The Pennycomequicks (Volume 2 of 3)

CHAPTER XXVI.

HYMEN

A twelvemonth slipped away, easily, happily; to none more so than to Philip Pennycomequick.

To the Fates, how strange must seem the readiness with which women plunge into matrimony, and the shyness with which some men look at it! for matrimony is emphatically an institution designed for the comfort of man irrespective of the interests of the woman. The married man ceases to have care about his meals, they come to him; he gives no thought to his servants, they are managed for him; he is not troubled about his clothing, it now hangs together, whereas formerly it fell to pieces.

When the married man prepares to shave, the soap-dish is full, his tidy is clean, his razors in order; the bachelor finds all in confusion. Before marriage, he who had a cook was served with India-rubber; after it, he gets his meat succulent and well cooked. Before marriage, the linen went to the wash, and only half returned, silk handkerchiefs returned as cotton, stockings came odd, jerseys in holes, sheets in rags, and shirt-fronts enamelled with iron-mould; after marriage, everything returns in good condition and in proper number.

But to the woman, matrimony is by no means a relief from cares. On the contrary, the woman passes through the ring into an arena of battle. We are told by anthropologists that in the primitive condition of society a subdivision of tasks took place; one set of men undertook to till the earth and manage the domestic animals, whilst another girded on their arms and defended the infant community. These latter, for their services, were fed by the tillers, housed, and clothed with food they had not grown, houses they had not builded, clothing they had not woven. The same subdivision of labour continues still in the family, where the man is the tiller and toiler, and the woman is the military element. She marches round the confines of his house, fights daily battles with those foes of domestic felicity – the servants. When they oversleep themselves, she routs them out of their beds; when they neglect the dusting, she flies in pursuit to bring them to their duties; when they are impudent, she drives them out of the house.

With what unflagging zeal does she maintain her daily conflicts! How she countermines, discovers ambushes, circumvents, throws open the gates, and charges the foe!

Now consider what was the life of the girl before she married. She had no worries, no warfare; she was petted, admired; she enjoyed herself, indulged her caprices unrestrained, gave way to her humours unrebuked. Her bonnets, her dresses were given to her, she had no care what she might eat, any more than the lilies of the field, only, unlike them, devoting herself to the thoughts of her clothing, for which, however, she had not to pay. Unmarried girls were anciently termed spinsters, and are so derisively still in the banns, for they formerly spun the linen for their future homes; now they toil not, neither do they spin.

Then comes marriage, and all is changed. They enter into a world of discords and désagréments. They have to grow long nails and to sharpen their teeth; they have to haggle with shopkeepers, fight their servants; whereas the husbands, those sluggard kings of creation, smack their lips over their dinners, and lounge in their easy-chairs, and talk politics with their friends, and smile, and smile, unconscious of the struggles and passions that rage downstairs.

The eyes that, in the girl, looked at the beauties of creation, in the married woman search out delinquencies in their domestics, and defects in the household furniture. The eyes that looked for violets now peer for cobwebs; that lingered lovingly on the sunset glow, now examine the coal-bill; and the ear that listed to the song of Philomel, is now on the alert for a male voice in the kitchen. The nose that of old inhaled the perfume of the rose, now pokes into pots and pans in quest of dripping.

From what has been said above, the reader may conclude that the position of the wife, though a belligerent one, is at all events regal. She is queen of the house, and if she has trouble with her servants, it is as a sovereign who has to resist revolutionary movements among her subjects.

No more mistaken idea can well be entertained. As the Pope writes himself, 'Servant of the servants of Heaven,' so does the lady of the house subscribe herself servant of the servants of the establishment. If she searches into their shortcomings, remonstrates, and resents them, it is as the subject criticising, murmuring at, and revolting personally against the tyranny of her oppressors. So far from being the head of the house, she is the door-mat, trampled on, kicked, set at nought, obliged to swallow all the dirt that is brought into the house.

Marriage had produced a change in Philip. It had made him less stony, angular, formal. Matrimony often has a remarkable effect on those who enter into it, reducing their peculiarities, softening their harshnesses, and accentuating those points of similarity which are to be found in the two brought into close association, so that in course of time a singular resemblance in character and features is observable in married folk. In an old couple there is to be seen occasionally a likeness as that of brother and sister. This is caused by their being exposed to the same caresses and the same strokes of fortune; they are weathered by the same breezes, moistened by the same rains. In addition to the exterior forces moulding a couple, comes the reciprocal action of the inner powers – their passions, prejudices – so that they recoil on each other. They come to think alike, to feel alike, as well as to look alike. The man unconsciously loses some of his ruggedness, and the woman acquires some of his breadth and strength. They become in some measure reflectors to each other, the light one catches is cast on and brightens the other, and they mirror whatever passes along the face of the other.

