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THE PROFESSOR
Charlotte Brontë
Table of Contents
Title Page
History of Collins
Life & Times
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Classic Literature: Words and Phrases adapted from the Collins English Dictionary
Copyright
About the Publisher
History of Collins
In 1819, millworker William Collins from Glasgow, Scotland, set up a company for printing and publishing pamphlets, sermons, hymn books and prayer books. That company was Collins and was to mark the birth of HarperCollins Publishers as we know it today. The long tradition of Collins dictionary publishing can be traced back to the first dictionary William published in 1824, Greek and English Lexicon. Indeed, from 1840 onwards, he began to produce illustrated dictionaries and even obtained a licence to print and publish the Bible.
Soon after, William published the first Collins novel, Ready Reckoner, however it was the time of the Long Depression, where harvests were poor, prices were high, potato crops had failed and violence was erupting in Europe. As a result, many factories across the country were forced to close down and William chose to retire in 1846, partly due to the hardships he was facing.
Aged 30, William’s son, William II took over the business. A keen humanitarian with a warm heart and a generous spirit, William II was truly ‘Victorian’ in his outlook. He introduced new, up-to-date steam presses and published affordable editions of Shakespeare’s works and Pilgrim’s Progress, making them available to the masses for the first time. A new demand for educational books meant that success came with the publication of travel books, scienti?c books, encyclopaedias and dictionaries. This demand to be educated led to the later publication of atlases and Collins also held the monopoly on scripture writing at the time.
In the 1860s Collins began to expand and diversify and the idea of ‘books for the millions’ was developed. Affordable editions of classical literature were published and in 1903 Collins introduced 10 titles in their Collins Handy Illustrated Pocket Novels. These proved so popular that a few years later this had increased to an output of 50 volumes, selling nearly half a million in their year of publication. In the same year, The Everyman’s Library was also instituted, with the idea of publishing an affordable library of the most important classical works, biographies, religious and philosophical treatments, plays, poems, travel and adventure. This series eclipsed all competition at the time and the introduction of paperback books in the 1950s helped to open that market and marked a high point in the industry.
HarperCollins is and has always been a champion of the classics and the current Collins Classics series follows in this tradition – publishing classical literature that is affordable and available to all. Beautifully packaged, highly collectible and intended to be reread and enjoyed at every opportunity.
Life & Times
The Brontë Family
Following in the footsteps of Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, were the next generation of female writers. Unlike Austen, they were northerners, born and raised in West Yorkshire, England. There were also two other sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, who sadly died at the ages of 10 and 11 from tuberculosis, and a brother, Branwell, who became an artist and poet, fuelled by his opium and alcohol addiction.
Charlotte Brontë (1816–55) had three novels published in her lifetime, but it is for Jane Eyre (1847) that she is most celebrated. Her sister, Emily Brontë (1818–48), is lauded for her only novel Wuthering Heights (1847) – a complex tragedy, spanning two generations, that expresses the mess that people can make of their lives when needs and desires are allowed to control their actions and reactions, as opposed to common sense and restraint.
Anne Brontë (1820–49) is the lesser known of the sisters. She published two novels, Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848). Unlike her sisters, Anne’s style was one of realism rather than romanticism, making her the more contemporary writer at the time.
All three sisters used pen names (Currer Bell, Ellis Bell and Acton Bell respectively), as it was common at that time for female novelists to adopt male pseudonyms in an effort to be taken more seriously. Indeed, another well-known female author, George Eliot (1818–80), had the real name of Mary Ann Evans. The reputation of the female novelist at the time was uncertain, and it seems that Jane Austen herself may have prompted this practice.
The surname Brontë wasn’t wholly genuine, either. Their father, Patrick, had originally been known as ‘Brunty’, a name he is believed to have claimed for reasons of insecurity and vanity, as an unusual name gave the illusion of continental sophistication and heritage.
Sadly, the Brontë sisters all had short lives, and fragile health characterized the entire family. Two years after the death of Charlotte, her friend and fellow novelist Elizabeth Gaskell published a biography of the elder Brontë that created the impression of a family beset by misfortune.
Charlotte Brontë
As a focused woman with a great deal of determination, Charlotte originally wrote in order to secure financial independence for herself and her siblings. She spent periods of time away from her family home, at boarding school in her youth and later as a governess, giving her invaluable experiences to draw upon. Following the death of Anne from pulmonary tuberculosis, Charlotte’s success with the publication of Jane Eyre prompted her to reveal her true identity and name. She frequently travelled to London and became acquainted with a number of prominent figures of the age. Her book was seen as a seminal work, introducing the idea that women could achieve their desires by demonstrating strength of character. In 1854, Charlotte was married to her father’s curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls. She became pregnant, but fell ill and died with child.
The Professor
These days the word ‘professor’ tends to conjure the image of a white-haired, unkempt and eccentric university academic. However, the professor in Charlotte’s novel is young, dashing and a bit of a ladies’ man. The story is loosely based on the author’s experience as a teacher in Brussels, Belgium, and she imagines herself falling in love with her perfect man: a professor at the same school. Charlotte wrote The Professor before Jane Eyre, but failed to publish it in her own lifetime, as it wasn’t deemed good enough. It was eventually published in 1857, two years after her death.
The Brontë family was Protestant and had an innate mistrust of the Catholic Church, and, as such, The Professor deals with Christian division and class prejudice. In effect, Charlotte wrote her good characters as Protestants and her baddies as Catholics, which suited the general mindset of Victorian England. The Brontë family was poor, and Charlotte had a chip on her shoulder about the lack of social standing and esteem that resulted through lack of wealth and connections. In The Professor, her central characters find themselves in that same position. The novel is fundamentally a treatise on the plight of good, honest and modest Protestants in a world dominated by untrustworthy, duplicitous and empowered Catholics.
