Mr Horner was a very faithful steward, and very respectful to my lady; although, sometimes, I thought she was sharper to him than to any one else; perhaps because she knew that, although he never said anything, he disapproved of the Hanburys being made to pay for the Earl Ludlow’s estates and state.
The late lord had been a sailor, and had been as extravagant in his habits as most sailors are, I am told – for I never saw the sea; and yet he had a long sight to his own interests; but whatever he was, my lady loved him and his memory, with about as fond and proud a love as ever wife gave husband, I should think.
For a part of his life Mr Horner, who was born on the Hanbury property, had been a clerk to an attorney in Birmingham; and these few years had given him a kind of worldly wisdom, which, though always exerted for her benefit, was antipathetic to her ladyship, who thought that some of her steward’s maxims savoured of trade and commerce. I fancy that if it had been possible, she would have preferred a return to the primitive system of living on the produce of the land, and exchanging the surplus for such articles as were needed, without the intervention of money.
But Mr Horner was bitten with new-fangled notions, as she would say, though his new-fangled notions were what folk at the present day would think sadly behindhand; and some of Mr Gray’s ideas fell on Mr Horner’s mind like sparks on tow, though they started from two different points. Mr Horner wanted to make every man useful and active in this world, and to direct as much activity and usefulness as possible to the improvement of the Hanbury estates, and the aggrandisement of the Hanbury family, and therefore he fell into the new cry for education.
Mr Gray did not care much – Mr Horner thought not enough – for this world, and where any man or family stood in their earthly position; but he would have every one prepared for the world to come, and capable of understanding and receiving certain doctrines, for which latter purpose, it stands to reason, he must have heard of these doctrines; and therefore Mr Gray wanted education. The answer in the catechism that Mr Horner was most fond of calling upon a child to repeat, was that to, ‘What is thy duty towards thy neighbour?’ The answer Mr Gray liked best to hear repeated with unction, was that to the question, ‘What is the inward and spiritual grace?’ The reply to which Lady Ludlow bent her head the lowest, as we said our Catechism to her on Sundays, was to, ‘What is thy duty towards God?’ But neither Mr Horner nor Mr Gray had heard many answers to the Catechism as yet.
Up to this time there was no Sunday-school in Hanbury. Mr Gray’s desires were bounded by that object. Mr Horner looked farther on: he hoped for a day-school at some future time, to train up intelligent labourers for working on the estate. My lady would hear of neither one nor the other: indeed, not the boldest man whom she ever saw would have dared to name the project of a day-school within her hearing.
So Mr Horner contented himself with quietly teaching a sharp, clever lad to read and write, with a view to making use of him as a kind of foreman in process of time. He had his pick of the farm-lads for this purpose; and, as the brightest and sharpest, although by far the raggedest and dirtiest, singled out Job Gregson’s son. But all this – as my lady never listened to gossip, or indeed, was spoken to unless she spoke first – was quite unknown to her, until the unlucky incident took place which I am going to relate.
Chapter IV
I THINK MY lady was not aware of Mr Horner’s views on education (as making men into more useful members of society) or the practice to which he was putting his precepts in taking Harry Gregson as pupil and protégé; if, indeed, she were aware of Harry’s distinct existence at all, until the following unfortunate occasion. The anteroom, which was a kind of business-place for my lady to receive her steward and tenants in, was surrounded by shelves. I cannot call them book-shelves, though there were many books on them; but the contents of the volumes were principally manuscript, and relating to details connected with the Hanbury property. There were also one or two dictionaries, gazetteers, works of reference on the management of property; all of a very old date (the dictionary was Bailey’s, I remember; we had a great Johnson in my lady’s room, but where lexicographers differed, she generally preferred Bailey).
