Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I)

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DYNEVOR TERRACE:

OR

THE CLUE OF LIFE.

BY THE AUTHOR OF 'THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE,' CHARLOTTE M. YONGE.

VOLUME I

Who wisdom's sacred prize would win,
Must with the fear of God begin;
Immortal praise and heavenly skill
Have they who know and do His will.
New Version.

CHAPTER I.

CHARLOTTE.

Farewell rewards and fairies,
Good housewives now may say,
For now foul sluts in dairies
May fare as well as they.
BP. CORBET.

An ancient leafless stump of a horse-chesnut stood in the middle of a
dusty field, bordered on the south side by a row of houses of some
pretension. Against this stump, a pretty delicate fair girl of
seventeen, whose short lilac sleeves revealed slender white arms, and
her tight, plain cap tresses of flaxen hair that many a beauty might
have envied, was banging a cocoa-nut mat, chanting by way of
accompaniment in a sort of cadence--

'I have found out a gift for my fur,
I have found where the wood-pigeons breed;
But let me the plunder forbear,
She will say--'

'Hollo, I'll give you a shilling for 'em!' was the unlooked-for
conclusion, causing her to start aside with a slight scream, as there
stood beside her a stout, black-eyed, round-faced lad, his ruddy
cheeks and loutish air showing more rusticity than agreed with his
keen, saucy expression, and mechanic's dress.

'So that's what you call beating a mat,' said he, catching it from
her hands, and mimicking the tender clasp of her little fingers.
'D'ye think it's alive, that you use it so gingerly? Look here!
Give it him well!' as he made it resound against the tree, and emit a
whirlwind of dust. 'Lay it into him with some jolly good song fit to
fetch a stroke home with! Why, I heard my young Lord say, when
Shakspeare was a butcher, he used to make speeches at the calves, as
if they was for a sacrifice, or ever he could lift a knife to 'em.'

'Shakspeare! He as wrote Romeo and Juliet, and all that! He a
butcher! Why, he was a poet!' cried the girl, indignantly.

'If you know better than Lord Fitzjocelyn, you may!' said the boy.

'I couldn't have thought it!' sighed the maiden.

'It's the best of it!' cried the lad, eagerly. 'Why, Charlotte,
don't ye see, he rose hisself. Anybody may rise hisself as has a
mind to it!'

'Yes, I've read that in books said Charlotte. 'You can, men can,
Tom, if you would but educate yourself like Edmund! in the _Old
English Baron_. But then, you know whose son you are. There can't
be no catastrophe--'

'I don't want none,' said Tom. 'We are all equal by birth, so the
orator proves without a doubt, and we'll show it one of these days.
A rare lady I'll make of you yet, Charlotte Arnold.'

'O hush, Tom, I can never be a lady--and I can't stand dawdling here-
-nor you neither. 'Tisn't right to want to be out of our station,
though I do wish I lived in an old castle, where the maidens worked
tapestry, and heard minstrels, never had no stairs to scour. Come,
give me my mats, and thank you kindly!'

'I'll take 'em in,' said Tom, shouldering them. ''Tis breakfast-
hour, so I thought I'd just run up and ax you when my young Lord goes
up to Oxford.

'He is gone,' said Charlotte; 'he was here yesterday to take leave of
missus. Mr. James goes later--'

'Gone!' cried Tom. 'If he didn't say he'd come and see me at Mr.
Smith's!'

'Did you want to speak to him?'

