Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  “So I should think; a purse-proud ass!”

  “Never mind, his eight thousand is as good an eight thousand as any in the land, better than a great many. I wouldn’t give a snap of my fingers for your broken-down landowners; Berkins has always made excellent investments, and I hear he is now getting as much as fifteen per cent. for money invested.”

  Willy had been to Oxford, and the arrogance and pomposity of this purse-proud man shocked his sense of decorum. Berkins’s vulgarity was more offensive than that of Mr. Brookes. Mr. Brookes was a simple, middle-class man, who had made money straightforwardly and honestly, and he had cultivated his natural taste for pictures to the limit of his capacities and opportunities. Berkins, however, had been born a gentleman, but had had to shift for himself, even when a lad, and he had caught at all chances; he was more sophisticated, he was a gentleman in a state of retrograde, and was in all points inferior to him whom he crossed in his descent. Berkins had bought a small place, a villa with some hundred acres attached to it, on the other side of Preston Park. There he had erected glass houses, and bred a few pheasants in the corner of a field, and it surprised him to find that the county families took no notice of him. Mr. Brookes had sympathised, but the young people laughed at him and Willy had told a story how he had been to shoot at —— , and when a partridge got up right in front of his gun, Berkins turned round and shot it, exclaiming: “That’s the way to bring them down!”

  And now whenever his name was mentioned, Willy thought of this incident, so very typical did it seem to him of the man, and he liked to twit his father with it. But Mr. Brookes could not be brought to see the joke, and he fell back on the plausible and insidious argument that, notwithstanding his manners, Berkins was worth eight thousand a year.

  “And very few girls get the chance of catching eight thousand a year; and she’ll miss it, she’ll miss it if she doesn’t take care.”

  “You talk of it as if it were an absolute certainty; you don’t know that Berkins wants to marry Grace; he hasn’t been here for the last month.”

  “Mr. Berkins is not like the young good-for-nothings your sisters waste their time with, he is a man of means, of eight thousand a year; you don’t expect him to come round here every evening to tea, and to play tennis, and to walk in the moonlight and talk nonsense. Berkins is a man of means, he is a man who can make a settlement.”

  “Has he spoken to you on the subject, then?”

  “No, Mr. Berkins is a man of tact, however you may laugh at him for having shot your partridge. He spoke to your Aunt Mary, or rather she spoke to him. Ah, clever woman, your Aunt Mary, wonderful manner, wonderful will, when she wants a thing done it must be done. Your poor mother — I mean no disparagement — but I must say she couldn’t compare with her for determination; Sally reminds me of her, but Sally’s determination is misdirected, deplorably misdirected; it is directed against me, entirely against me. She must be made submissive; when I spoke to Aunt Mary about her, she said her spirit must be broken; and if she were here she’d break it. If she were here things would be very different, your sisters wouldn’t be flirting with all the little clerks in the Southdown Road; but I am alone. I have no one to turn to.”

  “You were telling me that Berkins had spoken to Aunt Mary about Grace.”

  “Your Aunt Mary spoke to Berkins about Grace; she told him he ought to be thinking of marrying; that he wanted a wife. Then the conversation turned on my daughters, and Mary no doubt mentioned that at my death they would all have large fortunes.”

  “Ah, so it is the money that Berkins is after.”

  “Money comes first. If a man can make a settlement he will naturally demand a — that is to say he will naturally look forward, he will consider what her prospects are; not her immediate prospects, that would be mercenary, but her future prospects.”

  Willy smiled. “And what did Berkins say?”

  “He said he wanted to marry, and he spoke of Grace; he said he admired her. I shouldn’t be surprised if we saw him at church to-day.”

  “Are you going to ask him to lunch?”

  “Certainly, if he’s there.” Then, after a long silence, Mr. Brookes said: “He’ll come in here to smoke. Of course you’ll leave us alone. Do you mind leaving out your cigars?”

