In the Days of My Youth: A Novel Read online

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  IN THE

  DAYS OF MY YOUTH.

  A NOVEL.

  BYAMELIA B. EDWARDS

  1874

  CAXTON PRESS OFSHERMAN & CO., PHILADELPHIA.

  CHAPTER I.

  MY BIRTHPLACE AND PARENTAGE.

  Dolce sentier, Colle, che mi piacesti, Ov'ancor per usanza amor mi mena!

  PETRARCH.

  Sweet, secluded, shady Saxonholme! I doubt if our whole England containsanother hamlet so quaint, so picturesquely irregular, so thoroughlynational in all its rustic characteristics. It lies in a warm hollowenvironed by hills. Woods, parks and young plantations clothe everyheight and slope for miles around, whilst here and there, peeping downthrough green vistas, or towering above undulating seas of summerfoliage, stands many a fine old country mansion, turreted and gabled,and built of that warm red brick that seems to hold the light of thesunset long after it has faded from the rest of the landscape. A silverthread of streamlet, swift but shallow, runs noisily through the meadowsbeside the town and loses itself in the Chad, about a mile and a halffarther eastward. Many a picturesque old wooden bridge, many a foamingweir and ruinous water-mill with weedy wheel, may be found scattered upand down the wooded banks of this little river Chad; while to the brook,which we call the Gipstream, attaches a vague tradition of trout.

  The hamlet itself is clean and old-fashioned, consisting of one long,straggling street, and a few tributary lanes and passages. The housessome few years back were mostly long and low-fronted, with projectingupper stories, and diamond-paned bay-windows bowered in with myrtle andclematis; but modern improvements have done much of late to sweep awaythese antique tenements, and a fine new suburb of Italian and Gothicvillas has sprung up, between the town and the railway station. Besidesthis, we have a new church in the mediaeval style, rich in gilding andcolors and thirteenth-century brass-work; and a new cemetery, laid outlike a pleasure-garden; and a new school-house, where the children aretaught upon a system with a foreign name; and a Mechanics' Institute,where London professors come down at long intervals to expound popularscience, and where agriculturists meet to discuss popular grievances.

  At the other extremity of the town, down by Girdlestone Grange, an oldmoated residence where the squire's family have resided these fourcenturies past, we are full fifty years behind our modern neighbors.Here stands our famous old "King's-head Inn," a well-known place ofresort so early as the reign of Elizabeth. The great oak beside theporch is as old as the house itself; and on the windows of a littledisused parlor overlooking the garden may still be seen the names ofSedley, Rochester and other wits of the Restoration. They scrawled thoseautographs after dinner, most likely, with their diamond rings, and wentreeling afterwards, arm-in-arm, along the village street, singing andswearing, and eager for adventures--as gentlemen were wont to be inthose famous old times when they drank the king's health more freelythan was good for their own.

  Not far from the "King's Head," and almost hidden by the trees whichdivide it from the road, stands an ancient charitable institution calledthe College--quadrangular, mullion-windowed, many-gabled, and colonizedby some twenty aged people of both sexes. At the back of the college,adjoining a space of waste ground and some ruined cloisters, lies thechurchyard, in the midst of which, surrounded by solemn yews andmouldering tombs, stands the Priory Church. It is a rare old church,founded, according to the county history, in the reign of Edward theConfessor, and entered with a full description in Domesday Book. Itssculptured monuments and precious brasses, its Norman crypt, carvedstalls and tattered banners drooping over faded scutcheons, tell all ofgenerations long gone by, of noble families extinct, of gallant deedsforgotten, of knights and ladies remembered only by the names abovetheir graves. Amongst these, some two or three modest tablets record thepassing away of several generations of my own predecessors--obscureprofessional men for the most part, of whom some few became soldiers anddied abroad.

