Wenderholme Part 44

The vicar's sentiments when they left him were of a mixed kind. He was glad, and he was sorry. In his gladness there was no selfish calculation--the Stanburnes were welcome to every thing he could offer them; but in his warm approval of Lady Helena's conduct towards the Colonel, he had been a little too demonstrative to be quite agreeable to Mrs. Prigley, and therefore Mrs. Prigley had thought it inc.u.mbent upon her, as a British matron of unspotted virtue, to make his life as miserable as she could. Mrs. Ogden, too, had inflamed Mrs. Prigley's jealousy in another way by coming and nursing Mrs. Stanburne. What right had one of those "nasty Ogdens" to come and nurse Mrs. Stanburne? Mrs.

Prigley looked upon the invalid as exclusively her own property. Edith, being young and insignificant, might sit a little with her grandmother--but Mrs. Ogden!

If Lady Helena had not come just in time to take upon herself a good deal of this now inflamed and awakened jealousy, the consequence would have been that poor Mr. Prigley would have incurred grave suspicions of an amorous intrigue with the old lady of Milend; but as Lady Helena was younger than Mrs. Prigley, and Mrs. Ogden a good deal her senior, the vicaress paid her husband the compliment of believing that he had placed his sinful affections on the more eligible of the two ladies. So soon, therefore, as she had ascertained to her own satisfaction the culpability of the guilty pair (and when the commonest politeness was evidence, proofs were not far to seek), the vicaress treated her ladys.h.i.+p with the haughty coldness which is the proper behavior of a virtuous and injured woman towards her sinful rival, and she treated her husband as his abominable wickedness deserved. In a word, she made life utterly insupportable for Mr. Prigley.

Lady Helena saw the true situation of affairs before the parson did (for he in his masculine simplicity attributed his wife's behavior to any cause but the right one), and she migrated at once to the Cottage with the Colonel. When Mrs. Stanburne was well enough to bear the removal, she was brought back to her old house, and continued steadily to improve. Still her health was far from being strong enough to make the idea of leaving her an admissible one, so the Colonel and Lady Helena remained at Wenderholme a long time. Young Jacob came frequently to see Edith, but the marriage, though now agreed upon by all parties, was indefinitely postponed.

Whilst matters were in this state of suspension, the relation between Mr. Jacob Ogden and his family had to be legally settled. His brother Isaac received the factories and estates, in trust, conjointly with his mother, with the usufruct thereof, 500 a-year being set aside for the patient's maintenance. On account of the urgency of the situation, but much against the grain of his now acquired habits, Mr. Isaac Ogden quitted his solitude at Twistle Farm, and resumed, at Milend, the life of a cotton-manufacturer, in partners.h.i.+p with his son.

Meanwhile Colonel Stanburne's position was, from the financial point of view, any thing but brilliant. He had no income, after paying the allowance to his mother, except a share in the 300 a-year remaining to his wife. He was anxious to return to France and resume the humble profession which he had found for himself there. Lady Helena said that wherever he went she would go too, and nothing but the slowness of Mrs.

Stanburne's recovery prevented them from leaving England.

They were in this state--being, as things in life often are, in a sort of temporary but indefinite lull and calm--when an event occurred which produced the most important changes.

Mr. John Stedman being on a visit to his friend at Stanithburn Peel, took one of his customary long walks amongst the wild rocky hills in that neighborhood, and was caught--not for the first time--in a sudden storm of rain. By the time the storm was over he was wet through, but being interested in the search for a plant, went on wandering till rather late in the evening. If he had kept constantly in movement it is probable that no harm would have resulted from this little imprudence, but unfortunately he found the plant he was in search of, and this led him to do a little botanical anatomy with a microscope which he carried in his pocket. Absorbed in this occupation, he sat down on the bare rock, and forgot the minutes as they pa.s.sed. He spent more than an hour in this way, and rose from his task with a feeling of chill, and a slight s.h.i.+ver, which, however, disappeared when his pedestrian exercise was resumed. On returning to the Peel he thought no more of the matter, and ate a hearty dinner, sitting rather late afterwards with Philip Stanburne, and drinking more than his usual allowance of brandy-and-water. The next day he did not go out, and towards evening complained of a slight pain or embarra.s.sment in the chest. The symptoms gradually became alarming, a doctor was sent for, and Mr. Stedman's illness was discovered to be a congestion of both lungs.

