Part 42 (1/2)
”He said he was in the house talking to her maid, having gone in to visit one of her servants, when she came downstairs with the bank-note in her hand, and that he could not say what tempted him, but that he had seized a knife and hidden himself behind a door till she pa.s.sed on her way upstairs again. Then he found his way to her room and concealed himself under her bed. There he had heard her come in and put the child to bed and leave it, and then, amazed at the strangeness of his situation, he turned round. She came back, and he heard the child tell her that there was a man under the bed, and if at that moment she had looked under, he should have sprung out and murdered her. She did not, and afterwards hearing a noise downstairs, he thought it was better to make his escape, which he did by the window, leaving it open behind him.”
”_Wallington, Sept. 24._--On the way here I stopped to see Belsay, the finest of the Border fortresses, a grand old gothic tower, standing in a beautiful garden and amongst fine trees.
”Opening from the enclosed courtyard, which now forms a great frescoed hall in the centre of this house of Wallington, are endless suites of huge rooms, only partly carpeted and thinly furnished with ugly last-century furniture, partly covered with faded tapestry. The last of these is 'the ghost-room,' and Wallington is still a haunted house: awful noises are heard all through the night; footsteps rush up and down the untrodden pa.s.sages; wings flap and beat against the windows; bodiless people unpack and put away their things all night long, and invisible beings are felt to breathe over you as you lie in bed. I think my room quite horrid, and it opens into a long suite of desolate rooms by a door which has no fastening, so I have pushed the heavy dressing-table with its weighty mirror, &c., against it to keep out all the nasty things that might try to come in. Old Lady Trevelyan was a very wicked woman and a miser: she lived here for many years, and is believed to wander here still: her son, Sir Walter, has never been known to laugh.
”Sir Walter is a strange-looking being, with long hair and moustache, and an odd careless dress. He also has the reputation of being a miser.[219] He is a great teetotaller, and inveighs everywhere against wine and beer: I trembled as I ran the gauntlet of public opinion yesterday in accepting a gla.s.s of sherry. Lady Trevelyan is a great artist. She is a pleasant, bright little woman, with sparkling black eyes, who paints beautifully, is intimately acquainted with all the princ.i.p.al artists, imports baskets from Madeira and lace from Honiton, and sells them in Northumberland, and always sits upon the rug by preference.
”There is another strange being in the house. It is Mr. Wooster, who came to arrange the collection of sh.e.l.ls four years ago, and has never gone away. He looks like a church-bra.s.s incarnated, and turns up his eyes when he speaks to you, till you see nothing but the whites. He also has a long trailing moustache, and in all things imitates, but caricatures, Sir Walter. What he does here n.o.body seems to know; the Trevelyans say he puts the sh.e.l.ls to rights, but the sh.e.l.ls cannot take four years to dust.”
”_Sept. 26._--Such a curious place this is! and such curious people! I get on better with them now, and even Sir Walter is gruffly kind and grumpily amiable. As to information, he is a perfect mine, and he knows every book and ballad that ever was written, every story of local interest that ever was told, and every flower and fossil that ever was found--besides the great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers of everybody dead or alive. His conversation is so curious that I follow him about everywhere, and take notes under his nose, which he does not seem to mind in the least, but only says something more quaint and astonis.h.i.+ng the next minute. Lady Trevelyan is equally unusual. She is abrupt to a degree, and contradicts everything. Her little black eyes twinkle with mirth all day long, though she says she is ill and has 'the most extraordinary _feels_;' she is 'sure no one ever had such extraordinary feels as she has.' She never appears to attend to her house a bit, which is like the great desert with one or two little oases in it, where by good management you may possibly make yourself comfortable. She paints foxgloves in fresco and makes little sketches ? la Ruskin in the tiniest of books--chiefly of pollard willows, which she declares are the most beautiful things in nature. To see pollard willows in perfection she spent six weeks last spring in the flattest parts of Holland, and thought it lovely--'the willows so fine and the boat-life so healthy.' 'Well, you _will_ go to the bad,' she said to me yesterday, because I did not admire a miserable little drawing of Ruskin: my own sketches she thinks quite monstrous.
”We went the day before yesterday to Capheaton, the home of the Swinburnes, a very curious old house, and Sir John Swinburne, a very pleasing young miser, is coming to dinner to-day. Yesterday we went through fog and rain to Camphoe, Kirk Whelpington, and Little Harle, a fine inhabited castle. Sir Walter made me wade through the Wansbeck as we came back!”
”_Sept. 28._--The more one knows Sir Walter and Lady Trevelyan, the more one finds how, through all their peculiarities, they are to be liked and respected. Everything either of them says is worth hearing, and they are so full of information of every kind, that the time here has been all too short for hearing them talk.[220] On Thursday, Miss Ogle, the auth.o.r.ess of that charming novel 'A Lost Love,' came. She has lived here a great deal, and says the Wallington ghost is a lady with her head under her arm, who walks about at night. She has heard all the extraordinary rappings very often, and says they cannot be accounted for in any way, but she has never seen the lady.
”The library here is delightful, full of old topographical books and pamphlets; and sleek Mr. Wooster, with whites of his eyes turned up to the skies, is always at hand to find for you anything you want.
”On Friday Sir Walter took me a long drive through the beautiful forest-land called the Trench, and by Rothley Crags to Netherwitton, where the Raleigh Trevelyans live. Mrs. Raleigh Trevelyan, a stately and beautiful old lady, is the direct descendant of the Witherington who fought upon his stumps. She has pictures of Lord Derwent.w.a.ter and his brother, and one of her ancestors concealed Simon, Lord Lovat, in his house for months: the closet where he was hidden is still to be seen, and very curious.
