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A Tract on Monetary Reform 2nd ed. Edition Keynes
Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Keynes, John Maynard
ISBN(s): 9781139520638, 1139520636
Edition: 2nd ed.
File Details: PDF, 9.33 MB
Year: 2012
Language: english
 the collected writings of
J O H N M AY NA R D K E Y N E S
Managing Editors:
Professor Austin Robinson and Professor Donald Moggridge

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) was without doubt one of the most influ-
ential thinkers of the twentieth century. His work revolutionised the theory
and practice of modern economics. It has had a profound impact on the
way economics is taught and written, and on economic policy, around the
world. The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, published in full in
electronic and paperback format for the first time, makes available in thirty
volumes all of Keynes’s published books and articles. This includes writings
from his time in the India Office and Treasury, correspondence in which he
developed his ideas in discussion with fellow economists and correspondence
relating to public affairs. Arguments about Keynes’s work have continued
long beyond his lifetime, but his ideas remain central to any understanding of
modern economics, and a point of departure from which each new generation
of economists draws inspiration.

Once the urgent problems of reparations, which had deeply troubled Keynes
at the Peace Conference at Versailles, were on their way towards solution,
Keynes turned to the equally grave problems of the currencies of Europe
and their adjustment to the post-war world. These issues had been discussed
in the series of Reconstruction Supplements of the Manchester Guardian
Commercial that he had edited during 1922. In the Tract Keynes drew heavily
on his own contributions to that series. This edition makes available the varia-
tions between the texts. The Tract remains of interest in three respects. First,
it shows the state of Keynes’s thinking about monetary problems and the
causes of inflation in the early 1920s. Second, it provides one of the clear-
est expositions ever written of the determination of forward exchange rates.
Third, it shows Keynes already favouring flexible exchange rates as a means
of allowing independence in national economic policy.

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 THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF
JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES

VO LUM E I V

A TRACT ON MONETARY
REFORM

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

for the
ROYAL ECONOMIC SOCIETY

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 © The Royal Economic Society 1971, 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication

may be reproduced or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, without permission

First edition 1923

Reprinted 1924, 1929, 1932
Second edition 1971
Reprinted 1989

This edition published 2013

Published for the Royal Economic Society

throughout the world by
cambridge university press
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town,
Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, UK

Published in the United States of America by

Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107610309

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.

Printed and bound in the United Kingdom

by the MPG Books Group

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

isbn 978-1-107-61030-9 Paperback

30-volume set isbn 978-1-107-67772-2

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 CONTENTS
General Introduction page vii

Note to the reader xii

Preface xiv

Preface to the French Edition xvi

1 THE CONSEQUENCES TO SOCIETY OF CHANGES

IN THE VALUE OF MONEY I

2 PUBLIC FINANCE AND CHANGES IN

THE VALUE OF MONEY 37

3 THE THEORY OF MONEY AND THE EXCHANGES 6l

4 ALTERNATIVE AIMS IN MONETARY POLICY Il6

5 POSITIVE SUGGESTIONS FOR THE FUTURE
REGULATION OF MONEY 141

Appendix I 161
Appendix II 164
Appendix HI 170

Index 171

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 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
This new standard edition of The Collected Writings of John
Maynard Keynes forms the memorial to him of the Royal Eco-
nomic Society. He devoted a very large share of his busy life to
the Society. In 1911, at the age of twenty-eight, he became editor
of the Economic Journal in succession to Edgeworth; two years
later he was made secretary as well. He held these offices without
intermittence until almost the end of his life. Edgeworth, it is
true, returned to help him with the editorship from 1919 to 1925;
Macgregor took Edgeworth's place until 1934, when Austin
Robinson succeeded him and continued to assist Keynes down to
1945. But through all these years Keynes himself carried the
major responsibility and made the principal decisions about the
articles that were to appear in the Economic Journal, without any
break save for one or two issues when he was seriously ill in 1937.
It was only a few months before his death at Easter 1946 that
he was elected president and handed over his editorship to Roy
Harrod and the secretaryship to Austin Robinson.
In his dual capacity of editor and secretary Keynes played a
major part in framing the policies of the Royal Economic
Society. It was very largely due to him that some of the major
publishing activities of the Society—Sraffa's edition of Ricardo,
Stark's edition of the economic writings of Bentham, and
Guillebaud's edition of Marshall, as well as a number of earlier
publications in the 1930s—were initiated.
When Keynes died in 1946 it was natural that the Royal
Economic Society should wish to commemorate him. It was
perhaps equally natural that the Society chose to commemorate
him by producing an edition of his collected works. Keynes
himself had always taken a joy in fine printing, and the Society,
with the help of Messrs Macmillan as publishers and the Cam-
bridge University Press as printers, has been anxious to give
vii

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 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Keynes's writings a permanent form that is wholly worthy
of him.
The present edition will publish as much as is possible of his
work in the field of economics. It will not include any private
and personal correspondence or publish letters in the possession
of his family. The edition is concerned, that is to say, with
Keynes as an economist.
Keynes's writings fall into five broad categories. First there
are the books which he wrote and published as books. Second
there are collections of articles and pamphlets which he himself
made during his lifetime (Essays in Persuasion and Essays in
Biography). Third, there is a very considerable volume of
published but uncollected writings—articles written for news-
papers, letters to newspapers, articles in journals that have not
been included in his two volumes of collections, and various
pamphlets. Fourth, there are a few hitherto unpublished
writings. Fifth, there is correspondence with economists and
concerned with economics of public affairs.
This series will attempt to publish a complete record of
Keynes's serious writing as an economist. It is the intention to
publish almost completely the whole of the first four categories
listed above. The only exceptions are a few syndicated articles
where Keynes wrote almost the same material for publication in
different newspapers or in different countries, with minor and
unimportant variations. In these cases, this series will publish
one only of the variations, choosing the most interesting.
The publication of Keynes's economic correspondence must
inevitably be selective. In the day of the typewriter and the filing
cabinet and particularly in the case of so active and busy a man, to
publish every scrap of paper that he may have dictated about some
unimportant or ephemeral matter is impossible. We are aiming to
collect and publish as much as possible, however, ofthe correspond-
ence in which Keynes developed his own ideas in argument with his
fellow economists, as well as the more significant correspondence
at times when Keynes was in the middle of public affairs.
viii

