“I have liv’d long enough: my way of life
Is fall’n into the sear and yellow leaf.”
SHAKSPEARE.
It might be supposed that, now Mr. Tippetson had very clearly
relinquished all intention of offering his hand to Clara, and Miss
Henderson had appointed Dr. Crack successor to Mr. Markham, no objection
or impediment lay in the way of the last-named gentleman to prevent a
regular and formal offer of his heart to Clara Rivolta. So for a moment
he thought, and but for a moment. Most curiously do actual events seem to
amuse themselves by opposing and contradicting human anticipations.
One morning when there was no business in Westminster Hall, and when
Markham, after a late and lounging breakfast in his chamber, was
preparing to saunter to the west, and spend his morning and, if Mr.
Martindale pleased, his day with Clara Rivolta, just as he had drawn the
brush round his hat, that daily author of ten thousand times ten thousand
palpitations, the postman, brought him a letter, on which he recognised
the hand-writing of his father; but the young man thought that the
writing seemed of an unsteadier hand than usual, and he was alarmed.
We have hitherto said little or next to nothing concerning Markham’s
father. Our reason for so doing is, that the elder Markham was a
linen-draper; and we were very naturally afraid lest any of our readers
should for a moment suppose that we knew any thing about such vulgar
people. As the subject, however, must be introduced, we hope that our
readers will imagine that all the knowledge we have of the linen-draper
cast has been derived from some cyclopedia or dictionary of universal
knowledge.
When Markham opened the letter, he was still more grieved and surprised
to find that its brief and hastily-written contents announced his
father’s failure. It had been the young man’s opinion and full
persuasion, that his father had been for a shopkeeper rather an opulent
man. In such towns as he dwelt in, though the gentry look down with
contempt upon shopkeepers, yet there are among shopkeepers an almost
infinite variety of gradations and degrees of dignity and rank. Mr.
Markham the elder was one of the principal shopkeepers, and he held his
head considerably above many of the tradespeople in his own town; and
his intimacy was rather with professional than with trading people.
But, unfortunately, in order to keep up his rank in society, he had
lived somewhat too expensively; and by the untoward introduction of an
underselling, semi-roguish draper into the town, Mr. Markham’s business
fell off most pitiably, and he was compelled to propose to his creditors
the horrors of a composition. We say here, and in this instance, the
horrors of a composition, inasmuch as to such a man as Mr. Markham
there was something in it most truly distressing and painful. We have
indeed heard that there are those who by means of such arrangements
grow wealthy, and unblushingly rise in the world; these, we apprehend,
can never become part of the Corinthian capital of society, they may be
rather described as of the Composite order.
This calamity, which had so unexpectedly befallen the elder Markham,
afflicted him most deeply; and he communicated the information to his son
in language so desponding, and with such broken-heartedness, that the
young man was quite overwhelmed with the information. Breaking through
every other engagement, he hastened down to the country to condole with
his father on the calamity which had overtaken him; and not without some
faint hope that there might be a possibility of averting the blow.
The letter simply stated that a composition had been proposed. Markham
the younger, therefore, thought that it might perhaps be within
the compass of his power to obviate the necessity of bringing that
negotiation to a conclusion. He made therefore as rapid and at the same
time as accurate a calculation as he could of the means which were in his
power, and forthwith hastened to the scene of perplexity and difficulty.
As he entered the abode of his infancy, he saw, or fancied he saw, a
melancholy change. The furniture of the apartment looked as if it had
been neglected. The whole house appeared gloomy and still; but worst of
all, when his poor father came into the room and took his son by the
hand, there was a hardness in the pressure, but no cordiality. Markham
thought that his father’s hand felt cold, and he saw that his dress
lacked its usual neatness, while the countenance was pale, and the
voice was tremulous, and the eye looked downwards. The young man would
fain have made the meeting cheerful, but his sympathy with his father’s
sorrow was stronger than the father’s sympathy with the young man’s
buoyant spirits and hopeful thoughts. Markham caught the contagion of his
father’s sorrow; and after some vain attempts to put a cheerful aspect on
the matter, he ventured to say:
“But is there no remedy to be suggested? It is not much that is in my
power at this very moment; but I do trust that I might shortly be able to
command all that may be wanted.”
The father averted his face to conceal the tears which he could not
suppress; and he extended his hand towards his son. The young man took
the offered hand, pressed it, and was for some minutes silent. With
difficulty the elder Markham replied:
“No, no, my dear boy, I will not hear a word about involving you in my
troubles. You are beginning life, I am finishing my course. It is one
comfort to me that I shall not leave you destitute: and perhaps when I am
gone, you will not neglect your poor mother. It is kind of you to come
down to see us in our troubles: my portion in them will be but short; and
when I am gone, I hope and trust you will continue attentive to your dear
mother. You owe much to her care, and I am sure you will not forget her.