The subtle, mysterious modelling process had begun on Philip, although but recently married. Janet was no longer in the house; she had returned to France, and as her constitution was delicate had followed advice, and gone to the South for the winter.

Mrs. Sidebottom and the captain had shaken off the dust from their feet against Mergatroyd, and had returned to their favourite city, York, where they resumed the interrupted gyrations about the whirlpool of fashionable life, and Mrs. Sidebottom made her usual rushes, still ineffectual, at its centre.

Consequently, Philip was left to the undisturbed influence of Salome, and this influence affected him more than he was conscious of, and would have allowed was possible. He was very happy, but he was not the man to confess it, least of all to his wife. As a Canadian Indian deems it derogatory to his dignity to express surprise at any wonder of civilization shown him, so did Philip consider that it comported with his dignity to accept all the comforts, the ease, the love that surrounded him as though familiar with them from the beginning. Englishmen who have been exposed to tropic suns in Africa, have their faces shrivelled and lined. When they returned to England, in the soft, humid atmosphere the flesh expands, and drinks in moisture at every pore. The lines fade out, and the flesh becomes plump. So did the sweet, soothing influence of Salome, equable as it was gentle, fill, relax, refresh the spirit of Philip, and restore to him some of the lost buoyancy of youth. Salome was admirably calculated to render him happy, and Philip was not aware of the rare good fortune which had given him a wife who had the self-restraint to keep her crosses to herself. That is not the way with all wives. Many a wife makes a beast of burden of her husband, lading him with crosses, heaping on his shoulders not only her own, great or small, but also all those of her relatives, friends and acquaintances. Such a wife cracks a whip behind her good man; drives him through the town, stopping at every house and calling, 'Any old crosses! Old crosses! Old crosses! Chuck them on; his back is broad to bear them!' precisely as the scavenger goes through the streets with his cart and burdens it with the refuse of every house. Many a wife takes a pride in thus breaking the back, and galling the sides, and knocking together the knees of her husband with the crosses she piles on his shoulders.

As we walk through the wilderness of life, burrs adhere to the coat of Darby and to the skirts of Joan. Why should not each carry his or her own burrs, if they refuse to be picked off and thrown away? Why should Joan collect all hers and poke them down the neck of Darby, and expect him to work them down his back from the nape to the heel? Little thought had Philip how, unperceived and by stealth, Salome sought the burrs that adhered to him, removed them and thrust them into her own bosom, bearing them there with a smiling face, and leaving him unconscious that he had been delivered from any, and that they were fretting her.

We men are sadly regardless of the thousand little acts of forethought that lighten and ease our course. We give no thanks, we are not even aware of what has been done for us. Nevertheless, our wives do not go unrewarded, though unthanked, for what they have done or borne; their gentle attentions have served to give us a polish and a beauty we had not before we came into their tender hands.

A bright face met Philip when he returned from the factory every day. If Salome saw that he was downcast, she exerted herself to cheer him; if that he was cheerful, she was careful not to discourage him. Always neat in person, fresh in face, and pleasant in humour, keeping out of Philip's way whatever might annoy him, she made him as happy as he could well be.

Perfectly happy Philip could not be, because unable to shake off the sense of insecurity that attended his change of fortune. Constitutionally suspicious, habituated to the shade, he was dazzled and frightened when exposed to the light. The access of good luck had been too sudden and too great, for him to trust its permanency. The fish that has its jaws transfixed with broken hooks mistrusts the worm that floats down the stream unattached to a line. The expectation of disappointment had been bred in him by painful and repeated experience, and had engendered a sullen predetermination to mistrust Good Fortune. He regarded her as a treacherous goddess, and when she smiled, he was sure that she meditated a stab with a hidden dagger.

Such as are born in the lap of fortune, from which they have never been given a fall, or where they have never been dosed with quassia through a drenching spoon, such persons look on life with equanimity. Nothing would surprise them more than a reverse. But with the step-sons of fortune, the Cinderellas in the great household of humanity, who have encountered heart-break after heart-break, it is otherwise. When Fortune comes their way offering gifts, they mistrust them as the gifts of the Danai. It is with them as with him who is haunted. He knows that the spectre lurks at hand, and when he is about to close his eyes, will start up and scare him; when he is merry will rise above the table and echo his laugh with a jeer. So do those who have been unlucky fear ever lest misfortune should spring on them from some unforeseen quarter, at some unprepared moment.

