She and I, Volume 2 Page 7

  CHAPTER SEVEN.

  HER LETTER.

  Ay de mi! Un anno felice, Parece un soplo ligero: Pero sin dicha un instante, Es un siglo de tormente.

  "--And with mine eyes I'll drink the words you send, though ink be made of gall!"

  It was broad daylight when I got home.

  I did not go to bed; but, passed the weary morning hours in walking upand down my room, chewing the bitter cud of hopeless fancy, and in astate of excitement almost approaching to madness.

  At last, the time arrived for me to start to town to my office.

  "Hey, humph! what is the matter, Mr Lorton?"--growled old Smudge to me,as I proceeded to sign the attendance book before the fatal black linewas drawn against the late comers--"Look ill, look ill! hey? Latehours, late hours, young man, young man; dissipation, and all the restof it, hey? _I_ know how it will end--same as the rest, same as therest!"--and he chuckled to himself over some blue book in his corner, asif he had, in the most merry and unbending mood, "passed the time ofday" with singular bonhomie!

  I only gave him a gruff good-morning, however. I walked listlessly tomy desk, where he presently also came, to take me to task about someaccount I had checked--so as to tone down any presumptuous feelings Imight have in consequence of his graciousness:--the "balance" was, thus,"pretty square" between us.

  I never found the office-work so tedious, my fellow-clerks so wearisome,nor the whole round of civil service life so dreadfully "flat, stale,and unprofitable," as on that miserable day after the party!

  The day seemed as if it would never come to an end.

  The wretched hours lengthened themselves out, with such indiarubber-likeelasticity, that, the interval between ten and four appeared a cycle ofcenturies!

  I was longing to be free, in order to carry out a determination to whichI had come.

  I had resolved to see Mrs Clyde and plead my cause again with her; for,I had observed from Min's manner, that it was not _her_ objection to mepersonally, but, her promise to her mother which had prevented her fromlending a favourable ear to my suit.

  Four o'clock came at last--thank heaven!

  I rushed out of the office; procured a hansom, with the fastest horse Iwas able to pick out in my hurry; and, set out homewards.

  I arrived within the bounds of Saint Canon's parish within the half-hour, thanks to the "pour boire" that I held out, in anticipation ofhurry, to my Jehu.

  A few minutes afterwards, I called at The Terrace.

  The ladies were both out, the servant said.

  I called again, later on.

  Still "not at home," I was told; although, I knew they were in. I hadwatched both Min and Mrs Clyde enter the house, shortly before mysecond visit. I was evidently intentionally denied!

  I went back to my own home. I spent another hour or two, walking up anddown my room in the same cheerful way in which I had passed the morning;and then--_then_, I thought I would write to Mrs Clyde.

  Yes, that would be the best course.

  I sat down and penned the most vivid sketch of my present grief, askingher to reconsider the former decision she had given against me. I wascertain, I said, that it was only through _her_ influence that Min hadrejected me; and I earnestly besought her good will. I was now in abetter position, I urged, than I had been the previous year, my incomebeing nearly doubled--thanks to Government and what I was able to reapfrom my literary lucubrations:--what more could she require? Besides,my assets would increase, at the least, by the ten pound bonus which agrateful country annually aggregates to the salary of its victims eachyear--not to speak of the fortune I might make by my "connection withthe press!" In fact, I said everything that I could, to colour my caseand get judgment recorded in my favour.

  But, my toil was all in vain!

  I sent over my letter by a servant, with instructions to leave it at thedoor; while, I, waited in all the evening expecting an answer, inbreathless suspense.

  None came; but, next morning I received back my own despatch enclosed inanother envelope, unopened, unread.

  I went down to the office that day in quite a cheerful mood again, I cantell you!

  How I did enjoy Brown's balderdash; the witty sallies of Smith;Robinson's repartees; Jones' jocosities!

  When, after my official labours, I returned again to Saint Canon's thatevening, I made another attempt to see Mrs Clyde.

  No. The servant who answered the door, when I timidly called for thethird time at the house, told me that instructions had been given to say"not at home" always _to me_.

  Pleasant!

  War had been declared:--a "guerre a outrance," as I had anticipated;but, it was a struggle in which I was stretched on the ground at myadversary's mercy, with her vengeful blade at my heart!

  I then wrote to Min.

  It was a long letter. I bewailed my hasty severance of the oldrelations between us, and asked her to have pity on my sad fate. Ipoured out all the flood of feeling which had deluged my breast since wehad parted at the party. I begged, I implored her not to desert me ather mother's bidding.