Poor thing! she will see you presently, but her spirits are very much
agitated. She knows you are come. It is a great blessing to us, my dear
boy, that you have succeeded so well in the world.”
To this and much more did Markham the younger lend a painful and
reluctant attention; but he was too much distressed to trust his voice
to interrupt the desultory talk of his afflicted father. It was indeed
very afflictive to him that, at the very time when he was, by means of
an honorable and diligent application to the duties of his profession,
rising in the world both in wealth and reputation, there should come
suddenly and unexpectedly upon him this drawback to his success; for he
could not for a moment admit the idea of enjoying his prosperity while
his father should be living under the unpleasant consciousness that his
debts were but partially discharged. After a little more conversation,
and when the first uneasiness of their painful meeting had been somewhat
abated, the young man very earnestly, but respectfully, desired to be
informed concerning the particulars of his father’s embarrassments, and
the amount of the claims upon him. This inquiry, so humiliating to a
parent and to a man of such feelings as the elder Markham, was managed by
the young barrister with so exquisitely delicate address, that instead
of grieving and irritating, it rather soothed and composed the father’s
mind. There was also a happy and pleasing consciousness that there had
been, on his own part, no impropriety or inaccuracy of conduct; the
misfortune was simply and purely a misfortune, arising from events over
which he had no control. Perhaps it would be rather too severe, and
savour somewhat of moral pedantry, should we say that Mr. Markham the
elder ought to have been sooner aware of his changing circumstances, and
ought to have curtailed his expenses as his means diminished; and that he
ought to have known very fully and very exactly all the probabilities
and possibilities of mercantile fluctuation. But even supposing him to
have had some little suspicion and some faint consciousness that all was
not right, it would have been a piece of magnanimity seldom witnessed
in the commercial world, had he resolutely and boldly abridged very
essentially his usual expenditure; and perhaps that very abridgment
would have been the means of hastening the dreaded calamity. Generally
speaking, we may say that the calamity in which the elder Markham was
involved was not from his own imprudence.
To expose and regularly set forth the whole state of his affairs was not
the work of a moment. This business, therefore, was postponed till the
following day. In the mean time Markham’s mother made her appearance,
wearing a much more composed aspect than the young gentleman had
expected, judging from the language which his father had used. Mrs.
Markham has little to do in our history; but the mother of an amiable,
well-conducted, and intelligent young man is almost always an object
of respect. The direction and moral habits of the youthful mind depend
much on the practical wisdom of a mother. She does not indeed create the
mind, but she gives its energies their first impulse. For when the infant
first wakes to consciousness, and commences its converse with the world,
the first ray of knowledge, and the earliest of its discriminations,
beam from a mother’s eye; and the emotions of its little heart receive
their modulation from the melody of a mother’s voice. And is there not an
undefinable, but powerfully apprehensible difference between the voice
of inanity, selfishness, and grossness, and the voice of intelligence,
generosity, and purity? Is there not also as great a difference between
an eye which indicates mind, and one which is but a cold glassy inlet
of uninterpreted light? We have before professed not to philosophise,
and we restrain ourselves from farther digression here. But when there
stands beside the path of our narrative a character so truly respectable
as that of Mrs. Markham, we cannot resist the inclination to notice and
eulogise it. Much talk has been made of the dignity of females in the
higher walks of life, and many fine and interesting specimens have been
handed up to the world of rustic purity and simplicity; but the character
of Markham’s mother belongs not to either of these classes. Hers was a
moral, natural, essential dignity: it was not stateliness and pomp, for
in her situation these would have been ridiculous, and of consequence
undignified. Nature often gives to individuals in every rank of life a
species of inalienable nobility, and sometimes denies even to some in the
highest walks that nobility of character, by which alone the artificial
nobility of civilised society can be properly upheld in its dignity.
All this our readers know as well as we do; and we have not mentioned it
by way of instruction or discovery, but simply to let them understand the
character of Markham’s mind as having been in its earliest developments
under the guidance of a mother of this description, and as having
received no ordinary portion of the same spirit. The meeting of the
mother and the son was not quite so painful as had been the meeting
of the father and the son; for the agitation which Mr. Markham had
attributed to her had been more in his own feelings than in hers.