The dread lest there should be a revulsion in his affairs never wholly left Philip, and took the edge off his happiness. He had found little difficulty in acquiring the requisite understanding of the business, and obtaining a firm hold over the conduct of the factory. There was no prospect of decline in the trade. Since the conclusion of the European war, it had become brisk. Peace had created a demand for figured damasks. He had no reason to dread a cessation of orders, a slackness in the trade.

CHAPTER XXVII.

AN ALARM

Within a twelvemonth of his marriage Philip had been given one of the purest and best of the joys that spring out of matrimony – a child, a boy called after his own name, Philip; and the father loved his first-born, was proud of him, and was fearful lest the child should be snatched from him. As Polycrates was rendered uneasy because he was so powerful, rich, and happy, and cast his most costly jewel into the sea as a gift to the Fates, so was Philip inwardly disturbed with a suspicion that the gloomy, envious Fates which had harassed him so long were now only playing with him, and would exact of him some hostage. What would satisfy them? His commercial prosperity? – his child? – his health? In vain did Polycrates seek to propitiate the Fates by casting from him his most precious ring. The ring was returned to him in the belly of a fish, and kingdom and life were exacted of him.

'I never did understand what became of part of your mother's little property,' said Philip one evening when alone with Salome; 'and I think it odd that your mother should be reserved about it to me.'

'Oh, Philip! It does not matter. After all, it is only two hundred and fifty pounds, and the loss is mamma's, not yours.'

'It does matter, Salome. Two hundred and fifty pounds cannot have made themselves wings and flown away without leaving their address. Bo Peep's sheep left their tails behind them. This money ought to be accounted for. One thing I do know – the name of the person to whom it passed.'

'Who was that?'

'One Beaple Yeo. Have you any knowledge of the man? Who is he? What had your mother to do with him?'

'I never heard his name before.'

'The money was drawn and paid to Beaple Yeo directly after the death of Uncle Jeremiah. I made inquiries at the bank, and ascertained this. Who Beaple Yeo is your mother will not say, nor why she paid this large sum of money to him. I would not complain of this reticence unless she had called me in to examine her affairs.'

'No, Philip, it was I who asked you to be so kind as to do for her the same as Uncle Jeremiah.'

'She is perfectly welcome to do what she likes with her money: but if she complains of a loss, and then seeks an investigation into her loss, and all the time throws impediments in the way of inquiry – I say that her conduct is not right. It is like a client calling in a solicitor and then refusing to state his case.'

'I was to blame,' said Salome meekly. 'Mamma has her little store – the savings she has put by – and a small sum left by my father, and I ought not to have interfered. She did not ask me to do so, and it was meddlesome of me to intervene unsolicited; but I did so with the best intentions. She had told me that she suffered from a loss which crippled her, and I assumed that her money matters had become confused, because no longer supervised. I ought to have asked her permission before speaking to you.'

'When I made the offer, she might have refused. I would not have been offended. What I do object to is the blowing of hot and cold with one breath.'

'I dare say she thought it very kind of you to propose to take the management; and there may have been a misunderstanding. She wished you to manage for the future and not inquire into the past.'

'Then she should have said so. She complained of a loss, and became reticent and evasive when pressed as to the particulars of this alleged loss.'

'I think the matter may be dropped,' said Salome.

'By all means – only, understand – I am dissatisfied.'

'Hush!' exclaimed Salome. 'I hear baby crying.'

Then she rose to leave the room.

'Now look here,' said Philip, 'would it be fair to the doctor whom you call in about baby to withhold from him the particulars of the ailments you expect him to cure.'

'Never mind that now,' said Salome, and she kissed her husband to silence him. 'Baby is awake and is crying for me.'

This brief conversation will serve to let the reader see an unlovable feature in Philip's character. He possessed a peculiarity not common in men, that of harbouring a grievance and recurring to it. Men usually dismiss a matter that has annoyed them, and are unwilling to revert to it. It is otherwise with women, due to the sedentary life they lead at their needlework. Whilst their fingers are engaged with thread or knitting-pins, their minds turn over and over again little vexations, and roll them like snowballs into great grievances. Probably the solitary life Philip had led had tended to develop the same feminine faculty of harbouring and enlarging his grievances.

The front-door bell tingled. Salome did not leave the room to go after baby till she heard who had come. The door was thrown open upon them, and Mrs. Sidebottom burst in.

