Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 289
Mr. Harcourt’s eyebrows went up and his mouth down.
“But it is implied in the terms of the wager that you should be the first to make the discovery, otherwise you would win in any case, and without effort. Why, it would be sufficient supposing you should meet her walking in the Mall after she has married Sir Francis, and is patent to all the world.”
“Sir,” the Major said, “I shall certainly win in any case, and that meeting will be sufficient. In all the meetings we have had, if you will give yourself the trouble to read the minutes of them, you shall not make the discovery of any word of first finding. Of all this company of adventurers I am the only one that cannot lose, for if I meet her in the Park, or wear a favour at her wedding, I win the thousand pounds of you. If we all of us fail to find her, I lose, it is true, a thousand pounds to you. But I win five thousand from Mr. Bettesworth.”
Mr. Harcourt looked at Major Penruddock with his mouth open.
“And it was you who designed this wager,” he said.
“Surely it was I who designed this wager,” the Major said. “I have, you see, gained some skill in these things by my experience in the wars, which taught me the trick of reviewing the situation.”
Mr. Harcourt rose from his chair and, bowing ceremoniously to the Major, said, with his hand over his heart —
“Sir, in future I will go to school to you, and I hold the lesson that I have learnt cheap at the thousand pounds that I hope to have the honour of paying you.”
The Major rose, and ceremoniously returned his interlocutor’s salute.
“Sir,” he said, “I trust that now it is apparent to your senses that our interests are the same, and that you will join with me in prosecuting this search. We may leave to Mr. Bettesworth as much as we will of the labour of finding the lady, and when that is accomplished I will set about aiding you to wrest her from him, which will enable you to take her up to London. This, you perceive, will be to my interest, since, by precluding Mr. Bettesworth from performing that function, he will lose the whole of his wager.”
Mr. Harcourt struck his heels smartly together.
“Major,” he said, “with your aid promised I feel that I have the Duke of Norfolk’s guineas already in my pocket, clinking harmoniously alongside of Mr. Bettesworth’s.”
The voice of Mr. Jack Williamson, loud and elated, burst upon them, and the fat host, bearing before him two flickering candles in plated sticks, preceded Mr. Bettesworth’s party into the room.
“Ho, bully boys, bully boys!” Mr. Williamson exclaimed. “Now shall we eat rich and rare.” He gave a standing leap on to the long table, and stood brandishing his whip above his head. “Ha!” he said to Mr. Bettesworth and Mr. Roland, who followed him into the room, “neither of you could do that after our long ride. You are as stiff when you get down from your beasts as a French soldier after a night in a ditch.”
“I hope I shall be preserved from doing it before the rest of the company,” Mr. Bettesworth said coldly.
“Ho, company! Damn company!” Mr. Williamson answered. “It’s a poor heart and a poor company that will keep a man from rejoicing.”
In the dim light Mr. Bettersworth had failed to recognise the occupants of the other end of the room, but Mr. Penruddock came up from the other side of the table.
“Why, Squire,” he said, “have you come to set at naught all our efforts? As the man in the play says: ‘We are like the poor badger who, having with great labour scratched his earth, presently comes the fox and drives him out of it.’”
“Stinks him out of it,” Mr. Bettesworth corrected him; “that is what the man in the play says. But I hope I shall so little stink you out of this place that you will be pleasuring me with your company at supper, and that soon. For I intend to lie this night at my cousin’s.”
“There we may felicitate you,” Mr. Harcourt said, “for this is a foul and stinking place to lie in. I wish the devil had all inn-keepers by the legs!”
CHAPTER III.
