Stancliffe's Hotel Read online

  The Lord Lieutenant walked in amidst deafening cheers, looking as much the fine gentleman as ever, and smiling and bowing his thanks to his townsmen. General Sir William Thornton followed and Edward Percy Esqre, M.P. Last, though not least, the proud, bitter owner of Hartford Hall entered, with a face like an unbleached holland sheet (it was after his wound), supported between Sir John Kirkwall and Wm Moore Esqre, an eminent barrister. A blessing being solemnly pronounced by the Right Reverend Dr Kirkwall, primate of Zamorna, and Amen responded by Dr Cook, vicar of Edwardston, all fell to. Fish and soup being despatched, game ought to have entered. But instead of it, in walked Mrs Stancliffe, grandly dressed, with a turban and a plume and a diamond aigrette like any countess in the gallery. She went to the back of Lord Stuartville's chair.

  'My lord,' said she, with great dignity of manner and in a voice sufficiently audible to be heard by everyone present. 'I ought to apologize to your lordship for the delay of the second course, but my servants have failed in their duty and it is not forthcoming. However, I have punished the insult thus offered to your lordship and the gentlemen of Zamorna. I have revolutionized my houshold. Before to-morrow night, not an ostler or a chambermaid of the present set shall remain in my employment.'

  The bland Earl, passing his hand over his face to conceal a smile, said something gallant and polite by way of consolation to the indignant lady, and General Thornton assured her that such was the luxurious profusion and exquisite quality of her other provisions, two or three hares and partridges would never be missed. Mrs Stancliffe, however, refused to be comforted. Without at all relaxing the solemn concern of her countenance, she dropped a stately curtsey to the company and sailed away. She did revolutionize her household, and a pretty revolution it was, never such a helter-skelter turn out of waiters, barmaids, ostlers, boots and coachmen seen in this world before. Ever since this imperial move she has been popularly termed the Duchess of Zamorna! So Lord Stuartville delights to call her, even to her face. This is a liberty, however, taken by none but his gallant lordship. If any other man were to venture so far she'd soon spurt out in his face.

  I had scarcely finished my breakfast when a waiter brought me a billet to the following effect: 'Dear Townshend, will you take a walk with me this morning? yours etc. W. Percy'. I scribbled for answer: 'Dear Baronet, with all the xcing. Yours etc. C. Townshend'. We met each other in the passage; and arm in arm, each with a light cane in his hand, started on our jaunt.

  Zamorna was all astir. Half her population seemed poured out into the wide new streets. Not a trace remained of last night's storm. Summer was reigning with ardour in the perfectly still air and unclouded sunshine. Ladies in white dresses flitted along the streets and crowded the magnificent and busy shops. Before us rose the new minster, lifting its beautiful front and rich fretted pinnacles almost as radiant as marble against a sky of southern purity. Its bells, sweet-toned as Bochea's harp, rang out the morning chimes high in air, and young Zamorna seemed wakened to quicker life by the voice of that lofty music. How had the city so soon sprung to perfect vigour and beauty from the iron crush of Simpson's hoof? Here was no mark of recent tyranny, no trace of grinding exaction, no symptom of a lately repulsed invasion, of a now existing heavy national debt, nothing of squalor or want or suffering. Lovely women, stately mansions, busy mills and gorgeous shops appeared on all sides. When we first came out the atmosphere was quite clear. As we left the west end and approached the bridge and river, whose banks were piled with enormous manufactories and bristled with mill-chimneys, tall, stately, and steep as slender towers, we breathed a denser air. Columns of smoke as black as soot rose thick and solid from the chimneys of two vast erections - Edward Percy's, I believe, and Mr Sydenham's - and, slowly spreading, darkened the sky above all Zamorna.

  'That's Edward's tobacco-pipe,' said Sir William, looking up, as we passed close under his brother's mill-chimney, whose cylindrical pillar rose three hundred feet into the air. Having crossed the bridge, we turned into the noble road which leads down to Hartford, and now the full splendour of the June morning began to disclose itself round us.

