UNDER PRESSURE.
The dulness of the autumnal season causing a heavy depression every
where, by no means relaxed its maleficent influence in room No. 120 of
the Tin-Tax Office. The gentlemen therein located had each, as has
every man in the world, his own private griefs, anxieties, and
worries; and these never blossomed into such full vigour as in the
autumn. In the first place, there was no more leave of absence to look
forward to, which was, in itself, a dreadful thing; and then there was
looming in the future the approach of Christmas, a dread season which
each of the different denizens of No. 120, for different reasons,
regarded with dismay. To kind genial Mr. Kinchenton the coming
Christmas was specially fearful; for after a long struggle between
inclination and duty, a struggle resulting in the victory of the
latter, he had decided upon sending his boy Percy, the apple of his
eye, to school after the Christmas holidays; and in the shadow of that
coming event he was sitting moping and melancholy. Mr. Dibb was always
bad in the autumn; his liver, always rebellious, was thoroughly
intractable at that season known as the "fall of the leaf," and
remained perfectly quiet, declining to perform any one of the
functions intrusted to it, and calmly spurning any attempt to call it
into action. So Mr. Dibb's complexion grew more and more like that of
the cover of a well-worn school-copy of Ainsworth's Dictionary; and
Mr. Dibb's temper became so cranky, that Mr. Crump, the extra-clerk,
lived in a perfect cyclone of torn-up letters and accounts to "do over
again;" so that said Crump bemoaned his hard fate, and expressed
himself as perfectly certain that he should have an earlier attack of
chilblains than usual that year. Mr. Boppy too had his private grief,
in the shape of a visitor at his establishment, Mrs. Boppy's mamma, a
lady of vast size from the manufacturing districts, who had arrived on
a month's visit, had monopolised the best portion of Mr. Boppy's
house, and who demanded to have life shown to her. So Mrs. Boppy had
instructed Mr. Boppy to convey her and her mamma to the Thames Tunnel,
the top of the Monument, the Crypt of St. Paul's, to the Tower, to
Madame Tussaud's wax-work, and other exhibitions much sought after by
country people, but seldom visited by Londoners; and had moreover
stimulated her husband to ask for various half-holidays, which Mr.
Kinchenton would readily have granted, but which were never obtained
without a hand-to-hand combat with Mr. Dibb. "Very well, Mr.
Kinchenton," he would say, "Mr. Boppy must go, sir, if you say so, of
course. You're the head of this room, I believe; though how the work's
to be got through with Mr. Prescott absent on leave, Mr. Crump next to
useless, and Mr. Pringle, who always takes three-quarters of an hour
to his lunch--"
"What's that you're saying about me, Mr. Dibb?" Mr. Pringle would ask
from over the top of his desk.
"Says you take three-quarters of an hour for your lunch," would repeat
the revengeful Boppy.
"All right! better do that than make yourself a wretched
hypochondriac, like some people. Let digestion wait on appetite, and
health on both, Boppy! Mr. Dibb's got none of the three; doesn't know
what any of them mean; so we must excuse him." And then Mr. Boppy
would get his leave, and go away and do dismal duty with his
relatives.
Nor was Mr. Pringle in any thing like his usual flow of spirits. He
was very mercurial, tremendously affected by the weather; and black
skies, cold winds, and empty streets sent him down to zero. Moreover
his other-half, his chum, his bosom-friend, Mr. Prescott, was away on
leave, paying his long-promised visit to old Mr. Murray of Brooklands;
and so Mr. Pringle was left to himself, and sat in his chambers
smoking solitary pipes, and learning whole pages of the Comic
Song-Book, and perpetually falling asleep over the first page of the
volume of Boswell's _Life of Johnson_. For Mr. Kinchenton, who took
great interest in honest George, had told him that no man was worth
any thing unless he read something besides trashy novels and Little
Warblers; and Mr. Pringle, determining to "go-in for something heavy,"
had selected the life of Dr. Johnson, whose ._Rasselas_ he had read as
a child, remembering it as "the adventures of a young cove and an old
cove, with a doosid good bit about a bridge, or something, in it."
Moreover George Pringle was by no means comfortable as to the state of
his friend's money-matters. He had himself "ignored," as he phrased
it, all his own transactions with Scadgers; but he was in with
Prescott on one bill, and he knew that his friend had involved himself
with several other pieces of stamped paper in the hands of the same
worthy. And George had a strange notion that some of these were
overdue; and knowing that the Long Vacation was rapidly drawing to a
close, and that Term-time was coming on, he feared that the mighty
engines of the law might be set to work, and come a general smash. He
had written to Prescott about it; but had only received a couple of
lines in reply, to say that he was very jolly, and that the things
would be all right; so that all he could do was patiently to await his
friend's return to town.
