The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A Romance

Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Dialect spellings, contractions and discrepancies have been retained. THE HISTORY OF SIR RICHARD CALMADY A Romance By Lucas Malet NEW YORK Dodd, Mead & Company 1901 _Copyright_, 1901 BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY THE CAXTON PRESS NEW YORK. CONTENTS BOOK I THE CLOWN CHAP. PAGE I. Acquainting the Reader with a Fair Domain and the Maker Thereof 1 II. Giving the Very Earliest Information Obtainable of the Hero of this Book 7 III. Touching Matters Clerical and Controversial 19 IV. Raising Problems which it is the Purpose of this History to Resolve 25 V. In which Julius March Beholds the Vision of the New Life 34 VI. Accident or Destiny, According to Your Humour 44 VII. Mrs. William Ormiston Sacrifices a Wine-glass to Fate 57 VIII. Enter a Child of Promise 69 IX. In which Katherine Calmady Looks on Her Son 76 X. The Birds of the Air Take Their Breakfast 84 BOOK II THE BREAKING OF DREAMS I. Recording some Aspects of a Small Pilgrim's Progress 93 II. In which Our Hero Improves His Acquaintance with Many Things--Himself Included 104 III. Concerning that which, Thank God, Happens Almost Every Day 117 IV. Which Smells very Vilely of the Stable 128 V. In which Dickie is Introduced to a Little Dancer with Blush-roses in Her Hat 140 VI. Dealing with a Physician of the Body and a Physician of the Soul 149 VII. An Attempt to Make the Best of It 159 VIII. Telling, Incidentally, of a Broken-down Postboy and a Country Fair 169 BOOK III LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI I. In which Our Hero's World Grows Sensibly Wider 181 II. Telling How Dickie's Soul was Somewhat Sick, and How He Met Fair Women on the Confines of a Wood 186 III. In which Richard Confirms One Judgment and Reverses Another 195 IV. Julius March Bears Testimony 203 V. Telling How Queen Mary's Crystal Ball Came to Fall on the Gallery Floor 215 VI. In which Dickie Tries to Ride Away from His Own Shadow, with Such Success as Might Have Been Anticipated 231 VII. Wherein the Reader is Courteously Invited to Improve His Acquaintance with Certain Persons of Quality 240 VIII. Richard Puts His Hand to a Plough from which There is no Turning Back 252 IX. Which Touches Incidentally on Matters of Finance 264 X. Mr. Ludovic Quayle Among the Prophets 280 XI. Containing Samples Both of Earthly and Heavenly Love 289 BOOK IV A SLIP BETWIXT CUP AND LIP I. Lady Louisa Barking Traces the Finger of Providence 302 II. Telling How Vanity Fair Made Acquaintance with Richard Calmady 314 III. In which Katherine Tries to Nail Up the Weather-glass to Set Fair 324 IV. A Lesson Upon the Eleventh Commandment--"Parents Obey Your Children" 337 V. Iphigenia 350 VI. In which Honoria St. Quentin Takes the Field 362 VII. Recording the Astonishing Valour Displayed by a Certain Small Mouse in a Corner 375 VIII. A Manifestation of the Spirit 386 IX. In which Dickie Shakes Hands with the Devil 397 BOOK V RAKE'S PROGRESS I. In which the Reader is Courteously Entreated to Grow Older by the Space of Some Four Years, and to Sail Southward Ho! Away 417 II. Wherein Time is Discovered to Have Worked Changes 429 III. Helen de Vallorbes Apprehends Vexatious Complications 438 IV. "Mater Admirabilis" 447 V. Exit Camp 455 VI. In which M. Paul Destournelle Has the Bad Taste to Threaten to Upset the Apple-cart 469 VII. Splendide Mendax 479 VIII. Helen de Vallorbes Learns Her Rival's Name 490 IX. Concerning that Daughter of Cupid and Psyche Whom Men Call Voluptas 506 X. The Abomination of Desolation 511 XI. In which Dickie Goes to the End of the World and Looks Over the Wall 526 BOOK VI THE NEW HEAVEN AND THE NEW EARTH I. Miss St. Quentin Bears Witness to the Faith that is in Her 544 II. Telling How, Once Again, Katherine Calmady Looked on Her Son 555 III. Concerning a Spirit in Prison 566 IV. Dealing with Matters of Hearsay and Matters of Sport 575 V. Telling How Dickie Came to Untie a Certain Tag of Rusty, Black Ribbon 588 VI. A Litany of the Sacred Heart 600 VII. Wherein Two Enemies are Seen to Cry Quits 611 VIII. Concerning the Brotherhood Founded by Richard Calmady, and Other Matters of Some Interest 628 IX. Telling How Ludovic Quayle and Honoria St. Quentin Watched the Trout Rise in the Long Water 639 X. Concerning a Day of Honest Warfare and a Sunset Harbinger Not of the Night But of the Dawn 655 XI. In which Richard Calmady Bids the Long-suffering Reader Farewell 679 The History of Sir Richard Calmady BOOK I THE CLOWN CHAPTER I ACQUAINTING THE READER WITH A FAIR DOMAIN AND THE MAKER THEREOF In that fortunate hour of English history, when the cruel sights and haunting insecurities of the Middle Ages had passed away, and while, as yet, the fanatic zeal of Puritanism had not cast