Henrietta Temple: A Love Story
of his ancestors, and the vast possessions of the house of Armine had
descended unimpaired; and unimpaired, so far as he was concerned, Sir
Ratcliffe determined they should remain. Although, by the sale of the
estates, not only the encumbrances and liabilities might have been
discharged, but himself left in possession of a moderate independence,
Sir Ratcliffe at once resolved to part with nothing. Fresh sums were
raised for the payment of the debts, and the mortgages now consumed
nearly the whole rental of the lands on which they were secured. Sir
Ratcliffe obtained for himself only an annuity of three hundred per
annum, which he presented to his mother, in addition to the small
portion which she had received on her first marriage; and for himself,
visiting Armine Place for the first time, he roamed for a few days with
sad complacency about that magnificent demesne, and then, taking down
from the walls of the magnificent hall the sabre with which his father
had defeated the Imperial host, he embarked for Cadiz, and shortly after
his arrival obtained a commission in the Spanish service.
Although the hereditary valour of the Armines had descended to
their forlorn representative, it is not probable that, under any
circumstances, Sir Ratcliffe would have risen to any eminence in the
country of his temporary adoption. His was not one of those minds born
to command and to create; and his temper was too proud to serve and to
solicit. His residence in Spain, however, was not altogether without
satisfaction. It was during this sojourn that he gained the little
knowledge of life and human nature he possessed; and the creed and
solemn manners of the land harmonised with his faith and habits. Among
these strangers, too, the proud young Englishman felt not so keenly the
degradation of his house; and sometimes, though his was not the fatal
gift of imagination, sometimes he indulged in day dreams of its rise.
Unpractised in business, and not gifted with that intuitive quickness
which supplies experience and often baffles it, Ratcliffe Armine, who
had not quitted the domestic hearth even for the purposes of education,
was yet fortunate enough to possess a devoted friend: and this was
Glastonbury, his tutor, and confessor to his mother. It was to him that
Sir Ratcliffe intrusted the management of his affairs, with a confidence
which was deserved; for Glastonbury sympathised with all his feelings,
and was so wrapped up in the glory of the family, that he had no greater
ambition in life than to become their historiographer, and had been for
years employed in amassing materials for a great work dedicated to their
celebrity.
When Ratcliffe Armine had been absent about three years his mother
died. Her death was unexpected. She had not fulfilled two-thirds of the
allotted period of the Psalmist, and in spite of many sorrows she was
still beautiful. Glastonbury, who communicated to him the intelligence
in a letter, in which he vainly attempted to suppress his own
overwhelming affliction, counselled his immediate return to England, if
but for a season; and the unhappy Ratcliffe followed his advice. By
the death of his mother, Sir Ratcliffe Armine became possessed, for the
first time, of a small but still an independent income; and having paid
a visit, soon after his return to his native country, to a Catholic
nobleman to whom his acquaintance had been of some use when travelling
in Spain, he became enamored of one of his daughters, and his passion
being returned, and not disapproved by the father, he was soon after
married to Constance, the eldest daughter of Lord Grandison.
CHAPTER II.
_Armine Described_.
AFTER his marriage Sir Ratcliffe determined to reside at Armine. In one
of the largest parks in England there yet remained a fragment of a vast
Elizabethan pile, that in old days bore the name of Armine Place. When
Sir Ferdinand had commenced building Armine Castle, he had pulled down
the old mansion, partly for the sake of its site and partly for the sake
of its materials. Long lines of turreted and many-windowed walls, tall
towers, and lofty arches, now rose in picturesque confusion on the
green ascent where heretofore old Sir Walsingham had raised the fair
and convenient dwelling, which he justly deemed might have served the
purpose of a long posterity. The hall and chief staircase of the castle
and a gallery alone were finished, and many a day had Sir Ferdinand
passed in arranging the pictures, the armour, and choice rarities of
these magnificent apartments. The rest of the building was a mere shell;
nor was it in all parts even roofed in. Heaps of bricks and stone and
piles of timber appeared in every direction; and traces of the sudden
stoppage of a great work might be observed in the temporary saw-pits
still remaining, the sheds for the workmen, and the kilns and furnaces,
which never had been removed. Time, however, that had stained the
neglected towers with an antique tint, and had permitted many a
generation of summer birds to build their sunny nests on all the coignes
of vantage of the unfinished walls, had exercised a mellowing influence
even on these rude accessories, and in the course of years they had been
so drenched by the rain, and so buffeted by the wind, and had become so
covered with moss and ivy, that they rather added to then detracted from
the picturesque character of the whole mass.
A few hundred yards from the castle, but situate on the same verdant
rising ground, and commanding, although well sheltered, an extensive
view over the wide park, was the fragment of the old Place that we have
noticed. The rough and undulating rent which marked the severance of
the building was now thickly covered with ivy, which in its gamesome
luxuriance had contrived also to climb up a remaining stack of tall
chimneys, and to spread over the covering of the large oriel window.
