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Henry Fielding - "Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12)"

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Self Raised

E >> Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth >> Self Raised




"That will do. See if my people have come up from the custom house."

"Yes, sir; I beg your pardon, sir, what name?" inquired the
perplexed waiter.

"No matter. Go look for a fellow who has in charge a large number of
boxes and a party of male and female gorillas."

The man left the room to do his errand and to report below that the
person in "Number 13" was a showman with a lot of man-monkeys from
the interior of Africa.

But Claudia turned to her husband in astonishment.

"Did I understand you to inquire about the train to Aberdeen?"

"Yes," was the short reply.

"But--I thought we were going to London--to Hurstmonceux House--"

"Belgravia? No, my dear, we are going to Scotland."

"But--why this change of plan? My father and myself certainly
understood that I was to be taken to London and introduced to your
family and afterwards presented to her majesty."

"My dear, the London season is over ages ago. Nobody that is anybody
will be found in town until February. The court is at Balmoral, and
the world is in Scotland. We go to Castle Cragg."

"But why could you not have told me that before?"

"My dear, I like to be agreeable. And people who are always setting
others right are not so."

"Is Lord Hurstmonceux at Castle Cragg?"

"The earl is at Balmoral, in attendance upon her majesty."

"Then why do we not go to Balmoral?"

"The queen holds no drawing rooms there."

Claudia suspected that he was deceiving her; but she felt that it
would do no good to accuse him of deception.

The waiter returned to the room, bringing Lord Vincent's substantial
supper, arranged on a tray.

"I have inquired below, sir; and there is no one arrived having in
charge your gorillas. But there is a person with a panorama, sir;
and there is a person with three negro persons, sir," said the
waiter.

"He will do. Send up the 'person with three negro persons,'" said
the viscount.

And once more the waiter left the room.

In a few moments Lord Vincent's valet entered.

"Frisbie, we leave for Scotland by the four o'clock train, to-morrow
morning. See to it."

"Yes, my lord. I beg your lordship's pardon, but is your lordship
aware that it is the parliamentary?"

"Certainly; but it is also the first. See to it that your gorillas
are ready. And--Frisbie."

"Yes, my lord."

"Go and engage a first-class carriage for our own exclusive use."

"Yes, my lord," said the man, with his hand still on the door, as if
waiting further orders.

"Lord Vincent, I would be obliged if you would tell him to send one
of my women to me," said Claudia coldly.

"Women? Oh! Here, Frisbie! send the female gorillas up."

"I said one of my women, the elder one, he may send."

"Frisbie, send the old female gorilla up, then."

The man went out of the room. And Claudia turned upon her husband:

"Lord Vincent, I do not know in what light you consider it; but I
think your conduct shows bad wit and worse manners."

"Lady Vincent, I am sorry you should disapprove of it," said his
lordship, falling to upon his beefsteak and ale, the fumes of which
soon filled the room.

But that was nothing to what was coming. When he had finished his
supper he coolly took a pipe from his pocket, filled it with "negro-
head," and prepared to light it. Then stopping in the midst of his
operations, he looked at Claudia and inquired:

"Do you dislike tobacco smoke?"

"I do not know, my lord. No gentleman ever smoked in my presence,"
replied Claudia haughtily.

"Oh, then, of course, you don't know, and never will until you try.
There is nothing like experiment."

And Lord Vincent put the pipe between his lips and puffed away
vigorously. The room was soon filled with smoke. That, combined with
the smell of the beefsteak and the ale, really sickened Claudia. She
went to the window, raised it and looked out.

"You will take cold," said his lordship.

"I would rather take cold than breathe this air," was her reply.

"Just as you please; but I hadn't," he said. And he went and shut
down the window.

Amazement held Claudia still for a moment; she could scarcely
believe in such utter disregard of her feelings. At last, in a voice
vibrating with ill-suppressed indignation, she said:

"My lord, the air of this room makes me ill. If you must smoke, can
you not do so somewhere else?"

"Where?" questioned his lordship, taking the pipe from his mouth for
an instant.

"Is there not a smoking room, reading room, or something of the
sort, for gentlemen's accommodation?"

"In this place? Ha, ha, ha! Well, there is the taproom!"

"Then why not go there?" inquired Claudia, who had no very clear
idea of what the taproom really was.

Lord Vincent's face flushed at what he seemed to think an
intentional affront.

"I can go into the street," he said.

