Scenes of Clerical Life
kitchen-gardens and the hot-houses, where the rich bunches of green and purple
grapes hung from the roof, far out of reach of the tiny yellow hand that
couldn't help streching itself out towards them; though the hand was sure at
last to be satisfied with some delicate-flavoured fruit or sweet-scented flower.
Indeed, in the long monotonous leisure of that great country-house, you may be
sure there was always some one who had nothing better to do than to play with
Tina. So that the little southern bird had its northern nest lined with
tenderness, and caresses, and pretty things. A loving sensitive nature was too
likely, under such nurture, to have its susceptibility heightened into unfitness
for an encounter with any harder experience; all the more, because there were
gleams of fierce resistance to any discipline that had a harsh or unloving
aspect. For the only thing in which Caterina showed any precocity was a certain
ingenuity in vindictiveness. When she was five years old she had revenged
herself for an unpleasant prohibition by pouring the ink into Mrs Sharp's
workbasket; and once, when Lady Cheverel took her doll from her, because she was
affectionately licking the paint off its face, the little minx straightway
climbed on a chair and threw down a flower-vase that stood on a bracket. This
was almost the only instance in which her anger overcame her awe of Lady
Cheverel, who had the ascendancy always belonging to kindness that never melts
into caresses, and is severely but uniformly beneficent.
By-and-by the happy monotony of Cheverel Manor was broken in upon in the way Mr
Warren had announced. The roads through the park were cut up by waggons carrying
loads of stone from a neighbouring quarry, the green courtyard became dusty with
lime, and the peaceful house rang with the sound of tools. For the next ten
years Sir Christopher was occupied with the architectural metamorphosis of his
old family mansion; thus anticipating, through the prompting of his individual
taste, that general reaction from the insipid imitation of the Palladian style,
towards a restoration of the Gothic, which marked the close of the eighteenth
century. This was the object he had set his heart on, with a singleness of
determination which was regarded with not a little contempt by his fox-hunting
neighbours, who wondered greatly that a man with some of the best blood in
England in his veins, should be mean enough to economise in his cellar, and
reduce his stud to two old coach-horses and a hack, for the sake of riding a
hobby, and playing the architect. Their wives did not see so much to blame in
the matter of the cellar and stables, but they were eloquent in pity for poor
Lady Cheverel, who had to live in no more than three rooms at once, and who must
be distracted with noises, and have her constitution undermined by unhealthy
smells. It was as bad as having a husband with an asthma. Why did not Sir
Christopher take a house for her at Bath, or, at least, if he must spend his
time in overlooking workmen, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Manor? This
pity was quite gratuitous, as the most plentiful pity always is; for though Lady
Cheverel did not share her husband's architectural enthusiasm, she had too
rigorous a view of a wife's duties, and too profound a deference for Sir
Christopher, to regard submission as a grievance. As for Sir Christopher, he was
perfectly indifferent to criticism. "An obstinate, crotchety man," said his
neighbours. But I, who have seen Cheverel Manor as he bequeathed it to his
heirs, rather attribute that unswerving architectural purpose of his, conceived
and carried out through long years of systematic personal exertion, to something
of the fervour of genius, as well as inflexibility of will; and in walking
through those rooms, with their splendid ceilings and their meagre furniture,
which tell how all the spare money had been absorbed before personal comfort was
thought of, I have felt that there dwelt in this old English baronet some of
that sublime spirit which distinguishes art from luxury, and worships beauty
apart from self-indulgence.
While Cheverel Manor was growing from ugliness into beauty, Caterina too was
growing from a little yellow bantling into a whiter maiden, with no positive
beauty indeed, but with a certain light airy grace, which, with her large
appealing dark eyes, and a voice that, in its low-toned tenderness, recalled the
love-notes of the stock-dove, gave her a more than usual charm. Unlike the
building, however, Caterina's development was the result of no systematic or
careful appliances. She grew up very much like the primroses, which the gardener
is not sorry to see within his enclosure, but takes no pains to cultivate. Lady
Cheverel taught her to read and write, and say her catechism; Mr Warren, being a
good accountant, gave her lessons in arithmetic, by her ladyship's desire; and
Mrs Sharp initiated her in all the mysteries of the needle. But, for a long
time, there was no thought of giving her any more elaborate education. It is
very likely that to her dying day Caterina thought the earth stood still, and
that the sun and stars moved round it; but so, for the matter of that, did
Helen, and Dido, and Desdemona, and Juliet; whence I hope you will not think my
Caterina less worthy to be a heroine on that account. The truth is, that, with
one exception, her only talent lay in loving; and there, it is probable, the
most astronomical of women could not have surpassed her. Orphan and proteg?e
though she was, this supreme talent of hers found plenty of exercise at Cheverel
Manor, and Caterina had more people to love than many a small lady and gentleman
affluent in silver mugs and blood relations. I think the first place in her
childish heart was given to Sir Christopher, for little girls are apt to attach
themselves to the finest-looking gentleman at hand, especially as he seldom has
anything to do with discipline. Next to the Baronet came Dorcas, the merry
rosy-cheeked damsel who was Mrs Sharp's lieutenant in the nursery, and thus
played the part of the raisins in a dose of senna. It was a black day for
Caterina when Dorcas married the coachman, and went, with a great sense of
elevation in the world, to preside over a "public" in the noisy town of
Sloppeter. A little china box, bearing the motto "Though lost to sight, to
memory dear," which Dorcas sent her as a remembrance, was among Caterina's
treasures ten years after.
