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The Great House
The Great House

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The Great House

Язык: Английский
Год издания: 2017
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As he stooped to the flowers his eyes met hers smiling through the hawthorn sprays, and he saw her as he had not seen her before. Her gravity had left her. Spring laughed in her eyes, youth fluttered in the tendrils of her hair, she was the soul of May. And what she had found of beauty in the woodland, of music in the larks' songs, of perfume in the blossoms, of freshness in the morning, the man found in her; and a shock, never to be forgotten, ran through him. He did not speak. He smelled the hawthorn in silence.

But a few seconds later-as men reckon time-he took note of his feelings, and he was startled. He had not been prepared to like her, we know; many things had armed him against her. But before the witchery of her morning face, the challenge of her laughing eyes, he awoke to the fact that he was in danger. He had to own that if he must live beside her day by day and would maintain his indifference, he must steel himself. He must keep his first impressions of her always before him, and be careful. And be very careful-if even that might avail.

For a hundred paces he walked at her side, listening without knowing what she said. Then his coolness returned, and when she asked him why he had come after her without his hat he was ready.

"I had better tell you," he answered, "this path is little used. It leads to the Great House, and your uncle, owing to his quarrel with Lord Audley, does not like any one to go farther in that direction than the Yew Tree Walk. You can see the Walk from here-the yews mark the entrance to the gardens. I thought that it would be unfortunate if you began by displeasing him, and I came after you."

"It was very good of you," she said. Her face was not gay now. "Does Lord Audley live there-when he is at home?"

"No one lives there," he explained soberly. "No one has lived there for three generations. It's a ruin-I was going to say, a nightmare. The greater part of the house was burnt down in a carouse held to celebrate the accession of George the Third. The Audley of that day rebuilt it on a great scale, but before it was finished he gave a housewarming, at which his only son quarrelled with a guest. The two fought at daybreak, and the son was killed beside the old Butterfly in the Yew Walk-you will see the spot some day. The father sent away the builders and never looked up again. He diverted much of his property, and a cousin came into the remainder and the title, but the house was never finished, the windows in the new part were never glazed. In the old part some furniture and tapestry decay; in the new are only bats and dust and owls. So it has stood for eighty years, vacant in the midst of neglected gardens. In the sunlight it is one of the most dreary things you can imagine. By moonlight it is better, but unspeakably melancholy."

"How dreadful," she said in a low voice. "I almost wish, Mr. Basset, that you had not told me. They say in France that if you see the dead without touching them, you dream of them. I feel like that about the house."

It crossed his mind that she was talking for effect. "It is only a house after all," he said.

"But our house," with a touch of pride. Then, "What are those?" she asked, pointing to the gray shapeless beasts, time-worn and weather-stained, that flanked the entrance to the courtyard.

"They are, or once were, Butterflies, the badge of the Audleys. These hold shields. You will see the Butterflies in many places in the Gatehouse. You will find them with men's faces and sometimes with a fret on the wings. Your uncle says that they are not butterflies, but moths, that have eaten the Audley fortunes."

It was a thought that matched the picture he had drawn of the deserted house, and Mary felt that the morning had lost its brightness. But not for long. Basset led her into a room on the right of the hall, and the sight drew from her a cry of pleasure. On three sides the dark wainscot rose eight feet from the floor; above, the walls were whitewashed to the ceiling and broken by dim portraits, on stretchers and without frames. On the fourth side where the panelling divided the room from a serving-room, once part of it, it rose to the ceiling. The stone hearth, the iron dogs, the matted floor, the heavy chairs and oak table, all were dark and plain and increased the austerity of the room.

At the end of the table places were laid for three, and Toft, who had set on the breakfast, was fixing the kettle amid the burning logs.

"Is Mr. Audley coming down?" Basset asked.

"He bade me lay for him," Toft replied dryly. "I doubt if he will come. You had better begin, sir. The young lady," with a searching look at her, "must want her breakfast."

"I am afraid I do," Mary confessed.

"Yes, we will begin," Basset said. He invited her to make the tea.

When they were seated, "You like the room?"

"I love it," she answered.

