Chantry House

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> Chantry House

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

Then came days of positive pain, and nights of delirious, dreary
murmuring about home and all of us, more especially Ellen Fordyce.
Clarence had no time for letters, and Martyn's became a call for
mamma, with the old childish trust in her healing and comforting
powers, declaring that he would meet her at Cologne, and steer her
through the difficulties of foreign travel.

Hesitation was over now. My father was most anxious to send her,
and she set forth, secure that she could infuse life, energy, and
resolution into her son, when those two poor boys had failed.

It was not, however, Martyn who met her, but his friend Thomson,
with the tidings that the suffering had become so severe as to
prevent Martyn from leaving Baden, not only on his brother's
account, but because Lady Peacock had at last taken alarm, and was
so uncontrollable in her distress that he was needed to keep her out
of the sickroom, where her presence, poor thing, only did mischief.

She evidently had a certain affection for her husband; and it was
the more piteous that in his present state he only regarded her as
the tempter who had ruined his life--his false Duessa, who had led
him away from Una. On one unhappy evening he had been almost
maddened by her insisting on arguing with him; he called her a hag,
declared she had been the death of his children, the death of that
dear one--could she not let him alone now she had been the death of
himself?

When Martyn took her away, she wept bitterly, and told enough to
make the misery of their life apparent, when the gaiety was over,
and regrets and recriminations set in.

However, there came a calmer interval, when the suffering passed
off, but in the manner which made the German doctor intimate that
hope was over. Would life last till his mother came?

His brothers had striven from the first to awaken thoughts of higher
things, and turn remorse into repentance; but every attempt resulted
in strange, sad wanderings about Esau, the birthright, and the
blessing. Indeed, these might not have been entirely wanderings,
for once he said, 'It is better this way, Bill. You don't know what
you wish in trying to bring me round. Don't be hard on me. She
drove me to it. It is all right now. The Jews will be
disappointed.'

For even at the crisis in London, he had concealed that he had
raised money on post obits, so that, had he outlived my father,
Chantry House would have been lost. Lady Peacock's fortune had been
undermined when she married him; extravagance and gambling had made
short work of the rest.

Why should I speak of such things here, except to mourn over our
much-loved brother, with all his fine qualities and powers wasted
and overthrown? He clung to Clarence's affection, and submitted to
prayers and psalms, but without response. He showed tender
recollection of us all, but scarcely durst think of his father, and
hardly appeared to wish to see his mother. Clarence's object soon
came to be to obtain forgiveness for the wife, since bitterness
against her seemed the great obstacle to seeking pardon, peace, or
hope; but each attempt only produced such bitterness against her,
and such regrets and mourning for Ellen, as fearfully shook the
failing frame, while he moaned forth complaints of the blandishments
and raillery with which his temptress had beguiled him. Clarence
tried in vain to turn away this idea, but nothing had any effect
till he bethought himself of Ellen's message, that she knew even
this fatal act had been prompted by generosity of spirit. There was
truth enough in it to touch Griff, but only so far as to cry, 'What
might I not have been with her?' Still, there was no real softening
till my mother came. He knew her at once, and all the old childish
relations were renewed between them. There was little time left
now, but he was wholly hers. Even Clarence was almost set aside,
save where strength was needed, and the mother seemed to have equal
control of spirit and body. It was she, who, scarcely aware of what
had gone before, caused him to admit Selina.

'Tell her not to talk,' he said. 'But we have each much to forgive
one another.'

She came in, awed and silent, and he let her kiss him, sit near at
hand, and wait on my mother, whose coming had, as it were,
insensibly taken the bitterness away and made him as a little child
in her hands. He could follow prayers in which she led him, as he
could not, or did not seem to do, with any one else, for he was
never conscious of the presence of the clergyman whom Thomson hunted
up and brought, and who prayed aloud with Martyn while the physical
agony claimed both my mother and Clarence.

Once Griff looked about him and called out for our father, then
recollecting, muttered, 'No--the birthright gone--no blessing.'

It grieved us much, it grieves me now, that this was his last
distinct utterance. He LOOKED as if the comforting replies and the
appeals to the Source of all redemption did awaken a response, but
he never spoke articulately again; and only thirty-six hours after
my mother's arrival, all was over.

