Produced by Al Haines.
*THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS*
*A Novel*
BY
S. BARING GOULD
AUTHOR OF
'MEHALAH,' 'COURT ROYAL,' 'JOHN HERRING,' 'THE GAVEROCKS,' ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I.
LONDON
SPENCER BLACKETT & HALLAM
MILTON HOUSE, 35, ST. BRIDE STREET, LUDGATE CIRCUS, E.C.
1889
[_All rights reserved_]
*CONTENTS OF VOL. I.*
CHAPTER
I. SHAKING THE TREE
II. SALOME
III. A TRUST
IV. ON THE TOWPATH
V. RIPE AND DROPPED
VI. A COTTAGE PIANO
VII. TAKING POSSESSION
VIII. IN ONE COMPARTMENT
IX. ARRIVAL
X. WITH A LOAF AND A CANDLE
XI. EXPECTATION
XII. SURPRISES
XIII. WHAT NEXT?
XIV. ADMINISTRATION
XV. THE WOMAN WITH A PIPE
XVI. WHO? WHAT?
*THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS.*
*CHAPTER I.*
*SHAKING THE TREE.*
There is an aboriginal race in Borneo, of which it is said that they
dispose of their aged parents and relatives in an interesting, novel,
and altogether aboriginal fashion.
They courteously, but withal peremptorily, require them periodically to
climb trees, and when they are well up and grappling the branches, they
shake the trees. If the venerable representatives of the earlier
generation hold on, they are pronounced to be still green; but if they
drop, they are adjudged ripe, are fallen upon and eaten, the palms of
the hands and the soles of the feet being reserved as the prerogative of
the heir-at-law, as the richest morsels.
We do nothing of this sort in Christendom, least of all in civilized
England. God, we thank Thee that we are not as other men are, even as
these Borneans, for the conversion of whom we put prayer up at the
family altar, that is, the breakfast-table, or offer our mite--a
veritable mite, a microscopic fraction of our income. We look in
England on our aged relatives with reverence, not with greed, and if we
butter them, it is not because we desire to eat them, but because they
are susceptible to butter. We never calculate the number of pounds they
weigh, we never look hungrily at their palms, and never put the ladder
against the tree, and with hat off and professions of respect and
endearment invite them to climb. The Esquimaux act very differently
from the Borneans; they take their ancient relations, and put them out
of their huts in the cold, and leave them to freeze or starve. What a
stride humanity has made with us! We deal with our poor, meagre
relatives in this way? We!--as little do we turn them out in the cold as
we do fall upon and eat up our plump ones, like the Borneans.
'One of the pleasures of having a rout, is the pleasure of having it
over,' said Tom Hood, in his poem of Miss Killmansegg and her Golden
Leg, and he said truly--most truly, when that rout was one of obligation
or of interest, or of obligation and interest combined, when it was not
a spontaneous burst of hospitality, but a laboured affair, and like a
laboured literary effort--heavy.
Mrs. Sidebottom, or as she was pleased to accentuate her name,
Siddy-bot-TOME, sat before the fire with her silk evening skirt turned
up over her knees to prevent it from becoming scorched, and with her
neat little feet on the fender.
What tricks we do play with our names to deliver them from the suspicion
of vulgarity. How we double the capital F's, and convert the i's into
y's, so that common little Finches can strut as Ffinches and
insignificant Smiths can add a cubit to their stature as Smythes! How
for distinction we canonize our final syllables, and convert Singeons
into St. John's, and Slodgers into St. Ledgers; and elevate Mungy into
Mont Joye, and Gallicize our Mullens into Molleynes, take the blackness
out of Death by spelling it De'Ath and even turn a Devil into De Ville!
The candles had been blown out on the chimney-piece, in the sconces on
the walls, and on the piano. A savour of extinguished candles pervaded
the room.
Mrs. Siddy-bot-TOME--her name is given as pronounced once again, that it
may stamp itself on the memory of the reader--Mrs. Siddy-bot-TOME (the
third time is final)--sat by the fire with puckered lips and brows. She
was thinking. She was a lady of fifty, well--very well--preserved,
without a gray hair or a wrinkle, with fair skin and light eyes, and
hair the colour of hemp. Her eyelashes were lighter still, so light as
to be almost white--the white not in fashion at the time, but about to
come into fashion, of a creamy tinge.
She was not a clever woman by any means, not a woman of broad
sympathies, but a woman who generally had her own way through the force
and energy of her character, and as that force was always directed in
one direction, and her energy always exerted for one purpose, she
accomplished more than did many far cleverer women. She rarely failed
to carry her point, whatever that point was.
Whatever that point was, it was invariably one that revolved about
herself, as the moon about the earth in the universe, as Papageno about
Papagena, in the 'Magic Flute,' and as the cork attached to the cat's
tail in the nursery.
If Mrs. Sidebottom had been a really clever woman, she would have
concealed her ends and aims, as those who are smuggling lace or silk,
coil them about them, and hide them in their umbrellas, under their
cloaks, and in their bosoms. But she lacked this cleverness, or failed
to admit that selfish aims were contraband. We are all selfish, from the
smallest herb, that strives to outrun and smother those herbs that grow
about it; through the robin Pecksy, that snaps the worm from its sister
Flapsy; and the dog that holds the manger against the ox; to ourselves,
the crown of creation and the climax of self-seeking, but we do not show
it. The snail has telescopic eyes, wherewith to peer for something he
may appropriate to himself; but the snail, when he thinks himself
observed, withdraws his horns and conceals them behind a dimple.