'I wanted to see him particular. There's a thing lays heavy on my
mind. You see that place down in Ferny dell--there's a steep bank
down to the water. Well, my young Lord was very keen about building
a kind of steps there in the summer, and he and I settled the stones,
and I was to cement 'em. By comes Mr. Frost, and finds faults, what
I thought he'd no call to; so I flings down my trowel, and wouldn't
go on for he! I was so mortal angry, I would not go back to the
work; and I believe my Lord forgot it--and then he went back to
college; and Frampton and Gervas, they put on me, and you know how
'twas I come away from Ormersfield. I was not going to say a word to
one of that lot! but if I could see Lord Fitzjocelyn, I'd tell him
they stones arn't fixed; and if the frost gets into 'em, there'll be
a pretty go next time there's a tolerablish weight! But there--it is
his own look-out! If he never thought it worth his while to keep his
promise, and come and see me--'

'O Tom! that isn't right! He only forgot--I hear Mrs. Beckett
telling him he'd forget his own head if it wasn't fixed on, and Mr.
James is always at him.'

'Forget! Aye, there's nothing gentlefolks forget like poor folks.
But I've done with he! Let him look out--I kept my promises to him
long enough, but if he don't keep his'n--'

'For shame, for shame, Tom! You don't mean it!' cried Charlotte.
'But, oh!' with a different tone, 'give me the mat! There's the old
Lord and Mr. Poynings riding down the terrace!'

'I ain't ashamed of nothing!' said the lad, proudly; and as Charlotte
snatched away the mats, and vanished like a frightened hare, he
stalked along like a village Hampden, muttering, 'The old tyrant
shall see whether I'm to be trampled on!' and with both hands in his
pockets, he gazed straight up into the face of the grave elderly
gentleman, who never even perceived him. He could merely bandy
glances with Poynings, the groom, and he was so far from indifferent
that he significantly lifted up the end of his whip. Nothing could
more have gratified Tom, who retorted with a grimace and murmur,
'Don't you wish you may catch me? You jealous syc--what is the word,
sick of uncles or aunts, was it, that the orator called 'em? He'd
say I'd a good miss of being one of that sort, and that my young Lord
there opened my eyes in time. No better than the rest of 'em--'

And the clock striking eight, he quickened his pace to return to his
work. He had for the two or three previous years been nominally
under the gardener at Ormersfield, but really a sort of follower and
favourite to the young heir, Lord Fitzjocelyn--a position which had
brought on him dislike from the superior servants, who were not
propitiated by his independent and insubordinate temper. Faults on
every side had led to his dismissal; but Lord Fitzjocelyn had placed
him at an ironmonger's shop in the town of Northwold, where he had
been just long enough to become accessible to the various temptations
of a lad in such a situation.

Charlotte sped hastily round the end of the block of buildings,
hurried down the little back garden, and flew breathlessly into her
own kitchen, as a haven of refuge, but she found a tall, stiff
starched, elderly woman standing just within the door, and heard her
last words.

'Well! as I said, 'tis no concern of mine; only I thought it the part
of a friend to give you a warning, when I seen it with my own eyes!-
Ah! here she is!' as Charlotte dropped into a chair. 'Yes, yes,
Miss, you need not think to deceive me; I saw you from Miss Mercy's
window--'

'Saw what?' faintly exclaimed Charlotte.

'You know well enough,' was the return. 'You may think to blind Mrs.
Beckett here, but I know what over good-nature to young girls comes
to. Pretty use to make of your fine scholarship, to be encouraging
followers and sweethearts, at that time in the morning too!'

'Speak up, Charlotte,' said the other occupant of the room, a
pleasant little brisk woman, with soft brown, eyes, a clear pale
skin, and a face smooth, in spite of nearly sixty years; 'speak up,
and tell Mrs. Martha the truth, that you never encouraged no one.'

The girl's face was all one flame, but she rose up, and clasping her
hands together, exclaimed--'Me encourage! I never thought of what
Mrs. Martha says! I don't know what it is all about!'

'Here, Jane Beckett,' cried Mrs. Martha; 'd'ye see what 'tis to
vindicate her! Will you take her word against mine, that she's been
gossiping this half hour with that young rogue as was turned off at
Ormersfield?'

'Tom Madison! cried the girl, in utter amaze. 'Oh! Mrs. Martha!'

