Upsidonia

CHAPTER x.x.x

"My dear," I said, when Miriam and I had once more sought the seclusion of her garden, and she had asked me what it all meant, "you don"t understand English ways yet. It is not to be expected that you should, with your upbringing. But it is absolutely necessary to have _some_ money in England, when you marry, and I thought I would do Hobson a good turn by getting what I wanted from him. It is most unfortunate that it has turned out as it has."

But she could not bring herself to this view. "I am sure that however you may try to hide it," she said, "you really only did it because you were sorry for the poor Hobsons. I love and honour you for it, and I am glad you have been rewarded as you have, though I do hope you won"t do it again, because now you have _me_ to think of, you know, and, after all, it is very risky."

"Miriam," I said, "I am not going to sail under false colours with you.

I wanted Hobson"s money, and I don"t know what on earth to do now I haven"t got it."

"Why, do just what we had arranged to do," she said. "I am ready to come with you, and if it means that we shan"t have to live in the rich way we have talked about, I shall be all the better pleased. It has always been rather a weight on my spirits, and I am very relieved to think that we shall be poor after all."

"My dearest of girls, I am afraid you won"t like being poor in England."

"I should like it anywhere. And I believe you have only been making up all that you have told me, so as to test me."

"Test you? What do you mean?"

She took my arm, and laid her fair head on my shoulder. "I think you must have been a little doubtful about me," she said, "always seeing me in these unnatural surroundings. You must have thought that I couldn"t be brought up in a place like this all my life without being affected by it. You wanted to see how much I cared for luxury for its own sake.

Truly, John, I don"t want it at all. I only want you."

What was I to say to this touching confession?

What I did say caused her to continue: "The picture you drew of liking to have things for the sake of having them was rather like a nightmare to me. Think of a life in which one could never belong to one"s self, or to one another, because one was always bowed down by the weight of possessions! And as we got older they would acc.u.mulate more and more, until we became stifled by them. Why, one might even come to take no pleasure in any beautiful things that didn"t belong to one. One might even envy other people what they had. Why should anybody _want_ to burden themselves in that way?"

"Well, of course," I said, "one _can_ do all right without a lot of things around one."

"Oh, yes; one would be so much happier. Beatrice Coghill, a friend of mine, married about a year ago, and they took a little farm in the country. I went to stay with them there. It was just large enough for them to do all the work themselves. They live in the open air all day long, and work hard, and never have a care in the world. She makes her little home so sweet for her husband, and she told me she was always thinking about it, and about him when he is out working in the fields.

In the evenings they read, and she plays to him. They don"t mind the long winters because they are always together, and do what they like doing indoors. And in the summer they have their garden, and their walks about the quiet fields. Sometimes they take a little holiday, and come into Culbut to see their friends, and to hear some music, but they are always glad to get back to their happy little home. They never have any of the annoyances that we go through here every day of our lives, and they can look forward to growing old together, and keeping all their simple happiness to the end."

"My darling," I said. "That is a very pretty picture."

And, indeed, it seemed to me, as painted by Miriam, the prettiest sort of picture. If I could make her happy, and myself happy with her, by living a life of bodily toil in the open air, which is the best sort of toil, and feeding the demands of the brain in the hours that seem set apart by nature for such pursuits, then a little farm, by all means.

But a farm in England, however little, wants money to buy, money to stock, and not infrequently money to carry on. It was only in Upsidonia that one could acquire it, stock it, work it without any previous experience, and live off it without any anxiety, as well as contribute three hundred pounds a year towards the income of somebody else, with no capital behind one. No English Parliament Act that I am aware of holds out any such prospects to the small holder. It did cross my mind that it might be worth while considering whether it would not be better to give up all idea of leaving Upsidonia now or at any time. One could live more comfortably in that country owing a hundred and seventy thousand pounds than in any other that I know of. But I was already getting a little tired of Upsidonia, and was looking forward keenly to taking Miriam away with me. Besides, there was always that question of the newspaper placard--"Who is Mr. John Howard?"--hanging over me. If I stayed in Upsidonia, that would have to be answered sooner or later, and for all I knew might be ripe for an answer at that very moment. No; curiosity about me seemed to have died down for the time, but I was not in the safest of positions; and the sooner I got out of the country, with Miriam, the better.

