CHAPTER VII.
TAKING POSSESSION
The valley of the Keld for many miles above and below Mergatroyd presented a piteous spectacle when day dawned. The water had abated, but was not drained away. The fields were still submerged. Factories stood as stranded hulls amidst shallow lagoons, and were inaccessible, their fires extinguished, their mechanism arrested, their stores spoiled. The houses in the 'folds' were deserted, or were being cleared of their inhabitants.1 From the windows of some of these houses men and women were leaning and shouting for help. They had been caught by the water, which invaded the lower story, locally called the 'ha'ase,' when asleep in the bedrooms overhead, and now, hungry and cold and imprisoned, they clamoured for release. Boats were scarce. Such as had been possessed by manufacturers and others had been kept by the river, and these had been broken from their moorings and carried away. Rafts were extemporized out of doors and planks; and as the water was shallow and still in the folds, they served better than keels. One old woman had got into a 'peggy' tub and launched herself in it, to get stranded in the midst of a wide expanse of water, and from her vessel she screamed to be helped, and dared not venture to move lest she should upset her tub and be shot out.
Not many lives, apparently, had been lost in the parish of Mergatroyd. Mr. Pennycomequick was missing, and the man at the locks with his wife had not been seen, and their cottage was still inaccessible. But great mischief had been wrought by the water. Not only had the stores in the mills been damaged, and the machinery injured by water and grit getting into it, and boilers exploded by the shock, but also because the swirl of the torrent had disturbed the subsoil of gravel and undermined the walls. Fissures formed with explosions like the report of guns; one chimney that had leaned before was now so inclined and overbalanced that its fall was inevitable, and was hourly expected.
All the gas jets fed from the main that descended into the valley were extinguished, and it was apparent that the rush of water had ploughed up the ground to the depths of the main, and had ruptured it. Walls that had run across the direction of the stream had been thrown over; the communication between the two sides of the valley was interrupted. It was uncertain whether the bridge was still in existence. The railway had been overflowed, and the traffic stopped. The canal banks and locks had suffered so severely that it would be useless for the barges for many months.
Tidings arrived during the day from the upper portion of the valley, and it appeared that the destruction of life and property had been greatest where the wave burst out from between the confining hills, before it had space in which to spread, and in spreading to distribute its force. Heartrending accounts came in, some true, some exaggerated, some false, but all believed.
That night of terror and ruin did not see the roll of death made up. Such catastrophes have far-reaching effects. The wet, the exposure, the shock, were sure to produce after-sickness and succeeding mortality.
With ready hospitality, the parsonage, the inns, the houses of the well-to-do, were thrown open to receive those temporarily homeless, and food, warmth and clothing were forced upon them. But such as were received felt that they could not protract their stay and burden unduly their hosts, and insisted on returning prematurely to their sodden houses, there to contract rheumatic fevers and inflammations.
Twenty years ago, the author of this story wrote an account of such a disaster in a novel, the first on which he essayed his pen. Time has rolled away, and like the flood, has buried much; and amongst the things it has swept off and sunk in oblivion is that book. Probably not a dozen copies of it exist. He may now be permitted to repeat what was there written, when the impression produced by the cataclysm was fresh and vivid; and let not the rare possessor of the lost novel charge him with plagiarism if he repeats something of his former description.
Near the spot where the Keld left the hills had stood a public-house called the Horse and Jockey. The full violence of the descending wave fell on it and effaced it utterly. The innkeeper's body was never found; the child's cradle, with the child in it, had gone down the stream, kept from overbalancing by the kitchen cat, and so escaped destruction. The beer casks floated ashore some miles down, were never claimed, and were tapped and drunk dry by some roughs. The sign of Horse and Jockey came to land twenty miles away, unhurt; it was the most worthless article the house had possessed. About a mile and a half above Mergatroyd was a row of new cottages, lately erected on money borrowed from a building society. They were of staring red brick, with sandstone heads to doors and windows; the flood carried away three out of the four.
In the first lived a respectable wool-picker with wife and children, all Wesleyans. He and his wife and child were swept from life in a moment, and supplied the preacher at their chapel with a topic for his next Sunday's discourse.
