Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (46 page)

‘Why, I think I prefer
even
the “Message” or Haydn’s “Dream.”’

Kate smiled.

‘Well, it wasn’t my fault that I gave it you. You w
ouldn’t
say what sort you wanted. That is one of a stock of such songs that I keep for my aunt’s lady friends. You prefer the advanced German school, I suppose.’

And so she sang, more or less badly, one or two more songs, but through the song of the Loreley, and through the ‘Alphorn sounding towards Strasburg,’ through Schumann, through List, Schubert, Franz, in spite of all times and measures, that terrible waltz tune whirred through his head, and even afterwards when he was in bed trying vainly to sleep the continual 1, 2, 3-4, 5, 6 kept driving his thoughts irresistibly to Edith, causing a great loneliness to press like a heavy weight on his heart.

And all the while his poor beloved was lying awake, trying in vain to stifle even one little thought of him — for she held it would be sinful — just one little thought, deep down in her heart. But she struggled and battled manfully and prayed for the dawn.

It was very dreadful to her to have been under the same roof with, and even to have touched her unconscious beloved for a second, as she had that day, and yet to know that between them a gulf was fixed as impassable as that which separates the Earth from Heaven. And the grey morn crept in and saw her struggling and battling and praying against her desire.

CHAPTER V
.

Like a fine old English gentleman.

MR KASKER-RYVES was a man universally esteemed in his part of the country. Of all who came in contact with him there was no one, not even the most spiteful, that had a word to say against him, such were the sterling good qualities of the man. The vicar of the parish, who had, it must be confessed, been reading one of Cardinal Newman’s sermons, was heard to remark that Mr Kasker-Ryves possessed all the good qualities attributed to St Paul, and the Wesleyan minister fully endorsed the opinion of his brother of the Established Church. The recipients of his charity never had any complaints to make of either stinginess or ostentation. They said he gave for the mere pleasure of giving, as a truly charitable man should do.

The county families of the vicinity, who had at first resented the intrusion of a shopkeeper into their very midst, became by degrees converted to a different view, from familiarity, for one reason, and because, they said, of his real worth and polished manners, but perhaps more than all because young Kasker-Ryves when he had left college had been in the habit of bringing down the scions of the most noble houses in the land — dukes, marquises, belted earls, and occasionally, with awe be it spoken, a prince of the Blood Royal, to shoot over the Blackstone moors.

The very poachers, whom it was part of Mr Ryves’s duty as a member of the Great Unpaid to sentence to terms of durance vile, always said that he did it in such a gentlemanly manner that it was more a pleasure than otherwise to be sentenced by him, and even his servants pronounced him perfect in every respect. Therefore it stands to reason that he must be very perfect indeed if his servants said so.

He was, in fact, Sir Roger de Coverley, without any of the worthy baronet’s want of knowledge of the world — a fine old English gentleman, without the repulsive bluntness that must at times render that character unbearable in spite of his preternatural goodness of heart.

This was Mr Kasker-Ryves — who that knew him could forbear to love him?

He bore his seventy odd years as though they had been forty, was a very decent shot even at that, and rode like a major-general on parade, although it must be said that he had of late given up hunting as too fatiguing.

The morning ensuing on the events recorded in our last chapter found him already round on horseback, in spite of the snow that lay thick on the ground, to ask how Miss Kate felt after the last night’s accident to the carriage. Miss Kate’s rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes testified to the fact that her health was in no wise impaired by the accident, and Mr Ryves was truly delighted to see it.

He also deprecated the misfortune that had caused him to be the reason of Miss Hallbyne’s brougham upsetting, and hoped Miss Hallbyne would avail herself of his brougham until hers could be repaired.

Miss Hallbyne thanked him cordially for the offer, but said she would have no use for the brougham in any case, as she had the close carriage and dog-cart to fall back upon, besides which she would not be going out at all while the weather lasted so bad. Mr Ryves then turned to Hollebone, and begged him to come and have a few shots at the hares, which were very plentiful just then near a copse on the borders where the Blackstone and Hallbyne estates adjoined each other. Hollebone said that he would be delighted, provided his aunt would dispense with his company until lunch time. Miss Hallbyne consented readily enough. Mr Ryves thereupon rode off home to get rid of his horse, and to procure a gun and a couple of beaters.

