CHAPTER I. “IN DOUBT”
The door into the anteroom where I was waiting stood half-open, and I heard a very imperious voice say, “Tell Mr. Gosslett it is impossible,—quite impossible! There are above three hundred applicants, and I believe he is about the least suitable amongst them.” A meek-looking young gentleman came out after this; and, closing the door cautiously, said, “My Lord regrets extremely, Mr. Gosslett, that you should have been so late in forwarding your testimonials. He has already filled the place; but if another vacancy occurs, his Lordship will bear your claims in mind.”
I bowed in silent indignation, and withdrew. How I wished there had been any great meeting, any popular gathering, near me at that moment, that I might go down and denounce, with all the force of a wounded and insulted spirit, the insolence of office and the tyranny of the place-holder! With what withering sarcasm I would have flayed those parasites of certain great houses who, without deserts of their own, regard every office under the Crown as their just prerogative! Who was Henry Lord Scatterdale that he should speak thus of Paul Gosslett? What evidences of ability had he given to the world? What illustrious proofs of high capacity as a minister, that he should insult one of those who, by the declared avowal of his party, are the bone and sinew of England? Let Beales only call another meeting, and shall I not be there to expose these men to the scorn and indignation of the country? Down with the whole rotten edifice of pampered menials and corrupt place-men,—down with families patented to live on the nation,—down with a system which perpetuates the worst intrigues that ever disgraced and demoralized a people,—a system worse than the corrupt rule of the Bourbons of Naples, and more degrading than—
“Now, stoopid!” cried a cabman, as one of his shafts struck me on the shoulder, and sent me spinning into an apple-stall.
I recovered my legs, and turned homewards to my lodgings in a somewhat more subdued spirit.
“Please, sir,” said a dirty maid-of-all-work, entering my room after me, “Mrs. Mechim says the apartment is let to another gentleman after Monday, and please begs you have to pay one pound fourteen and threepence, sir.”
“I know, I know,” said I, impatiently.
“Yes, sir,” replied the smutty face, still standing in the same place.
“Well, I have told you I know all that. You have got your answer, haven't you?”
“Please yes, sir, but not the money.”
“Leave the room,” said I, haughtily; and my grand imperious air had its success, for I believe she suspected I was a little deranged.
I locked the door to be alone with my own thoughts, and, opening my writing-desk, I spread before me four sovereigns and some silver. “Barely my funeral expenses,” said I, bitterly. I leaned my head on my hand, and fell into a mood of sad thought. I was n't a bit of a poet. I could n't have made three lines of verse had you given me a million for it; but somehow I bethought me of Chatterton in his garret, and said to myself, “Like him, poor Gosslett sunk, famished in the midst of plenty,—a man in all the vigor of youth, able, active, and energetic, with a mind richly gifted, and a heart tender as a woman's.” I could n't go on. I blubbered out into a fit of crying that nearly choked me.
“Please, sir,” said the maid, tapping at the door, “the gentleman in the next room begs you not to laugh so loud.”
“Laugh!” burst I out. “Tell him, woman, to take care and be present at the inquest. His evidence will be invaluable.” As I spoke, I threw myself on my bed, and fell soon after into a sound sleep.
When I woke, it was night. The lamps were lighted in the street, and a small, thin rain was falling, blurring the gas-flame, and making everything look indistinct and dreary. I sat at the window and looked out, I know not how long. The world was crape-covered to me; not a thought of it that was not dark and dismal. I tried to take a retrospect of my life, and see where and how I might have done better; but all I could collect was, that I had met nothing but ingratitude and injustice, while others, with but a tithe of my capacity, had risen to wealth and honor. I, fated to evil from my birth, fought my long fight with fortune, and sank at last, exhausted. “I wonder will any one ever say, 'Poor Gosslett'? I wonder will there be—even late though it be—one voice to declare, 'That was no common man! Gosslett, in any country but our own, would have been distinguished and honored. To great powers of judgment he united a fancy rich, varied, and picturesque; his temperament was poetic, but his reasoning faculties asserted the mastery over his imagination '? Will they be acute enough to read me thus? Will they know,—in one word,—will they know the man they have suffered to perish in the midst of them?” My one gleam of comfort was the unavailing regret I should leave to a world that had neglected me. “Yes,” said I, bitterly, “weep on, and cease not.”
