I SERVED Edward
as his second clerk faithfully,
punctually,
diligently. What was given me
to do I had the power and the
determination to do well. Mr.
Crimsworth watched sharply for
defects, but found none; he set
Timothy Steighton, his favourite
and head man, to watch also.
Tim was baffled; I was as exact
as himself, and quicker. Mr.
Crimsworth made inquiries as
to how I lived, whether I got
into debt--no, my accounts with
my landlady were always straight.
I had hired small lodgings, which
I contrived to pay for out of
a slender fund--the accumulated
savings of my Eton pocket-money;
for as it had ever been abhorrent
to my nature to ask pecuniary
assistance, I had early acquired
habits of self-denying economy;
husbanding my monthly allowance
with anxious care, in order to
obviate the danger of being forced,
in some moment of future exigency,
to beg additional aid. I remember
many called me miser at the time,
and I used to couple the reproach
with this consolation--better
to be misunderstood now than
repulsed hereafter. At this day
I had my reward; I had had it
before, when on parting with
my irritated uncles one of them
threw down on the table before
me a 5l. note, which I was able
to leave there, saying that my
travelling expenses were already
provided for. Mr. Crimsworth
employed Tim to find out whether
my landlady had any complaint
to make on the score of my morals;
she answered that she believed
I was a very religious man, and
asked Tim, in her turn, if he
thought I had any intention of
going into the Church some day;
for, she said, she had had young
curates to lodge in her house
who were nothing equal to me
for steadiness and quietness.
Tim was "a religious
man" himself; indeed, he was "a joined Methodist," which did not (be it understood)
prevent him from being at the same time an engrained rascal, and he came away
much posed at hearing this account of my piety. Having imparted it to Mr. Crimsworth,
that gentleman, who himself frequented no place of worship, and owned no God
but Mammon, turned the information into a weapon of attack against the equability
of my temper. He commenced a series of covert sneers, of which I did not at first
perceive the drift, till my landlady happened to relate the conversation she
had had with Mr. Steighton; this enlightened me; afterwards I came to the counting-house
prepared, and managed to receive the millowner's blasphemous sarcasms, when next
levelled at me, on a buckler of impenetrable indifference. Ere long he tired
of wasting his ammunition on a statue, but he did not throw away the shafts--he
only kept them quiet in his quiver.
Once during my clerkship I
had an invitation to Crimsworth
Hall; it was on the occasion
of a large party given in honour
of the master's birthday; he
had always been accustomed to
invite his clerks on similar
anniversaries, and could not
well pass me over; I was, however,
kept strictly in the background.
Mrs. Crimsworth, elegantly dressed
in satin and lace, blooming in
youth and health, vouchsafed
me no more notice than was expressed
by a distant move; Crimsworth,
of course, never spoke to me;
I was introduced to none of the
band of young ladies, who, enveloped
in silvery clouds of white gauze
and muslin, sat in array against
me on the opposite side of a
long and large room; in fact,
I was fairly isolated, and could
but contemplate the shining ones
from affar, and when weary of
such a dazzling scene, turn for
a change to the consideration
of the carpet pattern. Mr. Crimsworth,
standing on the rug, his elbow
supported by the marble mantelpiece,
and about him a group of very
pretty girls, with whom he conversed
gaily--Mr. Crimsworth, thus placed,
glanced at me; I looked weary,
solitary, kept down like some
desolate tutor or governess;
he was satisfied.
Dancing began; I should have
liked well enough to be introduced
to some pleasing and intelligent
girl, and to have freedom and
opportunity to show that I could
both feel and communicate the
pleasure of social intercourse--that
I was not, in short, a block,
or a piece of furniture, but
an acting, thinking, sentient
man. Many smiling faces and graceful
figures glided past me, but the
smiles were lavished on other
eyes, the figures sustained by
other hands than mine. I turned
away tantalized, left the dancers,
and wandered into the oak-panelled
dining-room. No fibre of sympathy
united me to any living thing
in this house; I looked for and
found my mother's picture. I
took a wax taper from a stand,
and held it up. I gazed long,
earnestly; my heart grew to the
image. My mother, I perceived,
had bequeathed to me much of
her features and countenance--her
forehead, her eyes, her complexion.
