LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1910, 8 April 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A CHRISTMAS PARTY ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, AND WHAT CAME OF IT, [Abridged from the “ Argosy.”] ( Continued . 3 TUE MV.ST KEY. The Christmas hospitality continued over Twelfth-night; therefore the party, staying in the house, was not diminished for some days, during several of which nothing of Importance occurred. The gentlemen, save Tracy, seemed well amused during daylight with horse and gun; indeed, there was a capital covert for snipe where the Ashford stable now stands; and I believe a special source of attraction (now properly condemned) was to be found at a lonely farmhouse at Quarrington, where young Nat Bull had provided a cockpit. Whilst my grandmother rigidly attended to domestic duties, the ladies were sometimes busy with stiff embroidery, my mother attempting to copy an Italian design sent by Horace Man to Linton; but much of their morning was taken up in arranging the heavy mass of hair, pasteboard, and pomatum, which fashion prescribed for the head. Ellen S— was often absent, but not often alone; my mother, already old in thought, observed with much concern a startling change in her conduct towards Tracy. Upon their first introduction, the young gentleman had treated Ellen somewhat cavalierly. Disposed to think, perhaps, like many others, that a singularly handsome person made up for want of attention or address, he had barely noticed the cordial greeting of this delicate girl. Somewhat piqued by his nonchalance, she had gone out of her way to show in what light estimation she held him. A toss of the head, a sarcastic smile, an affected air of abstraction, a hund-ed little points were devised, intended to pierce his self-complacency. My mother even rebuked her once for downright rudeness. He noticed nothing. There I fear lay the sting. Ellen showed her vexation to my mother. * Was ever a man so silly, so vain, so odd I Such a selfish fellow, too—no feeling ! ’ ‘lf,’ cried my mother laughing at this tirade, ‘you care so little for him, I wonder you talk so mnch about him.’ Whether Ellen saw that my mother divined the truth, that she was learning to love Tracey, and which she was unwilling to confess even to herself, one can only surmise, but no further suspicion was aroused until the fainting scene above described. After that evening, indications were not wanting to the observant, which showed pretty plainly how matters were tending. To Lieutenant B— Ellen submitted in company, listening to his opinions with a deference unusual to those who knew her ; still the presence of Tracy seemed to exercise a fascination which she could hardly conceal. He was the magnet. Hitherto her intended husband bad apparently regarded Tracy as a “beardless boy,” too young to be thought of as a rival; but now the lieutenant’s spirit 'was moved, and notwithstanding outward calm, my mother felt certain that some denouement was near.

On January 6th, 1760, a dull day with a leaden sky, the gentlemen had amused themselves with the royal game of goose, and the ladies in looking over the “ Morning Chronicle,” and in laughing at the vagaries of Joanna Sonthoott. At noon the olonds lifted, and several started for a walk. Traoy went to Pousy’a in Ashford about a saddle, and was deputed to ask several friends for the evening. Miss Martha Tappenden and my mother took a Christmasbox to Sally Chittenden, an old servant, living on the Lea, calling at Jenner’s, near the church, on their return. In crossing the churchyard they paused to read a remarkable inscription. Hearing voices in the porch (said my mother), my impulse was to move on quickly j not so Miss Martha. With true feminine curiosity, she stayed to listen. The voices were those of Lieutenant B—- and Ellen S , and the latter was pleading piteously. * Oh, release me, I beg of yon. What is the use, when I cannot really love yon V ‘ Ellen, yon loved me but a short while since.’

• I scarcely know. And when yon asked me last July, I was so young ; and your mother pressed me sorely.’ 1 You have said that you loved me well. You are so soon changed.’ * Changed ? Well, I am changed. Oh, what —what am I saying f Do release me from this engagement 1’ < Release yon I Yea ; when the windingsheet wraps me round like this chilly snow. I have a right to know what this means. Do yon love any other man !’ There was a pause, ‘ If I thought that you dropped me—me, indeed ! —for that mincing jackanapes at the hall, I would take care that ——’ At this moment my mother began to cry ; and, fearing discovery, Miss Tappenden retired, doubtless reluctantly. It was thought she repeated the conversation to Tracy. Daring dinner and afterwards Tracy was unusually lively ; in fact, quite the life of the party. Exerting his powers of conversation, he surprised all by a fund of anecdote and of foreign reminiscence, delivered without the admixture of those profane words then common in society.

Never had Tracy seemed so engaging. With sparkling eye, and fair cheek flushed with passing excitement, the voice musical and winning in its gentleness, and the proud lip curved half in disdain, he spoke. Little marvel, said my mother, that wo weak women should admire him as if he were more than mortal, or that he should cross the dark horizon of Ellen S — as an _ angel of light. Once only did he speak directly to Ellen; It was in the drawing-room. She had left the spinet, and Edward Norwood was about to play the violin, when Tracy advanced to her—

* Here is the handkerchief you lent me. Miss S—. I thank you,’ It was luea’ly folded, and my mother, sitting by, observed something like the crumpling of stiff paper as Ellen hastily put it in her bag. What that was will be seen afterwards.

