He says that Harding was asking after me and said that I could not be in town, for he never saw me anywhere.
I told him that you are very well, for you always are, an’t you? I assured him that you must be somewhere about.
After raving over some new purchases, – half a dozen drawings by Ingres and David, he suddenly remembers that his sister told him, not long ago, of my death in Leicestershire.
She says you broke your neck, hunting at Gracedieu. Did you? My father is quite put out; he says that you should have informed him of it immediately as Clancarty wants your seat for somebody. An M.P. has no business to die in this hole and corner fashion.
Then, after an airy finish, he changes his tune in a post scriptum.
I begin to grow anxious! Pray let me know immediately that you took no harm from this fall. I shall not be quite easy in my mind until I hear from you.
I shall pay him out for his long neglect by not making him quite easy for a week or so.
My other letter was from King, about Troy Chimneys. He wants to renew his lease for a further five years. I cannot make up my mind. He is a good tenant; if I refuse he may go, and I shall be at the trouble of finding someone else. But five years is longer than I like. I have not given up all hope of living there myself before I am forty, although every dearer scheme connected with it is destroyed for ever.
Sukey tried over the song: They Say that Hope is Happiness. I daresay it really may be by Byron, although, if he is responsible for every set of verses handed round nowadays as his work, besides what he publishes, the poor fellow must have writer’s cramp. But this is in his vein, – a good dismal song which reflects my present mood.
Sunday
Icebergs again for supper. George had to hear about them. He is returned from Stokehampton in a vile temper. The people there are perfect heathens, little better than Dissenters. It was the Sunday for the Sacrament, but no person there except himself and the clerk. The celebration could not have taken place had not George, who is a persistent fellow, gone out and given sixpence to an old woman to make up three.
They were still upon icebergs when I came upstairs. The night is so warm that I doubt if I shall sleep. My chamber window is open and not a breath of air comes to disturb my candle as I sit writing. There is no moon to be seen. All is wrapped in a stifling darkness and silence, though I heard an owl hoot, a few minutes ago, far away among the park trees. I daresay it will thunder before morning.
A human being is uncommonly like an iceberg. Only a tenth of him is apparent to the world. But, in most cases, all is, I believe, pretty much of a piece. We can guess at the submerged creature by that portion of him which is visible above water. Perhaps I am mistaken. In my case it is not so. Do most men carry a Miles and a Pronto about with them? I hope not.
Miles and Pronto don’t converse. That is the trouble. They are formed, I think, of different substances. Pronto is member for West Malling. Miles is still wondering how the devil that came about.
I have a whimsical notion that I should like to write a short life of Miles, while Pronto is out of the way. It will give me an occupation, which I sorely need. If Pronto goes up in the world, which he means to do, he will have his biographers; whereas nobody will put in a word for Miles unless I do.
I think that I will begin tomorrow. For the life of Miles is now quite concluded. He had a blow, poor fellow, which finished him, last summer. Some months before Pronto fell off his horse, Miles took another and a graver toss, from which he can never recover. The foot of Time will advance, and Pronto will go with it. Miles waits by the Styx.
THE LIFE OF MILES LUFTON: 1782-1818
Theodosia
A MEMOIR OF this kind should open with a guarantee of respectability, both upon the paternal and the maternal sides. There should be property somewhere, a baronetcy (at least) in a collateral branch, loyal endeavours, a bishop or two, and all that sort of thing. The Luftons, unfortunately, are deficient in this respect. The Chadwicks are rather better connected, having got hold of Great Bramfield at some time or other. But there is nothing very striking to report until Dr. Aeneas Chadwick, the eminent antiquary, breaks his neck while scrambling about the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla in the year 1775. He leaves many debts, a widow, and three daughters, – Augusta, Theodosia and Amelia, with whom I must principally concern myself in this chapter, since my father, for the greater part of the time, is still at Cambridge, a humble and industrious Sizar. Whereas the Chadwick females, abandoned by their natural protector in a foreign land, were far from humble.
