The Diroms belonged to a class now very common in England, the class of
very rich people without any antecedents or responsibilities, which it
is so difficult to classify or lay hold of, and which neither the
authorities of society nor the moralist have yet fully comprehended.
They had a great deal of money, which is popularly recognized to be
power, and they owed it to nobody but themselves.
They owed nothing to anybody. They had no estates to keep up; no poor
people depended upon them; the clerks and porters at the office were not
to call dependents, though probably--out of good nature, when they were
ill or trouble arose in their families, if it happened to come under the
notice of the head of the firm, he would fling them a little money,
perhaps with an admonition, perhaps with a joke. But this was pure
liberality, generosity as his friends called it. He had nothing to “keep
up.”
Even the sick gamekeeper who had been hurt by a fall, though he was in
the new tenant’s service, was Lady Allonby’s servant, and it was she who
had to support his family while he was ill. The rich people were
responsible for nobody. If they were kind--and they were not unkind--it
was all to their credit, for they had no duty to any one.
This was how the head of the house considered his position. “I don’t
know anything about your land burdens, your feudal burdens,” he would
say; “money is what has made me. I pay taxes enough, I hope; but I’ve
got no sentimental taxes to pay, and I won’t have anything to say to
such rubbish. I am a working man myself, just like the rest. If these
fellows will take care of their own business as I did, they will get on
themselves as I have done, and want nothing from anybody. I’ve no call
even to ‘keep up’ my family; they ought to be working for themselves, as
I was at their age. If I do, it’s because the girls and their mother are
too many for me, and I have to yield to their prejudices.”
These were Mr. Dirom’s principles: but he threw about his money very
liberally all the same, giving large subscriptions, with a determination
to stand at the head of the list when he was on it at all, and an
inclination to twit the others who did not give so liberally with their
stinginess; “What is the use of making bones of it?” he said, with a
flourish to Sir John, who was well known to be in straightened
circumstances; “I just draw a cheque for five hundred and the thing’s
done.”
Sir John could no more have drawn a cheque for five hundred than he
could have flown, and Mr. Dirom knew it; and the knowledge gave an edge
to his pleasure. Sir John’s twenty-five pounds was in reality a much
larger contribution than Mr. Dirom’s five hundred, but the public did
not think of this. The public said that Sir John gave the twenty-five
because he could not help it, because his position demanded it; but Mr.
Dirom’s five hundred took away the breath of the spectators. It was more
than liberal; it was magnificent.
Mr. Dirom was a man who wore white waistcoats and large well-blown roses
in his coat. He swaggered, without knowing it, in his walk, and in his
speech, wherever he was visible. The young people were better bred, and
were very conscious of those imperfections. They preferred, indeed, that
he should not “trouble,” as they said, to come home, especially to come
to the country when business prevented. There was no occasion for papa
to “trouble.” Fred could take his place if he was detained in town.
In this way they showed a great deal of tender consideration for their
father’s engagements. Perhaps he was deceived by it, perhaps not; no one
could tell. He took his own way absolutely, appearing when it suited
him, and when it did not suit him leaving them to their own devices.
Allonby was too far off for him, too distant from town: though he was
quite willing to be known as the occupier of so handsome a “place.” He
came down for the first of the shooting, which is the right thing in the
city, but afterwards did not trouble his family much with his presence,
which was satisfactory to everybody concerned. It was not known exactly
what Mr. Dirom had risen from, but it was low enough to make his
present elevation wonderful, and to give that double zest to wealth
which makes the self-made man happy.
Mrs. Dirom was of a different order. She was two generations at least
from the beginning of her family, and she too, though in a less degree
than her children, felt that her husband’s manners left something to be
desired. He had helped himself up by her means, she having been, as in
the primitive legend, of the class of the master’s daughters: at least
her father was the head of the firm under which Dirom had begun to “make
his way.” But neither was she quite up to the mark.
“Mamma is dreadfully middle-class,” the girls said. In some respects
that is worse than the lower class. It made her a little timid and
doubtful of her position, which her husband never was. None of these
things affected the young people; they had received “every advantage.”
Their father’s wealth was supposed to be immense; and when wealth is
immense it penetrates everywhere. A moderate fortune is worth very
little in a social point of view, but a great fortune opens every door.
The elder brother, who never came to Allonby, who never went near the
business, who had been portioned off contemptuously by his father, as if
he had been a girl (and scorn could not go farther), had married an
earl’s daughter, and, more than that, had got her off the very steps of
the throne, for she had been a Maid of Honour. He was the most refined
and cultivated individual in the world, with one of the most lovely
houses in London, and everything about him artistic to the last degree.
It was with difficulty that he put up with his father at all. Still, for
the sake of his little boy, he acknowledged the relationship from time
to time.
As for Fred and his sisters, they have already been made known to the
reader. Fred was by way of being “in the business,” and went down to the
office three or four times in the week when he was in town. But what he
wished to be was an artist. He painted more or less, he modelled, he had
a studio of his own in the midst of one of the special artistic
quarters, and retired there to work, as he said, whenever the light was
good.
