The Hand of Ethelberta: A Comedy in Chapters

  38. ENCKWORTH COURT

  It was on a dull, stagnant, noiseless afternoon of autumn that Ethelbertafirst crossed the threshold of Enckworth Court. The daylight was solowered by the impervious roof of cloud overhead that it scarcely reachedfurther into Lord Mountclere's entrance-hall than to the splays of thewindows, even but an hour or two after midday; and indoors the glitter ofthe fire reflected itself from the very panes, so inconsiderable were theopposing rays.

  Enckworth Court, in its main part, had not been standing more than ahundred years. At that date the weakened portions of the originalmediaeval structure were pulled down and cleared away, old jambs beingcarried off for rick-staddles, and the foliated timbers of the hall roofmaking themselves useful as fancy chairs in the summer-houses of risinginns. A new block of masonry was built up from the ground of such heightand lordliness that the remnant of the old pile left standing became as amere cup-bearer and culinary menial beside it. The rooms in this oldfragment, which had in times past been considered sufficiently dignifiedfor dining-hall, withdrawing-room, and so on, were now reckoned barelyhigh enough for sculleries, servants' hall, and laundries, the whole ofwhich were arranged therein.

  The modern portion had been planned with such a total disregard ofassociation, that the very rudeness of the contrast gave an interest tothe mass which it might have wanted had perfect harmony been attemptedbetween the old nucleus and its adjuncts, a probable result if theenlargement had taken place later on in time. The issue was that thehooded windows, simple string-courses, and random masonry of the Gothicworkman, stood elbow to elbow with the equal-spaced ashlar, architraves,and fasciae of the Classic addition, each telling its distinct tale as tostage of thought and domestic habit without any of those artifices ofblending or restoration by which the seeker for history in stones will beutterly hoodwinked in time to come.

  To the left of the door and vestibule which Ethelberta passed throughrose the principal staircase, constructed of a freestone so milk-whiteand delicately moulded as to be easily conceived in the lamplight as ofbiscuit-ware. Who, unacquainted with the secrets of geometricalconstruction, could imagine that, hanging so airily there, to allappearance supported on nothing, were twenty or more tons dead weight ofstone, that would have made a prison for an elephant if so arranged? Theart which produced this illusion was questionable, but its success wasundoubted. 'How lovely!' said Ethelberta, as she looked at the fairyascent. 'His staircase alone is worth my hand!'

  Passing along by the colonnade, which partly fenced the staircase fromthe visitor, the saloon was reached, an apartment forming a double cube.About the left-hand end of this were grouped the drawing-rooms andlibrary; while on the right was the dining-hall, with billiard, smoking,and gun rooms in mysterious remoteness beyond.

  Without attempting to trace an analogy between a man and his mansion, itmay be stated that everything here, though so dignified and magnificent,was not conceived in quite the true and eternal spirit of art. It was ahouse in which Pugin would have torn his hair. Those massive blocks ofred-veined marble lining the hall--emulating in their surface-glitter theEscalier de Marbre at Versailles--were cunning imitations in paint andplaster by workmen brought from afar for the purpose, at a prodigiousexpense, by the present viscount's father, and recently repaired and re-varnished. The dark green columns and pilasters corresponding were brickat the core. Nay, the external walls, apparently of massive and solidfreestone, were only veneered with that material, being, like thepillars, of brick within.

  To a stone mask worn by a brick face a story naturally appertained--onewhich has since done service in other quarters. When the vast additionhad just been completed King George visited Enckworth. Its owner pointedout the features of its grand architectural attempt, and waited forcommendation.

  'Brick, brick, brick,' said the king.

  The Georgian Lord Mountclere blushed faintly, albeit to his very poll,and said nothing more about his house that day. When the king was gonehe sent frantically for the craftsmen recently dismissed, and soon thegreen lawns became again the colour of a Nine-Elms cement wharf. Thinfreestone slabs were affixed to the whole series of fronts by coppercramps and dowels, each one of substance sufficient to have furnished apoor boy's pocket with pennies for a month, till not a speck of theoriginal surface remained, and the edifice shone in all the grandeur ofmassive masonry that was not massive at all. But who remembered thissave the builder and his crew? and as long as nobody knew the truth,pretence looked just as well.