Poor Selina went into passions of hysterics and transports of grief,
needing all the firmness of so resolute a woman as my mother to deal
with her. She was wild in self-accusation, and became so ill that
the care of her was a not unwholesome occupation for my mother, who
was one of those with whom sorrow has little immediate outlet, and
is therefore the more enduring.

She would not bring our brother's coffin home, thinking the
agitation would be hurtful to my father, and anxious to get back to
him as soon as possible. So Griff was buried at Baden, and from
time to time some of us have visited his grave. Of course she
proposed Selina's return to Chantry House with her; but Mr.
Clarkson, the brother, had come out to the funeral, and took his
sister home with him, certainly much to our relief, though all the
sad party at Baden had drawn much nearer together in these latter
days.

CHAPTER XXXIX--A PURPOSE

'It then draws near the season
Wherein the spirit held his wont to walk.'

Hamlet.

We had really lost our Griffith long before--our bright, generous,
warm-hearted, promising Griff, the brilliance of our home; but his
actual death made the first breach in a hitherto unbroken family,
and was a new and strange shock. It made my father absolutely an
old man; and it also changed Martyn. His first contact with
responsibility, suffering, and death had demolished the light-
hearted boyishness which had lasted in the youngest of the family
through all his high aspirations. Till his return to Oxford, his
chief solace was in getting some one of us alone, going through all
the scenes at Baden, discussing his new impressions of the trials
and perplexities of life, and seeking out passages in the books that
were becoming our oracles. What he had admired externally before,
he was grasping from within; nor can I describe what the Lyra
Apostolica, and the two first volumes of Parochial Sermons preached
at Littlemore, became to us.

Mr. Clarkson had been rather dry with my brothers at Baden,
evidently considering that poor Griffith had been as fatal to his
sister as we thought Selina had been to our brother. It was hardly
just, for there had been much more to spoil in him than in her; and
though she would hardly have trod a much higher path, there is no
saying what he might have been but for her.

Griffith had said nothing about providing for her, not having
forgiven her till he was past recollecting the need, but her brother
had intimated that something was due from the family, and Clarence
had assented--not, indeed, as to her deserts, poor woman, but her
claims and her needs--well knowing that my father would never suffer
Griff's widow to be in want.

He judged rightly. My father was nervously anxious to arrange for
giving her 500 pounds a year, in the manner most likely to prevent
her from making away with it, and leaving herself destitute. But
there had already been heavy pulls on his funded property, and ways
and means had to be considered, making Clarence realise that he had
become the heir. Somehow, there still remained, especially with my
mother and himself, a sense of his being a failure, and an inferior
substitute, although my father had long come to lean upon him, as
never had been the case with our poor Griff.

The first idea of raising the amount required was by selling an
outlying bit of the estate near the Wattlesea Station, for which an
enterprising builder was making offers, either to purchase or take
on a building lease. My father had received several letters on the
subject, and only hesitated from a feeling against breaking up the
estate, especially if this were part of the original Chantry House
property, and not a more recent acquisition of the Winslows.
Moreover, he would do nothing without Clarence's participation.

The title-deeds were not in the house, for my father had had too
much of the law to meddle more than he could help with his own
affairs, and had left them in the hands of the family solicitor at
Bristol, where Clarence was to go and look over them. He rejoiced
in the opportunity of being able to see whether anything would throw
light on the story of the mullion chamber; and the certainty that
the Wattlesea property had never been part of the old endowment of
the Chantry did not seem nearly so interesting as a packet of yellow
letters tied with faded red tape. Mr. Ryder made no difficulty in
entrusting these to him, and we read them by our midnight lamp.

