More Sport for our Neighbours

by Ronald McGowan

  Those persons less advanced in years who had indulged in the pastime, found themselves unable to utter a word on any other topic for the rest of the day, and even the best of subjects can become tiresome after a while. I could not, in all honesty however, hold out against my family’s demand that we repeat the experience on the morrow.

  That, too, was not to be, alas. Another face of things was seen in the morning, with the rain weeping in from a sky of deepest grey, and Wickham riding in from Newcastle on a horse of only slightly lighter hue. He was not exactly weeping in sympathy with the weather, but his complexion was not a happy one.

  We were all still at breakfast, and he sat down and took a cup of tea with us.

  “It could have been worse,” he said, in answer to our enquiries as to how the news of his mission had been received, “I am still Captain Wickham, and still on the regimental strength, for the time being, at any rate. But the Colonel thinks it best if I keep out of the way for a while, until it is all forgotten about, and my enemies lose interest. I am to hand over command here to Pickersgill, who is brevetted captain, and Washington is to have his ensign’s colours at last. So, it is an ill wind, as they say.”

  “But what shall we do?” cried Lydia. “Where shall we go?”

  “Colonel Lambton, it appears, possesses a cottage at Shincliffe which he has not used for some years now, but which is kept in order for him by the resident servants. He has offered me the use of it until the uproar dies down. As I said, things could have been worse.”

  “Shincliffe?” cried Lydia, “Is that not where the entire regiment is to go for training? Somewhere near Brighton, is it not?”

  “I fear not, my love, desolate as I am to disappoint you. That is Shorncliff, the camp in Kent, where the light infantry are trained before going overseas.”

  “Well, is not Kent next to Sussex, and is Brighton not in Sussex?”

  “It is indeed, my sweet, but you forget that we are not to go to Shorncliffe, but to Shincliffe. We may get there by following the line of the very same river we overlook here, for Shincliffe is a village on the river Wear, out of the way for Newcastle society, but not so far out of the way as to cause any great inconvenience when I am recalled. A half-hour’s walk along the river will bring you into Durham City itself, so in place of the pleasures of Brighton, you may content yourselves with the delights of a famous Cathedral City.”

  “But is this cottage large enough to accommodate all of us,” I enquired, “or must we say goodbye already, and make our way home to Longbourn, who knows when to meet again?”

  “The Colonel believes it may, and we shall in any case see for ourselves within the week, for I must be gone by its end. We had better look to our arrangements, all of us.”

  Chapter Thirty : Grey Towers

  This announcement brought exclamations of mixed delight and despair from those who heard it.

  Lydia and her mother were all concern for the baby, and how such a removal might upset their little treasure. Kitty made much of regretting her new-found skills as a mermaid.

  I was surprised to find, however, that I was not the only one nursing a secret delight at the news. Durham! I was to see Durham after all, and its great cathedral, and its great cathedral’s great library! I might even engage Potts’ assistance in finding the manuscript to which he had referred!

  Mary amused me however, by declaring that she should like to see Durham properly, not just glimpsed from a coach.

  “Sir Walter Scott speaks very highly of Durham,” she announced. “I was reading his verses on the city just last night. I shall read them to you now, that you may realize what a treat is in store for us.”

  So saying, she produced a small volume from her reticule, opened it instantly at the correct page, and began to read -

  "Grey towers of Durham

  Yet well I love thy mixed and massive piles.

  Half church of God, half castle ‘gainst the Scot

  And long to roam these venerable aisles

  With records stored of deeds long since forgot"

  Mary has never been a very great hand at reading aloud, even in prose, and everyone very quickly found that it was absolutely necessary for them to attend to packing for their imminent departure in but three days time. By the time she reached ‘deeds long since forgot’, the poor child found herself long since forgot, and deserted too, by all but her kind, encouraging father.