  In close proximity to the church stands the vicarage, once the Priory; aquaint old rambling building, surrounded by magnificent old trees. Herefor long centuries, a tribe of rooks have held undisputed possession,filling the boughs with their nests and the air with their voices, and,like genuine lords of the soil, descending at their own grave will andpleasure upon the adjacent lands.

  Picturesque and mediaeval as all these old buildings and old associationshelp to make us, we of Saxonholme pretend to something more. We claim tobe, not only picturesque but historic. Nay, more than this--we areclassical. WE WERE FOUNDED BY THE ROMANS. A great Roman road, well knownto antiquaries, passed transversely through the old churchyard. Romancoins and relics, and fragments of tesselated pavement, have been foundin and about the town. Roman camps may be traced on most of the heightsaround. Above all, we are said to be indebted to the Romans for thatinestimable breed of poultry in right of which we have for years carriedoff the leading prizes at every poultry-show in the county, and haveeven been enabled to make head against the exaggerated pretensions ofmodern Cochin-China interlopers.

  Such, briefly sketched, is my native Saxonholme. Born beneath the shadeof its towering trees and overhanging eaves, brought up to reverence itsantiquities, and educated in the love of its natural beauties, whatwonder that I cling to it with every fibre of my heart, and even whenaffecting to smile at my own fond prejudice, continue to believe it theloveliest peacefulest nook in rural England?

  My father's name was John Arbuthnot. Sprung from the Arbuthnots ofMontrose, we claim to derive from a common ancestor with the celebratedauthor of "Martinus Scriblerus." Indeed, the first of our name whosettled at Saxonholme was one James Arbuthnot, son to a certainnonjuring parson Arbuthnot, who lived and died abroad, and was ownbrother to that famous wit, physician and courtier whose genius, myfather was wont to say, conferred a higher distinction upon our branchof the family than did those Royal Letters-Patent whereby the elderstock was ennobled by His most Gracious Majesty King George the Fourth,on the occasion of his visit to Edinburgh in 1823. From this JamesArbuthnot (who, being born and bred at St. Omer, and married, moreover,to a French wife, was himself half a Frenchman) we Saxonholme Arbuthnotswere the direct descendants.

  Our French ancestress, according to the family tradition, was of no veryexalted origin, being in fact the only daughter and heiress of oneMonsieur Tartine, Perruquier in chief at the Court of Versailles. Butwhat this lady wanted in birth, she made up in fortune, and the modestestate which her husband purchased with her dowry came down to usunimpaired through five generations. In the substantial and somewhatforeign-looking red-brick house which he built (also, doubtless, withMadame's Louis d'ors) we, his successors, had lived and died ever since.His portrait, together with the portraits of his wife, son, andgrandson, hung on the dining-room walls; and of the quaint oldspindle-legged chairs and tables that had adorned our best rooms fromtime immemorial, some were supposed to date as far back as the firstfounding and furnishing of the house.

  It is almost needless to say that the son of the non-juror and hisimmediate posterity were staunch Jacobites, one and all. I am not awarethat they ever risked or suffered anything for the cause; but they werenot therefore the less vehement. Many were the signs and tokens of thatdead-and-gone political faith which these loyal Arbuthnots left behindthem. In the bed-rooms there hung prints of King James the Second at theBattle of the Boyne; of the Royal Martyr with his plumed hat, lacecollar, and melancholy fatal face; of the Old and Young Pretenders; ofthe Princess Louisa Teresia, and of the Cardinal York. In the librarywere to be found all kinds of books relating to the career of thatunhappy family: "Ye Tragicall History of ye Stuarts, 169
7;" "Memoirs ofKing James II., writ by his own hand;" "La Stuartide," an unfinishedepic in the French language by one Jean de Schelandre; "The Fate ofMajesty exemplified in the barbarous and disloyal treatment (bytraitorous and undutiful subjects) of the Kings and Queens of the RoyalHouse of Stuart," genealogies of the Stuarts in English, French andLatin; a fine copy of "Eikon Basilike," bound in old red morocco, withthe royal arms stamped upon the cover; and many other volumes on thesame subject, the names of which (although as a boy I was wont to poreover their contents with profound awe and sympathy) I have now for themost part forgotten.

