VI

“I knowed there was something as I had to tell you,” said old Abner, crouched in the pony-carriage, his knees nearly touching his chin, and holding one of his sticks with both hands. “I knowed there was something when you called that day. But bless you, they won’t never turn I out of that there garden.”

Entering the outskirts of the town they saw Mrs. Cornleigh Cornleigh, a shaven young cleric with her, just coming from a model farm-building. Felise glanced at her, half drew rein, hesitated, and drove on again. To appeal to a woman would in theory be the best proceeding, yet Felise did not do so. Something prevented her from making the attempt, partly perhaps the reluctance one woman feels to beg anything of another woman⁠—partly some recollection of the character Mrs. Cornleigh Cornleigh bore.

A handsome woman, she had not the least beauty. Letitia Cornleigh Cornleigh possessed a good figure; a little full perhaps, but not so full as is usual at her age, for she had long passed forty. Indeed, an air of hard self-preservation was her most pronounced expression. She seemed, as you looked at her, to defy you and Time and all alike.

Her features were small, well-cut, and regular; her teeth singularly good, and pearly; her hair pale yellow; her eyes a clear light blue, with long lashes. She had most of the groundwork and foundation of loveliness; she was handsome, yet without beauty. Perhaps it was her haughty boldness which repelled the observer⁠—the so haughty boldness which said, “I am so high, so irreproachable, I can say anything, do anything, go anywhere, because I am Letitia Cornleigh Cornleigh.”

At a distance this expression was not seen; looked at, for instance, by gaslight from the balcony of a ballroom, Mrs. Cornleigh Cornleigh appeared superb. Could she have been painted from a distance she would have been pronounced an exceptionally handsome woman.

This haughty, innocent boldness sometimes led to queer positions, as when she questioned the veterinary surgeon so closely respecting a horse they were examining as to put the poor man to the blush.

Letitia was very clever, very clever; and it was quite understood that she was the ruler⁠—Cornleigh reigned, and Letitia governed. In fact, she had been selected (being almost dowerless) for this purpose, for Cornleigh’s parents and friends were aware that someone with a strong will was needed to guide him. So the marriage was negotiated, and everyone said, “What a good thing it was for Cornleigh! Wonderful woman of business! Capital thing for Cornleigh!”

The phrase became established, and it was the regular thing to remark, whenever the improvements at Maasbury town were mentioned, or any allusion made to the family, “By the by, what a good thing it was for Cornleigh when he married Letitia! Capital thing for Cornleigh!”

All the improvements which had straitened the old town, depriving it of its pleasant appearance and of its ancient freedom, sprang from Mrs. Cornleigh Cornleigh.

With her, too, there came into existence a new law, especially applicable to and enforced in the country part of the estate; but whether this law originated with her, or from the swarm of shaven clericalism around her, was never quite clear. With her reign, at all events, it was first promulgated, and had since been carried out with the utmost severity. As she was undoubtedly the master-spirit at The House, popular opinion appeared in the right in attributing the execution⁠—if not the inception⁠—to Letitia.

This statute ordained that if any cottage girl disgraced herself and became the mother of illegitimate offspring, forthwith the cottage was to be cleared of all its inhabitants. The girl, the parents, the grandfather, all and single who chanced to dwell within its walls were summarily cleared out, and denied any residence upon the estate. If the marriage ceremony had been performed⁠—however late in the day⁠—the matter was permitted to drop. If not, if it had been omitted⁠—no matter what the extenuating circumstances⁠—out they must turn, bag and baggage, young, middle-aged, and decrepit, to take their chance in the world.

Punishment was thus dealt out in a retrospective manner to everyone, however remotely concerned, and might fall on four generations: on the helpless infant, the mother, her parents, and grandparents. It would be impossible to imagine anything more cruel, more unjust, more utterly inhuman.

The cottage was simply cleaned out, as it might be for sanitary purposes during a plague, and the whole family swept as if with a broom from off the countryside.

This inhuman and abominable law, surpassing all that transpires in the darkest places of Russia, was strictly enforced.

The rulers at The House, whether the haughty lady or her shaven advisers, looked with such sacerdotal horror upon this inexpiable crime that nothing less than absolute extinction could suffice. The estate⁠—the lands of Cornleigh Cornleigh, Esq.⁠—must be made sweet and clean. Such horrible contamination must be removed from the surface of that part of the earth which he possessed.

Village girls are exposed to great temptation, and have to go through a rude ordeal.

Besides which they have feelings, these poor girls, and sometimes succumb to love; you would scarce believe it, would you? The scarcity of cottages, and the difficulty of obtaining possession of one, often put an almost insurmountable obstacle in the way of marriage, which obstacle is mainly due to the policy of keeping cottages under the tenant-farmer’s control for the supposed benefit of the estate. The House thus kept the population short of cottages, and then punished those who transgressed for want of a home of their own.

This law had been put in force several times since Felise came as a child to Beechknoll, but she had never heard of it. No one ever spoke to her of such things. Something in the child’s aspect stilled the giddy tongues that gossiped so freely. To the woman grown, no one⁠—not even Mary Shaw, favourite as she was⁠—would have presumed to mention it. Her pure beauty surrounded her with a rampart across which no evil could penetrate.

Feudal statutes of this kind still exist here and there, although this particular law is not common. Not only the law, but the power to make the law was the wrong in Mr. Goring’s opinion. Why should any one person possess the power to issue such a ukase? They do possess the power, and will do so while nine-tenths of each agricultural hamlet are at the absolute disposal of the proprietor of the soil.

If the people lived in their own houses, however humble those houses might be, nothing of the sort would be possible. But they do not live in their own houses. All the efforts of generations after generations of Cornleigh Cornleighs have been directed to compel them to dwell in landowners’ houses, under the thumb of the tenant-farmer and the steward.

It may be said, there is nothing to prevent a man living in his own house; but how can you build a house without land to put it on? How can you get that land if Cornleigh Cornleigh will not sell it to you?

Cornleigh Cornleigh, Esq., had got the land.

Felise glanced at the upright form of Mrs. Cornleigh Cornleigh, and decided not to appeal to her. She drove on to the lodge-gates, and asked there for the justice-room; at that word she was rudely told to go round to the back, and left to find her way to the back as well as she might. A passerby gave her the information⁠—he was a young man, and glad to assist beauty.

They had to go round some distance and approach The House from another quarter up a long lane; but found a high iron gate across the lane, and had to wait till it pleased a woman to open it. Then it was a regulation that no horse or vehicle must pass farther; the pony-carriage had to be left there, just inside the gate, to fare as it might. Felise and her client went down the lane afoot; there was a wall twenty feet high each side.