Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (40 page)

But Miss Tubbs shuddered.

‘You shouldn’t say that,’ she said; ‘one never knows what may happen.’

But Edith laughed.

‘Come again to-morrow,’ she said.

‘Oh, I think I shall wait a year or two after that,’ he said.

‘Then I shall carry on a flirtation just to fill up the time.’

‘Naughty girl,’ he said, and vanished into the outer darkness.

CHAPTER II
.

Es war ein alter Konig Sein Herz war schwer, sein Haupt war grau.

On the morrow Edith started off early to do some shopping in preparation for her departure for Manchester on the following day. At her return she found awaiting her a note from Hollebone, running: —

‘DEAREST EDIE, —

The irresistible Clarkson has just called, and insists on dragging me off to Liverpool. In the great storms of the last few nights several vessels wholly insured, besides others partly insured by us, have been lost. This, with the frightful runs of ill-luck we have lately had, makes matters very urgent, and Clarkson insists on my going with him at once. I will drop in on you in Manchester as soon as things begin to look a little straighter, which I hope will be almost immediately. I am in a frightful hurry, darling, so good-bye till then. (Enclosed is a description of the properties of my poison.)’

Edith dropped into a chair when she had read and re-read the letter.

‘Whatever shall we do if he is ruined — I’ll never give him up in any case. Father and mother will never consent, though. They can’t see that it’s better to marry for love than for money. I’m certain
they
never married for love. I don’t see how anyone could have fallen in love with a money-worshipper like papa, and mamma is very little better with her eternal matchmaking. I’m sure the way she has flung me at people’s heads is shocking, and before I’m past nineteen too. They’d never have sent me up to London to learn if they hadn’t hoped to catch somebody with me. Oh dear! oh dear! poor Clem, I hope he won’t be ruined. It will be such hard lines for him. I will set to work to see if I can’t make some money to help him afterwards, for I’m sure papa won’t give us a penny if I marry in spite of him. Yes, that’s it, I must make some money. I will wait until I hear definitely from him, and if he is ruined I will take to teaching as a profession, and see what I can do at that.’ And she went on building castles in the air, until Julia entered and cut short her train of thoughts.

They did not arrive at Manchester until towards seven on the following day. Mr and Mrs Ryland had gone to a conversazione at the Bishop’s, but this came like a respite to Edith, who had feared above all things that the report that Hollebone and Clarkson were in danger should have reached their ears. It was past eleven when they returned, and neither of them seemed to know anything about the matter. Mr and Mrs Ryland greeted Miss Tubbs cordially, but by no means effusively, and having solemnly embraced their daughter, and expressed a hope that they had had a prosperous journey, announced their intention of proceeding at once to bed, as they were too much fatigued after the Bishop’s party to converse with convenience on any subject whatever. With this arrangement both Edith and Miss Tubbs concurred, for to tell the truth there was but little sympathy between the Rylands and their daughter. Mr Ryland, being a cotton broker on a comfortable but by no means princely scale, had but little in common with his daughter, not that they were on bad terms by any means, but Mr Ryland’s views, and indeed his wife’s too, were bounded by money, or at least its attendant benefits, and they were both somewhat dismayed when their daughter evinced a determination to become a violinist, not an amateur but a regular professional. Now, the British merchant and his wife are accustomed to stigmatise violinists as ‘fiddlers,’ in a contemptuous way. When one says ‘violinist’ it has a high-sounding ring, a fiddler is quite another thing.

But of course one must remember that music is an Art, and its advocates are therefore looked down upon by followers of commerce, at least as far as Great Britain is concerned. There
may
be exceptions to this rule, but neither Mr nor Mrs Ryland were such
lusi naturae
, and it was with feelings of dread that they perceived their daughter’s inclination. However, it had fallen about that Mr Ryland heard one day, by chance from a business acquaintance, of the enormous prices that the first-class violinists can command, and in his mind the differences between a good and a bad violinist was a consideration that existed only by the will of newspaper writers, therefore, considering it a settled thing that his daughter was to receive payments of some thousands of pounds nightly, he sent her to be taught by the most expensive teacher in Manchester, and sat down to await the time when the money was to begin pouring in; but after she had learned some years he heard to his dismay, from her master, that it would be necessary to send her to London for several years to finish her musical education. Mr Ryland groaned inwardly at this prospect, but having made up his mind that his daughter
should
become a fiddler, he packed her off incontinently to London in spite of his wife’s protests.