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 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Apart from his published books, the main sources available to
those preparing this series have been two. First, Keynes in his
will made Richard Kahn his executor and responsible for his
economic papers. They have been placed in the Marshall Library
of the University of Cambridge and have been available for this
edition. Until 1914 Keynes did not have a secretary and his
earliest papers are in the main limited to drafts of important
letters that he made in his own handwriting and retained. At
that stage most of the correspondence that we possess is repre-
sented by what he received rather than by what he wrote. During
the war years of 1914-18 Keynes was serving in the Treasury.
With the recent opening of Public Records under a thirty year
rule, many of the papers that he wrote then and in later years
have become available. From 1919 onwards, throughout the
rest of his life, Keynes had the help of a secretary—for many
years Mrs Stevens. Thus for the last twenty-five years of his
working life we have in most cases the carbon copies of his
own letters as well as the originals of the letters that he received.
There were, of course, occasions during this period on which
Keynes wrote himself in his own handwriting. In some of
these cases, with the help of his correspondents, we have been
able to collect the whole of both sides of some important inter-
change and we have been anxious, in justice to both correspon-
dents, to see that both sides of the correspondence are published
in full.
The second main source of information has been a group of
scrapbooks kept over a very long period of years by Keynes's
mother, Florence Keynes, wife of Neville Keynes. From 1919
onwards these scrapbooks contain almost the whole of Maynard
Keynes's more ephemeral writing, his letters to newspapers and
a great deal of material which enables one to see not only what he
wrote, but the reaction of others to his writing. Without these
very carefully kept scrapbooks the task of the editor or bio-
grapher of Keynes would have been immensely more difficult.
The plan of the edition, as at present intended, is this. It
ix