"So do I," he rejoined, more soberly. "The panelling is linen-pattern of the fifteenth century-you see the folds? It was saved from the old house. I am glad you like it."

"I love it," she said again. But after that she grew thoughtful, and during the rest of the meal she said little. She was thinking of what was before her; of the unknown uncle, whose bread she was eating, and upon whom she was going to be dependent. What would he be like? How would he receive her? And why was every one so reticent about him-so reticent that he was beginning to be something of an ogre to her? When Toft presently appeared and said that Mr. Audley was in the library and would see her when she was ready, she lost color. But she answered the man with self-possession, asked quietly where the library was, and had not Basset's eyes been on her face he would have had no notion that she was troubled.

As it was, he waited for her to avow her misgiving-he was prepared to encourage her. But she said nothing.

None the less, at the last moment, with her hand on the door of the library, she hesitated. It was not so much fear of the unknown relative whom she was going to see that drove the blood from her cheek, as the knowledge that for her everything depended upon him. Her new home, its peace, its age, its woodland surroundings, fascinated her. It promised her not only content, but happiness. But as her stay in it hung upon John Audley's will, so her pleasure in it, and her enjoyment of it, depended upon the relations between them. What would they be? How would he receive her? What would he be like? At last she called up her courage, turned the handle, and entered the library.

For a moment she saw no one. The great room, with its distances and its harmonious litter, appeared to be empty. Then, "Mary, my dear," said a pleasant voice, "welcome to the Gatehouse!" And John Audley rose from his seat at a distant table and came towards her.

The notion which she had formed of him vanished in a twinkling, and with it her fears. She saw before her an elderly gentleman, plump and kindly, who walked with a short tripping step, and wore the swallow-tailed coat with gilt buttons which the frock-coat had displaced. He took her hand with a smile, kissed her on the forehead, and led her to a chair placed beside his own. He sat for a moment holding her hand and looking at her.

"Yes, I see the likeness," he said, after a moment's contemplation. "But, my dear, how is this? There are tears in your eyes, and you tremble."

"I think," she said, "I was a little afraid of you, sir."

"Well, you are not afraid now," he replied cheerfully. "And you won't be again. You won't be again. My dear, welcome once more to the Gatehouse. I hope that it may be your home until another is offered you. Things came between your father and me-I shall never mention them again, and don't you, my dear!" – this a little hurriedly-"don't you; all that is buried now, and I must make it up to you. Your letters?" he continued, patting her hand. "Yes, Peter told me that you wrote to me. I need not say that I never had them. No, never had them-Toft, what is it?"

The change in his voice struck her. The servant had come in quietly. "Mr. Basset, sir, has lost-"

"Another time!" John Audley replied curtly. "Another time! I am engaged now. Go!" Then when the door had closed behind the servant, "No, my dear," he continued, "I need not say that I never had them, so that I first heard of your troubles through a channel upon which I will not dwell. However, many good things come by bad ways, Mary. I hope you like the Gatehouse?"

"It is charming!" she cried with enthusiasm.

"It has only one drawback," he said.

She was clever enough to understand that he referred to its owner, and to escape from the subject. "This room," she said, "is perfection. I have never seen anything like it, sir."

"It is a pleasant room," he said, looking round him. "There is our coat over the mantel, gules, a fret or; like all old coats, very simple. Some think it is the Lacy Knot; the Audley of Edward the First's time married a Lacy. But we bore our old coat of three Butterflies later than that, for before the fall of Roger Mortimer, who was hung at Tyburn, he married his daughter to an Audley, and the escheaters found the wedding chamber in his house furnished with our Butterflies. Later the Butterfly survived as our badge. You see it there!" he continued, pointing it out among the mouldings of the ceiling. "There is the Stafford Knot, the badge of the great Dukes of Buckingham, the noblest of English families; it is said that the last of the line, a cobbler, died at Newport, not twenty miles from here. We intermarried with them, and through them with Peter's people, the Bassets. That is the Lovel Wolf, and there is the White Wolf of the Mortimers-all badges. But you do not know, I suppose, what a badge is?"

