38. ENCKWORTH COURT
It was on a dull, stagnant, noiseless afternoon of autumn that
Ethelberta first crossed the threshold of Enckworth Court. The
daylight was so lowered by the impervious roof of cloud overhead
that it scarcely reached further into Lord Mountclere's entrance-
hall than to the splays of the windows, even but an hour or two
after midday; and indoors the glitter of the fire reflected itself
from the very panes, so inconsiderable were the opposing rays.
Enckworth Court, in its main part, had not been standing more than a
hundred years. At that date the weakened portions of the original
mediaeval structure were pulled down and cleared away, old jambs
being carried off for rick-staddles, and the foliated timbers of the
hall roof making themselves useful as fancy chairs in the summer-
houses of rising inns. A new block of masonry was built up from the
ground of such height and lordliness that the remnant of the old
pile left standing became as a mere cup-bearer and culinary menial
beside it. The rooms in this old fragment, which had in times past
been considered sufficiently dignified for dining-hall, withdrawing-
room, and so on, were now reckoned barely high enough for
sculleries, servants' hall, and laundries, the whole of which were
arranged therein.
The modern portion had been planned with such a total disregard of
association, that the very rudeness of the contrast gave an interest
to the mass which it might have wanted had perfect harmony been
attempted between the old nucleus and its adjuncts, a probable
result if the enlargement had taken place later on in time. The
issue was that the hooded windows, simple string-courses, and random
masonry of the Gothic workman, stood elbow to elbow with the equal-
spaced ashlar, architraves, and fasciae of the Classic addition,
each telling its distinct tale as to stage of thought and domestic
habit without any of those artifices of blending or restoration by
which the seeker for history in stones will be utterly hoodwinked in
time to come.
To the left of the door and vestibule which Ethelberta passed
through rose the principal staircase, constructed of a freestone so
milk-white and delicately moulded as to be easily conceived in the
lamplight as of biscuit-ware. Who, unacquainted with the secrets of
geometrical construction, could imagine that, hanging so airily
there, to all appearance supported on nothing, were twenty or more
tons dead weight of stone, that would have made a prison for an
elephant if so arranged? The art which produced this illusion was
questionable, but its success was undoubted. 'How lovely!' said
Ethelberta, as she looked at the fairy ascent. 'His staircase alone
is worth my hand!'
Passing along by the colonnade, which partly fenced the staircase
from the visitor, the saloon was reached, an apartment forming a
double cube. About the left-hand end of this were grouped the
drawing-rooms and library; while on the right was the dining-hall,
with billiard, smoking, and gun rooms in mysterious remoteness
beyond.
Without attempting to trace an analogy between a man and his
mansion, it may be stated that everything here, though so dignified
and magnificent, was not conceived in quite the true and eternal
spirit of art. It was a house in which Pugin would have torn his
hair. Those massive blocks of red-veined marble lining the hall--
emulating in their surface-glitter the Escalier de Marbre at
Versailles--were cunning imitations in paint and plaster by workmen
brought from afar for the purpose, at a prodigious expense, by the
present viscount's father, and recently repaired and re-varnished.
The dark green columns and pilasters corresponding were brick at the
core. Nay, the external walls, apparently of massive and solid
freestone, were only veneered with that material, being, like the
pillars, of brick within.
To a stone mask worn by a brick face a story naturally appertained--
one which has since done service in other quarters. When the vast
addition had just been completed King George visited Enckworth. Its
owner pointed out the features of its grand architectural attempt,
and waited for commendation.
'Brick, brick, brick,' said the king.
The Georgian Lord Mountclere blushed faintly, albeit to his very
poll, and said nothing more about his house that day. When the king
was gone he sent frantically for the craftsmen recently dismissed,
and soon the green lawns became again the colour of a Nine-Elms
cement wharf. Thin freestone slabs were affixed to the whole series
of fronts by copper cramps and dowels, each one of substance
sufficient to have furnished a poor boy's pocket with pennies for a
month, till not a speck of the original surface remained, and the
edifice shone in all the grandeur of massive masonry that was not
massive at all. But who remembered this save the builder and his
crew? and as long as nobody knew the truth, pretence looked just as
well.
