The Old House at Railes: A heartwarming rags to riches Victorian family saga

by Mary E. Pearce

  This was Susannah’s first ball. It was also her birthday, and she was fifteen. She danced the first dance with her uncle George; the second with her cousin Anthony; and the third, a quadrille, she danced with Martin. But first they stood talking together, sipping glasses of iced grenadine.

  ‘You see I am wearing your birthday gift.’ She touched her necklace with one white-gloved hand. ‘Do you think it looks well on me?’

  ‘It looks just as I hoped it would.’

  The necklace was a fine gold chain, set at intervals with tiny white opals, each scarcely bigger than a grain of rice; and from the chain hung a larger opal, also white, but with a delicate play of colours in it, set off by its gentle convexity and by its thin fine rim of gold.

  ‘Did you choose it yourself?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. I bought it in London recently. I liked it the moment I saw it and when it turned out that opal was your birthstone I felt I’d been guided in my choice.’

  ‘Perhaps you knew I was to wear a white dress.’

  ‘Perhaps I did.’

  ‘The truth is, I wanted mauve, but Mama would not hear of it.’

  ‘Be grateful to her. She was quite right.’

  ‘Oh, but mauve is so pretty … Also, it’s all the fashion, you know.’

  ‘Yes. I have only to look round this room to see that.’

  ‘White is so dull. And commonplace.’

  ‘You only think that because you are young. But your youth is the very reason white becomes you. It signifies purity, innocence, honesty. Also hope, another youthful attribute.’

  ‘But I don’t wish to be innocent always. I should prefer to be … a mature woman of the world.’

  ‘In that case you had better wear mauve.’

  ‘I suppose you think I’m still a child.’

  ‘At the age of fifteen,’ Martin said, ‘you are child, girl, and woman all in one.’

  Susannah, sipping her grenadine, looked at him over the rim of her glass, in a manner learnt, whether consciously or not, by studying her aunt Ginny.

  ‘And at what age, precisely, shall I put away the first two conditions, and enter wholly into the third?’

  ‘Don’t be in too much of a hurry to put the first two behind you, for the woman who is really mature is one who has lived each phase to the full. That is what makes her mature ‒ she retains the wisdom of all her years, not merely of the later ones.’

  ‘Is it the same for a man?’

  ‘Yes. Hence the saying ‒ young men think old men are fools while old men know that young men are fools.’

  ‘Then what we retain is not wisdom at all. It is merely the knowledge of our past folly.’

  ‘If we recognize it as folly, we have learnt wisdom.’

  ‘Why is it,’ Susannah asked, ‘that older people always want us young ones to stay young?’

  ‘If you could see yourself this evening, you would not need to ask that.’

  ‘But I cannot see myself,’ she said. ‘Oh, I looked in the mirror at home, of course. Probably for a good half-hour. But I saw nothing that gave me joy. All I saw was a white dress, which I wished was mauve.’

  ‘In that case,’ Martin said, ‘I will be your mirror now, and try to show you to yourself; but to do so I shall be obliged to borrow another man’s words.’ And he quoted:

  ‘ “No fairer maid was ever seen,

  Nor any fairer clad than she:

  Walking the lily launds between,

  She fairer was than they, to me.

  ‘ “Her gowne was of white sendille made

  And no adornment did she wear

  Save a girdle, gold embraid,

  And eke a tresslet in her hair.

  ‘ “Fairer than the lily-lea;

  Fairer than all maidens, she,

  Cloth’d in her white simplicity.” ’

  ‘Oh, Martin! Is that me?’

  ‘Well, those lines could never have been written of any young woman wearing mauve.’

  ‘No, they could not! ‒ They are mine!’ she said. She looked at him with glowing face, and all her attempts at worldliness were, for the present at least, forgotten. ‘You have quite changed my feelings about this dress and I shall wear it again and again. And when it can’t be worn any more, I shall keep it in a safe place, wrapped in layers of fine muslin, spread with dried southernwood. And years later, when I am old ‒’ Here Susannah was interrupted because, the interval between dances having ended, the orchestra now struck up the introductory bars of their quadrille. Martin took her empty glass and set it aside, with his own. Formally, he bowed to her, and formally she gave him her hand; and he, as he led her into the dance, saw how many pairs of eyes were turned upon the face of his young partner.

