Chapter Three.
“Nil Desperandum.”
To-morrow’s sun shall warmer glow,
And o’er this gloomy vale of woe
Diffuse a brighter ray!
“O you lovers, you lovers!”—exclaimed little Miss Pimpernell, on my unbosoming myself to her, and recounting the incidents of my unhappy interview with Min’s mother, shortly after I quitted the scene of my discomfiture.—“O you lovers, you lovers! You are always, either on the heights of ecstasy, or deep down in the depths of despair! Be a man, Frank, and let her see what noble stuff there is in you! There is nothing in this world worth the having, which can be obtained by merely looking at it and longing for it. Bear in mind Monsieur Parole’s favourite proverb, ‘On ne peut pas faire une omelette sans casser les oeufs!’ You mustn’t expect that a girl is going to drop into your mouth, like a ripe cherry, the moment you gape for her! Young ladies are not so easily won as that, Master Frank, let me tell you! Put your shoulder to the wheel, my boy! You will have to work and wait. Remember how long it was that Jacob remained in suspense about his first love, Rachel—seven, long years; and, then, he had to serve seven more for her after that!”
“Ah, Miss Pimpernell!”—said I,—“but, seven years were not so much to the long-lived men who existed in those times, as seven months are to us ephemerals of the nineteenth century! Jacob could very well afford to wait that time; for he was not over what we call ‘middle-age’ when he married; and was, most likely, in the flower of his youth on his ninetieth birthday!—He did not die you know, until he had reached the ripe age of ‘an hundred and forty and seven years.’—Besides, he had Laban’s promise to keep him up to his work; but, I have no promise, and no hope to lead me on, if I do wait—and what would I be at the end of seven years? Why, I would be thirty—quite old.”
“Nonsense, Frank!”—replied the dear old lady, in her brisk cheery way, jumping round in her chair, and looking me full in the face with her twinkling black eyes.—“When you are as old as I am, you will not think thirty such a very great age, you may be sure! And, I didn’t say, too, that you should have to wait seven years, or anything like it—although, if you really love Miss Min, you would think nothing of twice that time of probation. As for Jacob’s age, the vicar could explain about that better than I, Master Frank, sharp though you are; you had best ask him what he thinks on the subject? What I say, is, my boy, that you must make up your mind to work, and wait for your sweetheart; work, at any rate—and wait, if needs be. ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day;’ and, when did you ever hear of the course of true love running smooth? Be a man, Frank! Say to yourself, ‘I’ll work and win her,’ and you will. Put your heart in it, and it will soon be done—sooner than you now think. There’s no good in your sitting down and whining at your present defeat, like the naughty child that cried for the moon! You must be up and doing. A man’s business is to overcome obstacles; it is only us, women, who are allowed to cry at home!”
“But, Mrs Clyde dislikes me,” I said.
“What of that?” retorted Miss Pimpernell; “her dislike may be overcome.”
“I don’t think it ever will be,” I said, despondingly.
“Pooh, Frank,” replied the old lady;—“‘never is a long day.’ She’s only a woman, and will change her mind fast enough when it suits her purpose to do so! You say, that she only objected on the score of your position, and from your not having a sufficient income?”
“Yes,”—I said,—“that was her ostensible reason; but, I think, she objects to me personally—in addition to having other and grander designs for Min.”
“Ah, well,”—said Miss Pimpernell,—“we haven’t got to consider those other motives now; she rejected your offer, at all events, on the plea of your want of fortune?”
“Yes,” said I, mechanically, again.
“Then, that is all we’ve got to deal with, my boy,”—she said.—“Mrs Clyde is quite right, too, you know, Frank. You have got no profession, or any regular occupation. Let us see if we cannot mend matters. In the first place, are you willing to work? Would you like some certain employment on which you can depend?”—And she looked at me kindly but searchingly over her spectacles.
“Would a duck swim?” said I, using an expressive Hibernicism.
“Well, what sort of employment would you like?” she asked.
“Anything,” I replied.
“Come, that’s good!” she said.—“And what can you do?”
“Everything,” I said.
She laughed good-humouredly.—“You’ve a pretty good opinion of yourself at any rate, Master Frank, if that’s any recommendation:—you will never fail through want of impudence. But, I’ll speak to the vicar about this. I think he could get you a nomination for a Government office.”
“What, a clerkship?”—I said, ruefully, having hitherto affected to despise all the race of her Majesty’s quill drivers, from Horner downwards.
