Arminell, Vol. 1
“I mean, miss, the mine that is being stopped. Her dear late ladyship would never have allowed it.”
“But it runs under the house.”
“Oh, miss, nothing of the sort. That is what Mr. Macduff says, because he is trying to persuade his lordship to close the mine. It is not for me to speak against him, but he is much under the management of Mrs. Macduff, who is a very fine lady; and because the miners don’t salute her, she gives Macduff no rest, day or night, till he gets his lordship to disperse the men. My lord listens to him, and does not see who is speaking through his lips. My brother James is a comical-minded man, and he said one day that Mr. Macduff was like the automaton chess-player that was once exhibited in London. Every one thought the wax doll played, but there was a young girl hid in a compartment under the table, and she directed all the movements of the chess-player.”
“I really cannot interfere between my lord and his agent, or intercept communications between Mr. Chess-player and Mrs. Prompter.”
“Oh, no, miss; I never meant anything of the sort. I was only thinking how different it would have been for us if my lady – I mean my late lady – were here. She was a good friend to us. Oh, miss, I shall never forget when I was ill of the typhus, and everyone was afraid to come near us, how my good lady came here, carrying a sheet to the window, and tapped, and gave it in, because she thought we might be short of linen for my bed. I’ve never forgot that. I keep that sheet to this day, and I shall not part with it; it shall serve as my winding sheet. The dear good lady was so thoughtful for the poor. But times are changed. It is not for me to cast blame, or to say that my lady as now is, is not good, but there are different kinds of goodnesses as there are cabbage roses and Marshal Neils.”
Arminell was interested and touched.
“You knew my dear mother well?”
“I am but a humble person, and it is unbecoming of me to say it, though I have a brother who is a gentleman, who associates with the best in the land, and I am better born than you may suppose, seeing that I married a captain of a manganese mine. I beg pardon – I was saying that her ladyship almost made a friend of me, though I say it who ought not. Still, I had feelings and education above my station, and that perhaps led her to consult me when she came here to Orleigh and knew nothing of the place or of the people, and might have been imposed on, but for me. After I recovered of the scarlet fever – ”
“I thought it was typhus?”
“It began scarlet and ended typhus. Those fevers, miss, as my brother James says in his droll way, are like tradesmen, they make jobs for each other, and hand on the patient.”
“How long was that after Mr. Jingles – I mean your son, Mr. Giles Saltren, was born?”
“Oh,” – Mrs. Saltren looked about her rather vaguely – “not over long. Will you condescend to step indoors and see my little parlour, where I think, miss, you have never been yet, though it is scores and scores of times your dear mother came there.”
“I will come in,” said Arminell readily. Her heart warmed to the woman who had been so valued by her mother.
The house was tidy, dismal indeed, and small, but what made it most dismal was the strain after grandeur, the gay table-cover, the carpet with large pattern, the wall paper black with huge bunches of red and white roses on it, out of keeping with the dimensions of the room.
Arminell looked round and felt a rising sense of the absurdity, the affectation, the incongruity, that at any other moment would have made her laugh inwardly, though too well-bred to give external sign that she ridiculed what she saw.
“Ah miss!” said Mrs. Saltren, “you’re looking at that beautiful book on the table. My lady gave it me herself, and I value it, not because of what it contains, nor for the handsome binding, but because of her who gave it to me.”
Arminell took up the book and opened it.
“But – ” she said, – “the date. It is an annual, published three years after my mother’s death.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon, miss, I did not say my late lady gave it me. I said, my lady. I know how to distinguish between them. If it had been given me by your dear mother, who is gone, my late lady, do you suppose it would be lying here? I would not keep it in the room where I sit but rarely, but have it in my bed-chamber, where I could fold my hands over it when I pray.”
“I should like,” said Arminell, “to see the sheet that my poor dear mother gave you, and which you cherish so fondly, to wrap about you in the grave.”
“With pleasure,” said Mrs. Saltren. “No – I won’t say with pleasure, for it calls up sad recollections, and yet, miss, there is pleasure in thinking of the goodness of that dear lady who is gone. Lor! miss, it did seem dreadful that my dear lady when on earth didn’t take precedency over the daughter of an earl, but now, in heaven, she ranks above marchionesses.”
