The Pennycomequicks (Volume 1 of 3)

'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.

Then up came the guard, sharply turned the handle and threw open the door. 'Everyone get out. The train can go no further.'

All the passengers were obliged to descend, dragging with them their rugs and bags, their cloaks, umbrellas, novels, buns and oranges – all the piles of impedimentawith which travellers encumber themselves on a journey, trusting to the prompt assistance of mercenary porters.

But on this night, away from any station, there were no porters. The descent from the carriage was difficult and dangerous. It was like clambering down a ladder of which some of the rungs were broken. It was rendered doubly difficult by the darkness in which it had to be effected, and the difficulty was quadrupled by the passengers having to scramble down burdened with their effects. It was not accordingly performed in silence, but with screams from women who lost their footing, and curses and abuses launched against the Midland from the men.

Mr. Philip was obliged by common humanity to assist the young lady out of the carriage, and to collect and help to carry her manifold goods; for the civil guard was too deeply engaged to attend to her. He had received his fee, and was, therefore, naturally lavishing his attention on others, in an expectant mood.

Mr. Philip Pennycomequick somewhat ungraciously advised the companion forced on his protection to follow him. He engaged to see her across the dangerous piece of road and return for those of her wraps and parcels which he and she were together unable to transport to the train awaiting them beyond the faulty portion of the line.

The walk was most uncomfortable. It was properly not a walk but a continuous stumble. To step in the dark from sleeper to sleeper was not easy, and the flicker of the coal fires dazzled and confused rather than assisted the sight. The wind, moreover, carried the dense smoke in volumes across the line, suddenly enveloping and half stifling, but wholly blinding for the moment, the unhappy, bewildered flounderers who passed through it. In front glared the two red lights of an engine that waited with carriages to receive the dislodged passengers.

'You must take my arm,' said Mr. Philip to his companion. 'This is really dreadful. One old lady has, I believe, dislocated her ankle. I hope she will make a claim on the company.'

'Oh, dear! And Salome! – what will she say?'

'Salome?'

'Yes – my sister, my twin-sister.'

When Philip Pennycomequick did finally reach his destination, it was with a mind that prejudged Salome, and was prejudiced against her.

CHAPTER IX.

ARRIVAL

'What – no cabs? No cabs?' asked Philip Pennycomequick, on reaching the Mergatroyd Station. 'What a place this must be to call itself a town and have no convenience for those who arrive at it, to transport them to their destinations. Can one hire a wheelbarrow?' Philip was, as may be seen, testy. The train had not deposited him at the station till past seven, instead of four-eighteen, when due. He had been thrown into involuntary association with a young lady, whom he had set down to belong to a category of females that are to be kept at a distance – that is, those who, as he contemptuously described them, run after a hearth-brush because it wears whiskers. He misjudged Janet Baynes, as men of a suspicious temper are liable to misjudge simple and frank natures. There are men who, the more forward a woman is, so much the more do they recoil into their shells, to glower out of them at those who approach them, like a mastiff from its kennel, with a growl and a display of teeth.

Who this woman was with whom he had been thrown, Philip only knew from what she had told him and the guard. He was aware that she was the sister of his correspondent Salome, but he was ignorant as before who Salome was, less only the fact that she must be young, because the twin-sister of his fellow-passenger. If like her – and twins are usually alike – she must be pretty, and as mental characteristics follow the features, like her coquettish, and ready to make love – as Philip put it – to the hearth-brush because of its whiskers.

At the station he had reckoned on finding a cab and driving to his destination, whilst his companion went off in another. But to his vexation he found that there were no cabs. He must engage a porter to carry his traps on a truck. He resolved to go first of all to his uncle's house and inquire whether he was lost in the flood and if he had been heard of since the telegram was despatched. Then he would put up for the night at the inn, and his future movements would be regulated by the information he received.

'By the way,' said he to the porter, 'I suppose you have a decent hotel in the place, though it is deficient in cabs.'

'There are three inns,' answered the man, 'but all full as an excursion train on Good Friday. The poor folks that ha' been turned o't haase by t' water ha' been ta'en into 'em. Where art 'a going, sir?'

'To the house of Mr. Pennycomequick,' answered Philip.

'Right you are,' said the porter, 'Mrs. Baynes is also boun' to t'same, and I can take t'whole bag-o'-tricks on one barrow.'