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an involuntary cry of surprise and alarm. “I am afraid this is very serious,”
he cried.
“Not so serious as it soon will be if we stand havering,” cried the doctor.
“Get something, a mattress, to put her on. Man, look alive. There’s a cottage
close by. Ye’ll get something if ye stir them up. Fly there, and I’ll stay with
them to give them a heart.”
“Oh, doctor, you’re very kind—we’ve perhaps not been such good
friends to ye as we might——”
“Friends, toots!” said the doctor, “we’re all friends at heart.”
Meantime the stir of an accident had got into the air. Miss Beenie’s cries
had no doubt reached some rustic ears; but it takes a long time to rouse
attention in those regions.
“What will yon be? It would be somebody crying. It sounded awfu’ like
somebody crying. It will be some tramp about the roads; it will be
somebody frighted at the muckle bull——” Then at last there came into all
minds the leisurely impulse—“Goodsake, gang to the door and see——”
Janet Murray was the first to run out to her door. When her intelligence
was at length awakened to the fact that something had happened, nobody
could be more kind. She rushed out and ran against Fred Dirom, who was
hurrying towards the cottage with a startled face.
“Can you get me a mattress or something to carry her upon?” he cried,
breathless.
“Is it an accident?” said Janet.
“It is a fit. I think she is dying,” cried the young man much excited.
Janet flew back and pulled the mattress off her own bed. “It’s no a very
soft one,” she said apologetically. Her man had come out of the byre, where
he was ministering to a sick cow, an invalid of vast importance whom he
left reluctantly; another man developed somehow out of the fields from
nowhere in particular, and they all hurried towards the spot where Miss
Beenie sat on the ground, without a thought of her best gown, holding her
sister’s head on her breast, and letting tears fall over the crushed bonnet
which the doctor had loosened, and which was dropping off the old gray
head.
“Oh, Sarah, can ye hear me? Oh, Sarah, do you know me? I’m your poor
sister Beenie. Oh if ye could try to rouse yourself up to say a word. There
was never anything you couldna do if ye would only try.”
“She’ll not try this time,” said the doctor. “You must not blame her.
There’s one who has her in his grips that will not hear reason; but we’ll
hope she’ll mend; and in the meantime you must not think she can help it,
or that she’s to blame.”
“To blame!” cried Beenie, with that acute cry. “I am silly many a time;
but she is never to blame.” In sight of the motionless figure which lay in her
arms, Miss Beenie’s thoughts already began to take that tinge of
enthusiastic loyalty with which we contemplate the dead.
“Here they come, God be thanked!” said the doctor. And by and by a
little procession made its way between the fields. Miss Dempster, as if lying
in state on the mattress, Beenie beside her crying and mourning. She had
followed at first, but then it came into her simple mind with a shiver that
this was like following the funeral, and she had roused herself and taken her
place a little in advance. It was a sad little procession, and when it reached
the village street, all the women came out to their doors to ask what was the
matter, and to shake their heads, and wonder at the sight.
The village jumped to the fatal conclusion with that desire to heighten
every event which is common to all communities: and the news ran over the
parish like lightning.
“Miss Dempster, Rosebank, has had a stroke. She has never spoken
since. She is just dead to this world, and little likelihood she will ever come
back at her age.” That was the first report; but before evening it had risen to
the distinct information—“Miss Dempster, Rosebank, is dead!”
Fred Dirom had been on his way to Gilston, when he was stopped and
ordered into the service of the sick woman. He answered to the call with the
readiness of a kind heart, and was not only the most active and careful
executor of the doctor’s orders, but remained after the patient was conveyed
home, to be ready, he said, to run for anything that was wanted, to do
anything that might be necessary—nay, after all was done that could be
done, to comfort Miss Beenie, who almost shed her tears upon the young
man’s shoulder.
“Eh,” she said, “there’s the doctor we have aye thought so rough, and not
a gentleman—and there’s you, young Mr. Dirom, that Sarah was not
satisfied with for Effie; and you’ve just been like two ministering angels
sent out to minister to them that are in sore trouble. Oh, but I wonder if she
will ever be able to thank you herself.”
“Not that any thanks are wanted,” cried Fred cheerfully; “but of course
she will, much more than we deserve.”
“You’ve just been as kind as—I cannot find any word to say for it, both
the doctor and you.”
“He is a capital fellow, Miss Dempster.”
“Oh, do not call me Miss Dempster—not such a thing, not such a thing!
I’m Miss Beenie. The Lord preserve me from ever being called Miss
Dempster,” she cried, with a movement of terror. But Fred neither laughed
at her nor her words. He was very respectful of her, full of pity and almost
tenderness, not thinking of how much advantage to himself this adventure
was to prove. It ran over the whole countryside next day, and gained “that
young Dirom” many a friend.
And Effie, to whom the fall of Miss Dempster was like the fall of one of
the familiar hills, and who only discovered how much she loved those
oldest of friends after she began to feel as if she must lose them—Effie
showed her sense of his good behaviour in the most entrancing way, putting
off the shy and frightened aspect with which she had staved off all
discussion of matters more important, and beginning to treat him with a
timid kindness and respect which bewildered the young man. Perhaps he
would rather even now have had something warmer and less (so to speak)
accidental: but he was a wise young man, and contented himself with what
he could get.
Effie now became capable of “hearing reason,” as Mrs. Ogilvie said. She
no longer ran away from any suggestion of the natural end of all such
engagements. She suffered it to be concluded that her marriage should take
place at Christmas, and gave at last a passive consent to all the
arrangements made for her. She even submitted to her stepmother’s
suggestions about the trousseau, and suffered various dresses to be chosen,
and boundless orders for linen to be given. That she should have a fit
providing and go out of her father’s house as it became a bride to do, with
dozens of every possible undergarments, and an inexhaustible supply of
handkerchiefs and collars, was the ambition of Mrs. Ogilvie’s heart.
She said herself that Miss Dempster’s “stroke,” from which the old lady
recovered slowly, was “just a providence.” It brought Effie to her senses, it
made her see the real qualities of the young man whom she had not prized
at his true value, and whose superiority as the best match in the countryside,
she could not even now be made to see. Effie yielded, not because he was
the best match, but because he had shown so kind a heart, and all the
preparations went merrily forward, and the list of the marriage guests was
made out and everything got ready.
But yet for all that, there was full time for that slip between the cup and
the lip which so often comes in, contrary to the dearest expectations, in
human affairs.
 CHAPTER XVII.
The slip between the cup and the lip came in two ways. The first was the
arrival from India—in advance of Eric who was to get the short leave which
his stepmother thought such a piece of extravagance, in order to be present
at the marriage of his only sister—of Ronald Sutherland, in order to take
possession of the inheritance which had fallen to him on the death of his
uncle.
It was not a very great inheritance—an old house with an old tower, the
old “peel” of the Border, attached to it; a few farms, a little money, the
succession of a family sufficiently well known in the countryside, but which
had never been one of the great families. It was not much certainly. It was
no more to be compared with the possessions in fact and expectation of
Fred Dirom than twilight is with day; but still it made a great difference.
