Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (43 page)

‘He wouldn’t like it at all, if he knew, but he won’t know anything about it until it is all over and I am free again. I have written to ask him to promise never to ask about me, or to mention my name to anyone, and I am quite sure he will do anything I ask him to, and so he will not come to know until I tell him. He would be too noble to let me sacrifice myself for him if he knew, and after all it can’t last very long, and I shall be free once more.’ Julia, seeing that it was too late to argue about it, and that it would be only making Edith unhappy to try to dissuade her, yet could not refrain from saying, —

‘Yes, dear, your reasons are all very well, from your point of view, but I am very much afraid that you will have a very miserable time of it during your married life. I am quite sure that Mr Ryves is a scoundrel, and although he really loves you now, his love will wear out in a very short time, and—’

But Edith interrupted her quite angrily. ‘Julia,’ she said, ‘once for all I w
ill
not have you say a word against Mr Kasker-Ryves. It is treacherous enough in me towards him to marry him only to get his money, and I will not be so vile as to let anyone, even you, say a word against him in my presence.’

And Julia answered humbly, —

‘You are quite right, dear.’ Nevertheless she said to herself, ‘I know there is something false about that man’s smile, either his teeth or his heart, and after careful examination I am sure his teeth are real, therefore it must be — hum,’ and she began to talk about events and happenings to mutual friends in London during the three months of her absence.

Edith had long since given up attempting to penetrate her friend’s motives, and had indeed abandoned even surprise at her most unaccountable actions, nevertheless she could not rack her brains how she would guess why her friend should make up to old Mr Ryves in so open and barefaced a manner as she did thereafter. Mrs Ryland was terrified, and had almost made up her mind to expect that Julia would at the eleventh hour snatch the tempting morsel away from her daughter, as she had already snatched away the son, and Edith was almost of the same opinion, but she gave Julia her due in not attributing to her mercenary motives. She rather thought that Julia wished to draw the old man away from her in order that she might not sacrifice herself on the altar of Mammon. Therefore she herself was so unusually gracious to her septuagenarian
fiancé
that, between her unwonted kindnesses and the equally unexpected advances of Julia, he began to imagine that within his handsome whitened sepulchre there must lurk an octuple essence of Narcissus’ charms, and he smiled more and more, until Julia felt quite certain, from frequent opportunities of observation, that his teeth were not false, and that — hum. She observed it, and was troubled in her mind for the sake of poor Edith, who was to pine and mope for a time in the sole society of so unpromising a companion, therefore she redoubled her endeavours to please him; and Julia could be very charming if she liked, so that before he departed for the night he had given her a general invitation to visit them at his estate on Blackstone Edge, where they were to spend their perpetual honeymoon, which invitation Julia accepted, and intended to make the most of, for Edith’s sake. Thus the last night of Edith’s maidenhood went by, and those of the parties concerned who slept at all had dreams varying from mere unpleasantnesses of the tight boot order to blue and corpse-peopled nightmares.

On the morrow came the civil formalities, uniting alpha to omega. Julia was never able to make up her mind, as an impartial spectator, whether the moral was pointed in a more ghastly manner by the ceremony as it took place in the registrar’s office, with the snuffy, routine-worn registrar and the smoking chimney, the satisfaction of the bride’s mother, the semi-reluctance of the father, the pale-faced, determined bride, with her forced smile and the tears pressing tumultuously against the barrier that withheld them, deep down in her brown eyes, whether it were more ghastly thus, in the fog of the January day, or whether the grim jocularity would have been enhanced by being tricked out with the ‘pomp and circumstance of glorious’ marriage, the slow moving grandeur of the marriage service, and the joyous peal of the wedding march. Fancy ‘until death do them part’ in such a case, or ‘those whom God had joined together,’ with an abyss of more than half a century between them. Would a skeleton look worse tricked out in cloth of gold or in a shroud of grey? The shroud certainly seems more appropriate. To look at the two parties most deeply interested we might well have hesitated to say which seemed nearer the grave — he or she.