Mrs. Sidebottom was either too eager or too careless, or--for charity
hopeth all things--too sincere, to disguise her horns. She thrust them
this way, that way; they went up to take bird's-eye views; they dived
beneath, to survey matters subterranean; they went round corners,
described corkscrews, to observe things from every conceivable aspect.
They were thrust down throats and into pockets, and, though small, were
of thousandfold magnifying power, like those of a fly, and, like those
of a prophet, saw into futurity, and, like those of the historian,
explored the past.
In a lounging chair, also near the fire, but not monopolizing the middle
like his mother, sat Captain Pennycomequick, the son of Mrs. Sidebottom.
He wore a smoking jacket, braided with red or brown; and was engaged
languidly on a cigarette-case, looking for a suitable cigarette.
Mrs. Sidebottom's maiden name had been Pennycomequick, and as she
despised her married name, even when accentuated past recognition, she
had persuaded her son to exchange his designation, by royal licence, to
Pennycomequick.
But euphony was not the sole or principal motive in Mrs. Sidebottom that
induced her to move her son to make this alteration. She was the
daughter of a manufacturer, now some time deceased, in the large
Yorkshire village or small town of Mergatroyd in the West Riding, by his
second wife. Her half-brother by the first wife now owned the mill, was
the head and prop of the family, and was esteemed to be rich.
She was moderately well provided for. She had a sort of lien on the
factory, and the late Mr. Sidebottom, solicitor, had left something.
But what is four hundred per annum to a woman with a son in the army
dependent on her, and with a soul too big for her purse, with large
requirements, an ambition that could only be satisfied on a thousand a
year. Would any stomach be content on half-rations that had capacity for
whole ones? On the fringe of the Arctic circle a song is sung that
'Iceland is the fairest land that ever the sun beheld,' but it is only
sung by those who have never been elsewhere. Now, Mrs. Sidebottom had
seen much more luxuriant and snugger conditions of existence than that
which can be maintained on four hundred a year. For instance, her
friend, Mrs. Tomkins, having six hundred, was able to keep a little
carriage; and Miss Jones, on a thousand, had a footman and a butler.
Consequently Mrs. Sidebottom was by no means inclined to acquiesce in a
boreal and glacial existence of four hundred, and say that it was the
best of states that ever the sun beheld.
Mrs. Sidebottom's half-brother, Jeremiah Pennycomequick, was unmarried
and aged fifty-five. She knew his age to a day, naturally, being his
sister, and she sent him congratulations on his recurrent
birthdays--every birthday brought her nearer to his accumulations. She
knew his temperament, naturally, being his sister, and could reckon his
chances of life as accurately as the clerk in an Assurance Office. To
impress the fact of her relationship on Jeremiah, to obtain, if
possible, some influence over him, at all events to hedge out others
from exercising power over his mind, Mrs. Sidebottom had lately migrated
to Mergatroyd, and had brought her son with her. She was the rather
moved to do this, as her whole brother, Nicholas Pennycomequick, had
just died. There had been no love lost between Jeremiah and Nicholas,
and now that Nicholas was no more, it was possible that his son Philip
might be received into favour, and acquire gradually such influence over
his uncle as to prejudice him against herself and her son. To prevent
this--prevent in both its actual and its original significations--Mrs.
Sidebottom had pulled up her tentpegs, and had encamped at Mergatroyd.
The captain wore crimson-silk stockings and glazed pumps. He had neat
little feet, like his mother. When he had lighted a cigarette, he blew a
whiff of smoke, then held up one of his feet and contemplated it.
'My dear Lambert,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, 'I wish you could slip those
red stockings of yours into your uncle's beetle-crushers.'
'They would be too roomy for me,' said the captain.
'Not at all, Lamb. Your feet would expand to fill his shoes,' argued
his mother.
'My feet are pinched enough now--certainly,' sighed Lambert
Pennycomequick.
'This dinner will not have cost us nothing,' mused Mrs. Sidebottom,
looking dreamily into the coals. 'The champagne was six-and-six a
bottle, and three bottles were drunk,' she also heaved a sigh.
'Almost a pound. Surely, gooseberry would have done.'
'No, Lamb! it would not. It never does to be stingy in such matters.
Though how we are to pay for it all----' Mrs. Sidebottom left the
sentence as unsettled as the bill for the champagne was likely to
remain.
'I don't see why you should not tell Uncle Jeremiah how crippled we
are.'
'Never,' said his mother decisively. 'Man's heart as naturally closes
against impecunious relatives as does a tulip against rain. When you
are bathing, Lamb, you never voluntarily swim within reach of an
octopus. If you see one coming, with its eyes fixed on you, and its
feelers extended, you strike out for dear life. It is so in the great
sea of life, which is full of these many-armed hungry creatures. The
waters are alive with them, great as a needy relation, and small as a
begging letter. It is insufficient to know how to swim; one must know
also how to kick out and keep away from octopuses. No, Jeremiah must
not suppose that we want anything of him.'
'It seems to me, mother,' said Lambert, 'that you might just as well
tell him we are in difficulties and need his assistance. I am sure he
sees it; he was very cold and reserved to-night.'
