Scenes of Clerical Life

Chapter 4

In three months from the time of Caterina's adoption--namely, in the late

autumn of 1773--the chimneys of Cheverel Manor were sending up unwonted

smoke, and the servants were awaiting in excitement the return of their

master and mistress after a two years' absence. Great was the

astonishment of Mrs. Bellamy, the housekeeper, when Mr. Warren lifted a

little black-eyed child out of the carriage, and great was Mrs. Sharp's

sense of superior information and experience, as she detailed Caterina's

history, interspersed with copious comments, to the rest of the upper

servants that evening, as they were taking a comfortable glass of grog

together in the housekeeper's room.

A pleasant room it was as any party need desire to muster in on a cold

November evening. The fireplace alone was a picture: a wide and deep

recess with a low brick altar in the middle, where great logs of dry wood

sent myriad sparks up the dark chimney-throat; and over the front of this

recess a large wooden entablature bearing this motto, finely carved in

old English letters, 'Fear God and honour the King'. And beyond the

party, who formed a half-moon with their chairs and well-furnished table

round this bright fireplace, what a space of chiaroscuro for the

imagination to revel in! Stretching across the far end of the room, what

an oak table, high enough surely for Homer's gods, standing on four

massive legs, bossed and bulging like sculptured urns! and, lining the

distant wall, what vast cupboards, suggestive of inexhaustible apricot

jam and promiscuous butler's perquisites! A stray picture or two had

found their way down there, and made agreeable patches of dark brown on

the buff-coloured walls. High over the loud-resounding double door hung

one which, from some indications of a face looming out of blackness,

might, by a great synthetic effort, be pronounced a Magdalen.

Considerably lower down hung the similitude of a hat and feathers, with

portions of a ruff, stated by Mrs. Bellamy to represent Sir Francis

Bacon, who invented gunpowder, and, in her opinion, 'might ha' been

better emplyed.'

But this evening the mind is but slightly arrested by the great Verulam,

and is in the humour to think a dead philosopher less interesting than a

living gardener, who sits conspicuous in the half-circle round the

fireplace. Mr. Bates is habitually a guest in the housekeeper's room of

an evening, preferring the social pleasures there--the feast of gossip

and the flow of grog--to a bachelor's chair in his charming thatched

cottage on a little island, where every sound is remote, but the cawing

of rooks and the screaming of wild geese, poetic sounds, doubtless, but,

humanly speaking, not convivial.

Mr. Bates was by no means an average person, to be passed without special

notice. He was a sturdy Yorkshireman, approaching forty, whose face

Nature seemed to have coloured when she was in a hurry, and had no time

to attend to _nuances_, for every inch of him visible above his neckcloth

was of one impartial redness; so that when he was at some distance your

imagination was at liberty to place his lips anywhere between his nose

and chin. Seen closer, his lips were discerned to be of a peculiar cut,

and I fancy this had something to do with the peculiarity of his dialect,

which, as we shall see, was individual rather than provincial. Mr. Bates

was further distinguished from the common herd by a perpetual blinking of

the eyes; and this, together with the red-rose tint of his complexion,

and a way he had of hanging his head forward, and rolling it from side to

side as he walked, gave him the air of a Bacchus in a blue apron, who, in

the present reduced circumstances of Olympus, had taken to the management

of his own vines. Yet, as gluttons are often thin, so sober men are often

rubicund; and Mr. Bates was sober, with that manly, British,

churchman-like sobriety which can carry a few glasses of grog without any

perceptible clarification of ideas.

'Dang my boottons!' observed Mr. Bates, who, at the conclusion of Mrs.

Sharp's narrative, felt himself urged to his strongest interjection,

'it's what I shouldn't ha' looked for from Sir Cristhifer an' my ledy, to

bring a furrin child into the coonthry; an' depend on't, whether you an'

me lives to see't or noo, it'll coom to soom harm. The first sitiation

iver I held--it was a hold hancient habbey, wi' the biggest orchard o'

apples an' pears you ever see--there was a French valet, an' he stool

silk stoockins, an' shirts, an' rings, an' iverythin' he could ley his

hands on, an' run awey at last wi' th' missis's jewl-box. They're all

alaike, them furriners. It roons i' th' blood.'

