Although only twenty-four hours absent from Bissett, Frank Churchill during that short period had undergone more mental conflict than is often suffered by many men in a course of years. He had had full time for reflection, and had availed himself of it to the utmost. While within the charmed circle he was necessarily under fascination; but now, although the witch was any thing but exorcised, he felt sufficiently himself to collect his thoughts, and he saw the absolute necessity of coming to some fixed determination as to his future conduct before he returned. Often before had he had occasion to weigh matters almost as important as this, though of course of a different character; and he was not the man to blink one jot of the attendant difficulties, or to over-persuade himself as to the feasibility of his designs simply because he wished them carried out. He was in love with this girl, then; he supposed that must be granted? at all events, by analysis and comparison, that was easily ascertained. Though, as the world goes, his life had been tolerably pure, he had in his student-days, and in the time immediately subsequent, had hisamourettesand flirtations like the rest; but when he remembered what had been his feelings for Gretchen, the fat and fair daughter of Anton Schütz, the beery saddler; for Ernestine, the sentimental heiress of the Graf von Triebenfeld; for Eugénie and Olympe, vestals of the Quartier Latin; or for any of the half-hundred young ladies with whom during the earlier portion of his London career he had gone through the usual bouquet-sending, cotillon-dancing, Botanical-Fête-meeting flirtation,--he recognised at once that this was a very different matter. Breakers ahead and all round! As for Barbara, he felt conscious of no vanity in avowing to himself his perception of having excited her interest, but whether sufficiently to induce her to listen to an offer he could not imagine. Possibly, probably, she looked to making a brilliant marriage: her beauty and accomplishments were her capital, and should be turned to good purpose; and yet, as this idea passed through his mind, he had an instinctive feeling that Barbara's proud spirit would revolt from any such match, however much it might be pressed on her by her relations. Her relations! ay, even granting the girl's acquiescence,therewould be one of the grand sources of difficulty: old Miss Lexden, rich, selfish, and narrow-minded, would doubtless oppose such a marriage in every possible way; and how would Sir Marmaduke look upon him, having come an invited and a welcome guest, and then brought this discord into the family? And even suppose it arranged somehow, she consenting and her friends satisfied, what was to be done with his mother, with whom and in whose house he then resided? how and where was the rest of her life to be passed? He could not live far from the office, where, thrice a week always, and occasionally more frequently, he was engaged till past midnight; and how would the brilliant beauty of the West be able to exist in the dreary fastnesses of Great Adullam Street, or the arid desert of Tiglath-Pileser Square? And then the narrow income--competence for one, a bare sufficiency for two! His horse must be given up, but that he would not so much mind; his Club (the Retrenchment) must be kept on, for business purposes, though he should of course never spend any money there; and he must take to sixteen-shilling trousers, and that sort of thing; all easy enough. But for her?--no brougham (and fancy those tiny high-heeledbottinesover the villanous Mesopotamian pavement!), only an occasional Opera-box obtained from theStatesman(situation high, surroundings queer,claqueursandamis des artistes), two or three balls in the season, and perhaps one dinner-party at home, with the inevitable side-dishes and attendant carpet-beater. Ay, and worse beyond!--children born and reared in that dingy atmosphere, further expenditure to be met, perhaps sickness to be struggled through, and all the household gods dependent on him,--on the soundness of his health and the clearness of his brain, which failing, what had they to look to?Aïe de me!that last thought settled the question. Let it fade out, pleasant dream that it was; or rather let him crush it for ever! It was impossible, and so let it pass. Down go the Spanish castles, away melt the aerial estates; Duty's foot kicks away Alnaschar's basket, and there is the hard, dry, unsympathetic, work-a-day world before him! He will go back to Bissett, but only for a day, just to get his traps together and to make some plausible excuse, and then will start off. This first week of his holiday has been any thing but rest, and rest he requires. He will go to Scarborough--no! not there, for reasons; but to some watering-place, and pitch pebbles into the sea and lie fallow until he is compelled to return to work. Yes, that is the right course--he determines on it finally as the train nears the Brighton station; hopes must be crushed, and Duty must be obeyed. Duty has won the day for once--and where is the pearl-gray glove now? At his lips, of course! Frank Churchill has resolved upon doing his duty, and, like the drunkard in the old story, is "treating resolution."
Anxiety to test his newly-farmed determination must be strong, for he ordered the flyman to drive as hard as he could to Bissett; but, cooling a little, dismissed the man at the lodge-gates, and strolled through the avenue towards the house. The leaves yet held their own; scarcely the slightest autumnal tint had fallen on them; and the grand old avenue looked magnificent. The weather was splendid; the sun shone brightly, while the air was clear and bracing; deer bounded in the brushwood; and as Churchill stood rejoicing in the lovely view, a cart laden with game, and driven by little Joe Lubbock, the head-keeper's boy, emerged from the Home Copse, and made a pleasant feature in the landscape. All around told of wealth and peace and English comfort; and as Churchill surveyed the scene, he felt (as he had often felt) how great were the enjoyments of those born to such heritage, and (as he had never felt) how well-disposed he should be for the sake of those enjoyments to undertake the necessary responsibilities. His Radicalism was of the very mildest nature; the free and independent electors of Brighton or of Southwark would have scorned the feebleness of his ideas as to the requirements of the people; he had no wish to alter the laws of primogeniture, nor to see the furniture designed by Gillow or Holland emblazoned with the "swart mechanic's bloody thumbs;"--indeed, it must be confessed that he thought the "swart mechanic," when out of his place and wrong-headed through false leading, a very objectionable person. But he was in love, and wanted money and position to enable him to forward his suit; and as the thought of some who had both and did good with neither flitted across him, he stamped impatiently on the gravel, and the fair view and all the sweet excellence of nature faded out before his eyes.
