However he got safely across, opened the cupboard which creaked viciously, found the black boxes and the one that he needed. It was very heavy, but he brought it to the table without much noise. Down he sat, carefully opened it and looked inside. Pile upon pile of old yellow letters lay there, packet after packet of them tied with faded red tape. Something within him thrilled to their age, to their pathos, to their humility, to the sense that they carried up to him of the swift passing of time, the touching childishness of human hopes, despair and ambitions. He felt suddenly like an ant crawling laboriously over a gleaming and slippery globe of incredible vastness. The letters seemed to rebuke him as though he had been boasting of his pride and youth and his confidence in his own security. He took out the first bundle, reverently undid the tape and began to read. . . .
Soon he was absorbed even as his sister Millicent, at that same moment in the Cromwell Road, was absorbed in a very different collection of letters, on this her second Platt morning. The library with its thousands of books enfolded Henry as though now it approved of him and might love him did he stay reverently in its midst caring for the old things and the old people—the old things that pass, the old people who seem to die but do not. At first every letter thrilled him. The merest note:
15 Castle St., Edinburgh,
June 4, 1816.My dear Ronald—What about coming in to see us? All at Hartley well and easy—Mamma has been in Edinburgh after a cook—no joking matter—and to see Benjie who was but indifferent, but has recovered. . . . I will write a long letter soon, but my back and eyes ache with these three pages. . . .
Then a note about a dinner-party, then about a parcel of books, then a letter from Italy full of the glories of Florence; then (how Henry shivered with pleasure as he saw it!) the hand and sign of the Magician himself!
Dear Sir Ronald Duncombe—I am coming to town I trust within the fortnight, but my trees are holding me here for the moment. I have been saddened lately by the death of my poor brother, Major John Scott, who was called home after a long illness. All here wish to be remembered to you.—Most truly yours,
Walter Scott.
A terrible temptation came to Henry—so swift that it seemed to be suggested by some one sitting beside him—to slip the letter into his pocket. This was the first time in all his days that he had had such a letter in his hand, because, although his father had been for many years a writer of books on this very period, his material had been second-hand, even third-hand material. Henry felt a slight contempt for his father as he sat there.
Then, as the minutes swung past, he was aware that he should be doing something more than merely looking at the old letters and complimenting them on their age and pretty pathos. He should be arranging them. Yes, arranging them, but how? He began helplessly to pick them up, look at them and lay them on the table again. Many of them had no dates at all, many were signed only with Christian names, some were not signed at all. And how was he to decide on the important ones? How did he know that he would not pass, through ignorance and inexperience, some signature of world-significance? The letters began to look at him with less approval, even with a certain cynical malevolence. They all looked the same with their faded yellow paper and their confusing handwriting. He had many of them on the table, unbound from their red tape, lying loosely about him and yet the box seemed as full as ever. And there were many more boxes! . . . Suddenly, from the very bowels of the house, a gong sounded.
"You can wash your hands in that little room to the right," said Sir Charles, whose personality suddenly returned as though Henry had pressed a button. "Luncheon will be waiting for us."
And this was the conclusion of Henry's first appearance as a private secretary.