The Professor Page 4

  CHAPTER III.

  I SERVED Edward as his second clerk faithfully, punctually, diligently.What was given me to do I had the power and the determination to dowell. Mr. Crimsworth watched sharply for defects, but found none; he setTimothy Steighton, his favourite and head man, to watch also. Tim wasbaffled; I was as exact as himself, and quicker. Mr. Crimsworth madeinquiries as to how I lived, whether I got into debt--no, my accountswith my landlady were always straight. I had hired small lodgings, whichI contrived to pay for out of a slender fund--the accumulated savings ofmy Eton pocket-money; for as it had ever been abhorrent to my nature toask pecuniary assistance, I had early acquired habits of self-denyingeconomy; husbanding my monthly allowance with anxious care, in order toobviate the danger of being forced, in some moment of future exigency,to beg additional aid. I remember many called me miser at the time,and I used to couple the reproach with this consolation--better to bemisunderstood now than repulsed hereafter. At this day I had my reward;I had had it before, when on parting with my irritated uncles one ofthem threw down on the table before me a 5l. note, which I was able toleave there, saying that my travelling expenses were already providedfor. Mr. Crimsworth employed Tim to find out whether my landlady hadany complaint to make on the score of my morals; she answered that shebelieved I was a very religious man, and asked Tim, in her turn, if hethought I had any intention of going into the Church some day; for, shesaid, she had had young curates to lodge in her house who were nothingequal to me for steadiness and quietness. Tim was "a religious man"himself; indeed, he was "a joined Methodist," which did not (be itunderstood) prevent him from being at the same time an engrained rascal,and he came away much posed at hearing this account of my piety. Havingimparted it to Mr. Crimsworth, that gentleman, who himself frequentedno place of worship, and owned no God but Mammon, turned the informationinto a weapon of attack against the equability of my temper. Hecommenced a series of covert sneers, of which I did not at firstperceive the drift, till my landlady happened to relate the conversationshe had had with Mr. Steighton this enlightened me; afterwards I cameto the counting-house prepared, and managed to receive the millowner'sblasphemous sarcasms, when next levelled at me, on a buckler ofimpenetrable indifference. Ere long he tired of wasting his ammunitionon a statue, but he did not throw away the shafts--he only kept themquiet in his quiver.

  Once during my clerkship I had an invitation to Crimsworth Hall; itwas on the occasion of a large party given in honour of the master'sbirthday; he had always been accustomed to invite his clerks on similaranniversaries, and could not well pass me over; I was, however, keptstrictly in the background. Mrs. Crimsworth, elegantly dressed in satinand lace, blooming in youth and health, vouchsafed me no more noticethan was expressed by a distant move; Crimsworth, of course, neverspoke to me; I was introduced to none of the band of young ladies, who,enveloped in silvery clouds of white gauze and muslin, sat in arrayagainst me on the opposite side of a long and large room; in fact, I wasfairly isolated, and could but contemplate the shining ones from afar,and when weary of such a dazzling scene, turn for a change to theconsideration of the carpet pattern. Mr. Crimsworth, standing on therug, his elbow supported by the marble mantelpiece, and about hima group of very pretty girls, with whom he conversed gaily--Mr.Crimsworth, thus placed, glanced at me; I looked weary, solitary, keptdown like some desolate tutor or governess; he was satisfied.

  Dancing began; I should have liked well enough to be introduced to somepleasing and intelligent girl, and to have freedom and opportunityto show that I could both feel and communicate the pleasure of socialintercourse--that I was not, in short, a block, or a piece of furniture,but an acting, thinking, sentient man. Many smiling faces and gracefulfigures glided past me, but the smiles were lavished on other eyes, thefigures sustained by other hands than mine. I turned away tantalized,left the dancers, and wandered into the oak-panelled dining-room. Nofibre of sympathy united me to any living thing in this house; I lookedfor and found my mother's picture. I took a wax taper from a stand,and held it up. I gazed long, earnestly; my heart grew to the image.My mother, I perceived, had bequeathed to me much of her features andcountenance--her forehead, her eyes, her complexion. No regular beautypleases egotistical human beings so much as a softened and refinedlikeness of themselves; for this reason, fathers regard with complacencythe lineaments of their daughters' faces, where frequently their ownsimilitude is found flatteringly associated with softness of hue anddelicacy of outline. I was just wondering how that picture, to me sointeresting, would strike an impartial spectator, when a voice closebehind me pronounced the words--

  "Humph! there's some sense in that face."