Mrs Ryland was perfectly sure that her daughter, having absurdly romantic ideas in her head, would get engaged to some beggarly scamp of a painter, and ruin all her ideas of a good match. However, in spite of the apprehensions of both Mr and Mrs Ryland, Edith prospered, for having not only great perseverance, but, in defiance of the laws of heredity, considerable natural gifts, she succeeded in carrying everything before her in the way of musical study, and found herself after two years’ time in a position to almost earn her living by teaching, besides which, the concerts she gave were always well attended, though that was perhaps due largely to the fact that Hollebone, to whom she had meanwhile become engaged, bought and distributed among his friends rows upon rows of stalls.

Hollebone was, in even Mrs Ryland’s ideas, a most eligible
parti
, with his income that ran well into five figures, his studiousness and economy, and his general mildness of character, which, Mrs Ryland thought, boded well for her own prospects as a mother-in-law. Nothing would convince her that her daughter really cared for Hollebone in the least, so much so that she even wrote to her to compliment her on her astuteness in securing so desirable a young man in so short a time; but she received a letter in reply from Edith so hotly written that it actually shocked her, and Mrs Ryland was a person who rarely took the trouble to be shocked at anything. However, she did not allow herself to be much distressed by the strong-mindedness, as she called it, of her daughter, being indeed too much delighted at the circumstances that called it forth.

Mr Ryland himself was delighted at his daughter’s engagement for many reasons, nevertheless he stipulated that the marriage should not come off until his daughter was of age, she being then nineteen and Hollebone twenty-four. Thus it was that matters stood in the Rylands’ household.

Close on a week passed by without a word from Hollebone, and Edith was beginning to fret seriously, until one evening, by the last post, a letter came from him, running thus: —

‘DEAREST EDIE, — I write to you to break you the news that must come to your ears sooner or later. Clarkson and I have been going over the books throughout the whole of last week, and do what we may the house will fail to-morrow for about £398,000, of which we shall only be able to pay some £200,000. This leaves £198,000 of clear debt. I have, however, the sum of
£
200,000 under the trustees of my uncle, which will not come to me for a year and six months’ time, until, indeed, I am twenty-six years of age. This £200,000 will just cover the debt. We are bound to be declared bankrupt before that time, for our affairs are by no means complicated, and our creditors will have no legal claims on the trust-money. I, therefore, am on the horns of a dilemma as to whether, on the one hand, I shall jeopardise my honour and not pay away the £200,000 when it becomes due, or, on the other hand, whether I shall plunge you into poverty in the future by paying away the trust-money to retrieve my honour. I, of course, release you from every promise you gave me before this disaster, but, from what I know of your character, do not believe you will give me up, and I therefore leave it for you to decide whether I shall pay my debts or not. You must forgive me, my dearest, if my letter seem cold and formal, but I do not wish to influence your decision as to giving me up or no, and my love for you is, and will always be, unchanged. I would like to write you a great deal more, but it would not be honourable in me to influence you in any way — But believe me to be ever your own, ‘CLEMENT HOLLEBONE.’

Edith let the letter fall from her hands, with a laugh. Never having known what it was to want for a penny, she had not the slightest idea of what poverty is. She had an idea that it was a struggle, and that one would have to put one’s shoulder to the wheel; but these are easy terms, and slip glibly off the tongue, leaving no idea of what a weary long time the struggle lasts. Viewed in the abstract and as a word, ‘poverty’ has quite a glamour about it, and riches somehow seem sordid, but to
be
poor is quite another thing — quite. Edith, however, had got her ideas of poverty from books, and in books ninety - five per cent, of the poor people struggle out of their poverty — and when one reads the other five per cent, one either does not finish them, or else one attempts to efface the remembrance of them at once. Moreover Edith had imbibed notions of honour which the present occasion seemed to be a fitting opportunity to put into practice, and she forthwith answered Hollebone’s letter with another glowing with sentiments of the most exalted kind, and at the same time
 
brimming over with love, painting the future in the very brightest of reds and golds. And thus the bad news seemed to have an effect rather exhilarating, than the reverse, on her spirits. Nevertheless she felt very nervous over the contest that the news of her lover’s ruin would occasion between her and her parents, and it was with inward trepidation that she went downstairs to dinner; but it was evident that no inkling of the facts had reached her parents. The dinner was as dull as ever.

