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LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART
Fifth Series
ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832
CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS)
NO. 11.—VOL. I. SATURDAY, MARCH 15, 1884. PRICE 1½_d._]
‘HAPPY EVER AFTER.’
By firelight, the children had heard a traveller’s tale about the
mirage of the desert—the distant vision of tufted palms and green
herbage, the promise of water, and shade, and rest. They had heard how
the delusion flies, baffling pursuit, always seeming to stand at an
attainable distance across the hot sands, always infinitely far, till
it fades, because on their path it has no tangible existence. It is the
delusive image of something existing elsewhere, and elsewhere perhaps
unasked and uncared for by others, who reckon the oasis worth but
little when their ambition is restless for the object of their journey.
‘That story won’t do!’ piped a little voice from the hearthrug, where
golden hair was glistening full in the light like a heavenly aureola
about an earthly dissatisfied face.
From within a cluster of boys and girls clinging to the armchair,
the victim had of course to tell a fairy tale instead, down to the
inevitable ending, ‘And they were happy ever after.’
‘Perkly happy?’ asked the small voice from the hearthrug.
‘Perfectly happy.’
‘Was there _never a wet day_?’
‘No; there was never a wet day in their part of the world.’
(Immediate flank attack and strategic surprise:) ‘Then their seeds
wouldn’t come up. How did they manage?’
‘They were perfectly happy all the same.’
‘Maybe they didn’t care much for their seeds and things,’ said the
golden-haired mortal of the real world, pensively. ‘One can’t care much
for one’s “Tom Thumbs,” and be perkly happy when the “Tom Thumbs” don’t
come up after setting ’em.’
There was a whole philosophy in these hearthrug speeches. Six years
old in the cosy homelight, and the world was already incomplete! Even
fairyland did not bear close inspection. If one asked questions about
it, one found out that it had its drawbacks. Of course, fairy princes
and princesses were perfectly happy, but only under conditions of
existence that put them out of our sympathy. Carrying one’s human heart
along with one, Fairyland wouldn’t do. This, in much simpler words, and
no words at all, was the course of the firelight reflections on the
rug. The victim, who had succumbed, followed out in another way his own
idea of the problem of happiness in this complex world.
In disguise, most of the stories told to the world’s grown-up children
have the same ending as the nursery tales—happy ever after. One wonders
whether the ending is imaginable, or would it fall to pieces in detail;
one wonders, too, whether this is an unfair delusion, saddening real
mortals, suggesting impossible hopes and contrasts that have no lawful
standing, because one side is only the ‘baseless fabric of a vision.’
Lastly, one wonders if the modern stories that insinuate happiness
ever after, suggest that their hero and heroine are no longer meant
for human sympathy, because they belong henceforth to fairy nature—or,
shall we say, to the mangold-wurzel tribe?—and are not, like us, small
creatures of hope and love, who ‘care much for our seeds and things.’
If we have skimmed many times the course of love that refuses to run
smooth till it has got through three volumes, we have foreseen the
marriage, and pinned our faith to what _would_ come out at the end
of volume three. Our confidence was unshaken, though occasionally it
suffered twinges. The future bridegroom was reported dead abroad:
instinctively our hope strengthened. He was said to be drowned at sea:
our mind was easy—the marriage was as good as promised. Even when
the bride was engaged to somebody else, it did not make the least
difference in her feelings or ours. Of course that marriage was to be;
it would leave us content, and the hero and heroine happy. For Bella
Millefleurs and that distinguished Italian, the Count del Cucchiajo,
there was certainly a future like the melodist’s Vale of Avoca, where
the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease, and their
hearts, like its waters, be mingled in peace. Their life before had
been shifting, rugged, uncertain; they attain their life’s object
early, and there they rest.
Most of the after-marriage novels are histories of lives that go down
a few steps or altogether into a upas valley. In healthy air, we are
given to understand that the most natural end of the story is the
marriage-day. We must not ask to follow through the golden gates;
beyond these is a bright level of peace—that region where, as we have
been reading, the Count del Cucchiajo and Bella—who had the violet
eyes, you remember—are gone. They have found the _summum bonum_; their
marriage has made them perfectly happy; and so the story ends.
Happy ever after! As much delusion implied at the end of three volumes,
as told in words at the end of a nursery tale. Given the conditions of
our life, it is impossible. Not that a happy marriage is impossible—the
Fates forbid we should teach such heresy! But the happiest marriage is
not a rounded sphere of contentment; it is not ‘one entire and perfect
chrysolite.’ Experience answers for itself that the sweetest wife and
the most devoted husband are not always in the same position which—as
the book and our own minds told us—the Count del Cucchiajo and his
violet-eyed bride had secured, when they drove away from the imaginary
St George’s, Hanover Square, a while ago; or from the country church,
whose imaginary gateway we saw so plainly at the imaginary roadside,
among the golden-green branches of that spring-time that never was.