  What was honest in Enckworth Court was that portion of the originaledifice which still remained, now degraded to subservient uses. Wherethe untitled Mountclere of the White Rose faction had spread his kneesover the brands, when the place was a castle and not a court, the still-room maid now simmered her preserves; and where Elizabethan mothers anddaughters of that sturdy line had tapestried the love-scenes of Isaac andJacob, boots and shoes were now cleaned and coals stowed away.

  Lord Mountclere had so far recovered from the sprain as to be nominallyquite well, under pressure of a wish to receive guests. The sprain hadin one sense served him excellently. He had now a reason, apart fromthat of years, for walking with his stick, and took care to let thereason be frequently known. To-day he entertained a larger number ofpersons than had been assembled within his walls for a great length oftime.

  Until after dinner Ethelberta felt as if she were staying at an hotel.Few of the people whom she had met at the meeting of the ImperialAssociation greeted her here. The viscount's brother was not present,but Sir Cyril Blandsbury and his wife were there, a lively pair ofpersons, entertaining as actors, and friendly as dogs. Beyond these allthe faces and figures were new to her, though they were handsome anddashing enough to satisfy a court chronicler. Ethelberta, in a dresssloped about as high over the shoulder as would have drawn approval fromReynolds, and expostulation from Lely, thawed and thawed each friend whocame near her, and sent him or her away smiling; yet she felt a littlesurprise. She had seldom visited at a country-house, and knew little ofthe ordinary composition of a group of visitors within its walls; but thepresent assemblage seemed to want much of that old-fashioned stabilityand quaint monumental dignity she had expected to find under thishistorical roof. Nobody of her entertainer's own rank appeared. Not asingle clergyman was there. A tendency to talk Walpolean scandal aboutforeign courts was particularly manifest. And although tropicaltravellers, Indian officers and their wives, courteous exiles, anddescendants of Irish kings, were infinitely more pleasant than LordMountclere's landed neighbours would probably have been, to such acosmopolite as Ethelberta a calm Tory or old Whig company would havegiven a greater treat. They would have struck as gratefully upon hersenses as sylvan scenery after crags and cliffs, or silence after theroar of a cataract.

  It was evening, and all these personages at Enckworth Court were merry,snug, and warm within its walls. Dinner-time had passed, and everythinghad gone on well, when Mrs. Tara O'Fanagan, who had a gold-clamped tooth,which shone every now and then, asked Ethelberta if she would amuse themby telling a story, since nobody present, except Lord Mountclere, hadever heard one from her lips.

  Seeing that Ethelberta had been working at that art as a profession, itcan hardly be said that the question was conceived with tact, though itwas put with grace. Lord Mountclere evidently thought it objectionable,for he looked unhappy. To only one person in the brilliant room did therequest appear as a timely accident, and that was to Ethelberta herself.Her honesty was always making war upon her manoeuvres, and shatteringtheir delicate meshes, to her great inconvenience and delay. Thus therearose those devious impulses and tangential flights which spoil the worksof every would-be schemer who instead of being wholly machine is halfheart. One of these now was to show herself as she really was, not onlyto Lord Mountclere, but to his friends assembled, whom, in her ignorance,she respected more than they deserved, and so get rid of thatself-reproach which had by this time reached a morbid pitch, through herover-sensitiveness to a si
tuation in which a large majority of women andmen would have seen no falseness.

  Full of this curious intention, she quietly assented to the request, andlaughingly bade them put themselves in listening order.

  'An old story will suit us,' said the lady who had importuned her. 'Wehave never heard one.'

  'No; it shall be quite new,' she replied. 'One not yet made public;though it soon will be.'