No regular beauty pleases egotistical
human beings so much as a softened
and refined likeness of themselves;
for this reason, fathers regard
with complacency the lineaments
of their daughters' faces, where
frequently their own similitude
is found flatteringly associated
with softness of hue and delicacy
of outline. I was just wondering
how that picture, to me so interesting,
would strike an impartial spectator,
when a voice close behind me
pronounced the words--
"Humph! there's
some sense in that face."
I turned; at my elbow stood
a tall man, young, though probably
five or six years older than
I--in other respects of an appearance
the opposite to common place;
though just now, as I am not
disposed to paint his portrait
in detail, the reader must be
content with the silhouette I
have just thrown off; it was
all I myself saw of him for the
moment: I did not investigate
the colour of his eyebrows, nor
of his eyes either; I saw his
stature, and the outline of his
shape; I saw, too, his fastidious-looking
RETROUSSE nose; these observations,
few in number, and general in
character (the last excepted),
sufficed, for they enabled me
to recognize him.
"Good evening, Mr. Hunsden," muttered
I with a bow, and then, like
a shy noodle as I was, I began
moving away--and why? Simply
because Mr. Hunsden was a manufacturer
and a millowner, and I was only
a clerk, and my instinct propelled
me from my superior. I had frequently
seen Hunsden in Bigben Close,
where he came almost weekly to
transact business with Mr. Crimsworth,
but I had never spoken to him,
nor he to me, and I owed him
a sort of involuntary grudge,
because he had more than once
been the tacit witness of insults
offered by Edward to me. I had
the conviction that he could
only regard me as a poor-spirited
slave, wherefore I now went about
to shun his presence and eschew
his conversation.
"Where are you going?" asked
he, as I edged off sideways.
I had already noticed that Mr.
Hunsden indulged in abrupt forms
of speech, and I perversely said
to myself--
"He thinks
he may speak as he likes to
a poor clerk; but
my mood is not, perhaps, so supple
as he deems it, and his rough
freedom pleases me not at all."
I made some slight reply, rather
indifferent than courteous, and
continued to move away. He coolly
planted himself in my path.
"Stay here awhile," said he: "it
is so hot in the dancing-room;
besides, you don't dance; you
have not had a partner to-night."
He was right, and as he spoke
neither his look, tone, nor manner
displeased me; my AMOUR-PROPRE
was propitiated; he had not addressed
me out of condescension, but
because, having repaired to the
cool dining-room for refreshment,
he now wanted some one to talk
to, by way of temporary amusement.
I hate to be condescended to,
but I like well enough to oblige;
I stayed.
"That is a good picture," he
continued, recurring to the portrait.
"Do you consider the face pretty?" I
asked.
"Pretty! no--how
can it be pretty, with sunk
eyes and hollow
cheeks? but it is peculiar; it
seems to think. You could have
a talk with that woman, if she
were alive, on other subjects
than dress, visiting, and compliments."
I agreed with him, but did
not say so. He went on.
"Not that I
admire a head of that sort;
it wants character
and force; there's too much of
the sen-si-tive (so he articulated
it, curling his lip at the same
time) in that mouth; besides,
there is Aristocrat written on
the brow and defined in the figure;
I hate your aristocrats."
"You think,
then, Mr. Hunsden, that patrician
descent may be
read in a distinctive cast of
form and features?"
"Patrician
descent be hanged! Who doubts
that your lordlings
may have their 'distinctive cast
of form and features' as much
as we ----shire tradesmen have
ours? But which is the best?
Not theirs assuredly. As to their
women, it is a little different:
they cultivate beauty from childhood
upwards, and may by care and
training attain to a certain
degree of excellence in that
point, just like the oriental
odalisques. Yet even this superiority
is doubtful. Compare the figure
in that frame with Mrs. Edward
Crimsworth--which is the finer
animal?"
I replied quietly: "Compare
yourself and Mr. Edward Crimsworth,
Mr Hunsden."
"Oh, Crimsworth
is better filled up than I
am, I know besides
he has a straight nose, arched
eyebrows, and all that; but these
advantages--if they are advantages--he
did not inherit from his mother,
the patrician, but from his father,
old Crimsworth, who, MY father
says, was as veritable a ----shire
blue-dyer as ever put indigo
in a vat yet withal the handsomest
man in the three Ridings. It
is you, William, who are the
aristocrat of your family, and
you are not as fine a fellow
as your plebeian brother by long
chalk."
