Books: The Pillars of the House, V1

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> The Pillars of the House, V1

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'I have not been there yet.'

'Not there?'

'No. Old Abednego Tripp comes over here every market day, and he's
the only person I wanted to see.'

'I thought you came here because you wanted to see the place?'

'Yes; but I was not up to the walk when I came here; and while you
were ill I never durst go out of reach of the telegraph, and latterly
I waited for you. After all, I have not much mind to it. I don't see
the good of setting oneself a coveting one's neighbour's house.'

'It wouldn't be my house, any way,' said Lance quaintly. 'How far is
it?'

'Rather more than three miles. We'll get a boat some day and do it.'

'That will be jolly!' and after shovelling a little longer, Lance
added, 'How came we to be turned out?'

'That's just what I can't tell. I was only seven, you know, and my
father never would talk of it. Sibby used to revile the mane nagur,
Misther Fulbert, till it was current in the nursery that he was a
black man who expelled us vi et armis. One day, my father found
four or five of us in a row slashing at an old black doll, by way of
killing Misther Fulbert, and prohibited such executions. I think,
too, that he quashed an attempt to call our own Fulbert by his other
name.'

'I wonder what the nagur did?'

'By the light of maturer nature, I imagine that he may have succeeded
as heir-at-law, and that his maneness may have consisted in not
giving the living to my father; but I cannot tell. It always seemed
my father's great desire to put it out of our minds. I remember
before we left the place his catching me in a furious rage with some
one who told me my pony was to be sold. He carried me off, and told
me it was all true, and we were going away, and he trusted to me to
be brave and make it as little hard to Mamma and the little girls as
could be. He said the place had belonged to old Uncle Underwood, and
that we had no right to stay there after his death. That was all the
explanation he gave me, first or last; and I don't think we thought
much about it after the neck of the change was broken.'

'You remember it, though.'

'I believe I know every step of the house and garden. I have never
ceased to dream of them; and I am as much afraid of disturbing old
impressions as of reviving wishes.'

'Holloa! what's up?' exclaimed Lance, as the landlady was seen coming
in quest of them. 'I thought I saw a tidy little tiger going in there
just now.'

'A note from Mr. Staples, if you please, Sir, and they wait for an
answer.'

'I didn't know you had any acquaintance here.'

'Mr. Staples is the solicitor who did the business about Admiral
Chester's legacy. He is retired now, and only holds some county
office. He found me out last week, I believe, from some letters of
mine going wool-gathering to the other F. Underwood. He called and
said he knew my father, and was very civil and friendly. He sent to
inquire after you the day you came. This is what he says:--

MY DEAR MR. FELIX UNDERWOOD--Your relative at Vale Leston wishes me
to dine with him to-morrow evening. If you and your brother would
like to accompany me on the drive, meet me at six o'clock on the top
of the cliff. If you would prefer to return earlier than I do, I can
direct you to a boatman to take you down by the river.--Believe me,
yours truly, C. STAPLES.

'Hurrah! that's not half a bad fellow for an attorney,' cried Lance.

'Shall not you be tired? Will it not be too hot for you?'

'Not a bit of it. He,' indicating the sun, 'can only get at me
asquint by that time, and I'm a match for him with my blue umbrella.
Come, fire away, you tardy Norseman. Say we are good for it. Fancy
boating back!'

And Lance whistled a few bars of 'The Hardy Norseman,' the liveliest
thing he had done since his illness.

At the appointed hour, the brothers were standing on the top of the
cliff, with a broad estuary before them; on the opposite side of
which lay the town of Ewmouth at the foot of the old castle, with
fresh modern fortifications towards the sea. The town, with its
church towers and gas chimneys, sloped away from it; vessels thronged
the harbour; and a long weird-looking thready suspension-bridge
spanned the broad tide-river to East Ewmouth, the village fast
growing into a suburb. There had not been more than time to point out
the details to Lance before a waggonet drove up from one of the roads
that branched among pleasant 'villa residences;' and in it appeared a
white-haired but hearty-looking gentleman, prepossessing and merry,
very unlike Lance's notion of attorneys, who shook hands with them
warmly, and took care to put the boy under the shade of the driving-
seat.

It was a pretty drive, through rich meadows, shut in by the sloping
wooded hills which gradually closed nearer; and by and by over the
shoulder of one looked a very tall church tower, whereat Felix
started with a thrill of responsive recognition, and suddenly
faltered in the political discussion Mr. Staples had started, but
dropped at once, looking at the young man's face with kindly
interest.

