Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs

“Clumsy, ill-dressed, and slatternly.”

“Well done, well done, Mr. Hales!”

“Yes, and fearfully ugly.”

“Oh!”

“Aha! I have taken your breath away with absolute amazement. I wish Hilary could see you now; he’d steal something very delightful, and then knock his excellent uncle down. But now, make it up like a dear good girl; and tell me this great secret.”

“It is the simplest thing in the world. You just take a little bit of this – see here, I have some in my basket; and cut a little delicate strip, and whip it on the lower part of your fly. I have done it for Charlie many a time. I will do one for you, if you like, sir.”

“Very well. I will try it, to please you; and for the sake of an experiment. Good-bye, good-bye till dark, my dear. We shall see whether a clerk can catch fish or no.”

When Mr. Hales returned at night to the hospitable old farm-house, he carried on his ample back between two and three dozen goodly trout; for many of which he confessed himself indebted to Mabel’s clever fingers. Mrs. Lovejoy had been prepared by her daughter to receive him; but the Grower was not yet come home from Maidstone; which, on the whole, was a fortunate thing. For thus the Rector had time enough to settle with his hostess what should be done on his part and on hers, towards the removal, or at any rate the gradual reduction, of the many stumbling-blocks that lay, as usual, upon true love’s course. For both foresaw that if the franklin’s pride should once be wounded, he would be certain to bar the way more sternly than even the baronet himself. And even without that, he could hardly be expected to forego, all in a moment, his favourite scheme above described, that Mabel’s husband should carry on the ancestral farm, and the growth of fruit. In his blunt old fashion, he cared very little for baronets, or for Norman blood; and like a son of Tuscan soil, was well content to lead his life in cleaving paternal fields with the hoe, and nourishing household gods, and hearth.

CHAPTER XXIX.

ABSURD SURDS

It is a fine thing to have quarters in an English country-town, where nobody knows who the sojourner is, and nobody cares who he may be. To begin (at gentle leisure) to feel interest in the place, and quicken up to the vein of humour throbbing through the High Street. The third evening cannot go over one’s head without a general sense being gained of the politics of the town, and, far more important – the politicians; and if there only is a corporation, wisdom cries in the streets, and nobody can get on with anybody. However, when the fights are over, generally speaking, all cool down.

But this is about the last thing that a stranger should exert his intellect to understand. It would be pure waste of time; unless he means to buy a house and settle down, and try to be an alderman in two years’ time, and mount ambition’s ladder even to the giddy height of mayoralty; till the hand of death comes between the rungs and vertically drags him downward. And even then, for three months shall he be, “our deeply lamented townsman.”

But if this visitor firmly declines (as, for his health, he is bound to do) these mighty combats, which always have the eyes of the nation fixed on them – if he is satisfied to lounge about, and say “good morning” here and there, to ascertain public sentiment concerning the state of the weather, and to lay out sixpence judiciously in cultivating good society – then speedily will he get draughts of knowledge enough to quench the most ardent thirst; while the yawn of indolence merges in the quickening smile of interest. Then shall he get an insight into the commerce, fashion, religious feeling, jealousies, and literature of the town, its just and pleasant self-esteem, its tolerance and intolerance (often equally inexplicable), its quiet enjoyments, and, best of all, its elegant flirtations.

These things enabled Mr. Hales to pass an agreeable week at Tonbridge, and to form acquaintance with some of its leading inhabitants; which in pursuit of his object he was resolved, as far as he could, to do. And from all of these he obtained very excellent tidings of the Lovejoys, as being a quiet, well-conducted, and highly respectable family, admitted (whenever they cared to be so) to the best society of the neighbourhood, and forgiven for growing cherries, and even for keeping a three-horsed van.

Also, as regarded his own impressions, the more he saw of Old Applewood farm, the more he was pleased with it and with its owners; and calling upon his brother parson, the incumbent of the parish, he found in him a congenial soul, who wanted to get a service out of him. For this Mr. Hales was too wide awake, having taken good care to leave sermons at home; because he had been long enough in holy orders to know what delight all parsons find in spoiling one another’s holidays. Moreover, he had promised himself the pleasure of sitting in a pew, for once, repossessing the right to yawn ad libitum, and even fall into a murmurous nap, after exhausting the sweetness of the well-known Lucretian sentiment – to gaze in safety at another’s labours; or, as the navvy more tersely put it, when asked of his summum bonum, to “look on at t’other beggars.”

