Ernest Maltravers — Complete

CHAPTER III

“How like a prodigal doth she return, With over-weathered ribs and ragged sails.” Merchant of Venice. “Mer. What are these? Uncle. The tenants.” BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.—Wit without Money.

IT was just two years from the night in which Alice had been torn from the cottage: and at that time Maltravers was wandering amongst the ruins of ancient Egypt, when, upon the very lawn where Alice and her lover had so often loitered hand in hand, a gay party of children and young people were assembled. The cottage had been purchased by an opulent and retired manufacturer. He had raised the low thatched roof another story high—and blue slate had replaced the thatch—and the pretty verandahs overgrown with creepers had been taken down because Mrs. Hobbs thought they gave the rooms a dull look; and the little rustic doorway had been replaced by four Ionic pillars in stucco; and a new dining-room, twenty-two feet by eighteen, had been built out at one wing, and a new drawing-room had been built over the new dining-room. And the poor little cottage looked quite grand and villa-like. The fountain had been taken away, because it made the house damp; and there was such a broad carriage-drive from the gate to the house! The gate was no longer the modest green wooden gate, ever ajar with its easy latch; but a tall, cast-iron, well-locked gate, between two pillars to match the porch. And on one of the gates was a brass plate, on which was graven, “Hobbs’ Lodge—Ring the bell.” The lesser Hobbses and the bigger Hobbses were all on the lawn—many of them fresh from school—for it was the half-holiday of a Saturday afternoon. There was mirth, and noise, and shouting and whooping, and the respectable old couple looked calmly on; Hobbs the father smoking his pipe (alas, it was not the dear meerschaum); Hobbs the mother talking to her eldest daughter (a fine young woman, three months married, for love, to a poor man), upon the proper number of days that a leg of mutton (weight ten pounds) should be made to last. “Always, my dear, have large joints, they are much the most saving. Let me see—what a noise the boys do make! No, my love, the ball’s not here.”

“Mamma, it is under your petticoats.”

“La, child, how naughty you are!”

“Holla, you sir! it’s my turn to go in now. Biddy, wait,—girls have no innings—girls only fag out.”

“Bob, you cheat.”

“Pa, Ned says I cheat.”

“Very likely, my dear, you are to be a lawyer.”

“Where was I, my dear?” resumed Mrs. Hobbs, resettling herself, and readjusting the invaded petticoats. “Oh, about the leg of mutton!—yes, large joints are the best—the second day a nice hash, with dumplings; the third, broil the bone—your husband is sure to like broiled bones!—and then keep the scraps for Saturday’s pie;—you know, my dear, your father and I were worse off than you when we began. But now we have everything that is handsome about us—nothing like management. Saturday pies are very nice things, and then you start clear with your joint on Sunday. A good wife like you should never neglect the Saturday’s pie!”

“Yes,” said the bride, mournfully; “but Mr. Tiddy does not like pies.”

“Not like pies! that very odd—Mr. Hobbs likes pies—perhaps you don’t have the crust made thick eno’. How somever, you can make it up to him with a pudding. A wife should always study her husband’s tastes—what is a man’s home without love? Still a husband ought not to be aggravating, and dislike pie on a Saturday!”

“Holla! I say, ma, do you see that ‘ere gipsy? I shall go and have my fortune told.”

“And I—and I!”

“Lor, if there ben’t a tramper!” cried Mr. Hobbs, rising indignantly; “what can the parish be about?”

The object of these latter remarks, filial and paternal, was a young woman in a worn, threadbare cloak, with her face pressed to the openwork of the gate, and looking wistfully—oh, how wistfully!—within. The children eagerly ran up to her, but they involuntarily slackened their steps when they drew near, for she was evidently not what they had taken her for. No gipsy hues darkened the pale, thin, delicate cheek—no gipsy leer lurked in those large blue and streaming eyes—no gipsy effrontery bronzed that candid and childish brow. As she thus pressed her countenance with convulsive eagerness against the cold bars, the young people caught the contagion of inexpressible and half-fearful sadness—they approached almost respectfully—“Do you want anything here?” said the eldest and boldest of the boys.

“I—I—surely this is Dale Cottage?”

