Hard Cash

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underscores. The pound sign is indicated by L. No attempt has been made
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Hard Cash

by Charles Reade

PREFACE

"HARD CASH," like "The Cloister and the Hearth," is a matter-of-fact
Romance--that is, a fiction built on truths; and these truths have been
gathered by long, severe, systematic labour, from a multitude of volumes,
pamphlets, journals, reports, blue-books, manuscript narratives, letters,
and living people, whom I have sought out, examined, and cross-examined,
to get at the truth on each main topic I have striven to handle.

The madhouse scenes have been picked out by certain disinterested
gentlemen, who keep private asylums, and periodicals to puff them; and
have been met with bold denials of public facts, and with timid
personalities, and a little easy cant about Sensation* Novelists; but in
reality those passages have been written on the same system as the
nautical, legal, and other scenes: the best evidence has been ransacked;
and a large portion of this evidence I shall be happy to show at my house
to any brother writer who is disinterested, and really cares enough for
truth and humanity to walk or ride a mile in pursuit of them.

CHARLES READE.

6 BOLTON ROW, MAYFAIR,
December 5, 1868.

*This slang term is not quite accurate as applied to me. Without
sensation there can be no interest: but my plan is to mix a little
character and a little philosophy with the sensational element.

HARD CASH

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
of each ponderous sentence, but too polite to interrupt a soul, even a
son talking nonsense. She now assured him she could afford very well to
send him to Oxford, and begged leave to remind him that he was too good
and too sensible to run up bills there, like the young men who did not
really love their parents. "Then, as for learning, why, we must be
reasonable in our turn. Do the best you can, love. We know you have no
great turn for the classics; we do not expect you to take high honours
like young Mr. Hardie; besides, that might make your head ache: he has
sad headaches, his sister told Julia. But, my dear, an university
education is indispensable Do but see how the signs of it follow a
gentleman through life, to say nothing of the valuable acquaintances and
lasting friendships he makes there: even those few distinguished persons
who have risen in the would without it, have openly regretted the want,
and have sent their children: and _that_ says volumes to me."

"Why, Edward, it is the hall-mark of a gentleman," said Julia eagerly.
Mrs. Dodd caught a flash of her daughter: "And my silver shall never be
without it," said she warmly. She added presently, in her usual placid
tone, "I beg your pardon, my dears, I ought to have said my gold." With
this she kissed Edward tenderly on the brow, and drew an embrace and a
little grunt of resignation from him. "Take the dear boy and show him our
purchases, love!" said Mrs. Dodd, with a little gentle accent of half
reproach, scarce perceptible to a male ear.

"Oh, yes," and Julia rose and tripped to the door. There she stood a
moment, half turned, with arching neck, colouring with innocent pleasure.
"Come, darling. Oh, you good-for- nothing thing."

The pair found a little room hard by, paved with china, crockery, glass,
baths, kettles, &c.

"There, sir. Look them in the face; and us, if you can."

"Well, you know, I had no idea you had been and bought a cart-load of
things for Oxford." His eye brightened; he whipped out a two-foot rule,
and began to calculate the cubic contents. "I'll turn to and make the
cases, Ju."

The ladies had their way; the cases were made and despatched; and one
morning the Bus came for Edward, and stopped at the gate of Albion Villa.
At this sight mother and daughter both turned their heads quickly away by
one independent impulse, and set a bad example. Apparently neither of
them had calculated on this paltry little detail; they were game for
theoretical departures; to impalpable universities: and "an air-drawn
Bus, a Bus of the mind," would not have dejected for a moment their lofty
Spartan souls on glory bent; safe glory. But here was a Bus of wood, and
Edward going bodily away inside it. The victim kissed them, threw up his
portmanteau and bag, and departed serene as Italian skies; the victors
watched the pitiless Bus quite out of sight; then went up to his bedroom,
all disordered by packing, and, on the very face of it, vacant; and sat
down on his little bed intertwining and weeping.