  My letter I posted, so that it should not be stopped en route, andreturned to me unread by my darling, whom I asked to write to me, ifonly one line, to tell me that she had really received my appealsafely--requesting her, also, to reply to me at my office that I mightget her answer in the soonest possible time.

  I dreamt of her subsequently, the whole night through:--it was ahorrible dream!

  A third day of torture in my governmental mill. Six mortal hours moreof dreary misery; and, helpless boredom at the hands of Smith, Brown,Jones, and Robinson!

  And, then, I got my reply.

  It was "only a line." Very short, very sweet, very bitter, verypointed; and yet, I value that little letter so highly that I would notexchange it for the world! The words are stained with tear-drops that,I know, fell from loving, grey eyes; while, its sense, though painful,is sweet to me from its outspoken truthfulness:--I value it so highly,that I could not deem it more precious, if it were written on a goldentablet in characters set with diamonds--were it the longest lettermaiden ever wrote, the sweetest billet lover ever received!

  "_Frank! I cannot, I must not grant your request. Do not wring my heart by writing to me again, or speaking to me; for, I have promised, and we are not to see each other any more. I am breaking my word in writing to you now, but, oh! do not think badly of me. Indeed, indeed, I am not heartless, Frank. It has not been my fault, believe me. I shall pray for you always, always! I must not say any more_.

  "_Minnie Clyde_."

  That was all the little note contained; but, it was quite enough.

  Was it not?

  When I had read it and read it, over and over again, I was almost besidemyself,--with a grief that was mixed up with feelings of intense angerand rage against her whom I looked upon as the author of my sufferings--Mrs Clyde.

  Min had been again sent down to the country, the very day on which Ireceived her heart-breaking letter. This I heard from my old friend,dear little Miss Pimpernell, who tried vainly to console me. Sheendeavoured to make me believe that "all would come right in the end,"as she had prophesied before; but, I refused to be comforted. I couldnot share her faith. I would not be sanguine any more; no, never anymore!

  I saw Mrs Clyde at church the very next Sunday. I went there in thehope that my darling might have returned, and that I would see her--notfrom any religious feeling.

  There was only her mother there, however.

  I waited to accost her at the church door after the service was over.

  "Oh, Mrs Clyde," I said, "do not be my enemy!"

  But, she took no notice of me:--she cut me dead.

  I was convinced that all was lost now.

  It was of no use my longer attempting to fight against fate:--I gave uphope completely;--and then--and then--

  I went to the devil!

  Rochefoucauld says in his pointed "Maxims" that--

  "There is not
hing so catching as example; nor is there ever great good or ill done that does not produce its like. We imitate good actions through emulation, and bad ones through the malignity of our nature, which shame restrains and example emancipates."

  That was my case now.

  I suppose I had had it in me all along--the "black drop," as the Irishpeasants call it, of evil; and, that shame had hitherto prevented mefrom plunging into the whirlpool of sinful indulgence that now drew me,a willing victim, down into its yawning gulf of ruin and degradation.That bar removed, however, I made rapid progress towards the beckoningdevil, who was waiting to receive me with open arms. I hastened alongthat path, "where,"--as Byron has described from his own painfulexperience--

  "--In a moment, we may plunge our years In fatal penitence, and in the blight Of our own soul, turn all our blood to tears, And colour things to come with hues of night!"

  I declare to you, that when I look back on this period of my life--life!death, rather I should say, for it was a moral death--I am quite unableto comprehend the motives that led me to take such a course. My eyeswere not blinded. I must have seen that each stride placed me furtherand further away from my darling, erecting a fresh obstacle between us;still, some irresistible impulse appeared to hurry me on--although, Icould not but have known how vain it would be for me to recover my lostfootsteps: how hard a matter to change my direction, and look upwards tolight and happiness once more! Glancing back at this period--as I donow with horror--I cannot understand myself, I say.

  I went from bad to worse, plunging deeper and deeper into everywickedness that Satan could suggest, or flesh hanker after--until Iseemed to lose all sense of shame and self-reproach.

  My connection with officialdom was soon terminated.

  I got later and later in my attendance; so that, old Smudge's predictionwas shortly fulfilled, for, I became no better than the rest, in respectof early hours.

  One day the chief spoke to me on the subject, and I answered himunguardedly.

  I was not thinking of him at the time, to tell the truth; and when hesaid, "Mr Lorton, late again, late again! This won't do, you know,won't do!" I quite forgot myself; and, in speaking to him, called himby the nickname under which he was known to us, instead of by his properappellation.

  "Very sorry, Smudge," said I, "very sorry; won't be so again, I promiseyou, sir!"