  This paragon of all the virtues with whom she had been blessed as a parent consoled her with the thought that soon they should see where Saint Cuthbert’s shrine had lain before it had been destroyed by King Henry’s men, and view the tomb of the Venerable Bede himself.

  So distressing had been such a disregard for learning, however, that even the prospect of delights such as these failed of the desired effect, and it was necessary to repair to the pastrycook’s for a suitable remedy.

  The following days bade fair to be busy indeed. One would have thought that, accustomed as we had become to an almost nomadic existence, preparing for yet another departure would have been relatively simple. I certainly thought so, but I had reckoned without the amount of furniture, assorted drapery and general impedimenta associated with the removal of an infant from one residence to another. When Jane and Lizzy were sent off to their wet-nurse’s, it was a relatively simple process. The nurse arrived, collected her charge with the attendant, rather modest wardrobe considered adequate in those days, and departed. The difference was that she was departing to a household already well-stocked and provided with everything that would be needed. We did not have the luxury of allowing ourselves to assume that such would be the case when we arrived at Riverside Cottage. Were I more faithful to veracity than comfort, I should rather say that Mrs Bennet and Lydia did not allow us that luxury, but I am too old amd practised in the ways of matrimony to fall into that particular trap.

  Wickham was not so well-versed, and I had the gratification of observing that my daughter was quite as capable of managing her husband as her mother had always proved, and in much the same way. I have often wondered whether this ability is innate, or do mothers teach it to their daughters, in secret of course, for their future matrimonial comfort.

  “The problem is,” Wickham said to me on the very first morning, after a particularly diverting discussion with Lydia, “that none of us knows what to expect there. Are there beds for us all? Is there even room for us all? The Colonel was very vague when I enquired, only saying that he thought we should find it adequate, for a short stay. For all we know it may be some ruinous shed, with pigs sleeping in the corner and the rain coming through the roof. Colonel Lambton himself has not been there since he was out of coats, and may have quite the wrong recollection. I cannot possibly get over there to inspect the place; there is far too much for me to do here, before I hand over, yet I shudder to think what we may encounter when we get there. I should not mind, for myself, but when a man has a wife and child to think of, it colours his attitude.”

  “Stop there.” I interrupted. “I can see where all this is leading. I should be very happy to see that all is in order at this place for us, but I do not comprehend how I may get there and back in time to be of any use, if, indeed, we are to remove ourselves on Saturday.”

  “I have taken thought of that. The Palatine Flyer leaves from the Assembly rooms at noon, and will have you in Durham by one o’clock, two o’clock at the latest. From there it is but a step to Shincliffe, whence a chaise could have you back here by eight, even allowing a couple of hours to see that everything is just so in our lodgings. I should be infinitely obliged, and I dare say it would ease Mrs Bennet’s mind vastly.”

  “I dare say it would, and I begin to see how far the word ‘obligation’ may be stretched. However, give me leave to make a few preparations – there are several items which it occurs to me it might be useful to have along with me - and undertake to explain my absence to Mrs Bennet, if she should happen to notice such an event, what with all the other things she has
to divert her mind, and I am your man.”

  Pausing, therefore, only to pack a small bag, I permitted Wickham to carry it for me as far as his gratitude would stretch and the Assembly Rooms. The coach departing on time, I took my farewell of Wickham quite unbeknown to my wife and daughters, and set off on a plan of my own at last.

  Durham City was reached quite as soon as advertised, by means of a vast new road built via a man-made pass through the intervening hills, a great slash of limestone in the green of the countryside, but recently excavated by French Prisoners. Perhaps our French Spy had been expected to set about raising them against their captors –if he had existed.

  Without it, indeed, the journey would, I conjecture, have taken twice as long, and we should have had to walk uphill to enable the straining horses to pull the weight of the coach and baggage up the very steep hillside which was pierced by this enterprise.

