Wenderholme Part 29

"He does not seem to have neglected the little boy," she said; "he reads very well. I asked him to read aloud to me yesterday, and was surprised to hear how well he read--I mean, quite as if he understood it, and not in the sing-song way children often acquire."

"He's ten years old now, and he ought to read well," replied Mr.

Prigley; "but he knows a great deal for a boy of his age. It's high time to send him to school, though; it's too lonely for him at the farm.

I am preparing him for Eton."

Mrs. Stanburne expressed some surprise at this. "Boys in his rank in life don't often go to Eton, do they, Mr. Prigley?"

The clergyman smiled as he answered that little Jacob's rank in life was not yet definitively settled. Mrs. Stanburne replied that she thought it was, since his father was a retired tradesman.

"Yes, but his uncle, Mr. Jacob Ogden of Milend, has not left business; indeed he is greatly extending his business just now, for he has built an immense new factory. And this little boy is to be his heir--his uncle told me so himself three weeks since. This child will be a rich man--n.o.body can tell how rich. His uncle wishes him to be educated as a gentleman."

It is a great recommendation to a little boy to be heir to a large fortune, and Mrs. Stanburne's natural liking for little Jacob was by no means diminished by a knowledge of that fact. As he was going to Eton, too, she began to look upon him as already in her own rank of life, where boys were sent to Eton, and inherited extensive estates.

During Mr. Prigley's frequent absences with Colonel Stanburne at the Hall, Mrs. Stanburne undertook to hear little Jacob his lessons, and then the idea struck her that Jacob and Edith might both write together from her dictation. In this way the boy and the girl became cla.s.s-fellows. Edith had a governess usually, but the governess had gone to visit her relations, and Miss Edith's education was for the present under the superintendence of her grandmamma.

So between these two children an intimacy rapidly established itself--an intimacy which affected the course of their whole lives.

One day when they had been left alone together in the drawing-room, little Jacob asked the young lady some question, and he began by calling her "Miss Edith."

"Miss Edith!" said she, pouting; "why do you call me Miss? The servants may call me Miss, but you mayn't. We're school-fellows now, and you must call me Edith. And I shall call you Jacob. Why haven't you got a prettier name for me to call you by? Jacob isn't pretty at all. Haven't you another name?"

Poor little Jacob was obliged to confess his poverty in names. He had but one, and that one uncouth and unacceptable!

"Only one name. Why, you funny little boy, only to have one name! I've got four. I'm called Edith Maud Charlotte Elizabeth. But I'll tell you what I'll do. As I've got four names and you've only one, I'll give you one of mine. I can't call you Charlotte, you know, because you're not a girl; but I can call you Charley, and I always will do. So now I begin.

Charley, come here!"

Little Jacob approached obediently.

"Ha, ha! he answers to his new name already!" she cried in delight, clapping her hands. "What a clever little boy he is! He's a deal cleverer than the pony was when we changed _its_ name! But then, to be sure, the pony never properly knew its first name either."

Suddenly she became grave, and put her fingers on the young gentleman's arm. "Charley," she said, "this must be a secret between us two, because if grandmamma found out, she might be angry with me, you know. But you like to be called Charley, don't you? isn't it nice?"

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII.

ARTISTIC INTOXICATION.

The London architect who was charged with the restoration of Wenderholme gave advice which could not be followed without a heavy outlay; but in this respect he was surpa.s.sed by Colonel Stanburne's amateur adviser, Mr. Prigley, whose imagination revelled in the splendors of an ideal Elizabethan interior, full of carving and tapestry, and all manner of barbaric magnificence. Where the architect would have been content with paper, Mr. Prigley insisted upon wainscot; and where the architect admitted plain panelling, the clergyman would have it carved in fanciful little arches, or imitations of folded napkins, or s.h.i.+elds of arms, or large medallion portraits of the kings of England, or bas-reliefs of history or the chase.

Only consider what Mr. Prigley's tastes and circ.u.mstances had been, and what a painful contradiction had ever subsisted between them! He had an intense pa.s.sion for art--not for painting or sculpture in their independent form, for of these he knew little--but Mr. Prigley loved architecture mainly, and then all the other arts as they could help the effect of architecture. With these tastes he lived in a degree of poverty which utterly forbade any practical realization of them, and surrounded by buildings of which it is enough to say that they represented the taste of the inhabitants of Shayton. The ugliest towns in the world are English towns--the ugliest towns in England are in the manufacturing district--the ugliest town in the manufacturing district was the one consigned to Mr. Prigley's spiritual care. Here his artistic tastes dwelt in a state of suppression, like Jack-in-the-box.

