Fordham's Feud

“True. I was not thinking so much, though, about what was due to a ‘beggarly baronet’ as to a gentleman and the son of a gentleman. However,” he resumed, after a pause just perceptible enough to carry that last shaft home, “let us now be frank with each other – talk as men of the world, in fact. I presume you had some object in seeking this interview with me, Mr Glover?”

Their stroll had brought them to a large rock which at some period more or less remote had fallen from above and embedded itself in the meadow. In the shade formed by this Fordham proposed that they should sit down. A beetling cliff sheered up behind to a great height, but in front and around the approaches to the place were open.

“You are right in your surmise, Mr – ar – Fordham. As an intimate friend of young Orlebar, a man, I believe, considerably older than himself, it occurred to me that you would be – ar – likely to have some influence over him – and – ar – might exert that influence towards inducing him to do what is right.”

“You may command any influence I may possess in that direction, Mr Glover,” said Fordham, suavely, though inwardly chuckling over the cool impudence of the proposal and the opacity of the mind which could propound it.

“I was sure of it – sure of it,” reiterated the other, much mollified at the prospect of so welcome an alliance. “As I said before, he is not behaving straightforwardly, and you will – ar – agree with me. Well, now, some months ago it was that he came first to my place. I’ve got a little crib down at Henley, you know, Mr Fordham – shall be happy to see you there if you are returning to England – very happy. Well, we had plenty of fun going on – parties and picnics and rowing and all that. I’m a man that likes to see young folks enjoying themselves. I don’t stint them – not I. Let them enjoy themselves when they are young, say I. Don’t you agree with me?”

“Undoubtedly,” murmured Fordham.

“Well, among other young fellows who came sparking around was this young Orlebar,” went on old Glover, forgetting his stilted pomposity in the thread of his narrative. “I was always glad to see him – ask him if I wasn’t. Soon it seemed to me that he was taking a fancy to my Edie. She’s my eldest, you know, as good a girl as ever was. She’s a pretty girl, too, and looks at home anywhere – in the Park, or wherever she may be. Now doesn’t she?”

“I quite agree with you on the subject of Miss Glover’s attractions,” said Fordham, gravely. “She would, as you say, look thoroughly at home in the Park – with a perambulator and a soldier,” he added to himself.

“All day and every day he made some excuse or other to run down. He’d take her out on the river by the hour, sit about the garden with her, be sending her flowers and things and all that. If that don’t mean intentions, I’d like to know what does. Well, I didn’t feel called upon to step in. I don’t believe in interfering with young folks’ inclinations. I liked the young fellow – we all did – and it seemed he was old enough to know his own mind. This went on for some time – some months. Then suddenly we heard he’d gone abroad, and from that day on heard no more about him by word or line. My poor Edie felt it dreadfully. She didn’t say anything at first, nor for a long time, and at last I got it all out of her. Now, that isn’t the way a girl should be treated, is it, Mr Fordham? If you had daughters of your own you would not like to see them treated like that, would you?”

“Certainly not. But pray go on – I am interested.”

He was – but in reading between the lines of this very ingenuous and pathetic tale of base and black hearted treachery. To the narrator his sympathetic tone and attitude conveyed the liveliest satisfaction, but that hoary plutocrat little guessed at what a dismally primitive hour it was requisite to rise in order to get the blind side of saturnine Richard Fordham.

“I’d taken the girls to the seaside for their summer outing,” continued the narrator – “a thing they generally go wild with delight over. But poor Edie this time said she hated the sea. She wanted to go abroad. Would I take her abroad? At first I wouldn’t, till she grew quite thin and pale. Then I knew why she wanted to go, and she told me. If she could find him out herself – make up a pleasant little surprise, she said – it would all come right. It would all be as before, and they would be as jolly as grigs. I hadn’t the heart to refuse her, and so we came. We found out where young Orlebar was, and dropped down on him with the pleasant little surprise we’d planned. But – it didn’t seem a pleasant surprise at all.”

“No, by Jove, it didn’t!” said the listener to himself, putting up his hand to hide a sardonic grin.

“You saw that it didn’t. You saw how he behaved. Didn’t seem at all glad to see us, hardly spoke to us. And that girl had been breaking her heart about him – yes, breaking her heart – and he’s never been near her since the moment she arrived. But I see how it is – he’s got another string to his bow. That high and mighty young woman that was sitting near you – Miss – what’s her name? – Miss Wyatt, isn’t it? Well – ”

“Excuse me if I remind you, Mr Glover, that among ourselves it is not usual to drag ladies’ names into other people’s differences in that free-and-easy sort of fashion,” said Fordham, stiffly, though inwardly convulsed with mirth at the idea of finding himself, of all people, taking up the cudgels on behalf of one of the detested sex.

“Eh – what? Why, they told me he was engaged to her.”

“Who told you he was?”

“Why, let me see – some of the people last night. I don’t quite recollect which of them. But perhaps you can tell me for certain. Is he?”

“Not that I am aware of.”

“Not – eh?” with a very distrustful look into Fordham’s face, and in no wise convinced; for to this representative of British commerce a man was bound to be lying, provided any adequate motive existed for mendacity, and here such motive undoubtedly did exist. “Well, they told me the pair of them were never apart, out together all day, sitting together all the evening – never apart, except at bedtime.”

