Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (49 page)

The time appointed for the children’s departure, as a rule, was eight of the clock, but not one of them for many weeks’ time ever reached that hour of the day without being sent to bed for some misdemeanour or other — in fact, the only days they did reach it were when the doctor either dined out or happened not to be able to get back from his afternoon round in time for dinner. Master Gandon held his peace, therefore, and for a time he employed a blissful immunity from paternal reproof, or if the reproofs existed they only had their being in fulminating scowls and black glances, and he and his sister cut their potatoes with knives, bit their bread, and even drank with their mouths full, shielded from castigation by the presence of the lord at the dinner-table. Now it happened that at the end of a long disquisition from Dr Hammond, going to prove that the liver was at the bottom of every human disease and evil, and that, from a careful analysis of the
Newgate Calendar
and ‘history of all the malcontents that ever were hung,’ he had come to the conclusion that never a crime had been, but that the temper of the criminal-committent had been soured by the badness of his liver. This disquisition being at an end, it happened that
Es flog ein Engel durch das
Zimmer
, that is to say, a silence fell on the room. And since that silence was oppressive to Lord Tatton he made haste to end it by saying to Gandon, out of kindness of heart and sheer geniality towards children, —

‘Well, old boy, and what were you thinking of?’ for Master Gandon had been eyeing him and reflectively analysing him from out his blue eyes.

‘I was finking,’ he remarked slowly, ‘vat your nails haven’t got black sands under vem like Mary Ann’s.’

His lordship collapsed dismally, for the remark seemed to be intended disparagingly, and Mary Ann disappeared suddenly from the room. But Dr Hammond, fiercely, and with more emphasis than the remark seemed to need, said, —

‘Gandon, go and see if the parlour window is shut.’

And Gandon also disappeared, to reappear also no more that evening. Such are the wiles of parents. Moreover, Maud, having made a great discovery, was unable, in spite of her utmost endeavour, to refrain from imparting it to her father’s noble guest, much to his suffused confusion.

‘Oh,’ she said, with her mouth and eyes wide open, ‘oh, you’ve got pomade on your hair, and pa says, “Ve putting of grease on ve hair is a d — d un-san-i-tary practice.”’

‘Maud,’ said her father, his eyes rolling most frightfully to see, ‘go and ask the cook what that smell of burning is.’

Nevertheless, no smell of burning was perceptible, but neither was Maud thereafter.

All things must come to an end, as Dr Hammond reluctantly confessed, even conversing with a lord, and doubly so when that lord is tired and sleepy and would take it kindly if they would but let him go to rest. But nothing would suit the doctor but that they must sit and smoke before the fire whilst he discoursed to them of love and matrimony, saying, ‘Wait till ye come to sixty year,’ and they looked the one at the other, and were loth to disturb with contention the peace of the fireside and the repose after snowy travel. Therefore were they content to pity the old man’s foolish contempt for love, and hold their peace, looking at the fire and taking mighty comfort at thought of the cold without and the warmth within their own hearts and the hearts of their beloved, and the faces of their beloved rose before them in the wreaths of the smoke from their pipes as it writhed upwards.

But at last, after the fashion of those commonplace and querulous old men, who must give to others the benefit of their experiences and thoughts, Dr Hammond, having run himself out, was fain to let them go to their rooms above. Here the air struck cold on entry, despite the fires which burned bravely, with crackling of red embers, yet were they glad without more ado to doff their clothes in cold and shivering haste, thrusting themselves between the sheets, yet shuddering at the contact, and praying that the bed might soon be warm, till from his fatigue of walking, and with little thought of future hidden woes and cares, each one fell, without more waiting, into deep and dreamless sleep, and the moonlight, slowly moving, threw strange shadows on the floor, through the diamond-shaped casements — tangled shadows intermingled like the nets that Fate had woven for their loves and them.

In the morning they woke, marvelling at the lightness of the rooms, which the snow lit up from the ground below, and at the strength of the cold, which had frozen the water in their jugs, and on descent to the breakfast-room they found the children already at their places, and their bibs, each with a suitable proverb, tucked under their rosy chins; and each of the little girls descended from her place and held up her face inviting kisses, and Hollebone noticed that the elder of the two had eyes like Edith’s, and perhaps for that reason he kissed her twice on her chubby cheek and felt happy thereat; but his lordship’s feelings were by no means the same — for one reason, he did not observe any resemblance between Muriel’s eyes and any of the three pairs that he knew were scrutinising him with all the uncompromising criticism of childhood. However, Dr Hammond descended before they had time to fulminate any crushing observations on his lordship’s ways and manners.

Dr Hammond’s respect for the title had by no means diminished by force of being slept over, and he gave himself unheard-of pains to further the convenience of his guest ‘If your lordship is determined to leave to-day there is a convenient train at about two forty-five from Blythborough which will land you in London at about seven.’

‘That will suit me very well,’ said his lordship.

‘If so I can take Mr Hollebone round and introduce him to my patients that live near here, so as to be home in time for an early dinner, and then I can make my rounds over towards Blythborough in the afternoon, and drive your lordship there in time to catch the train, that is if you don’t mind an open dogcart. It will be cold, but better than walking anyhow, and you won’t be able to get anything in the village here to-day. The weather is far too bad.’

‘I shall be delighted,’ said his guest, ‘if it will not be disturbing you at all.’

‘Oh, on the contrary,’ said the doctor, rubbing his hands. ‘Ah! here is the breakfast.’ And they were glad to sit down to the table and eat heartily of the homely fare the doctor had provided, for the coldness of the morning air, felt already in their bedrooms, had given them a feeling as of great void within, which hot coffee, with golden eggs and crisped fizzing bacon collops, white bread, pale butter, hard though it were from the cold overnight, would go well towards counteracting, and it was with a feeling of thankful repletion that they rose at last, with great hopes for pleasure in the coming day.

