Wenderholme Part 1

Wenderholme.

by Philip Gilbert Hamerton.

PREFACE

TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

It happened, some time before this story was originally composed, that the author had a conversation, about the sale of novels, with one of the most eminent publishers of fiction in London.[1] The result of his experience was, that in the peculiar conditions of the English market short novels did not pay, whilst long ones, of the same quality, were a much safer investment. Having incurred several successive losses on short novels, my friend, the publisher, had made up his mind never to have any thing more to do with them, and strongly recommended me, if I attempted a work of fiction, to go boldly into three volumes at once, and not discourage myself by making an experiment on a smaller scale, which would only make failure a certainty. The reader may easily imagine the effect of such a conversation as this upon an author who, whatever may have been his experience in other departments of literature, had none at all in the publication of novels. The practical consequence of it was, that, when the present story was written, commercial reasons prevailed, as they unhappily so often do prevail, over artistic reasons, and the book was made far longer than, as a work of art, it ought to have been.

The present edition, though greatly abridged, is not by any means, from the author's point of view, a mutilated edition. On the contrary, it rather resembles a building of moderate dimensions, from which excrescences have been removed. The architect has been careful to preserve every thing essential, and equally careful to take away every thing which had been added merely for the sake of size. The work is therefore at the present time much nearer in character to the original conception of the designer than it has ever been before.

Notwithstanding the defect of too great length, and the difficulty which authors often experience in obtaining recognition in a new field, _Wenderholme_ was very extensively reviewed in England, and, on the whole, very favorably. Unfortunately, however, for the author's chances of profiting by the suggestions of his critics, it so happened that when any character or incident was selected for condemnation by one writer, that identical character or incident was sure to be praised enthusiastically by another, who spoke with equal authority and decision, in some journal of equal importance. The same contradictions occurred in criticisms by private friends, people of great experience and culture. Some praised the first volume, but did not like the third; whilst others, who certainly knew quite as much about such matters, considered that the book began badly, but improved immensely as it went on, and finished in quite an admirable manner, like a horse that has warmed to his work. These differences of opinion led me to the rather discouraging conclusion that there is nothing like an accepted standard of right and wrong in the criticism of fiction; that the critic praises what interests or amuses him, and condemns what he finds tiresome, with little reference to any governing laws of art. I may observe, however, that the book had an artistic intention, which was the contrast between two cla.s.ses of society in Lancas.h.i.+re, and that the militia was used as a means of bringing these two cla.s.ses together. I may here reply to one or two objections which have been made as to the manner in which this plan was carried out.

Most of the local newspapers in the north of England at once recognized the truth of local character in the book; but one Manchester critic, with a patriotism for his native county which is a most respectable sentiment, felt hurt by my descriptions of intemperance, and treated them as a simple calumny, arguing that the best answer to them was the industry of the county, which would not have been compatible with such habits. I have never desired to imply that all Lancas.h.i.+re people were drunkards, but there are certain nooks and corners of the county where drinking habits were prevalent, in the last generation, to a degree which is not exaggerated in this book. Such places did not become prosperous until the energy of the better-conducted inhabitants produced a change in the local customs; and I need hardly say that the hard drinkers themselves were unable to follow business either steadily or long. Downright drunkenness is now happily no longer customary in the middle cla.s.ses, and in the present day men use stimulants rather to repair temporarily the exhaustion produced by over-work than for any baccha.n.a.lian pleasure. In this more modern form of the drinking habit I do not think that Lancas.h.i.+re men go farther than the inhabitants of other very busy counties, or countries, where the strain on human energy is so great that there is a constant temptation to seek help from some kind of stimulating beverage.

The only other objection to the local truth of _Wenderholme_ which seems to require notice is that which was advanced in the _Sat.u.r.day Review_.

The critic in that periodical thought it untrue to English character to represent a man in Colonel Stanburne's position as good-natured enough to talk familiarly with his inferiors. Well, if modern literature were a literature of types, and not of persons, such an objection would undoubtedly hold good. The typical Englishman, when he has money and rank, is certainly a very distant and reserved being, except to people of his own condition; but there are exceptions to this rule,--I have known several in real life,--and I preferred to paint an exception, for the simple reason that reserve and pride are the death of human interest. It would be possible enough to introduce a cold and reserved aristocrat in a novel of English life,--such personages have often been delineated with great skill and fidelity,--but I maintain that they do not excite sympathy and interest, and that it would be a mistake in art to place one of them in a central situation, such as that of Colonel Stanburne in this volume. They may be useful in their place, like a lump of ice on a dinner-table.

