Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 26
‘Clarkson is my junior partner. You see, when my father died he left me the firm, but he said I was such a fool at business that I had better sleep, and so he made Clarkson junior partner. Clarkson was for a long time our head clerk, and my father knew he would be the best man to keep the business going. So he’s the junior acting partner, and I’m the senior sleeping partner. Now you know all about it.
‘I knew all that before. But what had Clarkson to say that kept you so long?’
‘Oh, nothing in particular, except that our business prospects are getting rather gloomy. Ever since the year before last — you remember when I went over to America? — oh, no, that was before we were engaged — well, that year the manager of our New York house appropriated some hundreds of thousands of dollars and bolted — Heaven only knows where. We never saw a penny of the money again. That was bad enough, but ever since then the house has been suffering a frightful series of losses from the bad weather. That fell upon the Liverpool branch — the underwriter’s side of the business, you know — and Clarkson says that very unpleasant rumours are circulated about us in the City, and our credit is getting rather shaky. However, it’s not so very bad as to be any great danger of ruin.’
‘Oh, you poor dear,’ said Edith, after she had heard him through. ‘I suppose you must be very much worried about it?’
‘Oh, it’s not so bad as all that,’ he said, with a laugh. ‘But, still, it might get so.’
‘At any rate you’ve got your chemical and medical knowledge to fall back upon, and if the worst comes to the worst you can set up as a doctor, and I can give music lessons.’
‘Well, I’m afraid you’d make a good deal more than I should. But I don’t think your parents would consent to let you marry me if I was a beggar.’
She rubbed her chin reflectively.
‘No, I don’t think they would consent, but I’d marry you in spite of them.’
‘I’m afraid the law would have something to say to that, wouldn’t it?’
‘That is true. We should have to wait until I am of age at any rate — but then we are going to do that as it is, so it won’t make much difference.’
‘However, there’s no need to think about that just now. Here comes Miss Tubbs.’
Miss Tubbs just put her head in at the door. ‘Supper’s ready, I say, you two. If you want anything to eat you’d better come in, unless you prefer to live on Love.’
‘If you lived on the Love you get, Ju, you’d have a precious lean and hungry look, I can tell you.’
‘Funny girl,’ said Julia irrelevantly. ‘I’m a little peckish.’
‘Told you so. You’ve got the hungry look already, the leanness will come shortly. Come along, Clem, let’s go in.’
When they were seated Hollebone said, —
‘Where’s Miss Wimple from upstairs? Aren’t we going to wait for her?
‘Oh, Mr Hollebone, I’m shocked at you. Making inquiries about someone else to flirt with when you’ve got two of us already. Horrible! As it happens, Miss Wimple has got a bad headache and can’t come down.’ Hollebone’s face brightened visibly.
‘Thank goodness for small mercies,’ he ejaculated, but a postman’s knock drowned his voice.
‘Post, Ju,’ said Edith; ‘I’ll get the letters first,’ and a rush ensued for the door.
Who got the letters Hollebone did not see; but he heard ejaculations from outside, and presently they both came back.
‘Here’s pleasant news,’ Edith said, displaying a letter. ‘Our only man singer has gone and married our soprano, and they’ve gone off to America for the honeymoon — besides, the ‘cellist has got the scarlet fever. That about stops our tour — doesn’t it, Julia?’ And Julia nodded.
‘Quite right, too,’ Hollebone said. ‘I’m very glad. I’m sure you would have lost a great deal of money over it. Concerts like yours never pay.’
‘You’re a most unsympathetic boy,’ said Edith, ‘and I shall go off to Manchester to my father and mother to-morrow, and take Julia with me to stop for a month just to punish you. That’ll be nice, won’t it, Ju? We’ll start the day after to-morrow.’
‘I’m so glad,’ said Hollebone. ‘Now I shall be able to do a good month’s work at last.’
‘If I were you I should jilt him for uttering such rank heresy,’ Julia said.
But Edith only smiled.