“Yes, sir,”—she said,—“‘a clerkship;’ and a very good thing, too! You need not turn up your nose at it, Master Frank; I can see you, although I do wear glasses! Grander men than you think yourself, sir, have not despised such an opening! Here is the vicar,”—she added, as her brother walked into the room.—“How lucky! we can ask him now.”
The vicar overheard her remark.
“Hullo, Frank!” said he; “what is it, that Sally and you are conspiring together? Can I do anything for you, my boy?”—he continued, in his nice kind way,—“if so, only ask me; and if it is in my power, you know that I will do it.”
“He wishes to get into a Government office; don’t you think you could help him?” said Miss Pimpernell.
“You want to be in harness, my boy, eh?”—said the vicar, turning to me.—“That’s right, Frank. Literature will come on, in due course, all in good time. There’s nothing like having regular work to do, however trifling. It not only gives you a daily object in life, but also steadies your mind, causing you better to appreciate higher intellectual employment! I thought, however, my boy, that you looked down on ‘Her Majesty’s hard bargains,’ as poor Government clerks are somewhat unjustly termed?”
“That was, because I thought they were a pack of idlers, doing nothing, and earning a menial salary for it. ‘Playing from ten to to four, like the fountains in Trafalgar Square,’ as Punch declares,” I said.
“Ah!” said the vicar, “that is a mistake, as you will soon find out when you belong to their body. They do work, and well, too. Many of the grand things on which departmental ministers pride themselves—and get the credit, too, of effecting by their own unaided efforts—are really achieved by the plodding office hacks, who work on unrecognised in our midst! Our whole public service is a blunder, my boy. There is no effective rise given in it to talent or merit, as is the case in other official circles. The ‘big men,’ who are appointed for political purposes, get on, it is true; but, the ‘little men,’ who labour from year’s end to year’s end, like horses in a mill, never have a chance of distinguishing themselves. When they are of a certain age, and attain a particular height in their office, they become superannuated, and retire; for, should a vacancy occur, of a higher standing in the public secretariat, it is not given to them—although the training of their whole life may peculiarly fit them for the post! No, it is bestowed on some young political adherent of the party then in power, who may be as unacquainted with the duties connected with the position, as I am ignorant of double fluxions! This naturally disgusts men with the service; and, that is why you generally hear Government offices spoken of as playgrounds for idle youths, who enter them to saunter through life—on the strength of the constituent-influence of their fathers on the seats of budding MP’s.”
“I really thought they never worked,” said I. “There’s Horner, for instance. You don’t suppose, sir, that he confers such inestimable benefit on his country by his daily avocations in Downing Street?”
“Ah, poor Jack Horner!” laughed the vicar; “he’s really not very bright. But, we need not be so uncharitable as to think that he does not do his money’s worth for his money! He writes a beautiful hand, you know; and, I dare say, his mere services as a copying machine are of some value. Government clerks do not all play every day, Frank:—you will, I’m sure, find plenty to do, if you go into office life. I remember, in the time of the Crimean war, that a friend of mine, employed in the Admiralty at Whitehall, used to have to stop up every alternate night at his office, the whole night through; and this was the case, too, at all the other public departments! The clerks in each room were obliged to take it in turn for night duty; while, those who were free to go home—and they did not leave work until long after the traditional ‘four o’clock’ on most days—had to specify where they could be found every evening, in case they should be suddenly wanted on the arrival of despatches from the seat of war. Of course this state of affairs is not ordinary; still, Government clerks are not idlers as a body:—on the contrary, you will find them thorough working-men.”
“Working-men!” ejaculated little Miss Pimpernell, raising her beady black eyes in astonishment to her brother, “why, I thought all working-men, properly so-called, were mechanics!”
“That is the radical politician’s view, my dear,” answered the vicar. “Let a man be apprenticed to a skilled trade, and carry a bricklayer’s hod, or a carpenter’s rule. Let him only wear slops and work in an engine-room, or use a mason’s trowel—so long as he does these things and receives his wages weekly, he is a ‘working-man;’ and, must have the hours of labour made to suit him, the legislation of the country altered on his behalf, the taxation of the public judiciously contrived to steer clear of him. He is the typical ‘working-man,’ my dear, of whom demagogues are always prating:—the fetish, before which so-called ‘liberal’ statesmen fall down and worship!