‘Ah! well,’ says some one wiser than the rest, piling up the three
volumes, and thinking about an afternoon reviver of tea as a stimulant
to the dreary return to this unsatisfactory sort of a world, ‘you
can’t expect a story to go on into all about everything. One reads for
pleasure; it should end happily. We don’t want a fourth volume about
lawsuits and income tax, bursting water-pipes, or kitchen chimney on
fire on the day of the dinner-party. We don’t want to read on to the
measles and the boy’s tin trumpet, and the lady’s first gray hairs, and
perhaps the Count crusty with the gout—his family’s fault, and not his.
You must flavour with all those minor matters according to taste.’
But nobody flavours, nobody mars the feast with prosaic troubles. And
precisely there the mischief lies. The impression given by the climax
of the story, and the idea left in the reader’s mind, is life’s object
attained, and perfect happiness henceforth. The characters that point
the moral and adorn the tale do not pass away from it into the married
life of this commonplace world. Like the Prince and the awakened Beauty
of the Laureate’s verses, they go forth independent of occupation,
and where the Directory-makers cease from troubling. Their future is
exquisitely beautiful, vague as a dream; we only know that
Across the hills and far away
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day,
The happy Princess followed him.
Now, what is the effect of this custom of ending the story with the old
clap-trap ‘happy ever after?’ Poor Polly Brown, who has had the three
soiled loose-leaved volumes from the village library, looks out at our
poor familiar world in fading wintry light, and decides that the one
prize worth winning is her wedding-day. The world’s winters, the wild
black boughs and barren fields, will then be seen no more; it will be a
romantic existence, with no dull relations to be civil to, no tiresome
household work, no dusting of that shut-up drawing-room with its faint
smell of carpet and fire-grate and musty roses. She has dreamed her
dream; all her efforts are turned towards attaining it. In a certain
sense, she is selfish already. Poor Polly, impatient to escape from the
homely parlour and the sanctum of dried roses! Bella Millefleurs, who
never lived, will yet cause her real pain in the days of disillusion.
She will shed real tears, not as heroines do, but with the prosaic
human sorrow of red eyes.
Somebody else, two seasons ago, held the same book with dainty white
hand, when, from a great London lending library it came in its first
freshness, with stainless cover, and pages smelling deliciously of ‘new
book.’ This pretty girl had danced till three that morning, and had a
new ring on her finger, which she kissed when she was sure nobody would
see her. Of course she was only resting in curtained firelight in a
gem of a boudoir; it would be cruel to expect so graceful and fragile
a creature to do anything after such a night; and idle to expect her
to do more than skim and skip the chapters, when her own real tale was
so much sweeter. She had dreamed her dream from fifty other stories
of the same ending. She had attained her life’s object in securing a
lover with a coronet; and the happy marriage is the coming rest without
sorrow or change. If poor Polly Brown could have seen her, she would
have been ready to cry for envy; and yet two seasons after, when we
saw the homely girl devouring that same story from the same pages,
perhaps my lady with the coronet was beginning to feel the heartbreak
of disillusion, the unfitness for a life that was misunderstood.
Smith, Brown, and Jones, who are good fellows in their way, and
untroubled by romance, are not likely to have new opinions formed by
a tired hour of fiction with an after-dinner cigar. But Mrs Smith,
Mrs Brown, and Mrs Jones are not so lucky. They may yet have their
moments of mental pain, their hidden anguish about imaginary contrasts,
their secret storms in a teacup. Their marriage, with its thousand
cares, did not raise them to transcendent bliss, as it seems other
people’s marriages do. Smith, or Brown, or Jones, has not been to them
what that man with a soul, the Count del Cucchiajo, was to his wife.
Inferred regretful verdict on Jones who is innocently puffing, and
reading through the second volume! The love and good-fortune of the
violet-eyed heroine would not by itself have left this sad impression;
it has come from the insinuation of happy ever after, which the
history of heroines with eyes of all colours has gradually completed.
It has given a false impression of life, leading through the magic of
the happy marriage into a state of complete contentment and rest, a
satisfaction of the insatiable power of loving, a rest from the almost
infinite capacity for suffering. All this the real life has not found.
Nor could it have been found, for it belongs to another world. Had that
felicity been reached, it would have proved, in such a world as this, a
heart neither capable of much love nor of much suffering, and therefore
ignoble, because unfeeling. We can fancy a mangold-wurzel with such an
experience, but not a human being.
Closely associated with the false view of life is that mirage of the
heart—the complete happiness that seems attainable if only life had
advanced to some change of circumstance. This vision leads on many a
one in the straining of hope from the cradle to the grave. We know
that others have precisely what we want; it exists somewhere, and they
hardly care for it. The shadow only is ours. We forget that another and
a greater mirage has risen before them farther on; and that if we stood
where they stand, we too would be straining onward. Only, let not the
mirage of nine-tenths of the novels delude us. The hero and the heroine
have reached no land of perfect happiness, if they are still in this
world of patience and of effort. If we believe they have found an El
Dorado, we shall follow with selfish steps, with a false ideal of the
winning of the prize, and with a morrow of disillusion yet to come. By
all means let them show us the bravery and the mutual faith that make
at last of love the crown of life; but let them not tell us that it is
ever in this world a tearless diadem. Nor can it be likened to a secure
rest, an imperishable home; it is rather the tent on the battle-plain,
and the dwellers there have not the prospect of court and feast, but
the joy of brave natures, blithe as soldier-comrades in the strength of
union.
