Yet they were a singular and unique pair, these two sitting upon the hard wooden form, side by side in the justice-room, at the rear of constables, and ill-savoured rogues and vagabonds standing up for sentence.
Clad in the simplest and plainest of black dresses, Felise’s exceptional loveliness only shone the purer.
His two sticks in one withered hand, his chin not far from his knees, his shrunken cheeks the hue of clay, colourless for lack of blood—of beefsteaks and ale—the patriarch swung his body to and fro, muttering to himself, “I knowed yer grandfather.”
The magistrate’s clerk, who also sat at the table, was quite alive to the contrast, and frequently glanced towards the form; so did the sergeant of police present, and even the rogue and vagabond in the corner just sentenced to fourteen days for begging.
But whether Cornleigh Cornleigh saw Felise or not, it was impossible to determine. The man was inscrutable.
People for years past had asked themselves similar questions about Cornleigh; if he saw, or did not see? whether he saw and kept things to himself, or whether his mind was a blank? He seemed to be listening intently, to be pondering profoundly, but nothing ever came of it.
The gamekeeper, who knew him best, used to puzzle in his cups over the point, and told many anecdotes illustrating the subject. When out alone with the Squire shooting, he had seen a hare run right between Cornleigh’s legs, and Cornleigh never so much as took his gun from under his arm. The hare ran by and escaped. “For, of course, I couldn’t fire till he did,” said the keeper; “I couldn’t take the game out of his mouth. But he never lifted his gun.”
Another time the Squire did put up his gun and aim at a partridge, or at least point it at a covey; and after a minute or two, during which the birds flew out of range, he took it down again without pulling the trigger. On the other hand, when there was a party of sportsmen out with him, the Squire shot better than any of them, and was noted as a marksman.
“Nobody can’t make him out,” said the keeper. “But let folk say what they likes agen him, there’s one thing as I can say. He have never give me nothing—he bean’t freehanded loike some gennelmen—but he never don’t find no fault. He comes and looks at the chicks or at the puppies, but he never finds no fault. He don’t nag. I have been with him nineteen year, and he have never said a word to I.”
This, however, did not decide the question as to whether the Squire did or did not see things.
“But you look here,” went on the keeper, growing warm over his ale. “ ’Tis very well knowed as he takes after his grandfather in his face—well, now you look here. His grandfather, as folk says, knowed all the pretty wenches for ten mile round, and knowed a deuced sight too much about ’em. But this yer one never looks at no girls.”
Inscrutability was the Squire’s chief characteristic.
Ingenuous and docile, he had always done as he was bid. He obeyed his mother without question; he married Letitia because the sagacious old lady bade him. Since then he had obeyed Letitia.
He did as he was bid by his steward, Robert Godwin. He did as he was bid by his solicitor, who prompted him at public meetings. By virtue of his position, he sat as chairman at the Petty Sessions, and pronounced the sentences whispered to him by his right-hand man. He did as he was bid by the party-whip in Parliament.
“Just the thing for Cornleigh! Capital thing for Cornleigh! Just the wife for Cornleigh!” they said when it was seen how she was leading him in the correct path; how the waste lands were claimed; the lanes diverted; the estate enclosed in a rigid ring-fence; the town straitened—all for the profit of the property. “Most energetic woman, and just the wife for Cornleigh!”
There were ladies in the town who, in strict privacy, could not endure Letitia. “So masterful you know, dear;” because, in short, she was the grey mare. Every woman likes her own way, but no woman can endure to see another woman master even over a man who does not concern her. They hated the grey mare, and very carefully copied the dresses she wore.
Hard sentences were frequently pronounced at the Petty Sessions where Cornleigh sat as chairman—justice’s justice—it was not peculiar to Maasbury. Cornleigh delivered them sitting sideways with folded hands, looking downwards, and every now and then raising the whitish fringe of his eyelids and jerking his words out, to again relapse into the downward gaze. Not the slightest sympathy, pity, or interest ever appeared in his face or in the tones of his voice. With right and equity he had nothing to do; he simply said what was put into his mouth.
Some of the old folk in the town, well-to-do folk who remembered his handsome grandfather—said to have disputed the first place for nobility of appearance with Byron—felt a sneaking kindness for the Squire in spite of the straitened town, in spite of his absolute lack of interest in the place which belonged to him, and the innumerable petty acts of oppression perpetrated under his authority.
There was not one of these old families that had not at different times rendered services to the House of Cornleigh. They would have been amply satisfied with recognition in the streets, with a nod, a wave of the hand; they fancied they