This fragment contained a set of pleasant chambers, which, having been
occupied by the late baronet, were of course furnished with great taste
and comfort; and there was, moreover, accommodation sufficient for a
small establishment. Armine Place, before Sir Ferdinand, unfortunately
for his descendants, determined in the eighteenth century on building
a feudal castle, had been situate in famous pleasure-grounds, which
extended at the back of the mansion over a space of some hundred acres.
The grounds in the immediate vicinity of the buildings had of course
suffered severely, but the far greater portion had only been neglected;
and there were some indeed who deemed, as they wandered through the
arbour-walks of this enchanting wilderness, that its beauty had been
enhanced even by this very neglect. It seemed like a forest in a
beautiful romance; a green and bowery wilderness where Boccaccio would
have loved to woo, and Watteau to paint. So artfully had the walks been
planned, that they seemed interminable, nor was there a single point in
the whole pleasaunce where the keenest eye could have detected a limit.
Sometimes you wandered in those arched and winding walks dear to
pensive spirits; sometimes you emerged on a plot of turf blazing in
the sunshine, a small and bright savannah, and gazed with wonder on the
group of black and mighty cedars that rose from its centre, with
their sharp and spreading foliage. The beautiful and the vast blended
together; and the moment after you had beheld with delight a bed of
geraniums or of myrtles, you found yourself in an amphitheatre of
Italian pines. A strange exotic perfume filled the air: you trod on the
flowers of other lands; and shrubs and plants, that usually are only
trusted from their conservatories, like sultanas from their jalousies,
to sniff the air and recall their bloom, here learning from hardship
the philosophy of endurance, had struggled successfully even against
northern winters, and wantoned now in native and unpruned luxuriance.
Sir Ferdinand, when he resided at Armine, was accustomed to fill these
pleasure-grounds with macaws and other birds of gorgeous plumage; but
these had fled away with their master, all but some swans which still
floated on the surface of a lake, which marked the centre of this
paradise. In the remains of the ancient seat of his fathers, Sir
Ratcliffe Armine and his bride now sought a home.
The principal chamber of Armine Place was a large irregular room, with
a low but richly-carved oaken roof, studded with achievements. This
apartment was lighted by the oriel window we have mentioned, the upper
panes of which contained some ancient specimens of painted glass,
and having been fitted up by Sir Ferdinand as a library, contained a
collection of valuable books. From the library you entered through an
arched door of glass into a small room, of which, it being much out of
repair when the family arrived, Lady Armine had seized the opportunity
of gratifying her taste in the adornment. She had hung it with some
old-fashioned pea-green damask, that exhibited to a vantage several
copies of Spanish paintings by herself, for she was a skilful artist.
The third and remaining chamber was the dining-room, a somewhat gloomy
chamber, being shadowed by a neighbouring chestnut. A portrait of Sir
Ferdinand, when a youth, in a Venetian dress, was suspended over the
old-fashioned fireplace; and opposite hung a fine hunting piece by
Schneiders. Lady Armine was an amiable and accomplished woman. She had
enjoyed the advantage of a foreign education under the inspection of a
cautious parent: and a residence on the Continent, while it had afforded
her many graces, had not, as unfortunately sometimes is the case,
divested her of those more substantial though less showy qualities of
which a husband knows the value. She was pious and dutiful: her manners
were graceful, for she had visited courts and mixed in polished circles,
but she had fortunately not learnt to affect insensibility as a system,
or to believe that the essence of good breeding consists in showing your
fellow-creatures that you despise them. Her cheerful temper solaced the
constitutional gloom of Sir Ratcliffe, and indeed had originally won his
heart, even more than her remarkable beauty: and while at the same
time she loved a country life, she possessed in a lettered taste, in a
beautiful and highly cultivated voice, and in a scientific knowledge of
music and of painting, all those resources which prevent retirement from
degenerating into loneliness. Her foibles, if we must confess that she
was not faultless, endeared her to her husband, for her temper reflected
his own pride, and she possessed the taste for splendour which was also
his native mood, although circumstances had compelled him to stifle its
gratification.
Love, pure and profound, had alone prompted the union between Ratcliffe
Armine and Constance Grandison Doubtless, like all of her race, she
might have chosen amid the wealthiest of the Catholic nobles and gentry
one who would have been proud to have mingled his life with hers; but,
with a soul not insensible to the splendid accidents of existence, she
yielded her heart to one who could repay the rich sacrifice only with
devotion. His poverty, his pride, his dangerous and hereditary gift of
beauty, his mournful life, his illustrious lineage, his reserved and
romantic mind, had at once attracted her fancy and captivated her heart.
She shared all his aspirations and sympathised with all his hopes; and
the old glory of the house of Armine, and its revival and restoration,
were the object of her daily thoughts, and often of her nightly dreams.
With these feelings Lady Armine settled herself at her new home,
scarcely with a pang that the whole of the park in which she lived was
let out as grazing ground, and only trusting, as she beheld the groups