And now, after finding, like the child on the hearthrug, that ‘happy
ever after’ is an untrue ending, what are we to do with our human
thirst for rest? Where are we to look, if the vision of happiness
farther on is only a mirage? And a mirage it is in many cases. There is
but one true answer. This is not the world of perfect happiness.
Our plans for abiding happiness in the future must be laid, in a far
different sense from the fairy poem, beyond the world’s ‘utmost purple
rim, and deep into the dying day.’ Meanwhile, the best thing we can
do for our contentment is to seize upon the golden Present. Oh, that
golden Present! how despised it is; yet there is no El Dorado of this
world’s future that can compare with it. Mingled with the wear and tear
of every day, it is perhaps this day and hour the time that we shall
look back to in future years as a bright vanished dream. We shall be at
too great a distance then to see its small anxieties, its commonplace
imperfections; why should we see them now? Again, the golden Present is
the time full of the affections that may be cut off before the future
has become a sadder present. Let us take the every-day love that we
already have, though it be gold roughly wrought. Our treasures may pass
away, while we are weaving dreams and following shadows.
BY MEAD AND STREAM.
CHAPTER XVII.—A TURNING-POINT.
The task which Madge had undertaken would have been simple enough, if
she had not heard that sad story about the old time when her mother and
Philip’s uncle stood in the same relationship to each other as she and
Philip now. Then she would have had nothing to do but to write a letter
according to her instructions.
Knowing, however, what painful recollections her name would suggest to
Mr Shield, the task became a little complicated. Old wounds would be
uncovered, old passions roused again, and who could tell what might be
the consequences to Philip? She had formed her idea of Mr Shield from
Aunt Hessy’s account of the manner in which he had received the tidings
of her mother’s marriage, and from Philip’s account of the feud between
his father and him. And the idea was that of a man who never forgot an
offence, even if he forgave it. His years of exile and of silence to
those friends and relatives showed how implacable his nature must be.
She had thought of this the moment Philip told her what she was to do;
but in his present condition she could not venture to explain it to
him. Fortunately, there was one to whom she could express her doubts,
and fortunately Aunt Hessy always saw the best in everything: if she
had been thrown to the bottom of a pit, she would have lifted her eyes
to the disc of sky above and taken comfort. She was endowed with that
boundless faith which makes one happy in one’s self and the cause of
happiness in others.
‘Do not trouble thyself, child. We make more worries for ourselves than
are made for us. Like enough the two great troubles of Austin’s life
may be redeemed in thee and Philip. That would be great joy to me.
Send thy letter as it is; and I’ll put a few words to him in the same
envelope, so that he may understand thou art no stranger.’
It was only a few words Aunt Hessy wrote: ‘This is to tell thee that
after many years thou art still kindly borne in mind. It is our fervent
hope that time hath brought thee peace as well as riches. The letter
which this short greeting goes with is from our Lucy’s child, Madge. If
all go well with them, Madge and thy nephew Philip Hadleigh will one
day marry. I think it well that thou shouldst know this, and trust that
it may please thee. I would be glad to tell thee more if any sign be
given me that thou carest to hear it.’
Madge wrote a succinct account of the accident which had befallen
Philip and a clear statement of all that she had been directed to say.
Before this letter was closed, Dr Joy called, and a postscript became
necessary.
‘The doctor who is attending Mr Philip Hadleigh has been here. He says
that it would be positively dangerous for him to move from his room
for two or three weeks; and that to undertake a journey to Griqualand
in less than three or even four months would be “positively suicidal.”
The doctor also says that Mr Hadleigh’s anxiety to keep his engagement
with you is likely to retard his recovery very much. My fear is that he
will attempt to travel before he is fit to do so safely. Could you not
assure him that the delay will cause you no inconvenience?’
She did not hear what Dr Joy said to Aunt Hessy, or her fear that
Philip in his impulsive way might act without due heed to the voice of
medical wisdom would have been greatly increased.
‘The fact is, Mrs Crawshay, there is no great danger in the case
itself, although two ribs are broken. The real danger lies in his
impatience to be away and home again. I think your niece has something
to do with that. He let it out to me to-day when he told me that he
was not so impatient to go as he was impatient to be back. You must
persuade Miss Heathcote to use her influence to keep him quiet.’
Madge went to the village post-office herself. Even the posting of
this letter had obtained what at the moment appeared to be a somewhat
undue importance. However, it was safely placed in the box by her own
hand, and she experienced a sense of relief as if she had got rid of a
burden. There were so many things she might have said, and had not, so
many phrases she might have altered or modified to suit the peculiar
associations which it revived, that so long as it remained in her
possession there seemed a probability of being constrained to go back
and write it all over again. If on the contents of this letter had
depended the most fateful turning-point in her life, and she had been
aware of it, she could not have been more exercised in mind about them,
or more relieved when the die was cast into the post-box.
