Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (54 page)

His son nodded.

‘Yes. She’ll have a pretty poor time of it — at least her reputation will — and it
is
rather rough on her, because she’s so young. But I don’t think you need be afraid of anything, at least from what I saw of her, if I’m any judge of character.’

Mr Ryves laughed once more.

‘You’ve judged it well enough this time at least,’ he said. ‘What was the other fellow’s name?’

‘Oh, he — that was young Hollebone. Hollebone, Clarkson & Co. They smashed some time last year.’

‘Young Hollebone was down here along with Lord Tatton the other day,’ he said.

The young man looked at his father in amazement, but Mr Ryves spoke again before his son could say anything.

‘Oh, there was nothing in that. He knew nothing at all about who Edith was — never even saw her. He is the nephew of Miss Hallbyne at the Hall, and he just came down to visit her. My wife was taken ill with the influenza on the day he arrived, and has been in bed ever since, until to-day.’

‘I don’t wonder,’ said his son. ‘If I—’

But Mr Ryves’s sharp ears at that moment caught the sound of a slight crackling in the cane lounge.

‘She’s waking up,’ he said to himself.

‘Now I must mind,’ and he interrupted his son.

‘That’ll do now on that subject. But while we are talking about reputations I may as well say that I am deeply grieved to hear that yours is none of the best. In fact, to all intents and purposes you appear to have no morals or decency of any kind.’

The young man flushed a deep purple and said very angrily, —

‘Who the devil has been telling you that?’ Mr Ryves shrugged his shoulders.

‘Why, everyone in the world knows it. Now I don’t care two pins about the morals of the matter. You may commit any crime or excess, or indulge in any debauchery you like, so far as I’m concerned, that is, as far as the moral side of it reaches. But, my dear son, you have an unlimited income, and I must insist on your employing it to cover your misdeeds. You can have as much money as you like, but never let any of your peccadilloes get to people’s ears, more especially the escapade that made it necessary for you to leave your regiment.’

The young man scowled fearfully for a moment, and then laughed.

‘Yes, that did look rather fishy, and it did me entirely, and the worst of it was that the whole thing was a practical joke of Tatton’s. He got a woman and a couple of children, in a most frightful state of rags, to force themselves into a ball I was at — at the Mowbrays’ you know — and insist on shrieking out for me. Of course it raised the very deuce of a scandal, in spite of everything I could do — the whole world was at the Mowbrays’ naturally. But the whole thing was one of Tatton’s sells.’

Mr Ryves nodded. He was wondering how Edith was enjoying their conversation.

‘It’s all very well, dear boy,’ he said. ‘As I’ve said before, I don’t care two pins about the morals of the case, only you must not let these things get about about yourself. It doesn’t suit me to have a son of that sort.’

The young man nodded.

‘All right,’ he said, and he looked at his father with just the suspicion of a twinkle in his eyes. ‘I suppose my sowing of wild oats is over for ever. If I’m not mistaken, my venerable ancestor did not rest from sowing until he was over forty, which was some years older than I am at present.’

Mr Kasker-Ryves laughed.

‘How do you come to know anything about it?’ he asked.

‘Oh, that was comparatively easy. There are still extant in out-of-the-way places rumours that lead one to suppose that you did not pass your life, dear father mine — well, to put it mildly, with your prayer book in your hands. But these traditions provide no exact dates, although they assure one that you kept it up to a comparatively late date, and so, just to approximate it, I imagine that you settled down about a year before my appearance on the scene. Am I not right in my conjecture?’ Mr Kasker-Ryves looked a trifle uneasy in spite of himself.

‘No — that is, yes, you are. Now, look here, dear boy, that was safe enough in those days — I mean to say no one made a fuss about it, but nowadays it is different, more especially as you want to sit for the borough. But I can assure you that but for my personal popularity you wouldn’t have the ghost of a chance to get through — you have the very devil of a reputation — and that is just what the other side will catch hold of. You really must do something to retrieve your position. Marry, or something.’ He paused as if awaiting an answer, but his son made none, and so Mr Kasker-Ryves continued. ‘I know it’s rather hard on a young man to ask him to give up that sort of thing, but still — oh dear, what good times we used to have in those days,’ he sighed. ‘I remember.’ he went on, ‘I began when I was about twenty — a little less — that was still in the time of George IV., although he was then grown too unsightly to do anything of the sort himself — but still he left a school behind, and it seems to me that the school eclipsed the master. I remember one occasion—’ And Mr Kasker-Ryves plunged forthwith into a recitation of some twenty years spent in a state of libertinism so unholy that it made his son shiver.

The young man listened to his father, slipping from one recitation to the other listened at first with the somewhat shocked feeling that a young man will have in the presence of an old man who is, so to speak, taking the wind out of his sails. It seemed to him somewhat incongruous for an old man, whose thoughts should be turned heavenwards, smacking his lips over wickednesses that had faded away into the past forty years ago, and the young man felt embarrassed and unhappy, knowing that he ought to smile and look pleased, but realising that his attempts to do so were hollow, uneasy mockeries. But as his father grew more heated and gave his dramatic and descriptive talents greater play, so that the listener could almost see the scenes, the young man positively gasped for breath, for he was a mere tyro in vice. He had been brought up by his father with the most scrupulous attention to his moral welfare, and when he sinned it had been with a due sense of the enormity of his misdeeds, and this recitation, rendered the more loathsome by the smooth, unctuous manner of the telling, caused at first a feeling of shyness, to which succeeded a sense of shuddering nausea, and then an appalling feeling that caused him to cry within himself, ‘Good God! are all men in the world such villains? Is it possible that I am the only person in all the world that struggles against my passions?’