'Well,' said Mrs. Sharp, with the air of a person who held liberal views,

but knew where to draw the line, 'I'm not a-going to defend the

furriners, for I've as good reason to know what they are as most folks,

an' nobody'll ever hear me say but what they're next door to heathens,

and the hile they eat wi' their victuals is enough to turn any

Christian's stomach. But for all that--an' for all as the trouble in

respect o' washin' and managin' has fell upo' me through the journey--I

can't say but what I think as my Lady an' Sir Cristifer's done a right

thing by a hinnicent child as doesn't know its right hand from its left,

i' bringing it where it'll learn to speak summat better nor gibberish,

and be brought up i' the true religion. For as for them furrin churches

as Sir Cristifer is so unaccountable mad after, wi' pictures o' men an'

women a-showing themselves just for all the world as God made 'em. I

think, for my part, as it's welly a sin to go into 'em.'

'You're likely to have more foreigners, however,' said Mr. Warren, who

liked to provoke the gardener, 'for Sir Christopher has engaged some

Italian workmen to help in the alterations in the house.'

'Olterations!' exclaimed Mrs. Bellamy, in alarm. 'What olterations!'

'Why,' answered Mr. Warren, 'Sir Christopher, as I understand, is going

to make a new thing of the old Manor-house both inside and out. And he's

got portfolios full of plans and pictures coming. It is to be cased with

stone, in the Gothic style--pretty near like the churches, you know, as

far as I can make out; and the ceilings are to be beyond anything that's

been seen in the country. Sir Christopher's been giving a deal of study

to it.'

'Dear heart alive!' said Mrs. Bellamy, 'we shall be pisoned wi' lime an'

plaster, an' hev the house full o' workmen colloguing wi' the maids, an'

makin' no end o' mischief.'

'That ye may ley your life on, Mrs. Bellamy,' said Mr. Bates. 'Howiver,

I'll noot denay that the Goothic stayle's prithy anoof, an' it's

woonderful how near them stoon-carvers cuts oot the shapes o' the pine

apples, an' shamrucks, an' rooses. I dare sey Sir Cristhifer'll meck a

naice thing o' the Manor, an' there woon't be many gentlemen's houses i'

the coonthry as'll coom up to't, wi' sich a garden an' pleasure-groons

an' wall-fruit as King George maight be prood on.'

'Well, I can't think as the house can be better nor it is, Gothic or no

Gothic,' said Mrs. Bellamy; 'an' I've done the picklin' and preservin' in

it fourteen year Michaelmas was a three weeks. But what does my lady say

to't?'

'My lady knows better than cross Sir Cristifer in what he's set his mind

on,' said Mr. Bellamy, who objected to the critical tone of the

conversation. 'Sir Cristifer'll hev his own way, _that_ you may tek your

oath. An' i' the right on't too. He's a gentleman born, an's got the

money. But come, Mester Bates, fill your glass, an' we'll drink health

an' happiness to his honour an' my lady, and then you shall give us a

song. Sir Cristifer doesn't come hum from Italy ivery night.'

This demonstrable position was accepted without hesitation as ground for

a toast; but Mr. Bates, apparently thinking that his song was not an

equally reasonable sequence, ignored the second part of Mr. Bellamy's

proposal. So Mrs. Sharp, who had been heard to say that she had no

thoughts at all of marrying Mr. Bates, though he was 'a sensable

fresh-coloured man as many a woman 'ud snap at for a husband,' enforced

Mr. Bellamy's appeal.

'Come, Mr. Bates, let us hear "Roy's Wife." I'd rether hear a good old

song like that, nor all the fine Italian toodlin.'

Mr. Bates, urged thus flatteringly, stuck his thumbs into the armholes of

his waistcoat, threw himself back in his chair with his head in that

position in which he could look directly towards the zenith, and struck

up a remarkably _staccato_ rendering of 'Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch'. This

melody may certainly be taxed with excessive iteration, but that was

precisely its highest recommendation to the present audience, who found

it all the easier to swell the chorus. Nor did it at all diminish their

pleasure that the only particular concerning 'Roy's Wife', which Mr.

Bates's enunciation allowed them to gather, was that she 'chated'

him,--whether in the matter of garden stuff or of some other commodity,

or why her name should, in consequence, be repeatedly reiterated with

exultation, remaining an agreeable mystery.