Then she asked Arminell to take a chair, and went slowly upstairs to search for the sheet. While she was absent the girl looked round her, and now her lips curled with derision at the grotesque strain after refinement and luxury which were unattainable as a whole, and only reached in inharmonious scraps and disconnected patches.
This was the home of Jingles! What a change for him, from these mean surroundings, this tasteless affectation, to the stateliness and smoothness of life at Orleigh Park! How keenly he must feel the contrast when he returned home! Had her father dealt rightly by the young man, in giving him culture beyond his position? It is said that a man has sat in an oven whilst a chop has been done, and has eaten the chop, without being himself roasted, but then the temperature of the oven was gradually raised and gradually lowered. Young Saltren had jumped into the oven out of a cellar and passed every now and then back again to the latter. This alteration of temperatures would kill him.
Some time elapsed before Mrs. Saltren returned. She descended the stair slowly, sighing, with the sheet over her arm.
“You need not fear to catch the fever from it, miss,” she said, “it has been washed many times since it was used – with my tears.”
Arminell’s heart was full. She took the sheet and looked at it. How good, how considerate her mother had been. And what a touch of real feeling this was in the faithful creature, to cherish the token of her mother’s kindness.
The young are sentimental, and are incapable of distinguishing true feeling from false rhodomontade.
“Why!” exclaimed Arminell, “it has a mark in the corner S.S, – does not that stand for your husband’s initials?”
The woman seemed a little taken aback, but soon recovered herself.
“It may be so. But it comes about like this. I asked Stephen to mark the sheet for me with a double L. for Louisa, Lady Lamerton, and a coronet over, but he was so scrupulous, he said it might be supposed I had carried it away from the park, and that as the sheet was given to us, we’d have it marked as our own. My husband is as particular about his conscience as one must be with the bones in a herring. It was Bond’s marking ink he used,” said Mrs. Saltren, eager to give minute circumstances that might serve as confirmation of her story, “and there was a stretcher of wood, a sort of hoop, that strained the linen whilst it was being written on. If you have any doubt, miss, about my story, you’ve only to ask for a bottle of Bond’s marking ink and you will see that they have circular stretchers – which is a proof that this is the identical sheet my lady gave me. Besides, there is a number under the letters.”
“Yes, seven.”
“That was my device. It rhymes with heaven, where my lady, – I mean my late lady is now taking precedence even of marchionesses.”
Arminell said nothing. The woman’s mind was like her parlour, full of incongruities.
“Look about you, miss,” continued Mrs. Saltren, “though I say it, who ought not, this is a pretty and comfortable house with a certain elegance which I have introduced into it. My brother, James Welsh, is a gentleman, and writes a great deal. You may understand how troubled my husband is at the thought of leaving it.”
“But – why leave?”
“Because, Miss Inglett, he will have no work here. He will be driven to go to America, and unfortunately he has expended his savings in doing up the house and planting the garden. I am too delicate to risk the voyage, so I shall be separated from my husband. My son Giles has already been taken from me.” Then she began to cry.
A pair of clove-pinks glowed in Arminell’s cheeks. She could hardly control her voice. These poor Saltrens were badly used; her father was to blame. He was the occasion of their trouble.
“It must not be,” said Arminell, starting up, “I will go at once and speak to his lordship.”
CHAPTER VII
A VISION
Without another word Arminell left the cottage. As she did so, she passed Captain Saltren speaking to Captain Tubb. The former scarce touched his hat, but the latter saluted her with profound respect.
When she was out of hearing, Saltren, whose dark eyes had pursued her, said in a low vibrating tone —
“There she goes – one of the Gilded Clique.”
“I think you might have shown her more respect, man,” said Tubb. “Honour to whom honour is due, and she is honourable.”
“Why should I show respect to her? If she were a poor girl earning her bread, I would salute her with true reverence, for God hath chosen the poor, rich in faith. But is it not written that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for the rich to enter into heaven?”
“You’ve queer fancies, Cap’n.”
“They are not fancies,” answered Saltren; “as it is written, so I speak.” Then he hesitated. Something was working in his mind, and for a moment he doubted whether to speak it to one whom he did not regard as of the elect.
But Saltren was not a man who could restrain himself under an over-mastering conviction, and he burst forth in a torrent of words, and as he spoke his sombre eyes gleamed with excitement, and sparks lit up and flashed in them. Soft they usually were, and dreamy, but now, all at once they kindled into vehement life.
