House of Montague

“ Montague had gradually moved up, until, as one of the oldest boarders in the house, he occupied a seat next to the Windlespin family. A fine opportunity was now offered for those civilities which cost so little and are often productive of so many pleasant results. By degrees the abstraction of the melancholy gentleman was beguiled by the charms of his fair neighbors, and the ladies noticed, with no small degree of satisfaction, that they could induce him, not only to prolong his stay at table, but also to exchange his frugal fare for the dainties which they so much enjoyed. ”

“ They could not wait for Charlie and his automobile, because Monday was the opening night of the Opera, and no one could miss that. Here Society would appear in its most gorgeous raiment, and, there would be a show of jewellery such as could be seen nowhere else in the world.
General Prentice and his wife had opened their town-house, and had invited them to dinner and to share their box; and so at about half-past nine o’clock Montague found himself seated in a great balcony of the shape of a horseshoe, with several hundred of the richest people in the city. ”

“ Montague nodded approvingly at sight of the newest member of his company, but wasted little time in idle conversation. He was, indeed, all business, and spoke in brisk, clipped sentences.
"Ah, Miss Aldine! Prompt, I see. Dressing room eleven, please. The first scene shows you as the keeper of a boarding house in a mining town—a hard-working woman in reduced circumstances. It's a kitchen scene and you are cooking breakfast for the men. ”

“ Time and patience at last overcame it; and when her health, which by this accident had been impaired, was restored to her, she began to stir amongst her husband’s great clients. She took. a house in Bloomsbury, and by means of good œconomy, and an elegant appearance, was supposed to be better in the world than she really was. Her husband’s clients received her like one risen from the dead: They came to visit her, and promised to serve her. At last the duke of Montague advised her to let lodgings, which way of life she declined, as her talents were not suited for dealing with ordinary lodgers ”

“ A little later, the doctor brought his car to a standstill before the Chapins’ dooryard. The log-house, small and weathered, looked peaceful enough on the outside, with the September sun flowing over it, a white chicken or two walking its grass, and little borders of late flowers running down to the gate; but inside human beings were at grips with death.
Old Doc’ Franklin, long and awkward and loose-jointed, a little tired-looking about the eyes, but still going, picked up his worn bag and swung himself out.
[289] “Come on, Julie,” he said, “here’s our job.” ”

“ A couple of traveling men, strangers to her, were walking up and down the platform in the fresh morning air, pulling at their cigars, evidently content and well-breakfasted by the hospitality of the Monroe House in the village. The station master was also there. He was Edward Black, the same bully who had torn Julie’s doll to pieces so long ago. He had grown into a stout and flabby man, with small eyes set in so large an expanse of face that one inevitably thought of his cheeks as jowls. ”

“ This double doorway, deeply recessed, in a hand-carved Georgian frame, arched and paneled, challenges the attention of every passer-by. The colonnaded rear gallery is hung with festoons of wisteria and is the most picturesque and lovely spot when the great lavender bunches of bloom are scattered and draped around the vine and against the white columns and railings. The woodwork throughout the house is in keeping with the dignified exterior. The rooms are large and inviting; the mantels' trim and stairway are better than pleasing. ”

“ Along with his mother, who was created Countess of Salisbury that year, he gave a bond to the king for the redemption of the lands of that ancestral earldom (Cal. Henry VIII, ii. 1486) , and another old family title, the barony of Montague or Montacute, forfeited by the Nevilles under Edward IV, was conferred upon himself. There is no record of any formal grant or creation, but from 1517, when he is named as a witness of Henry VIII's ratification of the treaty of London, he is continually called Lord Montague, though he was not admitted to the House of Lords till 1529. ”

“ It was no wonder, that the present ferment and credulity of the nation engaged men of infamous character and indigent circumstances to become informers, when persons of rank and condition could be tempted to give into that scandalous practice. Montague, the king’s ambassador at Paris, had procured a seat in the lower house; and without obtaining or asking the king’s leave, he suddenly came over to England. Charles, suspecting his intention, ordered his papers to be seized ”

“ One morning when Julie went up to her, she [212] found the old woman, a fantastic gingham cap upon her head, busy turning out all her drawers, with a spasmodic energy.
“I got to get everything straight—all nice and clean,” she announced. “Wait,” she added. She tiptoed across to the door and closed it. “Sh-sh!” she whispered. “There ain’t a soul in this house a person can trust. They spy on me all the time. They peep at me over the transom an’ spy in at the keyhole. Ain’t it just awful what some folks will do?”
She stood close to Julie and spoke into her ear mysteriously. ”

“ Lady Mary Wortley Montague lived in a house on the left-hand side of the road leading to Twickenham Common; it may still be known by two finely-carved stone vases on each side of the gateway. At one time she lived on terms of great intimacy and friendship with Pope; but they quarrelled, and hated each other cordially for the rest of their lives. She died in 1762. She deserves the gratitude of her country for having introduced inoculation into it. ”

“ Surfeiting of this, I dined at Sir Stephen Fox's and went contented home to my poor, but quiet villa. What contentment can there be in the riches and splendor of this world, purchased with vice and dishonor?
10th October, 1683. Visited the Duchess of Grafton, not yet brought to bed, and dining with my Lord Chamberlain (her father) , went with them to see Montague House, a palace lately built by Lord Montague, who had married the most beautiful Countess of Northumberland. It is a stately and ample palace. ”

“ He had already formed one citadel in the heart of that great emporium; and he now thought that it might be in his power to erect and garrison a second stronghold in a position scarcely less commanding. It had often been said, in times of civil war, that whoever was master of the Tower and of Tilbury Fort was master of London. The fastnesses by means of which Montague proposed to keep the capital obedient in times of peace and of constitutional government were of a different kind. The Bank was one of his fortresses; and he trusted that a new India House would be the other. ”