Mr. Bates's song formed the climax of the evening's good-fellowship, and

the party soon after dispersed--Mrs. Bellamy perhaps to dream of

quicklime flying among her preserving-pans, or of love-sick housemaids

reckless of unswept corners--and Mrs. Sharp to sink into pleasant visions

of independent housekeeping in Mr. Bates's cottage, with no bells to

answer, and with fruit and vegetables_ ad libitum_.

Caterina soon conquered all prejudices against her foreign blood; for

what prejudices will hold out against helplessness and broken prattle?

She became the pet of the household, thrusting Sir Christopher's

favourite bloodhound of that day, Mrs. Bellamy's two canaries, and Mr.

Bates's largest Dorking hen, into a merely secondary position. The

consequence was, that in the space of a summer's day she went through a

great cycle of experiences, commencing with the somewhat acidulated

goodwill of Mrs. Sharp's nursery discipline. Then came the grave luxury

of her ladyship's sitting-room, and, perhaps, the dignity of a ride on

Sir Christopher's knee, sometimes followed by a visit with him to the

stables, where Caterina soon learned to hear without crying the baying of

the chained bloodhounds, and say, with ostentatious bravery, clinging to

Sir Christopher's leg all the while, 'Dey not hurt Tina.' Then Mrs.

Bellamy would perhaps be going out to gather the rose-leaves and

lavender, and Tina was made proud and happy by being allowed to carry a

handful in her pinafore; happier still, when they were spread out on

sheets to dry, so that she could sit down like a frog among them, and

have them poured over her in fragrant showers. Another frequent pleasure

was to take a journey with Mr. Bates through the kitchen-gardens and the

hothouses, where the rich bunches of green and purple grapes hung from

the roof, far out of reach of the tiny yellow hand that could not help

stretching itself out towards them; though the hand was sure at last to

be satisfied with some delicate-flavoured fruit or sweet-scented flower.

Indeed, in the long monotonous leisure of that great country-house, you

may be sure there was always some one who had nothing better to do than

to play with Tina. So that the little southern bird had its northern nest

lined with tenderness, and caresses, and pretty things. A loving

sensitive nature was too likely, under such nurture, to have its

susceptibility heightened into unfitness for an encounter with any harder

experience; all the more, because there were gleams of fierce resistance

to any discipline that had a harsh or unloving aspect. For the only thing

in which Caterina showed any precocity was a certain ingenuity in

vindictiveness. When she was five years old she had revenged herself for

an unpleasant prohibition by pouring the ink into Mrs. Sharp's

work-basket; and once, when Lady Cheverel took her doll from her, because

she was affectionately licking the paint off its face, the little minx

straightway climbed on a chair and threw down a flower-vase that stood on

a bracket. This was almost the only instance in which her anger overcame

her awe of Lady Cheverel, who had the ascendancy always belonging to

kindness that never melts into caresses, and is severely but uniformly

beneficent.

By-and-by the happy monotony of Cheverel Manor was broken in upon in the

way Mr. Warren had announced. The roads through the park were cut up by

waggons carrying loads of stone from a neighbouring quarry, the green

courtyard became dusty with lime, and the peaceful house rang with the

sound of tools. For the next ten years Sir Christopher was occupied with

the architectural metamorphosis of his old family mansion; thus

anticipating, through the prompting of his individual taste, that general

reaction from the insipid imitation of the Palladian style, towards a

restoration of the Gothic, which marked the close of the eighteenth

century. This was the object he had set his heart on, with a singleness

of determination which was regarded with not a little contempt by his

fox-hunting neighbours, who wondered greatly that a man with some of the

best blood in England in his veins, should be mean enough to economize in

his cellar, and reduce his stud to two old coach-horses and a hack, for

the sake of riding a hobby, and playing the architect. Their wives did

not see so much to blame in the matter of the cellar and stables, but

they were eloquent in pity for poor Lady Cheverel, who had to live in no

more than three rooms at once, and who must be distracted with noises,

and have her constitution undermined by unhealthy smells. It was as bad

as having a husband with an asthma. Why did not Sir Christopher take a

house for her at Bath, or, at least, if he must spend his time in

overlooking workmen, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Manor? This

