“Why?” said Edgar, with genuine surprise; and then he added, “You are a great deal too good. I should like to go for a day or two. I haven’t spoken to a lady for months.”
“Poor fellow!” said Mr. Tottenham, taking no notice of the “Why?” “We live only a little way out of town, on account of the shop. I have never neglected the shop since the time I told you about. She would not let me for that matter. Nobody, you see, can snub her, in consequence of her rank; and partly for her sake, partly because I’m rich, I suppose, nobody tries to snub me. There are many of my plans in which you could help me very much—for a time, you know, till Newmarch comes off.”
“You are very kind,” said Edgar; but his attention wandered after this, and other thoughts came into his mind, thoughts of himself and his forlorn condition, and of the profound uncertainty into which he and all his ways had been plunged. He scarcely paid any attention to the arrangements Mr. Tottenham immediately made, though he remembered that he promised to go out with him next day to Tottenham’s, as his house was called. “The same as the shop,” he said, with a twinkle in the corner of his grey eye. Edgar consented to these arrangements passively; but his patience was worn out, and he was very anxious to get away.
And so this strange evening came to an end, and the morning after it. The new day arose, a smoky, foggy, wintry morning, through which so many people went to work; but not Edgar. He looked out upon the world from his window with a failing heart. Even from Kensington and Brompton, though these are not mercantile suburbs, crowds of men were jolting along on all the omnibuses, crowds pouring down on either side of the street—to work. The shop people went along the road getting and delivering orders; the maid-servants bustled about the doors in the foggy, uncertain light; the omnibuses rushed on, on, in a continuous stream; and everybody was busy. Those who had no work to do, pretended at least to be busy too; the idlers had not come out yet, had not stirred, and the active portion of the world were having everything their own way. Edgar had revived from his depression, but he had not regained his insouciance and trust in the future. On the contrary, he was full of the heaviest uncertainty and care. He could not wait longer for this appointment, which might keep him hanging on half his life, which was just as near now as when he began to calculate on having it “about Christmas;” probably the next Christmas would see it just as uncertain still. He must, he felt, attempt something else, and change his tactics altogether. He must leave his expensive lodgings at once; but alas! he had a big bill for them, which he had meant to pay off his first quarter’s salary. He had meant to pay it the moment that blessed money for which he should have worked came; and now there was no appearance, no hope of it ever coming—at least, only as much hope as there had always been, no more.
Poor Edgar! he might have rushed out of doors and taken to the first manual work he could find as his heart bade him; but to go and solicit somebody once more, and hang on and wait, dependent upon the recollection or the caprice of some one or other who could give employment, but might, out of mere wantonness, withhold it—this was harder than any kind of work. He could dig, he felt, and would dig willingly, or do any other thing that was hard and simple and straightforward; but to beg for means of working he was ashamed; and there seemed something so miserable, so full of the spirit of dependence in having to wait on day by day doing nothing, waiting till something might fall into his hands. How infinitely better off working men were, he said to himself; not thinking that even the blessed working man, who is free from the restraints and punctilios which bind gentlemen, has yet to stand and wait, and ask for work too, with the best.
He went back to Mr. Parchemin that morning.
“I have been waiting for Lord Newmarch,” he said; “he promised me a post about Christmas, and now he tells me there is just as much hope as ever, but no more. I must do something else. Could you not take me in as clerk in your own office? I should not mind a small salary to start with; anything would do.”
Mr. Parchemin laughed, a dry and echoing “Ha, ha!” which was as dusty and dry as his office.
“A strange clerk you would make,” he said, looking over his shoulder to conceal his amusement. “Can you engross?”
“Of course not. How should I? But if a man were to try—”