  Most persons, I suppose, have observed how the example of a successfulancestor is apt to determine the pursuits of his descendants down to thethird and fourth generations, inclining the lads of this house to thesea, and of that to the bar, according as the great man of the familyachieved his honors on shipboard, or climbed his way to the woolsack.The Arbuthnots offered no exception to this very natural law ofselection. They could not help remembering how the famous doctor hadexcelled in literature as in medicine; how he had been not onlyPhysician in Ordinary to Queen Anne and Prince George of Denmark, but asatirist and pamphleteer, a wit and the friend of wits--of such wits asPope and Swift, Harley and Bolingbroke. Hence they took, as it wereinstinctively, to physic and the _belles lettres_, and were neverwithout a doctor or an author in the family.

  My father, however, like the great Martinus Scriblerus, was both doctorand author. And he was a John Arbuthnot. And to carry the resemblancestill further, he was gifted with a vein of rough epigrammatic humor, inwhich it pleased his independence to indulge without much respect ofpersons, times, or places. His tongue, indeed, cost him some friends andgained him some enemies; but I am not sure that it diminished hispopularity as a physician. People compared him to Abernethy, whereby hewas secretly flattered. Some even went so far as to argue that only avery clever man could afford to be a bear; and I must say that he pushedthis conclusion to its farthest limit, showing his temper alike to richand poor upon no provocation whatever. He cared little, to be sure, forhis connection. He loved the profession theoretically, and from ascientific point of view; but he disliked the drudgery of countrypractice, and stood in no need of its hardly-earned profits. Yet he wasa man who so loved to indulge his humor, no matter at what cost, that Idoubt whether he would have been more courteous had his bread dependedon it. As it was, he practised and grumbled, snarled at his patients,quarrelled with the rich, bestowed his time and money liberally upon thepoor, and amused his leisure by writing for a variety of scientificperiodicals, both English and foreign.

  Our home stood at the corner of a lane towards the eastern extremity ofthe town, commanding a view of the Squire's Park, and a glimpse of themill-pool and meadows in the valley beyond. This lane led up toBarnard's Green, a breezy space of high, uneven ground dedicated tofairs, cricket matches, and travelling circuses, whence the noisy musicof brass bands, and the echoes of alternate laughter and applause, werewafted past our windows in the summer evenings. We had a large garden atthe back, and a stable up the lane; and though the house was but onestory in height, it covered a considerable space of ground, andcontained more rooms than we ever had occasion to use. Thus it happenedthat since my mother's death, which took place when I was a very littleboy, many doors on the upper floor were kept locked, to the unduedevelopment of my natural inquisitiveness by day, and my mortal terrorwhen sent to bed at night. In one of these her portrait still hung abovethe mantelpiece, and her harp stood in its accustomed corner. Inanother, which was once her bedroom, everything was left as in herlifetime, her clothes yet hanging in the wardrobe, her dressing-casestanding upon the toilet, her favorite book upon the table beside thebed. These things, told to me by the servants with much mystery, took apowerful hold upon my childish imagination. I trembled as I passed theclosed doors at dusk, and listened fearfully outside when daylight gaveme courage to linger near them. Something of my mother's presence, Ifancied, must yet dwell within--something in her shape still wander fromroom to room in the dim moonlight, and echo back the sighing of thenight winds. Alas! I could not remember her. Now and then, as ifrecalled by a dream, some broken and shadowy images of a pale face and aslender hand floated vaguely through my mind; but faded even as I stroveto realize them. Sometimes, too, when I was falling off to sleep in mylittle bed, or making out pictures in the fire on a winter evening,strange fragments of old rhymes seemed to come back upon me, mingledwith the tones of a soft voice and the haunting of a long-forgottenmelody. But these, after all, were yearnings more of the heart thanthe memory:--

  "I felt a mother-want about the world. And still went seeking."

