The Castle Inn: Chapter 8

Chapter 8

THE OLD BATH ROAD

In the year 1757--to go back ten years from the spring with which we are
dealing--the ordinary Englishman was a Balbus despairing of the State.
No phrase was then more common on English lips, or in English ears, than
the statement that the days of England's greatness were numbered, and
were fast running out. Unwitting the wider sphere about to open before
them, men dwelt fondly on the glories of the past. The old babbled of
Marlborough's wars, of the entrance of Prince Eugene into London, of
choirs draped in flags, and steeples reeling giddily for Ramillies and
Blenheim. The young listened, and sighed to think that the day had been,
and was not, when England gave the law to Europe, and John Churchill's
warder set troops moving from Hamburg to the Alps.

On the top of such triumphs, and the famous reign of good Queen Anne,
had ensued forty years of peace, broken only by one inglorious war. The
peace did its work: it settled the dynasty, and filled the purse; but
men, considering it, whispered of effeminacy and degeneracy, and the
like, as men will to the end of time. And when the clouds, long sighted
on the political horizon, began to roll up, they looked fearfully abroad
and doubted and trembled; and doubted and trembled the more because in
home affairs all patriotism, all party-spirit, all thought of things
higher than ribbon or place or pension, seemed to be dead among public
men. The Tories, long deprived of power, and discredited by the taint or
suspicion of Jacobitism, counted for nothing. The Whigs, agreed on all
points of principle, and split into sections, the Ins and Outs, solely
by the fact that all could not enjoy places and pensions at once, the
supply being unequal to the demand--had come to regard politics as
purely a game; a kind of licensed hazard played for titles, orders, and
emoluments, by certain families who had the _entr�e_ to the public table
by virtue of the part they had played in settling the succession.

Into the midst of this state of things, this world of despondency,
mediocrity, selfishness, and chicanery, and at the precise crisis when
the disasters which attended the opening campaigns of the Seven Years'
War--and particularly the loss of Minorca--seemed to confirm the
gloomiest prognostications of the most hopeless pessimists, came William
Pitt; and in eighteen months changed the face of the world, not for his
generation only, but for ours. Indifferent as an administrator, mediocre
as a financier, passionate, haughty, headstrong, with many of the worst
faults of an orator, he was still a man with ideals--a patriot among
placemen, pure where all were corrupt. And the effect of his touch was
magical. By infusing his own spirit, his own patriotism, his own belief
in his country, and his own belief in himself, into those who worked
with him--ay, and into the better half of England--he wrought a
seeming miracle.

See, for instance, what Mr. Walpole wrote to Sir Horace Mann in
September, 1757. 'For how many years,' he says, 'have I been telling you
that your country was mad, that your country was undone! It does not
grow wiser, it does not grow more prosperous! ... How do you behave on
these lamentable occasions? Oh, believe me, it is comfortable to have an
island to hide one's head in! ...' Again he writes in the same month,'
'It is time for England to slip her own cables, and float away into some
unknown ocean.'

With these compare a letter dated November, 1759. 'Indeed,' he says to
the same correspondent, 'one is forced to ask every morning what victory
there is, for fear of missing one.' And he wrote with reason. India,
Canada, Belleisle, the Mississippi, the Philippines, the Havanna,
Martinique, Guadaloupe--there was no end to our conquests. Wolfe fell in
the arms of victory, Clive came home the satrap of sovereigns; but day
by day ships sailed in and couriers spurred abroad with the news that a
new world and a nascent empire were ours. Until men's heads reeled and
maps failed them, as they asked each morning 'What new land, to-day?'
Until those who had despaired of England awoke and rubbed their
eyes--awoke to find three nations at her feet, and the dawn of a new and
wider day breaking in the sky.

And what of the minister? They called him the Great Commoner, the
heaven-born statesman; they showered gold boxes upon him; they bore him
through the city, the centre of frantic thousands, to the effacement
even of the sovereign. Where he went all heads were bared; while he
walked the rooms at Bath and drank the water, all stood; his very sedan,
built with a boot to accommodate his gouty foot, was a show followed and
watched wherever it moved. A man he had never seen left him a house and
three thousand pounds a year; this one, that one, the other one,
legacies. In a word, for a year or two he was the idol of the
nation--the first great People's Minister.

