Works of Ellen Wood, page 1297
Once more it was old-fashioned Christmas weather; Jack Frost freezing the snow and sporting his icicles. The hearty tenants, wending their way to the annual feast in the winter twilight, said how unusually sharp the air was, enough to bite off their ears and noses.
The Reverend Robert Grame made one at the table for the first time, and said grace at the Captain’s elbow. He had heard about the freedom obtaining at these dinners; but he knew he was utterly powerless to suppress it, and he hoped his presence might prove some little restraint, just as poor George West had hoped in the days gone by: not that it was as bad now as it used to be. A rumour had gone abroad that the chimes were to play again, but it died away unconfirmed, for Captain Monk kept his own counsel.
The first to quit the table was Hubert. Captain Monk looked up angrily. He was proud of his son, of his tall and graceful form, of his handsome features, proud even of his bright complexion; ay, and of his estimable qualities. While inwardly fearing Hubert’s signs of fading strength, he defiantly refused to recognise it or to admit it openly.
“What now?” he said in a loud whisper. “Are you turning renegade?”
The young man bent over his father’s shoulder. “I don’t feel well; better let me go quietly, father; I have felt pain here all day” — touching his left side. And he escaped.
There was present at table an elderly gentleman named Peveril. He had recently come with his wife into the neighbourhood and taken on lease a small estate, called by the odd name of Peacock’s Range, which belonged to Hubert and lay between Church Dykely and Church Leet. Mr. Peveril put an inopportune question.
“What is the story, Captain, about some chimes which were put up in the church here and are never allowed to ring because they caused the death of the Vicar? I was told of it to-day.”
Captain Monk looked at Mr. Peveril, but did not speak.
“One George West, I think. Was he parson here?”
“Yes, he was parson here,” said Farmer Winter, finding nobody else answered Mr. Peveril, next to whom he sat. He was a very old man now, but hale and hearty still, and a steadfast ally of his landlord. “Given that parson his way and we should never have had the chimes put up at all. Sweet sounding bells they are, too.”
“But how could the chimes kill him?” went on Mr. Peveril. “Did they kill him?”
“George West was a quarrelsome, mischief-making meddler, good for nothing but to set the parish together by the ears; and I must beg of you to drop his name when at my table, Peveril. As to the chimes, you will hear them to-night.”
Captain Monk spoke in his sternest tones, and Mr. Peveril bowed. Robert Grame had listened in surprise. He wondered what it all meant — for nobody had ever told him of this phase of the past. The table clapped its unsteady hands and gave a cheer for the chimes, now to be heard again.
“Yes, gentlemen,” said the Captain, not a whit more steady than his guests. “They shall ring for us to-night, though it brought the parson out of his grave.”
A few minutes before twelve the butler, who had his orders, came into the dining-room and set the windows open. His master gave him another order and the man withdrew. Entering the drawing-room, he proceeded to open those windows also. Mr. Peveril, and one or two more guests, sat with the family; Hubert lay back in an easy-chair.
“What are you about, Rimmer?” hastily cried out Mrs. Carradyne in surprise. “Opening the windows!”
“It is by the master’s orders, ma’am,” replied the butler; “he bade me open them, that you and the ladies might get a better hearing of the chimes.”
Mrs. Carradyne, superstitious ever, grew white as death. “The chimes!” she breathed in a dread whisper. “Surely, surely, Rimmer, you must be mistaken. The chimes cannot be going to ring again!”
“They are to ring the New Year in,” said the man. “I have known it this day or two, but was not allowed to tell, as Madam may guess” — glancing at his mistress. “John Cale has got his orders, and he’ll set ’em going when the clock has struck twelve.”
“Oh, is there no one who will run to stop it?” bewailed Mrs. Carradyne, wringing her hands in all the terror of a nameless fear. “There may yet be time. Rimmer! can you go?”
Hubert came out of his chair laughing. Rimmer was round and fat now, and could not run if he tried. “I’ll go, aunt,” he said. “Why, walking slowly, I should get there before Rimmer.”
