CHAPTER LXXVI

APPLETON HALL

MR. JOVEY JESSOP was right when he said the Jug knew every gate and gap in the country, for no sooner had Mr. Bunting and he got clear of Mr. Bowderoukins’s premises than the Jug stopped short at the corner of a grass-field, and, fishing a furze-bush out of the hedge with the handle of his hunting-whip, put his horse at the now open place, saying to Mr. Bunting as he rose it, “May as well go over here.”

Mr. Bunting then followed his leader’s example, and the two were presently sailing over the sound sward of an old pasture, the horses cantering gaily together over the high ridge and furrow. Though there was no apparent way out, the Jug sat leisurely on his horse as if in the full confidence of a comfortable exit, and, making for the cattle shed at the end, he passed at the back of it, and pulling out a rail that had been interlaced with the quickset fence, hopped over the lower one and was again upon grass.

“Needn’t mind putting it in again,” observed he, looking back at Mr. Bunting, “there are no stock in either field;” so saying, the Jug again slouched in his saddle, and went cantering away to a good blue gate opening upon the Farmanby and Oxmanfield road. That gained, he kept its course for some three hundred yards, when again stopping short the Jug brushed through a weak place in the adjoining hedge and was again on turf. He was now upon Mr. Hollamby’s farm, with its trim hedges, piped ditches, and self-shutting gates, which being sped over, a short divergence over all that now remains of the once wide-stretching Scrubbington Common brought them to the locked iron gates of Flowerdale Lodge.

“Must be through here,” observed the Jug to his companion, “cuts off three-quarters of a mile. Holloa, gate! gate!” roared he, rising in his stirrups and pretending to be in a desperate hurry. “Look sharp, woman! look sharp!” now cried he, as old Peggy Porringer the custodian came toddling along to take a survey through the bars of the barrier. “Look sharp, woman! look sharp,” repeated he, “the hounds are running! the hounds are running! and we shall be left immeasurably in the lurch!”

Seeing red coats, Peggy unlocked and opened the gates, and the Jug, followed by Mr. Bunting, spurring his horse, passed through, and the two went cantering up the avenue as far as the Lodge commanded a view of the line.

“May take it easy now,” observed the Jug, pulling up; adding, “there are no locked gates at the other end, and if they won’t let us keep the road, I know a way through the fields.” So saying, he relaxed into a gentle trot, and passing unchallenged at the back of the gardens, passed the keeper’s lodge, and out at the sawmill on the Sunburry road. This line they kept for some distance, till at length a once white wicket, between rather ornamental stone posts at the low end of a belt of beech, announced a change of scene; and the Jug, pushing the unlatched gate open with his toe, turned his willing horse to it, who entered of its own accord.

“What place is this?” now asked our hero, fearing they were going to commit another trespass.

“All right,” replied the Jug, “all right;” adding, “this is Appleton.”

“Appleton, is it,” rejoined Mr. Bunting, as a glorious sunset illuminated the many windows of a large stone mansion. “Appleton, is it; it’s a very fine place. Tell me,” added he, “is Mr. Jessop married?”

“Married, no! hadn’t need,” replied the Jug, laughing.

Mr. Bunting looked confused.

“Not that I mean to say anything disrespectful of matrimony,” observed the Jug, apologetically; “only I mean to say that Appleton wouldn’t quite suit a lady.”

“Indeed,” replied Mr. Bunting, adding, “Why not? It’s large enough at all events, and nobody ever saw a house that was too large for a lady.”

“Large enough,” said the Jug, looking at it; “large enough, only there’s no furniture in it.”

“Oh, indeed,” smiled Mr. Bunting, adding, “that’s rather against it; but how do Mr. Jessop and you manage then?”

“O we just knock on the best way we can. Jessop don’t care for finery; no more do I; so we get on well enough—the stables are good, and so is the eating and drinking; and, between ourselves, I’m not sure but that dinners are quite as comfortable without the ladies, for you see they have all dined beforehand, and only come to show their clothes and talk and interrupt one in one’s eating.”

