Kept Page 38

  31 January 1866

  Letter from Cousin Richard. It is as I feared. He can do nothing for me.

  2 February 1866

  Curious encounter with Dixey, whom I had supposed in London. Wandering in the lanes this forenoon, meditating my sermon for Candlemas Day, I realised that, all unknowing, I had approached the back parts of the Hall. The estate very run down here: great clumps of elms, long untended, boundary walls greatly dilapidated. To the best of my recollection, a track running to the right of Dixey’s back garden connects with the front parts of the house. Having come a mile or so out of my way, this I resolved to take. I had walked for ten minutes, seeing no one (altho’ the cries from Dixey’s kennels, hard by, very loud upon the wind), when, of a sudden, Dixey hove into sight, one of his great dogs straining at the leash before him. I moved to greet him, yet he brushed my salutations aside, declaring, why was I at large on his property, did I not know that trespass was forbidden, &c.? Hearing my explanation—that I had stepped out of my way by mischance and meant no harm—he recovered himself somewhat, apologised for his brusqueness, declared himself much troubled by poachers in the wood. The dog meanwhile straining at the leash as if I was a quarry he meant to run down and devour. Seeing his ill-humour, I resolved to bid him good day and departed somewhat hurriedly the way I had come, conscious throughout of his eye fixed on my retreating figure.

  3 February 1866

  I do not know why I expected a word from Dixey, but none came. Sent a copy of Mrs. Caudle, Mr. Jerrold’s amusing sketches from Punch, to A., she having expressed interest.

  “Papa has been asking about you.”

  “Has he, indeed? I am sure that is uncommonly kind of him. What has he been asking?”

  “He says it is his duty to make enquiries.”

  “Perhaps I had better ask my landlady to write a “character.” That is how one employs a parlourmaid, is it not?”

  Miss Amelia Marjoribanks laughed, but not perhaps as heartily as she might have done. Mr. Crawley applied himself to his tea. It was an afternoon in February, with snow still on the ground, and they were seated in the Deanery drawing room, an apartment chastely if not abundantly furnished. A modest pianoforte, a trelliswork fire screen, an aspidistra in a pot, a brace of occasional tables arranged in such a way that any visitor directed to a chair was compelled to navigate around them—these were the artefacts with which Miss Marjoribanks surrounded herself on the occasions when she was “at home.” On the mantelpiece nearby lay some volumes of Sir William Smith’s Dictionary, which Miss Marjoribanks had not read, and a watercolour representation of Siena, which Miss Marjoribanks had not visited, together with Mrs. Brookfield’s new novel, which she had happened to peruse, and a faded etching of the town of Whitby, with which she was tolerably familiar, as it had been the site of her father’s former incumbency. These, together with various invitations to sales of work and clerical recreations, a family picture or two and a portrait of the late Mrs. Marjoribanks got up in an elaborate bonnet in the style of Queen Adelaide, completed the room’s decoration.

  “It is very curious that Mrs. Harrison and the girls are not here,” Miss Marjoribanks remarked innocently. “Why, it is nearly half past three.”

  There was a polite fiction between them that this was one of Miss Marjoribanks’s regular afternoon entertainments.

  “Yes indeed. I should be very sorry to miss Mrs. Harrison and the girls.”

  Mr. Crawley smiled as he said this, and threw out a glance that landed halfway between his hostess and the volumes of Sir William Smith’s Dictionary, but I do not think that he was altogether happy in the position in which he found himself. He was a clever man, and he was conscious that his present situation, here in the Dean of Ely’s drawing room with the Dean of Ely’s daughter softly regarding him from the other side of the Dean of Ely’s fire, placed him at a disadvantage. By his estimate he had been paying his attentions—Mr. Crawley shrank from so vulgar a word as courting—to Miss Marjoribanks for nearly six weeks. In this capacity he had walked with her in her father’s rose garden, listened to her sing several of Herr Schubert’s most affecting compositions and handed her into her carriage at the conclusion of an episcopal entertainment. All this was as it should be, and Mr. Crawley had no quarrel with the rose garden, Herr Schubert, the carriage or indeed with Miss Marjoribanks. As well as being a clever man, he was an observant one, and in the six weeks of their acquaintance he fancied that he had come to know her pretty well, that she was, in addition to being beautiful and spirited, proud, fond of having her own way and somewhat lacking in mental energy, but that something could be made of her. Quite how many men approach young ladies with this fanciful assumption, Mr. Crawley did not choose to reflect. His misgivings stemmed solely from the fact that he knew that something was expected of him, that he had wandered, as it were, into a world where his obligations extended not only to the Dean and his daughter but to whole legions of persons with whom he was only dimly acquainted.

