Disappointment.
It is very curious how often the unintentional movements of other men
concur in making a crisis in an individual life. When Edgar went to his
club that evening he knew no reason why anything unusual should happen
to him. His mind had been roused by sudden anxiety, that anxiety which,
seizing a man all at once upon one particular point, throws a veil over
everything by so doing, and showed yellowness or blackness into the
common light; but he had no reason to suspect that any new light would
come to him, or any new interest into his life, when he went dully and
with a headache to his habitual seat at his habitual table and ate his
dinner, which was not of a very elaborate character. There were more men
than usual in the club that evening, and when Edgar had finished his
dinner he went into the library, not feeling disposed for the long walk
through the lighted streets with which he so often ended his evening. He
took a book, but he was not in the mood to read. Several men nodded to
him as they came and went; one, newly arrived, who had not seen him
since his downfall, came up eagerly and talked for ten minutes before he
went out. The man was nobody in particular, yet his friendliness was
consolatory, and restored to Edgar some confidence in his own identity,
which had seemed to be dropping from him. He put up his book before him
when he was left again alone, and behind this shield looked at his
companions, of whom he knew nothing or next to nothing.
One of the people whom he thus unconsciously watched was a man whom he
had already noted on several evenings lately, and as to whose condition
he was in some perplexity. The first evening Edgar had half stumbled
over him with the idea that he was one of the servants, and in the
glance of identification with which he begged pardon, decided that,
though not one of the servants, he must be a shopkeeper, perhaps well
off and retired, whom somebody had introduced, or who had been admitted
by one of those chances which permit the rich to enter everywhere. Next
evening when he saw the same man again, he rubbed out as it were with
his finger the word shopkeeper, which he had, so to speak, written
across him, and wrote “city-man” instead. A city-man may be anything; he
may be what penny-a-liners call a merchant prince, without losing the
characteristic features of his class. This man was about forty-five, he
had a long face, with good but commonplace features, hair getting scanty
on the top, and brown whiskers growing long into two points, after the
fashion of the day. The first time he was in evening dress, having come
in after dinner, which was the reason why Edgar took him for one of the
attendants. The next time he was in less elaborate costume, and looked
better; for evening dress is trying to a man who has not the _air noble_
which christianizes those hideous garments. The third night again,
Edgar, in imagination, drew a pen through the word “city-man,” and
wondered whether the stranger could be a successful artist, a great
portrait-painter, something of that description, a prosperous man to
whom art had become the most facile and most lucrative of trades. On
this particular night he again changed his opinion, crossed the word
artist and put man about town, indefinitest of designations, yet
infinitely separated from all the others. Thus blurred and overwritten
by so many attempts at definition, the new-comer attracted his
attention, he could scarcely tell why. There was nothing remarkable
about the man; he had grey eyes, a nose without much character, loose
lips disposed to talk, an amiable sort of commonness, eagerness,
universal curiosity in his aspect. He knew most people in the room, and
went and talked to them, to each a little; he looked at all the papers
without choice of politics; he took down a great many books, looked at
them and put them back again. Edgar grew a little interested in him on
this special evening. He had a long conversation with one of the
servants, and talked to him sympathetically, almost anxiously, ending by
giving him an address, which the man received with great appearance of
gratitude. Might he be a physician perhaps? But his bearing and his
looks were alike against this hypothesis. “Benevolent,” Edgar said to
himself.
His attention, however, was quite drawn away from this stranger by the
sudden entrance of Lord Newmarch, who like himself was a member of the
club, and who came in hurriedly, accompanied by some one less dignified
but more eager than himself, with whom he was discussing some subject
which required frequent reference to books. Edgar felt his heart stir as
he perceived the great man enter. Was it possible that his fate
depended, absolutely depended, upon the pleasure of this man--that two
words from him might make his fortune secure, or plunge him into a
deeper and sickening uncertainty which could mean only ruin? Good
heaven, was it possible? A kind of inertness, moral cowardice, he did
not know what to call it--perhaps the shrinking a doomed man feels from
actual hearing of his fate--had kept him from going to the office to put
the arbiter of his destinies in mind of his promise. Now he could not
let this opportunity slip; he must go to him, he must ask him what was
to be the result. Up to this morning he had felt himself sure of his
post, now he felt just as sure of rejection. Both impressions no doubt
were equally unreasonable; but who can defend himself against such
impressions? Gradually Edgar grew breathless as he watched that
discussion which looked as if it would never end. What could it be
about? Some vague philanthropico-political question, some bit of
doctrinarianism of importance to nobody--while his was a matter of death
and life. To be sure this was his own fault, for he might, as you will
perceive, dear reader, have gone to Lord Newmarch any day, and found
him at his office, where probably, amid all the sublime business there,
Edgar’s affairs had gone entirely out of his head. But if you think the
suggestion that it was his own fault made the suspense now a
straw-weight more easy to him, this is a point on which I do not agree
with you. The consequences of our own faults are in all circumstances
the most difficult to bear.
