“I look upon this as one of the fortunate days of your life. It ends
an epoch and begins one. Hitherto the life-blood has been gradually
chilling in your veins, as you sat aloof within your circle of
gentility, while the rest of the world was fighting out its battle
with one kind of necessity or another. Henceforth you will at least
have the sense of natural and healthy effort for a purpose, and of
lending your strength--be it great or small--to the united struggle
of mankind.”
_The House of the Seven Gables._
For the rest of the week I was every day at Grove End. I took long
walks with Conny and her mamma, drove with them, wandered about the
grounds, which were tolerably extensive and well wooded, smoked
incessantly, listened to Conny playing the piano, read the papers,
wrote to my father and to Lord Towers, whose reply I was anxious that
my relations should see, and was, altogether, so perfectly contented,
that I should have viewed my return to Longueville as a calamity.
But where is the ointment without a fly in it? Where is the feast
without a death’s head? I confess I regarded the prospect of mounting
the high stool I had seen in the bank, and becoming the friend and
colleague of Mr. Spratling, of the big head, and of Mr. Curling, of the
cockneyfied forefinger, with little satisfaction. I felt myself much
too fine a fellow to do the work that Curling and Spratling did. I had
sometimes a hope that my aunt would snatch me from my fate, point out
to her husband that my elegance might be damaged by a collision with
coarse business details, and urge him either to adopt me, or to invent
some graceful scheme for supplying me with money. However, it was out
of my power to hint at such a measure; which I then considered a very
great misfortune.
I accompanied the family to church on Sunday. It was enough that I
should be a stranger to get stared at. The congregation was almost
entirely composed of old men and women--I don’t think I saw one young
man. I must except Mr. Curling, who looked down upon us from the
gallery: and, perhaps I may have indulged in a secret chuckle, when I
thought if he were really in love with Conny, how mad he would be to
see her and me bending over the hymn-book together, and praying side
by side. I didn’t catch Conny looking at him once, which put me into a
very good temper.
The rector dined with us that day: a sober-faced, square-bodied man,
who spoke in measured accents, and wore a beard. He professed to know
Paris well, and asked me, in French, if I had ever dined at Philippe’s,
in so vile an accent, that I could scarcely answer him for fear of
bursting into a laugh. I observed by my aunt’s and uncle’s treatment
of him, that they thought him a very considerable person; by which
they paid me no compliment; for of what worth is the admiration that
can fasten itself upon a being who has nothing in the wide world to
recommend him, “but his calling?” Set a thief to catch a thief! In a
very short time I found out that he was a boaster, and one egregious
slip put him completely at my mercy. But I spared him: my idea being
that every gentleman is bound to consider clergymen and women as being
under his particular protection.
I awoke next morning thoroughly out of conceit with myself. My uncle
had asked me to be at the bank at half-past nine; and, whilst I
shaved, I reflected, with much bitterness, upon the indignity to which
necessity obliged me to submit. Had anybody asked me which I would
rather be, a groom or a banker’s clerk, I should have answered, a
groom. Distressed noblemen had driven coaches, and hungry baronets had,
before now, curried horses for hire. But a banker’s clerk--faugh! Lady
Cliffeton would cut me dead were she to be told of it, I thought: and,
in imagination, I could hear Lord Towers in the finical, mincing accent
I had so often fruitlessly attempted to get, denying that he had ever
known me.
However, in spite of my distress, I was punctual, and got to the bank
before my uncle. Mr. Curling stretched his hand across for me to shake,
and asked me to step round. I eyed the counter with abhorrence, walked
haughtily around it, and having gained the other side, felt that I had
raised between me and society an obstacle which nothing short of a
change of name would enable me to surmount. Mr. Spratling, bowing his
head over his big ledger, scribbled furiously, and took no notice of
me. I asked Mr. Curling if smoking was allowed on the premises. He
replied, with much diffidence, “I think not.”