Clarence had seen poor Margaret's will, bequeathing her entire
property to her husband's son, Philip Winslow, and had noted the
date, 1705; also the copy of the decision in the Court of Probate
that there was no sufficient evidence of entail on the Fordyce
family to bar her power of disposing of it. We eagerly opened the
letters, but found them disappointing, as they were mostly offerings
of 'Felicitations' to Philip Winslow on having established his 'Just
Claim,' and 'refuted the malicious Accusations of Calumny.' They
only served to prove the fact that he had been accused of something,
and likewise that he had powerful friends, and was thought worth
being treated with adulation, according to the fashion of his day.
Perhaps it was hardly to be expected that he should have preserved
evidence against himself, but it was baffling to sift so little out
of such a mass of correspondence. If we could have had access to
the Fordyce papers, no doubt they would have given the other phase
of the transaction, but they were unattainable. The only public
record that Clarence could discover was much abbreviated, and though
there was some allusion to intimidation, the decision seemed to have
been fixed by the non-existence of any entail.

Christmas was drawing on, and gathering together what was left of
us. Though Griffith had spent only one Christmas at home in nine
years, it was wonderful how few we seemed, even when Martyn
returned. My father liked to have us about him, and even spoke of
Clarence's giving up his post as manager at Bristol, and living
entirely at home to attend to the estate; but my mother did not
encourage the idea. She could not quite bear to accept any one in
Griff's place, and rightly thought there was not occupation enough
to justify bringing Clarence home. I was competent to assist my
father through all the landlord's business that came to him within
doors, and Emily had ridden and walked about enough with him to be
an efficient inspector of crops and repairs, besides that Clarence
himself was within reach.

'Indeed,' he said to me, 'I cannot loose my hold on Frith and
Castleford till I see my way into the future.'

I did not know what he intended either then or when he gave his
voice against dismembering the property by selling the Wattlesea
estate, but arranged for raising Selina's income otherwise,
persuading my father to let him undertake the building of the
required cottages out of his own resources, on principles much more
wholesome than were likely to be employed by the speculator. Nor
did grasp what was in his mind when he made me look out my 'ghost
journal,' as we called my record of each apparition reported in the
mullion chamber or the lawn, with marks to those about which we had
no reasonable doubt. Separately there might be explanation, but
conjointly and in connection with the date they had a remarkable
force.

'I am resolved,' said Clarence, 'to see whether that figure can have
a purpose. I have thought of it all those years. It has hitherto
had no fair play. I was too much upset by the sight, and beaten by
the utter incredulity of everybody else; but now I am determined to
look into it.'

There was both awe and resolution in his countenance, and I only
stipulated that he should not be alone, or with no more locomotive
companion than myself. Martyn was as old as I had been at our
former vigil, and a person to be relied on.

A few months ago he would have treated the matter as a curious
adventurous enterprise--a concession to superstition or imagination;
but now he took it up with much grave earnestness. He had been
discussing the evidence for such phenomena with friends at Oxford,
and the conclusion had been that they were at times permitted,
sometimes as warnings, sometimes to accomplish the redress of a
wrong, sometimes to teach us the reality of the spiritual world
about us; and, likewise, that some constitutions were more
susceptible than others to these influences. Of course he had
adduced all that he knew of his domestic haunted chamber, but had
found himself uncertain as to the amount of direct or trustworthy
evidence. So he eagerly read our jottings, and was very anxious to
keep watch with Clarence, though there were greater difficulties in
the way than when the outer chamber was Griffith's sitting-room, and
always had a fire lighted.

To our disappointment, likewise, there came an invitation from the
Eastwoods for the evening of the 27th of December, the second of the
recurring days of the phantom's appearance. My father could not,
and my mother would not go, but they so much wanted my brothers and
sister to accept it that it could not well be declined. It was
partly a political affair, and my father was anxious to put Clarence
forward, and make him take his place as the future squire; and my
mother thought depression had lasted long enough with her children,
and did not like to see Martyn so grave and preoccupied. 'It was
quite right and very nice in him, dear boy, but it was not natural
at his age, though he was to be a clergyman.'

