barlingford; but I should not imagine either uncle
Joseph or aunt Dorothy very well able to fathom the still waters of the
Sheldon intellect.

After dinner uncle Joe took us round the farm. The last stack of corn
had been thatched, and there was a peaceful lull in the agricultural
world. We went into a quadrangle lined with poultry sheds, where I saw
more of the feathered race than I had ever in my life beheld
congregated together; thence to the inspection of pigs--and it was
agreeable to inspect even those vulgar querulous grunters, with
Charlotte by my side. Her brightness shed a light on all those common
objects; and O, how I longed to be a farmer, like uncle Mercer, and
devote my life to Charlotte and agriculture!

When uncle Joe had done the honours of his farm-yards and
threshing-machinery, he left us to attend to his afternoon duties; and
we wandered together over the breezy upland at our own sweet wills, or
at _her_ sweet will rather, since what could I do but follow where she
pleased to lead?

We talked of many things: of the father whom she had loved so dearly,
whose memory was still so mournfully dear to her; of her old home at
Hyley; of her visits to these dear Mercers; of her schooldays, and her
new unloved home in the smart Bayswater villa. She confided in me as
she had never done before; and when we turned in the chill autumn
gloaming, I had told her of my love, and had won from her the sweet
confession of its return.

I have never known happiness so perfect as that which I felt as we
walked home together--home--yes; that old farm-house must be my home as
well as hers henceforward; for any habitation which she loved must be a
kind of home for me. Sober reflection tells me how reckless and
imprudent my whole conduct has been in this business; but when did ever
love and prudence go hand-in-hand? We were children, Charlotte and I,
on that blessed afternoon; and we told each other our love as children
might have told it, without thought of the future. We have both grown
wiser since that time, and are quite agreed as to our imprudence and
foolishness; but, though we endeavour to contemplate the future in the
most serious manner, we are too happy in the present to be able to
analyse the difficulties and dangers that lie in our pathway.

Surely there must be a providence for imprudent lovers.

The November dews fell thick, and the November air was chill, as we
walked back to the homestead. I was sorry that there should be that
creeping dampness in the atmosphere that night. It seemed out of
harmony with the new warmth in my heart. I pressed my darling's little
hand closer to my breast, and had no more consciousness of any
impediments to my future bliss than of the ground on which I walked--
and that seemed air.

We found our chairs waiting for us at aunt Dorothy's tea-table; and I
enjoyed that aldermanic banquet, a Yorkshire tea, under circumstances
that elevated it to an Olympian repast.

I thought of the Comic Latin Grammar:

"Musa, musae, the gods were at tea;
Musae musam, eating raspberry jam."

I was Jove, and my love was Juno. I looked at her athwart the misty
clouds that issued from the hissing urn, and saw her beautified by a
heightened bloom, and with a sweet, shy conscious look in her eyes
which made her indeed divine.

After tea we played whist; and I am bound to confess that my divinity
played execrably, persistently disdaining to return her partner's lead,
and putting mean little trumps upon her adversary's tricks, with a
fatuous economy of resources which is always ruin.

I stayed till ten o'clock, reckless of the unknown country which
separated me from the Magpie, and then walked home alone, under the
faint starlight, though my friendly host would fain have lent me a
dog-cart. The good people here lend one another dog-carts as freely as
a cockney offers his umbrella. I went back to Huxter's Cross alone, and
the long solitary walk was very pleasant to me.

Looking up at the stars as I tramped homeward, I could but remember an
old epigram:--

Were you the earth, dear love, and I the skies,
My love should shine on you like to the sun,
And look upon you with ten thousand eyes,
Till heaven wax'd blind, and till the world were done.

I had ample leisure for reflection during that long night-walk, and
found myself becoming a perfect Young--Hervey--Sturm--what you will, in
the way of meditation. I could not choose but wonder at myself when I
looked back to this time last year, and remembered my idle evenings in
third-rate _cafes_, on the _rive gauche_, playing dominoes, talking the
foul slang of Parisian bohemia, and poisoning my system with
adulterated absinthe. And now I feast upon sweet cakes and honey, and
think it paradisiac enjoyment to play whist--for love--in a farm-house
parlour. I am younger by ten years than I was twelve months ago.

