Springhaven - R. D. Blackmore
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"Well, I never! My dear soul, you have taken all my breath away. Why,
it must be the captain of all the gunners. How gunpowder do pay, to be
sure!"
"Lor, ma'am, why, don't you know," replied Mrs. Shanks, with some
contempt, "that the man with three ribs is the captain of the
gunners--the man in my back sitting-room? No dimity-parlour for him with
his family, not for a guinea and a half a week. But if I was to tell
you who the gentleman is, and one of the highest all round these parts,
truthful as you know me, Mrs. Cheeseman, you would say to yourself, what
a liar she is!"
"Mrs. Shanks, I never use coarse expressions, even to myself in private.
And perhaps I could tell you a thing or two would astonish you more than
me, ma'am. Suppose I should tell you, to begin with, who your guinea
lodger is?"
"That you could never do, Mrs. Cheeseman, with all your time a-counting
changes. He is not of the rank for a twopenny rasher, or a wedge of
cheese packed in old petticoat."
These two ladies now looked at one another. They had not had a quarrel
for almost three months, and a large arrear of little pricks on either
side was pending. Sooner or later it would have to be fought out (like
a feud between two nations), with a houseful of loss and woe to either
side, but a thimbleful of pride and glory. Yet so much wiser were these
women than the most sagacious nations that they put off to a cheaper
time their grudge against each other.
"His rank may be royal," said the wife of Mr. Cheeseman, "though a
going-downhill kind of royalty, perhaps, and yet he might be glad, Mrs.
Shanks, to come where the butter has the milk spots, and none is in the
cheese, ma'am."
"If such should be his wish, ma'am, for supper or for breakfast, or even
for dinner on a Sunday when the rain comes through the Castle, you may
trust me to know where to send him, but not to guarantee him at all of
his money."
"They high ones is very apt to slip in that," Mrs. Cheeseman answered,
thoughtfully; "they seem to be less particular in paying for a thing
than they was to have it good. But a burnt child dreads the fire, as
they say; and a young man with a castleful of owls and rats, by reason
of going for these hundred years on credit, will have it brought home
to him to pay ready money. But the Lord be over us! if I don't see him
a-going your way already! Good-by, my dear soul--good-by, and preserve
you; and if at any time short of table or bed linen, a loan from an old
friend, and coming back well washed, and it sha'n't be, as the children
sing, 'A friend with a loan has the pick of your bone, and he won't let
you very long alone.'"
"Many thanks to you for friendly meaning, ma'am," said the widow, as she
took up her basket to go home, "and glad I may be to profit by it, with
the time commanding. But as yet I have had neither sleepers or feeders
in my little house, but the children. Though both of them reserves
the right to do it, if nature should so compel them--the three-ribbed
gentleman with one ear, at five shillings a week, in the sitting-room,
and the young man up over him. Their meaning is for business, and
studying, and keeping of accounts, and having of a quiet place in bad
weather, though feed they must, sooner or later, I depend; and then who
is there but Mr. Cheeseman?"
"How grand he do look upon that black horse, quite as solid as if he was
glued to it!" the lady of the shop replied, as she put away the money;
"and to do that without victuals is beyond a young man's power. He
looks like what they used to call a knight upon an errand, in the
picture-books, when I was romantic, only for the hair that comes under
his nose. Ah! his errand will be to break the hearts of the young ladies
that goes down upon the sands in their blue gowns, I'm afraid, if they
can only manage with the hair below his nose."
"And do them good, some of them, and be a judgment from the Lord, for
the French style in their skirts is a shocking thing to see. What should
we have said when you and I were young, my dear? But quick step is the
word for me, for I expect my Jenny home on her day out from the Admiral,
and no Harry in the house to look after her. Ah! dimity-parlours is a
thing as may happen to cut both ways, Mrs. Cheeseman."
Widow Shanks had good cause to be proud of her cottage, which was the
prettiest in Springhaven, and one of the most commodious. She had fought
a hard fight, when her widowhood began, and the children were too young
to help her, rather than give up the home of her love-time, and the
cradle of her little ones. Some of her neighbours (who wanted the house)
were sadly pained at her stubbornness, and even dishonesty, as they put
it, when she knew that she never could pay her rent. But "never is a
long time," according to the proverb; and with the forbearance of
the Admiral, the kindness of his daughters, and the growth of her own
children, she stood clear of all debt now, except the sweet one of
gratitude.
