III
Mr. Greenmantle Is Much Perplexed
That evening Mr. Greenmantle and his daughter sat down to dinner together in a very unhappy humour. They always dined at half-past seven; not that Mr. Greenmantle liked to have his dinner at that hour better than any other, but because it was considered to be fashionable. Old Mr. Gresham, Harry’s father, always dined at half-past seven, and Mr. Greenmantle rather followed the habits of a county gentleman’s life. He used to dine at this hour when there was a dinner party, but of late he had adopted it for the family meal. To tell the truth there had been a few words between him and Dr. Freeborn while Emily had been talking over matters with Polly Peppercorn. Dr. Freeborn had not ventured to say a word as to Emily’s love affairs; but had so discussed those of Jack Hollycombe and Polly as to leave a strong impression on the mind of Mr. Greenmantle. He had quite understood that the Doctor had been talking at himself, and that when Jack’s name had been mentioned, or Polly’s, the Doctor had intended that the wisdom spoken should be intended to apply to Emily and to Philip Hughes. “It’s only because he can give her a lot of money,” the Doctor had said. “The young man is a good young man, and steady. What is Peppercorn that he should want anything better for his child? Young Hollycombe has taken her fancy, and why shouldn’t she have him?”
“I suppose Mr. Peppercorn may have his own views,” Mr. Greenmantle had answered.
“Bother his views,” the Doctor had said. “He has no one else to think of but the girl and his views should be confined to making her happy. Of course he’ll have to give way at last, and will only make himself ridiculous. I shouldn’t say a word about it only that the young man is all that he ought to be.”
Now in this there was not a word which did not apply to Mr. Greenmantle himself. And the worst of it was the fact that Mr. Greenmantle felt that the Doctor intended it.
But as he had taken his constitutional walk before dinner, a walk which he took every day of his life after bank hours, he had sworn to himself that he would not be guided, or in the least affected, by Dr. Freeborn’s opinion in the matter. There had been an underlying bitterness in the Doctor’s words which had much aggravated the banker’s ill-humour. The Doctor would not so have spoken of the marriage of one of his own daughters—before they had all been married. Birth would have been considered by him almost before anything. The Peppercorns and the Greenmantles were looked down upon almost from an equal height. Now Mr. Greenmantle considered himself to be infinitely superior to Mr. Peppercorn, and to be almost, if not altogether, equal to Dr. Freeborn. He was much the richer man of the two, and his money was quite sufficient to outweigh a century or two of blood.
Peppercorn might do as he pleased. What became of Peppercorn’s money was an affair of no matter. The Doctor’s argument was no doubt good as far as Peppercorn was concerned. Peppercorn was not a gentleman. It was that which Mr. Greenmantle felt so acutely. The one great line of demarcation in the world was that which separated gentlemen from non-gentlemen. Mr. Greenmantle assured himself that he was a gentleman, acknowledged to be so by all the county. The old Duke of Omnium had customarily asked him to dine at his annual dinner at Gatherum Castle. He had been in the habit of staying occasionally at Greshambury, Mr. Gresham’s county seat, and Mr. Gresham had been quite willing to forward the match between Emily and his younger son. There could be no doubt that he was on the right side of the line of demarcation. He was therefore quite determined that his daughter should not marry the Cashier in his own bank.
As he sat down to dinner he looked sternly at his daughter, and thought with wonder at the viciousness of her taste. She looked at him almost as sternly as she thought with awe of his cruelty. In her eyes Philip Hughes was quite as good a gentleman as her father. He was the son of a clergyman who was now dead, but had been intimate with Dr. Freeborn. And in the natural course of events might succeed her father as manager of the Bank. To be manager of the Bank at Plumplington was not very much in the eyes of the world; but it was the position which her father filled. Emily vowed to herself as she looked across the table into her father’s face, that she would be Mrs. Philip Hughes—or remain unmarried all her life. “Emily, shall I help you to a mutton cutlet?” said her father with solemnity.
“No thank you, papa,” she replied with equal gravity.
“On what then do you intend to dine?” There had been a sole of which she had also declined to partake. “There is nothing else, unless you will dine off rice pudding.”
