Chambers's journal of popular literature, science, and art, fifth series, no. 119, vol. III, April 4, 1886

moment she saw Marian, she stepped up to her very impulsively, and held
out both her hands, and kissed the poor young bride on either cheek
with genuine tenderness. ‘My dear,’ she said, with a motherly tremor in
her kind old voice, ‘you must forgive me for making myself quite at
home with you at once, and not standing upon ceremony in any way; but I
knew your mother years ago—she was just like you then—and I know what
a lonely thing it is for a newly married girl to come out to a country
like this, quite away from her own people; and I shall be so glad if
you’ll take Sir Adalbert and me just as we are. We’re homely people,
and we don’t live far away from you; and if you’ll run round and see me
any time you feel lonely or are in want of anything, why, you know, of
course, my dear, we shall be delighted to see you.’

And then, before Marian could wipe away the tears that rose quickly
to her eyes, fat little Lady Modyford had gone off into reminiscences
of Singapore and Bombay, and that dear Mrs Ord, and the baby that
died—‘Your sister, you know, my dear—the one that was born at Calcutta,
and died soon after your dear mamma reached England.—No, of course, my
dear; your mamma couldn’t know that I was here, because, you see, when
she and I came home together—why, that was twenty-two years ago—no,
twenty-four, I declare, because Sir Adalbert—he was plain Mr Modyford
then, on three hundred a year, in the Straits Settlements colonial
service—didn’t propose to me till the next summer, when he came home
on leave, you know, just before he was removed to Hong-kong by that
horrid Lord Modbury, who was Colonial Secretary in those days, and
afterwards died of suppressed gout, the doctors said, at his own villa
at that delightful Spezzia. So you see I was Kitty Fitzroy at that
time, my child; and I daresay your mamma, who’s older than me a good
bit, of course, never heard about my marrying Sir Adalbert, for we were
married very quietly down in Devonshire, where Sir Adalbert’s father
was a rector in a very small parish, on a tiny income; and we started
at once for Hong-kong, and spent our honeymoon at Venice—a nasty, damp,
uncomfortable place for a wedding tour, I call it, but not nearly
so bad as you coming out here straight from the church door almost,
Miss Dupuy told me; and Trinidad too, well known to be an unsociable,
dead-alive sort of an island. But whenever you like, dear, you must
just jump on your horse—you’ve got horses, of course?—yes, I thought
so—and ride over to Government House, and have a good chat with me and
Emily; for, indeed, Mrs Hawthorn—what’s your Christian name?—Marian—ah,
very pretty—we should like to see you as often as you choose; and next
week, after you’ve settled down a little, you must really come up and
stop some time with us; for I assure you I have quite taken a fancy
to you, my dear; and Sir Adalbert, when he saw Mr Hawthorn the other
day, at the Island Secretary’s office, came home quite delighted, and
said to me: “Kitty, the young man they’ve sent out for the new District
judge is the very man to keep that something old fool Dupuy in order in
future.”’

Lady Modyford waited a good deal longer than is usual with a first
call, and got very friendly indeed with poor Marian before the end
of her visit; for coarse-grained woman of the world as she was, her
heart warmed not a little towards the friendless young bride who had
come out to Trinidad—dull hole, Trinidad, not at all like Singapore,
or Mauritius, or Cape Town—to find herself so utterly deserted by
all society. And next day, all female Trinidad was talking, over
five-o’-clock tea, about the remarkable fact, learnt indirectly through
those unrecognised purveyors of fashionable intelligence, the servants,
that that horrid proud Lady Modyford—‘who treats you and me, my dear,
as if we were the dirt beneath her feet, don’t you know, and must call
with two footmen and so much grandeur and formality’—had actually
kissed that brown man’s wife, that’s to be the new District judge in
Westmoreland, on both cheeks, the very first moment she saw her. Female
Trinidad was so inexpressibly shocked at this disgraceful behaviour in
a person officially charged with the maintenance of a high standard
of decorum, that it was really half inclined to think it ought to cut
Lady Modyford direct on next meeting her. It was restrained from this
extreme measure, however, by a wholesome consideration of the fact
that Lady Modyford would undoubtedly take the rebuff with unruffled
amusement; so it contented itself by merely showing a little coldness
to the governor’s wife when it happened to meet her, and refusing to
enter into conversation with her on the subject of Marian and Edward
Hawthorn.