He walked hurriedly on for a few paces, and then bethought him that somewhere close in the neighbourhood was the gate leading to the fir-plantation in which he had recently walked with Barbara on their return from the shooting-party. He had the whole afternoon to do nothing in, and it would be pleasant to renew the remembrance of that happy jesting talk. Memory, he thought rather bitterly, was a luxury which it did not require either rank or riches to enjoy. He struck across the dry crisp turf, and arrived at the gate; it opened on a short gravelled walk, with low palings on either side, terminating in a rustic stile, on the other side of which lay the fir-plantation. As Churchill entered the path he saw a figure seated on the stile at the other end, and in an instant knew it to be Barbara Lexden. Her head was bent, and she was leaning forward, idly tracing figures on the turf with the point of her parasol. Churchill advanced with a strange fluttering of his usually regular-beating heart; but she did not appear to hear his footstep until he was close behind her, when she suddenly turned round, and their eyes met. It was a trying time for both, but Barbara was the first to speak.
"So soon back, Mr. Churchill? We--that is, Sir Marmaduke was led to believe that you would not return until the end of the week."
"Fortunately, Miss Lexden, my business in town was soon finished" ("Question of settlement with the lawyer, or naming the day with the lady," thought Barbara), "and I got back as quickly as I could. How lovely this place looks! Perhaps it seems doubly beautiful after twenty-four hours in London; but it appears to me even fresher, calmer, and more peaceful than when I left it."
"That, I suspect, is your poetic imagination, Mr. Churchill. You were raising Dryden the other night, and can now quote him to your own purposes. You know he says:
'Winds murmured through the leaves his short delay,And fountains o'er their pebbles chid his stay;But, with his presence cheered, they cease to mourn,And walks seem fresher green at his return.'"
'Winds murmured through the leaves his short delay,And fountains o'er their pebbles chid his stay;But, with his presence cheered, they cease to mourn,And walks seem fresher green at his return.'"
"Aptly quoted, though the lines were addressed to a lady, and for 'his' read 'your.' I don't think that even the fountains in Trafalgar Square would be weak enough to 'chide my stay.' But, apropos of poetic imagination, I am afraid I disturbed you from some deep reverie."
"You never were more mistaken," said Barbara, with a short laugh. "I--I came out on a much more unromantic expedition. I lost a glove a day or two ago, and--and fancied I might have dropped it somewhere here."
"Is this it?" asked Churchill suddenly, taking from his pocket a morocco-leather case, and producing from it the much-prized pearl-gray.
"Yes," said Barbara, glancing quickly at him from under her drooping eyelids; "that is it. How very fortunate!"
"I picked it up," said Churchill, "as we returned from the shooting-party the other day, and intended restoring it sooner, but forgot it. I am glad to be able to do so now." He handed her the glove, looked her straight in the face, and walked on silently by her side.
"We have had a new arrival here since you left," said Barbara, after a pause, swinging the glove slowly to and fro; "a Mr. Beresford. You know him?"
"Beresford? Oh, of the Tin-Tax Office! I have met him."
"You are on intimate terms?"
"I--I have not that honour. Mr. Beresford moves in a different set to mine."
"That question of 'sets' seems to be one of paramount importance with you, Mr. Churchill. How frequently you harp upon it!"
"It is a question which we must necessarily bear in mind, Miss Lexden," said Churchill, with emphasis; then smiling, added,--"Suum cuique, which is Latin, and unintelligible; 'the cobbler and his last,' which is English and vernacular. But why did you ask?"
"Simply because he seems amusing, and likely to be popular here. I am sorry we shall not have the opportunity of profiting by his high spirits, as aunt and I will probably be leaving on Thursday."
One quick glance told her that this shot, if intended for mischief, had signally failed. With perfect calmness Churchill replied,
"And I also must manage to survive the loss of Mr. Beresford's conversation, as I go to-morrow."
"To-morrow!" exclaimed Barbara; then, in her ordinary tone, "Ah, to be sure, you have of course so much to do."
"Well," said Churchill, smiling, "for a month I hope to do little beyond mooning on the beach and throwing pebbles into the sea."
"Yes," said Barbara quickly; "that is, I believe, the usual thing under the circumstances. And the place? the Isle of Wight, or Devonshire, of course?"
"Under the circumstances!" he echoed. "I beg your pardon, Miss Lexden, but I fear we are at cross purposes. Under what circumstances?"
("He braves it out to the last," thought Barbara; "who would have thought that he could have stooped to a shuffle, or degrade the woman he was engaged to, by tacitly ignoring the fact?") Then she said, curling her lip, and tossing the glove with a lightly contemptuous gesture,
"Good news travels fast, Mr. Churchill. The fact of your forthcoming marriage is known at Bissett."
"Myforthcoming marriage? It's a joke, Miss Lexden?"
"We have heard it as a fact."
"Andyoubelieved it?" said Churchill, turning white, while his lip trembled visibly as he spoke.
"Why should I not?" After a pause, and in a low voice, "Then you are not going to be married?"
"Married, no! Miss Lexden, you must now listen patiently to what I should otherwise have kept secret, knowing the folly I have been guilty of. If ever I marry, Barbara Lexden will be my wife!"
She started, and seemed about to speak.
"One moment more," said he. "You know how completely I understand the difference in our position?" (An impatient gesture from Barbara.) "My sensitiveness, pride--call it what you will--would have kept me silent. Now I have spoken, and--Barbara--you must not keep me in suspense. Could it ever be possible?"
Perfectly colourless, she leant against the stile, but said nothing.
"Miss Lexden, youmustend this doubt."
Silently she placed the little glove in his hand.
"Barbara!myBarbara!" and she was folded to his heart.
