NOTHING.
Mr. James Welsh occupied a small, respectable house in a row in
Shepherd’s Bush. The house was very new; the smell of plaster clung
about it. Before the row were young plane trees, surrounded with
wire-netting to protect their tender bark from the pen-knives and
pinching fingers of boys. Far in the dim future was a prospect of the
road becoming an umbrageous avenue; accordingly, with an eye to the
future, those who had planned and planted the row entitled it The
Avenue.
Up this avenue of wretched, coddled saplings walked Mr. Giles Inglett
Saltren, in the best of spirits, to visit his uncle, the Monday morning
after his arrival in town.
Now Giles Inglett Saltren was about to begin his career as a journalist,
as a politician, as a man of letters. He had broken away from the
position which had degraded and enslaved him, which had cramped his
genius, and suppressed his generous emotions.
He had not, indeed, heard from Welsh since he had written to him, but
youth is sanguine. He could rely on his uncle finding him work, and he
knew his own abilities were of no ordinary quality. He had essayed his
powers on several political questions. He had written articles on the
Eastern Embroglio, the Madagascar Policy of the French Republic, Port
Hamilton, the dispute about the Fisheries, and Irish dissatisfaction.
Very vigorous they were in style, and pulverising in argumentative
force.
He had not sent them to his uncle, but he brought them with him now in a
hand-bag. He came early to ensure finding Mr. Welsh at home and to allow
time for reading his articles to him, and discussing the terms on which
he was to be taken upon the staff of the paper with which his uncle was
connected. He figured to himself the expression of the face of Welsh
changing, as he listened, from incredulity to pleased surprise and rapt
ecstasy, and the clasp of hands when the lecture was over, the
congratulation on success, and the liberal offer of remuneration that
would ensue.
There was one telling passage on Port Hamilton which to Jingles’ mind
was so finely turned, so rich and mellow in its eloquence, that he
repeated it twice to himself as he walked from Shepherd’s Bush station
to his destination.
“It is really well put,” mused Jingles; “and I think if it comes under
the eye of the Ministry, that it must materially affect their policy,
and, perhaps, decide the question of the retention or surrender of the
station. More wonderful things have happened than that it should lead to
my being offered a colonial appointment. Not that I would accept a post
which was not influential. I am not going to be shelved as a foreign
consul. I intend to be where I can put my mark on my times, and mould
the destinies of the people. It would not be surprising were the
Conservative Government to endeavour to silence me by the offer of some
governorship which would take me from home, and corner me where my
influence would be powerless. But I intend to keep my eyes open. I am
not one of the men who submit to suppression. Ah! here is Uncle James’
door.”
He opened the little iron gate. A servant was on the steps, kneeling and
scrubbing the threshold. She had managed to kneel on her apron, and tear
it out of the gathers. Her slippers exposed a split over the toe,
showing stocking, and the stocking was split over the heel, showing
skin. She put her scrubbing-brush to her head to smooth the hair that
had fallen forward, over the fringe.
“Is Mr. Welsh at home?”
“Yes’ir. Your card, please?”
She looked at her fingers; they were wet, so she put them beneath her
apron, and extended her hand thus covered to receive the card, and
nipped it through the integument of coarse linen, then turned and went
in, leaving Saltren on the doorstep with the bucket. The soap she had
prudently removed within, lest, while she was presenting the card, he
might make off with the square. She was up to the dodges of such chaps.
So, also, she shut the door behind her, lest he should make off with an
overcoat or umbrella. A servant cannot be too careful in the suburbs of
London. Presently she returned, re-opened the door, and asked Saltren to
kindly step into the master’s study.
Mr. James Welsh was just engaged in unfolding his morning’s paper
preparatory to reading, or, rather, skimming it, when Jingles entered.
“Hallo, young shaver!” exclaimed the uncle, laying aside the newspaper
somewhat reluctantly. “This is sharp work, dropping in on me before I
have had time allowed me to answer your letter. I only came home last
night. It is like crossing the frontier simultaneously with declaration
of war. If you had waited for my answer you would have saved yourself
trouble and the cost of your ticket.”
“There were reasons which made it necessary for me to leave at once.”
“My dear boy, reasons are like eggs in a recipe for a pudding. The
pudding is best with them; but it is good without. You wanted to come,
and you enrich your coming with reasons. That is the sense of it.”
“But, Uncle James, I have long felt a decided vocation for a political
and literary life, and I have long chafed at the restraints——”
“Young shaver, in the ministerial world—I mean the world of ministers of
religion—there are also calls; but, curiously enough, only such are
listened to when the call is from a salary of fifty to a hundred and
fifty. I never yet heard of a pastor who listened to a call to leave one
of a hundred for one of half that amount. But they jump like frogs when
the call is t’other way. You should have learned wisdom from those
apostles of light. You have, I fear, thrown up a lucrative situation for
nothing. Like the dog in the fable dropped the piece of meat to bite at
a shadow.”
“I have no doubt,” said Jingles gravely, “that at first I shall not earn
much; but I have some money laid by which will serve my necessities till
I have made myself a name, and got an assured income.”