And now she could listen to the moaning of the sea (which used to make
her weep all night) with a milder sense of the cruel woe that it had
drowned her husband, and a lull of sorrow that was almost hope; until
the dark visions of wrecks and corpses melted into sweet dreams of her
son upon the waters, finishing his supper, and getting ready for his
pipe. For Harry was making his own track well in the wake of his dear
father.
Now if she had gone inland to dwell, from the stroke of her great
calamity--as most people told her to make haste and do--not only the
sympathy of the sea, but many of the little cares, which are the ants
that bury heavy grief, would have been wholly lost to her. And amongst
these cares the foremost always, and the most distracting, was that
of keeping her husband's cottage--as she still would call it--tidy,
comfortable, bright, and snug, as if he were coming on Saturday.
Where the brook runs into the first hearing of the sea, to defer its own
extinction it takes a lively turn inland, leaving a pleasant breadth of
green between itself and its destiny. At the breath of salt the larger
trees hang back, and turn their boughs up; but plenty of pretty shrubs
come forth, and shade the cottage garden. Neither have the cottage walls
any lack of leafy mantle, where the summer sun works his own defeat by
fostering cool obstruction. For here are the tamarisk, and jasmin, and
the old-fashioned corchorus flowering all the summer through, as well
as the myrtle that loves the shore, with a thicket of stiff young sprigs
arising, slow of growth, but hiding yearly the havoc made in its head
and body by the frost of 1795, when the mark of every wave upon the
sands was ice. And a vine, that seems to have been evolved from a
miller, or to have prejected him, clambers with grey silver pointrels
through the more glossy and darker green. And over these you behold the
thatch, thick and long and parti-coloured, eaved with little windows,
where a bird may nest for ever.
But it was not for this outward beauty that Widow Shanks, stuck to her
house, and paid the rent at intervals. To her steadfast and well-managed
mind, the number of rooms, and the separate staircase which a solvent
lodger might enjoy, were the choicest grant of the household gods. The
times were bad--as they always are when conscientious people think
of them--and poor Mrs. Shanks was desirous of paying her rent, by the
payment of somebody. Every now and then some well-fed family, hungering
(after long carnage) for fish, would come from village pastures or town
shambles, to gaze at the sea, and to taste its contents. For in those
days fish were still in their duty, to fry well, to boil well, and to
go into the mouth well, instead of being dissolute--as nowadays the
best is--with dirty ice, and flabby with arrested fermentation. In the
pleasant dimity-parlour then, commanding a fair view of the lively sea
and the stream that sparkled into it, were noble dinners of sole, and
mackerel, and smelt that smelled of cucumber, and dainty dory, and
pearl-buttoned turbot, and sometimes even the crisp sand-lance, happily
for himself, unhappily for whitebait, still unknown in London. Then,
after long rovings ashore or afloat, these diners came back with a new
light shed upon them--that of the moon outside the house, of the supper
candles inside. There was sure to be a crab or lobster ready, and a dish
of prawns sprigged with parsley; if the sea were beginning to get cool
again, a keg of philanthropic oysters; or if these were not hospitably
on their hinges yet, certainly there would be choice-bodied creatures,
dried with a dash of salt upon the sunny shingle, and lacking of
perfection nothing more than to be warmed through upon a toasting-fork.
By none, however, of these delights was the newly won lodger tempted.
All that he wanted was peace and quiet, time to go through a great trunk
full of papers and parchments, which he brought with him, and a breath
of fresh air from the downs on the north, and the sea to the south,
to enliven him. And in good truth he wanted to be enlivened, as Widow
Shanks said to her daughter Jenny; for his eyes were gloomy, and his
face was stern, and he seldom said anything good-natured. He seemed to
avoid all company, and to be wrapped up wholly in his own concerns, and
to take little pleasure in anything. As yet he had not used the bed at
his lodgings, nor broken his fast there to her knowledge, though he rode
down early every morning and put up his horse at Cheeseman's, and never
rode away again until the dark had fallen. Neither had he cared to make
the acquaintance of Captain Stubbarb, who occupied the room beneath
his for a Royal Office--as the landlady proudly entitled it; nor had
he received, to the best of her knowledge, so much as a single visitor,
though such might come by his private entrance among the shrubs
unnoticed. All these things stirred with deep interest and wonder the
enquiring mind of the widow.