The Tin-Tax Office, as I have before had occasion to remark, is situated in a wing of Rutland House; that noble building so well known to most Englishmen, whence are issued those concise documents relating to unpaid arrears of public imposts, and where the mulcting of the nation is carried on. The Tin-Tax is by no means a bad office, as times go; though it is rather looked down upon by the men in the Check and Counter-Check Department, and the Navigation Board, who have offices in the same building. It used to be a great point of humour with the wits of twenty years since to say that the appointments in the Tin-Tax Office were given to sons of the faithful butlers of patriotic peers, and to those eager constituents for whose placing-out in life the Members for Irish boroughs are always petitioning with energy and perseverance worthy of the horse-leech's daughters. And, indeed, the manners and customs of some of the middle-aged clerks bear testimony to the truth of this report. They were good enough fellows in their day--blundered on at their offices from ten till four; dined cheaply at Short's, or Berthollini's, or the Cock; went half-price to the Adelphi; occasionally supped at the Coal-Hole or the Cider Cellars; and went home to their garrets in Islington with the perfect idea that they were roystering dogs, and that the world did not contain many men who had drained pleasure's goblet more thoroughly to the dregs than themselves. Most of them married betimes--occasionally the landlady of their lodgings; more frequently the pallid daughter of some fellow-clerk, after a flirtation begun over a round game or "a little music;" most frequently some buxom lass met at seaside boarding-house, or in the old paternal home, where they spent their leave of absence. But we have changed all that; and junior clerks of the present day are thoroughly and entirely different from their predecessors: the establishment of the Civil-Service Commission, and the ordination of promotion by merit, have sent quite a different class of men into the public service, and the subordinate appointments of the Tin-Tax Office are held by men who have taken their degrees at Oxford; who can turn "Vilikins and his Dinah" into Greek iambics; who can tell you where Montenegro is, and what it wants; who have thoroughly mastered the Schleswig-Holstein question; who are well up in the theory of thermo-dynamics; and who dip into Jean Paul Richter for a little light reading;--all excellent accomplishments, and thoroughly useful in the Tin-Tax Office.
It is half-past twelve on a fine Saturday morning in the beginning of October, and the six occupants of room No. 120 are all assembled, and all at work; that is to say, four of them are writing, one is looking vacantly out of the window, and one is reading theTimes. No. 120 is at the top of the building; a pleasant room when you reach it, looking on to the river, but up four flights of steep stone stairs. No. 120 has always its regular number of occupants; for when the chief clerk learns that a young gentleman has an undue number of friends calling upon him during official hours, he causes the popular man to be removed to No. 120, and after two trials of the stairs the visitors prefer meeting their friend in the evening at some less Alpine retreat. So also, when a young gentleman is in the habit of being perpetually waited upon by duns, he makes interest to get moved into No. 120, and finds that his creditors simultaneously urge their demands not in person, but through the medium of the Post-Office. The head of the room is Mr. Kinchenton, that tall man with the rounded shoulders, and grizzled head ever bent over his desk. Hard work has bowed Mr. Kinchenton's back and silvered his hair; for he has been in the Tin-Tax Office since he was sixteen years old, and though promoted under the old system of seniority and length of service, no one could ever say that he had not fairly won every step he got. Before he was sixteen, he was the hope and pride--the prize scholar--of the Heckmondike Grammar-School, his father being head-keeper to Lord Heckmondike, who placed the boy on the foundation of the school, and, finding him apt and studious, obtained for him his appointment from the Government of the day. No Adelphi at half-price, no Cider Cellars or Coal-Hole, for young Kinchenton, who had a little bedroom in a little terrace close by Kennington Common, where he was to be found every night, book in hand, and happy as a prince. A poor little bedroom enough!--a wretched little bedroom, with a white-dimity-covered tester-bed, two rush-bottomed chairs, a painted chest of drawers, a rickety washhand-stand, and a maddening square of looking-glass hanging against the wall. But to that garret came Sancho Panza and the gaunt Don his master; came Gil Blas, and the beggar with his arquebuse, and the Archbishop of Grenada; came cringing Tartuffe, and preposterous Sganarelle; came wandering Rasselas and sage Imlac; came Ferdinand Count Fathom, swearing Tom Pipes, and decorous Mr. Blifil. There the hard-working clerk laughed over Falstaff's lovemaking and Malvolio's disgrace, or wept over Sterne's dead ass and Le Fevre's regained sword; while his comrades Mace and Flukes were ruining each other at billiards, and Potter and Piper were hiccuping noisy applause to indecent songs.
When Mr. Kinchenton was forty years old, his income had reached the bewildering amount of four hundred a year, and he thought he might indulge in the luxury of a wife; so he took to himself a pretty little soft-eyed girl, the daughter of an old gentleman who was a traveller, in the straw-bonnet line, and who, when he was not driving about in a very high four-wheeled trap which did its best to look like a mail-phaeton and signally failed in the attempt, lived in the little terrace next door to Kinchenton's lodgings. After his daughter's marriage, the old gentleman, who was a widower, gave up travelling, retired upon his savings, and went to live with his son-in-law in a little house which Kinchenton had taken in Camden Town, where the birth of a son crowned Kinchenton's happiness. His adoration of this child was his weakest point: he was always narrating its wonderful deeds to every body; and the men in the office, with whom the little fellow was really a favourite, knew they could always get late attendance overlooked or half-holiday granted if they asked after little Percy, and sent him some trifling present.
It is well for the junior clerks of No. 120 that Mr. Kinchenton is the head of the room; for the next in seniority, Mr. Dibb, is by no means a pleasant person. Harsh, stiff, sectarian bigotry lurks in his coarse, close-cropped black hair, and in the plaited folds of his huge white neckcloth; he invariably wears a black dress coat, waistcoat, and trousers, creaking boots, and damp cloth gloves. He is always ailing, and invariably changing his medical system: now vaunting the virtues of blue-pill, now swearing by homoeopathy; he has been rubbed and cracked and shampooed and galvanised; and once he tried hydropathy, but came back in a week from Malvern no better, and apparently no cleaner, than before his visit to Dr. Gully. He was one of the first-fruits of the noble system of promotion by merit, having been transferred to Rutland House from some provincial stronghold of the Tin-Tax Office, and report said that he had originally been a schoolmaster in Bilston. He was hated by nearly all his juniors, but respected by the heads for his conscientiousness and power of work; and he was located in No. 120 to neutralise, to some extent, Mr. Kinchenton's excess of good nature. The rank and file of No. 120 consisted of Mr. Prescott and Mr. Pringle, junior clerks; Mr. Boppy, an old gentleman with a bald head and a double eyeglass, who had arrived, through dint of long service, at a good income, who was utterly useless, and who had no characteristic save his intense dread of his wife; and Mr. Crump, who had been for twenty years an extra clerk, and who, owing to an invincible stutter, had never been able to interest any one sufficiently to procure him an appointment.