“What is my work to be?” I enquired.
“From what Mr. Hargrave said,” he replied, “I don’t think you will be
required to do anything. However, I presume you are here to learn the
business; and if I can be of any use to you, I shall be only too glad.”
I thanked him, and replied that it was my wish to learn the business,
and to do my share of the work. I couldn’t say less.
“There is very little to be done,” he answered. “Our customers are a
very quiet set. Most of our accounts are deposits; and our discount
business is by no means large. Market days are our heaviest time. The
farmers then pay in.”
“What do you call deposit accounts?”
“Accounts that are left in our hands not to be drawn upon without
notice. We allow interest on them.”
“And what is interest?”
Here Mr. Spratling uttered a faint groan of laughter. Mr. Curling
looked fiercely in his direction, and said, “Interest is a sum of money
allowed by us for the use of the moneys left in our hands. The rate is
regulated by the Bank of England. But all these things are very simple
matters: and I don’t doubt that you will have them at your finger ends
in a very short time.”
I must confess that he spoke very nicely; and I felt that if he would
only pull that atrocious ring off his forefinger, I might not find
him so objectionable as I had feared. Nor was he so plain, now that I
examined him closely. He certainly had good eyes and teeth, and there
was a delicacy in his hands which even his ring could not deform. But
his dress was very clerkly, consisting of a long frock coat, which he
wore open, and a waistcoat buttoned up to his throat, scarcely showing
a spotted cotton cravat, ornamented with a pin. The back of his head,
moreover, was a convexity of black friz. On the other hand, his voice
was pleasing, and his manners sufficiently easy.
Before long my uncle bustled into the bank, and on catching sight of me
called out in his cheery way, “There you are, Charlie! How are you?”
and came behind the counter and shook hands.
“Now,” said he, taking me aside, “what I want to impress upon you is
this: master the details of banking as quickly as you can, and try and
like your work. Before long I shall hope to be able to convince you
that it will be well worth your while to apply yourself. In reality
there is very little to learn. The mere clerkly portion of the business
is nothing; any ploughboy could be taught it in a week. The banker’s
real needs are, a good address, thorough amiability, a high sense of
honour, and a good knowledge of human nature. You understand?”
“Perfectly; and I may hope that I am not deficient in some of the
qualifications you speak of.”
“Indeed you are not. Where you are at present wanting, is in what I
must call practicality. You will have to fight against some difficult
prejudices which you have brought with you out of your life in
Longueville. But,” he continued, clapping me on the shoulders, “in
spite of some little weaknesses, there is enough in you to persuade me
that you will do very well.” He then went into his private room.
I almost forget how that day passed. I had a seat on a high stool near
Mr. Curling’s desk, and I remember that from time to time he would turn
to explain something in connexion with the business, which, he told me,
was important to know. He went about his work diligently and steadily,
and particularly amazed me by the extraordinary capacity he manifested
of counting any amount of money in an incredibly short space of time.
Threepenny and fourpenny-bits, half-sovereigns and half-crowns,
shillings and two-shilling-pieces, discharged out of the queer old
bags in which the customers brought their hoards, fled like lightning,
under his nimble fingers, up into a corner where they arranged
themselves in piles. Nor was his perception of a bad or doubtful coin
less remarkable. Now and then he would stay his miraculous counting to
examine a piece of money, give it a sharp ring, fling it aside, and
proceed in his work like a machine.
“If I were to live a thousand years,” I thought, “and were I to devote
twelve hours of the day to counting money, I should never be able to do
what that fellow does.”
I expressed my surprise, and he asked me to try my hand on two pounds
of silver. It took me five minutes to tell twenty pieces. “Pshaw!” said
I, turning away, when he showed me that I made eighteen shillings
represent a pound, “this is somebody else’s work, for it certainly
isn’t mine.” And then I began to talk of the superiority of the French
over the English money.