  To return to my description of my early home:--the two rooms on eitherside of the hall, facing the road, were appropriated by my father forhis surgery and consulting-room; while the two corresponding rooms atthe back were fitted up as our general reception-room, and my father'sbed-room. In the former of these, and in the weedy old garden upon whichit opened, were passed all the days of my boyhood.

  It was my father's good-will and pleasure to undertake the sole chargeof my education. Fain would I have gone like other lads of my age topublic school and college; but on this point, as on most others, he wasinflexible. Himself an obscure physician in a remote country town, hebrought me up with no other view than to be his own successor. Theprofession was not to my liking. Somewhat contemplative and nervous bynature, there were few pursuits for which I was less fitted. I knewthis, but dared not oppose him. Loving study for its own sake, andtrusting to the future for some lucky turn of destiny, I yielded to thatwhich seemed inevitable, and strove to make the best of it.

  Thus it came to pass that I lived a quiet, hard-working home life, whileother boys of my age were going through the joyous experience of school,and chose my companions from the dusty shelves of some three or fourgigantic book-cases, instead of from the class and the playground. Notthat I regret it. I believe, on the contrary, that a boy may have worsecompanions than books and busts, employments less healthy than the studyof anatomy, and amusements more pernicious than Shakespeare and Horace.Thank Heaven! I escaped all such; and if, as I have been told, myboyhood was unboyish, and my youth prematurely cultivated, I am contentto have been spared the dangers in exchange for the pleasures of apublic school.

  I do not, however, pretend to say that I did not sometimes pine for therecreations common to my age. Well do I remember the manifoldattractions of Barnard's Green. What longing glances I used to stealtowards the boisterous cricketers, when going gravely forth upon abotanical walk with my father! With what eager curiosity have I notlingered many a time before the entrance to a forbidden booth, andscanned the scenic advertisement of a travelling show! Alas! how thecharms of study paled before those intervals of brief but bittertemptation! What, then, was pathology compared to the pig-faced lady, orthe Materia Medica to Smith's Mexican Circus, patronized by all thesovereigns of Europe? But my father was inexorable. He held that suchplaces were, to use his own words, "opened by swindlers for the ruin offools," and from one never-to-be-forgotten hour, when he caught me inthe very act of taking out my penny-worth at a portable peep-show, hebound me over by a solemn promise (sealed by a whipping) never to repeatthe offence under any provocation or pretext whatsoever. I was a tinyfellow in pinafores when this happened, but having once pledged my word,I kept it faithfully through all the studious years that lay between sixand sixteen.

  At sixteen an immense crisis occurred in my life. I fell in love. I hadbeen in love several times before--chiefly with the elder pupils at theMiss Andrews' establishment; and once (but that was when I was veryyoung indeed) with the cook. This, however, was a much more romantic anddesperate affair. The lady was a Columbine by profession, and asbeautiful as an angel. She came down to our neighborhood with astrolling company, and performed every evening, in a temporary theatreon the green, for nearly three weeks. I used to steal out after dinnerwhen my father was taking his nap, and run the whole way, that I mightbe in time
to see the object of my adoration walking up and down theplatform outside the booth before the performances commenced. Thisincomparable creature wore a blue petticoat spangled with tinfoil, and awreath of faded poppies. Her age might have been about forty. I thoughther the loveliest of created beings. I wrote sonnets to her--dozens ofthem--intending to leave them at the theatre door, but never finding thecourage to do it. I made up bouquets for her, over and over again,chosen from the best flowers in our neglected garden; but invariablywith the same result. I hated the harlequin who presumed to put his armabout her waist. I envied the clown, whom she condescended to address asMr. Merriman. In short, I was so desperately in love that I even triedto lie awake at night and lose my appetite; but, I am ashamed to own,failed signally in both endeavors.