'Not on any account. You are quite mistaken; he has not a suspicion.
Let me see, the waiters were half a guinea each, and the pheasants seven
shillings a pair. We could not have sixpenny grapes--it would never
have done.'
'I hate reckoning on dead men's shoes,' said Lambert. 'It is mean.
Besides, Uncle Jeremiah may outlive us both.'
'No, Lamb, he cannot. Consider his age; he is fifty-five.'
'And you, mother, are fifty, only five years' difference.'
Mrs. Sidebottom did not wince.
'You do not consider that his has been a sedentary life, which is very
prejudicial to health. Besides, he has rushes of blood to the head.
You saw how he became red as a Tritoma when you made that ill-judged
remark about Salome. Apoplexy is in the family. Our father died of
it.'
'Well, I hate counting the years a fellow has to live. We must all hop
some day.'
'I trust he enjoyed himself,' said Mrs. Sidebottom. 'He took one of the
_anges-a-cheval_. Did he touch the ices?'
'I think not.'
'I am sorry--I mean, I am thankful, they are bad for apoplectic persons,
Lamb. He pays income-tax on twelve hundred.'
'He does not live at the rate of five hundred.'
'Not at the rate of three.'
'Perhaps eventually he may leave the mill to Philip, and the savings to
me. I won't think of it, as it may all turn out different; but that
would be best for me.'
'Not best, Lamb. Both the savings and the mill should be yours.'
'What should I do with the mill? You would not have me turn
manufacturer?'
'No; but you could sell the business.'
'This is like selling the lion's skin before the lion is killed,' said
the captain with a little impatience.
After a pause, during which Mrs. Sidebottom watched a manufactory and a
bank and much treasure in the red-hot coals crumble down in the gradual
dissolution to ashes, she said:
'Lamb, you have no occasion to be uneasy about your cousin Philip.'
'I am not. I have not given him a thought.'
'Jeremiah can never forgive Nicholas for withdrawing his money from the
business at a critical moment, and almost bringing about a catastrophe.
When Nicholas did that I was as angry, and used as strong remonstrance
as Jeremiah, but all in vain. Nicholas, when he took an idea into his
head, would not be diverted from carrying it out, however absurd it was.
I did not suppose that Nicholas would be such a fool as he proved, and
lose his money. He got into the hands of a plausible scoundrel.'
'Schofield?'
'Yes; that was his name, Schofield, who turned his head, and walked off
with pretty nearly every penny. But he might have ruined himself, and I
would not have grumbled. What alarmed and angered me was that he
jeopardized my fortune as well as that of Jeremiah. A man has a right
to ruin himself if he likes, but not to risk the fortunes of others.'
The captain felt that he was not called upon to speak.
'It is as well that we are come here,' pursued Mrs. Sidebottom. 'Though
we were comfortable at York, we could not have lived longer there at our
rate, and here we can economize. The society here is not worth
cultivation; it is all commercial, frightfully commercial. You can see
it in the shape of their shoulders and in the cut of their coats. As
for the women---- But there, I won't be unkind.'
'Uncle Jeremiah winced at my joke about Salome.'
'Salome!' repeated his mother, and her mouth fell at the corners.
'Salome!' She fidgeted in her chair. 'I had not calculated on her when
I came here. Really, I don't know what to do about her. You should not
have made that joke. It was putting ideas into your uncle's head. It
made the blood rush to his face, and that showed you had touched him.
That girl is a nuisance. I wish she were married or shot. She may yet
draw a stroke across our reckoning.'
Mrs. Sidebottom lapsed into thought, thought that gave her no pleasure.
After a pause of some minutes, Captain Lambert said:
'By the way, mother, what table-cloth did you have on to-day? I noticed
Uncle Jeremiah looking at it inquisitively.'
'Naturally he would look at it, and that critically, as he is a linen
manufacturer, and weaves fine damasks. I hate shop.'
'But--what table-cloth was it?'
'The best, of course. One figured with oak-leaves and acorns, and in
the middle a wreath, just like those thrown over one's head by urchins
for a tip, on the Drachenfels.'
'Are you sure, mother?'
'I gave it out this morning.'
'Would you mind looking at it? I do not think the table has been
cleared yet. When I saw Uncle Jeremiah was professionally interested in
it, I looked also, but saw no acorns or oak-leaves.'
'Of course there were oak-leaves and acorns; it was our best.'
'Then I must be blind.'
'Fiddlesticks!' said Mrs. Sidebottom.
However, she stood up and went into the dining-room.
A moment later the captain heard an exclamation. Then his mother left
the dining-room, and he heard her ascend the stairs. Shortly after she
descended, and re-entered the room with a face the colour of a
table-cloth, or, to be more exact, of the same tone as her eyelashes.
'Well,' said the Captain languidly, 'have the oak-leaves and acorns
disappeared in the wash?'
'Oh, Lamb! what is to be done? Jeremiah will never forgive us. He will
feel this acutely--as an insult. That owl--that owl of a maid has
ruined our prospects.'
'What has she done?'
'And not one of the waiters, though paid half a guinea each, observed
it.'
'What was done?'
'She put a sheet on the table, and made up your bed with the oak-leaves
and acorns!'
