Affairs were going on worse at the Hall than Roger had liked to tell.
Moreover, very much of the discomfort there arose from "mere manner,"
as people express it, which is always indescribable and indefinable.
Quiet and passive as Mrs. Hamley had always been in appearance,
she was the ruling spirit of the house as long as she lived. The
directions to the servants, down to the most minute particulars,
came from her sitting-room, or from the sofa on which she lay. Her
children always knew where to find her; and to find her, was to find
love and sympathy. Her husband, who was often restless and angry from
one cause or another, always came to her to be smoothed down and
put right. He was conscious of her pleasant influence over him, and
became at peace with himself when in her presence; just as a child
is at ease when with some one who is both firm and gentle. But the
keystone of the family arch was gone, and the stones of which it
was composed began to fall apart. It is always sad when a sorrow of
this kind seems to injure the character of the mourning survivors.
Yet, perhaps, this injury may be only temporary or superficial; the
judgments so constantly passed upon the way in which people bear the
loss of those whom they have deeply loved, appear to be even more
cruel, and wrongly meted out, than human judgments generally are. To
careless observers, for instance, it would seem as though the Squire
was rendered more capricious and exacting, more passionate and
authoritative, by his wife's death. The truth was, that it occurred
at a time when many things came to harass him, and some to bitterly
disappoint him; and _she_ was no longer there to whom he used to
carry his sore heart for the gentle balm of her sweet words. So the
sore heart ached and smarted intensely; and often, when he saw how
his violent conduct affected others, he could have cried out for
their pity, instead of their anger and resentment: "Have mercy upon
me, for I am very miserable." How often have such dumb thoughts gone
up from the hearts of those who have taken hold of their sorrow
by the wrong end, as prayers against sin! And when the Squire saw
that his servants were learning to dread him, and his first-born to
avoid him, he did not blame them. He knew he was becoming a domestic
tyrant; it seemed as if all circumstances conspired against him, and
as if he was too weak to struggle with them; else, why did everything
in doors and out of doors go so wrong just now, when all he could
have done, had things been prosperous, was to have submitted, in very
imperfect patience, to the loss of his wife? But just when he needed
ready money to pacify Osborne's creditors, the harvest had turned out
remarkably plentiful, and the price of corn had sunk down to a level
it had not touched for years. The Squire had insured his life at the
time of his marriage for a pretty large sum. It was to be a provision
for his wife, if she survived him, and for their younger children.
Roger was the only representative of these interests now; but the
Squire was unwilling to lose the insurance by ceasing to pay the
annual sum. He would not, if he could, have sold any part of the
estate which he inherited from his father; and, besides, it was
strictly entailed. He had sometimes thought how wise a step it
would have been could he have sold a portion of it, and with the
purchase-money have drained and reclaimed the remainder; and at
length, learning from some neighbour that Government would make
certain advances for drainage, &c., at a very low rate of interest,
on condition that the work was done, and the money repaid, within a
given time, his wife had urged him to take advantage of the proffered
loan. But now that she was no longer there to encourage him, and take
an interest in the progress of the work, he grew indifferent to it
himself, and cared no more to go out on his stout roan cob, and sit
square on his seat, watching the labourers on the marshy land all
overgrown with rushes; speaking to them from time to time in their
own strong nervous country dialect: but the interest to Government
had to be paid all the same, whether the men worked well or ill.
Then the roof of the Hall let in the melted snow-water this winter;
and, on examination, it turned out that a new roof was absolutely
required. The men who had come about the advances made to Osborne by
the London money-lender, had spoken disparagingly of the timber on
the estate--"Very fine trees--sound, perhaps, too, fifty years ago,
but gone to rot now; had wanted lopping and clearing. Was there no
wood-ranger or forester? They were nothing like the value young Mr.
