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BROKEN TO HARNESS:
A
Story of English Domestic Life.
BY EDMUND YATES,
AUTHOR OF "THE ROCK AHEAD," "BLACK SHEEP," ETC. ETC.
"Mit dem Gürtel, mit dem Schleier,
Reisst der schöner Wahn entzwei."
_NEW EDITION_.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8 CATHERINE ST., STRAND.
1873.
LONDON:
ROBSON AND SONS, PRINTERS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W.
Inscribed
TO
THE MARQUIS CLANRICARDE, K.P.
IN REMEMBRANCE
OF
CONSTANT KINDNESS.
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
I. Mr. Churchill's Ideas are Monastic.
II. Down at Bissett.
III. Starting the Game.
IV. The Commissioner's Views are Matrimonial.
V. "There's Nothing half so sweet in Life."
VI. The Commissioner's Shell Explodes.
VII. Touching a Proposal.
VIII. Touching another Proposal.
IX. "A little proud, but full of Pity."
X. At the Tin-Tax Office, No. 120.
XI. With the Secretary.
XII. Where Mr. Pringle went to.
XIII. Mr. Prescott's Proceedings.
XIV. Miss Lexden on Matrimony.
XV. Mother and Son.
XV. "For better, for worse."
XVII. Mining Operations.
XVIII. The Schröders at Home.
XIX. The Old or the New?
XX. Churchill's at Home.
XXI. The Flybynights.
XXII. Mr. Simnel at the Den.
XXIII. Mr. Beresford in Pursuit.
XXIV. Barbara's first Lesson in the Manege.
XXV. A Garden-party at Uplands.
XXVI. Showing Who Were "Pigott and Wells."
XXVII. Weaving the Web.
XVIII. Tightening the Curb.
XXIX. Mr. Scadgers pays a Visit.
XXX. After the Storm.
XXXI. The Paper Bullet.
XXXII. Half-revealed.
XXXIII. The House of Mourning.
XXXIV. Et tu Brute!
XXXV. Balthazar.
XXXVI. "Be sure Your Sin will find you out."
XXXVII. Ministering Angels.
XXXVIII. Under Pressure.
XXXIX. "We kissed again with Tears."
XL. Going Home.
XLI. The Day after.
XLII. And last.
BROKEN TO HARNESS.
CHAPTER I.
MR. CHURCHILL'S IDEAS ARE MONASTIC.
The office of the _Statesman_ daily journal was not popular with the
neighbours, although its existence unquestionably caused a diminution
of rent in its immediate proximity. It was very difficult to
find--which was an immense advantage to those connected with it, as no
one had any right there but the affiliated; and strangers burning to
express their views or to resent imaginary imputations cast upon them
had plenty of time to cool down while they wandered about the adjacent
lanes in vain quest of their object. If you had business there, and
were not thoroughly acquainted with the way, your best plan was to
take a sandwich in your pocket, to prepare for an afternoon's
campaign, and then to turn to the right out of Fleet Street, down any
street leading to the river, and to wander about until you quite
unexpectedly came upon your destination. There you found it, a queer,
dumpy, black-looking old building,--like a warehouse that had been sat
upon and compressed,--nestling down in a quaint little dreary square,
surrounded by the halls of Worshipful Companies which had never been
heard of save by their own Liverymen, and large churches with an
average congregation of nine, standing mildewed and blue-mouldy, with
damp voters'-notices peeling off their doors, and green streaks down
the stuccoed heads of the angels and cherubim supporting the dripping
arch over the porch, in little dank reeking churchyards, where the
rank grass overtopped the broken tombstones, and stuck nodding out
through the dilapidated railing.
The windows were filthy with the stains of a thousand showers; the
paint had blistered and peeled off the heavy old door, and round the
gaping chasm of the letter-box; and in the daytime the place looked
woebegone and deserted. Nobody came there till about two in the
afternoon, when three or four quiet-looking gentlemen would drop in
one by one, and after remaining an hour or two, depart as they had
come. But at night the old house woke up with a roar; its windows
blazed with light; its old sides echoed to the creaking throes of a
huge steam-engine; its querulous bell was perpetually being tugged;
boys in paper caps and smeary faces and shirt-sleeves were perpetually
issuing from its portals, and returning, now with fluttering slips of
paper, now with bibulous refreshment. Messengers from the Electric
Telegraph Companies were there about every half-hour; and cabs that
had dashed up with a stout gentleman in spectacles dashed away with a
slim gentleman in a white hat, returning with a little man in a red
beard, and flying off with the stout gentleman again. Blinds were down
all round the neighbourhood; porters of the Worshipful Companies,
sextons of the congregationless churches, agents for printing-ink and
Cumberland black-lead, wood-engravers, box-block sellers, and the
proprietors of the Never-say-die or Health-restoring Drops, who held
the corner premises,--were all sleeping the sleep of the just, or at
least doing the best they could towards it, in spite of the
reverberation of the steam-engine at the office of the _Statesman_
daily journal.
