

Transcribed from the 1896 “Lizzie Leigh and Other Tales” Macmillan and
Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org.  Proofed by Audrey
Emmitt and Eugenia Corbo.





                              THE POOR CLARE


CHAPTER I.


DECEMBER 12th, 1747.—My life has been strangely bound up with
extraordinary incidents, some of which occurred before I had any
connection with the principal actors in them, or indeed, before I even
knew of their existence.  I suppose, most old men are, like me, more
given to looking back upon their own career with a kind of fond interest
and affectionate remembrance, than to watching the events—though these
may have far more interest for the multitude—immediately passing before
their eyes.  If this should be the case with the generality of old
people, how much more so with me!... If I am to enter upon that
strange story connected with poor Lucy, I must begin a long way back.  I
myself 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 the
order in which they occurred—not that in which I became acquainted with
them.

There is a great old hall in the north-east of Lancashire, in a part they
called the Trough of Bolland, adjoining that other district named Craven.
Starkey Manor-house is rather like a number of rooms clustered round a
gray, massive, old keep than a regularly-built hall.  Indeed, I suppose
that the house only consisted of a great tower in the centre, in the days
when the Scots made their raids terrible as far south as this; and that
after the Stuarts came in, and there was a little more security of
property in those parts, the Starkeys of that time added the lower
building, 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 <DW72>
near the house; but when I first knew the place, the kitchen-garden at
the farm was the only piece of cultivated ground belonging to it.  The
deer used to come within sight of the drawing-room windows, and might
have browsed quite close up to the house if they had not been too wild
and shy.  Starkey Manor-house itself stood on a projection or peninsula
of high land, jutting out from the abrupt hills that form the sides of
the Trough of Bolland.  These hills were rocky and bleak enough towards
their summit; lower down they were clothed with tangled copsewood and
green depths of fern, out of which a gray giant of an ancient forest-tree
would tower here and there, throwing up its ghastly white branches, as if
in imprecation, to the sky.  These trees, they told me, were the remnants
of that forest which existed in the days of the Heptarchy, and were even
then noted as landmarks.  No wonder that their upper and more exposed
branches were leafless, and that the dead bark had peeled away, from
sapless old age.

Not far from the house there were a few cottages, apparently, of the same
date as the keep; probably built for some retainers of the family, who
sought shelter—they and their families and their small flocks and
herds—at the hands of their feudal lord.  Some of them had pretty much
fallen to decay.  They were built in a strange fashion.  Strong beams had
been sunk firm in the ground at the requisite distance, and their other
ends had been fastened together, two and two, so as to form the shape of
one 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 the
centre of these rude dwellings, a hole in the roof forming the only
chimney.  No Highland hut or Irish cabin could be of rougher
construction.

