CHAPTER IV.
The scenery amid which we are born and brought up, if we remain long enough therein to have passed that early period of existence on which memory seems to have no hold, sinks, as it were, into the spirit of man; twines itself intimately with every thought, and becomes a part of his being. He can never cast it off, any more than he can cast off the body in which his spirit acts. Almost every chain of his after thoughts is linked at some point to the magical circle which bounds his youth's ideas; and even when latent, and in no degree known, it is still present, affecting every feeling and every fancy, and giving a bent of its own to all our words and our deeds.
I have heard a story of a girl who was captive to some Eastern prince, and wore upon her ancles a light golden ring. She learned to love her master devotedly, and was as happy as she could be in his love. Adored, adorned, and cherished, she sat beside him one day in all the pomp of Eastern state, when suddenly her eye fell upon the golden ring round her ancle, which custom had rendered so light that she had forgotten it altogether. The tears instantly rose in her eyes as she looked upon it, and her lover divining all at once, asked, with a look of reproach, "Would you be free?" She cast herself upon his bosom and answered, "Never!"
Thus, often the links that bind us to early scenes and places, in which we have passed happy or unhappy hours, are unobserved and forgotten, till some casual circumstance turns our eyes thitherward. But if any one should ask us whether we would sever that chain, there is scarcely one fine mind that would not also answer, Never! The passing of our days may be painful, the early years may be checkered with grief and care, unkindness and frowns may wither the smiles of boyhood, and tears bedew the path of youth; yet, nevertheless, when we stand and look back, in later life, letting Memory hover over the past, prepared to light where she will, there is no period in all the space laid out before her over which her wings flutter so joyfully, or on which she would so much wish to pause, as the times of our youth. The evils of other days are forgotten; the scenes in which those days passed are remembered, detached from the sorrows that checkered them, and the bright misty light of life's first sunrise still gilds the whole with a glory not its own. It is not alone, however, after long years have passed away, and crushed out the gall from sorrows endured, that fine and enchanting feelings are awakened by the scenes in which our early days have gone by, and that the thrill of association is felt in all its joyfulness, acting as an antidote to the poisonous sorrows which often mingle with our cup.
It was so, at least, with Charles Tyrrell as he returned towards the home of his fathers. The sun rose upon his journey when he was about twenty miles from home, but still in scenes of which every rood was familiar to him; and while the first red and blushing hues upon the eastern sky were changing into the bright and golden splendour that surrounds the half-risen sun, the road wound out upon the side of a hill, showing him a wide extent of country to the right, scattered with many a mound and many a tumulus, each, in general, planted with a small clump of dark fir-trees, which waved above the conical hillocks like plumes from the casques of the warriors who now slept beneath.
Beyond that extent again might be beheld long lines of hill and woodland, broken, before the eye reached the faintest line in the distance, by a tall, curiously-shaped hill, known by the name of Harbury Hill, or, as some called it, Harbury Fort, though, to say sooth, scarcely a vestige of a fort existed there, except the broken vallum of a Roman camp, on the short sweet grass of which now grazed some innocent sheep and peaceful cows.
Looking forth, as well as he could, from the window, the eyes of Charles Tyrrell instantly sought out Harbury Hill, which was, it may be remembered, within a very short distance of his paternal mansion. They lighted on it at once; and, notwithstanding all that he had suffered there, and felt he was still to suffer, a thrill of satisfaction passed through his bosom, again to behold the well-known scenes of his early years; the hill, the valley, the wood, the plain, all glowing in the early light of the morning, which imaged not amiss the light of youth pouring its lustre through all that surrounds it. He gazed and enjoyed; and, with an economy of pleasure, which the harsh lessons of the world had taught him to practise even then, he enjoyed, perhaps, the more, because he felt that that first glow of joy was the only pleasure which was likely to be his during his sojourn there.
