Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (44 page)

‘Well, nephew,’ Miss Hallbyne answered, ‘you know best what will suit you, and you shall have any money you may want for the purpose. But now, I suppose, you would like to go upstairs to your room.’

Hollebone assented, and his aunt led him upstairs to a great oak-wainscoted room, in which the two candles and the fire served only to emphasise the darkness and vastness. His aunt pointed to a steaming kettle that stood on the fire.

‘There is hot water,’ she said, ‘and if you want anything else you must just ring for it. Be careful how you lift the kettle.’

So saying she left him to his own devices and went downstairs. Hollebone, after having taken as general a survey of the room, and as minute an inspection of the pictures and the carving of the wainscoting and cupboards, as he could with the aid of his two candles, proceeded to perform the operations of the toilet usual on such occasions, ruminating the while over his aunt’s conversation.

‘I can’t see why Aunt Joan should take such a particular trouble over the family name. I suppose it is because she has been living for so long in the atmosphere of county families, and so forth. Anyhow, she seems to be a nice enough old body, taken all in all, and I suppose it must be a crotchet of hers. But even then my name is not the same as hers.’

Why do people occasionally stumble by accident, as it were, on a clue that would guide them to the centre of a labyrinth of motive and then pass it by without thinking it of any value? At any rate Hollebone passed on in his train of thought, but Miss Hallbyne, in the drawing-room below, had drawn out from a long unopened drawer an old album, full of old silhouettes, but the one at which she remained looking was that of a young man of, it may be, twenty or more years of age, and which bore a striking resemblance to Hollebone.

No doubt, dear reader, you will turn up your critical nose, which has grown of late accustomed more to realism than sentimentalism in literature, at the thought of an old maid having need to dry her eyes at the reminiscences of the
temps jadis
which is over and fled half a century ago. But Miss Hallbyne had once been young, and once had been beautiful, and in recollections a day is the same as a thousand years, and ‘a thousand years but as a span,’
pour ainsi dire
, and the sight of Hollebone had touched a hidden spring in a ghost closet that contained many and many a faded and dusty note of memory. For Miss Hallbyne had been the less beautiful of two beautiful sisters.

She had sunk into a brown study once more, when the door opened and a girl entered briskly, jarring on all Miss Hallbyne’s nerves.

‘Well, Aunt Joan,’ she said, with a cheerful laugh, ‘and so he has come. Well, and what is he like?’

Miss Hallbyne pointed with her finger at the silhouette.

‘That is he,’ she said shortly.

The girl looked at it.

‘Why, but that is fifty years old or so. It must be his father?’ she said inquiringly.

Miss Hallbyne nodded her head.

‘Yes, that is Cousin John,’ she said. ‘But you might take it for Clement just as well.’ The girl answered aloud, —

‘Really? How nice!’

But to herself she said: ‘H’m, I must be careful. To twist the adage a little, one might say, “The eyes in which the father hath found favour will find little but good in the son.” I must really take care. I don’t know that the best way would not be to make love to him right off. However, I must think about that a little first.’ Aloud she added, —

‘Well, aunt, I will just run upstairs and make myself presentable to my cousin.’

And Miss Hallbyne answered, —

‘Yes, do, Kate.’

Left to herself once more, she said, ‘How nice it would be if Clement would marry her!’ and with a sigh she relapsed into her brown study, which reigned unbroken until dinner was announced.

At the sound of the gong Hollebone made his appearance almost simultaneously with Kate, and she was introduced to him as his cousin from America.

‘Kate is not a Yankee, though,’ Miss Hallbyne added, more or less apologetically. ‘Her father was my half-brother, and some twenty years younger than I. He tried to found a business in New York, and failed rather badly. He died very shortly afterwards, leaving Kate an orphan, and since then she has lived with me, and is my right hand. Isn’t that it, Kate?’

Kate assented, with an inclination of her head. She was engaged in taking a minute survey of Hollebone’s points.

‘From what I can see of him, at so short a glance,’ she mused, as they passed from room to room, ‘I should say that that young man was in love with someone or other, and in all probability she threw him over when he was ruined. Now, it remains to be seen if I shall find it worth my while to cut that somebody out in his affections. If Aunt Joan takes it into her crotchety old head to leave her money to him it might pay me for the trouble, and if I were to marry him before her death she might will all her money to the two of us. Yes, that would not be a bad thing. I must think about it. In the meanwhile I must keep the conversation in a sort of general groove, until I make up my mind finally.’

Accordingly, when they were comfortably settled in the dining-room, she began, —

‘Ah, Cousin Clement, you must have had a nasty cold journey here. It was coming on to snow quite fast when I came home.’ Clement answered, —

‘Yes, it was just beginning to come down when I reached here. The weather seems to have set in regularly for snow.’

His cousin went on, —

‘Oh, by-the-bye, aunt, I meant to tell you. Whiggit shied as we passed the gates of Blackstone Hall. The Ryves’ carriage lamps frightened him, I suppose; they were just turning into the drive. Our carriage went right into the ditch with two of its wheels, and one of the windows was broken — and Whistler says Whiggit’s got his sides a little cut.’

Miss Hallbyne looked up from her soup quite alarmed.

‘But, my dear girl, I hope you are not hurt at all. It was very careless of Whistler.’

Kate laughed.