I made a collection of all my papers,—some of them very curious indeed,—stray fragments of my life,—brief jottings of my opinions on the current topics of the day. I sealed these carefully up, and began to bethink me whom I should appoint my literary executor. I had not the honor of his acquaintance, but how I wished I had known Martin Tupper! There were traits in that man's writings that seemed to vibrate in the closer chambers of my heart. While others gave you words and phrases, he gave you the outgushings of a warm nature,—the overflowings of an affectionate heart. I canvassed long with myself whether a stranger might dare to address him, and prefer such a request as mine; but I could not summon courage to take the daring step.
After all, thought I, a man's relatives are his natural heirs. My mother's sister had married a Mr. Morse, who had retired from business, and settled down in a cottage near Rochester. He had been “in rags”—I mean the business of that name—for forty years, and made a snug thing of it; but, by an unlucky speculation, had lost more than half of his savings. Being childless, and utterly devoid of affection for any one, he had purchased an annuity on the joint lives of his wife and himself, and retired to pass his days near his native town.
I never liked him, nor did he like me. He was a hard, stern, coarse-natured man, who thought that any one who had ever failed in anything was a creature to be despised, and saw nothing in want of success but an innate desire to live in indolence, and be supported by others. He often asked me why I did n't turn coal-heaver? He said he would have been a coal-heaver rather than be dependent upon his relations.
My aunt might originally have been somewhat softer-natured, but time and association had made her very much like my uncle. Need I say that I saw little of them, and never, under any circumstances, wrote a line to either of them?
I determined I would go down and see them, and, not waiting for morning nor the rail, that I would go on foot. It was raining torrents by this time, but what did I care for that? When the ship was drifting on the rocks, what mattered a leak more or less?
It was dark night when I set out; and when day broke, dim and dreary, I was soaked thoroughly through, and not more than one-fifth of the way. There was, however, that in the exercise, and in the spirit it called forth, to rally me out of my depression; and I plodded along through mud and mire, breasting the swooping rain in a far cheerier frame than I could have thought possible. It was closing into darkness as I reached the little inn where the cottage stood, and I was by this time fairly beat between fatigue and hunger.
“Here's a go!” cried my uncle, who opened the door for me. “Here's Paul Gosslett, just as we're going to dinner.”
“The very time to suit him,” said I, trying to be jocular.
“Yes, lad, but will it suit us? We 've only an Irish stew, and not too much of it, either.”
“How are you, Paul?” said my aunt, offering her hand. “You seem wet through. Won't you dry your coat?”
“Oh, it's no matter,” said I. “I never mind wet.”
“Of course he does n't,” said my uncle. “What would he do if he was up at the 'diggins'? What would he do if he had to pick rags as I have, ten, twelve hours at a stretch, under heavier rain than this?”
“Just so, sir,” said I, concurring with all he said.
“And what brought you down, lad?” asked he.
“I think, sir, it was to see you and my aunt. I haven't been very well of late, and I fancied a day in the country might rally me.”
“Stealing a holiday,—the old story,” muttered he. “Are you doing anything now?”
“No, sir. I have unfortunately nothing to do.”
“Why not go on the quay then, and turn coal-heaver? I 'd not eat bread of another man's earning when I could carry a sack of coals. Do you understand that?”
“Perhaps I do, sir; but I'm scarcely strong enough to be a coal-porter.”
“Sell matches, then,—lucifer matches!” cried he, with a bang of his hand on the table, “or be a poster.”
“Oh, Tom!” cried my aunt, who saw that I had grown first red, and then sickly pale all over.
“As good men as he have done both. But here's the dinner, and I suppose you must have your share of it.”
I was in no mood to resent this invitation, discourteous as it was, for I was in no mood to resent anything. I was crushed and humbled to a degree that I began to regard my abject condition as a martyr might his martyrdom.
The meal went over somewhat silently; little was spoken on any side. A half-jocular remark on the goodness of my appetite was the only approach to a pleasantry. My uncle drank something which by the color I judged to be port, but he neither offered it to my aunt nor myself. She took water, and I drank largely of beer, which once more elicited a compliment to me on my powers of suction.
“Better have you for a week than a fortnight, lad,” said my uncle, as we drew round the fire after dinner.
