Chapter Five.
“Love Lies Bleeding.”
What is my guilt that makes me so with thee?
Have I not languished prostrate at thy feet?
Have I not lived whole days upon thy sight?
Have I not seen thee where thou hast not been;
And, mad with the idea, clasp’d the wind,
And doated upon nothing?
Although Mr Mawley had expressed such a disparaging opinion anent my capabilities for official work, I do not think I made such an inefficient clerk on the whole.
I did not mulct my country of any portion of the hours appointed for my labour, pleading Charles Lamb’s humorous excuse, that, if I did come late, I certainly made up for it “by going away early!” On the contrary, my attendance was so uniformly regular, that it attracted the notice of the chief of my room, getting me a word of commendation.
Praise from such a quarter was praise indeed, as the individual in question was one of the old order of clerks, stiff, prosaic and crabbed to a degree—who looked upon all the new race of young men that now entered the service as so many sons of Belial. “Their ways” were not “his ways;” and, their free and easy manners, and absence of all that wholesome awe of chiefs which had been customary in his day, proved, beyond doubt, that official life in general, and that of his department in particular, was decidedly “going to the devil!”
He lived in the office, I verily believe; coming there at some unearthly hour in the morning, and leaving long after every one else had sought their homes.
The messengers had been interrogated on the subject of his arrival, but they protested that they always found him installed at his usual desk, no matter how early they might set about clearing out the room in anticipation of the ordinary routine of the day; while, as for the time of his departure, nobody could give any reliable information respecting that!
The hall-porter, who remained in charge of the establishment when business was over, might, perhaps, have afforded us some data on which we could have decided the mooted point, but he was a moody, taciturn personage, who had never been known to utter a word to living man—consequently, it was of no use appealing to him.
One of the fellows reported, indeed, that once having to return to the office at midnight, in search of his latch-key which he had forgotten in his office-coat, and without which he was unable to obtain admittance to his lodgings, he found old “Smudge,”—as we somewhat irreverently termed the chief,—who was particularly neat and nice in his handwriting—working away; minuting and docketing papers, just as if it had been early in the afternoon. It was his firm persuasion, he said, that Smudge never went away at all, but remained in the office altogether, sleeping in a waste basket, his head pillowed on the débris of destroyed correspondence!
Of course we did not really believe in the latter part of this statement; still, it was quite feasible, I’m sure, now that I think it over.
His habit every morning was to draw a great black line, punctually as the clock chimed half-past ten, across the middle of the attendance—book, which stood on a bracket near the door, handy for everybody coming in; the clerks having to sign it on entering, inserting the exact time at which they put in an appearance. Our normal hour was supposed to be ten, the half-hour being only so much grace allowed for dilatory persons delayed by matters “over which they had no control”—although few they were who did not take advantage of it.
Why the old gentleman drew this line, none could tell; for, no bad results ensued to sinners who signed after its limitation—many of those who were invariably late, being subsequently duly promoted in their turn, as vacancies occurred.
But, the practice appeared to give Smudge great satisfaction. He, probably, took some malicious pleasure in scoring up the delinquencies of his staff, mentally consigning the underliners, most likely, to irretrievable ruin, both in this world and the next!
I, as I’ve already said, was an exception to this rule.
I must explain, however, that my good hours did not proceed from any intense wish on my part to ingratiate myself with the chief. They were rather owing to the fact, that the omnibus I specially patronised, generally arrived in town from the remote shades of Saint Canon’s by ten o’clock sharp—a result usually obtained through hard driving, and on account of an “opposition” conveyance being on the road.
Smudge, nevertheless, took the deed for the will; and he complimented me accordingly, much to my surprise.
“Ha! Mr Lorton,” he growled to me one morning, on my coming in just as the hour was striking. “You’ll be picking up the worm soon, you come so uncommonly early! Never once down below the line—good sign! good sign! But, it won’t last, it won’t last,”—he added thinking he had spoken too graciously.—“All of you begin well and end badly; and you won’t be any better than the rest!”
He then hid himself behind a foolscap folio, to signify that the audience was ended.
It was quite an event his saying so much to me, his conversation being mostly confined to finding fault with us in the briefest monosyllables of the most pungent and forcible character; for, he seldom uttered a word, save with reference to some document that might be submitted for his approval and signature.