For he was flushed and eager with the excitement and joy at heart, rendering him apparently twenty years younger and even more handsome than was his wont; but the bride was pallid, with yellow-green shadows under her eyes, and with the quivering brown lashes and brown eyebrows emphasising the paleness of the face. But more frightful were the hectic spots over each cheek-bone, until there seemed no colour left save only white and golden-brown.

Considering that the marriage was voluntary on her part, a stranger might well have fancied that it was the bride who was lingering through the last stages of the surest of diseases, and that her groom might well live through a couple of decades. For a night passed without sleep, after many other such nights — passed in an agony of mind more excruciating than ever was agony caused by the Scotch thumbscrews of the Merry Monarch — nights of continual straining and tearing at the heart-strings, will have a frightful effect on the face of anyone, much less on a fair-complexioned maiden not fairly out of her teens.

Once only a great rush of blood to her head, as she signed her name, gave her for the moment intense pain, and a transient sense of swimming giddiness before the eyes; but the blood sank down once more, and she grew calm and pale as erstwhile. Only a shudder shook her as her husband kissed her; but that was but, as it were, the roughness at the river’s bar, as the boat dashes out from the gliding calm into the turmoil of white waters beyond.

CHAPTER IV
.

Despair was never yet so deep

In sinking as in seeming.

CLEMENT HOLLEBONE had lapsed into a hypochondriacal phase of his existence, which was somewhat contrary to his usual frame of mind. Having been left largely to himself, by his bent of disposition as well as by circumstances, he had become ‘a dreamer among men,’ apt to make mountains out of molehills, and, by natural sequence, springing in fancy over insurmountable obstacles. Thus he was as a rule easygoing, and contented with his lot in life, and in a quiet way, simply
‘pour faire passer le temps
,’ had accomplished an immense amount of work.

But the sudden change in his fortunes had an effect on him similar to that which a railway accident might have created, disturbing his entire equilibrium and spoiling his digestion; moreover, his psychological condition was by no means ameliorated by the proceedings in the Bankruptcy Court — not that there was anything discreditable or unpleasant in the records of the firm, but a public examination is always a disconcerting experience to go through.

The impairing of his digestive organs caused blue vapours to arise therefrom, and roll around his brain, taking the form of projects and ideas, more or less tragic, but always determinative, comprising suicide, starvation, setting up as a travelling tinker, an usher in a school, or selling himself to Her Most Gracious Majesty, to be shot or die of cholera, at fifteen-pence a day — with deductions.

The most attractive of his various ideas was the one which prompted him to make away with himself. There is a sort of jingo glamour about suicide that captivates shallow thinkers or people that brood too much. It was, however, mainly indigestion with Hollebone.

He used to wonder if Edith would cry for him, or commit suicide over his grave — and so forth. From which you may imagine what progress the disease had made in him, besides which he was very much in love — oh, very.

The winding up of the firm’s accounts took some little time, and, as you may remember, created no small excitement in the North of England, for it had been considered very safe indeed.

One morning on his arrival at the office, Hollebone found a letter awaiting him, from a Miss Joan Hallbyne, who announced that she was a maiden aunt of his on the maternal side, and that, having heard of his misfortunes, she would be very glad if he would come over and pay her a short visit at her house near Blackstone Edge.

Hollebone, who from mere
‘mauvaise honte
’ had held aloof from any society whatever since the disaster, accepted the invitation with considerable pleasure, for he felt in want of a change. Of his aunt he knew but little, for her name had not been mentioned in his presence for many years — not that there had been any friction between his parents and her, but they had quietly gone each their own destined paths — and their paths had led them asunder.

His mind associated her with old-fashioned stiffness and with the pride of county family, with riches and with the courtly graces of the early decades of the century, he having been a very small child when he had seen her last.