"I am afraid not," she said, smiling. "But I am as proud of our Butterfly, and as proud to be an Audley, sir, as if I knew more."

"Peter must give you some lessons in heraldry," he answered. "We live in the past here, my dear, and we must indoctrinate you with a love of our pursuits or you will be dull." He paused to consider. "I am afraid that we cannot allot you a drawing-room, but you must make your room upstairs as comfortable as you can. Etruria will see to that. And Peter shall arrange a table for you in the south bay here, and it shall be your table and your bay. That is his table; this is mine. We are orderly, and so we do not get in one another's way."

She thanked him gratefully, and with tears in her eyes, she said something to which he would not listen-he only patted her hand-as to his kindness, his great kindness, in receiving her. She could not, indeed, put her relief into words, so deep was it. Nowhere, she felt, could life be more peaceful or more calm than in this room which no sounds of the outer world except the songs of birds, no sights save the swaying of branches disturbed; where the blazoned panes cast their azure and argent on lines of russet books, where an aged hound sprawled before the embers, and the measured tick of the clock alone vied with the scratching of the pen. She saw herself seated there during drowsy summer days, or when firelight cheered the winter evenings. She saw herself sewing beside the hearth while her companions worked, each within his circle of light.

Then, she also was an Audley. She also had her share in the race which had lived long on this spot. Already she was fired with the desire to know more of them, and that flame John Audley was well fitted to fan. For he was not of the school of dry-as-dust antiquaries. He had the knack of choosing the picturesque in story, he could make it stand out for others, he could impart life to the actors in it. And, anxious to captivate Mary, he bent himself for nearly an hour to the display of his knowledge. Taking for his text one or other of the objects about him, he told her of great castles, from which England had been ruled, and through which the choicest life of the country had passed, that now were piles of sherds clothed with nettles. He told her of that woodland country on the borders of three counties, where the papists had long lived undisturbed and where the Gunpowder Plot had had its centre. He told her of the fashion which came in with Richard the Second, of adorning the clothes with initials, reading and writing having become for the first time courtly accomplishments; and to illustrate this he showed her the Westminster portrait of Richard in a robe embroidered with letters of R. He quoted Chaucer:

And thereon hung a broch of gold ful schene

On which was first i-written a crowned A

And after that, Amor vincit omnia.

Then, turning his back on her, he produced from some secret place a key, and opening a masked cupboard in the wall, he held out for her inspection a small bowl, bent and mis-shapen by use, and supported by two fragile butterflies. The whole was of silver so thin that to modern eyes it seemed trivial. Traces of gilding lingered about some parts of it, and on each of the wings of the butterflies was a capital A.

She was charmed. "Of all your illustrations," she cried, "I prefer this one! It is very old, I suppose?"

"It is of the fifteenth century," he said, turning it about. "We believe that it was made for the Audley who fell early in the Wars of the Roses. Pages and knights, maids and matrons, gloves of silk and gloves of mail, wrinkled palms and babies' fingers, the men, the women, the children of twelve generations of our race, my dear, have handled this. Once, according to an old inventory, there were six; this one alone remains."

"It must be very rare?" she said, her eyes sparkling.

"It is very rare," he said, and he handled it as if he loved it. He had not once allowed it to go out of his fingers. "Very rare. I doubt if, apart from the City Companies, there is another in the hands of the original owners."

"And it came to you by descent, sir?"

He paused in the act of returning it to its hiding-place. "Yes, that is how it came to me," he said in a muffled tone. But he seemed to be a long time putting it away; and when he turned with the key in his hand his face was altered, and he looked at her-well, had she done anything to anger him, she would have thought he was angry. "To whom besides me could it descend!" he asked, his voice raised a tone. "But there, I must not grow excited. I think-I think you had better go now. Go, my dear, now. But come back presently."

Mary went. But the change in tone and face had been such as to startle her and to dash the happy mood of a few moments earlier. She wondered what she had said to annoy him.