The words, “walking slowly,” may have misled Mrs. Carradyne; or, in the moment’s tribulation, perhaps she forgot that Hubert ought not to be the one to use much exertion; but she made no objection. No one else made way, and Hubert hastened out, putting on his overcoat as he went towards the church.
It was the loveliest night; the air was still and clear, the landscape white and glistening, the moon bright as gold. Hubert, striding along at a quick walk, had traversed half the short distance, when the church clock struck out the first note of midnight. And he knew he should not be in time — unless ——
He set off to run: it was such a very little way! Flying along without heed to self, he reached the churchyard gate. And there he was forced — forced — to stop to gather up his laboured breath.
Ring, ring, ring! broke forth the chimes melodiously upon Hubert’s ear. “Stop!” he shouted, panting; “stop! stop!” — just as if John Cale could hear the warning: and he began leaping over the gravestones in his path, after the irreverent fashion of Miss Kate Dancox.
“Stop!” he faintly cried in his exhaustion, dashing through the vestry, as the strains of “The Bay of Biscay” pursued their harmonious course overhead, sounding louder here than in the open air. “Sto — —”
He could not end the word. Pulling the little door open, he put his foot on the first step of the narrow ladder of a staircase: and then fell prone upon it. John Cale and young Mr. Threpp, the churchwarden’s son, who had been the clerk’s companion, were descending the stairs, after the chimes had chimed themselves out, and they had locked them up again to (perhaps) another year, when they found some impediment below.
“What is it?” exclaimed young Mr. Threpp. The clerk turned on his lantern.
It was Hubert, Captain Monk’s son and heir. He lay there with a face of deadly whiteness, a blue shade encircling his lips.
III. — RINGING AT MIDDAY
I
It was an animated scene; and one you only find in England. The stubble of the cornfields looked pale and bleak in the departing autumn, the wind was shaking down the withered leaves from the trees, whose thinning branches told unmistakably of the rapidly-advancing winter. But the day was bright after the night’s frost, and the sun shone on the glowing scarlet coats of the hunting-men, and the hounds barked in every variety of note and leaped with delight in the morning air. It was the first run of the season, and the sportsmen were fast gathering at the appointed spot — a field flanked by a grove of trees called Poachers’ Copse.
Ten o’clock, the hour fixed for the throw-off, came and went, and still Poachers’ Copse was not relieved of its busy intruders. Many a gentleman fox-hunter glanced at his hunting-watch as the minutes passed, many a burly farmer jerked his horse impatiently; while the grey-headed huntsman cracked his long whip amongst his canine favourites and promised them they should soon be on the scent. The delay was caused by the non-arrival of the Master of the Hounds.
But now all eyes were directed to a certain quarter, and by the brightened looks and renewed stir, it might be thought that he was appearing. A stranger, sitting his horse well and quietly at the edge of Poachers’ Copse, watched the newcomers as they came into view. Foremost of them rode an elderly gentleman in scarlet, and by his side a young lady who might be a few years past twenty.
“Father and daughter, I’ll vow,” commented the stranger, noting that both had the same well-carved features, the same defiant, haughty expression, the same proud bearing. “What a grandly-handsome girl! And he, I suppose, is the man we are waiting for. Is that the Master of the Hounds?” he asked aloud of the horseman next him, who chanced to be young Mr. Threpp.
“No, sir, that is Captain Monk,” was the answer. “They are saying yonder that he has brought word the Master is taken ill and cannot hunt to-day” — which proved to be correct. The Master had been taken with giddiness when about to mount his horse.
The stranger rode up to Captain Monk; judging him to be regarded — by the way he was welcomed and the respect paid him — as the chief personage at the meet, representing in a manner the Master. Lifting his hat, he begged grace for having, being a stranger, come out, uninvited, to join the field; adding that his name was Hamlyn and he was staying with Mr. Peveril at Peacock’s Range.
Captain Monk wheeled round at the address; his head had been turned away. He saw a tall, dark man of about five-and-thirty years, so dark and sunburnt as to suggest ideas of his having recently come from a warmer climate. His hair was black, his eyes were dark brown, his features and manner prepossessing, and he spoke as a man accustomed to good society.