For his part Fred aspired to be a Bohemian, and did everything he could
in a virtuous way to carry out his intention. He scorned money, or
thought he did while enjoying every luxury it could procure. If he could
have found a beautiful milkmaid or farm girl with anything like the
Rossetti type of countenance he would have married her off-hand; but
then beauties of that description are rare. The country lasses on the
Border were all of too cheerful a type. But he had fully made up his
mind that when the right woman appeared no question of money or
ambition should be allowed to interfere between him and his
inclinations.
“You may say what you will,” he said to his sisters, “and I allow my
principles would not answer with girls. You have nothing else to look
to, to get on in the world. But a man can take that sort of thing in his
own hands, and if one gets beauty that’s enough. It is more distinction
than anything else. I shall insist upon beauty, but nothing more.”
“It all depends on what you call beauty,” said Miss Phyllis. “You can
make anything beauty if you stand by it and swear to it. Marrying a
painter isn’t at all a bad way. He paints you over and over again till
you get recognized as a Type, and then it doesn’t matter what other
people say.”
“You can’t call Effie a Type,” said the young lady who called herself
Doris--her name in fact was a more humble one: but then not even the
Herald’s College has anything to do with Christian names.
“She may not be a Type--but if you had seen her as I did in the half
light, coming out gradually as one’s eyes got used to it like something
developing in a camera--Jove! She was like a Burne-Jones--not strong
enough for the blessed Damozel or that sort of thing, but sad and sweet
like--like--” Fred paused for a simile, “like a hopeless maiden in a
procession winding down endless stairs, or--standing about in the wet,
or--If she had not been dressed in nineteenth-century costume.”
“He calls that nineteenth-century costume!” said Phyllis with a mixture
of sympathy and scorn.
“Poor Effie is not dressed at all,” said the other sister. “She has
clothes on, that is all: but I could make her look very nice if she
were in my hands. She has a pretty little figure, not spoiled at
all--not too solid like most country girls but just enough to drape a
pretty flowing stuff or soft muslin upon. I should turn her out that you
would not know her if she trusted herself to me.”
“For goodness’ sake let her alone,” cried Fred; “don’t make a trollop of
my little maiden. Her little stiffness suits her. I like her just so, in
her white frock.”
“You should have been born a milliner, Dor.”
“Perhaps I was--and papa’s money has thwarted nature. If he should ever
lose it all, which I suppose is on the cards----”
“Oh, very much on the cards,” said Fred.
“There is always a smash some time or other in a great commercial
concern.”
“What fun!” said Miss Phyllis.
“Then I should set up directly. The sisters Dirom, milliners and
dressmakers. It would be exceedingly amusing, and we should make a great
fortune--all _good_ dressmakers do.”
“It would be very amiable of you, Dor, to call your firm the sisters
Dirom--for I should be of no use. I shall spend the fortune if you
please, but I couldn’t help in any other way.”
“Oh, yes, you could. You will marry, and have all your things from me. I
should dress you beautifully, and you would be the most delightful
advertisement. Of course you would not have any false pride. You would
say to your duchesses, I got this from my sister. She is the only
possible dressmaker nowadays.”
“False pride--oh, I hope not! It would be quite a distinction--everybody
would go. You could set up afternoon teas, and let them try on all your
things. It would be delightful. But papa will not come to grief, he is
too well backed up,” said Phyllis with a sigh.
“If I do not marry next season, I shall not wait for the catastrophe,”
said Doris. “Perhaps if the Opposition comes in we might coax Lord
Pantry to get me appointed milliner to the Queen. If Her Majesty had
once a dress from me, she would never look at Worth more.”
“Worth!” said Phyllis, throwing up her hands in mild but indignant
amazement.
“Well, then, Waley, or whatever you call him. Worth is a mere symbol,”
said Doris with philosophical calm. “How I should like it! but if one
marries, one’s husband’s family and all kinds of impossible people
interfere.”
“You had better marry, you girls,” said Fred; “it is much your best
chance. Wipe out the governor with a title. That’s what I should do if I
could. But unfortunately I can’t--the finest of heiresses does not
communicate her family honours, more’s the pity. I shall always be Fred
Dirom, if I were to marry a duchess. But an artist’s antecedents don’t
matter. Fortunately he makes his own way.”
“Fred,” said his mother, coming in, “I wish you would not talk of
yourself as an artist, dear. Papa does not like it. He indulges you all
a great deal, but there are some things that don’t please him at all.”
“Quite unreasonably, mother dear,” said Fred, who was a good son, and
very kind to her on the whole. “Most of the fellows I know in that line
are much better born than I am. Gentlemen’s sons, most of them.”
“Oh, Fred!” said Mrs. Dirom, with eyes of deep reproach. She added in a
tremulous voice, “My grandfather had a great deal of property in the
country. He had indeed, I assure you, although you think we have nothing
but money. And if that does not make a gentleman, what does?”
