Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

by Elizabeth Gaskell

  Lady Chomley was in London when her husband declared for the King. The Parliament being nettled that it had lost a person who had been so useful, took a mean and petty revenge upon him by plundering his wife of her coach-horses, and otherwise treating her rudely. However, she managed to procure a pass to rejoin Sir Hugh. After two days’ sojourn at Whitby, Sir Hugh carried his wife to Scarborough, of which place he had been made governor by the King. There they lived “in a very handsome port and fashion;” but in such a way as not many in employment for either the King or the Parliament did the like. For he had neither pay nor allowance, but maintained the post of governor upon his own purse, not having the worth of a chicken out of the country which he did not pay for till the time came that they were besieged.

  When the place was attacked in the month of February, 1644, Lady Chomley, who would not forsake her husband in his time of danger, desired him to send his two daughters into Holland. This he did, though not without great trouble, for he was very fond of them. The siege lasted above twelve months. On the surrender of the castle, Sir Hugh, being in a very indifferent state of health, took ship for Holland at Bridlington, leaving Lady Chomley with not above J in her purse, while he himself had barely enough to defray his passage. As soon as he arrived in Holland, he sent his two daughters back to their mother, and being thus left alone, fell into great sadness and trouble of mind. In a short time he went to Paris where he found a letter written to a merchant there by his son William, who was then on his return from Italy, in which letter he said that unless he had a speedy supply of money from his father he should be forced to turn soldier, and trail a pike in Catalonia for his subsistence. In the spring of 1645, he sent William, who not long before had joined his father in Paris, to England to look after his estates; and fortunate it was that he did so, for, with the help of his uncle Sir Henry, Mr. Chomley was able to get the manors of Whitby and some other lands out of sequestration. In May, 1647, Sir Hugh went to Rouen, where he was joined by his wife, his two sons, and his daughters. Thus the family which had not been together for five years’ time, were once more reunited. At Rouen they remained for a year and a half; but the plague having made its appearance in the city, they took house at Gallion, sixteen miles distant, and the seat of the archbishop, and where they remained a short time. Their return to Rouen took place soon after the Parliament had beheaded King Charles, at which the French were so incensed, that the people were ready to stone Sir Hugh and his party at the landing of the river. “And truly,” adds Sir Hugh, “but that we had formerly lived there and were known by many to be of the King’s party, I verily think they would have done us some mischief.”

  In February, 1648, Lady Chomley went to England, and in the June of the year following, Sir Hugh took ship at Calais and landed at Dover. Thence he went to London and from there to Whitby.

  In the spring of 1651, many gentlemen were committed to prison on suspicion of favouring the cause of the King. Amongst them were Sir Roger Twisden and Sir Hugh Chomley, who for some time past had been residing with his brother-in-law at Peckham. One Saturday, early in the morning, they were suddenly carried off by a party of horse and conveyed to Leeds, where they were kept in prison for the space of six weeks.

  In July, 1652, the whole family returned once more to their beloved Yorkshire home. The place had, it is true, been plundered of all that had made it pleasant and comfortable. Nevertheless, Lady Chomley, with her own housewifery, had made some bedding, had put it in a condition to receive themselves and a friend. Sir Hugh’s intention was to live there as retiredly as possible; nevertheless, even then his family amounted to twenty persons in number.

  In October, 1664, Lady Chomley and her husband went to London. They remained there till the following spring, when Sir Hugh having occasion to go to Yorkshire, and his wife not feeling very well, he left her at her sister’s house at Chiswick. She remained there about a month, and then went to the lodgings which her cousin, Lady Katharine Moor, occupied in Bedford-street, Covent-garden. There, after having been ill for a week of fever, she died on the 17th of April, “making,” says Sir Hugh, “a most pious and Christian end.” The news of her sudden death reached her husband at Whitby, from which place he made haste to remove, not being able to endure the sight of the rooms and places where he had been accustomed to enjoy her society. “It is now a year and a half since she departed this life,” he says, “most of which time I have resided among her friends, whom I love very much, and where I shall, I think, for the most part continue, except the Lord change my condition, to whose protection and providence I commit the remainder of my days, the number and nature of which He only knoweth. I beseech they may be for His glory, and then I am pleased however he pleases to dispose of me.” Sir Hugh did not survive his wife more than two years. He died at East Peckham on the 30th of November, 1657, about six months after he had brought his autobiography to a conclusion. On a plain monument of alabaster in Peckham church, raised by Sir Hugh to the memory of Lady Chomley, it is stated that for the great love he bore the virtues and worth he found in his wife, he had declined being buried in his own county, among his ancestors, and had chosen to be laid beside her.

