WITH THE SECRETARY.
If, instead of ascending the broad staircase immediately on entering
the Tin-Tax Office, you were to proceed straight forward, you would
come to the messengers' lobby, which is the outpost, protecting the
penetralia where the Commissioners and the Secretary are enshrined.
The principal duty of these messengers, besides answering bells and
carrying about official papers, was to protect the august personages
just referred to from being intruded upon by "the public;" and as one
learnt from his Scripture History that the term "Gentiles" meant "all
nations except the Jews," so, after a very little official experience,
one became aware that "the public" meant every body who did not hold
an appointment in the Tin-Tax Office. The duties incumbent upon
certain emissaries of the Office, in regard to the collection of
revenue, made the head-quarters at Rutland House a grand resort of the
"public," who generally came here with very belligerent intentions,
and who either referred to printed documents in their hands and wished
to see Mr. Simnel the Secretary (whose name appeared attached to the
documents) or occasionally even demanded an interview with the Chief
Commissioner, the great Sir Hickory Maddox, himself. It is needless to
say that these wishes were never gratified: the messengers of the
Tin-Tax Office were men to whom, in the discharge of his favourite
accomplishment, Ananias could not have held a candle; men with
imperturbable faces and ready tongues, who took the "public's" measure
in an instant, and sent him to whatsoever clerk they thought would
most readily dispose of his grievance. "I wish to see the Chief
Commissioner," would exclaim a Briton, red in face, dripping in head,
and bursting with indignation. To him calm, majestic Mr. Potts, the
chief messenger, a fat man with a big forehead, a large stomach, flat
feet in low shoes, and a general butlerish appearance--"Sir 'Ickry is
with the Chanclr of Schequer, sir, on most important bisness." "The
Secretary, then." "The Seckittary have gone with Sir 'Ickry,
sir;--what is your bisness, sir?" "Why, I've been overcharged--" "Ah,
thought so, sir! Rebate on prop'ty dooty. Walker, show the gentleman
to number 15,"--and away down the loud-resounding passages, or up the
mountainous stairs, would the unfortunate "public" be hurried.
The superior rooms lay up a little passage to the right of the
messengers' lobby, and were three in number. First came the
Board-room, a large and solemn salmon-coloured apartment, where the
Commissioners sat when for despatch of business assembled. A big,
dull-faced clock ticked on the mantelshelf; solemn green maps of
distant countries, from year's end to year's end undisturbed, curled
themselves round in dusty layers on the walls; and a large red-leather
sofa, on which Mr. Beresford, in the absence of the other
Commissioners, and after a hard night's waltzing, had enjoyed hours of
pleasant repose, filled up a recess. In the centre of the room stood a
heavy writing-table, with pads of blotting-paper, pools of black ink,
and bundles of quill-pens distributed at regular intervals. At the
head of this table always stood a red-leather arm-chair, and this
arm-chair always on business occasions contained the sacred person of
the Chief Commissioner, Sir Hickory Maddox. A little man, Sir Hickory,
with a parchment face, a blue eye like a bit out of a china plate,
stiff gray hair brushed into a point on the top of his head, and
formal little gray whiskers: always dressed in a little black
frock-coat, and little gray waistcoat and trousers; wearing too a
heavy gold-set cornelian seal, and a cumbrous old-fashioned watch-key,
just projecting from his fob,--buoys to show whereabouts his thick
gold chronometer was sunk, in some unknown depths. A kind-hearted,
fussy, hard-working man, whose family had been for generations in the
public service, who had himself worked for years in the Draft and
Docket Office, had risen and distinguished himself there, and had
finally been rewarded with the Chief-Commissionership of the Tin-Tax,
and with being created a K.C.B. His official position he esteemed one
of the most enviable in the kingdom; he thought of nothing but
official matters; and when, being of a hospitable turn, he had solemn
dinners at his house in Wimpole Street, all the guests were magnates
of other offices or--for he was a kind chief in that respect--juniors
of the Tin-Tax. And invariably, just as the cloth was drawn, the
butler would appear at his master's elbow, bearing a salver, on which
lay an enormous red-leather official despatch-pouch. The little man
would smile feebly at his guests, would shrug his shoulders, and
saying, "Our labours follow us even here," would unlock the pouch,
glance at its contents (probably the _Globe_, and private note), and
relocking it, say, "Lay it on the library-table, Benson. I must go
into the matter before I sleep. However, _nunc vino pellite curas!_
Port, sherry, madeira, and claret!"
