A Bid for Fortune/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III.
THE HOME OF MY ANCESTORS.
For the moment I could hardly believe my own ears. Gone? When had they gone? Where had they gone? Why had they gone? What could have induced them to leave England so suddenly? I endeavoured to question the hall porter on the subject, but he could tell me nothing save that they had departed for Paris on the previous day, intending to proceed across the Continent in order to catch the first Australian boat at Naples.
Feeling that I should only look ridiculous if I stayed cross-questioning the man any longer, I pressed a tip into his hand and went slowly back to my own hotel to try and think it all out. But though I devoted some hours to a consideration of it, I could arrive at no satisfactory conclusion. The one vital point remained and was not to be disputed—they were gone. But that evening brought me enlightenment in the shape of a letter, written in London and posted in Dover. It ran as follows:
"My Own Dearest—Something terrible has happened to papa! I cannot tell you what, because I do not know myself. He went out this morning in the best of health and spirits, and returned half an hour ago trembling like a leaf and white as a sheet. He had only strength enough left to reach a chair in my sitting-room before he fainted dead away. When he came to himself again he said, 'Tell your maid to pack at once. There is not a moment to lose. We start for Paris this evening to catch the next boat leaving Naples for Australia.' I said, 'But, papa!' 'Not a word,' he answered. 'I have seen somebody this morning whose presence renders it impossible for us to remain an instant longer in England. Go and pack at once unless you wish my death to lie at your door.' After that I could, of course, do nothing. I have packed, and now, in half an hour, we leave England again. If I could only see you to say good-bye, but that, too, is impossible. I cannot tell you what it all means, but that it is very serious business that takes us away so suddenly I feel convinced. My father seems frightened to remain in London a minute longer than he can help. He even stands at the window as I write, earnestly scrutinising everybody who enters the hotel. And now, my own"
But what follows, the reiterations of her affection, her vows to be true to me, etc., could have no possible interest for anyone save lovers. And even those I have, unfortunately, not the leisure now to gratify.
I sat like one stunned. All enjoyment seemed suddenly to have gone out of life for me. I could only sit twirling the paper in my hand and picturing the train flying remorselessly across France, bearing away from me the girl I loved better than all the world. I went to the Park, but the scene there had no longer any interest in my eyes. I went later on to a theatre, but I found no enjoyment in the piece performed. London had suddenly become distasteful to me. I must get out of it, but where could I go? Every place was alike in my present humour. Then one of the original motives of my journey rose before me. And I determined to act on the suggestion.
Next morning I set off for Hampshire to try, if possible, to find my father's old home. What sort of a place it would turn out to be I had not the very remotest idea. But I'd got the address by heart, and, with the help of a Bradshaw, for that place I steered.
Leaving the train at Lyndhurst Road—for the village I was in search of was situated in the heart of the New Forest—I hired a ramshackle conveyance from the nearest innkeeper and started off for it. The man who drove me had lived, so he found early occasion to inform me, in the neighbourhood all his seventy odd years, and it struck him as a humorous circumstance that he had never even been as far as Southampton, a matter of only a few miles by road and ten minutes by rail, in his life.
And that self-same sticking at home is one of the things about England and Englishmen that for the life of me I cannot understand. It seems to me—of course, I don't put it forward that I'm right—that a man might just as well be dead as only know God's world for twenty miles around him. It argues a poverty of interest in the rest of creation, I reckon—a sort of mud turtle existence that's neither encouraging nor particularly ornamental. And yet if everybody went a-travelling where would the prosperity of England be? That's a point against my argument, I must confess.
Well, perhaps we'd travelled a matter of two miles when it struck me to ask my charioteer about the place to which we were proceeding, just to find out what he knew about it. Thinks I, perhaps the old party may once have known my father. I'll try him. Waiting till he had passed a load of hay coming along the lane, I put the question to him.
To my surprise he no sooner heard the name than he became as excited as it was possible for him to be.
"Hatteras! Be ye a Hatteras? Well, well, now, dearie me, who'd ha' thought it!"