  Later he danced with Ginny who said: ‘What have you been saying to my niece, to induce such a state of rapture in her? I have never seen her so radiant. She is over the moon.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but the compliments paid to one lady should never be divulged to another, I feel.’

  ‘Even when the first is a child and the other her aunt?’

  ‘Especially not then,’ he said.

  ‘Very well. I shall not press. But now it is my turn, if you please, to be sent into a state of rapture by means of your gallantry.’

  ‘That, I feel, is less easily achieved when the lady has reached mature years.’

  ‘Nonsense. I am no age at all.’

  ‘You are the same age as myself.’

  ‘A woman is never the same age as a man. Surely you must know that? But obviously your gallantry is reserved for young creatures of fifteen.’

  ‘One such only.’

  ‘And that because she is her mother’s daughter. Speaking of Kate, it seems you have not danced with her yet. Why do you practise such austere self-denial? It seems you are something of an ascetic.’

  ‘Far from it, I assure you. If I were, I should not be dancing with you.’

  ‘Come, now, that’s better. It makes some amends for your earlier slight. And in return I have a message for you from Kate. She says she has reserved the supper-dance for you and has written your name into her card. Make the most of her, Martin, my friend, for George and I are going up to London soon and will probably stay two months at least, which means no meetings for you at Chacelands.’

  The supper-dance was a waltz by Rüschler; a pretty tune called Weinrose, which Katharine, as a young girl, had played on the schoolroom piano at Railes when Martin, in borrowed pumps, had received his first dancing lessons, tutored by Ginny and her twin.

  ‘What a long time ago that seems,’ Katharine said. ‘And yet, in some ways, only yesterday. You were nervous of dancing the waltz then, I remember, but you outgrew your fears eventually.’

  ‘It is lucky for me that I did, for how else should a man have licence to hold a woman in his arms, in a public place, for all to see? To move with her in close unison? To smile at her and look into her eyes, all without exciting comment?’

  ‘Don’t be too sure of that last,’ Katharine said.

  ‘Oh, I shall be discretion itself. For instance, I will now glance up at the ceiling and you, if you please, will do the same. And any interested observer will see that I’m drawing your attention to the new chandelier, made by John Daniell of Bristol.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Katharine said, ‘it is very fine.’

  ‘Now, note the walls, which are newly papered, and tell me how you’d describe the colour. Cornelian, do you think, or cinnamon?’

  ‘It is difficult to say …’

  ‘At least you’ll agree that the dado is white?’

  ‘Yes, and embossed with fantastical urns.’

  ‘Now, having done my duty as far as appearances are concerned, perhaps I may ask if you will allow me to take you in to supper?’

  ‘Of course,’ Katharine said, meeting his gaze. ‘It is why I saved this dance for you.’

  Following the October ball, he did not see her again for some weeks, and then it happened purely by chance.r />
  He was at Newton Childe, engaged in a survey of the church, the stone-work of which was so badly eroded in places that extensive repairs were needed. He had been there almost an hour, making detailed notes of the damage, assessing the amount of new stone required, and collecting some of the loose chips, so that the colour could be matched at the quarry. He was taking a last look at the tower when he heard the sound of the churchyard gate and turned to see Katharine come in.

  ‘Martin! What a happy surprise!’ She came to him and gave him her hand, and such was the warmth of her greeting, ‒ of the pleasure expressed in her look and her smile ‒ that the grey December day was transformed. ‘What are you doing here?’

  He explained his errand and showed her his notes, and they talked for a while of the church and its needs. Katharine herself, as he could see, had come to visit the family graves. She carried a few sprigs of evergreen and a bunch of wild sweet violets picked from the hedgerow on her way.