“Well, but they help to pass the evening pleasantly at all events,” observed Mr. Bunting.

“Oh, have them in the evening if you like,” rejoined the Jug; “have them in the evening if you like—they are all very well in the evening; then they can spread their sails and show off, but when they are jammed and crammed under a dinner-table there is nothing for them but to poke one with questions and put one out of one’s stride, with one’s soup, or one’s fish, or one’s something.”

A nearer approach of our horsemen to the mansion now began to show the imperfections of the place. There was a sad want of maintenance about it—patched roofs, inefficient spouts, broken rails, restive gates, and blotchy, blistery doors.

Some houses in the country let as soon as they become vacant, others will not let at all. Of this latter description was Appleton Hall—it infested the country papers till everybody was tired of seeing it. Appleton Hall with its spacious park and beautiful pleasure-ground—Appleton Hall with its pineries and vineries—Appleton Hall with its sporting attractions. It had tried its luck as a ladies’ school, also as a nunnery, and a cold-water-cure establishment, and had signally failed in all—each succeeding occupant leaving the house worse than he found it, the cold water-cure gentleman being generally supposed to have stolen the lead off the roof.

When a house gets to this deplorable state there is nothing for it but either to let it tumble down or to let it off in tenements; and there not being sufficient population about Appleton for the latter purpose, the owner was extremely glad to close with Mr. Jovey Jessop’s offer of doing the necessary repairs on condition of sitting rent free. So Mr. Jessop did up the stables, converted the coach-house into a kennel, the vinery into a shoe-house, the pinnery into a saddle-room, restored the lost lead to the roof of the Hall, and made the premises water-tight generally. As, however, the owner expected to return to it every year himself, as indeed he had been expecting for the last twenty years, of course Mr. Jessop did not do more to it than was absolutely necessary, either inside or out.

And now let us suppose our friends to have disposed of their horses at the stable, and let us get them out of the cold night-air into the more comfortable atmosphere of the mansion. The Jug being a short-cut man generally now piloted our friend the back way instead of leading him round to the Corinthian column-porticoed door, and across the lofty black and white marble-flagged entrance hall of the house. “I’ll show you the way,” said he, stumping along, occasionally meeting a man or a maid, who halted and stood respectfully aside to let the great guns pass. Traversing a cocoa-nut-matted passage, a genial glow of warmth from an open door shone upon them, and the Jug, now stopping, bowed Mr. Bunting into his bed-room. It was not a sumptuously furnished apartment—indeed it contained little beyond the absolute requirements of life, save an oil-painting of Boyston Hall, with the meet of Lord Spankerley’s hounds on the lawn, above the mantel-piece, which the Jug used to sit and contemplate as he smoked his cigar, wondering if he would ever return to live at it again. His bed was a common stump one, very near the ground (for he was in the habit of tumbling out), two buff and green painted rush-bottomed chairs, a cream-coloured chest of drawers picked out with black, on the top of which stood the Jug’s Sunday hat, his other pair of hot-tops, also the redoubtable jacks, that looked as if they might be applied to any purpose. On a common deal clothes-horse near the now blazing wood and coal fire were clean flannels and linen, and somewhat soiled nankin pantaloons, with very roomy dress-shoes and a pair of much-faded worsted-worked slippers in front. Here, too, was the remnant of a hearth-rug, with many holes in the middle, but whose texture was softer to the feet than the cocoa-nut-matting, with which the rest of the room was supplied. Before the unpainted washhand-stand, with its solitary white jug and basin, was the hide of our friend’s once famous bay horse Dreadnought; but beyond the jug and basin and a water-bottle there was no bath or other symptom of enlarged lavement, the Jug, in truth, not being a great advocate for water.

