Mount Royal: A Novel. Volume 1 of 3

"No one less than Macaulay could satisfy you," said Angus, one day, when his memory was at fault. "A man of infinite reading, and infallible memory."

"But you have read so much, and you remember a great deal."

They had been prowling about the Whitehall end of the town in the bright early morning, before Fashion had begun to stir herself faintly among her down pillows. Christabel loved the parks and streets while the freshness of sunrise was still upon them – and these early walks were an institution.

"Where is the Decoy?" she asked Angus, one day, in St. James's Park; and on being interrogated, it appeared that she meant a certain piece of water, described in "Peveril of the Peak." All this part of London was peopled with Scott's heroes and heroines, or with suggestions of Goldsmith. Here Fenella danced before good-natured, loose-living Rowley. Here Nigel stood aside, amidst the crowd, to see Charles, Prince of Wales, and his ill-fated favourite, Buckingham, go by. Here the Citizen of the World met Beau Tibbs and the gentleman in black. For Christabel, the Park was like a scene in a stage play.

Then, after breakfast, there were long drives into fair suburban haunts, where they escaped in some degree from London smoke and London restraints of all kinds, where they could charter a boat, and row up the river to a still fairer scene, and picnic in some rushy creek, out of ken of society, and be almost as recklessly gay as if they had been at Tintagel.

These were the days Angus loved best. The days upon which he and his betrothed turned their backs upon London society, and seemed as far away from the outside world as ever they had been upon the wild western coast. Like most men educated at Eton and Oxford, and brought up in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, Angus loved the Thames with a love that was almost a passion.

"It is my native country," he said; "I have no other. All the pleasantest associations of my boyhood and youth are interwoven with the river. When I die, my spirit ought to haunt these shores, like that ghost of the 'Scholar Gipsy,' which you have read about in Arnold's poem."

He knew every bend and reach of the river – every tributary, creek, and eyot – almost every row of pollard willows, standing stunted and grim along the bank, like a line of rugged old men. He knew where the lilies grew, and where there were chances of trout. The haunts of monster pike were familiar to him – indeed, he declared that he knew many of these gentlemen personally – that they were as old as the Fontainebleau carp, and bore a charmed life.

"When I was at Eton I knew them all by sight," he said. "There was one which I set my heart upon landing, but he was ever so much stronger and cleverer than I. If I had caught him I should have worn his skin ever after, in the pride of my heart – like Hercules with his lion. But he still inhabits the same creek, still sulks among the same rushes, and devours the gentler members of the finny race by shoals. We christened him Dr. Parr, for we knew he was preternaturally old, and we thought he must, from mere force of association, be a profound scholar."

Mr. Hamleigh was always finding reasons for these country excursions, which he declared were the one sovereign antidote for the poisoned atmosphere of crowded rooms, and the evil effects of late hours.

"You wouldn't like to see Christabel fade and languish like the flowers in your drawing-room," he urged, when Mrs. Tregonell wanted her niece to make a round of London visits, instead of going down to Maidenhead on the coach, to lunch somewhere up the river. Not at Skindle's – or at any other hotel – but in the lazy sultry quiet of some sequestered nook below the hanging woods of Clieveden. "I'm sure you can spare her just for to-day – such a perfect spring day. It would be a crime to waste such sunlight and such balmy air in town drawing-rooms. Could not you strain a point, dear Mrs. Tregonell, and come with us?"

Aunt Diana shook her head. No, the fatigue would be too much – she had lived such a quiet life at Mount Royal, that a very little exertion tired her. Besides she had some calls to make; and then there was a dinner at Lady Bulteel's, to which she must take Christabel, and an evening party afterwards.

Christabel shrugged her shoulders impatiently.

"I am beginning to hate parties," she said. "They are amusing enough when one is in them – but they are all alike – and it would be so much nicer for us to live our own lives, and go wherever Angus likes. Don't you think you might defer the calls, and come with us to-day, Auntie dear?"

Auntie dear shook her head.

"Even if I were equal to the fatigue, Belle, I couldn't defer my visits. Thursday is Lady Onslow's day – and Mrs. Trevannion's day – and Mrs. Vansittart's day – and when people have been so wonderfully kind to us, it would be uncivil not to call."