'Well! I can't stop!' said Martha. 'I must get Miss Faithfull's
breakfast! but if you was under me, Miss Charlotte, I can tell you it
would be better for you! You'll sup sorrow yet, and you'll both
recollect my advice, both of you.'

Wherewith the Cassandra departed, and Charlotte, throwing her apron
over her face, began to cry and sob piteously.

'My dear! what is it now? exclaimed her kind companion, pulling down
her apron, and trying to draw down first one, then the other of the
arms which persisted in veiling the crimson face. 'Surely you don't
think missus or I would mistrust you, or think you'd take up with the
likes of him!'

'How could she be so cruel--so spiteful,' sobbed Charlotte, 'when he
only came to ask one question, and did a good turn for me with the
mats. I never thought of such a thing. Sweetheart, indeed! So
cruel of her!'

'Bless me!' said Jane, 'girls used to think it only civility to say
they had a sweetheart!'

'Don't, Mrs. Beckett! I hate the word! I don't want no such thing!
I won't never speak to Tom Madison again, if such constructions is to
be put on it!'

'Well, after all, Charlotte dear, that will be the safest way. You
are young yet, and best not to think of settling, special if you
aren't sure of one that is steady and religious, and you'd better
keep yourself up, and not get a name for gossiping--though there's no
harm done yet, so don't make such a work. Bless me, if I don't hear
his lordship's voice! He ain't never come so early!'

'Yes, he is,' said Charlotte, recovering from her sobs; 'he rode up
as I came in.'

'Well, to be sure, he is come to breakfast! I hope nothin's amiss
with my young Lord! I must run up with a cup and plate, and you,
make the place tidy, in case Mr. Poynings comes in. You'd better run
into the scullery and wash your face; 'tis all tears! You're a
terrible one to cry, Charlotte!' with a kind, cheering smile and
caress.

Mrs. Beckett bustled off, leaving Charlotte to restore herself to the
little handy piece of household mechanism which kind, patient,
motherly training had rendered her.

Charlotte Arnold had been fairly educated at a village school, and
tenderly brought up at home till left an orphan, when she had been
taken into her present place. She had much native refinement and
imagination, which, half cultivated, produced a curious mixture of
romance and simplicity. Her insatiable taste for reading was
meritorious in the eyes of Mrs. Beckett, who, unlearned herself,
thought any book better than 'gadding about,' and, after hearing her
daily portion of the Bible, listened to the most adventurous
romances, with a sense of pleasure and duty in keeping the girl to
her book. She loved the little fragile orphan, taught her, and had
patience with her, and trusted the true high sound principle which
she recognised in Charlotte, amid much that she could not fathom, and
set down alternately to the score of scholarship and youth.

Taste, modesty, and timidity were guards to Charlotte. A broad stare
was terror to her, and she had many a fictitious horror, as well as
better-founded ones. Truly she said, she hated the broad words
Martha had used. One who craved a true knight to be twitted with a
sweetheart! Martha and Tom Madison were almost equally distasteful,
as connected with such a reproach; and the little maiden drew into
herself, promenaded her fancy in castles and tournaments, kept under
Jane's wing, and was upheld by her as a sensible, prudent girl.

CHAPTER II.

AN OLD SCHOOLMISTRESS.

I praise thee, matron, and thy due
Is praise, heroic praise and true;
With admiration I behold
Thy gladness unsubdued and bold.
Thy looks and gestures all present
The picture of a life well spent;
Our human nature throws away
Its second twilight and looks gay.
WORDSWORTH.

Unconscious of Charlotte's flight and Tom's affront, the Earl of
Ormersfield rode along Dynevor Terrace--a row of houses with handsome
cemented fronts, tragic and comic masks alternating over the
downstairs windows, and the centre of the block adorned with a
pediment and colonnade; but there was an air as if something ailed
the place: the gardens were weedy, the glass doors hazy, the cement
stained and scarred, and many of the windows closed and dark, like
eyes wanting speculation, or with merely the dreary words 'To be let'
enlivening their blank gloom. At the house where Charlotte had
vanished, he drew his rein, and opened the gate--not one of the rusty
ones--he entered the garden, where all was trim and fresh, the shadow
of the house lying across the sward, and preserving the hoar-frost,
which, in the sunshine, was melting into diamond drops on the
lingering China roses.