Meanwhile, however, many little things were beginning to go crosswise. For instance, Hilary walked down headlong, being exceedingly short of cash, to comfort Mabel, and to get good quarters, and perhaps to go on about everything. Luckily, his uncle Struan met him in the street of Sevenoaks (whither he had ridden for a little change), and amazed him with very strong language, and begged him not to make a confounded fool of himself, and so took him into a public-house. The young man, of course, was astonished to see his uncle carrying on so, dressed as a layman, and roving about without any wife or family.

But when he knew for whose sake it was done, and how strongly his uncle was siding with him, his gratitude and good emotions were such that he scarcely could finish his quart of beer.

“My boy, I am thoroughly ashamed of you,” said his uncle, looking queerly at him. “You are most immature for married life, if you give way to your feelings so.”

“But uncle, when a man is down so much, and turned out of doors by his own father – ”

“When a ‘man’! When a ‘boy’ is what you mean, I suppose. A man would take it differently.”

“I am sure I take it very well,” said Hilary, trying to smile at it. “There, I will drink up my beer; for I know that sort of thing always vexes you. Now, can you say that I have kicked up a row, or done anything that I might have done?”

“No, my boy, no; quite the opposite thing; you have taken it most angelically.”

“Angelically, without an angelus, uncle, or even a stiver in my pocket! Only the cherub aloft, you know – ”

“I don’t know anything about him; and the allusion, to my mind, is profane.”

“Now, uncle, you are hyperclerical, because I have caught you dressed as a bagman!”

“I don’t understand your big Oxford words. In my days they taught theology.”

“And hunting; come now, Uncle Struan, didn’t they teach you hunting?”

“Well,” said the Rector, stroking his chin; “I was a poor young man, of course, and could not afford that sort of thing.”

“Yes, but you did, you know, Uncle Struan; I have heard you boast of it fifty times.”

“What a plague you are, Hilary! There may have been times – however, you are going on quite as if we were sitting and having a cozy talk after dinner at West Lorraine.”

“I wish to goodness we were, my dear uncle. I never shall have such a pleasure again.”

“My dear boy, my dear boy; to talk like that, at your time of life! What a thing love is, to be sure! However, in that state, a dinner is no matter.”

“Well, I shall be off now for London again. A bit of bread and cheese, after all, is as good as anything. Good-bye, my dear uncle, I shall always thank you.”

“You shall thank me for two things before you start. And you should not start, except that I know it to be at present best for you. You shall thank me for as good a dinner as can be got in a place like this; and after that for five gold guineas, just to go on for a bit with.”

Thus the Rector had his way, and fed his nephew beautifully, and sent him back with a better heart in his breast, to meet the future. Hilary of course was much aggrieved, and inclined to be outrageous, at having walked four-and-twenty miles, with eager proceeding at every step, and then being balked of a sight of his love. However, he saw that it was for the best; and five guineas (feel as you will) are something.

His good uncle paid his fare back by the stage, and saw him go off, and kissed hands to him; feeling greatly relieved as soon as ever he was round the corner; for he must have spoiled everything at the farm. Therefore this excellent uncle returned to his snug little sanded parlour, to smoke a fresh pipe; and to think, in its influence, how to get on with these new affairs.

Here were heaps of trouble rising; as peaks of volcanoes come out of the sea. And who was to know how to manage things, so as to make them all subside again? Hilary might seem easy to deal with, so long as he had no money; but even he was apt to take strange whims into his head, although he might feel that he could not pay for them. And then there was the Grower, an obstinate factor in any calculation; and then the Grower’s wife, who might appeal perhaps to the Attorney-General; also Sir Roland, with his dry unaccountable manner of regarding things; and last, not least, the Rector’s own superior part of his household. If he could not manage them, anybody at first sight would say that the fault must be altogether his own – that a man who cannot lay down the law to his own wife and daughters, really is no man, and deserves to be treated accordingly. Yet this depends upon special gifts. The Rector could carry on very well, when he understood the subject, even with his wife and daughters, till it came to crying. Still in the end (as he knew in his heart), he always got the worst of it.