"And you will sit in stifling drawing-rooms, with the curtains lowered to shut out the sunlight – and you will drink ever so much more tea than is good for you – and hear a lot of people prosing about the same things over and over again – Epsom and the Opera – and Mrs. This and Miss That – and Mrs. Somebody's new book, which everybody reads and talks about, just as if there were not another book in the world, or as if the old book counted for nothing," concluded Christabel, contemptuously, having by this time discovered the conventional quality of kettle-drum conversations, wherein people discourse authoritatively about books they have not read, plays they have not seen, and people they do not know.

Mr. Hamleigh had his own way, and carried off Christabel and Miss Bridgeman to the White Horse Cellar, with the faithful Major in attendance.

"You will bring Belle home in time to dress for Lady Bulteel's dinner," said Mrs. Tregonell, impressively, as they were departing. "Mind, Major, I hold you responsible for her return. You are the only sober person in the party. I believe Jessie Bridgeman is as wild as a hawk, when she gets out of my sight."

Jessie's shrewd grey eyes twinkled at the reproof.

"I am not very sorry to get away from Bolton Row, and the fine ladies who come to see you – and who always look at me as much as to say, 'Who is she? – what is she? – how did she come here?' – and who are obviously surprised if I say anything intelligent – first, at my audacity in speaking before company, and next that such a thing as I should have any brains."

"Nonsense, Jessie, how thin-skinned you are; everybody praises you," said Mrs. Tregonell, while they all waited on the threshold for Christabel to fasten her eight-button gloves – a delicate operation, in which she was assisted by Mr. Hamleigh.

"How clever you are at buttoning gloves," exclaimed Christabel; "one would think you had served an apprenticeship."

"That's not the first pair he has buttoned, I'll wager," cried the Major, in his loud, hearty voice; and then, seeing Angus redden ever so slightly, and remembering certain rumours which he had heard at his club, the kindly bachelor regretted his speech.

Happily, Christabel was engaged at this moment in kissing her aunt, and did not observe Mr. Hamleigh's heightened colour. Ten minutes later they were all seated outside the coach, bowling down Piccadilly Hill on their way westward.

"In the good old days this is how you would have started for Cornwall," said Angus.

"I wish we were going to Cornwall now."

"So do I, if your aunt would let us be married at that dear little church in the glen. Christabel, when I die, if you have the ordering of my funeral, be sure that I am buried in Minster Churchyard."

"Angus, don't," murmured Christabel, piteously.

"Dearest, 'we must all die – 'tis an inevitable chance – the first Statute in Magna Charta – it is an everlasting Act of Parliament' – that's what he says of death, dear, who jested at all things, and laid his cap and bells down one day in a lodging in Bond Street – the end of which we passed just now – sad and lonely, and perhaps longing for the kindred whom he had forsaken."

"You mean Sterne," said Christabel. "Jessie and I hunted for that house, yesterday. I think we all feel sorrier for him than for many a better man."

In the early afternoon they had reached their destination – a lovely creek shaded by chestnut and alder – a spot known to few, and rarely visited. Here, under green leaves, they moored their boat, and lunched on the contents of a basket which had been got ready for them at Skindle's – dawdling over the meal – taking their ease – full of talk and laughter. Never had Angus looked better, or talked more gaily. Jessie, too, was at her brightest, and had a great deal to say.

"It is wonderful how well you two get on," said Christabel, smiling at her friend's prompt capping of some bitter little speech from Angus. "You always seem to understand each other so quickly – indeed, Jessie seems to know what Angus is going to say before the words are spoken. I can see it in her face."

"Perhaps, that is because we are both cynics," said Mr. Hamleigh.

"Yes, that is no doubt the reason," said Jessie, reddening a little; "the bond of sympathy between us is founded on our very poor opinion of our fellow-creatures."

But after this Miss Bridgeman became more silent, and gave way much less than usual to those sudden impulses of sharp speech which Christabel had noticed.

They landed presently, and went wandering away into the inland – a strange world to Christabel, albeit very familiar to her lover.

"Not far from here there is a dell which is the most wonderful place in the world for bluebells," said Angus, looking at his watch. "I wonder whether we should have time to walk there."