“Made yourself a name! That is what no journalist ever does. Got an
assured income! That comes late. You have not been through the mill.”
“I have in my bag some articles I have touched off, leaders on important
matters, of absorbing interest to the public.”
“As what?”
“Port Hamilton.”
“The public don’t care a snap about that.”
“The Eastern Question.”
“About which you know nothing.”
“The Irish Land Question.”
“On which you are incompetent to form an opinion.”
“Will you look at my articles?”
“I can’t say. I can tell what they are like without your opening the
bag. I know exactly the style of these schoolboy productions. If you
particularly desire it, I will run my eye over them; but I tell you
beforehand, they are good for nought. Mind you, I don’t expect that a
writer of a leader knows any more of his subject than do you; but he
does know how to affect a knowledge he does not possess, and disguise
his ignorance; and he has a certain style that belongs to the business.
It is with journalism as with acting. An amateur proclaims himself in
every sentence. The ass’s ears project from under the lion’s skin. There
are little tricks of the trade, a margin for gag, that must be employed
and utilised, and only a professional is at his ease, and has the
familiar tricks at his disposal, and gag at the end of his tongue. Can
you manage shorthand?”
“Shorthand! No.”
“Pity that. I might have got you some reporting jobs.”
“But I do not want reporting jobs.”
“Then you will get nothing.”
Jingles was rather offended than cast down.
“I see what it is, Uncle Welsh,” he said in a tone of irritation, “you
journalists are a close corporation, and you will not admit an intruder.
You are jealous of an invasion within your circle, just as a parcel of
commercials resent the entry of any but a commissioned bagman into their
coffee-room.”
“Not a bit; but we do object to a raw bumpkin who has not gone through
his apprenticeship giving himself airs, and pretending to an equality
with us who have drudged at the trade till we have mastered its
technicalities.”
“I presume that a good education and brains qualify a man to write.”
“Not necessarily—certainly not to write leaders. I dare say we might
hand over to you the reviewing of children’s books. That would come
within your range.”
“It is an insult to offer such a thing.”
“Indeed! You know little of literature or you would not say so.
Formerly, when education was scarce, there were but a few writers, and
they were well paid. Now education is universal, and every one who can
handle a pen thinks he can write, even if he be imperfectly acquainted
with spelling. Education now is as common, as general, as
pocket-handkerchiefs. Both were luxuries fifty years ago. Literature is
glutted with aspirants; brain is as common as æsthetic colours, as
embroidered sunflowers, and Japanese lacquer. What is rare is muscle.
Learn some mechanical art, and you will find biceps pays better than
brain.”
“You know very well I have not the health to adopt the trade of an
artisan.”
“Then become a preacher; and here let me give you advice. If you want to
become a popular preacher, and a power in the pulpit or on the platform,
tear down. It is thankless work to build up; that takes time, demands
patience, and does not command immediate popularity and ready applause.
You appeal to no passion when constructive. Passion is your ready
assistant in destruction. Every man has so much of the savage in him
that he likes the war-path and the taste of blood. You appeal to what
you know is in all, when you give a war-whoop, and brandish a tomahawk.
There is some picturesqueness and a sense of power, in whooping and
whirling the axe; there is only prose in smoking calumets of peace.”
“I have no fancy for the pulpit; but I should like to become a political
speaker.”
“We can try you at some village meeting; but the pay is not much. Take
my advice and return to Orleigh.”
“That is impossible. I have burnt my ships. I can never recross the
threshold of the house till I am recognised.”
“What—as a literary lion? As a stump orator?”
“No, uncle, as Lord Lamerton’s son.”
“As—as his—what?”
Mr. James Welsh burst into a fit of laughter, and when he was exhausted,
exploded, in spite of exhaustion, into a second peal.
Jingles maintained his gravity. His brow contracted. He folded his arms
across his breast, and stood sternly waiting till this unseemly
ebullition of merriment had subsided, in the attitude in which Napoleon
appears in Horace Vernet’s celebrated picture, on Saint Helena, looking
at the setting sun.
“You must excuse me,” said he at last, “if I say that this is not the
way in which I expected to be received. First you scoff at my honourable
ambition to be a man of letters, and then you explode into indecent
laughter when I mention the fact of my parentage with which you are
perfectly familiar, though it is not known to the world at large.”
“By Jove, Giles, I did not suppose you were such a fool.”
“I do not understand you.”
“I may say, Giles, that I do not understand you. Do you mean seriously
to assure me that you give credence to that cock-and-bull tale?”
“Uncle Welsh, I believe my mother’s word.”
