The Castle Inn: Chapter 38

Chapter 38

THE CLERK OF THE LEASES

When Sir George left the house, an hour later, it happened that the
first person he met in the street was Mr. Fishwick. For a day or two
after the conference at the Castle Inn the attorney had gone about, his
ears on the stretch to catch the coming footstep. The air round him
quivered with expectation. Something would happen. Sir George would do
something. But with each day that passed eventless, the hope and
expectation grew weaker; the care with which the attorney avoided his
guest's eyes, more marked; until by noon of this day he had made up his
mind that if Sir George came at all, it would be as the wolf and not as
the sheep-dog. While Julia, proud and mute, was resolving that if her
lover came she would save him from himself by showing him how far he had
to stoop, the attorney in the sourness of defeat and a barren
prospect--for he scarcely knew which way to turn for a guinea--was
resolving that the ewe-lamb must be guarded and all precautions taken
to that end.

When he saw the gentleman issue from his door therefore, still more when
Sir George with a kindly smile held out his hand, a condescension which
the attorney could not remember that he had ever extended to him before,
Mr. Fishwick's prudence took fright. 'Too much honoured, Sir George,' he
said, bowing low. Then stiffly, and looking from his visitor to the
house and back again, 'But, pardon me, sir, if there is any matter of
business, any offer to be made to my client, it were well, I think--if
it were made through me.'

I thank you,' Sir George answered. 'I do not think that there is
anything more to be done. I have made my offer.'

'Oh!' the lawyer cried.

'And it has been accepted,' Soane continued, smiling at his dismay. 'I
believe that you have been a good friend to your client, Mr. Fishwick. I
shall be obliged if you will allow her to remain under your roof until
to-morrow, when she has consented to honour me by becoming my wife.'

'Your wife?' Mr. Fishwick ejaculated, his face a picture of surprise.
'To-morrow?'

'I brought a licence with me,' Sir George answered. 'I am now on my way
to secure the services of a clergyman.'

The tears stood in Mr. Fishwick's eyes, and his voice shook. 'I
felicitate you, sir,' he said, taking off his hat. 'God bless you, sir.
Sir George, you are a very noble gentleman!' And then, remembering
himself, he hastened to beg the gentleman's pardon for the liberty he
had taken.

Sir George nodded kindly. 'There is a letter for you in the house, Mr.
Fishwick,' he said, 'which I was asked to convey to you. For the
present, good-day.'

Mr. Fishwick stood and watched him go with eyes wide with astonishment;
nor was it until he had passed from sight that the lawyer turned and
went into his house. On a bench in the passage he found a letter. It was
formally directed after the fashion of those days 'To Mr. Peter
Fishwick, Attorney at Law, at Wallingford in Berkshire, by favour of Sir
George Soane of Estcombe, Baronet.'

'Lord save us, 'tis an honour,' the attorney muttered. 'What is it?' and
with shaking hands he cut the thread that confined the packet. The
letter, penned by Dr. Addington, was to this effect:

'Sir,--I am directed by the Right Honourable the Earl of Chatham, Lord
Keeper of His Majesty's Privy Seal, to convey to you his lordship's
approbation of the conduct displayed by you in a late transaction. His
lordship, acknowledging no higher claim to employment than probity, nor
any more important duty in the disposition of patronage than the reward
of integrity, desires me to intimate that the office of Clerk of the
Leases in the Forest of Dean, which is vacant and has been placed at his
command, is open for your acceptance. He is informed that the emoluments
of the office arising from fees amount in good years to five hundred
pounds, and in bad years seldom fall below four hundred.

His lordship has made me the channel of this communication, that I may
take the opportunity of expressing my regret that a misunderstanding at
one time arose between us. Accept, sir, this friendly assurance of a
change of sentiment, and allow me to

'Have the honour to be, sir,
'Your obedient servant,
'J. Addington.'

'Clerk of the Leases--in the Forest of Dean--have been known in bad
years--to fall to four hundred!' Mr. Fishwick ejaculated, his eyes like
saucers. 'Oh, Lord, I am dreaming! I must be dreaming! If I don't get my
cravat untied, I shall have a lit! Four hundred in bad years! It's
a--oh, it's incredible! They'll not believe it! I vow they'll not
believe it!'

But when he turned to seek them, he saw that they had stolen a march on
him, that they knew it already and believed it! Between him and the tiny
plot of grass, the urn, and the espalier, which, still caught the last
beams of the setting sun, he surprised two happy faces spying on his
joy--the one beaming through a hundred puckers with a mother's tearful
pride; the other, the most beautiful in the world, and now softened and
elevated by every happy emotion.

* * * * *

Mr. Dunborough stood his trial at the next Salisbury assizes, and, being
acquitted of the murder of Mr. Pomeroy, was found guilty of
manslaughter. He pleaded his clergy, went through the formality of being
branded in the hand with a cold iron, and was discharged on payment of
his fees. He lived to be the fifth Viscount Dunborough, a man neither
much worse nor much better than his neighbours; and dying at a moderate
age--in his bed, of gout in the stomach--escaped the misfortune which
awaited some of his friends; who, living beyond the common span, found
themselves shunned by a world which could find no worse to say of them
than that they lived in their age as all men of fashion had lived in
their youth.

Mr. Thomasson was less fortunate. Bully Pomeroy's dying words and the
evidence of the man Tamplin were not enough to bring the crime home to
him. But representations were made to his college, and steps were taken
to compel him to resign his Fellowship. Before these came to an issue,
he was arrested for debt, and thrown into the Fleet. There he lingered
for a time, sinking into a lower and lower state of degradation, and
making ever more and more piteous appeals to the noble pupils who owed
so much of their knowledge of the world to his guidance. Beyond this
point his career is not to be traced, but it is improbable that it was
either creditable to him or edifying to his friends.

To-day the old Bath road is silent, or echoes only the fierce note of
the cyclist's bell. The coaches and curricles, wigs and hoops, bolstered
saddles and carriers' waggons are gone with the beaux and fine ladies
and gentlemen's gentlemen whose environment they were; and the Castle
Inn is no longer an inn. Under the wide eaves that sheltered the love
passages of Sir George and Julia, in the panelled halls that echoed the
steps of Dutch William and Duke Chandos, through the noble rooms that a
Seymour built that Seymours might be born and die under their frescoed
ceilings, the voices of boys and tutors now sound. The boys are divided
from the men of that day by four generations, the tutors from the man we
have depicted, by a moral gulf infinitely greater. Yet is the change in
a sense outward only; for where the heart of youth beats, there, and not
behind fans or masks, the 'Stand!' of the highwayman, or the 'Charge!'
of the hero, lurks the high romance.

Nor on the outside is all changed at the Castle Inn. Those who in this
quiet lap of the Wiltshire Downs are busy moulding the life of the
future are reverent of the past. The old house stands stately,
high-roofed, almost unaltered, its great pillared portico before it;
hard by are the Druids' Mound, and Preshute Church in the lap of trees.
Much water has run under the bridge that spans the Kennet since Sir
George and Julia sat on the parapet and watched the Salisbury coach come
in; the bridge that was of wood is of brick--but there it is, and the
Kennet still flows under it, watering the lawns and flowering shrubs
that Lady Hertford loved. Still can we trace in fancy the sweet-briar
hedge and the border of pinks which she planted by the trim canal; and a
bowshot from the great school can lose all knowledge of the present in
the crowding memories which the Duelling Green and the Bowling Alley,
trodden by the men and women of a past generation, awaken in the mind.

Back to chapter list of: The Castle Inn