“If it please your Majesties”—a clear voice entered between the bonnet-hoods of the curtains—“here are the ladies whose attendance I was ordered to require.”
“Ladies!—what ladies?” asked King George, rubbing his eyes, and yawning. “Oh yes, to be sure! I mustn’t get up so early to-morrow. Won’t take a minute, my dear. Let them come. Not much time to spare.”
But as soon as he saw Lady Scudamore, the King’s good-nature overcame the weariness of the moment. He took her kindly by the hand, and looked at her face, which bore the mark of many heavy trials; and she, who had often seen him when the world was bright before her, could not smother one low sob, as she thought of all that had been since.
“Don’t cry, don’t cry, my dear,” said the King, with his kind heart showing in his eyes; “we must bow to the will of the Lord, who gives sad trials to every one of us. We must think of the good, and not the evil. Bless me, keep your spirits up. Your son is doing very well indeed, very well indeed, from all I hear. Good chip of the old block, very good chip. Will cure my grandchildren, as soon as they want it; and nobody is ever in good health now.”
“No, your Majesty, if you please, my son is in the Royal Navy, fighting for his Country and his King. And he has already captured—”
“Three French frigates. To be sure, I know. Better than curing three hundred people. Fine young officer—very fine young officer. Must come to see me when he gets older. There, you are laughing! That’s as it should be. Goodbye, young ladies. Forty miles to go tonight, and very rough roads—very rough indeed. Monstrous pretty girls! Uncommon glad that George wasn’t here to see them. Better stay in the country—too good for London. Must be off; sha’n’t have a bit o’ sleep to-night, because of sleeping the whole way there, and then sure to be late in the morning, not a bit of breakfast till eight o’clock, and all the day thrown upside down! Darlings, Darlings—the right name for them! But they mustn’t come to London. No, no, no. Too much wickedness there already. Very glad George wasn’t here to-day!”
His Majesty was talking, as he always did, with the firm conviction that his words intended for the public ear would reach it, while those addressed, without change of tone, to himself, would be strictly private. But instead of offending any one, this on the whole gave great satisfaction, and impressed nine people out of ten with a strong and special regard for him, because almost every one supposed himself to be admitted at first sight to the inner confidence of the King. And to what could he attribute this? He would do his own merits great demerit unless he attributed it to them, and to the King an unusual share of sagacity in perceiving them.
CHAPTER XLIV
DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN
That grand review at Shotbury was declared by all who took part in it, or at all understood the subject, to have been a most remarkable and quite unparalleled success. Not only did it show what noble stuff there is in Englishmen, and how naturally they take to arms, but also it inspired with martial feeling and happy faith the wives and mothers of all the gallant warriors there. It would make the blood-stained despot cower upon his throne of murder, and teach him the madness of invading any land so fortified.
However, Napoleon failed to see the matter in that wholesome light, and smiled a grim and unkind smile as he read Caryl Carne’s report of those “left-handed and uncouth manoeuvres.” “One of your Majesty’s feeblest regiments would send the whole of those louts to the devil; and I am bound to impress once more, with all deference to your infallible judgment, the vast importance of carrying out your grand designs at the first moment. All is prepared on my part. One day’s notice is all I need.”
So wrote Carne; and perhaps the truth, as usual, lay about half-way between the two opinions. Even Carne was not admitted to a perfect knowledge of his master’s schemes. But to keep things moving and men alert, the Emperor came to the coast at once, busy as he was in Paris, and occupied for several weeks, with short intervals of absence, the house prepared for him near Boulogne, whence he watched and quickened the ripening of his mighty plans against us.
Now Carne himself, while working with new vigour and fresh enterprise, had a narrow escape from invasion. Captain Stubbard, stirred up now and again by Mr. Twemlow, had thoroughly searched all covered places, likely to harbour gunpowder, within at least six miles of his fort, that is to say, all likely places, save and except the right one. By doing this he had done for himself—as regards sweet hospitality—among all the leading farmers, maltsters, tanners, and millers for miles around. Even those whose premises were not entered, as if they had been Frenchmen, had a brother-in-law, or at least a cousin, whose wooden bars had been knocked up. And the most atrocious thing of all, if there could be anything worse than worst, was that the Captain dined one day, at a market-ordinary, with Farmer, or you might say Squire Hanger—for the best part of his land followed to him from his father—and had rum and water with him, and spoke his health, and tucked Mrs. Hanger up into the shay, and rode alongside to guarantee them; and then the next day, on the very same horse, up he comes at Hanger-dene, and overhauls every tub on the premises, with a parchment as big as a malt-shovel! Such a man was not fit to lay a knife and fork by.