“I am not hungry, papa.” She could not decline to wear her customary clothes as did her friend Polly, but she could at any rate go without her dinner. Even a father so stern as was Mr. Greenmantle could not make her eat. Then there came a vision across her eyes of a long sickness, produced chiefly by inanition, in which she might wear her father’s heart out. And then she felt that she might too probably lack the courage. She did not care much for her dinner; but she feared that she could not persevere to the breaking of her father’s heart. She and her father were alone together in the world, and he in other respects had always been good to her. And now a tear trickled from her eye down her nose as she gazed upon the empty plate. He ate his two cutlets one after another in solemn silence and so the dinner was ended.
He, too, had felt uneasy qualms during the meal. “What shall I do if she takes to starving herself and going to bed, all along of that young rascal in the outer bank?” It was thus that he had thought of it, and he too for a moment had begun to tell himself that were she to be perverse she must win the battle. He knew himself to be strong in purpose, but he doubted whether he would be strong enough to stand by and see his daughter starve herself. A week’s starvation or a fortnight’s he might bear, and it was possible that she might give way before that time had come.
Then he retired to a little room inside the bank, a room that was half private and half official, to which he would betake himself to spend his evening whenever some especially gloomy fit would fall upon him. Here, within his own bosom, he turned over all the circumstances of the case. No doubt he had with him all the laws of God and man. He was not bound to give his money to any such interloper as was Philip Hughes. On that point he was quite clear. But what step had he better take to prevent the evil? Should he resign his position at the bank, and take his daughter away to live in the south of France? It would be a terrible step to which to be driven by his own Cashier. He was as efficacious to do the work of the bank as ever he had been, and he would leave this enemy to occupy his place. The enemy would then be in a condition to marry a wife without a fortune; and who could tell whether he might not show his power in such a crisis by marrying Emily! How terrible in such a case would be his defeat! At any rate he might go for three months, on sick leave. He had been for nearly forty years in the bank, and had never yet been absent for a day on sick leave. Thinking of all this he remained alone till it was time for him to go to bed.
On the next morning he was dumb and stiff as ever, and after breakfast sat dumb and stiff, in his official room behind the bank counter, thinking over his great trouble. He had not spoken a word to Emily since yesterday’s dinner beyond asking her whether she would take a bit of fried bacon. “No thank you, papa,” she had said; and then Mr. Greenmantle had made up his mind that he must take her away somewhere at once, lest she should be starved to death. Then he went into the bank and sat there signing his name, and meditating the terrible catastrophe which was to fall upon him. Hughes, the Cashier, had become Mr. Hughes, and if any young man could be frightened out of his love by the stern look and sterner voice of a parent, Mr. Hughes would have been so frightened.
Then there came a knock at the door, and Mr. Peppercorn having been summoned to come in, entered the room. He had expressed a desire to see Mr. Greenmantle personally, and having proved his eagerness by a double request, had been allowed to have his way. It was quite a common affair for him to visit the bank on matters referring to the brewery; but now it was evident to anyone with half an eye that such at present was not Mr. Peppercorn’s business. He had on the clothes in which he habitually went to church instead of the light-coloured pepper and salt tweed jacket in which he was accustomed to go about among the malt and barrels. “What can I do for you, Mr. Peppercorn?” said the banker. But the aspect was the aspect of a man who had a poker still fixed within his head and gullet.
“ ’Tis nothing about the brewery, sir, or I shouldn’t have troubled you. Mr. Hughes is very good at all that kind of thing.” A further frown came over Mr. Greenmantle’s face, but he said nothing. “You know my daughter Polly, Mr. Greenmantle?”
“I am aware that there is a Miss Peppercorn,” said the other. Peppercorn felt that an offence was intended. Mr. Greenmantle was of course aware. “What can I do on behalf of Miss Peppercorn?”
“She’s as good a girl as ever lived.”
“I do not in the least doubt it. If it be necessary that you should speak to me respecting Miss Peppercorn, will it not be well that you should take a chair?”
Then Mr. Peppercorn sat down, feeling that he had been snubbed. “I may say that my only object in life is to do every mortal thing to make my girl happy.” Here Mr. Greenmantle simply bowed. “We sit close to you in church, where, however, she comes much more reg’lar than me, and you must have observed her scores of times.”