Ronald Sutherland of the 111th, serving in India with nothing at all but
his pay, and Ronald Sutherland of Haythorn with a commission in her
Majesty’s service, were two very different persons. Mrs. Ogilvie allowed
that had old David Hay been so sensible as to die three years previously, she
would not have been so absolutely determined that Ronald’s suit should be
kept secret from Effie; but all that was over, and there was no use thinking
of it. It had been done “for the best”—and what it had produced was
unquestionably the best.
If it had so happened that Effie had never got another “offer,” then
indeed there might have been something to regret; but as, on the contrary,
she had secured the best match in the county, her stepmother still saw no
reason for anything but satisfaction in her own diplomacy. It had been done
for the best; and it had succeeded, which is by no means invariably the case.
But Mrs. Ogilvie allowed that she was a little anxious about Ronald’s
first appearance at Gilston. It was inevitable that he should come; for all the
early years of his life Gilston had been a second home to him. He had been
in and out like one of the children of the house. Mrs. Ogilvie declared she
had always said that where there were girls this was a most imprudent
thing: but she allowed at the same time that it is difficult to anticipate the
moment when a girl will become marriageable, and had better be kept out
of knowing and sight of the ineligible, so long as that girl is a child.
Consequently, she did not blame her predecessor, Effie’s mother, for
permitting an intimacy which at six was innocent enough, though it became
dangerous at sixteen.
“Even me,” she said candidly, “I cannot throw my mind so far forward
as to see any risks that little Annabella Johnston can run in seeing Rory
every day—though sixteen years hence it will be different; for Rory, to be
sure, will never be an eligible young man as long as his step-brother Eric is
to the fore—and God forbid that anything should happen to Eric,” she
added piously.
On this ground, and also because Ronald had the latest news to give of
Eric, it was impossible to shut him out of Gilston, though Mrs. Ogilvie
could not but feel that it was very bad taste of him to appear with these
troubled and melancholy airs, and to look at Effie as he did. It was not that
he made any attempt to interfere with the settlement of affairs. He made the
proper congratulations though in a very stiff and formal way, and said he
hoped that they would be happy. But there was an air about him which was
very likely to make an impression on a silly, romantic girl.
He was handsomer than Fred Dirom—he was bronzed with Indian suns,
which gave him a manly look. He had seen a little service, he was taller
than Fred, stronger, with all those qualities which women specially esteem.
And he looked at Effie when she was not observing—oh, but Mrs. Ogilvie
said: “It is not an easy thing to tell when a girl is not observing!—for all
that kind of thing they are always quick enough.”
And as a matter of fact, Effie observed keenly, and most keenly, perhaps,
when she had the air of taking no notice. The first time this long, loosely
clothed, somewhat languid, although well-built and manly figure had come
in, Effie had felt by the sudden jump of her heart that it was no ordinary
visitor. He had been something like a second brother when he went away,
Eric’s invariable companion, another Eric with hardly any individual claim
of his own: but everything now was very different. She said to herself that
this jump of her heart which had surprised her so much, had come when she
heard his step drawing near the door, so that it must be surely his
connection with Eric and not anything in himself that had done it; but this
was a poor and unsatisfactory explanation.
 After that first visit in which he had hoped that Miss Effie would be very
happy, and said everything that was proper, Effie knew almost as well as if
she had been informed from the first, all that had passed: his eyes conveyed
to her an amount of information which he was little aware of. She
recognized with many tremors and a strange force of divination, not only
that there had been things said and steps taken before his departure of which
she had never been told, but also, as well as if it had been put into words,
that he had come home, happy in the thought of the fortune which now
would make him more acceptable in the eyes of the father and stepmother,
building all manner of castles in the air; and that all these fairy fabrics had
fallen with a crash, and he had awakened painfully from his dream to hear
of her engagement, and that a few weeks more would see her Fred Dirom’s
wife.
The looks he cast at her, the looks which he averted, the thrill
imperceptible to the others which went over him when he took her hand at
coming and going, were all eloquent to Effie. All that she had felt for Fred
Dirom at the moment when the genuine emotion in him had touched her to
the warmest sympathy, was nothing like that which penetrated her heart at
Ronald’s hasty, self-restrained, and, as far as he was aware, self-concealing
glance.
In a moment the girl perceived, with a mingled thrill of painful pleasure
and anguish, what might have been. It was one of those sudden perceptions
which light up the whole moral landscape in a moment, as a sudden flash of
lightning reveals the hidden expanse of storm and sea.
Such intimations are most often given when they are ineffectual—not
when they might guide the mind to a choice which would secure its
happiness, but after all such possibilities are over and that happy choice can
never be made. When he had gone away Effie slid out of sight too, and
sought the shelter of her room, that little sanctuary which had hid so many
agitations within the last few weeks, but none so tremendous as this. The
discovery seemed to stun her. She could only sit still and look at it, her
bosom heaving, her heart beating loudly, painfully like a funeral toll against
her breast.
So, she said to herself, that might have been; and this was. No, she did
not say it to herself: such discoveries are not made by any rational and
independent action of mind. It was put before her by that visionary second
which is always with us in all our mental operations, the spectator, “qui me
resemblait comme mon frère,” whom the poet saw in every crisis of his
career. That spiritual spectator who is so seldom a counsellor, whose office
is to show the might-have-beens of life and to confound the helpless,
unwarned sufferer with the sight of his mistakes when they are past, set this
swiftly and silently before her with the force of a conviction. This might
have been the real hero, this was the true companion, the mate congenial,
the one in the world for Effie. But in the moment of beholding she knew
that it was never to be.
And this was not her fault—which made it the more confusing, the more
miserable. When it is ourselves who have made the mistake that spoils our
lives, we have, at least, had something for it, the gratification of having had
our own way, the pleasure of going wrong. But Effie had not even secured
this pleasure. She would be the sufferer for other people’s miscalculations
and mistakes. All this that concerned her so deeply she had never known.
She faced the future with all the more dismay that it thus appeared to her to
be spoiled for no end, destroyed at once for herself and Ronald and Fred.
For what advantage could it be to Fred to have a wife who felt that he was
not her chief good, that her happiness was with another? Something doubly
poignant was in the feeling with which the poor girl perceived this.
Fred even, poor Fred, whom she approved and liked and sympathized
with and did all but love—Fred would be none the better. He would be
wronged even in having his heart’s desire conceded to him, whereas—it all
came before Effie with another flash of realization—Fred would never have
thought of her in that way had she been pledged to Ronald. They would
have been friends—oh! such good friends. She would have been able to
appreciate all his good qualities, the excellence that was in him, and no
close and inappropriate relationship could have been formed between the
two who were not made for each other.