pity was quite gratuitous, as the most plentiful pity always is; for

though Lady Cheverel did not share her husband's architectural

enthusiasm, she had too rigorous a view of a wife's duties, and too

profound a deference for Sir Christopher, to regard submission as a

grievance. As for Sir Christopher, he was perfectly indifferent to

criticism. 'An obstinate, crotchety man,' said his neighbours. But I, who

have seen Cheverel Manor, as he bequeathed it to his heirs, rather

attribute that unswerving architectural purpose of his, conceived and

carried out through long years of systematic personal exertion, to

something of the fervour of genius, as well as inflexibility of will; and

in walking through those rooms, with their splendid ceilings and their

meagre furniture, which tell how all the spare money had been absorbed

before personal comfort was thought of, I have felt that there dwelt in

this old English baronet some of that sublime spirit which distinguishes

art from luxury, and worships beauty apart from self-indulgence.

While Cheverel Manor was growing from ugliness into beauty, Caterina too

was growing from a little yellow bantling into a whiter maiden, with no

positive beauty indeed, but with a certain light airy grace, which, with

her large appealing dark eyes, and a voice that, in its low-toned

tenderness, recalled the love-notes of the stock-dove, gave her a more

than usual charm. Unlike the building, however, Caterina's development

was the result of no systematic or careful appliances. She grew up very

much like the primroses, which the gardener is not sorry to see within

his enclosure, but takes no pains to cultivate. Lady Cheverel taught her

to read and write, and say her catechism; Mr. Warren, being a good

accountant, gave her lessons in arithmetic, by her ladyship's desire; and

Mrs. Sharp initiated her in all the mysteries of the needle. But, for a

long time, there was no thought of giving her any more elaborate

education. It is very likely that to her dying day Caterina thought the

earth stood still, and that the sun and stars moved round it; but so, for

the matter of that, did Helen, and Dido, and Desdemona, and Juliet;

whence I hope you will not think my Caterina less worthy to be a heroine

on that account. The truth is, that, with one exception, her only talent

lay in loving; and there, it is probable, the most astronomical of women

could not have surpassed her. Orphan and protegee though she was, this

supreme talent of hers found plenty of exercise at Cheverel Manor, and

Caterina had more people to love than many a small lady and gentleman

affluent in silver mugs and blood relations. I think the first place in

her childish heart was given to Sir Christopher, for little girls are apt

to attach themselves to the finest-looking gentleman at hand, especially

as he seldom has anything to do with discipline. Next to the Baronet came

Dorcas, the merry rosy-cheeked damsel who was Mrs. Sharp's lieutenant in

the nursery, and thus played the part of the raisins in a dose of senna.

It was a black day for Caterina when Dorcas married the coachman, and

went, with a great sense of elevation in the world, to preside over a

'public' in the noisy town of Sloppeter. A little china-box, bearing the

motto 'Though lost to sight, to memory dear', which Dorcas sent her as a

remembrance, was among Caterina's treasures ten years after.

The one other exceptional talent, you already guess, was music. When the

fact that Caterina had a remarkable ear for music, and a still more

remarkable voice, attracted Lady Cheverel's notice, the discovery was

very welcome both to her and Sir Christopher. Her musical education

became at once an object of interest. Lady Cheverel devoted much time to

it; and the rapidity of Tina's progress surpassing all hopes, an Italian

singing-master was engaged, for several years, to spend some months

together at Cheverel Manor. This unexpected gift made a great alteration

in Caterina's position. After those first years in which little girls are

petted like puppies and kittens, there comes a time when it seems less

obvious what they can be good for, especially when, like Caterina, they

give no particular promise of cleverness or beauty; and it is not

surprising that in that uninteresting period there was no particular plan

formed as to her future position. She could always help Mrs. Sharp,

supposing she were fit for nothing else, as she grew up; but now, this

rare gift of song endeared her to Lady Cheverel, who loved music above

all things, and it associated her at once with the pleasures of the

drawing-room. Insensibly she came to be regarded as one of the family,

and the servants began to understand that Miss Sarti was to be a lady

after all.