"Devilish hot!" said Mr. Pringle, a short, good-humoured-looking young man, laying down hisTimesand opening his waistcoat; "devilish hot! Crump, there's a good fellow, open the door."
Mr. Crump looked up from his work, and said appealingly, "I've got a st--a st--a st--" he would have said "stiff neck;" but long before he could reach the word, Pringle interrupted him--
"Strong hand; you've got a strong hand, I know, and the door sticks; that's why I asked you. Boppy, my boy, I've not yet had time to ask you how you are."
"Well, Pm well in health, thank you, Mr. Pringle," said Mr. Boppy, depositing his pen on the desk, and rubbing his bald forehead; "but I'm rather worried in my mind."
"What troubles my Boppy? Has the Bank reduced its rate of discount, so that my Boppy's ingots are not worth quite so much per cent as they were yesterday; or is it love that is sending him to grief? Has my Boppy been sporting with Amaryllis in the shady side of Brompton Row, and has Mrs. B. found it out? Oh, Bop!"
"Nonsense, Mr. Pringle! I--"
"I must say that such remarks as those," interrupted Mr. Dibb, "appear to me to be very bad jokes."
"Very likely, Mr. Dibb," retorted Pringle; "but that's because you're the quintessence of humour yourself. We can't all hope to make ourselves as thoroughly genial and pleasant as you--can we, Crump?"
"I d--decline to s--to s--to say--"
"To say ditto to Dibb! Of course: you're my friend, and I knew you'd never desert me. Now, Boppy, you were about to say something when you were interrupted in that gentlemanly manner by our friend J. Miller; what was it?"
"Oh, I was merely thinking that I'd try and take that dog home this afternoon, and I'm rather doubtful as to how my wife will receive it, You see, I bought him a week ago, and Simmons, the hall-porter here, has kept him for me in the coal-cellar since then. He's a white Pomeranian dog, and the coal-cellar don't suit him somehow; but I daren't take him to Putney until I'd somewhat prepared Mrs. B.'s mind. So last night I read her several anecdotes of dogs, where they were all faithful and friendly and clean, you know; and this afternoon I shall take Spitz home, and--and say you gave him to me, I think, Mr. Pringle, if you've no objection."
"Certainly, if you like it, I don't mind; any thing you please, Boppy, my boy. Dogs as many as you like, and things of that sort; only, if Mrs. B. ever finds white-kid gloves, or locks of hair, or patchouli-scented pink notes, don't say they come from me--you understand? By the way, that reminds me. Prescott! p'st! Prescott!"
A tall, good-looking man of two or three-and-twenty, who was leaning his head on one hand and staring out of the window, turned round and said dreamily, "What?"
"What an amusing companion you are!" said Mr. Pringle; "what a charming remark that was when you last spoke, an hour and twenty minutes ago! What was it?"
"Don't be an idiot, Pringle!"
"No, it wasn't that; to be told to avoid an impossibility would have struck me as novel. Never mind; I was going to ask who that was I saw you speaking to at the King's Cross Terminus yesterday."
"At King's Cross?" said Prescott, colouring; "oh, that was a friend of mine, a clergyman."
"Ah!" said Pringle, quietly, "I thought so. He had on a blue bonnet and a black-lace shawl. Neat foot he's got; those parsons are always so particular about their stockings!"
"Don't be an ass, George!" growled Prescott, in an undertone.
"All right, old boy!" said Pringle, in the same key. "Forgot we weren't alone. Nobody heard, I think; but I'll soon change the subject;" and he commenced whistlingIl Bacio, loud and shrill.
"Mr. Pringle! Mr. Pringle!" screamed Mr. Dibb.
Mr. Pringle held up his hand as if deprecating interruption until he had come to the end of the bar, when he said, with mock politeness, "Sir to you!"
"How often have I begged you, sir, not to whistle during official hours? It is impossible for me to write my minutes while you're whistling."
"Write your minutes!" said Mr. Pringle. "Sir, we have the authority of A. Tennyson, Esquire, the Poet of the Age, if my honourable friend in the Isle of Wight will so permit me to call him, for saying that
'Lightlier move the minutes fledged with music.'
Though that even my whistling could make your minutes move lightly, with due respect to Alfred, I doubt."
"Mr. Kinchenton," cried Mr. Dibb, now a dirty white with rage, "I must request you, as head of this room, to call upon Mr. Pringle not to forget himself."
"My dear sir," said Pringle, "there's no one I think of so much."
"George," said Mr. Kinchenton quietly, "pray be quiet!"
"Certainly, Padre; I'm dumb! Thank Heaven and the Early Closing Association, to-day's a half holiday, and we cut it at two."
"Ah, to be sure!" said Kinchenton, anxious to atone for even the slight show of authority which his previous words might have suggested; "there are grand doings this afternoon at the Eyres', at Hampstead. I'm going to take my Percy there. Athletic sports, running, leaping, and all the rest of it."
"Ha! ha!" said Pringle; "at the Eyres', eh?
'The merry brown Eyres come leaping,'
as Kingsley has it. What a pity they haven't asked me!"
"You're going, Prescott, I suppose?" asked Kinchenton. "The Eyres are friends of yours--you're going to their fête?"
"I! no, Padre," was the reply; "I'm not going."
"Oh, he's very bad!" said Pringle, in a whisper, "He's got it awfully, but he'll get better."
'Now he 0as turned himself wholly to love and follows a damsel,Caring no more for honour, or glory, or Pallas Athené.'
'Now he 0as turned himself wholly to love and follows a damsel,Caring no more for honour, or glory, or Pallas Athené.'
Kingsley again--hem!"
"I wonder, Mr. Pringle," said Mr. Dibb, "that you do not attempt to form some more permanent style of reading than the mere poetry, scraps of which you are always quoting. For my own part, I consider poetry the flimsiest kind of writing extant."
