Mr Gilfil's Love Story Read online

smells. It was as bad as having a husband with an asthma. Why did not Sir

  Christopher take a house for her at Bath, or, at least, if he must spend his

  time in overlooking workmen, somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Manor? This

  pity was quite gratuitous, as the most plentiful pity always is; for though Lady

  Cheverel did not share her husband's architectural enthusiasm, she had too

  rigorous a view of a wife's duties, and too profound a deference for Sir

  Christopher, to regard submission as a grievance. As for Sir Christopher, he was

  perfectly indifferent to criticism. 'An obstinate, crotchety man,' said his

  neighbours. But I, who have seen Cheverel Manor, as he bequeathed it to his

  heirs, rather attribute that unswerving architectural purpose of his, conceived

  and carried out through long years of systematic personal exertion, to something

  of the fervour of genius, as well as inflexibility of will; and in walking

  through those rooms, with their splendid ceilings and their meagre furniture,

  which tell how all the spare money had been absorbed before personal comfort was

  thought of, I have felt that there dwelt in this old English baronet some of

  that sublime spirit which distinguishes art from luxury, and worships beauty

  apart from self-indulgence.

  While Cheverel Manor was growing from ugliness into beauty, Caterina too was

  growing from a little yellow bantling into a whiter maiden, with no positive

  beauty indeed, but with a certain light airy grace, which, with her large

  appealing dark eyes, and a voice that, in its low-toned tenderness, recalled the

  love-notes of the stock-dove, gave her a more than usual charm. Unlike the

  building, however, Caterina's development was the result of no systematic or

  careful appliances. She grew up very much like the primroses, which the gardener

  is not sorry to see within his enclosure, but takes no pains to cultivate. Lady

  Cheverel taught her to read and write, and say her catechism; Mr Warren, being a

  good accountant, gave her lessons in arithmetic, by her ladyship's desire; and

  Mrs Sharp initiated her in all the mysteries of the needle. But, for a long

  time, there was no thought of giving her any more elaborate education. It is

  very likely that to her dying day Caterina thought the earth stood still, and

  that the sun and stars moved round it; but so, for the matter of that, did

  Helen, and Dido, and Desdemona, and Juliet; whence I hope you will not think my

  Caterina less worthy to be a heroine on that account. The truth is, that, with

  one exception, her only talent lay in loving; and there, it is probable, the

  most astronomical of women could not have surpassed her. Orphan and protegee

  though she was, this supreme talent of hers found plenty of exercise at Cheverel

  Manor, and Caterina had more people to love than many a small lady and gentleman

  affluent in silver mugs and blood relations. I think the first place in her

  childish heart was given to Sir Christopher, for little girls are apt to attach

  themselves to the finest-looking gentleman at hand, especially as he seldom has

  anything to do with discipline. Next to the Baronet came Dorcas, the merry

  rosy-cheeked damsel who was Mrs Sharp's lieutenant in the nursery, and thus

  played the part of the raisins in a dose of senna. It was a black day for

  Caterina when Dorcas married the coachman, and went, with a great sense of

  elevation in the world, to preside over a 'public' in the noisy town of

  Sloppeter. A little china-box, bearing the motto 'Though lost to sight, to

  memory dear', which Dorcas sent her as a remembrance, was among Caterina's

  treasures ten years after.

  The one other exceptional talent, you already guess, was music. When the fact

  that Caterina had a remarkable ear for music, and a still more remarkable voice,

  attracted Lady Cheverel's notice, the discovery was very welcome both to her and

  Sir Christopher. Her musical education became at once an object of interest.