The owner of this property, at the beginning of the present century, was
a Mr. Patrick Byrne Starkey.  His family had kept to the old faith, and
were stanch Roman Catholics, esteeming it even a sin to marry any one of
Protestant descent, however willing he or she might have been to embrace
the Romish religion.  Mr. Patrick Starkey’s father had been a follower of
James the Second; and, during the disastrous Irish campaign of that
monarch he had fallen in love with an Irish beauty, a Miss Byrne, as
zealous for her religion and for the Stuarts as himself.  He had returned
to Ireland after his escape to France, and married her, bearing her back
to the court at St. Germains.  But some licence on the part of the
disorderly gentlemen who surrounded King James in his exile, had insulted
his beautiful wife, and disgusted him; so he removed from St. Germains to
Antwerp, whence, in a few years’ time, he quietly returned to Starkey
Manor-house—some of his Lancashire neighbours having lent their good
offices to reconcile him to the powers that were.  He was as firm a
Catholic as ever, and as stanch an advocate for the Stuarts and the
divine rights of kings; but his religion almost amounted to asceticism,
and the conduct of these with whom he had been brought in such close
contact at St. Germains would little bear the inspection of a stern
moralist.  So he gave his allegiance where he could not give his esteem,
and learned to respect sincerely the upright and moral character of one
whom he yet regarded as an usurper.  King William’s government had little
need to fear such a one.  So he returned, as I have said, with a sobered
heart and impoverished fortunes, to his ancestral house, which had fallen
sadly to ruin while the owner had been a courtier, a soldier, and an
exile.  The roads into the Trough of Bolland were little more than
cart-ruts; indeed, the way up to the house lay along a ploughed field
before you came to the deer-park.  Madam, as the country-folk used to
call Mrs. Starkey, rode on a pillion behind her husband, holding on to
him with a light hand by his leather riding-belt.  Little master (he that
was afterwards Squire Patrick Byrne Starkey) was held on to his pony by a
serving-man.  A woman past middle age walked, with a firm and strong
step, by the cart that held much of the baggage; and high up on the mails
and boxes, sat a girl of dazzling beauty, perched lightly on the topmost
trunk, and swaying herself fearlessly to and fro, as the cart rocked and
shook in the heavy roads of late autumn.  The girl wore the Antwerp
faille, or black Spanish mantle over her head, and altogether her
appearance was such that the old cottager, who described the possession
to me many years after, said that all the country-folk took her for a
foreigner.  Some dogs, and the boy who held them in charge, made up the
company.  They rode silently along, looking with grave, serious eyes at
the people, who came out of the scattered cottages to bow or curtsy to
the real Squire, “come back at last,” and gazed after the little
procession with gaping wonder, not deadened by the sound of the foreign
language in which the few necessary words that passed among them were
spoken.  One lad, called from his staring by the Squire to come and help
about the cart, accompanied them to the Manor-house.  He said that when
the lady had descended from her pillion, the middle-aged woman whom I
have described as walking while the others rode, stepped quickly forward,
and taking Madam Starkey (who was of a slight and delicate figure) in her
arms, she lifted her over the threshold, and set her down in her
husband’s house, at the same time uttering a passionate and outlandish
blessing.  The Squire stood by, smiling gravely at first; but when the
words of blessing were pronounced, he took off his fine feathered hat,
and bent his head.  The girl with the black mantle stepped onward into
the shadow of the dark hall, and kissed the lady’s hand; and that was all
the 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 him
for his services.

From all I could gather, the Manor-house, at the time of the Squire’s
return, was in the most dilapidated state.  The stout gray walls remained
firm and entire; but the inner chambers had been used for all kinds of
purposes.  The great withdrawing-room had been a barn; the state
tapestry-chamber had held wool, and so on.  But, by-and-by, they were
cleared out; and if the Squire had no money to spend on new furniture, he
and his wife had the knack of making the best of the old.  He was no
despicable joiner; she had a kind of grace in whatever she did, and
imparted an air of elegant picturesqueness to whatever she touched.
Besides, they had brought many rare things from the Continent; perhaps I
should rather say, things that were rare in that part of
England—carvings, and crosses, and beautiful pictures.  And then, again,
wood was plentiful in the Trough of Bolland, and great log-fires danced
and glittered in all the dark, old rooms, and gave a look of home and
comfort to everything.

