The Pennycomequicks (Volume 2 of 3)

The tidings of Salome's engagement were hard to bear. He thought he had taught himself to think of her no longer in the light of a possible wife. His good sense had convinced him that it would be unwise for him to think of marriage with her; it told him also that he was as yet too infirm of purpose to trust himself in her presence.

Could he now return? If he did, in what capacity? – as the maker or marrer of Philip's fortunes? If he took him into partnership, so as to enable him to marry, could he – Jeremiah – endure the daily spectacle of his nephew's happiness? – endure to witness the transfer to another of that love and devotion which had been given to him? And if he banished Philip, what would be the effect on Salome? Would she not resent his return, and regret that he had not died in the flood? If he were to allow those in Mergatroyd to know that he was alive it would be almost the same thing as returning into their midst, as it would disconcert their arrangements effectually. The wisest course for himself, and the kindest to them, would be for him to depart from England for a twelvemonth or more, without giving token that he still existed, and then on his return he would be able to form an unprejudiced opinion of his nephew, and act accordingly. If he found him what, according to Dale's account, he promised to become – a practical, hardworking, honourable manager – he would leave the conduct of the business in his hands, only reclaiming that share which had been grasped by Mrs. Sidebottom, which, moreover, he would feel a – perhaps malicious pleasure in taking from her.

He seated himself on one of the benches placed at intervals on the down for the convenience of visitors, and looked out to sea. The sun shone, and the day, for a winter's day, was warm. Very little air stirred, and Jeremiah thought that to rest himself on the bench could do him no harm, so long as he did not remain there till he felt chilled.

As he sat on the bench, immersed in his troubled thoughts, a gentleman came up, bowed, and took a place at his side.

'Beautiful weather! beautiful weather!' said the stranger, 'and such weather, I am glad to say, is general at Bridlington. Of the three hundred and sixty-five days in the year the average of days on which the sun shines is two hundred and seventy-three decimal four. When we get an interruption of what we regard as bad weather, oh! what murmurers, sad murmurers we are against a beneficent Providence. The so-called bad weather dissipates the insalubrious gases and brings in a fresh supply of invigorating ozone, life-sustaining oxygen, and the other force-stimulating elements – elements.'

Jeremiah nodded. He was not well pleased to be drawn into conversation at this moment, when occupied with his own thoughts.

'"La santé avant tout," say the French,' continued the gentleman, 'with that terseness which characterizes the Gallic tongue – the tongue, sir.' When he repeated a word he ruffled and swelled and turned himself about like a pluming turkey, and as though believing that he had said a good thing. 'I agree with them; I would subordinate every consideration to health, every consideration, sir, except religion, which towers, sir, steeples and weather-cocks high above every other mundane con – sid – er – ation.' As he pronounced each syllable apart, as though each was a pearl he dropped from his lips, he turned himself about, scattering his precious particles, till he faced Jeremiah. 'You, yourself, sir, I perceive, are in search of that inestimable prize, health – Hygiene, I mean.'

Mr. Pennycomequick was startled at this random shot, and looked more closely at his interlocutor. He saw a man of about his own height, with long hair, whiskers that were elaborately curled, and perhaps darkened with antimony; a handsome man, but with a mottled face and a nose inclined to redness. There was a something – Jeremiah could not tell what, it was in his face – that made him suspect he had seen the man before; or, if he had not seen him before, had seen someone like him. He looked again at his face, not steadily, lest he should seem discourteous, but hastily, and withal searchingly. No, he had not seen him previously, and yet there was certainly something in his face that was familiar.

'You are not, I presume, aware,' continued the gentleman, 'that there is a very remarkable and unique feature of this bay which points it out specially as the sanatorium of the future. The iodine in the seaweed here – the i-o-dine, sir – reaches a percentage unattained elsewhere. It has been analysed, and, whereas along the seaside resorts on the English Channel it is two decimal four to five decimal one of potass, there is a steady accession of iodine in the seaweed, as you mount the east coast – the east coast, sir – till it reaches its maximum at the spot where we now are; where the proportions are almost reversed, the iodine standing at five, or, to be exact, four decimal eight, and the potass at three decimal two. This is a very interesting fact, sir, and as important as it is interesting – as it is in-ter-est-ing.'