Many critics have intimated that The Professor should have remained unpublished because it was only a prototype that she herself had consigned to the old projects’ drawer. Its purpose was more an exercise in learning the art of writing a successful novel, rather than actually being that itself. After the magnificent Jane Eyre, The Professor was always viewed as an inferior effort. However, today the story is regarded as part of the Brontë anthology. Just as there is a trend for releasing demonstration recordings of songs for completists, so The Professor is thought of as a kind of demo novel – a point of access into the mind of a novelist who was yet perfect her craft.
Common Themes
Today, the novels of the Brontë sisters are a large part of English literary history. Their styles were quite individual, but all three were able to use prose to communicate with the world beyond the sanctuary of home and there is a thread of commonality in their world view that speaks volumes about the relative isolation they experienced during their upbringing. Their father was a bookish man who seemed not to worry about the effects of solitude on his children. The result was that they grew up to be quite introverted, which was probably why they found company in each other and in their imaginations. They were well-educated individuals, though with relatively little by way of fiscal wealth and reserved in nature. It was considered highly unusual then, as it would be now, for three sisters to all devote their lives to writing novels.
The Brontë sisters were all seemingly preoccupied with thoughts of tortuous relationships and uncertain endings. It was as if they knew they were destined for lives cut short by illness – understandable, given the early deaths of their two elder sisters and the death of their mother, Maria, in 1821, all by the time the three sisters were teenagers. Charlotte died at the age of 38 from complications in pregnancy, having married only the year before. Emily and Anne died of consumption at the ages of 30 and 29, respectively. And even their brother Branwell died young, at the age of 31, also from consumption. In the absence of children of their own, their novels became the Brontë offspring, living on in perpetuity. Patrick outlived his entire family, dying at the impressive age of 84, in 1861.
Like Jane Austen before them, the Brontës existed on the fringes of polite society, where they could observe people and capture their personalities in prose. This made them well suited to writing, but unattractive as potential spouses for eligible young men or inclusion in certain social circles. That marginalization, in itself, gave rise to frustrations, desires and needs that must have fuelled their creative drive. Their novels act as vehicles for self-expression, alluding to their misgivings about life and providing them with strong voices for the plight of females in the 19th century.
The Brontë Legacy
For the three sisters, writing was clearly a way of living vicariously. Their social environment was such that they had rather limited experience of the outside world. Their father was a teacher and clergyman, who kept a tight rein on his daughters and one son, for fear of also losing them. Tragically, he did lose them all before any had reached the age of 40, but not before his three daughters had tasted success as published novelists.
Charlotte and Emily used their novels to effectively live other lives, and they are often described as romanticists as a result. Anne did the same, but in a less imaginative frame, so that her scenarios were less removed from reality. The year 1847 was the most eventful period of time for the Brontë sisters, as it saw all three of their aforementioned novels published – Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey.
The fictitious Jane Eyre could easily be translated as Charlotte imagining herself in a scenario where she comes from a background far worse than her own, but ends up living a life that is more rounded and fulfilled than the one she leads, reinventing herself in prose. Emily goes even further, with Wuthering Heights. She imagines different versions of herself living through an epic story of tragedy. It seems she was able to act out longed-for adventure in the theatre of her imagination. Anne’s Agnes Grey shows an obvious overlap between Anne and Agnes, so that a blend of fact and fiction is evident. Anne was more concerned with using her prose to express the real trials and tribulations of her life as a governess, as opposed to using them as a form of escapism, like her sisters.
In a way, the cumulative result of the Brontës’ work is to demonstrate the depths to which fictional prose can be used as a form of self-expression. All three sisters transported themselves into their imagined worlds, but to differing extremes. However, because of their early deaths, it is impossible to know how their individual preferences might have adapted and matured over time.
The social impact and legacy of the Brontës’ work was that it dared to be truthful and self-indulgent in an age when polite society was reserved and reticent about emotions and desires. While Jane Austen’s work described the lives of people somewhat removed from an environment most people would consider familiar, the Brontës described the lives of people who were more human, in that they were not as bound by rules of etiquette and prescribed behaviour. It wasn’t necessary to read between the lines to understand the allegory, because the Brontës wrote from the heart in a new and honest way, heightening people’s idea of the very purpose of literature as an art form.
PREFACE
This little book was written before either Jane Eyre or Shirley, and yet no indulgence can be solicited for it on the plea of a first attempt. A first attempt it certainly was not, as the pen which wrote it had been previously worn a good deal in a practice of some years. I had not indeed published anything before I commenced The Professor, but in many a crude effort, destroyed almost as soon as composed, I had got over any such taste as I might once have had for ornamented and redundant composition, and come to prefer what was plain and homely. At the same time I had adopted a set of principles on the subject of incident, &c., such as would be generally approved in theory, but the result of which, when carried out into practice, often procures for an author more surprise than pleasure.
I said to myself that my hero should work his way through life as I had seen real living men work theirs – that he should never get a shilling he had not earned – that no sudden turns should lift him in a moment to wealth and high station; that whatever small competency he might gain, should be won by the sweat of his brow; that, before he could find so much as an arbour to sit down in, he should master at least half the ascent of ‘the Hill of Difficulty’; that he should not even marry a beautiful girl or a lady of rank. As Adam’s son he should share Adam’s doom, and drain throughout life a mixed and moderate cup of enjoyment.
In the sequel, however, I find that publishers in general scarcely approved of this system, but would have liked something more imaginative and poetical – something more consonant with a highly wrought fancy, with a taste for pathos, with sentiments more tender, elevated, unworldly. Indeed, until an author has tried to dispose of a manuscript of this kind, he can never know what stores of romance and sensibility lie hidden in breasts he would not have suspected of casketing such treasures. Men in business are usually thought to prefer the real; on trial the idea will be often found fallacious: a passionate preference for the wild, wonderful, and thrilling – the strange, startling, and harrowing – agitates divers souls that show a calm and sober surface.
