The Three Clerks II

THE THREE CLERKS

man, as he got out of the cab with Mrs. Woodward, at No. 5, Paradise Row, Millbank, felt his heart beat within him almost as strongly as he had done when he was about to propose to her. He followed Mrs. Woodward into the dingy little house, and immediately found himself in Gertrude’s presence.

I should exaggerate the fact were I to say that he would not have known her; but had he met her elsewhere, met her where he did not expect to meet her, he would have looked at her more than once before he felt assured that he was looking at Gertrude Woodward. It was not that she had grown pale, or worn, or haggard; though, indeed, her face had on it that weighty look of endurance which care will always give; it was not that she had lost her beauty, and become unattractive in his eyes; but that the whole nature of her mien and form, the very trick of her gait was changed. Her eye was as bright as ever, but it was steady, composed, and resolved; her lips were set and compressed, and there was no playfulness round her mouth. Her hair was still smooth and bright, but it was more brushed off from her temples than it had been of yore, and was partly covered by a bit of black lace, which we presume we must call a cap; here and there, too, through it, Norman’s quick eye detected a few grey hairs. She was stouter too than she had been, or else she seemed to be so from the changes in her dress. Her step fell heavier on the floor than it used to do, and her voice was quicker and more decisive in its tones. When she spoke to her mother, she did so as one sister might do to another; and, indeed, Mrs. Woodward seemed to exercise over her very little of the authority of a parent. The truth was that Gertrude had altogether ceased to be a girl, had altogether be-

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come a woman. Linda, with whom Norman at once compared her, though but one year younger, was still a child in comparison with her elder sister. Happy, happy Linda!

Gertrude had certainly proved herself to be an excellent wife; but perhaps she might have made herself more pleasing to others if she had not so entirely thrown off from herself all traces of juvenility. Could she, in this respect, have taken a lesson from her mother, she would have been a wiser woman. We have said that she consorted with Mrs. Woodward as though they had been sisters; but one might have said that Gertrude took on herself the manners of the elder sister. It is true that she had hard duties to perform, a stern world to overcome, an uphill fight before her with poverty, distress, and almost, nay, absolutely, with degradation. It was well for her and Alaric that she could face it all with the true courage of an honest woman. But yet those who had known her in her radiant early beauty could not but regret that the young freshness of early years should all have been laid aside so soon.

‘Linda, at any rate, far exceeds her in beauty,’ was Norman’s first thought, as he stood for a moment to look at her —’and then Linda too is so much more feminine.’ ‘Twas thus that Harry Norman consoled himself in the first moment of his first interview with Alaric’s wife. And he was right in his thoughts. The world would now have called Linda the more lovely of the two, and certainly the more feminine in the ladylike sense of the word. If, however, devotion be feminine, and truth to one selected life’s companion, if motherly care be so, and an indomitable sense of the duties due to one’s

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own household, then Gertrude was not deficient in feminine character.

‘You find me greatly altered, Harry, do you not?’ said she, taking his hand frankly, and perceiving immediately the effect which she had made upon him. ‘I am a steady old matron, am I not? — with a bairn on each side of me,’ and she pointed to her baby in the cradle, and to her other boy sitting on his grandmother’s knee.

Harry said he did find her altered. It was her dress, he said, and the cap on her head.

‘Yes, Harry; and some care and trouble too. To you, you know, to a friend such as you are, I must own that care and trouble do tell upon one. Not, thank God, that I have more than I can bear; not that I have not blessings for which I cannot but be too thankful.’

‘And so these are your boys, Gertrude?’

‘Yes,’ said she, cheerfully; ‘these are the little men, that in the good times coming will be managing vast kingdoms, and giving orders to this worn-out old island of yours. Alley, my boy, sing your new song about the ‘good and happy land.’ But Alley, who had got hold of his grandmother’s watch, and was staring with all his eyes at the stranger, did not seem much inclined to be musical at the present moment.

‘And this is Charley’s godson,’ continued Gertrude, taking up the baby. ‘Dear Charley! he has been such a comfort to me.’

‘I have heard all about you daily from him,’ said Harry.

