The Three Clerks II

THE THREE CLERKS

upon its soil; its produce for her had been gall and bitter herbs for many a weary month after she first landed. But her heart had never sunk within her. She had never forgotten that he, if he were to work well, should have at least one cheerful companion by his side. She had been true to him, then as ever. And yet it is so hard to be true to high principles in little things. The heroism of the Roman, who, for his country’s sake, leapt his horse into a bottomless gulf, was as nothing to that of a woman who can keep her temper through poverty, and be cheerful in adversity.

Through poverty, scorn, and bad repute, under the privations of a hard life, separated from so many that she had loved, and from everything that she had liked, Gertrude had still been true to her ideas of her marriage vow; true, also, to her pure and single love. She had entwined herself with him in sunny weather; and when the storm came she did her best to shelter the battered stem to which she had trusted herself.

By degrees things mended with them; and in this letter, which is now passing from eager hand to hand in Katie’s drawing-room, Gertrude spoke with better hope of their future prospects.

‘Thank God, we are once more all well,’ she said; ‘and Alaric’s spirits are higher than they were. He has, indeed, had much to try them. They think, I believe, in England, that any kind of work here is sure to command a high price; of this I am quite sure, that in no employment in England are people so tasked as they are here. Alaric was four months in these men’s counting-house, and I am sure another four months would have seen him in his grave. Though I knew not then what other provision might be made for us, I implored him, almost on

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my knees, to give up that. He was expected to be there for ten, sometimes twelve, hours a day; and they thought he should always be kept going like a steam-engine. You know Alaric never was afraid of work; but that would have killed him. And what was it for? What did they give him for that — for all his talent, all his experience, all his skill? And he did give them all. His salary was two pounds ten a week! And then, when he told them of all he was doing for them, they had the baseness to remind him of — — . Dearest mother, is not the world hard? It was that that made me insist that he should leave them.’

Alaric’s present path was by no means over roses. This certainly was a change from those days on which he had sat, one of a mighty trio, at the Civil Service Examination Board, striking terror into candidates by a scratch of his pen, and making happy the desponding heart by his approving nod. His ambition now was not to sit among the magnates of Great Britain, and make his voice thunder through the columns of the Times; it ranged somewhat lower at this period, and was confined for the present to a strong desire to see his wife and bairns sufficiently fed, and not left absolutely without clothing. He inquired little as to the feeling of the electors of Strathbogy.

And had he utterly forgotten the stirring motto of his early days? Did he ever mutter ‘Excelsior’ to himself, as, with weary steps, he dragged himself home from that hated countinghouse? Ah! he had fatally mistaken the meaning of the word which he had so often used. There had been the error of his life. ‘Excelsior!’ When he took such a watchword for his use, he should surely have taught himself the meaning of it.

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He had now learnt that lesson in a school somewhat of the sternest; but, as time wore kindly over him, he did teach himself to accept the lesson with humility. His spirit had been wellnigh broken as he was carried from that court-house in the Old Bailey to his prison on the river-side; and a broken spirit, like a broken goblet, can never again become whole. But Nature was a kind mother to him, and did not permit him to be wholly crushed. She still left within the plant the germ of life, which enabled it again to spring up and vivify, though sorely bruised by the heels of those who had ridden over it. He still repeated to himself the old watchword, though now in humbler tone and more bated breath; and it may be presumed that he had now a clearer meaning of its import.

‘But his present place,’ continued Gertrude, ‘is much — very much more suited to him. He is corresponding clerk in the first bank here, and though his pay is nearly double what it was at the other place, his hours of work are not so oppressive. He goes at nine and gets away at five — that is, except on the arrival or dispatch of the English mails.’ Here was a place of bliss for a man who had been a commissioner, attending at the office at such hours as best suited himself, and having clerks at his beck to do all that he listed. And yet, as Gertrude said, this was a place of bliss to him. It was a heaven as compared with that other hell.

‘Alley is such a noble boy,’ said Gertrude, becoming almost joyous as she spoke of her own immediate cares. ‘He is most like Katie, I think, of us all; and yet he is very like his papa. He goes to a day-school now, with his books slung over his back in a bag. You never saw such a proud little fellow as he

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is, and so manly. Charley is just like you — oh! so like. It makes me so happy that he is. He did not talk so early as Alley, but, nevertheless, he is more forward than the other children I see here. The little monkeys! they are neither of them the least like me. But one can always see oneself, and it don’t matter if one does not.’

‘If ever there was a brick, Gertrude is one,’ said Norman. ‘A brick!’ said Charley —’why you might cut her to pieces,

and build another Kensington palace out of the slices. I believe she is a brick.’