At the same time road and river both made a sudden turn into a much
narrower and wilder valley, the hills beyond more rough and rocky;
but the river still broad and smooth, and crossed by a handsome high-
backed five-arched bridge, the centre arch grandly high and broad,
the other two rapidly diminishing on either side. Over this the
carriage turned; and from the crown Lance beheld an almost
collegiate-looking mass of grey building, enclosing sunny lawns and
flower-beds, and surrounded by park-like grounds and trees, all
sloping towards the river, and backed by steep hills of wood and
moorland, whence a little brook danced with much impetus down to the
calm steady main stream of Ewe. The church and remnants of the old
priory occupied the forefront of a sort of peninsula, the sweep of
the Ewe on the south and east, and the little lively Leston on the
north. There was slope enough to raise the buildings beyond damp, and
display the flower-beds beautifully as they lay falling away from the
house. The churchyard lay furthest north, skirted by the two rivers,
and the east end with the lovely floriated window of the Lady Chapel
rising some thirty yards from the bank of the Ewe, the outline a
little broken by an immense willow tree that wept its fountain-like
foliage into the river. The south transept was cloistered, and joined
to the building beyond, a long low grey house with one row of windows
above the sloping roof of the cloister, and this again connected with
a big family mansion, built of the same gray stone with the rest, but
in the style of the seventeenth century, and a good deal modernised
upon that. A great plate-glass window looked out on the river in the
east front, which projected nearly as far as did the Lady Chapel, the
space between being, as before said, laid out in a formal parterre,
with stone steps leading down to the river.

'Oh, what a place! what a place!' shouted Lance, starting up in the
carriage. 'It's like the minster, and the jolly old river besides!
Two of them! Oh! what fishing there must be!'

'I did not know it was really so beautiful,' said Felix in a low
voice.

'You remember it?' said Mr. Staples.--'I suppose you can't?' to
Lance.

'Oh no! I wasn't born! More's the pity! Do the salmon come up here,
Sir?'

'Yes, since the fisheries have been protected; but young Mr.
Underwood is a great fisherman, and I fear it is not easy to get a
card.'

'Oh, I wasn't thinking about leave, Sir, thank you. I've got no
tackle nor anything; but I _am_ glad _we_ have salmon,' said Lance,
as though he had acquired an accession of dignity.

Descending from the bridge, they were in a road skirting the river,
and on which presently opened the lodge gates of the Rectory. Here
Mr. Staples got out, telling his servant to drive the young gentlemen
round to the village.

'I say, Felix,' said Lance, as they were whirled on along the lane
which swept round the long wall overhung by trees, 'that old party
must know all about it.'

'Most likely,' said Felix; 'but if there had been any good in my
hearing, my father could have told me himself. How well I remember
his giving me my first ride along this lane! Do you smell the bean
field? I don't believe I have thought of the scent since.'

Felix seemed absorbed in the pleasures of recognition; and Lance,
amazed at the beauty and what seemed to him the splendour of the
place, looked up at his brother with a kind of romantic feeling for a
disinherited knight, as he contrasted the scene with the counter and
printing-office.

The lane led to the village street, a very pretty one sloping
upwards, and lying on each side of the Leston, which rippled along as
clear as crystal, crossed every here and there by footbridges, some
wooden, some a single stone; while the cottages on the opposite side
were perched on a high shelf or terrace, and were approached by
charming irregular flights of stairs with low walls or balustrades.
Over the rail of one, smoking a pipe in summer evening enjoyment, was
seen Abednego Tripp, with long nose, brown parchment cheeks, and lank
hair not yet grey--one of the genuine almost extinct species of
parish clerk. As the carriage stopped, he began to descend, keys in
hand, for the church was a lion, and many carriages did stop there;
but it was not till Felix jumped out and hailed him that he knew who
were his visitors.

'Bless me, if it is not Master Felix after all! I did think you was
never coming, Sir. And this is the young gentleman as has been so
ill. You're kindly welcome, Sir. I think he'd favour poor Master
Eddard if he didn't look so nesh.'

'I shall get well here,' said Lance. 'If it is not my native air, it
ought to be.'

'Will you come and rest a bit, Sir? or would you like to go to the
church?'

'The church,' they said. Felix first explained what he knew would
give pleasure--that they had come depending on him for a cup of tea,
and a cast in his boat which was wont to convey the marketables of
Vale Leston twice a week to Ewmouth.

Abednego sped up his stairs like a lamplighter, to cause his grand-
daughter to make preparations, and was speedily down again, delighted
to hear Felix prove his memory by inquiries after the inhabitants of
the old dwellings.

