CHAPTER XI. LARGE IDEAS.
Perhaps it was lucky for me, that my mother had failed to amaze Lady Twentifold, with the elegance of her apparel. But after having taken all that trouble, and lost all her comfort of the morning, she felt it no less than a personal slight, that her ladyship should have disgraced herself so, by neglecting divine worship.
"But she went to some other church," said father.
"I don't believe a word of it," answered mother, with both hands on her prayer-book; "she spent her whole morning in bed, no doubt. I never could endure those slothful ways; and the less we have to do with such people, the better."
"Why, who ever dreamed of our having anything to do with them?" My father was astonished at any new idea always. "Sophy, I won't have this rubbish any more. I came down here, to enjoy myself, and live well, and improve my liver; as well as to bilk the vile harpies of the law, and find out Billy Barlow's tricks. But if I'm to put out my pipe, and smoke wet rolls (like Tom's taffy-sucks), and never be seen in my shirt-sleeves, and never get a smell of hot meat, till the bats are about, and be cut short of my d—ns indoors, and backed up in them out of doors,—why the world will have come to such a stuck-up pitch, as would soon turn me into a Radical."
My mother said less, but pondered more. In bygone days, she had seemed content with the place in which she found herself, proud of the works, and the sample-boxes, and our renown for quality; and insisting upon it, that we should be styled in all transactions "Upmore & Co." But lately, or indeed for a long time now, her mind had been taking an elevated tone, which lowered the quality of our victuals. She talked a great deal more of honour, and much less of honesty; she began to look down upon the Sunday papers; and she would not let her friends say "Ma'am" to her. My father declared, that this disease began with my going to the Partheneion, and was made much worse by Mrs. Windsor, and the four professors, and was now turned into a pestilence, by these bathing-machines, and the sailors at the church, and the brass-horn rogues coming round with the cap, and "my lady, if you please," upon the sands.
This "growth of refinement" as dear mother called it,—"spread of humbug" was my father's name for it—turned her attention, quite suddenly, to what she called my associations. The habit of my body, and mind, had been that of London boyhood in general,—to rush into anything going on, without waiting for an introduction, to give my opinion without invitation upon any public spectacle, or even a proceeding intended to be private until I came round the corner, and upon every occasion to ignore humanity's false exclusiveness. But on Monday morning, when we sat down to look at the people bathing—which my father, from some old-fashioned feeling, would never stop to do, but kept his distance,—mother began to give me a lesson, concerning the duties of society.
"Tommy," she said, "did you remark that the little boys go into one machine, and the little girls into the other? And they are not allowed, by the Board of Health, to be less than fifty yards apart."
"Yes, mother," I replied, "I was looking at that; and it seems to be the order on the board. But somehow they seem to contrive, in spite of it, to get all together in the water. And the girls—if I can make out which they are—seem to go all the way over to the boys! The board says that they will be prosecuted, with the extreme rigour of the law. There goes another girl, I declare!"
"Hush, Tommy, hush! Or society will expel us, like a pair of Pariahs. What I want you to notice, for your own good, is that high society has rules quite different from what the children in the street have. You, unluckily, have been permitted, while your father was in a smaller way of business, to associate with almost any boy of respectable trousers, in the roadway. I admit that I have not been as strict as I should be, partly because it was no good. But now it is high time to draw the line. You see how they put a cord along down there? Now what do you suppose they do it for?"
"I am sure I don't know, mother; unless it is, for people to tumble over it."
"No, Tommy, no. It is to keep the people out. The inferior classes must not come interfering with those who can pay for all the room they want. Your father is a Tory; but I begin to think, that I shall be a Radical; because I find them make people pay more, for getting into anything. A ticket for a week, for both of us, to see the people bathe, and dress their hair, and everything, was only half a crown for me, and fifteenpence for you, my dear! And you may sit, all the time, on the ground of the earth, which is so much cleaner than the seats they make. Come into this hole, with the rushes on the top—where I dare say some wild animal has lived—and never mind the people in the waves, my dear. What I want you to be, is a great man, Tommy; a very great man, who may look down upon the little ones, and remember (when he has lost his own dear mother) that he owes all his greatness to her counsel, and high principles."
