MR EDWARD CHAWORTH of Medenham was a well-disposed, good-natured man with an adequate fortune, an amiable wife and a numerous family: he thought the world an excellent place, and he could suggest no way in which it could be improved, except for the poachers and the Whigs – they would be abolished in an ideal world, and the trout in his stream would be a trifle larger.

Yet in the present state of things, Whigs abounded, and whenever Mr Chaworth thought of them, his cheerfulness was clouded. Sir Robert Walpole’s name always made him frown, and he would happily have seen the prime minister hanged, drawn and quartered: he could not bear the sound of a Whig. How much more obnoxious, then, was Mr Elwes, who was not only a Whig but also Mr Chaworth’s nearest neighbour? The thought of Mr Elwes luxuriating in Whiggery not half a mile beyond the kitchen-garden filled Mr Chaworth with indignation. The earliest symptoms of this indignation were a straightening of his back and a tightening of his lips: he had served under the Duke of Marlborough, and this martial stiffening was associated in his mind with carnage, the thunder of guns, blood and the general unpleasantness of battle. Mrs Chaworth, upon seeing the beginnings of it, glanced anxiously round the breakfast table.

It was so very large a table, there were so many children round it and so many things upon it that obstructed her view – a ham, a round of cold beef, an unusually tall pork-pie, chafing-dishes with mutton-chops, eggs, bacon, kippered trout, kidneys and mushrooms, apart from the tea and coffee urns and the host of minor objects such as marmalade, toast, rolls, potted char and Sophia’s bowl of ass’s milk – that it took her some time to survey the whole. Anne, Charles and Sophia were behaving perfectly well, and so was little Dormer, the youngest to be allowed downstairs; but she saw with regret that Georgiana was balancing her spoon and causing its bowl to float, in imitation of her cousin Jack, who was partially concealed by the raised pie: she coughed significantly, but they were too engrossed to hear and it was obvious, from her fascinated stare, that Isabella, Jack’s sister, was going to join in.

Mr Chaworth grew more and more upright in his chair as he turned the page of the letter that he was reading, and Mrs Chaworth knew that unless he found something agreeable on this new page, his right hand would go up to clutch his wig, his left thump the letter on to the table and he would cry, ‘Lard, Lard, Lard, Mrs Chaworth!’

It was very thoughtless of Jack: he knew that Mr Chaworth was easily vexed in the morning. But perhaps Jack thought that he was no longer subject to reproof, having been away from home. She peered round the pie at her younger cousin, who, with his head barbarously near the cloth and his rapidly growing form bulging from his blue midshipman’s coat, was now engaged in making a storm in his tea-cup, by blowing. Jack Byron and his sister were cousins of the Chaworths, but they had lived at Medenham from their youngest days, ever since Lady Byron had died, and they were entirely part of the household: even now that Jack’s elder brother, the present Lord Byron, was living at Newstead Abbey again, there was no question of their going back there.

‘Lard, Lard, Lard, Mrs Chaworth!’ cried the master of the house, grasping his wig. She automatically put out her hand to steady the tea-urn, which was apt to fall over, parboiling her knees: but the expected thump did not come. Mr Chaworth arrested his descending hand and pointed its index finger at Jack. ‘What the devil do you think you are doing?’ he exclaimed. But his words were prompted less by a spirit of inquiry than by a momentary urge to be disagreeable, and without waiting for an answer he went on, ‘If these are naval manners – ha, manners, forsooth – they were best kept for sea.’

‘What is it, my dear?’ asked Mrs Chaworth, waving a lace handkerchief by way of distracting his attention from Jack, whom she loved dearly.

‘The stream,’ cried Mr Chaworth. ‘The stream. He’s going to turn the stream into his top field to make an enormous vast loathsome fountain for his wedding-day.’

‘Well, my dear,’ said Mrs Chaworth, who had expected something very much more shocking than this, ‘I am sure Mr Elwes will turn it back again afterwards, when he is married.’

‘And what do you suppose the trout will do in the meantime?’ cried Mr Chaworth with all the agony of a devoted fisherman. ‘What do you suppose will happen to the trout, Mrs Chaworth?’

Mrs Chaworth really did not mind; she never fished, or hunted, or shot, and she secretly disliked all these creatures that were so laboriously pursued; if it were not for them the family would spend most of the year in London – a much more agreeable kind of life. However, she did not say this, but soothingly replied, ‘But in that case, surely it would be much easier to take them up, my dear? You could use a little net, in the puddles that are left.’

Mr Chaworth uttered a desolate howl, but made no further reply: in twenty years of an otherwise happy marriage he had never been able to make his wife understand the sanctity of game, and now, rather than persist in the hopeless task, he seized upon the ham, and silently carved it, with as much ferocity as if Mr Elwes had been under his knife.

It cannot be denied that Mr Elwes was a troublesome neighbour: his eccentricity was the delight of the countryside; yet it is one thing to have an amusing СКАЧАТЬ

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Contents

Chapter One

The Unknown Shore. Patrick O’Brian
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