Then we went to Long Witton, to Mrs. Spencer Trevelyan, a great botanist and eccentric person, who breakfasts at six, dines at twelve, teas at four, and goes to bed at seven o'clock.
”Yesterday Miss Ogle and I went to Harnham, where Mrs. Catherine Babington, a famous Puritan lady who was excommunicated, is buried in the rock; to Shortflat Tower, the old peel castle of the Dents; and to the Poind and his Man, Druidical antiquities, and Shaftoe Crag, a beautiful wild cliff overgrown with heather. The country round this is singularly interesting--the view from the church (Cambo), where we have just been, quite beautiful over the endless waves of distant hill.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: WARKWORTH, FROM THE COQUET.]
”_Warkworth, Oct. 2._--My mother will like to think of me with the Clutterbucks in this charming sunny old house, the most perfect contrast to Wellington; but if Sir Walter saw his house papered and furnished like those of other people's, he would certainly pine away from excess of luxury. I have spent two days with the Ogles, whom we have often met abroad, with their dark handsome daughters--dark, people say, because their grandmother was a Spaniard. They are proud of their supposed Spanish blood, and when Isabel Ogle married George Clayton, all her sisters followed in long _black_ lace veils. Near their modern house is the old moated family castle of Ogle.”
”_St. Michael's Vicarage, Alnwick, Oct. 4._--I have been kindly received here by the Court Granvilles: he is a fiery, impetuous little man; she (Lady Charlotte) a sister of the Duke of Athole.
The Duke of Northumberland sent for me to his hot room at the castle, where he sits almost immovable, fingers and toes swollen with gout, and talked a great deal about the importance of my work, the difficulty of getting accurate information, &c.; but I do not think he heard a word that I said in reply, for when he has the gout he is almost quite deaf. Then he sent for the d.u.c.h.ess, who good-naturedly knotted her pocket-handkerchief round her throat, and went through all the rooms to show me the pictures. We went again to dinner--only Sir Cresswell Cresswell, the famous judge, there, and Lady Alvanley, sister of the Duke of Cleveland. Sir Cresswell was most amusing in describing how, when a lady was being conveyed in a sedan-chair to a party at Northumberland House, the bottom fell out, and, as she shouted in vain to make her bearers hear, she was obliged to run as fast as she could all the way through the mire inside the sh.e.l.l of the chair.”
”_Blenkinsopp Castle, Oct. 11._--This is the castellated house of the Coulsons, in the upper part of South Tyne Valley--very large and comfortable. The owner, Colonel Coulson, is a great invalid, and his daughter-in-law, a daughter of Lord Byron, does the honours. We have made pleasant excursions to Gilsland Spa, and to Llanercost and Naworth, the latter--externally a magnificent feudal castle--the home of Belted Will Howard in mosstrooping times.”
”_Bamborough Castle, Oct. 17._--How enchanting it is in this grand old castle looking out on the sea, with all the Farne Islands stretched out as on a map. I think even the Mediterranean is scarcely such a beautiful sea as this, the waves are so enormous and have such gorgeous colouring. I have had delightful walks with the dear old cousin on the sands, and to Spindleston, where the famous dragon lived.”
”_Winton Castle, Tranent, Oct. 17, Evening._--As my mother will see, I have come here for holidays, and shall be glad of a day or two in which the mind is not kept in perpetual tension. I heard from Lady Ruthven that I was to meet Lord Belhaven at Prestonpans station, and had no doubt which was he--an old gentleman in a white hat with white hair and hooked nose. We drove here together, and very pleasant it was to exchange the pouring rain without for the large, low, old-fas.h.i.+oned drawing-room, with a splendid ceiling and sculptured chimney, thick Indian carpets, and fine old pictures and china. Soon Lady Ruthven and Lady Belhaven came in, calling out 'welcome' as they entered the room. The other guests are Lady Arthur Lennox and her youngest daughter, who looks, as Lady Ruthven says, 'just like a Watteau;' also Lord Leven, cousin of our hostess, and Miss Fletcher of Saltoun.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: WINTON CASTLE.]
”_Winton Castle, Oct. 20._--When I awoke on Sat.u.r.day, I was surprised to see a fine old tower opposite my windows, with high turrets and richly-carved chimneys and windows; but the castle has been miserably added to. Lady Ruthven is most original, with a wonderfully poetical mind, and is very different from her regal-looking sister, Lady Belhaven, who, still very handsome, sweeps about the long rooms, and for whom 'gracious' is the only befitting expression. All the guests are pushed together by Lady Ruthven in a way which makes it impossible that they should not be intimate. For instance, as we went in to breakfast on Sat.u.r.day, she said, 'Now, Mr. Hare, you are to sit next to Lord Leven, for you will not see any more of him; so mind you devote yourselves to one another all breakfast time.'
”On Sat.u.r.day we all went to luncheon at Saltoun, the great place of the neighbourhood, where Mr. Fletcher lives, whose wife, Lady Charlotte, is one of Lady Ruthven's nieces. It is a large, stately, modern castle, containing a fine library and curious MSS. The tables were loaded with 'loot' from the Summer Palace in China.
”Yesterday we all went at twelve o'clock to the Presbyterian church at Pencaitland, one of the oldest in Scotland. The singing was beautiful, and we had an admirable sermon from the minister, Mr.
Rioch, who came in the evening and made a very long 'exposition' to the servants.”