On the first publication of _Wenderholme_, the author received a number of letters from people who were quite convinced that they had recognized the originals of the characters. The friends and acquaintances of novelists always amuse themselves in this way; and yet it seldom happens, I believe, that there is any thing like a real portrait in a novel. A character is suggested by some real person, but when once the fict.i.tious character exists in the brain of the author, he forgets the source of the original suggestion, and simply reports what the imaginary personage says and does. It is narrated of an eminent painter, famous for the saintly beauty of his virgins, that his only model for them was an old man-servant, and this is a good ill.u.s.tration of the manner in which the imagination operates. Some of my correspondents made guesses which were very wide of the mark. One lady, whom I had never thought about in connection with the novel at all, recognized herself in Mrs.

Prigley, confessed her sins, and promised amendment; an illusion scarcely to be regretted, since it may have been productive of moral benefit. A whole towns.h.i.+p fancied that it recognized Jacob Ogden in a wealthy manufacturer, whose face had not been present to me when I conceived the character. A correspondent recognized Dr. Bardly as the portrait of a surgeon in Lancas.h.i.+re who was never once in my mind's eye during the composition of the novel. The Doctor was really suggested by a Frenchman, quite ignorant of the Lancas.h.i.+re dialect, and even of English. But, of all these guesses, one of the commonest was that Philip Stanburne represented the author himself, probably because he was called Philip. There is no telling what may happen to us before we die; but I hope that the supposed original of Jacob Ogden may preserve his sanity to the end of his earthly pilgrimage, and that the author of this volume may not end his days in a monastery.

P. G. H.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF SHAYTON.

It was an immemorial custom in Shayton for families to restrict themselves to a very few Christian names, usually taken from the Old Testament, and these were repeated, generation after generation, from a feeling of respect to parents, very laudable in itself, but not always convenient in its consequences. Thus in the family of the Ogdens, the eldest son was always called Isaac, and the second Jacob, so that if they had had a pedigree, the heralds would almost have been driven to the expedient of putting numbers after these names--as we say Henry VIII, or Louis XIV. The Isaac Ogden who appears in this history may have been, if collateral Isaacs in other branches were taken into account, perhaps Isaac the fortieth; indeed, the tombstones in Shayton churchyard recorded a number of Isaac Ogdens that was perfectly bewildering. Even the living Isaac Ogdens were numerous enough to puzzle any new-comer; and a postman who had not been accustomed to the place, but was sent there from Rochdale, solemnly declared that "he wished all them Hisaac Hogdens was deead, every one on 'em, n.o.bbut just about five or six, an'

then there'd be less bother about t' letters." This wish may seem hard and unchristian,--it may appear, to readers who have had no experience in the delivery of letters, that to desire the death of a fellow-creature merely because he happened to be called Isaac Ogden implied a fearful degree of natural malevolence; but the business of a postman cultivates an eagerness to get rid of letters, whereof the lay mind has no adequate conception; and when a bachelor Isaac Ogden got a letter from an affectionate wife, or an Isaac Ogden, who never owed a penny, received a pressing dun from an impatient and exasperated creditor, these epistles were returned upon the postman's hands, and he became morbidly anxious to get rid of them, or "shut on 'em," as he himself expressed it. Some annoying mistakes of this kind had occurred in reference to _our_ Mr. Isaac Ogden at the time when he was engaged to Miss Alice Wheatley, whose first affectionate letter from her father's house at Eatherby had not only miscarried, but actually been opened and read by several Isaac Ogdens in Shayton and its vicinity; for poor Miss Alice, in the flurry of directing her first epistle to her lover, had quite forgotten to put the name of the house where he then lived. This was particularly annoying to Mr. Ogden, who had wished to keep his engagement secret, in order to avoid as long as possible the banter of his friends; and he sware in his wrath that there were far too many Isaac Ogdens in the world, and that, however many sons he had, he would never add to their number. This declaration was regarded by his mother, and by the public opinion of the elder generation generally, as little better than a profession of atheism; and when our little friend Jacob, about whom we shall have much to say, was christened in Shayton church, it was believed that the misguided father would not have the hardihood to maintain his resolution in so sacred a place. He had, however, the courage to resist the name of Isaac, though it was pressed upon him with painful earnestness; but he did not dare to offend tradition so far as to resist that of Jacob also, though the objections to it were in truth equally cogent.

