Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  Day after day went by and the hoarding still reared its gaunt height, and the unclean beast of the Hebrews still made night hideous, and the day a time for the expression of strong feelings. At length the Dean met his lawyer in the Close, within a few feet of the obnoxious erection. He kept his back to it with ridiculous care, while they talked.

  “We have come to something like a settlement at last,” the lawyer said briskly. “Con-fusion take the dog! I can hardly hear myself speak. We are to meet at the Chapter House at five, Mr. Dean, if that will suit you; Mr. Swainson, the Bishop, Canon Rowcliffe, and myself. I think he is inclined to be reasonable at last.”

  The Dean shook his head gloomily.

  “You will see it turn out better than you expect,” the lawyer assured him. “Let me whisper something to you. There is an action begun against him for shutting up a road across one of his farms at Middleton and it will be stoutly fought. One suit at a time will satisfy even Mr. Swainson.”

  “You don’t say so? This is good news!” the Dean cried, with unmistakable pleasure. “Certainly, I will be there.”

  “And — I am sure I need not doubt it — you will be ready to meet Mr. Swainson halfway?”

  The Dean looked gloomy again. But at this moment a long howl, more frenzied, more fiendish than any which had preceded it, seemed to proclaim that the dog knew that his reign was menaced, and, like Sardanapalus, was determined to go out right royally. It was more than the Dean could stand. With an involuntary movement of his hands to his ears, he nodded and fled in haste to a place less exposed, where he could in a seemly and decanal manner relieve his feelings.

  The best-laid plans even of lawyers will go astray, and when they do so, the havoc is generally of a singularly wide-spread description. The meeting in the Chapter-house proved stormy from the first. Whether it was that the writ in the right-of-way case had not yet reached Mr. Swainson, so that he clung to his only split-straw, or that the Dean was soured by want of sleep, or that the Bishop was not thorough enough — whatever was the cause, the spirit of compromise was absent; and the discussion across the Chapter-house table threatened to make matters worse and not better. Whether the Dean first called Mr. Swainson’s enclosure the “toadstool of a night,” or Mr. Swainson took the initiative by styling the Dean the “mushroom of a day” (the Dean was not of old family), was a question afterwards much and hotly debated in Bicester circles. Be that as it may, the high powers rose from the table in dudgeon and much confusion.

  There was behind the Dean at the end of the Chapter-house a large window. It looked immediately-upon what he, in the course of the discussion, had termed “The Profanation,” and since the eventful day of Mr. Swainson’s match at croquet it had been, by the Dean’s order, kept shuttered, that he might not, when occupied in the Chapter-house, have the Profanation directly before his eyes. At the meeting the shutter remained closed; it may be that this phenomenon had weakened Mr. Swainson’s doubtful inclination towards peace.

  The Dean was a choleric man. As the party rose, he stepped to this shutter and flung it back. He turned to the others and cried with indignation —

  “Look, sir; look, my lord! Is that a sight becoming the threshold of a cathedral? Is that a thing to be endured on consecrated ground?”

  They stepped towards the window, a wide low-browed Tudor casement, and looked out. The Dean himself stood aside, grasping the shutter with a hand which shook with passion. His eyes were on the others’ faces. He expected little show of shame or contrition on that of Mr. Swainson, but he did wish to bring this hideous thing home to the Bishop, who had not been as thorough in the matter as he should have been. Yet surely, as a bishop, he could not see that thing in its horrid reality and be unmoved!

  No, he certainly could not. Slowly, and as if reluctantly, his lordship’s face changed; it broke into a smile that broadened and rippled wider and wider, second by second as he looked. His colour deepened, until he became almost purple! And Mr. Swainson? His face was the picture of horror; there could not be a doubt of that. Confusion and astonishment were stamped on every feature. The Dean could not believe his eyes. He turned in perplexity to the lawyer, who was peeping between the others’ heads. His shoulders were shaking, and his face was puckered with laughter.

