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HARD CASH
HARD CASH CHARLES READE PROLOGUE
IN a snowy villa with a sloping lawn just outside the great commercial
seaport Barkington there lived a few years ago a happy family. A lady
middle-aged but still charming; two young friends of hers; and a
periodical visitor.
The lady was Mrs. Dodd; her occasional visitor was her husband; her
friends were her son Edward aged twenty and her daughter Julia
nineteen the fruit of a misalliance.
Mrs. Dodd was originally Miss Fountain a young lady well born high
bred and a denizen of the fashionable world. Under a strange concurrence
of circumstances she coolly married the captain of an East Indiaman. The
deed done and with her eyes open for she was not to say in love with
him she took a judicious line--and kept it: no hankering after Mayfair
no talking about "Lord this" and "Lady that" to commercial gentlewomen;
no amphibiousness. She accepted her place in society reserving the right
to embellish it with the graces she had gathered in a higher sphere. In
her home and in her person she was little less elegant than a countess;
yet nothing more than a merchant-captain's wife; and she reared that
commander's children in a suburban villa with the manners which adorn a
palace. When they happen to be there. She had a bugbear; Slang. Could not
endure the smart technicalities current; their multitude did not
overpower her distaste; she called them "jargon"--"slang" was too coarse
a word for her to apply to slang: she excluded many a good "racy idiom"
along with the real offenders; and monosyllables in general ran some risk
of' having to show their passports. If this was pedantry it went no
further; she was open free and youthful with her young pupils; and had
the art to put herself on their level: often when they were quite young
she would feign infantine ignorance in order to hunt trite truth in
couples with them and detect by joint experiment that rainbows cannot
or else will not be walked into nor Jack-o'-lantern be gathered like a
cowslip; and that dissect we the vocal dog--whose hair is so like a
lamb's--never so skilfully no fragment of palpable bark no sediment of
tangible squeak remains inside him to bless the inquisitive little
operator &c. &c. When they advanced from these elementary branches to
Languages History Tapestry and "What Not" she managed still to keep
by their side learning with them not just hearing them lessons down from
the top of a high tower of maternity. She never checked their curiosity
but made herself share it; never gave them as so many parents do a
white-lying answer; wooed their affections with subtle though innocent
art thawed their reserve obtained their love and retained their
respect. Briefly a female Chesterfield; her husband's lover after
marriage though not before; and the mild monitress the elder sister the
favourite companion and bosom friend of both her children.
They were remarkably dissimilar; and perhaps I may be allowed to preface
the narrative of their adventures by a delineation; as in country
churches an individual pipes the keynote and the tune comes raging
after.
Edward then had a great calm eye that was always looking folk full in
the face mildly; his countenance comely and manly but no more; too
square for Apollo; but sufficed for John Bull. His figure it was that
charmed the curious observer of male beauty. He was five feet ten; had
square shoulders a deep chest masculine flank small foot high instep.
To crown all this a head overflowed by ripples of dark brown hair sat
with heroic grace upon his solid white throat like some glossy falcon
new lighted on a Parian column.
This young gentleman had decided qualities positive and negative. He
could walk up to a five-barred gate and clear it alighting on the other
side like a fallen feather; could row all day and then dance all night;
could fling a cricket ball a hundred and six yards; had a lathe and a
tool-box and would make you in a trice a chair a table a doll a
nutcracker or any other moveable useful or the very reverse. And could
not learn his lessons to save his life.
His sister Julia was not so easy to describe. Her figure was tall lithe
and serpentine; her hair the colour of a horse-chestnut fresh from its
pod; her ears tiny and shell-like her eyelashes long and silky; her
mouth small when grave large when smiling; her eyes pure hazel by day
and tinged with a little violet by night. But in jotting down these
details true as they are I seem to myself to be painting fire with a
little snow and saffron mixed on a marble pallet. There is a beauty too
spiritual to be chained in a string of items; and Julia's fair features
were but the china vessel that brimmed over with the higher loveliness of
her soul. Her essential charm was what shall I say? Transparence.
"You would have said her very body thought."
Modesty Intelligence and above all Enthusiasm shone through her and
out of her and made her an airy fiery household joy. Briefly an
incarnate sunbeam.
This one could learn her lessons with unreasonable rapidity and until
Edward went to Eton would insist upon learning his into the bargain
partly with the fond notion of coaxing him on as the company of a swift
horse incites a slow one; partly because she was determined to share his
every trouble if she could not remove it. A little choleric and indeed
downright prone to that more generous indignation which fires at the
wrongs of others. When heated with emotion or sentiment she lowered her
voice instead of raising it like the rest of us. She called her mother
"Lady Placid" and her brother "Sir Imperturbable." And so much for
outlines.
Mrs. Dodd laid aside her personal ambition with her maiden name; but she
looked high for her children. Perhaps she was all the more ambitious for
them that they had no rival aspirant in Mrs. Dodd. She educated Julia
herself from first to last: but with true feminine distrust of her power
to mould a lordling of creation she sent Edward to Eton at nine. This
was slackening her tortoise; for at Eton is no female master to coax dry
knowledge into a slow head. However he made good progress in two
branches--aquatics and cricket.
After Eton came the choice of a profession. His mother recognised but
four; and these her discreet ambition speedily sifted down to two. For
military heroes are shot now and then however pacific the century; and
naval ones drowned. She would never expose her Edward to this class of
accidents. Glory by all means; glory by the pail; but safe glory please;
or she would none of it. Remained the church and the bar: and within
these reasonable limits she left her dear boy free as air; and not even
hurried--there was plenty of time to choose: he must pass through the
university to either. This last essential had been settled about a
twelvemonth and the very day for his going to Oxford was at hand when
one morning Mr. Edward formally cleared his throat: it was an unusual
act and drew the ladies' eyes upon him. He followed the solemnity up by
delivering calmly and ponderously a connected discourse which astonished
them by its length and purport. "Mamma dear let us look the thing in
the face." (This was his favourite expression as well as habit.) "I have
been thinking it quietly over for the last six months. Why send me to the
university? I shall be out of place there. It will cost you a lot of
money and no good. Now you take a fool's advice; don't you waste your
money and papa's sending a dull fellow like me to Oxford. I did bad
enough at _Eton._ Make me an engineer or something. If you were not so
fond of me and I of you I'd say send me to Canada with a pickaxe; you
know I have got no headpiece."
Mrs. Dodd had sat aghast casting Edward deprecating looks at the close
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