  As it was, with a short halt at the village – or, rather, small town - of Houghton, which gives its name to the ‘Cut’ through which we had just travelled, and where a market was in progress, we were indeed to find ourselves pulling to a stop in the much bigger market place of the cathedral city after scarcely more than an hour’s travelling, so marvellously have the roads been improved within the memory of many alive today, even without the help of prisoners of war.

  Pausing only for a bite to eat at a hostelry on the narrow street leading up to the cathedral, I lost no time in making my way to that venerable building and enquiring for the Reverend Venables, the episcopal librarian, whose name had been given me by Mr Potts of old. In fact, one of the documents I had secreted in my valise was a letter of introduction from that esteemed connection, which now proved invaluable.

  Canon Venables was good enough to pretend that he remembered my name as having been mentioned by Mr Potts, whose name proved indeed something of a talisman in episcopal circles, and promised to have the documents I requested made available for me when next I should call. Indeed, his promise that they would be ready the following morning quite crystallised the plan that had been half-forming in my mind since this mission to Durham City had first been mentioned.

  “Then I shall call tomorrow at about ten o’ clock.” I said. “You have my thanks already, sir but could I persuade you to add to them by directing me to Riverside Cottage, in the village of Shincliffe. I shall be staying there for a time – I know not quite how long as yet -, and my family will be joining me on Saturday, but I have not as yet laid eyes upon it, being come directly from Sunderland today on the Flyer.”

  “Have you not?” he enquired, somewhat archly, I thought, “Have you not? Then I wish you joy of your stay there. But, indeed, you would be well advised to take a trap from the Royal County, or even a boat from Elvet Bridge. It is a good step, and the road can be very dirty at any time of the year.”

  “If you are feeling energetic, however, it is easy enough to find. All you need do is keep to the other bank of the river, and follow it upstream. An hour or so will bring you there, and the house itself is on the riverbank, just after you enter the village. You cannot miss it.”

  “Hmph!” I thought to myself, as I passed slowly down towards the bridge. “Another one of those places that one cannot miss. I should be very much surprised if it did not turn out to be very easy to miss indeed.”

  By the time I had reached the bridge I had convinced myself, for a variety of reasons, that it would be better if I were to take Canon Venables’ guidance and my own ease, and hire a trap to this cottage of Colonel Lambton’s. Imprimis, it would be disrespectful to the good clergyman to ignore his advice althogether. Secundo, I should make a better appearance arriving in a carriage than tramping in on foot, thus ensuring a more favourable reception from the servants there. Tertio, the weather looked like to turn. It was, therefore, entirely from these considerations, and the fact that I had had a busy enough day already, and still had more business to accomplish, and nothing at all to do with the drafts of strong ale that had accompanied my luncheon and the strange languor creeping over my limbs, that I rolled into Shincliffe village and down to the river bank there in the back of a trap provided by the hostelry recommended.

  The driver disappeared almost immediately upon payment, with no more than a nod in the direction of my destination, leaving me to discover this famous ‘cottage’ by myself.

  Here I found some difficulty, however, for there was no building bordering the lane in which I had been deposited to which I could persuade myself to apply the term ‘cottage’ with an easy conscience. The house outside which I found myself, although its grounds at the side apparently extended to the riverbank, had not much in the way of a front garden, it is true, and that arranged in a ‘cottagey’ style, but its turrets and protruding wings and gothic battlements resembled no cottage I had ever seen. Even allowing for the prevalence of slate roofs in the north over the thatch which is always associated with the word ‘cottage’ in the south, there was nothing in any of the plots abutting on to the road which resembled what I had in mind.

  Fortunately, as I stood pondering, a respectable looking young man came up from the riverbank, enabling me to ask directions from him.

  “Riverside Cottage?” he repeated, with an odd look in his eye. “Riverside Cottage, you say?”

  “That’s right,” I replied. “Is it far?”

  That odd look returned.

  “No,” he said. “Not far at all. And you do not know the way, I take it?”

