Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (60 page)

‘Please come back at once. Have had serious accident. —
           
HAMMOND.’

‘Ah, well,’ Kate said, with forced cheerfulness, ‘I suppose you will have to go. But you will not be able to get off to-night. The last train is already gone. It is nearly seven — at least it will have gone by the time you reach the railway,’ and Hollebone assented, in a voice that Kate knew rung the death bell of her hopes. Nevertheless, in forlorn hope, she was unusually fascinating and brilliant that night — so much so indeed that he for a moment hesitated in his determination, and indeed, although he set forth almost before daylight next morning, yet even on the journey he wavered several times. It would have been so convenient, pleasant, and above all things expedient, to tell his cousin that he loved her, and to ask her to marry him. It would be like life itself to her, and his life was already finished, or at least the sweetness of it was over, and only the dregs remained. Why not go back to his cousin, marry and settle down as a country gentleman to the end of the chapter? Why not? Well, to be sure, he had taken a through ticket to Blyth-borough, and his luggage was labelled there, and it would be a horrible nuisance to stop it. That was his principal reason for not returning to gladden Kate’s heart, and besides, an afterthought came to back up his resolve, poor Dr Hammond was waiting for him, and the practice would be ruined if he turned back — and the train rattled on through the country, with provoking noise and ostentation, as it seemed to him, and yet covering little ground. There was nothing whatever in the paper. He read everything, even the leading articles and the advertisements.

‘Good Lord, what an annoying thing a newspaper is,’ he yawned. ‘Whenever one wants something to occupy one’s mind nothing ever happens, not even a collision or an Irish Member to call Mr Balfour a bloodthirsty murtherer. Only two advertisements in the agony column, and both in cipher. Well, there’s court and society. “Her Majesty the Queen drove out to-day accompanied by—” Oh, well, that’s court. How about society? Nobody’s in town. Hello! “We regret to announce that Mr Kasker-Ryves, the eminent philanthropist and leader of society, whose wife’s entertainments were such a feature of last season, had a slight attack of apoplexy on Monday last at his town house in Park Place, where they have been detained on account of his indisposition. They left town on Friday for their Yorkshire estate, where Mr Ryves, junior, has been entertaining the usual large number of guests for the shooting.” Well, well, Edith seems to be going the right way to work to kill her husband, becoming a leader of society, and all that sort of thing. It’s funny that a girl who always seems so tender and true in every word she said can be such an incarnate fiend. However, I’m glad I left Blackstone Edge as soon as I did. I shouldn’t like to see her again. I wonder how it is I didn’t hear they were down there. They must have been at Blackstone Hall since Friday, and it’s Tuesday to-day.’

By this time, however, he had arrived at the third change of trains in the journey, and here he fortified himself with a society magazine and a luncheon basket, and thus provided he journeyed tranquilly on to Hailesworth, where the fifth and last change occurred, and at last he sat in the exaggerated tramcars that do duty as trains between that town and Blythborough. Nevertheless that paragraph in the paper had had a more serious effect on his mind than he cared to acknowledge or think of. Somehow the seeing her name in print had given his nerves a shock that no amount of thinking about her could possibly have caused, and it made him feel ill and more than ever tired of his life. Arrived at Blythborough, he found Gandon awaiting him on the platform. The day was not yet so dark but that he could see that Gandon’s face was decidedly discoloured about the mouth.

‘Hello, Gandy!’ he said. ‘You here all alone?’

‘Well,’ that youth replied, ‘Jim is with me, but he’s in the White Hart. He can’t stand any more. They’ve been treating him.’

‘Who have?’ Hollebone asked.

‘Oh, some people at the White Hart. We’ve been waiting ever since two o’clock expecting you — and then a lot of people came in and asked him to tell about pa’s accident, an’ he did, an’ they all treated him — and then some more came in, and
they
treated him — and now he can’t stand.’

‘But tell me what has happened to your father.’