  Sir Hugh has appended to his biography a “particular relation and description” of her, whose great virtues and perfections he stated in his preface he had been desirous to embalm to future ages.

  Lady Chomley was, her husband tells us, of the middle stature of women, and well shaped; yet in that not so singular as in the beauty of her face -- her features being very delicate, and yet proportionate to her body. Her eyes were black and full of loveliness and sweetness, her eyebrows small and even as if drawn with a pencil. She had a very small, pretty, well-shaped mouth, which sometimes, especially when in a muse or study, she would draw up into an incredible little compass. Her hair was a dark chestnut; her complexion brown but clear, with a fresh colour in her cheeks. In her looks there was loveliness inexpressible, and in her whole composition she was so beautiful a sweet creature at her marriage, as not many did parallel; few exceeded her in the nation. Yet the inward endowments and perfections of her mind did excel those of her body, for she was a most pious, virtuous person, of great integrity and discerning judgment in most things. Of a sweet kindly nature, she was compassionate beyond imagination, insomuch that there was nothing she took more interest in, nothing that was more agreeable to her disposition than to be helpful to everybody’s needs, of what quality or condition soever; being even more touched with others’ wants than with her own. She was of a most noble, generous mind, and would not do an unjust or dishonourable act to gain the world; apt to remit trespasses, she did not retain revenge longer that her anger, which was over in a moment. She was of a timorous nature, though in great danger had a courage above her size. Thus, on the capitulation of Scarborough Castle, when the commanding officer threatened that in case one drop of his men’s blood should be shed, he would not give quarter to man or woman, but would put all to the sword, Lady Chomley, conceiving her husband would the more resent these menaces on account of her being there, went to him, and without any trouble or dejection begged he would not, for any consideration towards her, do aught that might be prejudicial to his own honour or the affairs of the King. Notwithstanding all the hardships she had to undergo she would never be persuaded to leave her husband. Very great indeed some of these hardships were. On the castle being besieged she had been forced to lie in a little cabin on the ground several months together; neither did she escape a touch of the scurvy, which was then rife in the place, and from which she never entirely recovered. During the time of the siege she took a most extraordinary care of the sick, making such provision for them as the place would afford. After the surrender of the castle, she stipulated that the garrison in her husband’s house at Whitby might be removed, so that she might have liberty to dwell there. But the captain, who was in possession, liked his quarters so well, that he would not stir until one of his servants had died there of the plague. Then he left in a frig
ht; and before he could return Lady Chomley had ventured over the moors from Malton, in the middle of winter, in a dangerous season, the moors being then covered with snow, in order to reach her home; she being then in sad condition, for her husband and her two sons were over the seas, and her girls she dared not send for on account of the plague. She had only one maid and one man servant, who acted as cook. And as she was solitary so also was she miserably accommodated. For the house having been plundered, she had nothing but what she borrowed; while her bed was so hard, she would complain she could not get warm, nor was she able to lie on it. This she was accustomed to say was the saddest and worst time of her life. Yet her spirit would not submit to make complaint and application as she might have done to the Parliament assembled at York.

  “The people about Whitby,” says Sir Hugh, “owe a particular obligation to her memory, their manners being much improved and refined under her influence. For she was very courteous and affable, and many of the best in the country desired to have their daughters in service with her.” From their mother, who had been bred up in the court of Queen Elizabeth, she had inherited great taste and skill in needlework. Much of the bedding and the blankets were made by her own hands; and there was a suit of green cloth hangings with flowers of needlework, wrought by herself and her maids, which her husband much esteemed and prized, as he also heartily wished his posterity might do, desiring his children, for her sake, to preserve the hangings with extraordinary care. Her chief delight, however, was in her books, and very well versed was she in history. Though by constitution inclined to melancholy, she was generally pleasant and loved mirth. She was, moreover, as true a friend as was in the world.