Oddly enough, the stranger whom Edgar had been watching, seemed anxious
to speak to Lord Newmarch too. Edgar’s eyes met his in their mutual
watch upon the Minister, who went on disputing with his companion,
referring to book after book. It was some military question of which I
suppose Lord Newmarch knew as much as his grandmother did, and the other
was a hapless soldier endeavouring in vain to convey a lucid description
and understanding of some important technical matter to the head of the
Secretary of State. In vain; Lord Newmarch did not try to understand--he
explained; to many people this method of treating information is so much
the most natural. And the stranger watched him on one side, and Edgar on
the other. Their eyes met more than once, and after a while the humour
of the situation struck Edgar, even in his trouble, and he smiled; upon
which a great revolution made itself apparent in the other’s
countenance. He smiled too; not with the sense of humour which moved
Edgar, but with a gleam of kindness in his face, which threw a certain
beauty over it. Edgar was struck with a strange surprise: he was taken
aback at the same time, he felt as if somehow he must have appealed to
the kindness, the almost pity in the other’s face. What had he done to
call forth such an expression? His newborn pride jumped up in arms; and
yet there was no possibility of offence meant, and nothing to warrant
offence being taken. Edgar, however, averted his eyes hastily, and
watched Lord Newmarch no more. And then he took himself to task, and
asked himself, Was it an offence to look at him kindly? Was he offended
by a friendly glance? Good heavens! what was he coming to, if it was so.
Presently Edgar’s heart beat still higher, for Lord Newmarch’s companion
rose to go, and he, having caught sight of the stranger, remained, and
went up to him holding out his hand. Edgar could but wait on, and bide
his time; his book was still before him, at which he had never looked. A
sickening sense of humiliation crept over him. He felt all the misery of
dependence; here was he, so lately this man’s equal, waiting, sickening
for a word from him, for a look, wondering what he would say,
questioning with himself, while his heart beat higher and higher, and
the breath came quickly on his lips. Good heavens, wondering what
Newmarch would say! a man whom he had so laughed at, made fun of, but
who was now to be the very arbiter of his fate, whose word would make
all the difference between a secure and useful and worthy future, and
that impoverishment of hope, and means, and capability altogether, which
some call ruin--and justly call.
While Edgar sat thus waiting, excitement gradually gaming upon him, he
saw with some surprise that the man to whom he had given so many
different descriptions, was drawing back and pushing Lord Newmarch
towards him; and seeing this, he got up, with a half-shrinking from his
fate, half-eagerness to hear it.
“All right,” said the unknown, “your turn first. The great man must give
us all audience in turn;” and with a little nod he went to the other end
of the room and took up a newspaper, of which he probably made as little
use as Edgar had been doing of his book.
“Droll fellow!” said Newmarch, “how d’ye do, eh, Earnshaw? I have been
in town this month past, but you have never looked me up.”
“I feared to bore you,” said Edgar, hastily.
“It is my business never to be bored,” said Lord Newmarch, with a
certain solemnity, which was natural to him. “Where have you been--in
the country? what here all this time! I wish I had known; I seldom come
here, except for the library, which is wonderfully good, as perhaps you
know. That was Cheeseman that was arguing with me--Cheeseman, you know,
one of those practical people--and insists upon his own way.”
“I wonder,” said Edgar, uneasily, “whether you have ever thought again
of a small matter I went to you about?”
“What, the messengership?” said Lord Newmarch, “what do you take me
for--eh, Earnshaw? Of course I have thought of it; there is never a
week that I do not hope something may happen to old Runtherout; I don’t
mean anything fatal of course; but there he sticks from month to month,
and probably so he will from year to year.”
Edgar felt his countenance falling, falling. He felt, or thought he
felt, his jaw drop. He felt his heart go down, down, like a stone. He
put a miserable smile upon his miserable face. “Then I suppose there is
no chance for me,” he said.
“Oh yes, my dear fellow, certainly there is a chance--as much chance as
there ever was,” said Lord Newmarch, cheerfully, “these things, of
course, cannot be altered all at once, but as soon as old Runtherout
gives up, which cannot be long--I do not mind for my part what anyone
says, I shall put you in. If you only knew what it would have been to me
to have you in Berlin now! You speak German quite fluently, don’t you?
Good heavens, what a loss to me!”
