The Poor Clare by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
Transcribed from the 1896 “Lizzie Leigh and Other Tales” Macmillan andCo. edition by David Price, email [email protected]. Proofed by AudreyEmmitt and Eugenia Corbo.
THE POOR CLARE
CHAPTER I.
DECEMBER 12th, 1747.—My life has been strangely bound up withextraordinary incidents, some of which occurred before I had anyconnection with the principal actors in them, or indeed, before I evenknew of their existence. I suppose, most old men are, like me, moregiven to looking back upon their own career with a kind of fond interestand affectionate remembrance, than to watching the events—though thesemay have far more interest for the multitude—immediately passing beforetheir eyes. If this should be the case with the generality of oldpeople, how much more so with me! . . . If I am to enter upon thatstrange story connected with poor Lucy, I must begin a long way back. Imyself only came to the knowledge of her family history after I knew her;but, to make the tale clear to any one else, I must arrange events in theorder in which they occurred—not that in which I became acquainted withthem.
There is a great old hall in the north-east of Lancashire, in a part theycalled the Trough of Bolland, adjoining that other district named Craven.Starkey Manor-house is rather like a number of rooms clustered round agray, massive, old keep than a regularly-built hall. Indeed, I supposethat the house only consisted of a great tower in the centre, in the dayswhen the Scots made their raids terrible as far south as this; and thatafter the Stuarts came in, and there was a little more security ofproperty in those parts, the Starkeys of that time added the lowerbuilding, which runs, two stories high, all round the base of the keep.There has been a grand garden laid out in my days, on the southern slopenear the house; but when I first knew the place, the kitchen-garden atthe farm was the only piece of cultivated ground belonging to it. Thedeer used to come within sight of the drawing-room windows, and mighthave browsed quite close up to the house if they had not been too wildand shy. Starkey Manor-house itself stood on a projection or peninsulaof high land, jutting out from the abrupt hills that form the sides ofthe Trough of Bolland. These hills were rocky and bleak enough towardstheir summit; lower down they were clothed with tangled copsewood andgreen depths of fern, out of which a gray giant of an ancient forest-treewould tower here and there, throwing up its ghastly white branches, as ifin imprecation, to the sky. These trees, they told me, were the remnantsof that forest which existed in the days of the Heptarchy, and were eventhen noted as landmarks. No wonder that their upper and more exposedbranches were leafless, and that the dead bark had peeled away, fromsapless old age.
Not far from the house there were a few cottages, apparently, of the samedate as the keep; probably built for some retainers of the family, whosought shelter—they and their families and their small flocks andherds—at the hands of their feudal lord. Some of them had pretty muchfallen to decay. They were built in a strange fashion. Strong beams hadbeen sunk firm in the ground at the requisite distance, and their otherends had been fastened together, two and two, so as to form the shape ofone of those rounded waggon-headed gipsy-tents, only very much larger.The spaces between were filled with mud, stones, osiers, rubbish,mortar—anything to keep out the weather. The fires were made in thecentre of these rude dwellings, a hole in the roof forming the onlychimney. No Highland hut or Irish cabin could be of rougherconstruction.