Philip turned to Janet Baynes with an impatient gesture, which with all his self-control he was unable to repress, and said:

'You are going to Mr. Pennycomequick's, I understand, madam.'

There was no avoiding it. The tiresome association could not be dissolved at once, it threatened to continue.

'Yes,' answered Janet, 'I spent all my life there till I married, and my mother and sister are there now.'

'Not relations of Mr. Pennycomequick?'

'Oh dear no. He has been like a father to us, because our own father was killed by an accident in his service. That was a long time ago, I cannot remember the circumstance. Ever since then we have lived in the house. We always call Mr. Pennycomequick our uncle, but he is no real relative.'

Philip strode forward, ahead of the porter; from the station the road ascended at a steep gradient, and the man came on slowly with the united luggage. Janet quickened her pace, and came up beside Philip.

It was like being beset by a fly in summer.

'Are you going to Mr. Pennycomequick's?' asked Janet, panting. She was a little out of breath with walking to keep up with her companion.

'Yes.'

'I am not strong. My breath goes if I hurry, especially in going up-hill.'

'Then, madam, let me entreat you to spare your lungs and relax your pace.'

'But then – we shall be separated, and we are going to the same house. Would you mind going just a wee bit slower?'

Philip complied without a word.

He questioned for a moment whether he should inform his fellow-passenger of the news that the uncle was lost. But he reflected that he knew nothing for certain. The message he had received could hardly have been couched in vaguer terms. It was quite possible that his explanation of it was false; it was also not at all improbable that the alarm given was premature. If Salome were like the young scatter-brain walking at his side, she would be precisely the person to cry 'Wolf!' at the first alarm. He might have inquired of the porter whether Mr. Pennycomequick had met with an accident, or whether anything had occurred at his house; but he preferred to wait, partly because he was too proud to inquire of a porter, and partly because he was given no opportunity to questioning him out of hearing of his companion.

'Are you going to stay at uncle's?' asked Janet.

'I really am unable to answer that question.'

'But, as you have heard, all the inns are full. Have you any friends in Mergatroyd?'

'Relations – not friends.'

'What a delightful thing it must be to have plenty of relations! Salome and I have none. We were quite alone in the world, except for mother. Now I have, of course, all my husband's kindred, but Salome has no one.'

There was no shaking this girl off. She stuck to him as a burr. In all probability he would be housed at his uncle's that night, and so he would be brought into further contact with this person. She herself was eminently distasteful to him – but a sister unmarried! – Philip resolved to redouble his testy manner towards her. He would return to Nottingham on the morrow, unless absolutely compelled by circumstances to remain.

There was – there always had been – a vein of suspicion, breeding reserve of manner, in the Pennycomequick family. It was found chiefly in the men – in the women, that is, in Mrs. Sidebottom, it took a different form. As forces are co-related, so are tempers. It chilled their manner, it made them inapt to form friendships, and uncongenial in society.

Uncle Jeremiah had it, and that strongly. Towards his own kin he had never relaxed. The conduct of neither sister nor brother had been such as to inspire confidence. To the last he was hard, icy and suspicious towards them. But the warm breath of the little children had melted the frost in his domestic relations, and their conspicuous guilelessness had disarmed his suspicions. To them he had been a very different man to what he had appeared to others. Philip's father had behaved foolishly, withdrawn his money from the firm, and in a fit of credulity had allowed himself to be swindled out of it by a smooth-tongued impostor, Schofield. That loss had reduced him to poverty, and had soured him. Thenceforth, the Pennycomequick characteristics which had been in abeyance in Nicholas ripened rapidly. Philip had learned from his father to regard the bulk of mankind as in league against the few, as characterized by self-seeking, and as unreliable in all that affected their own interests. Philip was aged thirty-four, but looked older than his years. The experiences he had passed through had prematurely fixed the direction of his tendencies, and had warped his views of life. In photography, impressions made on the sensitive plate rapidly fade unless dipped in a solution which gives them permanency. So is it with the incidents of life; pictures are formed in our brains and pass unnoticed, unregistered, till something occurs to fix them. The great misfortune which had befallen his father had acted as such a bath to Philip's mind, leaving on it the indelible impression of universal rascality. He could remember the comfort in which his childhood had been passed, and the grinding penury afterwards. Obliged to work for his livelihood, he had chosen the law, a profession ill calculated to counteract the tendency in him, inherent, and already declared, to regard all men as knaves or fools.