“ MONTAGUE (MRS.) died at her House, in Portman-Square, 1800, at an advanced Age. The education of this lady was superintended by her relation, the celebrated Conyers Middleton, and she gave early testimonies of taste and genius. Her Essay, in vindication of the morality of Shakespeare's drama, against the criticisms of Voltaire, has always been highly esteemed. Mrs. Montague's society comprized the most respectable of the literati, in all ranks of life. She wrote the three last Dialogues of the Dead, which were published by Lord Lyttleton, and have been considered as some of the best. ”

“ At all events Laud's opponents could not teach him the lesson of toleration. Charles's first House of Commons insisted on punishing Richard Montague [q.v.] for using anti-Calvinistic arguments against the Roman catholics, and for appealing to the king for protection. On 2 Aug. 1625 Laud and two other bishops wrote to the king on Montague's behalf. The church of England, they said, at the time when it was reformed, 'would not be too busy with every particular school-point. ”

“ It’s enough to kill you with laughing, but that old rag-bag that looks like she hadn’t washed herself for a week—she thinks herself better’n anybody in this house. Wouldn’t that kill you? That’s because she used to go out sewing for some of the grand people here in town. That’s her trade—dressmaking.”
“Oh, well, then she and I ought to get along,” Julie cried eagerly. “I’ll go to see her. I hate to have any one look so awful.”
“She won’t thank you an’ she won’t see you; she’ll just slam the door in your face. She seems like she’s mighty suspicious of every one. ”

“ By the time our men had marched to the Rhine there was little hatred left in them. How can you hate the small boy who stands at the farm door visibly torn between dread of the invader and deep delight in all soldiers, as soldiers? How shall a man not offer a drink to the first disbanded German soldier who sits next to him in a public house at Cologne, and try to find out if he was ever in the line at the Brick-stacks or near the Big Crater? ”

“ A faint yellow light in the west showed the links, on which a few figures moving towards the club-house were still visible, the squat martello tower, the lights of Aldsey village, the pale ribbon of sands intersected at intervals by black wooden groynings, the dim and murmuring sea. The wind was bitter from the north, but was at his back when he set out for the Globe. He quickly rattled and clashed through the shingle and gained the sand, upon which, but for the groynings which had to be got over every few yards, the going was both good and quiet. ”

“ What the Sphinx was to her clientèle, what the sky is to mountain-climbers and sailors, your Press is to him: an endless riddle, to be interrogated and interpreted for dear life. His wits have to be at work on it always. Like a starved rat in a house where rat-poison is laid, he can afford neither to nibble a crumb that has got the virus on it, nor yet to leave uneaten any clean crumb that has fallen accidentally from a table. Do not thrilling possibilities open before you? ”

“ Before his time the Hall had been a fine block of the mellowest red brick; but Sir Richard had travelled in Italy and become infected with the Italian taste, and, having more money than his predecessors, he determined to leave an Italian palace where he had found an English house. So stucco and ashlar masked the brick; some indifferent Roman marbles were planted about in the entrance-hall and gardens; a reproduction of the Sibyl's temple at Tivoli was erected on the opposite bank of the mere; and Castringham took an entirely new, and, I must say, a less engaging, aspect. ”

“ Let us go into the dining room with its fine Adam mantel and its mahogany doors, and visualize again the terrapin and the canvasback, the Madeira and Port so abundantly provided from that great kitchen below, and the most famous wine cellar of its day in Alexandria. Let us stroll in the still lovely garden where the aroma of box and honeysuckle mingle, and turn our thoughts once more to the inmates of this fine, old house. Built in the days when Virginia was a man's world, when men who wore satin, velvet and damask were masters of the art of fighting, riding, drinking, eating, and wooing. ”

“ Don’t slip away to all the world.”
It made Julie happy when anyone in the house commented upon Miss Fogg’s improved condition. She was pleased when Mrs. Watkins said, “Well, you certainly are the miracle-worker! Who ever would have thought you could get that old soul to look so spruced up an’ reasonable. Why, she looks almost like real folks now.” ”

“ He gave the plan to Calton to take to the house, but it was not worth while to remove the clue.
All went as he had hoped. He spent a rather exciting evening in the library, for he lighted tonight upon a cupboard where some of the rarer books were kept. When he went up to bed he was glad to find that the servant had remembered to leave his curtains undrawn and his windows open. He put down his light, and went to the window which commanded a view of the garden and the park. It was a brilliant moonlight night. In a few weeks’ time the sonorous winds of autumn would break up all this calm. ”

“ By the addition of a wing to the left of the present doorway, a beautiful Palladian window, and new entrance porch set in a gabled bay, Fowle changed the front façade into the latest mode. The house has an individuality and appeal unlike anything else in town.
The outstanding architectural interest is in this entrance. Inside as well as out the design and wood carving are chaste and elegant. Four slender columns support a shallow balcony whose grace and lightness is produced in a great measure by the fragile spindles carrying the weight of the projection. ”

“ She rose and turned towards the house, pausing for a time to take delight in the limpid green western sky. Then she passed on between the dark box-bushes, and, at a point just before the path debouched on the lawn, she stopped once again and considered the quiet evening landscape, and made a mental note that that must be the tower of one of the Roothing churches that one caught on the sky-line. ”

“ Everything about the house is typical of a late eighteenth century federal building. It is certain that Charles Lee built the mansion around 1796 and that Edmund I. Lee lived there from the time of his marriage. The price of five thousand dollars at the time of purchase is also indicative of a substantial and elegant residence.
This house is a fine federal example and is handsomely fitted out. The Lee family seems to have had a leaning toward brass hardware, and like the hinges in the great hall at Stratford, unusual brass latches and locks are here plentiful. ”