Without ring or knock, he passed into a narrow, carpetless vestibule,
unadorned except by a beautiful blue Wedgewood vase, and laying down
hat and whip, mounted the bare staircase, long since divested of all
paint or polish. Avoiding the door of the principal room, he opened
another at the side, and stood in a flood of sunshine, pouring in
from the window, which looked over all the roofs of the town, to the
coppices and moorlands of Ormersfield. On the bright fire
sung a kettle, a white cat purred on the hearth, a canary twittered
merrily in the window, and the light smiled on a languishing Dresden
shepherdess and her lover on the mantelpiece, and danced on the
ceiling, reflected from a beautifully chased silver cream-jug--an
inconsistent companion for the homely black teapot and willow-
patterned plates, though the two cups of rare Indian porcelain were
not unworthy of it. The furniture was the same mixture of the
ordinary and the choice, either worn and shabby, or such as would
suit a virtuoso, but the whole arranged with taste and care that made
the effect bright, pleasant, and comfortable. Lord Ormersfield stood
on the hearth-rug waiting. His face was that of one who had learnt
to wait, more considerate than acute, and bearing the stamp both of
toil and suffering, as if grief had taken away all mobility of
expression, and left a stern, thoughtful steadfastness.

Presently a lady entered the room. Her hair was white as snow, and
she could not have seen less than seventy-seven years; but beauty was
not gone from her features--smiles were still on her lips, brightness
in her clear hazel eyes, buoyancy in her tread, and alertness and
dignity in her tall, slender, unbent figure. There was nothing so
remarkable about her as the elasticity as well as sweetness of her
whole look and bearing, as if, while she had something to love,
nothing could be capable of crushing her.

'You here!' she exclaimed, holding out her hand to her guest. 'You
are come to breakfast.'

'Thank you; I wished to see you without interrupting your day's work.
Have you many scholars at present?'

'Only seven, and three go into school at Easter. Jem and Clara, wish
me to undertake no more, but I should sorely miss the little fellows.
I wish they may do me as much credit as Sydney Calcott. He wrote
himself to tell me of his success.'

'I am glad to hear it. He is a very promising young man.'

'I tell him I shall come to honour, as the old dame who taught him to
spell. My scholars may make a Dr. Busby of me in history.'

'I am afraid your preferment will depend chiefly on James and young
Calcott.'

'Nay, Louis tells me that he is going to read wonderfully hard; and
if he chooses, he can do more than even Sydney Calcott.'

'If!' said the Earl.

Jane here entered with another cup and plate, and Lord Ormersfield
sat down to the breakfast-table. After some minutes' pause he said,
'Have you heard from Peru?'

'Not by this mail. Have you?'

'Yes, I have. Mary is coming home.'

'Mary!' she cried, almost springing up--'Mary Ponsonby? This is good
news--unless,' as she watched his grave face, 'it is her health that
brings her.'

'It is. She has consulted the surgeon of the Libra, a very able man,
who tells her that there is absolute need of good advice and a colder
climate; and Ponsonby has consented to let her and her daughter come
home in the Libra. I expect them in February.'

'My poor Mary! But she will get better away from him. I trust he is
not coming!'

'Not he,' said Lord Ormersfield.

'Dear, dear Mary! I had scarcely dared to hope to see her again,'
cried the old lady, with tears in her eyes. 'I hope she will be
allowed to be with us, not kept in London with his sister. London
does her no good.'

'The very purport of my visit,' said Lord Ormersfield, 'was to ask
whether you could do me the favour to set aside your scholars, and
enable me to receive Mrs. Ponsonby at home.'