  He nearly got a fit, I assure you; while, all the other fellows weresplitting with laughter at my slip!

  "Mr Lorton, I will report you, sir!" was all he said to me directly;but, as he shuffled off to his desk, with the attendance book recordingmy misdeeds under his arm and his face purple with passion, we all couldhear him muttering pretty loudly to himself. "Smudge! Smudge!"--he wasrepeating;--"I'll Smudge him, the impudent rascal! I wonder what thedooce he meant by it! What the dooce did he mean by it?--mean by it?"

  I begged his pardon off-hand, immediately, of course, although I wouldnot give him the written apology he peremptorily demanded.

  Do you know, I did not like to deprive him of the extreme pleasure itwould give him to submit his case against me--in clerkly, cut-and-driedstatement--to the chief commissioner, under-secretary, first lord, orwhoever else occupied the lofty pedestal of "the board," that controlledthe occasionally-peculiar proceedings of the Obstructor General'sDepartment.

  I knew with what intense relish he would expatiate on the wrong which"the service" had sustained in his person at my hands--the "frightfulexample" I presented, of insubordination and defiance to constitutionalauthority; and how, he would draw up the most elaborate document,detailing all this, in flowing but strictly official language, oncarefully-folded, quarter-margined foolscap, of the regular, authoriseddimensions!

  What a pity, I thought, it would be to interfere with such neatarrangements by submitting to a _Nolle Prosequi_--as I would have done,had I tendered the recantation of my error that he insisted on!

  At the same time, however, I checkmated his triumph, by forwarding tothe people in high places the resignation of that position as a clerk ofthe tertiary formation, which I had, been nominated to, examined inrespect of, and competed for, under the auspices of Her Majesty's PoliteLetter Writer Commissioners; and which I had been duly appointed to--allin proper official sequence--but one short year before, plus a fewadditional months, which were of no great consequence to any one.

  My withdrawal left, at any rate, one place vacant for some member ofParliament's constituent's son, who would, probably, be much more worthyin every way for the honours and duties of the situation--which, really,I do not think I ever estimated at their proper value!

  This was some satisfaction to me, I assure you; and, combined with thesum of one hundred and ten pounds sterling--less income-tax on one-fourth part of the said amount, or thereabouts: I like to be correct--was all the benefit I ever received from my connection with"Government."

  My year's probation was, I may say without any great exaggeration,thrown away; for, the knowledge I gained was not of a character toadvance my interests in any other walk in life, professional ormercantile. Still, I bear no malice to officialdom, if officialdomcares to obtain my assurance to that effect. The few words--farbetween, too--which I have dropped to you, anent the combination of theill-used servants of the country in opposition to their grievances, havebeen more intended to redress the wrongs of those hard-worked, poor-paidsufferers in question, than meant as a covert attack on the nobleauthorities of the great, lumbering institution they belong to--thespokes of whose broadly-tired wheels they may be said to form.

  For my part, I adore governmental departments, looking on all of themwith a wide admiration that is tempered with wholesome awe; and,believing them to be so many concentrations of virtue and merit, whichare none the less real because they are imperceptible.

  The giving up of my appointment was the finish of my mad career.

  I awoke now to a consciousness of all my foolishness and wickedness; therevelation of the misery, present and future alike, which my conduct hadprepared for me, coming to mind, with a sudden, sharp stroke of painfuldistinctness that prostrated me into an abyss of self-torture andrepentance.

  Ah! There is no use in repining, unless one mends matters by deeds, notwords. Repentance is worth little if it be not followed up byreformation. But, how many of us rush madly, headlong to destruction,without a thought of what they are doing; never mindful of their course,till that dreadful refrain, "Too late!" rings in their ears.

  As the poetical author of the ode to the "Plump Head Waiter at TheCock," has philosophically sung,--and, as many a weather-beaten suffererhas cruelly proven,--

  "So fares it since the years began, Till they be gather'd up; The truth, that flies the flowing can, Will haunt the empty cup: And others' follies teach us not, Nor much their wisdom teaches; And most, of sterling worth, is what Our own experience preaches!"