Now she turned with lightened steps towards Ringsford. In the fields on
every side the ploughs and harrows were at work; occasionally there was
the crack of a gun, and in the distance she could see the blue smoke
wreathing up into the air and the sportsmen following their dogs. A
soft russet tinge like a great brown cobweb lay upon the Forest, and
leaves were fluttering hesitatingly to the ground, as if uncertain
whether or not it was yet time to quit the branches. These were the
tokens that the harvest-time was over, and the fat ricks in the
farmyards told that there had been a goodly ingathering.
When she reached the Manor, the young ladies had barely finished
breakfast. They had been dancing until daylight shamed the lamps in
the marquee, and consequently they were still at their first meal long
after the forenoon dinner had been finished at Willowmere.
‘Why did you not tell us about poor Philip last night, Madge?’ was
Miss Hadleigh’s salutation, adding, with a shrug of the shoulders
which might represent a shudder: ‘It is so dreadful to think of us all
enjoying ourselves while our brother was lying at death’s door.’
‘Not so bad as that, unless there has been some great change since the
doctor was here,’ said Madge.
‘There will be such scandal about it all over the country,’ exclaimed
Caroline.
‘Everybody will know that you were purposely kept in ignorance of the
accident.’
‘I am sure I wouldn’t have laughed or danced at all, if I had only
known,’ half-sobbed the conscience-stricken Bertha.
‘That is exactly why he insisted you should not be told about it until
after your party.’
‘But it wasn’t our party: it was his party; and everybody will think we
are such unfeeling creatures,’ was the petulant comment of Caroline,
who appeared to be more occupied about what ‘everybody’ would say than
about her brother’s injuries.
And everybody did say a great deal, of course—particularly everybody
who had not been invited to the festival. The explanation satisfied
those who had shared in the night’s merriment and those who had not
pretended to be satisfied. So all was well, and the Misses Hadleigh
found a doleful interest in receiving the numerous callers and
answering their inquiries. They felt a little chagrin at first that
Madge should have the privilege of seeing their brother, whilst they
were forbidden access to his room for several days. But this was
speedily overcome, for none of them had a partiality for a sick-room,
and their visitors kept them fully occupied.
The most regular inquirer was Wrentham, who not only presented himself
daily at the Manor, but also contrived to see Dr Joy and obtain from
him precise accounts of the progress of the case.
The progress was all that could be expected under the circumstances.
Philip had a strong constitution; he was soothed into a degree of
calmness, as soon as he learned that Madge had carried out his wishes;
he ‘kept his head’ all the time; but his strength rendered his
unavoidable restraint the more tantalising, and the sailing of the
_Hertford Castle_ without him the more vexatious.
Then Madge said, with a make-believe look of reproach:
‘Are you so _very_ sorry, then, that we are together for a month or two
longer than you expected?’
‘You know I am not; but then they have to be tacked on to the other
end; and by so much delay my return.’
She was obliged to own that it was irksome for a man of active spirit
to be bound down to his bed for weeks, when he had so much to do, and
his spirit felt strong enough to do it. Besides, as he put it:
‘We had screwed our courage to the sailing-point, and now, when we have
to wind ourselves up again, how do you know but I may fail? Maybe I
shall give it up altogether, and take that little trip to the church we
spoke about, and my father wants us to make.’
Then she spoke very decisively:
‘No, Philip, you will not fail; and in any case, we shall not take that
trip until next harvest is over.’
‘Next harvest!’ ejaculated the invalid, pretending to groan. ‘How old
shall we be then?—or rather, how old shall I be? for I don’t believe
you will ever grow old.’
‘We shall both have added exactly one year to our experience,’ she said
cheerfully, ‘and we shall begin life so much the more wisely.’
‘Shall we? Well, you can have the experience and the wisdom. I should
like to have a Rip van Winkle sleep till then, and waken up just in
time to give the necessary answers to the vicar. I say: have you been
studying _the_ service?’
‘What a question!’ she answered, blushing.
Of course she had gone over The Service more than once, with that sweet
tremulous wonder—compound of curiosity, timid, only half-acknowledged
anticipation and awe—which is inspired by those mysterious words that
have the power of making two lives one. Was there ever a maiden passed
her teens without doing and feeling so? Was there ever a maiden who has
not strained her eyes into the misty future that overhangs the altar,
and speculated upon the shape in which her fate was to appear? And what
maiden was ever ready to make frank confession to her lover of those
vague day-dreams in which he has had no definite existence?
‘To be sure you have,’ says Philip gaily, notwithstanding the
feebleness of his voice; ‘but I have not. So you will have to coach me
for the exam.—I mean the occasion.’
The sunshine of youth was still in their hearts, and they could talk
with gay fearlessness of the responsibilities they were to take upon
themselves by-and-by. That ‘By-and-by’ makes such a difference in our
views of things: even the coward is brave whilst the battle is to be
fought by-and-by.