CHAPTER IX

OLD THINGS

The Gatehouse, placed on the verge of the upland, was very solitary. Cut off from the vale by an ascent which the coachmen of the great deemed too rough for their horses, it was isolated on the other three sides by Beaudelays Park and by the Great Chase, which flung its barren moors over many miles of table-land. In the course of the famous suit John Audley had added to the solitude of the house by a smiling aloofness which gave no quarter to those who agreed with his rival. The result was that when Mary came to live there, few young people would have found the Gatehouse a lively abode.

But to Mary during the quiet weeks that followed her arrival it seemed a paradise. She spent long hours in the open air, now seated on a fallen trunk in some glade of the park, now watching the squirrels in the clear gloom of the beech-wood, or again, lying at length on the carpet of thyme and heather that clothed the moor. She came to know by heart every path through the park-except that which led to the Great House; she discovered where the foxgloves clustered, where the meadow-sweet fringed the runlet, where the rare bog-bean warned the traveller to look to his footing. Even the Great Chase she came to know, and almost daily she walked to a point beyond the park whence she could see the distant smoke of a mining village. That was the one sign of life on the Chase; elsewhere it stretched vast and unpeopled, sombre under a livid sky, smiling in sunshine, here purple with ling, there scarred by fire-always wide under a wide heaven, raised high above the common world. Now and again she met a shepherd or saw a gig, lessened by distance, making its slow way along a moorland track. But for days together she might wander there without seeing a human being.

The wide horizon became as dear to her as the greenwood. Pent as she had been in cities, straitened in mean rooms where sight and smell had alike been outraged, she revelled in this sweet and open life. The hum of bees, the scent of pines, the flight of the ousel down the water, the whistle of the curlew, all were to her pleasures as vivid as they were new.

Meantime Basset made no attempt to share her excursions. He was fighting a battle with himself, and he knew better than to go out of his way to aid the enemy. And for her part she did not miss him. She did not dislike him, but the interest he excited in her was feeble. The thought of comparing him with Lord Audley, with the man to whose intervention she owed this home, this peace, this content, never occurred to her. Of Audley she did think as much perhaps as was prudent, sometimes with pensive gratitude, more rarely with a smile and a blush at her folly in dwelling on him. For always she thought of him as one, high and remote, whom it was not probable that she would ever see again, one whose course through life lay far from hers.

Presently, it is not to be denied, Basset began to grow upon her. He was there. He was part of her life. Morning and evening she had to do with him. Often she read or sewed in the same room with him, and in many small ways he added to her comfort. Sometimes he suggested things which would please her uncle; sometimes he warned her of things which she would do well to avoid. Once or twice he diverted to himself a spirt of John Audley's uncertain temper; and though Mary did not always detect the manœuvre, though she was far from suspecting the extent of his vigilance or the care which he cast about her, it would have been odd if she had not come to think more kindly of him, and to see merits in him which had escaped her at first.

Meanwhile he thought of her with mingled feelings. At first with doubt-it was never out of his mind that she had made much of Lord Audley and little of him. Then with admiration which he withstood more feebly as time went on, and the cloven hoof failed to appear. Later, with tenderness, which, hating the scheme John Audley had formed, he masked even from himself, and which he was sure that he would never have the courage to express in her presence.

For Basset was conscious that, aspire as he might, he was not a hero. The clash of life, the shock of battle, had no attraction for him. The library at the Gatehouse was, he owned it frankly, his true sphere. She, on the other hand, had had experiences. She had sailed through unknown seas, she had led a life strange to him. She had seen much, done much, suffered much, had held her own among strangers. Before her calmness and self-possession he humbled himself. He veiled his head.

He did not attempt, therefore, to accompany her abroad, but at home he had no choice save to see much of her. There was only one living room for all, and she glided with surprising ease into the current of the men's occupations. At first she was astray on the sea of books. Her knowledge was not sufficient to supply chart or compass, and it fell to Basset to point the way, to choose her reading, to set in a proper light John Audley's vivid pictures of the past, to teach her the elements of heraldry and genealogy. She proved, however, an apt scholar, and very soon she dropped into the position of her uncle's secretary. Sometimes she copied his notes, at other times he set her on the track of a fact, a relationship, a quotation, and she would spend hours in a corner, embedded in huge tomes of the county histories. Dugdale, Leland, Hall, even Polydore Vergil, became her friends. She pored over the Paston Letters, probed the false pedigrees of Banks, and could soon work out for herself the famous discovery respecting the last Lovel.