  The Bishop stepped back. “Really, gentlemen, I think it is hardly fair of us to — to use this window. This is no place for us.” He was a kindly man; there never was a more popular bishop in Bicester, and never will be.

  At this the Canon and the lawyer lost all control over themselves, and their laughter, if not loud, was deep. The Dean was puzzled — confused, perplexed, wholly angry. He did at last what he should have done at first, instead of striking that attitude with the shutter in his hand. He looked through the window. It was dusty, and he was somewhat nearsighted, but at length he saw; and this was what he saw.

  In the further comer of the enclosure, a couple of lovers billing and cooing; about and round them Mr. Swainson’s big dog cutting a hundred uncouth gambols. Bad enough this; but it was not all. The ingenuous couple were Frank Swainson and — the Dean’s daughter. Frank’s arm was around her, and as the Dean looked, he stooped and kissed her, and Clive, raising her face, returned his gaze with eyes full of love, and scarcely blushed.

  When the Dean turned he was alone.

  Was it very wrong of them? There was nowhere else, since this miserable fracas had begun, where freed from others’ eyes, they could steal a kiss. But into Mr. Swainson’s plot no window, save a shuttered one, could look; the door, too, was close to one of the side doors of the cathedral, and they could pop in and out again unseen, and as for the big dog, Frank and Tiger were great friends. So if it was very wrong, it was very easy and very sweet and — facilis descensus Averni.

  For one hour the Dean remained shut up in his study. At the end of that time he put on his hat and walked across the Close. He knocked at Mr. Swainson’s door, and, upon its being opened, went in, and did not come out again for an hour and five minutes by Mrs. Canon Rowcliffe’s watch. I have not the slightest idea of what passed between them. More than two score different and distinct accounts of the interview were current next day in Bicester, but no one, and I have examined them all with care, seems to me to account for the undoubted results. First the disappearance next day from Mr. Swainson’s plot of the famous hoarding, which was not replaced even by the old iron railing. Secondly, the marriage six weeks later of King Pepin and Sweet Clive.

  FAMILY PORTRAITS.

  On a certain morning in last June I was stooping to fasten a shoe-lace, having taken advantage for that purpose of the step of a corner house in St. James’s Square, when a man passing behind me stopped.

  “Well!” said he, after a short pause during which I wondered — I could not see him — what he was doing, “the meanness of these rich folk is disgusting! Not a coat of paint for a twelvemonth! I should be ashamed to own a house and leave it like that!”

  The man was a stranger to me, and his words seemed as uncalled for as they were ill-natured. But being thus challenged I looked at the house. It was a great stone mansion with a balustrade atop, with many windows and a long stretch of area railings. And certainly it was shabby. I turned from it to the critic. He was shabby too — a little red-nosed man wearing a bad hat. “It is just possible,” I suggested, “that the owner may be a poor man and unable to keep it in order.”

  “Ugh! What has that to do with it?” my new friend answered contemptuously. “He ought to think of the public.”

  “And your hat?” I asked with winning politeness. “It strikes me, an unprejudiced observer, as a bad hat. Why do you not get a new one?”

  “Cannot afford it!” he snapped out, his dull eyes sparkling with rage.

  “Cannot afford it? But my good man, you ought to think of the public.”

  “You tom-cat! What have you to do with my hat? Smother you!” was his kindly answer; and he went on his way muttering things uncomplimentary.

  I was about to
go mine, but was first falling back to gain a better view of the house in question, when a chuckle close to me betrayed the presence of a listener; a thin, grey-haired man, who, hidden by a pillar of the porch, must have heard our discussion. His hands were engaged with a white tablecloth, from which he had been shaking the crumbs. He had the air of an upper servant of the best class. As our eyes met he spoke.

  “Neatly put, sir, if I may take the liberty of saying so,” he observed, with a quiet dignity it was a pleasure to witness, “and we are very much obliged to you. The man was a snob, sir.”

