Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (48 page)

I first met Muriel

In the Escurial

it wouldn’t be true, ‘cos I met her in San Francisco.’

Hollebone could stand it no longer, and laughed outright ‘Things are not what they seem, doncher know?’ he said cheerfully; ‘people who go in for art want plenty of brains, not like you and me, if you’ll excuse my rudeness.’

For a moment his lordship looked straight at his friend, with a world of meditation in his eyes. They were still standing at the gate, and the snow lay more thickly piled where they were, for the wind had blown it into a drift ‘Tell you what it is, Holly, me boy,’ said he suddenly, ‘I don’t know what you feel like, but my feet are gettin’ doosid cold. If you don’t mind, I’ll just walk on while you’re leaning against that gate, ‘cos, jokin’ apart, I really am rather shaky after the fever I had in New York.’

Hollebone stood up straight, with a start.

‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, ‘I was thinking.’

‘Were you now?’ said his lordship; ‘and what were you thinking of?’

‘I was thinking of her,’ said Hollebone.

‘Really now,’ his friend replied. ‘And what was her name? You know you ain’t half confidential enough after all I’ve told you.’

‘Well, it’s Edith Ryland,’ said Hollebone.

‘Eh?’ said his lordship, feeling quite scared. ‘
What’s
the name?’

‘Edith Ryland. Why, do you know her?’ asked Hollebone.

‘Not exactly — that is, I met her once at a hop. Rather like one of Rossetti’s pictures, only she don’t wear her hair long, and it isn’t red. That’s the style, ain’t it?’

Hollebone nodded.

‘You’ve about struck it,’ he said simply, not being given to rhapsodising out loud.

‘Good Lord!’ said his lordship to himself.

‘Now I can understand why Mrs Ryves looks so pale and is taken ill suddenly. Tell you what it is, this bloke’ll be committin’ suicide if I don’t look after him. I know I would if that were to happen to me. Poor gal, they must have sold her at home to that old beast, though he ain’t a beast neither. I s’pose it ain’t his fault. Holly don’t seem to know anything about it neither. I’m awfly sorry for him — awf’ly. He is a good feller, though perhaps he’s rather stiff. He said something about being ruined too. Wonder what he meant? I s’pose it’ll come out sooner or later, but I really must look after him and see he don’t find out about her being married. Old Ryves might die even before he did if I’m careful, though the girl looks rather as if she’d go off the hooks before him, poor old boy. It’s rather hard lines for him too, ‘cos he seems awfully fond of her. I know I should feel awful bad if I thought Muriel loved some other feller and only married me for the title. I know what I’ll do,’ and he said aloud, —

‘I say, Holly, what engagements have you got for the next three weeks?’

Hollebone answered, —

‘Well, I’m going down to Dymchurch the day after to-morrow, just to see someone. I shall probably come back the same day, and then it just depends how long I shall be free.’

‘Well, look here, old boy,’ said his lordship, ‘I’m going to hang on to you just as long as you’re here, whether you like it or not. Otherwise I don’t know what might happen to me. Young Ryves might come down and make me go to the devil again.’

Hollebone smiled.

‘I’m sure I’ve no objection to it,’ he said.

‘Only I don’t know what my aunt will say to your continually dragging me away, to say nothing of the fact that I’m awfully in the dumps just now, and you’ll find me very dull.’

‘What’s gone wrong with your works?’ asked his lordship artfully. ‘Won’t the girl have you?’

‘No, it isn’t that,’ Hollebone replied; ‘but the matter is simply that I’m ruined, absolutely cleaned out. Haven’t got a penny in this world that I can call my own. Well, of course, I don’t mind that’ — his lordship groaned—’ but Edith’s parents won’t let her marry me, doncher see? and of course as she’s still a minor she can’t do it, and so I’ve got to wait a couple of years, and even then I don’t see how I can manage it. In the meanwhile I’ve promised not to see her or speak about her until then, and so you must keep it dark y’know. So you can just guess how I feel, because I’m fifty times more in love than you are, and I haven’t seen her for nearly four months.’