“But, your poor agricultural labourer, who lives in poverty, and dirt, and misery—starving annually on a tenth portion of the wages that the skilled mechanic gets—he is no working-man; oh no! Nor the wretched London clerk; he, also, is no working-man; nor the Government hack; nor the striving, hard-worked doctor; besides, many professional men and struggling tradesmen, who, for the larger portion of their lives, inch and pinch to scrape out existence!
“None of these are working-men; although they work harder—and for many more hours per diem than the mechanic—on, in most instances, a less income than the happy protégé of the radical law-maker gets by the addition of his weekly wages at the year’s end.
“And yet, the clerks, and the struggling tradesmen, and professional men, have to pay poor-rates and house-rates, and all sorts of petty taxes, from which the fetish ‘working-man’ is free; besides the income-tax, which never approaches him. The latter, often getting from three to five pounds in wages, can dress as he pleases, live in a single room for five shillings a week, pay no rates or taxes; and may, finally, disport himself as he likes—leaving off work whenever the fancy strikes him and resuming it again at his pleasure—without consulting the convenience or the wishes of his employer, who is, through trades’ unions and special class legislation, entirely at his mercy!
“Clerks, shopkeepers, and struggling professional men, cannot do this, however. They have to conform to certain rules of society; and keep up an appearance of respectability on, frequently, half the sum that the mechanic gets in wages, as I’ve said already—while groaning under a burden of taxation from which the great ‘liberal’ fetish is completely free. He is a ‘working-man,’ my dear:—they, are nothing of the sort.—Oh, no!”
“Do they really obtain such good wages?” I inquired;—“if so, what on earth do they do with the money?”
“Yes,”—said the vicar, in full swing of his favourite political argument,—“if anything, I have rather understated the case than exaggerated it. The manager of one of the telegraph-cable manufactories down the river, told me the other day, that, many of the hands drew four and five pounds regularly each Saturday. And these men, he further informed me, spent the greater part of this in drink and pleasuring on their off-days. They will have good food and the best, too—such as I cannot afford, in these days of high butchers’ bills; notwithstanding that they make such a poor show for their money, and save none of it, either! I do not complain of this, politically speaking, for, ‘an Englishman’s house is his castle,’ you know, and he has the right to live as he pleases; but, I do say, that when poor curates and clerks are so taxed, these men ought to bear their share of the taxation, possessing, as they do, incomes quite as large and in many cases greater.”
“But, they are taxed indirectly, though, are they not?”—I asked.
“Certainly; but, so also are all of us, the larger number of real working-men of the country—quite in addition to the heavy burden we have to bear of local and direct taxation! The pseudo ‘working-man’ should fairly contribute his quota to all this—particularly, since his bottle-holders have been so clamourous for giving him a share in the government of the state. If he wants ‘a share in the government,’ why, he should help to support it:—that’s what I say!”
And the vicar then went off into a tirade against class legislators and radical politics, not forgetting to animadvert, too, on the “Manchester School”—his great bête noir.
“I wonder what Mr Mawley would say, to hear you run down his favourite party so!”—I said, when he gave me another opening to put in a word.—“He’s such a rabid Liberal.”
“Mawley is thorough,” said the vicar; “I do not agree with his views, certainly; but he really believes in them and acts up to his theories, which is more than can be said for a good many of our ‘Liberal’ statesmen! What can one think of them when one hears them talking of ‘economy,’ and cutting down the poor clerk’s salary, without dreaming of touching their own little snug incomes of five thousand a-year!”
“But what has all this got to do with Frank’s appointment, brother?” asked Miss Pimpernell, with a sly chuckle of satisfaction. She always said she disliked arguments; but, she was never better pleased than to hear the vicar expressing his sentiments on topics of the day. He was so earnest and delighted when he got a good listener—although, he was rather shy of speaking before strangers.
“Dear me!”—exclaimed the vicar, rubbing his forehead vigorously.—“I declare, I thought I was talking to Parole d’Honneur! You must forgive me, Frank.”
“Do you think you could manage to get him an appointment, my dear?”—repeated my little old friend, bringing the vicar back to our main question, now that she had unhorsed him from his Radical charger.
“Yes, certainly,”—replied the vicar, cordially,—“I do not see why I should not. I’ll speak to the bishop to-morrow, if I can catch him in. He’s got some good influence with the ministry; and, with mine in conjunction, the two of us together ought to manage it, eh, Sally?”
