The Small House at Allington
you for the feeling. There can be nothing so dreadful as a young
man's deceiving a young woman and leaving her after he has won her
heart--particularly when she has had his promise in plain words,
or, perhaps, even in black and white." John thought of that horrid,
foolish, wretched note which he had written. "And a poor girl, if she
can't right herself by a breach of promise, doesn't know what to do.
Does she, John?"
"A girl who'd right herself that way wouldn't be worth having."
"I don't know about that. When a poor girl is in such a position, she
has to be aided by her friends. I suppose, then, Miss Lily Dale won't
bring a breach of promise against him."
This mention of Lily's name in such a place was sacrilege in the ears
of poor Eames. "I cannot tell," said he, "what may be the intention
of the lady of whom you speak. But from what I know of her friends, I
should not think that she will be disgraced by such a proceeding."
"That may be all very well for Miss Lily Dale--" Amelia said, and
then she hesitated. It would not be well, she thought, absolutely to
threaten him as yet,--not as long as there was any possibility that
he might be won without a threat. "Of course I know all about it,"
she continued. "She was your L. D., you know. Not that I was ever
jealous of her. To you she was no more than one of childhood's
friends. Was she, Johnny?"
He stamped his foot upon the floor, and then jumped up from his seat.
"I hate all that sort of twaddle about childhood's friends, and you
know I do. You'll make me swear that I'll never come into this room
again."
"Johnny!"
"So I will. The whole thing makes me sick. And as for that Mrs.
Lupex--"
"If this is what you learn, John, by going to a lord's house, I think
you had better stay at home with your own friends."
"Of course I had;--much better stay at home with my own friends.
Here's Mrs. Lupex, and at any rate I can't stand her." So he went
off, and walked round the Crescent, and down to the New Road, and
almost into the Regent's Park, thinking of Lily Dale and of his own
cowardice with Amelia Roper.
On the following morning he received a message, at about one o'clock,
by the mouth of the Board-room messenger, informing him that his
presence was required in the Board-room. "Sir Raffle Buffle has
desired your presence, Mr. Eames."
"My presence, Tupper! what for?" said Johnny, turning upon the
messenger almost with dismay.
"Indeed I can't say, Mr. Eames; but Sir Raffle Buffle has desired
your presence in the Board-room."
Such a message as that in official life always strikes awe into the
heart of a young man. And yet, young men generally come forth from
such interviews without having received any serious damage, and
generally talk about the old gentlemen whom they have encountered
with a good deal of light-spirited sarcasm,--or chaff, as it is
called in the slang phraseology of the day. It is that same "majesty
which doth hedge a king" that does it. The turkey-cock in his own
farmyard is master of the occasion, and the thought of him creates
fear. A bishop in his lawn, a judge on the bench, a chairman in
the big room at the end of a long table, or a policeman with his
bull's-eye lamp upon his beat, can all make themselves terrible by
means of those appanages of majesty which have been vouchsafed to
them. But how mean is the policeman in his own home, and how few
thought much of Sir Raffle Buffle as he sat asleep after dinner in
his old slippers! How well can I remember the terror created within
me by the air of outraged dignity with which a certain fine old
gentleman, now long since gone, could rub his hands slowly, one on
the other, and look up to the ceiling, slightly shaking his head, as
though lost in the contemplation of my iniquities! I would become
sick in my stomach, and feel as though my ankles had been broken.
That upward turn of the eye unmanned me so completely that I was
speechless as regarded any defence. I think that that old man could
hardly have known the extent of his own power.
Once upon a time a careless lad, having the charge of a bundle of
letters addressed to the King,--petitions and such like, which
in the course of business would not get beyond the hands of some
lord-in-waiting's deputy assistant,--sent the bag which contained
them to the wrong place; to Windsor, perhaps, if the Court were in
London; or to St. James's, if it were at Windsor. He was summoned;
and the great man of the occasion contented himself with holding his
hands up to the heavens as he stood up from his chair, and exclaiming
twice, "Mis-sent the Monarch's pouch! Mis-sent the Monarch's pouch!"
That young man never knew how he escaped from the Board-room; but for
a time he was deprived of all power of exertion, and could not resume
his work till he had had six months' leave of absence, and been
brought round upon rum and asses' milk. In that instance the peculiar
use of the word Monarch had a power which the official magnate had
never contemplated. The story is traditional; but I believe that the
circumstance happened as lately as in the days of George the Third.
John Eames could laugh at the present chairman of the Income-tax
Office with great freedom, and call him old Huffle Scuffle, and the
like; but now that he was sent for, he also, in spite of his radical
propensities, felt a little weak about his ankle joints. He knew,
from the first hearing of the message, that he was wanted with
reference to that affair at the railway station. Perhaps there might
be a rule that any clerk should be dismissed who used his fists in
any public place. There were many rules entailing the punishment
of dismissal for many offences,--and he began to think that he did
remember something of such a regulation. However, he got up, looked
once around him upon his friends, and then followed Tupper into the
Board-room.
"There's Johnny been sent for by old Scuffles," said one clerk.
