Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 8/The wrath of Mistress Elizabeth Gwynne
THE WRATH OF MISTRESS ELIZABETH GWYNNE.
Every family has its own romance. Every house of decent respectability and antiquity has its own ghost. Families possessing neither romance nor ghost rest their claims to respect on the achievements of some mysterious hero, who by battle, by duel, or by rapine, has won renown; or, better still, of some heroine, slain by a harsh husband, drowned in an ancestral moat, or immortalised by the fame of her beauty. Those who can boast neither thrilling history, nor hero, whether natural or spiritual, can scarcely be alled families at all. They are merely a zoological congeries of uninteresting individuals, and have no right to intrude themselves on public notice.
It has lately been my fortune to have been staying in the country-house of a family eminently deserving of the name. Their annals are rich in incident, and the lives of all their kith and kin would make up a (by no means contemptible) history of England. In three rooms in their old dwelling, guests are never lodged; for in each of these three rooms a white lady, or a black knight, or some other incomprehensible inhabitant, is sure to molest a stranger. Their portrait gallery is as rich in character as in art. The Gwynnes have always prided themselves on their pictures, and I cannot but think that painters must have rejoiced over the opportunity of depicting the grim lords and beautiful ladies of their house. It is not my intention to give a list of this pedigree of paintings, for from the tawny panel of Mabuse which represents the black-bearded Gwynne who fought for the Tudor at Bosworth, down to the pink and white ivory of Cosway whereon simpers the high-girdled Gwynne who captivated the Regent, that list would be very long. I shall confine my tale to one picture and its subject. That one picture chained down my attention from the moment I saw it. I was glad to learn by my subsequent inquiries that the remarkable face that seemed to live on its surface belonged to one of the most noteworthy of the family, and one who had her own story. That story may seem very tame in comparison with the melodramatic horrors of much family romance, but such as it is, I heard it with interest. Whether I can repeat it with interest I am too modest to predict.
The story belongs to no dark ages of Smithfield fires or of bloody battles, for the picture is by Reynolds, and professes to represent the grandmother of the present Squire of Gwynne. She appears to be about thirty years old. She is standing, and seems of a stature greater than that of the mass of her sex. Her head is turned over her shoulder, and her face looks the spectator full in his own. The attitude is that of a graceful and high-bred gentlewoman, as is the attitude of all Reynolds’s ladies. Nor is there anything more than Reynolds’s customary success in the foliage of the background, and the arrangement of the grey drapery of the dress. It is the face alone which is remarkable. The forehead is high, and the brows are much more strongly marked, and much darker, than those which are usually found with brown hair. They are arched, and too nearly meet for mere beauty. The eyes are of that dark grey which flashes with the fiercest of all fire when it is roused. The expression of the mouth is a strange mixture of passion, of tenderness, and of resolution. The lips are firmly compressed, but they are too full for meanness, and too wavy for malice. The chin is prominent and large. The whole face beams with intelligence and life. I looked at it at one moment and said within myself, that woman must have been fearful in a rage. I looked at it again and said, that woman must have been one whose love was worth risking much to win. Two lustrous and unfathomable eyes haunted me wherever I went, and the recollection of them haunts me still.
In the days when King George III. was still a blooming young prince, not yet engaged in that romantic love affair with the well-educated Charlotte of Mecklenburg, which the biographer of the four monarchs of his name so amusingly describes, the family of the Gwynnes, after growing less and less numerous for several generations, came to be represented by two brothers. The elder ruled, as his ancestors ruled before him, in the ancestral manor. The younger adopted the traditionary career of the cadets of his house, and served in the army. Both married very suitable helpmates. The soldier lived long enough to speed the last sigh of his wife, and welcome the first smile of his son, and was then killed by a fall from his horse. The Squire’s lady presented him with an heir, and five years afterwards with a daughter, and then died. The widower was left in his home to train and teach his own children, and the child of his dead brother.