“Far be it from me to say anything to a son disrespectful of his mother;
and in this case I merely point out to you the richness and exuberance
of your mother’s fancy. Penelope embroidered by day, and by night
unpicked her day-work. My dear boy, it is, perhaps, a matter of regret
that my sister contents herself with embroidery, and does not complement
her work by unpicking the fantastic and highly-coloured figures that
needle, her tongue, has elaborated. She is like a magic-lantern
projecting pictures upon smoke, sheets, or blank walls, making those
surfaces alive with forms and faces. You really would suppose that the
man in bed was actually swallowing the rats that ran into his mouth, and
that Blue Beard in very truth rolled his eyes and cut off his wife’s
head, and that the cabbage was converted into Snip the Tailor. But, my
dear nephew, they are phantasms. Go up to them, touch, observe, there is
only smoke or whited wall. I have the highest respect for my sister’s
genius. I bow before her imagination, and adore it; but remember what
Paley said of the imagination—that it is the fertile mother of error. My
good sister’s delusive faculty seems to have become mamma to an
extravagant blunder, which you are lovingly nursing.”
“Then you place no reliance on my mother’s account?”
“Wait a moment.” Mr. Welsh went to the bookcase. “Here is a peerage.
Turn up ‘Lamerton, Baron,’ and see where his lordship was at that time
that you were begun to be thought about. He was not in England—had not
been there for two or three years. I knew that as well as the author of
the peerage, perhaps better; for I was at Orleigh at that time, a fact
my sister Marianne forgot when she exhibited to me her magic-lantern
slides. I was not then what I am now. I was then thankful for a bit of
literary work, and did not turn up my nose at reviewing children’s
books. I was as glad then to get a chance of putting pen to paper as I
now am of getting a holiday from pen and paper.”
“And,” said Jingles, somewhat staggered by the evidence of the peerage,
“you mean to tell me that my mother said—what—what—what was false?”
“Young shaver,” said Mr. Welsh, “I read ‘Herodotus’ in Bohn’s
translation. I don’t even know the letters of the Greek alphabet. I read
for professional purposes. I observe that when the father of history
comes to a delicate and disputed question, he passes it over with the
remark, ‘I prefer not to express my own opinion thereon.’ When you ask
me whether what your mother said was true or a lie, I answer with
Herodotus, ‘I prefer not to express my own opinion thereon.’”
Giles Inglett looked down on the carpet. His lips quivered.
“Young shaver,” pursued Mr. Welsh, cheerily, rubbing his hands together,
and taking up his newspaper, as a hint to his nephew to be gone, “you
had best return to your inn, and begin to pull out the threads of that
elaborate and gorgeous piece of Gobelin your mother has furnished you
with. Believe me, under the coloured worsted and floss silk, you will
come on very vulgar canvas. It is a sad pity that you should have
learned that you are not the son of Stephen Saltren. You might well have
been left to share the common belief. Perhaps it was inevitable that you
should discover the flaw in your nativity. Some women cannot hold their
tongues. I am not sure that the Babylonians acted unwisely when on the
occasion of their revolt against Darius, they strangled every woman in
the city except their cooks, for, they argued, men can get along without
the sex in every other capacity.”
The young man was profoundly disturbed. He looked up, and said in a
voice that expressed his emotion—
“Uncle, do not jest with me in this matter. To me it is one of deadly
earnest. I entreat you speak the truth, for—good heavens! If I am not
what I supposed myself to be, I have made a terrible mistake.”
“You are no more a son of Lord Lamerton than I am. Marianne—I mean, your
mother—thinks I am ignorant of the real facts, but I never was, though I
said nothing at the time or after.”
“Then you know who my father was.”
“Yes, I do—but I am not disposed to tell you.”
“I insist on knowing.”
“You ought never to have been told that you were not what you and the
world supposed. Now don’t attempt to lift the embroidered veil your good
mother has cast over the mystery. The veil is handsomer than what it
conceals.”
“But—I have acted on the supposition that I was the son of Lord
Lamerton.”
“I know you have, and more fool you. You have left your situation as
tutor in his house and a respectable income.”
“I have done more. I have persuaded Miss Inglett to run away with me.”
“You have—what?”
Mr. Welsh dropped his hands and the paper; he stood for a moment in
blank amazement. Then the blood rushed into his brow, and his hands
clenched.
“You have—you dare not repeat those words.”
“It is true. I supposed she was my sister.”
“You dirty little blackguard!” cried Welsh, losing all control over
himself and his tongue; he sprang towards his nephew, brandishing the
newspaper. “I will horsewhip you with the only weapon I have, the _Daily
News!_ You coxcomb! You infamous snob! I’m ashamed to acknowledge you as
my sister’s child.”
“I know that I have made a terrible mistake.”
“Mistake is not the word for it. A more detestable, outrageous, caddish
act, I could not conceive. Good gracious! I would like to kick you round
my table, kick you down the hall, kick you out at my door, down the
steps, send you flying along the avenue from tree to tree, and a kick at
each. Do you not see, you scoundrel, what you have done?—cast an
indelible slur upon the girl’s character. Mistake—mistake, indeed! Of
all snobbery! Mistake! Get out of my house this instant. You pollute the
atmosphere, you. You a son of my lord! You, who have not a drop of
honourable blood in your veins, not a spark of proper feeling in your
heart, not the smallest grain of gentlemanly, let alone noble sentiment
in your whole nature—you contemptible bastard of Sam Ceely.”