  Immediately before us, the valley of the Olympian opened broad and free; the road with gentle descent wound white as milk down among the rich pastures and waving woods of the vale. My heart expanded as I looked at the path we were to tread, edging the feet of the gentle hills whose long sweep subsided to level on the banks of the river - the glorious river! brightly flowing, in broad quiet waves and with a sound of remote seas, through scenery as green as Eden. We were almost at the gates of Hartford Park. The house was visible far away among its sunny grounds, and its beech-woods, extending to the road, lifted high above the causeway a silver shade. This was not a scene of solitude. Carriages smoothly rolled past us every five minutes, and stately cavaliers galloped by on their noble chargers.

  We had walked on for a quarter of an hour, almost in silence, when Sir William suddenly exclaimed,

  'Townshend, what a pretty girl!'

  'Where?' I asked.

  He pointed to a figure a little in advance of us: a young lady, mounted on a spirited little pony, and followed by a servant, also mounted. I quickened my pace to get a nearer view. She wore a purple habit, long and sweeping; it disclosed a fine, erect and rounded form, set off to advantage by the grace of her attitude and the ease of all her movements. When I first looked, her face was turned away, and concealed partly by the long curls of her hair and partly by her streaming veil, but she presently changed her position, and then I saw a fine decided profile, a bright eye, and a complexion of exquisite bloom. From the first moment I knew she was not a stranger.

  'I've seen that face before,' said I to Sir William. Then, as my recollection cleared, I added, 'It was last night in the mercer's shop opposite Stancliffe's.' For in fact this was the very girl whom I had watched from the window.

  'I, too, have seen her before,' returned the Baronet. 'I know her name. It is Miss Moore, the daughter of the noted barrister.'

  'What!' I exclaimed. 'Jane - the beautiful Angrian?' Perhaps my readers may recollect a description of this young lady which appeared some time since, in a sort of comparison between Eastern and Western women.

  Sir William proceeded. 'I saw her last autumn at the musical festival which was held in September in the minster at Zamorna. You remember the anecdote concerning her which was told in the papers at that time?'

  'Can't say I do.'

  'Why, people said that she had particularly attracted the attention of His Majesty, who attended the Festival, and that he has bestowed on her the title of the Rose of Zamorna.'

  'Was it true?'

  'No further than this: she sat full in his sight and he stared at her as everybody else did, for she really was a very imposing figure in her white satin dress and stately plume of snowy ostrich feathers. He asked her name, too, and when somebody told him, he said, "By God, she's the Rose of Zamorna! I don't see another woman to come near her." That was all. I daresay he never thought of her afterwards. She's not one of his sort.'

  'Well, but,' continued I, 'I should like to see a little more of her. Heigho! I believe I'm in love!'

  'So am I,' said Percy, echoing the sigh. 'Head over ears! Look now, did you ever see a better horse-woman? What grace and spirit! But there's that cursed angle in the road, it will hide her. There, she's turned it. I declare, my sun is eclipsed. Is not yours, Townshend?'

  'Yes, totally; but can't we follow her, Colonel? Where does she live?'

  'Not far off. I really think we might manage it, though I never was introduced to her in my life, nor you either, I dare say.'

  'To my sorrow, never.'

  'Well then, have you any superfluous modesty? Because if you have, put it into your waistcoat pocket and button your coat over it. Now, man, are you eased of the commodity?'

  'Perfectly.'

  'Come along, then. Her father is a barrister and attending the assizes at Angria. Consequently, he is not at home. What so natural as for two elega
nt young men like you and I to be wanting him on business, respecting a mortgage - on a friend's estate, possibly, or probably on our own - or a lawsuit concerning our rich old uncle's contested will? The servants having answered that Mr Moore is not at home, can't we inquire for his daughter (she has no mother by the bye), to give her some particular charge which we won't entrust to menials? Now, man, have you got your cue?'

  I put my thumb to the side of my nose, and we mutually strode on.

  Mr Moore's house is a lease-hold on Lord Hartford's property, and he has the character in Zamorna of being a toady of that nobleman's. The barrister, though an able man, is certainly, according to report, but lightly burdened with principle, and it is possible that with his large fortune he may have hopes of one day contesting the election of the city with its present representative - in which case Lord Hartford's influence would be no feather in the scale of success.