Evidence of their disgusting independence may be found in many houses throughout these Isles in the shape of a picture, which hangs upon some dark staircase or in a lesser bedchamber. If examined closely, it turns out to be an indifferent copy of a Reni or a Luini. The master of the house will explain that his father, or his grandfather, bought it in Rome forty years ago. And he will wonder why Pronto peers at it so closely.
Pronto is looking for a little scratch in one corner which will tell him whether this sad daub has been the work of his Aunt Gussie.
People who make the Grand Tour must bring back some evidence of its effect upon their taste. Squire Bumpkin must prove that he has travelled further than his neighbours; a picture will do very well, and it won’t cost him much, for there are painter fellows by the score, in Rome, in Venice, in Florence, who will sell him one for a few soldi.
Miss Augusta had been at this trade for some years before her Papa broke his neck. She took to it, in order to support the family, when it became clear that he had dissipated the whole of his fortune. Her appearance, for she was a handsome girl, brought her custom. Set up with her paints and her easel, in some old church, she was a striking object, – she attracted the attention of travellers. Her situation was interesting and her fluency in the English tongue gave her an advantage over the foreign painter fellows. Not that her English would now pass muster in polite society; the only specimen of it known to me, which I will quote later, does little credit to her breeding. She must have been the true daughter of her mother, an Irish-woman of no discernible family, disliked by all the Chadwicks, whom the antiquary met and married at Avignon.
Blood is thicker than water, and some effort was made on behalf of these unfortunate women, when news of Dr. Chadwick’s death reached Bramfield. Provision of a sort was offered, if the family would return to Albion, fogs, roast beef and genteel dependence. This generosity was rejected, with marked incivility, in favour of sunshine and risotto. Miss Augusta, who wrote the letters (and I am sure that they were lamentably ill spelt), protested that they might all manage very well in Rome upon her earnings as a she-painter-fellow.
The affronted Chadwicks were thus able to wash their hands of the whole set, and would have done so had not a very pretty letter from Miss Theodosia reached Bramfield, shortly after the arrival of Miss Augusta’s scrawl. This revived a preference which had always existed, for poor little Dosie had been a favourite, in spite of her disagreeable family, ever since a visit which she had paid to Bramfield when she was eight or nine years old. I don’t know what convulsion in the antiquary’s household had caused her to be deposited there for six months, but she seems to have won every heart in a very short time. They would have liked to keep her for ever, but she was eventually snatched away again by her black-haired Irish mother. They have a crayon portrait of her, up at the Park, which was made during that visit. The artist has given her, not only the rosy Chadwick complexion, which is well enough, but the protruding gooseberry eyes and the lithe proboscis of the Chadwicks, which I am sure she never had. There is no trace, in this simpering little miss, of the angel whom I knew; I don’t covet the little picture, and Mrs. Ned is welcome to it, though anybody else would have offered it to us, when my mother died.
Dosie’s letter abolished all resentment, so far as she was concerned. It was felt that she had been overborne by her hoyden sister, – that she would have come to Bramfield if she could. Not that she uttered any
complaint. She wrote simply because she wished to thank her uncle for his kind offers, and to express the gratitude which her mother and sisters ought to have felt. She, alone of the family, seems to have perceived that these offers were, in their way, pretty generous. He had a numerous family of his own to support; to take in four extra would have put him to considerable expense. And he had proposed coming himself to Italy that he might wind up their affairs and escort them all home. This, for an old gentleman who seldom stirred out of Gloucestershire, would have been a formidable undertaking. Dosie was grateful for such a proof of amiable solicitude and said so. She thanked him warmly and furnished him with fuller particulars of their situation than Gussie had vouchsafed. In conclusion she sent affectionate messages to all her young cousins, desired news of them, and declared that she would never love any place so well as Bramfield.