"I'm surprised at that, now," said Pringle placidly. "I should have thought that you would have been a great appreciator of the gloomy and Byronic verse. To understand that properly, you must have lost all digestive power; and you know, Mr. Dibb, that your liver is horribly out of order."
A general laugh followed this remark, in which even Mr. Kinchenton joined, and at which Mr. Dibb looked more savage than ever. In the midst of it the clock struck two, and at the last sound Mr. Crump closed his blotting-book, put on his hat, and vanished, saying "G-good" as he passed through the door; two minutes afterwards, fragments of the word "d-day" were heard reverberating in the passage. Simultaneously Mr. Boppy struck work and went to look after his dog, Mr. Dibb started off without a word, and Mr. Prescott took off his coat to wash his hands previous to departure. When he emerged from the washing cupboard, he found Pringle waiting for him: both the young men shook hands with their chief, sent their loves to Mrs. Kinchenton and the boy, and turned out into the Strand.
They had not gone far when Pringle asked his companion whither he was bound. Prescott was too absorbed to hear the question, but, on its repetition, muttered something about an "engagement out Kensington way."
"Ah!" said Pringle, with the nearest approach to a sigh, "ride a cock horse, eh? the old game! Look here, Jim, old fellow. I'm not clever, you know, but I know how many blue beans make five; and I'm not strait-laced or pious or any thing of that sort, but I'm very fond of you, and I tell you this won't do!"
"What won't do?" asked Prescott, with a flaming face.
"Why, this Kate Mellon business, Jim. It's on hot and strong, I know. You've been down in the mouth all the time she was away; you met her at the station yesterday, and probably you're going up to her place to-day. Now you know, Jim, I've seen more of life than you, and I tell you this is all wrong."
"Why, you don't imagine that there's any thing--?"
"I don't imagine any thing at all. I haven't got any imagination, I think. I'm the most matter-of-fact beggar that ever walked; but I know you're confoundedly spooney and hard hit, and in a wrong quarter. Now, Jim, pull yourself together, old man, and cut it."
"I can't, George," groaned Prescott, raising his hat and tossing the hair back from his forehead; "I can't. You don't know how I love that woman, old fellow. I'd die for her; I'd go out and be shot at once, if it would save her a pang. I hate any one to come near her, and I'm always thinking of her, and longing to be with her."
"I felt just like that once for a female tobacconist in Briggate, at Leeds," said Mr. Pringle after a pause. "Deuced nice girl she was too, and what thundering bad cigars she sold! I'm very glad I didn't die for her, though. I got my appointment just in time, and came up to town without asking her to fly with me to distant climes. She wouldn't have known what 'climes' meant, I think. Now, look here, Jim; you'd better do something of the same sort. Apply for sick-leave (Glauber will give you a certificate), and go home and have some shooting, and stay with your people, and you'll come back cured. Only cut it at once. Don't go there to-day; come with me. I've got a little business to do that won't take half an hour, and then I'm going to spar with Bob Travers, and you shall see me polish him off with a new 'Mendoza tip' that I learnt last night. Now, you'll come, won't you, Jim?"
"Not to-day, George. I know you're right in every word you say; and yet I can't give it up yet--at all events to-day. I must see her, I've got something special to say to her, and the time's getting on. Good-by, old fellow; I know you mean well; and I'll come out all right yet. God bless you, old boy! Hi! Hansom!" and Mr. Prescott jumped into a cab, murmured an inaudible address to the driver, and was whirled away.
Mr. Pringle remained on the kerb-stone, shaking his head and looking after the departing Hansom. "James Prescott is in for it," said he to himself; "is decidedly in for it. So, by the way, is George Pringle. If I don't pay Wilkins that twenty pounds to-night, I shall be County-Courted, as safe as houses. I never have put my hand to any bill before; but needs must, I suppose. So I'll just step up and see old Scadgers." And Mr. Pringle struck across the Strand, in a northerly direction.
If, instead of ascending the broad staircase immediately on entering the Tin-Tax Office, you were to proceed straight forward, you would come to the messengers' lobby, which is the outpost, protecting the penetralia where the Commissioners and the Secretary are enshrined. The principal duty of these messengers, besides answering bells and carrying about official papers, was to protect the august personages just referred to from being intruded upon by "the public;" and as one learnt from his Scripture History that the term "Gentiles" meant "all nations except the Jews," so, after a very little official experience, one became aware that "the public" meant every body who did not hold an appointment in the Tin-Tax Office. The duties incumbent upon certain emissaries of the Office, in regard to the collection of revenue, made the head-quarters at Rutland House a grand resort of the "public," who generally came here with very belligerent intentions, and who either referred to printed documents in their hands and wished to see Mr. Simnel the Secretary (whose name appeared attached to the documents) or occasionally even demanded an interview with the Chief Commissioner, the great Sir Hickory Maddox, himself. It is needless to say that these wishes were never gratified: the messengers of the Tin-Tax Office were men to whom, in the discharge of his favourite accomplishment, Ananias could not have held a candle; men with imperturbable faces and ready tongues, who took the "public's" measure in an instant, and sent him to whatsoever clerk they thought would most readily dispose of his grievance. "I wish to see the Chief Commissioner," would exclaim a Briton, red in face, dripping in head, and bursting with indignation. To him calm, majestic Mr. Potts, the chief messenger, a fat man with a big forehead, a large stomach, flat feet in low shoes, and a general butlerish appearance--"Sir 'Ickry is with the Chanclr of Schequer, sir, on most important bisness." "The Secretary, then." "The Seckittary have gone with Sir 'Ickry, sir;--what is your bisness, sir?" "Why, I've been overcharged--" "Ah, thought so, sir! Rebate on prop'ty dooty. Walker, show the gentleman to number 15,"--and away down the loud-resounding passages, or up the mountainous stairs, would the unfortunate "public" be hurried.
