Grange Lane

“ Here, descending the steep and narrow Church Street, and bearing to the right, a hamlet called Gad’s Hill is passed, giving on to a variety of creeks and inlets looking out across the Medway and the circular forts of Gillingham and Hoo, with the wooded heights of the Hundred of Hoo beyond.
By taking the next turning on the right, up a commonplace new street called “King Edward Road,” and then turning left, a large country residence on the right hand will presently be seen.64 This is the manor of Grange, or Grench, formerly a member of the Cinque Port of Hastings, and a separate parish. ”

“ The outstanding difference at Hayslope, greater even than the changes at the Hall, which, after all, did not affect the core of family life, was the Grange unoccupied. There it stood, a big, rich house, from which had radiated sociability and close intimacy, with all its rooms shut up, its chimneys cold, its windows shuttered. There were a man and his wife to caretake, and men still at work outside—more than there were now at the Hall, though their only task was to keep things just alive for future occupancy. ”

“ I don't think I should want to cut down trees there, William. Whatever distance Barton's Close may be from the Grange, the lake is certainly over a mile. You can't turn the whole place into a garden. As it is, it's overweighted. You've got to consider the future. It would have been all right if poor Hugo had lived. He'd have succeeded me here, and I suppose Norman would have gone on living at the Grange after you. ”

“ Besides the Grange there is a small farmhouse, or bailiff’s house, in the south-west corner of the estate. On the north the boundary consists of moorlands, to the east (as has been seen) of the beach, to the west and south of a public road. At the end of the Grange walls this road turns to the right, inland, and passes by Fillby village; it then develops into the highroad to Easthorpe with its market, shops, and station, ten miles away. ”

“ There is no poor man's hearth, not in this village only, but for miles away from it as well, at which you would not be received with the welcome given to an old friend, if you only told the cottagers that you knew the Lady of Glenwith Grange! ”

“ It's a lovely world, and I think you must enjoy it more when you're young."
The next day there was some coming and going between the Hall and the Grange, but the shadow of immediate departure lay over the Grange, and it was impossible not to take it as a departure more significant than it had hitherto appeared. Lady Eldridge might come down again for a day or two to finish her packings away for the winter. Norman said that he would [Pg 324] come down before he went back to Cambridge. ”

“ Though there is no longer such a cluster of young life there as made its old shady rooms, and its garden alleys, and its pleasant fields ring with laughter and merriment in the days of our great hayfield fête, a sober happiness rests on that now familiar Grange. Mr. and Mrs. Woodburn live a life of quiet enjoyment, only interrupted by frequent invasions of children and friends that send a fresh tide of pleasure around them, and make even the old times seem pale in comparison. ”

“ Now a grey shadow steals over the land, the bubbling life is chilled from the waters, and they rattle black and harsh against the cobble-stones. But on Grange fell the russet bracken is bathed in ephemeral sunshine. The shadow in the air grows darker, the distance is obscured with the grime of rain. The nearer hills, the fields, the town, are blotted out ere the full fury of the squall shakes our window and shrieks among the island trees. ”

“ It seemed as if the troubles that had been darkening her home life increasingly of late had all been swept away, for she had no doubt then that her father and her uncle would immediately compose their differences, and the close intimacy between the two families would go on as before. It had not occurred to her that the Grange would be completely unoccupied. Her uncle and aunt had often been away, for many weeks together, and she had sometimes been with them, in the South of France or in Scotland, or elsewhere. It would be fun to go to the house in Suffolk ”

“ Such was blithe Letty—simple, yet shrewd, loving and light-hearted, the happy embodiment of ardent and out-blossoming womanhood.
But Woodburn Grange was a spot made for a happy home, for substantial ease and abundance, not for grandeur. There was everything there which enabled its possessors to enjoy the country. A handsome income; all the rural luxuries of life; horses, an open, but not a close carriage, a boat on the charming river below, hearts ready to love good and intelligent neighbours, and such neighbours to love. ”