  The journey across the fens to Ely that morning had oppressed him yet further in this regard. It seemed to him that the ostler who stabled his horse in the inn knew the object of his mission and smiled over it, that the clerical colleagues who saluted him in the streets were winking at him from beneath their shovel hats and that the domestic who opened the Deanery door to him would be hastening down to the servants’ quarters to discuss his affairs the moment he had removed his coat and hat. At the same time, there was more to Mr. Crawley’s disquiet than this. The Dean of Ely, he had several times heard said, doted on his daughter. Mr. Crawley had observed the extent of this doting. He was aware that he would not be able to emerge from the Deanery with Miss Marjoribanks on his arm without a struggle. He was aware, too, shrewd observer that he was, that Miss Marjoribanks had somewhat ambiguous views about the doting, that sometimes she relished it, while at other times she seemed disposed to strike out on a line of her own. This made him feel that his position with regard to the Marjoribanks household was by no means as clear-cut as it first appeared, that there were other, private motivations at work over which he had no control. And so all in all, however bright the coals of the Dean’s fire and the lustre of the Dean’s daughter’s hair as she handed him his tea, I do not think he was happy.

  “How is your father?” Mr. Crawley proposed. There was a second polite fiction between them, which was that Mr. Crawley’s visits were prompted by his veneration of the Dean.

  “Papa is with Mr. Prendergast” (Mr. Prendergast was the diocesan lawyer) “and will be all afternoon. I never knew such a one as Mr. Prendergast for taking up gentlemen’s time. Perhaps, Mr. Crawley, you would not mind poking the fire.”

  Mr. Crawley did as he was bidden, conscious as he did so that he was failing to shine and that Miss Marjoribanks’s rejoinders to his questions were not all that they might be. Rattling the coals with the poker end, he determined to say something that might raise their conversation to a level beyond that of mere pleasantry.

  “One of the advantages of living in lodgings, I find—and there are not many—is that one learns how to perform domestic tasks of this kind. I declare that when it comes to lighting fires, making toast or brewing tea, I could give lessons to the doughtiest housemaid.”

  This, Mr. Crawley thought, was rather neat, reminding Miss Marjoribanks of his bachelor state, hinting at its sorrows, canvassing his own dexterity. But the Dean’s daughter knew all about young clergymen who lived in lodgings.

  “Papa says that young men these days are all spoiled, and that it would do them good to darn their own shirts.”

  Mr. Crawley thought that he would have liked to tell the Dean that he could darn his own shirts and be d——d. However, he contented himself with giving a final, miserable poke to the fire.

  Miss Marjoribanks, it may be said, was similarly confused by the position in which she found herself. Dean’s daughter that she was, she was aware that she held Mr. Crawley in great esteem, knew that he was the grandson of an earl, had e
ven gone, unknown to him, to the chapter-house library to read an extremely learned article that he had contributed to the Church Quarterly Review. And yet she had an idea that in the triangle now composed of herself, Mr. Crawley and the Dean, any young man perhaps would have done, and that Mr. Crawley’s punctiliousness, his grandfather the earl and his article in the Church Quarterly Review were as nothing compared with certain adjustments that Miss Marjoribanks proposed to make in her relations with her father. All this was a source of some discomfort to Miss Marjoribanks, and not a little shame, and its consequence was that she did not quite know how to proceed. Thus far, Mr. Crawley had been allowed certain of the privileges generally associated with an acknowledged lover, which is to say that he had walked with her in the paternal rose garden, handed her into her carriage and so forth. As to what further privileges might be allowed him, and whether he should be allowed the greatest privilege of all, Miss Marjoribanks was not altogether sure.