'Thank you--oh, thank you. There is nothing I should like better,
but I must consider--'

'Clara would find a companion in the younger Mary in the holidays,
and if James would make Fitzjocelyn his charge, it would complete the
obligation. It would be by far the best arrangement for Mary's
comfort, and it would be the greatest satisfaction to me to see her
with you at Ormersfield.'

'I believe it would indeed,' said the old lady, more touched than the
outward manner of the Earl seemed to warrant. 'I would--you know I
would do my very best that you and Mary should be comfortable
together'--and her voice trembled--'but you see I cannot promise all
at once. I must see about these little boys. I must talk to Jem.
In short, you must not be disappointed'--and she put her hands before
her face, trying to laugh, but almost overcome.

'Nay, I did not mean to press you,' said Lord Ormersfield, gently;
'but I thought, since James has had the fellowship and Clara has been
at school, that you wished to give up your pupils.'

'So I do,' said the lady, but still not yielding absolutely.

'For the rest, I am very anxious that James should accept Fitzjocelyn
as his pupil. I have always considered their friendship as the best
hope, and other plans have had so little success, that--'

'I'm not going to hear Louis abused!' she exclaimed, gaily.

'Yes,' said Lord Ormersfield, with a look nearly approaching a smile,
'you are the last person I ought to invite, if I wish to keep your
nephew unspoiled.'

'I wish there were any one else to spoil him!'

'For his sake, then, come and make Ormersfield cheerful. It will be
far better for him.'

'And for you, to see more of Jem,' she added. 'If he were yours,
what would you say to such hours?'

The last words were aimed at a young man who came briskly into the
room, and as he kissed her, and shook hands with the Earl, answered
in a quick, bright tone, 'Shocking, aye. All owing to sitting up
till one!'

'Reading?' said the Earl.

'Reading,' he answered, with a sort of laughing satisfaction in
dashing aside the approval expressed in the query, 'but not quite as
you suppose. See here,' as he held up maliciously a railway novel.

'I am afraid I know where it came from,' said Lord Ormersfield.

'Exactly so,' said James. 'It was Fitzjocelyn's desertion of it that
excited my curiosity.'

'Indeed. I should have thought his desertions far too common to
excite any curiosity.'

'By no means. He always has a reason.'

'A plausible one.'

'More than plausible,' cried James, excitement sparkling in his vivid
black eyes. 'It happens that this is the very book that you would
most rejoice to see distasteful to him--low morality, false
principles, morbid excitement, not a line that ought to please a
healthy mind.'--

'Yet it has interest enough for you.'

'I am not Fitzjocelyn.'

'You know how to plead for him.'

'I speak simple truth,' bluntly answered James, running his hand
through his black hair, to the ruin of the morning smoothness, so
that it, as well as the whole of his quick, dark countenance seemed
to have undergone a change from sunny south to stormy north in the
few moments since his first appearance.

After a short silence, Lord Ormersfield turned to him, saying 'I have
been begging a favour of my aunt, and I have another to ask of you,'
and repeating his explanation, begged him to undertake the tutorship
of his son.

'I shall not be at liberty at Easter,' said James, 'I have all but
undertaken some men at Oxford.'

'Oh, my dear Jem!' exclaimed the old lady, 'is that settled beyond
alteration?'

'I'm not going to throw them over.'

'Then I shall hope for you at Midsummer,' said the Earl.

'We shall see how things stand,' he returned, ungraciously.

'I shall write to you,' said Lord Ormersfield, still undaunted, and
soon after taking his leave.

'Cool!' cried James, as soon as he was gone. 'To expect you to give
up your school at his beck, to come and keep house for him as long as
it may suit him!'

'Nay, Jem, he knew how few boys I have, and that I intended to give
them up. You don't mean to refuse Louis?' she said, imploringly.

'I shall certainly not take him at Easter. It would be a mere farce
intended to compensate to us for giving up the school, and I'll not
lend myself to it while I can have real work.'