Of this malady he died. In his will, after various legacies, liberal but not excessive, to all the poor people who were his relations, and the relations of his deceased wife, he named "his dear friend and son, Philip Stanburne," residuary legatee, "both in token of his own friends.h.i.+p and grat.i.tude towards the said Philip Stanburne, and also because in making this bequest the testator believes that he is best fulfilling the wishes of his beloved daughter, Alice."

But, notwithstanding John Stedman's affectionate friends.h.i.+p for the man whom Alice had loved, there still remained in him much of the resolution of a stalwart enemy of Rome, and the resolution dictated a certain codicil written not long before his death. In this codicil he provided that, "in case the said Philip Stanburne should enter any order of the Church of Rome, whether secular or ecclesiastical, or endow the said Church of Rome with any portion of his wealth, then the foregoing will and testament should be void, and of none effect. And further, that the said Philip Stanburne should solemnly promise never to give or bequeath to the Church of Rome any portion of this bequest, and in case of his refusal to make such promise," the money should be disposed of as we will now explain.

The testator proceeded to affirm that it was still his desire to leave part of his property in such a manner as to testify his grat.i.tude to Philip Stanburne; and therefore, if the latter took orders in the Church of Rome, Mr. Stedman's bequest should still pa.s.s to a person of the name of Stanburne, but professing the Protestant religion--namely, to John Stanburne, formerly of Wenderholme. In this case, however, a large deduction would be made from the legacy in favor of an intimate friend of the testator, Joseph Anison, formerly of Arkwright Lodge, near Whittlecup. All this was set forth with that minute and tedious detail which is necessary, or is supposed to be necessary, in every legal doc.u.ment.

Now for several years past Philip Stanburne had been firmly resolved, on the death of Mr. Stedman (which would release him from his promise to Alice), to enter a monastic order remarkable for industry and simplicity of life, founded by the celebrated Father Muard, but since affiliated to the Benedictines; and it was a suspicion of this resolve, or perhaps more than a suspicion, which had dictated Mr. Stedman's codicil. The will made no difference in Philip Stanburne's plans, and he was delighted that the Colonel should inherit what would probably turn out to be a fortune. When the question was formally put to him, he affirmed his intention of being a monk of _La Pierre qui Vire_.

In consequence of this declaration, the codicil took effect. The factory in Sootythorn, the house at Chesnut Hill, and a capital sum of 20,000, went to Mr. Joseph Anison; but even after all the legacies to poor relations, there still remained a residue of 35,000, which pa.s.sed directly to the Colonel. Mr. Stedman had been much richer than any one believed, and his fortune, already considerable in the lifetime of his daughter, had doubled since her death.

Philip Stanburne, who had been occasionally to Wenderholme since the Colonel's return, to inquire after Mrs. Stanburne, and pa.s.s an hour or two with an old friend, now proposed to sell him Stanithburn Peel. "It would make me miserable," he said, "to sell it to anybody else, but to you it's different. Buy it, and go to live there."

But he did not really sell the Peel itself. He sold the land, and gave the strong old tower. The place was valued by friends, mutually appointed, who received a hint from Philip that they were not to count the Peel. The Colonel knew nothing about this, but gave 20,000 for the estate, and invested the remainder of his capital in something better than the Sootythorn Bank.

As Mrs. Stanburne was now well enough to be left, the Colonel and Lady Helena set off one fine day for Stanithburn. The Peel had been admirably restored, though with great moderation, in Philip Stanburne's quiet and persevering way, and all its incongruities and anachronisms had been removed. When they came to the front door, who should open it but--Fyser!

"Please, sir," he said, "would you be so kind as to take me on again?"

The Colonel said not a word in answer, but he gave honest Fyser's hand such a shake that it was perfectly natural the tears should come into his eyes. The tears would come into anybody's eyes if his hand was squeezed like that.

Whilst her ladys.h.i.+p went to take her things off, Fyser said, "Would you like to step this way, sir?" The Colonel followed obediently.

"This will be your den, I suppose, sir, unless you would like to have it in another part of the 'ouse."

John Stanburne felt like a man in a dream. There was every sc.r.a.p of his old den-furniture in the place. Philip Stanburne had bought it all at the Wenderholme sale--every atom of it, even to his old boot-jack. And as Mr. Fyser had had the arrangement of it, you may be sure that it was in the old convenient and accustomed order.