During the entire time that I remained under his watchful leadership, he never spoke to me, but once again in this gracious manner. Indeed, when I mentioned the circumstance to all the fellows, they expressed considerable doubt as to his having spoken to me so at all, ascribing my account of our interview to the richness of my imagination; but, he really did say what I have related. I am rather proud of the fact than not.
My comrades as a body were a nice, gentlemanly set; and we got on very well together.
As a matter of course, we had one especial individual who was commonly regarded as the butt of the room—a good-natured, heavy man, with a dull face and a duller comprehension; but, he seemed proud and pleased always when singled out as a mark for our chaff:—he took it as an honour, I think, ascribing our fun to delicate attention.
We had also a “swell,” who was as irreproachable in his dress as Horner:—I remember, the whole office felt flattered when his name once appeared in the list of those attending the Queen’s Drawing-room; while, his fashionable doings, as recorded in the columns of the Morning Post, caused our room to be envied by every other division of “the branch.”—Young and old, “swell” and butt not excepted—we consorted on the friendliest of footings. We were knit together in the closest bonds of brotherhood; and were in the habit of looking down upon all other departments as not to be compared to that, of which our room, was, in our opinion, the acknowledged head.
Generally speaking, men belonging to the public service are more gregarious, and stick to one another in a greater degree, imitating the clanship of Scotchmen and Jews, than those occupied in any other walk in life.
Professionals move, as a rule, in petty cliques; city people find their interests clash too much for them to associate in such harmony as do those engaged in Government offices. They may be said, certainly, to form a clique, and to have strong party interests also; but then, their clique is so large a one that the prominent features of narrow-mindedness and utter selfishness, which distinguish smaller coteries, are lost in its more extended circle; while, its interests are self-centred, its members having nothing to fear or expect from the outside public.
And yet, with all that good fellowship and staunch fidelity, as a class—when personal pique, and what I might call “promotion jealousy,” does not interfere to mar the warm sympathies that exist between the units of this officially happy family—Government clerks are a very discontented set of men, grumbling from morning until night at their position, their prospects, their future.
Really, when I first joined, I thought them all so many Lady Dashers in disguise. I could hardly believe that such cheerful fellows should be at heart so morbidly exacerbated!
They do not, it is true, grumble at those of their own standing in the service; nor do they try to out-manoeuvre their fellows of the same department; but, third-class men are jealous of those in the second-class, second-class men of lucky “seniors,” hankering after their shoes; and all, alike envious, both individually and collectively, of other branches, unite in one compact band of martyrs against the encroachments and tyrannies of higher officialdom—considering chiefs, secretaries of state, and such like birds of ill-omen, as virtual enemies and oppressors, with whom they are bound to prosecute a perpetual guerilla warfare:—a warfare in which, alas! they are sadly over-matched.
Smith does not mind in the least—that is, as far as human nature can be magnanimous—that Robinson, of his own office, should be preferred before him, and raised to a superior grade in advance of his legitimate turn. He may, undoubtedly, believe it to bear the semblance of “hard lines” to himself personally, that he was not chosen instead; still, he puts it all down to Robinson’s wonderful luck, and his own miserable fatality, bearing his successful comrade no ill-will in consequence.
But, let Jones, of another branch, be placed in the vacancy;—just hear what Smith says then!
Words would fail to express his sentiments in the matter.
Jones, he considers, is a nincompoop, who has fed all his life on “flap-doodle,” which, as you may be aware, Lieutenant O’Brien told Peter Simple was the usual diet of fools. Jones is a man totally devoid of all moral principle. How “the authorities” could ever have selected such a person to fill so responsible a post is more than he, Smith, or any one else, can understand! And, besides, how unfair it was, to take a clerk from another and different office—and one essentially of a lower character, Smith believes—and put him “over our heads in this way,” as he says, when rehearsing his wrongs and those of his official brethren before a choice audience of the same—from which the chief is the only absentee:—it was, simply disgraceful!
Smith thinks he “will certainly resign after this,” and—he doesn’t!
He goes on plodding round in his Government mill, grumbling and working still to the end of his active life, when superannuation or a starvation allowance comes, to ease his cares in one way and increase them in another! And, to do him scant justice, he really does work manfully, at a lesser rate of pay, and with fewer incentives to exertion through hopes of advancement, than any other representative person under the sun—I do not care to what class or clique he may belong!