"Do you know the name so well, then?"
"Ay! ay! I know the name well enough; who doesn't in these parts? There was the old Squire and Lady Margaret when first I remember. Then Squire Jasper and his son, the captain, as was killed in a mutiny in foreign parts—and Master James"
"James—that was my father's name. James Dymoke Hatteras."
"You Master James' son—you don't say! Well! well! Now to think of that too! Him that ran away from home after words with the Squire and went to foreign parts. Who'd have thought it! Lawksee me! Sir William will be right down glad to see ye, I'll be bound."
"Sir William, and who's Sir William?"
"He's the only one left now, sir. Lives up at the House. Ah, dear! Ah, dear! There's been a power o' trouble in the family these years past."
By this time the aspect of the country was changing. We had left the lane behind us, ascended a short hill, and were now descending it again through what looked to my eyes more like a stately avenue than a public road. Beautiful elms reared themselves on either hand and intermingled their branches overhead; while before us, through a gap in the foliage, we could just make out the winding river, the thatched roofs of the village of which we had come in search lining its banks, and the old grey tower of the church keeping watch and ward over all.
There was to my mind something indescribably peaceful and even sad about that view, a mute sympathy with the Past that I could hardly account for, seeing that I was Colonial born and bred. For the first time since my arrival in England the real beauty of the place came home upon me. I felt as if I could have looked for ever on that quiet and peaceful spot.
When we reached the bottom of the hill, and had turned the corner, a broad, well-made stone bridge confronted us. On the other side of this was an old-fashioned country inn, with its signboard dangling from the house front, and opposite it again a dilapidated cottage lolling beside two iron gates. The gates were eight feet or more in height, made of finely wrought iron, and supported by big stone posts, on the top of which two stone animals, griffins, I believe they are called, holding shields in their claws, looked down in ferocious grandeur. From behind the gates an avenue wound and disappeared into the wood.
Without consulting me, my old charioteer drove into the inn yard, and, having thrown the reins to an ostler, descended from the vehicle. I followed his example, and then enquired the name of the place inside the gates. My guide, philosopher, and friend looked at me rather queerly for a second or two, and then recollecting that I was a stranger in the place, said:
"That be the Hall I was telling 'ee about. That's where Sir William lives!"
"Then that's where my father was born?"
He nodded his head, and as he did so I noticed that the ostler stopped his work of unharnessing the horse, and looked at me in rather a surprised fashion.
"Well, that being so," I said, taking my stick from the trap, and preparing to stroll off, "I'm just going to investigate a bit. You bring yourself to an anchor in yonder, my friend, and don't stir till I come for you again."
He took himself off without more ado, and I crossed the road towards the gates. They were locked, but the little entrance by the tumble-down cottage stood open, and passing through this I started up the drive. It was a perfect afternoon; the sunshine straggled in through the leafy canopy overhead and danced upon my path. To the right were the thick fastnesses of the preserves; while on the left, across the meadows I could discern the sparkle of water on the weir. I must have proceeded for nearly a mile through the wood before I caught sight of the house.
Then, what a strange experience was mine. Leaving the shelter of the trees, I opened on to the most superb park the mind of man could imagine. A herd of deer were grazing quietly just before me, a woodman was eating his dinner in the shadow of an oak; but it was not upon deer or woodman that I looked, but rather at the house that stared at me across the undulating sea of grass.
It was a noble building, of grey stone, in shape almost square, with many curious buttresses and angles. The drive ran up to it in a grand sweep, and upon the green that fronted it some big trees reared their stately heads. In my time I'd heard a lot of talk about the stately homes of England, but this was the first time I'd ever set eyes on one. And to think that this was my father's birthplace, the place where my family had lived for centuries. I could only stand and stare at it in sheer amazement.
You see, my father had always been a very silent man, and though he used sometimes to tell us yarns about scrapes he'd got into as a boy; how his father was a very stern man, and had sent him to a public school, because his tutor found him unmanageable, we never thought that he'd been anything very much in the old days—at any rate, not one of such a family as owned this house. To tell the truth, I felt a bit doubtful as to what I'd better do.