"That's about his row with Crosbie," said another. "The Board can't
do anything to him for that."
"Can't it?" said the first. "Didn't young Outonites have to resign
because of that row at the Cider Cellars, though his cousin, Sir
Constant Outonites, did all that he could for him?"
"But he was regularly up the spout with accommodation bills."
"I tell you that I wouldn't be in Eames's shoes for a trifle. Crosbie
is secretary at the Committee Office, where Scuffles was chairman
before he came here; and of course they're as thick as thieves. I
shouldn't wonder if they didn't make him go down and apologize."
"Johnny won't do that," said the other.
In the meantime John Eames was standing in the august presence. Sir
Raffle Buffle was throned in his great oak arm-chair at the head of
a long table in a very large room; and by him, at the corner of the
table, was seated one of the assistant secretaries of the office.
Another member of the Board was also at work upon the long table; but
he was reading and signing papers at some distance from Sir Raffle,
and paid no heed whatever to the scene. The assistant secretary,
looking on, could see that Sir Raffle was annoyed by this want of
attention on the part of his colleague, but all this was lost upon
Eames.
"Mr. Eames?" said Sir Raffle, speaking with a peculiarly harsh voice,
and looking at the culprit through a pair of gold-rimmed glasses,
which he perched for the occasion upon his big nose. "Isn't that Mr.
Eames?"
"Yes," said the assistant secretary, "this is Eames."
"Ah!"--and then there was a pause. "Come a little nearer, Mr. Eames,
will you?" and Johnny drew nearer, advancing noiselessly over the
Turkey carpet.
"Let me see; in the second class, isn't he? Ah! Do you know,
Mr. Eames, that I have received a letter from the secretary to
the Directors of the Great Western Railway Company, detailing
circumstances which,--if truly stated in that letter,--redound very
much to your discredit?"
"I did get into a row there yesterday, sir."
"Got into a row! It seems to me that you have got into a very serious
row, and that I must tell the Directors of the Great Western Railway
Company that the law must be allowed to take its course."
"I shan't mind that, sir, in the least," said Eames, brightening up a
little under this view of the case.
"Not mind that, sir!" said Sir Raffle--or rather, he shouted out
the words at the offender before him. I am inclined to think that
he overdid it, missing the effect which a milder tone might have
attained. Perhaps there was lacking to him some of that majesty
of demeanour and dramatic propriety of voice which had been so
efficacious in the little story as to the King's bag of letters.
As it was, Johnny gave a slight jump, but after his jump he felt
better than he had been before. "Not mind, sir, being dragged before
the criminal tribunals of your country, and being punished as a
felon,--or rather as a misdemeanour,--for an outrage committed on a
public platform! Not mind it! What do you mean, sir?"
"I mean, that I don't think the magistrate would say very much about
it, sir. And I don't think Mr. Crosbie would come forward."
"But Mr. Crosbie must come forward, young man. Do you suppose that
an outrage against the peace of the Metropolis is to go unpunished
because he may not wish to pursue the matter? I'm afraid you must be
very ignorant, young man."
"Perhaps I am," said Johnny.
"Very ignorant indeed,--very ignorant indeed. And are you aware, sir,
that it would become a question with the Commissioners of this Board
whether you could be retained in the service of this department if
you were publicly punished by a police magistrate for such a
disgraceful outrage as that?"
Johnny looked round at the other Commissioner, but that gentleman did
not raise his face from his papers.
"Mr. Eames is a very good clerk," whispered the assistant secretary,
but in a voice which made his words audible to Eames; "one of the
best young men we have," he added, in a voice which was not audible.
"Oh,--ah; very well. Now, I'll tell you what, Mr. Eames, I hope this
will be a lesson to you,--a very serious lesson."
The assistant secretary, leaning back in his chair so as to be a
little behind the head of Sir Raffle, did manage to catch the eye of
the other Commissioner. The other Commissioner, barely looking round,
smiled a little, and then the assistant secretary smiled also. Eames
saw this, and he smiled too.
"Whether any ulterior consequences may still await the breach of the
peace of which you have been guilty, I am not yet prepared to say,"
continued Sir Raffle. "You may go now."
And Johnny returned to his own place, with no increased reverence for
the dignity of the chairman.
On the following morning one of his colleagues showed him with great
glee the passage in the newspaper which informed the world that he
had been so desperately beaten by Crosbie that he was obliged to keep
his bed at this present time in consequence of the flogging that
he had received. Then his anger was aroused, and he bounced about
the big room of the Income-tax Office, regardless of assistant
secretaries, head clerks, and all other official grandees whatsoever,
denouncing the iniquities of the public press, and declaring his
opinion that it would be better to live in Russia than in a country
which allowed such audacious falsehoods to be propagated.
"He never touched me, Fisher; I don't think he ever tried; but, upon
my honour, he never touched me."
"But, Johnny, it was bold in you to make up to Lord De Courcy's
daughter," said Fisher.
"I never saw one of them in my life."
"He's going it altogether among the aristocracy, now," said another;
"I suppose you wouldn't look at anybody under a viscount?"
"Can I help what that thief of an editor puts into his paper?