CHAPTER XIII

WAR AT OLMER

Lively doings were on the leap to animate Weyburn at Olmer during Easter

week. The Rev. Mr. Hampton-Evey, rector of Barborough, on hearing that

Lady Charlotte Eglett was engaged in knocking at the doors of litigation

with certain acts that constituted distinct breaches of the law and the

peace, and were a violation of the rights of her neighbour, Mr. Gilbert

Addicote, might hope that the troublesome parishioner whom he did not

often number among his congregation would grant him a term of repose.

Therein he was deceived. Alterations and enlargements of the church, much

required, had necessitated the bricking up of a door regarded by the lady

as the private entrance to the Olmer pew. She sent him notice of her

intention to batter at the new brickwork; so there was the prospect of a

pew-fight before him. But now she came to sit under him every Sunday; and

he could have wished her absent; for she diverted his thoughts from piety

to the selections of texts applicable in the case of a woman who sat with

arms knotted, and the frown of an intemperate schoolgirl forbidden

speech; while her pew's firelight startlingly at intervals danced her

sinister person into view, as from below. The lady's inaccessible and

unconquerable obtuseness to exhortation informed the picture with an evil

spirit that cried for wrestlings.

Regularly every week-day she headed the war now rageing between Olmer and

Addicotes, on the borders of the estates. It was open war, and herself to

head the cavalry. Weyburn, driving up a lane in the gig she had sent to

meet the coach, beheld a thicket of countrymen and boys along a ridge;

and it swayed and broke, and through it burst the figure of a mounted

warrior woman at the gallop, followed by what bore an appearance of horse

and gun, minus carriage, drivers at the flanks cracking whips on foot.

Off went the train, across a small gorse common, through a gate.

'That's another down,' said his whip. 'Sound good wood it is, not made to

fall. Her ladyship's at it hard to-day. She 'll teach Mr. Addicote a

thing or two about things females can do. That is, when they stand for

their rights.'

He explained to Weyburn that Mr. Addicote, a yeoman farmer and a good

hunting man, but a rare obstinate one, now learning his lesson from her

ladyship, was in dispute with her over rights of property on a stretch of

fir-trees lining the ridge where the estates of Olmer and Addicotes met.

Her ladyship had sworn that if he did not yield to her claim she would

cut down every tree of the ridge and sell the lot for timber under his

nose. She acted according to her oath, in the teeth of his men two feet

across the border. All the world knew the roots of those trees were for

the most part in Olmer soil, though Addicote shared the shade. All the

people about mourned for the felling of those trees. All blamed Mr.

Gilbert Addicote for provoking her ladyship, good hunting man though he

was. But as to the merits of the question, under the magnifier of the

gentlemen of the law, there were as many different opinions as wigs in

the land.

'And your opinion?' said Weyburn.

To which the young groom answered: 'Oh, I don't form an opinion, sir. I

'm of my mistress's opinion; and if she says, Do it, think as we like,

done it has to be.'

Lady Charlotte came at a trot through the gate, to supervise the

limbering-up of another felled tree. She headed it as before. The log

dragged bounding and twirling, rattling its chains; the crowd along the

ridge, forbidden to cheer, watching it with intense repression of the

roar. We have not often in England sight of a great lady challengeing an

unpopular man to battle and smacking him in the face like this to provoke

him. Weyburn was driven on a half-circle of the lane to the gate, where

he jumped out to greet Lady Charlotte trotting back for another smack in

the face of her enemy,--a third rounding of her Troy with the vanquished

dead at her heels, as Weyburn let a flimsy suggestion beguile his fancy,

until the Homeric was overwhelming even to a playful mind, and he put her

in a mediaeval frame. She really had the heroical aspect in a

grandiose-grotesque, fitted to some lines of Ariosto. Her head wore a

close hood, disclosing a fringe of grey locks, owlish to see about

features hooked for action.

'Ah, you! there you are: good--I'll join you in three minutes,' she sang

out to him, and cantered to the ridge.