Colonel Stanburne had imprudently unfastened the lid; it flew open, and Jack sprang up with a suddenness and an energy that was positively startling and alarming.

The fact is, Mr. Prigley lived in a condition of intoxication during the whole time of his stay at Wenderholme Cottage--an intoxication just as real as that which he denounced in Seth Schofield and Jerry Smethurst, and the other patrons of the Red Lion. A man may get tipsy on other things than ale or brandy; and it may be doubted whether any tipsiness is more complete, or more enjoyable whilst it lasts, than that which attends the realization of our ideas and the gratification of our tastes. And it has been kindly ordained that when we are not rich enough to realize our ideas for ourselves, we take nearly as much interest in seeing them realized by somebody else; so that critics who could not afford to build a laborer's cottage, get impa.s.sioned about Prince Albert's monument or the future Palace of Justice. How much the more, then, should Mr. Prigley excite himself about Wenderholme, especially seeing that Colonel Stanburne had done him the honor to consult his judgment, and expressed the desire to benefit by his extensive knowledge, his cultivated taste! Was it not a positive duty to interest himself in the matter, and to give the best advice he could? It was a duty, and it was a pleasure.

Mr. Prigley had already half decided the Colonel, when a powerful ally came unexpectedly to his a.s.sistance. One morning at breakfast-time, when the Colonel read his letters, he said to Mrs. Stanburne, "Here's a letter from an acquaintance of ours who wants to come and stay here,"

and he handed her the following note:--

"MY DEAR COLONEL STANBURNE,--Since I had the pleasure of seeing you at Wenderholme, I have often thought about what you are doing there. Having had a good deal of experience with architects, restorations, &c., it has occurred to me that I might be of some use. Would you present my compliments to Mrs. Stanburne, and say that if it occasioned no inconvenience to her, I should very much like to spend a few days at Wenderholme Cottage? I would bring n.o.body with me except Thompson, my valet; and though our acquaintance is comparatively a recent one, I presume upon it so far as to hope that you will not allow my visit to make any difference--I mean, in asking people to meet me. I should like, on the contrary, to have you all to myself, so that we may talk about the restoration of Wenderholme in detail: it interests me greatly. With kind compliments to Mrs. Stanburne,

"Yours very truly, INGLEBOROUGH."

"Well, dear," said Mrs. Stanburne, when she had read the note, "the Duke must come, of course. I like him very much--he is a very agreeable man.

We needn't make any fuss."

So the Duke came; and as Colonel Stanburne had insisted that Mr. Prigley should stay to meet him, he and little Jacob prolonged their visit at the Cottage. "I look upon you, Mr. Prigley, as a necessary s.h.i.+eld for my ignorance. Whenever you see that the Duke is puzzling me, you must divert the attack by drawing it on yourself. _You're_ a match for him--you know all the technical terms."

His Grace brought with him a heavy box of books, such as made Mr.

Prigley's mouth water, and several portfolios of original designs for carvings, which had been executed for an old mansion of his own, contemporary with Wenderholme. He warmly supported Mr. Prigley's views; and in the long conversations which the three held together in the evenings, whilst the Colonel consumed his habitual allowance of tobacco, the books and portfolios were triumphantly appealed to, and it was proved in a conclusive manner that this thing ought to be done, and that this other thing was absolutely indispensable, till poor John Stanburne hardly knew what to think.

"It is an opportunity," said the Duke--"an opportunity such as, we hope, may never occur again; and it rests with you, Colonel Stanburne, whether your n.o.ble old mansion is to be restored, in the genuine sense of the word, so that it may have once again the perfect character of an Elizabethan house of the best cla.s.s--or whether it is to be simply repaired so as to shelter you from the weather, like any other house in the neighborhood. You will never repent a liberal expenditure at the right moment. I say, be liberal now; it is an expense which will not occur twice, either in your lifetime or in that of your descendants for many generations. What are a few thousand pounds more or less in a matter of such importance? Make Wenderholme a perfect mansion of its kind. Restore all the wainscot, and tapestry, and gla.s.s; replace all the carved furniture that must have been there in Queen Elizabeth's time"--

"Thanks to Eureton's good management the night of the fire, all our furniture is safe."

