Miles Tremenhere Volume I Part 1

Miles Tremenhere.

Vol 1.

by Annette Marie Maillard.

CHAPTER I.

"Tick tack, tick tack, tick tack--for ever goes the large hall clock, until my heart (imitative thing!) plays at pendulum with it! Seventeen long years that clock has been the monitor of Time in this old house. It commenced its career the day I came into this world, and, faithful to its trust, not for one hour can I remember its pausing. They say it ceased its vigilance one day; I do not remember it, but Aunt Dorcas once told me--only once, for she cried so bitterly that I never liked asking more about it. It was the one in which I became an orphan! My poor mother died, and they stopped it because its ticking reminded them of the day of my birth, when she bade them open her door to let her hear the friend whose career commenced with my life--the friend who was to lead me to be good and happy, warning me of every pa.s.sing hour! Poor, dear mamma! I wish I had known her--oh, how I wish that _now_!--for though my aunts and uncle Juvenal are very kind and loving, yet 'tis not like a mother's love, I feel that--I feel so much yearning for that unknown thing; it must be so beautiful, but one step below divinity in its hallowing power; and I, wicked girl, have been chiding the old hall clock, which she had a fanciful thought to make my twin!" Here the girl (for such was the speaker) paused awhile in her soliloquy; after a few moments, she continued:--"But _'tis_ wearisome to sit for days and days, with only the same routine of events which you have known for years; even the variety of the past six months offers no amus.e.m.e.nt. The lawyer, the parson, and the squire--the squire, the lawyer, and the parson--with my aunts Dorcas, Sylvia, and uncle Juvenal, each one chanting the praises of his or her pet. I daresay it is very wrong of me to think all this; but I don't love them less, my dear aunts, my kind uncle. Oh!

especially him and aunt Dorcas; but I cannot like--rather I should say _love_--the squire and the young clergyman, even for their sakes. I didn't want to think of love yet; but they have set me thinking, and now I am always dreaming of the sort of man I should like. If there be heroes in the world I should like to find one--such a one as I _could_ love, tall, handsome, dark, dark! Yes, dark raven hair, and Spanish eyes, pale and thoughtful, especially"----Here the soliloquy was disturbed by a shrill voice beneath the window, calling upwards from the garden, "Minnie, Minnie, child!"

"That's aunt Sylvia," said the soliloquist quietly. "I will not answer, for if I do, I know she will want to go for a ramble somewhere, and we shall a.s.suredly meet the lawyer."

The voice below continued its summons, but in the distance; the caller evidently was seeking through the garden.

"I wonder when my cousin Dora will come," said the Minnie of Sylvia's seeking again. "And I wonder if she is _very_ handsome; they say so:--though only three years older than myself, I was always afraid of her, even as a child. She was so tall and commanding, though but a girl of fifteen then--now she's twenty; and she looked so stern, with her proud curling lip which never smiled; even at play, her play was queenly and condescending. I see her now, when she was at her gymnastic exercises; how graceful she looked flinging upwards the hoop, which always returned unerringly to the stick, as if it durst not disobey her will. _Mine_ often rebelled, and fell yards off; and, whilst I put myself in a fever to catch it, _she_ was calm and pale, and if she involuntarily sprang upwards to meet it, with what a calm grace she lighted on the toe of one of her tiny feet with the obedient toy in her keeping! There was pride even in that action, for her foot seemed to disdain the earth. It was the only thing I disliked in Dora, her pride as a child; it awed me. I hope it will not do so now. I want to love her. We cannot love where we fear, and I hope she will love me whenever she comes; and yet I feel so nervous at the thought of seeing her, though"----Here another voice arose on the ear; this, too, came from the garden. "Minnie, Minnie; where are you, Minnie?" it said.

"That's my uncle Juvenal," whispered the girl, peeping through the window, with its antique panes and narrow cas.e.m.e.nt, "and he's not alone.

I guessed as much. How he _can_ like Marmaduke Burton, _the_ squire, I cannot imagine."