Hardly beyond the stated number she was beside him again, ranging her

steed for the victim log to dance a gyration on its branches across the

lane and enter a field among the fallen compeers. One of her men had run

behind her. She slid from her saddle and tossed him the reins, catching

up her skirts.

'That means war, as much as they'll have it in England,' she said, seeing

his glance at the logs. 'My husband's wise enough to leave it to me, so I

save him trouble with neighbours. An ass of a Mr. Gilbert Addicote dares

us to make good our claim on our property, our timber, because half a

score of fir-tree roots go stretching on to his ground.'

She swished her whip. Mr. Gilbert Addicote received the stroke and

retired, a buried subject. They walked on at an even pace. 'You 'll see

Leo to-morrow. He worships you. You may as well give him a couple of

hours' coaching a day for the week. He'll be hanging about you, and you

won't escape him. Well, and my brother Rowsley: how is Lord Ormont? He

never comes to me now, since--Well, it 's nothing to me; but I like to

see my brother. She can't make any change here. Olmer and Lady Charlotte

's bosom were both implied. 'What do you think?--you 've noticed: is he

in good health? It 's the last thing he 'll be got to speak of.'

Weyburn gave the proper assurances.

'Not he!' said she. 'He's never ill. Men beat women in the long race, if

they haven't overdone it when young. My doctor wants me to renounce the

saddle. He says it 's time. Not if I 've got work for horseback!' she

nicked her head emphatically: 'I hate old age. They sha'nt dismount me

till a blow comes. Hate it! But I should despise myself if I showed

signs, like a worm under heel. Let Nature do her worst; she can't conquer

us as long as we keep up heart. You won't have to think of that for a

good time yet. Now tell me why Lord Ormont didn't publish the "Plan for

the Defence" you said he was writing; and he was, I know. He wrote it and

he finished it; you made the fair copy. Well, and he read it,--there!

see!' She took the invisible sheets in her hands and tore them. 'That's

my brother. He's so proud. It would have looked like asking the country,

that injured him, to forgive him. I wish it had been printed. But

whatever he does I admire. That--she might have advised, if she 'd been a

woman of public spirit or cared for his reputation. He never comes near

me. Did she read your copy?'

The question was meant for an answer.

Weyburn replied: 'Lady Ormont had no sight of it.'

'Ah! she's Lady Ormont to the servants, I know. She has an aunt living in

the house. If my brother's a sinner, and there's punishment for him, he

has it from that aunt. Pag . . . something. He bears with her. He 's a

Spartan. She 's his pack on his back, for what she covers and the game he

plays. It looks just tolerably decent with her in the house. She goes

gabbling a story about our Embassy at Madrid. To preserve propriety, as

they call it. Her niece doesn't stoop to any of those tricks, I 'm told.

I like her for that.'

Weyburn was roused: 'I think you would like Lady Ormont, if you knew her,

my lady.'

'The chances of my liking the young woman are not in the dice-box. You

call her Lady Ormont: you are not one of the servants. Don't call her

Lady Ormont to me.'

'It is her title, Lady Charlotte.' She let fly a broadside at him.

'You are one of the woman's dupes. I thought you had brains. How can you

be the donkey not to see that my brother Rowsley, Lord Ormont, would

never let a woman, lawfully bearing his name, go running the quadrille

over London in couples with a Lady Staines and a Mrs. Lawrence Finchley,

Lord Adderwood, and that man Morsfield, who boasts of your Lady Ormont,

and does it unwhipped--tell me why? Pooh, you must be the poorest fool

born to suppose it possible my brother would allow a man like that man

Morsfield to take his wife's name in his mouth a second time. Have you

talked much with this young person?'

'With Lady Ormont? I have had the honour occasionally.'

'Stick to the title and write yourself plush-breech. Can't you be more

than a footman? Try to be a man of the world; you're old enough for that

by now. I know she 's good-looking; the whole tale hangs on that. You

needn't be singing me mooncalf hymn tunes of "Lady Ormont, Lady Ormont,"

solemn as a parson's clerk; the young woman brought good looks to market;

and she got the exchange she had a right to expect. But it 's not my

brother Rowsley's title she has got--except for footmen and tradesmen.

