the family, by beginning the round of stories they were to relate as they
sat in a goodly circle by the Christmas fire; and he modestly suggested
that it would be more correct if “John our esteemed host” (whose health
he begged to drink) would have the kindness to begin. For as to himself,
he said, he was so little used to lead the way that really— But as they
all cried out here, that he must begin, and agreed with one voice that he
might, could, would, and should begin, he left off rubbing his hands, and
took his legs out from under his armchair, and did begin.
I have no doubt (said the poor relation) that I shall surprise the
assembled members of our family, and particularly John our esteemed host
to whom we are so much indebted for the great hospitality with which he
has this day entertained us, by the confession I am going to make. But,
if you do me the honour to be surprised at anything that falls from a
person so unimportant in the family as I am, I can only say that I shall
be scrupulously accurate in all I relate.
I am not what I am supposed to be. I am quite another thing. Perhaps
before I go further, I had better glance at what I _am_ supposed to be.
It is supposed, unless I mistake—the assembled members of our family will
correct me if I do, which is very likely (here the poor relation looked
mildly about him for contradiction); that I am nobody’s enemy but my own.
That I never met with any particular success in anything. That I failed
in business because I was unbusiness-like and credulous—in not being
prepared for the interested designs of my partner. That I failed in
love, because I was ridiculously trustful—in thinking it impossible that
Christiana could deceive me. That I failed in my expectations from my
uncle Chill, on account of not being as sharp as he could have wished in
worldly matters. That, through life, I have been rather put upon and
disappointed in a general way. That I am at present a bachelor of
between fifty-nine and sixty years of age, living on a limited income in
the form of a quarterly allowance, to which I see that John our esteemed
host wishes me to make no further allusion.
The supposition as to my present pursuits and habits is to the following
effect.
I live in a lodging in the Clapham Road—a very clean back room, in a very
respectable house—where I am expected not to be at home in the day-time,
unless poorly; and which I usually leave in the morning at nine o’clock,
on pretence of going to business. I take my breakfast—my roll and
butter, and my half-pint of coffee—at the old-established coffee-shop
near Westminster Bridge; and then I go into the City—I don’t know why—and
sit in Garraway’s Coffee House, and on ’Change, and walk about, and look
into a few offices and counting-houses where some of my relations or
acquaintance are so good as to tolerate me, and where I stand by the fire
if the weather happens to be cold. I get through the day in this way
until five o’clock, and then I dine: at a cost, on the average, of one
and threepence. Having still a little money to spend on my evening’s
entertainment, I look into the old-established coffee-shop as I go home,
and take my cup of tea, and perhaps my bit of toast. So, as the large
hand of the clock makes its way round to the morning hour again, I make
my way round to the Clapham Road again, and go to bed when I get to my
lodging—fire being expensive, and being objected to by the family on
account of its giving trouble and making a dirt.
Sometimes, one of my relations or acquaintances is so obliging as to ask
me to dinner. Those are holiday occasions, and then I generally walk in
the Park. I am a solitary man, and seldom walk with anybody. Not that I
am avoided because I am shabby; for I am not at all shabby, having always
a very good suit of black on (or rather Oxford mixture, which has the
appearance of black and wears much better); but I have got into a habit
of speaking low, and being rather silent, and my spirits are not high,
and I am sensible that I am not an attractive companion.
The only exception to this general rule is the child of my first cousin,
Little Frank. I have a particular affection for that child, and he takes
very kindly to me. He is a diffident boy by nature; and in a crowd he is
soon run over, as I may say, and forgotten. He and I, however, get on
exceedingly well. I have a fancy that the poor child will in time
succeed to my peculiar position in the family. We talk but little;
still, we understand each other. We walk about, hand in hand; and
without much speaking he knows what I mean, and I know what he means.
When he was very little indeed, I used to take him to the windows of the
toy-shops, and show him the toys inside. It is surprising how soon he
found out that I would have made him a great many presents if I had been
in circumstances to do it.