"Minnie," cried a soft voice, evidently in the direction of the great hall clock, "are you up-stairs, dear?"

"Dear aunt Dorcas," whispered the girl softly; "shall I go to her?" She moved towards the door of her chamber. At that moment, from beneath her window, arose a hum of voices, and Sylvia's shrilly tones called, "Minnie;" then a man's, but a very weak one, and rougher accents, syllabled her name; these latter ones not calling, but in conversation, and they said, "Miss Dalzell." The one so anxiously sought sat down, and laughed gently to herself. "My aunt and uncle, and their pets! Which shall be mine? Whom shall I marry? Fate, direct me!" and, with a playful air, she took up a bracelet of large coral from her table, and commenced counting. "The last must be my choice, I suppose: let's see, coral! Whom will you favour?" And thus she ran on, a bead for each name: "The squire, the lawyer, the parson; the squire, the lawyer, the"--here the string broke, and her lovers rolled in confusion on the floor! "Alas!

and alas!" she cried, with much gravity, surveying the scattered beads, "none of them? Well, when I _have_ a lover, I'll string him on the chords of my heart; and when they fail and let him down to earth, why, _I_ shall be there too, in my grave, my heart's strings broken: that's how _I_ understand love!"

"My dear child, why did you not answer me?" asked a quiet-looking, elderly woman, entering her room. "I have been seeking you every where."

"Dear aunt Dorcas," said Minnie, throwing her arms tenderly round her neck; "I was afraid to reply, for my uncle and aunt Sylvia are in the garden--_not_ alone either--and they would have heard me."

"Who is there with them at this early hour, dear?" As she spoke she released the girl's arms, and seated her beside herself on a couch, affectionately holding both her little white hands.

"Oh!" rejoined Minnie, "that horrid Marmaduke Burton, and Mr. Dalby, the lawyer; and I dislike them both so much, _as they appear now_."

"How do you mean, child?"

"Oh! why--as--as--lovers. No, not lovers--suitors."

"Where's the distinction, Minnie?" asked her aunt, smiling.

Minnie looked down and blushed; then, looking up half timidly in the other's face, replied, "I think a man may take it into his head to pay you attention, wis.h.i.+ng to marry you, but he does not love you for all that; and I think, if a man _really_ loved you, he wouldn't talk so much about it. Mr. Burton says he's dying for love,"--here she smiled roguishly, and peeped up in her aunt's face; "and he certainly has nothing of death from grief about him!"

"Well, the lawyer--what is your objection there?"

"Oh, he's ten thousand times more objectionable! Mr. Burton is only a commonplace squire, looking like one in his top-boots, talking like one, and with a loud voice proclaiming himself lord of the manor, rooks, hounds, horses, and whippers-in! I don't think he's a bad man, yet there is something unreadable too about him, which debars confidence in his goodness; but he's a very disagreeable person, always reminding me of aunt Sylvia's gla.s.s of bark in the morning--an amiable invention, but most unpleasant to the palate. But Mr. Dalby,--oh! he's quite another thing!--_thing_ he is; too finical to be a man, too useless to be a woman, he is a compound of mock sentiment and unamiability; he drawls out his words, looking you sideways in the face, never giving you a bold, earnest look; he treats you like a sugar-plumb, and seems afraid of melting you by the fervour of a full-face regard, and he never has a kind or charitable word for any one; he's an insinuating creature, but not _in my case_, as he endeavours to be."

"Hush, Minnie, you must not judge hastily or harshly."

"I don't, dear aunt," and she loosed one gentle hand, and put her arm round the other's neck; "but I have noticed so many unamiable traits in his character--but aunt Sylvia thinks him perfection."

"I suppose I must not now speak of my protege--our young clergyman?"

Minnie looked embarra.s.sed. "Dearest aunty," she said at last, "I don't want to marry; I'm very happy: why so earnestly seek for one to take me away from you all? Mr. Skaife is sincere, I believe, in saying, he likes me; I like him as an acquaintance, but I shouldn't like to marry him. He's very good, kind, and charitable, I daresay; but I think he wants that sacred fire which, in his sacred calling, makes the chilly approach, to cheer themselves by the glowing warmth."