Ah, let me thank God, who has sent me my redemption.

I lifted my hat, and pronounced the thanksgiving softly under that
tranquil sky. I was almost ashamed to hear the sound of my own voice. I
was like some shy child who for the first time speaks his father's
name.

CHAPTER V.

TOO FAIR TO LAST.

In my confidences with my dear girl I had told her neither the nature
of my mission in Yorkshire, nor the fact that I was bound to leave
Huxter's Cross immediately upon an exploring expedition to nowhere in
particular, in search of the archives of the Meynells. How could I
bring myself to tell her that I must leave her?--how much less could I
bring myself to do it?

Rendered desperately unmindful of the universe by reason of my
all-absorbing happiness, I determined on giving myself a holiday
boldly, in defiance of Sheldon and the Sheldonian interests.

"Am I a bounden slave?" I asked myself, "that I should go here or there
at any man's bidding, for the pitiful stipend of twenty shillings a
week?"

It is to be observed that the rate of hire makes all the difference in
these cases; and while it is ignominious for a lawyer's clerk to hasten
to and fro in the earning of his weekly wage, it is in no way
dishonourable for the minister of state to obey the call of his chief,
and hurry hither and thither in abnegation of all his own
predilections, and to the aggravation of his chronic gout.

I wrote to my Sheldon, and told him that I had met with friends in the
neighbourhood of Huxter's Cross, and that I intended to give myself a
brief holiday; after which I would resume my labours, and do my
uttermost to make up for wasted time. I had still the remnant of my
borrowed thirty pounds, and amongst these northern hills I felt myself
a millionaire.

Three thousand pounds at five per cent--one hundred and fifty pounds a
year. I felt that with such an income assured to us, and the fruits of
my industry, Charlotte and I might be secure from all the storms of
life. Ah, what happiness it would be to work for her! And I am not too
old to begin life afresh; not too old for the bar; not too old to make
some mark as a writer on the press; not too old to become a respectable
member of society.

After having despatched my letter to Sheldon, I made off for Newhall
farm with all speed. I had received a sort of general invitation from
the kindest of uncles and aunts, but I contrived with becoming modesty
to arrive after Mr. Mercer's dinner-hour. I found Charlotte alone in
the dear old-fashioned parlour, aunt Dorothy being engaged in some
domestic operations in the kitchen, and uncle Joseph making his usual
after-dinner rounds amongst the pig-styes and the threshing-machines. I
discovered afterwards that it was Miss Halliday's wont to accompany her
kind kinsman in this afternoon investigation; but to-day she had
complained of a headache and preferred to stay at home. Yet there were
few symptoms of the headache when I found her standing in the
bow-window, watching the path by which I came, and the face of Aurora
herself could scarcely be brighter or fresher than my darling's
innocent blushes when I greeted her with the privileged kiss of
betrothal.

We sat in the bow-window talking till the twilight shadows crept over
the greensward, and the sheep were led away to their fold, with
cheerful jingling of bells and barking of watchful dog. My dearest girl
told me that our secret had already been discovered by the penetrating
eyes of aunt Dorothy and uncle Joseph. They had teased her
unmercifully, it seemed, all that day, but were graciously pleased to
smile upon my suit, like a pair of imprudent Arcadians as they are.

"They like you very much indeed," my Lotta said joyously; "but I
believe they think I have known you much longer than I really have, and
that you are very intimate with my stepfather. It seems almost like
deceiving them to allow them to think so, but I really haven't the
courage to tell the truth. How foolish and bold they would think me if
they knew how very short a time I have known you!"

"Twenty times longer than Juliet had known Romeo when they met in the
Friar's cell to be married," I urged.

"Yes, but that was in a play," replied Charlotte, "where everything is
obliged to be hurried; and at Hyde Lodge we all of us thought that
Juliet was a very forward young person."