Somehow I was rather nervous about going up to the house and introducing myself as a member of the family without any credentials to back my assertion up; and yet, on the other hand, I didn't want to go away and have it always rankling in my mind that I'd seen the old place and been afraid to go inside. My mind once made up, however, off I went, crossed the park, and made towards the front. On nearer approach, I discovered that everything wore the same air of neglect I had noticed at the lodge. The drive was overgrown with weeds; no carriage seemed to have passed along it for ages. Shutters enclosed many of the windows, and where they did not, not one but several of the panes were broken. Entering the great stone porch, in which it would have been possible to seat a score of people, I pulled the antique door-bell, and waited, while the peal re-echoed down the corridors, for the curtain to go up on the next scene in my domestic drama.
Presently I heard footsteps approaching. A lock turned, and the great door swung open. An old man, whose years could hardly have totalled less than seventy, stood before me, dressed in a suit of solemn black, almost green with age. He inquired my business in a wheezy whisper. In reply I asked if Sir William Hatteras were at home. Informing me that he would find out, he left me to cool my heels where I stood, and to ruminate on the queerness of my position. In five minutes or so he returned and signed me to follow him.
The hall was in keeping with the outside of the building, lofty and imposing. The floor was of oak, almost black with age, the walls were beautifully wainscoted and carved, and here and there tall armoured figures looked down upon me in disdainful silence. But the crowning glory of all was the magnificent staircase that ran up from the centre. It was wide enough and strong enough to take a coach and four, the pillars that supported it were exquisitely carved, as were the banisters and rails. Half-way up was a sort of landing, from which again the stairs branched off to right and left.
Above this landing-place, and throwing a lovely light down into the hall, was a magnificent stained-glass window, and on a lozenge in the centre of it the arms that had so much puzzled me on the gateway. A nobler hall no one could wish to possess, but brooding over it was the same air of poverty and neglect I had noticed all about the place. By the time I had taken in these things, my guide had reached a door at the farther end. Pushing it open he signed to me to enter, and I did so, to find a tall, elderly man of stern aspect awaiting my coming.
He, like his servant, was dressed entirely in black, with the exception of a white tie, which gave his figure a semi-clerical appearance. His face was long and somewhat pinched, his chin and upper lip were shaven, and his snow-white, close-cropped whiskers ran in two straight lines from his jaw up to level with his piercing, hawk-like eyes. He would probably have been about seventy-five years of age, but he did not carry it well. In a low, monotonous voice he bade me welcome, and pointed to a chair, himself remaining standing.
"My servant tells me you say your name is Hatteras?"
"That is so. My father was James Dymoke Hatteras."
He looked at me very sternly for almost a minute, not for a second betraying the slightest sign of surprise. Then putting his hands together, finger tip to finger tip, as I discovered later was his invariable habit while thinking, he said solemnly:
"James was my younger brother. He misconducted himself gravely in England and was sent abroad. After a brief career of spendthrift extravagance in Australia, we never heard of him again. You may be his son, but then on the other hand, of course, you may not. I have no means of judging."
"I give you my word," I answered, a little nettled by his speech and the insinuation contained in it, "but if you want further proof I've got a Latin book in my portmanteau with my father's name upon the fly leaf, and an inscription in his own writing setting forth that it was given by himself to me."
"A Catullus?"
"Exactly! a Catullus."
"Then I'll have to trouble you to return it to me at your earliest convenience. The book is my property: I paid eighteen-pence for it about eleven o'clock a. m. on the 3rd of July, 1833, in the shop of John Burns, Fleet Street, London. My brother took it from me a week later, and I have not been able to afford myself another copy since."
"You admit then that the book is evidence of my father's identity?"
"I admit nothing. What do you want with me? What do you come here for? You must see for yourself that I am too poor to be of any service to you, and I have long since lost any public interest I may once have possessed."