At Miss Hallbyne’s suggestion Kate put on her things and guided Hollebone down to the house of the head-keeper, which lay a short distance from the Hall, almost hidden in the trees of a young copse, and very beautiful Kate looked, as even Hollebone must needs acknowledge. Her face was flushed with the cold and the exercise, and daintily her feet ran in and out her petticoats as she picked her way, tiptoed, where the snow lay lightest along the road, whilst with the one hand she held her dress gathered, and in the other a basket. For Kate was a bearer of good cheer to the needy among her aunt’s tenants, and a very bright and cheerful messenger of good tidings too. And all the while she was debating in her mind whether it would be better to slip and fall altogether, so that he must help her up, and they could laugh merrily over the mishap, or merely to slip and stumble against him as he walked. Finally she decided on the latter course, and when she had decided, how daintily she fell against him, not heavily and clumsily, but just a little slip sideways, and an appealing little touch on his arm as she saved herself.

‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ she said, in the loveliest rosy confusion, ‘but the road is so slippery.’

And he answered, —

‘Oh, don’t mention it. Won’t you take my arm? ‘which was what she had meant he should do.

She accepted his proffered support with a smile.

‘Now if you fall we shall both go over she said laughingly, and she leant on his arm with a good deal of her light weight.

She knew very well what an intoxicating sense of intimacy the pressure of an arm will give a young man, and how exhilarating is a brisk new-year morning with snow just whirling lightly down and the ground covered with a pure white mantle, and she knew very well how beautiful her face must look in the brilliant light that the snow threw on it, and how fair it must stand out against the great black hat she had purposely put on. What young man could resist the impulse of that moment and fall over head and ears hopelessly in love with the beautiful face that was smiling so enticingly near his own? And yet Kate recognised the tormenting certainty that, spite of it all, Hollebone was by no means falling in love, nor was there the slightest inflexion in his voice to point to the existence in him of such a state of mind, and disgusted with her failure, she was delighted when the keeper they were in search of came round the corner, with his gun under his arm, and his rosy cheeked son sauntering along munching an apple contentedly and whistling in an undertone.

The keeper was a shrewd-looking, brown-bearded, weather-worn man, with ‘North country’ printed everywhere on his face. There was a curious twinkle in his eyes, which accorded, perhaps, ill with the serious cast of the lower part of his face. A kindly smile lit up his face as he caught sight of Kate, —

‘Ah, good marnin’, miss,’ he said, as he touched his hat.

And she answered, —

‘Good morning, Ben,’ she said. ‘This is my cousin, Mr Hollebone.’

And the keeper said, —

‘Good marnin’, sir.’

‘We were just coming to borrow a gun of you,’ Kate said. ‘My cousin wants to shoot with Mr Ryves before lunch, and the guns up at the Hall want seeing to a little before they’ll be fit to use. You’ll have to come up for them.’

The keeper looked delighted.

‘Run, lad,’ he said to his son, ‘run awhoam as fast as thi legs can carry the’ and fetch th’ new goon an’ some cartridges. Yo’ known the number. Awe reckon yo’ll be goin’ to shut deawn by the coppice, sir? An’ Mr Ryves’ll be bringin’ his own beaters? Are yo’ beawn any furrer wi’ Miss Kate to’rds the village, sir?’

But Kate, who had by this time left his arm, refused his company steadfastly, saying that he must not keep Mr Ryves waiting on any account, and she turned her back resolutely on him and walked towards the village. The keeper thereupon turned towards Hollebone.

‘Well, sir,’ he said, ‘awe reckon since yo’ve got yo’r leggin’s on yo’ll not be mindin’ a tramp through the snow wheer it lays a little deep across the hollow. It’ll save us a goodish bit o’ t’ road, and awe’d like wi’ your permission to cross t’ spinney at t’ hind end. Awe tho’t awe heerd shuttin’ last neet down that away, but it were such a frightful night wi’t’ snaw an’ all, and it didn’t seem beawn to tak’ oop at all, an’ so, as awe didn’t feel sure for certain, awe didn’t think it worth mi while.’