*CHAPTER II.*
*SALOME.*
I lay in bed this morning, musing on the feelings of those aged Borneans
as they approached ripeness, and noticed the eyes of the rising
generation fixed on them with expectancy, saw their red tongues flicker
out of their mouths and stealthily lick their lips. I lay in bed
considering whether my time had come to crawl up the tree, whether,
perhaps, I was already hanging to one of the branches, and felt the
agitation of the trunk. But the thought was uncomfortable, and I turned
back to the Borneans who live very remote from us, and I considered how
sensitive they must have become in old age to every glance of eye, and
word let slip, and gesture of impatience observable in the rising
generation. I mused over the little artifices that would be adopted by
them to disguise the approach of ripeness; how, when extending their
shaking hands over the fire, they would endeavour to control the muscles
and disguise their tremble; how they would give to them an unreal
appearance of nervous grip; how they would talk loud and deep out of
their quavering pipe; and how they would fill in the creases in their
brows and cheeks with tallow, and dance at every festival with an
affectation of suppleness long lost. And I considered further how that
all these little artifices would be seen through and jeered at, and how
they never for one minute would postpone the fatal day when the tree
would be indicated, and the command given to ascend.
Then next, having felt my ribs and counted them, and my thews and found
them shrunk and with no flesh on them, I thought of the Esquimaux, and
the way in which their elders were put out of doors and exposed to die
of cold; and after I had left my bed, at breakfast, throughout the day,
I remained mighty touchy and keenly observant, and alarmed at every
slight, and fault of deference, and disregard of habitual consideration,
thinking it might be a premonition that I was being considered fit to be
turned out into the cold.
Among barbarians it is customary to surfeit a victim destined to become
a sacrifice. It almost seemed as if the birthday-banquet given to Uncle
Jeremiah by his half-sister had been given with this intent.
Mythologists tell us that Pluto, the god of the nether world, and
Plutus, the god of wealth, were identical divinities, variously
designated according to the aspect in which viewed, whether from that of
the victims offered to the god, or from that of the immolator. The god
of Death to one was the god of Fortune to another.
Uncle Jeremiah Pennycomequick was not indeed shaken by his half-sister
and nephew whilst clinging to the Tree of Life, but was apprised by them
as to his ripeness, and to his calibre, and was not unaware that such
was the case. Indeed, as already intimated, Mrs. Sidebottom was as
incapable of concealing her motives as is Mephistopheles of concealing
his hoof. She flattered herself that it was not so, and yet she wore
her purposes, her ambitions, in her face.
As Jeremiah walked homewards it was with much the same consciousness
that must weigh on the spirits of a bullock that has been felt and
measured by a butcher.
He opened his door with a latch-key, and entered his little parlour. A
light was burning there, and he saw Salome seated on a stool by the
fire, engaged in needle-work. The circle of light cast from above was
about her, irradiating her red-gold hair. She turned and looked up at
Jeremiah with a smile, and showed the cheek that had been nearest the
fire glowing like a carnation.
'What--not in bed?' exclaimed the old man, half reproachfully, and yet
with a tone of pleasure in his voice.
'No, uncle; I thought you might possibly want something before retiring.
Besides, you had not said Good-night to me, and I couldn't sleep without
that.'
'I want nothing, child.'
'Shall I fold up my work and go?'
'No--no,' he replied hesitatingly, and stood looking at the fire, then
at his chair, and then, with doubt and almost fear, at her. 'Salome, I
should like a little talk with you. I am out of sorts, out of spirits.
The Sidebottoms always irritate me. Velvet is soft, but the touch
chills my blood. I want to have my nerves composed before I can sleep,
and the hour is not late--not really late. I came away from the
Sidebottoms as soon as I could do so with decency. Of course, it was
very kind of my sister to give this dinner in my honour, on my birthday,
but----' He did not finish the sentence.
The girl took his hand and pressed him to sit down in his chair. He
complied without resistance, but drew away his hand from her with a
gesture of uneasiness, a shrinking that somewhat surprised her.
When in his seat, he sat looking at her, with his elbows resting on the
arms of his chair, and his palms folded before his breast like the hands
of a monumental effigy. Salome had resumed her place and work. As he
did not speak, she presently glanced up at him and smiled with her
slight sweet smile, that was not the motion of the lips, but the
dimpling of the pure cheek. He did not return her smile; his eyes,
though on her, did not see her and notice the inquiry in her
countenance.
Jeremiah was aged that day fifty-five, or, as Mrs. Sidebottom put it for
her greater comfort, in his fifty-sixth year. The dinner party at his
half-sister's had been given entirely in his honour. His health had
been drunk, and many good wishes for long years had been expressed with
apparent heartiness; but what had been done to gratify him had been
overdone in some particulars, and underdone in others--overdone in
profession, underdone in sincerity; and he returned home dissatisfied
and depressed.
When the peacock unfurls his fan, he does not persistently face you; if
he did so, words would fail to express your admiration, but the bird
twirls about on his feet, and foolishly exposes the ribbing of his
plumage, so as to provoke contemptuous laughter. It is the same with
selfish and with vain persons. They make a prodigious effort to impose,
and then, still ruffling with expanded glories, they revolve on their
pivots, and in complete unconsciousness exhibit the ignoble rear of
sordid artifice, and falsity, and mean pretence.
Joseph Cusworth had been at first clerk and then traveller for the house
of Pennycomequick, a trustworthy, intelligent and energetic man.