My aunt now armed herself with some knitting apparatus, while my uncle, flanked by a smoking glass of toddy on one side and the “Tizer” on the other, proceeded to fill his pipe with strong tobacco, puffing out at intervals short and pithy apothegms about youth being the season for work and age for repose,—under the influence of whose drowsy wisdom, and overcome by the hot fire, I fell off fast asleep. For a while I was so completely lost in slumber that I heard nothing around. At last I began to dream of my long journey, and the little towns I had passed through, and the places I fain would have stopped at to bait and rest, but nobly resisted, never breaking bread nor tasting water till I had reached my journey's end. At length I fancied I heard people calling me by my name, some saying words of warning or caution, and others jeering and bantering me; and then quite distinctly,—as clearly as though the words were in my ear,—I heard my aunt say,—“I'm sure Lizzy would take him. She was shamefully treated by that heartless fellow, but she's getting over it now; and if any one, even Paul there, offered, I 'm certain she 'd not refuse him.”
“She has a thousand pounds,” grunted out my uncle.
“Fourteen hundred in the bank; and as they have no other child, they must leave her everything they have, when they die.”
“It won't be much. Old Dan has little more than his vicarage, and he always ends each year a shade deeper in debt than the one before it.”
“Well, she has her own fortune, and nobody can touch that.”
I roused myself, yawned aloud, and opened my eyes.
“Pretty nigh as good a hand at sleeping as eating,” said my uncle, gruffly.
“It's a smart bit of a walk from Duke Street, Piccadilly,” said I, with more vigor than I had yet assumed.
“Why, a fellow of your age ought to do that twice a week just to keep him in wind.”
“I say, Paul,” said my aunt, “were you ever in Ireland?”
“Never, aunt. Why do you ask me?”
“Because you said a little while back that you felt rather poorly of late,—low and weakly.”
“No loss of appetite, though,” chuckled in my uncle.
“And we were thinking,” resumed she, “of sending you over to stay a few weeks with an old friend of ours in Donegal. He calls it the finest air in Europe; and I know he 'd treat you with every kindness.”
“Do you shoot?” asked my uncle.
“No, sir.”
“Nor fish?”
“No, sir.”
“What are you as a sportsman? Can you ride? Can you do anything?”
“Nothing whatever, sir. I once carried a game-bag, and that was all.”
“And you're not a farmer nor a judge of cattle. How are you to pass your time, I 'd like to know?”
“If there were books, or if there were people to talk to—”
“Mrs. Dudgeon's deaf,—she's been deaf these twenty years; but she has a daughter. Is Lizzy deaf?”
“Of course she's not,” rejoined my aunt, tartly.
“Well, she'd talk to you; and Dan would talk. Not much, I believe, though; he a'n't a great fellow for talk.”
“They 're something silent all of them, but Lizzy is a nice girl and very pretty,—at least she was when I saw her here two years ago.”
“At all events, they are distant connections of your mother's; and as you are determined to live on your relations, I think you ought to give them a turn.”
“There is some justice in that, sir,” said I, determined now to resent no rudeness, nor show offence at any coarseness, however great it might be.
“Well, then, I 'll write to-morrow, and say you 'll follow my letter, and be with them soon after they receive it. I believe it's a lonely sort of place enough,—Dan calls it next door to Greenland; but there's good air, and plenty of it.”
We talked for some time longer over the family whose guest I was to be, and I went off to bed, determined to see out this new act of my life's drama before I whistled for the curtain to drop.
It gave a great additional interest besides to my journey to have overheard the hint my aunt threw out about a marriage. It was something more than a mere journey for change of air. It might be a journey to change the whole character and fortune of my life. And was it not thus one's fate ever turned? You went somewhere by a mere accident, or you stopped at home. You held a hand to help a lady into a boat, or you assisted her off her horse, or you took her in to dinner; and out of something insignificant and trivial as this your whole life's destiny was altered. And not alone your destiny, but your very nature; your temper, as fashioned by another's temper; your tastes as moulded by others' tastes; and your morality, your actual identity, was the sport of a casualty too small and too poor to be called an incident.
“Is this about to be the turning-point in my life?” asked I of myself. “Is Fortune at last disposed to bestow a smile upon me? Is it out of the very depth of my despair I 'm to catch sight of the first gleam of light that has fallen upon my luckless career?”