  “I have only half a box left; I think really you might keep some in the house to supply your own guests with. You always object if I interfere with your things.”

  “I am out of my best cigars — it is so hard to remember. He won’t smoke more than one.”

  “I’ll put one in the cigar case then.”

  “You had better fill it; it will look so bad if there is only one; he won’t take it.”

  “He’ll take all he can get; he took my bird, I know that!”

  “This is a matter of great importance.”

  “To you and to Grace, not to me,” said Willy, and with very bad grace he unlocked a drawer, and placed a box of cigars on the table.

  “Thank you. Now what time is it? Half-past ten. By Jove! we must be thinking of starting; I suppose you aren’t coming?”

  “I am afraid I’ve too much to do this morning.”

  The young ladies appeared in new dresses, and with prayer-books in their hands. Mr. Brookes took his hat and umbrella, and Willy watched them depart with undisguised satisfaction. “Now I shall be able to get through some work,” he said, untying a large bundle of letters. He wrote a page in his diary, tied up the letters, diary, and notebook in brown paper, and, with a sigh, admitting that he did not feel up to much work to-day, he took up the envelopes that had contained his letters and began tearing off the stamps, and he did this very attentively as if he did not trust his dry thick fingers. Somebody had told him that ten thousand old stamps were worth — he had forgotten the price of old stamps, and wondering he dozed off. When he awoke he cried: “Half-past twelve, they must be on their way back; I wonder if Berkins is with them!” And he strolled out on the gravel.

  A few spring flowers marked the brown earth about the trees, and a beautiful magnolia, white as a bride, shed its shell-like petals in an angle beneath a window; the gold of the berberis glowed at the end of the path; and the greenery was blithe as a girl in clear muslin and ribbons. The blackbirds chattered and ran, and in turn flew to the pan of water placed for them, and drank, lifting their heads with exquisite motion. The trees rustled in the cold wind; the sky was white along the embankment, where an engine moved slowly up and down the line.

  Willy was sensible that the scene was pleasant and pretty, and remembering he was fond of birds, he thrust his hands deeper in his pockets and walked slowly down the drive, his toes well turned out. “I wonder if they met Berkins at church?” was the question he put to himself gravely. “What a cad he is! No wonder the county people fight shy of us; a fellow like that is enough to close their doors against us for ever. My father pooh-poohs everything but riches; he positively flies in their faces, so what can I do? I don’t care to ask my Oxford friends down here; one never knows how he will receive them. He can talk of nothing but his business. Had I a free hand, had I not been so hampered, we might have known all the best county families, even theduke.”

  The latch of the gate clicked, and Mr. Brookes and his family appeared. Maggie and Sally walked on the right and left of their father; Grace came on behind with Berkins, and it seemed to Willy that the city magnate bore himself with something even more than his usual dignity. At first sight he suggested that anomalous creature — a footman with a beard; and the slow, deliberate enunciation marked him as one accustomed to speak in public. His manner of sitting at a table suggested letters and dictation of letters, his manner of moving his glasses on his nose accounts, and at no moment would it have been surprising to see him place his strong finger at the bottom of a line of figures, and begin “Gentlemen,” etc.

  During lunch, Sally and Maggie spoke in undertones; they glanced occasionally at Grace, who sat by and received Berkins’s bald remarks with deference. The girls t
rembled with excitement; they had pressed and extorted from Grace a hurried statement of what had happened. Berkins had proposed to her, he had told her he had never seen any one except her whom he would care to make his wife. What had she said? She didn’t know. She couldn’t really remember. She had been taken so suddenly, she was so upset, that she hadn’t known what to say. She thought she had said something about the honour — but she really had not had time to say much, for at that moment they were at the gate. Did she intend to accept him? She didn’t know; she could not make up her mind. It was a terrible thing to throw over poor Jack; she didn’t think she could do it — no matter what father might say. However, she knew he would never give his consent, so it was no use thinking.