Now what would all these ladies say, if the incumbent of the parish, the rector of the rectory, the very husband or father of all of themselves – as the case might be – were to depart from his sense of right, and the principles he had laid down to them, to such an extent as to cherish Hilary in black rebellion against his own father? Suasion would be lost among them. It is a thing that may be tried, under favourable circumstances, as against one lady, when quite alone; but with four ladies all taking different views of the matter in question, yet ready in a moment to combine against any form of reason, – a bachelor must be Quixotic, a husband and father idiotic, if he relies upon any other motive power than that of his legs. But the Rector was not the man to run away, even from his own family. So, on the whole, he resolved to let things follow their own course, until something new should begin to rise. Except at least upon two little points – one, that Hilary should be kept from visiting the farm just now; and the other, that the Grower must be told of all this love-affair.

Mr. Hales, as an owner of daughters, felt that it was but a father’s due, to know what his favourite child was about in such important matters; and he thought it the surest way to set him bitterly against any moderation, if he were left to find out by surprise what was going on at his own hearth. It happened, however, that the Grower had a shrewd suspicion of the whole of it, and was laughing in his sleeve, and winking (in his own determined way) at his good wife’s manœuvres. “I shall stop it all, when I please,” he said to himself, every night at bed-time; “let them have their little game, and make up their minds to astonish me.” For he, like almost every man who has attained the age of sixty, looked back upon love as a brief excrescence, of about as much importance as a wart.

“Ay, ay, no need to tell me,” he answered, when Mrs. Lovejoy, under the parson’s advice, and at Mabel’s entreaty, broke the matter to him. “I don’t go about with my eyes shut, wife. A man that knows every pear that grows, can tell the colour on a maiden’s cheek. I have settled to send her away to-morrow to her Uncle Catherow. The old mare will be ready at ten o’clock. I meant to leave you to guess the reason; you are so clever all of you. Ha, ha! you thought the old Grower was as blind as a bat; now, didn’t you?”

“Well, at any rate,” replied Mrs. Lovejoy, giving her pillow an angry thump, “I think you might have consulted me, Martin: with half her clothes in the wash-tub, and a frayed ribbon on her Sunday hat! Men are so hot and inconsiderate. All to be done in a moment, of course! The least you could have done, I am sure, would have been to tell me beforehand, Martin; and not to pack her off like that.”

“To be sure! Just as you told me, good wife, your plan for packing her off, for life! Now just go to sleep; and don’t beat about so. When I say a thing I do it.”

CHAPTER XXX.

OUR LAD STEENIE

When the flaunting and the flouting of the summer-prime are over; when the leaves of tree, and bush, and even of unconsidered weeds, hang on their stalks, instead of standing upright, as they used to do; and very often a convex surface, by the cares of life, is worn into a small concavity: a gradual change, to a like effect, may be expected in the human mind.

A man remembers that his own autumn is once more coming over him; that the light is surely waning, and the darkness gathering in; that more of his plans are shed and scattered, as the sun “draws water” among the clouds, or as the gossamer floats idly over the sere and seeded grass. Therefore it is high time to work, to strengthen the threads of the wavering plan, to tighten the mesh of the woven web, to cast about here and there for completion – if the design shall be ever complete.

So now, as the summer passed, a certain gentleman, of more repute perhaps than reputation, began to be anxious about his plans.

Sir Remnant Chapman owned large estates adjoining the dwindled but still fair acreage of the Lorraines, in the weald of Sussex. Much as he differed from Sir Roland in tastes and habits and character, he announced himself, wherever he went, as his most intimate friend and ally. And certainly he was received more freely than any other neighbour at Coombe Lorraine, and knew all the doings and ways of the family, and was even consulted now and then. Warm friendship, however, can scarcely thrive without mutual respect; and though Sir Remnant could never escape from a certain unwilling respect for Sir Roland, the latter never could contrive to reciprocate the feeling.