THEY were supping, upon the whole, pleasantly and harmoniously, save that Mr. Jack Williamson had too great an itch to sing. Worn as he was with a week of solitude in the companionship of the too austere Major Penruddock, Mr. Harcourt welcomed with great cheer the companionship of Roland Bettesworth, who brought down the latest talk of the Town. Nay, upon the news that old Lord Sauchiburn, being at that date sixty-nine, had been inveigled into making a marriage with Betty Frisk when he was drunk overnight, and had gone nearly mad with vexation on the morrow morning — at this gloriously mirth-making news Mr. Harcourt threw his arms round Mr. Roland’s neck and kissed him upon both cheeks. Major Penruddock and Mr. Bettesworth, upon the other hand, felt pleasure in discoursing on their estates, for they were both new land-owners and had schemes, — Mr. Bettesworth for improving the appearance of Winterbourne by planting shade trees which he would have in groves, and Mr. Penruddock for enlarging the profits of his home-farm by feeding his sheep upon a root called the neep, or turnip, which he had found in the Low Countries. They were thus in a pleasant frame of mind, only
Mr. Williamson being driven, by comparative neglect, to troll portions of ballads from The Island Princess, an opera which was then all the talk of the Town, when Mr. Bettesworth was interrupted by a whisper in his ear from the serving-man whom he had sent to announce that that night he would lie at Ashford Manor-house. It had been a wet journey, and the rain dripped from the servant’s black cloak on to the floor. Mr. Bettesworth’s face expressed anger and cold disgust. He said aloud —
“Bid her ladyship’s steward attend me here.” There came in a very large, pompous, and solid man of perhaps fifty, dressed all in black, and his figure protruding far in front of his backbone as a very full sail before the mast.
“You tell me, Mr. Steward,” Mr. Bettesworth said, “that you have received no letter from Lady Eshetsford to announce my arrival and bid you attend to my comfort?”
The steward bowed himself as supply as his large stature would allow.
“Your Worship,” he said, “I have hitherto received no letter. Doubtless to-morrow it will arrive.”
Standing very erect and haughty, with his back to the lights and to his own silver on the tablecloth, Mr. Bettesworth took from his breast-pocket a letter which Lady Eshetsford had written very hastily before her departure in the coach —
“On your life, Chuckel, see that not a crease is in the bedclothing of my cousins, and entreat them as if they were the King and his brother,” It was signed “M. E.,” and Mr. Bettesworth had retained it because it was the first scrap of her handwriting that he had held. He surrendered it, therefore, with some displeasure into Mr. Chuckel’s hands, for it seemed to him disagreeable that her handwriting, having about it, as it were, some of the savour of her personality, should be touched by or fall under the eyes of this person of mean extraction, of dull intelligence, and of pomposity of manner.
“Sir,” he said, “this should be sufficient to allay any suspicions you may have formed; if, indeed, my port and presence have not been sufficient to remove them.”
Mr. Chuckel’s face was normally of an extreme and pallid whiteness, resembling nothing so much as boiled rice. He wore, moreover, his own hair, which was as white as if it had been bleached, though he could not have been much turned of forty-five. To his cautious face his agate blue eyes, with a touch of a cast, formed a centre of vivid colour, of a slight savour of treachery and of mistrustfulness. They seemed, indeed, to wander over the assembly whilst his mind took in the significance of the letter.
“Your Worship,” he said in a peculiar falsetto voice, that lapsed into gruffness at unexpected moments, “if your Worship be indeed her ladyship’s cousin—”
“If!” Mr. Bettesworth exclaimed haughtily.
Mr. Chuckel inclined himself deprecatingly, and extended one very fat, white hand, upon which a large ring of opaque red stone made a point of colour. His eyes glanced for an instant at Mr. Bettesworth, who, very erect, extremely fair, with a high colour caused by riding in the rain, and very haughty, kept, from his blue eyes, a darkling glance fixed upon the steward.
“Your Worship,” Mr. Chuckel said, “God forbid that one in my station should hinder and trouble one of so great a name as Mr. Bettesworth. To that end your Worship will do me justice to observe that I have hastened to throw myself at your Worship’s feet; and I trust, confidently, that your Worship will do me the other justice to remember that, inasmuch as a very great trust is placed in me, thus a reasonable measure of caution should by myself be displayed. I pray you to commend me for this to her ladyship upon the occasion of your next meeting.”
“Mr. Chuckel,” Mr. Bettesworth said, “I shall speak of you as I find you on better acquaintance; for you will understand that I am come here, amongst other things, to bid you render some account of your stewardship during the last year.”
Mr. Chuckel’s blue eyes, with a slight cast in them, winced very appreciably.