Between Sir Hickory Maddox the senior, and Mr. Beresford the junior,
there were two other Commissioners. One was the Honourable Morris
Peck, who had been a Gentleman Usher at Court,--at whose name years
ago young ladies used to blush, and matrons to gather themselves
together in brood-hen fashion for the protection of their chicks,--a
roysterer at Crockford's, a friend of Pea-Green Payne and the Golden
Hall and that lot,--a "devil of a fellow, sir!" but who was now merely
a hook-nosed old gentleman in a high coat-collar and a curly-brimmed
hat; wearing false teeth, dyed hair, and blacked eyebrows; who always
slept peacefully until his signature was required, when he gave it in
a very shaky schoolboy scrawl. The other was Mr. Miles O'Scardon, an
Irish gentleman of ancient family, but limited means, who had
represented Ballyhogue in Parliament for years, and who had obtained
his appointment for the fidelity with which he had always obeyed the
summons of the ministerial whip. Beyond the Board-room lay the sanctum
of the Chief-Commissioner's private secretary, a young man always
chosen for his good looks, his good clothes, and his gentlemanly
bearing, who was envied by his brother juniors, but who had to answer
Sir Hickory's bell, and was consequently taunted by the epithet
"Jeames." And beyond that, though unconnected with it, lay the
Secretary's room.
A large, light, airy room, far away from the noise and bustle, and
looking on to the river. Round the walls are huge oak-presses, filled
with tied-up bundles of confidential papers, secret reports of the
out-door agents of the Tin-Tax Office, which, if published, would have
astonished the world by throwing quite a new light on the incomes of
several of its idols. Maps were there too, and framed tables of
statistics, and the Stationers' Almanac; and over the mantelpiece hung
a proof-before-letters engraving of the portrait of Sir Hickory
Maddox, after Grant, with an exact likeness of that great official's
favourite inkstand and quill-pen, and with a correctness in the fit of
the trousers such as was never achieved by the great original. There
was a round table in the middle of the room, divided into two equal
portions by a line of books of reference--Guide-books, M'Culloch's
Commercial Dictionary, Haydn's Dates, the Post-Office Directory,
Bradshaw, and other light reading: one side of the line of demarcation
was bare (save at one o'clock, when it bore the little tray containing
the Secretary's light luncheon); on the other lay the Secretary's
blotting-book, pen-stand, and paper-case.
About the time when the conversation recorded in the last chapter was
going on between his clerks, Mr. Simnel, the Secretary, sat in his
official room, signing his name to printed papers, which he took one
by one from a large heap at his right hand, and, after signing,
dropped at his feet. It was plain that his thoughts were otherwise
absorbed; for as the sheets fell from his hand and fluttered to the
ground, he never looked after them, but would occasionally pause in
his occupation, lay down his pen, nurse his right leg with both hands,
and rock himself quietly to and fro. As he moved here and there in the
sunlight, you might have perceived that his limbs were long and
ungainly; that he had big broad hands with thick corrugated veins, and
finger-nails strong, hard, and cut to a point; that he was very bald,
and that such fringe of hair as remained was of a dull red; that he
had a large sensual face, big projecting brown eyes, thick clumsy
nose, full scarlet underlip, heavy jowl, and large massive chin. You
could have noticed, too, that, in certain lights, this face was worn
and jaded and almost haggard, traversed here and there with deep
furrowed lines, marked with crow's-feet and wrinkles and deep
indentations. As you gazed, perhaps, all this faded away, the face
beamed forth happy, jolly, sensual as ever; but you felt that the
wrinkles were there, and that so soon as the flicker passed away, they
would be seen again.
Not in the discharge of his easy labours at the Tin-Tax Office had Mr.
Simnel acquired these lines and wrinkles. The calm direction of that
engine of the State had only come upon him of late years, and never
had caused him any trouble. But Mr. Simnel had compressed a great many
years' experience into forty years of life, and the crow's-feet and
indentations were the result of brain-labour, worry, and anxiety. Mr.