  By way of foil to set off all these perfections, Sir Hugh says, “she was passionate and soon provoked to anger, saying at times what she did not intend or think. But it was quickly over, and then she would be sorry for it.” She was, also, much troubled at evils which could neither be prevented or remedied. “And now,” says her husband, “having laid open her imperfections, which may be reckoned rather frailties than faults, and considering how much her virtues overbalanced them, I hope posterity will have the memory of her in great honour and veneration, as I am sure all have that knew her, but especially myself, who best knew her virtues and have the greatest loss of her.”

  Her death took place on the 17th April, 1665, being Easter Tuesday. Singularly enough, her birth, marriage, and death, had all fallen upon the same day in the week. Before she became ill she had been exceedingly well in health, and although in her fifty-fifth year, she did not look more than forty. She only kept her chamber a week, and the physicians thought her in no great danger even a few hours before she died. On Lady Katharine Moor advising her to send for a divine but mentioning only such as were Presbyterians, Lady Chomley replied, “she needed them not.” At last her son-in-law, Mr. Stephens, asked if he should fetch her the Bishop of Armagh. She answered, “With all my heart, I pray you do.” He arrived just two or three hours before her death, and knowing her to be well prepared, he said he was come to marry her to the Lord Jesus. To which she answered, “Blessed day that I am to be married to my Saviour, the Lord Jesus.” These words were thenceforth never out of her mind, or scarce out of her mouth, for she often repeated them till she died, a true daughter of the Reformed Church of England. Though she often asked for her husband during her illness, she said, “she saw that it could not be, and therefore submitted to God’s pleasure.”

  In conclusion we may mention that in some nursery gardens at Whitby, there is still preserved a memorial of Sir Hugh and Lady Chomley. A stone in the boundary wall bearing the following inscription: --

  I, Sr. Hugh Chomley, Kt.

  And Barronet,

  And Elizabeth, My Deare Wife,

  Daughter To Sr. Will. Twisden Of Great Peckham, In Ye County Of Kent, Kt.

  And Barronet, Built This Wall And Planted This Bech.

  Anno Domini, 1652.

  Under these lines there is a shield bearing the arms of the families of Chomley and Twisden. Beneath the shield are these two lines, --

  “Our handy worke, like to ye frutefule tree,

  Blesse Thou, O Lord; let it not blasted be.”

  Fraser’s Magazine, 1865

  THE SQUIRE’S STORY

  In the year 1769 the little town of Barford was thrown into a state of great excitement by the intelligence that a gentleman (and ‘quite the gentleman’, said the landlord of the George Inn) had been looking at Mr. Clavering’s old house. This house was neither in the town nor in the country. It stood on the outskirts of Barford, on the roadside leading to Derby. The last occupant had been a Mr. Clavering, a Northumberland gentleman of good family who had come to live in Barford while he was but a younger son; but when some elder branches of the family died, he had returned to take possession of the family estate. The house of which I speak was called the White House, from its being covered with a greyish kind of stucco. It had a good garden to the back, and Mr. Clavering had built capital stables, with what were then considered the latest improvement. The point of good stabling was expected to let the house, as it was in a hunting county; otherwise it had few recommendation. There were many bedrooms; some entered through others, even to the number of five, leading one beyond the other; several sitting-rooms of the small and poky kind, wainscoted round with wood, and then painted a heavy slate colour; one good dining-room, and a drawing-room over it, both looking into the garden, with pleasant bow-windows.

  Such was the accommodation offered by the White House. It did not seem to be very tempting to strangers, though the good people of Barford rather piqued themselves on it, as the largest house in the town; and as a house in which ‘townspeople’ and ‘county people’ had often met at Mr. Clavering’s friendly dinners. To appreciate this circumstance of pleasant recollection, you should have lived some years in a little country town, surrounded by gentlemen’s seats. You would then understand how a bow or a courtesy from a member of a county family elevates the individuals who receive it almost as much, in their own eyes, as the pair of blue garters fringed with silver did Mr. Bickerstaff’s ward. They trip lightly on air for a whole day afterwards. Now Mr. Clavering was gone, where could town and county mingle?