"And what do they say of him up at the Hall?" she asked her daughter
Jenny, who was come to spend holiday at home. "What do they say of my
new gentleman, young Squire Carne from the Castle? The Carnes and the
Darlings was never great friends, as every one knows in Springhaven.
Still, it do seem hard and unchristianlike to keep up them old enmities;
most of all, when the one side is down in the world, with the owls and
the bats and the coneys."
"No, mother, no. They are not a bit like that," replied Jenny--a maid
of good loyalty; "it is only that he has not called upon them. All
gentlefolks have their proper rules of behaviour. You can't be expected
to understand them, mother."
"But why should he go to them more than they should come to him,
particular with young ladies there? And him with only one horse to
their seven or eight. I am right, you may depend upon it, Jenny; and
my mother, your grandmother, was a lady's-maid in a higher family than
Darling--it depends upon them to come and look him up first, and he have
no call to knock at their door without it. Why, it stands to reason,
poor young man! And not a bit hath he eaten from Monday."
"Well, I believe I am right, but I'll ask Miss Dolly. She is that sharp,
she knows everything, and I don't mind what I say to her, when she
thinks that she looks handsome. And it takes a very bad dress, I can
tell you, to put her out of that opinion."
"She is right enough there:" Mrs. Shanks shook her head at her daughter
for speaking in this way. "The ugliest frock as ever came from France
couldn't make her any but a booty. And the Lord knows the quality have
come to queer shapes now. Undecent would be the name for it in our ranks
of women. Why, the last of her frocks she gave you, Jenny, how much did
I put on, at top and bottom, and you three inches shorter than she is!
And the slips they ties round them--oh dear! oh dear! as if that was to
hold them up and buckle them together! Won't they have the groanings by
the time they come to my age?"
CHAPTER XVIII
FRENCH AND ENGLISH
Admiral Darling was now so busy, and so continually called from home by
the duties of his commandership, that he could not fairly be expected
to call upon Mr. Caryl Carne. Yet that gentleman, being rather
sensitive--which sometimes means very spiteful--resented as a personal
slight this failure; although, if the overture had been made, he would
have ascribed it to intrusive curiosity, and a low desire to behold him
in his ruins. But truly in the old man's kindly heart there was no sour
corner for ill blood to lurk in, and no dull fibre for ill-will to feed
on. He kept on meaning to go and call on Caryl Carne, and he had quite
made up his mind to do it, but something always happened to prevent him.
Neither did he care a groat for his old friend Twemlow's advice upon
that subject. "Don't go near him," said the Rector, taking care that
his wife was quite safe out of hearing; "it would ill become me to say
a word against my dear wife's own nephew, and the representative of her
family. And, to the utmost of my knowledge, there is nothing to be said
against him. But I can't get on with him at all. I don't know why. He
has only honored us with a visit twice, and he would not even come to
dinner. Nice manners they learn on the Continent! But none of us wept
when he declined; not even his good aunt, my wife. Though he must have
got a good deal to tell us, and an extraordinary knowledge of foreign
ways. But instead of doing that, he seems to sneer at us. I can look
at a question from every point of view, and I defy anybody to call me
narrow-minded. But still, one must draw the line somewhere, or throw
overboard all principles; and I draw it, my dear Admiral, against
infidels and against Frenchmen."
"No rational person can do otherwise"--the Admiral's opinion was
decisive--"but this young man is of good English birth, and one can't
help feeling sorry for his circumstances. And I assure you, Twemlow,
that I feel respect as well for the courage that he shows, and the
perseverance, in coming home and facing those vile usurers. And your own
wife's nephew! Why, you ought to take his part through thick and thin,
whatever you may think of him. From all I hear he must be a young man of
exceedingly high principle; and I shall make a point of calling upon him
the first half-hour I get to spare. To-morrow, if possible; or if not,
the day after, at the very latest."
But the needful half-hour had not yet been found; and Carne, who was
wont to think the worst of everybody, concluded that the Darling race
still cherished the old grudge, which had always been on his own side.
For this he cared little, and perhaps was rather glad of it. For the
old dwelling-place of his family (the Carne Castle besieged by the
Roundheads a hundred and sixty years agone) now threatened to tumble
about the ears of any one knocking at the gate too hard. Or rather the
remnants of its walls did so; the greater part, having already fallen,
lay harmless, and produced fine blackberries.