  “I am afraid he was,” I answered; “and a fool too.”

  “And a fool, sir. Answer a fool after his folly. You did that, and he was nowhere; nowhere at all, except in the swearing line. Now, might I ask,” he continued, “if you are an American, sir?”

  “No, I am not,” I answered; “but I have spent some time in the States.”

  I could have fancied that he sighed.

  “I thought — but never mind, sir,” he began. “I was wrong. It is curious how much alike gentlemen, that are real gentlemen, speak. Now I dare swear, sir, that you have a taste for pictures.”

  I was inclined to humour the old fellow’s mood. “I like a good picture, I admit,” I said.

  “Then perhaps you would not be offended,” he suggested timidly, “if I asked you to step inside and look at one or two. I would not take the liberty, sir, but there are some Van Dycks and a Rubens in the dining-room that cost a mint of money in their day, I have heard; and there is no one in the house but my wife and myself.”

  It was a strange invitation, strangely brought about. But I saw no reason why I should not accept it, and I followed him into the hall. It was spacious, but sparely furnished. The matted floor had a cold look, and so had the gaunt stand which seemed to be a fixture, and boasted but one umbrella, one sunshade, and one dog-whip. As I passed a half-open door I caught a glimpse of a small room well furnished with prints and water-colours on the walls. But these were of a common order. A dozen replicas of each and all might be seen in a walk through Bond Street. So that even this oasis of taste and comfort told the same story as had the bare hall and dreary exterior; and laid, as it were, a finger on one’s heart. I trod softly as I followed my guide along the strip of matting towards the rear of the house.

  He opened a door at the inner end of the hall, and led me into a large and lofty room, built out at the back, as a state dining-room or ball-room. At present it resembled the latter, for it was without furniture. “Now,” said the old man, turning and respectfully touching my sleeve to gain my attention, “now you will not consider your labour lost in coming to see that, sir. It is a portrait of the second Lord Wetherby by Sir Anthony Van Dyck, and is judged to be one of the finest specimens of his style in existence.”

  I was lost in astonishment; amazed, almost appalled! My companion stood by my side, his face wearing a placid smile of satisfaction, his hand pointing slightly upwards to the blank wall before us. The blank wall! Of any picture, there or elsewhere in the room, there was no sign. I turned to him and then from him, and I felt very sick at heart. The poor old fellow was — must be — mad. I gazed blankly at the blank wall. “By Van Dyck?” I repeated mechanically.

  “Yes, sir, by Van Dyck,” he replied, in the most matter-of-fact tone imaginable. “So, too, is this one;” he moved as he spoke a few feet to his left. “The second peer’s first wife in the costume of a lady-in-waiting. This portrait and the last are in as good a state of preservation as on the day they were painted.”

  Oh, certainly mad! And yet so graphic was his manner, so crisp and realistic were his words, that I rubbed my eyes; and looked and looked again, and almost fancied that Walter, Lord Wetherby, and Anne, his wife, grew into shape before me on the wall. Almost, but not quite; and it was with a heart full of wonder and pity that I accompanied the old man, in whose manner there was no trace of wildness or excitement, round the walls; visiting in turn the Cuyp which my lord bought in Holland, the Rubens, the four Lawrences, and the Philips — a very Barmecide feast of art. I could not doubt that the old man saw the pictures; but I saw only bare walls.

  “Now I think you have seen them, family portraits and all,” he concluded, as we came to the doorway again; stating the fact, which was no fact, with complacent pride. “They are fine pictures, sir. They, at least, are left, though the house is not what it was.”

  “Very fine pictures,” I remarked. I was minded to learn if he were sane on other points. “Lord Wetherby,” I said, “I suppose that he is not in London?”

  “I do not know, sir, one way or the other,” the servant answered with a new air of reserve. “This is not his lordship’s house. Mrs. Wigram, my late lord’s daughter-in-law, lives here.”