There was something in Mr.
Hunsden's point-blank mode of
speech which rather pleased me
than otherwise because it set
me at my ease. I continued the
conversation with a degree of
interest.
"How do you
happen to know that I am Mr.
Crimsworth's brother?
I thought you and everybody else
looked upon me only in the light
of a poor clerk."
"Well, and
so we do; and what are you
but a poor clerk? You
do Crimsworth's work, and he
gives you wages--shabby wages
they are, too."
I was silent. Hunsden's language
now bordered on the impertinent,
still his manner did not offend
me in the least--it only piqued
my curiosity; I wanted him to
go on, which he did in a little
while.
"This world is an absurd one," said
he.
"Why so, Mr.
Hunsden?"
I wonder you
should ask: you are yourself
a strong proof of
the absurdity I allude to."
I was determined he should
explain himself of his own accord,
without my pressing him so to
do--so I resumed my silence.
"Is it your intention to become
a tradesman?" he inquired presently.
"It was my
serious intention three months
ago."
"Humph! the
more fool you--you look like
a tradesman! What a
practical business-like face
you have!"
"My face is
as the Lord made it, Mr. Hunsden."
"The Lord never
made either year face or head
for X---- What
good can your bumps of ideality,
comparison, self-esteem, conscientiousness,
do you here? But if you like
Bigben Close, stay there; it's
your own affair, not mine."
"Perhaps I
have no choice."
"Well, I care
nought about it--it will make
little difference
to me what you do or where you
go; but I'm cool now--I want
to dance again; and I see such
a fine girl sitting in the corner
of the sofa there by her mamma;
see if I don't get her for a
partner in a jiffy! There's Waddy--Sam
Waddy making up to her; won't
I cut him out?"
And Mr. Hunsden strode away.
I watched him through the open
folding-doors; he outstripped
Waddy, applied for the hand of
the fine girl, and led her off
triumphant. She was a tall, well-made,
full-formed, dashingly-dressed
young woman, much in the style
of Mrs. E. Crimsworth; Hunsden
whirled her through the waltz
with spirit; he kept at her side
during the remainder of the evening,
and I read in her animated and
gratified countenance that he
succeeded in making himself perfectly
agreeable. The mamma too (a stout
person in a turban--Mrs. Lupton
by name) looked well pleased;
prophetic visions probably flattered
her inward eye. The Hunsdens
were of an old stem; and scornful
as Yorke (such was my late interlocutor's
name) professed to be of the
advantages of birth, in his secret
heart he well knew and fully
appreciated the distinction his
ancient, if not high lineage
conferred on him in a mushroom-place
like X----, concerning whose
inhabitants it was proverbially
said, that not one in a thousand
knew his own grandfather. Moreover
the Hunsdens, once rich, were
still independent; and report
affirmed that Yorke bade fair,
by his success in business, to
restore to pristine prosperity
the partially decayed fortunes
of his house. These circumstances
considered, Mrs. Lupton's broad
face might well wear a smile
of complacency as she contemplated
the heir of Hunsden Wood occupied
in paying assiduous court to
her darling Sarah Martha. I,
however, whose observations being
less anxious, were likely to
be more accurate, soon saw that
the grounds for maternal self-congratulation
were slight indeed; the gentleman
appeared to me much more desirous
of making, than susceptible of
receiving an impression. I know
not what it was in Mr. Hunsden
that, as I watched him (I had
nothing better to do), suggested
to me, every now and then, the
idea of a foreigner. In form
and features he might be pronounced
English, though even there one
caught a dash of something Gallic;
but he had no English shyness:
he had learnt somewhere, somehow,
the art of setting himself quite
at his ease, and of allowing
no insular timidity to intervene
as a barrier between him and
his convenience or pleasure.
Refinement he did not affect,
yet vulgar he could not be called;
he was not odd--no quiz--yet
he resembled no one else I had
ever seen before; his general
bearing intimated complete, sovereign
satisfaction with himself; yet,
at times, an indescribable shade
passed like an eclipse over his
countenance, and seemed to me
like the sign of a sudden and
strong inward doubt of himself,
his words and actions-an energetic
discontent at his life or his
social position, his future prospects
or his mental attainments--I
know not which; perhaps after
all it might only be a bilious
caprice.
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