The gentleman worked his elbows, as though uncomfortable in his overcoat, that did not fit him.

'The iodine is suspended in the atmosphere, as also is the ozone; but it is concentrated in the algae. Conceive of the advantage to humanity, and contemplate the beneficence of Providence, not only in gathering into one focus the distributed iodine of the universe, but also in discovering this fact to me, and enabling me and a few others to whom I confide the secret, to realize out of the iodine, I will not say a competence, but a colossal fortune.'

'And pray,' said Jeremiah, with a tone of sarcasm in his voice, 'what is the good of iodine when you have it?'

'What is the good – the good of iodine?'

The gentleman turned round solidly and looked at Mr. Pennycomequick from head to foot. 'Do you mean to tell me, sir, that you do not know for what purpose an all-wise Providence has put iodine in the world? Why, it is one of the most potent, I may say it is the only agent for the reduction of muscular, vascular, osseous, abnormal secretions.' From the way in which he employed such words as vascular, osseous, abnormal, and secretions, it was apparent that they gave the speaker thorough enjoyment to use them. 'For any and every form of disorder of the cartilaginous system it is sovereign – sov-er-eign.'

'For the heart also?' asked Jeremiah, becoming interested in iodine.

'For all cardiac affections – supreme. It is known as yet to very few – only to such as know it through me – that Bridlington is a spot so abounding in iodine, so marked out by nature as a resort for all those who suffer from glandular affections, stiff joints, rickets, cardial infirmities – and, according to a system I am about to make public – tubercular phthisis.'

He turned himself about and shook his mouth, as shaking comfits out of a bag, 'tu-ber-cular phthi-sis!'

After a pause, in which he smiled, well pleased with himself, he said, 'Perhaps you will condescend to take my card, and if I can induce you to take a share in Iodinopolis – '

'Iodinopolis?'

'The great sanatorium of the future. A company is being formed to buy up land, to erect ranges of beautiful marine villas, to rear palatial hotels. There is a low church here already, and if we can persuade his grace the Archbishop to help us to a high church also, the place will be ready, the nest prepared for the birds. Then we propose to give a bonus to every physician who recommends a patient to Bridlington, for the first three or four years, till the tide of fashion has set in so strong that we can dispense with bonuses, the patients themselves insisting on being sent here. What said Ledru Rollin? "I am the leader of the people, therefore I must follow them." He handed his card to Mr. Pennycomequick, who looked at it and saw:

'MR. BEAPLE YEO,

Financier.'

Every now and then there came in the stranger's voice an intonation that seemed familiar to Jeremiah; in itself nothing decided, but sufficient, like a scent, to recall something, yet not pronounced enough to enable him to determine what it was in the past that was recalled. Again Jeremiah looked at the gentleman, and his attention was all at once directed to his great-coat.

'How odd – how strange!' he muttered.

'What, sir? what is strange?' asked the gentleman. 'That such a splendid opportunity of making a fortune should lie at our feet – lie literally at our feet, without figure of speech – for there it is, in the seaweed, here it is, in the air we inhale, now humming in the grass of the down? Perhaps you may like – ' he fumbled in his great-coat pocket.

'Excuse me,' said Jeremiah, 'that overcoat bears the most extraordinary resemblance to – ' but he checked himself.

'Made by my tailor in New Bond Street,' said Mr. Yeo. 'Here, sir, is the prospectus. This is a speculation on which not only large capitalists may embark, but also the widow can contribute her mite, and reap as they have sown, the capitalist receiving in proportion as the widow —as the widow. I myself, guarantee eighteen and a half per cent. That I guarantee on my personal security – but I reckon that the return will be at the rate of twenty-four decimal three – the decimal is important, because the calculation has been strict.'

Mr. Pennycomequick ran his eye over the list of managers.

'You will see,' said Mr. Yeo, 'that our chairman is the Earl of Schofield. His lordship has taken up a hundred and twenty shares of £10 each – the first call is for five shillings per share.'

'Earl Schofield!' murmured Mr. Pennycomequick. 'Earl Schofield! Earl Schofield! I do not know much of the peerage – not in my line – but the name is familiar to me. Earl Schofield! – Excuse me, but there was a great scoundrel – '

'Hah!' interrupted Mr. Yeo, and waved his cane, 'there is my secretary signalling to me from away yonder on the dunes. Excuse me – I must go to him.'

