ALL INTO GOLD
Pasco Pepperill was a man slow, heavy, and apparently phlegmatic, and he
was married to a woman full of energy, and excitable.
Pasco had inherited Coombe Cellars from his father; he had been looked
upon as the greatest catch among the young men of the neighbourhood. It
was expected that he would marry well. He had married well, but not
exactly in the manner anticipated. Coombe Cellars was a centre of many
activities; it was a sort of inn--at all events a place to which water
parties came to picnic; it was a farm and a place of merchandise. Pasco
had chosen as his wife Zerah Quarm, a publican’s daughter, with, indeed,
a small sum of money of her own, but with what was to him of far more
advantage, a clear, organising head. She was a scrupulously tidy woman,
a woman who did everything by system, who had her own interest or that
of the house ever in view, and would never waste a farthing.
Had the threads of the business been placed in Zerah’s hands, she would
have managed all, made money in every department, and kept the affairs
of each to itself in her own orderly brain.
But Pepperill did not trust her with the management of his wool, coal,
grain, straw and hay business. “Feed the pigs, keep poultry, attend to
the guests, make tea, boil cockles--that’s what you are here for,
Zerah,” said Pepperill; “all the rest is my affair, and with that you do
not meddle.”
The pigs became fat, the poultry laid eggs, visitors came in quantities;
Zerah’s rashers, tea, cockles were relished and were paid for. Zerah had
always a profit to show for her small outlay and much labour.
She resented that she was not allowed an insight into her husband’s
business; he kept his books to himself, and she mistrusted his ability
to balance his accounts. When she discovered that he had disposed of the
greater portion of his land, then her indignation was unbounded. It was
but too clear that he was going on the high road to ruin, by undertaking
businesses for which he was not naturally competent; that by having too
many irons in the fire he was spoiling all.
Zerah waited, in bitterness of heart, expecting her husband to explain
to her his motives for parting with his land; he had not even deigned to
inform her that he had sold it.
She flew at him, at length, with all the vehemence of her character, and
poured forth a torrent of angry recrimination. Pasco put his hands into
his pockets, looked wonderingly at her out of his great water-blue eyes,
spun round like a teetotum, and left the house.
Zerah became conscious, as she cooled, that she had gone too far, that
she had used expressions that were irritating and insulting, and which
were unjustifiable. On the other hand, Pasco was conscious that he had
not behaved rightly towards his wife, not only in not consulting her
about the sale, but in not even telling her of it when it was
accomplished.
Neither would confess wrong, but after this outbreak Zerah became
gentle, and Pasco allowed some sort of self-justification to escape him.
He had met with a severe loss, and was obliged to find ready money.
Moreover, the farm and the business could not well be carried on
simultaneously, one detracted from the other. Henceforth his whole
attention would be devoted to commercial transactions.
To some extent the sharpness of Zerah’s indignation was blunted by the
consciousness that her own brother, Jason, was Pasco’s most trusted
adviser; that if he had met with losses, it was due to the injudicious
speculations into which he had been thrust by Jason.
The governing feature of Pasco was inordinate self-esteem. He believed
himself to be intellectually superior to everyone else in the parish,
and affected to despise the farmers, because they did not mix with the
world, had not their fingers on its arteries like the commercial man. He
was proud of his position, proud of his means, and proud of the respect
with which he was treated, and which he demanded of everyone. He valued
his wife’s good qualities, and bragged of them. According to him, his
business was extensive, and conducted with the most brilliant success.
For many years one great object of pride with him had been his only
child--a daughter, Wilmot. As a baby, no child had ever before been born
with so much hair. No infant was ever known to cut its teeth with
greater ease. No little girl was more amiable, more beautiful; the
intelligence the child exhibited was preternatural. When, in course of
time, Wilmot grew into a really pretty girl, with very taking if
somewhat forward manners, the exultation of the father knew no bounds.