‘Oh, indeed, aunt,’ she said, ‘it wasn’t Whistler’s fault. It was Whiggit’s if it was anyone’s. As for me, I’m not hurt at all — not even shaken. Mr Ryves was very much alarmed, and insisted on sending me back in his carriage after it had set them down. One of our shafts was broken. So, you see, I came back in state in a carriage and pair, whereas I set out in a brougham.’

‘Well, my dear,’ her aunt answered, ‘it was considerate of you to break the news to me so gently, and I sincerely hope you are not hurt. Had we not better send for Dr Long at once?’

But Kate answered, —

‘Oh, no, indeed, aunt; I am not a bit hurt. I haven’t even a bruise.’

‘How is Whistler, too?’ asked Miss Hallbyne. ‘I hope he is not injured at all.’

‘I just sent Jane down to ask how he was, and she said that he seemed all right, only very bad-tempered. You see, he had to leave the brougham and come home on the box of the Ryves’ carriage, and I suppose the other coachman crowed over his upset a little. The brougham and old Whiggit had to remain at the Ryves’.’

‘Well, well, my dear,’ Miss Hallbyne said, ‘we must be thankful it was no worse, that is all. The Ryves were here this afternoon.’

‘Yes, so they told me. I made the acquaintance of Mrs Kasker-Ryves. She seemed to me a little too quiet and pale to suit my taste.

‘Did
you
think so?’ Miss Hallbyne answered. ‘I don’t think she was very well this evening — I noticed she turned quite pale suddenly while we were talking. I happened to be just saying that you were coming down here, Nephew Clement, when I noticed her turn quite red and then pale. I suppose she must have been feeling unwell, because almost immediately afterwards she made her husband move by saying that it was coming on to snow, and that she could not allow him to be out late in such cold weather. You know Mr Kasker-Ryves, don’t you, Clement? ‘And he answered, —

‘Oh, yes, I know him — that is, I have met him once or twice. But I did not know he was married.’

‘No. Isn’t that strange. No one knew anything about it, and all of a sudden he appeared with a wife. Quite a young and lovely girl too. It seems they were married very quietly — almost secretly one might say — to avoid the strain consequent on a public marriage. She is the daughter of a small millowner in Manchester, and, so far as one can tell, it appears to have been quite a love match, and her parents ostensibly rather objected, but in spite of that she persisted. As a general rule I believe it is the daughter that objects to marrying an old man.’

‘Not when the old man is a senile millionaire. What do you think, Cousin Clement?’ Kate asked.

Hollebone smiled.

‘Well, it does look rather fishy,’ he assented. ‘But I
have
heard of love matches of that sort, and I suppose it is not so unlikely in the case of such a very fine-looking and estimable a man as Mr Ryves, setting aside his ducats. At any rate no one could object to him as not being an “
homme mur.”’

‘You might even say he was over-ripe — a sleepy pear, in fact,’ Kate answered.

‘Oh, no, Kate, I don’t think he is that at all,’ Miss Hallbyne objected. ‘I’m sure no one would think he was eighty. Why, he’s quite as active as any young man. He rides and shoots and looks after his property, and is a J.P. In fact he might well be forty years younger. I think it’s quite wonderful.’

‘Why, it’s a new departure for you to stand up for him, Aunt Joan,’ Kate answered. ‘I remember when he bought Blackstone — twelve years ago — how you used to cry out that the whole country was falling into the hands of the shopkeepers.’

Aunt Joan smiled somewhat guiltily.

‘Well, my dear,’ she said, ‘one must keep pace with the times, I suppose, and the tendency is nowadays to abolish social distinctions altogether. When duchesses take to dressmaking, and noble lords marry actresses — in my young days they didn’t do it so often — I suppose simple county families must not be above associating with shopkeepers, or
even
Americans.’

‘Exactly,’ said Hollebone, and his aunt gave a little sigh.

‘Yes,’ she went on. ‘I used to be a Whig in the old days, but now I am an out and out old-fashioned Tory. What with Reform Bills and Free Trade and Home Rule, and they even talk now of Disestablishment and abolition of the House of Peers, but that won’t come about until I am dead and laid in my grave.’

‘Why, then the Church and State will be safe for a long time yet,’ said Hollebone cheerfully.

‘I don’t know about that,’ Miss Hallbyne said. ‘Another winter like this will finish me off,’ and Kate murmured in her heart of hearts:

‘God send it soon!’

But Hollebone answered, —

‘Nonsense, aunt, you will live to see the new century in.’

She answered wearily, —

‘God forbid. I have had enough of this one.’

‘Well,’ thought Kate to herself, ‘if I let her go on like this she will be getting into such a sentimental state of mind over the past love that I shall have a bad time of it in the future. It would be just like her to change her will right off to-night, without even troubling Cheetham to come over and do it for her, and I might fare badly in that case. I must change the course of conversation, and then take a little time to think.’ Accordingly she asked,—’Do you know what Mrs Ryves’s maiden name was, Cousin Clement? Aunt Joan and I have been debating about it, but we cannot agree, and no one seems to know it.’

Clement shook his head.

‘I’m sure I don’t know anything about her,’ he said. ‘I did not even know Mr Ryves was married.’

‘I am almost sure her name was Hisfield. I know it had something to do with “field,”’ Miss Hallbyne said.

‘It must have been Hisfield. There is a cotton firm of Hisfield, Hixen & Hutt. I think you said she was a millowner’s daughter,’ Clement answered, and his aunt said, —