its blighting shadow over all merry and pleasant things, it seemed good to one Denzil Calmady, esquire, to build himself a stately red-brick and freestone house upon the southern verge of the great plateau of moorland which ranges northward to the confines of Windsor Forest and eastward to the Surrey Hills. And this he did in no vainglorious spirit, with purpose of exalting himself above the county gentlemen, his neighbours, and showing how far better lined his pockets were than theirs. Rather did he do it from an honest love of all that is ingenious and comely, and as the natural outgrowth of an inquiring and philosophic mind. For Denzil Calmady, like so many another son of that happy age, was something more than a mere wealthy country squire, breeder of beef and brewer of ale. He was a courtier and traveler; and, if tradition speaks truly, a poet who could praise his mistress's many charms, or wittily resent her caprices, in well-turned verse. He was a patron of art, having brought back ivories and bronzes from Italy, pictures and china from the Low Countries, and enamels from France. He was a student, and collected the many rare and handsome leather-bound volumes telling of curious arts, obscure speculations, half-fabulous histories, voyages, and adventures, which still constitute the almost unique value of the Brockhurst library. He might claim to be a man of science, moreover--of that delectable old-world science which has no narrow-minded quarrel with miracle or prodigy, wherein angel and demon mingle freely, lending a hand unchallenged to complicate the operations both of nature and of grace--a science which, even yet, in perfect good faith, busied itself with the mysteries of the Rosy Cross, mixed strange ingredients into a possible Elixir of Life, ran far afield in search for the Philosopher's Stone, gathered herbs for the confection of simples during auspicious phases of the moon, and beheld in comet and meteor awful forewarnings of public calamity or of Divine Wrath. From all of which it may be premised that when, like the wise king, of old, in Jerusalem, Denzil Calmady "builded him houses, made him gardens and orchards, and planted trees in them of all kind of fruits"; when he "made him pools of water to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees"; when he "gathered silver and gold and the treasure of provinces," and got him singers, and players of musical instruments, and "the delights of the sons of men,"--he did so that, having tried and sifted all these things, he might, by the exercise of a ripe and untrammeled judgment, decide what amongst them is illusory and but as a passing show, and what--be it never so small a remnant--has in it the promise of eternal subsistence, and therefore of vital worth; and that, having so decided and thus gained an even mind, he might prepare serenely to take leave of the life he had dared so largely to live. Commencing his labours at Brockhurst during the closing years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Denzil Calmady completed them in 1611 with a royal house-warming. For the space of a week, during the autumn of that year,--the last autumn, as it unhappily proved, that graceful and scholarly prince was fated to see,--Henry, Prince of Wales, condescended to be his guest. He was entertained at Brockhurst--as contemporary records inform the curious--with "much feastinge and many joyous masques and gallant pastimes," including "a great slayinge of deer and divers beastes and fowl in the woods and coverts thereunto adjacent." It is added, with unconscious irony, that his host, being a "true lover of all wild creatures, had caused a fine bear-pit to be digged beyond the outer garden wall to the west." And that, on the Sunday afternoon of the Prince's visit, there "was held a most mighty baitinge," to witness which "many noble gentlemen of the neighbourhood did visit Brockhurst and lay there two nights." Later it is reported of Denzil Calmady, who was an excellent churchman,--suspected even, notwithstanding his little turn for philosophy, of a greater leaning towards the old Mass-Book than towards the modern Book of Common Prayer,--that he notably assisted Laud, then Bishop of St. David's, in respect of certain delicate diplomacies. Laud proved not ungrateful to his friend; who, in due time, was honoured with one of King James's newly instituted baronetcies, not to mention some few score seedling Scotchfirs, which, taking kindly to the light moorland soil, increased and multiplied exceedingly and sowed themselves broadcast over the face of the surrounding country. And, save for the vigorous upgrowth of those same fir trees, and for the fact that bears and bear-pit had long given place to race-horses and to a great square of stable buildings in the hollow lying back from