  I remembered now having come across a passage in Massillon's _PetitCareme_, some two or three years before, during a varied course ofFrench reading at the library of the British Museum,--an old haunt ofmine long previously to my ever knowing Min; and this passage occurredto me in my present condition, expressing a want I had long felt, andwhich I was now all the more bitterly conscious of. It is in one of thesermons which the seventeenth century divine probably preached in thepresence of the Grand Monarque. It is entitled "Sur la Destinee del'Homme;" and might, for its practical point and thorough insightednessinto human nature, be expounded to-morrow by any of our large-hearted,Broad Church ministers. In its truth, I'm sure, it is catholic enoughto suit any creed:--

  "Si tout doit finir avec nous, si l'homme ne doit rien attendre apres cette vie, et que ce soit ici notre patrie, notre origine, et la seul felicite que nous pouvons nous promettre, pourquoi n'y sommes-nous pas heureux? Si nous ne naissons que pour les plaisirs des sens, pourquoi ne peuvent-ils nous satisfaire, et laissent-ils toujours un fond d'ennui et de tristesse dans notre coeur? Si l'homme n'a rien au- dessus de la
bete, que ne coule-t-il ses jours comme elle, sans souci, sans inquietude, sans degout, sans tristesse, dans la felicite des sens et de la chair?"

  Because he can not!

  The pleasures of life, however varied, and grateful though they may beat the time, soon wither on the palate; and then, when we appreciate atlast the knowledge of their dust and ashes, their Dead Sea-appleconstituency, we _must_ turn to something better, something higher--thejoys of which are more lasting and whose flavour proceeds from some lessevanescent substance.

  Such were my reflections now; and, in my abasement and craving for "theone good thing," I thought of the kind vicar.

  During all the time of my rioting and sin, I had never been near eitherhim or Miss Pimpernell. I would not have profaned the sanctuary oftheir dwelling with my presence!

  Both had tried to see me--in vain; for, I had separated myself entirelyfrom all my former friends and acquaintances, burying the earlyassociations of my previous life in the slough of the Bohemian-boon-companionship, into which I had thrown myself in London.

  The kind vicar had written to me a long, earnest, touching letter, whichdid not reproach me in the least but invited me to confide in him all mytroubles; and, the dear old lady, also, had sent me many an appeal thatshe might be allowed to cheer me. But, I had not taken notice of theirpleadings, persevering still in evil and shutting my ears to friendlycounsels--as I likewise did to the voice of reason speaking in my innerheart.

  Now, however, in my misery, I bethought me of these friends. I wentshame-faced and mentally-naked, like the prodigal son, once more to thevicarage.

  And how did they receive me?

  With the pharisaical philosophy of Miss Spight's school, looking on meas a "goat," with whom they had nothing to do:--"a lost soul," withoutthe pale of their pity and almost below the par of their contempt?

  Not so!

  Dear little Miss Pimpernell got up from her arm-chair in the corner, andkissed me--the first time she had done such a thing since I was a littlefellow and had sat upon her knee; while, the vicar shook me as cordiallyby the hand as he had ever done.

  "Dear Frank!" exclaimed the former. "Here you are at last. I thoughtyou were never coming to us again!"

  That was all the allusion _she_ made to the past.

  "My boy," said the vicar, "I am glad to see you."

  That was all _he_ said; but, his speech was not mere empty verbiage. Hemeant it!

  I shall not tell you how they both talked to me: so tenderly, so kindly.It would not interest you. It only concerned myself.

  By-and-by, after a long interview, in which I laid all my troublesbefore these comforters, the vicar asked me what I thought of doing.

  "I shall go away,"--I said.--"I have exhausted London.--`I have livedand loved,' as Theckla says; and there is no hope of my getting on here!I would think that everybody would recall my past life, whenever theysaw me, and throw it all back in my teeth."

  "But, you can live all that down, my boy," said the vicar.--"The worldis not half so censorious as you think now, in your awakening; and,remember, Frank, what Shakspeare says, `There is no time so miserable,but a man may be true!'"

  "Besides," I went on,--"I want change of scene. All these old placeswould recall the past. I could never be happy here again."

  "Well, well, my boy!" he answered sadly. "But, we shall be sorry tolose you, Frank, all the same, although it may be for your good."

  I had thought of America already, and told him that I intended goingthere. Not from any wide-seated admiration of the Great Republic andits citizens; but, from its being a place within easy reach--where Imight separate myself entirely from all that would recall home thoughtsand home associations:--so I then believed.

  "I shall go there," I said, bitterly.--"At all events, I shall beunknown; and, can bury myself and my misery--a fitting end to a badlife!"

  "My boy, my boy!"--said the vicar, with emotion.--"It grieves me to theheart to hear you speak so. Know, that repentance brings us always oncemore beneath the shelter of divine love! You will think of this by-and-by, Frank:--you may carve out a new life for yourself in the new world,and return to us successful. Be comforted, my boy! Do not forgetDavid's spirit-stirring words of promise,--`They that sow in tears,shall reap in joy; and he that now goeth on his way weeping, and bearethforth good seed, shall doubtless come again with joy, and bring hissheaves with him!'"