Some sense of the harm he had done to himself, without a bit of good to any one, dwelt heavily in the Captain’s mind, as he rode up slowly upon the most amiable of the battery-horses—for all sailors can ride, from long practice on the waves—and struck a stern stroke, with a stick like a linstock, upon the old shutter that served for a door and the front entrance to Carne Castle. There used to be a fine old piece of workmanship in solid and bold oak here, a door divided in the middle—else no man might swing it back—and even so pierced with a wicket, for small people to get through. That mighty door was not worn out, for it was not three hundred years old yet, and therefore scarcely in middle life; but the mortgagees who had sacked the place of all that was worth a sack to hold it, these had a very fine offer for that door, from a rich man come out of a dust-bin. And this was one of the many little things that made Caryl Carne unpleasant.
“I do not require production of your warrant. The whole place is open to your inspection,” said Carne, who had long been prepared for this visit; “open to all the winds and rains, and the lower part sometimes filled with water. The upper rooms, or rather the few that remain of them, are scarcely safe for a person of any weight to walk in, but you are most welcome to try them, if you like; and this gentleman, I think, might not fall through. Here are my quarters; not quite so snug as my little room at the widow’s; but I can offer you some bread and cheese, and a glass of country cider. The vaults or cellars have held good wine in their time, but only empty casks and broken bottles now.”
Captain Stubbard had known for many years the silent woes of poverty, and now he observed with some good-will the young man’s sad but haughty smile. Then he ordered his young subaltern, his battery-mate, as he called him, to ascend the broad crumbling staircase, and glance into the dismantled chambers, while himself with the third of the party—a trusty old gunner—should inspect the cellarage.
“We will not keep you long, sir,” he said to Carne; “and if you are kind enough to show us the way, which is easily lost in a place of this kind, we shall be all the quicker. Wilkins, when you have done up there, wait here for us. Shall we want a light, sir?”
“In the winter, you could hardly do without one, but at this time of year, I think you may. At any rate I will bring a lantern, and we can light it if wanted. But the truth is that I know next to nothing of those sepulchral places. They would not be very tempting, even without a ghost, which they are said to have.”
“A ghost!” cried the Captain; “I don’t like that. Not that I have much faith in them; although one never can be sure. But at this time of day—What is it like?”
“I have never seen her, and am quite content without it. It is said to be an ancestress of mine, a Lady Cordelia Carne, who was murdered, when her husband was away, and buried down there, after being thrown into the moat. The old people say that whenever her ghost is walking, the water of the moat bursts in and covers the floor of the vaults, that she may flit along it, as she used to do. But of course one must not listen to that sort of fable.”
“Perhaps you will go in front, sir, because you know the way. It is my duty to inspect these places; and I am devilish sorry for it; but my duty must be done.”
“You shall see every hole and corner, including the stone that was put up to commemorate her murder and keep her quiet. But I should explain that these vaults extend for the entire length of the building, except just in the middle, where we now stand. For a few yards the centre of the building seems to have never been excavated, as to which you will convince yourself. You may call the cellars east and west, or right and left, or north and south, or uphill and downhill, or anything else, for really they are so much alike, and partitioned into cells so much alike, that I scarcely know which is which myself, coming suddenly from the daylight. But you understand those things much better. A sailor always knows his bearings. This leads to the entrance of one set.”
Carne led the Captain and old Gunner Bob—as he was called in the battery—along a dark and narrow passage, whose mouth was browed with ivy. Half-way through, they found an archway on the right-hand side, opening at right angles into long and badly lighted vaults. In this arch there was no door; but a black step-ladder (made of oak, no doubt), very steep and rather rickety, was planted to tempt any venturesome foot.
“Are you sure this ladder is safe?”—the Captain was by no means in love with the look of it. “My weight has increased remarkably in the fine air of Springhaven. If the bottom is rotten, the top won’t help us.”
“Let me go first. It is my duty, as the owner; and I have no family dependent on me. My neck is of no value, compared to yours, Captain.”