"Oh, my dear child! your heart has not spoken, this is the truth; when it speaks, may it be for a worthy object--that's all I pray. _I_ like Mr. Skaife: for my sake, dear, try and do so likewise."

Before a reply could be given, the bedroom door opened with fracas, and aunt Sylvia suddenly appeared. She was totally different in appearance to her sister. Dorcas was plump, good-tempered, meek-looking, about forty-five years of age. Sylvia was some five years her senior; a little, thin, sharp-faced woman--one whose very dress looked meagre; not the richest brocade could appear rich on so shapeless an anatomy; it would trail on the ground, limp, and disheartened from any attempt to look well. She had the strangest eyes in the world--a dark, dingy, chestnut brown, of which the pupil was certainly not larger than a pin's head; thin nose, thin lips, thin hair, hands, and voice, completed aunt Sylvia--with the addition of the very thinnest mind in the world. It was like a screw-press; put any thing bulky within it, it was compressed _instanter_ to a mummy, and thence doled out in such small particles, that it was inevitably lost in the general ma.s.s of which aunt Sylvia was formed.

"I declare, Minnie," she whistled forth in her shrilly tone, "you would provoke a saint; here have I been calling you at the top of my voice this hour, and you must have heard me! Really, Dorcas, it is too bad; you always encourage the child--you, too, must have heard me."

"I have only been here a few moments," placidly answered her sister.

"Then your conversation must have been most engrossing, for such deafness to have fallen upon you!" and she looked suspiciously from one to the other.

"We were speaking of----"

Before Minnie could complete her sentence, her door opened a third time, and admitted uncle Juvenal. We will only say of him, that he was the bond of union between the two sisters; not stout, not thin, not cross, not quiet; older by three years than Dorcas, younger by two than Sylvia, being forty-eight; prim, snuff-coloured, and contented, having but one desire in the world--the one common to the three, to see Minnie a wife.

A warm discussion ensued between him and Sylvia, relative to some words which had pa.s.sed between the squire and doctor, fostered by their mutual hopes of gaining Minnie, which hope was encouraged--nay, the niece promised to each--by his patron and patroness. Now, Juvenal came to seek the cause, and chide her propensity for loneliness; and while he and Sylvia were warmly debating their disputed points, Dorcas and Minnie crept out of the room, and the former gained the day this time, for she and her niece, this latter with only her garden hat on, left the hall by a side door, accompanied by Mr. Skaife, who had been quietly waiting--it might have been by Dorcas's cognizance--in a shrubbery through which they pa.s.sed on a visit of benevolence. Juvenal and Sylvia, finding the birds escaped, descended to the garden, when they discovered that the same thing had occurred respecting the squire and lawyer; both had disappeared. So the brother and sister sat down to talk it quietly over, which terminated as all previous talkings on the same subject had done before--by their completely disagreeing in their respective views, and consequently falling out; in other words, having a violent quarrel. And poor little Minnie--the subject of all these commotions--was quietly walking towards the village with her aunt Dorcas, and _her_ selection of a suitor, Mr. Skaife, who, to do him justice, was the most sincere lover of the three; he cared but little whether Minnie were rich or poor, provided she could be brought by any means to look smilingly upon him.

He was only a poor curate, 'twas true; but then some day he hoped to be, perhaps, a bishop--Who might say? And in either or any case, he would have chosen her to share all with him. Perhaps she had been correct in saying he did not possess the sacred fire necessary for his calling; but that fault lay to the account of his parents, who had possibly brought him up to the church as a mere profession, when it should be a voluntary choice. If, as she supposed, he did not possess the fire necessary for martyrdom, if summoned to that glory, he certainly _did_ the fire of love for the fair girl beside him; and while she wished he were any thing but a lover, both for the sake of a certain pleasure she felt in his company, and for her aunt's sake, he was wondering whether he ever should win her?--when?--and how?--and in this mood they walked on. Many long years before our tale commenced, a certain country gentleman named Formby and his wife were the residents at Gatestone Hall, the fine old-fas.h.i.+oned place we have just quitted; they were homely and primitive, and withal majestic as the oak-panelled walls of the hospitable home which gave a welcome to many a guest in that portion of her Majesty's domains called Yorks.h.i.+re, where the "canniness" of its inhabitants consists most in the almost unparalleled method they possess, of winning the way to the heart by kindness and genuine homely hospitality, of which Mr. and Mrs. Formby were well-chosen representatives. They had five children--four daughters and one son.

