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diff --git a/22838.txt b/22838.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7fb3344 --- /dev/null +++ b/22838.txt @@ -0,0 +1,864 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Country Lodgings, by Mary Russell Mitford + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Country Lodgings + +Author: Mary Russell Mitford + +Release Date: October 2, 2007 [EBook #22838] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COUNTRY LODGINGS *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +COUNTRY LODGINGS + +By Mary Russell Mitford + + +Between two and three years ago, the following pithy advertisement +appeared in several of the London papers:-- + + "Country Lodgings.--Apartments to let in a large farm-house, + situate in a cheap and pleasant village, about forty miles + from London. Apply (if by letter post-paid) to A. B., No. 7, + Salisbury-street, Strand." + +Little did I think, whilst admiring in the broad page of the Morning +Chronicle the compendious brevity of this announcement, that the +pleasant village referred to was our own dear Aberleigh; and that the +first tenant of those apartments should be a lady whose family I had +long known, and in whose fortunes and destiny I took a more than common +interest! + +Upton Court was a manor-house of considerable extent, which had in +former times been the residence of a distinguished Catholic family, +but which, in the changes of property incident to our fluctuating +neighbourhood, was now "fallen from its high estate," and degraded +into the homestead of a farm so small, that the tenant, a yeoman of +the poorest class, was fain to eke out his rent by entering into an +agreement with a speculating Belford upholsterer, and letting off a part +of the fine old mansion in the shape of furnished lodgings. + +Nothing could be finer than the situation of Upton, placed on the summit +of a steep acclivity, looking over a rich and fertile valley to a range +of woody hills; nothing more beautiful than the approach from Belford, +the road leading across a common between a double row of noble oaks, the +ground on one side sinking with the abruptness of a north-country burn, +whilst a clear spring, bursting from the hill side, made its way to the +bottom between patches of shaggy underwood and a grove of smaller +trees; a vine-covered cottage just peeping between the foliage, and the +picturesque outline of the Court, with its old-fashioned porch, its long +windows, and its tall, clustered chimneys towering in the distance. It +was the prettiest prospect in all Aberleigh. + +The house itself retained strong marks of former stateliness, especially +in one projecting wing, too remote from the yard to be devoted to the +domestic purposes of the farmer's family. The fine proportions of the +lofty and spacious apartments, the rich mouldings of the ceilings, the +carved chimney-pieces, and the panelled walls, all attested the former +grandeur of the mansion; whilst the fragments of stained glass in the +windows of the great gallery, the half-effaced coats of arms over the +door-way, the faded family portraits, grim black-visaged knights, +and pale shadowy ladies, or the reliques of mouldering tapestry +that fluttered against the walls, and, above all, the secret chamber +constructed for the priest's hiding-place in days of Protestant +persecution, for in darker ages neither of the dominant churches was +free from that foul stain,--each of these vestiges of the manners and +the history of times long gone by appealed to the imagination, and +conspired to give a Mrs. Radcliffe-like, Castle-of-Udolpho-sort of +romance to the manor-house. Really, when the wind swept through the +overgrown espaliers of that neglected but luxuriant wilderness, the +terraced garden; when the screech-owl shrieked from the ivy which +clustered up one side of the walls, and "rats and mice, and such small +deer," were playing their pranks behind the wainscot, it would have +formed as pretty a locality for a supernatural adventure, as ever +decayed hunting lodge in the recesses of the Hartz, or ruined fortress +on the castled Rhine. Nothing was wanting but the ghost, and a ghost of +any taste would have been proud of such a habitation. + +Less like a ghost than the inhabitant who did arrive, no human being +well could be. + +Mrs. Cameron was a young widow. Her father, a Scotch officer, well-born, +sickly, and poor, had been but too happy to bestow the hand of his only +child upon an old friend and fellow-countryman, the principal clerk in +a government office, whose respectable station, easy fortune, excellent +sense, and super-excellent character, were, as he thought, and as +fathers, right