'Ha! the Miss Hepburns!' said Felix, looking at a tall narrow house
completely embowered in trailing roses, and with the rails of the
bridge of entrance wreathed with clematis. 'Are they there still?'

'Oh yes. Sir, all the four on 'em; and a sight of good they does to
the poor!'

'I wonder whether I ought to call?' said Felix; 'they used to be very
kind to me.'

'What, is that Rob's godmother, that never gave her anything but that
queer name?' asked Lance.

'I shouldn't think they were rich,' said Felix. 'I fancy they used to
be very fond of my mother, and made her promise that the next girl
should be named for one of them. There was Miss Bridget, and Miss
Martha, and something else as bad, and Robina was the least
objectionable of the lot. I think they used to write to my mother;
but it is late in the day for calling.'

'Here comes Miss Bridget,' said the clerk, as there appeared in sight
a tall, rigid, angular figure, with a big brown hat and long straight
cloak, and a decidedly charity-looking basket in her hand.

Felix stepped forward with his hand to his hat. 'Miss Hepburn, I
believe. I must introduce myself--Felix Underwood'

The lady's first move had been a startled shy drawing herself up and
into herself, at being addressed by a stranger. Then she looked up
with an amazed 'Felix Underwood! Little Felix!' and as he smiled and
bowed, she rumbled and put out a hesitating hand.

'Yes. Tripp did tell us something--something of your being at
Ewmouth, but we were not sure.'

'We had not been able to come over before,' said Felix, thinking she
meant to imply that he ought to have called. 'We came for health and
have not been equal to the walk.'

'Oh, indeed. Nothing infectious, I hope?'

'Oh no,' he said, explaining in a few words the total want of
connection between his case and Lance's.

'I am glad. I'll--I'll tell my sisters. I'm glad to have seen you.'

There was something faltering and ill-assured in her manner, and in a
moment she turned back with 'Mr. Underwood, where are you stopping?'

He answered; and with 'I'll tell my sisters,' she parted with them
again.

'That's Miss Bridget,' commented old Tripp. 'She's the one as allys
says, "I'll tell my sisters." They do say as Miss Isabella, she be
the master on 'em all.'

Felix and Lance smiled to one another the assurance that every family
had it's Wilmet; but while the younger brother shrugged his
shoulders, the elder felt a certain chill in the contrast with those
days of old, when the sugar-plums and picture-books of the whole
sisterhood were all at his service, and bethought him that times were
changed.

They entered the churchyard by a little side-gate. The church was a
grand pile of every style of architecture that had prevailed since
the Cistercians had settled in Vale Leston, and of every defacement
that the alternate neglect and good-will of the Underwoods could
perpetrate. The grand tower at the west end was, however, past their
power to spoil, and they had not done much damage to the exterior,
except in a window or buttress here and there. But within! The
brothers, used to the heavy correctness of the St. Oswald's
restoration, stood aghast when Abednego admitted them by the door of
excommunication, straight into the chancel, magnificently deep, but
with the meanest of rails, a reredos where Moses and Aaron kept guard
over the Commandments in black and gold, and walls bristling with
genii and angels of all descriptions, weeping over Underwoods of
different generations. Lance stood open-mouthed before a namesake of
his own, whose huge monumental slab was upborne by the exertions of a
kind of Tartarean cherub, solely consisting of a skull and a pair of
bats' wings!

'My stars! where did that brute come from?' muttered Lance under his
breath. 'He's got no trifle of a piece of work!'

However, Felix had taken in that the chancel had respectable poppy-
headed benches, though the lower part of the church was completely
'emparoked in pues,' such as surprised Lance out of all bounds when
he withdrew his eyes from the white marble death's head.

'My stars!' again he said, 'this is what I've heard of, but never
saw.'

'Ay, Sir,' said Mr. Tripp, 'every one that come here do be crying out
upon the pews; and to be sure, I see the folk sleepin' in them as is
shameful!'

'Well he might, for his place was the lowest in a lofty three-decker,
against one pier of the chancel arch, surmounted by a golden angel
blowing a trumpet, and with lettering round the sounding-board,
recording it to have been the gift of the Reverend Lancelot
Underwood, Rector and Vicar of this parish--the owner of the mural
slab before mentioned. That angel recalled to Felix that the sight of
it had been his great pleasure in going to church, only marred by the
fact that he was out of sight of it in the chancel.

'Why, you weren't in the choir then?' said Lance.