  “I hope she won’t begin to cry,” whispered Sally, who had followed Maggie to the sideboard.

  “Father looks as if he were going to cry,” replied Maggie, moving the decanters and pretending to look for a glass.

  Seven thousand a year, ten thousand a year! Would Grace have him? What would father settle on her? The sum he settled on her he must settle on them when they married. As Berkins’s wife Grace would have servants, jewels, rich dresses, and a house in London, and they thought of the advantage this marriage would be to them.

  The knives clattered; cheese and celery were being eaten. Mr. Brookes had drunk several glasses of port, and was on the verge of tears. Berkins’s high shoulders and large voice dominated the dining-table; he was decidedly more than usually impressed by his own worth, and the worth of the money of which he was the representative. Willy chewed his cheese; there were many wrinkles about his eyes — deep lines turning towards the ears; and when he lifted his tumbler one noticed the little nails, almost worn away, of his lean hands.

  At last Mr. Brookes said: “I daresay you would like a cigar, Berkins — will you come into the billiard-room?”

  Berkins inclined to this suggestion. Willy, who had not quite finished, remained at table. The girls watched each other, and as soon as the elderly men turned their backs they fled upstairs to their rooms.

  “Will you try one of these?” said Mr. Brookes, offering a box of choice havannas.

  “Thank you. My tobacconist — I must ask you to visit his shop — receives just a few cases of a very special cigar; I have at least two-thirds of them, sometimes more; when you dine with me I’ll give you one. This is Chartreuse, I think. My wine merchant knows a man whose cousin is one of the monks. Now the monks set aside the very cream of the liqueur, if I may so speak, for themselves. This liqueur cannot be bought in the open market. You may go up to London prepared to write a cheque for any figure you may like to name, and I will defy you to buy a bottle. I never have any other. It is really quite delicious. I daresay I could get you some.”

  Mr. Brookes expressed thanks for the amiable offer, and both men smoked on in silence.

  “Do you play billiards?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “No.”

  Inwardly they congratulated themselves. Presently Mr. Brookes said: “I hear you have been staying with my sister, Mrs. Haltom. You were shooting there, were you not?”

  “Yes, they were kind enough to ask me. Very nice shooting they have, too.”

  “I hear that you have gone in for rearing pheasants.”

  “Yes; we shot a hundred brace last year.”

  The conversation dropped, and in an impressive silence both men wondered what they had better say to lead honourably up to the subject they had come to speak on.

  “Is your house your own design? Did you build it entirely yourself? Iforget. I ought to know; you told me all about it when I dined with you.”

  “There was a house there, but I altered it considerably after my own idea, and not a bad idea, I flatter myself. I spent a good deal of money in laying out the grounds, putting up conservatories, and so forth.”

  “You are a single man?”

  “For a single man the house is, of course, too large; but I do not intend to remain always single, and — and now, Mr. Brookes, as we are on the subject, I had better tell you that I have asked Miss Brookes to be my wife.”

  Mr. Brookes grasped at the first words. “I am sure I am very pleased to hear it, Mr. Berkins, and I hope the answer was a favourable one.”

  “Miss Brookes is a modest girl. She has been well brought up, as a girl who is, I hope, to be my wife should be, and she was naturally a little overcome. I did not exactly catch what she said, and I didn’t like to press her for an immediate answer. But suppose we assume for the moment that Miss Brookes’s reply will be a favourable one — I have, I confess, much faith in her good sense — we might consider the business side.”