Nicholas's last years had been spent in useless repinings over his loss, in grumbling at his brother and sister for not coming to his aid, and in hatred of the man who had ruined him.

He had been too proud to appeal to his half-brother, and was angry with Jeremiah for not coming forward unsolicited to relieve him. Had he gone to his brother, even written to him to express regret for his injudicious conduct, it is probable, nay, certain, that Jeremiah would have forgiven him; but the false pride of Nicholas prevented him taking this step, and Jeremiah would not move to his assistance without it.

Thus a mutual misunderstanding kept the half-brothers apart, and embittered their minds against each other.

Mrs. Sidebottom had been of as little help to her brother as had Jeremiah. Mr. Sidebottom had, indeed, taken Philip into his office as a clerk, but no Sidebottom contributions came to relieve the necessities of Nicholas. His sister was profuse in regrets and apologies for not doing anything for him, always weighting these apologies with a lecture on his wrong-doing in withdrawing his money from the firm; but she gave him nothing save empty words. Nicholas entertained but little love for his sister; and Philip grew up with small respect for his aunt.

By the time that Philip had reached the Pennycomequick door he was in as unamiable a temper as he had ever been during the thirty-four years of his life. He was damp, hungry, cold. He more than half believed that he had been brought to Mergatroyd on a fool's errand; he did not know where he was to sleep that night, and what he would get to eat. The inns, as he had heard, were full; no more trains would leave the station that night, owing to the condition of the line; there was not a cab in Mergatroyd, so that he could escape from the place only on foot, and that without his baggage.

Moreover, he was in doubt with what face he could appear before his uncle, were Jeremiah at home. His uncle, whom he had only once seen, and that at his father's funeral, had on that occasion shown him not the smallest inclination to make his acquaintance. Would it not appear as if, on the first rumour or suspicion of disaster, he had rushed to the spot without decorum, to seize on his uncle's estate, and with no better excuse than a vague telegram received from an irresponsible girl.

'Here is the door,' said the porter. Janet ran up the steps with alacrity and knocked.

Mr. Pennycomequick's house was formal as himself, of red brick without ornament; half-way up the hill, with its back to the road, and without even that mellow charm which old red brick assumes in the country, for this was red begrimed with soot, on which not a lichen or patch of moss would grow. The ugly back was towards the street; the uglier face looked into a garden that ran down the slope to the valley bottom. There were two square-headed windows on one side of the door, two similar windows on the other side, over each an exactly similar window, and over the door one with a round head that doubtless lighted the staircase. Above these was another story similar, but the windows less tall. Who does not know this kind of house? They are scattered in hundreds of thousands over the face of England, and who, with a grain of taste, would not a thousand times rather snuggle into a thatched cottage, with windows broad and low, winking out from under the brown eaves? Not if one lived to the age of the Wandering Jew could one become attached to one of these gaunt, formal, dingy mansions. The door was opened in answer to the bell and knocker, and Philip, after paying the railway porter, requested him to wait five minutes till he ascertained whether he was to spend the night there or go in quest of a bed.

Then he entered the gas-lighted hall, to see his travelling comrade locked in the arms of her sister, a young girl of the same age and height and general appearance, with the same red-gold hair, and the same clear complexion, who was flushed with excitement at meeting Janet.

A pretty sight it was – those lovely twins clinging to each other in an ecstasy of delight, laughing, kissing, fondling each other, with the tears of exuberant pleasure streaming over their cheeks.

But Philip remained unmoved or contemptuous. He saw his Aunt Louisa and Captain Lambert on the stairs.

'I know well what this bit of pantomime means,' thought Philip. 'The girls are showing off before two young men.'

'What! Philip here!' exclaimed Mrs. Sidebottom, who hastened down the stairs to greet her nephew. 'Oh, Philip! how good of you to come! I made sure you would the moment you heard the news, and yet I was not sure but that you would shrink from it – as you were on such bad terms with your uncle. I am so glad you have arrived to assist us with your professional advice. This is a sad, a very sad case.'

'Mr. Philip Pennycomequick!' exclaimed Salome disengaging herself from her sister's embrace and standing before the young man. She lifted her great searching eyes to his face and studied it, then dropped them, ashamed at her audacity, and perhaps a little disappointed at what she had seen; for the moment he came towards her he assumed his most uncompromising expression.