'At Midsummer, then. You know he will never let Louis spend a long
vacation without a tutor.'

'I hate to be at Ormersfield,' proceeded James, vehemently, 'to see
Fitzjocelyn browbeaten and contradicted every moment, and myself set
up for a model. I may steal a horse, while he may not look over the
wall! Did you observe the inconsistency?--angry with the poor fellow
first for having the book, and then for not reading the whole, while
it became amiable and praiseworthy in me to burn out a candle over
it!'

'Ah! that was my concern. I tell him he would sing another note if
you were his son.'

'I'd soon make him! I would not stand what Louis does. The more he
is set down and sneered at, the more debonnaire he looks, till I
could rave at him for taking it so easily.'

'I hoped you might have hindered them from fretting each other, as
they do so often.'

'I should only be a fresh element of discord, while his lordship will
persist in making me his pattern young man. It makes me hate myself,
especially as Louis is such an unaccountable fellow that he won't.'

'I am sorry you dislike the plan so much.'

'Do you mean that you wish for it, grandmamma? cried he, turning full
round on her with an air of extreme amazement. 'If you do, there's
an end of it; but I thought you valued nothing more than an
independent home.'

'Nor would I give it up on any account,' said she. 'I do not imagine
this could possibly last for more than a few months, or a year at the
utmost. But you know, dear Jem, I would do nothing you did not
like.'

'That's nothing to the purpose,' replied James. 'Though it is to be
considered whether Ormersfield is likely to be the best preparation
for Clara's future life. However, I see you wish it--'

'I confess that I do, for a few months at least, which need interfere
neither with Clara nor with you. I have not seen Lord Ormersfield
so eager for many years, and I should be very sorry to prevent those
two from being comfortably together in the old home--'

'And can't that be without a chaperon?' exclaimed James, laughing.
'Why, his lordship is fifty-five, and she can't be much less. That
is a good joke.'

'It is not punctilio,' said his grandmother, looking distressed. 'It
is needful to be on the safe side with such a man as Mr. Ponsonby.
My fear is that he may send her home with orders not to come near
us.'

'She used to be always at Ormersfield in the old times.'

'Yes, when my sister was alive. Ah! you were too young to know about
those matters then. The fact was, that things had come to such a
pass from Mr. Ponsonby's neglect and unkindness, that Lord
Ormersfield, standing in the place of her brother, thought it right
to interfere. His mother went to London with him, to bring poor Mary
and her little girl back to Ormersfield, and there they were till my
sister's death, when of course they could not remain. Mr. Ponsonby
had just got his appointment as British envoy in Peru, and wished her
to go with him. It was much against Lord Ormersfield's advice, but
she thought it her duty, poor dear. I believe he positively hates
Lord Ormersfield; and as if for a parting unkindness, he left his
little girl at school with orders to spend her holidays with his
sister, and never to be with us.'

'That accounts for it!' said James. 'I never knew all this! nor why
we were so entirely cut off from Mary Ponsonby. I wonder what she is
now! She was a droll sturdy child in those days! We used to call
her Downright Dunstable! She was almost of the same age as Louis,
and a great deal stouter, and used to fight for him and herself too.
Has not she been out in Peru?'

'Yes, she went out at seventeen. I believe she is an infinite
comfort to her mother.'

'Poor Mary! Well, we children lived in the middle of a tragedy, and
little suspected it! By the bye, what relation are the Ponsonbys to
us?'

'Mrs. Ponsonby is my niece. My dear sister, Mary--'

'Married Mr. Raymond--yes, I know! I'll make the whole lucid; I'll
draw up a pedigree, and Louis shall learn it.' And with elaborate
neatness he wrote as follows, filling in the dates from the first
leaf of an old Bible, after his grandmother had left the room. The
task, lightly undertaken, became a mournful one, and as he read over
his performance, his countenance varied from the gentleness of regret
to a look of sarcastic pride, as though he felt that the world had
dealt hardly by him, and yet disdained to complain.

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