The Squire was haughty and passionate, but withal a just man. He clung to his opinions with all the tenacity of an Englishman, and, above all, of an English Tory. He hated a Whig, and he hated a Frenchman. With these exceptions, it might be said that he loved his neighbour. He was condescendingly affable to my Lord Marquess of the adjoining acres, as it became a Gwynne to be to a man who dated his rank not even from the comparatively ancient period of Hastings, but merely from the more recent invasion of Torbay. He was very friendly to the Vicar, and loved the toast of “Church and King.” He was equitable in his dealings with his tenants, and “ne’er forgot the poor.” He swore at his grooms, but they none of them left him. He was as fond of his nephew as of his own son and daughter, and children have rarely had a fonder father.
So matters went on quietly at Gwynne, till grey hairs began to grow on the head of the Squire (though it is almost an anachronism to talk of grey hairs in days of powder), and down to sprout on the cheeks of his boys. His own son Horace went to Christchurch, and was then sent to Paris. The young Squire was committed to the care of a great lady who had known the old Squire at St. James’s. It was hoped that under the auspices of Madame la Duchesse de Hautenbas Mr. Horace Gwynne would receive that mysterious coat of French polish which could only be administered at the Court of Maria Theresa’s beautiful daughter. For a time the Squire had nothing to complain of. The Duchess wrote that the young Englishman had the true air. He had been noticed at the Trianon. He had made a success. Mr. Horace himself thought Paris a charming place. He had performed in a private play as a Milord Anglais, in which a Royal Personage had appeared as a Grisette Française. He was very well seen. Nevertheless this was not altogether pleasant to the Squire. He had the notions of a Roman on the subject of the stage, and would never have acknowledged the celebrated comedian of his name as a kinswoman, even if she had honestly raised herself to fame by her acting, and not by—by other means. He did not like the idea of his boy’s capering before an audience of grinning Frenchmen, though a Queen had capered at his side. Indeed, was it well for the Queen so to occupy her most Christian Majesty’s leisure? All this was not quite satisfactory. But worse news followed. Mr. Horace was seen no more at the little Trianon. Madame de Hautenbas was compelled to ignore him. He had imbibed the strangest ideas, and was associating with the most unnoticeable people. He openly professed sympathy with the third estate. Less openly he became sceptical as to the advantages of monarchy, and, so far from preserving the principles of the paternal toast in a strange land, he was suspected of being acquainted with men who thought as little of Church as of King. At last a letter arrived from him in which he avowed himself an Atheist. It was a bitter trial to the Squire, but he did not flinch from his duty. He forbade the name of his son to be mentioned in his hearing. The estates of Gwynne would descend to the male heir, only in default of direct testamentary disposition on the part of the head of the house. The Squire could leave the property away from his unworthy son if he so willed. No Gwynne had made a will for many generations. Whether the Squire had broken the custom no one knew.
The Squire had lost his heir, but he was not childless. He had still his nephew to ride with him to cover, and discuss the stirring history of the times over his not immoderate cups. And Harry Gwynne was a bold and merry lad, frank and outspoken, modest and true, and in all respects such as might comfort a fatherly old uncle’s heart. Harry and his uncle were great friends, but not such friends as were the Squire and his daughter.
Mistress Elizabeth Gwynne, at nineteen years of age, was said to have been particularly beautiful. I have described the features of the woman, and from them may be guessed the loveliness of the girl. She was very beautiful, and very clever: but her temper was high and passionate. The visitor, who should see her unruffled and serene, might deem it impossible for so gentle a being to transcend the ordinary limits of the anger of her sex. But on the comparatively rare occasions, when her passion mastered her, her paroxysms of rage were fearful. Few cared to encounter her, and none to offer opposition. The presence of her father was the only influence which stilled her wrath. When her father approached, her love conquered her rage, and she was speedily calmed.
This untameable damsel Harry Gwynne had worshipped with an untiring constancy, ever since he had been old enough to hold any opinions at all. He was a year or two older than his mistress, but from the days when they both wore frocks, she had been, in imperial sense, the mistress, and he the slave. He had played with her, and ridden with her, and quarrelled with her, and obeyed her. He had broken-in a mare for her; he had planted an Italian garden for her; he had acted in all things as one whose existence was ordained for her convenience. All this she had received as her due. She admitted to herself, if ever she thought about the matter, that she was very fond of her cousin; but she was not, on that account, disposed to play the meek maiden, waiting modestly for the kerchief of the sultan. She used her slave’s services with magnificent indifference, and rewarded him sometimes with a smile, and sometimes with a fit of rage.