But now all was wrong! It was Fred and she, who might have been such
excellent friends, who were destined to work through life together, badly
matched, not right, not right, whatever might happen. If trouble came she
would not know how to comfort him, as she would have known how to
comfort Ronald. She would not know how to help him. How was it she had
not thought of that before? They belonged to different worlds, not to the
same world as she and Ronald did, and when the first superficial charm was
over, and different habits, different associations, life, which was altogether
pitched upon a different key, began to tell!
Alarm seized upon Effie, and dismay. She had been frightened before at
the setting up of a new life which she felt no wish for, no impulse to
embrace; but she had not thought how different was the life of Allonby
from that of Gilston, and her modest notions of rustic gentility from the
luxury and show to which the rich man’s son had been accustomed. Doris
and Phyllis and their ways of thought, and their habits of existence, came
before her in a moment as part of the strange shifting panorama which
encompassed her about. How was she to get to think as they did, to
accustom herself to their ways of living? She had wondered and smiled, and
in her heart unconsciously criticised these ways: but that was Fred’s way as
well as theirs. And how was she with her country prejudices, her Scotch
education, her limitations, her different standard, how was she to fit into it?
But with Ronald she would have dwelt among her own people—oh, the
different life! Oh, the things that might have been!
Poor Ronald went his way sadly from the same meeting with a
consciousness that was sharp and confusing and terrible. After the first
miserable shock of disappointment which he had felt on hearing of Effie’s
engagement, he had conversed much with himself. He had said to himself
that she was little more than a child when he had set his boyish heart upon
her, that since then a long time had passed, momentous years: that he had
changed in many ways, and that she too must have changed—that the mere
fact of her engagement must have made a great difference—that she had
bound herself to another kind of existence, not anything he knew, and that it
was not possible that the betrothed of another man could be any longer the
little Effie of his dreams.
But he had looked at her, and he had felt that he was mistaken. She was
his Effie, not that other man’s: there was nothing changed in her, only
perfected and made more sweet. Very few were the words that passed
between them—few looks even, for they were afraid to look at each other—
but even that unnatural reluctance said more than words. He it was who was
her mate, not the stranger, the Englishman, the millionaire, whose ways and
the ways of his people were not as her ways.
And yet it was too late! He could neither say anything nor do anything to
show to Effie that she had made a mistake, that it was he, Ronald, whom
Heaven had intended for her. The young man, we may be sure, saw nothing
ludicrous in this conviction that was in his mind; but he could not plead it.
He went home to the old-fashioned homely house, which he said to himself
no wife of his should ever make bright, in which he would settle down, no
doubt, like his old uncle, and grow into an old misanthrope, a crotchety
original, as his predecessor had done. Poor old uncle David! what was it
that had made him so? perhaps a fatal mistake, occurring somehow by no
fault of his—perhaps a little Effie, thrown away upon a stranger, too—
“What made you ask him to his dinner, though I made you signs to the
contrary?” said Mrs. Ogilvie to her husband, as soon as, each in a different
direction, the two young people had disappeared. “You might have seen I
was not wanting him to his dinner; but when was there ever a man that
could tell the meaning of a look? I might have spared my pains.”
“And why should he not be asked to his dinner?” said Mr. Ogilvie. “You
go beyond my understanding. Ronald Sutherland, a lad that I have known
since he was that high, and his father and his grandfather before him. I
think the woman is going out of her wits. Because you’re marrying Effie to
one of those rich upstarts, am I never to ask a decent lad here?”
“You and your decent lads!” said his wife; she was at the end of her
Latin, as the French say, and of her patience too. “Just listen to me, Robert,”
she added, with that calm of exasperation which is sometimes so
impressive. “I’m marrying Effie, since you like to put it that way (and it’s a
great deal more than any of her relations would have had the sense to do),
to the best match on all this side of Scotland. I’m not saying this county;
there’s nobody in the county that is in any way on the same footing as Fred.
There is rank, to be sure, but as for money he could buy them all up, and
settlements just such as were never heard of. Well, that’s what I’m doing, if
you give me the credit of it. But there’s just one little hindrance, and that’s
Ronald Sutherland. If he’s to come here on the ground of your knowing him
since he was that high, and being Eric’s friend—that’s to say, like a son of
the house—I have just this to say, Robert, that I will not answer for Effie,
and this great match may not take place after all.”
“What do you mean, you daft woman? Do you mean to tell me there has
been any carrying on, any correspondence——”
“Have some respect to your own child, Robert, if not to your wife. Am I
a woman to allow any carrying on? And Effie, to do her justice, though she
has very little sense in some respects, is not a creature of that kind; and
mind, she never heard a word of yon old story. No, no, it’s not that. But it’s
a great deal worse—it’s just this, that there’s an old kindness, and they
know each other far better than either Effie or you or me knows Fred
Dirom. They are the same kind of person, and they have things to talk about
if once they begin. And, in short, I cannot tell you all my drithers—but I’m
very clear on this. If you want that marriage to come off, which is the best
match that’s been made in Dumfriess-shire for generations, just you keep
Ronald Sutherland at arm’s length, and take care you don’t ask him here to
his dinner every second day.”
“I am not so fond of having strangers to their dinner,” said Mr. Ogilvie,
with great truth. “It’s very rarely that the invitation comes from me. And as
for your prudence and your wisdom and your grand managing, it might
perhaps be just as well, on the whole, for Effie if she had two strings to her
bow.”
Mrs. Ogilvie uttered a suppressed shriek in her astonishment. “For any
sake! what, in the name of all that’s wonderful, are you meaning now?”
“You give me no credit for ever meaning anything, or taking the least
interest, so far as I can see, in what’s happening in my own family,” said the
head of the house, standing on his dignity.
“Oh, Robert, man! didn’t I send the young man to you, and would not
listen to him myself! I said her father is the right person: and so you were,
and very well you managed it, as you always do when you will take the
trouble. But what is this about a second string to her bow?”
Mr. Ogilvie se faisait prier. He would not at first relinquish the pride of
superior knowledge. At last, when his wife had been tantalized sufficiently,
he opened his budget.
“The truth is, that things, very queer things, are said in London about
Dirom’s house. There is a kind of a hint in the money article of the Times.
You would not look at that, even if we got the Times. I saw it yesterday in
Dumfries. They say ‘a great firm that has gone largely into mines of late’—
and something about Basinghall Street, and a hope that their information
may not be correct, and that sort of thing—which means more even than it
says.”
“Lord preserve us!” said Mrs. Ogilvie. She sat down, in her
consternation, upon Rory’s favourite toy lamb, which uttered the squeak
peculiar to such pieces of mechanism. Probably this helped to increase her
annoyance. She seized it with impatient warmth and flung it on the floor.
“The horrible little beast!—But, Robert, this may be just a rumour. There
are plenty of firms that do business in mines, and as for Basinghall Street,
it’s just a street of offices. My own uncle had a place of business there.”
