“I do indeed very considerably,” said Marmaduke, and, pulling out a handsome cigar-case, he handed it to Baines, and invited him to help himself; the rag-man hesitated just for a moment, and then, yielding to the instinct of his good-breeding, took one.
“It’s not an amusing story,” he began, when they had sent up a few warm puffs from their fragrant weeds, “but it may not be uninteresting to you. You are very young; would it be rude to ask how young?”
“Two-and-twenty next week, if I live so long,” replied Marmaduke.
“Humph! I was just that age when I took the fatal turn in the road that led to the honorable career in which I am now embarked. My father was an officer in the line. He had no fortune to speak of; a couple of thousand pounds left him by an aunt was all the capital he possessed. When he was still young, he married, and got three thousand pounds with his wife. I was their only child. My father died when I was ten years old, and left me to the sole care of my mother, who made an idol of me and spoiled me to my heart’s content. I was not a bad boy, I had no evil propensities, and I was not deficient in brains. I picked up things with little or no effort, and got on better at school than many who had twice the brains and four times the industry. I was passionately fond of poetry, learned pages of Byron and Shelley by heart, and declaimed with a good deal of power. There could not have been a greater curse than such a gift to a boy of my temperament and circumstances. When I left school, I went to Oxford. My poor mother strained every nerve to give me a university education, with a view to my becoming a barrister; but instead of repaying her sacrifices by working hard, I spent the greater part of my time acting. I became infatuated about Shakspere, and took to private theatricals with a frenzy of enthusiasm. As ill-luck would have it, I fell in with a set of fellows who were drama-mad like myself. I had one great chum named Hallam, who was stark mad about it, and encouraged me in the folly to the utmost. I soon became a leading star in this line. I was sought for and asked out by everybody in the place, until my head got completely turned, and I fancied I had only to walk on to the stage to take Macready’s place and achieve fame and fortune. The first thing that roused me from the absurd delusion was seeing Charles Kean in Macbeth. I felt utterly annihilated under the superiority of his acting; it showed me in an instant the difference there is between ordinary taste and talent and the divine afflatus of genius. And yet an old friend who happened to meet me in the theatre that night assured me that the younger Kean was not a patch upon his father, and that Macready outshone the elder Kean. I went back to Oxford a crestfallen man, and for a time took refuge from my disappointment in real work. I studied hard, and, when the term came for going up for my degree, I was confident of success. It was a vain confidence, of course. I had only given myself to study for a period of two months or so, and it would have been little short of a miracle if I had passed. My mother was terribly disappointed; the sight of her tears cut me up more than the failure on my own account, and I determined to succeed or die in the effort, if she consented to let me make one more. She did consent, and I succeeded. That was the happiest day of my life, I think.” He drew a long breath, and repeated in an undertone, as if he forgot Marmaduke’s presence, and were speaking aloud to himself: “Yes, the happiest day of my life!”
“You worked very hard to pull up for lost time!” observed Marmaduke.
“Lost time! Yes, that was it—lost time!” said Baines, musing; then he continued in his former tone: “My poor mother was very happy. She declared I had repaid her amply for all her sacrifices. She saw me already at the top of my profession, a Q.C., a judge, the chief of all the judges, seated in robes on the woolsack. I came home, and was in due time called to the bar. I was then just twenty-four. We lived in a pretty house on the road to Putney; but my mother thought it now desirable to move into London, that I might have an office in some central neighborhood, where my clients would flow in and out conveniently. I remember that I strongly opposed the plan, not from dislike, but from some feeling like a presentiment, a dread, that London would be a dangerous place for me, and that I was taking the road to ruin by leaving the shelter of our secluded home, with its garden and trees, away from a thousand temptations that beset a young man in the great city. But my mother’s heart was set on it. She was convinced my character had thoroughly changed, that I had broken off for ever from old habits and old propensities, and that I was strong enough to encounter any amount of temptation without risk. Poor mother! It was no fault of hers if she was blinded by love. The fault was all mine. I fed her with false hopes, and then I betrayed them. She gave in so far to my wishes as to consent only to let the house, instead of selling it, as she first intended; so that our removal to London took the appearance more of an essay than a permanent arrangement. I was thankful for this, and set about the change in high spirits. We were soon comfortably settled in a very small house in Wimpole Street. I found it rather like a bird-cage after our airy, roomy abode in the suburbs; but it was very snug, and my mother, who had wonderful taste, soon made it bright and pretty. She was the brightest and prettiest thing in it herself; people used to take her for my elder sister when she took me to parties of an evening. I was very proud of her, and with better reason than she was of me.”
He paused again, looking up at the Shakspere print, as if he saw his mother’s likeness there. The sunken, red eyes moistened as he gazed on it.
“It is a great blessing to have a good mother,” said Marmaduke. “I lost mine when I was little more than a child.”
“So much the better for both of you,” retorted Baines bitterly; “she did not live for you to break her heart, and then eat out your own with remorse. But I am talking wildly. You would no doubt have been a blessing to her; you would have worked like a man, and she would have been proud of you to the end. It was not so with me. I was never fond of work. I was not fond of it then; indeed, what I did was not worthy of being called work at all. I moped over a law-book for an hour or so in the morning, and then read Shakspere or some other favorite poet, by way of refreshing myself after the unpalatable task, and getting it out of my head as quickly as possible. I went down regularly to the courts; but as I had no legal connection, and nothing in myself to make up for the want of patronage, or inspire confidence in my steadiness and abilities, the attorneys brought me no business; and as I was too lazy, and perhaps too proud, to stoop to court them, I began to feel thoroughly disgusted with the profession, and to wish I had never entered it. I ceased to go through the farce of my law-reading of a morning, and devoted myself entirely to my dilettante tastes, reading poetry, and occasionally amusing myself with writing it. My old longing for the stage came back, and only wanted an opportunity to break out actively. This opportunity was not far off. My mother suspected nothing of the way I was idling my time; she knew the bar was up-hill work, and was satisfied to see me kept waiting a few years before I became famous; but it was matter of surprise to her that I never got a brief of any description. She set it down to jealousy on the part of my rivals at the courts, and would now and then wax wroth against them, wondering what expedient could be devised for showing up the corrupt state of the profession, and forcing my enemies to recognize my superiority as it deserved. Don’t laugh at her and think her a fool; she was wise on every subject but this, and I fear I must have counted for something in leading her to such ridiculous conclusions. I held very much to preserving her good opinion, but, instead of striving to justify it by working on to the fulfilment of her motherly ambition, I took to cheating her, first tacitly, then deliberately and cruelly. Things were going on in this way, when one day, one ill-fated day, I went out as usual in the afternoon, ostensibly to the courts, but really to kill time where I could—at my club, in the Row, or lounging in Pall Mall. I was passing the Army and Navy Club, when I heard a voice call out:
“‘Halloo, Hamlet!’ (This was the name I went by at Oxford, on account of my success in the part.) ‘How glad I am to see you, old boy! You’re the very man I’ve been on the look-out for.’