Thus Ambrose Graye’s good intentions with regard to the reintegration of
his property had scarcely taken tangible form when his sudden death put
them for ever out of his power.
Heavy bills, showing the extent of his obligations, tumbled in
immediately upon the heels of the funeral from quarters previously
unheard and unthought of. Thus pressed, a bill was filed in Chancery to
have the assets, such as they were, administered by the Court.
‘What will become of us now?’ thought Owen continually.
There is in us an unquenchable expectation, which at the gloomiest time
persists in inferring that because we are _ourselves_, there must be a
special future in store for us, though our nature and antecedents to the
remotest particular have been common to thousands. Thus to Cytherea and
Owen Graye the question how their lives would end seemed the deepest of
possible enigmas. To others who knew their position equally well with
themselves the question was the easiest that could be asked--‘Like those
of other people similarly circumstanced.’
Then Owen held a consultation with his sister to come to some decision
on their future course, and a month was passed in waiting for answers to
letters, and in the examination of schemes more or less futile. Sudden
hopes that were rainbows to the sight proved but mists to the touch.
In the meantime, unpleasant remarks, disguise them as some well-meaning
people might, were floating around them every day. The undoubted
truth, that they were the children of a dreamer who let slip away every
farthing of his money and ran into debt with his neighbours--that the
daughter had been brought up to no profession--that the son who had, had
made no progress in it, and might come to the dogs--could not from the
nature of things be wrapped up in silence in order that it might not
hurt their feelings; and as a matter of fact, it greeted their ears in
some form or other wherever they went. Their few acquaintances passed
them hurriedly. Ancient pot-wallopers, and thriving shopkeepers, in
their intervals of leisure, stood at their shop-doors--their toes
hanging over the edge of the step, and their obese waists hanging over
their toes--and in discourses with friends on the pavement, formulated
the course of the improvident, and reduced the children’s prospects to a
shadow-like attenuation. The sons of these men (who wore breastpins of
a sarcastic kind, and smoked humorous pipes) stared at Cytherea with a
stare unmitigated by any of the respect that had formerly softened it.
Now it is a noticeable fact that we do not much mind what men think of
us, or what humiliating secret they discover of our means, parentage, or
object, provided that each thinks and acts thereupon in isolation. It is
the exchange of ideas about us that we dread most; and the possession
by a hundred acquaintances, severally insulated, of the knowledge of our
skeleton-closet’s whereabouts, is not so distressing to the nerves as a
chat over it by a party of half-a-dozen--exclusive depositaries though
these may be.
Perhaps, though Hocbridge watched and whispered, its animus would have
been little more than a trifle to persons in thriving circumstances. But
unfortunately, poverty, whilst it is new, and before the skin has
had time to thicken, makes people susceptible inversely to their
opportunities for shielding themselves. In Owen was found, in place of
his father’s impressibility, a larger share of his father’s pride, and a
squareness of idea which, if coupled with a little more blindness, would
have amounted to positive prejudice. To him humanity, so far as he had
thought of it at all, was rather divided into distinct classes than
blended from extreme to extreme. Hence by a sequence of ideas which
might be traced if it were worth while, he either detested or respected
opinion, and instinctively sought to escape a cold shade that mere
sensitiveness would have endured. He could have submitted to separation,
sickness, exile, drudgery, hunger and thirst, with stoical indifference,
but superciliousness was too incisive.
After living on for nine months in attempts to make an income as his
father’s successor in the profession--attempts which were utterly
fruitless by reason of his inexperience--Graye came to a simple and
sweeping resolution. They would privately leave that part of England,
drop from the sight of acquaintances, gossips, harsh critics, and bitter
creditors of whose misfortune he was not the cause, and escape the
position which galled him by the only road their great poverty left open
to them--that of his obtaining some employment in a distant place by
following his profession as a humble under-draughtsman.
He thought over his capabilities with the sensations of a soldier
grinding his sword at the opening of a campaign. What with lack of
employment, owing to the decrease of his late father’s practice, and the
absence of direct and uncompromising pressure towards monetary results
from a pupil’s labour (which seems to be always the case when a
professional man’s pupil is also his son), Owen’s progress in the art
and science of architecture had been very insignificant indeed. Though
anything but an idle young man, he had hardly reached the age at which
industrious men who lack an external whip to send them on in the world,
are induced by their own common sense to whip on themselves. Hence his
knowledge of plans, elevations, sections, and specifications, was not
greater at the end of two years of probation than might easily have
been acquired in six months by a youth of average ability--himself, for
instance--amid a bustling London practice.
But at any rate he could make himself handy to one of the
profession--some man in a remote town--and there fulfil his indentures.
A tangible inducement lay in this direction of survey. He had a slight
conception of such a man--a Mr. Gradfield--who was in practice in
Budmouth Regis, a seaport town and watering-place in the south of
England.
After some doubts, Graye ventured to write to this gentleman, asking the
necessary question, shortly alluding to his father’s death, and stating
that his term of apprenticeship had only half expired. He would be glad
to complete his articles at a very low salary for the whole remaining
two years, provided payment could begin at once.
The answer from Mr. Gradfield stated that he was not in want of a
pupil who would serve the remainder of his time on the terms Mr. Graye
mentioned. But he would just add one remark. He chanced to be in want of
some young man in his office--for a short time only, probably about two
months--to trace drawings, and attend to other subsidiary work of the
kind. If Mr. Graye did not object to occupy such an inferior position as
these duties would entail, and to accept weekly wages which to one with
his expectations would be considered merely nominal, the post would give
him an opportunity for learning a few more details of the profession.
‘It is a beginning, and, above all, an abiding-place, away from the
shadow of the cloud which hangs over us here--I will go,’ said Owen.
Cytherea’s plan for her future, an intensely simple one, owing to the
even greater narrowness of her resources, was already marked out. One
advantage had accrued to her through her mother’s possession of a fair
share of personal property, and perhaps only one. She had been carefully
educated. Upon this consideration her plan was based. She was to take
up her abode in her brother’s lodging at Budmouth, when she would
immediately advertise for a situation as governess, having obtained
the consent of a lawyer at Aldbrickham who was winding up her father’s
affairs, and who knew the history of her position, to allow himself to
be referred to in the matter of her past life and respectability.
Early one morning they departed from their native town, leaving behind
them scarcely a trace of their footsteps.
Then the town pitied their want of wisdom in taking such a step.
‘Rashness; they would have made a better income in Hocbridge, where they
are known! There is no doubt that they would.’
But what is Wisdom really? A steady handling of any means to bring about
any end necessary to happiness.
Yet whether one’s end be the usual end--a wealthy position in life--or
no, the name of wisdom is seldom applied but to the means to that usual
end.