He is the miserable hireling of an ungrateful country, from his cradle to his grave, in fact.
It is all very well for people unacquainted with the machinery of these offices to talk about the idleness of Government clerks generally; and joke at the threadbare subject of “her Majesty’s hard bargains.”
No doubt, some places are sinecures, and that a larger number of clerks are employed in many offices than there is work for them to do; but, we must not go altogether to the foot of the ladder to remedy this state of things!
Why do not such ardent reformers as Mr Childers, and men of his stamp, cut down their own salaries first, before they set about pruning those of poor ill-paid subordinates?
I can tell them, for their private satisfaction, that, if they did so, the onlooking public would have a much stronger belief in the honesty of their reformatory zeal than it at present possesses!
It is not the “little men” that swell the civil list, as the vicar told me before I saw it for myself, but, the “big wigs.”
These are the ones who fatten on the estimates, the root of the evil lying concealed under the snugly-cushioned fauteuils of cabinet ministers and their pampered placeholders and hunters—not, beneath the straight-backed horsehair chairs of miserable clerks. It is unmanly thus for giants to gird at pigmies!
I would advise all the clerks in the various Government offices to form a “union,” in order to obtain redress for their wrongs; and to “strike,” if needs be—you know, that strikes are all the rage now!
You demur to my argument? It would be a conspiracy, you say?
Dear me! You are quite wrong, I assure you. A conspiracy is only a conspiracy so long as it is unsuccessful. When it is triumphant, it is known no longer by that term!
Then, it is styled a “Revolution,” or a “Restoration,” or a “Grand Party Triumph,” as the case may be. Just in the same way, is a man a “traitor,” or a “patriot,” who tries to serve his country, according to his lights, as he is either defeated in his purpose, or victorious. Besides, when men thus work together in a body, their words and deeds, although identically the same, are regarded in a different light to the words and deeds of mere individuals. In the one case they may be grand and glorious; in the other, they are stigmatised, perhaps, as insignificant, and, indeed, often criminal.
Witness, how a robber on a large scale, such as a privateersman confiscating the goods of an innocent merchant, or a chancellor of the exchequer putting his hand into a poor taxpayer’s pocket, is held up in history to the admiration and honour of posterity; while, a petty thief, who may steal the watch of Dives, or a starving wretch, who snatches a loaf out of a baker’s shop, gets sent to the treadmill—their actions being only chronicled in the police news of the day.
Or, again, look at your colossal murderer, like the Kaiser “Thanks to Providence,” when he prosecuted the invasion of a neighbouring country the other day, in defiance of his kingly word—as published in a public proclamation, bearing his signature.
He sacrificed thousands of lives in furtherance of his own ambition; but, he is a “conqueror,” bless you! A hero, to whom men bow the knee and cry, “Ave, Caesar!”—Your puny villain, on the other hand, who only cuts one unfortunate throat, is hung!
“Circumstances alter cases,” runs the saying:—it should more properly be, the light in which we view them—that makes all the difference, my dear sir, or madam!
Let the Government clerks strike, I say. “Frappez et frappez fort,” as the Little Corporal used to express it; that is, if they are unable to get their grievances adjusted without some such extreme measure—of which there does not seem to be much likelihood at present, considering the reformatory tendencies of Jacks in office.
A strike, however, would soon bring the latter to reason, and show whether these subordinates were worth keeping on, or not!
You don’t believe it?
Ah! just wait and see!
Fancy, the consternation at Carlton House Terrace, the dismay in Downing Street, some fine morning, when no clerks were forthcoming!
Imagine the tons of correspondence awaiting answers, the acres of accounts to be audited, the minutes that would not be made, the “submissions” that could not go forward, the files that should have been docketed, and initialled, and stowed away uselessly till doomsday; and, that must, instead, remain untouched, uncared for!
The Secretary of State might want valuable statistics, to answer some obstinate inquiring member in the House that very day, but, nobody could prepare them—to his default; and so, the inquiring member might make a cabinet question of it, and defeat the Government!