But the Colonel and Lady Helena were still more surprised to find in the princ.i.p.al rooms of the house various cabinets and other things of value which had formerly been at Wenderholme, and especially a museum of family relics which had occupied the centre of the great hall. In these cabinets and cases little plates of silver were discovered, on examination, to be inlaid, and each of these little plates was engraved with the inscription, "Presented to Colonel Stanburne by the Officers of the Twentieth Royal Lancas.h.i.+re Militia."

The regiment happened to be just then up for its annual training under a major-commanding, no new colonel having as yet been appointed. And one day there came rather a solemn deputation of officers to Stanithburn Peel, all in full uniform.

The spokesman of the deputation was our old acquaintance, Captain Eureton. He began by informing Colonel Stanburne that, although the lieutenant-colonelcy had been offered to the senior major, he had begged the lord-lieutenant to permit him to remain at the head of the regiment as major-commanding; and that now he and all the officers unanimously joined in entreating Colonel Stanburne to withdraw his resignation, and resume his old position amongst them. There was no mistaking the earnestness and sincerity of this pet.i.tion, and John Stanburne consented. He was received at Sootythorn at a great banquet given by the officers just before the disbanding of the regiment; and at the review which concluded the training, it was John Stanburne who commanded.

CHAPTER XX.

A SIMPLE WEDDING.

"I could so like to go to little Jacob weddin'," said Mrs. Ogden one day in her little home at the Cream-pot, "but I'm like as if I were 'feard to leave our Jacob for one single day. He's just same as a childt, an'

to-morrow's his pay-day, an' I couldn't like anybody else to pay him his week's wage. But what I suppose they'll be just as well wed as if I'd been there, for that matter."

It seems to us quite a pity that Mrs. Ogden could not contrive to be at Wenderholme church on the wedding-day, for she would have been well received by Mrs. Stanburne at the breakfast given by that lady at Wenderholme Cottage, but ever since "our Jacob misfortin'" no power on earth could get her away from the Cream-pot, and all reasoning on the subject was trouble thrown away. Little Jacob's wedding-day pa.s.sed like all other monotonous days for Mrs. Ogden, so far as action or variety was concerned, but she thought of him from morning till night. As for the elder Jacob, he tranquilly pursued his digging in the garden, looking forward with eager antic.i.p.ation to the payment of his week's wages on the same evening, for he had some consciousness of the lapse of time, especially towards the close of the week. On Thursdays he began to ask if it were not Sat.u.r.day, on Fridays the question became frequent, and on Sat.u.r.day itself his mother had to promise a hundred times that she would pay his wages at six o'clock. His old habits of energy and perseverance were still visible in his daily work. He labored conscientiously to make the garden produce as much as spade labor could do for it, he carefully economized every inch of ground, and did all that mere physical labor could for its advantage. On the other hand, wherever the intelligence of a gardener was necessary, his shattered intellect was constantly at fault, and he committed the wildest havoc.

He rooted up the garden-flowers as weeds, and could only recognize one or two of the most familiar and most productive plants. He knew the carrot, for example, and the potato, and these he cultivated in his own strange way. His mother sacrificed the little Cream-pot garden to him entirely, and got the vegetables for house use from Milend, and the fruit from Wenderholme, so that he could destroy or cultivate at his own absolute will and pleasure, and this he did with the cunning and self-satisfaction of the insane.

The evening of that day when little Jacob was married, his grandmother had a new idea about her afflicted son. "Jacob," she said to him when the time for payment came, and his eyes were glistening as he clutched the golden coin, "Jacob, thou shouldn't let thy money lie by same as that without gettin' interest for it. There's twenty pound in thy purse by this. Lend me thy twenty pound, an' I'll give thee five per cent, that'll make a pound a-year interest for thee."

When the magical word "interest" sounded in his ear for the first time since the break-down of his mental faculties, uncle Jacob's face a.s.sumed a look of intelligence which startled his mother and gave her a gleam of hope. "Interest, interest!" he said, and paused as if lost in thought; then he added, "Compound interest! doubles up, compound interest, doubles up fast!" These words, however, must have been mere reminiscences of his former state, for he proved utterly incapable of understanding the nature of even simple interest as a weekly payment.