Therefore he wrote to her, appointing a day when he would come over from Liverpool. It was already late in the afternoon of Candlemas Eve that he alighted at the station, with a seven-mile drive before him, across the grey Yorkshire land, with a cold, grey earth beneath and around, and a cold, grey snow-boding heaven above and around. At Candlemas the days should be drawing out a little, but that day everything was grey with the approach of evening, and the groom had lit the lamps of the carriage that Miss Hallbyne had sent for him; for the darkness was already upon them when they reached the Roman road that crosses Blackstone Edge, and the impression the drive left on him was that of a whirl of leafless pollard trees, stretching their quivering branches up to heaven as though they deprecated the coldness of the snow-laden sky, for in effect the snow had began to whirl down before they turned into the drive that led up to the house. In front of the door a carriage was standing already, awaiting somebody, and as Hollebone entered a lady muffled up to her eyes in furs brushed passed him in the hall and entered the carriage.

At the door of a room an old gentleman was standing, with his hat in his hand, taking leave, and evidently intending to follow the lady into the carriage. As Hollebone entered he said, —

‘Ha, Miss Hallbyne, here is your nephew. How do you do, Mr Hollebone?’ and he held out his hand cordially.

By a great effort of memory Clement remembered who his interlocutor was, and answering, ‘How do you do, Mr Ryves?’ he greeted his aunt.

Mr Kasker-Ryves cried suddenly, —

‘Edith, come here,’ but on looking round he saw she was already in the carriage. ‘Oh, well,’ he went on, smiling complacently, ‘I must tear myself away, Miss Hallbyne; my wife keeps such an uncommonly tight hand over me, and “needs must when the devil drives.” She won’t let me be out after dark. Good-day, Miss Hallbyne; good-day, Mr Hollebone,’ and he bowed himself out, looking the beau-ideal of a fine old English gentleman.

Miss Hallbyne closed the door, and made Hollebone take a scat.

‘Well, Nephew Clement,’ she said, regarding him closely, ‘and how are you? You have altered greatly since I saw you last? But that was twenty years ago, at least. Now, just sit down before the fire and have some hot tea. It will warm you after your cold drive, and you can go to your room afterwards, you know. You must excuse my not driving over to meet you, but I am getting a little old now, and it is fourteen miles to the station and back.’

But Hollebone said, —

‘Oh, Aunt Joan, how could you think of coming?’

Miss Hallbyne was busying herself with the tea, and Hollebone took a careful survey of her. She was small, and had a remarkable mass of dark brown hair, fitting tightly all over her head, and braided at the sides. It never occurred to Hollebone to doubt the genuineness of her hirsute appendages, but she was over threescore years and ten of age. Under this black mass her face was yellow, scored and wrinkled till it resembled a face over which a net had been stretched. Her eyes were black, deep, and very piercing, and her whole aspect had an air of intense malevolence, which her voice, querulous and harsh, enhanced. Nevertheless, in spite of this, she did not give at all the impression of malevolent feeling that her face and voice expressed, and on looking at her more closely one could tell that she had once been a woman of wonderful beauty. She seemed, like the mummy at the Egyptian feasts, to remind one obtrusively of the fact that ‘
tempora mutantur
,’ e
tc.
Having finished her operations at the tea-table, she advanced towards him with a cup of tea.

‘I don’t know how you’ll like the flavour of it,’ she said; ‘it’s some Russian tea that Kate had sent her as something very special. I don’t like it myself. I think it tastes like stewed oatmeal. However—’

She seated herself on the other side of the fireplace and looked for a moment at the fire.

‘Shall we have in the lights?’ she said suddenly. ‘It gets dark so soon now-a-days that I really don’t care to go out, and the weather is so bad. Kate has gone over the Edge, to Healy Hall, I think. She has a great friend there, and they hold Sewing Bees or something every week.’

Hollebone, not knowing who Kate might be, relapsed into silence, with a vague general remark of —

‘Yes, that’s very pleasant for her.’

Miss Hallbyne manifested no desire to break the silence, which seemed to Hollebone to grow decidedly oppressive, and he tried in vain to make himself appear ‘at home’ by drinking his tea in small sips, but when that was finished he felt entirely lost; and since his aunt seemed to be in a reverie he let himself lapse also, gazing into the depths of the fire.