“It was Dale Cottage, it is Hobbs’ Lodge now; can’t you read?” said the heir of the Hobbs’s honours, losing, in contempt at the girl’s ignorance, his first impression of sympathy.

“And—and—Mr. Butler, is he gone too?”

Poor child! she spoke as if the cottage was gone, not improved; the Ionic portico had no charm for her!

“Butler!—no such person lives here. Pa, do you know where Mr. Butler lives?”

Pa was now moving up to the place of conference the slow artillery of his fair round belly and portly calves. “Butler, no—I know nothing of such a name—no Mr. Butler lives here. Go along with you—ain’t you ashamed to beg?”

“No Mr. Butler!” said the girl, gasping for breath, and clinging to the gate for support. “Are you sure, sir?”

“Sure, yes!—what do you want with him?”

“Oh, papa, she looks faint!” said one of the girls deprecatingly—“do let her have something to eat; I’m sure she’s hungry.”

Mr. Hobbs looked angry; he had often been taken in, and no rich man likes beggars. Generally speaking, the rich man is in the right. But then Mr. Hobbs turned to the suspected tramper’s sorrowful face and then to his fair pretty child—and his good angel whispered something to Mr. Hobbs’s heart—and he said, after a pause, “Heaven forbid that we should not feel for a poor fellow-creature not so well to do as ourselves. Come in, my lass, and have a morsel to eat.”

The girl did not seem to hear him, and he repeated the invitation, approaching to unlock the gate.

“No, sir,” said she, then; “no, I thank you. I could not come in now. I could not eat here. But tell me, sir, I implore you, can you not even guess where I may find Mr. Butler?”

“Butler!” said Mrs. Hobbs, whom curiosity had now drawn to the spot. “I remember that was the name of the gentleman who hired the place, and was robbed.”

“Robbed!” said Mr. Hobbs, falling back and relocking the gate—“and the new tea-pot just come home,” he muttered inly. “Come, be off, child—be off; we know nothing of your Mr. Butlers.”

The young woman looked wildly in his face, cast a hurried glance over the altered spot, and then, with a kind of shiver, as if the wind had smitten her delicate form too rudely, she drew her cloak more closely round her shoulders, and without saying another word, moved away. The party looked after her as, with trembling steps, she passed down the road, and all felt that pang of shame which is common to the human heart at the sight of a distress it has not sought to soothe. But this feeling vanished at once from the breast of Mrs. and Mr. Hobbs, when they saw the girl stop where a turn of the road brought the gate before her eyes; and for the first time, they perceived, what the worn cloak had hitherto concealed, that the poor young thing bore an infant in her arms. She halted, she gazed fondly back. Even at that instant the despair of her eyes was visible; and then, as she pressed her lips to the infant’s brow, they heard a convulsive sob—they saw her turn away, and she was gone!

“Well, I declare!” said Mrs. Hobbs.

“News for the parish,” said Mr. Hobbs; “and she so young too!—what a shame!”

“The girls about here are very bad nowadays, Jenny,” said the mother to the bride.

“I see now why she wanted Mr. Butler,” quoth Hobbs, with a knowing wink—“the slut has come to swear!”

And it was for this that Alice had supported her strength—her courage-during the sharp pangs of childbirth; during a severe and crushing illness, which for months after her confinement had stretched her upon a peasant’s bed (the object of the rude but kindly charity of an Irish shealing)—for this, day after day, she had whispered to herself, “I shall get well, and I will beg my way to the cottage, and find him there still, and put my little one into his arms, and all will be bright again;”—for this, as soon as she could walk without aid, had she set out on foot from the distant land; for this, almost with a dog’s instinct (for she knew not what way to turn—what county the cottage was placed in; she only knew the name of the neighbouring town; and that, populous as it was, sounded strange to the ears of those she asked; and she had often and often been directed wrong),—for this, I say, almost with a dog’s faithful instinct, had she, in cold and heat, in hunger and in thirst, tracked to her old master’s home her desolate and lonely way! And thrice had she over-fatigued herself—and thrice again been indebted to humble pity for a bed whereon to lay a feverish and broken frame. And once, too, her baby—her darling, her life of life, had been ill—had been near unto death, and she could not stir till the infant (it was a girl) was well again, and could smile in her face and crow. And thus many, many months had elapsed, since the day she set out on her pilgrimage, to that on which she found its goal. But never, save when the child was ill, had she desponded or abated heart and hope. She should see him again, and he would kiss her child. And now—no—I cannot paint the might of that stunning blow! She knew not, she dreamed not, of the kind precautions Maltravers had taken; and he had not sufficiently calculated on her thorough ignorance of the world. How could she divine that the magistrate, not a mile distant from her, could have told her all she sought to know? Could she but have met the gardener—or the old woman-servant—all would have been well! These last, indeed, she had the forethought to ask for. But the woman was dead, and the gardener had taken a strange service in some distant county. And so died her last gleam of hope. If one person who remembered the search of Maltravers had but met and recognised her! But she had been seen by so few—and now the bright, fresh girl was so sadly altered! Her race was not yet run, and many a sharp wind upon the mournful seas had the bark to brave before its haven was found at last.