The rest of the meal passed off in alternate silence and storms of aggressive remarks from Miss Tubbs, but at its conclusion that young lady retired discreetly upstairs, saying that poor Miss Wimple was very dull and wanted reading to, and thus the field was left clear to the two in the drawing-room.
Conversation went on between them in low tones, occasionally broken into by short quarrels, but after a time it showed a disposition to lapse into gazing more or less sentimentally into the fire.
‘Won’t you play me something, Edie?’ Hollebone said, rousing himself from a brown study.
‘Why, suttinly,’ she said. ‘I’d almost forgotten about your present. Shall I play solo, or call Julia down?’
‘Oh, play a solo, dear,’ he said.
She took up the violin as tenderly as if it were a baby, and having tuned it, began suddenly Tartini’s ‘Trillo del Diavolo.’ Hollebone, as a rule, did not admire the violin as a solo instrument, nor did he, as a rule, admire diabolical music like the ‘Trillo,’ which was, indeed, inspired by a recollection on Tartini’s part of the Prince of Darkness’s own playing; but none of these considerations weighed with him on this occasion. He was in Heaven when he could watch the earnestness of her face as she bent her eyes down to the strings and swayed to and fro with the music.
‘I never knew Edith had so much character or determination in her face as she has tonight. As a rule, fair girls like her have not much force expressed in their faces, but it is the music that brings out her soul. Oh, how lovely she is!’ and he began to rhapsodise.
When she was nearly through, the door opened softly behind her, as she faced him, and Miss Tubbs appeared. She seemed quite spellbound, and waited till the piece was finished in rapt astonishment.
‘Why, Edith,’ she said, as the player let the violin drop from her shoulder, smiling, ‘I never heard you play so magnificently; your tone is really wonderful to-night.’
‘It isn’t my fault,’ said Edith, her eyes almost sparkling with delight — limpid brown eyes seldom really flash. ‘It’s the fiddle — Clem’s present — a real Strad.’
‘Oh, is that all?’ said Julia incredulously.
‘No, but it is really a Strad. Isn’t it, Clem?’ she said, appealing to Hollebone. ‘Look inside and you’ll see the label; besides, you’ve only got to listen to the tone of it. That will tell you right off.’
Julia looked at Hollebone.
‘Why, really,’ she said, ‘you must be either Monte Cristo or mad — or very much in love, which is worse than either.’
Hollebone smiled vaguely, hardly knowing whether the remark was intended as a compliment or the reverse.
‘Play something else, Edie, and let Miss Tubbs accompany you — something soft — that little minuet of Brahms’s; that’ll sound lovely after the Diavolo thing.’
They complied with his request, and his delight was marred only by one thought, that it should ever come to an end. But it did.
‘If I had anyone to give me presents like that,’ said Miss Tubbs suddenly, ‘I think I should go mad with the excitement of wondering what the next thing would be.’
‘But that isn’t all he has given me,’ Edith said suddenly.
‘Good Lord! what is his other piece of folly?’ said Miss Tubbs.
‘Well, he has given me a bottle of a new poison that he’s invented himself.’
Miss Tubbs cast an even greater glance of amazement at Hollebone.
‘But what on earth is Edie to do with it?’ she asked him.
‘Why, it has taken me five years to discover and mature it, and it is the strongest poison in the world, and I thought Edie would like to have it as a souvenir.’
‘I know one thing it’ll come in handy for,’ said Edie, with a laughing glance at Hollebone.
‘It will do to kill my future husband if he ill-treats me.’
‘After that I think I’d better leave,’ said Hollebone jocularly, as he rose to take his departure.
But Miss Tubbs shuddered.
‘You shouldn’t say that,’ she said; ‘one never knows what may happen.’
But Edith laughed.
‘Come again to-morrow,’ she said.
‘Oh, I think I shall wait a year or two after that,’ he said.
‘Then I shall carry on a flirtation just to fill up the time.’
‘Naughty girl,’ he said, and vanished into the outer darkness.
CHAPTER II.
Es war ein alter Konig Sein Herz war schwer, sein Haupt war grau.