  Mr. Crawley, meanwhile, was biding his time. He had an inkling of some of this. The idea that much was expected of him by persons for whom he cared not in the slightest still rankled with him. And yet he knew that he preferred an animated Miss Marjoribanks, who tossed her head and remarked on the plainness of the archdeacon’s wife, than one who relayed her father’s opinion that young men were spoiled.

  “You must find it very dull here in Ely,” he suggested, “after the delights of London.”

  And here Miss Marjoribanks brightened—up to a point. The delights of London were a subject on which she felt she could talk, yet in truth her stay in Wimpole Street had been rather dull. Deans’ daughters, it may be remarked, are not generally thrown wholesale out into the London charivari, certainly not Deans’ daughters as strictly raised as those of Mr. Marjoribanks. And so Amelia, who had longed for a ball and a carriage ride in the park, had been forced to put up with a tea party convened in honour of the latest fashionable preacher and a charity bazaar in aid of the West African mission. Miss Marjoribanks had listened to the latest fashionable preacher and presided over her stack of embroidered cushions with good grace, but her heart was not in it. And though she prattled gamely enough to Mr. Crawley about the Reverend Wotherspoon’s sermon and Lord John (whom in fact Miss Marjoribanks had had pointed out to her from a carriage window in Brook Street), it was clear also to him that she had not very much enjoyed herself.

  After Miss Marjoribanks had finished this disquisition there was a silence. Outside, snow had begun to fall again, slanting in across the line of the cathedral spire and giving a very melancholy aspect to the Deanery gardens. Mr. Crawley thought of his hired horse and the long journey back to Easton and the dismal supper that would await him when he returned. Then, unexpectedly, Miss Marjoribanks spoke.

  “Papa has solved the mystery of the woman at Easton Hall. The one who broke in upon your luncheon.”

  “Has he, indeed! What has he to say about it?”

  “She is Mr. Dixey’s ward, and quite”—Miss Marjoribanks shied away from the word mad—“not in her right mind. But Papa says there is some scandal, and that Mr. Dixey is a regular Bluebeard who keeps her locked up in a dungeon.”

  “If that be the case, then he is a very hospitable Bluebeard,” Mr. Crawley observed, “for I have dined at his table several times and never thought I might be eaten up with the dessert.”

  “No doubt one gentleman is very like another in company. But I am only repeating what Papa has said.”

  Mr. Crawley bent down from his chair and gave the coals another little shove with the poker. He had an inkling—and he did not quite know how the inkling had come to him—that he ought to be careful in whatever further remarks he uttered on the subject of Mr. Dixey’s ward. And yet he was aware, merely from the tone of her voice, that this was a topic in which Miss Marjoribanks was as keenly interested as himself. Accordingly, he sat up from his delvings in the fire and remarked in his blandest tone, “She is a Mrs. Ireland, is she not? The daughter of Mr. Brotherton, who I believe was a literary man. But I did not know there to be any scandal.”

  “Well…perhaps not.” Scandal, too, was not a word that Miss Marjoribanks used lightly. “But Papa says that people have begun to wonder why she is so long shut away, and her family not permitted to see her, and that it is very strange.”

  “I have no doubt that everything is in order,” said Mr. Crawley, who did not necessarily believe this. “Mr. Conolly, I believe, that used to direct the asylum at Hanwell, is a very competent man.”

  “Papa says he is a charlatan.”

  Mr. Crawley had the utmost respect for the Dean of Ely’s opinion on this and any other matter, but he did not feel it necessary to concur.

  “However that may be, it seemed to me that Mrs. Ireland scarcely knew herself.”

  “She is supposed to be very good-looking, I believe,” Miss Marjoribanks remarked innocently.

  “Very probably. I scarcely had time to observe her before she was removed from the room.”

  Mr. Crawley was conscious that the conversation was straying into areas where he was altogether reluctant to follow. At the same time, he was aware that should a young lady seated in her father’s drawing room wish to discuss a certain topic, there is very little that can be done to prevent her.

  “I am sure I have read a newspaper report that said she was very good-looking,” Miss Marjoribanks continued.