or wrong, are apt to think, advantages more than +sufficient to counterbalance a disparity of years and appearance, +which some daughters might have thought startling,--the bride being +a beautiful girl of seventeen, the bridegroom a plain man of +seven-and-fifty. In this case, at least, the father was right. He lived +long enough to see that the young wife was unusually attached to her +kind and indulgent husband, and died, about a twelve-month after +the marriage, with the fullest confidence in her respectability and +happiness. Mr. Cameron did not long survive him. Before she was nineteen +the fair Helen Cameron was a widow and an orphan, with one beautiful +boy, to whom she was left sole personal guardian, an income being +secured to her ample for her rank in life, but clogged with the one +condition of her not marrying again. + +Such was the tenant, who, wearied of her dull suburban home, a red +brick house in the middle of a row of red brick houses; tired of the +loneliness which never presses so much upon the spirits as when left +solitary in the environs of a great city; pining for country liberty, +for green trees, and fresh air; much caught by the picturesque-ness +of Upton, and its mixture of old-fashioned stateliness and village +rusticity; and, perhaps, a little swayed by a desire to be near an +old friend and correspondent of the mother, to whose memory she was so +strongly attached, came in the budding spring time, the showery, flowery +month of April, to spend the ensuing summer at the Court. + +We, on our part, regarded her arrival with no common interest. To me +it seemed but yesterday since I had received an epistle of thanks for +a present of one of dear Mary Howitt's charming children's books,--an +epistle undoubtedly not indited by the writer,--in huge round text, +between double pencil lines, with certain small errors of orthography +corrected in a smaller hand above; followed in due time by postscripts +to her mother's letters, upon one single line, and the spelling much +amended; then by a short, very short note, in French; and at last, by a +despatch of unquestionable authenticity, all about doves and rabbits,--a +holiday scrawl, rambling, scrambling, and uneven, and free from +restraint as heart could desire. It appeared but yesterday since Helen +Graham was herself a child; and here she was, within two miles of us, a +widow and a mother! + +Our correspondence had been broken off by the death of Mrs. Graham when +she was about ten years old, and although I had twice called upon her +in my casual visits to town during the lifetime of Mr. Cameron; +and although these visits had been most punctually returned, it had +happened, as those things do happen in dear, provoking London, where one +is sure to miss the people one wishes most to see, that neither party +had ever been at home; so that we had never met, and I was at full +liberty to indulge in my foolish propensity of sketching in my mind's +eye a fancy portrait of my unknown friend. + +Il Penseroso is not more different from L'Allegro than was my +anticipation from the charming reality. Remembering well her mother's +delicate and fragile grace of figure and countenance, and coupling with +that recollection her own unprotected and solitary state, and somewhat +melancholy story, I had pictured to myself (as if contrast were not in +this world of ours much more frequent than congruity) a mild, pensive, +interesting, fair-haired beauty, tall, pale, and slender;--I found +a Hebe, an Euphrosyne,--a round, rosy, joyous creature, the very +impersonation of youth, health, sweetness, and gaiety, laughter flashing +from her hazel eyes, smiles dimpling round her coral lips, and the rich +curls of her chestnut hair,--for having been fourteen months a widow, +she had, of course, laid aside the peculiar dress,--the glossy ringlets +of her "bonny brown hair" literally bursting from the comb that +attempted to confine them. + +We soon found that her mind was as charming as her person. Indeed, her +face, lovely as it was, derived the best part of its loveliness from her +sunny temper, her frank and ardent spirit, her affectionate and generous +heart. It was the ever-varying expression, an expression which could +not deceive, that lent such matchless charms to her glowing and animated +countenance, and to the round and musical voice sweet as the spoken +voice of Malibran, or the still fuller and more exquisite tones of Mrs. +Jordan, which, true to the feeling of the moment, vibrated alike to the +wildest gaiety and the deepest pathos. In a word, the chief beauty of +Helen Cameron was her sensibility. It was the perfume to the rose. + +Her little boy, born just before his father's death, and upon whom she +doated, was a magnificent piece of still life. Calm, placid, dignified, +an infant Hercules for strength and fair proportions, grave as a +judge, quiet as a flower, he was, in point of age, exactly at that most +delightful period when children are very pleasant to look upon, and +require no other sort of notice whatsoever. Of course this state of +perfection could not be expected to continue. The young gentleman +would soon aspire to the accomplishments of walking and talking--and +then!