The Three Clerks I

THE THREE CLERKS

shouted the junior clerks, still dancing in mad glee round the happy lover.

“We have said that they all joined in this kindly congratulation to their young friend. But no. There was one spirit there whom envy had soured, one whom the happiness of another had made miserable, one whose heart beat in no unison with these jocund sounds. As Macassar’s joy was at its height, in the proud moment of his triumph, a hated voice struck his ears, and filled his soul with dismay once more.

“’There’s two to one still on the Lying-in,’ said this hateful Lucifer.

“And so Macassar was not all happy even yet, as he walked home to his lodgings.

CHAPTER VI

“We have but one other scene to record, but one short scene, and then our tale will be told and our task will be done. And this last scene shall not, after the usual manner of novelists, be that of the wedding, but rather one which in our eyes is of a much more enduring interest. Crinoline and Macassar were duly married in Bloomsbury Church. The dresses are said to have come from the house in Hanover Square. Crinoline behaved herself with perfect propriety, and Macassar went through his work like a man. When we have said that, we have said all that need be said on that subject.

“But we must beg our readers to pass over the space of the next twelve months, and to be present with us in that front

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sitting-room of the elegant private lodgings, which the married couple now prudently occupied in Alfred Place. Lodgings! yes, they were only lodgings; for not as yet did they know what might be the extent of their income.

“In this room during the whole of a long autumn day sat Macassar in a frame of mind not altogether to be envied. During the greater portion of it he was alone; but ever and anon some bustling woman would enter and depart without even deigning to notice the questions which he asked. And then after a while he found himself in company with a very respectable gentleman in black, who belonged to the medical profession. ‘Is it coming?’ asked Macassar. ‘Is it, is it coming?’

“’Well, we hope so — we hope so,’ said the medical gentleman. ‘If not to-day, it will be to-morrow. If I should happen to be absent, Mrs. Gamp is all that you could desire. If not to-day, it will certainly be to-morrow,’ — and so the medical gentleman went his way.

“Now the coming morrow would be Macassar’s birthday. On that morrow he would be twenty-six.

“All alone he sat there till the autumn sun gave way to the shades of evening. Some one brought him a mutton chop, but it was raw and he could not eat; he went to the sideboard and prepared to make himself a glass of negus, but the water was all cold. His water at least was cold, though Mrs. Gamp’s was hot enough. It was a sad and mournful evening. He thought he would go out, for he found that he was not wanted; but a low drizzling rain prevented him. Had he got wet he could not have changed his clothes, for they were all in the wardrobe in

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his wife’s room. All alone he sat till the shades of evening were hidden by the veil of night.

“But what sudden noise is that he hears within the house? Why do those heavy steps press so rapidly against the stairs? What feet are they which are so busy in the room above him? He opens the sitting-room door, but he can see nothing. He has been left there without a candle. He peers up the stairs, but a faint glimmer of light shining through the keyhole of his wife’s door is all that meets his eye. ‘Oh, my aunt! my aunt!’ he says as he leans against the banisters. ‘My aunt, my aunt, my aunt!’

“What a birthday will this be for him on the morrow! He already hears the sound of the hospital bells as they ring with joy at the acquisition of their new wealth; he must dash from his lips, tear from his heart, banish for ever from his eyes, that vision of a sweet little cottage at Brompton, with a charming dressing-room for himself, and gas laid on all over the house.

“’Lodgings! I hate, I detest lodgings!’ he said to himself. ‘Connubial bliss and furnished lodgings are not compatible. My aunt, my aunt, for what misery hast thou not to answer! Oh, Mrs. Gamp, could you be so obliging as to tell me what o’clock it is?’ The last question was asked as Mrs. Gamp suddenly entered the room with a candle. Macassar’s watch had been required for the use of one of the servants.

“’It’s just half-past heleven, this wery moment as is,’ said Mrs. Gamp; ‘and the finest boy babby as my heyes, which has seen a many, has ever sat upon.’

“Up, up to the ceiling went the horsehair cushion of the lodging-house sofa — up went the footstool after it, and its

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four wooden legs in falling made a terrible clatter on the mahogany loo-table. Macassar in his joy got hold of Mrs. Gamp, and kissed her heartily, forgetful of the fumes of gin. ‘Hurrah!’ shouted he,’ hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! Oh, Mrs. Gamp, I feel so — so — so — I really don’t know how I feel.’

“He danced round the room with noisy joy, till Mrs. Gamp made him understand how very unsuited were such riotous ebullitions to the weak state of his lady-love upstairs. He then gave over, not the dancing but the noise, and went on capering round the room with suppressed steps, ever and anon singing to himself in a whisper,

‘The loveliest lady that ever was seen Is still the Lady Crinoline.’

“A few minutes afterwards a knock at the door was heard, and the monthly nurse entered. She held something in her embrace; but he could not see what. He looked down pryingly into her arms, and at the first glance thought that it was his umbrella. But then he heard a little pipe, and he knew that it was his child.

“We will not intrude further on the first interview between Macassar and his heir.”

* * * * *

‘And so ends the romantic history of «Crinoline and Macassar»,’ said Mrs. Woodward; ‘and I am sure, Charley, we are

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but liking and loving are very different things. Now you are a dear, dear friend — one of the dearest.’