“You’ll see I’m right for all that,” said her husband, piqued to have his
information doubted.
“Well, I’ll see it when I do see it; but I have just the most perfect
confidence—What is this, George? Is there no answer? Well, you need not
wait.”
“I was to wait, mem,” said George, “to let the cook ken if there was
nobody expected to their dinner; for in that case, mem, there was yon birds
that was quite good, that could keep to another day.”
“Cook’s just very impatient to send me such a message. Oh, well, you
may tell her that there will be nobody to dinner. Mr. Dirom has to go to
London in a hurry,” she said, half for the servant and half for her husband.
She turned a glance full of alarm, yet defiance, upon the latter as old George
trotted away.
“Well, what do you say to that?” cried Mr. Ogilvie, with a mixture of
satisfaction and vexation.
“I just say what I said before—that I’ve perfect confidence.” But
nevertheless a cloud hung all the rest of the day upon Mrs. Ogilvie’s brow.
 CHAPTER XVIII.
Two or three days had passed after Fred’s departure, when Mrs. Ogilvie
stated her intention of going to Allonby to call upon his mother.
“You have not been there for a long time, Effie. You have just contented
yourself with Fred—which is natural enough, I say nothing against that—
and left the sisters alone who have always been so kind to you. It was
perhaps not to be wondered at, but still I would not have done it. If they
were not just very good-natured and ready to make the best of everything,
they might think you were neglecting them, now that you have got Fred.”
As was natural, Effie was much injured and offended by this suggestion.
“I have never neglected them,” she said. “I never went but when they
asked me, and they have not asked me for a long time. It is their fault.”
“Well,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, “it is winter weather, and there is nothing
going on. Your tennis and all that is stopped, and yet there’s no frost for
skating. But whether they have asked you or not, just put on your new frock
and come over with me. They are perhaps in some trouble, for anything we
can tell.”
“In trouble? How could they be in trouble?”
“Do you think, you silly thing, that they are free of trouble because
they’re so well off? No, no; there are plenty of things to vex you in this
world, however rich you may be: though you are dressed in silks and satins
and eat off silver plate, and have all the delicacies of the season upon your
table, like daily bread, you will find that you have troubles with it, all the
same, just like ordinary folk.”
Effie thought truly that she had no need of being taught that lesson. She
knew far better than her stepmother what trouble was. She was going to
marry Fred Dirom, and yet if her heart had its way! And she could not
blame anybody, not even herself, for the position in which she was. It had
come about—she could not tell how or why.
But she could not associate Phyllis and Doris with anything that could be
called trouble. Neither was her mind at all awake or impressionable on this
subject. To lose money was to her the least of all inconveniences, a thing
not to be counted as trouble at all. She had never known anything about
money, neither the pleasure of possession nor the vexation of losing it. Her
indifference was that of entire ignorance; it seemed to her a poor thing to
distress one’s self about.
She put on her new frock, however, as she was commanded, to pay the
visit, and drove to Allonby with her stepmother, much as she had driven on
that momentous day when for the first time she had seen them all, and when
Mrs. Ogilvie had carried on a monologue, just as she was doing now,
though not precisely to the same effect and under circumstances so
changed. Effie then had been excited about the sisters and a little curious
about the brother, amused and pleased with the new acquaintances to be
made, and the novelty of the proceeding altogether. Now there was no
longer any novelty. She was on the eve of becoming a member of the
family, and it was with a very different degree of seriousness and interest
that she contemplated them and their ways. But still Mrs. Ogilvie was full
of speculation.
“I wonder,” she said, “if they will say anything about what is going on?
You have had no right explanation, so far as I am aware, of Fred’s hurrying
away like yon; I think he should have given you more explanation. And I
wonder if they will say anything about that report—And, Effie, I wonder
——” It appeared to Effie as they drove along that all that had passed in the
meantime was a dream, and that Mrs. Ogilvie was wondering again as when
they had first approached the unknown household upon that fateful day.
Doris and Phyllis were seated in a room with which neither Effie nor her
stepmother were familiar, and which was not dark, and bore but few marks
of the amendments and re-arrangements which occupied the family so
largely on their first arrival at Allonby. Perhaps their interest had flagged in
the embellishment of the old house, which was no longer a stranger to
them; or perhaps the claims of comfort were paramount in November. There
was still a little afternoon sunshine coming in to help the comfortable fire
which blazed so cheerfully, and Lady Allonby’s old sofas and easy chairs
were very snug in the warm atmosphere.
The young ladies were, as was usual to them, doing nothing in particular,
and they were very glad to welcome visitors, any visitor, to break the
monotony of the afternoon. There was not the slightest diminution visible of
their friendship for Effie, which is a thing that sometimes happens when the
sister’s friend becomes the fiancée of the brother. They fell upon her with
open arms.
“Why, it is Effie! How nice of you to come just when we wanted you,”
they cried, making very little count of Mrs. Ogilvie. Mothers and
stepmothers were of the opposite faction, and Doris and Phyllis did not
pretend to take any interest in them. “Mother will be here presently,” they
said to her, and no more. But Effie they led to a sofa and surrounded with
attentions.
“We have not seen you for an age. You are going to say it is our fault, but
it is not our fault. You have Fred constantly at Gilston, and you did not want
us there too. No, three of one family would be insufferable; you couldn’t
have wanted us; and what was the use of asking you to come here, when
Fred was always with you at your own house? Now that he is away we were
wondering would you come—I said yes, I felt sure you would; but Doris
——”
“Doris is never so confident as her sister,” said that young lady, “and
when a friendship that has begun between girls runs into a love affair, one
never can know.”
“It was not any doing of mine that it ran into—anything,” said Effie,
indignant. “I liked you the——” She was going to say the best, which was
not civil certainly to the absent Fred, and would not have been true. But
partly prudence restrained her, and partly Phyllis, who gave her at that
moment a sudden kiss, and declared that she had always said that Effie was
a dear.
“And no doubt you have heard from your brother,” said Mrs. Ogilvie,
who was not to be silenced, “and has he got his business done? I hope
everything is satisfactory, and nothing to make your good father and mother
anxious. These kind of cares do not tell upon the young, but when people
are getting up in years it’s then that business really troubles them. We have
been thinking a great deal of your worthy father—Mr. Ogilvie and me. I
hope he is seeing his way——”
The young ladies stared at her for a moment, in the intervals of various
remarks to Effie; and then Doris said, with a little evident effort, as of one
who wanted to be civil, yet not to conceal that she was bored: “Oh, you
mean about the firm? Of course we are interested; it would make such a
change, you know. I have taken all my measures, however, and I feel sure I
shall be the greatest success.”
“I was speaking of real serious business, Miss Doris. Perhaps I was just a
fool for my pains, for they would not put the like of that before you. No, no,
I am aware it was just very silly of me; but since it has been settled between
Effie and Mr. Fred, I take a great interest. I am one that takes a great deal of
thought, more than I get any thanks for, of all my friends.”