As for Marian herself, she had a good cry, as soon as Lady Modyford
was gone, over this interview also. Kind as the governor’s wife had
wished to show herself, and genuinely sympathetic as she had actually
been, Marian couldn’t help recognising that there was a certain
profound undercurrent of degradation in having to accept the ready
sympathy of such a woman at all on such a matter. Anywhere else, Marian
would have felt that Lady Modyford, motherly as she was, stood just a
grade or two by nature below her; in fact, she felt so there too; but
still, she was compelled by circumstances to take the good fat body’s
consolation and condolence as a sort of favour; while anywhere else
she would rather have repelled it as a disagreeable impertinence, or
at least as a distasteful interference with her own individuality. It
was impossible not to be dimly conscious that coming to Trinidad had
made a real difference in her own social position. At home, she had no
need for anybody’s condescension or anybody’s affability; here, she
was forced to recognise the fact that even Lady Modyford was making
generous concessions on purpose in her favour. It was galling, but
it was inevitable. There is nothing more painful to persons who have
always mixed in society on terms of perfect and undoubted equality,
than thus to put themselves into false positions, where it is possible
for equals, or even for natural inferiors, to seem to patronise them.

Nevertheless, that evening, Marian said to Edward very firmly: ‘Edward,
you must make up your mind to stop in Trinidad. I shall never feel so
much confidence again in your real courage if you turn and run from
Nora’s father. Besides, now Lady Modyford has called, and Nora has been
here, I daresay we shall get a little society of our own—people who
know too much about the outer world to be wholly governed by the fads
and fancies of Trinidad planters.’

And Edward answered in a somewhat faltering voice: ‘Very well, my
darling. One’s duty lies that way, I know; and if you’re strong enough
to stand up and face it, why, I must try to face it also.’

And they did face it, with less difficulty even than they at first
imagined. Presently, Mrs Castello came to call, the wife of the
governor’s aide-de-camp: a pretty, pleasant, sisterly little woman,
who struck up a mutual attachment with Marian almost at first sight,
and often dropped in to see them afterwards. Then one or two others
of the English officials brought their wives; and before long, when
Marian went to stay at Government House, it was clear that in the
imported official society at anyrate the Hawthorns were to be at least
tolerated. Toleration is a miserable sort of standing for people to
submit to; but in the last resort, it is better than isolation. And
as time went on, the toleration grew into friendliness and intimacy
in many quarters, though never among the native planter aristocracy.
Those noble people, intensely proud of their pure white blood, held
themselves entirely aloof with profound dignity. ‘Poor souls!’ Sir
Adalbert Modyford said contemptuously to Captain Castello, ‘they forget
how little it is to be proud of, and that every small street arab in
London could consider himself a gentleman in Trinidad on the very
self-same grounds of birth as they do.’




CONSCIENTIOUS MONEY-SPENDING.


‘Never treat money affairs with levity—money is character.’ It is
to be feared that many neglect this wise caution, and do not put
conscience into the spending of their money, whatever they may do as
regards the making of it. Rich people think that it is good for trade
to be free-handed with wealth, and do not always distinguish between
productive and unproductive expenditure. They are frequently guilty
of demoralising the poorer classes by careless almsgiving and the bad
example of their thoughtless money-spending.

Of course, so far as they are influenced by religious considerations,
the rich recognise the truth that all their possessions are held in
trust, and only lent to them by a superior Power for the service of
their fellow-beings. But the rich have difficulties as well as the
poor, and one of these lies in determining how to distribute their
expenditure in a way that shall prove beneficial to society. The
question, ‘To whom or to what cause shall I contribute money?’ must
be a very anxious one to conscientious men of wealth. ‘How are we
to measure,’ we may suppose rich men to ask, ‘the relative utility
of charities? And then political economists are down upon us if, by
mistake, we help those who might have helped themselves. It is easy to
talk against our extravagance; tell us rather how to spend our money
advantageously—that is to say, for the greatest good of the greatest
number.’ The fact is, riches must now be considered by all good men
as a distinct profession, with responsibilities no less onerous than
those of other professions. And this very difficult profession of
wealth ought to be learned by studying social science and otherwise
with as much care as the professions of divinity, law, and medicine
are learned. When in this way the rich accept and prepare themselves
for the duties of their high calling, it will cease to be a cause of
complaint that, in the nature of things, money tends to fall into the
hands of a few large capitalists.