On a hot night in September Mr. Churchill sat in a large room on the
first-floor of the _Statesman_ office. On the desk before him stood a
huge battered old despatch-box, overflowing with papers--some in
manuscript, neatly folded and docketed; others long printed slips,
scored and marked all over with ink-corrections. Immediately in front
of him hung an almanac and a packet of half-sheets of note-paper,
strung together on a large hook. A huge waste-paper basket by his side
was filled, while the floor was littered with envelopes of all sizes
and colours, fragments cut from newspapers, ink-splashes, and piles of
books in paper parcels waiting for review. A solemn old clock,
pointing to midnight, ticked gravely on the mantelpiece; a small
library of grim old books of reference, in solemn brown bindings, with
the flaming cover of the Post-Office Directory like a star in the
midst of them, was ranged against the wall; three or four speaking
tubes, with ivory mouthpieces, were curling round Mr. Churchill's
feet; and Mr. Churchill himself was reading the last number of the
_Revue de Deux Mondes_ by the light of a shaded lamp, when a heavy
hand was laid on his shoulder, and a cheery voice said,
"Still at the mill, Churchill? still at the mill?"
"Ah, Harding, my dear fellow, I'm delighted to see you!"
"I should think you were," said Harding, laughing; "for my presence
here means a good deal to you,--bed, and rest, and country, eh? Well,
how have you been?--not knocked up? You've done capitally, my boy!
I've watched you carefully, and am more than content." (For Mr.
Harding was the editor of the _Statesman_, and Churchill, one of his
principal contributors, had been taking his place while he made
holiday.)
"That's a relief," said Churchill. "I've been rather nervous about it;
but I thought that Tooby and I between us had managed to push the ship
along somehow. Tooby's a capital fellow!"
"Yes, yes," said Mr. Harding, seating himself; "Tooby is a capital
fellow, and there's not a better 'sub' in London. But Tooby couldn't
have written that article on the Castle-Hedingham dinner, or shown up
the _Teaser's_ blunders in classical quotation, Master Frank. _Palman
qui meruit_. Who did the Bishops and the Crystal Palace?"
"Oh, Slummer wrote those. Weren't they good?"
"Very smart; very smart indeed. A thought too strong of Billingsgate,
though. That young man is a very hard hitter, but wants training.
Where's Hawker?"
"Just gone. He's been very kind and very useful, so have Williams and
Burke, and all. And you--how have you enjoyed yourself?"
"Never so much in my life. I've read nothing but the paper. I've done
nothing but lie upon the beach and play with the children."
"And the children--are they all right? and Mrs. Harding?"
"Splendid! I never saw the wife look so well for the last six years.
She sent all kind remembrances to you, and the usual inquiry."
"What! if I was going to be married? No, no; you must take back my
usual answer. She must find me a wife, and it must be one after her
own pattern."
"Seriously, Frank Churchill, it's time you began to look after a wife.
In our profession, especially, it's the greatest blessing to have
some one to care for and to be petted by in the intervals of
business-strife. There used to be a notion that a literary man
required to be perpetually 'seeing life,' which meant 'getting drunk,
and never going home;' but that's exploded, and I believe that our
best character-painters owe half their powers of delineation to their
wives' suggestions. Women,--by Jove, sir!--women read character
wonderfully."
"Mrs. Harding has made a bad shot at mine, old friend," said
Churchill, laughing, "if she thinks that I am in any way desirous to
be married. No, no! So far as the seeing life is concerned, I began
early, and all that has been over long since. But I've got rather a
queer temper of my own. I'm not the most tolerant man in the world;
and I've had my own way so long, that any little missy fal-lals and
pettishness would jar upon me horribly. Besides, I've not got money
enough to marry upon. I like my comforts, and to be able to buy
occasional books and pictures, and to keep my horse, and my club,
and--"
"Well, but a fellow like you might pick up a woman with money!" said
Harding.
"That's the worst pick-up possible,--to have to be civil to your
wife's trustees, or listen to reproaches as to how 'poor papa's money'
is being spent. No, no, no! So long as my dear old mother lives, I
shall have a decent home; and afterwards--well, I shall go into
chambers, I suppose, and settle down into a club-haunting old fogey."
"Stuff, Frank; don't talk such rubbish. Affectation of cynicism and
affectation of premature age are two of the most pernicious cants of
the day. Very likely now at the watering-place to which you're going
for your holiday, you'll meet some pretty girl who--"
"Watering-place!" cried Frank, shouting with laughter; "I'm going to
my old godfather's country place for some partridge-shooting; and as
he's an old bachelor of very peculiar temper, there's not likely to be
much womankind about."
"Ho, ho! A country place, eh? and partridge-shooting? Hum, hum! We're
coming out. Don't get your head turned with grand people, Frank."