His lordship said, —

‘Poor beggar, I pity you,’ and he meant it. ‘But what are you going to do to get a living?

I s’pose you can’t become a rook if you want to marry and settle down?’

Hollebone smiled.

‘I don’t know whether you really want to insult me particularly,’ he said. ‘No, I’m not going to become a rook. I’m just going to become an ordinary country doctor. Pleasant prospect, ain’t it?’

His lordship, however, said, —

‘Well, I don’t know. If you love your girl as much as I love Muriel, you’d be content to go about the world with a barrel-organ if only you could go with her. I say, old boy, are you very hard up? I can lend you three or four hundred if you like. They might last you a month y’know, and I’m rather flush just at present.’ But Hollebone refused the offer.

‘I s’pose,’ his lordship went on, ‘you’ve come down to cultivate your aunt here. She’s got plenty of ‘oof — half a milion at least, I should say, counting the estate — and I s’pose you want some sort of a pickin’ out of it. I tell you what it is, your aunt’s a doosid good old lady — she is, ‘pon my word. When she heard I was down here all alone she gave me a sort of general permission to make the Hall my home if I found the Castle too dull for me. I haven’t done it as yet, ‘cos I’m rather afraid of your aunt, to tell the truth, but I’m goin to drop in with you to-day. Tell you what it is, your cousin (I s’pose she is your cousin) is an awf’ly pretty girl. I wonder you don’t fall in love with her, then you’d get the money between you for sure.’

Hollebone smiled.

‘There are two objections, I think, to that plan. In the first place, I don’t want Kate, and in the second Kate don’t want me, and besides—’

‘How do, my lord?’ a voice came from behind them, and the identical Miss Kate was standing there smiling and holding out her hand to the young lord.

‘How do, Miss Kate?’ said that nobleman, nowise abashed. ‘I was just telling your cousin that I’m coming up to the Hall to take pot-luck, since your aunt has been kind enough to give me a sort of general invitation, doncher know?’

Kate smiled.

‘I dessay you’ll get plenty to eat if Cousin Clement has always such a small appetite as he had last night. I think he must be in love, my lord.’

‘Think so?’ Hollebone answered calmly.

‘Yes, I think so. Oh, by-the-bye, I met Dr Long in the village, and he said he had just been to see Mrs Ryves, and that she seemed to be suffering from influenza and nervous prostration.’

‘Queer thing that for such a young girl to suffer from,’ said Hollebone cynically.

‘Yes, isn’t it?’ Kate replied. ‘It doesn’t look like a love match, does it — anyhow, at least on the bride’s part, though everyone says that Mr Kasker-Ryves is most devoted. He is such a good man; but money will buy anything — except love.’

‘Oh, come,’ said his lordship more earnestly than was his wont, ‘what’s the use of pulling a poor girl’s character to pieces — she hasn’t done anyone any harm? Why should you do it, you know?’

‘Hello, Bobby,’ said Hollebone jocularly, ‘what’s the matter with you? I never knew you stand up for anyone before. It’s lucky Mr Ryves is not of a jealous disposition or we might find you one morning stuck through the weasand. It’s just as plain as a pikestaff that the girl has either been forced into marrying him, or else she’s done it simply for the money — probably six of one and half-a-dozen of the other — and all the while she’s in love with some young fool, and now she’s beginning to find it rather dull, or the old boy doesn’t hop the twig as fast as she’d like. That’s about the sum total of the matter.’

‘Them’s my sentiments,’ said Kate, casting a laughing glance towards Hollebone, and all the while he was thinking, ‘What a mean wretch he is to kick a poor girl when she’s down like that. Now, I like the lord much better for standing up for her, even though it
does
look a little fishy, after he’s been hanging about there all last week.’

But his lordship was saying gravely, —

‘I don’t think anyone who knew Mr Kasker-Ryves could wish him dead.’

And in that all three concurred, for to know Mr Kasker-Ryves was to love him.

But the three went into the house, and were received with effusion by Miss Hallbyne.