‘The last time I saw Cousin John—’ said Miss Hallbyne suddenly.

Hollebone started, and returned from his mental travels.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said.

‘The last time I saw Cousin John,’ his aunt repeated, ‘was in seventy — just twenty years ago. You were then, I think, about five, were you not?’

‘Exactly,’ answered Hollebone.

‘Cousin John died next year, I believe.’

‘May I ask who Cousin John is, aunt?’ said Hollebone desperately.

‘Why, your father, of course,’ she answered.

‘He and I were cousins, or at least our fathers would have it so. As you know, probably, the family is an old Dutch one, and descends from Holbein, the painter of Queen Elizabeth’s time, so it is said. Our common ancestor settled in Hull at about that time, as some sort of a merchant — a draper, I think. He had three sons, of whom the eldest went out to America, and was the first of the family of the present Holbeins there. The second son was an ancestor of yours, and founded your house in Liverpool in 1590, just three hundred years ago; and the youngest, after making a large fortune, bought this present house and property, and here I am. In some way or other your grandfather and my father became acquainted, and not only that but fast friends; and considering that we were collateral branches, we were used to call each other cousin, and your father married my sister. But now I want to know something about your affairs, Nephew Clement.’

He shook his head.

‘I am afraid I have very little to tell you that serves any purpose other than what you know. Cheetham has been trying hard to compound matters with the creditors, but they are a little touchy over that absconding business of the year before last; and as to that signing away my private fortune, it would have fallen in from the trustees in a year and a half, and the Court would have, quite probably, refused my discharge until after that, so that it makes very little difference in the long run.’ Miss Hallbyne nodded.

‘You may be right, Clement,’ she said, with perhaps a touch of pleasure in her voice; ‘anyhow, I was very glad you did it. For the name is an old name, and the house is an old house, and one would have felt sorry if it had been dishonoured while there was a penny left to pay. But I am very sorry for you. It must be a sad blow to lose your entire fortune. Are you very hard up just at present?’

Hollebone shook his head.

‘Oh, no, aunt,’ he said; ‘that is, I can manage to jog along somehow for the present. You see I’ve never been used to spend much money, anyhow. Certainly not a tenth of what I might have spent if I had wished. I’ve always gone in for study more than anything else, in a quiet way, and now it doesn’t pinch me very much, and I should not care at all if it were not for—’

He stopped, but his aunt understood him more or less, and forebore to press the point.

‘You must draw on me if you are at all pressed,’ she said. ‘Would you like a cheque for three or four hundred now?’

Hollebone shook his head.

‘Oh, thank you, aunt,’ he said, ‘I have really no need for it just at present, and even then I have no claim on you at all.’

‘You have saved the name, Clement,’ she said. ‘I would have done it myself if you had not, but it would have taken almost my last penny. However, that is neither here nor there. What I want to know is, what you are thinking of doing in the future? I suppose, with all your learning, you will be soon one of the first men in the country.’

Hollebone laughed somewhat bitterly.

‘Oh, aunt,’ he said, ‘I wish it were so, but there is absolutely no opening for me anywhere that I can see. If it were not for the fact that I am an M.D. I might as well think of flying as making a living. However, I suppose I shall rub along somehow.’

His aunt, however, returned to the charge.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘but you will have to buy a practice anyhow, and in that case I insist on your falling back on me for the money.’ Hollebone reflected a moment.

‘Well, aunt,’ he said, ‘I might do that, and indeed I should be very glad to do so. I have lately been making inquiries about a practice, and I have heard of one at Dymchurch, on the Suffolk coast, which would suit me very well. It belongs to an old doctor, who is seeking a partner, and so far as I can tell it would be the exact thing to suit me, with plenty of work to do and an old hand to look after me at first. For, to tell the truth, it is some years since I made my M.D., and it is just possible that I shall be a little strange at first.’