That happened one night, when Pringle and Boswell had had a severe
disagreement, and Pringle had let Boswell drop into the fender, and
had gone to sleep with his pipe in the corner of his mouth. There came
a heavy bang at the oak, and Pringle, starting up and opening it,
found himself face to face with James Prescott,--rosy, stout, jolly,
and beaming, with a big portmanteau in his hand.
"Hallo! old man!"
"Hallo! old man! been asleep, eh? lazy old beggar! wanted me to rouse
you up! give us a hand to the portmanteau, George, and help him in!
that's it! Well," taking off his coat and making a dive at his friend,
and catching him by the shoulders, and peering inquiringly into his
face, "and how goes it? what's the news? how are all the buffers at
the shop? any body dead? any body got the sack? no promotion? always
our luck!"
"Things are much the same, I think; no news any where; they'll be glad
to see you back, for they've been grumbling about the work--not that
you'll be much help at that, though. And what have you been doing? had
a good time?"
"Good time? stunning!" and Mr. Prescott kissed his fingers and waved
them in the air. "Never put in such a time in my life. Old boy was
splendaceous, did every mortal thing one wanted,--good nag to ride,
good shooting, capital cellar, let you smoke where you like--no end!
My old governor was there too, as happy as a bird!"
"And the young lady--Miss Murray?"
"Oh, Emily! oh, I can't tell you how good that has turned out! She's
out and away nicer than any thing that ever was; no nonsense about
her; quiet, ladylike, sweet, affectionate little thing! You know,
George, there are some women--"
"Yes," interrupted Mr. Pringle--"I know there are! and there are some
men who want a glass of grog--and I'm one; and there are others who
are mad spoony--and you're another! I'll mix for you, and we'll light
our pipes, and then I shall be in a better frame of mind to listen to
jour dilation on Miss Murray's excellences."
Mr. Prescott, so soon as their glasses were before them, their pipes
in their mouths, and they were established one on either side of the
fireplace, lost no time in availing himself of his friend's
permission, and plunged into those amatory raptures which we have all
of us suffered under at our friends' hands. The singular difference of
the young lady to, and her superiority over, every one else, the
mixture of sense and sensibility which she displayed, the clever
things she said and did, her delicacy, firmness, bashfulness, presence
of mind,--all these were dilated on at full length by one gentleman,
and listened to with becoming patience by the other. At last, when his
friend fairly stopped for want of breath, Mr. Pringle asked,
"And have you put it all right, Jim? of course you're not carrying on
this kind of thing without meaning it; have you squared it with them
all?"
"Well, Emily and I understand each other thoroughly; and it's all
arranged between us, I think. I mean that I haven't said anything, you
know; but people don't say any thing now in such cases. There's a kind
of a--a--"
"Yes," interrupted Pringle--"yes; I suppose there is. But what about
her father?"
"I haven't spoken to the old boy yet. Not that I think he'd make much
objection, turn rusty, or any thing of that sort, for he's
tremendously kind and jolly; but I don't like to talk to him while
I've got these infernal debts hanging over me. I don't think it's
fair; and yet--Have you heard any thing from old Scadgers, George?"
"No, I haven't heard any thing; but--Never mind, we'll talk about him
to-morrow, when you've had a rest, and we're both clearer and cooler
than we are now. Now turn in and get a sleep, old man; good-night!"
The next morning, however, when Mr. Pringle introduced the subject of
Mr. Scadgers and the acceptances which he held, Mr. Prescott showed a
remarkable alacrity in changing the conversation, an alacrity which he
exhibited on two or three subsequent occasions. He was in the habit,
Pringle observed, of receiving every morning with the greatest
regularity a pink-coloured note with a country postmark, and after
reading its contents he became very much absorbed, slightly ethereal,
and generally indisposed to converse on mundane matters. But honest
George Pringle, who had no such pleasant distractions, knew perfectly
well that time was running on, and that some positive step must be
taken; so on the fourth morning after his friend's return he tackled
him resolutely.
"I say, Jim, about those bills? No good fencing about the business any
longer; we _must_ go into it, or we shall come to grief. I've a notion
that some of them are overdue already, and I wonder Scadgers hasn't
been here pressing for either a settlement or a renewal."