When there's a true Countess of Ormont!..... Unless my brother has cut

himself from his family. Not he. He's not mad.'

They passed through Olmer park-gates. Lady Charlotte preceded him, and

she turned, waiting for him to rejoin her. He had taken his flagellation

in the right style, neither abashed nor at sham crow: he was easy, ready

to converse on any topic; he kept the line between supple courtier and

sturdy independent; and he was a pleasant figure of a young fellow.

Thinking which, a reminder that she liked him drew her by the road of

personal feeling, as usual with her, to reflect upon another, and a

younger, woman's observing and necessarily liking him too.

'You say you fancy I should like the person you call Lady Ormont?'

'I believe you would, my lady.'

'Are her manners agreeable?'

'Perfect; no pretension.'

'Ah! she sings, plays--all that?

'She plays the harp and sings.'

'You have heard her?'

'Twice.'

'She didn't set you mewing?'

'I don't remember the impulse; at all events, it was restrained.'

'She would me; but I'm an old woman. I detest their squalling and

strumming. I can stand it with Italians on the boards: they don't, stop

conversation. She was present at that fencing match where you plucked a

laurel? I had an account of it. I can't see the use of fencing in this

country. Younger women can, I dare say. Now, look. If we're to speak of

her, I can't call her Lady Ormont, and I don't want to hear you. Give me

her Christian name.'

'It is'--Weyburn found himself on a slope without a stay--'Aminta.'

Lady Charlotte's eye was on him. He felt intolerably hot; his vexation at

the betrayal of the senseless feeling made it worse, a conscious crimson.

'Aminta,' said she, rather in the style of Cuper's boys, when the name

was a strange one to them. 'I remember my Italian master reading out a

poem when I was a girl. I read poetry then. You wouldn't have imagined

that. I did, and liked it. I hate old age. It changes you so. None of my

children know me as I was when I had life in me and was myself, and my

brother Rowsley called me Cooey. They think me a hard old woman. I was

Cooey through the woods and over the meadows and down stream to Rowsley.

Old age is a prison wall between us and young people. They see a

miniature head and bust, and think it a flattery--won't believe it. After

I married I came to understand that the world we are in is a world to

fight in, or under we go. But I pity the young who have to cast

themselves off and take up arms. Young women above all.'

Why had she no pity for Aminta? Weyburn asked it of his feelings, and he

had the customary insurgent reply from them.

'You haven't seen Steignton yet,' she continued. 'No place on earth is

equal to Steignton for me. It 's got the charm. Here at Olmer I'm a

mother and a grandmother--the "devil of an old-woman" my neighbours take

me to be. She hasn't been to Steignton, either. No, and won't go there,

though she's working her way round, she supposes. He'll do everything for

his "Aminta," but he won't take her to Steignton. I'm told now she's won

Lady de Culme. That Mrs. Lawrence Finchley has dropped the curtsey to

her great-aunt and sworn to be a good girl, for a change, if Lady de

Culme will do the chaperon, and force Lord Ormont's hand. My brother

shrugs. There'll be a nice explosion one day soon. Presented? The Court

won't have her. That I know for positive. If she's pushed forward, she

'll be bitterly snubbed. It 's on the heads of those women--silly women!

I can't see the game Mrs. Lawrence Finchley's playing. She'd play for

fun. If they'd come to me, I 'd tell them I 've proof she 's not the

Countess of Ormont: positive proof. You look? I have it. I hold

something; and not before,--(he may take his Aminta to Steignton, he may

let her be presented, she may wear his name publicly, I say he's laughing

at them, snapping his fingers at them louder and louder the more they

seem to be pushing him into a corner, until--I know my brother

Rowsley!--and, poor dear fellow! a man like that, the best cavalry

general England ever had:--they'll remember it when there comes a cry for

a general from India: that's the way with the English; only their

necessities teach them to be just!)--he to be reduced to be

out-manoeuvring a swarm of women,--I tell them, not before my brother

Rowsley comes to me for what he handed to my care and I keep safe for

him, will I believe he has made or means to make his Aminta Countess of

Ormont.'