'Choir! no, Sir,' said the clerk. 'They sits in the gallery. The
chancel is for Mr. Underwood's family--the Rector, Sir. They seats
was just put up instead of the red baize pew before old Mr. Underwood
as was then died, and your poor papa went away. And that there font
was put, as 'tis there, just when the twin young ladies was
christened.'

'Where was I christened, then?'

'In the bowl as we used to have on the Communion, Sir.'

It was plain how far Edward Underwood had dared to work at
renovation, and that nothing had since been done. The Lady-chapel,
with a wonderful ceiling of Tudor fans and pendants, was full of
benches and ragged leaves of books for such Sunday schooling as took
place there, the national school having been built half a mile off,
that the children might not be obnoxious to the Rectory. The church
was a good way behind the ordinary churches of 1861, and struck the
two brothers the more from the system in which they had been brought
up.

'What a state Clem would be in!' uttered Lance, as they came out.

'It is of no use to think about it,' said Felix. 'Let us enjoy the
beautiful exterior.'

'Ay, Sir,' said old Tripp, 'parties do be saying as how it is a
mortial pity to see such a church go to wrack; and I do believe the
Squire wouldn't be so hard to move if it warn't for the Passon--
that's young Mr. Fulbert, the vicar.'

'I don't understand all these rectors and vicars,' said Lance. 'I
thought they never hung out together.'

'Why, you see, Master Lancelot, as how this is what they calls a lay
rectory, as goes like a landed estate from father to son, without
there being any call for 'em to be clergy; and the Vicar, he is just
put in to do Passon's work, only he gets his situation for life, like
I do, not like them curates.'

'I see,' said Felix; 'and the rectors have generally taken Holy
Orders, and presented themselves to the vicarage.'

'Yes, Sir, that's how it ought to be; only this here Squire--not
being no Passon, though Rector he be--he puts in a gentleman to keep
it warm till his son, young Mr. Fulbert, our Vicar as is, was growed
up, and hard work they say it was to get him to bend his mind to it;
nor he'd not have done it at last, but for his father's paying of his
bills, and giving consent to his marrying Miss Shaw. And since that,
bless you, Sir, the curates have done nothing but change, change,
change, till 'tis enough to ruin a good clerk. You knows what that
is, Master Felix, you that be one of the cloth.' (For Felix allowed
himself no unprofessional coats.)

'It is only the cloth, Mr. Tripp; don't you see I sport a blue tie! I
am a bookseller.'

'A bookseller!' The old man recoiled. 'You'll not be passing your
jokes on me, Sir. A book-writer--I understands.'

'No, a bookseller in earnest. I have a share in a very good business
at Bexley; I've been at it ever since I was sixteen.'

The old clerk was quite overcome; he leant upon a headstone and
stared at Felix without speaking, and then it was a sort of
soliloquy. 'To think of poor dear Master Eddard's son being come to
that! and he looking a dozen times more like a clergyman and a
gentleman than ever this young Mr. Fulbert will!

'Never mind, Mr. Tripp,' said Felix; 'there's one of us on the way to
be a clergyman--Edward Clement, you know, that I wrote to you about;
and maybe this fellow too. Don't look so angry with me. I was obliged
to do the best I could to bring in something for the thirteen of us.
'

'And we're as proud of him as can be!' added Lance, affectionately
and indignantly.

'Ah, well,' said the old aristocrat, 'that may be, for you never knew
them he came of. There was my old Lady Geraldine, as was his great-
grandmother, who gave a new coat or new gown to every poor body in
the parish at Christmas, and as much roast beef as they could eat;
and wore a shawl as come from the Injies and cost two hundred pounds!
She was a lady! Bless me, what would she have said to see the day--'

'That she was glad to have a great-grandson good for something,'
stoutly answered Lance. 'I declare, Mr. Tripp, you'd have liked him
better if he had come a begging!'

'So I do,' said Felix; 'and what's more, Mr. Tripp is going to refuse
me because he is too fine to sit down to tea with a tradesman!'

'No, no, sir,' said old Tripp, with tears in his eyes. 'You'll not go
for to say that. If it was the last morsel I had, I'd be proud to
share it with one of Master Eddard's sons; but I can't but think as
how we rung the bells and drunk your health when you was born, just
as we did for the Prince of Wales, and how proud poor Master Eddard
looked. No doubt he was spared the knowing of it.'

'No,' said Felix, 'it was settled with his full consent.'

Abednego seemed more distressed than ever. 'Poor Master Eddard! he
must have been brought very low. Such a gentleman as he was! Never
spoke a proud or rude word, Sir, but used to hold up his head like
the first lord in the land, and fire and colour up and start like one
of young Mr. Fulbert's thoroughbreds if any one said an impudent
word.'