He rose and walked hastily away.

'How very odd!' said Jeremiah. 'I could swear he was in my great-coat.' He watched the man as he strode away. 'And that hat! – surely I know that also.'

CHAPTER XXV.

WITHOUT BELLS

Virgilius, Bishop of Salzburg in the eighth century, condemned the erroneous doctrine held by some that we have antipodes. It was, no doubt, true that men in the Middle Ages had not their antipodes, but it is certainly otherwise now. Where our fathers' heads were, there now are our feet. Everything is the reverse in this Generation of what it was in the last. Medicine condemns those things which medicine did enjoin, and enjoins those things which were forbidden. What our parents revered that we turn into burlesque, and what they cast aside as worthless that we collect and treasure. Maxims that moulded the conduct in the last generation are trampled underfoot in this, and principles thought immutable are broken by the succeeding age, as royal seals are broken on the death of the sovereign. If we were bred up by our fathers in high Toryism, when of age we turn a somersault and pose as Social Democrats; if we learned the Gospel at our mother's knee we profess Buddhism with the sprouting of our whiskers. The social and moral barriers set up by our fathers we throw down, and just as pigs when driven in one direction turn their snouts the other way, so do we – so do our children; which is an evidence in favour of Darwinianism, showing that the porcine character still inheres.

It was regarded of old as a canon by romance writers, that the final chapter of the last volume, be it the seventh as in the days of Richardson, or the third as in these of Mudie and Smith, should end with the marriage of the hero and heroine. A cruel and wayward Fate held the couple apart through the entire story, but they came together in the end. And there was a reason for this. Marriage is the climax of the romance of life. It concludes one epoch and opens another, and that which it opens is prosaic. It was concluded, and concluded with some show of reason that a romance should deal with the romantic period of life and finish when that reaches its apogee.

The Parliament of Love at Toulouse in the twelfth century laid down that love and marriage were mutually exclusive terms; that romance died to the sound of wedding-bells, or at longest lingered to the expiration of the honeymoon. This law has governed novelists ever since. The ingenuity of the author has consisted in devising impediments to the union of the lovers, and in knocking them out of their way as the story neared its conclusion.

But in this revolutionary age we have discarded the rule; and carried away by the innovating stream the author of this tale has ventured to displace the marriage. Had he been completely lost to reverence for the ancient canons, in his desire to be original, he would have opened his novel with a wedding procession, strutting to the carriages over strewn flowers, holding bouquets, with the pealing of wedding-bells, whilst the bridegroom's man circulates, tipping the parson, the curate, the pewopener, the sexton, the clerk, the bellringers, and all the other sharks that congregate about a bridegroom, as the fish congregate about a ship on board of which is a corpse. But, as the author is still held in check by old rule, or prejudice, and yet yields somewhat to the modern spirit of relaxation, he compromises between the extremes, and introduces the marriage in the middle of his tale.

In a novel, a marriage is always built up of much romantic and picturesque and floral adjunct. It is supposed necessarily to involve choral hymns, white favours, bridal veils, orange blossoms, tears in the bride, flaming cheeks in the bridegroom, speeches at the breakfast, an old slipper, and a shower of rice. Without these condiments a wedding is a very insipid dish.

But here we are forced to innovate.

The marriage of Philip Pennycomequick and Salome Cusworth was hurried on; there was no necessity for delay, and it was performed in a manner so prosaic as to void it of every feature of romance and refinement.

In the parish church there was morning prayer every day at nine, and this service Salome frequently attended.

On one morning – as it happened, a gray one, with a spitting sky – Philip also attended matins, from 'the wicked man' to the final 'Amen.' When, however, the service was concluded – a service attended by five Sisters of Mercy and three devout ladies – the vicar, instead of leaving the desk, coughed, blew his nose, and glowered down the church.

Then the clerk began to fumble among some books, the five Sisters of Mercy perked up, the devout ladies who had moved from their seats towards the church door were seized with a suspicion that something unusual was about to take place, and hastily returned to their places. The Sisters of Mercy had with them one penitent, whom with sugar-plums they were alluring into the paths of virtue. It at once occurred to these religious women that to witness a wedding would have an elevating, healthy effect on their penitent, and they resolved to stay – for her sake, for her sake only; they, for their parts, being raised above all mundane interests. Also, the servants of the vicarage, which adjoined the churchyard, by some means got wind of what was about to occur, and slipped ulsters over their light cotton gowns, and tucked their caps under pork-pie hats, and tumbled into church breathing heavily.