“How I have mistaken this young man!” thought the brave yet prudent Stubbard. “I called him a Frenchified fool, whereas he is a downright Englishman! I shall ask him to dinner next week, if Jemima can get a new leg for the dripping-pan.”
Following warily, with Gunner Bob behind him, and not disdaining the strong arm of the owner, the Captain of Foxhill was landed in the vault, and being there, made a strict examination. He even poked his short sword into the bung-holes of three or four empty barrels, that Bob might be satisfied also in his conscience. “Matter of form,” he said, “matter of form, sir, when we know who people are; but you might have to do it yourself, sir, if you were in the service of your King. You ought to be that, Mr. Carne; and it is not too late, in such days as these are, to begin. Take my advice—such a fine young man!”
“Alas, my dear sir, I cannot afford it. What officer can live upon his pay for a generation?”
“Gospel truth!” cried the Captain, warmly; “Gospel truth! and more than that—he must be the last of his generation, or else send his young ‘uns to the workhouse. What things I could tell you, Mr. Carne! But here we are at the end of the vaults; all empty, as I can certify; and I hope, my dear sir, that you may live to see them filled with good wine, as they used to be.”
“Thank you, but there is no hope of that. Shall we take the vaults of the other end next, or examine the chapel, and the outer buildings—outer ruins, I should say?”
“Oh, a little open air first, for goodness sake!” said the Captain, going heavily up the old steps; “I am pretty nearly choked with all this mildew. A little fresh air, before we undertake the other lot.”
As soon as the echo of their steps was dead, Charron, old Jerry, and another man jumped down from a loop-hole into the vault they had left, piled up a hoarding at the entrance, and with a crowbar swung back a heavy oak hatch in the footings of the outer wall. A volume of water poured in from the moat, or rather from the stream which had once supplied it. Seeing this, they disappeared with a soft and pleasant chuckle.
The owner kept Stubbard such a time among the ruins, telling him some fine old legends, and otherwise leading him in and out, that when a bit of food and a glass of old Cognac was proposed by way of interlude, the Captain heartily embraced the offer. Then Carne conducted his three visitors, for Wilkins had now rejoined them, into a low room poorly furnished, and regaled them beyond his promise. “Rare stuff!” exclaimed Stubbard, with a wink at Carne. “Ah, I see that free-trade still exists. No concern of mine, except to enjoy its benefits. Here’s to your very good health, sir, and I am proud to have made your acquaintance.”
“Have another drop; it can hurt no one,” Carne declared, and the Captain acquiesced.
“Well, I suppose we must finish our job,” the official visitor at length pronounced; “a matter of form, sir, and no offence; but we are bound to carry out our duty. There is nothing left, except the other lot of vaults; but the light begins to fail us, for underground work. I hope they are not so dark as those we have been through.”
“Just about the same. You would hardly know one set from the other, as I told you, except for the stone that records the murder. Perhaps we had better light the lantern now?”
“By all means. I don’t half like that story of the lady that walks on the water. It does seem so gashly and unchristian altogether. Not that I have any fear of ghosts—not likely, for I have never even seen one.”
“I have,” said Gunner Bob, in a deep voice, which made them all glance through the ivy. “I have, and a fearful one it were.”
“Don’t be a fool, Bob,” the Captain whispered; “we don’t want to hear about that now. Allow me to carry the lantern, Mr. Carne; it throws such shadows from the way you hold it. Why, surely, this is where we were before!”
“You might easily fancy so,” Carne answered, smiling, “especially with a mind at all excited—”
“My mind is not excited, sir; not at all excited; but as calm as it ever was in all its life.”
“Then two things will show you that these are the other vaults. The arch is on your left hand, instead of on your right”—he had brought them in now from the other end of the passage—“and this entrance, as you see, has a door in it, which the other had not. Perhaps the door is to keep the ghost in”—his laugh sounded hollow, and like a mocking challenge along the dark roof—“for this is the part she is supposed to walk in. But so much for the door! The money-lenders have not left us a door that will stand a good kick. You may find our old doors in Wardour Street.”
As he spoke, he set foot against the makeshift door, and away it went, as he had predicted. Crashing on the steps as it fell, it turned over, and a great splash arose at the bottom.