--but as that hour of turmoil and commotion to which his mamma +looked forward with ecstacy was yet at some months distance, I contented +myself with saying of master Archy, with considerably less than the +usual falsehood, that which everybody does say of only children, that he +was the finest baby that ever was seen. + +We met almost every day. Mrs. Cameron was never weary of driving about +our beautiful lanes in her little pony-carriage, and usually called upon +us in her way home, we being not merely her oldest, but almost her only +friends; for lively and social as was her temper, there was a little +touch of shyness about her, which induced her rather to shun than to +covet the company of strangers. And indeed the cheerfulness of temper, +and activity of mind, which made her so charming an acquisition to a +small circle, rendered her independent of general society. Busy as a +bee, sportive as a butterfly, she passed the greater part of her time +in the open air, and having caught from me that very contagious and +engrossing passion, a love of floriculture, had actually undertaken +the operation of restoring the old garden at the Court--a coppice of +brambles, thistles, and weeds of every description, mixed with flowering +shrubs, and overgrown fruit-trees--to something like its original order. +The farmer, to be sure, had abandoned the job in despair, contenting +himself with growing his cabbages and potatoes in a field hard by. But +she was certain that she and her maid Martha, and the boy Bill, who +looked after her pony, would weed the paths, and fill the flower-borders +in no time. We should see; I had need take good care of my reputation, +for she meant her garden to beat mine. + +What progress Helen and her forces, a shatter-brain boy who did not know +a violet from a nettle, and a London-bred girl who had hardly seen +a rose-bush in her life, would have made in clearing this forest of +underwood, might easily be foretold. Accident, however, that frequent +favourer of bold projects, came to her aid in the shape of a more +efficient coadjutor. + +Late one evening the fair Helen arrived at our cottage with a face of +unwonted gravity. Mrs. Davies (her landlady) had used her very ill. +She had taken the west wing in total ignorance of there being other +apartments to let at the Court, or she would have secured them. And now +a new lodger had arrived, had actually taken possession of two rooms +in the centre of the house; and Martha, who had seen him, said he was a +young man, and a handsome man--and she herself a young woman unprotected +and alone!--It was awkward, very awkward! Was it not very awkward? What +was she to do? + +Nothing could be done that night; so far was clear; but we praised her +prudence, promised to call at Upton the next day, and if necessary, to +speak to this new lodger, who might, after all, be no very formidable +person; and quite relieved by the vent which she had given to her +scruples, she departed in her usual good spirits. + +Early the next morning she re-appeared. "She would not have the new +lodger disturbed for the world! He was a Pole. One doubtless of those +unfortunate exiles. He had told Mrs. Davies that he was a Polish +gentleman desirous chiefly of good air, cheapness, and retirement. Beyond +a doubt he was one of those unhappy fugitives. He looked grave, and +pale, and thoughtful, quite like a hero of romance. Besides, he was the +very person who a week before had caught hold of the reins when that +little restive pony had taken fright at the baker's cart, and nearly +backed Bill and herself into the great gravel-pit on Lanton Common. Bill +had entirely lost all command over the pony, and but for the stranger's +presence of mind, she did not know what would have become of them. +Surely I must remember her telling me the circumstance? Besides, he was +unfortunate! He was poor! He was an exile! She would not be the means of +driving him from the asylum which he had chosen for all the world!