'And the raight on't too,' said Mr. Bates, 'for she hasn't the cut of a

gell as must work for her bread; she's as nesh an' dilicate as a

paich-blossom--welly laike a linnet, wi' on'y joost body anoof to hold

her voice.'

But long before Tina had reached this stage of her history, a new era had

begun for her, in the arrival of a younger companion than any she had

hitherto known. When she was no more than seven, a ward of Sir

Christopher's--a lad of fifteen, Maynard Gilfil by name--began to spend

his vacations at Cheverel Manor, and found there no playfellow so much to

his mind as Caterina. Maynard was an affectionate lad, who retained a

propensity to white rabbits, pet squirrels, and guinea-pigs, perhaps a

little beyond the age at which young gentlemen usually look down on such

pleasures as puerile. He was also much given to fishing, and to

carpentry, considered as a fine art, without any base view to utility.

And in all these pleasures it was his delight to have Caterina as his

companion, to call her little pet names, answer her wondering questions,

and have her toddling after him as you may have seen a Blenheim spaniel

trotting after a large setter. Whenever Maynard went back to school,

there was a little scene of parting.

'You won't forget me, Tina, before I come back again? I shall leave you

all the whip-cord we've made; and don't you let Guinea die. Come, give me

a kiss, and promise not to forget me.'

As the years wore on, and Maynard passed from school to college, and from

a slim lad to a stalwart young man, their companionship in the vacations

necessarily took a different form, but it retained a brotherly and

sisterly familiarity. With Maynard the boyish affection had insensibly

grown into ardent love. Among all the many kinds of first love, that

which begins in childish companionship is the strongest and most

enduring: when passion comes to unite its force to long affection, love

is at its spring-tide. And Maynard Gilfil's love was of a kind to make

him prefer being tormented by Caterina to any pleasure, apart from her,

which the most benevolent magician could have devised for him. It is the

way with those tall large-limbed men, from Samson downwards. As for Tina,

the little minx was perfectly well aware that Maynard was her slave; he

was the one person in the world whom she did as she pleased with; and I

need not tell you that this was a symptom of her being perfectly

heart-whole so far as he was concerned: for a passionate woman's love is

always overshadowed by fear.

Maynard Gilfil did not deceive himself in his interpretation of

Caterina's feelings, but he nursed the hope that some time or other she

would at least care enough for him to accept his love. So he waited

patiently for the day when he might venture to say, 'Caterina, I love

you!' You see, he would have been content with very little, being one of

those men who pass through life without making the least clamour about

themselves; thinking neither the cut of his coat, nor the flavour of his

soup, nor the precise depth of a servant's bow, at all momentous. He

thought--foolishly enough, as lovers _will_ think--that it was a good

augury for him when he came to be domesticated at Cheverel Manor in the

quality of chaplain there, and curate of a neighbouring parish; judging

falsely, from his own case, that habit and affection were the likeliest

avenues to love. Sir Christopher satisfied several feelings in installing

Maynard as chaplain in his house. He liked the old-fashioned dignity of

that domestic appendage; he liked his ward's companionship; and, as

Maynard had some private fortune, he might take life easily in that

agreeable home, keeping his hunter, and observing a mild regimen of

clerical duty, until the Cumbermoor living should fall in, when he might

be settled for life in the neighbourhood of the manor. 'With Caterina for

a wife, too,' Sir Christopher soon began to think; for though the good

Baronet was not at all quick to suspect what was unpleasant and opposed

to his views of fitness, he was quick to see what would dovetail with his

own plans; and he had first guessed, and then ascertained, by direct

inquiry, the state of Maynard's feelings. He at once leaped to the

conclusion that Caterina was of the same mind, or at least would be, when

she was old enough. But these were too early days for anything definite

to be said or done.

Meanwhile, new circumstances were arising, which, though they made no

change in Sir Christopher's plans and prospects, converted Mr. Gilfil's

hopes into anxieties, and made it clear to him not only that Caterina's

heart was never likely to be his, but that it was given entirely to

another.