Nor is the money-spending of the poor less careless than that of the
rich. During the time of high wages, labouring people buy salmon and
green peas when they are barely in season; and Professor Leone Levi
computes that their annual drink-bill amounts to thirty-six millions.
That is exactly the sum which the working-classes spend in rent; so,
although better houses are the strongest and most imperative demands
for the working-classes, those classes are spending, on the lowest
estimate, a sum equal to what they are spending on rent.

Some two years ago, an eminent London physician went into Hyde Park and
sat down upon a bench, and there sat down by him a pauper eighty years
of age. The physician entered into conversation with him, and asked him
what his trade was. The man said he was a carpenter.

‘A very good trade indeed. Well, how is it that you come at this time
of life to be a pauper? Have you been addicted to drink?’

‘Not at all; I have only taken my three pints a day—never spent more
than sixpence daily.’

The physician, taking out a pencil and a piece of paper, asked: ‘How
long have you continued this practice of drinking three pints of ale a
day?’

‘I am now eighty, and I have continued that practice, more or less, for
sixty years.’

‘Very well,’ continued the physician, ‘I will just do the sum.’ He
found that sixpence a day laid by for sixty years amounted, with
compound interest, to three thousand two hundred and twenty-six pounds;
and he said to the old carpenter: ‘My good man, instead of being a
pauper, you might have been the possessor of three thousand two hundred
and twenty-six pounds at this moment; in other words, you might have
had one hundred and fifty pounds a year, or some three pounds a week,
not by working an hour longer or doing anything differently, except by
putting by the money that you have been spending day by day these sixty
years on ale.’ The physician’s conclusion, however, should perhaps be
modified by the consideration that if this man had ceased spending
sixpence on beer, he might have required to spend a portion of that
sixpence on an increased supply of food. But notwithstanding this, the
physician’s argument is in the main a sound one.

It is not ‘ologies’ that the working-classes require to be taught
so much, as the right use of money and the good things that can be
purchased with it. It often astonishes the rich to see the wasteful
expenditure of the poor; but an explanation will be found in the
caution which Dr Johnson gives to men who fancy that poor girls must
necessarily make the most economical wives. ‘A woman of fortune,’ he
says, ‘being used to the handling of money, spends it judiciously;
but a woman who gets the command of money for the first time upon her
marriage, has such a gust in spending, that she throws it away with
great profusion.’ That was excellent advice also which Dr Johnson
gave to Boswell, when the latter inherited his paternal estates. ‘You,
dear sir, have now a new station, and have therefore new cares and
new employments. Life, as Cowley seems to say, ought to resemble a
well-ordered poem; of which one rule generally received is, that the
exordium should be simple and should promise little. Begin your new
course of life with the least show and the least expense possible; you
may at pleasure increase both, but you cannot easily diminish them.
Do not think your estate your own while any man can call upon you for
money which you cannot pay; therefore begin with timorous parsimony.
Let it be your first care not to be in any man’s debt.’

People beginning to keep house should be careful not to pitch their
scale of expenditure higher than they can hope to continue it, and they
should remember that, as Lord Bacon said, ‘it is less dishonourable to
abridge petty charges than to stoop to petty gettings.’

What an admirable manager of money was Mrs Carlyle! ‘There was,’ writes
Mr Froude, ‘a discussion some years ago in the newspapers whether two
people with the habits of a lady and a gentleman could live together
in London on three hundred pounds a year. Mrs Carlyle, who often
laughed about it while it was going on, will answer the question. No
one who visited the Carlyles could tell whether they were poor or rich.
There were no signs of extravagance, but also none of poverty. The
drawing-room arrangements were exceptionally elegant. The furniture
was simple, but solid and handsome; everything was scrupulously clean;
everything good of its kind; and there was an air of ease, as of a
household living within its means. Mrs Carlyle was well dressed always.
Her admirable taste would make the most of inexpensive materials;
but the materials themselves were of the very best. Carlyle himself
generally kept a horse. They travelled, they visited, they were always
generous and open-handed.’ All this was done on an income of not quite
four hundred pounds. Of course Carlyle, as well as his wife, was imbued
with Scotch thrift, showing itself in hatred of waste. If he saw a
crust of bread on the roadway, he would stop to pick it up, and put it
on a step or a railing. ‘Some poor creature might be glad of it, or at
worst a dog or a sparrow. To destroy wholesome food is a sin.’