As to Emily, her gentle cheerfulness had helped us all through our
time of sorrow, and just now we had been gratified by the tidings of
young Lawrence Frith. That youth was doing extremely well. There
had been golden reports from manager and chaplain, addressed to Mr.
Castleford, the latter adding that the young man evidently owed much
to Mr. Winslow's influence. Moreover, Lawrence had turned out an
excellent correspondent. Long letters, worthy of forming a book of
travels, came regularly to Clarence and me, indeed they were thought
worth being copied into that fat clasped MS. book in the study.
Writing them must have been a real solace to the exile, in his
island outside the town, whither all the outer barbarians were
relegated. So, no doubt, was the packing of the gifts that were
gradually making Prospect Cottage into a Chinese exhibition of
nodding mandarins, ivory balls, exquisite little cups, and faggots
of tea. Also, a Chinese walking doll was sent humbly as an offering
for the amusement of Miss Winslow's school children, whom indeed she
astonished beyond measure; and though her wheels are out of order,
and her movements uncertain, she is still a stereotyped incident in
the Christmas entertainments.

There was no question but that these letters and remembrances gave
great pleasure to Emily; but I believe she was not in the least
conscious that though greater in degree, it was not of the same
quality as that she felt when a runaway scholar who had gone to sea
presented her in token of gratitude with a couple of dried sea-
horses.

CHAPTER XL--THE MIDNIGHT CHASE

'What human creature in the dead of night
Had coursed, like hunted hare, that cruel distance,
Had sought the door, the window in her flight
Striving for dear existence?'

HOOD.

On the night of the 26th of December, Clarence and Martyn, well
wrapped in greatcoats, stole into the outer mullion room; but though
the usual sounds were heard, and the mysterious light again
appeared, Martyn perceived nothing else, and even Clarence declared
that if there were anything besides, it was far less distinct to him
than it had been previously. Could it be that his spiritual
perceptions were growing dimmer as he became older, and outgrew the
sensitiveness of nerves and imagination?

We came to the conclusion that it would be best to watch the outside
of the house, rather than within the chamber; and the dinner-party
facilitated this, since it accounted for being up and about nearer
to the hour when the ghost might be expected. Egress could be had
through the little garden door, and I undertook to sit up and keep
up the fire.

All three came to my room on their return home, for Emily had become
aware of our scheme, and entreated to be allowed to watch with us.
Clarence had unfastened the alarum bell from my shutters, and taken
down the bar after the curtains had been drawn by the housemaid, and
he now opened them. It was a frosty moonlight night, and the lawn
lay white and crisp, marked with fantastic shadows. The others
looked grave and pale, Emily was in a thick white shawl and hood,
with a swan's down boa over her black dress, a somewhat ghostly
figure herself, but we were in far too serious a mood for light
observations.

There was something of a shudder about Clarence as he went to unbolt
the back door; Martyn kept close to him. We saw them outside, and
then Emily flew after them. From my window I could watch them
advancing on the central gravel walk, Emily standing still between
her brothers, clasping an arm of each. I saw the light near the
ruin, and caught some sounds as of shrieks and of threatening
voices, the light flitted towards the gable of the mullion rooms,
and then was the concluding scream. All was over, and the three
came back much agitated, Emily sinking into an armchair, panting,
her hands over her face, and a nervous trembling through her whole
frame, Martyn's eyes looking wide and scared, Clarence with the
well-known look of terror on his face. He hurried to fetch the tray
of wine and water that was always left on the table when anyone went
to a party at night, but he shivered too much to prevent the glasses
from jingling, and I had to pour out the sherry and administer it to
Emily. 'Oh! poor, poor thing,' she gasped out.

'You saw?' I exclaimed.

'They did,' said Martyn; 'I only saw the light, and heard! That was
enough!' and he shuddered again.

'Then Emily did,' I began, but Clarence cut me short. 'Don't ask
her to-night.'

'Oh! let me tell,' cried Emily; 'I can't go away to bed till I have
had it out.'

Then she gave the details, which were the more notable because she
had not, like Martyn, been studying our jottings, and had heard
comparatively little of the apparition.

'When I joined the boys,' she said, 'I looked toward the mullion
rooms; I saw the windows lighted up, and heard a sobbing and crying
inside.'

'So did I,' put in Martyn, and Clarence bent his head.

'Then,' added Emily, 'by the moonlight I saw the gable end, not
blank, and covered by the magnolia as it is now, but with stone
steps up to the bricked-up doorway. The door opened, the light
spread, and there came out a lady in black, with a lamp in one hand,
and a kind of parcel in the other, and oh, when she turned her face
this way, it was Ellen's!'

'So you called out,' whispered Martyn.