Then, the crisis over, the old system lifted its head again; the
mediocrities returned; and, thwarted by envious rivals and a jealous
king, Pitt placed the crown alike on his services and his popularity by
resigning power when he could no longer dictate the policy which he
knew to be right. Nor were events slow to prove his wisdom. The war with
Spain which he would have declared, Spain declared. The treasure fleet
which he would have seized, escaped us. Finally, the peace when it came
redounded to his credit, for in the main it secured his conquests--to
the disgrace of his enemies, since more might have been obtained.

Such was the man who, restored to office and lately created an earl by
the title of Chatham, lay ill at Bath in the spring of '67. The passage
of time, the course of events, the ravages of gout, in a degree the
acceptance of a title, had robbed his popularity of its first gloss. But
his name was still a name to conjure with in England. He was still the
idol of the City. Crowds still ran to see him where he passed. His gaunt
figure racked with gout, his eagle nose, his piercing eyes, were still
England's picture of a minister. His curricle, his troop of servants,
the very state he kept, the ceremony with which he travelled, all
pleased the popular fancy. When it was known that he was well enough to
leave Bath, and would lie a night at the Castle Inn at Marlborough, his
suite requiring twenty rooms, even that great hostelry, then reputed one
of the best, as it was certainly the most splendid in England, and
capable, it was said, of serving a dinner of twenty-four covers on
silver, was in an uproar. The landlord, who knew the tastes of half the
peerage, and which bin Lord Sandwich preferred, and which Mr. Rigby, in
which rooms the Duchess or Lady Betty liked to lie, what Mr. Walpole
took with his supper, and which shades the Princess Amelia preferred for
her card-table--even he, who had taken his glass of wine with a score of
dukes, from Cumberland the Great to Bedford the Little, was put to it;
the notice being short, and the house somewhat full.

Fortunately the Castle Inn, on the road between London and the west,
was a place of call, not of residence. Formerly a favourite residence of
the Seymour family, and built, if tradition does not lie, by a pupil of
Inigo Jones, it stood--and for the house, still stands--in a snug fold
of the downs, at the end of the long High Street of Marlborough; at the
precise point where the route to Salisbury debouches from the Old Bath
Road. A long-fronted, stately mansion of brick, bosomed in trees, and
jealous of its historic past--it had sheltered William of Orange--it
presented to the north and the road, from which it was distant some
hundred yards, a grand pillared portico flanked by projecting wings. At
that portico, and before those long rows of shapely windows, forty
coaches, we are told, changed horses every day. Beside the western wing
of the house a green sugarloaf mound, reputed to be of Druidical origin,
rose above the trees; it was accessible by a steep winding path, and
crowned at the date of this story by a curious summer-house. Travellers
from the west who merely passed on the coach, caught, if they looked
back as they entered the town, a glimpse of groves and lawns laid out by
the best taste of the day, between the southern front and the river. To
these a doorway and a flight of stone steps, corresponding in position
with the portico in the middle of the north front, conducted the
visitor, who, if a man of feeling, was equally surprised and charmed to
find in these shady retreats, stretching to the banks of the Kennet, a
silence and beauty excelled in few noblemen's gardens. In a word, while
the north front of the house hummed with the revolving wheels, and
echoed the chatter of half the fashionable world bound for the Bath or
the great western port of Bristol, the south front reflected the taste
of that Lady Hertford who had made these glades and trim walks her
principal hobby.