In spite of broken bones and disappointment and restraint, they were
pleasant days those to the lovers. Pleasanter still when Philip was
declared out of danger, and was permitted to spend two of the sunny
hours daily in the garden, which was still brilliant with flowers.
‘Nature and me to keep the place bonnie all the year round,’ Sam Culver
used to say, and in the autumn especially, the combined forces produced
marvellous effects.
Madge was with Philip in these little outings, wheeling his chair
herself, in order that they might escape the tyranny of a servant’s
attendance.
A dense high hedge of ancient boxwood, trimmed into the shape
of a castle’s rampart, screened the kitchen-garden from the
pleasure-grounds. A wide gravel-path divided this screen from a thicket
of variegated evergreens. In the centre of the thicket was an open
space where stood two silver beeches, and beneath them was a circular
rustic seat.
This was a favourite resting-place of Philip and Madge—to read, to
dream of the golden future; and it was here he first rebelled against
the restraint of his wheel-chair. Autumn had faded into winter, when
upon a certain day the lovers were seated together busily reading the
letters which had been received that morning from Austin Shield.
The first was to her, and the coldness of its tone tended to confirm
the impression she felt of the man’s nature:
‘I am obliged to you for the information contained in your letter to
hand. I trust that my nephew’s accident may not entail any permanent
injury. Again thanking you, &c.’
‘That’s dry enough,’ muttered Philip, annoyed by this curt
acknowledgment of Madge’s service.
‘But he had nothing more to say, and he does not know me,’ was her
generous comment. ‘What more could he say than thank you?’
‘I don’t know—but there are different ways of saying thank you; and
Uncle Shield does not seem to understand the most gracious way. Some
people never do understand it, although they may try all their lives.
But he does not mean any harm. I should say the wilds of Griqualand
do not afford many opportunities for the cultivation of sweetness and
light. Here is what he says to me:
‘“I have received Miss Heathcote’s letter. I regret what has befallen
you, and hope you will speedily recover. The attention you have given
to my business is satisfactory. Meanwhile, your inability to sail on
the date fixed does not cause me so much disappointment as it might
have done a few days ago.
‘“It was my determination never to visit England again. Circumstances,
however, have recently come to my knowledge which induce me to alter
that determination. As soon as my affairs here can be put in order
I shall start for London. You need not write again here. Place Mr
Wrentham’s papers in the hands of my solicitors for safe custody till
my arrival. I shall communicate with you when I reach London, and shall
expect to see you as soon afterwards as you may be able to get about.
‘“One thing I must ask you to bear in mind—that I do not wish to meet
any of the family except yourself. A meeting would not be agreeable to
me, and it could not be pleasing to them. It was about you my sister
wrote to me, and my pledge to her concerned you alone.”’
This was subscribed with the most formal of all subscribing
phrases—‘Yours truly;’ and even that he seemed to consider of so little
importance, that it was only suggested by a series of strokes, which
would have been absolutely meaningless to any one not acquainted with
the form. Yet those two words ought to mean a great deal.
After the message had been read twice, Madge sat thoughtfully gazing at
the paper. Philip’s cheeks had flushed, and his eyes became bright with
satisfaction.
‘Well!’ he exclaimed at length, ‘this disposes of the whole bother. I
can do what my mother wished without having to run away from you. Are
you not glad?’
‘Yes, I am glad,’ she answered slowly; ‘but, do you know, I am almost
afraid of your uncle.’
‘Nonsense. He is an odd fish, and dry as a roasted coffee-bean in his
letters. But he must be the right sort at bottom, or _she_ would never
have cared so much for him, or have asked him to take an interest in
me.’
Philip was thinking of his mother; Madge was thinking of hers; and she
also came to the conclusion that Austin Shield must be a good man at
heart, or he could not have won so much affection, and he would not
have been so faithful to the pledge he had given his sister years ago.
The vision of the hard unforgiving man vanished from her mind, but no
new conception took its place. Some instinct impels us to create a
mental portrait of any person about whom we hear much or with whom we
correspond. As a rule, the portrait is entirely erroneous; and we are
disappointed, agreeably or the reverse, as may be, when we meet the
original in the flesh. Yet these portraits of the imagination often
exercise a permanent influence on our conduct towards the unconscious
sitters.
‘Have you ever formed any notion of what he can be like personally?’
she asked by-and-by.
‘Well, no.... I cannot say that I have—that is, any particular notion
of him. There is no portrait of him anywhere about the house, and
my father never spoke about him till that evening when he tried to
persuade me not to go to him. I should say he is a big chap, with a
thin face and a keen eye to business, but good-natured in the main.
What is your idea?’
‘I cannot say now. I _had_ my idea; but something has driven it quite
out of my head within the last few minutes.’