On his retirement to Twistle Farm, an out-of-the-way little estate up in the hill country near Shayton, Mr. Ogden, who was now a widower, determined, at least for the present, to educate his child himself. And so it was that, at the age of nine, little Jacob was rather less advanced than some other boys of his age. He had not begun Latin yet, but, on the other hand, he read English easily and with avidity, and wrote a very clear and legible hand. His friend Doctor Bardly, the Shayton medical man, who rode up to Twistle Farm very often (for he liked the fresh moorland air, and enjoyed a chat with Mr. Ogden and the child), used to examine little Jacob, and bring him amusing books, so that his young friend had already several shelves in his bedroom which were filled with instructive histories and pleasant tales. The youthful student had felt offended one day at Milend, where his grandmother and his Uncle Jacob lived, when a matronly visitor had asked whether he could read.

"He can read well enough," said his grandmother.

"Well, an' what can he read? can he read i' th' Bible?"

The restriction of Jacob's reading powers to one book offended him.

Could he not read all English books at sight, or the newspaper, or any thing? Indeed, few people in Shayton, except the Doctor, read as much as the little boy at Twistle Farm; and when his uncle at Milend discovered one day what an appet.i.te for reading the child had, he was not altogether pleased, and asked whether he could "cast accounts." Finding him rather weak in the elementary practice of arithmetic, Uncle Jacob made him "do sums" whenever he had an opportunity. Arithmetic (or "arethmitic," as Uncle Jacob p.r.o.nounced it) was at Milend considered a far higher attainment than the profoundest knowledge of literature; and, indeed, if the rank of studies is to be estimated by their influence on the purse, there can be no doubt that the Milend folks were right.

Without intending a pun (for this would be a poor one), Uncle Jacob had never found any thing so interesting as interest, and the annual estimate which he made of the increase of his fortune brought home to his mind a more intense sense of the delightfulness of addition than any school-boy ever experienced. But arithmetic, like every other human pursuit, has its painful or unpleasant side, and Uncle Jacob regarded subtraction and division with an indescribable horror and dread.

Subtraction, in his vivid though far from poetical imagination, never meant any thing less serious than losses in the cotton trade; and division evoked the alarming picture of a wife and eight children dividing his profits amongst them. Indeed, he never looked upon arithmetic in the abstract, but saw it in the successes of the prosperous and the failures of the unfortunate,--in the acc.u.mulations of rich and successful bachelors like himself, and the impoverishment of struggling mortals, for whom there was no increase save in the number of their children. And this concrete conception of arithmetic he endeavored to communicate to little Jacob, who, in consequence of his uncle's teaching, already possessed the theory of getting rich, and was so far advanced in the practice of it that, by keeping the gifts of his kind patrons and friends, he had nearly twenty pounds in the savings bank.

CHAPTER II.

GRANDMOTHER AND GRANDSON.

Mrs. Ogden, at the time when our story commences, was not much above sixty, but had reached an appearance of old age, though a very vigorous old age, which she kept without perceptible alteration for very many years afterward. Her character will develop itself sufficiently in the course of the present narrative to need no description here; but she had some outward peculiarities which it may be well to enumerate.

She is in the kitchen at Milend, making a potato-pie, or at least preparing the paste for one. Whilst she deliberately presses the rolling-pin, and whilst the sheet of paste becomes wider and thinner under the pressure of it as it travels over the soft white surface, we perceive that Mrs. Ogden's arms, which are bare nearly to the elbow, are strong and muscular yet, but not rounded into any form that suggests reminiscences of beauty. There is a squareness and a rigidity in the back and chest, which are evidences rather of strength of body and a resolute character than of grace. The visage, too, can never have been pretty, though it must in earlier life have possessed the attractiveness of health; indeed, although its early bloom is of course by this time altogether lost, there remains a firmness in the fleshy parts of it enough to prove that the possessor is as yet untouched by the insidious advances of decay. The cheeks are prominent, and the jaw is powerful; but although the forehead is high, it suggests no ideas of intellectual development, and seems rather to have grown merely as a fine vegetable-marrow grows, than to have been developed by any exercise of thought. The nose is slightly aquiline in outline, but too large and thick; the lips, on the contrary, are thin and pale, and would be out of harmony with the whole face if the eyes did not so accurately and curiously correspond with them. Those eyes are of an exceedingly light gray, rather inclining to blue, and the mind looks out from them in what, to a superficial observer, might seem a frank and direct way; but a closer a.n.a.lyst of character might not be so readily satisfied with a first impression, and might fancy he detected some shade of possible insincerity or power of dissimulation. The hair seems rather scanty, and is worn close to the face; it is gray, of that peculiar kind which results from a mixture of very fair hairs with perfectly white ones. We can only see a little of it, however, on account of the cap.

