The departure of Mr. Goldman left a void in the heart of Mr. William
Hollis. He was a sociable man, with a craving for the company of his
fellows, and although for quite a long time now his distinguished
neighbor had been clearly labeled in his mind as "a pursy old pig," he
was an interesting person to talk to when he was in the humor. He was
not always in the humor, it was true, for he was a "warm" man, an owner
of house property; therefore he was in the happy position of not having
to be civil to anybody when he didn't feel like it. This afternoon,
however, he had unbent.
The slowly receding form of Mr. Goldman waddled along by the hedge,
turned into the lane, passed from view. In almost the same moment
William Hollis felt a severe depression. He had reached the stage of
life and fortune when he could not bear to be alone. With a kind of
dull pain he realized that this was his forty-first birthday and that
he had failed in life.
He was going down the hill. Unless he could take a pull on himself he
was done. Already it might be too late. The best part of his life was
behind him. A year ago that day, in this very garden, his only source
of happiness, he had told himself that; two years ago, three years
ago, five years ago, this had been the burden of his thoughts. But he
was in a rut and there seemed to be no way out.
Twenty years ago he had felt it was in him to do something. He was
an ambitious young fellow with a mind that looked forward to the day
after to-morrow. Such a man ought to have done something. But now he
knew that there had been a soft spot in him somewhere and that a moral
and mental dry rot had already set in. He was a talker, a thinker, a
dreamer; action was not his sphere. Unless he took a strong pull on
himself he was out of the race.
He poured what remained of the jar of ale into the earthenware mug he
kept for the purpose--Blackhampton ale tastes better out of a mug--and
drank it slowly, without relish. Then he cut a few flowers to take
home to his wife--to the wife who hadn't spoken to him for nearly a
week--arranged them in a bunch, with the delicacy of one unconsciously
sensitive to form and color, looped a bit of twitch neatly round them,
put on his coat, a stained and worn alpaca, put on his hat, a battered,
disreputable straw, cast the eye of a lover round his precious garden,
locked its dilapidated green door and started down the lane and down
the hill towards the city.
It was now five o'clock and a little cooler, yet William Hollis walked
very slowly. There was a lot of time to kill before the day was
through. But his thoughts were biting him harder than ever as he turned
into the famous road leading to the city, known as The Rise. This
salubrious eminence, commanding the town from the northeast, was sacred
to the city magnates. When a man made good in Blackhampton, really
good, he built a house on The Rise. It was the ambition of every true
Blackhamptonian to express his individuality in that way. Until he had
achieved a house entirely to his own fancy and taste on The Rise, no
son of Blackhampton could be said really to have "arrived."
William Hollis trudged slowly along a well kept road, between two
irregular lines of superb villas, gleaming with paint and glass,
standing well back from the road in ample grounds of their own, with
broad and trim gravel approaches. The first on the right was Rosemere,
the residence of Sir Reuben Jope, three times Mayor of Blackhampton,
a man of large fortune and robust taste, whose last expression was
greenhouses and conservatories. They were said to produce fabulous
things--flowers, fruits, shrubs, plants known only to tropical
countries. Many a time from afar had Bill gazed upon them with rather
wistful awe.
A little farther along was The Haven, the ancestral home of the Clints,
a famous Blackhampton family whose local prestige was on a par with
that of the Rothschilds in the city of London. Across the road was
The Gables, the modest house of Lawyer Mossop, the town's leading
solicitor; then on the right, again, the reticulated dwelling of the
philanthropic Stephen Mortimore, head of the great engineering firm
of Mortimore, Barrow, and Mortimore. For a true son of Blackhampton
these were names to conjure with. Even to walk along such a road gave
one a feeling of worldly success, financial security, aristocratic
exclusiveness.