“I tell you, Tubb, the Lord hath spoken. The last days are at hand. I read my Bible and I read my newspaper, and I know that the aristocracy are a scandal and a burden to the country. Now the long-suffering of heaven will not tarry. It has been revealed to me that they are doomed to destruction.”
“Revealed to you!”
“Yes, to me, an unworthy creature, as none know better than myself, full of errors and faults and blindness – and yet – to me. I was wrestling in spirit near the water’s edge, thinking of these things, when, suddenly, I heard a voice from heaven calling me.”
“How – by name? Did it call you Cap’n?”
Saltren hesitated. “I can’t mind just now whether it said, Saltren, Saltren! or whether it said Mister, or whether Cap’n, or Stephen. I dare say I shall remember by-and-by when I come to turn it over in my mind. But all has come on me so freshly, so suddenly, that I am still dazed with the revelations.”
“Go on,” said Tubb, shaking his head dubiously.
“And when I looked up, I saw a book come flying down to me out of heaven, and I held up my hands to receive it, but it went by me into the water hard by where I was.”
“Somebody chucked it at you,” exclaimed the practical Tubb.
“I tell you, it came down out of heaven,” said Saltren, impatiently. “You have no faith. I saw the book, and before I could lay hold of it, it went under the raft – I mean, it went down, down in the water, and I beheld it no more.”
“What sort of a book was it?”
“I saw it but for a moment, as it floated with the back upwards, before it disappeared. There was a head on it and a title. I could not make out whose head, but I read the title, and the title was clear.”
“What was it?”
“‘The Gilded Clique.’”
“Clique! what was that?”
“A society, a party, and I know what was meant.”
“Some one must have chucked the book,” again reasoned the prosaic Tubb.
“It was not chucked, it fell. I was wrong to tell you of my vision. The revelation is not for such as you. I will say no more.”
“And pray, what do you make out of this queer tale?” asked the captain of the lime quarry with ill-disguised incredulity.
“Is it not plain as the day? I have had revealed to me that the doom of the British aristocracy is pronounced, the House of Lords, the privileged class, – in a word, the whole Gilded Clique?”
Tubb shook his head.
“You’ll never satisfy me it weren’t chucked,” he said. “But, to change the subject, Saltren. You have read and studied more than I have. Can you tell me what sort of a plant Quinquagesima is, and whether it is grown from seed, or cuttings, or layers?”
CHAPTER VIII
ABREAST
As Arminell left Chillacot she did not observe the scant courtesy shown her by Captain Saltren. She was brimming with sympathy for him in his trouble, with tender feeling for the wife who had so loved her mother, and for the son who was out of his proper element. It did not occur to her that possibly she might be regarded by Saltren with disfavour. She had not gone many paces from the house before she came on a middle-aged couple, walking in the sun, abreast, arm in arm, the man smoking a pipe, which he removed and concealed in the pocket of his old velvet shooting coat, when he saw Arminell, and then he respectfully removed his hat. The two had been at church. Arminell knew them by sight, but she had not spoken at any time to either. The man, she had heard, had once been a gamekeeper on the property, but had been dismissed, the reason forgotten, probably dishonesty. The woman was handsome, with bright complexion, and very clear, crystalline eyes, a boldly cut nose, and well curved lips. The cast of her features was strong, yet the expression of the face was timid, patient and pleading.
She had fair, very fair hair, hair that would imperceptibly become white, so that on a certain day, those who knew her would exclaim, “Why Joan! who would have thought it? Your hair is white.” But some years must pass before the bleaching of Joan’s head was accomplished. She was only forty, and was hale and strongly built.
She unlinked her arm from that of her companion and came curtseying to Arminell, who saw that she wore a hideous crude green kerchief, and in her bonnet, magenta bows.
“Do you want me?” she asked coldly. The unæsthetic colours offended her.
“Please, my lady!”
“I am not ‘my lady.’”
Joan was abashed, and retreated a step.
“I am Miss Inglett. What do you want?”
“I was going to make so bold, my la – I mean, miss – .” Joan became crimson with shame at so nearly transgressing again. “This is Samuel Ceely.”
Arminell nodded. She was impatient, and wanted to be at home. She looked at the man whose pale eyes quivered.
“Is he your husband?” asked Arminell.
“No, miss, not exactly. Us have been keeping company twenty years – no more. How many years is it since us first took up wi’ each other, Samuel?”