“ Pamela, Clarissa Harlowe, and Sir Charles Grandison had carried his fame throughout the kingdom and beyond it, and were drawing rapturous admiration and tears of sentiment from countless admirers in France as well as in England; and, as befitted a man of his means and eminence, he had supplemented his house off Fleet Street with a country residence at Parson’s Green, where he died in 1761. Down to 1754, however, his country house was The Grange, at North End, Fulham, then a pretty, old-world spot,—“the pleasantest village within ten miles of London.” ”

“ Yes. Why not? Mr. Stephen Hadfield is liberal; he throws open his house for inspection two days in the week, the visitor producing his card, or procuring a ticket from Mr. Joyce of the George Inn. Why should I not go over the Grange? Though I knew every inch of it years ago; many years now. Well, the people talk in that neighbourhood just as much as they used to talk in the old time. The servants talk at the Grange, the frequenters of the George talk, all Grilling Abbots talks. ”

“ Perhaps the cause was not far to seek, when it was recollected that Sir Roger Rockville, the Bullocksheds, and Tenterhooks had been his chief neighbours.
As the winter passed, and the spring days grew in warmth and pleasantness, the intercourse of these families grew too. Mr. and Mrs. Degge would call and join the young people of the Grange in their walks or rides, and Mrs. Degge would drop in and have a pleasant chat with Mrs. Woodburn, Ann, and Letty, as they went on with their different concerns. ”

“ I hope not; but if I had known what was coming, I don’t think I should have asked you to consent to Vera and Thekla’s spending their holidays at Mr. Waring’s country house.”
“Very worthy people, you said. I remember Tom Waring, a very nice boy; and Jessie Dale went to school with us—I liked her. Fancy them having a country house.”
“Waring Grange they call it. He has got on wonderfully as upholsterer, decorator, and auctioneer. It is a very handsome one, with a garden that gets the prizes at the horticultural shows. ”

“ The conditions demanded by the besieged were that they should have surety for the lives and livings of all that were within the Castle, that Lethington and Lord Home, because of particular quarrels might go into England, and that Grange should remain in Scotland, with a licence to depart the realm if he found himself ill-used. ”

“ Feeling that to talk to him on any indifferent subject would be only to interrupt his thoughts to no purpose, I walked by his side in perfect silence, looking out already with some curiosity and impatience for a first view of Glenwith Grange. We stopped at last close by an old church, standing on the outskirts of a pretty village. The low wall of the churchyard was bounded on one side by a plantation, and was joined by a park paling, in which I noticed a small wicket-gate. Mr. Garthwaite opened it, and led me along a shrubbery path, which conducted us circuitously to the dwelling-house. ”

“ The dear old lady is always ailing, more or less, but there is never much the matter—a creaking door; you know the sort; only Neville always makes the worst of it. Now, look here, Miss Lambert, that is what we call the village—just those few cottages and the inn; there is not even a [100] church; we have to walk over to Melton, a mile and a half away. Isn’t that pond pretty, with the ducks on it? and there is a flock of geese. Now we have only to turn down this road and there is The Grange. ”

“ We first came to Craymoor Grange in the summer of 1849, my husband having discovered the place in one of his rambles, and taken a fancy to it. At first I certainly thought we could never make it our home, it was so dilapidated and tumble-down; but by the time winter came on we had had several repairs done and alterations made, and the rooms really became quite presentable.
As our family was small we confined ourselves chiefly to the newest part of the house, leaving the older rooms to the mice, dust, and darkness. ”

“ The advantages of the Grange for our business are manifold. Firstly, should this fall into the hands of a successor actuated by a like hatred of humanity and lack of moral prejudice, and supposing him to be served by the same able though irresponsible tools which I have used, I would point out that from either road, that to Bewick to the right or that through the woods to Longwood on the left, there is direct water carriage to the secluded lawn beneath Deep Moat Grange. ”