'Dear Ellen, not as she used to be,' added Emily, 'but like what she
was when last I saw her; no, hardly that either, for this was sad,
sad, scared, terrified, with eyes all tears, as Ellen never, never
was.'

'I saw,' added Clarence, 'I saw the shape, but not the countenance
and expression as I used to do.'

'She came down the steps,' continued Emily, 'looking about her as if
making her escape, but, just as she came opposite to us, there was a
sound of tipsy laughing and singing from the gate up by the wood.'

'I thought it real,' said Martyn.

'Then,' continued Emily, 'she wavered, then turned and went under an
arch in the ruin--I fancied she was hiding something--then came out
and fled across to the steps; but there were two dark men rushing
after her, and at the stone steps there was a frightful shriek, and
then it was all over, the steps gone, all quiet, and the magnolia
leaves glistening in the moonshine. Oh! what can it all mean?'

'Went under the arch,' repeated Clarence. 'Is it what she hid there
that keeps her from resting?'

'Then you believe it really happened?' said Emily, 'that some
terrible scene is being acted over again. Oh! but can it be the
real spirits!'

'That is one of the great mysteries,' answered Martyn; 'but I could
tell you of other instances.'

'Don't now,' I interposed; 'Emily has had quite enough.'

We reminded her that the ghastly tragedy was over and would not
recur again for another year; but she was greatly shaken, and we
were very sorry for her, when the clock warned her to go to her own
room, whither Martyn escorted her. He lighted every candle he could
find, and revived the fire; but she was sadly overcome by what she
had witnessed, she lay awake all the rest of the night, and in the
morning, looked so unwell, and had so little to tell about the party
that my mother thought her spirits had been too much broken for
gaieties.

The real cause could not be confessed, for it would have been
ascribed to some kind of delirium, and have made a commotion for
which my father was unfit. Besides, we had reached an age when,
though we would not have disobeyed, liberty of thought and action
had become needful. All our private confabulations were on this
extraordinary scene. We looked for the arch in the ruin, but there
was, as our morning senses told us, nothing of the kind. She tried
to sketch her remembrance of both that and the gable of the mullion
chamber, and Martyn prowled about in search of some hiding-place.
Our antiquarian friend, Mr. Stafford, had made a conjectural drawing
of the Chapel restored, and all the portfolios about the house were
searched for it, disquieting mamma, who suspected Martyn's Oxford
notions of intending to rebuild it, nor would he say that it ought
not to be done. However, he with his more advanced ecclesiology,
pronounced Mr. Stafford's reconstruction to be absolutely mistaken
and impossible, and set to work on a fresh plan, which, by the bye,
he derides at present. It afforded, however, an excuse for routing
under the ivy and among the stones, but without much profit. From
the mouldings on the materials and in the stables and the front
porch, it was evident that the chapel had been used as a quarry, and
Emily's arch was very probably that of the entrance door. In a dry
summer, the foundations of the walls and piers could be traced on
the turf, and the stumps of one or two columns remained, but the
rest was only a confused heap of fragments within which no one could
have entered as in that strange vision.

Another thing became clear. There had once been a wall between the
beech wood and the lawn, with a gate or door in it; Chapman could
just remember its being taken down, in James Winslow's early married
life, when landscape gardening was the fashion. It must have been
through this that the Winslow brothers were returning, when poor
Margaret perhaps expected them to enter by the front.

We wished we could have consulted Dame Dearlove, but she had died a
few years before, and her school was extinct.

CHAPTER XLI--WILLS OLD AND NEW

'And that to-night thou must watch with me
To win the treasure of the tomb.'

SCOTT.

Some seasons seem to be peculiarly marked, as if Death did indeed
walk forth in them.

Old Mr. Frith died in the spring of 1841, and it proved that he had
shown his gratitude to Clarence by a legacy of shares in the firm
amounting to about 2000 pounds. The rest of his interest therein
went to Lawrence Frith, and his funded property to his sister, Mrs.
Stevens, a very fair and upright disposition of his wealth.

Only six weeks later, my father had a sudden seizure, and there was
only time to summon Clarence from London and Martyn from Oxford,
before a second attack closed his righteous and godly career upon
earth.

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