Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (67 page)

‘I — forgiven you — I had nothing to forgive,’ he said. ‘I was a brute ever to have been angry with you, and to-morrow—’

‘To-morrow by this time we shall be in Paris,’ Edith said shyly.

Hollebone felt happy in his love, in spite of the dreadful thought that was weighing him down. Somehow it was still too terrible for him to grasp.

In the meantime Julia and her lover were sitting in the next room.

‘Julia,’ he was saying, ‘I have done everything I can to repair the wrongs that my father did. It only remains for me to mature my scheme for disposing of my father’s fortune, and then we will start life afresh.’

For a moment there was silence, and then he began again.

‘Oh, Julia, I have no right to drag you away with me. We shall lead a hard life, and besides, you are a great pianist, and I am taking you away from fame and—’

But Julia interrupted him, calmly and steadfastly.

‘What would be the good of fame or anything to me if I am to be separated from you? Besides, you are a far greater author than I can ever hope to be as a pianist, and if you can throw away all claims to greatness in order to repair injuries that your father has done surely I can do it to follow the man I love.’ He held his peace for a moment, as though he were meditating deeply.

‘I think it is best that we should leave the country. We have neither of us any ties to bind us to it. I, you know, I’ve not been altogether what I ought to have been, but if I am to begin again it would be better to begin where there are no associations to drag me back; besides, we have got to live, and it is so difficult to make a living here. It will be different in a new country.’

Again there was a silence.

Suddenly he put his hand in his pocket and drew out a small phial.

‘Oh, by-the-bye, Julia,’ he said, ‘I meant to ask you about this. It seems to be a poison that Hollebone invented and gave to my stepmother before she married my father. At least I gather as much from the inscription on the label.’

Julia started visibly.

‘What do you mean?’ she said. ‘Give it me. Where did you get it?’

‘Oh, I found it only this morning, in a dressing-case that used to belong to my father, but—’

‘But,’ Julia interrupted, in horrified amazement, ‘the seal
isn’t
broken, and I thought—’

‘What?’ the young man asked, somewhat astonished.

‘I thought — Clement told me that Edith—’ She stopped again.

‘What on earth do you mean?’ her lover asked, and then gathering her meaning from her eyes, he said, ‘Does he think that she murdered my father?’

Julia held her finger to her mouth.

‘Hush, James. Yes, I thought so too. We were both mad.’

‘And was he going to marry her with that suspicion hanging over her?’

Julia nodded.

‘I will let him do it as it is before I tell him. It will teach him a lesson.’

But her lover’s eyes lit up with wonder.

‘By Jove!’ he said, ‘how he must love her — almost as much as I love you.’ But, becoming grave again, he said, ‘Oh, Julia, there was something else I meant to tell you — about my own mother. I only learnt that, too, the other day, and I have been trying to muster up courage ever since, for somehow I didn’t think it would be right, if I had repaired all the wrongs my father and I have done, to start again by deceiving you. I — I — Well, here is what my father wrote to me, in a letter that was to be only opened after his death. Will you read it now? You — you won’t throw me over on that account?’ He grew very white, and fidgeted with his watch chain. But Julia leant over him and kissed his forehead gently.

‘What difference does it make?’ she said.

On the next day Hollebone and Edith were married by special licence, and in a terrible hurry, in order to catch the boat-train at eleven. Hollebone had taken the luggage down to the station the day before, and its registration was safely accomplished; but even with that precaution there was a considerable rush for the train, so much so that Julia had some difficulty in catching Hollebone’s attention for a moment.

‘Here is a little wedding present for you.’ It was a sealed packet. ‘Don’t open it till you are alone,’ she said, and Edith from the carriage window called out, —

‘Now then, Clem, hurry up, or I shall be jealous. You mustn’t go on like that now,’ and an urbane ticket collector suggested that the train was about to start and that Hollebone stood a chance of being left behind.

Therefore with all haste he ascended the steps into the carriage and the door was locked. The ticket collector winked at the guard and discreetly withdrew.

‘Good-bye, Ju,’ said Edith. ‘Kiss me. I’m so happy.’

‘Good-bye, Miss Tubbs,’ Hollebone said.

‘I’m not Miss Tubbs any longer,’ she said, with a triumphant side glance at Edith.

‘What do you mean?’ said that young lady sharply.

Julia had not time to answer, the train was moving off, but she held up one finger of her gloveless hand.

Edith sank back into her seat with a little frown.

‘The spiteful cat,’ she said. ‘
Won’t
I write her a letter from Paris. They must have been married this morning before us. Its a shame.’

She relapsed into silence that became breathless agony as the train backed into Cannon Street.

‘I hope no one is going to get into the carriage,’ she said; but the adroit guard quite appreciated her sentiments, and with skill, born of long practice, succeeded in staving off all threatening disturbers of her peace of mind, and as the train moved out of the station she nestled down once more against Hollebone’s side.

‘The train doesn’t stop again, does it?’ she said.

‘Not until Folkestone,’ he answered, ‘Oh, Clem, it’s like a dream,’ she said for the fiftieth time at least.