“But, sir,” Mr. Bettesworth continued, “I make no doubt that you have very honourably discharged your trust; and certainly you are to be commended for having thus displayed a caution in my reception, for which I bear you no grudge. So that I beg you will do me the favour to drink a glass of wine with my master of the horse, whom you will find in another room; and that you will then return to the Manor-house to make fitting preparations for myself and my companions to-morrow, for to-night I think it is already too late for you to do this without inconvenience. So, commending you to my servants, who will inform you of the things which I am the most likely to need, I have the honour to wish you a very good-night.”
“Your Worship,” Mr. Chuckel said, “I am your Worship’s very humble and obedient servant, and I would like your Worship to understand with what pleasure I anticipate your coming to-morrow, and with what trustfulness your presence has inspired me, when I point out that I shall surrender, without scruple, the keys of my charge; though, to be sure, the letter which your Worship has done me the honour to place in my hand speaks merely of her ladyship’s cousins, and affords no mark of identification of your Worship as a cousin.”
Mr. Harcourt at this moment blurted out —
“Oh, as for that—” But the Major touched him suddenly on his arm, without, however, uttering any words.
Mr. Bettesworth, having his back to Mr. Harcourt, did not observe the interruption; but, with his eyes on the two gentlemen who were facing him on the farther side of the table, Mr. Chuckel continued —
“I say this merely that your Worship, commending me for having shown caution in the first part, shall not discommend me for the lack of it in the sequel. For, to tell the truth, one has only to look at your Worship’s open countenance, high carriage, and reserved demeanour—”
“Friend Chuckel,” Mr. Bettesworth said, “to accuse you of lack of caution after you have seen me would be to decry my own looks. Prithee, begone, and let me set about the finishing of my supper. Your compliments are very windy fare to an empty stomach.”
Mr. Chuckel withdrew with a soft and sliding step which was remarkable in one of his proportions.
“Why, the fellow should be a dancing-master,” Mr. Williamson exclaimed before Mr. Chuckel was out of earshot.
CHAPTER IV.
ASHFORD MANOR-HOUSE presented a heavy and overpowering front of grey stone, with a cupola, a very heavy stone cornice, heavy flat pillars being let into the wall between the three stories of square windows. A very broad flight of stone steps led down from a portico as tall as the porch of Ashford Church, descending the terrace by a gentle slope that, for the rest of its extent, was covered with lawn grass, on to a semicircular stretch of lawn that had the radius of the long front of the house itself. Three avenues of chestnut radiated from this lawn, going out into the distance towards the Romney Marsh, and along the balustrade of the terrace were set at intervals stone vases alternating with stone cupids. This front of the house had been built comparatively lately — that is to say, in the youth of Sir John Vanbrugh, the architect who wrote the monstrously appreciated play called The Provoked Wife. Sir John Brute, indeed, the husband of the Provoked Wife, was said by the Town to have been drawn from Lady Eshetsford’s husband. And a certain verity was apparent in this rumour in that, during the reconstruction of Ashford Manor-house, Mr. Vanbrugh had been, of necessity, much with the family of Sir John. On
the other hand, Sir John had been married to Lady Eshetsford but four years, whilst the front of the Manor-house was already fourteen years old. But then, The Provoked Wife was first produced nine months after Sir John’s death.
