Urith: A Tale of Dartmoor

by S. Baring-Gould

The Civil Wars had produced vast displacement in the social strata. The old gentry were failing, and those who had taken part with neither side, but had waited on their own interests in selfish or indifferent neutrality, were rewarded by emerging, where others were falling into ruin, into ripe prosperity. After that Anthony Cleverdon, the elder, had acquired the freehold of Hall, he had become a widower, and showed no disposition to take to himself another wife. His marriage had not been a happy experience, and none had felt the disagreement in it more than Elizabeth, his eldest daughter, who, after her mother's death, had been called to manage the household. If the opinion of Magdalen Cleverdon were to be taken—the unmarried sister of Anthony, senior—who lived in a small house in Tavistock, the blame of the unhappiness of her brother's married life lay with his wife; but then the judgment of Magdalen was warped and partial. When Anthony brought home his young wife, she—Magdalen—had endeavoured to remain at the head of the house, to interfere where she could not direct, Mrs. Cleverdon had taken a very decided line, and refused all intermeddlement, and Magdalen, after a sharp struggle for supremacy, had left the house routed. Disappointment had embittered her estimate of her sister-in-law.

But there were other and more substantial grounds for her charging her sister-in-law with having rendered the marriage an unhappy one. Mrs. Anthony had been a portionless girl, the daughter of a poor parson; Margaret Penwarne might have been regarded as a suitable match socially, but pecuniarily, she was most unsuitable, especially to an ambitious and money-grasping man.

What her brother could see to admire in Margaret Penwarne, Miss Cleverdon protested she never could see—she entirely forgot that Margaret had been endowed with surpassing beauty.

Others beside Magdalen Cleverdon had marvelled at the choice of Anthony, knowing the character of the man. What could induce a man, whose main features were ambition and greed, to select as his partner one who had not a penny, nor was connected with any of the gentle families of the neighbourhood? Magdalen had not reckoned on the girl's beauty; the others who wondered had not counted on Anthony's ambition, which would exert itself in other directions than they considered. His ambition was deeply tinctured with, if it did not originate in, personal vanity. Vanity is but ambition in a fool's cap, and that of Cleverdon was well hung with bells. Because he considered himself the richest man in the neighbourhood of his class, he esteemed himself also irresistible as a wooer. He had been treated with considerable severity by his father in his early years, for the old man had been a strait Puritan, though not such an one as to risk any money for his cause, or compromise his safety for it in any way. He allowed his son no freedom, consulted his wishes in no particular, and allowed him no pocket-money. When the old man died, Anthony was left with a good deal of hoarded money, and freedom to act as he listed. His fancy was taken by Margaret Penwarne, and his vanity and ambition stimulated by the knowledge that she was already the object of the attentions of Richard Malvine, the son of a neighbouring parson, without profession and without inheritance. Richard Malvine was a handsome man, and Margaret Penwarne certainly was attached to him, but the marriage could not be thought of till Richard had a competence on which to support himself and a wife. Anthony Cleverdon entered the list against the handsomest young man in the district, but he had money and a good farm to set against good looks. He and Richard had been together at the Grammar School, and had been rivals there, Richard ever taking the lead, and on one occasion had thrashed Anthony severely. It was with eagerness that Cleverdon seized the opportunity of gratifying his malice by snatching from Malvine the girl of his heart, and it flattered his vanity to have it said of him that he had won the most beautiful girl of the district over the head of the handsomest man. Margaret struggled for some time between her affection and her ambition; the urgency of her father and mother prevailed, she cast off Malvine and accepted Cleverdon.

Anthony Cleverdon's pride was satisfied. He had gained a triumph, and was wrapped up in the sense of victory for a while, then the gloss of novelty wore off, and he began to regret his precipitancy in taking to him a wife who brought nothing into the family save good looks. The thriftiness of the father now came out in the son. He did not grudge and withhold money where he could make display, but he cut down expenses where no show was made, to the lowest stage of meanness. Margaret's father died. She thought to take her mother to live with her at Hall, but to this her husband would not consent, nor could she wring a silver coin from him wherewith to assist her mother, reduced to great poverty. This occasioned the first outbreak of domestic hostilities. Margaret was a woman of temper, and would not submit tamely to the domination of her husband. His sister Magdalen took sides against her, and fanned the embers of strife when they gave token of expiring. If Margaret had been of a meek and yielding temperament, the marriage might not have been so full of broils; her husband would have crushed her, and then ignored her. But her spirit rose against him, and stirred the discord that was only temporarily allayed. She could not shut her eyes to his infirmities, she would not condescend to flatter him. In her heart she contrasted him with the man she had loved and had betrayed; her heart never warmed to her husband; on the contrary, indifference changed into hatred. She made no scruple about showing him the state of her mind, she pitilessly unmasked his meannesses, and held them up to mockery; she scoffed at his efforts to thrust himself into a position for which he was not born; he found no more penetrating, remorseless critic of all he did, than his own wife.

Anthony Cleverdon believed, and was justified in believing, that his old rival, Richard Malvine, stood between him and domestic peace, as a shadow that blighted and engalled his relations to his wife; that, though he had triumphed formally over his rival, that rival had gained the lasting and substantial success. Anthony Cleverdon might prize himself as high as he pleased, but he could no longer blind himself to the fact, that his money bags which had won his wife for him, were unavailing to buy her affections, and secure to him the fruits of his triumph.

This consciousness stimulated his hatred of Malvine to fresh acridity, and in his meanness, he found a base satisfaction in humiliating his wife by every means in his power, and on every available opportunity.

The birth of Bessie did not serve to unite the pair, for Anthony Cleverdon had set his heart on having a son, and when, after the lapse of a considerable interval of time, the desired son arrived, it was too late to serve as a link of reconciliation. Mrs. Cleverdon died shortly after his birth, her only regret being that she had to leave her daughter, whom she loved with double passion, partly because her desolate heart naturally clung to some object, and had none other to which to attach itself, partly also because little Bessie was totally disregarded by her father.

Richard Malvine consoled himself for his disappointment by marrying Marianne Gibbs, of Willsworthy; he took her for the sake of Willsworthy, as Margaret Penwarne had taken Anthony Cleverdon for the sake of Hall. He was a feckless man, who had lived at home in the parsonage with his father, had hunted, had shot, and had never earned a penny for himself. He died, thrown from his horse, in hunting, a few years after his marriage, leaving an only child, Urith.

The death of the mother produced no alteration in the conduct of Anthony Cleverdon towards her daughter. What love he had in his heart was bestowed on his son—the heir to his name and estate.