Mrs. Ogden offered him sixpence as a week's interest for his money, but he asked for a sovereign being accustomed to weekly payments of one pound, and he seemed troubled and irritated when it was not given to him. He understood the pound a week for his digging, but he could not grasp any more complicated idea. His constant secret occupation, when not at work, was to handle his acc.u.mulating sovereigns. In this way, notwithstanding his insanity and his incapability of imagining the great fortune he had heaped up when in health, he enjoyed money as much as ever, for the mere quant.i.ty has really very little to do with the delight of the pa.s.sion of avarice. It is the _increase_ which gives delight, not the quant.i.ty, and Jacob Ogden's private store was incessantly increasing, so much indeed that his mother had to give him a money-box. When the weekly sovereigns became numerous, he was incapable of counting them, but he had a certain sense of quant.i.ty and a keen satisfaction in the evident increase of his store.

Little Jacob's marriage was strangely simple, considering the wealth of one of the two families and the station of the other; but the elder Jacob's condition, and recent events in the life of Colonel Stanburne, had so sobered everybody that there was not the slightest desire on either side for any demonstration or display. As it concerned Lady Helena, this simplicity was not displeasing to her, for reasons of her own. She was glad, in her own mind, that Mrs. Ogden did not come, for she keenly dreaded the old lady's strange sayings on a semi-public occasion like the present, and the privacy of the marriage was a good excuse for not inviting many of her own n.o.ble friends. The bridesmaids were the Prigley girls and a young sister of Lady Helena. Mr. Prigley performed the ceremony, and there was not a stranger in the little Wenderholme church, except a reporter for the "Sootythorn Gazette," who furnished a brilliant account of this "marriage in high life," which we have no disposition to quote.

If Mrs. Ogden had chosen to bring to bear upon poor Edith all the weight of her terrible critical power as a supreme judge of housekeeping accomplishments, I am afraid that the young lady would have come out of the ordeal ignominiously for she could neither darn a stocking properly nor make a potato-pie, but criticism is often mollified by personal favor and partiality; and the old lady never goes farther in the severity of censure than to say, "Little Jacob wife is not much of a housekeeper, but she was never brought up to it you know; and they'll have plenty to live upon, so it willn't matter so much as it would 'ave done if they'd been poorer people."

Poverty is certainly not the evil which the young couple need apprehend, for the condition of Jacob Ogden the elder being considered permanent, a judicial decision transferred his income to his brother Isaac, after deducting 1,000 a year for his maintenance, which was paid to his mother; an entirely superfluous formality, as she acc.u.mulated the whole of it for her grandson, and kept Jacob Ogden well supplied with all that he needed, or had intelligence to desire, out of her own little independent fortune. Isaac Ogden was now charged with the management of the business and estates. It then became apparent how splendidly successful the life of the cotton-manufacturer had been. At the time of the opening of this history, he was already earning, or rather _netting_, since the operatives earned it for him, an income larger than the salary of a Prime Minister, and successive years raised him to a pecuniary equality with the Lord Chancellor, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Governor-General of India. At the time of his cerebral catastrophe, he was at the height of his success; and his numerous rills and rivers of income, flowing from properties of all kinds, from shares, from the print-works at Whittlecup, and from his enormous mill at Shayton, made, when added together, an aggregate far surpa.s.sing the national allowance to princes of royal blood. In a word, at the time of what Mrs. Ogden always called "our Jacob's misfortin',"

"our Jacob" had just got past 50,000 a year, and was beginning to encourage the not improbable antic.i.p.ation that his income would get up to the hundred thousand before he died. Such as it was already, it exceeded by exactly one thousand times the pittance for which, as the slave of his own disordered imagination, he was now toiling from morning till night.

Nothing is more difficult than to get rid of a great business. Such mills as Jacob Ogden's are very difficult to let, and to close them entirely would be to throw a whole neighborhood out of work and diminish the value of property within a considerable radius. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to keep the business going, so Mr. Isaac Ogden threw aside his habits of leisure at Twistle Farm and came to live at Milend. He managed the work for some time with considerable energy; but he had been so long unused to the employment, that this business life, with its incessant claims upon time and attention, required a constant effort of the will, and he felt himself incapable of continuing it indefinitely. Young Jacob helped him energetically; but the vast concern which his uncle had established, with the addition of the print-works at Whittlecup, required more looking after than even he was equal to; so in order that Isaac Ogden might have some leisure at Twistle Farm, and be able to join the militia at the annual training, the calico business at Whittlecup had to be given up. It could not be sold during old Jacob Ogden's life; but it was let, together with Arkwright Lodge, to Mr.