My dear mother spoke with such depth of feeling—especially in reference to her own end—that I had not the least idea what to say, and did not like to cry, until I had waited for some more.
"School-life is hardening you, my son;" she said. "I have known the day, when you would have been crying long ago, at the description of all that I go through. However, it is all for the best, and my own doing. I must expect you to grow up. And grown-up men must never cry. Tommy, you can have two bull's-eyes, out of my pocket, if you know where to find them, while I am wiping my poor eyes. They were under my handkerchief right side down, and the old pair of gloves on the top of them, that I put on when the promenade is over. You have got them, my son? Well, take one at a time, and don't bite them, until I have said a few words. Don't be afraid, Tommy. I am not going to deliver a lecture, such as nobody ever that knows me could expect of me. You will have a great mind, my dear, as well as five talents of the body that will come to five and twenty, when the woman begins to sweep the house. And with all these great blessings of the Lord upon you, your first duty is to keep them all to yourself. That was one reason, why I would not come out, when they made such a fuss about you, the other night. They had no right to come between you and me; and heartily thankful as I felt to them, is it likely that I would put up with that sort of thing?"
"But, mother," I could not help saying, "suppose there had been nobody there, when I came down? You were out of sight altogether; and though I might not have gone down through the water, if my legs had gone in, they would have stuck there."
"Don't talk of such dreadful things, my dear. I am speaking sincerely out of gratitude. No one has ever accused your poor mother of any deficiency in that. But I think, that the least Lady Twentifold could do, was to come to church on Sunday, if only to thank the Lord for the service she had been enabled to render you. Few ladies have had such a chance afforded them; but she thinks much more of her fifteen pews. Now, Tommy, if you meet her on the beach, or any of the members of her family, you are not to rush up to them, as if you were under a great obligation, and make them talk large. You may show yourself; but wait for them to accost you, as Mrs. Windsor says. You know what to accost a person means."
"Yes, mother, from costa, the Latin for a rib. And it often comes in Homer. 'And thus accosting him in reply spake sovereign Agamemnon.' Old Rum does it like that, nearly always."
"Tommy, what a clever boy you are! I love to hear a bit of Latin from you. But whatever you say to the Twentifold people, you never must speak of your master as 'Old Rum.' It sounds quite low, and it contains no learning. You may speak of Dr. Rumbelow, if you like, and your place of education, the Pantheon—though why it should have the same name as a bazaar, I am very much afraid I shall never understand. But mind, more than anything else, my son, what I am going to tell you now. You say that none of them asked you, on Friday, what was your father's path in life."
"No, mother; none of them said a word about it. All they wanted to know was about myself. But I'm not sure, I did not tell about Old Rum."
"Well, it won't matter much, if you did, my dear. But the boys at school call you 'soap,' and 'tallow,' and 'bubbles,' and 'dips,' and a quantity of things; all of which prove how low they are themselves. Now, we will not allow these great people to do that. And the only way to stop them, is not to let them know private matters, that can be no concern of theirs. Above all things, be truthful as the day, my son. Your father is not an Admiral; and you must acknowledge that he is not—supposing that the question should come up—and if they want to know any more about him, which people of any good manners would not, just tell them (in so many words) the truth—that your father is a gentleman, the head of his own firm of merchants in the Metropolis, and invited to dine at the Mansion-house, from his eminence in politics."