And he arose and put on his greatcoat and his cap, and turned up the
collar of his coat and turned down the fall of his cap, so that but
little of his face would be seen, and so walked out. Then Claudia
raised the window to ventilate the room, and rang the bell to summon
the waiter.

"Take this service away and send the chambermaid to me," she said to
him when he came.

And a few minutes after he had cleared the table and left the room
the chambermaid, accompanied by old Katie, entered.

"Is there a dressing room connected with this chamber?" Lady Vincent
inquired.

"Law, no, mum! there isn't sich a place in the house," said the
chambermaid.

"This is intolerable! You may go; my own servants will wait on me."

The girl went out.

"Unpack my traveling bag and lay out my things, Katie," said Lady
Vincent, when she was left alone with her nurse.

But the old woman raised her hands, and rolled up her eyes,
exclaiming:

"Well, Miss Claudia, child!--I mean my ladyship, ma'am!--if this is
Ingland, I never want to see it again the longest day as ever I
live!"

"Liverpool is not England, Katie."

"Live-a-pool, is it? More like Die-a-pool!" grumbled old Katie, as
she assisted her lady to change her traveling dress for a loose
wrapper.

"Now, what have you had to eat, my ladyship?"

"Nothing, Katie. I felt as if I could not eat anything cooked in
this ill-looking house."

"Nothing to eat! I'll go right straight downstairs and make you some
tea and toast myself," said Katie.

And she made good her words by bringing a delicate little repast, of
which Claudia gratefully partook.

And then Katie, with an old nurse's tenderness, saw her mistress
comfortably to bed, and cleared and darkened the room and left her
to repose.

But Claudia did not sleep. Her thoughts were too busy with the
subject of Lord Vincent's strange conduct from the time that he had
at Niagara received those three suspicious letters up to this time,
when with his face hid he was walking up and down the streets of
Liverpool.

That he sought concealment she felt assured by many circumstances:
his coming to this obscure tavern; his choosing to take his meals
and smoke his pipe in his bedroom; and his walking out with his face
muffled--all of which was in direct antagonism to Lord Vincent's
fastidious habits; and, finally, his taking a whole carriage in the
railway train, for no other purpose than to have himself and his
party entirely isolated from their fellow-passengers.

Lord Vincent came in early, and, thanks to the narcotic qualities of
the ale, he soon fell asleep.

Claudia had scarcely dropped into a doze before, at the dismal hour
of three o'clock in the morning, they were roused up to get ready
for the train. They made a hurried toilet and ate a hasty breakfast,
and then set out for the station.

It was a raw, damp, foggy morning. The atmosphere seemed as dense
and as white as milk. No one could see a foot in advance. And
Claudia wondered how the cabmen managed to get along at all.

They reached the station just as the train was about to start, and
had barely time to hurry into the carriage that had been engaged for
them before the whistle shrieked and they were off. Fortunately
Frisbie had sent the luggage on in advance, and got it ticketed.

The carriage had four back and four front seats. Lord and Lady
Vincent occupied two of the back seats, and their four servants the
front ones. As they went on the fog really seemed to thicken. They
traveled slowly and stopped often. And Claudia, in surprise,
remarked upon these facts.

"One might as well be in a stage--for speed," she complained.

"It is the parliamentary train," he replied.

"I have heard you say that before; but I do not know what you mean
by 'parliamentary' as applied to railway trains."

"It is the cheap train, the slow train, the people's train; in fact,
one that, in addition to first- and second-class carriages, drags
behind it an interminable length of rough cars, in which the lower
orders travel," said his lordship.

"But why is it called the 'parliamentary'?"

"Because it was instituted by act of parliament for the
accommodation of the people, or perhaps because it is so heavy and
slow."

On they went, hour after hour, stopping every three or four miles,
while the fog seemed still to condense and whiten.

At noon the train reached York, and stopped twenty minutes for
refreshment. Lord Vincent did not leave the carriage, but sent his
valet out to the station restaurant to procure what was needful for
his party. And while the passengers were all hurrying to and fro,
and looking in at the carriage, he drew the curtains of his windows,
and sat back far in his seat.

Claudia would gladly have left the train and spent the interval in
contemplating, even if it were only the outside of the ancient
cathedral of which she had read and heard so much.

Lord Vincent assured her there was no time to lose in sight-seeing
then, but promised that she should visit York at some future period.

And the train started again. They began to leave the fog behind them
as they approached the seacoast. They soon came in sight of the
North Sea, beside which the railway ran for some hundred miles. Here
all was bright and clear. And Claudia for a time forgot all the
suspicions and anxieties that disturbed her mind, and with all a
stranger's interest gazed on the grandeur of the scenery and dreamed
over the associations it awakened.