Although Mrs. Ogden is hard at work in her kitchen, making a potato-pie, and although it is not yet ten o'clock in the morning, she is dressed in what in any other person would be considered rather an extravagant manner, and in a manner certainly incongruous with her present occupation. It is a theory of hers that she is so exquisitely neat in all she does, that for her there is no danger in wearing any dress she chooses, either in her kitchen or elsewhere; and as she has naturally a love for handsome clothes, and an aversion to changing her dress in the middle of the day, she comes downstairs at five o'clock in the morning as if she had just dressed to receive a small dinner-party. The clothes that she wears just now _have_ in fact done duty at past dinner-parties, and are quite magnificent enough for a lady at the head of her table, cutting potato-pies instead of fabricating them, if only they were a little less shabby, and somewhat more in harmony with the prevailing fas.h.i.+on. Her dress is a fine-flowered satin, which a punster would at once acknowledge in a double sense if he saw the farinaceous scatterings which just now adorn it; and her cap is so splendid in ribbons that no writer of the male s.e.x could aspire to describe it adequately. She wears an enormous cameo brooch, and a long gold chain whose fancy links are interrupted or connected by little glittering octagonal bars, like the bright gla.s.s bugles in her head-dress. The pattern of her satin is occasionally obscured by spots of grease, notwithstanding Mrs. Ogden's theory that she is too neat and careful to incur any risk of such accidents. One day her son Isaac had ventured to call his mother's attention to these spots, and to express an opinion that it might perhaps be as well to have two servants instead of one, and resign practical kitchen-work; or else that, if she _would_ be a servant herself, she ought to dress like one, and not expose her fine things to injury; but Mr. Isaac Ogden received such an answer as gave him no encouragement to renew his remonstrances on a subject so delicate. "My dresses," said Mrs. Ogden, "are paid for out of my own money, and I shall wear them when I like and where I like. If ever my son is applied to to pay my bills for me, he may try to teach me economy, but I'm 'appy to say that I'm not dependent upon him either for what I eat or for what I drink, or for any thing that I put on." The other brother, who lived under the same roof with Mrs. Ogden, and saw her every day, had a closer instinctive feeling of what might and might not be said to her, and would as soon have thought of suggesting any abdication, however temporary, of her splendors, as of suggesting to Queen Victoria that she might manage without the luxuries of her station.

When the potato-pie stood ready for the oven, with an elegant little chimney in the middle and various ornaments of paste upon the crust, Mrs. Ogden made another quant.i.ty of paste, and proceeded to the confection of a roly-poly pudding. She was proud of her roly-polies, and, indeed, of every thing she made or did; but her roly-polies were really good, for, as her pride was here more especially concerned, she economized nothing, and was liberal in preserves. She had friends in a warm and fertile corner of Yorks.h.i.+re who were rich in apricots, and sent every year to Milend several large pots of the most delicious apricot preserve, and she kept this exclusively for roly-polies, and had won thereby a great fame and reputation in Shayton, where apricot-puddings were by no means of everyday occurrence.

The judicious reader may here criticise Mrs. Ogden, or find fault with the author, because she makes potato-pie and a roly-poly on the same day. Was there not rather too much paste for one dinner,--baked paste that roofed over the savory contents of the pie-dish, and boiled paste that enclosed in its ample folds the golden lusciousness of those Yorks.h.i.+re apricots? Some reflection of this kind may arise in the mind of Jacob Ogden when he comes back from the mill to his dinner. He may possibly think that for to-day the pie might have been advantageously replaced by a beefsteak, but he is too wise not to keep all such reflections within his own breast. No such doubts or perplexities will ever disturb his mother, simply because she is convinced that no man _can_ eat too much of _her_ pastry. Other people's pastry one might easily get too much of, but that is different.