“What indeed?” said her son: but he made no further reply. And the
sisters interposed.
“We were talking of what we shall all do in case the firm should come to
grief, and all the money be lost.”
“Oh, girls!” Mrs. Dirom started violently and put her hand to her heart.
“Fred! you don’t mean to say that there are rumours in the city, or a
word whispered--”
“Not when I heard last--but then I have not been in the city for a
month. That reminds me,” said Fred, “that really I ought to put in an
appearance--just once in a way.”
“You mean you want to have a run to town?”
“Yes, dear,” said his mother, “go if you think you could be of any use.
Oh, you don’t know what it is you are talking of so lightly. I could
tell you things--Oh, Fred, if you think there is anything going on, any
danger--”
“Nothing of the sort,” he said, with a laugh. “We were only wondering
what we should be good for mother--not much, I believe. I might perhaps
draw for the _Graphic_ fancy pictures of battles and that sort of thing;
or, if the worst came to the worst, there is the _Police News_.”
“You have both got Vocations,” said Phyllis. “It is fine for you. You
know what to do, you two. But I can do nothing; I should have to Marry.”
She spoke with a languid emphasis as of capitals, in her speech.
“Oh, children!” cried Mrs. Dirom, “what are you thinking of? You think
all that is clever, but it does not seem clever to me. It is just the
dreadful thing in business that one day you may be up at the top of the
tree, and next morning--”
“Nowhere!” said Fred, with a burlesque groan. And then they all
laughed. The anxious middle-class mother looked at them as the hen of
the proverb looks at her ducklings. Silly children! what did they know
about it? She could have cried in vexation and distress.
“You laugh,” she said, “but you would not laugh if you knew as much as I
do. The very name of such a thing is unlucky. I wouldn’t let myself
think of it lest it should bring harm. Things may be quite right, and I
hope and believe they are quite right: but if there was so much as a
whisper on the Exchange that his children--his own children--had been
joking on the subject. Oh, a whisper, that’s enough!”
The young people were not in the least impressed by what she said--they
had not been brought up in her sphere. That alarm for exposure, that
dread of a catastrophe which was strong in her bosom, had no response in
theirs. They had no more understanding of poverty than of Paradise--and
to the girls in particular, the idea of a great event, a matter of much
noise and commotion, to be followed by new enchanting freedom and the
possibilities of adventure, was really “fun!” as they said. They were
not afraid of being dropped by their friends.
Society has undergone a change in this respect. A young lady turned into
a fashionable dressmaker would be the most delightful of lions; all her
acquaintances would crowd round her. She would be celebrated as “a noble
girl” by the serious, and as _chic_ by the fast.
Doris looked forward to the possibility with a delightful perception of
all the advantages that were in it. It was more exciting than the other
expedient of marrying, which was all that, in the poverty of her
invention, occurred to Phyllis. They made very merry, while their mother
trembled with an alarm for which there was no apparent foundation. She
was nervous, which is always a ready explanation of a woman’s troubles
and fears.
There was, in fact, no foundation whatever for any alarm. Never had the
credit of Dirom, Dirom and Company stood higher. There was no cloud,
even so big as a finger, upon the sky.
Mr. Dirom himself, though his children were ashamed of him, was not
without acceptance in society. In his faithfulness to business, staying
in town in September, he had a choice of fine houses in which to make
those little visits from Saturday to Monday which are so pleasant; and
great ladies who had daughters inquired tenderly about Fred, and learned
with the profoundest interest that it was he who was the Prince of
Wales, the heir-apparent of the house, he, and not Jack the married son,
who would have nothing to say to the business.
When Fred paid a flying visit to town to “look up the governor,” as he
said, and see what was going on, he too was overwhelmed with invitations
from Saturday to Monday. And though he was modest enough he was very
well aware that he would not be refused, as a son-in-law, by some of the
finest people in England.
That he was not a little dazzled by the perception it would be wrong to
say--and the young Lady Marys in English country houses are very fair
and sweet. But now there would glide before him wherever he went the
apparition of Effie in her white frock.
Why should he have thought of Effie, a mere country girl, yet still a
country gentlewoman without the piquancy of a milkmaid or a nursery
governess? But who can fathom these mysteries? No blooming beauty of the
fields had come in Fred’s way, though he had piously invoked all the
gods to send him such a one: but Effie, who was scarcely a type at
all--Effie, who was only a humble representative of fair maidenhood,
not so perfect, perhaps, not so well dressed, not so beautiful as many
of her kind.
Effie had come across his path, and henceforward went with him in spirit
wherever he went. Curious accident of human fate! To think that Mr.
Dirom’s money, and Fred’s accomplishments, and their position in society
and in the city, all things which might have made happy a duke’s
daughter, were to be laid at the careless feet of little Effie Ogilvie!
If she had been a milkmaid the wonder would have been less great.