CHAPTER IV

“Patience and sorrow strove Which should express her goodliest.” —SHAKESPEARE. “Je la plains, je la blame, et je suis son appui.”12 -VOLTAIRE.

AND now Alice felt that she was on the wide world alone, with her child—no longer to be protected, but to protect; and after the first few days of agony, a new spirit, not indeed of hope, but of endurance, passed within her. Her solitary wanderings, with God her only guide, had tended greatly to elevate and confirm her character. She felt a strong reliance on His mysterious mercy—she felt, too, the responsibility of a mother. Thrown for so many months upon her own resources, even for the bread of life, her intellect was unconsciously sharpened, and a habit of patient fortitude had strengthened a nature originally clinging and femininely soft. She resolved to pass into some other county, for she could neither bear the thoughts that haunted the neighbourhood around her, nor think, without a loathing horror, of the possibility of her father’s return. Accordingly, one day, she renewed her wanderings—and after a week’s travel, arrived at a small village. Charity is so common in England, it so spontaneously springs up everywhere, like the good seed by the roadside, that she had rarely wanted the bare necessaries of existence. And her humble manner, and sweet, well-tuned voice, so free from the professional whine of mendicancy, had usually its charm for the sternest. So she generally obtained enough to buy bread and a night’s lodging, and, if sometimes she failed, she could bear hunger, and was not afraid of creeping into some shed, or, when by the sea-shore, even into some sheltering cavern. Her child throve too—for God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb! But now, so far as physical privation went, the worst was over.

It so happened that as Alice was drawing herself wearily along to the entrance of the village which was to bound her day’s journey, she was met by a lady, past middle age, in whose countenance compassion was so visible, that Alice would not beg, for she had a strange delicacy or pride, or whatever it may be called, and rather begged of the stern than of those who looked kindly at her—she did not like to lower herself in the eyes of the last.

The lady stopped.

“My poor girl, where are you going?”

“Where God pleases, madam,” said Alice.

“Humph! and is that your own child?—you are almost a child yourself.”

“It is mine, madam,” said Alice, gazing fondly at the infant; “it is my all!”

The lady’s voice faltered. “Are you married?” she asked.

“Married!—Oh, no, madam!” replied Alice, innocently, yet without blushing, for she never knew that she had done wrong in loving Maltravers.

The lady drew gently back, but not in horror—no, in still deeper compassion; for that lady had virtue, and she knew that the faults of her sex are sufficiently punished to permit Virtue to pity them without a sin.

“I am sorry for it,” she said, however, with greater gravity. “Are you travelling to seek the father?”

“Ah, madam! I shall never see him again!” And Alice wept.

“What!—he has abandoned you—so young, so beautiful!” added the lady to herself.

“Abandoned me!—no, madam; but it is a long tale. Good evening—I thank you kindly for your pity.”

The lady’s eyes ran over.

“Stay,” said she; “tell me frankly where you are going, and what is your object.”

“Alas! madam, I am going anywhere, for I have no home; but I wish to live, and work for my living, in order that my child may not want for anything. I wish I could maintain myself—he used to say I could.”

“He!—your language and manner are not those of a peasant. What can you do? What do you know?”

“Music, and work, and—and—”

“Music!—this is strange! What were your parents?”

Alice shuddered, and hid her face with her hands.

The lady’s interest was now fairly warmed in her behalf.