And there is a special reason for the pudding to-day. Little Jacob is expected at dinner-time, and little Jacob loves pudding, especially apricot roly-poly. His grandmother, not a very affectionate woman by nature, is, nevertheless, dotingly fond of the lad, and always makes a little feast to welcome him and celebrate his coming. On ordinary days they never have any dessert at Milend, but, as soon as dinner is over, Uncle Jacob hastily jumps up and goes to the cupboard where the decanters are kept, pours himself two gla.s.ses of port, and swallows them one after the other, standing, after which he is off again to the mill.

When little Jacob comes, what a difference! There is a splendid dessert of gingerbread, nuts, apples, and _fruits glaces_; there are stately decanters of port and sherry, with a bottle of sparkling elder-flower wine in the middle, and champagne-gla.s.ses to drink it from. There is plenty of real champagne in the cellars, but this home-made vintage is considered better for little Jacob, who feels no other effect from it than an almost irresistible sleepiness. He likes to see the sparkling bubbles rise; and, indeed, few beverages are prettier or pleasanter to the taste than Mrs. Ogden's elder-flower wine. It is as clear as crystal, and sparkles like the most brilliant wit.

But we are antic.i.p.ating every thing; we have jumped from the very fabrication of the roly-poly to the sparkling of the elder-flower, of that elder-flower which never sparkled at Milend, and should not have done so in this narrative, until the pudding had been fully disposed of.

The reader may, however, take that for granted, and feel perfectly satisfied that little Jacob has done his duty to the pudding, as he is now doing it to the nuts and wine. He has a fancy for putting his kernels into the wine-gla.s.s, and fis.h.i.+ng them out with a spoon, and is so occupied just now, whilst grandmother and Uncle Jacob sit patiently looking on.

"Jerry likes nuts," says little Jacob; "I wonder if he likes wine too."

"It would be a good thing," said Mrs. Ogden, with her slow and distinct p.r.o.nunciation,--"it would be a good thing if young men would take example by their 'orses, and drink nothing but water."

"Nay, nay, mother," said Uncle Jacob, "you wouldn't wish to see our lad a teetotaller."

"I see no 'arm in bein' a teetotaller, and I see a good deal of 'arm that's brought on with drinking spirits. I wish the lad's father was a teetotaller. But come" (to little Jacob), "you'll 'ave another gla.s.s of elder-flower. Well, willn't ye now? Then 'ave a gla.s.s of port; it'll do you _no_ 'arm."

Mrs. Ogden's admiration for teetotalism was entirely theoretical. She approved of it in the abstract and in the distance, but she could not endure to sit at table with a man who did not take his gla.s.s like the rest; the nonconformity to custom irritated her. There was a curate at Shayton who thought it his duty to be a teetotaller in order to give weight to his arguments against the evil habit of the place, and the curate dined occasionally at Milend without relaxing from the rigidity of his rule. Mrs. Ogden was always put out by his empty wine-gla.s.s and the pure water in his tumbler, and she let him have no peace; so that for some time past he had declined her invitations, and only dropped in to tea, taking care to escape before spirits and gla.s.ses were brought forth from the cupboard, where they lay in wait for him. The reader need therefore be under no apprehensions that little Jacob was likely to be educated in the chilly principles of teetotalism; or at least he may rest a.s.sured that, however much its principles might be extolled in his presence, the practice of it would neither be enforced nor even tolerated.

"I say, I wish my son Isaac was a teetotaller. I hear tell of his coming to Shayton time after time without ever so much as looking at Milend.

Wasn't your father in the town on Tuesday? I know he was, I was told so by those that saw him; and if he was in the town, what was to hinder him from coming to Milend to his tea? Did he come down by himself, or did you come with him, Jacob?"

"I came with him, grandmother."

"Well, and why didn't you come here, my lad? You know you're always welcome."

"Father had his tea at the Red Lion. Well, it wasn't exactly tea, for he drank ale to it; but I had tea with him, and we'd a lobster."

"I wish he wouldn't do so."

"Why, mother," said Uncle Jacob, "I see no great 'arm in drinking a pint of ale and eating a lobster; and if he didn't come to Milend, most likely he'd somebody to see; very likely one of his tenants belonging to that row of cottages he bought. I wish he hadn't bought 'em; he'll have more bother with 'em than they're worth."