“We don’t sacrifice much to the Graces here,” observed the Jug, as Mr. Bunting now approached his unshrouded toilette-table, with its shilling comb, its black bristly eighteen-penny brush, and its sixpenny pot of hard-featured pomatum, to have a look at himself in the glass. “We don’t sacrifice much to the Graces,” said he, “for we don’t see the use of men dressing up smart to captivate each other; and though this is what they call a furnished house, there is in reality very little furniture in it. I was obliged to buy my own boot-jack,” continued he, taking up a rather smart folding mahogany one; adding, “by the way, if your boots don’t come off easily, I’ll be happy to lend you it, for Jessop can kick his off flying, and says everybody should be able to do the same, so there isn’t another in the house. It’s rather a neat article,” continued he, folding it up and showing it to Mr. Bunting—“French polished, brass hinges, steel screws—cost two shillings. Don’t know a greater nuisance than pulling off one’s boots with one’s toes and kicking one’s nails with one’s heels. But come,” continued he, laying the boot-jack on the dressing-table, “won’t you be seated?” pointing to his American rocking-chair, in which he dozed away life in anticipations of the future.

“Thank you,” replied Mr. Bunting, now returning and seating himself on the high green fender before the fire. “You keep good fires here,” observed he, as the warmth shot through him summarily.

“Capital,” said the Jug, “good fires and good fare is the order of the house. By the way, would you like to take anything before dinner?”

“Thank you, no,” replied Mr. Bunting, adding, “Mr. Bowdey what’s-his-name has prevented that. What time do we dine?”

“Six thirty,” replied the Jug, “six thirty, from the tenth of November to the tenth of February—seven at all other times of the year;” saying which our friend took a little hand-bell off the mantel-piece, and, going to the door, rang a prolonged peal in the passage. “No bells in this house,” observed the Jug, returning and replacing it on its stand. “No bells at least that will ring, though there are plenty of wires and places where bells ought to be.”

The summons was speedily answered by a neat but plainly dressed footman, in drab and red, by whom Mr. Boyston sent word to Ambrose the butler that there would be eight to dinner instead of six. Having thus discharged his commission, he used his French-polished boot-jack, and drawing off his boots put his feet into his slippers, and, exchanging his red coat for an old grey duffle dressing-gown, prepared his mouth for a smoke.

Mr. Bunting subsided into the American rocking-chair; the Jug put his two rush-bottomed chairs together, sitting upon one, and laying his legs on the other, and proceeded to breathe a strong trail of Havannah cigar-smoke round his face. His black eyes were steadily fixed on the picture of Boyston Park, but he was not in reality indulging in any reverie or speculation either as to the past or the future of it; for he was thinking over that day’s run, and wondering if he had taken the water whether he would have got to the end of it. “Wished he had taken the (puff) water. If he had only taken the water, might have got Archey Ellenger a (curl) ducking, and altogether he was vexed he had not taken the water.” Then he wondered which way they had gone. “Shouldn’t be surprised if the fox had taken his old (puff) line, than which nothing could be (cloud) finer or better calculated to give a (curl) stranger a favourable impression of the (puff) country.” And again he upbraided himself for not taking the (puff) water, and resolved on all future occasions to shut his (puff) eyes and just do as others did. “A ducking was nothing (puff) when a man had plenty of dry clothes (puff). Wouldn’t do to sit in a (puff) railway carriage (cloud) in wet things; but on (puff) horseback it was (puff, cloud) nothing. Dashed if he wouldn’t always take (puff) water in future.”

Just as our friend had come to this resolution, a voice was heard in the passage exclaiming—

“Has anybody seen anything of Mr. Bunting? Has anybody seen anything of Mr. Bunting?”

“Mr. Bunting is in Mr. Boyston’s room, sir,” replied a servant; and scarcely had the Jug confirmed the answer with a view-holloa, ere a clank, clank, of spurs sounded along the passage, and the standing-a-jar door flying open revealed the person of Mr. Jovey Jessop in the full mud and enthusiasm of a victorious fox-hunter. He was well splashed from head to foot. Advancing, he greeted Mr. Bunting with a cordial shake of the hand, welcoming him to Appleton Hall, apologising for not being there to receive him, and hoping his horse had carried him well, which Mr. Bunting assured him he had.

“Well, you’ve killed him I see,” said the Jug, eyeing Mr. Jessop’s pawed and blood-stained leathers.