The thrifty wife of Benjamin Franklin felt it a gala day indeed when,
by long accumulated small savings, she was able to surprise her husband
one morning with a china cup and a silver spoon from which to take
his breakfast. Franklin was shocked. ‘You see how luxury creeps into
families in spite of principles,’ he said. When his meal was over, he
went to the store and rolled home a wheelbarrow full of papers through
the streets with his own hands, lest folk should get wind of the china
cup and say he was above his business.

It is a great blessing to have been trained hardily. Those who have few
wants are rich. Hundreds of middle-class people are heavily handicapped
in the race of life because they find it hard to do without luxuries
which they can ill afford to buy, but which they would never have
missed if they had not been accustomed to them in childhood. This
must become every year more apparent, because the classes that have
hitherto had the monopoly of education have now to compete with the
working-classes trained to privation for generations.

But although the creeping-in of luxury should be guarded against at
the commencement of married life, people should learn how to grow rich
gracefully. It is no part of wisdom to depreciate the little elegances
and social enjoyment of our homes. These things refine manners and
enlarge the heart. A gentleman told Dr Johnson that he had bought a
suit of lace for his wife. The Doctor said: ‘Well, sir, you have done
a good thing and a wise thing.’ ‘I have done a good thing,’ said the
gentleman; ‘but I do not know that I have done a wise thing.’ ‘Yes,
sir,’ continued the Doctor; ‘no money is better spent than what is
laid out for domestic satisfaction. A man is pleased that his wife is
dressed as well as other people; and a wife is pleased that she is so
dressed.’

We should be particular about money, but not penurious. The mistress
of a well-ordered house takes broad and liberal views of things, and
while cutting her coat according to her cloth, and as much as possible
shielding her husband from the constant demand for money, which few
masculine tempers can stand, she refrains from the wearying, petty
economies which often enough are not worth the trouble and discomfort
they entail. Economy is altogether different from penuriousness; for it
is economy that can always best afford to be generous. Those who are
careless about personal expenditure are often driven in the end to do
very shabby things. Burns tells us that, ‘for the glorious privilege
of being independent,’ we should ‘gather gear by every wile that’s
justified by honour.’

‘Do not accustom yourself,’ said Dr Johnson, ‘to consider debt only
as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity.’ Only the other
day the writer was speaking to an officer in the army who was so far
from considering the debt which he owed to his tailor as either an
inconvenience or a calamity, that he seemed to be quite proud of it.
‘My tailor,’ said he, ‘never duns me for the money. When I have a pound
or two which I don’t want, I send it to him, just as other people put
it in a bank.’ It was no use telling him that five or ten per cent. on
the amount of his bill was being charged every year, and that on a day
when he least expected it, payment would be demanded. Had this officer
never heard of the General Order which was issued by Sir Charles
Napier, in taking leave of his command in India? Sir Charles strongly
urged in that famous document that ‘honesty is inseparable from the
character of a thorough-bred gentleman;’ and that ‘to drink unpaid-for
champagne and unpaid-for beer, and to ride unpaid-for horses, is to be
a cheat, and not a gentleman.’

Men who lived beyond their means might be officers by virtue of their
commissions, but they were not gentlemen. The habit of being constantly
in debt, the general held, made men grow callous to the proper feelings
of a gentleman. It was not enough that an officer should be able to
fight; that, any bulldog could do. But did he hold his word inviolate?
Did he pay his debts? He should be as ready to utter his valiant
‘No,’ or ‘I can’t afford it,’ to the invitations of pleasure and
self-enjoyment, as to mount a breach amidst belching fire and the iron
hail of machine-guns.

The Duke of Wellington kept an accurate detailed account of all the
moneys received and expended by him. ‘I make a point,’ said he, ‘of
paying my own bills, and I advise every one to do the same. Formerly,
I used to trust a confidential servant to pay them; but I was cured
of that folly by receiving one morning, to my great surprise, duns of
a year or two’s standing. The fellow had speculated with my money and
left my bills unpaid.’ Talking of debt, his remark was: ‘It makes a