Because he knew that Sir Remnant was a gentleman of a type already even then departing, although to be found, at the present day, in certain parts of England. A man of fixed opinions, and even what might be accounted principles (at any rate by himself) concerning honour, and birth, and betting, and patriotism, and some other matters, included in a very small et-cetera. It is hard to despise a man who has so many points settled in his system; but it is harder to respect him, when he sees all things with one little eye, and that eye a vicious one. Sir Remnant Chapman had no belief in the goodness of woman, or the truth of man – in the beautiful balance of nature, or even the fatherly kindness that comforts us. Therefore nobody could love him; and very few people paid much attention to his dull hatred of mankind. “Contempt,” he always called it; but he had not power to make it that; neither had he any depth of root, to throw up eminence. A “bitter weed” many people called him; and yet he was not altogether that. For he liked to act against his nature, perhaps from its own perversity; and often did kind things, to spite his own spitefulness, by doing them. As for sense of right and wrong, he had none outside of his own wishes; and he always expected the rest of the world to move on the same low system. How could such a man get on, even for an hour, with one so different – and more than that, so opposite to him – as the good Sir Roland? Mr. Hales, who was not (as we know) at all a tight-laced man himself, and may perhaps have been a little jealous of Sir Remnant, put that question to himself, as well as to his wife and family; and echo only answered “how?” However, soever, there was the fact; and how many facts can we call to mind ever so much stranger?

Sir Remnant’s only son, Stephen Chapman, was now over thirty years of age, and everybody said that it was time for him to change his mode of life. Even his father admitted that he had made an unreasonably long job of “sowing his wild oats,” and now must take to some better culture. And nothing seemed more likely to lead to this desirable result than a speedy engagement to an accomplished, sensible, and attractive girl. Therefore, after a long review and discussion of all the young ladies round, it had been settled that the heir of all the Chapmans should lay close siege to young Alice Lorraine.

“Captain Chapman” – as Stephen was called by courtesy in that neighbourhood, having held a commission in a fashionable regiment, until it was ordered to the war – this man was better than his father in some ways, and much worse in others. He was better, from weakness; not having the strength to work out works of iniquity; and also from having some touches of kindness, whereof his father was intact. He was worse, because he had no sense of honour, no rudiment of a principle; not even a dubious preference for the truth, at first sight, against a lie. Captain Chapman, however, could do one manly thing, and only one. He could drive, having cultivated the art, in the time when it meant something. Horses were broken then, not trained – as nowadays they must be – and skill and nerve were needed for the management of a four-in-hand. Captain Chapman was the first in those parts to drive like Ericthonius, and it took him a very long time to get his father to sit behind him. For the roads were still very bad and perilous, and better suited for postilions, than for Stephen Chapman’s team.

He durst not drive up Coombe Lorraine, or at any rate he feared the descent as yet, though he meant some day to venture it. And now that he was come upon his wooing, he left his gaudy equipage at the foot of the hill, to be sent back to Steyning and come for him at an appointed time. Then he and his father, with mutual grumblings, took to the steep ascent on foot.

Sir Roland had asked them, a few days ago, to drive over and dine with him, either on Thursday, or any other day that might suit them. They came on the Thursday, with their minds made up to be satisfied with anything. But they certainly were not very well pleased to find that the fair Mistress Alice had managed to give them the slip entirely. She was always ready to meet Sir Remnant, and discharge the duties of a hostess to him; but, from some deep instinctive aversion, she could not even bear to sit at table with the Captain. She knew not at all what his character was; neither did Sir Roland know a tenth part of his ill repute; otherwise he had never allowed him to approach the maiden. He simply looked upon Captain Chapman as a fashionable man of the day, who might have been a little wild perhaps, but now meant to settle down in the country, and attend to his father’s large estates.

However, neither of the guests suspected that their visit had fixed the date of another little visit pending long at Horsham; and one girl being as good as another to men of the world of that stamp, they were well content, when the haunch went out, to clink a glass with the Rector’s daughters, instead of receiving a distant bow from a diffident and very shy young lady.

