________________________________________________
The wedding cost Horace a large sum of money. You see, he could
not do less than behave handsomely by the bride, owing to his
notorious admiration for her; and of course the bridegroom needed
setting up. Horace practically furnished their home for them out
of his own pocket; it was not to be expected that Sidney should
have resources. Further, Sidney as a single man, paying seven-and-
six a week for board and lodging, could no doubt struggle along
upon three pounds weekly. But Sidney as a husband, with the nicest
girl in the world to take care of, and house-rent to pay, could
not possibly perform the same feat. Although he did no more work
at the manufactory--Horace could not have been so unbrotherly as
to demand it--Horace paid him eight pounds a week instead of
three.
And the affair cost Horace a good deal besides money. But what
could Horace do? He decidedly would not have wished to wreck the
happiness of two young and beautiful lives, even had he possessed
the power to do so. And he did not possess the power. Those two
did not consult Horace before falling in love. They merely fell in
love, and there was an end of it--and an end of Horace too! Horace
had to suffer. He did suffer.
Perhaps it was for his highest welfare that other matters came to
monopolize his mind. One sorrow drives out another. If you sit on
a pin you are apt to forget that you have the toothache. The
earthenware manufactory was not going well. Plenty of business was
being done, but not at the right prices. Crushed between the upper
and nether millstones of the McKinley Tariff and German
competition, Horace, in company with other manufacturers, was
breathing out his life's blood in the shape of capital. The truth
was that he had never had enough capital. He had heavily mortgaged
the house at Toft End in order to purchase his partners' shares in
the business and have the whole undertaking to himself, and he
profoundly regretted it. He needed every penny that he could
collect; the strictest economy was necessary if he meant to
survive the struggle. And here he was paying eight pounds a week
to a personage purely ornamental, after having squandered hundreds
in rendering that personage comfortable! The situation was
dreadful.
You may ask, Why did he not explain the situation to Sidney? Well,
partly because he was too kind, and partly because he was too
proud, and partly because Sidney would not have understood. Horace
fought on, keeping up a position in the town and hoping that
miracles would occur.
Then Ella's expectations were realized. Sidney and she had some
twenty thousand pounds to play with. And they played the most
agreeable games. But not in Bursley. No. They left Horace in
Bursley and went to Llandudno for a spell. Horace envied them, but
he saw them off at the station as an elder brother should, and
tipped the porters.
Certainly he was relieved of the formality of paying eight pounds
a week to his brother. But this did not help him much. The sad
fact was that 'things' (by which is meant fate, circumstances,
credit, and so on) had gone too far. It was no longer a question
of eight pounds a week; it was a question of final ruin.
Surely he might have borrowed money from Sidney? Sidney had no
money; the money was Ella's, and Horace could not have brought
himself to borrow money from a woman--from Ella, from a heavenly
creature who always had a soothing sympathetic word for him. That
would have been to take advantage of Ella. No, if you suggest such
a thing, you do not know Horace.
I stated in the beginning that he had no faults. He was therefore
absolutely honest. And he called his creditors together while he
could yet pay them twenty shillings in the pound. It was a noble
act, rare enough in the Five Towns and in other parts of England.
But he received no praise for it. He had only done what every man
in his position ought to do. If Horace had failed for ten times
the sum that his debts actually did amount to, and then paid two
shillings in the pound instead of twenty, he would have made a
stir in the world and been looked up to as no ordinary man of
business.
Having settled his affairs in this humdrum, idiotic manner, Horace
took a third-class return to Llandudno. Sidney and Ella were
staying at the hydro with the strange Welsh name, and he found
Sidney lolling on the sunshiny beach in front of the hydro
discoursing on the banjo to himself. When asked where his wife
was, Sidney replied that she was lying down, and was obliged to
rest as much as possible.
Horace, ashamed to trouble this domestic idyl, related his
misfortunes as airily as he could.
And Sidney said he was awfully sorry, and had no notion how
matters stood, and could he do anything for Horace? If so, Horace
might--
'No,' said Horace. 'I'm all right. I've very fortunately got an
excellent place as manager in a big new manufactory in Germany.'
(This is how we deal with German competition in the Five Towns.)
'Germany?' cried Sidney.
'Yes,' said Horace; 'and I start the day after tomorrow.'
'Well,' said Sidney, 'at any rate you'll stay the night.'
'Thanks,' said Horace, 'you're very kind. I will.'
So they went into the hydro together, Sidney caressing his
wonderful new pearl-inlaid banjo; and Horace talked in low tones
to Ella as she lay on the sofa. He convinced Ella that his
departure to Germany was the one thing he had desired all his
life, because it was not good that Ella should be startled,
shocked, or grieved.
They dined well.
But in the night Sidney had a recurrence of his old illness--a bad
attack; and Horace sat up through the dark hours, fetched the
doctor, and bought things at the chemist's. Towards morning Sidney
was better. And Horace, standing near the bed, gazed at his
stepbrother and tried in his stupid way to read the secrets
beneath that curly hair. But he had no success. He caught himself
calculating how much Sidney had cost him, at periods of his career
when he could ill spare money; and, having caught himself, he was
angry with himself for such baseness. At eight o'clock he ventured
to knock at Ella's door and explain to her that Sidney had not
been quite well. She had passed a peaceful night, for he had, of
course, refrained from disturbing her.
He was not quite sure whether Sidney had meant him to stay at the
hydro as his guest, so he demanded a bill, paid it, said good-bye,
and left for Bonn-on-the-Rhine. He was very exhausted and sleepy.
Happily the third-class carriages on the London & North-Western
are pretty comfortable. Between Chester and Crewe he had quite a
doze, and dreamed that he had married Ella after all, and that her
twenty thousand pounds had put the earthenware business on a
footing of magnificent and splendid security.
Read next: PART I - The Lion's Share: CHAPTER V
Read previous: PART I - The Lion's Share: CHAPTER III
Table of content of Grim Smile of the Five Towns
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