Twenty-two years ago, after the factory had fallen under the sole
management of Jeremiah, through the advanced age of his father and his
half-brother's disinclination for business, master and man had
quarrelled. Jeremiah had been suspicious and irascible in those days,
and he had misinterpreted the freedom of action pursued by Cusworth as
allowed him by old Pennycomequick, and dismissed him. Cusworth went to
Lancashire, where he speedily found employ, and married. After a few
years and much vexation through the incompetence or unreliability of
agents, Jeremiah had swallowed his pride and invited Cusworth to return
into his employ, holding out to him the prospect of admission into
partnership after a twelvemonth. Cusworth had, accordingly, returned to
Mergatroyd and brought with him his wife and twin daughters. The
reconciliation was complete. Cusworth proved to be the same upright,
reliable man as of old, and with enlarged experience. His accession
speedily made itself felt. He was one of those men who attract friends
everywhere, whom everyone insensibly feels can be trusted.
The deed of partnership was drawn up and engrossed, and only lacked
signature, when, in going through the mill with Jeremiah, Cusworth was
caught by the lappet of his coat in the machinery, drawn in, under the
eye of his superior, and so frightfully mangled that he never recovered
consciousness, and expired a few hours after.
From that time, Mrs. Cusworth, with the children, was taken into the
manufacturer's house, where she acted as his housekeeper. There the
little girls grew up, and made their way into the affections of the
solitary man who encouraged them to call him uncle, though there was
absolutely no relationship subsisting between them.
Jeremiah had never been married; he had never been within thought of
such an event. No woman had ever made the smallest impression on his
heart. He lived for his business, which engrossed all his thoughts; as
for his affections, they would have stagnated but for the presence of
the children in the house, the interest they aroused, the amusement they
caused, the solicitude they occasioned, and for the thousand little
fibres their innocent hands threw about his heart, till they had caught
and held it in a web of their artless weaving. He had lost his mother
when he was born, his father married again soon after, and his life at
home with his stepmother had not been congenial. He was kept away from
home at school, and then put into business at a distance, and his
relations with his half-sister and half-brother had never been cordial.
They had been pampered and he neglected. When, finally, he came home to
assist his father, his half-sister was married, and his brother, who had
taken a distaste for business, was away.
One day of his life had passed much like another; he had become devoted
to his work, which he pursued mechanically, conscientiously, but at the
same time purposelessly, for he had no one whom he loved or even cared
for to whom his fortune might go and for whom, therefore, it would be a
pleasure to accumulate. And as for himself, he was without ambition.
When daily he returned from the mill after the admission of the Cusworth
family under his roof, the prattle and laughter of the children had
refreshed him; their tender, winning ways had overmastered him and
softened his hitherto callous heart. It was to him as if the sun had
suddenly broken through the clouds that had overarched and chilled and
obscured his life, and was warming, glorifying, and vivifying his latter
days.
Time passed, and the little girls grew up into young women. They were
much alike in face and in colour of hair and eyes and complexion; but
there the likeness stopped. In character they were not twins. Their
names were Salome and Janet. Janet was married. A year ago, when she
was barely nineteen, the son of a manufacturer at Elboeuf, in Normandy,
had seen, loved, and made her his own.
This young man, Albert Victor Baynes, had been born and bred in France,
but his father had been a manufacturer in Yorkshire, till driven to
distraction by strikes at times when he had taken heavy contracts, he,
like a score of others similarly situated, had migrated with his plant
and business to Normandy, and opened in a foreign land a spring of
wealth that copiously irrigated a wide area, and which greed and folly
had banished from its proper home. About Rouen, Elboeuf, and Louviers
are bristling factory chimneys and busy manufactures, carried thither by
Yorkshire capitalists and employers, and where they initiated, the
French have followed, and have drained away our English trade.
Young Baynes had come to Yorkshire and to Mergatroyd to visit relatives,
and he had at once lost his heart to Janet Cusworth. As he was the only
son of a man in good business, and as 'Uncle' Jeremiah was prepared to
act liberally towards the daughter of Joseph Cusworth, no difficulties
arose to cross the course of love and delay union. It was said that
Jeremiah Pennycomequick could hardly have behaved more liberally had
Janet been his daughter. But another reason urged him to generosity
beside his regard for the girl. This was gratitude to Albert Victor
Baynes for choosing Janet instead of his special favourite, Salome, who
had chiefly wound herself about his heart. Janet was a lively,
frolicsome little creature, whom it was a relaxation to watch, and whose
tricks provoked laughter; but Salome was that one of the twins who had
depth of character, and who, as the millfolk declared, had inherited all
her father's trustworthiness, thoughtfulness, and that magnetism which
attracts love.
Salome continued her needlework silently, with the firelight flickering
over her fair face and rich hair. Her complexion was very delicate, and
perhaps the principal charm of her face consisted in the transparency
not of the skin only, but of the entire face, that showed every change
of thought and feeling by a corresponding dance of blood and shift of
colour in it--and not colour only, for as a mirror takes the lightest
breath and becomes clouded by it, so was it with her countenance; bright
with an inner light, the slightest breath of trouble, discouragement,
alarm, brought a cloud over it, dimming its usual brilliancy.
'Yours is a very tell-tale face,' her sister had often said to her.
'Without your opening your eyes I can read all that passes in your
mind.'
