Part 126 (1/2)

and explains that no genius ever lived to ninety without being appreciated.

”If Chatterton and Keats had attended to this, they would have been all right. If James Watt had died at fifty he would have been all wrong; for at fifty he was a failure! so was the painter Etty, the English Tis.h.i.+n.”

And then he acc.u.mulates examples.

His last distich bearing on Hard Cash is worth recording. ”Miss Julee,”

said he, ”y' are goen to maerry int' a strange family--

Where th' ijjit puts the jinnyus In-til a madhus,”

which, like most of the droll things this man said, was true: for Soft Tommy and Alfred were the two intellectual extremes of the whole tribe of Hardies.

Mrs. Archbold, disappointed both in love and revenge, posed her understanding, and soothed her mind, with Frank Beverley and opium. This soon made the former deep in love with her, and his intellect grew by contact with hers. But one day news came from Australia that her husband was dead. Now, perhaps I shall surprise the reader, if I tell him that this Edith Archbold began her wedded life a good, confiding, loving, faithful woman. Yet so it was: the unutterable blackguard she had married, he it was who laboured to spoil her character, and succeeded at last, and drove her, unwilling at first, to other men. The news of his death was like a shower-bath; it roused her. She took counsel with herself, and hope revived in her strong head and miserable heart. She told Frank, and watched him like a hawk. He instantly fell on his knees, and implored her to marry him directly. She gave him her hand and turned away, and shed the most womanly tear that had blessed her for years. ”I am not mad, you know,” said poor Frank; ”I am only a bit of a m.u.f.f.” To make a long story short, she exerted all her intelligence, and with her help Frank took measures towards superseding his Commission of Lunacy.

Now, in such a case, the Lord Chancellor always examines the patient in person. What was the consequence? Instead of the vicarious old Wolf, who had been devouring him at third and fourth hand, Frank had two interviews with the Chancellor himself: a learned, grave, upright gentleman, who questioned him kindly and shrewdly and finding him to be a young man of small intellectual grasp, but not the least idiotic or mad, superseded his commission in defiance of his greedy kinsfolk, and handed him his property. He married Edith Archbold, and she made him as happy as the day was long. For the first year or two she treated his adoration with good-natured contempt; but, as years rolled on, she became more loving, and he more knowing! They are now a happy pair, and all between her first honest love, and this her last, seems to her a dream.

So you see a female rake can be ameliorated by a loving husband, as well as a male rake by a loving wife.

It sounds absurd, and will offend my female readers and their unchristian prejudices, but that black-browed jade is like to be one of the best wives and mothers in England. But then, mind you, she had always--Brains.

I do not exactly know why Horace puts together those two epithets, ”just” and ”tenacious of purpose.” Perhaps he had observed they go together. To be honest, I am not clear whether this is so on the grand scale. But certainly the two features did meet remarkably in one of my characters--Alfred Hardie. The day the bank broke, he had said he would pay the creditors. He now set to work to do it by degrees. He got the names and addresses, lived on half his income, and paid half away to those creditors: he even asked Julia to try and find Maxley out, and do something for him. ”But don't let me see him,” said he, trembling, ”for I could not answer for myself.” Maxley was known to be cranky, but harmless, and wandering about the country. Julia wrote to Mr. Green about him:

Alfred's was an uphill game; but fortune favours the obstinate as well as the bold. One day, about four years after his marriage with Julia, being in London, he found a stately figure at the corner of a street, holding out his hand for alms, too dignified to ask it except by that mute and touching gesture.

It was his father.

Then, as truly n.o.ble natures must forgive the fallen, Alfred was touched to the heart, and thought of the days of his childhood, before temptation came. ”Father,” said he, ”have you come to this?”

”Yes, Alfred,” said Richard composedly: ”I undertook too many speculations, especially in land and houses; they seemed profitable at first, too; but now I am entirely hampered: if you would but relieve me of them, and give me a guinea a week to live on, I would forgive all your disobedient conduct.”

Alfred bit his lip, had a wrestle with the old Adam; and said gently, ”Come home with me, sir.”

He took him to Barkington, bag and baggage; and his good Christian wife received the old man with delight; she had prayed day and night for this reconciliation. Finding his son so warm, and being himself as cool, Richard Hardie entrapped Alfred into an agreement, to board and lodge him, and pay him a guinea every Sat.u.r.day at noon; in return for this Alfred was to manage Richard's property, and pocket the profits, if any.

Alfred a.s.sented: the old man chuckled at his son's simplicity, and made him sign a formal agreement to that effect.

This done he used so sit brooding and miserable nearly all the week till guinea time came; and then brightened up a bit. One day Alfred sent for an accountant to look after his father's papers, and see if matters were really desperate.

The accountant was not long at work, and told Alfred the accounts were perfectly clear, and kept in the most, admirable order. ”The cash balance is L. 60,000,” said he, ”and many of the rents are due. It is an agent you want, not an accountant.”

”What are you talking about? A balance of L. 60,000?” Alfred was stupefied.

The accountant, however, soon convinced him by the figures it was so.

Alfred went with the good news to his father.

His father went into a pa.s.sion. ”That is one side of the account, ye fool,” said he; ”think of the rates, the taxes, the outgoings. You want to go from your bargain, and turn me on the world; but I have got you in black and white, tight, tight.”

Then Alfred saw the truth, and wondered at his past obtuseness.

His father was a monomaniac.