‘Oh, yesterday Mandalay was ill, and pa thought he had better not put him in the chaise — and so he rided on your horse, the black one, and it hadn’t been out for two days, and so it was rather wild, and before he had gone half a mile it knocked him off an’ kicked him, and broke his arm — and pa’s awfully bad. Dr Jenkins came over from Southwold and set his arm, but he wants you. An’ I cried when they carried pa in, ‘cos he’d fainted, and I was frightened, but an old gentleman what’s taken the house next door to us gave me sixpence not to cry, and then he bound pa’s arm up; but he wouldn’t let his wife come in, for fear she should faint — he made her go indoors. An’ so to-day Jim made me have a drink, and it costed twopence — and they gave me thrippence and two ha’pennies back, and I put the three pennies in a chocolate machine — but the ha’pennies didn’t get anything out.’

‘All right, old boy,’ Hollebone interrupted.

‘What sort of a thing have you got to carry us back?’

‘Oh, they’ve sent the chaise, with your horse in it, sir,’ the porter answered for Gandon, who had seized the opportunity to fill his mouth with chocolate, and consequently could only gurgle; ‘but the horse is awfully wild. Dr Hammond’s man has been lathering it so, I doubt if you’ll get back safe. You’ll have to drive yourself. Jim is too drunk to see between a five-barred gate, sir.’

Hollebone laughed.

‘Oh, I’ll get the brute home fast enough. It won’t have time to stop and kick. The road’s sure to be pretty clear.’

‘Why, yes, sir,’ the man answered. ‘Nothing has passed going that way this last hour and a half except the carriage of the old gentleman that’s taken the Widow Waters’s house, next door to yours in Dymchurch. His name’s Paton, I think. They say he’s a millionaire, and he’s got a young—’

‘Never mind that now,’ Hollebone interrupted him. ‘Just throw my things into the chaise anyhow. I suppose the horse is in?’

‘Why, yes, sir; we’ve kept it in to meet every train. Dr Hammond is in a mortal hurry to see you. He’s afraid of gettin’ delirious before you come, and he wants to give you directions a bit.’ — .

‘All right,’ said Hollebone. ‘Put the things in. Gandy, you can’t come. You must get someone to take him over, Jones, I daren’t take him. Brunswick’s like a devil when one lets out at him, and I’ll get him home in half an hour.’

‘You’ll have to mind the hill where it turns at the trystin’- tree corner. It’s a square turn, and the brook runs across just beyond.’ Hollebone laughed.

‘Oh, I’ve taken him round there before at a gallop.’

‘But you hadn’t got the chaise then, sir, and he ain’t used to it, and there might be someone in the way or comin’ round the trystin’- tree corner.’

‘Oh, well, they’ll have to risk it, then,’ said Hollebone recklessly.

As a matter of fact he was feeling more and more repugnance at the thought of the hard work before him, and at the dreariness of his own life, and an upset at that corner, at a gallop, would mean death — a rattling finish. It was a pleasant idea. At the door of the White Hart a small crowd was collected, admiring the antics of the black horse — a great coffin-headed lump of coal, with a singularly suggestive trick of throwing his eyes to one side and exhibiting bloodshot whites. The animal was already in a state of nervous fury that needed all the combined energies of the hostler and the village blacksmith to control. Hollebone and his luggage were in the dog-cart in a moment, and having the reins well in hand, with a good feeling of the animal’s hard mouth, he delivered a cut with his whip that roused the animal’s temper beyond endurance, and with a bound forward that hardly gave the men at its head time to evade the wheels they were away, to the imminent terror of a couple of geese that were inspecting the proceedings authoritatively, after the manner of geese.