They never troubled themselves as to whether these would marry--that was an affair of nature, and nature was handmaiden at Gatestone Hall.

However, art--or some adverse G.o.d or G.o.ddess--crept in, and marred her course. Of five, only two obeyed her law. Juliana, the eldest, a fine das.h.i.+ng girl, attracted the attention of the Earl of Ripley at a race ball; and, six weeks afterwards, became his Countess. The youngest of all, Baby, as they called her (Jenny was her name, to the amazement of her family, which appeared impressed with the idea, that baby she was, and ever would remain), married, at seventeen, a poor half-pay officer for love; and true love it was. The little G.o.d likes poverty best, after all; he generally nestles there, though the song says otherwise. The only change this marriage made at the Hall was, the addition of another inmate to its cheerful circle. Lieutenant Dalzell became located there for seven months--very short ones they were, too--with his sweet, loving wife; and there, poor fellow! he died of an old wound won in India, which shattered an arm, and obliged him to quit the service. Poor Baby cried like one; nothing could console her, not even the birth of Minnie some months afterwards: so she cried herself into the pretty green churchyard, beneath a yew-tree, beside Dalzell; for, poor girl!--almost a child still when he died--begged so earnestly that they wouldn't shut up her William in the cold stone family vault, but put him where the sun might s.h.i.+ne upon him, and the green gra.s.s grow, that he had a grave under the bright canopy of heaven, and there, beside him, Baby lay; and only that day, and the one of his death, did the old hall clock cease its rounds by her desire. Then Mr. Formby soon followed, and his wife, leaving three unmarried children, and these three we have seen as bachelor and spinsters still. Whatever the two sisters may have thought of matrimony, a.s.suredly Juvenal had given it no part of his dreams by day or night. _Their_ spinsterhood might have been involuntary of their inclinations, but there was no law to prevent his asking; and, had he done so, a.s.suredly he might have had some one at all events, for, though not a rich man, he was Lord of Gatestone, which would only pa.s.s away from the grasp of himself or heirs should he die childless, of which there seemed now every chance. Caps of every possible colour, like fly-traps, were set to catch him, by all the spinsters and widows of the neighbourhood; carriages of every description drove up to the Hall, with inmates perfectly free, able, and willing; but when they left, the only impression behind them was of their carriage-wheels on the gravelled drive. Now all these attacks had become considerably diminished, as time had shown their inefficacy. Strange to say, though Juvenal had evinced no desire to marry on his own part, all his energies (they were not legion) were called into play to effect an union for his much-loved niece; and still stranger, that the three, loving her as they did love her, should have one only thought in common, and be all equally bent on the same scheme, which might probably separate her from them for ever. But it is the course of a Christopher Columbian current in our blood, to be always desirous of exploring some unknown territory. Such was matrimonial ground to them, and they felt curious to watch its effect upon others, personal experience being denied, or not desired by themselves. Minnie was sadly perplexed among them;--they forced her to think of marriage, when she otherwise would have been much more innocently employed; and, unfortunately for them, she had not the slightest idea of condensing all her thoughts on any one of those whom they had chosen. The lawyer pressed her hand--the squire conferred the same honour on her toe, as she stepped on his hand to mount her horse; and the most sincere, as it is ever the case, stood half awkwardly aloof, and sighed as he whispered to the winds, which blew it heaven knows where--"Pretty Minnie Dalzell! I shall never win her; she's too fair for a poor curate's home!"