  I turned; at my elbow stood a tall man, young, though probably five orsix years older than I--in other respects of an appearance the oppositeto common place; though just now, as I am not disposed to paint hisportrait in detail, the reader must be content with the silhouette Ihave just thrown off; it was all I myself saw of him for the moment: Idid not investigate the colour of his eyebrows, nor of his eyes either;I saw his stature, and the outline of his shape; I saw, too, hisfastidious-looking RETROUSSE nose; these observations, few in number,and general in character (the last excepted), sufficed, for they enabledme to recognize him.

  "Good evening, Mr. Hunsden," muttered I with a bow, and then, like ashy noodle as I was, I began moving away--and why? Simply because Mr.Hunsden was a manufacturer and a millowner, and I was only a clerk, andmy instinct propelled me from my superior. I had frequently seen Hunsdenin Bigben Close, where he came almost weekly to transact business withMr. Crimsworth, but I had never spoken to him, nor he to me, and I owedhim a sort of involuntary grudge, because he had more than once been thetacit witness of insults offered by Edward to me. I had the convictionthat he could only regard me as a poor-spirited slave, wherefore I nowwent about to shun his presence and eschew his conversation.

  "Where are you going?" asked he, as I edged off sideways. I had alreadynoticed that Mr. Hunsden indulged in abrupt forms of speech, and Iperversely said to myself--

  "He thinks he may speak as he likes to a poor clerk; but my mood is not,perhaps, so supple as he deems it, and his rough freedom pleases me notat all."

  I made some slight reply, rather indifferent than courteous, andcontinued to move away. He coolly planted himself in my path.

  "Stay here awhile," said he: "it is so hot in the dancing-room; besides,you don't dance; you have not had a partner to-night."

  He was right, and as he spoke neither his look, tone, nor mannerdispleased me; my AMOUR-PROPRE was propitiated; he had not addressedme out of condescension, but because, having repaired to the cooldining-room for refreshment, he now wanted some one to talk to, by wayof temporary amusement. I hate to be condescended to, but I like wellenough to oblige; I stayed.

  "That is a good picture," he continued, recurring to the portrait.

  "Do you consider the face pretty?" I asked.

  "Pretty! no--how can it be pretty, with sunk eyes and hollow cheeks?but it is peculiar; it seems to think. You could have a talk with thatwoman, if she were alive, on other subjects than dress, visiting, andcompliments."

  I agreed with him, but did not say so. He went on.

  "Not that I admire a head of that sort; it wants character and force;there's too much of the sen-si-tive (so he articulated it, curlinghis lip at the same time) in that mouth; besides, there is Aristocratwritten on the brow and defined in the figure; I hate your aristocrats."

  "You think, then, Mr. Hunsden, that patrician descent may be read in adistinctive cast of form and features?"

  "Patrician descent be hanged! Who doubts that your lordlings may havetheir 'distinctive cast of form and features' as much as we----shiretradesmen have ours? But which is the best? Not theirs assuredly. Asto their women, it is a little different: they cultivate beauty fromchildhood upwards, and may by care and training attain to a certaindegree of excellence in that point, just like the oriental odalisques.Yet even this superiority is doubtful. Compare the figu
re in that framewith Mrs. Edward Crimsworth--which is the finer animal?"

  I replied quietly: "Compare yourself and Mr. Edward Crimsworth, MrHunsden."

  "Oh, Crimsworth is better filled up than I am, I know besides he has astraight nose, arched eyebrows, and all that; but these advantages--ifthey are advantages--he did not inherit from his mother, the patrician,but from his father, old Crimsworth, who, MY father says, was asveritable a ----shire blue-dyer as ever put indigo in a vat yet withalthe handsomest man in the three Ridings. It is you, William, who arethe aristocrat of your family, and you are not as fine a fellow as yourplebeian brother by long chalk."