Mr. Spratling worked like an automaton. I thought his zeal
contemptible, and wondered that any human being should be gifted with
so little tact as not to know how to qualify the vulgarity of labour
with an occasional dash of the gentility of indolence. But speaking of
him when he had gone out at one o’clock to get his dinner, my opinion
of the youth was greatly improved, by Mr. Curling telling me that he
got eighty pounds a year, on which he supported his blind mother, who
had no other resources but her child’s salary.
“By George!” I exclaimed, “he is a worthy young man; and if I have
any influence with my uncle, I’ll get his salary raised to a hundred
pounds.”
I don’t know how it came about, but I have a clear recollection of
leaving the bank at four o’clock, in a much more subdued mood than I
had entered it. I was under an engagement to my aunt to dine at Grove
End, but I felt so tired, after my long and unaccustomed confinement
to one room, that I begged my uncle to excuse me to her. Why was I
subdued? Perhaps because I was tired. Does physical weariness take the
conceit out of one? if so, here you have a reason for the change in me.
I am willing to look a little deeper, and attribute it to a feeling of,
perhaps, the only wholesome pride that had ever stirred me; the pride
of having been honestly occupied.
I left Mr. Curling still busy with his accounts, but he had told me
there was no need for me to stay. I walked home to my lodgings and
dined off a chop and half a pint of sherry, and then putting a pipe in
my mouth, strolled out in the direction of the green lanes.
I was not much of a moralist in those days, but my mood happening to
be a pliant one, certain thoughts seized the opportunity to intrude
themselves and beget sundry reflections. I asked myself if I was not
carrying my notions of gentility a little too far; if I was not making
a very grave blunder in conveying the impression that I considered
myself too good and fine to engage in work in which hundreds of men, in
every sense my equals, and in many senses my betters, were employed? I
enquired of my common sense whether it were possible for a gentleman--I
don’t say a real gentleman, for I am aware of only one kind--to lose
caste by adopting any pursuit in which he could preserve his honour
and possess his proper dignity securely? Was not an assumed ignorance
of the essential, if commonplace, interests of life a very impertinent
coxcombry? Should I not be asserting myself as a very despicable kind
of fop if I professed to look with contempt on a vocation of which I
had not pride enough to restrain me from pocketing the profits?
I don’t pretend to say that I answered these questions in a manner such
as a severe moralist would approve. My self-conceit was too tenacious
of life to be killed by a single blow, and my prejudices were of
too old a growth to be tamed by a single wise reflection. I merely
wish to exhibit myself as having been capable of sometimes thinking
correctly, however long it may have taken me to bend my character into
a conformity with my better thoughts.
I so thoroughly enjoyed the fresh air and the exquisite serenity of
that May evening, that, though you may conceive I thought a good deal
about Conny, I don’t remember once regretting that I had not gone
to Grove End. It is good for man to be sometimes alone. I am pretty
certain that my solitary walk was more beneficial to me than a long
evening’s coquetting with my sweet cousin would have been. Besides, I
felt it only right that I should not avail myself too persistently of
my kind relations’ hospitality.
As I entered a lane rich with evening shadows, and cool with the fairy
foliage of high and stately trees, I saw in advance of me a young
man supporting on his arm an elderly woman, whose hesitating step
persuaded me that she was blind. I could not help taking notice of the
peculiar and loving care with which her companion directed her; and I
was speculating on his aspect, which struck me as familiar, when he
looked round and disclosed the features of Mr. Spratling. I waved my
hand to him and he nodded; and, not choosing to pass them, I halted,
and pretended to examine the country through the trees. I watched
them covertly, with increasing respect and admiration for the obvious
tenderness and love of the young fellow for his helpless mother, until
they were out of sight, and then leisurely retraced my steps, made
pensive by regret that ever I should have thought this young man, who
possessed in his rugged and stunted form a deeper and lovelier humanity
than ever I could have dreamt of, unfit to be a fellow-labourer of
mine.