Then Philip, trying to look as if nothing was about to happen, came out of his pew, and in doing so stumbled over a hassock, knocked down his umbrella which leaned against the pew, and sent some hymnals and church services about the floor. Then he walked up the church, and was joined by Salome and her sister and mother. No psalm was sung, no 'voice breathed o'er Eden,' but the Sisters of Mercy intoned the responses with vociferous ardour, and the penitent took the liveliest interest in the ceremonial, expressing her interest in giggles and suppressed 'Oh my's!'

Finally, after 'amazement,' the parson, clerk, bride and bridegroom, and witnesses adjourned to the vestry, where the vicar made his customary joke about the lady signing her surname for the last time.

The bellringers knew nothing about the wedding, and having been unforewarned were not present to ring a peal. No carriage with white favours to horses and driver was at the door of the church – no cab was kept at Mergatroyd – no rice was thrown, no slipper cast.

The little party walked quietly and unobserved back to their house under umbrellas, and on reaching home partook of a breakfast that consisted of fried fish, bacon, eggs, toast, butter, and home-made marmalade. No guests were present, no speeches were made, no healths drunk. There was to be no wedding tour. Philip could not leave the mill, and the honeymoon must be passed in the smoky atmosphere of Mergatroyd, and without the intermission of the daily routine of work.

As Philip walked home with Salome under the same umbrella, from the points of which the discoloured water dropped, he said in a low tone to her, 'I have, as you desired, offered your mother to manage her affairs for her. She has accepted my offer, and I have looked through her accounts. She has very little money.'

'I do not suppose she can have much; my poor father died before he was in a position to save any considerable sum.'

'She has about five hundred pounds in Indian railway bonds, and a couple of hundred in a South American loan, and some three hundred in home railways – about fifteen to sixteen hundred pounds in all – that is to say, she had this a little while ago.'

'And has it still, no doubt.'

'No; you yourself told me she had met with losses.'

'She informed me that she had, but I cannot understand how this can have been. I doubt entirely that she met with losses.'

'But she allowed me to see her book, and she has sold out some stock – in fact, between two and three hundred pounds' worth. She did that almost immediately after my uncle's death.'

'But she has the money realized, I suppose.'

'Not at all. It is gone.'

'Gone!'

'She cannot and will not account for it to me, except by the vague explanation that she had a sudden and unexpected call upon her which she was forced to meet.'

'But – she said nothing about this to me. It is very odd.'

'It is, as you say, odd. It is, of course, possible that Janet may have had something to do with it, but I cannot say; your mother will not enlighten me.'

'I cannot understand this,' said Salome musingly.

'I regret my offer,' said Philip. 'I would not have made it if I had not thought I should be met with candour, and given the information I desired.'

When Mrs. Sidebottom heard that the marriage had actually taken place, then her moral sense reared like a cob unaccustomed to the curb.

'It is a scandal!' she exclaimed, 'and so shortly after my sweet brother's death. A bagman's daughter, too!'

'Uncle Jeremiah died in November,' said the captain.

'Well, and this is March. To marry a bagman's daughter in March! It is a scandal, an outrage on the family.'

'My uncle would have had no objections, I suppose. Philip is as good as Mr. Baynes.'

'As good! How you talk, Lamb! as if all the brains in your skull had gone to water. Philip is a Pennycomequick, and Baynes is – of course, a Baynes.'

'What of that?'

'Mr. Baynes was a manufacturer.'

'So is Philip.'

'Well, yes; for his sins. But then he is allied to us who have dropped an n, and capitalized a Q, and adopted and inserted a hyphen. Mr. Baynes was not in the faintest degree related to us. Philip has behaved with gross indecency. A bagman's daughter within five months of his uncle's death! Monstrous. If she had been his social equal we could have waived the month – but, a bagman's daughter! I feel as if allied to blackbeetles.'

'Her father was about to be taken into partnership when he died,' argued the captain.