“I should not like to trouble about all my friends, for then one would
never be out of it,” said Doris, calmly. “Of course, however, you must be
anxious about Fred. There is less harm, though, with him than with most
young men; for you know if the worst comes to the worst he has got a
profession. I cannot say that I have a profession, but still it comes almost to
the same thing; for I have quite made up my mind what to do. It is a pity,
Effie,” she said, turning to the audience she preferred, “if the Great Smash
is going to come that it should not come before you are married; for then I
could dress you, which would be good for both of us—an advantage to your
appearance, and a capital advertisement for me.”
“That is all very well for her,” said Miss Phyllis, plaintively. “She talks
at her ease about the Great Smash; but I should have nothing to do except to
marry somebody, which would be no joke at all for me.”
“The Great Smash,” repeated Mrs. Ogilvie, aghast. All the colour had
gone out of her face. She turned from one to the other with dismay. “Then
am I to understand that it has come to that?” she cried, with despair in her
looks. “Oh! Effie, Effie, do you hear them? The Great Smash!”
“Who said that?” said another voice—a soft voice grown harsh, sweet
bells jangled out of tune. There had been a little nervous movement of the
handle of the door some moments before, and now Mrs. Dirom came in
quickly, as if she had been listening to what was said, and was too much
excited and distracted to remember that it was evident that she had been
listening. She came in in much haste and with a heated air.
“If you credit these silly girls you will believe anything. What do they
know? A Great Smash—!” Her voice trembled as she said the words. “It’s
ridiculous, and it’s vulgar too. I wonder where they learned such words. I
would not repeat them if I could help it—if it was not necessary to make
you understand. There will be no Smash, Mrs. Ogilvie, neither great nor
small. Do you know what you are talking of? The great house of the
Diroms, which is as sure as the Bank of England? It is their joke, it is the
way they talk; nothing is sacred for them. They don’t know what the credit
of a great firm means. There is no more danger of our firm—no more
danger—than there is of the Bank of England.”
The poor lady was so much disturbed that her voice, and, indeed, her
whole person, which was substantial, trembled. She dropped suddenly on a
chair, and taking up one of the Japanese fans which were everywhere about,
fanned herself violently, though it was late November, and the day was
cold.
“Dear me,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, “I am sorry if I have put you about; I had
no thought that it was serious at all. I just asked the question for
conversation’s sake. I never could have supposed for a moment that the
great house, as you say, of Dirom and Co. could ever take it in a serious
light.”
Upon this poor Mrs. Dirom put down her fan, and laughed somewhat
loudly—a laugh that was harsh and strained, and in which no confidence
was.
“That is quite true,” she said, “Mrs. Ogilvie. You are full of sense, as I
have always said. It is only a thing to laugh at. Their papa would be very
much amused if he were to hear. But it makes me angry when I have no
occasion to be angry, for it is so silly. If it was said by other people I should
take it with a smile; but to hear my own children talking such nonsense, it is
this that makes me angry. If it was anyone else I shouldn’t mind.”
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Ogilvie, “I understand that; for if other people make
fools of themselves it is of no particular consequence; but when it’s your
own it’s a different matter. But Miss Doris, I suppose, has just taken a
notion into her head, and she does not care what it costs to carry it out.
Effie, now, really we must go. It is getting quite dark, the days are so short.
No, I thank you, we’ll not take any tea; for Mr. Ogilvie has taken a habit of
coming in for his cup of tea, and he just cannot bear us to be away. When a
man takes a notion of that kind, the ladies of his family just have to give in
to it. Good-bye, young ladies, good-bye. But I hope you’ll not be
disappointed to find that there’s no Great Smash coming; for I don’t think
that I should relish it at all if it was me.”
They had a silent drive home. Effie had so many thoughts at that
moment that she was always glad, when she could, to return into them. She
thought no more of the Great Smash than of any other of the nonsensical
utterances which it might have pleased Doris to make. Indeed, the Great
Smash, even if it had been certain, would not have affected her mind much,
so entirely unconscious was she what its meaning might be. She retired into
her own thoughts, which were many, without having received any
impression from this new subject.
But it vaguely surprised her that her stepmother should be so silent. She
was so accustomed to that lively monologue which served as a background
to all manner of thoughts, that Effie was more or less disturbed by its
failure, without knowing why. Mrs. Ogilvie scarcely said a word all the way
home. It was incredible, but it was true. Her friends would scarcely have
believed it—they would have perceived that matters must have been very
serious indeed, before she could be reduced to such silence. But Effie was
heedless, and did not ask herself what the reason was.
This was the evening that Ronald had been invited “to his dinner,” an
invitation which had called forth a protest from Mrs. Ogilvie; but,
notwithstanding, she was very kind to Ronald. It was Effie, not she, who
kept him at a distance, who avoided any conversation except the vaguest,
and, indeed, sat almost silent all the evening, as if her lover being absent
she had no attention to bestow upon another. That was not the real state of
Effie’s mind; but a delicate instinct drew her away, and gave her a refuge in
the silence which looked like indifference.
Mrs. Ogilvie, however, showed no indifference to Ronald. She
questioned him about his house, and with all the freedom which old family
connection permitted, about the fortune which he had “come into,” about
what he meant to do, and many other subjects. Ronald gave her, with much
gravity, the information she asked. He told her no—that he did not mean to
remain—that he was going back to his regiment. Why should he stay, there
was nothing for him to do at Haythorne?
“Hoot,” Mrs. Ogilvie said, “there is always this to do, that you must
marry and settle; that is the right thing for a young man. To be sure, when
there is no place to take a wife home to, but just to follow the regiment,
that’s very different; for parents that are in their senses would never let a
girl do that. But when you have the house first, then the wife must follow. It
is just the right order of things.”
 “For some men,” said Ronald, “but not for me; it is either too early, or,
perhaps, too late.”
“Oh, too late! a lad like you to speak such nonsense!—and there’s never
any saying what may happen,” the lady said. This strange speech made two
hearts beat: Ronald’s with great surprise, and devouring curiosity. Had he
perhaps been premature in thinking that all was settled—was it a mistake?
But oh, no, he remembered that he had made his congratulations, and they
had been received; that Eric was coming back to the marriage; that already
the wedding guests were being invited, and all was in train. Effie’s heart
beat too, where she sat silent at a distance, close to the lamp, on pretence of
needing light for her work; but it was with a muffled, melancholy
movement, no sign of hope or possibility in it, only the stir of regret and
trouble over what might have been.
“Are you going to write letters, at this time of night?” said Mr. Ogilvie,
as he came back from the door, after seeing Ronald away.
“Just one, Robert; I cannot bear this suspense if the rest of you can. I am
going to write to my cousin John, who is a business man, and has his office,
as his father had before him, in Basinghall Street in London city. I am going
to ask him a question or two.”
“If I were you,” said Mr. Ogilvie, with some energy, “I would neither
make nor meddle in other folk’s affairs.”
“What do you call other folk’s affairs? It is my own folk’s affairs. If