Nor was her mother, Zerah, less devoted to the child; and for a long
period Wilmot was the bond between husband and wife, the one topic on
which they thought alike, the one object over which they were equally
hopeful, ambitious, and proud. Jason, left a widower with one daughter,
Katherine, had placed the child with his sister. He had a cottage of his
own, small, rarely occupied, as he rambled over the country, looking out
for opportunities of picking up money. He had not married again, he had
engaged no housekeeper; his daughter was an encumbrance, and had,
therefore, been sent to Coombe Cellars, where she was brought up as a
companion and foil to Wilmot. Suddenly the beloved child of the
Pepperills died, and the hearts of the parents were desolate. That of
Zerah became bitter and resentful. Pasco veiled his grief under his
phlegm, and made of the funeral a demonstration that might solace his
pride. After that he spoke of the numbers who had attended, of the great
emotion displayed, of the cost of the funeral, of the entertainment
given to the mourners, of the number of black gloves paid for, as
something for which he could be thankful and proud. It really was worth
having had a daughter whose funeral had cost sixty pounds, and at which
the church of Coombe-in-Teignhead had been crammed.
The great link that for fifteen years had held Zerah and Pasco together
was broken. They had never really become one, though over their child
they had almost become so. The loss of the one object on whom Zerah had
set her heart made her more sensitive to annoyance, more inclined to
find fault with her husband. Yet it cannot be said that they did not
strive to be one in heart; each avoided much that was certain to annoy
the other, refrained from doing before the other what was distasteful to
the consort; indeed, each went somewhat out of the way to oblige the
other, but always with a clumsiness and lack of grace which robbed the
transaction of its worth.
Kate had been set back whilst her cousin lived. Nominally the companion,
the playfellow of Wilmot, she had actually been her slave, her
plaything. Whatever Wilmot had done was regarded as right by her father
and mother, and in any difference that took place between the cousins,
Kate was invariably pronounced to have been in the wrong, and was forced
to yield to Wilmot. The child soon found that no remonstrances of hers
were listened to, even when addressed to her father. He had other
matters to occupy him than settling differences between children. It was
not his place to interfere between the niece and her aunt, for, if the
aunt refused to be troubled with her, what could he do with Kate, where
dispose her?
Kate had not been long out of the room before her father and uncle also
left, that they might talk at their ease, without the intervention of
Zerah.
Kate had gone with her knitting to the little stage above the water, and
was seated on the wall looking down on the flowing tide that now filled
the estuary. Hither also came the two men, and seated themselves at the
table, without taking any notice of her.
Kate had been studying the water as it flowed in, covering the mud
flats, rising inch by inch over the refuse mass below the platform, and
was now washing the roots of the herbage that fringed the bank.
So full was her mind, full, as though in it also the tide had been
rising, that, contrary to her wont, she broke silence when the men
appeared, and said, “Father! uncle! what makes the tide come and go?”
“The tide comes to bring up the coal-barges, and to carry ’em away with
straw,” answered Pasco.
“But, uncle, why does it come and go?”
Pepperill shrugged his shoulders, and vouchsafed no further answer.
“Look there,” said Jason, pointing to an orchard that stretched along
the margin of the flood, and which was dense with daffodils. “Look
there, Pasco, there is an opportunity let slide.”
“I couldn’t help it. I sold that orchard. I wanted to
concentrate--concentrate efforts,” said Pasco.
“I don’t allude to that,” said Quarm. “But as I’ve been through the
lanes this March, looking at the orchards and meadows a-blazing with
Lent lilies, I’ve had a notion come to me.”
“Them darned daffodils are good for naught.”
“There you are wrong, Pasco. Nothing is good for naught. What we fellows
with heads have to do is to find how we may make money out of what to
stupids is good for naught.”
“They are beastly things. The cattle won’t touch ’em.”
“But Christians will, and will pay for them. I know that you can sell
daffodils in London or Birmingham or Bristol, at a penny a piece.”
“That’s right enough, but London, Birmingham, and Bristol are a long way
off.”
“You are right there, and as long as this blundering atmospheric line
runs we can do nothing. But wait a bit, Pasco, and we shall have
steam-power on our South Devon line, and we must be prepared to seize
the occasion. I have been reckoning we could pack two hundred and fifty
daffodils easily without crushing in a maund. Say the cost of picking be
a penny a hundred, and the wear and tear of the hamper another penny,
and the carriage come to ninepence, and the profits to the sellers one
and eleven-pence ha’penny, that makes three shillings; sold at a penny
apiece it is twenty shillings--profit, seventeen and ten; strike off ten
for damaged daffies as won’t sell. How many thousand daffodils do you
suppose you could get out of that orchard and one or two more nests of
these flowers? Twenty-five thousand? A profit of seventeen shillings on
two hundred and fifty makes sixty-eight shillings a thousand. Twenty
times that is sixty-eight pounds--all got out of daffodils--beastly
daffies.”