The Duke made a little gesture of impatience. "Captain Eureton," he said, "did his duty most creditably on the night of the fire; but as the fire originated in the garrets, where all the old remnants were acc.u.mulated, the consequence was, that the most precious things in the house were destroyed, and the less precious were preserved."

"A good deal more useful, though, Duke, if less precious in the eyes of an antiquary."

"Useful? Yes, that is what makes them so dangerous. People admit incongruous things into their houses on the wretched pretext of utility.

Do you know, in my opinion, it is a subject of regret that the furniture was saved that night?"

"You worked very hard yourself in saving it."

"Of course, it was my duty to take my share of the work; but circ.u.mstances will sometimes place us in such a position that duty compels us to act against what we believe to be the general interest of mankind. For instance, suppose I were out at sea in my yacht, and that I met with a boatful of Republicans, such as Mazzini, Garibaldi, Louis Blanc, and Ledru Rollin, all so hungry that they were just going to eat each other up, and so thirsty that they were just going to drink salt water and go raving mad, it would be my duty to pick up the rascals, and give them food, and land them on some hospitable sh.o.r.e, and I should do so because to save men from death is an elementary duty; but I should be rendering a far better service to mankind in letting the fellows eat each other, instead of a.s.sa.s.sinating their betters, and go raving mad out at sea rather than disseminate insane doctrines on the land."

The Colonel could not help laughing at this sally. "Do you mean to compare my furniture with a set of Republicans?"

"What Radicals and Republicans are in an ancient state, commonplace and ign.o.ble furniture is in a fine old mansion; and your old remnants in the lumber-room were like men of refined education and ancient descent, who have been thrust out of their natural place in society to make room for vulgar _parvenus_."

"Well, but what on earth would you have me do with my furniture?"

"There are many ways of getting it out of Wenderholme. Why not furnish some other house with it? Why don't you have a house in London? you _ought_ to have a house in London. The furniture here is quite appropriate in a modern house, though it is incongruous in an old one.

Or if you had a modern house anywhere, no matter where, you might furnish it with that furniture, and then Wenderholme would be free to receive things suitable for it."

Amongst other books that the Duke had brought with him was Viollet-le-Duc's valuable and comprehensive "Dictionnaire du Mobilier;"

and the three gentlemen were soon as deep in the study of chairs and _bahuts_ as they had before been in that of wainscots and stained gla.s.s.

Colonel Stanburne was not by nature an enthusiast in matters of this kind, and would have lived calmly all his life amidst the incongruities of the Wenderholme of his youth; but n.o.body knows, until he has been exposed to infection, whether he may not catch some enthusiasm from others which never would have originated in himself. From the very beginning of his stay, Mr. Prigley had begun to indoctrinate John Stanburne in these matters; and after the arrival of the Duke's richly ill.u.s.trated volumes, the pupil's progress had been remarkable for its rapidity. He now felt thoroughly persuaded that it would be wrong to miss such a rare opportunity, and that economy at such a moment would be unworthy of the owner of Wenderholme. He had a large sum of money in the Funds, entirely under his own control, and he resolved to appropriate a portion of this to the restoration of the mansion, in accordance with the advice of the Duke and Mr. Prigley.

One day at lunch, his Grace was lamenting the loss of the old carvings in the lumber-room, when little Jacob, who dined when his elders lunched, and was usually a model of good behavior, in that he observed a Trappistine silence during the repast, rather astonished the company by saying, "Please, I know where there's plenty of old oak."

The gentlemen took this for one of those remarks, usually so little to the point, which children are in the habit of making. Mrs. Stanburne kindly answered by inquiring "whether there was much old oak at Twistle Farm?"

"Oh no, I don't mean at papa's--I mean here," replied little Jacob, with great vivacity. John Stanburne said, "There used to be plenty, my boy, but it was all burnt in the fire."

"I don't mean that; I never saw that. I mean, what I have seen since I have been here this time,--real old oak, all carved with lions and tigers--at least, I believe they are lions and tigers--and pigs and wolves, too, and all sorts of birds and things."

There was not an atom of old oak in Wenderholme Cottage, and there was not an atom of furniture of any kind in Wenderholme Hall. What could the child mean? Had he been dreaming?