As a castle, it had been well respected in its day, though not of mighty
bulwarks or impregnable position. Standing on a knoll, between the
ramp of high land and the slope of shore, it would still have been
conspicuous to traveller and to voyager but for the tall trees around
it. These hid the moat, and the relics of the drawbridge, the groined
archway, and cloven tower of the keep--which had twice been struck by
lightning--as well as the windows of the armoury, and the chapel hushed
with ivy. The banqueting hall was in better repair, for the Carnes had
been hospitable to the last; but the windows kept no wind off, neither
did the roof repulse the rain. In short, all the front was in a pretty
state of ruin, very nice to look at, very nasty to live in, except for
toads, and bats, and owls, and rats, and efts, and brindled slugs with
yellow stripes; or on a summer eve the cockroach and the carrion-beetle.
At the back, however, and above the road which Cheeseman travelled in
his pony-chaise, was a range of rooms still fit to dwell in, though
poorly furnished, and floored with stone. In better times these had been
the domain of the house-keeper and the butler, the cook and the other
upper servants, who had minded their duty and heeded their comfort more
truly than the master and mistress did. For the downfall of this family,
as of very many others, had been chiefly caused by unwise marriage.
Instead of choosing sensible and active wives to look after their home
affairs and regulate the household, the Carnes for several generations
now had wedded flighty ladies of good birth and pretty manners, none
of whom brought them a pipkinful of money, while all helped to spend a
potful. Therefore their descendant was now living in the kitchens, and
had no idea how to make use of them, in spite of his French education;
of comfort also he had not much idea, which was all the better for him;
and he scarcely knew what it was to earn and enjoy soft quietude.
One night, when the summer was in full prime, and the weather almost
blameless, this young Squire Carne rode slowly back from Springhaven to
his worn-out castle. The beauty of the night had kept him back, for
he hated to meet people on the road. The lingering gossips, the tired
fagot-bearers, the youths going home from the hay-rick, the man with
a gun who knows where the hares play, and beyond them all the
truant sweethearts, who cannot have enough of one another, and wish
"good-night" at every corner of the lane, till they tumble over one
another's cottage steps--all these to Caryl Carne were a smell to be
avoided, an eyesore to shut the eyes at. He let them get home and pull
their boots off, and set the frying-pan a-bubbling--for they ended the
day with a bit of bacon, whenever they could cash or credit it--and then
he set forth upon his lonely ride, striking fear into the heart of any
bad child that lay awake.
"Almost as good as France is this," he muttered in French, though for
once enjoying the pleasure of good English air; "and better than France
would it be, if only it were not cut short so suddenly. There will come
a cold wind by-and-by, or a chilly black cloud from the east, and then
all is shivers and rawness. But if it only remained like this, I could
forgive it for producing me. After all, it is my native land; and I saw
the loveliest girl to-day that ever I set eyes on. None of their made-up
and highly finished demoiselles is fit to look at her--such simple
beauty, such charms of nature, such enchanting innocence! Ah, that is
where those French girls fail--they are always studying how they look,
instead of leaving us to think of it. Bah! What odds to me? I have
higher stakes to play for. But according to old Twemlow's description,
she must be the daughter of that old bear Darling, with whom I shall
have to pick a bone some day. Ha! How amusing is that battery to me! How
little John Bull knows the nature of French troops! To-morrow we are
to have a grand practice-day; and I hope they won't shoot me in my new
lodgings. Nothing is impossible to such an idiot as Stubbard. What a set
of imbeciles I have found to do with! They have scarcely wit enough to
amuse oneself with. Pest of my soul! Is that you, Charron? Again you
have broken my orders."
"Names should be avoided in the open air," answered the man, who was
swinging on a gate with the simple delight of a Picard. "The climate is
of France so much to-night that I found it my duty to encourage it.
For what reason shall not I do that? It is not so often that I have
occasion. My dear friend, scold not, but accept the compliment very
seldom truthful to your native land. There are none of your clod-pates
about to-night."
"Come in at once. The mere sound of your breath is enough to set the
neighbourhood wondering. Could I ever have been burdened with a more
French Frenchman, though you speak as good English as I do?"