Such being the case, the reader will comprehend that to have reached him in the form of a printed book, this brief narrative must have gone through some struggles – which indeed it has. And after all, its worst struggle and strongest ordeal is yet to come but it takes comfort – subdues fear – leans on the staff of a moderate expectation – and mutters under its breath, while lifting its eye to that of the public.
He that is low need fear no fall.
CURRER BELL
The foregoing preface was written by my wife with a view to the publication of The Professor, shortly after the appearance of Shirley. Being dissuaded from her intention, the authoress made some use of the materials in a subsequent work – Villette. As, however, these two stories are in most respects unlike, it has been represented to me that I ought not to withhold The Professor from the public. I have therefore consented to its publication.
A. B. NICHOLLS
Haworth Parsonage,
September 22nd, 1856.
CHAPTER 1
Introductory
The other day, in looking over my papers, I found in my desk the following copy of a letter, sent by me a year since to an old school acquaintance: –
DEAR CHARLES,
I think when you and I were at Eton together, we were neither of us what could be called popular characters: you were a sarcastic, observant, shrewd, cold-blooded creature; my own portrait I will not attempt to draw, but I cannot recollect that it was a strikingly attractive one – can you? What animal magnetism drew thee and me together I know not; certainly I never experienced anything of the Pylades and Orestes sentiment for you, and I have reason to believe that you, on your part, were equally free from all romantic regard to me. Still, out of school hours we walked and talked continually together; when the theme of conversation was our companions or our masters we understood each other, and when I recurred to some sentiment of affection, some vague love of an excellent or beautiful object, whether in animate or inanimate nature, your sardonic coldness did not move me. I felt myself superior to that check then as I do now.
It is a long time since I wrote to you, and a still longer time since I saw you. Chancing to take up a newspaper of your county the other day, my eye fell upon your name. I began to think of old times; to run over the events which have transpired since we separated; and I sat down and commenced this letter. What you have been doing I know not; but you shall hear, if you choose to listen, how the world has wagged with me.
First, after leaving Eton, I had an interview with my maternal uncles, Lord Tynedale and the Hon. John Seacombe. They asked me if I would enter the Church, and my uncle the nobleman offered me the living of Seacombe, which is in his gift, if I would; then my other uncle, Mr Seacombe, hinted that when I became rector of Seacombe-cum-Scaife, I might perhaps be allowed to take, as mistress of my house and head of my parish, one of my six cousins, his daughters, all of whom I greatly dislike.
I declined both the Church and matrimony. A good clergyman is a good thing, but I should have made a very bad one. As to the wife – oh how like a night-mare is the thought of being bound for life to one of my cousins! No doubt they are accomplished and pretty; but not an accomplishment, not a charm of theirs, touches a chord in my bosom. To think of passing the winter evenings by the parlour fire-side of Seacombe Rectory alone with one of them – for instance, the large and well-modelled statue, Sarah – no; I should be a bad husband, under such circumstances, as well as a bad clergyman.
When I had declined my uncles’ offers they asked me what I intended to do. I said I should reflect. They reminded me that I had no fortune, and no expectation of any, and, after a considerable pause, Lord Tynedale demanded sternly, ‘Whether I had thoughts of following my father’s steps and engaging in trade?’ Now, I had had no thoughts of the sort. I do not think that my turn of mind qualifies me to make a good tradesman; my taste, my ambition does not lie in that way; but such was the scorn expressed in Lord Tynedale’s countenance as he pronounced the word trade – such the contemptuous sarcasm of his tone – that I was instantly decided. My father was but a name to me, yet that name I did not like to hear mentioned with a sneer to my very face. I answered then, with haste and warmth, ‘I cannot do better than follow in my father’s steps; yes, I will be a tradesman.’ My uncles did not remonstrate; they and I parted with mutual disgust. In reviewing this transaction, I find that I was quite right to shake off the burden of Tynedale’s patronage, but a fool to offer my shoulders instantly for the reception of another burden – one which might be more intolerable, and which certainly was yet untried.
I wrote instantly to Edward – you know Edward – my only brother, ten years my senior, married to a rich mill-owner’s daughter, and now possessor of the mill and business which was my father’s before he failed. You are aware that my father-once reckoned a Croesus of wealth – became bankrupt a short time previous to his death, and that my mother lived in destitution for some six months after him, unhelped by her aristocratical brothers, whom she had mortally offended by her union with Crimsworth, the—shire manufacturer. At the end of the six months she brought me into the world, and then herself left it without, I should think, much regret, as it contained little hope or comfort for her.
My father’s relations took charge of Edward, as they did of me, till I was nine years old. At that period it chanced that the representation of an important borough in our county fell vacant; Mr Seacombe stood for it. My uncle Crimsworth, an astute mercantile man, took the opportunity of writing a fierce letter to the candidate, stating that if he and Lord Tynedale did not consent to do something towards the support of their sister’s orphan children, he would expose their relentless and malignant conduct towards that sister, and do his best to turn the circumstances against Mr Seacombe’s election. That gentleman and Lord T. knew well enough that the Crimsworths were an unscrupulous and determined race; they knew also that they had influence in the borough of X—; and, making a virtue of necessity, they consented to defray the expenses of my education. I was sent to Eton, where I remained ten years, during which space of time Edward and I never met. He, when he grew up, entered into trade, and pursued his calling with such diligence, ability, and success, that now, in his thirtieth year, he was fast making a fortune. Of this I was apprised by the occasional short letters I received from him, some three or four times a year; which said letters never concluded without some expression of determined enmity against the house of Seacombe, and some reproach to me for living, as he said, on the bounty of that house. At first, while still in boyhood, I could not understand why, as I had no parents, I should not be indebted to my uncles Tynedale and Seacombe for my education; but as I grew up, and heard by degrees of the persevering hostility, the hatred till death evinced by them against my father – of the sufferings of my mother – of all the wrongs, in short, of our house – then did I conceive shame of the dependence in which I lived, and form a resolution no more to take bread from hands which had refused to minister to the necessities of my dying mother. It was by these feelings I was influenced when I refused the Rectory of Seacombe, and the union with one of my patrician cousins.