"We can"t very well live on a farm in England," I said. "There are many reasons against it. But would you be content to live with me in the simplest possible kind of way, while I worked for you in the way I have learnt? I _could_ just manage it, and _I_ don"t want anything more than a tiny little house, with you in it, if _you_ don"t."

She said that she didn"t--that she loved the idea of being poor with me, and that if I had really been used to living in luxury, although this she could hardly believe, then she would show me how little luxury made for happiness. She removed all my unworthy fears, and made me quite ashamed of having had designs on Upsidonian pockets. I would leave the country not a penny richer than when I came into it, except for the few items I have already mentioned. I felt much more comfortable in mind when I had taken this decision, and if along with it there went the prospect of also freeing myself from the immense load of debt I had contracted, by leaving it behind me, I can hardly be blamed for that under prevailing conditions.

Miriam and I left her garden that evening in the most complete accord with one another, both rather excited by our fast-approaching departure, but both convinced that we should lead a life of such happiness together as had never yet fallen to the lot of a married couple.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

On the last evening but one, before Miriam and I were to go away together, we were sitting round the tea-table in the verandah. Mrs.

Eppstein was with us, and Mr. Perry had said that he would be home at five o"clock, but had not yet appeared. But we heard the wheels of the carriage just as Mr. Blother had brought out the kettle, with the intimation that we had better begin now; and Mr. Perry came out to us directly, still wearing his tall hat, which Lord Arthur usually relieved him of in the hall.

It was evident that he had news for us, and to judge by his face, on which sat an expression combined of jubilance and modesty, it was good news.

"Blother, old friend," said Mr. Perry, "don"t go. I have something to tell you."

Then he went up to Mrs. Perry, took her hand in his, kissed it, and said: "Good evening, my lady."

Mrs. Perry exclaimed at this form of address, and after a short pause, during which Mr. Perry removed his hat and looked rather sheepish, Mr.

Blother said joyfully: "Ah, I see. At last they have recognised your value, and have knighted you. Three cheers for Sir Samuel and Lady Perry!"

Mr. Perry held up his hand, and the cheers died on our lips. "You are on the right track, Blother," he said, "but you have not gone far enough.

You should have said: "Three cheers for Lord and Lady Magnolia!" which is the t.i.tle I have decided to adopt, subject to her ladyship"s approval. My dear, a great and unexpected honour has been conferred on me. They have offered me a peerage, contingent on my accepting or refusing it at once. I have accepted, thinking you would wish it for the sake of the children, and my patent was handed to me this afternoon."

We all congratulated the new peer heartily, concealing our surprise at the honour having been conferred on him, and saying that it was only what ought to have been done long ago.

When Mr. Blother had left us to carry the news into the servants"

quarters, Mr. Perry, or rather Lord Magnolia, told us all about it.

"It is the reward of my life-long service in the cause of the downtrodden," he said, "and dear Edward will be gratified to know that the punishment so harshly inflicted upon him has had something to do with it. I was given to understand that the Government much regrets the necessity of having had to prosecute him, and, as a good deal of feeling has been aroused against them in consequence of that action, they hoped that this honour, conferred upon me so promptly, might remove some of that feeling, as showing that, whatever may be thought of them, they are really on our side. Therefore, in one way, I may be said to be doing as much for them as they are doing for me, which made it, perhaps, easier to accept the unlooked-for honour. I did not do so without some demur. I said that I should not consent to be a mere puppet peer,[34] and they a.s.sured me that nothing of the sort was intended. They also a.s.sured me in the handsomest way that the offer of a peerage to me had long been under consideration, and the only difficulty about it had been that my way of living might bring ridicule on the n.o.bility generally. I told them at once that my work was far too dear to me to be given up, and that if the stipulation was that I should leave my friends amongst the rich, and go back to live amongst the poor, I could not consent to it.