Edward was received at Exeter College, as young gentlemen are received at
college; and nowhere else, I hope, for the credit of Christendom. They
showed him a hole in the roof, and called it an "Attic;" grim pleasantry!
being a puncture in the modern Athens. They inserted him; told him what
hour at the top of the morning he must be in chapel; and left him to find
out his other ills. His cases were welcomed like Christians, by the whole
staircase. These undergraduates abused one another's crockery as their
own: the joint stock of breakables had just dwindled very low, and Mrs.
Dodd's bountiful contribution was a godsend.

The new comer soon found that his views of a learned university had been
narrow. Out of place in it? why, he could not have taken his wares to a
better market; the modern Athens, like the ancient, cultivates muscle as
well as mind. The captain of the university eleven saw a cricket-ball
thrown all across the ground; he instantly sent a professional bowler to
find out who that was; through the same ambassador the thrower was
invited to play on club days; and proving himself an infallible catch and
long-stop, a mighty thrower, a swift runner, and a steady, though not
very brilliant bat, he was, after one or two repulses, actually adopted
into the university eleven. He communicated this ray of glory by letter
to his mother and sister with genuine delight, coldly and clumsily
expressed; they replied with feigned and fluent rapture. Advancing
steadily in that line of academic study towards which his genius lay, he
won a hurdle race, and sent home a little silver hurdle; and soon after
brought a pewter pot, with a Latin inscription recording the victory at
"Fives" of Edward Dodd: but not too arrogantly; for in the centre of the
pot was this device, "The Lord Is My Illumination." The Curate of
Sandford, who pulled number six in the Exeter boat, left Sandford for
Witney: on this he felt he could no longer do his college justice by
water, and his parish by land, nor escape the charge of pluralism,
preaching at Witney and rowing at Oxford. He fluctuated, sighed, kept his
Witney, and laid down his oar. Then Edward was solemnly weighed in his
jersey and flannel trousers, and proving only eleven stone eight, whereas
he had been ungenerously suspected of twelve stone,* was elected to the
vacant oar by acclamation. He was a picture in a boat; and, "Oh!!! well
pulled, six!!" was a hearty ejaculation constantly hurled at him from the
bank by many men of other colleges, and even by the more genial among the
cads, as the Exeter glided at ease down the river, or shot up it in a
race.

*There was at this time a prejudice against weight, which has yielded to
experience

He was now as much talked of in the university as any man of his college,
except one. Singularly enough that one was his townsman; but no friend of
his; he was much Edward's senior in standing, though not in age; and this
is a barrier the junior must not step over--without direct
encouragement--at Oxford. Moreover, the college was a large one, and some
of "the sets" very exclusive: young Hardie was Doge of a studious clique;
and careful to make it understood that he was a reading man who boated
and cricketed, to avoid the fatigue of lounging; not a boatman or
cricketer who strayed into Aristotle in the intervals of Perspiration.

His public running since he left Harrow was as follows: the prize poem in
his fourth term; the sculls in his sixth; the Ireland scholarship in his
eighth (he pulled second for it the year before); Stroke of the Exeter in
his tenth; and reckoned sure of a first class to consummate his twofold
career.

To this young Apollo, crowned with variegated laurel, Edward looked up
from a distance. The brilliant creature never bestowed a word on him by
land; and by water only such observations as the following: "Time, Six!"
"Well pulled, Six!" "Very well pulled, Six!" Except, by-the-bye, one
race; when he swore at him like a trooper for not being quicker at
starting. The excitement of nearly being bumped by Brasenose in the first
hundred yards was an excuse. However, Hardie apologised as they were
dressing in the barge after the race; but the apology was so stiff, it
did not pave the way to an acquaintance.

Young Hardie, rising twenty-one, thought nothing human worthy of
reverence, but Intellect. Invited to dinner, on the same day, with the
Emperor of Russia, and with Voltaire, and with meek St. John, he would
certainly have told the coachman to put him down at Voltaire.