An irreparable breach thus being effected between my uncles and myself, I wrote to Edward; told him what had occurred, and informed him of my intention to follow his steps and be a tradesman. I asked, moreover, if he could give me employment. His answer expressed no approbation of my conduct, but he said I might come down to —shire, if I liked, and he would ‘see what could be done in the way of furnishing me with work.’ I repressed all – even mental – comment on his note, packed my trunk and carpet-bag, and started for the North directly.
After two days’ travelling (railroads were not then in existence) I arrived, one wet October afternoon, in the town of X—. I had always understood that Edward lived in this town, but on inquiry I found that it was only Mr Crimsworth’s mill and warehouse which were situated in the smoky atmosphere of Bigben Close; his residence lay four miles out, in the country.
It was late in the evening when I alighted at the gates of the habitation designated to me as my brother’s. As I advanced up the avenue, I could see through the shades of twilight, and the dark gloomy mists which deepened those shades, that the house was large, and the grounds surrounding it sufficiently spacious. I paused a moment on the lawn in front, and leaning my back against a tall tree which rose in the centre, I gazed with interest on the exterior of Crimsworth Hall.
‘Edward is rich,’ thought I to myself. ‘I believed him to be doing well – but I did not know he was master of a mansion like this.’ Cutting short all marvelling; speculation, conjecture, &c., I advanced to the front door and rang. A man-servant opened it – I announced myself – he relieved me of my wet cloak and carpet-bag, and ushered me into a room furnished as a library, where there was a bright fire and candles burning on the table; he informed me that his master was not yet returned from X— market, but that he would certainly be at home in the course of half an hour.
Being left to myself, I took the stuffed easy chair, covered with red morocco, which stood by the fireside, and while my eyes watched the flames dart from the glowing coals, and the cinders fall at intervals on the hearth, my mind busied itself in conjectures concerning the meeting about to take place. Amidst much that was doubtful in the subject of these conjectures, there was one thing tolerably certain – I was in no danger of encountering severe disappointment; from this, the moderation of my expectations guaranteed me. I anticipated no overflowings of fraternal tenderness; Edward’s letters had always been such as to prevent the engendering or harbouring of delusions of this sort. Still, as I sat awaiting his arrival, I felt eager – very eager – I cannot tell you why; my hand, so utterly a stranger to the grasp of a kindred hand, clenched itself to repress the tremor with which impatience would fain have shaken it.
I thought of my uncles; and as I was engaged in wondering whether Edward’s indifference would equal the cold disdain I had always experienced from them, I heard the avenue gates open: wheels approached the house; Mr Crimsworth was arrived; and after the lapse of some minutes, and a brief dialogue between himself and his servant in the hall, his tread drew near the library door – that tread alone announced the master of the house.
I still retained some confused recollection of Edward as he was ten years ago – a tall, wiry, raw youth; now, as I rose from my seat and turned towards the library door, I saw a fine-looking and powerful man, light-complexioned, well-made, and of athletic proportions; the first glance made me aware of an air of promptitude and sharpness, shown as well in his movements as in his port, his eye, and the general expression of his face. He greeted me with brevity, and, in the moment of shaking hands, scanned me from head to foot; he took his seat in the morocco-covered armchair, and motioned me to another seat.
‘I expected you would have called at the counting-house in the Close,’ said he; and his voice, I noticed, had an abrupt accent, probably habitual to him; he spoke also with a guttural northern tone, which sounded harsh in my ears, accustomed to the silvery utterance of the South.
‘The landlord of the inn, where the coach stopped, directed me here,’ said I. ‘I doubted at first the accuracy of his information, not being aware that you had such a residence as this.’
‘Oh, it is all right!’ he replied, ‘only I was kept half an hour behind time, waiting for you – that is all. I thought you must be coming by the eight o’clock coach.’
I expressed regret that he had had to wait; he made no answer, but stirred the fire, as if to cover a movement of impatience; then he scanned me again.
I felt an inward satisfaction that I had not, in the first moment of meeting, betrayed any warmth, any enthusiasm; that I had saluted this man with a quiet and steady phlegm.
‘Have you quite broken with Tynedale and Seacombe?’ he asked hastily.
‘I do not think I shall have any further communication with them; my refusal of their proposals will, I fancy, operate as a barrier against all future intercourse.’
‘Why,’ said he, ‘I may as well remind you at the very outset of our connection, that “no man can serve two masters”. Acquaintance with Lord Tynedale will be incompatible with assistance from me.’ There was a kind of gratuitous menace in his eye as he looked at me in finishing this observation.
Feeling no disposition to reply to him, I contented myself with an inward speculation on the differences which exist in the constitution of men’s minds. I do not know what inference Mr Crimsworth drew from my silence – whether he considered it a symptom of contumacity or an evidence of my being cowed by his peremptory manner. After a long and hard stare at me, he rose sharply from his seat.
‘Tomorrow,’ said he, ‘I shall call your attention to some other points; but now it is supper time, and Mrs Crimsworth is probably waiting; will you come?’
He strode from the room, and I followed. In crossing the hall, I wondered what Mrs Crimsworth might be. ‘Is she,’ thought I, ‘as alien to what I like as Tynedale, Seacombe, the Misses Seacombe – as the affectionate relative now striding before me? or is she better than these? Shall I, in conversing with her, feel free to show something of my real nature; or—’ Further conjectures were arrested by my entrance into the dining-room.