Little Frank and I go and look at the outside of the Monument—he is very
fond of the Monument—and at the Bridges, and at all the sights that are
free. On two of my birthdays, we have dined on à-la-mode beef, and gone
at half-price to the play, and been deeply interested. I was once
walking with him in Lombard Street, which we often visit on account of my
having mentioned to him that there are great riches there—he is very fond
of Lombard Street—when a gentleman said to me as he passed by, “Sir, your
little son has dropped his glove.” I assure you, if you will excuse my
remarking on so trivial a circumstance, this accidental mention of the
child as mine, quite touched my heart and brought the foolish tears into
my eyes.
When Little Frank is sent to school in the country, I shall be very much
at a loss what to do with myself, but I have the intention of walking
down there once a month and seeing him on a half holiday. I am told he
will then be at play upon the Heath; and if my visits should be objected
to, as unsettling the child, I can see him from a distance without his
seeing me, and walk back again. His mother comes of a highly genteel
family, and rather disapproves, I am aware, of our being too much
together. I know that I am not calculated to improve his retiring
disposition; but I think he would miss me beyond the feeling of the
moment if we were wholly separated.
When I die in the Clapham Road, I shall not leave much more in this world
than I shall take out of it; but, I happen to have a miniature of a
bright-faced boy, with a curling head, and an open shirt-frill waving
down his bosom (my mother had it taken for me, but I can’t believe that
it was ever like), which will be worth nothing to sell, and which I shall
beg may he given to Frank. I have written my dear boy a little letter
with it, in which I have told him that I felt very sorry to part from
him, though bound to confess that I knew no reason why I should remain
here. I have given him some short advice, the best in my power, to take
warning of the consequences of being nobody’s enemy but his own; and I
have endeavoured to comfort him for what I fear he will consider a
bereavement, by pointing out to him, that I was only a superfluous
something to every one but him; and that having by some means failed to
find a place in this great assembly, I am better out of it.
Such (said the poor relation, clearing his throat and beginning to speak
a little louder) is the general impression about me. Now, it is a
remarkable circumstance which forms the aim and purpose of my story, that
this is all wrong. This is not my life, and these are not my habits. I
do not even live in the Clapham Road. Comparatively speaking, I am very
seldom there. I reside, mostly, in a—I am almost ashamed to say the
word, it sounds so full of pretension—in a Castle. I do not mean that it
is an old baronial habitation, but still it is a building always known to
every one by the name of a Castle. In it, I preserve the particulars of
my history; they run thus:
It was when I first took John Spatter (who had been my clerk) into
partnership, and when I was still a young man of not more than
five-and-twenty, residing in the house of my uncle Chill, from whom I had
considerable expectations, that I ventured to propose to Christiana. I
had loved Christiana a long time. She was very beautiful, and very
winning in all respects. I rather mistrusted her widowed mother, who I
feared was of a plotting and mercenary turn of mind; but, I thought as
well of her as I could, for Christiana’s sake. I never had loved any one
but Christiana, and she had been all the world, and O far more than all
the world, to me, from our childhood!
Christiana accepted me with her mother’s consent, and I was rendered very
happy indeed. My life at my uncle Chill’s was of a spare dull kind, and
my garret chamber was as dull, and bare, and cold, as an upper prison
room in some stern northern fortress. But, having Christiana’s love, I
wanted nothing upon earth. I would not have changed my lot with any
human being.
Avarice was, unhappily, my uncle Chill’s master-vice. Though he was
rich, he pinched, and scraped, and clutched, and lived miserably. As
Christiana had no fortune, I was for some time a little fearful of
confessing our engagement to him; but, at length I wrote him a letter,
saying how it all truly was. I put it into his hand one night, on going
to bed.
As I came down-stairs next morning, shivering in the cold December air;
colder in my uncle’s unwarmed house than in the street, where the winter
sun did sometimes shine, and which was at all events enlivened by
cheerful faces and voices passing along; I carried a heavy heart towards
the long, low breakfast-room in which my uncle sat. It was a large room
with a small fire, and there was a great bay window in it which the rain
had marked in the night as if with the tears of houseless people. It
stared upon a raw yard, with a cracked stone pavement, and some rusted
iron railings half uprooted, whence an ugly out-building that had once
been a dissecting-room (in the time of the great surgeon who had
mortgaged the house to my uncle), stared at it.