“Killed him! aye to be sure!” replied Jovey, joyously, “killed him after as good a run as ever was seen;” adding, as he laid his hand on the Jug’s broad back, “but what got you, my good friend?”

“What got me?” replied the Jug, thinking what he should say. “What got (puff) me? Why, you see I got bothered with the (curl) water—water’s a bothering thing,” added he, “if you don’t take it at (curl) once there’s an end of the (cloud) matter; for the more you look, the less you like it, and one (puff) person said one (cloud) thing and another another, till at last we lost the (curl) chance.”

Mr. Jovey Jessop then briefly related the residue of the run; but, not wishing to crow, he presently turned the conversation by asking Mr. Bunting if he would like to take anything before dinner. Mr. Bowderoukins, however, having effectually prevented any want of that sort, our master presently retired to pass through his cold-water bath into his other clothes, leaving his guest to the intermediate care of his Jug. Mr. Boyston then resumed his former position, and sat in a meditative mood, with his eyes fixed on the Boyston picture, smoking and making a mental panorama of the concluding portion of the run, which he thought must have been very fine. At length his red-ended cigar approached so near the tip of his own red nose as to be no longer agreeable, whereupon he threw the remains into the fire, and, rising from his uneasy couch, took up the fine folding French-polished mahogany boot-jack, and offered to show Mr. Bunting the way to his bed-room. They then passed out of the Jug’s apartment into the passage, and, our friend adhering to his short cuts, led him up the back stairs as if he were taking him to some second-rate bachelor bed-room instead of the state apartment of the house. The opening of a once red, but now nearly drab, baize-covered door at the first landing rectified matters, and introduced the stranger to the wider space and loftier proportions of an elegant staircase, whose perfections and imperfections were alike displayed by a profusion of well-directed light. On the once peach but now dirty drab-coloured walls might be traced the inscriptions and poetical effusions as well of the school girls as of the nuns, and the patients of the cold-water-cure doctor who stole the lead, while sundry heads and hieroglyphics exhibited a bountiful ignorance of the art of drawing. Cocoa-nut-matting was still the order of the day—cocoa-nut-matting up the stairs, cocoa-nut-matting along the corridor, cocoa-nut-mats before the doors. A hurrying-out housemaid bearing the last putting-to-rights emblems in her arms denoted the door, and Mr. Boyston ushered Mr. Bunting into a noble room, whose blazing fire illumined the amber-coloured hangings of a prodigious four-post bed, which stood like a tabernacle in the centre. Both the bed-hangings and the window-curtains were festooned and draped in a way that looked as if there had been a trial of skill on the part of the upholsterers as to how much stuff they could put into each; a prodigality that was painfully at variance with the meagreness of the rest of the furniture. The flower-garlanded Brussels carpet was brushed into a mere shadow of its former self; there was no sofa; the chairs were few and far between, while an immense high-backed one stood like a throne by the fire, with a large foot-stool in front. The chamberware did not match, being of three sorts; white, blue, and green; but there was a good fire, an ample supply of nice linen, and a spacious hip-bath at hand.

“Plenty of bed,” said the Jug, contrasting its great carved posts and lofty canopy with his own little stump one down below. “Hope you won’t tumble out of it,” continued he, thinking of his own exploits in that line.

“Hope not, indeed,” replied Mr. Bunting, measuring its height from the floor with his eye, and thinking it would require a good spring to get into it.

“Well, now,” said the Jug, taking his boot-jack from under his arm and unfolding it, “will you take your boots off now, or shall I leave this with you?”

“Oh, why, p’raps you may as well leave it with me,” replied Mr. Bunting, carelessly.

“Well, then,” rejoined the Jug, placing it on the floor, “will you have the kindness to put it into the toilette-table drawer when you are done with it, lest any of the careless maids carry it off?”

“Certainly,” said Mr. Bunting, “certainly.”

“So be it then,” rejoined the Jug, wishing he might not be doing a rash act; adding, as he moved slowly away, “when you are dressed you will find your way down by the lights—no ladies’ rooms here to get into by mistake.”