'If he had been a partner, that would have been another matter, and I should not have been so pained and mortified; but he was not, and a man takes his position by the place he occupied when he died, not by that which he might have occupied had he lived. Why, if Sidebottom had lived and been elected Mayor of Northingham in the year of the Prince's visit he might have been knighted, but that does not make me Lady Sidebottom.'

'You call him a bagman,' said Captain Lambert. 'But I should say he was a commercial traveller.'

'And how does that mend matters? Do seven syllables make a difference? A dress-improver is no other than a bustle, and an influenza than a cold in the head.'

'All I know is,' said the captain, 'that his daughters are deuced pretty girls, and as good a pair of ladies as you will meet anywhere. I've known some of your grand ladies say awfully stupid things, and I can't imagine Janet doing that; and some do rather mean things, and Salome could not by any chance do what was unkind or ungenerous. I've a deuce of a mind to propose to Janet, as I have been chiselled out of my one hundred and fifty.'

'Chiselled out!'

'Yes, out of my annuity. If the will had been valid I should have had that of my own; but now I have nothing, and am forced to go to you for every penny to buy tobacco. It is disgusting. I'll marry Janet. I am glad she is a widow and available. She has a hundred and fifty per annum of her own, and is certainly left something handsome by Baynes.'

'Fiddlesticks!' exclaimed Mrs. Sidebottom.

'I will, indeed, unless I am more liberally treated. I hate to be dependent on you for everything. I wish I had served a caveat against your getting administration of the property, and done something to get the old will put to rights.'

Mrs. Sidebottom turned green with anger and alarm.

'I will go to Philip's wedding breakfast, or dinner, or dance, or whatever he is going to have, and snatch a kiss from little Janet, pull her behind the window-curtains and propose for her hundred and fifty, I will.'

Lambert's mother was very angry, but she said no more. She knew the character of her son; he would not bestir himself to do what he threatened. His bark was worse than his bite. He fumed and then turned cold.

But Philip gave no entertainment on his wedding-day, invited no one to his house; consequently Lambert had not the opportunity he desired for pulling Janet behind the window-curtains, snatching a kiss and proposing for her hundred and fifty pounds.

'I shall refuse to know them,' said Mrs. Sidebottom.

'And return to York?' asked her son.

'I can't leave at once,' answered his mother. 'I have the house on my hands. Besides, I must have an eye on the factory. Lamb, if you had any spirit in you, you would learn book-keeping, so as to be able to control the accounts. I do not trust Philip; how can I, when he marries a bagman's daughter? It is a proof of deficiency in common sense, and a lack of sense of rectitude. Who was Salome's mother? We do not know her maiden name. These sort of people are like diatoms that fill the air, and no one can tell whence they came and what they are. They are everywhere about us and all equally insignificant.'

Mrs. Sidebottom had but the ears of her son into which to pour her discontent, for she had no acquaintances in Mergatroyd.

On coming there she had been met by the manufacturers' wives in a cordial spirit. Her brother was highly respected, and they hastened to call on her and express their readiness to do her any kindness she might need as a stranger in the town. She would have been received into the society there – a genial one – had she been inclined. But she was supercilious. She allowed the ladies of Mergatroyd to understand that she belonged to another and a higher order of beings, and that the days in which the gods and goddesses came down from Olympus to hold converse with men were over.

The consequence was that she was left to herself, and now she grumbled at the dulness of a place which was only dull to her, because of her own want of tact. No more kindly, friendly people are to be found in England than the north country manufacturers; but the qualities of frankness, directness, which are conspicuous in them, were precisely those qualities which Mrs. Sidebottom was incapable of appreciating, were qualities which to her mind savoured of barbarism.

And yet Mrs. Sidebottom belonged, neither by birth nor by marriage nor by acceptance, to a superior class. She was the daughter of a manufacturer, and the widow of a small country attorney. As the paralytic in the sheep-market waited for an angel to put him into the pool, so did Mrs. Sidebottom spend her time and exhaust her powers in vain endeavours to get dipped in the cleansing basin of county society, in which she might be purged of the taint of trade. And, like the paralytic of the story, she had to wait, and was disappointed annually, and had the mortification of seeing some neighbour or acquaintance step past her and enter the desired circle, whilst she was making ready and beating about for an introducer.