When no more letters came from Paris, and the Squire began to act as though he had no son, Mistress Bessie evidently deemed herself of increased importance. She had never pretended any love for the disinherited Horace. His airs and graces annoyed her. He could say prettier things than Harry, and he danced a minuet better than—hardly, at least, better than Harry, for that more rustic gentleman could not dance at all. But he had once craned at a hedge; and, on the whole, his sister did not regret his loss. She began to esteem herself the heiress of Gwynne. Papa would do something for Harry, of course, independently of the fortune left by Harry’s mother; but she would be the great lady.
The Squire said not a word of his intentions, but the greater the gulf between him and his son, the tighter appeared the bond that united him to his nephew; and the fonder he grew of his nephew, the oftener did his daughter wax wrath with her cousin, and indeed with everyone else. She was but twenty years old, but she was a notorious termagant; and the old housekeeper at the manor surmised that she would be the last of her branch of the house, for no one would woo so wild a bride—no one, that is, but Master Harry, and she seemed daily less inclined to stoop to the faithful cousin. Unless some terrible lesson should tame her, she would live a cheerless life.
The oftener this wilful lady was told to be a good child, the more pertinaciously she asserted her independence. Poor Harry still worshipped, but he received more frowns than smiles for his pains. One day when he was more than ordinarily definite and demonstrative in his professions of attachment, his mistress stamped her little foot and vowed she hated him—that her father gave too much love to the nephew and too little to his child, and that so far from having any intention of surrendering her heart, she regarded her suitor as the chief bar to her earthly happiness. Of course this was not true. Of course she loved every hair on the head of her yellow-pated cousin. But the statements of young ladies are as mysterious as the dispatches of diplomatists. They use language to conceal their thoughts, though happily their art is not always skilful enough to conceal itself. But whether it was or was not true, it made Harry very miserable. He was in a dilemma. If he was cold to his uncle, his uncle looked pained. If he was not cold to his uncle, he was accused of winning away a father’s love from the personage whom, more than any other, he desired to encircle with all love. On the whole, the household was a stormy one; but now and then a patch of blue sky smiled through the clouds. Bessie forgot her grievances, and spent a merry day with her old playfellow. These intervals were, however, sorrowfully rare.
And now the Squire fell ill. The career of his son had afflicted him more than had been supposed. He was struck with paralysis, and lost the use of his lower limbs. Stretched in his bed or on a couch, he was dependant on others for his necessities and for his pleasures. Harry and his cousin vied with one another in unwearied attention, but a state of things which ought to have healed all breaches seemed to widen the gulf between them. When the Squire called for Harry to read him the Gazette, or to write a letter to the bailiff, the fair Bessie sulked over her harpsichord. And if, perchance, the Squire said, “Bessie, will you write as I dictate?” or, “Bessie, I am going to be lifted into the coach, and to be driven to Minchester,” It was, “Papa, won’t Harry do it better?” or, “Papa, Harry knows all about the crops, and will be a more amusing companion.”
These observations were, unlike some others of the young lady’s, perfectly true; and the Squire was gradually and unconsciously beginning to act upon them. His great affliction made it hard for him to bear with the caprices of his daughter, and day after day he became less able to endure Harry out of his sight. He was growing prematurely old and prematurely peevish, and his exactions taxed all the patience of his dutiful nephew.
Miss Bessie’s temper, too, grew worse instead of better. Once she had even flown into a passion before her crippled father, and had not been calmed by his appealing look. She remembered the day when she was all in all to her parent, and now she was as nothing. Nor were there wanting those evil influences of gossip and flattery which are never wanting in a court or in a large household. There were voices which whispered, “Madam, look out for the estate, the Squire’s health is fast failing. Will you like to leave the manor, or live in it as Master Harry’s guest? For to Master Harry the Squire will assuredly leave it.”