A lamp, burning under a shade of ground-glass, showed a handsome apartment, wainscoted with oak; supper was laid on the table; by the fire-place, standing as if waiting our entrance, appeared a lady; she was young, tall, and well shaped; her dress was handsome and fashionable: so much my first glance sufficed to ascertain. A gay salutation passed between her and Mr Crimsworth; she chid him, half playfully, half poutingly, for being late; her voice (I always take voices into the account in judging of character) was lively – it indicated, I thought, good animal spirits. Mr Crimsworth soon checked her animated scolding with a kiss – a kiss that still told of the bridegroom (they had not yet been married a year); she took her seat at the supper-table in first-rate spirits. Perceiving me, she begged my pardon for not noticing me before, and then shook hands with me, as ladies do when a flow of good-humour disposes them to be cheerful to all, even the most indifferent of their acquaintance. It was now further obvious to me that she had a good complexion, and features sufficiently marked but agreeable; her hair was red – quite red. She and Edward talked much, always in a vein of playful contention; she was vexed, or pretended to be vexed, that he had that day driven a vicious horse in the gig, and he made light of her fears. Sometimes she appealed to me.
‘Now, Mr William, isn’t it absurd in Edward to talk so? He says he will drive Jack, and no other horse, and the brute has thrown him twice already.’
She spoke with a kind of lisp, not disagreeable, but childish. I soon saw also that there was more than girlish – a somewhat infantine expression in her by no means small features; this lisp and expression were, I have no doubt, a charm in Edward’s eyes, and would be so to those: of most men, but they were not to mine. I sought her eye, desirous to read there the intelligence which I could not discern in her face or hear in her conversation; it was merry, rather small; by turns I saw vivacity, vanity, coquetry, look out through its irid, but I watched in vain for a glimpse of soul. I am no Oriental; white necks, carmine lips and cheeks, clusters of bright curls, do not suffice for me without that Promethean spark which will live after the roses and lilies are faded, the burnished hair grown grey. In sunshine, in prosperity, the flowers are very well; but how many wet days are there in life—November seasons of disaster, when a man’s hearth and home would be cold indeed, without the clear, cheering gleam of intellect.
Having perused the fair page of Mrs Crimsworth’s face, a deep, involuntary sigh announced my disappointment; she took it as a homage to her beauty, and Edward, who was evidently proud of his rich and handsome young wife, threw on me a glance – half ridicule, half ire.
I turned from them both, and gazing wearily round the room, I saw two pictures set in the oak panelling – one on each side the mantelpiece. Ceasing to take part in the bantering conversation that flowed on between Mr and Mrs Crimsworth, I bent my thoughts to the examination of these pictures. They were portraits – a lady and a gentleman, both costumed in the fashion of twenty years ago. The gentleman was in the shade. I could not see him well. The lady had the benefit of a full beam from the softly shaded lamp. I presently recognized her; I had seen this picture before in childhood; it was my mother; that and the companion picture being the only heirlooms saved out of the sale of my father’s property.
The face, I remembered, had pleased me as a boy, but then I did not understand it; now I knew how rare that class of face is in the world, and I appreciated keenly its thoughtful, yet gentle expression. The serious grey eye possessed for me a strong charm, as did certain lines in the features indicative of most true and tender feeling. I was sorry it was only a picture.
I soon left Mr and Mrs Crimsworth to themselves; a servant conducted me to my bedroom; in closing my chamber-door, I shut out all intruders – you, Charles, as well as the rest.
Goodbye for the present,
WILLIAM CRIMSWORTH
To this letter I never got an answer; before my old friend received it, he had accepted a Government appointment in one of the colonies, and was already on his way to the scene of his official labours. What has become of him since, I know not.
The leisure time I have at command, and which I intended to employ for his private benefit, I shall now dedicate to that of the public at large. My narrative is not exciting, and above all, not marvellous; but it may interest some individuals, who, having toiled in the same vocation as myself, will find in my experience frequent reflections of their own. The above letter will serve as an introduction. I now proceed.
CHAPTER 2
A fine October morning succeeded to the foggy evening that had witnessed my first introduction to Crimsworth Hall. I was early up and walking in the large park-like meadow surrounding the house. The autumn sun, rising over the —shire hills, disclosed a pleasant country; woods brown and mellow varied the fields from which the harvest had been lately carried; a river, gliding between the woods, caught on its surface the somewhat cold gleam of the October sun and sky; at frequent intervals along the banks of the river, tall, cylindrical chimneys, almost like slender round towers, indicated the factories which the trees half concealed; here and there mansions, similar to Crimsworth Hall, occupied agreeable sites on the hill-side; the country wore, on the whole, a cheerful, active, fertile look. Steam, trade, machinery had long banished from it all romance and seclusion. At a distance of five miles, a valley, opening between the low hills, held in its cups the great town of X—. A dense, permanent vapour brooded over this locality – there lay Edward’s ‘Concern’.
I forced my eye to scrutinize this prospect, I forced my mind to dwell on it for a time, and when I found that it communicated no pleasurable emotion to my heart – that it stirred in me none of the hopes a man ought to feel, when he sees laid before him the scene of his life’s career – I said to myself, ‘William, you are a rebel against circumstances; you are a fool, and know not what you want; you have chosen trade and you shall be a tradesman. Look!’ I continued mentally – ‘Look at the sooty smoke in that hollow, and know that there is your post! There you cannot dream, you cannot speculate and theorize – there you shall out and work!’