  The narrative began by introducing to their notice a girl of the poorestand meanest parentage, the daughter of a serving-man, and the fifth often children. She graphically recounted, as if they were her own, thestrange dreams and ambitious longings of this child when young, herattempts to acquire education, partial failures, partial successes, andconstant struggles; instancing how, on one of these occasions, the girlconcealed herself under a bookcase of the library belonging to themansion in which her father served as footman, and having taken with herthere, like a young Fawkes, matches and a halfpenny candle, was going tosit up all night reading when the family had retired, until her fatherdiscovered and prevented her scheme. Then followed her experiences asnursery-governess, her evening lessons under self-selected masters, andher ultimate rise to a higher grade among the teaching sisterhood. Nextcame another epoch. To the mansion in which she was engaged returned atruant son, between whom and the heroine an attachment sprang up. Themaster of the house was an ambitious gentleman just knighted, who,perceiving the state of their hearts, harshly dismissed the homelessgoverness, and rated the son, the consequence being that the youthfulpair resolved to marry secretly, and carried their resolution intoeffect. The runaway journey came next, and then a moving description ofthe death of the young husband, and the terror of the bride.

  The guests began to look perplexed, and one or two exchanged whispers.This was not at all the kind of story that they had expected; it wasquite different from her usual utterances, the nature of which they knewby report. Ethelberta kept her eye upon Lord Mountclere. Soon, to heramazement, there was that in his face which told her that he knew thestory and its heroine quite well. When she delivered the sentence endingwith the professedly fictitious words: 'I thus was reduced to greatdistress, and vainly cast about me for directions what to do,' LordMountclere's manner became so excited and anxious that it actedreciprocally upon Ethelberta; her voice trembled, she moved her lips bututtered nothing. To bring the story up to the date of that very eveninghad been her intent, but it was beyond her power. The spell was broken;she blushed with distress and turned away, for the folly of a disclosurehere was but too apparent.

  Though every one saw that she had broken down, none of them appeared toknow the reason why, or to have the clue to her performance. FortunatelyLord Mountclere came to her aid.

  'Let the first part end here,' he said, rising and approaching her. 'Wehave been well entertained so far. I could scarcely believe that thestory I was listening to was utterly an invention, so vividly does Mrs.Petherwin bring the scenes before our eyes. She must now be exhausted;we will have the remainder to-morrow.'

  They all agreed that this was well, and soon after fell into groups, anddispersed about the rooms. When everybody's attention was thus occupiedLord Mountclere whispered to Ethelberta tremulously, 'Don't tell more:you think too much of them: they are no better than you! Will you meetme in the little winter garden two minutes hence? Pass through thatdoor, and along the glass passage.' He himself left the room by anopposite door.

  She had not set three steps in the warm snug octagon of glass and plantswhen he appeared on the other side.

  'You knew it all before!' she said, looking keenly at him. 'Who toldyou, and how long have you known it?'

  'Before yesterday or last week,' said Lord Mountclere. 'Even before wemet in France. Why are you so surprised?'

  Ethelberta had been surprised, and very greatly, to find him, as it were,secreted in the very rear of her position. That nothing she could tellwas new to him was a good deal to think of, but it was little beside therecollection that he had actually made his first declaration in the faceof that knowledge of her which she had supposed so fatal to all hermatrimonial ambitions.

  'And now only one point remains to be settled,' he said, taking her hand.'You promised at Rouen that at our next interview you would honour mewith a decisive reply--one to make me happy for ever.'

  'But my father and friends?' said she.

  'Are nothing to be concerned about. Modern developments have shaken upthe classes like peas in a hopper. An annuity, and a comfortablecottage--'

  'My brothers are workmen.'

  'Manufacture is the single vocation in which a man's prospects may besaid to be illimitable. Hee-hee!--they may buy me up before they die!And now what stands in the way? It would take fifty alliances with fiftyfamilies so little disreputable as yours, darling, to drag mine down.'

  Ethelberta had anticipated the scene, and settled her course; what had tobe said and done here was mere formality; yet she had been unable to gostraight to the assent required. However, after these words ofself-depreciation, which were let fall as much for her own future ease ofconscience as for his present warning, she made no more ado.

  'I shall think it a great honour to be your wife,' she said simply.