Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (66 page)

But the other shook his head.

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ he said. ‘I am an atheist,’ and he went to sleep pondering over Julia’s words.

It is a remarkable fact that no less than five different theories to account for the unusual scarcity of ravens were mooted during the course of the next winter, which
did
after all turn out to be severe. Personally I am inclined to fear that it was mostly owing to Julia’s rash apologia for murder. Ravens are very communicative birds.)

In the meantime Hollebone had sought out Edith in almost trembling eagerness.

‘My dearest,’ he said passionately, ‘why should we wait any longer? Let us be married at once — as soon as you are able to move.’

She looked up at him, oh so gladly, in her joy at his new-found eagerness.

‘Oh, Clem, I wish we could — but what would people say? It would look so like disrespect to Mr Ryves’s memory. It is so
very
soon after his death.’

It made him shudder that little speech, it sounded so unnecessarily hypocritical, but he drew himself together.

‘Oh, Edith,’ he said, ‘what does it matter what people say? We love each other, and besides, why should anyone know anything about it? We can be married in Manchester in absolute secrecy and go abroad directly afterwards.’

‘But I’m sure my mother and father would object. They are so terribly conventional, and besides, my mother will be disappointed if she does not get at least one fine marriage ceremony out of me. However, I suppose
I
mustn’t make any objections. But I think it would be better to be married in London.

I could go back with Julia and be married from the old house, because I wouldn’t like to marry against my father’s expressed wishes; besides, mother would be sure to let the whole of Manchester into the secret if she knew anything about it. Oh, Clem, I am so happy, and it doesn’t seem as if I deserved it. But somehow, Clem, you know, you don’t seem quite happy. Not as you used to be, at least. What is the matter?’

‘The matter?’ said Hollebone, laughing uneasily. ‘There’s nothing the matter with me. Only, I love you too much.’

‘Oh, Clem,’ she said, ‘you can never love me
too
much, at least for me. But it doesn’t seem to me as if it was that — I mean, as if you were in love. When I am in love I am quite different. Oh dear, what nonsense I am talking. I’m just like a baby. But I am so happy. Only you — you seem as if you had some secret that you were keeping from me. Come now, tell me, have you any secret? Say “Yes” or “No.” Now you sha’n’t try to put off my questions with kisses. Yes or no?’ Hollebone shook his head, he was too agitated within himself to trust to words.

‘Well, I suppose you haven’t, then,’ she retorted, ‘and if you’re a very good boy I’ll tell you a very great secret. Only, you mustn’t tell it to anyone — will you?’

‘No, of course not,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

‘Julia is going to be married.’

‘The deuce she is!’ said Hollebone. ‘Who to?’

‘Why, to young Mr Ryves. But it’s a great secret. They’re to be married very soon, without anybody’s knowing about it — and what do you think they’re going to do?’

‘I give it up. Don’t ask me another.’

‘Why, he’s going to buy a farm out in New Zealand, and they’re going over there to start life afresh. Isn’t that a funny idea?’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ Hollebone said. ‘If one is to believe what rumour says about him, he rather wants to start life afresh — in a country where he’s not known.’

‘He always seemed a very nice young man to me,’ Edith said. ‘But the funniest part of it is — I promised Julia not to tell — he is going to give up the whole of his fortune, and only keep sufficient to exist upon.’

‘What’s he going to do with it, anyhow? He can’t throw three millions of money into the sea.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Edith said. ‘It is for some socialist scheme of his. He is going to turn his father’s business into a colossal cooperative company, with the workmen as shareholders. But that is a great secret, and you’re not supposed to know anything about it. So you mustn’t let Julia know I’ve told you. But don’t let’s talk about them any more. Let’s talk about us. When shall I be well enough to start for town?’

‘Not for a week or ten days yet, I’m afraid.’

‘Julia is not to be married for a month. I should like to be married before her, because—’

‘Because you’re a conceited baby,’ said Hollebone, with a little of his old jocularity returning. ‘Now go to bed, dearest, and don’t let yourself get over-excited,’ and with a little sigh of contented reluctance she let him go.

‘Oh, by-the-bye,’ she said, as he was leaving the room, ‘send Julia up to me — will you, please?’

Obedient to her behest, on going downstairs he knocked at random at the dining room door, and a voice said, ‘Come in.’ He put his head in at the door.

‘Oh, is it you, Dr Hollebone? Can I do anything for you?’

It was young Ryves who spoke.

‘Oh, no, thank you. You don’t happen to know where Miss Tubbs is?’ Hollebone asked. But the other answered, —

‘No — that is, I believe she is in her room. Do you wish to see her? Shall I ring for a servant?’

‘Yes, if you please,’ Hollebone said. ‘That is, I do not want to see her myself. Edith — I mean Mrs Ryves — told me she wished to see her.’

‘Oh, very well. I will ring the bell.’

‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ said Hollebone. ‘Thank you. Good evening.’

‘Oh, by-the-bye, Dr Hollebone,’ the other said, ‘would it be troubling you to let me have a minute of your time?’

‘Not at all,’ said Hollebone, wondering inwardly what on earth the fellow could want. ‘Is anything wrong with your health?’

‘Oh, no,’ he answered, with a smile. ‘Excuse me — oh, Parker, would you tell Miss Tubbs that your mistress wishes to speak to her?
 