“Nigh on twenty-two. Twenty-two.”
“Go along, Samuel, not so much as that. Well, miss, us knowed each other when Samuel was a desperate wicked (i. e. lively) chap. Then Samuel was keeper at the park. There was some misunderstanding. The head-keeper was to blame and laid it on Samuel. He’s told me so scores o’ times. Then came his first accident. When was that, Samuel?”
“When I shooted my hand away? Nineteen years come next Michaelmas.”
“Were you keeper, then?” asked Arminell.
“No, miss, not exactly.”
“Then, how came you with the gun?”
“By accident, quite by accident.”
Joan hastily interfered. It would not do to enquire too closely what he was doing on that occasion.
“When was your second accident, Samuel?”
“Fifteen years agone.”
“And what was that?” asked Joan.
“I falled off a waggon.”
Arminell interrupted. This was the scene of old Gobbo and young Gobbo reenacted. It must be brought to an end. “Tell thou the tale,” she said with an accent of impatience in her intonation, addressing Joan. “What is your name?”
“Joan Melhuish, miss. Us have been sweethearts a great many years; and, miss, the poor old man can’t do a sight of work, because of his leg, and because of his hand. But, lor-a-mussy, miss, his sweepings is beautiful. You could eat your dinner, miss, off a stable floor, where Samuel has swept. Or the dog-kennels, miss, – if Samuel were but with the dogs, he’d be as if in Paradise. He do love dogs dearly, do Samuel. He’s that conscientious, miss, that if he was sound asleep, and minded in his dream there was a bit o’ straw lying where he ought to ha’ swept clean, or that the dogs as needed it, hadn’t had brimstone put in their water, he’d get up out o’ the warmest bed – not, poor chap, that he’s got a good one to lie on – to give the dog his brimstone, or pick up thickey (that) straw.”
She was so earnest, so sincere, that her story appealed to Arminell’s feelings. Was the dust that the witch, Patience, had cast on her head, taking effect and opening her eyes to the sorrows and trials of the underground folk?
“Please, miss! It ain’t only sweeping he does beautifully. If a dog has fleas, he’ll wash him and comb him – and, miss, he can skin a hare or a rabbit beautiful – beautiful! I don’t mean to deny that Samuel takes time about it,” she assumed an apologetic tone, “but then, miss, which be best, to be slow and do a thing thorough, or be quick and half do it? Now, miss, what I was going to make so bold as to say was, Samuel do be a-complaining of the rheumatics. They’ve a-took’n bad across the loins, and it be bad for him out in all weathers weeding turnips, and doing them odd and dirty jobs, men won’t do now, nor wimen n’other, what wi’ the advance of education, and the franchise, and I did think it would be wonderful good and kind o’ you, miss, if you’d put in a word for Samuel, just to have the sweeping o’ the back yard, or the pulling of rabbits, or the cleaning up of dishes, he’d make a rare kitchen-maid, and could scour the dogs as well, and keep ’em from scratching over much. Lord, miss! what the old man do want is nourishing food and dryth (dry air) over and about him.”
“I’ll speak to the housekeeper – no, I will speak to her ladyship about the matter. I have no doubt something can be done for Samuel.”
Joan curtsied, and her honest face shone with satisfaction.
“Lord A’mighty bless you, miss! I have been that concerned about the old man – he is but fifty, but looks older, because of his two accidents. H’s shy o’ asking for hisself, because he was dismissed by the late lord; the upper keeper laid things on him he’d no right to. He’s a man, miss, who don’t set no store on his self, because he has lost a thumb and two fingers, and got a dislocated thigh. But there’s more in Samuel than folks fancy, I ought to know best, us have kept company twenty years.”
“Are you ever going to get married?”
Joan shook her head.
“But how is it,” asked Arminell, “that you have not been married yet, after courting so long?”
“First the bursted gun spoiled the chance – but Lord, miss, though he’s lost half his hand, he is as clever with what remains as most men with two.”
“He was unable to work for his living, I suppose?”
“And next he were throwed down off a waggon, and he’s been lame ever since. But, Lord, miss! he do get along with the bad leg, beautiful, quite beautiful.”
“You are not nearer your marriage than you were twenty years ago,” said Arminell, pitifully.