With all its charms, however, the traveller, as we have said, stayed
there but a night or so. Those in the house, therefore, would move on,
and so room could be made. And so room was made; and two days later, a
little after sunset, amid a spasm of final preparation, and with a great
parade of arrival, the earl's procession, curricle, chariot, coaches,
chaises, and footmen, rolled in from the west. In a trice lights flashed
everywhere, in the road, at the windows, on the mound, among the trees;
the crowd thickened--every place seemed peopled with the Pitt liveries.
Women, vowing that they were cramped to death, called languidly for
chaise-doors to be opened; and men who had already descended, and were
stretching their limbs in the road, ran to open them. This was in the
rear of the procession; in front, where the throng of townsfolk closed
most thickly round the earl's travelling chariot, was a sudden baring of
heads, as the door of the coach was opened. The landlord, bowing lower
than he had ever bowed to the proud Duke of Somerset, offered his
shoulder. And then men waited and bent nearer; and nothing happening,
looked at one another in surprise. Still no one issued; instead,
something which the nearest could not catch was said, and a tall lady,
closely hooded, stepped stiffly out and pointed to the house. On which
the landlord and two or three servants hurried in; and all was
expectation.

The men were out again in a moment, bearing a great chair, which they
set with nicety at the door of the carriage. This done, the gapers saw
what they had come to see. For an instant, the face that all England
knew and all Europe feared--but blanched, strained, and drawn with
pain--showed in the opening. For a second the crowd was gratified with a
glimpse of a gaunt form, a star and ribbon; then, with a groan heard far
through the awestruck silence, the invalid sank heavily into the chair,
and was borne swiftly and silently into the house.

Men looked at one another; but the fact was better than their fears. My
lord, after leaving Bath, had had a fresh attack of the gout; and when
he would be able to proceed on his journey only Dr. Addington, his
physician, whose gold-headed cane, great wig, and starched aspect did
not foster curiosity, could pretend to say. Perhaps Mr. Smith, the
landlord, was as much concerned as any; when he learned the state of the
case, he fell to mental arithmetic with the assistance of his fingers,
and at times looked blank. Counting up the earl and his gentleman, and
his gentleman's gentleman, and his secretary, and his private secretary,
and his physician, and his three friends and their gentlemen, and my
lady and her woman, and the children and nurses, and a crowd of others,
he could not see where to-morrow's travellers were to lie, supposing the
minister remained. However, in the end, he set that aside as a question
for to-morrow; and having seen Mr. Rigby's favourite bin opened (for Dr.
Addington was a connoisseur), and reviewed the cooks dishing up the
belated dinner--which an endless chain of servants carried to the
different apartments--he followed to the principal dining-room, where
the minister's company were assembled; and between the intervals of
carving and seeing that his guests ate to their liking, enjoyed the
conversation, and, when invited, joined in it with tact and
self-respect. As became a host of the old school.

By this time lights blazed in every window of the great mansion; the
open doors emitted a fragrant glow of warmth and welcome; the rattle of
plates and hum of voices could be heard in the road a hundred paces
away. But outside and about the stables the hubbub had somewhat
subsided, the road had grown quiet, and the last townsfolk had
withdrawn, when a little after seven the lamps of a carriage appeared
in the High Street, approaching from the town. It swept round the
church, turned the flank of the house, and in a twinkling drew up before
the pillars.

'Hilloa! House!' cried the postillion. 'House!' And, cracking his whip
on his boot, he looked up at the rows of lighted windows.

A man and a maid who travelled outside climbed down. As the man opened
the carriage door, a servant bustled out of the house. 'Do you want
fresh horses?' said he, in a kind of aside to the footman.

'No--rooms!' the man answered bluntly.

Before the other could reply, 'What is this?' cried a shrewish voice
from the interior of the carriage. 'Hoity toity! This is a nice way of
receiving company! You, fellow, go to your master and say that I
am here.'

'Say that the Lady Dunborough is here,' an unctuous voice repeated, 'and
requires rooms, dinners, fire, and the best he has. And do you be
quick, fellow!'

The speaker was Mr. Thomasson, or rather Mr. Thomasson plus the
importance which comes of travelling with a viscountess. This, and
perhaps the cramped state of his limbs, made him a little long in
descending. 'Will your ladyship wait? or will you allow me to have the
honour of assisting you to descend?' he continued, shivering slightly
from the cold. To tell the truth, he was not enjoying his honour on
cheap terms. Save the last hour, her ladyship's tongue had gone without
ceasing, and Mr. Thomasson was sorely in need of refreshment.

