Chapter 29
Up and down the house the two gentlemen wandered, the owner of the mansion being very silent and resigned about the pleasure of possessing it; whereas, the captain, his friend, examined the premises with so much interest and eagerness, that you would have thought he was the master, and the other the indifferent spectator of the place. "I see capabilities in it--capabilities in it, sir," cried the captain. "Gad, sir, leave it to me, and I'll make it the pride of the country, at a small expense. What a theater we can have in the library here, the curtains between the columns which divide the room! What a famous room for a galop! it will hold the whole s.h.i.+re. We'll hang the morning parlor with the tapestry in your second salon in the Rue de Grenelle, and furnish the oak room with the Moyen-age cabinets and the armor. Armor looks splendid against black oak, and there's a Venice gla.s.s in the Quai Voltaire, which will suit that high mantle-piece to an inch, sir. The long saloon, white and crimson of course; the drawing-room yellow satin; and the little drawing-room light blue, with lace over--hay?"
"I recollect my old governor caning me in that little room," Sir Francis said, sententiously; "he always hated me, my old governor."
"Chintz is the dodge, I suppose, for my lady's rooms--the suite in the landing, to the south, the bed-room, the sitting-room, and the dressing-room. We'll throw a conservatory out, over the balcony. Where will you have your rooms?"
"Put mine in the north wing," said the baronet, with a yawn, "and out of the reach of Miss Amory's confounded piano. I can't bear it. She's scweeching from morning till night."
The captain burst out laughing. He settled the whole further arrangements of the house in the course of their walk through it; and, the promenade ended, they went into the steward's room, now inhabited by Mrs.
Blenkinsop, and where Mr. Tatham was sitting, poring over a plan of the estate, and the old housekeeper had prepared a collation in honor of her lord and master.
Then they inspected the kitchen and stables, about both of which Sir Francis was rather interested, and Captain Strong was for examining the gardens: but the baronet said, "D---- the gardens, and that sort of thing!" and finally, he drove away from the house as unconcernedly as he had entered it; and that night the people of Clavering learned that Sir Francis Clavering had paid a visit to the Park, and was coming to live in the county.
When this fact came to be known at Chatteries, all the folks in the place were set in commotion: High Church and Low Church, half-pay captains and old maids and dowagers, sporting squireens of the vicinage, farmers, tradesmen, and factory people--all the population in and round about the little place. The news was brought to Fairoaks, and received by the ladies there, and by Mr. Pen, with some excitement. "Mrs. Pybus says there is a very pretty girl in the family, Arthur," Laura said, who was as kind and thoughtful upon this point as women generally are: "a Miss Amory, Lady Clavering's daughter by her first marriage. Of course, you will fall in love with her as soon as she arrives."
Helen cried out, "Don't talk nonsense, Laura." Pen laughed, and said, "Well, there is the young Sir Francis for you."
"He is but four years old," Miss Laura replied. "But I shall console myself with that handsome officer, Sir Francis's friend. He was at church last Sunday, in the Clavering pew, and his mustaches were beautiful."
Indeed, the number of Sir Francis's family (whereof the members have all been mentioned in the above paragraphs) was pretty soon known in his town, and every thing else, as nearly as human industry and ingenuity could calculate, regarding his household. The Park avenue and grounds were dotted now with town folks, of the summer evenings, who made their way up to the great house, peered about the premises, and criticised the improvements which were taking place there. Loads upon loads of furniture arrived in numberless vans from Chatteries and London; and numerous as the vans were, there was not one but Captain Glanders knew what it contained, and escorted the baggage up to the Park House.
He and Captain Edward Strong had formed an intimate acquaintance by this time. The younger captain occupied those very lodgings at Clavering, which the peaceful Smirke had previously tenanted, and was deep in the good graces of Madame Fribsby, his landlady; and of the whole town, indeed. The captain was splendid in person and raiment; fresh-colored, blue-eyed, black-whiskered, broad-chested, athletic--a slight tendency to fullness did not take away from the comeliness of his jolly figure--a braver soldier never presented a broader chest to the enemy. As he strode down Clavering High-street, his hat on one side, his cane clanking on the pavement, or waving round him in the execution of military cuts and soldatesque manoeuvres--his jolly laughter ringing through the otherwise silent street--he was as welcome as suns.h.i.+ne to the place, and a comfort to every inhabitant in it.