The horse had only been in Hollebone’s possession a month, he having bought it in place of his former horse, whose wind he had ruined in galloping off in answer to a sudden call to the house of the local baronet, whose leg had been broken in the fall of a tree. Nevertheless he was well aware of the staying qualities of the animal, which would with little inconvenience have galloped the whole way. But Hollebone was anxious to nurse it for the last mile and a half, of which the half mile home was down hill, with a stiff slope to end and a perfectly rectangular turn at the bottom, at one corner of which turn a hundred-year oak threw its branches out over the road. This tree was used and known as the trysting-tree, to which end some benevolent person had erected a stone bench, seemingly with the intention of providing a speedy and certain means of suicide for any vehicle coming down the hill at more than a walking pace. By means of judicious nursing Hollebone had fretted the horse, which at all times hated running in harness, into a state of mind that rendered the creature perfectly frenzied — its off fore-leg was overflown with the foam that flowed from the animal’s jaws until it seemed streaked with white from shoulder to fetlock. Thus the last mile before the hill, when he had given it its head almost free, went by, a mere flash of hedgerows and branches overhead, his hat gone, and the wind whistling through his hair, and a great red and golden glare of cloud-laced autumn sunset in his eyes.

‘This is certain death,’ he said to himself, with a joyous laugh at the feeling of the air on his face. ‘By Jove! it’s a fine sort of way to go out of the world. Brunswick is sure to come to grief over the lover’s seat, and my neck will be broken against the tree. Ah! here we are at the hill. Now we’ll go like the devil. Hullo! there’s an old fellow and a girl at the trysting-tree. It’s better than a young fellow and a girl. She’d throw him over for the fun of seeing him squirm — just as Edith has done me. I wonder what Edith would say if she could see me take that corner. She would laugh. It would tickle her vanity to think I’d killed myself on her account.

Then, by God, I’ll go safe round the corner just to spite her. I’ve got plenty of time to get Brunswick under control again, though it wouldn’t do to stop on the hill. Now then you brute. Ah! he feels it, he’s not got his head. I can do it. I wish Edie
could
be here to see. It would take her vanity down a peg just to see I don’t kill myself — damn her. Hullo! what’s gone wrong with that old bloke on ahead? He must be drunk. Why, he’s down. Thank goodness there’s room to get by. That girl’s game — she’s lifting him out of my way. Wonder what’s wrong with him? Can’t stop to see. Now for it. God help me! It’s her birthday to-night. I — I wouldn’t like to die then. It doesn’t seem fair to her, because she does love me, and has sacrificed herself for me, as Julia said. Now — ah! thank God! Brunswick’s done it!’

(The girl had looked up as he tore past, with his hair flying back, his face glowing in the red light of the day, his eyes blazing like live coals, and with a scowl on his face that ill-suited one who is to die immediately. But the great foam-flecked horse turned the corner with its legs spread all four aside under it, and its body hanging inwards as it turned. The light dog-cart swung round behind, with both wheels off the ground, and for a moment the profile of the rider flashed out against the dark background formed by the bark of the trysting oak for a moment, and then the hedgerow hid it from view. Nevertheless she
could
not faint, only her power of movement for a moment — or was it a century? — seemed stopped with the beating of her heart.)

In three minutes after turning the corner they were in front of Dr Hammond’s house. Fortunately the horse stopped of its own free will, for I do not know which was trembling more violently, the horse or its driver; and Hollebone was thankful that some moments elapsed before someone came to open the door, and even then it needed all his will power for him to force himself to move. Practically speaking there was nothing to tremble about. He had been very near death, had looked it in the face several times before that, for a chemist with a turn for dangerous experiments carries his life in his hands at all times. But that is of course different from wilfully sacrificing oneself. This was an experiment of another kind, to find out how far his love for Edith influenced him. Now he was trembling at the discovery it had resulted in.

At the sound of the wheels stopping at the house little Maud had run to the window, and recognising Hollebone she ran and opened the street door. At the sight of her Hollebone recovered himself with a start.

‘Wait a minute, Maud,’ he said; ‘don’t come near Brunswick. He’s rather wild. Hullo, you, sir,’ he cried to a gentleman who was airing himself in his shirt sleeves on the step of the house next door, ‘would you be kind enough to hold the horse while I get down?’ and the man came forward after a moment’s hesitation and held the horse’s head for him. ‘Thank you,’ Hollebone said as he descended. ‘Pray hold it a moment longer. Oh! there you are, Mary Ann. Just see about someone to take the horse up to the stable. Now then, Maud, how is your father?’ and without waiting for a reply he ran up the stairs with professional softness of tread.