Mr Ryland, whose ideas were swallowed up entirely by the financial columns of the newspaper, hardly spoke at all, except to abuse the soup at the beginning of the meal. About the same time he made some platitudinal remarks about the weather to Miss Tubbs, whom he wished to honour, after which he subsided into portentous silence. For Mr Ryland did not consider that women should have any ideas on politics, and his usual prandial conversation was limited to vague abuse of Mr Gladstone and Free Trade, that is, whilst he was with members of his own sex — among ladies he maintained a rigorous taciturnity.

Mrs Ryland, on the other hand, kept up a vigorous flow of conversation all by herself, to which Miss Tubbs lent a respectful attention. Mrs Ryland was well informed about every nothing that took place in this world, from the colour of the Duchess of Sandhurst’s last new dress to the ailments of their own kitchen cat. She even went so far as to consider that she had a sort of proprietary interest in music, on the strength of her daughter’s prowess in that art, but she was very careful never to air her ideas before Julia, though she did sometimes address her daughter on the subject.

Edith passed the night in a state of excitement that even her philosophy could not subdue, but in the morning at breakfast Mr Ryland still knew nothing about the all-important news. He announced his intention of bringing home with him to dinner his most important customer, Mr Kasker-Ryves, the great retail general merchant, who had shops all over the kingdom.

‘You must be very attentive to him,’ he said to his wife, ‘for he is by far the best customer I have, and as he is on the point of making large purchases I am anxious to please him as much as possible.’

A wish of Mr Ryland’s was unquestionable law in his household, for, quiet as he was, he insisted on being obeyed, with a firmness that quite overcame his wife, and even Edith.

Therefore Mrs Ryland made extraordinary efforts to improvise a splendid repast in honour of Mr Kasker-Ryves, for he was an old man; and as Mrs Ryland had a theory, more or less correct, that the only way to reach the heart of an old man is through his stomach, she engaged herself busily in the kitchen, superintending the making of certain dishes, and even in putting the finishing touches with her own hands to others.

Thus one may judge of her despair, when at the very heat of the work, when the success or non-success of one of her masterpieces was trembling in the balance, a servant came running down to say that the master had just come home and wished to see her in the library at once, without a moment’s delay. All flushed as she was from the heat of the fire, and with her hands still soiled with particles of flour and suet, Mrs Ryland ran upstairs.

Mr Ryland and Edith were already there, and he, standing with his back to the fire, began an once, without even clearing his throat, —

‘I have just received a telegram from Liverpool to say that “Hollebone & Clarkson” have failed for £400,000, of which it is supposed they will pay about half. This is very serious; but what makes matters worse, young Hollebone has, it seems, made over the reversion of the £200,000 left him in trust under his uncle’s will. Sudden and regrettable as this occurrence must needs seem ‘ — Mr Ryland always spoke like a book on occasions when he had time to round off his sentences beforehand—’there can be no doubts in your minds as to the course to be pursued, for I cannot allow my daughter to marry a beggar. I myself, indeed, am not sufficiently rich to afford a pittance large enough to support a second family. Mr Hollebone called on me this morning to state his prospects to me, and without hesitation I have broken off the engagement, and have promised, in my daughter’s name, that she would write him a formal letter breaking it off on her part. I, of course, offered to return any presents he may have made, but he declined the offer in a manner that certainly did him credit, and I did not see fit to press the matter. As it is as well to get rid of these details as soon as possible, you had better, Edith, sit down at once at the writing-table and write to Mr Hollebone. If you do not feel sufficiently confident in your own powers of epistolary composition, I will dictate a suitable letter.’