Why do I tell you all this?  I have little to do with the Squire and
Madame Starkey; and yet I dwell upon them, as if I were unwilling to come
to the real people with whom my life was so strangely mixed up.  Madam
had 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 the
short period of her own married life, Bridget Fitzgerald had never left
her 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 in
which she was when he had first met with her.  She had one child, the
beautiful daughter who came riding on the waggon-load of furniture that
was brought to the Manor-house.  Madame Starkey had taken her again into
her service when she became a widow.  She and her daughter had followed
“the mistress” in all her fortunes; they had lived at St. Germains and at
Antwerp, and were now come to her home in Lancashire.  As soon as Bridget
had arrived there, the Squire gave her a cottage of her own, and took
more pains in furnishing it for her than he did in anything else out of
his own house.  It was only nominally her residence.  She was constantly
up at the great house; indeed, it was but a short cut across the woods
from her own home to the home of her nursling.  Her daughter Mary, in
like manner, moved from one house to the other at her own will.  Madam
loved both mother and child dearly.  They had great influence over her,
and, through her, over her husband.  Whatever Bridget or Mary willed was
sure to come to pass.  They were not disliked; for, though wild and
passionate, they were also generous by nature.  But the other servants
were afraid of them, as being in secret the ruling spirits of the
household.  The Squire had lost his interest in all secular things; Madam
was gentle, affectionate, and yielding.  Both husband and wife were
tenderly attached to each other and to their boy; but they grew more and
more to shun the trouble of decision on any point; and hence it was that
Bridget could exert such despotic power.  But if everyone else yielded to
her “magic of a superior mind,” her daughter not unfrequently rebelled.
She and her mother were too much alike to agree.  There were wild
quarrels between them, and wilder reconciliations.  There were times
when, in the heat of passion, they could have stabbed each other.  At all
other times they both—Bridget especially—would have willingly laid down
their lives for one another.  Bridget’s love for her child lay very
deep—deeper than that daughter ever knew; or I should think she would
never have wearied of home as she did, and prayed her mistress to obtain
for her some situation—as waiting maid—beyond the seas, in that more
cheerful continental life, among the scenes of which so many of her
happiest years had been spent.  She thought, as youth thinks, that life
would last for ever, and that two or three years were but a small portion
of it to pass away from her mother, whose only child she was.  Bridget
thought differently, but was too proud ever to show what she felt.  If
her child wished to leave her, why—she should go.  But people said
Bridget became ten years older in the course of two months at this time.
She took it that Mary wanted to leave her.  The truth was, that Mary
wanted for a time to leave the place, and to seek some change, and would
thankfully have taken her mother with her.  Indeed when Madam Starkey had
gotten her a situation with some grand lady abroad, and the time drew
near for her to go, it was Mary who clung to her mother with passionate
embrace, and, with floods of tears, declared that she would never leave
her; and it was Bridget, who at last loosened her arms, and, grave and
tearless herself, bade her keep her word, and go forth into the wide
world.  Sobbing aloud, and looking back continually, Mary went away.
Bridget was still as death, scarcely drawing her breath, or closing her
stony eyes; till at last she turned back into her cottage, and heaved a
ponderous old settle against the door.  There she sat, motionless, over
the gray ashes of her extinguished fire, deaf to Madam’s sweet voice, as
she begged leave to enter and comfort her nurse.  Deaf, stony, and
motionless, she sat for more than twenty hours; till, for the third time,
Madam came across the snowy path from the great house, carrying with her
a young spaniel, which had been Mary’s pet up at the hall; and which had
not ceased all night long to seek for its absent mistress, and to whine
and moan after her.  With tears Madam told this story, through the closed
door—tears excited by the terrible look of anguish, so steady, so
immovable—so the same to-day as it was yesterday—on her nurse’s face.
The little creature in her arms began to utter its piteous cry, as it
shivered with the cold.  Bridget stirred; she moved—she listened.  Again
that long whine; she thought it was for her daughter; and what she had
denied to her nursling and mistress she granted to the dumb creature that
Mary had cherished.  She opened the door, and took the dog from Madam’s
arms.  Then Madam came in, and kissed and comforted the old woman, who
took but little notice of her or anything.  And sending up Master Patrick
to the hall for fire and food, the sweet young lady never left her nurse
all that night.  Next day, the Squire himself came down, carrying a
beautiful foreign picture—Our Lady of the Holy Heart, the <DW7>s call
it.  It is a picture of the Virgin, her heart pierced with arrows, each
arrow representing one of her great woes.  That picture hung in Bridget’s
cottage when I first saw her; I have that picture now.

Years went on.  Mary was still abroad.  Bridget was still and stern,
instead of active and passionate.  The little dog, Mignon, was indeed her
darling.  I have heard that she talked to it continually; although, to
most people, she was so silent.  The Squire and Madam treated her with
the greatest consideration, and well they might; for to them she was as
devoted and faithful as ever.  Mary wrote pretty often, and seemed
satisfied with her life.  But at length the letters ceased—I hardly know
whether before or after a great and terrible sorrow came upon the house
of the Starkeys.  The Squire sickened of a putrid fever; and Madam caught
it in nursing him, and died.  You may be sure, Bridget let no other woman
tend her but herself; and in the very arms that had received her at her
birth, that sweet young woman laid her head down, and gave up her breath.
The Squire recovered, in a fashion.  He was never strong—he had never the
heart to smile again.  He fasted and prayed more than ever; and people
did say that he tried to cut off the entail, and leave all the property
away to found a monastery abroad, of which he prayed that some day little
Squire Patrick might be the reverend father.  But he could not do this,
for the strictness of the entail and the laws against the <DW7>s.  So he
could only appoint gentlemen of his own faith as guardians to his son,
with many charges about the lad’s soul, and a few about the land, and the
way it was to be held while he was a minor.  Of course, Bridget was not
forgotten.  He sent for her as he lay on his death-bed, and asked her if
she would rather have a sum down, or have a small annuity settled upon
her.  She said at once she would have a sum down; for she thought of her
daughter, and how she could bequeath the money to her, whereas an annuity
would have died with her.  So the Squire left her her cottage for life,
and a fair sum of money.  And then he died, with as ready and willing a
heart as, I suppose, ever any gentleman took out