Читать книгу The Pennycomequicks (Volume 2 of 3) - Baring-Gould Sabine, Baring-Gould Sabine - Страница 2

In the cabin of the Conquering Queen, Mr. Pennycomequick had much time for thought before he was sufficiently recovered to leave his berth. He fell to wondering what Salome and her mother, Mrs. Sidebottom and his nephew, had thought of his disappearance.

'Can you get me a back newspaper, or some account of the flood?' he asked of Ann Dewis. 'I am interested to hear what happened, and whether I am among those accounted to have fallen victims.'

After several trials, Mrs. Dewis procured what was required in pamphlet form – a reprint from one of the West Riding papers of its narrative of the inundation, of the appearance of the country after it had subsided, from its special correspondent, and full lists of the lost and drowned. Mr. Pennycomequick read this account by the light that descended from the hatchway; read about the havoc effected in Keld-dale, the walls thrown down, the cottages inundated, the roads and the embankments torn up, and then among the names of those lost he read his own, with the surprising information that the body had been recovered, and though frightfully mutilated, had been identified.

This was news indeed. That he was esteemed dead did not surprise Mr. Pennycomequick when he learned how long he had been ill, but that some other body should have been mistaken for his was indeed inexplicable.

'By this time,' said he to himself, 'Salome will have proved my will and Louisa will have exhausted her vituperation of my memory.'

It took him two days to digest what he had learned. As he recovered, his mind recurred to those thoughts which had engaged him on the night of the flood, as he walked on the towpath by the canal.

If he were to return to Mergatroyd when supposed to be dead, he was confident that Salome and her mother would receive him with unfeigned delight, and without reluctance surrender to him what they had received through his bequest. But he was by no means sure of himself, that in the joy of his return he would be able to control his feelings so as not to show to Salome what their real nature was.

He recalled his prayer to Heaven, that he might have the way pointed out to him which he should go, and startlingly, in a manner unexpected, in a direction not anticipated, the hand of Providence had flashed out of the sky and had pointed out his course. It had snapped his tie to Mergatroyd – at all events temporarily; had separated him from Salome, and set him where he had leisure and isolation in which to determine his conduct. Jeremiah was a man of religious mind, and this consideration profoundly affected him. He had been carried from his home, and his name blotted out of the book of the living.

What would be the probable consequences were he to return to Mergatroyd as soon as he was recovered? The very desire he felt to be back, to see Salome again, was so strong within him that it constituted evidence to his mind that if he were at home, in the exuberant joy of meeting her again he would let drop those words which his judgment told him ought not to be spoken. Other thoughts besides these exercised his mind.

He turned to the past, to his dead brother Nicholas, and his conscience reproached him for having maintained the feud so persistently and so remorselessly. Nicholas had suffered for what he had done, and by suffering had expiated his fault. He, Jeremiah, had, moreover, visited on the guiltless son the resentment he bore to the father. He endeavoured to pacify his conscience by the reflection that he had made a provision for Philip in his will; but this reflection did not satisfy him. Philip was the representative of the family, and Jeremiah had no right to exclude him from the firm without a trial of his worth.

Then he turned to another train of ideas connected with his present condition.

Was his health likely to be sufficiently restored to enable him to resume the old routine of work? Would a resumption of his duties conduce to the re-edification of his health? Would it not retard, if not prevent, complete recovery? Would it not be a better course for him to shake himself free from every care – keep his mind disengaged from business till his impaired constitution had been given time to recover? He knew that rheumatic fever often seriously affected the heart, and he asked himself whether he dare return to the conflict of feeling, the inner struggle, sure to attend a recurrence to the same condition as before. Would it not be the wisest course for him to go abroad for a twelvemonth or more, to some place where his mind might recover its balance, his health be re-established – and he might acquire that perfect mastery over his feelings which he had desired, but which he had lost.

What did he care about the fortune he had amassed – by no means a large one, but respectable? He was a man of simple habits and of no ambition. He was interested in his business, proud of the good name the firm had ever borne. He would be sorry to think that Pennycomequick should cease to be known in Yorkshire as the title of an old-established reliable business associated with figured linen damasks. But was his presence in the factory essential to its continuance?

He looked at Ann Dewis squatted by the fire smoking. For seventeen years she had kept Earle Schofield's pipe going, which he had put into her mouth, and she had been faithful to a simple request. He had put his mill into Salome's hands, and had said, 'Keep it going.' Was she less likely to fulfil his wish than had been Ann Dewis to the desire of Earle Schofield?

He was not concerned as to his means of subsistence should he determine to remain as one dead. He had an old friend, one John Dale, at Bridlington, the only man to whom he was not reserved and suspicious – the only man of whom he took counsel when in doubt and difficulty.