On the first market-day he knew every pretty girl in the market: he joked with all the women; had a word with the farmers about their stock, and dined at the Agricultural Ordinary at the Clavering Arms, where he set them all dying with laughing by his fun and jokes. "Tu be sure he be a vine feller, tu be sure that he be," was the universal opinion of the gentlemen in top-boots. He shook hands with a score of them, as they rode out of the inn-yard on their old nags, waving his hat to them splendidly as he smoked his cigar in the inn-gate. In the course of the evening he was free of the landlady's bar, knew what rent the landlord paid, how many acres he farmed, how much malt he put in his strong beer; and whether he ever run in a little brandy, unexcised by kings, from Baymouth, or the fis.h.i.+ng villages along the coast.
He had tried to live at the great house first; but it was so dull he couldn't stand it. "I am a creature born for society," he told Captain Glanders. "I'm down here to see Clavering's house set in order; for between ourselves, Frank has no energy, sir, no energy; he's not the chest for it, sir (and he threw out his own trunk as he spoke); but I must have social intercourse. Old Mrs. Blenkinsop goes to bed at seven, and takes Polly with her. There was n.o.body but me and the Ghost for the first two nights at the great house, and I own it, sir, I like company.
Most old soldiers do."
Glanders asked Strong where he had served? Captain Strong curled his mustache, and said with a laugh, that the other might almost ask where he had _not_ served. "I began, sir, as cadet of Hungarian Uhlans, and when the war of Greek independence broke out, quitted that service in consequence of a quarrel with my governor, and was one of seven who escaped from Missolonghi, and was blown up in one of Botzaris's fires.h.i.+ps, at the age of seventeen. I'll show you my Cross of the Redeemer, if you'll come over to my lodgings and take a gla.s.s of grog with me, captain, this evening. I've a few of those baubles in my
I've the White Eagle of Poland; Skrzynecki gave it me" (he p.r.o.nounced Skrzynecki's name with wonderful accuracy and gusto); "upon the field of Ostrolenka, I was a lieutenant of the fourth regiment, sir, and we marched through Diebitsch's lines--bang thro' 'em into Prussia, sir, without firing a shot. Ah, captain, that was a mismanaged business.
I received this wound by the side of the king before Oporto--where he would have pounded the stock-jobbing Pedroites, had Bourmont followed my advice; and I served in Spain with the king's troops, until the death of my dear friend, Zumalacarreguy, when I saw the game was over, and hung up my toasting iron, captain. Alava offered me a regiment, the Queen's Muleteros; but I couldn't--damme, I couldn't--and now, sir, you know Ned Strong--the Chevalier Strong they call me abroad--as well as he knows himself."
In this way almost every body in Clavering came to know Ned Strong. He told Madame Fribsby, he told the landlord of the George, he told Baker at the reading-rooms, he told Mrs. Glanders, and the young ones, at dinner: and, finally, he told Mr. Arthur Pendennis, who, yawning into Clavering one day, found the Chevalier Strong in company with Captain Glanders; and who was delighted with his new acquaintance.
Before many days were over, Captain Strong was as much at home in Helen's drawing-room as he was in Madame Fribsby's first floor; and made the lonely house very gay with his good humor and ceaseless flow of talk. The two women had never before seen such a man. He had a thousand stories about battles and dangers to interest them--about Greek captives, Polish beauties, and Spanish nuns. He could sing scores of songs, in half a dozen languages, and would sit down to the piano and troll them off in a rich manly voice. Both the ladies p.r.o.nounced him to be delightful--and so he was; though, indeed, they had not had much choice of man's society as yet, having seen in the course of their lives but few persons, except old Portman and the major, and Mr. Pen, who was a genius, to be sure; but then your geniuses are somewhat flat and moody at home.
And Captain Strong acquainted his new friends at Fairoaks, not only with his own biography, but with the whole history of the family now coming to Clavering. It was he who had made the marriage between his friend Frank and the widow Amory. She wanted rank, and he wanted money. What match could be more suitable? He organized it; he made those two people happy. There was no particular romantic attachment between them; the widow was not of an age or a person for romance, and Sir Francis, if he had his game at billiards, and his dinner, cared for little besides. But they were as happy as people could be. Clavering would return to his native place and country, his wife's fortune would pay his enc.u.mbrances off, and his son and heir would be one of the first men in the county.
"And Miss Amory?" Laura asked. Laura was uncommonly curious about Miss Amory.