  Lady Cheverel devoted much time to it; and the rapidity of Tina's progress

  surpassing all hopes, an Italian singing-master was engaged, for several years,

  to spend some months together at Cheverel Manor. This unexpected gift made a

  great alteration in Caterina's position. After those first years in which little

  girls are petted like puppies and kittens, there comes a time when it seems less

  obvious what they can be good for, especially when, like Caterina, they give no

  particular promise of cleverness or beauty; and it is not surprising that in

  that uninteresting period there was no particular plan formed as to her future

  position. She could always help Mrs Sharp, supposing she were fit for nothing

  else, as she grew up; but now, this rare gift of song endeared her to Lady

  Cheverel, who loved music above all things, and it associated her at once with

  the pleasures of the drawing-room. Insensibly she came to be regarded as one of

  the family, and the servants began to understand that Miss Sarti was to be a

  lady after all.

  'And the raight on't too,' said Mr Bates, 'for she hasn't the cut of a gell as

  must work for her bread; she's as nesh an' dilicate as a paich-blossom�welly

  laike a linnet, wi' on'y joost body anoof to hold her voice.'

  But long before Tina had reached this stage of her history, a new era had begun

  for her, in the arrival of a younger companion than any she had hitherto known.

  When she was no more than seven, a ward of Sir Christopher's�a lad of fifteen,

  Maynard Gilfil by name�began to spend his vacations at Cheverel Manor, and found

  there no playfellow so much to his mind as Caterina. Maynard was an affectionate

  lad, who retained a propensity to white rabbits, pet squirrels, and guinea-pigs,

  perhaps a little beyond the age at which young gentlemen usually look down on

  such pleasures as puerile. He was also much given to fishing, and to carpentry,

  considered as a fine art, without any base view to utility. And in all these

  pleasures it was his delight to have Caterina as his companion, to call her

  little pet names, answer her wondering questions, and have her toddling after

  him as you may have seen a Blenheim spaniel trotting after a large setter.

  Whenever Maynard went back to school, there was a little scene of parting.

  'You won't forget me, Tina, before I come back again? I shall leave you all the

  whip-cord we've made; and don't you let Guinea die. Come, give me a kiss, and

  promise not to forget me.'

  As the years wore on, and Maynard passed from school to college, and from a slim

  lad to a stalwart young man, their companionship in the vacations necessarily

  took a different form, but it retained a brotherly and sisterly familiarity.

  With Maynard the boyish affection had insensibly grown into ardent love. Among

  all the many kinds of first love, that which begins in childish companionship is

  the strongest and most enduring: when passion comes to unite its force to long

  affection, love is at its spring-tide. And Maynard Gilfil's love was of a kind

  to make him prefer being tormented by Caterina to any pleasure, apart from her,

  which the most benevolent magician could have devised for him. It is the way

  with those tall
large-limbed men, from Samson downwards. As for Tina, the little

  minx was perfectly well aware that Maynard was her slave; he was the one person

  in the world whom she did as she pleased with; and I need not tell you that this

  was a symptom of her being perfectly heart-whole so far as he was concerned: for

  a passionate woman's love is always overshadowed by fear.

  Maynard Gilfil did not deceive himself in his interpretation of Caterina's

  feelings, but he nursed the hope that some time or other she would at least care

  enough for him to accept his love. So he waited patiently for the day when he

  might venture to say, 'Caterina, I love you!' You see, he would have been

  content with very little, being one of those men who pass through life without

  making the least clamour about themselves; thinking neither the cut of his coat,

  nor the flavour of his soup, nor the precise depth of a servant's bow, at all

  momentous. He thought�foolishly enough, as lovers will think� that it was a good

  augury for him when he came to be domesticated at Cheverel Manor in the quality

  of chaplain there, and curate of a neighbouring parish; judging falsely, from

  his own case, that habit and affection were the likeliest avenues to love. Sir

  Christopher satisfied several feelings in installing Maynard as chaplain in his

  house. He liked the old-fashioned dignity of that domestic appendage; he liked

  his ward's companionship; and, as Maynard had some private fortune, he might

  take life easily in that agreeable home, keeping his hunter, and observing a

  mild regimen of clerical duty, until the Cumhermoor living should fall in, when

  he might be settled for life in the neighbourhood of the manor. 'With Caterina

  for a wife, too,' Sir Christopher soon began to think; for though the good

  Baronet was not at all quick to suspect what was unpleasant and opposed to his

  views of fitness, he was quick to see what would dovetail with his own plans;

  and he had first guessed, and then ascertained, by direct inquiry, the state of

  Maynard's feelings. He at once leaped to the conclusion that Caterina was of the

  same mind, or at least would be, when she was old enough. But these were too

  early days for anything definite to be said or done.