John Dale had a robust common-sense, and to him Jeremiah resolved to apply. When John Dale first went to Bridlington he had been lent a considerable sum of money by his friend, which had not been repaid, but which, now that Dale had established a good practice as a surgeon, he was ready and willing to repay. John Dale had been constituted trustee on the occasion of Janet's marriage. He had paid visits to Mergatroyd, and Jeremiah had visited Bridlington; but as both were busy men, such visits had been short and few. Though, however, they saw little of each other, their mutual friendship remained unimpaired.

As soon as Mr. Pennycomequick was sufficiently recovered to leave the barge, he provided himself with a suit of clothes at a slop-shop, and settled into an inn in the town of Hull, whence he wrote to Dale to come to him. He had his purse in his pocket when he was carried away from Mergatroyd, and the purse contained a few sovereigns, sufficient to satisfy his immediate necessities.

''Pon my word, never was so astonished in my life!' shouted John Dale, as he burst into the room occupied by his friend, then stood back, looked at him from head to foot, and roared.

Mr. Pennycomequick was strangely altered. He had been accustomed to shave his face, with the exception of a pair of cutlets that reached no lower than the lobe of his ears. Now his face was frouzy with hair: lips, jaws, cheeks, chin, throat, were overgrown, and the hair had got beyond the primary stage of stubbledom. He had been wont to attire himself in black or Oxford mixture of a dark hue, to wear a suit of formal cut, and chiefly to affect a double-breasted frock coat that gave a specially substantial mercantile look to the man. The suit in which he was now invested was snuff-coloured and cut away in stable fashion.

'Upon my word, this is a regeneration! Dead as a manufacturer, alive as a man on the turf. Is the moral transformation as radical? What is the meaning of this? I saw your death in the papers. I wrote to Salome about it, a letter of condolence, and had her reply. How came you to life again, you impostor, and in this guise?'

The doctor – he was really a surgeon – but everyone called him Dr. Dale, was a stout, florid man, with his hair cut short as that of a Frenchman, like the fur on the back of a mole. He was fresh, boisterous in manner when out of the sick-room, but when engaged on a patient, laid aside his roughness and noise. His cheeriness, his refusal to take a gloomy view of a case, made him popular, and perhaps went some way towards encouraging nature to make an effort to throw off disease.

Jeremiah told him the story of his escape.

'And now,' said Dale, 'I suppose you are going back. By Jove, I should like to see the faces when you reappear in the family circle thus dressed and behaired.'

'Before I consider about going back, I want you to overhaul me,' said Jeremiah, 'and please to tell me plainly what you find. I'm not a woman to be frightened at bad news.'

'At once, old man. Off with those togs,' shouted the surgeon.

When the medical examination was over, Dale told Mr. Pennycomequick that his heart was weak, but that there was no organic derangement. He must be careful of himself for some time to come. He must avoid climbing hills, ascending many stairs.

'As, for instance, the several flights of my factory.'

'Yes – you must content yourself with the office.'

'I might as well give up at once the entire management if I may not go to the several departments and see what is going on there.'

'You must economize the pulsations of your heart for awhile. You will find yourself breathless at every ascent. Your heart is at fault, not your lungs. The machine is weak, and you must not make an engine of one-horse power undertake work that requires one of five. If you could manage to knock off work altogether – '

'For how long?'

'That depends. You are not a boy with super-abundant vitality and any amount of recuperative power. After the age of fifty we have to husband our strength; we get well slowly, not with a leap. A child is down to-day and up to-morrow. An old man who is down to-day is up perhaps that day month. The thing of all others for you would be to go abroad for a bit, to – let us say, the South of France or Sicily, or better still, Cairo, lead a dolce far niente life, forget worries, neglect duties, disregard responsibilities, and let Nature unassisted be your doctor and nurse.'

'Now look here, Dale,' said Mr. Pennycomequick, 'your advice jumps with my own opinion. I have been considering whilst convalescent what was the good of my drudging on at Mergatroyd. I have made a fortune – a moderate one, but one that contents me – and have no need to toil through the last years of life, to fag out the final straws of existence.'

'Fag out!' exclaimed Dale, 'you dog, you – why, you have gone into the Caldron of Pelias, and have come forth rejuvenated.'

'If I remember the story aright,' retorted Jeremiah, 'Pelias never came out of the caldron. I am like Pelias in this, that I have gone into the waters of Lethe.'

'Now, Jeremiah, old boy,' said the surgeon, 'let this be a settled thing, you husband your strength for a twelvemonth at least, and you will then be vigorous as ever. If you insist on going into harness at once, in two years I shall be attending your funeral.'

'Very well,' said Jeremiah, 'if things are in order at Mergatroyd, I will go, but I cannot allow the business to fall into confusion. To tell you the truth, I have reasons which make me wish not to go back there till I am quite restored, but I should like to know what is going on there.'

'That I can perhaps tell you. I have had a letter from Salome. Do you know, my friend, when I have been away from Bridlington, on a holiday, I have been on thorns, thinking that everything must be going out of gear on account of my absence, that my locum tenens has let patients slip and mismanaged difficult cases; yet when I have returned I have found that I was not missed – all has gone on swimmingly without me. You will find that it has been the same at Mergatroyd.'

