The Small House at Allington
take it very much amiss of you if you don't answer my
letter soon.
Your very sincere friend,
DE GUEST.
When Eames had finished this letter, sitting at his office-desk, his
surprise and elation were so great that he hardly knew where he was
or what he ought to do. Could it be the truth that Lily's uncle had
not only consented that the match should be made, but that he had
also promised to give his niece a considerable fortune? For a few
minutes it seemed to Johnny as though all obstacles to his happiness
were removed, and that there was no impediment between him and an
amount of bliss of which he had hitherto hardly dared to dream. Then,
when he considered the earl's munificence, he almost cried. He found
that he could not compose his mind to think, or even his hand to
write. He did not know whether it would be right in him to accept
such pecuniary liberality from any living man, and almost thought
that he should feel himself bound to reject the earl's offer. As to
the squire's money, that he knew he might accept. All that comes in
the shape of a young woman's fortune may be taken by any man.
He would certainly answer the earl's letter, and that at once. He
would not leave the office till he had done so. His friend should
have cause to bring no further charge against him of that kind. And
then again he reverted to the injustice which had been done to him in
the matter of letter-writing--as if that consideration were of moment
in such a state of circumstances as was now existing. But at last
his thoughts brought themselves to the real question at issue. Would
Lily Dale accept him? After all, the realization of his good fortune
depended altogether upon her feelings; and, as he remembered this,
his mind misgave him sorely. It was filled not only with a young
lover's ordinary doubts,--with the fear and trembling incidental to
the bashfulness of hobbledehoyhood--but with an idea that that affair
with Crosbie would still stand in his way. He did not, perhaps,
rightly understand all that Lily had suffered, but he conceived it
to be probable that there had been wounds which even the last five
months might not yet have cured. Could it be that she would allow him
to cure these wounds? As he thought of this he felt almost crushed
to the earth by an indomitable bashfulness and conviction of his own
unworthiness. What had he to offer worthy of the acceptance of such a
girl as Lilian Dale?
I fear that the Crown did not get out of John Eames an adequate
return for his salary on that day. So adequate, however, had been the
return given by him for some time past, that promotion was supposed
throughout the Income-tax Office to be coming in his way, much to
the jealousy of Cradell, Fisher, and others, his immediate compeers
and cronies. And the place assigned to him by rumour was one which
was generally regarded as a perfect Elysium upon earth in the Civil
Service world. He was, so rumour said, to become private secretary to
the First Commissioner. He would be removed by such a change as this
from the large uncarpeted room in which he at present sat; occupying
the same desk with another man to whom he had felt himself to be
ignominiously bound, as dogs must feel when they are coupled. This
room had been the bear-garden of the office. Twelve or fourteen
men sat in it. Large pewter pots were brought into it daily at one
o'clock, giving it an air that was not aristocratic. The senior
of the room, one Mr. Love, who was presumed to have it under his
immediate dominion, was a clerk of the ancient stamp, dull, heavy,
unambitious, living out on the farther side of Islington, and unknown
beyond the limits of his office to any of his younger brethren.
He was generally regarded as having given a bad tone to the room.
And then the clerks in this room would not unfrequently be blown
up,--with very palpable blowings up,--by an official swell, a certain
chief clerk, named Kissing, much higher in standing though younger in
age than the gentleman of whom we have before spoken. He would hurry
in, out of his own neighbouring chamber, with quick step and nose in
the air, shuffling in his office slippers, looking on each occasion
as though there were some cause to fear that the whole Civil Service
were coming to an abrupt termination, and would lay about him with
hard words, which some of those in the big room did not find it very
easy to bear. His hair was always brushed straight up, his eyes were
always very wide open,--and he usually carried a big letter-book with
him, keeping in it a certain place with his finger. This book was
almost too much for his strength, and he would flop it down, now on
this man's desk and now on that man's, and in a long career of such
floppings had made himself to be very much hated. On the score of
some old grudge he and Mr. Love did not speak to each other; and for
this reason, on all occasions of fault-finding, the blown-up young
man would refer Mr. Kissing to his enemy.
"I know nothing about it," Mr. Love would say, not lifting his face
from his desk for a moment.
"I shall certainly lay the matter before the Board," Mr. Kissing
would reply, and would then shuffle out of the room with the big
book.
Sometimes Mr. Kissing would lay the matter before the Board, and
then he, and Mr. Love, and two or three delinquent clerks would be
summoned thither. It seldom led to much. The delinquent clerks would
be cautioned. One Commissioner would say a word in private to Mr.
Love, and another a word in private to Mr. Kissing. Then, when left
alone, the Commissioners would have their little jokes, saying that
Kissing, they feared, went by favour; and that Love should still be
lord of all. But these things were done in the mild days, before Sir
Raffle Buffle came to the Board.