“And how soon do you think, sir,”—I asked,—“would you be likely to procure it for me? I’ve been a long time idle; and, I am, now, anxious, you know, to make up for lost time.”
Miss Pimpernell’s words had thoroughly spurred me up. I wanted to set to work for Min at once.
“How soon, eh, my boy?”—said he, kindly.—“You must have some special object to be so anxious for employment! But, you need not be shy, Frank; I can guess it, I think, without your telling me; and, I’m glad of it. How soon, eh? Let me consider. If I see the bishop to-morrow, as I very likely shall, we might arrange to get you a nomination in a fortnight, I think; but, I’m certain, I can promise obtaining it within a month at the outside. Will that do, Frank?”
“Oh, thank you, sir!”—I exclaimed, in grateful gladness,—“that is ever so much sooner than I expected! I thought it might take months to get me an appointment! I shall be ready for it, however, when it comes, all the same, dear sir.”
“You had better get crammed in the meantime, however, my boy,” said the vicar, reflectively.
“‘Get crammed,’ brother!”—said Miss Pimpernell, aghast at the term, of which she clearly did not understand the slang sense. “Get crammed! Why, what do you mean? Frank is thin, certainly, and he might be a little stouter to advantage; but, has he got to be of a particular weight, the same as the height of recruits is measured for the army?”
The vicar laughed, and held his sides in hearty merriment.—“Sally, Sally!”—he exclaimed after a while.—“You will be the death of me some day! I did not allude to physical cramming, such as the Strasbourg geese undergo; but, mental stuffing. A ‘crammer’ is a ‘coach,’ you know.”
“I’m sure I don’t,”—said little Miss Pimpernell, energetically;—“for, what with your crammers and coaches, I really do not know what you are speaking about!”
“Well, my dear, I’ll now enlighten you,”—said the vicar, still laughing at the old lady’s very natural mistake.—“Crammers and coaches, are certain high-pressure machines, in the form of man, for forcing any amount of superficial knowledge into uneducated youths within a fixed time. It is an unnatural process, resulting pretty much in the same way as does the artificial mode of fattening geese:—the latter have diseased livers; while, the subjects of high-pressure cram are usually afterwards subject to unmitigated ignorance—of the worst kind, because it pretends to learning—in addition to an insufferable pedantry, which can never convince judges acquainted with the genuine article! Ah, my dear, as Pope wisely wrote, ‘a little learning is a dangerous thing!’”
“Then you mean tutors,”—said Miss Pimpernell.—“Why could you not call them by their proper name?”
“I could, my dear,”—said the vicar, good-humouredly,—“but, the term I used, is an old relic of college jargon; you see how hard it is to cure oneself of bad habits!”
“And you think Frank will want to be ‘crammed,’ then?”—asked Miss Pimpernell, making use of the very word she had just abused, because she thought her brother might feel hurt at her implied reproach. The dear old lady would have talked slang all day if she had believed it would have given the vicar any satisfaction!
“Yes, my dear,”—he replied.—“You see, he might have to compete for his appointment with a dozen others; and, as the examination for the civil service is now pretty stiff in its way, it would not do for him to fail. Frank has received a good sound public school education; but, they ask so many purely-routine questions of candidates, that he had better have a tutor who makes these subjects his speciality, to put him up in the little details of the machinery.”
“I never thought of that,”—said I.—“It is so long since I left school, that I fear I may be plucked!”
“Oh, you’ll be quite ready for the examination in a week, my boy,”—said the vicar, to encourage me.—“The examiners only require superficial knowledge; not, honest groundwork—although, they pretend to test the effects of a ‘good liberal education!’ One of these public crammers would make you fit to pass in any certified time, if you could barely read and write. He would hardly require even that preliminary basis to work upon, for that matter. But, I ought not to blame them; for, I am a coach myself, or, rather, was one, once, when I had the time to read with pupils for the university. These competitive examinations are a mistake, I think,”—he continued,—“for the men who pass them the most brilliantly seldom make the best clerks, which one would imagine to be the result mainly desired. I would prefer, myself, the present middle-class examinations at Oxford—which they lately instituted, for discovering talent and merit—to all these hot-house tests; although, of course, I may be biassed against them, through the recollection of my old don days, when I was at college.