Still a little further along on the left was what was clearly intended
to be the _pièce de resistance_ of The Rise. It was the brand-new
residence of the very latest arrival and no house had been more
discussed by Blackhampton society. It was intended to eclipse every
other dwelling on The Rise, but it was of nondescript design, half
suburban villa, half mediæval castle. From the æsthetic standpoint the
result was so little satisfactory that a local wit had christened it
"Dammit 'All."
As "Dammit 'All" came into view, Bill Hollis found an almost morbid
fascination in gazing at its turrets and the tower so regally crowning
them. It was the house of his father-in-law, Mr. Josiah Munt. Sixteen
years ago, in that very month of July, an ambitious young man had
married his master's eldest daughter. Melia Munt had espoused Bill
Hollis in direct defiance of her father's wishes and had lived long
enough already to rue the day. Josiah, at that time, was not the great
man he had since become, but he was a hard, unbending parent; and he
gave Melia to understand clearly that if she married Hollis he would
never speak to her again. Melia chose to defy him, as he always
thought out of sheer perversity, and her implacable father had been
careful to keep his word to the letter. Not again did he mention her
name; not again did her old home receive her.
In those sixteen years Josiah Munt had gone up in the world, and if
William Hollis could not be said to have come down in it, he had
certainly made very little headway. At the time of his marriage he was
the chief barman at "the Duke of Wellington," an extremely thriving
public house, at the corner of Waterloo Square in the populous
southeastern part of the city. He was now a small greengrocer in Love
Lane, within a stone's throw of the famous licensed house of his
father-in-law, and he was continually haunted by the problem of how
much longer he would be able to carry on his business. On the other
hand, his old master had prospered so much that he had recently built
for himself a fine house on The Rise.
Mr. Josiah Munt was still the owner of the Duke of Wellington. Over the
top of its swing doors his name appeared below the spirited effigy of
the Iron Duke as "licensed to sell wines, spirits, beer and tobacco,"
but years ago he had ceased to reside there with his family. As far as
possible he liked to disassociate himself from it in the public mind,
but he was too shrewd a man to part with the goose that laid the golden
eggs; besides, in his heart, there was a tender spot for the old house
which had been the foundation of his fortunes. His womenfolk might
despise it; in some ways he had outgrown it himself; but he knew better
than to crab his luck by parting with an extremely valuable property
which at the present time was not appreciated at its true worth by the
surveyor of rates and taxes.
As William Hollis trudged along the dusty road and his father-in-law's
new and amazing house came into view, he became the prey of many
emotions. The sight of this magnificence was a bitter pill to swallow.
It brought back vividly to his mind the scene that was printed on it
forever--the scene that followed his diffident request for the hand
of Melia. He could still hear the stinging taunts of his employer, he
could still feel the impact of Josiah's boot. It may have been that
boot--for women are queer!--which caused the final capitulation of
Melia. But the hard part was that time had justified the prediction of
her far-sighted parent. Melia in throwing herself away on "a man of no
class" would do a bad day's work when she married Hollis.
It had been the son-in-law's intention to give the lie to that
prophecy. But!--there was a kink in him somewhere. He had always loved
to dream of the future, yet he had not the power of making his dreams
come true. If only he had had a good education! If only he had known
people who could have put him on the right road to success when he was
young and sharp and the sap was in his brain! If only there hadn't
been so much competition, so much to fight against; if only he could
have had a bit of luck; if only Melia had really cared for him; if only
he hadn't speculated with the hundred pounds she had inherited from
her Aunt Elizabeth; if only he wasn't so apt to be hurt by things that
didn't matter a damn!
William Hollis was a disappointed and embittered man. Life had gone
wrong with him; but a small jar of Blackhampton Old Ale softens failure
and evokes the quality of self-pity. However, as he approached Mr.
Munt's gate and gained a clearer view of the newest and most imposing
house on The Rise, the sense of failure rose in him to a pitch that was
hard to bear. So this was what Melia's father had done! No wonder she
despised a man like himself. It was not very surprising after all that
she hardly threw a word to him now from one day's end to another.