“Why, bless my heart, there is a flood of water there!” cried Stubbard, peeping timidly down the steps, on which (if the light had been clear, and that of his mind in the same condition) he might have seen the marks of his own boots. “A flood of water, perhaps six feet deep! I could scarcely have believed, but for that and the door, that these were not the very vaults that we have examined. But what business has the water there?”
“No business at all, any more than we have,” Carne answered, with some rudeness, for it did not suit him to encourage too warmly the friendship of Captain Stubbard; “but I told you that the place becomes covered with water whenever the ghost intends to walk. Probably there is not more than a foot of water”—there was in fact about three inches—“and as you are bound to carry out your duty—”
“My dear sir, I am satisfied, perfectly satisfied. Who could keep gunpowder under water, or even in a flooded cellar? I shall have the greatest pleasure in reporting that I searched Carne Castle—not of course suspiciously, but narrowly, as we are bound to do, in execution of our warrant—”
“If you would not mind looking in this direction,” whispered Carne, who could never be contented, “I think I could show you, just beyond the murder-stone—yes, and it seems to be coming towards us, as white as a winding-sheet; do come and look.”
“No, sir, no; it is not my duty”—the Captain turned away, with his hair upon the rise. “I was sent here to look for saltpetre, not spectres. No officer in His Majesty’s service can be expected—Bob, and Wilkins, are you there?”
“Yes, sir, yes—we have had quite enough of this; and unless you give the orders—”
“Here she comes, I do declare!” whispered Carne, with extraordinary calmness.
“Bob, and Wilkins, give me one arm each. Make for daylight in close order. You may be glad to see your grandmother, young man; but I decline to have anything to say to her. Bob, and Wilkins, bear a hand; I feel a little shaky in my lower timbers. Run for your lives, but don’t leave me behind. Run, lads, like the very devil!” For a groan of sepulchral depth, and big enough to lift a granite tombstone, issued from the vault, and wailed along the sombre archway. All the Artillerymen fled, as if the muzzle of their biggest gun was slewed upon them, and very soon the sound of horses’ heels, urged at a perilous pace down the hill, rang back as the echo of that grand groan.
“I think I did that pretty well, my Captain,” cried Charron, ascending from the vault with dripping boots; “I deserve a glass of Cognac, if they have left me any. Happy is Stoobar that he was contented, without breaking his neck at the inspector’s step.”
“He has satisfied his conscience,” Carne answered, grimly; “yet it cannot be blameless, to make him run so fast. I am glad we have been saved from killing them. It would have been hard to know what to do next. But he will never trouble us here again.”
CHAPTER XLV
FATHER, AND CHILD
“Tell Miss Faith, when she comes in, that I shall be glad to see her,” said Admiral Darling to his trusty butler, one hot afternoon in August. He had just come home from a long rough ride, to spend at least one day in his own house, and after overhauling his correspondence, went into the dining-room, as the coolest in the house, to refresh himself a little with a glass of light wine before going up to dress for dinner. There he sat in an arm-chair, and looked at his hands, which were browned by the sun, and trembling from a long period of heavy work and light sleep. He was getting too old to endure it with impunity, yet angry with himself for showing it. But he was not thinking of himself alone.
“I hope she will be sensible”—he was talking to himself, as elderly people are apt to do, especially after being left to themselves; “I hope she will see the folly of it—of living all her life as the bride of a ghost; and herself such a beautiful, cheerful darling! Loving, warm-hearted, sweet-tempered, adoring children, and adored by them; obedient, gentle—I can’t think of anything good that she hasn’t got, except common-sense. And even for that, I like her all the more; because it is so different from all the other girls. They have got too much—one lover out of sight, even for a month or two, gone fighting for his Country, what do they do but take up with another, as I very greatly fear our Dolly would? But Faith—Why, my darling, how well you look!”
“How I wish that I could say the same of you, dear father!” said the lovely young woman, while kissing him, and smoothing with her soft hand his wrinkled forehead; “you never used to have these little tucks and gathers here. I would rather almost that the French should come and devour us all, than see my father, whenever we do see him, once in a month, say, gauffred like this—as their laundresses do it—and getting reduced to the Classical shape, so that I can put one arm round him.”
“My darling,” said the Admiral, though proud at heart of the considerable reduction of his stomach, “you should not say such things to me, to remind me how very old I am!”
