Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 31
Dinner had been finished, coffee had made its appearance and disappearance, Hollebone’s cigar had let its last wreath of smoke float upwards to the dark oak ceiling of the dining room, and he had done his best to persuade his cousin to join him in a cigarette — which she had smilingly refused — and they had adjourned to the drawing-room.
‘Now you are going to sing me something,’ Hollebone said, for to tell the truth, much to his discredit, he was beginning to get a little tired of her innocent conversation.
I say much to his discredit, because no young man of a well-regulated turn of mind should get tired in the course of a single evening of the conversation of a fair girl, whose face is, ostensibly, the index of her mind, and whose blue eyes are, or at least seem to be, the windows of her soul, more especially when he has already the advantage of a cousinly standing, which is worth at least two months’ start in an acquaintanceship.
‘Now you are going to sing me something,’ Hollebone said.
And she answered, —
‘Oh, certainly — that is, if you don’t ask it out of courtesy, because Aunt Joan suggested it — besides which, I haven’t got much of a voice, and perhaps you don’t care much about music.’
Hollebone gave a sort of internal groan.
‘Oh, on the contrary, I am particularly fond of music, and as to your voice I’m sure it must be lovely, anyhow.’
Kate blushed with joy. She was a very good actress, and said, —
‘Oh, come, Cousin Clement, how can you possibly know that?’
Clement smiled.
‘Why,’ he said, ‘one generally judges of a person’s singing voice by their talking voice. If they have a very melodious and sweet speaking voice one imagines that they sing equally well, don’t you see?’
And Kate answered, —
‘Ye — es,’ with another blush, and then she went on. ‘Well, since you are so pressing, and pay such nice compliments, cousin, I will sing you something, but you must accompany me.’ Hollebone said, ‘Oh, blow it!’ to himself, but aloud, —
‘Oh, very well, if you don’t mind a somewhat wooden touch.’
But Kate answered archly, —
‘Oh, I’m sure, cousin, your touch must be lovely, anyhow.’
‘I certainly don’t see how you can tell that,’ he replied.
‘Why,’ she answered, ‘one generally judges of a person’s playing touch by their shaking touch. If they have a very pleasant way of shaking hands one imagines that they will have an equally pleasant touch, don’t you see.’ Hollebone answered, —
‘Oh, c-come now, that’s rather far-fetched now,’ and his cousin retorted, with a light in her dark blue orbs, ‘Tit for tat, Cousin Clement.’
But Cousin Clement was instituting a mental comparison between his cousin and Edith, which was not altogether flattering to his cousin.
‘Bother the girl,’ he said to himself, referring to Kate, ‘what a nuisance she is. I wish she’d begin and squall — at anyrate then I should not need to bother myself with answering her nonsense, though I shall have to strum. Not that she is bad-looking by any means, but she ain’t a patch on Edith. You see, although they’re both fair, it’s a different kind of fairness. Little E.’s is quite transparent, like marble or alabaster, with just a faint tinge of colour — oh, and such a lovely mouth, that looks as if it were just always wanting to be kissed — whereas this ‘n’s got a regular peachy pink-and-white complexion, with the peach bloom and all, if it isn’t powder, and then her mouth is sort of puckered up under the lips, so that it looks as if she were always pouting; and then Edie’s nose is quite straight down, not turned up at the end like this one’s, and Edie’s eyebrows are dark and beautifully shaped, not pale and invisible, and her lashes are dark too, and when they lie down on her cheeks they’re just like a delicate fringe — and her face is a lovely oval, not round like Kate’s here — and her hair isn’t near so light as Kate’s, not golden at all, but just dusky brown, with a tinge of gold in the shadows — and then her eyes, why, this girl’s are cold and hard, steel-blue in fact, whilst Edie’s — oh, how lovely they are! — light green-brown, so that one can look right down into the depths and see all her thoughts; and then to see the love come up in them, and to see her flush, and to think that she loves me! I tell you what it is, Chaucer knew what he was about when he wrote —
Youre two eyn will sle’ me sodenly.