What was honest in Enckworth Court was that portion of the original
edifice which still remained, now degraded to subservient uses.
Where the untitled Mountclere of the White Rose faction had spread
his knees over the brands, when the place was a castle and not a
court, the still-room maid now simmered her preserves; and where
Elizabethan mothers and daughters of that sturdy line had tapestried
the love-scenes of Isaac and Jacob, boots and shoes were now cleaned
and coals stowed away.
Lord Mountclere had so far recovered from the sprain as to be
nominally quite well, under pressure of a wish to receive guests.
The sprain had in one sense served him excellently. He had now a
reason, apart from that of years, for walking with his stick, and
took care to let the reason be frequently known. To-day he
entertained a larger number of persons than had been assembled
within his walls for a great length of time.
Until after dinner Ethelberta felt as if she were staying at an
hotel. Few of the people whom she had met at the meeting of the
Imperial Association greeted her here. The viscount's brother was
not present, but Sir Cyril Blandsbury and his wife were there, a
lively pair of persons, entertaining as actors, and friendly as
dogs. Beyond these all the faces and figures were new to her,
though they were handsome and dashing enough to satisfy a court
chronicler. Ethelberta, in a dress sloped about as high over the
shoulder as would have drawn approval from Reynolds, and
expostulation from Lely, thawed and thawed each friend who came near
her, and sent him or her away smiling; yet she felt a little
surprise. She had seldom visited at a country-house, and knew
little of the ordinary composition of a group of visitors within its
walls; but the present assemblage seemed to want much of that old-
fashioned stability and quaint monumental dignity she had expected
to find under this historical roof. Nobody of her entertainer's own
rank appeared. Not a single clergyman was there. A tendency to
talk Walpolean scandal about foreign courts was particularly
manifest. And although tropical travellers, Indian officers and
their wives, courteous exiles, and descendants of Irish kings, were
infinitely more pleasant than Lord Mountclere's landed neighbours
would probably have been, to such a cosmopolite as Ethelberta a calm
Tory or old Whig company would have given a greater treat. They
would have struck as gratefully upon her senses as sylvan scenery
after crags and cliffs, or silence after the roar of a cataract.
It was evening, and all these personages at Enckworth Court were
merry, snug, and warm within its walls. Dinner-time had passed, and
everything had gone on well, when Mrs. Tara O'Fanagan, who had a
gold-clamped tooth, which shone every now and then, asked Ethelberta
if she would amuse them by telling a story, since nobody present,
except Lord Mountclere, had ever heard one from her lips.
Seeing that Ethelberta had been working at that art as a profession,
it can hardly be said that the question was conceived with tact,
though it was put with grace. Lord Mountclere evidently thought it
objectionable, for he looked unhappy. To only one person in the
brilliant room did the request appear as a timely accident, and that
was to Ethelberta herself. Her honesty was always making war upon
her manoeuvres, and shattering their delicate meshes, to her great
inconvenience and delay. Thus there arose those devious impulses
and tangential flights which spoil the works of every would-be
schemer who instead of being wholly machine is half heart. One of
these now was to show herself as she really was, not only to Lord
Mountclere, but to his friends assembled, whom, in her ignorance,
she respected more than they deserved, and so get rid of that self-
reproach which had by this time reached a morbid pitch, through her
over-sensitiveness to a situation in which a large majority of women
and men would have seen no falseness.
Full of this curious intention, she quietly assented to the request,
and laughingly bade them put themselves in listening order.
'An old story will suit us,' said the lady who had importuned her.
'We have never heard one.'
'No; it shall be quite new,' she replied. 'One not yet made public;
though it soon will be.'