In the second lived a widow, who sold 'spice,' that is to say, sweets, together with sundry articles in the grocery line; a mighty woman, rotund and red, with a laugh and a joke for everyone; a useful woman to mothers in their troubles, and to children with the toothache, whooping cough, and other maladies. Black bottle and peppermint drops, Mother Bunch's syrup, soothing powders, porous plasters, embrocations, and heal-alls various, and of various degrees of mischievousness, were her specifics, and when the doses were nasty her lemon-drops and sugar-candy were freely given to cleanse the mouth of the taste of medicine. Now, she was gone down the river, her lollipops dissolved, her medicines dispersed. Away she had gone, floundering and spluttering, till her lungs were filled with the fluid she involuntarily imbibed, and then she sank and was caught among some sunken tree-snags, and her body was afterwards recovered from among them.
In the third cottage resided a musical shoemaker, a man with one love, and that the love of his bass viol. A wiry, solemn man, greatly in request at all concerts, able to conduct a band, or take almost any instrument himself, but loving best – a viol.
Now, he was gone, and grit had been washed into the sacred case of the cherished instrument, ruined along with its master.
In the last cottage of the row lived a drunken, good-for-nothing fellow, who did odd jobs of work; a fellow who had driven his own wife with her bairns from the house, and lived with another woman, as intemperate as himself, and with a mouth as foul as his own. This house and those within were spared.
'Well, now,' said an elder to the preacher, after the sermon at Providence Chapel next Sunday, 'ah, did think thou wer't boun' to justify the ways o' Providence.'
'So I would if I could,' answered the preacher, 'but they b'aint justifiable.'
Where the folds and fields were not too deep in water, lads waded, collecting various articles that had drifted no one knew whence. Some oranges lodged in a corner were greedily secured and sucked. One man ran about displaying a laced lady's boot at the end of a walking-stick, which boot had been carried into his kitchen, and was useless unless he could discover the fellow. There was much merriment in spite of disaster. Yorkshire folk must laugh whatever happens, and jokes were bandied to and fro between those who rowed and waded and those who were prisoners in their upper chambers.
The pariahs of society were alive to their opportunities, and were descending the stream, claiming everything of value that was found as being their own lost property. In many cases their claims were allowed; in others the finder of some article, rather than surrender it to a man whom he suspected, would cast it back into the water and bid him go further to recover it.
A higher type of pariah started subscriptions for the sufferers, and took many a toll on the sums accumulated for the purpose of relieving the distress.
What had become of Mr. Pennycomequick? That was the question in every mouth in Mergatroyd. Salome knew that he had left the house just after midnight to take a walk by the canal, and the watchman had seen him a little later on the towpath. Since then he had not been seen at all. It was probable that, hearing the alarm signals, he might have taken refuge somewhere; but where? That depended on where he was when the alarm was given. If he had ascended the canal he might have made his way into Mitchell's mill; that was a hope soon dispelled, for news came that he had not been seen there. If he had descended the canal it was inconceivable that he could have escaped, as there was no place of refuge to which he could have flown.
Mrs. Sidebottom had not a shadow of doubt that Jeremiah was dead. Not dead! Fiddlesticks! Of course he was dead. She acted on this conviction. She moved into her half-brother's house. It would not do, she argued, to leave it unprotected to be pillaged by those Cusworths. A death demoralized a house. It was like the fall of a general, all order, respect for property, sense of duty, ceased. Lambert should remain at home, where he had his comforts, his own room, and his clothes. There was no necessity for his moving.
'Besides,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, 'I could never trust a man, especially with women. Talk of men as lords of creation! Why, they are wheedled and humbugged by women with the greatest facility. If Lambert were here, the Cusworths, the maids, would sack the house under his nose, and he perceive nothing. I know how it was when I was newly married. Then, if anything went wrong among my domestics I sent Sidebottom down the kitchen-stairs to them. He returned crestfallen and penitent, convinced that he had wrongfully accused them, and that he was himself, in some obscure manner, to blame.'
Mrs. Sidebottom gave orders that her brother's room should be made ready for her.
'Uncle Jeremiah's room, mother!' exclaimed Lambert, in astonishment.
