Okehampton

“ About thirteen miles south-west of Okehampton, Sydenham stands in a beautiful valley, overshadowed by woods, in which the shining green of the laurels, the darker masses of the rhododendrons' tapering leaves, patches of russet bracken, and feathery light green moss make a feast of colour, even when overhead there is only the bare tracery of twigs and branches. The coverts lie on a hill-side that is steep and fairly high, and at the foot is a rushing stream which is crossed by a bridge exactly opposite the front of the house. ”

“ But nothing can change the past. That is what makes life terrible. The things we have done are done for ever."
Lady Okehampton trembled, first for her niece's life, and next for her sanity. And here was this stupendous fortune left to Vera for her life, and to her children after her—her children by the husband who was dead—but, in default of such children, to be divided among a horde of Italian relations—third and fourth cousins, people for whom Mario Provana might not have cared twopence—and among Roman charitable institutions—sure to be badly managed, Lady Okehampton thought. ”

“ Her doom is to drive each night to Okehampton Castle in her coach made of dead men's bones—the bones of her murdered husbands, as slander tells; and her phantom hound plucks a single blade of grass from the castle mound. When all the grass has been plucked, her doom will cease. ”

“ It is with places as with people, some have good luck fall to them, others make their fortunes for themselves. Okehampton belongs to the former class, Chagford to the latter. It owes almost everything to a late rector, who, resolved on pushing the place, invited down magazine editors and professional littérateurs, entertained them, drove them about, and was rewarded by articles appearing in journals and serials, be-lauding Chagford for its salubrious climate, its incomparable scenery, its ready hospitality, its rural sweetness, and its archæological interest. ”

“ The barony of Okehampton was one of many grants made by the Conqueror to Baldwin de Brionis, and some generations later it passed by marriage to the Courtenays, in which family it remained until the Marquis of Exeter was attainted and beheaded in 1538. The Castle was among the possessions that Queen Mary restored to the Earl of Devon, and on his death in 1556 his lands were divided amongst his heirs. Okehampton Castle fell to the share of the Mohuns, and in 1628 John Mohun was granted a peerage and took the title of Lord Mohun of Okehampton. ”

“ Others, again, as Lustleigh, Bridford, Moreton, Buckland-in-the-Moor, Ilsington, and Ugborough, must surely have been moorland settlements at one time, and Okehampton itself is as distinctly a moor town as is Moreton, which tells its own tale in its name. But all these have their warm envelope of arable land, groves and woods, farms and hamlets. Such have their commons, over which every householder has a right to send cattle, to take turf and stone, and, alas! with the connivance of the other householders, to inclose. ”

“ Trade has sprung up: a lesson in life—never to despair of any place, any more than of any man. It has an office to fill, a function to perform, if only patience be exercised and time allowed. But if Okehampton in itself considered as a town be ugly and uninteresting, the neighbourhood abounds in objects of interest, and the situation is full of beauty. ”

“ Our thoughts can then follow no better course than that of the railway from Okehampton to Yeoford Junction, and there abandoning the Exeter train take the one coming up for Barnstaple and North Devon. For then in a very short time you will be upon the banks of the Taw, the chief river of North Devon, where it is yet a modest stream, and keep it quite intimate company till it spreads, a shining estuary, laden with historic memories, into Barnstaple bay. ”

“ But not this Easter, not when I know the beech woods are dressing themselves in green and the cherry blossoms are out in the orchards and the great blobs of the chestnut tree are ready to burst, and the cuckoo is calling all day long and the April meadows are “smoored wi' new grass,” as they say in the Yorkshire dales. Not when I know that by putting down a bit of paper at the magic casement at Paddington I can be whisked between sunset and dawn to the fringe of Dartmoor and let loose—shall it be from Okehampton or Bovey Tracy or Moreton Hampstead? ”