  “I do not sir, and should be obliged if you would direct me to it.”

  “It will be my pleasure, sir. Now, let me see, how to explain the route most expeditiously. Well, sir, if you turn your back to the river and walk up to the next crossing. Turn left there, then take the next turning to the left. That will bring you out on the riverside. Walk upstream and take the first turning on your left, and Riverside Cottage is on your right.”

  “Thank you, sir, I am most obliged.”

  “The pleasure is mine, sir, I do assure you, and I wish you well on your travels.”

  So saying, he proceeded on his way into the village.

  “What a very pleasant and excessively polite young man!” I thought, and proceeded to follow his directions. It was only when I found myself turning from the riverbank and discovered myself once again on the spot whence I started that I realized how I had been taken in. Indeed, had I gone further down the lane towards the river in the first place, I should have found the stone set into the wall announcing ‘Riverside Cottage’.

  It was in a somewhat jaundiced mood, therefore, that I knocked upon the door, to have it opened, some little time later by the kind of creaking, black-clad person who might have had ‘wizened old retainer’ written on his forehead for all to read.

  “Is this Riverside Cottage?” I enquired. “Colonel Lambton’s place?”

  “Ah,” he replied, “might you be Mr Wickham, then?”

  “I might,” I replied, “but in fact I am not, although I am glad to see that you have heard from the Colonel to expect his arrival. My name is Bennet. Captain Wickham is my son-in-law. He will be arriving on Saturday afternoon, with his wife and infant son, and also my own good lady and my other two daughters. He asked me to look in and make sure that there would be room enough for us all, since it is not every cottage that would accommodate so many in a style fit for a gentleman, but I see that we may be easy enough on that account.”

  “Oh, aye. Calling this great place a cottage is one of old Sir John’s little jokes, you see. My cottage ornery, he used to call it to his friends, though I could never see what was ornery about it. An ornery cottage ain’t a tenth the size of this place, but he would have it that there had to be room to have balls in, He was a great one for the dancing, old Sir John. I remember him saying to one of his friends as used to come in the old days, and was complaining there wasn’t room for a dancing party – ‘But how can it be done?' said she; ‘do tell me how it is to be managed. There is not a room in this cottage that will hold t
en couple, and where can the supper be?' and the old master came right out with ‘My dear Lady Elliott, do not be uneasy. The dining parlour will admit eighteen couple with ease; card-tables may be placed in the drawing-room; the library may be open for tea and other refreshments; and let the supper be set out in the saloon.’ Aye, them’s the sort of goings-on we used to have here in the old days, but since the young lad’s inherited, the young Colonel as is, we never see him from one year’s end to the next, although we always keep the place ready and the beds aired, like.”

  “I am glad to hear it,” I replied, “for I have in mind to use one of them myself tonight, and for a while thereafter. I have business of my own to do in Durham City, and propose to stay here rather than travel all the way back to Sunderland with my news. I would be obliged, however, if you would arrange for someone to carry a message to Captain Wickham at the barracks in Sunderland for me immediately, so that I may set his mind at rest about his welcome here.”

  “Oh, he need have no fear for that, sir, auld Jackie Wright (that’s me, sir, by the way) will always glad to welcome any friend of the Colonel’s; it’ll give us something to do with our time instead of staring out the windows. And I dare say Bella will be all made up with a bairn in the house again. I’ll get the stable lad to ride ower to Sunderland for you when you’ve writ your letter. But come you in now, and let’s find you a room as suits.”

  “Thank you. Here is sixpence for his trouble, and another for yours.”

  Silver always goes down well on first acquaintance with domestics, and but a few moments sufficed to pen a note to the effect that although there was no cause for concern, I did not feel myself quite up to travelling back to Sunderland immediately, and would be staying at Shincliffe until they arrived. They need have no concern either about the suitability of the property, for I had inspected it minutely, and was convinced that there would be more than sufficient accommodation for all of us.