They were at the steps of the house. Turning to Weyburn there, the

inexhaustible Lady Charlotte remarked that their conversation had given

her pleasure. Leo was hanging on to one of his hands the next minute. A

small girl took the other. Philippa and Beatrice were banished damsels.

Lady Charlotte's breath had withered the aspect of Aminta's fortunes.

Weyburn could forgive her, for he was beginning to understand her. He

could not pardon 'her brother Rowsley,' who loomed in his mind

incomprehensible, and therefore black. Once he had thought the great

General a great man. He now regarded him as a mere soldier, a soured

veteran; socially as a masker and a trifler, virtually a callous angler

playing his cleverly-hooked fish for pastime.

What could be the meaning of Lady Charlotte's 'that, man Morsfield, who

boasts of your Lady Ormont, and does it unwhipped'?

Weyburn stopped his questioning, with the reflection that he had no right

to recollect her words thus accurately. The words, however, stamped

Morsfield's doings and sayings and postures in the presence of Aminta

with significance. When the ladies were looking on at the fencers,

Morsfield's perfect coxcombry had been noticeable. He knew the art of

airing a fine figure. Mrs. Lawrence Finchley had spoken of it, and Aminta

had acquiesced; in the gravely simple manner of women who may be thinking

of it much more intently than the vivacious prattler. Aminta confessed to

an admiration of masculine physical beauty; the picador, matador, of the

Spanish ring called up an undisguised glow that English ladies show

coldly when they condescend to let it be seen; as it were, a line or two

of colour on the wintriest of skies. She might, after all, at heart be

one of the leisured, jewelled, pretty-winged; the spending, never

harvesting, world she claimed and sought to enter. And what a primitive

world it was!--world of the glittering beast and the not too swiftly

flying prey, the savage passions clothed in silk. Surely desire to belong

to it writes us poor creatures. Mentally, she could hardly be maturer

than the hero-worshipping girl in the procession of Miss Vincent's young

seminarists. Probably so, but she carried magic. She was of the order of

women who walk as the goddesses of old, bearing the gift divine. And, by

the way, she had the step of the goddess. Weyburn repeated to himself the

favourite familiar line expressive of the glorious walk, and accused Lord

Ormont of being in cacophonous accordance with the perpetual wrong of

circumstance, he her possessor, the sole person of her sphere insensible

to the magic she bore! So ran his thought.

The young man chose to conceive that he thought abstractedly. He was, in

truth, often casting about for the chances of his meeting on some

fortunate day the predestined schoolmaster's wife: a lady altogether

praiseworthy for carrying principles of sound government instead of

magic. Consequently, susceptible to woman's graces though he knew himself

to be, Lady Ormont's share of them hung in the abstract for him. His

hopes were bent on an early escape to Switzerland and his life's work.

Lady Charlotte mounted to ride to the battle daily. She talked of her

brother Rowsley, and of 'Aminta,' and provoked an advocacy of the

Countess of Ormont, and trampled the pleas and defences to dust, much in

the same tone as on the first day; sometimes showing a peep of sweet

humaneness, like the ripe berry of a bramble, and at others rattling

thunder at the wretch of a woman audacious enough to pretend to a part in

her brother's title.

Not that she had veneration for titles. She considered them a tinsel, and

the devotee on his knee-caps to them a lump for a kick. Adding: 'Of

course I stand for my class; and if we can't have a manlier people--and

it 's not likely in a country treating my brother so badly--well, then,

let things go on as they are.' But it was the pretension to a part in the

name of Ormont which so violently offended the democratic aristocrat, and

caused her to resent it as an assault on the family honour, by 'a woman

springing up out of nothing'--a woman of no distinctive birth.