The owner of this property, at the beginning of the present century, wasa Mr. Patrick Byrne Starkey. His family had kept to the old faith, andwere stanch Roman Catholics, esteeming it even a sin to marry any one ofProtestant descent, however willing he or she might have been to embracethe Romish religion. Mr. Patrick Starkey’s father had been a follower ofJames the Second; and, during the disastrous Irish campaign of thatmonarch he had fallen in love with an Irish beauty, a Miss Byrne, aszealous for her religion and for the Stuarts as himself. He had returnedto Ireland after his escape to France, and married her, bearing her backto the court at St. Germains. But some licence on the part of thedisorderly gentlemen who surrounded King James in his exile, had insultedhis beautiful wife, and disgusted him; so he removed from St. Germains toAntwerp, whence, in a few years’ time, he quietly returned to StarkeyManor-house—some of his Lancashire neighbours having lent their goodoffices to reconcile him to the powers that were. He was as firm aCatholic as ever, and as stanch an advocate for the Stuarts and thedivine rights of kings; but his religion almost amounted to asceticism,and the conduct of these with whom he had been brought in such closecontact at St. Germains would little bear the inspection of a sternmoralist. So he gave his allegiance where he could not give his esteem,and learned to respect sincerely the upright and moral character of onewhom he yet regarded as an usurper. King William’s government had littleneed to fear such a one. So he returned, as I have said, with a soberedheart and impoverished fortunes, to his ancestral house, which had fallensadly to ruin while the owner had been a courtier, a soldier, and anexile. The roads into the Trough of Bolland were little more thancart-ruts; indeed, the way up to the house lay along a ploughed fieldbefore you came to the deer-park. Madam, as the country-folk used tocall Mrs. Starkey, rode on a pillion behind her husband, holding on tohim with a light hand by his leather riding-belt. Little master (he thatwas afterwards Squire Patrick Byrne Starkey) was held on to his pony by aserving-man. A woman past middle age walked, with a firm and strongstep, by the cart that held much of the baggage; and high up on the mailsand boxes, sat a girl of dazzling beauty, perched lightly on the topmosttrunk, and swaying herself fearlessly to and fro, as the cart rocked andshook in the heavy roads of late autumn. The girl wore the Antwerpfaille, or black Spanish mantle over her head, and altogether herappearance was such that the old cottager, who described the possessionto me many years after, said that all the country-folk took her for aforeigner. Some dogs, and the boy who held them in charge, made up thecompany. They rode silently along, looking with grave, serious eyes atthe people, who came out of the scattered cottages to bow or curtsy tothe real Squire, “come back at last,” and gazed after the littleprocession with gaping wonder, not deadened by the sound of the foreignlanguage in which the few necessary words that passed among them werespoken. One lad, called from his staring by the Squire to come and helpabout the cart, accompanied them to the Manor-house. He said that whenthe lady had descended from her pillion, the middle-aged woman whom Ihave described as walking while the others rode, stepped quickly forward,and taking Madam Starkey (who was of a slight and delicate figure) in herarms, she lifted her over the threshold, and set her down in herhusband’s house, at the same time uttering a passionate and outlandishblessing. The Squire stood by, smiling gravely at first; but when thewords of blessing were pronounced, he took off his fine feathered hat,and bent his head. The girl with the black mantle stepped onward intothe shadow of the dark hall, and kissed the lady’s hand; and that was allthe lad could tell to the group that gathered round him on his return,eager to hear everything, and to know how much the Squire had given himfor his services.
From all I could gather, the Manor-house, at the time of the Squire’sreturn, was in the most dilapidated state. The stout gray walls remainedfirm and entire; but the inner chambers had been used for all kinds ofpurposes. The great withdrawing-room had been a barn; the statetapestry-chamber had held wool, and so on. But, by-and-by, they werecleared out; and if the Squire had no money to spend on new furniture, heand his wife had the knack of making the best of the old. He was nodespicable joiner; she had a kind of grace in whatever she did, andimparted an air of elegant picturesqueness to whatever she touched.Besides, they had brought many rare things from the Continent; perhaps Ishould rather say, things that were rare in that part ofEngland—carvings, and crosses, and beautiful pic
Why do I tell you all this? I have little to do with the Squire andMadame Starkey; and yet I dwell upon them, as if I were unwilling to cometo the real people with whom my life was so strangely mixed up. Madamhad been nursed in Ireland by the very woman who lifted her in her arms,and welcomed her to her husband’s home in Lancashire. Excepting for theshort period of her own married life, Bridget Fitzgerald had never lefther nursling. Her marriage—to one above her in rank—had been unhappy.Her husband had died, and left her in even greater poverty than that inwhich she was when he had first met with her. She had one child, thebeautiful daughter who came riding on the waggon-load of furniture thatwas brought to the Manor-house. Madame Starkey had taken her again intoher service when she became a widow. She and her daughter had followed“the