  'We enter here,' said Percy, pausing at a green gate which opened sweetly beneath an arch of laburnums upon a lawn like velvet. A white-walled villa stood before us, bosomed in a blooming shrubbery, with green walks between the rose-trees and a broad carriage-road winding through all to the door. In that bright hour (it was now nearly noon) nothing could be more soothing than its aspect of shade and retirement. One almost preferred it to the wide demesne and princely mansion which it fronted with such modest dignity. Arrived at the door, Sir William knocked. A footman opened it.

  'Is Mr Moore within?'

  'No, sir; master left home last week for the assizes.'

  Sir William affected disappointment. He turned, and made a show of consulting me in a whisper. Then again, addressing the servant:

  'Miss Moore is at home, perhaps?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Then be kind enough to give in our names to her - Messrs Clarke and Gardiner - and say we wish to see her for an instant on a matter of some importance.'

  The servant bowed, and politely requesting us to walk forward, threw open the door of a small sitting-room.

  The apartment was prettily furnished. Its single large window, flung wide open, admitted the faint gale which now and then breathed over the languor of the burning noon. This window looked specially pleasant, for it had a deep recess and a seat pillowed with a white cushion, over which waved the festoons of a muslin curtain. Seating ourselves within this embayment, we leaned over the sill, and scented the jessamine whose tendrils were playing in the breeze around the casement.

  'This is Miss Moore's own parlour,' said Sir William pointing to a little work-table with scissors, thimble and lace upon it, and then reverting his eye to a cabinet piano with an open music book above its key-board. 'I always appropriate when I'm left alone in a lady's boudoir,' he continued; and getting up softly, he was on the point of prigging something from the work-table, when a voice slightly hummed in the passage, and without any other sound, either of footstep or rustling dress, Miss Moore like an apparition dawned upon us. The Colonel turned, and she was there. He looked at her, or rather through her, before he spoke. Really, she seemed to be haloed - there was something so radiant in her whole appearance. Not the large dark eyes of the west, nor the large even arch of the eye-brow; not the enthusiastic and poetic look, nor the braided or waving locks of solemn shade; but just a girl in white, plump and very tall. Her riding-habit was gone, and her beaver; and golden locks (the word golden I use in courtesy, mind, reader) drooped on the whitest neck in Angria. Her complexion seemed to glow: it was so fair, so blooming. She had very rosy lips and a row of small even teeth sparkling like pearls; her nose was prominent and straight and her eyes very spirited. Regularity of feature by no means formed her chief charm: it was the perfection of a lively complexion and handsome figure.

  The lady looked very grave; her curtsey was dignified and distant.

  'Permit me, madam,' said the Colonel, 'to introduce myself and my friend. I am Mr Clarke, this gentleman, Mr Gardiner. We are both clients of your father. You will have heard him mention the lawsuit now pending between Clarke and Gardiner versus Jowett.'

  'I daresay,' returned Miss Moore, 'though I don't recollect just now. Will you be seated, gentlemen?'

  She took her own seat on a little couch near the work-table and, resting her elbow on the arm, looked very graceful and majestic.

  'A warm morning,' observed Sir William, by way of keeping up the conversation.

  'Very,' she replied demurely.

  'A pretty place Mr Moore has here,' said I.

  'Rather,' was Miss Moore's answer; then, carelessly taking up her work, she continued. 'How can I serve you, gentlemen?'

  Sir William rubbed his hand. He was obliged to recur to business.

  'Why, madam, will you be so good as to say to Mr Moore when he returns that James Cartwright, the witness who was so reluctant to come up, has at length consented to appear, and that consequently the trial may proceed, if he thinks proper, next month.'

  'Very well,' said she. Then, still bending her eyes upon the lace, she continued. 'How far have you come to tell my father this? Do you reside in the neighbourhood?'

  'No, madam, but we are both on a visit there at present. We came to look after some little mill-property we possess in Zamorna.'

  'You must have had a hot walk,' pursued Miss Moore. 'Will you take some refreshment?'

  We both declined, but she took no notice of our refusal, and, touching a bell, ordered the servant who answered it to bring wine etc. She then quietly returned to her lace-work. We might have been lap-dogs or children for all the discomposure our presence seemed to occasion her. Sir William was a match for her, however. He sat, one leg crossed over the other, regarding her with a hard stare. I believe she knew his eyes were fixed upon her, but she kept her countenance admirably. At last he said,

  'I have had the pleasure of seeing you before, madam.'