The one other exceptional talent, you already guess, was music. When the fact
that Caterina had a remarkable ear for music, and a still more remarkable voice,
attracted Lady Cheverel's notice, the discovery was very welcome both to her and
Sir Christopher. Her musical education became at once an object of interest.
Lady Cheverel devoted much time to it; and the rapidity of Tina's progress
surpassing all hopes, an Italian singing-master was engaged, for several years,
to spend some months together at Cheverel Manor. This unexpected gift made a
great alteration in Caterina's position. After those first years in which little
girls are petted like puppies and kittens, t
here comes a time when it seems less
obvious what they can be good for, especially when, like Caterina, they give no
particular promise of cleverness or beauty; and it is not surprising that in
that uninteresting period there was no particular plan formed as to her future
position. She could always help Mrs Sharp, supposing she were fit for nothing
else, as she grew up; but now, this rare gift of song endeared her to Lady
Cheverel, who loved music above all things, and it associated her at once with
the pleasures of the drawing-room. Insensibly she came to be regarded as one of
the family, and the servants began to understand that Miss Sarti was to be a
lady after all.
"And the raight on't too," said Mr Bates, "for she hasn't the cut of a gell as
must work for her bread; she's as nesh an' dilicate as a paichblossom ?welly
laike a linnet, wi' on'y joost body anoof to hold her voice."
But long before Tina had reached this stage of her history, a new era had begun
for her, in the arrival of a younger companion than any she had hitherto known.
When she was no more than seven, a ward of Sir Christopher's?a lad of fifteen,
Maynard Gilfil by name?began to spend his vacations at Cheverel Manor, and found
there no playfellow so much to his mind as Caterina. Maynard was an affectionate
lad, who retained a propensity to white rabbits, pet squirrels, and guinea-pigs,
perhaps a little beyond the age at which young gentlemen usually look down on
such pleasure as puerile. He was also much given to fishing, and to carpentry,
considered as a fine art, without any base view to utility. And in all these
pleasures it was his delight to have Caterina as his companion, to call her
little pet names, answer her wondering questions, and have her toddling after
him as you may have seen a Blenheim spaniel trotting after a large setter.
Whenever Maynard went back to school, there was a little scene of parting.
"You won't forget me, Tina, before I come back again? I shall leave you all the
whip-cord we've made; and don't you let Guinea die. Come, give me a kiss, and
promise not to forget me."
As the years wore on, and Maynard passed from school to college, and from a slim
lad to a stalwart young man, their companionship in the vacations necessarily
took a different form, but it retained a brotherly and sisterly familiarity.
With Maynard the boyish affection had insensibly grown into ardent love. Among
all the many kinds of first love, that which begins in childish companionship is
the strongest and most enduring: when passion comes to unite its force to long
affection, love is at its spring-tide. And Maynard Gilfil's love was of a kind
to make him prefer being tormented by Caterina to any pleasure, apart from her,
which the most benevolent magician could have devised for him. It is the way
with those tall large-limbed men, from Samson downwards. As for Tina, the little
minx was perfectly well aware that Maynard was her slave; he was the one person
in the world whom she did as she pleased with; and I need not tell you that this
was a symptom of her being perfectly heart-whole so far as he was concerned: for
a passionate woman's love is always overshadowed by fear.
Maynard Gilfil did not deceive himself in his interpretation of Caterina's
feelings, but he nursed the hope that some time or other she would at least care
enough for him to accept his love. So he waited patiently for the day when he
might venture to say, "Caterina, I love you!" You see, he would have been
content with very little, being one of those men who pass through life without
making the least clamour about themselves; thinking neither the cut of his coat,
nor the flavour of his soup, nor the precise depth of a servant's bow, at all
momentous. He thought? foolishly enough, as lovers will think?that it was a good
augury for him when he came to be domesticated at Cheverel Manor in the quality
of chaplain there, and curate of a neighbouring parish; judging falsely, from
his own case, that habit and affection were the likeliest avenues to love. Sir
Christopher satisfied several feelings in installing Maynard as chaplain in his
house. He liked the old-fashioned dignity of that domestic appendage; he liked
his ward's companionship; and, as Maynard had some private fortune, he might
take life easily in that agreeable home, keeping his hunter, and observing a
mild regimen of clerical duty, until the Cumbermoor living should fall in, when
he might be settled for life in the neighbourhood of the manor. "With Caterina
for a wife, too," Sir Christopher soon began to think; for though the good
Baronet was not at all quick to suspect what was unpleasant and opposed to his
views of fitness, he was quick to see what would dovetail with his own plans;
and he had first guessed, and then ascertained by direct inquiry, the state of
Maynard's feelings. He at once leaped to the conclusion that Caterina was of the
same mind, or at least would be, when she was old enough. But these were too
early days for anything definite to be said or done.