All the passengers in the coach were still sound asleep; and after a glance, which gave him no satisfaction, at the sharp, astute countenance of Mr. Driesen, he turned away from the fat, unmeaning faces of the rest, heated with travelling and dirty with a journey, and continued to gaze at every well-remembered object till the coach stopped, the horses were unharnessed, and four staid and heavy animals, but very little like the light blood tits that now gallop over the ground with the Highflyer behind them, were brought out, and with somewhat slow and clumsy hands attached to the heavy Blue. The stopping of the coach roused almost all the inside passengers, and amid many expressions of wonder at the sun having risen while they were all asleep, Mr. Driesen put forth his head from the coach window, commented on the beauty of the morning, and assured Charles Tyrrell that, though he had been absent but a few months, he would find very great improvements in the neighbourhood of Harbury Park.
"Indeed," said Charles; "I have not heard of any, either in progress or contemplation."
"It is nevertheless true," replied Mr. Driesen, "and I may say that I have had some share therein, for I suggested several of the plans to your father; and I hear that he is not only executing them, but greatly improving upon them: I am even now on my way to spend a week or two at the Park, and see what progress has been made."
"Pray, in what may these improvements consist?" demanded Charles Tyrrell. "I do not understand how any very considerable improvements could be made, especially in so short a time."
"You will see, you will see," replied his companion. "But you remember the old manor-house which your father was at one time talking of pulling down, and laying out the gardens by the bank of the stream in meadows?"
"I remember it well," replied Charles Tyrrell, as the words of his companion called up before his mind the picture of a place where he had often played in infancy. It was situated in a valley, at the distance of about three quarters of a mile from his father's dwelling, with a clear and rapid stream rushing through the green turf of the lawn. The house was an old house, built of flints, with manifold gable ends turning in every different direction, but with an air of grave and quiet antiquity about it all which was pleasant to the imagination. It was the property of Sir Francis Tyrrell; but the house in which he dwelt was more convenient and suitable to him in every respect; and though he had once let the old manor-house, he had contrived to quarrel so violently with his tenant, that no one could be found to take it when the lease expired.
It had thus remained uninhabited for many years and on it time had consequently had the destroying effect which time has on all man's works, when once they are deprived of the constant superintendence of his care. It had not, indeed, been totally neglected, but still it had fallen into decay; and when an occasional servant was sent down to open the windows and give admission to the healing air and sunshine, the rooms appeared damp and chilly, while the garden, with less tendance than was required to keep it up, showed a crop of speedy grass upon its gravel walks, and a sad luxuriance of weeds.
Nevertheless, Lady Tyrrell loved it, and would often wander thither with her child and the nurse in the days of Charles's infancy, to enjoy an hour or two of peace at some distance from her troublous home. He thus did, indeed, remember it well; and at the very name, the clear rushing stream seemed to flow on before him, the green lawns to slope out beneath his feet.
"I remember it well," he said: "but what of it? My father is not going to pull it down, I hope."
"Oh, no," replied his companion, with a cynical sneer, which he could not restrain even when speaking of his best friend. "Oh, no! your mother said she wished he would, and so, of course, he has abandoned that idea. No; on the contrary, he has repaired and beautified it; has had all the gardens trimmed and put in order, and made it one of the sweetest spots in the country."
Charles Tyrrell was surprised; and revolving rapidly in his mind what could be his father's motive, he was inclined to believe, and the belief was not unpleasant to him, that his father contemplated a separation from Lady Tyrrell, and intended to give her the old manor-house for her dwelling. The belief, we have said, was pleasant to him; for, notwithstanding some pain and some annoyance which might still exist, he felt confident that tranquillity and peace, which were the only objects that Lady Tyrrell could now hope for in life, were only to be obtained by separating her from him who had inflicted upon her twenty years of misery.
As one is very much accustomed to do in conversing with one in whom we have little confidence, and with whom we have few sources of feeling in common, Charles Tyrrell pondered what he had heard in his own mind for some moments before he asked any explanation from his companion. When he had done so, however, and began to doubt, from what he knew of his father's nature, whether his first solution of the mystery was correct, he once more turned to his informant and demanded, "Pray what may be my father's purpose in this new arrangement, do you know?"
"Ay, that you will learn hereafter," replied Mr. Driesen, with a sententious shake of the head, expressive of all the importance of a profound but not unpleasant secret. "Ay, that you will learn hereafter; but you must hear that from your father himself."