'But what says Salome?'

'In the first place that cricket, Janet, is back. She was sent home lest an Uhlan should fall in love with her or she fall in love with an Uhlan, and now her husband is dead. Like a fool he served as a volunteer, uncalled for, as he was an Englishman.'

'Albert Baynes dead! Then you will have some work on your hands as trustee.'

'So I shall. Now about your affairs. It seems that the will you drew up against my advice, without taking legal opinion, was so much waste-paper; Salome says merely that it proved invalid, so Mrs. Sidebottom had to take out letters of administration, and divide your property between her and your nephew Philip.'

'What! – Salome get nothing! I shall go back at once and send those two vultures to the right about.'

'Have patience; they came out better than you might have expected. It has been arranged that Philip shall live in your house and undertake the management of the factory, and he has asked Mrs. Cusworth to remain on in the old place in the same position as she occupied before.'

'I am glad they have had the grace not to turn her out.'

'That is not all. As it was clearly your wish that Salome should be liberally provided for, your sister and nephew have agreed to fund for her the same amount that was invested for her sister Janet. Now I do not know what your will was, but it seems to me that nothing could have been better, even if you had the disposing of it. Your natural heirs get their rights, and your pet Salome is honourably and even handsomely treated by them.'

Jeremiah said nothing; his chin fell on his breast. He had not thought that Mrs. Sidebottom would do a generous thing. Of Philip he knew nothing; but what he had just heard predisposed him in his favour.

'Now take my advice, Jeremiah,' continued Dr. Dale. 'Let Philip go on where he is. He has thrown up his place in a solicitor's office at Nottingham, and, as Salome writes, is devoting himself energetically to the work of the mill, and learning all the ramifications of the business. You wanted someone to relieve you, and you have the man – the right man, already in the place.'

'He may get everything wrong.'

'I do not believe it. You have an aversion to lawyers, but let me tell you that a lawyer's office is an excellent school; there men learn to know human nature, how to deal with men, and get business habits. The fellow must have a good heart, or he would not have come to an arrangement with his aunt to part with a large sum of money for Salome. Besides, Salome is no fool, and she writes of him in high praise for his diligence, his regular habits, and his kindness and consideration for her mother.'

John Dale paused for Jeremiah to say something; but his friend remained silent, with his head down, thinking.

'If you go back,' said the doctor, 'you will throw everything wrong. You will worry yourself and will take the spirit out of Philip. Trust him. He is on his mettle. If he makes a blunder, that is natural, and he will suffer for it; but he will commit none that is fatal; he is too shrewd for that.'

'Dale,' said Mr. Pennycomequick, 'if I make up my mind not to return to Mergatroyd, I make up my mind at the same time to leave those there in ignorance that I am still alive.'

'As you like. It would not be amiss. Then Philip would work with better energy. If things go wrong I can always drop you a line and recall you, and you can appear as Deus ex machinâ, and set all to rights. I have often thought that half the aggravation of leaving this world must be the seeing things going to sixes and sevens without being able to right them, a business we have got together being scattered, a reputation we have built up being pulled down; to have to see things going contrary to our intentions, and be unable to put out a finger to mend them; to hear ourselves criticised, and ill-natured, and false stories told of us, and be incapable of saying a word in our own defence. I will tell you a story. At one time when I went to dinner-parties I was the first to go. But on one occasion I stayed, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith left before me. No sooner were their backs turned than the company fell to criticising the Smiths, their pretensions, the airs they gave themselves, till the Brownes departed, whereupon the conversation became scandalous about the Brownes: then the Jones family departed. Thereupon I learned that the Joneses were living beyond their means, and were on the verge of bankruptcy. So on till the last was gone. After that I have never been the first to leave; I try to be last, so as to leave only my host and hostess behind to discuss and blacken me. Now, Jeremiah, you have gone out quickly and unexpectedly, and if you could steal back to Mergatroyd unperceived, then you will find that the maxim De mortuis nil nisi bonum is not being observed. You are fortunate; you can return at will and correct false estimates. That is not given save to the exceptionally privileged.'

'You will go to Mergatroyd for me,' said Mr. Pennycomequick, 'and see with your own eyes how things are?'

'Certainly I will. Do you know, old fellow,' said Dale, with a twinkle in his eye, 'I have sometimes feared for you, feared lest you should make a ghastly fool of yourself, and make that dear little piece of goods, Salome, your wife. It would not do, old boy; if you had done it I would have ceased to respect you; you would have lost the regard and provoked the ridicule of everyone in Mergatroyd. Old boy, it would never have done.'

'No,' said Mr. Pennycomequick, 'it would never have done; you are right, it would never have done.'

'It would have been a cruelty to her,' pursued Dale, 'for Nature never designed Winter to mate with Spring, to bring a frost on all the sweet blossoms of youth, and in checking the rising sap, perhaps to kill the plant.'

'No,' said Jeremiah, 'it would never have done.'