At this Mistress Elizabeth Gwynne quite forgot that she desired nothing better than to stay at Gwynne all her life, with this treacherous Harry, as his wife, and forgot also her firm faith that his wishes entirely agreed with her own. She only remembered that she was the daughter of the elder branch: that there was a suspicion that she was to be disinherited; that—that—indeed she was not very clear what. But enough had been said to rouse all her rage, and from that day the notion of a will never failed to raise the devil at her heart.
She and her cousin dined daily in her father’s own study. It was the only occasion on which the three were long together. On a certain day, in the course of the meal, the Squire looked across the table contrived to fasten to his couch, and said:
“Harry, lad, has Griffiths gone to Minchester?”
“He went at ten o’clock, sir. He rode Brown Hanover. He wanted to have Strawberry, but I know she isn’t up to his”
“Papa, what have you sent Griffiths to Minchester for? You know I was going to ride over this afternoon.”
“Something that Griffiths could do better than you, my Bessie.”
There was a significant look in the invalid’s eyes.
“Harry, what did he go for? Oh! very well. If you won’t tell me! pray keep your secret!”
And she cooked her spleen. It was not, indeed, a very merry meal.
“Hannah, do you know why Griffiths has gone to Minchester?”
“Griffiths, ma’am? Minchester, ma’am? I think I heard him say he was going to take a letter to Mr. Deeds.”
Now Deeds was the family lawyer. The plot was out. The Squire was going to make a will in Harry’s favour. The despised daughter of the house sat brooding in her own room, and her face grew very dark. The groom brought round her mare, but she said she had changed her mind. She would not ride that day.
Late in the afternoon she saw Mr. Deeds and a clerk drive up the avenue in a chaise. She heard them ushered into her father’s bed-room. The Squire had felt weaker than usual, and had retired to his room immediately after his mid-day meal. The noise of the footsteps on the marble, and the shutting of the doors, was as oil on fire. Elizabeth Gwynne was all but in the last stage of passion. She chafed and fumed in her own room till suspense became unbearable. She rang a hand-bell that summoned a maid, and sent a message.
“Tell some of the people to ask Mr. Harry if he will speak with me immediately.”
Presently the girl returned.
“Mr. Harry was busy with the Squire, and could not come.” Had it come to this? Was she, the once-loved daughter, to remain silent in her room, while her natural father was signing away her patrimony to her cousin? Had not she a right to be with her father? He was doing something important, or he would not have sent for Deeds. It was her plain duty to be with him.
“He shall not do it!—he shall not do it!” she muttered between her teeth, and in a violent paroxysm of passion, stalked along the corridor to her father’s rooms. As she crossed the hall she met Deeds and his acolyte, conducted by a lackey, on their way to their chaise. The old lawyer bowed low.
“Hypocrite!” she hissed, and passed on.
She flung open her father’s door. When all motion had become irksome to him, he had taken up his quarters in what was called the state bed-room, on the ground-floor. Queen Anne had passed a night at Gwynne, and the room had been sumptuously furnished for her. On the lofty bed, rich with curious needlework, and canopied by dingy plumes, lay the old chief of his clan, helpless and wan. A fire burned louringly on the cunning smith’s work that lay at the bottom of the huge fire-place, and threw a changeful light on the high-backed chairs, the black cabinets, the heavy hangings, and the painted ceiling of the great gloomy room. At the side of the bed stood a table littered with pens and writing materials. An extinguished taper still poisoned the air. At the foot of the bed stood Harry, holding in his hand a clean, new, parchment document, folded, tied, and sealed.