The narrative began by introducing to their notice a girl of the
poorest and meanest parentage, the daughter of a serving-man, and
the fifth of ten children. She graphically recounted, as if they
were her own, the strange dreams and ambitious longings of this
child when young, her attempts to acquire education, partial
failures, partial successes, and constant struggles; instancing how,
on one of these occasions, the girl concealed herself under a
bookcase of the library belonging to the mansion in which her father
served as footman, and having taken with her there, like a young
Fawkes, matches and a halfpenny candle, was going to sit up all
night reading when the family had retired, until her father
discovered and prevented her scheme. Then followed her experiences
as nursery-governess, her evening lessons under self-selected
masters, and her ultimate rise to a higher grade among the teaching
sisterhood. Next came another epoch. To the mansion in which she
was engaged returned a truant son, between whom and the heroine an
attachment sprang up. The master of the house was an ambitious
gentleman just knighted, who, perceiving the state of their hearts,
harshly dismissed the homeless governess, and rated the son, the
consequence being that the youthful pair resolved to marry secretly,
and carried their resolution into effect. The runaway journey came
next, and then a moving description of the death of the young
husband, and the terror of the bride.
The guests began to look perplexed, and one or two exchanged
whispers. This was not at all the kind of story that they had
expected; it was quite different from her usual utterances, the
nature of which they knew by report. Ethelberta kept her eye upon
Lord Mountclere. Soon, to her amazement, there was that in his face
which told her that he knew the story and its heroine quite well.
When she delivered the sentence ending with the professedly
fictitious words: 'I thus was reduced to great distress, and vainly
cast about me for directions what to do,' Lord Mountclere's manner
became so excited and anxious that it acted reciprocally upon
Ethelberta; her voice trembled, she moved her lips but uttered
nothing. To bring the story up to the date of that very evening had
been her intent, but it was beyond her power. The spell was broken;
she blushed with distress and turned away, for the folly of a
disclosure here was but too apparent.
Though every one saw that she had broken down, none of them appeared
to know the reason why, or to have the clue to her performance.
Fortunately Lord Mountclere came to her aid.
'Let the first part end here,' he said, rising and approaching her.
'We have been well entertained so far. I could scarcely believe
that the story I was listening to was utterly an invention, so
vividly does Mrs. Petherwin bring the scenes before our eyes. She
must now be exhausted; we will have the remainder to-morrow.'
They all agreed that this was well, and soon after fell into groups,
and dispersed about the rooms. When everybody's attention was thus
occupied Lord Mountclere whispered to Ethelberta tremulously, 'Don't
tell more: you think too much of them: they are no better than
you! Will you meet me in the little winter garden two minutes
hence? Pass through that door, and along the glass passage.' He
himself left the room by an opposite door.
She had not set three steps in the warm snug octagon of glass and
plants when he appeared on the other side.
'You knew it all before!' she said, looking keenly at him. 'Who
told you, and how long have you known it?'
'Before yesterday or last week,' said Lord Mountclere. 'Even before
we met in France. Why are you so surprised?'
Ethelberta had been surprised, and very greatly, to find him, as it
were, secreted in the very rear of her position. That nothing she
could tell was new to him was a good deal to think of, but it was
little beside the recollection that he had actually made his first
declaration in the face of that knowledge of her which she had
supposed so fatal to all her matrimonial ambitions.
'And now only one point remains to be settled,' he said, taking her
hand. 'You promised at Rouen that at our next interview you would
honour me with a decisive reply--one to make me happy for ever.'
'But my father and friends?' said she.
'Are nothing to be concerned about. Modern developments have shaken
up the classes like peas in a hopper. An annuity, and a comfortable
cottage--'
'My brothers are workmen.'
'Manufacture is the single vocation in which a man's prospects may
be said to be illimitable. Hee-hee!--they may buy me up before they
die! And now what stands in the way? It would take fifty alliances
with fifty families so little disreputable as yours, darling, to
drag mine down.'
Ethelberta had anticipated the scene, and settled her course; what
had to be said and done here was mere formality; yet she had been
unable to go straight to the assent required. However, after these
words of self-depreciation, which were let fall as much for her own
future ease of conscience as for his present warning, she made no
more ado.
'I shall think it a great honour to be your wife,' she said simply.