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‘I know you have — and he is daily talking of you, Harry. And so he should do; so we all should do. What a glorious change this is for him! is it not, Harry?’

Charley by this time had torn himself away from Mr. Snape and the navvies, and transferred the whole of his official zeal and energies to the Weights and Measures. The manner and reason of this must, however, be explained in a subsequent chapter.

‘Yes,’ said Harry, ‘he has certainly got into a better office.’ ‘And he will do well there?’

‘I am sure he will. It was impossible he should do well at that other place. No man could do so. He is quite an altered man now. The only fault I find with him is that he is so full of his heroes and heroines.’

‘So he is, Harry; he is always asking me what he is to do with some forlorn lady or gentleman, ‘Oh, smother her!’ I said the other day. ‘Well,’ said he, with a melancholy gravity, ‘I’ll try it; but I fear it won’t answer.’ Poor Charley! what a friend you have been to him, Harry!’

‘A friend!’ said Mrs. Woodward, who was still true to her adoration of Norman. ‘Indeed he has been a friend — a friend to us all. Who is there like him?’

Gertrude could have found it in her heart to go back to the subject of old days, and tell her mother that there was somebody much better even than Harry Norman. But the present was hardly a time for such an assertion of her own peculiar opinion.

‘Yes, Harry,’ she said, ‘we have all much, too much, to thank you for. I have to thank you on his account.’

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‘Oh no,’ said he, ungraciously; ‘there is nothing to thank me for, — not on his account. Your mother and Captain Cuttwater — —’ and then he stopped himself. What he meant was that he had sacrificed his little fortune — for at the time his elder brother had still been living — not to rescue, or in attempting to rescue, his old friend from misfortune — not, at least, because that man had been his friend; but because he was the husband of Gertrude Woodward, and of Mrs. Woodward’s daughter. Could he have laid bare his heart, he would have declared that Alaric Tudor owed him nothing; that he had never forgiven, never could forgive, the wrongs he had received from him; but that he had forgiven Alaric’s wife; and that having done so in the tenderness of his heart, he had been ready to give up all that he possessed for her protection. He would have spared Gertrude what pain he could; but he would not lie, and speak of Alaric Tudor with affection.

‘But there is, Harry; there is,’ said Gertrude; ‘much — too much — greatly too much. It is that now weighs me down more than anything. Oh! Harry, how are we to pay to you all this money?’

‘It is with Mrs. Woodward,’ said he coldly, ‘and Captain Cuttwater, not with me, that you should speak of that. Mr. Tudor owes me nothing.’

‘Oh, Harry, Harry,’ said she, ‘do not call him Mr. Tudor — pray, pray; now that we are going — now that we shall never wound your sight again! do not call him Mr. Tudor.

He has done wrong; I do not deny it; but which of us is there that has not?’

‘It was not on that account,’ said he; ‘I could forgive all that.’

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Gertrude understood him, and her cheeks and brow became tinged with red. It was not from shame, nor yet wholly from a sense of anger, but mingled feelings filled her heart; feelings which she could in nowise explain. ‘If you have forgiven him that’ — she would have said, had she thought it right to speak out her mind —’if you have forgiven him that, then there is nothing left for further forgiveness.’

Gertrude had twice a better knowledge of the world than he had, twice a quicker perception of how things were going, and should be made to go. She saw that it was useless to refer further to her husband. Norman had come there at her request to say adieu to her; that she and he, who had been friends since she was a child, might see each other before they were separated for ever by half a world, and that they might part in love and charity. She would be his sister-in-law, he would be son to her mother, husband to her Linda; he had been, though he now denied it, her husband’s staunchest friend in his extremity; and it would have added greatly to the bitterness of her departure had she been forced to go without speaking to him one kindly word. The opportunity was given to her, and she would not utterly mar its sweetness by insisting on his injustice to her husband.

They all remained silent for a while, during which Gertrude fondled her baby, and Norman produced before the elder boy some present that he had brought for him.

‘Now, Alley,’ said Mrs. Woodward, ‘you’re a made man; won’t that do beautifully to play with on board the big ship?’

‘And so, Harry, you have given up official life altogether,’ said Gertrude.