"I want neither one nor the other. I am an Australian, and I have a sufficient competence to render me independent of anyone."
"Ah! That puts a different complexion on the matter. You say you hail from Australia? And what may you have been doing there?"
"Gold-mining—pearling—bêche-de-mering!"
He came a step closer, and as he did so I noticed that his face had assumed a look of indescribable cunning that was evidently intended to be of an ingratiating nature. He spoke in little jerks, pressing his fingers together between each sentence.
"Gold-mining! Ah! And pearling! Well, well! And I suppose you have been fortunate in your adventures?"
"Very!" I replied, having by this time determined on my line of action. "I daresay my cheque for ten thousand pounds would not be dishonoured by the Bank of England."
"Ten thousand pounds! Ten thousand pounds! Dear me, dear me!"
He shuffled up and down the dingy room, all the time looking at me out of the corner of his eyes, as if to make sure that I was telling him the truth.
"Come, come, uncle," I said, resolving to bring him to his bearings without further waste of time. "This is not a very genial welcome to the son of a long lost brother!"
"Well, well, you mustn't expect too much, my boy! You see for yourself the position I'm in. The old place shut up, going to rack and ruin. Poverty staring me in the face; cheated by everybody. Robbed right and left, not knowing which way to turn. But I'll not be put upon. They may call me what they please, but they can't get blood out of a stone. Can they? Answer me that now!"
I began to see it all as plain as a pikestaff. I mean, of course, the reason of the deserted and neglected house, and his extraordinary behaviour. I rose to my feet.
"Well, uncle—for my uncle you certainly are, whatever you may say to the contrary—I must be going. I'm sorry to find you like this, and from what you tell me I couldn't think of worrying you with my society! I want to see the old church and have a talk with the parson, and then I shall go off never to trouble you again."
He immediately became almost fulsome in his effort to detain me.
"No, no! You mustn't go like that. It's not hospitable. Besides, you mustn't talk with parson. He's a bad lot is parson—a hard man with a cruel tongue. Says terrible things about me does parson. But I'll be even with him yet. Don't speak to him, laddie, for the honour of the family. Now ye'll stay and take lunch with me—potluck, of course—I'm too poor to give ye much of a meal; and in the meantime I'll show ye the house and estate."
This was just what I wanted, though I did not look forward with very much pleasure to the prospect of lunch in his company.
With trembling hands he took down an old-fashioned hat from a peg and turned towards the door. When we had passed through it he carefully locked it and dropped the key into his breeches pocket. Then he led the way upstairs by the beautiful oak stair case I had so much admired on entering the house.
When we reached the first landing, which was of noble proportions and must have contained upon its walls nearly a hundred family portraits all coated with the dust of years, he approached a door and threw it open. A feeble light straggled in through the closed shutters, and revealed an almost empty room. In the centre stood a large canopied bed, of antique design. The walls were wainscoted, and the massive chimney-piece was carved with heraldic designs. I enquired what room this might be.
"This is where all our family were born," he answered. "'Twas here your father first saw the light of day."
I looked at it with a new interest. It seemed hard to believe that this was the birthplace of my own father, the man whom I remembered so well in a place and life so widely different. My companion noticed the look upon my face, and, I suppose, felt constrained to say something.
"Ah! James!" he said sorrowfully. "Ye were always a giddy, roving lad. I remember ye well." (He passed his hand across his eyes, to brush away a tear, I thought, but his next speech disabused me of any such notion.) "I remember that but a day or two before ye went ye blooded my nose in the orchard, and the very morning ye decamped ye borrowed half-a-crown of me, and never paid it back."
A sudden instinct prompted me to put my hand in my pocket. I took out half-a-crown, and handed it to him without a word. He took it, looked at it longingly, put it in his pocket, took it out again, ruminated a moment, and then reluctantly handed it back to me.
"Nay, nay! my laddie, keep your money, keep your money. Ye can send me the Catullus." Then to him self, unconscious that he was speaking his thoughts aloud. "It was a good edition, and I have no doubt would bring five shillings any day."