Charles Tyrrell had a potent aversion to mysteries of every kind, and an avowed animosity, not a little mingled with contempt, for those who made them unnecessarily. To Mr. Driesen's answer, then, he offered not the slightest rejoinder; and, unwilling to gratify him by letting him see that his curiosity was excited in the least degree, he instantly turned the conversation to some indifferent subject, talked of the weather and the high road, the old heavy Blue coach and the horses that drew it, and of anything, in short, but that in regard to which he was really inclined to inquire.
In the mean while the coach rolled on, and bore him nearer and nearer to his home. At one particular point the road commanded a view of the old manor-house; and Charles, looking out of the window, saw it gleaming out from among the trees. Though it was lost again almost instantly, and he could catch none of the particulars, there was an indefinable look of freshness about it, an air of renovation, which showed him that it was greatly changed. A little farther on, the coach rolled past the lodge, and it, too, had undergone improvement; but that was not all. There was a servant in mourning livery standing at the gate, and looking out at the pretty country scene before his eyes with an expression which seemed to show that the whole scene was new to him. The suit which he wore showed that he was not a servant of Sir Francis Tyrrell; but Charles saw the small, keen black eyes of Mr. Driesen wandering over his face, and he took no more notice than if the servant had been a post at the gate of some house which he had never seen before. About three quarters of a mile farther the coach stopped at the lodge of the Park, and Charles Tyrrell and his companion alighted, leaving the inside passengers to tell strange stories of the violent temper and uncontrollable passions which were considered in that neighbourhood as a part of the inheritance of the Tyrrell family.
On entering his paternal mansion, Charles found his father apparently in a more placable mood than usual; but it certainly seemed as if the coming of Mr. Driesen afforded him greater pleasure than the visit of his son. His mother was not present; and after spending a few minutes in the library with Sir Francis Tyrrell, Charles rose to seek his mother.
"You are in vast haste, Charles," said his father; "but I suppose it is of great importance that you should make Lady Tyrrell aware how soon young men at college learn to know everything better than their father. You can seek her in her own room, where you will most likely find her."
Charles's lip quivered and his nostril expanded. "I seek my mother, sir," he replied, with a look of indignation that he could not well control, "to inquire after her health, and to tell her about mine." And though some other bitter words sprang up to his lips, he had the good sense to remember that it was the first day of his return home, and to repress them before they found utterance.
In order to make sure of his own temper, he left the room at once; but could hear, as he shut the door, Mr. Driesen's low, sarcastic laugh, and fancy pictured the figure of his father and the skeptic amusing themselves with the anger which had been excited in his bosom. He smothered that anger as far as he could, however, and hoped to leave no trace of it ere he reached his mother's apartment; but, at all events, his feelings were, of course, turned into gall and bitterness by this first occurrence in his father's house.
Lady Tyrrell received him with joy; and as she gazed upon the countenance of her son, with proud feelings at the noble and manly aspect which his whole person was beginning to assume, she felt that there was yet one tie between her and life, one bright spot for affection to rest upon in the great desert of "this side the grave." Their meeting was full of tenderness and affection, and in the first overflowing of their feelings Charles forgot Mr. Driesen, and all that he had told him of changes, improvements, and plans.
At length, however, after having passed about an hour with his mother in telling her all that he had done at Oxford, hiding, indeed, everything that was painful, and only displaying that which was pleasant, his eye lighted upon his father and the sophist crossing the lawn before his mother's windows, and slowly walking on towards that part of the wood through which a tortuous pathway led to the grounds of the old manor-house. His journey in the coach, and all that had been said, then rose upon remembrance, and he said, "I forgot, my dear mother, to tell you that fellow Driesen had come down in the coach with me."
"I knew he was coming, my dear Charles," replied his mother; "I heard your father mention it to one of the servants, telling him to get Mr. Driesen's room ready; for it has gone on till the blue room at the top of the staircase is called Mr. Driesen's room now."
Charles replied nothing, though his mother paused. After a short time, Lady Tyrrell went on: "I grieve that that man is so much here, Charles; he is a dangerous, a bad, and an unprincipled man; and I should grieve still more if your character were anything but what it is; but I feel certain that, notwithstanding all his art and all his eloquence, both of which are undoubtedly very great, Mr. Driesen could no sooner lead you than he could make oil and water mix."