“ Lady Okehampton, whose daughters were all married, and wanted nothing from parental affection—except to be allowed to go their own way, and not to be obliged to invite Mummy to their choicest parties—devoted herself more and more to her favourite niece, who wasn't actually her niece, but only a first cousin once removed. Since, in those last days at Disbrowe, she had seen the mark of death on Vera's pale forehead, Aunt Mildred, who was really a warm-hearted woman, had interested herself keenly in the vanishing life, and had made unremitting efforts to combat the enemy. ”

“ Okehampton waited with growing displeasure for an unpunctual dowager duchess, she had felt that this kinsman of hers belonged to her, that to him she might look as the guide, philosopher, and friend, indispensable to the happiness of every woman whose husband is occupied with serious interests and has a mind above trivialities.
There was nothing too trivial for Claude to understand and discuss with interest. The merest nothing would command his serious thought, if it were something that interested Vera ”

“ Lady Okehampton shivered, and stirred in her seat uneasily. That colossal income, and nothing done for the needy members of her husband's illustrious house!
"I wanted to amuse myself and to amuse my wife, and amusements are costly nowadays; so the money has [292] run out pretty fast, but there has always been a handsome surplus. I see Mr. Zabulon, the banker, one of my wife's trustees, two or three times a year, and he has never complained. Vera's charities are immense; so there is really nothing for you to moan about, Lady Okehampton."
"Nothing," cried Vera's aunt, with uplifted hands. ”

“ The ruins of the castle, on the site of a Celtic settlement, are well placed above the river, surrounded by trees whose foliage is a delight after the barren uplands. Every lover of beauty appreciates the difference between a wooded district and a treeless waste; and this is usually the emphatic distinction between the central moor and its borders. It was a real privilege that allowed some of the French prisoners to reside at Okehampton instead of at Princetown, and a few of their tombs will be found in the churchyard here, so long after it has ceased to matter. ”

“ Okehampton (2569) , on the north-west edge of Dartmoor, has large markets for cattle and agricultural produce. In the neighbourhood are the very picturesque ruins of a Norman castle and other attractions both for antiquarians and naturalists. (pp. 140, 151, 188, 210.)
Ottery St Mary (3495) , a market-town south-east of Exeter, in the beautiful valley of the Otter, is famous for its noble church, the finest in Devonshire, and containing many very interesting and beautiful features, and also as being the birth-place of the poet Coleridge. ”

“ This was what Lady Okehampton wrote from her deserted house in Berkeley Square, to numerous friends, with more or less variation of phrase.
Vera's health was now the most pressing question. She [169] had taken her bereavement with a dumb, self-contained grief, that is the most morbid and the most perilous kind of sorrow; the sorrow that kills. When questioned, pressingly but tenderly, by her aunt, she always replied in the same unresponsive manner. There was nothing the matter with her. Of course, as Aunt Mildred said, the shock had been terrible ”

“ But why do'y look up there? Her be on earth, not in heaven. I be a nursing of'y, none for Joyce, nor for Miss Cicely, but for her you cries after and looks for up above.'
At Okehampton they met with no interruption, and were surrounded by no throng of inquisitive persons, and the reason was this. The parson of a neighbouring moorland parish had been summoned that day before the magistrates, on a charge of maltreating and starving a poor boy in his house, his wife's son by a former husband. ”

“ You are an artist, and [136] you know more about frocks and hats than we do, after years of laborious study," said Lady Susan, and then, with her arm through Vera's as they went slowly up the broad staircase, with steps so shallow that people accustomed to small houses were in danger of falling over them, "Isn't he incomparable?" she exclaimed. "There never was such a delightful failure."
"Poor Claude," sighed Lady Okehampton. "I suppose it is only the men who fail in everything who have time to be agreeable. ”

“ We are reminded also of fiction—the familiar pages of Westward Ho!—by the name of the Oxenham Arms, preserving the memory of a famous old Devon family, the Oxenhams, with their tradition of the white bird.
By whatever way we pass from Okehampton or South Tawton to Chagford, we are delayed on all sides by numberless spots of beauty or interest. The main road, which branches to Exeter, is served by a motor bus from Moreton, but familiarity with the moorland can never be gained by proceeding along a highroad, whether on foot or awheel. ”