In answer to this, Charley was not even able to mutter; so he went his way to the inn, and lay awake half the night thinking how Katie had kissed his hand: during the other half he dreamt, first that Katie was drowned, and then that Norah was his bride.

Linda and Katie had been so hurried off, that they had only been just able to shake hands with Harry and Charley. There is, however, an old proverb, that though one man may lead a horse to water, a thousand cannot make him drink. It was easy to send Katie to bed, but very difficult to prevent her talking when she was there.

‘Oh, Linda,’ she said, ‘what can I do for him?’

‘Do for him?’ said Linda; ‘I don’t know that you can do anything for him. I don’t suppose he wants you to do anything.’ Linda still looked on her sister as a child; but Katie was beginning to put away childish things.

‘Couldn’t I make something for him, Linda — something for him to keep as a present, you know? I would work so hard to get it done.’

‘Work a pair of slippers, as Crinoline did,’ said Linda. Katie was brushing her hair at the moment, and then she

sat still with the brush in her hand, thinking. ‘No,’ said she, after a while, ‘not a pair of slippers — I shouldn’t like a pair of slippers.’

‘Why not?’ said Linda.

‘Oh — I don’t know — but I shouldn’t.’ Katie had said that Crinoline was working slippers for Macassar because

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she was in love with him; and having said so, she could not now work slippers for Charley. Poor Katie! she was no longer a child when she thought thus.

‘Then make him a purse,’ said Linda. ‘A purse is such a little thing.’

‘Then work him the cover for a sofa, like what mamma and I are doing for Gertrude.’

‘But he hasn’t got a house,’ said Katie.

‘He’ll have a house by the time you’ve done the sofa, and a wife to sit on it too.’

‘Oh, Linda, you are so ill-natured.’

‘Why, child, what do you want me to say? If you were to give him one of those grand long tobacco pipes they have in the shop windows, that’s what he’d like the best; or something of that sort. I don’t think he cares much for girls’ presents, such as purses and slippers.’

‘Doesn’t he?’ said Katie, mournfully.

‘No; not a bit. You know he’s such a rake.’

‘Oh! Linda; I don’t think he’s so very bad, indeed I don’t; and mamma doesn’t think so; and you know Harry said on Easter Sunday that he was much better than he used to be.’

‘I know Harry is very good-natured to him.’

‘And isn’t Charley just as good-natured to Harry? I am quite sure he is. Harry has only to ask the least thing, and Charley always does it. Do you remember how Charley went up to town for him the Sunday before last?’

‘And so he ought,’ said Linda. ‘He ought to do whatever Harry tells him.’

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‘Well, Linda, I don’t know why he ought,’ said Katie. ‘They are not brothers, you know, nor yet even cousins.’

‘But Harry is very — so very — so very superior, you know,’ said Linda.

‘I don’t know any such thing,’ said Katie.

‘Oh! Katie, don’t you know that Charley is such a rake?’ ‘But rakes are just the people who don’t do whatever they

are told; so that’s no reason. And I am quite sure that Charley is much the cleverer.’

‘And I am quite sure he is not — nor half so clever; nor nearly so well educated. Why, don’t you know the navvies are the most ignorant young men in London? Charley says so himself.’

‘That’s his fun,’ said Katie: ‘besides, he always makes little of himself. I am quite sure Harry could never have made all that about Macassar and Crinoline out of his own head.’

‘No! because he doesn’t think of such nonsensical things. I declare, Miss Katie, I think you are in love with Master Charley.’

Katie, who was still sitting at the dressing-table, blushed up to her forehead; and at the same time her eyes were suffused with tears. But there was no one to see either of those tell-tale symptoms, for Linda was in bed.

‘I know he saved my life,’ said Katie, as soon as she could trust herself to speak without betraying her emotion —’I know he jumped into the river after me, and very, very nearly drowned himself; and I don’t think any other man in the world would have done so much for me besides him.’

‘Oh, Katie! Harry would in a moment.’

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‘Not for me; perhaps he might for you — though I’m not quite sure that he would.’ It was thus that Katie took her revenge on her sister.

‘I’m quite sure he would for anybody, even for Sally.’ Sally was an assistant in the back kitchen. ‘But I don’t mean to say, Katie, that you shouldn’t feel grateful to Charley; of course you should.’

‘And so I do,’ said Katie, now bursting out into tears, overdone by her emotion and fatigue; ‘and so I do — and I do love him, and will love him, if he’s ever so much a rake! But you know, Linda, that is very different from being in love; and it was very ill-natured of you to say so, very.’

Linda was out of bed in a trice, and sitting with her arm round her sister’s neck.

‘Why, you darling little foolish child, you! I was only quizzing,’ said she. ‘Don’t you know that I love Charley too?’

‘But you shouldn’t quiz about such a thing as that. If you’d fallen into the river, and Harry had pulled you out, then you’d know what I mean; but I’m not at all sure that he could have done it.’

Katie’s perverse wickedness on this point was very nearly giving rise to another contest between the sisters. Linda’s common sense, however, prevailed, and giving up the point of Harry’s prowess, she succeeded at last in getting Katie into bed. ‘You know mamma will be so angry if she hears us,’ said Linda, ‘and I am sure you will be ill to-morrow.’

‘I don’t care a bit about being ill to-tomorrow; and yet I do too,’ she added, after a pause, ‘for it’s Sunday. It would be so stupid not to be able to go out to-morrow.’

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