Just before snppor another visitor arrived Dr Haffenden, of Ashford, he having been called to a patient near. Whilst pleased to see him my grandfather was greatly perplexed. There would be thirteen at the supper table, and he had a pious horror of sitting down with that number. “ Not that I am in the least superstitious,” he thought well to say, “ but on the last three occasions when thirteen have been present, I have remarked that one of the party did die during the year.' ‘ What’s to be done ?’ exclaimed his wife, in consternation, shall we have Tom Drayner in ?—or perhaps yon had better sit out Tracey. ’ * As you please, muttered Tracy, taking a seat at a side table,’ ‘ if I were to jump into the saddle now instead of six hours hence X should best solve the difficulty’—and his brow darkened. (feeling sorry for his vexation, shortly afterwards, when people were busy eating and talking, my grandmother’s kind heart prompted her quietly to make room for him. One person, at lesst, noticed the ominous addition, Ellen S —; and her face wore a wild, despairing look, as Tracy calmly completed the fatal number —thirteen. That was an eventful night to my mother. The particulars I give in her own words : “ My bedroom had been changed, and, a’one, I occupied one recently divided over the hall. 1 could not sleep; recent incidents tormented my brain. The agitation of Ellen on the old year’s night - that colloquy in the church porch—the demeanour of Lieutenant B , and the strange power exercised oyer her by Tracy—all seemed to point to coming harm. An undefined dread kept me awake. So still was I that my heart throbbed, with painful distinctness. A tiny mouse, in its efforts to scale the water-jug, seemed like a burglar tampering with the lock of the door; fancy, too, was at work. Y. t surely more than fancy was the sound of subdued voices below the window and the crushing of gravel from a horse’s hoof. Then all was quiet again ; and, creeping out of bad, I timidly drew the curtain. The moon was just rising, and the house lay in such deep shadow that I could discern nothing. Returning to bed, a sharp blow on the nose from the bed-post caused me severe pain and increased my [wakefulness. Sleep I could not. It might have been two hours afterwards, when sleep was just quelling active thought, that I started violently. A shot was fired, whefha overhead, or beneath the window, X cov’d scarcely t.l 1 ; hut so loud and so near see-r-ed the report that I expected the whole household to bo roused in a moment. Rising in bed, I listened, oh,

how intently, for the tread of hurrying feet, for voices in amazement. But no. I could only hear the tick of the pendulum on the stairs ; and presently the clock struck with alanningemphasis—one—two—three 1 Surely somebody hears—somebody will awaken 1 or are all paralysed by fear ? Tracy should start at this hour ; where was he ? Not a sound, not a word anywhere, I must have been mistaken In that shot. Excitement, perchance, was weaving fiercer fancies in the brain. I lay down chilled with fear. Overhead the tiny mouse was pattering cn the tester like drops of rain. At length, I fell asleep. The sun was shining full in my window when I awoke. At first I was inclined to accept as reality the mysterious noises of the night. But, thought I, upon descending the great well-staircase to the breakfast-table, how easily things are explained : and I suppose there could have been no shot after all! Tracy was not present. He had gone away, earlier than was expected (someone remarked) taking his favourite horse. Lieutenant B was quite facetious, and apparently on affectionate terms with Ellen. The guests were all leaving that day.’ THE DISCOVERT. Nine years passed with thsir solemn succession of birth, bridal, and burial; and many who joyfully celebrated the advent of 17S0 were now no more. The household at the old hall had sadly changed. My grandfather was dead ; his only son and child, who had married my mother, had also recently died in his prime, after being crippled for many months from a fall from the new Dover coach; thus, the only inmates of the hall were my grandmother and my mother, both widows, and myself, a child of five ; Lieutenant, now Captain B——-, had greatly distinguished himself in the Gordon Riots of 1781; he had then married Ellen S—, and lived abroad; rarely did they write; and the letters were not cheerful; the wife bemoaned her husband’s harsh and exacting temper; the husband spoke of his wife’s wayward disposition, and even hinted at hallucinations ; as to the supremely handsome Tracy, nothing had been heard of him since leaving the hall, which was most strange ; my grandfather was anxious, and once traced him by description to Abbeville; and Captain B asserted that he had seen him at Ranelagh ; bnt nothing could clearly be ascertained. It was now that my grandmother saw among the first obituary notices in the “Times” that relating to her very old friend Mrs Delany; and she hastened to Windsor (no slight undertaking in those days), intending afterwards to pay a series of visits in London, leaving my mother and alone in this deserted house. My mother was naturally of a nervous temperament ; and, as the depressing gloom of winter deepened, she began to take a morbid interest in the strange seunds which after sunset seem ever, from some unexplained cause, to wander about these old rooms ; the springing of a board made her start; the veering of the rusty vane caused a chill, as if some one were walking over her grave; and when one of the heavy doors was jarred open by the draught, she dared not raise her eyes lest they should rest upon some weird visitor; the long hall and passage separated her from the servants; so thit her fears were magnified by isolation ; and yet, it was not fear, she said, but a feeling of awe which possessed her, as if there was something to be revealed, and which she could not shake off.

What was to follow, it were beat to relate in her own words :

‘ I was sitting in this very chair on Monday evening, the 22nd of December, tracing old faces in the firelight, recalling the pleasant days of long ago, and expecting the return of your dear grandmother every moment ; suddenly there arose a wailing and a sobbing, as of a female in distress, sometimes distant, then close under the window ; calling the servants, I hurried out; a muffled form was standing there, which I thought to bo your grandmother, who might have walked from the London mail at Street End.’ Fo be continued.)