'That no one ever ventured,' said Felix. 'He was as much respected at
Bexley--yes, and is still--as ever he could be here. I wish you could
see my brother Edgar, he is more like him than either of us. Ah,
here's the old garden gate, I wish we could go into the shrubbery.

Tripp was rather for trying it. He said the gardeners would be gone
home, and the elder master at dinner--the younger, with his wife, was
absent; but Felix could not bear the sense of spying, though he did
not withhold Lance from a rush into the garden paths, where he did
not discover much. Then they looked into the eddy at the meeting of
the waters; and turning back to Tripp's neatest of kitchens, were
there regaled upon shrimps, rashers hissing from the fire, and the
peculiar native species of hot-buttered cake, which Felix recollected
as viewed in the nursery as the ne plus ultra of excellence, probably
because it was an almost prohibited dainty. Lance was in his element,
delighting himself and Miss Kerenhappuch Tripp by assisting her to
toast, to butter, and even to wash up, calling Felix to witness that
he always helped Cherry in the holidays; when just as they were
rising to seek the boat, Mr. Staples came climbing up the steps.

'I thought I should find you here,' he said. 'Mr. Underwood very much
wishes you would come and spend the rest of the evening with him.'

'The old humbug!' burst out Lance. 'You won't go, will you, Felix?'

Felix thought a moment, then walked with Mr. Staples to the corner of
the narrow ledge in front of the cottage. 'Mr. Staples,' he said, 'I
know nothing about it. I trust to you to tell me whether this man
treated my father so that I ought not to accept attention from him.'

'Hm? ha? I should not say so. He treated him unkindly, ungenerously,
but he hardly knew how much so, and he had the letter of the law on
his side. I verily believe he regrets it, and that your father, being
what he was, would be the last to wish you to hold aloof.'

'Most likely,' said Felix. 'I am sure he forgave whatever there was
to forgive.'

'It is not my doing, I assure you. He spoke of your letters that had
gone astray, and that led to more, till when he found you were in the
village, he said he should like to see you. He is breaking up; his
son has given him a good deal of trouble, and I believe he is
altogether concerned for what has passed.'

'And he will not suppose we want anything from him?' said Felix, with
something of the almost unavoidable pride of independent poverty.

'Certainly not. I have guarded against that.'

'Then I suppose we must.--That is, how is your head? are you too much
tired, Lance?'

'No,' said Lance, almost sulkily; for he was much inclined to make
fatigue a plea for escaping the 'mane nagur' and enjoying the boat,
and was rather unreasonably disposed to think it all a plot on the
part of Mr. Staples for spoiling the evening. Felix might have been
equally glad of the excuse, but he believed his father would have
thought this act of conciliation a duty, and followed Mr. Staples
across the churchyard, where all the little boys in the place seemed
to be playing marbles on the flagged paths. Its neglected state was a
painful contrast to the exquisitely laid-out shrubbery, as trim as
gardeners could make it, and improved and altered beyond Felix's
recognition.

Entering the house, Mr. Staples led the way to the dining-room, where
there was a large empty table in the middle of the room, and in the
deep bay of the window a smaller one, laid out with wine and dessert,
where sat 'old Fulbert.' Having always heard him so called, the
brothers were surprised to find him no more than elderly. He must
have been originally a thorough florid handsome Underwood, and had
the remains of military bearing, though with an air of feebleness and
want of health, and a good deal of asthmatic oppression on his
breath. He did not rise, but held out his hand, saying, 'Good
evening. Thank you for coming to see a sick man.'

'I am sorry to see you so unwell, Sir.'

'Thank you, I'm on the mend. Sit down. Take a glass of wine--claret?'

Felix accepted, wondering if his father would regard it as an act of
pardon.

'And you?'

'No thank you, Sir.'

'No wine? You are the one that has been so ill? No objection to
melon, eh?'

And Lancelot, whose illness had left a strong hankering for fruit,
was considerably appeased by the first cut into the cool buff flesh.

'Is he the next brother to you?'

'Oh no. There are three brothers and three sisters between us.'

'And what are they doing? There were one or two with Tom Underwood.
Didn't the young fellow offend him and turn out idle?'

'Not that, Sir,' said Felix, his colour rising: 'but he had no turn
for a clerkship, and a good deal for art. He is studying at the Royal
Academy, but there never was any quarrel; he is often at Thomas
Underwood's.'