From one room we passed into another, and yet an other. They were all alike—shut up, dust-ridden, and forsaken. And yet with it all what a noble place it was—one which any man might be proud to call his own. And to think that it was all going to rack and ruin because of the miserly nature of its owner. In the course of our ramble I discovered that he kept but two servants, the old man who had admitted me to his presence and his wife, who, as that peculiar phrase has it, cooked and did for him. I discovered later that he had not paid either of them wages for some years past, and that they only stayed on with him because they were too poor and proud to seek shelter elsewhere.
When we had inspected the house we left it by a side door and crossed a courtyard to the stables. There the desolation was, perhaps, even more marked than before. The great clock on the tower above the main building had stopped at a quarter to ten on some long-forgotten day, and a spider now ran his web from hand to hand.
At our feet, between the stones, grass grew luxuriantly, thick moss covered the coping of the well, the doors were almost off their hinges, and rats scuttled through the empty loose boxes at our approach. So large was the place, that thirty horses might have found a lodging comfortably, and as far as I could gather, there was room for half as many vehicles in the coach-houses that bordered either side. The intense quiet was only broken by the cawing of the rooks in the giant elms overhead, the squeaking of the rats, and the low grumbling of my uncle's voice as he pointed out the ruin that was creeping over everything.
Before we had finished our inspection it was lunch time, and we returned to the house. The meal was served in the same room in which I had made my relative's acquaintance an hour before. It consisted, I discovered, of two meagre mutton chops and some homemade bread and cheese, plain and substantial fare enough in its way, but hardly the sort one would expect from the owner of such a house. For a beverage water was placed before us, but I could see that my host was deliberating as to whether he should stretch his generosity a point or two further.
Presently he rose, and with a muttered apology left the room, to return five minutes later carrying a small bottle carefully in his hand. This, with much deliberation and no small amount of sighing, he opened. It proved to be claret, and he poured out a glassful for me. As I was not prepared for such liberality, I thought something must be behind it, and in this I was not mistaken.
"Nephew," said he, "was it ten thousand pounds you mentioned as the amount of your fortune?"
I nodded. He looked at me shyly and cleared his throat to gain time for reflection. Then seeing that I had emptied my glass, he refilled it with another scarce concealed sigh, and leant back in his chair.
"And I understand you to say you are quite alone in the world, my boy?"
"Quite! Until I met you this morning I was unaware that I had a single relative on earth. Have I any more connections?"
"Not a soul—only Gwendoline."
"Gwendoline!" I cried, "and who may Gwendoline be?"
"My daughter—your cousin. My only child! Would you like to see her?"
"I had no idea you had a daughter. Of course I should like to see her!"
He left the table and rang the bell. The ancient man-servant answered the summons.
"Tell your wife to bring Miss Gwendoline to us."
"Miss Gwendoline here, sir? You do not mean it sure-lie, sir?"
"Numbskull! Numbskull! Numbskull!" cried the old fellow in an ecstasy of fury that seemed to spring up as suddenly as a squall between the islands, "bring her without another word or I'll be the death of you."
Without further remonstrance the old man left the room, and I demanded an explanation.
"Good servant, but an impudent rascal, sir! Of course you must see my daughter, my beautiful daughter Gwendoline. He's afraid you'll frighten her, I suppose! Ha! ha! Frighten my bashful pretty one. Ha! ha!"
Anything so supremely devilish as the dried-up mirth of this old fellow it would be impossible to imagine. His very laugh seemed as if it had to crack in his throat before it could pass his lips. What could his daughter be like, living in such a house, with such companions? While I was wondering I heard footsteps in the corridor, and then an old woman entered and curtseyed respectfully. My host rose and went over to the fireplace, where he stood with his hands behind his back and the same devilish grin upon his face.
"Well, where is my daughter?"
"Sir, do you really mean it?"
"Of course, I mean it. Where is she?"
In answer the old lady went to the door and called to someone in the hall.