Simnel's first recollection of any thing found him a little boy, in a
skeleton-suit, at the grammar-school of Combcardingham,--a city which
every body save the envious inhabitants of its rival Dockborough
allowed to be the metropolis of the north. Little Bob Simnel did not
know whose son he was, or how his schooling was paid for; all he knew
was, that he boarded with an old lady, the widow of a tax-collector,
who was very kind to him, and that he soon found out the best thing he
could do was to stick to his book. To his book he stuck manfully;
walked through all the classes of the grammar-school, one by one,
until he became junior boy of the sixth form, until he became senior
boy of the sixth form, until the visiting examiner, the Bishop of
Latakia, New Zealand, declared that he had the greatest pleasure
in naming Mr. Robert Simnel as the gainer of the exhibition of
seventy-five pounds a year; and added, as he shook hands with said
Robert, that whichever University he might prefer would be honoured by
his choice. Young Mr. Simnel, however, did not go to either Oxford or
Cambridge: after a lengthened interview with the head-master, the Rev.
Dr. Barker, Mr. Simnel gracefully resigned the exhibition in favour of
Swetter, _major_, who "proxime accessit," and entered as the articled
clerk of Messrs. Banner and Blair, accounted the sharpest lawyers in
Combcardingham, and known through all the county as great
electioneering agents for the Liberal party. A few years passed on;
Mr. Simnel had finished his articles had become the junior partner of
Messrs. Banner and Blair, and was working steadily and well, when an
event happened which insured his success for life.
It was this: Combcardingham, for the three last general elections, had
returned the same two members--Sir Thomas Prodd and Mr. Shuttler; both
local magnates, employing hundreds of hands, supporting local
charities, known throughout the county, and Liberal to the backbone.
One morning news sped to London that Mr. Shuttler was dead; and that
evening a tall, thin gentleman, with a hare-lip, arrived by afternoon
express in Combcardingham, and engaged the Waterloo Hotel as the
head-quarters of Mr. Farquhar, the Conservative candidate. Blue bills
on a dead-wall unpleasantly proclaimed this fact to M. Simnel as he
was shaving himself the next morning; and he perceived that young
Woofham, the hope of the Liberal party, would not be brought in
without a struggle. So he, metaphorically, took off his coat and set
to work; canvassed, intrigued, cajoled, went through all the dirty
round of electioneering tactics, but found he did not make much way;
found, in truth, that the hare-lipped man seemed to have Fortunatus's
purse somewhere about him, and that young Woofham was a miserly young
hunks, who did not see the borough as a proper investment for his
ingots. What was to be done? To lose the borough would be a tremendous
blow to the Government, who had always looked upon it as their own,
and to whom it was always supposed to owe allegiance. But the money?
The night before the nomination, Mr. Simnel, with his face muffled in
a huge handkerchief, despatched the following telegraphic message to
Mr. Weal, the Government whip, at the Retrenchment Club: "No. 104 is
putting on the steam at Combcardingham. If No. 102 does not do
likewise, up goes the sponge." While No. 102 Mall-Pall is the
Retrenchment Club, No. 104 is, it is needless to say, the No Surrender
(familiarly known as the Wig and Whiskers), the head-quarters of the
Conservative party. By the early morning express a messenger, with a
letter from Mr. Weal, arrived at Mr. Simnel's office, and during the
day the doubts under which many of the electors suffered were
satisfactorily explained away, and at the close of the poll Mr.
Woofham's name stood well ahead of his rival. Mr. Weal and his party
did not forget their telegraphing friend at Combcardingham. After the
election was over, Mr. Simnel was summoned to London, had an interview
with certain of the _Dii majors_, and at the end of six months was
inducted into the Secretaryship of the Tin-Tax Office, then vacant.
They did not like him at first at the Tin-Tax; they thought Bingham
ought to have succeeded to the berth; and Bingham--who was a very
gouty old gentleman, who took a great deal of snuff, and swore a great
deal, and kept a pocket-dictionary in the right-hand top-drawer of his
desk wherewith to correct his orthography--thought so too. But Sir
Hickory Maddox, who was not merely very popular, but very much
respected by his men, showed such thorough appreciation of Mr.