The Markhams were what is called old-fashioned people: not that their
manners or opinions really coincided with the manners and opinions of any
by-gone age or past generation, but because their notions were somewhat
romantic, and their manners somewhat formal. They had their own peculiar
views of objects; and in these they differed from their contemporaries,
and therefore they were called old-fashioned. They would have been quite
as old-fashioned a thousand years ago: for the past is the repository
in which imagination finds its stock of virtues. They were people of
integrity of spirit and of great moral purity, of mild, not cold decorum.
They were scrupulously punctual and exact; and therefore when necessity
prevented punctuality in that most delicate of all points, the payment
of accounts, they felt it as a severe and painful affliction.
From what we have said of the family, their character and circumstances,
our readers may readily imagine the feelings with which the younger
Markham quitted his mother. In the minds of some there is a lurking
suspicion that these people were proud, and that in order to preserve
fairness and honesty in our descriptions and representations, we should
acknowledge that much of their then suffering arose from pride. Perhaps
it might be so. Let it be acknowledged. We can only say that it would
have been much better for the Earl and Countess of Trimmerstone had they
possessed more of that species of pride which abounded in the humbler
family of Markham: then would his lordship have avoided the mortification
of dependence; then would his lordship have avoided the degradation
of associating with divers gentlemen of the fancy, and the perplexity
of losing his money to them; then would his lordship have escaped the
lectures of the police magistrate, as touching a quarrel with Mr. Isaac
Solomons, junior, of St. Mary Axe, and also as touching a squabble with
the watchmen in connexion with Mr. Singleton Sloper; and then would her
ladyship also have escaped an ill-assorted marriage with one who had no
regard for her, and an elopement with one of the dirtiest coxcombs that
ever perfumed and disgraced humanity. There is a pride which has its uses
and benefits.
When Markham the younger had prepared himself for a painful and
distressing meeting with his mother, he was agreeably disappointed to
find her so very calm and composed; and it also gave him satisfaction to
hear that the state of affairs was not quite so bad as from his father’s
letter he had been led to imagine. A composition indeed had been offered,
or rather proposed; for as yet the poor man had merely ascertained his
inability to meet all the claims upon him, and he had found himself in a
reduced state, but he hardly knew how much or how little he was reduced.
Mrs. Markham, who was a woman of business and of good understanding,
and who, though not gratuitously and curiously interfering, had examined
and investigated the pecuniary difficulties, gave to her son a more
particular statement than his father’s nervous and agitated frame of
mind would allow him to do. From this statement it appeared that the sum
required to meet the exigencies of the case was altogether within the
compass of the young man’s power. This thought dispersed much of the
uneasiness which he had felt at first receiving the painful intelligence.
Not entirely however was his mind freed from perplexity; for he had
doubts and fears concerning his father’s willingness to accept relief
from such quarter. Nor was it altogether without some disagreeable
feelings that the young man contemplated the loss of the first-fruits of
his professional success. On the other hand, it was a high gratification
to him that it was in his power to avert a heavy affliction from those
parents to whom he owed so much.
Some very profound philosophers, who are a great deal wiser than we are
or ever wish to be, are of opinion that mankind are not under very great
obligations to parents, and that parents having a pleasure in doing the
best they can for their offspring, and feeling a satisfaction in making
all manner of sacrifices for their children, have their reward and motive
in the very acts themselves, and therefore deserve no very particular
thanks or expressions of gratitude. For whatsoever any one finds pleasure
in doing, has not the character of virtue, or the power of binding or
leading another to gratitude. So to illustrate this philosophy, we may
state the matter thus. If a benefactor can truly say to the object of
his benevolence or benefaction, “I thoroughly hate, and most cordially
detest you; and I have not any pleasure, but rather a great deal of
pain, in doing you any kind offices; and it would give me much greater
satisfaction to see you starve, than to be conscious that you are
enjoying any of the blessings of life;”--then the benefaction is most
truly disinterested, and the recipient is bound to be truly grateful.
Though we must acknowledge ourselves puzzled to know where to find such
disinterested goodness; therefore, in the mean time, we will patiently
put up with such benevolence as the world supplies us with; and we will
explain away and apologise for any feelings of gratitude which we may
entertain towards benefactors and friends, by saying, that our gratitude
is not exercised towards them because they deserve it, but because we
like it, and it is exceedingly pleasant to ourselves to think and speak
handsomely of those who have been the means of doing us good.
It is, no doubt, only on this ground that we can account for so sensible
a man as Horatio Markham being grateful to his parents for the sacrifices
which they had made, for the purpose of establishing him in that
possession to which his taste and ambition were so strongly directed.