Hamley had represented them to be." The remarks had come round to
the squire's ears. He loved the trees he had played under as a boy
as if they were living creatures; that was on the romantic side of
his nature. Merely looking at them as representing so many pounds
sterling, he had esteemed them highly, and had had, until now,
no opinion of another by which to correct his own judgment. So
these words of the valuers cut him sharp, although he affected to
disbelieve them, and tried to persuade himself that he did so. But,
after all, these cares and disappointments did not touch the root of
his deep resentment against Osborne. There is nothing like wounded
affection for giving poignancy to anger. And the Squire believed that
Osborne and his advisers had been making calculations, based upon his
own death. He hated the idea so much--it made him so miserable--that
he would not face it, and define it, and meet it with full inquiry
and investigation. He chose rather to cherish the morbid fancy that
he was useless in this world--born under an unlucky star--that all
things went badly under his management. But he did not become humble
in consequence. He put his misfortunes down to the score of Fate--not
to his own; and he imagined that Osborne saw his failures, and that
his first-born grudged him his natural term of life. All these
fancies would have been set to rights could he have talked them over
with his wife; or even had he been accustomed to mingle much in
the society of those whom he esteemed his equals; but, as has been
stated, he was inferior in education to those who should have been
his mates; and perhaps the jealousy and _mauvaise honte_ that this
inferiority had called out long ago, extended itself in some measure
to the feelings he entertained towards his sons--less to Roger
than to Osborne, though the former was turning out by far the most
distinguished man. But Roger was practical; interested in all
out-of-doors things, and he enjoyed the details, homely enough, which
his father sometimes gave him of the every-day occurrences which
the latter had noticed in the woods and the fields. Osborne, on the
contrary, was what is commonly called "fine;" delicate almost to
effeminacy in dress and in manner; careful in small observances. All
this his father had been rather proud of in the days when he looked
forward to a brilliant career at Cambridge for his son; he had at
that time regarded Osborne's fastidiousness and elegance as another
stepping-stone to the high and prosperous marriage which was to
restore the ancient fortunes of the Hamley family. But now that
Osborne had barely obtained his degree; that all the boastings of his
father had proved vain; that the fastidiousness had led to unexpected
expenses (to attribute the most innocent cause to Osborne's debts),
the poor young man's ways and manners became a subject of irritation
to his father. Osborne was still occupied with his books and his
writings when he was at home; and this mode of passing the greater
part of the day gave him but few subjects in common with his father
when they did meet at meal times, or in the evenings. Perhaps if
Osborne had been able to have more out-of-door amusements it would
have been better; but he was short-sighted, and cared little for the
carefully observant pursuits of his brother; he knew but few young
men of his own standing in the county; his hunting even, of which he
was passionately fond, had been curtailed this season, as his father
had disposed of one of the two hunters he had been hitherto allowed.
The whole stable establishment had been reduced; perhaps because it
was the economy which told most on the enjoyment of both the Squire
and Osborne, and which, therefore, the former took a savage pleasure
in enforcing. The old carriage--a heavy family coach bought in the
days of comparative prosperity--was no longer needed after madam's
death, and fell to pieces in the cobwebbed seclusion of the
coach-house. The best of the two carriage-horses was taken for a gig,
which the Squire now set up; saying many a time to all who might
care to listen to him that it was the first time for generations
that the Hamleys of Hamley had not been able to keep their own coach.
The other carriage-horse was turned out to grass; being too old for
regular work. Conqueror used to come whinnying up to the park palings
whenever he saw the Squire, who had always a piece of bread, or some
sugar, or an apple for the old favourite; and would make many a
complaining speech to the dumb animal, telling him of the change of
times since both were in their prime. It had never been the Squire's
custom to encourage his boys to invite their friends to the Hall.
Perhaps this, too, was owing to his _mauvaise honte_, and also to an
exaggerated consciousness of the deficiencies of his establishment as
compared with what he imagined these lads were accustomed to at home.
He explained this once or twice to Osborne and Roger when they were
at Rugby.