‘Well, we shall soon see what he is like without cudgelling our brains
about it. He will be here in a week or two, if he is as sharp about
coming as he was about my going. Of course he will meet you, even if
he persists in refusing to see anybody else; and I hope he won’t do
that. Our plan must be to bring him to reason somehow; and I am ready
to submit to a good deal in order to bring that about.... But I say,
Madge, now that we have had just as much worry as if I had really gone
away for ever so long, you are not going to stick to that stupid idea
of putting off till next harvest?’
‘We are to wait till then—at least,’ she answered, shaking her head and
laughing.
But Philip did not regard this decision as irrevocable.
THE SHADY SIDE OF MONEY-BORROWING.
A short time ago, an English County Court judge made some remarks on
money-lending, which apparently were listened to by those who heard
him with considerable interest, and perhaps with a certain amount of
surprise. The case upon which he was adjudicating was one of those
money-lending bills-of-sale transactions that so frequently come before
County Court judges, and with which the public are unfortunately only
too familiar. The judge said that he would take that opportunity of
making some observations on the general question of money-lending,
suggested by the particular case before him.
There was, he said, one important matter forgotten by persons who
indiscriminately denounced money-lenders, which was, that ‘poor people
must have loans.’ He did not see how, in special circumstances, they
could get on without loans. Nor did he believe that borrowers were the
innocent, ignorant victims—the deceived, foolish, and unsuspecting
‘flies’ lured into the ‘spider’s web’—that they generally were
represented to be. He would say there what he had already said to the
Government. The Board of Trade had requested all County Court judges to
give their experience relative to usury, loan societies, and bills of
sale. The object of the President of the Board of Trade in applying
to County Court judges was of course to obtain guidance in some
prospective and promised legislation on the above subjects, intended
more effectually to protect inoffensive and worthy men from the wolves
and Shylocks of society. The judge of whom we are speaking gave as his
answer, that borrowers of money were quite competent to look after
their own interests. His experience had led him to the conclusion that
in bills-of-sale transactions there were as many knaves among the
borrowers as there were among the lenders. For if the money-lender
was often unscrupulous, extortionate, and ready to take every undue
advantage of his needy clientèle; the borrower was as frequently a
tricky, lying rogue, who misrepresented his circumstances, who rarely
intended to repay the loan, and who thought there was nothing very far
wrong in cheating and defrauding the Society or the person who lent him
money.
He knew that his opinion was different from that of some of his
brother-judges. But his experience in a large circuit, and extending
over many years, had compelled him to come to this conclusion. In these
most disagreeable trials, he had generally found that it was ‘diamond
cut diamond.’ Often the borrower, by various means, got the money
advanced on securities of insufficient value, occasionally on goods
belonging to other persons; and the usurer never saw more than a small
portion of his money again.
Being asked by counsel if he would give an opinion on newspapers
inserting money-lending advertisements which were calculated to entrap
the unwary, the judge declined, remarking that he did not feel it to
be his duty to lecture the proprietors of newspapers on commercial
morality.
Coming as these remarks do from a gentleman whose official position
and long experience entitle him to speak with authority on this
subject, they possess considerable weight. If they do not exactly
throw entirely fresh light on this social evil, yet they reveal and
emphasise a deplorable state of morality, or rather immorality, among
a class of persons who perhaps hitherto have been considered fitter
objects for pity than for blame. Many people who are always ready
to hurl the fiercest anathemas at the head of a money-lender, have
only words of sympathy and commiseration for the money-borrower. We
think that usurers deserve all the severe censure which they get—they
are the vampires and the vultures of society; at the same time, it
seems indisputable that a certain class of borrowers are men of the
loosest principles. They will resort to the meanest devices—to wilful
misrepresentation, to fraud, to perjury, and even to forgery, in order
to obtain loans of money, which they never can, and which in many cases
they never intend to repay.
One common device of borrowers is to feign ignorance. Both principals
and sureties do this. When pressed for payment in the court, they go
into the witness-box and swear that they did not know the meaning of
the document which they signed. The promissory-note or the bill of
sale was not read over or explained to them. If this were true, their
position would be strong; for the law directs that a bill of sale shall
be explained to the person who gives it. Sometimes, of course, it is
true that the holder of the bill of sale has taken a mean advantage of
his client’s ignorance. But often it is untrue; for the Loan Office
brings forward two or three witnesses who declare that the document was
read over and explained to the defendant in their presence. The verdict
in such cases is given against the borrower; and he is moreover liable
to be indicted for perjury.
While on this point, we may express our astonishment that there are so
many people foolish enough to sign documents which they do not fully
understand; that there are so many persons who are constantly making
themselves surety for sums of money, which, if called upon, they could
not pay. Without going so far as to say that such people deserve all
the punishment they get, when they have to suffer for their folly, we
would earnestly warn everybody against these ruinous practices. No man
should be bond for money which, if required to pay, he could not pay.
Some men, acute enough on other subjects, are very simple in money
matters. But simplicity and ignorance are not a sufficient excuse for
acts of reckless stupidity. If persons do not know the purport of
a document which they are asked to sign, they ought to know before
signing it. In reference to sureties for loans of money, very often
the explanation is patent enough. The pre-arrangement or stipulation
between the persons is that the borrower shall give the surety a part
of the money for signing the bond.