Joseph Anison, on terms exceedingly advantageous to the latter, who will be able, after all, to give handsome dowries to his younger daughters, and to leave Miss Margaret the richest old maid in Whittlecup.

Young Jacob and his wife established themselves at Wenderholme, but she soon complained that he was too much away on business, and declared her intention of accompanying him on his journeys to Milend, which she has ever since been in the habit of doing. When at Milend (which has been much beautified and improved), they go a great deal to the Cream-pot, where old Mrs. Ogden still devotes herself to the care of her unfortunate son. "I'm thankful to G.o.d," she says, "that our Jacob is so 'appy with his misfortin'. Every time I give him his sovereign of a Sat.u.r.day night he's as 'appy and proud as a little lad ten year old. And he's as well in 'ealth as anybody could wish for." Young Jacob and Edith are both very attentive to him, but it is thought better not to bring him to Wenderholme again, nor even to Milend. This makes it a great tie for poor Mrs. Ogden, but she fulfils her duty with a n.o.ble self-abnegation, and tends "our Jacob" with the most minute and unrelaxing care. As for her fine carriage, she made a wedding-present of it to Edith, and has never been in it since, not even to do a little knitting. Her life is the simple old life that she was accustomed to in her youth, and it suits her health so well, that if all old women that one hears of did not finish some day by dying, one might almost expect her to prolong her sojourn permanently upon the earth, in the green "Cream-pot" fields. But the recent death of old Sarah at Twistle Farm has been a serious warning, and the new Shayton clergyman is a frequent visitor at the Cream-pot. Dr. Bardly is not so much in request, on account of his heterodox views, and because Mrs. Ogden's physical condition is still excellent, whatever may be her spiritual state.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE MONK.

The Colonel and Lady Helena made a tour on the continent in the autumn, and visited the little French city where he had earned his living as a teacher of English.

Young Jacob and Edith accompanied them as far as Geneva, and on their way from Paris it was decided that they should stop at Auxerre, and go thence to Avallon, which was not very far from the monastery of _La Pierre qui Vire_. The Colonel desired to see Philip Stanburne once again.

Through narrow and rocky valleys, indescribably picturesque, and full of a deep melancholy poetry of their own, they journeyed a whole day, and came at last to the confines of the monastery, in a wild stony desert amongst the hills, through which flowed a rapid stream. The ladies could not enter, but young Jacob and the Colonel pa.s.sed through the simple gateway. A monk received them in silence, and, in answer to a question of the Colonel, put his finger upon his lips. He then went to ask permission to speak from his superior.

The monk promised to lead the Colonel to Philip Stanburne. They pa.s.sed along wild paths cut in the rock and the forest, with rudely carved bas-reliefs of the chief scenes of the Pa.s.sion erected at stated distances. They saw many monks engaged in the most laborious manual occupations: some were was.h.i.+ng linen in the clear river; others were road-making, with picks and wheel-barrows; others were hard at work as masons, building the walls of some future portion of the monastery, or the enclosures of its fields. All worked and were silent, not even looking at the strangers as they pa.s.sed. At length the three came to a little wood, and, having pa.s.sed through the wood, to a small field on the steep slope of a hill. In the field two monks were ploughing in their monastic dress, with a pair of white oxen.

Suddenly the Angelus rang from the belfry of the monastery, and its clear tones filled the quiet valley where these monks had made their home. All the monks heard it, and all who heard it fell instantaneously on their knees in the midst of their labor, wherever they might happen to be. The masons dropped their stones and trowels, the washermen prayed with the wet linen still in their grasp, the ploughman knelt between the handles of his plough, and the driver with the goad in his right hand.

The Colonel's guide dropped upon the ploughed earth, and prayed. All in the valley prayed.

When this was over, the two Englishmen were led forward towards the oxen, and before the slow animals had resumed their toil, the Colonel had recognized their driver. So this was the life he had chosen--a life of rudest labor, with the simplest food and the severest discipline--a life of toil and silence. He knew the Colonel at once, but dared not speak to him, and placed his fingers on his lips, and goaded his oxen forward, and resumed his weary march.