“She has sinned,” said she to herself; “but at that age, how can one be harsh? She must not be thrown upon the world to make sin a habit. Follow me,” she said, after a little pause; “and think you have found a friend.”

The lady then turned from the high-road down a green lane which led to a park lodge. This lodge she entered; and after a short conversation with the inmate, beckoned to Alice to join her.

“Janet,” said Alice’s new protector to a comely and pleasant-eyed woman, “this is the young person—you will show her and the infant every attention. I shall send down proper clothing for her to-morrow, and I shall then have thought what will be best for her future welfare.”

With that the lady smiled benignly upon Alice, whose heart was too full to speak; and the door of the cottage closed upon her, and Alice thought the day had grown darker.

CHAPTER V

“Believe me, she has won me much to pity her. Alas! her gentle nature was not made To buffet with adversity.” —ROWE. “Sober he was, and grave from early youth, Mindful of forms, but more intent on truth; In a light drab he uniformly dress’d, And look serene th’ unruffled mind express’d. “Yet might observers in his sparkling eye Some observation, some acuteness spy The friendly thought it keen, the treacherous deem’d it sly; Yet not a crime could foe or friend detect, His actions all were like his speech correct— Chaste, sober, solemn, and devout they named Him who was this, and not of this ashamed.” —CRABBE. “I’ll on and sound this secret.” —BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

MRS. LESLIE, the lady introduced to the reader in the last chapter, was a woman of the firmest intellect combined (no unusual combination) with the softest heart. She learned Alice’s history with admiration and pity. The natural innocence and honesty of the young mother spoke so eloquently in her words and looks, that Mrs. Leslie, on hearing her tale, found much less to forgive than she had anticipated. Still she deemed it necessary to enlighten Alice as to the criminality of the connection she had formed. But here Alice was singularly dull—she listened in meek patience to Mrs. Leslie’s lecture; but it evidently made but slight impression on her. She had not yet seen enough of the social state to correct the first impressions of the natural: and all she could say in answer to Mrs. Leslie was: “It may be all very true, madam, but I have been so much better since I knew him!”

But though Alice took humbly any censure upon herself, she would not hear a syllable insinuated against Maltravers. When, in a very natural indignation, Mrs. Leslie denounced him as a destroyer of innocence—for Mrs. Leslie could not learn all that extenuated his offence—Alice started up with flashing eyes and heaving heart, and would have hurried from the only shelter she had in the wide world—she would sooner have died—she would sooner even have seen her child die, than done that idol of her soul, who, in her eyes, stood alone on some pinnacle between earth and heaven, the wrong of hearing him reviled. With difficulty Mrs. Leslie could restrain, with still more difficulty could she pacify and soothe her; and for the girl’s petulance, which others might have deemed insolent or ungrateful, the woman-heart of Mrs. Leslie loved her all the better. The more she saw of Alice, and the more she comprehended her story and her character, the more was she lost in wonder at the romance of which this beautiful child had been the heroine, and the more perplexed she was as to Alice’s future prospects.

At length, however, when she became acquainted with Alice’s musical acquirements, which were, indeed, of no common order, a light broke in upon her. Here was the source of her future independence. Maltravers, it will be remembered, was a musician of consummate skill as well as taste, and Alice’s natural talent for the art had advanced her, in the space of months, to a degree of perfection which it cost others—which it had cost even the quick Maltravers—years to obtain. But we learn so rapidly when our teachers are those we love: and it may be observed that the less our knowledge, the less perhaps our genius in other things, the more facile are our attainments in music, which is a very jealous mistress of the mind. Mrs. Leslie resolved to have her perfected in this art, and so enable her to become a teacher to others. In the town of C———, about thirty miles from Mrs. Leslie’s house, though in the same county, there was no inconsiderable circle of wealthy and intelligent persons; for it was a cathedral town, and the resident clergy drew around them a kind of provincial aristocracy. Here, as in most rural towns in England, music was much cultivated, both among the higher and middle classes. There were amateur concerts, and glee-clubs, and subscriptions for sacred music; and once every five years there was the great C——— Festival. In this town Mrs. Leslie established Alice: she placed her under the roof of a ci-devant music-master, who, having retired from his profession, was no longer jealous of rivals, but who, by handsome terms, was induced to complete the education of Alice. It was an eligible and comfortable abode, and the music-master and his wife were a good-natured easy old couple.

