Scenes and Characters

CHAPTER II-THE NEW COURT

'Just at the age 'twixt boy and youth,

When thought is speech, and speech is truth.'

The long-delayed wedding took place on the 13th of January, 1845, and the bride and bridegroom immediately departed for a year's visit among Mr. Hawkesworth's relations in Northumberland, whence they were to return to Beechcroft, merely for a farewell, before sailing for India.

It was half-past nine in the evening, and the wedding over-Mr. and Mrs. Hawkesworth gone, and the guests departed, the drawing-room had returned to its usual state. It was a very large room, so spacious that it would have been waste and desolate, had it not been well filled with handsome, but heavy old-fashioned furniture, covered with crimson damask, and one side of the room fitted up with a bookcase, so high that there was a spiral flight of library steps to give access to the upper shelves. Opposite were four large windows, now hidden by their ample curtains; and near them was at one end of the room a piano, at the other a drawing-desk. The walls were wainscoted with polished black oak, the panels reflecting the red fire-light like mirrors. Over the chimney-piece hung a portrait, by Vandyke, of a pale, dark cavalier, of noble mien, and with arched eyebrows, called by Lilias, in defiance of dates, by the name of Sir Maurice de Mohun, the hero of the family, and allowed by every one to be a striking likeness of Claude, the youth who at that moment lay, extending a somewhat superfluous length of limb upon the sofa, which was placed commodiously at right angles to the fire.

The other side of the fire was Mr. Mohun's special domain, and there he sat at his writing-table, abstracted by deafness and letter writing, from the various sounds of mirth and nonsense, which proceeded from the party round the long narrow sofa table, which they had drawn across the front of the fire, leaving the large round centre table in darkness and oblivion.

This party had within the last half hour been somewhat thinned; the three younger girls had gone to bed, the Rector of Beechcroft, Mr. Robert Devereux, had been called home to attend some parish business, and there remained Emily and Lilias-tall graceful girls, with soft hazel eyes, clear dark complexions, and a quantity of long brown curls. The latter was busily completing a guard for the watch, which Mr. Hawkesworth had presented to Reginald, a fine handsome boy of eleven, who, with his elbows on the table, sat contemplating her progress, and sometimes teasing his brother Maurice, who was earnestly engaged in constructing a model with some cards, which he had pilfered from the heap before Emily. She was putting her sister's wedding cards into their shining envelopes, and directing them in readiness for the post the next morning, while they were sealed by a youth of the same age as Claude, a small slim figure, with light complexion and hair, and dark gray eyes full of brightness and vivacity.

He was standing, so as to be more on a level with the high candle, and as Emily's writing was not quite so rapid as his sealing, he amused himself in the intervals with burning his own fingers, by twisting the wax into odd shapes.

'Why do you not seal up his eyes?' inquired Reginald, with an arch glance towards his brother on the sofa.

'Do it yourself, you rogue,' was the answer, at the same time approaching with the hot sealing-wax in his hand-a demonstration which occasioned Claude to open his eyes very wide, without giving himself any further trouble about the matter.

'Eh?' said he, 'now they try to look innocent, as if no one could hear them plotting mischief.'

'Them! it was not!-Redgie there-young ladies-I appeal-was not I as innocent?'-was the very rapid, incoherent, and indistinct answer.

'After so lucid and connected a justification, no more can be said,' replied Claude, in a kind of 'leave me, leave me to repose' tone, which occasioned Lilias to say, 'I am afraid you are very tired.'

'Tired! what has he done to tire him?'

'I am sure a wedding is a terrible wear of spirits!' said Emily- 'such excitement.'

'Well-when I give a spectacle to the family next year, I mean to tire you to some purpose.'

'Eh?' said Mr. Mohun, looking up, 'is Rotherwood's wedding to be the next?'

'You ought to understand, uncle,' said Lord Rotherwood, making two stops towards him, and speaking a little more clearly, 'I thought you longed to get rid of your nephew and his concerns.'

'You idle boy!' returned Mr. Mohun, 'you do not mean to have the impertinence to come of age next year.'

'As much as having been born on the 30th of July, 1825, can make me.'