Simnel's talents, and so thoroughly endorsed all the Secretary's acts,
that the men began to waver in their allegiance to the Bingham
faction; to think that Bingham was little better than an old idiot;
that "new blood" in the secretariat might probably not only improve
the status of the Tin-Tax Office, but get a new and improved scale for
the clerks; and when they found that, after a couple of years, the new
Secretary actually did accomplish this feat, the new Secretary was
popular for ever. Popular officially, not privately. The juniors at
the Tin-Tax had been in the habit of chaffing their late lamented
secretary; of bribing him, by gifts of game and hothouse fruits, to
grant them odd days and even weeks of leave of absence; of chatting
with him familiarly on current events. Mr. Simnel's manners
effectually checked all that kind of thing. With the Commissioners he
might unbend; with the juniors he was adamant. But if he met one of
his men in society, in the Opera lobby, or at a Botanical Fête, he
would make a point of shaking hands with him as though they hadn't
seen each other for ages, and of talking with him of every subject
possible--except the Tin-Tax Office.
The pile of papers for signature had melted to one solitary document,
the floor was strewn with the evidences of Mr. Simnel's handiwork, and
Mr. Simnel himself sat nursing his leg and swaying himself gently to
and fro in meditation. Occasionally he would pass his disengaged hand
through his fringe of hair, and smile quietly to himself, then make a
few figures on his blotting-pad, add them, and set-to rocking again.
In the midst of this occupation he heard his door open, and looking
up, saw Mr. Beresford.
"Why, what the deuce does this mean?" he exclaimed, in surprise. "I
thought you were on Tom Tiddler's ground, picking up unlimited gold
and silver, wooing heiresses, and settling a Belgravian ménage; and
you turn up in this dingy old barrack. Is it all over?--has the lady
succumbed? and do you want me to help you to choose fire-irons and
window-curtains?"
Mr. Beresford did not reply for a minute; then he said, shortly and
decisively, "I've been sold!"
Mr. Simnel gave one short, loud whistle, and said interrogatively,
"Wouldn't?"
Mr. Beresford, seating himself on the edge of the table, looked up at
Mr. Simnel, who had taken up his position on the rug, with his back to
the empty fireplace, and said, "No chance; booked beforehand!"
Whereupon Mr. Simnel gave a louder whistle, and said, "Tell!"
"You know how I stand, Simnel, well enough," said Mr. Beresford; "and
this looked a very safe _coup_, I thought, specially after I got your
telegram. There were two or three fellows staying down at Bissett who
I thought were on, too. Man named Lyster; do you know him?--tall man,
dark beard, yaw-haw beast, from Indian army."
"I know him!" was all Mr. Simnel's reply to this flattering sketch.
"And another man, newspaper man, belongs to the 'Retrenchment' and the
'Fly-by-night;' Churchill, you know."
"_I_ know Churchill. Was he going in for an heiress?"
"No, not exactly; at least I thought so, but it turned out not. But I
didn't like these fellows hanging about; specially Lyster--romantic
party, sigh and that sort of business. So, when I found from you it
was all right, I made up my mind to see where I was."
"Well; and Miss Townshend wouldn't have it?"
"Not at all! We were sitting after dinner, when the women had gone to
the drawing-room, the very day I got your telegram, and old Wentworth
told us there was a man coming down the next day,--Schrötter, or
Schröder, a German merchant in Mincing Lane--"
"I know him," interrupted Simnel: "Gustav Schröder; elderly man. What
took him to Bissett?"
"Love, sir--love! he's engaged to be married to Miss Townshend!"
"Whew!" said Mr. Simnel, with his longest and shrillest whistle. "The
deuce he is! That _is_ news! How does the young lady like it?"
"Well, not much. She couldn't, of course, be expected to feel very
enthusiastic about a short, stout, gray-headed German, who talks the
most infernal jargon, and hasn't got a sound tooth in his head. Took
him out shooting once, but he made the most awful mess of it; devilish
near shot the beaters, and sprained his ankle leaping a half-foot
ditch. The girl seemed horribly ashamed of him, and of his clumsy
compliments and elephantine gambols; but she's evidently booked--her
father takes care of that."
"Ah, ha!" said Mr. Simnel, nursing his knee, rocking himself to and
fro, and rapidly going off into an absent fit; "ah, ha!"