They turned into the snow, and for a time the keeper was silent, until Hollebone happened by chance to ask him what sort of a landlord Mr Ryves was, and the man’s face lit up with an expression of honest pleasure, as North country faces will do when they speak of a man they like out and out, and he burst into a panegyric of Mr Ryves that showed that Mr Ryves was enshrined in his heart at least.

‘Th’ Squire is as good a lonlord an’ as kind a mon as you’ll find in a week’s journey. We say that, what wi’ your aunt and Mr Kasker-Ryves, the poor in the village live a great deal better than we ‘at addle our own livin’s. Miss Kate and Mr Ryves’s housekeeper are for ever in the village wi’ soups an’ jellies an’ suchlike mak’ o’ works. Now, Squire Bampton’s very different. He’s a regular skinflint, and squeezes for his rents, an’ never lets tuppence out of his pocket when a penny’d do; and Lord Tatton is as bad, though they say that’s along of his lordship’s bein’ very hard up, and then his lordship don’t live here but up in London somewhere, and his overseer squeezes like Owd Harry. Not but what the young lord is a nice outspoken young felly, and they say he’s goin’ to marry a furriner—’Merican, I think, with plenty of money, so some o’ that may come into the estate. Here we are, sir, and here’s the Squire.’ They had just turned the edge of the copse. ‘And there’s his lordship too — they’ve got a brace already.’

Mr Kasker-Ryves nodded cheerfully to them as they came up.

‘Here you are,’ he said. ‘Let me introduce Lord Tatton.’

Lord Tatton looked at him, and held out his hand with a smile of recognition.

‘How do, Holly, old boy?’ he said cheerfully.

Hollebone shook his hand, but it was plain to see that he did not recognise his interlocutor. ‘Glad to make your acquaintance,’ he said. His lordship looked surprised.

‘Come, this is too doosid cool of you,’ siderin’ how mashed you used to be on my sister. How de do, Stinkey? P’r’aps you’ll remember me now? How much for sulphuretted hydrogen?’

A light burst on Hollebone, and a smile rippled his face.

‘Why, it’s you, Bobby,’ he said. ‘Blowed if I knew you, what with the handle to your name
and
your moustache.’

‘Flattering to me, ain’t it, Mr Ryves, considerin’ he and me was at school together. Shared studies at Rugby, an’ all that sort of thing, doncher know?’

At that moment a hare ran out of the thicket, and as no one was ready for it except Mr Ryves, that veteran took it beautifully, though to be sure it was an easy shot, and the little creature rolled head over heels, with a piteous squeal, and lay kicking, sending the powdery snow flying in spraylike showers.

‘Run and kill the little beggar,’ he said calmly to the keeper, and then, turning to the other two, ‘Well, young men,’ he said, ‘I don’t think much of your sportsmanship — neither of you ready.’

‘Well, I’ve only just come up, and—’

But at that moment a burst of assorted game came out from the underwood, and all six of their barrels told, for the shots were easy and close.

‘Good business,’ said his lordship. ‘Wish it wasn’t so jolly cold, though — sorter freezes a feller through, ‘specially as I’m supposed to be recruiting from typhoid, doncher know?’

‘Poor fellow,’ said Hollebone sympathetically, ‘you look like it,’ and indeed his lordship looked remarkably ruddily healthy.

‘Tell you what it is, Squire, your young friend — that’s what he called you, Holly — your young friend wants sitting upon; he ain’t sympathetic enough with interesting invalids.’

‘Talking about invalids,’ Mr Ryves said, ‘I’m sorry I can’t ask you both over to lunch, but my wife is far from well. In fact I almost think I will go back and see how she is. I called at the doctor’s myself this morning, and left word for him to come on and see her, but he hadn’t been when I came down here. You must excuse me, but don’t let me interrupt your shooting. If you give the game to my keeper, he will send it up to the Castle and the Manor.’

‘Hope it’s nothing serious with Mrs Ryves,’ said his lordship, and Mr Ryves answered, —

‘Oh, no; I think she took a cold driving home last night. A touch of the influenza maybe,’ and he walked off homewards, looking as he went across the snow every inch a grand gentleman of the old school.

‘Tell you what it is, Stinkey,’ said his lordship, ‘I vote we chuck it up too and go home. P’raps your aunt’ll give me a drink. Anyhow, I’ll go round your way on the chance of it. Got any coin for the beaters? I haven’t got a sou in my pocket.’