Pretty she certainly was, and fair--fair as the brightest lily tinged by a sunbeam dancing across, but not staining, its purity. Such was the tint that flew over her cheek, every moment new and changing; the prettiest lip, such a short upper one that the mouth scarcely closed upon teeth of s.h.i.+ning whiteness, like a mother-of-pearl sh.e.l.l wet from the spray, so fresh they looked. Her eyes were of dark violet, with lashes and brows darker than the hair, the former so long and thick they were like a setting round a gem; beautiful eyes, which you lost yourself in looking into, wondering whence came the pure, clear light, which lent them so much chaste fire--yet they were full of soul too. In the forehead, the blue veins wandered like silvery streams through a daisied meadow, giving life to all;--there was the bloom, grace, and poetry of the rarest and brightest bouquet of flowers ever collected together, in that n.o.ble brow, and in the ever-changing expression of her sweet face; and above all, her coronet of magnificent hair cl.u.s.tered in rare brightness;--it was not golden, yet it shone like it; nor flaxen--it had too much _expression_ in it for that. It was such hair as only a creature like Minnie could have. It seemed as if an angel had spun it in the sun, and waved it by moonlight. 'Twas fair, chaste-looking hair, fit for dew spirit's gems to hang upon. You took it in your hand, and it was flossy as unspun silk, and this unbound fell to Minnie's heel, and yet so pliant and soft, that her little hand could bind the ma.s.s round the beautiful head with ease and grace. She was not tall, but about middle height, perhaps a trifle more; slight, a mere fairy in figure, and the springing foot scorned the earth like a flying gazelle. Talk of her marrying a mere mortal--she should have lived when angels are said to have loved the sons of men. The curate thought of this; so no wonder he sighed, even encouraged as he was by----Aunt Dorcas.

CHAPTER II.

It was in the month of June, the early part, when May-flowers still bloom, and the blossoming trees are not yet in full matronly beauty, but in their bridal robes, with wreaths of flowers, like robes of dazzling whiteness, that Minnie and her two companions walked on (for she loved one and liked the other), her heart giving the rein to all her wild Arab-colt thoughts of n.o.bility and liberty. _She_ had nothing to conceal; all was pure and beautiful in her mind, sunny and hopeful. They were going to visit one of Aunt Dorcas's pensioners, and on Minnie's pretty arm hung a basket of charitable gifts, truly such, for they were appropriate to the wants of those for whom they were destined. Gifts of thought and consideration, not merely donations from a full purse or plentiful larder. On they journeyed, until a lane appeared before them; the girl turned down it.

"Stop, Miss Dalzell," cried Skaife hastily; "we had better cross the path-field."

"'Tis longer round," she rejoined; "aunt Dorcas will be tired, and this is a favourite walk of mine," and she moved on.

"You should obey your pastors and masters," he answered, smiling, and yet he seemed embarra.s.sed; "and, as one of the former, I don't _command_, but may I ask you to cross the path-field, it looks so inviting with its tall gra.s.s; and see, there's a pet of yours--a lark rising upwards to allure you."

"Aunty, will it be too far for you? No? then we will oblige our pastor."

Skaife looked delighted as he a.s.sisted Aunt Dorcas over the stile.

Minnie was over like a sportive thistledown blown by roving breeze; scarcely had she stepped on the other side of the stile when a little girl followed her, pa.s.sed, and stopped beside Mr. Skaife.

"Oh, if you please, good sir," she said, "my mother saw you pa.s.sing at the end of the lane, and bade me run after you with this book; you left it at poor sick Mary Burns's," and the child tendered a book. Both Aunt Dorcas and Minnie stopped, Mr. Skaife was colouring and confused. "Thank you," he answered, hurriedly taking it; "that will do." He endeavoured to pa.s.s on.

"And if you please, sir," continued the child, "mother bid me say, that after you left Mary Burns at three this morning, she was so much comforted by your kind words and reading, that she slept for hours, and when she awoke promised mother never to try and kill herself again."

"What is this, dear?" asked Minnie, placing a hand on the child's shoulder.