And the train rattled and jolted through the Kentish land, green with the promise of spring. But I am afraid that neither of them noticed the primroses that were already carpeting the banks of the railway line, or the green haze of new buds that hung over the brown hazel copses. ‘Love’s blind,’ they say.

At anyrate the guard at the Harbour Station remarked to a friendly porter, ‘That honeymoon compartment pays me better than all the rest of the train put together.’ Unfortunately the guards on the other side of the Channel are not so expert, or the train was rather full — at anyrate from Boulogne to Amiens they both felt discontented, for a Gallic stranger occupied one corner of their compartment. It is true he neither spoke nor understood a word of English, and remained the whole time buried behind a copy of
Le Matin,
but still he was corporeally present, and the mere presence of an elderly foreigner, wearing an extravagant travelling cap and a little red button in the top hole of his overcoat, is sufficient to make a newly wedded couple sit on opposite sides of a railway carriage, and
that
means that they must limit themselves to pressing each other’s feet — a tantalising occupation, of which even Edith grew tired after an hour and a half — and, not having slept a wink for three nights previously, she felt an overpowering drowsiness coming over her, and letting her head fall back on to the cushions behind she was soon asleep, leaving Hollebone gazing disconsolately at the scenery. In these straits he bethought himself of the packet that Julia had given him, and extracting it from his pocket, he proceeded to open it, disclosing the little crystal phial, intact, sparkling in the light. The seal was still unbroken; moreover, he could see there was no diminution in its contents.

‘My God!’ he said to himself, ‘what a fool I have been — a preposterous idiot to suspect Edie in such a ridiculous manner. Good Heavens! what would she think of me if she came to know about it? Supposing Julia were to write and tell her for a joke.’ The bare idea made him feel sick and faint. The French gentleman on the other side happened to be refreshing himself from a pocket flask, and observing Hollebone’s white face, he smiled.

‘Monsieur a toujours mal de mer?’ he asked. ‘Permettez,’ and bending forward he held the flask to him. At this important juncture Hollebone’s knowledge of the French tongue deserted him. He was thinking of other things, and all he could manage to say was, —

‘Non, merci, je ne bois pas.’

The other looked puzzled, but a light shot into his face, and he said, with a smile,—’Ah! monsieur, veut dire qu’il est “
ti tôt à l’heure?”’

Hollebone gasped.

‘Oui, oui, mais merci, merci millefois,’ and at this moment the train rattled into Amiens. Edith awoke, and the French gentleman descended with his goods and chattels.

‘Are you hungry, darling?’ Hollebone asked. ‘Shall we have something to eat?’

‘What, aren’t we there?’ she asked. ‘I thought this was Paris.’

‘Oh, no,’ he said, ‘it’s only Amiens. Another couple of hours yet. Shall we get out and have something?’

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘I’m not a bit hungry. Has that French wretch gone? Let’s put the bags on the seats and move up to the door end to make the carriage look full. Stand up in the doorway so that people can’t see in.’

Thus, by means of skilful arrangement, people seeking places were deceived, and when the train moved out of the station their carriage was once more empty but for them.

‘Ah! that’s nice — now sit down. Oh! Clem, I wish we could never get to Paris, and stopped like this always — for ever and ever! But what’s the matter with you — you’re quite dull. Aren’t you well?’

‘No, I’m all right, dearest,’ he answered. Only, I’m too happy to be lively.’

‘I don’t believe it. You’re a lazy boy and don’t want to talk to me, and you aren’t squeezing
half
as tight as you can. I believe you’re tired of me already.’

To tell the truth Hollebone’s mind was occupied by a new dread. Having got rid of the murder theory altogether, he was tormenting himself with the anticipation of Edith’s scorn when she heard how he had suspected her; and as the train rattled on his dread grew to a perfect agony by the time they were nearing Paris.

By one of those mysterious but seemingly immutable dispensations of Providence, which provides that no stranger to the city shall enter Paris from the north without being fumigated by the vilest of odours, the signals at St Denis were against the train, and they must needs stop still for a considerable space of time. The train had lately been rattling so loudly as to utterly preclude conversation; but now it fell to dead silence, and the voices in the next compartment became confusedly audible.

‘Where are we? What are we stopping for?’ she asked petulantly.

‘Why, we seem to be near St Denis,’ he said, ‘to judge from the smell; but it’s so smoky on this side you can’t see Paris.’

The sun was setting over the city in a purple glory of April clouds and smoke.

‘Oh,
is that
Paris?’ she said, turning to the window. ‘What a shame it’s so misty. I thought it was only in London we had fogs. I can’t see anything — only red clouds and smoke.’

The golden red from the west, glowing on her face and hair, made her look so wonderfully dreamlike that Hollebone groaned to think that now that she was his he might have forfeited her heart by a preposterous suspicion.

‘Why, whatever is the matter, Clem?’ she asked, turning suddenly. ‘You look perfectly wretched. Have I done anything to annoy you?’

‘Oh, forgive me, forgive me, my darling,’ he said, clasping her disengaged hand.

‘Why, whatever for, Clem? You haven’t done anything to harm me.’

‘It was about the poison,’ he said, hardly knowing what his words meant.