there ever was a thing that was our business and not another’s, it’s this. Do
you think I would ever permit—and there is very little time to be lost. I
wonder I never thought of John before—he is just the person to let me
know.”
Mr. Ogilvie put his hands behind his back, and walked up and down the
room in great perturbation.
“I cannot see my way to making that kind of inquiry. It might do harm,
and I don’t see what good it can do. It might set people thinking. It might
bring on just what we’re wanting to avoid.”
“I am wanting to know, that is all,” said Mrs. Ogilvie. “As for setting
people thinking, that’s done as you’re aware. And if it’s done down here,
what must it be in the city? But I must be at the bottom of it, whether it’s
false, or whether it’s true.”
 Mr. Ogilvie was not accustomed to such energy. He said, “Tchk, tchk,
tchk,” as people do so often in perplexity: and then he caught sight of his
daughter, holding Rory’s little stocking in the lamplight, and knitting with
nervous fingers. It was a good opportunity for getting rid of the irritation
which any new thing raised in him.
“Surely,” he said, with an air of virtuous indignation, “it is high time that
Effie, at least, should be in her bed!”
 CHAPTER XIX.
“Yes, Ronald, my man. It was a great peety,” Miss Dempster said.
She was lying on a sofa in the little drawing-room, between the fireplace
and the window, where she could both feel and see the fire, and yet
command a glimpse of the village and Dr. Jardine’s house. She could still
see the window to which the doctor came defiantly when he took his mid-
morning refreshment, to let the ladies at Rosebank see that he was not
afraid of them.
The relations between the doctor and the ladies had modified a little, but
still that little conflict went on. He did not any longer nod at them with the
“Here’s to you!” of his old fury at what he thought their constant espionage,
but he still flaunted his dram before their eyes, and still they made mental
notes on the subject, and Miss Beenie shook her head. She did not say,
“There’s that abominable man with his dram again. I am sure I cannot think
how respectable people can put up with that smell of whisky. Did you say
sherry? Well, sherry is very near as bad taken at all hours.”
What Miss Beenie said now was: “I wish the doctor would take a cup of
tea or even a little broth instead of that wine. No doubt he wants support
with all he has to do; but the other would be far better for him.”
This will show how the relations had improved. He had brought Miss
Dempster “through.” Instead of her bedroom at the back of the house,
which allowed of little diversion, she had got so far as to be removed to the
drawing-room, and lie on the sofa for the greater part of the day. It was a
great improvement, and people who knew no better believed that the old
lady was getting better. Miss Beenie was warmly of this opinion; she held it
with such heat indeed that she might have been supposed to be not so
certain as she said.
But Miss Dempster and the doctor knew better. The old lady was more
than ever distressed that Providence had not taken better care of the affairs
of Effie Ogilvie. It was this she was saying to Ronald, as he sat beside her.
He had come over with some birds and a great bunch of hothouse grapes.
He was, as the reader may remember, a connection—even, Miss Beenie
said, a near connection: and the ladies had been good to him in his early
youth.
“Yes, it was a great peety,” Miss Dempster said. “I am not grudging your
uncle Dauvid a day of his life, honest man—but the three last months is
never much of a boon, as I know by myself. It would have done him no
harm, and you a great deal of good. But there’s just a kind of a blundering
in these things that is very hard to understand.”
“The chances are it would have made no difference,” said the young
man, “so there is nothing to be said.”
“It would have made a great difference; but we’ll say nothing, all the
same. And so you’re asked to the wedding? Well, that woman is not blate.
She’s interfered with the course of nature and thinks no shame: but perhaps
she will get her punishment sooner than she’s looking for. They tell me,”
said the old lady, “that the Diroms have had losses, and that probably they
will have to leave Allonby, and come down in their grand way of living. I
will say that of Janet Ogilvie that she has a great spirit; she’ll set her face
like a rock. The wedding will be just as grand and as much fuss made, and
nobody will hear a word from her; she is a woman that can keep her own
counsel. But she’ll be gnashing her teeth all the same. She will just be in
despair that she cannot get out of it. Oh, I know her well! If it had been
three months off instead of three weeks, she would have shaken him off. I
have always said Effie’s heart was not in it; but however her heart had been
in it, her stepmother would have had her way.”
“We must be charitable, we must think ill of nobody,” said Miss Beenie.
“I’m too thankful, for my part, to say an ill word, now you’re getting well
again.”
“She might have done all that and done nothing wrong,” said Miss
Dempster sharply. And then Ronald rose to go away; he had no desire to
hear such possibilities discussed. If it had not been for Eric’s expected
arrival he would have gone away before now. It was nothing but misery, he
said to himself, to see Effie, and to think that had he been three months
sooner, as his old friends said!
But no, he would not believe that; it was injurious to Effie to think that
the first who appeared was her choice. He grew red and hot with generous
shame and contempt of himself when he thought that this was what he was
attributing to one so spotless and so true. The fact that she had consented to
marry Fred Dirom, was not that enough to prove his merit, to prove that she
would never have regarded any other? What did it not say for a man, the
fact that he had been chosen by Effie? It was the finest proof that he was
everything a man could be.
Ronald had never seen this happy hero. No doubt there had been
surgings of heart against him, and fits of sorrowful fury when he first knew;
but the idea that he was Effie’s choice silenced the young man. He himself
could have nothing to do with that, he had not even the right to complain.
He had to stand aside and see it accomplished. All that the old lady said
about the chances of the three months too late was folly. It was one of the
strange ways of women that they should think so. It was a wrong to Effie,
who not by any guidance of chance, not because (oh horror!) this Dirom
fellow was the first to ask her, for nothing but pure love and preference (of
which no man was worthy) had chosen him from the world.
Ronald, thinking these thoughts, which were not cheerful, walked down
the slope between the laurel hedges with steps much slower and less
decided than his ordinary manly tread. He was a very different type of
humanity from Fred Dirom—not nearly so clever, be it said, knowing not
half so much, handsomer, taller, and stronger, without any subtlety about
him or power of divination, seeing very clearly what was before him with a
pair of keen and clear blue eyes, straightforward as an arrow; but with no
genius for complication nor much knowledge of the modifying effect of
circumstances. He liked or he did not like, he approved or he did not
approve: and all of these things strenuously, with the force of a nature
which was entirely honest, and knew no guile.
Such a man regards a decision as irrevocable, he understands no playing
with possibilities. It did not occur to him to make any effort to shake Effie’s
allegiance to her betrothed, or to trouble her with any disclosure of his own
sentiments. He accepted what was, with that belief in the certainty of events
which belongs to what is called the practical or positive nature in the new
jargon, to the simple and primitive mind, that is to say. Ronald, who was
himself as honest as the day, considered it the first principle in existence
that his fellow-creatures were honest too, that they meant what they said,
and when they had decided upon a course of action did not intend to be
turned from it, whatever it might cost to carry it out.
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