She was rational in her fashion; or Weyburn could at least see where and

how the reason in her took a twist. The Rev. Mr. Hampton-Evey would not

see it; he was, in charity to her ladyship, of a totally contrary

opinion, he informed Weyburn. The laborious pastor and much-enduring

Churchman met my lady's apologist as he was having a swing of the legs

down the lanes before breakfast, and he fell upon a series of complaints,

which were introduced by a declaration that 'he much feared' her ladyship

would have a heavy legal bill to pay for taking the law into her hands up

at Addicotes.

Her ladyship might, if she pleased, he said, encourage her domestics and

her husband's tenants and farm-labourers to abandon the church for the

chapel, and go, as she had done and threatened to do habitually, to the

chapel herself; but to denounce the ritual of the Orthodox Church under

the denomination of 'barbarous,' to say of the invoking supplications of

the service, that they were--she had been heard to state it more or less

publicly and repeatedly--suitable to abject ministers and throngs at the

court of an Indian rajah, that he did not hesitate to term highly

unbecoming in a lady of her station, subversive and unchristian. The

personal burdens inflicted on him by her ladyship he prayed for patience

to endure. He surprised Weyburn in speaking of Lady Charlotte as

'educated and accomplished.' She was rather more so than Weyburn knew,

and more so than was common among the great ladies of her time.

Weyburn strongly advised the reverend gentleman on having it out with

Lady Charlotte in a personal interview. He sketched the great lady's

combative character on a foundation of benevolence, and stressed her

tolerance for open dealing, and the advantage gained by personal dealings

with her--after a mauling or two. His language and his illustrations

touched an old-school chord in the Rev. Mr. Hampton-Evey, who hummed over

the project, profoundly disrelishing the introductory portion.

'Do me the honour to call and see me to-morrow, after breakfast, before

her ladyship starts for the fray on Addicote heights,' Weyburn said; 'and

I will ask your permission to stand by you. Her bark is terrific, we

know; and she can bite, but there's no venom.'

Finally, on a heave of his chest, Mr. Hampton-Evey consented to call, in

the interests of peace.

Weyburn had said it must be 'man to man with her, facing her and taking

steps'; and, although the prospect was unpleasant to repulsiveness, it

was a cheerful alternative beside Mr. Hampton-Evey's experiences and

anticipations of the malignant black power her ladyship could be when she

was not faced.

'Let the man come,' said Lady Charlotte. Her shoulders intimated

readiness for him.

She told Weyburn he might be present--insisted to have him present.

During the day Weyburn managed to slide in observations on the favourable

reports of Mr. Hampton-Evey's work among the poor--emollient doses that

irritated her to fret and paw, as at a checking of her onset.

In the afternoon the last disputed tree on the Addicotes' ridge was

felled and laid on Olmer ground. Riding with Weyburn and the joyful Leo,

she encountered Mr. Eglett and called out the news. He remarked, in the

tone of philosophy proper to a placable country gentleman obedient to

government on foreign affairs: 'Now for the next act. But no more

horseback now, mind!'

She muttered of not recollecting a promise. He repeated the interdict.

Weyburn could fancy seeing her lips form words of how she hated old age.

He had been four days at Olmer, always facing her, 'man to man,' in the

matter of Lady Ormont, not making way at all, but holding firm, and

winning respectful treatment. They sat alone in her private room, where,

without prelude, she discharged a fiery squib at impudent hussies caught

up to the saddle-bow of a hero for just a canter, and pretending to a

permanent seat beside him.

'You have only to see Lady Ormont; you will admit the justice of her

claim, my lady,' said he; and as evidently he wanted a fight, she let him

have it.

'You try to provoke me; you take liberties. You may call the woman

Aminta, I've told you; you insult me when you call the woman by my family

name.'

'Pardon me, my lady: I have no right to call Lady Ormont Aminta.'

'You've never done so, eh? Say!'

She had him at the edge of the precipice. He escaped by saying, 'Her

Christian name was asked the other day, and I mentioned it. She is

addressed by me as Lady Ormont.'