Another device of money-borrowers is to go in cliques, and for the
different members of the same clique to become sureties for each other.
For this scheme to be successful, of course the borrowers must apply to
several Loan Societies. It does not always succeed; for money-lenders
are usually very particular in making inquiries about their customers.
But the probability is that if a clique of men apply for half-a-dozen
loans, they will effect at least one or two. A plan almost identical
with this is called ‘kite-flying.’ A few needy men, acquaintances, in
position above the lowest classes, put their heads together to ‘raise
the wind’ by manufacturing fictitious bills of exchange. As its name
signifies, a bill of exchange represents a trade transaction. It is
not a genuine bill unless there is exchange of some kind between two
persons; work done, services rendered, or goods sold, by one person to
another. Usually, the acceptor gives a two or three months’ bill for
goods bought from the drawer. This simply means that it will be more
convenient at the end of three months to pay for the articles purchased
than to pay cash. But with those ‘kites’ there is no transaction
of trade whatever; it is only a scheme to borrow money. The _modus
operandi_ is for one to ‘accept,’ another to ‘draw,’ and for the other
members of the party to indorse the bill. They then issue, circulate,
or discount this bit of blue paper, which has cost them one shilling,
as a genuine trade bill, given in payment for goods bought by the
acceptor from the drawer, worth, say, one hundred pounds. Of course
respectable bankers will not discount these ‘kites;’ but money-lenders
will, as they frequently take some collateral security.
Another very common practice among money-borrowers is for one man to be
surety for a whole party. This is done in the following manner. Number
one takes and furnishes a house in a respectable locality, representing
himself as carrying on a thriving business in some specified trade.
Number two applies for a loan, giving the name of number one for his
surety. The agent of the money-lender goes to the house of number one.
He sees that his house is well furnished, and that he seems to be
doing a good business; so, either with, or sometimes without, a bill
of sale, he advances the sum of money asked for. In large towns, this
process is repeated with several Loan Societies whose offices are at a
long distance from each other. If his clients come from another part
of the city, the money-lender does not object; for he knows that some
of his best customers do not like to borrow money in the neighbourhood
of their homes. When those who got the money fail to pay one of their
monthly instalments, the agent of the Loan Office goes again to number
one, when he finds the house shut up, and the furniture and the surety
missing. Or if any of the furniture be left, probably the landlord
claims it for rent.
Borrowers of money, too, are frequently guilty of the most perverse
and wilful misrepresentation. They misrepresent their circumstances,
their salaries, the profits of their business, their property, their
furniture, stock-in-trade, &c., in the most barefaced manner. Not
unfrequently they make themselves liable to a criminal prosecution for
obtaining money under false pretences. A case was recently reported of
a farmer and son who got a heavy loan on the security of the live-stock
on their farm. But it was proved that they had sold two fields of
turnips to some neighbouring farmers, which turnips were to be eaten
in the fields by the sheep belonging to the farmers who had bought
the turnips. The father and son told the money-lender that the sheep
were their own property. They were apprehended, convicted, and sent to
jail. Sometimes, however, the Loan Office will not prosecute, so the
fraudulent borrower entirely escapes. Knowing this, a few borrowers of
money will even run the risk of forgery. They forge promissory-notes,
trusting to make good their escape out of the country; or if
caught, they conclude that the money-lender will not prosecute; for
money-lenders know very well that their business is condemned by public
opinion, and they avoid as much as possible the expense, the trouble,
and the publicity of a criminal prosecution.
Occasionally, the members of this needy fraternity of borrowers perform
some very smart tricks. We have heard of an audacious knave who went to
an auctioneer, and in a few minutes succeeded in effecting a loan of
thirty pounds by depositing as security a picture not worth a guinea.
He represented it as a valuable work of art by a painter of repute,
whose name he had painted on one corner of the picture. The price of
the miserable daub, he said, was fifty guineas; but he did not want
to sell it—he only wanted a loan of thirty pounds for a month, when
he would redeem his art treasure. By the end of the month he was in
America; and the auctioneer still has the picture, unless he has thrown
it on the fire through vexation of spirit.
THE MINER’S PARTNER.
IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER III.
Showle and Bynnes—dry goods and general store—were well known for a
hundred miles around Cincinnati, in which city they were located,
no house standing higher for solvency, promptness, and for that
indefinable but yet easily understood quality, smartness. With the
tenacity with which business men in the United States cling to their
work, never contemplating the luxury of retirement and ease, which to
them would be penance, Mr Bynnes, who was much advanced in years, would
probably have continued in the store as long as he lived, but for his
purchase of some land fully a thousand miles away. He had never seen
this property, having bought it upon the representation of an agent
in whom he had confidence; but believing that its value would be much
enhanced by his personal supervision, he at once decided to go out
and reside upon it. Mr Bynnes was near seventy years of age; his new
acquisition was in a wild, bleak, unsettled part of the country; but
such considerations did not weigh with him for a moment; the property
required his presence, so he resolved to go there, ‘right away.’