'Descend? No!' was the tart answer. 'Let the man come! Sho! Times are
changed since I was here last. I had not to wait then, or break my shins
in the dark! Has the impudent fellow gone in?'

He had, but at this came out again, bearing lights before his master.
The host, with the civility which marked landlords in those days--the
halcyon days of inns--hurried down the steps to the carriage. 'Dear me!
Dear me! I am most unhappy!' he exclaimed. 'Had I known your ladyship
was travelling, some arrangement should have been made. I declare, my
lady, I would not have had this happen for twenty pounds! But--'

'But what, man! What is the man mouthing about?' she cried impatiently.

'I am full,' he said, extending his palms to express his despair.' The
Earl of Chatham and his lordship's company travelling from Bath occupy
all the west wing and the greater part of the house; and I have
positively no rooms fit for your ladyship's use. I am grieved,
desolated, to have to say this to a person in your ladyship's position,'
he continued glibly, 'and an esteemed customer, but--' and again he
extended his hands.

'A fig for your desolation!' her ladyship cried rudely. 'It don't help
me, Smith.'

'But your ladyship sees how it is.'

'I am hanged if I do!' she retorted, and used an expression too coarse
for modern print. 'But I suppose that there is another house, man.'

'Certainly, my lady--several,' the landlord answered, with a gesture of
deprecation. 'But all full. And the accommodation not of a kind to suit
your ladyship's tastes.'

'Then--what are we to do?' she asked with angry shrillness.

'We have fresh horses,' he ventured to suggest. 'The road is good, and
in four hours, or four and a half at the most, your ladyship might be in
Bath, where there is an abundance of good lodgings.'

'Bless the man!' cried the angry peeress. 'Does he think I have a skin
of leather to stand this jolting and shaking? Four hours more! I'll lie
in my carriage first!'

A small rain was beginning to fall, and the night promised to be wet as
well as cold. Mr. Thomasson, who had spent the last hour, while his
companion slept, in visions of the sumptuous dinner, neat wines, and
good beds that awaited him at the Castle Inn, cast a despairing glance
at the doorway, whence issued a fragrance that made his mouth water.
'Oh, positively,' he cried, addressing the landlord, 'something must be
done, my good man. For myself, I can sleep in a chair if her ladyship
can anyway be accommodated.'

'Well,' said the landlord dubiously, 'if her ladyship could allow her
woman to lie with her?'

'Bless the man! Why did you not say that at once?' cried my lady. 'Oh,
she may come!' This last in a voice that promised little comfort for
the maid.

'And if the reverend gentleman--would put up with a couch below stairs?'

'Yes, yes,' said Mr. Thomasson; but faintly, now it came to the point.

'Then I think I can manage--if your ladyship will not object to sup with
some guests who have just arrived, and are now sitting down? Friends of
Sir George Soane,' the landlord hastened to add, 'whom your ladyship
probably knows.'

'Drat the man!--too well!' Lady Dunborough answered, making a wry face.
For by this time she had heard all about the duel. 'He has nearly cost
me dear! But, there--if we must, we must. Let me get my tooth in the
dinner, and I won't stand on my company.' And she proceeded to descend,
and, the landlord going before her, entered the house.

In those days people were not so punctilious in certain directions as
they now are. My lady put off her French hood and travelling cloak in
the lobby of the east wing, gave her piled-up hair a twitch this way and
that, unfastened her fan from her waist, and sailed in to supper, her
maid carrying her gloves and scent-bottle behind her. The tutor, who
wore no gloves, was a little longer. But having washed his hands at a
pump in the scullery, and dried them on a roller-towel--with no sense
that the apparatus was deficient--he tucked his hat under his arm and,
handling his snuff-box, tripped after her as hastily as vanity and an
elegant demeanour permitted.

He found her in the act of joining, with an air of vast condescension, a
party of three; two of whom her stately salute had already frozen in
their places. These two, a slight perky man of middle age, and a
frightened rustic-looking woman in homely black--who, by the way, sat
with her mouth, open and her knife and fork resting points upward on the
table--could do nothing but stare. The third, a handsome girl, very
simply dressed, returned her ladyship's gaze with mingled interest
and timidity.