Thus self-schooled, I returned to the house. My brother was in the breakfast-room. I met him collectedly – I could not meet him cheerfully; he was standing on the rug, his back to the fire – how much did I read in the expression of his eye as my glance encountered his, when I advanced to bid him good morning; how much that was contradictory to my nature! He said ‘Good morning’ abruptly and nodded, and then he snatched, rather than took, a newspaper from the table, and began to read it with the air of a master who seizes a pretext to escape the bore of conversing with an underling. It was well I had taken a resolution to endure for a time, or his manner would have gone far to render insupportable the disgust I had just been endeavouring to subdue. I looked at him: I measured his robust frame and powerful proportions; I saw my own reflection in the mirror over the mantelpiece; I amused myself with comparing the two pictures. In face I resembled him, though I was not so handsome; my features were less regular; I had a darker eye, and a broader brow – in form I was greatly inferior – thinner, slighter, not so tall. As an animal, Edward excelled me far; should he prove as paramount in mind as in person I must be a slave – for I must expect from him no lion-like generosity to one weaker than himself; his cold, avaricious eye, his stern, forbidding manner told me he would not spare. Had I then force of mind to cope with him? I did not know; I had never been tried.
Mrs Crimsworth’s entrance diverted my thoughts for a moment. She looked well, dressed in white, her face and her attire shining in morning and bridal freshness. I addressed her with the degree of ease her last night’s careless gaiety seemed to warrant, but she replied with coolness and restraint: her husband had tutored her; she was not to be too familiar with his clerk.
As soon as breakfast was over Mr Crimsworth intimated to me that they were bringing the gig round to the door, and that in five minutes he should expect me to be ready to go down with him to X—. I did not keep him waiting; we were soon dashing at a rapid rate along the road. The horse he drove was the same vicious animal about which Mrs Crimsworth had expressed her fears the night before. Once or twice Jack seemed disposed to turn restive, but a vigorous and determined application of the whip from the ruthless hand of his master soon compelled him to submission, and Edward’s dilated nostril expressed his triumph in the result of the contest; he scarcely spoke to me during the whole of the brief drive, only opening his lips at intervals to damn his horse.
X— was all stir and bustle when we entered it; we left the clean streets where there were dwelling-houses and shops, churches, and public buildings; we left all these, and turned down to a region of mills and warehouses; thence we passed through two massive gates into a great paved yard, and we were in Bigben Close, and the mill was before us, vomiting soot from its long chimney, and quivering through its thick brick walls with the commotion of its iron bowels. Workpeople were passing to and fro; a waggon was being laden with pieces. Mr Crimsworth looked from side to side, and seemed at one glance to comprehend all that was going on; he alighted, and leaving his horse and gig to the care of a man who hastened to take the reins from his hand, he bid me follow him to the counting-house. We entered it; a very different place from the parlours of Crimsworth Hall – a place for business, with a bare, planked floor, a safe, two high desks and stools, and some chairs. A person was seated at one of the desks, who took off his square cap when Mr Crimsworth entered, and in an instant was again absorbed in his occupation of writing or calculating – I know not which.
Mr Crimsworth, having removed his mackintosh, sat down by the fire. I remained standing near the hearth; he said presently – ‘Steighton, you may leave the room; I have some business to transact with this gentleman. Come back when you hear the bell.’
The individual at the desk rose and departed, closing the door as he went out. Mr Crimsworth stirred the fire, then folded his arms, and sat a moment thinking, his lips compressed, his brow knit. I had nothing to do but to watch him – how well his features were cut! what a handsome man he was! Whence, then, came that air of contraction – that narrow and hard aspect on his forehead, in all his lineaments?
Turning to me he began abruptly, ‘You are come down to —shire to learn to be a tradesman?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Have you made up your mind on the point? Let me know that at once.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I am not bound to help you, but I have a place here vacant, if you are qualified for it. I will take you on trial. What can you do? Do you know anything besides that useless trash of college learning – Greek, Latin, and so forth?’
‘I have studied mathematics.’
‘Stuff! I dare say you have.’
‘I can read and write French and German.’
‘Hum!’ He reflected a moment, then opening a drawer in a desk near him took out a letter, and gave it to me.
‘Can you read that?’ he asked.
It was a German commercial letter; I translated it; I could not tell whether he was gratified or not – his countenance remained fixed.
‘It is well,’ he said, after a pause, ‘that you are acquainted with something useful, something that may enable you to earn your board and lodging: since you know French and German, I will take you as second clerk to manage the foreign correspondence of the house. I shall give you a good salary – £90 a year – and now,’ he continued, raising his voice, ‘hear once for all what I have to say about our relationship, and all that sort of humbug! I must have no nonsense on that point; it would never suit me. I shall excuse you nothing on the plea of being my brother; if I find you stupid, negligent, dissipated, idle, or possessed of any faults detrimental to the interests of the house, I shall dismiss you as I would any other clerk. Ninety pounds a year are good wages, and I expect to have the full value of my money out of you; remember, too, that things are on a practical footing in my establishment – business-like habits, feelings, and ideas, suit me best. Do you understand?’
‘Partly,’ I replied. ‘I suppose you mean that I am to do my work for my wages; not to expect favour from you, and not to depend on you for any help but what I earn; that suits me exactly, and on these terms I will consent to be your clerk.’
I turned on my heel, and walked to the window; this time I did not consult his face to learn his opinion: what it was I do not know, nor did I then care. After a silence of some minutes he recommenced, ‘You perhaps expect to be accommodated with apartments at Crimsworth Hall, and to go and come with me in the gig. I wish you, however, to be aware that such an arrangement would be quite inconvenient to me. I like to have the seat in my gig at liberty for any gentleman whom for business reasons I may wish to take down to the hall for a night or so. You will seek out lodgings in X—.’
Quitting the window, I walked back to the hearth.
‘Of course I shall seek out lodgings in X—,’ I answered. ‘It would not suit me either to lodge at Crimsworth Hall.’
My tone was quiet. I always speak quietly. Yet Mr Crimsworth’s blue eye became incensed; he took his revenge rather oddly. Turning to me, he said bluntly, ‘You are poor enough, I suppose; how do you expect to live till your quarter’s salary becomes due?’
‘I shall get on,’ said I.
‘How do you expect to live?’ he repeated in a louder voice.
‘As I can, Mr Crimsworth.’