We rose so early always, that at that time of the year we breakfasted by
candle-light. When I went into the room, my uncle was so contracted by
the cold, and so huddled together in his chair behind the one dim candle,
that I did not see him until I was close to the table.
As I held out my hand to him, he caught up his stick (being infirm, he
always walked about the house with a stick), and made a blow at me, and
said, “You fool!”
“Uncle,” I returned, “I didn’t expect you to be so angry as this.” Nor
had I expected it, though he was a hard and angry old man.
“You didn’t expect!” said he; “when did you ever expect? When did you
ever calculate, or look forward, you contemptible dog?”
“These are hard words, uncle!”
“Hard words? Feathers, to pelt such an idiot as you with,” said he.
“Here! Betsy Snap! Look at him!”
Betsy Snap was a withered, hard-favoured, yellow old woman—our only
domestic—always employed, at this time of the morning, in rubbing my
uncle’s legs. As my uncle adjured her to look at me, he put his lean
grip on the crown of her head, she kneeling beside him, and turned her
face towards me. An involuntary thought connecting them both with the
Dissecting Room, as it must often have been in the surgeon’s time, passed
across my mind in the midst of my anxiety.
“Look at the snivelling milksop!” said my uncle. “Look at the baby!
This is the gentleman who, people say, is nobody’s enemy but his own.
This is the gentleman who can’t say no. This is the gentleman who was
making such large profits in his business that he must needs take a
partner, t’other day. This is the gentleman who is going to marry a wife
without a penny, and who falls into the hands of Jezabels who are
speculating on my death!”
I knew, now, how great my uncle’s rage was; for nothing short of his
being almost beside himself would have induced him to utter that
concluding word, which he held in such repugnance that it was never
spoken or hinted at before him on any account.
“On my death,” he repeated, as if he were defying me by defying his own
abhorrence of the word. “On my death—death—Death! But I’ll spoil the
speculation. Eat your last under this roof, you feeble wretch, and may
it choke you!”
You may suppose that I had not much appetite for the breakfast to which I
was bidden in these terms; but, I took my accustomed seat. I saw that I
was repudiated henceforth by my uncle; still I could bear that very well,
possessing Christiana’s heart.
He emptied his basin of bread and milk as usual, only that he took it on
his knees with his chair turned away from the table where I sat. When he
had done, he carefully snuffed out the candle; and the cold,
slate-coloured, miserable day looked in upon us.
“Now, Mr. Michael,” said he, “before we part, I should like to have a
word with these ladies in your presence.”
“As you will, sir,” I returned; “but you deceive yourself, and wrong us,
cruelly, if you suppose that there is any feeling at stake in this
contract but pure, disinterested, faithful love.”
To this, he only replied, “You lie!” and not one other word.
We went, through half-thawed snow and half-frozen rain, to the house
where Christiana and her mother lived. My uncle knew them very well.
They were sitting at their breakfast, and were surprised to see us at
that hour.
“Your servant, ma’am,” said my uncle to the mother. “You divine the
purpose of my visit, I dare say, ma’am. I understand there is a world of
pure, disinterested, faithful love cooped up here. I am happy to bring
it all it wants, to make it complete. I bring you your son-in-law,
ma’am—and you, your husband, miss. The gentleman is a perfect stranger
to me, but I wish him joy of his wise bargain.”
He snarled at me as he went out, and I never saw him again.
* * * * *
It is altogether a mistake (continued the poor relation) to suppose that
my dear Christiana, over-persuaded and influenced by her mother, married
a rich man, the dirt from whose carriage wheels is often, in these
changed times, thrown upon me as she rides by. No, no. She married me.
The way we came to be married rather sooner than we intended, was this.
I took a frugal lodging and was saving and planning for her sake, when,
one day, she spoke to me with great earnestness, and said:
“My dear Michael, I have given you my heart. I have said that I loved
you, and I have pledged myself to be your wife. I am as much yours
through all changes of good and evil as if we had been married on the day
when such words passed between us. I know you well, and know that if we
should be separated and our union broken off, your whole life would be
shadowed, and all that might, even now, be stronger in your character for
the conflict with the world would then be weakened to the shadow of what
it is!”
“God help me, Christiana!” said I. “You speak the truth.”