Strong laughed. "Oh, Miss Amory is a muse--Miss Amory is a mystery--Miss Amory is a _femme incomprise_." "What is that?" asked simple Mrs.
Pendennis--but the chevalier gave her no answer; perhaps could not give her one. "Miss Amory paints, Miss Amory writes poems, Miss Amory composes music, Miss Amory rides like Diana Vernon. Miss Amory is a paragon, in a word."
"I hate clever women," said Pen.
"Thank you," said Laura. For her part she was sure she should be charmed with Miss Amory, and quite longed to have such a friend. And with this she looked Pen full in the face, as if every word the little hypocrite said was gospel truth.
Thus, an intimacy was arranged and prepared beforehand between the Fairoaks family and their wealthy neighbors at the Park; and Pen and Laura were to the full as eager for their arrivals, as even the most curious of the Clavering folks. A Londoner, who sees fresh faces and yawns at them every day, may smile at the eagerness with which country people expect a visitor. A c.o.c.kney comes among them, and is remembered by his rural entertainers for years after he has left them, and forgotten them very likely--floated far away from them on the vast London sea. But the islanders remember long after the mariner has sailed away, and can tell you what he said, and what he wore, and how he looked and how he laughed. In fine, a new arrival is an event in the country, not to be understood by us, who don't and had rather not, know who lives next door.
When the painters and upholsterers had done their work in the house, and so beautified it, under Captain Strong's superintendence, that he might well be proud of his taste, that gentleman announced that he should go to London, where the whole family had arrived by this time, and should speedily return to establish them in their renovated mansion.
Detachments of domestics preceded them. Carriages came down by sea, and were brought over from Baymouth by horses which had previously arrived under the care of grooms and coachmen. One day the "Alacrity" coach brought down on its roof two large and melancholy men, who were dropped at the park lodge with their trunks, and who were Messieurs Frederic and James, metropolitan footmen, who had no objection to the country, and brought with them state and other suits of the Clavering uniform.
On another day, the mail deposited at the gate a foreign gentleman, adorned with many ringlets and chains. He made a great riot at the lodge gate to the keeper's wife (who, being a West-country woman, did not understand his English or his Gascon French), because there was no carriage in waiting to drive him to the house, a mile off, and because he could not walk entire leagues in his fatigued state and varnished boots. This was Monsieur Alcide Mirobolant, formerly Chef of his Highness the Duc de Borodino, of H. Eminence Cardinal Beccafico, and at present Chef of the bouche of Sir Francis Clavering, Baronet:--Monsieur Mirobolant's library, pictures, and piano, had arrived previously in charge of the intelligent young Englishman, his aid-de-camp. He was, moreover, aided by a professed female cook, likewise from London, who had inferior females under her orders.
He did not dine in the steward's room, but took his nutriment in solitude in his own apartments, where a female servant was affected to his private use. It was a grand sight to behold him in his dressing-gown composing a _menu_. He always sate down and played the piano for some time before that. If interrupted, he remonstrated pathetically with his little maid. Every great artist, he said, had need of solitude to perfectionate his works.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
But we are advancing matters, in the fullness of our love and respect for Monsieur Mirobolant, and bringing him prematurely on the stage.
The Chevalier Strong had a hand in the engagement of all the London domestics, and, indeed, seemed to be the master of the house. There were those among them who said he was the house-steward, only he dined with the family. Howbeit, he knew how to make himself respected, and two of by no means the least comfortable rooms of the house were a.s.signed to his particular use.
He was walking upon the terrace finally upon the eventful day, when, amid an immense jangling of bells from Clavering Church, where the flag was flying, an open carriage and one of those traveling chariots or family arks, which only English philo-progenitiveness could invent, drove rapidly with foaming horses through the park gates, and up to the steps of the hall. The two _battans_ of the sculptured door flew open.
Two superior officers in black, the large and melancholy gentlemen, now in livery with their hair in powder, the country menials engaged to aid them, were in waiting in the hall, and bowed like tall elms when autumn winds wail in the park. Through this avenue pa.s.sed Sir Francis Clavering with a most unmoved face; Lady Clavering with a pair of bright black eyes, and a good-humored countenance, which waggled and nodded very graciously: Master Francis Clavering, who was holding his mamma's skirt (and who stopped the procession to look at the largest footman, whose appearance seemed to strike the young gentleman), and Miss Blandy, governess to Master Francis, and Miss Amory, her ladys.h.i.+p's daughter, giving her arm to Captain Strong. It was summer, but fires of welcome were crackling in the great hall chimney, and in the rooms which the family were to occupy.