Calculation was ever foreign to my mother’s disposition. Upon this, as upon every other occasion, she felt as she ought and therefore did as she ought. She was genuinely grateful and sincerely attached to all the people at Bramfield. It was but natural that her enquiries should embrace the whole neighbourhood, for she had found a friend in every house. Old Dr. Maxwell had given her lollipops when he examined her in the Catechism; why should she not remember him? I can see no justification whatever for the construction which certain minds have chosen to put upon these artless letters. For she wrote several times. A pretty regular correspondence sprang up. The Chadwicks were anxious for more news of her, and eager for an excuse to get her away from Rome. No opportunity occurred, however, until after her marriage. When, at last, they got her back to Bramfield, she came as Mrs. Eustace Lufton.
My father, meanwhile, had quitted Cambridge, taken Orders, and got himself a noble patron with whom he went a-travelling. This bored him mightily but offered a short-cut to preferment. Of his travels I know but little; he never speaks of them and I don’t suppose he cares to think of them over much. Anybody acquainted with the late Lord M—’s reputation might well be surprised that he should choose to travel with a clergyman. But he had his reasons. He desired to be married, as soon as possible, to a lady who was also of the party. She was about to present him with an heir, and it was of great consequence to a number of people that this child should be born in wedlock, but nothing could be done during the lifetime of the legitimate Lady M—. She was, however, dying as fast as she could; the melancholy news was daily expected, and Lord M— intended to waste no time. Prudence might have kept him in England where word might reach him immediately; foresight of another kind took him out of it since, at a pinch, a little juggling with dates might be necessary. He wanted no witnesses save of his own choosing.
That my father should ever have consented to play such a role I must believe, since many circumstances bear it out. But, when I reflect upon the uniform respectability and piety of his life at Bramfield, I am stunned. He never perhaps fully understood the circumstances, or supposed that he would be expected to perjure himself, should the heir turn up too promptly. A poor man cannot afford to be over nice. It is even possible that an excessive unworldliness trapped him into a course from which a baser mind might have recoiled. He was a scholar, desiring provision which would enable him to continue his studies in peace. Ample provision was offered, if he would accompany a nobleman upon a six months’ tour of Europe. His travelling companions may have been so totally uncongenial that he took very little notice of them. He may not have observed the lady’s condition. He may not even have observed the lady. I like to think that he did not, though she was certainly present upon the momentous occasion when his lordship encountered my Aunt Gussie.
I should have known nothing of all this, had I not fallen in with my Aunt Amelia, in Paris three years ago, when I was there immediately after the victorious conclusion of the Brussels campaign. She turns out to be an amusing old fellow, gouty and raddled, but very good company. The salon in which I met her was not of the choicest kind, there was not a woman of character in the room, I imagine; it was the kind of half-way house which we don’t have over here. Upon hearing my name she immediately claimed me as a nephew; I called upon her afterwards and she told me all about Gussie and the old life in Rome, – everything, in fact, which I had long wished to know and despaired of ever finding out. I could only wish that she had been as communicative about her own history, which must, I am sure, have been lively. Upon that subject she was mum. She calls herself the Princess Czerny.
To her I owe all this information, including the sole specimen extant of Gussie’s English. Gussie was copying an altar-piece in an old church when she heard voices behind her, raised in unfavourable comment upon her performance. Lord M— and his party would not have quizzed her so loudly had they supposed that she could understand what they said. But she was black-haired, like her mother, and her dress was in the Italian style. Nothing was to prepare them for a sudden volte-face on the part of the Signorina, as, fine eyes ablaze, she administered the memorable reproof:
‘Fools and weans shouldn’t see things half done!’
Explanations and apologies ensued. Have I not said that Gussie was handsome? His lordship’s opinion of the picture took a most favourable turn. He grew anxious to buy it, as a means of pursuing the lady’s acquaintance. Unluckily it was bespoke, but Gussie could offer him many others, if he would call at her mother’s house by the Spanish Steps.