My lady noticed this, and the girl's elegant air and shape, and set down
the other two for her duenna and her guardian's man of business. Aware
that Sir George Soane had no sister, she scented scandal, and lost not a
moment in opening the trenches.

'And how far have you come to-day, child?' she asked with condescension,
as soon as she had taken her seat.

'From Reading, madam,' the girl answered in a voice low and restrained.
Her manner was somewhat awkward, and she had a shy air, as if her
surroundings were new to her, But Lady Dunborough was more and more
impressed with her beauty, and a natural air of refinement that was not
to be mistaken.

'The roads are insufferably crowded,' said the peeress. 'They are
intolerable!'

'I am afraid you suffered some inconvenience,' the girl answered
timidly.

At that moment Mr. Thomasson entered. He treated the strangers to a
distant bow, and, without looking at them, took his seat with a
nonchalant ease, becoming a man who travelled with viscountesses, and
was at home in the best company. The table had his first hungry glance.
He espied roast and cold, a pair of smoking ducklings just set on, a
dish of trout, a round of beef, a pigeon-pie, and hot rolls. Relieved,
he heaved a sigh of satisfaction.

''Pon honour this is not so bad!' he said. 'It is not what your ladyship
is accustomed to, but at a pinch it will do. It will do!'

He was not unwilling that the strangers should know his companion's
rank, and he stole a glance at them, as he spoke, to see what impression
it made. Alas! the deeper impression was made on himself. For a moment
he stared; the next he sprang to his feet with an oath plain and strong.

'Drat the man!' cried my lady in wrath. He had come near to oversetting
her plate. 'What flea has bitten you now?'

'Do you know--who these people are?' Mr. Thomasson stammered, trembling
with rage; and, resting both hands on the back of his chair, he glared
now at them and now at Lady Dunborough. He could be truculent where he
had nothing to fear; and he was truculent now.

'These people?' my lady drawled in surprise; and she inspected them
through her quizzing-glass as coolly as if they were specimens of a rare
order submitted to her notice. 'Not in the least, my good man. Who are
they? Should I know them?'

'They are--'

But the little man, whose seat happened to be opposite the tutor's, had
risen to his feet by this time; and at that word cut him short. 'Sir!'
he cried in a flutter of agitation. 'Have a care! Have a care what you
say! I am a lawyer, and I warn you that anything defamatory
will--will be--'

'Pooh!' said Mr. Thomasson. 'Don't try to browbeat me, sir. These
persons are impostors, Lady Dunborough! Impostors!' he continued. 'In
this house, at any rate. They have no right to be here!'

'You shall pay for this!' shrieked Mr. Fishwick. For he it was.

'I will ring the bell,' the tutor continued in a high tone, 'and have
them removed. They have no more to do with Sir George Soane, whose name
they appear to have taken, than your ladyship has.'

'Have a care! Have a care, sir,' cried the lawyer, trembling.

'Or than I have!' persisted Mr. Thomasson hardily, and with his head in
the air; 'and no right or title to be anywhere but in the servants'
room. That is their proper place. Lady Dunborough,' he continued, his
eyes darting severity at the three culprits, 'are you aware that this
young person whom you have been so kind as to notice is--is--'

'Oh, Gadzooks, man, come to the point!' cried her ladyship, with one eye
on the victuals.

'No, I will not shame her publicly,' said Mr. Thomasson, swelling with
virtuous self-restraint. 'But if your ladyship would honour me with two
words apart?'

Lady Dunborough rose, muttering impatiently; and Mr. Thomasson, with the
air of a just man in a parable, led her a little aside; but so that the
three who remained at the table might still feel that his eye and his
reprehension rested on them. He spoke a few words to her ladyship;
whereon she uttered a faint cry, and stiffened. A moment and she turned
and came back to the table, her face crimson, her headdress nodding.
She looked at the girl, who had just risen to her feet.

'You baggage!' she hissed, 'begone! Out of this house! How dare you sit
in my presence?' And she pointed to the door.

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