During the lunch Lord Tatton was unusually silent and thoughtful, but Kate and Hollebone kept up a lively flow of conversation.

The poor little girl was beginning to hate her cousin with remarkable intensity, for she had realised but too well that, try as she might, it was useless; he seemed determined not to care for her, and her heart was beginning to ache at her non-success, and when a heart begins to ache in two days, what will it do in a fortnight? One must needs feel sorry for her, even though it was her own fault, but she wept very bitterly the night before he went away, and treated him very, very coldly when he said good-bye. And, of course, the moral is, that it’s just as well to find out whether one’s own heart is quite proof against everything before entering into schemes of a perilous kind.

Lord Tatton laughed outright when the Ryves’ annual tenants’ ball had to be put off on account of Mrs Kasker-Ryves’ illness.

‘Hollebone seems to be doosid fond of making girls ill, but I wonder how he’ll feel himself, poor fellow, when he finds out. I’m awfly sorry for him — awf’ly. And I’m sorry for the girl too; she must be wretched.’

In the whole country-side he was the only one who had a good word for poor Edith, and, indeed, what could they find to say good about it? If one makes mistakes, even though when very young, they must be paid for with tears and lamentations.

But everyone pitied poor Mr Kasker-Ryves.

CHAPTER VI
.

Despair is Hope just dropped asleep

For better chance of dreaming. — Blackmore.

VERILY the ways of Providence are inscrutable,’ or at least that was the opinion of Lord Tatton on the morning that he drove with Hollebone to the station. Needless to say, his lordship did not express himself in those exact words, because I doubt whether his vocabulary contained so abstruse a word as ‘inscrutable,’ but he meant to think it, express it how he would.

For here had Hollebone been for three whole weeks, within sound of cockcrow from the house of his beloved, nay, had even lunched within her walls, in a country-side where she and her husband formed the staple topic of gossip after the inevitable meteorological remarks — he had spoken of her a hundred times, and yet despite it all he was blissfully ignorant of the real facts of the case.

The time of his sojourn at Blackstone Edge had passed over, and he felt that his life of idleness was for ever over, and gone irrevocably, and through his veins ran the joy of vigour and strength of labour, and his being tingled at the thought that each hour that he passed in toil would bring him nearer to Edith, and that it would be by his own merits that he would have gained her, and not through the toiling and moiling of his or her forefathers. Thus it cast almost a damp on his enthusiasm when Cheetham, the lawyer, for whom his aunt had sent
(Poor Kate),
and who was, moreover, his own legal adviser, informed him, with a twinkle in his grey eyes, that the creditors of Hollebone, Clarkson & Co. seemed more amenable to conciliation, inasmuch as through his, Mr Cheetham’s, unremittent efforts several claims for insurance had been disallowed in actions at law, and that he, for his part, saw now additional reasons against the step which Hollebone insisted on taking, although he, for his part, deprecated it most strongly. And Aunt Joan joined her entreaties to Mr Cheetham’s after that gentleman had taken his departure. She had from the first been averse to his leaving her at all, and would gladly have had him live at the Hall with her until she died.

‘Where was the good,’ she said, ‘of a young man who, in any case’ — she took care to emphasise this phrase—’would be worth between five and six thousand a year in a comparatively short time, where was the good of his burying himself in a country village when he might easily snap up a wife with an income of nearly the same amount, and settle down and live happily for the rest of his life?’

And Aunt Joan, with her simple acuteness, noticed that Hollebone blushed, and she was mightily pleased thereat. But, to tell the truth, Lord Tatton had made that very suggestion to him the same morning, and it may be that one reason that Hollebone was so anxious to get away from the Hall was that, to his horror and alarm, he had found on reflection and inward self-communing that he was not as entirely indifferent to his beautiful cousin as was compatible with his love for Edith, and like his friend Lord Tatton he decided to flee the temptation ingloriously. He began now to understand why it was that his cousin always flushed when he spoke to her, and why at other times she was so silent and her fair face so overcast. If that was what had come about in three weeks, what would happen in three months? In fact Hollebone began to get quite conceited, nevertheless he thought it better not to brave the danger.