Captain Monk, lifting his hat in return, met him with cordiality. The field was open to all, he said, but any friend of Peveril’s would be doubly welcome. Peveril himself was a muff, in so far as that he never hunted.
“Hearing there was to be a meet to-day, I could not resist the temptation of joining it; it is many years since I had the opportunity of doing so,” remarked the stranger.
There was not time for more, the hounds were throwing off. Away dashed the Captain’s steed, away dashed the stranger’s, away dashed Miss Monk’s, the three keeping side by side.
Presently came a fence. Captain Monk leaped it and galloped onwards after the other red-coats. Miss Eliza Monk would have leaped it next, but her horse refused it; yet he was an old hunter and she a fearless rider. The stranger was waiting to follow her. A touch of the angry Monk temper assailed her and she forced her horse to the leap. He had a temper also; he did not clear it, and horse and rider came down together.
In a trice Mr. Hamlyn was off his own steed and raising her. She was not hurt, she said, when she could speak; a little shaken, a little giddy — and she leaned against the fence. The refractory horse, unnoticed for the moment, got upon his legs, took the fence of his own accord and tore away after the field. Young Mr. Threpp, who had been in some difficulty with his own steed, rode up now.
“Shall I ride back to the Hall and get the pony-carriage for you, Miss Eliza?” asked the young man.
“Oh, dear, no,” she replied, “thank you all the same. I should prefer to walk home.”
“Are you equal to walking?” interposed the stranger.
“Quite. The walk will do away with this faintness. It is not the first fall I have had.”
The stranger whispered to young Mr. Threpp — who was as good-natured a young fellow as ever lived. Would he consent to forego the sport that day and lead his horse to Mr. Peveril’s? If so, he would accompany the young lady and give her the support of his arm.
So William Threpp rode off, leading Mr. Hamlyn’s horse, and Miss Monk accepted the stranger’s arm. He told her a little about himself as they walked along. It might not have been an ominous commencement, but intimacies have grown sometimes out of a slighter introduction. Their nearest way led past the Vicarage. Mr. Grame saw them from its windows and came running out.
“Has any accident taken place?” he asked hurriedly. “I hope not.”
Eliza Monk’s face flushed. He had been Lucy’s husband several months now, but she could not yet suddenly meet him without a thrill of emotion. Lucy ran out next; the pretty young wife for whom she had been despised. Eliza answered Mr. Grame curtly, nodded to Lucy, and passed on.
“And, as I was telling you,” continued Mr. Hamlyn, “when this property was left to me in England, I made it a plea for throwing up my post in India, and came home. I landed about six weeks ago, and have been since busy in London with lawyers. Peveril, whom I knew in the days gone by, wrote to invite me to come to him here on a week’s visit, before he and his wife leave for the South of France.”
“They are going to winter there for Mrs. Peveril’s health,” observed Eliza. “Peacock’s Range, the place they live at, belongs to my cousin, Harry Carradyne. Did I understand you to say that you were not an Englishman?”
“I was born in the West Indies. My family were English and had settled there.”
“What a coincidence!” exclaimed Eliza Monk with a smile. “My mother was a West Indian, and I was born there. — There’s my home, Leet Hall!”
“A fine old place,” cried Mr. Hamlyn, regarding the mansion before him.
“You may well say ‘old,’” remarked the young lady. “It has been the abode of the Monk family from generation to generation. For my part, I sometimes half wish it would tumble down that we might move to a more lively locality. Church Leet is a dead-alive place at best.”
“We always want what we have not,” laughed Mr. Hamlyn. “I would give all I am worth to possess an ancestral home, no matter if it were grim and gloomy. We who can boast of only modern wealth look upon these family castles with an envy you have little idea of.”
“If you possess modern wealth, you possess a very good and substantial thing,” she answered, echoing his laugh.— “Here comes my aunt, full of wonder.”
Full of alarm also. Mrs. Carradyne stood on the terrace steps, asking if there had been an accident.