'Of course,' answered she. 'I am not going to leave that unwatched; why, that is the focus and centre of everything. What do I care if they steal the sugar, and pull some of the French plums out of the bag in the store-closet? I must sit at my post, keep my hand on the strong box and the bureau.'
'But suppose Uncle Jeremiah were to return?'
'He won't return. He cannot. He is drowned.'
'But the body has not been recovered.'
'Nor will it be; it has been washed down into the ocean.'
'Rather you than I sleep in his room,' said Lambert.
After a slight hesitation Mrs. Sidebottom said, in a low, confiding tone, 'I have found his keys. He left them in his dress-coat pocket. Now you see the necessity there is for me to be on the spot. I must have a search for the will.' Then she drew a long breath, and said, 'Now, Lamb, there is some chance of my heart's desire being accomplished. You will be able to drop one of your n's.'
'Drop what, mother?'
'Drop one of the n's in the spelling of your name. I have never liked the double n in Pennycomequick. It will seem more distinguished to spell the name with one n.'
The captain yawned and walked to the door.
'That is all one to me. I don't suppose that one nwill bring me more money than two. By the way, have you written to Philip?'
'Philip!' echoed Mrs. Sidebottom. 'Of course not. This is no concern of his. If he grumbles, we can say that we hoped against hope, and did not like to summon him till we were sure poor Jeremiah was no more. No, Lamb, we do not want Philip here, and if he comes he will find nothing to his advantage. Jeremiah very properly would not forgive his father, and he set us all an example, for in this nineteenth century we are all too disposed to leniency. I shall certainly not write to Philip.'
'I beg your pardon,' said Salome, who at this juncture appeared at the door. 'Were you mentioning Mr. Philip Pennycomequick?'
'Yes, I was,' answered Mrs. Sidebottom shortly.
Salome stood in the doorway, pale, with dark hollows about her eyes, and looking worn and harassed. She had been up and about all the night and following day.
'Were you speaking about sending for Mr. Philip Pennycomequick?' she asked.
'We were mentioning him; hardly yet considering about sending for him,' said Mrs. Sidebottom.
'Because,' said Salome, 'I have telegraphed for him. I thought he ought to be here.'
CHAPTER VIII.
IN ONE COMPARTMENT
In a second-class carriage on the Midland line sat a gentleman and a lady opposite each other. He was a tall man, and was dressed in a dark suit with a black tie. His face had that set controlled look which denotes self-restraint and reserve. The lips were thin and closed, and the cast of the features was stern. The eyes, large and hazel, were the only apparently expressive features he possessed. There is nothing that so radically distinguishes those who belong to the upper and cultured classes from such as move in the lower walks of life as this restraint of the facial muscles. It is not the roughness of the hand that marks off the manual worker from the man who walks in the primrose path of ease, but the cast of face, and that is due in the latter to the constant inexorable enforcement of self-control. In the complexity of social life it is not tolerable that the face should be the index of the mind. Social intercourse demands disguise, forbids frankness, which it resents as brusquerie, and the child from infancy is taught to acquire a mastery over expression. As the delicate hand-artificer has to obtain complete control over every nerve of his hand, so as to make no slurs or shakes, so also has the man admitted into the social guild to hold every muscle of his face in rigid discipline. This is specially the case with the priest and the lawyer and the doctor. Conceive what a hitch would ensue in conversation should the lady of the house allow a visitor to discern in the countenance that she was unwelcome, or for a man of taste to allow his contempt to transpire when shown by an amateur his artistic failures, or for the host to wince when an incautious guest has exposed the family skeleton! It is said that the late Lady Beaconsfield endured her finger to be jammed in the carriage-door without wince or cry, and continued listening or pretending to listen to her husband's conversation whilst driving to the House. All members of the cultured classes are similarly trained to smile and not change colour, to listen, perhaps to sing, when pinched and crushed and trodden on and in torture. Would a priest be endured in his parish if he did not receive every insult with a smile, or a barrister gain his cause if he suffered his face to proclaim his disbelief in its justice, or a doctor keep his patients if his countenance revealed what he thought of their complaints?