Here "lofty Seaton-Delaval" was pointed out to her. And Tinemouth,
famed in song for its "haughty prioress," and "Holy Isle," memorable
for the inhumation of Constance de Beverly.

At sunset they crossed Berwick bridge and entered Scotland.

Claudia was entirely lost in gazing on the present landscape, and
dreaming of its past history. Here the association between scenery
and poetry was perfect. Nature is ever young--and this was the very
scene and the very hour described in Scott's immortal poem, and as
Claudia gazed she murmured the lines:

"Day set on Norham's castled steep,
And Tweed's fair river, broad and deep,
And Cheviot's mountains lone;
The battled towers, the donjon keep,
The flanking walls that round it sweep,
In yellow luster shone,"

Yes! it was the very scene, viewed at the very hour, just as the
poet described it to have been two hundred years before, when

"Marmion, Lord of Fontenaye,
Of Lutterward and Scrivelbaye,
Of Tamworth tower and town,"

crossed with his knightly train into Scotland. There was the setting
sun burnishing the brown tops of the Cheviot hills; gilding the
distant ruined towers of Norham Castle, and lighting up the waters
of the Tweed.

But there is little time for either observation or dreaming in a
railway train.

They stopped but a few minutes at Berwick, and then shot off
northward, still keeping near the coast.

Claudia looked out upon the gray North Sea, and enjoyed the
magnificence of the coast scenery as long as the daylight lasted.

When it was growing dark Lord Vincent said:

"You had just as well close that window, Claudia. It will give us
all cold; and besides, you can see but little now."

"I can see Night drawing her curtain of darkness around the bed of
the troubled waters. It is worth watching," murmured Claudia
dreamily.

"Bosh!" was the elegant response of the viscount; "you will see
enough of the North Sea before you have done with it, I fancy." And
with an emphatic clap he let down the window.

Claudia shrugged her shoulders and turned away, too proud to dispute
a point that she was powerless to decide.

They sped on towards Edinboro', through the darkness of one of the
darkest nights that ever fell. Even had the window been open Claudia
could not have caught a glimpse of the scenery. She had no idea that
they were near the capital of Scotland until the train ran into the
station. Then all was bustle among those who intended to get out
there.

But through all the bustle Lord Vincent and his party kept their
seats,

"I am very weary of this train. I have not left my seat for many
hours. Can we not stop over night here? I should like to see
Edinboro' by daylight," Claudia inquired.

"What did you say?" asked Lord Vincent, with nonchalance.

Claudia repeated her question, adding:

"I should like to remain a day or two in Edinboro'. I wish to see
the Castle, and Holyrood Palace and Abbey, and Roslyn and
Craigmiller, and----"

"Everything else, of course. Bother! We have no time for that. I
have taken our tickets for Aberdeen, and mean to sleep at Castle
Cragg to-night," replied the viscount.

Claudia turned away her head to conceal the indignant tears that
arose to her eyes. She was beginning to discover that her comfort,
convenience, and inclination were just about the last circumstances
that her husband was disposed to take into consideration. What a
dire reverse for her, whose will from her earliest recollection had
been the law to all around her!

The train started again and sped on its way through the darkness of
the night towards Aberdeen, where they arrived about eight o'clock.

"Here at last the railway journey ends, thank Heaven," sighed
Claudia, as the train slackened its speed and crawled into the
station. And the usual bustle attending its arrival ensued.

Fortunately for Claudia, the viscount found himself too much
fatigued after about sixteen hours' ride to go farther that night.
So he directed Mr. Frisbie to engage two cabs to take himself and
his party to a hotel.

And when they were brought up he handed Claudia, who was scarcely
able to stand, into the first one, and ordered Frisbie to put the
"gorillas" into the other. And they drove to a fourth- or fifth-rate
inn, a degree or two dirtier, dingier, and darker than the one they
had left at Liverpool.

But Claudia was too utterly worn out in body, mind, and spirit to
find fault with any shelter that promised to afford her the common
necessaries of life, of which she had been deprived for so many
hours.

She drank the tea that was brought her, without questioning its
quality. And as soon as she laid her head on her pillow she sank
into the dreamless sleep of utter exhaustion.

She awoke late the next morning to take her first look at the old
town through a driving rain that lashed the narrow windows of her
little bedroom. Lord Vincent had already risen and gone out.