In this antechamber a footman generally sat, awaiting orders from my lady; for she clung to the grand old customs, and despised any bells, except her own little hand-bell, as modern inventions; she would have her people always within summons of this silvery bell, or her scarce less silvery voice. This man had not the sinecure you might imagine. He had to reply to the private entrance; what we should call the back door in a smaller house. As none came to the front door but my lady, and those of the county whom she honoured by visiting, and her nearest acquaintance of this kind lived eight miles (of bad road) off, the majority of comers knocked at the nail-studded terrace-door; not to have it opened (for open it stood, by my lady’s orders, winter and summer, so that the snow often drifted into the back-hall, and lay there in heaps when the weather was severe), but to summon some one to receive their message, or carry their request to be allowed to speak to my lady. I remember it was long before Mr Gray could be made to understand that the great door was only opened on state occasions, and even to the last he would as soon come in by that as the terrace entrance. I had been received there on my first setting foot over my lady’s threshold; every stranger was led in by that way the first time they came; but after that (with the exceptions I have named) they went round by the terrace, as it were by instinct. It was an assistance to this instinct to be aware that from time immemorial, the magnificent and fierce Hanbury wolf-hounds, which were extinct in every other part of the island, had been and still were kept chained in the front quadrangle, where they bayed through a great part of the day and night, and were always ready with their deep, savage growl at the sight of every person and thing, excepting the man who fed them, my lady’s carriage-and-four, and my lady herself. It was pretty to see her small figure go up to the great, crouching brutes, thumping the flags with their heavy, wagging tails, and slobbering in an ecstacy of delight, at her light approach and soft caress. She had no fear of them; but she was a Hanbury born, and the tale went, that they and their kind knew all Hanburys instantly, and acknowledged their supremacy, ever since the ancestors of the breed had been brought from the East by the great Sir Urian Hanbury, who lay with his legs crossed on the altar-tomb in the church. Moreover, it was reported that, not fifty years before, one of these dogs had eaten up a child, which had inadvertently strayed within reach of its chain. So you may imagine how most people preferred the terrace-door. Mr Gray did not seem to care for the dogs. It might be absence of mind, for I have heard of his starting away from their sudden spring when he had unwittingly walked within reach of their chains; but it could hardly have been absence of mind when one day he went right up to one of them, and patted him in the most friendly manner, the dog meanwhile looking pleased, and affably wagging his tail, just as if Mr Gray had been a Hanbury. We were all very much puzzled by this, and to this day I have not been able to account for it.
But now let us go back to the terrace-door, and the footman sitting in the antechamber.
One morning we heard a parleying which rose to such a vehemence, and lasted for so long, that my lady had to ring her hand-bell twice before the footman heard it.
‘What is the matter, John?’ asked she, when he entered.
‘A little boy, my lady, who says he comes from Mr Horner, and must see your ladyship. Impudent little lad!’ (this last to himself ).
‘What does he want?’
‘That’s just what I have asked him, my lady, but he won’t tell me, please your ladyship.’
‘It is, probably, some message from Mr Horner,’ said Lady Ludlow, with just a shade of annoyance in her manner; for it was against all etiquette to send a message to her, and by such a messenger too!
‘No! please your ladyship, I asked him if he had any message, and he said no, he had none; but he must see your ladyship for all that.’
‘You had
better show him in then, without more words,’ said her ladyship, quietly, but still, as I have said, rather annoyed.
As if in mockery of the humble visitor, the footman threw open both battants of the door, and in the opening there stood a lithe, wiry lad, with a thick head of hair, standing out in every direction, as if stirred by some electrical current, a short, brown face, red now from affright and excitement, wide, resolute mouth, and bright, deep-set eyes; which glanced keenly and rapidly round the room, as if taking in everything (and all was new and strange) to be thought and puzzled over at some future time. He knew enough of manners not to speak first to one above him in rank, or else he was afraid.
‘What do you want with me?’ asked my lady, in so gentle a tone that it seemed to surprise and stun him.
‘An’t please your ladyship?’ said he, as if he had been deaf.
‘You come from Mr Horner’s: why do you want to see me?’ again asked she, a little more loudly.
‘An’t please your ladyship, Mr Horner was sent for all on a sudden to Warwick this morning.’
His face began to work; but he felt it, and closed his lips into a resolute form.
‘Well?’
‘And he went off all on a sudden-like.’
‘Well?’
‘And he left a note for your ladyship with me, your ladyship.’
‘Is that all? You might have given it to the footman.’
‘Please your ladyship, I’ve clean gone and lost it.’
He never took his eyes off her face. If he had not kept his look fixed, he would have burst out crying.
‘That was very careless,’ said my lady, gently. ‘But I am sure you are very sorry for it. You had better try and find it. It may have been of consequence.’
‘Please, Mum – please your ladyship – I can say it off by heart.’