“Michael!” said she, putting her hand in mine, in all maidenly devotion,
“let us keep apart no longer. It is but for me to say that I can live
contented upon such means as you have, and I well know you are happy. I
say so from my heart. Strive no more alone; let us strive together. My
dear Michael, it is not right that I should keep secret from you what you
do not suspect, but what distresses my whole life. My mother: without
considering that what you have lost, you have lost for me, and on the
assurance of my faith: sets her heart on riches, and urges another suit
upon me, to my misery. I cannot bear this, for to bear it is to be
untrue to you. I would rather share your struggles than look on. I want
no better home than you can give me. I know that you will aspire and
labour with a higher courage if I am wholly yours, and let it be so when
you will!”
I was blest indeed, that day, and a new world opened to me. We were
married in a very little while, and I took my wife to our happy home.
That was the beginning of the residence I have spoken of; the Castle we
have ever since inhabited together, dates from that time. All our
children have been born in it. Our first child—now married—was a little
girl, whom we called Christiana. Her son is so like Little Frank, that I
hardly know which is which.
* * * * *
The current impression as to my partner’s dealings with me is also quite
erroneous. He did not begin to treat me coldly, as a poor simpleton,
when my uncle and I so fatally quarrelled; nor did he afterwards
gradually possess himself of our business and edge me out. On the
contrary, he behaved to me with the utmost good faith and honour.
Matters between us took this turn:—On the day of my separation from my
uncle, and even before the arrival at our counting-house of my trunks
(which he sent after me, _not_ carriage paid), I went down to our room of
business, on our little wharf, overlooking the river; and there I told
John Spatter what had happened. John did not say, in reply, that rich
old relatives were palpable facts, and that love and sentiment were
moonshine and fiction. He addressed me thus:
“Michael,” said John, “we were at school together, and I generally had
the knack of getting on better than you, and making a higher reputation.”
“You had, John,” I returned.
“Although” said John, “I borrowed your books and lost them; borrowed your
pocket-money, and never repaid it; got you to buy my damaged knives at a
higher price than I had given for them new; and to own to the windows
that I had broken.”
“All not worth mentioning, John Spatter,” said I, “but certainly true.”
“When you were first established in this infant business, which promises
to thrive so well,” pursued John, “I came to you, in my search for almost
any employment, and you made me your clerk.”
“Still not worth mentioning, my dear John Spatter,” said I; “still,
equally true.”
“And finding that I had a good head for business, and that I was really
useful _to_ the business, you did not like to retain me in that capacity,
and thought it an act of justice soon to make me your partner.”
“Still less worth mentioning than any of those other little circumstances
you have recalled, John Spatter,” said I; “for I was, and am, sensible of
your merits and my deficiencies.”
“Now, my good friend,” said John, drawing my arm through his, as he had
had a habit of doing at school; while two vessels outside the windows of
our counting-house—which were shaped like the stern windows of a
ship—went lightly down the river with the tide, as John and I might then
be sailing away in company, and in trust and confidence, on our voyage of
life; “let there, under these friendly circumstances, be a right
understanding between us. You are too easy, Michael. You are nobody’s
enemy but your own. If I were to give you that damaging character among
our connexion, with a shrug, and a shake of the head, and a sigh; and if
I were further to abuse the trust you place in me—”
“But you never will abuse it at all, John,” I observed.
“Never!” said he; “but I am putting a case—I say, and if I were further
to abuse that trust by keeping this piece of our common affairs in the
dark, and this other piece in the light, and again this other piece in
the twilight, and so on, I should strengthen my strength, and weaken your
weakness, day by day, until at last I found myself on the high road to
fortune, and you left behind on some bare common, a hopeless number of
miles out of the way.”
“Exactly so,” said I.
“To prevent this, Michael,” said John Spatter, “or the remotest chance of
this, there must be perfect openness between us. Nothing must be
concealed, and we must have but one interest.”
“My dear John Spatter,” I assured him, “that is precisely what I mean.”
“And when you are too easy,” pursued John, his face glowing with
friendship, “you must allow me to prevent that imperfection in your
nature from being taken advantage of, by any one; you must not expect me
to humour it—”
“My dear John Spatter,” I interrupted, “I _don’t_ expect you to humour
it. I want to correct it.”