The superior rooms lay up a little passage to the right of the messengers' lobby, and were three in number. First came the Board-room, a large and solemn salmon-coloured apartment, where the Commissioners sat when for despatch of business assembled. A big, dull-faced clock ticked on the mantelshelf; solemn green maps of distant countries, from year's end to year's end undisturbed, curled themselves round in dusty layers on the walls; and a large red-leather sofa, on which Mr. Beresford, in the absence of the other Commissioners, and after a hard night's waltzing, had enjoyed hours of pleasant repose, filled up a recess. In the centre of the room stood a heavy writing-table, with pads of blotting-paper, pools of black ink, and bundles of quill-pens distributed at regular intervals. At the head of this table always stood a red-leather arm-chair, and this arm-chair always on business occasions contained the sacred person of the Chief Commissioner, Sir Hickory Maddox. A little man, Sir Hickory, with a parchment face, a blue eye like a bit out of a china plate, stiff gray hair brushed into a point on the top of his head, and formal little gray whiskers: always dressed in a little black frock-coat, and little gray waistcoat and trousers; wearing too a heavy gold-set cornelian seal, and a cumbrous old-fashioned watch-key, just projecting from his fob,--buoys to show whereabouts his thick gold chronometer was sunk, in some unknown depths. A kind-hearted, fussy, hard-working man, whose family had been for generations in the public service, who had himself worked for years in the Draft and Docket Office, had risen and distinguished himself there, and had finally been rewarded with the Chief-Commissionership of the Tin-Tax, and with being created a K.C.B. His official position he esteemed one of the most enviable in the kingdom; he thought of nothing but official matters; and when, being of a hospitable turn, he had solemn dinners at his house in Wimpole Street, all the guests were magnates of other offices or--for he was a kind chief in that respect--juniors of the Tin-Tax. And invariably, just as the cloth was drawn, the butler would appear at his master's elbow, bearing a salver, on which lay an enormous red-leather official despatch-pouch. The little man would smile feebly at his guests, would shrug his shoulders, and saying, "Our labours follow us even here," would unlock the pouch, glance at its contents (probably theGlobe, and private note), and relocking it, say, "Lay it on the library-table, Benson. I must go into the matter before I sleep. However,nunc vino pellite curas!Port, sherry, madeira, and claret!"
Between Sir Hickory Maddox the senior, and Mr. Beresford the junior, there were two other Commissioners. One was the Honourable Morris Peck, who had been a Gentleman Usher at Court,--at whose name years ago young ladies used to blush, and matrons to gather themselves together in brood-hen fashion for the protection of their chicks,--a roysterer at Crockford's, a friend of Pea-Green Payne and the Golden Hall and that lot,--a "devil of a fellow, sir!" but who was now merely a hook-nosed old gentleman in a high coat-collar and a curly-brimmed hat; wearing false teeth, dyed hair, and blacked eyebrows; who always slept peacefully until his signature was required, when he gave it in a very shaky schoolboy scrawl. The other was Mr. Miles O'Scardon, an Irish gentleman of ancient family, but limited means, who had represented Ballyhogue in Parliament for years, and who had obtained his appointment for the fidelity with which he had always obeyed the summons of the ministerial whip. Beyond the Board-room lay the sanctum of the Chief-Commissioner's private secretary, a young man always chosen for his good looks, his good clothes, and his gentlemanly bearing, who was envied by his brother juniors, but who had to answer Sir Hickory's bell, and was consequently taunted by the epithet "Jeames." And beyond that, though unconnected with it, lay the Secretary's room.
A large, light, airy room, far away from the noise and bustle, and looking on to the river. Round the walls are huge oak-presses, filled with tied-up bundles of confidential papers, secret reports of the out-door agents of the Tin-Tax Office, which, if published, would have astonished the world by throwing quite a new light on the incomes of several of its idols. Maps were there too, and framed tables of statistics, and the Stationers' Almanac; and over the mantelpiece hung a proof-before-letters engraving of the portrait of Sir Hickory Maddox, after Grant, with an exact likeness of that great official's favourite inkstand and quill-pen, and with a correctness in the fit of the trousers such as was never achieved by the great original. There was a round table in the middle of the room, divided into two equal portions by a line of books of reference--Guide-books, M'Culloch's Commercial Dictionary, Haydn's Dates, the Post-Office Directory, Bradshaw, and other light reading: one side of the line of demarcation was bare (save at one o'clock, when it bore the little tray containing the Secretary's light luncheon); on the other lay the Secretary's blotting-book, pen-stand, and paper-case.
About the time when the conversation recorded in the last chapter was going on between his clerks, Mr. Simnel, the Secretary, sat in his official room, signing his name to printed papers, which he took one by one from a large heap at his right hand, and, after signing, dropped at his feet. It was plain that his thoughts were otherwise absorbed; for as the sheets fell from his hand and fluttered to the ground, he never looked after them, but would occasionally pause in his occupation, lay down his pen, nurse his right leg with both hands, and rock himself quietly to and fro. As he moved here and there in the sunlight, you might have perceived that his limbs were long and ungainly; that he had big broad hands with thick corrugated veins, and finger-nails strong, hard, and cut to a point; that he was very bald, and that such fringe of hair as remained was of a dull red; that he had a large sensual face, big projecting brown eyes, thick clumsy nose, full scarlet underlip, heavy jowl, and large massive chin. You could have noticed, too, that, in certain lights, this face was worn and jaded and almost haggard, traversed here and there with deep furrowed lines, marked with crow's-feet and wrinkles and deep indentations. As you gazed, perhaps, all this faded away, the face beamed forth happy, jolly, sensual as ever; but you felt that the wrinkles were there, and that so soon as the flicker passed away, they would be seen again.