"But suppose they should ask about the boiling, mother; and the things that we sell, and the smell in the Lane——"
"What a stupe you are! As if you didn't know by this time, after all the schooling you have had, that in good society nobody knows of anything that doesn't smell nice. The highest of them do all that themselves; but as for talking of it, and in the presence of ladies—why it makes them faint. Your mother is of a good family, Tommy; and you get your distinguished appearance from her. And though I did marry a Lightbody first, and after his time an Upmore, I have often been told that my ancestors had a knighthood in their family, which makes it improper for a son of mine, to say anything about soap-boiling. Moreover, I will tell you, as a very great secret, which you must not say a word about in Maiden Lane, what your father was saying in his sleep, the other night. It was the first night we came down here, and the strange bed, and the kicking noise the sea makes, and the late dinner, and the Welsh rabbit to top up with, perhaps interfered with his natural rest; for he has not told a word of his dreams for years. He thought he was talking to you, my dear, and you were at the top of a ladder, or a tree, so far as I could make out his words. 'Tommy, come down,' he said; 'come down, Tommy; and I'll show you where all the money is put, for you to go into Parliament.' And then I suppose that you wouldn't come down, for he slapped at his leg, where he keeps his money; and he called out louder—'They meddle with me! I'll meddle with them, when it comes to a plum; and let them know who Upmore is. And if I am too old, my son shall do it.' And then he got sore, where he knocked himself; for his hand is heavy, and his veins are large; and he awoke very grumpy, and rubbed his leg; and I could not get any more out of him."
"Why, Bill Chumps is going into Parliament!" I cried, being struck by this strange coincidence; "and I should like to go very much, wherever he is; and Roly Twentifold is sure to go too; and we ought to do something between us, mother, for the good of the country, and all the poor people, and to make things fetch more money. I was reading about a great man, the other day——"
"I don't want to hear about any great men, until you are one of them, Tommy. Go and play on the sands, while I rest for an hour; this air does make me yawn so. Are you sure you have got your dumbbells in your pockets, and your fisherman's lead round the top of your stomach? Then whistle for Grip, for there might be Professors down here, for aught we know of. And come back, as soon as the London papers are down, if there is anything about any of us."
In spite of the weight I had now to carry, for fear of going out to sea again, I ran away joyfully down the sands, as they call the gravel where the sand should be. At the ring of the steel-whistle which I carried round my neck, Grip came bounding from the Inn to meet me, and with mutual confidence we began to poke about, for something to afford a hunt. Then I heard a voice holloaing out, "Hi, Tommy!" and with a long stride, quite like that of a man, Sir Roland Twentifold came down to me.
"Why, I thought you had given us the slip," he shouted, for he always spoke as if he wanted every one to hear; "I came down with my pony on Saturday, but I could not see a sign of you. And I did not like to call at the Inn, because of your mother's bad health, you know. And on Sundays, my mother won't let me go far; because she is religious, and so am I. There are so few fellows who care for that now, that I stick up for it, and mean to do so. I won't have everything turned upside down."
"Take care that my Grip doesn't roll you over," I exclaimed, for the dog had no muzzle on; "I can't always hold him, when he takes a dislike."
"Grip, come here," he said, "and talk to me. I have got a dozen dogs, who could eat you, Grip. But if you are good, they shall be good to you."
I could not help laughing at this idea, for Grip could thrash any three dogs I knew. But to my astonishment, Grip came up, and wagged his tail softly to Sir Roland, and sniffed about him pleasantly, and then offered his grisly ears for a loving rub.
"Don't be nervous, doggy," went on Sir Roland, as if he were talking to an Italian greyhound; "you smell rather doggy; but I don't mind that. If your master goes for a fly every day, and you swim after him, you'll soon be cured."
"Only fancy," I said, as I pulled his tail, that he might not take up with a stranger so; "he had never seen the sea before, any more than I had; but the moment he knew I was in your boat, in he dashed, to come and look after me. And he is not at all a water-dog, as you must know, having such a lot of dogs of your own. He swallowed such a lot of salt water, that he could only gurgle, instead of growling, when the sailors petted him; and I do believe if you had not managed to get hold of his collar, with that long stick, he would have been a drowned dog, the same as I have seen twenty of together, when the wind blows down the reservoir of the Water-company. Oh, how sad it must be, for their Master and Mistress. If Grip was to die, I never should get over it."