‘I wonder whether I shall ever see her again?’ said Mrs. Woodward, not with dry eyes.

‘Oh yes, mamma,’ said Katie. ‘She shall come home to us some day, and we will endeavour to reward her for it all.’

Dear Katie, who will not love you for such endeavour? But, indeed, the reward for heroism cometh not here.

There was much more in the letter, but enough has been given for our purpose. It will be seen that hope yet remained both for Alaric and his wife; and hope not without a reasonable base. Bad as he had been, it had not been with him as with Undy Scott. The devil had not contrived to put his whole claw upon him. He had not divested himself of human affections and celestial hopes. He had not reduced himself to the present level of a beast, with the disadvantages of a soul and of an eternity, as the other man had done. He had not put himself beyond the pale of true brotherhood with his fellow-men. We would have hanged Undy had the law permitted us; but now we will say farewell to the other, hoping that he may yet achieve exaltation of another kind.

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And to thee, Gertrude — how shall we say farewell to thee, excluded as thou art from that dear home, where those who love thee so well are now so happy? Their only care remaining is now thy absence. Adversity has tried thee in its crucible, and thou art found to be of virgin gold, unalloyed; hadst thou still been lapped in prosperity, the true ring of thy sterling metal would never have been heard. Farewell to thee, and may those young budding flowerets of thine break forth into golden fruit to gladden thy heart in coming days!

The reading of Gertrude’s letter, and the consequent discussion, somewhat put off the execution of the little scheme which had been devised for that evening’s amusement; but, nevertheless, it was still broad daylight when Mrs. Woodward consigned the precious document to her desk; the drawingroom windows were still open, and the bairns were still being fondled in the room. It was the first week in July, when the night almost loses her dominion, and when those hours which she generally claims as her own, become the pleasantest of the day.

‘Oh,Charley,’saidKatie,atlast,‘wehavegreatnewsforyou,too. Here is another review on “The World’s Last Wonder.”’

Now ‘The World’s Last Wonder’ was Charley’s third novel; but he was still sensitive enough on the subject of reviews to look with much anxiety for what was said of him. These notices were habitually sent down to him at Hampton, and his custom was to make his wife or her mother read them, while he sat by in lordly ease in his arm-chair, receiving homage when homage came to him, and criticizing the critics when they were uncivil.

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‘Have you?’ said Charley. ‘What is it? Why did you not show it me before?’

‘Why, we were talking of dear Gertrude,’ said Katie; ‘and it is not so pleasant but that it will keep. What paper do you think it is?’

‘What paper? how on earth can I tell? — show it me.’

‘No; but do guess, Charley; and then mamma will read it — pray guess now.’

‘Oh, bother, I can’t guess. The Literary Censor, I suppose — I know they have turned against me.’

‘No, it’s not that,’ said Linda; ‘guess again.’ ‘The Guardian Angel,’ said Charley.

‘No — that angel has not taken you under his wings as yet,’ said Katie.

‘I know it’s not the Times,’ said Charley, ‘for I have seen that.’

‘O no,’ said Katie, seriously; ‘if it was anything of that sort, we would not keep you in suspense.’

‘Well, I’ll be shot if I guess any more — there are such thousands of them.’

‘But there is only one Daily Delight,’ said Mrs. Woodward. ‘Nonsense!’ said Charley. ‘You don’t mean to tell me that

my dear old friend and foster-father has fallen foul of me — my old teacher and master, if not spiritual pastor; well — well — well! The ingratitude of the age! I gave him my two beautiful stories, the first-fruits of my vine, all for love; to think that he should now lay his treacherous axe to the root of the young tree — well, give it here.’

‘No — mamma will read it — we want Harry to hear it.’

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‘O yes — let Mrs. Woodward read it,’ said Harry. ‘I trust it is severe. I know no man who wants a dragging over the coals more peremptorily than you do.’

‘Thankee, sir. Well, grandmamma, go on; but if there be anything very bad, give me a little notice, for I am nervous.’

And then Mrs. Woodward began to read, Linda sitting with Katie’s baby in her arms, and Katie performing a similar office for her sister.

“’The World’s Last Wonder,’ by Charles Tudor, Esq.”

‘He begins with a lie,’ said Charley, ‘for I never called myself Esquire.’

‘Oh, that was a mistake,’ said Katie, forgetting herself. ‘Men of that kind shouldn’t make such mistakes,’ said

Charley. ‘When one fellow attempts to cut up another fellow, he ought to take special care that he does it fairly.’

“By the author of ‘Bathos.’”

‘I didn’t put that in,’ said Charley, ‘that was the publisher. I only put Charles Tudor.’