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‘Yes,’ said he —’the last day of the last year saw my finale at the Weights and Measures. I did not live long — officially — to enjoy my promotion. I almost wish myself back again.’

‘You’ll go in on melting days, like the retired tallow-chan- dler,’ said Gertrude; ‘but, joking apart, I wish you joy on your freedom from thraldom; a government office in England is thraldom. If a man were to give his work only, it would be well. All men who have to live by labour must do that; but a man has to give himself as well as his work; to sacrifice his individuality; to become body and soul a part of a lumbering old machine.’

This hardly came well from Gertrude, seeing that Alaric at any rate had never been required to sacrifice any of his individuality. But she was determined to hate all the antecedents of his life, as though those antecedents, and not the laxity of his own principles, had brought about his ruin. She was prepared to live entirely for the future, and to look back on her London life as bad, tasteless, and demoralizing. England to her was no longer a glorious country; for England’s laws had made a felon of her husband. She would go to a new land, new hopes, new ideas, new freedom, new work, new life, and new ambition. ‘Excelsior!’ there was no longer an excelsior left for talent and perseverance in this effete country. She and hers would soon find room for their energies in a younger land; and as she went she could not but pity those whom she left behind. Her reasoning was hardly logical, but, perhaps, it was not unfortunate.

‘For myself,’ said Norman, not quite following all this —’I always liked the Civil Service, and now I leave it with a sort of

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regret. I am quite glad that Charley has my old desk; it will keep up a sort of tie between me and the place.’

‘What does Linda say about it, mamma?’

‘Linda and I are both of Harry’s way of thinking,’ said Mrs. Woodward, ‘because Normansgrove is such a distance.’

‘Distance!’ repeated Gertrude, with something of sorrow, but more of scorn in her tone. ‘Distance, mamma! why you can get to her between breakfast and dinner. Think where Melbourne is, mamma!’

‘It has nearly broken my heart to think of it,’ said Mrs. Woodward.

‘And you will still have Linda, mamma, and our darling Katie, and Harry, and dear Charley. If the idea of distance should frighten anyone it is me. But nothing shall frighten me while I have my husband and children. Harry, you must not let mamma be too often alone when some other knight shall have come and taken away Katie.’

‘We will take her to Normansgrove for good and all, if she will let us,’ said Harry.

And now the time came for them to part. Harry was to say good-bye to her, and then to see her no more. Early on the following morning Gertrude was to go to Hampton and see Katie for the last time; to see Katie for the last time, and the Cottage, and the shining river, and all the well-known objects among which she had passed her life. To Mrs. Woodward, to Linda, and Katie, all this was subject of inexpressible melancholy; but with Gertrude every feeling of romance seemed to have been absorbed by the realities of life. She would, of course, go to Katie and give her a farewell embrace, since Katie was still too

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weak to come to her; she would say farewell to Uncle Bat, to whom she and Alaric owed so much; she would doubtless shed a tear or two, and feel some emotion at parting, even from the inanimate associations of her youth; but all this would now impress no lasting sorrow on her.

She was eager to be off, eager for her new career, eager that he should stand on a soil where he could once more face his fellow-creatures without shame. She panted to put thousands of leagues of ocean between him and his disgrace.

On the following morning Gertrude was to go to Hampton for two hours, and then to return to Millbank, with her mother and sister, for whose accommodation a bed had been hired in the neighbourhood. On that evening Alaric would be released from his prison; and then before daybreak on the following day they were to take their way to the far-off docks, and place themselves on board the vessel which was to carry them to their distant home.

‘God bless you, Gertrude,’ said Norman, whose eyes were not dry.

‘God Almighty bless you, Harry, you and Linda — and make you happy. If Linda does not write constantly very constantly, you must do it for her. We have delayed the happiness of your marriage, Harry — you must forgive us that, as well as all our other trespasses. I fear Linda will never forgive that.’

‘You won’t find her unmerciful on that score,’ said he. ‘Dear Gertrude, good-bye.’

She put up her face to him, and he kissed her, for the first time in his life. ‘He bade me give you his love,’ said she, in her last whisper; ‘I must, you know, do his bidding.’

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