"Indeed, my dear mother, he could not," replied Charles Tyrrell: "I know him thoroughly, I think, and dislike him not a little; but still I shall keep away from him as far as possible; for he is continually throwing out those sneers at everything that is holy and good; at religion, at virtue, at feeling, which leave unpleasant impressions; stains, in fact, which are difficult to efface."
"Do, do avoid him as much as possible, Charles," replied his mother. "I sincerely believe that the only safeguard against such insidious serpents is that tendency which nature has given us to avoid them from our first abhorrence of their doctrines and feelings: I believe, otherwise, very few would escape them."
"Oh, I do not think that," replied Charles Tyrrell; "I never yet heard of a strong-built house being knocked down by footballs or beaten to pieces by peashooters; but the one and the other may break the windows if they go on too long. At all events, I shall keep out of his way, because I dislike him. But tell me," he added, "what is this he has been speaking of, and which must be true from the changes I observed as I passed? The old manor-house, it seems, is repaired and beautified, and I saw a servant standing at the lodge: what is the meaning of all this?"
A smile, sad and thoughtful, but still a smile, came over Lady Tyrrell's countenance. "It is a plot against you, I fear, my dear Charles," she replied: "but, still, not one that is likely to be very dangerous, unless you yield yourself to it. You have heard," she added, seeing that she had excited her son's surprise, "you have often heard your father speak of Mr. Effingham, who had a beautiful place in Northumberland. It was at that house, then Mr. Effingham's father's, that I first met my husband, and he has two or three times talked of taking you there."
"I forgot all about it," interrupted Charles Tyrrell; "I remember the name of Effingham, and hearing that he was my father's cousin, I think, but nothing more."
"A very distant cousin indeed," replied Lady Tyrrell; "a Scotchman might call it a close connexion; but we, who have no clans, forget such cousinships except when it serves our purposes; but, as I was going to tell you, Mr. Effingham died some months ago, and made your father his executor. You know how fond he is of projects, and no sooner did he find that Mr. Effingham had left a large estate somewhat encumbered, together with a widow and a daughter not yet of age, than he laid out in his own mind a scheme for bringing them to the old manor-house, for saving sufficient from the rents to clear off the encumbrances on the Northumberland estates, and for marrying you, I am sure, to the daughter."
"Indeed!" said Charles. "I rather suppose that he will find himself mistaken in his calculations; for, thank God, the time is gone by when parents had it in their power to marry their sons and daughters to whomsoever they pleased, and took them to the altar as to a cattle fair, to sell them to whom they liked. I hope, my dear mother, you have given no countenance to this scheme?"
"None whatever, Charles," replied his mother, "but quite on the contrary. I was well aware, my dear boy, that the endeavour to force anybody upon you was the readiest way to make you take a dislike to a person whom you might otherwise have chosen for yourself; and, besides, I had various reasons which made me anything but anxious that such a marriage should take place. In the first place, I should much wish you to see a good deal more of the world before you marry at all; nor do I wish you to marry early. It is not, indeed, so much the desire of keeping you altogether to myself, for my own comfort and consolation, as for the sake of your own after happiness and the happiness of the person you may choose. There are some men who certainly should marry young, and who are all the happier in after life for so doing; but such is not the case with your family, Charles. You should all of you plunge into the world; endure even its sorrows and its reverses; taste the uses of adversity; encounter disappointment, care, anxiety, even overthrow and defeat, perhaps, to take off the keen and fiery impetuosity with which you set out in life, and never think of marrying till you can deliberately propose to yourselves to seek in domestic life calmness, peace, tranquillity, and the reciprocation of equal affection, rather than rule, domination, and contention."
Charles Tyrrell was silent for several moments. He felt that what his mother said was true in some degree, and yet there was a good deal in it that mortified him. He loved her too well, however; he appreciated her motives too well; he was of too frank and candid a nature to suffer any mortification he felt to appear harshly.
"My dear mother," he said, in a melancholy tone, "I think, if you knew all that I have felt, you would judge that I have had disappointments and griefs enough in seeing my mother's unhappiness, and living in a house of strife, to trample down, even from my infancy, great part of those strong passions that you fear."