--No! +not for all my geraniums!" an expression which is by no means the +anti-climax that it seems--for in the eyes of a florist, and that +florist an enthusiast and a woman, what is this rusty fusty dusty musty +bit of earth, called the world, compared to a stand of bright flowers? + +And finding, upon inquiry, that M. Choynowski (so he called himself) had +brought a letter of recommendation from a respectable London tradesman, +and that there was every appearance of his being, as our fair young +friend had conjectured, a foreigner in distress, my father not only +agreed that it would be a cruel attempt to drive him from his new +home, (a piece of tyranny which, even in this land of freedom, might, +I suspect, have been managed in the form of an offer of double rent, by +that grand despot, money,) but resolved to offer the few attentions in +our poor power, to one whom every look and word proclaimed him to be, in +the largest sense of the word, a gentleman. + +My father had seen him, not on his visit of inquiry, but on a few +days after, bill-hook in hand, hacking away manfully at the briers and +brambles of the garden. My first view of him was in a position even +less romantic, assisting a Belford tradesman to put up a stove in the +nursery. + +One of Mrs. Cameron's few causes of complaint in her country lodgings +had been the tendency to smoke in that important apartment. We all know +that when those two subtle essences, smoke and wind, once come to do +battle in a wide, open chimney, the invisible agent is pretty sure to +have the best of the day, and to drive his vapoury enemy at full speed +before him. M. Choynowski, who by this time had established a gardening +acquaintance, not merely with Bill and Martha, but with their fair +mistress, happening to see her, one windy evening, in a paroxysm of +smoky distress, not merely recommended a stove, after the fashion of the +northern nations' notions, but immediately walked into Belford to give +his own orders to a respectable ironmonger; and they were in the very +act of erecting this admirable accessary to warmth and comfort (really +these words are synonymous) when I happened to call. + +I could hardly have seen him under circumstances better calculated +to display his intelligence, his delicacy, or his good-breeding. The +patience, gentleness, and kind feeling, with which he contrived at once +to excuse and to remedy certain blunders made by the workmen in the +execution of his orders, and the clearness with which, in perfectly +correct and idiomatic English, slightly tinged with a foreign accent, he +explained the mechanical and scientific reasons for the construction +he had suggested, gave evidence at once of no common talent, and of a +considerate-ness and good-nature in its exercise more valuable than all +the talent in the world. If trifling and every-day occurrences afford, +as I believe they do, the surest and safest indications of character, we +could have no hesitation in pronouncing upon the amiable qualities of M. +Choynowski. + +In person he was tall and graceful, and very noble-looking. His head +was particularly intellectual, and there was a calm sweetness about the +mouth that was singularly prepossessing. Helen had likened him to a hero +of romance. In my eyes he bore much more plainly the stamp of a man of +fashion--of that very highest fashion which is too refined for finery, +too full of self-respect for affectation. Simple, natural, mild, +and gracious, the gentle reserve of his manner added, under the +circumstances, to the interest which he inspired. Somewhat of that +reserve continued even after our acquaintance had ripened into intimacy. + +He never spoke of his own past history, or future prospects, shunned +all political discourse, and was with difficulty drawn into conversation +upon the scenery and manners of the North of Europe. He seemed afraid of +the subject. + +Upon general topics, whether of literature or art, he was remarkably +open and candid. He possessed in an eminent degree the talent of +acquiring languages for which his countrymen are distinguished, and had +made the best use of those keys of knowledge. I have never met with any +person whose mind was more richly cultivated, or who was more calculated +to adorn the highest station. And here he was wasting life in a secluded +village in a foreign country! What would become of him after his +present apparently slender resources should be exhausted, was painful +to imagine. The more painful, that the accidental discovery of the +direction of a letter had disclosed his former rank. It was part of an +envelope addressed, "A Monsieur Monsieur le Comte Choynowski," and left +as a mark in a book, all except the name being torn off. But the fact +needed no confirmation. All his habits and ways of thinking bore marks +of high station. What would become of him? + +It was but too evident that another calamity was impending over the +unfortunate exile. Although most discreet in word and guarded in manner, +every action bespoke his devotion to his lovely fellow inmate. Her +wishes were his law. His attentions to her little boy were such as +young men rarely show to infants except for love of the mother; and the +garden, that garden abandoned since the memory of man, (for the Court, +previous to the arrival of the present tenant, had been for years +uninhabited,) was, under his exertions and superintendence, rapidly +assuming an aspect of luxuriance and order. It was not impossible but +Helen might realise her playful vaunt, and beat me in my own art after +all. + +John (our gardening lad) was as near being jealous as possible, and, +considering the estimation in which John is known to hold our doings in +the flower way, such jealousy must be accepted as the most flattering +testimony to his rival's success. To go beyond our garden was, in John's +opinion, to be great indeed! + +Every thought of the Count Choynowski was engrossed by the fair Helen; +and we saw with some anxiety that she in her turn was but too sensible +of his attentions, and that everything belonging to his country assumed +in her eyes an absorbing importance. She sent to London for all the +books that could be obtained respecting Poland; ordered all the journals +that interested themselves in that interesting though apparently +hopeless cause; turned liberal,--she who had been reared in the lap +of conservatism, and whom my father used laughingly to call the little +Tory;--turned Radical, turned Republican,--for she far out-soared the +moderate doctrines of whiggism in her political flights; denounced +the Emperor Nicholas as a tyrant; spoke of the Russians as a nation of +savages; and in spite of the evident uneasiness with which the Polish +exile listened to any allusion to the wrongs of his country, for he +never mingled in such discussions, omitted no opportunity of proving her +sympathy by declaiming with an animation and vehemence, as becoming +as anything so like scolding well could be, against the cruelty and +wickedness of the oppressors of that most unfortunate of nations. + +It was clear that the peace of both was endangered, perhaps gone; and +that it had become the painful duty of friendship to awaken them from +their too bewitching dream. + +We had made an excursion, on one sunny summer's day, as far as the +Everley Hills. Helen, always impassioned, had been wrought into a +passionate recollection of her own native country, by the sight of the +heather just bursting into its purple bloom; and M. Choynowski, usually +so self-possessed, had been betrayed into the expression of a kindred +feeling by the delicious odour of the fir plantations, which served to +transport him in imagination to the balm-breathing forests of the North. +This sympathy was a new, and a strong bond of union between two spirits +but too congenial; and I determined no longer to defer informing the +gentleman, in whose honour I placed the most implicit reliance, of the +peculiar position of our fair friend. + +Detaining him, therefore, to coffee, (we had taken an early dinner in +the fir grove,) and suffering Helen to go home to her little boy, +I contrived, by leading the conversation to capricious wills, to +communicate to him, as if accidentally, the fact of her forfeiting her +whole income in the event of a second marriage.--He listened with grave +attention. + +"Is she also deprived," inquired he, "of the guardianship of her +child?" + +"No. But as the sum allowed for the maintenance is also to cease from +the day of her nuptials, and the money to accumulate until he is of age, +she would, by marrying a poor man, do irreparable injury to her son, by +cramping his education. It is a grievous restraint." + +He made no answer. And after two or three attempts at conversation, +which his mind was too completely pre-occupied to sustain, he bade us +good-night, and returned to the Court. The next morning we heard that +he had left Upton and gone, they said, to Oxford. And I could not help +hoping that he had seen his danger, and would not return until the peril +was past. + +I was mistaken. In two or three days he returned, exhibiting less +self-command than I had been led to anticipate. The fair lady, too, I +took occasion to remind of this terrible will, in hopes, since he would +not go, that she would have had the wisdom to have taken her departure. +No such thing; neither party would move a jot I might as well have +bestowed my counsel upon the two stone figures on the great gateway. And +heartily sorry, and a little angry, I resolved to let matters take their +own course. + +Several weeks passed on, when one morning she came to me