For Hollebone the future was still all
couleur de rose.
The briskness of the breeze and the feeling on the air of the closeness of the sea, together with the excitement of rapid movement, cheered him as he drove through the snowclad country. The sun hung over the sea, showing through the frost-mist like a yellow gold coin, neither was it hurtful for the eyes to gaze upon. To be sure he was well received by all the people to whom his partner introduced him, for was it not well known that the new doctor had failed for goodness knows how many million, and that he was the nephew of a rich old Yorkshire lady, who might well leave him as many more, and that he had travelled down to Dymchurch accompanied by a real lord, some said a duke. All this and much more was already known about Hollebone, and insured him an excellent reception from everyone. And so after Lord Tatton had gone, and while a week was passing away, Hollebone had his hands very full of work, and very popular he was at that, for his patients found his manner pleasing and ingratiating, and the other doctors of the neighbourhood ground their teeth as they saw their patients desert them, and advertised each for a partner. And the very weight of the work was pleasing to him, for it was mighty consoling to feel at the end of a day’s heavy work, when he could sit with his slippers on and warm himself, glancing ever and anon for comfort in his loneliness at little Maud’s eyes, that he was twenty-four hours nearer to Edith, and in the cosiness his melancholy felt itself incongruous and fled, leaving place in his mind for warmer hopes and dreams. And in truth the children, with their quaint ways of viewing things and little complaints of woe, when their father was not by to awe them, were to him the cause of much pleasure, and he would put himself to some trouble to improvise games with them or tell them tales, which he found no easy task, for their ignorance of things which to him were most simple made him be at much pains to explain incomprehensibilities to them and to adapt his tellings to their minds, so that a great bond was growing up between them.

But the time of the thaw being come, ushered in with a great fall of rain, first honeycombed the surface of the snow, and thereafter caused great running together of waters in the hollows, and showed the imperfections of the land, which before had gleamed pure and white, but which now lay black and sodden, open to the view when the fog veiled it not, and the roads grew heavy with mire, fat and unctuous, bespattering the legs and belly of a horse even up to the saddlebow. Moreover, the air was moist and thickly cloying, trying to both soul and body.

Then it was that the work began to increase for Hollebone, even when the change in the weather rendered it the heavier to perform, for in the early year, after the passing of the great frosts, the country there around is at its worst for health, being damp and low lying by the sea, which is indeed only withheld by dykes in places, and in those times ague and rheums are rife owing to the moisture. Now it may have been the prevalence of dampness in the air or the thickness of the fog which, keeping a man’s eyes from seeing the things that are around him, must needs turn his thoughts on the things that are within him. Be that as it may, a feeling of desolation and utter hopelessness came upon him as he rode that day — a feeling that, try as he would, he could never win his beloved, and even of mistrust in her love for him, a thing that had never come into his mind before. But that day everything seemed to point to despair. His patients themselves, from the very strength of the bad weather, had either fared worse or those that were recovering recovered not so fast as they should. Thus it came to pass that he rode down the hill that leads from Southwold, for thus far he had penetrated along by the sea to the river where the ferry crosses, with a raft on chains for cattle. Arrived at the ferry, he stood and shouted to the men on the other side to come over and take him across. Either they did not hear him or else they would not heed him, preferring the snugness of the ingle nook to the damp yellow without, and Hollebone, in black fury at their neglect, and not relishing a ride of ten miles extra round by Blythborough, where the nearest bridge is, rode his horse at the river. The unwilling animal held its nose down and sniffed reluctantly at the swirling water, looking at it fearfully with its large eyes, after the manner of horses; but Hollebone urging it more, it swerved and started back suddenly, until he, losing his temper at the delay, forced it willy-nilly — for his hand was heavy and his spurs long when he was of that mind — into the stream, until the unwilling animal bounded at it madly, not feeling the way carefully with its fore feet as a horse should do. Nevertheless, the river being neither deep nor at the time wide, for luckily the tide was running up, not down, with the swelling of the snows, the crossing was not difficult, for there were perhaps not more than four yards where the horse was altogether off his feet and the flood gurgled over the holsters. Yet it was with a feeling of disagreeable wetness in his lower limbs that he reached the other side, and in his heat of temper, reckless of consequences, put his horse at the top of its speed. The poor animal held out very well for the first four or it may be five miles, but within forty yards of the fifth mile-post its pace became more laboured, and within the quarter mile it had come to a dead halt, with its legs stretched far asunder and its breath coming hot and fast straight down from its nostrils earthwards, and Hollebone recognised the unpleasant necessity of walking, either on his own legs or by means of the horse’s, the remaining four miles, for the quadruped could not, spur as he would, adopt a faster pace than a broken trot. Therefore he dismounted with much groaning, as a tired man will do, and holding the reins behind him, he tramped dismally forward through the fog and greasy mire, and once being down, he knew from the dire experience of dismounting that he would never have the courage to mount again, such was the stiffness of the joints that the wet had already caused to manifest itself. At last, after much cursing of his unlucky fate, he reached home, and giving the horse up to the stableman, to use that functionary’s expressive diction, ‘He swore at me so dreffle’ at it quite beat Dr Hammond holler, and he’s a good ‘un at it too.’ In the hall Gandon met him.

‘Pa’s gone over to Lady Ridley’s,’ he said, ‘an’ here’s a lettter for you, an’ vere’s a lady and gentleman waiting for you in ve ‘sulting-room. Vey’ve been here ever since ve dinner-tai’me, ‘cos you’re so late — and vey aren’t patients, an’ vey want to see you.’

Hollebone swore more veiled curses under his breath, in reverence for childhood.