She rang for her servants. Old Katie answered the bell, entering
with uplifted hands and eyes, exclaiming:

"Well, my ladyship! if this ain't the outlandishest country as ever
was! Coming over from t'other side we had the ocean unnerneaf of us,
and now 'pears to me like we has got it overhead of us, by the fog
and mist and rain perpetual! And if this is being of lords and
ladyships, I'd a heap leifer be misters and mist'esses, myself."

"I quite agree with you, Katie," sighed Lady Vincent, as, with the
old woman's assistance, she dressed herself.

"It seems to me like as if we was regerlerly sold, my ladyship,"
said old Katie mysteriously.

"Hush! Where are we to have breakfast--not in this disordered room,
I hope?"

"No, my ladyship. They let us have a little squeezed-up parlor that
smells for all the world as if a lot of men had been smoking and
drinking in it all night long. My lordship's down there, waiting for
his breakfast now. Pretty place to fetch a 'spectable cullored
pusson to, let alone a lady! Well, one comfort, we won't stay here
long, cause I heard my lordship order Mr. Frisbie to go and take two
inside places and four outside places in the stage-coach as leaves
this mornin' for Ban. 'Ban,' 'Ban'; 'pears like it's been all ban
and no blessin' ever since we done lef' Tanglewood."

Lady Vincent did not think it worth while to correct Katie. She knew
by experience that all attempts to set her right would be lost
labor.

She went downstairs and joined Lord Vincent in the little parlor,
where a breakfast was laid of which it might be said that if the
coffee was bad and the bannocks worse, the kippered herrings were
delicious.

After breakfast they took their places in or on the Banff mail
coach; Lord and Lady Vincent being the sole passengers inside; and
all their servants occupying the outside. And so they set out
through the drizzling rain and by the old turnpike road to Banff.

This road ran along the edge of the cliffs overhanging the sea--the
sea, ever sublime and beautiful, even when dimly seen through the
dull veil of a Scotch mist.

Claudia was not permitted to open the window; but she kept the glass
polished that she might look out upon the wild scenery.

Late in the afternoon they reached the town of Banff, where they
stopped only long enough to order a plain dinner and engage flies to
take them on to their final destination, Castle Cragg, which in
truth Claudia was growing very anxious to behold.




CHAPTER XV.

CASTLE CRAGG.

The wildest scene, but this, can show
Some touch of nature's genial glow;
But here, above, around, below,
On mountain or in glen,
Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower.
Nor aught of vegetative power
The weary eye may ken.
For all is rocks at random thrown,
Black waves, bare crags, and banks of stone.
--_Scott._



Immediately after dinner they set out again on this last stage of
their journey, Claudia and Vincent riding in the first fly and
Frisbie and the "gorillas" in the second one. The road still lay
along the cliffs above the sea. And Claudia still sat and gazed
through the window of the fly as she had gazed through the window of
the coach, at the wild, grand, awful scenery of the coast. Hour
after hour they rode on until the afternoon darkened into evening.

The last object of interest that caught Claudia's attention, before
night closed the scene, was far in advance of them up the coast. It
was a great promontory stretching far out into the sea and lifting
its lofty head high into the heavens. Upon its extreme point stood
an ancient castle, which at that height seemed but a crow's nest in
size.

Claudia called Lord Vincent's attention to it.

"What castle is that, my lord, perched upon that high promontory? I
should think it an interesting place, an historical place, built
perhaps in ancient times as a stronghold against Danish invasion,"
she said.

"That? Oh, ah, yes! That is a trifle historical, in the record of a
score of sieges, storms, assaults, and so on; and a bit traditional,
in legends of some hundred capital crimes and mortal sins; and in
fact altogether, as you say, rather interesting, especially to you,
Claudia. It is Castle Cragg, and it will have the honor to be your
future residence."

"Heaven forbid!" exclaimed Claudia, gazing now in consternation upon
that drear, desolate, awful rock. "Dread point of Dis" it seemed
indeed to her.

"For a season only, my dear, of course," said the viscount, with the
queerest of smiles, of which Claudia could make nothing
satisfactory.

She continued to look out, but the longer she gazed upon that awful
cliff and the nearer she approached it, the more appalled she
became. She now saw, in turning a winding of the coast, that the
point of the cliff stretched much farther out to sea than had at
first appeared, and that only a low neck of land connected it with
the main; and she knew that when the tide was high this promontory
must be entirely cut off from the coast and become, to all intents
and purposes, an island. Approaching nearer still, she saw that the
cliff was but a huge, bare, barren rock, of which the castle, built
and walled in of the same rock, seemed but an outgrowth and a
portion.