in the sweetest +confusion, the loveliest mixture of bashfulness and joy. + +"He loves me!" she said; "he has told me that he loves me!" + +"Well?" + +"And I have referred him to you. That clause----" + +"He already knows it." And then I told her, word for word, what had +passed. + +"He knows of that clause, and he still wishes to marry me! He loves +me for myself! Loves me, knowing me to be a beggar! It is true, pure, +disinterested affection!" + +"Beyond all doubt it is. And if you could live upon true love----" + +"Oh, but where _that_ exists, and youth, and health, and strength, and +education, may we not be well content to try to earn a living together? +think of the happiness comprised in that word! I could give +lessons;--I am sure that I could. I would teach music, and drawing, +and dancing--anything for him! or we could keep a school here at +Upton--anywhere with him!" + +"And I am to tell him this?" + +"Not the words!" replied she, blushing like a rose at her own +earnestness; "not those words!" + +Of course, it was not very long before M. le Comte made his appearance. + +"God bless her, noble, generous creature!" cried he, when I had +fulfilled my commission. "God for ever bless her!" + +"And you intend, then, to take her at her word, and set up school +together?" exclaimed I, a little provoked at his unscrupulous acceptance +of her proffered sacrifice. "You really intend to keep a lady's +boarding-school here at the Court?" + +"I intend to take her at her word, most certainly," replied he, very +composedly; "but I should like to know, my good friend, what has put it +into her head, and into yours, that if Helen marries me she must needs +earn her own living? Suppose I should tell you," continued he, smiling, +"that my father, one of the richest of the Polish nobility, was a +favourite friend of the Emperor Alexander; that the Emperor Nicholas +continued to me the kindness which his brother had shown to my father, +and that I thought, as he had done, (gratitude and personal attachment +apart,) that I could better serve my country, and more effectually +ameliorate the condition of my tenants and vassals, by submitting to +the Russian government, than by a hopeless struggle for national +independence? Suppose that I were to confess, that chancing in the +course of a three-years' travel to walk through this pretty village +of yours, I saw Helen, and could not rest until I had seen more of +her;--supposing all this, would you pardon the deception, or rather the +allowing you to deceive yourselves? Oh, if you could but imagine how +delightful it is to a man, upon whom the humbling conviction has been +forced, that his society is courted and his alliance sought for the +accidents of rank and fortune, to feel that he is, for once in his life, +honestly liked, fervently loved for himself, such as he is, his own very +self,--if you could but fancy how proud he is of such friendship, how +happy in such love, you would pardon him, I am sure you would; you would +never have the heart to be angry. And now that the Imperial consent to +a foreign union--the gracious consent for which I so anxiously waited to +authorize my proposals--has at length arrived, do you think," added the +Count, with some seriousness, "that there is any chance of reconciling +this dear Helen to my august master? or will she still continue a +rebel?" + +At this question, so gravely put, I laughed outright "Why really, my +dear Count, I cannot pretend to answer decidedly for the turn that +the affair might take; but my impression--to speak in that idiomatic +English, more racy than elegant, which you pique yourself upon +understanding--my full impression is, that Helen having for no reason +upon earth but her interest in you, _ratted_ from Conservatism to +Radicalism, will for the same cause lose no time in ratting back again. +A woman's politics, especially if she be a young woman, are generally +the result of feeling rather than of opinion, and our fair friend +strikes me as a most unlikely subject to form an exception to the rule. +However, if you doubt my authority in this matter, you have nothing to +do but to inquire at the fountain-head. There she sits, in the arbour. +Go and ask." + +And before the words were well spoken, the lover, radiant with +happiness, was at the side of his beloved. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Country Lodgings, by Mary Russell Mitford + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COUNTRY LODGINGS *** + +***** This file should be named 22838.txt or 22838.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/8/3/22838/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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