"To tell you the truth, George, I'm in a funk about them myself. I saw
a very suspicious-looking Jew outside the office as I came in this
morning,--a fellow in rusty black, with a blazing nose; and when he
came towards me my heart jumped into my mouth. However, he only asked
me which was Mr. Beresford's office--"
"Mr. Beresford's?"
"Yes, our swell Commissioner, you know; so I got off easy."
"What's the entire figure that you're liable for--including mine, and
all the rest of them, I mean?"
"The entire figure? well, it can't be far off a couple of hundred. I
had to spend such a lot when Emily was in town; pit-stalls whenever
she went to the Opera, to be near her, and hire of horses, and my
share of two or three Greenwich dinners, and all that, walked into no
end of tin. I don't know where the deuce I'm to get it, and that's the
fact."
"Do you owe any thing else? tailors or boot-makers, or any fellows of
that sort?"
"Not a sixpence! I cleared what little bills I had of that kind with
part of old Scadgers' money. And since I got that rise here last
month, I could go on as straight as possible on what I get. But it's
the infernal millstone of a back debt round my neck. I don't know what
to do! I can't go and ask the dear old governor to advance; he's got
quite enough to do with his income, and he'd be awfully knocked over
to hear I was in for such a lot."
"Of course you can't. Now, look here; I'll tell you what you must do.
You must first pledge your word to me and to yourself--not that any
thing can be raised upon it, but it's the right thing to do--that you
won't borrow another sixpence. And then you must go to old Scadgers
and tell him that you're in a fix; that you can't pay him in a lump:
but that you'll let him have so much every quarter of the principal,
and pay decent interest until it's cleared off. You must draw-in your
horns a little, and live quietly on the remainder. I'll go security
for you to old Scadgers."
"You're a trump, George; but do you think he'll do it?"
"Do it? he must. He makes far too good an income out of the fellows in
this place and other government-offices to have any public row made
about him and his goings-on. If it got blown, they'd have a leader on
him in the _Scourge_ that would take the skin off his old back, and,
worse than that, stop his business entirely. No, no; he'll do it fast
enough. But we must go to him in a regular business manner. Now what
are the dates and amounts of these different things?"
"I've got a memorandum of them in my desk, that I made at the time.
I'll get it out. Hallo!" said Prescott, opening his desk, and taking
therefrom a sealed letter; "what's this?" holding it up.
"Oh, by Jove, I forgot to tell you! that came while you were away, and
I put it in your desk, thinking to name it to you directly you
returned. Nothing particular, I hope?"
"I don't know; it's very thick, and I don't know the hand. It cannot
be a writ, eh?" and Prescott turned very pale.
"Writ, nonsense! they don't send writs by post. Don't you know the
handwriting? it's not round enough for a lawyer's. Open it, man; open
it at once!"
And so, wanting to know the contents of the letter, they actually
thought of opening it.
As Prescott opened the envelope he drew from it a thick roll of
papers, and unfolding them, looked at them with wonder. Pringle,
looking over his shoulder, started; and, taking them from his friend's
hand, exclaimed,
"Bills, by Jove! cancelled bills look here, the signature torn off and
hanging. The very bills you gave to Scadgers; mine, Compter's, your
IOU, and the lot! You've been chaffing me, Jim--getting a rise out of
me all this time, eh?"
"What do you mean by getting a rise? I'm as innocent in this matter as
yourself."
"But do you mean to say that you didn't pay them?"
"I mean to say that I've never paid Scadgers one individual sixpence!"
"Then I mean to say that you're a devilish lucky fellow; for somebody
else has."
"Are these bills paid, then?"
"Oh, don't be so preposterously green, Jim. Are the bills paid? Of
course they are! paid and returned to you to put in the fire, or do
what you like with; you can never be called on for another penny.
Well, you're a lucky fellow. No one ever paid any thing for me. Who
the deuce can have done this for you?"
"I haven't the remotest idea. It couldn't be Scadgers himself?"
"N--no!" said Mr. Pringle, grinning from ear to ear. "No, I don't
think it was Scadgers; he's not entirely in that line. Who is there
that knew you were in a fix?"
"No one, not a soul but yourself, and--"
"No, old fellow; I've not paid them, I'll take my oath. Should have
been delighted to help you, but hadn't the wherewith."
"Then I'm done. I haven't a notion who can have helped me."
"Well, it doesn't matter, so long as it's done. You're in luck's way,
my boy. All this horrible excitement and doubt brought to an end, and
you free as air. I say, how about the keeping quiet and not launching
into any extra expense, now? Will you hold to it?"