If this rock-bound, sea-walled dwelling-place, which had evidently
been built rather for a fortification than for a family residence,
struck terror to the heart of Claudia, what effect must it have had
upon the superstitious mind of poor old Katie, riding in the fly
behind, when Mr. Frisbie was so good as to point it out to her with
the agreeable information that it was to be her future home.

"What, dat!" exclaimed the old woman in consternation. "You don't
mean dat! Well, lord! I'se offen hearn tell of de 'Debbil's Icy
Peak,' but I nebber expected to cotch my eyes on it, much less lib
on it, I tell you all good!"

"That's it, hows'ever, Mrs. Gorilla," said Mr. Frisbie.

"I keep a-telling you as my family name aint Gorilla, it's Mortimer;
dough Gorilla is a perty name, too; it ralely is, on'y you see,
chile, it aint mine," said unconscious Katie.

But the darkening night shut out from their view the awful cliff to
which, however, they were every moment approaching nearer.

Fortunately as the carriages reached the base of this cliff the tide
was low, and they were enabled to pass the neck of land that united
the island to the coast and made it a promontory. After passing over
this narrow strip they ascended the cliff by a road so steep that it
had been paved with flagstones placed edgeways to afford a hold for
the horses' hoofs and aid them in climbing. It was too dark to see
all this then; but Claudia knew from the inclined position of the
carriage how steep was the ascent, and she held her very breath for
fear. As for old Katie, in the carriage behind, she began praying.

A solitary light shone amid the darkness above them. It came from a
lamp at the top of the castle gate. They reached the summit of the
cliff in safety, and Lady Vincent breathed freely again and old
Katie's prayers changed to thanksgivings.

They crossed the drawbridge over the ancient moat and entered the
castle gate. The light above it revealed the ghastly, iron-toothed
portcullis, that looked ready to fall and impale any audacious
passenger under its impending fangs. And they entered the old paved
courtyard and crossed over to the main entrance of the castle hall.

Here, at length, some of the attendant honors of Lady Vincent's new
rank seemed ready to greet her.

The establishment had been expecting its lord and had heard the
sound of carriages. The great doors were thrown open; lights flashed
out; liveried servants appeared in attendance.

"You got my telegram, I perceive, Cuthbert," Lord Vincent said to a
large, red-haired Scot, in plain citizen's clothes, who seemed to be
the porter.

"Yes, me laird, though, as ye ken, the chiels at yon office at Banff
hae to send it by a special messenger--sae it took a long time to
win here."

"All right, Cuthbert, since you received it in time to be ready for
us. Light us into the green parlor, and send the housekeeper here to
attend Lady Vincent."

"Yes, me laird," answered the man, bowing low before he led the way
into a room so elegantly furnished as to afford a pleasant surprise
to Claudia, who certainly did not expect to find anything so bright
and new in this dark, old castle.

Here she was presently joined by a tall, spare, respectable-looking
old woman in a black linsey dress, white apron and neck shawl, and
high-crowned Scotch cap.

"How do you do, dame? You will show Lady Vincent to her apartments
and wait her orders."

"Eh, sirs! anither ane!" ejaculated the old woman under her breath;
then turning to Claudia, with a courtesy she said: "I am ready to
attend your leddyship."

Claudia arose and followed her through the vast hall and up the
lofty staircase to another great square stone hall, whose four walls
were regularly indented by lines of doors leading into the bed
chambers and dressing rooms.

And as Claudia looked upon this array, her first thought was that a
stranger might easily get confused among them and open the wrong
door. And that it would be well to have them numbered as at hotels
to prevent mistakes.

The old housekeeper opened one of the doors and admitted her
mistress into a beautifully furnished and decorated suite of
apartments which consisted of boudoir, bedroom, and dressing room
opening into each other, so that, as Claudia entered the first, she
had the vista of the three before her eyes. The floors were covered
with Turkey carpets so soft and deep in texture that they yielded
like turf under the tread. And the heavy furniture was all of black
walnut; and the draperies were all of golden-brown satin damask and
richly embroidered lace.

The effect of the whole was warm, rich, and comfortable.

Claudia looked around herself with approbation; her spirits rose;
she felt reconciled to the rugged old fortress that contained such
splendors within its walls; for who would care how rough the casket,
so that the jewels it held were of the finest water? Her plans
"soared up again like fire."

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