"I hate to hear you say 'ah, ha,' Simnel!" said Mr. Beresford, with
some asperity. "You're always up to some plottings and plans when you
utter those seemingly benevolent grunts. I suppose you suspect old
Townshend of some grand _diablerie_ in this affair. I never could make
out what it is that you know about that old gentleman."
"Know about him?" said Simnel, rousing himself with a laugh; "that he
gives capital dinners and has plenty of money; that he's about to
marry his daughter to one of the richest men in the City. What more
need one know about a man? I don't know what church he goes to, or
what peculiar shade of religion he affects; whether he's a good father
or a bad one; whether he rules his daughter, or is ruled by her. But I
_do_ know that he drinks Tod-Heatly's champagne, and banks at the
London and Westminster. This news looks fishy for your business,
Beresford!"
"Simply a case of stump," said Mr. Beresford, rising from the table,
plunging his hands into his trousers-pockets, and striding up and down
the room.
"What do you mean to do?"
"Borrow two hundred pounds more of you," exclaimed Beresford, stopping
short on the edge of the rug, and confronting Mr. Simnel.
"And then?" asked the latter gentleman, smiling calmly.
"God knows!" said Beresford, with something like a shudder. "Something
must turn up; the Bishop must die or Lady Lowndes, and there'd be a
safe something from them; or there'll be some girl--"
"Ye-es," interrupted Mr. Simnel drily, seating himself at his desk,
and unlocking a draw therein. "You're the most marvellously sanguine
fellow, perfectly Micawberish in your notions of something turning up,
and your making a _coup_. But--suppose t'other! suppose it didn't come
off! Now you owe me,"--looking at a paper which he took from the
drawer,--"six hundred pounds already, and I've only got insurance
policies for security."
"You get your interest," growled Beresford.
"A mild six;" said Mr. Simnel, with a shrug of his shoulders and his
pleasant smile. "A mild six; just what I should get in Bombay
Preference, or Great Luxembourg Centrals, or a dozen other safe
investments. However, you shall have this two hundred; but I should be
glad to see your way in the future. Is there no girl with money whom
you think you could propose to speedily?"
"Not one," said Beresford, stopping in his walk and reseating himself
on the table. "Oh, by Jove, I forgot to tell you that."
"What?"
"About Kate Mellon,--tremendous scene just before I left;" and Mr.
Beresford proceeded to recount the dialogue between him and Kate
Mellon, which was recorded in the fourth chapter of this story. He
told the tale honestly throughout, and when he had finished he looked
up in Mr. Simnel's face, and said, "Deuced awkward position, wasn't
it?"
Mr. Simnel had not lost one word of the story; on the contrary, he had
listened to it with the greatest eagerness and interest, but he did
not answer Mr. Beresford's final query. He had fallen into his old,
leg-nursing attitude, and was rocking himself silently to and fro.
"Devilish unpleasant, wasn't it?" reiterated Mr. Beresford.
"Eh!" said Mr. Simnel in a loud high key. "Yes, most unpleasant, of
course. We'll talk more about that; but you must be off now. To-day's
only half a day, you know; and I've got all sorts of things to do
before I go. You shall have that two hundred on Monday, all right.
Good-by! see you on Monday," and the Secretary shook hands with the
Commissioner until the latter was fairly outside the door.
Then Mr. Simnel returned to his desk, and took up his leg again.
"It seems to be coming on now," he said to himself, "and all together
too. The old man always meant little Alice for a Duke, and now to let
her go to such carrion as old Schröder; that looks like smash. He
holds heavily in Pernambucos, in Cotopaxis, and other stuff that's run
down like water lately; and he must have dropped at least ten thousand
in that blessed Bird-in-the-Hand insurance. I think the time has come
to put the screw on, and I don't think"--turning to a drawer and
taking from an envelope a paper yellow with age--"that he'll dishonour
this. What an awful time ago it seems! There,"--replacing the
paper,--"go back till you're wanted. You've kept so long that--Ah, by
Jove! the other business! To be married, eh? To be married, Kate?"
releasing his leg and plucking at his lips. "To be married to Master
Charley Beresford! not while I live, my child! not while I live, and
have power to turn a screw on in your direction too!"