Not in the discharge of his easy labours at the Tin-Tax Office had Mr. Simnel acquired these lines and wrinkles. The calm direction of that engine of the State had only come upon him of late years, and never had caused him any trouble. But Mr. Simnel had compressed a great many years' experience into forty years of life, and the crow's-feet and indentations were the result of brain-labour, worry, and anxiety. Mr. Simnel's first recollection of any thing found him a little boy, in a skeleton-suit, at the grammar-school of Combcardingham,--a city which every body save the envious inhabitants of its rival Dockborough allowed to be the metropolis of the north. Little Bob Simnel did not know whose son he was, or how his schooling was paid for; all he knew was, that he boarded with an old lady, the widow of a tax-collector, who was very kind to him, and that he soon found out the best thing he could do was to stick to his book. To his book he stuck manfully; walked through all the classes of the grammar-school, one by one, until he became junior boy of the sixth form, until he became senior boy of the sixth form, until the visiting examiner, the Bishop of Latakia, New Zealand, declared that he had the greatest pleasure in naming Mr. Robert Simnel as the gainer of the exhibition of seventy-five pounds a year; and added, as he shook hands with said Robert, that whichever University he might prefer would be honoured by his choice. Young Mr. Simnel, however, did not go to either Oxford or Cambridge: after a lengthened interview with the head-master, the Rev. Dr. Barker, Mr. Simnel gracefully resigned the exhibition in favour of Swetter,major, who "proxime accessit," and entered as the articled clerk of Messrs. Banner and Blair, accounted the sharpest lawyers in Combcardingham, and known through all the county as great electioneering agents for the Liberal party. A few years passed on; Mr. Simnel had finished his articles had become the junior partner of Messrs. Banner and Blair, and was working steadily and well, when an event happened which insured his success for life.
It was this: Combcardingham, for the three last general elections, had returned the same two members--Sir Thomas Prodd and Mr. Shuttler; both local magnates, employing hundreds of hands, supporting local charities, known throughout the county, and Liberal to the backbone. One morning news sped to London that Mr. Shuttler was dead; and that evening a tall, thin gentleman, with a hare-lip, arrived by afternoon express in Combcardingham, and engaged the Waterloo Hotel as the head-quarters of Mr. Farquhar, the Conservative candidate. Blue bills on a dead-wall unpleasantly proclaimed this fact to M. Simnel as he was shaving himself the next morning; and he perceived that young Woofham, the hope of the Liberal party, would not be brought in without a struggle. So he, metaphorically, took off his coat and set to work; canvassed, intrigued, cajoled, went through all the dirty round of electioneering tactics, but found he did not make much way; found, in truth, that the hare-lipped man seemed to have Fortunatus's purse somewhere about him, and that young Woofham was a miserly young hunks, who did not see the borough as a proper investment for his ingots. What was to be done? To lose the borough would be a tremendous blow to the Government, who had always looked upon it as their own, and to whom it was always supposed to owe allegiance. But the money? The night before the nomination, Mr. Simnel, with his face muffled in a huge handkerchief, despatched the following telegraphic message to Mr. Weal, the Government whip, at the Retrenchment Club: "No. 104 is putting on the steam at Combcardingham. If No. 102 does not do likewise, up goes the sponge." While No. 102 Mall-Pall is the Retrenchment Club, No. 104 is, it is needless to say, the No Surrender (familiarly known as the Wig and Whiskers), the head-quarters of the Conservative party. By the early morning express a messenger, with a letter from Mr. Weal, arrived at Mr. Simnel's office, and during the day the doubts under which many of the electors suffered were satisfactorily explained away, and at the close of the poll Mr. Woofham's name stood well ahead of his rival. Mr. Weal and his party did not forget their telegraphing friend at Combcardingham. After the election was over, Mr. Simnel was summoned to London, had an interview with certain of theDii majors, and at the end of six months was inducted into the Secretaryship of the Tin-Tax Office, then vacant.
They did not like him at first at the Tin-Tax; they thought Bingham ought to have succeeded to the berth; and Bingham--who was a very gouty old gentleman, who took a great deal of snuff, and swore a great deal, and kept a pocket-dictionary in the right-hand top-drawer of his desk wherewith to correct his orthography--thought so too. But Sir Hickory Maddox, who was not merely very popular, but very much respected by his men, showed such thorough appreciation of Mr. Simnel's talents, and so thoroughly endorsed all the Secretary's acts, that the men began to waver in their allegiance to the Bingham faction; to think that Bingham was little better than an old idiot; that "new blood" in the secretariat might probably not only improve the status of the Tin-Tax Office, but get a new and improved scale for the clerks; and when they found that, after a couple of years, the new Secretary actually did accomplish this feat, the new Secretary was popular for ever. Popular officially, not privately. The juniors at the Tin-Tax had been in the habit of chaffing their late lamented secretary; of bribing him, by gifts of game and hothouse fruits, to grant them odd days and even weeks of leave of absence; of chatting with him familiarly on current events. Mr. Simnel's manners effectually checked all that kind of thing. With the Commissioners he might unbend; with the juniors he was adamant. But if he met one of his men in society, in the Opera lobby, or at a Botanical Fête, he would make a point of shaking hands with him as though they hadn't seen each other for ages, and of talking with him of every subject possible--except the Tin-Tax Office.
The pile of papers for signature had melted to one solitary document, the floor was strewn with the evidences of Mr. Simnel's handiwork, and Mr. Simnel himself sat nursing his leg and swaying himself gently to and fro in meditation. Occasionally he would pass his disengaged hand through his fringe of hair, and smile quietly to himself, then make a few figures on his blotting-pad, add them, and set-to rocking again. In the midst of this occupation he heard his door open, and looking up, saw Mr. Beresford.
"Why, what the deuce does this mean?" he exclaimed, in surprise. "I thought you were on Tom Tiddler's ground, picking up unlimited gold and silver, wooing heiresses, and settling a Belgravian ménage; and you turn up in this dingy old barrack. Is it all over?--has the lady succumbed? and do you want me to help you to choose fire-irons and window-curtains?"
Mr. Beresford did not reply for a minute; then he said, shortly and decisively, "I've been sold!"
Mr. Simnel gave one short, loud whistle, and said interrogatively, "Wouldn't?"
Mr. Beresford, seating himself on the edge of the table, looked up at Mr. Simnel, who had taken up his position on the rug, with his back to the empty fireplace, and said, "No chance; booked beforehand!"