“I am not in the habit of looking about among young ladies at church time, but I have occasionally been aware that Miss Peppercorn has been there.”
“Of course you have. You couldn’t help it. Well, now, you know the sort of appearance she has made.”
“I can assure you, Mr. Peppercorn, that I have not observed Miss Peppercorn’s dress in particular. I do not look much at the raiment worn by young ladies even in the outer world—much less in church. I have a daughter of my own—”
“It’s her as I’m coming to.” Then Mr. Greenmantle frowned more severely than ever. But the brewer did not at the moment say a word about the banker’s daughter, but reverted to his own. “You’ll see next Sunday that my girl won’t look at all like herself.”
“I really cannot promise—”
“You cannot help yourself, Mr. Greenmantle. I’ll go bail that everyone in church will see it. Polly is not to be passed over in a crowd;—at least she didn’t used to be. Now it all comes of her wanting to get herself married to a young man who is altogether beneath her. Not as I mean to say anything against John Hollycombe as regards his walk of life. He is an industrious young man, as can earn forty shillings a week, and he comes over here from Barchester selling malt and suchlike. He may rise himself to £3 some of these days if he looks sharp about it. But I can give my girl—; well; what is quite unfit that he should think of looking for with a wife. And it’s monstrous of Polly wanting to throw herself away in such a fashion. I don’t believe in a young man being so covetous.”
“But what can I do, Mr. Peppercorn?”
“I’m coming to that. If you’ll see her next Sunday you’ll think of what my feelings must be. She’s a-doing of it all just because she wants to show me that she thinks herself fit for nothing better than to be John Hollycombe’s wife. When I tell her that I won’t have it—this sudden changing of her toggery, she says it’s only fitting. It ain’t fitting at all. I’ve got the money to buy things for her, and I’m willing to pay for it. Is she to go poor just to break her father’s heart?”
“But what can I do, Mr. Peppercorn?”
“I’m coming to that. The world does say, Mr. Greenmantle, that your young lady means to serve you in the same fashion.”
Hereupon Mr. Greenmantle waxed very wroth. It was terrible to his ideas that his daughter’s affairs should be talked of at all by the people at Plumplington at large. It was worse again that his daughter and the brewer’s girl should be lumped together in the scandal of the town. But it was worse, much worse, that this man Peppercorn should have dared to come to him, and tell him all about it. Did the man really expect that he, Mr. Greenmantle, should talk unreservedly as to the love affairs of his Emily? “The world, Mr. Peppercorn, is very impertinent in its usual scandalous conversations as to its betters. You must forgive me if I do not intend on this occasion to follow the example of the world. Good morning, Mr. Peppercorn.”
“It’s Dr. Freeborn as has coupled the two girls together.”
“I cannot believe it.”
“You ask him. It’s he who has said that you and I are in a boat together.”
“I’m not in a boat with any man.”
“Well;—in a difficulty. It’s the same thing. The Doctor seems to think that young ladies are to have their way in everything. I don’t see it. When a man has made a tidy bit of money, as have you and I, he has a right to have a word to say as to who shall have the spending of it. A girl hasn’t the right to say that she’ll give it all to this man or to that. Of course, it’s natural that my money should go to Polly. I’m not saying anything against it. But I don’t mean that John Hollycombe shall have it. Now if you and I can put our heads together, I think we may be able to see our way out of the wood.”
“Mr. Peppercorn, I cannot consent to discuss with you the affairs of Miss Greenmantle.”
“But they’re both alike. You must admit that.”
“I will admit nothing, Mr. Peppercorn.”
“I do think, you know, that we oughtn’t to be done by our own daughters.”
“Really, Mr. Peppercorn—”
“Dr. Freeborn was saying that you and I would have to give way at last.”
“Dr. Freeborn knows nothing about it. If Dr. Freeborn coupled the two young ladies together he was I must say very impertinent; but I don’t think he ever did so. Good morning, Mr. Peppercorn. I am fully engaged at present and cannot spare time for a longer interview.” Then he rose up from his chair, and leant upon the table with his hands by way of giving a certain signal that he was to be left alone. Mr. Peppercorn, after pausing a moment, searching for an opportunity for another word, was overcome at last by the rigid erectness of Mr. Greenmantle and withdrew.