For a young girl it was an odd pursuit. But the past was in the atmosphere of the house, it went with the fortunes of a race whose importance lay in days long gone. Then all was new to her, enthusiasm is easily caught, and Mary, eager to please her uncle, was glad to be of use. She found the work restful after the suspense of the past year. It sufficed for the present, and she asked no more.

She never forgot the lamplit evenings of that summer; the spacious room, the fluttering of the moths that entered by the open windows, the flop of the old dog as it sought a cooler spot, the whisper of leaves turned ceaselessly in the pursuit of a fact or a fancy. In the retrospect all became less a picture than a frame containing a past world, a fifteenth-century world of color and movement, of rooms stifled in hangings and tapestries, of lines of spear-points and rows of knights in surcoats, of tolling bells and praying monks, of travellers kneeling before wayside shrines, of strange changes of fortune. For says the chronicler:

"I saw one of them, who was Duke of Exeter (but he concealed his name) following the Duke of Burgundy's train barefoot and bare-legged, begging his bread from door to door-this person was the next of the House of Lancaster and had married King Edward's sister."

And of dark sayings:

"Thys sayde Edward, Duke of Somerset, had herde a fantastyk prophecy that he sholde dy under a Castelle, wherefore he, as meche as in him was, he lete the King that he sholde not come in the Castelle of Wynsore, dredynge the sayde prophecy; but at Seint Albonys there was an hostelry havyng the sygne of a Castelle, and before that hostelry he was slayne."

"His badge was a Portcullis," her uncle said, when she read this to him, "so it was natural that he should fall before a castle. He used the Beanstalk, too, and if his name had been John, a pretty thing might have been raised upon it. But you're divagating, my dear," he continued, smiling-and seldom had Mary seen him in a better humor-"you're divagating, whereas I-I believe that I have solved the problem of the Feathers."

"The Prince of Wales's? No!"

"I believe so. Of course there is no truth in the story which traces them to the blind King of Bohemia, killed at Crécy. His crest was two vulture wings."

"But what of Arderne, who was the Prince's surgeon?" Basset objected. "He says clearly that the Prince gained it from the King of Bohemia."

"Not at all!" John Audley replied arrogantly-at this moment he was an antiquary and nothing more. "Where is the Arderne extract? Listen. 'Edward, son of Edward the King, used to wear such a feather, and gained that feather from the King of Bohemia, whom he slew at Crécy, and so assumed to himself that feather which is called an ostrich feather which the first-named most illustrious King, used to wear on his crest.' Now who was the first-named most illustrious King, who before that used to wear it?"

"The King of Bohemia."

"Rubbish! Arderne means his own King, 'Edward the King.' He means that the Black Prince, after winning his spurs by his victory over the Bohemian, took his father's insignia. He had only been knighted six weeks and waited to wear his father's crest until he had earned it."

"By Jove, sir!" Basset exclaimed, "I believe you are right!"

"Of course I am! The evidence is all that way. The Black Prince's brothers wore it; surely not because their brother had done something, but because it was their father's crest, probably derived from their mother, Philippa of Hainault? If you will look in the inventory of jewels made on the usurpation of Henry the Fourth you will see this item, 'A collar of the livery of the Queen, on whom God have mercy, with an ostrich.'"

"But that," Basset interposed, "was Queen Anne of Bohemia-she died seven years before. There you get Bohemia again!"

"Compare this other entry," replied the antiquary, unmoved: "'A collar of the livery of Queen Anne, of branches of rosemary.' Now either Queen Anne of Bohemia had two liveries-which is unlikely-or the inventory made by order of Henry IV. quotes verbatim from lists made during the lifetime of Queen Anne; if this be the case, the last deceased Queen, on whom God have mercy, would be Philippa of Hainault; and we have here a clear statement that her livery was an ostrich, of which ostrich her husband wore a feather on his crest."

Basset clapped his hands. Mary beat applause on the table. "Hurrah!" she cried. "Audley for ever!"

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