Whereupon Mr. Simnel gave a louder whistle, and said, "Tell!"
"You know how I stand, Simnel, well enough," said Mr. Beresford; "and this looked a very safecoup, I thought, specially after I got your telegram. There were two or three fellows staying down at Bissett who I thought were on, too. Man named Lyster; do you know him?--tall man, dark beard, yaw-haw beast, from Indian army."
"I know him!" was all Mr. Simnel's reply to this flattering sketch.
"And another man, newspaper man, belongs to the 'Retrenchment' and the 'Fly-by-night;' Churchill, you know."
"Iknow Churchill. Was he going in for an heiress?"
"No, not exactly; at least I thought so, but it turned out not. But I didn't like these fellows hanging about; specially Lyster--romantic party, sigh and that sort of business. So, when I found from you it was all right, I made up my mind to see where I was."
"Well; and Miss Townshend wouldn't have it?"
"Not at all! We were sitting after dinner, when the women had gone to the drawing-room, the very day I got your telegram, and old Wentworth told us there was a man coming down the next day,--Schrötter, or Schröder, a German merchant in Mincing Lane--"
"I know him," interrupted Simnel: "Gustav Schröder; elderly man. What took him to Bissett?"
"Love, sir--love! he's engaged to be married to Miss Townshend!"
"Whew!" said Mr. Simnel, with his longest and shrillest whistle. "The deuce he is! Thatisnews! How does the young lady like it?"
"Well, not much. She couldn't, of course, be expected to feel very enthusiastic about a short, stout, gray-headed German, who talks the most infernal jargon, and hasn't got a sound tooth in his head. Took him out shooting once, but he made the most awful mess of it; devilish near shot the beaters, and sprained his ankle leaping a half-foot ditch. The girl seemed horribly ashamed of him, and of his clumsy compliments and elephantine gambols; but she's evidently booked--her father takes care of that."
"Ah, ha!" said Mr. Simnel, nursing his knee, rocking himself to and fro, and rapidly going off into an absent fit; "ah, ha!"
"I hate to hear you say 'ah, ha,' Simnel!" said Mr. Beresford, with some asperity. "You're always up to some plottings and plans when you utter those seemingly benevolent grunts. I suppose you suspect old Townshend of some granddiableriein this affair. I never could make out what it is that you know about that old gentleman."
"Know about him?" said Simnel, rousing himself with a laugh; "that he gives capital dinners and has plenty of money; that he's about to marry his daughter to one of the richest men in the City. What more need one know about a man? I don't know what church he goes to, or what peculiar shade of religion he affects; whether he's a good father or a bad one; whether he rules his daughter, or is ruled by her. But Idoknow that he drinks Tod-Heatly's champagne, and banks at the London and Westminster. This news looks fishy for your business, Beresford!"
"Simply a case of stump," said Mr. Beresford, rising from the table, plunging his hands into his trousers-pockets, and striding up and down the room.
"What do you mean to do?"
"Borrow two hundred pounds more of you," exclaimed Beresford, stopping short on the edge of the rug, and confronting Mr. Simnel.
"And then?" asked the latter gentleman, smiling calmly.
"God knows!" said Beresford, with something like a shudder. "Something must turn up; the Bishop must die or Lady Lowndes, and there'd be a safe something from them; or there'll be some girl--"
"Ye-es," interrupted Mr. Simnel drily, seating himself at his desk, and unlocking a draw therein. "You're the most marvellously sanguine fellow, perfectly Micawberish in your notions of something turning up, and your making acoup. But--suppose t'other! suppose it didn't come off! Now you owe me,"--looking at a paper which he took from the drawer,--"six hundred pounds already, and I've only got insurance policies for security."
"You get your interest," growled Beresford.
"A mild six;" said Mr. Simnel, with a shrug of his shoulders and his pleasant smile. "A mild six; just what I should get in Bombay Preference, or Great Luxembourg Centrals, or a dozen other safe investments. However, you shall have this two hundred; but I should be glad to see your way in the future. Is there no girl with money whom you think you could propose to speedily?"
"Not one," said Beresford, stopping in his walk and reseating himself on the table. "Oh, by Jove, I forgot to tell you that."
"What?"
"About Kate Mellon,--tremendous scene just before I left;" and Mr. Beresford proceeded to recount the dialogue between him and Kate Mellon, which was recorded in the fourth chapter of this story. He told the tale honestly throughout, and when he had finished he looked up in Mr. Simnel's face, and said, "Deuced awkward position, wasn't it?"
Mr. Simnel had not lost one word of the story; on the contrary, he had listened to it with the greatest eagerness and interest, but he did not answer Mr. Beresford's final query. He had fallen into his old, leg-nursing attitude, and was rocking himself silently to and fro.
"Devilish unpleasant, wasn't it?" reiterated Mr. Beresford.
"Eh!" said Mr. Simnel in a loud high key. "Yes, most unpleasant, of course. We'll talk more about that; but you must be off now. To-day's only half a day, you know; and I've got all sorts of things to do before I go. You shall have that two hundred on Monday, all right. Good-by! see you on Monday," and the Secretary shook hands with the Commissioner until the latter was fairly outside the door.
Then Mr. Simnel returned to his desk, and took up his leg again.
"It seems to be coming on now," he said to himself, "and all together too. The old man always meant little Alice for a Duke, and now to let her go to such carrion as old Schröder; that looks like smash. He holds heavily in Pernambucos, in Cotopaxis, and other stuff that's run down like water lately; and he must have dropped at least ten thousand in that blessed Bird-in-the-Hand insurance. I think the time has come to put the screw on, and I don't think"--turning to a drawer and taking from an envelope a paper yellow with age--"that he'll dishonour this. What an awful time ago it seems! There,"--replacing the paper,--"go back till you're wanted. You've kept so long that--Ah, by Jove! the other business! To be married, eh? To be married, Kate?" releasing his leg and plucking at his lips. "To be married to Master Charley Beresford! not while I live, my child! not while I live, and have power to turn a screw on in your direction too!"