'But what good will your coming of age do us?' said Lilias, 'you will be in London or Brighton, or some such stupid place.'

'Do not be senseless, Lily,' returned her cousin. 'Devereux Castle is to be in splendour-Hetherington in amazement-the county's hair shall stand on end-illuminations, bonfires, feasts, balls, colours flying, bands playing, tenants dining, fireworks-'

'Hurrah! jolly! jolly!' shouted Reginald, dancing on the ottoman, 'and mind there are lots of squibs.'

'And that Master Reginald Mohun has a new cap and bells for the occasion,' said Lord Rotherwood.

'Let me make some fireworks,' said Maurice.

'You will begin like a noble baron of the hospitable olden time,' said Lily.

'It will be like the old days, when every birthday of yours was a happy day for the people at Hetherington,' said Emily.

'Ah! those were happy old days,' said Lord Rotherwood, in a graver tone.

'These are happy days, are not they?' said Lily, smiling.

Her cousin answered with a sigh, 'Yes, but you do not remember the old ones, Lily;' then, after a pause, he added, 'It was a grievous mistake to shut up the castle all these years. We have lost sight of everybody. I do not even know what has become of the Aylmers.'

'They went to live in London,' said Emily, 'Aunt Robert used to write to them there.'

'I know, I know, but where are they now?'

'In London, I should think,' said Emily. 'Some one said Miss Aylmer was gone out as a governess.'

'Indeed! I wish I could hear more! Poor Mr. Aylmer! He was the first man who tried to teach me Latin. I wonder what has become of that mad fellow Edward, and Devereux, my father's godson! Was not Mrs. Aylmer badly off? I cannot bear that people should be forgotten!'

'It is not so very long that we have lost sight of them,' said Emily.

'Eight years,' said Lord Rotherwood. 'He died six weeks after my father. Well! I have made my mother promise to come home.'

'Really?' said Lilias, 'she has been coming so often.'

'Aye-but she is coming this time. She is to spend the winter at the castle, and make acquaintance with all the neighbourhood.'

'His lordship is romancing,' said Claude to Lily in a confidential tone.

'I'll punish you for suspecting me of talking hyperborean language - hyperbolical, I mean,' cried Lord Rotherwood; 'I'll make you dance the Polka with all the beauty and fashion.'

'Then I shall stay at Oxford till it is over,' said Claude.

'You do not know what a treasure you will be,' said the Marquis, 'ladies like nothing so well as dancing with a fellow twice the height he should be.'

'Beware of putting me forward,' said Claude, rising, and, as he leant against the chimney-piece, looking down from his height of six feet three, with a patronising air upon his cousin, 'I shall be taken for the hero, and you for my little brother.'

'I wish I was,' said Lord Rotherwood, 'it would be much better fun. I should escape the speechifying, the worst part of it.'

'Yes,' said Claude, 'for one whose speeches will be scraps of three words each, strung together with the burthen of the apprentices' song, Radara tadara, tandore.'

'Radaratade,' said the Marquis, laughing. 'By the bye, if Eleanor and Frank Hawkesworth manage well, they may be here in time.'

'Because they are so devoted to gaiety?' said Claude. 'You will say next that William is coming from Canada, on purpose.'

'That tall captain!' said Lord Rotherwood. 'He used to be a very awful person.'

'Ah! he used to keep the spoilt Marquis in order,' said Claude.

'To say nothing of the spoilt Claude,' returned Lord Rotherwood.

'Claude never was spoilt,' said Lily.

'It was not Eleanor's way,' said Emily.

'At least she cannot be accused of spoiling me,' said Lord Rotherwood. 'I shall never dare to write at that round table again- her figure will occupy the chair like Banquo's ghost, and wave me off with a knitting needle.'

'Ah! that stain of ink was a worse blot on your character than on the new table cover,' said Claude.

'She was rigidly impartial,' said Lord Rotherwood.

'No,' said Claude, 'she made exceptions in favour of Ada and me. She left the spoiling of the rest to Emily.'

'And well Emily will perform it! A pretty state you will be in by the 30th of July, 1846,' said Lord Rotherwood.