If she had eyes anything like Edith’s — but that isn’t possible.’
During the time it took him to think this rhapsody he was saying, ‘Let’s have a song, cousin.’ But his cousin, who noticed the longing look which had come into his eyes maugre lui at the thought of his love, divined easily enough the reason for it, and recognised the fact that it would be necessary for her to make herself very agreeable indeed to counteract that influence.
Therefore she said to herself, ‘H’m, he wants flattering a little; ‘but aloud, —
‘Well, you shall have a song, only it’s just a little too soon after dinner, and we’ve got the whole evening before us. I’m afraid you’ll find it awfully dull with no one but me to talk to.’
And Hollebone answered, —
‘Are you often “took sarcastic?”’ but to himself, ‘Oh, blank that girl and her gush!’ and Kate went on, —
‘I wonder how it is that anyone who is so great a scientist as yourself can possibly condescend to care for so trivial a thing as music.’
‘Think I’m too stupid? ‘suggested Hollebone lightly.
‘Oh, no,’ she answered, ‘not exactly that, only music is so simple, and requires such little thought to make and understand, whereas chemistry is a serious and dignified study.’
‘Think so?’ said Hollebone, who was beginning to get cantankerous.
‘Why, yes,’ she went on. ‘Now all a composer of music has to do is to find out a tune on the piano, and then put some chords to it, and then have it played on a dozen fiddles and some trumpets and give it a name, opera or symphony or anything. Well, and then a painter merely takes a pencil and a piece of paper and draws away and rubs out until he gets something like something, and then he takes a brush and puts paint on, and that’s practically all. And as for a poet, he just gets a story, and rhymes “dove” with “love” and “above,” and then he’s written a poem. But a chemist is something really wonderful. He can take a piece of iron and find out its components and constituents in a minute, and knows how long it will take for a stone to fall from the top of a tower, and can understand all sorts of queer signs, like eels and crabs, that they call scruples and drachms, and that S20 means sulphuric acid. But just fancy a stupid man of business, now, who sits all day long and writes down figures and adds them up again — and then a mere pianist or fiddler is even more stupid, he only has to look at notes and draw a bow across some squeaky strings.’
This was just a little too much for Hollebone, who, like every true lover, thought that his mistress’s occupation must of itself be infinitely above his own because she engaged in it. He didn’t mind Kate’s strictures upon composers, painters, and poets, and rather liked her ignorance on the subject of iron as an element, because it made him feel very wise indeed, which was as a matter of fact exactly what she had meant that it should do; but when it came to her estimate of the genius that Edith needed he felt himself struck on a raw spot.
‘My dear girl,’ he said, ‘if you will allow me a cousin’s privilege of speaking a little didactically, I would say you are talking abject nonsense. The exact reverse of what you imagine is the true view of the case. Anyone, by serious application and hard work, can become a very decent chemist, but to compose, and more especially to play the violin really well, needs a genius of the highest order, such as I can never hope to attain.’
Kate said very humbly, —
‘Well, cousin, I suppose you are right, because you know all about it, and I know very little.’
But to herself she said, ‘Good Lord, what a fool I was not to remember that his beloved might perhaps play the fiddle. I do nothing but put my foot in it this evening.’
But Hollebone was beginning to repent his rudeness at seeing her humbleness of demeanour, and he said, —
‘Well, Kate, let’s have a song now, if you’ve had rest enough after dinner.’
And she answered, —
‘Oh, yes. Have you got any matches? You might just light the candles at the piano.’
He did so.
‘What would you like?’ she asked.
And he answered, —
‘Oh, just anything you please.’