His quick eye detected Edward's character; but was not attracted by it:
says he to one of his adherents, "What a good-natured spoon that Dodd is;
Phoebus, what a name!" Edward, on the other hand, praised this brilliant
in all his letters, and recorded his triumphs and such of his witty
sayings as leaked through his own set, to reinvigorate mankind. This
roused Julia's ire. It smouldered through three letters; but burst out
when there was no letter; but Mrs. Dodd, meaning, Heaven knows, no harm,
happened to say meekly, _a propos_ of Edward, "You know, love, we cannot
all be young Hardies." "No, and thank Heaven," said Julia defiantly.
"Yes, mamma," she continued, in answer to Mrs. Dodd's eyebrow, which had
curved; "your mild glance reads my soul; I detest that boy." Mrs. Dodd
smiled: "Are you sure you know what the word 'detest' means? And what has
young Mr. Hardie done, that you should bestow so violent a sentiment on
him?"

"Mamma, I am Edward's sister," was the tragic reply; then, kicking off
the buskin pretty nimbly, "There! he beats our boy at everything, and
ours sits quietly down and admires him for it: oh! how can a man let
anybody or anything beat him! I wouldn't; without a desperate struggle."
She clenched her white teeth and imagined the struggle. To be sure, she
owned she had never seen this Mr. Hardie; but after all it was only Jane
Hardie's brother, as Edward was hers; "And would I sit down and let Jane
beat me at Things? Never! never! never! I couldn't."

"Your friend to the death, dear; was not that your expression?"

"Oh, that was a slip of the tongue, dear mamma; I was off my guard. I
generally am, by the way. But now I am on it, and propose an amendment.
Now I second it. Now I carry it."

"And now let me hear it."

"She is my friend till death--or Eclipse; and that means until she
eclipses me, of course." But she added softly, and with sudden gravity:
"Ah! Jane Hardie has a fault which will always prevent her from eclipsing
your humble servant in this wicked world."

"What is that?"

"She is too good. Much."

"Par exemple?"

"Too religious."

"Oh, that is another matter."

"For shame, mamma! I am glad to hear it: for I scorn a life of frivolity;
but then, again, I should not like to give up everything, you know." Mrs.
Dodd looked a little staggered, too, at so vast a scheme of capitulation
But "everything" was soon explained to mean balls, concerts,
dinner-parties in general, tea-parties without exposition of Scripture,
races, and operas, cards, charades, and whatever else amuses society
without perceptibly sanctifying it. All these, by Julia's account, Miss
Hardie had renounced, and was now denouncing (with the young the latter
verb treads on the very heels of the former). "And, you know, she is a
district visitor."

This climax delivered, Julia stopped short, and awaited the result.

Mrs. Dodd heard it all with quiet disapproval and cool incredulity. She
had seen so many young ladies healed of many young enthusiasms by a
wedding ring. But, while she was searching diligently in her mine of
ladylike English--mine with plenty of water in it, begging her
pardon--for expressions to convey inoffensively, and roundabout, her
conviction that Miss Hardie was a little, furious simpleton, the post
came and swept the subject away in a moment.

Two letters; one from Calcutta, one from Oxford.

They came quietly in upon one salver, and were opened and read with
pleasurable interest, but without surprise, or misgiving; and without the
slightest foretaste of their grave amid singular consequences.

Rivers deep and broad start from such little springs.

David's letter was of unusual length for him. The main topics were,
first, the date and manner of his return home. His ship, a very old one,
had been condemned in port: and he was to sail a fine new teak-built
vessel, the _Agra,_ as far as the Cape; where her captain, just recovered
from a severe illness, would come on board, and convey her and him to
England. In future, Dodd was to command one of the Company's large
steamers to Alexandria and back.