Mr. Vanbrugh’s heavy hand had converted the old building — it had been erected by Francis Eshetsford, the founder of the family, a notorious informer, diplomat, and spoiler of monasteries of Henry VIII’s time — had converted the old, long, low brick front into the heavy pile of stone that now, like a cliff, confronted the fresh May sun. But Mr. Vanbrugh’s achievement, the Eshetsford money beginning to feel a strain shortly after the accession of the late Sir John, had stopped short before it reached the very considerable rear of the building. This had been added to the oldest portion of the house by Philip Eshetsford, who had materially aided Lord Burleigh in his successful counterplots against the Jesuits, and in bringing about the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. It consisted of three wings, the two outer ones being the longer, of red brick, and thus forming in outline the letter “E,” the initial of the Queen’s name. Of dark red brick, with long, low, diamond-paned windows that cockled in their leads and reflected what sun they got at odd angles, the rear portion of Ashford Manor-house was an unconscionable tangle of small rooms, offices, with granaries under the roof, with stillrooms, maids’ rooms, secret passages, and pantries. So that one might have lived for a year in the front rooms of the pile with other families entirely unsuspected at another end of the house. In making, indeed, his tour of the state rooms, Mr. Bettesworth tired before reaching these warrens, and he assented readily enough to Mr. Chuckel’s proposition that he should not go down the long, dark, winding passage that, protected as it was by a wicket-gate to exclude the dogs, gave access only to the servants’ rooms and to those in which Mr. Chuckel and his family resided. It consorted much more with Mr. Bettesworth’s humour to lodge himself in the tall state room on the right of the portico, where the windows were twenty feet high, the white marble chimneypiece, rising to the ceiling, carved with cherubs and grape-vines. Here were hung portraits by Lely and Vandyke, and pictures of still life by a local painter called Cornelius Smith, of Dutch extraction. Mr. Bettesworth announced his intention on that day week to examine in that room Mr. Chuckel’s accounts and tallies, and to interview the more important tenants. In the seven days that intervened he was, he said, minded to take a careful view of the estate, and to estimate what it should be likely to produce. This appeared to him, in private, an excellent way of searching over the ground for the original of “Celia in her Arbour.”
And as soon as he had finished his survey of the house, he walked leisurely down the long ornamental water that stretched from the end of the grass lawn straight out to where, beyond a high wall and some few house-roofs, the tower of Ashford Church, with its four gilded vanes, rose up towards the sky. A fresh day had succeeded the rain of the night before. Mr. Bettesworth walked slowly beside the water; the attentive steward, his hat in his hand, walked a quarter of a pace behind him, turning always his toes out like a dancing-master. The water was broad, straight, and slightly stagnant; lazy carp sunned themselves on the still surface, and patches of water crowsfoot, like brown lace, with tiny white blossoms here and there, broke up the surface, and in one place completely covered the water from bank to bank — as with a half-submerged net.
At Mr. Bettesworth’s slight frown Mr. Chuckel hastened to explain that it was the custom of the place for the dykers to come from the marsh on the Monday succeeding Whit Sunday, and then, as part of their suit and service, to clear out the weeds by means of a long chain to which were attached the blades of scythes. It was an old custom that had been handed down from the monks to whom the land had belonged.
Mr. Bettesworth said that if it was an old custom it was no doubt a good one, but he would have considered it better to have had the brushing done earlier in the year; since towards Whitsuntide most of the carp were spawning, and the disturbance must destroy many eggs and young fry.
Mr. Chuckel replied that the fish were accounted to be of no value for the pot, since the river Stour flowed through another portion of the estate and had in it a large supply of excellent, well-flavoured fish. These carp were, he said, of a great age and tameness, so that they were accustomed to come for food when Lady Eshetsford called them. About half-way down the water, beyond the straight lines of the avenue, the trees of the park, oaks and thorn-bushes, grew very thick and umbrageous; and towards the end there rose on either side long clumps of copper beeches appearing very tall and solid. At the far end of the water was a circular temple or kiosk of solid stone, all round, but with a domed roof of glass. The legend was, Mr. Chuckel said, that Sir Anthony Eshetsford, who had much added to the Manor during the days of the Commonwealth at the expense of his Loyalist neighbours, had built and inhabited this circular dwelling. The reason he had given for its rotundity was, namely, that being convinced, upon the glorious Restoration, of the error of his former ways, in his immense contrition he had builded this refuge all circular so that the Evil One should not catch him in a corner. But most people said that he had built it without windows so that no person from the outside should see him practising the Black Arts, and circular so as to consort with magicians’ circles and secret debaucheries. There was said to be an underground passage connecting it with a house in the town where his mistresses used to reside.
Behind the little grey and weather-beaten temple, so overshadowed by trees as almost to evade the eye, was the stretch of the tall park wall. It was formed at this part by the backs of the houses of the town, but only one window gave on to the long and lush grass of the park. At the moment a little company of five deer was standing, their heads all towards the white mullions of the window, their pale hides glimmering and ghostly in the deep shade of the trees.