  There was something in Mr. Hunsden's point-blank mode of speech whichrather pleased me than otherwise because it set me at my ease. Icontinued the conversation with a degree of interest.

  "How do you happen to know that I am Mr. Crimsworth's brother? I thoughtyou and everybody else looked upon me only in the light of a poorclerk."

  "Well, and so we do; and what are you but a poor clerk? You doCrimsworth's work, and he gives you wages--shabby wages they are, too."

  I was silent. Hunsden's language now bordered on the impertinent, stillhis manner did not offend me in the least--it only piqued my curiosity;I wanted him to go on, which he did in a little while.

  "This world is an absurd one," said he.

  "Why so, Mr. Hunsden?"

  "I wonder you should ask: you are yourself a strong proof of theabsurdity I allude to."

  I was determined he should explain himself of his own accord, without mypressing him so to do--so I resumed my silence.

  "Is it your intention to become a tradesman?" he inquired presently.

  "It was my serious intention three months ago."

  "Humph! the more fool you--you look like a tradesman! What a practicalbusiness-like face you have!"

  "My face is as the Lord made it, Mr. Hunsden."

  "The Lord never made either your face or head for X---- What good canyour bumps of ideality, comparison, self-esteem, conscientiousness,do you here? But if you like Bigben Close, stay there; it's your ownaffair, not mine."

  "Perhaps I have no choice."

  "Well, I care nought about it--it will make little difference to me whatyou do or where you go; but I'm cool now--I want to dance again; andI see such a fine girl sitting in the corner of the sofa there byher mamma; see if I don't get her for a partner in a jiffy! There'sWaddy--Sam Waddy making up to her; won't I cut him out?"

  And Mr. Hunsden strode away. I watched him through the openfolding-doors; he outstripped Waddy, applied for the hand of thefine girl, and led her off triumphant. She was a tall, well-made,full-formed, dashingly-dressed young woman, much in the style of Mrs. E.Crimsworth; Hunsden whirled her through the waltz with spirit; he keptat her side during the remainder of the evening, and I read in heranimated and gratified countenance that he succeeded in making himselfperfectly agreeable. The mamma too (a stout person in a turban--Mrs.Lupton by name) looked well pleased; prophetic visions probablyflattered her inward eye. The Hunsdens were of an old stem; and scornfulas Yorke (such was my late interlocutor's name) professed to be ofthe advantages of birth, in his secret heart he well knew and fullyappreciated the distinction his ancient, if not high lineage conferredon him in a mushroom-place like X----, concerning whose inhabitantsit was proverbially said, that not one in a thousand knew his owngrandfather. Moreover the Hunsdens, once rich, were still independent;and report affirmed that Yorke bade fair, by his success in business,to restore to pristine prosperity the partially decayed fortunes of hishouse. These circumstances considered, Mrs. Lupton's broad face mightwell wear a smile of complacency as she contemplated the heir of HunsdenWood occupied in paying assiduous court to her darling Sarah Martha. I,however, whose observations being less anxious, were likely to be moreaccurate, soon saw that the grounds for maternal self-congratulationwere slight indeed; the gentleman appeared to me much more desirous ofmaking, than susceptible of receiving an impression. I know not what itwas in Mr. Hunsden that, as I watched him (I had nothing better to do),suggested to me, every now and then, the idea of a foreigner. In formand features he might be pronounced English, though even there onecaught a dash of something Gallic; but he had no English shyness: he hadlearnt somewhere, somehow, the art of setting himself quite at his ease,and of allowing no insular timidity to intervene as a barrier betweenhim and his convenience or pleasure. Refinement he did not affect, yetvulgar he could not be called; he was not odd--no quiz--yet he resembledno one else I had ever seen before; his general bearing intimatedcomplete, sovereign satisfaction with himself; yet, at times, anindescribable shade passed like an eclipse over his countenance, andseemed to me like the sign of a sudden and strong inward doubt ofhimself, his words and actions an energetic discontent at his life orhis social position, his future prospects or his mental attainments--Iknow not which; perhaps after all it might only be a bilious caprice.