"It is rather a come-down for a sailor, to go straight ahead like a
wheelbarrow in all weathers with a steam-pot and a crew of coalheavers
But then I shall not be parted from my sweetheart such long dreary spells
as I have been thus twenty years, my dear love: so is it for me to
complain?"

The second topic was pecuniary; the transfer of their savings from India,
where interest was higher than at home, but the capital not so secure.

And the third was ardent and tender expressions of affection for the wife
and children he adored. These effusions of the heart had no separate
place, except in my somewhat arbitrary analysis of the honest sailor's
letter; they were the under current. Mrs. Dodd read part of it out to
Julia; in fact all but the money matter: that concerned the heads of the
family more immediately; and Cash was a topic her daughter did not
understand, nor care about. And when Mrs. Dodd had read it with
glistening eyes, she kissed it tenderly, and read it all over again to
herself, and then put it into her bosom as naively as a milkmaid in love.

Edward's letter was short enough, and Mrs. Dodd allowed Julia to read it
to her, which she did with panting breath, and glowing cheeks, and a
running fire of comments.

"'Dear Mamma, I hope you and Ju are quite well----'"

"Ju," murmured Mrs. Dodd plaintively.

"'And that there is good news about papa coming home. As for me, I have
plenty on my hands just now; all this term I have been ('training'
scratched out, and another word put in: C -- R -- oh, I know)
'cramming.'"

"'Cramming,' love?"

"Yes, that is the Oxfordish for studying."

"'--For smalls.'"

Mrs. Dodd contrived to sigh interrogatively. Julia, who understood her
every accent, reminded her that "smalls" was the new word for "little
go."

"'--Cramming for smalls; and now I am in two races at Henley, and that
rather puts the snaffie on reading and gooseberry pie' (Goodness me),
'and adds to my chance of being ploughed for smalls.'"

"What does it all mean?" inquired mamma, "'gooseberry pie'? and 'the
snaffle'? and 'ploughed' ?"

"Well, the gooseberry pie is really too deep for me: but 'ploughed' is
the new Oxfordish for 'plucked.' O mamma, have you forgotten that?
'Plucked' was vulgar, so now they are 'ploughed.' 'For smalls; but I hope
I shall not be, to vex you and Puss.'"

"Heaven forbid he should be so disgraced! But what has the cat to do with
it?"

"Nothing on earth. Puss? that is me. How dare he? Did I not forbid all
these nicknames and all this Oxfordish, by proclamation, last Long."

"Last Long?"

"Hem! last protracted vacation."

"'--Dear mamma, sometimes I cannot help being down in the mouth,' (why,
it is a string of pearls) 'to think you have not got a son like Hardie.'"
At this unfortunate reflection it was Julia's turn to suffer. She
deposited the letter in her lap, and fired up. "Now, have not I cause to
hate, and scorn, and despise le petit Hardie?"

"Julia!"

"I mean to dislike with propriety, and gently to abominate-- Mr. Hardie,
junior."

"'--Dear mamma, do come to Henley on the tenth, you and Ju. The
university eights will not be there, but the head boats of the Oxford and
Cambridge river will; and the Oxford head boat is Exeter, you know; and I
pull Six.'"

"Then I am truly sorry to hear it; my poor boy will overtask his
strength; and how unfair of the other young gentlemen; it seems
ungenerous; unreasonable; my poor child against so many."

"'--And I am entered for the sculls as well, and if you and "the
Impetuosity"' (Vengeance!) 'were looking on from the bank, I do think I
should be lucky this time. Henley is a long way from Barkington, but it
is a pretty place; all the ladies admire it, and like to see both the
universities out and a stunning race.' Oh, well, there _is_ an epithet.
One would think thunder was going to race lightning, instead of Oxford
Cambridge."

"'--If you can come, please write, and I will get you nice lodgings; I
will not let you go to a noisy inn. Love to Julia and no end of kisses to
my pretty mamma. --From your affectionate Son,