“Not but what the idea of throwing open all appointments in the public service is better than the former custom of close patronage. The system is only abused, that’s all, in consequence of the Competition-Wallah business being carried to excess. Your poor man, whom the change was especially supposed to benefit, has no chance now, unless he has the money to pay for the services of a crammer—be his attainments never so great. The examinations have really degenerated into a technical groove, into which aspirants have to be regularly initiated by a ‘coach,’ or they will never succeed in getting out of it, to receive their certificates of proficiency.
“I will write you down the name of a good man to apply to, Frank,”—he added.—“He’ll pass you, I warrant, or I will eat my hat! And now I must be off, my boy. I have a lot of visiting to do to-night ere I can hope to go to bed. I’ll not forget to speak to the bishop, as I have promised; and, I think, you may rely upon getting a nomination for a good office within the time I have named. Have you anything to do out, Sally—any letters to post?”—he then said, turning to his sister, and putting on the hat he had just volunteered to eat.—“No? Then I’m off. Good-night, Frank! Mind you go to that tutor to-morrow,”—he said, handing me the address he had hastily scribbled down; and, he went out on some errand of mercy, leaving Miss Pimpernell and myself to resume our tête-à-tête conversation, which he had so satisfactorily interrupted.
“Well, Frank!”—said she, as his coat tails disappeared out of the doorway,—“will not that do for you?”
“I should just think it would!”—I replied, buoyantly;—“and I do not know how to thank you and the vicar for all your kindness. I can’t tell what I should have done without your help!”
“Oh, never mind that, my boy,”—she answered kindly;—“we are both only too glad to assist any one, especially you, Frank, whom the vicar calls his ‘old maid’s son!’ All you have to do now, is, to be hopeful and persevere! Only let me see you and Miss Min happily married in the end—for I, you know, like to see young lovers happy:—I have such a large amount of romance in me!” Indeed she had, I thought, when she laughed cheerily at the idea.
“I’ll work, never fear,”—I said—“but, promotion is very slow in Government offices. It may be years before I have a decent income such as would satisfy Mrs Clyde!”
“Don’t think of that, my boy,”—she said, presently.—“Don’t look too far ahead! Let me see what my Keble says,” she added, taking down the volume of the Christian Year, which she constantly consulted each day, from its regular place on her corner of the mantelpiece, where it always stood guard over her favourite chair.—“Ah,”—she continued, turning over the pages,—“I knew that I would find something to suit you. Just hear what he says of the ‘lilies of the field’—
“‘Alas! of thousand bosoms kind
That daily court you and caress,
How few the happy secret find
Of your calm loveliness!
Live for to-day! to-morrow’s light
To-morrow’s cares shall bring to sight,
Go, sleep like closing flowers at night,
And Heaven thy morn shall bless.’”
“Ah! But do you think I shall be successful?”—I asked, wishing to have my own hopes corroborated.
“To be sure you will, my boy. Why, there you will have another hundred a-year at once added to your income, besides what you make from your literary work! In a short time you will be quite ‘an eligible person,’ I do declare!”—she said, laughing away my fit of the blues, in her bright brisk way.
“And do you think Min will wait for me?”
“Certainly, Frank. You wrong her by the very question. She’s not the girl to change, or, I’m very much mistaken in her honest, noble face. She will be constant and true, after what she has said to you, until death!”
“Oh, thank you for that assurance,”—I said.
I went home completely contented and happy.
You may wonder, perhaps, at this buoyancy of temperament, that enabled me to get over so quickly the disappointment and dejection I was suffering from at Mrs Clyde’s brusque rejection of my suit?
But, you must recollect that I was naturally sanguine, as I have previously told you; and, the memory of my unhappy defeat, although not quite forgotten, became merged into the hopeful anticipations I now had—of working for my darling, and being enabled to renew my offer, in a short time, with better chances of success.
Hang care! It killed a cat once, you know. Was it not Lord Palmerston, by the way, who once made that capital classic hit at the versatile chief of the Adullamites in Parliament during a debate on the budget, when he said—“Atra cura post equitem sedet?”
Care should not sit behind me, however; or, in front of me, either!
I wasn’t going to be a martyr to it, I promise you.
I would soon see Min again; and, in the meantime, I could wait for her and love her, in spite of all the stern mammas in creation, and notwithstanding that my tongue might be tied for awhile.
As long as I knew that she loved me in return, whom or what had I to fear?
I was, at all events, emperor of my own thoughts;—and, she was mine, there!