Therefore poor Miss Hallbyne, in whom, as in the English race, sentimentalism lurks predominant, subcutaneous — for our subtlety and schism is but skin deep, protest how we will — Miss Hallbyne must perforce forego the company of Clement, who from very strength of old associations had grown to be almost the apple of her eye. And I have little doubt that the poor old lady, stiff and starched as she was, cried a little the night before he departed, for the sight of him had caused the return to her mind of an old, sweet sorrow, and she had grown old and feeble, and her frame was ill able to stand even the shadow, falling thus after long years, of a passion that had once moved her in her most occult being.

But despite the advice of the lawyer, the evident grief of his aunt, the ill-concealed love of his cousin, and the saturnine hints of the peer, Hollebone stood firm in his resolve, and his friend determined to see him through with it, or as he said, he wanted to keep straight for just two days more, ‘cos then Muriel would be in London and he would be all right.

Therefore, in the early grey of the morning, they drove off from the Hall, over the snow-covered country into the cloud-veiled future. But though the morning had been white-grey from its earliness when they had set out, when they reached the end of their rail journey, and yet they had eight miles to go, it was already sunset, rose-grey in the west, and eastwards yellow-grey, with moonrise through the mist, and the greynesses met in a circle round the horizon, but overhead the sky-blue darkened from the earth towards the peak of heaven, and above the mist the stars showed pale, the large ones each with a ring or halo around it, and the small ones glinting but seldom as they caught the eye. Around, the earth was white with its mantle of snow, save where the wind had blown away the covering from the hedgerows, leaving black gaps therein, or where the white of the roadway was soiled with slight traffic of carts and men.

Blythborough is a town whose prosperity has long since gone to the grave, and ‘
Ichabod
’ been written all over it. Nothing remains to bear witness to its former greatness but a great grey gaunt church and the ruins of an old monastery, that throw up great shafts of solid masonry to heaven. There is, too, an old, old inn, with a great oak ceiling to one of its rooms, and an old, old oak staircase, which seem to cry with every creak, ‘Yes, yes, say what you will. We can dream of beauties long in the grave, and of the old time, long before yours, when England was merry England.’

To this inn it was that Hollebone and his friend proceeded in the vain hope of finding a conveyance on to Dymchurch. Mine host refused, and very reasonably too, to saddle his ox or his ass or anything that was his.

‘Eight mile to Dymchurch, and eight mile back, and the horse can only go at a walking pace for fear of falling. That means five hours, and in this bitter cold never a man can do it, let alone a horse; and there’ll be a frost this night such as never was in England before. If you want to get there you’ll have to walk it. You can leave your luggage here, and I will send it on by the carrier in the morning for you. Not that I should advise you to try the walk. It won’t be very dark to-night, but you might quite easily lose the road, for in places there are no hedgerows, and the snow lies thick.’

But nothing would suit them both but that they must set forth on the walk, snow or no snow, cold or no cold, and so, having refreshed and paid, they travelled on at a good stride, significant of steadfastness of purpose. The earth hugged itself under its covering, and trees took strange forms in the misty middle distance — nor was there man, beast, nor bird abroad to testify that aught would ever come to life again, and in truth there was little to tell that anything had ever lived save the forms of dead songbirds that here and there lined the hedges. Then must the traveller on the road, perforce, adopt a swift pace from very strength of the cold, neither heed in his haste the slippery places of the road, but passing, with whatsoever luck God vouchsafe him, over all alike; and bad it is for him if he be not warmly clad from tip of toe to end of nose. Neither cares he much to converse with his fellow, lest in turning his head to one side he uncover an ear that now is sheltered warmly by the collar of his coat, but he keeps his face as steadfastly fixed whitherward he goes, and gets in anticipation what joy he can from the warm fireside that awaits him at his journey’s end.

‘I say, Holly, old boy,’ said his lordship suddenly, ‘did you ever read anything by Daudet the Frenchman, doncher know?’