'Why should not Emily make as good a duenna as Eleanor?' said Lily.

'Why should she not? She will not-that is all,' said the Marquis. 'Such slow people you all are! You would all go to sleep if I did not sometimes rouse you up a little-grow stagnant.'

'Not an elegant comparison,' said Lilias; 'besides, you must remember that your hasty brawling streams do not reflect like tranquil lakes.'

'One of Lily's poetical hits, I declare!' said Lord Rotherwood, 'but she need not have taken offence-I did not refer to her-only Claude and Emily, and perhaps-no, I will not say who else.'

'Then, Rotherwood, I will tell you what I am-the Lily that derives all its support from the calm lake.'

'Well done, Lily, worthy of yourself,' cried Lord Rotherwood, laughing, 'but you know I am always off when you talk poetry.'

'I suspect it is time for us all to be off,' said Claude, 'did I not hear it strike the quarter?'

'And to-morrow I shall be off in earnest,' said Lord Rotherwood. 'Half way to London before Claude has given one turn to "his sides, and his shoulders, and his heavy head."'

'Shall we see you at Easter?' said Emily.

'No, I do not think you will. I am engaged to stay with somebody somewhere, I forget the name of place and man; besides, Grosvenor Square is more tolerable then than at any other time of the year, and I shall spend a fortnight with my mother and Florence. It is after Easter that you come to Oxford, is it not, Claude?'

'Yes, my year of idleness will be over. And there is the Baron looking at his watch.'

The 'Baron' was the title by which the young people were wont to distinguish Mr. Mohun, who, as Lily believed, had a right to the title of Baron of Beechcroft. It was certain that he was the representative of a family which had been settled at Beechcroft ever since the Norman Conquest, and Lily was very proud of the name of Sir William de Moune in the battle roll, and of Sir John among the first Knights of the Garter. Her favourite was Sir Maurice, who had held out Beechcroft Court for six weeks against the Roundheads, and had seen the greater part of the walls battered down. Witnesses of the strength of the old castle yet remained in the massive walls and broad green ramparts, which enclosed what was now orchard and farm-yard, and was called the Old Court, while the dwelling-house, built by Sir Maurice after the Restoration, was named the New Court. Sir Maurice had lost many an acre in the cause of King Charles, and his new mansion was better suited to the honest squires who succeeded him, than to the mighty barons his ancestors. It was substantial and well built, with a square gravelled court in front, and great, solid, folding gates opening into a lane, bordered with very tall well-clipped holly hedges, forming a polished, green, prickly wall. There was a little door in one of these gates, which was scarcely ever shut, from whence a well-worn path led to the porch, where generally reposed a huge Newfoundland dog, guardian of the hoops and walkingsticks that occupied the corners. The front door was of heavy substantial oak, studded with nails, and never closed in the daytime, and the hall, wainscoted and floored with slippery oak, had a noble open fireplace, with a wood fire burning on the hearth.

On the other side of the house was a terrace sloping down to a lawn and bowling-green, hedged in by a formal row of evergreens. A noble plane-tree was in the middle of the lawn, and beyond it a pond renowned for water-lilies. To the left was the kitchen garden, terminating in an orchard, planted on the ramparts and moat of the Old Court; then came the farm buildings, and beyond them a field, sloping upwards to an extensive wood called Beechcroft Park. In the wood was the cottage of Walter Greenwood, gamekeeper and woodman by hereditary succession, but able and willing to turn his hand to anything, and, in fact, as Adeline once elegantly termed him, the 'family tee totum.'

To the right of the house there was a field, called Long Acre, bounded on the other side by the turnpike road to Raynham, which led up the hill to the village green, surrounded by well-kept cottages and gardens. The principal part of the village was, however, at the foot of the hill, where the Court lane crossed the road, led to the old church, the school, and parsonage, in its little garden, shut in by thick yew hedges. Beyond was the blacksmith's shop, more cottages, and Mrs. Appleton's wondrous village warehouse; and the lane, after passing by the handsome old farmhouse of Mr. Harrington, Mr. Mohun's principal tenant, led to a bridge across a clear trout stream, the boundary of the parish of Beechcroft.