‘Get into debt at your peril, that’s all!’ he answered. ‘For aught I know you may have extravagant aristocratic habits: if you have, drop them; I tolerate nothing of the sort here, and I will never give you a shilling extra, whatever liabilities you may incur – mind that.’
‘Yes, Mr Crimsworth, you will find I have a good memory.’
I said no more. I did not think the time was come for much parley. I had an instinctive feeling that it would be folly to let one’s temper effervesce often with such a man as Edward. I said to myself, ‘I will place my cup under this continual dropping; it shall stand there still and steady; when full, it will run over of itself – meantime patience. Two things are certain. I am capable of performing the work Mr Crimsworth has set me; I can earn my wages conscientiously, and those wages are sufficient to enable me to live. As to the fact of my brother assuming towards me the bearing of a proud, harsh master, the fault is his, not mine; and shall his injustice, his bad feeling, turn me at once aside from the path I have chosen? No; at least, ere I deviate, I will advance far enough to see whither my career tends. As yet I am only pressing in at the entrance – a strait gate enough; it ought to have a good terminus.’ While I thus reasoned, Mr Crimsworth rang a bell; his first clerk, the individual dismissed previously to our conference, re-entered.
‘Mr Steighton,’ said he, ‘show Mr William the letters from Voss Brothers, and give him English copies of the answers; he will translate them.’
Mr Steighton, a man of about thirty-five, with a face at once sly and heavy, hastened to execute this order; he laid the letters on the desk, and I was soon seated at it, and engaged in rendering the English answers into German. A sentiment of keen pleasure accompanied this first effort to earn my own living – a sentiment neither poisoned nor weakened by the presence of the taskmaster, who stood and watched me for some time as I wrote. I thought he was trying to read my character, but I felt as secure against his scrutiny as if I had had on a casque with the visor down, or rather I showed him my countenance with the confidence that one would show an unlearned man a letter written in Greek; he might see lines, and trace characters, but he could make nothing of them; my nature was not his nature, and its signs were to him like the words of an unknown tongue. Ere long he turned away abruptly, as if baffled, and left the counting-house; he returned to it but twice in the course of that day; each time he mixed and swallowed a glass of brandy-and-water, the materials for making which he extracted from a cupboard on one side of the fireplace; having glanced at my translations – he could read both French and German – he went out again in silence.
CHAPTER 3
I served Edward as his second clerk faithfully, punctually, diligently. What was given me to do I had the power and the determination to do well. Mr Crimsworth watched sharply for defects, but found none; he set Timothy Steighton, his favourite and head man, to watch also. Tim was baffled; I was as exact as himself, and quicker. Mr Crimsworth made inquiries as to how I lived, whether I got into debt – no, my accounts with my landlady were always straight. I had hired small lodgings, which I contrived to pay for out of a slender fund – the accumulated savings of my Eton pocket-money; for as it had ever been abhorrent to my nature to ask pecuniary assistance, I had early acquired habits of self-denying economy; husbanding my monthly allowance with anxious care, in order to obviate 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 be misunderstood now than repulsed hereafter. At this day I had my reward; I had had it before, when on parting with my irritated uncles one of them threw down on the table before me a £5 note, which I was able to leave there, saying that my travelling expenses were already provided for. Mr Crimsworth employed Tim to find out whether my landlady had any complaint to make on the score of my morals; she answered that she believed I was a very religious man, and asked Tim, in her turn, if he thought I had any intention of going into the Church some day; for, she said, she had had young curates to lodge in her house who were nothing equal to me for steadiness and quietness. Tim was ‘a religious man’ himself; indeed, he was ‘a joined Methodist’, which did not (be it understood) prevent him from being at the same time an engrained rascal, and he came away much posed at hearing this account of my piety. Having imparted it to Mr Crimsworth, that gentleman, who himself frequented no place of worship, and owned no God but Mammon, turned the information into a weapon of attack against the equability of my temper. He commenced a series of covert sneers, of which I did not at first perceive the drift, till my landlady happened to relate the conversation she had had with Mr Steighton; this enlightened me; afterwards I came to the counting-house prepared, and managed to receive the millowner’s blasphemous sarcasms, when next levelled at me, on a buckler of impenetrable indifference. Ere long he tired of wasting his ammunition on a statue, but he did not throw away the shafts – he only kept them quiet in his quiver.
Once during my clerkship I had an invitation to Crimsworth Hall; it was on the occasion of a large party given in honour of the master’s birthday; he had always been accustomed to invite his clerks on similar anniversaries, and could not well pass me over; I was, however, kept strictly in the background. Mrs Crimsworth, elegantly dressed in satin and lace, blooming in youth and health, vouchsafed me no more notice than was expressed by a distant move; Crimsworth, of course, never spoke 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 array against me on the opposite side of a long and large room; in fact, I was fairly isolated, and could but contemplate the shining ones from affar, and when weary of such a dazzling scene, turn for a change to the consideration of the carpet pattern. Mr Crimsworth, standing on the rug, his elbow supported by the marble mantelpiece, and about him a group of very pretty girls, with whom he conversed gaily – Mr Crimsworth, thus placed, glanced at me; I looked weary, solitary, kept down like some desolate tutor or governess; he was satisfied.
Dancing began; I should have liked well enough to be introduced to some pleasing and intelligent girl, and to have freedom and opportunity to show that I could both feel and communicate the pleasure of social intercourse – that I was not, in short, a block, or a piece of furniture, but an acting, thinking, sentient man. Many smiling faces and graceful figures glided past me, but the smiles were lavished on other eyes, the figures sustained by other hands than mine. I turned away tantalized, left the dancers, and wandered into the oak-panelled dining-room. No fibre of sympathy united me to any living thing in this house; I looked for 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 and countenance – her forehead, her eyes, her complexion. No regular beauty pleases egotistical human beings so much as a softened and refined likeness of themselves; for this reason, fathers regard with complacency the lineaments of their daughters’ faces, where frequently their own similitude is found flatteringly associated with softness of hue and delicacy of outline. I was just wondering how that picture, to me so interesting, would strike an impartial spectator, when a voice close behind 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 or six years older than I – in other respects of an appearance the opposite to common place; though just now, as I am not disposed to paint his portrait in detail, the reader must be content with the silhouette I have just thrown off; it was all I myself saw of him for the moment: I did 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, his fastidious-looking retroussé nose; these observations, few in number, and general in character (the last excepted), sufficed, for they enabled me to recognize him.