They said that no such stipulation would be made, and that removed my last objection."

What his other objections had been, Lord Magnolia did not tell us. It was obvious that he had not had the least idea of such an honour ever being conferred on him, and was quite agreeably stirred by it.

"I only wish that dear Edward were here to share our gratification," he said, "but it will not be long now before we have him with us again. My dear, I think you might write him a note to tell him what has happened.

To-morrow will be his day for receiving letters, and do not forget to address him as the Honourable Edward Perry."

"I must go home at once and tell Herman," said Mrs. Eppstein. "It was a step up for him to marry me, but he little thought that he would be marrying into the peerage."

"Shall I be Lady Mollie, like Susan and Cynthia?" enquired Lord Magnolia"s younger daughter.

"You will be the Honourable Mollie, my love," replied that n.o.bleman.

"You are all now the Honourable. But you must not think too much of that. These distinctions are nothing in themselves, and you must not forget that it is worth that counts, and that t.i.tles are usually given as a reward to those who are the last to desire them for themselves. It is so in this case. Nothing will be changed here, and we shall still go on in our quiet way, trying to live for our fellow creatures, continuing to share in their joys and in their sorrows, and living like the richest and humblest of them."

At this moment, all the household, led by Mr. Blother and Mrs. Lemon, came filing out on to the verandah, to congratulate their master on the honour that had been conferred upon him.

Lord Magnolia received their felicitations with heartfelt grat.i.tude, and then Mr. Blother made a little speech.

"It is quite a new situation," he said, "for a domestic staff to find themselves in the service of a peer of the realm, and it is a matter of congratulation to one and all of us that the already unusual circ.u.mstances under which we have all lived together here--some of us for a number of years--have been so happy that no awkwardness has been felt anywhere. Perhaps we, in the servants" hall, can take some of the credit for that, for I think we can all say that we have borne some of the burdens of wealth, and have not let them fall entirely upon the shoulders of the excellent master and mistress with whom we have lived in such friendly relations. If any of us have ever seemed to press too hardly upon the younger members of the family, it has only been because we did not wish them to succ.u.mb to the temptations of wealth, as they might have done if they had been allowed to forget that servants are usually in a far superior position to those whom they serve. For it would never do for them to grow up thinking that life amongst the rich was so pleasant as I think we servants may pride ourselves on having made it at Magnolia Hall.

"However, I need say no more about that. What I _am_ going to say, on behalf of myself and all my colleagues, is that we wish to mark this happy occasion by an act of self-sacrifice. However my old friend, Lord Magnolia, may wish to conduct his life in the future, we feel that for this evening, at least, we should not like to see him and her ladyship occupying an inferior situation to our own. We propose that the household staff should take their places at the dinner-table, and be waited upon by Lord Magnolia and his family, who will also cook the dinner, and wash up afterwards."

It would be impossible to describe the emotion with which Lord Magnolia met this touching offer of self-surrender, so handsomely acquiesced in by the whole company before him. He said a great many things in reply, but what he said most insistently, and repeated so that it could not possibly be misunderstood, was that nothing would induce him to accept it. Nothing was to be changed, he said. It would take away all his gratification in the honour that had been done to him, if it was to be thought that it would for a moment put him on the level of those whom he had always been glad to call his friends. Let them keep their proud position, and let those who thought and acted with him keep their humble one. If they would do him that honour, let them all come in after dinner and drink a gla.s.s of wine--such of them as were not teetotallers--with him and his family. More than that he could not accept from them, if they begged him on their bended knees.

So it was settled. Lord Magnolia drank several gla.s.ses of wine that evening, and went up to bed in as happy a frame of mind as that of any peer in Upsidonia.

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