At the time that young Baynes had stayed at Mergatroyd, Jeremiah had
been uneasy. The young man hovered round the sisters, and spoke to one
as much as to the other, and divided his attentions equally between
them. The sisters so closely resembled each other in features,
complexion and hair, as well as in height and frame, that only such as
knew them could distinguish the one from the other, and the distinction
consisted rather in expression than in aught else. How anyone could
mistake the one for the other was a marvel to Jeremiah, who was never in
doubt. But the resemblance was so close that Albert Victor Baynes hung
for some time in uncertainty as to which he should take, and was only
decided by the inner qualities of Janet, whose vivacity and sparkle best
suited the taste of a man whose ideas of woman showed they had been
formed in France.
Whilst Baynes was in uncertainty, or in apparent uncertainty, Jeremiah
suffered. He loved both the girls, but he loved Salome infinitely
better than her sister; it would be to him a wrench to part with
brilliant Janet, but nothing like the wrench that would ensue were he
required to separate from Salome.
Those who from childhood have been surrounded by an atmosphere of love,
who have come to regard it as their natural element, such have no
conception of the force with which love boils up in an old heart that
has been long arid and affectionless. In the limestone Western Hills
there are riverless valleys, tracts of moor and mountain without a rift,
dead and waterless, yet deep beneath, in secret channels, streams are
flowing, and mighty vaults form subterranean reservoirs, by all who pass
over the surface unsuspected. But suddenly from a cliff-side pours the
long-hidden water, not a spring, a rivulet, but a full-grown river ready
to turn millwheels and carry boats. So is it with certain human natures
that have been long passionless, without the token of soft affections:
the all-conquering stream of love breaks from their hearts in mighty
volume and unexpectedly.
There had been nothing of self-analysis in Jeremiah. The children had
sprung up under his care, and year by year had seen them acquire an inch
or a fraction of an inch in height, their beauty develop, their
intelligences expand; imperceptibly they had stolen from infancy into
childhood, and from childhood in like manner had crept unobserved into
maidenhood, and then flowered into full and perfect beauty; and each
stage of growth had carried them a stage further into Jeremiah's
affections, and had cast another and a stronger tie about his heart. He
had loved them as children, and he loved them as beautiful and
intelligent girls, as belonging to his house, as essential to his
happiness, as the living elements that made up to him the idea of home.
The only sorrow he had--if that could be called a sorrow which was no
more than a regret--was that they were not his own true nieces, or,
better still, his children. When Janet was taken and Salome left, he
was thankful, and he put away from him for the time the fear that Salome
would also take wing and leave him in the same manner as Janet had gone.
How could he endure recurrence to the old gloom, and relapse into
purposeless gathering of money? How could he endure life deprived of
both Janet and Salome? How can a man who has seen the sun endure
blindness? Or a man whose ears have drunk in music bear deafness?
Deafness and blindness of heart would be his portion in that part of
life when most he needed ear and eye--deafness and blindness after
having come to understand the melody of a happy home, and see the beauty
of a child-encircled hearth.
What must be the distress of him who has had a well-furnished house to
have an execution put in, and everything sold away from before his eyes,
nothing left him but the bed on which to lie and gnash his teeth? How
bald, how cold, how hateful the dismantled home will seem without the
thousand comforts and beautifying objects to which his eyes have been
accustomed! The children as they grew up had furnished Jeremiah's house
with pleasant fancies, had hung the walls with bright remembrances, and
filled every corner with tender associations. The floor was strewn with
their primrose homage. The thought that as he had lost Janet, so must
he some day lose Salome, rose up continually before Jeremiah, and
sickened him with fear. He tried to steel himself in expectation of it.
It was in the nature of things that young girls should marry. It was
inevitable that a closer and stronger tie should be formed, and then
that cord of reverential gratitude which now attached Salome to him
would dwindle imperceptibly, yet surely, to a thread, and from a thread
to a filament. In proportion as from the new bond other ties arose, so
would that attaching her to him become attenuated till it became formal
only.
A great pain arose in Jeremiah's heart.
And now, this evening, he looked at the girl engaged on her needlework,
and observation returned into his eyes. Now he began that work of
self-analysis, with her before him, that he had never thought of
engaging in before, never dreamed would be requisite for him to engage
in.
As he looked steadily at Salome, his closed palms trembled, and he
separated them, put one to his lips, for they were trembling also, and
then to his brow, which was wet.
Salome's soft brown eyes were lifted from her work, and rested steadily
on him.
'Dear uncle,' she said. 'My dear--dear, uncle! You are unwell.'
She drew her stool close to him, and threw her arms about him, to draw
his quivering face towards her own that she might kiss it. But he
started up with a groan, backed from her arms, and paced the room in
agitation. He dare not receive her embrace. He dare not meet her eyes.
He had read his own heart for the first time, helped thereto by a casual
joke from Captain Lambert Pennycomequick at table that evening.
*CHAPTER III.*
*A TRUST.*
During dinner that evening the conversation had turned on modern music.
Yorkshire folk are, with rare exceptions, musical, and those who are not
musical are expected, at all events, to be able to take their part in a
conversation about music. Someone had spoken about old English ballads,
whereupon Captain Lambert had said, as an aside to his uncle:
'No one can doubt what is your favourite song.'
'There you have the advantage of me,' said Jeremiah simply.
'"Sally in our Alley"--but I must say you take slow time in getting to
the last verse.'