“ And then Lady Okehampton took him in hand severely, and talked to him as a good woman, but as a Philistine of the Philistines, would naturally talk on such an occasion; and after remonstrating with him for his want of religious feeling, and even proper affection, went on to reproaching him for spending his wife's money, squandering her magnificent fortune with a reckless wastefulness that might end in reducing her to beggary.
"No fear of that, Aunt Mildred. No doubt I have thrown money out of windows. Money has never been a serious consideration with Vera and me. ”

“ There were other things to be done, arrangements to be made, Vera told her aunt. A certain portion of the staff was to start for Rome, by direct and rapid journeying, while she, with only her maid and a footman, was to travel by easy stages along the Riviera.
Lady Okehampton was rather melancholy in the last hour she and her niece spent together in her morning-room.
"I'm afraid the pace at which you and Claude are taking life must wear you out before long," she said. "You are never quiet; always rushing from one thing to another ”

“ I saw in the papers that Lord Okeham was there. You might be able to speak a word for Harry.”
Mr. Sandford smiled. “I am to go, then, as a business speculation,” he said; but his smile faded away very soon, for he reflected that Lord Okeham was the first to give him that sensation of being wanted no longer, of having nobody to employ him, which had risen to such a tragic height since then.
“Don’t laugh,” said his wife. “I do think indeed it is your duty—anything that may help on the children; and you do like Mr. Daniells, Edward.”
“Yes, I do like Daniells; he is a very good fellow.” ”

“ When Mr. Oldham, not to be uncivil, turned again to speak to the person who sat next him, the terrified eyes looked relieved, but did not cease to watch. Who could it be? Dinner was barely over before Mr. Oldham, pausing in the midst of a sentence, said “Hallo!” softly to himself. He had found it out;—it was the man with the cravat, who had travelled with Miss Mead and himself to Beddington. He jumped at the second step of this discovery when he concluded that this was Sir Joseph Lambert, and that possibly here might be a means of hearing of the poor little child. ”

“ Sandford noticed this had a sort of sting in it—a prick like the barb of a fish-hook, like the thorn upon a rose. He did not at the moment exactly perceive why he should have felt it so. After a little while, indeed, he began to smile at the idea that it was from Okeham that this sting came. What did one man’s favour, even though that man was a cabinet minister, matter to him? ”

“ To receive them at Chillfold, in Surrey, was a sensation. The Vicarage children, who collected stamps, were much excited by the Turkish specimens, and she could not help a pleasurable sensation as she bestowed them. Even Osy’s babble about Cousin Colonel was not unpleasing to his mother’s ears. Gerald was far away, unable to take any steps, or even to say much about Osy. She liked at that distance to have such a man more or less belonging to her. The feeling of opposition had died away. ”

“ It must be a happy thing for a woman to have a daughter," Mrs. Methven said, with a sigh. "The boys, as you say, go away."
"Nobody here is afraid of the loch," said Oona. "Accidents happen—oh, very rarely. Mamma is a little nervous about yachting, for the winds come down from the hills in gusts; but Hamish is the steadiest oar, and there is no fear. Do you see now the lights at Auchnasheen? There is some one waiting, at the landing-place. It will be Lord Erradeen, or some one from the house. Hamish, mind the current. You know how it sweeps the boat up the loch?" ”

“ Cara’s eye, following Edward’s, reached this little group. She ran forward, with a low cry. The new-comers, seeing nobody, occupied with themselves, advanced steadily. They came up to the corner of the Square. Just within that comparative stillness, they too started and stopped, he facing the others boldly, with smiles on his face, she drooping, blushing, trembling, with her hand on his arm.
‘Oswald! for heaven’s sake, who is this lady?’ cried Edward, stepping in advance. The others waited with equal eagerness, though they knew very well who she was. ”