Here came an intervention from her ladyship designate, who did not above half like Gussie and her eyes. Mr. Lufton, said she, might do the calling, had better do it, since he was fond of pictures, whereas this appeared to be the first evidence of such a taste in his lordship. Mr. Lufton might go to the Spanish Steps and select a canvas, since there was very little else, at the moment, that he could do to earn his keep.
Mr. Lufton called in due course, caught sight of Dosie, and then it was all over with Mr. Lufton. Not for an archbishopric would he quit Rome without her. When Lord M—’s party moved on he remained, throwing all ideas of preferment to the winds. One hopes that some other, more accommodating, parson was secured in time. Pronto is acquainted with the present Lord M— and has been at pains to discover that he was born in Naples, but there is some obscurity about the date.
My parents became engaged in the teeth of severe opposition from Miss Gussie and her mother. Theodosia, whose beauty was remarkable, had already irritated them by refusing several excellent matches. That she should throw herself away upon a penniless clergyman was a piece of folly which estranged them for ever.
‘Claire de lune!’ sighed the Princess Czerny. ‘But then you know Dosie was an angel, and they did not do too badly neither, since our uncle gave him the Bramfield living. Il paraît qu’une ange porte le pain sous le bras. If Dosie had not been an angel they must have starved.’
This is very true. I have witnessed, again and again, the effect of my mother’s charm upon all around her. All were sensible of an impulse to please her, to oblige her, to say agreeable things to her, to strew her path with flowers. Kind offices sprang from any encounter with her. My own place in College at Winchester was got for me by a gentleman who once stayed for a se’night at the Park and only saw my mother at church.
The living was not vacant when the young couple first arrived in England, but upon the death of Dr. Maxwell, a few months later, the gift was a settled thing, – a clever scheme for keeping Dosie at Bramfield for life. My father was well enough liked by all the family, but this provision was made for her sake. I am certain that Uncle Chadwick would have done nothing of the sort for any other niece, but angels do generally receive the treatment that they deserve.
To Mrs. Ned, of course, the whole business is incomprehensible, though she knew my mother, received endless kindness from her, and professed, at one time, an excessive regard for her. She, so I understand, has never ceased to grumble at Ned’s grandfather, and to wonder at the doting folly which could thus dispose of a valuable property. Sukey is my informant upon this point; she has it from the Chadwick girls.
They should not have told her and she should not have told me, but we are all in a sad way, now that our angel has returned to her own dominions.
I learn that Mrs. Ned admires the discretion which prompted so young a girl to keep upon good terms with her rich uncle, when the rest of the family had offended him. She wonders at the prudence which demanded constant news of Dr. Maxwell’s health. She applauds, as a bold stroke, a marriage which took place so soon as that health was reported to be failing.
Mrs. Ned, in short, believes my mother to have been uncommonly sly.
Eden
WHAT IS GOOD society?
Pronto could answer that question without a moment’s hesitation. But for Miles it must ever be a matter of debate. He has been dragged by Pronto into company of all kinds, but he questions whether any satisfies him half so well as that which he knew first of all in his home at Bramfield Parsonage. Greater elegance, more of worldly polish, he may have encountered elsewhere, but always at a cost, – always with some sacrifice of sincerity and genuine refinement. Greater luxury he has bought at the expense of simple comfort. In the best houses they hide your breeches and bring you tepid shaving water.
How can any society be good which does not contribute to happiness? How can a man impart felicity when he does not possess any degree of it himself? Happiness is the first ingredient. I cannot be content among peevish people, though their inward poverty may be concealed beneath a polished exterior. The rational melancholy produced by sickness or bereavement I can excuse; I don’t ask that my friends should be in perpetual spirits, but I do ask that they should be capable of enjoyment.
My parents were singularly happy. They were devotedly attached to one another, they enjoyed an income sufficient for their modest needs, they were esteemed and loved by all who knew them. Their children were born into a climate of perpetual sunshine.
Troy Chimneys Page 3