Three months of resolute and unceasing perseverance, combined with the singular ductility and native gifts of Alice, sufficed to render her the most promising pupil the good musician had ever accomplished; and in three months more, introduced by Mrs. Leslie to many of the families in the place, Alice was established in a home of her own; and, what with regular lessons, and occasional assistance at musical parties, she was fairly earning what her tutor reasonably pronounced to be “a very genteel independence.”

Now, in these arrangements (for we must here go back a little), there had been one gigantic difficulty of conscience in one party, of feeling in another, to surmount. Mrs. Leslie saw at once that unless Alice’s misfortune was concealed, all the virtues and all the talents in the world could not enable her to retrace the one false step. Mrs. Leslie was a woman of habitual truth and strict rectitude, and she was sorely perplexed between the propriety of candour and its cruelty. She felt unequal to take the responsibility of action on herself; and, after much meditation, she resolved to confide her scruples to one who, of all whom she knew, possessed the highest character for moral worth and religious sanctity. This gentleman, lately a widower, lived at the outskirts of the town selected for Alice’s future residence, and at that time happened to be on a visit in Mrs. Leslie’s neighbourhood. He was an opulent man, a banker; he had once represented the town in parliament, and retiring, from disinclination to the late hours and onerous fatigues even of an unreformed House of Commons, he still possessed an influence to return one, if not both, of the members for the city of C———. And that influence was always exerted so as best to secure his own interest with the powers that be, and advance certain objects of ambition (for he was both an ostentatious and ambitious man in his own way), which he felt he might more easily obtain by proxy than by his own votes and voice in parliament—an atmosphere in which his light did not shine. And it was with a wonderful address that the banker contrived at once to support the government, and yet, by the frequent expression of liberal opinions, to conciliate the Whigs and the Dissenters of his neighbourhood. Parties, political and sectarian, were not then so irreconcilable as they are now. In the whole county there was no one so respected as this eminent person, and yet he possessed no shining talents, though a laborious and energetic man of business. It was solely and wholly the force of moral character which gave him his position in society. He felt this; he was sensitively proud of it; he was painfully anxious not to lose an atom of a distinction that required to be vigilantly secured. He was a very remarkable, yet not (perhaps could we penetrate all hearts), a very uncommon character—this banker! He had risen from, comparatively speaking, a low origin and humble fortunes, and entirely by the scrupulous and sedate propriety of his outward conduct. With such a propriety he, therefore, inseparably connected every notion of worldly prosperity and honour. Thus, though far from a bad man, he was forced into being something of a hypocrite. Every year he had grown more starch and more saintly. He was conscience-keeper to the whole town; and it is astonishing how many persons hardly dared to make a will or subscribe to a charity without his advice. As he was a shrewd man of this world, as well as an accredited guide to the next, his advice was precisely of a nature to reconcile the Conscience and the Interest; and he was a kind of negotiator in the reciprocal diplomacy of earth and heaven. But our banker was really a charitable man, and a benevolent man, and a sincere believer. How, then, was he a hypocrite? Simply because he professed to be far more charitable, more benevolent, and more pious than he really was. His reputation had now arrived to that degree of immaculate polish that the smallest breath, which would not have tarnished the character of another man, would have fixed an indelible stain upon his. As he affected to be more strict than the churchman, and was a great oracle with all who regarded churchmen as lukewarm, so his conduct was narrowly watched by all the clergy of the orthodox cathedral, good men, doubtless, but not affecting to be saints, who were jealous at being so luminously outshone by a layman and an authority of the sectarians. On the other hand, the intense homage and almost worship he received from his followers kept his goodness upon a stretch, if not beyond all human power, certainly beyond his own. For “admiration” (as it is well said somewhere) “is a kind of superstition which expects miracles.” From nature this gentleman had received an inordinate share of animal propensities: he had strong passions, he was by temperament a sensualist. He loved good eating and good wine—he loved women. The two former blessings of the carnal life are not incompatible with canonisation; but St. Anthony has shown that women, however angelic, are not precisely that order of angels that saints may safely commune with. If, therefore, he ever yielded to temptations of a sexual nature, it was with profound secrecy and caution; nor did his right hand know what his left hand did.