‘You! What do you mean?’ I was really afraid now. My lady’s blue eyes absolutely gave out light, she was so much displeased, and, moreover, perplexed. The more reason he had for affright, the more his courage rose. He must have seen – so sharp a lad must have perceived her displeasure, but he went on quickly and steadily.
‘Mr Horner, my lady, has taught me to read, write, and cast accounts, my lady. And he was in a hurry, and he folded his paper up, but he did not seal it; and I read it, my lady; and now, my lady, it seems like as if I had got it off by heart;’ and he went on with a high pitched voice, saying out very loud what, I have no doubt, were the identical words of the letter, date, signature and all: it was merely something about a deed, which required my lady’s signature.
When he had done, he stood almost as if he expected commendation for his accurate memory.
My lady’s eyes contracted till the pupils were as needle-points; it was a way she had when much disturbed. She looked at me, and said:
‘Margaret Dawson, what will this world come to?’ And then she was silent.
The lad, beginning to perceive he had given deep offence, stood stock still – as if his brave will had brought him into this presence, and impelled him to confession, and the best amends he could make, but had now deserted him, or was extinct, and left his body motionless, until some one else with word or deed made him quit the room. My lady looked again at him, and saw the frowning, dumb-foundering terror at his misdeed, and the manner in which his confession had been received.
‘My poor lad!’ said she, the angry look leaving her face, ‘into whose hands have you fallen?’
The boy’s lips began to quiver.
‘Don’t you know what tree we read of in Genesis? – No! I hope you have not got to read so easily as that.’ A pause. ‘Who has taught you to read and write?’
‘Please, my lady, I meant no harm, my lady.’ He was fairly blubbering, overcome by her evident feeling of dismay and regret, the soft repression of which was more frightening to him than any strong or violent words would have been.
‘Who taught you, I ask?’
‘It were Mr Horner’s clerk who learned me, my lady.’
‘And did Mr Horner know of it?’
‘Yes, my lady. And I am sure I thought for to please him.’
‘Well! perhaps you were not to blame for that. But I wonder at Mr Horner. However, my boy, as you have got possession of edge-tools, you must have some rules how to use them. Did you never hear that you were not to open letters?’
‘Please, my lady, it were open. Mr Horner forgot for to seal it, in his hurry to be off.’
‘But you must not read letters that are not intended for you. You must never try to read any letters that are not directed to you, even if they be open before you.’
‘Please, my lady, I thought it were good for practice, all as one as a book.’
My lady looked bewildered as to what way she could farther explain to him the laws of honour as regarded letters.
‘You would not listen, I am sure,’ said she, ‘to anything you were not intended to hear?’
He hesitated for a moment, partly because he did not fully comprehend the question. My lady repeated it. The light of intelligence came into his eager eyes, and I could see that he was not certain if he could tell the truth.
‘Please, my lady, I always hearken when I hear folk talking secrets; but I mean no harm.’
My poor lady sighed: she was not prepared to begin a long way off in morals. Honour was, to her, second nature, and she had never tried to find out on what principle its laws were based. So, telling the lad that she wished to see Mr Horner when he returned from Warwick, she dismissed him with a despondent look; he, meanwhile, right glad to be out of the awful gentleness of her presence.
‘What is to be done?’ said she, half to herself and half to me. I could not answer, for I was puzzled myself.
‘It was a right word,’ she continued, ‘that I used, when I called reading and writing “edge-tools.” If our lower orders have these edge-tools given to them, we shall have the terrible scenes of the French Revolution acted over again in England. When I was a girl, one never heard of the rights of men, one only heard of the duties. Now, here was Mr Gray, only last night, talking of the right every child had to instruction. I could hardly keep my patience with him, and at length we fairly came to words; and I told him I would have no such thing as a Sunday-school (or a Sabbath-school, as he calls it, just like a Jew) in my village.’
‘And what did he say, my lady?’ I asked; for the struggle that seemed now to have come to a crisis, had been going on for some time in a quiet way.
‘Why, he gave way to temper, and said he was bound to remember he was under the bishop’s authority, not under mine; and implied that he should persevere in his designs, notwithstanding my expressed opinion.’
‘And your ladyship –’ I half inquired.
‘I could only rise and curtsy, and civilly dismiss him. When two persons have arrived at a certain point of expression on a subject, about which they differ as materially as I do from Mr Gray, the wisest course, if they wish to remain friends, is to drop the conversation entirely and suddenly. It is one of the few cases where abruptness is desirable.’