“And I, too,” said John.
“Exactly so!” cried I. “We both have the same end in view; and,
honourably seeking it, and fully trusting one another, and having but one
interest, ours will be a prosperous and happy partnership.”
“I am sure of it!” returned John Spatter. And we shook hands most
affectionately.
I took John home to my Castle, and we had a very happy day. Our
partnership throve well. My friend and partner supplied what I wanted,
as I had foreseen that he would, and by improving both the business and
myself, amply acknowledged any little rise in life to which I had helped
him.
* * * * *
I am not (said the poor relation, looking at the fire as he slowly rubbed
his hands) very rich, for I never cared to be that; but I have enough,
and am above all moderate wants and anxieties. My Castle is not a
splendid place, but it is very comfortable, and it has a warm and
cheerful air, and is quite a picture of Home.
Our eldest girl, who is very like her mother, married John Spatter’s
eldest son. Our two families are closely united in other ties of
attachment. It is very pleasant of an evening, when we are all assembled
together—which frequently happens—and when John and I talk over old
times, and the one interest there has always been between us.
I really do not know, in my Castle, what loneliness is. Some of our
children or grandchildren are always about it, and the young voices of my
descendants are delightful—O, how delightful!—to me to hear. My dearest
and most devoted wife, ever faithful, ever loving, ever helpful and
sustaining and consoling, is the priceless blessing of my house; from
whom all its other blessings spring. We are rather a musical family, and
when Christiana sees me, at any time, a little weary or depressed, she
steals to the piano and sings a gentle air she used to sing when we were
first betrothed. So weak a man am I, that I cannot bear to hear it from
any other source. They played it once, at the Theatre, when I was there
with Little Frank; and the child said wondering, “Cousin Michael, whose
hot tears are these that have fallen on my hand!”
Such is my Castle, and such are the real particulars of my life therein
preserved. I often take Little Frank home there. He is very welcome to
my grandchildren, and they play together. At this time of the year—the
Christmas and New Year time—I am seldom out of my Castle. For, the
associations of the season seem to hold me there, and the precepts of the
season seem to teach me that it is well to be there.
* * * * *
“And the Castle is—” observed a grave, kind voice among the company.
“Yes. My Castle,” said the poor relation, shaking his head as he still
looked at the fire, “is in the Air. John our esteemed host suggests its
situation accurately. My Castle is in the Air! I have done. Will you
be so good as to pass the story?”
THE CHILD’S STORY.
[1852]
ONCE upon a time, a good many years ago, there was a traveller, and he
set out upon a journey. It was a magic journey, and was to seem very
long when he began it, and very short when he got half way through.
He travelled along a rather dark path for some little time, without
meeting anything, until at last he came to a beautiful child. So he said
to the child, “What do you do here?” And the child said, “I am always at
play. Come and play with me!”
So, he played with that child, the whole day long, and they were very
merry. The sky was so blue, the sun was so bright, the water was so
sparkling, the leaves were so green, the flowers were so lovely, and they
heard such singing-birds and saw so many butteries, that everything was
beautiful. This was in fine weather. When it rained, they loved to
watch the falling drops, and to smell the fresh scents. When it blew, it
was delightful to listen to the wind, and fancy what it said, as it came
rushing from its home—where was that, they wondered!—whistling and
howling, driving the clouds before it, bending the trees, rumbling in the
chimneys, shaking the house, and making the sea roar in fury. But, when
it snowed, that was best of all; for, they liked nothing so well as to
look up at the white flakes falling fast and thick, like down from the
breasts of millions of white birds; and to see how smooth and deep the
drift was; and to listen to the hush upon the paths and roads.
They had plenty of the finest toys in the world, and the most astonishing
picture-books: all about scimitars and slippers and turbans, and dwarfs
and giants and genii and fairies, and blue-beards and bean-stalks and
riches and caverns and forests and Valentines and Orsons: and all new and
all true.
But, one day, of a sudden, the traveller lost the child. He called to
him over and over again, but got no answer. So, he went upon his road,
and went on for a little while without meeting anything, until at last he
came to a handsome boy. So, he said to the boy, “What do you do here?”
And the boy said, “I am always learning. Come and learn with me.”