If we turn over the Holbein collection of portraits of the Court of Henry VIII. we see among princes and nobles the same faces that we find now in farmhouses and factories. The Wars of the Roses had dissolved all restraints, and men of the first Tudor reigns were the undisciplined children of an age of domestic anarchy. But it was otherwise later. The portraits of Van Dyck and Lely show us gentlemen and ladies of perfect dignity and self-restraint.
What is also remarkable is that each age in the past seems to have had its typal cast of countenance and form of expression. The cavaliers of Charles I. have their special characteristics that distinguish them as much from the courtiers of Elizabeth as from those of Charles II. With Queen Anne another phase of portraiture set in, because the faces were different. and again in the Hanoverian period how unlike were the gentlemen of the Regency from those of the first Georges! Difference in dress does not explain this difference of face. The men and women in each epoch had their distinct mode of thought, fashion in morals and manners, and the face accommodated itself to these.
And at the present day that which cleaves class from class is the mode of thought in each, the rule of association that governs intercourse in their several planes; and these affect the character of face in each, so that the classes are distinguished by their countenances as they were by ages in the past.
When collier Jack calls bargee Jim a blackguard, Jim replies with a curse on the collier's eyes, which he damns to perdition. But if collier Jack says the same thing to gentleman Percy, the latter raises his hat, bows, and passes on.
Education, if complete, does not merely sharpen the intellect and refine the manners, but it gives such a complete polish that affronts do not dint or adhere; they glide off instead, leaving no perceptible trace of impact. To the outward appearance, Christianity and culture produce an identical result, but only in outward appearance, for the former teaches the control of the emotions, whereas the latter merely forbids their expression.
The face of the gentleman who sat opposite this lady in the carriage was an intelligent, even clever face, but was somewhat hard. He looked at his companion once when he entered the carriage, hesitating whether to enter, and then glanced round to see whether there was another passenger in the compartment before he took a seat. There was at the time an elderly gentleman in the carriage, and this decided him to set his valise and rugs on the seat, and finally to take his place in the corner. If he had not seen that elderly man, with the repugnance single gentlemen so generally entertain against being shut in with a lady unattended, especially if young and pretty, he would have gone elsewhere. Where the carcase is there will the vultures gather. That is inevitable; but no sane dromedary will voluntarily cast himself into a cage with vultures.
The old gentleman left after a couple of stages, and then, for the rest of the journey, these two were enclosed together. As the man left, Philip looked out after him, with intent to descend, remove his baggage, and enter the next compartment, before or behind; but saw that one was full of sailor boys romping, and the other with a family that numbered among it a wailing baby. He therefore drew back, with discontent at heart, and all his quills ready to bristle at the smallest attempt of the lady to draw him into conversation.
The train was hardly in movement before that attempt was made.
'You are quite welcome to use my footwarmer,' she said.
'Thank you, my feet are not cold,' was the ungracious reply.
'I have had it changed twice since I left town,' she pursued, 'so that it is quite hot. The porters have been remarkably civil, and the guard looks in occasionally to see that I am comfortable.'
'In expectation of a tip,' thought the gentleman, but he said nothing.
'The French are believed to be the politest people in the world,' continued the lady, not yet discouraged, 'but I must say that the English railway porter is far in advance of the French one. On a foreign line you are treated as a vagabond, on the English as a guest.'
Still he said nothing. The lady cast an almost appealing glance at him. She had travelled a long way for a great many hours, and was weary of her own company. She longed for a little conversation.
'I cannot read in the train,' she said plaintively, 'it makes me giddy, and – I started yesterday from home.'
'In-deed,' said he in dislocated syllables. He quite understood that a hint had been conveyed to him, but he was an armadillo against hints.
The pretty young lady had not opened the conversation, if that can be called conversation which is one-sided, without having observed the young man's face, and satisfied herself that there was no more impropriety in her talking to one of so staid an air than if he had been a clergyman.
'What a bear this man is!' she thought.
He on his side said to himself, 'A forward missie! I wish I were in a smoking-carriage, though I detest the smell of tobacco.'
Pretty – uncommonly pretty the little lady was, with perfectly made clothes. The fit of the gown and the style of the bonnet proclaimed French make. She had lovely golden-red hair, large brown eyes, and a face of transparent clearness, with two somewhat hectic fire-spots in her cheeks. Her charming little mouth was now quivering with pitiful vexation.