For hitherto the young man had implicitly believed in his father’s goodness of heart, although he knew that the old gentleman had committed some excesses in early life, but the son, having known what temptation was himself, could allow for his father’s escapades; but now, when he heard the old man resuscitating these memories in such a way as to demonstrate clearly that the sins were by no means forgotten or repented of, he was horror-struck by the revelation.

At that moment a creaking of bamboo work sounded with remarkable distinctness from the next room, then the rustle of a dress, and Edith stood before them, as pale as though the death-sweat were already breaking out over her forehead, too pale for even a hectic spot to show itself. Yet not even her lips quivered, and she was perfectly selfpossessed as she walked towards the young man, with her hand outstretched.

‘How are you, Mr Ryves?’ she said. ‘I have been asleep in the—’

But her stepson was too unnerved for the moment to restrain himself.

‘Good God!’ he said, ‘you didn’t hear what my father — what we have been talking about?’

‘A hero for one of my son’s novels,’ his elder said collectedly, and at the sound of his voice Edith shuddered, and the blood rushing suddenly, into her face, she leaned against the folding - door, which gave way beneath her weight, and she fell to the floor with a heavy thud.

‘My God, she has fainted! Ring the bell for some water, Jemmy,’ and Mr Kasker-Ryves flung himself in his eagerness on her body, and in spite of his fourscore years found strength to lift her head from the floor and rest it on his knee. ‘Oh, my darling!’ he said. ‘Emma — Jackson — Parker. Damnation, why don’t you come? Jemmy, pull the bell down. Oh, thank God! she’s coming to,’ and he fell to kissing her clay-cold face as a servant entered with water.

She opened her eyes slowly, and then recognising her husband, dilated them widely as with horror and loathing.

‘Let me get up,’ she said, and her husband officiously assisted her; but once on her feet she tore herself free, and staggered for support to the table.

‘Don’t touch me,’ she said, trembling, and with chattering teeth; but seeing the servant standing in the room, she smiled vaguely, and passing her hand across her face, said with a forced laugh, ‘Oh, thank you, Parker; it was stupid of me to faint. I oughtn’t to have got up to-day. It was just a rush of blood to the head. I’ll go up to my room again.’

‘Let me help you up,’ said both father and son simultaneously.

Somewhat in spite of herself she accepted the son’s arm.

‘Send for Dr Long at once,’ Mr Ryves said to the servant.

‘No, please don’t,’ Edith answered. ‘I can manage very well by myself. It was nothing.’

‘But, my dear, you really must see the doctor,’ Mr Ryves said very gently.

‘I should prefer not,’ she answered.

‘But I insist.’

She made a mute gesture of half despair and continued her way up the stairs.

Mr Ryves recognised that the torture was working, and returned to the library in high spirits. According to Mr Ryves’s standard there is a great deal of pleasure to be had out of other people’s pain if one can inflict it oneself.

‘That idea of kissing her was an inspiration,’ he said to himself, and Edith acknowledged it to herself.

Left alone at the room door by her stepson, she dismissed her maid peremptorily, and kneeling by the bedside, buried her face in the clothes. The feeling of the counterpane was to a certain extent soothing on her hot face, but more so the power to close her eyes in darkness. As Mr Ryves had anticipated, the Giant Despair had seized on her soul — a feeling of utter hopelessness, of bowing before the Omnipotent.

‘I am body and soul in his hands, and they are hands that would defile a goddess — and what am I? And it was all my fault, mine entirely. I committed a great sin, but the punishment is greater — greater, too, than I can bear. Oh, Clem! dear Clem! you were so good, and I am fettered to this beast. But perhaps Clement was the same. Yes, that is it. My husband seemed so noble and kind, but I don’t think Clement could — but yet it must be. They are all alike. And to think of what he is, more vile than a toad, because a toad is only loathsome in form, spotted and speckled. But oh, my husband’s soul is spotted with mildewy spawn that drips contamination on those to whom he opens it. I feel, as though I’d bathed in crime myself, nearly half as loathsome as he is. And I am bound to him, and he’s my lord, and he can fondle me, and speak to me, and pet me, and kiss me, and every touch and every word must soil my soul — poor little me!’

The door had been opening noiselessly behind her, but she could not see the broadening streak of light that was stealing over the floor. Mr Ryves entered noiselessly, and standing beside her, said gently, as one would speak to a weeping child, —

‘Edith, my love, what is the matter with you?’

Silent, she rose from the bed and stood with her hands folded and head bowed, as if awaiting his command. He put his arm round her and drew her gently to him, and she never even shuddered.

‘My poor darling,’ he said, ‘what is the matter with you?’

She answered sullenly, as a slave should, —

‘Nothing is the matter with me that I know of.’

‘But tell me, my poor child, for you are a child to me, have you no secret grief that you could confide to me?’ — oh, so gently spoken.

‘What secret grief can a woman have?’ she asked, as a statue would if it could speak.

‘I thought — such things do happen — that your parents might have forced you to marry me against your will, and that you loved some younger man.’