Monsieur Mirobolant had looked at the procession from one of the lime-trees in the avenue. "Elle est la," he said, laying his jeweled hand on his richly-embroidered velvet waistcoat with gla.s.s b.u.t.tons. "Je t'ai vue, je te benis, O ma sylphide, O mon ange!" and he dived into the thicket, and made his way back to his furnaces and saucepans.
The next Sunday the same party which had just made its appearance at Clavering Park, came and publicly took possession of the ancient pew in the church, where so many of the baronet's ancestors had prayed, and were now kneeling in effigy. There was such a run to see the new folks, that the Low Church was deserted, to the disgust of its pastor; and as the state barouche, with the grays and coachman in silver wig, and solemn footmen, drew up at the old churchyard gate, there was such a crowd a.s.sembled there as had not been seen for many a long day. Captain Strong knew every body, and saluted for all the company--the country people vowed my lady was not handsome, to be sure, but p.r.o.nounced her uncommon fine dressed, as indeed she was--with the finest of shawls, the finest of pelisses, the brilliantest of bonnets and wreaths, and a power of rings, cameos, brooches, chains, bangles, and other nameless gimcracks; and ribbons of every breadth and color of the rainbow flaming on her person. Miss Amory appeared meek and dove-color like a vestal virgin--while Master Francis was in the costume then prevalent of Rob Roy Macgregor, a celebrated Highland outlaw. The baronet was not more animated than ordinarily--there was a happy vacuity about him which enabled him to face a dinner, a death, a church, a marriage, with the same indifferent ease.
A pew for the Clavering servants was filled by these domestics, and the enraptured congregation saw the gentlemen from London with "vlower on their heeds," and the miraculous coachman with his silver wig, take their places in that pew so soon as his horses were put up at the Clavering Arms.
In the course of the service, Master Francis began to make such a yelling in the pew, that Frederic, the tallest of the footmen, was beckoned by his master, and rose and went and carried out Master Francis, who roared and beat him on the head, so that the powder flew round about, like clouds of incense. Nor was he pacified until placed on the box of the carriage, where he played at horses with John's whip.
"You see the little beggar's never been to church before, Miss Bell,"
the baronet drawled out to a young lady who was visiting him; "no wonder he should make a row; I don't go in town neither, but I think it's right in the country to give a good example--and that sort of thing."
Miss Bell laughed, and said, "The little boy had not given a particularly good example."
"Gad, I don't know, and that sort of thing," said the baronet. "It ain't so bad neither. Whenever he wants a thing, Frank always cwies, and whenever he cwies he gets it."
Here the child in question began to howl for a dish of sweetmeats, on the luncheon table, and making a lunge across the table-cloth, upset a gla.s.s of wine over the best waistcoat of one of the guests present, Mr.
Arthur Pendennis, who was greatly annoyed at being made to look foolish, and at having his spotless cambric s.h.i.+rt front blotched with wine.
"We do spoil him so," said Lady Clavering to Mrs. Pendennis, fondly gazing at the cherub, whose hands and face were now frothed over with the species of lather which is inserted in the confection called _meringues a la creme_.
"It is very wrong," said Mrs. Pendennis, as if she had never done such a thing herself as spoil a child.
"Mamma says she spoils my brother--do you think any thing could. Miss Bell? Look at him--isn't he like a little angel?"
"Gad, I was quite wight," said the baronet. "He has cwied, and he has got it, you see. Go it, Fw.a.n.k, old boy."
"Sir Francis is a very judicious parent," Miss Amory whispered. "Don't you think so, Miss Bell? I shan't call you Miss Bell--I shall call you Laura. I admired you so at church. Your robe was not well made, nor your bonnet very fresh. But you have such beautiful gray eyes, and such a lovely tint."
"Thank you," said Miss Bell, laughing.
"Your cousin is handsome, and thinks so. He is uneasy _de sa personne_.
He has not seen the world yet. Has he genius? Has he suffered? A lady, a little woman in a rumpled satin and velvet shoes--a Miss Pybus--came here and said he has suffered. I, too, have suffered--and you, Laura, has your heart ever been touched?"
Laura said "No!" but perhaps blushed a little at the idea of the question, so that the other said--