Now I won’t detain you a minute. Please sit down.’

Hollebone did so, trying to realise that he had, adopting Julia’s train of reasoning, murdered his interlocutor’s father, but the sensation was too new and strange for him to grasp the horror of it fully. Meanwhile the young man began, —

‘It is only about Dr Hammond’s children that I am anxious to speak to you. You are, I believe, Dr Hammond’s sole executor, and the guardian of the children?’

Hollebone assented, wondering what it could possibly matter to the young man.

‘I don’t know anything about Dr Hammond’s affairs, but I believe his property was excessively small. That, at least, was my father’s impression, and he has left me instructions to provide for the children should such be the case.’

Under ordinary circumstances Hollebone would have felt somewhat insulted at this speech, but there was an earnestness about the young millionaire that precluded entirely such a feeling, and he answered, —

‘Oh, thank you, the children are amply provided for.’

Ryves seemed slightly embarrassed.

‘There are, however, certain reasons,’ he went on, ‘which I am not at liberty to disclose to you, which led my father to order me to give, in his name, a certain sum to the children, and I feel it my duty to carry out his wishes — almost his last wishes. I therefore intend to pay in to your bankers, as their guardian, sufficient Government stock to give the son two hundred pounds a year, and each of the daughters one hundred and fifty. I hope this will not offend you in any way, but you will understand my motives. It was my father’s wish.’

And Hollebone answered, —

‘Oh, no, I am not in the least offended. On the contrary, I am delighted, for the children’s sakes.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ the other said, with a relieved air. ‘Then that is settled. I will send the order off at once. Your patients are going on well I hope?’

Hollebone assented.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Mrs Ryves will be quite well very shortly, and her mother, I am glad to say, is much better. I have persuaded her to return to Manchester to-morrow. The place is too damp for her.’

The other listened abstractedly to Hollebone’s somewhat stiff speech. To tell the truth they were both somewhat ill at ease, and for a moment there was an uncomfortable silence. Suddenly Ryves seemed to take a swift resolve.

‘Look here, Hollebone,’ he said, ‘I am going to be unpardonably rude to you, if you take it that way, but I don’t wish to be. Julia has been speaking to me about my stepmother, and I must tell you in common justice that my father treated her in a most cruel way. In fact, up to the very day of his death, he was engaged in torturing her with a diabolical ingenuity, but before his death he begged me, in a letter, to repair any harm he might have done as far as lay in my power. I am unfortunately not able to recompense her in any way for what she has suffered, but I believe you are, and — and I am only begging for your assistance. I mean, pray do not let consideration for my father’s memory stand in between her happiness and herself. If you will believe me, the best way to honour his memory will be to try and make her forget him. He was very cruel to her during his life, but he sincerely wished to make her reparation. I hope you do not feel hurt at what I have said. I may not have expressed myself very well, but it seemed to be my duty to say something, and — pray forgive me if I have hurt you.’

But Hollebone replied, —

‘Oh, thank you. I hardly know how to thank you sufficiently for your delicacy. I am going to marry Edith as soon as she is well enough to bear the ceremony.’

And he left the room. Somehow, in the presence of Ryves, he felt himself at a disadvantage. The man was such a perfect gentleman, full of sincerity and delicacy — and besides, one cannot feel entirely at ease in the presence of a man whose father one has killed. This one idea had possessed itself of his brain, and he suffered most terribly under it. He was too busy to give himself much time to think. There were so many things to be arranged. Firstly, to dispose of the practice to the best advantage would require considerable time, and as he had but ten days’ time in which to get rid of it he did not make a very good bargain out of it. But by superhuman efforts he managed to get a qualified practitioner installed on probation, and even introduced to his patients, all under the ten days. Next Gandon became the subject under consideration, and he came to the conclusion that the best thing to do with him was to send him to a boarding-school, where he was to receive maternal care and attention to his moral welfare in addition to the usual course of studies. Having unearthed such a school by application to the daily papers, thither Master Gandon was accordingly despatched, with his pockets rattling with pocket-money and his boxes encumbered with jam, apples, and home-made cake, and there he remains to this day, having by dint of hard knuckles and still harder skull won his way to respect and reverence.

Little Maud and her sister proved more difficult to dispose of, but the wife of one of her mother’s brothers offered to take them, under the charge of the faithful Mary Ann, into her house until Hollebone returned from abroad. A general exodus took place from Dymchurch.

The Ryves’ servants were all sent back to Blackstone Edge, pending their dismissal. Julia and Edith returned once more to the house by the park in London from which the story had opened out, and thus it fell about that one evening Hollebone and Edith were sitting in the drawing-room by the light of the fire alone. Edith had been playing, in a desultory manner, dreamy snatches of melody, resolutions from the minor into the relative major, and the sound of the violin seemed to be hanging, inaudible, in the mysterious dark corners of the room. Edith was leaning her face on her hand, looking dreamily at the fire. From the next room came the sound of voices.

‘Oh, Clem,’ Edith said suddenly, ‘I am so happy.’

‘Are you, dearest?’ Hollebone said, with a half sigh.

‘Yes, Clem. It — it seems as if the whole of that year, that dreadful year, had never happened — as if it had been quite blotted out. You — you have quite forgiven me, haven’t you, Clem — quite?’