“Now, Lorraine,” began Sir Remnant, after the ladies had left the room, and the Captain was gone out to look at something, according to arrangement, and had taken the Rector with him, “we have known one another a good many years; and I want a little sensible talk with you.”

“Sir Remnant, I hope that our talk is always sensible; so far at least as can be expected on my part.”

“There you are again, Lorraine, using some back meaning, such as no one else can enter into. But let that pass. It is your way. Now I want to say something to you.”

“I also am smitten with a strong desire to know what it is, Sir Remnant.”

“Well, it is neither more nor less than this. You know what dangerous times we live in, with every evil power let loose, and Satan, like a roaring lion, rampant and triumphant. Thank you, yes, I will take a pinch; your snuff is always so delicious. With the arch-enemy prowling about, with democracy, nonconformity, infidelity, and rick-burnings – ”

“Exactly so. How well you express it! I was greatly struck with it in the George and Dragon’s report of your speech at the farmers’ dinner at Billinghurst.”

“Well, well, I may have said it before; but that only makes it the more the truth. Can you deny it, Sir Roland Lorraine?”

“Far be it from me to deny the truth. I am listening with the greatest interest.”

“No, you are not; you never do. You are always thinking of something to yourself. But what I was going to say was this, that it is high time to cement the union, and draw close the bonds of amity between all good men, all men of any principle – by which I mean – come now, you know.”

“To be sure: you mean all stanch Tories.”

“Yes, yes; all who hold by Church and State, land and the constitution. I have educated my son carefully in the only right and true principles. Train up a child – you know what I mean. And you, of course, have brought up your daughter upon the same right system.”

“Nay, rather, I have left her to form her own political opinions. And, to the best of my belief, she has formed none.”

“Lorraine, I am heartily glad to hear it. That is how all the girls should be. When I was in London, they turned me sick with asking my opinion. The less they know, the better for them. Knowledge of anything makes a woman scarcely fit to speak to. My poor dear wife could read and write, and that was quite enough for her. She did it on the jam-pots always, and she could spell most of it. Ah, she was a most wonderful woman!”

“She was. I often found much pleasure in her conversation. She knew so many things that never come by way of reading.”

“And so does Stephen. You should hear him. He never reads any sort of book. Ah, that is the true learning. Books always make stupid people. Now it struck me that – ah, you know, I see. A wink’s as good as a nod, of course. No catching a weasel asleep.” Here Sir Remnant screwed up one eye, and gave Sir Roland a poke in the ribs, with the most waggish air imaginable.

“Again and again I assure you,” said his host, “that I have not the smallest idea what you mean. Your theory about books has in me the most thorough confirmation.”

“Aha! it is all very well – all very well to pretend, Lorraine. Another pinch of snuff, and that settles it. Let them set up their horses together as soon as ever they please – eh?”

“Who? What horses? Why will you thus visit me with impenetrable enigmas?”

“Visit you! Why, you invited me yourself! Who indeed? Why, of course, our lad Steenie, and your girl Lallie!”

“Captain Chapman and my Alice! Such a thought never entered my mind. Do you know that poor Alice is little more than seventeen years old? And Captain Chapman must be – let me see – ”

“Never mind what he is. He is my son and heir, and there’ll be fifty thousand to settle on his wife, in hard cash – not so bad nowadays.”

“Sir Remnant Chapman, I beg you not to say another word on the subject. Your son must be twice my daughter’s age, and he looks even more than that – ”

“Dash my wig! Then I am seventy, I suppose. What the dickens have his looks got to do with the matter? I don’t call him at all a bad-looking fellow. A chip of the old block, that’s what he is. Ah, many a fine woman, I can tell you – ”

“Now, if you please,” Sir Roland said, with a very clear and determined voice – “if you please, we will drop this subject. Your son may be a very good match, and no doubt he is in external matters; and if Alice, when old enough, should become attached to him, perhaps I might not oppose it. There is nothing more to be said at present; and, above all things, she must not hear of it.”

“I see, I see,” answered the other baronet, who was rather short of temper. “Missy must be kept to her bread-and-milk, and good books, and all that, a little longer. By the by, Lorraine, what was it I heard about your son the other day – that he had been making a fool of himself with some grocer’s daughter?”