  Meanwhile, new circumstances were arising, which, though they made no change in

  Sir Christopher's plans and prospects, converted Mr Gilfil's hopes into

  anxieties, and made it clear to him not only that Caterina's heart was never

  likely to be his, but that it was given entirely to another.

  Once or twice in Caterina's childhood, there had been another boy-visitor at the

  manor, younger than Maynard Gilfil� a beautiful boy with brown curls and

  splendid clothes, on whom Caterina had looked with shy admiration. This was

  Anthony Wybrow, the son of Sir Christopher's youngest sister, and chosen heir of

  Cheverel Manor. The Baronet had sacrificed a large sum, and even straitened the

  resources by which he was to carry out his architectural schemes, for the sake

  of removing the entail from his estate, and making this boy his heir� moved to

  the step, I am sorry to say, by an implacable quarrel with his elder sister; for

  a power of forgiveness was not among Sir Christopher's virtues. At length, on

  the death of Anthony's mother, when he was no longer a curly-headed boy, but a

  tall young man, with a captain's commission, Cheverel Manor became his home too,

  whenever he was absent from his regiment. Caterina was then a little woman,

  between sixteen and seventeen, and I need not spend many words in explaining

  what you perceive to be the most natural thing in the world.

  There was little company kept at the Manor, and Captain Wybrow would have been

  much duller if Caterina had not been there. It was pleasant to pay her

  attentions�to speak to her in gentle tones, to see her little flutter of

  pleasure, the blush that just lit up her pale cheek, and the momentary timid

  glance of her dark eyes, when he praised her singing, leaning at her side over

  the piano. Pleasant, too, to cut out that chaplain with his large calves! What

  idle man can withstand the temptation of a woman to fascinate, and another man

  to eclipse �especially when it is quite clear to himself that he means no

  mischief, and shall leave everything to come right again by-and-by? At the end

  of eighteen months, however, during which Captain Wybrow had spent much of his

  time at the Manor, he found that matters had reached a point which he had not at

  all contemplated. Gentle tones had led to tender words, and tender words had

  called forth a response of looks which made it impossible not to carry on the

  crescendo of love-making. To find one's self adored by a little, graceful,

  dark-eyed, sweet-singing woman, whom no one need despise, is an agreeable

  sensation, comparable to smoking the finest Latakia, and also imposes some

  return of tenderness as a duty.

  Perhaps you think that Captain Wybrow, who knew that it would be ridiculous to

  dream of his marrying Caterina, must have been a reckless libertine to win her

  affections in this manner! Not at all. He was a young man of calm passions, who

  was rarely led into any conduct of which he could not give a plausible account

  to himself; and the tiny fragile Caterina was a woman who touched the

  imagination and the affections rather than the senses. He really felt very

  kindly towards her, and would very likely have loved her�if he had been able to

  love any one. But nature had not endowed him with that capability. She had given

  him an admirable figure, the whitest of hands, the most delicate of nostrils,

  and a large amount of serene self-satisfaction; but, as if to save such a

  delicate piece of work from any risk of being shattered, she had guarded him

  from the liability to a strong emotion. There was no list of youthful

  misdemeanours on record against him, and Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel

  thought him the best of nephews, the most satisfactory of heirs, full of

  grateful deference to themselves, and, above all things, guided by a sense of

  duty. Captain Wybrow always did the thing easiest and most agreeable to him from

  a sense of duty: he dressed expensively, because it was a duty he owed to his

  position; from a sense of duty he adapted himself to Sir Christopher's

  inflexible will, which it would have been troublesome as well as useless to

  resist; and, being of a delicate constitution, he took care of his health from a

  sense of duty. His health was the only point on which he gave anxiety to his

  friends; and it was owing to this that Sir Christopher wished to see his nephew

  early married, the more so as a match after the Baronet's own heart appeared

  immediately attainable. Anthony had seen and admired Miss Assher, the only child

  of a lady who had been Sir Christopher's earliest love, but who, as things will

  happen in this world, had married another baronet instead of him. Miss Assher's

  father was now dead, and she was in possession of a pretty estate. If, as was

  probable, she should prove susceptible to the merits of Anthony's person and

  character, nothing could make Sir Christopher so happy as to see a marriage

  which might be expected to secure the inhe
ritance of Cheverel Manor from getting

  into the wrong hands. Anthony had already been kindly received by Lady Assher as

  the nephew of her early friend; why should he not go to Bath, where she and her

  daughter were then residing, follow up the acquaintance, and win a handsome,

  well-born, and sufficiently wealthy bride?

  Sir Christopher's wishes were communicated to his nephew, who at once intimated

  his willingness to comply with them� from a sense of duty. Caterina was tenderly

  informed by her lover of the sacrifice demanded from them both; and three days

  afterwards occurred the parting scene you have witnessed in the gallery, on the

  eve of Captain Wybrow's departure for Bath.

  Chapter 5

  THE inexorable ticking of the clock is like the throb of pain to sensations made

  keen by a sickening fear. And so it is with the great clockwork of nature.

  Daisies and buttercups give way to the brown waving grasses, tinged with the

  warm red sorrel; the waving grasses are swept away, and the meadows lie like

  emeralds set in the bushy hedgerows; the tawny-tipped corn begins to bow with

  the weight of the full ear; the reapers are bending amongst it, and it soon

  stands in sheaves, then presently, the patches of yellow stubble lie side by

  side with streaks of dark-red earth, which the plough is turning up in

  preparation for the new-thrashed seed. And this passage from beauty to beauty,

  which to the happy is like the flow of a melody, measures for many a human heart

  the approach of foreseen anguish�seems hurrying on the moment when the shadow of

  dread will be followed up by the reality of despair.

  How cruelly hasty that summer of 1788 seemed to Caterina! Surely the roses

  vanished earlier, and the berries on the mountain-ash were more impatient to

  redden, and bring on the autumn, when she would be face to face with her misery,

  and witness Anthony giving all his gentle tones, tender words, and soft looks to

  another.

  Before the end of July, Captain Wybrow had written word that Lady Assher and her

  daughter were about to fly from the heat and gaiety of Bath to the shady quiet

  of their place at Farleigh, and that he was invited to join the party there. His

  letters. implied that he was on an excellent footing with both the ladies, and

  gave no hint of a rival; so that Sir Christopher was more than usually bright

  and cheerful after reading them. At length, towards the close of August, came

  the announcement that Captain Wybrow was an accepted lover, and after much

  complimentary and congratulatory correspondence between the two families, it was

  understood that in September Lady Assher and her daughter would pay a visit to

  Cheverel Manor, when Beatrice would make the acquaintance of her future

  relatives, and all needful arrangements could be discussed. Captain Wybrow would

  remain at Farleigh till then, and accompany the ladies on their journey.

  In the interval, every one at Cheverel Manor had something to do by way of

  preparing for the visitors. Sir Christopher was occupied in consultations with

  his steward and lawyer, and in giving orders to every one else, especially in

  spurring on Francesco to finish the saloon. Mr Gilfil had the responsibility of

  procuring a lady's horse, Miss Assher being a great rider. Lady Cheverel had

  unwonted calls to make and invitations to deliver. Mr Bates's turf, and gravel,

  and flower-beds were always at such a point of neatness and finish that nothing

  extraordinary could be done in the garden, except a little extraordinary

  scolding of the under-gardener, and this addition Mr Bates did not neglect.

  Happily for Caterina, she too had her task, to fill up the long dreary daytime:

  it was to finish a chair-cushion which would complete the set of embroidered

  covers for the drawing-room, Lady Cheverel's year-long work, and the only