  'Probably, sir; I don't always stay at home.'

  'It was in Zamorna Minster last September.'

  She did colour a little, and laughed, for she recollected, doubtless, the admiration with which her name had been mentioned at that time in the journals, and the thousand eyes which had been fixed upon her as the centre of attraction as she sat in her white satin robe high placed in the lofty gallery of the minster.

  'A great many people saw me at that time,' she answered, 'and talked about me too, for my size gave me wonderful distinction.'

  'Nothing but size?' asked Sir William, and his look expressed the rest.

  'Will you take some salmagundi, Mr Clarke?' said she, rising and approaching the tray which the servant had just placed on the table. Mr Clarke expressed his willingness; so did Mr Gardiner. She helped both, plentifully, and they fell to.

  A knock came to the door. She stept to the window and looked out. I saw her nod and smile, and her smile was by no means a simper: it showed her front teeth, and made her eyes shine very pleasantly. She walked into the passage, and opened the door herself.

  'Now, Jane, how are you?' said a masculine voice. Percy winked at me.

  'How are you?' she answered. 'And why are you come here this hot day?'

  'What! you're not glad to see me, I guess,' returned the visitor.

  'Yes I am, because you look so cool! I'm sorry we've no fire to warm you, but you can step into the kitchen.'

  'Come, be steady! Moore's at Angria, varry like?'

  'Varry like he is - but you may walk forwards notwithstanding.' Then, in a lower voice, 'I've two chits in my parlour - very like counting-house clerks or young surgeons or something of that kind. Just come and look at them.'

  Percy and I arrested the victual on the way to our mouths. We were wroth.

  'The jade!' said Percy.

  I said nothing. However, a more urgent cause of disturbance was at hand. That voice which had been speaking sounded but too familiar, both to Sir William and myself, and now the speaker was approaching with measured step and the clank of a spur. He continued talking as he came:

  'I've come to dine with you, Jane, and the
n I've to step over to Hartford Hall about some business. I'll call again at six o'clock, and Julia says you've to come back with me to Girnington.'

  'Whether I will or not, I suppose, General?'

  'Whether you will or not.'

  And here Sir Wilson Thornton paused, for he was in the room, and his glance had encountered us, seated at the table and tucking in[to] the wines with which Miss Moore had provided us. I don't think either Sir William or I changed countenance. General Thornton's eye always assumes a cold annoyed expression when it sees me. I met him freely:

  'Ho! General! how d'ye do? My word, you do look warm with walking! Is your face swelled?'

  'Not 'at I know on, Mr Townshend,' he answered coldly, and, bowing to Sir William, he took his seat.

  'My dear General,' I continued. 'Don't on any account drink water in your present state. You seem to me to be running thin! I wish you may not catch your death of cold! Dear, dear - what a pity you should appear such a figure before a beautiful young lady like Miss Moore!'

  'If I'm any vex to Miss Moore she'll be good enough to tell me of it without yer interference,' said the General, much disturbed.

  'Had you ever the scarlet fever?' I inquired anxiously.

  'I cannot see how my health concerns you,' he answered.

  'Or the sweating sickness?' I continued.

  The General brushed the dust from his coat-sleeve and, turning briskly to Miss Moore, asked her if these were the lads she had taken for two young surgeons.

  'Yes,' said she, 'but I begin to think I was in the wrong.'

  'I would like to know what nonsense brought 'em here,' said Thornton. 'They're no more surgeons nor I am. Percy, I wonder ye'll go looking abaat t' country wi' such a nout as Townshend.'

  'Percy!' exclaimed Miss Moore. 'O, it is Sir William Percy! I thought I had seen that gentleman before. It was at a review: he was one of the royal staff.'

  The Colonel bowed. 'The greatest compliment I ever had paid me,' said he, 'that Miss Moore should single me out from among thousands and recollect my face.'

  'Just because it struck me for its likeness to Lord Northangerland's,' replied she.

  'From whatever cause, madam, the honour is mine, and I am proud of it.'