‘Why, yes, I’ve read the immortal Tartarin’s adventures,’ Hollebone replied.

‘No, I don’t mean those,’ said his lordship; ‘they’re funny. As a general rule one’s apt to read French novels when one wants something a little fishy, or at least I used to, you know. I don’t do it since — since I knew her.

But, you know, lately I’ve been tryin’ to read some books, and so I went to a feller who I knew knew all about ‘em and asked him to lend me some’ at it’d do a chap good to read, and among ‘em was one by Daudet.
Lettres de mon Moulin
, I think he called’ em, and in ‘em was a short story that this landscape here, with the snow and stars, reminded me of,’ cos it’s like a picture of the birth of Christ. It was about a couple of Provençal recruits who were dying in a hospital on Christmas day, somewhere in the north of France, in the time of the war, you know, and one of ‘em sings a song, a carol, or something that ends up —

Bergers,

Prenez vos conges,

and then he dies — but it’s so lovely you’ve no idea. I read it to Muriel, and she cried outright over it, she did, and it almost made
me
feel bad. It was just the look of the snow and those hills behind us made me think it was like Christmas time, an’ so the thing came into my mind, you see.’

‘Funny,’ said Hollebone reflectively, ‘but those same bells made me think of New Year, although we’re nearly into February now. Edith used to sing something about bells ringing out to the sky. Tennyson I think it was.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring out the false, ring in the true,

and it goes on about, “Ring out the something lust for gold.” And it always seemed so funny that she should sing about “lust for gold,” or about falseness either, for that matter, because she never cared a bit about money.’

‘Poor fellow,’ said his lordship to himself, ‘how he
would
squirm if he knew the truth; but I don’t see how he’s to find out about it until poor old Ryves dies, and then it’ll be all right again. Holly never seems to think about anything or anyone else but that girl.’

As a matter of fact, he never did see anything — a house, a sparrow, a toothbrush, or what you will — without its in some way bringing to his mind the form of his beloved; and round his heart there lay an aching pain and a sense of great void throughout his being, of longing unfulfilled and solitariness.

And so in due time they reached the scene of his future labours; and he secured at once the goodwill of his partner from the fact that he was the cause of a real live lord’s sleeping under his roof, that peer being my Lord Tatton, whom Dr Hammond would by no means suffer to depart to an hotel, because one does not enjoy the privilege of having an earl’s son under one’s roof every day — at least so thought Dr Hammond.

A most ordinary little grey man was this Dr Hammond, with ordinary little crotchets about the discipline of his children and his liver, for he had served with his regiment in India, and had done good service among the wounded in a hill expedition, in which he had himself been struck down by cholera, and he had been forced to invalid himself, with a small pension, in the late summer of his life, having saved just enough to buy a practice, which by careful nursing he had contrived to render very valuable. And then, being nearly half a century old, he had taken to himself a wife, who had died, leaving him with three young children. Therefore he had found it necessary, in order to be able to spare the time for the children’s education, to advertise for a partner, who was to have the reversion of the practice at his death.

This was the life-history of Hollebone’s partner, and quiet as it was the advent of a real lord into the bosom of his family caused a great flutter therein.

Mary Ann was ordered to wash the children and put on their best things at once, and they made their appearance looking, painfully neat and clean, a short time later.

The doctor had just finished a disquisition on tiger shooting, and the scion of the house, who might have been rising eight, thought fit to inform his lordship with perfect confidence that, ‘If I saw a tiger I wouldn’t be a bit afraid.’

‘Wouldn’t you now?’ asked his lordship interestedly.

‘Oh, Bobby,’ said his sister, ‘you runned away from a little dog yesterday what wasn’t no bigger van my foot.’

‘Well, but ve dog wanted to baïte me, an’ a tiger wouldn’t baïte.’

Dr Hammond, whose sudden choler had effectually choked him until this moment, now broke this interesting conversation.

‘Gandon!’ he said sharply, imitating the voice wherewith a captain of horse shouts at his troop, ‘if you speak another word this evening without being spoken to, you go to bed, and you too, Maud.’