Fathers are crafty, and daughters childish, as behoves the both of them. The Admiral knew, as well as if he had ordered it, what Faith would do. And she must have perceived his depth, if only she had taken a moment to think of it. Because when she plumped, like a child, into his arms, how came his arms to be so wide open? and when two great tears rolled down her cheeks, how sprang his handkerchief so impromptu out from beneath his braided lappet?
“Tell me what harm I have done,” she asked, with a bright smile dawning through the dew of her dark eyes; “what have I done to vex you, father, that you say things fit to make me cry? And yet I ought to laugh, because I know so well that you are only fishing for compliments. You are getting so active that I shall be frightened to go for a walk or a ride with you. Only I do love to see you look fat, and your darling forehead smooth and white.”
“My dear child, I must get up my substance. This very day I begin in earnest. Because I am to be a great man, Faith. How would you like to have to call me ‘Sir Charles’?”
“Not at all, darling; except when you deserve it, by being cross to me; and that never, never happens. I wish there was more chance of it.”
“Well, dear, if you won’t, the other people must; for His Majesty has been graciously pleased to turn me into a Baronet. He says that I have earned it; and perhaps I have; at any rate, he put it so nicely that without being churlish I could not refuse. And it will be a good thing for Frank, I hope, by bringing him back from his democratic stuff. To myself it is useless; but my children ought to like it.”
“And so they will, father, for your own dear sake. Let me be the first to salute you, father. Oh, Dolly will be in such a rage because you told me, without telling her!”
“I never thought of that,” said the Admiral, simply; “I am afraid that I shall get in for it. However, I have a right to please myself, and you need not tell her until I do. But that is not all my news, and not by any means the best of it. The King was reminded, the other day, of all that he and his family owe to the late Sir Edmond Scudamore, and better late than never, he has ordered your governess, as he called her, to be put on the list for a pension of 300 pounds a year. Nothing that once gets into his head can ever be got out of it, and he was shocked at seeing his old physician’s widow ‘gone out as a governess—gone out as a governess—great disgrace to the royal family!’ I am very glad that it happened so.”
“And so am I. She ought to have had it long and long ago, especially after the sad misfortune of her husband. You will let me tell her? It will be such a pleasure.”
“Certainly, my dear; you are the very one to do it. Tell her that her eldest pupil is come with a little piece of news for her; it will make her smile—she has a very pretty smile, which reminds me of the gallant Blyth. And now, my child, the third piece of news concerns yourself—your good, and dutiful, and exceedingly sensible self. Ahem!” cried the Admiral, as he always did, when he feared that he might have overstepped the truth.
“I know what it is; you need not tell me,” Faith answered, confirming her fear at once. “It is no use, father; it is no good at all—unless you intend to forget your own promise.”
“That I shall never do,” he replied, while looking at her sadly; “no, my dear child, I shall never attempt to drive instead of lead you. But you have not heard me out as yet. You don’t even know who it is I mean.”
“Oh yes, I do; I know well enough, father. I am not like Dolly, universally admired. Because I do not want to be. You mean Lord Dashville—can you tell me that you don’t?”
“No, my dear”—Sir Charles was a little surprised that Faith should be so quick, for (like most people of gentle nature) she was taken to be slow, because she never snapped—“I cannot deny that it is Lord Dashville, because that is the man, and no other. But how you could tell surpasses me, and it shows that he must be very often in your mind:” the Admiral thought he had caught her there. “Now can you say anything against him? Is he not honest, manly, single-minded, faithful as yourself, I do believe, good-looking, well-bred, a Tory, and a gentleman, certain to make any woman happy whom he loves? Can you say a syllable against all that?”
“No,” replied Faith—a very long, slow “no,” as if she only wished she could say something hard about him.
“Very well,” her father went on, with triumph, “and can you deny that he is just the person you might have taken a great liking to—fallen in love with, as they call it—if only he had come before your mind was full of somebody else—a very fine young fellow, no doubt; but—my darling, I won’t say a word against him, only you know what I mean too well. And are you forever to be like a nun because it has pleased the Lord to take him from you?”
“Lord Dashville has not advanced himself in my good opinion, if he cares for that,” said Faith, starting sideways, as a woman always does, from the direct issue, “by going to you, when I declined to have anything more to say to him.”