On the morrow Edith started off early to do some shopping in preparation for her departure for Manchester on the following day. At her return she found awaiting her a note from Hollebone, running: —
‘DEAREST EDIE, —
The irresistible Clarkson has just called, and insists on dragging me off to Liverpool. In the great storms of the last few nights several vessels wholly insured, besides others partly insured by us, have been lost. This, with the frightful runs of ill-luck we have lately had, makes matters very urgent, and Clarkson insists on my going with him at once. I will drop in on you in Manchester as soon as things begin to look a little straighter, which I hope will be almost immediately. I am in a frightful hurry, darling, so good-bye till then. (Enclosed is a description of the properties of my poison.)’
Edith dropped into a chair when she had read and re-read the letter.
‘Whatever shall we do if he is ruined — I’ll never give him up in any case. Father and mother will never consent, though. They can’t see that it’s better to marry for love than for money. I’m certain they never married for love. I don’t see how anyone could have fallen in love with a money-worshipper like papa, and mamma is very little better with her eternal matchmaking. I’m sure the way she has flung me at people’s heads is shocking, and before I’m past nineteen too. They’d never have sent me up to London to learn if they hadn’t hoped to catch somebody with me. Oh dear! oh dear! poor Clem, I hope he won’t be ruined. It will be such hard lines for him. I will set to work to see if I can’t make some money to help him afterwards, for I’m sure papa won’t give us a penny if I marry in spite of him. Yes, that’s it, I must make some money. I will wait until I hear definitely from him, and if he is ruined I will take to teaching as a profession, and see what I can do at that.’ And she went on building castles in the air, until Julia entered and cut short her train of thoughts.
They did not arrive at Manchester until towards seven on the following day. Mr and Mrs Ryland had gone to a conversazione at the Bishop’s, but this came like a respite to Edith, who had feared above all things that the report that Hollebone and Clarkson were in danger should have reached their ears. It was past eleven when they returned, and neither of them seemed to know anything about the matter. Mr and Mrs Ryland greeted Miss Tubbs cordially, but by no means effusively, and having solemnly embraced their daughter, and expressed a hope that they had had a prosperous journey, announced their intention of proceeding at once to bed, as they were too much fatigued after the Bishop’s party to converse with convenience on any subject whatever. With this arrangement both Edith and Miss Tubbs concurred, for to tell the truth there was but little sympathy between the Rylands and their daughter. Mr Ryland, being a cotton broker on a comfortable but by no means princely scale, had but little in common with his daughter, not that they were on bad terms by any means, but Mr Ryland’s views, and indeed his wife’s too, were bounded by money, or at least its attendant benefits, and they were both somewhat dismayed when their daughter evinced a determination to become a violinist, not an amateur but a regular professional. Now, the British merchant and his wife are accustomed to stigmatise violinists as ‘fiddlers,’ in a contemptuous way. When one says ‘violinist’ it has a high-sounding ring, a fiddler is quite another thing.
But of course one must remember that music is an Art, and its advocates are therefore looked down upon by followers of commerce, at least as far as Great Britain is concerned. There may be exceptions to this rule, but neither Mr nor Mrs Ryland were such lusi naturae, and it was with feelings of dread that they perceived their daughter’s inclination. However, it had fallen about that Mr Ryland heard one day, by chance from a business acquaintance, of the enormous prices that the first-class violinists can command, and in his mind the differences between a good and a bad violinist was a consideration that existed only by the will of newspaper writers, therefore, considering it a settled thing that his daughter was to receive payments of some thousands of pounds nightly, he sent her to be taught by the most expensive teacher in Manchester, and sat down to await the time when the money was to begin pouring in; but after she had learned some years he heard to his dismay, from her master, that it would be necessary to send her to London for several years to finish her musical education. Mr Ryland groaned inwardly at this prospect, but having made up his mind that his daughter should become a fiddler, he packed her off incontinently to London in spite of his wife’s protests.