‘Let’s have something old-fashioned to begin with,’ she said, and produced ‘Batti, Batti,’ singing it indifferent badly, as amateurs will sing Mozart. Hollebone at the end paid her the most brilliant compliments on her voice, and begged for something more, whereupon she accordingly essayed one of those terrible ballads of a sentimental order, all about people wandering over hills in all sorts of ‘weathâh,’ accompanied by a fiddle or a dog, and set to a peculiarly diabolical waltz tune that goes on jingling through one’s head for hours after the song has ceased sounding through the air. Now it happened that, by some strange coincidence, Hollebone’s beloved, whom he, rightly or wrongly, thought to be possessed of the most wonderfully sweet voice that ever thrilled out into space, when she was more than usually inclined to torment her unfortunate lover, was in the habit of insisting on singing this identical song, until he, who swore by nothing but the Music of the Future, was fain to stop the proceeding coercively.
Therefore when his fair cousin commenced this effusion his flesh began to creep, and, what with her singing and the badness of the song, he suffered frightfully. Nevertheless in spite of that he struggled gamely through to the end, but all the same his cousin noticed his agony, and when she had finished, said, —
‘You don’t like that, do you, cousin?’ and Hollebone replied, —
‘Why, I think I prefer even the “Message” or Haydn’s “Dream.”’
Kate smiled.
‘Well, it wasn’t my fault that I gave it you. You wouldn’t say what sort you wanted. That is one of a stock of such songs that I keep for my aunt’s lady friends. You prefer the advanced German school, I suppose.’
And so she sang, more or less badly, one or two more songs, but through the song of the Loreley, and through the ‘Alphorn sounding towards Strasburg,’ through Schumann, through List, Schubert, Franz, in spite of all times and measures, that terrible waltz tune whirred through his head, and even afterwards when he was in bed trying vainly to sleep the continual 1, 2, 3-4, 5, 6 kept driving his thoughts irresistibly to Edith, causing a great loneliness to press like a heavy weight on his heart.
And all the while his poor beloved was lying awake, trying in vain to stifle even one little thought of him — for she held it would be sinful — just one little thought, deep down in her heart. But she struggled and battled manfully and prayed for the dawn.
It was very dreadful to her to have been under the same roof with, and even to have touched her unconscious beloved for a second, as she had that day, and yet to know that between them a gulf was fixed as impassable as that which separates the Earth from Heaven. And the grey morn crept in and saw her struggling and battling and praying against her desire.
CHAPTER V.
Like a fine old English gentleman.
MR KASKER-RYVES was a man universally esteemed in his part of the country. Of all who came in contact with him there was no one, not even the most spiteful, that had a word to say against him, such were the sterling good qualities of the man. The vicar of the parish, who had, it must be confessed, been reading one of Cardinal Newman’s sermons, was heard to remark that Mr Kasker-Ryves possessed all the good qualities attributed to St Paul, and the Wesleyan minister fully endorsed the opinion of his brother of the Established Church. The recipients of his charity never had any complaints to make of either stinginess or ostentation. They said he gave for the mere pleasure of giving, as a truly charitable man should do.
The county families of the vicinity, who had at first resented the intrusion of a shopkeeper into their very midst, became by degrees converted to a different view, from familiarity, for one reason, and because, they said, of his real worth and polished manners, but perhaps more than all because young Kasker-Ryves when he had left college had been in the habit of bringing down the scions of the most noble houses in the land — dukes, marquises, belted earls, and occasionally, with awe be it spoken, a prince of the Blood Royal, to shoot over the Blackstone moors.
The very poachers, whom it was part of Mr Ryves’s duty as a member of the Great Unpaid to sentence to terms of durance vile, always said that he did it in such a gentlemanly manner that it was more a pleasure than otherwise to be sentenced by him, and even his servants pronounced him perfect in every respect. Therefore it stands to reason that he must be very perfect indeed if his servants said so.
He was, in fact, Sir Roger de Coverley, without any of the worthy baronet’s want of knowledge of the world — a fine old English gentleman, without the repulsive bluntness that must at times render that character unbearable in spite of his preternatural goodness of heart.
This was Mr Kasker-Ryves — who that knew him could forbear to love him?
He bore his seventy odd years as though they had been forty, was a very decent shot even at that, and rode like a major-general on parade, although it must be said that he had of late given up hunting as too fatiguing.