Then he hummed the words:
'And when my seven long years are out,
Oh, then I'll marry Sally!
And then how happily we'll live,
But not in our Alley.'
Then it was that the blood had rushed into the manufacturer's temples, a
rush of blood occasioned partly by anger at being made the subject of a
joke, and partly by the suggestion which startled him.
Never before that moment had the thought occurred to him that it was
possible for him to bind Salome to him by the closest and surest of
ties. No, never before had he imagined that this was possible.
How one word starts a train of ideas! As a spark falling on thatch may
cause a conflagration, so may a word carelessly dropped set blood on
fire and drive a man to madness. That little remark had produced in
Jeremiah an effect greater than Lambert could have calculated, and his
mother went very near the truth when she rebuked him for saying what he
had. From thenceforth Jeremiah could no longer look at Salome in the
old light; she was no more a child to him, and he no more an old man
beyond the reach of that flame that sweeps round the world and scorches
all men. In Wagner's great opera of the 'Valkyrie,' Brunnhild is
represented asleep, engirdled by a ring of fire, and Sigurd, who tries
to reach her, can only do so by passing through the flame, and to render
it innocuous he sings the wondrous fire-spell song, and the flame leaps
and declines, and finally goes out to the cadences of the spell. But
Jeremiah now found himself caught in the _Waberlohe_ that enringed
Salome, knowing no incantation by which to abate its ardour; whilst she
sat unconscious of the peril to which she subjected others, of the magic
that surrounded and streamed forth from her, guileless of the pain which
she occasioned him whom she beckoned to her. Jeremiah was caught by the
flame, it curled round him, and he writhed in its embrace. He was an
old, at all events an elderly, man, his age five and fifty, and Salome
was but twenty. He had passed the grand climateric when she was born.
Could he, dare he, love her, except with the simple love of a parent for
a child? But could he love her thus any longer now that his eyes were
opened, and he had discovered the condition of his own heart? When Adam
had tasted of the Tree of Knowledge his child-like simplicity was gone,
and he made himself coverings to hide himself from himself and from
others. So now, this man in the decline of life had tasted also and at
once was filled with shame at himself, and he sought out evasion of the
truth, a disguise for his feelings, lest Salome should suspect what was
passing within him.
'Salome, my child,' he said, 'those Sidebottoms vex me beyond endurance.
What do you think! They served up a really sumptuous dinner on a table
covered with a sheet.'
'A sheet--from a bed!'
'A sheet, not a tablecloth. It was characteristic.'
'Has that upset you?'
'No--not that. But, Salome, I have been considering how it would be,
were this factory, after I am no more, to fall into such hands as those
of the ninny captain.'
'There is Mr. Philip,' said the girl.
'Philip----!' the manufacturer paused. 'Philip--I hardly consider him
as one of the family. His father behaved outrageously.'
'But for all that he is your nephew.'
'Of course he is, by name and blood, but--I do not like him.'
'You do not know him, uncle.'
'That is true; but----'
'But he is your nearest relative.'
Mr. Pennycomequick was silent. He returned to his chair and reseated
himself; not now leaning back, with his arms folded on his breast, but
bent forward, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
He looked into the fire. After full five minutes' silence he said, in a
tone of self-justification:
'I can never forgive my half-brother Nicholas.'
'Yet he is dead,' said the girl.
There was no accent of reproach in her voice; nevertheless Jeremiah took
her words as conveying a reproach.
'I do not mean,' he said apologetically, 'that I allowed him to die
unforgiven, but that his conduct was inexcusable. I have pardoned the
man, but I cannot forgive his act.'
'Philip, however,' said Salome, 'is the son of the man, and not of his
mistake.'
Jeremiah was touched, and winced; but he would not show it.
'My brother Nicholas acted in such a manner as to produce an
estrangement that has, and will have, lastingly influenced our
relations. Philip I saw at his father's funeral, which I
attended--which,' he repeated the sentence, 'which I attended.'
The girl said no more. She knew that Jeremiah was not a man to brook
interference, and she was well aware that this was a matter in which she
had no right to interfere. But he was not satisfied with so slight a
word of self-justification; he returned to the topic, with his face
turned from her, looking into the fire.
'It was thoughtless; it was wicked. The mill was left between us,
burdened with a certain charge for my half-sister; and Nicholas never
took the smallest interest in the business. I did the work; he drew his
share. He got into the hands of a swindling speculator, who fired his
imagination with a scheme for converting the Desert of Sahara into a
vast inland sea, the company to have the monopoly of the trade round its
shores. My brother's head was turned, and he insisted on withdrawing
his share from the mill. He would sell his share--draw all his money out
of the concern, and pitch it wherever Schofield----I mean wherever it
was most likely to be engulfed and yield no return. I remonstrated. I
pointed out to my brother the folly of the scheme, the danger to me. I
had no wish to have some man, of whom I knew nothing, thrust into
partnership with me. I must buy my brother out myself. I did this at a
moment when money was dear, and also at a time when it was necessary to
provide the mill with new machinery, or be left in the lurch in the
manufacture of figured damasks. I had to borrow the money. Slackness
set in, and--God knows!--I was as nearly brought to bankruptcy as a man
can be without actually stopping. Your father came to my aid. But I
had several years of terrible struggle, during which bitter resentment
against my brother Nicholas grew in my heart. We never met again. We
no longer corresponded. As for his son, I knew nothing of him. I had
seen him as a boy. I did not see him again till he was a man, at his
father's grave. If Nicholas had considered my prejudices, as I suppose
he would call them, he would not have put Philip in a solicitor's
office, knowing, as he must have known, my mistrust of lawyers. I will
not say that I would not have given him a place with me, had Nicholas
asked for it; but he was either too proud to stoop to request a favour
of me, or his old prejudice against trade survived his ruin.'