A quarter of an hour elapsed without another word being spoken, and the gentleman was satisfied that his companion had accepted the rebuff he had administered, when she broke forth again with a remark.
'Oh, sir! excuse my seeming rudeness, but – you have been reading the newspaper, and I am on pins and needles to hear the news from France. It is true that I have just crossed the Channel from that dear and suffering – but heroic country; I am, however, very ignorant of the news. Unfortunately our journals are not implicitly to be relied on. The French are such a patriotic people that they cannot bring themselves to write and print a word that tells of humiliation and loss to their country. It is very natural, very noble – but inconvenient. That superb Faidherbe – I do trust he has succeeded in crushing the enemy.'
'He has been utterly routed.'
'Oh dear! Oh dear!' the little lady was plunged into real distress. 'This news was kept from me. That was why I was hurried away. I wanted to bring my nieces with me, the Demoiselles Labarte, but they clung to their mother and would not leave her. It was magnificent.' Then, after a sigh, 'Now, surely England will intervene.'
The gentleman shook his head.
'It is cruel. Surely one sister should fly to the assistance of the other.'
'The English nation is sister to the German.'
'Oh, how can you say so? William the Conqueror came from France.'
'From Normandy, which was not at the time and for long after considered a part of France.'
Then the gentleman, feeling he had been inveigled into saying more than he intended, looked out of the window.
Presently he heard a sob. The girl was crying. He took no notice of her trouble. He had made up his mind that she was a coquette, and he was steeled against her various tricks to attract attention and enlist sympathy. He would neither smile when she laughed, nor drop his mouth when she wept. His lips closed somewhat tighter, and his brows contracted slightly. He had noticed throughout the journey the petty attempts made by this girl to draw notice to herself – the shifting of her shawls, the opening and shutting of her valise, the plaintive sighs, the tapping of the impatient feet on the footwarmer. Though he had studiously kept his eyes turned from her, nothing she had done had escaped him, and all went to confirm the prejudice with which he was inclined to regard her from the moment of his entering the carriage. He rose from his place and moved to the further end of the compartment.
'I beg your pardon,' said the young lady, 'I trust I have not disturbed you. You must excuse me, I am unhappy.'
'Quite so, and I would not for the world trespass on your grief.'
'I have a husband fighting under the Tricouleur, and I am very anxious about him.'
The gentleman made a slight acknowledgment with his head, which said unmistakably that he invited no further confidences.
This she accepted, and turned her face to look out of the opposite window.
At that moment the brake was put on, and sent a thrill through the carriage. Presently the train stopped. The face of the guard appeared at the window, and the little lady at once lowered the glass.
'How are you getting on, miss?'
'Very well, I thank you; but you must not call me miss; I am a married woman. I have left my husband in France fighting like a lion, and I am sent away because the Prussians are robbing and burning and murdering wherever they go. I know a lady near Nogent from whose chateau they carried off an ormulu clock.' How unnecessary it was for her to enter into these details to the guard, thought the gentleman. He could not understand how a poor little heart full of trouble would long to pour itself out; how that certain natures can no more exist without sympathy than can plants without water.
'Don't you think, guard, that the English Government ought to interfere?'
'Well, ma'am, that depends on how it would affect traffic – on the Midland. Where are you going to, if I may ask?'
'Mergatroyd.'
'There has been a flood, and the embankment of the railway has been washed away. For a day there has not been any passing over the lines, and now we are ordered to go along uncommon leisurely.'
'But oh! guard, there is, I trust, no danger.'
'No, ma'am, none in the least; I'll take care that you come by no hurt. The worst that can happen is that we shall be delayed, and perhaps not be able to proceed the whole way in the same train. But rely on me, ma'am, I'll see to you.'
'Oh, guard, would you – would you mind? I have here a little bottle of nice Saint Julien, and I have not been able to touch it myself. Would you mind taking it? Also, here – here, under the bottle.'
She slipped some money into his hand.
The guard's red face beamed broad and benignant. He slipped the money into his waistcoat pocket, the bottle he stowed away elsewhere; then thrusting his head inside he said confidentially, 'Never fear. I'll make it all right for you, ma'am.'