There had been some fun in this at first; but of late John Eames had
become tired of it. He disliked Mr. Kissing, and the big book out
of which Mr. Kissing was always endeavouring to convict him of some
official sin, and had got tired of that joke of setting Kissing
and Love by the ears together. When the Assistant Secretary first
suggested to him that Sir Raffle had an idea of selecting him as
private secretary, and when he remembered the cosy little room, all
carpeted, with a leathern arm-chair and a separate washing-stand,
which in such case would be devoted to his use, and remembered
also that he would be put into receipt of an additional hundred a
year, and would stand in the way of still better promotion, he was
overjoyed. But there were certain drawbacks. The present private
secretary,--who had been private secretary also to the late First
Commissioner,--was giving up his Elysium because he could not endure
the tones of Sir Raffle's voice. It was understood that Sir Raffle
required rather more of a private secretary, in the way of obsequious
attendance, than was desirable, and Eames almost doubted his own
fitness for the place.
"And why should he choose me?" he had asked the Assistant Secretary.
"Well, we have talked it over together, and I think that he prefers
you to any other that has been named."
"But he was so very hard upon me about the affair at the railway
station."
"I think he has heard more about that since; I think that some
message has reached him from your friend, Earl De Guest."
"Oh, indeed!" said Johnny, beginning to comprehend what it was to
have an earl for his friend. Since his acquaintance with the nobleman
had commenced, he had studiously avoided all mention of the earl's
name at his office; and yet he received almost daily intimation that
the fact was well known there, and not a little considered.
"But he is so very rough," said Johnny.
"You can put up with that," said his friend the Assistant Secretary.
"His bark is worse than his bite, as you know; and then a hundred a
year is worth having." Eames was at that moment inclined to take a
gloomy view of life in general, and was disposed to refuse the place,
should it be offered to him. He had not then received the earl's
letter; but now, as he sat with that letter open before him, lying
in the drawer beneath his desk so that he could still read it as he
leaned back in his chair, he was enabled to look at things in general
through a different atmosphere. In the first place, Lilian Dale's
husband ought to have a room to himself, with a carpet and an
arm-chair; and then that additional hundred a year would raise his
income at once to the sum as to which the earl had made some sort of
stipulation. But could he get that leave of absence at Easter? If he
consented to be Sir Raffle's private secretary, he would make that a
part of the bargain.
At this moment the door of the big room was opened, and Mr. Kissing
shuffled in with very quick little steps. He shuffled in, and coming
direct up to John's desk, flopped his ledger down upon it before its
owner had had time to close the drawer which contained the precious
letter.
"What have you got in that drawer, Mr. Eames?"
"A private letter, Mr. Kissing."
"Oh;--a private letter!" said Mr. Kissing, feeling strongly convinced
there was a novel hidden there, but not daring to express his belief.
"I have been half the morning, Mr. Eames, looking for this letter
to the Admiralty, and you've put it under S!" A bystander listening
to Mr. Kissing's tone would have been led to believe that the whole
Income-tax Office was jeopardized by the terrible iniquity thus
disclosed.
"Somerset House," pleaded Johnny.
"Psha;--Somerset House! Half the offices in London--"
"You'd better ask Mr. Love," said Eames. "It's all done under his
special instructions." Mr. Kissing looked at Mr. Love, and Mr.
Love looked steadfastly at his desk. "Mr. Love knows all about the
indexing," continued Johnny. "He's index master general to the
department."
"No, I'm not, Mr. Eames," said Mr. Love, who rather liked John Eames,
and hated Mr. Kissing with his whole heart. "But I believe the
indexes, on the whole, are very well done in this room. Some people
don't know how to find letters."
"Mr. Eames," began Mr. Kissing, still pointing with a finger of
bitter reproach to the misused S, and beginning an oration which was
intended for the benefit of the whole room, and for the annihilation
of old Mr. Love, "if you have yet to learn that the word Admiralty
begins with A and not with S, you have much to learn which should
have been acquired before you first came into this office. Somerset
House is not a department." Then he turned round to the room at
large, and repeated the last words, as though they might become very
useful if taken well to heart--"Is not a department. The Treasury is
a department; the Home Office is a department; the India Board is a
department--"
"No, Mr. Kissing, it isn't," said a young clerk from the other end of
the room.
"You know very well what I mean, sir. The India Office is a
department."
"There's no Board, sir."
"Never mind; but how any gentleman who has been in the service three
months,--not to say three years,--can suppose Somerset House to be a
department, is beyond my comprehension. If you have been improperly
instructed--"
"We shall know all about it another time," said Eames. "Mr. Love will
make a memorandum of it."
"I shan't do anything of the kind," said Mr. Love.
"If you have been wrongly instructed,--" Mr. Kissing began again,
stealing a glance at Mr. Love as he did so; but at this moment
the door was again opened, and a messenger summoned Johnny to the
presence of the really great man. "Mr. Eames, to wait upon Sir
Raffle." Upon hearing this Johnny immediately started, and left Mr.
Kissing and the big book in possession of his desk. How the battle
was waged, and how it raged in the large room, we cannot stop to