And, good heavens what a loss to me! Edgar felt disposed to say. As much
chance as there ever was! then what had the chance been at first, for
which he had wasted so much time and all his little stock of money. God
help him! he had to receive the news with a smile, the best he could
muster, and to listen to Lord Newmarch’s assurance that a few months
could make very little difference. “Oh, very little difference!” echoed
poor Edgar, with that curious fictitious brassy (why he thought it was
brassy I cannot tell, but that was the adjective he used to himself)
brassy imitation of a smile; and Lord Newmarch went on talking somehow
up in the air beside him, about a number of things, to which he said
yes and no mechanically with some certain kind of appropriateness, I
suppose, for nobody seemed to find out the semi-consciousness in which
he was--until the great man suddenly recollected that he must speak a
few words to Tottenham, and fell back upon the man with worn grey eyes
and loose lips, who sprang up from behind his newspaper like a jack in a
box. Edgar, for his part, dropped down in his chair something like the
same toy when shut up in its hiding-place. There was a buzzing in his
ears again as there had been when he had his first interview with the
Minister--but this time the giddiness was more overpowering; a hundred
thoughts passed through his mind in a moment, each crowding upon each, a
noiseless, breathless crowd. What was he to do? Everything seemed to be
shown to him in the space of a moment, as fable says, a whole lifetime
is shown in a moment to those who die suddenly. Good God! a few months!
what was he to do?
Some people can face the prospect of living for a few months on nothing
quite pleasantly, and some people do it habitually (without being at all
bad people), and get through somehow, and come to no tragical end. But
Edgar was young and unaccustomed to poverty. He was even unaccustomed to
live from hand to mouth, as so many of us do, light-hearted wretches,
without taking thought for the morrow. It was some time, it was true,
before he was roused to think of the morrow at all, but, when he did, it
seized upon him like a vulture. He sank back into his chair, and sat
there like a log, with vacant eyes, but mind preternaturally busy and
occupied. What was he to do?
He was roused from this outward stupor, but inner ferment, by seeing
Newmarch again come up accompanied by the stranger, whose very existence
he had forgotten. “Mr. Tottenham, Mr. Edgar Earnshaw,” said the
Under-Secretary, “one of my best friends. Come and see me, won’t you, in
Eaton Place. I must go now; and come to the office soon, and let us talk
your affair over. The moment old Runtherout will consent to take himself
out of the way--As for you, Tottenham, I envy you. All your schemes in
your own hands, no chief to thwart you, no office to keep on
recommending this man and that, when they know you have a man of your
own. You may thank heaven that you have only your own theories to serve,
and not Her Majesty. Good night, good night.”
“Good night,” said Edgar, absently.
Mr. Tottenham said nothing, but he gave Lord Newmarch a finger to shake,
and turned to his new companion, who sat with his head down, and paid
little attention to his presence. He fixed his eyes very closely on
Edgar, which is a thing that can scarcely be done without attracting
finally the notice of the person looked at. When he had caught Edgar’s
wondering but dazed and dreamy look, he smiled--the same smile by which
Edgar had already been half pleased, half angered.
“Mr. Earnshaw,” he said, “you have a story, and I know it. I hope I
should have tried to behave as well myself; but I don’t know. And I
have a story too. Will you come into the smoking-room if you have
nothing better to do, and I’ll tell it you? I call it the history of a
very hard case. Newmarch left you to me as his substitute, for he knew I
wanted to talk. I like the exchange. He’s a profound blockhead, though
he’s Secretary of State. Come and smoke a cigar.”
Edgar rose mechanically, he scarcely knew why; he was pale; he felt his
legs almost give way under him as he moved across the passage to the
smoking-room. He did not want to smoke, nor to know Mr. Tottenham’s
story; but he had not strength of mind to resist what was asked of him.
“A few months,” he kept saying to himself. It seemed to him that a
sudden indifference to everything else, to all things greater and more
distant, had come into his mind. For the first time in his life he was
self-engrossed, self-absorbed, able to think of nothing but his own
necessities, and what he was to do. So strange was this to Edgar, so
miserable did he feel it, that even on the short journey from one room
to another he made an effort to shake off the sudden chains with which
this sudden necessity had bound him, and was appalled by his own
weakness, almost by a sense of guilt, when he found that he could take
no interest whatever in Mr. Tottenham, that he could think of nothing
but himself. For the first time, there was nobody but himself involved;
no justice to be done, no kindness to be shown to others. Wherever other
people are concerned, a certain breadth, a certain freedom and
largeness, come into the question, even though the other people may be
poor and small enough; but how mean the generous man feels, how petty
and miserable, when he, and he only, becomes by any twist of fortune the
centre of all his thoughts!