  All this was very bad, and not for the first time that afternoon Mr. Crawley wished that he had stayed in Easton and written his sermon. Making a violent effort to change the subject, he enquired, had Miss Marjoribanks been amused by her reading of Mrs. Caudle? only for Miss Marjoribanks to remark in return, had not its author famously quarrelled with the late Mr. Brotherton? Even now, at this late stage, Mr. Crawley assured himself that there might still be an opportunity for the saying of some soft word or two. At this very moment, though, there came an irruption at the door, a noise of stoutly shod feet in the hallway, and the arrival of the Deanery parlourmaid to announce, “Ef ’n’ ye please, miss, Mrs. Harrison and the young ladies.”

  This, Mr. Crawley thought, he really could not bear. He rose to his feet, glanced extenuatingly at his watch and said his farewells.

  “I shall look forward, Miss Marjoribanks, to have the honour of entertaining your father and yourself at Easton before long.”

  “As for that,” Miss Marjoribanks replied, beckoning Mrs. Harrison and her three hulking daughters into the room, “Papa is exceedingly busy, what with Mr. Prendergast and the diocesan accounts. But I shall tell him you said so.”

  Still Mr. Crawley believed that he might be able to press the fair Amelia’s hand. But Miss Marjoribanks was a Dean’s daughter and allowed no hand pressing. A brisk handshake and Mr. Crawley was outside once more on the gravel beyond the Deanery door, listening to the cabman who had brought Mrs. Harrison and her three daughters in from Trumpington cursing over his twopenny tip. As he walked disconsolately back to the inn where his horse was stabled, he encountered a clerical acquaintance—does one not always meet some acquaintance at these times?—who shook him by the hand and enquired, “So, old fellow, when is it to be?”

  “Eh?” said Mr. Crawley sharply. “There is nothing of that kind in prospect as far as I’m aware.”

  “Indeed? Then I am very sorry to hear you say so.”

  And so Mr. Crawley returned to his inn, his boots leaving faint impressions in the powdery snow, and his mind, for some reason, bent not on Miss Marjoribanks and the splendours of the Deanery drawing room but on Easton Hall and the secrets that were kept within it.

  XXIII

  A NIGHT’S WORK

  Of all the artistic gentlemen so regularly held up for the public edification, I will own that the one that I esteem above all is Mr. Frith, RA. How many times, wandering in the corridors of some municipal gallery, halfway down the stairs of some Pall Mall club (with Timmins, my host, a little red-faced and pursy, urging me on to the supper table), have I not stopped to admire, as it might
be, a representation of the Derby, or the interior of a railway carriage, or a London street, and found my eyes straying to that discreet and unpopulated corner where lies the familiar signature? To be sure, all human life is gathered here: the upward tilt of the servant girl’s bonnet as she angles towards her sweetheart; the fiery complexion of the tipsy soldier tumbling from the alehouse door; the stout paterfamilias with his brood of children; General Sir Willoughby de Courcey, CB, on his great charger and Sergeant Snooks at the gun carriage—all this Mr. Frith seems to be able to take off as easily as you and I play at spillikins or twit Miss Mary (a demure young lady who scarcely lifts her eyes from the table) that her lover stands waiting in the porch.

  And yet Mr. Frith is not, I think, what the world calls a realist. He may paint a crowd, survey a marching army, oversee a swarm of boys as they come clamouring from the schoolyard gate, and yet his art lies in design, in what he sees and what he does not see, in what he hastens to include and what he chooses to omit. It is remarkable, is it not, when confronted by one of Mr. Frith’s teeming panoramas, how often the eye remarks their chains of quiet connection: how the soldier on the white horse has, plainly, a regard for the innkeeper’s daughter who brings him his beer; how the gentleman in the tall hat and the eyeglass is clearly confederate with the black-coated cleric who shuffles behind him? There is no proof of these affiliations—the thing no more coheres than some slice of microscopic life over which the man of science places his lens—but the effect is so very singular. For myself, I think Mr. Frith the equivalent of a great botanist or a marine biologist, and yet the plants upon which he botanises and the colonies of sea urchins over which he trails his net are humankind.