The general commanding at the autumn manoeuvres might, perhaps, be in urgent need of footwarmers for the regiments under his charge; but, he couldn’t get them, as no permanent clerk would be at the War Office to countersign his order!
The channel fleet might all need refitting; but, none of them would be able to go into dock, as the Admiralty gentlemen—who only knew when their bottoms were last scraped—were not at their posts!
In fact, every department—the Colonies, the Foreign Office, and each one else, would be topsy turvey; because, only the high sinecurists, who never did anything but sign their names to documents prepared by “those useless Government clerks,” would be present to conduct the business of the country; and, they would not have the remotest idea how to set to work, you know!
The “Control Department” might, certainly be called on for help in the emergency; and then, we would probably have some more “queer things of the service” for a short time.
But, it couldn’t last. The whole official machinery would come to a dead stop.
You would then see the ardent reformers at their wits’ ends; while, the honourable person who keeps the purse-strings of the ministry would be down on his marrow bones—entreating the ill-used and recalcitrant seceders to return to their employment, when “all would be forgiven;” and begging them, at the same time, to accept the increase to their salaries which they had demanded, as a token of his sincere regard and esteem!
Before I became one of the staff of the Obstructor General’s Office, I had not given the position of Government clerks a thought, excepting to look down upon them generally—as I have previously remarked, and as, indeed, most people are in the habit of doing who are unconnected with the service.
Now, however, that I was one of them, I was filled with the most thorough corps feeling. Their ills were my ills; their hopes my hopes; and, such thoughts as I have noted were continually passing through my mind.
This is the case with most that are similarly employed.
I like men to believe in the special calling or profession they follow:—I do not think much of those who run down their trade.—The latter are usually bad workmen, you’ll find.
If I were a boot-black, to-morrow, I would, I am certain, lean to the delusion that the polishing of pedal integuments was the noblest sphere in life!
Indeed, I have known many more extraordinary conversions than mine.
I’ve seen one of the most brutal and bloodthirsty of warriors settle down into an earnest preacher of the gospel. I have heard a prize-fighter lecture on the atomic theory; and, I am acquainted with a violent radical demagogue “of the deepest dye,” who, by means of a nice berth and a snug salary, has been turned into the most conservative of county magnates—looking upon all his former proceedings with horror, and a virtuous amazement that he could ever have been so led astray!
So, you need not be surprised at my thus changing my sentiments. In addition, I was new to the service; and, “new brooms sweep clean,” we are told—although, the special work of the room in which I was placed at the office was not by any means of an interesting character. In fact, it was rather the reverse, you will say, when I tell you what it consisted in.
Some eight of us were engaged from ten to four o’clock every day, six mortal hours, in checking a lot of old accounts, and bills, that had been paid and settled years before.
There was no benefit to be derived by the country, even if we did detect an error of calculation, which was rarely the case; for, the money would not be refunded, be never-so-many minutes made of the incident—the parties concerned being commonly scattered all over the globe, and, if appealed to, would probably reply that they knew nothing now about the circumstance, and cared less, most likely.
And yet, there were we, day after day, made to go over and over these old vouchers, comparing them with ledgers and store-books, and all sorts of references, for no earthly good whatever!
It is thus, that much time is wasted and unrequired labour paid for in the public service, when, by judiciously doing away with unnecessary work, the number of clerks might be economised, and their labour consequently better remunerated.
You can’t get men to become interested in unprofitable work.
My comrades in the Obstructor General’s Office were jolly and cheerful enough, and old Smudge not too exacting and fault-finding. After a little experience, I managed to arrive at the knowledge of the exact amount of work which would satisfy him. If one did more than this, he thought you much too pushing a fellow to belong to his slow, steady-going branch; and if less, why, you were an idle person, not worth your salt.
But, the whole thing was very tedious and dry to me. I could, get through Smudge’s quantum of accounts easily in half my time:—the rest of my hours hung heavily on my hands.
One can’t read the Times all day, you know. The very obligation, too, to be tied down to a certain routine and chained to a desk, galled me. I could have accomplished ten times the amount of labour I did, if I had been allowed to do it at my own convenience, and not forced to the ten to four régime.
I was always thinking of Min, also, and fretting at her absence—for, she did not come back to Saint Canon’s for months after I got my appointment.