"Come in, dearie. It's all right. Come in, do'ee now, that's a little dear."
But the girl made no sign of entering, and at last the old woman had to go out and draw her in. And then—but I hardly know how to write it. How shall I give a proper description of the—thing that entered.
She—if she it could be called—was about three feet high, dressed in a shapeless print costume. Her hair stood and hung in a tangled mass on her head, her eyes were too large for her face, and a great patch of beard grew on one cheek, descending almost to a level with her chin. Her features were all awry, and now and again she uttered little moans that were more like those of a wild beast than of a human being. In spite of the old woman's endeavours to make her do so, she would not venture from her side, but stood slobbering and moaning in the half dark of the doorway.
It was a ghastly sight, and one that nearly turned me sick with loathing. But the worst part of it all was the inhuman merriment of her father.
"There, there!" he cried; "had ever man such a lovely daughter? Isn't she a beauty? Isn't she fit to be a prince's bride? Isn't she fit to be the heiress of all this place? Won't the young dukes be asking her hand in marriage? Oh, you beauty! You—but there, take her away—take her away, I say, before I do her a mischief."
The words had no sooner left his mouth than the old woman seized her charge and bundled her out of the room, moaning as before. I can tell you there was at least one person in that apartment who was heartily glad to be rid of her.
When the door had closed upon them my host came back to his seat, and with another sigh refilled my glass. I wondered what was coming now. It was not long, however, before I found out.
"Now you know everything! You have seen my home, you have seen my poverty, and you have seen my daughter. What do you think of it all?"
"I don't know what to think!"
"Well, then I'll tell you. That child wants doctors; that child wants proper attendance. She can get neither here. I am too poor to help her in any way. You're rich by your own telling. I have to-day taken you into the bosom of my family, recognised you without doubting your assertions. Will you help me? Will you give one thousand pounds towards settling that child in life? With two thousand it could be managed?"
"Will I what?" I cried in utter amazement—dumbfounded by his impudence.
"Will you settle one thousand pounds upon her, to keep her out of her grave?"
"Not one penny!" I cried; "you miserable, miserly old wretch. And, what's more, I'll give you a bit of my mind."
And thereupon I did! Such a talking to as he'd never had in his life before, and one he'd not be likely to forget in a hurry. He sat all the time, white with fury, his eyes blazing, and his fingers quivering with impotent rage. When I had done he ordered me out of his house. I took him at his word, seized my hat, and strode across the hall through the front door, and out into the open air.
But I was not to leave the home of my ancestors without a parting shot. As I closed the front door behind me I heard a window go up, and on looking round there was the old fellow shaking his fist, at me from the second floor.
"Leave my house—leave my park, or I'll send for the constable to turn you off. Bah! You came to steal. You're no nephew of mine; I disown you. You're a common cheat—a swindler—an impostor! Go!"
I went. And, leaving the park, walked straight across to the rectory and enquired if I might see the clergyman. To him I told my tale, and, among other things, asked if anything could be done for the child—my cousin. He only shook his head.
"I fear it is hopeless, Mr. Hatteras. The old gentleman is a terrible character, and as he owns half the village, and every acre of the land hereabouts, we all live in fear and trembling of him. We have no shadow of a claim upon the child, and unless we can prove that he actually illtreats it, I am sorry to say I think there is nothing to be done."
So ended my first meeting with my father's family.
From the rectory I returned to my inn. What should I do? London was a desert to me now that my sweetheart was gone, and every other place seemed as bad. Then an advertisement on the wall of the bar parlour caught my eye:
"For Sale or Hire,
THE YACHT, "ENCHANTRESS."
Ten Tons.
Apply, Screw & Matchem, Bournemouth."
It was just the very thing. I was pining for a breath of sea air again. It was perfect weather for a cruise. I would go to Bournemouth and inspect the yacht at once, and, if she suited me, take her for a month or so. My mind made up, I routed out my Jehu, and set off for the train, never dreaming that by so doing I was taking the second step in that important chain of events that was to affect all the future of my life.