‘Good evening, Mr Hunsden,’ muttered I with a bow, and then, like a shy 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, and my instinct propelled me from my superior. I had frequently seen Hunsden in Bigben Close, where he came almost weekly to transact business with Mr Crimsworth, but I had never spoken to him, nor he to me, and I owed him a sort of involuntary grudge, because he had more than once been the tacit witness of insults offered by Edward to me. I had the conviction that he could only regard me as a poor-spirited slave, wherefore I now went about to shun his presence and eschew his conversation.
‘Where are you going?’ asked he, as I edged off sideways. I had already noticed that Mr Hunsden indulged in abrupt forms of speech, and I perversely 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 not at all.’
I made some slight reply, rather indifferent than courteous, and continued 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 tonight.’
He was right, and as he spoke neither his look, tone, nor manner displeased me; my amour-propre was propitiated; he had not addressed me out of condescension, but because, having repaired to the cool dining-room for refreshment, he now wanted some one to talk to, by way of temporary amusement. I hate to be condescended to, but I like well enough 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 that woman, if she were alive, on other subjects than dress, visiting, and compliments.’
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, curling his lip at the same time) in that mouth; besides, there is Aristocrat written on the brow and defined in the figure; I hate your aristocrats.’
‘You think, then, Mr Hunsden, that patrician descent may be read in a distinctive cast of form and features?’
‘Patrician descent be hanged! Who doubts that your lordlings may have their “distinctive cast of form and features” as much as we —shire tradesmen have ours? But which is the best? Not theirs assuredly. As to their women, it is a little different: they cultivate beauty from childhood upwards, and may by care and training attain to a certain degree of excellence in that point, just like the oriental odalisques. Yet even this superiority is doubtful. Compare the figure in that frame with Mrs Edward Crimsworth – which is the finer animal?’
I replied quietly: ‘Compare yourself and Mr Edward Crimsworth, Mr Hunsden.’
‘Oh, Crimsworth is better filled up than I am, I know besides he has a straight nose, arched eyebrows, and all that; but these advantages – if they are advantages – he did not inherit from his mother, the patrician, but from his father, old Crimsworth, who, my father says, was as veritable a —shire blue-dyer as ever put indigo in a vat yet withal the handsomest man in the three Ridings. It is you, William, who are the aristocrat of your family, and you are not as fine a fellow as your plebeian brother by long chalk.’
There was something in Mr Hunsden’s point-blank mode of speech which rather pleased me than otherwise because it set me at my ease. I continued the conversation with a degree of interest.
‘How do you happen to know that I am Mr Crimsworth’s brother? I thought you and everybody else looked upon me only in the light of a poor clerk.’
‘Well, and so we do; and what are you but a poor clerk? You do Crimsworth’s work, and he gives you wages – shabby wages they are, too.’
I was silent. Hunsden’s language now bordered on the impertinent, still his 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 the absurdity I allude to.’
I was determined he should explain himself of his own accord, without my pressing 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 practical business-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 can your bumps of ideality, comparison, self-esteem, conscientiousness, do you here? But if you like Bigben Close, stay there; it’s your own affair, not mine.’
‘Perhaps I have no choice.’
‘Well, I care nought about it – it will make little difference to me what you do or where you go; but I’m cool now – I want to dance again; and I see such a fine girl sitting in the corner of the sofa there by her mamma; see if I don’t get her for a partner in a jiffy! There’s Waddy – Sam Waddy making up to her; won’t I cut him out?’
And Mr Hunsden strode away. I watched him through the open folding-doors; he outstripped Waddy, applied for the hand of the fine 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 kept at her side during the remainder of the evening, and I read in her animated and gratified countenance that he succeeded in making himself perfectly agreeable. The mamma too (a stout person in a turban – Mrs Lupton by name) looked well pleased; prophetic visions probably flattered her inward eye. The Hunsdens were of an old stem; and scornful as Yorke (such was my late interlocutor’s name) professed to be of the advantages of birth, in his secret heart he well knew and fully appreciated the distinction his ancient, if not high lineage conferred on him in a mushroom-place like X—, concerning whose inhabitants it was proverbially said, that not one in a thousand knew his own grandfather. 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 his house. These circumstances considered, Mrs Lupton’s broad face might well wear a smile of complacency as she contemplated the heir of Hunsden Wood occupied in paying assiduous court to her darling Sarah Martha. I, however, whose observations being less anxious, were likely to be more accurate, soon saw that the grounds for maternal self-congratulation were slight indeed; the gentleman appeared to me much more desirous of making, than susceptible of receiving an impression. I know not what it was 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 form and features he might be pronounced English, though even there one caught a dash of something Gallic; but he had no English shyness: he had learnt somewhere, somehow, the art of setting himself quite at his ease, and of allowing no insular timidity to intervene as a barrier between him and his convenience or pleasure. Refinement he did not affect, yet vulgar he could not be called; he was not odd – no quiz – yet he resembled no one else I had ever seen before; his general bearing intimated complete, sovereign satisfaction with himself; yet, at times, an indescribable shade passed like an eclipse over his countenance, and seemed to me like the sign of a sudden and strong inward doubt of himself, his words and actions-an energetic discontent at his life or his social position, his future prospects or his mental attainments – I know not which; perhaps after all it might only be a bilious caprice.
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