“Nothing serious, Aunt Emma. Saladin refused the fence at Ring Gap, and we both came down together. This gentleman was so obliging as to forego his day’s sport and escort me home. Mr. — Mr. Hamlyn, I believe?” she added. “My aunt, Mrs. Carradyne.”
The stranger confirmed it. “Philip Hamlyn,” he said to Mrs. Carradyne, lifting his hat.
Gaining the hall-door with slow and gentle steps came a young man, whose beautiful features were wasting more perceptibly day by day, and their hectic growing of a deeper crimson. “What is wrong, Eliza?” he cried. “Have you come to grief? Where’s Saladin?”
“My brother,” she said to Mr. Hamlyn.
Yes, it was indeed Hubert Monk. For he did not die of that run to the church the past New Year’s Eve. The death-like faint proved to be a faint, nothing more. Nothing more then. But something else was advancing with gradual steps: steps that seemed to be growing almost perceptible now.
Now and again Hubert fainted in the same manner; his face taking a death-like hue, the blue tinge surrounding his mouth. Captain Monk, unable longer to shut his eyes to what might be impending, called in the best medical advice that Worcestershire could afford; and the doctors told him the truth — that Hubert’s days were numbered.
To say that Captain Monk began at once to “set his house in order” would not be quite the right expression, since it was not he himself who was going to die. But he set his affairs straight as to the future, and appointed another heir in his son’s place — his nephew, Harry Carradyne.
Harry Carradyne, a brave young lieutenant, was then with his regiment in some almost inaccessible fastness of the Indian Empire. Captain Monk (not concealing his lamentation and the cruel grief it was to himself personally) wrote word to him of the fiat concerning poor Hubert, together with a peremptory order to sell out and return home as the future heir. This was being accomplished, and Harry might now be expected almost any day.
But it may as well be mentioned that Captain Monk, never given to be confidential about himself or his affairs, told no one what he had done, with one exception. Even Mrs. Carradyne was ignorant of the change in her son’s prospects and of his expected return. The one exception was Hubert. Soon to lose him, Captain Monk made more of his son than he had ever done, and seemed to like to talk with him.
“Harry will make a better master to succeed you than I should have made, father,” said Hubert, as they were slowly pacing home from the parsonage, arm-in-arm, one dull November day, some little time after the meet of the hounds, as recorded. It was surprising how often Captain Monk would now encounter his son abroad, as if by accident, and give him his arm home.
“What d’ye mean?” wrathfully responded the Captain, who never liked to hear his own children disparaged, by themselves or by anyone else.
Hubert laughed a little. “Harry will look after things better than I ever should. I was always given to laziness. Don’t you remember, father, when a little boy in the West Indies, you used to tell me I was good for nothing but to bask in the heat?”
“I remember one thing, Hubert; and, strange to say, have remembered it only lately. Things lie dormant in the memory for years, and then crop up again. Upon getting home from one of my long voyages, your mother greeted me with the news that your heart was weak; the doctor had told her so. I gave the fellow a trimming for putting so ridiculous a notion into her head — and it passed clean out of mine. I suppose he was right, though.”
“Little doubt of that, father. I wonder I have lived so long.”
“Nonsense!” exploded the Captain; “you may live on yet for years. I don’t know that I did not act foolishly in sending post-haste for Harry Carradyne.”
Hubert smiled a sad smile. “You have done quite right, father; right in all ways; be sure of that. Harry is one of the truest and best fellows that ever lived: he will be a comfort to you when I am gone, and the best of all successors later. Just — a — moment — father!”
“Why, what’s the matter?” cried Captain Monk — for his son had suddenly halted and stood with a rapidly-paling face and shortened breath, pressing his hands to his side. “Here, lean on me, lad; lean on me.”
It was a sudden faintness. Nothing very much, and it passed off in a minute or two. Hubert made a brave attempt at smiling, and resumed his way. But Captain Monk did not like it at all; he knew all these things were but the beginning of the end. And that end, though not with actual irreverence, he was resenting bitterly in his heart.