“I have been that troubled for Samuel,” said Joan, not replying, but continuing her own train of thought; “I’ve feared he’d be took off to the union, and then the old man would ha’ died, not having me to walk out with of a Sunday and bring him a little ’baccy. And I – I’d ha’ nort in the world to live for, or to hoard my wages for, wi’out my old Samuel.”
The woman paused, turned round and looked at the feeble, disabled wreck of a man, who put his crippled hand to his forelock and saluted.
“How came he to fall off the waggon?” asked Arminell.
“Well, miss, it came of my being on the waggon,” explained Ceely, “I couldn’t have falled off otherwise.”
“Were you asleep? Was the waggon in motion?”
Joan hastily interfered, it would not do for too close an enquiry to be made into how it came that Samuel was incapable of keeping himself firm on the waggon; any more than it would do to go too narrowly into the occasion of his shooting off his hand.
“What was it, miss, you was a-saying? Nearer our marriage? That is as the Lord wills. But – miss – us two have set our heads on one thing. I don’t mind telling you, as you’re so kind as to promise you’d get Samuel a situation as kitchen-maid.”
“I did not promise that!”
“Well, miss, you said you’d speak about it, and I know well enough that what you speak about will be done.”
“What is it you have set your heart on? Can I help you to that?”
“You, miss! O no, only the Lord. You see, miss, I don’t earn much, and Samuel next to nothing at all, so our ever having a home of our own do seem a long way off. But there’s the north side of the church, where Samuel’s two fingers and thumb be laid, us can go to them. And us have bespoke to the sexton the place whereabout the fingers and thumb lie. I ha’ planted rosemary there, and know where it be, and no one else can be laid there, as his fingers and thumb be resting there. And when Samuel dies, or I die, whichever goes first is to lie beside the rosemary bush over his fingers and thumb, and when the t’other follows, Samuel or I will be laid beside the other, with only the fingers and thumb and rosemary bush between us, – ’cos us ain’t exactly married – and ’twouldn’t be respectable wi’out. ’Twill be no great expense,” she added apologetically.
When Joan Melhuish had told all her story, Arminell no longer saw the crude green kerchief and the magenta bows. She saw only the face of the poor woman, the crystal-clear eyes in which light came, and then moisture, and the trembling lips that told more by their tremor than by the words that passed over them, of the deep stirring in the humble, patient heart.
How often it is with us that, looking at others, who belong to an inferior, or only a distinct class, we observe nothing but verdigris green kerchiefs and magenta bows, something out of taste, jarring with our refinement, ridiculous from our point of view. Then we talk of the whole class as supremely barbarous, grotesque and separate from us by leagues of intervening culture, a class that puts verdigris kerchiefs on and magenta bows, as our forefathers before Christ painted their bodies with woad. And we argue – these people have no human instincts, no tender emotions, no delicate feelings – how can they have, wearing as they do green ties and magenta bows? Have the creatures eyes? Surely not when they wear such unæsthetic colours. Hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Not with emerald-green kerchiefs. If we prick them they do not bleed. If we tickle they cannot laugh. If we poison them, they will not die. If we wrong them – bah! They wear magenta bows and are ridiculous.
It needs, may be, a sod taken from their soil, a little dust from their hearth shaken over our heads to open our eyes to see that they have like passions and weaknesses with ourselves.
Arminell, without speaking, turned to Samuel, and looked at him.
What was there in this poor creature to deserve such faithful love? He was a ruin, and not the ruin of a noble edifice, but of a commonplace man. There was no beauty in him, no indication of talent in his face, no power in the moulding of his brow. He looked absurd in his short, shabby, patched, velveteen coat, his breeches and gaiters on distorted limbs. His attitudes with the ill-set thigh were ungainly. And yet – this handsome woman had given up her life to him.
“He don’t seem much to you, perhaps, miss,” said Joan, who eagerly scanned Arminell’s face, and with the instinctive jealousy of love discovered her thoughts. “But, miss, what saith the Scripture? Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature. You should ha’ seen Samuel before his accidents. Then he was of a ruddy countenance, and goodly to look on. I always see him as he was.”
She still searched Arminell’s face for token of admiration.
“Lord, miss! tastes differ. Some like apples and others like onions. For my part, I do like a hand wi’ two fingers on it, it is uncommon, it is properly out o’ the way as hands are. And then, miss, Samuel do seem to me to ha’ laid hold of eternity wi’ two fingers and a thumb, having sent them on before him, and that is more than can be said of most of us poor sinners here below.”
