The Heir of Redclyffe Part 59

'Yes; every one knows what he is. I declare it went against me to take his offer for the living; but it could not be helped. Money must be had; but there! least said, soonest mended.'

'We must mend it,' said Guy, so decidedly, that Markham looked at him with surprise.

'I don't see what's to be done till Halroyd dies; and then you may give the living to whom you please. He lives so hard he can't last long, that is one comfort.'

Guy sighed and pondered; and presently Markham resumed the conversation.

'And what has brought you home at a moment's notice? You might as well have written two or three days before, at least.'

'I was waiting in hopes of going to Hollywell,' said Guy sorrowfully.

'Well, and what is the matter? You have not been quarrelling with your guardian, I hope and trust! Going the old way, after all!' exclaimed Markham, not in his usual gruff, grumbling note, but with real anxiety, and almost mournfulness.

'He took up some unjust suspicion of me. I could not bear it patiently, and said something that has offended him.'

'Oh, Sir Guy! hot and fiery as ever. I always told you that hasty temper would be the ruin of you.'

'Too true!' said Guy, so dejectedly, that the old man instantly grew kinder, and was displeased with Mr. Edmonstone.

'What could he have taken into his head to suspect you of?'

'Of gaming at St. Mildred's.'

'You have not?'

'Never!'

'Then why does not he believe you?'

'He thinks he has proof against me. I can't guess how he discovered it; but I was obliged to pay some money to a gambling sort of man, and he thinks I lost it.'

'Then why don't you show him your accounts?'

'For one reason--because I have kept none.'

As if it was an immense relief to his mind, Markham launched out into a discourse on the extreme folly, imprudence, and all other evils of such carelessness. He was so glad to find this was the worst, that his lecture lasted for two miles and a half, during which Guy, though attentive at first, had ample s.p.a.ce for all the thrills of recognition at each well-known spot.

There was the long green-wooded valley between the hills where he had shot his first woodc.o.c.k; there was the great stone on which he had broken his best knife in a fit of geological research; there was the pool where he used to skate; there the sudden break in the lulls that gave the first view of the sea. He could not help springing up at the sight--pale, leaden, and misty as it was; and though Markham forthwith rebuked him for not listening, his heart was still beating as at the first sight of a dear old friend, when that peep was far behind. More black heaths, with stacks of peat and withered ferns. Guy was straining his eyes far off in the darkness to look for the smoke of the old keeper's cottage chimney, and could with difficulty refrain from interrupting Markham to ask after the old man.

Another long hill, and then began a descent into a rich valley, beautiful fields of young wheat, reddish soil, full of fatness, large spreading trees with n.o.ble limbs, cottages, and cottage gardens, very unlike poor Coombe Prior; Markham's house--a perfect little snuggery covered all over with choice climbing plants, the smart plastered doctor's house, the Morville Arms, looking honest and venerable, the church, with its disproportionately high tower, the parsonage rather hidden behind it; and, on the opposite side of the road, the park-wall and the gate, where old Sarah stood, in an ecstasy of curtsies.

Guy jumped out to meet her, and to spare Whiteface; for there was a sharp, steep bit of hill, rising from the lodge, trying to horses, in spite of the road being cut out in long spirals. On he ran, leaving the road to Markham, straight up the high, steep, slippery green slope. He came in sight at the great dark-red sandstone pile of building; but he pa.s.sed it, and ran on to where the ground rose on one side of it still more abruptly, and at the highest point was suddenly broken away and cut off into a perpendicular crag, descending in some parts sheer down to the sea, in others a little broken, and giving s.p.a.ce for the growth of stunted brushwood. He stood at the highest point, where the precipice was most abrupt. The sea was das.h.i.+ng far beneath; the ripple, dash, and roar were in his ears once more; the wind--such wind as only blows over the sea--was breathing on his face; the broad, free horizon far before him; the field of waves, in gray and brown shade indeed, but still his own beloved waves; the bay, shut in with rocks, and with Black s.h.a.g Island and its train of rocks projecting far out to the west, and almost immediately beneath him, to the left, the little steep street of the fis.h.i.+ng part of the village, nestled into the cove, which was formed by the mouth of a little mountain-stream, and the dozen boats it could muster rocking on the water.

Guy stood and looked as if he could never cease looking, or enjoying the sea air and salt breeze. It was real pleasure at first, for there were his home, his friends, and though there was a throb and tightness of heart at thinking how all was changed but such as this, and how all must change; how he had talked with Amy of this very thing, and had longed to have her standing beside him there; yet there was more of soothing than suffering in the sensation.

So many thoughts rushed through his mind, that he fancied he had stood there a long time, when he turned and hastened down again, but he had been so rapid as to meet Markham before the servants had had time to miss him.

The servants were indeed few. There was, alas! William of Deloraine, waiting to hold Whiteface; there was Arnaud, an old Swiss, first courier and then butler to old Sir Guy; there was Mrs. Drew, the housekeeper, also a very old servant; and these were all; but their welcome was of the heartiest, in feeling, if not in demonstration as the gig went with an echoing, thundering sound under the deep archway that led into the paved quadrangle; round which the house was built, that court where, as Philip had truly averred, the sun hardly ever shone, so high were the walls on each side.

Up the stone steps into the s.p.a.cious dark hall, and into the large, gloomy library, partially lighted by a great wood fire, replying to Mrs.

Drew's questions about his dinner and his room, and asking Markham to stay and dine with him, Guy at length found himself at home, in the very room where he had spent every evening of his boyhood, with the same green leather arm-chair, in the very place where his grandfather used to sit.