  ‘Susannah is spending a fortnight with Ginny and George in London, so I am alone during the day, and this morning I took it into my head to walk out here. I felt I wanted to get out of the house … out of the town … into the hills.’

  ‘It’s a long way from Grove End.’

  ‘Not if you come up by the fields, and take the short cut across Railes, as I did.’

  ‘It’s a good three miles even then.’

  ‘The distance was nothing. I enjoyed the walk. And with your company on the way back, I shall enjoy it even more. Will you wait for me? I shan’t be long.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I will wait for you.’

  It had been a mild winter up till now, and most of the trees in the parkland at Railes still bore their leaves, in their autumn colours. The crimson maples, especially, glowed like fire; and even the great horse-chestnuts, their lower branches sweeping the ground, still wore their rusty brown-and-yellow habit, rather, as Katharine said, like monks of a tatterdemalion order. Everywhere, on all sides, the Manor Farm cattle grazed the lush grass, together with a few fallow deer that had strayed in from Chacelands. There were a number of pheasants about, especially under the beech trees, where they pecked for grubs among the fallen beechmast. And high up in the walnut trees, rooks squabbled over the nuts. Martin and Katharine walked slowly. They had plenty to say to each other, and Katharine, as always, was full of questions, eager for every bit of news relating to the household at Railes. On her own home life she was somewhat evasive, and Martin did not enquire too closely. He knew from his meetings with Dick that the boy’s relationship with his father was strained, and so, to avoid distressing Katharine, he did not refer to Dick at all. Instead he spoke of Charles Yuart and his rapid achievement in re-establishing himself as a clothier.

  ‘I hear he’s doing amazingly well, not only at Loxe but at Hainault, too.’

  ‘Yes, and I thank God for it. He works so very hard, you know, running the two mills together, that he deserves to succeed at last. The only thing is, I fear for his health. He has such a powerful will and drives himself so relentlessly … Even at home he works and works … He says, after the goldfields, his work now is nothing at all, and it’s true he never seems to tire. Almost, he seems indestructible. It means so very much to him, to be running his own mill again … though he won’t be really satisfied until he has actually bought it back. That is the goal he has set himself. That is what spurs him on. And if hard work can achieve it ‒ combined with the present improvement in trade ‒ it seems he will likely have his wish.’

  ‘Yes, so I believe,’ Martin said. ‘In fact, from what I hear in the town, he should reach his goal in two or three years.’ Then, choosing his words with care, to avoid any hint of irony, he said: ‘No doubt, too, in the fullness of time, he hopes to do the same with Railes.’

  Katharine came to a sudden halt and faced him almost angrily.

  ‘Martin, how can you know he hopes such a thing when it is so unreasonable?’

  ‘Simply because, if I were Charles and had been to blame, as he was, for losing my wife’s family home, I should hope the same thing myself. And it’s not so very unreasonable. Not as far as I am concerned. Because if and when the time comes ‒’

  ‘Martin, no! I won’t hear of it. Railes is yours, in every possible sense of the word, and there is no question of your giving it up.’

  ‘It would be a sacrifice, I admit, but one I would make in all happiness, for your sake.’

  ‘I will not allow you to.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ Martin said with a smile, ‘but if your husband should one day be in a position to approach me on this matter, the outcome will rest between him and me.’

  ‘You would disregard my wishes, then?’

  ‘In this one instance, yes. Because your own wishes would be compromised by your close concern for mine. But before you say any more, I would like to tell you that even if your husband’s hopes should not be realized, Newton Railes will still return to your family, in time, because in my will I have left it to Dick.’

  ‘But that too is wrong,’ Katharine said, still speaking with strong feeling. ‘For one thing, I’m sure you will marry one day. Oh, yes, you may smile at me, but you are still a young man and cannot know what the future holds. Also, you have four nephews to think of.’

  ‘My nephews are remembered in my will, I assure you. And my brother-in-law, as you know, is heir to a flourishing building business, which means that his sons are more than adequately provided for. But Newton Railes is another matter and will come to Dick. Edward Clayton knows that. He will be one of the trustees, if I should die before Dick comes of age. Dr Whiteside is another. And both men fully approve. Not that it would have made any difference whether they did or not. I would not have changed my mind. I would merely have changed my trustees.’