"The poets all believe in love at first sight, and I'll wager our dear
uncle Joe fell over head and ears in love with aunt Dorothy after
having danced with her two or three times at an assize ball," said I.
After this we became intensely serious, and I told my darling girl that
I hoped very soon to be in possession of a small fixed income, and to
have begun a professional career. I told her how dear an incentive to
work she had given me, and how little fear I had for the future.

I reminded her that Mr. Sheldon had no legal power to control her
actions, and that, as her father's will had left her entirely to her
mother's guardianship, she had only her mother's pleasure to consult.

"I believe poor mamma would let me marry a crossing-sweeper, if I cried
and declared it would make me miserable not to marry him," said
Charlotte; "but then, you see, mamma's wishes mean Mr. Sheldon's
wishes; she is sure to think whatever he tells her to think; and if he
is strongly against our marriage--"

"As I am sure he will be," I interjected.

"He will work upon poor mamma in that calm, persistent, logical way of
his till he makes her as much against it as himself."

"But even your mamma has no legal power to control your actions, my
love. Were you not of age on your last birthday?"

My darling replied in the affirmative.

"Then of course you are free to marry whom you please; and as I am
thankful to say you don't possess a single sixpence in your own right,
there need be no fuss about settlements or pin-money. We can marry any
fine morning that my dear girl pleases to name, and defy all the stern
stepfathers in creation."

"How I wish I had a fortune, for your sake!" she said with a sigh.

"Be glad for my sake that you have none," I answered. "You cannot
imagine the miserable complications and perplexities which arise in
this world from the possession of money. No slave so tightly bound as
the man who has what people call 'a stake in the country' and a balance
at his banker's. The true monarch of all he surveys is the penniless
reprobate who walks down Fleet-street with his whole estate covered by
the seedy hat upon his head."

Having thus moralized, I proceeded to ask Miss Halliday if she was
prepared to accept a humbler station than that enjoyed by her at the
Lawn.

"No useful landau, to be an open carriage at noon and a family coach at
night," I said; "no nimble page to skip hither and thither at his fair
lady's commands, if not belated on the way by the excitement of tossing
halfpence with youthful adventurers of the byways and alleys; no trim
parlour-maids, with irreproachable caps, dressed for the day at 11
o'clock A.M.--but instead of these, a humble six-roomed bandbox of a
house, and one poor hardworking slavey, with perennial smudges from
saucepan-lids upon her honest pug-nose. Consider the prospect
seriously, Charlotte, and ask yourself whether you can endure such a
descent in the social scale."

My Charlotte laughed, as if the prospect had been the most delightful
picture ever presented to mortal vision.

"Do you think I care for the landau or the page?" she cried. "If it
were not for mamma's sake, I should detest that prim villa and all its
arrangements. You see me so happy here, where there is no pretence of
grandeur--"

"But I am bound to warn you that I shall not be able to provide
Yorkshire teas at the commencement of our domestic career," I remarked,
by way of parenthesis.

"Aunt Dorothy will send us hampers of poultry and cakes, sir, and for
the rest of our time we can live upon bread and water."

On this I promised my betrothed a house in Cavendish or Portman-square,
and a better-built landau than Mr. Sheldon's, in the remote future.
With those dear eyes for my pole-stars, I felt myself strong enough to
clamber up the slippery ascent to the woolsack. The best and purest
ambition must surely be that which is only a synonym for love.

After we had sat talking in the gloaming to our hearts' content, aunt
Dorothy appeared, followed by a sturdy handmaid with lighted candles,
and a still sturdier handmaid with a ponderous tea-tray. The two made
haste to spread a snow-white cloth, and to set forth the species of
banquet which it is the fashion nowadays to call high tea. Anon came
uncle Joseph, bringing with him some slight perfume from the piggeries,
and he and aunt Dorothy were pleased to be pleasantly facetious and
congratulatory in their conversation during the social meal which
followed their advent.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37