This good lady had thought proper to swallow her indignation at the marriage of Philip, because it was against her interest to be on bad terms with her nephew; and after the first ebullition of bad temper she changed her behaviour towards Philip and Salome, and became gracious. They accepted her overtures with civility but without cordiality, and a decent appearance of friendship was maintained. She pressed Salome to visit her at York, with full knowledge that the invitation would be declined. Occasionally she came from York to see how the mill was working and what business was being transacted.

As she burst in on Philip and his wife, both noticed that she was greatly disturbed; her usual assurance was gone. She was distressed and downcast. Almost without a word of recognition cast to Salome, she pushed past her at the door, entered the room, ran to her nephew and exclaimed, 'Oh, Philip! You alone can help me. Have you heard? You do not know what has happened? I am sure you do not, or you would have come to York to my rescue.'

'What is the matter? Take a chair, Aunt Louisa.'

'What is the matter! Oh, my dear! I cannot sit, I am in such a nervous condition. It is positively awful. And poor Lamb a director. I am afraid it will damage his prospects.'

'But what has happened?'

'Oh – everything. Nothing so awful since the Fire of London and the Earthquake of Lisbon. And Smithies recommended it.'

'What – Smithies, whom you sent here to investigate the books?' asked Philip dryly.

'Oh, my dear! It is always best to do business in a business way. Of course, I don't distrust you, but I am sure it gratifies you that I should send my agent to run through the books.'

'Well, and what has your agent, Smithies, done now?'

'Oh, Smithies has done nothing himself. Smithies is as much concerned as myself. But he is to blame for advising me to sell my bonds in Indian railways and put the money into iodine or decimals, or something of that sort, and persuading Lamb to become a director of the company.'

'What company?'

'Oh! don't you know? The Iodinopolis Limited Liability Company. It promised to be a most successful speculation. It had an earl at the head. The company proposed to open quarries for stone, others for lime, erect houses, hotels, and churches, high and low, make a great harbour, and Beaple Yeo – '

'Who?'

'Beaple Yeo, the chief promoter and secretary, and treasurer pro tem. The speculation was certain to bring in twenty-five per cent., and he gave his personal security for seventeen.'

'And have you much capital in this concern?'

'Well – yes. The decimals grow thicker on this part of the coast than anywhere else in the world, and the decimals have an extraordinary healing effect in disease. They are cast up on the shore, and exhale a peculiar odour which is very stimulating. I have smelt the decimals myself – no, what am I saying, it is iodine, not decimals, but on my soul, I don't know exactly what the decimals are, but this I can tell you, they have run away with some good money of mine.'

'I do not understand yet.'

'How dense you are, Philip! For the sake of the iodine, we were going to build a city at or near Bridlington, to which all the sick people in Europe who could afford it, would troop. There was a crescent to be called after Lamb.'

'Well, has the land been bought on which to build and open the quarries?'

'No; that is the misfortune. Mr. Yeo has been unable to induce the landowners to sell, and so he has absconded with the money subscribed.'

'And is there no property on which to fall back?'

'Not an acre. What is to be done?'

Philip smiled. Now he understood what Mrs. Cusworth had done with her two hundred and fifty pounds. She also had been induced to invest in iodine or decimals.

'What is to be done?' repeated Philip. 'Bear your loss.'

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE SPARE ROOM

Philip insisted on Mrs. Sidebottom seating herself, and giving him as connected and plain an account of the loss she had met with, as it was in her power to give. But to give a connected and plain account of anything affecting the interests deeply is not more easy for some persons than it is for a tipsy man to walk straight. They gesticulate in their narration, lurch and turn about in a whimsical manner. But Philip had been in a solicitor's office, and knew how to deal with narrators of their troubles. Whenever Mrs. Sidebottom swayed from the direct path, he pulled her back into it; when she attempted to turn round, or retrace her steps, he took her by the shoulders – metaphorically, of course – and set her face in the direction he intended her to go. Mr. Smithies was a man in whom Mrs. Sidebottom professed confidence, and whom she employed professionally to watch and worry her nephew; to examine the accounts of the business, so as to ensure her getting from it her share to the last farthing.

Introduced by Mr. Smithies, Mr. Beaple Yeo had found access to her house, and had gained her ear. He was a plausible man, with that self-confidence which imposes, and with whiskers elaborately rolled – themselves tokens and guarantees of respectability. He pretended to be highly connected, and to have intimate relations with the nobility. When he propounded his scheme, and showed how money was to be made, when, moreover, he assured her that by taking part in the speculations of Iodinopolis she would be associated with the best of the aristocracy, then she entered eagerly, voraciously, into the scheme. She not only took up as many shares as she was able, but also insisted on the captain becoming a director.