“Of course,” said Pasco, “I was speaking of them as they are, not as
what they might be.”
“Look there,” said Jason, pointing over the glittering flood, “look at
the gulls, tens of hundreds of ’em, and no one gives them a thought.”
“They ain’t fit to eat,” observed Pasco. “Dirty creeturs.”
“No, they ain’t, and so no one shoots them. Wait a bit. Trust me. I’ll
go up to London and talk it over with a great milliner or dressmaker,
and have a fashion brought in. Waistcoats for ladies in winter of gulls’
breasts. They will be more beautiful than satin and warmer than
sealskin. It is only for the fashion to be put on wheels and it will run
of itself. There is reason, there is convenience, there is beauty in it.
How many gulls can we kill? I reckon we can sweep the mouth of the Teign
clear of them, and get ten thousand, and if we sell their breasts at
five shillings apiece, that is, twenty-five pounds a hundred, and ten
thousand makes just two thousand five hundred pounds out of gulls--dirty
creeturs!”
“Of course, I said that at present they are no good; not fit to eat.
What they may become is another matter.”
Quarm said nothing for a while. His restless eye wandered over the
landscape, already green, though the month was March, for the rich red
soil under the soft airs from the sea, laden with moisture, grows grass
throughout the year. No frosts parch that herbage whose brilliance is
set forth by contrast with the Indian-red rocks and soil. The sky was of
translucent blue, and in the evening light the inflowing sea, with the
slant rays piercing it, was of emerald hue.
“Dear! dear! dear!” sighed Quarm; “will the time ever come, think you,
old fellow, that we shall be able to make some use of the sea and
sky--capitalise ’em, eh? Squeeze the blue out of the firmament, and
extract the green out of the ocean, and use ’em as patent dyes. Wouldn’t
there be a run on the colours for ladies’ dresses! What’s the good of
all that amount of dye in both where they are? Sheer waste! sheer waste!
Now, if we could turn them into money, there’d be some good in them.”
Jason stood up, stretched his arms, and straightened, as far as
possible, his crippled leg. Then he hobbled over to the low wall on
which his daughter was seated, looking away at the emerald sea, the
banks of green shot with golden daffodil, and overarched with the
intense blue of the sky, clapped her on the back, and when with a start
she turned--
“Hallo, Kate! What, tears! why crying?”
“Oh, father! I hate money.”
“Money! what else is worth living for?”
“Oh, father, will you mow down the daffodils, and shoot down the gulls,
and take everything beautiful out of sea and sky? I hate money--you will
spoil everything for that.”
“You little fool, Kitty Alone. Not love money? Alone in that among all
men and women. A fool in that as in all else, Kitty Alone.”
Then up came Zerah in excitement, and said in loud, harsh tones, “Who is
to go after Jan Pooke? Where is Gale? The train is due in ten minutes.”
“I have sent Roger Gale after some hides,” said Pasco.
“We have undertaken to ferry Jan Pooke across, and he arrives by the
train just due. Who is to go?”
“Not I,” said Pepperill. “I’m busy, Zerah, engaged on commercial matters
with Quarm. Besides, I’m too big a man, of too much consequence to ferry
a fare. I keep a boat, but am not a boatman.”
“Then Kate must go for him. Kate, look smart; ferry across at once, and
wait at the hard till Jan Pooke arrives by the 6.10. He has been to
Exeter, and I promised that the boat should meet him on his return at
the Bishop’s Teignton landing.”
The girl rose without a word.
“She is not quite up to that?” said her father, with question in his
tone.
“Bless you, she’s done it scores of times. We don’t keep her here to
eat, and dress, and be idle.”
“But suppose--and the wind is bitter cold.”
“Some one _must_ go,” said Zerah. “Look sharp, Kate.”
“Alone?”
“Of course. The man is away. She can row. Kitty must go alone.”