"What a soft you are! Why, you are crying now, with Grip all alive to lick your face! Such a chap, as you, would never do at Harrow. We should call you 'Fanny,' instead of Tommy Upmore. Now, don't be offended. You can't expect to be anything but a muff, after going to a private school, you know."
"Bill Chumps is not a muff, and he was there six years. If Bill Chumps heard you talk like that, he'd take you by the back of the neck, and throw you over the top of that bathing-waggon."
"I beg your pardon, Tommy," said Sir Roland, whose nature was truly generous; "it was cowardly of me to talk like that, when you can't help yourself, of course. Every fellow should stick up for his own hole. But what Bill Chumps are you talking about? There can't be very many Bill Chumpses, I should think."
"I should rather think not. There is nobody like him. He is gone to Pope's Eye College now, at Oxford, with a scholarship founded by his own father, for the benefit of all descendants. And they say he gets on wonderfully, though everybody cut him, for a week or so."
"Well, what a wonderful thing!" cried Roly, as he told me immediately that I must call him, unless I wanted to get a flyer; "I was at Oxford, last Commemoration-time, to see my cousin, who went up from Harrow, just at the time when Chumps went up. He is two years older than I am, and a decent kind of fellow in his way, but sadly short of what we call go; though he belongs to a bigger lot than I do. The Earl of Counterpagne is his name, as the song says about somebody. And your Chumps, everybody calls him Bill Chumps, had pulled him out of Sandford Lasher, at the very last moment to save him from croaking. There were other men there, who were ready to go in; but Chumps was first, and though he was not a great swimmer, in he jumped, and pulled him up, when he was all but done for. Bad luck for me, as some people would say; but splendid luck, as I think; for I don't want to go into the House of Lords; and what's the good of your own way, unless you make it?"
"That was just like Bill," I said; "he never stopped to think, unless there was lots of time for it. He means to be a great man, and he will be too."
"That's the sort of fellow, I should like to be. I have often thought of running away from home, and the land, and the money, and all that stuff, and setting up properly on my own account, with two night-gowns, and six day-shirts. Who can give any cuds to a fellow, who starts with a heap of money round his neck? If it were not for my mother, and little Laura, I would have started long ago. Whatever I do, I shall get no credit, because of what those dirty Radicals call my 'enormous social advantages.' By the bye, I do hope you're not a Radical, Tommy."
"I should rather hope not," I said, with grand contempt. "My father is a Conservative; and so am I. Though I don't pretend yet to know so very much about it."
"All the better for that. I will teach you," cried Sir Roland. "I know all about it, ever since I can remember. And when my cousin went to call upon Bill Chumps, as he was bound to do after that, the first thing he saw was a great card stuck in the corner of the glass above his chimney-piece, with a baron of beef, and a haunch of mutton, trimmed with ribbons at the top, and then 'W. Chumps, butcher,' in big letters, and a great lot more about meat below, ending with 'House-lamb, when in season.' My cousin was surprised, but of course he said nothing about it, until he knew Chumps well. And then he asked him why; and Chumps said—'just to see whether you were a snob, or not.' And now I tell you, Tommy, that my cousin just opens his door, and shows out any swell, who pretends to patronise his friend, Bill Chumps. But Chumps keeps his distance, and does not want them."
"Well, I wonder I never heard anything about it. If butcher Chumps had heard of it, wouldn't he talk?"
"I don't suppose Chumps ever said a word about it. He is just that sort of fellow, as they say. They wanted to get him a medal; but he would not hear of it, at any price. I shall make his acquaintance, when I go up; and I intend to get him into Parliament. And you too, Tommy, as soon as you are old enough. Only you must try to grow a bit. You are to come, and stop at our place, when the Admiral goes back to London."