Meanwhile, new circumstances were arising, which, though they made no change in
Sir Christopher's plans and prospects, converted Mr Gilfil's hopes into
anxieties, and made it clear to him not only that Caterina's heart was never
likely to be his, but that it was given entirely to another.
Once or twice in Caterina's childhood, there had been another boy-visitor at the
manor, younger than Maynard Gilfil?a beautiful boy with brown curls and splendid
clothes, on whom Caterina had looked with shy admiration. This was Anthony
Wybrow, the son of Sir Christopher's younger sister, and chosen heir of Cheverel
Manor. The Baronet had sacrificed a large sum, and even straitened the resources
by which he was to carry out his architectural schemes, for the sake of removing
the entail from his estate, and making this boy his heir?moved to the step, I am
sorry to say, by an implacable quarrel with his elder sister; for a power of
forgiveness was not among Sir Christopher's virtues. At length, on the death of
Anthony's mother, when he was no longer a curly-headed boy, but a tall young
man, with a captain's commission, Cheverel Manor became his home too, whenever
he was absent from his regiment. Caterina was then a little woman, between
sixteen and seventeen, and I need not spend many words in explaining what you
perceive to be the most natural thing in the world.
There was little company kept at the Manor, and Captain Wybrow would have been
much duller if Caterina had not been there. It was pleasant to pay her
attentions?to speak to her in gentle tones, to see her little flutter of
pleasure, the blush that just lit up her pale cheek, and the momentary timid
glance of her dark eyes, when he praised her singing, leaning at her side over
the piano. Pleasant, too, to cut out that chaplain, with his large calves! What
idle man can withstand the temptation of a woman to fascinate, and another man
to eclipse??especially when it is quite clear to himself that he means no
mischief, and shall leave everything to come right again by-and-by. At the end
of eighteen month
s, however, during which Captain Wybrow had spent much of his
time at the Manor, he found that matters had reached a point which he had not at
all contemplated. Gentle tones had led to tender words, and tender words had
called forth a response of looks which made it impossible not to carry on the
crescendo of love-making. To find oneself adored by a little, graceful,
dark-eyed, sweet-singing woman, whom no one need despise, is an agreeable
sensation, comparable to smoking the finest Latakia, and also imposes some
return of tenderness as a duty.
Perhaps you think that Captain Wybrow, who knew that it would be ridiculous to
dream of his marrying Caterina, must have been a reckless libertine to win her
affections in this manner! Not at all. He was a young man of calm passions, who
was rarely led into any conduct of which he could not give a plausible account
to himself; and the tiny fragile Caterina was a woman who touched the
imagination and the affections rather than the senses. He really felt very
kindly towards her, and would very likely have loved her?if he had been able to
love any one. But nature had not endowed him with that capability. She had given
him an admirable figure, the whitest of hands, the most delicate of nostrils,
and a large amount of serene self-satisfaction; but, as if to save such a
delicate piece of work from any risk of being shattered, she had guarded him
from the liability to a strong emotion. There was no list of youthful
misdemeanours on record against him, and Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel
thought him the best of nephews, the most satisfactory of heirs, full of
grateful deference to themselves, and, above all things, guided by a sense of
duty. Captain Wybrow always did the thing easiest and most agreeable to him from
a sense of duty: he dressed expensively, because it was a duty he owed to his
position; from a sense of duty he adapted himself to Sir Christopher's
inflexible will, which it would have been troublesome as well as useless to
resist; and, being of a delicate constitution, he took care of his health from a
sense of duty. His health was the only point on which he gave anxiety to his
friends; and it was owing to this that Sir Christopher wished to see his nephew
early married, the more so as a match after the Baronet's own heart appeared
immediately attainable. Anthony had seen and admired Miss Assher, the only child
of a lady who had been Sir Christopher's earliest love, but who, as things will
happen in this world, had married another baronet instead of him. Miss Assher's
father was now dead, and she was in possession of a pretty estate. If, as was
probable, she should prove susceptible to the merits of Anthony's person and
character, nothing could make Sir Christopher so happy as to see a marriage
which might be expected to secure the inheritance of Cheverel Manor from getting
into the wrong hands. Anthony had already been kindly received by Lady Assher as
the nephew of her early friend; why should he not go to Bath, where she and her
daughter were then residing, follow up the acquaintance, and win a handsome,
well-born, and sufficiently wealthy bride?
Sir Christopher's wishes were communicated to his nephew, who at once intimated
his willingness to comply with them?from a sense of duty. Caterina was tenderly
informed by her lover of the sacrifice demanded from them both; and three days
afterwards occurred the parting scene you have witnessed in the gallery, on the
eve of Captain Wybrow's departure for Bath.
CHAPTER V.
The inexorable ticking of the clock is like the throb of pain to sensations made
keen by a sickening fear. And so it is with the great clock-work of nature.
Daisies and buttercups give way to the brown waving grasses, tinged with the
warm red sorrel; the waving grasses are swept away, and the meadows lie like