Roden's Corner

by Henry Seton Merriman

She spoke with a sort of inconsequent earnestness, a relic of the school-days she had so lately left behind. She did not seem to have had time to decide yet whether life was a rattling farce or a matter of deadly earnest. And who shall blame her, remembering that older heads than hers are no clearer on that point?

On approaching the red villa by its short entrance drive of yellow gravel, they perceived Mr. Wade slowly walking in his garden. The garden of “The Brambles” was exactly the sort of garden one would expect to find attached to a house of that name. It was chiefly conspicuous for its lack of brambles, or indeed of any vegetable of such disorderly habit. Yellow gravel walks intersected smooth lawns. April having drawn almost to its close, there were thin red lines of tulips standing at attention all along the flowery borders. Not a stalk was out of place. One suspected that the flowers had been drilled by a martinet of a gardener. The sight of an honest weed would have been a relief to the eye. The curse of too much gardener and too little nature lay over the land.

“Ah!” said Mr. Wade, holding out a large white hand. “You perceive me inspecting the garden, and if you glance in the direction of McPherson's cottage you will perceive McPherson watching me. I pay him a hundred and twenty and he knows that it is too much.”

“By the way, papa,” put in Marguerite, gravely, “will you tell McPherson that he will receive a month's notice if he counts the peaches this summer, as he did last year?”

Mr. Wade laughed, and promised her a freer hand in this matter. They walked in the trim garden until it was time to dress for dinner, and Cornish saw enough to convince him that Mr. Wade was fully occupied between banking hours in his capacity as Marguerite's father.

That young lady came down as the bell rang, in a white dress as fresh and girlish as herself, and during the meal, which was long and somewhat solemn, entertained the guest with considerable liveliness. It was only after she had left them to their wine, over which the banker loved to linger in the old-fashioned way that Mr. Wade put on his grave financial air. He fingered his glass thoughtfully, as if choosing, not a subject of conversation, but a suitable way of approaching a premeditated question.

“You do not recollect your mother?” he said suddenly.

“No; she died when I was two years old.”

Mr. Wade nodded, and slowly sipped his port. “Queer thing is,” he said, after a pause and looking towards the door, “that that child is startlingly like what your mother used to be at the age of eighteen, when I first knew her. Perhaps it is only my imagination—not that I have much of that. Perhaps all girls are alike at that age—a sort of freshness and an optimism that positively take one's breath away. At any rate, she reminds me of your mother.” He broke off, and looked at Cornish with his slow and rather ponderous smile. His attitude towards the world was indeed one of conscious ponderosity. He did not attempt to understand the lighter side of life, but took it seriously as a work-a-day matter. “I was once in love with your mother,” he stated squarely. “But circumstances were against us. You see, your father was a lord's younger brother, and that made a great difference in Clapham in those days. I felt it a good deal at the time, but I of course got over it years and years ago. No sentiment about me, Tony. Sentiment and seventeen stone won't balance, you know.” The great man slowly drew the decanter towards him. “She got a better husband in your father—a clever, bright chap—and I was best man, I recollect. It was about that time—about your age I was—that I took seriously to my work. Before, I had been a little wild. And that interest has lasted me right up to the present time. Take my word for it, Tony, the greatest interest in life would be money-making—if one only knew what to do with the money afterwards.” The banker had been eating a biscuit, and he now swept the crumbs together with his little finger from all sides in a lessening circle until they formed a heap upon the white tablecloth. “It accumulates,” he said slowly, “accumulates, accumulates. And, after all, one can only eat and drink the best that are to be obtained, and the best costs so little—a mere drop in the ocean.” He handed Tony the decanter as he spoke. “Then I married Marguerite's mother, some years afterwards, when I was a middle-aged man. She was the only daughter of—the bank, you know.”

And that seemed to be all that there was to be said about Marguerite's mother.