"I'll swear I will. And, what's more, now I am free, I'll strike while
the iron's hot. To-day's Friday; to-morrow a half-holiday. I'll go down
to Brooklands by the 2.40 train."
"I think you're right, Jim," said Pringle, quietly. "You've had your
fling, and you seem to have a chance of settling well in life just
now. Tell the old father all about yourself--your income and your
chances, I mean,--and don't give him the opportunity of flinging any
thing in your teeth hereafter. Well, whoever paid that amount of stuff
for you did you a good turn, and no mistake. I wonder who it could be.
No use asking Scadgers, he'd be as close as death about it; indeed, if
there were any hanky-panky, any mystery, I mean, he'd always swear he
was out whenever one called, for fear it should be bullied out of
him."
Indeed, Mr. Pringle, not being of a very impulsive temperament, and
not having very much to think about, bestowed far more wonderment on
the question as to who could have been Mr. Prescott's anonymous
benefactor than did Mr. Prescott himself. That gentleman, in love over
head and ears, simply thought of the transaction as a means to an end;
in any other position he would have bestowed upon it a certain amount
of astonishment, but now all he cared for was to avail himself of the
chance it had opened up to him. He had determined that, so soon as he
found himself unfettered by debt, he would inform Mr. Murray of his
attachment to his daughter, and ask the old gentleman's consent to
their getting married. He knew well enough that his own official
salary was by no means sufficient to maintain a wife--notably a wife,
the daughter of a rich country squire--in the manner to which she had
been accustom; but he knew equally well that the rich country squire
would, in all probability, make a handsome settlement on his daughter;
and to this he thoroughly looked forward. Not that there should be
urged against him the least suspicion of an _arrière pensée_; he loved
the girl with all his heart and soul and strength; but as in these
days he would never have thought of riding forth into Fleet Street and
proclaiming her beauty and virtue, and challenging all who might feel
inclined to gainsay them to single combat,--in like manner, in these
days would he never have thought of marrying a woman without money.
And this was the youth who would have taken Kate Mellon in her
unrecognised position, and, so far as he knew, penniless! Yes, but
Kate Mellon was his first love; those were his earliest salad days; he
has had much experience of the world since then, and is not honester
or fresher from the contest.
There was, however, no doubt about his love for Miss Murray and his
desire to see her, so he started off by the first train after
business-hours on the next day, and was whirled off to Havering
Station. One may suppose that he had found time to communicate the
fact of his intended arrival; for he had scarcely proceeded a few
paces up the steep hill which leads from the railway to the village
before he saw coming spinning towards him a low basket-chaise drawn by
a pair of roan galloways in plain black harness. And seated in the
basket, driving the roans, was a young lady in the prettiest little
round hat, and with the nicest short sealskin jacket and the daintiest
dogskin driving-gauntlets, who gave the knowingest salute with her
whip when she saw Prescott, while the groom behind her jumped down and
relieved the young gentleman of his portmanteau.
"Punctual, sir, I think!" was the young lady's salutation after
she had rescued the right-hand dogskin gauntlet from a prolonged
pressure--"punctual, I think! I say, James, what on earth has brought
you down again so quickly? You didn't give a hint in your note."
"You, of course," said Mr. Prescott, looking at her with the greatest
delight.
"No, but really! Papa, when he read your note, said he was delighted
to have you again, and that he supposed you must have obtained some
farther leave of absence. But I knew that was not likely, and I felt
certain you were coming on some special business. Oh, James, there's
no bad news, is there?"
"No, my darling pet, no bad news,--good, splendid, excellent news! I'd
tell you what it is now, but I can't, because it's news that's
impossible to be told except with action; and if I were to take
action, I should astonish the worthy person who is sitting behind us,
and who is taking such care of my portmanteau."
"Oh, James, how can you! You'll drive, of course. I can't fancy any
thing more horrible than seeing a gentleman driven by a lady. Now,
Bagshaw, all right. And so you won't tell me, James?"
"Not yet, Emily, not yet; and yet I don't see why on earth I
shouldn't. Bagshaw seems to be paying the greatest attention to the
landscape, and, moreover, has established a wall of portmanteau
between us and him of the most satisfactory. So I don't mind telling
you, that I have come down to propose for you to your father, and to
ask his consent to our marriage."
"Oh, James, I never did! And ask papa's consent, indeed! Do you know
that you've never asked mine, sir?"