'Philip may be good and sensible, and a nephew to be proud of. How can
you tell, uncle, that he is not, when you do not know him?'
'He has chosen his profession now. He is a lawyer, and so his line of
life leads away from mine.'
Then ensued silence, broken at length by Salome.
'Uncle,' she said, 'I have had a letter from dear Janet, and what do you
think? She is coming to England, and most likely to us. She does not
say when; but those dreadful Prussians are making their way to Rouen, in
spite of the wonderful stand made by General Faidherbe and the heroic
conduct of his troops. Janet says that she wonders how any soldiers can
stand against an army commanded by a man-devil, for that is what the
Prussian general is named. She says that Albert Victor has felt it his
duty to volunteer to fight for the country of his nativity and adoption,
so dear Janet is alone, and Albert has advised her to take refuge in
England till the tyranny be over. But Janet says she is in hourly
expectation that the Prussians will be out-manoeuvred, surrounded, and
cut to pieces, and, much as she hates the enemies, her chief anxiety is
that the French may not forget to act with humanity in the moment of
victory. She says that the affair at Amiens was quite misrepresented by
the English papers, that Faidherbe obtained a splendid victory, and only
retired in pursuance of a masterly plan he had conceived of drawing the
Prussians on, so as to envelop them and crush them at one blow.
Moreover, Janet says that this blow is expected to fall at any moment,
and to show how thorough a partisan she is--even to me she has begun to
spell her name in the French way, Jeannette.'
'Janet likely to come to us!' exclaimed Jeremiah.
'Only in the event, which she says is more than problematical, of the
enemy occupying Rouen. She tells me that the spirit of the French is
superb. The way in which every man has flown to arms at the call of his
country is unparalleled. She says that the Emperor was the cause of the
disasters that have occurred hitherto, but that France has found a man
of almost superhuman genius, called Gambetta, who is already causing
consternation amongst the Prussians. She says that she has seen it
stated in the most trustworthy Paris papers that in Germany mothers
still their children with the threat that if they cry, they will invoke
Gambetta.'
'Janet will certainly be here shortly,' said Jeremiah. 'The war can
only go one way.'
'I shall be delighted to see my darling sister, and yet sorry for the
occasion of her visit. She tells me that the factories are all stopped.
The hands are now engaged in the defence of their country. Oh, uncle!
what would happen to Janet if anything befell Albert Victor? Do you
think he was right to leave his wife and take up arms as a franc-tireur?
He is not really a Frenchman, though born at Elboeuf.'
To her surprise, Salome saw that her old friend was not attending to
what she was saying. He was not thinking of her sister any more. He
was thinking about her. When she asked what would happen to Janet were
her husband to be carried off, the question forced itself upon his
thought, What would become of Salome were he to fall sick, and be unable
to defend himself against his half-sister. He was perfectly conscious
of Mrs. Sidebottom's object in coming to Mergatroyd, and he was quite
sure that in the event of paralysis, or any grievous sickness taking
him, his half-sister would invade his house and assume authority
therein. He saw that this would happen inevitably; and he was not at
all certain how she would behave to Salome. Mrs. Cusworth was a feeble
woman, unable to dispute the ground with one so pertinacious, and armed
with so good a right, as Mrs. Sidebottom. What friends had Salome? She
had none but himself. Her sister's house was about to be entered by the
enemy, her sister to be a refugee in England. The factories at Elboeuf
were stopped; it was uncertain how the war, when it rolled away, would
leave the manufacturers, whether trade that had been stopped on the
Seine would return thither. What if the Baynes family failed?
Would it not be advisable to secure to Salome a home and position by
making her his wife? Then, whatever happened to him, she would be safe,
in an impregnable situation.
'Salome!'
'Yes, uncle.'
She looked up anxiously. She had not let him see that she was aware
that he was in trouble of mind, and yet she knew it, though she did not
guess its character. Hers was one of those sympathetic natures that
feels a disturbance of equilibrium, as the needle in a magnetometer
vibrates and reels when to the gross human eye there is naught to
occasion it. She had watched Jeremiah's face whilst she spoke to him of
her sister, and was surprised and pained to notice how little Janet's
calamities and anxieties affected him.
What was the matter with him? What were the thoughts that preoccupied
his mind? Not a shadow of a suspicion of their real nature entered her
innocent soul.
'Dear uncle,' she said, when she had waited for a remark, after he had
called her attention, and had waited in vain, 'what is it?'
'Nothing.'
He had recoiled in time. On the very verge of speaking he had arrested
himself.
'Uncle,' she said, 'I am sure you are not well, either in body or in
mind.'
He stood up, went out of the room, without a word.
Salome looked after him in surprise and alarm. Was he going off his
head? She heard him ascend the stairs to his study, and he returned
from it almost immediately. He re-entered the room with a long blue
sealed envelope in his hand.