The morning ensuing on the events recorded in our last chapter found him already round on horseback, in spite of the snow that lay thick on the ground, to ask how Miss Kate felt after the last night’s accident to the carriage. Miss Kate’s rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes testified to the fact that her health was in no wise impaired by the accident, and Mr Ryves was truly delighted to see it.
He also deprecated the misfortune that had caused him to be the reason of Miss Hallbyne’s brougham upsetting, and hoped Miss Hallbyne would avail herself of his brougham until hers could be repaired.
Miss Hallbyne thanked him cordially for the offer, but said she would have no use for the brougham in any case, as she had the close carriage and dog-cart to fall back upon, besides which she would not be going out at all while the weather lasted so bad. Mr Ryves then turned to Hollebone, and begged him to come and have a few shots at the hares, which were very plentiful just then near a copse on the borders where the Blackstone and Hallbyne estates adjoined each other. Hollebone said that he would be delighted, provided his aunt would dispense with his company until lunch time. Miss Hallbyne consented readily enough. Mr Ryves thereupon rode off home to get rid of his horse, and to procure a gun and a couple of beaters.
At Miss Hallbyne’s suggestion Kate put on her things and guided Hollebone down to the house of the head-keeper, which lay a short distance from the Hall, almost hidden in the trees of a young copse, and very beautiful Kate looked, as even Hollebone must needs acknowledge. Her face was flushed with the cold and the exercise, and daintily her feet ran in and out her petticoats as she picked her way, tiptoed, where the snow lay lightest along the road, whilst with the one hand she held her dress gathered, and in the other a basket. For Kate was a bearer of good cheer to the needy among her aunt’s tenants, and a very bright and cheerful messenger of good tidings too. And all the while she was debating in her mind whether it would be better to slip and fall altogether, so that he must help her up, and they could laugh merrily over the mishap, or merely to slip and stumble against him as he walked. Finally she decided on the latter course, and when she had decided, how daintily she fell against him, not heavily and clumsily, but just a little slip sideways, and an appealing little touch on his arm as she saved herself.
‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ she said, in the loveliest rosy confusion, ‘but the road is so slippery.’
And he answered, —
‘Oh, don’t mention it. Won’t you take my arm? ‘which was what she had meant he should do.
She accepted his proffered support with a smile.
‘Now if you fall we shall both go over she said laughingly, and she leant on his arm with a good deal of her light weight.
She knew very well what an intoxicating sense of intimacy the pressure of an arm will give a young man, and how exhilarating is a brisk new-year morning with snow just whirling lightly down and the ground covered with a pure white mantle, and she knew very well how beautiful her face must look in the brilliant light that the snow threw on it, and how fair it must stand out against the great black hat she had purposely put on. What young man could resist the impulse of that moment and fall over head and ears hopelessly in love with the beautiful face that was smiling so enticingly near his own? And yet Kate recognised the tormenting certainty that, spite of it all, Hollebone was by no means falling in love, nor was there the slightest inflexion in his voice to point to the existence in him of such a state of mind, and disgusted with her failure, she was delighted when the keeper they were in search of came round the corner, with his gun under his arm, and his rosy cheeked son sauntering along munching an apple contentedly and whistling in an undertone.
The keeper was a shrewd-looking, brown-bearded, weather-worn man, with ‘North country’ printed everywhere on his face. There was a curious twinkle in his eyes, which accorded, perhaps, ill with the serious cast of the lower part of his face. A kindly smile lit up his face as he caught sight of Kate, —
‘Ah, good marnin’, miss,’ he said, as he touched his hat.
And she answered, —
‘Good morning, Ben,’ she said. ‘This is my cousin, Mr Hollebone.’
And the keeper said, —
‘Good marnin’, sir.’
‘We were just coming to borrow a gun of you,’ Kate said. ‘My cousin wants to shoot with Mr Ryves before lunch, and the guns up at the Hall want seeing to a little before they’ll be fit to use. You’ll have to come up for them.’