“ The woodsy part of Grove Street, the part that was opened up only five years ago and is called Lovers' Lane because it curves and winds mysteriously through a lovely bit of woodland, is already shimmering with the life and beauty of spring.
Down on Fern Avenue, which is a wide, grassy road and no avenue at all, Uncle Roger Allan is carefully painting his chicken coops. Roger Allan is a tall, twinkling, smooth-shaven old man, and he lives in a house as twinkling and as tidy as himself. ”

“ When I die, and you or Norman come here, Cynthia and the girls will have to live at the Grange. It's much too big a place for them already. I dare say you'd get a big rent for it; but that's not what they'll want. They would have had enough to live on there as it used to be; but with the way things are going now it'll be a place that will want a lot of keeping up. It will want a good deal more keeping up than this."
"Of course you're right to think about the future, old fellow." ”

“ You can do a good deal. And if you've got big trees you can do practically everything. The misfortune about the Grange is that there are no big trees immediately around the house. If there had been I should have aimed at something of this sort. I could have got the lawn all right. It's the best sort of garden to look out on—an expanse of lawn and shady trees—quiet and green and peaceful. You're quite right, Edmund. With all I've done, and all I've spent on my garden, it's fussy compared to this. ”

“ We soon [Pg 319] came to the front rank among merchants. Indeed, so successful were we, that on my fiftieth birthday I resolved to retire, feeling that I was rich enough. My dear grandfather, who had entered into rest some years before, had left me The Grange, in which my earliest years had been passed, and here, amid the beautiful scenes of nature, and with still a large scope for my activities, I have enjoyed years of happiness. My dear friend, Howard, had landed property in one of the Western States and fancied there was more elbow-room there for his children who were settling in life ”

“ Nor was he going to make her partaker of his secret hopes, or even, if he could help it, give her cause for suspecting his desires. "Sir William was quite decent to me, when I saw him," he said, "and Lady Eldridge has asked me—once—to the Grange since I've been home. But look at the welcome they've given me at the Hall! I don't care much for female society; it's never been in my line. But as long as I'm living quietly here, I like to have the Hall to go to; and I believe Colonel Eldridge likes to see me there. I find plenty to talk to him about. ”

“ The Lovers' Loan runs along the western boundary of the garden of the Grange, in a northerly direction, till it almost reaches the Meadows. Not so many years ago it was a shady, secluded walk,—now it is only a path between high walls; and though some of the hawthorn bushes at the northern end still survive, they have been clipped and cut in, till they have lost all remembrance of their old luxuriance. It is probable that this is the remains of one of the old paths that intersected the Boroughmuir, to which we occasionally find reference in old charters. ”

“ You were quite right in saying that I had spoilt the Grange for them, or I'd have looked after them there. They shall stay here, dear Edmund. The old place will be more like it has always been with them in it, and as I like it to be, than with us living in it. I'm committed to another sort of life now, and it's too late to go back. But we shall be down here often, in the old way. They'll have us to depend upon, in whatever they can't do for themselves. ”

“ An English lady who enjoyed the pleasure of being a guest at La Grange in 1818 thus pictures the life there:—
“Charming days, more charming evenings, flow on in a perpetual stream of enjoyment here. In the mornings Madame George La Fayette, the Countess Lasteyrie, and the Countess Maubourg are busy with the children, and do not appear. The visitors amuse themselves or are with the general, unless his occupations prevent. Then comes a walk or drive—sometimes a long excursion. After dinner at four o’clock, conversation; in the evening, music or talking. ”

“ The reader can imagine the joy of the young people,—the Woodburns and Miss Heritage: the visitings and re-visitings at the Grange, at Fair Manor, at Bilts’ Farm. Elizabeth Drury had her own handsome horse, and joined her friends in their rides. The spring was advancing in light and daily growth of [Pg 100] beauty and sweetness. May, and the marriage of Thorsby and Letty were approaching. Busy was the time at Woodburn Grange in the various preparations for it. Thorsby was all life and jollity. His house in Castleborough had been put into the most perfect order for the great event. ”