  “But this is the Wetherby’s town house,” I persisted. I knew so much.

  “It was my late lord’s house. At his son’s marriage it was settled upon Mrs. Wigram; and little enough besides, God knows!” he exclaimed querulously. “It was Mr. Alfred’s wish that some land should be settled upon his wife, but there was none out of the entail, and my lord, who did not like the match, though he lived to be fond enough of the mistress afterwards, said, ‘Settle the house in town!’ in a bitter kind of joke like. So the house was settled, and five hundred pounds a year. Mr. Alfred died abroad, as you may know, sir, and my lord was not long in following him.”

  He was closing the shutters of one window after another as he spoke. The room had sunk into deep gloom. I could imagine now that the pictures were really where he fancied them. “And Lord Wetherby, the late peer?” I asked after a pause, “did he leave his daughter-in-law nothing?”

  “My lord died suddenly, leaving no will,” he replied sadly. “That is how it is. And the present peer, who was only a second cousin — well, I say nothing about him.” A reticence which was calculated to consign his lordship to the lowest deep.

  “He did not help?” I asked.

  “Devil a bit, begging your pardon, sir. But there, it is not my place to talk of these things. I doubt I have wearied you with talk about the family. It is not my way,” he added, as if wondering at himself, “only something in what you said seemed to touch a chord like.”

  By this time we were outside the room, standing at the inner end of the hall, while he fumbled with the lock of the door. Short passages ending in swing doors ran out right and left from this point, and through one of these a tidy, middle-aged woman wearing an apron suddenly emerged. At sight of me she looked much astonished. “I have been showing the gentleman the pictures,” said my guide, who was still occupied with the door.

  A flash of pain altered and hardened the woman’s face. “I have been very much interested, madam,” I said softly.

  Her gaze left me to dwell upon the old man with infinite affection. “John had no right to bring you in, sir,” she said primly. “I have never known him do such a thing before, and — Lord a mercy! there is the mistress’s knock. Go, John, and let her in; and this gentleman,” with an inquisitive look at me, “will not mind stepping a bit aside, while her ladyship goes upstairs.”

  “Certainly not,” I answered. I hastened to retire into one of the side passages, into the darkest corner of it, and there stood leaning against the cool panels, my hat in my hand.

  In the short pause which ensued before John opened the door she whispered to me, “You have not told him, sir?”

  “About the pictures?”

  “Yes, sir. He is blind, you see.”

  “Blind?” I exclaimed.

  “Yes, sir, this year and more; and when the pictures were taken away — by the present earl — that he had known all his life, and been so proud to show to people just the same as if they had been his own, why it seemed a shame to tell him. I have never had the heart to do it, and he thinks they are there to this day.”

  Blind! I had never thought of that; and while I was grasping the idea, and fitting it to the facts, a light footstep sounded in the hall and a woman’s voi
ce on the stairs; such a voice and such a footstep, that, it seemed to me, a man, if nothing else were left, might find home in them. “Your mistress,” I said presently, when the sounds had died away upon the floor above, “has a sweet voice; but has not something annoyed her?”

  “Well, I never should have thought that you would have noticed that!” exclaimed the housekeeper; who was, I daresay, many other things besides housekeeper. “You have a sharp ear, sir; that I will say. Yes, there is a something has gone wrong; but to think that an American gentleman should notice it!”

  “I am not American,” I said, perhaps testily.

  “Oh, indeed, sir. I beg your pardon, I am sure. It was just your way of speaking made me think it,” she replied. And then there came a second louder rap at the door, as John, who had gone upstairs with his mistress, came down in a leisurely fashion.

  “That is Lord Wetherby, drat him!” he said, on his wife calling to him in a low voice; he was ignorant, I think, of my presence. “He is to be shown into the library, and the mistress will see him in five minutes; and you are to go to her room. Oh, rap away!” he added, turning towards the door, and shaking his fist at it. “There is many a better man than you has waited longer at that door.”