Mrs Ryland was perfectly sure that her daughter, having absurdly romantic ideas in her head, would get engaged to some beggarly scamp of a painter, and ruin all her ideas of a good match. However, in spite of the apprehensions of both Mr and Mrs Ryland, Edith prospered, for having not only great perseverance, but, in defiance of the laws of heredity, considerable natural gifts, she succeeded in carrying everything before her in the way of musical study, and found herself after two years’ time in a position to almost earn her living by teaching, besides which, the concerts she gave were always well attended, though that was perhaps due largely to the fact that Hollebone, to whom she had meanwhile become engaged, bought and distributed among his friends rows upon rows of stalls.
Hollebone was, in even Mrs Ryland’s ideas, a most eligible parti, with his income that ran well into five figures, his studiousness and economy, and his general mildness of character, which, Mrs Ryland thought, boded well for her own prospects as a mother-in-law. Nothing would convince her that her daughter really cared for Hollebone in the least, so much so that she even wrote to her to compliment her on her astuteness in securing so desirable a young man in so short a time; but she received a letter in reply from Edith so hotly written that it actually shocked her, and Mrs Ryland was a person who rarely took the trouble to be shocked at anything. However, she did not allow herself to be much distressed by the strong-mindedness, as she called it, of her daughter, being indeed too much delighted at the circumstances that called it forth.
Mr Ryland himself was delighted at his daughter’s engagement for many reasons, nevertheless he stipulated that the marriage should not come off until his daughter was of age, she being then nineteen and Hollebone twenty-four. Thus it was that matters stood in the Rylands’ household.
Close on a week passed by without a word from Hollebone, and Edith was beginning to fret seriously, until one evening, by the last post, a letter came from him, running thus: —
‘DEAREST EDIE, — I write to you to break you the news that must come to your ears sooner or later. Clarkson and I have been going over the books throughout the whole of last week, and do what we may the house will fail to-morrow for about £398,000, of which we shall only be able to pay some £200,000. This leaves £198,000 of clear debt. I have, however, the sum of £200,000 under the trustees of my uncle, which will not come to me for a year and six months’ time, until, indeed, I am twenty-six years of age. This £200,000 will just cover the debt. We are bound to be declared bankrupt before that time, for our affairs are by no means complicated, and our creditors will have no legal claims on the trust-money. I, therefore, am on the horns of a dilemma as to whether, on the one hand, I shall jeopardise my honour and not pay away the £200,000 when it becomes due, or, on the other hand, whether I shall plunge you into poverty in the future by paying away the trust-money to retrieve my honour. I, of course, release you from every promise you gave me before this disaster, but, from what I know of your character, do not believe you will give me up, and I therefore leave it for you to decide whether I shall pay my debts or not. You must forgive me, my dearest, if my letter seem cold and formal, but I do not wish to influence your decision as to giving me up or no, and my love for you is, and will always be, unchanged. I would like to write you a great deal more, but it would not be honourable in me to influence you in any way — But believe me to be ever your own, ‘CLEMENT HOLLEBONE.’
Edith let the letter fall from her hands, with a laugh. Never having known what it was to want for a penny, she had not the slightest idea of what poverty is. She had an idea that it was a struggle, and that one would have to put one’s shoulder to the wheel; but these are easy terms, and slip glibly off the tongue, leaving no idea of what a weary long time the struggle lasts. Viewed in the abstract and as a word, ‘poverty’ has quite a glamour about it, and riches somehow seem sordid, but to be poor is quite another thing — quite. Edith, however, had got her ideas of poverty from books, and in books ninety - five per cent, of the poor people struggle out of their poverty — and when one reads the other five per cent, one either does not finish them, or else one attempts to efface the remembrance of them at once. Moreover Edith had imbibed notions of honour which the present occasion seemed to be a fitting opportunity to put into practice, and she forthwith answered Hollebone’s letter with another glowing with sentiments of the most exalted kind, and at the same time brimming over with love, painting the future in the very brightest of reds and golds. And thus the bad news seemed to have an effect rather exhilarating, than the reverse, on her spirits. Nevertheless she felt very nervous over the contest that the news of her lover’s ruin would occasion between her and her parents, and it was with inward trepidation that she went downstairs to dinner; but it was evident that no inkling of the facts had reached her parents. The dinner was as dull as ever.