This change involved the taking of a fresh partner by Mr Showle, as
the business was too large for one person to manage; while, as a new
warehouse, apart from the original store, was being built, it was clear
that in time a third partner must be added, or a manager employed. As
Mr Showle had a decided aversion to managers, or to the allowing any
one to have potential authority in the business who was not vitally
interested in it, there was no doubt that the addition would be in the
form of a partner. For the present, however, but one was taken in,
although there was a rumour that Mr Bynnes had recommended a relative
of his own, who would appear shortly as a third in the firm.
The new partner, Mr Ben Creelock, was a brusque, somewhat hot-tempered
man, although he must have been approaching fifty years of age; but
he was well enough liked by the employees of the firm, when once they
were used to him. (The reader will please to notice that in United
States’ matters of business, ‘employees’ is the proper word.) The new
partner was a very liberal master, considerate and kindly where he saw
any anxiety to please, though apt to be passionate when he thought he
detected a skulker or ‘loafer.’ He had not been used to a store, as
he frankly owned; but he was naturally quick and shrewd, and devoted
himself to the business with so much zeal, that in a few months
Mr Showle declared himself highly satisfied with the new partner.
Consequently, the business went on smoothly; and while Mr Creelock made
no secret of the fact that for years past he had been a miner, he gave
promise of making a first-rate storekeeper.
It would be affectation to suppose that the reader has not identified
the new partner as Ben, the miner of Fandango Gulch. They were the
same. The gold-hunter, carrying out an idea he had long entertained,
had left his wild life, and had settled in Cincinnati, with a
determination to spend the remainder of his days among peaceful,
law-abiding people. His bankers had introduced him to Mr Showle; and
as he was only anxious to find a permanent, respectable employment for
himself and his capital, the business preliminaries did not occupy much
time.
He was a bachelor; but from certain indications, which are as quickly
observed in transatlantic society as they are nearer home, it seemed
probable that he did not intend to remain so. The governess at the
nearest school to the store—the ‘schoolmarm,’ as she would be regularly
and quite respectfully called there—was a woman who when young must
have been more than pretty; and although her bloom had somewhat faded
now, and her eyes were more pensive than brilliant, she yet was by
many persons thought to be more than pretty still. The years that had
brought her to mature thirty-five, and had robbed her of her freshness,
had brought also a quiet thoughtfulness which to some was not less
beautiful. So, among others, thought Mr Benjamin Creelock.
He had first noticed her as she went, quiet and solitary, to and
from her duties; and on inquiring who she was, heard comments in her
favour, which increased the interest he had felt when he first saw her.
But Ben, rough hardy miner as he had been, was timid in the presence
of women, as is not uncommon with rough hardy men of any grade; and
although he continued to meet Miss Ruth Alken every day, he might have
gone on so long without mustering up sufficient courage or ingenuity
to effect an introduction, that his old bachelorship would have become
irremediable; but a happy chance befriended him.
Having no acquaintances in Cincinnati, he was glad to vary his
somewhat scanty evening resources by frequent visits at Mr Showle’s
house. The senior partner was a married man with a family, and kept
up an old-fashioned habit of quiet social gatherings at home. Here
Mr Ben was always welcome, not only as being a partner in the store,
but because his tales of the mines, the mountains, the prairies—of
Indians, buffaloes, and Vigilance Committees, were interesting, not
only to the seniors of the party, but to the younger members also;
and Ben was often surrounded by a circle of bright-eyed girls and
active striplings, who hung on his words as to a new series of _Arabian
Nights_. To the dwellers in orderly cities in the States, stories which
interest us in England, of life and adventure in the Far West, are
positively fascinating—more so indeed than are such narratives to the
residents of London.
One night, on his arrival at Mr Showle’s, his host, who was speaking to
a lady as Ben entered, turned and said: ‘I don’t think, Mr Creelock,
you have met Miss Alken before. She is our schoolmarm, and a very
esteemed friend.’
So then, without a moment’s notice, without having a single idea
prepared, he found himself face to face with, and holding the hand
of the lady he had been secretly watching and admiring for months.
Perhaps Ben did better by blundering into a conversation with Miss
Alken, than he would have done by preparing an elaborate speech after
_his_ standard of eloquence. At all events, the lady was pleased with
his narratives, and took a special interest—or so Ben thought—in the
details of mining life.
She left early; and as soon as possible after her departure, Ben
asked Mr Showle what he knew of her, where she was ‘raised,’ and so
forth, after the style in fashion in the West. Mr Showle did not give
much information in reply to these queries, merely saying that his
late partner, Mr Bynnes, had taken a great interest in her, and by
his influence, had procured for her the situation she now held. Her
friends, he believed, had resided in one of the New England States.
This was about all Mr Creelock learned in reference to the
‘schoolmarm.’ It was quite enough, however; for in the States, people
do not make needlessly minute inquiries about the relatives, and still
less about the ancestors of those they come in contact or fall in love
with.