'And by her groom and her footman. They all do; it 's the indemnity to

that class of young woman. Her linendraper is Lady-Ormonting as you do. I

took you for a gentleman. Let me hear you give her that title again, you

shall hear her true one, that the world fits her with, from me.'

The time was near the half-hour bell before dinner, the situation between

them that of the fall of the breath to fetch words electrical. She left

it to him to begin the fight, and was not sorry that she had pricked him

for it.

A footman entered the room, bearer of a missive for Mr. Weyburn. Lord

Ormont's groom had brought it from London.

'Send in the man,' said Lady Charlotte.

Weyburn read

'The Countess of Ormont begs Mr. Weyburn to return instantly. There has

been an accident in his home. It may not be very serious. An arm--a shock

to the system from a fall. Messenger informs her, fear of internal

hemorrhage. Best doctors in attendance.'

He handed Lady Charlotte the letter. She humped at the first line,

flashed across the remainder, and in a lowered voice asked--

'Sister in the house?'

'My mother,' Weyburn said.

The groom appeared. He knew nothing. The Countess had given him orders to

spare no expense on the road to Olmer, without a minute's delay. He had

ridden and driven.

He looked worn. Lady Charlotte rang the bell for her butler. To him she

said--

'See that this man has a good feed of meat, any pastry you have, and a

bottle of port wine. He has earned a pipe of tobacco; make up a bed for

him. Despatch at once any one of the stable-boys to Loughton--the

Dolphin. Mr. Leeman there will have a chariot, fly, gig, anything,

ready-horsed in three hours from now. See Empson yourself; he will put my

stepper Mab to the light trap; no delay. Have his feed at Loughton. Tell

Mrs. Maples to send up now, here, a tray, whatever she has, within five

minutes--not later. A bottle of the Peace of Amiens Chambertin--Mr.

Eglett's. You understand. Mrs. Maples will pack a basket for the journey;

she will judge. Add a bottle of the Waterloo Bordeaux. Wait: a dozen of

Mr. Eglett's cigars. Brisk with all the orders. Go.'

She turned to Weyburn. 'You pack your portmanteau faster than a servant

will do it.'

He ran up-stairs.

She was beside the tray to welcome and inspirit his eating, and she

performed the busy butler's duty in pouring out wine for him. It was a

toned old Burgundy, happy in the year of its birth, the grandest of

instruments to roll the gambol-march of the Dionysiaca through the blood

of this frame and sound it to the spirit. She spoke no word of his cause

for departure. He drank, and he felt what earth can do to cheer one of

her stricken children and strengthen the beat of a heart with a dread

like a shot in it.

She, while he flew supporting the body of his most beloved to the sun of

Life in brighter hope, reckoned the stages of his journey.

'Leeman at Loughton will post you through the night to Mersley. Wherever

you bait, it is made known that you come from Olmer, and are one of us.

That passes you on up to London. Where can Lord Ormont be now?'

'In Paris.'

'Still in Paris? He leaves her. She did well to send as she did. You will

not pay for the posting along the road.'

'I will pay for myself--I have a 'purse,' Weyburn said; and continued,

'Oh, my lady; there is Mr. Hampton-Evey to-morrow morning: I promised to

stand by him.'

'I'll explain,' said Lady Charlotte. 'He shall not miss you. If he strips

the parson and comes as a man and a servant of the poor, he has nothing

to fear. You've done? The night before my brother Rowsley's first duel I

sat with him at supper and poured his wine out, and knew what was going

to happen, didn't say a word. No use in talking about feelings. Besides,

death is only the other side of the ditch, and one or other of us must go

foremost. Now then, good-bye. Empson's waiting by this time. Mr. Eglett

and Leo shall hear the excuses from me. Think of anything you may want,

while I count ten.'

She held his hand. He wanted her to be friendly to Lady Ormont, but could

not vex her at the last moment, touched as he was by her practical

kindness.

She pressed his hand and let it go.