Once or twice in Caterina's childhood, there had been another boy-visitor

at the manor, younger than Maynard Gilfil--a beautiful boy with brown

curls and splendid clothes, on whom Caterina had looked with shy

admiration. This was Anthony Wybrow, the son of Sir Christopher's

youngest sister, and chosen heir of Cheverel Manor. The Baronet had

sacrificed a large sum, and even straitened the resources by which he was

to carry out his architectural schemes, for the sake of removing the

entail from his estate, and making this boy his heir--moved to the step,

I am sorry to say, by an implacable quarrel with his elder sister; for a

power of forgiveness was not among Sir Christopher's virtues. At length,

on the death of Anthony's mother, when he was no longer a curly-headed

boy, but a tall young man, with a captain's commission, Cheverel Manor

became _his_ home too, whenever he was absent from his regiment. Caterina

was then a little woman, between sixteen and seventeen, and I need not

spend many words in explaining what you perceive to be the most natural

thing in the world.

There was little company kept at the Manor, and Captain Wybrow would have

been much duller if Caterina had not been there. It was pleasant to pay

her attentions--to speak to her in gentle tones, to see her little

flutter of pleasure, the blush that just lit up her pale cheek, and the

momentary timid glance of her dark eyes, when he praised her singing,

leaning at her side over the piano. Pleasant, too, to cut out that

chaplain with his large calves! What idle man can withstand

the temptation of a woman to fascinate, and another man to

eclipse?--especially when it is quite clear to himself that he means no

mischief, and shall leave everything to come right again by-and-by? At

the end of eighteen months, however, during which Captain Wybrow had

spent much of his time at the Manor, he found that matters had reached a

point which he had not at all contemplated. Gentle tones had led to

tender words, and tender words had called forth a response of looks which

made it impossible not to carry on the _crescendo_ of love-making. To

find one's self adored by a little, graceful, dark-eyed, sweet-singing

woman, whom no one need despise, is an agreeable sensation, comparable to

smoking the finest Latakia, and also imposes some return of tenderness as

a duty.

Perhaps you think that Captain Wybrow, who knew that it would be

ridiculous to dream of his marrying Caterina, must have been a reckless

libertine to win her affections in this manner! Not at all. He was a

young man of calm passions, who was rarely led into any conduct of which

he could not give a plausible account to himself; and the tiny fragile

Caterina was a woman who touched the imagination and the affections

rather than the senses. He really felt very kindly towards her, and would

very likely have loved her--if he had been able to love any one. But

nature had not endowed him with that capability. She had given him an

admirable figure, the whitest of hands, the most delicate of nostrils,

and a large amount of serene self-satisfaction; but, as if to save such a

delicate piece of work from any risk of being shattered, she had guarded

him from the liability to a strong emotion. There was no list of youthful

misdemeanours on record against him, and Sir Christopher and Lady

Cheverel thought him the best of nephews, the most satisfactory of heirs,

full of grateful deference to themselves, and, above all things, guided

by a sense of duty. Captain Wybrow always did the thing easiest and most

agreeable to him from a sense of duty: he dressed expensively, because it

was a duty he owed to his position; from a sense of duty he adapted

himself to Sir Christopher's inflexible will, which it would have been

troublesome as well as useless to resist; and, being of a delicate

constitution, he took care of his health from a sense of duty. His health

was the only point on which he gave anxiety to his friends; and it was

owing to this that Sir Christopher wished to see his nephew early

married, the more so as a match after the Baronet's own heart appeared

immediately attainable. Anthony had seen and admired Miss Assher, the

only child of a lady who had been Sir Christopher's earliest love, but

who, as things will happen in this world, had married another baronet

instead of him. Miss Assher's father was now dead, and she was in

possession of a pretty estate. If, as was probable, she should prove

susceptible to the merits of Anthony's person and character, nothing

could make Sir Christopher so happy as to see a marriage which might be

expected to secure the inheritance of Cheverel Manor from getting into

the wrong hands. Anthony had already been kindly received by Lady Assher

as the nephew of her early friend; why should he not go to Bath, where

she and her daughter were then residing, follow up the acquaintance, and

win a handsome, well-born, and sufficiently wealthy bride?

Sir Christopher's wishes were communicated to his nephew, who at once

intimated his willingness to comply with them--from a sense of duty.

Caterina was tenderly informed by her lover of the sacrifice demanded

from them both; and three days afterwards occurred the parting scene you

have witnessed in the gallery, on the eve of Captain Wybrow's departure

for Bath.