  Notwithstanding his admiration of a man who had made three thousand a year more than he had succeeded in doing, Mr. Brookes could not but feel irritated at Berkins, who, with increasing gravity, continued to assume all things to his own advantage. It had not occurred to him to consider that Grace might refuse him. Why should she refuse him? She could not hope to do better. She appeared to him as a very nice girl indeed, one entirely fitted for the position for which he intended her. He understood that all girls, at least those in society, were innocent and virtuous; he understood that when they married they made faithful and dutiful wives; and he had chosen her not because he had fallen in love, nor yet because he had noticed she was likely to make a better wife than her sisters, but because she was the eldest. Even so he would be twenty years his wife’s senior, and he had chosen to marry one of the Brookes girls because he knew them and saw them constantly; because he knew that at their father’s death his fortune would be divided between them. Grace was, therefore, an heiress in perspective. The prospect was agreeable, but he foresaw that it would be put forward as an excuse for fixing the sum of marriage settlements as low as possible. It would, however, be difficult for Brookes to settle less on his daughter than he, Berkins, was willing to settle on his wife; so partly in the hopes of forcing Mr. Brookes, and partly because of the pleasure it gave him to speak of himself, he continued talking of his position and possessions.

  “In dealing with me,” he said, “you are dealing, as you know, Mr. Brookes, with a man of means, a man who can afford to do the thing properly; you will not misunderstand me — you remember you told me that you had great difficulty in keeping the little folk who live here out of your house.”

  “The neighbourhood has never been the same since they put up that row of villas. A lot of indigent fortune-hunters, they know my girls will have large fortunes at my death, so they come sneaking round the place like so many wolves.”

  “I can readily sympathise with you; one doesn’t make money to keep idle young fellows in the luxuries of life.”

  “That is what I say.”

  “But you aren’t sufficiently firm, Mr. Brookes; had you been brought up in the hard school that I was you would be more firm; firmness is everything. You married early, I couldn’t afford to do that. At sixteen I had to shift for myself. I was three years a clerk at two pounds a week, and not many chances to rise come in the way of a clerk at two pounds a week; he must be pretty sharp, and if he doesn’t seize the little chance when it comes, he will remain a little clerk all his life. It is the first steps that are difficult, the rest are nothing. You don’t know what the first steps are; I do. Once you’ve made a thousand pounds you can swim along a bit, but the first hundred, I shall never forget it! Afterwards it is just the same; the proportions are changed, that is all. The first twenty thousand is very uphill work, the second is on the flat, the third is going downhill — it brings itself along.”

  “A very good simile indeed. There’s no doubt that it is money that makes money. When you have none you cannot make it. It is like corn; give a man a handful, and he must be a fool if he can’t fill his barn. The beginnings are hard; none knows that better than I. But for the last ten years I’ve been doing fairly well.”

  “I had never intended to get married, but when money really begins to accumulate it pushes yo
u along. It is curious how money takes you along. It is like a tide. You first begin thinking of a little place in the country where you can stay from Saturday till Monday. The little place grows; it is extraordinary how it grows. You find you want flowers, and you put up a glass house; then you begin to get interested in orchids or roses, and you put up two, maybe half a dozen glass houses. Suddenly you find the rabbits are breeding in the hedgerows, and you go out yonder ferretting, but the coachman does not know how to manage the ferrets, and you start a keeper. The keeper says one morning, ‘It wouldn’t require much to get up a stock of pheasants in that little wood.’ You say, ‘Very well;’ and there you are before you know it, with glass houses, rabbit-shooting, and a pheasant preserve. You have friends to stay with you for the shooting, you get talked about in the clubs, people ask why you aren’t married — the place where the wife ought to be stares you in the face: a man of money, of real money, must get married. The friends who come and stay with you suggest a little dance, you think it would be very pleasant; but you know no one in the neighbourhood, the county people won’t visit you, so the thing comes about, and you are head over heels in settlements before you know where you are.”

  “Do you find the county people very standoffish over Preston Park way?”

  “I am not in a position to judge; they could not very well call on me situated as I am, a young — well, I will say, a marriageable — man, known to be wealthy; but I have no doubt when I am married they will call on us.”

  “Twirl them round my little finger, stuck-up lot; I should like to know what they have to be proud of, half of them are broken — their land is worthless. Give me good sound investments, five or six per cent. For some money I am getting seven; the waterworks pays fourteen.”