All her fears were then realised. She was the despised and disinherited dependant. There lay the father who had abandoned her. There stood the scheming villain who had ousted her from her own. Her cousin stood still for an instant, startled by her sudden appearance, and awed by the white passion of her face. She strode to where he stood, snatched the packet from his hand, and flung it into the glowing coals. Ere her cousin had recovered from the shock, she had thrust the vellum deep into the great fire. He started forward to rescue his charge before it was consumed, but she stood with outstretched arm before the grate, and shrieked in a voice hoarse with rage,—“Robber! robber! robber! Would you rob me of my birthright? You have stolen my father’s love! Would you steal my inheritance, too? Stand back, sir; you shall not touch it! My father never meant to do it. He does not know what you have made him do—he always loved me—he never would” She looked up at her father as she spoke; and Harry, who had stood dumb beneath her torrent of abuse, and down whose cheeks two hot tears of gentle pity for her, and utter anguish for self, were slowly trickling,—Harry looked round at the Squire, too. He was sitting up in his bed; his arms were stretched out, and his hands were clasping and unclasping themselves in the air, while his lips mumbled in vain, and his eyes seemed to burn to speak. So he sat for a minute, his children rushing to his side and seizing his hands. It seemed as though his brow would crack in the agony of desire to speak. For a moment the eyes shone with a brighter lustre in the flickering flame of the burning packet, his mouth made a convulsive effort to form a word, and he fell heavily back on his pillow, dead.
There was an awful silence for a space, and then Elizabeth burst forth in a wail of sorrow and remorse. She had killed her father. She had better die to join him.
“Kill me, kill me, Harry!” she shrieked. But the utter desolation of grief that was expressed in her cousin’s face silenced her own sobs. Kneeling down by the side of the bed she hid her head in her hands, and was still.
Then came doctors and domestics. “Another stroke!”—“Poor Squire; and only five-and-forty.”—“And how did Miss Gwynne get to her father’s room?”—“Did he know her before he died?”
All these things were said as she was borne in a dull stupor to her room. Harry alone knew the truth. He saw her laid on her bed and in the custody of her women, and then retired to his own grief, and the many duties he had to perform.
In the morning the old housekeeper came to him and brought tidings of her lady. Elizabeth had slept a little in the night, and was calm now. She wished to see her cousin. She received him with great gentleness, and as one who had had her life-lesson. She knew that no apology could atone for what she had said and done. She trusted her grief would be sufficient punishment. She could not insult her cousin in his own home with her presence, after what had occurred. Immediately after the funeral she should leave Gwynne. Mrs. Griffiths had promised to go with her. She had enough to maintain her in decent respectability from what her mother had left her for pocket-money. She should not require much, for she should not live long.
“And, Harry,” she added, “when you hear that I am dead, will you let me be buried with papa in our own churchyard?” She looked him tearfully in the face.
“O Bessie, Bessie!” he broke out; “you go away!—you leave Gwynne! It is I that must go! It is yours—it is all yours! The will left it all to you. O Bessie! How could you—how could you?” But he stopped in the middle of his reproach. “Bessie, I am come to bid you good-by. You would not have me stay? It is better for us to part.”
I cannot chronicle the precise words in which Miss Gwynne, as soon as she was satisfied that she was mistress, and not guest, invited her cousin to stay. But he did stay. It was perhaps undignified in him; he had surely had warning. But he did stay. He stayed some half century longer; and there is no record in the family of his wife ever having flown in a rage with her lord.
When Mr. Deeds had driven over from Minchester, he had brought over the draught of a will, unsigned, leaving the whole estate to Elizabeth. So he had been ordered; but he strongly deprecated the notion of the Squire’s disinheriting his son for what he termed the errors of youth. He had some stormy discussion with his client, and at last left the house, leaving the will yet unsigned, and declaring that, if Mr. Gwynne was determined, some other lawyer must be employed to do the work. The Squire immediately signed the will that was afterwards burned, and Harry’s was the only evidence that could secure the property to his cousin.
Before, however, any difficulty could arise as to the succession, news arrived at Gwynne that Horace had been killed in a duel. He had married a French lady, who bore him no children, and who, at his death, came to reside in London, and was said to have made a great impression at Carlton House.
After seeing the picture, and hearing the story, I was shown the state bed-room. There stood still the broidered bed, with Queen Anne’s lilies and lions, and the brazen dogs on which the will had smouldered. I was strangely interested, I own, in Mistress Elizabeth Gwynne.