  I mention these things that you may have an idea of the desirability of the letting of the White House in the Barfordites’ imagination; and to make the mixture thick and slab, you must add for yourselves the bustle, the mystery, and the importance which every little event either causes or assumes in a small town; and then, perhaps, it will be no wonder to ---- you that twenty ragged little urchins accompanied the ‘gentleman’ aforesaid to the door of the White House; and that, although he was above an hour inspecting it, under the auspices of Mr. Jones, the agent’s clerk, thirty more had joined themselves on to the wondering crowd before his exit, and awaited such crumbs of intelligence as they could gather before they were threatened or whipped out of hearing distance. Presently, out came the ‘gentleman’ and the lawyer’s clerk. The latter was speaking as he followed the former over the threshold. The gentleman was tall, well-dressed, handsome; but there was a sinister cold look in his quick-glancing, light blue eye, which a keen observer might not have liked. There were no keen observers among the boys, and ill-conditioned gaping girls. But they stood too near; inconveniently close; and the gentleman, lifting up his right hand, in which he carried a short riding-whip, dealt one or two sharp blows to the nearest, with a look of savage enjoyment on his face as they moved away whimpering and crying. An instant after, his expression of countenance had changed.

  ‘Here!’ said he, drawing out a handful of money, partly silver, partly copper, and throwing it into the midst of them. ‘Scramble for it! fight it out, my lads! come this afternoon, at three, to the George, and I’ll throw you out some more.’ So the boys hurrahed for him as he walked off with the agent’s clerk. He chuckled to himself, as over a pleasant thought. ‘I’ll have some fun with those lads,’ he said; ‘I’ll teach ‘em to come
prowling and prying about me. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll make the money so hot in the fire-shovel that it shall burn their fingers. You come and see the faces and the howling. I shall be very glad if you will dine with me at two; and by that time I may have made up my mind respecting the house.’

  Mr. Jones, the agent’s clerk, agreed to come to the George at two, but, somehow, he had a distaste for his entertainer. Mr. Jones would not like to have said, even to himself, that a man with a purse full of money, who kept many horses, and spoke familiarly of noblemen----above all, who thought of taking the White House----could be anything but a gentleman; but still the uneasy wonder as to who this Mr. Robinson Higgins could be, filled the clerk’s mind long after Mr. Higgins, Mr. Higgins’s servants, and Mr. Higgins’s stud had taken possession of the White House.

  The White House was re-stuccoed (this time of a pale yellow colour), and put into thorough repair by the accommodating and delighted landlord; while his tenant seemed inclined to spend any amount of money on internal decorations, which were showy and effective in their character, enough to make the White House a nine days’ wonder to the good people of Barford. The slate-colored paints became pink, and were picked out with gold; the old-fashioned banisters were replaced by newly gilt ones; but, above all, the stables were a sight to be see. Since the days of the Roman Emperor never was there such provision made for the care, the comfort, and the health of horse. But every one said it was no wonder, when they were led through Barford, covered up to their eyes, but curving their arched and delicate necks, and prancing with short high steps, in repressed eagerness. Only one groom came with them; yet they required the care of three men. Mr. Higgins, however, preferred engaging two lads out of Barford; and Barford highly approved of his preference. Not only was it kind and thoughtful to give employment to the lounging lads themselves, but they were receiving such a training in Mr. Higgins’s stables as might fit them for Doncaster or Newmarket. The district of Derbyshire in which Barford was situated, was too close to Leicestershire not to support a hunt and a pack of hounds. The master of the hounds was a certain Sir Harry Manley, who was aut a huntsman aut nullus. He measured a man by the ‘length of his fork’, not by the expression of his countenance, or the shape of his head. But as Sir Harry was wont to observe, there was such a thing as too long a fork, so his approbation was withheld until he had seen a man on horseback; and if his seat there was square and easy, his hand light, and his courage good, Sir Harry hailed him as a brother.