"Let us try, if it is not very, very far," urged Christabel. "I adore bluebells, and skylarks, and the cuckoo, and all the dear country flowers and birds. I have been surfeited with hot-house flowers and caged canaries since I came to London."

A skylark was singing in the deep blue, far aloft, over the little wood in which they were wandering. It was the loneliest, loveliest spot; and Christabel felt as if it would be agony to leave it. She and her lover seemed ever so much nearer, dearer, more entirely united here than in London drawing-rooms, where she hardly dared to be civil to him lest society should be amused or contemptuous. Here she could cling to his arm – it seemed a strong and helpful arm now – and look up at his face with love irradiating her own countenance, and feel no more ashamed than Eve in the Garden. Here they could talk without fear of being heard; for Jessie and the Major followed at a most respectful distance – just keeping the lovers in view, and no more.

Christabel ran back presently to say they were going to look for bluebells.

"You'll come, won't you?" she pleaded; "Angus says the dell is not far off."

"I don't believe a bit in his topography," said the Major; "do you happen to know that it is three o'clock, and that you are due at a State dinner?"

"At eight," cried Christabel, "ages away. Angus says the train goes at six. We are to have some tea at Skindle's, at five. We have two hours in which to do what we like."

"There is the row back to Skindle's."

"Say half an hour for that, which gives us ninety minutes for the bluebells."

"Do you count life by minutes, child?" asked the Major.

"Yes, Uncle Oliver, when I am utterly happy; for then every minute is precious."

And then she and her lover went rambling on, talking, laughing, poetising under the flickering shadows and glancing lights; while the other two followed at a leisurely pace, like the dull foot of reality following the winged heel of romance. Jessie Bridgeman was only twenty-seven, yet in her own mind it seemed as if she were the Major's contemporary – nay, indeed, his senior; for he had never known that grinding poverty which ages the eldest daughter in a large shabby genteel family. Jessie Bridgeman had been old in care before she left off pinafores. Her childish pleasure in the shabbiest of dolls had been poisoned by a precocious familiarity with poor-rates, and water-rates – a sickening dread of the shabby man in pepper-and-salt tweed, with the end of an oblong account-book protruding from his breast-pocket, who came to collect money that was never ready for him, and departed, leaving a printed notice, like the trail of the serpent, behind him. The first twenty years of Jessie Bridgeman's life had been steeped in poverty, every day, every hour flavoured with the bitter taste of deprivation and the world's contempt, the want of common comforts, the natural longing for fairer surroundings, the ever-present dread of a still lower deep in which pinching should become starvation, and even the shabby home should be no longer tenable. With a father whose mission upon this earth was to docket and file a certain class of accounts in Somerset House, for a salary of a hundred-and-eighty pounds a year, and a bi-annual rise of five, a harmless man, whose only crime was to have married young and made himself responsible for an unanticipated family – "How could a young fellow of two-and-twenty know that God was going to afflict him with ten children?" Mr. Bridgeman used to observe plaintively – with a mother whose life was one long domestic drudgery, who spent more of her days in a back kitchen than is consistent with the maintenance of personal dignity, and whose only chance of an airing was that stern necessity which impelled her to go and interview the tax-gatherer, in the hope of obtaining "time" – Jessie's opportunities of tasting the pleasures of youth had been of the rarest. Once in six months or so, perhaps, a shabby-genteel friend gave her father an order for some theatre, which was in that palpable stage of ruin when orders are freely given to the tavern loafer and the stage-door hanger-on – and then, oh, what rapture to trudge from Shepherd's Bush to the West End, and to spend a long hot evening in the gassy paradise of the Upper Boxes! Once in a year or so Mr. Bridgeman gave his wife and eldest girl a dinner at an Italian Restaurant near Leicester Square – a cheap little pinchy dinner, in which the meagre modicum of meat and poultry was eked out by much sauce, redolent of garlic, by delicious foreign bread, and too-odorous foreign cheese. It was a tradition in the family that Mr. Bridgeman had been a great dinner-giver in his bachelor days, and knew every restaurant in London.

"They don't forget me here, you see," he said, when the sleek Italian waiter brought him extra knives and forks for the dual portion which was to serve for three.