"It was all of that miserable Cheray," the French gentleman said, when
they sat in the kitchen, and Jerry Bowles was feeding the fine black
horse. "Fruit is a thing that my mouth prepares for, directly there is
any warmth in the sun. It puts itself up, it is elevated, it will not
have meat, or any substance coarse. Wine of the softest and fruit of
the finest is what it must then have, or unmouth itself. That miserable
Cheray, his maledictioned name put me forth to be on fire for the good
thing he designs. Cherays you call them, and for cherays I despatched
him, suspended between the leaves in the good sun. Bah! there is nothing
ever fit to eat in England. The cherays look very fine, very fine
indeed; and so many did I consume that to travel on a gate was the
only palliation. Would you have me stay all day in this long cellar?
No diversion, no solace, no change, no conversation! Old Cheray may
sit with his hands upon his knees, but to Renaud Charron that is not
sufficient. How much longer before I sally forth to do the things,
to fight, to conquer the nations? Where is even my little ship of
despatch?"
"Captain," answered Caryl Carne, preparing calmly for his frugal supper,
"you are placed under my command, and another such speech will despatch
you to Dunkirk, bound hand and foot, in the hold of the Little Corporal,
with which I am now in communication. Unless by the time I have severed
this bone you hand me your sword in submission, my supper will have to
be postponed, while I march you to the yew-tree, signal for a boat, and
lay you strapped beneath the oarsmen."
Captain Charron, who had held the command of a French corvette, stared
furiously at this man, younger than himself, so strongly established
over him. Carne was not concerned to look at him; all he cared about was
to divide the joint of a wing-rib of cold roast beef, where some good
pickings lurked in the hollow. Then the French man, whose chance would
have been very small in a personal encounter with his chief, arose and
took a naval sword, short but rather heavy, from a hook which in better
days had held a big dish-cover, and making a salute rather graceful than
gracious, presented the fringed handle to the carver.
"This behaviour is sensible, my friend, and worthy of your distinguished
abilities." Carne's resolute face seldom yielded to a smile, but the
smile when it came was a sweet one. "Pardon me for speaking strongly,
but my instructions must be the law to you. If you were my commander
(as, but for local knowledge, and questions of position here, you would
be), do you think then that you would allow me to rebel, to grumble,
to wander, to demand my own pleasure, when you knew that it would ruin
things?"
"Bravo! It is well spoken. My captain, I embrace you. In you lives the
spirit of the Grand Army, which we of the sea and of the ships admire
always, and always desire to emulate. Ah, if England possessed many
Englishmen like you, she would be hard to conquer."
The owner of this old English castle shot a glance at the Frenchman
for any sign of irony in his words. Seeing none, he continued, in the
friendly vein:
"Our business here demands the greatest caution, skill, reserve, and
self-denial. We are fortunate in having no man of any keen penetration
in the neighbourhood, at least of those in authority and concerned with
public matters. As one of an ancient family, possessing the land for
centuries, I have every right to be here, and to pursue my private
business in privacy. But if it once gets talked about that a French
officer is with me, these stupid people will awake their suspicions more
strongly by their own stupidity. In this queer island you may do what
you like till the neighbourhood turns against you; and then, if you
revolve upon a pin, you cannot suit them. You understand? You have heard
me before. It is this that I never can knock into you."
Renaud Charron, who considered himself--as all Frenchmen did then, and
perhaps do now--far swifter of intellect than any Englishman, found
himself not well pleased at this, and desired to know more about it.
"Nothing can be simpler," the Englishman replied; "and therefore nothing
surer. You know the old proverb--'Everything in turn, except scandal,
whose turn is always.' And again another saying of our own land--'The
second side of the bread takes less time to toast.' We must not let the
first side of ours be toasted; we will shun all the fire of suspicion.
And to do this, you must not be seen, my dear friend. I may go abroad
freely; you must hide your gallant head until matters are ripe for
action. You know that you may trust me not to keep you in the dark a day
longer than is needful. I have got the old shopkeeper under my thumb,
and can do what I please with his trading-ship. But before I place you
in command I must change some more of the crew, and do it warily. There
is an obstinate Cornishman to get rid of, who sticks to the planks like
a limpet. If we throw him overboard, we shall alarm the others; if we
discharge him without showing cause, he will go to the old Admiral and
tell all his suspicions. He must be got rid of in London with skill,
and then we ship three or four Americans, first-rate seamen, afraid of
nothing, who will pass here as fellows from Lancashire. After that we
may run among the cruisers as we like, with the boldness and skill of a
certain Captain Charron, who must be ill in his cabin when his ship is
boarded."