My whole thoughts were filled with her image. The difficulty of my position with regard to her and her mother likewise troubled me.
So, taking all these points into consideration, my office life was not a happy one,—though, if matters had been arranged more comfortably for me, touching the future, I would have cheerfully put up with more temporary annoyances than I actually suffered, slaving on indefinitely under Smudge’s rule.
As it was, I couldn’t.
I used to dream of Min all day, imagining what she might be doing down in the country.
I fancied all sorts of things about her.
I thought that she would forget me and like some one else better, knowing how joyfully Mrs Clyde would encourage any wooer whose presence might tend to make her turn from me.
The worst of it was, too, that I had no one to sympathise with me. I could not, exactly, go round asking people to “pity the sorrows of a disappointed lover!”
As Lamartine sings in his “Tear of Consolation”:—
“Qu’importe à ces hommes mes frères
Le coeur brisé d’un malheureux?
Trop au-dessus de mes misères,
Mon infortune est si loin d’eux!”
How could I implore sympathy? Would you have given me yours?
I would be almost ashamed to tell how I was in the habit of “mooning away my time,” thinking of Min—when, the first novelty of the office having worn off, I found my duties so wearisome and easily got through, that I had nothing to keep me from thinking!
I used to idle sadly.
I often wasted hours, in dreamily composing intricate monograms on my blotting-paper, in which Min’s name was twisted into all sorts of flowery characters, which were intermingled so as to be nearly incomprehensible to any one unacquainted with my secret.
My fellow-clerks got an inkling of it, however.
They used to ask me, who “M” was; and, when I got savage, and told them to mind their own business, they would “chaff” me, inquiring whether “the unknown fair” was obdurately “cruel,” or no!
Little Miss Pimpernell tried to cheer me up - telling me to “hope on, hope ever;” and, to stick steadily to my work, for, that Min would be certain to come back soon, when all would be well. But, I could not content myself.
I got pale and thin, worrying myself to death.—Even Lady Dasher saw the change in me, hinting one day to the vicar, in my hearing, that she was positive I was in a decline, or suffering from heart-disease, and that office-work was really too hard for me.
And when Min did come back, things were but little brighter for me.
The first opportunity I had of speaking alone to her, I asked her if I might still call her by her Christian name. She said, “certainly,” with a little tremor in her dear voice and a warm blush which almost tempted me to say more. But, I remembered having pledged my word to Mrs Clyde, and did not urge my suit, then or thereafter, by words or looks—as far as I could help the latter.
We did not meet often now; and, perhaps, it was as well that we did not, for our position was awkward for both of us.
When we did, however, it seemed very hard for me to speak to her in cold conventional terms—when, my heart was overflowing with love towards her; and, this made me appear constrained; while, she showed a shy avoidance of me, which, only natural as it was, pained me—although I was certain, all the time, that she had not changed towards me in the least.
Really, if it had not been for the kind contrivances of dear little Miss Pimpernell, I don’t think we would have met for a long, long time, at all.
Now, that my days were fully occupied at “the office,” you know, I could not meet her out, or see her at the window; and, in spite of her mother’s gracious intimation that I might call occasionally, I did not care about going there in the evening to be stared into formality under her icy eye.
When Christmastide came round again, too, there were no more of the happy days that had occurred on its previous anniversary.
Although I had obtained special leave from my chief, through working up an enormous number of old accounts beforehand, and thus gaining his good will, it was entirely thrown away:—Min did not present herself at the room of the evergreens once!
Mrs Clyde had checkmated me, again, there.
Had it not been for Miss Pimpernell’s pleadings, I think I would now have gone against her advice, and brought matters to an issue by another proposal before the year was out.
My better judgment, however, restrained me from this, when I reflected over all the circumstances of the case in more reasoning moments.
I saw that it was best for me to wait until the full probationary period which my old friend had prescribed should elapse. I waited accordingly; but, my heart was daily torn with a despair and longing, that very much altered me from the merry Frank Lorton of former times.
Could I hope?
Would she only wait for me, too?
Should my trust and my devotion be finally rewarded?
Miss Pimpernell said “yes,” and Min, when I saw her, looked it; but, my heart frequently said “no”—and, I was miserable in consequence!
It is a truism, that, when one loves truly, one is never satisfied.