"Grand people!" echoed Churchill. "Don't I tell you the man's my
godfather? There will probably be half a dozen men staying in the
house, whose sole care about me will be that I carry my gun properly,
and don't hit them out in the stubble."
"When do you go?"
"To-morrow, by the midday express. I've some matters to settle in the
morning, and can't get down before dinner-time."
"Well, then, get to bed at once. I've got to say a few words to Tooby;
and I'll see Marks when he comes up with the statement, and take care
that all's straight. You've seen your own proofs? Very well, then; God
bless you! and be off, and don't let us see your face for a month."
They shook hands warmly; and as Churchill left the room, Harding
called after him, "Two things, Frank: look out for a nice wife, and
don't get your head turned with what are called 'swells.'"
Throughout London town there breathed no simpler-minded man than
George Harding. At College, as in after-life, he had lived with a very
small set, entirely composed of men of his own degree in the world;
and of any other he had the vaguest possible notion. His intellectual
acquirements were great, and his reading was vast and catholic; but of
men and cities he had seen literally nothing; and as, except in his
annual vacation, when he could go down with his family and potter
about the quietest of watering-places, he never went any where save
from his home to the _Statesman_ office, and from the _Statesman_
office to his home, he was not likely to enlarge his knowledge of
life. Occasionally, on a Saturday night in the season, he would get
the Opera-box from the musical critic, and would take Mrs. Harding to
Her Majesty's; but there his whole attention would be absorbed in
contemplating the appearance and manners of the "swells,"--the one
word not to be found in the dictionary which he sometimes indulged in.
Slightly Radical in his opinions was George Harding; and that he was
not much gratified by his observation of these specimens of the upper
ten thousand, was to be traced in certain little pungencies and
acerbities in his leading articles after these Opera visits. He
worshipped his calling, in his own honest, simple, steadfast way, and
resented, quietly but sturdily, any attempts at what he considered
patronage by those of higher social rank. The leaders of his political
party, recognisant of the good service done to them by Harding's pen,
had, on several occasions, essayed to prove their gratitude by
little set civilities: huge cards of invitation to Lady Helmsman's
Saturday-evening reunions had found their way to the _Statesman's_
deep-mouthed letter-box; carriage-paid hampers of high-flavoured black
game sped thither from the Highland shooting-box, where the Foreign
Secretary was spending his hard-earned holiday; earliest intimation of
political changes, in "confidential" covers, were conveyed there by
Downing-Street messengers. But George Harding never appeared at
Protocol House; his name was never seen low down amongst those of the
Foreign-Office clerks and outer selvage of fashion, chronicled with
such urbanity by Mr. Henchman of the _High-Life Gazette_; and no
attention or flattery ever made him pander to a shuffle, or register a
lie. He had a very high opinion of Churchill's talents and honour; but
he knew him to be fond of praise, and, above all, greatly wanting in
discretion. Harding had seen so many men full of promise fall into the
dreary vortex of drink and debt and pot-house dissipation, that he had
hailed with delight the innate decency and gentlemanly feeling which
had kept Frank Churchill out of such dirty orgies; but now he feared
lest the disinfectant might prove even worse than the disease itself;
and lest the aristocratic notions, which his friend undoubtedly
possessed, might lead him into society where his manliness and proper
pride might be swallowed up in the effulgency of his surroundings.
So mused George Harding, bending over the dingy old grate at the
_Statesman_ office, and gazing vacantly at the shavings with which it
was filled, while waiting for Mr. Marks, the head printer, to bring
him the "statement," showing the amount required to fill the paper.
Meanwhile Churchill, cigar in mouth, was striding through the deserted
streets, rejoicing in the thought of his coming holiday, and inwardly
chuckling over his friend's warnings. At last he stopped at a door in
a dull respectable street leading out of Brunswick Square, let himself
in with a latch-key, drank a tumbler of soda-water, and glanced at the
addresses of some letters in his little dining-room, exchanged his
boots for slippers at the bottom of the staircase, and crept slowly up
the stairs. As he arrived at the second floor, he paused for a minute,
and a voice said, "God bless you, Frank!"
"God bless you, mother!" he replied; "good night, dear;" and passed
into his room.
Then he sat himself on the side of his bed, and began leisurely to
undress himself, smiling meanwhile.
"Bring back a wife, and beware of swells, eh? That is the essence of
Harding's advice. No, no my darling old mother; you and I get on too
well together to change our lives. An amusing time a wife would have
with me,--out half the night at the office, and she shivering in the
dining-room waiting my return. Wife, by Jove! Yes; and thick fat
chops, and sixteen-shilling trousers, and the knifeboard of the
omnibus instead of the cob to ride on! No; I think not. And as for
swells--that old republican, Harding, thinks every man with a handle
to his name is an enemy to Magna Charta. I should like to show him my
old godfather walking into an idiotic peer of the realm!"
And, very much tickled at the idea, Churchill put out his candle and
turned in.