When the lady, who was none other than Janet, the twin sister of Salome, mentioned Mergatroyd as her destination, the eyebrows of her fellow-passenger were slightly lifted. He was looking out of the opposite window to that at which she conversed with the guard. Now he knew that he would not be rid of his companion for the rest of the journey, for he also was on his way to Mergatroyd. There was but a single subject of comfort to him, that the distance to Mergatroyd was no longer great, and the time taken over it, in spite of the hint of the guard, which he discounted, could not be great either.
The short November day had closed in; and the remainder of the journey would be taken in the dark. The lamps had not yet been lighted in the carriage. To the west he could see through the window the brown light of the set day, the last rays of a wintry sun arrested by factory smoke. The gentleman was uneasy. If the dromedary will not voluntarily enter the cage of the vulture, he will not remain in it in darkness with her without tremors.
'When do you think, sir, that I shall reach Mergatroyd?' asked the young lady.
'That is a question impossible for me to answer,' replied the gentleman; 'as you heard from your friend,' – he emphasized this word and threw sarcasm into his expression – 'the guard, there are conditions, about which I know nothing, which will interfere with the punctuality of the train.'
Then he fumbled in his pocket, drew forth an orange-coloured envelope, from this took a scrap of pink paper, and by the expiring evening light read the telegraphic message in large pencil-marks.
'Your uncle lost. Come at once. Salome.'
Salome! – who was Salome?
He replaced the paper in the envelope, which was addressed Philip Pennycomequick, care of Messrs. Pinch and Squeeze, Solicitors, Nottingham.
The message was a brief one – too brief to be intelligible.
Lost – how was Mr. Jeremiah Pennycomequick lost?
When the train drew up at a small station, the young man returned to the down side, by the lady, let down the glass and called the guard.
'Here! what did you say about the flood? I have seen it mentioned in the paper, but I did not understand that it had been at Mergatroyd.'
'It has been in the Keld Valley.'
'And Mergatroyd is in that valley?'
'Where else would you have it, sir?'
'But – according to my paper the great damage was done at Holme Bridge.'
'Well, so it was; and Holme Bridge is above Mergatroyd.'
Philip Pennycomequick drew up the glass again. Now he understood. He had never been to Mergatroyd in his life, and knew nothing about its situation. He had skimmed the account of the flood in his paper, but had given most of his attention to the narrative of the war in France. It had not occurred to him to connect the 'loss' of his uncle with the inundation. He had supposed the word 'loss' was an euphemism for 'going off his head.' Elderly gentlemen do not get lost in England, least of all in one of its most densely populated districts, as if they were in the backwoods or prairies of America.
But who sent him the telegram? He had no relative of the name of Salome. His aunt, Mrs. Sidebottom, who was now resident, as he knew, at Mergatroyd, was named Louisa, and she was the person who, he supposed, would have wired to him if anything serious had occurred requiring his presence.
His companion was going to Mergatroyd, and probably knew people there. If he asked her whether she was aware of a person of the peculiar Christian name of Salome at that place, it was possible she might inform him. But he was too reserved and proud to ask. He would not afford this flighty piece of goods an excuse for opening conversation with him. In half an hour he would be at his destination, and would then have his perplexity cleared.
The train proceeded leisurely. Philip's feet were now very cold, and he would have been grateful for the warmer, but could not now ask for permission to use what he had formerly rejected.
As the train proceeded the engine whistled.
There were men working on the line; at intervals coal fires were blazing and smoking in braziers. The train further slackened speed. Philip Pennycomequick could see that there was much water covering the country. The train had now entered the Valley of the Keld, and was ascending it.
What a nuisance it would be were he stopped and obliged to tarry for some hours till the road was repaired, tarry in cold and darkness, without a lamp in his carriage, caged in with that pretty, coquettish, dangerous minx, and with no third party present to serve as his protector.
The train came to a standstill. The young lady was uneasy. She lowered the glass and leaned out; and looked along the line at the flaming fires, the half-illumined navvies, the steam trailing away and mingling with the smoke, the fog that gathered over the inundated fields. A raw wind blew in at the open window.