‘Don’t be so touchy, Charley, and let me go on,’ said Mrs. Woodward.

‘Well, fire away — it’s good fun to you, I dare say, as the fly said to the spider.’

‘Well, Charley, at any rate we are not the spiders,’ said Linda. Katie said nothing, but she could not help feeling that she must look rather spiderish.

‘Mr. Tudor has acquired some little reputation as a humorist, but as is so often the case with those who make us laugh, his very success will prove his ruin.’

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‘Then upon my word the Daily Delight is safe,’ said Charley. ‘It will never be ruined in that way.’

‘There is an elaborate jocosity about him, a determined eternity of most industrious fun, which gives us the idea of a boy who is being rewarded for having duly learnt by rote his daily lesson out of Joe Miller.’

‘Now, I’ll bet ten to one he has never read the book at all — well, never mind — go on.’

“’The World’s Last Wonder’ is the description of a woman who kept a secret under certain temptations to reveal it, which, as Mr. Tudor supposes, might have moved any daughter of Eve to break her faith.”

‘I haven’t supposed anything of the kind,’ said Charley. ‘This secret, which we shall not disclose, as we would not

wish to be thought less trustworthy than Mr. Tudor’s wonderful woman —’

‘We shall find that he does disclose it, of course; that is the way with all of them.’

—’Is presumed to permeate the whole three volumes.’

‘It is told at full length in the middle of the second,’ said Charley.

‘And the effect upon the reader of course is, that he has ceased to interest himself about it, long before it is disclosed to him!

‘The lady in question is engaged to be married to a gentleman, a circumstance which in the pages of a novel is not calculated to attract much special attention. She is engaged to be married, but the gentleman who has the honour of being her intended sposo — —’

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‘Intended sposo!’ said Charley, expressing by his upturned lip a withering amount of scorn —’how well I know the fellow’s low attempts at wit! That’s the editor himself — that’s my literary papa. I know him as well as though I had seen him at it.’ Katie and Mrs. Woodward exchanged furtive glances, but

neither of them moved a muscle of her face.

‘But the gentleman who has the honour of being her intended sposo,’ continued Mrs. Woodward.

‘What the devil’s a sposo?’ said Uncle Bat, who was sitting in an arm-chair with a handkerchief over his head.

‘Why, you’re not a sposo, Uncle Bat,’ said Linda; ‘but Harry is, and so is Charley.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said the captain; ‘it’s a bird with his wings clipped.’ ‘But the gentleman who has the honour of being her in-

tended sposo — —’ again read Mrs. Woodward.

‘Now I’m sure I’m speaking by the card,’ said Charley, ‘when I say that there is not another man in London who could have written that line, and who would have used so detestable a word. I think I remember his using it in one of his lectures to me; indeed I’m sure I do. Sposo! I should like to tweak his nose oh!’

‘Are you going to let me go on?’ said Mrs. Woodward —’her intended sposo’ — Charley gave a kick with his foot and satisfied himself with that —’is determined to have nothing to say to her in the matrimonial line till she has revealed to him this secret which he thinks concerns his own honour.’

‘There, I knew he’d tell it.’

‘He has not told it yet,’ said Norman.

‘The lady, however, is obdurate, wonderfully so, of course, seeing that she is the world’s last wonder, and so the match

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is broken off. But the secret is of such a nature that the lady’s invincible objection to revealing it is bound up with the fact of her being a promised bride.’

‘I wonder he didn’t say sposa,’ said Charley. ‘I never thought of that,’ said Katie.

Mrs. Woodward and Linda looked at her, but Charley did not, and her blunder passed by unnoticed.

‘Now that she is free from her matrimonial bonds, she is free also to tell the secret; and indeed the welfare both of the gentleman and of the lady imperiously demands that it should be told. Should he marry her, he is destined to learn it after his marriage; should he not marry her, he may hear it at any time. She sends for him and tells him, not the first of these facts, by doing which all difficulty would have at once been put an end to —’

‘It is quite clear he has never read the story, quite clear,’ said Charley.

‘She tells him only the last, viz., that as they are now strangers he may know the secret; but that when once known it will raise a barrier between them that no years, no penance, no sorrow on his part, no tenderness on hers, can ever break down. She then asks him — will he hear the secret?’

‘She does not ask any such thing,’ said Charley; ‘the letter that contains it has been already sent to him. She merely gives him an opportunity of returning it unopened.’

‘The gentleman, who is not without a grain of obstinacy in his own composition and many grains of curiosity, declares it to be impossible that he can go to the altar in ignorance of facts which he is bound to know, and the lady, who seems to

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