Markham consented to dine with him, and the evening was spent in talking over the news of Redclyffe. Markham spoke with much bitterness of the way in which Captain Morville had taken upon him; his looking into the accounts, though any one was welcome to examine them, was, he thought, scarcely becoming in so young a man--the heir-at-law, too.

'He can't help doing minutely whatever he undertakes,' said Guy. If you had him here, you would never have to scold him like me.'

'Heaven forbid!' said Markham, hastily. 'I know the same place would not hold him and me long.'

'You have told me nothing of our new vicar. How do you get on with him?'

'None the better for that same Captain Morville,' replied Markham, plunging forthwith into his list of grievances, respecting which he was waging a petty warfare, in the belief that he was standing up for his master's rights.

Mr. Bernard, the former clergyman, had been a quiet, old-fas.h.i.+oned man, very kind-hearted, but not at all active, and things had gone on in a sleepy, droning, matter-of-fact way, which Markham being used to, thought exactly what ought to be. Now, Mr. Ashford was an energetic person, desirous to do his utmost for the parish, and whatever he did was an offence to Markham, from the daily service, to the objecting to the men going out fis.h.i.+ng on Sunday. He opposed every innovation with all his might, and Captain Morville's interference, which had borne Markham down with Mr. Edmonstone's authority, had only made him more determined not to bate an inch. He growled every time Guy was inclined to believe Mr. Ashford in the right, and brought out some fresh complaint. The grand controversy was at present about the school.

There was a dame's school in the cove or fis.h.i.+ng part of the parish, maintained at the expense of the estate, in a small cottage far from the church, and Mr. and Mrs. Ashford had fixed their eyes on a house in the village, and so near the church as to be very convenient for a Sunday School. It only wanted to be floored, and to have a part.i.tion taken down, but to this Markham would not consent, treating it as a monstrous proposal to take away the school from old Jenny Robinson.

'I suppose Mr. Ashford meant to pension her off?' said Guy.

'He did say something about it; but who is to do it, I should like to know?'

'We are, I suppose.'

'Pay two schoolmistresses mistresses at once! One for doing nothing! A pretty tolerable proposal for Mr. Ashford to be making?'

'I don't see why. Of course it is my business!'

'Besides, I don't see that she is not as fit to keep school as ever she was.'

'That may well be,' said Guy, smiling. 'We never used to be noted for our learning.'

'Don't you be for bringing new lights into the parish, Sir Guy, or we shall never have any more peace.'

'I shall see about old Jenny,' answered Guy. 'As to the house, that must be done directly. Her cottage is not fit to keep school in.'

Grunt, grunt; but though a very unbending viceroy, a must from the reigning baronet had a potent effect on Markham, whether it was for good or evil. He might grumble, but he never disobeyed, and the boy he was used to scold and order had found that Morville intonation of the must, which took away all idea of resistance. He still, however remonstrated.

'As you please, Sir Guy, but we shall have the deer frightened, and the plantations cut to pieces, if the boys from the Cove are to be crossing the park.'

'I'll be answerable for all the damage. If they are once properly spoken to, they will be on honour to behave well. I have seen a little of what a village school ought to be at East-hill, and I should like to see Redclyffe like it.'

Grunt again; and Guy found that to make Markham amiable, he must inquire after all his nephews and nieces.

All the evening he had much to occupy him, and the dreaded sense of solitude and bereavement did not come on till he had parted with Markham, and stood alone before the fire in the large, gloomy room, where the light of the lamp seemed absorbed in the darkness of the distant corners, and where he had scarcely been since the moment when he found his grandfather senseless in that very chair. How different had that room once been in his eyes, when his happy spirits defied every a.s.sociation of gloom, and the bookshelves, the carved chairs, the heavy dark-green curtains and deep windows were connected with merry freaks, earnest researches, delightful achievements or discoveries! How long ago that time seemed! and how changed was he!

There was a certain tendency to melancholy in Guy's mind. High spirits, prosperity, and self-discipline, had kept it from developing itself until the beginning of his troubles, but since that time it had been gradually gaining ground, and this was a time of great suffering, as he stood alone in his forefathers' house, and felt himself, in his early youth, a doomed man, destined to bear the penalty of their crimes in the ruin of his dearest hopes, as if his heirloom of misery had but waited to seize on him till the very moment when it would give him the most to endure.

'But bear it, I must and will!' said he, lifting his head from the carved chimney-piece, where he had been resting it. 'I have been in will a murderer myself, and what right have I to repine like the Israelites, with their self-justifying proverb? No; let me be thankful that I was not given up even then, but have been able to repent, and do a little better next time. It will be a blessing as yet ungranted to any of us, if indeed I should bear to the full the doom of sorrow, so that it may be vouchsafed me only to avoid actual guilt. Yes, Amy, your words are still with me--"Sintram conquered his doom,"--and it was by following death! Welcome, then, whatever may be in store for me, were it even a long, cheerless life without you, Amy. There is another world!'

With the energy of freshened resolution, he lighted his candle, and walked, with echoing steps, up the black oak staircase, along the broad gallery, up another flight, down another pa.s.sage, to his own room. He had expressly written 'his own room,' and confirmed it on his arrival, or Mrs. Drew would have lodged him as she thought more suitably for the master of the house. Nothing had been done to alter its old familiar aspect, except lighting a fire, which he had never seen there before.

There were all his boyish treasures, his bows and arrows, his collection of birds' wings, his wonderful weapons and contrivances, from his fire-balloon down to the wren's-egg, all just as he left them, their good condition attesting the care that Mrs. Drew had taken for his sake.