  ‘Argument, then, is useless, it seems.’

  ‘Quite useless,’ Martin said.

  ‘I have no choice but to yield.’

  ‘Let us say, rather, to accept.’

  For a while longer she looked at him. Then, in silence, she turned away, and they walked on together as before.

  ‘Very well,’ she said at last. ‘That you should leave Railes to Dick ‒ if and so long as you do not marry ‒ I am willing to accept. And on his behalf, and my own, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Words can’t express what I feel about it, but I think you know without being told. But for you to talk of parting with Railes during your own lifetime ‒ that I cannot and will not accept.’

  ‘Well, as it is only a hypothetical question at present, I suggest we leave it until such time as it takes concrete form. If it ever does.’

  ‘You are just trying to silence me but I am not done yet. I still have much to say on the subject and will not be put off so easily.’

  ‘Very well,’ Martin said. ‘I am all ears, as Cook would say.’

  ‘Now you are making fun of me, and I take it amiss. I am only too well aware that as a woman I have no rights when it comes to making decisions, even in matters such as this, which are of the closest concern to me. But I thought that you of all people would at least give me a hearing, without making light of my opinions and subjecting me to male condescension.’

  ‘God forbid I should do such a thing ‒’

  ‘God forbid it indeed,’ Katharine said.

  ‘‒ for although you may have no rights in law, you know that as far as I am concerned, you have rights and privileges above those of anyone else in the world.’

  ‘But what use are they, these rights of mine, when what I say has no influence with you? There! You cannot answer that! And it is as well, for I need time to think. I therefore request that you remain silent while I prepare my argument.’

  ‘My lips shall be sealed,’ Martin said.

  So again they walked on together and in a while came to the place where the carriage-road divided. From here they could see the house, some two hundred yards away, its grey stone-work merging so well into the greyness of the day that a stranger approa
ching for the first time might easily fail to perceive it there. A slight movement of the mist, however, and it stood revealed, betrayed first by its dominant feature: the square-bayed window of the great hall, its small rectangular panes of glass all glinting unevenly, some with a dark deliquescence, as of oil-and-water, others with the cold pallid sheen of pewter. Between the bay window and the porch, creepers glowed a dark fiery red, while, all along the main wall, between its double row of casements, the foliage of the Chinese wisteria was a pale, relucent yellow-gold, trailing from the convolute vine. Somewhere in the grounds at the side of the house, garden rubbish was being burnt, and its smoke drifted across the park, spreading out very slowly to lie flat and still in the damp hollows. The smell of the smoke was the smell of autumn: of damp dead leaves burning, and old lichened wood, and moss raked from the lawn and parterres.

  ‘Look at this place,’ Katharine said. ‘That house. The grounds. The way everything lies together, as though God himself ordered it so. I have no clever arguments, Martin. I will leave Railes to speak for itself. Why in God’s name should you give it up when it is yours beyond all question? Not only because you bought it but because it means so much to you.’

  ‘I can’t deny what it means to me. I have loved that house more than twenty years. Every acre of land that goes with it. Every tree that grows in its soil. When it first became mine, it seemed nothing short of a miracle, and I still feel exactly the same now. It has been such a privilege to me, Katharine, to have lived here these four years past, and my pride in owning it is great indeed. But the miracle of it is due to something that ought never to have happened, and I have felt all along that in one sense I was here merely as a steward, entrusted with its care until such time as the rightful owners could claim it again. But that too is a source of pride to me, ‒ that fate should have chosen me for the task ‒ and when the time comes for me to give it up, whether to your husband during my lifetime, or to Dick on my death, I hope it may be found that I have discharged my duties as a good steward should.’

  ‘Oh, Martin!’ Katharine exclaimed, and, looking at him with tear-filled eyes, she shook her head over his words, in a kind of tender exasperation. ‘What am I to say to you, when you are so loving and so unselfish?’