  At length I wrote to her. I can even now recall passages out of thatpassionate epistle. I well remember how it took me a whole morning towrite it; how I crammed it with quotations from Horace; and how I fondlycompared her to most of the mythological divinities. I then copied itout on pale pink paper, folded it in the form of a heart, and directedit to Miss Angelina Lascelles, and left it, about dusk, with themoney-taker at the pit door. I signed myself, if I remember rightly,Pyramus. What would I not have given that evening to pay my sixpencelike the rest of the audience, and feast my eyes upon her from someobscure corner! What would I not have given to add my quota tothe applause!

  I could hardly sleep that night; I could hardly read or write, or eat mybreakfast the next morning, for thinking of my letter and its probableeffect. It never once occurred to me that my Angelina might possiblyfind it difficult to construe Horace. Towards evening, I escaped again,and flew to Barnard's Green. It wanted nearly an hour to the time ofperformance; but the tuning of a violin was audible from within, and themoney-taker was already there with his pipe in his mouth and his handsin his pockets. I had no courage to address that functionary; but Ilingered in his sight and sighed audibly, and wandered round and roundthe canvas walls that hedged my divinity. Presently he took his pipe outof, his mouth and his hands out of his pockets; surveyed me deliberatelyfrom head to foot, and said:--

  "Hollo there! aint you the party that brought a three-cornered letterhere last evening!"

  I owned it, falteringly.

  He lifted a fold in the canvas, and gave me a gentle shove between theshoulders.

  "Then you're to go in," said he, shortly. "She's there, somewhere.You're sure to find her."

  The canvas dropped behind me, and I found myself inside. My heart beatso fast that I could scarcely breathe. The booth was almost dark; thecurtain was down; and a gentleman with striped legs was lighting thefootlamps. On the front pit bench next the orchestra, discussing a plateof bread and meat and the contents of a brown jug, sat a stout man inshirt-sleeves and a woman in a cotton gown. The woman rose as I made myappearance, and asked, civilly enough, whom I pleased to want.

  I stammered the name of Miss Angelina Lascelles.

  "Miss Lascelles!" she repeated. "I am Miss Lascelles," Then, looking atme more narrowly, "I suppose," she added, "you are the little boy thatbrought the letter?"

  The little boy that brought the letter! Gracious heavens! And thismiddle-aged woman in a cotton gown--was she the Angelina of my dreams!The booth went round with me, and the lights danced before my eyes.

  "If you have come for an answer," she continued, "you may just say toyour Mr. Pyramid that I am a respectable married woman, and he ought tobe ashamed of himself--and, as for his letter, I never read such a heapof nonsense in my life! There, you can go out by the way you came in,and if you take my advice, you won't come back again!"

  How I looked, what I said, how I made my exit, whether the doorkeeperspoke to me as I passed, I have no idea to this day. I only know that Iflung myself on the dewy grass under a great tree in the first field Icame to, and shed tears of such shame, disappointment, and woundedpride, as my eyes had never known before. She had called me a littleboy, and my letter a heap of nonsense! She was elderly--she wasignorant--she was married! I had been a fool; but that knowledge cametoo late, and was not consolatory.

  By-and-by, while I was yet sobbing and disconsolate, I heard thedrumming and fifing which heralded the appearance of the _CorpsDramatique_ on the outer platform. I resolved to see her for the lasttime. I pulled my hat over my eyes, went back to the Green, and mingledwith the crowd outside the booth. It was growing dusk. I made my way tothe foot of the ladder, and observed her narrowly. I saw that her ankleswere thick, and her elbows red. The illusion was all over. The spangleshad lost their lustre, and the poppies their glow. I no longer hated theharlequin, or envied the clown, or felt anything but mortification at myown folly.

  "Miss Angelina Lascelles, indeed!" I said to myself, as I saunteredmoodily home. "Pshaw! I shouldn't wonder if her name was Snooks!"