"Haven't I? Well, then, darling, I'll ask it now. No, no what
nonsense! Bagshaw can't see under the rug, and I can hold the ponies
perfectly with one hand: give it me! So; and now about papa; what do
you think? what do you advise?"
"I--I think he won't make any fuss, James; he's always fall of your
praises, and he's not like those horrid fathers in books, who never
will let their daughters marry the people they love--I didn't mean to
say that--I meant the people who love them! But I think I'd speak to
him after dinner."
"After dinner?"
"Yes, you know, when you're left alone together. He's pleasanter then,
I think. And then you can come to me in the drawing-room and tell me
all about it."
Mr. Murray received James Prescott with the greatest cordiality; and
when dinner was over, and the cloth was removed, the old gentleman
instructed Banks the butler to bring up a bottle of the '20 and some
devilled biscuits. Banks, an old and faithful retainer, muttered
something in his master's ear as to what Dr. Harwood had said; on
which his master told him to go to the devil, and mind his own
business. So the '20 was brought; and Miss Murray had half a glass,
and then retired to the drawing-room; and Mr. Murray bade his guest
pull his chair round to the fire and prepare for serious drinking.
Then James Prescott knew that the crisis of his fate was approaching,
so he filled a bumper of port, drank half of it, looked the old
gentleman steadily in the face, and said, "I wanted to speak to you,
sir."
"All right!" said the old gentleman, helping himself; "speak on."
"About your daughter, Miss Murray, sir," said Prescott, beginning to
feel himself all aglow,--"about Miss Murray, sir."
"All right!" said the old gentleman, with perfect calmness--"what
about her?"
"Well, sir--I--the truth is--that I--I've formed an attachment to her,
sir--she's--she's a most delightful girl, sir," said Prescott, falling
into hopeless bathos at once.
"She is, James," said the old gentleman,--like the sphynx, 'staring
straight on with calm eternal eyes,'--"she is."
"She is, indeed, sir. I believe I may say that Miss Murray is aware of
my entertaining this notion, sir--and that--that she's not displeased
at it."
"Of course not, of course not, James; what girl would be displeased at
the notion that a young fellow found her delightful?"
"Confound it! he won't give me a leg up, any how," said poor Prescott
to himself. Then aloud, "If I could gain Emily's--Miss Murray's
consent, sir, would you have any objection to me for her husband?"
"Ah, ha! ah, ha! James," laughed the old gentleman in great
delight--"got it out at last, eh, my boy?--been beating about the bush
this ten minutes. I saw you, I knew what was coming, but I wouldn't
help you. You're not so good at this kind of business as your father
would have been. The vicar would have had it all out in a minute; and
if the girl's father had said no, he'd have run away with her that
night. Desperate fellow Alan is--was, I mean; we're all stupid enough
now! And so you want to marry Emily? and you say, if she consents,
will I? If she consents?--nonsense, James Prescott! do you think I've
forgotten that alphabet? or that it has changed during the last forty
years? It's just the same as it was, sir, and I recollect every letter
of it. You and Emily have understood each other this long time. No,
I've no objection to make. I'd sooner your father's son would marry my
daughter than any duke in the land. You've not much money, but I've
plenty, and none to care for but her. One thing, how much are you in
debt?"
"Not a sixpence."
"On your honour?"
"On my honour."
"That's enough for me! Your father knows of this."
"Not yet, sir. I haven't mentioned it to him; but--"
"But I have! We talked it all over when he was here. So you see we old
people are not so blind as you think us. Now, you're dying to go to
Emily, and I'm dying to have a nap. Let us oblige each other."
Mr. Prescott did not need a repetition of the hint. In the course of
the next two minutes he was in the drawing-room; and the selections
from _Lucia_, with which the piano was resounding, were suddenly
stopped, and were heard no more until the advent of the old gentleman
caused a necessity for candles and calm propriety. I do not think it
is necessary for me to reproduce the dialogue which was carried on
during the interval. It was very silly and very pleasant; perfectly
easy to be imagined, and ought never to be described. Only one bit of
it is worth preservation.
"Were you ever in love before, James?"
"Once, dearest; only once in my life." (If he had been the age of old
Parr instead of six-and-twenty, he could not have said it with more
earnestness.)
"And why did you not marry her?"
"It would not have done, darling. She was not of our grade in life. It
would have been a wretched business. She felt that, and told me so."
"Poor girl, poor girl!" said little Emily; "I wonder where she is
now!"
Prescott did not answer. He was too full of his present happiness to
think of his former love, who was at that moment lying with her life's
breath ebbing fast away.