Lady Tyrrell shook her head, and Charles went on. "Well, well, my dear mother, it does not signify; at all events, I am very glad that you have given no encouragement to this scheme of my father's; for, depend upon it, it must and will fail."
"I would have encouraged it on no account whatsoever," replied Lady Tyrrell; "I should have thought it unjust and wrong in every respect; but I am sorry to say that it has been the cause of as bitter a quarrel between myself and your father as ever occurred, and they have been but too many. He wished me to write and invite Mrs. Effingham here; but I would not do so. I had never seen her, for Mr. Effingham was not married when I was last at his father's house; and as your father had often spoken of Mrs. Effingham as of a weak, poor-minded person, with whom he did not wish me to keep up any acquaintance, of course I never made the attempt; but I could not be expected suddenly to turn round and affect great regard for persons I had never seen, and towards whom I had shown some neglect. If, immediately after Mr. Effingham's death, your father had asked me to write, and, as a matter of kindness, invited Mrs. Effingham here for change of scene, I would have done it with pleasure; but when it was to press her to come hither after two or three months had elapsed, and to say everything I could in my letter to forward a scheme I disapproved, of course I endeavoured to avoid doing so; and on my showing the least reluctance, your father took fire, and spoke and acted as you can conceive. He has scarcely ever opened his lips to me since, except, indeed, the other day, when he informed me that he himself had written to Mrs. Effingham, and that she had accepted his invitation, which, of course, did not raise her very high in my opinion. All the other arrangements were concluded too, I find; so that she has taken the manor, and is about to reside there with her daughter till Lucy becomes of age, and is, consequently, no longer under your father's guardianship. Everything will be prepared to receive them there in about ten days. In the mean time, they come here before the end of the week; what day I do not well know, as I have not been informed. I shall treat them, of course, with kindness and civility, and trust you will do the same; for your father has the fullest right to expect that at our hands, though I cannot write hypocritically pressing invitations to people that I not wish to see."
The impression produced on the mind of Charles Tyrrell by the account which his mother gave him, was certainly anything but pleasant in regard to Mistress and Miss Effingham; and certain it is that, although he, as well as Lady Tyrrell, made up their minds to perform every external act of civility, yet there was a predetermination on the part of both to make that civility so cold and icy as to cut short every project of an alliance with one whom they were resolved to dislike.
Their conversation then turned to other subjects, on which it is not necessary to dwell; and the only thing which occurred further between the mother and son worthy of remark, was, that Charles Tyrrell, who had always entertained a great antipathy to the name of Lucy, took pains to repeat it with particular emphasis whenever the conversation returned to Mistress and Miss Effingham.
In the evening Lady Tyrrell came down to dinner, which she had not done for several days before; and willing to make her son's return home as cheerful as she could, she restrained, as far as possible, every appearance of bearing in mind the dispute between her husband and herself, though it had thrown her into a fit of illness. Acting on the same principle, she suffered Mr. Driesen to take her unresisting hand, and in reply to several speeches, which he purposely rendered extravagantly gallant, she uttered some civil words, of course.
Sir Francis, in the course of his walk, seemed to have been tutored to politeness by Mr. Driesen, and both to his wife and son behaved with an unusual degree of courteousness, though the very nature and constitution of his mind prevented him from abstaining altogether from an occasional sneer or sarcasm. In fact, his very politeness savoured thereof, and there was nine times out of ten as much bitter as sweet in everything he said.
On the whole, however, the evening passed over more pleasantly than usual; and though both Lady Tyrrell and her son were well aware that no real change for the better had taken place, they were only too anxious to protract, as long as possible, the temporary suspension of strife and irritation. It was to be remarked, too, that every time Mr. Driesen found Sir Francis Tyrrell touching upon dangerous ground, he skilfully contrived to draw him away, by throwing some new element into the conversation of such a kind as he knew Sir Francis Tyrrell would dash at, forgetful of what went before. Thus the whole party were, in fact, in a much more placable mood, when the rush of a carriage wheels was heard indistinctly through the open doors, and a loud peal upon the bell called the servants to the gate.