“My dear, you are unjust,” replied Sir Charles; “not purposely, I know, for you are the most upright darling that can be, in general. But you accuse young Dashville of what he never did. It was his good mother, the Countess of Blankton, a most kind-hearted and lady-like person, without any nonsense about her, who gave me the best cup of tea I ever tasted, and spoke with the very best feeling possible. She put it so sweetly that I only wish you could have been there to hear her.”
“Father, what is the good of it all? You hate turncoats even worse than traitors. Would you like your daughter to be one? And when she would seem to have turned her coat—for the ladies wear coats now, the horrid ugly things!—for the sake of position, and title, and all that. If Lord Dashville had been a poor man, with his own way to make in the world, a plain Mister, there might have been more to be said for it. But to think that I should throw over my poor darling because he will come home without a penny, and perhaps tattoed, but at any rate turned black, for the sake of a coronet, and a heap of gold—oh, father, I shall break down, if you go on so!”
“My dear girl, I will not say a word to vex you. But you are famous for common-sense, as well as every other good quality, and I would ask you to employ just a little of it. Can you bear me to speak of your trouble, darling?”
“Oh yes, I am so well accustomed to it now; and I know that it is nothing compared to what thousands of people have to bear. Sometimes I am quite ashamed of giving way to it.”
“You do not give way to it, Faith. No person can possibly say that of you. You are my brave, unselfish, cheerful, sweet-natured, upright, and loving child. Nobody knows, but you and I—and perhaps I know it even more than you do—the greatness of the self-command you use, to be pleasant and gay and agreeable, simply for the sake of those around you.”
“Then, father,” cried Faith, who was surprised at this, for the Admiral had never said a word about such matters, “you think, after all, that I am—that I am almost as good as Dolly!”
“You jealous little vixen, I shall recall every word I have said in your favour! My child, and my pride, you are not only as good as Dolly, but my best hope is that when Dolly grows older she may be like you. Don’t cry, darling; I can’t stand crying, when it comes from eyes that so seldom do it. And now that you know what I think of you, allow me to think a little for you. I have some right to interfere in your life; you will allow that—won’t you?”
“Father, you have all right, and a thousand times as much, because you are so gentle about using it.”
“I calls that bad English, as Zeb Tugwell says when he doesn’t want to understand a thing. But, my pretty dear, you must remember that you will not have a father always. Who will look after you, when I am gone, except the Almighty?—and He does not do it, except for the few who look after themselves. It is my duty to consider these points, and they override sentimentality. To me it is nothing that Dashville will be an Earl, and a man of great influence, if he keeps up his present high character; but it is something to me that I find him modest, truthful, not led away by phantoms, a gentleman—which is more than a nobleman—and with his whole heart given to my dear child Faith.”
Faith sighed heavily, partly for herself, but mainly, perhaps, for the sake of a fine heart sadly thrown away on her. “I believe he is all that,” she said.
“In that case, what more can you have?” pursued the triumphant Admiral. “It is one of the clearest things I ever knew, and one of the most consistent”—consistent was a great word in those days—“as well as in every way desirable. Consider, not yourself—which you never do—but the state of the Country, and of Dolly. They have made me a baronet, for being away from home nearly every night of my life; and if I had Dashville to see to things here, I might stay away long enough to be a lord myself, like my late middy the present Duke of Bronte.”
Faith laughed heartily. “You call me jealous! My dear father, I know that you could have done a great deal more than Lord Nelson has, because he learned all that he knows from you. And now who is it that really defends the whole south coast of England against the French? Is it Lord Nelson? He has as much as he can do to look after their fleet in the Mediterranean. Admiral Cornwallis and Sir Charles Darling are the real defenders of England.”
“No, my dear, you must never say that, except of course in private. There may be some truth in it, but it would be laughed at in the present condition of the public mind. History may do me justice; but after all it is immaterial. A man who does his duty should be indifferent to the opinion of the public, which begins more and more to be formed less by fact than by the newspapers of the day. But let us return to more important matters. You are now in a very sensible frame of mind. You see what my wishes are about you, and how reasonable they are. I should be so happy, my darling child, if you would consider them sensibly, and yield some little of your romantic views. I would not ask you unless I were sure that this man loves you as you deserve, and in his own character deserves your love.”