“Pooh! that means nothing. Here you see, and in places like this, society is a pretty happy-go-lucky assortment, and the harmonious elements gravitate towards each other. And while we are on this subject, Mr Glover, I may as well remind you that Philip is young, a great favourite with women, and consequently a devil of a fellow to flirt. He’s always over head and ears in some flirtation or other – always has been ever since I’ve known him. But he means nothing by it, and it always comes to nothing.”

“Upon my word, Mr – ar – Fordham,” replied the other, again bristling up with pomposity, “you seem to treat this matter with strange – ar – levity. Whatever – ar —you may see fit to call it, I look upon this – ar – outrageous trifling with my daughter’s feelings as the act of an unprincipled scoundrel. Yes, sir, an unprincipled scoundrel,” he added, rolling the words, in his delight at having hit upon a good, sounding, double-barrelled epithet. “But what do you want him to do?”

“Well, really – ar – Mr Fordham, that is a strange question to come from a man of your – ar – knowledge of the world. What is the usual – ar – outcome of a young man’s winning a girl’s affection?”

“I am bound in candour to reply that its nature varies. Further it might be as well to approach this matter with caution and common sense. You are doubtless aware that Sir Francis Orlebar is not a rich man – for a man in his position a decidedly poor one, and Philip has not a shilling in the world beyond what his father allows him? Now if his father should disapprove of this – er – engagement – as not having been consulted it is extremely likely he will – he may cut off that allowance summarily.”

“In that case I should be prepared to allow the people – ar – something to go on with.”

“What do you mean precisely by ‘something to go on with,’ Mr Glover?”

“Well – really now – ar – Mr Fordham. You must excuse my saying so, but you are – ar – I mean this is – ”

“Taking a great liberty? I quite understand,” was the perfectly unruffled rejoinder. “But then you must remember this, Mr Glover. You broached the subject. You called me into consultation, so to say. You asked me to use my influence with Philip in this matter. I need hardly tell you I have no interest in it one way or the other. We will drop the subject altogether if you like.”

“I think you mistake me,” said the other, hurriedly. “I did not – ar – say the words you were good enough to put into my mouth.”

“Well, then, you must allow me, Mr Glover, to keep an eye upon my friend’s interests. He is very young, remember, a mere thoughtless boy. Now we, as men of the world, are bound to look at everything from a practical point of view. Let us talk plainly then. How much are you prepared to settle in the event of Philip – er – fulfilling the engagement into which you say he has entered?”

“I should be, as I said before, prepared to make them a fairly liberal allowance,” he jerked forth, with the air of a man who has just had a tooth drawn and has found the process less painful than he had expected.

But Fordham shook his head.

“The ‘allowance’ system is an unsatisfactory one,” he said. “I have known people let into queer quandaries by trusting to it. Allowances may be cut off at the mere caprice of the allower. Now, don’t be offended,” he added, with the shadow of a smile. “We agreed to speak plainly and as men of the world. No – the thing must be a settlement. Now what are you prepared to settle?”

“I think I may say this. I will settle four hundred a year upon them now. At my death of course – Why what is the matter? Is that not enough?”

The last in an astonished and indignant tone. For an almost derisive shake of the head on the part of the other had cut short his words.

“Most certainly not. It is, in fact, ridiculous.”

“Many a young couple has begun life on less.”

“And many a man has ruined his life by beginning on far more. No. I think my young friend will rate himself at a far higher value than that. Why there are shoals of women with six times that income who would jump at him.”

“And are truth and honour to go for nothing?” spluttered old Glover, swelling himself out with virtuous wrath until the expanse of the white waistcoat was so tight that you could hear the seams crack. “Truth and honour and good faith – and a sweet girl’s broken heart?” he repeated, working up a highly effective sniffle.

“My dear sir, you can’t run a household, and a milliner, and a dressmaker, and a butcher and baker, and a pocket doctor, and a lawyer – in fact, an unlimited liability, upon truth and honour; nor can you pay the Queen’s taxes with a sweet girl’s mended heart. Now, can you?”

“You have a most – ar – peculiar way of putting things, I must say, Mr Fordham. Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do – I’ll make it five hundred. There!”

“You might just as well make it five hundred pence, Mr Glover. I can’t advise my friend to throw himself away.”

“I consider five hundred a year ample,” said old Glover, magisterially inserting his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat. “If he wants more let him work for it. Let him go into some business.”

“Why should he? He is young, and has the world at his feet. Why should he grind away at some dingy and uncongenial money-grubbing mill just for the fun of supporting your, or any other man’s, daughter. It isn’t good enough, and I tell you so candidly. And remember this: he has everything to lose and nothing to gain by the transaction, and with yourselves it is the other way about.”

“And what amount would meet your friend’s views, Mr Fordham?” was the rejoinder, quick spoken, and with cutting irony.

“He will have a position and title to keep up by and by,” answered Fordham, tranquilly. “I should say, a capital sum representing three thousand a year – not one farthing less.”

Old Glover sprang to his feet with a snort and an activity one would hardly have credited him with. He stared wildly at Fordham, gasped for breath and snorted again. Then he spluttered forth.

“I never heard anything so monstrous – such an outrageous piece of impertinence in my life.”

“But, my dear sir, surely I’ve put the case plain enough – ”

“Don’t talk to me any more about it, sir,” interrupted the other furiously, “I won’t hear of such a preposterous suggestion.”